Symbiosis Chapter 16

Jackson stepped onto the bridge in blue flannel pants and a white T-shirt, refusing to put on duty garb. The captain dropped in his chair and waited for someone to justify his presence.

“Tom, sorry to get you out of bed,” Dr. Gregory said, glancing at him and then back at the console. Lieutenant May kept his head down and his eyes on the console.

“Pegasi?”

“Take a look,” his friend said, and a moving image appeared on the large monitor to his left. They both swiveled to take a hard look at it; Gregory put the loop into slow motion. Tom leaned closer to help his weary eyes focus, pushing his fingers through his hair.

It was a fair sized vehicle, not as large as Maria Mitchell but neither was it as small as an interplanetary vessel.

“Did you get a scan?”

“You’re not gonna want to hear this,” Scott said. Tom summoned his curiosity but only had energy to raise his brows at his college friend. “It’s Dukvita.”

Scott was right. Tom didn’t want to hear that. Jackson and Dukvita were not on friendly terms and had managed to avoid each other for almost a decade.

“Are you certain?”

“No, but I intercepted a transmission with his name in it. I don’t know Pegasi-speak so the only thing I recognized was “Dukvita”.

Jackson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His frustrations took front and center stage at the moment. Dukvita had attacked his first command in an attempt to hijack some Earth technology they carried to a space station, Novissimus. The quantum microscopes had been cutting edge at the time, assisting in the search for alternatives to chemo therapies, but as soon as the Pegasi heard about his mission the goods were stolen right out from under them.

“What is that pirate doing here?” Tom asked more or less to Scott but also to himself.

“It’s a short message.”

“No other communications?”

“Just the initial hail that got my attention.”

“I wonder what they’re doing in Eta Cass’ system.”

“I didn’t want to call you but I thought you would want to know about Dukvita.”

“Yes, you did the right thing. Maybe I, uh, should get some coffee.”

“Tom, you don’t look up to it. I never knew you were such a heavy sleeper. Go back to bed, I’ll stay on course to Eta Cass Cinco, Archid Cinco, whatever it’s called it this decade, and monitor any additional transmissions, record them all.”

“Sounds good to me, thanks buddy.”

“You okay, Tom? You look kind of, I don’t know, ill.” The captain looked at his long-time friend. The two of them went back thirty years to their days as young Caltech students, Scott in astrophysics, himself in aerospace, crossing from time to time in calculus, physics, and stellar cartography.

 “Do you remember that last ROTC party, it was early in your senior year, before you met Melinda?”

 “Whatever made you think of that?” Tom hesitated, wiped some sleep off his face and then took a few steps towards his friend. Tom tilted his head a little side to side and didn’t look at his Scott but instead around the bridge somewhat peevishly. “Oh… oh, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know you were, um, awake.” Scott chuckled a little, glancing at the Lieutenant next to him. “I guess we’re even now.”

 “I’ll see you in the morning.”

~~~

“So what have our friends been up to all night?” Jackson greeted to the day crew when he arrived on the bridge the next morning, five minutes after oh seven hundred.

“Captain, I have some additional recordings for you. I think you’ll find them useful in solving your puzzle.”

“Route them to the doyen’s office, Dr. Gregory. Our status, Mr. Lee?”

“On course to reach Cinco in six hours, Captain. All systems normal.”

“Very good. I’ll be studying the transmissions.” Dr. Gregory followed Jackson to the doyen’s office. “Aren’t you off shift now?”

“There’s something I want to be sure you know about that I wasn’t certain the boys should know, at least not yet.”

“I appreciate your concern for my privacy. Is this ship business? Coffee?” Tom poured himself a cup from the morning carafe, and one for the astrophysicist.

“Dukvita’s ship is armed.” Tom focused hard on his friend’s face: grey eyes, crow’s feet, and a marginally crooked nose from the point where he’d broken it as a teen.

“How armed?” Tom took a sip of coffee, looked at the foreign tasting liquid in the cup, and realized he forgot the sugar. “The Maria Mitchell is fitted with laser cannons and bow torpedoes,” Tom reminded him.

“You know those aren’t for battle, just for taking care of things from orbit or deflecting rogue asteroids. The Pegasi ship has advanced weaponry Captain, including thermonuclear uranium cascade bombs and plasma cannons.”

“Plasma cannons? Uranium bombs? You’re putting me on. Who would carry nuclear bombs into space?”

“Pegasi.” Tom nodded, conceding.

Jackson sat behind his desk; Gregory joined him on the opposite side. Reaching for the monitor controls Jackson pulled up the recordings and images Gregory had recorded during the wee morning hours.

“This is a new ship for Dukvita. You think it’s government or private?” the captain asked.

“No way to tell for certain. It’s a good size, but you know, their governments are not well organized. Hard to imagine it would be private with plasma cannons, though.”

The image of the spacecraft appeared to float in front of their eyes above the projection apparatus on the table. Slightly smaller than the Maria Mitchell, the ship probably needed a crew of fifteen.

“Pegasi in space are all about commerce, not science,” Tom mused. “I never visited their planet, and I have no interest in going there, either.”

“Maybe you ought to discuss this with Sergeant York. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t miss that little gem.” Tom huffed and raised the coffee cup to his mouth.

“One thing for sure, they aren’t delivering cookies.”

Jackson pondered the quandary for a few minutes but couldn’t figure out why the Pegasi would be in the system unless it was for the same reason as the Kiians or Humans. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

“Captain to Dr. Adams,” Jackson called into the intercom. “Please report to the doyen’s office at your first opportunity.” While he waited, he refilled his coffee.

“Hey, Jack, what’s on your mind?” Dr. Adams said, stepping into the office. “It’s a little early in the day for my expertise, isn’t it?”

“Come in, have a seat,” Jackson said, then sighed and propped his head up with his chin in his hand. “Why would Pegasi be here in the Eta Cass system? Could it be the mummy, or the plague? Something totally unrelated?”

“You’re asking me?” Dr. Adams poured himself a cup of coffee. He lifted the carafe in an offer to top off the captain’s cup but Tom shook his head.

“This doesn’t seem unusual to you?”

“It could be for anything, Jack. Have you asked anyone else? What does Dr. Gregory think?”

“Doc,” Jackson said, “he’s a cosmos fanatic. I need some medical info.” He hesitated. “We know there’s a plague on Cinco. Kiians found a mummy on Cuatro dated near the extinction event. There’s Pegasi in the system, Kiians, and the Cinconians, plus Humans. What the hell is going on?”

“How is this is a medical question?”

“I need to bounce this off of someone.” He rubbed his chin then found affection with his coffee. “I can’t seem to put the pieces together.”

“Have they contacted us?” Jackson shook his head slowly. “So maybe they’re just passing through?”

“The Pegasi are all about profit and control. They don’t do anything without a financial reason. They’re on the same course as we are in the opposite direction so they must be going to Cuatro to see the Kiians, or, do they have any bases there?”

“I don’t think I’m the person with your answers. Maybe we’ll have something to go on after we visit Cinco,” Adams said.

 “I simply don’t know enough to work this problem. Doc, do you have a clear agenda for the landing party assignment?”

“Yes, I’ll have Dr. Ferris work with me. I was reconsidering having Rianya go with us--”

“Rianya’s not going down there.”

 “But I could use her. Her skills in microbiology are--”

“I say who leaves Maria Mitchell. She’s not going, at least until I know if she is susceptible to the plague.” Jackson looked away from Adams’ face and picked at the cuticles on one hand.

“It finally happened. Jack, we’ve known each other a long time and I’ve never seen you put a personal agenda above the mission before.” Doctor Adams placed his cup on the table harshly.

“It’s not personal. She’s not human, Quixote isn’t human either, this is about medical risk.”

“What do you know about medical risk?”

“I’ve been thinking about it, Doc, a lot. If I thought she would be critical to the mission she’d go but she’s not needed on the planet. She can help when you and Dr. Ferris get back.” Jackson had power to enforce his decision. His eyes hardened against the twinkling blue, daring the doctor to challenge him.

“Aye, Captain,” Adams said with a measure of reluctance in his voice. He stood up. “What’s our ETA, sir?”

“Five hours give or take. Be ready in six. Thank you, Doctor, dismissed.”

That evening Lieutenant Lee set the ship’s shuttle down gently on the surface of the planet Eta Cassiopeia Cinco. Instructed by their United Medical Assembly to land half a kilometer from their headquarters on the southern hemisphere, Captain Jackson was impressed with the pilot’s increase in skill level at the console over the last several months.

“Chen, have you been practicing?” The young officer turned around to face the captain.

“While you were on Enceladus, sir, I did a lot of shuttle runs to Luna, Colony Three. More than 60 round trips.” He shut off the engines and began to secure the vehicle.

“It shows. Environmental status?”

“As expected sir, 0.92 of Earth, Alpine conditions at sea level, and 12 degrees. A summer day in San Francisco.” The captain grinned and gathered his supplies. Everyone pulled on a field jacket and hung assorted packs and instruments on their belts.

“Alright everyone, let’s go,” Jackson commanded.

Mr. Lee opted to stay with the craft, but Dr. Adams, Dr. Ferris, Sergeant York, and Captain Jackson formed a knot and headed for the building a few hundred meters ahead. In the fading daylight of Eta Cassiopeia the windows reflected the pale greenish sky making the building appear green as well.

“I haven’t been here before,” Jackson mentioned. “I didn’t realize they were at this level of technology.”

“My study defines their focus as economic and industrial, Sir,” Dr. Ferris said. “Medicine didn’t seem to be a concern for them until the last few hundred years.”

“Why would that be?” Jackson asked.

“Increase in population, congestion in new cities, issues of sanitation, all begin to multiply exponentially.”

“They couldn’t keep up, Jack. They grew too fast and didn’t put infrastructure into their medical system. They even aren’t equipped to start researching on this plague of theirs.”

“Captain, I’d say it’s like they haven’t matured,” Dr. Ferris added. “It’s like they want the fun technologies but not the responsible technologies. Like a child that wants desert before dinner.”

“I hear you there,” Jackson said, thinking of Zalara and her five year old ego. They walked in silence up the steps. Glass doors slid open as they approached and inside they stopped to look around.

At least a dozen Cinconians dressed in plain black belts traversed the lobby and hallways seemingly with purpose, tools in hands, whether washing windows, sweeping floors, or carrying packages and papers to and from. None spoke to each other, nor to the person sitting behind a sleek reception counter, a gunmetal blue, steel frame with a white stone top surface.

Jackson noticed one other thing about the black belted people. They all looked alike, as if designed to match, all about the same height as himself, all with a luxurious pelt of spotted taupe, like wild mushrooms; it seemed atypically uniform.

One polished the counter top without speaking to them. Adams and Ferris exchanged curious glances with each other, Jackson, and Ms. York. You’d have thought they saw humans walking in every day.

The vestibule was two stories high, flooded with light from the windows, and filled with live trees and other plant life. It flourished like a sub-tropical indoor forest with gentle humidity and a rich, oxygen ambiance. The outdoor landscaping appeared simple and informal, but this hall was lush, inviting and serene. Two more of the black belts attended the flora with singular purpose.

“Můžeme vám pomoci?”

“Kiian ossat?” Ms. York asked the person, seemingly male, who had spoken to the group.

“Yes, I speak some Kiian words.” Ms. York could work with that. She looked at the captain.

“We’re here from Earth. We’ve come to work with you on a cure for your disease.” York repeated the message and then translated the reply.

“Doctor Lam is waiting for you. This way.”

The party stepped lively behind the lumbering Cinconian in a singular pack. A short, brightly lit passageway led to a door a  near the atrium. Although bipedal, the similarity to humans, at least on the outside, stopped there. More hairy than the Kiians, even, the fellow might have been nearing two hundred twenty centimeters tall but his legs were no longer than a human’s. His face was not flat like a primate, but he had an oval skull and a undersized canine snout with striking blue eyes placed binocularly like primates. A bear came to mind, or a gigantic brown lemur, without the tail.

They stopped at a door with markings on it, the door slid open as they’d approached, and the Cinconian stepped aside to allow the visitors to enter.

“We greet happy you,” a smaller, lighter colored bear, er, Cinconian said in the English language. “Sorry if words. We teach English, hard.”

“Our pleasure,” Jackson said, and introduced his team. Despite the awkward syntax, the words were close enough to English that he could discern the meaning.

Dr. Lam seemed happy to meet up with the party, although Jackson wasn’t sure since he couldn’t really read his face. He had to rely only on the voice. Although Lam’s body and face were bearish, his two hands had long dexterous fingers and hairless, smooth, dark skin up to his wrists.

The party of four joined two Cinconian doctors and a couple of scientists around a sleek, aluminum table in what looked more like an office than a research laboratory. The room was clean, bare even, as if no one had bothered to think of aesthetics.

“We thanks humans help come,” Dr. Lam said. Jackson wished he’d taken some time to learn Cinconian, but it was too late now.

“We’re happy to help.” Given the language difficulties, Jackson looked at Dr. Adams to take lead on the conversation.

“We need samples and records so we can define the actual organism. When did the first cases occur?”

“We own papers 300 years go back.” The humans in the group all looked around the room at each other. “It big problem not in past. Now we not stoppable.”

“That’s, uh, amazing, Dr. Lam,” Adams said. He looked at some of the papers with clear diagrams in front of him and spoke again. “It’s bacterial, Captain. We should be able to deal with this.”

“Have you had help fighting this before we arrived?” Jackson asked.

“Help? Yes, help. Kiians help. Pegasi help. People feel better sickness stays, return.”

“I’d like to see your lab, the treatment protocols,” Adams said. Dr. Lam stood and waved for the party to follow. The Cinconians started off but Jackson held Adams back for a moment, taking his arm.

“Can we get this bacteria?” he asked quietly.

“Until I can say one way or the other for sure, I’d consider it a threat to humans. We should be cautious.” When they arrived Dr. Lam passed out some protective gear, but of course it was shaped to fit themselves, not humans. Jackson held up a mask and demonstrated a way for his humans to wear it that took some considerable improvising but most likely worked well enough.

Inside the lab the two scientists that had accompanied the meeting party took the lead, reaching for a variety of containers and bottles, turning down small electrical burners and closing some cabinet doors. Jackson and York stood back while the two doctors dove into the facility. Adams was the first at the microscope.

“Gram negative, rods. Do you have test results on the chemicals used to kill it?”

“All it papers have you.”

“How does it manifest?” he asked. The Cinconians looked at each other. “What do sick people look like?”

“Yes, hair drops, blood, pop. I words not have. Am I sorry. Take days ten begin a end.” Tom suppressed a shudder and noticed, again, a couple of black belted people toiling at their assignments, cleaning mostly. One of the unnamed scientists said something to one of them and she hurried off to carry out some kind of request.

“Current patients? Sick right now?”

“Much much people. One gin two ov five. Come,” Dr. Lam said, waving again.

“Doc, you two can handle it from here?” Jackson asked, not wanting to visit a hospital ward full of sick patients.

“Yes, Jack, we’ll meet you at the shuttle.”