Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic

by Jean Lorrah

  The information was there, the computer willing to sort it out any way he wanted it: age, sex, race, even body weight. There was no pattern that he could see.

  Then he played his hunch, asking for statistics on children of mixed heritage only. There were nearly four hundred on Nisus. Almost all of them had had some form of the plague, but Korsal could still find no pattern.

  Frustrated, he added in adult fusions, knowing in his gut that somehow the answer lay with those whose ancestry included people of varying races. Still the figures would not give him any useful information.

  What had Therian seen? Was the Andorian’s outcry merely the first ravings of madness? Why did Korsal persist in hearing it as his last statement of lucidity?

  He strained to remember everything else Therian had said, the kinds of information he had been calling up. Occupations, locations—

  “Computer,” Korsal said suddenly, his guts tightening as if he were bracing for battle, “show me the pattern of spread of the three strains of the disease among all Nisus citizens of mixed heritage, their families, supervisors, teachers, students, partners, colleagues, and anyone else with whom they would have daily contact.”

  “Working,” replied the cold mechanical voice.

  And then the pattern appeared—undeniable, lethal. It took no Vulcan logic to perceive the deadly pattern. What glared at Korsal from the cold screen negated the entire purpose of Nisus.

  Chapter Thirteen

  On board the Enterprise, Spock divided his time between his normal duties and the sickbay computer. He skipped his sleep periods until he had gone over everything Nisus or Starfleet’s medical records had to offer. Then he gave in to Dr. McCoy’s assertion that if he did not rest while there was nothing to do, he would not be ready to perform at optimum efficiency when they received new data.

  There were times when McCoy could be annoyingly logical.

  So Spock took his rest in sickbay … until he was wakened by whispered but vehement swearing. He swung off the couch and went to McCoy’s office.

  Leonard McCoy stared at a multicolored display coming to a halt on his computer screen. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Oh, no—that’s too dirty a trick for even a virus to play!”

  “What have you discovered, Doctor?”

  “I didn’t discover it—some engineer on Nisus did. Look at this spread pattern, Spock.” Then he spoke to the computer. “Transfer to wall screen and replay.”

  The large wall screen used for monitoring surgery came to life. At first there was nothing but endless lines of statistics such as they had seen a dozen times before.

  “Here’s what happens when you color-map those statistics for the victims’ species,” said McCoy. The names and numbers disappeared from the screen, and a multicolored grid appeared. “Blue for Andorians, green for Vulcans, red for Humans, and so forth. At first there’s no particular pattern—until you look at a group of people who don’t fit any species: those of mixed blood. There are hundreds of such people on Nisus, most of them under twenty standard years old.”

  Spock frowned. “Biologically, such a disparate group of people should not exhibit the same medical profile.”

  “Exactly why none of the medical personnel thought of them as a homogeneous group. Our engineer friend didn’t know any better. Proceed to next screen,” McCoy told the computer, and suddenly masses of multicolored specks all turned white. “Those are Nisus residents of mixed heritage,” the doctor explained.

  “Now,” he continued, “this grid is by association —colored dots near the white dots represent family, neighbors, close friends, classmates, and colleagues of those of mixed blood. The varieties of the plague are circles around the dots: purple for the first, fairly harmless Strain A; gray for Strain B; and black for the deadly Strain C. Time analysis,” he instructed the computer, and the screen began ticking off days in the upper-right-hand corner.

  Circles appeared here and there around dots. The dots were of different colors; the circles were all purple.

  As the chronometer ticked away the days, more and more dots were encircled, the white dots as often as the colored ones. Then the first gray circles representing Strain B began to appear… always around colored dots in close proximity to purple-circled white ones.

  McCoy looked up at Spock, who schooled his features lest he betray anxiety. The pattern continued. White dots that had never had purple circles acquired gray ones—and near them the first black circles appeared, as often as not around circles of purple.

  “The mutations to more deadly strains,” Spock forced through the tightness in his throat, “appear to take place … in the systems of people of mixed blood.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” said McCoy. “It gets worse, though.”

  “Worse?” Spock wondered peripherally why McCoy had the sickbay temperature set so low as he controlled a shiver.

  “In medicine you look for the solution in the problem,” McCoy told him. “Vaccination uses disease against itself. It would be … logical to look to those people in whom the disease mutates for immunity to the mutated strains.”

  “I understand, Doctor,” said Spock. “Their blood ought to develop antibodies against the new strains.”

  “Exactly,” said McCoy. “Such people should exhibit an immunity that could be cultured from their blood and passed on to other people.”

  “Of course,” Spock said with a hopeful nod. But even as he said it, the screen showed why that was not a solution. Some of the white dots began to be circled with black … including some already circled with purple.

  Those in whom the disease mutated were no more immune than anyone else. “Whatever antibodies they develop,” said Spock, “give no protection against advanced strains. The disease mutates in hybrid people, but we will not be able to produce a vaccine from their blood.”

  The screen faded to blank silver. McCoy rested his head in one hand, rubbing at his temple. “That certainly settles one thing, Spock. You’re not going down to Nisus.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Despite Seela’s best efforts, Korsal spent a restless night after he had transmitted his discovery about the plague’s pattern of spread to the hospital’s epidemiological section. That his own children were apparently immune to this disease did not quell his anxiety. What new and grotesque variation of the plague might appear tomorrow, possibly attack his sons —and turn them into incubators of new horrors?

  He longed for a physical enemy—something he could see, take a disrupter to, or a knife, or even his bare hands. Then he could do something to protect his family!

  Seela had finally fallen asleep, curled up against his side in animal abandon. As dawn broke, he looked at her soft green skin, her sweet, innocent face, and remembered how badly she wanted children. Hers and his.

  It would take a great deal of help from the geneticists; Klingon and Orion were far more different than Klingon and Human. But it had been done before, and Korsal had had few qualms about starting a second family before the plague.

  Now … was this plague a message from nature that the Klingons were right to consider fusions somehow inferior? He could not believe that—not in the face of Kevin and Karl.

  Almost at his thought, he heard movement in the hallway. Kevin was up, eager to be off to the airfield. Korsal got up and dressed, too, and joined his son for breakfast.

  Seela, so perfectly domestic that sometimes Korsal wished for some flaw in her housekeeping, had left coffee ready to brew at the touch of a switch and two meals in the stasis bin. All they had to do was heat them for a few moments.

  That was nothing new to Korsal or Kevin; before Seela, they had warmed up preprepared meals as often as not. The difference was that even before Cathy had left, the meals were usually commercially prepared. Seela’s were her own cooking.

  And never since he had married Seela had Korsal had to dial blandly inoffensive nutrition from the kitchen console. He wondered if it was even stocked anymore.

  They
ate quickly and took a jug of fresh hot coffee with them. The spring weather had disappeared again. It would be cold in the mountains. They put on boots, sweaters, and heavy jackets, and Korsal tossed Kevin the helmet. “We’ll have to get another of these,” he said. “Now that you’ve got your hoverer license we may both be flying, like this morning, or have one of us flying and one using the cycle.”

  “We can borrow a spare helmet at the field today,” said Kevin. “When they called me the other day they asked me to bring one because they’d lent out all the extras. I guess I was at the bottom of their list of pilots.”

  “You were on it,” Korsal reminded him, “and you performed responsibly. I doubt that you will be at the bottom of the list the next time pilots are needed.”

  The dispatcher at the airfield echoed Korsal’s sentiments. She already had a craft booked for them, telling Korsal, “Your son proved himself quite a pilot on that evacuation mission. But it’s a good thing you’re with him today. A storm’s brewing in the mountains—you could run into rough weather three or four hours from now.”

  “Dangerous?” Korsal asked.

  “Shouldn’t be for a pilot with your experience,” the Lemnorian woman replied. “Still, you know how unpredictable these mountains can be. Turn back if it gets too rough.”

  Korsal’s expectations of his son’s skill proved true. He had never flown with Kevin before, for Kevin’s lessons had been with a licensed instructor, and the day he had come proudly home with his license had been only one day before the closing of the airfield for all but priority flights.

  Hoverers were small aircraft that skimmed across the terrain, ten or twelve meters above the ground. Since they operated on a combination of air cushion and antigravs, it was a rough ride, rising and falling as did the ground below.

  The skill in piloting a hoverer came in compensating for terrain: the craft responded differently to water, trees, plowed land, buildings. An unskilled pilot would let the craft jolt and buck each time the terrain changed—and it was quite possible to crash into a mountain or a tall building if he misjudged how quickly the craft’s sensors could react.

  Kevin proved a smooth pilot. Korsal gave his son the left-hand seat, but there were dual controls; he could take over if they met up with something beyond Kevin’s experience.

  The navigation tricorder led them across the dam and along the river fed by mountain tributaries. Korsal was pleased at the way Kevin maintained altitude. When he said it aloud, the boy grinned. “I had to come up this way on the rescue mission. I’d practiced over the dam for my license, but that was the first time I flew the river. I took some jolts that almost shook my teeth loose, till I got the hang of it. But carrying evacuees, on the way back, I didn’t shake them up much at all.”

  “And you didn’t shake the bolts loose in the hoverer, either,” said Korsal with his engineer’s respect for complex machinery.

  Although clouds gathered on the mountain’s peak, here on the lower slopes it was a beautiful morning. The mountains near the city still had native plants and small animals, but among them were pine and movidel trees, wild roses starting to put out leaves and buds, and wildlife from a dozen planets.

  Startled deer, drinking at the water’s edge, fled at the approach of the hoverer. A family of sehlats, allowed to go wild, reared up and challenged as they sailed by.

  “Here’s where we turned off before, up to the geology camp.” Kevin pointed left along one of the tributaries. “It’s new territory to me from here on.”

  “Just keep your eyes on where you’re going,” Korsal told him. “It winds even more as we get higher.”

  There was snow on the ground and ice here and there in the river, although Korsal saw nothing large enough to damage a turbine. Besides, these small pieces would melt away before they got so far.

  But the higher they climbed, the more ice there was. Some bigger pieces indicated that the screening system was indeed not working. There were clouds overhead now, and a fine mist of rain reduced visibility.

  The hills on either side of the river grew steeper, until they flew within a twisting canyon, with rapids below. Radio contact with the airfield was lost—too much solid rock between them and the city now.

  Spits of snow mixed with the rain. Wind buffeted the hoverer, and Korsal grasped his controls to help Kevin hold it steady. Had the boy been alone, Korsal would have expected him to turn back at this point; he would have done so himself if they hadn’t been so near their goal.

  “We’re almost there,” he told his son. “It has to be the lowest one that’s not functioning—”

  They swung around a curve, and saw it.

  The safety sluice was a shambles of cracked concrete and twisted metal supports. “Khest!” exclaimed Kevin—the first time Korsal knew his son knew the Klingonaase obscenity. Even a Vulcan, Korsal judged, would have decided that the cause was sufficient.

  Obviously the piece of ice that had crushed the turbine had been much larger when it smashed through here. What was left of the screening system wouldn’t hold anything back. This had to be repaired at once.

  “Activate the cameras,” Korsal told his son. “I’ll maneuver in as close as I dare. Get as good shots as you can; this repair must have emergency priority.”

  Korsal brought the craft in low over the smashed safety sluice, fighting the gale until Kevin said, “Got it!” then letting the wind lift and spin the hoverer like a leaf tossed in a whirlwind.

  “Father!” Kevin gasped, reaching for the controls.

  “Let be!” Korsal ordered. “I fought that updraft all the way down, and deliberately let it lift us again. You’ll learn those tricks, Kevin.” He leveled off at normal maneuvering height. “Now—do we go up and see if the safety sluice above this one is also damaged, or do we go back?”

  “I’ve never flown in this kind of wind and snow,” said Kevin. “I don’t know how to judge it, Father.”

  “Neither do I,” Korsal admitted. “If we can manage a few more kilometers, we can see whether there’s more ice ready to break loose. If not, and if the safety above this one is undamaged, the repairs are not so urgent that we have to risk a party out here when winter is still brewing up storms.”

  They decided to continue as far as visibility continued adequate—and flew out of the storm around the next bend. “Good,” said Korsal, eyeing the weather sensors. Walled in as they were, the sensors had little to work with; right now they proclaimed all clear ahead as far as they could reach.

  The wind remained treacherous. Several times Kevin had to stop scouting for problems below in order to help Korsal fight the controls.

  They swung around another curve and faced a wall of pure blizzard.

  The weather sensor began whistling loudly.

  “Time to go home!” said Korsal, and swung the hoverer around on its vertical axis.

  “I think I had that figured out for myself!” said Kevin.

  “You were looking for a senior science project, weren’t you, Kevin?” Korsal asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you try designing a system to send a warning to the dam if anything breaks through these safety sluices?”

  “If it were possible, why didn’t you design it years ago, Father?”

  “Because I never thought of it until today!”

  The boy was silent as they sailed through the clear curves of the canyon, alert to the ever-changing wind. Then he said, thinking aloud, “It would have to withstand weather and animals, yet go off when something was really wrong. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Any system sensitive enough to sound a genuine alert sends too many false alarms.”

  “That’s the problem,” Korsal agreed.

  “It has to include a computer capable of judgment —but computers are too sensitive to cold and dampness.”

  Smiling to himself, Korsal listened to his son reason out the problem. By the time they got home, he would probably have a prototype design in mind.

  His smile wre
nched into a snarl as they swung around the bend that concealed the shattered safety sluice and found that the storm had closed in behind them.

  They faced a wall of whirling snow and ice, completely blocking the narrow canyon. Korsal fought the hoverer to a standstill and stared at the deadly whiteness. “Unforgivable!” he said. “We have allowed the enemy to surround us.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught the sharp movement of his son’s head as Kevin turned to look at him. “It… it’s a storm, Father,” he said uncertainly. “It isn’t sentient.”

  “I know—but remember what you learned on Survival?”

  “Nature is more dangerous than an acknowledged enemy, for it so often appears one’s friend that one never expects the moment it turns and casually kills.” He heard the tightness in the boy’s voice. Kevin had passed his Survival at age six—and had obviously never given a thought to the lessons again.

  I have failed as a father, Korsal thought. My sons do not think like Klingons. “Suggestions?” he prompted.

  “Always assume Nature is an enemy,” Kevin replied. He immediately reached out to change the setting on the weather scanner, having it search behind them. A faint trace indicated that the blizzard that had caused them to retreat was pursuing them. “We are cut off forward and rear. We cannot scan to the sides because of the canyon walls, but our only chance is up and out.”

  Had the situation not been so grave, Korsal would have taken pleasure at the way his son responded.

  “Will the craft do it?” he asked.

  “Equipment capable,” Kevin responded instantly. “I took one up and over the dam.”

  “You what!”

  “I told my instructor I had calculated that—”

  “Never mind! You’d better remember how you did it.”

  “The wind was steady over the top of the dam, providing lift,” Kevin explained. “I don’t know if we can get over the canyon wall here, unless we can find an updraft, but… that’s our only way out.”