Science is the creation of dilemmas in the attempt to solve mysteries.
— DR. MOHANDAS SUK,
speech to graduating class
At any other time, Raquella would have reacted much differently to meeting her grandfather, asking him a thousand questions, telling him about herself. Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides!
Her mother might have been more intrigued by his surprising revelation, but Helmina was dead now, just like Raquella’s own first husband. She had assumed her grandmother’s secret soldier was another casualty, unable to return. The Jihad had devastated so many lives and hopes.
She would rather have spent more time with Vor Atreides— would rather have done almost anything— but Raquella could not turn her back on all the people who needed her now. With the Omnius Scourge raging across Parmentier, she and Mohandas had too many people to save. They had a cure to find.
But thus far a cure had eluded them. They could treat the symptoms, hydrate the patients and keep the fever down, helping the largest number of victims to survive, but even so in such a massively infected population, that was not enough. Many, many people were dying.
Vor had promised to do what he could to help, to spread the news of their epidemic to other League Worlds. Even if he couldn’t get back in time to assist Parmentier, at least he could warn the other planets to be on their guard against the machines’ terrible new tactic. If it was in his power, Vor would keep his promise to her. Even though he had been gone only hours, she knew it.
The Hospital for Incurable Diseases. The name seemed unfortunately apt now. She didn’t know what she would do if Mohandas succumbed to the plague. Better, Raquella thought, that she contracted the disease first… Already, three of the twenty-two doctors gathered from around Niubbe had died of the Scourge, four were recovering but still incapacitated, and two more were showing the unmistakable first-stage signs of the virus. Soon she would be tending them, too.
Mohandas had studied the disease closely enough to draw some basic conclusions, though he hadn’t yet found any magic bullet. After the airborne virus entered the body via the mucus membranes and infected the liver, it produced large quantities of a protein that converted the body’s own hormones such as testosterone and cholesterol into a compound similar to an anabolic steroid. The liver could not effectively break down “Compound X” (Mohandas hadn’t had the energy to give it a more creative name), nor could it be removed from the bloodstream. Since natural hormones were depleted due to conversion into the deadly Compound X, the body then overproduced them, while the buildup of the poisonous compound caused striking mental and physical symptoms.
In the final stages of the disease, death took more than forty percent of all patients. In addition, liver failure was common and heart attacks and strokes caused by malignant hypertension often proved fatal. In a smaller number of cases, thyrotoxic crisis caused the body to simply shut down due to hormonal imbalances. By that point, the extreme fever had placed most victims into a deep coma that lasted several days before they stopped breathing. In a high percentage of virus sufferers, tendons easily ruptured, leading to many crippling injuries among the survivors….
Raquella tended to forty patients within the next hour. She no longer heard the moans or the paranoid muttering, nor saw the terror or pleas in their eyes, nor smelled the foul miasma of death and sickness. This facility had always been more of a hospice than a hospital. Some people took longer to die from the viral infection; some suffered more than others. Some were brave and some were cowards, but in the end it didn’t matter. Too many of them died.
Stepping into the corridor, Raquella saw Mohandas approach. She smiled at his warm, sweet face, seeing how haggard and weary he looked, with creases of fatigue etching his cheeks around the sealed breather. For weeks he had been doing triple duty, as a doctor, disease researcher, and interim hospital administrator. They had very little time to spend together just as two people whose deep love for each other had evolved into a comfortable, unbreakable bond. But after watching so much hopelessness and death, Raquella needed human comfort, if only for a few moments.
When they had both passed through decontamination sprays into a section of sterile rooms, Mohandas and Raquella could finally remove the breathers that prevented them from kissing. They held hands briefly, staring into each other’s eyes through the protective film, saying nothing. They had met and found love in the tragedy of the Hospital for Incurable Diseases, like a flower blossoming in the middle of a barren battlefield.
“I don’t know how much longer my energy can last,” Raquella said, her voice worn down, trailing off in melancholy. “But how can we stop, no matter how tired we get?” She leaned closer, and Mohandas took her into his arms.
“We save as many as we can. As for those we lose, you make what remains of their lives more pleasant,” he said. “I’ve watched you with the patients, the way their faces light up when they see you. You have a miraculous gift.”
Raquella smiled, but with difficulty. “It’s just so hard sometimes, listening to their desperate prayers. When we can’t save them, they call out to God, to Serena, to anyone who will listen.”
“I know. Dr. Arbar just died, in Ward Five. We knew it was imminent.” He had fallen into a coma two days earlier, the fever burning fiercely, his body unable to fight the virus or the toxins it produced.
She was unable to control the tears that suddenly streamed down her face. Dr. Hundri Arbar had risen from an impoverished background in Niubbe to get his medical degree so he could help people less fortunate than himself. A local hero, he insisted on living without drink or drugs, refusing even the spice melange that was so popular across the League. Lord Rikov Butler— who, along with his household, was now dead— had provided his own ample stocks of spice to the hospital, since he also refused to consume it in light of of his wife’s strict religious beliefs. Most of the doctors in the hospital took it daily to maintain their energy and stamina.
“One less doctor to help us. It makes you wonder if…” She broke off in midsentence as she thought again about the spice. “Wait a minute. I think I see a pattern.” Whenever she found extra supplies, Raquella administered spice to some of the patients in order to ease their physical pains for just a little while.
“What is it?”
“Not until I’m sure.” Raquella walked briskly down the corridor with him right behind, and entered a medical records room. Quickly she sorted through charts, scrambled to draw parallels. During the next hour, she feverishly went through file after file, each a separate sheet of circuit plaz with data, which she processed through a reading machine. The sheets piled up around her.
And the evidence became indisputable.
“Yes— yes!” Breathing hard, she looked triumphantly at Mohandas. “Melange is the common denominator! Look.” She led him through the records, patient after patient. Her words poured out in a rush. “For the most part, people are dying in the greatest numbers along class lines, which at first blush doesn’t make sense. Poor people catch the plague in much greater numbers than wealthy noble families or rich businessmen. That has never made sense to me, since nutrition and sanitary systems are fairly equal throughout the entire population.
“But if anyone who consumes spice has a greater ability to fight off exposure to the retrovirus, then people in the lower classes who can’t afford melange will die in larger numbers! Look, even those patients who receive spice after contracting the plague show a better history of recovery.”
Mohandas could not argue with the evidence. “And Dr. Arbar never took the stuff! Even though melange may not be a cure, it certainly appears to be a mitigant. It provides resistance.” He paced the lab floor, pondering deeply. “The spice molecule is exceedingly complex, a huge protein that VenKee has never synthesized or managed to break down. It’s quite possible that the molecule itself blocks the critical protein by which the virus converts normal hormones to Compound X. Essentially, if there’s a pocket on the enzyme ordinarily filled by cholesterol and testosterone and then transformed into Compound X, maybe melange is shaped closely enough to those hormones that it gets stuck in this pocket, deactivating the enzyme.”
Raquella felt herself flush. “Don’t forget that the first stages of infection include paranoia, mental delusions, and aggressiveness. The spice enhances thought processes— perhaps it also helps people fend off an initial infection.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Raquella, if you’re right, this is a huge breakthrough! We can treat entire populations that haven’t been exposed yet, immunizing them against the virus.”
“Right, but we need to move fast,” Raquella said. “And where will we get so much melange?”
Mohandas lowered his head. “It’s much more serious than that. Do you doubt that the Scourge has already hit other planets? The epidemic could be moving across the galaxy like a storm of locusts. We have to get the news out into the League at all costs.”
Raquella drew a quick breath. “My… Vorian Atreides— he can do it!”
She raced out of the records chamber to the hospital’s abandoned communications room. She had to send a signal to him before his vessel accelerated out of the system. As Supreme Commander of the Army of the Jihad, he could insist that the League dramatically increase spice distribution to any planet that might be a target of the Omnius plague.
To her relief, he acknowledged her transmission after a long signal delay. Without pausing, she told her full explanation, then waited for the transmission lag. Finally, he said, “Melange? If that’s true, we’re going to need a hell of a lot of it. You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Get the message out— and stay safe yourself.”
“You too,” he said. “VenKee headquarters on Kolhar is near my route back to Salusa. I can speak directly to the managers of the spice trade.” He added something else, but static interfered, and they lost contact.