"Ken Jenks - Vectors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jenks Ken)

I nodded, adding, "I haven't confirmed it, yet, but it looks pretty likely. What are your other symptoms?"

"I'm nauseous, I'm always thirsty, my sinuses are full, I have a headache, and I get dizzy if I move my head suddenly. Oh, and I've been perspiring quite a lot."

"That sounds like a cross between space sickness and cholera. What did Rogers tell you to do?"

"She told me to drink plenty of fluids, and to get lots of rest. She also said that if it gets worse, she'll have you start me on a zero-G I.V."

"I've been thinking about that," I said. "The normal adaptation to microgravity has a dehydrating effect anyway, and cholera would make it even worse. I'm not sure if we can keep enough fluid in you in microgravity."

Kathy looked stunned. "Dr. Rogers didn't say anything about that!"

I sighed. "No, I guess she wouldn't, until everything is confirmed in triplicate. But I'll bet everybody in Houston is trying to figure out what to do if you have to be evacuated."

"The hell with that!" Kathy stormed. "I'm nowhere near sick enough to abort this mission."

"Kathy, I'm just trying . . ."

"I don't care what you're trying! I'm not going to evacuate. I've worked my whole life for this, and I'm not giving it up for a little stomach flu! I'm going to Trent right away. Don't even think about going around me to your boyfriend. This is private medical business, and you're not my doctor!"

"But . . ." Kathy yanked herself away and flew quickly through the hab module, barely touching the worn yellow hand rails. I sighed in exasperation. Boyfriend, indeed.

The laboratory walk-through was a fiasco. From Houston, Dr. Rogers was the moderator, but she didn't intervene. The medical technologists in Houston argued, the flight surgeons argued, the people from the Centers for Disease Control argued. Because laboratory techniques in space were necessarily different from those on earth, I expected some of the dispute, but no two laboratory technicians seemed to agree what "good streaking technique" was, exactly, and the colors of the Gram stains and the colonies didn't look the same over the video link. There was some foul-up in Houston, trying to find the duplicate culture media from the same lot for verification. The time delay in the air-to-ground communication system made the interchange more difficult. They kept "stepping on" each other's voices. When all the technical issues were finally on the table, Dr. Rogers took control of the proceedings.

"Dr. Griffith," she called, "during your laboratory work, did you ever see an actual example of Vibrio cholerae from a patient?"

"No," I admitted, "but I did see several other Vibrio species, and I am confident in my technique."

"I'm sure you are, Dr. Griffith. I understand that you worked in the flight medicine laboratory here in Houston. In your laboratory work, would you characterize the patients whose specimens you examined to be relatively healthy or relatively unwell?"

I thought for a moment before I hit the push-to-talk switch. What was she driving at? "I'd say they were about the healthiest group of patients ever. They were astronauts and their dependents."

Dr. Rogers paused, longer than the communication delay warranted. "In the light of that, do you feel that we would be justified in taking emergency action on-board the spacecraft, with only your samples and your analysis to go on?"

I was spared from answering that question by the intervention of CAPCOM. "Calypso, Houston, we're about to lose you off the east satellite. We'll pick you up off the west in about nine minutes."

I acknowledged. After a grueling hour, I welcomed the mandatory break imposed by a gap in the satellite TV coverage. A spacecraft is never silent, but the hiatus was a quiet relief.

I took a few minutes to look in on Kathy. Although she had been forcing fluids, with salt tablets, her explosive diarrhea continued unchecked. She complained of being dizzy, nauseous, and very shaky.

I cornered Trent in the node. "Trent, Kathy's sick, too."

"I know," said Trent. "Houston just called."

I heard the exasperation in my own voice. "She's getting worse, and those jerks in Houston aren't helping a bit."

Trent nodded sympathetically. "While you were being raked over the medical coals, I talked to the Operations Director. Ops said we have three options. One, Kathy stays here on Calypso, and we try to ride this thing out. Two, we evacuate Kathy on a Soyuz, and thump her down within an hour. Or three, we re-dock with Atlantis and they put off the Newton deployment for another flight."

I bit my lip. "I'm not sure if she can take the G forces of a Soyuz entry profile."