Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (67 page)

"What are you
saying?" Sop asked, confused.

"I'm saying you
have maybe the neatest most readable penmanship I ever saw and that
one can't enshrine what is nothing more than another computer copy
in a place for public display. That's a stupid idea anyhow. People
need a thing to point to with pride – and a shiny blue and gold
magazine like fifty million other shiny blue and gold magazines
ain't it! You've got plenty of time now. Very carefully hand-write
the document and have some people hand-sign it for approval, then
send it to Enn Far, who will place his own signature in the exact
center of the signature area at a public ceremony. It can then be
voted on by the people according to its own provisions and the
fancy copies can be sent to every town where each article will be
presented and explained to everyone via the media before the
ratification vote. The original signed document can be displayed in
the capital in a place of honor in the capitol building."

The man was
truly amazing! He was ALWAYS right! The people would demand, and
should have, such a document – something tangible to enshrine and
to honor. Jak had put his attention right on a very serious
oversight. A slick printed blue and gold magazine was hardly worth
the notice. There were millions of them already. Some of them
looked very good on the cover, but were pure trash inside.

Slick had been
the perfect choice of word! If there was one thing this DOCUMENT
must not be it was slick – and it certainly WAS something to do!
While all the work to the point of creating the finished
constitution was worthwhile the work of creating the document
itself would be much more so. It would also be more fulfilling.

* * * *

Hal Korr peered
into the viewscope carefully, then had the computers video-record
what was happening.

Quite a lot was
happening now. It was working! Right before his eyes the virus was
multiplying at many times the normal rate! He could watch the stuff
grow across the culture! These chemicals could be used on the
Kroon. He was sure of it. It was proven not to be a deadly toxin
already. There WOULD be side effects – unpleasant ones – but not
fatal and not lasting. They were much preferable to anything one
could expect from the plague! A little pain and discomfort now to
save you from dying later? No one would fault that – not anyone
with any sense, anyhow. Who would be so stupid as to cry about six
or eight days of a little discomfort in exchange for life?

He could barely
contain his growing excitement, which quickly communicated itself
to Mi, who came to ask him what was happening. He showed her the
screen. She watched awhile then smiled radiantly at him. "I assume
from your excitement that these aren't toxic chemicals?"

"They're
slightly toxic, but not fatal and not longlasting. It's a mixture
of L T four slash H seven, D D two slash H three and F T nine slash
H one."

"H one? I
didn't think they did anything."

"No. By
themselves they don't, but the combination seems synergic.

"See? I'm
learning the terms! I'm not totally stupid! H one by itself does no
more than either of the others by themselves or in combination. It
seems to catalyze or something.

"Who cares? It
works!"

"If we only had
some way to test it on something other than people!" she
complained. "Those things are harmless enough used singly, but the
combination could prove synergic in toxicity as well. That's one of
the things we must consider very carefully before we try it on
anyone. We must find some way to make fully definitive tests as
soon as possible! Immediately!

"Hal, I truly
pray with every cell of my being this is a breakthrough, but don't
get your hopes too high. We have other things that look good in a
test tube. Unfortunately the virus doesn't kill test tubes.

"If we could
only test it!"

"But we can Mi!
It seems to work as well on the three strain as the four! We can
test it on the rodents!"

He smiled
broadly at her. He was personally proud of this and didn't care who
knew it. He wasn't a medical scientist. He had taught himself the
equipment and processes. He had taught himself the terminology and
had done something positive! All because he remembered reading a
gardening magazine a couple of years ago and remembered something
about an ancient war.

This amazing
woman had the foresight to call in a historian to aid in this
research through the logic that small things in the past made large
differences in the future and a historian was the most likely one
to recall a small thing in the past. "The little things make the
big changes!" might be tired and trite, but it could certainly be
true!

Hal remembered
that more than a century ago in a small war plant hormones had been
used to defoliate the overhanging trees to deny hiding places to
ground troops from air strikes. Those hormones proved to have
terrible side effects on the Kroons and it affected both the enemy
and the users. Then a couple of years ago "Kroon Garden World"
magazine printed an article about the defoliant and about the
biomechanism it employed to kill certain types of vegetation. The
substances had been dropped from production. They hadn't been
produced in any commercial quantities since that war and were as
much as forgotten except on some forbidden chemicals complists
somewhere, but the gardeners wanted some production for home use in
a weak form that would be safe if used properly.

The artificial
hormones caused the plants to grow themselves literally to death
or, in the case of trees, to cause the leaves to grow themselves
out of their own food supply and to drop off. In the case of the
Kroons it could cause nerve and genetic damage and certain longterm
mental disorders. It also could cause severe birth defects if a
pregnant woman was exposed.

This disease
attacked the nerves and the virus was little more than a genetic
chain. This one didn't even have the protein capsule around it
which was why it was so susceptible to oxygen destruction in
air.

Mi called in
the technician crew and explained how to mix the chemicals in the
exact ratios Hal had used and how to inject an exact amount into
the infected rodents in body weight ratio. It was all to be done
with her usual attention to the most minute of details. There was a
triple isolation chamber along with special clothing worn by the
technicians as well as ultraviolet sterilization and a hydrogen
peroxide shower for the clothing along with the shower for the
Kroon on their way out of the second chamber. The peroxide faded
their brightly colored skin and must never get in the eyes, but no
one objected. There were more important things here than personal
vanity.

When the
injection program was set up Hal took Mi back to the kitchens where
they ate a very good meal. They discussed the possibilities of this
method, then went to walk slowly along the escarpment to look out
over the sea.

This island was
a magnificently beautiful place. The bright multicolored birds
dipping low over the turquoise waters with the black patches
underneath caused by the obsidian glassine lava laying close below
the surface imparted an unreal quality to the scene. The white foam
where the ebon spears protruded above the surface of the sea were a
fantasy world in themselves. The lush greens of the foliage on the
lower levels of the islands, the near colors of Tekif, the purple
lines of the other islands, the pink sands of Sand Island – all of
it added to a sense of peace despite their reasons for being
there.

I'm getting
ridiculously poetic in my dotage, Hal thought. Like the hells I am!
I'm very near to falling in love with this fabulous woman and it's
perfectly natural to be poetic at these times!

He looked to
this brilliant, attractive, caring, warm woman walking by his side.
She smiled at him and he smiled back.

Yes, it was
entirely possible he would fall in love with this woman – entirely
possible!

He wasn't aware
he already had.

* *

Mi Yinn smiled
up at Hal Korr and felt the warm glow spread through to her
spirit.

She so loved
this man!

They walked
along the escarpment above the sparkling sea and felt the calmness
and serenity that fairly radiated from him. This was a strong man
in so many ways – solid and strong. If his experiments would prove
workable this would be a perfect world regardless of its problems.
She could see the natural limitations of the method. It would very
probably stop the spread of the disease and would stop the damaging
effects on the body if a method could be discovered to continue
injections. The shots could never be allowed to stop – like insulin
to diabetics. It would give them the time to find a definitive
cure. If it worked it would save the race in that, though it may
take many years, the disease could be prevented from spreading to
anyone new. When all carrying it were dead it would be over. It was
a truly terrible option, but thus far the only one.

Time was
perhaps the most important thing they could offer the race at this
point. This step was vitally important to reaching that end. It
gave them breathing space. With enough time, surely a cure would be
found. This COULD give them that time. This MUST give them that
time!

Don't
overreact. This will almost surely prove useless. If the mixture
was synergic in effect in one way there was little doubt it would
be in other ways – including toxicity.

It was a
breakthrough. It was a direction and this fantastic man's mind had
found it. It made some slight order from a total chaos. It could
lead to something positive without presenting the complete answer
in itself.

Those rodents
must have one – ONE – of the forty being used to survive. Even if
it weren't helped the basis would be there to continue the research
in this direction. It would be shown that survivability was
possible. The important thing is that some of the rodents remain
alive throughout the injection period.

I'm going to go
mad until we have results and I'm going to be thrown into
depression if those results are a total failure, she thought. If it
were anyone but him it would simply be another one of those
discouraging tangents one expects in science. With him I can't help
caring deeply that it be successful. I pray with all my being to
whatever uncaring gods may be to look to this man, the finest most
deserving man the Kroon race ever produced, and find he is worthy.
For this one time in all our history CARE, damn you!

Hal saw the
intense look on her face and turned up a corner of his mouth in
question.

"I was just
praying to the gods I don't believe in to let this thing at least
show us a direction to take against the virus," she explained.

He smiled
warmly at her. "You have to accept that whatever gods may exist
would then be responsible for the plague in the first place. Either
there are gods or a god, which would demand they be in control of
all things, or there's not, in which case entreaty to them is
useless.

"As the Ithians
say, that means entreaties are useless in any and all ways."

"Then I wish to
lend my psyche to making it work, at least a little bit. Even if it
isn't fatally toxic turns out to be the only result it can give us
a direction for further research."

"We all are
lending our psyches to make something work."

"Maybe we can
all pull together as a unit, all people, to make one specific thing
work."

"Then it
wouldn't work after we withdrew that power and we'd be as bad off
as we are anyhow."

She laughed and
punched his arm playfully. "Don't go getting philosophical on me
now! Let me dream!" she said as he held her close and tight for a
moment.

They walked
silently around the perimeter of the mesa for about two hours,
content to be together and to allow their individual fantasy worlds
to hold sway for the time. It was a release. When they returned to
the laboratory they were both refreshed, but still a bit
apprehensive.

The rodents
were uncomfortable and snappish at one another, but even those with
the highest doses weren't showing any serious ill effects. For the
first time Mi allowed herself a tiny hint of hope. The cultures
were prepared so they spent several hours at the microscopes
compiling data records, then had a meal and went to bed. When they
left the labs the rodents were still alive.

In the morning
the four rodents that had been injected with the smallest doses
were dead. The four receiving the next smallest were lethargic and
somewhat spastic. Those in midrange were all right if prone to
biting one another and the three highest-dosed animals seemed back
to normal. Mi's ecstasy was unhideable. The very smallest success
they could have asked was theirs. The injections weren't
immediately fatally toxic! There was definite direction to some
part of the research at last! Here was definite reason to hope –
for rodents, that is.

That wasn't
important. If such a thing could be given safely to the rodents it
or something else could be given to the Kroon!

Slides of the
blood of the rodents and nervous tissue samples from those dead
were taken and the morning was spent studying and codifying their
results. It was another time of meticulous attention to the
smallest details. Nothing could be safely missed in this.

The dead
rodents had their nervous systems destroyed. The plague had
multiplied at a rate that allowed it to live in the tissue. Those
sick were locked in a limbo situation and would most probably die.
Mi ordered two of those to be reinjected with a much stronger
solution.

The next couple
of tiers had strong increases in the virus, but they were dying if
much more slowly. The highest concentrations had no live virus in
their blood. It was totally eliminated.