Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun

Chapter Six

Throwing back her hair Dephine said, "So Fren's got it. Well, I guess we can't all be lucky. How bad is it, Earl?"

"It's too early to tell."

"And you were close to him. Earl-you fool!"

"Charl was there too."

"I don't give a damn about Charl! You're different. I need you."

"Why?"

"Why?" Her voice rose as she echoed the question. "How big a fool are you that you can't guess that? Who else on this ship can I turn to? Who-Earl!"

"Stay away from me!" He backed as she came towards him, arms extended in open invitation. "Dephine!"

Her bare arms fell to her naked sides, the slap of her palms clear in the hold. Stripped she stood beneath the UV lights, taking her turn at the prophylactic precaution. One which Dumarest doubted would be of much use but at least it had a psychological benefit.

"All right, Earl," she said, bleakly. "So I mustn't touch you. But at least you can look at me. Does it help?"

She was like a child, he thought, wanting confirmation of her charm. A small girl asking strangers if they thought she was beautiful. But there was nothing childish about her body, lean and lithe though it was. The breasts and hips were those of a mature and feminine woman. The clear musculature revealed beneath the skin added to rather than distracted from her appeal. There was life in her, a vibrant urge to experience it to the full, a heat of primeval passion. One which had abruptly revealed itself when she'd heard the news as if nature itself was trying to compensate for imminent death by a burst of biological activity. An urge he had recognised and felt even as he had denied its logical outcome.

Death could be riding on his hands-he must not pass it on.

"Give yourself thirty minutes," he ordered. "Then call Allia to take your place. Make her strip if you can."

"That's impossible, Earl."

"Try, but don't touch her. Don't touch anyone or anything unless you have to."

She turned, slowly, arms lifted above her head in order to accentuate the thrust of her breasts, stomach indrawn. Her legs, long and slender, looked like marble as she stood on her toes.

"Am I beautiful, Earl?"

"Beautiful."

"You mean that?"

He said, bluntly, "Of us all you will look the best in a coffin. Don't fall in love with yourself so deeply as to forget that. Thirty minutes, remember, not a second less."

Charl Tao called to him as Dumarest passed the door of his cabin. He sat, a bottle of unusual design on the table before him, glasses to hand.

"Earl, come and join me."

"You know better than that, Charl."

"We were both with Fren and if one of us has contacted the disease then so has the other. We were both exposed. Which isn't to say that either of us needs to suffer. Sit and I will explain."

The man had medical experience and what he said was true. Dumarest entered the cabin. He sat and watched as the plump man tilted the opened bottle. The wine was of a thick consistency as if it were syrup, but in the mouth it had a clean sweetness filled with stinging bubbles.

Charl smiled at his expression. "Unusual isn't it, Earl? A rare and precious vintage made on a small world which has nothing to commend it aside from this one art. One day, perhaps, I shall go back to it and obtain a vinery. All it needs is money and a gracious presence. You would have no difficulty in obtaining a place in their society."

"Have I money?"

"Did I say you had? The vines are passed from mother to daughter and from a part of her dowry. To obtain a footing it is necessary to marry. Money makes a man more attractive but some, attractive without, could make themselves an easy living." He lifted the bottle and poured a little more into Dumarest's glass. "A wine which lasts, Earl. A little goes a long way."

"Like trouble."

"And disease. You've experienced it before?"

Dumarest nodded, remembering a settlement, the cries of the afflicted, the deaths, the plague which had swept through the camp like a wind. He had survived with a few others and had walked away leaving the place in flames; rude huts and gathered branches making a cleansing pyrs for the dead.

"And?"

"Buboes beneath the armpits. Rashes. Pustules on the face, neck and body. Nothing like this. You know of it?"

"No." Charl sipped at his wine. "It is most probably a mutation, something triggered to sudden life which feeds on an unsuspected weakness. The ebon patches seem to have some resemblance to gangrene though I can see no true correlation. Certainly they are foci of destroyed and expelled tissue."

"Not origin-points?"

"I don't think so. I studied Fren pretty closely as you know. The first blotch was the forerunner of several more all of which appeared in rapid succession. They begin as pin-points and expand within the course of a few hours, the red rim becomes noticeable only when they have reached an easily visible diameter. Help yourself to more wine if you want it, Earl."

"I have enough. A virus?"

"Most probably, yes."

If so their chances were small. In the closed environment of the ship it would be quickly spread from one to the other, most probably had been spread already. Dumarest remembered the stripped cabin of the dead steward; the bulkheads had remained, the air he had breathed, the things he had touched.

"How is Fren?"

"Unconscious. I've kept him that way though I will admit we could learn more if he were revived. As it is I've taken smears and done what I could, but without instruments it isn't enough. We haven't even a microscope. There is no centrifuge, no laboratory equipment, no reagents. All I managed to do was test growth-rates on a culture plate and try a few inhibiting chemicals." Charl lifted his glass, sipped, puffed his cheeks to accommodate the dancing bubbles. "What medicines do we have?"

"Some sedatives, tranquilizers and pain-killers," said Dumarest.

"Slow-time?"

"No."

"A pity. If we'd had some we could have fitted our patient with intravenous feeding and given him a month's subjective living in a day. At least it would have shown us the progression of the disease."

Dumarest shrugged. The question was academic. Slow-time, the reverse of quick-time, was expensive and not to be expected in the medical stores of a ship like the Varden. And there was little point in accelerating a man's metabolism to a high factor unless they had the equipment to make it worthwhile.

"Talking of time," said Charl. "The Captain's changed our course, right?"

"Yes."

"And lengthened our journey by how long?"

"Does it matter?"

"It could, Earl. To some of us it could mean life itself." Charl lifted his glass in a toast. "To luck! May it attend us! And to a pleasant journey-it could be the last any of us may take!"

The handler collapsed two days later, falling across the chess board and scattering pieces to either side. The engineer backed away, his face betraying his fear, making no effort to help as Dumarest tugged at the limp figure.

"Get hold," he snapped. "Lift him. Carry him to his bunk."

"No! He's got it!"

"You've been facing him, breathing his air, touching the same pieces as he did. Help me with him-you've nothing to lose." Dumarest straightened as the man still hesitated. "I asked you to help," he said tightly. "Now I'm not asking, I'm telling you what to do. Get this man to his bunk."

"And if I don't?" The engineer scowled as steel flashed in Dumarest's hand. "You'd cut me, is that it? You'd use that knife. Well, mister, two can play at that game."

A rod stood in a tool rack, a long, curved bar used to ease the generator on its mountings in case of adjustment or repair. A thing too long for easy handling, but deadly in its potential. The engineer tore it free, lifted it, sent it whining towards Dumarest's head. Ducking he felt the wind of its passage stir his hair. As the engineer lifted the bar for a second blow Dumarest darted in, smashing his fist against the engineer's jaw, sending him staggering back. He struck again, his fist weighed with the hilt of the knife, bringing down the blade so that the point pricked the skin of one cheek.

"I'm not playing. Start anything like that again and I'll finish it."

"You-"

"Pick him up. Move!"

The handler was in a bad condition. He breathed with difficulty, chest heaving, throat swollen, face covered with sweat. Dumarest slashed open his tunic with his knife, the reason he had drawn it in the first place. A gesture the engineer had misunderstood.

From where he stood at the cabin door the man said, "How bad is he?"

"Bad enough. Do you know if he's allergic to anything?" Dumarest frowned at the negative answer. "What has he been eating lately?"

"Some fish we had in cans."

"Did you eat the same?"

"No, I don't like fish." The engineer leaned forward. "Is that what's wrong with him? Bad food?"

It was barely possible, but one symptom could be masking another. Fabric parted as Dumarest ran the edge of his knife down the undershirt and exposed the naked chest. It was adorned with a suggestive tattoo, writhing lines and smears of color which made it difficult to see the actual state of the skin.

Impatiently he sliced through the belt and bared the stomach. It was covered with minute ebon blotches.

"Two down and seven to go," said Charl Tao when he heard the news. "A lucky number, Earl. Seven is supposed to hold a special significance. It has magical properties and is the number of the openings to the body; two ears, two nostrils, a mouth, the anus and the urethra." He ended, dully, "I learned that at school."

Information of no value. Dumarest crossed the floor of the salon and helped himself to a cup of basic from the spigot. It was a thick liquid, laced with vitamins, heavy with protein, sickly with glucose. A single cup would provide a spaceman with sufficient energy for a day.

"Aside from the significance of numbers have you learned anything else?"

"Little. The steward would have been in close contact with Harmond. It was part of his job to aid him in small ways. And he was a close friend of the handler."

Which meant that both would have been exposed early to the disease. In that case it was to be expected that both should fall sick before the others.

"The incubation period?"

"It's anyone's guess, Earl." Charl lifted hands and shoulders in a shrug. "A few days, at least, but how many is impossible to tell. I simply haven't the data. And it could vary with each individual. Harmond may have succumbed quickly because of the infection present from his wound. It would have lowered his resistance. The handler was probably the first to be contaminated."

But he wasn't the first to die. Fren Harmond did that, his life slipping away as he lay locked in drugged unconsciousness. Dumarest wrapped the body in plastic, heaved the dead man, his bedding, all he had owned in the way of clothing to the evacuation port. Grimly he watched as the apparatus cycled, lamps flashing as the contents of the cubicle were blasted into the void.

A man dead who would probably have still been alive if they hadn't left Hoghan as they had.

One who would at least have had a chance.

On the Varden there was no chance. The ship held no vaccines, no medicines, no skilled aid. No instruments to determine the nature of the invisible killer. Nothing to give a clue as to how it could be defeated. Survival now depended strictly on the make-up of the individual: the strength of resistance-factors, antibiotic generation, the ability to combat the virus, to meet the challenge, to live.

A gamble in which none knew their chances and could only guess at the odds.

Allia Mertrony rocked back on her heels from where she knelt before the polished disc, her head buzzing, echoes ringing in her ears, the pounding of her heart a clenched fist beating within her chest. Before her incense rose in coiling plumes, the last of her supply. No matter, it had been enough. Her prayers had been answered. Lars, long dead and long waiting, had stirred and sent her a message.

He was waiting. He was impatient. When would she come?

And God too was waiting.

But long to be in his presence as she did, the Prime Directive must be obeyed. To live while it was possible. To extend existence until it could be extended no further. Then, and only then, could she join Lars and go to her reward.

To die. To rest. Suicide was forbidden and though old she had no ills. But the joy of life had long since left her and, aside from prayer, she lived but to sleep and eat. Fear had gone now that she had been reassured. Her faith was strong.

And good deeds remained to be done.

"Mad!" Charl Tao shook his head as he entered the salon. Nodding to Dumarest and Dephine he drew basic, sipped, made a face, then forced it down.

"Who is mad? Me?" Dephine stared her anger. "I'm fed up with being cooped in a cabin. All right, so it's crazy to mix, but what difference does it make now?"

"None," he said mildly. "But I wasn't talking about you, my dear. I was talking about the old woman. She's turned into a nurse. I left her washing the handler, tending him, crooning like a mother over a child."

"How is he?"

"Fever high. Profuse sweating which is to be expected at such a temperature. Headaches, shivers, pains in the joints." Charl added, slowly, "He's also delirious."

Dephine said, sharply, "Raving, you mean?"

"By now he must be far gone in hallucination. The crisis, I think. Either he will begin to recover in the next few hours or he will die."

"The warning symptoms," said Dumarest. "Have you isolated them yet?"

"I can make a guess, Earl, no more. The handler complained of headaches and nausea a day before he collapsed. However he had been drinking heavily and so the symptoms could have had another cause. But a few hours before he was stricken he did complain of double-vision. It could mean nothing, Earl."

Dumarest said, quietly, "You're wrong, Charl. The engineer complained of that very thing when I saw him last. He also said he felt sick. I told him to lie down and try and get some sleep. If we find blotches on him-"

They were scattered over his shoulders and upper torso, flecks like blackheads which would grow into ebon flowers rimmed with scarlet.

"Help me!" His hands lifted, groping. "My eyes! I can't see! Help me!"

Charl straightened from his examination and shook his head, baffled.

"The eyes don't seem to be affected, but without instruments I can't be sure. And even then my experience is too limited to arrive at a conclusion. A part of incipient hallucination, perhaps? A psychosomatic syndrome?"

"How so?"

"See no evil therefore it doesn't exist. See no illness and it cannot threaten. An escape from unpleasant reality. Was he afraid?"

Dumarest nodded, looking about the cabin, seeing the garish pictures pasted to the bulkheads. Colorful depictions of longed-for pleasures, exaggerated interwindings of shapely limbs, scenes of a vague, dream-like unreality. Visible proof that the engineer had not only imagination but an earthy mind. An imagination which had now turned against him, magnifying his pain.

As the man groaned Dumarest felt a sudden chill, the touch of something against which he had no conscious defense. An enemy which naked steel could neither cow nor defeat. A thing as intangible as a thought, as destructive as a fanatic's ambition.

"I burn!" The engineer writhed in a paroxysm of agony, twisting on the bunk, rearing, his back bent like a bow, hands clenched until the nails dug into his palms. "The pain! Dear God, the pain!"

"Another variable, Earl." Charl shook his head in baffled irritation. "His sensory apparatus appears to have been affected. Usually in men of his type the pain level is inordinately high but now it seems to have been lowered to an incredible extent."

"Could the virus be generating some form of nerve-poison?"

"How can I tell? It's possible in which case it would account for the sudden onset of pain. There hasn't been time for extensive tissue-damage. But if that is the case then why weren't the others affected in the same way?"

"Maybe they were," said Dumarest. "Harmond was drugged until he died, remember?"

"And the handler could be suffering as much in his delirium as the engineer in his physical anguish." Charl nodded, his eyes thoughtful. "In each case it is obvious that the sensory apparatus has been affected by the virus and it could be mere chance which dictates the course the disease will take. If others are affected they could either go insane or-" He winced as the engineer screamed again, a hoarse, rasping, animal-like sound. "Earl!"

The screaming died as Dumarest fired drugs into the tormented body. He checked the load of the hypogun as the engineer sank into merciful oblivion. It had taken a heavy dose-too heavy if it was to be maintained. The supply of drugs was limited and the more he took the less there would be for others.

If others came to need it? If they did and none was available?

Dumarest looked at his hands thinking of Dephine.