Double Helix_ Red Sector Part 10

"What is it?" Stiles asked, as he took the plush folder with its satin ribbon and official wax seal.

"It's your way out," the doctor said. "Clean and legal. A medical discharge, issued directly from the surgeon general, with a retroactive field promotion. You'll go out as a full lieutenant, with commensurate pension."

Stiles looked up. "But you cured me. I don't have a legitimate medical claim."

"I cured your body" McCoy told him. Those active and ancient blue eyes flared. "Your soul is still scarred."

As the moment turned suddenly solemn beneath the doctor's prophetic words, the men around Stiles fell silent and stopped shifting. Their hands fell away from him and they made clear by their demeanor that he was once again in charge, once more the man who would make the important decision of the moment for them all. A man, making decisions...

He glanced at them, saw the civilian clothes on some of them, Starfleet uniforms on others, and his two worlds suddenly collided. They looked young to him, young and unscarred and inexperienced. "Thank you, sir." He handed the pouch back to Dr. McCoy and straightened his shoulders. "But I've got too much to do. My soul's just gonna have to heal."

His friends erupted into silly cheers around him, as if they understood something he wasn't registering at all. Over there Captain Turner, the princess, the governor and mayor were all looking at him, and now they had started applauding politely. Not the cheers of the huge crowd this time, but something much more substantial and wise. How come everybody knew what he had just thought of?.

Amba.s.sador Spock reached out and took Stiles's hand. "Congratulations, Lieutenant. And welcome back to Starfleet."

Chapter Eleven.

Eleven Years Later...

U.S.S. Enterprise, Starfleet Registry NCC1701 -D "THERE'VE BEEN over fifty major outbreaks of raids or attacks on the Neutral Zone by angry Romulan commanders who before this made no violent overtures at all-and with no apparent reason. We've got to get some better intelligence."

Captain Jean-Luc Picard's comment would generally not have traveled beyond the ears of his first officer and the physician who stood at his side on the command deck, but Amba.s.sador Spock's Vulcan hearing brought the private conversation to him as he stepped from the turbolift. These were troubled times. Despite them, reverie clouded his thoughts.

To step from a turbolift, to hear the sibilance of the door and sense antic.i.p.ation, the murmur of a starship's bridge electrical systems softly working-these were mighty memories.

For a brief moment in a frozen pocket of his mind, the carpet changed texture, the bulkheads drained from tan to bluegay, the rail turned glossy red, lights dimmed, and there were crisp shadows over his head. More blue, more black, and at the center that oasis of mesa-gold. The center of his universe, that dot of gold. Memories only. He dismissed them, but they pursued. He failed to escape them, as he stepped down to the command deck, also failing to understand-until his foot struck the lower carpet-that he was treading the sacred ground of officers aboard a starship, of the captain and his chosen few: and that he was no longer among them. For decades he had not been among them. How swiftly these automatic impulses flooded back! Perhaps this was why he spent so little time aboard ships anymore.

He nearly stepped back and waited to be invited, but by now Captain Picard had risen and turned to greet him.

"Amba.s.sador, welcome aboard," the captain began, his deep theatrical voice communicating undisguised delight, and he even smiled.

Spock took his hand, a gesture he had come over the years to find suspiciously comforting, and thus held it longer than necessary for courtesy. When embarking on difficult missions, especially those couched in mystery, he had come to depend upon the sustenance of the human tendency to get to know one another quickly and with a speck of intimacy. Few races in the galaxy had that talent. He had come to cherish it. "You know Mr. Riker," the captain invited pleasantly. "Amba.s.sador, h.e.l.lo!" William Riker, yes the ship's first officer. A bright smile, and no attempt to subdue his pride that a distinguished Federation ident.i.ty had come aboard his starship.

"Good evening, Mr. Riker" Spock offered, and also took Riker's hand. "And Dr. Crusher, of course," the captain added, turning. Only the ship's doctor, Beverly Crusher (in fact the person he had come here to meet), restrained herself from offering to shake a Vulcan's hand.

She was a stately woman, tall, reedy, and red-haired, with a sculpted face that echoed a Renaissance painting Spock had once seen in the Manhattan Museum of Art. He found it a credit to Dr. Crusher that he remembered the painting now for the first time in nearly nine decades, but recalled also his thoughts at the time that the woman in the picture was pale and too thin. Understanding that humans' emotional condition frequently communicated itself to their physical appearance, he surmised that the doctor was strained and troubled. She did not smile as did her captain and first officer, and that he also found suggestive. "Good evening, Doctor. I'm gratified to have you involved."

"Now you'll get some answers, Beverly," Captain Picard told her with a placating smile. She glanced at him, then stepped closer to Spock.

"I'd like to say it's my pleasure, Amba.s.sador" the woman said, "but unfortunately I doubt any of us will enjoy the next few weeks." "That will depend upon the outcome, as always:'

Spock slipped his traveling cloak from his shoulders and let his attending yeoman take it from him, leaving his arms a little cool with unenc.u.mberment. Though he felt obliged by tradition to wear the Vulcan robes and plastiformed emblems when moving among the public or visiting Starfleet localities, such dress aboard a ship seemed provincial. Among these men and women, he could feel comfortable in simple black slacks and his cowlnecked daywear tunic. The cobalt and-purple quilted strips running from his shoulders to his thighs were the only jewel-tones on the bright tan bridge, excepting only the shoulder yoke of medical blue on Beverly Crusher's uniform. Again, he found himself wading in memories unbidden. And a few he had dismissed freely-the officers here on this bridge were people he knew, had encountered in a previous mission, and since allowed to fade from his mind. He had learned long ago to remember the names of ships, captains, and some officers-but that cluttering one's mind with lieutenants, yeomen, and others tended only to inaccuracy. Eventually those crewmen and officers either disappeared into the mists of service or civilian life, or became commanders and captains themselves, in which case their names and ranks and ships turned into a long roster he would just have to amend later.

He remembered Captain Picard's senior security officer, the noted Klingon who defied so much to be here, but he could not summon the name. The android at the science station, however, had a name that no mathematician could forget-Data. "There're been two more skirmishes this morning, Amba.s.sador," Captain Picard reported. "The Starfleet ships Ranger and Griffith were set upon just outside the Crystal Ball Nebula, and the Ranger was actually boarded." "Is everyone all right?" Spock asked.

"No fatalities, sixteen casualties, and apparently one of their pa.s.sengers was kidnapped. The details are hazy so far."

Troubled by these unpredictable rashes, so obviously driven by emotion rather than by tactical plans, Spock paused a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Unfortunately, events are moving forward with the rapidity typical of a national crisis. We can now officially call the disease an epidemic." Spock lowered his voice and significantly added, "Captain, the proconsul of the Senate died yesterday." "Uh-oh," Riker opined.

Picard grimaced. "That means instability at the top of the empire."

"Dr. McCoy should be arriving soon," Spock told them, "with current information about the medical aspects of the Romulan crisis. You should shortly be receiving a signal from a Tellarite grain ship upon which he's traveling at the moment."

"Leonard McCoy" Dr. Crusher observed, "is the only man I've ever known who can shuttle in and out of nontreaty cultures as easily as the rest of us visit the stores in a shopping promenade. He can charm his way past border guards and squirm past warrants like some kind of spirit."

"Hardly charm;' Spock commented. "In any case, we should shortly have fresh information. The ma.s.sive sickness is causing havoc throughout the empire."

"We've been feeling the effect." Captain Picard validated. "These border eruptions are like wildcat strikes. Isolated leaders are finding excuses to attack Federation outposts and ships, staging incidents on purpose, hoping one of them will flame into all-out conflict. Nothing that smacks of coordination. however, not so far."

"They are not coordinated attacks at all," Spock concurred. "As certain members of the royal family die, their followers-and sometimes the family members themselves-are flaring up in frustration and anger."

"And fear" Crusher added. "The royal family is spread all over, and they're all in charge. And they're all terrified. They're not only dying themselves, but also watching their children die. It's not a gentle disease, Amba.s.sador... it attacks quickly, painfully, then inflicts a stow death. It behaves like a curse. Some people think that's what it is. Terrified people do terrible things."

"We've got a reason to be terrified too," her captain said. "As more and more of the royal family die, others who have had no chance for power are seeing an opportunity for upheaval. The Federation's managing to handle these spurts without considering any one of them an act of war, but how long can we hold out? If the structure breaks down too much "

"Could that happen?" Dr. Crasher asked. "Could the empress really be deposed because she and her whole family are sick?"

Riker looked at Crusher. "If the empress dies, all the hungry near-orbiters who never had a shot at the throne will start smelling velvet."

"With too many decisive defeats of Romulan flareups by Starfleet crews," Picard added, "the empress could be deposed very quickly and someone more hungry for war could take over' No matter how you look at it politically, there's every reason to stir up trouble and virtually no reason not to. So our goal in these skirmishes is to prevail, but not so decisively that the Romulan commanders are deeply humiliated or destroyed. We try to push them back without squashing them, stalling for time, seeking a biological solution. If the empress falls and her relatives are all infected too, there could be decades of instability on one of the Federation's longest borders. We have a stake in restoring the status quo."

"True;' Spock agreed, relieved that they shared his hopes. "Better to have a stable empire as a neighbor than anarchy at our gates."

"Well, we've done a good job so far," Will Riker injected, "of keeping these flareup attacks from turning into acts of war" "As the family breaks down," Spock said, "some dissident elements are striking out at the Federation, even though the core of the royal family is not yet ready to do that. Some of these elements are in control of ships."

Spock turned a fraction toward him, careful not to mm his back on the captain. "Those closest to power-the empress, her immediate relatives, and their immediate relatives-seem more concerned about stopping this biological attack than using it as leverage to foment trouble."

"Wouldn't you, sir? They see a chance that they might not have to die."

"Not everyone craves havoc, Mr. Riker. As Dr. Crusher pointed out, many of these victims wish only to live and see their children live, and to do so in a fairly stable civilization. Unfortunately, the empress must walk a very thin tightrope. For her own survival as a ruler, after nearly two hundred years of anti-Federation propaganda, she must not be seen as cowardly or complacent toward the Federation. The Romulan people on the outskirts, including those in command of ships, have been told all their lives to distrust the Federation. Now all the Romulan leadership is suddenly dying. What would you expect them to think?"

"Yes..." Riker's eyes widened. "How much of a leap would it be to a.s.sume the Federation is doing this?"

Spock rewarded him with a nod. "The propaganda is turning on them."

"And now they need our help," Dr. Crusher folded her long arms. "It figures. Has it occurred to anyone that this may be a genetic anomaly?"

"Isolated to the royal family' Picard protested. "How likely is that?"

"Pretty d.a.m.ned likely, Jean-Luc." Crusher held out a hand. "The Romulans used to do genetic experiments-about a century ago, a little more. Those experiments could just now have incubated to mutancy and be coming back to bite them. It could be completely incurable. In that case, are we getting involved just to prove we didn't do it? I'm not sure I can prove a negative that big. If that's what the Federation expects, I've got an impossible mission here." Wondering if indeed all physicians were necessarily cantankerous, Spock found himself sympathetic to her dilemma. The ball she had been cast was a familiar one to medical specialists with deep-s.p.a.ce exploration, for they had the most experience dealing with the unknown, the foreign, and the unheard-of as commonplace. He had in his long life seen this first-hand, seen that expression in the eyes of many doctors into whose hands a monumental task had been shoved.

"Like myself, Doctor," he placated, "I know you prefer clarity to choices. However, choices are the more frequent curse of authority. The Romulans are advanced, but the Federation is much more advanced in the medical field. We've had to deal with so wide an array of alien members."

Will Riker c.o.c.ked a hip and leaned against the navigation station, drawing a glance from the crewman manning the helm. "They might as well accept our help. They can always kill us tomorrow."

"Whatever the sociopolitical ramifications," Spock added, "they simply need our help"

"Captain, short-range emergency sensors," the fierce voice of Picard's Klingon officer erupted suddenly. As they all turned to look up at him, towering there over the tactical station at the back of the wide bridge, the surly lieutenant raised his eyes from the board and glared at the forward screen. "A Romulan Scoutship just decloaked off our bow!"

"Shields up, Mr. Worf. Red alert. Battle stations. Helm, hold position."

Lieutenant Worf watched the incoming angular featherpainted Romulan wing on the wide forward screen. "Should I arm photon torpedoes also, sir, considering their duophasic shields?" "Ah, certainly:' Spock turned. "Captain, may I suggest "

"I understand, Amba.s.sador, but no Romulan commander expects less and I don't intend to show squeamishness."

Retreating, and somewhat embarra.s.sed at this change in himself, Spock instantly acceded, "Forgive me." "Captain, they are hailing," Data reported. "Ship to ship, Mr. Data"

"Frequencies open, sir."

"This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, U.S.& Enterprise, Starfleet. Identify yourself, please."

"Subcommander Cul, Captain, Imperial Reconnaissance Scout Tdal."

"You're in violation of the Neutral Zone treaty by several light-years, Subcommander. Explain your presence here." "Our weapons are cold, Captain. We have a pa.s.senger" Picard paused, then glanced at Spock.

Spock was careful to keep his expression subdued, although this was probably a fruitless attempt, for even that subtle effort belied involvement.

"Yes" Picard drawled. "Mr. Worf, shields down. Subcomander, prepare for beaming." "We are prepared."

Impressed, Spock once again looked at Picard. "How did you know, Captain? Even I was not sure."

Because it's logical, Amba.s.sador" the captain responded, his dark eyes glinting. "Mr. Data, please scan for human physiology and beam their pa.s.senger directly to the bridge." "Understood, captain. Transporter room, this is the bridge." The android relayed the captain's orders, and in 4.9 seconds the shaft of glittering energy appeared as expected on the portside deck ramp leading to the captain's ready room. Spock noted the angle of the ramp and hoped it would cause no trouble or surprise.

As the column of lights coagulated into familiar form, he stepped toward it, then again restrained himself, not wishing to appear too custodial. He was relieved when Mr. Riker stepped to the ramp and put out an a.s.sisting hand in antic.i.p.ation. Another two seconds brought the white-haired, pin-thin form of Leonard McCoy fully onto the bridge, shouldering a simple canvas satchel. The work of the Romulan wing was done.

"Sir, the Tdal is bearing off;' Worf reported immediately. "They are vectoring back toward Romulan s.p.a.ce at emergency high warp."

"Very good-and I don't blame them," Picard said. "Stand down from general quarters. Welcome to the Enterprise, Dr. McCoy."

"Captain Picard, nice to be aboard" the doctor's elderly voice scratched. "Can you turn the heat up in here? That Romulan s...o...b..x was cold as a coffin nail. Hi, Spock:' "Doctor." "You're looking stiff?' 'Thank you" "Back trouble?" "ff you like."

"I brought a big hypodermic needle from my medical antiques collection:'

"A display which ideally fits your personality, I have always reflected." "I... all... all right, I owe you one. Morning, Beverly"

"Leonard" the other physician chuckled. "And it's evening here"

"Dammit. Why can't the galaxy just go to Federation Standard Time?"

William Riker smiled again and took McCoy's sticklike arm in his to escort him down the ramp. Spock resisted the urge to reach out and stop Riker's robust grip-McCoy's spidery limbs seemed so frail then chided himself for his absurdity.

"That was hardly a Tellerite grain ship, Doctor," he commented instead.

"So I lied. It was the only way I could get a ship with high warp to bring me all the way back. Anything else would've taken ten weeks. We don't have ten weeks."

"No, we don't," Crusher endorsed. "The Romulan royal family is not a dozen people. It's over a thousand, installed in positions of power all over the empire. How close you are to the current ruler causes a lot of jockeying and marrying and even a.s.sa.s.sinations, but there's never been anything like this. This certainly isn't just some jealous cousin maneuvering for the crown." She turned specifically to McCoy. "What have you concluded?"

"Concluded? Oh, I did say that in my message yesterday, didn't I? What I came up with is that the Romulans are right. The infection is definitely man-made. Not an accident." "How did you come to this?" Spock asked, careful to phrase the question in a way that would dodge McCoy's still-youthful barbed humor.

"I've made some progress. What else do you expect from a man old enough to call Moses by his first name? Anyway, that's why I need Beverly's help." "You need my help?" Dr. Crusher asked.

"h.e.l.l, yes, I need help. I'm old, all right? Besides, you're the one who worked on this mess before."

She regarded him with a gaze startlingly similar to the way Captain Kirk used to regard McCoy. "You mean this Romulan disease is the same multiprion nightmare,-?"

"That's right. The same thing you and Dr. Spencer of the Const.i.tution encountered back on Archaria m. It's mutated or been artificially mutated. That's why you haven't recognized it. It's been targeted to the genetics of the Romulan royal family."

Clearly irritated that her victory was being compromised, Crusher scowled. "How did you recognize it if it's mutated?"

McCoy's white head bobbed in a nod. "My dear, you remember the line 'Methinks he doth protest too much'? Well, me have begun to think this infection doth show up too much. Prion-based infections just don't appear randomly this often, and certainly not in a pattern that leaps from one planet to another, infecting a vastly different DNA makeup. Somebody's forcing mutations, combining prions that would never hook up naturally, then targeting whole races for infection. This biological terrorism smacks to me of experimentation" "My G.o.d!" Riker blurted.

Spock heard the exclamation, but was himself focused on the doctor's unexpected declaration. "Someone is working toward a larger goal? The Romulan royal family is not the target?"

"I don't think so;' McCoy said. "I don't think the goal is to kill off the royal family at all. I think they're being used as an incubation test site. I think the goal is to develop a bioagent that can be neither cured nor treated." "Upon what do you base this?"

The doctor's gravelly voice took on a surge of confidence. "On the same multiprion sickness popping up all over the place, sometimes in isolation, other times in populated areas, but each time with some new aberration. A plague here, a flu there, an infection yonder, a couple of them leaping racial boundaries... until now, n.o.body's tied the incidents together; but I've seen this kind of thing before on a smaller scale, and I got suspicious. So I started ordering some quiet information gathering about three years ago. And, folks, this isn't just an epidemic. It's a pandemic."

The word sent a chill through the bridge that Spock found nearly palpable. Even he discovered his hands suddenly clenched and forced himself to control his reaction. Ever since the first armies began forming and moving in the first civilizations on the earliest planets, pandemics had been a far more insidious scourge than any war.

Dr. McCoy paused long enough to see his revelation run its course of shock and nervousness, then enjoyed center stage again.

"When the Romulan royal family popped up with this deadly strain," he went on, "I started gathering the results of tests all over the quadrant, and sure enough they've got enough common characteristics to eliminate either the idea of coincidence or the idea of any other cause. These aren't dozens of isolated biological occurrences-they're all mutations of a single strain."

"So it couldn't be remnants of genetic testing?" Riker jabbed, leaning a little toward Dr. Crusher. McCoy swiveled to him. "Genetics? Whoever said that?" "n.o.body said that," Crusher injected quickly. Her face masked a cold and bottled fury, as a knight's who had just been told the dragon is still alive. "Did you bring the results of all these tests? I'd like to examine them."

He patted his satchel. "Along with a cache of Scaffold Mints for the wardroom."

"As ever" Spock commented, "you keep your eye on the future ?'

"Watch it, pal, or I'll sit on you and give you a lecture on how long two c.o.c.kroaches can live off the glue on the back of a postage stamp." Dr. Crusher clasped her hands in a manner of controlled anxiety. "Who ever heard of 'two c.o.c.kroaches'? Doctor, have you isolated the matrix on this Romulan mutation?"

McCoy's ancient blue eyes fixed on hers with the zeal of youth. "First thing. And, bless us all, it's a DNA strain, not RNA, which mans we can beat it with one medication if we can come up with the right one. Healthy blood cells can replace the atrophied cells. All I need is a continuing source of uninfected royal blood for about a week to generate healthy plasma. But first, we've got to keep the members of the royal family who're still alive from dying. That's going to be your job. Keep them alive long enough to throw the infection off or for me to synthesize a cure." "Treat the symptoms."

"But treat them in the right order. It might not be the right thing to do to lower a fever. The fever's something that I think helps. You're going to be treating the empress herself and over twenty of her family members on the home planet. You'll be communicating with physicians all over the empire, telling them how to treat the family members they've got. Meanwhile, I'll be trying to find a cure for the mutation. I've had my network of spies quietly sifting through information on the whole empire and the Federation-even through the Klingon Empire-for weeks now. So far, we haven't found a single family member who's not infected."

"Ripple-effect contamination," Crusher breathed. "G.o.d, that's a new twist...." "What's that mean?" Riker asked.

Spock almost answered, but restrained himself. He was curious to hear Dr. McCoy's a.n.a.lysis of what was happening to the Romulans, and forced himself to remember that his role on a starship was no longer to provide information and move events along.

"Means we can't synthesize a cure without an uncontaminated family member. I need clear blood, and I can't find anybody. Also means this is no accident. Somebody's doing this on purpose. Somebody planned this plague in such a way as to make sure it can't be cured. That's why;' McCoy added, now turning to Picard, "I arranged to have this rendezvous on board the Enterprise?' "I beg your pardon?" Picard asked.