Part 9 (2/2)

She made herself turn to him, even though she didn't want to. ”Thank you for your kindness, Gul Dukat,” she said. ”I do hope we'll be able to finish our tour later.”

He bowed his head slightly. ”It would be my pleasure, Doctor. And remember, if you need anything, anything at all, come to me.” ”I will.”

Dukat glanced at the Carda.s.sian who stood to the side, and then his gaze met Kellec's. There was pride in that look, and measuring, and something else, some sort of challenge. And then Dukat left.

”Tour?” Kellec asked. ”He took you on a tour of the station instead of bringing you here?”

”He's afraid I'm going to send a bad report to Starfleet,” Pulaski said. ”But I made him bring me here directly.” ”No one makes Dukat do anything,” Kellec said. ”Oh, I don't know,” Pulaski said. ”You managed to get him to bring me here.” She put a hand through her hair, wis.h.i.+ng now that she had had a chance, a very brief one, to stop in her quarters. Kellec always made her feel like that.

”Dr. Pulaski,” the Carda.s.sian who had rushed to the door said. ”I'm Dr. Narat.”

He was hunched over more by the demands of his profession than with age. His dark eyes were sharp as well, but his face wasn't as reptilian as Dukat's. There was a softness to Narat, a compa.s.sion that seemed built into him. Even though she had never met him before, she got a sense from him that he, too, was exhausted.

”Thank you for coming,” he said. ”You are alone?”

”I brought three a.s.sistants. I sent them to their quarters to drop off their things before coming here. I wanted to a.s.sess the situation alone.”

Narat nodded. He swept a hand toward the beds. ”This is just one area, only the Carda.s.sians. We have two other rooms full in the medical section and we've had to take over an empty business s.p.a.ce right next door.”

”My heavens,” Pulaski said.

Kellec nodded. ”If it weren't for all the deaths,” he said, ”we would need even more room.”

She glanced at him. She wasn't used to him being so blunt. At least not about losing patients. So things were awful here. Only doctors who had seen a lot of death in a short period of time had that fiat affect, that way of speaking about terrible things as if they were commonplace.

And apparently they were.

”How many have died?” she asked.

”Everyone who has been sick for longer than two days,” Narat said.

Her gaze met Kellec's. It wasn't just exhaustion she saw in his eyes. It was deep, overwhelming sadness, and more-a frustration and anger so strong that he had to fight to keep it held back. He knew as well as she, as well as any doctor, that anger only blinded. He needed to remain level.

”How many is that?” she asked gently. ”How many have died?”

Kellec shook his head. ”We've been too busy to keep track of the numbers, and we have no real a.s.sistants. It's not a relevant statistic at the moment.”

”But how have you notified the families?”

”Niceties are gone, Katherine,” he said. ”We haven't done anything except triage, palliative measures, and research. We haven't had time.”

”Maybe now,” Narat said. ”Now that you're here, we can do some of those things again.”

Pulaski nodded. It wasn't like Kellec to let go of the small details. For any reason. ”You said everyone who contracts the disease dies?” ”Everyone,” Kellec said. ”Within two days.”

She glanced around the room. If something weren't done, a solution wasn't found, all of these people would be dead soon. And all of the patients in the next room, and the next.

”Carda.s.sian and Bajoran?” she asked. ”No one has survived?” ”No one.”

She shook her head. ”I've never heard of a plague like that,” she said. ”The black plague on Earth, in the days when medicine consisted of trickery and leeches, left one-quarter of the population alive. The Triferian flu on Vulcan only killed half. The worst plague I've ever heard of, the Nausicaan wort virus, which struck a thousand years ago, killed 95 percent of the Nausicaan population. No plague kills one hundred percent. Someone always survives.”

Kellec shook his head. ”If you contract this thing,” he said, ”you die.”

”And that's why you believe this is a designer virus?” she asked.

”That, and several other factors. Its precision, for one thing. And the way it works. Let us show you what we've found so far. It would be nice to have a fresh eye on things.” He took her arm and started to lead her toward the office.

She stopped though, and gazed at all the moaning patients. One hundred percent death rate. No wonder Kellec didn't want to talk about it. That made their job a thousand times harder. The best way to beat a viral infection was to discover what was different within those patients who were exposed and didn't get sick. Or those who got sick and survived. Often their systems produced antibodies that worked against the virus, and those antibodies could be replicated and placed in those patients who didn't manufacture them naturally.

But a 100-percent death rate completely cut the traditional options out. The solution had to be a lab-devised one, just like the virus itself. And that required researchers, not medical doctors. She did research, yes, but her main focus had always been her patients. Maybe Starfleet had been right in trying to send the viral experts here.

Maybe. But to do so would have meant at least a hundred more deaths in the time it took those experts to arrive. At least she was here now. Her a.s.sistants could look after the patients, and she could work with Kellec and Narat to find a cure.

The confidence she had spoken of to Dukat had vanished. In her entire career, she had never faced odds like this. Terok Nor had a small population. In order to save any of it, she and her colleagues had to find a solution fast.

The problem was that all the shortcuts had been blocked off. They had to do the impossible, and she wasn't even sure how to begin.

Chapter Twelve

HE STOOD IN THE SHADOWS next to Quark's bar, marveling at the difference a few days had made. Before there had been laughter and shouting, games and relaxation, but now there was silence. The Ferengi, Quark, was complaining about the silence, still worrying about his business, not realizing that soon, everything on Terok Nor would come to an end.

He had found it amusing when Quark had carried the ill Carda.s.sian outside the bar before allowing his brother to report the illness. Quark still believed everything would turn around, things would get better, his bar would come back to life, and he would continue to earn his precious latinum.

Soon latinum wouldn't be important at all.

He had had a bad moment, though, as Quark, his brother, and his nephew had pa.s.sed, carrying the Carda.s.sian. For an instant, his s.h.i.+eld had fizzled. He had caught it in time, but Quark had turned his head, almost as if he had seen the s.h.i.+mmer the malfunction caused. Fortunately, the Ferengi was so self-involved that he apparently thought nothing of it.

Ever since, though, he had kept close watch on the s.h.i.+eld. It was his only protection here, allowing him to go undiscovered. Not that there were many left to discover him. The sick Carda.s.sians had made their way, one by one, to the medical section. The well ones were staying away from populated areas, keeping themselves in their rooms unless they had duties-and sometimes even then.

Humanoids all shared an att.i.tude toward disease. No matter how sophisticated the society, humanoids still feared tiny little microbes that attacked the body unseen. From Carda.s.sians and Bajorans to Trills and Klingons, the fear of illness was uniform. And all the more amusing in societies like Carda.s.sia's. Soldiers seemed to fear disease most of all.

He had enjoyed watching Terok Nor's leader, Dukat, when he felt he was alone. The constant was.h.i.+ng of the hands. His reluctance to touch other Carda.s.sians or Bajorans. His nervous movements every time he was about to enter the medical section. All of them were tiny gestures, but they were oh, so telling. And if Dukat felt that way, so did all the other Carda.s.sians. He almost wished the symptomatic part of the disease lasted longer. It brought out the fear in the unaffected-or the not-yet-symptomatic, to be more accurate-so much better.

He made a mental note about that, not certain if he were going to use it or not.

But he was here to observe, and since he had arrived, he had observed a lot. The way the Carda.s.sians simply kept going until they lost control; the resigned futility among the Bajorans; the added calls to the Prophets who, of course, were not listening: All of this intrigued him. And pleased him, if he had to be honest. Things were progressing better than he had expected.

Although that could change. Dukat's mood seemed lighter since he escorted the human woman across the Promenade and into the medical section. She looked vaguely familiar, with her brown hair and calm demeanor. He had a moment of panic when she excused herself from Dukat and walked into Quark's. For a moment, he thought she was going to walk over to him. It was as if she saw him, as if she knew he was there.

Instead, she had asked the Ferengi a question or two, and then had gone on.

He hadn't expected humans on Terok Nor. He hadn't expected anyone a.s.sociated with the Federation. He had purposely chosen Carda.s.sians and Bajorans because they had no official ties with the Federation and so wouldn't request Federation help.

What this woman was doing here baffled him, but she had obviously been brought in to help find a cure. Fortunately, a cure would prove extremely difficult. If not impossible. Diseases did not act the way this one did. Most doctors weren't creative enough to understand something so different, so fundamentally alien.

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