quickly because of the infection present from his wound. It would have lowered his resistance. The handler was probably the first to be contaminated.'
But he wasn't the first to die. Fren Harmond did that, his life slipping away as he lay locked in drugged unconsciousness. Dumarest wrapped the body in plastic, heaved the dead man, his bedding, all he had owned in the way of clothing to the evacuation port. Grimly he watched as the apparatus cycled, lamps flashing as the contents of the cubicle were blasted into the void.
A man dead who would probably have still been alive if they hadn't left Hoghan as they had.
One who would at least have had a chance.
On the Varden there was no chance. The ship held no vaccines, no medicines, no skilled aid. No instruments to determine the nature of the invisible killer. Nothing to give a clue as to how it could be defeated. Survival now depended strictly on the make-up of the individual: the strength of resistance-factors, antibiotic generation, the ability to combat the virus, to meet the challenge, to live.
A gamble in which none knew their chances and could only guess at the odds.
* * * * *
Allia Mertrony rocked back on her heels from where she knelt before the polished disc, her head buzzing, echoes ringing in her ears, the pounding of her heart a clenched fist beating within her chest. Before her incense rose in coiling plumes, the last of her supply. No matter, it had been enough. Her prayers had been answered. Lars, long dead and long waiting, had stirred and sent her a message.
He was waiting. He was impatient. When would she come?
And God too was waiting.
But long to be in his presence as she did, the Prime Directive must be obeyed. To live while it was possible. To extend existence until it could be extended no further. Then, and only then, could she join Lars and go to her reward.
To die. To rest. Suicide was forbidden and though old she had no ills. But the joy of life had long since left her and, aside from prayer, she lived but to sleep and eat. Fear had gone now that she had been reassured. Her faith was strong.
And good deeds remained to be done.
'Mad!' Charl Tao shook his head as he entered the salon. Nodding to Dumarest and Dephine he drew basic, sipped, made a face, then forced it down.
'Who is mad? Me?' Dephine stared her anger. 'I'm fed up with being cooped in a cabin. All right, so it's crazy to mix, but what difference does it make now?'
'None,' he said mildly. 'But I wasn't talking about you, my dear. I was talking about the old woman. She's turned into a nurse. I left her washing the handler, tending him, crooning like a mother over a child.'
'How is he?'
'Fever high. Profuse sweating which is to be expected at such a temperature. Headaches, shivers, pains in the joints.' Charl added, slowly, 'He's also delirious.'
Dephine said, sharply, 'Raving, you mean?'
'By now he must be far gone in hallucination. The crisis, I think. Either he will begin to recover in the next few hours or he will die.'
'The warning symptoms,' said Dumarest. 'Have you isolated them yet?'
'I can make a guess, Earl, no more. The handler complained of headaches and nausea a day before he collapsed. However he had been drinking heavily and so the symptoms could have had another cause. But a few hours before he was stricken he did complain of double-vision. It could mean nothing, Earl.'
Dumarest said, quietly, 'You're wrong, Charl. The engineer complained of that very thing when I saw him last. He also said he felt sick. I told him to lie down and try and get some sleep. If we find blotches on him-'
They were scattered over his shoulders and upper torso, flecks like blackheads which would grow into ebon flowers rimmed with scarlet.
'Help me!' His hands lifted, groping. 'My eyes! I can't see! Help me!'
Charl straightened from his examination and shook his head, baffled.
'The eyes don't seem to be affected, but without instruments I can't be sure. And even then my experience is too limited to arrive at a conclusion. A part of incipient hallucination, perhaps? A psychosomatic syndrome?'
'How so?'
'See no evil therefore it doesn't exist. See no illness and it cannot threaten. An escape from unpleasant reality. Was he afraid?'
Dumarest nodded, looking about the cabin, seeing the garish pictures pasted to the bulkheads. Colorful depictions of longed-for pleasures, exaggerated interwindings of shapely limbs, scenes of a vague, dream-like unreality. Visible proof that the engineer had not only imagination but an earthy mind. An imagination which had now turned against him, magnifying his pain.
As the man groaned Dumarest felt a sudden chill, the touch of something against which he had no conscious defense. An enemy which naked steel could neither cow nor defeat. A thing as intangible as a thought, as destructive as a fanatic's ambition.
'I burn!' The engineer writhed in a paroxysm of agony, twisting on the bunk, rearing, his back bent like a bow, hands clenched until the nails dug into his palms. 'The pain! Dear God, the pain!'
'Another variable, Earl.' Charl shook his head in baffled irritation. 'His sensory apparatus appears to have been affected. Usually in men of his type the pain level is inordinately high but now it seems to have been lowered to an incredible extent.'
'Could the virus be generating some form of nerve-poison?'
'How can I tell? It's possible in which case it would account for the sudden onset of pain. There hasn't been time for extensive tissue-damage. But if that is the case then why weren't the others affected in the same way?'
'Maybe they were,' said Dumarest. 'Harmond was drugged until he died, remember?'
'And the handler could be suffering as much in his delirium as the engineer in his physical anguish.' Charl nodded, his eyes thoughtful. 'In each case it is obvious that the sensory apparatus has been affected by the virus and it could be mere chance which dictates the course the disease will take. If others are affected they could either go insane or-' He winced as the engineer screamed again, a hoarse, rasping, animal-like sound. 'Earl!'
The screaming died as Dumarest fired drugs into the tormented body. He checked the load of the hypogun as the engineer sank into merciful oblivion. It had taken a heavy dose-too heavy if it was to be maintained. The supply of drugs was limited and the more he took the less there would be for others.
If others came to need it? If they did and none was available?
Dumarest looked at his hands thinking of Dephine.
Chapter Seven
The lamps flashed, the port cycled, Allia Mertrony went to meet her God. A small, aged, withered woman who had spent the last few days of her life bringing ease to others. Standing before the port, Dumarest hoped she would find what she had sought. Hoped even more that never again would he have to void the shell of a human being into space.
That never again would he have to watch a woman die.
The lights were too bright, hurting his eyes and misting his vision so that in dancing haloes he saw again the thin, shrunken features, the ugly blotches, the eyes, the final radiant smile. Her faith had been strong and she had died happy. Now she would drift for eternity or be drawn by gravitational attraction into a sun and disintegrate in a final puff of glory. A minute flame which would, perhaps, warm some future flower, grace some unknown sky.
Fanciful imagery which had no place in a ship which had become a living tomb.
Tiredly Dumarest walked from the port and through the vessel, a journey he had made too often now. Harmond had been the first, then the engineer closely followed by the handler, then the old woman. He frowned, trying to remember how many were left. Four? Five? Five-but for how long?
