Star Trek(17)
Still, I’m making the best of it. My team and I have been lodged with the Federation mining consultants—since their lodgings have been equipped with bright lights, thermal controls, and other amenities we fragile mammalian types require—and the lot of them have been welcoming to us, probably as grateful for friendly company as we are. And a few of them have managed to hold on to the trust of the friends they’ve made among the Saurians, though it’s tenuous in some cases. One fellow in particular, Antonio Ruiz, has made a number of friends at the local taverns, and he and his clique have treated us to a few memorable nights on the town. I think his gregariousness has helped balance out some of the fears and propaganda that . . .
“Doctor? Doctor Lucas! You need to come quick!”
The urgency in the voice coming through the door of his hotel room—and the repeated chimes of the door annunciator that accompanied it—distracted Jeremy Lucas from his letter. Heaving his portly frame out of the chair and twisting his walrus-mustached lip in annoyance at Sauria’s high gravity, Lucas made his way to the door and opened it, recognizing the Filipina woman on the other side. “Laila, what is it?”
Laila Alindogan pulled on his arm. “Come on, something’s happening outside! The police are here!”
Lucas followed her out into the corridor carved from the igneous rock of the city. Once they reached the hotel entrance, they found the Narpran police arrayed around it in sizeable numbers, with several offworlders including Antonio Ruiz facing off against them. “Look, are you gonna tell us what’s going on?” Ruiz asked. “What have we done to get evicted?”
The local police chief, Densri, responded in a patient voice with a hint of apology. “It’s the new policy, sir,” she said. “Due to the . . . concerns of infection, we’re asking offworlders to leave as a precaution.”
“Come on, that’s ridiculous!” Other voices raised in protest alongside Ruiz’s.
Lucas strode forward, putting all his authority into his voice and bulky presence. “Excuse me!” The crowd subsided, turning to him. “Chief Densri, I can assure you, my people have found no evidence that this disease is being caused by non-Saurians. We need to be allowed to work closely with your people if we’re to help you find a cure.”
“That will not be necessary,” came another voice. A wiry, violet-skinned Saurian male strode forward. “Colonel Kurvanis, M’Tezir Royal Command.”
“Doctor Jeremy Lucas, Interspecies Medical Exchange. What are you saying, Colonel?”
“I am saying that a remedy for the disease has already been discovered—in M’Tezir.”
“What? How can that be?” It would be wonderful news if true, of course. But Saurians had so little experience with illness that it seemed doubtful their medical science could crack this problem faster than the Federation’s or the IME’s—particularly given that the M’Tezir nation had historically devoted its sciences more to military applications than medical ones.
“Perhaps,” the colonel said loudly enough to be audible to the crowd accumulating along the boardwalk and peering out the windows in the adjacent rock face, “your people have been reluctant to find a cure lest it prove your culpability in bringing alien diseases to our world.”
“I’ve already explained that that’s not the case.”
“And we have confirmed that it is.”
“How? M’Tezir kicked the offworlders out almost as soon as the disease appeared, even though none of the cases were on their soil. If we were causing the disease, how could you identify and cure it without studying us?”
“Doctor,” Chief Densri said as if breaking bad news, “the medicine is real. I have seen it work.”
“Then isn’t that all the more reason to work with us to administer it to your people?”
“It is all the more reason to keep you away from our people,” Kurvanis told him. “It is a treatment, not a vaccine. It does not preclude re-infection from further exposure.”
It still sounded fishy to Lucas. “I’d like to study your research. There’s no point in doing anything rash.”
Chief Densri spread her hands in a Saurian gesture of negation. “Doctor Lucas, the government’s decision has already been made. M’Tezir has agreed to mobilize their military for a medical relief mission. But the only way their troops can set foot on our soil without it constituting an act of war against the Global League . . . is if we sever ties with the League. And its allies.”
“That’s crazy,” Ruiz protested. “Why not just send in civilian doctors?”