Blood Brothers by Vicky Seleya

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A short while later, Yale looked up from where he had been meditating next to Alonzo. "Julia... Alonzo said something 'smelled really bad'. Cameron encountered a Grendler while we were out searching for the children. Could that be a possible link? None of the rest of us have been near a Grendler in quite a while."

Julia heaved a sigh as she smoothed her hair in thought. "It could be..." She rested her palms on her thighs, rocking, as she studied the tutor. "Yes. As a matter of fact, we found a deceased Grendler in the tunnels, which exhibited signs of a viral disease. And, with his bonehealer activated, Cameron's immune system would be suppressed, which could allow for his possibly experiencing an accelerated development of this illness." Julia turned to her samples suddenly. "And I've been medicating the men with an antibiotic derivative of Grendler saliva. Great," she berated herself, as she double-checked some earlier tests. "Yale, is Alonzo awake?"

Yale regarded his patient closely. "No. He appears to be sound asleep. Would you like me to awaken him?" the tutor offered helpfully.

Not taking her eyes away from her microscope, Julia beckoned behind her. "No, let him sleep. Could you please come here for a moment?"

The cyborg looked up from the pilot and nodded, offering his seat to Denner as he rose. "What do you need, Julia?"

"First, I need Alonzo's flight records. I believe I need you to concentrate on the years 2130 to 2140. Did he ever travel to the Jovian mining facilities?"

Yale sat comfortably next to the doctor. "2130 to 2140 specifically?" At the doctor's nod, the cyborg's eyes grew distant as he scanned data in his mind's eye.

Julia attentively watched the tutor as his eyes flicked back and forth.

Yale knit his brows and puckered out his lower lip as he focused again on the doctor. "Three separate flights. One, arriving November 2130. One short hop, arriving back August 2133, and another, arriving January 2138." He raised his eyebrows as Julia nodded in comprehension.

"How long were the lay-overs?" she asked, as she turned back to her microscope.

"Not long, he was on contract with the same corporation. Longest lay-over lasted four days."

"What do you have, Julia?" Devon asked from Danziger's side.

Julia sighed. "I'm not totally sure, but the virus I isolated from Cameron is similar to a viral epidemic which swept those installations. It could be a mutation of the same bug. Alonzo's blood contains antibodies. He must have had it, but it should have been in his medical records."

"Couldn't he have had it without it being noticed?" Devon asked quietly.

Julia shrugged doubtfully as her gaze rested on the slumbering pilot. "Anything is possible, but this was a considerable viral epidemic. There was a 40% survival rate and many survivors were permanently disabled. Every time a sleepjumper disembarks, he's subjected to a very thorough physical. I can't imagine this getting past someone. Of course, it may not be this at all. It's just similar enough to provide him protection. Yale, search earlier for any illnesses or exposure to viruses. Maybe the antibodies are from a previous illness and provided him protection then, as well."

Yale nodded as his eyes drifted to the unseen data, his hands relaxed on his lap, his back straight. "This may take a while..." he said softly, as he concentrated on his task.

"Julia, you said Cameron had this virus. What about the others? I thought they all had the same thing," Devon inquired, as she paused to rinse her cloth.

Julia rose and quickly went from patient to patient, thoroughly scanning each one, then comparing her results. "I'm not sure what's happening yet, Devon." She paused with a frown at Cameron's bedside and carefully extracted a small blood sample. "With Cameron's illness so much less progressed, I may simply be seeing it before it has had a chance to interact for very long with his bloodstream."

"Devon, have you ever reviewed Alonzo's bio-stat?" Yale interrupted cryptically.

At the tutor's tone, Devon guardedly looked at him. "No. We talked so much the day I hired him, I only gave it a quick glance. Why?"

Still deep in thought, Yale thoughtfully licked his lips before he continued. "Because, it is incomplete. There are no records whatsoever before he entered flight school with an unexplained special dispensation."

"None?"

"Nothing." The cyborg shook his head definitely. "Also, his first 5 flights are all under contract with his sponsor..." Yale's gaze drifted pointedly from the sleeping pilot to meet Devon's eyes. "Maxwell Adair."

Mouthing the tutor's revelation, Devon stared at the motionless pilot in shock. "My father?"

"Your grandfather," Alonzo quietly corrected to everyone's surprise. "And his dad, too."

"Is that why you..."

"I could never refuse an Adair." Alonzo grinned lopsidedly in Devon's general direction.

"Alonzo, Yale couldn't access any of your medical records prior to flight school," Julia pressed. "Can you tell me about any childhood illnesses?"

Alonzo sighed sadly and laid his head back into the pillow. Staring bleakly into space, he reported, "Only thing I ever had was Friedlieb's meningitis. Just before my 16th birthday. Could that be it?"

"But, that's not possible. There was no treatment for it then. Very few people survived the initial outbreak and they were immediately placed in a quarantine colony." Julia protested.

Alonzo nodded. "I know. Believe me... But I had it. My mom died from it. At least, I think she did..." He unsuccessfully tried to wipe the memories from his face.

Buoyed, yet puzzled, by the new information, Julia urgently turned back to her research, her emotions awhirl as the immediate need to deal with the disease mingled with the urge to speak with Alonzo. With half an ear on the subdued conversation behind her, she doggedly concentrated on her work as Devon swapped patients with a discreet nod.

"Alonzo?" Devon leaned over the pilot, uncertain he was still awake.

The pilot opened his eyes to stare blindly past her.

Undaunted by his continued silence, Devon gently rested her hand on his arm. "Would you like to talk?" Shaking her head in disbelief, she asked, "How did you know my grandfather?"

"He was the one who found me. When I escaped the station before they destroyed it. If it weren't for him... ..I dunno..."

Devon shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand."

"You were on the Sostakas Station," Yale deduced, as he leaned over Devon's shoulder.

Alonzo closed his eyes and nodded as Devon's mouth fell open in recognition.

"Sostakas?"

"Yale, what is the Sostakas Station? I've never heard of it," Bess asked in the subdued silence.

Sitting back, the tutor looked carefully at the silent pilot as he explained, "The site of a major epidemic. The first of the Stations to experience anything of such a scale. Of those present at the time, 90% of the population were lost and 10% of the remainder either disabled or missing. Once all survivors were removed, the Station was destroyed in 2120 by propelling it into the sun."

"They didn't remove everyone, just some of the unaffected ones. Then, they just looted the station and left the rest of us to die," Alonzo accused bitterly. "And, they did their best to make sure no one got away to tell."

Devon shook her head. "I don't understand. How? How did you escape?"

"My family made most of their money during the Skylift. We were in the shipping business. Merchant Marine. Anything, any time, any way. I was the first of my family to get sick. By that time, there was hardly any health care available. The doctors on the Station were as sick as the rest of us and there weren't that many willing to come help. We each did what we could -- it was all we could do. I guess I was one of the lucky ones -- I got better. My mom got sick next. There was nothing my dad and I could do but keep her comfortable. When the Council decided to destroy the station, my dad wouldn't leave her. He couldn't. They were so in love -- even then. I didn't want to leave either, but he and Mom made me promise to try. We had an old Venus class ship still in our docks. Probably too small for the Council's interest, but fast, and it had a couple of cold-sleep capsules. We used to use the tubes to camouflage stuff we didn't want the Patrol scanners to notice."

"You smuggled contraband in cold sleep tubes?" Devon asked incredulously.

Yale nodded with a brief smile. "When they are in stasis, many objects are so inert as to be unrecognizable as anything but open space."

Alonzo smiled at the memory. "My dad taught me how to fly in that ship. We used to use it for intraorbit runs." He sobered. "Once the station left Earth orbit, my father helped me get past the security barriers to sneak onboard. As soon as I got his signal, I launched and steered ahead of the station through to clear space. I set a heading for a two year Terran rendezvous before going right into cold sleep. I never saw my parents again..."

Julia paused over Alonzo, then bent to roll up his sleeve. As she collected a blood sample, she softly surmised, "Your first cold sleep..." As Alonzo nodded, she applied some pressure to the needle site, waiting for it to clot. "Devon, would you keep an eye on this site for a few more minutes? I gave Alonzo some blood thinners so he might have some additional bleeding there." Julia bent low over Alonzo to whisper reassuringly, "We'll talk later..."

"OK." Alonzo sighed. "I must have set something wrong. It was an old boat even then, and I never froze a human before..."

"And, my grandfather?"

"About two years later, Max Adair was fresh out of officer's training when his patrol found my ship on its approach to Earth. We figured I was awake about 5 days when he decided to pop the hatch and take a look at what was causing those strange readings. If it weren't for him and his family taking an interest in me, I probably would have been 'disappeared' too. As it was, I was kept in quarantine for 8 months. By the time I was out, everything we had was gone."

"Why?"

Alonzo shrugged. "What wasn't destroyed with the Station went toward my hospitalization..."

"You were charged for your own imprisonment," Yale observed ironically.

"Yeah, something like that. But, Max made sure I got into flight school. We even got them to go Station Years on my application. Then his dad, Mr. Adair, gave me a job. I've flown for the Adairs as often as possible ever since..."

"That's it..." Julia looked up from her work with an excited smile. "The virus. Transspecies mutations!" Noting the blank expressions crossing the others' faces, Julia concentrated on the tutor. "This is a mutated strain of Friedlieb's meningitis."

"I didn't give it to them, did I?" Alonzo asked worriedly.

"No. It was already present in this area. I have no idea how it got here. The Grendlers must have contracted it from some penal colonists and, as it has continued to cross species lines, it has continued to mutate. There have certainly been localized outbreaks of Freidlieb's within the past century and I'm sure health screening was never a priority within the E2 Project. Alonzo, you can't transmit it, you simply have an immunity to it. But your immunity may help the others. I was just approaching it from the wrong direction. Certain antibodies in the blood I just drew from you, when combined with some compounds I've derived from Grendler saliva seem to counteract the virus!"

"Julia, when will you know for certain?" Bess asked urgently.

Julia shrugged as she measured out a dose and inserted it into her Derm-applicator. "No time like the present to try. I want to dose Cameron first, since he has the least amount to improve." She quickly scanned the colonist before injecting the new compound into her patient.

A short while later, Julia scanned Cameron once again as she had been doing since the injection. Yet, this time, her eyes lit up in triumph. "It's working. Let me prepare an injection for John and Morgan." She raced to her bench then to her two other patients, quickly administering the serum before stationing herself next to Alonzo to wait while their friends slowly recovered.

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