Clive Cussler - Plague Ship

“Just another attack.” Janni managed a smile. “Same as I’ve been having for three days now.” She then added in her lilting Scandinavian accent, “It wasn’t as bad as before. I think they’re passing.”

“I will be the one making that determination,” he said, finally looking at her. There was concern in his eyes. “You’re as blue as a berry. My daughter has chronic asthma, but not like you.”

“I’m used to it,” Jannike shrugged. “I had my first attack when I was five, so I’ve been dealing with it for three-quarters of my life.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, are there other members of your family who have it?”

“I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and neither of my parents had it, though my mother told me her mother had it when she was a little girl.”

Passman nodded. “It tends to run in families. I would have thought being at sea and away from pollution would have reduced your symptoms.”

“I had hoped so, too,” Janni said. “That’s one of the reasons I took a job waitressing on a cruise ship.

Well, that and to get out of a small town with nothing to do but watch fishing boats come in and out of the harbor.”

“You must miss your parents.”

“I lost them two years ago.” A shadow passed behind her dark eyes. “Car accident.”

“I am sorry. Your color’s coming back,” Passman said to change the subject. “And your breathing seems to be getting easier.”

“Does that mean I can leave?” Janni asked.

" ’Fraid not, my dear. Your oxygen saturation level is still below what I would like to see.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter to you that today is the crew’s social,” she said with a trace of disappointment. According to the clock on the far wall, the party was only a few hours away.

The dance was the first opportunity for the younger members of the ship’s hotel staff to cut loose a little since the Golden Dawn had left the Philippines two weeks earlier. It was to be the highlight of the cruise for the waiters, waitresses, maids, and off-duty crew, which happened to be comprised of some devilishly handsome Norwegians. Janni knew some of the younger passengers were going to attend as well. It was all anyone had been talking about for a week.

“No, it doesn’t,” the doctor said.

The door to the small hospital ward opened, and, a moment later, Elsa and Karin, Janni’s best friends on the Golden Dawn , swept into the room amid a cloud of perfume. They were from Munich, a couple of years older than Janni, and had spent the past three years working for the cruise line. Elsa was a pastry chef, and Karin worked the same dining-room shift as Jannike. They were dressed to kill. Karin wore a black dress with spaghetti straps that accented her ample chest, while Elsa wore a tank dress and, from the lack of lines under the clinging fabric, nothing else. Both were heavily made up and giggly.

“How are you feeling?” Elsa asked and sat on the edge of Janni’s bed, ignoring Passman.

“Jealous.”

“You aren’t well enough to come to the party?” Karin scowled at the doctor as if it was his fault Jannike’s asthma wasn’t in check.

Janni pushed her damp hair off her forehead. “Even if I was, I wouldn’t stand a chance the way you two are dressed.”

“Do you think Michael will like it?” Karin pirouetted.

“He’ll die for it,” Elsa told her friend.

“Are you sure he’s coming?” Janni asked, caught up in gossip despite the pain constricting her chest.

Michael was one of the passengers who sat at the table they served, a Californian with blond hair, blue eyes, and a body honed from a lifetime of exercise. It was generally agreed by the female staff that he was the best-looking guy on the boat. She also knew that Karin and Michael had made out on more than one occasion.

Karin smoothed her dress. “He made sure to tell me himself.” Passman cut into their conversation, “It doesn’t bother you he’s a Responsivist?” She shot the doctor a look. “I grew up with four brothers and three sisters. I don’t think not having children is such a bad idea.”

“Responsivism is more than not having children,” he pointed out.

Karin took it as an insult that she didn’t know what the group who had chartered the ship believed in.

“Yes, it is also about helping humanity by making family planning an option for millions of third world women and reducing the burden our population places on the earth. When Dr. Lydell Cooper founded the movement in the nineteen seventies, there were three billion people in the world. Today, there are twice that many—six billion— and the rates aren’t slowing. Ten percent of all humans who have ever lived, going back a hundred thousand years, are alive right now.”

“I saw the same informational placards they have placed around the ship,” Passman said archly. “But don’t you think Responsivism goes beyond social consciousness? For a woman to join, she has to agree to have her fallopian tubes tied. It sounds to me more like, well, a cult.”

“That’s what Michael said people tell him all the time.” With the stubbornness of youth, Karin felt she had to defend her crush’s convictions. “Just because you don’t know all the facts doesn’t mean you can dismiss what he believes.”

“Yes, but surely you see . . .” Passman let his voice trail off, knowing that whatever argument was put forth would stand little chance against a twenty-something girl with raging hormones. “Actually, you probably wouldn’t. I think you two should let Jannike rest. You can tell her all about the party later.” He left Janni’s bedside.

“Are you going to be okay, Schnuckiputzi ?” Elsa asked, touching Janni’s thin shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. You two have fun and I want lurid details tomorrow.”

“Good girls don’t kiss and tell,” Karin said, and grinned.

“In that case, I don’t expect either of you to be good girls.” The two Germans left together, but Karin returned a second later. She eased up to the head of the bed.

“I want you to know that I think I’m going to do it.” Janni knew what she meant. She knew that Michael was more than a passing crush for her friend, and that apart from kissing a few times he had spent hours talking to her about his beliefs.

“Karin, that is way too big of a step. You don’t know him that well.”

“I’ve never really wanted kids anyway, so what’s the big deal if I have my tubes tied now or in a few years.”

“Don’t let him talk you into it,” Janni said as forcefully as her weakened body would let her. Karin was nice, but not the strongest person Jannike had ever met.

“He didn’t talk me into it,” she dismissed too quickly. “It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. I don’t want to be worn out at thirty like my mother was. She’s forty-five now and looks seventy. No thanks. Besides,” she said with a bright smile, “nothing will happen until we dock in Greece anyway.” Janni took Karin’s hand to emphasize her point. “This is a decision that will affect the rest of your life.

Give it some more thought, okay?”

“Okay,” Karin said, as if to a parent.

Janni gave her a quick hug. “Good. Now, go have some fun for me.”

“Count on it.”

Their perfumes lingered long after the girls were gone.

Janni’s face was scrunched in concentration. The ship wasn’t due to dock in Piraeus for another week, giving her hope that she and Elsa could talk Karin out of her decision. One of the prerequisites for becoming a Responsivist is being sterilized. A vasectomy for men and a tubal ligation for women. It was part of their code to agree to not add more children to an already-overpopulated planet, a dramatic first step that was difficult, expensive, and, in later years, impossible to reverse. Karin was too young for that just so she could bed a good-looking guy.