He had a point. A food issue should have shown up a lot sooner. “How long did you live here before you started eating planet-grown foods?”
He frowned, thinking about it. “After the first year. That’s when we grew a batch of crops and knew they were safe after we’d completed extensive testing.”
There had to be an answer.
“What about the transport crews? Did they eat food grown here?”
He nodded. “Sure. They loved it, being able to eat fresh food instead of frozen or dried and reconstituted.”
“Livestock?”
“Earth lines brought here. We’ve been eating seafood since the second year on.”
“And nothing wrong with the cattle or other livestock?”
“No. And yes, we grow their food grains here. That was one of the first crops we established and tested so they could be self-sustaining. We couldn’t keep shipping in grains.”
“Corn?”
He nodded. “Corn, alfalfa, barley, and various grazing grasses. Some wheat stocks for horses, pigs, and chickens.”
“You don’t eat horses?”
He laughed. “No. Work and pleasure animals, I assure you. A little low-tech, yes, but it’s easier to grow crops and raise livestock for some tasks than it is to refine energy sources and keep shipping in replacement parts for small equipment. We conserve where we can.”
They woke up two more men after restraining them and notifying their wives so they could be present. After four hours, Emi was about to order Dr. Martinez released when she heard a shout from the OR where he was still restrained.
The man couldn’t break the energy shackles, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Ilse had retreated to the corner, crying, while Taber tried to calm the doctor and get him to relax.
“Fuck you!” Dr. Martinez screamed, trying to lean over and bite the man.
Aaron stepped in front of Emi to stop her from getting closer, but she stepped around the table. Taber grabbed a syringe. While Martinez’s attention focused on Emi, Taber jabbed the hypo into the doctor’s shoulder.
He immediately slumped to the table, unconscious.
Dr. Shourpa tried to console her friend, who had slid down the wall to the floor. “He was talking to me!” she sobbed. “He had a little more to eat, and he was fine! Then the rage returned!”
Emi helped Taber reconfigure Dr. Martinez’s restraints and restart the IV. “You need to warn the other women,” Emi said. “If he reverted, they will, too. Don’t wake any more patients until we get some lab results back.”
“Okay.”
She stepped away from the table and over to the governor’s side. With Dr. Shourpa’s assistance, Emi helped the woman stand and walk from the room. Behind her, she heard Aaron’s com link whistle and Rob page him. He walked outside the clinic to talk to him.
“Let’s get you home,” Emi said to the governor. “You need to rest.”
She nodded, too distraught to argue. The two women walked her across the compound to a small, nondescript residential pod. Inside, she’d made it look as homey and comfortable as she could in their still relatively spartan setting. Everything was neat and tidy and smelled of cinnamon and baked goods.
Six fresh loaves of cinnamon bread sat on the counter. In a daze, Ilse walked over to the kitchen, retrieved a large plastic storage bag from her cabinet, and put the loaves in it. “Here,” she softly said, handing the bag to Emi. “Take these for your men.”
Not wanting to hurt the woman’s feelings, Emi did. “I will. Now, you need to go lie down and rest. Do you want me to give you a sedative?”
Ilse shook her head. “No.” Finally, her eyes focused. She looked at Emi. “Please, just figure out what’s wrong with them!”
“We will.”
Aaron waited for Emi outside the governor’s house. From one grim reality to another, Emi didn’t need her empath skills to know something was seriously wrong.
“What happened?”
He shook his head and indicated they needed to return to the lander. Inside, he removed his protective suit after going through a decon cycle in the air lock. Sam and Gregor looked equally grim. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
“What?” She dropped the bag of bread loaves on a crate as she took a seat.
“ISNC has taken over,” Aaron said. “Unless we figure out what the hell the problem is, the colonists will be evac’d, and the planet will be sterilized.”
“Sterilized?”
“Destroyed, in other words.”
Emi blinked. “They can’t do that!”
Gregor nodded. “Oh, yes, they can. And they will. The ISNC forces coming have orders to evac only people without symptoms and decon the planet.”
“But what about those infected?”
Aaron shook his head.
Emi gasped. “That’s murder!”
“They won’t risk the condition spreading,” Aaron said. “Once they give the final order, that’s it. Anyone who’s infected will be left on the planet and…” He didn’t finish.
“You cannot tell me you’re fucking okay with this!”
“No, I’m not. None of us are. The ISNC underwrote the initial colony and mission expenses to get it up and running. Contractually, they get to have a say in it. The colonists signed contracts with the DSMC to that effect. They understand that.”
“No, I’m sure they don’t understand they can be left behind to be murdered!” She alternately felt stunned and like screaming. “What the fuck, Aar?”
“We have to work fast.”
Emi had sent a preliminary shipment of samples up to the Braynow Gaston in an unmanned drone. The three scientists were already crunching results, trying to find a commonality to work with, but had not as of yet figured it out. Later that night, Aaron ordered an exhausted Emi back to the lander so they could return to the Tamora Bight. Gregor and Sam would bunk with them that night, in the cargo bay, and return to the planet with them in the morning.
Emi and Donna sat up half the night on the com link, wracking their brains to come up with something, anything. Captain John Tarrence from the Braynow Gaston hailed them.
“We’ve gone through all the samples you sent. Nothing. There is no reason for those men to have gotten sick. They are, with the exception of some standard conditions like hypertension, healthy. The only common link we can find is that they’re adult men.”
Emi scrubbed her face with her hands. “There has to be something.”
Aaron leaned against the sick bay counter, his arms crossed, listening.
“I’m sorry, Emi. There’s nothing we can find.”
“Look for any genetic differences between the sick and unaffected men.”
“We did. We traced the genetic code. There is nothing.”
Aaron stepped forward. “Thanks, John. We’ll talk to you in the morning. Page us if there’s anything new.”
“Sure thing, Aaron. Braynow Gaston, out.”
Aaron caught Emi’s hand and pulled her to her feet. It was the middle of the night their time, and she was wiped out. “Come on, Doc. To bed with you.” She offered no protest when he scooped her into his arms. She felt bone-weary and couldn’t get Ilse’s haunted look out of her mind.
She couldn’t let them die.
Ford had watch that night. Caph already slept sprawled across their large shared bed. Exhausted, Emi curled up next to him as Aaron settled against her other side and wrapped an arm around her waist.
He kissed the back of her neck. “You’ll figure it out, sweetie. I know you will.”
She didn’t feel so confident. She hoped he was right.