Rescue Branch (Kinsella Universe)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “That’s not a problem, sir. I will try to keep a positive outlook -- after today.”

  Everyone laughed at that, but Becky kept her face straight. Later she taped another message for Anna, terribly aware that they weren’t going to be able to get together for weeks.

  She read Anna’s reply the next morning, and felt better, a little. “We began assuming we’d be apart for long periods of time. We’re just starting in a small way earlier than we figured. We can deal with this, or we have made a bad choice. I for one, don’t think so. I read about your exploits and stand in awe.

  “I wish Kat would talk to me, but she won’t.”

  As always, after Becky saw Anna she felt better. That didn’t survive Captain Gilly’s visit.

  He came into her hospital room and drove off one of the nurses. He was brief. “We didn’t hear from Southern Cross as soon as expected. Instead, an hour later, Captain Cook sent a shuttle. He didn’t beat the Trojans back to Ceres -- they got there first.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Everyone, I think, except maybe Admiral Kinsella, misunderestimates Kat. Captain Cook and his science team have no idea how it was done, but Kat did return the million liters of water. Except it was as a liquid. That’s the good news. That bad news is that they figure it was barely above freezing when it reached the colony superstructure. It hit, transferred heat from the water to the superstructure and then the water froze. While a million liters sounds like a lot of water, it’s not compared to the surface area of the colony.

  “What happened was that a glaze of ice formed. Remember that the heat was going from the water to the colony -- true, it was like they’d moved into an ice box, but inside it didn’t dip below freezing -- although it got close.

  “The glaze switched from giving up heat, to taking it from the colony -- it started to melt. When Southern Cross arrived, the colony was locked in by a crust of ice about 30 centimeters deep. By then Ramujin was frantic -- he’s sick now too, by the way. Almost everyone up there is sick. He agreed at once to be taken home, and Captain Cook had his people melt the ice at the lock, install gutters to divert the melt water, and started to take people out.

  “It was slow going, and that’s why he sent the shuttle back with word that things were progressing according to plan -- more or less. There were more sick colonists than there were free members of the Southern Cross’s crew and they were, like their captain, just a bit surly. As you intimated though, most of the colonists hadn’t known about an epidemic until half the people were sick.

  “A half hour ago, the middle of the afternoon in Mumbai, the Southern Cross landed and was met by a fleet of ambulances for the sick. Most of them were whisked away, except for Ramujin and three of his deputies. They were paraded on the dock, even if three of the four had to be held erect.

  “The Prime Minister of India was there and he read off a list of charges -- capital charges -- including placing ‘Mother India’ at risk of having their largest cities turned into flaming pyres. All because they’d been given stupid orders that they stupidly followed.

  “Then two others, members of the bureaucracy, were led forward, along with the Minister for Space. The charges were read again, a fellow in a British barrister’s wig pronounced them guilty, and one second later the men holding the accused shot them dead, one bullet each into the back of the head.

  “On national TV, in the late afternoon. I’m told that’s siesta time... maybe half the country was watching TV, expecting to see their soaps.”

  “I never wanted that,” Becky said, feeling forlorn.

  “They stopped at the men, not their wives and families,” the captain told her. “Kat is well known, after the Orleans rescue. No one will ever doubt the seriousness of her intent again. The Trojans are here to stay, they are small, but a power to be reckoned with. If any doubt remained, India squished that today.”

  Admiral Kinsella came in; it was too well timed to have been a coincidence. Captain Gilly nodded to Becky, turned and left.

  “You’ve been reading up on economics. I’m here to expand your horizons,” Stephanie Kinsella told Becky.

  “I’m back to asking, ‘Why me?’”

  “You have a genuinely good heart, Lieutenant. Now I have some things for you to think on.

  “The economy of most of the world went into the toilet towards the end of the first decade of this century. The majority of efforts to ameliorate things were misguided at best, and often completely wrong-headed. Fortunately for everyone most economists are little better than witch doctors and everyone had a different national solution to their problems. While those solutions caused much pain at the national level, it tended to cancel out over the entire planet.

  “Benko-Chang did something that not even I had considered. It was like the biggest war of all time. In one fell swoop I shot down every commercial and military craft on the planet. I put a huge hole in the consumer fleet. Overnight the helicopter industry joined the buggy-whip makers trying to figure out where they’d gone wrong.

  “The amount of money invested in those aircraft was staggering. The amount of money to replace them was nearly as much. Enough less, however, that if you didn’t replace your fleet, you were headed for bankruptcy. Now, hardly a half dozen years after I appeared on the scene, the only propeller aircraft are old crop dusters and airliners flying into Tierra del Fuego. You can still buy a helicopter ride, but you’d better hurry. They last of them will be gone within the year.

  “The world economy, formerly slowly and inexorably sinking on a more or less even keel, is booming. Global warming was on life support before -- now we can import a million tons of natural gas and export ten million tons of carbon dioxide and everyone’s happy as larks. The inner belt, the Earth’s growing orbital array of habitats, need the carbon and oxygen.

  “About that growing number of habitats... all sorts of synergies have sprung up. Space is dangerous as hell -- but so is skateboarding and motocross and a dozen similar ventures. Now the big thing is that the Fleet is paying a hundred dollars a kilo, American, for space junk. There are about five hundred kids who’ve done like Eagle did -- conned their parents into a spaceship.

  “They are flying close to home, and we’ve been firm about the license requirements. Those kids eat that sort of thing up. They make a joke out of it and challenge each other to see who can do best on the tests.

  “The big cable and communications companies? They are in heaven. It cost billions of dollars to orbit a telecom satellite into geosynchronous orbit. Now it costs mere hundreds of dollars. But it makes more sense to build a habitat and populate it with network weenies and their families... their maintenance costs were astronomic before. Now they are bearable. Another entire industry, changed from the ground up.

  “A long time ago, a group of brainiacs went to see the President to tell him Benko-Chang was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I thought the comments that it would change human society in unknowable ways faster than society had ever been changed before was over the top; pure hyperbole.

  “I’ve watched what’s happened with awe. I had a hand in this! I thought I had a good heart and good intentions, but early on I realized I had no way of even figuring out half the permutations and combinations. Kat’s book -- that’s important. She has a handle on what’s going to happen to finances. She’s probably going to be widely off the mark; I know how easy it is for early adaptors to get things wrong -- but she fundamentally understands what is happening -- far more than most of the voodoo economists.

  “I knew she wasn’t going to blow things up, no matter how deep her personal loss was. She’s a builder, and like me, she wants a bright future for everyone. And if she had to sacrifice a little blood for it, she knew it was possible even before she got pregnant.

  “She brought children forth into this universe without a clue what the dangers she faced were. She knew that an accident could wipe them all out at anytime. She’d long ago made her peace with that. I didn’t dare tell anyo
ne though, because it was important for people to behave as if the threat was real. It wasn’t this time, thank heavens, but one day it very well may be. We need to work on ways of resolving difficulties without blowing things up.

  “Now she’s more like me than I ever was: she is going to build, build and build a lot more. She is going to make space safe for everyone’s children and damn the consequences to those that don’t realize the sacrifices that might be required. She has a huge task in front of her and no time for the fools and incompetents. It’s regrettable, but to do what she wants to do, she has to move past them as fast and as dramatically as possible.

  “She has done that in spades.”

  Chapter 12 -- Waking up is Hard to Do

  Becky woke later in the afternoon when a nurse was insistent that she check all of Becky’s vital signs -- even though they did that the first thing every morning. Finally Becky was exasperated. “I assure you I’m fine, nothing significant has changed since this morning.”

  “That, Lieutenant, is the problem. Would you say you were in good health before you were infected?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a young woman who says she was in good health. You had a more severe onset of symptoms than most, and they lasted longer than most. You are not recovering as fast as most. The question I have, Lieutenant, is why is that? So I am measuring, recording and testing.”

  “I’m tired of being poked and prodded!” Becky snapped, regretting it instantly.

  The nurse smiled benignly. “You all say that. I ignore such protestations. Now please, roll up your sleeve, I wish to draw some blood.”

  “Nuts to you!” Becky told her, her earlier anger having not had a chance to fully boil as yet. “I gave at the office! Gallons!”

  “Your body doesn’t hold gallons of blood, Lieutenant. I assure you that I am very good with my sticks -- you’ll hardly feel it. A pinch, no more.”

  “No!” Becky said with even more heat.

  The woman looked at her for a moment, then walked over to the phone on the wall and spoke into it for a few seconds. In a minute two husky young men entered the room. “Doctor?” one of them, “You have a problem?”

  “Hold her down so I can draw some blood.”

  Becky was outraged and called at the top of her voice, “Help! Help!”

  The two men efficiently held her down while the blood was drawn. “I understand you aren’t happy,” the woman who evidently wasn’t just a nurse said. “Yesterday I was treating cholera patients in the Cameroon. Then my work was interrupted and I’m dragged here. I am not going to lose my work, young woman! My second cousin, not withstanding!”

  For the first time Becky felt some concern. “Your cousin?”

  “Second cousin. The current President of France.”

  “Erk!” Becky said. “Could I have a phone?”

  “It will do you no avail; I’ve been appointed your doctor. No one can change that.”

  “I will leave you with that assumption, doctor.”

  She took a phone proffered by one of the corpsmen. “Lieutenant Abbott? Busy?” she inquired.

  “No, Lieutenant. I’m just reading.”

  “I need Admiral Kinsella, ASAP. Tell her that her friend Nick is messing with me.”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Lieutenant Cooper, but I’ll pass on the message.”

  “It’s an operational immediate, flash priority message.” She looked up the doctor. “Are you perchance French?”

  “I fail to see how that’s germane.”

  “Yes or no, Doctor?”

  “Of course. I am a doctor with Doctors without Frontiers,” the Doctor said.

  Becky spoke into the phone. “Tell her to hurry, I’m in the hands of the French.”

  In five minutes her hospital room was very crowded. A half dozen Marines, armed Marines, were there. Captain Gilly stood at the door taking in the scene.

  “Undoubtedly you have an explanation for calling out the clans? You have everyone to speak of on their way here,” the captain said mildly.

  “The doctor is French. She is experimenting on me without permission.”

  Captain Gilly smiled politely at the doctor. “I can legally have you hauled from this building and summarily shot in front. Give me a reason why I shouldn’t?”

  “I am a doctor... this is my patient.”

  “I will patiently explain this to you. Are you French?”

  “I am a doctor of the Doctors without Frontiers. We give up our nationality when we join. Yes, I was born in France.”

  “Three weeks ago your government passed a bill of attainder, accusing Lieutenant Cooper of mass murder. They wanted her extradited to face ‘French justice.’ The Federation held an Board of Inquiry and the French government was found at fault -- as well as the pilot of the lost vessel.”

  The woman looked at Captain Gilly. “My second cousin is the President of France; I assumed this was his meddling. That appears to be the case.”

  “You had better do a lot more research,” Captain Gilly said.

  Admiral Kinsella was present by then, so was Admiral Delgado. Neither looked like happy campers. Admiral Kinsella spoke first. “I understand you are French, Doctor.”

  “I was.”

  “You are excused. Nick will contact you. I hope you will be patient.”

  The doctor waved at Becky. “I am supposed to ignore a patient who is malnourished and excessively fatigued? And I’m just to keep my mouth shut about my observations?”

  “You are a doctor. You are not God. God forbid, I’ve never had to experience the ministrations of such as you. If you have a report on the lieutenant’s health, you have superiors to report your observations to. Did you report them?”

  Becky learned a lesson then. The doctor looked away. “No.”

  “Admiral Delgado, if I may?”

  “Of course Admiral Kinsella.”

  “Doctor, you have evidently been assigned as Lieutenant Cooper’s doctor. I have no idea by whom, but I will assume, for the moment, he is a competent individual and that you are a competent doctor. I am going to ask Lieutenant Cooper a question. Contemplate her answer from this moment forward.”

  Admiral Kinsella turned to Becky. “Have you been eating proper meals of late? Getting proper crew rest?”

  Becky lifted her chin. “I’ve been a little busy, sir.”

  Admiral Kinsella was brusque. “You are dead useless -- if you’re dead. I never want to hear a report like this from you or about you again. Your doctor will run tests on you; you will fully cooperate with her. I’m betting the good doctor has never examined anyone before who has spent a goodly fraction of the last few months in space who has been infected with cholera.”

  Just then, to make a total catastrophe out of a total catastrophe -- her parents and three of her brothers arrived.

  Admiral Kinsella bobbed her head at Admiral Delgado and he said smoothly. “Chief, we were just joking with your daughter about what she had to do to earn a week in bed.” He made a circular motion over his head and everyone left the room except her family.

  “That was a four star admiral,” one of her brothers observed.

  “You missed the best parts,” Becky said helplessly.

  “We had to get shots to visit you,” her mother grouched.

  “Trust me, Mom, a thousand shots aren’t too much of a price to pay to miss five minutes of cholera symptoms.”

  Her father waved at the door. “What was that about? Don’t tell me it was a joke.”

  “That sir, is an admiral expressing her unhappiness about someone who wasn’t eating or sleeping well. Oddly, they don’t make allowances that you might have been too busy.”

  She was unprepared for him to walk up to her, take her hand and snap her wrist. It stung. “I don’t either.”

  She couldn’t help it; she laughed.

  Her oldest brother was outraged. “How can you laugh?”

  She spoke to her father, “Probably you agree that hav
ing an admiral telling you that you screwed up isn’t trivial. I think it’s serious, too. Lewis on the other hand...” she shrugged. Her oldest brother went instantly red, while her two younger brothers laughed.

  “She’s your rabbi?” her father asked, cutting to the meat of the matter.

  “I think I’m more of a mascot. But she does look out for me if I don’t mess up too much.”

  “And that other woman? The one from the asteroid?” her mother asked. Becky sighed.

  “That woman and I are going to be married. Adjust, adapt. Right now I’m grounded; I’m a walking quarantine breech.”

  “Do you still have all those fancy friends?” her oldest brother asked.

  “You asked about why everyone was here. As I didn’t know who sent my doctor, it turns out that the President of France sent her. I didn’t know and I sort of panicked and called for the cavalry.”

  “And that was the cavalry?” her father asked.

  “Some of them. They got the second wave stopped in time.”

  “What is this doing to your wedding plans?” her mother asked.

  “It’s delayed them,” Becky admitted. “Like I said, I’m quarantined, my ship is quarantined. But it won’t be a minute longer the necessary.”

  “Cholera?” her father asked. “We beat that a long time ago.”

  “We did; nations with poor sanitation haven’t had our success. The Indian colony at Ceres lost control of their sanitation. Not only did they have cholera -- they had bugs in general -- lice, fleas, bedbugs, and flies. Even mice.”

  “I’m missing something,” he said. “It should have been simple to fight. People do it all the time.”

  “My doctor probably will tell me more than I need to know about the subject,” Becky agreed. “It is simple when you have basic sanitation in control. It isn’t when you have no control.”

  Kat appeared in her mind. Becky couldn’t help it. She started leaking tears. “Becks?” her father asked.