Koontz, Dean - Soft come the Dragons Read online

  WE invaded Mother China and no one tried to stop us. The government had collapsed six days before, and the Chief of Staff of what remained of the hungry, ragtag Chinese People's Army had requested our immediate assistance. Still, when the destroyer Barbara Dee wallowed to a full stop off the coast of Luichow Peninsula in the South China Sea, every gun was trained on the shore. And every man in those first landing craft unsnapped his holster. After all, we were landing in China! We had been asked to bail them out. And, indirectly, to bail ourselves out too. . . .

  Since the foolproof Nuclear Shields, conventional warfare had evaporated. This did not mean an end to war—just an end to War-as-We-Knew-It. After the pacification of the angry atom: germ warfare. In the forty-one years since the end of the atom-age war threat, both ideological camps had made great advances in this new form of combat. The game went on ...

  The game of killing. As the landing craft surged toward the shore, I thought of my father—my dead father.

  The Chinese were more skilled at virus development, as even the Freeworld Propaganda Bureau reluctantly admitted. Fortunately we led the field in Analysis and Immunization. IBM and Rand had designed the equipment my A&I team used. It was every bit as incredible as the Chinese production capabilities.

  We hoped it wouldn't fail us now.

  What little we knew of the chaos on the Chinese mainland didn't help our spirits any. Dr. Lin Chi's pet secret project had gotten out of hand at Yangchun Laboratories. The staff had perished, even as it fled. Dr. Lin Chi had lived long enough to reach a destruct lever, blasting the labs to rubble. But the disease spread, now claiming victims as far west as Homalin, Burma, and as far east as Shanghai. The Chinese philosophy on A&I had always been: Don't waste money on cures; spend it on weapons. We can afford to lose some people. That was backfiring now.

  In one week, the death toll spiraled toward five million. The Chinese A&I couldn't handle it. On the morning of the twelfth day, eleven million dead, the government fell. On the afternoon of the fifteenth day, the Chief of Staff formally surrendered, then asked for help.

  Open hands. No guns.

  I was the first American to touch foot on conquered China. How to tell what it was like? Not patriotic fervor, certainly. More relief. Relief that, if this disease didn't loll us all, the world was finally united under Russo-American control. War was dead. As dead as Lin Chi. As dead as my father. Disease in China. A DRAGON IN THE LAND OF DRAGONS, as The New fork Times had uncharacteristically blurbed it If we could just get the dragon to eat its own tail . . . Anyway, I stepped onto the slushy sand, my holster still open, and marched up the beach toward the rickety docks of Chankiang.

  The mayor of Chankiang was waiting with a squad of raggedy, mismatched police who were trying desperately to hold a huge crowd at bay. "I am Pin Shukon," he said. He spoke perfect' British English. He was portly, Buddha-like, a little man with a Mandarin moustache greased to single-hair points.

  "I am honored to make your acquaintance," I said, trying to maintain the best possible Chinese tonal form I could.

  "Perhaps we should speak in English," he said.

  "My Chinese—"

  "Is atrocious. However, it is a difficult language." There was an indescribable quality of hatred in his voice. Hatred with a note of resignation so Oriental in nature that the hate seemed a thing ceremonial and of no real significance.

  The other thirty technicians of the A&I team and Orgatany, my assistant, had come up behind.

  "I see you come well supported," Shukon said thinly.

  I saw that his white frock-shirt was stained with sweat, dirty. For the first time, I saw the fatigue in his eyes, the sharp wrinkles of exhaustion around them. He had been awake—but for short naps—since the disease had struck his village.

  "This is my A&I team. No soldiers. We took General Soro at his word."

  "There will be soldiers." He looked to the destroyer and the dropping troop transports.

  "I suppose." I refused to follow his gaze. "But I'm a medical man."

  "The gun?"

  His eyes shifted to my unsnapped holster. I opened my mouth to protest, closed it. I snapped the holster shut.

  "This way, gentlemen. The train is waiting."

  I turned to my men. There was a good deal of shoving and grunting and unnice exclamation until the air cushions beneath the nine computer units could be adjusted to move the heavy things up the slatted ramp and across the gaping holes of the dock toward the train that would take us the 120 miles to Yangchun.

  "You have a recent victim?" I asked Shukon, as we squeezed between the police and the mob that lined the dock.

  "About four hundred and thirty have died within the last twenty-four hours. You may have your choice."

  Somehow, he made me feel like a butcher at a wholesale meat auction. "Just the most recent," I said.

  An old woman broke through the police, threw herself in front of us, babbling swiftly in Chinese. I hoped the rest of the crowd didn't realize how little control the police really had over them. I looked protectively back to our Duo-component analyzer, confirmed its safety. Shukon gently lifted the old woman and led her behind the police. "Her son," he said when he returned. "She wants you to cure him. She thinks you can work miracles."

  "We just about can." I felt I had to be defensive with him.

  "Not miracles as large as that. He died yesterday."

  Mentally, I repeated the Hippocratic oath.

  At the end of the dock, steps led down to a concrete loading zone, crammed with more people. The train lay a hundred yards away, a black snake. The crowds surged, straining the police barricade. I wished the president had sent the troops first and to hell with the goodwill bit.

  Shukon moved first, snapping orders to police and civilians. The people, wild, seemed not to realize that we could not cure them until we had reached Yangchun, searched the ruins, come up with some clues. A boy, perhaps fifteen, crawled between policemen's legs, grabbed my ankles. Shukon—gentle Shukon—whirled and drove a foot into the boy's side. Drowned by the roar, there was a faint crunch of breaking ribs. The mayor brought the same foot down on fingers that convulsed like frightened worms.

  The boy screamed, blood black under his fingernails, red on his hands.

  "The women," Shukon hissed, "are understood. You are a man!" Then he hurried ahead, leaving me no course but to follow. We boarded the train without further incident, though I was beginning to be impressed with the stoical little mayor.

  Two of Shukon's henchmen brought a body aboard, dropped it in the first seat of the first car. After a few strong words about sanitary precautions, we sprayed the adjoining floor, wall, window, unbolted the seat and tossed it out. The victim, we encased in blown plastic.

  "Antiseptics hardly seem to work," Shukon said. "We've tried."

  The sample tray of the specimen analyzer swallowed the corpse, plastic coating and all ...

  Fifty miles along the track, Orgatany wobbled back through the aisle, black face gleaming with perspiration, looking almost as young as he had when I saved his life during the South African rebellion against U.N. control. He had been a brilliant but uneducated boy then. Now he was a doctor, and a good one. "Walt, we got the final analysis report."

  "And?"

  He slumped into the opposite seat. "You won't like it"

  "Try me."

  "The Duo says he didn't die of any disease."

  I turned angrily to Shukon.

  Sincere face, surprised look . . . "I assure you—"

  "What did he die of, Bill?"

  "Nothing."

  "What?"

  The lowlands of China flashed by the window.

  "The Duo says: 'no discernible affliction of any nature whatsoever.' That means nothing."

  "Something is wrong with the Duo."

  Fear of fears, our God has died . . .

  Orgatany shifted his weight. "We checked that first thing, Walt. We used one unit to check its mate, then reversed it. Then, unlikely as it
may be, we thought maybe both halves were out. We used one of the other units to check the Duo. Everything is tiptop, great, fine, perfect. And maddening."

  "We too found this a stumbling block," Shukon said. "We have not your advanced facilities, but we found no symptoms before the disease struck, no traces afterward. The victim is healthy one minute, dead the next. I would say this is Dr. Lin Chi's greatest discovery."

  "Fine!" I snapped. "It just might be so damned perfect that it kills us all!"

  "If we could get another victim," Orgatany said, "we could find a pattern, no matter how minute."

  "You tried multiple analysis?" I asked Shukon.

  He nodded.

  "We'll try it anyway. When we reach Yangchun, well secure two more specimens."

  But we got two more specimens before we were halfway there.

  Eight miles farther, the train was halted by a large weighted drum lying on the tracks. And by fifty horsemen with carbines. There were sixty-five horsemen in all—fifteen dead, strapped across their saddles. Even roaming barbarians felt the needle plunge of the plague's hypodermic. The fifty horsemen fanned out in an arc in front of the locomotive, guns trained on windows and roofs.

  I had thirty-two untrained fighters, medical men. Shukon refused to have his henchmen fire on their countrymen. We could only negotiate. With a number of vicious indictments, I forced Shukon into the locomotive where we crouched behind a metal baffle, watching the horsemen, only our heads visible.

  "What do you want?" I called in Chinese. I hoped they had not wandered down from the northern provinces and did not understand the only dialect I spoke.

  "You are the Americans," the chief of the horsemen said. It was not a question.

  "Yes."

  "We want you."

  "Political conservatives, opposed to surrender," Shukon said, eyes on the horseman.

  "Tell them to move on."

  "You tell them. You are in charge."

  "Off the train!" the horseman shouted.

  "Dammit, Shukon, tell them!"

  "Am I to understand you are unable to cope—"

  I swung, connected a fist with his mouth. He wobbled, surprised. He lost balance, fell from haunches to behind. Blood trickled down his chin. Vomit tingled the back of my throat. Physician what have you done? Father, father, there was a need . . . "Tell them," I choked. "Make a deal. Do something, for God's sake!"

  "If I offend your sensibilities, I will take my men and leave, claiming we were held prisoner." He refused, damn him, to wipe the blood from his face. It trickled down his neck now.

  "Look, Shukon, your people asked for our help. Now, if you don't really want it, I'm prepared to send these men back and to recommend to the president that we concentrate on bolstering the West against the disease and stop our efforts here. Before you answer, think of the old woman on the dock. For that matter, think of the boy."

  For a long moment, our eyes met. He tested the ire boiling in my eyes, I tried to investigate his. His were inscrutable. Mine must have been too, for he didn't see the physician's heart that couldn't walk away from sickness. Finally, h« pushed up, very dignified and faced the bearded horseman. They spoke so fluently that my limited Chinese was useless.

  A moment later, the barbarian chieftain directed two of his men to unstrap and hand over two bodies. We sprayed them with plastic. I was determined to keep the bacteria contained—even if there were no bacteria.

  "I told them," Shukon said, "that you would bring their men back to life if they showed their intention of letting us pass."

  "But I can't do that!"

  "They don't know that."

  "They damn soon will!"

  "Be calm. They are moving the barrel."

  The chief horseman, a fierce-looking man, dropped off his mount and, clutching the rifle, reached for the railing to push himself onto the first step. The barrel rolled away, clattering . . .

  Abruptly, a gun slipped magically from Shukon's sleeve. It spat a firetooth that lodged in the horseman's chest. Blood spread across the man's jacket, spotted the tea-colored vest. He hung there, looking surprised. Shukon shot again. Blood spewed out of the horseman's mouth, and he fell backward onto the dry, dry earth.

  "Move quickly!" Shukon snapped at the engineer.

  The train lurched, shot forward. The other horsemen, delayed by confusion and surprise, took too much time mounting their shied horses. The train left them behind without revenge.

  "You have your two samples," Shukon said. "Shall we go inside?"

  I'm a medical man. Sure, A&I is part of the war effort, our defense system. But chiefly, I want to cure. I kept telling myself this as we moved deeper into Mother China. I get it from my father, I guess. He developed the BTRR technique that won him the Nobel Prize. I remember when the story was blurbed on Time's cover. BRAIN TISSUE REPLACEMENT AND REPAIR TECHNIQUE: BRONSON WINS NOBEL the banner read, breaking the familiar red border of the cover. The old man didn't get around to reading it until five months later. He was too busy working on something to "help those poor damn cancer patients." He never lived to prove that cancer was a malfunction of a segment of the midbrain and directly connected to psychosomatic origins. But someone else did, working from his notes. Like him, I'm a medical man. Sometimes, I think I put myself in great danger just to prove I'm like him. Back then, however, I didn't yet understand the guilt that drives me.

  Nervously, I flicked through the Duo's two-page summaries. Nothing on either horseman. They died of nothing.

  "What next?" Orgatany asked. "The men are nervous."

  There was only one thing I could think of, a phrase I tried never to use: "Tell them we've been in trouble before and lived through it."

  "But we were always able to isolate the bacteria before. We were always quickly immunized. Now we can't even find the goddamned germ!"

  "You sound as scared as I am," I said, rubbing the pain throbbing behind my ears.

  He grinned, in resignation more than amusement. "Hell." He stood and plunged back toward the cars where the team worked. He would hold up, I knew. He was a damn good boy . . .

  "Yangchun," Shukon said, pointing through the window.

  All along the tracks, crowds pressed to the edge of the ramp, straining at the rails almost as if—simply by touching —they could be healed.

  "Is there any way we can keep from detraining here?" I asked Shukon, not wishing to fight another crowd who would crush us with love. "There should have been a spur line to an installation as large as Lin Chi's."

  "I believe there was."

  "Would you inform the engineer that we would like to be taken directly to the labs then?"

  "It will take what you call—string-pulling."

  "Just don't tangle any."

  Fighting the lurching train, he made his way to the locomotive.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were stopped a thousand yards from the ruins of the Lin Chi's laboratories. Here it was that the good doctor had invented the disease that gobbled him up. Always a danger in germ warfare. A careless move. A vial is broken. Contamination spreads. In this case, it was something that spread too fast. Apparently, Lin Chi had not found an antitoxin yet. There was nothing left but to fuse the buildings in a nuclear blast before the wind could . . .

  But the wind had . . .

  "Dr. Bronson," Orgatany said, tapping me on the shoulder.

  I looked up.

  "It's Jenners. The Duo mechanic's assistant. He's dead."

  The cover of Time . . .

  Of Time . . .

  Of time . . .

  Jenners was most assuredly dead. Dead of nothing. And it certainly wasn't old age at thirty-one. Organs don't wear out that fast. Unless you're a Lord Byron. Jenners wasn't. Lin Chi's disease had gotten him, and it might get the rest of us at any time.

  "Get me a suit, Bill," I said. "I'm going into the labs."

  "You're the captain of this team. Send someone else. I'll go."

  "Like hell."

  "A captain—"
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  "This isn't a nineteenth-century sailing vessel, Bill. I'm a figurehead captain. You could do my job as well. You know that. Now, can the corn and get me a suit."

  He hurried away, biting his lower lip. Too servile yet. Too many memories of South Africa before liberation. Then I felt rather idiotic for indulging in character analysis when Death lurked in every dark corner.

  Then: "I'm going with you," Shukon said.

  Then: "Mayor, I—"

  And: "It is not a matter of curiosity. This is a diplomatic condition."

  Me: "There are troops on the way—"

  Him: "You are a medical man, remember? Besides, it will take some time for troops to reach here. I know you wish not to delay."

  With a sigh: "I won't desecrate any shrines or—"

  Staunchly: "With me or not at all." His eyes were cool. Very cool. Too damned cool.

  I sighed again. There was my duty as a physician. Shukon, untrained for this sort of search, would hinder me. Hippocratic oath riding my nostrils with stirrups of sanctity, I should have told him to ram it and then gone alone. However, I was also a diplomat here. Diplomacy, one hears, is a science. But it does not have that volume of knowledge upon which to build a base. I felt uneasy with it.