The Long Way Home

by Darrell Bain

  The patients were indeed sick. The worst ones were beginning to suffer from some shortness of breath, while the others just had a general feeling of listlessness. He examined them but felt helpless. However, he felt he had to do something, especially as Lisa ordered him to get busy after she called Shinzyki and told him to put the boat into orbit and find a place to land on the planet they'd already found and was nearby.

  While Casey got them moved into empty cabins, two to a room, Jeremy downloaded everything he could find on sickness and treatment. Explorers had to know about the dangers facing them on new worlds, and he remembered that the most common of impediments to settlements was a microorganism that liked the taste of humans. It didn't happen often, but when it did, there was always a quick scramble to find out what it was and get their nannites tailored to combat it. Usually it didn't take long, and most times the nannites did the job without even having to be programmed. Apparently this wasn't going to be one of those cases.

  He first drew blood specimens, fumbling with the medical autophlebotomy instrument. He treated the blood and examined the preparations visually under increasingly higher powers of magnification with various dyes tagged to show the cells in one color and foreign organisms in another. Nothing showed up except what he took to be artifacts introduced during the preparation or from the dyes. Some were always present to varying degrees, so he thought nothing of it. Next he ran the blood through an analyzer he also had to learn how to use. The sickest individuals were somewhat anemic, but that told him nothing about how to cure them. He read the manual and learned how to operate the hand imager to look inside the body. It took a couple of hours before he could use it to good effect, but it produced no clues.

  While he was reading, he was joined by E4 Sing Yun, the only other microbiologist left. Jeremy had sent for him to look at the original results on the organisms of every planet with life on it that they'd set foot on for the last three months, beginning with the most recent.

  "I brought the data you wanted, Lieutenant Costa,” he said. “I went back over all of it and couldn't find anything that might have caused this stuff."

  "Thanks, Sing.” Something about the man's voice alerted him. “How are you feeling?"

  "Uh, actually, not so hot, sir. Not much energy."

  "Go to the isolation cabins and turn yourself in. I'll go over this again myself. Not that I think you aren't competent, but maybe different eyes might see something."

  "Sure. Thanks, sir. I'll go now. I really am feeling shitty."

  By this time Jeremy was well behind on sleep, but he decided to look over Sing's data before trying to get a couple of hours sleep. Hours later, he yawned and realized that he hadn't understood a thing he'd read for the last quarter hour. He tapped his forearm.

  "Commander."

  "Costa here, Skipper. I'm going to have to get some sleep. I'd been awake almost a full day when this came up. I'm not making sense to myself any longer. I'm going to lie down for a couple of hours, if that's okay."

  "Go ahead. You're not feeling bad, are you?"

  "No, ma'am, just awfully tired and sleepy. Give me two hours and let my wash my face and I'll get back on it."

  "Go. Oh, is there anything you need?"

  "Can't think of anything."

  "Go to bed."

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  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jeremy woke with something trying to ring a bell, but it wasn't until he'd had a cup of coffee that he could pull it up out of the depths of his overworked brain. All the ones who had fallen ill to begin with were on the same watch. It wasn't until almost eighteen hours later that ones from the other watch began getting sick. He began looking back over the log book to see which shift had been on the last planet first—the one the crew had named Tophat for the shape of one of the continents. Sure enough, the first ones ill had been on the first shift. It didn't necessarily prove anything, but it was something to concentrate on, and he hadn't had that until now.

  He began playing with the data, studying the log book against the time of illness, severity of symptoms and any other datum he could think of. That was when he noticed that he, Lisa and Rufus were the only three persons not showing symptoms. He called Rufus immediately.

  "Shinzyki here."

  "Rufus, it's Jeremy. Did you leave the boat while we were on Tophat?"

  "No. Why?"

  "How about Roughroad—the one before that?"

  "Yes. What are you getting at?"

  "I think whatever this sickness is came from Tophat. I don't know the cause of it yet or the cure, but that's where it came from. And you, me and the Commander are the only three people not showing symptoms."

  "Good work. Now get them well."

  "Working on it, Rufus."

  He began wondering why the nannites present in everyone's bodies hadn't at least tried to fight the illness. Or maybe they had. He went around and took blood from several of the crew, then, after reading up on how to operate a nannite determinator, he put the blood samples through it. The results showed the nannites attempting symptomatic healing but nothing more. He had no idea if that was good or bad. Hadn't he read somewhere that symptoms of illness were the result of the body trying to heal itself? He couldn't remember and couldn't find a reference. At any rate, he saw no indication of hostile microorganisms in Sing's original analysis of the life on Tophat, nor had the tests he'd run on the blood turned up any. It was frustrating as hell. Something was making the people sick and he couldn't find out what it was.

  He went to find something to eat. No one was in the pantry, which made him wonder if everyone in the boat had taken to his bed. He was preparing to tap into Rufus’ com when he showed up in person.

  "I see you had the same idea,” Rufus said.

  "Yeah. Is everyone too sick to eat now?"

  "Damn near. Commander Trammell and I have been taking food to them and helping the real sick ones cope. What've you turned up?"

  "Not a damned thing, except I know we picked it up on Tophat. You said real sick ones?"

  "Uh huh. A few of them are not looking good at all. I'm beginning to get worried. Our nannites can beat just about anything, but they don't seem to recognize whatever it is that's hurting us."

  "Does everyone but us three have it now?"

  "Everyone but Bullock. He's showing a few symptoms, but he's well enough to help with the others."

  "Huh? That doesn't sound right."

  Rufus shrugged. “What do I know? I'm just telling you what's happening."

  "Well, thanks. Maybe I'll go over his physical readouts again and see if they're any different from the others. I've got to come up with something if the crew is getting as sick as you say."

  Eating made Jeremy feel sleepy and tired again. It took an effort, but he resisted it and began going over the physical and chemical exams he'd done on a number of the patients. Bullock was among them. The only difference he could see was that he had very little anemia.

  Lacking any other clear path to finding a treatment, he began looking at all his data again, beginning with the microscopic analysis. Still nothing. At last he simply had to sleep. During the night three explorers died.

  The deaths made him doubly determined to find an answer, not the least because if all the crew died, he and Trammell and Shinzyki would have an awfully hard time getting the boat home by themselves.

  "Jeremy, have you got anything at all we can use to help?” Lisa looked as tired as he felt. It made him wonder whether or not the sickness could be passed from person to person.

  "How are you feeling?” he asked her.

  "Just tired, like you and Rufus and Bullock."

  "Bullock. Damn it, there's something I'm missing. Why should the others be so sick and not him?"

  "Well, you'd better find it quickly, or we won't have a crew left."

  The pressure only made him try harder. He forced himself to do an autopsy as best he could to see if he could find anything internally that made sen
se. He didn't, other than the bladder had a residue of dark liquid in it. Urine? Could that mean anything? Again he went to the computer, but he could find only a few references and none that helped. It was frustrating in the extreme, because sickness was seen so seldom in modern times. The nannites kept a person's body healthy for several centuries, by all indications, even though the technique had only been in use for less than two. It was a rare occasion when the nannites couldn't take care of a problem. They ferreted out foreign organisms and repaired tissue better than natural defenses did.

  By the next day, most of the watch who had become ill first were very sick, and two were dead. The three well persons other than himself were staggering from exhaustion, but still caring for the others. He could barely keep his eyes open himself as he kept reading and going over all his reports again and again. He kept going back to Bullock. Something in his body appeared to provide a natural defense against the unknown disease. Jeremy tracked Bullock down where he was helping with those too ill to help themselves. He was holding a glass for Juanita to drink from. She looked pale and wan and had lost weight. The other person in the cabin was unmoving, either near death or already dead.

  Seeing Juanita like that made him almost cry.

  "Hel ... hello, Jere,” she said in a weak voice.

  He went to her and caressed her brow. “Hi ‘Nita. I'm doing my best to come up with a cure for you. Hang in there."

  "I ... I'll ... try,” she said then her head slumped back to the pillow as if the few words she'd uttered had completely enervated her. He saw that the transparent container holding her urine was very dark. If he drew more blood from her he was sure that she would be anemic, perhaps extremely so. The dark color was simply metabolites of broken-up red blood cells. Something was causing that to happen, but what? God, what he wouldn't give to have a physician on the boat, or hell, even a general medical text, but he had neither. The explorer medics were trained to care for accidents or wounds until the person's nannites were able to cope, but they were not trained to treat disease.

  He looked helplessly at Bullock. His earnest brown face showed how powerless he felt at not being able to do anything to help, other than wipe a brow or hold a glass. Bullock set the glass back down. Something clicked in Jeremy's mind—something he'd read or been told about a long time ago. It had something to do with skin color, he thought, but only incidentally.

  "Marvin, come back to my cabin with me. I want to talk to you."

  Once there, Jeremy made fresh coffee and began quizzing Bullock on his family history, diet, what sort of chemicals he might have been exposed to and anything else he could think of. He didn't know exactly what he was after, but he had that sense of knowing the solution to a problem or the right word to finish a puzzle but not being able to think of it.

  "Why all the questions, sir? Have I done something wrong?"

  "No, no, Marvin. There's just something different about you from anyone else in the boat—something that's protecting you from this disease."

  "But you and Mr. Shinzyki and the Skipper aren't sick."

  "We didn't mix with the crew very much the first couple of days. And I don't like the looks of ... never mind. What's unusual about you that keeps you from getting sick?"

  He shrugged. “I had to have my nannites specially tailored when I applied to the academy, if that makes any difference."

  Jeremy felt like a hunter closing in on his quarry. “You did? What for?"

  "Uh, something that runs in the family or because I have a dark skin. Something like that."

  "Try to remember, Marvin. It's important."

  "I'm trying, sir.” He screwed up his face and closed his eyes as if trying to squeeze the information out of his head.

  "Wait a minute, Bullock. If there was something wrong with you, why wasn't it fixed when you were a baby?"

  "Uh, well, my folks are New Hossana religion. They don't believe in nannites or Everlife and suchlike."

  "Still, if it was something serious, they'd have had to have you treated. It's the law."

  "Yes, sir. So I guess whatever it was didn't hurt me."

  "But what could it have been? Dark skin ... what could that mean?"

  "My ancestors came from Africa on Earth. That's what Mama told me. I'm from Newton's World, you know."

  But Jeremy wasn't listening. Africa! That was it. Something about Africa. Damn it, why couldn't he remember? He was such an inveterate reader that all kinds of near-useless bits of knowledge were tucked away in the archives of his mind. This was something that needed to be retrieved, though!

  "What else did your Mama tell you, Marvin? Did she ever say anything was wrong with you?"

  "Not that I ... Well, I got sick one time. I remember that."

  "I guess you could expect it, without nannites."

  "No, it wasn't like getting a bug in me. It was something else. I was running track in a meet in the state finals and I went all out—I mean I gave it everything I had. Then I got real sick. I had to be taken to the hospital. Mama told me when I came home it wasn't anything to worry about unless I ran out of breath, like I did that time."

  "Out of breath? What...?"

  "She said it was something about my blood. I remember that, now."

  And then he had it. “Sickle Cell! You have, or had, the Sickle Cell trait! That's why you got sick. You were deprived of oxygen and your red blood cells started sickling."

  "Huh? I don't remember all that."

  "It doesn't matter, but it's all I can think of that's keeping you healthy. Whatever's affecting the rest of the crew is going after the hemoglobin in red blood cells, and yours is a different type! Or part of it, anyway. Even with the nannites you got when you entered the academy to keep the trait from affecting you under stress, the part of your hemoglobin that comes from the defective beta-globin gene wasn't changed! But damn it, I couldn't find a single solitary bug in anyone's blood."

  Someone called for help over the com Bullock had left open from the patients’ rooms in sick bay.

  "I need to go, sir."

  "Go ahead, Marvin. Thanks. I'll probably need you again, but I'll call when I do."

  Bullock hurried away. Jeremy tapped into the main computer and once more pulled up the results of all his tests. He knew he must have missed something—somewhere, somehow—that was attacking normal hemoglobin. He had to find it before everyone in the ship except Bullock died. He tried his best to keep from hurrying, afraid he might again overlook whatever he must have missed before.

  All the microbiology data from Sing looked fine, or at least he couldn't see anything in it that could have caused the disease. There was a blip in one of the microorganic light pattern results that intrigued him but told him nothing that would help. He went over all the blood sample data again with negative results and finally in desperation again examined under high magnification the blood he'd drawn from the patients. Nothing except the inorganic artifacts, probably from the dye the cells were stained with or something on the slide. He was about to discard the last preparation when it suddenly hit him. The artifacts! They were of various sizes and configurations, but mixed in with them were some which were all the same size. All of those were circular. That was possible, but unlikely. Surely a precipitate such as the sort he'd been thinking it was couldn't be in bits that were all alike. But if not, what was it?

  He thought rapidly. Did the boat have a centrifuge? Surely it did. He pulled up the boat inventory and looked. No centrifuge, damn it, and that would be the very instrument he needed. He tapped his forearm.

  "Shinzyki."

  "Rufus, it's Jeremy. Can you build me a centrifuge?"

  "Huh? Say that again."

  "A centrifuge. Can you make one for me?"

  "That's what I thought you said. How soon do you need it and what size?"

  "It doesn't have to be big, but I need it right now, Rufus. And when that's ready, I have something else for you to make."

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&nbs
p; Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "This one's from blood I drew from myself right at first for a control. It shouldn't have had much of anything from the causative organism in it yet. And this one's from a very sick patient,” Jeremy said as he showed Rufus two tubes of blood. “What I've done is hemolyze the red blood cells with plain water and then centrifuged them. You can see there's several layers here, representing different masses of the constituents. There will also most likely be some layers so thin we can't see them. I'm going to look at those layers under magnification to see if I find one in the patient's blood that's different from what mine was when I drew it.

  "If I do find an odd layer, that should be from the little bastards causing all our trouble. Cross your fingers or dance a jig or whatever else you can think of that this turns out like I think it will. It's about my last shot.” He suddenly felt dizzy and had to sit down. “And damned if I don't think I'm coming down with what everyone else has. I guess it can be passed from person to person."

  He held off the dizziness and put the tubes side by side. Under very high magnification, there were many fine layers representing substances of different molecular weight that had been spun down slower or faster than others. He very carefully compared the tubes. There was one very thin extra layer in the patient's tube of blood down near the bottom of it.

  "And unless I miss my guess, here's our culprit, Rufus. Now I need the micropipette you made, some very gentle suction and a steady touch.” He put his face in his hands for a moment until the nausea he was suffering from passed. As soon as it did, he took the micropipette from Rufus. He had attached it to tubing that led to a simple suction apparatus with two step-down valves in it. Very cautiously, using high power, three dimensional magnification, he pushed the pipette into the sample, trying to disturb it as little as possible. Under the magnifier he could see when the tip of it found the layer he wanted.

  "Now turn the dial, very slowly Rufus,” he instructed.

  He watched as the pipette sucked a portion of the thin layer of different matter from the tube.