by Guy N Smith
'Which means that we've suffered a far higher casualty rate,' Caldecott cut in.
'Proportionally.' Reitze did not alter his tone. 'But it will be weeks before any true figure can be arrived at. Communications have now broken down in most areas. Fortunately we still have a direct line to the White House, but they can only supply us with the information that reaches them.'
'What type of germ is it?' Rankine asked. 'What are the long-term effects likely to be?'
'At the moment our laboratory is working the clock round to come up with the answer,' Reitze replied, 'We know that the micro-organisms released into the atmosphere are mutants, possibly the results of years of research and experimentation. They affect the skin, adulterate the pigmentation, cause it to become hard and coarse and promote a hair growth which can only be compared with
the growth-rate of certain subtropical plants, growing as much as an inch in twenty-four hours. The brain is also attacked, reducing it only to basic thinking, the victim relying almost solely on instinct, much the same as an animal, perhaps slightly more advanced, the equivalent of primitive Man.'
'In effect,' Caldecott's voice was hushed, a frightened whisper, 'the majority of the' population of the western world have become . . . throwbacks'.
'That's it, in layman's terms.' The Professor crushed the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray. 'Man has been reduced to a primitive being. Of course, there will be individual reactions, some will be affected worse than others and vice versa. Some will escape for a variety of reasons. Micro-organisms do not have the resilience of radiation in the atmosphere. Filters in fall-out shelters will be more effective against them but unfortunately there was no chance to issue a warning. Germ warfare is far more insidious than nuclear warfare; you can't hear it, smell it or see it, and before you know it, it's got you.'
'Is there ... no chance, whatever, for the victims?' The Prime Minister asked the question which none of his ministers had dared to voice so far. Perhaps it was better not to know, just to hope.
'I can't answer that at this moment in time,' Reitze answered, and for once those eyes behind the rimless lenses flickered uncertainly, perhaps nervously. 'At the moment my team of scientists is trying to isolate the microorganisms. There may be several, but until they are isolated and we know exactly what they are, we don't know if anything can be done. Certainly the atmosphere is now clear. We do not know whether the victims will die in a short period or whether they will live a normal life-span.' 'And the whole world suffers because of Lebanon and Syria.' Rankine spoke bitterly, showed his personal feelings for the first time. 'Damn the Russians, they've threatened us with nuclear war for three decades and it was all a blind. Missile bases and counter missile bases, protests on Greenham Common and a lot of other places, and all the time we never guessed where the real danger lay. Now it's too late. They haven't even had to raze the western world to the ground! They can just walk in and take over whenever they like and we can't do a damned thing to stop 'em.'
Thank you, Professor.' The Prime Minister rose to his feet, brushed flecks of dust from his suit. He still had to maintain the image he had created as the best-dressed man in Britain, according to a recent media poll. He had the job of inspiring hope and confidence however he felt personally. 'We'll let you get on with your work—If there are any significant developments please notify me immediately. In the meantime we have an urgent cabinet meeting upstairs.'
A crisis meeting. Eight government ministers all looking to Caldecott to come up with the answer because that was what he had been elected for. Another Churchill, except that World War II was a skirmish compared to this.
Large-scale wall-maps showed every town, village and hamlet in Britain. Red drawing-pins denoted areas which were known to have suffered heavy casualties. Blue pins showed where there were pockets of survivors trying to maintain law and order, fighting for a return to normality. There were an awful lot of blank spaces awaiting a red or a blue pin.
And the Russians still had not come. They weren't in any hurry, there was no hurry. Next week, next month, next year, it would all be the same.
'Let us take the major cities first.' Caldecott used his wooden pointer, was reminded of those far-off days when he had lectured at Oxford; golden days which would never come again. You were lucky if you were left to indulge in nostalgia. 'London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, the pattern is much the same. Wild mobs are on the rampage, their only interest being food and , . . rape!' He shuddered. The food targets seem to be basically butchers' shops and abattoirs, whole carcasses being lorn apart, the meat devoured raw. Their hunger appeased, the men turn to women, any women with whom to satisfy a carnal desire. The remnants of our law-keeping forces are stretched beyond their limits, outnumbered by thousands to one. Our only hope is to withdraw them totally to a place of safety and plan a definite strategy. We cannot win back the cities at present so we must abandon them.'
Murmurs, not dissent, but horror. Men who were accustomed to facing up to unpleasant truths found themselves backing off.
There are survivors.' Caldecott's voice quavered slightly. "Somehow we must communicate with them, reorganise them if our country is not to be annihilated by mob rule, the law of primitive Man, for our enemy is our own kind, our own people robbed of their minds, reverted to their ancestors by a cruel and unscrupulous foe. Almost every means of communication has now failed.' Don't ask me right now how we are going to reorganise because I don't know. It might be an impossibility. 'At the moment we are waiting upon Professor Reitze and his team of scientists. They are working the clock round to find a way to combat this vile and despicable means of war.'
Silence.
There wasn't anything else left to say, nothing to argue about, a government that was suddenly devoid of politics, their only manifesto one of survival. They could only wait.
Reitze checked through his notes again after the PM and the Defence Minister had left. A hint of a worried frown, his forehead creased and smoothing out, Reitze becoming his old emotionless self again. It wasn't an act, this was how he was, what made him tick. If he died tomorrow he wouldn't know anything about it so what was the use of worrying? Slight concern that perhaps they had overlooked something somewhere, something just too obvious. They would check again. And again. But he had to admit that it was a hopeless task; not conceding defeat, just accepting facts. That was the hardest part of all, admitting that you were beaten.
He lit another Camel, pressed the buzzer on his desk. A few seconds later a sliding door opened and another white-coated scientist entered, A younger man than Reitze, tall and fair-haired, eyes red-rimmed as though he hadn't slept in the last thirty-six hours, just the odd catnap on the couch in the rest-room adjoining the lab.
'Brian,' Reitze looked up, almost smiled but not quite, 'we're gonna name this one the Evolution Bug. I don't reckon we can come up with anything else now. We've just gotta check in case we missed something, but I think we've gone as far as we can go and I'll have to tell them that soon. The ultimate in mutation. If we had lived in the Stone Age that's how we would have been, immune to diseases which would destroy mankind today and these throwbacks are just the same. Immune to anything we can give them because their body cells will resist everything. Evolution is the only answer, civilisation will have to start all over again! In a million years' time they'll be finding skeletons and scratching their heads, wondering how the hell civilisation reached its peak and went back again. I'm wondering whether those who have escaped can survive, even the bastards who started all this. We will be the ones without body resistance, diseases developing which modern medicine has never come across.'
'I see.' Brian Newman nodded. 'As a matter of fact that occurred to me but I kept it to myself.'
'We'll have to do just that. There's no point in panicking everybody and if we're right there's not a goddamn thing you or I or anybody else can do about it. In the meantime we just keep on working, hoping. And if you're a praying man, pray.'
Repo
rts came in slowly over the next few days. The Continent had suffered badly, West Germany, France and Italy in chaos. Switzerland seemed to have fared better than most due to government legislation that all new houses had to be fitted with fall-out shelters. No warning except that strange and terrible things were befalling the French and Italians so the Swiss had dived for cover.
Nothing at all from the eastern-bloc countries. No communications. They might have been wiped out, they might be lurking safely below ground. There was no way of telling. The Kremlin was silent.
Rankine studied the large-scale maps in the operations room. The number of pins was increasing hourly, most of them red ones. The majority of survivors in remote rural parts had no way of contacting the authorities, probably did not even realise that anybody except themselves had survived. They would be fighting their own battles, rabbits living in warrens, isolated pockets of sanity until madness prevailed.
Fires were going unchecked, raging through towns and cities. The injured suffered and died agonising deaths because there was nobody to help them. But there was a pattern of behaviour amongst the new semi-human race. Like rats leaving doomed ships, they fled the built-up areas. Buildings were foreign to their nature, their in-born fear of anything beyond their basic understanding driving them out to the few wild places that remained in Britain.
The first step of a new evolution was beginning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACKIE QUINN followed where the man she knew as Kuz led. Through the night, along a main road, not knowing what it was or why it was there, making detours when they approached a village or hamlet.
In their wake came some twenty or thirty men and women, some of whom had started the journey with them from First Terrace, others they had picked up on the way. From the mists of time civilisation has always bowed to leaders, sought the security of another's decisions. And Kuz was one of those leaders.
They travelled at a fast walking pace, not slowing, not showing any signs of tiredness, and when dawn came they saw the rolling range of hills beyond. Kuz changed direction slightly, heading towards those bracken-covered slopes, and Jackie sensed the eagerness of the others, experienced the feeling herself; that of a traveller returning from a very long journey, weary, but on sighting his home in the distance is at once refreshed, hastening his arrival, that last mile seemingly ten, a mirage that you thought you would never reach.
The hills were home, nobody questioned that as they followed a narrow winding track through the new growth of bracken and heather. The sun climbed higher, beat down on them with a sadistic mercilessness, clouds of black flies swarming, settling on the thick hair of the travellers. Bees hunted relentlessly for pollen, and once a single grouse whirred up from beneath their feet, planed down the long slope and alighted when it thought it was safe.
They were high up now, 1,500 feet at least, below them the long valley with its wide main road littered with crashed and abandoned vehicles, a set of traffic lights that winked red, amber and green reflections in the bright sunlight as though they carried on working in defiance of everything around them. Moving dots signified people, others returning to the wild after a foray into the brick and concrete jungles of an unknown world, not knowing why they had been there in the first place.
Kuz had smelled the stream, then heard the trickling of clear fresh water, tearing his way through a thick barrier of brambles to reach it, throwing himself down full-length on the shallow bank and slurping noisily. The others followed, would have done so whether they were thirsty or not because it was expected of them. Animals at a watering hole, all else forgotten.
Suddenly Kuz sprang to his feet, roared at them, his squat features black with fury. They cowered, understood, whimpered their apologies. Two cut away, walked up a small grassy mound and shaded their eyes in every direction whilst the remainder returned to their interrupted drink. Their leader's message was only too clear: a guard must be mounted at all times so that they were not surprised by a lurking enemy.
Kuz rose and they all rose, shaking the water from themselves, their hair glistening with droplets. Then they were moving on. There was to be no respite.
Once they came upon another bunch of their own kind, the two groups regarding one another suspiciously from a distance of twenty yards. There was no exchange of greetings, just hostile stares and a mute agreement to go their own ways.
The climb was becoming much steeper now, Jackie felt her leg muscles beginning to pull but the idea of resting was dismissed; so long as Kuz kept going so would she. Travelling on all-fours for the last hundred yards or so, grabbing tussocks of coarse grass to pull themselves up by. And then they saw the caves.
The place had once been a human habitation, dwelling places chipped out of the overhanging rock face on the eastern side of the hill, sheltered from the prevailing winds. Lichen and moss grew on the stone, feverfew sprouted from the stony ground. There were a dozen caverns at least, large and small, dark shady places that yawned back into the hillside, cramped spaces by modern standards but roomy enough to live in if you didn't have many possessions.
Kuz had already chosen the largest cave, one on the right set fifteen feet or so from the others. He leaped to his feet, shambled towards it, Jackie still following. None of the others disputed his choice for he was their leader. They squabbled over the other caves, a blow was struck and then they set about preparing their new homes.
Jackie squatted on the floor watching Kuz's every movement with amazement. He was accustomed, obviously, to a nomad existence, clearing the floor space, hurling loose rocks outside. He grunted, pointed to a low shelf at the rear; this was to be their bed. Rest, woman, for the journey has been a tiring one.
He went outside, returned with an armful of dry, dead wood and piled it just inside the entrance. Fire was a good servant but a bad master; Kuz would be the master. Two pieces of what appeared to be stone were rubbed together, sparking; rubbed harder. Within seconds some of the smaller twigs were glowing faintly red. Kuz stooped, puffed his bearded cheeks, blew. The kindling burst into flame, crackled, a thin spiral of smoke beginning to drift upwards, a grey lazy serpent finding the way out into the open, dispersing; smelled sweet.
Kuz grunted his satisfaction, turned to face Jackie. He had done it all before, that was why he was the leader of this hill tribe. She nodded, smiled. She was proud to have him for her man. He would protect her. And far away somewhere in the surrounding woodlands came the baying of wild animals.
Within a matter of a few weeks it seemed to Jackie Quinn as though she had always lived here in this upland settlement. Indeed, her memories of that place with tall, symmetrical, frightening buildings were fading fast. A fevered dream
perhaps; she did not want to think about it any more.
Others drifted in to the encampment, sometimes a group, other times singles or couples. They saw the smoke from the fires and being gregarious came to investigate. None disputed Kuz's leadership; they showed their allegiance together with a willingness to work for the food of the community. And there was plenty of work to be done.
The caves were only temporary residences, ancient homes of a much more primitive race but by no means permanent enough for these newcomers. The first task was to build strong comfortable dwelling-places which would be warm in winter and withstand the blizzards that would surely rip through this exposed range of hills.
Stone was in abundance, landslides which had showered down over the years and only needed sorting. The building began, square houses rising at an incredible speed, the boulders knitted together with clay which the women kneaded in the bed of the nearby stream. Except Jackie. She wanted to help but Kuz forbade it; she was privileged, the chiefs wife, and as such her duties were to supervise the female workforce and to cook her man's food over the wood fire. A woman apart, proud but . . . lonely.
The worst times were when Kuz and the men were away hunting. A few of the younger ones stayed behind to continue with the building but for most of the day her com
pany was female and she sensed the bitter jealousness of the other women, felt their hostile glares, their defiance which they dared not show for fear of their chief's retribution. And the way their eyes sought out Kuz when the hunting party trooped back into camp, enthralled by his powerful figure as they indulged in their individual primitive fantasies. Each and every one would have traded him for their own man, given everything they possessed for the privilege of sharing his hide bed once darkness fell. And only Jackie stood in their way and they hated her for that.
The hunting trips yielded prolific results for there was 'game' in plenty. Farm livestock had reverted to its former wild state, in many cases breaking out through the hedges and seeking their freedom away from the environment of domestic farming. Where the fences were secure the creatures found themselves still imprisoned by wire surrounds, easy prey for the roaming band of men from the upper regions.
Raids on farm outbuildings had yielded an assorted supply of weaponry, from pitchforks to scythe blades, the latter improvised into deadly spears; knives, axes, mallets which were ready-made clubs. Sheep bleated and ran blindly but in the end they were cornered, brutally slaughtered. The carcasses were flayed, the meat cut up for easy transportation; an abundance of food and clothing.
Jackie busied herself during the daytime making clothes for Kuz and herself, sheepskin garments which would keep out the bitter winter cold. The other women fashioned crude pottery out of the surplus building clay, rolling it into long cylindrical shapes and then moulding it and smoothing it; baking it hard. Pots to cook in, beakers to drink from, even plates on which to eat their food. Gradually civilisation was taking shape. Jackie even took to decorating some of these earthenware vessels, making patterns on them with a slim shard of stone.