“I still hate this thing.”
“It’s okay, I like it Mama.”
“Are you still taking the stairs?” Tom asked and poked her gently in the ribs. She flinched but smiled anyway.
“You have your own phobias,” she said. “Like blood.”“I can handle blood,” he said but took a small step back from her. He looked at Zalara hoping for an advocate but she stood oblivious to his desire. “Are you bringing anything to the surface?”
“Should I? Don’t I look enough official?” Tom looked her up and down with artificial criticism. She’d dressed in the same uniform the rest of the crew wore but for minimal decoration on the sleeves and collar.
“You’re pretty, Mama.”
“Thank you ‘Lara. So are you.”
The elevator stopped gently and Tom headed for the shuttle bay. Rianya took Zalara in the opposite direction to the gymnasium where Honey and Cat would be for the morning school and play time. A few minutes later Rianya joined Tom in the launch bay with Dr. Ferris.
“Chen is waiting for us,” Tom said when she entered and the three persons on the landing party climbed into the shuttle, Osprey, and prepared for takeoff, strapping themselves in while the bay became a vacuum, listening to sucking and hissing as the air escaped through porthole flaps. The bay doors opened and the shuttle drifted out with a little bit of a nudge from the rear thrusters.
Tom preferred to fly the shuttles himself, but he also liked to challenge his crew now and then. Flying a shuttle required exponentially more skill than a jet, or the entire ship which was mostly computer controlled. Shuttles were small, noisy, and subject to zero G conditions. Like the difference between a cruise ship and a sailboat, shuttles required different skill sets to handle the craft properly.
“Mylan,” Rianya whispered to Tom. “Why do I go this time but not last time?”
“You wanted to go down, and I was kind of inflexible last time. Adams gave us all advance protection and before we didn’t even know what the germ was. Besides, we’re not going to see doctors and patients, we’re going to talk with the decision makers.”
“Thank you,” she said. He resisted the temptation to lay some affection on her. Instead he winked.
As Osprey cleared the atmosphere and began its descent toward land, the three passengers craned their necks to see out the two side windows. When they’d reached an altitude of 20 kilometers, the surface features became recognizable as rivers or streets, mountains or buildings, lakes or craters, trees or people.
The longitude and latitude given to Lieutenant Lee this time directed them to a city near the coast of the northernmost continent, at its southernmost point. Several rivers and lakes snaked and dotted the surrounds of what was obviously a busy city not far inland from a small ocean.
Eta Cass Cinco wasn’t dissimilar from Earth in that it was large enough to maintain an oxygen nitrogen atmosphere that, although thin, didn’t require any special equipment to breathe. Although it orbited at the outside edge of humans called the Goldilocks Zone, its equatorial the temperatures hovered in the teens. Humans and other warm climate visitors simply put on another layer of clothing, whereas the inhabitants were mostly mammals and fully furred.
The sea life was remarkably varied but Jackson didn’t have time to investigate on his own. A few varieties of birds and reptiles seemed to live in the equatorial area, but he doubted many other climate zones on Eta Cass Cinco would support them. Axial tilt was just 11% making for marginal seasons. The northern and southern poles sustained enormous glaciers and permafrost, and they’d not learned about any life forms at those locales.
The chosen landing site and coordinates offered a cool, moist environment with trees and forest, a temperature of 13 C, and a view of the city. Buildings rose at most five stories high, although nothing akin to skyscrapers. Most appeared brick or adobe, wooden logs and mud, or were even built into the hillsides. In the distance a soaring range of mountains covered in permanent snow protected the settlement from the northern weather patterns.
“I’d like to go skiing down a slope on that mountain range. It must be four kilometers high.”
“I didn’t know you liked to ski, Captain,” Chen said.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance.”
“I have the UMA building on the scanner, sir. It’s just about a kilometer ahead to the left, the red brick structure that’s three stories high.”
“Let’s go see what we can find out.”
Jackson led; his wife and Dr. Ferris followed half a meter behind, the three of them making an interesting looking group in a crowd of Cinconians. Small electric vehicles transported one or two Cinconians in various directions on narrow hard pan roads. They walked in the same direction parallel to the three wheeled vehicles which appeared to going toward the UMA.
“Doctor, tell me again the name of the administrator we’re supposed to meet with?” Jackson asked.
“Yee Sanga Akadar; you could call him Yee Akadar or just Yee. Yee is his medical title, sort of a cross between ‘doctor’ and ‘manager’. Akadar is his name. I met him when we were here a few days ago, in the medical center. I’ll introduce you as Captain Jackson, and Ms. Rianya,” Dr. Ferris told them.
They entered the austere building that belied a lush interior inside with soft chairs, ambient lighting, and potted plants sporting wide leaves in every color except green. Several Cinconians wandered the foyer. Jackson noticed they were all varying colors from white to black and every shade of grey in between, cinnamon, sorrel, auburn, seal, sand and walnut. He wondered, again, if he could attribute any significance to them or if all were simply normal variations.Flanked by the two women, Jackson stepped up to a reception desk with a Cinconian sitting behind it.
“We come see Yee Akadar,” Dr. Ferris said in her best imitation of the Cinconian language. Jackson watched the furry native and decided it was female. A softness in the eyes and the refined bone structure of the face quickly reflected gender to the captain.
“Yee Sanga Akadar expects you,” she said, and used an interesting device on her table to signal Akadar wherever he was inside the building. It appeared to be a simple signal device that interrupted an electron flow to illicit sound in a specific area or room. In conclusion it was a telegraphic intercom. Electricity seemed to be the foundation of their infrastructure, at least in this city.
While the trio waited, Jackson looked all around the room. Like the medical facility they’d visited a few days earlier, the vestibule was double story tall to allow for the height of trees which grew from openings in the floor, reaching for the windows on the roof that provided most of the light. Cinconians crisscrossed at a more leisurely pace than humans might have done in a medical building.
“Was the hospital like this, full of plants?” Rianya asked.
“Very similar,” Ferris said. “But more austere, probably because of the sanitation factors.”
Yee Akadar approached them from across the chamber. He was a tall being, two full meters, and his fur was a pale shade of cinnamon. It was clipped relatively close to his skin, only about three centimeters long all over and smoothly groomed. He wore a long flaxen garment that Jackson considered to be the Cinconian version of a lab coat, not fastened in front.
“Greetings Yee Akadar,” Dr. Ferris said with a quick tilt of her head.
“Is agreeable to meet,” Akadar said and also cocked his head slightly.
“Captain Jackson, Ms. Rianya,” Dr. Ferris said. All exchanged brief nods and then silently followed Akadar to his private office where more large, soft chairs provided measured comfort. A small buffet laid out with finger foods seemed intriguing, yet Jackson hesitated, not wanting to find something inedible then having to endure eating it out of respect. Jackson watched Akadar select some morsels and pop them into his mouth using dexterous, hairless fingers rather than an implement. Only a few moments passed before Akadar was ready to talk business.
“You have information?” Akadar said to Dr. Ferris.
“Yes, and questions,” she answered. Both Jacksons allowed her to continue leading the conversation. Having recorded her and Dr. Adams’ meeting with the Cinconians at the clinic site, it wasn’t hard for Maria Mitchell’s computer to analyze their language and produce a Rosetta Stone. Apparently, Dr. Ferris was a quick study with languages.
“What have you?” he asked. Ferris looked at the captain, then Rianya, then back at Akadar.
“We have identified the bacteria. On our planet, Earth, we call it Yersinia.”
“You have same bug on your planet?”
“Yes, we used to, but no longer. We killed it.”
“You can kill our germ also?” Yee Akadar leaned forward. He had the most striking, vivid blue eyes that intensely glistened. Jackson could swear he saw a smile.
“Your germ changed over many years,” Ferris said. “It can live because medicine was not used right.”
“We used drug and germ… stronger?” he asked.
“Misuse of drug made stronger germs.”
“Our history shows ‘cillians worked, then stopped working. Then glycoside worked, but now not working.”
“You buy these drugs from Pegasi?”
“Yes.”
Jackson recognized the word Pegasi and snapped back to the conversation.
“Your whole world must stop using Pegasi medicine,” Ferris said.
“That not go easy over all world.”
“The Pegasi want you to stay sick so they can keep selling you more drugs,” Jackson said to Ferris, and she repeated it for Akadar. He sat back in his chair and said nothing, his furry face wrinkling, his head cocked to one side and the odd blue eyes vibrated.
“What?”
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