by S. L. Viehl
“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?” I 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?”
“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.”
A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “Very well.” He took my hand and raised it for a kiss. “Never let it be said that I dishonored the wishes of my Chosen.”
“Keep up that attitude, and we’ll get along just fine,” I said with a tired smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something strange. A group of dark-robed beings was moving slowly through the aisles between beds several yards away from us. Then I realized who they were, and my smile flattened. “Excuse me, Kao. I have to take care of something.”
I made my way toward the group. Like hungry buzzards, the six Bartermen were going from patient to patient. A pause, a quiet exchange, then they moved on. I blocked their path and crossed my arms. My foot was tapping. Yes, I was upset.
“Are you infected?” I demanded without preliminaries.
“Bartermen are not infected.” One slid back a hood to regard me with ferocious dislike behind a containment suit mask.
“Unbelievable.” I recoiled slightly. “Is there anything you ghouls won’t do for barter?”
“Bartermen do not define methods.”
“Why are you bothering my patients? Don’t you have any common decency?”
“Bartermen have trade opportunities.” The repugnant creature gazed at the rows of beds with what could only be described as greedy glee. “Bartermen take them.”
“Yeah? Well, you can take yourselves out of here. At once.”
“Bartermen are not leaving.”
I was prepared for that, and signaled to a member of the Security team. “Last chance.” I nodded to the officer, who lifted his weapon and took aim at the center of the group.
“Bartermen do not—”
“Shut up.” I turned my back on them, knowing it was an insult, wishing I could give the order to shoot. “Get these leeches out of my facility.”
The group drew back, and hissed something at me that my TI didn’t pick up. I looked over my shoulder.
The speaker stepped forward and pointed a finger at me. “You need trade,” he said. “Bartermen will remember. No trade for you.”
I pressed a hand to my heart and mimed cardiac arrest. “I’m devastated.”
The Security officer made a curt gesture with his weapon. The hood was pulled back up, and the Barterman rejoined his group.
“Not yet,” the Barterman said. From the dark pit of his robe, his eyes gleamed. “But soon.” They left, a security guard right behind them.
The Bartermen and that evil prediction were quickly forgotten as I got back to the present crisis. There wasn’t going to be time to synthesize a vaccine from my blood, not here. Like Dloh and Crhm, I found myself trotting between cots, scanning and intubating as fast as I could.
“Doctor, I need you over here—” a nurse called, struggling with a patient who was violently heaving against her hands. At the same time, Dr. Dloh scuttled by and asked me to assist him with a difficult ventilation.
I took care of the nurse first.
Dloh was pulling a sheet up over his patient when I reached his side. I held back his appendage for a moment and recognized the patient’s pain-racked features. Akamm, the expert whump-ball con artist, white now with death.
“Oh, no.”
“The ezophageal flap was obztructed, I could not induct the tube,” Dloh said, and then coughed. “Dr. Grey Veil—thiz iz out of control.”
“I’m sorry.” I touched the boy’s cooling cheek, then covered his face myself. “Damn it. We have to do something!”
“What iz the alternative?” Dloh made a hopeless sound. “We can try to keep them comfortable until the end comez. But”—he coughed once more, the force shaking all of his appendages—“I can’t watch them all die.”
Neither could I. The research I needed to do on my own blood would take too long. I’d have to forgo the hope of a vaccine for now and try something more direct.
“Listen, my friend, there may be an alternative.” I described the events and circumstances that led me to believe the pathogen was sentient. Dloh seemed skeptical, but kept listening. “I’ve got to revive Reever again. He’s the only one who can tell us what to do.”
“The chief gave orderz to keep him zedated.”
I fixed my gaze on him. “Tell me you have a better idea.”
Dloh thought it over and then made a defeated gesture. “If you attempted zuch a prozedure . . . I am zure to be occupied and unable to obzerve . . .”
“Thanks, Doctor.” I gazed around until I had located Reever’s cot. “Ecla,” I called to the nurse, who hurried over. In a lowered tone I said, “Prepare to revive Chief Linguist Reever.”
Reever seemed to come out of the sedation more slowly this time. I was careful to keep a syrinpress within reach. At last he focused, and his lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Reever,” I bent close. “We’re in trouble. Can you establish a connection with the Core?”
Ecla monitored his vitals on her scanner. “Not good,” she advised me. “Another few minutes at the most.”
“Duncan!” I said, and his hands suddenly seized mine. This time he did not enter my mind.
I entered his.
I was in a tunnel of wind and light and blazing, relentless pain. Reever drew me in, his consciousness just ahead, out of reach. Reever, help me!
Not enough time. I could barely make out his thought patterns. Must return . . . dwellings.
What are you talking about?
Return the Core . . . Cherijo . . . hurry . . .
Distantly, far beyond our link, something went wrong. I heard Ecla shouting, felt the syrinpress wrenched from my hand. The link broke abruptly.
I saw the nurse sedating Reever in mid-seizure. Apparently she’d knocked me away from him, as I found myself on the floor, sitting on my abused buttocks. The Psyoran turned to me after she’d finished restraining the chief linguist’s writhing body.
“Mind telling me—” I felt something dripping from the front of my tunic and looked down. “What the hell?” Amber fluid soaked my tunic, covering my chest, abdomen, and thighs.
“He tried to push you away before he went into seizure. That came out of his cranial orifices. It moved like it was—it looked like”—Ecla faltered, her expression one of horror—“like it was trying to get into your mouth.”
I had no time to be disgusted. Besides, it wasn’t doing anything now but staining my clothes.
“Take a sample for analysis.” I stripped off my tunic and handed it to her. My thin undershirt was soaked as well. “I have to clean up, and talk to the chief.”
We lost another thirteen patients. A temporary display console was put together and connected to the colonial database. At last I was able to signal the FreeClinic. Hooray for portable technology. Dr. Mayer responded within moments.
“We’ll lose more of them,” I said after giving him the statistics. “There’s only one option left.”
The chief’s face appeared haggard. “What do you suggest?”
“Treat this pathogen as a sentient.”
He chuckled bitterly. “You really
are deranged.”
“Hear me out. As an intelligent life-form, wouldn’t the anaerobe regard being trapped in Karas’s lungs as a threat to itself?”
“There is no anaerobic microorganism capable of intellectual reasoning.”
“That we know of,” I said. “Reever called the pathogen the Core.”
“He called something the Core,” Mayer said. “It proves nothing.”
Proof. What was unique to the pathogen that would prove its sentience? Why were they killing the host? What were they thinking?
“If you were imprisoned in an alien environment, you’d try to free yourself,” I said. “The symptoms of the contagion may be a counterattack.”
“An effort to kill the host body?”
“The pneumonia it induces does in the end.” I ignored his raised brows.
“You still can’t explain why the contagion doesn’t show up on our scanners.”
An image of Karas’s lungs sprang to mind. The missing tissue. Not destroyed—replaced?
“What if it could mimic the tissue it inhabited? By replacing native cells, simulating their structure and chemical signature, it would remain undetectable.”
“Preposterous!”
“It’s the only reason to explain why it doesn’t read on the scanners, why biodecon doesn’t destroy it. It becomes part of the body. A defense mechanism, like protective coloration.”
“This is absolute nonsense.” Mayer looked ready to strangle me. “Listen to what you’re saying!”
I’d gone this far. “The pneumonia they induce could also be the only possible means they have of escaping—by killing our bodies.”
“And transmission?”
“We know it can’t be airborne. Saliva, or perhap”—I glanced over at Kao, who was now sleeping—“sexual transmission.”
“Since none of the original cases experienced such intimate contact with each other—”
“Smaller amounts of fluid could still prove a viable transmission vehicle for a single-celled organism,” I said. “Involuntary discharges they could access and control.” I made the last connection. “Coughing. Sneezing.”
Cold symptoms.
“You’ll have to analyze a fresh sample of sputum to prove your theory,” Mayer said. I didn’t bother to tell him the pathogen could probably imitate sputum and anything else contained in a life-form. “None of this warrants putting Reever at risk for another seizure. Don’t try to revive him.”
