Stardoc

by S. L. Viehl

  “I won’t. I already have.”

  “I see.” Mayer’s voice dropped a dozen degrees. “Is he still alive?”

  “Yes. He began to seize, and we sedated him. Apparently the anaerobe has migrated to his brain.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That the Core must be returned to their dwelling.”

  “More episodal gibberish.”

  “No. It was Reever. He’s trying to communicate.” I just didn’t mention it was by linking our minds together. I’d pushed the chief far enough.

  “You want to base treatment on a ridiculous theory and the delirious utterings of a patient in mid-seizure.”

  “I’d welcome an alternative theory,” I said with exaggerated congeniality. “Got one?”

  “A vaccine.”

  I recalled the blood sample. “We’re working on that, too.” I explained about the tests I’d ordered, skipping the part about it being my blood or that I’d injected a dying patient with it. I claimed it was from a Terran who had been exposed to the contagion but not contracted it as of yet.

  Mayer considered this for a moment. “I’ll do the analysis personally,” he said at last. His eyes glared. “I should remove you from duty for reviving Chief Linguist Reever.”

  “I’m sorry I ignored your orders.” No, I wasn’t.

  “Keep that man sedated or you will be held responsible for his death. Do you understand me?”

  I nodded, and terminated the connection. When I turned around, I saw Dr. Dloh being carried off to a cot.

  I got up and walked toward the front of the building. Just outside the entrance, an unending line of patients waited to be admitted. One of the nurses advised me that case count now stood at over four hundred, and Security was preparing a second storage facility for the overflow.

  If this didn’t work, we were all dead.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Epidemic

  Paradise turned into Purgatory.

  Kevarzangia Two’s lush splendor appeared to dwindle as I watched. Perhaps it was the exhaustion. Or maybe I just couldn’t see the beauty anymore. My eyes were filled with the faces of my patients. So many of them—twisting in pain, gasping for life, motionless in death.

  The epidemic smashed through the colony, and hundreds of cases swelled to thousands. Most of those infected came flooding into the temporary facility, desperate to be cured. My job was to examine them, make them comfortable, try to keep them alive as long as possible.

  I did my job. They still died.

  There was no reprieve from K2V1, no cessation of the work that had to be done. Every hour’s demands strained our capacity to deal with the overwhelming numbers. There was a thin edge between disaster and destruction, and we were teetering on it.

  The intubation equipment ran out first.

  “I need more ventilators,” I demanded during one exchange with MedAdmin. “Patients are dying.”

  “You have everything in current inventory.”

  I didn’t want to talk about stock levels. “Get more.”

  “Have you consulted with the Bartermen?”

  I winced. “The request would be better coming from someone else.”

  “We’ll do the best we can. I can’t promise you—”

  “No.” I turned from the screen. “Don’t promise me anything.”

  Familiar faces jumped out of the endless blur of bodies. Patients I had treated in the FreeClinic, neighbors, staff members. I didn’t know what to say to them. I lied anyway. Some begged me to help them. Others seemed to know I couldn’t save them and turned away from me.

  I passed my scanner over a patient, checked and cleared airways, made a chart notation. On to the next. I did it over and over, a hundred times, a thousand. I looked into their eyes. I held their trembling hands, claws, tendrils. I listened to their prayers. I watched them die.

  I checked on Kao whenever I had a spare moment, which wasn’t often. He remained very weak, unable to do more than sit up for short periods. I worried the pathogen might be retaking lost ground, and God only knew what my Terran blood was doing to his internal systems. At last I drew a sample of his blood and sent it over to the FreeClinic for analysis.

  “Doc?”

  My gritty eyes lifted from the dead Chandral female I was tagging for removal.

  Kyle Springfield stood across the cot from me. The aggressive, insolent Terran teenager was gone. In his place was someone much older and wearier.

  “Hey, Kyle.” I looked at the dead woman I was crouched next to. Imagined Kyle’s face on her body. “Be with you in just a minute.”

  “Doc, please.” He reached for my arm, touched me. “Can you help my dad?” He pointed across the rows of cots. “He’s in trouble.”

  “All right.” I got to my feet and let him lead me.

  Harold Springfield was on a respirator, and a woman with Kyle’s eyes sat holding his limp hand. She barely glanced at us, her face blank with the too-familiar shock and bewilderment. I’d seen that same expression on hundreds of faces in the past days.

  “He’s not breathing right,” Kyle said, pointing to the ventilator’s panel. “He started shaking, real bad, and then—and then—” The scan was complete before he finished speaking. He saw my face, and his shoulders sagged. “My dad’s dead, isn’t he?”

  I disconnected the equipment, and Kyle’s father stopped imitating life. “I’m sorry.” I put my arm around his thin shoulders. The boy coughed a few times, and stared down at his father. The woman never moved or reacted at all. “That your mom?”

  “Yeah.”>

  “Why don’t you take her over there?” I indicated a section with some empty cots. “See if you can get her to rest. I’ll see to your dad.”

  Kyle went to his mother, and carefully pried her fingers from the cold hand she was clutching. “Mom. It’s okay. Come on, Mom. Let’s go. The Doc”—he glanced up at me, and his helpless fear had become a curiously adult compassion—“the Doc will take care of Dad now.”

  I watched him guide her away, then stared down at the dead man. “He’s a great kid, Harold,” I said. “You should have kept your promise and taken him back to Terra.” I closed his eyes with my fingers, pulled the sheet up over his face, and tagged him.

  Sometime later, one of the orderlies told me that all of the FreeClinic physicians, including Dr. Mayer and Dr. Crhm, were now infected with the contagion. I was evidently the only one still healthy. Knowing this, I was still startled to pass by a cot and see Phorap Rogan, fighting to breathe.

  He had survived the contagion once. Why would he succumb to it a second time?

  When I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. The pathogen seemed to be mutating again. Symptoms progressed more rapidly, and respiratory failure occurred within hours instead of days. Particularly vulnerable were the children of the colonists, whose smaller bodies were virtually defenseless. We lost dozens of them every hour.

  Drones were programmed to assist us in removing the bodies of the dead. Security kept healthier members of the colony away. The death toll climbed as rapidly as the infection rate did.

  I crossed Dr. Mayer’s path on my endless rounds. He and a nurse were intubating Lisette Dubois. Tough, curt, beautiful Lisette. I sat down on the edge of the cot and picked up his scanner. The café owners’s vitals were better than they should have been. She was still fighting.

  “One of your patients?” the chief asked me.

  I adjusted her pillow, tidied her long curls with careful fingers. “A friend.”

  “I see.” He turned his face away, coughing heavily.

  I scanned him and found second-stage symptoms.

  “According to my last readings,” he told me after he’d dismissed the nurse, “I will remain useful for several hours before I reach respiratory failure.”

  “You should be resting.”

  He looked insulted by the suggestion. “I completed the analysis on the Terran blood sample you sent me. Also the sample from the Joreni
an whose condition you reported as improved.”

  “If you could have synthesized a vaccine, we wouldn’t be standing here,” I said. “Sorry I wasted your time.”

  “Other than some aberrant cellular aspects, I found nothing that would explain why Torin, a Jorenian, responded to an inoculation of human blood.” I took a sharp breath, and he gave me an ironic smile. “I found traces of Terran platelets in Torin’s sample. You injected him with your own blood, didn’t you?”

  I hesitated, then nodded.

  “The polypeptides in the Terran sample were far outside the standard deviation range. Evidently they were genetically designed or enhanced.” Mayer’s eyes shifted to some distant point. “Joe finally crossed the line and experimented on a live human being, did he?”

  “Yes.” I wasn’t going to explain. The chief wasn’t stupid. “What are you going to do?”

  “I recorded the results of my analysis.” He handed me a sealed disc, which I slipped in my tunic pocket. “I recommend you destroy it. It’s proof that you and Torin are apparently immune to the contagion.”

  Good advice. I could imagine the reaction of the dying colonists if they learned my blood created an immunity to the contagion. My life wouldn’t be worth Terran spit.

  The chief still wasn’t looking at me. “You and the Jorenian will live, long enough to see the Quadrant’s destruction of this colony, Doctor.”

  I went very still. “What?”

  “If the contagion threatens to exterminate the majority of the population, the planet itself will be sterilized from outer space. PQSGO standard procedure.” Mayer swallowed against a cough. “Observation drones are in place and send hourly updates to the cruisers above. The mortality rate should reach the appropriate level by the end of the week.”

  “Cascade inoculants,” I groped for a possible answer. “We’ll synthesize my whole blood chemistry.”

  “Incompatible with most of our diverse population’s physiologies. You’re fortunate you didn’t kill the Jorenian.” Now he glared at me. “Don’t push your luck.”

  “You’re right, my blood won’t help us,” I said. There was only one option left. “But Duncan Reever can. Let me revive him one more time.”

  “Your last two attempts failed,” Mayer said. “He can’t survive another severe episode. You’ll kill him.”

  “If we don’t do something, the Quadrant’s sterilization plan will assure no one survives,” I said. “It’s worth the risk.”

  A Security officer stepped between us and took my arm. “Doctor, the Council members require your attendance.”

  Dr. Mayer made a sound that faintly echoed my stunned disbelief.

  “Tell them I’m busy!” I said, then stared at the weapon being pointed at my chest. “For God’s sake, man, I’m one of the only physicians left standing!”

  The Security officer’s jaded eyes met mine. “The Council members were specific, Dr. Grey Veil. I have my orders.”

  “Go,” Mayer said. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

  I hated it when the chief was right.

  Without further discussion, I was marched off to a waiting transport. Since the Isolation ward had been moved from the FreeClinic, I had been confined to the temporary facility. The bright suns’ light hurt my eyes, but I stared anyway.

  The colony resembled a war zone in the midst of a bloody campaign. Small groups of colonists gathered in tight clusters around the damaged buildings, others leading wild attacks against the threadbare Security forces. Fires burned, smoke clouded the air, and the debris of what had been a civilized community littered the ground.

  The glidecar I was riding in was attacked several times along the route to the Council’s chambers. Stones, metal components, and other projectiles clattered against the reinforced panels. One screaming humanoid threw itself on the engine shroud, bouncing off to land in a crumpled, writhing ball.

  The Security officer shoved a palm-sized weapon in my hand. “Here. You’ll need this.”

  “I heal people,” I said, and dropped it on the seat beside me. “I don’t kill them.”

  “With that attitude, you won’t live long enough to heal anyone.”

  When I entered the Council chamber, I heard the familiar hum of bioelectrical static. Two portable containment generators were emitting a sterile field around the Council members themselves.

  Well, that was one way to keep from getting the bug.

  The Council itself had been reduced by two. Z-cdew-nyhy was missing, along with another who had presided during my last appearance. Dsoo, the Lankhi humanoid, had assumed the place of Council chief and rose when he saw me. The Ataderician began belching and gesturing wildly. The third Council member covered its face. I didn’t know I had that kind of affect on people.

  “Thank you for coming, Dr. Grey Veil,” the Lankhi said.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” I replied. “Where are the other Council members?”

  “One of our Council was not well enough to report for this session. Council Chief Z-cdew-nyhy was taken to the Isolation facility several hours ago.” Dsoo’s tone was strained. “I was just notified by his mate of his expiration.”

  “I’m sorry.” This better not be the only reason I was there, I thought, or I’d make a few more vacancies on the Council.

  “Dr. Grey Veil, the Council has convened to determine what measures, if any, can be taken to relieve the suffering of our colonists. We have received reports of inadequate medical personnel, equipment shortages, and the escalating mortality rate. You have been summoned to act as consult.”

  “Here’s an idea,” I said, my lips fighting a snarl. “Let me go back to my patients.”

  “We were thinking of more definitive measures.”

  I almost said, “Define definitive,” and then realized how stupid that sounded. “What measures?”

  “Measures that require both compassion and resolve be shown toward those infected. To relieve unnecessary suffering, of course. Simply a method of humanitary . . . assistance.” When I didn’t react, Dsoo muttered a single word. “Euthanasia.”

  Euthanasia? I hadn’t heard that term used since my history courses at Medtech. “You mean to propose voluntary suicides?”

  “The term voluntary need not apply.”

  I stood there with my mouth open for a few seconds. “So what you’re telling me, Council member, is you want to execute the infected colonists,” I said. “For humanitarian reasons. To keep them from suffering. Have I got this right?”

  “Yes.”

  “This wouldn’t be an attempt to prevent the contagion from spreading, would it?” I asked. “In addition to the humanitarian aspect, that is?”

  The Council members displayed shock and horror when they heard this. They were terrible actors. Jenner did it better whenever I proposed he go on a diet. I had to look at my footgear or start screaming.

  At last Dsoo said, “Doctor, Allied forces will soon begin surface sterilization.” He looked unhappy. I supposed he wanted me to fake some horror, too, then go along with the whole plan.

  I looked at each one of them before I answered. “Council members, your suggestion, well thought out as it may be, makes me sick. I’m going to try very hard to forget I ever heard it. Excuse me, I have patients to see to.” I stomped off and got as far as the chamber entrance. Dsoo’s voice followed me.

  “You cannot save them, Doctor.”

  “Not if I stay here listening to a bunch of cowards snivel and try to save their own miserable hides,” I said, and keyed open the panel. I heard one of the Security officers behind me arm his weapon. I paused, then said, “Hasn’t there been enough death already for you people?” Without looking back, I walked out.

  No one shot me. Outside the chamber, I exhaled a shaky breath of relief, then ran.

  I had to steal an empty transport, then almost drove into a mob advancing on the Administrative Buildings. I steered frantically to avoid them, cursing as I saw a handful turn and chase after me. One of
them threw a club that shattered the passenger view panel, and I was pelted with broken plas fragments. I rammed the controls to full speed.

  Through the dense smoke billowing from a burning glidebus, I saw someone running parallel to the glidecar path. The woman was being pursued by another group of rioters. My eyes widened as I recognized her. I looked ahead, and saw an armed Security team coming at her from the opposite direction. She’d be caught between them. I braked to a coasting stop and flung open the passenger door.

  “Ana!” I shouted. She stumbled and peered at me incredulously. “Come on! Hurry!”

  She ducked to avoid a volley of pulse fire and ran for the transport. I grabbed her arm and pulled her in before I shoved the accelerator to maximum. We sped off. When I could look away from the front viewer, I saw she was shaking badly. There was a nasty cut on her cheek, and blood splotched the front of her tunic.

  “Cherijo,” she tried to smile, but her lips were trembling, too. “Thank God you came along when you did.”

  “Are you hurt?” She shook her head. “What happened?”

  “Someone accused the Admin staff of trying to infect healthy colonists, or some insane nonsense like that. Security couldn’t keep them out.” She pushed at the tangled blond hair hanging in her eyes. “You look like I feel.”

  “I feel worse.” I drove out to the colonial boundary line, hoping the less-used path would be deserted. It was, and I slowed down. “I have to go back to the Isolation facility. Is there a safe place I can take you first?”

  “I was headed to the facility myself when we were attacked. Dr. Mayer signaled me, told me about Duncan. I thought I might be able to help. What’s his condition?”

  I related the circumstances of my unsuccessful attempts to revive Reever and use him to communicate with the pathogen.

  “Your theory is radical, to say the least.” Ana coughed, went very still, then laughed unsteadily. “Silly, I was beginning to think I wouldn’t get sick.”