Tanya nodded in agreement, pulling out a phlebotomy kit. As she drew Pixie’s blood, she said, “Who knows what virus we may have picked up here? We haven’t been obeying our protocols when coming in contact with alien cultures; we’ve been too excited to find an apparently human race, and we might have picked something up from them.”
Shana sat up at this, and exchanged a shocked glance with Elton, and then a wave of shock passed over the other crew members as they realized just how stupid they had acted in their excitement. “Or given them something in return,” Shana said. What fools they had been not to even have considered that they may have been contaminating the Untrans, even with the limited physical contact as they’d had!
Tanya inserted the phial of Pixie’s blood into the medical console for analysis. It didn’t take long for Gemma to announce the results.
“Well, it’s definitely an unknown bacteria trying to get a hold in her body but, I think that a standard antibiotic should be sufficient. Her body seems to be rejecting it pretty well on its own. I checked the lion blood sample and the bacteria are present there, as well; it may coexist naturally within all life forms here. I recommend an immune enhancement for all of you, in addition to a preemptive dose of the antibiotic as insurance. But, if the Untrans have caught something from us—which appears to be the case based on their behavior—it could be a lot more serious. We’ll need to get a sample of their DNA to determine whether or not we can treat them.” Gemma sounded grim.
“Okay; let’s get the shots and get over to the camp and see what’s going on there. There’s no point in conjecturing further until we get more information,” said Shana.
“I think one of us should stay with Pixie,” said Zak.
“I’ll stay and take care of her,” said Tanya. “I’m the most qualified.”
“Fine,” said Shana with authority. “Gemma, enhance the camp image and let’s have a better look at what’s going on out there.”
“We should have done that ten minutes ago,” growled Elton unhelpfully.
“There are a lot of things we should have done,” snapped Shana. She held out her arm to let Tanya, who was efficiently moving from crew member to crew member with her medical kit, inoculate her.
“Alright, alright! Enough! Let’s just get on with it,” barked Zak irritably. “Why are we arguing about things that we can’t change, especially with Pixie already ill?”
“I think irritability and anger may be a symptom of the infection you’ve been exposed to,” Gemma said. “Based on your sudden erratic behavior, it appears Pixie is not the only one affected. I think you’d best let Captain and I take control of the planning until you’re all cleared and thinking normally again.”
Kelsan jumped up. “You’ve been looking for a chance to take control since we left the asteroid!” he said angrily. Shana thought seriously about joining his objection, and then realized that the anger she was feeling wasn’t natural. Just the thought of it made a low headache begin thrumming in the back of her skull.
She looked at Kelsan, who had a strange look on his face, as if his own words had startled him. “I think Gemma’s right,” was all Shana could bring herself to say.
The rest of the crew seemed to reach the same conclusion.
Elton had watched vids of times when people on Earth had fought bloody wars with swords and crossbows, guns and bombs over the centuries of human kind’s development. He had fervently dreamed of being able to save the people of Untra all of the suffering peoples of Earth had endured to reach a period of enlightenment and relative peace. Now it appeared that his dream might not be fulfilled and it made him sad and even a little angry.
Gemma advised them of her plan. “The Captain and I are modifying the mining robots so that we can manipulate them. Thus, we can be with you physically when the need arises. We agreed that if we had done this sooner, we would have been able to make first contact safely without endangering your or an alien culture until DNA and medical testing was done.”
Pixie had put her face in her hands and looked utterly miserable. “What did we do?” She moaned, remorsefully.
“No more of that,” snapped Tanya. “I’m getting you to bed.” She hauled Pixie up and began to lead her toward their bunkrooms.
Gemma’s hologram turned to Shana. “Get those DNA samples and rush them back to me. Perhaps we’re worrying needlessly. If the Untrans turn out to share our basic DNA we can help them without a lot of senseless experiments. Let’s hope.”
Shana nodded, and turned to the view screen, to see what the activity, or lack thereof, was occurring in the camp. Two Untran women were following Oosah around the camp, standing by as she appeared to be chanting in front of the door of each temporary shelter. Close up views of all three of the women, who were the only Untrans outside, showed them looking weary and defeated; large circles under their eyes as if they hadn’t slept—or were sick themselves.
A great fear seemed to pervade their ship.
“That looks like some sort of warding ritual to me,” said Zak. “I’m afraid we’re going to find the Untrans sick after all.” He received no disagreement from the others.
“Let’s get out there and see what we can do,” ordered Shana. “Let’s hope they share our DNA.”
The four of them prepared in stunned silence, all almost certain that they already knew the worst news. A strange thing, Shana thought, how one can feel a bad situation when it arises even before it becomes fact.
By the time they arrived at the camp, they found evidence that something had definitely brought illness to the tribe. “Please don’t let it be us,” Shana whispered to herself. “Please let this be some local disease, please don’t let it be us.”
There were two dead Untrans laid out, face skyward, arms crossed, beside the first tent they encountered. The shank was the hunter who had dared to touch the pistol at the hunt, the one Bard had reprimanded. The skank’s face was contorted and Shana, feeling sick to her stomach, could not determine whether she had met her before or not. The bodies had turned almost green in color and unlike anything they’d ever seen, even in horror shows on Prometheus. Zak immediately crouched over the male body with his scalpel and a vial, to get a skin sample.
“Take it from under the leg, so it’s not visible,” Shana ordered, feeling absurd for wanting to hide the indignity of the sample-taking from the other Untrans, when the illness itself was a far greater crime. Zak nodded, took his sample, and dashed back to the ship.
Kelsan, Elton, and Shana walked toward the center of the camp, and came upon Oosah, who, with her escort, was working on getting the fire built up. She stood as they came around the shelter. “Het! Het malnama het shi!” She hissed at them. Gemma began interpreting through their links, but Shana didn’t need an interpreter to understand the woman’s accusation, and question.
“Why have you done this to us?” The old woman seemed confused, betrayed, angry, all at once; and yet, even still, showed a strength and fearlessness in standing up to the humans.
Shana couldn’t speak. Elton tried to formulate a response. “Metka, shi metka,” he said, but Oosah shook her head vigorously, either disagreeing with him, or indicating that she didn’t understand or want to listen to him.
Gemma’s image appeared beside them, instantly, and bowed to Oosah. Oosah stood taller and nodded to Gemma. “Het malnama het shi,” she said, again, this time with weariness not evident in her first angry accusation.
Gemma did not lie. It seemed obvious that the illness had been caused by the Wanderer’s crew, though unintentionally. She said, instead, in English, “We will help you if it is in our power.” She then translated into Untran as much as was possible with their limited vocabulary.
Oosah began to shake with rage.
“Bai!” She screamed at them. “Go!”
The old woman rushed toward them in anger or even hatred, her two companions at her heels. All but Gemma backed away from the advance, and Kelsan drew his Lase pistol. Oosah saw it and
stopped. A coldness entered her eyes; a resigned fury that Shana read to mean that Oosah had known, all along, that the strangers could not be trusted. Shana wanted to weep.
Gemma spoke again, soothingly, in Untran, trying to reassure Oosah that the Wanderer’s crew would use all of their ability to help them in this tragedy. Oosah remained unmoved, and began to hum to herself, turning her back on the crew and making signs with her stave over the fire. Prayers; perhaps for the healing of her people. Gemma spoke again in Untran, pleadingly, but was ignored. There was no stirring from the other tents.
Gemma’s voice shifted from her hologram to the crew’s headsets. “I’ve analyzed the tissue sample Zak brought, and the Untrans are as different from us as the lion creature was. The plant life, based on analysis of the grass, is just as different. They have what I can best describe as a triple-stem gene. They are capable of developing beyond anything we’ll ever be but they have a long way to go to do it.”
“What’s making them sick?” Shana asked pleadingly.
“It’s a virus. It’s dormant in you, but residing deep in your cells, and apparently when it contacted the Untrans, it awoke.”
“Oh no,” groaned Elton. “Can you cure it?”
Gemma’s voice was clipped. “No. A virus is basically just a package for transferring genetic material. Once inside one of the Untrans, it injects its DNA into the cell and begins to replicate. It destroys cells and cell barriers as it goes. And because the DNA of your virus is so different from the DNA of the Untrans, a normal anti-viral will have no effect. It would take years to figure out how to treat them.”
Shana covered her mouth in horror. Elton and Kelsan both looked stricken. “So what does it mean?” Kelsan asked, although they all knew.
“It means we have to get out of here,” Shana choked.
“The whole village is going to die from this,” Gemma said. “We need to leave before we do any more damage.”
Shana turned and stumbled, heading back toward the ship. Her vision was blurred, her thoughts hazy. “Whoa,” Elton caught her by her arm. “Come on, it’ll be alright.” His voice was calm, and she allowed him to support her as they walked quickly back to the Wanderer. Kelsan looked back over his shoulder, lips pressed in a grim line, watching Oosah, with her back still turned to them, making her ineffective incantations over the fire.
Zak helped Shana onto the ship when they arrived, and Elton and Kelsan sealed the hatch. Everyone looked dazed. “So that’s the last we’ll feel Untran soil beneath our feet,” Zak said bitterly.
Gemma’s hologram was in the control room with the four of them—Tanya and Pixie still in the back.
Gemma said, “We will have to fly around and make sure nobody leaves the village. We have to contain this illness.”
“What do you mean?” asked Shana with a croak, when no one else spoke. Her throat was dry, because she knew what would come next.
“I mean that we will have to monitor the area until they are all dead and then burn the village and camp completely with the ship’s Lase Cannon. We can’t let the virus get to any other population centers.”
Shana let out a sob. “The whole village?”
Gemma’s voice was emotionless. “The village is already dead on their feet. If the virus spreads, it could wipe out the population of the entire planet, including animal life. It’s way to vicious a disease for their genetic structure.”
The whole village was going to die and they could do nothing to stop it. These warm people, who had trusted them and, despite all their worries about aggression or greed, had been nothing but kind. Their Untran friends were hopelessly doomed, and it was Shana’s fault for not forcing them to follow protocols. Just because her ancestors had been so lucky in all their previous encounters with other races and species, she’d believed—they’d all believed—that the regulations shouldn’t or needn’t apply to them.
“Are you certain there’s nothing we can do?” asked Zak, the disbelief obvious in his voice. “All of our technology and there is nothing we can do?”
“No, nothing,” Gemma repeated. “The tissue samples we got from the corpse was extremely corrupted by the virus already; I have no way or time to build a database to try to analyze it for a cure, and the virus seems to be acting with extreme speed.” Gemma paused a moment, then added, “I’m sorry, but there is truly no hope at all.”
Elton was scanning the view screen of the camp. Oosah was sitting on the ground before the fire now, her stave on the ground next to her, her head hanging limply forward. Dead, or simply defeated? Her two companions were nowhere to be found. One of the shelter doors hung open, and a hand trailed out of it, green. Elton shifted the view over and over again. “Where is Krenek? Where is Bard?” he asked, his voice rising.
“They’re dying somewhere,” Kelsan said.
Elton looked as if he might faint.
Shana thought of gentle Krenek, trying so hard to entertain Pixie, and talking so seriously with Elton about the solar system; and about Bard, stern and brave and with hunter’s eyes that could see through Gemma. How smart they were; how quick to trust. She tried not to picture them struggling for breath, clawing at their throats as their skin turned green, but she couldn’t help it. Please, please let it be quick, she thought desperately to herself.
Elton turned to Gemma. “They infected us, too! Why are we okay, and they are not?”
Gemma replied, “They infected us with a bacterium, not a virus. Our bodies seem to recognize the alien nature of what’s attacking, and our immune systems have a mechanism for dealing with it. Plus, our antibacterial medicines seem to be effective. A virus is a much more serious matter, and as far as we know, our antivirals would be just as poisonous to the Untrans as the virus is.”
“And what if we did get a virus from them?” Zak asked, his voice low.
Gemma looked at him and shook her head. “Your immune systems have had many generations of dealing with foreign bacteria— but if the Untrans passed along any viruses of their own to us, we may yet be in trouble. Still, there is also the issue of the tri-helix, three-pole gene that may have made them more susceptible to our virus. Their systems didn’t notice the invader because it looked like a piece of their genetic structure; thus, their immune system ignored it until it was too late. Our bodies saw the problem right away because the bacteria contained an extra part on the gene that it had never seen before.”
“You’re saying that their bodies accepted the material as being short of full genes whereas our bodies saw the extra material and rejected it?” Shana was absorbing the concept but it just seemed so ridiculously simple. Why hadn’t they tested the structure of plants before going near the people? Well, hindsight was always 20/20; she would never let it happen again.
Gemma nodded. “I would love to see what their evolution will make of them in a thousand or fifty thousand years. It will almost certainly be something beyond what we can ever become.”
“Would it be kinder to just kill them all now with the cannon, so as to stop their suffering?” asked Kelsan. His tone sounded heartless, but when Shana looked at his face she saw her own grief and misery reflected back.
What a horrible thought! To kill them to save them from suffering that they had inflicted in the first place. Was it the humane thing to do, or merely selfish, to end the horror more quickly? Shana realized this was going to scar them for the rest of their lives.
Tanya came into the control room looking frazzled. “Pixie isn’t doing well,” she said, anxiously. Zak looked stricken. He leapt up and dashed toward their room. Shana and the others followed closely.
Pixie lay on her bunk, cheeks flushed and eyes glassy. She was running a very high fever; that much was obvious just on a glance. “Bring the fever down!” Zak said to Tanya, who looked exasperated.
“I’m trying! Nothing’s working!” She pulled a melted ice pack from under Pixie’s neck, and Pixie groaned. Her pink-dyed hair stuck damply to her face and neck. Tanya lifted her head, and repl
aced the ice pack with a cold one. Pixie did not resist. Tanya gave her another shot of fever reducer and anti-bacterial.
“What’s happening?” Zak asked, then turned to the computer, addressing Gemma, who hadn’t appeared in the small room. “You said we were doing well against their bacteria,” He said accusingly.
Gemma’s disembodied voice said, “You are. All of you seem to be responding well to the treatment. Pixie was more ill than the rest of you; perhaps the bacteria had taken a stronger hold than we realized. If she doesn’t start responding better we’ll have to hook her up and filter her blood.”
“I’ll get the kit out,” said Tanya, as if it were an order. “I’ll feel a lot better if we can get this out of her system completely—let’s do it now.” Tanya turned and ordered everyone out. She shooed Zak out last and shut the door, purposefully. Shana thought, at least, that Tanya looked confident as she worked.
Gemma’s hologram was still in the control room, where the other four sat anxiously at their stations, waiting for news of Pixie and watching the Untran camp for any signs of life. Gemma reported that Pixie was hooked up and the filter already starting its job. They were all praying to whatever forces ran the universe to help her, and wishing they could have helped the people of Untra as well. But it was too late for that.
Elton asked, tiredly, after watching for a long time, “Are we seriously suggesting that we just fry the whole lot of them as if they weren’t even human?”
“They’re not human,” stated Gemma, matter-of-factly. “They look and act human, but they’re not our species.”
Her attitude shocked everyone. “What difference does that make?” Shana asked. “What makes you more human? A genetic code or the way you think and behave?”
Gemma paused for a long time. “Well; I guess you’d have to make that distinction for yourselves,” she answered. Shana realized that the questions could apply equally to Gemma and Cap as they did to the Untrans. “But all the same, in the end you have very few options. We have a responsibility to save the whole planet, not just this small tribe.”
Starborn Odyssey: Voyage of the Lost (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 3) Page 11