Part 27 (1/2)

He wanted to scream with exhilaration. It had been a short but wild ride. He clambered over the side of the helicopter with a little help from a crewman as he was winched on board.

He looked down. The helicopter was hovering well clear of the fog. Being careful. Just as well, he thought. If you knew what was roaming around in there, though, you'd be a lot higher still.

Ten or twenty minutes later, they were leaving the fog-covered towns.h.i.+p of Orewa behind them, soaring high above the mist on the black blades of the chopper.

Crowe was leaning forward, busy on the radio, asking questions, and answering them as well. Their faceplates were open and the fresh air tasted great.

Crowe sat back after a few moments and his eyes were grim. Tane had heard why. Four of his men had disappeared when the mist had rolled in from the north.

”What about Xena?” he asked Fatboy.

”We'll go back for her later,” he said carefully. ”When the fog has cleared.”

Tane wasn't sure if that was likely to happen or not, but he let it go. He didn't want to upset Rebecca any further.

She had been silent since they had been s.n.a.t.c.hed off the rooftop, thinking, wordlessly working away inside her own mind. She looked up now, though, and said suddenly, ”I know what they are.”

All eyes were on her.

”I bought into the idea of bacterial cl.u.s.ters”-she was looking directly at Crowe-”of giant pathogens, because we didn't have any other ideas. But that didn't explain, that couldn't explain, the snowmen.”

She paused, thinking, and Crowe took the opportunity to interject, ”It's the best guess we've got. Until some more reasonable explanation is found. And I mean reasonable, not some fantastical story about-”

Rebecca was staring at him now, frowning, a look of realization slowly dawning on her face.

”You know, don't you? You don't want to admit it, but you know too.”

Crowe interrupted, ”I don't know what you're-”

”The moment that Tane said 'shape recognition.' That's when you realized. You couldn't not not have known. You're an immunologist. Heck, I'm just a fourteen-year-old kid, so it took me a little longer to work it out, but you must have known straightaway.” have known. You're an immunologist. Heck, I'm just a fourteen-year-old kid, so it took me a little longer to work it out, but you must have known straightaway.”

Southwell seemed shocked. ”Rebecca, are you saying what I think you're saying? My G.o.d, you'd better be wrong.”

”They are bacterial cl.u.s.ters,” Crowe insisted.

”They're not! And you know they're not.” Rebecca was thinking furiously now. ”The strange Y-shaped jellyfish. Those...things...in the fog. It's so obvious. You do know. I know you know.”

”What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?” Tane shouted. ”What are they? What are the jellyfish if they're not bacterial cl.u.s.ters?”

Rebecca spoke distinctly, as the rotor blades of the helicopter changed pitch in preparation for landing.

”Antibodies,” she said.

IMMUNITY Manderson lowered his eyes and smiled quietly to himself. Crowe just sighed tiredly. Only Lucy Southwell looked kindly at Rebecca and said, ”You know that's impossible, don't you?” smiled quietly to himself. Crowe just sighed tiredly. Only Lucy Southwell looked kindly at Rebecca and said, ”You know that's impossible, don't you?”

Manderson looked up with a bemused expression and said, ”I suppose that would make the big ones, the snowmen, phagocytes of some kind.”

”Macrophages,” Rebecca said firmly. ”Mother Nature's immune system. Now triggered by Dr. Vicky Green. Against the human race.”

Southwell put a hand on her arm. ”Rebecca, it's an imaginative idea but just not very likely. Antibodies are simple proteins. They're microscopic.”

”I never said they were human antibodies,” Rebecca said, and wouldn't say anything else until the helicopter had landed on the lined green surface of the main playing field at the North Harbor Sports Stadium in Albany.

The Command and Control Center was set up in a sponsors' lounge on the fourth floor of the stadium. Through huge plate-gla.s.s windows, the green rectangle of the rugby ground was now home to a number of helicopters and row upon row of armored fighting vehicles, preparing for battle.

Tane, Rebecca, and Fatboy were waiting to leave. Their transportation was coming up from the central city. All vehicles here apparently were already hard at work, transporting troops and equipment to build the defensive line.

”They are antibodies,” Rebecca finally spoke again, in a small but determined voice. ”Antibodies and macrophages. Accept it. You have to. You can't defeat what you can't understand.”

Crowe glanced momentarily up from a detailed topographical map of the surrounding area that he and a gray-haired officer from the SAS had been poring over for about fifteen minutes, discussing something called kill zones, along with fields of fire and ”claymores.”

Crowe said without any further trace of humor, ”Rebecca, even if that were possible, think about what you're saying. That would make us-human beings-pathogens. Antibodies attack pathogens.”

”I know,” Rebecca said softly.

Crowe shook his head and turned back to his work. An SAS trooper entered, saluted, and pa.s.sed a note to the SAS officer.

Rebecca said, ”We think of the Earth as a lump of rock, floating through s.p.a.ce. Just a big stone, conveniently placed in a nice warm spot for us to grow on, like mold on cheese. But that's just a way of thinking about it. What if we thought of this planet in a different way. As a complex web of interrelated ecosystems, host to billions upon billions of smaller organisms.” She paused. ”Not all that unlike the human body when you think about it.”

Crowe ignored her, sketching in a line of defendable positions on the map.

Manderson just sat quietly in the corner. Of all of them, only he seemed unfazed by what they had just been through.

A young soldier in the uniform of the regular New Zealand army came in with a stack of orders, which Crowe checked and the other man signed.

Through the window, Tane saw the first line of fighting vehicles began to move out.

Rebecca stood up and crossed to the map table. She leaned over it, her hands on the table, interrupting their work.

”You know what global warming is?” Rebecca asked calmly. ”I do. The world has a fever. We are pathogens. Mother Nature is sick and the sickness is us!”

Crowe looked up at her through half-closed lids. Almost a display of emotion, Tane thought.

”I lost four men today,” he said slowly. ”I am not in the mood, and I don't have the time for your childish environmental fantasies. Get her out of here.”

This last was to Manderson, who rose without question and moved behind Rebecca.