Hospital Ship (The Rim Confederacy #5)

by Jim Rudnick

  Gambling was his favorite thing in the whole world; there was no doubt about it. That day, he nodded and she gave him the four of hearts. He smiled, and when she flipped over her card to show she had twenty, he smiled even more.

  Flipping over his hole card to show his jack meant he'd gotten twenty-one and had won.

  Not a lot, but he somehow knew that at that exact moment his luck had changed. He collected his chips and went directly back to the big craps table. He watched the action for a moment and then covered the numbers, as the shooter's point was six, he remembered.

  He combed his hair, and remembered the point was six, and it took thirteen rolls until she made her point. And he won big time.

  As he did again and again, until he had tripled his stake, and that had felt so, so good, he remembered as he finished tying his tie and slipped on his lab coat as he left his quarters.

  Until later, he shrugged, when he'd had to sign for more after the tables turned and he lost it all—and more too.

  Thank God for this job. At least the monthly pay meant he could try to provide some kind of payment to the casino and keep himself afloat. The calls were starting to come more often, and that was a problem, as no one, of course, knew he liked to gamble—at least that's what he thought so far. Keeping this quiet was easy as long as he could make the weekly payments.

  Leaving his quarters up on D-91F and taking the lift down to the main corridor over to the various pods was easy. He simply walked, watched, and nodded to other scientists and clinicians and staff.

  Stopping at the popular Juice Bar in the lobby was a rule for him, as he kidded himself that without the juice one couldn't do any kind of research. Getting in line, he noted there were only two in front of him, and he watched as the first one took something frightfully green away with a big smile.

  In front of him and now first in line was a Navy lieutenant, a woman who looked attractive from the back. Blonde hair, curvy, and about thirty or so, and he heard a voice he liked as well.

  "I had one of those Kale-Shakes earlier this week, and while I liked it, it had one ingredient I didn't seem to care for—could I get it but without the Kale?" she said and a moment later, she and the server behind the counter were roaring with laughter.

  "Nancy," the server said, "you kill me ...super-sized, right?"

  And the lieutenant nodded as the girl in white smiled back, nodded, and went back to prepare the drink.

  Turning toward Nathan, she grinned and said, "Old joke—but works, eh?" and a big smile followed it.

  He was caught with surprise and didn't know what to say, but he chuckled and smiled back. Before he could even introduce himself to this beautiful woman, she got her juice and marched away.

  He had the same Kale-Shake and enjoyed it as he turned to take the walkway to his destination.

  Once he reached the pod that held the Barony Research labs, he turned in off the curved central corridor and slapped his hand on the entry panel, which read his ID from his palm print, beeped, and opened up for him. He had a sudden thought as to what a DenKoss scientist might offer such a security panel but then smiled. Most likely they just slid a fin on top, and that thought had him smiling as he entered the secure facility.

  He passed by the guard who always nodded to him but yet didn't take his eyes off his console monitor—Nathan wondered if he was playing solitaire, but he ignored the issue and kept on walking. He went by the unused conference room and then lab door after lab door where the various scientists who were all working on cures and vaccines and even weaponizing some of the worst bio-dangers man and aliens had ever discovered. He kept walking and eventually he reached the end of the major pod corridor and entered the last room.

  He went over two rows and opened up his locker. He quickly changed from his civvies into a white full jumpsuit, zipped it up from the crotch up to his neck, and slid on the soft boots that went with the lab outfit. He left the changing room, went down the side corridor to the airlock area, and again palmed the security panel, which let him in. As usual, his suit was near the close edge of the hanging lines, and he got it down without hitting his head as he sat on the bench beneath the suits.

  He slowly slid first one leg, then the other inside, and then both arms too. Standing up he clicked the seal button and the suit did itself up, zipping up the middle slowly but securely. He reached up and took down a clear plastic helmet, which he dropped over his head into the collar and twisted it into place. "Well, it's supposed to twist in the first time," he said to himself as he twisted it three times until the latches clicked, and he was now totally sealed off from the world around him.

  He walked slowly off to the doorway ahead. The AI in the room noted his access and opened the door ahead of him. After he entered, it closed the door behind him. Nathan stepped onto the big red "X" on the floor ahead and made sure he held onto the stanchions provided, and moments later a jet of spray came out of the ceiling, walls, and floor all at once. He had to stand there as long as the spray was on, which he knew was five whole minutes, during which he ran over today's protocols and where the issues might be lying in wait for him.

  The spray ended and he let go as the stanchions retreated into the floor, and he walked to the end of the room.

  He waited as a light from the ceiling scanned him, up and down. He heard the three chimes.

  The airlock door opened and he faced a fifty-foot corridor of clear-plas that ended with the outer door of the secure labs where he did his work.

  He walked slowly along the corridor and was glad partial grav had been thought of too. Ahead of him lay his lab, the most secure on the Hospital Ship.

  As he looked to his right, he could see the Eran pod closest to the Barony one and then farther off the pods that held the Caliphate, Randi, and Skoggians too. Each was staffed by Barony doctors but handled both humans and alien patients. All were concerned with healthcare. "The only research lab was my own," Nathan said to himself, "and the last thing we're interested in is healthcare."

  He smiled one more time as he stepped on the access doorplate at the end of the corridor and finally into the lab proper.

  A chore; too much security; too much AI watching me; too much reliance on the vacuum of space killing all agents; too much of everything, but then he remembered just what it was they were doing research on here in the secure lab and that wiped the smile off his face.

  And now, entering the BioSafetyLevel-6 lab, he stripped off the spacesuit and helmet, depositing them on the identical hanging supports, left the lab airlock, and went out into the main corridor. He passed the Animal Testing labs, the big conference room, administration offices, and then the cafeteria and changing rooms too.

  Entering the final corridor, he turned right and put his palm on the security panel. AI beeped at him, and the door slid open to the lab where he spent his time.

  "Research Associate Ward," said a stern voice from a far table, "where have you been?"

  Nathan froze and slowly turned to face his boss.

  "Sir, I'm actually almost four minutes early," he said, his eyes locked on the big clock on the far wall.

  "Four minutes early is not good enough—not for someone who will be having their annual performance review next month. Not for someone who will be shooting to move up from Research Associate to Research Scientist ..." Principal Research Scientist Alex Toombs glared at Nathan over his glasses, his red hair brushed straight up as usual.

  By the book was how Toombs ran the lab, and for him, being four minutes early was late.

  And by the book meant obviously showing up earlier than he had done today. Lesson learned.

  "Won't happen again, Sir," he said and he nodded to show he was very much going to comply.

  He turned to the screen over the far lab desk to see what was in front of him, task-wise, for the coming week.

  His heart sunk as he noted he was again being posted to the Animal Testing lab for new sampling and results collaboration—a nice way of saying he'd be spend
ing his week without any humans to talk to. And the smell, but that went with the territory, and he smiled to everyone else he looked at in the secure lab. Taking his tablet from his cubby, he went back out and down the hall to the Animal Testing lab. He left the official BSL-6 ultra-secure lab to go into a room full of cages, foods, sample fridges, and not much more.

  At the lowest end of the scientist totem pole, he knew that someone had to do the cage cleaning, sampling, testing, and then the final results of each of the various vaccine test doses. And this week again, it's me ...

  As he entered the lab, the smell assaulted his nose first, one reason he always left the door to the corridor open. There was something about the smell of a Garnuthian mouse. At least that's what the researchers called it, a mouse. On Garnuth, they were simply called varmints and were eradicated at a high rate—no one liked these little mice-like mammals as they invaded houses and buildings, chewing their way inside. They ate anything that was organic. They bred in litters of more than a dozen at a time, and the females could get pregnant after only four weeks of life. But the simple fact that their expected life cycle was limited at four months was what made them the testing animals of choice. After all, Nathan said to himself, "If you're testing a longevity vaccine, the animals you use should have a short lifespan."

  Because mice had so many biological similarities to humans, Nathan knew they made up to ninety to ninety-five percent of the mammals in biomedical research. Some strains of mice were susceptible to diseases such as cancer or high blood pressure. In addition, these rodents developed diseases over a span of days or weeks instead of months or years. Couple that with the advent of genetic engineering technology, their genetically modified mice were generated to order, and that meant the lifespan was shortened, which was what they needed.

  At least this batch was still alive, he noted, which meant the test was still ongoing. Sometimes when he came in, the test animals had all been gassed, and they lay dead in their cages. All he needed to do that day was empty the corpses, re-nest the cages with excelsior, add fresh water to the bottles, and then put in brand new mice. And then wait for the AI to re-vaccinate the next batch. But that was not today. Today was plain clean-up duties.

  Beginning up in the top left-hand cage just above his shoulders, he opened up the cage, moved the mouse down to a clear high-sided box for temporary holding, and then washed out the cage itself, flushing all the scraps of paper, and nesting materials and excelsior too. He hosed down the back wall too—this little bugger had defecated almost halfway up the back panel. He took a fresh new handful of nesting items and stuffed it into the back corner and then reached down into the plas-box and moved the mouse back into its home. He closed the door and then picked up his tablet, and in the proper space on the screen, he noted the date and time and then pressed the SCAN button. From the top of the cage, the AI sent a bright neon yellow ray down to scan the complete cage, which included the mouse. That ray quickly found the mouse, recorded all of the necessary data about the little animal, and then stored it in the vaccine-testing database under the cage number.

  And on to the next mouse and the next—the same as he did every day.

  He finished up in less than a couple of hours, went over to the desk to look at the scanned results, and made no discovery at all. Each mouse was aging as it was supposed to and at the proper time and sequence.

  Each had been given a subset of the same vaccine, labeled this time as D-12, which had been synthesized from the virus taken from the host.

  Each of the subsets was given to five mice, and all thirty here had tested the six subsets ... and each had proven empty of promise ...test batch D-12 was dead.

  Not a single thing at all was worth noting, so he simply said "damn" and then left the lab for the cafeteria. Maybe some food would help kill the time to the end of the shift . . .

  ####

  "And who is next," the Baroness said to her council secretary as she tilted the cup to drain away the last of her tea.

  "It's Tillion, Ma'am—the Narrisol himself is on the EYES ONLY and ready," her secretary said as she checked her tablet and smiled at the woman seated on the palace patio. Beyond her, the grounds of the Baronial palace ran as far as the eye could see with immaculately trimmed gardens, trees, shrubbery, and more. A pool or two, or perhaps they were just garden ponds, glistened in the sunlight and all was ignored by the Baroness. It was just palace eye candy, she always said.

  She nodded at the query from her secretary as to the unasked question about a refill and put the cup down in the saucer.

  "Remind me—what are the costs for the new EL going to be as a percentage of the RIM Confederacy portion?" she asked and she stood up for a moment to stretch.

  Almost six feet tall, lithe, blonde, and what anyone would call beautiful, the Baroness St. August was the ruler of the Barony with now ten realm planets, which made her the new vice chairman of the RIM Confederacy Council. "A position," she said to herself, "that had taken too long to come to fruition." But it was now a done deal. And that made her smile as she turned to the west to look out on those wonderful gardens that meant nothing to her. Land was immaterial; planets were what she was after, and the series of EYES ONLY today was the backroom dealings that she was getting done today.

  Her secretary passed her the tablet with the highlighted spreadsheet front and center.

  She nodded to her secretary and wondered who'd dressed her today—no one wore blue and red, the colors of the Barony in her presence. She'd talk to her aide later about that. Red and blue were Barony colors for sure, but not in a cheap sweater three sizes too big.

  Not in my Barony, she thought.

  "Okay, let's go," she said and she sat down at the edge of the patio table and turned to the console monitor in front of her.

  While she waited for the EYES ONLY Ansible connection to be made with Tillion, she remembered that although alien, they were all fairly humanoid in that they had faces and two legs and arms. The males were the only ones, of course, that anyone ever saw, met, or even had seen as the female Tillion aliens were all sequestered on planet. And the planet of Tillion was a no-land planet; all traffic had to come to the big space station above the planet instead of ever setting foot on Tillion. No one had ever seen, as far as she knew, a Tillion female. Nor, she thought, would anyone either.

  They were shorter, the Baroness knew, than most other aliens out here on the RIM except maybe for the Ttseens, as both species were less than five and a half feet in height. But even at such a short stature, the Tillion males were stylish and dressed in the most formal of their native dress at all times. Don't think I've ever seen a Tillion without a full waistcoat, scarf and hat, the Baroness thought, and the Narrisol—the head of state of the planet Tillion was no exception.

  The seal of Tillion appeared a moment later followed by the fade in of the Narrisol's face, and even here, dozens of light-years away, the head Tillion's style could not be denied. His hat, if one could call the sweeping fabric that was both magenta and ocher that shimmered and reflected ambient light could be called a hat, was tall, going right off screen. Matching scarves of the same ocher and magenta shades were entwined around the throat of the alien, and one could almost see through them to the pale yellow skin below. Dark eyes, Tillions always had dark eyes, as the color of their eyeballs was such a deep shade of green as to be almost black. The Narrisol had bright yellow irises though, and they both were centered on her.

  Time to deal, the Baroness thought.

  "Baroness St. August, so good of you to take my EYES ONLY call, must I say that you look as always, a perfect example of the beauty of human women," he said.

  His voice was smooth, like a salesman's was.

  His tone was silky, like a salesman's, and his deal was perfect, for him.

  She smiled, nodded, listened, asked some questions, and then she spoke about what she wanted in return for her support.

  "Simply put," she said, "at the next Council meeting, I will, of co
urse, support the Tillion request to gain RIM Confederacy funding for the new EL space elevator to be built between Mancerat, your capital, and your new space station. In return, you will support the RIM funding of expansion of the Confederacy borders so that our annexation of Ghayth will be approved. Have I stated that correctly?" she said quietly.

  No sense in letting any of my ducks get out of my row.

  The Narrisol nodded and she had a side thought that many of the aliens here on the RIM had picked up that humanistic trait—a nod of the head meant agreement.

  They smiled at each other, and she knew she had his support.

  Five, I think, that's five of these ducks in a row—and next would be ... Duos.

  This planet had two distinct alien species that were at war with each other. Both had sought RIM Confederacy membership, and it had been granted to only one of the alien species. The war between the two of them was overseen by RIM Navy and Marines.. The ruling group was after support to use tactical nukes against the other, which found upsetting, as did most of the rest of the RIM members.

  The information about Duos and the current situation between the two species were important factors for the Baroness to take into consideration. And all the ruling group wanted for voting for their initiative was to get the Barony to abstain from voting either for or against the nukes.

  Quid pro quo, she thought and nodded to her secretary to yes, go ahead and get that EYES ONLY to Duos up next.

  Five down and seven to go, she thought, and she swung to her right to look over the mid-afternoon sunny grounds out on the palace gardens.

  What a beautiful day for making backroom deals.

  Deals that would work for the Barony.

  Deals that were made in secret for the good of the Barony ... what could be better work than that, she wondered.

  ####

  Courtrooms were always built, Tanner thought, to impress the innocent ... the guilty just don't care.

  Where that quote came from, he had no idea, but as he now sat on the blue velvet upholstered high-backed bench and leaned on the thick mahogany bar in front of him in the prisoners' box, that was obvious. The earlier trip over from the Neres City Jail had been by van, and he and the other prisoners were shackled together and not allowed a single consideration. They were marched into the courthouse in full public view, and he was ashamed that he looked so much like a bedraggled homeless man in poor torn clothing. He had thought ahead and had ripped all of the Navy insignias and badging off his uniform shirt, so now he was just a perpetrator with poor clothing. Nothing more.