“Two of the Novai have entered the second stage of mutacorpathy,” said Petas. “The scabbing has begun to form on skin.”

Mutacorpathy was the name our team had given the disease affecting the Novai. It was in keeping with the names human often gave diseases and conditions, but some of the A’li-uud healers found it too strange and refused to use the term. Petas wasn’t one of them. He was a rather aged A’li-uud who had spent his entire adult life as a healer and had, thus, developed an intolerance for arguments or anything that got in the way of actually doing his job. When the name “mutacorpathy” was first floated and the other healers turned up their noses, Petas immediately gave them a swift lecture about their purpose here.

“It is not your job to choose a pretty word,” he barked. I was surprised he spoke English rather than his native tongue to berate his peers, but I was pleased I could understand him. “Your job is only to stop the suffering of these creatures and prevent this illness from spreading further. Now, do it, and quiet yourselves!”

It was nice to get some support from an A’li-uud healer, particularly because thus far the others had been almost critical of human treatments. We had pretty much gone through the gamut of possibilities, trying everything from blood work to x-rays--or, as the A’li-uud called them, PIHs-- and nothing had panned out. The general mood throughout the hospital was one of despair. I, personally, was becoming frustrated with our lack of results. The symptoms of mutacorpathy were still evident in all of the Novai, but absolutely nothing worked in the way of treatment. If we were going to figure out how to destroy this disease, we were going to have to start getting creative.

Everyone was gathered in the conference room. Petas had one of the silver discs with its glowing cyan image of a Novai face before him, but I felt as hopeless as I did that first day when the Council addressed us all. It was like we had taken a million steps and gone nowhere. I was exhausted, Antoinette was exhausted, Dr. Griep was exhausted, and even the healers had developed navy blue bags beneath their slanted eyes. Whatever was affecting the Novai was either incredibly sneaky, or it was the first of its kind, and we were completely unprepared to handle it.

One of the things I had actually enjoyed about being a part of this team was learning about A’li-uud medicine. They were actually much more technologically advanced than I had initially thought. There were the imaging holograms, of course, and the array of strange tools that turned out to perform the same functions as their human equivalents. But there were also things I hadn't even imagined possible. Non-invasive devices meant to assist respirations were injected into each patient's chest beneath their sternum through a hair-thin syringe. Blood typing and cell counts were able to be performed without drawing blood at all, but instead through the use of a smooth metal tool the shape of a bar of soap that presented the results on a tiny screen after being placed on any of the pulse points. Perhaps the thing I found most incredible of all was what I had assumed to be the A’li-uud version of an earplug until Petas inserted it into one of the Novai’s ears and nodded with satisfaction.

“What does that do?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

“It reads brainwaves,” he said. He held out his hand and showed me a second earplug on his palm. “Come, I will show you.”

He took one of the silver discs from the nearest cabinet and pushed the ear plug into the hole on the back. A lit image appeared, but, rather than cyan, it was toxic waste green and showed an animated graphic of the patient's brainwaves in real time. I was in awe.

“Why have they not given these to the colony infirmary?” I breathed, leaning so close to the pixels I could feel the slight heat they emanated on my skin.

“I cannot say,” Petas replied. “Perhaps our instruments were rejected by your leaders.”

“If they were, it had to be because they hadn't seen them in action. This is incredible.” I pushed my hand through the moving lines and watched as the light danced on my fingers instead.

This amazing equipment was, of course, only diagnostic. In no way did it treat the disease. Nevertheless, we were able to get answers to the questions we needed answered in order to even form treatment plans. Whether those plans were successful or not was another matter, and so far, they were not.

Now, we were in this conference room in hopes of pinning down a new plan that would prove successful.

“As the second stage is primarily physical in effect,” said Petas. He had taken it upon himself to run our meetings, which fit perfectly with his direct, no-nonsense attitude. “I believe we will be able to formulate a new series of tests that could open a number of possibilities to a valid treatment. As of yet, we have been unable to identify a surge in antibodies, but with the onset of these new symptoms, we may very likely find ourselves with data that will lend itself seamlessly to a logical and effective treatment. Over the next few days, we must be diligent in our observations. Everything should be noted, even the slightest change. It could make the difference in our efforts.”

I couldn't have agreed with him more. Though we were all feeling dejected with our lack of progress, I felt optimistic. In my experience, diseases and illnesses of a physical nature tended to be better understood and therefore better treated. Working in the ER meant that, more often than not, I was helping people who had gotten themselves into some kind of unfortunate accident or fallen ill with a generally non-threatening virus. There was almost always a solution to their problem that didn't even require an overnight stay. Of course, there were the exceptions. Sometimes cancer patients came in suffering severe side effects of their condition. Other times, like my sister, a single symptom turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg into something much more horrible. But most of the time there was a treatment, and the treatment was effective. One of my favorite co-workers, however, worked in Cleveland Memorial’s mental health ward. Things were not so cut-and-dry up there. They had their go-to medications--anti-anxiety pills, sedatives, and so on--but identifying the core cause of a patient’s mania or breakdown was oftentimes a guessing game for too long. That's what this felt like, like a guessing game, but now I felt like we had a real shot at curing the Novai. All we had to do was collect the pieces of the puzzle and start assembling.

“Since we are now entering this new phase of research, I am hoping six volunteers will step forward to monitor our patients overnight,” Petas went on. “We do not want to miss a single development, so it is critical we have eyes on the Novai at all times.”

Several spoke their agreement to the request, Dr. Griep among them. Out of all of us humans, he had been the most intrigued by the work we were doing. Just like me, he was fascinated by the various A’li-uud diagnostics tools, but he had developed a vivacious determination to diagnose, treat, and cure the mutacorpathy. I wasn't even sure if the man had slept more than four hours a night since the Novai arrived.

“Thank you,” Petas said finally, eyeing everyone around the table. “Now that we have our volunteers, we may adjourn.”

I stood for my chair, but, before I could file out of the room behind everyone else, Zuran rounded behind me and grabbed my arm.

“I need to talk to you,” he whispered.