THE ALTIAN PLAGUE

by D M Arnold

  “Do we have a medic on call?”

  She shook her head. “We'll need to find one.”

  “I'll call my friend Aahhn.”

  Nyk approached the bed. “Marxo... Marxo... can you stand?”

  Marxo moaned.

  “Come on -- we're taking you home. Try to stand.” Nyk supported him. “Try to sit, then.”

  Grynnya brought a blanket. “Wrap him in this. It's cold outside.”

  Nyk draped the blanket over Marxo's shoulders. “Good -- here we go.”

  With Grynnya on Marxo's right, Nyk lifted him to a standing position. “Let's walk ... that's it...”

  They led him to the shuttlecar. Nyk helped him sit in the passenger seat and fastened his restraint.

  “Follow me up in the bubble,” Grynnya shouted as she climbed in.

  * * *

  The bubble emerged from the subjump near the relay station. He could see Grynnya's shuttlecar in stationkeeping by the shuttlebay spacedoor. He maneuvered behind her. The door opened and Grynnya proceeded inside. Nyk followed and parked the bubble in an adjacent stall. The bay began to pressurize.

  He heard the door safeties release, and he hopped out. “He's worsening by the minute,” Grynnya called out. “Quick -- let's get him into stasis.”

  “I don't think he can walk. I'll take his shoulders -- you get his ankles.”

  Nyk backed his way through the pressure door to the main workroom. Grynnya set down Marxo's ankles, opened the door to the stasis chamber and extended the table. “Okay now -- LIFT!”

  Marxo was delirious and beginning to flail his arms. Nyk restrained him and Grynnya retracted the table.

  “Marxo,” Grynnya said. “Marxo -- we're going to put you into stasis. A transport is on its way and when you wake up -- you'll be in a hospital in Floran City.” She closed the hatch and brought the stasis fields into standby. Her finger touched the actuator and Marxo fell limp. “We have good stasis,” she said and leaned against a bulkhead. “Thank goodness.”

  “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” Nyk asked.

  “Decontamination.”

  He nodded. “It's the first time in my career I'm looking forward to it.”

  “I'm with you, kiddo.”

  Grynnya followed Nyk into the wardroom and began undressing. “I'm going to burn these clothes,” he said.

  She nodded. “I think I have some other Earth duds in my effects locker. I brought some chlorine bleach and I'll go over the inside of my shuttle with it before heading back.”

  “I imagine you have quite the mess to clean up.” He stepped into the decontamination chamber. “Ladies first...”

  Nyk stood in the shuttlebay as Grynnya swabbed the interior with bleach and water. “I just spoke to Aahhn,” he said. “He knows of a colleague who's an expert in infectious disease, and he's willing to help us. Of course, on Floran it's all theoretical, so he's eager to have a real case.”

  “I'm sure at the very least the pharma labs will want samples of antibodies to add to our decontamination cocktail.”

  Nyk heard the docking clamps engage, looked out the viewport and saw a deep- space transport at the end of the tunnel. A pair of attendants stepped through dragging a portable stasis tube on a levitating pallet.

  “Careful,” Grynnya advised. “Full contamination protocol.”

  “We'll be careful.” Nyk stepped through the pressure door. “Full contamination protocol,” he said to the attendants.

  They nodded and donned masks. Nyk switched off the stasis fields and extended the table. One attendant lifted the tube from the pallet and maneuvered it adjacent to the table.

  “Roll him,” the other attendant said. “Now, into the tube... we have good stasis. Are one of you accompanying us?”

  “I am,” Nyk replied. He called to Grynnya. “I'll keep you briefed.”

  “Good luck,” she called back.

  He followed the attendants through the docking tunnel and belted himself into a seat on the transport.

  The transport pulled from the relay station. Nyk felt the jolts of the warp jumps. Shortly the vessel was making an approach at the Floran City shuttleport. It was met there by a skimmer.

  The attendants pushed the pallet onto the skimmer. Nyk climbed aboard and it lifted off and headed toward the quad towers. One of the attendants peered into the tube. “First chance I had to take a look at him. Poor bastard.”

  Nyk rode with the pallet in a freight lift to ExoAgency headquarters in Tower Three of Government Center. “Over here,” the attendant directed. They pushed the tube into a treatment room sealed off by a transparent panel and an airlock door.

  “We've been waiting for you.” Nyk heard a familiar voice, turned and saw his friend Aahhn. “You always bring me the difficult cases.”

  Nyk grasped Aahhn's hand and laced fingers in the Floran gesture of friendship. “I don't know what we have this time,” he said.

  “This is Dr Helsyn,” Aahhn continued. Nyk looked up at a slim man with grey hair. “He's anxious to have a look at our patient -- as soon as we have him reanimated.”

  * * *

  Nyk paced outside the treatment room, watching through the transparent wall as Aahhn, Helsyn and two attendants, all in containment garb, tended Marxo. The young man was being given oxygen and fluids.

  Aahhn and his colleague rinsed their containment suits with decontaminant, removed them and approached Nyk. “He's as sick a man as I've ever seen,” Aahhn reported.

  “What does he have?”

  “We don't know -- yet. I'd like to interview him and ask how he was exposed. I'm afraid, Nyk, that my prognosis is rather grim. He's suffering multiple, simultaneous organ failure. His kidneys have stopped functioning, his lymphatic system is clogged with who-knows-what, and the infection is encroaching on his brain.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Even someone this sick produces antibodies in response,” Helsyn replied. “We've taken blood samples and forwarded them to the pharma labs. Our hope is to maintain him until the antibodies can be isolated and replicated. It's how we dealt with the last such case we encountered. We should have a preliminary report from the pharma boys any moment now.”

  “What are they doing?” Nyk asked as he watched the attendants.

  “They're installing a pulmonary inducer,” Aahhn replied. “It'll keep him breathing.”

  “By the time those antibodies arrive -- what'll be left to treat?”

  “It's a race against time.”

  A warble sounded from Helsyn's xarpa. He withdrew a handheld vidisplay. “Ah -- a call from the pharma labs. If you'll excuse me...” Helsyn stepped away and consulted his vidisplay.

  “I hope it's good news,” Aahhn said.

  Helsyn returned to them with a long face. He shook his head. “They were unable to isolate any antibodies, other than the usual.”

  Aahhn gestured to Helsyn and they conferred. Helsyn stepped to the communicator. “Block him -- make it deep. Discontinue pulmonary induction.”

  An attendant slipped a helmet-like device onto Marxo's head.

  “What's that?” Nyk asked.

  “It's a neural block,” Aahhn replied. “It'll induce deep anesthesia.”

  Helsyn gave a hand signal and another attendant pulled a blind over the viewing panel. “Now what are they doing?” Nyk asked.

  “Letting nature take its course,” Aahhn answered.

  “You mean you're just keeping him anesthetized -- until he ... dies?”

  “Which won't be long, now,” Helsyn said.

  “It's a kindness, Nyk,” Aahhn added. “There's nothing else we can do for him here.”

  “Why not put him back into stasis -- until we find a cure?”

  “It would be a death sentence, anyway. There's a limit to how long we can maintain someone in stasis.”

  Nyk sat and stared at a control panel, watching Marxo's vital signs on displays. The trace on the heart monitor grew erratic and then flatlined. “He's gone,” Aahhn said.


  * * *

  Nyk sat at a conference table in a meeting room. Seymor's image was on the vidisplay. “Marxo's dead,” he said.

  Seymor closed his eyes and grimaced. “There'll be an inquiry. The oversight committee requires one any time an Agent dies offworld.”

  “He was onworld when he died.”

  “A technicality. Do you know anything?”

  Nyk shook his head. “Not yet. Aahhn and Helsyn will brief me shortly.”

  “Nyk -- you were careful not to expose yourself.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Take care of yourself lad. We'll see you back down here once the dust settles.” The vidphone session went blank.

  Nyk drummed his fingers on the table. A door chime sounded. “Come,” he said.

  Aahhn and Helsyn stepped into the room and sat across from Nyk. “I'm shaken,” Aahhn said. “I don't lose many patients. It's difficult for me when I do.”

  “You did all you could for him,” Nyk replied.

  “I'm not a miracle worker.”

  “You've worked two miracles for me already. Two and one isn't a bad record in the miracles game. What do we know from the post-mortem?”

  Helsyn drew in a deep breath. “Not an awful lot I'm afraid. It does appear he was suffering from multiple infections, all viral.”

  “Multiple? All viral?”

  “Yes,” Aahhn added. “Your Earth paramedic...”

  “Grynnya?”

  “Yes, her -- she administered broad-spectrum bioagent. It would've taken out anything non-viral.”

  “Perhaps something non-viral paved the way for the virus,” Nyk suggested.

  Aahhn and Helsyn stared at each other. “I hadn't considered that,” Helsyn said.

  “But -- something non-viral would still produce antibodies and the pharma labs found none,” Aahhn countered.

  “True, true.” Helsyn looked at Nyk. “A nice theory.” He handed Nyk a datacel. “We performed a genetic scan on his blood. We found evidence of six alien genomes.”

  “Do you mean alien as from another planet?” Nyk asked.

  “If you consider Earth another planet -- yes,” Helsyn replied.

  Nyk inserted the datacel into the vidisplay. “This means little to me. What does it mean to you?”

  “It appears,” Aahnn explained, “that poor Marxo contracted six different virus infections.”

  “Six at once? Have you been able to identify any of them genetically?” Nyk asked.

  Helsyn shook his head. “No. None of them match any virus in our database.”

  “How good is your database?”

  “Nyk,” Helsyn said, “part of the ExoAgency's job in keeping Agents on Earth is to protect the homeworld population. We expended considerable effort ridding the biospheres of this and our colony worlds of pathogens. We want to keep it that way. Do you visit Grynnya for an annual checkup?”

  “And immune system booster, yes.”

  “Each time blood samples are sent here. Antibodies are isolated and any new virus catalogued. Also, Grynnya is in a unique position as our medical liaison to ... obtain virus samples directly from the Earth population.”

  “She works in an Earth hospital. She has access to lab specimens.”

  “And, from the morgue,” Helsyn added.

  Nyk nodded in comprehension. “So, when a new strain materializes -- our pharma labs know about it almost immediately. I can see we take this more seriously than I had presumed.”

  “It's a matter of deadly seriousness, as poor Marxo demonstrated. Imagine if an infection like his was loosed on the Floran population.”

  Nyk shuddered. “So -- getting back to the virus samples. You were unable to match any of them?”

  “That's right.”

  “Nothing close?”

  “No.”

  “In addition,” Helsyn said, “it appears his immune system was shut down.”

  “As in HIV?” Nyk asked.

  “Yes -- but we found no evidence of any HIV strains that we know.”

  “There's more from the post-mortem,” Aahhn added. “It appears a different virus attacks different body systems. For sake of argument we've identified them as I, II, III, IV, V and VI.”

  “The six viruses?”

  “Yes -- Virus VI attacks the respiratory system. Virus III the digestive system, I the lymphatic system, V the skin...”

  “The blotches.”

  “Exactly... Virus VI attacks the brain.”

  Nyk counted on his fingers. “What about virus II?”

  “We don't know. Virus II is pervasive.”

  “What do we do, now?”

  “We're keeping his body in stasis, in case we need more study.”

  “Have you notified his family?” Nyk asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. That's not a task I was eager to perform -- especially if they can't have his remains.”

  “They'll have them -- eventually. Beyond that, we're treating this as an isolated incident.”

  Nyk popped the datacel from his vidisplay. “May I keep this? I may need it when I report to the oversight committee.”

  “Certainly. Now -- it's very late and I think we should all call it a day.”

  Nyk traded the salute with the two doctors and watched them leave the room. The door slid shut. He scanned his wrist on the vidisplay and placed a vidphone call. He received no answer.

  He placed another and saw Suki. “Nykkyo! What are you doing calling at this time? Where are you?”

  “I'm in Floran City. I need to speak with Senta, but she's not answering her calls. Is she there?”

  “No -- she went to Floran City this morning for a few days. Is anything wrong?” He gazed at her through the circuit. “Nykkyo -- what's wrong?”

  “One of our Agents got sick and died.”

  “That's too bad.”

  “That's not it -- it shouldn't have happened. Floran Agents do NOT get sick.”

  “Nykkyo -- even Floran medicine can't prevent every illness.”

  “I suppose. This thing gives me a bad feeling. Thanks, korlyta. I'll try hunting Senta down here. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Give Andra my love.” The vidisplay went dark.

  * * *

  Nyk stepped from the tubecar onto the platform and rode the lift to the 353rd floor. He approached the door to the Senta's apartment. Even though she moved the labs to Sudal she maintains this for her convenience, he thought.

  The doorscan showed the privacy code was set. Nyk scanned his wrist and the doorscan replied, entry denied.

  He pressed the doorchime. He pressed it again. And again. Come on, Senta -- I know you're in there. He pressed it again.

  The door unlatched and slid open. He looked into Senta's green eyes. “Nykkyo! What are you doing here?”

  “May I come in?” She stepped aside. “I'm sorry to disturb you but this is important. I need you to do me a favor, Senta.”

  “Why should I do YOU a favor?”

  “Not me, personally -- the ExoAgency.”

  “Why should I do the Agency a favor?”

  He glanced toward the bedroom. “Do you have company?”

  “Yes, but don't worry -- they're sound sleepers. Keep your voice low.”

  “They?”

  “If you must know -- it's the Arodsu twins.”

  Nyk rolled his eyes. “Senta... sometimes...”

  “I'm sure this emergency visit isn't to criticize my social life. That could wait 'til morning. What favor?”

  “What do you know of viruses?”

  “Viruses... A virus is a strand of genetic material in a protein wrapper. They can't reproduce on their own, but can by invading a cell and co- opting its own reproductive system.”

  “What do you know of viral genetics?”

  She shook her head. “Not much. Nyk, what are you getting at?”

  “We had an ExoAgent die today of an Earth infection.”

  “And
you must think that infection is headed here?”

  “It IS here -- he died at ExoAgency headquarters. We believe it's been contained, and the medics are calling it an isolated incident. The whole thing bothers me, though.”

  “How?”

  “Our medics were unable to match the virus with any known Earth specimen.”

  “That doesn't surprise me. They can't know every Earth virus.”

  “We know quite a few.” He withdrew the datacel from his xarpa. “This contains the genetic sequence of six viruses we isolated in his body. I was wondering if you...”

  “ME? You think I know more about viruses than Agency specialists?”

  “I think you know more about genetics. Senta -- you have the finest mind on the subject I know.”

  “You don't know everyone.”

  “Don't attempt modesty, Senta. It doesn't become you.”

  Senta picked up the datacel and poked it into a vidisplay. She rubbed her eyes and tucked some unruly red locks behind her ear. “Yes -- they are sequenced in the conventional way.”

  “I was hoping you could try matching it against the Agency database. Maybe you can find a relationship they missed. Do you have access to Agency viral sequences?”

  “I don't know. I probably can get it if I don't. As a Food Service director in charge of genetic sequencing, I should have carte-blanche access to all genetic material.”

  “That sounds like the Senta I used to know.”

  She looked up and smiled. “This is going to take some time. Where are you staying?”

  “I was going to get a room at the hostel.”

  “Nyk -- you can use the guest room. You have to promise me one thing.”

  “What's that?”

  “That you'll stay in there until I come get you in the morning. Katha and Ratha are rather shy.”

  “They never looked shy.”

  “Looks can be deceiving. I've worked hard to reach this stage with them. You mess this up for me and I won't help you. I'll throw you out on your ear.”

  “I'm too exhausted for any juvenile games, Senta. I'll see you in the morning.” Nyk stepped into the guest room, slid the door shut and stretched out on the bed.