"On Samarra. I came here when I was three years old--my father was in
Mapping and Exploring--" I stopped short, in shock. "He's dead!"
"Can you tell me your father's name?"
"Same as mine. Jay--Jason--" the flash of memory closed down in the
middle of a word. It had been a good try, but it hadn't quite worked.
The doctor said soothingly, "We're doing very well."
"You haven't told me anything," I accused. "Who are you? Why are you
asking me all these questions?"
He pointed to a sign on his desk. I scowled and spelled out the letters.
"Randall ... Forth ... Director ... Department ..." and Dr. Forth made a
note. I said aloud, "It is--_Doctor_ Forth, isn't it?"
"Don't you know?"
I looked down at myself, and shook my head. "Maybe _I'm_ Doctor Forth,"
I said, noticing for the first time that I was also wearing a white coat
with the caduceus emblem of Medical. But it had the wrong feel, as if I
were dressed in somebody else's clothes. _I_ was no doctor, was I? I
pushed back one sleeve slightly, exposing a long, triangular scar under
the cuff. Dr. Forth--by now I was sure _he_ was Dr. Forth--followed the
direction of my eyes.
"Where did you get the scar?"
"Knife fight. One of the bands of those-who-may-not-enter-cities caught
us on the slopes, and we--" the memory thinned out again, and I said
despairingly, "It's all confused! What's the matter? Why am I up on
Medical? Have I had an accident? Amnesia?"
"Not exactly. I'll explain."
I got up and walked to the window, unsteadily because my feet wanted to
walk slowly while I felt like bursting through some invisible net and
striding there at one bound. Once I got to the window the room stayed
put while I gulped down great breaths of warm sweetish air. I said, "I
could use a drink."
"Good idea. Though I don't usually recommend it." Forth reached into a
drawer for a flat bottle; poured tea-colored liquid into a throwaway
cup. After a minute he poured more for himself. "Here. And sit down,
man. You make me nervous, hovering like that."
I didn't sit down. I strode to the door and flung it open. Forth's voice
was low and unhurried.
"What's the matter? You can go out, if you want to, but won't you sit
down and talk to me for a minute? Anyway, where do you want to go?"
The question made me uncomfortable. I took a couple of long breaths and
came back into the room. Forth said, "Drink this," and I poured it down.
He refilled the cup unasked, and I swallowed that too and felt the hard
lump in my middle begin to loosen up and dissolve.
* * * * *
Forth said, "Claustrophobia too. Typical," and scribbled on the card
some more. I was getting tired of that performance. I turned on him to
tell him so, then suddenly felt amused--or maybe it was the liquor
working in me. He seemed such a funny little man, shutting himself up
inside an office like this and talking about claustrophobia and watching
me as if I were a big bug. I tossed the cup into a disposal.
"Isn't it about time for a few of those explanations?"
"If you think you can take it. How do you feel now?"
"Fine." I sat down on the couch again, leaning back and stretching out
my long legs comfortably. "What did you put in that drink?"
He chuckled. "Trade secret. Now; the easiest way to explain would be to
let you watch a film we made yesterday."
"To watch--" I stopped. "It's your time we're wasting."
He punched a button on the desk, spoke into a mouthpiece. "Surveillance?
Give us a monitor on--" he spoke a string of incomprehensible numbers,
while I lounged at ease on the couch. Forth waited for an answer, then
touched another button and steel louvers closed noiselessly over the
windows, blacking them out. I rose in sudden panic, then relaxed as the
room went dark. The darkness felt oddly more normal than the light, and
I leaned back and watched the flickers clear as one wall of the office
became a large visionscreen. Forth came and sat beside me on the leather
couch, but in the picture Forth was there, sitting at his desk, watching
another man, a stranger, walk into the office.
Like Forth, the newcomer wore a white coat with the caduceus emblems. I
disliked the man on sight. He was tall and lean and composed, with a
dour face set in thin lines. I guessed that he was somewhere in his
thirties. Dr.-Forth-in-the-film said, "Sit down, Doctor," and I drew a
long breath, overwhelmed by a curious, certain sensation.
_I have been here before. I have seen this happen before._
(And curiously formless I felt. I sat and watched, and I knew I was
watching, and sitting. But it was in that dreamlike fashion, where the
dreamer at once watches his visions and participates in them....)
* * * * *
"Sit down, Doctor," Forth said, "did you bring in the reports?"
Jay Allison carefully took the indicated seat, poised nervously on the
edge of the chair. He sat very straight, leaning forward only a little
to hand a thick folder of papers across the desk. Forth took it, but
didn't open it. "What do you think, Dr. Allison?"
"There is no possible room for doubt." Jay Allison spoke precisely, in a
rather high-pitched and emphatic tone. "It follows the statistical
pattern for all recorded attacks of 48-year fever ... by the way, sir,
haven't we any better name than that for this particular disease? The
term '48-year fever' connotes a fever of 48 years duration, rather than
a pandemic recurring every 48 years."
"A fever that lasted 48 years would be quite a fever," Dr. Forth said
with the shadow of a grim smile. "Nevertheless that's the only name we
have so far. Name it and you can have it. Allison's disease?"
Jay Allison greeted this pleasantry with a repressive frown. "As I
understand it, the disease cycle seems to be connected somehow with the
once-every-48-years conjunction of the four moons, which explains why
the Darkovans are so superstitious about it. The moons have remarkably
eccentric orbits--I don't know anything about that part, I'm quoting Dr.
Moore. If there's an animal vector to the disease, we've never
discovered it. The pattern runs like this; a few cases in the mountain
districts, the next month a hundred-odd cases all over this part of the
planet. Then it skips exactly three months without increase. The next
upswing puts the number of reported cases in the thousands, and three
months after _that_, it reaches real pandemic proportions and decimates
the entire human population of Darkover."
"That's about it," Forth admitted. They bent together over the folder,
Jay Allison drawing back slightly to avoid touching the other man.
Forth said, "We Terrans have had a Trade compact on Darkover for a
hundred and fifty-two years. The first outbreak of this 48-year fever
killed all but a dozen men out of three hundred. The Darkovans were
worse off than we were. The last outbreak wasn't quite so bad, but it
was bad enough, I've heard. It has an 87 per cent mortality--for humans,
that is. I understand the trailmen don't die of it."
"The Darkovans call it the trailmen's fever, Dr. Forth, because the
trailmen are virtually immune to it. It remains in their midst as a mild
ailment taken by children. When it breaks out into the virulent form
every 48 years, most of the trailmen are already immune. I took the
disease myself as a child--maybe you heard?"
Forth nodded. "You may be the only Terran ever to contract the disease
and survive."
"The trailmen incubate the disease," Jay Allison said. "I should think
the logical thing would be to drop a couple of hydrogen bombs on the
trail cities--and wipe it out for good and all."
(Sitting on the Sofa in Forth's dark office, I stiffened with such fury
that he shook my shoulder and muttered, "Easy, there, man!")
* * * * *
Dr. Forth, on the screen, looked annoyed, and Jay Allison said, with a
grimace of distaste, "I didn't mean that literally. But the trailmen are
not human. It wouldn't be genocide, just an exterminator's job. A public
health measure."
Forth looked shocked as he realized that the younger man meant what he
was saying. He said, "Galactic center would have to rule on whether
they're dumb animals or intelligent non-humans, and whether they're
entitled to the status of a civilization. All precedent on Darkover is
toward recognizing them as men--and good God, Jay, you'd probably be
called as a witness for the defense! How can you say they're not human
after your experience with them? Anyway, by the time their status was
finally decided, half of the recognizable humans on Darkover would be
dead. We need a better solution than that."
He pushed his chair back and looked out the window.
"I won't go into the political situation," he said, "you aren't
interested in Terran Empire politics, and I'm no expert either. But
you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that Darkover's been
playing the immovable object to the irresistible force. The Darkovans
are more advanced in some of the non-causative sciences than we are,
and until now, they wouldn't admit that Terra had a thing to contribute.
However--and this is the big however--they do know, and they're willing
to admit, that our medical sciences are better than theirs."
"Theirs being practically non-existent."
"Exactly--and this could be the first crack in the barrier. You may not
realize the significance of this, but the Legate received an offer from
the Hasturs themselves."