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

my handler and his cronies. Then, I had second thoughts, but it was too late -- I had set into motion something I couldn't stop. The prostitution ring was broken up. My mother was sent into rehabilitation and I was sent to the reeducation center.”

“You mean reform school.”

“I was there for about a year -- I don't know for sure. One day blends in to the next. I was identified as high-risk -- for my own safety, they told me. I was to have no outside contact except for immediate family.” She shook her head. “My mother wanted nothing to do with me, for cutting off her supply and sending her away. My father had deserted us when I was a toddler and enlisted in the ExoService. I had no friends and I was so lonely.” She picked up her water tumbler and swirled it. “Then -- a man claiming to be my father came to the school and signed me out for a one-day leave of absence.”

“That would've been Zander. He killed your father for his identity chip.”

“He offered me escape from my prison. He got me hooked on euphoriants. Then -- he gave me some other drug to try. I didn't know what it was, but I trusted him and took it. The next thing I know -- I'm in some strange place on another world.”

“You awoke in Zander's trailer in Oklahoma.”

“Yes. By now I was so dependant on euphoriants I'd do anything he'd ask. Most of the time he'd experiment on me with other drugs.”

“He was perfecting his mind-control mixture.”

“One day he said the time had come. He left me with ample food and euphoriant cartridges and said he'd return and when he did I'd be safe and secure for life. He never came back.”

“Instead, two strange men barged into the trailer, and you ended up back in the custody of Altian authorities.”

“Yes -- I thought I'd be locked up for the rest of my life for what I did. It was only during my rehabilitation I realized I wasn't to blame. No one blamed me -- I was a victim. I owe my life to you, Nykkyo. I thought about little else while my system was being cleared of the drugs. It's why I decided to apply for this assignment.”

“There's another reason, isn't there?”

She nodded. “I'll feel safe on Earth. I know none of the ghosts of my past can reach me there.”

“Ghosts of flesh and blood?”

She nodded again. “Once I set foot on the surface of that planet -- I'll know I'm safe. I felt safe enough in Agency training in Floran City. I can feel truly safe, there.”

Nyk glanced at his watch. “I think we can make transit now.” He picked up the meal packages, dumped them into the reprocessor and beckoned Dyppa to follow him into the shuttlebay. He gestured. “This is your shuttlecar. Care for it well.” He started to open the passenger side door.

“You want me to pilot?”

“Of course. You'll need to rendezvous with the packets -- to forward your samples to the homeworld.”

Dyppa sat behind the controls and fastened her restraint. She looked at one side of the control panel and then the other. “Don't help me,” she said.

“I don't intend to.”

She activated the shuttle and the power cells whined as they spun up to speed. Her touch on a control panel began pre-launch diagnostics. The safety catches engaged and she tested the door seals. Dyppa pressed another control and the shuttlebay began depressurization. The spacedoor opened. With a pull on the unistick she backed the vessel into space and a prudent distance from the relay station.

The navigation computer returned subjump coordinates. Dyppa placed her hand over the actuator, paused for a moment and then pressed it. The windows became opaque and a jolt shook the shuttle as the warp coil discharged. Transparency returned to the windows and a blue sphere filled the viewscreen. She began computing a reentry trajectory.

“Well done,” Nyk said. “Do you recall the first time you rode in one of these?”

“I was scared shitless,” she replied. She picked up his hand and pressed it against her left breast. He could feel her heart pounding. “I'm scared now. I don't like space travel.”

“You'll get used to it.”

“I don't think so.”

She directed the shuttle to a landing on a country road in rural Wisconsin. Following a route displayed on the console she drove it into a small city near Milwaukee and into the driveway of a green house in an older residential area.

Nyk hopped out and opened the door to the detached garage. She rolled the shuttle inside and he locked the door. “It's cold,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

“I warned you. Come inside. I'll show you around the house. Tomorrow we'll look over the lab and then stock up on food and clothing for you.” He opened the door. “You know where the bedrooms are. This time, I'll use the spare room.”

Nyk paid the cabby and climbed the steps to the house in Queens. He unlocked the front door. “It's Nick, Yasuko,” he called to the rear of the house.

Suki's mother stepped from the back of the house. He opened his arms, embraced her and kissed the top of her head. She brushed aside a tear. “I'm so happy you're home. Oh, Nick -- I know I'm foolish but I worry so when you travel. Especially, now after...”

“Your feelings are your own, Yasuko. I won't judge them. How's Nicky?”

She motioned him into the living room. Nicky was walking in circles around a chair, holding onto it for support. Nyk approached the boy. “Hey, Nick!” He held out his palm. “You're Nick and I'm Nick.”

Nicky held out his palm. Nyk gave it a gentle slap. “Come on -- high fives! Hey, Nick!”

The boy giggled and brought his palm down onto Nyk's.

“That's it -- Hey, Nick!”

“Dinner's ready,” Yasuko said.

Nyk picked up Nicky, carried him to the kitchen and plopped him into his high chair. He sat at the table and Yasuko placed a pair of bowls before him. He picked up a pair of chopsticks.

“Yasuko -- I think it would be nice to have dinner in the dining room -- like we used to.”

She shook her head. “I'm not ready.”

“How about when Nicky gets old enough to handle a pair of these?”

She nodded. “Maybe then.”

“Good morning Jaquie,” Nyk said as he walked into his office. He unpacked his laptop computer, jacked it in and powered it up.

Seymor poked his head into the doorway. “How went it? How is young Dyppa doing?”

“I think she'll be fine. We had an interesting talk. Seymor -- what do you know of Altia?”

Seymor pulled the door closed behind him. “Altia. I've never been there.”

“All I know is what I learned in school. Third oldest colony, population two billion. It's the source of the hegemony's mineral wealth.”

Seymor nodded. “I heard when it was discovered it was completely lifeless. It took the terraformers a thousand years to develop a breathable atmosphere. Even today, it's not exactly what I would consider hospitable. The planet orbits one sun of a wide binary system. It takes Altia's sun five thousand years to make an orbit of the main star. There's round-the-clock daylight during part of the year. I understand it's a rough place. Quite a number of criminals end up there. They can find work on Altia when no one else would hire them.”

“So, it's as close to a penal colony as we have.”

“I've never heard of anyone being sentenced to transportation there,” Seymor replied. “I have heard of convicted felons being paroled there.”

“I imagine Dyppa has seen and heard things you and I can only imagine. She told me a bit of how she found herself in Zander's trailer.” He chuckled. “It all started because she fell in love with a young man named Lom.”

“Lom? An odd name. Given or surname?”

“I don't know. It's funny -- I think of how events unfold as we follow our destined paths. Dyppa's young love for a man named Lom was the trigger that sent her here.”

4 -- Medical Emergency

Nykkyo switched off his laptop computer and packed it into his case. Seymor poked his head through the door. “You're still here -- good. Nyk, I just received a panicked call from Grynnya. She has an emergency and needs help.”

“What sort of emergency?”

“A medical emergency. One of our agents checked in with her, sick. She needs help transporting him to the homeworld for treatment.”

“Floran Agents aren't supposed to get sick,” Nyk replied.

“Exactly. Grynnya thinks this is a serious enough problem she wants to transport him tonight. She asked me to authorize you to use the bubble shuttle.”

“Use the bubble shuttle? With the City on full alert?”

“I know it's a risk, but Grynnya believes he won't last 'til morning without treatment.”

“I don't know how quickly I could arrange a flight. How do you feel about me taking the bubble shuttle to Kansas City?”

“We do what's necessary, Nyk. Why don't we grab some dinner? You can come by my apartment and take off as soon as it's dark enough.”

“It's January -- it should be dark enough already. Okay, Seymor -- I'll be right along. I need to make a phone call.” He picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Yasuko -- it's Nick. I'm really sorry, but I've been called out of town on an emergency. I'll probably be gone a couple of days. I'll call... Thanks, Yasuko.”

Nyk stood on the roof of Seymor's apartment building. Seymor stepped through the sliding glass doors from his penthouse. “Any suggestions?” Nyk asked.

“Activate countermeasures before you take off. Don't bother with the rotors -- they'll just slow you down. Get up and out of New York airspace as fast as possible and hope no one spots you.”

Nyk nodded. He climbed into the cockpit of the shuttle, designed to resemble a two- man Earth helicopter. Seymor gave Nyk the two-finger Floran salute. He powered up the craft, activated counter measures and computed a ballistic trajectory to Kansas City that would take him there in about thirty minutes.

The bubble shot into the sky and through a low overcast. Within a few minutes he was seeing stars. Watching his control panel, he corrected his course and began his reentry and descent, landing in the back yard of a ranch house outside Kansas City.

He rapped on the door. Grynnya greeted him wearing latex gloves and a surgical mask, her greying dark-blond hair tied in a ponytail. She handed him a mask and gloves. “You'd better don these before coming inside.”

Nyk put on the mask and slipped his hands into the gloves. He followed Grynnya into her guest room. On the bed lay a young man. His face was covered with blotches, and he was only semi- coherent.

“It's Marxo Wellans,” Nyk exclaimed. “He's the Agent in our Scottsdale operation. What's he got?”

“I have no idea,” Grynnya replied. “He showed up on my doorstep earlier today complaining of a cough and fever. Florans are supposed to report to me if they contract an illness. He said he flew in.”

“From Scottsdale?”

She nodded. “He arrived about two in the afternoon. His condition has deteriorated since then.”

“He walked in with a cough and now he's like this?”

“That's right.”

“Let's try giving him some of the decontamination serum. Maybe it'll knock out what he has.”

“Been there -- done that,” Grynnya replied. “It had no effect.”

“But -- it contains a broad-spectrum bioagent.”

“That bioagent is only effective against bacterial infections. I think he has a virus.”

“The decontamination serum works against viruses.”

“Each virus requires a specific antibody. The serum contains an antibody cocktail.”

“You mean of those we know.”

She nodded. “So, this must be a virus we've never encountered. It also contains an immune-system booster, to stimulate production of new antibodies. It ought to knock out anything. It didn't.”

“Perhaps his immune system is overwhelmed,” Nyk said.

“Or compromised.”

“So, what do we do?”

“Help me load him into my shuttlecar, and we'll hightail it to the relay station. You can follow in the bubble.