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  The Idic Epidemic

  I.D.I.C — Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. More than just a simple credo, for those of the planet Vulcan it is the cornerstone of their philosophy.

  Now, on the Vulcan Science Colony Nisus, that credo of tolerance is being put to its sternest test. For here, on a planet where Vulcan, human, Klingon, and countless other races live and work side by side, a deadly plague has sprung up. A plague whose origins are somehow rooted in the concept of I.D.I.C. itself. A plague that threatens to tear down that centuries-old maxim and replace it with an even older concept.

  Interstellar War

  STAR TREK

  THE IDIC EPIDEMIC

  BY

  JEAN LORRAH

  First Pocket books printing February 1988

  Foreword

  I would like to thank Gene Roddenberry, the creator Star Trek, which has been an important influence in my life.

  William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, Mark Lenard (Sarek), Jane Wyatt (Amanda), and all the other actors who brought Star Trek characters to life,

  Star Trek fandom, which over many years has provided a forum for the stories I—and so many other fans—needed to tell,

  and the Star Trek Welcommittee, who for many years has served to bring fans who love Star Trek to know and share their interests with one another.

  I have been a Star Trek fan since 1966, when the original live episodes first appeared. I learned to write through fanzines, and made many wonderful friends through Trek fandom. I recommend it to all of you who have Trek stories to tell: get involved in fandom and learn to tell them. Then, ( if you want to be a professional writer, take workshops and study books on creative writing to learn the procedure of turning from amateur to professional. Don’t write to professional writers, asking them to tell you how—they are too busy writing books for you. They haven’t time to write letters trying to explain in words something that can only learned by doing. Books and workshops will get you started; the experience you can only get with practice.

  Whether you want to write or not, if you love Star Trek you will love fandom. Paramount now sponsors a fan club with a bimonthly newsletter to tell you all the latest news about the movies, the TV series, and the actors and creators:

  The Official Star Trek Fan Club

  P.O.Box 111000

  Aurora, CO 80011

  But Trekfandom is not limited to the fan club. If you write or draw or make music or costumes or want to interact with other fans, you want the original fandom: friends and letters and crafts and fanzines and trivia and costumes and artwork and filksongs [sic] and posters and buttons and games and film clips and conventions—something for everybody who has in common the inspiration of a television show which has grown far beyond its TV and film incarnations to become a living part of world culture.

  The way to that fandom is not through me, or any other author of Star Trek novels. You want that wonderful organization, the Star Trek Welcommittee. Be sure to enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope, as this is a purely volunteer, nonprofit organization of people who love Star Trek and are willing to answer your questions and put you in touch with other fans. The current address is

  Star Trek Welcommittee

  P.O. Drawer 12

  Saranac, MI 48881.

  In both Trekwriting and my other professional science fiction, I have a strong belief in the interaction between authors and fans. Authors want your constructive comments. They cannot collaborate with you, write the stories you want to tell (you’ll have to do that yourself), or critique your novels (they’re busy writing their own). All authors, though, are happy to receive comments about their books, and most will answer questions. If you would like to comment on this or any of my books, you may write to me in care of my publishers, or at P.O. Box 625, Murray, KY 42071. If your letter requires an answer, please enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope.

  Keep on Trekkin’!

  Jean Lorrah

  Murray, Kentucky

  P.S. The IDIC Epidemic is a sequel to The Vulcan Academy Murders, which is also available from Pocket Books. Please don’t feel that you can’t read this book without the earlier one, though. All the Star Trek novels are designed like episodes, so that it doesn’t hurt to miss some or read them out of order. If you like The IDIC Epidemic you can later find The Vulcan Academy Murders, by the same author.

  Chapter One

  Only the members of the Nisus Council were in the refectory, and only computerized food was available. The kitchen was closed for the duration of the epidemic.

  Thought Master Korsal dialed up coffee, black, the way Cathy had taught him to like it, and started toward a table where two Vulcans and an Andorian were seated.

  “Korsal!” His name was softly hissed in a voice he knew well. It was Borth, the Orion representative to the council. “Come, sit with me.” He drew Korsal to a two-person table and activated the privacy shield.

  The Klingon reached for the switch to turn it off, saying, “We have nothing to hide from the rest of the council; why make them suspicious?”

  Borth blocked his hand. “They suspect us anyway; what difference does it make? I would know what you plan to do about the plague.”

  “I am an engineer, Borth,” Korsal replied. “There is nothing I can do, except vote for stronger quarantine measures. If you are asking whether I will vote to ask the Federation Council for medical aid, yes, of course I will.”

  The Orion shook his head, thinning his lips in disgust. The flat headdress he wore hooded his yellow eyes. With his green skin, it gave him a reptilian look. “No, fool. What will you report to the Klingon Empire? Communications records show that you have made no report for sixteen days.”

  “Under quarantine conditions, scientific progress is halted. There is nothing to report.” Korsal took a long swallow of coffee, ignoring the fact that it was too hot. He wondered, not for the first time, why such a bitter brew should be so comforting. Taking strength from that which is harsh, he had long ago learned, was something Humans and Klingons had in common.

  “No?” Borth continued his line of thought. “Consider what a weapon this plague could—”

  “Do not continue!” Korsal told him, getting up from his chair. Heads turned at the other tables. He leaned forward, hands on the table, to keep his words within the privacy shield as he stared into the cold yellow eyes. “A weapon which can turn as easily upon its user as upon his enemy is no weapon at all. Try to sell this virus to my people, Borth, and you will have the Klingon Empire as your enemy!”

  Korsal straightened, crushing his plastic cup, not even noticing the last of the coffee burning his hand. He tossed it into a receptacle as he stalked out of the refectory.

  There was no place to go except back to the council chamber; everything else in the Civic Center, as with all other public buildings, was closed.

  The Civic Center containing the council chamber of the science colony Nisus was situated near the gigantic dam and power plant that provided both water and electricity to the valley below. The dam was a product of Earth engineering, a technology centuries old on that water-logged planet, but only a generation old on three Klingon worlds where famine had been conquered by such dams in Korsal’s own lifetime.

  The Klingon engineer went to stand at the huge window that overlooked the valley. The view of the mountains was blocked by the immense mass of the dam. Some might say that the solid concrete grayness was ugly; to Korsal it held the beauty of power. He watched the tamed river surge through the locks, tumbling downhill in controlled energy. It was divided be
low into an irrigation system for the fields—designed by Hemanite farmers to prevent erosion—and a water system for the small city where lived and worked scientists from all races of the Federation … and a few from outside the Federation as well.

  Korsal was uneasy in his position on the Nisus Council, for he was an engineer, not a politician. Not even a social scientist. Certainly no leader among his own people, where strategy—whether in battle or in politics—was the distinguishing feature of those who ruled.

  His position on the Nisus Council came by default; every culture represented at the science colony chose a member to sit on the council. And since his colleagues had returned to the empire seven years before, Korsal was the only Klingon on Nisus.

  No one else had yet returned to the chamber. Alone, Korsal vented his frustration by pounding his fist against the window: not glass, but transparent aluminum, another Earth invention. Not only could he not break it, but it gave back the feel of solid metal—the feel of futility.

  Korsal was not alone in his frustration. The council had taken its break only after four hours of deliberation. The other members finally began filing back into the chamber. The largest contingent were Humans, who had swarmed across the galaxy in the past three centuries, creating colonies so disparate in their governments and cultures that they could no more be assumed to agree on most issues than Vulcans and Klingons.

  Vulcans were the second-largest group, their home planet and each of their colonies having its own representative. Although the colonies were all part of one central Vulcan government, their representatives on the council were not a fair proportion insofar as Nisus’ population was concerned. Science was so much the heart of Vulcan culture that the science colony was forty percent Vulcan, thirty-two percent Human, and only twenty-eight percent Tellarite, Hemanite, Andorian, Rigellian, Lemnorian, Orion, Trakeskian, Jovanian … and Klingon.

  Korsal went back to his place at the table and sat down in the chair that looked like a rather uncomfortable block until a person sat in it. Then it read his size, shape, body temperature, and muscle tension, and molded itself into contours that would prevent muscle fatigue, but—since it was designed as part of a workplace—not allow relaxation into sleep.

  Even Keski, the Lemnorian on the council, sat down on an exactly similar cube. It immediately shifted to accommodate his gigantic frame, expanding its back to support the long torso that caused the Lemnorian, even sitting down, to tower over everyone else at the table. Such furniture was an invention of the comfort-minded Tellarites. The tricorders at each place on the table were a Vulcan invention.

  At times like these, items usually taken for granted took on new significance. The day-to-day lives of people around the galaxy were improved by these varied technologies. Cooperation among races here at the science colony had in the past century spawned technological advances at a rate never seen before in galactic history.

  Only now …it had spawned a plague.

  Korsal did not want to talk to anyone—did not want to be questioned about his argument with Borth —so he reached for his tricorder. It hurt when his hand closed over it, and he discovered a blister on his palm where the hot coffee had burned him. It was nothing.

  He turned on his tricorder and reran his notes. T’Saen, a biochemist, pronounced the words of doom in that flat way Vulcans spoke when they were controlling hardest.

  “We are proceeding on the assumption that what we have is a rapidly mutating virus. So far we have been unable to isolate it because of the rapidity of its mutation. It is resistant to all the antimutagens known to science.”

  Therian, the Andorian epidemiologist, gave statistics on the spread of the disease—too fast, and accelerating.

  Korsal shook his head. The biochemistry was beyond him, but the math was plain: within sixty days, every person on Nisus would have the disease. It showed no respect for race; it attacked equally those with blood based on iron, copper, or silicon.

  They had closed the schools and canceled all meetings, theatrical performances, or other gatherings twelve days ago, and still it spread. Nonessential public buildings were closed, masks arid gloves had become standard streetwear, and still it spread.

  And killed.

  In its original form, the disease had been only a nuisance. It caused high fever, headaches, abdominal cramps—exceedingly unpleasant, but not deadly. It ran its course in five days, leaving the victim weak but with no permanent aftereffects. The biochemists began working on a vaccine, and no one worried much.

  Then a new strain evolved. It started with the same symptoms for three days, but on the fourth the victim suddenly went into kidney failure. The hospital began to fill, but they had the life-support equipment to save these patients too.

  Until the day when one of the victims on life support went into convulsions, followed by liver and heart failure. The first was a ten-year-old Human girl. She was so weakened that the most heroic efforts could not save her.

  But she was not the last; the mortality rate escalated and total systemic failure was added to the symptomology of the disease. What organs failed differed according to species, but they were always vital.

  A number of the early fatalities were doctors and nurses, for the new strain—strains?—also evaded the antiseptic procedures that had previously sufficed to keep it from spreading within the hospital.

  Nor did the early symptoms indicate which strain of the disease a victim had. The hospital overflowed with frightened people who didn’t know whether the fourth day of their illness might bring death.

  Until two days ago, however, eighty-seven percent of the victims of the more virulent version had survived. The disease might have to run its course, but it would not wipe out the colony.

  And then suddenly the disease changed again. New victims no longer started feeling feverish and headachy; instead, without warning, the first symptoms were unbearable pain lancing through the victim’s head, and an instant, paranoid belief that anyone nearby was an enemy trying to kill him!

  Suddenly each new victim was a weapon trained on anyone in his vicinity, even those trying desperately to help him. In only two days, a mother killed her two children, two husbands killed their wives, a staff member killed a doctor and two nurses at the hospital, and fourteen people were wounded by family, friends, or colleagues suddenly gone berserk. It was too soon to be certain whether the knowledge of what they had done undercut the victims’ will to live, but almost half of the new victims died within hours of coming out of the violent phase, and the rest remained critical.

  Borth’s idea of using the virus as a weapon sickened Korsal. Klingons would fight, anytime, and gladly. But they fought fair, enemy against enemy, whether the battle be of wits or of weapons. This terrible plague would not only be a dishonorable tactic; it would be an invitation to those it was used against to retaliate in kind. Let anyone use it the first time, and it would be set loose to decimate the population of the galaxy.

  Calmer now, Korsal recognized that he had been wrong to walk out on the Orion. The man was not stupid; he had had the plague himself, so he knew Orions were not immune. He would surely listen to reason.

  The council reconvened, and the vote to ask the Federation for aid was quickly passed. Unanimously, Korsal noted.

  Then one of the Humans, Dr. John Treadwell, took the floor. He was a tall, thin man, a researcher who rarely spoke up in council. “I think,” he said hesitantly, “that while we wait for help, we may be wrong in handling this epidemic in the traditional way, by trying to protect those who have not yet had the disease.”

  “What would you suggest, Dr. Treadwell?” T’Saen asked.

  “We are still trying to isolate the virus so as to find both a cure and a means of inoculation. That is standard procedure. Even as our best efforts fail, though, the disease becomes more deadly, and at the same time escapes our antisepsis procedures. Twenty-eight percent of the population of Nisus has had the disease and recovered. Prognosis is far worse for the other
seventy-two percent, because of the new strains.”

  The man swallowed hard, turned deep red, but continued. “In Earth’s history, there was a time when smallpox was a disease even more feared than this plague we face. In that time, nothing was understood of inoculation.

  “There was another disease, called cowpox, often contracted by dairy workers. Its symptomology was similar to that of smallpox, but it was far less severe. It almost never killed or scarred like smallpox. It was observed that even when exposed to smallpox, those who had had cowpox never caught it. So, out of fear of smallpox, some people exposed themselves to the lesser disease, cowpox.”

  T’Saen nodded. “Then you suggest that we deliberately expose people who have not had the disease to the lesser strain?”

  Again Treadwell swallowed convulsively, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his scrawny neck. “I am … offering a suggestion for discussion.”

  Ginge, the Tellarite councillor, spoke up. “The idea is sound, provided we can guarantee exposure is to the lesser strain.”

  “Yes,” agreed Stolos, in his high-pitched Hemanite voice, the tassel of his flat-topped round cap shaking with the eager movement of his head. “Everyone on this council has had either the first or second strain of the plague, and we have all recovered. With no hope of a vaccine in sight, immunity to the deadly variety is surely worth the pain associated with the first strain.”

  Korsal spoke up. “You are wrong, Stolos—I have not had any strain of this disease. This latest variation frightens me as much as it does the rest of you … more, since I have developed no antibodies against it. Klingons fear no enemy that can be seen and understood—but a disease that attacks invisibly, stealing a person’s mind—” He turned to the nervous Human. “Dr. Treadwell, I will volunteer to test your theory.”