Antibodies.

© Copyright to Beverly Taff.

“Come and look at this Bev.” Jamie exclaimed as she adjusted the screen.

I looked up from my Star ship log.

“What’s up Babes?”

“I dunno. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s not in solar orbit. Looks like an extra-solar arrival. It’s a funny colour though.”

I stepped across to study the image that Jamie had expanded on the screen. The object looked like a large rock that seemed to be glowing with a faintish green aura. As I stood looking over Jamie’s shoulder we both hummed and ha-ad about the arrival’s nature.

By now Jamie had plotted the trajectory and was analysing it’s composition. Eventually she observed.

“It’s not destined to hit the earth but it’s going to pass pretty close. It’ll give the night owls on earth a pretty view as it passes. It seems to be pretty soft and porous on its surface but denser at its core. There might even be some surface fragmentation as it passes between Earth and our moon. Their gravities are bound to stress it as it changes trajectory.”

“So, it doesn’t look as though it’s going to hit the earth.” I offered.

“No. I’m projecting the likely future path now.” Jamie continued. “It looks as though it’ll kink a bit as it deviates then it’ll carry on towards the sun.”

“Into the sun?” I asked.

“Can’t say yet. A lot depends on any loss of mass that may occur from any fragmentation as it passes between earth and the moon. Shall we take a closer look?”

I shrugged somewhat disinterestedly. Asteroids, comets, meteors and the like were somewhat old hat to me. Most invariably plunged into the sun or got ‘swept up’ by Jupiter ‘en passant’ Only a tiny fraction passed those two formidable bodies to land upon Mercury, Venus, us or Mars.

This emerald glowing visitor would give Earth a brief, spectacular display then fade away as it swept on into the sun or took a slingshot and swept around the sun then back into outer space where Jupiter or even Saturn would most likely drag her down with a spectacular series of splashes visible with powerful telescopes from Earth.

“You take a look if you want love.” I agreed. “I want to get on with the logbook before we dock on Earth. Those minerals we found on Titan were interesting and there might be a useful claim to stake.

Having decided to let Jamie study the asteroid, I left her to it and resumed my deliberations.

As Jamie adjusted the course I resumed the tedium of reports and writing up the logbook. An hour later Jamie had adjusted our course and speed to match the asteroid and she was studying the visitor closely. I now joined her at the console and she observed.

“As we are getting closer to the moon and the Earth, it’s starting to shed more and more of the softer outer rock.”

“Is that the core beginning to glow?” I wondered.

“Jamie adjusted the resolution and confirmed it.”

“It’s sort of pulsing. Ooh! What was that?”

I twitched as well, as I felt a sort of wave sweep through my body.

“Whoa! I don’t know. It felt like a sort of dizzy sensation as my stomach flipped.” I replied to Jamie’s question.

“I think we’d better move away from it.” Jamie cautioned nervously and I agreed with her completely as a second, bigger wave of nausea engulfed the pair of us.

I just managed to flip the controls to steer away as a third painful pulse engulfed us and we both collapsed in pain. I was knocked completely unconscious by the power of the pulse but Jamie, being younger and fitter, let out a groan of pain and writhed in her seat where her seatbelt held her safe.

A fourth wave engulfed us but by then I was completely out of it. Fortunately, my last desperate act had saved us from any more hurt and the fifth wave was less painful as our ship swerved away from our parallel course. I learned this from Jamie as I came to, still strapped into my seat.

Our bodies were still beset by cramps and an ague but we could at least still function. Once we could move again, we checked out the ship and found nothing wrong. The only damage was to us, the living tissue.

“I need a drink.” I croaked.

“Tea or coffee?” Jamie asked.

“Water I think. I dunno what those pulse things have done to me.”

Jamie nodded concernedly and while she filled two sippy-beakers, I changed the scanner resolution to inspect the asteroid under a shorter wavelength. Finally we detected the pulses throbbing across the screen below the ultra-violet spectrum but not as dangerous as the X-ray zone.

“What the hell is it?” Jamie wondered nervously.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to have to check ourselves out and stay away from Earth until we’re certain we’re not a risk.”
“Dammit. My sister’s wedding is due next week and I promised to be there.”

“Sorry love. You know the rules,” I shrugged, “it’s fourteen days quarantine.”

“Damn, damn, damn! I was so looking forward to wearing my bride’s-maid’s outfit. She’s the only one in my family who is sympathetic to my gender dysphoria.”

I smiled sympathetically as I took another sip of water, I was not feeling at all well.

“Are you alright Nana?”

“No, I –“ And with that, I passed out.”

When I came to, I was ensconced in my sleeping bag and it took several moments to unfasten the ‘poppers.’ I was feeling sore and stiff with aching joints and a blinding headache. Like a dose of ‘super-flue.’ Cautiously, I extricated my self from the bag and felt a sudden urge to defaceate which forced me to wobble to the loo and relieve myself urgently.

On looking down I was immediately fearful to see that my faeces were green and I let out a nervous involuntary squeak as I called for Jamie. There was no answer,

Before showering, I cleaned myself up and decided to go and check where Jamie was; I found her curled up asleep in her own sleeping bag but breathing heavily and wheezing. There was no good to be done by waking her so I had the shower that my body smell told me I needed. Once refreshed, I cautiously returned to the command console and was pleased to see that Jamie had set the ship on a wide radius orbit of Earth where it circled aimlessly but harmlessly too far to be detected by terrestrial sensors.

‘Good girl.’ I thought to myself as I quickly prepared a meal. I was famished.

The smell of food must have partially woken Jamie because I heard a low groan which prompted me to check her. She was deliriously mumbling in her sleep between groans and gasps so after assuring she wasn’t at death’s door, I left her to carry on sleeping, albeit fitfully.
My next task was to check the ship.

I was shocked to discover that I had been out of it for two days. It was no wonder I had woken up starving. Fortunately, the ship was undamaged but I decided to remain in the orbit Jamie had pre-set until she awoke. It would do me no harm either to give myself a couple more days rest and recouperation before returning to Earth.

After checking out the ship, I stopped by to check Jamie again and found her a little more responsive.

“Up to a cuppa love.”

She eyed me somewhat moodily before finding her voice.

“What happened to us?”

“I dunno darling, I think that meteorite affected us somehow. How ‘re you feeling now?”

“Groggy. I was hit for six!”

“Are you up to eating. I’ve had some toast and coffee, nothing heavy.”

“Please,” she nodded and smiled.

ooo000ooo

After sorting our immediate needs, we settled down to endure our fourteen days self-imposed quarantine and decided to re-visit one of Saturn’s smaller moons. Jamie and I were quite successful as interplanetary prospectors but we kept out activities close to our chests. So, to avoid detection, we did not contact Earth we simply hauled our little ship around and headed on out back to Saturn.

After some desultory prospecting we found little of interest so we set course to return to Earth.

As required, we reconnected to earth’s authorities and quickly learned of some sort of some sort of epidemic. They advised us not to land immediately because the epidemic was spreading rapidly and it was fatal.

After listening to several programmes we learned as much as the authorities knew about the progress of the illness.

Firstly the victims fell ill and became nauseous. This lasted a few hours.
Secondly, the victim went into a coma usually lasting two to three days before their blood turned green.
Thirdly their faeces turned green and this was followed by a rapid deterioration and death. Usually within two days of the first green defaecation. Nobody survived longer than three or four days after the bowel disorder.

Jamie and I exchanged worried looks as she asked me.

“Did your shit turn green?”

“Yes, but that was two weeks ago. It’s been normal now for about ten days.” I replied. “What about you?”

“Same thing. Green faeces for three days then back to normal. I don’t know about the blood though. I haven’t cut myself lately.”

“Your were looking a bit greenish when you went into your coma,” Jamie observed. “I thought it was you just being a bit green around the gills you know, like space sickness.”

“Space sickness! Bloody hell girl, I haven’t been space sick for forty odd years.” Then I noticed Jamie’s complexion in the harsh galley light.

“Talking of greenish hues, you don’t look so clever yourself. You look like the jolly green tranny.”

Jamie turned to look at herself in the hand hygiene wash basin mirror and stared uncertainly.

“Shit, I think you’re right. What do I do?”

“Checking if your blood is green would be a good starting point. I’ll check mine as well.”

We quickly pricked our fingers and stared nervously at the blood.

“Well, it ain’t green.” Jamie sighed with relief.

“Aye! But it isn’t red either, is it?” I frowned.

“Mine’s redder than yours,” Jamie observed, somewhat too superiorly I felt.”

“I wouldn’t mention the blood thing.” I suggested. “They want us to wait out here for a few more days anyway so we can just keep checking our blood every morning.”

Having decided on this tactic, we were secretly happy we did. Within another week, our bloods had returned to a healthy normal red and I declared our ship free of infection to the authorities.

By this time however the whole planet was in a frenzy. Every country had gone into lockdown as the path of the disease’s progression had been firmly established.
A Nausea
B Coma
C Blood turning green
D Finally bodily discharges turning green followed by certain death.

“It’s not looking good for humanity,” Jamie surmised as we debated going to land.

The authorities had given us free pratique and it was up to us whether we wanted to land on Earth or land on one of the extra-terrestrial colonies.

We contacted Earth again to ask if the pathogen had yet been identified and were almost relieved to learn that they thought it was some extra-terrestrial dust or fine particles that had been infected somehow on contact with the Earths’ atmospheric envelope. The chemicals in the dust had somehow mutated an earthly virus that had become deadly to human beings.

On learning this, Jamie and I realised that our little ordeal had exactly mirrored the disease’s progress on Earth but the only difference was that we had both survived. At first we were excited until further reflection told us that we could be held hostage to our blood if we did have the right antibodies. If the virologists could develop a serum from our blood, they would demand that we donate blood constantly and it was a racing certainty that access to our blood would become politicised; or worse, weaponised.

That ‘evening,’ Jamie and I sat for long hours trying to examine all the angles.

ooo000ooo