The violence during the taking was not authorized by most of the group, but as it was done already, we took advantage of the opportunity to complete our objective. Mr. Turley assured us that he had not planned on such strong resistance and that it was truly regrettable that things went the way they did; it was too late to change our course now.
Upon our arrival on Sne-az, Mr. Turley announced his intentions to stay and colonize the planet ,and to make deals with the natives for mutual benefit. Anyone who objected was welcomed to go back to Astro II or go someplace else on the planet; other than his continent. We were rightfully shocked, but as Turley had more of the trained militia on his staff many of us elected to go and check out the other continent. Curiosity ran high as we set out for this new world, because we wanted to see how differently the evolution would have gone in this slightly more northern climate after millions of years of separation.
The terrain was more rugged, and it took us a bit of searching to find a suitable landing site. We saw no signs of civilization from the air, such as the Fenninz villages, though we did see what we took to be large herds of the dominant animal species roaming the territory. We chose a landing spot, not too far from one of these herds; it seemed the logical thing to do.
We could see that the dragon creatures, the Lembroz , had evolved somewhat differently, but attached no real immediate significance to it—a major mistake on our part. For the first 24 hours after landing we were busy setting up a camp of sorts. From time to time, someone would report seeing one of the Lembroz peeking out of the bushes at us; and we took that as a favorable sign. We were surprised by the lack of the presence of Fenninz in the area, but figured they’d turn up sooner or later.
The morning of the second day we prepared to go in search of information for our research. Fifteen of our twenty five would go and the rest would maintain camp, and be prepared to come to our aid should that be necessary. We walked for several miles toward the mountains, and as we crested a small ridge, we turned to look back down at our camp. That was how we came to know of the attack on the ship. The fight was already over, but we could see through our field glasses that there were no survivors. We don’t know why we weren’t contacted via comm., but we weren’t.
In shock as we were, we began looking for a place to take refuge. There was a cave not far from our location, and we decided to make a dash in that direction. We came under attack not more than fifty feet from the entrance and were hard put to fight our way to it. Fortunately, as it turned out, the Lembroz aren’t good climbers and it gave us some advantage. We were able to hold them off with ease from our perch; at least for a few days.
On the third day there, we saw your ship arrive; we had no way of warning you; we built a fire, hoping you’d see the smoke, but we didn’t have enough fuel to keep it going. It was decided that we didn’t want to lure you away from the safety of the ship, so in the long run, we decided as we watched them gathering in number we’d have our best chance of sneaking down and surprising them from behind. We lost three men achieving our goal, but we succeeded, and that’s how we came in time for all of us to escape that horrible place.
ERIC DUNCAN: What about the radios that were in your emergency packs?
M. BURNUM: All but two packs were lost getting to the cave; and those didn’t have radios in them.” Answered Max. “If not for that, we’d have been in a whole lot better situation.
ERIC DUNCAN: Well, at least that brings us up to date on all that’s happened; the rest will be up to those higher up than I am.
End Log
I had a heavy sense of apprehension by the time Max was done telling his story. Stars only know what the Captain would say, when we arrived home. One thing was certain; I was going to recommend that for all future trips, the homing devices that also beam all records to the base computer will be installed without a shut off.
Lee was still tending the wounded with the help of Nettie and two members of the ex-rebel crew who appeared to be from the medical field, though mostly with first aid training; not full medical training like Doc Lee. Doc was looking worn out, and was sweating profusely.
“Are you ok Doc?” I asked with real concern.
“Just tired,” she said, turning away; but she kept on turning as she dropped to the deck.
“Nettie— help me, Lee’s sick!” I called. Nettie spun around looking for the problem.
“Good lord; now what’s happened to her?” She responded, sounding more than a little anxious. “She’s the third person to drop like this.” Nettie informed me.
“It’s got to be some sort of bacteria or virus from the place where we were; perhaps from handling the dead at the massacre site,” I guessed out loud.
“Doc has already sent word to the med staff on Astro II, along with the electronic breakdown of blood samples and vital signs; all that was available at the time. I hope they got enough to figure out what the problem is.” As she spoke, Nettie was helping me get Lee laid out on a make-shift cot, and checking to make sure she didn’t have any head injuries. “Still,” Nettie continued, “I guess we’d better find out if we’ve gained any real med techs from the rescued people; we may be in big trouble.”
I nodded; I couldn’t have agreed more!
At that moment, one of the women from the other ship, Prof. Mary Troth, entered the hatch. She was gesturing urgently and sounded excited—pleasantly excited, thank goodness.
“Come see!” Mary called to us. “There’s a dolphin-like creature at the water’s edge with little hands and it’s wearing some sort of jewelry.” She ran back out.
I and anyone who could ran out to see this oddity. Sure enough; it was hanging on to the edge of a rock in the shallow water. It had a gold chain around its neck; more of an indentation than a real neck.
It slid back out of sight, and that’s the last I saw of it. Whether it made the chain or was a pet to some unknown beings, I would probably never get the opportunity to find out. I regretted having to order everybody aboard for immediate departure.
I called the Captain and informed him of our situation. We were to take off for rendezvous with the Virgil, who was already in orbit waiting for us. Their medical doctor was going to transfer to our ship, and render what assistance he could.
We lifted off to make the rendezvous and I for one was grateful that we would have a real physician to care for Doc Lee and the others infected. The bad news was that until the illness was cured we’d have to land on the surface of the Astro II and stay in our ship; under no circumstances could we risk exposing the rest of the colonists.
Once we were in orbit as close as we could get to Virgil, Dr. Stuart Romney came across from the airlock to ours in a spacesuit through open space, since we had no docking facilities installed for deep space. I waited in the airlock myself to make sure he didn’t miss when they boosted him physically across the short expanse. He looked terrified!
“I hope I never have to do that again!” He said as I assisted him into the lock. “I’ve never trained for work in deep space,” he added. “At least not in the true void as it were.”
“Welcome aboard, Sir,” I said as the hatch closed behind him. “I’ve never done it myself, either; don’t think I’ll volunteer anytime soon.” I added with a touch of humor, but secretly thought to myself that there would be a degree of exhilaration in that kind of risk.
The inner lock opened and the doctor stepped in, removing his helmet. He was older than I had expected, being in, I would have guessed, his late fifties to early sixties, with white hair and very sharp blue eyes. I hoped he was as sharp as he looked.
“The first thing I want is a fluid sample from your little alien,” were Dr. Romney’s first words. “I would think Dr. Hebron has a sample available already?” He queried.
“I’m not sure she had the time with so many injuries from two battles; her hands were pretty full,” I said in her defense. I wasn’t sure I liked his immediate insinuation of Lee’s inadequacies.
“Please,�
�� he said. “I meant no offence; I was just hoping to have something to go on. It’s obvious as I look around now that her hands were indeed full.”
The little Fenninz came over and sat at my feet, looking up in anticipation. That was the second time he had done that—I mean, he showed a comprehension of the situation and knew he was somehow involved.
The Dr. looked down at him, an almost amazed look on his face. “Does he understand us?” He asked. I think he was expecting something far more wild. The doctor started rooting in his bag, and withdrew a syringe. “I need a sample so I have a starting point.”
The Fenninz drew back and clung to my leg for protection, craning around, I think trying to locate Nettie and seek her additional protection. “I think, Doctor; you’d best draw some blood from me first so he gets the idea that you mean him no harm.” I suggested. “We named him Hero, after he saved someone’s life.”
“I think you’re right,” Dr. Romney said with a smile. “This creature is extremely perceptive. May I ask, what are his eating and bathroom habits?”
I was stunned. “I have no idea; I’ve seen him do neither since we found him! Then again, he had plenty of freedom out of the ship until now,” I surmised.
“Well then, I’d say we have a lot of learning to do.” Dr. Romney chuckled.
I held out my arm and let him draw some blood; when he was done, he turned to face Hero, who, as I expected, held out his arm. The doctor took the Fenninz arm gently and felt for some sort of vein. “Ah; I’ve got it,” he said as he poked the needle though the leathery skin. Hero didn’t look at all happy about the turn of events; but he kept his eyes on me to make sure everything was alright. “Hero’s the right name for him,” said Dr. Romney. “I really was afraid we’d freak him out. He’s from the continent where you had all the trouble?”
“Yes.” I answered. “On the other continent the Fenninz and the Lembroz worked together; but on the one he came from they seemed to live in hiding from the Lembroz. The evolution took some huge turns there. Lembroz is their name for the dragon creatures that attacked us there,” I said in answer to the questioning look he gave me.
“Evolving big differences are not that uncommon, really.” Dr. Romney said. “On earth there were big differences between animal from different continents; and their continents weren’t separated anywhere near as long as the ones here, from all the info we’ve gathered so far,” he said as he put Hero’s blood on a slide, and slipped it into the analyzer.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed, as the readouts came up on the screen. “These things must have a diet of nearly fifty percent alcohol. They must turn it into sugar; kind of a reverse distillation process.”
“So, what do we feed him?” I asked.
“I’d say, just about anything as long as he’s got a bottle of vodka to wash it down,” he answered. “But I doubt he eats too much; he’s got a very slow metabolic rate. As for excretions, they too, aren’t likely to be frequent; probably about once a week.”
“Sooner or later we’ll find out about that,” I said, dreading the occasion.
“Now; let’s get some blood from those who are infected,” he said.
“Nettie can help you there,” I said calling her over and introducing her.
We would be two days more before we caught up with the Astro II, so I tried to keep the crew members who were not ill busy with any mundane thing I could come up with. The best thing to happen was that Olga was fast recovering from her injuries, as were most of the less seriously wounded.
By the time we reached the Astro II; we had learned more about Hero’s eating habits and he learned to use the toilet. That was a big relief to me! Still; three more people were down with what we simply for now called the Sne-az Flu. Dr. Romney was able to keep everybody hydrated and also lower their fevers; but had yet to pinpoint any real reason for the illness. Now that we were on the surface of our Roid Ship, we could set samples of blood and fluids out to be picked up and taken to the real labs for more complete analysis.
While we played the waiting game, I spent some time teaching Hero to speak. Though his word form was atrocious, he learned more quickly than Oz had. I began to think that he was young enough to still have his eggs; and that one day he might not be alone in our world. I talked with Dr. Romney about the possibility.
“If and when we get back into our world, we can run a scan of his body to find out,” he said. “I would like to do that anyway; and it would be nice to have more of his species around. They are truly remarkable creatures and I think they’d be good for our new world. We can’t by our doctrine live on his world; but there’s absolutely no reason they can’t live on ours. As a matter of fact, it will probably be good for mankind to share the new world with another sentient culture; cut our vanity and selfishness a little, perhaps.”
We had several more days of absolute boredom, and concern for our friends who lay delirious, looking pretty much comatose. We even took turns going out on the surface of Astro II to see the part of our world most of us had never really seen. It was reasonably safe as long as we stayed on the back end of the asteroid. The scenery was spectacular with the sun and a couple of planets near enough to look like small moons in the sky, and I was able to make Nettie scream by showing her my jumping-off-the-asteroid trick.
At last we got the word that the medics on our Roid Ship believed they had a cure for the infection our people had— however, of course, it wasn’t tested. The only way they had to test it was on the real patients. We all agreed that it was worth the risk, but only on one patient at a time, just in case.
The first shot was given to Lee Hebron, since she, we knew, would want to be the one to take the risk. For the next few hours we all just watched and waited. Have you any idea how long a minute is?
After about five hours, Lee began to stir to life again. She felt terrible but she was steadily becoming more cognizant. After only an hour she asked what there was to eat; and we knew she’d be alright. It was time to inoculate the rest of the sick people; then the intention was to give each of us a small dose to be safe; though in truth it seemed that some of us were immune from the start.
We were told that it wasn’t really a new disease after all, but an old virus that nobody had since long before leaving Earth. It’s just one of the hazards of having been in a controlled environment for so long; our resistance to planetary germs was about nil. All they had to do was to synthesize the vaccines in storage to inoculate everyone on board to reactivate their lazy immune systems. Our ancestors had anticipated this problem and had deliberately made our environment not overly sterile; but during the epidemic we’d had back in the seventh generation, we’d unintentionally wiped out most of these microorganisms resulting in our deficiency.
The particular virus we’d contracted was one from a pandemic on Earth in the years 2085-86 Earth Years; and had killed almost ten million people before the cure was found, largely because it struck so suddenly that there was no time to call for help or even stop what you were doing.
It was still two more days before we were cleared to enter back into our home at last, during which time I discovered that my nick name for the first continent on Sne-az — the land of Oz—had stuck and would in fact remain Oz to this day. Nettie thought it was hysterical. “See; you’ll learn to talk without thinking,” she laughed. That somehow made me feel good about it!
I was able to get permission for Hero to stay with me (as if he’d given me a choice) provided I would bring him to the research labs for scans. These were as much as anything, for his own health and protection from things in our environment. It was my job to explain to him that the more we knew about him; the better the chance our doctors could cure him, if he were to become ill. It didn’t seem as if he’d ever had the opportunity to think in terms of planning for anything long-term, I guessed as a result of having to live in hiding in the trees to take advantage of their natural camouflage. Planning on being alive even another day must have taxed their expectations.
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br /> Hero was a hit with the people of my world and I soon came to hear rumors of people who wanted to take a humanitarian mission to Sne-az, to save as many of his kind as possible. Our Directive was clearly against it, and anthropological moralists argued that the Lembroz were just as valid a sentient species eligible for protection as the Fenninz. The Captain chose to deal with it saying; “We need to get settled on Olympus, before taking on such a task.” Personally, I think he had a rescue mission in mind, too, but was tackling one problem at a time.
After many increasingly complex discussions with Hero, even I reached a conclusion that we needed to do something by way of interfering in the internal affairs on Sne-az. The problem I was considering was that one day those violent Lembroz with their opposable digits and tomahawks would cross the polar region and come to Oz. The potential results were frightening. If we could capture just one of the dragons, perhaps we could learn to communicate with them and possibly change their attitude. I knew I would be stating this view to Capt. Pierce before very long; it just seemed right.
Meanwhile, after our brief interview with the Captain, the first thing I wanted to do was visit my family. I escorted Nettie and Ollie home on the way. It was going to seem strange being away from Nettie for even a little while, after being together for so long. I felt all empty as I left for my own home. Hero had stayed with Dr. Romney for his scans and a few other tests; he seemed to trust the Doctor almost as much as he trusted me and Nettie; which I admit was somewhat of a relief.
Ira had beaten me home! As I entered, Mom came running to greet me with tears and all.
“I was so scared when I heard the news that you had a plague on your ship and couldn’t ever come back if they couldn’t find a cure.” She squeezed me so tight I thought she’d pop the stitches in my back.
“Yeow!” I shrieked, automatically drawing away; then feeling stupid over my reaction. ”Sorry Mom; I’ve still got stitches in my back from the battle on Sne-az; still a little tender, but healing fast.” I added quickly, to keep her from freaking out.
Starborn Odyssey (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
