Medicine Show

  Book Description

  Dr. Shona Taylor, a specialist in environmental medicine, uses her training and a most unusual menagerie of animal assistants to solve medical mysteries. She has an Abyssinian cat who can detect environmental hazards, a dog whose system can synthesize vaccines, and an alien ottle named Chirwl. On Chirwl’s planet, visiting humans and the local population are both suffering from a mysterious epidemic of rapid aging. Shona has to discover not only a cure, but the source, before the entire colony dies of old age.

  Kobo Edition – 2016

  WordFire Press

  wordfirepress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61475-343-8

  Copyright © 1994, 2015 Jody Lynn Nye

  Originally published by Ace Science Fiction Books, 1994

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Janet McDonald

  Cover artwork image by Esther Sanz

  Kevin J. Anderson, Art Director

  Book Design by RuneWright, LLC

  www.RuneWright.com

  Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

  Published by

  WordFire Press, an imprint of

  WordFire, Inc.

  PO Box 1840

  Monument, CO 80132

  Contents

  Book Description

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  About the Author

  If You Liked …

  Other WordFire Press Titles by Jody Lynn Nye

  Dedication

  To the Friends of the Rain Forest

  You know who you are!

  Prologue

  Field Director Missa Volk stared over her lab table at Edrad Dennison when he burst into her hut, waving a sheaf of documents. The quondam main office of the LabCor field research unit was strewn with datacubes and tapes, amidst imperfectly squared pillars of plastic printout sheets. Moving with remarkable grace for such a big man, Dennison threaded his way hastily through them to thrust a handful of documents at her, narrowly avoiding upsetting one of those pillars. Uneasily, she took the papers.

  “Here!” Dennison exclaimed. “You wanted proof. Here it is. Our marvelous experiment to benefit humanity—all warm-blooded creatures—has all gone horribly wrong. I told you so, dammit, and you’ve paid no attention. But now I have evidence. You must pay attention to that.” He smacked the top of the sheaf with a huge hand.

  Volk eyed him warily, then glanced over the top sheet of the report. In a very patient voice, she said, “You’ve made a mistake, Dennison. There’s nothing wrong here.”

  “Nothing wrong?” Dennison asked, disbelievingly, his wiry eyebrows nearly touching in the center of his face. “Look at that.” Leaning forward, he flipped the first page out of her fingers and pointed to the second. Volk recoiled from his thrust, then read the paragraphs he indicated. “I’ve supplied full calculations. I’ve given you charts, figures, again and again. There are significant discrepancies between our projections and the actual results. It is no mistake. The nanomites have approximately double the effectiveness we estimated, and are running completely out of control. We’ve got to stop everything to search out and destroy the ones that have gotten away. What happens when they reproduce?”

  “Nonsense,” Volk said lightly. She handed back the sheets, waving away the suggestion of discrepancy with her long, slim hand. “Everything is perfectly under control, Ed. In fact, I’m pleased with the progress we’ve been making.”

  “What?” Dennison stared at her.

  “You heard the director,” said Morganstern, a man of medium height with a powerful stocky build and deep tan skin that made him look as if he were made of polished teak. He leaned forward over the table. “There’s nothing to clean up or fix.”

  “No,” Dennison insisted. “We have to …” His booming voice trailed away and he stared. “You’re stonewalling me, Missa. This is a dangerous matter. You can’t just let this go. We have to get help from somebody, now!”

  Volk stood up. Dennison, towering above her, seemed somehow less substantial a being. “Ed,” she said, long suffering evident in her voice, “do you want to jeopardize our grant? We’ll never reach the next contract stage with LabCor if we start making waves about something that just isn’t that important.”

  Dennison gaped. “Is that all you can think about, money? In that case, I’ll have to go to the Inspectors General myself.”

  “You can’t,” Morganstern protested, shocked.

  “I will.” The scientists glared at one another across the table. Volk was the only one who looked calm.

  “Ed, Lionel, please. Don’t you believe in our project? When we started out, you were one of the most energetic supporters we had. Don’t deprive us of your help.”

  “I don’t care what else you say,” Dennison said, crossing his arms across his chest. “It isn’t going the way we planned. Things have changed. We have to report this situation to the Galactic Environmental Protection Association and LabCor and ask for help. You can’t let this project run out of control. People will die if you do.”

  “People will die if we don’t continue with our work,” Missa Volk said. “They die every day. You know that. Isn’t it part of the problem?”

  “Yes, but this time it’s going to be us! And what about the rest of the colony? And the ottle population? We’re visitors on their planet.”

  Missa Volk narrowed her green eyes at him. “You’ll do what I tell you, Ed. Everything is fine, under control. You step outside this group with classified information and I’ll see to it that you never create a more significant chemical reaction than mixing baking soda with vinegar. I am in charge of this project!”

  “Then do something!” Dennison exclaimed. He pounded the table with a fist. Volk stared at his hand. “Dammit, people will die if you let it run unchecked. Here, I’ve documented all the instances where human subjects have been exposed to overdoses of the nanomites. You’ve seen for yourself what’s happening to them. Don’t pretend you haven’t.”

  Volk eyed him coolly. “And just what is it you want me to do?”

  “Stop the project,” Dennison said flatly. “Withdraw the remaining doses, isolate the ones we know about, and start policing the area for any leaks where the natives might have been exposed.”

  “Out of the question,” Morganstern spoke up. “LabCor will be sending an inspection squad out here within the month. We can’t risk any appearance of impropriety.”

  “Impropriety?” Dennison exploded. “Look, if you’re not going to do something, I will. I’ll blow the whistle.”

  “How dare you?” Morganstern demanded. Volk grabbed her assistant’s arm.

  “No,” she said to Dennison. “You do what you have to do. If you feel that you’d rather jeopardize the grant for fifteen of your fellow scientists, destroy our project, our careers and standing in the research community—our dreams—you go right ahead.”

  “You’re damned right I am going ahead,” Dennison said, and strode with much dignity out of the hut.

  “What are you doing?” Morganstern asked Volk in a harsh whisper. “He’ll be on the net in two minutes, pulling down a medical inspector. We can’t afford exposure. Our contract calls for absolute confidentiality …”

  “Don’t worry,” Volk said. “I saw this coming. Hampton tipped me off days ago that Ed was getting edgy. I have already anticipated his attempts to send a message to the Galactic Government. The lines are cut off and they’ll remain off until I’m good and ready to restore them.”

  “And after that? We need those comm lines, too. He can wait a day or two before bringing chaos down on our heads.”

  “After that?” Volk said grimly, her lips pressed together. “Dennison won’t be in any shape to send a message.” She raised her eyes to meet Morganstern’s and nodded significantly. He looked surprised, then after a moment’s consideration he nodded back slowly, as if entranced. “See to it,” she said.

  Chapter One

  “Stand to quarters!” Gershom Taylor barked, leaning forward in the pilot’s seat of the scout-trader Sibyl and taking firmer hold of the controls in his long hands. “That ship’s coming about again. Dammit, who are they?”

  Dr. Shona Taylor, his wife and partner, sprang up from the crash chair next to his to make room at the console for Eblich, the co-pilot, then ran aft along the narrow corridor of the Sibyl toward her laboratory. A
sudden lurching turn made the metal panels screech against one another, and threw her into the bulkhead. Handing her way along carefully, she dragged herself toward the lab module.

  The growing feeling of uneasiness she had been nursing since the shipyard two days before had blossomed into certainty. After months of careful maneuvering, redirecting their subspace calls and messages through two or perhaps three dummy numbers, paying their bills through an anonymous credit line for supplies, they had made a single mistake which pinpointed them in space for anybody trying to find Shona Taylor. Evidently, somebody was still looking.

  It had been a mistake to stay so long in the shipyard at the edge of the Venturi system, but the necessary refit of the Sibyl had taken that much time.

  The Taylor Traveling Medicine Show and Trading Company had originally consisted of four people. Gershom, as captain, also acted as the outside man, negotiating trades. Ivo, the shuttle pilot, was Gershom’s second in making deals and getting the cargo from warehouse to ship and out again. Eblich, the co-pilot, also acted as bookkeeper, calculating the value against gross profit of the stores maintained on board by Kai. They were a tightly knit functional team. All at once, three years past, two more humans had been added, with a third one present but not yet accounted for, plus all of Shona’s animal team and the impedimenta of a working physician who was also an environmental illness specialist.

  Shona always felt apologetic for the hardships caused by her signing on permanently aboard the Sibyl. The crew, whom she loved like family, had pushed away her apologies, but she knew that having her there all the time had changed their gestalt, taking up room they were accustomed to using. Not that they ever acted like it, but she was an intruder. She brought with her a big lab, which could not be reduced in size, a child, and then an infant, and a vaccine dog, a chemical-sniffing cat, two rabbit food-tasters, several mice, and an ottle. Though the additions were anticipated and welcomed by the extant crew, the inevitable growing pains could not be ignored. Gershom couldn’t yet afford to move up to a larger ship. Renting a ship for such a high-risk occupation as trading was out of the question. Expansion had been the answer. A new addition would give Shona space of her own and enable the men to realign their own living quarters and personal space with her as an integral part of the whole. The Venturi yard had been approached in the greatest of secrecy to undertake the refitting.

  For a small additional fee, Venturi was persuaded to stretch the rules just a little bit to enlarge the ship without registering her engine numbers in the galactic database, as required, until the job was done and the Sibyl was safely on her way to another system.

  With the help of Shona’s uncle Harry Elliott, a loan officer at a major bank on Mars, the Taylors negotiated a renovation loan which was simply added without fanfare to the balance of their mortgage, paid by monthly debit from their credit account.

  The Sibyl, always over-engined for her configuration, had had her nose sliced off and the body behind it divided in two to add a third cargo hold between the others for Shona’s laboratory module. The space forward of the hold gave the Taylors the additional room they needed for living quarters and more storage, reached by a hatch between the starboard hold and Shona’s complex. An atmosphered corridor fitted with airlocks divided the port hold from the lab. With the new generator installed at the head of the addition, both storage bays could circulate full life-support systems when what they were carrying required it. Before, the holds had been a cold, uncomfortable place to sleep, as Shona herself could testify.

  Shona saw to it that Gershom was kept busy during the major work on his ship, to keep him from whimpering over its well-being. He loved the Sibyl like a friend, a close cousin, another woman. Shona, indulgent rather than jealous, had to find ways to distract him from hanging around the shipyard. Even her natural cheerfulness had been strained by the time the work was finished. Venturi was a main stop for colonists and traders outbound to unexplored quadrants of the galaxy beyond. The people looking for the Taylors could have chanced upon them at any moment. With great care, they had avoided any references to their pasts, use of last names that were familiar or traceable, and paid cash or bartered for supplies. The data leak had to have occurred in the shipyard itself.

  And I know just when it happened, too, Shona grumbled to herself. I knew it when they entered our number on-line with the alterations for the GG registrar. Everyone was shaking hands and beaming at each other over finishing the job at last. We were so thrilled about the beautiful refit; I didn’t think to delay them. For two days it’s been irking me what was wrong with what should have been a lovely moment. Someone was watching the communications net, waiting for a clue to where we were. And they got it. And here they are.

  Shona could see the moment replayed in her mind over and over again like a looped piece of data. It was her own fault. All she’d had to do was reach out and stop the master of the shipyard from entering that last keystroke, ask him to wait until they’d lifted ship, and darn it, she hadn’t.

  She was flung against the bulkhead as Gershom negotiated a braking turn, putting on the port aft thrusters and firing the starboard rockets forward. The much bulkier ship responded ever so slightly more slowly than she had before. Even Shona could sense it. She knew the other crew members were hanging on in agony, urging the ship forward with their very wills. Too late, lines of warning lights illumined down the corridor, stepping in series toward emergency stations. Howls, both mechanical and animal, resounded off the metal-and-plastic walls. She handed herself the rest of the way into her lab as a crash shook the ship. They’d taken a hit, but no sirens wailed.

  “Thank goodness, not a hull breach,” Shona thought, then realized she’d spoken aloud. She swung in the door of the laboratory module. With its hull made of space-grade ceramic and its reinforced metal skeleton, it was the safest place on the ship.

  Her foster daughter, Leilani, looked up with huge dark eyes. The girl had been trying to urge Shona’s shaggy black dog, Saffie, into her crash cage set against the bulkhead underneath the worktable. The big dog didn’t want to go, and was scrabbling at the padding with desperate feet. She whined at her mistress through the thick mesh as Lani latched the door behind her.

  “Who is it?” Lani asked, hurrying to catch Shona’s Abyssinian cat, Harry, who saw involuntary imprisonment ahead of him and was obstinately staying out of reach. The howls of distress were coming from him.

  “Mama!”

  Shona grabbed up her two-year-old son, Alexander, who was toddling unsteadily along the perimeter of the room, handing himself along the cabinets in true spacer fashion. With deft fingers, she slipped him into a backpack-style carrier attached to the wall and strapped him in.

  “There you go, sweetie,” Shona said, pecking him swiftly on the cheek. He reached for her, but she turned away to help gather up the other animals. The rabbits and mice were in their boxes. Only the cat remained free.

  “Mama, down!”

  “There he goes, Lani.” Shona dropped to her knees and crawled toward the corner where Harry had spotted an open cabinet door to hide behind. Together they lunged. Shona snapped the door shut, and Lani tackled Harry. As the cat protested shrilly, they locked him up in the crash cage next to Saffie. There was one more warm body to be accounted for. “Where’s Chirwl?”

  The ship changed direction again, and mother and daughter slewed across the floor. Shona helped Lani crawl on all fours to the crash seats on the opposite side of the room and buckled the restraints around her.

  “Is it him?” Lani asked in a whisper, looking around.

  “How could it be?” Shona said, without having to ask which “him.” “He’s in prison.” Lani shivered, and Shona put a gentle hand on the girl’s arm. A normally cheerful woman of thirty, Shona glanced about her with worried brown eyes. Two smile lines, like single quotation marks at the corners of her generously made mouth, indented sharply in concern. The fact that he was in prison billions of klicks away didn’t mean they were out of the reach of Jachin Verdadero, and they both knew it.

  Verdadero had once been the chief operating officer of the Galactic Laboratory Corporation, the largest, most diversified company in the galaxy. Up until the time he attempted to use Shona as a dupe to cover his conspiracy to commit mass murder, he had been coldly killing off entire populations of outdated planetary colony settlements for the billions of credits that the contracts were worth. He had considered the personnel to be unnecessary and costly liabilities, and had treated them accordingly.