The Jupiter Plague

While Nita sealed the samples into the delivery capsule for the lab he took the telltale instruments that were waiting on the bedside table and he attached them one by one. The sphygmornanometer and thermometer were combined in a black instrument no larger than a poker chip. He fixed it to the unconscious man’s wrist with surgical glue and it began transmitting at once as the internal thermal switch turned on. It was self-powered and its microminiaturized transmitter broadcast to an aerial in the frame of the bed; Sam checked its operation on the inset monitor screen. Bad, very bad. Connecting the electrocardiograph and the electroencephalograph was more exacting, but he did it swiftly, then the pH and serum analyzer. All of the information, besides being displayed on the monitor screen, was appearing on the screen in the consultation room. Sam clasped his hands tightly, unconsciously, waiting for the report.

The call signal pinged and Dr. Gaspard’s face swam into focus on the telephone screen.

“No diagnosis yet. Dr. Bertolli,” he said, “other than our agreement that the disease appears to be completely unknown. There is one thing, the patient has been identified by the Space Commission as Commander Rand, Second Officer of the ‘Pericles.’ His medical history will be on your monitor screen in a moment, it’s just coming in from their record section.”

“Are there any suggestions for treatment?”

“Just supportive as you have been doing—”

He broke off as the alarm sounded from the monitor screen where a pulsing red light now glowed over the ECG reading.

“Fibrillation!” Gaspard said, but Sam had already torn open the cabinet drawer and removed the coronary stimulator. Weakened by disease and strain, Rand’s heart was running wild as the muscles contracted in uncontrolled spasms, no longer pumping blood but shuddering like a dying animal.

Once, twice the strong electrical current penetrated the convulsive heart muscles, stopping the uncontrolled tremors. Then, slowly, it began to beat again and Sam turned back to the instrument cabinet. Nita was already there, taking out the cardiac pacemaker.

“You’re sure to need this,” she said, and he nodded agreement. As he made the incision in Rand’s heaving chest to connect the terminals fibrillation began again. This time he made no attempt to restart the weakened heart by shocking it, but raced to make the connections to the pacemaker.

“Power on!” he said, looking at the waxy skin of the unconscious man. Behind him the life-giving machine hummed quietly, sending out the carefully spaced microcurrents that duplicated the nerve signals that were no longer reaching the damaged heart. It began to beat again, timed by the artificial stimulation, and blood once more surged out through Rand’s arteries.

This was the beginning of the end; from this point onward the spaceman’s life slipped away from him and he never regained consciousness. It was hours before he died — officially died — but it was clear all this time that there could be no hope for recovery. Only a miracle could have saved him and the watching physicians neither expected nor received this. Sam, with Nita assisting, labored with all the machines and drugs available to them, but it was useless. The antibiotics had no effect on whatever organism was causing the disease and it spread through the entire system with frightening speed. From the symptoms many — or indeed all— of the man’s organs seemed to be affected and renal failure and necrosis pushed him closer to that invisible border. Sam was not looking at the monitor screen so that he missed the moment and did not know it had arrived until Dr. Gaspard’s weary voice caught his attention.

“There is no longer a reading on the EEC, Doctor. Thank you, you and Dr. Mendel have done everything possible. I don’t think — it is clear now — that from the very beginning there was really very little that could have been done.”

The screen went blank. Sam slowly, one by one, turned off the battery of machines that had by heroic measures been producing a simulation of life, then stared down at the dead man. For long seconds he stood like this before he was aware of what he was doing, aware enough to force himself to think, to take the next steps. The patient was dead. Finis. Now to the living.

“There’s nothing more we can do here,” he said to Nita, holding her arm and drawing her away from the bed. She would not take her eyes from the dead man’s face until he pulled the sheet over it.

“Into the decon chamber, Doctor,” he said. “All of your clothes, everything including shoes and underclothing, go into the incineration hopper, then a complete scrub. The directions are on the wall if you haven’t done it before.”

She walked toward the door, slowly stripping off the gauntlet-length isolation gloves, then stopped.

“No, you’ve handled him the most — you should go before I…”

“I have some things to do first,” he said, urging her on. This time she did not protest.