Chapter Two
Medical Check-Up
Vivra walked into medical and was quickly asked to sit in a bed. The medical officer’s name was Ansel. He was a few inches taller than she was, with thin arms and legs and wavy brown hair that was tucked behind his ears.
Ansel didn’t look her in the eye when he asked her to sit down, nor when he requested that she lay back to be scanned by the medical scanner bed.
She laid back, leery of being secured in the pod with a Numan on the outside. Ansel may be one of the crew members that the captain had brought with him, but trust was earned, not given—especially with his kind’s reputation.
Numans were a race of mad scientists. Horror stories of the people they abducted and experimented on were known throughout the universe.
“Try to relax, and it will be over before you can count to two hundred.”
She didn’t count, and his soft tenor did nothing to ease her distress.
Small, blue lights flashed from the inside of the bed. Vivra felt pricks at the crooks of her arm. The bed was taking her blood. Something the Numan had failed to alert her to. A few minutes later, the clear top slid back, and Ansel held out his hand to help her up.
She took the offering only because shunning him would put her in the same spot she’d been in with the last medical crew. They didn’t like her, and she didn’t like them.
Ansel pulled a chair from across the room to sit in front of her. Picking up his Minky pad, he tapped it. “Now, for a few questions.”
Oh…joy.
“Do you take any verminium?”
She was surprised that he knew about the Bolark-specific vitamin used for those who lived in space. She used to take it, but she was out. “No.”
He reached back, opened a drawer, pulled out a box, and handed it to her. A box of verminium. Free? The last medical crew had told her it was one hundred keleps.
“What do I owe you?”
“Nothing.” He almost looked offended. Back to his Minky as if what he’d done was insignificant, he asked, “Have you felt ill? Had dry skin, dull tastes, are you not passing your bowels regularly?”
All things specific to a Bolark common cold. He was uncommonly informed. More so than any other medical officers she’d worked with. “No.” She adjusted herself on the table so that one ankle was tucked under her other leg. Getting comfortable.
“In your file, it recorded you leaving the ship on Yerg. And that was over two years ago. I assume you’ve been off the ship since then. Can you tell me when and what places you’ve visited?”
He assumed wrong. “Yerg was the last planet I disembarked on. Not that I plan to ever step foot on the unbearably tropical planet again.”
Ansel looked up from the Minky. “Nowhere?”
Vivra said firmly. “In the past fifteen years, I left the ship three times. Twice was when the ship orbit-docked on the planet Marnak,”—the Federation immigrant planet that welcomed all those who wanted to escape their own homeworlds—“for repairs. They have decent Bolark spas.” It was never easy to find a good retreat, especially one that specialized in her unique skin care.
But she was also a lower-level logistics officer and didn’t go on many emergency pick-up missions or the meet and greets when orbit-docking with other planets.
Garna was only able to orbit-dock because it was too big to get in and out of a planet’s atmosphere.
Cargo ships, luxury liners, galleons, transporters, and sloops could dry-dock for repairs because they were small enough to get in and out of a planet’s atmosphere.
Ansel tilted his head back down. “Any allergies?”
“No.”
“Had sex with non-Federation crew members or with any crew members who may have had sexual contact with non-Federation citizens?”
“No,” Vivra answered, thinking back to her last blitz. It was forever ago.
“Ever been pregnant or plan to become pregnant?”
Wow. “No.”
“Cybernetic upgrades? Tattoos or piercings?”
“No.”
Ansel tapped the pad then asked, “Tell me about Yerg. It says you came back feeling sick. Do you know what might have gotten you sick? Did you take the medicine prescribed when you returned?”
No. She didn’t take the pills. “I settled payment with my contacts on the planet for a logistics order. Verified the shipment was all there, ate, and came back to the ship. By the time I got back, I felt nauseous. By the next day, I was throwing up every hour.”
Ansel had not stopped listening nor watching her. “But did you take the medicine that was offered to everyone who came in contact with the illness?”
“No. Oxycillian makes my scales itch and, sometimes, it creates this white residue in my nose. Whatever it was had already passed. I felt fine.”
Ansel marked something down and then shut off the Minky. Folding his hands in his lap, he said, “You and the thirty-five other survivors reported the same thing. They didn’t take the medicine either. And all thirty-six of you lived through the Eldon disease. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
She had no idea. But her mind was quiet as Ansel spoke.
“I don’t think it is. And I believe when I process your blood, I will find the same thing I found in the other thirty-five survivors.”
Please don’t be worms. Please don’t be worms. “What?”
“Mutated blood. The cells have been exposed to a virus that I have not seen before. Although there are too many to know them all, so that does not surprise me.” He shrugged. “But how would a virus on Yerg protect you from a disease on Eldon, a totally different planet?”
No idea. But Vivra was starting to feel some emotion she didn’t recognize. She was not an idiot, she knew that she should be dead. But for some reason, she was alive. “Do you think you’ll be able to make a cure from the immunities in my blood?”
He slowly shook his head. “I would need the original virus to do that. The bodies they left in containment for testing are secured outside the ship so no contamination can occur. But I will pull the Eldon disease from them to test for a cure.”
“How are you going to get the original virus? It could have been a random thing I picked up or from something I touched.”
Ansel rubbed his hands together before folding them in his lap. He took a slow breath, and it looked like he was holding himself back. Very calmly, he said, “I’ve interviewed every other survivor. One thing you all had in common was that you ate. The food supply on Yerg could be contaminated, or it could be from the water source. The most logical place is the water, which is why you were prescribed Oxycillian. It’s for water contaminants: fungal, viral, and parasites.”
Vivra sat back a little, not sure if Ansel’s quick and effortless conclusion was indeed why she was still alive. It was too ridiculous to think that contaminated water had saved her life. And then to think that the virus was able to protect her against the Eldon disease. “Was the Eldon disease also a water virus?”
Ansel twisted his wrist inside his opposite hand as he spoke. “I will pull samples from the bodies once I have the Yerg virus onboard and begin running tests on that first.” He pointed at a metal box. “I have a probe on its way back from Yerg as we speak.”
Vivra was speechless. He had been aboard for such a short time, and he had already done all that? She could respect someone like that.
“The lab, probe, and all experiments will be done outside the ship so even if the disease escapes, it will die in space.”
Vivra had to rest her hand against the top part of the medical bed’s lid. “That sounds smart.” To her surprise, she heard Ansel chuckle softly to himself. When she peered over at him, the fear trickled from her mind. Vivra didn’t realize that the medical officer would look so…human. Not the soulless mad scientist she expected him to resemble.
“I’ve been known to have my moments.” Then he stood up, made sure that she had her vitamins, and walked her out. Once outside the medical bay, her Minky pad pinged. She pulled it out and read a message from the captain.
Captain’s brief in ten minutes.
Vivra had never been to a captain’s brief. Probably because she was not the highest-ranking officer in logistics. But now she was. That brought a satisfying smile to her lips.