Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic (38 page)

Deaver heard it this time. He boosted himself back
up next to T’Pina and pounded three times on the
cabinet they lay on.

There was a response of four strokes, which he
immediately echoed.

When there was no further pounding, he said,
“They must have us pinpointed. We’ll be out of here
soon, now.”

Sure enough, three people in aquatic gear emerged
near them. Treading water, one man removed his
mask, saying, “Are you hurt? Can you swim?”

“We’ll make it,” Deaver replied for both of them.

Another of the divers helped them into breathing
masks and air bottles.

Reluctantly, T’Pina slid into the freezing water,
where one of their rescuers snapped a line to her, then
took her hand.

“Most of the way’s not lighted,” they were told. “Just follow the line, though, and we’ll get you out.”
Then the man who had spoken replaced his breathing
mask, and they all dived beneath the bitterly cold
water.

Being able to breathe was a great help, but T’Pina felt her hands and feet go numb. Although her head
was clearer than before, her muscles had less strength;
her rescuers had to drag her along.

Finally they came out into a narrow tower of still
water, with gray light filtering down on them. As they
rose, there was more and more light, and T’Pina
recognized that they were in a stairwell, with a rectan
gle of sky above them where the door to the roof was
open.

They surfaced, and were swimming toward the
stairs when suddenly the water swirled madly!

T’Pina was thrown against one of her rescuers, and
he was caught between her and the stairs as she
smashed helplessly into him.

Then she was tossed in the opposite direction, her air bottle bruising her as she was brutally hauled
along.

The leader dropped his mask again to shout,
“Don’t lose the line!”

Everything was sliding sideways!

The stairs collapsed, and those treads above water
tumbled down on them.

The open doorway above sank toward them, and T’Pina tried to follow the example of her rescuers,
rapidly passing the safety rope hand over hand as it
sank into the water.

And then the roof tumbled in, forcing them all to dive beneath the freezing water once more, to avoid
being crushed by the collapsing building.

As one, Spock and Sarek sensed the roof beneath them move, one side rising, the other sinking. They
saw the empty air car began to slide down toward the
water and sprinted toward it, trying to grab hold and
swing into it before it could sink.

Behind them Michaels cried out, “The whole build
ing’s collapsing!” He made a dash for the boat, tumbled into it, and pulled the moorings loose.

Sarek reached the air car first, and sensibly did not
wait to try to pull Spock aboard, but revved the motor
to get the craft airborne.

Spock leaped for the passenger pod on the opposite
side just as the roof gave way beneath his feet. He hung on to the lurching flyer until his father had it
flying level, then he climbed up and into it, quickly
strapping himself into the safety harness.

Below them, he saw Michaels in the bobbing marine vehicle, stretching to reach the end of the safety
rope floating on the water. He almost overreached
himself as his fingers barely closed over it, but the two women grabbed his legs and yanked him back into the
boat.

Then the three of them hauled on the rope, meters of it coiling into the boat before—

A head broke the surface!

It was one of the rescue party, in a wetsuit, but with
the help of the people in the boat he quickly hauled
more line in until they were dragging a man in
pajamas and robe into the boat, wrapping a blanket
around him and taking him out of their way while they turned their attention to the others in the water.

A second head in aquatic gear broke surface, and
then a third. Between them they supported a woman
in a green coverall, her long dark hair trailing in the
water.

Air bubbles released from the collapsed building tossed the boat as the rescue team fought to get the
woman and themselves into it. When they were finally
aboard, Rogers picked up a communicator. “Can you
bring that craft down so we can load the patients, Mr.
Spock?”

He did, then left Sarek to hold it steady as he
climbed out to help.

Although she was pale, T’Pina was conscious. The
other patient, the man, was out cold. “Beau!” T’Pina shouted at him, but there was no response.

In the lurching water, it took several tries to get
both T’Pina and the man with her strapped into the
pods. Fighting the air car to steadiness, Sarek reported the news that T’Pina had been found, alive
and conscious. By the time Spock climbed into his
seat, Sorel was on the communicator. “Please bring
T’Pina directly to the medcamp.” They banked off
toward the hills, carefully making their way through
the flock of air cars and hoverers still busy rescuing
survivors.

There were boats of all descriptions on the water
now, plucking up survivors. Spock saw a green Orion
woman take a Caitian woman and her cub from a
treetop into a dinghy. A team of Tellarites glided over
the water in a longboat, maneuvering the narrow
streets between buildings to take people from win
dows. The waters were slowly receding, high-water
marks on the sides of buildings a good two meters
above the current level.

The worst was over. Now came the discovery of
who was alive, the recovery of the bodies of the dead.
And then the difficult job of cleaning and rebuilding.

Spock looked out over the drowned landscape and
wondered how long it would take before Nisus rose
again.

Chapter Forty-one

At the
medcamp
, Sorel permitted himself relief at
T’Pina’s survival. He went in search of T’Kar, who
was back at nursing despite being hardly recovered
herself.

“Thank you, Sorel,” she told him, her eyes warm
with relief. “I will come with you.”

They met the air car and helped Spock and Sarek
unload the patients. There was too much rescue work
still to be done for father and son to linger, they swung
quickly back into their craft and went in search of
further victims.

T’Kar bent over her daughter. “T’Pina—”

“I am well, Mother,” the younger woman insisted,
trying to climb to her feet. “Beau—he saved my life. How badly is he hurt?”

His medscanner quickly confirmed that T’Pina had
suffered few ill effects, so Sorel turned to her compan
ion, remembering the Human/Orion hybrid. Like
T’Kar, he had been saved from death by the serum
from T’Pina’s blood, and was barely recovered.

“He is merely unconscious,” Sorel assured T’Pina.
“Exhaustion, not his wound. Let him sleep. He will
recover in a day or two. Meanwhile, we must put you
back on the Rigellian drug, T’Pina.”

Her only emotional response was to blink. Then,
looking around her, she nodded. “Of course, Healer.”

For the flood had destroyed every attempt at quar
antine. Drowning people did not hesitate to touch their rescuers, nor did rescuers consider exposure as
they saved lives.

By the time the flood-related cases of the plague
began, the Nisus hospital was back in operation. The
crew of the
Enterprise
lent their efforts to cleaning out
the mud and finding and repairing furniture and
equipment.

The first task was locating and identifying the dead.
The very plague that had turned everyone’s attention
from the safety of the dam, and thereby contributed
to the flood, had kept all but minimal personnel out of
the main area of the city. As a result, there were fewer
than fifty fatalities.

The community mourned, pulling together in their
tragedy as they had pulled apart in fear of the plague.

They took hope from the vaccines. Indeed, those of
copper-based blood need not fear dying if they got
medical attention immediately. Although T’Pina could not produce enough blood for serum to inocu
late everyone, they could cure each new case of the
plague as the victim was identified. For Vulcans,
Orions, Rigellians, and the other races with copper-based blood, the crisis was over.

But not for the other half of Nisus’ population.

Leonard McCoy had put Korsal and his older son
back on blood stimulants, but Karl, the nine-year-old,
could not continue them. There was nothing like the
Rigellian stimulant for Klingons; as a result, there was
simply not enough serum.

Everyone on Nisus asked why Korsal did not call
for more Klingons to aid them, but the answer spread
rapidly. Not only were the Klingons immune, but their blood carried the cure with which they could
hold the Federation ransom. The plague was a weap
on that could not be allowed to fall into their hands.

Fortunately for their peace of mind, they did not
know it already had.

James T. Kirk had no such peace of mind. The captain of the
Enterprise
came in person to tell Korsal, “The Nisus Starfleet liaison officer, Commander Smythe, has taken Borth into custody. He refuses to say whether he sent a message to the Klingon Empire, but our computer recorded some
thing in a code we cannot identify, sent just before the flood broke.”

“May I see the message, Captain Kirk?”

When Kirk played it, he said, “It is not Klingon
code. I refused to give him that. This is Orion; Borth
routed the message through his own people, but that
will merely delay its delivery and risk someone in the
Orion system decoding it.”

“But it will get through,” Kirk pressed.

“I wish I could doubt it, Captain.”

“I will forward your opinion to Starfleet Command.
What happens next is up to them. Certainly Borth
will be prosecuted. You may have to testify against
him, Korsal.”