Exposure

© 2019 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  rabbi-tom



One of the many unique features of the Imperial Embassy building on Terra was the fact that it wasn’t built on Terra. It was built on one of the Imperial worlds, disassembled and transported to Terra, landed, and reassembled. The process had frustrated the Terrans, because it made it almost impossible to install monitoring devices. The Terrans kept trying, though.

The Embassy had many amenities for its staff, notably a full-equipped infirmary. It never occurred to the Kashlani to presume that Terra had a medical facility that was compatible. Led by a full Surgeon-Master, the infirmary sported an isolation wing.

Ambassador n’Laran stood in the observation room, flanked by two members of the staff and the Kiyēakh, looking through the transparisteel at the vir in the isolation room. Naren was a low-grade staff member, and when she hadn’t reported for duty that morning someone had gone to investigate. An urgent call for medical assistance had followed.

Naren’s tan fur was stained here and there where blood had oozed from her pores and clotted, and more traces of dried blood could be seen around her lips and nostrils. She trembled and twitched against the soft restraints that held her to the bed while her lips moved. A pair of nurses in full biological hazard gear were tending to her, one of them glancing at the diagnostic monitors over the bed.

N’Laran asked the Surgeon, “What’s her condition?”

“Dehydrated, some blood loss from hemorrhages, fever’s still quite high,” the kam said, adding, “and before you ask, yes, it’s ‘Upankīthar.” One of the aides swallowed hard, fear etching his features.

The Burning Plague was a hemorrhagic fever, raising a shlan’s body temperature so high that their brains would be damaged and their fur would fall out before the blood loss and systemic failures killed them. It was caused by a virus, was highly contagious and almost invariably lethal . . . and had been easily controlled by vaccines for thousands of years.

“Will she live?” n’Laran asked.

The Surgeon-Master gestured affirmation. “She was found in time, and her fever’s begun to fall. I am ordering everyone in the Embassy tested and vaccinated.”

“Of course,” the Ambassador said. “Me first, please. What I wish to know is how she contracted it.”

One of his aides said, “She had left the Embassy grounds two days ago, my Lord, to go shopping. She was escorted by one security officer.”

“He’s in the other isolation room,” the Surgeon put in, “but was showing no symptoms at present. We’re treating him anyway. Shopping, aka? We’ll need to run scans of her quarters and the rest of the complex to make sure that she didn’t give this to anyone.”

“Good.” N’Laran turned to look back at the vir in the bed, who was now sleeping.

The Burning . . . how did she contract the disease on Terra?

His security and intelligence staff would do their best to find out, of course, but they were constrained by the fact that they were aliens on Terra. Besides, he already thought that he knew the answer to that question. The kam’s tailspur rose and scratched the fur under his chin as he thought.

He’d have to inform Gwath ka-shlal, that was obvious. Various courses of action that he might recommend were considered and discarded.