“You already know that the most important factor in the treatment of multispecies patients,” Lioren went on, “is that we can provide it without risk of cross-infection, because pathogens native to one world cannot be transmitted to a life-form that has evolved on another. We have derived much professional comfort from the fact that, throughout the explored galaxy, no exception has ever been found to this rule. Until now.”
“But the virus isn’t harmful,” Hewlitt protested. “It isn’t a disease. The opposite, in fact.”
“Yes,” said the Padre. “But it is still a virus, a form of multispecies pathogen, with all that that implies. Admittedly it seems to be an intelligent, perhaps a highly intelligent organism who intends no harm to anyone, but we cannot be sure of that. We may be mistaking a simple, selfish need to occupy and maintain a host in optimum health for altruism. Certainly that is a very comforting and reassuring thought, but in a place like Sector General we cannot afford to ignore the possibility that, whether its behavior is guided by intelligence and altruism or is the result of a highly evolved survival instinct, it is the worst medical nightmare that any of us can imagine.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re so worried,” said Hewlitt. “It only cures people.”
“You are forgetting what it has done,” said the other. “On six separate occasions that we know of it has crossed the species barrier. It has done so with ease and without triggering the host’s natural defenses, although later it hyperreacted to any medication or toxic material introduced into the host body. In essence it is a superpathogen, an organized, intelligent collection of viruses which is capable of modifying its structure to adapt and survive within a wide range of temperatures and the physiologies and metabolisms of an as yet unknown number of former hosts … ”
“Wait,” said Hewlitt. “Did the medical team on Rhabwar know about this and deliberately keep it from me?”
“Yes,” said the Padre, “as soon as they realized Lonvellin’s personal healer was involved and you were no longer hyperreacting to new medication, but Prilicla didn’t want you to worry.”
“On the way back from Etla,” he said, “I remembered Naydrad saying that my troubles were just beginning. I thought it was talking about something else.”
“It wasn’t,” said Lioren, and went on, “potentially an organism that can do all that is very dangerous indeed. It might not intend to harm anyone, but the mechanism that enables it to transfer so easily between species could also serve as a bridge that would allow the transmission of lethal pathogens between the species of its former hosts. If such an adaptable, multispecies strain were to get loose in the hospital it is possible that the virus creature could cure the victims as it has done on previous occasions, provided we could communicate and make our needs known to it. But it is only one individual who would be trying to cure patients one at a time, and if there were a hospital-wide epidemic that would not be fast enough. Sector General and possibly the entire Galactic Federation would be in very serious trouble.
“It would mean the end of our present free and open contact between planetary cultures,” Lioren ended, “and we would be forced back to inhabiting only our own home planets or, if we did go visiting, taking the most stringent decontamination precautions.”
“So that,” said Hewlitt, “is the reason why the evacuation ships have been forbidden to dock.”
This time he was not asking a question.
CHAPTER 30
For a moment Hewlitt felt that his body was so cold that he could have been back in the SNLU ward without his protective suit, and he wondered why the sweat breaking on his forehead was not dropping off as hailstones. All of the Padre’s eyes were turned on him, and he did not know whether its next words were driven by impatience or the need to administer a therapeutic change of subject.
“Try not to think about it now,” it said. “You are about to meet your first Telfl, regrettably one who is dying. There is information you must have and precautions you must take, both for your own safety and to avoid further distressing Patient Cherxic. Listen carefully, if possible without asking questions …”