Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic (14 page)

He strained to remember everything else Therian
had said, the kinds of information he had been calling
up. Occupations, locations—

“Computer,” Korsal said suddenly, his guts tightening as if he were bracing for battle, “show me the pattern of spread of the three strains of the disease among all Nisus citizens of mixed heritage, their
families, supervisors, teachers, students, partners,
colleagues, and anyone else with whom they would
have daily contact.”

“Working,” replied the cold mechanical voice.

And then the pattern appeared—undeniable, lethal. It took no Vulcan logic to perceive the deadly
pattern. What glared at Korsal from the cold screen
negated the entire purpose of Nisus.

Chapter Thirteen

On board the
Enterprise,
Spock divided his time
between his normal duties and the sickbay computer.
He skipped his sleep periods until he had gone over
everything Nisus or Starfleet’s medical records had to offer. Then he gave in to Dr. McCoy’s assertion that if
he did not rest while there was nothing to do, he
would not be ready to perform at optimum efficiency
when they received new data.

There were times when McCoy could be annoyingly
logical.

So Spock took his rest in sickbay … until he was wakened by whispered but vehement swearing. He
swung off the couch and went to McCoy’s office.

Leonard McCoy stared at a multicolored display
coming to a halt on his computer screen. “Oh, God,”
he whispered. “Oh, no—that’s too dirty a trick for
even a virus to play!”

“What have you discovered, Doctor?”

“I didn’t discover it—some engineer on Nisus did.
Look at this spread pattern, Spock.” Then he spoke to
the computer. “Transfer to wall screen and replay.”

The large wall screen used for monitoring surgery
came to life. At first there was nothing but endless
lines of statistics such as they had seen a dozen times
before.

“Here’s what happens when you color-map those statistics for the victims’ species,” said McCoy. The
names and numbers disappeared from the screen, and
a multicolored grid appeared. “Blue for Andorians,
green for Vulcans, red for Humans, and so forth. At
first there’s no particular pattern—until you look at a
group of people who don’t fit any species: those of
mixed blood. There are hundreds of such people on
Nisus, most of them under twenty standard years
old.”

Spock frowned. “Biologically, such a disparate
group of people should not exhibit the same medical
profile.”

“Exactly why none of the medical personnel
thought of them as a homogeneous group. Our engi
neer friend didn’t know any better. Proceed to next screen,” McCoy told the computer, and suddenly masses of multicolored specks all turned white. “Those are Nisus residents of mixed heritage,” the
doctor explained.

“Now,” he continued, “this grid is by association —colored dots near the white dots represent family,
neighbors, close friends, classmates, and colleagues of
those of mixed blood. The varieties of the plague are
circles around the dots: purple for the first, fairly
harmless Strain A; gray for Strain B; and black for the
deadly Strain C. Time analysis,” he instructed the
computer, and the screen began ticking off days in the
upper-right-hand corner.

Circles appeared here and there around dots. The
dots were of different colors; the circles were all
purple.

As the chronometer ticked away the days, more and
more dots were encircled, the white dots as often as
the colored ones. Then the first gray circles represent
ing Strain B began to appear… always around col
ored dots in close proximity to purple-circled white
ones.

McCoy looked up at Spock, who schooled his
features lest he betray anxiety. The pattern continued. White dots that had never had purple circles acquired
gray ones—and near them the first black circles
appeared, as often as not around circles of purple.

“The mutations to more deadly strains,” Spock
forced through the tightness in his throat, “appear to
take place
…
in the systems of people of mixed
blood.”

“That’s what it looks like,” said McCoy. “It gets
worse, though.”

“Worse?” Spock wondered peripherally why
McCoy had the sickbay temperature set so low as he controlled a shiver.

“In medicine you look for the solution in the
problem,” McCoy told him. “Vaccination uses dis
ease against itself. It would be
…
logical to look to
those people in whom the disease mutates for immu
nity to the mutated strains.”

“I understand, Doctor,” said Spock. “Their blood
ought to develop antibodies against the new strains.”

“Exactly,” said McCoy. “Such people should exhib
it an immunity that could be cultured from their
blood and passed on to other people.”

“Of course,” Spock said with a hopeful nod. But
even as he said it, the screen showed why that was not
a solution. Some of the white dots began to be circled
with black … including some already circled with
purple.

Those in whom the disease mutated were no more
immune than anyone else. “Whatever antibodies they
develop,” said Spock, “give no protection against
advanced strains. The disease mutates in hybrid peo
ple, but we will not be able to produce a vaccine from
their blood.”

The screen faded to blank silver. McCoy rested his
head in one hand, rubbing at his temple. “That
certainly settles one thing, Spock. You’re not going
down to Nisus.”

Chapter Fourteen

Despite
Seela’s
best efforts, Korsal spent a restless
night after he had transmitted his discovery about the
plague’s pattern of spread to the hospital’s epidemio
logical section. That his own children were apparently
immune to this disease did not quell his anxiety. What new and grotesque variation of the plague might appear tomorrow, possibly attack his sons
—and turn them into incubators of new horrors?

He longed for a physical enemy—something he
could see, take a disrupter to, or a knife, or even his
bare hands. Then he could
do
something to protect his
family!

Seela had finally fallen asleep, curled up against his
side in animal abandon. As dawn broke, he looked at
her soft green skin, her sweet, innocent face, and
remembered how badly she wanted children. Hers
and his.

It would take a great deal of help from the geneti
cists; Klingon and Orion were far more different than
Klingon and Human. But it had been done before,
and Korsal had had few qualms about starting a
second family before the plague.

Now … was this plague a message from nature
that the Klingons were right to consider fusions
somehow inferior? He could not believe that—not in
the face of Kevin and Karl.

Almost at his thought, he heard movement in the
hallway. Kevin was up, eager to be off to the airfield.
Korsal got up and dressed, too, and joined his son for
breakfast.

Seela, so perfectly domestic that sometimes Korsal
wished for some flaw in her housekeeping, had left
coffee ready to brew at the touch of a switch and two
meals in the stasis bin. All they had to do was heat
them for a few moments.

That was nothing new to Korsal or Kevin; before
Seela, they had warmed up preprepared meals as often as not. The difference was that even before
Cathy had left, the meals were usually commercially
prepared. Seela’s were her own cooking.

And never since he had married Seela had Korsal
had to dial blandly inoffensive nutrition from the
kitchen console. He wondered if it was even stocked
anymore.

They ate quickly and took a jug of fresh hot coffee
with them. The spring weather had disappeared
again. It would be cold in the mountains. They put on boots, sweaters, and heavy jackets, and Korsal tossed
Kevin the helmet. “We’ll have to get another of
these,” he said. “Now that you’ve got your hoverer
license we may both be flying, like this morning, or
have one of us flying and one using the cycle.”

“We can borrow a spare helmet at the field today,” said Kevin. “When they called me the other day they
asked me to bring one because they’d lent out all the
extras. I guess I was at the bottom of their list of
pilots.”

“You were
on
it,” Korsal reminded him, “and you
performed responsibly. I doubt that you will be at the
bottom of the list the next time pilots are needed.”

The dispatcher at the airfield echoed Korsal’s senti
ments. She already had a craft booked for them,
telling Korsal, “Your son proved himself quite a pilot
on that evacuation mission. But it’s a good thing you’re with him today. A storm’s brewing in the
mountains—you could run into rough weather three or four hours from now.”

“Dangerous?” Korsal asked.

“Shouldn’t be for a pilot with your experience,” the
Lemnorian woman replied. “Still, you know how
unpredictable these mountains can be. Turn back if it gets too rough.”

Korsal’s expectations of his son’s skill proved true.
He had never flown with Kevin before, for Kevin’s lessons had been with a licensed instructor, and the
day he had come proudly home with his license had
been only one day before the closing of the airfield for
all but priority flights.

Hoverers were small aircraft that skimmed across
the terrain, ten or twelve meters above the ground.
Since they operated on a combination of air cushion
and antigravs, it was a rough ride, rising and falling as
did the ground below.

The skill in piloting a hoverer came in compensat
ing for terrain: the craft responded differently to water, trees, plowed land, buildings. An unskilled
pilot would let the craft jolt and buck each time the
terrain changed—and it was quite possible to crash
into a mountain or a tall building if he misjudged how
quickly the craft’s sensors could react.