The Jupiter Plague

7

The green and white police copter had landed on the copter port on the twenty-fifth floor setback and the door was open, waiting for Sam when he came out of the elevator. A police sergeant, a Black with skin almost as dark as his uniform, an old New Yorker, stood in the doorway. He jumped down and helped Sam load in his medical kit, then slammed the door. The jets at the tips of the long copter blades began to whistle and the floor shuddered with their acceleration as the machine hauled itself into the air, swung in a tight arc and headed north. Once they were airborne the sergeant dropped into a seat and watched the rooftops of Manhattan stream by below. The vertical slabs of the midtown business section gave way to the grass- and tree-dotted residential areas, then the blue of the big lake in Harlem Park that had been blasted out of the heart of the old slum area.

Just north of the park the silvery threads of the East and West Side monorail lines met and crossed. When the copter swung out in a wide arc over the Hudson River the sergeant turned away from the window and looked at Sam.

“You’re Dr. Bertolli,” he said, “and the commissioner himself told me I was to take you up to this spot in Orange County and bring you back in one piece. He didn’t say why — is it still top secret?”

“No,” Sam said, “I imagine he was just afraid of rumors getting started before we found out the truth. But there is supposed to be a patient up there, the local doctor says he has cured him of Rand’s disease…”

“The plague from space?” the pilot said, half turning his head to listen. “You catch it you’re dead, every time, that’s what I heard.”

Sam caught the sergeant’s eye and the big policeman smiled and shrugged. “The pilot’s name is Forson, and in addition to having big ears he has a big mouth and he is a lousy pilot, but I understand he was born back there in the sticks where we are going so we’ll need him.”

“For a city slicker you got a lot to learn, Sarge,” the pilot said, lifting the copter as they passed above the towers of the George Washington Bridge. “That’s just my country-boy curiosity that made me listen in on your top-level conversation. Someday I’ll be a sergeant and chew out the help too. Is that straight, Doc, about there being a guy that was cured?”

“That’s what we’re going there to find out.” Sam looked at the two policemen, doing their job with quiet efficiency, and decided that telling the truth was the wisest course. “So far there is no cure for Rand’s disease; if someone gets it he dies. So you can realize the importance of this. We have to find the right place and bring the patient and the doctor out.”

“Know that country like the back of my hand,” the pilot said, his face immobile, his eyes invisible behind the large sunglasses. “I came from Stony Point, great historical spot where we licked the British, and I’ve been all over those woods up there. I’ll drop you right into the center of Stone-bridge.”

“Don’t drop us, land us,” the sergeant said coldly.

“A figure of speech, Sarge, that’s all it was. I’ll take you to the town, then all we have to do is find the right house.”

At Haverstraw they turned away from the river and flew over the tree-covered slopes and the holiday lakes, all deserted now.

“Coming up,” Forson said. “That’s 17A below and the next turnoff leads up to Stonebridge; the farmhouse could be anywhere along the road here.”

Dropping lower, the copter swung into a course above the narrow side road and followed it toward a cluster of buildings that was visible ahead. There were no cars on the road, and even the sidewalks in the center of town were empty. They passed over it and when they reached the outskirts, on the far side, they saw a thread of smoke rising from beyond a grove of trees.

“That could be it,” the pilot said, tapping the typewritten message taped above the control panel. “Says here farm near Stonebridge and a fire will be burning so we can find it by the smoke…”

As they cleared the stand of silver birches they had a clear view of the smoking remains of a farmhouse and barn. A few cows and chickens ran wildly when the copter appeared, but there were no human figures.

“I don’t like the looks of this,” the sergeant said. “That house is still smoldering and there’s no one around. I wonder if it’s the one we want?”

“No way of telling from up here,” Forson said, tilting the machine into a tight circle. “Want to go down or swing around the town first?”

The animals had fled and the clearing around the farmhouse was still deserted.

“Around the town first, nothing much moving here and we can always come back. All right with you, Doctor?”

“Of course. There doesn’t seem to be anything that we can do here and there is no indication that it is the house we are looking for.”

“Up ahead, more smoke,” the pilot said as they passed west of the settlement. He followed a rutted farm road to a clearing where a white, frame house stood. A man was in the yard waving up at them and a trickle of smoke rose from the chimney.

“This looks more like it,” the sergeant said. He squinted into the sun as they turned and automatically loosened his recoilless.50 in its holster. “Is there enough room to set down there?”

“Enough room to put down five of these jobs. Here we go.”

The man below took shelter in the doorway of the farm as the copter settled straight down, a billowing circle of dust and weeds blowing out from below it. They touched gently and rocked on the wheels: Sam reached for the door handle but the sergeant put his hand on his shoulder.

“I think I’ll go out first, Doctor. The town was too quiet, and that house that burned down— there’s just the smell of trouble around here. Stay here and keep an eye on the bus, Forson.”

The pilot clicked off the jets and nodded. “You’re just not used to the country, Sarge. It’s always quiet like this.” He grunted. “Why do you think I came to the city?”

The sergeant jumped down and walked slowly toward the man who came out of the farmhouse and waved again, a gray-haired man who wore old-fashioned suspenders over a white shirt.

“Come in,” he called out. “I’m Dr. Stissing. I’m the one who called up; the patient is inside.”

The sergeant gave him a quick look in passing and just nodded, then went into the house. He came out a few moments later and called across to the copter.

“This is the right place, there’s a man in bed here.”

Sam was waiting with his black bag and climbed down. Stissing looked a little bewildered, rubbing at the white stubble on his jaw. In his late seventies, Sam guessed. He shook hands.

“I’m Dr. Bertolli, Bellevue Hospital. I’d like to see your patient if I may.”

“Yes, Doctor, of course. Right through there. I’m very glad to see you, very glad indeed; I’ve been up two days and a night and I’m not used to be doing that any more. But Hadley in there phoned me, very frightened, and he should have been, because I recognized Rand’s disease when I walked in and he knew himself that he had it. I’ve been treating him here alone ever since, and I have the fever licked and he’s on the mend…”

“Do you mind if I have that curtain opened?” Sam asked. The room was dark and the man on the bed only a dim outline.

“Surely, of course, just resting Hadley’s eyes.”

The sergeant pulled up the curtain and Sam stood next to the bed, looking down at the middle-aged man with the red boils on his face: he put the telltale against his wrist.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Hadley?” he asked.

“Hadley’s my first name. And I felt a whole lot better in my time, I tell you. Felt worse until the doc came.”

Sam opened Hadley’s pajama jacket — there were one or two boils scattered on his chest— then palpated his armpits: the lymph nodes were swollen.

“That hurts,” Hadley said.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be all right.”

“Then he is cured,” Dr. Stissing said, his words tumbling one over the other. “I knew it, I told him, these new antibiotics. The plague, I mean Rand’s disease…”

“Hadley’s a lucky man,” Sam said tiredly, “he never had Rand’s disease. This is common furunculosis complicated by a lympathic infection which the antibiotics have brought under control.”

“But Rand’s disease, the symptoms, the fever, all the same. I’ve been practicing long enough…”

“How long have you been ill, Hadley?” Sam asked.

“Couple of days. Fever hit me right after the rocket landed, like I told the doc. Felt like I was dying.”

“That was the fever part — but how long have you had the boils?”

“Came at the same time. Of course I felt them coming on a few days earlier. Then the fever hit and I knew I had the plague…”

“Not the plague from space, Hadley,” Dr. Stissing said, sitting down heavily on the wooden kitchen chair by the head of the bed. “Just a bad case of the boils. Boils and a fever. I’m… sorry, Doctor, about getting you up here from the city—”

The sudden crackle of small arms fire sounded from outside the house, from the front, broken by the heavy boom of a recoilless handgun. The sergeant ran from the room, drawing his pistol as he went; Sam was right behind him.

“Stay here!” Sam shouted over his shoulder to the bewildered doctor. He reached the parlor just as the sergeant threw open the front door. A hail of small arms fire splintered the door frame and punched holes in the floor. Sam had been under fire before, often enough to have developed all the correct instincts: he dived and rolled at the same time, out of the line of fire through the door. The sergeant lay crumpled in the doorway, his fingers still outstretched toward the bulk of the recoilless pistol, which lay on the porch outside. A few more shots splattered around the door as Sam grabbed him by the leg and pulled him away from the opening. The right shoulder of his uniform was spotted with blood and Sam tore it open: there was the entrance hole where a small-caliber bullet had penetrated. It must have been a magnum because the hydrostatic shock had knocked the sergeant out and, as Sam rolled him over to look at the exit wound, also small and bleeding only slightly, the sergeant opened his eyes and tried to sit up. Sam pressed him back.

“Take it easy — you’ve been hit.”

“The hell you say!” The sergeant pushed Sam’s hand away and struggled to a sitting position. “What’s happening out there?”

Sam looked quickly from the side of the window, shielded by a curtain, and pulled his head back before the shots crashed through the glass. It was long enough for him to see the dark forms of the men who were running toward the copter, and to see the body of the pilot hanging halfway out of the doorway.

“Don’t try nothing!” A voice called from outside. “You don’t shoot at us and we’re not going to shoot at you.” Sam rose behind the curtain and the sergeant struggled up next to him. The men had pushed the limp pilot to the ground and were climbing in. One of them, the one who had been talking, held a young girl by the arms, shielding himself behind her body. She was in her twenties and the way her head hung and the way her clothing was torn left no doubt as to what had happened to her.

“Try anything I’ll shoot the girl,” the man shouted. “So help me I’ll kill her. We don’t want no more trouble, we just want to get away from the plague. Andy here can fly your whirly, learned in the Army, and we’re going to take it and get out. Be smart and no one’s going to get hurt.”

He walked backward toward the door, dragging the girl with him. The jets whistled to life and the big blades began to move, faster and faster. When the copter began to rock on its landing gear the man in the doorway hurled the girl from him and climbed quickly inside. Sam and the sergeant jumped back as a hail of shots tore through the window. They had taken the pilot’s recoilless.50: a foot-wide piece of wood was blasted from the frame.

Slowly, ignoring the bullets that crashed into the wooden planking around him, the sergeant walked out on the porch and reached down with his left hand to pick up his pistol. The rain of fire stopped as the copter rose straight up.

Carefully, in no hurry, the sergeant walked clear of the porch, flicked off the safety and raised the pistol straight-armed before him. He waited until the copter swung away and was no longer over the girl, who still lay face down in the yard, then dropped the pistol sights onto the target and pulled the trigger.

Three times the recoilless.50 boomed, coughing out its small tangent flames, and the half inch, steel-cored slugs tore chunks of aluminum from the copter’s body. The whistle of the jets died and the blades slowed. Two more shots boomed out as it slanted sideways and fell into the maple grove behind the house and burst into flames. No one came out of the wreck.

“They were trying to leave the plague area,” the sergeant said, as he struggled to get the gun back into his holster on his right hip with his left hand. “So it meant I had to get the copter, too.” He looked unsmilingly at the dead policeman. “And Forson was a good cop.” His expression changed suddenly to a mirthless smile as he tapped an enamel and gold decoration that he wore above his shield. “First place in the pistol tournament— firing with either hand.” He started to sag and Sam caught him, led him toward the porch.

“Sit down and shut up while I put something on that hole.”

Legs sprawled before him, the sergeant sat silently while Sam sprinkled sulfa on the bullet wounds, then slapped on self-adhesive bandages. Dr. Stissing came hesitantly onto the porch.

“Finish this dressing, will you, Doctor,” Sam said, climbing to his feet. “I want to look at the others.”

The pilot was dead, the back of his skull torn away by a rifle bullet. The tanks on the copter blew up just then with muffled thuds and no one had emerged from the crumpled cabin: the men inside were beyond his help. Sam went over to the girl, who was still lying face in the dirt and sob-bing painfully.

“I’m a doctor—” he said, but when he touched her shoulder she shivered away from him and only sobbed harder. Sam wanted to move her into the house and examine her, but without using force: perhaps Stissing might be able to help.

“Doctor,” he called, “do you know this girl?”

Stissing, blinking nearsightedly, came down from the porch and bent to look at the girl’s face.

“Looks like the Leslie girl—” He moved her hands away from in front of her face. “Come on, Katy, stand up and let’s go into the house; there’s no sense in lying out here.”

With the doctor’s gentle urging she climbed to her feet and pulled her torn cotton dress about her, then let him help her inside. They passed the sergeant, sitting on the steps and scowling fiercely at the wreck of the copter, and went into the parlor, where Katy dropped onto the couch. Sam went to find some blankets while Stissing made an examination.

“Nothing serious, physical that is,” Stissing said afterward, out of the girl’s hearing. “Scratches, contusions, what you might expect in a rape and assault, I’ve had them before. That’s not my big worry. The girl saw her father killed; he’s a widower and they live alone, the other side of town. These men broke into the house, looters she said, from somewhere in Jersey, drunk and nasty, and when they started to fool around with her, her father swung on them. Killed him, right in front of her, set fire to the house, probably burnt, I never saw or heard of anything like this before, not around here…”

“We saw the house on the way in, leveled to the ground. Something will have to be done about these patients of yours.”

“Phone’s out,” the sergeant said, coming out of the house. “Not the wire either, I checked that. We better be going.”

“You’re in no condition to go anywhere…”

“It’ll take more than that little bullet hole to strand me up here in the woods.”

“You can take my car,” Stissing said, “it’s in the barn. I’ll stay here with Hadley and the girl until you can get some help from the county hospital. They can bring the car back.”

“Sorry, Doctor,” the sergeant said. “But those bowbs got to your car first. Pulled out the ignition. Only way out of here is by walking.”

Sam thought about it for a moment. “You’re probably right. There can’t be many of these looting gangs around or we would have heard about it, so we shouldn’t run into any more. You’ll be safe enough here, Dr. Stissing, just keep the windows and doors locked and we’ll get some help to you as soon as we have contacted the local police. Let me get my bag, Sergeant, then we can go.”

“One thing first, Doctor — if you don’t mind. Could you undo my belt and slip my holster around to the left side so I can get at it easier? Be a big help.”

They walked in the center of the road, going back toward the town. The first house they passed had all the shades pulled down and was sealed up: no one came to the door, even when they knocked loudly. At the next farm, a red brick building set back from the road, they had a response even before they knocked — a gun barrel protruded from the partly open window on the porch.

“Just stop there,” the unseen man behind the gun called out.

“I’m a police officer,” the sergeant said with cold anger. “Now put that weapon away before you get into trouble.”

“How do I know what you are? You got a city cop’s uniform on, but I never seen you before. You could of stolen it. Move on — I don’t want trouble.”

“We want to use your phone, that’s all,” Sam said.

“Phone’s out, trouble at the exchange.”

“Do you have a car—”

“I got a car and it’s staying right here in case I need it, now get moving! You may have the plague from space for all that I know and I’m not talking any more — move!” The gun barrel wiggled up and down.

“Strategic retreat,” Sam said, taking the angry sergeant by the arm and pulling him away. “There’s nothing here worth getting shot for.”

“Rubes!” the sergeant grumbled.

The town of Stonebridge was sealed as tight as the farmhouses and there were no cars in sight. They continued through it and toward the highway just a mile down the road. They heard the sound at the same time, coming from somewhere ahead, and they stopped, the sergeant with his hand on his gun.

“I’ve done enough duck hunting to recognize that — it’s a shotgun.”

“Two of them — sounds like a private war.”

“If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’ll walk in front since I’ve got the only weapon.”

They went along the shoulder of the road, close to the trees, as silently as they could. There was another farm ahead, half seen through the trunks of the oak trees, and running figures. A woman screamed and another shot sounded. The sergeant had his gun out and a cold smile on his face as he slipped forward.

“Looks like this time we’re here when the trouble is just starting…” He raised his gun.

There was a truck parked by the side of the road, its outline through the leaves strangely familiar to Sam. He ran forward and deflected the sergeant’s gun arm.

“What are you doing? Those are looters…”

“I don’t think so — isn’t that an Army half-track over there?”

Once around the bend they could see the olive-drab truck clearly, with the leafy branch framed globe insignia of the UN stenciled on its armored side. They passed it and turned into the farmyard where the screams had turned into a gasping sob. A burly corporal was embarrassedly holding a woman by the shoulders while she cried into the apron raised before her face. A lieutenant was supervising two soldiers who were spreading poison grain in the chicken run behind the house. Next to it was another wire enclosure with an open gate and on the ground outside the scattered bodies of a number of turkeys, while another of the birds was perched on the branch of the oak tree to which the ropes of a children’s swing were tied. A soldier below the tree raised and fired a repeating shotgun and the pellets tore the bird from its perch. The shot echoed away into silence among the trees until the woman’s muffled sobbing was the only sound. The officer turned around when they approached: like the other soldiers he had a New Zealand flash on his shoulder. His eyes jumped quickly from the bandaged police sergeant to Sam’s white clothes and black bag.

“If you are a physician I should say your arrival is well timed. The farmwife here—” The lieutenant pointed to the woman who was still sobbing uncontrollably.

“Has she been injured?” Sam asked.

“No, not physically, but she’s been hysterical, bit of a shock or whatever you call it. We’ve been running into this sort of trouble all along the line, these rural people take a very dim view of our killing off their stock. This woman opened the run and released those turkeys, then tried to stop my men. At least the farmer here is being reasonable, some of them have attempted to stop us with guns; he’s in the house with the children.”

Sam looked at the woman and while the soldier was still holding her he swabbed her shoulder and administered an intramuscular injection of Denilin, the quick-acting sedative. By the time he had led her into the house she was staggering and, with her grim-faced husband’s aid, Sam put her to bed.

“She’ll sleep at least twelve hours,” he said. “If she is still bad when she wakes up give her one of these, one pill will keep her calmed down for twenty-four hours.” He put a small bottle of psychotropic tablets by the bed.

“They killing all our chickens and turkeys, Doctor, they got no right.”

“It’s not a matter of right — it’s a matter of necessity. Those birds carry the disease that could kill your entire family. And you’ve been given a receipt; they’ll be paid for or replaced after the emergency.”

“Just a piece of paper,” the farmer muttered.

Sam started to say something, then thought better of it. He went out and found the police sergeant and the Army officer in conversation, bent over a map.

“The sergeant has been telling me about your troubles,” the lieutenant said. “I wish I could provide you with transportation back to the city, but I’m afraid I can’t, I have only this single vehicle. But there is a compromise possible. The farms here are close together and I can take my men to the next one or two of them on foot while the driver runs you over to this spot.” He pointed to the map. “Your Dewey Thruway passes right here at Southfields and there should be a number of convoys going south. You can flag down one of the lorries. Will that suit you?”

“Yes, that will be fine. One other thing, I want to send a message back to my hospital, and I’m sure the sergeant wants to contact his squad too, but the phones aren’t operating. Do you have a radio in your truck?”

“We have, but it can only send and receive on the Army command channels. You can’t talk directly but I could have the messages relayed for you.”

“Suits me,” the sergeant said, opening his notebook. He tore a sheet out and handed it to Sam, then carefully printed a message of his own with his left hand. Sam thought a moment; this would be read by a lot of people and he did not want to be too specific about the reasons for the report. He wrote:

Dr. McKay Bellevue Hospital New York City— Results negative case of common furunculosis. Bertolli.

It was dusk when they reached the thruway and the UN corporal used his flashlight to signal a convoy of food trucks. A command car stopped with guns ready since there had been more than one attempted looting — and then drove them back slowly to the city. It was after nine before Sam reached the hospital and checked back in.

“There’s a message for you, Doctor,” the girl said, flipping rapidly through her file until she found the envelope with his name on it. He tore it open and found a single slip of paper inside with a rapid scrawl in thick marking pencil on it.

CALL ME AT ONCE EXT. 782 98 NITA

There was an air of urgency in the handwriting that struck a warning note. He went to one of the booths in the hall and quickly dialed the number.

“Hello,” he said when the image cleared, “I have your message…”

“Sam, are you alone?” she asked, and he couldn’t help noticing that her eyes were wider open than normal and that there was a thin shrill to the edges of her words.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Can you come here at once? It’s laboratory 1242.”

“I’m on my way — but what is it about?”

“I–I can’t tell you on the phone, it’s too terrible!”

She broke the connection and her features swam, melted and disappeared.