Her tricorder back from tactical to bio mode, Lense said, “I don’t think she, or he, is an adult. Judging by the size of the controls and chairs.”
“The universal translator isn’t going to work if he doesn’t talk,” Gomez said.
“Hi there,” Lense said into the dark alcove and reflective eyes. When she spoke, those eyes flashed for a moment, then closed shut again.
“I don’t think that’s working.” Gomez went to the nearest computer console and pulled off an access panel to the electronics below. “Let me see if I can get their computer to talk to us. From that, maybe we can get enough for the UT to allow him to understand us.”
As Gomez worked, doing whatever it was that engineers did while others waited, Lense couldn’t help but wonder what terrified thoughts were behind the child’s glowing eyes. If everyone else was dead, what had the poor thing seen? And now aliens had invaded her ship. Did she assume that Lense and Gomez had killed her parents?
Looking away for only a moment to see what Gomez was doing, Lense noticed that the small child took the opportunity to try to shrink even farther back into the recesses of the access way. There was nowhere for her to go. Sometimes such a situation could nearly paralyze Lense’s decision-making process. Different cultures reacted differently than humans. Attempting a soothing tone could be “fighting words” for another race. What one culture would see as a submissive stance, another could see as an overture to attack.
“Got it,” Gomez said finally, and Lense watched the child flinch. The computer panel came to life, and Gomez used a tricorder to access its functions. “This might work.”
A computerized voice began to speak. “Fotanet ba’alest. Dolah pocheeny sot ba touh begh. Sooft dabrah gren co’olat retnala’ag borft plumadal.”
The doctor frowned. “Nothing. Shouldn’t we have enough with what we got off the warning broadcast?”
“It probably wasn’t enough. You know some take longer than others. I’m not even sure the ship’s translator data was beamed into the EVA suits’ version before we left.”
The child, Lense noticed, didn’t particularly like whatever the computer was saying. But maybe she was just reading into the alien’s expressions.
“Pocheeny kahlahct pathelet rathib t’binchekt. Aldasna contaminated sodithbrash throughout. Life dochmaba bar’ut systems cobnida maintained oht-langrah, so it is only pocheeny we fear.”
Gomez smiled. “Getting there.”
The computer continued. “If we survive the next tests, it is my hope that we can determine why Dobrah is immune.”
“That’s the end of the log.”
It was enough. Lense was able to put it easily together. “Dobrah?” she asked the child. “Do you understand me?”
The alien child said nothing. She, or he, sat frightened, and shook in her fear.
“We won’t hurt you,” Lense said, attempting her most soothing voice. As an aside to Gomez she added in a whisper, “We might look less imposing if we weren’t dressed in EVA suits.”
“I’d imagine.”
Lense put her tricorder down and showed her open hands, which skewed the light on her wrist at an odd angle and cast the child in even more shadow. “Dobrah, we’re here to help you.”
“G-go away.” The slight voice was weak, but Lense sensed that wasn’t physical weakness, just insecurity. “Go away go away go away go away go away go away go away go away go away—”
“Back up,” Lense told Gomez. “Let’s give him some room.”
“Him?”
“Just a guess. I don’t know why. Call it intuition.”
“I’m a him,” Dobrah said, still fearful but also sounding a bit insulted. “What are you things? Why are you here? Go away go away go away go away go away—”
“Don’t be afraid,” Lense said. “Are you alone?”
The boy didn’t answer. He was rocking back and forth, arms holding his knees close to his body.
“We’re humans,” Lense told him, still stepping away, giving him space, but answering his question. “We’re both—” She almost said females, but every culture looked at sex differently and who knew how his would see woman. “We’re both from the Federation.”
“I…I don’t know a planet Federation. I have a ship. My ship. Go away. There are no planets. Go away go away go away—”
“What planet are you from?” Gomez asked, and Lense cast her an annoyed look. She didn’t seem to know how to talk to a scared child.
“Go away!”
“Dobrah, we’re here to help you, but we have to know where you’re from.”
“I’m from Earth! Now go away. Go away go away go away go away—”
Lense and Gomez exchanged a glance. It wouldn’t have been the first time that the universal translator had done that. Many worlds’ own name for their planet was something simple, like “home” or “earth.” They’d have to see if there were star charts on the computer that would tell them where the boy’s home planet was.
“Dobrah, are you alone on this ship?”
He looked up, stopped rocking, and looked at them, perplexed. “You’re here.”
Unable to suppress a chuckle, Lense said, “I meant usually alone.”
“Yes. Others came. I hid.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know who they were. They went away. You should go away!” He was rocking again. Lense considered completely backing away for a while—just remaining in the room until he got more used to them.
But it didn’t seem that necessary. The boy’s intelligence was obvious, and the catch in his voice was more and more slight as time went on. He was becoming less scared and more curious. “Will you sit down?” Lense asked him as she backed up farther and motioned to one of the beds. She then pulled herself onto another of the beds a few feet away.
Dobrah inched slowly out of the alcove and close to the first bed, but didn’t sit. “Why are you here? Are you real? Are you really real?”
“Of course we’re real.” Lense turned to Gomez. “If he’s been here for some time he may be prone to hallucination. He might not know if we’re real.” Then she kneeled down to be more at the boy’s level. “We’re here to help you, Dobrah. This ship isn’t safe—”
“This is my home,” he interrupted. “This is my ship. You must leave! Leave! Go away!”
He answered so quickly that Lense almost allowed herself to become defensive about whether it was a proper home right now or not. “All right. How long has it been your home?” she asked finally.
Looking away for a long moment, it took Dobrah a while to answer. Something about him suddenly changed. As if he’d decided he wasn’t imagining them and they were really there. “A long time, I think.” He said it softly, and Lense wasn’t sure if that was because he was sad, or just unable to know how long anymore.
“Alone?” Lense asked.
“Some of it.” He was rocking again, not looking at them. “Everyone is gone. You must go! Leave me alone!”
“Did they d—” Gomez began, but Lense cut her off with a look.
With a light movement of one finger to the arm of her EVA suit, she turned off the external speaker so only Gomez would hear her over the comm. “We have to be delicate here. The computer record said he was immune to whatever killed everyone on this vessel. That could leave him with a star-mass of guilt.”
“Sorry,” Gomez said quietly.
Lense turned her speaker back on. “Do you know what happened to everyone?”
Sadly, his eyes still cast away, Dobrah’s voice was slight. “Everyone?” he asked. “Everyone’s gone…Everyone.”
Chapter
2
“Where’s the boy now?” Captain Gold asked, his voice laced with a light thread of static, probably due to the radiation.
“With Dr. Lense. Commander Corsi is sure the ship is otherwise…uninhabited.”
“Why did you hesitate?”
Gomez huffed out a breath. “I almost said abandoned, but that doesn�
��t really fit, does it?”
“No. Not if they all died. Any bodies?”
“We found one,” she said. “An Allurian. Looked like he was wearing a personal shield belt rather than an EVA-like suit. It failed, and the radiation probably got him.”
“Probably?”
“The tools aren’t here for a proper autopsy, the doctor tells me. It could also be some virus that we believe only the boy is immune to. She’d like some equipment beamed over to the shuttle, which we’ll then bring over here. I’ll need a few things as well. Engineering is locked down with a protective bulkhead. It looks like the Allurians tried to get in, but didn’t have what to do it with. We do.”
“Transmit a list. We’ll get it to you.” There was a pause, then Gold continued. “If the Allurians left that ship with a disease…”
“We’ll try to find out, sir,” Gomez assured him. “Anything from the probe telemetry?”
“We have a course to follow, as soon as you folks are finished over there.”
“I don’t know how long the autopsy will take. And we’re unsure of what to do with the boy. This ship isn’t very stable, and Dr. Lense can’t give me a clear answer as to whether he carries the disease. She hasn’t even isolated it yet. The tools to do that are on that manifest I’ll send.”
“Get to it, then. I want to know what we’re dealing with.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
In the time it took for Corsi to completely search the rest of the ship, and for Gomez to find engineering and talk with the captain about their equipment needs, Lense had cleaned up the alien sickbay and learned where a lot of things were kept, or were supposed to be kept. It looked as if the Allurians had done some looting.
She’d also been talking with Dobrah a lot as she worked, and the boy had finally decided to sit on one of the beds and watch Lense with tremendous interest and intent. He was doing more and more of the talking, and he sounded more comfortable with her now. In fact, he sounded like he’d not talked to anyone in months and wanted to make up for it.
“What’re you doing now?” he kept asking.
She indulged every question as cheerfully as possible. “Well, I’m using my tricorder—it’s a computer and scanner—to read labels on all these containers and shelves. It looks like a lot is missing.”
“Are you a healer?”
“Yes. A doctor.” She took a box, read the label, and put it away again.
“A doctor or a healer?”
“There’s no difference in my language, really. Well, there can be. But I guess I’m a doctor who is a healer.”
“My mother was a healer,” he said, and she couldn’t tell what was in his voice when he said it.
“I—She was?”
Dobrah leaned forward on the bed and kicked his feet up. “You look like she looked when she was fixing things and making it all neat in here.”
Lense wanted to ask what happened to her. But she knew. “Was that her voice we heard? On the computer?”
He rolled his head around in what seemed to be like a nod. “I used to listen to it sometimes, when things worked. Because she mentions my name. I don’t want to forget what she sounds like. I do sometimes. Forget. I don’t want to forget.”
“No, of course not.” She tried to imitate the head roll as he did it.
“Gomez to Lense.”
“Lense here.”
“Stand clear of the beam-down point, Elizabeth. Our equipment is on the shuttle. I’m going to have the computer beam it over.”
“Okay.”
“Energizing.”
In the center of the room, several large containers sparkled into existence with a hum and flashes of light.
Dobrah stretched his neck to see it all. “That’s a lot of stuff. What’s it do?”
“Well, some of it I don’t recognize, so that’s for Commander Gomez.” Lense smiled at him and walked toward the crates.
“And the other stuff?”
“It’s medical equipment.”
“Are you going to run tests on me?”
She turned back toward him, feeling her own brow knit. “Why would you ask that? Did…did your mother and other doctors run a lot of tests?”
“Yes.” He seemed unconcerned about the tests, she thought, based on his nonchalant tone.
“Mine won’t hurt,” she told him.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“What did you find, Doctor?” Sliced with more static than before, Captain Gold’s voice sounded far away.
“The Allurian we found died from a plasma bolt, sir. Weapons fire. The energy signature matches what we have on file for Allurian weapons.”
“One of his own people killed him?”
Lense nodded, despite the comm link being audio only. “After he’d already sustained cellular damage from this vessel’s radiation.”
“Maybe to put him out of his misery?”
“Why not treat him?” Gomez asked. Lense had almost forgotten they’d been sharing the comm link to brief the captain.
“They were looting the sickbay,” Lense said. “They may not have had the supplies.”
“Allurians aren’t known for stealing medical technology.” Gomez’s connection was local and sounded stronger, but still crackled with static here and there.
“I know. But my scans indicate there is a contagion here. Viral in nature, and Dobrah is only alive because he’s immune.”
“Would the Allurians’ personal shields have protected them from it?” the captain asked.
“Commander Gomez checked the settings on the shield we found on our dead body It was attuned to block the radiation on this ship, and nothing else. We found no external air tank.”
“If that was still working, the Allurians would have recovered it,” Gomez added.
“Unless it was airtight, they still would have been infected. There are virions of complex construction in the air, and they’re aerobic. If they were here long enough, I might be able to tell if the Allurians contracted the disease. Lipids are present and are located in the virion envelope. The fatty acid composition of viral lipids and host cell membranes would perhaps be similar, meaning I could tell in what species of host any particular virion was replicated.”
Captain Gold chuckled. “I’m going to assume that means you can breathe in the little devils and you might be able to prove the Allurians did. What kind of virus is it?”
“Level Four, I’m guessing, in whatever the—what did we find out their names are?”
“Dobrah’s people?” Gold asked. “Abramowitz is still going over what you could salvage from the one computer bank you were able to access, but their own word for their race is the Shmoam-ag.”
“Well, the Shmoam-ag created themselves a nasty virus, near one hundred percent fatal.”
“Definitely engineered?”
“I’ve probably only scratched the surface of the morphology, but determining that was the easy part. All the classic signs. Highly advanced, too, with both RNA and DNA coexisting in two separate sections. That’s a virion with more than five-point-six percent nucleic acid combined, with the complete genome coming in almost sixty thousand nucleotides long. While what I’ve managed to decode is minimal, it’s filled with information that’s…well, it couldn’t be considered natural.”
“I see.”
Lense wondered if she’d been too specific, but Gold had long since proven his ability to withstand barrages of technobabble, whether it was Gomez and her people’s engineering jargon, Faulwell going on about a language, Abramowitz on a culture, or Lense herself with medicine.
“And one of the rooms off sickbay even has a quantity of the virus in several production stages. I’m not sure why. But it’s a viral lab like any we might have—multiple airlocks are used to enter and exit, and one of the signs translates to what we’d call a warning about a ‘no-sharps’ area—to prevent the puncturing of the biohazard suits that are worn to enter the lab. We found those, too.”
&n
bsp; Probably taking all that in, the captain turned his attention to his first officer. “Gomez, what about engineering?”
“I still don’t have access to the engine room. I do have access to an auxiliary control area nearby. I’ve set up radiation shielding in that room, which is allowing me to bring those aux systems back online. With those, I might be able to use an automated system to bring the engines under control for a closer look.”
“How much time would that take?”
“Six, maybe seven hours, if things go well,” Gomez said.
“And what about you, Doctor? It’s possible the Shmoam-ag didn’t have a cure for themselves, but could there be one for other species?”
“It’s a possibility, but too early to know.”
There was silence for a while as Gold perhaps considered his command options. “We need to catch up to the Allurians in case we have to stop them before they infect others. Gomez, use the shuttle’s comm array to enhance our ability to communicate at a distance. Would either of you like us to beam over anyone to assist you?”
“Captain, I think it’s best if we limit anyone else’s exposure for the time being,” Lense warned.
“You three are safe, aren’t you?”
“For the time being I’d assume so, but the more people here, the more we risk an accident exposing someone.”
“Understood. We’ll be under way within the hour. If you need any additional supplies or equipment before we leave, let us know. Gold out.”
“You assume so?” Gomez asked over the comm, once the captain had left the channel. “Anything I should know?”
“No, but I don’t know all we’re dealing with. If we go back to the shuttle, I recommend we leave the EVA suits here. Beam right out of them, and back in when we return. Just to make sure nothing goes back with us that the transporter decontamination couldn’t handle.”
Chapter
3
“Where do you get your food?” Lense had thought to ask Dobrah this question several times in the nine hours they’d now known each other, but other questions—or sometimes just listening—had taken precedence.
Bitter Medicine Page 2