AFTER SEVERAL HOURS in the palace-turned-museum in the city of Boa, each member of the Enterprise landing party was sought out by a messenger from Noro, the minister of education, and told that it was time to leave. They met again on the palace steps. Morning had given way to a brilliant afternoon, which dazzled as brightly as the palace had. The heat was oppressive.
"Well, Captain," Spock said, "I for one feel I've explored the palace thoroughly."
"I think we all got a sense of the place," Kirk agreed, "and I see no need for individual reports."
They rode back to the public square on the bony backs of the larpas, guiding the beasts absently, their minds filled with images of Puil's excesses, their heads bent in somber silence. Noro sensed their mood and made no attempt to chat or moralize on the lessons of the museum.
Around them, the city hummed with life. Many women had set up large weaving looms in front of their houses; they pulled their shuttles back and forth, slipping them through the course threads with firm strokes, leaving in their wake intricate patterns in a richly textured cloth. They called out to their friends, seated by looms in front of the houses next to them and opposite, swapped stories and jokes. Children tugged at the hems of their thick skirts and were given bits of string to play with. Older girls were made to sit very still nearby and watch, or select a color, or occasionally to push the shuttle through the loom, calloused older hands over their own, guiding them.
The rich, dizzying fabric of the women's skirts and blouses showed themselves to be the product of such looms. The diagonal slant of the loom cloth hung on the wooden frame created a kind of triangular tent. In the shade underneath, babies slept, peacefully shielded from bugs and the heat, their mothers' toes nearby, to lend reassurance.
Once the landing party reached the public square and dismounted, they were introduced to new ministers and program heads, and each member was escorted by one of these worthies to view a different aspect of the city.
Noro himself approached McCoy. "It has fallen to me to escort you, Doctor. I realize you found the larpa ride difficult. And so I have arranged a means of transport I hope will be more comfortable."
He led the way up the road to where an old-style motor car, something on the order of a Model-T Ford, McCoy guessed, was standing. They got in, Noro started the vehicle with difficulty, and the machine headed off in the direction of the forest. Or is it based on some other make of old-style automobile? McCoy wondered to himself. Sulu, if he were here, would know the year, model, and make—to me it just looks like a big, noisy box. Too relieved to ponder the issue further, McCoy sank back into the cushioned seat.
As they drove, Noro spoke to him of the literacy campaign, his proudest pet project. Those precious few inhabitants of Boaco Six who had received an education, or at least had acquired the skill of reading, were being given small government subsidies to pass the gift on to their families and villages; teams were being sent out to reach people in remote areas. Soon the funds allotted by the Council of Youngers for this project would run dry; Noro and his ministry would then have to rely on volunteers to carry on the work. The heady goal they had set for themselves was to have a literate planet within the space of three years.
They followed the road leading out of the city that the Enterprise men had beamed so far from the night before. Their car was the only vehicle, and they the only travelers braving the midday heat. Twenty miles out, Noro slowed the bulky motor vehicle to a halt. A dismal looking air-skimmer was parked nearby, crushing the grasses beneath it and sinking its gliders into the mud. Again, McCoy was no engineer, but it looked to him like a piece of mechanical junk, styled for a gullible primitive market. Noro shot him an apologetic look, and they climbed in through the narrow hatchway.
They seated themselves in its cylindrical chamber which, McCoy noted, lacked several important safety features. Noro pushed a few buttons, turned a few knobs, and the thing staggered into the air. The seat was too hard, the ride much too bumpy. The machine trembled and vibrated as if afraid of flight, as if conscious of its own ineptitude. McCoy could feel again pangs of protest in his backside, as he had during the larpa ride—sharp reminders of why he preferred life Earthside, or aboard the Enterprise, to "roughing it."
Noro saw him trying to grin and bear it. "I must apologize, Doctor, for this vehicle. Not very smooth sailing, I'm afraid."
"Well, maybe that'll teach you, next time, not to buy Klingon-made hardware." McCoy's tone was gruff and belligerent.
"We are of your mind, Doctor, many of us," Noro said. "But truly, given the current attitude of your manufacturers, and the Federation embargo on trade with our people—do we have much choice?"
McCoy had no reply to that. The gliders of the air-skimmer dipped and dragged in the branches and leaves of the trees and vines they were flying over, sending birds and chattering animals flurrying in all directions. McCoy wondered how long it would be before one of the purple vine tendrils wrapped itself around a glider and would not let go, and the air-skimmer came crashing down in a sputtering circle. Some air-skimmer. Air-bludgeoner is more like it. A double dose of sunlight poured through the glass dome, magnified by its curve; the glare was almost unbearable.
At last the rumbling machine began its short descent, and touched down, with a jolt, in a jungle clearing. Two tall trees stood at the center of the clearing. A roof of thatch was built around their trunks, beams lashed on, and covered with foliage. It made for a circular shelter, and a coarse tarpaulin was tacked onto the edges of the roof, and spilled down over the sides to form walls.
A line of children and adults wound out from under this canvas. The people waited patiently, though some looked frightened. The children were more subdued here than in the city, some crying and burying their heads in their mothers' skirts, some playing quietly in the tall grass.
"Our health drive to reach people in remote areas on this landmass was begun last month," Noro said. "This modest clinic is the nerve center for that effort, in this region. Our doctors and family health teachers go out from this point, and they report back here, every week."
He called out to the person in charge of the clinic. No one appeared. He called again.
While they waited, McCoy noticed three people by the edge of the forest, talking, two men and a young woman. One of the men did not look Boacan, and the woman obviously was not. The jumpsuit she wore was of fashionable mauve. Its folds flashed elegance as she moved. Her boots were high-heeled, delicate, and impractical for such marshy terrain. A belt of crystal loops cinched her suit and showed off her shapely waist. Her long blond hair showered down her back and resolved itself in a braid at the bottom.
Noro took in McCoy's puzzled glance. "They are Federation tourists," he explained, "who asked to be shown various sites. That Boacan man with them is their guide. Perhaps you will get to meet them later."
"Tourists?" McCoy asked, incredulous. "The Federation has issued strong 'recommendations,' or 'warnings,' or whatever you want to call them, telling civilians to avoid this world."
"Nevertheless, some people from your Federated Planets have been willing to brave our hospitality. Especially humans and Vulcans. Many volunteers have been helpful to us in construction work and farming, and two of the best doctors operating out of this clinic are from your planet Earth."
McCoy pondered this, another fact not discussed in Starfleet reports, another wrinkle in the balance of power game.
"We still get our share of missionaries, of course," Noro continued with a smile, "from various sects. Those visitors we could easily do without. We discourage them from staying long, and our people are not very receptive to their efforts."
"And these people?" McCoy said, pointing.
Noro hesitated a moment before replying, searching for a tactful response. "They are, perhaps, typical of another type of visitor to Boaco Six. Very well meaning. But I believe, for them, defying your Federation's advice about coming here is something of a game. A 'safari' into adventure, or rebelliousness."
"Mmm, well, bored rich kids need their amusements, I suppose," McCoy said.
Noro called out again to the person in charge, and at last she appeared, lifting up a corner of the canvas tarpaulin, rising up from under it. She straightened and rolled down her sleeves. "No more tours of the clinic," she said crossly, "we are very busy today—" Then she had a good look at them. Her expression softened as she approached them.
"I'm a Starfleet doctor, ma'am," McCoy said, "and I can appreciate that you're busy. But I'd like to see the inside of your clinic, if you don't mind, and maybe I can help out around here. At least, for today."
"Of course, Doctor," the young Boacan woman said. "We were told you might be coming." She put out her hand, and McCoy grasped it. "My name is Ona, and I'm running the clinic for this rotation."
"Our minister of health is on the other landmass at present," Noro explained, "but Ona will show you around. I shall return here and bring you back to the city of Boa, in five hours' time. Good-bye." He headed for the air-skimmer, then turned and offered his gapped smile once again. "And I will look for a cushion for your seat, Doctor." Then he left.
McCoy forgot all thoughts of his own discomfort as Ona lifted the edge of the canvas from the wet grass, and they both ducked under it. Inside the clinic there were more waiting people, on thin wooden benches and on the ground. Health workers moved rapidly within a cluttered thirty-foot area, asking questions and attending to needs.
"This clinic is part of a much larger program," Ona told McCoy. "Our 'Hospital Without Walls' program. The idea is, our doctors make their rounds to see families and workers living in the jungle, checking in on those with critical illnesses as regularly as they would on ward patients in a typical hospital. Or at least, that's a goal we're shooting for."
"And the people here?"
"Have new problems, or emergencies. Or are coming to tell us where they live. Or for advice."
Their discussion was stopped, as they watched a boy of fifteen on Ona's staff take a boy of seven from the arms of his mother. As the woman described her son's symptoms, the health worker nodded.
"He's suffering from severe dehydration," he told her. "I'll prepare a saline solution."
The woman asked about the solution, and then wanted to know if the salt water of the ocean would not do just as well. She and her family lived not far from the coast, and her son had been sick this way before.
Ona stepped in to answer her firmly. "No, it would not do just as well. If you gave your son seawater in an attempt to treat this, you would jeopardize his life. We will send someone to your house tomorrow, to check and see if you need more saline."
As the boy was being treated, she turned back to McCoy. "And that is one of our greatest challenges—educating people. We hope, after our people in the field have had a chance to teach families the basics of disease prevention and sanitary living, and some do-it-yourself remedies, clinics like this one will be less crowded."
"People here are unfamiliar with the basic rules of hygiene?"
"People this far from the city are. And there are women here," Ona said tightly, "who used to buy food packets from Federation manufacturers that claimed that their synthetic foodstuffs would be better for children than a natural diet. Made some pretty impossible claims for themselves."
"Companies like that are considered irresponsible by everyone," McCoy told her earnestly. "They are censored by the medical community and by the public."
"I'm sure they are. At any rate, these women would buy up these packets, feed their children the dangerous powders and capsules, until they could not afford more. So they'd water them down, or feed the children sporadically. Children and mothers, you see, developed a phobia of real food."
Ona picked up a tray, filled with clotted blood, and briskly began to scrub it with a wire brush in a wooden tub full of black Boacan water. "We lost many, many children in this way. But those companies do not come here anymore. That, at least, is one positive side effect of the Federation trade embargo."
McCoy watched the treatment and dispatch of patients, occasionally offering his arms to hold a baby, or a word of advice. From Ona's speech pattern and manner, he guessed she had received her medical training at a Federation school, before the revolution. There was no chance to talk to her about her past, however, as she wound bandages, cauterized a wound, treated a burn patient for shock.
The shiny black water used to clean cuts and sores made McCoy feel queasy and anxious; he mentally shouted to himself that it was clean, sterile, perfectly safe.
The clinic was understaffed, and woefully lacking in facilities and medicine. In many cases, cleansing and painkillers were all that could be offered. But McCoy could see that their education program was already beginning to be effective. A family brought in a man strapped down to a body-board. The family income came from robbing nests of precious eggs, and he had had a fall from a high tree. He would have to be treated in the city of Boa, would travel back in the air-skimmer with Noro and McCoy.
McCoy winced at the thought of a victim of such injuries enduring the bumpy ride. Neural damage to the spine was probable. McCoy took his medical scanner from its kit, and as it gently whirred near the man's neck, the reading confirmed these fears.
While Ona praised the family for the way they had used the body-board, McCoy wrestled with himself. All the patients being brought in here, all the people lined up outside, could be treated so much more quickly and effectively aboard the Enterprise. Why, he alone, if he had the proper medical equipment and drugs beamed down, could do so much …
You're here as an observer. You're here to see how effective they are, he reminded himself. It was the same dilemma he faced when he saw inadequate health facilities on any primitive world. And yet, the Prime Directive …
A small girl was brought in with rabies. Ona's face showed the distress she felt upon seeing the girl, with foam clinging to her lips, though it was obviously not the first case the clinic had dealt with.
"I thought you had some kind of vaccine program against this," McCoy said.
Ona turned sharply. "We do. But it is impossible to reach everyone, impossible. In the time of Markor and Puil, many families fled to the mountains, the forests, the jungles, to live in isolation, beyond the reach of the rulers. Their customs revolve around hiding now, they distrust all governments, including the new revolutionary one. How are we, Doctor, with no resources, to find people who don't want to be found?"
Pain was in her voice. She took the girl's chin gently in her hand and turned the small head to examine the bite on the cheek. The girl whimpered that the bite felt strange now, that it tingled.
Her grandmother told the story. The girl had been bitten twenty days before by a small feral jungle animal, a wooker.
Jim was lucky to get away from that animal that attacked him without a bite or scratch. Damned lucky.
The child had seemed fine until a few days ago. Then her forehead became hot, she complained of feeling dizzy. Her mother had offered her soup that contained traditional healing herbs, thinking it might help. The girl raised a cup of the soup to her lips. Then she began to convulse. Soup came spitting out of her mouth, her neck tightened, she took hours to calm. Now she was terrified of all liquids, had had none for days, and even a draft of wind made her grab her throat and scream that she was suffocating.
Ona shook her head. "Hydrophobia. When the furious rabies are this far along, there is nothing we can do. There are some drugs in the city that will prolong the child's life a little, but we are talking of a matter of days."
The girl gave no indication of having heard or understood. Her maroon eyes were glazed, her pupils dilated, and she groped for her grandmother's hand.
"I can give you painkillers," Ona continued in a hollow voice, "and tranquilizers for when her condition worsens. My assistant will explain to you how to keep the rest of the family safe from catching it." She added, very softly, "You see, she might become violent, might bite, or scratch."
McCoy's internal battle became more fierce. The Prime Directive? What does it matter, what can it mean here? We waived it when it came to transporters and phasers. Our orders said not to give them new technology—but command meant just weaponry. The Federation has not classed this as a contamination-free developing culture.
He knew that this planet had been visited by humans long before the Prime Directive was formulated and passed by the Federation. Every person on Boaco Six knew that there were other cultures, other worlds more advanced than their own. Federation advisers had served Puil, the planet had not been shielded. The disease of rabies itself was an early, unasked-for, gift from Earth, in the days when restrictions on the interplanetary transportation of animals were not enforced. And he had read how widespread the rabies problem on Boaco Six had become.
The struggle within him was resolved. He turned to Ona. "This child isn't going to die. We have drugs aboard the Enterprise that can save her, even this late in the game. And that man"—he indicated the figure strapped to the body-board—"isn't going to be transported anywhere." He took a deep breath. "Unless it's up to our ship."
The lines on Ona's face began to relax. Doctors on some planets felt offended at having their local practices superseded, but she, as a Federation trainee, realized he was offering the best help available. "An embargo on caring is thus temporarily lifted," she said quietly. "Thank you, Doctor."
The grandmother, who had doubled over keening, was helped up by an assistant, and she now asked what was going on. McCoy flicked open his communicator and asked that a medical team stand by in the transporter room for patients, and that Christine Chapel gather together a number of serums and beam down to assist him at the clinic.
"I know it's irregular, Lieutenant," he said to the guard on transporter duty, "and I don't care. Get on it right away."