Plague Ship

by Andre Norton

  Chapter IX

  PLAGUE!

  Jellico and Steen Wilcox pored over the few notes Tau had made before hewas stricken. But apparently the Medic had found nothing to indicate thatSinbad was the carrier of any disease. Meanwhile the Captain gave ordersfor the cat to be confined. A difficult task--since Sinbad crouched closeto the door of the storage cabin and was ready to dart out when food wastaken in for him. Once he got a good way down the corridor before Danewas able to corner and return him to keeping.

  Dane, Ali and Weeks took on the full care of the four sick men, leavingthe few regular duties of the ship to the senior officers, while Rip wasinstalled in charge of the hydro garden.

  Mura, the first to be taken ill, showed no change. He was semi-conscious,he swallowed food if it were put in his mouth, he responded to nothingaround him. And Kosti, Tau, and Van Rycke followed the same pattern.They still held morning inspection of those on their feet for signs of anew outbreak, but when no one else went down during the next two days,they regained a faint spark of hope.

  Hope which was snapped out when Ali brought the news that Stotz could notbe roused and must have taken ill during a sleep period. One more inertpatient was added to the list--and nothing learned about how he wasinfected. Except that they could eliminate Sinbad, since the cat had beenin custody during the time Stotz had apparently contracted the disease.

  Weeks, Ali and Dane, though they were in constant contact with the sickmen, and though Dane had repeatedly handled Sinbad, continued to beimmune. A fact, Dane thought more than once, which must havesignificance--if someone with Tau's medical knowledge had been able tostudy it. By all rights they should be the most susceptible--but theopposite seemed true. And Wilcox duly noted that fact among the data theyhad recorded.

  It became a matter of watching each other, waiting for another collapse.And they were not surprised when Tang Ya reeled into the mess, his facelivid and drawn with pain. Rip and Dane got him to his cabin before heblacked out. But all they could learn from him during the interval beforehe lost consciousness was that his head was bursting and he couldn'tstand it. Over his limp body they stared at one another bleakly.

  "Six down," Ali observed, "and six to go. How do you feel?"

  "Tired, that's all. What I don't understand is that once they go intothis stupor they just stay. They don't get any worse, they have no risein temperature--it's as if they are in a modified form of cold sleep!"

  "How is Tang?" Rip asked from the corridor.

  "Usual pattern," Ali answered, "He's sleeping. Got a pain, Fella?"

  Rip shook his head. "Right as a Com-unit. I don't get it. Why does itstrike Tang who didn't even hit dirt much--and yet you keep on--?"

  Dane grimaced. "If we had an answer to that, maybe we'd know what causedthe whole thing--"

  Ali's eyes narrowed. He was staring straight at the unconscious Com-techas if he did not see that supine body at all. "I wonder if we've beensalted--" he said slowly.

  "We've been _what?_" Dane demanded.

  "Look here, we three--with Weeks--drank that brew of the Salariki, didn'twe? And we--"

  "Were as sick as Venusian gobblers afterwards," agreed Rip.

  Light dawned. "Do you mean--" began Dane.

  "So that's it!" flashed Rip.

  "It might just be," Ali said. "Do you remember how the settlers onCamblyne brought their Terran cattle through the first year? They fedthem salt mixed with fansel grass. The result was that the herds didn'ttake the fansel grass fever when they turned them out to pasture in thedry season. All right, maybe we had our 'salt' in that drink. Thefansel-salt makes the cattle filthy sick when it's forced down theirthroats, but after they recover they're immune to the fever. And nobodyon Camblyne buys unsalted cattle now."

  "It sounds logical," admitted Rip. "But how are we going to prove it?"

  Ali's face was black once more. "Probably by elimination," he saidmorosely. "If we keep our feet and all the rest go down--that's ourproof."

  "But we ought to be able to do something--" protested Shannon.

  "Just how?" Ali's slender brows arched. "Do you have a gallon of thatSalariki brew on board you can serve out? We don't know what was in it.Nor are we sure that this whole idea has any value."

  All of them had had first aid and basic preventive medicine as part oftheir training, but the more advanced laboratory experimentation wasbeyond their knowledge and skill. Had Tau still been on his feet perhapshe could have traced that lead and brought order out of the chaos whichwas closing in upon the Solar Queen. But, though they reported theirsuggestion to the Captain, Jellico was powerless to do anything about it.If the four who had shared that upsetting friendship cup were immune tothe doom which now overhung the ship, there was no possible way for themto discover why or how.

  Ship's time came to have little meaning. And they were not surprised whenSteen Wilcox slipped from his seat before the computer--to be stowed awaywith what had become a familiar procedure. Only Jellico withstood thecontagion apart from the younger four, taking his turn at caring for thehelpless men. There was no change in their condition. They neither rousednor grew worse as the hours and then the days sped by. But each of thoseunits of time in passing brought them nearer to greater danger. Sooner orlater they must make the transition out of Hyper into system space, andthe jump out of warp was something not even a veteran took lightly. Rip'sround face thinned while they watched. Jellico was still functioning. Butif the Captain collapsed the whole responsibility for the snap-out wouldfall directly on Shannon. An infinitesimal error would condemn them toalmost hopeless wandering--perhaps for ever.

  Dane and Ali relieved Rip of all duty but that which kept him chained inWilcox's chair before the computers. He went over and over the data ofthe course the Astrogator had set. And Captain Jellico, his eyes sunk indark pits, checked and rechecked.

  When the fatal moment came Ali manned the engine room with Weeks at hiselbow to tend the controls the acting-Engineer could not reach. And Dane,having seen the sick all safely stowed in crash webbing, came up to thecontrol cabin, riding out the transfer in Tang Ya's place.

  Rip's voice hoarsened into a croak, calling out the data. Dane, though hehad had basic theory, was completely lost before Shannon had finished thefirst set of co-ordinates. But Jellico replied, hands playing across thepilot's board.

  "Stand-by for snap-out--" the croak went down to the engines where Alinow held Stotz's post.

  "Engines ready!" The voice came back, thinned by its journey from theQueen's interior.

  "Ought-five-nine--" That was Jellico.

  Dane found himself suddenly unable to watch. He shut his eyes and bracedhimself against the vertigo of snap-out. It came and he whirledsickeningly through unstable space. Then he was sitting in the lacedCom-tech's seat looking at Rip.

  Runnels of sweat streaked Shannon's brown face. There was a damp patchdarkening his tunic between his shoulder blades, a patch which it wouldtake both of Dane's hands to cover.

  For a moment he did not raise his head to look at the vision plate whichwould tell him whether or not they had made it. But when he did familiarconstellations made the patterns they knew. They were out--and theycouldn't be too far off the course Wilcox had plotted. There was stillthe system run to make--but snap-out was behind them. Rip gave a deepsigh and buried his head in his hands.

  With a throb of fear Dane unhooked his safety belt and hurried over tohim. When he clutched at Shannon's shoulder the Astrogator-apprentice'shead rolled limply. Was Rip down with the illness too? But the othermuttered and opened his eyes.

  "Does your head ache?" Dane shook him.

  "Head? No--" Rip's words came drowsily. "Jus' sleepy--so sleepy--"

  He did not seem to be in pain. But Dane's hands were shaking as hehoisted the other out of his seat and half carried-half led him to hiscabin, praying as he went that it was only fatigue and not the disease.The ship was on auto now until Jellico as pilot set a course--

  Dane got Rip down on the bunk and stripped off
his tunic. The fine-drawnface of the sleeper looked wan against the foam rest, and he snuggledinto the softness like a child as he turned over and curled up. But hisskin was clear--it was real sleep and not the plague which had claimedhim.

  Impulse sent Dane back to the control cabin. He was not an experiencedpilot officer, but there might be some assistance he could offer theCaptain now that Rip was washed out, perhaps for hours.

  Jellico hunched before the smaller computer, feeding pilot tape into itsslot. His face was a skull under a thin coating of skin, the bonesmarking it sharply at jaw, nose and eye socket.

  "Shannon down?" His voice was a mere whisper of its powerful self, he didnot turn his head.

  "He's just worn out, sir," Dane hastened to give reassurance. "The marksaren't on him."

  "When he comes around tell him the co-ords are in," Jellico murmured."See he checks course in ten hours--"

  "But, sir--" Dane's protest failed as he watched the Captain struggle tohis feet, pulling himself up with shaking hands. As Thorson reachedforward to steady the other, one of those hands tore at tunic collar,ripping loose the sealing--

  There was no need for explanation--the red splotch signaled fromJellico's sweating throat. He kept his feet, holding out against thewaves of pain by sheer will power. Then Dane had a grip on him, got himaway from the computer, hoping he could keep him going until they reachedJellico's cabin.

  Somehow they made that journey, being greeted with raucous screams fromthe Hoobat. Furiously Dane slapped the cage, setting it to swinging andso silencing the creature which stared at him with round, malignant eyesas he got the Captain to bed.

  Only four of them on their feet now, Dane thought bleakly as he left thecabin. If Rip came out of it in time they could land--Dane's breathcaught as he made himself face up to the fact that Shannon might be ill,that it might be up to him to bring the Queen in for a landing. And inwhere? The Terra quarantine was Luna City on the Moon. But let themsignal for a set-down there--let them describe what had happened and theymight face death as a plague ship.

  Wearily he climbed down to the mess cabin to discover Weeks and Ali therebefore him. They did not look up as he entered.

  "Old Man's got it," he reported.

  "Rip?" was Ali's crossing question.

  "Asleep. He passed out--"

  "What!" Weeks swung around.

  "Worn out," Dane amended. "Captain fed in a pilot tape before he gaveup."

  "So--now we are three," was Ali's comment. "Where do we set down--LunaCity?"

  "If they let us," Dane hinted at the worst.

  "But they've got to let us!" Weeks exclaimed. "We can't just wanderaround out here--"

  "It's been done," Ali reminded them brutally and that silenced Weeks.

  "Did the Old Man set Luna?" After a long pause Ali inquired.

  "I didn't check," Dane confessed. "He was giving out and I had to get himto his bunk."

  "It might be well to know." The Engineer-apprentice got up, his movementslacking much of the elastic spring which was normally his. When heclimbed to control both the others followed him.

  Ali's slender fingers played across a set of keys and in the small screenmounting on the computer a set of figures appeared. Dane took up themaster course book, read the connotation and blinked.

  "Not Luna?" Ali asked.

  "No. But I don't understand. This must be for somewhere in the asteroidbelt."

  Ali's lips stretched into a pale caricature of a smile. "Good for the OldMan, he still had his wits about him, even after the bug bit him!"

  "But why are we going to the asteroids?" Weeks asked reasonably enough."There're Medics at Luna City--they can help us--"

  "They can handle known diseases," Ali pointed out. "But what of theCode?"

  Weeks dropped into the Com-tech's place as if some of the stiffening hadvanished from his thin but sturdy legs. "They wouldn't do that--" heprotested, but his eyes said that he knew that they might--they wellmight.

  "Oh, no? Face the facts, man," Ali sounded almost savage. "We come from afrontier planet, we're a plague ship--"

  He did not have to underline that. They all knew too well the danger inwhich they now stood.

  "Nobody's died yet," Weeks tried to find an opening in the net beingdrawn about them.

  "And nobody's recovered," Ali crushed that thread of hope. "We don't knowwhat it is, how it is contracted--anything about it. Let us make a reportsaying that and you know what will happen--don't you?"

  They weren't sure of the details, but they could guess.

  "So I say," Ali continued, "the Old Man was right when he set us on anevasion course. If we can stay out until we really know what is thematter we'll have some chance of talking over the high brass at Luna whenwe do planet--"

  In the end they decided not to interfere with the course the Captain hadset. It would take them into the fringes of solar civilization, but givethem a fighting chance at solving their problem before they had to reportto the authorities. In the meantime they tended their charges, let Ripsleep, and watched each other with desperate but hidden intentness, readyfor another to be stricken. However, they remained, although almoststupid with fatigue at times, reasonably healthy. Time was proving thattheir guess had been correct--they had been somehow inoculated againstthe germ or virus which had struck the ship.

  Rip slept for twenty-four hours, ship time, and then came into the messcabin ravenously hungry, to catch up on both food and news. And herefused to join with the prevailing pessimistic view of the future.Instead he was sure that their own immunity having been proven, they hada talking point to use with the medical officials at Luna and he waseager to alter course directly for the quarantine station. Only thecombined arguments of the other three made him, unwillingly, agree to ashort delay.

  And how grateful they should be for Captain Jellico's foresight theylearned within the next day. Ali was at the com-unit, trying to pick upSolarian news reports. When the red alert flashed on throughout the shipit brought the others hurrying to the control cabin. The code squeakswere magnified as Ali switched on the receiver full strength, to betranslated as he pressed a second button.

  "Repeat, repeat, repeat. Free Trader, Solar Queen, Terra Registry65-724910-Jk, suspected plague ship--took off from infected planet. Warnoff--warn off--report such ship to Luna Station. Solar Queen frominfected planet--to be warned off and reported." The same message wasrepeated three times before going off ether.

  The four in the control cabin looked at each other blankly.

  "But," Dane broke the silence, "how did they know? We haven't reportedin--"

  "The Eysies!" Ali had the answer ready. "That I-S ship must be having thesame sort of trouble and reported to her Company. They would include usin their report and believe that we were infected too--or it would beeasy to convince the authorities that we were."

  "I wonder," Rip's eyes were narrowed slits as he leaned back against thewall. "Look at the facts. The Survey ship which charted Sargol--they weredirt-side there about three-four months. Yet they gave it a clean bill ofhealth and put it up for trading rights auction. Then Cam bought thoserights--he made at least two trips in and out before he was blasted onLimbo. No infection bothered him or Survey--"

  "But you've got to admit it hit us," Weeks protested.

  "Yes, and the Eysie ship was able to foresee it--report us before wesnapped out of Hyper. Sounds almost as if they expected us to carryplague, doesn't it?" Shannon wanted to know.

  "Planted?" Ali frowned at the banks of controls. "But how--no Eysie cameon board--no Salarik either, except for the cub who showed us what theythought of catnip."

  Rip shrugged. "How would I know how they did--" he was beginning whenDane cut in:

  "If they didn't know about our immunity the Queen might stay in Hyper andnever come out--there wouldn't be anyone to set the snap-out."

  "Right enough. But on the chance that somebody did keep on his feet andbring her home, they were ready with a cover. If no one raises a howlSargol wil
l be written off the charts as infected, I-S sits on her tailfins a year or so and then she promotes an investigation before theBoard. The Survey records are trotted out--no infection recorded. So theysend in a Patrol Probe. Everything is all right--so it wasn't the planetafter all--it was that dirty old Free Trader. And she's out of the way.I-S gets the Koros trade all square and legal and we're no longer aroundto worry about! Neat as a Salariki net-cast--and right around ourcollective throats, my friends!"

  "So what do we do now?" Weeks wanted to know.

  "We keep on the Old Man's course, get lost in the asteroids until we cando some heavy thinking and see a way out. But if I-S gave us this prizepackage, some trace of its origin is still aboard. And if we can findthat--why, then we have something to start from."

  "Mura went down first--and then Karl. Nothing in common," the old problemfaced Dane for the hundredth time.

  "No. But," Ali arose from his place at the com-unit. "I'd suggest a realsearch of first Frank's and then Karl's quarters. A regular turn outdown to the bare walls of their cabins. Are you with me?"

  "Fly boy, we're ahead of you!" Rip contributed, already at the doorpanel. "Down to the bare walls it is."