Star Trek - TOS 38 Idic Epidemic Read Free Page A

back to the table, Korsal couldn’t duck. Instinc tively, he tried to roll back onto the table to kick at Keski, but the Lemnorian anticipated him, falling forward against his legs, pinning him as he pulled the punch and instead tried to choke Korsal.
    Korsal grasped Keski’s wrists, managing to hold him long enough that, at last, T’Saen connected, and the unconscious Lemnorian slumped forward on top of the Klingon.
    The others pulled him off. Treadwell, the only physician on the council, already had his medscanner out. He ran it over Esposito, saying, “No serious damage, but I want you in the hospital for observa tion. Someone call for an ambulance—let’s get Keski into the hospital before he comes to. Korsal—” He turned, recalibrating his instrument, and ran it over the Klingon’s body.
    “No injury except for that hand,” he said, “but…”
    The “but” rang in the council chamber as everyone stopped breathing to realize the implications.
    Korsal raised his hand and stared at the palm. In the struggle, the blister caused by the hot coffee had burst, and he was bleeding. His hand was also smeared with Keski’s orangeish blood. There was no scrubbing down and hoping for the best: he was well and thoroughly exposed to the same strain of the plague that had turned the usually gentle Lemnorian into a raging beast.
    But the held breaths were not for Korsal.
    “Keski had the disease once!” said Stolos. “This means—”
    “—the mutation has developed so far from its original form that immunity to previous strains has no force,” concluded Dr. Treadwell, his face now a pasty white. “We must all go to the hospital immedi ately, to the isolation unit, and wait out the incubation period.”
    “I will call for more ambulances,” said Therian.
    Korsal got up, thinking of his family, knowing everyone in the room was doing the same.
    Almost everyone.
    They drew apart, each deep in his own thoughts. Korsal went to the window again.
    Borth followed him.
    “Go away,” said Korsal. “You also have a wife and children to think about.”
    The Orion nodded. “Yes—and they will be well cared for for life if what I suspect is true. Every member of this council has caught the plague but you, Korsal—for we are all public servants who could not quarantine ourselves in our homes. Your wife had the disease in its earliest form, but you did not contract it, and—living in the same house—neither of your sons has been ill. Now,” he said, touching Korsal’s injured hand with one blunt finger, “we will know without question whether Klingons are immune.”
    “That won’t do you much good, since Orions are not.”
    “It will as long as I survive—and I am a survivor, Korsal. I don’t know what you are. A traitor, per haps?”
    “What do you mean?” Korsal stared at the offend ing Orion, lips pulled back to expose the points of his teeth.
    Borth did not cringe. “If Klingons are immune, you will not inform the empire of this disease.”
    “Killing off a planet’s population with disease is not the way Klingons gain territory. We fight, let them defend their homes.”
    “Against immensely superior numbers and weaponry,” Borth said with an oily smile. “And you, Korsal, do not approve—I can see it in your eyes. You’re no Klingon—you’re a weakling like the Hu mans. But I am Orion, and it behooves me to think what certain factions within the Klingon Empire will pay for this virus—if Klingons are immune.”
    “For the sake of argument, say we prove immune now,” said Korsal. “The way this disease mutates, what is to prevent it from developing a strain fatal to my people?”
    Borth shrugged. “So long as I am well paid, I will take that risk. I am willing to gamble that this bug would take a long time to figure out how to bite Klingons. By that time, I will be far from the Klingon Empire.”
    Korsal glared at him. “You make me ill without any virus, Borth. You are no scientist, to base