Badge of Infamy

by Lester Del Rey

  XIV

  Immunity

  They worked through the day in what seemed to be armed truce. There wasno coffee waiting for him when he awoke next, as he'd come to expect,but he didn't comment. He went to where she was already working,checking on the results of the plasma on the cultures.

  The response had been slower than with the mouse blood, but now the bugsseemed to be dead. The filaments were destroyed, and there were no signsof the big cells. It seemed to be a cure, at least in the culturebottles.

  "We'll need volunteers," he decided. "There should be animals, but wedon't have any. At least this stuff isn't toxic. We need a naturalimmune and someone infected. Two of each, so one can be treated and theother used for a control. Makes four. Not enough to be sure, but it willhave to do."

  "Two," Chris corrected. "You're not infected, I am."

  "Two others," he agreed. "I'll get them from Jake."

  Most of GHQ was out on the street, but Doc found Jake inside the bigschoolroom where he enjoyed his early morning bracky and coffee. Thechief listened and agreed at once, turning to the others in the room.

  "Who's had the jumping headache? Okay, Swanee. Who never had it?" Heblinked in surprise as three men nodded out of the eight present. "Iguess you go, Tom."

  The two men stood up, tamping out their weeds, and went out with Doc.

  Chris had everything set up. They matched coins to decide who would betreated. Doc noticed that Chris would get no plasma, while he wasscheduled for everything. He watched her prepare the culture and add theaccelerator that would speed development and make certain he and Tomwere infected, then let her inject it.

  That was all, except for the waiting. To keep conditions more closelyalike, they were to stay there until the tests were finished, not eveneating for fear of upsetting the conditions. Swanee dug out a pack ofworn cards and began to deal while Doc dug out some large pills to useas chips.

  It was an hour later when the pain began. Doc had just won the pot offifty pills and opened his mouth for the expected gloating. He yelled asan explosion seemed to go off inside his head. Even closing his mouthwas agony.

  A moment later, Tom began to sweat. It got worse, spreading to the wholearea of the back of the head and neck. Doc lay on the cot, envying Chrisand Swanee who had already been infected naturally. He longeddesperately for bracky, and had to keep reminding himself that no drugsmust upset the tests. It was the longest day he had ever spent, and hebegan to doubt that he could get through it. He watched the little clockmove from one minute to nine over to half a minute and hung breathlessuntil it hit the nine. There was no question about whether the infectionhad taken. Now they could dull the agony.

  Chris had the anodyne tablets already dissolved in water, and Swanee waspassing out three lighted bracky weeds. It took a few minutes for therelief of the anodyne, and even that couldn't kill all the pain. But itdidn't matter by comparison. He sucked the weed, mashed it out and begandealing the cards again.

  They had a plentiful supply of the anodyne and used it liberally duringthe night. The test was a speeded-up simulation of the natural course ofthe disease, where painkiller would take time to get for most peoplehere, but would then be used generously.

  Precisely at nine in the morning, Chris began to inject Swanee and Docwith plasma.

  Now there was no thought of cards. They waited, trying to talk, but withmost of their attention on the clock. Doc had estimated that an hourshould be enough to show results, but it was hard to remember that anhour was the guess as to the minimum time.

  He winced as Chris took a tiny bit of flesh from his neck. She went tothe other men, and then submitted to his work on herself. Then she beganpreparing the slides.

  "Feldman," she read the name of the slide as she inserted it into themicroscope. Then her breath caught sharply. "Only dead cells!"

  It was the same for Swanee and Tom. Each had to look at his own slideand have it explained before the results could be believed. But at lastChris bent over her own slide. A minute later she glanced up, nodding."What it should be. It checks."

  Tom whooped and went out the door to notify Jake. There was only plasmafor some two hundred injections, but that should yield sufficient proof.Once salvation was offered, there should be no trouble convincing thepeople that blood donations from their children were worthwhile.

  Later, when the last of the plasma had been used, they could finallyrelax. Chris slipped off her smock and dropped onto the cot. A tiredsmile came onto her lips. "You're forgiven, Dan," she said. A momentlater she was obviously asleep. Doc meant to join her, but it was toomuch effort. He leaned his head forward onto his arms, vaguely wonderingwhy she was calling off the feud.

  It was night outside when he awoke, and he was lying on the cot, thoughhe still felt cramped and strained. He stirred, groaning, and finallyrealized that a hand was on his shoulder shaking him. He looked up tosee Jake above him. Chris was busy with the coffee maker.

  Jake slumped onto the cot beside Doc. "We took Southport," he announced.

  That knocked the sleep out of Doc's system. "You what?"

  "We took it, lock, stock and barrel. I figured the news of your curewould put guts into the men, and it did. But we'd probably have taken itanyhow. There wasn't anything to fight for there after Earth pulled outand the plague really hit. Wilson mistook last-minute panic for fightingspirit. The poor devils didn't have anything to fight about, once theLobby stopped goading them."

  Doc tried to assimilate the news. But once the surprise was gone, hefound it meant very little. Maybe his revolutionary zeal had cooled,once the Lobby men had pulled out. "We'll need a lot more plasma thanthere is in Southport," he said.

  "Not so much, maybe," Jake denied. "Doc, three of the men you injectedwere shot down as runners. Your plasma's no good."

  "It takes time to work, Jake. I told you there might be a case or twothat would be too close to the edge. Three is more than I expected; butit's not impossible."

  "There was plenty of time. They blew after we got back from Southport."Jack dropped his hand on Doc's shoulder, and his face softened."Harkness tested every man you injected. He finished half an hour ago.Five showed dead bugs. The rest of them weren't helped at all."

  Doc fumbled for a weed, trying to think. But his thoughts refused tofocus. "Five!"

  "Five out of two hundred. That's about average. And what about Tom? Hewas jumping around after the test last night, telling how you'd curedhim, how he'd seen the dead bugs; but he never had the jumping headache,and you never gave him the plasma! He's got dead bugs, though. Harknesstested him."

  Doc let his realization of his own idiocy sink in until he could believeit. Jake was right. Tom had never been treated, yet Chris had reporteddead bugs. They'd all been so ready to believe in miracles that no onehad been able to think straight after the long wait.

  "There was a bump on his neck--a small one," he said slowly. "Jake, hemust have caught it, even if he seemed immune. If he was taking anodyneanyway for something--or unconscious--"

  "He was up in Northport six years ago for a kidney operation," Jakeadmitted doubtfully. "We had to chip in to pay for it. But you stilldidn't treat him, and he's cured. Face it, Doc, that plasma is no goodinside the body."

  His hand tightened on Doc's shoulder again. "We're not blaming you. Wedon't judge a man here except by what he is. Maybe the stuff helps alittle. We'll go on using it when we get it; tell everybody you were amite optimistic, so they'll figure it's a gamble, but have a little hopeleft. And you keep trying. Something cured it in Tom. Now you find outwhat."

  Doc watched him go out numbly, and turned to Chris.

  "It can't be right," she said shakily. "You and Swanee were cured. Maybeit was the accelerator. It had to be something."

  "You didn't have the accelerator," he accused.

  "No, and I've still got live bugs. I was never supposed to be cured, soI expected to see just what I saw. How I missed the fact that Tom shouldhave been like me, I don't know. Damn it, oh, damn it!
"

  He's never seen her cry before, except in fury. But she mastered italmost at once, shaking tears out of her eyes. "All right. Plasma worksin a bottle but not in an adult body. Maybe something works in the bodybut not in a bottle."

  "Maybe. And maybe some people are just naturally immune after it reachesa certain stage. Maybe we ran into coincidence."

  But he didn't believe that, any more than she did. The answer had to bein the room. He'd taken a massive dose of the disease and been cured ina few hours.

  Outside the room, the war went on, drawing toward a close. The supposedpartial cure was good propaganda, if nothing else, and Jake was wideninghis territory steadily. There was only token resistance against him. Hehad the Southport shuttles now to cover huge areas in a hurry. Butinside the room, the battle was less successful. It wasn't theaccelerator. It wasn't the tablets of anodyne. They even tried sweepingthe floor and using the dust without results.

  Then another test in the room, made with four volunteers Jake selected,yielded complete cures after injections with plain salt water in placeof plasma.

  The plague speeded up again. About four people out of a hundred nowseemed to have caught the disease and cured themselves. They accountedfor what faith was left in Doc's plasma and gave some unfounded hope tothe others.

  Northport fell a week later, putting the whole planet in rebel hands.

  Jake returned, wearier than ever. He'd proved to be one of the naturalimmunes, but the weight of the campaign that could only end in a defeatby the plague left him no room to rejoice in his personal fortune.

  This time he looked completely defeated. And a moment later, Doc saw whyas Jake flipped a flimsy sheet onto the table. It bore the seals ofSpace and Medical Lobbies.

  Jake pointed upwards. "The war rockets are there, all right. We knewthey'd come. Now all they want for calling them off is our surrender andyour cure. If they don't get both, they'll blow the planet to bits. Wehave two days."

  The rockets could be seen clearly with binoculars. There were more thanenough to destroy all life on the planet. Maybe they'd be usedeventually, anyhow, since the Lobbies wanted no more rebellion. But witha cure for the plague, he might have bought them off.

  Chris stood beside him, looking as if it were a bitter pill for her,too. She'd risked herself in the hands of the enemy, had cooperated withhim in everything she'd been taught to oppose, and had worked like adog. Now the Lobbies seemed to forget her as a useless tool. They werefalling back on a raw power play and forgetting any earlier schemes.

  "Maybe they'd hold off for a while if I agreed to go to them and shareall my ideas, specimens and notes," he said at last. "Do you think yourLobby would settle for that, Chris?"

  "I don't know, Dan. I've stopped thinking their way." She seemed almostapologetic for the admission.

  He dropped an arm over her shoulder and turned with her back to thelaboratory. "Okay, then we've got to find a miracle. We've got two daysahead of us. At least we can try."

  But he knew he was lying to himself. There wasn't anything he couldthink of to try.