Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [75]
Then, a true Thamnos, born to privilege and the conviction that the needs of the reigning few precluded any consideration of the masses, he wondered how he might exploit it to his benefit. And when, just out of curiosity, he treated some of the R-fever cultures with it and watched them die before his eyes, he thought he had the answer.
He must make certain no one outside of Renaga ever heard of hilopon. If it truly could cure everything it touched, whoever “discovered” it and brought it to the attention of the universe at large had better make sure he owned all the rights to it beforehand. But how to do that on a world where hilopon was, quite literally, as cheap as dirt? As he tinkered with the substance in his laboratory cave, that one mystery eluded him. And there were other forces at work around him that, short-sighted as he was, eluded his notice as well.
Backward and lacking in resources though it might be, Renaga had its attractions for those whose empire flourished on conquest. Romulan eyes are far-seeing, and while it is assumed that they usually prefer the military solution, sometimes subtler methods are employed. Romulans are long-lived as well, and there are some who will accept as their duty to the Empire the assignment to infiltrate other worlds, go to ground for decades if necessary, and await instructions.
Thamnos was not the only outworlder on Renaga.
“So what makes you think this Thamnos character is behind our neoform?” Crusher asked. “The man you’re describing would hardly have the skills to create something this sophisticated.”
“Probably not on purpose,” McCoy acknowledged. “But if he somehow got his hands on the Romulan Gnawing and grafted it onto certain strains of Rigelian fever…”
“Indeed,” Selar said after a thoughtful silence.
Uhura frowned, scanning her memory for what she knew about Rigelian fever, which wasn’t much. “What’s so special about Rigelian fever?”
“Selar?” McCoy said.
“There are five known strains of Rigelian or R-fever,” Selar explained. “The penultimate strain, R4b, can mutate into two separate strains, R4b1 and R4b2. Of those, R4b2, when acting as a host virus, could potentially cause multiple mutations if grafted onto certain other viruses with similar hydrogen-chain configurations. There have been no known cases of R-fever reported since 2339; therefore, the disease is studied as an artifact in most medical schools, but not in any detail. I should have known better.”
“Don’t worry,” McCoy tweaked her. “We won’t report you to the Vulcan Perfectionists’ Association.”
“With all due respect, Dr. McCoy,” Selar shot right back. “Were there such an entity, it need only be called the Vulcan Association, to avoid redundancy.”
“Okay, people, as you were,” Uhura said. She’d been running a search on Thamnos from the data McCoy provided while they spoke. “Leonard, one question. I’ll grant you a Rigelian might have access to stores of R-fever virus concealed somewhere in their system. The Orion Syndicate still has ties there, even today. But what makes you think Thamnos in particular? Dr. Crusher’s right; he doesn’t seem to have accomplished much in his career.”
“Well, aside from the fact that no one’s seen hide nor hair of him since the Bendii incident, you’ll notice there’s a year missing in the reportings from his private laboratory.”
“And-?”
“What your reports don’t tell you is that the lab, paid for out of Daddy’s pocket, was shut down by the Rigelian government for about a year due to sloppy work habits and-get this- ‘questionable practice in the use of strains of R4b2.’ Rumor has it those questionable practices included trying to breed a species of hare that would carry R-fever without succumbing to it. Thamnos’s argument when he was brought up on charges was that he