by S. L. Viehl
“My first reaction was the same,” Crhm said. “What do you think it is?”
“Empyema, perhaps, but that doesn’t explain the tissue damage.” I lifted the magnifier up and leaned closer. That was strange. Outer tissue appeared damaged, as if several sections of the organ had been eaten away. No, not eaten. Removed. “I’ve never seen pneumonic abscesses occur outside the lungs.” There was a remote possibility that it had come from Karas’s stomach, but I’d have caught that. I asked anyway. “Any indications of a gastropleural fistula?”
“None. The stomach was intact, and scans were negative for gastric leakage.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, staring at the tissues. “This would have shown up on my scanner. His lungs were largely intact when he died. No postmortem atrophic response could possibly account for the missing sections!” I peered closer. “Could a colony of anaerobes have migrated and set up house in the cells?”
Most anaerobes required a reduced oxygen tension and solid media for growth; some needed a complete absence of molecular oxygen in order to survive. Maybe they had needed to get out of Karas’s lungs, and in the process, had killed him.
“Anaerobes usually produce tissue necrosis, and some are aggressively fulminant,” Crhm said, following my theory.
“Whatever did this certainly fits the profile.”
“I have another bit of evidence.” Crhm’s eyestalks were nearly bouncing with delight. “I measured the amounts of both the unidentified substance and the missing tissue. They appear to be equal in volume.”
“Replaced,” I said. “Like a cancer.”
Crhm nodded, rather reluctantly this time. “I can’t prove that yet, Dr. Grey Veil, as the substance does not register as an anaerobe or any other pathogen on our equipment.”
“It could have migrated via the alveoli or the pulmonary capillaries through the visceral pleura into the chest cavity.” That didn’t explain what it was, or why the missing host cells had not shown up on my scanner while Karas was still alive, but I put those inconsistencies aside for the moment. One problem at a time.
“There are no signs of migration or saturation.”
I checked the organ once more. “That isn’t conclusive. Anaerobes have been known to migrate and leave no trace evidence.” I pushed the magnifier aside and turned to the pathologist with a grin. “Dr. Crhm, you’ve given me an entirely new direction to pursue. Thank you.” I reached out and clasped the shiny clawed appendage it extended to me. “You know this means I’m going to have to name my first child after you.”
“I doubt the little one would be grateful.” It made a chuckling hiss. “A mention of my findings on your report when completed, however, would be appreciated.”
“A mention?” I laughed with delight. “Dr. Crhm, I may just sign your name to the whole thing!”
Pathology arranged to have the organs sent over to my lab, while I stopped by Trauma to see if any new cases of the contagion had been reported.
Rogan had been waiting for me, it seemed. When he heard my voice, he emerged from his exam room and voiced a bellowing tirade against my supposed incompetence.
T’Nliqinara tried to calm him down, but he shoved her out of his way and stepped right up to my face. His polyps appeared much healthier, I decided, but the stink was still the same. “Who the suns do you think you are—”
I’d had enough. “Did you get my postsurgical report on the Orgemich female you treated for gastroenteritis?”
“I don’t see—”
“She nearly died because you couldn’t be bothered to run a full series scan.”
Rogan’s odor envelope expanded. “If anyone is to blame, it’s—”
“That’z enough, Dr. Rogan,” Dr. Dloh said as he stepped between us, pinchers open, front appendages arched.
“She shouldn’t even be here! She’s been removed from Trauma assignment!” Rogan shrieked. “I’ve filed charges against her for reckless incompetence and misconduct under the Charter!”
“If you don’t zhut up,” the big arachnid lowered his voice to a menacing buzz, “I will remove you from Trauma myzelf.”
Rogan weighed this for half a second before he whirled and stomped off. I exchanged a rueful glance with the charge nurse before I thanked my colleague for his intervention.
“Zunz knowz, we could uze you here,” Dloh sighed, shaking his gleaming head as he gazed after Rogan. “He’z uzelezz.”
“Hang in there,” I told him. “I may be back sooner than you think.”
I retreated to my lab, and immediately examined the tissue from Karas’s lungs. Perimeter tissue showed no signs of cellular degradation. An infection didn’t eat whole cells and leave the others untouched. Crhm was right, it was almost as if the missing cells had been replaced.
I spent the rest of my shift examining and testing the yellow substance. For a possible pathogen, it was remarkably inert. No discernible cell structures, no DNA. Nothing that would indicate it was anything more than a viscous fluid similar to that of plasma, except this particular plasma was emptied of all nutrients, salts, proteins, and chemical signatures.
A biological broth with nothing in it.
Despite the depressing lack of evidence, I wrote up my initial report and transmitted it to Dr. Mayer. With it I added my recommendation that any future cases be quarantined immediately. I had a feeling we needed to find this bug in living tissue. It took only a few moments to transmit a copy of my report over to Dr. Crhm, since the pathologist was responsible for its inception.
I remembered my cat and my roommate some ten hours later, and closed the lab for that day. Before I left, I sealed the organ container and placed a lock on it to assure no one would inadvertently tamper with it. I wouldn’t put it past Rogan to try.
At home, I found Alunthri and Jenner playing a simple game of chase-the-toy-mouse, and was welcomed with enthusiasm by the first and disdainful disapproval by the latter.
“He seeks to curry your attention.” Alunthri smiled, baring sharp, gleaming teeth at the small cat. “Administrator Hansen stopped by to check on us several times during your absence. How was your vacation?”
“Eventful.” I dialed a hot meal and herbal tea for myself, and served it along with the evening meal Alunthri had already programmed for itself and Jenner. “I’ll tell you all about it during dinner.”
I liked sitting down to a meal interval, now that I had someone to talk to. I related most of what happened on Caszaria’s Moon to the Chakacat, and listened as it told me of the latest art studies. It certainly was enthusiastic about something called tonal sculpture, whatever that was. After we finished, Jenner finally forgave me enough to allow me to hold him for a short time.
“You must have been frightened,” Alunthri said, referring to my misadventure.
“I was.” I had been too angry with my father today to think about my own fear. “The scariest part is just the idea of someone taking me”—I looked at the big cat, and closed my eyes—“against my will. Sorry.”
Here I was babbling about the fact I’d been nearly abducted, when the Chakacat had endured so much more. It was something we had never discussed before. Sometimes I was so tactless.
Alunthri curled up on the sofa and fingered a strip of the metallic girdle it wore. With its permission, I had thrown away Karas’s collared harness and enabled it to choose and wear garments it liked instead. “No being should suffer such violence.”
Maybe it was something we needed to talk about. “Would you tell me what happened when you were captured, Alunthri?”
It nodded. “I was the youngest of eight in my litter. That is why I am so small. Runts fetch a good price on the open market. Even more after we’re trained for household companionship.
“A commercial hunter captured my pride. My litter siblings were killed outright for their pelts. My parent was kept alive long enough to accompany me to the market center in the city.” At my drawn brows, Alunthri explained, “Newly weaned Chakacats often die of starvation.
They will not eat unless their parent is kept with them.”
“It’s all so horrible . . .”
Alunthri nodded again. “I was sold to a trainer, and taught to speak and serve. The Karas family purchased me as a gift to Alun upon his transfer.”
“I can’t believe this is permitted.” I was filled with sorrow and fury. “Don’t the Chakarans understand your kind are intelligent? That you have the same emotions and desires as they do?”
The big cat made a helpless gesture. “We are as we have always been.”
“Surely the fact you can talk makes it impossible to think of your kind as primitives!”
“It was not always possible for my kind to speak. Selective breeding altered the physiology of feral Chakacats, who were released back into the wild to repopulate our kind a century ago.”
“Making you all the more valuable.”
Alunthri contemplated me for a moment. “You have done the same in your society. Trained simpler species to perform complicated tasks. Enhanced their desirable qualities by hybridization.”
I was aghast. “But not to be slaves!”
“Domesticated companion, agricultural worker, food producer—all forced against their nature to perform a task for a dominant species. Slaves.”
“Just like Jenner,” I said, feeling ashamed.
Alunthri sprang off the sofa and hurried to kneel at my feet. “You cannot personally assume responsibility for what has been and will always be,” the Chakacat said. “Forgive me for—”
“Don’t do that, Alunthri.” I raised the big cat up and took its paws. “We’re equals here, remember? And you are right.” I gazed at Jenner and saw him in an entirely different way. I hunched down and stared into his big blue eyes. “Would you have chosen to come here, I wonder? Even chosen to stay with me when I found you, after I fed you?”
Jenner gracefully inclined his head, then padded away. Okay, I’d take that to be a “yes.”
“You should rest now,” Alunthri said. “I regret that I upset you.”
“The truth may be ugly,” I told the Chakacat with a shaky smile, “but don’t apologize for making me see it.”
The three of us settled down for the night. I had almost drifted off when my door panel gave off a single chime. Another emergency, I thought sluggishly. No, they’d signal me via display. Who was it? I rose in the darkness, hoping it had not disturbed the cats, and keyed the door to open halfway.
“Kao?” Guilt washed over me. I’d completely forgotten to signal him since I’d returned to K-2. Some Chosen I was. “What have you—”
He was swaying unsteadily on his feet, his skin a pale, powdery color. “Cherijo.”
“What is it?” I shoved the door panel aside and put my arms around him. “What’s happened to you?”
His big frame shook as he began to cough. “I need—” His eyes rolled back into his head, and he slumped against me. His breathing was slow and labored. He was burning up with fever.
The contagion.
“Dear God.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Alunthri coming to help. “Stay back!” The Chakacat froze, and I hit the outer door controls with my palm. With a considerable effort, I eased Kao down to the floor. “Alunthri, signal the FreeClinic!” I shouted through the closed panel between us. “Tell them I need a medevac containment team here. Now!”
I insisted on full biodecon before we entered the FreeClinic. Once the scanners were clear, the team took Kao’s gurney straight to the isolation unit. Dr. Mayer appeared and listened as I quickly related Kao’s symptoms.
“Did you review my report on what Crhm had found in Karas’s lung tissue?” I demanded.
“Yes,” the chief said. “Report to Isolation. I’ll discuss this with you later.”
That was fine with me. I turned and ran.
By the time I got there, Kao had been stabilized, but the pneumonic symptoms were growing worse. Dr. mu Cheft was put in charge of the case, and stood towering in his containment suit as he reviewed the chart data with me.
“He’s in excellent health, Cherijo; that’s why it took so long for the symptoms to appear. From the infiltrates I’m seeing, he’s been walking around with this for some time.”
Had Paul infected him? “We need to culture a specimen of transtracheal aspirate. And check for a gastropleural fistula.”
One recessed eye swiveled to stare at me through the plasplate over his face. “You suspect bacteremia? Even though the scans are negative?”
“I’ll suspect anything and everything at this point, Daranthura.” I lifted my hand to tug a biocontainment suit from the storage rack, but his suit-covered flipper gently touched my hand.
“Low-level containment protocols, Cherijo. Only one physician to be exposed at one time.”
“I may be infected myself!”
“You just came up clear on the biodecon scans.”
He had me there. “Did you scan the pleural cavity?” I described the biological fluid Crhm had found.
“The chief ordered that scan be done first,” mu Cheft said, “and no, I did not find it.” The ’Zangian checked his readings once more. “Multiloculated empyema, and negligible lobar tissue damage, although that may change in relation to progression of tumefaction. No pathogenic cause detected.” He copied the chart contents to a data pad, which he handed to me. “You’d better study this over, see if you can make some sense of it.”
“Damn.” I gnawed my lower lip as I looked through the barrier to where the man I loved lay unconscious. “Has the chief initiated a full quarantine yet?”
“No. Dr. Mayer feels that will cause unnecessary panic.” Mu Cheft flapped a flipper at my exasperation. “You know he has the final word. Go, do some work, it will take your mind off this.”
“He’s wrong,” I said as I stalked off to my lab with the chart. Once there, I put in a signal to the chief at once.
“Dr. Grey Veil,” my boss said from his office.
“We need to institute a level one quarantine,” I said without bothering to keep the edge from my tone. “Now.”
“That would assuredly invoke colony-wide hysteria over a contagion that we can’t prove exists. Dr. Grey Veil, until you can provide clinical evidence to support your hypothesis, there will be no further escalation in quarantine protocols.”
“What about Karas’s missing lung tissue?”
“That is inconclusive.”
“I disagree.”
“That is your prerogative.” Mayer signaled off before I could respond.
I could fume, or I could work. So I worked.
I’d gone without sleep for days, back in Medtech. Now I was determined to nail this bug down, even if I never closed my eyes again.
First I reviewed the entire autopsy on Karas, and initiated a database search to locate any other fatalities in the Quadrant who displayed the same cause of death. No correlation. I ran a comparison between individual case notes from Rogan and Dalton’s charts, including data on their individual physiologies, since Rogan was half-Terran. No correlation. I tried the same thing with different combinations: Karas and Kao. Rogan and Kao. Dalton and Karas. No correlation.
Teeth gritted, I spent hours programming an analysis program that took all pertinent data from all the potential contagion cases and ran a comparative study, citing such minor details as where the patients’ quarters were located in relation to each other. Sixteen hours later, I got my answer.
No correlation.
As I was staring at the screen, unable to believe there was no relation between any of the cases at all, I was signaled from Isolation. It was a very weary-looking mu Cheft.
“Doctor. Pilot Torin has entered a coma.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Seductions of Failing
While the man I loved lay dying in an isolation ward, I found myself sipping café au lait and studying an uneaten brioche. Shock combined with exhaustion, I thought. That was the only way I could be drinking coffee. I didn’t care, either.
No one approached me. Even Lisette sensed I was in no mood for her usual borderline contempt, and kept her distance. Good thing, too. I might have knocked her on her elegant posterior.
Kao Torin was going to die. I watched the café grow cold. Because of me. My fingers tightened around the server until my joints bulged. My fault. He would die because I was incapable of identifying the pathogen.
“Dr. Grey Veil.”
In that hellish vacuum, I lifted my eyes to see Chief Linguist Duncan Reever standing next to my table.
“Reever.” I sipped the lukewarm café that I could no longer taste. “It would be you.”
He took the chair opposite mine. Reever was either a brave man, or bent on suicide, I couldn’t figure out which.
“I understand your friend, the Jorenian, is in critical care.”
Something in me flared back to life. “He’s not dead yet, Reever.”
He looked at me. Saw I hated him just for being there, healthy, breathing, alive. It didn’t seem to bother him.
“Dr. Mayer tells me you are conducting research directly related to treating Torin’s condition.”
“For what it’s worth.” I put down the server with great care, suspecting I might smash it otherwise.
“The contagion has not been identified.”
“No.” I did smile now. A baring of teeth often proceeded a howl of fury. “I have not identified the contagion.”
Lisette appeared to replace my tepid café and remove the unwanted brioche. She handed a server to the chief linguist, then placed her palms on her hips.
“You are bad for business,” she told me. “Drink your café. You.” She turned to Reever. “There is no one who needs you to talk for them?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Then, shut up, or go away.” Lisette stomped back into her stand.
I watched her through dull eyes. “I never thought I would like that woman, but I do.”
Reever sat back. “Lisette seldom fails to state her opinion. You are remarkably alike.”