Heritage of Flight

by Susan Shwartz

  "Lohr!” Pauli snapped. “Don't let the littlests run away."

  The growling stopped. Lohr flung out one hand—still holding his flute—to bar the other children's flight into the cold. With gestures and whispers, he gathered them into a silent, watchful knot. ‘Cilla clung to his leg, her eyes on Ari, Ayelet, and David ben Yehuda.

  Pauli drew a deep breath. “Now,” she said slowly, “no one's going to hurt anyone. Not on purpose, and not at all if I have anything to say about it."

  One of the pregnant women (an agronomist turned social worker) suddenly whimpered and clutched her stomach in a spasm that made Pauli tremble with a guilty relief: Serge wasn't exposed. Whatever it is, Serge is safe. For now.

  "Get all the sick ones over there,” she gestured into a smaller room leading off the main one. “In the meantime I want someone to help the kids write down everything they ate last night. Everything.” She forced a smile—the merest ghost of a cheery grin—at the tense youngsters. “That should take quite some time."

  Their laughter was ragged, and lasted too long. A scuffle broke out behind Lohr, ending only when Lohr himself supported Toussaint to join Ari and the others. Sweat ran down over the younger boy's scar, and he wheezed for breath.

  "Beneatha. Beneatha!” Pauli had practically to shout to draw the woman's attention. Stepping over the ruins of the feast, she drew the black woman's hands away from her cheeks. “We've all been exposed to something. Food poisoning, allergy, maybe something in the soil here. Do you have any ideas?"

  "The food ... I poisoned them,” whispered the other woman. “Ramon..."

  "You don't know that!” Pauli snapped.

  "To think I condemned you. My own children, a second family for me, a second chance—I was so proud, and I may have—” Her voice keened upward, and her hands tensed into claws as Pauli held them.

  "I meant to celebrate life!” she wailed. “Not end it!"

  Sighing, Pauli tugged one hand free and slapped Beneatha sharply, then backhanded. “Someone get Rafe,” she cried.

  She tugged Beneatha over toward the other scientists, who had begun to gather up the remains of the feast that could prove to be the end—not just of the people in the room, but of the entire settlement. Dear God: who wasn't exposed? she thought. My chief medic, me, half the techs, my best engineer, and the kids. The look of betrayal on Lohr's face struck her to the heart.

  One man reached for the bundles of leftovers Pauli had planned to bring home, and she breathed a quick, guilty prayer of gratitude to Ramon, whose sickness had forestalled her. “Save those,” she ordered. “We'll need them for samples.” Her eyes went to the half-empty platters. “In fact, I want samples of every food here. Enough to test."

  "Get s-s-samples of the uncooked food too,” Beneatha said. That stammer was fear, not sickness, Pauli decided. No need to worry about wasting their winter stores: until someone discovered what caused Ramon, Ari, and a growing number of people to double over, dizzy and vomiting, they were all going to eat emergency rations ... and I just hope they last.

  All over the room people turned toward Pauli, and she stepped back until she could lean against a wall, fighting a surge of panic that threatened to bring her to her knees. A knot rose in her throat, and she could feel her pulse quicken. She took long, slow breaths. Someone here had to look calm ... at least till Rafe got here, and then there would be two of them. She gestured, and someone turned off the light panels, allowing sunlight to slant in through the polarized skylights of the dome.

  The pallid light was merciless. The bright colors of costumes, posters, and ornaments that had so delighted Pauli by candlelight and darkness seemed crumpled, tawdry, as out of place as dirty jokes at a funeral; food and juice stains gave the mats the aspect of a particularly grimy battlefield. The squashes and gourds had discolored, and their odor—

  "Open the vents in here,” Pauli ordered.

  The dome stank: vomit, stale food, and some sort of moldy odor that was worse than the other smells combined. Glad of something to do, several techs passed out coats and blankets. Pauli went back to her study of the remaining food. If they were only lasers, or ship's plans! Not for the first time, she regretted the limits that wartime had set on her training: shiphandling, weapons, tactics—and that was that. But she had read something once about foods that could poison people if they weren't prepared properly, or from which nerve poisons could be derived. Gourds, or calabashes: something like that. She would have to remember to tell Rafe or Alicia. There was no telling what hunch or what stupid idea might provide an insight that could save their lives.

  Running feet crunched in the snow, counterpointed by the gasps of a runner breathing cold air in through mouth and nose, then paused. Now Pauli heard other footsteps, heavier, measured.

  "What's that?” came Rafe's voice, familiar, beloved, and as apprehensive as her own. It was all Pauli could do not to run out and fling herself at him.

  "Alicia Pryor,” said a low, hoarse voice she identified with difficulty as belonging to Alicia Pryor.

  "When Ramon Aquino hallucinated, she went after him,” Pauli said, “but he broke free and ran away ... straight onto the river ice. It broke. Dr. Pryor tried to pull him out."

  A muttered question. “No, we couldn't find the body. Must have slipped under the ice."

  "Better get her inside and warmed up, then,” Rafe said. “God knows, if we lose her too..."

  Beneatha let out a low, hopeless moan, and Pauli gestured for one of her coworkers to take her aside. Rafe stomped into the dome, his eyes bright, his face flushed from the cold—and a look like death upon it.

  One death already, Pauli thought. How many more would there be?

  Pauli ignored the medic's headshake and swallowed another caffeine tab dry. She'd been exposed to whatever the contagion or poisoning was: she didn't dare use any stronger stimulant; nor could she afford to pass out. As the morning wore on, with its obscenely cheerful sunlight, she staggered and weaved from the research labs to the clinic.

  "You don't get up until your medics say you can, Alicia!” she found herself shouting. “Now, you can either rest, or I'll have you sedated. Which will it be?"

  Despite her exhaustion, she smiled to herself. Rather than use medication she might have a need for later on, Pryor would rest for several hours. “When they finish listing what everyone ate last night, I'll let you look at it,” she promised the physician. “Maybe you can find some common factor."

  As that day passed, and the sun rose on the next, her fear grew until she thought it could grow no worse. Now the hours passed a plateau of terror, an emotion so intense that Pauli might have collapsed from it, let alone the physical exhaustion of constant meetings, research updates, and her need to comfort those families whose children, or husbands, or wives lay shivering or screaming about moths with death's-heads, or winged skeletons until they were put under restraint.

  As she darted from one meeting at which Alicia Pryor, her voice reduced to a coughing rasp, had reported that her rough and ready treatment of hallucinations seemed to work, except on those already weakened by convulsions or circulatory failure, she found herself confronted by two children, angry that the labs had appropriated research animals for tests—and that the beasts had all died.

  Pauli straightened up, rubbing her back the way she'd done when she was pregnant. She forced gentleness back into a voice that had all but forgotten it. “I'm sorry about your pets,” she said. “I truly am. Perhaps one day, we can get you others.” As quickly as she could, she strode away toward life sciences. Better them than you, she thought, grateful, at least, that the children had not seen the maddened creatures shriek and thrust themselves at the researchers, their paralyzed hindquarters dragging behind them, as they tried to bite the researchers before they died.

  She thought her fear could get no worse. But as the days passed, it only grew. Memories of lost colonies, lessons from the education she had cut short because of the war, pounced on her from ambush in th
e treacherous corridors of her memory, followed by even grislier stories of planets that had lost fifty or sixty percent of their population in the early years of their settlement. Would Cynthia colony be such a place? If, in years to come, the Alliance—or its successor—sent ships here to pick up the seedcorn they had stored, what would they find? Corpses, or madmen?

  Time with her family might have comforted her. But she had not seen Serge at all; Rafe had barely time to tousle her hair and assure her that Serge and the children who had missed the karamu would be isolated from anyone—themselves included—who had been at the feast, or exposed to food from it.

  Pauli strode toward the life-sciences dome, now turned into a quarantine ward which daily grew more and more crowded. She saw ben Yehuda stumble outside, and headed over to him.

  "Ari?” she asked, laying a hand on her friend's arm. She was almost ashamed to meet his eyes; her son was healthy.

  "Ayelet's with him now,” he muttered and rubbed his hand over reddened eyes. “Have you got any kind of—thanks, Pauli.” He took the foil packet of caffeine tabs, ripped one free with shaking fingers, and gulped it. “No, she hasn't come down with it. I can't understand; they ate practically the same things."

  "The gourds!” Pauli cried. “Did Ayelet eat those squashes?"

  Wearily Dave shook his head. “Good try, Pauli. You're thinking of breadfruits or taro, aren't you? Or the calabashes from which Earth aborigines made curare. I don't think so. They tested out normal."

  A medic ran out. “Dave? You better get in here.” Ben Yehuda froze, his eyes going blank in fear. Pauli grabbed his hand and held it hard.

  "He's going into convulsions,” the man told him. “About five minutes ago he started to scream that the place was burning down, and we should all eject in the lifesupport pods. Maybe if you helped restrain him..."

  "Restrain?” Dave's voice broke. “Restrain my son like some lunatic from the Dark Ages? Next thing, you'll tell me he's got a dybbuk in him and must be exorcised. Pauli—"

  "Go on,” she told him. “Ari's one of the strongest kids I've ever seen. He'll make it, Dave; he's just got to."

  That day faded and her own strength faded with it. The caffeine tabs had worn off long ago. From the shivers that gripped her, Pauli realized that soon she would face only two choices: rest or the strong stimulants that, combined with whatever unknown food poison was turning healthy children and adults into raving, twitching maniacs, could be lethal. Surely everyone else in the tiny, jeopardized settlement must be equally worn out!

  Rafe, at least, had had some rest. Now the tidy laboratory that had been his research domain was littered with food, cooked, raw, and whatever wrapped concentrates he snatched the time to gulp down. Beakers of something foul-looking called Ringer's solution stood next to half-emptied cups; he'd long ago passed the thoughtful stage of research and was now at the point where he muttered under his breath, clutched at his hair, and only noticed people around him if they shouted, then stood back quickly. Watching him was about the only thing that could make her smile: she dared not go near their son.

  Leaving Rafe, she forced herself into a weary trot over toward the lifesupport domes. The sodium lights and the waning sun of late afternoon cast long shadows as the people who clustered outside the quarantine dome milled back and forth, unwilling to rest. Many—Pauli studied them—many had been at the disastrous feast, had been as exposed to as many of the foods under examination as she. None of the people lingering here showed any symptoms that she could notice.

  Yet, why weren't they helping with the research, or tending those who had already fallen ill? Instead, the wandered about, talking almost in a frenzy, and laughing when they did not talk. Their high-pitched, awkward laughter seemed forced, a fit accompaniment for the shadow-dance of their movements on the frozen ground.

  "I have never had so much energy in my life,” she heard one woman say. “I finished my research assignment, and now I am so worked up I can't sleep. Maybe when it gets dark..."

  "Dark? That's when I like to work best. I think I'll talk with the medcrew. Perhaps they'll release me to other duties. This is pointless, this waiting around."

  It all sounded very plausible; yet something was wrong. As Pauli walked past the speakers toward the dome, she found herself having to dodge long monologues delivered at high speed, or to answer questions that seemed never to have a point; she was shivering herself by the time she entered the dome.

  'Cilla sat within, drawing; and Pauli's heart sank. Not this child too! She knelt beside the girl, and laid one hand on her shoulder. “Do they think you're sick too?” she asked the child. “You don't look it."

  'Cilla greeted her with a dazzling smile. “I was dizzy, a few hours ago, so they made me come in here and lie down. But I had a dream, and had to get up and draw it. The colors! Ohhh, I've never seen such colors in my life! Golds and ... and indigo, and spring greens, and purples you could practically eat! They shimmered like stars. And then he came..."

  "He?"

  "He had wings,” ‘Cilla went on in a low voice, “like one of the Cynthians, but a human face; and he was smiling like those angels the stories tell us about; and he picked me up and hugged me, and asked would I be his little girl. But I told him Lohr wouldn't like that, and—"

  "And what, ‘Cilla?” Pauli asked as gently as if she spoke to an infant.

  "He put me down, and I woke up. See? Here's a picture of him. I just wish I had the colors."

  To Pauli's surprise and relief, Dr. Pryor walked into the main room at that moment. The door slid shut, but not before the screams rasped out, distracting everyone in the room but ‘Cilia, who returned to her painting. Pryor walked carefully, probably still stiff from her attempt to rescue Ramon from the icy water. From time to time, if she felt that no one was watching, she coughed, her shoulders hunching up with the force she put into it.

  "Any other deaths?” Pauli hated herself for asking.

  "Thank God, no. Or not yet,” Pryor answered. “We're likely to have some miscarriages, I think. At least I hope so: otherwise, I'm very much tempted to abort the women.” She took a deep breath and held it, suppressing another spasm of coughing.

  "This hits different people differently. ‘Cilia, now, has a case of old-time religion: beyond that, I think she'll be all right. Ramon? you heard his hallucinations. A few others have had much the same visions—the moths, some skeletons with wings, the usual collection of serpents and green things that go squelch in the night: an addict's menagerie of them. They flash back, too. In general, what you see first is what you keep on seeing. I don't envy Dave, either, having to deal with a kid who thinks he's about to be cast into space in a pod."

  She sighed, and pushed back limp hair that suddenly seemed more gray than blonde.

  "Then there are the ones who are losing circulation in their extremities. If that goes on, we could have gangrenous limbs. I'm trying to stimulate circulation there."

  "And for the ones hallucinating?"

  Pryor sighed and shrugged. “I'm working on the assumption that there's some sort of alkaloid poisoning at work here and treating it accordingly. Eserine or acetylcholinesterase would be best, but, naturally, we don't have it. We don't even have any way to get medication directly into the brain. I tell you, Pauli, practicing outpost medicine is enough to drive you mad!"

  Her outburst drew shocked laughter from both of them. “I'm sorry,” said the physician. “Where were we? I'm using epinephrine to stop the hallucinations."

  "Won't that make them as frenzied as the ones outside?"

  Pryor nodded despairingly. “For the older ones, or the ones who aren't in good condition, I combine the epinephrine with tranquilizers. Strong ones."

  Pauli sighed. “I guess I'd better see what we're up against,” she said.

  Pryor turned and led her into one of the small quarantine units where a man twisted on his bed. His sheets were soaked with sweat, and from them rose a familiar, musty odor. Pryor lifted the brownish bla
nket that covered him, and pointed at the man's feet. They were slightly discolored now, as if bruised, the toes contorted, each entire foot drawn sharply downward. He twisted back and forth ceaselessly, unable to find rest or relief.

  Only a scream from outside the dome saved Pauli from gagging, disgracing herself. She flung herself at the door, then out after the woman to whom she had spoken earlier, the one who had completed her work and now had nothing to do. “I'll make them use me, I'll make them!” she kept screaming, and flew at the nearest man, her hands clawing out to tear at his face. He caught her wrists and recoiled until two men came to secure her.

  Pryor shook her head. “We're likely to have more and more of that. Frenzy, hysterical strength: God help us, we could be a village of maniacs by sundown. Rafe find anything yet?"

  Pauli shook her head. “I had an idea,” she spoke hesitantly, “but Dave told me that the squashes we had at the feast aren't the type that have to be cooked right, or they poison you.” She sighed. “Dave says it's like going back to the Dark Ages.” Abruptly she was as frustrated as Pryor had been by the limits of her powers.

  "Damn! I keep thinking that I must be missing some piece of the puzzle."

  Pryor nodded. “Why not sit down, then, and look at another one? Maybe you can tell me what we've left out. I have the lists of everything the children ate. Not all of them ate the gourds, so that shoots your curare hypothesis, elegant as it was. And beyond that, there isn't a whole lot that all of them ate..."

  Pauli rubbed her temples, a gesture copied by Pryor. Over in the corner, ‘Cilia sat placidly sketching, an expression of almost angelic serenity on her mobile features.

  "Cilia?” asked Pauli. “Sorry to disturb you. But can you look at this list of what you ate last night, and tell me if it's complete?"

  "Glad to,” said the child and took the leaf of fax. Her lips moved as she muttered the words beneath her breath. Finally her head came up, and she looked puzzled.

  "Does it matter if it was one of the special dishes, or what?” she asked.

  "What do you mean?” asked Pryor, bending forward eagerly.