Гарри Гаррисон - The Jupiter Plague

He could not go in the face of horrified expressions before him; he lowered his head, an old man who had been forced to be the mouthpiece of other people’s terror — and threats.

“Dr. Chabel,” Sam said, standing, a little surprised at his own temerity but being pushed ahead by the burning need to say what must be said. “Operation Cleansweep is a logical answer to this problem since it can’t be solved medically, at least not at once, we have all admitted that. And on a global scale it may be logical to say that an H-bomb should be dropped here — though as one of the prospective carbonized corpses I can’t think very highly of the suggestion. Nor do I think very highly of the veiled threat here, that the rockets are waiting to deliver that bomb at any time it is decided that it is the best course. But that is an unimportant detail — what is more important is the unspoken desperation behind this decision— there is no medical answer, so let us scour the land clean of the infection. All very good, but there is one more piece of medical research that should be undertaken before these desperate measures are resorted to.”

He stopped for breath and realized that they were all listening with an agonized intensity. They were beyond their depth in a problem that was no longer a medical one — but a matter of survival.

“What research do you talk about?” Hattyar asked impatiently.

“The spaceship ‘Pericles’ must be entered and searched for evidence about this disease, some records or notes. There must be a reason why Commander Rand wrote ’in ship‘; after all he had survived the trip from Jupiter. If these heroic atomic measures are going to be used there can be no complaint that we will loose another plague on the earth…”

He was interrupted by the sharp rapping of Professor Chabel’s gavel.

“Dr. Bertolli, there is nothing we can do about the ‘Pericles.’ Part of the decision reached by the Emergency Council was that the ship must be left untouched. The final stage of Operation Clean-sweep, after evacuation and radioactive neutralizing of the land, will be the destruction of the ‘Pericles’ by a tactical atomic weapon. No chances are to be taken that Rand’s disease, or any other plague from space, will depopulate the Earth. I’m sorry. The decision has been reached and discussion would be useless since there is no appeal; no one would listen to anything I or any of you might say. It is out of our hands. The only thing that might affect this decision would be the discovery of a treatment for Rand’s disease. If that happens Operation Cleansweep might be revoked. Without a cure we are helpless to change the planned course of events.”

There was little else to say. There were some protests — including a fiery one by Dr. Hattyar— but they were only for the record because they knew the decisions had already been made without their being consulted and at a far higher level. Professor Chabel listened to them all very carefully and where he could answer he did and, as soon as it was possible, he adjourned the meeting. There were no protests. Nita and Sam walked back to her laboratory together, the silence between them a tangible presence. They passed the glass doors of one of the wards, crowded with cases of Rand’s disease: Nita looked away.

“I’m frightened, Sam, everything seems to be somehow… out of hand. This talk of bombs and radioactivity, and practically abandoning the research program. It means that these patients, and everyone else who comes down with the plague, are good as dead.”

“They are dead. This decision turns us into graveyard keepers — not doctors. But look at it from the outside, from the point of view of the rest of the world. They’re scared and they are going to make a sacrifice here to save themselves; let a tiny fraction of the global population die to save the rest. It makes good sense — unless you happen to be one of the fraction. It’s not that decision I’m arguing with, it’s the nonsensical act of sealing up the ‘Pericles,’ keeping it off bounds. That is an act of fear, nothing else. The answer to this plague may be in the ship, and if it is all of those already stricken may be saved.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, darling, you heard what Chabel said. The ship can’t be entered so we’ll have to find the answer right here in the labs.”

There was no one near, so she held his hand and gave it what was meant to be a touch of reassurance, then quickly took hers away. She did not notice the sudden widening of his eyes.

“Are you on duty now, Sam?” she asked as she opened the laboratory door.

“I go on in about an hour,” he said, his voice steady as he went to the cabinet of instruments.

“We can’t let it worry us, just go on doing— What is that for?” She was looking at the telltale in his hand.

“Probably just foolishness, my skin temperature is probably depressed from lack of sleep, that must be why your hand felt warm to me—” He touched the telltale to her skin and the needle on the thermometer instantly wavered up to one hundred and two.

“You might be coming down with the flu, anything,” he said, but he could not keep the tension from his voice.

Though there was no cure for Rand’s disease, tests for its presence had been developed that were both simple and rapid.

Five minutes later they knew that the plague from space had one more victim.

They could not talk. There was nothing to say. But Sam could see the terror in Nita’s eyes. And there was nothing that he could do about it. A sick doctor is just one more patient, no different from any other patient, and with no special privileges. Sam could not even arrange for a private or semi-private room in the overcrowded hospital, and instead had to take her to a room into which five beds had been jammed. One bed had just been vacated: no need to ask what had happened to the last patient. He gave Nita the injections himself— and included a heavy sedative — so that she was sleeping even before he left. The door closed silently and automatically behind him and he knew that she was doomed. Just as dead as if she had been shot with a bullet. Just as dead as everyone would be soon.

It seemed futile to go out in the ambulance— but sitting and thinking would be far worse. He carried a gun now, there were fewer troops and none could be spared as ambulance guard. Nor were there any assignments. You worked until you dropped, then found whatever ambulance was leaving that needed an intern. Sam took his bag to the emergency exit and climbed aboard a US Army ambulance that had just discharged its cargo of dead and wounded.

“Do you have a doctor?” he asked the driver, a weary looking first sergeant.

“I don’t have one, doctor, but I could sure use one. Welcome aboard, sir.”

“Sam, just Sam. Where’s your unit, sergeant?”

“Set up camp in Central Park, next to the zoo. The name is Al Carter and I sure wish I was back in Goose Creek, Texas.”

He kicked the ambulance into gear and they rumbled out past the armed guards at the gate. “What’s going to happen, Sam?” he asked. “All we get is latrine rumor and that is not as reliable as it used to be.”

Sam was too weary to lie, too filled with defeat. “Do you want the truth, Al, or a press release?”

The sergeant gave him a grim look before turning his attention back to the road. “The world’s not too nice a place these days. Everything’s going to hell when you see the topkick driving a meat wagon. So why not the truth. I’m a big boy now.”

“The truth is that if you get Rand’s you die. And we’re all going to get it.”

“That’s kind of pessimistic, Sam. You a pessimist usually?”

“No. I used to be an optimist once. I even enlisted in the UN Army to make the world a safer place. Did my tours. No, I’m not a pessimist. That’s just the way it is going to have to be.”