Invasion

were tree trunks. The deck was rough-hewn planks of pine.

'We bought this place mostly for the fishing,' Jesse explained. 'Annie was the fisherman, not me. After she passed on I couldn't get myself to sell it. Not that I come here that often, especially over the last couple of years.'

Jesse wrestled open the front door, and everybody went inside. It smelled mildly musty. The interior was dominated by a huge fieldstone fireplace that went all the way to the peak of the cathedral ceiling. There was a galleylike kitchen to the right, with a hand pump over a soapstone sink. To the left were two bedrooms. The door to the bathroom was to the right of the fireplace.

'I think it is charming,' Nancy said.

'Well, it's certainly remote,' Sheila said.

'I can't imagine we could have found a better place,' Cassy said.

'Let's air it out,' Jesse said.

For the next half hour they made the cabin as comfortable as possible. En route from the city they had stopped at a supermarket and loaded up with groceries. The men carried them in from the van and the women put them away.

Jesse insisted on making a fire even though it wasn't cold. 'It'll take the dampness out of the place,' he explained. 'And come evening, you'll be glad it's going. It gets cold here at night, even this time of year.'

Finally they all collapsed on the gingham couches and captain's chairs that were grouped around the fireplace. Pitt was using Jonathan's computer.

'We should be safe here,' Jonathan said. He'd opened a pack of potato chips and was crunching away.

'For a while,' Jesse said. 'No one at the station knew about this place to the best of my knowledge. But we ain't here for a vacation. What are we going to do about what's going on out in the world?'

'How fast can this flu spread to everyone?' Cassy asked.

'How fast?' Sheila questioned. 'I think we've had ample demonstration.'

'With an incubation period of only a few hours,' Pitt said, 'combined with it being a short illness and the infected people wanting to infect others, it spreads like wildfire.' He was typing away on the laptop as he spoke. 'I could do some reasonably accurate modeling if I had some idea of how many of the black discs have landed on Earth. But even with a low-ball, rough estimate, things don't look so good.'

Pitt turned around the computer screen for the others to see. It was a pie graph with a wedge in red. 'This is only after a few days,' he said.

'We're talking about millions and millions of people,' Jesse said.

'Considering both how well the infected work together and their evangelistic attitude, it's going to be billions before too long,' Pitt said.

'What about animals?' Jonathan asked.

Pitt sighed. 'I never gave that much thought,' he said. 'But sure. Any organism that has the virus in its genome.'

'Yeah,' Cassy said pensively. 'Beau must have infected that huge dog of his. I thought it acted weird right from the start.'

'So these aliens take over other organisms' bodies,' Jonathan said.

'Analogous to the way a normal virus takes over individual cells,' Nancy said. 'Remember, that's why Pitt called it a mega-virus.'

Everybody was glad to hear Nancy's voice. She'd been silent for hours.

'Viruses are parasites,' Nancy continued. 'They need a host organism. Alone, they are incapable of doing anything.'

'Damn right they need hosts,' Sheila said. 'Especially this alien breed. There's no way a microscopic virus built those spacecraft.'

'True!' Cassy said. 'This alien virus must have infected some other species somewhere in the universe which had the knowledge, size, and capability of building those discs for them.'

'I wouldn't be too sure,' Nancy said. 'They possibly could have done it themselves. Remember, I suggested that the aliens might be able to package themselves or part of their knowledge into viral form to withstand intergalactic space travel. In that case their normal form could be quite different than viral.

'Eugene, before he disappeared, was hypothesizing that perhaps the alien consciousness could be achieved by a finite number of infected humans working in consonance.'

'You all are getting way ahead of me,' Jesse commented.

'Anyhow,' Jonathan said, 'maybe these aliens control millions of life forms around the galaxy.'

'And now they view humans as a comfortable home in which to live and grow,' Cassy said. 'But why now? What's so special now?'

'I'd guess it is just random,' Pitt said. 'Maybe they've been checking every few million years. They send a single probe to Earth to see what life form has evolved.'

'Awakening the sleeping virus,' Nancy said.

'The virus takes control of that single host,' Sheila said. 'And the host observes the lay of the land, so to speak, and reports back home.'

'Well, if that's what happened,' Jesse said, 'the report must have been mighty good because we're knee- deep in those probes now.'

Cassy nodded. 'It makes sense,' she said. 'And Beau might have been that first host.'

'Possibly,' Sheila said. 'But if this scenario is correct, then it could have been anyone anyplace.'

'Thinking back to everything that has happened,' Cassy said more to Pitt than the others, 'Beau had to have been the first. And you know something? If it hadn't been for Beau we'd be like everyone else out there, completely unaware of what is going on.'

'Or we'd already be one of them,' Jesse said.

These sobering thoughts quieted everyone. For a few minutes the only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the chirping of the birds outside the open windows.

'Hey!' Jonathan said, breaking the silence. 'What are we going to do about it, just sit here?'

'Hell, no!' Pitt said. 'We'll do something. Let's get started fighting back.'

'I agree,' Cassy said. 'It's our responsibility. After all, it's possible that we know more about this calamity right now than anyone else in the world.'

'We need an antibody,' Sheila said. 'An antibody and maybe a vaccine for either the virus or the enabling protein. Or maybe one of the antiviral drugs. Nancy, what do you think?'

'No harm in trying,' she said. 'But we'll need equipment and luck.'

'Of course we'll need equipment,' Sheila said. 'We can set up a lab right here. We'll need tissue cultures, incubators, microscopes, centrifuges. But it's all available. We just have to get it up here.'

'Make a list,' Jesse said. 'I can probably get most of it.'

'I'll have to get into my lab,' Nancy said.

'Me too,' Sheila said. 'We need some of the blood samples from the flu victims. And we have to have the fluid sample from the disc.'

'Let's do an abstract of that report we made for the CDC,' Cassy said, 'and disseminate it.'

'Yeah,' Pitt said, catching on to Cassy's line of thinking. 'We'll put it out on the Internet!'

'Hey, great idea,' Jonathan said.

'Let's start by sending it to all the top virology labs,' Sheila said.

'Absolutely,' Nancy said. 'And the research-oriented pharmaceutical houses. All of those sources can't be infected yet. We're bound to get someone to listen to us.'

'I can set up a network of 'ghosts,' ' Jonathan said. 'Or false Internet links. As long as I keep changing them, nobody will ever be able to trace us.'

For a beat the group regarded each other. They were a bit giddy and at the same time overwhelmed with the enormity and difficulty of what they were about to undertake. Each had their own assessment of the chances of success, but no matter what the appraisal was, they were all in agreement they had to do something. At that point doing nothing would have been psychologically more difficult.

The sun had just set when Nancy, Sheila, and Jesse trooped out to the van and climbed in. Cassy, Jonathan, and Pitt stood on the porch, waved, and told them to be careful.