One Step From Earth

"Scouts reported this Gudaegin army a few hours ago. They must not like our taking away one of their captured cities. I hoped to use Azpi-oyal to make peace with them. I still shall, if we can find a cure for this plague."

"What was this nonsense about our bringing the plague?"

"No nonsense. It looks like the truth, though I don't see how it can be. Allowing for minor variations due to incubation period, the only people who are getting sick are the ones who had first contact with us. There is no way of escaping that fact."

Jan was shocked. "It just can't be that way, sir! The only microscopic life we carry in our systems is intestinal flora. Which is harmless. Our equipment is sterile. It is impossible that we could be involved."

"Yet we are. We must now find out how—"

Dr. Pidik burst through the door and dropped a slide on the desk. "There's your culprit," he announced. "A coccobacillary microorganism. It takes an aniline stain and is gram-negative."

"You sound like you are describing a rickettsia?" Toledano said.

"I am. Their blood is teaming with the beasts."

"Typhus?" Jan asked.

"Very much like it. A mutated strain perhaps. And I thought they were immune. We found traces of an organism like this in a number of the blood samples we took. Yet the individuals were healthy. They aren't any more."

Toledano paced back and forth the length of the small room. "It does not make sense," he said. "Typhus and all the related diseases are vectored by insects, mites, body lice. I have complaints about the EPC, but we couldn't have been involved in that way. But there still appears to be a connection. Perhaps in the country through which we drove, we might have picked up something on the way. Yet there has been no sickness among our personnel. We will have to look into this. But getting a cure comes first, top priority. Cure them first and we'll find the source later."

"I have an idea about that — " Jan said, but broke off at the sound of a distant splintering crash followed by screams and shouting. At the same moment the duty lieutenant ran in.

"We're under fire, sir. Steam ballistae, bigger than anything in the city. They must have moved them up as soon as it became dark."

"Can we knock them out without hurting anyone?"

"Negative, sir. They are out of range of gas weapons. We could—"

He never finished the sentence. A crashing roar hammered at their ears, stunning them, and all the lights went out. The floor buckled and Jan found him self hurled down. As he climbed to his feet the beam of the lieutenant's light cut a dust-filled path through the darkness, moved across the sprawled forms, and came to rest on the rough slab of stone that had crashed down upon them.

"Dr. Toledano!" someone shouted, and the light came to rest, flickering erratically as though the hand that held it were shaking.

"Nothing, no hope," Pidik said, bending over the small huddled form. "It took half his head away. Dead instantly." He stood and sighed. "I have to get back to the laboratory. I imagine this means you will be taking over, Dr. Dacosta."

He was almost to the entrance before Jan could gather his wits and call after him. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"Just that. You were his assistant. You are career EPC. The rest of us have other things to do."

"He never intended

"He never intended to die. He was my friend. Do the sort of job he would have wanted you to do." Then he was gone.

It was too much to accept all at once, but Jan forced himself to act. The chain of command could be straightened out later. Now it was an emergency.

"Have Dr. Toledano's body removed to the hospital," he ordered the lieutenant, and waited until the command had been passed on. "I recall the last thing you said was something about their being out of the range of gas, the things that are firing at us?"

"Yes, sir, they're beyond a ridge of hills."

"Can we locate them exactly?"

"We can. We have artillery spotters, infrared, camera equipped, miniature copters."

"Send one out. Get the location and range of the emplacement, look for the steam generator. If this weapon is like the ones on the walls — it should be, only bigger — there will be one generator and pipes to the ballistae. Locate this and, with one gun firing, what do you call it…?"

"Ranging in?"

"Exactly. When you have the range blow up the generator. That will stop the firing. You'll kill some people, but there are more being killed right here. Including Dr. Toledano."

The officer saluted and left. Jan was suddenly tired and he went to the washroom to put cold water on his face. A brilliant emergency light came on in the room behind him and in the glass over the sink he looked into his own eyes. Had he really issued that order to kill, just like that? He had. For the greater good of course. He looked away from the mirrored eyes and plunged his face into the water.

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