Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [99]
Subjective analysis seemed normal. “Could be an allergy. Lot of construction chaff and microscopic dust floating around before the filters catch it. Let’s do a physical, make sure all your systems are online, run some analyses of blood and urine and stuff like that, do a mag-scan. If we find something we can fix, we’ll fix it. If everything checks out, I’ve got meds that will knock you out like you were hit with a mallet, and guarantee a dreamless sleep for six hours.”
“Sounds good.”
Uli did a physical exam, which was unremarkable. The man was as fit as he had first thought, at least to the trained eye. He had C-4ME-O take the patient to the diagnoster array and run the standard battery of tests, covering all the major systems. The machines were fast; the first results started coming in before the second batch of tests began.
Things looked unremarkable. Stihl was in great shape for a man his age, better than most humans twenty years younger. Myoconduction, brain scan, EEG, MEG, dendrite function were within limits. Afferent/efferent speeds were slightly better than normal; heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen, pancreas, repro, bowels …
Uli looked at the blood composition readout. Platelets fine, WBC normal spread, hematocrit, hemoglobin, all normal.
Except—
His midi-chlorian count was over five thousand per cell.
Uli blinked. That was unusual. Normal human range was less than half that. He didn’t know a lot about midichlorians; nobody did anymore—most of the research on the subject had been done at the Jedi academy by their own healers, and their records were not available for study. A shame. The Jedi were all gone …
Like Barriss …
He shook his head. He didn’t want to rocket down that particular space lane, thank you. When he’d met Barriss, he’d been up for his first tour in the field, young and idealistic. Now Barriss was gone—and so was his idealism.
This blasted war …
He pulled himself back to the task at hand. Could the high midi-chlorian count be somehow responsible for the sergeant’s dreams? If the Jedi were correct, these were the vital living components that connected everything to the Force. And he’d heard that the Force could sometimes cause strange, even prescient dreams. It seemed to make sense, especially given that it was the only anomaly on the tests.
“So what’s the drill, Doc?”
Uli explained the stats to him. The sergeant looked blank. “Mini whats?”
“Midi. Chlorians.”
“And you think that might be the problem?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. Not my specialty. I’ll check into it and get back to you, but in any case it shouldn’t be dangerous at your levels. You aren’t going to die from it.”
Stihl looked relieved. “That’s something, anyhow.”
“I’ll give you some tablets that should allow you to rest.”
“Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”
“Just doing my job,” Uli said.
After the sergeant was gone, Uli accessed the station’s medical library. Not surprisingly, there was no more to be had on midi-chlorians than he already knew.
Maybe there was a doctor with specialized knowledge of cell biology on the station, or assigned to one of the warships in the area. He started to post a query on the Med-Net, but then stopped. Was this a good idea? he asked himself. The Emperor had ordered a complete ban on any and all data having to do with Jedi and the Force. So thorough had been the revisionism that now, barely two decades after the Jedi heroism of the Clone Wars, nearly every reference in every data bank in the galaxy had been purged of matters and information relating to the order. Most beings born since then knew little, if anything, about those larger-than-life characters whose names had once been on everyone’s lips, and their elders were smart enough not to talk about the subject. The ban, as far as Uli knew, was still in effect. Did he really want to put up a query on a public forum concerning such a highly sensitive topic? After all, Sergeant Stihl seemed to be in no danger, immediate or long-term. He’d never heard of midi-chlorians being