Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) (33 page)

“Right.
And we can't exactly throw them out and start over. We need them. So we need to
educate people about them.”

“Ah,
gotcha.” Bailey nodded and then waved. “Gotta go, toodles.”

Irons
shook his head as the chief walked off.

Irons
tugged on his jacket hem as he watched the loading. He turned as he sensed
someone approach. It wasn't uncommon, watching the loading crew had been an
occupation for those off duty for a while now. Most of the watchers congregated
on the overhead balcony. He'd expected the galley to set up some sort of bar or
minor coffee shop there but so far the food staff had resisted the temptation.
It was a pity, they were losing out on a great location.

He
wasn't sure he liked it that most of the people avoided his company. He avoided
theirs, preferring a space away from knots of people. It wasn't that he didn't
want company, it was just that he was still cautious after the past several
attempts on his life. Fortunately he immediately recognized the biosign.

“How
are they doing down there?” Bailey asked quietly.

“On
the planet? Not sure,” Irons said lazing against the railing. He'd checked a
few times but left Sprite to keep watch. So far she didn't have much beyond
scuttlebutt she'd picked up from the crew. Most of it was in line with what he
had expected.

“You
haven't been down?”

“I've
been a bit busy up here.”

Bailey
snorted. That was true enough. They didn't have much time left in orbit though.
The captain had a cargo shuttle out wrangling rocks, now that Irons had shown
them the technique. A few of the rocks coming in were ice, which allowed them
to refuel a little. He did think Irons needed a break and had said as much to
Bailey, putting the simian up to suggesting it. Bailey had made sure they
weren't going anywhere anytime soon before coming here to bring it up. “Yeah
well, I'd have thought you'd get some shore leave in.”

“I
might if I knew I wasn't going to be marooned on the planet,” Irons snorted.

Bailey
blinked for a moment then chuffed a sigh and shook his head. “Yeah, there is
that.” He turned and watched a pallet loader trying to get a support strut for
an emergency building into a shuttle and failing. He winced as the driver
applied a little too much force and ripped the paint off one side.

“Someone's
going to get their ass chewed over that,” he growled. “Fuck, that's not a
simple buff out either. Right down to bare metal.”

“Should
have come in at an angle,” the Admiral said disinterested.

“Probably.”

After
a minute of silence as they watched the work crew get the situation under
control Bailey grunted. “Where the hell'd all this come from anyway?”

“I
made it.”

“You?”
Bailey had been a little busy so he'd apparently missed that tidbit.

“Remember
all those asteroids I wrangled earlier?” Irons turned to the chimp with a
serendipitous smile.

“Oh.”

“The
mayor or planetary governor or who ever, wanted shelters,” Irons said as the
pause lengthened uncomfortably. The purser had waited until everything else was
unloaded before allowing the things he'd made to go down. He'd found out an
hour ago that most of it was still sitting in store rooms. What he had seen
yesterday had been the remnants of the last official load. He'd had to go to
the captain when he had found out Mayfair and the purser had cooked up an idea
to charge the colonists shipping for it all. That hadn't gone over well with
Custard. Nor the captain for that matter. The captain had squelched it of
course. That wasn't what they were here for.

He
couldn't understand Mayfair. Was she really so stupid as to undermine her own
position like that? Or was it deliberate? Was she sent out here purposely to
fail?

Of
course some people became sore when they were given a hand out. He could
understand pride, but there was a time and a place for it. When your kids were
starving... that wasn't the time for pride to get in the way. The Agnostan's
had understood that. They intended to do something nice for Destiny, he wasn't
sure what.

Of
course for Notuma it could be the port fees they had asked for when the ship
had finally made official contact with the colony. That had apparently not gone
over well with the penny pinching accountant. He couldn't blame Notuma though,
they were looking a gift animal in the mouth.

Of
course what Notuma didn't or wouldn't realize was that the port fees and the
money the spacers were spending ground side was a major kick to the colony's
economy. The trade would hopefully spread throughout the colony and get people
to re-establish trade routes.

“Yeah,
I heard they were living in caves.” Bailey's face contorted in a rictus of
anger. “Bloody pirates,” he hissed. When the pirates had heard that the towns
and villages had gone bush they had taken what they had wanted and then blasted
the buildings from orbit with kinetic strikes. Most of what they had taken had
been returned already. Not that jewelery and machinery would do much to help
with winter fast approaching.

“They
need those rations you made. A way to make them on their own would be nice,”
the chief said after a bleak moment of thought at how cold and long the winter
would be. He'd heard they had saved some crops but not a lot. Winters were long
on Agnosta. They were even worried about firewood.

“Way
ahead of you chief,” Sprite said amused. He turned to see her holographic image
sitting on the Admiral's shoulder like a tiny faerie.

“Oh?”

She
smiled and pointed. A series of crates were being loaded into another shuttle.
“Plastic extruder for the packaging. They already loaded the food processors.”

“Oh.”

Irons
grunted. “More than one. I'm sending down three, one to each major town. And a
couple of smaller units for the clustered villages.”

“Including
a castle if you can believe it,” Sprite interjected. “They were spared the
kinetic strike since they were well camouflaged.” She had thought that the new
capital would turn up there, that they would evolve into some sort of feudal
society given time and a lack of outside intervention. Fortunately Destiny had
intervened to change that path.

“Really?
I'd think that a castle would be sort of hard to miss from orbit,” Bailey
snorted.

“Not
this one.” A holo appeared in front of them. It was of the planet. A box formed
over an area and then it zoomed in. “The castle is built into the side of a
mountain. It's well hidden due to the use of native stone and the forest.” She
zoomed in again so they could see what looked like a swatch of  mountain
forest.

“I
don't see anything...” Bailey grunted.

“Here.”
Sprite highlighted the linear outline of the buildings and then rotated the
view to a Bird's eye. “The builder incorporated some of the giant trees into
the castle. Their canopies provide excellent shade and cover from overhead
eyes. Not effective against a thermal imaging scan, but apparently enough to
fool the pirates.”

“And
it's so far out of the way it doesn't get much traffic you'd think.”

“No,
it does.” Sprite highlighted a valley trail. “The castle is in the middle of
this passage which is used to transfer goods between the coastal towns and the
inner plains towns. It's also a good base for foresters to log the surrounding
area and then sell their goods to both sides.”

“Ah.”

“I
think it's going to be a major trade center and possibly a contender for the
new planetary capital once things get sorted out,” Irons said.

“Maybe.
My money is on one of the space port areas. Flying in and out of the mountains
is hard.”

“Speaking
as a chief engineer with no flying experience Chief?” Sprite teased with a
smile.

“No,
just as a passenger thinking about flying a brick down into a mountain chain,”
Bailey retorted.

“Point.”

“You
were saying they've got food extruders now? Or will?”

“They
are simple things. Put raw food or other organic materials into the hoppers and
the plastic wrappers in a feed slot and it will spit out ration packs.”

“Well,
it also needs water and electrical power Admiral,” Sprite pointed out
helpfully. “About one hundred kilowatts of electrical power per device.”

Bailey
winced at that. He turned but then something caught his eye and he turned back
to see pallets of wind turbine parts. “Thought of everything huh?”

“I
try. Generally fail, but I try.”

Bryan
scowled as he dropped his bags onto his desk and sat on a stool. He shook his
head as the lights in his little sickbay came up to see Irons there stroking
Nara.

“Home
sweet home. How's she been?”

Irons
looked up with a polite smile. “Fine, fine, just fine. Kits too Doc.”

“Don't
call me that, after the past couple of days I've had, goddess of space I feel
like....”

“Problems
Doc?” Irons asked looking up.

“Yeah,
something's getting to the kids. People with weak immune systems I think. Not
sure what. I got called in to take a look but I don't have a clue,” he sighed,
clearly frustrated. He got up and paced. Nara chittered at him and he stopped
to stroke her pelt.

“So
why are you here and not there?”

“I
can't figure it out, and I can't describe it over the link. I brought up some
tissue and blood samples to do some digging.”

“Ah.”
Irons sat back and crossed his legs. “And here I thought you came up to check
the medical database.”

“Do
give me some credit. We, hell you cloned it. There is a copy down there. Or if
worse comes to worse I could access it through the satellite net you set up.
Thanks for that, it's helped coordinate medical rescue efforts a lot.”

“Good
to hear,” Irons said with a nod.

“You
don't look so well Admiral, sleeping okay?” Bryan asked, checking him over.

“A
lot to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it in Doc, I'm just bushed.”

“You
need some time off.”

“When
we're in transit I'll get some time off.” Irons yawned and stretched. Nara
looked up and then stretched herself. “So what are the symptoms?” he asked
after Nara finished.

Bryan
frowned as he unpacked the cooler with the blood in it. “In the little kids it
starts with irritability and drowsiness. Some of the older kids and adults have
headaches, neck stiffness, confusion, and fever. A few have bad reactions to
light and sound. After a while they get constant nausea and vomiting. After a
while the patient collapses and dies.”

“That's
bad,” Irons sat up abruptly, suddenly concerned about an outbreak. The last
thing they needed was a major disease. Which... he tried to rally his thoughts
as guilt started to set in. He should have anticipated this. Damn it...

“Tell
me about it.” Bryan shook his head. The captain was concerned about exposing
their only medic to a possible outbreak. Bryan had been forced to repeatedly
explain to the captain that he had been given all his immunization shots before
embarking.

Sprite
felt a little exasperation. The doctor clearly needed a fresh perspective. He
hadn't bothered to do a scan... no he didn't even have a bot connected to his
system! Not even a search engine! How stupid was that? Fortunately she had a
solution. The medical texts she had copied over to him had already been
indexed. A little programming and a spider bot began to crawl through the
remaining files, adding to the index. It would even cross reference material
when it was done.

That
solved future problems but not the current one. Sprite did a quick check and
found quite a few maladies with similar symptoms. They needed to narrow the
field. She picked one that had the highest probability and went with it.
“Doctor, is there the presence of a rash or swelling of the spine or brain?”
Sprite asked.

Bryan
scowled, ignoring the doctor crack. “Let me check my notes.” He pulled out his
tablet, unzipping it from it's cover and dropping the carrying case back into
his bag. “Um,” he looked down at it and started to scroll through it.

“Accessing.
Running a word search. I see you copied the notes of several of the medics on
the planet. Two mention a rash, one mentions possible brain swelling. I would
suggest checking the blood for bacterial or viral infection.” There was a hint
of triumph in her voice. She had figured it out after all so she had a right to
be smug.

“Oh?”
Bryan asked looking up.

“Accessing
your medical database I've come across one possible subject that encompasses
all mentioned symptoms.”

“Do
tell!” Bryan said, hope in his eyes.

“Terran
Meningitis.”

“Menin...
oh my. Oh my.” Bryan shook his head, eyes wide. “How, how could I have missed
something so obvious!” he looked down, hand shaking as he scrolled through the
database files to the indicated diagnosis.”