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