Greg Bear: Quantico

William.

Fouad.

Jane spoke in her ear. ‘I swear, Rebecca, I’m staying here until the last midge falls from the sky.’

‘Do you see them?’ Rebecca asked.

‘I do not. Nothing.’

‘You stay there and keep watch. You do that,’ Rebecca said. The others with working earnodes pointedly did not appear to be listening, but their faces were stiff and pale with fatigue and that deadly sense of let-down, of reassessment and shapeless grief that follows combat and killing.

Rebecca wasn’t at all sure the world deserved her children.

Arafat

Arafat is the Hajj . So Muhammad had proclaimed.

The final OWL’s cataclysm had split the ground beneath their boots and dropped them twenty feet to the dank, dry bottom of a concrete pipe. Brick dust and chunks of concrete had filled the crack above and much of the pipe to either side, leaving only a man-sized gap to the southeast. They had squeezed through the gap and now walked down the slope of the pipe, part of the drainage system that kept these dry valleys from flash-flooding during infrequent rains; a long and straight course through Mina with no openings other than drains too small to squeeze through and manhole covers welded shut by the Saudis before the invasion, to prevent just such excursions as Fouad and William were now attempting.

William held his arm close to his breast. It was broken, that much he knew. He was covered with painful burns and one eye was obscured by proud flesh. He hurt all over but he still looked better than Fouad, the side of whose face was thickly crusted with blood.

They stooped and followed the pipe for long kilometers until both emerged in a culvert that spread a concrete fan into a small wadi debouching into Aramah Valley. From there, they climbed up to a pedestrian road, now almost empty, and removed their uniforms, assuming cast-off robes. Fouad said nothing as they walked, weaponless and naked under the towels of ihram, carrying only their forged credentials, to Mount Rahmat, the Mount of Mercy.

William was too dazed and exhausted to wonder what they were up to.

They stood at Arafat for several hours, not the sunrise to sunset required for a true Hajj. Fouad then started walking again, and William followed. They were met by soldiers in a truck, roaring along the pedestrian road and apparently tracking down stray pilgrims to rob them or be bribed to take them through the confusion, back to Mina or even to Mecca, if they had sufficient money.

Fouad convinced them they had been injured by brigands, and the soldiers, impressed by their injuries and solemnity, finally felt some sense of guilt after the orgy of confusion and desecration. They let them be and drove off.

The walk back to Mina took the rest of the day and at nightfall, they stood among the thousands of pilgrims still trying to complete their Hajj, on the top level of the Jamarat Overpass, having both picked up forty-nine pebbles from the scattered little mounds along the road from Muzdalifah.

William was simply following Fouad’s example, like an automaton-doing what he thought might be necessary to pass, to survive. For the most part, Fouad behaved as if William did not exist.

With a pained expression, Fouad pushed through the thinning crowds, many of them parting in awe or disgust at the sight of such injuries, such martyrs, and they both threw their pebbles at the pillars, one after the other, walking on stiff legs and staring with dead eyes, like ghosts.

Many things had been thrown at the pillars, piling up in enormous mounds at the bases of each, and not just pebbles: shoes, coins, articles of clothing, and weapons-surprisingly expensive weapons. Perhaps some of the soldiers and brigands had repented as they watched pilgrims die.

Then they moved on to Mecca, another long walk. William did not think they would make it, but they found dropped bottles of water along the way, and more bodies, and Fouad was relentless.

Only as they came within site of the minarets of the Masjid al-Haram did Fouad speak. ‘I am done with this,’ he said, stalking backwards ahead of William. ‘It is over. I am my father’s son no more. This is not Hajj, and I can never return for the shame. Who am I now? Does anyone know? What have they done? What have they done? ’

He spoke these last words in a harsh growl, his swollen face a monster’s mask of pain. Tears mixed with blood on his cracked cheeks.

William had no answer.

On the road, a Red Crescent ambulance found them and soon they were surrounded by solicitous doctors and two nurses wrapped head to toe in gray chalabis.

They rode in the back of the ambulance to Mecca, passing trucks filled with soldiers and more bodies pushed to the sides of the road.

Many more bodies.

But the lights of the Grand Mosque burned bright, and they were told that even now, Hajjis were circling the Kaabah , the House of God, rejoicing in their fortune. For they had been to Mecca and listened to God, and soon they would be going home.

The biological weapons and processes in this novel are possible, but not in the way I have described them. I have tried to persuade of the dangers without providing salient details.

The dangers are real, and immediate. Sober judgment, selfless, nonpartisan planning, and sanity are the only solutions.

For those who go in harm’s way, there is ultimately no politics. Only pain, loss, death-and hope.

Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California. His father was in the US Navy, and by the time he was twelve years old, Greg had lived in Japan, the Philippines, Alaska-where at the age of ten he completed his first short story-and various other parts of the US. He published his first science fiction story aged sixteen. His novels and stories have won prizes and been translated around the world.