Rescue Branch (Kinsella Universe)
Page 22
She focused on the instruments and reached for a control -- to have her hand deflected by a pressure suit gauntlet. “I’ve got it under control,” the man next to her said. “We’re on the way home now.”
She looked at him, a man togged up in full vacuum gear. He saw her glance and laughed over the intercom. “The poor man’s environmental suit. And if I get sick, I just take off the helmet, and you’ll have a lot less mess to clean up.”
“Oh, God!” Becky exclaimed, realizing just what he meant. She was a mess, head to toe a mess. The control cabin was a mess; it was a miracle nothing had shorted out.
He sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t laugh. The docs say you can lose up to ten liters of fluids a day. I except this would be a swamp if you all did.”
“How many are sick?”
“Eagle, you and the pilot. We’re on course to dock with Southern Cross; they are the best medical facility available in orbit. The Fleet has been sending up medical staff; so far there’s no one sick aboard, but they are getting ready for the worst.”
He cleared his throat. “You should know... we got Kat calmed down -- they gave her a sedative to put her to sleep. She wanted to turn Ceres into a smoking hole in the ground. Officially, I’m here to ask the Fleet to no longer render any assistance to Ceres.”
“There are some innocent people there. Most of the people didn’t know that they hadn’t asked for help or told people about it. Ceres has one working shuttle -- and it holds just eight people.”
The pilot sighed again. “We have two that will hold five hundred people in a pinch; we keep one home no matter what. We have a cargo hauler that will handle the entire colony, but it wouldn’t be very comfortable. We do drills at least once a month, where everyone goes into p-suits, and boards whatever is there.”
Becky nodded and filed it away. That sounded like something that was only prudent. Did Psyche do something like that? She’d never seen that sort of drill there. Gosh! Anna was going to be surprised! They weren’t going to let her get within a million miles of Psyche for who knew how long?
Lieutenant Abbott appeared, his usual cheerful self, and half way cleaned up as well. “Cocktail time, Lieutenant! Scotch and soda? A martini, a daiquiri, a margarita?” It was a lie, of course. He just had more of the salty water and nothing else. The second the moisture touched her lips she wanted to gulp it down. The lieutenant saw to it that she drank slowly.
Becky tried, she really tried, to stay awake, but in the middle of things the world faded away again.
She awoke in a bed, when a nurse was changing the IV bottle that was dripping into her veins. She didn’t know who’d done it, but someone had cleaned her up, she was wearing one of those awful hospital gowns, but at least the coating of yuck was gone. Her stomach no longer twitched and for the moment she wasn’t spewing more yuck into the environment.
She focused on the nurse at first, and only eventually became aware of Captain Gilly sitting next to her bed. “Sir,” she protested. “I don’t think you should be here.”
He laughed. “I’m an old salt; been there, done that and have had the shots to prove it! I had another a few hours ago. How are you feeling?”
“Depleted.”
“I’ve seen people with cholera before; that’s one word for it. I’ve heard ‘drained’ as well.”
“That’s an even better word, sir,” she agreed.
“The last report on you is that you are recovering nicely, and will be back to limited duty in a couple of days, and full duties in perhaps two weeks.”
“How’s everyone else?”
“Eagle’s having a rough go of it. Kat didn’t ask him if he wanted to leave; he thinks he’s getting special treatment. Southern Cross is taking him back to the Trojans even as we speak. They aren’t in good shape. Psyche, though, wasn’t exposed. Grissom was, but so far the possible vectors haven’t shown any symptoms, so maybe they missed the bullet.
“There has, needless, to say, been a lot going on.”
“And Ceres?”
“We received an official request to evacuate Ceres. They had to get a politician to deliver it -- everyone connected with space wants blood. Basically they were told no. We are getting together a list of people who knew and didn’t tell us -- the colony manager and his bosses in India. We want them extradited.
“The Indians came back that they would handle it. Right now, it’s going back and forth. Admiral Kinsella is directing the negotiations, through the US State Department. She’s been authorized to agree to evacuating the colony -- in return for the extradition of the guilty parties. India has been trying to rent a couple of shuttles, but the prices people are asking for the rentals are on the far side of exorbitant.
“France provided a drastic example of what happens when you send unqualified people into space, being ordered around by even more unqualified chair warmers back on the ground. India has shown what happens when you try to do it even cheaper, without doing due diligence.
“I’m sorry to say, we are still at a loss about what to do for the Trojans.”
“Sir?”
“They’ve had two deaths; the doctors say in a population like theirs, living in close proximity -- there’s no way to tell how effective public health measures will be. In theory, so long as the drinking water doesn’t get contaminated, they should be okay. We’ve got vaccinated medical personnel going out to them. They’ve been limiting the number of people exposed and if everything works right, they should be able to stop an epidemic before it goes critical. Three percent of healthy adults who develop the disease die -- the numbers for children and the elderly are worse. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize what this would do an entire habitat.”
Becky nodded. It could, maybe, be worse. Maybe it would be better. Then she did the math. “If three percent die, how many are sick on the Trojan habitat?”
He looked away. “Half,” he mumbled, not able to look at her. “One of the first cases was a sloppy food service worker. She’s currently under guard on Southern Cross; her life is in serious danger -- and not just from Kat.”
“Half? Seven hundred? Three percent?”
“Yes, on average. The numbers are better for adults, not quite as good for the elderly, not so good for kids.”
“You need to get a nuclear-armed ship out to Ceres. The first time a kid dies out at the Trojans, Kat really will turn that colony into a smoking hole.”
“Weapons deployment is highly classified.”
“Get me a camera!”
A short while later Becky looked into a camera, held by one of the medics. “Kat, I’m not you and you’re not me. I don’t have any kids; I’m not responsible for anyone else’s kids. Anna and I want them; I don’t think I could handle the latter at the moment. I haven’t asked Anna, but I think she’d agree. You can’t hit Ceres; you just can’t. Yes, the leadership there, some of them, did you wrong. Others didn’t speak out like they should have.
“Kat, they did in the end. The people who let us know about this risked their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor -- and their families -- to let us know. You can’t do it to these people. There are innocent women and children on Ceres whose only offense was to be badly led. You can’t do this.
“Please, I beg of you, don’t do anything rash. Think of the others out there in the Trojans... who is going to want a nutcase in charge there who can order the destruction of hundreds of people? Please Kat, this isn’t going to go unpunished. If you know me, if you know John Gilly, Anna or Stephanie Kinsella -- you know it won’t go unpunished. I swear, I don’t know what the Admiral plans, but it will be ten thousand times worse than what you or I could come up with. Let justice be served, Kat. Please. A favor to Anna and me... I’d be happy to accept it as the very best wedding present of all time.”
She looked at the medic. “Get that to the Trojans and Psyche as fast as you can.”
“Captain Cook said if you’re not fussy about relative velocities, about twenty minutes.
They have a shuttle out at Grissom that’s always prepped for an emergency departure.”
“Surely not for this!”
He smiled. “Prepped for emergencies, Lieutenant. Fleet has learned we need to be ready to go instantly... we can’t wait for old Albert’s relativity to get there.”
Becky sagged back, the starch running out of her spine. She was so tired...
She awoke the next morning feeling tired, empty and depleted -- but more like her old self. The only thing was, Admiral Kinsella was reading a book, sitting on a chair next to Becky’s bed.
“Admiral!” Becky exclaimed. “I’m fine really!”
Admiral Kinsella grinned. “We are having a Becky-Steph moment, Becky. I have too many rude things I’d want to say that an admiral should never be guilty of.”
“Steph, I’m not sure what you mean.”
“The Indians are incompetent fools; alas, that’s how they govern themselves. I think I’ve gotten Kat to agree not to return the water Ceres gave them -- that’s her latest idea.”
“I don’t understand, Steph.”
“They picked up about a million liters of water before the deal fell through. They took it out to the Trojans and parked it. That’s a great deal of water and India gave it to them nearly boiling. It was still about 75 degrees C when Kat made her decision. She was going to send a tug to Ceres and simply let the water run out, about a kilometer over the colony.”
“That would have made a lot of ice cubes,” Becky quipped.
“Her youngest child died; two other children below the age of five have died at the colony. It was all I could do to get her to agree to something that wasn’t in the megaton range and moving a lot faster than a kilometer fall in Ceres gravity.”
“Oh God! I should have never joked about it!”
“Like me, you have to take the little victories and settle for them. Then we come to our own idiots.”
“Our own idiots?”
“Oh yes, we have our own, every bit as stupid as those anywhere else. You have been beached, Lieutenant. Permanently grounded, never to go into space again. I’ve been referring to you in my memos as ‘Cholera Becky’ like they once referred to ‘Typhoid Mary’”
Becky paled and didn’t know what to say. Only the simplest concept made it to her speech centers. “I’m grounded? Forever?”
“There are some doctors, I think there are two now, in the known universe, who believe that some people can be asymptomatic carriers of cholera, like Typhoid Mary was to typhoid fever. They believe that you might, possibly, theoretically present a contamination risk at some future date to some colony, habitat or newly explored planet. Of course, they have only about a one percent confidence in their prediction and suspect that only about a thousandth of a percent of cholera survivors would suffer in that fashion.
“Did I mention that they’ve sought the permanent grounding of the entire crew of the Southern Cross? Grissom Station -- leaving out that there have been zero cases to date on Grissom, but possibly, maybe there could be? And that they have recommended the destruction of the aforesaid ship, the Southern Cross, and the aforesaid habitat -- Grissom Station, because at some possible future date some people might possibly become ill with a disease that is ubiquitous in certain regions of the Earth?”
“Am I grounded or not?” Becky insisted.
“Today, yes. Tomorrow -- not very likely.”
“And Kat? She can’t do that, can she?”
“She wants to, certainly. The Federation has taken an official position in the matter. The individual known as Ramujin, and two of his named superiors are accused of mass murder, using biological weapons. That is a violation of not only the Federation charter, but UN rules as well. We have told India that they are to be turned over to Federation courts. India has refused; India was told that if they weren’t turned over, India was an accomplice in an attack with WMD on a Federation member state, and per the Federation charter, the Federation would consult with the aggrieved state, and decide if they or the Federation would retaliate in the same fashion. The Trojan offer to return the water given to them by Ceres certainly seems, in light of events, a minimal response. Water is not a substance on anyone’s lists of WMDs.”
Stephanie smiled bleakly. “I hope India won’t try to call the ‘Federation’s bluff’ as their newspapers report the matter. Kat isn’t bluffing. It will take the combined good will of a lot of good people to keep her from turning the Ceres colony into a smoking pit... or a hundred meter icicle. And if India even twitches towards the Jovians, we’ll have our first all-out nuclear war.”
“Could I help?”
“She won’t even talk to Eagle; I suspect not.”
“I know I’m not the person I could be... but Steph, let me talk to Ramujin. Let me promise him safe passage aboard Southern Cross for himself and the rest of the colony at Ceres. It’s only for a couple of hours and they’ll be back home and safe. Surely they are willing to put up with surly spacemen and cramped space for a couple of hours. Tell India that they can do with the colonists as they please -- but if they try to protect them, they’ll be handing China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and anyone else who doesn’t like them, a club to pound India with from this time forward. Or they could do the civilized thing and turn the scum over to the Federation. We won’t kill them, but we surely will mess with their social lives for a long time to come!”
Admiral Kinsella was out of her chair in an instant. “That’s not only not a half-bad idea, it’s the best one I’ve heard yet. Be right back!”
Becky was a little surprised to find who responded to her suggestion. In a short while Admiral Delgado and Captain Cook were there, along with the former Prime Minister of Australia and current acting head of the Federation council by video link.
“The thing I worry most about,” Admiral Delgado said after Admiral Kinsella summed up the idea, “is that this could be taken as a precedent.”
Admiral Kinsella shook her head. “Captain Gilly and I studied maritime law extensively when we were preparing to start up the Rescue Service. Tradition is -- rescue first. The victims of the tragedy are hauled to a safe harbor and then miscreants can be dealt with, according to the laws of the safe harbor. Coming from tens of millions of kilometers away, any place on Earth is pretty much like another. We simply land in India and turn them over to the Indian authorities. Some of those people we land are responsible, as of now, for more than twenty deaths of innocents that they should have informed that they were suffering from a contagion.
“India is a country with a robust middle class, a highly independent judiciary and an extensive free press. I believe they will do the right thing. The downside risks are no worse than they are now, and the upside is very much better.”
Former Prime Minister Campbell nodded slowly. “And if the Trojans do trash Ceres, it will be empty. Lets face it -- who is going to want it at this point? There will be no reason to go around making nuclear threats to anyone.”
Admiral Delgado looked at Becky. “Lieutenant, this was a very sensible suggestion from a very sensible young officer. However you are sensible, and forgive me for saying this, a very nice young woman. The doctors tell me that you won’t be fit for even light duty for another seventy-two hours. Besides, like I said, you’re nice.
“I do not want this offer given to the Indians on Ceres by a nice person. So, you can stay in bed and Captain Cook will deliver it. He’s in the proper mood, ever since the docs told him that they wanted to either dismantle Southern Cross or use it for local flights only.”
Becky was aghast again. “Why, sir? What could possibly be the reason for something as drastic as that?”
“Oh, they are under the impression that once exposed to the disease, you are forever exposed to it. Atlanta has the CDC -- one of the reasons for moving the Federation there, and we had a little come-to-Jesus meeting with them. Yes, for a while the ship won’t be allowed on long flights, but it’ll be a lot less than forever -- six months maybe.”
“I like the one I’m supposed to have just fine, sir.” She turned to Admiral Delgado and chose her words carefully. “About my being nice, sir. When we brought the first load of a few women and some babies, Mrs. Ramujin was one of them. She knew the nuts and bolts of getting the people out to the shuttle from the colony. I’d assumed that she’d picked that up from her husband, but now I suspect it might have been Mr. Rathi. Admiral, Mrs. Ramujin and I didn’t say much, but what little I heard made me think she was eager to return to Ceres with her son if the danger of foundering passed.
“Sir, I don’t think she knew of any sick people either -- either she’s a consummate actress, or she was in the dark as well. I’d hate to see an innocent woman tarred with the very black brush her husband is carrying.”
Federation President Campbell nodded. “Admiral, I believe that Lieutenant Cooper is correct. I’ll have someone look into this at once.”
“I think that is quite appropriate,” Admiral Delgado replied.
“Nuts and bolts aside,” Captain Cook said, “as I understand it, I’m to ask them once again if they want to leave. All of them this time. I’m not to promise them a rose garden, but I will promise them a return direct to Mumbai. I am permitted to be -- somewhat emphatic -- in my request.”
Admiral Delgado nodded. “I’ve written instructions for you, but that’s the essential components, Captain.”
He turned to face slightly more in the Federation President’s direction. “And what was alluded to a few moments ago, about Southern Cross’s fate. What about that?”
President Campbell was blunt. “You fly a spaceship worth three and a half billion Australian dollars. In some MD’s dreams are we going to sideline her for something like this. Yes, we will take reasonable precautions. When this is over, Captain, expect a lot of decontamination work. Your crew is going to be in semi-quarantine for a while. This disease, while pernicious, is an easy victim of soap and water. Trust me, your crew will come to know soap and water thoroughly.”