"You'll have to catch the survivors and keep them alive, and you'll have to keep them from contaminating your brawn. After that, we can deal with symptoms and the rest."
All right, that made sense.
"We went at this analyzing your subjects' behavior. You were right in saying that they act in a very similar fashion to brain-damaged simians."
This was an audio-only transmission; the video portion of the signal was being used to carry a wealth of technical data. Tia wished she could see Doctor Kenny's face, but she heard the warmth and encouragement in his voice with no problem.
"We've compiled all the data available on any experiments where the subjects' behavior matched your survivors," Doctor Kenny continued. "Scan it and see if anything is relevant. Tia, I can't stress this enough. No matter what you think caused this disease, don't let Alex get out of that suit. I can't possibly say this too many times. Now that he's gone out there, he's got a contaminated surface. I want you to ask him to stay in the suit, sleep in the suit, eat through the suit-ports, use the suit-facilities. I would prefer that he stayed out in the compound or in your airlock even to sleep, every time he goes in and out of the suit, in and out of your lock, we have a chance for decontamination to fail. I know you understand me."
Only too well, she thought, grimly, remembering all that time in isolation.
"Now, we've come up with a general plan for you," Doctor Kenny continued. "We don't think that you'll be able to catch the survivors, given the way they're avoiding Alex. So you're going to have to trap them. My experts think you'll be able to rig drop-traps for them, using packing crates with field generators across the front and rations for bait. The technical specs are on the video-track, but I think you have the general idea. The big thing will be not to frighten the rest each time you trap one."
Doctor Kenny's voice echoed hollowly in the empty cabin; she damped the sound so that it didn't sound so lonely.
"We want one, two at most, per crate. We're afraid that, bunched together, they might hurt each other, fight over food. They're damaged, and we just don't know how aggressive they might get. That's why we want you to pack them in the hold in the crates. Once you get them trapped, we want you to put enough food and water in each crate to last the four days to base, and Tia, at that point, leave them there. Don't do anything with them. Leave them alone. I trust you to exercise your good sense and not give in to any temptation to intervene in their condition."
Doctor Kenny sighed, gustily. "We bandied around the idea of tranking them, but they have to eat and drink; four days knocked out might kill them. You don't have the facilities to cold-sleep fifty people. So, box them, hope the box matches their ideas of a good place to hide, leave them with food and water and shove them in the hold. That's it for now, Tia. Transmit everything you have, and we'll have answers for you as soon as we're able. These double-bounce comlinks aren't as fast as we'd like, but they beat the alternative. Our thoughts are with you."
The transmission ended, leaving her only with the carrier-wave.
Now what? Tell Alex the bad news, I guess. And calculate how many packing crates I can pack into my holds.
"Alex?" she called. "Are you having any luck tracking down where the survivors are?"
"I've turned on all the exterior lights," Alex said. "I hoped that I'd be able to lure some of them out into the open, but it's no good." She activated his helmet-camera and watched his gloved hand typing override orders into the keyboard of the main AI console. Override orders had to be put in by hand, with a specific set of override codes, no matter how minor the change was. That was to keep someone from taking over an AI with a shout or two. "Right now I'm giving myself full access to everything. I may not need it, but who knows?"
"I've got our first set of orders," she told him. "Do you want to hear them?"
"Sure." Typing in a pressure-suit was no easy task, and Tia did not envy him. It took incredible patience to manage a normal keyboard in those stiff gloves.
She retransmitted Doctor Kenny's message and waited patiently for his response when she finished.
"So I have to stay in the suit." He sighed gustily, "Oh, well. It could be worse, I suppose. It could be two weeks to base, instead of four days." He typed the last few characters with a flourish and was rewarded by the 'Full Access, Voice Commands accepted' legend. "No choice, right? Look, Tia, I know you're going to be lonely, but if I have to stay in this suit, I might just as well sleep out here."
"But," she protested, "what if they decide you're an enemy or something?"
"What, the Zombies?" He snorted. "Tia, right now they're all crammed into some of the darnedest nooks and crannies you ever saw in your life. I couldn't pry them out of there with a forklift. I know where they all are, but I'd have to break bones to get them. Their bones. They're terrified, even with all the floodlights on. No, they aren't going to come after me in the dark."
"All right," she agreed reluctantly. She knew he was right; he'd be much more comfortable out there. There was certainly more room available to him there.
"I'll be closer to the Zombies," he said wearily, "and I can barricade myself in one of the offices, get enough bedding from stores to make a reasonable nest I'll plug the suit in to keep everything charged up, and you can monitor the mike and camera. I snore."
"I know," she said, in a weak attempt to tease him.
"You would." He turned, and the camera tracked what he was seeing. "Look, I'm here in the site supervisor's office. There's even a real nice couch in here and..." He leaned down and fiddled with the underside of the piece of furniture. "Ah hah. As I thought. There's a real bed in the couch. Bet the old man liked to sneak naps. Look."He panned around the office. "No windows. One door. A full-access terminal. I'll be fine."
"All right, I believe you." She thought, quickly. "Ill look over those plans for traps and transmit them to the AI, and I'11 find out where everything you'll need is stored. You can start collecting the team tomorrow."
What's left of them, she thought sadly. What isn't already stored in the freezer.
"See what you can do about adding some sleepygas to the equation," he suggested, yawning under his breath. "If we can knock them out once they're in the boxes, rather than trapping them with field generators, that should solve the problem of frightening the others."
That was a good suggestion. A much better one than Doctor Kenny's. If she had enough gas...
But wait; this was a fully-stocked station. There might be another option. Crime did exist wherever there were people, and mental breakdowns. Sometimes it was necessary to immobilize someone for his protection and the protection of others.
She interrogated the AI and discovered that, indeed, there were several special low-power needlers in the arms locker. And with them, full clips of anesthetic needles.
"Alex," she said, slowly, "how good a shot are you?"
"When this is over, I'm requisitioning an ethological tagging kit," she said fiercely, as Alex crouched on the roof of the mess hall and waited for his subject's hunger to overcome her timidity. She hesitated, just in front of the crate. She smelled the food, and she wanted it, but she was afraid to go inside after it. She swayed from side to side, like one of the first three survivors they'd seen; that swaying seemed to be the outward sign of inner conflict.