Stardoc (33 page)

“There she is!” Rogan said, pointing through the sealed panel at me.

I swallowed what I was chewing and got to my feet. “Ecla,” I said, smiling at the wrathful mob. “Signal Security. Now.”

The mob started to approach the clear divider, when Security forces came in from the opposite direction, brandishing weapons. The colonists turned on them, and the two groups began exchanging ugly threats. I went to the display and increased the audio level so I could be heard.

“Dr. Rogan, what a surprise.” My voice echoed over the commotion. “How nice to see you and your...

friends.”

“She’s Terran,” Rogan ignored me as he incited the mob. “They’re zealots, xenophobes! She was sent here to kill us all!”

“Rational as ever, too.” I gazed at the faces creating a wall of rage behind the Security officers and addressed them. “I wasn’t sent here to kill anyone. We’re attempting to contain the contagion until we can find a vaccine.”

“Lies, all lies!” Rogan said, polyps whirring madly. “She wants to wipe out every non-Terran on this planet!” The mob made a rumbling sound.

I lied. I wanted Rogan dead. Now. I kept the smile pasted on my lips. “This your idea of gratitude?” I asked him. “Or didn’t you tell your friends here that I saved your life?”

“You tried to kill me!”

I made a deliberate survey. “You look pretty healthy to me. Why are you doing this, Rogan? Is it because you’re half-Terran? Afraid someone might question your loyalties?”

“We want justice!” Rogan said, and the crowd echoed an uneasy agreement. Guess they didn’t know Rogan had Terran blood.

I addressed the crowd. “The only thing between you and the contagion is this barrier.” I tapped the containment wall with my fingers, and everyone went quiet. “If it is breached, everyone in the room will be infected.” I put my hand on the barrier release. The click of the mechanism was like a gunshot in the stillness. “Of course, if you really want me...”

Fear worked wonders. The mob broke up and most fled. Rogan began to rave, darting through the frantic, retreating mass, tugging at limbs.

“Don’t walk away! She’s bluffing! She-“

“That’s enough, Dr. Rogan.”

Dr. Mayer and Dr. Dloh appeared, followed by a fresh contingent of Security forces. My boss faced what was left of Rogan’s followers. “Are you people volunteering to assist Dr. Grey Veil?”

That cleared the last of them out. Dr. Dloh shambled over to Dr. Rogan, who viewed the total defection with sputtering incredulity.

“Phorap,” the huge arachnid said, lifting an appendage. “You are zcheduled for a zhift in Trauma.”

“I’m not leaving until that bitch-“

“Now.”

Rogan sneered. “Dloh, you can’t-“

Dr. Dloh spat a thin, semitransparent stream of fluid from his U-shaped orifice at Rogan. The substance hardened the second it encircled his body. Rogan struggled and yelled, but after a minute, he was completely gagged and immobilized. Dloh lifted him like a neatly wrapped package.

“I’ll juzt take him back to work. Dr. Mayer, Dr. Grey Veil.”

“Thanks.” It was too bad Dloh was such an evolved creature. I would have been happy to watch my colleague make Phorap Rogan his next meal.

Dr. Mayer directed the Security forces to take positions inside and out of the facility, then gave me an update. The bad news came first.

“Transport has advised at least fifty more cases of pneumonic infection have been identified. Most working positions with high passenger contact.”

That meant the contagion could no longer be contained. Anyone who had shuttled in would have been contaminated. The new arrivals, infected by the transport workers, would go on to spread the disease to the general population.

The colonists who had shuttled out -

“How many got offplanet?”

“According to estimates, over thirty. All still space-bound.”

Thank God for that much. “Are they being instructed to return to the planet?”

“No,” The chief replied. “None are well enough to pilot their vessels. Their ships are being towed back into orbit to be held until the Quadrant decides what to do with them.”

“Not well enough?”

“All passengers are reported to be in critical condition. The contagion seems to work more quickly in space.”

“Damned bug doesn’t like leaving home,” I said without thinking, and then my head snapped up. “Hold on.” I remembered an embarrassing moment I had endured with a tiny life-form during my first weeks on K-2.

“What?”

“This may sound crazy, but... the pathogen itself could be sentient.”

“You’re right.” The chief smiled sourly. “That’s crazy.”

“If Karas touched something - ingested a plant, perhaps-“

“It would show up on the toxicology series.”

“Maybe not.” I rubbed my hand over my eyes. “Our scanners may read it as digested food. Many of the colonists are vegetarians.”

“Plants are not sentient.”

“Some life-forms evolved from plants,” I said. “Ecla’s people were once rooted, flowering stationaries.

Karas was collecting plant samples when he became infected.”

“Sentient plant life?” Mayer scowled at me as he enunciated each word. “Even after consumption, it would show up as an organic. We would have seen the same in case after case.”

“Not if it’s an unclassified anaerobic microorganism.”

His sharp eyes rolled. “You’re inventing this theory out of desperation!”

“There’s one person who can prove it.” I nodded at the unconscious form of Duncan Reever.

“You’re wasting your time.”

Ecla hovered close by, looking bewildered.

“Only one way to find out. Nurse, prepare to revive the chief linguist.”

We brought Reever back to consciousness. The chief warned me to guard against another seizure, and I monitored the electrical activity in his brain closely. There were still some small, random fluctuations, but this time he emerged coherent.

“Doctor.” His eyes fluttered for a moment. “There is... something...”

“Reever, listen to me. I need your help. The pathogen may be a sentient life-form. I need you to try to establish that. Can you use your telepathic abilities?”

His head moved. A nod. “They are present.”

“They?” 1 swiveled around from my monitor. His face was rigid. “You mean the contagion.”

“The Core is present.”

“Dr. Grey Veil,” I heard Mayer say.

I ignored him. “You’re calling them the Core?”

“That is how they refer to themselves.”

He was already in contact. “Reever, where is the Core?”

“Inside me.”

Mayer’s voice grated over the audio. “Dr. Grey Veil, sedate him.”

I did a quick brain scan. There was only a small increase of activity, but it was having a definite affect on Reever. His heart rate doubled, while his eyes began to rotate back under fluttering lids. Damn, not now.

I grabbed a syrinpress, but tried to ask him one more question.

“Reever, why-“

“Sedate that man at once!” Mayer’s voice thundered.

In frustration I administered the sedative and watched my only hope of a cure disappear as Reever slipped back into unconsciousness. I strode over to the containment barrier in high outrage.

“What are you doing?” I demanded to know.

“He is delirious,” Mayer said. “You’re not going to use that man’s life to prove a ridiculous, unsubstantiated conjecture!”

“I was right there. He was in no danger.”

“He was ready to seize!”

“I wouldn’t have let him!” I shouted back.

Ecla touched my arm, and looked at Mayer. Her brow ridges undulated nervously as she spoke. “This cannot be resolved now. Pilot Torin is going into multiple systemic failure. Dr. mu Cheft is in a coma.

Some of the other patients need to be placed on respirators.”

Mayer turned away from the panel. “Attend to your patients, Doctor, and keep the chief linguist sedated.”

Ecla and I hurried to Kao’s bed. He was slipping away fast now, and my scanner indicated death was imminent.

“No.” Tears blinded me.

Ecla began whispering a Psyoran prayer as we removed the intubation tube. My hands shook as I stroked his strong, beautiful face. If only I could give him my strength, my life force, my -

A daring idea formed.

“Kao,” I said to him. “I’m going to try something. If this is good-bye, know”- my throat convulsed-“know that I love you. Honor you. Walk within beauty forever.” I took an empty syrinpress, placed it against my arm, and filled it with my own blood.

“He’s Jorenian,” Ecla said. “Terran blood-“

“I know, Ecla.” I administered the infusion to his jugular vessel. “I have to try anyway. It might help if”- I faltered as I watched his vital signs continue to fade-“some of my antibodies...” I buried my face in my hands. “Oh, God, no.”

Ecla made a soft sound. “It was an act of love to try.”

He stopped breathing. Kao was dead. I leaned down to kiss him good-bye. His lips were cool and firm and lifeless beneath mine. My tears mingled between our mouths. “I’m sor-“

A thick stream of fluid bubbled from his lips, and I jerked my head back. His body shuddered and twisted beneath my hands.

“Suction, stat!”

I took a probe and opened his mouth wider. The fluid spilled over his cheeks and chin without cessation.

Clear amber in color, but not bile. Not from his stomach, either. His chest rose and fell as his lungs pumped out the liquid in a macabre imitation of respiration. Ecla handed me the suction tube, and I began to evacuate his airways.

As I worked, I glanced at the fluid all over my hands, his neck and face. It appeared identical to the substance found on the exterior tissue of Karas’s lungs. It had to be the same stuff.

Once Kao’s pathways and lungs were clear, I sealed my mouth over his and began respirating him with my own breath. A moment later he coughed and inhaled on his own.

“I can’t understand it,” Ecla said as she scanned him. “He’s - he’s stabilizing, Doctor.”

I sat back, wiping traces of the yellow fluid from my mouth, watched him breathe. The white within white eyes opened to slits, his large hand twitched, shifted toward me.

I smiled at the nurse’s incredulous gasp and held out my arm. “Take another blood specimen, Ecla.” I’d have done it myself, but I was shaking too much.

“Dr. Mayer-“

“Space Dr. Mayer.” I thrust my arm toward her emphatically. “Take the sample.”

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked. “You can’t hope to immunize every patient. You don’t have enough blood for that in your whole body!”

“I’m going to analyze it, Ecla. I don’t have enough blood to inoculate everyone in the colony, but I’ll bet I can synthesize whatever is in my blood that kills this pathogen.”

That was when a Security officer signaled us. “Attention, Isolation Ward. Prepare your patients for transport.”

“What?” I got to my feet and ran to the panel, jamming my fist against it. “We can’t move them now!”

“You’ll have to,” I was told. “Council’s orders.”

Too little time, too much bureaucracy. The combination was contributing as much to an epidemic as the bug was.

I didn’t report to Dr. Mayer and tell him my blood had apparently killed the contagion. I needed to analyze it first, isolate the base for a vaccine. Then I would tell him.

I didn’t need the chief to point out I’d been desperate and foolhardy, either. I knew what I had done was dangerous, and could cost me my medical license. I could live with that.

So did Kao. In spite of the fact that he was dangerously weakened from the contagion, his condition remained stable, and there were no signs of relapse. If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have done one of Rogan’s little victory dances.

The immediate problem was, I couldn’t analyze anything. We had to pack up and move the ward. I had Ecla send the blood sample over to the lab, tagged only with “Terran specimen,” and ordered every test I could think of. Until I could set up my lab at the remote site, that was all I could do.

Transporting thirty-seven patients, the medical equipment they needed, and the contents of my lab took an entire shift. It couldn’t be helped, no matter how I silently raged against the time lost. The Council ordered, we relocated.

Security escorted us to an enormous, empty storage facility situated on the far outer perimeter of Main Transport. When our contingent arrived, there were more than two hundred new cases waiting for me.

Dr. Crhm and Dr. Dloh were already on-site, scuttling between the rows of cots as they triaged patients.

My first thought upon arriving was that if Trauma was chaos, this was comprehensive insanity.

The colonists who were still ambulatory were everywhere, colliding with members of the medical teams.

They shouted, fought, wept, begged for help. Efforts to calm them down were futile. No one reproached them. I felt like screaming myself.

At last, exasperated by all the commotion, I told the orderlies to start restraining the more violent patients. I sent Ecla to set up a Triage station, and coordinate the nurses. I took a moment to stop by Kao’s cot and check on him.

He was resting, but opened his eyes the moment I touched his wrist. “Healer.”

“Hi, handsome.” I smiled down at him. His pulse was steady and regular. “How are you feeling?”

“Much improved.” His eyes scanned my face, then moved to the chaos around us. “You are in need of help.” Suddenly he was pushing himself up, trying to get out of the cot.

“Whoa.” I planted a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed. Normally this would have been like trying to shove over a starshuttle, but Kao was still very weak. Almost at once, he went back down.

“Hold on. You’re in no condition to do anything but lay there and look good.”

He frowned. “I am warrior-trained. It is a matter of honor.”

I did, too. “Listen here, pal. I’m medically trained. It’s a matter of relapse.” I performed a quick scan.

“Now, if you’re a good boy, I’ll let you get up and take a walk later.” The readings were almost normal.

I wanted to weep with relief.

“You are a tyrant,” he said with a dark look.

“And you nearly died on me, sweetheart,” I said, and scowled right back at him. “So shut up and stay put.”