Vectors

by Dean Wesley Smith

  “You know what it is?” Narat asked.

  Pulaski nodded. Kellec was looking at her too. She let the door between the office and the main room close.

  “If you think about it, you know just as well as I do,” she said. “We haven’t found how the virus starts. We have succeeded in preventing these patients from dying, but they’re clearly reinfecting themselves.”

  “Or picking up the virus elsewhere,” Narat said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Even when a patient caught the disease from the virus—and could prove that it wasn’t incubating—that patient took at least two days to show signs of illness. These patients are coming back within ten to twelve hours.”

  “That means,” Kellec said, “that the infecting agent isn’t the virus.”

  Pulaski nodded. “Perhaps if we run some cultures, we can imitate the course of this reinfection in the lab.”

  “It should work,” Kellec said.

  “We should examine some of our older cultures as well,” Narat said, his irritation with Kellec obviously forgotten.

  “Good idea,” Kellec said.

  “It’s not quite as hopeless,” Pulaski said. “At least we have a point to work from.”

  The office door opened. Governo peeked in. “May I see you for a moment?” he asked Pulaski.

  She walked over to him.

  “I’m doing what you said,” he said softly, “but I’m a little worried about reinjecting these Cardassians with the antidote. I mean, we don’t know what this will do in high quantities in the body.”

  “The boy has a good point,” Narat said.

  “Yes, he does,” Pulaski said. She put a hand on Governo’s shoulder. “Just continue for now, Edgar. Whatever happens, it’s better than dying for these poor people.”

  He nodded and went back into the main room. Pulaski closed the door again and leaned on it. The exhaustion she had been trying to fight was coming back, worse than before. “We’re going to have to notify Bajor and Cardassia Prime.”

  “I suspect they already know,” Ton said. “Let’s not waste our time on that.”

  “No,” she said. “We have to. What if they’ve sent patients away, thinking they were cured, and they can’t get back to a medical facility?”

  “They would have done it twelve hours ago, Katherine,” Kellec said. “We have to focus our efforts here.”

  “Kellec is right,” Narat said. “At this moment, everything we do should go toward finding the correct solution.”

  Pulaski nodded. But something was flitting around at the edge of her consciousness. Something she vaguely remembered—

  “One of us should be doing as your assistant implied, Katherine.” Kellec was standing near his console. “One of us should see if there are detrimental effects from too much antidote. We have to know where our limits are.”

  She looked at him. She knew he was going to suggest that Narat do it.

  “You two found the cure in the first place,” Narat said. “I’m not the researcher that you both are. You continue your search for the virus’s origins. I’ll investigate the effect of the antidote.”

  Pulaski let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. She made herself look away from Kellec, afraid that she would show her relief too clearly.

  “All right.” She walked over to the console. “Still, something more is bothering me. Something I feel I should know—”

  “There were rumors,” Kellec said, “that the Federation dealt with a similar plague, but I don’t know the details.”

  “Of course,” Pulaski said. “That’s why this is bothering me.”

  “That was one of the reasons I asked permission to get you to come here. I figured you would know.”

  “I do know,” she said. “The Enterprise, the ship I was on, dealt with it. But I never read the files. I always meant to—in fact, I was supposed to go through all of Crusher’s logs, but I simply didn’t have time. I looked at the overview and went on with my day-to-day work.”

  “That’s not going to help us, Katherine,” Kellec said. “You—”

  “What is the meaning of this?” The office door crashed open and Dukat strode inside followed by three guards. One of them could barely stand. He was a light gray-green.

  All three doctors glanced at each other. They had agreed moments ago to stall telling Dukat as long as possible.

  “We told you, sir,” Narat said, “that we can only treat a patient once the symptoms appear.”

  “Do I look like an idiot to you?” Dukat asked. His voice was lower than it had been a moment ago, and seemed a lot more menacing. “I have sent newly infected people back to the med lab for their shots. Those people are fine. But Linit here nearly died yesterday of this disease, and now he’s got it again! You told me this was a cure.”

  “I know,” Narat said. “But—”

  Pulaski put a hand on his arm to quiet him. Narat seemed panicked by Dukat’s anger, and panic would not do in this circumstance.

  “When we told you about the cure,” she said, “we also told you that it wasn’t complete.”

  “You didn’t tell me this would happen,” Dukat said.

  “We didn’t know. We hoped the cure would hold once it killed the virus. But our patients seem to be reinfecting themselves.”

  “Themselves?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s coming from within. That may sound bad to you—and I must admit, none of us are too happy about this turn of events—but it is good news in a way. It gives us something to base our new research on. It gives us hope.”

  “Hope! We had hope when we thought we’d gotten rid of this disease.”

  “We can get rid of it,” Narat said. “For a few hours anyway.”

  “What good will that do?” Dukat asked.

  “It’ll prevent anyone from dying,” Kellec said.

  Dukat’s lips thinned. He turned away from Kellec. “I’m very unhappy about this,” Dukat said.

  “We all are,” Pulaski said.

  “Yeah,” Kellec said. “You would save us a lot of grief if you would just ask your people what the source of the virus was.”

  “Kellec!” Pulaski said.

  “No,” Dukat said. “That’s fine. He can accuse us all he wants. It covers his Bajoran tracks. You’re reinfecting everyone, aren’t you, Kellec? That way no one gets off this station alive, and the Cardassians get the blame.”

  “You know better—” Kellec started forward, but Pulaski grabbed him.

  “Both of you, stop it,” she said. “You’re acting like children.”

  She glanced at Narat for help but he hadn’t moved. He was looking terrified.

  “Fighting won’t get us anywhere.” She kept her hands on Kellec, but stepped between him and Dukat. “I’ve been with Kellec all day, and he hasn’t done anything to reinfect your people. He hasn’t had the opportunity. And you,” she said, turning to Kellec, “can’t you see how terrified he is? If he knew how this thing started, he wouldn’t be this afraid.”

  “I am not afraid,” Dukat said.

  Kellec had the common sense to say nothing. Only grunt.

  Dukat’s eyes narrowed, but he also said nothing. Narat’s gaze met Pulaski’s. “She’s right, you know,” he said. “This is a time when we have to put aside our differences.”

  “It’s getting very hard to do,” Dukat said. “You gave us all hope yesterday and today it’s gone. That’s worse than having no hope in the first place.”

  “But I already explained what this means,” Pulaski said. “It means we have a chance.”

  “I don’t see it,” Dukat said.

  “There’s one option we haven’t tried,” Kellec said. He eased himself away from Pulaski’s hand. “Katherine and I were discussing it when you so nicely knocked and asked if you could come in.”

  “Kellec,” Pulaski said warningly.

  “And what’s that?” Dukat asked, obviously choosing to ignore Kellec’s tone.

  �
�Katherine says the Enterprise dealt with something similar over a year ago. Remember when I asked you if she could come aboard, I told you there were rumors about this?”

  Dukat turned his flat gaze to Pulaski. “So you have records of this?”

  “No,” she said, “and that’s the problem. What I do know of it is very sketchy. But it wouldn’t take long to get the information. The Enterprise is the ship that’s waiting to pick us up, just outside Cardassian space.”

  “What a wonderful opportunity to bring a starship to Terok Nor,” Dukat said, and to Pulaski he sounded just like Kellec. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to remain calm. They deserved each other. All this fighting and lack of reason. No wonder no one knew how to solve the problems between their two planets.

  “I wasn’t suggesting that,” she said, working very hard to keep her voice level. “I would like to contact the Enterprise and have them send the records here.”

  Dukat frowned, as if her response surprised him. Then he said, “I will contact the Enterprise.”

  “I’m sorry, Gul,” she said, slipping back into her diplomatic mode, “but they won’t give this information to you. You’re not a doctor.”

  “Then Narat—”

  “They’ll wonder why I haven’t asked,” she said. “It’s a simple request, really. You can monitor it.”

  Dukat’s reptilian smile filled his face. “That would work. You may make the request, from my office.”

  “Katherine, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kellec said.

  “Do you want the information or not?” Dukat asked.

  “I think we need it,” Kellec said. “I just don’t see why she can’t send the message from here.”

  “Because,” Dukat said, “it will interfere with your work. Yours and Narat’s. You may come up with a solution on your own, while she’s gone.”

  “It’s all right, Kellec,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t know what this man is capable of,” Kellec said.

  She sighed. “I think, at the moment, we all have the same goals.”

  Dukat tilted his head, and smiled mockingly at Kellec. “I think your wife—”

  “Ex-wife,” Kellec said.

  “—is telling us we can resume our loathing of each other when the crisis is past.”

  Kellec crossed his arms. “Thanks, but I plan to continue my loathing all the way through the crisis.”

  “Then I’ll remove you and place you back in the Bajoran section,” Dukat said.

  “Oh,” Kellec said. “I promise the loathing won’t get in the way of my work. But, unlike you, I can’t shut off my emotions when dealing with others. I see the consequences of each action.”

  Pulaski put her hand on Dukat’s arm and started to lead him out of the office. “Each moment we delay is a moment that we need,” she said to him.

  He let her guide him into the main room. Cardassians were returning at a rate of two or three a minute. He grimaced at their green skin, the flaking scales, and she felt a shudder run through him.

  “I would hope,” she said, because she couldn’t keep silent, “that you watch Kellec’s actions, instead of listening to his words.”

  “I’m keeping a close eye on his actions,” Dukat said. “I know what kind of a man he is.”

  They stepped into the Promenade and Dukat relaxed visibly.

  “What surprises me,” he continued, “is why you married him.”

  She smiled. “He’s brilliant man.”

  “He’s a fool.”

  “He hates witnessing pain. The Cardassians have caused a lot of pain on Bajor.”

  “The Bajorans brought it on themselves,” Dukat said.

  “I don’t think the Bajorans would agree with that.”

  “What do you know?” Dukat asked. “You haven’t observed our people.”

  “No,” she said, “and I’m not trained in the subject. All I see is hatred on both sides. One day that will hurt you all.”

  “If we live through this plague,” he said.

  “That’s my responsibility,” she said. “I plan to see that you do.”

  Chapter Twenty

  THE IMAGE OF DOZENS OF DEAD bodies piled on top of a cart like so much deadwood came back again, superimposed on the image of the stars she was gazing at through the Ten-Forward window, and pushing the voices of the Enterprise crew into the background. But this time Beverly Crusher didn’t try to push the image away the way she usually did. She let herself remember the limbs jutting awkwardly, the tags on their toes, and just the sheer number of dead piled high in the Archarian hospital because there was no more room in the morgue.

  That was Crusher’s first view of the plague on Archaria III and the image that stayed burned in her mind. Thousands more died before she had found a cure.

  But the image of those bodies never went away.

  Neither did the memory of sixteen of her crewmates, including Deanna Troi, suffering the intense, crippling pain that seemed to twist from the inside, eating them alive like a monster Crusher couldn’t see. And at the time couldn’t fight.

  It had taken Crusher some months to stop having nightmares.

  But now the nightmares were back. The situation on Bajor seemed so similar to Archaria III. And she had helped Dr. Pulaski to walk into it basically alone. If only she had been able to go along, that would have been better than waiting here. But her request had been denied.

  And she had been relieved. . . . She didn’t want to face another plague. Not again. Not so soon. She didn’t think she could handle another roomful of bodies piled on top of one another.

  A gentle touch on her arm brought her back to the stars and the muffled conversation in the lounge. She turned and smiled at Captain Jean-Luc Picard, whose hand was resting comfortably on her arm.

  “She’s a good doctor,” he said. He could still read her clearly. She had been annoyed at that a year ago. Then she discovered, in her short stint at Starfleet Medical, that she missed it.

  Crusher nodded. Dr. Pulaski was. But even the best needed help at times. And it felt so frustrating not to be able to be there giving that help, instead of sitting here sipping Earl Grey tea.

  “I know she’s good,” said Crusher. “That’s not the problem. The problem is me. I hate waiting.”

  “Don’t we all,” the Captain said.

  He was waiting too, waiting to hear from Pulaski. And he had served with the woman for the last year. He had to be worried. But in typical Jean-Luc fashion, he didn’t say anything. He was willing to listen to her.

  Over the last few days Ten-Forward had become Crusher’s haven. Dr. Pulaski had left the medical areas in better shape than they’d been in a year ago, and it had only taken Crusher a day to get settled back in. Since the Enterprise was simply standing by on the Cardassian border, waiting for two weeks, there was very little for her to do. Being alone just wasn’t what she needed at the moment, so she often sought company from whoever she found in the lounge. She didn’t always talk. Sometimes she just let the buzz of conversation flow over her while she drank tea.

  And thought of that pile of bodies on Archaria III.

  She smiled at the captain, then took a sip of her tea, letting its perfumy flavor push the image of death back for a moment. “Thanks for joining me,” she said.

  He shrugged slightly. “We missed you last year. I missed you. I thought we might take this opportunity to get caught up.”

  She laughed. “And so I sit staring out the window.”

  “Sometimes,” the captain said, “that’s the best kind of catching up.”

  She smiled at him. She had missed him and the Enterprise a great deal. She had used Wesley as her main reason for returning, but in truth, there were many reasons.

  “Dr. Crusher,” Data’s voice broke into the moment over the comm link. “You have an emergency incoming call from Dr. Pulaski on Terok Nor.”

  She was on her feet and headed for the screen built into the wall of Ten-Forwa
rd before she answered. “Put it through to here.”

  A moment later she had dodged around two tables and was at the screen as Dr. Pulaski’s face appeared. Behind her stood a stern-looking Cardassian.

  Crusher managed not to gasp at what she saw. In just a few short days Pulaski looked as if she’d lived a dozen years, all without sleep. A week before, a neat, polished doctor had turned the medical area over to her; now Pulaski had deep circles under her eyes, her hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in years, and a dark smudge of something streaked her neck.

  And her eyes seemed almost haunted, as if she were seeing things no human should ever see.

  “Dr. Crusher,” Pulaski said, her voice level as always, “I need your help.”

  “Anything,” Crusher said as Captain Picard moved up behind her.

  “I need your records from the plague on Archaria III. It seems we may be dealing with something similar here.”

  Crusher nodded. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Can you send the records?” Pulaski asked. She was wasting no time. Crusher knew exactly how that felt.

  Crusher glanced around at the captain, even though he would have nothing to do with this decision. The records of the plague on Archaria III were classified and under the direct control of Starfleet Medical. And since she was no longer in charge of Starfleet Medical, it was no longer her decision as to whether or not to release those records.

  “How bad is it?” Crusher asked, trying to buy herself a little time to think. To get a message to Starfleet Medical from this distance could take a day, maybe more. And there was always a chance—a strong chance, considering the location of the plague—that they might turn her request down.

  “It’s bad,” Pulaski said. “I wouldn’t be making this request if I didn’t think those records might help.”

  “Understood,” Crusher said. “I’ll need to—” The image of the bodies on Archaria III floated back to her mind. She had been about to say she would have to get clearance from Starfleet Medical, but in that time how many on Bajor would die?