Bitter Medicine

by Dave Galanter

  “It will save time if I tell you and the captain at the same time.”

  Gomez nodded, and they took seats in the front cabin to open a channel to the da Vinci.

  Chapter

  5

  “Oy vay iz mir.” Captain Gold shook his head somberly and sank into the da Vinci’s command chair. He turned to ops again. “Are you sure, Haznedl?”

  “No life signs on the planet, sir.” The ensign sounded crestfallen.

  “Shabalala?”

  “Confirmed, sir. Signs of major cities, but no power output.”

  “I read the technology, Captain,” Haznedl said. “Just no activity. The second Allurian ship is on the planet. Crashed. By the spread of the debris field I’d say their orbit decayed.”

  “When?” Gold asked.

  Haznedl shook her head. “A week ago, perhaps?” She stabbed at her console and peered at the scanning data. “There are satellites around the planet, sir. Some for communication, some possibly for defense.”

  This was interesting, Gold thought. “Any working?”

  “A few of them.”

  “See if we can pull data from any computers aboard them. Get Soloman on it ASAP. We’re not risking an away team.”

  Haznedl twisted toward the command chair. “Captain, Commander Gomez is hailing us.”

  “Put her on.”

  On the forward viewscreen, the image of the planet washed away, replaced by Gomez and Lense looking back at the da Vinci bridge crew.

  “Captain,” Lense began, but Gold cut her off.

  “We found the Shmoam-ag homeworld, Doctor. Followed the second Allurian vessel’s ion trail all the way here. We’ve not scanned for it yet, but I’d bet my socks that your virus has been here.”

  “No life?” Lense asked.

  “None.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  The captain’s jaw tightened and he felt his nostrils flare. So much death…it unnerved him. “Explain.”

  “I’ve found two very disturbing things. One about this virus, and another about Dobrah,” Lense said. “I was looking at virion lipid profiles to determine if any of the Allurians who’d been on board had showed signs of infection. For this to happen, the virus would have had to become contagious via the Allurians. Viral lipids with this Pocheeny virus are present and located in the envelope of the virions. We can know what race was spreading the virus by looking at the fatty acid composition of the viral lipids, because they are similar to host cell membranes. Generally, these fatty acids are of host origin, derived from plasma membranes.”

  The captain shifted in his chair. “Where is this going, Doctor? You’re about to give me a cough.”

  “I’m sorry for the viral biology lesson, Captain, but this is important. Lipid profiles on the virions I studied did suggest Allurians were infected—”

  “We know that. We’ve found their two ships: one derelict, the other now a crater on the Shmoam-ag homeworld.”

  “There shouldn’t have been time for the spread of as many virions with Allurian lipids as I found.”

  “Maybe the Allurians were aboard longer than we thought.”

  “Dobrah says otherwise and has no reason to lie,” Lense explained. “He said they were there twice. The second ship was probably looking for a cure for the crew of the first. But this time the virus knew how to hurt them, and when the Allurian we found began showing symptoms quickly, I think his comrades killed him and left him behind. But he could have been remembering wrong, so I checked it out anyway. I thought to compare the rate at which Dobrah’s body creates the virus. I found fatty acids that came from Allurian hosts.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying that Dobrah is related—no, you’re not saying that.” Gold leaned forward and looked into Lense’s eyes with intent. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that Dobrah isn’t just a carrier of this virus, he’s a living colony. Or rather, because he is immune to the disease itself, it uses him as…a home base, for lack of a better phrase.”

  Staggered by the thought, Gold noticed Gomez was looking at Lense with the same expression he must be wearing: disbelief. “Is that…I’ve never heard of such a virus.”

  “There isn’t one. Not a natural one. It’s why the genetic code for this virus is so large. The virus is instructed to infect one being and then return to its home colony.”

  “To what end?”

  “Virions with Allurian fatty acids that didn’t make it back to Dobrah’s body have one genome profile,” Lense said, speaking quickly and moving her hands a bit. “Virions that did make it back to his body have a slightly different genome profile—a larger one. I believe this virus is programmed to learn the genetic code of those it infects, and return that information, if it can, back to its host. The goal? So that it can infect others of that species better, and faster, by adding the newly infected’s genetic weaknesses to the virus’s very genome.”

  Gold bit his lower lip, thought for a moment, then said, “You said there were two disturbing things you’ve learned. Please tell me that this was the more disturbing of the two.”

  “I wish I could.” The doctor hesitated, then seemed to try to push through with what she wanted to say. “Dobrah…his clothes…”

  “Spit it out, Lense.”

  “His clothes have the virus throughout. Bonded to, in an inert state, every fiber. Waiting for someone to infect. I tested my EVA suit as well. The same inert virions are working their way through the material, on a molecular level. Friction against the air is enough to agitate them through.”

  Gold stood and took a step toward the viewscreen. “My God—you’re not infected—”

  “No. No, we’re not. But another week in the same EVA suits…we would be.”

  “Where’s Corsi?”

  “With Dobrah,” Gomez answered the captain.

  “Why?”

  “He…he’s sleeping,” Lense explained. “I didn’t want him to wake up and wonder where I’d gone.”

  “I see. Gomez, what’s the engineering situation?”

  Gomez frowned. “That ship is being held together with hope and flopsweat, sir.”

  “Can you get it stable enough until we return?”

  “Yes, sir. Corsi and I stopped most of the radiation leakage, and shielded the rest.”

  “Long term?”

  “I’d need my full team for at least a week.”

  “Return to the Shmoam-ag vessel. I’d like to have a word in private with Dr. Lense.” Gold pushed himself from the command chair. “Transfer to my office,” he told Haznedl, and marched off the bridge.

  Seconds ticked by like centuries, and Gold reappeared on the shuttle’s comm screen just as Gomez was beaming out. Lense wasn’t completely sure what the captain wanted to speak privately with her about, but she was pretty sure and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “Captain?”

  “Two nights ago, a progress report from Commander Gomez voiced her concern that you’d made a promise you don’t know that you can keep. And I wasn’t going to let it concern me until you just told us what you’d learned about this damned virus.”

  “Captain, I—”

  “You were irresponsible, Doctor!” the captain barked, eyes wide with anger. “That boy might actually think you can cure him. He’s a child, an orphan, who’s been alone on that ship for—for God knows how long!”

  “Probably a hundred and seventy or a hundred and eighty years.”

  Caught off guard, Gold paused in his dressing down of the doctor. “Do you want to explain that, Lense?”

  “I suspected it when I saw where he got his food. Children don’t clean up after themselves well, especially without adults around. There were empty food containers, not for months or years, but for decades. I’m almost surprised there was enough food to last, but this is a large ship and held a lot of people. I also wondered where all the dead bodies were—of his parents, and the crew.” She looked up, saw the captain was listening intently
and the anger had left his expression, at least a little, and so she continued. “Dead bodies on a space ship without life support last forever. Dead bodies that decay on a space ship with modern filtration systems are mostly filtered and scrubbed by the ship’s systems, given enough time, until only bones are left. I took a walk one night, late, looking for remnants of Shmoam-ag DNA. Throughout the ship, mostly in what seem to be crew quarters, there are bones. A lot of very old bones. This ship has been not just his home, but a drifting graveyard.”

  Gold nodded his understanding, but his voice still held an indignant edge. “It’s admittedly a tragedy. But if anything, it makes it that much worse if you’ve given this boy false hope.”

  “With the resources of Starfleet—”

  “Do you expect me to take him aboard, even in isolation? Do you expect Starfleet to build a base out here dedicated to curing him? How long before doing that leaked out to people who might want just such a disease to use on their enemies and would do anything to use that boy as a weapon? You tell me, Doctor, what would happen if that boy found his way to an inhabited world?”

  Unsure of what she expected from the captain, Lense didn’t really know how to answer his questions either. “We can’t just leave him alone here,” she finally told him.

  “I don’t know what we can and can’t do yet, but one thing’s for damned sure—we can’t take him with us. Unless you can tell me he’s cured. Can you cure him?”

  She knew it wasn’t more than a question to make a point. He knew she couldn’t, not in the time she’d thought she could before. Now, perhaps not ever. “I don’t know. With time—”

  “How much time did you say before you caught the disease? A week?”

  “With a new EVA suit, and the right precautions, sir…”

  “And you want me to just leave you on that ship with him? Alone? For how long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “Listen to yourself, Doctor.” He let out a breath, then spoke in a quieter tone. “Back on Sherman’s Planet, when we had our little chats, I joked that I was your substitute counselor. If I really had that position, I’d be wondering if you’re bipolar right about now. If you’re not sure you can do your job, you’re thinking you can cure in a few weeks a disease you’ve only known the specifics of for a matter of hours? Is that fair to that boy?”

  “I…No. It’s not.”

  Gold leaned across his desk and seemed to be peering into the shuttle cabin. “What are you going to tell this boy when we have to leave him, without a cure, and maybe now without hope?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head and cast her eyes away from the captain. “I don’t even know.”

  “Where did you go?” Dobrah asked.

  Lense patted the boy on the shoulder and then the top of his head. “Did you wake up?”

  “Domenica was here,” he said with his rolling head nod.

  “Sonya and I had to talk to our captain,” Lense told him as explanation, and she realized she’d never lied to the boy. Except when she told him she’d cure him.

  “Sonya came back.”

  “I know. I stayed to talk a little longer.”

  “Are you healthy?” It might have been an odd question for him to ask, but Lense knew that in the context of his life, where he’d seen everyone around him die, it wasn’t.

  She nodded, trying to make her tone sound not so sad. “I’m fine. I need to work as hard as I can right now. I have about four more days before my ship returns, and I’ll need your help. Can you help me?”

  Dobrah smiled, and his eyes seemed to reflect more light when he did so. “Sure. I used to help my mother.”

  Pulling her own lips into what she hoped wasn’t a sad smile, Lense gave him a quick hug. “Well, you’ll help me, too, just as good.”

  They worked, long into the next day. Dobrah left for food twice, at Lense’s insistence, but she decided to labor nonstop. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for, but had hoped there was some sequence in the virus’s genome that would turn it off. It wouldn’t cure anyone who had the disease, if any such individual were still alive, but it might turn the virus inert and ineffective, and allow the boy to live a normal life.

  At a certain point Lense remembered asking Gomez if it would be possible to get the sickbay computer running. If she could use its calculation and simulation power, going through the genome would be faster. Gomez replied something about barely keeping the ship together and being there as soon as she could, but hours later she’d not shown up.

  “Shouldn’t you sleep?” Dobrah asked at some point.

  Lense thought it had been perhaps forty hours since she’d last done so and while she was extremely tired, she knew time was limited. Before leaving the shuttle, she’d made sure to take some vitamin and energy supplements, however, and she believed those would last her. “I’m fine,” she told him, and continued to hover over the computer console in front of her. “But you should sleep if you’re tired—”

  He’d moved without her realizing and was now next to her, pulling her arm toward one of the beds. “Get sleep,” he demanded, looking up with bright wide eyes that reflected the glow of the lights above. “Stay healthy.” He was pleading. “Don’t get sick.”

  Allowing him to tug her away from the computer, and she was so tired that she might not have been able to stand her ground if she’d tried, Lense moved toward the closest bed. “Okay, okay,” she assured him as she slid up onto the bed. “I’ll rest here a little while, don’t worry.” She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, lying on such a bed, in an EVA suit. There was just no way to get comfortable in one, but she lay on her side and closed her eyes just for him.

  She was asleep in seconds.

  “Elizabeth?” Gomez shook Lense’s EVA suit lightly.

  Stirring to wakefulness, and a bit startled by Corsi and Gomez standing there, Lense sleepily asked, “How long did I sleep?”

  “I don’t know,” Corsi said dryly. “When did you fall asleep?”

  Pulling herself up to a sitting position, Lense checked the chronometer on her suit sleeve. “Four hours,” she mumbled. “Where’s Dobrah?”

  “We just got here,” Gomez said, helping the doctor to her feet. “I think you should go back to the shuttle for some real rest. I don’t see how you can sleep in that thing.”

  “I can’t go back now. I’ve slept enough.” She scrambled toward the bed on which Dobrah usually slept. “Maybe he went for food—”

  “Domenica’s going to take a break. I’m going to get power to the diagnostic computers in here, like you asked. You’re going to go back to the shuttle and rest.”

  “No, I—”

  Determined, Gomez’s lips were pursed and her mind obviously set. “That wasn’t a request, Elizabeth.”

  “Sonya…”

  “This is how it is: Domenica will join you, Dobrah probably went for food, it will take a few hours to get this working.” Gomez motioned to the console of Shmoam-ag computers against one wall. “That’s an order, Doctor.”

  “All right. Two hours.” Lense finally relented.

  “We’ll wake you in three.”

  “If I wake up in two—”

  Gomez pointed to the beam-down point. “Go!”

  Corsi pulled Lense lightly to the place where they always left their EVA suits, and ordered the shuttle computer to energize the transporter. With a sparkle and a flash, only the suits remained.

  Chapter

  6

  Before she fully awoke, Lense was aware of the world around her: the feel of the thin blanket against her cheek, the dimmed light from above, the mildly uncomfortable bunk beneath her, and the sound of Corsi lightly snoring across the cabin from her. She made a sleepy mental note to mention it to Corsi again, and that she could cure it. Of course, Corsi would deny that she snored, just like she did every other time Lense had brought it up since they were first assigned to be cabinmates on the da Vinci shortly after the end of the Dominion War.
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  Cure. With her mind wrapped around that word, Lense was suddenly completely awake. “Computer, time,” she croaked through a dry throat.

  “Current sector adjusted time is sixteen forty-three hours and twelve seconds.”

  Feeling like she’d been asleep for a month, Lense then asked the date.

  “Stardate 54101.9.”

  Lense grunted an acknowledgment as she squeezed on her boots, took a quick drink of water, and readied herself for beaming back to the Shmoam-ag ship.

  “It’s not three hours,” Corsi said as Lense ran her fingers quickly through her curly black hair.

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “I sleep very lightly.”

  “You snore,” Lense said. “I can fix that.”

  Corsi rolled her eyes the way she always did. “I do not snore.”

  “I heard you snoring.”

  “Must be a clogged thruster that’s keeping us from drifting.”

  “Must be. Well, I can fix it if you want.”

  Sitting straight up, Corsi repeated herself. “I do not snore.”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re trying to annoy me so I won’t stop you from beaming back early,” Corsi said, slipping her boots on.

  “You can’t.”

  The security officer shook her head. “What is it with you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re killing yourself working nonstop.”

  “It’s the only way to find a cure. I’ve done it before—on Sherman’s Planet, remember? I can do it again.”

  “That wasn’t as bad a disease as this one. What if there isn’t a cure?”

  For too long a moment, Lense said nothing. She felt she might cry and tried to subdue the feeling. “There has to be a cure,” she whispered.

  “Why?” Corsi asked softly, in a tone Lense hadn’t often heard from her. It was sympathetic. “Because you want there to be one? That’s not very scientific.”

  “No,” she said, more to herself than to Corsi. “It’s not.”