Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Just before they reached orbit around Vulcan, Cap
tain James T. Kirk called Sendet and Satat to the
Enterprise
briefing room. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we
disagree about a whole galaxy of things, but I believe
we share one thing in common. If I give a man my word, he can count on it. Is that not also true for
you?”

“It is,” Satat replied warily.

“Very well, then. I’m going to explain our emergen
cy and ask your word that you will make no trouble while we are transporting medical personnel to
Nisus.”

“Nisus?” asked Satat. “I have distant relatives
there—Sern and T’Pren and their children.”

“I am sorry. There is a medical crisis on the science
colony,” Kirk explained. “It’s a disease, an epidemic,
spreading and mutating. No race seems to be immune
to it, and some strains are deadly. The
Enterprise
will
be transporting medical aid.”

“Of course we will not interfere, Captain,” said
Satat.

“Sendet?” asked Kirk. “You should know that Sorel
and Corrigan, and Corrigan’s wife T’Mir, will all be
aboard.”

The young Vulcan squared his shoulders. His aris
tocratic features took on a look of disdain that Kirk
should even need to ask. “I cannot approve of T’Mir’s
choice of husband,” he replied, “but I would never
hinder a medical mission.”

“Good. Satat, please inform the others in your party.”

“Certainly—and I can speak for all of the Follow
ers of T’Vet in this instance. We wish to maintain the
ancient strengths of Vulcan, but we are not barbari
ans, Captain. Not only will we not interfere in any
way, but if we can be of assistance, please feel free to
call upon us.”

Well,
thought Kirk as he left the briefing room for
sickbay,
that was certainly easier than I expected!

His meeting with McCoy, though, was not nearly as
satisfactory. The pockets under the doctor’s blue eyes
showed that he had spent a sleepless night. Spock was
with him, analyzing data on the sickbay computer.

They left the Vulcan absorbed in his task and
stepped into the next room. “We just got some new information, Jim,” said McCoy. “It’s bad.”

“Another mutation?”

“Probably not—just that they’ve learned that anti
bodies to the first strain of the plague do not confer
immunity to the third. They’ll know in a couple of
days whether having had the second strain protects
from the third. Right now the whole Nisus Council is
in isolation.”

“What happened?”

“Everyone on the council had had one of the two
earlier versions of the disease, so they felt it was safe
to have a meeting. Shoulda done it by communicator.”

“And?” Kirk prompted.

“After they sent the call to Starfleet, they recon
vened for other business, and the Lemnorian repre
sentative went berserk—first symptom of the most recent mutation of the plague. He’d had the first
strain; now everybody on the council’s been exposed
to the third. Spock is rerunning his computations with
the new data. They sent us analyses of specimens from victims of the new mutation, but—”

“—but we may want to run further tests once we
arrive,” came Spock’s voice from behind Kirk. The
Vulcan joined them, adding, “Thus far, I have found
no clues in the new data, and only time will provide
more information.”

“And you two want to get down on that planet and
gather data yourselves,” observed Kirk. Then, knowing both men were frustrated, even if McCoy was the
only one who would admit it, he added, “You know,
in a situation like this one, Bones, Spock, you are two
of a kind!”

As he had hoped, his friends could not resist the bait. Spock and McCoy looked at one another, and then back at Kirk, saying in perfect unison, “Really, Captain, I see no reason for you to insult me.”

Kirk grinned—he had succeeded in breaking the
tension. But his elation was brief. “Wait just a minute
here! Spock, Starfleet’s orders don’t include you
—medicine isn’t your specialty.”

“Research is,” the Vulcan replied. “And who is to keep Dr. McCoy proceeding logically if I do not
accompany him?”

“Logic’s not the answer, Spock,” McCoy retorted.
“Nisus is crawling with Vulcans, and
they
haven’t
found a cure. What it’s going to take is the experience
and human intuition of a few old country doctors!”

“
In which case,” Spock said with unruffled dignity,
“I will return to my post and leave
you
to analyze the
data.” And with that he walked out of sickbay.

McCoy watched him go without protest. “That
means he’s sure the clue we need is not in that new
data. Damn!” He went to the dispenser for coffee for Kirk and himself. After taking a swallow, he admit
ted, “Jim, I sure could use Spock’s help on Nisus.”

“Sorry, Bones—it may be months before that plague is under control, before the
Enterprise
can
come back for you.” He refused to voice his fears that
McCoy might fall victim to this organism that outwit
ted all quarantine attempts. “I’m already losing my
chief medical officer for that time; I can’t give up my
science officer as well.”

“Yeah,” McCoy agreed sadly. “I know.”

“You’ll have plenty of other Vulcans to work with.
And how about Sorel and Corrigan? You sure got
along with them on Vulcan.”

“Right,” the doctor said. “We’ll find the cause of this disease, Jim—and that’ll give us the cure.” He
paused, then added with a wan smile, “Besides, I
have
to find it fast and get back aboard before Chapel
rearranges my sickbay so that I can’t find anything.”

Chapter Eight

Korsal
left the hospital feeling more alone than he
had since the first day he had set foot on Nisus. Unlike
other Klingon scientists who had participated in the
experiment of scientific cooperation, he had found a
home here.

On his home world he had been a misfit. Myopia
and astigmatism had kept him from military advance
ment. Wearing thick lenses before his eyes, he could
see well enough—but an enemy would instantly rec
ognize that to deprive him of that external aid would
be to blind him. Therefore he never got past the
required basic term of service at the lowest rank.

That had satisfied Korsal, though; his interests had always been in research and technology, particularly
engineering, where he could apply the theories that
fascinated
him
in practical ways. He had used his
right to minimal education earned in his military
service to make a mark as a scholar. First in his class,
he had been admitted to his planet’s Academy of
Engineering, where he continued to dominate his
classmates intellectually.

With their father’s enthusiastic encouragement, his
brothers rose slowly through the military ranks.
Korsal, meanwhile, soaked up the knowledge avail
able at the Academy and was chosen to study on
Klinzhai itself, at the most prestigious university in
the empire. His father gave grudging approval. “If you
cannot succeed in the military, you might as well do
something useful.”

Something useful was exactly what Korsal wanted
to do, and on Klinzhai he found his opportunity. He
studied and he built. He invented an antenna that
would draw in subspace radio messages from twice
the distance formerly possible and eliminate the dis
tortion caused by ion storms. He moved from student
to teacher. Eventually, despite delays caused by politi
cal maneuvering — or rather his refusal to participate
in it — he became the youngest thought master on
record.

But Korsal’s scientific career brought him little
fame or glory, because he had no interest in designing
weaponry. His colleagues found his attitudes incom
prehensible.

He grew thoroughly tired of being asked, “Do you
not believe in the Perpetual Game?”

“Only when I can get outside this universe to gain a
perspective,” he would reply, “will I know whether there is a Perpetual Game. All one can know for certain is that in
this
world the only game is the
Reflective Game.”

The Reflective form of
klin zha
was played with
only one set of pieces, a man and his enemy as one. It
was the great game of the greatest Klingon strategists,
yet few allowed themselves to admit that it repre
sented the futility of war. It was the game of entropy in which both sides lost — for at the end, the winner
triumphed over an empty board.

In a society founded upon war, Korsal’s attitude
did not win
him
many friends. Thus when the invita
tion came for Klingon scientists to join Federation scientists in an exchange of knowledge on Nisus, Korsal was one of the first to apply. There was no
reason not to let him go; he might not be an enthusias
tic inventor of military technology, but he was cer
tainly no traitor.

He was, to most Klingons’ way of thinking, nobody.

Korsal’s family was not of the Imperial Race, nor
had any member distinguished himself greatly. By the
time he left for Nisus, two of his brothers had died honorably in the Space Service and the third had
achieved the position of squadron leader. Their father
took pride in his soldier sons; he never quite under
stood the scientist he had produced.

One of the first things Korsal had discovered on
Nisus was that the Federation had a simple, painless,
chemical treatment for eye problems like his. When it was offered to him, he accepted the risk, assuming the Federation would not invite a Klingon scientific mis
sion to join them only to begin by blinding one of its
members.

After interminable allergy testing, he was given the
treatment in one eye—and in three days had gained
perfect vision! They made him wait thirty days more
before they treated the other eye—and for the first
time in his life Korsal woke in the morning to a clear
world, rather than a blur that would not focus until he
had groped for his glasses.