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

it back in his pocket. He stepped to a vidisplay and touched the screen. An image of his security chief appeared. “We're ready.”

The overhead door rolled open. Nyk heard sirens wail and announcements came over a city-wide public address system and the vidisplays.

“This is an alert,” the message said. “All inhabitants are to report to their designated shelters. This is an alert...” The message repeated over and over.

Nyk watched as people approached and entered the shelter, scanning their wrists and being directed toward one room or the other. On the Lexalese side security officers divided them into groups and directed them to the folding chairs. Another officer stood and explained they were to receive an injection and stressed the urgency of keeping the fact secret.

In groups they lined up and received their doses, the nurses and doctors handing spent syringes to assistants who cleaned, disinfected and recharged them.

“It's amazing,” Nyk remarked to Andra. “Like a well-oiled machine.”

“The Lexalese are well-disciplined,” she replied. “Our adversaries might feel Lexal is the perfect target, but the nature of this population makes it a poor one. Every Lexalese considers himself a militiaman loyal to his commander- in-chief.”

“I can't see Florans submitting to such.”

“This wouldn't work on any other colony.”

The Lexalese sun crossed the meridian. Wygann had declared an all-clear and the palace shelter emptied out. Nyk looked down from the living quarters high in the palace. “Two more days of this.”

“Yes,” Andra replied. “Janna told me Wygann will address the population tonight and tell them he was disappointed with how long it took to fill the shelters, and to expect more drills in the next few days.”

Nyk's handheld vidisplay warbled. He drew it from a pocket and scanned his wrist. The vidphone requested his comm cipher. He retrieved it from his pocket and slipped the datacel into the display to see Kronta. “There's been a problem,” Kronta said. “One of our replication plants went offline.”

“Sabotage?” Nyk asked.

“Poor maintenance. We won't have the last batch of vaccine ready until day after tomorrow.”

“That's Grand Assembly day,” Nyk replied. “It'll be here too late.”

“It's the best we can do. We can send a partial shipment -- maybe two hundred barrels.”

“I'll speak with Mykko.” The vidphone went dark.

“Problem?” Andra asked.

“Yes -- we'll be short eight hundred barrels for the third day of vaccinations.”

Nyk sat with Wygann and his security advisor in the chancellor's office. Andra sat beside Janna on a settee and held her hand. “We'll go into the Grand Assembly short nearly a third of our vaccine,” Mykko said. “Based on our allocation plan, that means the southern third of the continent will be unprotected.”

“We can stage a drill in the morning,” the security chief suggested.

“We can't be staging drills during the Grand Assembly.”

“Besides,” Nyk replied, “the vaccine needs at least a half a day to build immunity,”

“No -- we'll have to go ahead and take our chances.”

“We can't do that,” Janna said. “Worst case we'd be looking at thirty million casualties.”

“The southern region is sparsely populated,” replied the security chief, “mainly farming villages. Perhaps our enemy will have poorer luck infecting them. We would use the stocks on hand to inoculate the care-givers and give instructions to isolate those with symptoms. We'd administer the vaccine to the remaining population as it catches up with us. Careful management could hold our casualties to a couple hundred thousand.”

“A couple hundred thousand,” mused Wygann, “an acceptable level of loss.”

“Chancellor,” Janna said tersely, “I can't believe I'm hearing you speak that way. A single death is an unacceptable loss to his friends and family.”

“We are at war. Given the nature of the attack, civilian casualties below one percent would be considered exceptional. Don't they teach you about warfare at that academy of yours?”

“She was speaking as a human being, Chancellor,” Andra interjected, “not as a warrior.”

“Of course, you're right. Still -- compared to losing the entire colony...”

“What if you were to postpone the Grand Assembly for one day?” Nyk asked.

“I can't recall ever postponing it,” the security chief said.

Janna motioned to her assistant and whispered into his ear. He nodded and left the room.

“No,” Wygann continued. “It could tip our hand. We'd need a damned good reason to postpone it.”

Venn returned and handed a vidisplay to Janna. She dismissed him with a hand gesture. “Chancellor -- there are precedents for postponing Grand Assembly. It's been done twice in recent memory. Once was due to the death of a chancellor. It was postponed until the new one could be sworn in. The other time was when a chancellor took ill.”

Wygann stood and paced. “Neither will do. I'm not planning on dying or becoming ill.”

“What about feigning illness?” asked Nyk.

Wygann paced more. “No. If I were to become ill, the people might associate it with the vaccine and become alarmed. It could tip our hand.”

“What about bad weather?” Nyk asked. “Suppose we had a downpour?”

“That might do it. This is the dry season, however.”

“On Earth they seed clouds to create rain.”

“We've never seen rain across the entire continent at once,” the security chief added.

“Postponing the main Assembly here in the capital is excuse enough to postpone colony- wide,” Wygann replied. “Nonetheless, I wouldn't want to trust our welfare to some wayward cloud, seeded or otherwise.” Wygann paced with his hands behind his back.

“Chancellor,” Janna said. “What about an assassination attempt?”

Wygann stopped in his tracks. “Assassination attempt...” He nodded and smiled. “Yes -- brilliant ... We could snag one of our Altian ore-workers as a culprit.” He rubbed his hands together. “I'd like to listen in on our enemy's conversations after that -- wondering why one of their foot-soldiers would take it upon himself to disrupt such careful plans. If I were to be wounded, it would be an excuse to postpone the Grand Assembly.” He motioned to his security chief. “Put together a plan we can review after dinner.”

“Yes, Chancellor.” The chief stood and left the room.

Nyk sat in the private quarters watching a vidisplay as Mykko Wygann began his daily audience. Andra sat beside him and he placed his hand on her knee. She picked it up and held it.

The camera panned over the crowd. “It's all set,” Nyk said. “We're waiting for the moment.”

“Could an ore-worker gain admission to such an event?” Andra asked.

“Mykko's daily audience is open to all comers.”

“Don't they screen for weapons? Perhaps one could get in, but certainly not armed.”

Nyk smiled. “The Lexalese will blame it on a faulty security scanner -- one of Deltan manufacture.”

Mykko sat on a dais with Janna in her finery beside him. They appeared to engage in small- talk. The hub-bub of the audience could be heard in the background.

Wygann patted the back of Janna's hand. She nodded and sat, ramrod straight with hands folded in her lap as her husband stood and approached the podium. He made a short address, then opened the floor for questions.

A man stood and shouted, “Death to Lexalese scum!” Then he pointed an Earth-style handgun and fired.

Wygann fell to the floor clutching his shoulder. A red splotch formed on his jacket. The cameras panned to the crowd as pandemonium broke out, then they swung back onto Janna as she stepped to the podium.

“CALM!” she shouted. “Hold that man! Security -- we want that man taken alive!” She turned to the camera and waved her hands. The image went black.

“Impressive performance,” Nyk remarked. “I hand it to Mykko. He has Machiavelli beat.”

“Who?” asked Andra.

“An Earth expert on such.”

“How did they do all that?”

“Last night, after curfew, Lexalese security forces raided one of the hostels where an Altian ore worker was registered, and took him into custody. By the way, they located a number of suspicious objects.”

“Suspicious how?”

“Transparent spheres half-filled with a fluid. My guess is they're virus grenades. One of Wygann's staff impersonated this man, using one of the Earth handguns left over from the insurrection. His arms-master removed the bullets from the cartridges and turned them into blanks. Mykko was wearing a squib activated by the sound of the discharge.”

“Now, the fun begins.”

“Yes -- a series of news broadcasts, starting with the postponement of the Grand Assembly. We've bought time for our vaccine.”

Wygann entered the living quarters accompanied by his wife. He stripped off his jacket and a valet handed him a fresh one. “We must get you to hospital, Chancellor,” Janna said with a smile.

“They're transporting my double right now,” he replied.

The security chief entered. “We're set up to monitor traffic,” he said.

“What does that mean?” Nyk asked.

“When you remarked that Altian ore-workers were The Seven's foot- soldiers,” Janna replied, “it gave me the idea to tap the vidphones to which they're registered.”

“You can do that? Just ... listen in?”

“Not exactly, but we can count the number of incoming and outgoing calls. Up to now, it's been fairly quiet. We'll give them a little while for the news to disperse throughout the hegemony.”

Nyk's handheld warbled. “It disperses fast. I'll bet I know who this is...” Nyk scanned his wrist and inserted his comm cipher.

“Nykkyo -- what is going on up there?” Kronta asked.

“There was an assassination attempt on Wygann,” Nyk replied. “They've arrested an Altian ore-worker. The Grand Assembly has been postponed.”

“An Altian ore-worker? He isn't simply a scapegoat is he?”

“They took the weapon out of his hand -- a handgun of Deltan manufacture based on an Earth pattern. You'll recall the Altians used similar...”

“Of course I recall!” Kronta shook his head. “It makes no sense! Why would one of them attempt to kill Wygann, if they plan to kill the entire population the next day anyway? It's insane!”

“Well -- it does give us a bit more time to get the rest of the vaccine in place.”

“True, but -- it makes no sense!”

“You'll have to take that up with The Seven,” Nyk replied.

“Have they rescheduled Grand Assembly day?”

“No -- Wygann is still in surgery. We'll have a prognosis later in the day.”

“How's the Lexalese population taking this?”

“They're angry -- there's talk of rounding up and deporting all Altians. Janna's been on the vidisplay a couple times asking for calm.”

“Keep me in the loop, Nyk.”

“I certainly will, Illya. Right now I'm just following the newscasts.” The vidphone went blank. Nyk put his hand over his mouth and suppressed a chuckle.

“Why did you tell him that?” Andra asked.

“I was disseminating information on a need-to-know basis,” he replied with a smile.

Mykko sat at a table with a vidisplay. “Let's see -- right now I'm in surgery. Later this afternoon we'll have a statement from the surgeon that I will recover but the prognosis is yet unclear. After that, I'll be resting comfortably. Finally, one that I will be in position to begin resuming my duties in three days, and that the Grand Assembly will be rescheduled for that time.”

“Chancellor,” the security chief approached. “We are seeing a spike in traffic to those ore- worker vidisplays.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I'm sure our adversaries are wondering what in Destiny is going on, and if one of their operatives has lost his mind.”

“We must make sure they don't believe any virus grenades were seized,” the chief replied. “I've ordered no mention of those devices in any news broadcast.”

“Put out a press release that the Altian prisoner is believed to have operated independently. Also that he is being held in isolation for questioning. You're right -- we can't risk stirring them up too much. Also ... have those grenades returned to his hostel room -- where they were found. I'll bet one of their sergeants will go there to take inventory.”

“Right away, Chancellor.”

“What new information can you give me?” Kronta asked through the vidisplay.

“The Grand Assembly is proceeding as planned tomorrow,” Nyk replied. “Meanwhile, the rest of the vaccine was received and has been administered. By tonight, the entire Lexalese population should be immune.”

“How's Wygann doing?”

“The palace is issuing statements that Wygann is recovering well. It was a superficial wound.”

“I've seen those statements. What of his assailant?”

“An Altian ore-worker being kept in isolation. I know nothing more.”

“Nothing?”

“Well -- one other thing. According to the Lexalese charter, they can hold him for five days without access to his consulate -- and, they intend to. The Altian consul has lodged a protest in the strongest possible terms for not being permitted to see the man. I think that's an interesting development.”

“Why? It's the consulate's responsibility to assure the safety of Altian citizens.”

“It seems to me,” Nyk replied, “that this consul protests too much.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it, Illya. Are you still ExoService liaison to that HL task force on colonial security?”

“Yes.”

“How has this Wygann business played out there?”

“About as to be expected. First the Lexalese delegate claims an Altian- sanctioned attempt was made on their chancellor. The Altian delegate countered by denying any Altians were on Lexal. Then, the Lexalese published photoimages and the ID profile of the assailant...”

“Which blew apart the Altian claim.”

“Exactly. Then