Fever [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 5]

by Michelle Levigne

  “You aren't listening!” Bain flinched when his voice echoed off the buildings of the square and the water birds rose into the air with odd, hooting cries and squawks. “We have medicine. We're here to help you."

  “But you don't—"

  “We're not stupid.” He almost felt like laughing. “Do you think we'd come visiting places that got hit by the Mashrami if we couldn't make sure we wouldn't get sick?"

  Silence. Bain glared at the six cowering adults. He jammed his fists into his hips and spread his legs for balance and he waited. In the quiet, he heard the water birds settling back into their pond. He heard soft, scraping footsteps as Devon came up behind him.

  “The boy has a point,” the medic said softly. “How many of you are down with it?"

  “We passed the hundred mark this morning,” the second woman said. Her voice broke with a sob and her narrow, freckled face seemed to crumple.

  “How many of you are there, total?"

  “We're—we were six hundred twenty-two last month, when the Dovry family had their triplets.” The balding man shook his head. His mouth pursed like the words tasted bad. “Including the five who died since this morning ... we're down to five hundred forty-three."

  Bain swallowed hard against a sudden urge to be sick. Nearly eighty people had already died of the plague.

  “Mutated?” he whispered to Devon. The medic gave him a short, sharp shake of his head and squeezed the boy's shoulder.

  “Do you want me to look them over, or bring the vaccine in first?” Devon asked.

  “Vaccine,” the first woman said. “We have to protect the children."

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  “All right, Bain, here's how we stand.” Devon stopped Bain with a hand on his shoulder, just as they stepped past the blast wall and onto the landing field. “Ganfer, is everybody listening?” he said, raising his voice a little, and bent down so he spoke directly into Bain's collar link.

  Bain sighed and bit his lip to keep from saying something disrespectful. Ganfer didn't need any help to hear what anybody said. Bain had tested his collar link, and Ganfer could hear what someone whispered behind a locked door fifty meters away, when he wanted to.

  “We're listening, Dev,” Dr. Anyon said. It sounded strange, hearing his voice through the collar link. Bain was used to hearing only Ganfer most of the time.

  “The way I read the situation, Bain and I have probably been exposed, just coming within a few meters of those people. We can hope the virus is weak, if they haven't fallen ill yet. We can also assume that our vaccinations will slow or at least dull the bite of whatever bug attacks us.” Devon stood up and gestured toward the waiting ship.

  He stayed close to Bain, his hand still resting on the boy's shoulder as they walked and he continued talking.

  “I'll go into the sickrooms and give the inoculations. Putting on a protective suit would probably do more harm than good. Do you agree, sir?"

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Dr. Anyon said. “The psychological impact of seeing you in a suit could do more harm to them than it would do you any good. If you're exposed already."

  “I want Bain to stay outdoors. He can run errands for me, bring things from the ship. I'll take samples and send them back for you to study. Until we know what we're facing, we should have no contact with any of you, either."

  “You just want to get out of cooking duty tonight,” Dena said.

  “Hey, you know me too well.” Devon tried to laugh. His voice caught in his throat. Bain wondered if the medic was afraid.

  “Be careful, twin."

  “All the time.” Devon winked at Bain. “Do you agree with the strategy, Captain Lin?"

  “What's there to disagree with?” Lin sounded exasperated and that reassured Bain. If she was afraid, her voice wouldn't have any emotion at all. “We're moving the cartons of vaccine and medicine to the airlock right now. Bain, do I have to lecture you to be careful?"

  “No, ma'am.” He shared a grin with Devon. Bain had to fight an urge to salute when Lin used that intense tone of voice.

  “Make me proud."

  They reached Sunsinger then. After only two minutes waiting, the airlock hissed and slowly swung open. Inside, stacked almost to the ceiling, were the blue, plastic, insulated and cushioned crates of vaccine and the special medicine that had been devised to fight most aspects of the plague. Crammed into the side of the airlock was a wheeled cart, standing on end. Bain grinned when he saw that. He had visions until then of carrying one crate at a time all that long walk across the landing field, down the path, across the colony's square and into the schoolroom where he and Devon had been told to go bring the vaccine. With the cart, they could take eight crates at a time. Bain could even handle it all by himself, so Devon could get to work on inoculating the healthy.

  When they retraced their steps, the found the welcoming committee had vanished again. Bain fought a shiver up his back and the sensation that he and Devon had just talked to ghosts. They went into the schoolroom. It was empty of everything but tables and chairs and the computer stations with their oversized screens for class viewing. Devon said nothing but stood in the exact middle of the room and looked all around. Bain waited, trying to figure out what the medic was doing.

  Devon finally shrugged and nodded and gestured for Bain to help him unload the crates of vaccine. Bain grabbed the cart and hurried back out. The too?silent room gave him a creepy feeling up the middle of his back.

  When he returned, Devon and the crates from the first trip were gone. Bain went to the spot where Devon had stood and looked around the room, trying again to see what the man had seen.

  A creaking, groaning noise came up through the floor. Bain held himself very still and waited, even when the floor vibrated under his feet. Then the door at the end of the room opened, showing a little room beyond it. Bain had assumed that door led to the sanitary. Devon stepped out and grinned when he saw the boy staring at him.

  “It's an elevator shaft,” he said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at the little room. “They have a whole complex of rooms carved out of the rock, underneath the colony. It's perfect for isolating the sick, and the temperature is easier to control, too."

  “Oh.” Bain thought for a moment, then decided not to ask any questions that might sound stupid. He pointed at the crates. “Should I unload these, or should we just take the cart down?"

  “Hmm.” Devon glanced back and forth between the open door and the cart. “The isolation chambers are far enough down ... it ought to be safe.” He nodded and stepped forward to take hold of the cart handle. “Good idea. It's a long walk, carrying those crates."

  It was a tight squeeze, with the two of them and the loaded cart in the elevator. Bain leaned back against the wall and felt the vibrations of the mechanism through his whole body this time. The elevator car smelled of raw metal and a faint aroma of bitter antiseptics. Bain sniffed a few times and decided the bitter smell came from Devon.

  The elevator car door slid open when they reached the bottom of the shaft, and the stinging scent of antiseptics and disinfectants flooded the car in a cloud Bain could almost see. He coughed and rubbed his watering eyes and was glad he was still leaning against the wall.

  “Takes a little getting used to,” was all Devon said. He knuckled his own eyes, then reached out and took hold of the handle for the cart and backed it out into the hallway.

  The walls were the same silvery dull stone Bain had seen bleaching in the hot sunshine outside, smoothed almost to a flat surface by whatever cutting tools the colonists had used. Bain ran his fingers across the face of the wall on his right as he followed Devon down the hallway. Not even dust came off on his fingers. The floor had been paved with some slick black plastic, dulled and scratched by countless wheels and boots scraping across it. There were small, pale yellow lights in the ceiling, five meters apart. They cast enough light to see the doorways, but barely enough to see their feet. Bain didn't know if it was the weak l
ighting that made his head start to hurt, or the thickness of the antiseptics and disinfectants clogging his lungs. They filled his mouth with a strange combination of burning and numbness.

  “Better stay out here,” Devon said, when they reached an intersection in the hallway.

  The passageway to the right ended in a wide, double door; to the left the hallway continued into darkness; directly ahead it opened out into a long, narrow room. Devon went to the door and banged on it twice. When it swung open, a hissing sound filled the air. Bain winced when he saw a thick, silvery cloud envelope the man. Devon closed his eyes and held his breath until the cloud dissipated.

  “I'll be out in a minute with the cart. Can you get back topside without me?” he asked. He didn't wait for Bain to answer, but dragged the cart through the door. A moment later, it closed.

  Bain saw nothing of the contents of the room beyond thick shadows and dull, weak lights high up in the ceiling, at least three meters above the lintel of the door. He shivered and leaned back against the wall and wrapped his arms around himself. He wasn't really cold; someone had found a way to heat the stony passageways. Still, Bain felt a warning chill radiating from the inside of his body out.

  Please, Fi'in, don't let us get sick, he prayed. Then he thought of what he had heard the colonists say. Please don't let anybody else get sick. Please don't let anybody else die.

  The wait until Devon came out seemed to take forever, but Bain had kept silent count and only reached three hundred twenty?six before the doors opened. The hiss of antiseptics filled the air with another cloud. He held his breath until the doors closed. Devon wiped at his eyes and shoved the cart toward Bain. Then he held out three opaque silver tubes to Bain, no longer than his index finger, wrapped in insulating silver thermal?cloth.

  “Samples. Make sure Dr. Anyon gets these before you do anything else, understand?"

  “Understood.” Bain opened up his jacket and slid the sample tubes into the special sealed pocket inside. He fastened his jacket closed and made sure the tubes didn't slide around inside when he moved.

  “Captain Lin better be careful,” Devon said as he stepped back toward the door. “We might just recruit you for the Rangers when this is over. You're good."

  Bain managed a grin, and held it until the doors closed again. He shivered and grabbed the handle of the cart and started down the long, shadowed, too?silent passageway to the elevator.

  The next cartload took all but one crate of the vaccine. Bain put the sample tubes in. He had told Lin through the collar link that Devon had given him the samples. As soon as the airlock closed, Ganfer would fill it with disinfectants and antiseptics and make it safe for the people inside Sunsinger to open the airlock and retrieve the samples.

  Down under the schoolroom, Bain walked the stone passageway as quickly as he could without rattling the cart unnecessarily. He unloaded the crates, then banged on the double doors and hurried away. He shivered and held his breath when he heard the hissing sound. Maybe he was being silly—the disinfectant couldn't hurt him, after all—but every breath of air underground made his head hurt more and made his lungs feel thicker. Up topside again, he hurried outside and stood a long time, taking deep breaths of the warm, dusty air, breathing out hard enough to make himself cough, to clear his lungs. His clothes still smelled of the bitter, antiseptic, artificial substance, but he couldn't do anything about that.

  “Wait a little, Bain,” Ganfer said, just as Bain reached the edge of the landing field.

  “Wait for what?” His voice cracked. Bain felt his heart skip a beat. Had something gone wrong? He stopped short and stared across the landing field at Sunsinger. The ship had never seemed so far away before.

  “It's all right to come up to the ship,” Lin said after a moment's pause. “Dr. Anyon is almost done analyzing the samples. If everything remains clear, we'll be joining you in a few minutes, that's all."

  “Oh. Good.” He shook his head and grinned at his own jumpiness.

  When he reached Sunsinger, Bain lifted the last crate onto the cart, then sat down on it to wait. He closed his eyes and rubbed them. They still stung from all the antiseptics and disinfectants that had sprayed at or on him. The wind picked up and blew more dust in spinning little clouds across the landing field. Bain kept his eyes closed when little gusts of grit hit him in the face. He liked the warmth of the wind and imagined it gently brushing away the damp feeling of being underground in the rock tunnels and passages.

  “All clear,” Lin said through the collar link. “Hungry?"

  “Huh?” Bain opened his eyes and sat up straight, and nearly slid off the crate. He turned around as the airlock started to hiss, gushing vented air as it swung open.

  “It's almost suppertime,” Dena said as she stepped out and down onto the landing field. She held out a sandwich pack, offering it. When Bain nodded, she tossed it to him.

  Bain tore the packet open and took three bites before he remembered he hadn't answered Lin's question or thanked Dena for the food.

  “Time flies when you're having fun,” Lin said, as she stepped out through the airlock. She carried several equipment bags and put them directly onto the cart. “Are you feeling all right?"

  “All the spray they're using makes my head hurt,” Bain said through his mouthful of sandwich. He swallowed quickly. “It's the same plague as before?"

  “Not exactly.” She stepped back over to the airlock and reached up, taking more bags and small boxes from Dr. Anyon. She and Dena made two trips each, piling the cart high as well as leaving bags for everyone to carry.

  “There's a slight variation, but in only one sample,” Dena said, taking up the explanation. “The variation is small enough, it could be a single isolated mutation. If it isn't, chances are good our inoculations will cover whatever it tries to do to us."

  “What if it doesn't?” Bain asked.

  “The variation isn't drastic enough to hurt any of us,” Dr. Anyon said as he stepped down out of the airlock. “The vaccine will blunt it, slow down the attack, no matter what. We'll be fine.” He stepped aside as the airlock started to swing closed. “How is it down there?"

  “I haven't seen inside where they have all the sick people, but it's big and it's not cold underground. They're really careful, spraying everybody when they go in and out.” He brushed at his coat and sniffed and could still smell the bitter stink of the chemicals.

  “That makes sense. I suppose.” Lin looked across the landing field, toward the administration building. “Why were they hiding from us? We told them from the beginning why we were here, what we offered."

  “They were scared."

  “I know they said that, but.... “She shook her head. “All that matters is that we're getting the vaccine to the children who need it, and we can take the sick ones to help."

  * * * *

  No one said much of anything all the way across the square and into the schoolroom. Bain had already reported on everything during his trips back and forth and no one had any new questions for him. There wasn't room for all of them plus the equipment and cart in the elevator. Dr. Anyon and Dena went down first, taking as much equipment and medicine as they could fit. Lin and Bain waited in silence for it to come back up for them.

  They walked the passageway, carrying the last few bags of medical supplies. Far off, echoing strangely, Bain heard the hissing of the spray that accompanied each opening of the door. He glanced at Lin. She grimaced and shook her head.

  “Sometimes the cure can cause more trouble than it's worth,” she muttered. When Bain gave her a questioning look, she shrugged. “No matter how good something is, if you overdo it, if you overdose, it becomes bad. If you use too much medicine, it either becomes poison, or your body adjusts to it and it doesn't do you any more good."

  “You think they're doing that down here?"

  “I know something doesn't feel right. Even if they're using isolation to protect the healthy, they'd still be better off leaving everybody else up above in
the fresh air."

  “Maybe.... “Bain stopped. He wasn't sure exactly what the people of Bareen were trying to do. Maybe Lin was right—something was wrong here. If Lin couldn't figure out the problem, though, what hope did he have?

  When they reached the intersection, the balding man who had met Bain and Devon in the square waited for them. He smiled and nodded and introduced himself as Juhan, and led them across the intersection area into the narrow, dark room Bain had seen the first time. Juhan touched the wall, and more of the small, weak lights came on.

  The room had a woven matting on the floor, cushioning the scarred black plastic. Padded, wide benches lined the walls, with more benches arranged in groups across the floor. Four curtained alcoves held sanitaries and a food processing station, when Bain investigated.

  “You can wait here, Captain Fieran,” Juhan said. “You'll be safe here."

  “Safe from what?” Lin smiled faintly. Her eyes showed no sparks of humor. Bain knew her well enough to sense the frustration and growing anger she hid so well.

  “The sickness."

  “But we're vaccinated.” She slid her long jacket off and stretched out her arm, as if she could show him the faded marks from her repeated vaccinations. “We're here to help."

  “We know, but we can't permit you to take the risks. It's bad enough the doctors are risking themselves.” Juhan shook his head. His eyes glistened as if he might start crying.

  “You aren't listening—” Lin began.

  “Captain, please.” He raised his hands, as if begging her to be quiet. “It's dangerous even for you to breathe the air outside. Here, where the air and water are filtered and you won't come into contact with anyone, you'll be safe."

  “The air and water?” She sat down abruptly on the nearest bench. “What happened? Do you know when the plagues actually hit?"

  “Oh, that's easy to answer.” Juhan sat down at the end of the bench, putting nearly a meter between them.