A Disease Can Also be a Plague

A Disease Can Also be a Plague

     Klung felt another cramp coming on as he wobbled down the corridor. His whole body was one big cramp, “What is happening to me? I can’t even move a step without feeling another cramp attacking me somewhere on my body.”

     The door at the end of that corridor looked like a million miles away to Klung. Klung also felt sluggish as he wobbled down that corridor. It took him another ten minute before he got to that door. He felt so sluggish Klung couldn’t announce he was outside. Klung tried to push the button next to the door. But he couldn’t do it.

     If someone hadn’t have come out of that door Klung might not have had the strength to enter that room. Once the door was open Klung forced himself to enter it. It wasn’t easy. But he did it.

     That room was HealthCare. There were fifty Exam Beds in there. And it looked like every one of them was being used at the moment. Klung not only started looking for a bed he started looking for Healer vain too. Her real name was Chilvia. And she hated it when someone called her Healer vain. But everyone called her Healer vain because she was so vain. Chilvia thought she was better than anyone else.

     Most of the time that might had been true. But not this time. A disease of some kind had gotten on that spaceship somehow. And half the crew have got whatever that disease was. So far there hadn’t been any deaths. But there are several that are very close to death.

     Chilvia had been working on first finding out what type of disease that it was. And then finding a cure for it. She had been trying to figure it out ever since it began. That was three months ago. Chilvia had been working day and night on this problem. But so far all she had found out was that there would be death if she didn’t find a cure - fast.

     Klung didn’t find a bed. But he did find Chilvia. She was too busy to talk to him right now. Chilvia had a room full of sick people. And here was even more in the Death Room.

     “The Death Room? Does that mean we have had some deaths?”

     “Not - yet,” said Chilvia. “There are so many of them dying now there’s no room for them. The Death Room is the closest room for them to be. And still be close enough for me to help them – if I get the chance to help them.”

     “I might be able to help you there,” Klung said. “We think we know where the disease came from.”

     “That’s great. If I know what kind of a disease it is then I can probably find a cure for it. Where did this disease originate from?”

     “Remember the planet we stopped at to get supplies a couple of planets back,” said Klung. The he added, “The one with all the smooth corridors. And the corridors that branch out in all directions.”

     “I remember those smooth corridors that branch out,” said Chilvia. “Is that were the disease came from?”

     “We don’t know for sure where it is there,” Klung said. “But we are sure it is there somewhere. Hopefully the cure is there too.”

     “There’s only one way to find out. We have to go back there – as fast as we can,” said Chilvia.

     Before Klung could reply to that he got another cramp. This one was a smooth feeling. And it seemed to branch out in all directions. The smooth feeling helped a lot with the pain. But when it started to branch out the pain returned.

     Klung tried to get up. But he felt sluggish again. He felt even more sluggish than he did in the corridor. With a lot of help from Chilvia he got back into bed. “When did he get a bed?” thought Klung. Then to Chilvia he added, “I don’t think I am going to make it back to the planet of Deemion.”

     “How long is it going to take us to get back to Deemion? The faster we get there the better,” said Chilvia.

     “We are on our way back there right now,” replied Klung. “But it’s going to take us about with four weeks to get there at top speed.”

     “Four weeks,” Chilvia said with a shocked look on her face. “I don’t think any one of us are going to be alive by the time we get to Deemion.”

*******

     It was exactly four weeks when they got back to Deemion. And Chilvia was right. There was no one still alive when they got there. The Deemions could see that when they appeared on the Main Monitor in Control Central to welcome the new arrivals – and saw now one was there.

     “That spaceship has been here before,” said one of the Deemions. “Another ship full have been eliminated.”

     “It doesn’t look like they infected any more of their people with our plague. They weren’t gone long enough to do that,” said another Deemion.

     “Exactly how many where there on that spaceship – five thousand at the most,” said the third Deemion of the welcoming committee. “How are we supposed to conquer the Universe one spaceship at a time?”

The End?