Star Cruise - Outbreak (23 page)

“And breakfast.” He tapped her on the nose. “You have to keep your strength up. Meg’s told me how you forget to eat anything all day long. I wish I could be there at lunchtime to ensure you sit down and take in some nutrition.”

Laughing, Emily said, “Such a worrier. Who knew?”

“I like taking care of you.” A devilish gleam came into his eyes, and he ground his hips against hers. “I think I’m pretty damn good at it. You seemed to agree last night, more than once, as I recall.”

“No argument there. But we do have to make it to my staff meeting on time. There’s probably enough gossip about us already. A betting pool, maybe.” She found the idea amusing now, where in the past it would have annoyed her immensely. Emily kissed him and rolled away, rising from the warm bed with a shiver. She reached over to smack his ass lightly. “You can take your shower with me, if that’s any consolation.”

“Now you’re talking, Doc.” Jake was all enthusiasm as he chased her into the bathroom.

Miracle of miracles, Emily thought, they did arrive at the meeting a few minutes early and didn’t have to do the walk of shame into the room in front of the rest of the staff. She had launched into the first item on the agenda when Mrs. Fenn knocked and peeked into the small conference room.

“I’d like to invite myself to the morning meeting,” she said, her face set in unusually serious lines. “I have something to report from the initial data analysis.”
 

Emily waved her inside. “Good news, I hope?”
 

“Interesting.” The elderly woman shrugged as she sat down in the chair Jake brought her and placed her knitting bag on the deck. “Might help keep panic down on board.”

Trying not to get her hopes up, Emily fiddled with her stylus. “By all means, share. We could all use something positive.”

“People with blood Type O aren’t coming down with this disease. You have no patients with Type O blood who exhibited stage-one symptoms or were given Galamialate.”

“So maybe the ones who are healthy now will stay symptom-free?” Meg asked. She looked at the medical personnel seated with her. “Am I understanding this news correctly?”

“Can we use Type O blood as a treatment for those who are sick? O is the universal donor, right?” Jake said.

“Correct.” Emily fought to keep her excitement under control. “Maeve, do we have Type O available?”

“Yes, Doctor, we have a small supply.”

“I bet if we asked for volunteers, we could get a lot more. I’d volunteer. I’m O,” Meg said.

“I think we need to run a small experiment first, see if the blood helps the victims at all. There may be other factors at play here that we don’t understand.” Emily hated to quell the rising enthusiasm in the room. Her staff needed all the hope Mrs. Fenn or anyone else could generate for them over this news, but it was too soon to declare any kind of victory. “Maeve, I need to speak to Mr. Enzell. His wife and son were the first to arrive at sickbay with stage two and remain the most critically ill of the surviving, so I’d like to test our theory with them. If the O blood gives any kind of advantage at all, the Enzells need it the most. I’ll require his permission to proceed with the experiment.”

“One isolated piece of data may not be significant,” Mrs. Fenn warned. “But I deemed it worthy of reporting.”

“Thank you so much for tackling the analysis,” Emily said. “I’ll pass the news on to Captain Fleming. Maybe the Sectors authorities will rethink their orders about marooning us in a deserted star system. Of course he’d have to drop out of hyperspace again to transmit.”

“I wouldn’t be too hopeful,” Jake said. “An awful lot of people are the other blood types, not to mention all the nonhuman-descent residents of Sector Hub. No one knows if any of them are susceptible to Groskin’s. Until we know the cause of the outbreak—if we ever do—I think we’re still in a lot of trouble out here.”

The ping of an incoming message dragged Emily from a deep sleep in the early hours of her fifteenth day onboard the ship. “What is it?”

“Sorry to disturb you, Doctor.” Bevar’s deep bass voice vibrated through the comlink. “We have two new cases of stage-one Groskin’s.”

“What?” Wide awake now, she sat bolt upright in bed. “Give me all the details—wait, where are the patients?”

“In sickbay. I’m up here at the moment too. I think you’d better come.”

“New cases.” Her heart sank. The two things giving anyone hope at the moment were the lack of fresh victims and the Type O protection Mrs. Fenn had just identified the day before. “Blood type?”

“We’re okay there. Neither patient is Type O.” Bevar sounded as relieved as she felt. “Nothing to call into question Mrs. Fenn’s analysis. All our Type O passengers are safe as far as we know.”

Jake was awake now as well, bringing the lights up and pulling on clothes.

Distractedly, Emily got dressed in the uniform he handed her, firing questions at her PA. “Who are these people?”

“Newlyweds, actually. Been in their cabin for the entire cruise up till two days ago.” Bevar’s voice sounded as if he was highly amused, despite the gravity of the situation. “Then they ventured out and enjoyed some of the ship’s advertised luxury features.”

“And now both husband and wife are sick?” Emily tsked in dismay. “We’re going to need a complete list of where this couple went, what they did.” She flicked the symbol allowing her to talk to the Ship. “Maeve, can you check your files on this couple as well, in case their account omits something? People who are ill might not have the most perfect recall of details.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

With Jake at her side, Emily made her way through the relatively deserted corridors and reached sickbay in record time. Bevar met her in the lobby. “Mr. and Mrs. Tetler are in room two, terrified out of their minds despite my best attempt to be reassuring. Apparently, the couple didn’t listen to any of the ship messages or broadcasts, so when they got sick and came to see us, the news of what’s going on was a rude shock.”

“No matter how thorough communication is, someone misses getting the word.” Emily walked into the exam room to meet her latest patients, Jake remaining in the lobby.

“Are we going to die?” was the first thing out of the man’s mouth. He was trembling and pasty white with a green tinge, probably from nausea.

“Not all those who are infected progress to stage two of Groskin’s,” Emily said in her most reassuring voice. She raised an eyebrow at Bevar. “Did you administer Galamialate yet?”

“Yes, Doctor. There were no contraindications.”

“Will the inject keep us from getting worse?” Mrs. Tetler asked, rubbing her husband’s arm.

“We don’t know much about the course of Groskin’s yet. I’m unable to give assurances about stage two, but the nausea and related symptoms of stage one will definitely pass. I need to ask you what you did after you left your cabin…two days ago, was it?” She tried to belatedly apply a little bedside manner. “Congratulations on your marriage, by the way.”

“I wanted to take our honeymoon on Harilon, at the five-star resort in the tropics,” Mr. Tetler said, giving his wife an angry glare and moving an inch or two away from her. “But nooo, you wanted to be on the same ship with the famous trideo stars. Who we haven’t seen.”

“The cruise isn’t over yet,” she said, pointing her chin in the air and sniffing. “Besides, everyone we know has gone to that resort on their honeymoon. We’re the first in our crowd to do a romantic star cruise.”

“Yeah, and see how your choice is turning out. We might be dying!” He wrapped his arms across his stomach and cringed as a fresh wave of nausea and cramps swept over him.

Not enjoying being present at their newlywed quarrel, Emily said, “I can probably get you an autograph from Liora and Sid. Possibly a meeting later in the cruise, but no promises there. It’ll depend on their availability.”
Who am I kidding?
Sid will probably love the newlywed angle to add interest to his documentary.
As the bride bestowed a beaming smile and rushed to give effusive thanks, Emily went on. “Now if you can please tell me what activities you did after you decided to leave your suite a few days ago?”

“Breakfast in the Level A dining room, a day at the beach—”
 

“Snorkeling in the reef,” Mrs. Tetler said. “The holograms are high quality.”

“Dinner in the Starlight Lounge, caught the show at the theater, did some gambling at the casino.” Mr. Tetler paused for a moment of reflection. “Pretty much sums up the itinerary, with minor variations each day.”

“You worked out at the gym on Level 6,” his wife said, poking him in the ribs. “And I spent the afternoon at the spa yesterday. The staff excels at pampering a person. You should have come with me, sweetheart.”

“Being covered in expensive mud and then manhandled by strangers doesn’t appeal to me.” He harrumphed and glared at his bride.

“May I ask what you did instead, sir?” Emily interrupted.

“Revisited the beach and surfed the waves.” He made a gliding motion with his hand. “Not as good as the real thing, of course, but fun. I did okay. The lifeguards are running an amateur competition, and I got third place for the day.”

“I came and joined you later,” his wife said. She glanced at him and blushed. “We, uh, got a bit frisky in the water, Doctor.”

“We had to celebrate my trophy,” he husband said, hugging her closer. “And after all, we did just get married.”

Thinking these two were regaining their energy as the Galamialate kicked in, Emily had heard enough. “All right, I think we’ve gotten enough information, thank you.”

“Can we go to our cabin now?” asked Mr. Tetler.

“Yes, of course. Keep an eye on each other for signs of bleeding or unusual bruising. Call sickbay if you see anything suspicious, and we’ll send out a team to assist you to the quarantine ward.” Emily strove to sound as reassuring as she could. “Stay in your cabin for three days, to ensure you aren’t progressing into stage two.”

The Tetlers couldn’t leave fast enough, leaning on each other.

“I can’t say we got much help from them,” Bevar said, cleaning up the exam room and recycling the used injects. “They did pretty much all the same things as the other passengers have been doing. It’s a cruise ship, limited choices.” He glanced at the AI ganglion in the corner of the ceiling. “No offense, Maeve.”

“Except these two got sick, which tells me the pathogen is still active somewhere. Despite all the cleaning.” Emily pulled up the huge data file Maeve had generated and blinked at the scrolling columns of information her personal AI was projecting. “I keep hoping Mrs. Fenn will have another inspiration about the data, the way she did with the blood types.” With an impatient flick of her wrist, she shut the report off again and rubbed her forehead. “Gives me a headache watching the columns scroll by. All right, I’m off duty till the morning, so I’d better go try for some rest. See you at the staff meeting.”

As she made her way to her cabin with Jake, she briefed him on the new cases. “I keep thinking a vital clue is right in front of me, you know? But there’s so much freaking data. I stare at it and I sort it and nothing pops out. Or else I think I’m onto a trend and then the data peters out and it’s back to the beginning. I’m not trained in epidemiology.”

“And you’re tired, with an overload of problems on your mind. Best thing to do is sleep on it, let your subconscious work on the clues. You might find you wake up with an insight,” Jake suggested as he let her precede him into the cabin.

 
She curled up in bed but couldn’t sleep, so finally she rose rather than continue to toss and turn and keep Jake from resting. Throwing on a robe and summoning the data stream again from Maeve, she sat on the couch in the living area and tried to concentrate. After a moment, eyes glazing over despite her best intentions, Emily said, “This isn’t going to work.”
 

“Too much data? Too fast?” Maeve asked. “Do you want me to sort with some other parameter as the critical factor?”

“It all makes me dizzy.” Emily rose, padding into the kitchenette to check for leftover coffee. Maybe she needed to begin afresh, with Patient Zero. Reset her assumptions and re-examine what she knew. “There’s a reason I didn’t go into research after I got my degree. Give me the Groskin file of activities again.”

“Just his?”

“Yes. And I want to see the vid you captured as well as the data readout, please. But suppress the dialogue, one and a half real speed.” The Ship obligingly brought up the information on the late Mr. Groskin. Seating herself at the table and sipping the lukewarm coffee, Emily watched him gamble, flirt with various ladies at the bar, sleep, attend a special tasting dinner with Chef Stephanie and ten other passengers—
 

“Did anyone else at the tasting event fall ill?”

“No, Doctor.”

So much for that theory. Groskin and Stephanie acted like old friends in the vid of the dinner, congenial, flirting a bit. Might be worth sending someone—not Jake—to interview her. Smiling to herself at the little flare of jealousy, Emily made a circular motion with her free hand. “Continue.” Now Groskin was at the beach on Level 5, lugging a surfboard of all things. Despite his somewhat portly build, he rode the waves like a pro, crashing under the surface only a few times. “Wait a minute. Play the last snippet one more time.” As she watched him fall and surface spouting water like a sea creature, she said, “Lords of Space, it’s the water. Tetler said he went surfing. His wife said they were both in the water—”