Dr. Min once again waited in his sickbay for a meeting with Captain Seth. This was the third time that Dr. Min had to report some unsettling news to his captain, and there was a lot of unsettling news. It was not something that Min was planning on getting used to, but seeing how bumping into dangerous life forms was likely to be a commonplace occurrence aboard the Dragonfly, it might simply be an unavoidable fact of the job. Captain Seth made his appearance, and the solemn look on his face told Min that he was ready to take on almost any news.
“Yes, what is it, Doctor,” Seth asked.
“Please, captain, come with me. There is something more that I need to show you about our patient.” Min led him to his office where he had a huge screen on the wall. He brought up the patient’s information onto the screen. “You see these chromosomes?”
“Yes…”
“These are the twenty-three chromosomes of the patient. Do you see the sections that are in blue?”
“Uh-huh…”
“Well those shouldn’t be in there,” Dr. Min said sternly, with his arms folded.
“What do you mean? How did they get there?”
“Through the foreign virus. By introducing it, their genome has now been tampered with,” Min explained. Seth didn’t like the sound of that. “And I can tell you this, Captain: these genes don’t code for anything human.”
To Seth, that sounded even worse. “What do you mean? What do they code for?”
Dr. Min punched in the commands on the keyboard and brought up the images the computer had drawn up earlier. “Recognize them?”
“The Annecta.”
“Quite correct, Captain. It’s quite a substantial amount of genetic data. When someone is infected, the virus can replicate and re-write the genetic instructions to create conditions in the body that are favorable to development of the aliens.”
“You mean to tell me that the Annecta are deliberately infecting the people of Draloos IV with a virus that causes them to ‘make’ more of them?” The very idea sounded ludicrous, and nauseating.
“Put crudely, yes, captain. I asked the health minister of Draloos IV to run similar scans that I’ve run here in sickbay,” Min continued. “Most people are not infected, and transmission is slow. So there is still time. But if you’re asking me how it got there in the first place, I’m at a loss. Somehow it made its way to the planet, probably from one of the cargo ships. I suspect that some time ago one of the cargo ships was carrying the virus, and unwittingly released it into the environment when it returned to Draloos IV. Or possibly, one of the crewmen was infected and returned home and transmitted the disease. Initially, the host only exhibits mild flu-like symptoms, so it barely goes noticed. And from what I can tell, the birthing process kills the host. This means that if they manage to infect the entire population, they will kill the population.”
“In one swoop, they will colonize the planet and annihilate their enemies on it at the same time…”
“Quite right, captain,” Min quickly replied. “Ingenious, elegant, and cruel…”
Seth shook his head in disbelief. “…Can you reverse the procedures?”
“Not yet. I’ve already tried removing the mass, but I soon discovered that it wasn’t possible. The masses are integrated into the hosts’ nervous system. If I remove them, the patient could very well die. I am currently trying a genetic approach. I’ve taken the liberty of assigning most of our scientists on board to investigate ways to remove the extraneous gene sequences safely. In the meantime, I’m personally working on a vaccine that will prevent infection in the first place. That should be our top priority.”
“How is this virus being transmitted?”
Dr. Min swiped through the images on the computer screen with his hand. “Through the blood. That’s good news, because that is fairly manageable to control.”
“Is there a chance that the virus could spontaneously become airborne?” Seth said.
“Not by itself, but…” He punched more buttons onto the computer screen, and the three-dimensional image of the DNA spun round and round as Min scrolled through the sequences with his hand. “You see these sequences? They code for the protein coat that gives the virus the ability to become transmissible by air. I recognized the protein sequence because it’s not too unlike the one we see in our flu virus on Earth. It gives the protein shell ‘spikes,’ if you will, that allow it to bind to cells along the respiratory tract.”
“But I thought you just said…”
“They aren’t active yet,” Min quickly told him.
“You mean, at some point, they could be?”
“Absolutely. There is a whole stretch of nucleotide sequences here that I’m not exactly familiar with, but I’m assuming that a large part of it serves as some sort of trigger factor that will cause the virus to instruct the host to make the airborne version of itself. Once that happens, captain, there will be a pandemic on Draloos IV. And unless I can find a cure, there’s very little I can do.”
“And I’m guessing that it is the aliens who have their finger on the trigger.”
“That’s where I’d put my bets.”
“And what is that trigger?” Seth asked him.
“I don’t know yet. It could be a chemical, a physical trigger like light, a polypeptide sequence, another virus…”
Santiago was right; this was a species that required extreme measures. Seth had underestimated their power and ruthlessness, and their ability to extend their vicious hand across planets. He felt that he was put in an extraordinarily difficult position, because now genocide of this species begins to feel almost justifiable. But he couldn’t let that option enter into his mind; after all, Jerad and the others certainly had a hand in this mess. His main priority should be to put an end to the hostilities. “Doctor, thank you. You’ve done great work here, but…”
“Yes, I know. You need the vaccine.”
“I don’t need to emphasize to you the importance of it. The outcome of these two worlds depends on it. It looks like we’re in the middle of a war.”
“I understand, captain.”
“In the meantime, I will try to buy you some more time,” Seth said. “And with Santiago doing things the way he wants to, that may not be easy.”
“Sir, I’m deeply concerned that this may not be the end of it. What we are witnessing here requires massively sophisticated mechanisms and biological control, way beyond my own abilities as a medical scientist. I hesitate to think what would be in store for us should we ever make enemies of them.”
Seth stopped in his tracks to consider Min’s words. He didn’t want to imagine himself what that might be like. “One problem at a time, Doctor.”
