Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic (13 page)

And, Korsal reminded himself, be well begun in his
primary military training. There was no military training on Nisus. Korsal had not protested when
Kevin had taken the examinations for early entry into
Starfleet Academy, for he did not expect
him
to be
accepted. Would the Federation teach its military
strategies to someone with dual citizenship, when one
of the nations was the Klingon Empire?

Well, if they did, the boy would certainly get adequate training in combat and weaponry, and an
excellent general education along with it. If they did
not … Kevin would have to decide within the next
three years whether he would go to the Klingon Empire and perform the required minimum military
service, or renounce his Klingon citizenship. The boy
knew he would have to make the choice; Korsal kept
painfully silent on the subject, although he hated the
thought that either of his sons might renounce his
father’s heritage.

Korsal had trained both his sons in small-arms self-defense himself, and insisted that they enroll in all the martial-arts classes offered in school. Should
they choose their Klingon heritage over their Human,
he would not have them defanged.

The encounter with Charles Torrence had unnerved
Korsal more than he cared to admit. After the first
year or so of mutual distrust, the Klingon delegation and the other scientists on Nisus had become accus
tomed to one another. Nisus had many children of mixed heritage, and when Korsal married Cathy
Patemchek they had not hesitated to have children of
their own.

Korsal’s sons were competitive—something they had inherited from their mother as much as from
himself—but that was the norm on Nisus. All chil
dren were “advantaged” here—all had well-educated parents who encouraged them to learn, to participate, and to judge people by accomplishment rather than origin. He could not imagine a better place for his sons to gain the foundation of their education. That, and his Human wife, had been the primary reasons Korsal had not returned to the Klingon Empire when the rest of the delegation
did.

But now … would this plague bring an end to the
cooperation that characterized life on Nisus? Unbid
den, he recalled Therian raving obscenities at him
with his dying breath. The same things Charles Torrence had said, focusing on his marriages to
women who were not Klingon.

He hadn’t intended to marry twice. He had been
content with Cathy—but she was career Starfleet. She
had thought her assignment to Nisus permanent;
Korsal was certain that she would not have married
—certainly not borne two children—if she had known she would be unexpectedly promoted and
reassigned to a starship.

Korsal could not go with her, nor could the boys.
And … Cathy refused to resign. The opportunity
was too great: science officer on a Constitution-class starship, the rank of commander.

They had fought bitterly, made up just before she
left. There were promises of meetings on leave, of
requests for reassignment to Nisus at the first oppor
tunity. There were message tapes every few days, then
every few weeks, and finally … divorce documents,
with a message cassette of a tearful Cathy telling
Korsal and her children that she had no right to bind them when she could not be with them. She gave up
her sons’ custody to Korsal … and none of them had
seen or heard from her since, although Korsal had
heard she was climbing steadily through Starfleet’s
ranks.

Korsal left the muddy mountain trail for the
smooth pavement of the town. He now rode on a slick
cushion of water, not daring to speed up as he longed
to, to get out of the cold rain and away from his
morbid thoughts.

But the thoughts would not be denied. When Kevin
was born, Korsal had decided to stay on Nisus until
his son was old enough to decide between the Federa
tion and the Klingon Empire. Karl’s birth had ex
tended the length of his intended stay. Now—was the
plague going to force a premature choice upon all of
them?

Was
there a choice? “Fusions,” children of mixed heritage, were regarded with scorn in the empire. There was only one way to overcome it: military glory. His sons would be forced to fight—often
against Humans like their mother—or endure being
second-class citizens.

Korsal had traveled in the Federation, experienced the fear and hatred of Klingons that prevailed every
where but on Nisus. He had thought Nisus a safe
haven. Was he wrong?

Was that what Therian had meant when he cried out, “The children!” the day he died? Was his last lucid thought the realization that if this plague released pent-up prejudices, large numbers of Nisus’
children—all those of mixed heritage—would suffer
the consequences?

No … surely even oncoming madness would not lead from that thought to the uncharacteristic attack
on Korsal.

Then what? Korsal’s scientist’s mind suddenly fas
tened on an idea: suppose there were a connection
between Therian’s discovery and the particular form
of his madness. What if he had indeed seen something
significant in those statistics scrolling up the screen,
certainly something about children, but … perhaps
children like
Korsal’s
children?

All that data was still available—the engineering
computer was still linked to the hospital computer
system, still taking part of the overload. Korsal could
call up the statistics from his home terminal. Now
that he had some idea of what he was looking for—

Korsal stored the power cycle and entered the
house. His shoes squished, and he was dripping water.

He stopped in the utility room, kicked off his shoes,
and looked for towels, eager to get to the computer,
suddenly sure the answer was there. Cause? Pattern of
spread? Every piece of information was a step toward
either finding a cure or stopping the spread of this
khesting
plague.

But as he began drying himself off, the door to the
kitchen opened, and his liver turned over.

He didn’t have to look at her. Her scent, delicate,
almost unidentifiable as such, embraced him before
she arrived herself, taking the towel from his suddenly
unsteady hands and mopping his face, murmuring,
“Korsal. Oh, my husband, you are home at last.”

Seela. Orion and female, she was enough to suspend
any man’s thoughts, but when she focused her atten
tion on him it sometimes seemed he forgot to breathe.
His liver turned over.

Like all females of her race, Seela had emerald skin,
black hair, and vivid blue eyes. Her body was lithe
and sensuous, her fingers gentle but strong as she
unfastened his jumpsuit and pushed it off his shoul
ders, rubbing her face against his neck. “I am so sorry I was not home when you arrived this afternoon,” she
whispered.

“It was fortunate you were not,” he managed, “as I
had to go out again immediately.”

It was days since he had touched her. He had no
resistance. Coherent thought fled, and his next lucid
moment was sometime later, in their bed upstairs,
with no memory of how they had gotten there.
Memories of their loving, though, were keenly sweet.
Smiling, Korsal traced Seela’s face with one finger.
She caught it between her teeth, nipped it gently, her
eyes offering—

Korsal’s stomach rumbled, and Seela laughed.
“Come, my husband; I will give you dinner. What
happened at the dam?”

Satisfied now merely to be in Seela’s presence,
Korsal told her about the ice and the turbine as he ate.
He did not tell her about Charlie Torrence, but the
memory brought his train of thought back to his
inspiration on the road. Finishing his meal—Seela’s
excellent cooking even more delicious after the hospi
tal food he had been subjected to for the past few
days—he poured a cup of coffee and told her with
regret, “I have work to do. It’s early.”

In his office, he had to chase Kevin away from the
computer terminal. The boy stared at
him
in astonish
ment. “I thought you’d be, uh, occupied for the rest of
the evening.”

“You think too much—about the wrong things,”
his father told him. “Why don’t you give some
thought to what happened to the power-cycle hel
met?”

“Oh
…
I forgot to put it back. It’s in my room,”
Kevin admitted. “I wore it yesterday, out at the
airfield.”

“What were you doing at the airfield when you were
supposed to be observing quarantine?”

“They needed hoverer pilots. People started getting
sick out at the geology camp, so they had to be
evacuated. They needed every qualified pilot who
wasn’t sick, Father.”

Korsal stared at his son. Kevin had been called on
in his father’s place. No, he realized, if he had not been stuck in the hospital they’d both have been called—but still, his boy was taking his place in the
community as a man. “You did right. I am proud of
you, Kevin. And tomorrow you and I have a job to do
by hoverer—you pilot, and I’ll navigate.”

Kevin grinned, exposing his teeth in the Human
way. He must have seen something in his father’s eyes,
though, for he pulled his lips down before the grin faded. Then he said, “I’m sorry I forgot to put the helmet back. I’ll do it now.”

Korsal turned his thoughts to the computer. Yes, he found, the engineering computer was still tied in with
the hospital computer; probably it would remain so
until the emergency was over. He began searching for
the statistics Therian had been working on just before
his death, statistics, he guessed, that had to do with
the progress of the various strains of the disease in
children.

The information was there, the computer willing to
sort it out any way he wanted it: age, sex, race, even
body weight. There was no pattern that he could see.

Then he played his hunch, asking for statistics on
children of mixed heritage only. There were nearly four hundred on Nisus. Almost all of them had had
some form of the plague, but Korsal could still find no
pattern.

Frustrated, he added in adult fusions, knowing in
his gut that somehow the answer lay with those whose
ancestry included people of varying races. Still the
figures would not give him any useful information.

What
had Therian seen? Was the Andorian’s outcry
merely the first ravings of madness? Why did Korsal
persist in hearing it as his last statement of lucidity?