Tag: Barbie Thuc

Categories
Narrative

Hard Data

Medlab was quiet this early in the morning, which made Barbie Thuc’s office all the better for a private conversation. And from what Ursula Doorne had said, it sounded like this was not something that either of them would want to get overheard.

The radio astronomer arrived as requested, through the employee and supplies entrance rather than the check-in entrance. Right now it was just as well to keep this meeting as quiet as possible. They’d had enough trouble with rumors circulating around the settlement already, and didn’t need any more of them.

“I’ve brought a copy of the latest data.” She held up a USB stick with an unremarkable blue plastic body. “This way you can go over it yourself.”

They ended up linking Ursula’s laptop with the big monitor that got a lot more use looking at X-rays and other medical imaging. When you were looking at a lot of data and the analysis of it, larger images were almost always better.

On the other hand, she wasn’t sure exactly how well positive words like “better” fit the data they were looking at. Even from what little information she could get via official channels, she knew that the situation at Schirrasburg was bad. But now that she was seeing the numbers, she had to fight down a surge of anger that NASA and HHR had suppressed the information to the point even senior medical personnel were unable to obtain it.

“I should not have had to get this by back-channel methods, and neither should my opposite numbers at Grissom City or Coopersville or any of the other settlements up here. If we’d been appraised of the situation from the beginning, we would’ve had that much more time to prepare. Instead, we’re going to be running to catch up.”

“You’re telling me.” Yes, Ursula Doorne was holding back a considerable amount of anger herself. “I only knew what to look for because my husband is a pilot-astronaut and knows some people over there. He’s the one who first told me how bad it was, although he just had general figures, not hard data like this.” She gestured at the charts and graphs that now covered the huge monitor, the columns of numbers on her laptop.

“And now the only thing we can do is prepare as best we can. We’ve got the advantage of a compartmentalized structure that makes isolation much easier, even if we can’t keep it out altogether. But I’m wondering how bad things are going to get on Earth. If they end up losing such a high proportion of their population, can technological society even survive?

Categories
Narrative

How Thin the Margins

The lunar community was fortunate in one way, Barbie Thuc reflected as she made her daily rounds. They started with a much higher baseline health than most communities dirtside.

That meant there was a whole range of ailments she simply didn’t have to deal with. Take for instance the diseases of obesity. People with weight problems to the point it affected their health couldn’t get the necessary medical clearance for spaceflight. And once people got here, mandatory exercise requirements made sure they didn’t slip-slide into it.

Even over at Grissom City, which had catered to the tourist trade before the present crisis, no amount of money could buy one’s way past that requirement. More than a few spoiled-rotten scions of wealth and privilege had learned that the hard way, and had to either learn the necessary self-discipline to meet the physical requirements, or give up their dreams of a vacation on the Moon.

The population here also was much younger. That would change now that the Expulsions meant people would be retiring up here rather than being shipped back to Earth when they reached the age at which the cumulative wear and tear on the body started showing up in the form of degenerative diseases. But at least for the next decade or so she shouldn’t have to worry that much about that.

On the other hand, they did have a lot more injuries to deal with. Maybe not all that much different in terms of the population as a whole, but it was certainly a lot more of her caseload. Which meant a lot of Medstaff’s time and resources went to fixing people up after they’d busted themselves up in various ways.

And that was one of the things she was becoming concerned about. What would happen when vital resources began to run low, if shipments of supplies from Earth were not restored, or could not be relied upon?

Some, even most, could be produced locally, although they might still have problems with the amount they could produce. Most drugs were a matter of chemical synthesis. But there were some things, particularly some of the more sophisticated medical devices, that were still simply beyond the ability to reproduce locally. Which meant that once they ran out, they would have to face the problem of people dying or being left permanently debilitated by conditions that they should’ve been able to recover from.

Which meant raising the question of rationing. How should the few remaining supplies be allocated, if it looked like they could not be replaced for a month? a year? a decade?

She didn’t think “ever” was really an issue. On a world where human life was completely dependent upon sophisticated technology, there was a floor beneath which they could not fall and survive. Therefore, even if Earth had to be written off, it would be only a matter of time before lunar industry would regroup and begin to expand and innovate to replace the manufacturing capacity that they’d lost access to. Most likely it would not take more than a decade or two — but in the meantime things could get painful.

Definitely this was not a decision she should be making on her own, or even with only the other members of Medstaff here. She needed to start raising the question with her colleagues at the other settlements, and with the command structure. Do it carefully, so as to avoid tilting the conversation in any particular direction, but make the decision-makers aware that criteria and procedures needed to be developed and in place before they had to make the determination that a patient would not be treated so that other patients who would be more likely to benefit could have it, before they had to deal with angry family members, before the angry murmurs and pointing fingers could begin.

Yes, there was a certain element of military discipline in the space community — every spacecraft and space settlement was under the command of a senior pilot-astronaut who was also a military officer. But NASA had been a civilian organization from its beginnings, and no settlement, not even the earliest moonbases, had ever tried to impose full military discipline upon its civilian technical staff. And the Expulsions had given Shepardsport a large population who were still in the process of acculturating into the space community.

Which could make things more difficult as the crisis progresses beyond the terror of the initial virgin-field pandemic to the privations of long-term survival and rebuilding.

Categories
Narrative

Fragments of News

There was one thing to be said for the current situation — it had significantly reduced the level of both accidents and illnesses, simply because people weren’t coming and going as much as normal. In normal times, Barbie Thuc planned on at least two hours for daily rounds, checking on the various patients who were being kept in Medlab for treatment, touching base on emergency and elective visits, and generally making sure she knew where everyone in her department was. Today she’d completed everything in less than an hour.

Of course it helped that they had a generally healthy population. People with major medical issues simply didn’t come up here, although there was your fair number of more minor issues, especially since the Expulsions. A few people with asthma or allergies, a couple of thyroid cases, the sort of stuff that could be kept under control with daily medication — but still required regular office visits, lab tests and the like.

But she wasn’t dealing with the continual whack-a-mole of rhinoviruses, noroviruses and the like. Stuff that wasn’t that dangerous, as long as you weren’t so goddamn hardcore that you ignored it until you ended up in major trouble. Way too many guys thought it was sissy to come in for sick call for “a little sniffle” or a “bit of a stomachache,” and kept going until their oxygen sat was in the low seventies or they weren’t even able to hold down water.

As if it’s just guys. Barbie recalled when she was growing up, how more than one of her classmates’ mothers ended up in the hospital because they just couldn’t spare the time to convalesce and tried to motor through their usual routines because “the house is a mess and the kids need clean clothes” and ended up finally collapsing.

And there were more than a few civilians up here, men and women alike, who were so absorbed in their work that they were apt to ignore their bodies’ desperate signals for help. Probably not as many as you’d get at the average research university — she’d heard some stories of people going thirty and forty hours without sleep when they were hard on the tail of a solution to something they’d been struggling with for years — but Linnea down at Fitness had caught more than a few coming in for their mandatory exercise “looking downright peaked” and ordered them to report to Medlab.

But she just wasn’t seeing it right now. She had a good idea of the reason: your typical pre-flight quarantine procedures for people coming up here from Earth leaked like a sieve. Not just the obvious problems like space tourists slipping out of their quarantine quarters for a quick visit to a bar, but also the ones people didn’t really think about, like employees who had contact with the people in quarantine, but then went home every evening. Every one of them was a potential vector of disease transmission, especially the mild but annoying ones that didn’t make you sick until several days after you started shedding virus particles.

With all routine travel shut down and essential supplies being transported with minimal contact between personnel on each spacecraft, that line of disease transmission had been closed off. On the other hand, she’d gladly take dealing with an outbreak of the sniffles or the pukes rather than having to watch helplessly from up here as a pandemic gutted the mother-world.

Especially now that the horrific stream of reports was lessening — and she had a dreadful feeling that it wasn’t a matter of things getting better. Instead, information was becoming more fragmentary, with whole areas no longer reporting. She hardly bothered to do more than skim the WHO reports, they were so scanty that they gave her no idea of what was actually going on out there.

US sources were better, although civilian ones like the CDC were a lot shakier than the military ones. But it was pretty clear that people were having to do a lot of patching and jury-rigging to keep things running as supplies were exhausted, spares ran out, and short-staffing was the norm.

They’re learning to make do like we have to all the time.

But one thought kept gnawing at her: what would be left when all of this was over? It would end eventually — all pandemics eventually ran out of susceptible people and burned themselves out. But there was a limit to how many people, especially highly-skilled critical workers but even just able bodies to do basic but essential tasks, a society could lose and keep functioning without having to fall back to a lower state of complexity.

We could end up in a situation where the lunar settlements have to send aid to Earth to get everyone back on their feet.

Categories
Narrative

Hope and Horror

Autumn Belfontaine had been watching Ken Redmond’s people install the new main board when she got the message from Medlab. Part of her wanted to call and ask what the heck was going on, but the message was plain: report to Dr. Thuc’s office.

So here she was, hoping she was ready for whatever she was about to find out. Given that it was Dr. Thuc, it was most likely news rather than something about her own personal medical situation. Not that it made it any easier.

And then the door opened and Dr. Thuc stepped out. “Thank you for coming down here so quickly. I hadn’t expected you until later.”

“I’d just finished my last news segment of the morning, so I was watching the installation of some new equipment. I shouldn’t need to be back for at least an hour, so there’s time to talk.”

“That’s good to know. Please come in and sit down.”

As Autumn took a seat, she noticed Dr. Thuc closing the door behind her. Whatever they were going to be talking about was confidential.

“I just got some news that Captain Waite thinks you should know. There’s been a discovery at an old hunting lodge in the Alps which suggests the diablovirus is probably artificial.”

“OK.” Autumn recalled the earlier statements to the opposite effect. “I thought it was a natural mutation because several key proteins would’ve been arranged more efficiently if it were artificial.”

“That’s what everyone thought, because we were all assuming that genetic engineering would be done by professionals, to best standards. Instead, we think we’re looking at an amateur job by eco-fanatics. We aren’t even sure if the building was burning because they were careless with their equipment, or they decided it was time to commit suicide.”

“Good Lord.” Autumn recalled a couple of the groups who’d been active at U of Minnesota a decade ago — and while they were fringe, they weren’t completely out there, for the simple reason that the university didn’t tolerate any student group that promoted violence or other criminal activity. “The sort of people who believe humanity is a plague upon the Earth. It’s a sort of secular Calvinism, absolute depravity without irresistable grace.”

“I’m afraid I’m not overly well versed on the theology of Protestant denominations, but calling them a cult is probably not too far off the mark. At this point, our best hope is to try to recover enough information from their computers and paper files to get a working model of the diablovirus. If Voronsky is as good as people say, we can hope we’ll have it under control in a few months.”

“Then we can start to rebuild.” Why did that not sound nearly as hopeful as Autumn really wanted it to. “Which raises the question of just how much we can rebuild. From some stuff I’ve heard, there are areas where whole communities have been wiped out, and a lot of places where civil society has broken down altogether, even in the US. And even in the places that are holding together, do we have enough people to rebuild back to the same place we were, or are we going to have to allow some areas to slip backward? At least up here we’ve dodged the bullet, so personally we shouldn’t be worrying about losing any critical technologies. But I’m thinking it’s going to be a lot rougher than people anticipate.”

“That may very well be. Right now almost everyone I’m in contact with is focusing on trying to keep the health care system reasonably functional, even in the face of inadequate supplies and often inadequate staff. So I really don’t have that much of the big picture.”

“But even what you’ve given me will help. I’m going to see what I can find out about it, and whether we’re going to want to start broadcasting about it, or we want to hang onto it for a more opportune time.”

Categories
Narrative

A Piece of the Puzzle

Reggie Waite had been working his way through some documentation — supposedly from NASA HQ, although he had good reason to think most of the updates were from someone over at Grissom City. The bureaucratic gobbletygook was just thick enough that his eyes were glazing over when his phone rang.

Who was calling at this hour? Had the materials he was reading been more engrossing, he would’ve been tempted to just let it go to voicemail. Right now, the distraction was actually welcome.

As soon as he answered, he was glad he had, because it was Barbie Thuc down at Medlab. “I just got some news. Apparently we’ve been wrong about the diablovirus being natural.”

He recalled the presentation, way back when this whole mess started. “So what happened to all those inefficient gene-complexes a lab wouldn’t have used?”

“Everyone in the field assumed a whole lot more competence on the part of the people doing the work. The information is pretty sketchy right now, but we may have found the laboratory where that thing was put together. Or at least what’s left of it after the fire that drew the authorities’ attention in the first place.”

“Crap.” Reggie could see some pretty bad implications. Especially if they still had live cultures in there… “Any information on who or where?”

“As I said, we’re still working on sketchy information. But we do know it was a cabin up in the Alps, an old royal hunting box from back before World War I that had apparently been abandoned for a while because it was just historical enough that no one wanted to tear it down, but not historical enough to get maintained. From what I’ve heard, it’s in an area where there’ve been a lot of the really crazy deep-ecology types, the sort who regard humanity as a plague upon the Earth, inherently destructive, that sort.”

“Ayup, I remember the business with that one cult that had all holed up and all got found dead. Was there ever a definite decision on whether they thought they were going to be the sole survivors but ended up dead because they couldn’t operate a wood stove properly, or if they were trying to commit suicide to go to some perfect evergreen paradise?”

“That’s been a long time, and I was busy enough that I really didn’t read up on the literature. But you’re right, that’s the same area, so it’s possible we’re dealing with an offshoot from that apocalyptic cult. Right now I’m hearing that the local police, or what’s left of them, are trying to find someone with the authority to deal with it. Personally, I’m thinking they ought to get hold of Voronsky. He’s the man with the chops to understand whatever can be recovered from the computers and hardcopy files, but I could see how it could be touchy diplomatic going to get the Russians involved in Central Europe.”

“Very true.” Reggie was old enough to remember the Cold War, when it looked like Europe would always be divided by the Iron Curtain. “Keep me posted as this thing develops. And put Autumn Belfontaine in the loop. This may be something we want to get out, especially if anyone up here would have the background to be of any use.”

Categories
Narrative

Is No News Good News?

Reggie Waite was coming to dread these meetings with Dr. Thuc. Although she continued to report that the lunar community had been able to keep the diablovirus at bay, the news from Earth just kept getting worse and worse.

After delivering the latest litany of bad news, Dr. Thuc added, “However, we must be careful to remember the rule about absence of evidence. We cannot assume that regions that are not reporting information are necessarily charnel houses. While it’s true that some of the earliest warning signs came in the form of reports from travelers of entire villages found desolate, even then it didn’t mean every inhabitant had died. There is some evidence of survivors deciding their numbers were simply too small to sustain a village, and leaving in search of a community that could support them. In fact, there is some speculation that such migration played a significant role in the early spread of the diablovirus.”

“And given how poor record-keeping was in those parts of Earth even before the current crisis, we’ll probably never know.” Reggie considered the situation, trying to push back the old memories from the Energy Wars. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of those ass-end-of-nowhere places were still functioning at some minimal level, but nobody knows about it because the communications net is so thin they hardly notice when it goes down. There’s even some places in the US that are like that, out in Alaska, up in the Rockies, heck, even up in the mountainous parts of New England.”

“That’s completely possible. On the other hand, it appears that a surprising number of areas are keeping things operating by various ad hoc solutions as things break down and repair parts aren’t available.” Dr. Thuc flipped through a number of files in her tablet. “I have several reports of hospitals jerry-rigging repairs to generators and other vital equipment when normal spares couldn’t be found.”

“That’s good to know. However, I’m wondering what’s happening outside the medical field. How many factories are still in operation, and of the ones that weren’t, how many were properly shut down before they were abandoned? Ken Redmond would know this sort of stuff better than I do — he’s the mechanical engineer — but I remember from some of my coursework at Annapolis that there are a lot of processes that you can’t just terminate with the flip of a switch. A lot of chemical plants could be in a bad way if the operators weren’t able to execute an orderly shutdown before they lost power for good, or didn’t have enough personnel to continue operations.”

“That’s really out of my area of expertise. But I certainly can appreciate your concerns. The issue has certainly gone through my mind. However, given that there’s not a lot we can do about that situation right now, my primary focus has been on determining what we’re going to be looking at in terms of rebuilding when all of this is over.”

“And that’s all any one of us can do at the moment. Other than getting information out via Shepardsport Pirate Radio, we pretty much have to concentrate on keeping contagion out and keeping our own systems running.”

Categories
Narrative

Baby Steps

Dr. Thuc was reviewing the latest CDC updates, which she’d downloaded in full onto her workstation just in case they got a solar storm strong enough to disrupt Internet connections with whatever server they were on. Although she thought the MedCenter over at Grissom City kept copies on their servers, it was still possible that communications between the two settlements could be disrupted.

She was concentrating so intensely that she almost didn’t hear her phone chime incoming text. It was only on the second chime that she realized someone was texting her, that it might be urgent.

She picked up the phone and was surprised to discover that it was Vitali Grigorenko from Gagarinsk. I have some interesting information for you.

Her first thought was what kind of interesting? However, it would be rude to ask so bluntly, even if she was wondering if it were interesting in a bad way.

Thank you. What kind of information are we looking at?

Grigorenko took a little time to respond. English wasn’t his native tongue, even if he was a Grissom — he’d been kidnapped right out of Riley Children’s Hospital hours after birth by KGB agents, and had grown up speaking Russian. Which was what made teleconferences with him such an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

And then the text appeared: I have some connections in Ministry of Health and Imperial Academy of Science. They have passed me some material that indicate Academician Voronsky has success in sequencing DNA of diablovirus. I know Autumn Belfontaine has asked about this, but I want to send it to you first.

Yes, that was probably wise. Autumn was a professional journalist, and she might decide to run it past a medical professional before making any public announcement. However, with everyone desperate for even a glimmer of hope, she might let eagerness overcome her better judgment and release the story immediately.

Before she could even start a reply, a second text came through: Can you receive large attachment to e-mail, or should I give you URL for file to download?

After a bit of technical back-and-forth, they determined it would probably be best to go the URL route. As it happened, Grigorenko already had the file on a server up at Gagarinsk, and it was just a matter of changing the permissions so she could access it and then giving her the URL.

As soon as she got the file downloaded and opened — at least it was in a format her software could deal with, instead of one peculiar to Russian operating systems — she realized that she would need some help reading it. Although she did have a reasonable acquaintance with the Russian language, and with medical terminology in Russian, it didn’t extend to some of the technical aspects of genetics, which had developed somewhat differently behind the old Iron Curtain, back in the days when genetic engineering and human cloning were still burn-before-reading secret in both East and West.

Still, she made sure to let Grigorenko know that she’d successfully downloaded it and thank him for thinking of her.

Categories
Narrative

Considering Necessary Measures

In ordinary times, Reginald Waite would’ve called his Chief of Safety and Security and his Chief Flight Surgeon in to his office for a conference. However, these were not ordinary times, and he didn’t want to take either of them away from their regular duties any longer than necessary. As a result, a three-way text messaging session was just going to have to do.

At least both of them were aware of the uncertain space weather forecast, with multiple solar astronomers disagreeing on the significance of the disturbances within the Sun’s magnetic field and what it foretold in regards to future solar storm activity. So it was just a matter of discussing how various possible outcomes would affect their particular areas of operations, and how to go about coordinating efforts to mitigate the damage, so they would not waste resources by duplicating efforts, or worse, end up working at cross purposes.

By the end of the conference, he was confident that they were all on the same page, and shouldn’t need more than daily check-ins to make sure everything was moving forward smoothly. Thinking he was finished, Reggie went to check his e-mail when he noticed another text had come in.

Wondering why Autumn Belfontaine was texting him, he pulled it up.

Since it looks like we could be having an extended disruption of spacelift, it might be good to put together some PSA’s on conserving the things we can’t produce locally.

It certainly sounded like a good idea, which made him wonder why she thought she needed to ask permission. On the other hand, given the tension with the Administration, he could also see why she might be concerned about revealing weaknesses that could be used against them.

Write up some possibilities and e-mail them to me. We can work out what revisions are necessary.

Categories
Narrative

Disappointment

At least we’re doing this privately. Brenda Redmond still felt like a kid called to the principal’s office, sitting in Dr. Thuc’s private office in the back recesses of Medlab.

The older woman gave her a sad look, the sort Brenda had come to associate with an authority figure who had expected better of you. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring her concerns about Robbie Sandberg’s situation here to Medlab.

At least you didn’t drag Lou Corlin or his family into it. As far as anyone here will know, you came here entirely on your own initiative, based on your friendship with Robbie.

“Ms. Redmond.” Dr. Thuc kept her voice level, professional, even if her eyes could not quite hide her attitude about the situation. “I have looked over the information you gave Dr. Gorman. I agree that it is concerning, but there are very strict standards for what qualifies as cause to believe that a person is in immediate danger that justifies what would normally be a breach of privacy. After talking with the judge advocate general at Grissom City, we’ve agreed that there simply is not enough evidence in this one brief and admittedly disorganized message to conclude that we are dealing with a situation that involves actual risk of domestic violence, as opposed to teen angst about difficulties with adult authority.”

Brenda swallowed hard. No. I will not burst into tears. I will not sulk or pout. I will not behave like a thwarted child. I’m a grown woman and I have a reputation to uphold, as a mother, as an Air Force officer’s wife, as a DJ at Shepardsport Pirate Radio.

But she could feel her lower lip wobbling, the tears of frustration welling up in the corners of her eyes. Dammit, it was so unfair, that some bureaucratic hoop she couldn’t quite get through was making it impossible to find out whether Robbie was safe, or if the very act of trying to contact her could put her at risk of her parents’ irrational hatred of clones.

She took a deep breath. It required a major effort of will to force her voice into the professional tones she would use on the air while reporting a solar storm warning. “Then what evidence would you need to see?”

Was that the hint of a smile on Dr. Thuc’s lips, a shadow of regret? “You know I can’t tell you that, Ms. Redmond.”

Brenda had expected that answer. Given the situation, her question could very well be interpreted as, what do you need to see so I can fake it? never mind that she’d actually meant how can I present the evidence better?

However, Dr. Thuc wasn’t finished speaking. “However, it may be possible to arrange for contact to be made by a neutral individual, someone who is less likely to arouse the ire of her parents. If that enables us to ascertain her situation, we can determine how to proceed.”

“Thank you.” The words sounded so forced that Brenda felt she had to repeat them, to try to get some genuine emotion in them. “Thank you so much.”

Categories
Narrative

Routes Forward

As soon as Brenda Redmond received the text from Dr. Thuc, she could tell it had to be bad news. I need to talk to you, stat. was not a good sign.

Could she be in trouble, just for asking whether it was possible for anyone in Medlab to check on Robbie’s location? Although she hadn’t considered her inquiry unreasonable, old memories lingered from childhood. She’d caught two teachers in a row who were very close to retirement, and who had rather old-fashioned notions about the proper bounds of children’s curiosity. Both of them also considered public humiliation an excellent aid to memory.

But there was no time to dwell upon the past, not when she needed to focus on the present situation. Which meant finding the necessary fortitude to present herself at Medlab, mentally prepared for whatever response she received.

At least this message hadn’t come through in the middle of her air shift at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. However, receiving it while she was supposed to be helping teach a class was awkward in its own way. No, her senior teacher was not pleased that she should be summoned away, and clearly considered it to be something she’d brought down upon herself.