HALLUCINATIONS

   "Lieutenant, what do our sensors report?"
   April responded, "Commodore, the temperature currently ranges from 25 to 35 degrees, depending on whether it's the sunny or dark side of the planet. Atmosphere is 95% of Earth density. Good mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, with some carbon dioxide, possibly indicating organic life. There seems to have been some recent seismic activity. Surface water covers much of the planet. There are no radio waves or other indications of intelligent life."
   "Too bad about that, but otherwise, it sounds like we can give it a whirl. I'm sure the crew would like to take a little working vacation down there. Even though we came through the Wormhole without incident this time, we've spent a good two years without leaving Constellation. Does my bridge staff agree?"
   Hearing only cries of joy, Christina had Kwali notify the crew of the decision that had been made. The Kolok were almost beside themselves in anticipation of setting foot for the first time on a planet in a distant part of the galaxy. The plan, as usual, was to rotate personnel on the planet for initial stays of two days, until everyone had had an opportunity to have a brief holiday. Then, leaving only a skeleton crew of 50 on board, most of the almost 500 people traveling on Constellation (473 humans and 25 Kolok) would begin to explore the new planet. The standard procedure called for a preliminary survey that might take three months to complete; at the commanding officer's discretion, a longer stay would be permissible if the planet seemed like a good candidate for possible future colonization.

Captain's Log, 6 March 2860

   I touched down on this planet, which we've named Stepladder, with a party of 50 (45 humans, 5 Kolok). Stepladder, or at least the coastal portion of the continent we are on and the ocean, has a rich plant life both in the water and on the ground. There is a kind of kelp in the water, which is not as saline as Earth oceans, but no other life forms that we could see without a microscope. On land there are moss and lichens. Again, we could not discern non-microscopic animal life. We will send unmanned surface and submarine craft out to do a preliminary search of the nearby ocean, and have already launched two robot aircraft, one to survey the continent we are on, the other to examine the planet as a whole.
   The personnel are very happy to be able to walk around on this planet. The air is breathable, the temperature quite acceptable both to us and to our Kolok guests. We have located several sources of potable fresh water that has passed all the standard tests for purity.
   Once all the Constellation crew and passengers have had two or three days of relatively free time on the surface, we will begin our formal exploration of the planet. By that time, the unmanned sea and aircraft should have given us an idea of the most interesting places to investigate. It might be that other parts of the planet are more–or less–developed than our bivouac area.

Captain's Log, 6 April 2860

   We have begun our investigations on the north shore of a large continent in the southern hemisphere, just about a thousand kilometers from the equator. At first glance, this area looks similar to our original site. We have yet to find evidence of even primitive animal life, such as trilobites or sea-worms.
   Exploration parties have been established. Lieutenant Han Lee, assisted by Dr. Tsepa Dub, is leading the geological party. Lieutenant Commander Strother Pulver, assisted by Dr. Siol Saats, is leading the biological party. Ensign Amadou Mgamba is in charge of Security. I am leading the surveying party, accompanied by Dr. Ecnelav Enohr. The leaders of these parties will file reports, as required by ordinary operating procedures.

Captain's Log, 20 April 2860

   Today I aborted our mission on Stepladder for two reasons, of which the less important is that the state of development of this planet is a good three billion years from reaching the current state of Earth in terms of evolutionary development. We spent a week trying to discover the source of the unusually high levels of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, since it is clear that the relatively sparse microbial life forms are not capable of producing these elements. We had to abandon our search when we all returned in some haste to Constellation. This leads me to the second reason for aborting the mission.
   At first, early in the morning three days ago, a half dozen members of the surveying team came down, unexpectedly, with high fevers; we teleported them up to Constellation's sick bay, putting them in the care of the Chief Medical Officer, Commander Mujama. By noon, another twenty or so people had become ill. I checked with the other expeditions, which reported similar findings. Their ill personnel were also teleported to Constellation.
   I called a temporary halt to the expeditions, ordering the groups to meet at the point at which we had gone our separate ways. The leaders were instructed to teleport to Constellation anybody who became ill, pending our meeting, which took place yesterday evening. I was alarmed at what I learned: each expedition had been obliged to send about 25% of its personnel back to Constellation. Commander Mujama reported that her facilities were overcrowded, and that she had pressed anyone healthy enough into helping her care for the sick. Furthermore, while she had been able to control the fevers, there were alarming symptoms developing in almost all the patients, the most frightening of all being hallucinations that all seemed in some ways similar.
   We decided by consensus to return to Constellation and to abort the mission. It seemed evident that the fever and other symptoms were caused by some alien microscopic creature, probably a virus or a bacterium. As a precaution, we had Colombina check the air in Constellation for such microbes, and we made sure that we would all be decontaminated -- our clothing and our bodies would be thoroughly cleansed. This had, of course, been done with the infected crew members now in sick bay.

Captain's Log, 25 April 2860

   What follows is an account of the fever and hallucinations suffered by Ensign Amadou Mgamba written in his own words, followed by further reports and discoveries.

     I feel terribly warm, hot even, in my body. I have been perspiring for what seems like days. My head is aflame, my eyes ache. But the worst is what I hear, or think I hear, when I drift off to something resembling sleep. The voices come back, terrifyingly persistent. They speak in a marching cadence, repeating threatening phrases that are never completed:
   "You are our prisoner you will tell us everything you know about... You are our prisoner you will tell us everything you know about..."
   It's persistent. It seems to last for hours. They speak in a flat monotone. I have the sense that I'm losing my mind. I'm afraid to try to sleep, because it always comes back.
   These voices, I hear them, but I don't see who's speaking. I think that's what makes it so terrifying, I can't see them.
   Reports from all the subjects are similar; only the content or the medium differs. Some people report hearing snatches of menacing music, for some accompanied by unintelligible words; other people are beset with voices or machines that present terrifying technological situations (a machine that threatens to kill its owner, for instance, or an intelligent planet that uses technology to capture passing humans); still others (mostly ELBers) are suffering delusions of being accused of having committed unspecified heinous crimes in the distant past. These hallucinations are, for all the patients, the worst part of the disease. The specific subject matter of each person's hallucinations is closely related to his or her professional orientation or personal life.
   We believe that the strange cadence of the dreams might be related to the hum of activity in the sick bay itself: the very machines that are keeping our patients alive seem to be at the root of the hallucinations. Perhaps, too, the hum of Constellation's engines might be for some the source of the background march-like cadence. It is worth noting that all these hallucinations are non-pictorial.
   The cause of the hallucinatory fever appears to be a virus that attacks the central nervous system, entering the brain from the spinal cord. This might have implications for any injection developed in the future. No permanent damage to the brain has been noted in any patient. We have not yet discovered this virus, however.

Captain's Log, 27 April 2860

   Every crew member has been hit by this strange illness. Some have recovered, others have passed the crisis point, but about 350, including Commander Mujama and her entire staff, are still very ill. Oddly, I have not been touched by this disease; neither have the Kolok, who have been helping care for the sick.
   With the aid of Lieutenant Commander Strother Pulver and Dr. Siol Saats, I have been able to develop a protocol for investigating the cause of this disease. For one experiment we have obtained blood samples from all of the Kolok, from myself, and from all the recovered humans. For the second experiment, we have obtained blood samples from 50 of the ill, in various stages of this disease.
   We found three distinct types of antibodies in the healthy and recovered persons: one for the humans, a quite different one for the Kolok, and a third one for me. We had expected that the Kolok and the humans would have different antibodies, but did not anticipate a separate kind unique to me. We will be investigating this strange situation. The antibodies led us to the virus-like creature responsible for the disease, which we are trying to neutralize.
   We tried to see if the Kolok's antibody, which is obviously robust, since it attacked the virus directly and prevented disease, could be used in human subjects. Test-tube experiments indicated that this antibody would be rejected by host humans. We also tried a second line of inquiry, believing that a safe alternative might be a serum containing an enhanced version of the human antibody. Colombina was able to produce this, which we have injected into fifteen consenting subjects. We expect to have some results in a day or two. A third experiment was to use my antibody in some subjects, if laboratory tests indicated it would be safe. The tests being positive, fifteen more consenting subjects were chosen. Again, we will have to await results, which should come in within a day or two.
   Despite high fevers, often in excess of 40o, we have suffered no casualties. Some patients, however, have been extremely slow to recover, and the symptoms described in the log entry of 25 April have not abated in these persons.

Captain's Log, 29 April 2860

   All the test subjects injected with serum containing human antibodies are recovering; the five injected directly in the spine made a more rapid recovery, 24 hours vs. 36 hours for the others, who received the serum in their veins. Results for those injected with serum containing my antibodies produced almost identical results. We are now proceeding to treat every remaining patient with serum as soon as it is produced.
   In a conversation with Dr. Ecnelav Enohr, I believe I discovered the reason why my antibodies are different from those of the other humans. I record here the relevant portions of that conversation.

   "Ecnelav, I continue to be disturbed by the fact that my antibodies are so different from all the other humans'. It doesn't make sense to me. I mean, it can't be because I'm an ELBer, since about half the crew have had their lives extended."
   "Christina, is there something in your life's history that might explain this? I don't mean anything to do with extended life; I mean something else."
   "Hmm. Something else. I've surely been to more places than anyone on board. Not only the colonized planets and the space stations, but all those planets I've been to, throughout my career, that we have catalogued, a bit like Stepladder. Maybe I picked up something there."
   "If you did, it doesn't show in your blood, which seems like everyone else's, except for the antibody."
   "Are you on to something, or is this just a line of inquiry, a way to stimulate my thinking, or my memory?"
   "Well, it's a bit of both. I'm trying to stimulate your thinking and your memory, and also my own. It seems to me that among all the adventures you have had, there must be something connected with aliens."
   "There are the Kolok, but I don's see the connection."
   "That's not what I had in mind. I recollect that somewhere you had a terrible accident that left you paralyzed. Somehow you got over that, because here you are, hale and hearty, ready to live another 360 years or more, to all appearances."
   "You're right about an accident. On Paracelsus I was hit by scads of rocks that tore my body apart. Every organ, so it seemed, had to be rebuilt. My bones, so many of them were broken. The worst was my spinal cord, which was severed in two locations."
   "That's it, that's what made your reaction so different from the other humans': the reconstruction of your spinal cord."
   "What do you mean? A little bit of frog nerves and... and nerves from a little scurrying thing. An alien presence in my body, persisting for all this time, well over a century! Ecnelav, you've got it! Somehow, it was that creature's cells that must have produced the antibody before my human cells could do the job. And they must have worked fast, very fast, because I never had the slightest symptom."
   "Just like us. None of us had any symptoms, either."
   "Ah, you're a genius, Ecnelav! You've solved what for me was a serious problem. I was beginning to think I was something of a freak. But you've found a perfectly logical explanation for my curious situation. Paracelsus! Little scurrier, I owe you a second debt of gratitude. You helped me get whole again, and you prevented me from suffering like my shipmates. Thank you, thank you."

Captain's Log, 12 May 2860

   Every member of the crew has recovered. We are conducting, under Commander Kwali's direction, a thorough cleansing of every area of the ship before we proceed. So far it appears that on the first sweep we had managed to eradicate any trace of the virus. Or perhaps it could not exist outside of a living organism.
   An interesting discovery concerning the way the virus works also helps solve another problem. The virus somehow manages to render certain compounds associated with neurotransmitters unstable. Some of the neurotransmitter molecules break down, and in the process release oxygen atoms. This explains simultaneously the mechanism that allowed the hallucinations to take place and how the planet could have the high level of oxygen that we encountered. In turn, this suggests that some sort of animal-type life must exist on Stepladder, life forms that we were unable to discover, unless the organisms simply attacked various amino acids that abound on the planet.
   We must make sure that every person on board is up to maximum physical capacity before we continue on our way home. To this end I have been personally observing every person's physical training, and have ordered special meals to build up resistance to further exposure to diseases.

Captain's Log, 6 June 2860

   The following conversation, involving Commander Kwali, Dr. Enohr and me, was recorded in the conference room of the Bridge yesterday.

   "Commodore, given the direction we have taken, I note that we will pass within a few light years of Paracelsus. Would it be untoward to suggest that we make a slight deviation in our course and alight there? We could give our guests a first-hand view  (or first-eye view) of a colony planet, perhaps including a stop at Christina's Rock and another on Prison Island. It's been a long time since you have been back there; and I'm curious to see my home planet again, as are the score of Paracelsans on board. We all imagine it is a quite different place from what it was when we were last there, even if it's only a question of 20 years or so."
   "Oh, Christina, what a wonderful idea Kwali has! I think I can speak for all my people when I say we'd love to get this first-eye view of an Earth colony planet. And we'd be sure it is not contaminated by that Stepladder virus. The things you've told us about the natural life and the geology there sound fascinating. And, frankly, the boredom of space travel that you warned us about has set in. We're ready for some adventure!"
   "Have you two gotten together on this? I can see by the expression on your faces that you have. Actually, I have already checked this out with our entire navigational staff and with Colombina. Given our original orders, we can spare some time on Paracelsus, somewhere between five and ten weeks, and still reach Earth within the projected time span. That would give us plenty of time to renew acquaintances, visit new spots and old ones, and if possible include excursions for those who want them to Prison Island and the place that you're calling Christina's Rock, Commander."
   "Hey, I didn't make up the name. It's an officially designated parkland now. According to Colombina, the site is no longer barren and arid as it was when your accident occurred some 140 years ago, Commodore. There and elsewhere on the planet there are trees, even groves of trees, grassy dells, rivulets. I guarantee that you won't be reminded, at least not in the same way, about your experiences there in the past."
   "I suppose it's no surprise that you know more about your own planet than I do. Well, I'm all for the idea. But first, I'll have to call a meeting of the senior staff to get their input. We do have obligations to Earth Government, and we must make sure that our guests are properly introduced to life on the home planet. But I must admit that introducing them to our civilization as it has been adapted on Paracelsus is an intriguing idea. If the staff approves of this plan, we'll make the slight deviation required."

This morning, the senior staff approved of our going to Paracelsus for a period of six to eight weeks. Our course has been altered accordingly.