Bloodthirst (18 page)

I'm sorry,” Lisa sobbed. “You helped me, didn't you? If you get sick”

“They're almost positive I'm immune. If I did get sick, it probably wouldn't be serious. It's going to be all right, Lisa. I have a feeling, I really do, that you're going to be okay. And Stanger and I will come visit you until you're well enough to go back on duty.” Stanger. Why did she bother to mention him? He would probably decide that it was too inconvenient to visit Lisa
too much of a complication
, Lamia thought bitterly. “I'm your friend, and I'll take care of you.” She had said it to make Lisa feel better, but it only seemed to make her cry harder.

Lisa managed to stem the flow after a bit, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Thank you. You've been so good to me.”

“You'll be back on duty before you know it,” Lamia prattled on, “wishing for shore leave again. You'll see.”

Lisa tried to shake her head, but the discomfort made it impossible. “No,” she whispered, and closed her eyes.

“You don't mean that, Lisa. I care about what happens to you. You've got to get better. You can't” Lamia's voice caught. “You can't leave me.”

“No,” Lisa said again. She closed her eyes and would say no more. Lamia was uncertain whether the pain reflected on her friend's face was emotional or physical, or both.

The Andorian took her hand from the glass. “You'll feel differently soon. You're in pain and frightened now.” She said it to reassure herself as much as Nguyen. “When you feel better, I'll come see you again.”

Lisa still did not answer. Lamia turned and left, telling herself that her friend was still hysterical from the trauma of what had happened. Lamia would be patient, would visit Lisa every day, would show her that she had people who cared for her on the
Enterprise
. She refused to lose Lisa now, because if she lost her, there would be no one left.

After the captain and Tomson had left and gotten what information they could from Nguyen and Lamia, McCoy confined the Andorian to a corner of sickbay and then shut himself in his office to reflect on his particularly foul mood. Maybe he'd caught it from Jim, or maybe it was just the fact that they both realized that as long as Adams was tiptoeing around the
Enterprise
, there was the very real chance McCoy might run out of empty isolation units. Then there was the fact that he'd checked on Chris again and found that her pulse was inexplicably slowing. Stimulants seemed to help somewhat, but there was nothing he could do for the bizarre changes in her brainwave pattern. He turned on the alarm system so that if there were any changes in her life functions at all, he would be summoned from his office.

He huddled over his desk miserably and thought of how he missed her. He kept half expecting her to walk by so he could say: “What do you think is holding up that lab report on Lisa Nguyen?”

Or he could talk to her about the astonishing development of coma in the early stages of the disease. But she wasn't there. If he just had more knowledge of the early symptoms—if there were just some way to question Adams about it

His lip curled sourly. He ought to go to the lab and help with the blood tests or the vaccine—he'd had word they were within hours of coming up with something—but he felt like staying at his desk and moping.

Nguyen's reaction to her attack and possible infection was another good reason to feel mean. The woman was completely dispirited and broken, sobbing before McCoy even got the words out of his mouth. Her tears rendered McCoy helpless. She even refused to listen to his upbeat lecture about how the lab was
this
far from a miracle cure.

He struck the intercom with his fist. “Lab! How long before that report on Nguyen and Lamia?”

Tjieng answered. Her voice sounded very tired. “It'll be a few hours, Doctor. We're pulling double shifts today; the vaccine is top priority. Or would you rather everyone got a toxic dose and be done with it?”

“Sorry, Chen.” It was as close to the proper pronunciation as he could get. He propped his head on an elbow, slumped on the desk. “I don't mean to be such a pain. Maybe I'll be over in a bit and give you guys a hand”

“I know what you're like when you get this way,” Tjieng continued wearily, but he heard the undercurrent of teasing. “Maybe you'd better stay and take care of your patients. If they can survive your mood.”

“Well, I'll only come if I cheer up, okay? Keep me informed.”

“You know I always do.”

“I know,” McCoy said, sounding conciliatory. It paid to stay on Tjieng's good side. “McCoy out.”

He looked up to see Spock standing outside his door. And that, he decided, was just one more reason to be in a sour mood. “Come in,” he said, feeling wary.

The Vulcan stepped inside, his expression composed but his tone hesitant. “Dr. McCoy, I have come to ask for a favor.”

“Well! A historic occasion,” McCoy said, aware that his sarcasm was quite lost on Spock. He motioned with his arm. “Come in and take a seat.”

Spock entered, but he said, “Thank you, Doctor. I prefer to stand.” And then he said, “An.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The correct phrase is ‘an historic occasion.'” The Vulcan's expression was completely serious; McCoy glared at him, searching for a glimmer of humor beneath the mask.

Unable to find one, he said, “Forget I ever said it. Just get to this favor, will you?”

“Very well. I would like you to run some lab tests.”

McCoy raised a brow. “You feeling poorly?”

“Not at all. I'd like for you to culture the virus in my blood to see how it affects Vulcans.”

“I assume you're talking about a sample of blood, not what's circulating around your body at the moment.”

“Precisely.”

McCoy leaned back in his chair. “Chances are, even if Vulcans aren't affected, you might be. After all, you're half human.” He expected Spock to take mild affront at that, to point out that the doctor never missed a chance to remind him of that fact; but the Vulcan took no offense.

“That is a fact. But what I'm suggesting is that you filter out the human elements and test the virus on the Vulcan elements in the blood.”

“I don't get it.” McCoy frowned. “Isn't the point to find out whether you're immune, whether you have to take precautions”

“Actually, I am somewhat curious, of course, but that is not the reason for my request.” He paused, and the way that he paused made McCoy brace himself for a surprise. “After piecing together the data recovered from the Tanis computers, I have learned that a Vulcan researcher was the first to die on Tanis as the result of a mysterious illness.”

“A Vulcan researcher” McCoy was aghast. “But Spock, aren't you fairly certain that they really were working on bioweapons down there?”

Spock nodded.

“Well—excuse me for mentioning it, but don't Vulcans consider it a tad immoral to create the means by which others kill?”

If Spock felt any discomfort at considering this, he failed to show it. Calmly, he answered, “I do not know. I prefer to think he was somehow uninvolved with what went on.”

“Uninvolved? What was he, a casual observer? If he didn't tell anyone, then he's as guilty as the rest.”

Spock folded his arms behind him. “Possibly. Regardless of his degree of involvement. Dr. McCoy, would you be willing to run the tests for me?”

McCoy waved his hand in a whatever-I-don't-care gesture. “You don't need me. You could ask the lab to do this.”

“I did. They informed me they're too busy developing the vaccine.”

“Well, that's a fact. But there's a logical gap, here, Mr. Spock. You haven't finished explaining what the Vulcan researcher has to do with any of this.”

“Oh. I presumed the connection was obvious.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe I'm just stupid and you have to explain it to me,” McCoy retorted, and then felt like biting his tongue off for saying it. Spock gazed calmly at him, and though his expression did not change, there was an unmistakable flicker in the dark eyes.

“I see,” the Vulcan said, and though he did not say,
as I had always suspected
, McCoy understood it. “Records seemed to indicate the Vulcan's body is still in stasis on Tanis. He may have died from the same virus that infects Adams, or he may have died from an entirely different microbe.”

The doctor leaned forward suddenly over his desk.
"Two
viruses? Isn't
one
bad enough?”

“Certainly. But if we want to understand what happened on Tanis, the logical thing to do is to recover the Vulcan researcher's body and ascertain what virus killed him. If the two viruses are related” Spock stopped abruptly, as if unwilling to take the idea any further.

“If they're related, then what?” McCoy pressed.

“Then we have more reason to believe that Starfleet is involved.”

McCoy started to open his mouth to ask how the hell Spock had come to
that
conclusion when a sharp beeping came over his intercom. He leaped from his chair, ignoring Spock's quizzical look.

“Doctor?” the Vulcan asked, but McCoy was already out of his office and passing through the quarantine entrance to Chapel's isolation unit. The fact that he was still wearing his field unit on his belt saved him several seconds; he switched it on, then entered the proper codes with furious haste. It took him less than fifteen seconds to don an infrared visor and arrive at Chapel's side.

Chris lay silently in the darkness, as she had for the past eighteen hours. Above her head, the function monitors glowed brightly.

Every one of the indicators had dropped to zero.

"No,”
McCoy whispered vehemently, with only himself to hear. It was not happening. Adams was alive Adams was strong enough to kill people. It was not right that the virus could kill someone like Chapel and leave Adams alive. He keyed up more stimulants from the pharmacy, pounding softly on the wall slot until they arrived. He administered the drugs, and when each of them failed, he summoned the life-support complex from the ceiling and lowered it over Chris' chest.

It worked, sort of. It provoked Chris' heart into beating again. It filled the lungs with air and emptied them, and removed waste products from her blood.

But it could not produce brain waves for her. And Chris' brain was dead.

ADAMS LEANED AGAINST the wall of the darkened turbolift and felt the strength bleed out of him. He slid, trembling, until he half sat, chest level with his knees. He did not understand this sudden surge of weakness; he had fed off the security guard only a few hours before, and before that, off the border patrol officer. Perhaps he was finally dying.

At the thought, he was filled with terrible fear. He felt as if he were drowning, like a fish out of water, starving for air in the midst of an ocean of oxygen.

The angry buzz of the intercom made him cringe. They had caught him; they would bring him out into the light to die. But no, it was only a recorded message that directed him to start the lift moving again, before the alarm was tripped. Adams grabbed the railing, pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, and started the lift in motion without any clear idea where he should go.

And then an instant of clarity descended on his hunger-fogged brain. “Sickbay,” he told the lift's computer.

It deposited him on the proper level. The bright lights in the corridor pained him; he drew the hood forward so that it hid his face and followed the markings along the top of the bulkheads to sickbay. To his amazing good luck, he ran into no one along the way, a fortunate thing since they had probably already alerted the crew. He was within sight of the entrance when it opened, and he fell back, flattening himself against a bulkhead.

From where he stood, he saw the back of the captain's head, and next to him, almost a foot taller, a pale, thin woman. They walked away, their backs to him, and he waited until they had gone.

It occurred to him then, in another rare flash of lucidity, that it made no sense to enter sickbay without a plan. He had a phaser, but it would be better to know where he was going.

Down the corridor he found an empty conference room; he sank into its darkness gratefully, settling in front of the computer terminal. He put his thin arms on it as if embracing an old friend and asked it a question. Many questions. The blood type of Jeffrey Adams. A listing of those with the same blood type and the location of their rooms.

The medical banks complied graciously with his request. Adams watched longingly as the list of names rolled past.

STANGER, JONATHON H.
YODEN, MARKEL
TRAKIS, EVANGELIA
ESSWEIN, ACKER M.

He memorized the first two names and then keyed up a schematic of the entire ship, and then a detailed schematic of sickbay, showing where equipment was stored.

Adams smiled to himself. Enthusiasm shored up his weakness. He had found a place to hide, and with Red's sensor-neutralizer, they would never find him. With her subspace transmitter, he would be able to call for help. And soon he would have a place to feed.

He began the more delicate work of overriding the computer security program that protected the locks on the cabin doors. Stanger's seemed as good a place to start as any.

That afternoon, McCoy sat mourning at his desk. If the night and morning had been a disaster, the afternoon had turned into a living hell.

Nguyen was still in isolation, awaiting test results. But the Andorian's questions had so irritated McCoy that he had sent her to her quarters. The field suit was enough protection against the virus but not against his fingers around her throat. As soon as he realized what was happening to Chapel, he sent the Andorian away.

He had lost patients before. But when he had lost them, it had been because of life-threatening illness that had advanced too far, and McCoy and the patient had both known it. Or it had been an injury so extensive, so mutilating, that even modern medical techniques could not have restored a life worth living. And again, both McCoy and patient had been prepared for death, had seen it coming.