Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [2]
None of it showed on her strong-jawed face, she hoped. “What is it?” she asked in the same imperious tone she had adopted since she had wheedled Zetha away from Koval expressly for the purpose that had brought them to this gods-forsaken place. “I have not much time before I am missed. Speak!”
“Am I to return, Lady?” was all Zetha asked.
“I try not to predict the future,” Cretak said. “Nor should you, if this is the life you want.”
Zetha hesitated for only a moment, then shrugged. “Any life is better than no life.”
“Then go!” Cretak ordered her, thinking: And what little faith I have left in the future go with you!
Chapter 1
Not every crisis, Admiral Uhura believed, begins with exploding planets or even a starship battle. Sometimes it is the things we cannot see that cause the greatest harm.
“Joshua Lederberg,” McCoy said, glowering at her from the comm screen in her office at Starfleet Intelligence, “Twentieth-century Earth geneticist. Said something to the effect that the single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance in the universe is the virus. They were here long before us, they’ll be here long after we’re gone.”
“So you will help us, then,” Uhura said.
“Yes. Repeat: No.”
Uhura frowned back at him. “Now what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, young lady, that I can’t help you with this one. I’ve gone fishing.”
Uhura counted to ten before she trusted herself to speak again. Age hadn’t mellowed Leonard McCoy one iota; he was as ornery as ever. He was pretending to ignore her, puttering with something just below the comm screen’s sight-line, and she wondered what it was.
“What if I told you it’s urgent?” she asked.
“It’s always urgent!” McCoy grumbled. “Is Starfleet so devoid of decent medical personnel these days that every time there’s a crisis you have to drag an old warhorse like me out of the barn? Dammit, woman, I’m retired! Leave me in peace!”
He had a point, Uhura thought. He was at least a decade up on her, and every other week she thought of retiring. Not that Command would let her.
She supposed if she insisted they’d get someone else to cover her class at the Academy, but she liked teaching! It was being head of Starfleet Intelligence that Command wouldn’t let her wiggle out of. The C-in-C would have her believe that she was the only one in the quadrant who could handle that.
Meaning no one else is crazy enough to take the job, Uhura thought wryly. Also, the theory is I know too many secrets to be trusted to take them with me to some quiet country retreat and be relied upon to keep my mouth shut.
But McCoy had no such burden. He was legitimately retired… again. But every time he stepped down, someone or something lured him back in. A man of 130-something ought to be allowed to enjoy a little leisure. Maybe she’d leave him in peace after this assignment, but right now Uhura really needed his expertise.
“I already have a team in place,” she explained, wishing he’d stop fidgeting and pay attention. “All I’m asking you to do is consult by remote. I’ve got some excellent people working on this already, but I need your wisdom and experience, Leonard.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere…”
“You won’t even have to get off the porch,” Uhura wheedled.
“Then you don’t need me!” McCoy grumped. “You’ve got all of Starfleet Medical at your disposal. How many Vulcan physicians are there in the fleet these days?”
“It’s not just about Vulcans,” Uhura said.
“Affirmative, Admiral,” Dr. Selar had told her, after no doubt staying up all night to run the algorithm. “I am investigating all reported cases of unusual illness on Federation worlds bordering the Neutral Zone.”
“And-?” Uhura prompted.
“Ruling out an outbreak of neo-hantavirus on Claren III, which was self-limiting and contained in a single sector, and a previously unidentified aerobacter found in the soil of Gemus IV, which caused flulike symptoms in 1,700 children in two of the three settlements before it was isolated, and for which a vaccine has since been developed, there are so far seventy-three cases in seventeen different locales