Chapter 11

Kittamm reasoned that as long as he had Jehrac, his sister wouldn’t try anything too rash.  Perhaps if she didn’t have to consider her young brother she would simply destroy the complex and stop him right then and there.  He also knew that if he killed the staff by getting Jehrac to alter the environmental controls with the device he would never be able to convince any Outsiders to bring a ship to rescue him.  His plan was simple and straightforward:  get Teric to signal a transport ship, tell them everyone was cured and as proof of their ‘miraculous victory over the deadly illness’, fly him and his group to their Home World as public spokespersons.

The young boy had been easy to convince that Home World Bound ideas were sound.  Jehrac had gone most of the conceptual distance himself and only needed the gentle assuring reinforcement of an adult he revered to finalize his conviction.

When Jehrac had mentioned the security device to him in their meeting he had been careful not to outwardly show any sign of surprise.  But he had to admit to himself he had been shocked, if only for a moment.  Kittamm himself had never had any strong, well-formed convictions; he merely hated everyone and everything because of his strange condition.  Here, however, was a young boy who had the strong engine of a conviction in addition to an overwhelming hatred with which to fuel it.  Kittamm had built a lifetime’s work out of manipulating people.  He observed that other people seemed to think and feel strongly about things and figured out how to turn their desires toward his own purposes.  Because he had no idea how to form or hold a principled conviction he admired the boy.  Because he didn’t understand how a consciousness could grasp a principle so firmly he actually feared the boy.

Furthermore, he was surprised that Jehrac was so easily convinced that his plan to infect the unsuspecting Outsiders on their own Home World was the proper and just course of action.
 
• • •
 
Teric and her staff held an emergency meeting.

She was currently speaking to her Chief Engineer, “Track down every inch of shielding.  Get all the mobile force field units.  We need to stop the security device transmitting signal from reaching the control room units,” she handed a computer pad to the engineer.  “Here are the frequency stats that it operates on.  Scroll down to down to view any other info you might need on it.  Just find a way to make it useless.”

The engineer grabbed the pad and was up and running out the door.  The rest of the staff was pouring over technical information on the complex to come up with a plan.  Most of them were already in contamination suits.  Someone was supposed to be on the way with suits for the rest of them.

In the middle of a sentence Teric looked around the room and asked, “Where is Doctor Dakjium?  Has anyone seen him lately?”

Negative replies echoed around the room.

Finally everyone was suited up and continued to work on some way of regaining control of the complex.  Some of the staff was leaving the room to carry out their orders elsewhere.  A few remained seated with their pads, consulting and arguing with each other on various aspects of plans to escape their dire situation.

Everyone stopped momentarily when Gorsh, still unsuited, ran into the room.

Teric was at first relieved to see him, “Where the hell have you been?”  Then she noticed he was unsuited, “And why don’t you have a suit on yet?!”

He grinned and panted slightly from being short of breath, “Been … in the lab.  Don’t need … suit … look …” he threw a pad on the table in front of Teric and sat down in the first available chair.  As her staff members gathered around her to read the contents of the computer pad screen Gorsh pulled a small medical tube and a hypospray gun out of his lab coat pockets.  Having regained his breath he grinned and asked, “Who’s first?”

He had discovered Kittamm’s precious secret:  he was a carrier of the disease.  And more, through samples of Kittamm’s blood and tissue, he had figured out how to make an antidote and vaccination.  Watching Kittamm on the viewscreen and hearing Teric yell that Jehrac would be infected started him on a line of thought he hadn’t considered before.  Kittamm had even gloated that he would “carry out” his “righteous mission”.  He had gone to his lab and alone rechecked several tests results.  In a short time he had the answer in his mind and was speedily racing around the lab grabbing sample containers, knocking over equipment to get what he wanted and bringing his mental solution into a concrete form.

What Kittamm had not fully understood and used to destroy, Gorsh had finally understood and now used to defeat him.

Once everyone present was injected with the cure Teric made plans for the rest of the staff to be inoculated.  She picked up Gorsh’s pad again and pointed to a few figures on the screen.  She turned to him and asked, “Is this stat within tolerable error limits?”

He looked at, momentarily puzzled.  Slowly he began to grin, “Of course.  And, yes, that’s an excellent idea.”

She turned to her staff and said, “This is what we’re going to do.”