Then there was the wind, whipping up the water into seemingly impenetrable walls before him. As the waves crashed over his head they forced him lower, slowing his progress and making it impossible to see where he was going. The wind also clawed at the canopy of the raft, dragging it sideways, pulling it away from their destination. Every gust made his payload three times heavier.

The pounding rain was, ironically, just a minor inconvenience. In the fizzing spray of the loch it made little difference to his already glacial progress.

Ewan was swimming behind the raft, pushing it along between strokes. He was in better physical shape than Jake, but his legs had already given up much of their reserves while carrying the two bodies down from the base.

Despite the harsh conditions Jake never considered stopping, not even for a second. Lucya had come to save him. She had brought him the magical medication that had freed him from the grip of the virus. Now she was injured because of her efforts to help him, and he had to get her back to the ship. No matter how his whole body ached, no matter how much his agonised muscles screamed at him to stop, to just give up and sink, he powered on. He would rather die trying to save his beloved Lucya, than waste a second more in the sheltered confines of the life raft.

• • •

The breakthrough, when it came, was almost underwhelming. By way of simple observation of the virus as it entered fresh, uninfected blood, the two doctors finally determined the mechanism by which it was destroying the tissue of its victims.

Vardy had been wrong in his initial diagnosis. Very wrong.

He avoided the gaze of Janice Hanson. Exotic diseases were not his speciality, but at the same time, he had spent six months working in the biological warfare lab. He had far more experience of this sort of thing than she did. Yet he had completely misinterpreted the destructive power of the virus.

Janice had seen it straight away. She’d had the benefit of watching it attack a new ‘victim,’ that much was true. Even so, he found it difficult to look her in the eye. Admitting he was wrong was easy. Living with the knowledge of the cost of that mistake was something he was going to have to deal with later.

“So you’re saying it’s not the virus that’s making people sick and killing them?” Mandy asked. She was still in her chair, which Vardy thought odd.

“Yes and no,” Janice said. “It’s the victim’s immune system that’s attacking their own body, but the virus is driving it to do so. It’s like…” She searched for an analogy. “It’s like the virus is a computer hacker. It’s breaking into the killer T cells and reprogramming them. So instead of destroying infected cells, the T cells are killing healthy ones. That’s why we’re seeing such extensive tissue decay.”

“T cells are part of the immune system, right?” Mandy asked.

“Right.”

“And the children’s immune systems are immature. So what, the virus can’t hack into them?”

“Something like that,” Vardy said. He was pacing again, deep in thought. “Immature T cells can still seek and destroy infections, but for some reason the virus isn’t able to control them the same way it does with the adult immune system.”

“Why would a virus do something that destroys its own host organism? I thought their whole purpose was to spread as far and as fast as possible. This one paralyses its host, then kills it. Its actions prevent the host coming into contact with more potential hosts. That doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re right, Mandy, it doesn’t,” Vardy agreed. “But who said it has to make sense? This is a brand new virus, remember. A mutation. It’s probably an evolutionary dead-end. If it succeeds in wiping out all life on the ship and the Ambush, it will also succeed in wiping itself from existence. We just happened to be around at the start of this branch in its evolution.”

“Wrong place at the wrong time, huh?” Mandy said.

“Exactly.”

“I guess that means if nobody had found Maryse Wernström, the virus would have died with her? None of this would have happened?”

“Maybe, but don’t forget the girl: Erica. She had been visiting her. She’d already spread the virus before Maryse died.”

“The kids don’t suffer, but they can still be carriers?” Mandy asked, confused. “I thought the virus died when it entered the children’s blood streams?”

“It does,” Janice agreed, “but not immediately. From the look of these tests we’re running on their blood, I’d say the kids are contagious, but for less than an hour. If the virus can’t attach itself to the T cells by then, it dies.”

“This is all very well,” Vardy said, stopping suddenly in front of the two women. “What we really need to work out is how we can use this knowledge to stop the virus.”

“I thought that was obvious?” Janice said, surprised.

“It is?”

“Of course it is. Like I just said, if the virus can’t attach itself to the T cells within a short time frame, it dies. It feeds off the T cells, or more likely off the damage they cause. Either way, doesn’t matter. The point is if we can stop it attaching itself to T cells, it can’t survive in the body.”

Vardy was beginning to see it. The excitement in the room was rising once again. “Immunosuppressive drugs!” he exclaimed.

Janice smiled. “Finally, he gets it,” she said.

“Immune system inhibitors?” Mandy asked.

“Of course,” Janice said. “Stop the T cells from doing their job, and they won’t be able to feed the virus.”

“Isn’t there a risk of massive side effects? If we pump everyone full of immunosuppressives, aren’t we running the risk of other illnesses running rampant?”

“No!” Vardy said. He was pacing again, but not out of frustration this time, more out of excitement at seeing a way forward. “It’s not like treating transplant patients where we give them a course of drugs to stop their bodies rejecting a new organ. We only need to give people one dose, perhaps two. We only have to pause the immune system, not stop it indefinitely. Just long enough that the virus dies.”

“Precisely,” Janice said. “Of course, we’ll have to try and treat everyone together. We need enough drugs to administer them to every person on board this ship and the submarine at the same time over, say, a twenty-four-hour period? To be sure to wipe it out.”

Vardy nodded his agreement.

“And where are we going to get thousands of doses of immunosuppressives?” Mandy asked.

“We have to hope to high heaven that someone on board this cruise ship has had transplant surgery. If we can find a few doses, I’m hoping Surgeon Lieutenant Vardy’s machine here can fabricate more?”

“That it can,” Vardy said, but his face had fallen. The temporary excitement had gone. “Just not in the quantities and timescale we need them. By the time it’s made enough, we’ll have many more fatalities on our hands.”

“I think I can help you with that,” said a voice from the door. “Back in your base there are at least three more of your magic machines.”

Vardy, Janice, and Mandy all looked around. None of them had seen Jake walk into the room. He looked like death; his face was as white as a sheet. Before any of them could speak, he collapsed onto the floor.

Twenty-Eight

“JAKE!”

JANICE AND Vardy rushed to the fallen captain.

“He’s hit his head hard,” Vardy said, examining him carefully. “He may be concussed. We need to move him, but with caution. Mandy, can you go and get a trolley from deck eight?”

Janice looked up at Vardy, wide-eyed.

“What?” he asked.

“Mandy is obviously paralysed, Russell. For a doctor, you’re not very observant, are you?”

Vardy stood slowly and turned to the nurse.