was from Belfast. Like Belfast the place was crawling with soldiers, but whereas the atmosphere in Belfast had been tense and anxious, here it was much worse. There was an air of despair in Holyhead and, more disturbing, an underlying sense of panic. The soldiers were all acting very nervously, glancing about continually with suspicious eyes. They clutched their guns as if they were magic talismans that could somehow protect them against the fungus. Wilson felt that it wouldn’t take much of a spark to set them off. They’d run amok, shooting at everything.
As Wilson and the others, with their armed escort, moved through the series of cordons, they were regarded with undisguised hostility when the soldiers discovered who they were. It puzzled Wilson at first—he wondered if it was because he was Jane Wilson’s husband—but then he presumed it was because the three of them had come from Ireland which the trapped masses in Holyhead and elsewhere along the coast looked upon as a tantalizingly close but unreachable haven of safety. They resented anyone who could be so crazy as to leave the place and actually come to the mainland.
Even the members of their escort—an MI5 official and two Special Branch men—were cold and unfriendly toward them. Wilson tried pumping them for information about the present situation inland but only received unhelpful monosyllabic answers.
Just by looking around as their vehicle pushed its way through the choked streets Wilson could tell how bad the situation had become. Refugees outnumbered the soldiers ten-to-one. They milled around helplessly, trapped between the approaching fungus and the military lines guarding the seafront.
“Don’t see why you don’t just turn the poor bastards loose and let them take their chances with the French,” said Slocock as they passed by a crowd of refugees trying to push their way through a barricade.
“Because the more people who try and escape by sea, the more likely the Frogs will start dropping neutron bombs on us,” said one of the Special Branch men.
There were groups of refugees all along the road to Bangor and Bangor itself was also packed with people.
At Bangor University they were met by Kimberley’s colleague, Dr. George Helman, a fat, feminine-looking man with a wispy blond mustache and delicate hands. He and Kimberley greeted each other like long-lost friends and Wilson experienced a slight twinge of jealousy as he watched them hug each other. Former lovers, he wondered? It was difficult to imagine Kimberley making love to this bizarre character but perhaps she was the sort of woman who found intelligent men a turn-on. If that was the case then Wilson decided he stood a better chance of getting somewhere with her than Slocock. He’d already noticed a certain antagonism between them.
After showing them their quarters and giving them a half hour to “freshen up,” as Helman put it, he took them into a laboratory where tests were being run on samples of the mutated fungi. Through two layers of thick glass they watched people encased in bulky white suits at work in the sealed-off area.
“Bit risky, isn’t it?” Wilson asked him. “All you need is for one mutated cell to get out and you’ll have brought the plague here as well.”
“Those people you see in there are all volunteers. They never come out. They have a separate living area sealed off from the lab but the whole complex is cut off from the outside world. Nothing comes out of there. Air is recycled, waste products are stored—not a single molecule of anything gets out of there.”
“Still risky, though. What if there’s an accident? A faulty seal? Or someone just makes a stupid human error?”
“We have to take that risk, Dr. Wilson,” said Hehnan. “The only labs where research is being carried out on actual samples of the fungus are all located in this country. No one yet wants to take the chance of importing samples into other countries, for the very reasons you’ve just listed.”
“You still haven’t isolated the cause of the plague?”
“No. But thanks to you we’re now following up a new line of attack.”
Wilson frowned. “Me?”
“Your information about the enzymes. It was passed on to us from Belfast. And to every other lab working on the problem. I’ve no doubt one of us will crack it sooner or later, but “later” is something we just can’t afford. That’s why it’s vital you get your hands on the precise chemical breakdown of the agent.”
“You don’t have to remind me,” said Wilson brusquely. If one more person told him the fate of mankind rested on his shoulders he’d go berserk.
“Has any progress been made in finding ways of killing the stuff?” he asked.
“Oh, killing the fungi is easy,” said Helman. “It’s stopping it from spreading that’s the problem. The army and air force have been dumping all kinds of things on the infected areas—everything from napalm to Agent Orange—and have had a lot of success, but only temporarily.
“When it was clear that London was a write-off they created a mile-wide barrier right around the city. Everything in that zone was razed, burned and sprayed with poison. Planes and helicopters continually sprayed more poison over the area but still the fungi got out.”
“How far has it spread now?” asked Slocock.
“It’s covering most of southern England. It’s reached the coast from Southend all way round to Torquay. Cornwall and parts of Devon are still uninfected but probably not for much longer. Northward it’s as far as Warwick. It’s moving on a curved front that stretches from southern Wales through Hereford and Worcester, Warwick, Northampton, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.
“But there are other, smaller, areas of infection further north. In Derby, Yorkshire. there’s even one in Scotland.”
They were all silent for a time. Then Kimberley said, “What success have you had in treating victims of the fungus?”
“Practically none,” admitted Helman. “Come, I’ll show you.”
He led them into a different room. There the observation panel looked in on a section of the laboratory that contained a number of cages. Things were moving in the cages but Wilson couldn’t tell what they were. They appeared to be shapeless, fuzzy blobs. One of them was simply a cluster of spherical white toadstools that staggered blindly about the cage.
“What are they?” he asked.
“Cats.”
“I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“Each one is infected with a different species of fungi. We’ve tried everything but we can’t kill the fungus without killing the host.”
“What about radiation?” asked Kimberley.
“Yes.” Helman nodded his chubby face. “We have had some good results with that, but the level of radiation needed to kill all of the deep-rooted hyphal strands is inevitably fatal for the host. And even if you could find a safe way of killing the fungi, the infestation leaves the host in a pretty ravaged state. Large sections of skin eaten away, serious damage to the internal organs from the penetrating hyphae, and so on.
“It’s only really in the area of prevention that we’ve had any real success. Megacrine is our star performer.”
He took them into another section. Through the thick glass they saw a middle-aged man wearing jeans and t-shirt, lying on a bed reading. “He’s been exposed to fungi infection for several days but so far there’s been no sign of it in his body,” said Helman.
“He doesn’t look too hot,” observed Slocock sourly.
“Apart from the side effects of the drug he’s also dying of a tumor in the brain. That’s why he volunteered for this.”
“I understand you lost two of your four volunteers who took the drug,” said Wilson.
“Uhhh, yes, but that was before we realized that individual tolerances to it varied greatly. I’m confident we can treat each of you without endangering your lives. However, the side-effects—” he paused and looked inquiringly at Kimberley.
“I’ve told them it won’t be pleasant,” said Kimberley.
“Well, I suppose we’d better get on with it then,” said Helman apologetically.
“How about a bite to eat first?” asked Slocock. “I’m bloody starving.”
Helman looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think food would be a good idea,” he said.
