"No, they don't. I imagine they use submarines especially equipped with tanks full of virus solution, or perhaps crystals, which could be mixed and loaded into aerosol bombs as required."
"But you said submarines might make our government suspicious."
"I did, but that was when the epidemic first started out here. It has been going on for some time now, in the west, and if you'll remember the broadcast, there were cases reported in Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis about the same time as in the coastal cities of the east. People will naturally think it has spread overland by air travel or train and won't be too concerned with what shipping is out in the Atlantic. The Red Fleet has been maneuvering frequently off Newfoundland for the past six or seven years so it shouldn't cause too much comment."
"If only they knew what was really happening to them!"
"I imagine the U.S. and Canadian governments do have our reports by now but they'll have to watch how the news is released. If they're not careful there could be a panic, with people evacuating the cities and spreading the disease. It takes time to organize police and military units for quarantine guards."
"How bad is it likely to be?" she asked.
"That's hard to say. The 1918 flu killed twenty million people and attacked about fifty times that number. Since then, ordinary flu epidemics have been reported with up to fifty percent of the people involved. The Asian flu of 1957 affected up to seventy-five percent in some areas. But this stuff isn't pure flu and so there may be absolutely no immunity. Probably the only thing that will prevent people from getting it is not to be near someone else who has it. In the old days that was possible, but with the population we have now, and the rapid communication between towns, it is much easier to spread an epidemic than it was fifty years ago. My guess is that eighty or ninety percent of the population will get it."
"John," Pat said thoughtfully, "How long is it likely to be before you start having symptoms?"
"You mean all of us, don't you?" I said. "After all, that spray must have splashed a bit and both you and the Chief may have got enough to infect you."
"Well, yes, if you put it that way."