John Ringo - Islands of Rage and Hope

“Ick,” Sophia said. “I just…Maybe calling you wasn’t the best choice, Da. Over.”

“I’m glad you did. We never get to talk. But, I’ve got to get this straight. This Walker guy thinks she got pregnant from involuntary emissions on the damp bottom of a lifeboat? Over.”

“Yes,” Sophia said. “She’s…virgo intacta. And they’re both…Like Olga said, only virgins could be that incoherent about it. Over.”

“You’re not particularly incoherent about it, over.”

“You’ve been talking to us about it since we were kids in one way or another,” Sophia said. “And let’s just say this cruise has been a real eye-opener.”

“I’d say sorry but I didn’t start the Plague. Okay, Walker. What’s his medical background, over?”

“I’m not sure,” Sophia said. “He said he took a course once that included advanced midwifery. I’m not even sure what that means except it has to do with delivering babies.”

“God knows we’re going to need it. Okay, I’m going to get the CDC to call you and see if they can confirm what you’ve said. I’m also going to pass this around in the official news bulletin. Over.”

“Uh, isn’t this a little private, Da?” Sophia asked.

“Well, it’s that or every little old lady on the Boadicea will be beating him with their canes. Squadron, out.”

“Permission to speak, sir?” the chief of boat of the Alexandria said.

“When do you ask, COB?” Vancel replied. “Sure.”

“Hate the situation that we’re in, sir,” the COB said. “Really getting to hate fish. Don’t want to think about what’s happened ashore, sir. But this Wolf Squadron thing is like the best soap opera ever .”

“And turns out she got knocked up by sitting where the guy had spewed in his sleep!”

“No fuckin’ way!”

“That has got to be the lamest excuse ever ! ‘No, seriously, Mom, I got pregnant from a life raft deck!’”

“Can you describe these involuntary emissions in more detail?” Dr. Chang said, leaning into the screen. Arnold Chang was an internist as well as an epidemiologist at the CDC whom Dodson had brought in for the consult. “What were the conditions on the interior of the life raft?”

Sophia had seen boiled lobsters less red than Kevin. Lee Ann was just looking pissed. But in a second she’d start crying.

“Doctors…” Sophia said.

“Doctors,” Walker said. “Any of us could describe common conditions in life rafts. The interiors are frequently wet from salt spray. When there is rain, it is usually admixed with spray. The salt content is always high, generally higher than salt water. The clothes also tend to develop high salt content, one of the reasons persons tend to disrobe in the tropics besides heat. It would be useful to keep in mind that you are dealing with two victims of extreme trauma. They are still suffering from dehydration, exposure and malnutrition. They are, in addition, quite young. A degree of care needs to be used in your approach with all due respect.”

“Preliminarily, I concur with your hypothesis, Mr. Walker,” Dr. Dobson said. “As I concur with your sentiment. Among other things, well, one of the reasons to get into research is we don’t tend to have much in the way of bedside manner. Having reviewed what we have on pregnancy, not enough given your conditions, I also, reluctantly, concur with your advice to begin and maintain sexual congress. That would probably get me de-licensed, given the young lady’s age, were there still a Medical Licensing Board. However, it is the correct medical advice and given that the two are…already in the current condition…I concur. And, yes, this is one for the record books….”

“One last,” Dr. Chang said. He’d been leafing through a book as they were speaking and now looked up. “Found a coincidental item. Medical report on an accidental pregnancy in Miami, 2007. Persons were in a group that was engaging in sexual activity. They were, in their minds, protected by condoms. However, they did not understand how to properly use them and were sharing. When one male would get done, the other would flip it inside out. Three young ladies became pregnant due to incidental contact. The young ladies were monogamous to single partners but were all pregnant by partners who had shared the condom rather than their primary partners. So something similar has been documented, although a condom being passed around is not the bottom of a rubber lifeboat.”

“Close enough,” Dobson said. “I would say that is a fair confirmation. Tell the young lady and gentlemen we’re sorry for the indelicacy of the questioning. But we’re researchers who have nothing to research. We’re sort of starved for something new. CDC out.”

Dobson looked across the lab at Barry Martin, his lab assistant.

“You know,” he said, leaning back and interlacing his fingers on his shrinking belly. “When you get into this profession, you think about what you’re going to be doing in the event of a really bad plague. I always saw myself, out there, in the ruins of civilization, wearing a moon suit and searching for survivors. Never in my wildest dreams did I picture being on Skype with a yacht in the middle of the Atlantic trying to figure out how a twelve-year-old girl got pregnant. Just was not on my bucket list…”

“Hey, I just figured something out,” Olga said.

“What?” Sophia asked wearily. She felt like she’d just fought her way through a typhoon.

“Walker, Dobson and Chang,” Olga said.

“Your point?” Sophia asked. “Other than it sounds like a law firm?”

“Three Wise Men! Okay, two wise men and a wise guy…”

Zero Three Hundred local. The definition of Oh Dark Thirty. Everyone should be asleep. And the Hole should be up.

Walker opened up the cabinet that contained one of the Navy handhelds. They were generally kept off unless there was an away team. None of the boats in the division had away teams operating at the moment.

He turned it to a random frequency and keyed it.

“ Alexandria , Alexandria , Marigold, over.”

He waited.

“Calling station unidentified. Identify for verification, over.”

“Verification is call sign. Following eyes only, FDOSAC. Code is Marigold, repeat, Marigold. Verification: Four-One-Three-Six. Will contact same time, same frequency, tomorrow. End message. Repeat: Eyes only, FDO. Do not, repeat, not contact Squadron. Over.”

“If you are screwing around on this frequency, we will find you and have your ass.”

“Contact only the FDO,” Walker said. “Or I shall have yours. Marigold, out.”

“Skipper, sorry,” the duty officer said. “We just got a weird, really weird, call. Voice only.”

“Go ahead,” Commander Vancel said, rubbing his eyes. He wasn’t getting out of the rack unless it was important.

“Where’d it come from?” Vancel asked, replaying the recording on the handheld.

“Somewhere in Division Seven,” the OOD said. “I can’t tell if this guy is fucking around or…Well…”

“It’s for General Brice,” Vancel said, rolling out of his rack. “She was the flag duty officer at SAC when it went down. I’ll send it on as a personal e-mail attachment. Log it, though.”

“Marigold?” Brice said, looking at the e-mail. She really wasn’t terribly busy most of the time and today was one of those days. She was good at her job, which involved getting other people to do theirs and then just keeping that going. Unfortunately, since most of the people she had working for her were uber-competent, that meant she had lots of time on her hands. In the middle of an apocalypse. Not a good thing.