Chapter 5

The last name on the list of those chosen to leave Natura and be taken by Outsiders to SatSix for treatment was Nehra Kittamm.  He didn’t appear to be suffering from the Sickness yet, but he was his people’s leader.  His assistant Feyhoth Jikko was also on the list.  Feyhoth had just begun to show the first symptoms of the illness.

They had been picked up by a specially constructed ship, which was designed to bring them aboard and keep them in a quarantined section so they couldn’t infect the crew.  The ship was built under the same principles as the new Med Complex on the top of the airless mountain range on SatSix.  One section for those infected, one section for those uninfected and one section for careful interaction between the two.  All three were sealed from one another by the latest technology.

Natura, or SatEleven, was a medium sized solitary moon of a large uninhabitable planet in the outer solar system.  It was a four-month journey from SatSix.  Kittamm told his people that all their needs would be taken care of, but to go on such a long journey without taking food, water and clothing was unthinkable to them.  They planned and packed madly.  Then they said goodbye to their family and friends they would be leaving behind.

Since they had no idea what to expect of Outsiders they were bewildered at the prospect of being at their mercy.  Of course, the deeper fear of dying from a strange and savage illness with no hope of recovery gave them some courage.

Seeing the Outsiders for the first time in their sealed contamination suits made of a foreign material gave them quite a fright.  Once on board, they were even more astonished to see, through the sealed, transparent chambers that the Outsiders looked physically exactly like themselves.  Though removed a hundred years, they all had common ancestry, so language wasn’t much of a problem.

And now Kittamm and some of his people were on their historic was in the ship to the Teric and Gorsh’s complex.

The project was historic for those on Natura for obvious reasons.  It was also historic to the rest of the solar system.  It was a chance to take positive action against an illness that was starting to spread through the solar system threatening everyone.  And more:  It was the rejoining to civilization of a group of people thought hopelessly lost to irrationality.

At least that was the way Kittamm had sold it to the diplomats of the government and companies that he had talked to and thereby convinced them to go forward with the project.
 
• • •
 
Teric had spent most of the previous three years on or flying between SatSix and SatSeven.  The later was where many of the Natura refugees were turning up.  They had hailed passing ships with their distress beacons and begged their way onboard.  There was an unwritten rule among space travelers, commercial, government, private, business and leisure:  always make an attempt to rescue people issuing a distress call.  It had been decades since any serious threat to civilized conduct among society members.  Even though the call came from the isolated world of SatEleven no one was really worried at first.  On the contrary, they were intrigued.  And there was no law outside Natura that prohibited people from traveling off world.

The refugees were escaping from some new form of genetic quasi-virus epidemic.  They called it the Sickness.  Despite the careful attempt at on board isolation, it didn’t take long before it was discovered that they were infecting the crews of these passing ships turned rescue vehicles.  It was also spreading to the inhabitants of the worlds they landed.  They had asked to be taken back to civilization, treated and cured.  They said they had learned the ‘mistakes of their ways’.

Though born on Natura (SatEleven) they claimed they never did share the Home World Bound beliefs of their parents, elders and leaders.  But because of these beliefs enforced as law on their planet they never had a chance to live or travel anywhere.  And because of the low regard of technology that their culture held they were now suffering, dying and trying to escape from the strange new illness.

The crews of the passing ships tested the escapees; but because the virus was new and different from any before, it was not detected until it was too late.  An epidemic started and spread.
In a short time several different companies with an interest in protecting their employees and investments throughout the solar system pooled resources and built a special Med Complex for quarantine and detoxification.  The site they chose to build was the highest mountain range of SatSix; the one that was taller than the atmosphere, as it was discovered that this virus couldn’t survive a vacuum.  So even if the complex was compromised there would be no immediate danger to anyone else on the planetoid.  Its sole purpose, for now, was housing people infected with this new illness to be studied, treated and, if possible, healed.  The companies wanted the best personnel to head the staff of the new facility.  They got Teric Jonsen and Gorsh Dakjium.