The Fungus

“Who knows her current state of mind?” said Peterson with a shrug. “The knowledge that she is responsible for such a massive catastrophe may have proved too much for her. Or — and I’m sorry to have to say this — she may have fallen victim to one of the symbiotic fungi.”

Wilson winced. “What about her home? Has anyone checked that?”

“Yes. The search team flew there from the Institute. They reported no sign of either your wife or her papers. Soon afterward they were attacked by a mob. The helicopter crew lost all contact and had to return without them.”

“Jesus,” muttered Wilson and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It had become hot and stuffy in the bleak room. “What kind of mob?”

“We don’t know. Possibly consisting of people driven mad by their fungal infections, but we can’t be sure.”

Wilson was silent. It seemed incredible that London had been transformed into some kind of nightmare world in such a short space of time.

Peterson cleared his throat uncomfortably and said, “So that’s why we need you.”

“Need me?” he asked, startled. “Why?”

“We want you to go to London, Dr. Wilson. We want you to find your wife, if she’s still alive. If she’s not we want you to locate her notes.”

Wilson stared at him in horror. “Go to London? After what you’ve been telling me? No way.”

“Dr. Wilson, no one knows your wife better than you do. You have the best chance of all of finding her. You’re also a mycologist — you’ll know what to look for among her notes. You are, I’m afraid, indispensable to this mission. And pray you’re successful. We are under increasing pressure from other countries — France in particular — to authorize the use of nuclear weapons on the mainland. They want H-Bombs dropped not only on the affected areas but on every part of England, Scotland and Wales to stop the fungus completely.”

“I don’t care! I’m not going and that’s final!” cried Wilson. Contemptuously O’Connell said, “You don’t understand, Doctor, you have no choice in the matter. The Acting Prime Minister has already decided you are going.” He glanced at his watch. “In less than eight hours, as a matter of fact.”

5

Ilya Nechvolodov glanced at his co-pilot Terenty who was dozing fitfully. Every now and then Terenty would jerk awake, glance in momentary panic at the control panels of the TU144, then grin sheepishly at Ilya. Within seconds his eyelids would slip down again and a faint but irritating snore would bubble up from the back of his mouth.

As usual, Ilya reflected with annoyance, the younger pilot had been overdoing his night life again. The myth of supersonic aircraft pilots being romantic, devil-may-care, sexual superman had instilled itself too deeply into Terenty’s brain. From what Ilya had heard he was trying to prove it with every woman under 30in Moscow but the effects of all these sexual marathons on Terenty’s concentration was seriously worrying Ilya.

He’d tried speaking to Terenty about it, warning him that he was putting his career, and all its accompanying privileges, at risk but he wouldn’t listen. Had the TU144 not been carrying an important, if junior, Soviet fisheries official to a conference in Iceland he might have risked creating a fake emergency involving some simulated turbulence to give Terenty a beneficial jolt. As it was he would have no choice but to report him when they returned to Moscow. Terenty was a friend, true, but Ilya could not afford to put his own career at risk because of him. There was Alina to think of. She would leave him at once if they lost their five room apartment.

As the Russian version of the Concorde flew far to the north of Britain it passed through an area where high altitude winds were saturated with minor detritus that had been dragged up from the earth’s surface in a series of stages by means of gusts and updrafts. Anything smaller than a speck of dust was trapped there forever. Bacteria, microscopic seeds, and, of course, fungal spores and fragments of the thread-like hyphae that make up a fungus.

A few, a very few, of the latter contained the Jane Wilson enzyme. But it only took one to produce the subsequent disaster.

The cone of turbulence created by the passing of the TU144 swept this particular particle near the superstructure of the aircraft. There, by chance, it entered one of the ventilation ducts that aerated the fuel tanks.

The tank it had entered was part of a system transferring fuel around the plane in order to maintain the aircraft’s trim during flight. The tanks and their fuel had another purpose too, apart from feeding the hungry engines; the vast quantities of liquid were used to dissipate the friction-created heat from the surface of the fuselage.