Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic (29 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

Dr. Leonard McCoy beamed reluctantly down to
Nisus, leaving Spock in the hands of his staff. He sought out Sorel and told him, “I need a Vulcan
healer. I’ve seen Spock through all kinds of illnesses
and injuries, but this one has me stumped. His temperature and his blood pressure are shooting up
and down like a yo-yo. He’s had a nosebleed. When he
comes to he starts vomiting—and there’s nothing left
in him. He can’t even hold water down. This last time
he vomited blood. I’m giving him a transfusion from
his father right now, and he’s unconscious again.”

The healer was swathed in protective gear, grim
reminder that they still had no protection for Vulcans
from the plague. “Leonard,” he said, “we agreed that no one with copper-based blood would beam aboard the
Enterprise.
You have not had any cases there yet
among Vulcans, other than Spock?”

“No.”

“Then take Dr. M’Benga. There is no need for a
mental touch in treating this plague, Leonard; Geoffrey can treat Spock as well as I can.”

Reluctantly, McCoy sought the black Human doc
tor. He was sleeping, and his eyes were bloodshot and
weary when he forced them open, but he jumped up
when McCoy described Spock’s symptoms. “That’s
Vulcan undulant syndrome,” he said. “He’ll be bleed
ing from all mucus membranes in a few hours if we
don’t get it stopped—and once that happens, transfu
sions can’t keep him from bleeding to death.”

“How do we stop it?” McCoy demanded.

“Anticoagulants and pressure points. I’ll show
you.”

“
Anti
coagulants?” McCoy asked, suddenly afraid that M’Benga was so fatigued that he might make a
fatal mistake.

“Coagulation in the capillaries forces blood through the membranes. Vulcans aren’t Humans,
Leonard.”

“Spock’s
half
Human,” McCoy reminded him.

“Not physiologically. There are few Human factors
to his anatomical structure. Spock is the first Vulcan/ Human hybrid—he is
the
specific case we studied in
my classes. I’m glad for the opportunity to examine
him in real life—except that I would prefer less grim
circumstances.”

It seemed to take forever to go through all the
decontamination necessary before they could beam
up, but at least now the two Humans knew they were
not carrying the disease in their own blood.

McCoy was impressed with M’Benga’s knowledge. M’Benga checked Spock’s vitals, ordered medication,
adjusted the temperature of the room a few degrees
higher, and said, “Now, we must place pressure on his
main arteries in sequence, to drive the blood through
the capillaries so it doesn’t pool and clot. Vulcan
blood pressure is normally so low that it becomes a
problem in a disease like this one; the bouts of heightened blood pressure are Spock’s body’s own
attempts to accomplish cleansing of the capillaries.”

M’Benga showed McCoy where to apply pressure,
then release it so that the blood surged through with
extra strength, like water released from behind a dam.
They went systematically over his body, applying and
releasing pressure until their fingers went numb, and
then went on anyway, working to save his life.

Finally M’Benga stopped and drew a blood sample,
and they examined it in the laboratory. “It’s okay,” said M’Benga. “His blood is back to normal consis
tency. If his heart stays strong, this particular crisis is
over.”

But Spock was still unconscious, pale, breathing
raggedly. McCoy knew the disease had not yet run its
course.

Chapter Thirty

When Sorel left McCoy, he went on to T’Kar’s
room. The Vulcan woman was also in undulant syndrome; her daughter and a Human nurse were work
ing on her as he entered.

This latest twist of the disease might spell death for
the Vulcans on Nisus: there were simply not enough
personnel to treat them. It took two people and nearly an hour’s work for each such bout with the syndrome.
At least one of the two people had to be trained, to be
able to direct the other as the nurse was doing with
T’Pina.

Sorel saw that for all their efforts, death had outmaneuvered them. There were plenty of willing Human,
Lemnorian, Caitian hands—but they were
untrained
hands. These latest strains of the disease had every
one who knew Vulcan anatomy on standby … and
there were just too few.

The critical portion of the plague was also getting
longer with each new strain. T’Kar had been sick for
over three days now, and—

Three days!

He stood back from checking T’Kar’s vital signs
and stared at T’Pina. The younger woman’s face was
pinched and drawn with concern and the effort to
control; her eyes were sunk into olive-green circles
from lack of sleep.

But she was not ill.

T’Pina might be on the edge of exhaustion, but she
definitely did not have the plague.

“How long?” he asked the nurse.

“Forty-nine minutes.”

“Let me draw a blood sample,” said Sorel. All the doctors and healers now carried tricorders to do this
one simple blood test immediately, without sending it
to the overworked laboratory. “All right,” he said, “she’s through this crisis.”
But how many more can
she survive?

“T’Pina,” he said, “lie down now, and try to sleep. And I want a blood sample from you.”

The girl frowned. “Why? I do not feel ill.”

“
That is
why
I want the sample,” he replied.
“Child, you should have been as sick as your mother
after two days—less, because you have been over
working so that you have little resistance. Yet your
body resists the plague. Let us see if we can find out
how.”

She did not protest further.

Sorel returned to the computer laboratory, where his daughter T’Mir was working. “Put this through the same tests you did on the Klingon samples,” he
told her.

She stared at the vial of green fluid, then back at her
father as if she feared for his sanity. “Humor me, child,” he said, and only then remembered that he
had addressed T’Pina in the same way, as if she, too,
were his daughter.

What was it Daniel called such things? A Freudian
slip? Was his subconscious mind already making T’Kar and T’Pina a part of his family?

He sat down and rested his head on his hands while
T’Mir set up the tests. Healers and doctors learned
early in their careers to snatch any moment of rest in
times of crisis. Deliberately, he turned his mind from
the plague, let it blank, then allowed whatever thought
might wish to enter.

He saw T’Kar as she had been aboard the
Enter
prise,
dignified, stately, beautiful. Her blue eyes
looked into his, so unlike the usual dark Vulcan eyes,
so easy to read. In them he read—

“Father! Father, look. You’ve found it!”

He looked up, to see his daughter staring at the
computer screen.

T’Mir had introduced the most virulent strain of the virus into the sample of blood he had brought her—T’Pina’s blood. Just as in the Klingon blood,
there was an analogous hemoglobin factor that
bonded with the virus and would not let it grow. Before the eyes of father and daughter, the deadly
infection shriveled up and died.

Chapter Thirty-one

T’Pina
lay on the cot that had been placed in her
mother’s room for her, but she could not sleep. Why
hadn’t she caught the plague when her mother was so
dreadfully ill?

For all her Vulcan training, T’Pina was afraid. T’Kar was dying. She was badly dehydrated, could
not take even water by mouth, and went into undulant
syndrome every time they tried to put blood, plasma,
or even just hydration solution into her veins.

T’Pina was not ready to lose her mother—not so
soon after her father had died! She had been through
the healing process; the healers had said she was recovered. Yet the memory came back time after
time, of the feeling, the knowledge, hours before the
message came from T’Kar. Sevel was dead. Gone. She
had sensed his
katra
again when T’Kar came to Vulcan to return it to his ancestors, but she would
never again have her father to advise her, his strength
to lean on, his wisdom to guide her.

But T’Kar had still been there, wise and strong.

Illogically, T’Pina got up and went to stand by
T’Kar’s bed. “Mother,” she whispered, although she
knew T’Kar could not hear, “please don’t die. Please,
Mother—”

“She’s not going to die, T’Pina—thanks to you.”

It was the healer, Sorel. He pressed a hypodermic
against T’Kar’s thin shoulder.

T’Pina looked at the healer, afraid to feel hope.
“You are trying some new medication?”

“Watch her vitals,” Sorel instructed.

They remained critical … until the faltering heartbeat suddenly strengthened, speeded, raced, and then
settled back to Vulcan norm! T’Pina looked at the other indicators. T’Kar’s temperature, which had been at one of its low points, was climbing upward —but instead of soaring on to fever pitch, as it had been doing, it settled at normal.

T’Pina stared at Sorel. “You’ve found a cure!”

He nodded, unreadable black eyes still on the life
signs. “We have hope—and T’Kar is confirming it.
There!”

Blood pressure stabilized. The crisis was over.

T’Kar stirred and opened hollow eyes. “T’Pina?”
she whispered.

“I’m here, Mother,” T’Pina assured her, taking her
clawlike hand in both of hers. “You are going to be
well.”

“Yes,” T’Kar managed. “… thirsty.”

Hastily, T’Pina helped her to a sip of water. She was
so weak that her head fell back on the pillow afterward, but Sorel said, “Go to sleep, T’Kar. Rest, and
you will be well.”

He turned to T’Pina. “Come with me, child. You have saved your mother’s life, but many more need
your blood.”

“My blood?”

“We don’t know how, but you carry something like
that factor we found in the blood of the Klingons—a
factor which destroys this disease. We can make a
serum from your blood that will immunize the rest of
us.”