The Altian Plague by DM Arnold (best book club books for discussion .TXT) 📖

Nykkyo Kyhana climbed to the surface at the Canal Street subway station and hiked ten blocks to an office building in the Tribeca section of Manhattan. He mounted the stairs and opened a door marked FloranCo. “Good morning, Jaquie.”

“Good morning, Mr Kane.”

He nodded toward lower Manhattan. “I see they're starting to remove the debris in earnest.”

“Yes,” she replied, “but it could be a couple of years before things return to normal.”

“Did you know any of the victims?” he asked.

“No, thank God. I feel so sorry for you, Mr Kane -- losing your wife and father-in- law -- and, with a little one at home. How are you coping?”

“Fine -- considering. It's difficult for Suki's mom...”

Seymor stepped from his office. “Can I speak with you, lad?”

“We'll talk later,” Nyk said to Jaquie.

“Before I forget.” She handed him an envelope.

Nyk examined its contents on his way into Seymor's office. It held two airline tickets: A one-way to Kansas City and one-way from Milwaukee.

“You're going through with it?” Seymor asked.

“I certainly am. Dyppa will make a fine contributor working in our Wisconsin lab.”

“I wish I shared your confidence, Nyk. I like Dyppa, and I hope she works out. But -- frankly, the book says, 'no.' We've had big trouble with other Agents who've had histories of addiction...”

“Dyppa has completed her rehab,” Nyk replied.

“Nonetheless... You know how susceptible Floran psycho-addicts are to the temptations found here ... alcohol ... and worse -- stuff that's physically addicting, not just psychologically.”

“She wasn't responsible for her addiction. Zander did that to her. I spent time with her, Seymor. She told me she was desperate to be clean and I believe her. Her caseworker says her prognosis is excellent.”

“What about her age? She'll be the youngest Agent we've ever put into the field.”

“She's past the age of consent...”

“But, not the age of majority.”

“Her mother has consented to this assignment. Dyppa's intelligent and eager. Seymor -- we need someone who can help with the potato blight. The homeworld plant breeders are stymied -- they need fresh genetic material, and I've exhausted what I can do in that small lab in Queens. Dyppa is the first Floran who's shown interest and ability to perform this assignment. She'll work out.”

“Well -- as her sponsor, it'll fall hard on you if she doesn't. What are your plans?”

“I leave for Kansas City tonight, and Grynnya will take me to the relay station. The inbound Gamma-5 packet has been diverted and I'll ride to Floran on that. I was planning on spending a couple of days in Sudal visiting Suki -- if that's all right with you.”

“Nyk -- whenever you want to travel home to visit her -- go right ahead. You don't need an excuse. I'll understand.”

“Thanks, Seymor.”

“Does she know you're coming?”

“No -- I wanted to surprise her. Suki likes surprises.”

Nyk stood at the security checkpoint at LaGuardia. He placed his case on the belt and watched it roll through the X-ray scanner. He stepped through the metal detector and it beeped. He rolled his eyes and wondered if this was to be the drill for all his future flights.

A security screener motioned him aside. “Raise your arms,” she said and passed a hand wand over him. It buzzed as it passed over his right wrist.

He unbuttoned his cuff and presented his wrist. “I broke it and I have a pin in it,” he explained.

She nodded toward a table where his case sat. He stood as she popped it open, rifled through its contents and gave him a sideward glance. Nyk smiled and shrugged. She snapped it shut. “Okay, go get on your flight.”

He picked up his case and headed for the departure lounge. As he waited for his boarding call he examined his right wrist. At the base of his thumb was a lump, about the size of a grain of rice. He rubbed it. Beneath it, under his skin, was his Floran personal ID chip. You're going to give me trouble every time I fly, he thought. I know it.

Grynnya pulled her shuttlecar to a halt inside the communications relay station parked above Earth's sun's north pole, outside the heliopause. She parked in a stall beside another, similar vessel. “If you don't mind,” she said, “I'm going to ditch you and run. I want to get home before I lose the dark.”

Nyk nodded, hopped out of the car and headed for the pressure door. He could hear the bay depressurize as the door closed behind him. He looked around the station's main workroom. Behind a bulkhead was the control room. There, a comm technician could monitor the communications traffic routed from one Floran colony, through the station to another. Most of the time, however, the station was unmanned.

The hegemony had many such stations. This one was unique -- not only was it specially equipped to serve as a staging point for Floran ExoAgency missions, it was the link through which Floran agents on Earth could communicate with their homeworld. Each Agent had been issued a laptop computer. Custom software could connect via the Internet to clandestine uplinks, and from there to the homeworld network.

Nyk undressed and stowed his Earth clothing in his personal-effects locker. He stepped into the decontamination chamber and stood on a platform over a tank of liquid. Clenching the mouthpiece of the breathing tube in his teeth, he slipped his feet under restraining straps, hesitated a moment and then pressed the activation button.

The platform lowered him into the tank. He clamped his eyes shut as his face sank beneath the surface. Inhaling through is mouth and exhaling though his nose he counted the seconds as the decontamination fluid did its work ridding his skin of Earth microbes.

The platform began to rise. His face now clear of the liquid, Nyk blew the remaining droplets out of his nose; then he stepped to a second platform for the rinse and repeated the process.

One step remained in the decontamination process. He opened a panel and removed a vial and an injection apparatus. After attaching the vial, he pressed the actuator to flush air from a short tube and needle. Holding the needle parallel to his skin he punctured a vein in his forearm, pressed the actuator and watched as a mixture of broad-spectrum bioagent, synthetic antibodies and immune- system booster emptied into his vein.

As much as he despised it, decontamination was essential, he reminded himself. His people had worked hard over five thousand years to eliminate pathogens from their environment. Earth's biosphere, by comparison, was a soup of microorganisms. An Earth illness would spread rapidly through his native population. How he would hate to be the one responsible.

The vial empty, he dropped it into the waste reprocessor and walked to the wardroom where he donned a Floran tunic and xarpa. Nyk pressed a control to repressurized the shuttle bay. The pressure door opened and he stepped in to examine the shuttlecar assigned to the Wisconsin lab.

Diagnostics reported the vessel in proper operating order. He checked the power cables, returned to the workroom, picked up the case he had brought and sat awaiting the arrival of the interplanetary packet.

His wait was not a long one. A thud shook the station and he could hear the docking clamps engage. A packet attendant appeared at the docking tunnel door and motioned Nyk aboard. He stowed his case, took his seat and belted himself in. Through the viewport he could see the relay station and beyond it the brilliant star which was how Earth's sun appeared from this distance. He looked around the packet.

The seats were filled with people of all ages. Some wore the tunic and sashes of the homeworld; others the attire of the various colonies. They had in common blue eyes and fair hair, ranging in color from light blond to medium brown. Nyk remarked to himself how diverse was the Earth population compared to his own -- and, how much more interesting.

The viewports closed and indicator lamps above them glowed white-to- blue. Nyk checked the tightness of his seat belt. The jolt of the warp-jump shook the packet as it traveled the two hundred lightyears between Earth and Floran in an instant. The indicators glowed white and blue again - - another jolt marked the sub-jump to carry the vessel from outside Floran's heliopause into orbit.

The viewports opened and Nyk could see a wildly spinning starfield. We picked up quite a bit of spin on that jump, he thought. The pilots should have no trouble controlling it, though. He watched as the starfield's spinning slowed and stopped. Now the packet headed toward the transit platform, a space station the size of a small village in synchronous orbit over Floran's equator. Through the port he could look down on his indigo world, mostly covered by an ocean several times the volume of Earth's.

The packet drew near the transit platform and eased into station-keeping as a docking tunnel deployed. The doorway opened. Nyk grasped his case and stood, awaiting his turn to step through the tunnel.

He headed through the transit lounge and sat in a car that carried him into the central hub of the transit platform. One corridor led toward the concourse with its shops and concession stands. Another led to the ExoService offices of the platform's administration. The light was on in Veska's office.

Nyk walked in and embraced the man he had known for so long as his father-in-law; and whom he had recently learned was his own biological father. “Dad,” he said. Now, his father-in-law he was no longer.

“My son and friend,” Veska replied. “How was your transit?”

“Except for decontamination -- pleasant as usual. How's Senta?”

“Haven't you spoken with her?”

“Senta hasn't spoken a word to me during or after the finalization of our divorce,” Nyk said. “Except, that is, through her solicitor. Has she to you?”

Veska shook his head. “It pains me to know one of you is unhappy. My stepdaughter is a strong-willed woman who expect things to go her way. She doesn't quite know how to cope when they don't. It's not that I blame you, Nyk - - you did the right thing. And you're certainly not to blame for our situation.”

“I do wish Senta and I could be friends. It's ironic -- I started my Agency assignment here, and Suki there. Destiny crossed our paths in such a way as now she's here and I'm there.” He paused. “I suppose a long-distance relationship is better than none at all.”

“Yes,” Veska replied. “I was in a long-distance relationship with the two women I loved. Now, they're both long dead.”

“I should consider myself fortunate. The two women I love are alive and secure in Sudal.”

“Enjoy them while you can, son.”

Nyk nodded. “It's a lesson I learned on 9-11.”

“9-11?”

“An Earth date.”

Veska looked at the clock. “You don't want to be late for your shuttle.”

Nyk embraced Veska again and they kissed each other's foreheads. He picked up his case and headed toward the departure lounge for the Sudal shuttle. He found the place empty. A glance out the viewport showed no vessel at the other end of the docking port.

He saw a transit official checking a vidisplay at the podium. “Did I miss the early shuttle?” he asked her.

“No. There's been a slight change in the schedule.”

Nyk sat on a bench with his case propped against his shins. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back. He had departed Earth not more than a couple of hours ago -- it had been around 1AM. Now the orange Floran sun was beginning to wash the eastern coast of his world's single continent. He had not slept, and he felt it. Since Floran's days were a fifth longer than Earth's, he knew it would be many hours before he would. Earth people complain of jet- lag, he mused. It's nothing compared to packet-lag.

His dozing was interrupted by the sounds of passengers milling around the transit lounge. Through the viewport he could glimpse the docked shuttle. Nyk stood, picked up his case and stood in line. As he approached the tunnel door, he pressed his right wrist against the scanpad. It chirped as it read his ID chip.

The interior of the shuttle resembled an Earth airliner. He poked his case into an overhead compartment, sat in his seat and fastened a five-point restraining harness around himself. A young man sat beside him and belted himself in. Nyk made eye contact and proffered the Floran two-finger salute.

The young man returned the greeting. “What brings you to Sudal?” he asked.

“It's my home town,” Nyk replied. “I'm spending a couple days there before conducting some business in Floran City.”

“I'm headed back to Sudal University. Would you believe there's an Earth woman there who's