The enormity of what he was doing almost overwhelmed him. Staring through the microscope, he gazed upon a world of smallpox that had never been seen before— except by its creator, Karl Bauer. In his Hawaii laboratory, the Swiss scientist had managed to take the variola virus and reengineer it so that it tripled in size. He was then able to open it up so that it would be receptive to even further growth. But Bauer had been constrained by earth’s gravity; Reed was not.
The genesis of Bauer’s work could be traced back to one of the first shuttle missions. Astronauts had discovered a two-day-old bag of sandwiches that they had forgotten to eat. The food was stored in a sealed plastic bag that was floating like a beach ball. Opening the bag, the crew thought the sandwiches would be fine— until one member pointed out that the only way the bag could float was because the bacteria in the food had produced enough gas to make the bag puff up.
This impromptu observation gave scientists incontrovertible proof that bacteria grow faster and bigger in a microgravity environment.
When Karl Bauer read the NASA report on the phenomenon, he immediately concluded that what was true for bacteria might also apply to viruses. The initial research proved heady, but hampered by gravity, Bauer was unable to reach a definitive conclusion. Years would pass until he found Reed and a way to conduct the final experiments in space.
Now what Reed observed was a variola ten times as large and potent as anything on earth. Its protein bubbles, which on earth would burst at a certain size, retained their integrity and lethal capacity. As a battlefield weapon, this strain would have no equal. Reed shuddered when he imagined how quickly entire populations would be decimated if this variant was released through an air-burst bomb. The variola would speed its way from the respiratory tract to the lymph nodes, then spread to the spleen, bone marrow, and other lymphatic organs. Eventually it would make its way to the small blood vessels in the skin. With a normal strain of smallpox, such a process would take five to ten days. Reed estimated that the incubation and infection period would now be measured in minutes. The body would simply have no chance to rally any defense.
Reed withdrew his hands from the Glovebox, wiped them, and took a moment to compose himself. Then he activated his throat mike.
“Hey, folks. I’m just about done here. Is it dinnertime yet?”
“We were just about to call you,” Stone replied. “Everyone’s ordered steak and eggs.”
Reed managed to laugh. “Wait until you see what it looks like.” He paused. “I’d like everybody in the mess so I can go over the schedule.”
“Roger that. We’ll save you some of that steak. See you in a little while.”
Reed closed his eyes and willed himself to stay calm. He switched off his mike but not his earpiece. He did not want to hear the next sounds the crew would make. They would be nothing human. But to gauge how fast the variola acted, he had no choice but to listen.
Returning to the Biorack, he once again donned the rubber gloves and carefully filled the small tube with the altered variola. Securing the tube, he removed it from the Glovebox through a small air lock and placed it in the freezer.
Using the footholds, he moved to the back of the lab and opened a locker. Inside was a fully contained extravehicular mobility unit, or EMU, the suit used on space walks. After slipping inside it, Reed was reaching for his helmet when he caught his reflection in the visor. He hesitated as the faces of his fellow crew members floated in the coated Plexiglas, people he had worked and trained with for months, even years, people whom he genuinely liked. But not enough to show them compassion or mercy.
In that reflection, Reed also saw the faces of his two brothers, killed during a terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, and that of his sister, a Peace Corps volunteer, abducted, tortured and finally murdered in the Sudan. What Reed was doing was not for the greater glory of science, and certainly not for public recognition or acclaim. This new strain would never see the light of day— unless circumstances dictated that it be unleashed. General Richardson and Anthony Price were the kind of men who did not tolerate the kind of losses Reed had suffered. To them, payback wasn’t just a few cruise missiles lobbed into some tents or bunkers, but a swift and total devastation by an invisible, unstoppable army. By helping build this army, Reed believed he was laying a marker at the graves of his kin, keeping a promise made long ago that their sacrifices would never be forgotten.
Securing his helmet, Reed made his way back to the Biorack. He plugged his air-supply hose into an independent feed that crew members used during space walks. Calmly and deliberately he broke the seal on the Glovebox. Within seconds, the dried variola particles in the dish began forming spores as tiny as dust particles. Inexorably they found their way to the rent on the Glovebox seals and outside. Reed stared in fascination as spores seemed to hang there. For an instant, he was seized by the irrational thought that they might attack him. Instead, the circulation stream caught them and they swirled like a minuscule comet into the connecting tube linking the Spacelab to the main body of the orbiter.
__________
“Are you coming, Megan?” Carter asked as the two of them completed their report to mission control.
Maneuvering past the sleep stations, Megan called over her shoulder, “Yup. I’m starving.”
At that moment, both crew members heard a squawk over their headsets. “Discovery, this is mission control. We understand you’re looking to break for dinner?”
“That’s affirmative, mission control,” Carter replied.
“Discovery, our instruments show a possible pressure leak in the air lock on the lower deck. Be much obliged if someone could check it out.”
Stone’s voice came over the sets: “Megan, Carter, you’re the closest.”
Carter looked at Megan with puppy-dog eyes. “I’m really hungry!”
Reaching into one of the sleep stations, Megan pulled out a deck of cards from under a strapped-down pillow. She tore away the cellophane, shuffled carefully so that no cards would slip out, and held the deck out to Carter.
“Cut. High card wins.”
Carter rolled his eyes, reached for the deck and turned over a ten. Megan came up with a seven.
Carter laughed and propelled himself toward the food station. “I’ll save you some Oreos!” he called back.
“Sure, thanks.”
“You okay to do it, Megan?” Stone asked.
She sighed. “I’m fine. Just make sure that Carter doesn’t hog the veal cutlets or whatever.”
“Roger that. See you in a bit.”
Megan knew that “a bit” meant at least an hour. Checking out an air lock meant getting into an EMU.
Gripping the handles, she descended the ladder to the lower deck. Tucked behind the cargo and the equipment that the shuttle carried was the air lock. The red light over its door was blinking, indicating a possible malfunction.
“Damn wire is all it is,” Megan muttered and pushed off.
__________
“Watch this.”
Carter tore open a packet of orange juice, held it up, and squeezed out some of the liquid. Forming a rough sphere, the juice floated in front of Carter, who pierced it with a straw and began to sip. In seconds, the solid that was a liquid had disappeared.
“Very nice,” Stone said. “You can come do magic tricks at my kid’s next birthday.”
“Uh-oh, the sauce is loose,” Randall Wallace called out.
Stone turned to find that while he had been talking to Carter, the shrimp-cocktail sauce had lost contact with his spoon. He picked up a tortilla and made a swiping motion to catch it.
“Wonder what’s keeping Dylan,” Carter said through a mouthful of chicken with gravy, which he was eating out of a plastic baggie.
“Dylan, do you copy?” Stone said into his mike.
There was no reply.
“Probably in the can,” Carter said. “He has this thing for barbecue beans. Maybe he smuggled some on board.”
Beans, along with broccoli and mushrooms, were never on the shuttle menus. Excess gas was much more painful in space, and flight physicians still weren’t sure how gases behaved in microgravity.
Carter coughed.
“You’re eating too fast,” Stone chided him.
Carter’s reply was drowned out by a fit of hacking.
“Hey, maybe he’s choking on something,” Wallace said.
As Stone moved toward him, Carter suddenly grabbed the pilot by the shoulders. Another paroxysm swept through him and he vomited blood up into the air in front of him.
“What the hell!” Stone cried.
His words were cut off as he clutched his chest and began to claw at his jumpsuit. His body felt like it was burning up. When he wiped his face, the back of his hand came away all bloody.