by David Coy
They were gone.
She tried to say the word bastards. But no sound came out.
The sound of a thousand boiling pots filled her head.
11
Donna had just sat down to go over the infirmary’s records when Del Geary opened the door. She hadn’t expected quite this much activity so quickly. She wasn’t ready for it.
“My feet aren’t workin’ so good,” Geary said.
Donna got a wheelchair from against the wall and hustled it over to him.
“What happened to you?” she asked, helping him into the chair.
“I just woke up like this. I wasn’t too bad at first.”
She wheeled him over and helped him up onto the examining table. His boots were unlaced and the swollen condition of his feet made them look like they were made for a child.
She gently pulled one off, then the sock.
The foot looked like a red balloon, the toes barely recognizable. She touched it; the skin was stretched and smooth. The swelling was up over the ankle.
“Any pain?”
“Not much.”
She examined his eyes and noticed how dilated the pupils were.
“Are you taking anything?”
“Like what?”
“Pain killers.”
“No.”
“Do you remember getting bitten by anything?”
“Nope.”
“You haven’t sprained them have you?”
“I might have.”
“How?”
“Walking up a hill.”
“Quite a hill.”
She checked his blood pressure and heart rate, temperature. His blood pressure and temperature were both a little high. She drew a vial of blood and put it aside.
“Let’s get a scan. See if there’s anything we can see.” She helped him over to the scanner and onto the table, then slid the table into the tube. She turned on the monitor, enabled the recorder and moved the view down to his feet. There didn’t seem to be any fractures or obvious trauma. She raised the magnification.
She could see the blood coursing through the veins. There was a build up of interstitial fluid from the edema but nothing else unusual.
She upped the magnification again.
Now she could get down to the capillaries. She panned around at random, shifting focus down to get deep then back up again.
She saw the first larva lodged halfway into a capillary wall. Shaped like a corkscrew, it writhed against the vessel’s wall as if trying to get in it.
“Gotcha . . . ”
She made sure the recorder was getting the picture then panned some more. She found another one about a millimeter away. Then another. She estimated that his feet were infected with thousands of the squirming organisms.
She’d seen enough and turned the machine off.
“Have you stepped in anything in your bare feet?” she asked pulling the table out of the tube. “Fecal material, crap?”
“No.”
“Have you been in mud or water?”
Geary thought.
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“I stepped in a puddle out in the green last night.”
“Umm . . . ”
“I didn’t see anything in it, though.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“Any other aches, pains?”
“No, just my feet and ankles. What is it?”
“I don’t know much about it at this point, or very much about how to treat it for that matter.”
She made a decision right then to make sure the physician she ordered had a strong background in parasitology. From what she’d seen, the planet was crawling with parasitic organisms.
I knew it.
It wasn’t a life or death situation at the moment, and she had at least three other patients coming in with symptoms just as heinous. “I’m going to give you something for the swelling and ask you to come back tomorrow,” she said. “I should have some more information about how to proceed with treatment by then. You’re off work until I say you can go back.”
“You don’t know what it is, huh?”
“Not yet. No one does.”
“Doctors . . . ” Geary snorted.
That rankled. It was best not to rankle Donna Applegate when she was under pressure. Big mistake.
“I don’t want you to have any contact with other people except to say hello,” she said. “No physical contact. If I find out you have, I’ll quarantine you.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can and I will.”
She took off the other boot with a quick tug. “You can forget about these boots for a while, you’ll probably do better without them, anyway.”
She wrapped his feet in loose gauze then covered them with prophylactic booties, another odd, but fortunate, remnant from the orbiter’s infirmary.
After she sent Geary on his way, she accessed the clinic’s medical library and found as many references as she could to similar known organisms. Two or three Terran species came up that had some similarities. It looked most like an East African Guinea worm infestation. The larvae of the Guinea worm had to be ingested, but hookworm larvae had a modus operandi similar to Mr. Geary’s infection—boring through the flesh and traveling through the body, arriving at last at the gut where they attached and lived out their nasty little lives. She selected a poison used for hookworms to start with. It was a fairly common treatment.
It took her an hour of searching to discover she had absolutely none of the needed medicine.
If it came to it, she’d irradiate his feet in the scanner; that should kill them. She made some notes.
By the end of the day, she’d examined a dozen patients with a variety of ghastly infections. She’d wound up dispensing the remaining antibiotics almost at random, having little idea if any of it would have an effect on the problems she saw.
She would start ordering medicine tomorrow. She should have started today.
It was almost dark before she remembered to call that little prick Afshin.
After applying a broad spectrum topical to a grisly rash on a woman’s neck, she got on the phone.
Afshin was petulant. She’d expected it, and she was in just a foul enough mood to ram his petulance up his little ass.
“I need to see Mr. Smith right away,” she said evenly.
“I can’t do that.”
That was it. “I need the goddamned biological inventory reports. If I don’t have them in an hour, or an audience with Smith, I’ll assume they don’t exist. If I make that assumption, I’ll be forced to issue a complaint—asking for proof of compliance with EHBS 2344— to Commonwealth Health and Safety. Your office will then have to produce the goddamned survey results or send everybody home within a time frame defined by yours truly.”
“I see . . . ”
“That’s not all . . . ”
“Can you wait just a minute?”
“Just one.”
She could almost see him lose color. The screen went blank and she checked her watch. Forty-five seconds later, Afshin’s not-so-ruddy face was back in it, smiling.
“Mr. Smith can see you today. Isn’t that great?”
“Wonderful.”
“I’ll send a shuttle down for you within the hour.”
“I’ll be looking for it.” Smarmy bastard.
“There’s something else I need right away.”
“What would that be?”
“I need an administrative assistant first thing in the morning. Someone temporarily until I can order my own. I’m getting buried. I wasn’t anticipating this much activity this soon.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Fine,” she said and hung up.
She freshened up, changed into one of her best cottons then closed the clinic, asking a remaining patient to come back later in the day. She didn’t have a choice.
She stood on the landing dock and watched as Ed Smith’s personal shuttle
descended. It was older and rattier than she thought it would be, but the pilot was friendly and seemed competent enough.
There was a single steward on board named James, who offered her coffee and a little small talk that she discouraged with a sullen look and lots of silence.
On the way up, she rehearsed what she would say if pressed. She would not back down; it was too important. Lives were at stake, including her own and her staff. Smith could not have his way on this. She was prepared to do whatever was required to get what she needed to safeguard lives.
* * *
She didn’t feel much like talking to a stranger at the moment; she was too absorbed with the problem of Smith. The ride in the lift provided few options, though. She stared straight ahead but felt the question coming.
“Are you a doctor, then?” James asked.
“Grade Five Nurse,” Donna said, relenting. “Nurse Administrator, that is. It’s a new job classification that only I have,” she added with a wry grin.
“I see,” James said with a pleasant smile.
The orbiter was old and crappy on the inside like the shuttle. This entire operation was beginning to look cheap and underfunded. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected.
James led her down a series of narrow passageways until they arrived at Smith’s office. Afshin was sitting there at his desk and smiled brightly when she walked in.
“Donna! Hello! I’m so glad to meet you face to face.”
“Yeah, hi.”
“Please have a seat, Mr. Smith will be right with you.”
Being that close to Afshin combined with the too-clean steward hanging behind her made her very uneasy. She picked a chair as far away from both as she could get and sat down.
She barely had time enough to cross her legs when the door to Smith’s office swung open. She recognized him easily. He was older than his pictures.
He smiled warmly. “Come in, Donna,” he said.
His office was small but comfortable, almost homey. But she wasn’t going to be put off her guard. This was a very serious matter for both of them.
“Well . . . ” he said.
“I’m sure you’re aware of why I’m here,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t have to tell you how important biological inventories are to a project like this one.”
“I’m well aware of the importance,” he said easily.
“I assume you’ve actually been on the planet.”
“Oh, yes. Many times.”
“Then you probably know that the surface has a population of one hundred and twelve contract workers, including myself. What you probably don’t know is that a full third of them have infections ranging in degree from annoying to life threatening. Excuse me, but I feel like I’ve fallen into a pile of shit here.”
He smirked.
“I’m working blind,” she went on. “I’ve got no background, no data, no intelligence. I need those inventories. This is a very serious situation.”
“I’m very sorry about this,” he said. “The inventories were completed on time.”
That made no sense. Donna blinked. “Then where are they?” she asked.
“They were lost. I’ve ordered new ones,” he threw up his hands and looked completely frustrated all of a sudden. He pressed back in his chair and shook his head, his mouth tight.
“Lost?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I’m afraid someone sabotaged the data. Possibly the work of a disgruntled worker. Look, I’ve made a full report with Health and Safety, and I’ve ordered new ones, as I said. I’m sorry about this. I’m correcting the problem.”
“You are?”
“Yes. The Biologists are on their way as we speak. If I’m not mistaken they should dock with the orbiter sometime tomorrow. I can check that if you like. In any case, I need your indulgence here. You have helped me out,” he said suddenly firm again.
His precise tone and confident manner had taken the wind out of her sails. She didn’t like it, but he did make some sense. She wanted to believe it. She wanted to be relieved that the inventories were being redone, and she couldn’t help letting it show with a faint smile and a brightening around the eyes. Smith saw it.
“You look relieved,” he almost laughed.
She smiled broadly.
“Well, I am frankly,” she said.
He leaned forward and interlocked his fingers. A tiny alarm went off in her head.
“Donna, believe me, I know how important those surveys are. This is a very hostile environment. We’ve known that since the planet was first opened by Howard Verde. I’m not the kind of man to take unnecessary chances with the lives of others or to take the chance of losing the license I hold. I don’t like losing, and I’m sure you don’t, either. I can’t think of an easier, more foolish way to lose a franchise than to screw up the safety of the contractors. I personally believe that the laws regarding contractor safety are the best on the books. I started out as a miner. My father was an off-world contractor. Believe me, I know. They save lives. And I believe in safety.”
He might have gotten away with it if he had just shut up about it, but he rambled on a little too long, and Donna’s shit detector went off with a sharp little beeping sound. She knew where the conversation was going now. It was all too clear. She took a deep breath.
“Well, we don’t have much to protect our interests anymore except the safety laws. They’re just about the only thing we have,” she said firmly.
“I can remember what it was like to be in your shoes.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“We get screwed at every turn.”
“Sometimes it’s true.”
“No breaks. Hard work. Long hours. Little pay. We start work as children and never stop until we die.”
Smith pursed his lips sympathetically.
He just won’t stop.
“We indentured contractors have to do what we can to survive,” she said. “Most of us won’t make it to retirement. I’m sure you remember that fact as well.”
Smith opened his mouth with a slight smack sound and postured to rise up out of his chair—and to end the interview.
“So,” she continued. “I’m sure you’ll understand that I have to do what I can to ensure the safety of my co-workers. That is my job, and I take great pride in it.”
“As we all do.”
“I’m very sorry I have to do this.”
Smith turned to stone. “What do you mean?”
She turned every bit as hard as Smith. “Because the clinic has no biological inventories to provide a cautionary framework for the safety of the workers on Verde’s Revenge, I’m forced to file a stop order with Health and Safety, asking that all ground activity be suspended until the survey is complete. I can do this under EHCS 2344, sub-paragraph 29a. I don’t have a choice in the matter.”
There. She’d done what she had to do. It was the only way a lying bastard like Smith could be forced to do the right thing. He was a money pinching, corner-cutting scoff-law, she was sure of it. Such men had put her in this spot to begin with. God, it felt good to say what she had said.
“Well . . . ” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said evenly. “I’m sure you understand.”
“I see.”
“It’s the only way we can ensure the lives of the contractors on the planet’s surface,” she added for emphasis.
“Of course.”
“It’s better for all concerned. As you said, the laws ensuring contractor safety are the best on the books.”
Right up your ass, she thought.
“Well, you have the right, as the representative of Health and Safety to close the project down—by law.”
“I wouldn’t put it like that, but heaven forbid the survey determines that the planet contains even one Class A biological hazard.”
“Yes,” he agreed solemnly.
“You and I would be responsi
ble.”
“Of course.”
“And we don’t know that the hazards don’t exist at this point,” she said as if paraphrasing the protocol could drive the nails in further.
“Well, we’ll have to find out,” he said with a scowl.
He walked around the desk and leaned against it, arms crossed, the very picture of executive contemplation. “You’re talking about a shutdown of at least one hundred and twenty days,” he said. “That gets very expensive.”
Oh, I am so, so, sorry.
“You’ve taken me by surprise. But you’re right, of course. The inventories have to be done. When do you plan to make your report?”
“As soon as I get back to the clinic. I would expect the order to shut down to go into effect within the week.”
“What can I do to help you?”
Donna’s hackles rose. He was being too conciliatory.
“I take it you can house the contractors here on the orbiter until the work is complete?”
“It’ll be crowded, but we can manage it. I may ask that the next transport remained docked for the duration, that should give us some more room.”
“I’ll have to re-open the infirmary, but that shouldn’t take too much effort,” she added.
Smith extended his hand. Donna took it.
“You know, Donna, I could make it worth your while to delay that request.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, knowing the answer already.
“Take care of certain problems you have, for instance. Certain money or contract issues that you find objectionable, say.” Donna had never been offered a bribe before, and she suddenly wondered why. She had been in the right positions her entire professional life—positions that could have supported bribery as naturally as bacteria supported infections. Yet, this was the first time. Was it her attitude? Was it her professional demeanor or something deeper? Did she give off special vibrations that originated from the honest, principled end of the moral spectrum?
The pieces began to fit. As the General Contractor and holder of the Richthaus-Alvarez franchise for Project Development, Ed Smith could specify contractors that met any set of pre-conditions he wished. In this case, he’d ordered a Grade V Nurse/Administrator who was already under extreme financial pressure to run the clinic. Smith wanted people he could control associated with the project’s compliance issues.