The Planet Savers, Page 2

said, "did you bring in the reports?"

  Jay Allison carefully took the indicated seat, poised nervously on theedge of the chair. He sat very straight, leaning forward only a littleto hand a thick folder of papers across the desk. Forth took it, butdidn't open it. "What do you think, Dr. Allison?"

  "There is no possible room for doubt." Jay Allison spoke precisely, in arather high-pitched and emphatic tone. "It follows the statisticalpattern for all recorded attacks of 48-year fever ... by the way, sir,haven't we any better name than that for this particular disease? Theterm '48-year fever' connotes a fever of 48 years duration, rather thana pandemic recurring every 48 years."

  "A fever that lasted 48 years would be quite a fever," Dr. Forth saidwith the shadow of a grim smile. "Nevertheless that's the only name wehave so far. Name it and you can have it. Allison's disease?"

  Jay Allison greeted this pleasantry with a repressive frown. "As Iunderstand it, the disease cycle seems to be connected somehow with theonce-every-48-years conjunction of the four moons, which explains whythe Darkovans are so superstitious about it. The moons have remarkablyeccentric orbits--I don't know anything about that part, I'm quoting Dr.Moore. If there's an animal vector to the disease, we've neverdiscovered it. The pattern runs like this; a few cases in the mountaindistricts, the next month a hundred-odd cases all over this part of theplanet. Then it skips exactly three months without increase. The nextupswing puts the number of reported cases in the thousands, and threemonths after _that_, it reaches real pandemic proportions and decimatesthe entire human population of Darkover."

  "That's about it," Forth admitted. They bent together over the folder,Jay Allison drawing back slightly to avoid touching the other man.

  Forth said, "We Terrans have had a Trade compact on Darkover for ahundred and fifty-two years. The first outbreak of this 48-year feverkilled all but a dozen men out of three hundred. The Darkovans wereworse off than we were. The last outbreak wasn't quite so bad, but itwas bad enough, I've heard. It has an 87 per cent mortality--for humans,that is. I understand the trailmen don't die of it."

  "The Darkovans call it the trailmen's fever, Dr. Forth, because thetrailmen are virtually immune to it. It remains in their midst as a mildailment taken by children. When it breaks out into the virulent formevery 48 years, most of the trailmen are already immune. I took thedisease myself as a child--maybe you heard?"

  Forth nodded. "You may be the only Terran ever to contract the diseaseand survive."

  "The trailmen incubate the disease," Jay Allison said. "I should thinkthe logical thing would be to drop a couple of hydrogen bombs on thetrail cities--and wipe it out for good and all."

  (Sitting on the Sofa in Forth's dark office, I stiffened with such furythat he shook my shoulder and muttered, "Easy, there, man!")

  * * * * *

  Dr. Forth, on the screen, looked annoyed, and Jay Allison said, with agrimace of distaste, "I didn't mean that literally. But the trailmen arenot human. It wouldn't be genocide, just an exterminator's job. A publichealth measure."

  Forth looked shocked as he realized that the younger man meant what hewas saying. He said, "Galactic center would have to rule on whetherthey're dumb animals or intelligent non-humans, and whether they'reentitled to the status of a civilization. All precedent on Darkover istoward recognizing them as men--and good God, Jay, you'd probably becalled as a witness for the defense! How can you say they're not humanafter your experience with them? Anyway, by the time their status wasfinally decided, half of the recognizable humans on Darkover would bedead. We need a better solution than that."

  He pushed his chair back and looked out the window.

  "I won't go into the political situation," he said, "you aren'tinterested in Terran Empire politics, and I'm no expert either. Butyou'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that Darkover's beenplaying the immovable object to the irresistible force. The Darkovansare more advanced in some of the non-causative sciences than we are,and until now, they wouldn't admit that Terra had a thing to contribute.However--and this is the big however--they do know, and they're willingto admit, that our medical sciences are better than theirs."

  "Theirs being practically non-existent."

  "Exactly--and this could be the first crack in the barrier. You may notrealize the significance of this, but the Legate received an offer fromthe Hasturs themselves."

  Jay Allison murmured, "I'm to be impressed?"

  "On Darkover you'd damn well better be impressed when the Hasturs sit upand take notice."

  "I understand they're telepaths or something--"

  "Telepaths, psychokinetics, parapsychs, just about anything else. Forall practical purposes they're the Gods of Darkover. And one of theHasturs--a rather young and unimportant one, I'll admit, the old man'sgrandson--came to the Legate's office, in person, mind you. He offered,if the Terran Medical would help Darkover lick the trailmen's fever, tocoach selected Terran men in matrix mechanics."

  "Good Lord," Jay said. It was a concession beyond Terra's wildestdreams; for a hundred years they had tried to beg, buy or steal someknowledge of the mysterious science of matrix mechanics--that curiousdiscipline which could turn matter into raw energy, and vice versa,without any intermediate stages and without fission by-products. Matrixmechanics had made the Darkovans virtually immune to the lure of Terra'sadvanced technologies.

  Jay said, "Personally I think Darkovan science is over-rated. But I cansee the propaganda angle--"

  "Not to mention the humanitarian angle of healing--"

  * * * * *

  Jay Allison gave one of his cold shrugs. "The real angle seems to bethis; _can_ we cure the 48-year fever?"

  "Not yet. But we have a lead. During the last epidemic, a Terranscientist discovered a blood fraction containing antibodies against thefever--in the trailmen. Isolated to a serum, it might reduce thevirulent 48-year epidemic form to the mild form again. Unfortunately, hedied himself in the epidemic, without finishing his work, and hisnotebooks were overlooked until this year. We have 18,000 men, and theirfamilies, on Darkover now, Jay. Frankly, if we lose too many of them,we're going to have to pull out of Darkover--the big brass on Terra willwrite off the loss of a garrison of professional traders, but not of awhole Trade City colony. That's not even mentioning the prestige we'lllose if our much-vaunted Terran medical sciences can't save Darkoverfrom an epidemic. We've got exactly five months. We can't synthesize aserum in that time. We've got to appeal to the trailmen. And that's whyI called you up here. You know more about the trailmen than any livingTerran. You ought to. You spent eight years in a Nest."

  * * * * *

  (In Forth's darkened office I sat up straighter, with a flash ofreturning memory. Jay Allison, I judged, was several years older than I,but we had one thing in common; this cold fish of a man shared withmyself that experience of marvelous years spent in an alien world!)

  Jay Allison scowled, displeased. "That was years ago. I was hardly morethan a baby. My father crashed on a Mapping expedition over theHellers--God only knows what possessed him to try and take a light planeover those crosswinds. I survived the crash by the merest chance, andlived with the trailmen--so I'm told--until I was thirteen or fourteen.I don't remember much about it. Children aren't particularly observant."

  Forth leaned over the desk, staring. "You speak their language, don'tyou?"

  "I used to. I might remember it under hypnosis, I suppose. Why? Do youwant me to translate something?"

  "Not exactly. We were thinking of sending you on an expedition to thetrailmen themselves."

  (In the darkened office, watching Jay's startled face, I thought; God,what an adventure! I wonder--I wonder if they want me to go with him?)

  Forth was explaining: "It would be a difficult trek. You know what theHellers are like. Still, you used to climb mountains, as a hobby, beforeyou went into Medical--"

  "I outgrew the childishness of hobbies many years ago, sir," J
ay saidstiffly.

  "We'd get you the best guides we could, Terran and Darkovan. But theycouldn't do the one thing you can do. You _know_ the trailmen, Jay. Youmight be able to persuade them to do the one thing they've never donebefore."

  "What's that?" Jay Allison sounded suspicious.

  "Come out of the mountains. Send us volunteers--blood donors--we might,if we had enough blood to work on, be able to isolate the rightfraction, and synthesize it, in time to prevent the epidemic from reallytaking hold. Jay,