The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

helped himself to a mug of black coffee before
moving to one of the couches, reaching up to activate his headset before
sitting. “Did I miss anything?” He took a sip and then set the mug on the low
table with an appreciative sigh.
    “Not really,” Towers answered. “They were just about to tell
me whether there was any hope in the bottom of Pandora’s Box.”
    “It was a jar, actually,” Dwight corrected nervously, trying
to frame his thoughts.
    “What now?” Towers demanded.
    “Um, Erasmus got the translation wrong,” Dwight wanted
to squirm under the admiral’s stern gaze. “The uh, original Greek word was
‘pithos’ which means…”
    “Look, son,” Towers cut him off. “She could have been throwing
a damned flatware party for all I care. Skip the history lesson and just tell
us why the hell you’re here.”
    “Right, uhhh…” He clenched a fist, trying to force himself
to concentrate, to choose his words carefully. “OK, the disease, in a slightly
different form,” he said slowly, “actually gives immunity, once it fully
infects all of the body’s tissues.”
    Strauss was leaning forward to grab his cup, but stopped and
rested his elbow on his right knee as he looked over at Dwight. “Doctor, are
you saying that it’s like using an inert form of a disease to educate the
immune system?”
    “Almost,” Dwight was starting to relax as he realized he had
someone in the room who could understand what he was saying. Just be careful
how much you say. He didn’t think it would help anything for them to know
of the role he played in this plague. “In this case, it’s actually a live, but
modified, version of the disease.”
    “Why use a live version of the pathogen?” Strauss was
looking at Dwight as one might regard a seriously ill relative. “What possible
reason could you have?”
    “Two reasons,” Dwight answered. “The live version becomes an
organelle that produces, among other things, an antibody that recognizes an
antigen on the deadly version of the disease.”
    Strauss looked off into the middle distance as he absorbed
this. Finally he gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “OK, that’s pretty much
all you need, but what’s the second reason?”
    “My current life expectancy, now that I’ve had the shot, is
just over two thousand years.” He watched as the two officers frowned and then,
predictably, looked at each other.
    Strauss was the first to respond. “You mind explaining
that?”
    “The organelle’s main function is to maintain your genome,
to prevent deterioration of the chromosomes.” Dwight waved at Shelby, next to
him on the couch. “Captain Shelby here is much younger, so her genes were in
better condition than mine. She has over three thousand years on her clock.”
    “Shelby, is this true?” Towers still had a look of disbelief
on his face.
    “Yes, sir,” she answered. “Humans are only surviving this by
becoming what is essentially a new species. One that looks the same, but lives
for as long as seven thousand years.”
    “Like the Midgaard,” Towers said quietly.
    Strauss held up a finger, staring down at his mug for a
moment before looking over at Dwight. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He demanded. “Some
son of a bitch figured out why the Midgaard live so long and tried to adapt it
for Human use.”
    Dwight fought back a feeling of alarm. “That’s pretty much
it,” he said. “Now that it’s loose, we have no choice but to start
vaccinating.”
    “Why the reluctance?” Towers’ voice had a dangerous
undercurrent to it. “It sounds like this is viewed as a last resort. What’s the
hidden cost you aren’t telling us about?”
    “Roughly one in sixty of the patients mutate the retroviral
component of the vaccination and turn into plague victims,” Dwight
admitted. “And that means you can’t do this on a voluntary basis. Either
everybody gets the shot or we pack up and head home.”
    “And if we don’t inoculate the fleet, we can