Photo of model by engin akyurt.
Leo Roomets pic.
He drew Mari’s spine into a gently erect posture, and asked ‘What can we do for you, my dear?’
Bartgrinn always calls me that, Nerida reflected. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m sure that our readers will be curious to hear your opinions about the sickness that’s got everybody talking—and some people suffering greatly.’
He took his time to answer and spoke in a measured tone. ‘Well, it is not like when we talked before about ‘The planet shaking these irritations off—‘ like the humans. It’s not like an earthquake or a volcanic eruption or a flood.’
Nerida murmured encouragement, concentrating.
‘This is different,’ he said.
‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘Vicious plan!’ He hissed.
‘Hmm,’ said Nerida, breathing deeply to stay calm. This was not what she had expected to hear. She put her pen down.
Bartgrinn gave a small sigh, and there was a long pause. He spoke slowly, each word carefully chosen. ‘It was an act of deliberation. And it was done by a force that most humans on the planet would think, ‘They’re not capable of doing so.’’
He paused, as those spirits did when they were ‘looking’. Nerida knew enough to hold her tongue, even if she was reeling inside with the idea that the virus could be a product of biological warfare.
He continued, ‘Very poor.’ He sighed. ‘Very poor. No, what you call, no resources. The resources that should not be taken out anyway, even if you have them. But they don’t have any, even if they wanted them.’
Nerida tried to figure this riddle out. ‘You mean like weapons?’
‘Resources in the ground,’ he clarified. ‘It’s a place where they don’t have them. Poor. It’s been considered poor by the rest of the world. They were a bit like, ‘We’re going to teach them.’’
Photo by Katerina Pavlyuchkova.
He looked further into it. After a small, sharp exhalation, he commented, ‘There was a bit of a miscalculation.
‘It should have been slower. Slower and—‘ he sighed again ‘—more dangerous. This was not how it was intended to go. This was supposed to be a small test.’
‘Hmm?’ queried Nerida, feeling as though she was in a spy movie.
‘And then they thought, because it worked so quickly, they would try and see if it worked at the same speed in other areas with different climates. They were delighted. They still feel very smart and clever because they think ’No one will ever know.’ And if others find out it will be like ‘We’re all such poor people. We would not have the potential to do such things.’’
‘Hmm,’ said Nerida. There was something in Bartgrinn’s energy that made the rage these ideas should provoke seem safely distant. Perhaps it was his calm approach. She had to keep listening.
‘It will take a while to find it out. There will be a bit of a blame game happening, with the big ones trying to blame each other. Once it’s discovered that it was created, they will be blaming each other.
‘Very, very poor place with a big population, considering the size of the place,’ he finally observed.
‘Okay,’ said Nerida. The scientist in her was fascinated. ‘What was the motivation for using this weapon?’
‘To show others how it’s gonna feel to have nothing.’
‘Whoa. And they intended to kill thousands or millions of people?’ she asked, beginning to process the enormity of what he was saying.
‘If that’s what it takes, yes,’ he said.
Nerida murmured understanding but her hands were shaking.
Bartgrinn went on: ‘It’s a bit like, ‘The rest of the world does not care about us. Why should we care about the rest of the world?’’
‘It’s a kind of terrorist attack then?’ she interjected.
‘They call it: ‘Claiming respect.’’ Bartgrinn said, ignoring her. These spirits can inspect humanity’s darkest places, she thought, horrified.
But she said, ‘Okay.’
Bartgrinn observed a moment more and said dryly, ‘We would suggest that’s the wrong way of doing so.’
He held back, waiting for her to recover, then said, ‘They did not think it could kill people that quickly. It’s a problem for people who have other ailments, you know—‘
‘Yes.’
‘—which is something they don’t really have themselves.’
‘Right.’ Nerida reflected sadly on all the places in the world where people did not live long enough to be troubled by the chronic diseases of middle age. She felt a strong desire to know which government or party was responsible for this heinous crime, but she wanted the spirit to be able to say what he needed to say. She asked, ‘Is that because their population tends to die younger from infectious diseases?’
‘Yes,’ Bartgrinn agreed, pensively. ‘Missing hygiene. Sometimes not enough food. If you don’t have enough water to drink, you don’t think about hygiene.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. As a doctor, she knew about these things.
There was a lull. Bartgrinn made small forceful exhalations. She felt as if he had stepped aside as if consulting with, or listening to, others. Perhaps there was a kind of council of Spirit there, what did she know? The kitchen clock ticked. Eventually, he spoke, ‘They have a small coastline. Small—but there is not much fishing anymore.’
‘Right,’ she said. Fishermen pulling empty nets from the planet’s depleted seas. So, this country is near an area of pollution or over-fishing.
Photo by Raghavendra Saralaya.
Bartgrinn was looking or listening. He sighed again, looked some more. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘It thrives in water.’
She kept quiet to encourage him. Shadows lengthened outside. The light was golden on Mari’s face.
‘It does not survive boiling. So, boiling would make it die quickly—you don’t have to do it for a long time. But it survives freezing.’
‘Yes.’ She thought of the deep snows in South Korea, Canada.
‘It survives being dried,’ he said, then took another breathing space. ‘If it gets in the ground it subsists there. It’s very contagious. If it gets in the dust and the wind blows it, it spreads because it survives the dry.
‘If you have a dog or a cat that goes outside, it stays in their fur. It stays in the feathers of birds if they’re exposed.’
‘Uhuh.’ Nerida imagined a sand storm full of disease and feared for people in its path. She saw images in her mind of people holding their pets and even the innocent birds carrying the deadly virus. She shuddered
‘It does not like saltwater. It does not like radiation, either,’ he continued. ‘It is not very dangerous to most of the people, but it has the potential to evolve over the years. You can develop immunity to it. But it’s a different kind of immunity. It does not stop you from being affected again.’
‘Mhmm.’
‘But it will get milder over time—until it evolves and modifies itself over some years, then you might get the full brunt again.
‘Oh,’ said Nerida, disappointed. She was relieved that there was some immunity conferred. She thought of the hospital now and asked, ‘How about the chemicals we use? You know we have these strong-smelling chemicals to kill germs. Do they help at all?’
‘To some extent,’ he conceded. ‘It does not like alcohol,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘But it needs to be a high concentration. If you use pure alcohol, that will do. That will kill it.’
There’s more to this story: How will Nerida stay safe at work? Is there a remedy? How can she convey this to the world? Or should she keep it secret?
Join our email list for free, exclusive access to the whole short story in the new e-book.
Photo by Manish Chandra.