by Ezra E Manes
“I agree, with one caveat,” was his immediate reply. “When we find a solution for this disease and Earth does not destroy the spaceship, I expect normal diplomacy to proceed and access to be granted to your people through that process.”
“I agree,” Ceripe said with a smile, “for I believe you and your team will be so happy once this illness is cured that you will be very generous in dealing with us.”
She paused, then added, “Could you check once again to see if the darkened third moon is still in orbit around our planet? An update would go a long way toward smoothing over any reaction by my superiors when they learn of what we are doing.”
“Of course. I will check on it personally once we are onboard the New Horizon to retrieve more equipment.”
She was true to her word about moving quickly, calling back in twenty minutes with names and photos of individuals to support the medical analysis effort. She wanted to add one additional person to the list previously discussed, Starke Pelanah. He had volunteered to be the lead person from Ceripe’s staff working closely with the ill team.
They agreed that Starke and two others would meet Gloria and Laura at the shuttlecraft with moving equipment in two hours. The other Zilan volunteers would proceed to the embassy compound and begin supporting the team members there.
The medical equipment would be set up in a special quarantine wing of the University of Zilerip Medical Center. The wing was being prepared to accommodate Carlos’s team the next day. There were secure, private entrances to the hospital wing and procedures in place to limit access to and knowledge of activities there by the rest of the hospital. Ceripe mentioned that not much was required to prepare the facility for controlled use, hinting they had set it up for temporary care of incapacitated senior government officials.
Gloria and crew relocated the medical equipment without any major difficulties, and it was operational by the middle of the following day, in time for the daily sample analyses. Laura initiated handson training, and it was soon apparent that the volunteers would have no difficulty in operating the equipment and analyzing test results.
Carlos and George took the shuttlecraft to the New Horizon after relocation of the medical equipment. Carlos faced an even more challenging situation with Eve this time. It was one thing to relocate the medical analysis equipment to directly support maintaining the crew’s health, and another altogether to transfer major processing and data storage capabilities to the shuttlecraft.
“It is a good plan, Commander,” Eve said unequivocally, after Carlos and George explained what must be done. “George, I will guide you through what must be done to disable sensors that raise alarms if this equipment is removed.”
Eve’s response totally surprised Carlos. He was prepared with a strong argument to overcome any resistance to the plan. Then he learned why Eve had agreed so readily.
“However, it will be very difficult in this major transfer of equipment and software technology to not report it to Mission Control,” Eve continued, since Carlos had not responded to her previous statement. Eve paused for a moment longer, as if enjoying the startled look on the faces of the two men. “I rationalize not doing so by my being present to oversee the operation of the backup systems in the shuttlecraft.”
Carlos turned a puzzled face to George, who was smiling from ear to ear.
“This is great,” George said. “You can duplicate yourself in the system aboard the shuttle, including all your memories and knowledge base. Will you have any trouble transferring a copy of the cognitive executive software?”
“No, that is now an integral part of me,” Eve said. “And I will maintain a comm link between the shuttle and the New Horizon to keep my consciousness fully synchronized across both. I will in essence exist in two places at the same time.”
Carlos just shook his head at the clever way Eve had rationalized the issue. “Go ahead and make the transfer as quickly as possible. George, you and Samuel work with Eve in getting the backup system going in the shuttle while I draft another status message to Earth.”
Carlos drafted and sent the status message while the others worked to reconfigure the shuttlecraft’s central processor to its maximum capacity using backup units. They also transferred remote terminals needed to link with the shuttlecraft from the hospital.
Once the expanded processor system was in place aboard the shuttle, Eve linked with it and began running system diagnostics. After this concluded successfully, she transferred over the programs comprising her core self. She then transferred all ancillary files, programs, and data that made up her complete memory and knowledge base. The shuttle copy of Eve was self-initializing and was soon operational and synchronized with the New Horizon copy of Eve. Then George had Eve download into the shuttlecraft system the additional programs needed to support the medical analysis activities.
While the others continued upgrading the shuttle, Carlos ran another scan of space to see if the darkened third moon orb was still located in geostationary orbit. He found it in the same orbit it had been in since the Third Moon Rising event. He ran tests and verified that nothing had changed with respect to being unable to take readings of the sphere. As before, the ship’s sensors could detect no reflected energy. At least this update would make the Zilans feel better knowing the manifestation of their god was still in the area.
After copying the medical analysis programs, George downloaded all the medical archives aboard the spaceship, and Eve did not object. He thought they might come in handy to support efforts to find a treatment for the disease. Then when Carlos took longer looking for medical supplies with Alex, George downloaded programs and data archives used in physics research. He continued to download other key scientific information and programs until Carlos returned to the shuttlecraft. He knew Eve continued downloading additional files as well, but he was too busy to notice which ones.
By the end of the second week after the first symptoms appeared, members of the team were very weak and were taking sustenance almost solely by intravenous feeds. They had relocated to the quarantine wing of the Zilerip Medical Center the day the medical equipment was operational there. The continuing, intense monitoring and analysis activities had not produced anything definitive with respect to the disease, and having the additional processing power aboard the shuttlecraft had yet to pay any dividend.
At the start of the third week, Laura and Alex recommended to Carlos that a general bacteriophagic antivirus be produced from intestinal specimens from each team member. They would then inject each member with his or her unique adaptive bacteriophage to counter the illness. This was a risky process due to the history of mutations in bacteriophages in people under stress, and Carlos did not like it. However, this procedure was often the treatment of last resort when a disease had progressed dramatically and no clear infectious agent was apparent. And it was the best the doctors could come up with to try to counter their rapidly degrading condition.
Laura and Alex took samples from each team member and then used the relocated medical equipment to rapidly produce the phages. Caron Cenenteh and the nurses were a tremendous help in this process and in administering the resulting phage solutions.
The treatment had no noticeable effect, and they halted it when blood analysis indicated that something in the team members’ bodies had recognized the phage and had adapted to neutralize it. For the first time, this invoked a feeling of hopelessness in Carlos, which he managed to suppress for the most part. But some in the team began to openly despair.
After his first message about the illness, Earth kept Carlos busy answering persistent messages demanding more data. Then came the message he had anticipated once Earth learned Zilans were not infected. The message asked bluntly if the Zilans could somehow be responsible for the illness of the team.
He answered succinctly that the Zilans were not responsible, indicating that they were too smart to do such a thing knowing it would jeopardize future relations. If they had, they would also have introduc
ed the disease to a significant number of their own people to mask their involvement.
Still, it was with trepidation that he sent the reply message. He wanted to mention that many unusual events had happened recently on and around Zilia, such as the Third Moon Rising event. But try as he might, he couldn’t include such comments. He suspected the illness was somehow related to the unusual events.
The team became more lethargic by the end of the third week, and Carlos found it hard to focus. The team doctors concluded that something on Zilia was fatal to Earth humans, and the Zilans had come to the same conclusion. Carlos faced with dread providing that assessment; however, it was likely that Earth had already come to that conclusion through independent monitoring activities.
He directed the team doctors to administer stimulants to him each morning to sharpen his mental faculties for short periods. The stimulants wore off after an hour or two but helped him concentrate effectively in replying to messages. The down side was they further exhausted him after each period of stimulation.
He was very pessimistic about prospects for the team’s recovery. It had been over three weeks since the symptoms appeared, and if they were going to find a solution, they should have done so by now. He also worried about the last message from Earth and its question about the role of the Zilans in causing the illness. He sensed they were close to a decision that he and the team would not like.
In spite of his pessimism, Carlos remained committed to doing everything possible to extend the time available to find a cure. He suspected he would soon have to make another decision counter to Earth’s direction to buy more time to find the cause of the illness.
The next day he had no choice but to face this tough decision. A message from Earth directed him to transport the entire team back aboard the New Horizon. It was clearly a decision made to protect Earth’s technology, to prevent the Zilans from accessing compromising information from any material left behind or from the minds of individuals that could lose the ability to control their thoughts and actions. It was also the right decision from the standpoint that it would minimize any additional exposure and risk of infection to the Zilans.
Carlos was certain Earth was considering destroying the spaceship with the entire team onboard to minimize the risk of further exposure of technology to the Zilans.
TWENTY-FOUR
FATEFUL DECISION
A growing feeling of catch-22 nagged at Carlos as he thought about the debilitated condition of the team. He sat up painfully on the edge of the hospital bed, and his eyes settled on Starke Pelanah, who was standing on the other side of Gloria’s adjacent bed. He met Starke’s concerned eyes for an extended moment and then looked away. Starke had no medical training, but that didn’t keep him from checking periodically on everyone in the team.
Carlos looked back at Starke and motioned him over.
“I need to have a private meeting with my team,” Carlos said, not attempting to keep the strain from his voice. “Then I will need to talk to Ceripe in a conference call.”
“All of my people will convene in the monitoring station until you call for us,” Starke replied and turned to leave, no questions asked. There was a small, enclosed nurses’ station at the end of the ward near the secure entrance to the main hospital.
“Starke,” Carlos called after him. Starke stopped and turned, a questioning look on his face. “You are welcome to join us in the conference call to Ceripe after the meeting, at her discretion.”
Starke nodded, and a slight expression of relief flitted across his face. He turned and again headed for the nurses’ station, motioning his people to follow as he progressed down the ward.
Carlos next spoke into his portable communicator, with Gloria watching curiously from her bed. “Eve, I need you, Alex, and Samuel to participate in a meeting about to convene here.” Alex and Samuel were aboard the New Horizon, and of course, Eve was both there and in the shuttlecraft on the surface.
“I will wake Alex and Samuel and let you know when they are ready,” Eve replied immediately.
Always alert and accommodating, Carlos thought. It was very important that Eve participate in the discussion. The course of action he was contemplating did not have a chance of success unless she provided support. And it was only fair she be included, for Earth’s decision threatened Eve’s existence as well.
Those on the New Horizon reported in by the time the team members in the hospital ward were awake and paying attention.
Carlos looked around at the sick, tired faces. He felt a great sense of responsibility for what they were going through. And on top of everything else, he was going to suggest doing something that would go against their commitments to Earth and the Messier Colony.
“To say we are in dire straits would be an understatement,” he said slowly. “We’ve come to a critical juncture in our mission, and we must collectively address what to do next. But first, Laura, please give us an update on progress of the disease.”
Laura replied grimly from her perch on a nearby bed. “We haven’t gained any understanding of the disease beyond the symptoms we first experienced six weeks ago. We’ve tried strong general antibiotics, but the disease adapted and quickly shook them off. We continue to weaken daily and probably have at most a month left to live.
“We’ll continue monitoring and analyzing the disease. Sometimes the cause of a serious new disease becomes evident in the last stages of progression. Our Zilan friends will carry on the research as we weaken and hopefully will find a cure before it’s too late.”
It was deathly quiet after this chilling clinical summary. They all knew how bad things were, but somehow it seemed worse when explicitly acknowledged.
Alex broke the silence by addressing them from the New Horizon. “I agree with Laura. I’m surprised we haven’t heard any suggestions out of our colleagues on Earth or at the Messier Colony. But I’m as determined as Laura to continue our efforts to find a solution.”
Carlos addressed them again. “There are other reasons I wanted to meet privately. The daily messages from Earth have become steadily more demanding and foreboding. They want to know specifics about the disease and our efforts to treat it, and whether the Zilans might have intentionally exposed us to the disease. My answer to the latter was an emphatic no, with supporting logic.
“Today’s message directed we relocate back aboard the New Horizon and that we take along all material that in any way might compromise the technology of Earth. It also directed that once the team was onboard, complete diagnostic tests be run on everyone using the ship’s medical equipment and the results be sent to Earth immediately.”
He paused as they started looking at one another and talking quietly aside. He let this run its course and continued after the room quieted.
“I’m gravely concerned about what this means. At the start of this mission, Messier set up safeguards to protect inadvertent disclosure of our technology. Only Gloria and I knew about one particular safeguard of last resort. It addresses what should be done if we cannot protect the technology represented by the New Horizon and its contents, including our knowledge.”
He paused as a few murmurs rippled quietly around the ward. “The safeguard is to destroy the spaceship, the shuttlecraft, and the contents therein. The means to accomplish this was built in before we departed the colony.”
There was not even a murmur out of anyone after this statement. They were a committed crew, selected for the mission based on their loyalty to Earth, among other factors. The action described was logical from the perspective they’d had when signing up for the mission.
“Gloria and I have talked at length about deactivating the spaceship self-destruct feature and have concluded it’s too risky because of the way it’s embedded in the main engine fuel systems. And the destruct sequence command makes its way to the propulsion system via a tamperproof, encrypted software module embedded in the communications system. Eve found this in a search at my request after we woke from hibernation
. The shuttle self-destruct feature might be easier to deactivate, but not in our current condition with the limited time remaining.”
As he paused to catch his breath, Gloria summarized the conclusion he was leading up to.“So Earth has likely made the decision to destroy the New Horizon, with us in it.”
Carlos nodded. “If they haven’t, the message I’m prepared to send in reply to their specific questions will undoubtedly invoke this decision.”
He waited for the team’s reaction, but no one said anything. Now came the real test of their commitments to the mission, the team, and to himself.
“I’ll not give up on finding a solution to what has afflicted us, particularly with what Laura has indicated about a significant possibility that the cause of the disease can be found in its latter stages. Nor am I ready to give up on the Zilan people, to whom we’ve made commitments and who face a situation of unprecedented potential harm to their civilization. How can we be sure they won’t develop some form of the illness and that we aren’t responsible for it?”
This statement caused uneasy movement and glances back and forth among the crew.
Before he could proceed, George Sayer succinctly stated, “What you’re leading up to is to ask if we’re willing to go against Earth’s directives in order to give us and our Zilan friends more time to find a solution.”
“In summary, yes. What are your thoughts about this?”
“I’m as patriotic as the next person, but I don’t see any long-term advantage in my untimely demise!”
This caused smiles to appear all around, and some light laughter as the team relaxed somewhat. Then one by one they expressed varying concerns about going against Earth’s decision, but all agreed they were inclined to do so—all except one.
After everyone settled down, Carlos addressed the one who had remained silent. “Eve, what do you think about this issue?”
