Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic (9 page)

That was the first time Korsal had served as a
guinea pig for Nisus’ medical personnel. Now he was
doing so again—would that the results turned out as sanguine as the first time! The eye treatment Korsal
had undergone was now as routine in the Klingon
Empire as in the Federation.

Unless the plague underwent an unusually long
incubation period in Klingons, they were apparently
immune to it. Before releasing him, the doctors had taken what felt like at least half Korsal’s blood to
study. Now he was free to go home, for so far as they
could tell he was not a carrier.

But what if the doctors were wrong? What if, despite all the precautions, despite being bathed in the same sterile rays that surgeons used, what if Korsal were even now carrying the deadly disease
home to his family?

Were his sons immune? They were half Klingon,
and neither had contracted any strain of the disease, although they had both attended school every day
until it closed. He wanted them to be immune—to be
safe.

But if they were, what about Berth’s plan to sell the
disease to the Klingon Empire?

Korsal might defend Klingon honor to his last
breath, but he knew as well as any Orion that even if
no one in official channels would purchase such a
dishonorable weapon, it would not take a wily Orion
trader long to discover someone who would make the purchase through unofficial channels.

He felt as if he had been coerced into a game of
klin
zha
known as the Final Form, where to take an
opponent’s piece was not merely to set it aside, but to
destroy it utterly—burn wooden pieces, smash or melt those made of stone or metal. There was no victory—when only one set of pieces was left the
game reverted to the Reflective Game, and the weaker
player’s mistakes resulted in the destruction of the
stronger player’s pieces.

Only Klingons, Korsal thought, could conceive of such a game—but only an Orion could force a
Klingon to play it.

Yet if Nisus’ biochemists could isolate and dupli
cate the factor in Klingon blood that gave them
immunity—

He could hope for that. Biology was not his field,
however; he had to rely on the Humans and Vulcans
now studying his blood samples to find an answer.

Korsal’s home was on the distant outskirts of the city. The public transport system was still running,
although he saw no one else on the slidewalks as he
worked his way from the slow-moving outer bands to
the high-speed inner ones. With the skill of daily practice, he switched lanes so as to be carried along
C-belt, out to the suburb where he owned a home.

His own home. Land, a garden. It was something he
could never hope to gain as a scientist in the Klingon
Empire. His title of thought master meant little there
if his science was not military strategy.

It had rained that morning. The air was fresh and moist in his nostrils as he stepped off the slidewalk
into his own neighborhood. In the whole trip, only three lonely figures had slid past him on the bands designed to carry thousands. No one was on the
streets, either, although a few children played in their
own fenced gardens.

Those gardens might look normal at first glance,
except to a resident of Nisus. Here two Vulcan girls
played under the watchful eye of a
sehlat.
There five
Hemanite children of the same litter tumbled happily
on the grass beside a small pond. A few houses further
on, another Vulcan child, a boy, practiced alone with an
ahn-woon,
while across the street Caitian children used a huge movidel tree as a gymnasium.

What was unnatural was that the children of each family were confined to their own home ground. Ordinarily they ran the streets or gathered in noisy groups in various gardens. The unnatural quiet did
nothing to improve Korsal’s mood.

He reached his own house and found his sons in the
cheery main room. Kevin, now fourteen, was on the couch, frowning over a problem on the screen of his
tricorder. He had inherited his father’s eye problems, which could not be treated until he was sixteen—but knowing that he would be able to discard his glasses
then, Kevin did not resent them. They were sliding down his nose now, and he shoved them back into
place with a gesture so familiar that it made his father
smile. He noticed, too, that Kevin was succeeding in
growing a mustache, although he did not yet have enough facial hair for a beard. Nonetheless, his
Human heritage was plain in his appearance, his hair
light brown, his skin lacking the swarthiness of his
father’s.

Korsal’s other son, Karl, who was nine, was playing
klin zha
at the communications console, his opponent
a Vulcan schoolmate, Sonan. When Korsal entered, Kevin set his tricorder aside and rose, saying, “Fa
ther!”

Karl turned from his game and also got to his feet.
“Welcome home, Father. I am pleased that you are
well. You have a message from Ms. Torrence, asking
that you call her as soon as you get in. She missed you
at the hospital.”

“Thank you, Karl,” he said as his younger son turned to freeze his game and sign off contact with
Sonan so his father could use the console.

His sons’ formality might be appropriate in a high-ranking Klingon family, but that was not the
reason for it here. A few years ago, both boys would
have thrown themselves into his arms when he re
turned after several days’ absence. Kevin, though, was
now at an age when demonstration of affection for parents was considered embarrassing—a stage both Klingon and Human adolescents exhibited, and so
perfectly natural to Kevin.

Korsal understood Kevin—it was Karl, the same
fusion of Klingon and Human as his brother, who was
the family enigma. It often seemed to Korsal that his younger son was trying his best to turn out Vulcan.

Ordinarily, Korsal would have hugged his sons despite their protest, but today he would not touch
any member of his family until he had showered and
changed clothes. He did not
think
he could have become contaminated on his way home from the
hospital, but he would take no risk with their health.

“Where is Seela?” he asked as he crossed toward
the communications console.

“Gone to the market,” Kevin replied.

“Did you not offer to go instead?” Korsal asked. He
would be equally concerned if one of his sons were
risking exposure, yet with every passing day their
immunity to the plague seemed further assured.

“I did offer,” Kevin said. “Seela said no one on the
council who had had the second strain of the plague
caught the third.”

That was true; Korsal had told her that when he
called to say he had been released. Seela had had the second strain of the plague and recovered.

Kevin continued, “She also said I would not know how to choose either meat or vegetables.”

“A sad lack in your education,” said Korsal. “Seela
must teach both of you—and you must learn how to
cook as well. I would not wish my sons to marry too
soon, or to choose consorts merely because they are
hungry.”

Kevin grinned. “Or starve our own sons one day?”

“Kevin,” Karl said flatly, “you should have more
respect for our father. He always provided adequate
nutrition.”

“And you, Karl,” said Korsal to his younger son,
“should stop being so serious! Kevin is quite right: I
married Seela for her cooking.”

Karl was too young to comprehend the humor in
that, but Kevin choked on his laughter, pleased to
share an adult joke with his father.

“Kevin,” said Korsal, “take your brother out into
the fresh air. The rain is over. I’ll come out and play
ball with you as soon as I see what Torrence wants. I
need some exercise after being cooped up in the
hospital!”

But Korsal was not to have the game of rough-and-
tumble he had looked forward to sharing with his
sons.

Torrence’s face did not come onto the screen when
he keyed in the woman’s code. Rather, he heard the hollow ring of someone speaking into a hand-held
communicator, and the sound of rushing water in the
background. “Korsal! Thank God there’s one engi
neer not on the sick list! Get up here to the dam right
away. We’ve got trouble!”

Chapter Nine

T’Pina
was fascinated by the USS
Enterprise,
the
largest ship she had ever traveled on—at least that she
could remember. She had no recollection of being
taken to Vulcan as an infant, and only hazy, fragmen
tary images of the transfer from Vulcan to Nisus.

Once, during her secondary education, she had
made a three-day journey with four other outstanding
students aboard a survey ship mapping the uninhabit
ed planets in Nisus’ system. Later, she had traveled to
Vulcan to take up her classes at the Academy aboard a
Vulcan trading vessel. A Federation starship was far more interesting than either.

She found herself surrounded by legends.

Of course the current situation was unusual. On an
ordinary voyage Sarek, the famous Vulcan ambassa
dor and scientist, would not be aboard with his equally famous wife Amanda, one of the foremost linguistic scholars of the Federation. Nor had the
renowned medical team of Sorel and Corrigan ever left Vulcan together before—and here they were in
the same room with Sarek and Amanda!

But the crew of the
Enterprise
itself was headed by
the legendary Captain James T. Kirk, and his first
officer was Commander Spock, rapidly outshining his
famous parents as scientist and explorer.

Having grown up amid people of all Federation
races in close cooperation, T’Pina did not take con
scious note of the fact that each legendary pair
consisted of one Vulcan and one Human. She saw the chief medical officer of the
Enterprise
approach Sorel
and Corrigan, who were talking with a Human male
of the race they called black, dressed in the blue
sciences uniform of Starfleet, but with no insignia to indicate his current assignment.

Curious, wondering if they were already working on
ways to conquer the plague devastating her home
planet, T’Pina drifted closer to the group. The
Enter
prise
doctor—McCoy, she remembered—was saying,
“It’s a pleasure to work together again, although I
wish it weren’t under these circumstances.”

“Let us hope we can quickly change the circumstances,” said Dr. Corrigan, a short, portly, balding
man.