Plague Ship by Andre Norton

“Six down,” Ali observed, “and six to go. How do you feel?”

“Tired, that’s all. What I don’t understand is that once they go into this stupor they just stay. They don’t get any worse, they have no rise in temperature—it’s as if they are in a modified form of cold sleep!”

“How is Tang?” Rip asked from the corridor.

“Usual pattern,” Ali answered. “He’s sleeping. Got a pain, Fella?”

Rip shook his head. “Right as a Com unit. I don’t get it. Why does it strike Tang who didn’t even hit dirt much—and yet you keep on—?”

Dane grimaced. “If we had an answer to that, maybe we’d know what caused the whole thing—”

Ali’s eyes narrowed. He was staring straight at the unconscious Com-tech as if he did not see that supine body at all. “I wonder if we’ve been salted—” he said slowly.

“We’ve beenwhat ?” Dane demanded.

“Look here, we three—with Weeks—drank that brew of the Salariki, didn’t we? And we—”

“Were as sick as Venusian gobblers afterwards,” agreed Rip.

Light dawned. “Do you mean—” began Dane.

“So that’s it!” flashed Rip.

“It might just be,” Ali said. “Do you remember how the settlers on Camblyne brought their Terran cattle through the first year? They fed them salt mixed with fansel grass. The result was that the herds didn’t take the fansel grass fever when they turned them out to pasture in the dry season. All right, maybe we had our ‘salt’ in that drink. The fansel-salt makes the cattle filthy sick when it’s forced down their throats, but after they recover they’re immune to the fever. And nobody on Camblyne buys unsalted cattle now.”

“It sounds logical,” admitted Rip. “But how are we going to prove it?”

Ali’s face was black once more. “Probably by elimination,” he said morosely. “If we keep our feet and all the rest go down—that’s our proof.”

“But we ought to be able to do something—” protested Shannon.

“Just how?” Ali’s slender brows arched. “Do you have a gallon of that Salariki brew on board you can serve out? We don’t know what was in it. Nor are we sure that this whole idea has any value.”

All of them had had first aid and basic preventive medicine as part of their training, but the more advanced laboratory experimentation was beyond their knowledge and skill. Had Tau still been on his feet perhaps he could have traced that lead and brought order out of the chaos which was closing in upon theSolarQueen . But, though they reported their suggestion to the Captain, Jellico was powerless to do anything about it. If the four who had shared that upsetting friendship cup were immune to the doom which now overhung the ship, there was no possible way for them to discover why or how.

Ship’s time came to have little meaning. And they were not surprised when Steen Wilcox slipped from his seat before the computer—to be stowed away with what had become a familiar procedure. Only Jellico withstood the contagion apart from the younger four, taking his turn at caring for the helpless men. There was no change in their condition. They neither roused nor grew worse as the hours and then the days sped by. But each of those units of time in passing brought them nearer to greater danger. Sooner or later they must make the transition out of Hyper into system space, and the jump out of warp was something not even a veteran took lightly. Rip’s round face thinned while they watched. Jellico was still functioning. But if the Captain collapsed the whole responsibility for the snap-out would fall directly on Shannon. An infinitesimal error would condemn them to almost hopeless wandering—perhaps forever.

Dane and Ali relieved Rip of all duty but that which kept him chained in Wilcox’s chair before the computers. He went over and over the data of the course the Astrogator had set. And Captain Jellico, his eyes sunk in dark pits, checked and rechecked.

When the fatal moment came Ali manned the engine room with Weeks at his elbow to tend the controls the acting-Engineer could not reach. And Dane, having seen the sick all safely stowed in crash webbing, came up to the control cabin, riding out the transfer in Tang Ya’s place.

Rip’s voice hoarsened into a croak, calling out the data. Dane, though he had had basic theory, was completely lost before Shannon had finished the first set of co-ordinates. But Jellico replied, hands playing across the pilot’s board.

“Stand-by for snap-out—” the croak went down to the engines where Ali now held Stotz’s post.

“Engines ready!” The voice came back, thinned by its journey from theQueen ’s interior.

“Ought-five-nine—” That was Jellico.

Dane found himself suddenly unable to watch. He shut his eyes and braced himself against the vertigo of snap-out. It came and he whirled sickeningly through unstable space. Then he was sitting in the laced Com-tech’s seat looking at Rip.

Runnels of sweat streaked Shannon’s brown face. There was a damp patch darkening his tunic between his shoulder blades, a patch which it would take both of Dane’s hands to cover.

For a moment he did not raise his head to look at the vision plate which would tell him whether or not they had made it. But when he did familiar constellations made the patterns they knew. They were out—and they couldn’t be too far off the course Wilcox had plotted. There was still the system run to make—but snap-out was behind them. Rip gave a deep sigh and buried his head in his hands.

With a throb of fear Dane unhooked his safety belt and hurried over to him. When he clutched at Shannon’s shoulder the Astrogator-apprentice’s head rolled limply. Was Rip down with the illness too? But the other muttered and opened his eyes.

“Does your head ache?” Dane shook him.

“Head? No—” Rip’s words came drowsily. “Jus’ sleepy—so sleepy—”

He did not seem to be in pain. But Dane’s hands were shaking as he hoisted the other out of his seat and half carried-half led him to his cabin, praying as he went that it was only fatigue and not the disease. The ship was on auto now until Jellico as pilot set a course—

Dane got Rip down on the bunk and stripped off his tunic. The fine-drawn face of the sleeper looked wan against the foam rest, and he snuggled into the softness like a child as he turned over and curled up. But his skin was clear—it was real sleep and not the plague which had claimed him.

Impulse sent Dane back to the control cabin. He was not an experienced pilot officer, but there might be some assistance he could offer the Captain now that Rip was washed out, perhaps for hours.

Jellico hunched before the smaller computer, feeding pilot tape into its slot. His face was a skull under a thin coating of skin, the bones marking it sharply at jaw, nose and eye socket.

“Shannon down?” His voice was a mere whisper of its powerful self, he did not turn his head.

“He’s just worn out, sir,” Dane hastened to give reassurance. “The marks aren’t on him.”

“When he comes around tell him the co-ords are in,” Jellico murmured. “See he checks course in ten hours—”

“But, sir—” Dane’s protest failed as he watched the Captain struggle to his feet, pulling himself up with shaking hands. As Thorson reached forward to steady the other, one of those hands tore at tunic collar, ripping loose the sealing—

There was no need for explanation—the red splotch signaled from Jellico’s sweating throat. He kept his feet, holding out against the waves of pain by sheer will power. Then Dane had a grip on him, got him away from the computer, hoping he could keep him going until they reached Jellico’s cabin.

Somehow they made that journey, being greeted with raucous screams from the Hoobat. Furiously Dane slapped the cage, setting it to swinging and so silencing the creature which stared at him with round, malignant eyes as he got the Captain to bed.

Only four of them on their feet now, Dane thought bleakly as he left the cabin. If Rip came out of it in time they could land—Dane’s breath caught as he made himself face up to the fact that Shannon might be ill, that it might be up tohim to bring theQueen in for a landing. And in where? The Terra quarantine was Luna City on the Moon. But let them signal for a set-down there—let them describe what had happened and they might face death as a plague ship.

Wearily he climbed down to the mess cabin to discover Weeks and Ali there before him. They did not look up as he entered.

“Old Man’s got it,” he reported.

“Rip?” was Ali’s crossing question.

“Asleep. He passed out—”

“What!” Weeks swung around.

“Worn out,” Dane amended. “Captain fed in a pilot tape before he gave up.”

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