Part 11 (2/2)
”Ullman,” said Charlot steadily. ”If you have contracted this disease you are in deadly danger. You are in no position to throw your weight about. You are quite correct in saying that you might well be among the first to die. Varly is already dead.”
”He didn't die of gut ache,” said Ullman.
”Do you know what he did die of?”
'I've got surgeons and bacteriologists taking him apart right now,” he said.
”I'll be there in two minutes.”
”If you try I'll have you forcibly restrained.”
”You might just as well cut your own throat. Don't try to make a hero out of yourself, Captain Ullman.
The smallest measure of common sense should tell you that you can't possibly win your little game now.
You're beaten on this world. I haven't beaten you-the world has. I'm on your side, now, Captain.
Somebody has to save your life. All your lives. You can't do it. I don't know how much real faith you place in your medical teams, but believe me, they can't handle it. Ask them, Captain. You're in trouble.”
”You're trying to make a fool out of me,” said Ullman. ”I don't know what killed that man, but I know with absolute certainty that it isn't what I've got. I've had this before, I tell you. You know as well as I do this is normal. You're taking advantage of a sensitive stomach to try to throw the fear of death into all of us. It won't work, Charlot.”
”Captain Ullman, answer me one question. How many men in the town are exhibiting exactly the same symptoms as your crew? They've been here months. You know that.”
”And you know full well that the moment anyone broadcasts a plague warning every lazy sod with a pimple starts believing he has typhoid fever. You started this plague, Charlot. You and your crazy plague warning. There's not one of my men who has anything in the way of real illness to report. I know what they've got because I've got it too, and it's nothing, and you're not going to scare us with it. We'll all be all right by morning, and until then my medical teams will keep everything under control and you'll stay in your b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+p.”
”What about the men at the camp, Ullman? And tell me this-how many of your men, and Capella's men, have this imaginary sickness?”
”That's irrelevant,” said Ullman.
”Like h.e.l.l it is,” intervened a third voice, loudly and apparently on the verge of hysteria. Merani.
”How many? ” demanded Charlot.
”I'll tell you,” said Powell. ”There's a doctor here with me now. We have two hundred and fifty men here, Ullman has nearly a thousand. That makes more than twelve hundred men. Seven hundred have reported sick. Seven hundred.”
”All with bellyaches!” howled Ullman.
”I'm coming out,” said Charlot. ”I'm bringing Grainger with me. We're going to talk to your doctors, and we're going to find out what that post-mortem's turned up. Don't try to stop us, Captain Ullman.”
He didn't switch off the circuit. He just stood back from the console and turned away toward the door. I followed him. We left the strains of angry conversation drifting out into the now-empty control room.
Ullman wasn't popular-not popular at all. For what it was worth, Caradoc seemed definitely to have lost this round of the Paradise Game. Merani and Powell-whoever he was-were all ready to throw in the towel. So were seven hundred others. Ullman hadn't a chance. But we had a new game to play now. The Paradise Game had turned into Beat the Devil.
15.
We found the copter to which they'd taken Varly's body without too much difficulty. No one gave us any directions, but n.o.body tried to stop us either.
Ullman wasn't there. I concluded that either he thought discretion was all-of-a-sudden the better part of valour, or his attack of the runs had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. Personally, I didn't care much either way.
Varly was nothing but a gory mess by now. I couldn't stand to look at him. They'd taken him apart with ruthless efficiency and great effect. I was glad that I was sucking an Oxy-bottle inside a plastic bag-I had an idea that I might not be able to stand the smell.
Everyone else was in plastic bags as well. There were about a dozen of them, and they were all going like the clappers. Not that anyone was doing anything particularly hurried, but they all had a look of intensity about them, and an ice-cold efficiency about their motions, that suggested they were stretching themselves to their utmost.
The copter was full of equipment like surgical waldoes and micro-a.n.a.lytical equipment, and most of it was, or had been, in use. I had to admire the way that Caradoc had kitted the thing out, even bearing in mind that its primary purpose was probably to put soldiers back together after they had been blown apart, so that they could go and be blown apart again.
The only man who had enough attention to spare to even notice that we'd come in was the co-ordinator.
He recognised Charlot instantly, though he'd never seen him before in his life. He shook hands warmly and told us how much he appreciated our help. I thought he laid it on too thick, but he was a refres.h.i.+ng change from Ullman. Either he had a different approach to life or he'd learned enough from the corpse to know that his bread was well and truly b.u.t.tered on the black side. He introduced himself as Markoff.
”What killed him?” demanded Charlot, cutting off the flow of irrelevancy with a gesture.
Markoff suddenly became very serious indeed.
”I'm sorry,” he said. ”I'm overreacting. I think. But this is enough to...I'm afraid the question isn't 'What killed him?' at all. It's more like 'What didn't?' ”
I could tell that Charlot had no patience whatsoever with the doctor's wordiness. I knew the type-big, bluff, bearded, life and soul of any party, the kind of man who loved to help and be appreciated. I could tell from the way he rabbited on now that this was as bad as it could be. But Charlot, if he understood, didn't give a d.a.m.n about the big doctor's personality problems.
”What killed him? ” he repeated, his voice like a whiplash.
”So far,” Markoff said unhappily, ”we've found three different viruses. And three different bacteria that carry them.”
”The viruses are of Terrestrial origin?”
”I'd say definitely, but for one thing. All three are DNA viruses-fairly large, as viruses go, with complex protein coats. But we can't identify any of them. Not one of them is known.”
”But they are DNA viruses?”
”Yes.”
”So they couldn't possibly have originated here, on Pharos?”
Markoff made as if to shrug his shoulders, but thought better of it. ”You know more about the life-system here than I do,” he said. ”These viruses definitely contain DNA, which so far as I am aware is absolutely characteristic of the Earth biosystem. But I've seen nothing like these bugs before.”
”Nothing like them?” queried Charlot ”Well,” said Markoff, ”insofar as one virus is pretty much like another, they're not dissimilar to known types. But they aren't those known types.”
”What about the bacteria?”
”The same story,” he said. ”Two cocci, each about two microns in diameter. One bacillus, six microns long. Chemically, almost certainly of Terrestrial origin. All unknown.”
”But similar to known types.”
”Very. But none of the known types that they're closest to is pathogenic. And none is known to act as a carrier for a virus. h.e.l.l, these viruses aren't phages-they're just hitching a ride in the bacterial cells. These are human-infective viruses, Charlot-unknown human-infective viruses carried by unknown bacteria.
Now does that make sense to you?”
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