Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic

by Jean Lorrah

  Kirk grinned—he had succeeded in breaking the tension. But his elation was brief. “Wait just a minute here! Spock, Starfleet’s orders don’t include you —medicine isn’t your specialty.”

  “Research is,” the Vulcan replied. “And who is to keep Dr. McCoy proceeding logically if I do not accompany him?”

  “Logic’s not the answer, Spock,” McCoy retorted. “Nisus is crawling with Vulcans, and they haven’t found a cure. What it’s going to take is the experience and human intuition of a few old country doctors!”

  “In which case,” Spock said with unruffled dignity, “I will return to my post and leave you to analyze the data.” And with that he walked out of sickbay.

  McCoy watched him go without protest. “That means he’s sure the clue we need is not in that new data. Damn!” He went to the dispenser for coffee for Kirk and himself. After taking a swallow, he admitted, “Jim, I sure could use Spock’s help on Nisus.”

  “Sorry, Bones—it may be months before that plague is under control, before the Enterprise can come back for you.” He refused to voice his fears that McCoy might fall victim to this organism that outwitted all quarantine attempts. “I’m already losing my chief medical officer for that time; I can’t give up my science officer as well.”

  “Yeah,” McCoy agreed sadly. “I know.”

  “You’ll have plenty of other Vulcans to work with. And how about Sorel and Corrigan? You sure got along with them on Vulcan.”

  “Right,” the doctor said. “We’ll find the cause of this disease, Jim—and that’ll give us the cure.” He paused, then added with a wan smile, “Besides, I have to find it fast and get back aboard before Chapel rearranges my sickbay so that I can’t find anything.”

  Chapter Eight

  Korsal left the hospital feeling more alone than he had since the first day he had set foot on Nisus. Unlike other Klingon scientists who had participated in the experiment of scientific cooperation, he had found a home here.

  On his home world he had been a misfit. Myopia and astigmatism had kept him from military advancement. Wearing thick lenses before his eyes, he could see well enough—but an enemy would instantly recognize that to deprive him of that external aid would be to blind him. Therefore he never got past the required basic term of service at the lowest rank.

  That had satisfied Korsal, though; his interests had always been in research and technology, particularly engineering, where he could apply the theories that fascinated himin practical ways. He had used his right to minimal education earned in his military service to make a mark as a scholar. First in his class, he had been admitted to his planet’s Academy of Engineering, where he continued to dominate his classmates intellectually.

  With their father’s enthusiastic encouragement, his brothers rose slowly through the military ranks. Korsal, meanwhile, soaked up the knowledge available at the Academy and was chosen to study on Klinzhai itself, at the most prestigious university in the empire. His father gave grudging approval. “If you cannot succeed in the military, you might as well do something useful.”

  Something useful was exactly what Korsal wanted to do, and on Klinzhai he found his opportunity. He studied and he built. He invented an antenna that would draw in subspace radio messages from twice the distance formerly possible and eliminate the distortion caused by ion storms. He moved from student to teacher. Eventually, despite delays caused by political maneuvering — or rather his refusal to participate in it — he became the youngest thought master on record.

  But Korsal’s scientific career brought him little fame or glory, because he had no interest in designing weaponry. His colleagues found his attitudes incomprehensible.

  He grew thoroughly tired of being asked, “Do you not believe in the Perpetual Game?”

  “Only when I can get outside this universe to gain a perspective,” he would reply, “will I know whether there is a Perpetual Game. All one can know for certain is that in this world the only game is the Reflective Game.”

  The Reflective form of klin zha was played with only one set of pieces, a man and his enemy as one. It was the great game of the greatest Klingon strategists, yet few allowed themselves to admit that it represented the futility of war. It was the game of entropy in which both sides lost — for at the end, the winner triumphed over an empty board.

  In a society founded upon war, Korsal’s attitude did not win him many friends. Thus when the invitation came for Klingon scientists to join Federation scientists in an exchange of knowledge on Nisus, Korsal was one of the first to apply. There was no reason not to let him go; he might not be an enthusiastic inventor of military technology, but he was certainly no traitor.

  He was, to most Klingons’ way of thinking, nobody.

  Korsal’s family was not of the Imperial Race, nor had any member distinguished himself greatly. By the time he left for Nisus, two of his brothers had died honorably in the Space Service and the third had achieved the position of squadron leader. Their father took pride in his soldier sons; he never quite understood the scientist he had produced.

  One of the first things Korsal had discovered on Nisus was that the Federation had a simple, painless, chemical treatment for eye problems like his. When it was offered to him, he accepted the risk, assuming the Federation would not invite a Klingon scientific mission to join them only to begin by blinding one of its members.

  After interminable allergy testing, he was given the treatment in one eye—and in three days had gained perfect vision! They made him wait thirty days more before they treated the other eye—and for the first time in his life Korsal woke in the morning to a clear world, rather than a blur that would not focus until he had groped for his glasses.

  That was the first time Korsal had served as a guinea pig for Nisus’ medical personnel. Now he was doing so again—would that the results turned out as sanguine as the first time! The eye treatment Korsal had undergone was now as routine in the Klingon Empire as in the Federation.

  Unless the plague underwent an unusually long incubation period in Klingons, they were apparently immune to it. Before releasing him, the doctors had taken what felt like at least half Korsal’s blood to study. Now he was free to go home, for so far as they could tell he was not a carrier.

  But what if the doctors were wrong? What if, despite all the precautions, despite being bathed in the same sterile rays that surgeons used, what if Korsal were even now carrying the deadly disease home to his family?

  Were his sons immune? They were half Klingon, and neither had contracted any strain of the disease, although they had both attended school every day until it closed. He wanted them to be immune—to be safe.

  But if they were, what about Berth’s plan to sell the disease to the Klingon Empire?

  Korsal might defend Klingon honor to his last breath, but he knew as well as any Orion that even if no one in official channels would purchase such a dishonorable weapon, it would not take a wily Orion trader long to discover someone who would make the purchase through unofficial channels.

  He felt as if he had been coerced into a game of klin zha known as the Final Form, where to take an opponent’s piece was not merely to set it aside, but to destroy it utterly—burn wooden pieces, smash or melt those made of stone or metal. There was no victory—when only one set of pieces was left the game reverted to the Reflective Game, and the weaker player’s mistakes resulted in the destruction of the stronger player’s pieces.

  Only Klingons, Korsal thought, could conceive of such a game—but only an Orion could force a Klingon to play it.

  Yet if Nisus’ biochemists could isolate and duplicate the factor in Klingon blood that gave them immunity—

  He could hope for that. Biology was not his field, however; he had to rely on the Humans and Vulcans now studying his blood samples to find an answer.

  Korsal’s home was on the distant outskirts of the city. The public transport system was still running, although he saw no one else on the slidewalks as he worked his way
from the slow-moving outer bands to the high-speed inner ones. With the skill of daily practice, he switched lanes so as to be carried along C-belt, out to the suburb where he owned a home.

  His own home. Land, a garden. It was something he could never hope to gain as a scientist in the Klingon Empire. His title of thought master meant little there if his science was not military strategy.

  It had rained that morning. The air was fresh and moist in his nostrils as he stepped off the slidewalk into his own neighborhood. In the whole trip, only three lonely figures had slid past him on the bands designed to carry thousands. No one was on the streets, either, although a few children played in their own fenced gardens.

  Those gardens might look normal at first glance, except to a resident of Nisus. Here two Vulcan girls played under the watchful eye of a sehlat. There five Hemanite children of the same litter tumbled happily on the grass beside a small pond. A few houses further on, another Vulcan child, a boy, practiced alone with an ahn-woon, while across the street Caitian children used a huge movidel tree as a gymnasium.

  What was unnatural was that the children of each family were confined to their own home ground. Ordinarily they ran the streets or gathered in noisy groups in various gardens. The unnatural quiet did nothing to improve Korsal’s mood.

  He reached his own house and found his sons in the cheery main room. Kevin, now fourteen, was on the couch, frowning over a problem on the screen of his tricorder. He had inherited his father’s eye problems, which could not be treated until he was sixteen—but knowing that he would be able to discard his glasses then, Kevin did not resent them. They were sliding down his nose now, and he shoved them back into place with a gesture so familiar that it made his father smile. He noticed, too, that Kevin was succeeding in growing a mustache, although he did not yet have enough facial hair for a beard. Nonetheless, his Human heritage was plain in his appearance, his hair light brown, his skin lacking the swarthiness of his father’s.

  Korsal’s other son, Karl, who was nine, was playing klin zha at the communications console, his opponent a Vulcan schoolmate, Sonan. When Korsal entered, Kevin set his tricorder aside and rose, saying, “Father!”

  Karl turned from his game and also got to his feet. “Welcome home, Father. I am pleased that you are well. You have a message from Ms. Torrence, asking that you call her as soon as you get in. She missed you at the hospital.”

  “Thank you, Karl,” he said as his younger son turned to freeze his game and sign off contact with Sonan so his father could use the console.

  His sons’ formality might be appropriate in a high-ranking Klingon family, but that was not the reason for it here. A few years ago, both boys would have thrown themselves into his arms when he returned after several days’ absence. Kevin, though, was now at an age when demonstration of affection for parents was considered embarrassing—a stage both Klingon and Human adolescents exhibited, and so perfectly natural to Kevin.

  Korsal understood Kevin—it was Karl, the same fusion of Klingon and Human as his brother, who was the family enigma. It often seemed to Korsal that his younger son was trying his best to turn out Vulcan.

  Ordinarily, Korsal would have hugged his sons despite their protest, but today he would not touch any member of his family until he had showered and changed clothes. He did not think he could have become contaminated on his way home from the hospital, but he would take no risk with their health.

  “Where is Seela?” he asked as he crossed toward the communications console.

  “Gone to the market,” Kevin replied.

  “Did you not offer to go instead?” Korsal asked. He would be equally concerned if one of his sons were risking exposure, yet with every passing day their immunity to the plague seemed further assured.

  “I did offer,” Kevin said. “Seela said no one on the council who had had the second strain of the plague caught the third.”

  That was true; Korsal had told her that when he called to say he had been released. Seela had had the second strain of the plague and recovered.

  Kevin continued, “She also said I would not know how to choose either meat or vegetables.”

  “A sad lack in your education,” said Korsal. “Seela must teach both of you—and you must learn how to cook as well. I would not wish my sons to marry too soon, or to choose consorts merely because they are hungry.”

  Kevin grinned. “Or starve our own sons one day?”

  “Kevin,” Karl said flatly, “you should have more respect for our father. He always provided adequate nutrition.”

  “And you, Karl,” said Korsal to his younger son, “should stop being so serious! Kevin is quite right: I married Seela for her cooking.”

  Karl was too young to comprehend the humor in that, but Kevin choked on his laughter, pleased to share an adult joke with his father.

  “Kevin,” said Korsal, “take your brother out into the fresh air. The rain is over. I’ll come out and play ball with you as soon as I see what Torrence wants. I need some exercise after being cooped up in the hospital!”

  But Korsal was not to have the game of rough-and-tumble he had looked forward to sharing with his sons.

  Torrence’s face did not come onto the screen when he keyed in the woman’s code. Rather, he heard the hollow ring of someone speaking into a hand-held communicator, and the sound of rushing water in the background. “Korsal! Thank God there’s one engineer not on the sick list! Get up here to the dam right away. We’ve got trouble!”

  Chapter Nine

  T’Pina was fascinated by the USS Enterprise, the largest ship she had ever traveled on—at least that she could remember. She had no recollection of being taken to Vulcan as an infant, and only hazy, fragmentary images of the transfer from Vulcan to Nisus.

  Once, during her secondary education, she had made a three-day journey with four other outstanding students aboard a survey ship mapping the uninhabited planets in Nisus’ system. Later, she had traveled to Vulcan to take up her classes at the Academy aboard a Vulcan trading vessel. A Federation starship was far more interesting than either.

  She found herself surrounded by legends.

  Of course the current situation was unusual. On an ordinary voyage Sarek, the famous Vulcan ambassador and scientist, would not be aboard with his equally famous wife Amanda, one of the foremost linguistic scholars of the Federation. Nor had the renowned medical team of Sorel and Corrigan ever left Vulcan together before—and here they were in the same room with Sarek and Amanda!

  But the crew of the Enterprise itself was headed by the legendary Captain James T. Kirk, and his first officer was Commander Spock, rapidly outshining his famous parents as scientist and explorer.

  Having grown up amid people of all Federation races in close cooperation, T’Pina did not take conscious note of the fact that each legendary pair consisted of one Vulcan and one Human. She saw the chief medical officer of the Enterprise approach Sorel and Corrigan, who were talking with a Human male of the race they called black, dressed in the blue sciences uniform of Starfleet, but with no insignia to indicate his current assignment.

  Curious, wondering if they were already working on ways to conquer the plague devastating her home planet, T’Pina drifted closer to the group. The Enterprise doctor—McCoy, she remembered—was saying, “It’s a pleasure to work together again, although I wish it weren’t under these circumstances.”

  “Let us hope we can quickly change the circumstances,” said Dr. Corrigan, a short, portly, balding man.

  “Has Starfleet sent any new information, Leonard?” Sorel asked.

  “Yes—but I don’t think it’ll do us much good, and I don’t want to discuss it here. Kinda touchy.”

  “Touchy?” asked the Vulcan healer.

  “Likely to create controversy,” his Human partner interpreted. “In which case,” he added, “we’d best not create questions by all going off together. May we join you in your office when the reception’s over?”

  “By all means,” McCoy r
eplied.

  “When healers confer in whispers,” a male voice spoke behind T’Pina, “patients must beware.”

  T’Pina turned, horribly embarrassed to be caught trying to overhear a private conversation. Two days away from Vulcan, and I have forgotten all my control.

  Even worse, when she caught sight of the man who had accosted her, her throat tightened so she could not reply.

  Vulcans were not supposed to react to physical appearance, and T’Pina could not recall ever in her life before feeling as she did now. The man was Vulcan, tall, only a few years older than she was … and beautiful.

  “Handsome” was not a powerful enough word to describe his face, although it was completely masculine. It was as if the greatest artist who ever lived had set out to portray the ideal of Vulcan male beauty —thick, straight, shining dark hair falling in a perfect cap about a skull of ideal proportions; oval face, straight nose, strong jaw, high cheekbones; and his eyes—eyes of brilliant brown touched with amber, wide and thickly lashed, set under winging brows.

  Only the mouth escaped classic perfection—and that only because its neatly sculpted lines were set in an expression of disapproval.

  T’Pina grasped hold of her emotions, determined to give this man no further reason to disapprove of her.

  And only then realizing that he had no right to approve or disapprove, unless she gave it to him.

  He was not old enough to have the right by seniority; he was not her teacher, her healer, or her superior. Nor was he a member of her family—not that that would give him such a right, since they were of the same generation.

  Armed with that realization, T’Pina found control easier to maintain. “My name is T’Pina,” she said. “I am a biotechnician.”

  The man looked her over almost clinically, but his mouth softened from disapproval almost to the hint of a smile. It set her pulse to racing. “My name is Sendet,” he told her, “of the clan T’Deata. I am a neurophysicist.”