Star Surgeon Read online

  CHAPTER 10

  THE BOOMERANG CLUE

  It was a virus, beyond doubt. The electron microscope told them that,now that they had the substance isolated and could examine it. In theculture tubes in the _Lancet_'s incubators, it would begin to grownicely, and then falter and die, but when guinea pigs were inoculated inthe ship's laboratory, the substance proved its virulence. The animalsinjected with tiny bits of the substance grew sick within hours and veryquickly died.

  The call to the Hospital Ship was canceled as the three doctors workedin feverish excitement. Here at last was something they could grapplewith, something so common among the races of the galaxy that the doctorsfelt certain that they could cope with it. Very few, if any, higher lifeforms existed that did not have some sort of submicroscopic parasiteafflicting them. Bacterial infection was a threat on every inhabitedworld, and the viruses--the tiniest of all submicroscopicorganisms--were the most difficult and dangerous of them all.

  And yet virus plagues had been stopped before, and they could be stoppedagain.

  Jack radioed down to the planet's surface that the diagnosis had beenmade; as soon as the proper medications could be prepared, the doctorswould land to begin treatment. There was a new flicker of hopefulness inthe Bruckian's response, and an appeal to hurry. With renewed energy thedoctors went back to the lab to start working on the new data.

  But trouble continued to dog them. This was no ordinary virus. It provedresistant to every one of the antibiotics and antiviral agents in the_Lancet_'s stockroom. No drug seemed to affect it, and its molecularstructure was different from any virus that had ever been recordedbefore.

  "If one of the drugs would only just slow it up a little, we'd beahead," Tiger said in perplexity. "We don't have anything that eventouches it, not even the purified globulins."

  "What about antibodies from the infected people?" Jack suggested. "Inevery virus disease I've ever heard of, the victim's own body startsmaking antibodies against the invading virus. If enough antibodies aremade fast enough, the virus dies and the patient is immune from thenon."

  "Well, these people don't seem to be making any antibodies at all,"Tiger said. "At least not as far as I can see. If they were, at leastsome of them would be recovering from the disease. So far not a singleone has recovered once the thing started. They all just go ahead anddie."

  "I wonder," Dal said, "if Fuzzy had any defense."

  Jack looked up. "How do you mean?"

  "Well, Fuzzy was infected, we know that. He might have died too, if wehadn't caught it in time--but as it worked out, he didn't. In fact, helooks pretty healthy right now."

  "That's fine for Fuzzy," Jack said impatiently, "but I don't see how wecan push the whole population of 31 Brucker VII through a virus filter.They're flesh-and-blood creatures."

  "That's not what I mean," Dal said. "Maybe Fuzzy's body developedantibodies against the virus while he was infected. Remember, he doesn'thave a rigid body structure like we do. He's mostly just basic protein,and he can synthesize pretty much anything he wants to or needs to."

  Jack blinked. "It's an idea, at least. Is there any way we can get someof his body fluid away from him? Without getting bit, I mean?"

  "No problem there," Dal said. "He can regenerate pretty fast if he hasenough of the right kind of food. He won't miss an ounce or two ofexcess tissue."

  He took a beaker over to Fuzzy's platform and began squeezing off alittle blob of pink material. Fuzzy seemed to sense what Dal wanted;obligingly he thrust out a little pseudopod which Dal pinched off intothe beaker. With the addition of a small amount of saline solution, thetissue dissolved into thin, pink suspension.

  In the laboratory they found two or three of the guinea pigs in the laststages of the infection, and injected them with a tiny bit of the pinksolution. The effect was almost unbelievable. Within twenty minutes allof the injected animals began to perk up, their eyes brighter, nibblingat the food in their cages, while the ones that had not been injectedgot sicker and sicker.

  "Well, there's our answer," Jack said eagerly. "If we can get some ofthis stuff injected into our friends down below, we may be able toprotect the healthy ones from getting the plague, and cure the sick onesas well. If we still have enough time, that is."

  They had landing permission from the Bruckian spokesman within minutes,and an hour later the _Lancet_ made an orderly landing on anewly-repaved landing field near one of the central cities on theseventh planet of 31 Brucker.

  Tiger and Jack had obviously not exaggerated the strange appearance ofthe towns and cities on this plague-ridden planet, and Dal was appalledat the ravages of the disease that they had come to fight. Only one outof ten of the Bruckians was still uninfected, and another three out ofthe ten were clearly in the late stages of the disease, walking aboutblankly and blindly, stumbling into things in their paths, falling tothe ground and lying mute and helpless until death came to release them.Under the glaring red sun, weary parties of stretcher bearers went aboutthe silent streets, moving their grim cargo out to the mass graves atthe edge of the city.

  The original spokesman who had come up to the _Lancet_ was dead, butanother had taken his place as negotiator with the doctors--an older,thinner Bruckian who looked as if he carried the total burden of hispeople on his shoulders. He greeted them eagerly at the landing field."You have found a solution!" he cried. "You have found a way to turn thetide--but hurry! Every moment now is precious."

  During the landing procedures, Dal had worked to prepare enough of theprecious antibody suspension, with Fuzzy's co-operation, to handle alarge number of inoculations. By the time the ship touched down he had adozen flasks and several hundred syringes ready. Hundreds of theunafflicted people were crowding around the ship, staring in open wonderas Dal, Jack and Tiger came down the ladder and went into closeconference with the spokesman.

  It took some time to explain to the spokesman why they could not beginthen and there with the mass inoculations against the plague. First,they needed test cases, in order to make certain that what they thoughtwould work in theory actually produced the desired results. Controlswere needed, to be certain that the antibody suspension alone wasbringing about the changes seen and not something else. At last, orderswent out from the spokesman. Two hundred uninfected Bruckians wereadmitted to a large roped-off area near the ship, and another twohundred in late stages of the disease were led stumbling into anotherclosed area. Preliminary skin-tests of the antibody suspension showed nosign of untoward reaction. Dal began filling syringes while Tiger andJack started inoculating the two groups.

  "If it works with these cases, it will be simple to immunize the wholepopulation," Tiger said. "From the amounts we used on the guinea pigs,it looks as if only tiny amounts are needed. We may even be able totrain the Bruckians to give the injections themselves."

  "And if it works we ought to have a brand new medical service contractready for signature with Hospital Earth," Jack added eagerly. "It won'tbe long before we have those Stars, you wait and see! If we can only getthis done fast enough."

  They worked feverishly, particularly with the group of terminal cases.Many were dying even as the shots were being given, while the firstsymptoms of the disease were appearing in some of the unafflicted ones.Swiftly Tiger and Jack went from patient to patient while Dal kept checkof the names, numbers and locations of those that were inoculated.

  And even before they were finished with the inoculations, it wasapparent that they were taking effect. Not one of the infected patientsdied after inoculation was completed. The series took three hours, andby the time the four hundred doses were administered, one thing seemedcertain: that the antibody was checking the deadly march of the diseasein some way.

  The Bruckian spokesman was so excited he could hardly contain himself;he wanted to start bringing in the rest of the population at once."We've almost exhausted this first batch of the material," Dal told him."We will have to prepare more--but we will waste time trying to move awhole planet's population here. Get a
dozen aircraft ready, and a dozenhealthy, intelligent workers to help us. We can show them how to use thematerial, and let them go out to the other population centers all atonce."

  Back aboard the ship they started preparing a larger quantity of theantibody suspension. Fuzzy had regenerated back to normal weight again,and much to Dal's delight had been splitting off small segments of pinkprotoplasm in a circle all around him, as though anticipating furtherdemands on his resources. A quick test-run showed that the antibody wasalso being regenerated. Fuzzy was voraciously hungry, but the materialin the second batch was still as powerful as in the first.

  The doctors were almost ready to go back down, loaded with enoughinoculum and syringes to equip themselves and a dozen field workers whenJack suddenly stopped what he was doing and cocked an ear toward theentrance lock.

  "What's wrong?" Dal said.

  "Listen a minute."

  They stopped to listen. "I don't hear anything," Tiger said.

  Jack nodded. "I know. That's what I mean. They were hollering theirheads off when we came back aboard. Why so quiet now?"

  He crossed over to the viewscreen scanning the field below, and flippedon the switch. For a moment he just stared. Then he said: "Come here aminute. I don't like the looks of this at all."

  Dal and Tiger crowded up to the screen. "What's the matter?" Tiger said."I don't see ... _wait a minute!_"

  "Yes, you'd better look again," Jack said. "What do you think, Dal?"

  "We'd better get down there fast," Dal said, "and see what's going on.It looks to me like we've got a tiger by the tail...."

  * * * * *

  They climbed down the ladder once again, with the antibody flasks andsterile syringes strapped to their backs. But this time the greeting wasdifferent from before.

  The Bruckian spokesman and the others who had not yet been inoculateddrew back from them in terror as they stepped to the ground. Before, thepeople on the field had crowded in eagerly around the ship; now theywere standing in silent groups staring at the doctors fearfully andmuttering among themselves.

  But the doctors could see only the inoculated people in the tworoped-off areas. Off to the right among the infected Bruckians who hadreceived the antibody there were no new dead--but there was no changefor the better, either. The sick creatures drifted about aimlessly,milling like animals in a cage, their faces blank, their jaws slack,hands wandering foolishly. Not one of them had begun reacting normally,not one showed any sign of recognition or recovery.

  But the real horror was on the other side of the field. Here were thehealthy ones, the uninfected ones who had received preventativeinoculations. A few hours before they had been left standing in quiet,happy groups, talking among themselves, laughing and joking....

  But now they weren't talking any more. They stared across at the doctorswith slack faces and dazed eyes, their feet shuffling aimlessly in thedust. All were alive, but only half-alive. The intelligence andalertness were gone from their faces; they were like the empty shells ofthe creatures they had been a few hours before, indistinguishable fromthe infected creatures in the other compound.

  Jack turned to the Bruckian spokesman in alarm. "What's happened here?"he asked. "What's become of the ones we inoculated? Where have you takenthem?"

  The spokesman shrank back as though afraid Jack might reach out to touchhim. "Taken them!" he cried. "We have moved none of them! Those are theones you poisoned with your needles. What have you done to make themlike this?"

  "It--it must be some sort of temporary reaction to the injection," Jackfaltered. "There was nothing that we used that could possibly have giventhem the disease, we only used a substance to help them fight it off."

  The Bruckian was shaking his fist angrily. "It's no reaction, it is theplague itself! What kind of evil are you doing? You came here to helpus, and instead you bring us more misery. Do we not have enough of thatto please you?"

  Swiftly the doctors began examining the patients in both enclosures, andon each side they found the same picture. One by one they checked theones that had previously been untouched by the plague, and found onlythe sagging jaws and idiot stares.

  "There's no sense examining every one," Tiger said finally. "They're allthe same, every one."

  "But this is impossible," Jack said, glancing apprehensively at thegrowing mob of angry Bruckians outside the stockades. "What could havehappened? What have we done?"

  "I don't know," Tiger said. "But whatever we've done has turned into aboomerang. We knew that the antibody might not work, and the diseasemight just go right ahead, but we didn't anticipate anything like this."

  "Maybe some foreign protein got into the batch," Dal said.

  Tiger shook his head. "It wouldn't behave like _this_. And we werecareful getting it ready. All we've done was inject an antibody againsta specific virus. All it could have done was to kill the virus, butthese people act as though they're infected now."

  "But they're not dying," Dal said. "And the sick ones we injectedstopped dying, too."

  "So what do we do now?" Jack said.

  "Get one of these that changed like this aboard ship and go over himwith a fine-toothed comb. We've got to find out what's happened."

  He led one of the stricken Bruckians by the hand like a mindless dummyacross the field toward the little group where the spokesman and hisparty stood. The crowd on the field were moving in closer; an angry crywent up when Dal touched the sick creature.

  "You'll have to keep this crowd under control," Dal said to thespokesman. "We're going to take this one aboard the ship and examine himto see what this reaction could be, but this mob is beginning to sounddangerous."

  "They're afraid," the spokesman said. "They want to know what you'vedone to them, what this new curse is that you bring in your syringes."

  "It's not a curse, but something has gone wrong. We need to learn what,in order to deal with it."

  "The people are afraid and angry," the spokesman said. "I don't know howlong I can control them."

  And indeed, the attitude of the crowd around the ship was very strange.They were not just fearful; they were terrified. As the doctors walkedback to the ship leading the stricken Bruckian behind them, the peopleshrank back with dreadful cries, holding up their hands as if to wardoff some monstrous evil. Before, in the worst throes of the plague,there had been no sign of this kind of reaction. The people had seemedapathetic and miserable, resigned hopelessly to their fate, but now theywere reacting in abject terror. It almost seemed that they were moreafraid of these walking shells of their former selves than they were ofthe disease itself.

  But as the doctors started up the ladder toward the entrance lock thecrowd surged in toward them with fists raised in anger. "We'd better gethelp, and fast," Jack said as he slammed the entrance lock closed behindthem. "I don't like the looks of this a bit. Dal, we'd better see whatwe can learn from this poor creature here."

  As Tiger headed for the earphones, Dal and Jack went to work once again,checking the blood and other body fluids from the stricken Bruckian. Butnow, incredibly, the results of their tests were quite different fromthose they had obtained before. The blood sugar and proteindeterminations fell into the pattern they had originally expected for acreature of this type. Even more surprising, the level of the antibodyagainst the plague virus was high--far higher than it could have beenfrom the tiny amount that was injected into the creature.

  "They must have been making it themselves," Dal said, "and ourinoculation was just the straw that broke the camel's back. All of thosepeople must have been on the brink of symptoms of the infection, andall we did was add to the natural defenses they were already making."

  "Then why did the symptoms appear?" Jack said. "If that's true, weshould have been _helping_ them, and look at them now!"

  Tiger appeared at the door, scowling. "We've got real trouble, now," hesaid. "I can't get through to a hospital ship. In fact, I can't get amessage out at all. These people are jamming our radios."
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  "But why?" Dal said.

  "I don't know, but take a look outside there."

  Through the viewscreen it seemed as though the whole field around theship had filled up with the crowd. The first reaction of terror nowseemed to have given way to blind fury; the people were shoutingangrily, waving their clenched fists at the ship as the spokesman triedto hold them back.

  Then there was a resounding crash from somewhere below, and the shiplurched, throwing the doctors to the floor. They staggered to their feetas another blow jolted the ship, and another.

  "Let's get a screen up," Tiger shouted. "Jack, get the engines going.They're trying to board us, and I don't think it'll be much fun if theyever break in."

  In the control room they threw the switches that activated a powerfulprotective energy screen around the ship. It was a device that wascarried by all GPP Ships as a means of protection against physicalattack. When activated, an energy screen was virtually impregnable, butit could only be used briefly; the power it required placed an enormousdrain on a ship's energy resources, and a year's nuclear fuel could beconsumed in a few hours.

  Now the screen served its purpose. The ship steadied, still vibratingfrom the last assault, and the noise from below ceased abruptly. Butwhen Jack threw the switches to start the engines, nothing happened atall.

  "Look at that!" he cried, staring at the motionless dials. "They'rejamming our electrical system somehow. I can't get any turn-over."

  "Try it again," Tiger said. "We've got to get out of here. If they breakin, we're done for."

  "They can't break through the screen," Dal said.

  "Not as long as it lasts. But we can't keep it up indefinitely."

  Once again they tried the radio equipment. There was no response but theharsh static of the jamming signal from the ground below. "It's nogood," Tiger said finally. "We're stuck here, and we can't even call forhelp. You'd think if they were so scared of us they'd be glad to see usgo."

  "I think there's more to it than that," Dal said thoughtfully. "Thiswhole business has been crazy from the start. This just fits in with allthe rest." He picked Fuzzy off his perch and set him on his shoulder asif to protect him from some unsuspected threat. "Maybe they're afraid ofus, I don't know. But I think they're afraid of something else a wholelot worse."

  * * * * *

  There was nothing to be done but wait and stare hopelessly at the massof notes and records that they had collected on the people of 31 BruckerVII and the plague that afflicted them.

  Until now, the _Lancet_'s crew had been too busy to stop and piece thedata together, to try to see the picture as a whole. But now there wasample time, and the realization of what had been happening here began todawn on them.

  They had followed the well-established principles step by step instudying these incredible people, and nothing had come out as it should.In theory, the steps they had taken should have yielded the answer. Theyhad come to a planet where an entire population was threatened with adreadful disease. They had identified the disease, found and isolatedthe virus that caused it, and then developed an antibody thateffectively destroyed the virus--in the laboratory. But when they hadtried to apply the antibody in the afflicted patients, the response hadbeen totally unexpected. They had stopped the march of death among thosethey had inoculated, and had produced instead a condition that thepeople seemed to dread far more than death.

  "Let's face it," Dal said, "we bungled it somehow. We should have hadhelp here right from the start. I don't know where we went wrong, butwe've done something."

  "Well, it wasn't your fault," Jack said gloomily. "If we had the rightdiagnosis, this wouldn't have happened. And I _still_ can't see thediagnosis. All I've been able to come up with is a nice mess."

  "We're missing something, that's all," Dal said. "The information is allhere. We just aren't reading it right, somehow. Somewhere in here is akey to the whole thing, and we just can't see it."

  They went back to the data again, going through it step by step. Thiswas Jack Alvarez's specialty--the technique of diagnosis, the ability totake all the available information about a race and about its illnessand piece it together into a pattern that made sense. Dal could see thatJack was now bitterly angry with himself, yet at every turn he seemed tostrike another obstacle--some fact that didn't jibe, a missing fragmenthere, a wrong answer there. With Dal and Tiger helping he started backover the sequence of events, trying to make sense out of them, and cameup squarely against a blank wall.

  The things they had done should have worked; instead, they had failed. Aspecific antibody used against a specific virus should have destroyedthe virus or slowed its progress, and there seemed to be no rationalexplanation for the dreadful response of the uninfected ones who hadbeen inoculated for protection.

  And as the doctors sifted through the data, the Bruckian they hadbrought up from the enclosure sat staring off into space, making smallnoises with his mouth and moving his arms aimlessly. After a while theyled him back to a bunk, gave him a medicine for sleep and left himsnoring gently. Another hour passed as they pored over their notes, withTiger stopping from time to time to mop perspiration from his forehead.All three were aware of the moving clock hands, marking off the minutesthat the force screen could hold out.

  And then Dal Timgar was digging into the pile of papers, searchingfrantically for something he could not find. "That first report we got,"he said hoarsely. "There was something in the very first information weever saw on this planet...."

  "You mean the Confederation's data? It's in the radio log." Tiger pulledopen the thick log book. "But what...."

  "It's there, plain as day, I'm sure of it," Dal said. He read throughthe report swiftly, until he came to the last paragraph--a two-linedescription of the largest creatures the original Exploration Ship hadfound on the planet, described by them as totally unintelligent and onlyobserved on a few occasions in the course of the exploration. Dal readit, and his hands were trembling as he handed the report to Jack. "Iknew the answer was there!" he said. "Take a look at that again andthink about it for a minute."

  Jack read it through. "I don't see what you mean," he said.

  "I mean that I think we've made a horrible mistake," Dal said, "and Ithink I see now what it was. We've had this whole thing exactly 100 percent backward from the start, and that explains everything that'shappened here!"

  Tiger peered over Jack's shoulder at the report. "Backward?"

  "As backward as we could get it," Dal said. "We've assumed all alongthat these flesh-and-blood creatures down there were the ones that werecalling us for help because of a virus plague that was attacking andkilling them. All right, look at it the other way. Just suppose that theintelligent creature that called us for help was the _virus_, and thatthose flesh-and-blood creatures down there with the blank, stupid facesare the _real_ plague we ought to have been fighting all along!"