"Do not stand up," Fouché said, "until we have received the all clear from the colonel."

I studied my companion for a moment. "Julien," I said, "what the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

He smiled again. "Saving your skin, Gideon."

"You know what I mean," I said. "What are you doing out here with this bunch? You were one of the most renowned and respected scholars in your field."

"Yes," he said with a nod. "And one of the unhappiest." Then, catching sight of a signal from Colonel Slayton, he pulled me up. His voice softened somewhat as we continued to move forward through the dust and the heat toward the target tunnel’s entrance. "You see, Gideon, my wife was one of the first victims of the ’06 staphylococcus epidemic." I tried to express my sympathy, but he quickly waved me off. "There were many millions who shared my tragedy. But what troubled me most was that she had predicted the manner of her own death years earlier. She was a surgeon, you see. And she had repeatedly told me that economic pressures were causing her colleagues and their nursing staffs to attend to so many patients that they had begun to ignore fundamental practices that took up precious minutes–such as washing their hands. Did you know, Gideon, that the breakdown of hospital hygiene was the single greatest cause of the ’06 plague? And why? Why should people like doctors and nurses, people with lives literally dependent on them, feel such pressure?"

He spat at the ground, anger mixing with his sorrow. "Because our world had sanctified the goal not of success but of wealth. Not of sufficiency but of excess. And nothing has embodied and propagated that philosophy more than the Internet and all that has followed in its wake. All that mindless, endless marketing of useless goods to those who do not need them, who cannot afford them–until one day people like doctors and nurses are so madly bound up in the desire for profit and acquisition that they begin to neglect such simple yet vital things as washing their hands."

So there it was. Of all the people on the ship, Fouché was the one whose reasons for participation I hadn’t yet been able to fathom, simply because molecular biology seemed to have no obvious connection to the business of revising history and combatting the information society. And, as it turned out, it was more a personal imperative than a professional one that had driven him into this active exile.

"At any rate," he went on, "when I met Malcolm and the Kupermans, I first thought them simply an amusing collection of university–pranksters, you say? But when I learned how very deep their convictions ran, I decided I would cast my lot with them. And perhaps if we succeed, perhaps if Malcolm is right, and the great body of the world’s people can be shown the dangers of this age–then perhaps the deaths of millions in such nightmares as the epidemic will mean something."

His eyes went thin as he continued to watch the others, and then his voice picked up strength: "Ah! We are cleared to enter the tunnel, I see. Time for you to make your first appearance on the grand stage, Gideon!"

The hour or so that ensued was strangely reminiscent of visits I had often paid in a professional capacity to the mammoth hospital for the criminally insane on Ward’s Island in New York. Leaving the Kupermans to stand guard at the tunnel’s entrance, Slayton, Tarbell, Fouché and I made our way down through the Islamic terrorists’ labyrinthine underground lair to an enormous chamber that was hung with silk banners. Against the walls of the chamber sat a collection of young women who appeared, through their veils, to be extremely beautiful, along with a dozen children. And atop some cushions placed on a plush carpet in the center of the space reclined its sole male occupant, that internationally infamous character who went by the rather ambitious name Suleyman ibn Muhammed. From the look of things I guessed that Ibn Muhammed was a firm believer in polygamy, and from the look in his eyes, I could see that he was also quite a disciple of opium, the sickly sweet smell of which mingled with the strong scent of earth to produce an oppressive atmosphere around us.

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