“Smelled that odor on several of these creatures,” he commented. “Dead ones. Some epidemic infection, apparently.” He cleared some space, called a nurse over to cut off his new patient’s garments, revealing a ratty gray pelt, and started his routine of poking and thumping.
“Running ten degrees of fever,” he remarked. “Amazing he’s still alive. But then, of course, he’s not human.” He called a colleague, took a blood specimen and sent it off to the lab, and gave the general a shot, which seemed to relax him.
“Got to get that fever down,” the doc muttered. It was just a technical situation now; he was as intent on his work as if it were the mayor he was working on. He took my protege away and asked, or rather told, us to wait.
It was half an hour before he came back, looking pleased.
“Virus,” he said contentedly. “Working up an anti-viral now. Standard vaccine ought to do it.”
Helm and I found a place to wash up, and started looking for some lunch. Smovia hurried off, eager to get back to work.
“No wonder these rats don’t show any fight, Colonel,” Helm said. “They’re sick.” He nodded, agreeing with himself.
“Times we saw ‘em in heaps,” he added. “It explains that. Say, Colonel,” he went on, “you s’pose it’s like in that book: they caught some kinda disease here they couldn’t handle?”
“Nope. I think they were sick when they got here. Maybe that’s why they left home. Epidemic.”
“Nothing we can catch, I hope,” Helm commented.
The hospital commissary was closed down, so we went back out in the street and found a hot-dog kiosk and had two each, med brod och senap (with bread and mustard). In Sweden you could look on hot dogs bare, if you preferred. Taking our hot dogs we returned to the hospital to find Dr. Smovia looking for me.
He showed me a corked test tube, looking as proud as a new papa. “I’ve isolated and cultured the virus,” he told me. “The contents of this vial,” he added, “could fatally infect thousands.” He looked uncomfortable. “But of course I shall guard it carefully so as to avoid such a disaster.”
“What about the cure?” I prompted.
“Simple enough,” he said contentedly. “We can inject the sick, and in a matter of hours they’ll be as well as ever.”
“We’re at war, remember?”
“Of course, Colonel, but to have the power to end an epidemic, and fail to use it…” He faded off; apparently he hadn’t considered the possibility that I might not be eager to cure the invaders.
“Colonel,” he began tentatively, “is there a possibility―If I could go to their home-world, in a matter of hours, the plague would be no more.”
“Have you got plenty of that viral culture?” I asked him.
“No, but there’s no difficulty in making up as much as needed, now that I know the virus. But why? My vaccine―
“You’re really eager to cure these rats, aren’t you Doctor?” I mused aloud.
“Humanitarian considerations,” he started. “Of course we’re at war, and must proceed with caution.”
“If I can get permission to go to the Ylokk locus,” I assured him, “I’ll see to it that you come along.”
His gratitude was effusive. I cut it off with a question: “You can make up more of the culture, eh? Then you won’t mind if I keep this.”
“Whatever for?” he responded. “But of course you want a souvenir. Take it and welcome. But do exercise care. It’s extremely virulent, though not to us, of course, and if it ever accidentally spilled among the Ylokk―”
“I understand,” I reassured him. He was so pleased, I didn’t have the heart to let him guess I planned to double-cross him. “If you should need me again, Doctor, I’ll be at HQ,” I added as I turned to leave.
There were dead Ylokk in the street, and the only live ones we saw were running, away from―not after―gangs of armed citizens.
Back at HQ, I used the radio Barbro had found to call GHQ in Stockholm. I got a scared-sounding Lieutenant Sjolund, who told me things were getting out of hand.
“There are just too darn many of them, Colonel! Their casualties are heavy, but they keep on coming! Headquarters is under siege, and so is the Palace and the Riksdag and just about the whole inner city. I don’t know how long we can continue resistance. Baron von Richtofen is talking about a counter-attack on their home line, but we really haven’t got the trained troops to mount a cross-Net invasion, sir! I’m worried―Hold, sir―”
That was all. Either my radio had packed in, or―I didn’t like to think about the “or.” If I’d had another few seconds I could have told Sjolund about the vaccine, and how we could use it.
“Too bad, Colonel,” Helm agreed. “We have to do something, fast!”
“We will, Lieutenant,” I told him. I called Dr. Smovia in, and when he arrived asked him if he was really willing to go on a trip, to help break the near-stalemate.
He was enthusiastic. “But how can we leave here, now?” he wanted to know. “Even if we could get clear of town and through enemy lines, we’d have a long walk to Stockholm.”
“We won’t be walking,” I told him. “Please bring along a field kit you can use to make up more of the viral culture.”
“Whatever for?” he wondered aloud. He went off, talking to himself.
“What are we going to do, Colonel?” the lieutenant asked me. “You figuring on trying to bust out of here in one of those school buses you brought in, or what?”
“ ‘What,’ ” I told him. “Now, you’d better get on the PA, Helm, and call in all our section leaders.” As soon as I heard the crackle of the speakers, I went out into the hall to head for Barbro’s office and almost ran into her.
“Just the girl I was looking for,” I said, and embraced her warmly, amazed again that this fabulous creature was my wife.
“Why, thank you, Colonel,” she replied mockingly. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“Not quite,” I reassured her. “I’m going to make a little trip, Major, and you’ll be in charge here. I want you to fort up here in Headquarters, such as it is: we’ll have to do a little ditch-digging and rampart-building, and I want all able-bodied men not assigned to a perimeter position to report here and be prepared for assault.”
She looked surprised, an expression as enchanting as all her others.
“Don’t worry, they’re not on the verge of attacking,” I reassured her. “It’s just in case. I’m going into the city. I’ve got information Manfred needs, and we need reinforcement. A relatively small, but organized war party from town can take the besiegers on all flanks at once and that’ll be that.”
Chapter 6
As soon as my alien guest―oddly, I’d started thinking of him in those terms rather than as my prisoner―was feeling well enough to carry on a coherent conversation, I went in, leaving word with the tough old dame who was the head nurse on the floor that we were not to be disturbed, for anything.
He watched me worriedly with those undersized red eyes. “You, slave,” he said after a while. “I command you to return me to my displacer!”
“Wrong line, Rat-head,” I told him. “I’m the one who’s healthy and armed and at home. You’re the dying stranger. Now, who the hell are you people and what do you want here?”
“I,” he began impressively, “am Master General Graf [baron] Swft. I have the honor to command the Second Wave of the Noble Tide. Alas, I am sick. I, who was a champion of one million, I can barely lift my arm! Were it otherwise, I would not now be passively submitting to impudent interrogation! I must resume my command at once!” He made an abortive movement, as if to throw back the blanket, but instead slumped, gnashing those long, yellow incisors.