“You think that a virus or a bacterium developing independently for a billion years on another planet with different amino-acids, different enzyme systems, a different scheme of metabolism altogether, is just going to happen to find Homo sapiens succulent like a lollipop. I tell you it is childishness.”
Novee, his physician’s soul badly pierced at having been lumped under the phrase, “you laymen,” was not disposed to let it go that easily. “ Homo sapiens brings its own germs with it wherever it goes, Rod. Who’s to say the virus of the common cold didn’t mutate under some planetary influence into something that was suddenly deadly. Or influenza. Things like that have happened even on Earth. The 2755 para-meas—”
“I know all about the 27.55 para-measles epidemic,” said Rodriguez, “and the 1918 influenza epidemic, and the Black Death, too. But when has it happened lately? Granted the settlement was a matter of a century and more ago; still that wasn’t exactly pre-atomic times, either. They included doctors. They had supplies of antibiotics and they knew the techniques of antibody induction. They’re simple enough. And there was the medical relief expedition, too.”
Novee patted his round abdomen and said, stubbornly, “The symptoms were those of a respiratory infection; dyspnea—”
“I know the list; but. I tell you it wasn’t a germ disease that got them. It couldn’t be.”
“What was it, then?”
“That’s outside my professional competence. Talking from inside, I tell you it wasn’t infection. Even mutant infection. It couldn’t be. It mathematically couldn’t be.” He leaned heavily on the adverb.
There was a stir among his listeners as Mark Annuncio shoved his thin body forward into the space immediately before Rodriguez.
For the first time, he spoke at one of these gatherings.
“Mathematically?” he asked, eagerly.