Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [92]
“A stranger?” Tuvok dared after what he hoped was a suitable silence.
“He said he was from Qant Prefecture, but his accent gave him away. Clearly he was lying, but lying’s not a crime, not yet. After this, it might be. We never did find out where he really came from. By the time we investigated, the first casualties were already affected. He had no identification on him when we searched him.”
“What became of him?” Tuvok asked.
“Oh,” Subhar said, as if it were an afterthought. “We killed him.”
Tuvok reacted to this as a Romulan might, which was to say not at all. “Then he did not succumb to the illness?”
“No. But it wasn’t here before he came, and once we contained everyone he’d come in contact with behind the wall, no one else got sick. And now you’ve asked enough questions, Citizen. Show us your samples, and let’s be done with it. This weather won’t hold for long.”
As if on cue, the sun disappeared behind a fast-moving cloud, and the wind picked up. Motioning her visitors toward the news kiosk, where a counter was cleared for them to set their rucksacks down, Subhar and the townspeople gathered around, though careful that none of them touched their visitors or anything they had brought with them.
“It’s hit the fan,” Crusher told Uhura. “I’ve just received a memo from the C-in-C wanting to know what the hell-and I’m quoting here-kind of progress we were or were not making on this disease. Which, by the way, I’m told they’ve code-named Catalyst.”
“You don’t have to tell me, Doctor,” Uhura said wearily. “I’ve gotten the same memo.”
“The news media’s suggesting every rash or runny nose could be evidence of germ warfare. They’re quoting numbers in the millions.”
“At least we aren’t!” Uhura said a little more sharply than she’d intended. “Yet. I’ve got a press conference this afternoon to try to do some damage control. Can you give me a bone to throw them?”
“Nothing I’d want getting out to the public at large,” Crusher said, tossing her bright hair over her shoulders. “And, off the record, we’ll never develop a serum against something where everyone dies.”
Uhura thought of everything she’d learned about viruses in recent weeks. “Which leaves the genetic route.”
“Hypothetically,” Crusher said. “We finished mapping the human genome in the early twenty-first century. The Vulcans, not surprisingly, had their genetic codes down centuries earlier, and the Romulans probably have as well. There are some genes that all three species have in common, but-“
“Go on,” Uhura prompted.
“But a retrovirus that can infiltrate all three species at the genetic level, particularly one that mutates the way this one does… well, it took thirteen years to map the human genome. It took longer than that to cure HIV at the genetic level, even when we knew exactly what it looked like. This is more like cracking secret codes than practicing medicine.”
“So even if the away team succeeds in tracing this to the Romulan side…”
“There might be some political value in pointing out that they created it, but unless they’ve also got a cure up their sleeves, it’s not going to save any lives.”
“Political value in the negative sense,” Uhura mused. “A chance to let slip the dogs of war on both sides.” She shook her head. “Not if I can help it. I’ll give the C-in-C the same sweet talk I give the press. You get back to work.”
“Yes, sir,” Crusher said.
Despite the citizens’ unease over the deaths behind the wall, the “Romulan merchants” were doing good business. Zetha faithfully recorded several orders for