Seed of Stars (14 page)

of medical procedure which had been received from the office of the United Earth Explorations Division officer. He was a worried man. One of the major requirements of the procedure was a detailed medical examination by the Corps medical section of a random sample of the colonial population. This was a routine measure designed to ensure, among other things, that after a hundred years on an alien planet no major defects had developed in the genetic structure of the colonists through radiation and other factors. Such a requirement was logical, in keeping with the Magarach Principle, which stated quite clearly that to be viable, the first essential was that a planetary population must be capable of breeding true.

Sato had no doubts on that score. Apart from the abnormal births traceable to the cause of pregnant women being infected with Johannsen's disease, there had been no sign of any genetic mutation in three generations. But, knowing the efficient methods of the Corps in such matters, there was little possibility that the medics would fail to detect the signs of Johannsen's disease that inevitably would be present in the bloodstream of a significant proportion of any random sample. And once the virus was discovered, there would be questions.

If only President Kido had acceded to his constant urgings to make a frank statement about the incidence of the disease, which was, after all, not a killer, then it still seemed to Sato that the Corps medics would automatically throw in their considerable resources to help in the eradication of Johannsen's disease. But Kido, because of his conviction that the investigating officer would use the presence of the disease as an excuse for delaying independence, would not be persuaded. And so a course of concealment had to be followed—a lie of omission compounded by another lie of a more positive nature; the responsibility for this falsification placed squarely on the shoulders of Sato, a burden which he could not shirk, because of his own loyalty to the planet of his birth.

The manner in which this lie would have to be presented to the investigating team was already clear in his mind, but there was very little time in which to act, and there would have to be a great deal of preparatory work beforehand by skilled staff, of whom he had all too few.

There was a tap on the door, and he looked up, his face brightening slightly as Mary Osawa entered the office. Mary, a stockily built woman in her late thirties, was in charge of the Fuji hospital on the eastern side of the city. Her specialty was virology, and it was she who had been responsible for the isolation and identification of the Johannsen's disease virus. At the moment, she and her assistants were working day and night in the task of developing an effective serum against the disease.

"Thank you for coming, Mary," he said, motioning her to a chair. "How is the work progressing?"

"Slowly, but there are hopeful signs," she said, her body settling itself into a slump of exhaustion as she seated herself.

"The
bhuku?"
Sato asked.
Bhukus
were a rabbitlike species of animal native to Kepler III, which had proved useful in the role of experimental subjects in the past

"Three of the control batch have developed Johannsen's," she said.

"And those who have been given the test serum?"

"No symptoms so far, but we must wait and see how long the apparent immunity lasts."

Wait and see
—it was the constant reply, but the only sensible one. Sato rebuked himself for still retaining the vain hope for a miracle. There was to be no easy way. Even if the serum did prove effective in these experimental animals, that was still only the first stage of the operation. It would then be necessary to carry out exhaustive tests to find out if it had the same effects on human subjects. And beyond that, supposing the human tests were successful, then there would still remain the problem of cultivating and purifying sufficiently large quantities of the serum to give immunization shots to the entire population of the planet. Mary Osawa's laboratory was just not geared for such a production program, either in the matter of trained virologists, or in necessary equipment.

"Kenji, if you could speak to the President again ..

"That is out of the question," Sato said, cutting in on her sharply. "He has made it quite clear that he has no intention of changing his attitude. I have argued and pleaded, but he stands firm. Independence is, and must remain, the prime consideration."

"And meanwhile, those of our women who are unfortunate enough to be infected must go on bearing these monstrous children?"

"It is a price that must be paid."

She looked at him, a hint of pity in her dark eyes. "You, with your experience, can say that?"

"What
else
can I say?" he said, spreading his hands outwards on the desk top in a gesture of helplessness. "I am hoping that when Yoko's second child arrives, the effects of that disaster will be washed from her mind. It will be a new beginning."

Mary Osawa said: "I was talking to Yamaguchi on the vidphone earlier this morning. Two more cases were delivered to
him
last week. He and his workers are devoted to their task, but even their dedication cannot sustain them indefinitely, when there is no hope. Two cases this week, perhaps three next, and so on, until we are able to stamp out the disease. How long that will be we cannot tell at this stage. Perhaps it would be better if we were to euthanize the viable ones at birth."

"No! To pursue such a course would be a blasphemy, an admission of defeat, and a negation of all our vows," Sato said, his protest made the more vehement by his own half-admitted doubts in the matter. In the first instance the idea of transferring the surviving mutated children to the Intensive Care Pediatric Unit, some five hundred kilometers from Main City, and isolated in the northern mountains of Ayoto, had been motivated by a faint hope that with care and treatment at least a small proportion of the monsters might be brought towards some kind of normality; but that hope had faded. Now it was apparent that the most the Intensive Care Unit could expect to do for the steadily growing number of patients was to feed and cleanse them, while they remained little more than mewling animals for the rest of their natural lives.

Mary Osawa sighed. "Perhaps you are right, Kenji. But there are already more than fifty of them. Yamaguchi and his people cannot cope with many more."

"I will talk with him, when I go there next week," Sato said. "There may be some way of easing the situation. In the meantime, I'd like you to take a look at this, particularly the section I have marked in red."

Mary Osawa scanned quickly through the draft of medical requirements prepared by the Explorations Division representatives. "A random sample of one thousand adults ..." she quoted, looking up at Sato. "What does this mean? Do they know already?"

Sato shook his head. "I think not According to the information I have been able to obtain about such investigations, this is merely a routine request The actual numbers of subjects required for such testing is at the discretion of the Medical Officer in charge, and this Lieutenant Maseba is evidently a very thorough man.
We
shall have to be even more thorough."

"I don't understand." Mary Osawa frowned.

Sato leaned forward over his desk, speaking with soft urgency. "We can't possibly allow Maseba to examine a
truly
random sample, surely you can see that? It will be necessary to make a complete preliminary check on each person involved. No one with a history of Johannsen's disease, or who shows any positive trace of the presence of the virus, must be included."

"Preselection...?"

"By yourself and your team," Sato said. "It will be a big job, but not impossible for such an experienced group."

"And our research in the meantime?"

*Tm afraid that will have to wait," Sato said. "Believe me, I wouldn't involve you if there were anyone else qualified to do this job, but there just isn't. I could probably handle it myself, but that is impossible; there will be so many claims on my time and attention during this period. For one thing, I shall be expected to hold myself available at any time for liaison work with this Maseba."

Mary Osawa looked steadily into the strained face of this man for whom she had so much respect, both personally and professionally. Although what he asked of her was both dangerous and illegal, she was well aware that he asked not for himself, but for the planet of their birth.

"Very well, Kenji" she said. "I will do what is necessary. God grant that we are doing the right thing."

"Amen to that," Sato said, bowing his head.

This evening the garden was of little comfort to Kenji Sato. He felt weary in mind and body as he walked into the house; apprehensive of the web of intrigue in which he was already involved, and of the way in which that web must surely grow during the next few months.

As he removed his shoes, he heard a slight sound behind him, and turned, to see his wife Tana standing in the hallway.

"Kenji, my dear, we have visitors. Will you come and greet them now, or would you prefer to bathe and change first?"

Visitors . . . there was something about the way in which Tana pronounced the word, combined with the troubled expression on her usually placid face, which kindled a new apprehension in him.

"Visitors?"

"A girl, Mia Mizuno, of our own family, and the man who is to be her husband."

"Mizuno?" he repeated. It was an old name, with family associations that stretched back long before his own birth, to the family roots back on Earth. There were Mizunos here on Kepler, but none, so far as he knew, related to him. "I had better come and meet them now," he said.

The girl and her man were seated in the lounge with Yoko as he entered Both were wearing the shapeless coveralls of Keplerian workers. The girl was a pretty little thing who might well have been Yoko's sister, but from the ungainly manner in which he rose to his feet from the
tatami
floor, the man was obviously a Westerner, despite his dark coloring.

The girl approached and bowed respectfully. "My apologies for this sudden intrusion, Sato-san. I am Mia Mizuno, of your family, from Haneda port, Tokyo, Earth. And this is my husband-to-be, Piet Huygens."

"Who is also from Earth?" Sato said, smiling up at the tall stranger, who stood awkwardly by. The smile was merely a formal one, a means of hiding the turbulence of his thoughts as he considered the possible implications of this visit There had been no landing of an Earth-side ship on Kepler III since the Excelsior Corporation freighter
Wangituru
some three months previously, except that of the Space Corps ship
Venturer Twelve.
And yet these two were not dressed in Corps uniform, or in the kind of civilian clothes one would expect to find official passengers on such a ship wearing.

"From the North American continent, Lake Cities," Mia said. Bowing again, she held out in both hands an object elaborately wrapped in blue plastofoil. "Sato-san, I beg you to accept this worthless gift, and pray that you will listen with kindness to the story I have to tell of our reasons for being here."

"Where family is concerned, there can be no more sacred or true reason than the ties of blood," Sato said, bowing in return. "You are welcome to my humble house." He placed the gift on a small table, and spoke to his wife. "Our kinsfolk will take tea with us, Tana, my dear. Perhaps Yoko would assist you?"

As mother and daughter disappeared obediently from the room, Sato motioned to his guests to resume their sitting position, and squatted down himself opposite them. Now that the formalities were over he was anxious to know the full reasons behind the unheralded appearance of these two people from Earth.

"Huygens?" Commander Bruce glared up at Maseba.

"I'm afraid it looks that way," Maseba said, his dark face solemn. "No one has seen him aboard since last evening, and there's a record of his going planet-side at nineteen-thirty hours. Of course, there may be some very good reason..."

"Good reason? Damn and blast, man!" snapped Bruce. "There's no possible reason for a Corps officer to be absent from his post."

"An accident?" suggested Lindstrom.

"Then we would have been informed by the planetary authorities," Bruce said.

Maseba said, "I have to agree with you, Commander. I think we must treat this as a case of desertion and make the fair assumption that it is connected with the similar disappearance of Crewwoman Mizuno."

"Mizuno and Huygens?" Lindstrom said, looking at Maseba,

The Surgeon Lieutenant nodded. "Yes, and I'm afraid that I must be in some measure to blame for precipitating the crisis. You see, I ordered Huygens to carry out the Comp. Ab. on the girl."

"You mean the child is his?" Lindstrom said. "God! What a terrible thing for them both."

Bruce stared from one to the other of his two companions, an expression of incredulity on his rugged features. "Crossing ranks, illegal pregnancy, and now desertion, on
my
ship!" He jabbed a button on his desk. "Telecoms? Get me a vidphone link with the Main City Chief of Police."