Antibodies 17

© 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.)

Chapter 17

Jami’s brother-in-law and I were still stifling a few chuckles as we accompanied Professor Servensen and Dr Williams to the ICU unit.

“Small hands indeed!” He remarked. “It speaks volumes as to how ‘down to earth’ my oldest is. She’ll be qualified as a vet before she leaves high school at the rate she’s doing ovine midwifery!”

“But you’re proud of her.” I replied.

“You bet!” He responded as we entered the ICU.

Instinctively, I stepped up to Jamie’s bed while he went to his wife. Both girls were awake lying prone with their heads propped up slightly on pillows; and both looked pale. Jamie smiled wanly and just whispered “Hi babes.” While her sister responded similarly in the other bed.

“Are you sore darling?” The brother-in-law asked his wife.
“Of course I’m bloody sore!” She croaked. “You won’t be going near me for a bloody year!”

Jaime nearly laughed then she winced painfully as the convulsion wrenched her innards.

“Ouch! Stop making me laugh,” she gasped as she pressed her hands against her stomach.

With the ‘no laughing’ protocols firmly set, the mood quickly stabilised to one of just being there to offer company and chat as and when the girls were up for it. The following morning the children were allowed to see their mother and aunt.

Not being allowed to clamber all over their mother as was the norm of a non-school day; quickly brought home the seriousness of the operation to them and they soon became more solicitous than curious. As a special treat, the oldest daughter was allowed to see a photograph of her mummy’s tummy before the wounds were bandaged. Naturally, it only showed the scar from hip to hip and a hint of the tee scar leading to the more intimate part but it gave the girl enough authority to convey to her siblings just how poorly their mummy was.

“Has Auntie Jamie got the same?” She asked, and her mother nodded affirmation.

This evoked another round of sympathetic curiosity followed by a string of perfectly anatomical questions that amused the surgeon as the twelve-year-old daughter evinced all the medical and clinical separation of a third-year med student.

As they shared the requisite drinks and biscuits (cookies) with Professor Severson the old surgeon asked her.

“So young lady. Is it to be medical or veterinary for you.”

“I haven’t decided yet.” She declared with a confidence that only a twelve-year-old could display.
We could not suppress our chuckles as we left Jamie and her sister for lunch. It simply was not fair to indulge our food in front of the two girls still on ‘no solids by mouth’ for a few more days.

ooo000ooo

Having contented himself that his wife was well on the way to recovery, Jamie’s brother-in-law took their four children home to the farm while I attended to Jamie and her sister’s emotional needs at the ICU. It just involved being around when they needed encouragement and supplying stuff to lighten the load for the nurses.

Eventually Jamie’s sister was deemed fit to go home so I provided a hired antigrav domestic craft to take her back to her mountain farm myself. Late one dark moonless night I deposited her quietly with her family and there were no neighbours to witness that she had ‘recovered’ from the ‘Verna-spiro’ bug. It was a great comfort to me however to see the direct consequences of what my blood could do for a decent family that would otherwise have been wiped out by ‘Verna.’

I stayed the night with the family and the following morning the oldest daughter showed me around the farm. They ran a large successful sheep flock and a collection of other beasts that kept the family in assorted meats while a few fertile, lower, pastures supplied grains and vegetables enough for their own subsistence needs, and winter fodder for their stock. On returning to the farmhouse I expressed my envy.

“You’re lucky to own such a delightful setting,” I declared slightly enviously.

“You wouldn’t say that in the winter Bev. It’s cold, wet and windy but the stock still have to tended.

“Well, I’m sure Jamie will love to bring any children up here for visits if everything goes successfully. You’ve made her a very happy girl.”

“She’s saved our lives Beverly. We’re the ones to be grateful.” Their father intoned sincerely. “She can recover here and convalesce until she’s full and ready to try for a child.”
“She’ll be recovering in the clinic,” I explained. “The post-natal care will be a bit complex at first, but later, I’m sure she’ll want to stay here to rear her children.”

On this note, I returned to the clinic to plan for Jamie’s hoped-for pregnancy.

Doctor Williams and Professor Servensen had prepared a plan and after Jamie had gone through two menstrual cycles they decided it was probably okay to try an impregnation. I had to contact the sperm bank where I had deposited my sperm years ago before my transition and soon a frozen canister was delivered in a special transport equipped to maintain the super cold liquid nitrogen temperatures.

It shouted volumes to Professor Severson’s team that Jamie’s pregnancy was a success and she delivered by normal parturition though the twin babies were slightly smaller than usual. The professor explained that having slightly underweight babies had made the delivery easier for Jamie who, despite having somewhat female hips, did not have the perfect generous proportions for an easy passage.

“We wanted to avoid a caesarean considering the amount of surgery and scar tissue Jamie’s already had,” he explained as I hugged a tearfully happy Jamie and the nurses attended to the new-borns.

After her successful delivery Jamie stayed at the clinic for three months. Professor Servensen returned to Sweden while two of his specialist post-natal care team stayed behind to monitor progress. I returned to the farm where Jamie’s brother-in-law had built an extension to their farmhouse so Jamie could enjoy her motherhood until she was ready to resume her work with me.

Once Jamie was happily ensconced with her sister’s family I resumed my space foraging ways but now I had the nearest thing to a home to return to when my voyages were over.

ooo000ooo
For three months I kept my voyages to simply the moon and Mars. I did not do much prospecting because my earlier finds and ensuing mining operations had now given Jamie and me a considerable income. To tell the truth, I was simply indulging my wanderlust nature whilst waiting for developments concerning the Verna-Spiro pandemic on Earth. I kept in touch with developments while savouring the novelty of having ‘somebody to come home to,’ each time I returned to Earth.

This lifestyle had also brought an added interest to the children on the farm and they were always pestering their auntie Jamie as to when ‘Nana-Bev’ was coming home. My own infants of course, were still blissfully unaware of their father except to perhaps gurgle or dribble over her when she picked them up during her home visits.

My old friend Dennis remarked about my softening and less abrasive nature when I returned after one brief voyage to the moon.

“Fatherhood seems to suit you Bev.” He observed as I was happily anticipating my return to the homestead while quietly humming to myself and completing my voyage log.

“Wha-? Oh fatherhood!. Well, I can’t say I’m dissatisfied Den. What brought this on?”

“I’m looking at your voyage plan for Mars next trip. Who’s Shirley?”

“Jamie’s niece. She’s been pestering me for a trip so I’m taking her for her thirteenth birthday.”

“What, just the two of you?”

“Probably. Though if Jamie’s sister looks after ours, Jamie might come with us.”

“As a chaperone?” Dennis inquired.

I stopped short. I hadn’t considered the possible sexual abuse angle. I had lived as a celibate female for so long that sex was a foreign country to me.

“Don’t be daft,” I scorned. “I’m ‘post op’.”

“Well, just be careful, Shirley’s under sixteen.”

Dennis’s remark put a damper on my mood and I was forced to reconsider my promise to Shirley. Fortunately, her mother promised to look after Jamie and my twins so Jamie was able to accompany us on the next voyage.

After that, I invited no more kids on trips.

About three months after that, I learned that my country and virtually the whole planet had gone into total shutdown because some countries in Africa had not been following the rules. The virus had broken out in one of their big cities and they had not locked down. Now it was spreading like wild-fire and the pandemic was now a panic-demic. My and Jamie’s blood products had become priceless.

There was virtually a bounty on Jamie and my heads and regretfully we had to take shelter in the research clinic while an armed military guard was placed around the building. Once again, the clinic felt obliged to inoculate the guards with our blood plasma to ‘buy’ their loyalty.

By this necessary process of protecting the clinic’s work, there eventually evolved, an island of immunity around the complex and with that, an outer ring of resentment.

We all sensed the mood and feared it so we were utterly relieved when Doctor Williams turned up one afternoon with her face wreathed in smiles. Her previous expression had been one of determined resolve so we more or less guessed what her news was.

“By that look on your face, I’m thinking you’ve made some sort of breakthrough with the vaccine.”

She shrugged her shoulders slightly and ‘swanned’ her neck to the side as though to convey hope tempered by uncertainty.

“There’s been a breakthrough,” she confirmed; - “not the best news I’d expected but a step forward – of sorts.”

“Go-oo on,” I encouraged as Jamie leaned in closer.

“We-ell,” she sighed slowly; “I don’t think you’re going to like this much.”

I frowned irritably.

“Get on with it doctor. This whole business is beginning to wear us down.”

“Well the upshot is that from the provisional tests we have run; the vaccine works but it’s effects are attenuated by testosterone.”

There was a deafening silence as my mind raced through a thousand scenarios while Jamie, ever the more pragmatic girl since becoming a mother, asked.

“Attenuated by how much?”

“Yes. What’s the bottom line?” I asked. “How much?”

“Uuhm, women are pretty safe. The vaccine gives about eighty percent of the female population immunity.”

“And the other twenty?” I pressed.

“Some don’t develop immunity; some develop side effects. The usual unknowns except that there are more unknowns.”

“Twenty percent! That’s a pretty high risk-ratio.”

“Yes. It is,” she admitted, “but given that death is more or less certain if you’re infected and not vaccinated, our researches indicate that women are more than prepared to take the vaccine.”
“What about the risk of death from the vaccine?” Jamie pressed.

“About one in a thousand for women, mostly older women.”

“That’s quite high isn’t it?”

‘Jamie had been reading up on epidemiology.’

“Yes. In normal circumstances the vaccine would not be licensed but these are dangerous times. There’s already talk of the virus reaching North Africa and that’s despite a ruthlessly tight ‘lock-down’.”

“So what about men?” I pressed, unable to ignore the elephant in the room.

“Men will still have to isolate until we find a suitable fix.”

“That’s not going to work.” I stated flatly. “North Africa is almost wholly islamic. The men go out, the women stay home.”

“That’s not my concern!” Doctor Williams riposted bluntly. “I do medicine and immunology not politics and religions.”

“So we might as well continue with the lockdown.” Jamie observed.

“We can’t continue with a hundred percent lockdown. The economy is collapsing as we speak. I’m recommending to the government that they licence the vaccine for women and children. It’s no good wasting it on men if it’s ineffective.”

“Good luck with that one.” I replied then asked. “You say children; does that include boys?”

“Prepubescent boys, yes. The vaccine works on boys if they’ve not reached puberty and testosterone levels are at juvenile or infantile levels.”

“Oh. You didn’t tell me that.”

“So there’s hopes for humanity then.” Jamie chuckled.

“I don’t know why your laughing. If we’re going to protect the human gene pool, our blood is going to have to be spread thin all over the planet to reduce future inbreeding.”

“I see fun and games ahead!” Jamie persisted.

“I suggest you two take a long sabbatical in Space,” Doctor Williams cautioned us before adding. “Provided the whole world doesn’t know you two are ‘the blood donors;’ you’ve got a chance to hide away in space until things calm down here on Earth.”

“What about donating blood?” I asked.

“Come back every eight weeks, or we’ll meet with you in space.”

For want of a better solution we left it at that.

ooo000ooo