The Jupiter Plague

By the time Nita emerged from the decon chamber wearing a sterile surgical gown and cotton scuffs the room had changed. The bed had been stripped and even the mattress removed. There was no sign of the body until Sam pointed to the square stainless-steel set into the wall.

“Orders — he’s in there. It’s not an ordinary morgue setup; if needed it can be chilled by liquid nitrogen. This will make dissection more difficult, but that was the decision upstairs. But of course— you work in pathology, you must know all about this. Will you take over please, while I scrub? The last word from the council upstairs was that we were just to stand by here until we had further instructions.”

Nita dropped into the chair; without the pressure of responsibility she was suddenly aware of how tired she was. She was still sitting there when Sam came out. He went over to the equipment cabinet, sliding open drawers until he found the recording telltales.

“We should have done this earlier because if we are going to catch… anything… we’ll want to know about it as soon as possible.” She fastened one to her wrist as he went into the pharmacy and began rummaging through the shelves. “I’m filling a prescription, Doctor,” he called out and held up a bottle of clear fluid. “Do you know what this is?”

“C₂H₅OH.”

“Ethyl alcohol, correct. I see we both went to the same school. There are many formulas for the preparation of this universal solvent but considering the patients‘—our — need of instant medication I favor the simplest and most effective.”

“Subcranial injection?”

“Not quite so drastic.”

He had extracted a container of orange juice from the kitchen refrigerator and was mixing it half and half with the alcohol: then he poured two healthy beakerfuls. They smiled and drank and neither of them glanced at the shining door in the wall though it was foremost in their minds. Instead they sat by the window and looked out over the towers of the city: it was dusk and the lights were coming on, while behind the dark spires of the buildings the sky was washed with sweeps of red, verging into purple in the east.

“There’s something I should have remembered,” Sam said, staring unseeingly at the darkening sky.

“What do you mean? There’s nothing more we could have done—”

“No, it has nothing to do with poor Rand, at least not directly. It was something at the ship, just before we left.”

“I don’t recall anything; we were alone, then the vertijets came just as we left—”

“That’s it, something to do with them!” He turned so suddenly his drink sloshed onto the floor but he didn’t notice it. “No, not the copters— the birds, don’t you remember the birds?”

“I’m sorry…”

“They were on the ground near the ship; I saw them just before I closed the ambulance door. Starlings. There were a few of them that appeared to be injured in some way, I remember at the time I thought they had been hurt when the ship landed — but that’s not possible. They weren’t there when we came, don’t you remember that? They settled down after we stopped the ambulance.” He was running to the phone while he was still speaking, thumbing it into life.

Professor Chabel was in conference but broke off at once to take Sam’s call. He listened silently while Sam told him about the birds and the worried cleft between his eyes deepened.

“No, Dr. Bertolli, I have had no report on these birds. Do you think there is a connection…?”

“I hope not.”

“The ship has been cordoned off and is being guarded. I’ll have men in isolation suits go in there and see if they can find anything. You’ll get the report of whatever they discover. In the meantime— will you hold on for a moment…” Professor Chabel turned away from the phone and had a brief conversation with someone out of range of the pickup. When he came back on the screen he was holding a sheaf of photographs in his hands.

“These are from the electron microscope, prints are on the way to you as well. What appears to be the infectious agent has been isolated, a virus, in many ways it resembles Borreliota variolae.”

“Smallpox! But the symptoms—”

“We realize that, different in every way. I said it is just a physical resemblance, in reality the virus is unlike anything I have ever seen before. In the light of this I would like to ask you and Dr. Mendel to aid me.”

Nita had come up silently behind Sam and was listening in; she answered for both of them.

“Anything we can do we will, of course, Dr. Chabel.”

“You will both be in quarantine there for an unlimited time, until we can learn more about the nature of this disease. And you have the body of Commander Rand there…”

“Would you like us to perform the postmorten?” Sam asked. “It would lessen the risk of moving the body and exposing others.”

“It is really a job for World Health, but” in the circumstances…“

“We will be very glad to do it, Professor Chabel. There is very little else that we can do in quarantine. Will you want to record?”