Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

"And the man in my clinic—"

"Ire," said Chinma.

"He did the same thing I did, yes? He wouldn't listen to your warning."

"A monkey … spit on me," said Chinma. He couldn't think of the English word for sneeze. "Will I die?"

"Are you feeling sick?"

"No," said Chinma.

"You saw how sick your brother was. If you had the same thing, you'd be even sicker, because your body is so much smaller."

The scientists came, not as soon as Chinma hoped, but perhaps soon enough. Nor were they in a truck. They were in a helicopter, and the doctor waved them down into the parking lot. The chopper belonged to the World Health Organization and the scientists came out of it wearing suits that covered every inch of their bodies. They breathed through filtration masks and peered out through goggles. They looked like huge white insects.

The monkey cages were loaded on the chopper and one of the scientists left with them. Then they all went back to the clinic.

Ire was dead when they got there. And the nurse was lying on the floor, crying. "I'm sick," she said. "I caught it from him."

Chinma and his brothers and the truck and the unbitten warehouse man were held in quarantine for twenty-four hours, but none of them showed any sign of illness. By the time they were pronounced healthy and turned loose, the warehouse man and the nurse and the doctor were all dead.

Their bodies were flown out in helicopters and then the army came in and used flamethrowers to burn out the clinic. Then bulldozers knocked down the walls and gravel and earth were brought in to cover the ruins.

Before he left, Chinma did have one chance to tell one of the scientists about the red-bellied guenons. He was one of the Nigerians; Chinma was too scared of the white scientists to talk to them.

"Will you take me out to where they live?" the Nigerian scientist asked inYoruba.

"Are you sure?" said Chinma. "They were living right where the sick white-face monkeys were."

"I won't let any of them bite me," said the scientist.

So instead of going home with his brothers, Chinma went back out to the stand of trees. He only got lost once when he missed the turn from the highway; once they were on dirt roads his memory of the route was perfect.

The scientist looked up into the trees and swore softly. "They never live in populations this size," he said. "The largest troop we ever found was thirty."

"I don't think they're sick."

"Oh, these guenons might have the same thing that killed your brother, Chinma," said the scientist. "Only to them it's like a cold, they just cough and sneeze and then they're fine. When the putty-faces caught it, though, it affected them worse. Made them really sick and lethargic and weak. But they'll probably live, too."

"And when Ire got bit … "

"It got past all the body's natural defenses. Straight into the blood. Fatal in six hours."

"I wish I'd never caught a monkey in my life," said Chinma.

"It's not your fault," said the scientist.

"I never thought it was my fault," said Chinma. "But if I hadn't been such a good monkey-catcher, Ire wouldn't be dead now. And that would have been better. The money we made wasn't worth Ire being dead. I'm going to bury all my money with him."

"You can bury it if you want," said the scientist. "But you can't bury it with him. His body will never be returned to you. You understand? You saw them knocking down the clinic, didn't you?"

"Are they going to come out and knock down these trees and kill these monkeys?"

"I hope not," said the scientist. "But they do have to come out here and determine whether the disease originated with the red-bellied guenons. It would be a shame to have to destroy the largest free troop ever found of an endangered species."

"Will they wear those suits?"

"Of course," said the scientist. "We're extremely careful when we know there's a new disease involved. No one knows what it might do."