STARDANCER

by Ed Howdershelt

  "I will, Commander. Thank you."

  The Commander broke the connection and Captain T'Var suddenly realized that he was perched on the edge of his chair. He stood and straightened his uniform.

  "That message doesn't leave this bridge yet, people. Tac Commander, you have the conn. You heard the man. Nobody leaves the planet. Get that confirmation on a secure channel and route it to my ready room, please."

  Chapter Six

  T'Var reviewed his ship's available data concerning Eirania for half an hour or so before the Tac officer signaled and said, "HQ is on the horn, Captain. They'd like a word with you."

  "Put them through, Tac. Make a secure copy, Command eyes only."

  "Yes, sir. Putting them through now."

  T'Var's vid screen's 'incoming' box lit up and he closed his review of Eiranian data to take the call.

  "Captain T'Var here."

  Admiral T'Pel delivered the message this time. He sat stiffly and read from something on his desk, looking up now and then into the recorder.

  "Hello, T'Var. I have a lot of people to call, so I'll keep this as short as possible. A virus has been released that has effectively eliminated over ninety percent of the populations of our Confederated Worlds in the space of only a few days. Samples have been collected and lab results have yet to determine the source, but it is suspected - only suspected, at the present time - that this virus was created and distributed by the Eiranians."

  The man on screen paused to clear his throat and continued, "We cannot do more than sanction Eirania as a preventive measure until it is known for certain that they, indeed, perpetrated this horrible plague. You are to take no action other than total containment of the planet until their guilt is proven."

  He paused again and took a cue from someone out of visual range.

  Nodding to whomever had cued him, he said, "This message was to contain a current listing of all affected worlds. It has become the opinion of myself and others that such information should not be released to crews of military vessels until it is known beyond a shadow of a doubt who is responsible for this atrocity and a course of action decided upon."

  'Well, damn,' thought T'Var. 'That's not going to help matters any more than telling them would have.'

  "I'm sorry that I don't have more information for you, Captain T'Var. Truly I am. But in the interest of justice, I cannot stress strongly enough that we cannot act on a matter of this magnitude without being absolutely sure. For now, your only duty is to contain the planet, but you may do so by any necessary means in order to absolutely prevent any vessel of any sort from leaving Eirania. That is all, Captain T'Var."

  Admiral T'Pel rubbed his eyes and looked back into the recorder for a quiet moment, then said, "By the way, T'Var, I'm very glad to see that you and your crew are healthy. Please try to remain so. Those of us in space appear... Uhm, those of us in space appear to be all that's left of our various peoples."

  The Admiral shook his head slightly and added, "T'Pel out."

  The message ended and the screen blanked. T'Var sat staring at the screen for some time before he called the Tac officer.

  "I want a meeting of all key personnel, Tac. All people from all shifts. One hour from now. I'll be in sickbay if you need me."

  L'Sil was on an errand when T'Var reached sickbay. The nurse was nowhere in sight and the doctor was using the nursing station desk.

  The doctor looked up from his work and said, "Hello, Captain."

  "How is she? I need to see her for a little while."

  "She's doing fine, Captain. In another week or so it will probably be safe to let her out of bed."

  "Good," said T'Var. He pointed at the monitoring devices and asked, "You think she can survive without those for a little while?"

  The doctor shrugged and said, "Sure. They're mostly for my benefit, anyway. I can monitor a dozen patients at once from here."

  "Then turn it off. Where's your nurse?"

  "Probably talking to her boyfriend in the sci-lab next door. She's at lunch."

  "Good. Turn those things off, I said. Then come with me."

  The doctor was startled by the order and its tone. T'Var watched him turn off the equipment, then headed for L'Tan's room. The doctor hurried to follow him.

  Once inside L'Tan's room, the Captain asked, "Can anyone hear us in here? I have something to say that shouldn't be heard outside this room."

  "Nobody can hear us, Captain."

  T'Var sighed and turned to L'Tan.

  "Consul L'Tan, HQ says that the Eiranians may have let a virus loose on the Confederation. Ninety percent casualties. Hundreds of worlds. Billions dead. I'm not letting this news out, yet, because we don't need to have the crew coming apart at the seams."

  The doctor's knees failed him and he sagged into the chair.

  "No. Not 'casualties', Captain. There are no wounded. The report should have used the word 'mortality'. What about Talira? My family..?"

  "I wasn't told which planets in particular were affected."

  The doctor lapsed into stunned silence. His hands seemed to flutter before him for a moment, then lay still in his lap. T'Var touched his shoulder to get his attention.

  "Can you hold on for a while? I may need your services."

  "I... "

  Even as he stared up at T'Var, the doctor's eyes seemed to unfocus again. T'Var placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

  "L'Tan, how are you taking this news?"

  "Not well at all, but better than the doctor, I think."

  "Good. I may need some off-bridge help soon. The job's yours."

  "What kind of help? I'm kind of stuck here, T'Var."

  "Well, for one thing, I may need a conscience in the near future. Do you have one you can lend me if mine goes off-line?"

  "I'm not sure yet. This hasn't really soaked in yet for you, either, has it? You're preparing for when it hits bottom, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  "And when it does?"

  "The Alliance can sterilize a planet the size of Eirania. I'm not sure I'll be able to hear those who oppose that idea."

  "You're already hearing them. You're worried that you may stop listening."

  "Yes."

  "T'Var, if those bastards really did this, do you think I'd try to stop you?"

  "I don't know. Would you?"

  "I really don't know yet. Still want my input?"

  "Yes."

  "You've got it, then."

  T'Var nodded and glanced down at the doctor.

  "I let the doctor in on this to give him time to get past it, if he can. We'll have our hands full when the crew finds out, and I'll need him functional by then. That's one way you can help me right now, Stardancer; by trying to help him. I'd best get back to the bridge, now."

  L'Tan nodded and T'Var left the room. The doctor was still staring at the foot of the bed. L'Tan wondered what he was seeing that his eyes weren't. After a few minutes, he simply leaned forward and let his head rest on the bed. L'Tan put her hand on the back of his head and hoped that she'd be strong enough to be of some comfort to him.

  T'Var walked into the briefing room and found it packed. He scanned the small crowd for a moment, giving them time to quiet down, and noted that all were present.

  Pulling his chair away from the table, T'Var sat down and waved at the others to do so. Once all were seated, he began speaking to them.

  "People, our present mission is to keep anyone from leaving Eirania by any means necessary. That is our only mission at the moment. There's a high probability that anyone trying to leave the planet will be infected with a deadly disease; a disease for which we have no cure. For that reason, we will not be capturing vessels. We will be destroying them. If anyone here feels that he or she cannot go along with these orders, speak up."

  When no one moved or spoke, T'Var said, "Good. Meeting adjourned."

  Chapter Seven

  T'Mar walked out of the next-door lab and almost ran into L'Sil in the hallway. He wal
ked with her to L'Tan's room, noticing along the way that something was different about the nurse's station, but not immediately realizing exactly what.

  Looking around for the doctor or the nurse, he excused himself and went back to take another look at the nurse's station as L'Sil knocked on Stardancer's door and was told to come in. That was odd, too. L'Tan's door hadn't been closed any other time that he'd visited sickbay.

  Once he'd walked behind the desk in the nurse's station, he realized instantly what was missing. Noise. None of the monitoring equipment was operating. He tapped the on button and the system came to life.

  "...with a pathogen," L'Tan was saying.

  "That's impossible," said L'Sil. "It has to be. Nobody could do something like that."

  "The Eiranians are religious fanatics, Captain. They can do anydamnedthing and find a way to rationalize it. There's even a passage in their holy book that commands them to kill all infidels. Until now, they haven't had the means to do a thorough job of it, that's all."

  "I just can't believe it. I'm sorry, L'Tan, but it's just too much to accept."

  "Accept that it's a possibility, L'Sil. We may all have to deal with it very soon. Where's T'Mar?"

  T'Mar tapped the intercom button.

  "I'm at the nurse's station. Someone turned off your hardware, ma'am. I just turned it back on."

  "How much did you hear?"

  "Not much. Biowarfare. Likely the Eiranians behind it."

  "Come in here, T'Mar, and turn off that hardware before you leave. It was off for a reason. Is the nurse back yet?"

  "No."

  "Then do something to keep that stuff off, will you? Disable it."

  "Where's the doctor?"

  "In here. Just do it, T'Mar, then come in here."

  He looked around and underneath the equipment and finally decided that yanking out the power cord would be the best way. It didn't pull free of the box, so he tied the end around one of the stand's legs and put his foot on the cord. It took almost his entire weight before it broke. T'Mar caught himself before he could topple the stand and headed for L'Tan's room.

  A few minutes later he had the rest of the story as far as it was known. His reaction was to bring two more chairs into L'Tan's room - one for L'Sil, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, and one for himself. They sat on either side of the doctor in silence as she reiterated the situation for him.

  T'Mar asked, "So what's likely to be the next move? Will the Captain be ordered to do anything more than keep Eirania isolated?"

  "Probably not," said L'Tan. "Not until a course of action is decided upon and more ships arrive. You two are handling this better than I expected."

  Her gaze fell on L'Sil, who shrugged.

  "I'm a fifth-generation shipbrat. Until I joined the service, I'd never been dirtside anywhere. What's happened is terrible, but, truthfully, it hasn't really happened to me. In a personal sense, that is. Sorry if that seems callous."

  "Well, we're going to need some callous people, so stay that way. How about you, T'Mar?"

  "I was orphaned at age thirty-one. No other family. I've moved around a lot, so I don't have a lot of close friends. Like she said, it hasn't really happened to me, personally."

  L'Tan nodded. The doctor stood up and glared at L'Sil and T'Mar for a moment, then spoke softly.

  "Well, aren't you people just too damned lucky?"

  He turned and strode toward the door.

  L'Tan raised her voice and said, "Stop right there, doctor."

  The doctor stopped with his hand on the door and glared back at her.

  L'Tan said, "Yes, they are lucky not to have lost close relatives and friends. And so are we, because those aboard who will take this hard will need people like them to get through this."

  The doctor glared, but said nothing. After a moment, he opened the door and left the room.

  "T'Mar," said L'Tan, "You're the one who joined us from Danar, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  L'Tan gazed hard at him for a moment.

  "I was there for a while some time ago. There aren't many reasons to go to Danar, are there? Even as a government employee. The whole planet is almost one big desert. Did you happen to work with or for a man named T'Kal?"

  "I'm not at liberty to discuss my work on Danar."

  L'Tan nodded again.

  "L'Sil, I need a word alone with T'Mar. Would you see if you can find us a bit of lunch?"

  L'Sil's expression was one of startlement at being excluded, but she said, "Yes, ma'am," then left the room.

  "Now," said L'Tan, "Let's get something straight, T'Mar. I don't give a damn what you were doing on Danar. Chances are that Danar and a lot of other worlds are history, now, anyway. But if you were working for T'Kal, I want to know why one of our Confederation's spies took a job pushing papers in my Consulate without my knowledge."

  After a moment, T'Mar shrugged.

  "You're right. It doesn't really matter now. The case we were working came apart at the seams when one group of smugglers tried to take over another group's turf. One of the takeover group's people recognized me. We'd been stationed at the same base ten years before. About that time I tossed a grenade, then ran for it. Barely made it to the embassy ahead of them. Most of them were arrested. T'Kal needed a safe and readily available place to stash his star witness for a few months until the trial, so someone found me a job in your offices."

  L'Sil laughed shortly and said, "Safe. I guess we've learned how little that word means lately. Who can I contact to verify you, T'Mar? Is T'Mar your real name? We have to assume that T'Kal isn't available."

  "T'Mar is my name. The Comm officer can find out who's left to contact if you have enough pull to make someone to talk to you."

  L'Tan smiled slightly and said, "Don't get defensive, T'Mar. You may be assigned to me by tomorrow. That's why I need to know a little more about you."

  "Assigned to do what? The Consulate is history. Eirania may be history shortly, too, when word gets out."

  "Maybe nobody is who or what they seemed to be, T'Mar. Why do you think I was stationed on Eirania? They could have put a dozen others there, instead, and any one of them would have paid off someone's political debt."

  T'Mar shrugged again and grinned as he said, "If you can dig up what you want to know about me, you probably do have pull enough to get me reassigned to you. In the meantime, since I was working for you, anyway, I guess I'll just keep working for you until the home office says otherwise. Will that do?"

  "That'll do just fine, thanks. Of course, when you do your own checking on me, you could suggest the reassignment."

  "I could, at that. May as well, since it doesn't appear that any of us will be leaving the Alliance any time soon."

  L'Sil returned with a cart from the dining hall that contained four trays of food.

  "The doctor didn't want his, but if I leave it, he may change his mind later. Did you and T'Mar finish your business, or should I plan on leaving again right after lunch?"

  L'Tan said, "We're through for now. It turns out that he isn't just a file clerk, L'Sil. I can't give you details, but you're to consider him your equal in rank and station for the time being."

  L'Sil glanced at T'Mar and then back at L'Tan.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Chapter Eight

  "I've been thinking," said L'Tan. "Assuming that the Eiranians released the virus, either they have a vaccine and have used it or they never planned for the virus to reach Eirania. Since we'd be talking about trying to secretly vaccinate about three billion people, it seems likely to me that they never intended to have to deal with the virus at home. How would they accomplish that?"

  L'Sil said, "They detonated a nuke over their largest port city in an attempt to hit the Alliance. I'm not sure they'd give a damn about using the virus if their top people were inoculated first."

  T'Mar said, "It would be a highly infectious, short-lived virus that would require a live host in order to propagate itself. Convince some peo
ple to all become martyrs on the same date, put them where you want them, and then wait a few weeks or months before you move your people in. But the idea that they'd release the virus on their own planet doesn't add up when you consider the amazingly high birth rate on Erania over the last two decades."

  L'Sil looked questioningly at him.

  "That's right," he said. "They dropped the age of marriage to twelve about twenty-two years ago, right after their civil war ended, and then started propagandizing to get every eligible woman married and pregnant. It's been a breeding frenzy. Today, about a third of the population is made up of young people who have been subjected to heavy religious indoctrination all their lives, and who'd be ready to die for any religious cause their leaders throw up. They probably sent a few to each world on their list. What's a few hundred out of a billion?"

  "Do you really believe that?" asked L'Sil. "That they've been planning this attack for two decades without someone finding out about it somehow?"

  "I don't have to believe it," said T'Mar. "I'm just speculating. A billion or so people could take over hundreds of freshly-empty worlds."

  "It makes sense to me," said L'Tan. "They thoroughly isolated themselves after their civil war, and their post-war population almost doubled in one generation. You never see Eiranians anywhere but on Eirania unless they're diplomatic types or students. There is no tourism on Eirania; you can't even get a visa unless you're on business. They send ore out in trade for food, money, and goods they can't make themselves, and that's about the sum total of their contact with other worlds."

  "That just means they're isolationists," said L'Sil, "Not that they're responsible for what's happened. For all we know, someone else did it and deliberately left them untouched so that it would look as if they were responsible."

  L'Tan gave her a moderately exasperated look and said, "That's why there's an investigation instead of a lynch mob. That's why Captain T'Var was told to do nothing for the moment. Now, for the purposes of this discussion, L'Sil, we will assume that the Eiranians will be found guilty and base our speculations on that assumption. Clear?"