Survival

by David Fletcher

  The captain’s brief introduction had included the information that the young woman standing beside him was a British Army signaller from the Mount Pleasant base on the Falklands and that her name was Gill. And he’d also let it be known that the young man accompanying her was some sort of spy, and that his name was Stuart. He then quickly went on to say that he wasn’t a James Bond sort of spy, but instead one of those guys whose job it was to monitor transmissions in order to provide what used to be Britain’s security services with intelligence. He then added that Stuart had also been based at Mount Pleasant and that his ‘area of interest’ had been the whole of South America. And Stuart, it appeared, was the person who would be addressing the assembled throng. This he did as soon as the captain passed him the microphone. And he started with an alarming announcement.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘I am going to tell you something that you will find hard to believe. But first of all, could I just say how grateful Gill and I are for your saving our lives. I just hope that now we might be able to save yours…’

  ‘Wow!’ Alex mumbled to himself. ‘What the hell is he going to say?’

  In the event, Stuart had a lot to say – about his job at Mount Pleasant and about how he’d been able to track the spread of ‘the plague’. And how he’d become increasingly concerned by the speed of its spread – right up until his colleague, Gill, had been able to give him access to some vital information in a top-secret military document, when he’d then become more concerned than ever.

  In telling this tale, he’d had to admit to his and Gill’s less-than-laudable behaviour, which in normal times would have earned one of them a court martial and the other an ignominious dismissal. There was then the matter of their running away from their mates. And this, in particular, clearly upset the ex-military members of Jane’s team. Mike looked no less than murderous. However, Stuart, although looking very shamefaced at this point, managed to plough on with his story and share with his audience the stunning contents of that hijacked document, and what these contents would mean for them all.

  ‘Nobody could work out,’ he explained, ‘how a disease could be transmitted so quickly and be lethal so quickly. It was behaving like no other disease ever visited on this planet. And what was finally discovered – thanks to the Chinese ambassador in London eventually coming clean – was that this terrible disease was behaving in this way because it wasn’t a disease at all. And it isn’t. Of that I am now absolutely certain. Because…’

  And here he paused, not for dramatic effect but because he simply couldn’t do otherwise. Even though he clearly knew what he was about to say, he equally clearly was finding it difficult to say it. And then he managed.

  ‘…because, ladies and gentlemen, all those millions of people who have died out there have not died as a result of an infection, but as a result of being overwhelmed by fungal spores…’

  At this point there was a communal gasp in the lounge, and then Stuart carried on.

  ‘I don’t claim to be an expert on the behaviour of fungi and their spores, but I do have a degree in botany, and my reading of the technical stuff in that document left me in no doubt that it had to be believed. Now, I know this will sound literally incredible, but apparently there was a genetically modified fungus produced in China – although we’re not absolutely sure why – and it turned out to be extraordinarily generous in its spore production. And I mean phenomenally generous. What had apparently been a relatively modest tweak to arrive at this new form of fungus had somehow led to its producing and then releasing into the atmosphere trillions and trillions of spores. And very unusual spores. Unusual in that they were microscopically small, and I mean much, much smaller than normal spores. And… they were deadly. Nobody knows the precise mechanism – and nobody probably will – but once inhaled… Well, they kill. And, according to what’s in that document, through an attack on the body’s nervous system. But not a very “decisive” attack…’

  Here he hesitated, but then he went on.

  ‘And what I mean is that it’s reckoned that they cause a neurological “storm” in the body. And this storm triggers the onset of some severe – and very painful – muscle spasms, while at the same time more and more of the body’s pain receptors are activated. Until ultimately – and we’re talking after maybe twenty-four hours or so – the body can’t take any more. It is, I’m afraid, not a good way to die. In fact, it is a drawn-out and probably agonising way to die.’

  At this point, Alex noticed that one of the female passengers had turned as white as the snow on South Georgia’s peaks, and then he noticed that one of the male passengers had done the same. He wasn’t in the least bit surprised.

  ‘So,’ continued Stuart, ‘with these spores…’

  ‘How do they spread around the world?’ interrupted that same Welshman who had been bolshie before.

  Stuart responded immediately and not resentfully.

  ‘In a word, easily. And that’s the problem. They’d soon colonised the whole of the atmosphere over China. And because they’re so incredibly small and so incredibly light, they soon migrated to the upper atmosphere and then they started their journey around the planet, descending into the air we move around in and the air we breathe. Everywhere…’

  ‘Yeah. But we have masks. I mean, the military certainly have masks. And all sorts of kit. And bunkers…’

  ‘They do,’ responded Stuart softly, ‘but I can’t stress enough the microscopic size of these spores. Or their vast number. Or their toxicity. They will get everywhere; if not immediately, then soon enough through any air-filtration system that exists, to ensure nobody survives. They are unstoppable. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, but Gill and I did a runner. And I can assure you that we wouldn’t have even contemplated doing that if we hadn’t both been certain that the spores couldn’t – and wouldn’t – be stopped at Mount Pleasant. No matter what protection had been put in place.’

  Here was where the captain decided to intervene in this doom-filled presentation. And he did this by retrieving the microphone and very forcefully explaining that he had been convinced by Stuart’s story as soon as he’d heard it, and then even more convinced when he had read the detail in Stuart and Gill’s looted document. So much so, that he now wanted everyone else in the room to be equally convinced. And if they hadn’t been by what they’d just heard Stuart say, then he hoped they would be when they’d all read that document themselves, copies of which were already been prepared for distribution to every individual on board. He then emphasised that everybody being convinced was really very important indeed, because Stuart had something more to say. And what he had to say might mean that they could all stay alive. But it would also mean that they wouldn’t be sailing to Ushuaia. At least not for some time.

  Alex became aware of his throat. It was arid rather than dry, and he suddenly had a desperate craving for a gin and tonic. However, he would have to suppress the urge. After all, like all the other near dumbstruck people in the room, he had to listen to how he and Debbie might not end up dead…

  Stuart had now been equipped with the microphone again, and he began to explain where salvation might lie.

  ‘OK. The bad news first,’ he opened. ‘It won’t be too long before the spores are everywhere in South America. And just about everywhere else in the world that hasn’t already succumbed. Places like Australia and New Zealand, if they’re not open-air morgues yet… well, they very soon will be.’

  Alex thought that Stuart had slipped into the gratuitously dramatic with that choice of words, but maybe he wanted everybody’s completely undivided attention. And sure enough, if he hadn’t had it before, he did have it now.

  ‘However,’ he continued, ‘as is shown in the document we “intercepted”, there was one place in Asia that hadn’t been touched by the spores. And that place was Franz Josef Land…’

  ‘Where?’ shouted the Welshman.


  ‘Franz Josef Land. It’s a big archipelago off the north coast of Russia, and north of the Arctic Circle. Nobody actually lives there, but there are a couple of Russian bases on a couple of its islands. And it appears that these bases were still transmitting messages – to anyone who would listen to them – well after all their comrades on the Russian mainland had perished. And I mean even those in really deep bunkers, whether under the Kremlin or anywhere else…’

  ‘So why…?’

  It was the Welshman again. It was as though he’d been planted to help Stuart along.

  ‘Cold or polar atmospheric circulation, or a combination of the two.’

  For Alex, the penny dropped immediately. Cold. Polar. And there were two poles. And when Stuart and Gill had got themselves into some nautical difficulty, they were on their way to the south one – where there would be a similar helping of cold and the same sort of polar atmospheric circulation as found at the other end of the world. They were seeking refuge in the Antarctic. For as long as it took. And the captain had decided that they had made the right decision. Which meant he was now going to announce a permanent change to his present westward course and instead head south. Debbie might see her chinstrap penguins after all.

  For many others in the room, the penny didn’t drop quite so quickly. Even when the captain spelled out exactly what Alex had been thinking, and then confirmed that he would indeed be taking the Sea Sprite to the Antarctic. And when the penny did drop, for certain members of the throng, it didn’t have the result that the captain so desperately wanted. In fact, the gathering descended into something of a bun fight, with on one side people like Alex and Debbie, who felt that there was no choice other than to go south, and on the opposing side, people for whom the idea of hiding in a deep freeze for an unspecified period was no less than unbridled lunacy.

  Gradually, however, the Antarctic enthusiasts began to prevail. This was in part due to the captain’s assurances that he had enough provisions and fuel to be able to stay at sea for as much as a month if necessary, and to two important contributions from Stuart. The first was that, because of his work as a monitor at Mount Pleasant, he knew a great deal about all the Spanish-speaking research stations on the Antarctic Peninsula and, very significantly, the location of all those that were currently unmanned but full of further provisions. The second was that he had little doubt that if the Sea Sprite returned to Ushuaia now, all those aboard it would be dead within days.

  This still left open a lot of concerns and a lot of unknowns, and neither Stuart nor the captain could say with any degree of certainty when it would be safe to return to South America – or indeed whether it would ever be safe to do so. Even though, as Stuart emphasised, genetically modified plants of any sort are generally sterile, and therefore as soon as the atmosphere was clear of spores, the danger should have passed. All they could say was that, without a shadow of doubt, it would be lethal if they returned, as scheduled, in just thirty-six hours’ time. And the only possible chance they all had was to defer that return for as long as they possibly could.

  Eventually, the meeting was drawn to a close, with the captain reconfirming that the Sea Sprite would now be adopting a course almost due south, and for those amongst the congregation who still vehemently disagreed with this decision, he would be hosting a further meeting in the Magellan Deck restaurant directly after dinner. It would, Alex thought, be no more than a sop. And a second further meeting – of the whole ship’s company, to be held in the lounge the following morning – would be of far more importance. At this, the captain promised, there could be a detailed discussion of all aspects of their current situation and, more importantly, there could be a run-through of the practical implications of turning an expedition trip into a survival trip. Not least regarding ways in which the passengers and the crew would now have to interact.

  But that was for tomorrow. There was still a chunk of today to deal with, and after their first drink at the bar, Alex and Debbie had another before returning to their cabin, where they were able to absorb the contents of Stuart’s purloined document. None of what they read changed their minds, but it did persuade them to return to the bar again, where they stayed for such a long time that when they finally descended to the restaurant, they were able to dine alone. Which, for once, was exactly what they wanted to do. After all, they still had a lot to discuss. Just the two of them.

  And a lot to digest…

  twenty-two

  When he woke up, the first word that drifted into Alex’s mind was ‘implausible’. The second was ‘preposterous’. Could it really be, he asked himself, that some previously unknown super-fungus had suddenly spewed an Earth-sized cloud of spores into the atmosphere, and that these spores were absolutely deadly? That once ingested they would kill you – and that they would do so very slowly and very painfully?

  Oh, and what about other animals? Why were the reports only of humans being cut down in their millions? It was all just so completely implausible; indeed, so implausible that it was simply preposterous to be running scared to the south. After all, the Antarctic had never been seen as any sort of refuge, and it might more accurately be described as one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. So how the hell had he swallowed all this stuff, and how had he been so easily seduced by the captain’s plan to take the Sea Sprite to the lands of snow and ice?

  He lay in bed for some time, trying to answer these questions. And finally he did. Because he brought to mind what he’d read in that document; that exposé on the fungus that had been so detailed and so authoritative as to be undeniable. And he remembered also what that guy, Stuart, had said. And how he had said it. And how he’d admitted that his understanding of botany had been challenged by the existence of such an extraordinary form of fungus, but not overwhelmed by it. Nature was full of remarkable stuff, he had stressed, and it had the capacity to provide endless surprises. Even when it hadn’t been fiddled around with by man. No, it hadn’t been a flight of fancy, and there was every reason to believe that everything Stuart had said was true. Just because something was implausible didn’t mean it was impossible. And neither was it preposterous to seek safety in an improbable destination, which was no more than Stuart and his friend had been doing when their boat came to grief. Alex just had to accept that there was a menace out there, just as it had been described, and that the only sensible course of action was that being taken by Captain José. There was no other option.

  It was this very point that Roy made at breakfast. Alex and Debbie had sat with him for this first meal of the day, and all three of them had confessed to having had a great deal of difficulty in believing with absolute certainty what they’d been told, but at the same time they had all accepted that they had to. However improbable, the existence of a planet-sized cloud of lethal spores was the best theory in town, and they all needed to take this as read.

  This, it transpired, was not an exceptional conclusion. When they gathered with all the other passengers and many of the crew for the captain’s promised briefing at ten o’clock, the atmosphere in the lounge was one of welcome calm. And it was calm because there was clearly an overwhelming acceptance of what was going on and what needed to be done. If there were any remaining dissenters, they were probably very few in number and they were definitely keeping a low profile. Alex was pretty sure that they wouldn’t be providing any sort of challenge at this meeting, and even if they wanted to, they would have to wait until it was the turn of ‘Any other business’. Yes, all attendees at this lounge powwow had been equipped with an agenda, and after the captain (flanked by Jane and Stuart) had offered a greeting to his audience, proceedings kicked off with agenda point 1. Which was ‘Our new itinerary’.

  This was interesting in itself, thought Alex. It could instead have been something like ‘The threat from spores’ or ‘Questions arising from the distributed intelligence document’. But it wasn’t, and there was no other reference to
the existence of a lethal miasma of spores anywhere else on the agenda. The captain clearly now considered the existence of this threat, and indeed any other aspect of the threat, a closed subject, and he was going to focus entirely on what needed to be done in the face of the threat. Nobody in the room appeared to find this a problem, just as they probably had very little problem in now seeing the captain as their leader and not just as the bloke who drove the ship. Possibly because their situation demanded a leader, and he was the streets-ahead obvious candidate. He certainly had a very clear vision of where he would lead them in geographic terms. As he was now about to set out…

  ‘OK, our itinerary,’ he began. ‘As was indicated yesterday, there are certain research stations – especially on and around the Antarctic Peninsula – that will almost certainly be empty but will still be stocked with provisions. Some of you will no doubt already know this, but it is not uncommon for many research stations to be left unmanned for most of the year, or for years in some cases. But they are generally not left without supplies. Even if only to be used as a back-up by other research stations. And with Stuart’s invaluable input it is these installations that we have now identified, at least four of which we plan to visit. And I’m now going to show you where these four are, and how they will dictate our route over the next few days.’

  At this point, Rosie brought up a map on the two large screens at the front of the lounge, which were normally used to display visual aids during more conventional presentations. The map was of the Antarctic Peninsula with, dotted above it, the islands of the South Shetlands and, above them, a cluster of tiny dots at the centre of which was Elephant Island, home to the Endeavour’s crew for so many months.

  ‘OK,’ continued the captain. ‘At the moment we’re heading towards Elephant Island. That’s the island right at the top of the screen. And because we’re already trying to conserve fuel – which means we’re now going a little more slowly than normal – we won’t be passing Elephant Island until sometime on Thursday. That’s the day after tomorrow. Anyway, we won’t be stopping at Elephant Island. Because there’s nothing there to stop for. And instead we’ll continue on to Deception Island. And that’s the island you should be able to make out at the bottom of the South Shetlands. That’s the string of islands above the peninsula…’