Baldur III
“Get me some more plasma substitute!” McCoy barked. “On the double!”
A local nurse threw up his hands. “We’re all out of the right type, Doctor.”
“Damn it.” McCoy stepped away from the operating table where he had just finished reattaching an arm that had been all but severed during some sort of grisly mining accident. The surgical support frame mounted over the bed hummed as it generated a sterile field; it was an older model that McCoy hadn’t seen in years, but seemed to be holding up for the time being, thank goodness. The operation was a success in that the victim—an underage Bolian—was likely to keep her arm, but she had lost a lot of blood while being rushed to Jackpot City from a mining camp in the mountains. McCoy put a protoplaser down on a cluttered counter and flipped open his communicator. A dedicated channel, previously set up by Uhura, immediately connected him to sickbay and Nurse Christine Chapel.
“That’s right,” he told her. “I need you to beam down more artificial plasma, type H-slash-three. Get me at least forty liters, even if you have to break into our emergency reserves . . . again.”
“Message received, Doctor,” Chapel replied. “I’ll see to it immediately.”
“Good. At this rate, I may need you to set up an old-fashioned blood drive on the Enterprise to replenish our stores.”
“Whatever you need, Doctor. Are you sure you can’t use me down on the planet?”
“Could I ever,” McCoy replied, “but with M’Benga off with Sulu and his troops, I need you minding the store in sickbay.”
“You can count on me, Doctor.”
“Never doubted it for a moment. McCoy out.”
He put away the communicator and turned to the waiting nurse, whose name was Sinclair.
“More plasma should be arriving at the beam-down site shortly. Make sure this woman gets at least a pint as soon as possible.” The surgical frame monitored the patient’s blood pressure and circulation, but McCoy checked her pulse the old-fashioned way just because. It was weaker than he would have liked, but steady enough that he judged that she could go a little while longer without a fresh infusion of sera. He took out a hypospray and administered nine cc’s of benjisidrine to stabilize her in the meantime, noting with concern that even his personal medkit was running low and needed to be restocked.
“That’s that . . . for now.”
He turned off the surgical frame to save power, as well as to extend the outmoded mechanism’s life-span, then wiped his brow with a swab. He had been on his feet for longer than he wanted to think about, volunteering at the town’s only medical facility, and he was starting to feel short of breath to boot. He was overdue for a tri-ox injection, but felt obliged to try to ration the valuable compound, especially after hearing about how relatively difficult it was to come by on Baldur III. Leaning against the nearest convenient wall, he wearily contemplated his surroundings.
Jackpot City’s “hospital” scarcely warranted the name, being more of a clinic, in reality. It was only slightly larger than McCoy’s sickbay back on the Enterprise and nowhere near as well equipped or supplied. In some wards, cots and even mattresses on the floor supplemented a newly inadequate supply of beds. Temporary structures erected behind the modest brick building served as both a triage center and spillover areas. McCoy had barely begun his inspection of the facilities, hours ago, when a collapsed mine had flooded the hospital with a slew of new patients, urgently requiring varying degrees of care. McCoy had rolled up his sleeves to help deal with the crisis and hadn’t stopped working since.
“Who’s next?” he asked Sinclair.
“I think we’re caught up for the moment, Doctor.”
“Thank heavens for that. And Doctor Burstein?” McCoy asked, referring to the town’s regular physician.
“Doing his rounds, I believe. Shall I page him?”
“No bother. I can find him on my own. Just keep an eye out for those fresh supplies from the Enterprise.”
Sinclair nodded. “Will do.”
McCoy departed the surgical ward, hoping to finally get a chance to discuss the colony’s medical situation with Burstein before another emergency demanded his services. Given the modest size of the clinic, McCoy quickly located Burstein in the main recovery ward, which was filled beyond capacity. Wayne Burstein was making his way from bed to bed, checking on his patients. He looked up at McCoy’s approach.
“Doctor McCoy,” Burstein greeted him. The boyish young physician looked as though he was fresh out of med school, making McCoy feel even older than he actually was. A mop of unruly black hair and a bad case of five-o’clock shadow hinted at a long shift, with little time for personal grooming. Burstein’s smooth, youthful features betrayed signs of fatigue as he paused in his rounds. “How did that last surgery go?”
“Well enough,” McCoy said. “We saved the arm, barring any unexpected complications.” He held out an open hand. “Barely had a chance to introduce myself before they started carting in the broken bodies.”
“Good thing you were on hand.” Burstein tucked a data slate under his arm before shaking McCoy’s hand. “I really appreciate you pitching in. That was a zoo even by recent standards, although I wish I could say it was all that unusual.”
“You get a lot of accidents these days?”
“More than I’d like,” Burstein said. “Problem is, pergium mining is new to these parts, so you’ve got a lot of eager would-be miners who don’t really know what they’re doing, and the same applies to many of the newcomers flocking to Baldur III in hopes of striking it rich. They’re learning on the job, taking shortcuts, rushing things, which is a perfect recipe for accidents and injuries. Throw in overwork, dehydration, poor living conditions, and new and exotic germs from all over the quadrant, and the recipe just gets more toxic. You’ve got to understand, this wasn’t a mining planet before a few months ago. When I was growing up here, the major industries were logging and homesteading.” He cocked his head toward a bandaged patient lying in a bed. “Cecil here was the town barber before he took it into his head to go digging for pergium.”
“So?” the patient replied. “I’m supposed to keep sweeping up hair clippings while other folks are out there making a fortune?” He shook his head, then winced at the motion. “Not a chance, sonny. Soon as I’m back on my feet, I’m heading back out to my claim.”
“How about you just take it easy for now?” Burstein said. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Says the kid I gave his first haircut,” Cecil said. “And who could use a trim and a shave, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Whose fault is that?” Burstein turned to McCoy. “See what I mean?”
McCoy nodded. He knew all about stubborn patients. He’d treated James T. Kirk.
“So you’re from around here, I take it?”
“Born and raised,” Burstein said. “Left to study medicine on Earth, with a residency on Mars, before coming home just in time for the ‘gold rush’ to turn everything upside down. So much for my plans to become a simple colony doctor.” He shook his head. “There was a brief time when I knew all my patients’ names by heart, but with new people arriving every day, it’s a struggle just to keep track of what planets they’re all from.”
“How are you coping?” McCoy asked.
“Not going to lie.” Burstein continued on his rounds while McCoy tagged along. “It hasn’t been easy. Besides the increased workload, a more diverse population means we need a wider variety of resources when it comes to treating everyone from Aurelians to Zellorites.”
An injured Hydrathi recovering on the next bed, receiving a transfusion of eggplant-colored fluids, demonstrated his point. As McCoy well knew, the Hydratha were severely allergic to several standard medications and so required versions specifically tailored to their body chemistries. He couldn’t imagine that Baldur III had required much in the way of species-specific pharmaceuticals prior to recently.
“Any chance of expanding your facilities,” McCoy asked, “what with the booming economy and all?”
“Eventually.” Burstein paused to compare the Hydrathi’s vitals to the data recorded on his slate. “I’ve put out feelers to various medical associations and academies in hopes of attracting qualified professionals to Baldur III, which may pay off in time, but at the moment we’re in an awkward, if not positively dangerous, period of transition. The population is burgeoning, but the infrastructure to support it isn’t there yet, since the vast majority of the new arrivals are prospectors, not doctors or nurses. Heck, I’ve even lost a couple of my own orderlies to the mines.”
They moved on to another patient, who occupied a cot squeezed in between two genuine biobeds. Pillows propped her up into a seated position as she sipped on a mug of some steaming beverage. Burstein consulted his slate as he briefed McCoy on the particulars of her case.
“Did I mention that our thin atmosphere doesn’t help when it comes to treating our newest residents? Take Yelsa here. She fainted while working her claim the other day, nearly fell off a ravine up in the hills outside the city. I’m holding her overnight for observation until I’m confident that she won’t collapse again.” Since her cot lacked a proper diagnostic monitor, Burstein scanned her with a medical tricorder instead and downloaded the results to his slate. “How you feeling, Yelsa?”
“Much better, Doctor,” she wheezed. A pronounced Meraki accent indicated that she was indeed new to the planet. She gripped the mug with both hands. “This tea you prescribed is really helping. I’m not feeling nearly so light-headed anymore.”
Tea? McCoy arched an eyebrow.
“Glad to hear it,” Burstein said. “You drink every drop, and I’ll be back to check on you later if I can.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
McCoy held his tongue until they were safely out of earshot of Yelsa and the other patients. He kept his voice low. “About that tea . . .”
“Yes, McCoy, it’s nabbia.” Burstein lifted his gaze from his slate. “I know what you’re thinking, but before you judge me, consider the circumstances. This isn’t Earth or Alpha Centauri. Tri-ox compounds and other such palliatives are in short supply and need to be shipped in from the other side of the Maelstrom. In the meantime, I’ve got more and more patients like Yelsa in need of relief, which the tea provides.” He looked McCoy in the eyes. “I ask you, Doctor, what would you do?”
McCoy didn’t have a good answer for that.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But you do know where the nabbia comes from, right, and what’s at stake there?”
“Of course, and I choose to look the other way for the sake of my patients.” Burstein faced McCoy unapologetically. “The question is, McCoy, are you willing to do the same, now that you’ve had a chance to see what I’m dealing with?”
McCoy had to think about that. In the long term, of course, the Yurnians needed to be allowed to make their own future, without risk of outside influences or contamination, which meant shutting down the black-market trade in nabbia, but he could hardly blame Burstein for treating his patients to the best of his abilities, using whatever limited resources were available to him. McCoy had heard Yelsa’s lungs whistle when she spoke; if the bootleg tea made it easier for her to breathe, and there were no better options available, why let her suffer as a matter of principle?
“I’m not judging you,” McCoy said. “Hell, if I was in your place, I might quietly prescribe a little tea myself. I’m not going to report you, if that’s what you’re worried about, or insist you turn over whatever secret store of nabbia you’ve got stashed away. That tea’s already been smuggled over from Yurnos, so you might as well put it to good use. But you should know that the tea trade’s days are numbered, at least if my captain has anything to say about it, so you probably shouldn’t plan on—”
The lights dimmed overhead, distracting McCoy. Patients and orderlies blurted out exclamations. Diagnostic monitors reset themselves. Burstein swore under his breath before muttering in annoyance.
“Not again.” He glared at the lights as though trying to power them up through sheer force of will. “As if we don’t already have enough tsuris to cope with . . .”
McCoy was disturbed to see that the periodic brownouts extended to the hospital as well. Suppose the clinic had lost power entirely while he was reattaching that one patient’s arm? In theory, the surgical support frame could run on battery power as a backup, but considering how old and outdated that particular unit was, McCoy had to wonder just how well its batteries were holding up. He guessed that the hospital’s backup generators, if they had any, were also probably insufficient to the increasing demands on them.
Everything on this planet seems to be running on fumes, he thought. Including its healers.
The lights returned to full strength, but some worrisome flickers mitigated McCoy’s relief. He regarded the lights with a certain lack of confidence. For all he knew, the next brownout could be only minutes away.
“That’s better,” Burstein said, “until the next outage. A planet full of pergium, and we can’t even keep the lights on with any reliability.” He looked at McCoy. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a spare power plant tucked away in your medkit?”
“No,” McCoy said. “But for what it’s worth, I’ve got an associate looking into the problem . . . and he’s something of a miracle worker.”
“I’m telling ye, Captain, we need to shut this down.”
Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott was not happy, as evidenced by the way his Aberdeen accent grew more pronounced as he addressed Kirk and Mayor Poho at Jackpot City’s new power plant, which just happened to be a mothballed starship that had been repurposed to provide energy to the rapidly expanding boomtown. Scott had urgently requested the meeting in the grounded ship’s old engine room, where a bare-bones matter-antimatter assembly was now yoked to the city’s laboring EPS relays. A crew of local technicians operated the control consoles while the reactor itself could be seen through a clear EM shield grating. The assembly chugged in the background, a bit more roughly than the comforting hum of the Enterprise’s own engineering room. It was less of a purr than a gargle.
“Shut it down?” Kirk didn’t like the sound of that and, judging from her expression, neither did the mayor. He felt another headache coming on, both figuratively and literally, despite the fact that the ship’s old life-support system provided more Earthlike air quality than was found elsewhere on Baldur III. “Explain yourself, Mister Scott.”
“Honestly, Captain, I hardly know where to begin. This entire jury-rigged setup breaks practically every reasonable safety precaution I know of, not to mention most principles of sound engineering.” He looked regretfully at Poho, acknowledging her presence. “If you’ll pardon me for saying so, Mayor.”
“Go ahead, Mister Scott.” Poho crossed her arms atop her chest. “Speak your mind.”
She and Kirk had beamed down directly from the Enterprise, where they had been coordinating their joint efforts to manage the unprecedented rush on the planet, but Kirk was aware that the converted vessel occupied a park near the center of the city, not far from Town Hall, actually. He remembered noticing it on maps and schematics of the evolving community. According to Poho, it commemorated the colonists’ original landing site and was therefore off-limits to the new construction rising up all around the park.
“Well, for one thing,” Scott said, “this ship’s . . . power plant . . . whatever you want to call it . . . is practically a museum piece.”
“No surprise there, Mister Scott,” Poho said. “Up until a few months ago, it was a museum. Thunderbird is the ship that carried the first party of settlers to this world generations ago. In those rough early years, when the colony was just getting off the ground, it provided both shelter and energy to the original pioneers.”
Kirk nodded. “Not an uncommon practice on frontier worlds, even today.”
“Eventually, Thunderbird was retired from active service, preserved as nothing but a historical exhibition, until the current power crunch forced us to fire it up again just to keep the lights on. Our technicians worked around the clock to adapt the old engines to our present needs. Figured the reactor that once propelled us across the galaxy could now power Jackpot City’s bigger and bolder future.”
Scotty appeared unimpressed by the history lesson.
“That’s all very well and good, ma’am, but, in my professional estimation, you’re taking a major risk here. It’s not just that the hardware is old and past its prime, you’re putting it to a use it was never designed for and, frankly, doing so in a rather hasty and slapdash manner.”
Poho bristled at the accusation. “The situation here was and remains urgent. We didn’t have time to waste on any extended planning and review process. We needed to get the job done, and we needed to get it done yesterday.”
Kirk sympathized. He had occasionally been known to order Scotty to throw out the rule book in the interests of saving the ship in a timely fashion. The dour engineer often protested pushing his precious engines too far, but usually managed to make it work anyway, despite some grumbling. Could he do the same here?
“But you’ve cut too many corners,” Scott said. “Just taking a quick tour of the premises, I spotted more serious safety violations than I have fingers to count them on, and a troubling lack of backup systems to boot. Put bluntly, none of this . . . farrago . . . is up to code.”
“Is there anything we can do about that?” Kirk asked. “Can you and your people address the most dangerous of these violations?”
“We can try, Captain, but we’d just be adding lifeboats and a fresh coat of paint to the Titanic, if ye take me meaning. It wouldn’t change the fact that this entire operation is a catastrophe waiting to happen.” His dour tone and expression conveyed the gravity of his reservations. “And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, sir, that a potential matter-antimatter mishap is nothing to take lightly.”
“Neither are the pressing needs of this community,” Poho said. “We’re on a razor’s edge here, what with the frequent outages and brownouts. Even with Thunderbird picking up much of the load these days, we’re barely holding on by our fingertips. You have no idea how much pressure I’m under regarding these power glitches. My constituents are demanding results, so the last thing I want to do is lose ground on that front.”
“Better to disappoint your citizens than blow them up,” Scott said. “At the very least, I strongly recommend shutting down this power station until the proper backups and emergency-control systems can be installed.”
“And what do you suggest we do in the meantime, Mister Scott?” Poho dug in her heels. “We’re not just talking about frivolous creature comforts and conveniences. We need Thunderbird’s output for basic communications, transportation, security, sanitation, and other fundamental services, including the police department, the fire department, the hospital . . .”
She has a point, Kirk conceded. McCoy had already reported on the strained conditions at the city hospital, including the sporadic energy issues. Nevertheless, Scotty’s objections seemed to go beyond his usual grumbling whenever vital machinery was not being treated with the proper respect. Kirk gathered that Scott had good reason to be worried by what he had discovered here.
“I understand your concerns, Mayor, but Mister Scott is one of the finest engineers in Starfleet. If he says this setup is unsafe, we should listen to him.”
“Unsafe by Starfleet standards, maybe,” Poho said. “But here on Baldur III, we don’t have the luxury of doing everything by the book. We’ve learned to improvise and get by with whatever’s available.”
“Improvisation is one thing,” Kirk argued. “Inviting disaster is another.”
She remained unconvinced. “You want to talk safety? Disasters? Worst-case scenarios? Emotions are already running high in these parts, as you’ve seen for yourself. Particularly between the newcomers and the old-timers. You want this city to come apart in a major blackout? We could be talking riots, looting—”
“Losing an election?” Scotty said archly.
“Belay that kind of talk, Mister Scott,” Kirk chided him. “We’re guests here.”
Poho’s voice took on a frostier tone. “Thank you for remembering that, Captain.”
“You’ll have to forgive Mister Scott,” Kirk said. “He’s an engineer, not a diplomat, and he’s not one to mince words when he sees something out of order, which is probably why the Enterprise is still in one piece.”
“Well, I did ask him to speak his mind,” Poho recalled. “Don’t get me wrong, Captain. I’m not questioning Mister Scott’s expertise. I’m sure this operation is far from ideal, by his exacting criteria. But I have to weigh the risks in light of the bigger picture, and I’m putting my foot down. Thunderbird is staying on for as long as it takes to get some new-and-improved power plants up and running.”
“With all due respect, then,” Scott said, “you are doing so against my strong recommendation. On the record.”
Kirk could tell the mayor’s mind was set, but felt compelled to press the point anyway. “There’s nothing we can say to change your decision?”
“I’m afraid not, Captain. Shutting down Thunderbird is off the table, I’m sorry.”
Kirk understood where she was coming from, but feared she was making a big mistake. His hands were tied, however. He couldn’t simply pull rank and trust his own instincts, which were to follow Scotty’s advice, but he couldn’t in good conscience walk away from a potential disaster either. To his frustration, he could only do what he could.
“You heard the mayor, Mister Scott. Do whatever it takes to make this power plant as safe as you can manage. Bring down as many of your people from the Enterprise as you need. Hold this place together with spit and glue if you have to. Do you read me?”
“Aye, sir,” Scott said. “I’ll do my best.”
Now that the matter was settled to her satisfaction, Poho unfolded her arms and adopted a more conciliatory tone.
“This is my call, Kirk, Mister Scott,” she assured them. “Anything goes wrong, it’s on my head, not yours.”
Kirk found that small comfort.