'Please.'
It's a pathetic sound, one that rouses as much anger in Kath as it does the pathos it's intended to inflict. The word comes out clear and true through the bulkhead as if the one who is saying it, Ravi, is standing right next to her. But he's not. He's behind a locked bulkhead door and all she can see of him through the smartglass sensor is the haunted, pleading expression on his face. His eyes are a touch red from some tiny capillaries coming to the surface and his skin is perhaps a little pale and has lost some of its lustre. Other than that, you'd have no idea he was infected.
'You know I can't,' Kath says, knowing it is a redundant statement, but not knowing what else to say. Of course Ravi knows she can't let him or the others back in. If he was in here and she was out there, he'd do the same. He perfectly understands the situation and the vital need for quarantine until they figure out what this thing is, but that's not why he's asking to be let in. That's the unconscious part of him taking over. The base instincts. He's afraid. His genes are telling him that getting in here will make him better. That it will end his nightmare. But it won't. His mind knows that if his body doesn't.
'Come on Kath, it's been weeks. We've had no symptoms. None whatsoever.'
And that's what worries her most. What kind of virus, dormant for hundreds, hell maybe thousands, of years, finds a host and inflicts no symptoms. No immune response - elevated temperatures, headaches, delirium. Nothing that might help it transition - coughs, sneezes, vomiting. The only reason they caught it initially was because of the automated blood scans in the airlock.
Now they're stuck in there while Kath has the whole ship to herself.
'It's not even in us anymore,' pleads Ravi.
Well, we can't see it anymore. The blood samples she makes them take show clean, normal blood. No sign of the symptomless virus that was there weeks ago. Which is strange. No record of it in their white cells either. As if it was never there. Or as if it never left.
No virus just disappears. They leave a wake. Something to show it was there.
She shuts off the panel. No need to hear him anymore. Through the smart glass, Kath sees Ravi pound the bulkhead in frustration.
They want back in. They want to head home. So does Kath. But this doesn't add up. What virus survives millennia in cold stasis aboard a derelict, just to be snuffed out without trace the moment it gets aboard a host?
She knows all the human reasons Ravi and the others what to be let back in. Unfamiliar surroundings, a sense of claustrophobia, a lack of control. But these people are scientists. Trained for years under the harshest scrutiny for the most extreme disasters. They know the procedures better than anyone. So why are they acting like spoilt children? Why are they so desperate to get into the ship? To get back to Kath? To get back to earth?
Kath gets the feeling she isn't talking to Ravi anymore.
Paddy Dobson
24th May 2022