Once back on the airship, the papers were scanned and submitted to an old computer programme which had managed to translate the H11 language in the days of the saurian contact. It converted this to my English and we studied the result. It did not make pretty reading.
The lethal plague spreading like wildfire across the Continent has now been reported in Duber. Despite the strict quarantine measures in place, several people fell ill this morning, suffering from the symptoms we have come to dread. They are not expected to survive the night. The Home Defence Minister stated in Parliament that Duber and its immediate surroundings have been cordoned off by army units who have been given orders to shoot anyone trying to leave or enter the port.
However, this may not be enough; Professor Thorgildsson of Stamford University has put forward a theory that birds may be helping to transmit the plague, accounting for its rapid spread despite the desperate efforts to stop it. Radios across Europe have been falling silent over the past three weeks, and the Minister stated that he feared the worst.
Furthermore, there appears to be more than one point of origin of the plague. Outbreaks of virulent disease have now been reported from every inhabited continent.
The Primary Minister also addressed Parliament today. His demeanor was grave, but he reassured Parliament that our own scientists in the Department of Biological Warfare were doing their utmost to discover the nature of the disease and to prepare a cure. Telegraph messages received from scientists in Europe over the past three weeks had already provided useful information.
He said that it appeared that this strain of the plague was probably developed in the Turkish Empire and may have been released in South-Eastern Europe as tensions grew over the status of the Bosphorus. Some reports indicate that the Greeks have retaliated in kind, and that contact with Persia has been lost. It is already known that, like most war plagues, the one afflicting Europe has been bred to die within days once it is outside a living human host, so there is hope that by maintaining strict quarantine measures, many will survive.
The Primary Minister concluded that the long-predicted Great War between the Muslim and Christian worlds had broken out, and that the policy of Biological Deterrence, established by previous governments, had failed. He called upon all citizens to stay in their homes and pray for deliverance.
There was a long pause after we had finished reading. Nobody seemed to want to say anything. I felt numb, sickened by the self-destruction of an entire civilisation. Eventually, I thought of something. ‘Are we sure this is right? Is the plague dead?’
Secundo responded gravely. ‘Yes. We had already suspected that plague might have been involved as, although the general level of technological development in H11 paralleled your own, they were very advanced in biological warfare. The scientists who rediscovered this world used their slider machine to take air, water and earth samples under conditions of strict isolation. There are traces of plague organisms, but they are dead beyond possibility of revival. This world is now clean and safe. ‘
‘But no disease has ever killed everyone. Are you certain there are no survivors?’
‘No natural disease kills everyone, but war diseases are designed to be different. All we can say for now is that the electromagnetic spectrum is completely silent. There are no radios in operation anywhere. Nor is there any trace of the kind of atmospheric pollution which indicates human activity. If there are any survivors, they must be back to the Stone Age.’
I went back to the observation deck, suddenly keen to return to the clean innocence of the saurian world. The others left me alone as I tried to accept what I had seen and read. Eventually I turned to them.
‘So what do we do with this world?’
Primo responded. ‘It seems to us to provide a unique opportunity. Your world has a major, long-term problem of overpopulation which despite our contraceptive measures will, by itself, take centuries to correct. Here we have what is effectively a virgin world – in fact, rather better than that. While agricultural land has become overgrown, it will be much easier to clear than virgin forest. Domestic animals have only spent a few generations by themselves, and can be re-domesticated without too much difficulty. The docks and harbours are still there, under the silt. Most buildings can be restored, or at least the materials are there to be reused. Roads, canals and railways will need more work but the basic structure is there. Most minerals are still in the ground in known locations. This is an unpolluted world, with the chance of a fresh start, learning from past mistakes and developing it carefully and sustainably. We can build many more slider machines and start transferring people in quantity, as soon as your world has decided on the process.’
I absorbed this for several minutes. Another chance – a chance to redeem the catastrophic failure of one civilisation and to speed the recovery from near-disaster of another. It presented not so much a golden opportunity as one of solid diamond. I stood on the observation deck of the giant ship and a distant memory popped into my mind. I smiled at the thought, then turned to the saurians. ‘Make it so!’ I said.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that – I didn’t have the powers of a starship captain. I brought Richards up to speed and asked him to put in motion the process necessary to arrange an urgent meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Back at Laketown, I checked on the progress of the S2 Representative’s tour; everything seemed to going well, so far. The black case stayed under the bed.
A couple of days later, Richards reported back. The UN Security Council had agreed to the request of the British Government to hold an emergency special session of the General Assembly. It would be taking place in three days time. I checked with the saurians the availability of the slider ship and confirmed that I would be there at the start of the session. It would take the giant airship only twenty-four hours to make the journey to New York, so the next two days were spent in fevered debate with my friends and the Convenor, as we discussed possible strategies for exploiting this New Earth, as I had had begun to call it (‘“H11” lacks a certain something,’ I explained).
The cruise across the Atlantic was uneventful, the spring weather mainly calm. At my request the ship hovered for a while, letting down the passenger lift so that all five of us – the Convenor had also decided to join the trip – could dive in and experience the grandeur of the great ocean. For me, it felt like coming home, only to a nostalgic memory of home, remembering only the good things and none of the bad. The water was pure, with none of the chemical and little of the noise pollution which afflicted the seas of my Earth. There was no domestic detritus floating around these oceans before being cast up to litter the shoreline, no tankers pumping our their waste. The sea hummed with life.
We discussed until late into the evening what would happen tomorrow and the approach we would take with the General Assembly. Then we retired to bed – the saurians had converted a large cabin for my needs, with a picture window looking down over the dark sea.