by Peter David
“Afraid so. It was my own damn fault. We didn’t want to be arrested and stunned two of them.”
“Ever been picked up before?”
“No.”
“I thought so. I tried to fight it my first time, too—and got my skull bashed with a billy for my troubles. This is my fifth time. Peaceful cooperation, that’s the only way, once they’ve made the pinch.”
“But what about…” He lost his train of thought for an instant and floundered. “You know?”
Darling seemed to pick up on it. “If you’re in here with us, that means they didn’t write you up. You’re just another drunk-and-disorderly Leaguer they arrested for disturbing the peace. And with things the way they are…they don’t have enough prisons to hold us all, even if they wanted to.” He shrugged. “They can’t lock up half the planet, after all!”
“The human half, you mean.”
Darling grinned wolfishly. “The human majority.”
For a second Riker saw the true nature of the League in his rescuer’s eyes. Not a friend. It was insidious, these racist beliefs. And yet he knew he needed Darling—needed the decent human inside him who would go out of his way to help a stranger.
Doors on the far side of the room banged open, and a short man in a black uniform strolled in, frowning. Unlike the others, he was clean-shaven and there was something odd about the shape of his skull…too elongated, too pointy on top.
Hisses, boos, and jeering catcalls greeted him. “Mixer!” Riker heard Darling snarl under his breath. So that was it—this was a Peladian.
“Listen up!” the Peladian peace officer said in a loud voice. He thumped the data padd he held with one slender finger. “All prisoners are being released on their own recognizance. Take advantage of this little learning experience and stay indoors tonight. The governor has declared a curfew, and anyone caught on the streets after dark will face the full force of the law!”
Darling chuckled. So did most of the others in the room. Riker looked around in bewilderment. Were they insane as well as prejudiced?
“What’s so funny?” he finally whispered.
“That’s the same speech he’s given every morning for the last week!” Darling replied.
The smooth-cheeked officer glared until the laughter died down. “That’s better,” he finally said. “Now, form a line and make your way outside in an orderly manner. If you cooperate, you’ll be home for breakfast.”
Turning, he stalked out the door with the data padd slapping against his thigh. More mocking laughter trailed him, and jeering cries of, “Get off the planet, mixer!”
“Damn arrogant bastard,” Darling snarled under his breath. “Thinks he’s better than us!”
Riker held his tongue, but couldn’t stop the thought: He is better than all of you. Cordial as Darling seemed, the underpinnings of his Purity League beliefs left no doubt about his true nature: xenophobe, human-supremacist, and violent-terrorist. I must not forget that, Riker told himself. He thinks I’m one of them. That’s the only reason he’s behaving so well toward me.
Chapter Twenty
WORF WOKE SLOWLY and groaned. My head! If felt like a split melon. Sitting up, he looked blearily around the room.
Klingons lay sprawled everywhere around him, snoring. Krot—Skall—Karqq—all the others…
It was the blood wine, he thought with growing horror. He had forgotten to check in with the Enterprise and make his report. He knew a human captain wouldn’t kill him for such an oversight, but he felt he deserved execution.
He had lost track of his mission. He had neglected his duty….
Never again, he thought. Even though he had been exposed to the plague virus and could not return to the Enterprise, he should have made his report. They could have been depending on him.
Struggling to his feet, he staggered a bit as his center of balance shifted. He searched for his lost helmet and finally spotted it in the corner, where Krot had flung it. Picking it up, he fitted it back on his head. Luckily the comm unit still worked. He clicked it on with his chin.
“Worf to Enterprise,” he said.
“Enterprise, Habbib here,” came the reply.
“I wish to make a report,” he said. “I have been exposed to the plague virus and will be remaining on this moon until a cure is found.”
“Negative, sir,” came the reply. “The whole ship has been exposed to the plague virus. There is no longer a quarantine situation. Captain Picard left orders for you to be transported back the minute you report in.”
Worf frowned. That is not good news, he thought. Something terrible must have happened aboard ship—a medical disaster—for the disease to be loose on board.
“Energize,” he said.
He had a very bad feeling inside.
Dr. Crusher rubbed bleary, burning eyes. Sixteen cases, she thought. Between the Enterprise and the Constitution, they now had sixteen confirmed cases of the plague. This is a nightmare.
The medical teams of both ships had combined aboard the Enterprise. And they still weren’t making any progress.
And Dr. Tang, whenever they consulted him, seemed more depressed than ever. He continued to recommend quarantining the planet forever.
We need luck. And inspiration, Dr. Crusher thought. We’re missing something…something obvious.
Not for the first time, she went back to the very core of the problem. We have a virus that can squeeze through a level-1 containment field. How? She studied its diagram on the monitor. What are the possibilities?
Teleportation? Impossible!
Changing its shape to something smaller? Possible? They had seen no sign of any metamorphic properties, however, and they had been watching live samples for hours. Not likely, she finally decided. It’s a form of Rhulian flu. It doesn’t change shape.
What else? It needs a Trojan horse, she thought. Some way to sneak through a containment field without being caught or identified. But it couldn’t do that in its present form. It would have to be broken down and reassembled.
It’s modular! Suddenly she had a horrible vision of how it might work. Two or five or ten smaller parts, all coming together to form a virus…airborne miniparticles, drifting in the air until they meet up, then uniting to become the plague virus!
She had never heard of any organism working in such a manner. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. The added hooks on the NXA protein strands—those could be assembly instructions.
But it would have to be alive in its component parts, too. What’s alive but smaller than a virus?
Nanotechnology? No, it couldn’t possibly be mechanical in origin. Noroids? Sondarian frets? Prions? It could be any of those—or any of several dozen other obscure but normally innocuous life forms. Things we don’t screen out with biofilters because they’re harmless, she thought. Things small enough to slip through a level-1 containment field.
“Computer,” she said. “Begin a new analysis of blood sample 76-B.” That was the most recent specimen drawn from Deanna Troi. “Find and catalog every life form and ever matter particle smaller than a virus.”
The computer spoke. “There are an estimated two hundred thousand subviral particles. Analysis will take approximately forty-one minutes.”
Dr. Crusher sighed. More delays. But she didn’t see any alternatives. They certainly weren’t making any progress with standard techniques or antiviral drugs.
“Begin analysis,” she said. This looked like another two-cup problem.
She headed for the replicator and made her first cup of tea. Just as she was about to settle down to wait out the computer report, Captain Picard and Captain van Osterlich strode into sickbay. Behind them, waiting in the hall, she saw half a dozen security officers.
She stood. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“Yar and Data are on their way up,” Picard said. “They have stolen a starship. They claim it belongs to the man responsible for setting the plague loose on Archaria III.”
Dr. Crusher
felt her breath catch in her throat. This could be the break we need, she thought.
“What’s on board?” she demanded. “Are there any cultures or samples…or a cure?”
“They weren’t specific—but they have something they want analyzed immediately in xenobiology.”
“Let’s go,” she said, grabbing a medical tricorder.
Yar piloted the Paladium into the Enterprise’s shuttle bay 2, then set the little ship down. After she had powered down the impulse engines, she unsealed the hatches, rose, and hurried into the main compartment.
Data had been busy taking down weapons, she saw. She whistled at the rack of ten Federation heavy assault phaser rifles he had uncovered.
“I haven’t seen any of these since the war with Cardassia,” she said, taking one down and turning it over in her hands.
“They are probably war surplus,” he said. “This particular model was decommissioned seven years ago.”
She turned hers over and examined the handle. The serial number had been neatly and methodically burned off with a phaser. No way to trace it back to whoever legally bought or sold it last. Just another sign our unknown friend was up to no good, she thought.
She put the phaser back into the rack, then glanced down at the man who had committed suicide rather than get caught. Everything seemed to point to his involvement in something big. And yet she saw no sign of anything to do with the virus…except those cylinders.
“Status report!” Captain Picard called, as he led Dr. Crusher and half-a-dozen others aboard.
Yar filled him in while Dr. Crusher hurried to the cylinders and began taking tricorder scans.
“This is it!” Crusher announced, and excitement made her voice crack. “These cylinders contain the three different elements that make up the plague virus! I want them beamed to xenobiology—we’ve got to start taking them apart to see how these prions work.”
“Prions?” Captain Picard asked, looking puzzled.
“Yes—I figured it out in sickbay this morning. The virus is a composite organism. It consists of three prions. When they come together, they interlock, rewrite each other’s RNA, and a virus cell is born. Individually the prions are harmless. We have hundreds of different ones in our bodies, and they don’t do anything. Our transporter doesn’t filter them out, and they are small enough when airborne to pass through a level-one containment field!”
“And that’s how it got loose on my ship,” Picard said, nodding. “It makes sense.”
Data said, “We believe our suspect beamed the prions directly over the city, seeding the air. That’s how it managed to disperse so quickly.”
“I’ve got to get back to sickbay,” Dr. Crusher said. “This is the best development we could have had. I know we’ll have a cure soon.”
Chapter Twenty-one
THEIR RELEASE WENT BETTER than Riker could have hoped. Darling spotted a couple more of his League pals and drafted them into helping get Riker out the door. They were burly, bearded men, strong as oxen, and when they draped Riker’s arms across their shoulders for support, his feet barely touched the ground.
Darling signed all their names in an arrest record book, and five seconds later they were out on the street. The morning thoroughfares bustled with activity, and Riker sensed at once that something had happened—something big. An almost electric undercurrent ran through everyone in sight.
Darling grabbed a bearded man and demanded, “What happened? What’s all the excitement?”
“Haven’t you heard? They caught the man responsible for the plague! And Starfleet says they’ll have a cure for it by nightfall!”
“Who was responsible?” Riker demanded.
“Some crazy off-worlder! Can you believe it? He wasn’t even one of us!”
Pulling away, the man hurried down the street.
So much for the Purity League theory, Riker thought. He exchanged a glance with Darling. I’ve spent the night chasing phantom terrorists, having buildings fall on my head, and getting locked up with racist crack-pots—for nothing!
“Well,” Darling said, “that’s quite a development. It wasn’t the Peladians after all.”
The man holding Riker’s right arm let go. “You take him!” he said to Darling. “I have to get home—I want to see the news!”
“Me, too!” said Darling’s other friend. He ducked out from under Riker’s other arm and sprinted up the street.
Riker wobbled a bit, but Darling steadied him. “Hey, I’ll still look out for you, pal,” Darling said. “I’ve come this far. I’ll see you safely home.”
“If you can get me to a comm station,” Riker said, “I’ll call for transportation.”
“Easily done!” Turning, Darling pointed to a public comm unit on the corner across from them. “Come on!”
He helped Riker hobble across the street, then stood watching while Riker activated the unit.
“This is William Riker,” he said to the computer. “I need to talk to the duty officer aboard the Starship Enterprise.”
Darling gaped at him. “The Enterprise? Are you crazy? What do you want with Starfleet scum?”
“Just a second and I’ll show you,” Riker said.
In ten seconds Geordi La Forge appeared on the screen.
“What happened, sir?” La Forge said. “You look terrible. We’ve had half the peace officers in the city searching for you since midnight!”
“The peace officers arrested me,” Riker said. “It’s a long story. I need transportation to sickbay…I think I have a mild concussion…and maybe a couple of cracked bones.”
“Right,” La Forge said. “Stay there, sir. I’ll trace the comm signal back to your location.”
“Thanks.” Riker turned to Darling, who was staring at him incredulously.
“You—you lied to me!” Darling said.
“No I didn’t,” Riker said. He grinned. “You made a lot of assumptions about me based on my appearance. Think about it the next time you see a mixer…or a Peladian!”
He hated to go out with a lecture, but somehow it seemed fitting. Darling certainly needed his myopic racist worldview expanded.
A transporter beam began to shimmer around him.
“People aren’t always what they seem…and if you look, you’ll find new friends in the oddest places!”
Chapter Twenty-two
“THIS IS HOW the virus works,” Dr. Crusher said to the assembled senior officers of the Enterprise and the Constitution. The meeting room fell silent.
“The virus begins life as three different prions.” A computer simulation showed the three different microorganisms. “Separately these prions are harmless. But when they meet up—in the air or in a human body—they join together to form a more complex organism…a multiprion.”
The holographic projection showed all three prions integrating themselves into one larger cell.
“Their protein strands hook together, and a new multiprion is born. Its first task is to rewrite its own RNA. In effect, it turns itself into a virus cell. Now, imagine it happening with thousands of prions at once and you’ll see how quickly people can become infected.”
Captain Picard stepped forward. “Thanks to Dr. Spencer, Dr. Tang, and Dr. Crusher, we now have a cure—a fourth prion, one we designed ourselves. We have already begun seeding Archaria III’s atmosphere with it. This fourth prion hunts for the other three, attaches itself to them, and disables the multiprion genetic codes. In short, they are turned back into harmless prions once more.”
“Sir, who is responsible?” Geordi La Forge asked.
“Good question.” Picard cleared his throat. “Officially, Starfleet and the planetary governor are assigning blame to the Purity League. That organization has been officially outlawed and disbanded, so some good has come out of this disaster.”
“And unofficially?” Worf asked.
Van Osterlich rose. “Unofficially…we don’t know. The one suspect we have is dead, and he doesn’t seem to exist in any official
Starfleet databases. His identity cards are fake. His starship’s registration is fake. Nothing aboard his ship has a serial number or identification mark of any kind. He is simply a blank—officially, he doesn’t exist. Whether he worked for himself or someone else is still open to conjecture. However, I think it’s safe to say that this is the work of some outside party with significant resources…an organization that took advantage of the Purity League’s racist attitudes to test a new type of weapon.”
“The big question is motive,” Captain Picard said. He looked from face to face, and his expression grew even more serious. “It can’t be racial purity. It can’t be the Purity League. In fact, Starfleet has only been able to come up with one possible motive…. Practice.”
In sickbay, William Riker lay on a biobed next to Deanna Troi, resting and listening to the almost jubilant hubbub around them. They have their cure. Everything is going to work out. He smiled.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Deanna said.
He turned his head to face her. “You look terrible,” he said. It was the first thing that popped into his mind. The white blisters that had covered her face were gone, but she still had a deathly white pallor.
“So do you, Bill. I’m just happy to be alive.”
He chuckled. “You know I go by ‘Will’ these days, don’t you.”
“Yes…I wondered if you were going to tell me. Don’t you feel comfortable enough with me to just talk anymore?”
He reached out his hand and took hers, then gave it a soft squeeze. “Of course I do, Deanna. Let down your guard. Listen to my emotions. You know how I truly feel.”
She smiled. “You’re naughty!”
He laughed. “You don’t have to be an empath to sense that!”
Epilogue
THE GENERAL SAT in the command seat aboard his palatial ship, hugging his knees and gently rocking back and forth. No, no, no! he thought. All the news today was bad. Solomon dead. The plague cured. Archaria III on the verge of racial peace for the first time in generations. The Federation had turned disaster into triumph.