Chapter IX

PLAGUE!

Jellico and Steen Wilcox pored over the few notes Tau had made before he

was stricken. But apparently the Medic had found nothing to indicate that

Sinbad was the carrier of any disease. Meanwhile the Captain gave orders

for the cat to be confined. A difficult task--since Sinbad crouched close

to the door of the storage cabin and was ready to dart out when food was

taken in for him. Once he got a good way down the corridor before Dane

was able to corner and return him to keeping.

Dane, Ali and Weeks took on the full care of the four sick men, leaving

the few regular duties of the ship to the senior officers, while Rip was

installed 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 nothing

around him. And Kosti, Tau, and Van Rycke followed the same pattern.

They still held morning inspection of those on their feet for signs of a

new 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 not

be roused and must have taken ill during a sleep period. One more inert

patient was added to the list--and nothing learned about how he was

infected. Except that they could eliminate Sinbad, since the cat had been

in custody during the time Stotz had apparently contracted the disease.

Weeks, Ali and Dane, though they were in constant contact with the sick

men, and though Dane had repeatedly handled Sinbad, continued to be

immune. A fact, Dane thought more than once, which must have

significance--if someone with Tau's medical knowledge had been able to

study it. By all rights they should be the most susceptible--but the

opposite seemed true. And Wilcox duly noted that fact among the data they

had 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 face

livid and drawn with pain. Rip and Dane got him to his cabin before he

blacked out. But all they could learn from him during the interval before

he lost consciousness was that his head was bursting and he couldn't

stand 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 into

this stupor they just stay. They don't get any worse, they have no rise

in 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 it

strike 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 caused

the whole thing--"

Ali's eyes narrowed. He was staring straight at the unconscious Com-tech

as if he did not see that supine body at all. "I wonder if we've been

salted--" he said slowly.

"We've been _what?_" Dane demanded.

"Look here, we three--with Weeks--drank that brew of the Salariki, didn't

we? 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 on

Camblyne brought their Terran cattle through the first year? They fed

them salt mixed with fansel grass. The result was that the herds didn't

take the fansel grass fever when they turned them out to pasture in the

dry season. All right, maybe we had our 'salt' in that drink. The

fansel-salt makes the cattle filthy sick when it's forced down their

throats, but after they recover they're immune to the fever. And nobody

on 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 said

morosely. "If we keep our feet and all the rest go down--that's our

proof."

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

"Just how?" Ali's slender brows arched. "Do you have a gallon of that

Salariki 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 of

their training, but the more advanced laboratory experimentation was

beyond their knowledge and skill. Had Tau still been on his feet perhaps

he could have traced that lead and brought order out of the chaos which

was closing in upon the Solar Queen. But, though they reported their

suggestion to the Captain, Jellico was powerless to do anything about it.

If the four who had shared that upsetting friendship cup were immune to

the doom which now overhung the ship, there was no possible way for them

to discover why or how.

Ship's time came to have little meaning. And they were not surprised when

Steen Wilcox slipped from his seat before the computer--to be stowed away

with what had become a familiar procedure. Only Jellico withstood the

contagion apart from the younger four, taking his turn at caring for the

helpless men. There was no change in their condition. They neither roused

nor grew worse as the hours and then the days sped by. But each of those

units of time in passing brought them nearer to greater danger. Sooner or

later they must make the transition out of Hyper into system space, and

the jump out of warp was something not even a veteran took lightly. Rip's

round face thinned while they watched. Jellico was still functioning. But

if the Captain collapsed the whole responsibility for the snap-out would

fall directly on Shannon. An infinitesimal error would condemn them to

almost hopeless wandering--perhaps for ever.

Dane and Ali relieved Rip of all duty but that which kept him chained in

Wilcox's chair before the computers. He went over and over the data of

the course the Astrogator had set. And Captain Jellico, his eyes sunk in

dark pits, checked and rechecked.

When the fatal moment came Ali manned the engine room with Weeks at his

elbow 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 the

control cabin, riding out the transfer in Tang Ya's place.

Rip's voice hoarsened into a croak, calling out the data. Dane, though he

had had basic theory, was completely lost before Shannon had finished the

first set of co-ordinates. But Jellico replied, hands playing across the

pilot's board.

"Stand-by for snap-out--" the croak went down to the engines where Ali

now held Stotz's post.

"Engines ready!" The voice came back, thinned by its journey from the

Queen's interior.

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

Dane found himself suddenly unable to watch. He shut his eyes and braced

himself against the vertigo of snap-out. It came and he whirled

sickeningly through unstable space. Then he was sitting in the laced

Com-tech's seat looking at Rip.

Runnels of sweat streaked Shannon's brown face. There was a damp patch

darkening his tunic between his shoulder blades, a patch which it would

take both of Dane's hands to cover.

For a moment he did not raise his head to look at the vision plate which

would tell him whether or not they had made it. But when he did familiar

constellations made the patterns they knew. They were out--and they

couldn't be too far off the course Wilcox had plotted. There was still

the system run to make--but snap-out was behind them. Rip gave a deep

sigh and buried his head in his hands.

With a throb of fear Dane unhooked his safety belt and hurried over to

him. When he clutched at Shannon's shoulder the Astrogator-apprentice's

head rolled limply. Was Rip down with the illness too? But the other

muttered 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 he

hoisted the other out of his seat and half carried-half led him to his

cabin, 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-drawn

face of the sleeper looked wan against the foam rest, and he snuggled

into the softness like a child as he turned over and curled up. But his

skin was clear--it was real sleep and not the plague which had claimed

him.

Impulse sent Dane back to the control cabin. He was not an experienced

pilot officer, but there might be some assistance he could offer the

Captain now that Rip was washed out, perhaps for hours.

Jellico hunched before the smaller computer, feeding pilot tape into its

slot. His face was a skull under a thin coating of skin, the bones

marking it sharply at jaw, nose and eye socket.

"Shannon down?" His voice was a mere whisper of its powerful self, he did

not turn his head.

"He's just worn out, sir," Dane hastened to give reassurance. "The marks

aren'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 to

his feet, pulling himself up with shaking hands. As Thorson reached

forward 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 from

Jellico's sweating throat. He kept his feet, holding out against the

waves of pain by sheer will power. Then Dane had a grip on him, got him

away from the computer, hoping he could keep him going until they reached

Jellico's cabin.

Somehow they made that journey, being greeted with raucous screams from

the Hoobat. Furiously Dane slapped the cage, setting it to swinging and

so silencing the creature which stared at him with round, malignant eyes

as he got the Captain to bed.

Only four of them on their feet now, Dane thought bleakly as he left the

cabin. If Rip came out of it in time they could land--Dane's breath

caught 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 in

where? The Terra quarantine was Luna City on the Moon. But let them

signal for a set-down there--let them describe what had happened and they

might face death as a plague ship.

Wearily he climbed down to the mess cabin to discover Weeks and Ali there

before 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 gave

up."

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

City?"

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

"But they've got to let us!" Weeks exclaimed. "We can't just wander

around 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 him

to his bunk."

"It might be well to know." The Engineer-apprentice got up, his movements

lacking much of the elastic spring which was normally his. When he

climbed to control both the others followed him.

Ali's slender fingers played across a set of keys and in the small screen

mounting on the computer a set of figures appeared. Dane took up the

master course book, read the connotation and blinked.

"Not Luna?" Ali asked.

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

belt."

Ali's lips stretched into a pale caricature of a smile. "Good for the Old

Man, 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 the

Code?"

Weeks dropped into the Com-tech's place as if some of the stiffening had

vanished from his thin but sturdy legs. "They wouldn't do that--" he

protested, but his eyes said that he knew that they might--they well

might.

"Oh, no? Face the facts, man," Ali sounded almost savage. "We come from a

frontier planet, we're a plague ship--"

He did not have to underline that. They all knew too well the danger in

which they now stood.

"Nobody's died yet," Weeks tried to find an opening in the net being

drawn about them.

"And nobody's recovered," Ali crushed that thread of hope. "We don't know

what it is, how it is contracted--anything about it. Let us make a report

saying 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 an

evasion course. If we can stay out until we really know what is the

matter we'll have some chance of talking over the high brass at Luna when

we do planet--"

In the end they decided not to interfere with the course the Captain had

set. It would take them into the fringes of solar civilization, but give

them a fighting chance at solving their problem before they had to report

to the authorities. In the meantime they tended their charges, let Rip

sleep, and watched each other with desperate but hidden intentness, ready

for another to be stricken. However, they remained, although almost

stupid with fatigue at times, reasonably healthy. Time was proving that

their guess had been correct--they had been somehow inoculated against

the germ or virus which had struck the ship.

Rip slept for twenty-four hours, ship time, and then came into the mess

cabin ravenously hungry, to catch up on both food and news. And he

refused to join with the prevailing pessimistic view of the future.

Instead he was sure that their own immunity having been proven, they had

a talking point to use with the medical officials at Luna and he was

eager to alter course directly for the quarantine station. Only the

combined arguments of the other three made him, unwillingly, agree to a

short delay.

And how grateful they should be for Captain Jellico's foresight they

learned within the next day. Ali was at the com-unit, trying to pick up

Solarian news reports. When the red alert flashed on throughout the ship

it brought the others hurrying to the control cabin. The code squeaks

were magnified as Ali switched on the receiver full strength, to be

translated as he pressed a second button.

"Repeat, repeat, repeat. Free Trader, Solar Queen, Terra Registry

65-724910-Jk, suspected plague ship--took off from infected planet. Warn

off--warn off--report such ship to Luna Station. Solar Queen from

infected planet--to be warned off and reported." The same message was

repeated 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 reported

in--"

"The Eysies!" Ali had the answer ready. "That I-S ship must be having the

same sort of trouble and reported to her Company. They would include us

in their report and believe that we were infected too--or it would be

easy to convince the authorities that we were."

"I wonder," Rip's eyes were narrowed slits as he leaned back against the

wall. "Look at the facts. The Survey ship which charted Sargol--they were

dirt-side there about three-four months. Yet they gave it a clean bill of

health and put it up for trading rights auction. Then Cam bought those

rights--he made at least two trips in and out before he was blasted on

Limbo. 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 we

snapped out of Hyper. Sounds almost as if they expected us to carry

plague, doesn't it?" Shannon wanted to know.

"Planted?" Ali frowned at the banks of controls. "But how--no Eysie came

on board--no Salarik either, except for the cub who showed us what they

thought of catnip."

Rip shrugged. "How would I know how they did--" he was beginning when

Dane cut in:

"If they didn't know about our immunity the Queen might stay in Hyper and

never 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 and

bring her home, they were ready with a cover. If no one raises a howl

Sargol will be written off the charts as infected, I-S sits on her tail

fins a year or so and then she promotes an investigation before the

Board. The Survey records are trotted out--no infection recorded. So they

send in a Patrol Probe. Everything is all right--so it wasn't the planet

after 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 around

to worry about! Neat as a Salariki net-cast--and right around our

collective 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 can

do some heavy thinking and see a way out. But if I-S gave us this prize

package, some trace of its origin is still aboard. And if we can find

that--why, then we have something to start from."

"Mura went down first--and then Karl. Nothing in common," the old problem

faced Dane for the hundredth time.

"No. But," Ali arose from his place at the com-unit. "I'd suggest a real

search of first Frank's and then Karl's quarters. A regular turn out

down to the bare walls of their cabins. Are you with me?"

"Fly boy, we're ahead of you!" Rip contributed, already at the door

panel. "Down to the bare walls it is."