would think by now that we would have learned this lesson.”
“Is it your opinion that every life is equal?” Blitzer asked.
“All life is precious,” Stark said. “Why do you even ask?”
“I’m just wondering—if you had to choose between saving the life of a baby human or a chimpanzee, which you would choose.”
“It’s an interesting question, but I no longer make such choices. That is part of my past.”
“Do you believe that the life of a virus is as precious as that of a human?”
“Viruses are not ‘alive.’ ”
“But they are a part of nature.”
“Yes, they are essential.”
“But humans are not?”
Stark stared at Blitzer, hesitating, weighing his response. “Humans have become a problem,” he finally said. “Speaking as a human, selfishly, I hope that our species endures. But there is little doubt that the planet would be better off without us.”
36
Captain Dixon
The moment he came on board, Henry sensed the uneasiness. The crew of the USS Georgia was not enthusiastic about having a new doctor aboard. The last one had brought Kongoli with him, and because of that, the submarine was under quarantine. Now five members of the crew of 165 were ill and the doctor lay dead in the chill box, as the massive refrigerator was called. The submarine was filled with brave young sailors, but they were surrounded by an enemy they couldn’t fight.
Ordinarily, the medical needs of the crew were handled by a medical corpsman trained in first aid and minor emergencies. There was a small pharmacy with a horizontal door, which would allow a patient to be transferred directly onto the examining table on a stretcher, since there was no room to navigate through the hallway. In the pharmaceutical closet Henry discovered cartons of bendamustine and ibrutinib, which explained why the doctor had been aboard.
A submarine is an ideal breeding ground for disease. The air continually circulates and everyone breathes it. “If somebody has a cold, we all get it,” the medical corpsman, Petty Officer Second Class Sarah Murphy, told him, as she gave him the tour. “There is no escaping the contact.”
Everyone called her “Murphy.” Shipmates were typically on a last-name basis. She was prim and businesslike, but that seemed to be the norm. Only ten women were on the boat, and each wore her hair in a tight bun, making their faces as prominent as those of the close-cropped men. Murphy was a farm girl from Duluth, Minnesota, and she had the accent to go with it. “Minnesooota,” she called it. The sailors teased her for being a milkmaid. Thin and lithe, she moved down the ladders with gymnastic ease, slowing to let Henry catch up, then passing through a circular hatch, resembling the door to a large safe. Inside was a long chamber filled with twenty-four missile tubes painted lipstick red, each tube originally equipped to hold a forty-foot Trident intercontinental missile. “We’re rigged a little different, sir,” Murphy said. “We have Tomahawk cruise missiles instead, non-nuclear.” In between each of the missile tubes was a nine-person dormitory with bunks stacked three on a side. Henry couldn’t imagine a worse environment for containing a respiratory illness.
Infected submariners simply had to remain in crew’s quarters. If they became terminally ill, they would be removed to the canteen below the control room so their companions wouldn’t have to watch them die. The metallic smell of blood suffused the room.
“How are you treating them?”
“Saline drip,” Murphy said.
“Antivirals?”
“No effect.”
In the canteen were three terminally ill patients, two men and a woman. Murphy raised the sheet on one of them. His feet were black. “Same with the doctor,” she said. “Black feet, blue face.”
One of the patients was conscious enough to notice. “Are you a doctor?” he asked. Henry nodded. “Am I going to die?” He was a teenager. His lips were blue. Henry could read his destiny clearly.
“I think you’ll be fine,” Henry said. Sometimes hope was all he could offer, even if it was false, but he reproved himself for lying.
The young sailor began to weep. Murphy stroked his feverish head with a baby wipe.
“I was so scared,” he said.
When they were out of hearing, Henry asked Murphy, “What do you do with the bodies?”
“Protocol now is to return them to our home port. We’ve got room in the chill box, but honestly, it’s a problem.”
Henry was given the dead doctor’s quarters—a mattress on the floor at the end of the missile chamber, next to the nuclear reactor that powered the sub. A sheet served as a curtain.