“Please,” Walker said.
They’d eventually set up an “officers” area in the dining room. Walker, as one of the “doctors” was automatically included. Steve didn’t always use it; he preferred to strike up conversations with random people to get a feel for what was going on. But tonight it looked as if it was the right place to be.
“Bad day?” Steve asked, taking a bite of fish.
“Two premature deliveries,” Fontana said. “In the U.S., pre-Plague, they’d be in intensive neonatal care. As it is, I just wrote ‘stillborn.’ Which they weren’t, exactly, but they didn’t last long. And one that died in the womb.”
“Ouch,” Steve said.
“I’m not going to ruin your dinner describing taking it out,” Walker said. “We’re now pumping the mother full of some of our precious remaining antibiotics and we’re not sure it’s going to work.”
“I just gave orders to have the ablebodied, by our estimation, among the sick, lame and lazy start clearing the bodies on the base,” Steve said, continuing to eat. He’d told himself at the beginning that he had to eat regular meals no matter what. “At gunpoint if necessary. When I hear things like this, those decisions come easier.”
“The instructors in Q Course stressed over and over again, ‘You are not an MD,’” Fontana said. “I mean, I’ve got no real clue about toxicology, histology, rheumatology…”
“So if I recall correctly,” Steve said to fill in the pause, “we’re anticipating three to four hundred serious complications?”
“When we actually started doing exams and crunching the number, we got it to three hundred forty,” Fontana said. “Probably. Statistically. We’re getting up to about forty that have lost them one way or another. Three late-term abortions based on serious complications. Four if you count today. We don’t have the original studies so we don’t know if early to mid-term miscarriages count. Anyway, at this rate only three hundred to go. Yay.”
“The way things are going, if we could materially and socially, I’d say pull the babies on at least two hundred of the mothers,” Walker said, munching placidly on a tuna roll. “Which we can’t because there’s not enough trained hands and there’s no way you can get them all to agree. Not to mention it would be horrible for morale.”
“Losing all two hundred mothers is going to be just as bad,” Fontana said.
“Are we going to?” Steve asked quietly.
“Yes,” Walker replied. “We are. Not necessarily the two hundred I’d pick but we are going to lose two hundred or so to pregnancy related complications. We’ve already lost ten. Lot more to go. Possibly less if we have enough equipment or find some MDs or anyone with enough surgical training to emergency C-section.”
“On the other hand, that means sixteen hundred new children,” Steve said.
“More,” Fontana said. “We have an unusually high number of multiples. Should be two percent, it’s more like five percent. No clue why. Admittedly, more of those mothers are in the ‘at risk’ group. But we’ll have more than one child per mother on average.”
“All to the good,” Steve said. “The truth is, no children, no future. Not for a civilization enshrining the notion of the Rights of Man and all the rest. In which case there is no damned point to any of this.”
“I hate to stick my nose in,” Walker said.
“Mr. ‘Walker,’” Steve said drily, “you can and should any time you’d like. I’ve yet to hear anything come out of your mouth that wasn’t on point.”
“Has any thought be given to the aftermath?” Walker asked, smiling slightly. “Babies require various support materials if they are going to grow properly. Among other things, not all mothers provide adequate milk. And post weaning, they’ll need adequate food and vitamins. Study I read somewhere indicated that high survival rates in the toddler years didn’t really start until we developed lactose tolerance and started milking cows. Then there’s the whole ‘diapers’ issue.”
“The answer is ‘Thought had been given,’” Steve said. “There also was little in the way of answers until you and my daughter saved the day.”
“How did we save the day?” Walker asked.
“The Paul Osted,” Steve said. “It was loaded with supplies for various small ports in Africa. A lot of the stuff is useless to us, of course. But there were, in fact, several containers containing baby ‘stuff.’ At least according to the manifest. Notably dried formula and vitamins. And, glory be, there were even two containers of condensed milk. If all else fails, there’s always wet nurses. Diapers. That’s going to have to be the old-fashioned way. Cloth we have. Pins we have. Rubber pants, not so much. The sewing shop is cutting up a bunch of rain-gear we found to make some. Probably not enough. The big problem is that we have to send out the small boat squadron on this sweep. Which will probably push them up into ‘we’re dropping babies’ time. And a third of the crews are pregnant women.”
“I noticed,” Walker said. “We’ve pulled most of the ones that have been showing signs of at-risk pregnancy off of deployable status. That doesn’t mean we won’t have problems.”
“Understood,” Steve said. “One of the reasons to send you with the sweep.”
“Unfortunately, that means I’ll be working off the Grace Tan,” Walker said. “So I won’t have the pleasure of your daughter’s company.”
“You’re not going to be spread out this time,” Steve said. “Have all your serious kit in the Grace Tan’s sick bay and use the Bella as your moving boat for checking up on the ladies of the float. Think of it as housecalls. Boat calls at least. Did you know that was one of Sophia’s potential careers?”
“Pregnant?” Fontana said.
“She wanted to be a doctor,” Steve said. “I’d gotten quite comfortable teaching school. One of the points, between us, to this whole program is that I sincerely doubt that the bastard who did this died in the Plague. He was going to have a vaccine. He’s probably holed up somewhere laughing at the mess he’s created. Someday, someone will find him.”
“Oh, let it be me,” Fontana said. “Please.”
“I really can’t think of anything that is worth doing to him that is also worth violating the Constitution,” Walker said. “There is literally no sufficient torture ever invented by man on Earth. If we do find him, I’d just put a bullet in his head and go on with trying to repair the damage. Hope there is a hell.”
“More or less my thought as well,” Steve said.
“Lieutenant?” a lady in a nurse’s uniform said, walking up. More like waddling. “Mr. Walker…we’ve got another emergency patient.”
“And I need to get back to work as well,” Steve said. “Good luck.”
“How’s it going, Sergeant Smith?” Faith said, stepping out of the Humvee.
She’d made it a habit to check on the progress of the sweep at least once each day. Colonel Hamilton had counseled her that it was primarily an NCO job and had her working her butt off on plans for the island hopping operation. But they were her people and the colonel agreed that she had to show her face from time to time.
“Just fine, ma’am,” Smitty said, saluting. Faith returned it and he continued setting an M4 in the bed of a civilian pickup truck. It was the best vehicle for their purposes. He tossed the spent magazine that had been in the well into a five gallon bucket. There were others for any remaining ammo.
So far there hadn’t been any complications at all. The gunboats and their sweeps had apparently killed the vast majority of the remaining infected. Occasionally one would turn up but the sweep teams were armed.