The White Plague by Frank Herbert
The nightmare went on and on, absorbing all of her energies. It was only gradually that she grew aware of a change in their motion. The barge was rocking only slightly now. Kate wiped her mouth on a corner of the blanket and thought she might live. There was a roaring of the tug’s engines beside them and they felt their motion reversing, then a crunch against pilings. The accents of British dock workers could be heard out there.
“Have a care, y’ bloody sod! Precious packet, this one. Get the lorry in closer.”
Once more, the compressor went silent. They felt the chamber being lifted, steadier here. There came the expected thump as they were settled onto a lorry.
Stephen found the microphone and keyed the switch. “Hello, out there.”
There was no answer.
“Do you smell that?” someone outside asked.
“Bloody puke!” someone else said. “Look under the thing!”
The compressor started up then. Someone pounded on the side of the tank. “Hullo, in there! I think you’ve been breached! It’s low down to the end here.” The hammering continued to locate it.
Stephen grabbed up the torch and crawled out of the restricting rope toward the sound. The light was very dim, but he saw what he thought was a dark crack beneath the head of the bed. He looked around frantically for something to cover the place. Pressure was building in the chamber and he heard a faint hissing – vomit being forced out of the crack. His books! He had packed some of them in a box wedged behind the toilet. Grabbing the first book off the top, he began tearing out pages and stuffing them over the crack.
“Get a welder over here!” someone outside shouted.
Another voice called something that Stephen could not make out. Paper and vomit were making a crude patch but, as pressure built up in the chamber, he knew the patch would not hold.
“I don’t care if you have to break his bloody door down!” someone out there shouted. “Get that welder!”
We’ve been breached, Stephen thought. The plague. It happened while the compressor was off. He looked up and met Kate’s staring eyes, shadowed holes in the reflected glare of a spotlight coming through the ports. She held Gilla in her arms.
“You’ve fixed it, haven’t you, Stephen?” she whispered.
“Yes, love.”
“I knew you would.”
Faith, he thought. It resists all reason.
A molecular biologist who dreamed of becoming famous because of a dramatic contribution to the fine chemistry of DNA – that was a thing not considered by this world’s power brokers.
– Jost Hupp
JUST AFTER noon on the fifth day after Kevin O’Donnell took over the Killaloe Facility, John was removed from the basement storeroom where he had been imprisoned. The prison chamber was one of three dark, stone-walled rooms beneath the old castle tower, a noisome place with slime on the walls and a damp floor. The barred windows on the three identical doors suggested this had been the castle’s original dungeon keep. Doheny had been kept for a time in one of the other rooms, but he had been removed earlier. The priest and the boy occupied the third cell. The overhead joists of the outer chamber dripped with cobwebs. The wall opposite the three prison chambers was piled high with a jumble of old discards: broken sofas, warped tables, rusty electric lamps, a gas stove with three legs, odd lengths of iron pipe, an automobile wheel with flaps of rubber clinging to its rim. A rotted stack of planking lay piled against a corner.
Two uniformed guards came for John. He did not know their names, but they were the ones who had brought meals to the prisoners. John thought of them as Slim and Baldy. They told him to strip and, when he obeyed, they kicked his clothes into a corner and handed him a clean-room smock from the Facility. It was more gray than white. He was allowed to keep only his shoes.
It was a cold gray day and a wind blowing when they escorted him into the castle courtyard. He shivered under the thin smock. A thick cloud cover made the courtyard a gloomy place. Through the arched gateway to the lakefront he saw the wind whipping a froth on the water. The wind wrapped the inadequate smock around his shanks.
“Where are you taking me?” John asked.
Slim said: “Shut up, prisoner.”
The castle proper lifted a stark monolithic shape in the gray light, with a few spots of yellow in the narrow windows to indicate where lamps had been turned on against the darkness. There were streaks of white blossoms on the window ledges, though, and the air smelled clean after the rotted odors of the dungeon.
Slim and Baldy kept firm grips on his upper arms as they hurried him across the courtyard into the administration wing, then down a yellow corridor and up the stairs to the castle library.
Every light in the library had been turned on. The crystal chandeliers danced with brilliants. Spotlight sconces focused on a raised platform that had been built near the fireplace out of plywood nailed to heavy timbers. A trestle table had been placed on the plywood and leather armchairs set up behind it. Kevin O’Donnell and Joseph Herity occupied two of the chairs. Father Michael sat at the end of the table, the boy standing beside him. Fintan Craig Doheny stood in front of the table, his back to John. Six chairs had been arranged at one side in what looked like a jury box. A dock fashioned of water pipes had been bolted to the floor near Doheny. John’s guards manacled him to this stanchion before retiring two paces.
John stared around the room. There were people standing packed in the library stacks peering out at him. He recognized Adrian Peard in his lovat green tweeds in the forefront. Peard would not meet John’s gaze.
Doheny and Kevin O’Donnell were conversing in low voices when John entered. They paid no attention to the prisoner’s arrival but went on with their conversation. Herity was sipping from an open bottle of whiskey. Several folders of papers lay loosely on the table between Kevin and Herity. A large pasteboard box sat on the chair to Kevin’s right.
John found himself enduring chiaroscuro shifts of mood as he awaited whatever ritual they had prepared for him here. The scene was at once ludicrous and moving in the trappings it borrowed from deadly courtroom games.
Father Michael stared fixedly at the table in front of him, not moving when the boy nudged him at John’s entrance. The boy stared at John with an unreadable expression.
John directed a thought at O’Neill-Within: They mean to kill me because they think I’m you.
O’Neill-Within did not respond.
Kevin suddenly raised his voice: “The boy is a witness and he’ll speak his piece when I say!”
The boy turned his head and looked at Kevin. In a high voice on the edge of hysteria, he screamed: “You’re a shit! Your mother thought she was having a baby! She had shit instead!”
Nervous laughter sounded from the stacks. Kevin merely smiled. “Let him be,” he said. “We know he has a full line of talk and most of it taken from the gutter.”
Herity tipped up his whiskey bottle and took a long swallow from it. He placed the bottle carefully on the table in front of him and stared at it. The bottle was almost half empty.
Father Michael looked up at Kevin and Herity. “You’re evil men. An oath means nothing to you – your own or another’s. I ask you, Joseph, when you knew they had the fingerprints and dental charts in America, why did you threaten this boy and force me to break the seal of the confessional? Why?”
“I did it to make the boy talk, not you,” Herity said. “No one should go through life like a silent ghost!”
“I pronounce you anathema,” Father Michael said, his voice low. “You are cursed through all eternity, Joseph Herity, and you, Kevin O’Donnell. I give you the burden of your terrible sin and may it grow heavier with every breath you take.”
“Your curse means nothing to us,” Herity said. He took another pull from his bottle.
A hint of nervousness in his voice, Kevin said: “Life and death are in our hands, not yours!”
Father Michael looked at John: “Forgive me, John, I beg it of you. They would torture this
Turmoil gripped John’s breast. Seal of the confessional? How could that be important? Perspiration poured down his brows, burned his eyes.
Kevin O’Donnell grinned and opened the box on the chair beside him. He lifted a large sealed jar from it and placed it on the table beside him. John stared at the bottle. It was rilled with amber liquid and there was something floating in the liquid. O’Donnell turned the bottle slightly and John saw a face there.
It was a head!
The eyes were closed but the lips were slightly parted. John thought he recognized the third horseman who had arrived with Herity and Kevin.
“Meet Alex Coleman,” Kevin said. “Pickled in whiskey at last and that his dream of paradise, I’m sure.” Kevin focused a wide-eyed stare on John, motioning for Doheny to stand aside. “This was the traitor whose warning let Fin here spirit away from us the pride of Ireland.”
Doheny said: “Kevin, you –”
“Don’t interrupt! You’re here under sufferance and only so long as you live up to our agreement!”
Six men came out from the stacks then at Kevin’s signal and took seats in the row of chairs, seating themselves with a noisy scraping of the wooden legs on the floor, coughs and low-voiced comments.
Kevin rapped once on the table with a small block of wood. He lifted the wood.
“I have in my hand a bit of the roof timber from Cashell. It is a token that Irish Law prevails here.” He lowered the wood gently to the table. “We have ridden here on horseback as did the kings of old, it being the mark of a conqueror. The Brehon Law will be restored.” He glanced once around the room. “Is there another O’Neill present?”
No one moved.
“The prisoner’s family has deserted him,” Kevin said. “The prisoner stands alone.” He tapped the bottle beside him. “But the triumvirate is present and the trial will proceed.” Kevin let his gaze wander over the others in the room, settling at last on Herity. “It’s time, Joseph.”
Herity put his bottle aside gently and lifted a sheet of paper from the stack on the table. He read from it, glancing occasionally at John.
“We say first that you, prisoner, are John Roe O’Neill. We say you are the author of the plague which has outraged our poor land and much of the world besides, making an exception for the British and the heathens to whom it was a just punishment. We say you had no cause to harm us in this cowardly fashion. And how do you plead, John Roe O’Neill?”
John stared at the head in the bottle. It was speaking to him in the voice of O’Neill! “What was my crime?” it asked. “I was wronged. That priest knows! I was grievously wronged.”
Who can deny that? John thought.
“What did I ever do,” the head asked, “that those terrorist killers whom the Irish tolerated and openly abetted – what had I ever done to deserve the callous murder of my family?”
“It was a terrible provocation,” John whispered.
“Is the prisoner speaking?” Kevin asked.
John did not hear him. The head was speaking: “It’s the Irish who should be on trial here! They’re the ones who fed the disease of terrorism!”
John nodded silently.
Father Michael glanced sidelong at John, wondering at the sudden odd stillness in the man, as though he had locked himself into some secret place where no sound could penetrate.
Doheny turned then and looked full at John. Sic semper Irish honor, Doheny thought. What will this poor Madman think when he learns that I’m his prosecutor?
What a price to pay!
But Kevin O’Donnell would surely destroy this lab if his orders were not obeyed. Even Adrian Peard would suffer, damn him! But they had to continue with what the Madman had given them. A cure for the plague, that was the only priority. Ireland might yet do it alone!
Kevin glanced at Father Michael. “Have you an opening statement, Priest?”
Father Michael coughed and lifted his attention to John. “Whatever the Madman did, it’s plain there was no malice in him before he suffered outrage.”
“We will refer to the prisoner as O’Neill!” Kevin said.
Herity smiled slyly and took another swallow from his bottle.
Father Michael said: “Even malice is not the word to describe his intentions. O’Neill appears to have been motivated by blind rage rather than any other emotion. He wanted to strike insanely in the vicinity of those who had destroyed his world. We must admit his aim, in this respect, was accurate – not totally, but perhaps sufficiently so for his mad rage.”
John rattled his manacles against the pipe, staring at the head in the bottle. The head remained silent. Why wouldn’t O’Neill come to his defense?
“I do not argue that O’Neill acted from any principle,” Father Michael said. “I presume he knew full well who was responsible for his act and for the outrage which was committed against him. If there was any faith involved it was only his faith in his ability to strike us down.”
Father Michael stood and turned to look at the jurors. The boy stepped back a pace.
“Passion there was and no doubt of that!” Father Michael thundered. “Passion against the authors of his agony! Against us!” He lowered his voice to a gentle monotone. “He has given us passion as well. What will we do with it?”
Father Michael returned his attention to Kevin. “If it’s revenge we’re after, then let us call it by its rightful name. If we are to ignore the holy injunction against passing judgment, then let us judge with revenge in mind and thereby expose ourselves to the consequences.”
Herity sneered: “Judge not lest ye be judged.”
“Let him speak,” Kevin said. “I have promised that we will suppress no line of defense.”
“Yes!” Father Michael said. “We swore a holy oath on the sacred honor of Ireland! Truth and justice, that is what we swore by Almighty God to uphold.”
“Almighty God,” Herity said. He took another pull from his bottle.
“Joseph Herity reminds us,” Father Michael said, “of the holy warning. Christ intended it to be the thorn in our side. It raises the terrible question: Who judges? Dare we pass judgment on the judges? If we say that only men can be judges, we deny God. Do we deny God?”
“I do!” Herity said.
“Shush, Joseph,” Kevin said. “Let him rant.”
Father Michael sent a burning stare around the room. “We were civilized in Ireland when the rest of the world was a pagan mudhole. Let us act like civilized men.” He directed his stare at Doheny, who stood in front of the table with a glowering look of displeasure.
“If we make any pretense at being a court of Irish Law, as Judge Kevin O’Donnell says, then let us have no hypocrisy in our court. Let us not soothe ourselves with illusions. Let us not pretend we are the purely good and this poor Madman… Mister O’Neill, is purely evil. That is the issue which our oath forces us to address.”
“Must we?” Herity asked.
“We must!” Father Michael shouted. “What is this man charged with?”
“Charged with?” Herity repeated in mock solemnity. “He’s only charged with destroying the flower of Irish beauty.”
“He was certainly insane at the moment!” Father Michael said.
“Moment?” Herity demanded. “Surely it took more than a moment!” He glanced at Peard, who stood now just out of the stacks. “Have you anything to say to that, Doctor Adrian Peard?”
“He’s behaved sanely every time I’ve seen him,” Peard said. “And I’ve watched him carefully ever since being alerted that he was O’Neill.”
“And what has he done here?” Father Michael asked.
“Pretended to show us how the plague was created,” Peard said.
“For the love of heaven, man!” Father Michael protested. “He’s revealed everything we need for us to find a cure.”
“I see no cure,” Peard said. “I think we’ll find one, but not becaus
“Ahhhhhh.” Father Michael nodded. “And the cure will be the work of Adrian Peard. Oh, I see it now.” He looked at Doheny, who refused to meet his gaze. Father Michael turned once more to look at the jurors, thinking they were a motley lot, giving every appearance of boredom. Had they already consulted with Kevin and Joseph and arrived at a verdict? Was this trial only a sham?
“The ultimate conflict is between good and good, not between good and evil, is that our contention?” Father Michael asked. “I say to you that in this room, we are exposing the conflict between evil and evil. Does evil have the right to judge evil? You may ask: ‘Who could know it better?’ But I warn you to face this with clear heads and a full understanding of the admission you make when you judge!”
Father Michael returned to his chair and sat down. The boy came back to his side.
John stared at the head in the bottle. Would the head speak? That head was the true judge in this room. John held this thought close to him, warming himself on it.
Kevin looked at Doheny and nodded, finding a restorative amusement in the thought of how Doheny had been forced into assuming the role of prosecutor. How that must gall the man!
Doheny noted the quickening of interest on the faces of the jurors. Judgment was a foregone conclusion, as Kevin had made clear by his private instructions to those men chosen from among his own forces. But the taste for tragic spectacle had not vanished from Ireland, Doheny thought. The attraction of the capital trial could not be denied. We throng to the spectacle of agony and the course of death. We throng to Golgotha. He girded himself with this thought as he prepared to speak.
My task is a simple one, Doheny thought. I must merely give them sufficient words of justification before they announce the judgment.
In his most reasonable voice, Doheny addressed the jurors. “I have no desire to humiliate O’Neill. I agree that he could only have been mad when he did this thing. But that is no excuse. Granted that insanity has been lodged as excuse for other heinous crimes, this goes beyond anything in our history. It ranks only with the crucifixion.”