Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic

by Jean Lorrah

  They talked, and Kevin packed snow up the sides of their shelter, the fire creating a little ice cave for them. “Kai Kevin,” said his father. “We can hold on until rescue comes.”

  After a time there was a break in the whirling snow, and Kevin said, “I’m going to see if I can get the emergency kit out of the hoverer. Then I’ll get some more firewood.”

  “It’s warm in here now,” said Korsal. “Put my jacket over yours—and my gloves too.”

  Kevin accepted without protest and went out into the snowy dimness. Korsal watched him go, hoping the thick low clouds would not start dumping their burden again before Kevin could finish his tasks. He ; fed the fire sparingly, hoping Kevin would soon have | the hatchet from the emergency kit. The threatening snow would not allow the boy to forage very far, and at the same time it was covering fallen limbs and making walking nearly impossible.

  It seemed a very long time before Kevin returned with an armload of snowy branches, breathless from I the effort simply of struggling through the knee-deep f snow.

  Hunkering down before the fire, Kevin took off his | gloves and spread his fingers to the flames. “I’ll go back for more wood as soon as I warm up,” he said. Then, “Father … the hoverer is gone.”

  “… gone?”

  “The heat of the thrusters must have melted through the layers of ice and snow on the canyon rim, and that tilted it. The wind probably helped it along. You can see the path where it slid, and fell down into the river.”

  Korsal’s broken ribs stabbed as he drew a sharp breath. No emergency kit meant no hatchet, no food, no blanket, no light, no medical supplies. “It’s all right,” he said. “All we have to do is stay alive until rescue comes—and surely that will be by morning.”

  “Yes, Father. Surely by morning,” said Kevin. Korsal realized he was being humored. “I’ll get more wood now,” said Kevin, “so I can make another trip before night falls.”

  Again Korsal looked outside, up at the sky. The clouds were solid, black, snow-filled. The snow began again before Kevin returned, and a raging wind had the blizzard howling around their shelter until long after night fell. Kevin could not go out again for wood, even if there was a chance of finding it under the layers of snow. They fed the fire as sparingly as possible to try to make the wood last until daybreak, melted snow in one of the helmets, and drank the hot water in an attempt to keep warm from inside.

  But the temperature was falling, penetrating into their small haven. They layered their clothes back on and huddled together to share body warmth as the cold seeped in.

  “Tell me more about your brother Krel,” Kevin said. “Maybe someday I’ll get to meet my uncles.”

  “He died,” said Korsal. “Died in a battle with the Federation, six years ago. I never got to tell him I knew … he gamed with me when I was a boy … so I could … win … at something.”

  “Father?”

  Korsal heard the word, but could not find the energy to answer. Anything else Kevin said he did not hear.

  He sat down before a board set up for the Reflective Game. Across from him sat his brother Krel. He smiled without showing his teeth and gestured to Krel to make the first move.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Captain James. T. Kirk sat on the bridge of the USS Enterprise as she entered orbit around Nisus at last. Leonard McCoy stood at his left shoulder, watching the viewscreen.

  The planet was Earth-like, with vast oceans surrounding one large continent and a number of good-sized islands. The science colony occupied only one small area of the continent; there was plenty of room to spare if the population increased.

  It appeared deceptively peaceful and beautiful. McCoy echoed his thought: “Looking at it from up here, you’d never know they had all that trouble.”

  “Well, it’s your job to go down and solve the problem, Bones,” Kirk said, swinging his chair around so he could look into the weary blue eyes. “We’re gonna miss you, you know.”

  “Just don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone,” McCoy replied, never one for fond farewells.

  As he turned to climb the step to the turbolift, Spock left his station. “Doctor,” he said, “I trust that one of your noxious potions will quickly destroy that virus.”

  “You better believe it, Spock,” McCoy replied with a grin. “But if it doesn’t, maybe I’ll try beads and rattles.”

  “However you do it,” Spock said solemnly, “please protect yourself. It would be a great inconvenience for the Enterprise to have to break in a new chief medical officer.”

  “Oh, I certainly wouldn’t want to inflict your anatomy on some other physician,” the doctor agreed, and turned to the turbolift. The doors opened. “See you soon.”

  “Good luck, Bones,” said Kirk.

  To his surprise—and McCoy’s, he saw as the doctor’s eyes widened—Spock echoed, “Indeed, Doctor. Good luck.”

  Then the turbolift doors closed, and the reports began coming in from the transporter room as the medical experts were beamed down to Nisus.

  As soon as the transporter reports ended, Kirk called the Starfleet liaison officer on Nisus. There was no military installation here, but there were always numerous Fleet scientific staff on the planet. At the moment, senior officer was Commander Carmilla Smythe. He took a moment to check her file, as he had never met her, and discovered that her specialty was ethnography. What in the world was an ethnographer doing at the science colony?

  He called her office, where an assistant told him, “Dr. Smythe is at home, recovering.”

  “Recovering?”

  “Yes, sir. She was very fortunate—she is one of very few to survive the most recent strain of the plague.”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t bother her,” said Kirk. “Who is next in command?”

  “Command?” the young man asked in obvious confusion. “Oh—you mean Starfleet personnel. Uh, Master Thorven died a few days ago. Dr. Chang was taken to the hospital yesterday. I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not Starfleet. I don’t know the line of command on Nisus. If it’s not classified, could you tell me what you need to talk to Dr.—uh, Commander Smythe about?”

  “A young citizen of Nisus has gained early admission to Starfleet Academy.”

  “Oh—good news! Let me give you Dr. Smythe’s home code; it’ll do her good to hear that.”

  For a few moments, Kirk thought he was not going to get an answer, but then his screen filled with an extreme close-up of a woman, backing off after pressing the answer switch on her own console. “Smythe here,” she said. Then, studying him, “Captain Kirk? The Enterprise has arrived? Thank goodness!”

  Now that she was in proper range for the scanners on her console, Kirk got a good look at her. She was standing, leaning on a cane, and he could see a cast-brace on one foot that peeked out from under her robe.

  Even though she wore one of those one-size-fits-all flowing garments favored by women whose privacy might be intruded on even in their own quarters, he could see that she was too thin, too pale. He wanted to put an arm about her frail shoulders … but she was just an image on a screen. A very attractive image, actually, the youth of her face belying the premature gray of her hair.

  “Please sit down, Commander,” was all that he could do about making her comfortable. “I see that you’ve been injured.”

  Her dark eyes narrowed for a moment as if the memory pained her. “Yes. It seems that I attacked one of my assistants. This new version of the plague often starts that way. He was able to evade and subdue me, but I sustained a broken ankle. However, I am lucky: I did not kill anyone. Not all victims have been so fortunate.”

  “So we hear,” said Kirk. “I am glad that you recovered, and I have news that I hope will speed your recuperation. You recommended one Kevin Katasai for early admission to Starfleet Academy.”

  “You mean they actually—?” For a moment her face lit with a smile, but then it clouded again.

  “Yes,” Kirk assured her, “he’s been admitted.” />
  “I hope it’s not too late,” was her strange reply.

  “Don’t tell me he’s ill with the plague?”

  “Kevin?” She looked at him with a puzzled frown. “Surely the doctors transmitted the information on immunity. Kevin’s not going to get the plague, but right now we’re not sure he’s still alive.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure?”

  “We’ve had some trouble with ice hitting the power plant at the dam. Yesterday morning Kevin and his father took a hoverer up the mountain to check the safety sluices, see where the ice was getting through. They haven’t come back; there’s a storm raging up there now. The automatic emergency beacon from the hoverer is on, but we can’t get search parties into the area. There are two possibilities: they landed and turned the beacon on … or the hoverer crashed.”

  “Damn!” said Kirk. Then, “Wait—give me the coordinates of that beacon, we’ll home on it, scan around it for them, and beam them—”

  He remembered. “Hell and damn!” he reiterated. “We can’t beam anybody on board because of that plague!”

  “They’re not carriers, Captain. The doctors tested Korsal very thoroughly, and his younger son Karl hasbeen through every test our doctors could conceive of in the past two days. Klingons are definitely immune to the plague.”

  “… Klingons? They are Klingons?”

  “Yes—but Korsal is a scientist, and his sons grew up right here on Nisus. Never mind—if you can locate them and beam them to the Enterprise, you’ll save their lives. If they’re still alive.”

  “Perhaps we could hold them in stasis without materializing them on board,” Kirk suggested, “and redirect them to the Nisus hospital.”

  “Captain—they’re not contagious, but they will probably be very weak. A two-man hoverer doesn’t carry much survival equipment, and if they crashed they may be injured. I know that what you suggest has been done, but I also know that being held in stasis while coordinates are changed causes temporary weakness in a perfectly healthy person.”

  “How would you know that?” Kirk asked.

  “It’s not classified; any member of Starfleet can look it up. I’ve never liked allowing my molecules to be scrambled, but since it is necessary, I found out everything I could about the procedure, including experimental techniques.”

  “You’ll have to meet our Dr. McCoy,” said Kirk.

  “That’s another reason to beam Korsal and Kevin to your ship: the hospital here is impossibly overcrowded, and all personnel and facilities are working against the plague. Kevin and his father will get much better treatment in your sickbay. Now, Captain —could we please dispense with further argument and rescue those two men? They could be dying while we’re talking.”

  “You’re right, of course. Hold on.” Kirk punched the engineering switch on his intraship console. “Scotty, I need you to do some fancy transporter work.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Tersely, he explained the situation.

  “Klingons?” his chief engineer protested. “We’re under strict orders not to beam so much as a scientific journal up from Nisus—and you want to beam Klingons aboard?”

  “That’s an order, Scotty.”

  Only a moment’s pause. Then, “Aye, Captain. I’ll calibrate my scanners.”

  Kirk turned back to the viewscreen, giving Commander Smythe a confident smile. “Once Scotty goes to work on it, consider it done.”

  “Thank you, Captain. I just hope you’re in time.”

  “We’ll know in a few minutes,” Kirk told her. “If you’d like to stay on-line—”

  “Definitely!” she replied.

  “While we’re waiting, would you satisfy my curiosity? The records show that you’re an ethnographer. What are you doing on Nisus, instead of off studying new civilizations? Typical Starfleet assignment foul-up?”

  “No, indeed!” she replied. “I’ve been studying the culture here on Nisus, which is unique in our galaxy —there’s even more ethnic diversity than in nineteenth-and twentieth-century America, with far more interdependence. I asked for this assignment. I thought I had finished my study and was about to request reassignment when the plague began. Now, suddenly, I have an entire new study: the reaction of Nisus’ unique society to crisis.”

  She sighed. “I will probably get a book and a promotion out of it. To tell the truth, Captain, I’d have been far happier with just the original monograph!”

  “I understand,” he said. “Another question: how did you come to recommend a Klingon for admission to Starfleet Academy?”

  “Kevin’s mother is Commodore Catherine Patemchek. But I’d recommend Kevin solely on his own merits. He’s brilliant, clever—”

  “How about loyal?” Kirk asked. “What happens if he comes up against Klingons in battle?”

  “Captain, I recommended Kevin because I believe the Academy will give him the best education possible —and he has a mind deserving of such education. Yes, he will eventually face taking the oath of loyalty to the Federation if he continues to graduation and a commission. I hope he will choose the Federation. As I understand it, the Klingon Empire will force a choice on him anyway in the next couple of years; if he does not enter their required military training, they’ll disown him.”

  “I see,” said Kirk. “You view him as a prize worth fighting for, then.”

  Even through the viewscreen, Kirk saw Smythe struggle to curb annoyance. “Kevin is not a piece of equipment. He is a young man who is going to contribute technological advances to someone—and I prefer that the someone be the Federation. Kevin’s no more the career military type than his father is. The whole family are thinkers and dreamers. Kevin will design starships, not command them.”

  “They don’t sound like any Klingons I’ve ever met.”

  “Of course not—because in Starfleet we only meet the soldiers. And whom do the Klingons meet? Our soldiers. Captain Kirk, we always say that starship crews represent the best the Federation has to offer. But surely you would not say that you and your crew are average Federation citizens?”

  “No.”

  “There you are,” she said. “I hope you’ll have a chance to get to know Kevin and Korsal. Except for their scientific brilliance, they are average citizens of the Klingon Empire. Or at least Korsal is; Kevin has never been there. Anyway, you’ll find them quite different from the warriors we’re accustomed to confronting.”

  “Captain!” Scotty’s voice intruded on their conversation.

  “Are you ready to beam our guests aboard?” Kirk asked.

  “Not yet—but we’ve located the beacon. We’re scanning. But Captain, I just discovered something in the transporter room. The controls have been reset.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I left them not half an hour since, set to Nisus Transporter Central. When I came back, they were set to beam down—but to a point somewhere out on the ocean. As if someone had changed them at random, perhaps to cover an unauthorized beaming.”

  “Check last transporter use!” said Kirk. It wouldn’t tell them much except which direction it had gone. Had something really been beamed down into the ocean?

  There was silence for a few moments. Then Scotty’s voice again. “Captain …I canna tell where it came from, but the last transporter function was to the Enterprise. In spite of your orders, someone or something has been beamed aboard from Nisus.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Korsal held his son in his arms and watched the last of the wood Kevin had gathered go up in flames. When it sputtered and went out, the little warmth the fire had given disappeared as if it had never been.

  Twice more since they had crashed, Kevin had foraged for wood during brief breaks in the blizzard. The second time he had had to dig for it, and returned with frostbitten hands and a pitiful supply of twigs.

  His son had fought well. If the storm had lasted only the night, they would have survived to be rescued. But now it was well into its second day. Their situation
was hopeless.

  The snow continued until it was shoulder high, covering their shelter, providing insulation as long as they could maintain a fire. But they had no shovel, no snowshoes, and even if they had, and both had been uninjured, the storm showed no sign of abating.

  The mountains cut off transmissions between here and the city; people would have to search for them with hoverers or other craft, rising above the cliffs and canyons before they could home in on the emergency beacon of the crashed hoverer. If it was transmitting.

  And of course they would search the hoverer first, before they discovered that there were no bodies in it. If they were dead and frozen, infrared scanners would not reveal their location. They wouldn’t be found until the next thaw.

  They still lay huddled together to conserve body heat, but now there was little to conserve. Korsal could not feel his hands or his feet, but at least his broken ribs had stopped hurting. When Kevin fell asleep, his father didn’t try to wake him. Let him go peacefully; Korsal would not be long in following.

  “Kai Katasai,” he whispered defiantly to the approaching darkness … and watched it swirl and disintegrate dizzyingly before his weary eyes.

  Korsal blinked.

  Of all his senses, only sight was working. He felt nothing. He was lying on the floor of a small gray room. Before him was some kind of console, and behind that a Human male in a red uniform. Beside the console stood a man and a woman in red, with phasers trained on Kevin and Korsal.

  Humans in the Black Fleet? Korsal’s mind questioned crazily. Then other Humans in blue pushed past the security guards, hurrying toward him with blankets and medscanners, prying Kevin gently from his arms.

  “They’re both alive, Mr. Scott,” said a young woman in blue.

  “Ya hear that, Captain?” the man at the console said, and a disembodied voice replied, “Good work, Scotty!”

  “Where … ?” Korsal tried to ask.

  “Lie still!” said a short, brisk woman with graying hair and kind eyes. “Mr. Scott, inform the captain that these men need immediate emergency treatment. Frostbite, hypothermia, broken ribs, exhaustion, shock—”