by Ben Bova
Staring at her, Yeager wondered aloud, “What’s that all about?”
Deirdre pushed her chair away from the table and got to her feet. “I have to go,” she said.
“You haven’t had any breakfast!”
“I’m not that hungry, really.” And she hurried out of the dining room, glad to leave Yeager standing there alone.
* * *
Wrinkled, bald, mustachioed Dr. Pohan smiled at her as Deirdre stepped into his office, but somehow his smile seemed tense to her, forced. The wall screens showed images of medical scans, slices through her body, circles of intestines, interiors of lungs like budding, branching flowers, pulsing, beating organs.
That’s what I look like inside, Deirdre said to herself as she sat, staring fascinatedly, in front of the doctor’s desk.
Without preamble, Dr. Pohan said, “We have a puzzlement on our hands, young lady.”
“A puzzlement?”
“You have rabies.”
Shocked, Deirdre gasped, “Rabies? That’s impossible!”
Gesturing to the wall screens, “Impossible or not, your scans show the rabies virus lurking in your bloodstream. It can infect your brain, you know.”
“I can’t have rabies,” Deirdre insisted. “You get rabies from an animal bite, don’t you? I haven’t been bitten by any animal. We don’t allow pets on Chrysalis II; not animal pets, anyway.”
His strained smile still in place, Dr. Pohan said gently, “How you acquired the virus is puzzling, very puzzling. But the important thing at the moment is to neutralize the virus before it reaches your brain and you begin to show symptoms.”
“Neutralize it? You mean kill it?”
“If possible,” said the doctor. “There are injections that can eliminate the virus, but unfortunately we don’t carry such medications aboard ship. Who would expect cases of rabies to show up on an interplanetary liner?”
Deirdre caught the plural. “You said cases?”
“Yes. The woman you are replacing, she died of rabies on the trip out from Earth.”
INFIRMARY
“I could die?” Deirdre cried.
“If untreated,” said Dr. Pohan.
“But you said you don’t have the vaccine.…”
“The treatment requires human rabies immunoglobulin. We were able to fabricate a small amount of same in the ship’s pharmacy but it wasn’t enough to save my patient. The virus had spread through her nervous system and into her brain.”
Deirdre fought down an urge to scream. Forcing her voice to stay calm, steady, she asked, “Could you produce enough of it to treat me?”
For a century-long moment Dr. Pohan did not reply. At last he steepled his fingers and said softly, “We can try, Ms. Ambrose. It’s a rather difficult synthesis, but we can try.”
“And if you can’t…?”
The doctor shrugged. “The alternative is to freeze you until we arrive at Jupiter. I’ve already contacted the medical officer at station Gold and he has instructed his staff to produce the medication. It will be ready for you when you arrive there.”
“Rabies,” Deirdre repeated, her voice trembling just a bit.
“It is very strange,” said Dr. Pohan. “Neither you nor the unfortunate woman who died was bitten or scratched by a rabid animal. She was from Selene, a well-respected biologist. Of course, she frequently visited Earth. She could have contracted the disease there.”
“And she died.”
“Apparently she had been infected some time before boarding this ship. The preboarding medical examination missed her condition entirely. The automated scans were not programmed to check for rabies, unfortunately. By the time she began to exhibit symptoms, it was too late to save her.”
“And she died,” Deirdre repeated, in a whisper.
Dr. Pohan put on his professional smile once again. “Please do not worry unduly. We have caught your case early. You will not die from it, I am almost certain.”
That word almost blared in Deirdre’s mind.
* * *
Deirdre walked like an automaton from the infirmary to the elevators and went blindly, unthinkingly, back to the dining room. It was closed: too late for breakfast, too early for lunch. It didn’t matter; she had no appetite.
How could I get rabies? she asked herself a few thousand times as she headed back to her stateroom. By the time she got there, the room had already been cleaned, the bed made neatly, the lavatory sparkling.
Deirdre plunked herself down on the spongy little chair in front of the compartment’s computer. Rabies, she repeated silently. She told the computer to look it up.
She heard a thump on her door. With a sigh, she got up and slid it open.
Dorn was standing there, his broad body filling the door frame. Behind him Deirdre saw Andy Corvus, grinning shyly at her, and Yeager, his smile almost a leer. Corvus was clutching a large aluminum box, gripping the handles on its sides in both his hands.
“We’re going down to the dolphin tank,” Andy said enthusiastically before any of the others could speak. “Wanna come with us?”
Deirdre blinked at him. “The dolphin tank?”
Yeager piped up. “The ship’s carrying six dolphins out to Jupiter. Andy wants to talk to ’em.”
“Come on,” Andy coaxed. “I’ll connect you to the dolphins if you like.”
The box he was holding was obviously heavy; she could see the tension in his arms. Why doesn’t he ask Dorn to hold it for him? Deirdre wondered. Or at least to help him carry it?
Dorn spoke up. “If we’re imposing on your privacy…”
“No,” Deirdre decided, “it’s perfectly all right. I could use a little diversion this morning.”
The four of them started down the passageway toward the elevators, Corvus lugging the big case all by himself.
* * *
Katherine Westfall was deep in discussion with Grant Archer, at the research station orbiting Jupiter.
The discussion, though, was not a conversation. Australia was still so far from Jupiter that it took electronic communications, traveling at the speed of light, slightly more than twenty-one minutes to span the distance between the ship and the Thomas Gold station. So their discussion consisted of alternating monologues. One would talk and then, some forty-two minutes later, the other could respond.
Archer’s serious, steady-eyed face filled the wall screen in Mrs. Westfall’s sitting room. As she reclined in a softly yielding chaise longue, she studied the scientist’s intense, oh-so-earnest expression. He’s rather good-looking, she thought. Boyish, almost, except for that gray little beard. Married. Happily, from what his dossier says. At least, he’s been married to the same woman for more than twenty years.
“… and although we’re considerably over budget in several areas,” Archer was saying, as if reading from a text, “I feel certain that once you’re here and have the chance to see what we’re trying to accomplish, you’ll agree that our work is too close to success to be inhibited by budget cuts.”
She smiled at him. Naïve fool, she thought. Scientists are all alike. What I’m doing is so important that it mustn’t be stopped or even cut back. Money is no object. Of course it isn’t. It’s not their money that they’re spending.
Archer had stopped talking. His image stood frozen on her display screen. That meant that he was finished for the time being and was waiting for her reply to reach him.
Westfall did not need a prepared script. Keeping her smile in place, she said, “I’m sure that the work you’re doing is very important, Dr. Archer, but the economic facts of life must be taken into account, whether we like it or not.”
Sitting up a little straighter, she went on, “Your research work is funded out of the profits made by the scoopship operations, as you know. The market for scooping fusion fuels out of Jupiter’s atmosphere has leveled off. We are no longer expanding our construction of new fusion powerplants on Earth, and even the market for fusion torch ships has gone rather flat.
; “That means that the profits have leveled off, and you can’t expect increases in your funding. I’m afraid there’s nothing that I, or you, or anyone can do about that. You must cut back on your budget, just like the rest of us.”
She hesitated, wondering inwardly, Should I let him know that I’m aware of this giant submersible he’s building? No, she decided. I want to see the shock on his face in person, up close.
She spoke a few more meaningless words of farewell, ending the discussion. The screen went blank gray.
Katherine Westfall leaned back in the couch as if exhausted by the morning’s exertion. But she was thinking, I know what he’ll do now. He’ll rush to get that submersible finished and send a crew back into the ocean before I can cut off his funding altogether.
He’ll push his people to their utmost. He’ll be in a sweat to go back into the ocean and kill more of his underlings. Just like his predecessor killed my sister.
Good, she thought. All to the good.
DOLPHIN TANK
It was like being underwater. The dolphin tank took up four entire decks of the torch ship: four levels had been ripped out and filled with salt water, their outer bulkheads reinforced to withstand the pressure. The central core, where the elevator and ship’s plumbing and electrical conduits ran, passed through the giant glassteel-walled tank.
Deirdre gasped in awe as she and her companions stepped out of the elevator cab. They were standing on a narrow circular platform, surrounded by the aquarium and its gliding, sinuous, colorful fish. She shivered slightly; the place felt chilly, and it smelled of a salty tang—clean, she decided. The air was cool and fresh, not like the other decks where the human crew and passengers lived.
“It’s like being inside the ocean!” she exclaimed.
Corvus nodded happily. “That’s right. It’s as self-contained an ocean environment as the best ecologists on Earth could produce in this limited volume.” He put the square aluminum case he’d been carrying down on the bare metal deck and rubbed his arms. “That bugger is heavy!”
A pair of dolphins slid past, sleek, gray, squeaking and clicking, their mouths turned up in a perpetual silly grin. They reminded Deirdre of Andy.
“Well,” Corvus said, “to work.” And he began to tug off his coveralls.
“You’re not going into the water with them?” Yeager asked, looking a trifle apprehensive.
“Just long enough to insert the transceiver into that youngster there.” He pointed at one of the smaller dolphins. It seemed to be eying Corvus as it swam past.
Once he’d peeled down to black skintight trunks, Corvus opened the big aluminum case and began pulling out a pair of swim fins, a breathing mask, and a cylinder of compressed air. Dorn stepped over and helped him strap the air tank onto his back.
“How do you get into the water?” Deirdre asked.
Pointing behind her, Andy explained, “Easy. Up the ladder to the top of the tank, over the edge up there, then kerplop! into the water.”
“You’ve done this before?” Yeager asked.
“Every day since we left lunar orbit, just to get acquainted with the dolphins.”
Deirdre was impressed with Andy’s agility as he scrambled up the metal ladder carrying his fins in one hand. He’d hung the palm-sized metal cylinder of his transceiver around his neck on a metal link chain.
“The water must be cold,” she said to Dorn, standing beside her. Yeager had moved slightly away; he was staring into the tank, watching the fish swimming tirelessly past.
Corvus pulled on his breathing mask and slipped into the water with barely a ripple. One of the dolphins swam up toward him with a barrage of clicks and whistles. Andy jackknifed and dived down toward the smallest of the dolphins. It circled him twice, chattering madly, then dashed away. Two of the bigger dolphins glided alongside Andy, one on either side. The little dolphin obviously wanted to play, but after several minutes of gyrations, the dolphin finally eased into a steady glide and allowed Corvus to slide one arm along its back.
They swam together for several minutes. Deirdre saw that, baby or not, the little dolphin was slightly longer than Andy’s lanky form, swim fins and all. The adults dwarfed him.
At last he was able to insert his transceiver into a slot that had been surgically implanted in the young dolphin’s skull. The two larger dolphins hovered around the youngster, chattering off a rapid-fire clatter of clicks. That’s their language, Deirdre said to herself.
After a few more minutes, Andy kicked up to the surface and climbed out of the tank. Dripping wet, he came down the ladder to join them on the deck.
Dorn pulled a big white terry cloth towel out of the capacious aluminum case and draped it over Andy’s shoulders as soon as he slipped his air tank off. Deirdre couldn’t help wondering if the puddles Andy was dripping onto the deck might be slippery.
Yeager, looking even more ill at ease, had the same thought. “These puddles could be dangerous,” he half growled.
“There’s a mini vac in here someplace,” Corvus said, ducking his head into the case. He pulled the vacuum out and offered it to Yeager. “Here.”
Yeager looked astonished, then almost angry. But he took the tool and sucked up the puddles without complaint. Deirdre was surprised at how loud the machine was; its buzzing noise seemed to echo off the walls of the tank.
Corvus didn’t notice the noise at all. He was busy pulling a gray electronics box out of his carrying case. To Deirdre it looked almost like an old-fashioned notebook computer, perhaps slightly bigger. Sitting it on the lid of the big aluminum case, Corvus opened up the device, turned it on, nodded when its screen brightened.
Then he pulled out a slim metallic circular band that glittered with optronic chips, lifted it in both hands like a royal crown, and settled it onto his matted, still-wet hair.
“Okay,” he said, looking up at Deirdre and the others. “Now we see if it works.”
Corvus seemed to go into a trance. His eyes half closed, his slightly uneven face relaxed into a sleeplike softness as he crouched on his knees by the electronics box. Like a sleepwalker he turned to the curving wall of the aquarium, then pressed his fingertips against the glassteel.
Dorn was watching him intently. Yeager looked edgy. Deirdre stood over Corvus, not knowing what to do, or if she should even try to do anything. Unbidden, the memory of her visit to Dr. Pohan came back into the forefront of her mind. Rabies, she thought. If he can’t synthesize the antidote I could die.
The baby dolphin glided up to Corvus, squeaking and chattering, its two parents hovering not far off. Corvus turned sluggishly and rested his back against the curving glassteel wall of the tank. His chin drooped to his chest, his eyes closed completely. But his fingers twitched slightly.
“Is he all right?” Deirdre wondered.
“He seems to be breathing normally,” said Dorn.
For several nerve-stretching minutes they watched Corvus. Nothing happened. The baby dolphin hovered near Andy, but silently now. The two adults swam smoothly, their powerful tails rhythmically surging up and down. The fish scurried around and around the circular tank endlessly. The adult dolphins had gone quiet, too, Deirdre noticed.
She looked from Corvus’s semicomatose figure up to the circling fish and the silent dolphins, then back to Andy again. “Should we do something?”
“Do what?” Dorn asked.
Yeager gave a disgusted snort. “This is like watching paint dry.” He turned and punched the elevator button.
“You’re leaving?” Deirdre asked.
“I’ve got better things to do with my time than watch him—”
Corvus stirred. His entire body seemed to spasm once, then his eyes opened and he smiled lazily. “Made it,” he said. “How long was I out?”
Reaching down to help Corvus to his feet, Dorn replied, “We didn’t time you.”
“That’s okay,” Corvus said easily as he lifted the circlet off his head. “It’s all in the computer log.”
“You
were in contact with the dolphins?” Deirdre asked.
“Sort of,” he said. “It wasn’t really all that good. I couldn’t get much out of her.”
“The little one?”
“Yeah. Baby.” He pointed as the trio of dolphins glided past them, chattering again. “She’s got the transceiver in her skull.” Brightening, he said, “Well, it wasn’t bad for a first try.”
The elevator doors slid open and Yeager stepped into the cab.
“Hey Max!” Corvus called. “Don’t you want to try it?”
“Hell no!” Yeager snapped as the doors slid shut.
“He’s scared,” Corvus said, as if it surprised him.
Dorn shook his head. “Merely cautious. He’s an engineer, after all. He doesn’t plunge into a new experience without checking all the possibilities first.”
Corvus nodded, but he still looked disappointed.
“How about you, then?” he asked Dorn.
METAMORPHOSIS
“Me?” Dorn seemed shaken by Andy’s question.
Corvus nodded hard enough to make a lock of his wetly matted strawberry hair flop over his forehead. “See if you can make contact with them,” he said.
Dorn looked up at the dolphins swimming past, then back at Corvus again. “I don’t know…”
Corvus stepped toward him, holding the optronic circlet in his extended hand. The slim metal band, studded with many-hued ovals, gleamed like a jeweled tiara. “It ought to work fine: I mean, the metal of your head will make a terrific contact.”
Dorn looked anything but willing, Deirdre thought. He accepted the ring with his human hand and slowly fitted it over the metal cap of his head. On him it looks like a crown of thorns, Deirdre thought.
Smiling with satisfaction, Corvus pecked at the computer’s miniature keyboard.
“Okay,” he said to Dorn. “Just relax. I’ll set up the connection for you.”