Fever Pitch
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This particular story is one I’m very proud of - originally conceived
with a Halloween theme, the idea for it suffered through countless reworkings
until I finally hit on the formula which seemed to work. I now present to
you the finished product: and along with it comes the old saying, “Truth
is stranger than fiction.” Sometimes the answer which seems utterly
implausible is indeed the one that proves to be true - and sometimes you
just need to listen to your gut.
“Achoo!”
“Okay, Suzee, that’s the last straw,” Rosie Ianni said in
her firmest voice. “I don’t care how close you are to finishing
the system modifications. You are way too sick to spend the rest of the night
down here. You’re going to bed, right now.”
“No,” Suzee said, in a voice that lost most of its determination
when she was interrupted by a violent coughing spell. Ignoring Rosie’s
concerned expression, she continued, “My program is only half-uploaded.
I’m not going anywhere until it’s fully installed and completely
operational.”
The young Mercurian sighed. Although she could understand where her roommate
was coming from, she was also beginning to be seriously worried about the
other girl’s health; Suzee had been fighting off some kind of virus
for the last few days. Some of her symptoms were similar to those of the
common cold which affected human beings; sneezing, coughing, a headache .
. . What bothered Rosie more, though, was the sudden high fever which afflicted
her friend from time to time, and, most of all, the appearance of Suzee’s
gill flaps, which seemed to always be gummed over with some kind of mucus.
Rosie couldn’t quite identify the cause of this particular virus, but
she had learned enough from her medical books to realize that there was one
medicine that could help recuperation from any disease; bed rest. Lots of
it. Suzee, however, was adamant that she couldn’t take a moment to relax
and recuperate until the new system program she was designing for the Christa
had been completed.
The function of this program was completely top-secret. The only ones privy
to the information were Commander Goddard and Suzee herself, and despite
the best efforts of the others - Harlan in particular - to determine what
the secret software was intended for, the only piece of information they’d
been able to glean was that the upgrade was guaranteed to make their lives
“a whole lot easier.”
Speculations had been running wild as to what the top-secret project might
be. Harlan was certain that it was a homework completion program, while Bova
wondered if it might have something to do with disabling Thelma’s internal
clock, preventing her from knowing what time to wake the cadets in the morning
and allowing them to sleep later. But no matter how much they pestered her,
Suzee refused to confirm or deny any of their suspicions - and after Harlan
had gotten hold of the document cell that the program was stored on and attempted
to hack into it, the girl had taken to carrying it around with her. Whatever
this project was, she was determined not to reveal it until it was
completed.
When Suzee had finally announced, after command post training earlier that
afternoon, that her program was ready to be installed, Rosie had instantly
volunteered her services as an assistant - not because she could be of any
help, but because she knew her roommate too well to let her work on the upload
alone. If something went wrong while the file transfer was going on, or if
the program itself didn’t run once it was fully uploaded, the young
engineering genius would stay up until all hours of the night without a second
thought, reading through every line of code and correcting the flaws that
had caused her software to malfunction. It was already almost 19:00, well
past dinnertime - lights-out was in only a few hours. Rosie knew all too
well that the other girl didn’t have a great deal of respect for ship
regulations, and normally she wouldn’t have given a second thought to
going to bed long before there was any sign of her roommate. But in her present
condition, Suzee was in no condition to spend the rest of the night working
down in the engine room.
“You know,” Rosie said gently, “you’re not the only one
I’m worried about.” Noticing her roommate’s confused expression,
she continued. “Some kinds of virus and bacteria are capable of mutating
to jump from one organism to another - and when they do, they’re usually
more deadly in the new species than in the original. The virus that gives
you a headache and the sniffles could have consequences that are a whole
lot worse for one of the others.”
“Yeah,” Suzee said with a sigh, “you’re right.”
When the other girl typed in the code which would stop the file transfer
from the document cell to the Christa’s main computer, Rosie breathed
an inner sigh of relief. She’d been hoping that she would be able to
convince Suzee with the argument that she should take some time off for the
good of the crew . . . if that argument hadn’t worked, she wasn’t
sure what she would have tried next. But as she looked at her friend’s
face, the Mercurian realized that she needed to say something more, to at
least attempt some kind of comfort. Suzee looked utterly miserable.
“Don’t worry,” Rosie said with a friendly smile as she led
the other girl toward the door, “the program will still be here when
you come back tomorrow. I could even ask Thelma to finish the upload for
you if you wanted . . . ”
“No!” Suzee said, in as firm a voice as she was capable.
“Okay,” Rosie said calmly, taking a firmer grip on her friend’s
arm as the other girl tried to turn back toward the computer uplink panel,
and wincing inwardly as she realized she’d made precisely the wrong
comment. Suzee wanted to finish this project herself. “Okay,”
Rosie repeated, “I’ll tell everyone not to touch it. It’ll
stay exactly the way you left it until the next time you get a chance to
work on it. But for now, you need to concentrate on getting better. Whatever
this program is designed to do, nobody will enjoy it much if we know that
you landed yourself in the medlab because of it . . . ”
In the command post, Radu stood at the navigational console with a frown
on his face. The responsible part of his brain kept reminding him that all
of his attention needed to be focused on the viewscreen in front of him,
but he’d been having a difficult time even keeping his hearing focused.
Almost subconsciously, he had heard bits and pieces of several different
conversations going on throughout the ship - including the exchange between
the two girls, working down in the engine room.
The young Andromedan had been worried about Suzee, too . . . he’d been
anxious about the effects this virus had been having on his crewmate since
the day she’d first come down with it. Rosie had tried to reassure him
with explanations, saying that Suzee’s occasional periods of disorientation
were caused by the high fever which she had been spiking, or that her
mucus-covered gill flaps were resulting in the labored struggle for breath
that Radu was forced to listen to every night. But the Mercurian girl
didn’t have much time to talk to him - most of her free time was spent
down in the medlab, trying to find out more about the virus. And although
he would never have admitted it to the others, the young Andromedan had never
had any experience with sickness - it was a foreign concept to him. Illnesses
were not a common occurrence on the space arks, and those who did get sick
often disappeared almost immediately after their first symptoms became noticeable
. . . never to be seen again. The logical part of his mind knew perfectly
well that Suzee had just picked up a bug from somewhere, that she was going
to be fine . . . but it still made him uncomfortable to think that their
team now had a weak link.
But although he was worried for his friend, and concerned about the stability
of the team without her, Radu had never considered the possibility that this
virus might be able to jump from one species to another. It certainly
wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell on, and yet, he couldn’t seem
to get it out of his mind. What would happen if one of us did catch
this from her? he wondered. What if Rosie caught it? Or Harlan? Or
- or me? The young Andromedan tried unsuccessfully to keep the frightening
images of an entire crew infected with this mysterious virus from pouring
into his mind’s eye . . .
Abruptly, his thoughts were broken apart when a familiar voice cut through
the tumult within his mind. “Christa, calling Radu! Do you read me?”
Harlan was looking at his friend with some concern. “Are you okay, pal?
You were two million kilometers away just now.”
“And where were you just now? Battling dragons in the Castle of Doom?”
Radu said quietly.
Harlan shot his friend a dirty look. The young Andromedan was the only one
of the other crew members who knew that Harlan always brought his game-laden
CompuPad to these boring watch sessions . . . he’d even been known to
join in on a game himself during a particularly dull afternoon. But at the
moment, it was clear that Radu had more interesting things on his mind than
wondering which computer game Harlan had been playing. “That’s
not the point,” the human muttered. “I know where I was - I asked
where you were.”
A guilty expression appeared on his friend’s face, and Harlan realized
belatedly that his words might have sounded sharper than he’d intended.
“Sorry,” the young Andromedan said quickly. “I - I was just
thinking about something.”
The expression on Harlan’s face clearly said that he knew his friend
wasn’t telling the whole truth. But Radu barely noticed. He was trying
desperately to push the frightening pictures to the back of his mind, but
they refused to be pushed . . .
Later that night, as the boys were in their room preparing for bed, Harlan
turned to Radu with an expression of mingled concern and exasperation.
“Will you tell me what’s going on with you?” he asked, sounding
slightly irritated. “You’ve been acting weird ever since we got
off watch. You completely zoned out during our chess game, and when I talked
to you, you jumped about three feet - like you had forgotten I was even there!
Are you feeling okay?”
Everybody’s on edge because of Suzee’s bug, Radu realized.
They’re worried about losing another crew member. “I’m
fine,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound too distracted.
“I’ve just - just got a funny feeling about something, that’s
all.”
At those words, a suspicious look appeared on Harlan’s face.
“Look,” he said, “I’ve been around you too long to blow
off your ‘funny feelings.’ The last time you had a funny feeling
about something, we listened to you just in time to avoid being blasted into
spacedust by Spung killcruisers. And before that, you almost killed me when
that space virus you caught made you get the funny feeling that your crewmates
had been taken over by some kind of weird alien. Trust me. Whatever funny
feelings you’ve got, I want to know about them. Now, what’s on
your mind?”
“W-well . . . I was just thinking about . . . well, what would happen
if Suzee’s bug could be transferred from one species to another? What
if one of us caught it? I mean - you know, viruses that can mutate to go
from one species to another usually are more deadly in the new species than
they were in the original one. What if - ”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down!” Harlan broke in. “You’re starting
to sound like Miss Davenport on one of her panic trips!”
“Besides,” Bova said in his calmly pessimistic way, “I
wouldn’t be worried so much about one of us catching it.”
“W-what do you mean?” Radu asked.
“I’d be more concerned about what would happen if the Christa caught
it.”
“What?” Harlan said, looking from one of his bunkmates to
the other as though he was ready to call a medical facility and have both
of them institutionalized.
“It could happen,” Bova said, in a tone that suggested that point
should have been obvious. “The ship is partly organic, after all . .
. and Suzee’s been down in the engine room most of the afternoon, spreading
her germs all over the main circuit that leads to the computer system. Why
couldn’t the ship catch the virus the same way one of us could?”
Harlan rolled his eyes. “You’ve lost it - both of you,” he
muttered. “I’m going to bed.”
Even after the roommates had climbed into their beds and the lights had been
put out, though, Radu’s mind was still whirling. He could tell that
Harlan, at least, hadn’t taken him seriously - exactly what he could
have expected. But he couldn’t seem to get Rosie’s words out of
his mind. “Some kinds of virus and bacteria are capable of mutating
to jump from one organism to another - and when they do, they’re usually
more deadly in the new species than in the original. The virus that gives
you a headache and the sniffles could have consequences that are a whole
lot worse for one of the others.”
As usual, Radu woke up with a start. It was nearly impossible for him to
sleep if there was activity going on anywhere throughout the ship. When the
crew’s voyage had first started, the young Andromedan had worn the same
muffs that he’d used at Starcademy to mask the sounds of his snoring
roommate, but he had given them up after only a few weeks on the ship and
now simply resigned himself to waking up along with the first person who
rose in the morning. This time, though, he didn’t quite feel like springing
up and hurrying downstairs. He was content to lie in bed and listen to the
sounds of the commander downstairs getting his breakfast and the girls moving
around in their room . . .
“Forget it, Suzee,” Rosie was saying. “You’re not
leaving the bunkroom today - you can barely stay on your feet! Just go back
to bed and rest. Oh, and don’t worry - I’ll tell Miss Davenport
that you’re too sick to make it to class this morning.”
“No,” Suzee said in a weak voice. “I need to finish uploading
my program! Everyone’s expecting me to have it on-line by the end of
the day, and I’m bound to have problems with it . . .”
Ignoring her friend’s protests, Rosie was already helping her back to
bed. “Don’t worry about it right now,” she said comfortingly.
“You’ll have plenty of time to finish it tomorrow. Everyone’s
waited this long for it. They’ll be perfectly happy to wait a little
bit longer.”
Suzee’s gotten a lot worse since last night, Radu realized nervously.
That realization brought back the conversation he’d had with his bunkmates
the night before. And he once again had to fight to keep the frightening
images out of his mind. The young Andromedan had already been nervous because
of his friend’s illness . . . but in some subconscious part of his mind,
he had always assumed that himself and the others were protected simply because
they didn’t share Suzee’s species. His new knowledge of mutating
viruses had instantly doubled his anxieties. And Bova’s comment about
how the Christa itself could be infected with this virus had added something
to the young Andromedan’s worries that he never would have expected.
“Hey, Radu, what’re you staring at?” At the sound of
Harlan’s voice, Radu jumped in surprise. He’d been so deeply involved
in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed his roommate had woken
up. “You’d better get a move-on, buddy,” Harlan was saying
now. “If we aren’t down in the galley by 0900, Bova will be more
than happy to treat himself to our breakfasts.”
“He’s down in the galley already?” Radu asked in surprise
as he climbed out of bed. Bova’s usual strategy was to stay in bed as
long as possible and then make it to the galley just in time to devour his
own breakfast, subsequently volunteering to clear the table - and cleaning
the excess food off his crewmates’ plates in the process.
“Yup. He was gone when I woke up. Maybe he just figured it wasn’t
worth going back to bed after his post-midnight snack,” Harlan said
with a smirk.
Radu bit his lip, trying to think of a way to change the subject before the
other boy got the opportunity to make any more wisecracks. Although the rational
part of the young Andromedan’s mind knew that the casual remarks his
friend was making now weren’t the same as the cruel, biting insults
which Radu himself had once been subjected to, he still couldn’t quite
believe that the others weren’t bothered by Harlan’s comments.
“M-maybe he just got up early to finish his homework,” he said
lamely.
Harlan snickered. “Yeah, right. When was the last time you remember
Bova actually bothering to do his homework? He’s just going to sleep
through class the way he does every day.”
While he’d been speaking, the human had walked to the other side of
the room and pulled open the drawer which usually held his clean clothes.
But as he looked inside, he turned to his roommate with a confused expression
on his face. “Speaking of sleeping, did you happen to notice whether
Bova was cleaning the room in his sleep last night?”
Radu had a blank expression on his face. “What?”
Reaching into the drawer, Harlan pulled out a shirt which was obviously too
small for him. “Somehow, all of Bova’s clean stuff ended up in
my drawer.” He dropped the shirt on the floor and shrugged. “Oh,
well. Probably just a crossed wire somewhere - when the ship was sending
our clean stuff back up from the washer, it dumped these in the wrong
place.” As he spoke, he was pulling the rest of Bova’s clean clothes
out and dropping them on the floor. Once that task was done, he turned to
Radu. “We’d better get a move-on . . . I don’t want to see
the punishment Miss D.’s going to cook up for me if I’m late for
class again!”
“Did you have a hard time with the assignment last night?” Rosie
asked in the classroom later that morning. “I got most of it, but I’m
going to have to ask Miss Davenport to go through a few of the problems in
class today.”
“You know, I think I actually may have understood what she was talking
about this time,” Radu said with a smile. “It took me nearly all
of my free period, but I’m pretty sure that most of my answers are right
. . . ” After a glance at Harlan, who was staring off into space and
tapping out a rhythm on his CompuPad - clearly not paying attention to the
conversation - the young Andromedan leaned toward his friend and added, “I
was even able to help Harlan with a few that he didn’t
understand!”
“All right, class, take out your CompuPads and come to order,”
Miss Davenport said, breaking up the conversation as she stepped briskly
into the classroom.
Without another word, each of the students reached for their personal CompuPad,
preparing to pull up the previous night’s assignment so that it could
be transmitted to Miss Davenport’s own CompuPad in order to be
corrected.
But as Radu went to open the file containing his neatly completed hyperspace
physics problems, he realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach
that something had gone wrong. The system was displaying an error message:
“File Not Found.”
What? That was impossible! His assignment couldn’t just have
disappeared!
As his shock began to wear off a bit, Radu realized that he wasn’t the
only one who’d run into a problem. He could hear Bova muttering under
his breath: “It figures. The one night I actually do most of my homework,
and the computer decides it’s going to eat it.”
It soon became apparent that the assignment had disappeared from the
others’ CompuPads as well. Suddenly, Radu found himself wondering whether
Suzee would have had her work finished if she’d been in class that day
. . . but he quickly forced the thought out of his mind. I did have
it finished, he said to himself. He’d spent most of his free time
the night before preparing the problems, but it had been worth it. This
assignment was the first one he’d done in a long time that was fairly
certain to get a decent grade. Of course, it only gets a decent grade
if Miss Davenport grades it, he reminded himself. And she’ll
only grade it if you pass it in.
“Pardon me,” Miss Davenport said with a suspicious expression on
her face, looking from one of her students to another. “Am I to understand
that not one of you completed the assignment last night?” This final
statement was accompanied by a surprised look at Rosie, who had never come
to class before without her work done.
“Uhh . . . ”
“Well . . . ”
“Well, you see, what happened was . . . ”
“Miss Davenport?” Harlan said finally. “I think the computer
ate my homework.”
“I think she took it really well,” Rosie was saying.
“Considering.”
“Well, she didn’t kill us all, if that’s what you mean,”
Harlan said with a grin. “But I think we should be pretty careful to
remember our homework for a while now.” With that, he turned his attention
back to the game board. “Your move.”
Rosie sighed, scrutinizing the Minbar Chess board and wishing suddenly that
she didn’t always have to be so eager to please everyone. After class
had let out, before the crew members had dispersed to their various destinations,
she’d seen Harlan ask his roommates to play a game of chess. Noticing
his obvious disappointment when no one seemed interested in playing, Rosie
had volunteered to be his opponent. But after only a few minutes at the chess
board, it was all too obvious why Bova, at least, had been reluctant to play.
Rosie had played several games of Minbar Chess with the young Uranusian herself,
and although she didn’t have much experience playing the game, she had
beaten him every time. He certainly wasn’t much of a player.
Harlan, on the other hand, was the Minbar Chess champion of the Christa.
Even Suzee rarely played him, because she didn’t enjoy losing . . .
as a matter of fact, the only serious opponent Harlan had was Radu. The
Andromedan usually loved playing the game, and had actually beaten Harlan
at it once or twice. But he’d barely seemed to hear Harlan’s invitation
to play this time . . . he’d been deep in thought, with a troubled look
on his face. It was obvious that he had something on his mind. After we
finish this game, Rosie decided, I’ll go find out what’s
bothering him.
“Your move, Rosie!” Harlan said again, suddenly bringing her attention
back to the events at hand. Tentatively, she reached out and moved one of
her pieces across the board, hoping that what she’d just done was within
the rules. But as she looked at the grin forming on Harlan’s face, she
realized that she had probably just made a fatal mistake.
“Checkmate,” he said matter-of-factly, sweeping her piece off the
board to join the growing pile on the table beside him. Noticing the blank
look on Rosie’s face, he added, “I win. Game’s over.”
“It is?” Rosie said halfheartedly. “Oh.” With that, she
climbed out of the lounge’s circular couch and hurried toward the
door.
“Wait a minute!” Harlan called. “Don’t you want to play
again?”
“No - no, thanks,” Rosie said quickly. “I . . . uh . . . have
stuff to do.” She didn’t even look back at her crewmate as she
headed out the door, mentally trying to determine which would be the most
likely place to find Radu . . . but her thoughts were suddenly interrupted
by a crash as she found herself sprawled unceremoniously across the floor.
The Mercurian girl scrambled hurriedly to her feet, pretending not to hear
Harlan’s inquiries as to whether she was all right. If it had been possible
for her to blush, Rosie’s face would have turned an even brighter pink
than it already was. Only babies tripped over their own feet!
“Well, I see your problem,” Harlan was saying now. “Look at
the door.”
As Rosie glanced back at the doorway, she immediately noticed what he was
talking about - the bottom part of the door seemed to be locked in the
“closed” position. When she’d tried to leave the room, not
bothering to glance at the floor on her way out, the door had neatly clipped
her across the shins and toppled her head over heels into the corridor.
“That’s weird, ” Harlan was saying now, more to himself than
to her. “The ship’s never done anything like that before . . .
” He shrugged. “Oh, well. Probably just another glitch. Hey, are
you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m okay,” Rosie said hurriedly, trying to put the incident
behind her as quickly as possible as she stepped out into the corridor.
Maybe Radu’s still down in the classroom, she thought, heading
for the corridor’s jumptubes . . .
Click here for Part 2 of Fever Pitch