The Jupiter Plague

15

“Is it… a cure for the plague?” General Burke asked, staring down at the capsule of liquid. “It could be a trick of some kind—”

“The wires correct…” the flat voice squealed from the speaker.

“I’ll get into that,” Yasumura said, taking out his knife. “What a mess — it’s a good thing that they’re color coded.”

Sam took off his beret and picked up the waxy tube with it. “I hope it’s the cure — but we won’t know until we’ve tried.” He looked down at it, startled. “It’s not cold! Yet it should be frozen solid at the temperature inside that tank. This may be it, Cleaver!”

“Then let’s get it out where it can do some good. I want a phone and I want to know where the elevator is — in that order.”

“Yes, sir, General,” the engineer said, twisting together the ends of a severed wire and reaching for another one. “You’ll find them both down there. Follow the bulkhead that way and out the first door; they’re in the corridor outside. Send someone back to let me know what happens. I’ll stick here and wire up this heavyweight Jovian, then see if I can get him to talk some more.”

General Burke called the phone that was located on the desk nearest to the air lock and after tapping his fingers for an impatient thirty seconds the screen cleared as Lieutenant Haber answered. “Report,” the general snapped.

“Quiet now, sir. The firing stopped some time ago but they have the lights on and the opening ranged and they must have a scope on it. I tried to take a look awhile ago and they almost blew my head off. So far they haven’t tried to get in.”

“Hold there, Haber, and keep under cover. I’ll contact them so we can get out of this ship. It looks as if we may have a cure for the plague but we’re going to have to get to a hospital to prove it.” He rang off before the startled officer could answer. “I’m going up to the control room, Sam. Tell Yasumura that he is to join Haber at the lock as soon as he has finished the wiring job and make him understand that it is important. Then join me in control.”

By the time Sam had delivered the message— and convinced the engineer that now was not the time to talk to the Jovian — General Burke had found the way back to the control room and was shouting into the radiophone. He had cleaned most of the blackout cream from his face so there would be no doubt of his identity. When Sam came in he waved him toward the phone.

“You know Chabel of World Health, you talk to him. He doesn’t believe a word I say.” Professor Chabel stared out of the screen at them, white-faced and trembling.

“How can I believe what you say, General Burke, or whatever Dr. Bertolli tells me, after what has happened? The Emergency Council is in session right now and do you know what they’re considering—? I don’t dare say it on an open circuit…”

“I know what they’re considering,” Sam said, in as controlled a voice as possible. “They want to start dropping H-bombs and atomize Zone-Red— New York City and all the area within a hundred miles of it. But they don’t have to do this, there is a chance now that we can stop Rand’s disease.” He held up the capsule. “I think this contains the cure and there is only one way to find out, get it to Bellevue as soon as we can.”

“No!” Chabel said, his voice quavering. “If you do not leave the ship there is a chance that the Emergency Council will not take any desperate measures. You will stay where you are.”

“I would like to talk to Dr. McKay, I can explain to him what we have found.”

“Impossible. Dr. McKay is still ill after his heart attack, in any case I would not allow you to speak to him…” Sam reached out and broke the circuit, then signaled for the operator to put in a call to Dr. McKay.

“Damned old woman,” the general said angrily.

“Hysterical. Does he think that / am lying?”

The call signal chimed but it was Eddie Perkins, not McKay, who appeared on the screen.

“You!” he said, taut with anger. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble? I heard what you have done at the airport, you must be insane—”

“Eddie!” Sam broke in, “Shut up. I’m not going to feud with you any more. This is the only chance you are going to have your entire life to make up for some ot the mistakes you made. Help me now and the matter will end there. I must talk to Dr. McKay, General Burke here will tell you why. General Burke of the United Nations Army — you recognize him — and you can believe him.”

“It is very simple. Dr. Perkins. We are in the ‘Pericles’ now and we have discovered the cause of Rand’s disease. Dr. Bertolli here has the serum that will cure it. We must leave this ship and go to Bellevue Hospital at once. We are being stopped from doing this and Dr. McKay is the only man who can help us. Now, if you will connect us…”

He said it in a matter-of-fact way, simplifying the situation and using the crisp tones of command that admitted no other choice. Sam looked at Eddie Perkins, who sat silently chewing his lip in agony, and realized for the first time that Perkins was without malice, he was just in a situation that was too big for him, that he was unequipped to handle and was too afraid to admit that he had been doing badly.

“Put us through, Eddie,” Sam said softly.

“McKay is a sick man.”

“He’ll be dead like the rest of us soon if Rand’s disease isn’t stopped. Put the call through, Eddie…”

Perkins made a convulsive movement toward the switch and his image faded from the screen. They waited tensely, not looking at each other, while the hold signal swirled its endless circles. When McKay’s face finally appeared on the screen Sam let out his breath: he had not realized that he had been holding it.

“What is it, Sam?” McKay asked, sitting up in a hospital bed, looking strained and gaunt but still alert. He listened intently while Sam explained what they had found in the ship and what had been done, nodding in agreement.

“I believe it, simply because I never believed in Rand’s disease. It has acted in an impossible manner from the first. Now this is completely understandable if it was a manufactured and designed disease. But why — no, never mind that for now. What is it you want me to do?”

“We want to get this liquid to the team at Bellevue at once, but we’re trapped in this ship. Professor Chabel’s orders.”

“Nonsense! I can talk to one or two people and do something about those orders. I was placed in command of the team to discover a treatment for Rand’s disease, and if you have one there I want it now.” He rang off.

“Game old boy,” the general said. “I hope his heart lasts until he gets some action out of those mumble-brained politicians. Come on, Sam, let’s get down to the air lock and see if those chuckle-heads will let us out.”

Lieutenant Haber and Stanley Yasumura were resting against the corridor wall, well away from the line of fire through the partially opened door.

“Stay where you are,” General Burke said as Haber started to struggle up. “Anything to report?”

“Negative, sir, unchanged since I talked to you last.”

“We want to open that outer door again since we should be getting out of here soon. Is that junction box in the line of fire?”

“I don’t think so, sir. Not if you were to stay flat on the floor until you got to it, but I think if you stood up you could be seen from outside.”

“Tell me what has to be done, will you, Stanley,” Sam said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I would love to,” the engineer said, biting his teeth together hard to control their growing tendency to chatter, “but it would take too long and you would take too long doing it and — I’m the one who has to do it so let me get going before my nerve fails completely. Just pay this wire out to me as I go. And wish me luck.”

He dropped flat at the open inner door, hesitated just a moment, then crawled through the opening. Nothing happened as he made his way around the wall to the open junction box, nor did he draw any attention even when he had to stand up to connect the wires. But on the return journey he must have been seen because bullets drummed on the outer door and the hull and some found the tiny opening and ricocheted around the air lock. Yasumura dived through into the hall and lay there exhausted but unharmed.

“Good work,” the general said. “Now let’s open the outer door and see how those gun-happy police react.”

As soon as he was able to stand, the engineer made the connections to the power pack and closed the circuit. The circuit breakers had cooled off and automatically reset themselves: the motor whined and the outer door began to open slowly.

A hail of bullets was the first reaction, but they were well out of the line of fire.

“Shaky trigger fingers,” the general said contemptuously. “I wonder if they have any idea of what they hope to accomplish by this.”

Others must have shared his opinion because the fire broke off suddenly and was replaced by an echoing silence. Almost fifteen minutes passed before someone shouted from outside.

“General Burke, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you all right,” Burke bellowed back, “but I can’t see you. Are those nervous policemen going to shoot me if I enter the air lock?”

“No, sir… we have orders not to.”

If the general was concerned he did not show it. He straightened his beret, flicked some of the dried mud from his coveralls and strode forward to the rim of the air lock, standing straight and unmoving in the glare from the lights that flooded in.

“Now what is it?” he called down. “And turn those lights down — are you trying to blind me?” There were some muffled commands and two of the lights went out.

“We have received orders that you are to be allowed to leave the ship.” The speaker came for-ward, a grizzled police captain.

“I’ll want transportation. A copter.”

“We have one here—”

“Warm it up. And what happened to my sergeant?”

“If you mean the one who was firing at us, he’s dead.”

The general turned around without another word and stamped inside. “Let’s go before they change their minds.” He had the fixed, unhappy look that soldiers get who have seen too many friends die.

“You won’t need me any more,” Yasumura said. “So if you don’t mind I’ll stay here and take a look at the ship’s log and have some chitchat with that overweight passenger.”

“Yes, of course,” the general said. “Thank you for the aid…”

“Wrong way around, General, I’m the one who should be thanking you for getting me back into the ship.”

A service lift truck was backed up to the “Pericles” and its platform raised to the level of the air lock. They stepped out onto it, carrying the wounded lieutenant between them, and the operator swung it around in an arc and dropped it to ground level; a few yards away was a copter with its blades slowly turning. They ignored the grim-faced and heavily armed policemen who stood around watching them. Sam held the capsule tightly in his free hand as they helped Haber into the copter and laid him down gently across the rear row of seats.

“Bellevue Hospital and make it flat out,” Sam said, dropping into the seat next to the police pilot. “Get onto the tower and tell them to clear you right through, to divert all other traffic. We’re going straight to the Bellevue landing pad and set down at maximum. Understood?”

“On the way.”

He hit the throttle open and the copter screamed and clawed its way into the sky.

Sam beat his fist over and over again into the armrest as ahead of them the light-dotted skyline of Manhattan grew closer and closer; but ever so slowly for him. Now, with the rushed and anxious events of the past hours behind him, memory swam to the surface in horrifying detail. Nita, unconscious, ill… dying. Her face swollen and flushed. It had been — how long? — over seven hours since he had last seen her. She would be much, much worse by now. Or she could be dead. Others had died in less time. But she was young and strong. Yes, but was she young and strong enough to stay alive? He had no way of knowing. Could she be dead, tragically dead when salvation might be so close? When he might be bringing the cure with him. His fingers touched, almost carressed the waxy cylinder in his lap. It bent under the slight pressure, the liquid inside flowing back and forth. Could it really be the cure? Memory of the past hours gave him some reassurance. It had to be the cure they sought. What would the Jovian have gained by giving them the wrong substance?

Yet on the other hand — why should it even bother to give them the right one? Both of these questions were meaningless, without intelligent answers, since none of them had the slightest idea of what motivated the alien. The copter bounced on a thermal and Sam looked out at the waters of the East River slipping by below.

The copter buzzed in a tight circle around the towers of Bellevue then locked onto the computer controlled landing beam. It dropped swiftly onto the pad and the blades were still turning when the attendants rushed forward.

“You’ve got a patient in here,” Sam called out as he jumped down from the door, bent over to avoid the blades. “Get him to emergency at once.”

He pushed by them, knocking one man aside who got in his way, scarcely aware that he did it. Nita… Before he reached the entrance he was running, slamming open the door, mashing down the elevator button, pounding his free hand against the wall until the doors opened. General Burke was behind him, hurrying into the elevator after him.

“Easy, son,” the general said. “You’ll get there soon enough.”

Sam ran along the corridor, checking the numbers as he went, then pushing open the door to her room. It was dark inside and he turned on the ceiling lights. There were five beds in the room and the woman in the nearest one moaned and turned her eyes away from the glare. He ran past her to the bed by the window where Nita lay.

Silent and unmoving, her eyes closed. Was she…? It was a relief to feel the burning fever of

Rand’s disease in her limp wrist. He was not too late.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out of here at once!”

A doctor he had never seen before was pulling at his arm, then went sprawling onto the floor when Sam shook him off. Only then did Sam realize how he must look with his mud-stained overalls and blackened skin.

“I’m sorry, doctor, but I’m Doctor Bertolli. I need a hypodermic—” he broke off as he saw the jars of medicine on the trolley by the door. He hurried over to it and tore the drawer open and pulled out a paper wrapped disposable needle. Then he stood the capsule on end and poured alcohol over its base. He was not aware that the general had followed him into the room and was explaining in a low voice to the outraged doctor.

Sam tore the hypodermic from its package and threw the protective needle cover onto the floor. Pushed the point of the needle against the cylinder. It slid through easily and dipped into the liquid inside. Was this the treatment for Rand’s— or was it poison? How could he know? He inverted the capsule and drew back the plunger on the needle until the barrel was half full of straw-colored liquid. He pulled out the needle and handed the capsule to General Burke, who had appeared at his shoulder.

“Keep that end up,” he said as he gently took Nita’s arm from under the covers and, working with one hand, swabbed alcohol on the inside of her elbow. Her skin was dry, burning hot, lumped here and there with the swollen red nodules. Nita! He forced his mind away from her as a person, she was a patient, his patient. He massaged her vein with his thumb until it expanded, then slid the needle into it. How much? Five cc’s for a start, then more if it was needed.

On the telltale her temperature read one hundred and six degrees and in conjunction with the recordings of her blood pressure and pulse showed that she was dying. Her deep rasping breathing broke off suddenly and her back arched under the covers: she gave a deep chattering moan. He reached out and touched her in panic — what had he done? Had he killed her?

But when he looked back at the telltale he saw that her temperature had dropped to one hundred and five.

It was unnatural the way it happened, and completely impossible. Yet so was Rand’s disease. As they watched, in a matter of a few minutes, the disease was destroyed. Within five minutes her temperature was normal and within fifteen the flushed swellings had changed color and begun to subside. Her breathing steadied, became smooth and deep.

When she opened her eyes she looked up at them and smiled.

“Sam, darling… whatever are you doing with your face painted up like that?”