Plague Ship, Andre Norton [e books free to read txt] 📗

Rather than sit idle he snapped on the reader⁠—but, although facts and figures were dunned into his ears⁠—he really heard very little. He couldn’t apply himself⁠—not with a new specter leering at him from the bulkhead.

The dangers of the space lanes were not to be numbered; death walked among the stars a familiar companion of all spacemen. And to the Free Trader it was the extra and invisible crewman on every ship that raised. But there were deaths and deaths⁠—And Dane could not forget the gruesome legends Van Rycke collected avidly as his hobby⁠—had recorded in his private library of the folk lore of space.

Stories such as that of the ghostly “New Hope” carrying refugees from the first Martian Rebellion⁠—the ship which had lifted for the stars but had never arrived, which wandered for a timeless eternity, a derelict in free fall, its port closed but the warning “dead” lights on at its nose⁠—a ship which through five centuries had been sighted only by a spacer in similar distress. Such stories were numerous. There were other tales of “plague” ships wandering free with their dead crews, or discovered and shot into some sun by a patrol cruiser so that they might not carry their infection farther. Plague⁠—the nebulous “worst” the Traders had to face. Dane screwed his eyes shut, tried to concentrate upon the droning voice in his ears, but he could not control his thoughts nor⁠—his fears.

At a touch on his arm he started so wildly that he jerked the cord loose from the reader and sat up, somewhat shamefaced, to greet Tau. At the Medic’s orders he stripped for one of the most complete examinations he had ever undergone outside a quarantine port. It included an almost microscopic inspection of the skin on his neck and shoulders, but when Tau had done he gave a sigh of relief.

“Well, you haven’t got it⁠—at least you don’t show any signs yet,” he amended his first statement almost before the words were out of his mouth.

“What were you looking for?”

Tau took time out to explain. “Here,” his fingers touched the small hollow at the base of Dane’s throat and then swung him around and indicated two places on the back of his neck and under his shoulder blades. “Kosti and Mura both have red eruptions here. It’s as if they have been given an injection of some narcotic.” Tau sat down on the jump seat while Dane dressed. “Kosti was dirt-side⁠—he might have picked up something⁠—”

“But Mura⁠—”

“That’s it!” Tau brought his fist down on the edge of the bunk. “Frank hardly left the ship⁠—yet he showed the first signs. On the other hand you are all right so far and you were off ship. And Ali’s clean and he was with you on the hunt. We’ll just have to wait and see.” He got up wearily. “If your head begins to ache,” he told Dane, “you get back here in a hurry and stay put⁠—understand?”

As Dane learned all the other members of the crew were given the same type of inspection. But none of them showed the characteristic marks which meant trouble. They were on course for Terra⁠—but⁠—and that but must have loomed large in all their minds⁠—once there would they be allowed to land? Could they even hope for a hearing? Plague ship⁠—Tau must find the answer before they came into normal space about their own solar system or they were in for such trouble as made a broken contract seem the simplest of mishaps.

Kosti and Mura were in isolation. There were volunteers for nursing and Tau, unable to be in two places at once, finally picked Weeks to look after his crewmate in the engineering section.

There was doubling up of duties. Tau could no longer share with Mura the care of the hydro garden so Van Rycke took over. While Dane found himself in charge of the galley and, while he did not have Mura’s deft hand at disguising the monotonous concentrates to the point they resembled fresh food, after a day or two he began to experiment cautiously and produced a stew which brought some short words of appreciation from Captain Jellico.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when, after three days, no more signs of the mysterious illness showed on new members of the crew. It became routine to parade before Tau stripped to the waist each morning for the inspection of the danger points, and the Medic’s vigilance did not relax.

In the meantime neither Mura nor Kosti appeared to suffer. Once the initial stages of headaches and blackouts were passed, the patients lapsed into a semiconscious state as if they were under sedation of some type. They would eat, if the food was placed in their mouths, but they did not seem to know what was going on about them, nor did they answer when spoken to.

Tau, between visits to them, worked feverishly in his tiny lab, analyzing blood samples, reading the records of obscure diseases, trying to find the reason for their attacks. But as yet his discoveries were exactly nothing. He had come out of his quarters and sat in limp exhaustion at the mess table while Dane placed before him a mug of stimulating caf-hag.

“I don’t get it!” The Medic addressed the tabletop rather than the amateur cook. “It’s a poison of some kind. Kosti went dirt-side⁠—Mura didn’t. Yet Mura came down with it first. And we didn’t ship any food from Sargol. Neither did he eat any while we were there. Unless he did and we didn’t know about it. If I could just bring him to long enough to answer a couple of questions!” Sighing he dropped his weary head on his folded arms and within seconds was asleep.

Dane put the mug back on the heating unit and sat down at the other end of the table. He did not have the heart to shake Tau into wakefulness⁠—let the poor devil get a slice of bunk time, he certainly needed