Antibodies 11

© Copyright BG Taff

Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)

After arriving off Venus, we slowly sidled into Venus’s penumbra were the residential hydroponic moon alternated between umbra and penumbra to ensure the ideal environment for habitation. The moon avoided direct sunlight except for a brief sojourn every twenty hours to garnish some warmth from the intense solar heat. As I made contact, their traffic control directed our ship Digger to the most suitable docking port and once again, Jamie relished the responsibility of completing the delicate manoeuvre.

Just as we secured our portal, the moon slowly emerged into the blinding sunlight and Jamie squinted before our UV visors quickly returned to their standard status. As she stepped out of the control seat Jamie turned to me.

“It must be weird having such a messed-up diurnal cycle. Glad I don’t live here.”

I shrugged and smiled indulgently.

“It’s no different from our cycles Babes. We just set our cabin cycles to suit our own needs.”

“I was just thinking about the intensity of the sunlight they get, so close to Sol.”

“Only for a couple of hours every twenty-four, just to recharge their solar panels.”

We stepped through the docking portal into the hygiene station where they checked us for Verna-spiro and finally we were savouring the lush greenery as we checked off our cargo delivery.

“Are you staying long?” The customs officer asked.

I turned to Jamie and asked, “D’ you fancy a tour.”

“It’ll be a break,” she nodded; so we collected a buggy and headed for the main laboratories.

There we indulged Jamie’s curiosity and tasted some of the hybrid fruits and vegetables that were being developed. It never ceased to amaze me that they were mostly concerned with developing heat resistant strains capable of surviving extreme temperatures. I was forced to ask one of the environmentalists if they would ever develop plants that could survive Venus’s lead melting temperatures.

He wagged his head and shrugged as he explained that their first aim was the magnetosphere and then planetary cooling by altering the atmospheric gasses. We grinned as we agreed, I would certainly not live long enough to see completion of such a slow process.

After a thoroughly enjoyable stay, we ate in the communal restaurant then bid our fellow space dwellers farewell. Once back aboard Digger, we checked our almanack and decided Mar’s was next being as Earth was t’other side of sun. We could then depart Mars to pass close to Earth and stop by the moon before Heading to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
By now the celestial calculations were old hat to Jamie and I reflected that she would one day be hankering to command her own spaceship.
Seven weeks later we returned to Earth with a lucrative cargo or valuable rare metallic ores.

ooo000ooo

We first learned of the turmoil on Earth when we came close enough to receive the media stations reporting the news.

The organisers of the mass kidnapping of the United Nations volunteers had executed over half of their hostages after a failed attempted rescue by the United Nations peace-keeping force. Jamie and I listened in stunned silence as the details were revealed to the interested authorities.

“What the hell did they do that for?” Jamie wondered.

I had no answer.

We continued listening and watching the various commentators and pundits as they wittered on about motives and consequences but it took the situation no further. The basic fact was that three hundred of the six hundred UN, volunteers were lost to mankind and the world was facing a catastrophe as the virus was now seriously beginning to bite.

Then, as we approached close to Earth, we got our first inkling of the shape of things to come.

When we hailed Earth’s regional space control, instead of being invited to dock immediately as had always been the way of things, we were requested to wait in stasis until ‘arrangements’ for a sterile docking could be made.

“Sterile docking?” Jamie wondered, “What does that mean?”

“Sounds like some sort of enhanced quarantine procedure.” I replied as I immediately asked the Earth controller what it meant.
“You will have to wait for two weeks and undergo blood tests before you can step on the planet.”

“That’s bloody ridiculous!” I Protested. “We’re the only ones who can guarantee to be sterile. We were not infected when we left Earth, We did not contact any infected people on the various planets and moons and we’re not infected now. The incubation period’s only a couple of weeks, so we can’t possibly be infected!”

“Those are the Rules Captain. It applies to every ship.”

I turned to Jamie who had already grasped the gravity of our two-week quarantine.

“They’re going to need our blood ASAP!”

As the pregnant silence descended, I took a long slow breath before sighing.

“Looks like we’re gonna’ have to.” Jamie opined. “They haven’t got a vaccine yet and the donor’s bone marrows have not matured yet. Every bloody drop of our blood counts.”

I fell silent as I tried to find an alternative solution but I was stumped. Jamie just looked at me for she could read my mind.

“Admit it Babe’s.”

I sighed again as I was forced to agree.

“Seems your right Babe’s. We can try one thing though.”

“What?” She demanded.

“Maybe I can patch my burner phone through the ship’s own frequency synthesiser and keep the message very short.”

“They’ll still triangulate you. It’s obvious they’re all eyes and ears in case those fucking fundamentalist, ‘end-times’ jihadists have some crazy idea about the virus starting in space. They’ll be watching every single ship that comes within a moon’s span of Earth.”

“I think the security procedures are more to do with keeping a tight lock-down on the virus. Our message has to be brief and coded. We can contact Doctor Williams on the phone then use the ship’s comms to scramble the message. She’s got a much more sophisticated sub-ether retro-coder than the run of the mill internet facilities.

I used to use it when I first started prospecting and every lonely prospector had to keep his discoveries private until the claim could be registered.”

“You can try,” Jamie shrugged, “but every military station will have fancier stuff than us. They’ll soon break the codes.”

“It’ll be just one brief cryptic message and Digger’s encoder will hijack Dr William’s radio for the duration of the conversation.”

“Both ways?” Jamie wondered aloud.

“Both ways.” I confirmed.

“That’s bloody clever!” Jamie exclaimed. “Why was I never told about this before?”

“I haven’t had cause to use it for years. All my claims are registered and protected now so I’ve never used it for about ten years. It’s old technology and we’ll only get a few minutes to use it before the military catch on and fire up their decoding equipment. The secret is to keep it low profile until we make contact. I won’t need to ask to contact Dr Williams, I’ll just call her like a normal mobile call.”

“If you text her, that’ll keep it silent and you can double-encrypt the ensuing audio.” Jamie observed.

“That’ll give us a couple of extra minute’s grace,” I agreed as I dialled the doctor’s number.

The only wrinkle was that my latest burner phone had been used to contact Dr Williams during my previous stay and she would know instantly who was calling. Jamie and my subterfuge was totally dependent on her co-operation. I glanced at Jamie as contact was made. Dr Williams was brusque, which suited Jamie and me perfectly

“Hello!”

“You know who’s phone this is so listen carefully because we are forced to reveal our identity to you and you alone.

We had good cause to be thankful that Dr Williams was no sluggard when grasping situations. We heard her barking out some instructions to somebody who was obviously of military origins. Then I passed my information.

“There is a Spaceship called ‘Digger’ being held in stasis. Land it immediately.”

There a brief but desperately silent pause before Dr Williams realised what was afoot.

“Aah! Yes! Got you. Where do you wish to land?”

I gave her a brief reply and she immediately returned with a military password.

The conversation was no more than a couple of seconds, then I shut down all of Digger’s comms except the scrambler radio. An hour later we landed in Dennis’s freight yard where two discreet unmarked police cars were parked outside Dennis’s office looking for all the world like an ordinary customers. The rest of the yard was functioning normally and our arrival resembled all the previous arrivals that Digger had made except that now everybody was wearing bio suits. Jamie and I stepped out to meet Jack Godfrey the yard foreman who nodded casually towards Dennis’s office.

“Dennis want’s to chat with you.” He explained through his anti-hazard suit.

“Why?” I asked.

“I dunno, can you open the freight hatch for me?”

I paused briefly while Jamie stepped around Digger and entered the freight hatch code, then she re-joined me as we stepped into Dennis’s office. There, two women were waiting for us with viral test kits while Dennis was staring at us in mild disbelief.

“Well you’re a cagey set of buggers!”

I raised a questioning eyebrow and he went on to explain.

“These two ladies didn’t explain much but I had a right to know why two complete strangers wanted to close down my office and freight yard.”

“How d’ you mean?” Jamie pressed.

“A lot’s happened since you left. These ladies are from the new bio-police unit.”

“And?” I asked.

“Oh just that I’ve had to pause all freight traffic into and out of my yard until you’ve left. I was about to raise holy hell until I received an offer I can’t refuse.”

“Which was?” Jamie asked.

“If I kept my mouth shut, I would receive a dose of antivirus. If I blabbed they’d lock me up until you were safe.”

“And have you kept your mouth shut?”

“You bet I have! I’d be a fool not to. Is it really true?”

“Yes.”

“Jeeze!” Dennis gasped. “They’ve told me that my family get to have them as well; on the premise that they believe I might have been exposed to the virus.”

With that one of the two ladies stepped forward with a portable transfusion kit. Dennis glance uncertainly at me for reassurance. We had been close friends for nearly twenty years so his relief was evident as the lady took his arm.

It was obvious that Dennis was not great with needles and he paled noticeably as the nurse smiled encouragement.

“Come now Mr Potter this will only take a couple of minutes, then we shall call upon your wife and two daughters.”

Jamie and I removed our bio helmets and grinned as Dennis nervously extended his arm and flinched. Jamie reassured him while I checked through my cargo manifest so that things looked normal through the window to the yard. It would look as though the nurses had just tested us and given us clearance so that we could remove our helmets indoors.

We chatted to Dennis as he slowly got used to the needle and by the time he had received the inoculation he was almost affable.

“So who’s blood is this?” He asked the nurse.

“Jamie’s.” She replied. “Don’t worry, her transgenderism isn’t infectious!”

“Oh I know all about Jamie nurse. It was me who gave her a break by letting her work in my yard.”

“Yeah. The rest is history.” Jamie finished with a grin. “Give my love to your daughters.”

“Does this mean, my girls won’t have to wear bio suits?”

“Yes and no,” the nurse explained. “They won’t need to wear bios for medical reasons but to avoid questions they’d best wear them until the vaccine is ready.”

“How long will that be?” I pressed, asking the question that everybody was thinking.

“About another three to four months if everything is progressing as we anticipate. This time everybody is co-operating and sharing research.”

“That’ll be a first.” Jamie observed somewhat cynically as the nurse wrapped up Dennis’s transfusion and we prepared to leave. The police inspector with me and Jamie to Oxford where we would meet an impatient Dr Williams while the nurse was to accompany Dennis home to his family.

ooo000ooo

Ass we arrived outside a large laboratory block Jamie looked somewhat disappointed.

“I thought it would be all dreaming spires and students with books,” Jamie observed somewhat disappointedly.

“That’s for the academia and tourists,” the inspector replied. “The real research work is done out of town in the big modern laboratories.”

“Ah well,” Jamie sighed. “I was never destined for all this stuff anyway.”

The inspector looked askance.

“But you must have gone to Oxbridge before graduating to space school!”

“Nah,” I added. “Jamie’s got grandfather rights, she came up the hawsepipe.”

The inspector stared at my young chief mate.

“How old are you kid?”

“Twenty-three and less of ‘the kid’ inspector. I’m a fully qualified space captain.”

“Good god! That’s ridiculously young. It’s usually another two years after graduation before you normally get to board a spaceship. Training and everything.”

I interjected.

“Jamie was working as my spacer before all the regulations came into force. She came to me at sixteen after we met in Dennis’s freight depot. Technically she’s a high school drop out but I can spot brains.”

“Is this because of the transgender thing?” The inspector asked.

“Yeah. It’s never really gone away,” Jamie remarked as we were met by the security team. “You’re okay if you’ve got connections and people who’ll stick up for you but orphan kids from the wrong side of the tracks don’t get much change. Nana Bev’s my saviour, not some idiot on a cross or riding flying donkeys.”

On this note we were hurried towards some secure doors and eventually found ourselves in a place that resembled a prison more than a lab.

ooo000ooo