There must be a mutated allele, a genetic variation somewhere amid the fifteen million base-pair variations known to exist in the three-billion-pairs human genome. Maybe one of those fifteen million variations had occurred as a result of some human encounter with the virophage in the far distant past. The mutation had been passed along, a silent passenger until this child, Zack’s child, contracted the virophage. Then what? What genetic sequence had been triggered by the phage? And what was it doing to the brain of someone who had been affected in the womb by the ubiquitous R. sporii, but had never contracted RSA?
Because so far, that was their only clue. None of the coma victims was an RSA survivor. It was almost nothing to go on. They needed to run full-genome comparisons, ASAP.
Amy Parker, head nurse, entered the cubicle and turned up the light. “Major Holbrook will be here in a minute.”
Stupidly, Zack thought, I’d feel better if she called him Dr. Holbrook. But this was a military base, Holbrook was an Army doctor, Amy was Lieutenant Parker. And Zack was an ass.
When Holbrook arrived, Amy turned Caitlin over and held her, pulling up her gown to expose her delicate little back. He prodded the ridges of her spine and selected a spot between two lower vertebrae. After cleaning the spot, he inserted a long needle—Zack winced—and advanced it until clear fluid filled the syringe. The needle was withdrawn, Amy put a bandage on the spot, and the whole thing was over. Caity had not so much as changed her breathing pattern. Holbrook nodded and left for, presumably, the next v-coma.
Susan said, “I’ll stay. You need to get to work on those fluid samples.”
“I do, yes.”
Until answers were found, Lab Dome was Zack’s new home. He would live, sleep, work there, not leaving until this new horror was vanquished. “Will you—”
“I’ll send someone with your clothes and things. Bye, love.”
Zack set off for his lab at almost a run. But as he barreled into the room, Toni grabbed his arm. “Zack!”
“What is it?” Worse—from her face it was worse.
“Three new comas. Two are soldiers here in Lab Dome, and one of them is an RSA survivor.”
There went the only clue he had.
“Who are they? Do they bunk together?”
“Yes. Privates Lawrence Larriva and Mark Buckley. Both bunked with Mason Kandiss, that Army Ranger from the Return, so that’s the suspected transmission path.”
“Yes, probably. Who’s the third victim?”
Toni’s expression changed.
“Who? A civilian? One of our research team?”
“No.” Toni paused. “It’s the translator from World. Jane.”
CHAPTER 14
Over the next four days, five more people fell into comas, all soldiers. Jason visited McKay’s lab, a scene of purposeful and focused activity, to see if isolating Mason Kandiss would help. “Probably not,” Toni Steffens told him; McKay was “unavailable.” “Preliminary transmission diagrams indicate that there are secondary and even tertiary carriers.”
“Have you found anything? Anything at all?”
Dr. Steffens stared at him. “We’ve found a lot of things, Colonel, but so far none of them are going to pull your soldiers out of their comas or keep more from falling into it, if that’s what you mean.”
“It isn’t.” Jason held on to his temper; the scientists were all overworked, overstressed, and absolutely necessary. “I’m going to ask some basic questions. Are you any closer to understanding what happened here?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Are you closer to predicting how widespread the problem might be?”
“No.”
“Can you predict anything about who might or might not be susceptible to the condition—any shared physical qualities, for instance, in the victims?”
“Not yet.”
“Look, Doctor, I’m going to be frank here. You don’t like me, and I’m not crazy about you, either. But I need to be kept up to date about anything you find. You’re a civilian, but this base is under martial law. Now is there anything else I should know?”
“Only that ‘what happened here,’ ‘the problem,’ and ‘the condition’ are no ways to refer to human beings who may die if we can’t help them.”
“Don’t talk to me in—”
McKay appeared at Jason’s elbow. “Toni, please get back to work. Please.” And when Steffens had stalked off, “Colonel, I apologize for my colleague. We’re all unraveling a bit.”
“That is no excuse for disrespect.” He’d almost said insubordination.
“Her wife, Nicole, collapsed into a coma a few hours ago.”
“I hadn’t yet been told that.” Jason felt his adrenaline ebb. “How is your little girl doing?”
McKay looked surprised. Why? Did everyone on the science side think that Jason knew of the coma victims as only nameless statistics? Jason added pointedly, “Caitlin.”
McKay said, “She’s the same.”
“I’m sorry. Please let me know if you make any advances at all.”
“I will.”
Jason left, glad to escape the lab. Although his next visit proved worse.
He pulled aside the curtain in front of Jane’s cubicle. A second v-coma ward, as close as possible to the first, had been carved out of a hallway plus a few storerooms. The ward held, ominously, room for more patients.
Like the others, Jane looked deeply asleep. An IV with nutrients ran into her arm. Her dark curls spread across the pillow, and occasionally the lids over her big eyes fluttered. Dreaming? Of what?
This was Jason’s second visit. He didn’t even know why he came; he could have just requested reports on her condition, on all their conditions. On his previous visit, Ka^graa had been sitting by his daughter’s bed. Today Colin, with a bandaged side and a large cast on his leg, sat in a powerchair that badly crowded the cubicle. He looked up.
“Colin. How are you feeling?”
“Better. Does anybody know anything about how to cure this thing?”
“You mean, with the technological advances you despise?”
Colin said, “Cheap shot, big brother.”
“Accurate shot.” They were bristling at each other like cats… no, not cats. Colin was holding Jane’s hand. So—like horned elk in springtime.
I didn’t know, Jason thought. He didn’t know that Colin and Jane… but was it mutual? And what was Jason doing even thinking about her when he had so much else to think about?
Colin must have seen something on Jason’s face. His own expression softened. He said gently, “No, Jace. She and I belong together. And she wouldn’t have been good for you anyway, or you for her. You need someone who will push back, like Lindy.”
Rivalry vanished from Jason’s mind, replaced by rage—the pure product, directed against one of the two people who would push back at him. The rage came out cold, because that was how he had been trained and how he had trained himself.
“You aren’t exactly the correct person to dictate my life, Colin, when yours wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for my intervention. I thought you might have learned something from the violence that lost you a third of your precious Settlement.”
Colin’s gentle expression vanished. He had always been equal to Jason’s attacks. “I didn’t need to learn it, because I already knew. Violence is never the answer, not yours and not New America’s.”
“How can you—”
Colin rolled on, raising his voice, holding his brother’s gaze with one just as fierce. “You think violence is an instrument you can control, like your tech, using it only for ‘good and sufficient’ reasons. But violence is not an instrument; it’s a cancer. You can’t turn people into killing machines with the power to end life, and then expect them to behave humanely in the rest of their lives. Humane empathy is always the first victim of war, or soldiers couldn’t kill at all. Once violence gets started, it always escalates. It can’t be controlled.”