Гарри Гаррисон - The Jupiter Plague

“Yes,” she said so faintly he could barely hear her. She dropped into a chair.

“If we stop the spread of the disease in birds we should have it licked — but what if we can’t stop it before it turns into Rand-gamma? Then it will be the dogs, and what after that? These mutations and changes are incredible, they’re like nothing we have ever heard of before — they don’t follow any earthly pattern. But, is it possible there is an alien pattern they conform to? If we can find it, find its rules, then we can stop it.”

“But it’s not an alien disease, Sam — it’s human, or earthly, whatever you want to call it.”

“Now it is, but it came on the ship from Jupiter, it must be a disease from that planet—”

“No, that’s been determined already.” She riffled through a thick stack of duplicated reports until she found one which she handed to Sam. “You can see for yourself; this is still a preliminary report but it is indicative. They simply cannot get the virus to live under anything resembling Jupiter conditions. When the temperature drops and the pressure is raised the virus dies, long before it reaches the range of the Jupiter atmosphere.”

“That’s impossible!”

“Everything about this virus is impossible — but it is here. We can’t escape that fact. What can we do, Sam? I feel defeated at every turn…”

“There’s not very much we can do by ourselves — but that’s what McKay’s team is for. They’ll find out the significance of these changes.” He took her hands to help her to her feet, and was aware of how cold they were, while her face was pale under the makeup and her eyes red-rimmed with fatigue. “We’ll turn all the results over to him, then you’ll get some rest. When was the last time you slept?”

“I’ve been dozing on the couch here, it’s enough—” She looked at herself in the mirror and bit her lip, then laughed, searching through her purse for a comb. “You’re right — it’s not enough. I look like a refugee from a horror film. Give me a moment to repair some of the ravages and then we’ll go see McKay.“

“I’ll call and find out if he is in his office.”

There was difficulty in getting Dr. McKay’s number and Sam hung up and tried again. Twice after this he got busy signals before he finally got through. The call signal buzzed a number of times before the secretary answered it.

“I’m sorry, it is impossible to talk to Dr. McKay, he cannot be disturbed—” She disconnected before Sam had a chance to say a word. She was distraught and seemed to be on the point of tears.

“I wonder what the trouble can be…” Sam said, looking at the dark screen. “She seemed very upset about something.”

“We’ll have to go and find out,” Nita said, putting her notes into a folder. “Though I don’t wonder at her cracking a bit. The strain has been simply awful here and it doesn’t show any signs of letting up.”

The elevator boosted them with a silent rush to the thirty-ninth floor, but when the doors opened a murmur of voices pushed in, a chilling novelty in the normally silent hospital. They stepped out just in time to see a stretcher with a white-covered figure being wheeled into the service elevator further down the hall. A small crowd had gathered around the open door of McKay’s office and Sam recognized one of the nurses who had shared the same tour with him in the emergency room: he touched her shoulder.

“What happened, Ann?”

“It’s Dr. McKay.” She looked worried — as well as tired, like everyone else in the giant hospital. “He’s been overworking, you know — it was so sudden, a coronary thrombosis they think, he just collapsed.”

Sam pushed through the crowd at the door and Nita followed him. There were fewer people inside and the secretary was gone. The door to McKay’s private office was partly open and Sam could see Eddie Perkins inside, talking on the phone. He knocked quietly and Eddie glanced up and waved them in, signaling them to shut the door at the same time.

“Yes, of course,” Perkins said into the phone, “we’ll keep going here and I’ll keep you informed of Dr. McKay’s condition. Right then, good-by.” He disconnected and scratched a cigarette out of the open package on the desk before him. “It’s a mess, Sam. Everyone acts like it is the end of the world with McKay out of the battle; they think he is going to lick Rand’s disease all by himself and the team is just sort of a Greek chorus to cheer him on.” The phone whirred and he gave it a distasteful look and put his cigarette out. It was the governor of New York State and Eddie gave him three minutes of solid reassurance before pleading the rush of business and hanging up.

“Do you see what I mean?” he asked, relighting the bent cigarette.

“You can’t blame them,” Sam said. “After all McKay did find the answer to Topholm’s pachyacria and they expect him to pull another cat out of the same bag. Who is going to take over for him?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve been his acting assistant the last few days, so I’m holding on to the strings until something is decided. Chabel and the team heads will be here for a meeting in an hour.”

“Well, until they decide something you’re top man, Eddie.”

“Yes,” Perkins said thoughtfully, a double stream of smoke coming slowly from his nose, “I imagine I am. In which case — what can I do for you?”

Nita opened the file and passed the sheets across the desk, outlining briefly what she had discovered. Perkins flipped through them while she talked, looking up sharply when she mentioned the dog that had been affected.

“You make it sound pretty bad, Nita.” He closed the file and pushed it away from him. “In the morning I’ll let one of the pathologists have a look at this, see what they think. Meantime, thanks for the homework, we’ll see if we can put it to some use.”

“Eddie, you don’t seem to get the importance of this,” Sam said, smiling to take the edge off his words. “If Rand’s disease can be passed on to dogs we’re in for some bad trouble. Birds as vectors are bad enough—”

“I told you I’d take care of it, Sam, now relax.” There was an edge to Perkins’s voice now.

“There’s nothing to relax about; dogs are going to get this disease and if they are then now is the time to take measures.”

“Like starting to kill all the dogs around — birds aren’t bad enough? Do you know the trouble we’ve been running in to with that?”

“The trouble isn’t important. If we have to kill the dogs we’ll kill them — better now than after they’ve been infected.”

“Dr. Bertolli, let’s not forget one thing,” Perkins’s voice was empty of tone, his long face cold and drawn. “You are an intern in this hospital and not one who makes decisions. This will be taken care of—”

“Come off it, Eddie, when we were both students—”

“That will be enough !” Perkins crashed his hand down on the desk.

Sam took a long breath and let it out slowly, keeping his temper in check, then climbed to his feet. “Let’s go, Nita,” he said.

“Just a minute,” Perkins said. He was also standing now and leaning forward on his arms, his fists planted squarely on his desk. “You don’t know everything that is going on. There are two factors that you happen to be ignorant of: firstly, we have had some success today with a vaccine that may have rested some early cases of Rand’s; secondly, we are not going to allow this disease seven passages through different hosts as Dr. Mendel has done. That’s a lab exercise and we’re working with the real world. We’re controlling the spread of the disease and wiping out the vectors. If things keep going as they are — and even if all the cases we now have die — we’ll still lick it by wiping out the reservoirs of infection. So don’t rock the boat.”