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“Why forty?” Delahunt, ever the addict for attention to detail, asked.
“One for each lash Jesus received. But they weren’t all dispatched at once. The story goes that the Order sent them out in pairs and trios over a three-year period when the plague devastated European populations the Order’s abbot constantly watched for a sign telling him when to deploy the final couriers of death, steadfastly believing God would let him know. The plague ended up manifesting itself in three variants—bubonic, with black tumors and death within two weeks, pneumatic, zeroing in on the respiratory system, spread merely by breathing on someone and fatal in days, and finally, the septicemic version, of which the initial symptom was a violent vomiting of blood with death occurring within hours. The appearance of the third mutation, interpreted by the Order’s abbot to symbolize the Trinity, was his signal to deploy the last group. The plague died out shortly thereafter.”
“Are you saying that the explanation we learned in school, that the Black Death was spread by fleas carried on rats, is false?” Bolan asked.
“I’m just telling you what the legend is, Striker,” Price said.
“Why did the plague stop spreading? Rats didn’t change their travel patterns,” Tokaido asked.
“Darwinian natural selection,” Wethers answered in his authoritarian voice. “People possessing a natural resistance survived, and as those contracting the disease died, potential victims became fewer and fewer. Almost half the population in some places was wiped out.”
“In Europe,” Tokaido countered. “Rats didn’t migrate off the continent?” He snapped his gum and added, “Probability of the legend being fact is not zero.”
“Akira’s right,” Delahunt said. “Assume the Order was the breakout epicenter, targeting only the Christian world for God’s punishment. They stop sending couriers and the disease dies out. Coincidence? There must have been susceptible people in places like the Ottoman Empire, which bordered the continent. Why was the disease confined almost exclusively to Europe?”
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