Star Cruise - Outbreak

by Veronica Scott

  “The spice kills people?” Red’s eyebrows rose and his frown was monumental. “And you just tasted it?”

  Meg gave him a hasty hug. “No, the pods and the resulting spice are perfectly safe. It’s been proven over the centuries time and again. There’s supposed to be some curse on the area where the pods grow, that kills outsiders for wandering into the forbidden lands.”

  “If the Groskin’s organism lives in those sheltered waters where the pod plants grow, maybe the indigenous tribe has the right DNA to be immune? Or they’re carriers but don’t fall ill? Mrs. Fenn said humans aren’t the natural host. Maybe it doesn’t kill the real host species, living on the planet in that ecosystem,” Jake said, struggling to figure out a reasonable explanation for the mysticism and legends that might bring them back to a scientific, usable explanation for Groskin’s disease. And hope of a cure. “And anyone not from this tribe of aliens who goes wading or swimming in spice-pod-water gets infected maybe, the way our passengers were on Level 5? And dies a horrible death, which to a primitive people would seem like a curse.”

  “But how does that help us?” Red wanted to know. “How did Groskin manage to get infected?”

  Meg leaned closer. “An interesting tidbit, which I’ll deny if you repeat it, is the planet in question is mostly oceanic, with Sectors-class surfing beaches, but it’s a restricted world, so few people have ever been there. In the rarefied surfing community circles, it’s a badge of honor to have ridden those waves. First-in scouts struck a deal with the chief of the tribe for the right to export tiny amounts of the spice. The scouts later sold the rights to the Spice Guild. The Sectors has a general travel ban on the planet due to the primitive level of civilization. The guild has a lot of pull with the Sectors government, partly because of the Red Lady’s influence. She supports the guild as long as it keeps the spices she needs for her rituals flowing to her. What if Groskin went on one of the illegal surfing trips and found out about the rare spice somehow while he was on the planet?”

  “He seems to have been a guy who would have found out things other people didn’t want him to know, especially if easy credits were involved,” Red agreed. “Maybe he went there on purpose to steal some of this spice or drug, and the surfing was a nice side benefit of the trip for him. Or a convenient cover if he got caught. But he went wading or swimming in the wrong lagoon at some point, and the bug caught him.”

  “I suppose we’ll never know, but it’s as good a theory as any. Groskin probably wasn’t the kind of person to believe in alien myths and curses. If he had to wade through forbidden lagoons to steal something valuable, a crook like him wouldn’t hesitate.” Jake shoved the lid shut. “And none of this helps our sick passengers.” He felt better about Meg. She obviously knew more about the source of the spice than she was sharing, but it was a lot of legends, and she’d have had no reason earlier in the cruise to suspect Groskin of having visited the forbidden spice planet. Much less connect the dots that the petty criminal had gotten himself infected with spores while he was there.

  Unaware of his conclusions, Meg dragged the box closer to herself, keeping one arm protectively draped over the lid. “If you can stand one more legend, the people of the spice-makers tribe tell of a chieftain’s daughter who fell in love with an outsider, a warrior who came to steal pods out of the water to make spice for his own queen. He was captured by the tribe and imprisoned in the temple to await his death from the gods’ curse. He lay dying in terrible agony, and the chief’s daughter fed him wine flavored with zalmadrir so he’d survive. He had to stay in the village and marry her of course.”

  Excitement and hope rising, Jake said, “Are you telling me the spice itself might be a cure?”

  Meg nodded. “That’s the legend. Spices have been used by human-descent sentients as medicines in the past on more than one planet, and zalmadrir has always had the reputation in the Spice Guild of being practically a miracle cure.”

  “There’s some logic to the idea, if the microorganism and the spice plants are from the same microbiome,” Red said.

  “Curse and cure in the same place? We can only hope,” Jake agreed. “Time to get this stuff to Emily and Mrs. Fenn and see what miracles the two of them can pull off.”

  “I’m going to take custody of the spice.” Meg gave Jake a defiant stare. “I’m the only person on board with rank in the Spice Guild, thanks to my family connections, even if I am just an apprentice on paper because of Dad’s business. I’ll share it freely with the doctor as needed, of course, but zalmadrir isn’t to be dispersed far and wide. Or disappear into the possession of someone like Hillier. After this is all over, if we have any left, I’ll make sure it gets where it ought to be.” She challenged Red and then Jake with a level regard. “This much spice probably represents the entire stockpile in the temple, painstakingly gathered over many growing seasons. Each year’s harvest is tiny. Groskin stole it. I want to return it. My dad will know how to accomplish the restoration.” Her face softened a bit. “I know he’s felt remorse all these years for taking that tiny amount from the guild supplies, so he can atone now.”

  Jake considered for a moment. “Sounds fair to me. You’re in charge of the supply, then, with Red to back you up.”

  “You know there are going to be a lot of questions,” Red said to her.

  Meg shrugged. “I trust Emily. I’ll explain to her, at least part of the truth, and between us we’ll ration it.”

  “Sometimes the less said, the better,” Jake agreed. “We can say we found this stuff in Groskin’s cargo, which is true, and let them test it.”

  Sid tapped on the unit wall panel, startling them. “I’m not hearing any of this, and the trid sure isn’t picking it up, but remember, I can spin the way the story gets reported. You let me know what should and shouldn’t be said in my voiceover later. I’m happy to advise.”

  “Thanks, good to know.” Jake nodded. “Time’s not our friend here,” he said to Red and Meg. “Good people are dying up on Level C, so we need to get this stuff into the right hands so it can be tested.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Emily sat in her office with Meg. One vial of zalmadrir spice sat on the desk between them. “Quite the tale,” she said, picking up the bottle and admiring the play of the light over the sparkling substance. “I’ve heard stranger things in my time, out in the Sectors. Can we give Mrs. Fenn this quantity to work with for now? We’ve got to figure out what dose to deliver for the drug trial.”

  “Of course.”

  “This is our last hope,” Emily said. “We’re not going to be able to keep the longest-term patients alive through artificial means more than a few more hours, maybe another day at best. Captain Fleming said we’d do a lottery for the few empty cryo coolers, now that we know what the infecting organism is, and hope a cure can be found someday.”

  “How many can we freeze?”

  “Only about twenty. We give the affected children priority, of course, which leaves maybe five or six adult slots, out of four hundred. And no one, not one person, has pulled through yet. The best outcome we have is Marc Enzell and his mother, still fighting the good fight. Most of the others who came down with stage two at the same time as the Enzells have died.” Emily put her head in her hands for a moment. “So I hope this magic spice works.”

  Mrs. Fenn knocked and stuck her head into the office. “You need me?”

  “I want you to test this on Groskin’s.” Emily held out the vial of powder.

  Glancing from Emily to Meg, the researcher took the jar. “Want to tell me what it is?”

  “We believe this powder is from the planet where Mr. Groskin was infected. We hope it may be a cure.” Emily was the spokesperson.

  Mrs. Fenn shook the tube, watching the light reflect from the crystals. “Pretty. How is it normally given?”

  “Mixed with fermented juice,” Emily said.

  One eyebrow raised, Mrs. Fenn looked suspicious, but she didn’t protest when no more information was forth
coming. “Fine. I’ll try it with a variety of solutions, at different strengths, and see if there’s any effect on the organism. We do have more of this stuff, I assume?”

  “Not an endless supply, but yes. Can you do the tests right away?”

  “Of course.” Shaking her head, Mrs. Fenn left the office, heading toward her lab.

  “Time for me to make the rounds,” Emily said.

  “I’m organizing the new ward setup,” Meg said. “Maeve needs me there. See you later.”

  After suiting up, Emily stepped into the huge ballroom. Sound had echoed in the empty room on the first day Jake brought her here. Now the space was jam-packed with beds, full of desperately ill patients hooked up to life-sustaining devices. Organ failure was claiming most of the lives. Even with blood transfusions and the best medical technology at hand, the medical staff could keep the victims’ bodies fighting off the Groskin’s bug for only so long. She walked through the aisles, stopping to speak to those who were conscious, checking the notes on the AI readouts, talking to her volunteer staff. She tried to make herself hopeful about the spice, but it was such a long shot. By the time she reached the other side of the chamber, her head was pounding, and she fought a pernicious lightheaded sensation. Today more than ever the ward full of the sick and dying reminded her of the situation she’d faced on Fantalar. Vertigo spiked, and the room was spinning. Emily paused to take deep breaths, striving to be mindful of where she really was.

  Someone touched her elbow, and Emily startled.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor, didn’t mean to scare you.” It was Mr. Enzell. “Is there any news?”

  She shook her head, unwilling to raise hopes she might have to dash shortly if Mrs. Fenn’s experiments with the spice didn’t yield results. Between the legends and the myths and the tissue of guesses about whether Groskin had picked up the spores at the same place he stole the spice, she figured zalmadrir was a desperate chance at best. “Not yet. How are you holding up?”

  He sank heavily into his seat between the bed of his wife and his older son. “Where there’s life, there’s hope. Or so my mother said at the worst of times when I was a kid. It’s getting harder and harder to believe in a positive outcome.”

  Emily checked the readouts. Both Enzells were heavily sedated against the pain. The boy continued to do the best of any patient, his strong, young system trying hard to eradicate the invader. The O blood transfusions had helped strengthen his immune system to some extent. Mrs. Enzell was barely hanging on to life. Judging by the steadily declining vital signs, Emily suspected she might have only a few hours.

  “I wish we’d never won that damn contest,” Mr. Enzell said, not for the first time. He smoothed his wife’s hair over the pillow. “Trynna was so happy. She loved all the fuss and how jealous her friends were, and then on the ship she loved the special treatment. Meeting trideo stars at dinner and all, you know?”

  “I know.” Emily adjusted the flow of an infusion and tugged the blanket more securely over Mrs. Enzell’s feet.

  “I was happy we won, for her sake. She works so hard in our little business, and she’s such a wonderful mother. I don’t know what the kids and I’ll do without her.” He paused, burying his face in his hands.

  Emily patted his shoulder and hesitated, unable to find any appropriate words for the man’s heart rending grief.

  He straightened, taking a deep breath and stetching to unkink his back muscles. “You don’t have any kids, do you, Doc?”

  “No. I don’t even have siblings.” She checked the readings on Marc’s monitors and made a note.

  “I love all my kids of course but Marc…he’s the one most like me. Started following me around as soon as he could crawl. Maybe because he’s the oldest, we do everything together. I set up a workbench for him right next to mine, in my shop. He has a real aptitude for the tech I do, always wanting to try more, learn new things—” His voice broke on a sob. “No parent should ever have to watch his child die. And I can’t help him, can’t do anything but sit here.”

  “Marc’s a fighter, which I’m sure he got from you,” Emily said. “And he knows you’re here, even when we’ve got him sedated. He’s drawing strength from you. If anyone is going to beat this, it’ll be your son, and then he’ll have showed us the way to help others survive.”

  “You mean that, Doc? You’re not just trying to be comforting?” The distraught father wiped tears from his redrimmed eyes and stared at Emily.

  “From the bottom of my heart,” she said. “I used to treat the toughest of the Sectors soldiers when I was in the military and your son is displaying the same tenacity and will to live that I saw on Fantalar. He’s not giving up, so don’t you either.”

  Mr. Enzell nodded slowly, expression lightening a bit. “Thanks, Doc. I’ll remember that.”

  Although she meant every word she’d said, her heart was heavy as she walked away. Marc was so very far from pulling through and beginning to recover, but he was her best hope.

  She sought out the lab, where Mrs. Fenn was moving between a series of experiments, humming a little song.

  “I am trying to rush you,” she said. “Some of my patients have hours left at most. I need an answer if there’s going to be one. So, any progress?”

  “Oh yes, this dust you gave me is lethal to Groskin’s. Dissolves the little monsters where they swim. Like acid, but doesn’t harm human tissue.” Mrs. Fenn sounded positively gleeful. “I’m trying to work out the minimum dose, since we have only anecdotal evidence it isn’t poisonous to humans. And I’m assuming our quantity of the dust is quite limited.” She flipped a switch, and a vid sprang to life, showing the microorganisms deteriorating in a gray-tinged solution, wriggling in a futile attempt to escape their doom. “See for yourself.”

  “Outstanding! How soon can we try a dose on Mrs. Enzell? She and her son are the ones I’m most worried about right now.”

  Mrs. Fenn frowned. “She and the boy may be too weak already, then, but there’s nothing to lose. Let me distill two doses, one for her and one for Marc, and we’ll go.”

  Moments later, Emily walked through the ward again, Mrs. Fenn at her back. Meg, Red and Jake assembled at the Enzells’ beds as well.

  “Moral support,” Jake said when Mr. Enzell looked surprised.

  “Can you block off the view of this area, please?” Emily requested.

  “Wait, wait for us!” Sid and his ever-present trid operator hastened through the aisles, drawing glares from the volunteer nurses and patients’ family members.

  As soon as he was inside the perimeter, Maeve established opaque privacy holos. Mrs. Fenn handed Emily the two doses of liquefied spice. “Mr. Enzell, this is from the planet where we believe the infection began,” Emily said. “I don’t know this will work, and I don’t know what the side effects may be, but this represents our last chance to save your wife and son, in my professional opinion.”

  Meg squeezed his arm. Tears in his eyes, Enzell bit his lip and nodded once. “I give my consent.”

  Wasting no more time, Emily added the spice to the fluids both patients were already receiving. Hand on Mrs. Enzell’s faint, erratic pulse, she stood and waited with the others.

  “Results were nearly instantaneous with the lab samples,” Mrs. Fenn said after a few moments ticked by. “And quite intense. Maybe a bigger dose is needed—”

  “Takes time to be absorbed into the body.” Emily was hopeful. “We stay the course for now. Her heart rate is elevating significantly, so something’s happening. I’ll have to keep a close eye on the cardiac readouts.” She glance at Mr. Enzell’s face and refrained from making any further observations. Up to a point, circulatory system side effects could be managed.

  No one else spoke, and she continued her vigil.

  After about an hour, during which Mrs. Enzell’s vital signs indicated increasing stress on all her organs, the medical alarms shrieked. The patient’s entire body arched off the bed, her spine rigid, her arms and legs outstretched. Head
thrown back, she screamed and then fell onto the pillows, limp. Emily swept her hand across the controls to silence the alarms and bent close, checking various readouts.

  “She’s breathing. Her heartbeat is regular, stronger than it was.”

  “Lords of Space, look at the sheets,” Meg said in a shaky voice.

  Mrs. Enzell’s body was literally sweating pale pink fluid from every pore and orifice. As air touched the droplets, the moisture crystallized into a fine pink powder shot through with gray that drifted onto the bed and floated to the floor.

  “She’s bleeding to death. Help her!” Mr. Enzell struggled against Jake and Red.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Emily said. “This doesn’t seem to be blood. I think the drug is killing the organisms and leaching the remains from her body.”

  Mrs. Fenn darted forward and collected a sample.

  The drops of fluid slowed and stopped. Mrs. Enzell’s eyes flickered open and she took a deep, shaky breath before coughing. “I was having such a good dream,” she whispered.

  Emily took her hand and leaned close. “Are you in pain?”

  Mrs. Enzell tried to sit up. “No, I-I feel weak. Head spinning a bit.” Her husband rushed forward, arms out to hug her, and Emily stepped aside.

  Mrs. Fenn yelled, startling everyone. “The boy!”

  Emily wheeled as Marc convulsed, yelling at the top of his lungs, before collapsing into the moment when his body began throwing off the dead Groskin’s organisms.

  Dimly, she was aware of Jake stepping outside the privacy screen. She heard him reassuring whoever was out there that things were fine, despite the raised voices. Emily focused all her attention on Marc. “His heart’s stopped,” she said, beginning immediate countermeasures. The monitors stayed flatlined and she could tell the boy’s heart was quivering, caught in an ineffective rhythm. Vicente rushed to join her and without needing to be told, activated the necessary equipment to keep oxygen flowing through Marc’s body while Emily battled to restart the faltering heart. “It’s as if the arteries are clogged,” she said, running another quick scan.