Symbiosis Chapter 19

“We’ll be back in orbit around Cinco in 37.2 hours, Captain,” Ensign Rougeau said.

“Thank you, Ensign,” Jackson said and shut the intercom. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He and Dr. Gregory sat in the doyen’s office before a scattering of readers and holograms on the table. Dr. Ferris and Rianya also puzzled over the information volumes in front of them. The view from the window was mostly black as they travelled back to Eta Cass’ fifth planet, with the Milky Way ever visible, always appearing as distant from the ship as it appeared from Earth.

“Tom, somehow the extinction on Cuatro and pandemic on Cinco are related. Cuatro’s humanoid extinction event happened on the verge of their space exploration program. Cinco’s pandemic started near the same time. I can’t believe it’s a simple coincidence,” said Dr. Gregory.

“Could they have had a nuclear winter? A space accident?”

“No, the extinction was only the mammals,” Rianya said.

“Here’s the statistics on that class,” Dr. Ferris said, pushing a small square to the center of the table and tapping it to activate a hologram. A small strand of DNA appeared in color 3D. “This specific sequence is unique.”

“It’s interesting,” Tom said, then looked around the table. “The area where the Kiians are doing their research is mostly desert, uninhabited, but on the southern continent an entire civilization with buildings, roadways, and airports had existed. They were more advanced 400 years ago than the Cinconians are today.”

“Why is that interesting?” Rianya asked.

“They suffered an extinction event but at that level of technology I think they should have been able to stop it. They were more advanced 400 years ago than humans were 400 years ago.”

“Asteroid?” Dr. Gregory threw out.

“Why just the civilization? Why higher mammals but not most of the other animals?”

“Extinction of dinosaurs on Earth didn’t kill everything. Just the big reptiles. And not overnight,” Ferris said.

Knocks at the door meant their mid-morning brain fuel of cheeses and fruit had arrived, with two carafes of fresh coffee as well.

“Why are we focusing on Cuatro?” Dr. Gregory suddenly said. “We want to cure the pandemic of Plague on Cinco and get out of here, right?”

“It must be something specific --” Tom stopped and looked around at each person, then filled his coffee again. “Was the extinction on Cuatro caused by Yersinia and taken to Cinco somehow?”

“That’s stretching it,” Ferris said.

“Could the extinction on Cuatro have been biological, interplanetary warfare that made its way to Cinco?”

“That sounds more likely,” Dr. Gregory muttered.

“But where did they get the Yersinia?” Rianya asked the group.

“Pegasi brought it to them from Earth and sold it as a weapon?” Tom said.

“Okay, so now the Pegasi are running meds and making profit. If the Cinconians stop getting sick, and stop needing new medicines…” Dr. Gregory trailed off.

“That’s sobering,” Tom said. “Could the Pegasi have planned it? Dropped a biological contaminant in order to create demand for antibiotics?”

“The time span is too long for a project like that.” Ferris said.

“Kiians are on Cuatro, they don’t seem to be getting sick, and they are primates,” Dr. Ferris suggested, then shifted in her chair and rubbed her face in frustration.

“Nothing’s making sense,” Rianya said.

“All right, let’s take it from the top. Scott, astro data?”

“There’s no indication of an asteroid or other space body that would have caused an extinction of just a couple vulnerable species on Cuatro. Cuatro was not quite space faring, and Cinco is not. So if there’s a connection, it must be alien.” Tom turned to Dr. Ferris and raised his brows asking for her contribution.

“Agree that Yersinia is a valid theory for the extinction of just the slow reproducing fauna. But there’s nothing to contraindicate another cause of the extinction.”

“Rianya, what did you and Adams turn up?” Sometimes, Tom swore she got prettier every day.

“The Pegasi have been supplying antibiotics to Cinco for decades, but no exact data. The Cinconians don’t have much of a medical program of their own.”

“Are the Pegasi acting alone or with Kiians?” Ferris asked aloud. “And are they working to keep the population dependent on ever increasing resistance to drugs? Did the Pegasi take Yersinia from Earth to Cuatro or to Cinco or both?”

“That’s a string of disturbing thoughts to say the least. Could they want the population to continue to improve then fall, improve then fall? It could be profitable for centuries,” Tom mused aloud. “Thoughts?”

“Still doesn’t explain how a human bacteria killed off an alien civilization and is now doing the same on a neighboring planet,” Dr. Ferris added.

“Are we back to square one?” Tom asked.

“No, no, we have some facts,” Dr. Gregory said, lining up several readers on the table and pushing the holograms to the center. “Let’s work backwards with what we know,” he suggested. “From now to the event.”

“Alright.” Tom thought for a moment, then turned on a monitor to record the data easily for all to see at once. “Cinconian primate mammals are dying from Yersinia. It’s been going on a long time, let’s say at least 200 years, likely more.” He recorded his words onto the pad that displayed on the large monitor. “They are buying antibiotics but each time the bacteria mutates and then they need a new drug, which the Pegasi happily supply for an undoubtedly punitive price and profit.

“So the Pegasi get the antibiotics from…where?” Tom continued. “Their home world? The Kiians? We don’t know for how long, or which species discovered the problem and began the addiction, for lack of a better word.” Tom stood up to pace around again.

“Before Cinconians began to have the plague, an extinction of the same order of animals happened on Cuatro: slow reproducing, mostly primate mammals,” Dr. Ferris added in. Tom recorded her words into the pad.

“So circumstantially it’s likely that Yersinia is the cause of the extinction,” Tom said. “Which happened a long time ago. And it appears as if Cinco is heading in the same direction.”

“Are there two humanoid species on Cinco?” Rianya asked. Tom recalled the shorter people with the taupe fur, but they didn’t seem to be a different species, more like a different race.

“Did you notice a second species, Dr. Ferris?” Tom asked. “I didn’t, but, then, I wasn’t looking for one.”

“No, sir, I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

“How would the Cuatrons take the plague to Cinco? They didn’t have space technology. Another species must have taken it either on purpose or by accident,” Dr. Gregory said.

“We’re getting off track. No questions, just facts, everyone. Let’s think.” Tom took a handful of black grapes and began to pop them like candy while he paced around the table.

“Meteorite would be the only other method,” Gregory said.

“That’s plausible, sir,” Ferris added. “Yersinia is both aerobic and anaerobic. Low oxygen, no oxygen, it doesn’t matter to the bacteria.”

“Okay,” he entered the data and it appeared on the screen. “But we don’t know for certain.” He indicated that sentence was suspect with a small symbol at the end.

“We’re going with the theory that the plague raged on Cuatro, killed the population, and some of it escaped to Cinco,” Tom said. “I think we’re getting some of this figured out.”

“Except,” Rianya said, “Now we need to find out how Yersinia got to Cuatro in the first place.”

“An alien or meteor must have brought it,” Tom concluded. He tapped in the rest of the data. “Could it have been brought to be used as a bio weapon?”

“Tom, a meteor couldn’t go twenty light years, you know better,” Dr. Gregory said.

“I’m grasping at straws here.”

“The Pegasi could have been biological arms dealers to the Cuatrons. Pegasi brought it from earth to profit off one side’s civil war?” Ferris said.

Tom passed by Rianya and touched her shoulders, absorbing some of her strength without taking it away from her.

“Regardless of who or how, we still have to stop it,” the captain said, and sat down. “As long as we can ensure it doesn’t come back.” He tapped the intercom. “Dr. Adams, can you come to the doyen’s office?”

“On my way,” came the answer. While they waited, the four of them grazed on the brunch foods and avoided the discussion.

“Come in, doc, join the party,” Tom called at the door chime. “We saved the big question for you.”

“You flatter me, Jack. What’s all that?” He pointed to the monitor and stared at the screen.

“Read it and weep,” Dr. Gregory said.

“This is the intelligence?”

“So far. What have you come up with to treat the Cinconians?”

“We’re looking at treating 300 million individuals, you know. That’s just the ones who have it, not including the ones who’ll get it between now and the deployment.”

“Dr. Ferris?” Tom said.

“I looked in the Pedia about the Plague in Europe. The only thing they could do was burn everything – bodies, clothes, even homes, fields, crops where the vectors lived. Those years were affected originally from the bite of a rodent flea. This one is obviously the airborne subspecies.”

“We can’t burn everything. What about the water supply?” Tom suggested.

“It will have to be something they can replicate on their own,” Adams said. “A gene is still a way off in their technological sphere.”

“Dangerous?” Tom asked. He closed his eyes, covering his face with one hand as he slid down into a chair.

“Yes. Hell yes,” Adams said.

“Why so many people at once, Doc?”

“You have to blast everyone all at the same time and stay on top of it or the next round of bugs will likely be resistant. I’m still planning on the plasmid delivery, but that takes more time and money. The few of us can’t treat that many people by ourselves. It’s going to take a huge effort of their own populations.”

“Maybe I should see if the Cinconians are set up to make a billion doses of something. We certainly aren’t,” Tom said. “Adams, Ferris, your top priority is a Yersinia killer.”

“Jack, the populations need to be quarantined, immediately. That’s the first step.”

“Understood. I’ll contact the UMA as soon as we’re in range. Rianya and I will get down there and meet with their nation states and try to put an organization together to engage the Cinconians in distribution of the medicine. Scott, you get to figure out how Yersinia got from Earth to Cuatro and then to Cinco.”

“No one goes down to the planet without prophylactic therapy,” Adams insisted.

“I’m an astronomer, not an historian. How do you expect me to figure that out?”

“I only have so many scientists on board, Scott. A smart doctor of astrophysics like you should snap this out in a day or two. I only run the ship. Everyone dismissed.”