The office was tiny, but the four of them managed to squeeze inside so the portal could close. Stephanie sat at the desk, Blake standing at her shoulder like a bodyguard. She picked up a wicked paring knife and began balancing it on the desk, tip down, holding her palm over the carved butt of the handle. “What do you need to know, Doctor?”
Is she trying to intimidate me now? Good luck, lady. I’ve been pursued by the Mawreg, so I’m not about to be cowed by a human with a sharp object. “Did we buy any local produce at the last stop that might have carried bacteria on board? Even though the symptoms don’t appear to be food poisoning, I want to eliminate as many potential problems as I can.”
Head tilted, the chef said, “But yes, I took the opportunity to explore the market and enhance the menu with special vegetables from your planet. The stalks were thoroughly washed and then cooked, so I fail to see how these could be the problem.”
“Probably not,” Emily agreed. “I’ll need you both to work together and run the food-handling training class again for the staff right away, and of course, all the kitchen surfaces and utensils will have to be cleaned.”
“I maintain a scrupulously clean kitchen.” Arms crossed, still holding the knife, the chef glared at Emily. “And when am I to do this training? I must serve three meals a day in three dining rooms and have room service available at all times. Do we let the passengers starve for a day? Not to mention the crew dining room and the officers’ wardroom.”
“I can provide a day of meals from the frozen stocks,” Maeve said, voice crisp. Emily was almost getting used to her butting into every conversation. “The menu will be the same in all dining rooms, and there will be no buffet.”
Shuddering, Stephanie dropped the knife, ripped off the chef’s hat, threw it aside and buried her head in her hands for a moment. “My reputation! To serve commercial frozen food to these people. The cream of the Sectors upper class don’t pay the exorbitant fares to be provided institutional food cooked by an AI.”
“At the rate a norovirus usually spreads, there aren’t going to be many disgruntled diners,” Emily said, unmoved by the chef’s drama. “We have to get to a baseline state so we can knock out the infection at whatever the source is. Then the outbreak will die down. The Galamialate I’m prescribing to patients and their close contacts will finish the job.”
“Although I’m sure he wholeheartedly agrees with your instincts as chef, Captain Fleming is on board with what the doc recommends,” Jake said, his tone cajoling. “He’d like this incident to be over and forgotten by the time Nebula Zephyr arrives at her next destination in three weeks.”
“We’ll need to have an alternate menu of nourishing soups and simple dishes available for a few days as well,” Emily said. She took a quick glance at her personal AI, where a long queue of messages from the sickbay staff and passengers was blinking. “Are we done here? Anyone unclear on the next steps? I need to return to my patients.”
The chef and her maître d’ grumbled but agreed to take the actions Emily had recommended without delay. As Emily and Jake stepped into the crew corridor again, she scrolled through the queue on her AI. “The Hereditary Princess has been asking for me. And now I have a request to see Liora Daburkn as well.”
“Two high-profile passengers all right. Probably the most important people on board this leg of the cruise, for differing reasons.” Jake eyed her as they approached the gravlift. “Which house call will you make first?”
“First, I’ll check with my staff and see if the situation has stabilized in sickbay.” Emily paused in front of the gravlift and activated the comlink. Jake stood in front of her to provide a little privacy as she spoke with her PA.
He quirked one eyebrow at her as she closed the com. “How are we doing?”
Emily tapped her finger on the AI case. “Not as many new patients as I’d expected. Maybe we’re nipping this in the bud and we’ll be lucky.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for good news.” He let her step into the gravlift before he did. “So, what did you decide? Are we going to see the princess or the trideo star first?”
Emily decided not to challenge his assumption that he was going with her. “A child takes precedence. I wish I was sure this isn’t going to be about her pet, but her minders didn’t provide details when the call was made to sickbay.”
“You did promise to check in on the animal today,” he reminded her.
“True. And if this call is about the pet, it’ll be a short visit.” Emily stepped off smoothly on the correct level. “I don’t have time to play vet today.”
“The princess has the royal suite,” Jake said, indicating which direction to go.
Admitted to the cabin by a bodyguard, Emily and Jake waited for a few moments in the sitting area while the princess took her time arriving. Carrying the small green-furred animal, Falyn paced into the room like a person twenty years older than the child she was. Trailed by the haughty guardian and two ladies-in-waiting, Falyn wore her solemn demeanor like a heavy robe. Emily assessed the child as she came closer. “Feeling well today, Your Highness? Any problems?”
“I’ve stopped sneezing,” she reported as she sat on the lone chair. “But Midorri hasn’t.”
Right on cue, the animal stiffened in a dramatic paroxysm, all its fur standing on end and tail whipping straight out behind. In a blink, it rolled into a ball, beady eyes staring fixedly at Emily. At a loss and annoyed by her lack of relevant knowledge, she said, “Ship, anything to report on the research about this exotic?”
“Negative, Doctor. The creature is of a breed unknown in the Sectors. Possibly imported by a Free Trader from the Outlier Empire or some other interstellar location. Shall I prepare another inject and deliver it to the cabin?”
“Midorri doesn’t like injects,” Falyn said, clutching the animal closer to her body.
“I think we can skip the meds today and just observe.” Emily stroked the soft green fur. “You aren’t having any problems, Your Highness? No nausea or vomiting?”
“We heard the captain’s message,” said Lady Scorsshyn as the girl shook her head. “Princess Falyn eats only specially prepared foodstuffs from our own homeworld. There is no possibility of her contracting some disease carried by the rabble.”
Straightening, Emily glanced at Jake. If he wasn’t going to dispute the rabble remark, she wasn’t either. “Well, then, I think we’re done here. I have a lot of patients I need to see. Send me a message if the princess—or her pet—manifests symptoms.”
“There is an issue.” The woman pursed her lips and frowned.
“A medical issue?” Emily paused in her retreat to the portal.
“It’s Arln, my chief bodyguard,” Falyn said. “He was throwing up all night. Scorsshyn thought he was falling down drunk, didn’t you?”
Lips pursed in disapproval, the elderly guardian shook her head. “Such vulgar language—”
“I heard you talking to the maids.”
“Enough, Your Highness.” Scorsshyn’s voice cracked like a whip. “It’s unseemly for you to be involved with the discussion of a bodyguard’s physical ailments. You may leave the matter in my hands. I suggest you take your pet and retire to your private chambers.” Scorsshyn placed a firm hand on the princess’s shoulder, forcing her to rise from the chair. “I’ll escort the doctor to see Arln.”
“I should have been advised of his illness,” Emily said, clutching her portable medkit more tightly. “Certainly before I was asked to spend time assessing the animal. Where is he?”
“Arln would expect you to tend to the needs of Her Highness’s companion animal first, I assure you. He knows his place.” Scorsshyn handed Falyn off to one of the maids and folded her hands across her stomach. “Follow me.” As she proceeded down a side corridor in the suite, the elderly woman added over her shoulder, “Nothing and no one is more important than the Hereditary Princess and her composure. Arln would be the first to agree. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Jake moved Emily and Scorsshyn aside. “We’re sure he’s in the room?”
Scorsshyn straightened her sleeve where Jake had touched her. “Yes.”
“All right, then.” He did something to the pad by the door, and Emily heard a rapid, subvocal exchange between Jake and Maeve as the portal slid open.
Emily was across the threshold before the panel stopped moving, heading rapidly toward the motionless figure on the bed. She heard Scorsshyn exclaim at the sickroom smell and retreat. Grabbing a scanner from her kit, Emily was relieved to find a fairly steady pulse in her new patient. Running the instrument over him from head to toe, lingering on the abdomen, she said, “This man needs to be transported to sickbay now. He’s definitely badly dehydrated, running a fever. I can’t treat him properly here.”
“Is this the norovirus?” Jake asked, joining her at the bedside.
Preparing an inject to bolster Arln’s circulation, Emily said, “Can’t tell. It doesn’t usually present like this, so the virus could be aggravating a pre-existing condition. I’ll know more after we run some tests.”
“I’ve called sickbay and the security team,” Maeve announced. “Help will be here in five minutes. Housekeeping is also on the way.”
“Arln is perfectly healthy,” Scorsshyn said from the corridor in a staggering attempt to deny reality. Apparently, even she realized how ridiculous she sounded, as she added one bitten-off word. “Normally.”
“Did he eat the same foods Falyn had?” Emily asked, continuing to check vital signs and reflexes. “Has she been near him since he first showed symptoms?”
“He was on duty in the morning yesterday and accompanied the princess on her tour of the ship. The afternoon was his own free time, so he wasn’t with the princess. I have no idea what he did, but he wasn’t in the royal suite. To answer the other question, only Her Highness and I eat the same food. The rest of the delegation eats from the ship’s menu.”
Emily had the uncharitable thought that of course Scorsshyn would treat herself to the delicacies meant for the princess. “I want to prescribe Galamialate for Her Highness and the rest of you. This virus is highly contagious, but the medication should stop the spread among your party. We’ll have the crew do a special cleaning of the suite today, any areas where Arln might have been.”
“Very well. Service as you describe is acceptable.” Scorsshyn nodded as if she was conferring a great favor on the crew of the Nebula Zephyr.
“I’ll give the princess an inject now and send a nurse down to administer the rest,” Emily said as the security team arrived, escorted by another bodyguard. “Your staff should wear disposable gloves and masks, Jake.”
“We’re all ex-military, we had the shots, we’re good,” he said.
“To avoid spreading the virus to others by contact,” she answered. “I’ll clarify the procedures in a bulletin to the crew as soon as I get to sickbay.”
“I can issue one for you now, Doctor,” Maeve offered. “Crew channel only.”
“Fine.” Emily supervised the moving of the patient from his soiled bed to the antigrav litter, issuing a few orders to her nurse, before going to wash her hands and give the promised injects. After getting the regent’s solemn oath to report any other illnesses in the princess’s party as soon as symptoms appeared, Emily departed from the royal suite, Jake on her heels. “I can’t believe Scorsshyn made the poor man wait to be seen while I fussed with the pet.” She ran one hand through her hair. “Talk about misplaced priorities.”
“I’m not saying it’s right, but generational billionaires, hereditary royalty, the upper strata don’t think the same way we do,” Jake told her, effortlessly keeping pace with her as she hurried toward the gravlift. “You’re going to encounter a lot of this kind of thing here on the Nebula Zephyr. Our primary customers fall into an extremely rarefied demographic, mixed in with a lot of hardheaded interstellar businesspeople and a few tourists.”
“Luckily, I won’t be here that long,” she said, ascending rapidly in the silvery grav stream. “Let’s go find out how realistic trideo stars can be.”
“Should we track the bodyguard’s movements yesterday?” Jake asked.
She twisted in a fluid motion to frown at him. “Why?”
“I don’t know. See where he went, who he might have infected. Or been infected by?”
“I’m not an epidemiologist—I don’t do detective work,” Emily said. “And furthermore, tracking movements is a pointless exercise for a norovirus, as I explained to the chef earlier. You heard me. Once it’s entrenched on a ship or in another closed environment, the virus pretty much infects everyone who hasn’t taken precautions and runs its course. I assume Maeve stocks a vast quantity of Galamialate for this exact reason.”
“Confirmed, Doctor.” The Ship’s voice echoed a bit in the gravlift.
“Sits wrong with me not to nail down the details.” Jake was stubborn. “We need to take action, do something more than hold classes and wipe down furniture, don’t we?”
“Arln’s not even Patient Zero.” Seeing Jake frown, she explained. “He’s not the first person to have the norovirus on board. We don’t know who the first person stricken was.” Emily took a deep breath. “I sympathize with your desire to take action and I appreciate the sentiment, believe me but it’s no use in a case like this. The norovirus is more or less everywhere on board, easy to catch, not stemming from a single source point. We can only keep the ship clean, treat the symptoms, let the virus run its course.” She could tell he wasn’t satisfied yet. Touching his arm gently, she said, “You know can trust me to do whatever is medically necessary. Spending my time and resources on other things that aren’t won’t help anyone.”
He had a frown on his face but didn’t argue further, just directed Emily to step off on the proper deck and escorted her to the trid stars’ suite.
Emily and Liora met privately in the sumptuous bedroom, while Jake and Sid Daburkn talked sports in the sitting area. An assistant and a trideo camera operator sat at a table in the corner, playing cards. The actress was pale, which emphasized the dark shadows under her eyes. “I’m predictably nauseous the first few days of traveling at hyperspeed,” she said, rubbing her abdomen. “But this is excessive. I haven’t been able to keep anything down today.”
“You should rest after I give you the Galamialate,” Emily advised. She frowned at her scanner and redid the readings. “Hold on a minute. No Galamialate for you, I’m sorry.”
“But, Doctor, I have commitments. I have to be in the casino in two hours. We’re filming a segment of the infotainment special there with the ship’s dance troupe. That’s why I called you—the show must go on, you know. It’s not merely a nice slogan—we have a contract to fulfill.” Liora twisted the blanket in her trembling hands. “Can’t you give me something to relieve this nausea? Give me an energy boost?”
Emily hesitated, but there was no easy way to broach the topic. “Are you aware you’re pregnant?”
Tears glistening in her eyes, Liora nodded. “I hoped I might be. We’ve been trying for some time now. Sid doesn’t know yet.”
“I won’t tell him unless it becomes medically necessary. But you can’t have Galamialate, which can cause birth defects in Terran-descent humans. Have you been pregnant before?”
“Not to my knowledge. We’ve had no luck at all. Until now, apparently.” Liora’s smile grew but was only a pale imitation of the glowing expression she was known for across the Sectors. “I’m from a big family and so is Sid. We’ve wanted children so badly.” She laughed. “You must not read the gossip feeds. The story of my infertility has been a headliner for th
e past two years. Ever since we got married.”
“I’ve been pretty much immersed in my own life.” Frustrated at her lack of direct experience in obstetrics after one rotation in med school years ago, Emily thumbed through the reference library on her personal AI. “I’m afraid my clinical training on pregnancies is limited. I was a military doctor on the frontlines. Blaster burns, trauma from explosions and the like. Not much here for morning sickness.” She asked a few questions about other symptoms and performed a more detailed exam than she’d planned. “The pregnancy appears to be progressing well. No issues there. My diagnosis would be nothing more than a mild case of the norovirus compounded by morning sickness.”
“All-day-and-night sickness.” Liora grimaced, rubbing her stomach. “She must take after me, hates space travel.”
“She?” Emily glanced at her scanner and smiled.
Liora held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. I’m old-fashioned and I want to be surprised. Until the birth, I’m going to think of the baby as she. I’ve dreamed of having a little girl.” The actress frowned. “The gossips would pay a fortune for this story.”
“I’ve had some experience with being hounded by the media myself,” Emily said. “You’ll have nothing but sympathy on that score from me.”
“Oh right, you’re the Angel of Fantalar. I’m sorry, I forgot.”
“I wish I could.” Emily withdrew a small dose of a brilliant blue inject from the pharmaceutical store in her kit. “This won’t harm the baby and should relieve your symptoms for a few hours. You have to promise me you’ll eat, carbohydrates would be best, and you have to stay hydrated. Are you taking prenatal supplements?”
“Will the inject leave a mark?” Clutching her pale blue robe, Liora shifted away from her.
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