The Bladerunner by Alan E Nourse

Author:Alan E Nourse [Alan E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-6693-6
Publisher: Adams Media
Published: 2013-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

VI

The fact that he had been half-expecting it all day did not lessen the impact. Doc picked up the computer print-out tape, stared at it for a moment, and shook his head with a sigh. “As fast as that,” he said bitterly. “I was afraid of it. What about an autopsy?”

“The father refused permission. Lab did take a throat culture and blood studies, though, and a spinal tap. They supported the history — a viral meningitis. There were traces of Viricidin in his bloodstream, too; he’d been treated by somebody, probably just not soon enough.”

“And what about the rest of the family?” Doc asked.

“He was brought in by the father and a younger boy. They were obviously Naturists, and they refused examinations.”

Doc winced. “They’ll be back,” he said, “probably just like the boy. Katie, something’s going on here that’s very bad, and I don’t think you and your Health Control people here are even beginning to grasp it.”

“But we know there’s a bad infection on the move. We’re treating it, and I told you we’ve got the computers working on the epidemic problems.”

“You mean you’ve started off on a big, sprawling, time-consuming analytic study that’s going to take six weeks or more to complete, and I don’t think you’ve got six weeks. If what I suspect is true, this hospital and the whole damned city could be buried in bodies in six weeks.”

“What do you think is happening?”

Doc sighed. “I’m not sure, but I think you’ve got to find out in one whale of a rush. Look, I was the one that saw that Hardy boy last night in his home. Never mind what I was doing there, I saw him. He was already mortally ill, the full-blown picture of meningitis, but he’d only had those symptoms for forty-eight hours. Before that he’d been just mildly ill for about two weeks — with the Shanghai flu. Not even a bad case, just a mild sore throat, headache, muscle aches, and those symptoms were all getting better spontaneously. Then whammo! A wildfire meningitis, and he’s dead in the course of two days in spite of the treatment I started. Meanwhile, the father and the brother both have had Shanghai flu and have early meningitis symptoms right now, for which they’re refusing examination or treatment.”

Katie Durham stared at him in confusion. “But John, they’re Naturists. It’s perfectly consistent that they’d refuse treatment.”

“Especially for something mild, right? Like the Shanghai flu. Well, that’s exactly the point. Suppose this mild flu isn’t just a mild flu. Suppose the virus, once it gets well entrenched, can attack the spine and cause a deadly meningitis. But these people are bypassing early treatment because it just seems like a mild flu. Naturists or whatever, they’re trying to ‘ride it out,’ to use an old Health Control term. And while they ride it out, without knowing there’s a bomb waiting to go off later, they’re also infecting everybody they come in contact with — and by the time

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