The Jupiter Plague

17

A gust of wind hurled a spattering of snowflakes against the outside of the window, where they hung for long seconds until the heat of the room melted them and they ran down the pane. Killer Dominguez, sitting reversed on the chair with his arms leaning on the back, blew a jet of cigarette smoke toward the window.

“Turning into a real crummy day, just look at that. If I didn’t have arthritis already I would catch it today. Sorry to see you go, Doc.”

“I’m not sorry to leave, Killer,” Sam said, digging a handful of white socks out of the dresser drawer and dumping them into the suitcase that lay open on the bed. “This is a great room for an intern to live in, it’s handy to the work and bearable because you don’t see it much. But it’s a little too spartan — reminds me too much of the Army.”

“And also no place for a married man, right, Doc?”

“There’s that too,” Sam smiled. “I can just see myself carrying Nita over this threshold. About the only thing I’m sorry about leaving is the ambulance. I’ll miss your driving, Killer.”

“No, you won’t, Doc. It’ll be easier on your heart once you’re off the meat wagon. They’ll need you in this new Lab 30 program, what with you knowing all about the Jovians and such. I hear that they got the idea from them.”

“In a way.” He closed the dresser and went to the closet. “It was the cure for Rand’s disease that the Jovians gave to us that started the entire thing off; it’s an entirely new concept in medicine. The J-molecule, that’s what they’re calling it, appears to be alive like a virus or a microorganism and capable of reproducing itself easily. That’s how they managed to make enough of it so fast to stop Rand’s disease in a matter of days. You just put it on a petri dish and fission begins.”

“Great — instant medicine! That will put the drugstores out of business — everyone grows their own.”

“It might at that. We’re just beginning to find out what the J-molecule can do and if it turns out to be just one-tenth as effective as it seems to be we should thank the Jovians for bringing us the plague — and the cure — because it is going to make such a basic change in medicine.”

“C’mon, Doc — think of how many were killed…”

“I’m thinking of how many are going to live, because thousands and eventually millions of lives will be saved for every one that died. You see not only does the J-molecule reproduce itself but under certain conditions it can be trained to attack other diseases. Then the new strain is specific only for the disease it has been trained to attack — and it breeds true.”

“Now you’re getting outta my depth, Doc. I bring ‘em in, you patch ’em up, let’s leave it at that. What’s the big hush-hush rumor I hear about another ship to Jupiter? Not enough trouble from the first time?”

“Is there anything you don’t hear, Killer?”

“I got my contacts.”

Sam closed the bag and locked it. “So far we’re only a pressure group that are trying to convince the UN that the Jovians aren’t really inimical, but we’re having heavy going. They’re still too much afraid. But we’ll have to go back there someday and contact them and this time we want it to be a friendly contact. All volunteers, I imagine, and safeguards will have to be worked out to make sure nothing like Rand’s disease reoccurs.”

Nita had opened the door while he was talking but his back was toward her and he hadn’t noticed.

“And I suppose you would like to volunteer?” she asked, brushing drops of melted snow from her coat.

He kissed her first, well and long. Killer nodded approval and ground out his cigarette. “I gotta be moving, duty calls.” He waved good-by as he left.

“Well, you didn’t answer me,” she said.

He held her at arm’s length, suddenly serious.

“You wouldn’t stop me, would you?”

“I hear you, Doc, but I’m not quite with you.”

“Well, it’s like instant medicine, changing all of the rules. When the UN takes this up and opens a big processing lab, it is going to be more like architecture than medicine. You want something built you go to an architect and tell him what it is. A house, a barn, whatever. He designs it to order. That’s what we are going to with medicine in the future. One by one the ills that plague mankind will be wiped out. Schistosomiasis, sleeping sickness…”

“Out of my league. Don’t see much of them in the Apple.”

“No, but they do in the tropics. Spread by vectors such as snails, mosquitoes. And impossible to control. But no more. A J-molecule will be designed to destroy each disease specifically. And the disease will be destroyed. Completely. Every case cured, every reservoir of infection cleaned up. And not only the tropical diseases, but the simpler ones as well. Like the common cold.”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Doc. What would New York be like with no colds in the winter?”

“A healthier place. We are going to have to rethink all of our medical priorities. Instead of curing diseases after they happen we are going out into the world and eliminate the disease completely.”

“Sounds great. Put me out of a job.”

Sam smiled. “Probably not. There will still be accidents…”

“And muggers and wife-beaters. You ain’t going to change human nature.”

“Perhaps we are. We are only touching the barest possibilities of the J-molecule. The psychosomatic attributes haven’t even been explored…”

“Could I? Would you listen to what I said?”

“I would listen to what you said, of course.”

“But you wouldn’t necessarily have to do it, would you?”

“If you said no — it would be no. But I don’t think it is ever going to come to that. We are not going to make the same mistakes the first expedition made. Silicon Valley has jumped into this thing with both feet and the designs are already beginning to pour out?”

“For what?”

“For robot landers, of course. No one is going to go near the Jovians in the flesh until they have been convinced that dissecting people is wrong. The first ship down will have the most sophisticated communications equipment and circuitry in the universe — but not a person will be aboard. We’ll be in the mother ship above Jupiter in orbit, running everything from there.”

“And who exactly is we?”

“Me for one, you — if you want to come along.”

She laughed at the thought. “Some honeymoon!”

“It won’t happen that quickly. The design must be right and we won’t be taking any chances at all. Once was enough — more than enough. And the we includes Stan Yasumura. You would have to club him to keep him off the project. He’ll be working on the project as soon as he is off crutches. And even Cleaver Burke is climbing aboard. I don’t know how he wangled it, but he has managed to get himself assigned to the Space Commission— and he’s even going to space-fitness school to be absolutely sure that he will be with the second expedition. I guess he figures that he has licked everyone he wants to on Earth, so now he’s taking on the planets. Though I understand that he’s not so happy at the space-fitness school.”

“I should hope not! The poor man — and at his age too. All those free-fall exercises and multiple-G stress chambers. I feel sorry for him.”

“I don’t,” Sam said. Taking her by the arm he picked up his suitcase with his free hand and started for the door. “I feel sorrier for the Jovians.”