Julia stood in the entrance to the med-tent as she watched True and Uly, giggling their way through a game of tag. They raced back and forth, around tents and obstacles, periodically dragging in a passing adult or stopping to argue about who was “it.” It was a safe way to work off excess energy, and they might as well enjoy the weather while they could. The winter storms would return soon, chasing everyone back inside.
She stretched, hearing vertebrae pop, just as Uly tripped over something on the ground and went flying into a pile of leaves and grass. There’d been a time that would have meant a major problem; both of those were common allergens, and Syndrome children had to avoid those as much as possible. It warmed her heart to see him simply pick himself up, brush himself off, and resume the game as if nothing had happened.
Going back into the tent and letting the flap close behind her, she sat back down at the table, where she’d spread out her own leisure activity: figuring out how, exactly, the Terrians had healed Uly. Some of the recent test results were on the screen and, on an idle thought, she advanced them to the allergen sensitivity portion.
Then she blinked, startled.
Uly’s latest tests still showed severe allergies to a variety of substances. Including grass and tree sap.
But she’d just seen him fall directly into both without any reaction, and a major component of the Syndrome was that exposure therapy for allergies either didn’t work, or didn’t work quickly enough to keep from killing the child in the process. Back at the Stations, they’d never pushed their research beyond that point.
But Uly had been healed. Exposure therapy should work on him now. He might always still test mildly allergic to a few things, but he shouldn’t show results that looked like this. If she’d been presented with numbers like this without seeing the patient in question, she’d have recommended an immunosuit and suppression therapy immediately, and perhaps even protective quarantine.
Her fingers flew over the console controls as she called up an actual tissue sample, instructing the scanners to look for the histamine cells most implicated in the development of allergies. Uly’s histamine count was as abnormally high as any other late-stage Syndrome sufferer. He should be barely able to function, with his body in the final stages of fatally attacking itself.
His voice sounded from just outside the tent, accompanied by the sound of girlish giggles. “Tag, tag, tag, tag, tag! Now you’re it, True!”
“Stop it!” she shrieked. “That tickles! And besides, I’m getting hot.”
“Aww, spoil sport. Either that or you’re afraid you might not catch me.”
That challenge brought the desired result, and the kids’ footsteps faded into the distance. Julia barely noticed. She switched to the microscope and pushed the magnification up to maximum. Yes, her conclusion was correct: his body was full of histamine cells. But they were artificially smooth; as she rotated one of them, she could see that it had been wrapped in some sort of inactivating protein coat.
She shivered as the full import hit her: the Terrians hadn’t healed Uly. They’d treated the symptoms, putting the disease into full remission, but not eliminating it. Even worse, if the boy’s bond with the planet was any indication, it was a safe bet that that remission was tied to G889’s ecology. Leaving here would reactivate the Syndrome with a vengeance.
Outside, the wind had begun to moan, heralding the onslaught of the next winter storm, and she could hear Devon calling the children back into the bio-dome before the snow arrived. It seemed apropos, given the circumstances.
How am I ever going to tell her that her child hasn’t been cured after all?