by Jim Rudnick
The hologram looked off to the left for a moment and then back to their general direction.
"We are still searching Ghayth; we will find other surprises too, but I wanted you, Captain Scott, to know STAT so that you can share in our good news—but a small reminder. This is still to be kept quiet 'till we announce your find. But just a private and special thank you, Captain Scott."
The hologram once again looked left and then back at him this time as if she could see him instead of being a simple recording.
"You should also know that you will be released in a few weeks—directly back to the captain's chair on the Atlas. I have instructed the Barony courts to find you sane and to levy a fine of 1000 dollars in credits per injured Caliphate victim, Captain. That will be taken en masse directly out of your payroll account the day you are released—but a small note that your share of the 'ancient relic' find will more than compensate your recent barroom brawl, Captain—and no more of that either, understand?"
She nodded to him one more time.
"And due to situations beyond our control, that trip we were going to make last week to Enki has been put on hold. When it does occur, you will be in the captain's chair—though what we're expecting from this desert world is beyond me. Paperwork and orders to follow upon your release, Captain," she finished off and the magenta hologram winked out.
He couldn't answer, of course, but he nodded nonetheless.
Big fine, but I'd be a captain again ... all in all, not a bad trade-off ...
####
It was obviously my day, Tanner thought, as he slowly went up the escalator ramps all the way up to the top of the central module of the Hospital Ship. He took the long, long corridor down to the landing bay up top. It was fun to see folks, he realized, who weren't wearing the patient garb of those light blue scrubs. He saw Barony Navy crewmen and pilots and marines and more, and that truly made him smile.
He ambled along and found that even though he had gone by more than three access points, each manned by a Provost guard, not one challenged him at all. Either he was on their "good-to-go" list or they didn't care.
No matter, he thought, because he had been invited to lunch with the Lady St. August. As he rounded the final corner in the long hallway, he saw the Lady's shuttle, its twin crowns shining under landing bay spotlights. He'd just left the captain of the Gibraltar and the delivered message from the Baroness, which was unusual for the pace of life he led here on the Hospital Ship. Now, he was going to meet the Baroness's stepdaughter and have a lunch. He wondered if she'd be cooking it herself like she had for him just a few months back. How enjoyable an evening that had been.
He ducked his head as the light reflecting off the shiny parts of the shuttle blinded him and kept walking until the glare disappeared.
She's shiny, and that meant that her crew on the Sterling must have little time to be at leisure and he nodded to himself.
He walked slowly over to the boarding ramp and presented himself to the EliteGuard who manned that station.
He received a nod, and the guard punched something into the tablet on the kiosk in front of him and then jerked his head to his right toward the ramp. Tanner went around the guard and slowly walked up the ramp.
At the top, he paused and looked back at the landing bay. There were only a few other shuttles on the bay deck—a Randi shuttle closest to the Lady's shuttle and well over against the far wall under some kind of repairs, a sphere shuttle from Alex'n was opened up. He could see the welding flares from here. He smiled and wondered if he'd ever get to tour one of those, and then a tug on his forearm surprised him, and he quickly turned his head back to the interior of the Lady's shuttlecraft.
"Captain, may I ask that you follow me, please?" a very pretty young lady said and he smiled at her.
Obviously one of the Lady's retinue, she wore a jumpsuit in mixed brown and pink colors. She was a redhead with a tall hairdo and gorgeous green eyes. Those eyes were wide open and staring directly into his. He could imagine falling into that gaze, and he shook his head.
"I would love to—?" he questioned her as to her name.
She smiled at him, bowed her head deeply, and in a voice that was pure honey, she said, "I am one of the Lady St. August's ladies in waiting, and you may, of course, call me Lady Jane Farnham, and I am the official Mistress of the Robes, Captain Scott. It is, without a doubt, a great pleasure to be able to greet you today, and may I ask that you do follow me so as to not keep the Lady St. August waiting, Captain?"
He could fall into those eyes time and time again, but so could any man, he realized, and he nodded to her and followed along a few steps behind her. The walk was brief as the shuttle was less than 150 feet long. He found himself in the passenger seating section, and his guide waved him into a seat.
He sat but he looked over at the young woman who sat on the other side of the main aisle. He tried to get her attention, but she was using a throat microphone to talk, so he gave her a moment.
"Ma'am, I am a patient here, and I don't think that I'm allowed to ... well, leave the Hospital Ship," he said softly.
She nodded at him and held out a hand palm up to signify she understood.
"Thank you, Captain, for your honesty—but as you might imagine, the Lady St. August obeys no laws or guidelines even—as she is the law. We are simply going off ship to the Sterling, her frigate, for that lunch, and we'll have you back I am told in a couple of hours." She nodded as she made a comment or two more into that throat mic.
The shuttle doors clanked closed, and the ship lifted up and slowly moved through the landing bay, then the force field, and out into space.
He smiled. It was the first time he'd been out into space in more than two months. This was nice. In fact—
"Lady Jane, might I ask a simple favor? Could we do one lap of the Hospital Ship just for me to see what it looks like before we go to the Sterling?" As he asked, he stared directly into those green pools of beauty and smiled widely.
She looked at him and then at her PDA, and she smiled back.
"Of course, as we are under the spatial control of the Hospital Ship itself, we may have to do a lap around same to avoid an incoming patient transfer, I would imagine," she said and that made his smile a little wider.
He watched out the side viewports as the pilot took his instructions from the Lady. The shuttle under power moved away from the very top of the ship and then began to turn to starboard as the shuttle began a wide orbit around the ship. Now at the top, the pilot was slowly dropping down in height over the ship and slowly making a large circular orbit. Through the viewport, Tanner could see the large red crosses on the space landing decks, and as they continued to circle the ship, he could see floors and floors of various modules and row after row of smaller portholes too. There were no names on these decks, but Tanner knew each of the various planetary realms in the Barony was represented therein. As well, there were other worlds and realms too from the Caliphate to the Alex'n to the Leudies and the Randi's too. Each was chock full of patients, doctors, nurses, and all kinds of healthcare attendants.
As the shuttle continued to make its circular orbit, the lower areas of the Hospital Ship came into view. He was a bit surprised to see an area that was still a part of the ship, yet it was tucked off to one side with what appeared to be no access at all to the main ship. He pointed at it and raised an eyebrow, and the Lady was ahead of him.
"Yes, Captain, that is the Barony Lab—our "Secret" lab, if you will, that everyone knows about. The labs handle only, I'm told, the most virulent disease and biological agents, and it's where our lab scientists have to don spacesuits just to get to work. Safety, Captain, is paramount for this research lab, and we are all quite proud of it. Oh, and yes, that is the Sterling right off to our left-hand side, Captain," she said and he withheld that the left side would be the port side of the shuttle and he smiled.
Less than ten minutes later, he was back on the Sterling, up on deck nineteen, and yes, in that sa
me custom-made kitchen once more, where the Lady had entertained him by cooking just those few months back.
But not today.
Instead, she was involved in some kind of an EYES ONLY with someone on her PDA, and she nodded to him and pointed at the other place setting opposite her own. She too used a throat mic, and in no less than five minutes, she had obviously been successful in her call and smiled at him fully as she clicked off her PDA connection and leaned forward to him.
He was surprised, but he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.
It was not something he had thought he could do, nor for that matter, he should do—it just happened.
The Lady St. August looked surprised too, but she smiled at him widely and leaned back to take a sip of wine that sat in front of her.
Suddenly she looked at the glass in her hand, then at him, and then back at the glass, but he was ahead of her.
"Ma'am, not a problem, my cure includes the ability of watching anyone consume any kind of alcohol and it means nothing to me—I really am no longer an alcoholic, Ma'am," he said with a hint of pride in his voice. Thank God, for the nineteen percent, he thought, and she smiled back at him and nodded.
"Captain, my congratulations, and that is very, very good news, indeed," she said.
She toasted him before taking another sip and then put down the glass. She held out her hand, and he knew to lay his gently on top of her palm and she grasped it. For the first time in a long time, he felt at peace.
She began to tell him things then. She mentioned he would be found sane—the compos mentis tests were done, and yes, he was sane. She went on to let him know that after the full ninety days, he would be back on the Atlas and in the captain's chair. There were to be some minor fines that he wouldn't even miss out of his pay, and he'd lead a team to Enki, the new planet out in the UrPoPo system to talk about their Confederacy entry.
He listened.
He did not interrupt.
He noticed she squeezed his hand often as she talked.
He paid very much attention to the topics she mentioned and learned not a single new thing.
He wondered what he should say when she finished.
He also realized his future could very well entail this woman and he liked that.
Yet he already knew her news, so what to do?
He chickened out thinking that in this very narrow case, it was best to not be totally honest.
He suddenly realized he had been tapping on his knee with his left hand's forefinger in a very trained manner—EMDR style—and that was a good thing. One-two-two, one-two-two.
He smiled at her when she was done, and his smile was honest and truthful as he carefully couched his words.
"Helena, I thank you for all of this—it is so important to me to see that I'll be back in the captain's chair on board my Atlas. That is the best news of all, for me. For us too, I'd think ... and your help in all of this ..." and his smile was painted on.
She nodded and then pulled her hand away from his. She waved over to the steward who was standing at attention and nodded to him. Lunch was served and they ate slowly and chatted about the Enki planet and what he would find there. Talk about Ghayth was also on the table as they discussed the recent construction and the finds there. He was pleased to learn his friend, Marine Major Stal, was a Godsend, Helena said as he took over more and more responsibility. Perhaps he needed a raise in ranks, she suggested, and that made him smile too.
He knew he should have told her the Baroness had told him all of this an hour or two ago, but then he wondered about the timing of all this.
Lunch over, they made more small talk about Barony issues and Navy gossip, and the lunch stretched into an extra hour of talk and socializing, which Tanner rather enjoyed.
####
Toombs moved his eyes slowly over the whole petri dish tray and studied each and every single culture in front of him.
Each petri dish of this test batch, coded F-17, was rife with growth. Each dish was still the bluish color—but throughout the media, there were circular spots of viral cultures. Many were large and some small—yet they populated each petri dish and left little of the growth media untouched.
He smiled. This was what they'd worked for over the past eight months—the growth of the viral culture in a lab setting. And this was how normal research was done. As the labs were "under the gun" from the Baroness to achieve success STAT, they also were testing each batch in live Garnuthian mice. They had pure strains of the mice birthed and then held in check until the vaccine was administered on approximately the one hundredth day of their 120-day lifespans. No mouse had ever lived past their normal lifespans by more than three percent as was usual. This kind of testing was a bit unusual, but as they were under the gun to find a successful vaccine, it was their testing norm.
He put the tray down, looked at the smiles in front of him on his research team, and nodded to them.
"We're making some great strides here," he said and then he pointed at Ward, his animal test control associate.
"Ward, have you—sorry, can you verify that this F-17 batch was properly inserted and applied to the latest group of mice in your lab?"
Ward nodded and grinned. "Sir, yes, Sir! I followed, as always, the usual lab practices, and the mice currently are under F-17, and as my report of yesterday shows, they're fine. Alive. Virile. Strong. Eating lots and still their BMI is well within the normal ranges," he said and smiled again.
Toombs nodded and then looked at the team as a whole. "We will double-check and then triple-check our procedures—all of them, lads. And we will sign off on our best practices too. Ward," he said as he looked back at him, "you will need to also double-check your animal testing regimen and be able to confirm same. Are we all in agreement?" he said and looked at them all, one by one, as each nodded to him to confirm their agreement.
Anderson, the lab associate who was in charge of the media purchasing, held up a hand for a moment.
"Sir, will I still need to buy our normal requirements of the media and all? Or ..." he finished and his head tilted to one side.
"Not in the normal amounts, Anderson—cut them down by what, seventy percent will be fine. One more round of blind tests and we could be done here, right?" That got a smile all around, and he motioned for them to all go back to work except for Ward.
He joined the young team member as they walked out of the large labs and into the corridor toward the Animal Testing labs.
They didn't talk but were lost in thought and Toombs liked that.
While Ward was an all right team member, he didn't have, in Toombs opinion, the real stuff to ever be much more than a research associate, at the low end of the scientist scale.
At the labs, they walked in through the open door and went directly over to the racks of cages.
They stood side by side and studied each of the mice in each of the cages, beginning with the top left-hand cage.
Therein, the mouse was peeking out at them from the excelsior nesting materials in the back third of the cage. On the small LCD panel attached to the front of the cage, it held the profile of the mouse within the cage as was constantly scanned by the AI.
Normally, it would just display stats like age in days, general health statistics, height, weight, BP, vaccine testing dosage levels, and more.
But in this case, there was bright red flashing text that held the age in days and it said 149 days.
"Normal life expectancy for this varmint is what, Ward?" Toombs said.
Knowing his boss already knew the answer did not make his answer any easier and Ward nodded.
"Sir, life expectancy for the Garnuthian mouse is 120 days. Give or take within a normal range of three percent, Sir."
Toombs nodded and tilted his head slightly back as he did the math.
"So this mouse is twenty-nine days past the median, or twenty-four percent past the normal range, correct?" Toombs said.
Ward nodded and in a respectful tone, said, �
�Exactly, sir.”
"How many more like this one, Ward?" Toombs said as he slowly walked down the rack of cages.
Almost every single one had that same flashing red text and the variations between various caged mice had to do only with the vaccine dosage size.
Toombs had counted and said, "We have more than fifty mice here that are at least twenty-plus percent past their normal lifespans, do I have that correct, Ward?" he queried.
"Sir, that's correct, and depending on the vaccine testing dosage that we administered, the range of those percentages runs from a low of eighteen percent up to more than thirty percent. And based, as my report yesterday suggested, on that vaccine dosage, we may be able to make some recommendations on the vaccine purity too. Sir," he said and he looked at his team leader with a grin.
"Yes, Ward, I noted that in your report, but at this point, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have done well so far—further testing will eventually lead us to that recommended dosage levels—but not until then. Understood?" he said, his voice firm and clipped. No sense in giving this barely competent associate any kind of praise—at least not yet.
Ward hung his head and moved off a bit so Toombs could get around him as he left the lab.
Toombs walked back down the main secret lab corridor to his office well down the way, and as he did, he wondered if he should report this small success to the Baroness. There was nothing worse than building up expectations, which still might not be true, and that was one worry. But the pressure from the Royal on finding a vaccine was so very strong that even letting her know they were on solid footing might be worthwhile.
He nodded to himself and made it a promise that by the end of the week, he would notify the Baroness they had a start on a real vaccine. That might hold her off for a bit, and he sat in the chair behind his desk and began to go over Ward's report, editing out some of the more positive comments to de-tune the gist of same.
####
The Ansible call had come in surprisingly early, but seeing the caller was from his contact over at supply, Dr. Kahil Bassem took it immediately. He tucked his arm under his pillow, kept the video feed off, and said, "Answer call."
