Day 18
Hmm, I'm wondering if maybe Vera's becoming a little too wonderful. Best bring her back down to size.
Three hours later Vera had cleaned up both herself and Greg. She put him to bed and put an IV brace on him. She did some more rounds, ate and finally returned to the hovercraft. She was typing in tutorial as the instructor before she realised it, and grumbled to herself about this, meaning to put her Dad’s name in again. When the option for one or two came up she decided to try two.
The map screen came on and it asked her for the destination. Vera raised her eyebrows and entered Dainwood Point. The voiceover started giving her instruction for lifting off which Vera followed with a curious suspicion. To her relief, however, it didn’t instruct her to land the hovercraft, instead it told her what to do to get the hovercraft moving.
It talked her through manoeuvring around obstacles, instructed her on the proper procedure to increase and decrease speed and allowed her to choose the speed she felt comfortable with. Vera was sorely tempted to turn the speed up to max, wanted to get to Dainwood Point as quickly as possible, but was smart enough to realise that she didn’t have enough practice with it to risk going that fast and loosing control.
Nevertheless, her trip to Dainwood Point was faster than her first journey, that much being some consolation. As she landed at the community centre, Vera could also reluctantly admit to herself that her landings were better now.
Vera didn’t bother to shut the hovercraft up. She hurried inside the centre and made her way to the doctors office. It took a bit more searching time than she really liked, but she did find the community’s IV braces and cartridges. She took seven of the braces and twenty-one of the cartridges, which she filled. Vera noticed that they only had the nutrient stores provided by Earth, and none of the nutrient supplies made by the plant she was so suspicious of. Vera hesitated, then decided if she was wrong they could take it out of her hide later, and put in extra of the Earth nutrients to make up for the absence of the native nutrients.
This done, Vera loaded everything into a coupe of crates and put them on the hovercraft. Her next experiment was to see if the hovercraft tutorial would allow her to go to individual houses. It did, although it complained about not having proper parking spaces and warned her to make sure she found a large, flat place to land and that rocky ground could damage the underside. By the time she made it to the sixth and final house she was getting rather sick of listening to the same message over and over.
On the bright side, by the time she was flying back to SomeNameHere, the hovercraft had stopped talking her though certain things, such as lifting off, which she was now doing rather well, and only spoke up on new things or things she was struggling with or otherwise still learning. A weary Frank was there to greet her when she got back.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Dainwood Point,” Vera replied determinedly. “I left seven people there who weren’t getting any treatment at all and two of them had died by the time I got there -”
Frank held up his hand.
“I’m going to get some rest. Check on me in eight hours, would you?”
Vera nodded, although she was feeling rather tired herself.
Back inside the hospital, Vera checked on the cartridges needing refilling. She began to work and noticed that the plant supplies were low. She tapped her fingers on the bench in consideration and decided against harvesting any more. If Frank realised what she was doing, she would just tell him that she didn’t want the waste time harvesting plants that were getting more and more scarce around the immediate area. If she couldn’t in good conscience give it to the people at Dainwood Point, then she jolly well wasn’t going to give it to the patients in SomeNameHere, of whom there were a lot more.
Cartridges cleaned and refilled, Vera began doing the rounds of the beds. She checked braces, changing cartridges where need be. Talked with and encouraged the patients who were capable of it when she came their way. She cleaned up the inevitable messes and washed out vomit buckets, fighting back the urge to puke herself.
Then there was the worst part. Finding someone had died sine the last round and having the grim task of removing the IV brace. She had to make a note, and when Frank awoke they would have to take the body out.
Vera was all too aware of the number of bodies.
As requested, Vera checked on Frank after eight hours, who was looking much better after his sleep.
“You look exhausted,” he smiled at her. “I think it’s time you have a sleep too.”
“I was planning on it,” Vera yawned.
Frank nodded.
“I’ll check on you after eight hours then. Oh and Vera?”
“Yes?”
“If you decide to go back to Dainwood Point, make sure you’re not tired when you do. Driving a hovercraft when you’re exhausted is not a good idea. We are capable of tracking the hovercrafts, but not when we don’t have the people to do it.”
Vera nodded.
“I’ll remember that.”
“Good.”
Gratefully, Vera laid down on the bed and slept.
Eight hours later, Vera awoke refreshed. She passed Frank on her way, and told him she was going to check up on the Dainwood Point people. The trip there progressed smoothly, and as she didn’t need to clean and refill cartridges she didn’t need to stop at the community centre.
She visited the four houses that had her patients. She cleaned what needed to be cleaned and changes the cartridges. Of all of them, only one patient had known how to check and change the cartridge, and she was looking the healthiest out of all of them. Vera knew that the cartridges had to be change multiple times a day, but realising that should couldn’t come back to Dainwood Point that many times she had left the cartridges, food and water in reach of all of them.
“How bad is it?” asked Gretel, the only one who knew how to operate the IV brace.
“Bad,” Vera replied. “I’ve only been here and SomeNameHere, but myself and another guy, Frank, are the only ones to care for… I don’t know how many people. I lost count. Apparently before the epidemic was declared, when some of the doctors at other settlements got struck down, the residents decided to bring their people to SomeNameHere, and with all the travelling to and from SomeNameHere it easily spread. Communications are down due to lack of people to man them, although if there are some settlements which have escaped it, I don’t know why we can’t contact them.”
Having extra cartridges from there only being five people instead of seven. Vera left them with Gretel, promising to return as soon as she could, but it may not be until the following day.
“We’re out of those plants,” Frank observed when Vera returned.
“Yeah, I know,” Vera replied. “I just started putting in extra of the Earth nutrients instead of wasting time trying to harvest the silly things.”
“Oh?”
Vera felt a little uncomfortable but continued on:
“Y’know because having to go further and further out to even find them.”
Well, that was the truth, just not the whole truth. However her answer seemed to satisfy Frank who nodded.
“No point in hording supplies if there’s going to be no one alive to use them,” he agreed. “Besides, no matter how long we’ve been on this planet, it’s still got it’s dangers and the further we go out to find them, the greater the risk of getting struck down by a wild animal or something.”
Vera nodded feeling greatly relieved. After the reception of her concerns over the suspected purgative, Vera wasn’t willing to have her fears shot down again. She didn’t care how many tests had been run on the things, the very idea of using them on people infected with a gastro virus made her severely uncomfortable.
The next time Vera went to check on Frank after his sleep, she found that the virus had finally gotten to him. He looked at her with apology in his eyes while she put on the IV brace.
“Don’t… don’t run yourself to exhaustion,” he warned her wearily. “Just… make yourself more susceptible.”
“I won’t.”
Vera got some more rest after that. She checked on all the patient after her eight hours of sleep and after her round slept for another two before heading back down to Dianwood Point. She checked up on Gretel first.
“You’re looking much better!” she said with the most enthusiasm she had felt in hours.
“I feel much better, thank you,” Gretel replied. “Not out of the woods yet by any mean but I… I think I could help you now.”
Vera frowned.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You wouldn’t want to make yourself worse again.”
Gretel shook her head.
“You said…” she swallowed. “You said there were only four others here who were still alive.”
Vera chewed her bottom lip and nodded.
“Well, I’m sure I can take care of them,” Gretel said firmly.
“Do you know how to refill the cartridges?” Vera asked after a moments’ pause.
“Ahh… no I don’t.”
“Okay, I’d better show you then.”
Gretel smiled. The two travelled to the other houses, checked on everyone and cleaned up. They collected the empty cartridges and Vera showed her how to clean and refill them.
“I’m sorry I’ve borrowed your hovercraft,” Vera apologised.
Gretel waved a hand at her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I don’t think I’m really up to driving just yet. Do you now how to check the communications centre for messages?”
“No, only how to send and receive live ones.”
“Right, well, now I have something to show you,” Gretel smiled. “Check the comm centre every day and I’ll keep you updated on how things are going. If you don’t hear from me after any 24 hour period, come and check okay?”
Vera nodded in agreement.
Vera soon returned to SomeNameHere. Once again she rested, then did the round again. This time, however, like as at Dainwood Point, Vera started to see some improvement amongst the patients there. There were still dead bodies to be found but Vera realised that there were more and more people capable of having a conversation with her.
She rested frequently, and when Vera did get around to checking the comm centre for messages, she discovered a number of messages from other settlements. Some had no sign of the virus and were requesting any information if there was anyone out there who could respond. These she replied to, saying the virus was still active, but they had finally had some improvement amongst the patients. She also advised them against using the plant, informing them that when they had stopped using it in the cartridge mix they had also started seeing the improvement. She signed her name of course, and didn’t much care if they decided that she had exceeded her authority or not. She sent this message to the settlements that reported that they had the virus amongst them. A few of the messages were begging for information.
Vera made careful note of which settlements didn’t send messages, and checked the last received dates for the settlements that reported they did. She tensed grimly when she discovered that Terninos Lake was one of those with.
Gretel reported that everything was well.
The next few days became a blur. Vera rested when she could - sometimes without even intending to. She checked, changed, cleaned and refilled cartridges. She cleaned poo and spew. She checked communications once a day. But there were so many people, and so often she was late in changing cartridges, usually by hours. The cleaning never seemed to be done.
Every now and then she would remember to feed herself.
Still, despite her constant state of exhaustion, there was some encouragement to be had. The improvement she had already seen increased. Other settlements that had been fighting the virus were able to report that their patients were recovering. Slowly but surely people started getting better and when the day came that one of Vera’s many patients offered to help she burst into tears.
That one patient was the first of many. Vera was so relieved to have help. Not wanting to strain anyone or to risk relapse she taught and directed them to do the simpler tasks, such as cleaning and refilling cartridges, and even a few took on manning the communications for her. Vera made sure that she took on the major cleaning, however. People started to cook proper meals and enough medical personal recovered to be able to make decisions on things like when they could remove the IV braces.
Gretel called to say that she and her patients were fully recovered, and someone went out to pick them up and take them to SomeNameHere where the five were willing and able to help. The deaths had stopped and so many people were on the mend that Vera was no longer exhausted from her individual efforts.
She had received a good deal of criticism from certain people who were recovered enough to find out what was going on. The stores managers’ head assistant was particular unforgiving about the depletion of nutrient stocks, and there were a few doctors and medical researchers who objected to Vera’s notion of the plant being a purgative. Fortunately most people dismissed them, busying themselves with the more important task of seeing that everyone made a full recovery. Some people did try to get the plant nutrients put back in the cartridge mix, but Vera’s earlier observation about having to go too far away to harvest the plants was still valid. As far as she knew no one was successful in this endeavour, of those who had been willing to go out and look for the plants.
Finally the recoveries started to outnumber those who were still sick. The dead were identified and the bodies burned. At final count they determined that they had lost just over a third of their population, and four settlements had been either wiped out or lost so much of their population they may as well have been.
During the aftermath, Vera received further criticism from “the hoarders” and from the odd doctor who was annoyed with her for ignoring instructions (the fact that she was right in omitting the plant was inconsequential). Frank and Gretel were amongst her most verbal supporters (although Frank was a little put out that Vera didn’t tell him the real reason for her omission). However, those who criticised were amongst a minority, and that minority decreased even further when multiple, new studies from both sides determined that Vera’s assertion that the plant was a purgative was correct.
Actually what bothered Vera the most was the people that declared Vera was a hero. Vera objected strenuously to this idea, declaring she had done nothing that anyone else wouldn’t have done. Many argued saying she had been the only one who knew the plant was a purgative, to which Vera pointed out that sooner or later Frank or someone else would have stopped going out to harvest the plant eventually. The retort to this was that Veras’ knowledge caused the omission to happen sooner rather than later and how many more people would have died in the meantime?
It was hard to argue with that.
Three hours later Vera had cleaned up both herself and Greg. She put him to bed and put an IV brace on him. She did some more rounds, ate and finally returned to the hovercraft. She was typing in tutorial as the instructor before she realised it, and grumbled to herself about this, meaning to put her Dad’s name in again. When the option for one or two came up she decided to try two.
The map screen came on and it asked her for the destination. Vera raised her eyebrows and entered Dainwood Point. The voiceover started giving her instruction for lifting off which Vera followed with a curious suspicion. To her relief, however, it didn’t instruct her to land the hovercraft, instead it told her what to do to get the hovercraft moving.
It talked her through manoeuvring around obstacles, instructed her on the proper procedure to increase and decrease speed and allowed her to choose the speed she felt comfortable with. Vera was sorely tempted to turn the speed up to max, wanted to get to Dainwood Point as quickly as possible, but was smart enough to realise that she didn’t have enough practice with it to risk going that fast and loosing control.
Nevertheless, her trip to Dainwood Point was faster than her first journey, that much being some consolation. As she landed at the community centre, Vera could also reluctantly admit to herself that her landings were better now.
Vera didn’t bother to shut the hovercraft up. She hurried inside the centre and made her way to the doctors office. It took a bit more searching time than she really liked, but she did find the community’s IV braces and cartridges. She took seven of the braces and twenty-one of the cartridges, which she filled. Vera noticed that they only had the nutrient stores provided by Earth, and none of the nutrient supplies made by the plant she was so suspicious of. Vera hesitated, then decided if she was wrong they could take it out of her hide later, and put in extra of the Earth nutrients to make up for the absence of the native nutrients.
This done, Vera loaded everything into a coupe of crates and put them on the hovercraft. Her next experiment was to see if the hovercraft tutorial would allow her to go to individual houses. It did, although it complained about not having proper parking spaces and warned her to make sure she found a large, flat place to land and that rocky ground could damage the underside. By the time she made it to the sixth and final house she was getting rather sick of listening to the same message over and over.
On the bright side, by the time she was flying back to SomeNameHere, the hovercraft had stopped talking her though certain things, such as lifting off, which she was now doing rather well, and only spoke up on new things or things she was struggling with or otherwise still learning. A weary Frank was there to greet her when she got back.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Dainwood Point,” Vera replied determinedly. “I left seven people there who weren’t getting any treatment at all and two of them had died by the time I got there -”
Frank held up his hand.
“I’m going to get some rest. Check on me in eight hours, would you?”
Vera nodded, although she was feeling rather tired herself.
Back inside the hospital, Vera checked on the cartridges needing refilling. She began to work and noticed that the plant supplies were low. She tapped her fingers on the bench in consideration and decided against harvesting any more. If Frank realised what she was doing, she would just tell him that she didn’t want the waste time harvesting plants that were getting more and more scarce around the immediate area. If she couldn’t in good conscience give it to the people at Dainwood Point, then she jolly well wasn’t going to give it to the patients in SomeNameHere, of whom there were a lot more.
Cartridges cleaned and refilled, Vera began doing the rounds of the beds. She checked braces, changing cartridges where need be. Talked with and encouraged the patients who were capable of it when she came their way. She cleaned up the inevitable messes and washed out vomit buckets, fighting back the urge to puke herself.
Then there was the worst part. Finding someone had died sine the last round and having the grim task of removing the IV brace. She had to make a note, and when Frank awoke they would have to take the body out.
Vera was all too aware of the number of bodies.
As requested, Vera checked on Frank after eight hours, who was looking much better after his sleep.
“You look exhausted,” he smiled at her. “I think it’s time you have a sleep too.”
“I was planning on it,” Vera yawned.
Frank nodded.
“I’ll check on you after eight hours then. Oh and Vera?”
“Yes?”
“If you decide to go back to Dainwood Point, make sure you’re not tired when you do. Driving a hovercraft when you’re exhausted is not a good idea. We are capable of tracking the hovercrafts, but not when we don’t have the people to do it.”
Vera nodded.
“I’ll remember that.”
“Good.”
Gratefully, Vera laid down on the bed and slept.
Eight hours later, Vera awoke refreshed. She passed Frank on her way, and told him she was going to check up on the Dainwood Point people. The trip there progressed smoothly, and as she didn’t need to clean and refill cartridges she didn’t need to stop at the community centre.
She visited the four houses that had her patients. She cleaned what needed to be cleaned and changes the cartridges. Of all of them, only one patient had known how to check and change the cartridge, and she was looking the healthiest out of all of them. Vera knew that the cartridges had to be change multiple times a day, but realising that should couldn’t come back to Dainwood Point that many times she had left the cartridges, food and water in reach of all of them.
“How bad is it?” asked Gretel, the only one who knew how to operate the IV brace.
“Bad,” Vera replied. “I’ve only been here and SomeNameHere, but myself and another guy, Frank, are the only ones to care for… I don’t know how many people. I lost count. Apparently before the epidemic was declared, when some of the doctors at other settlements got struck down, the residents decided to bring their people to SomeNameHere, and with all the travelling to and from SomeNameHere it easily spread. Communications are down due to lack of people to man them, although if there are some settlements which have escaped it, I don’t know why we can’t contact them.”
Having extra cartridges from there only being five people instead of seven. Vera left them with Gretel, promising to return as soon as she could, but it may not be until the following day.
“We’re out of those plants,” Frank observed when Vera returned.
“Yeah, I know,” Vera replied. “I just started putting in extra of the Earth nutrients instead of wasting time trying to harvest the silly things.”
“Oh?”
Vera felt a little uncomfortable but continued on:
“Y’know because having to go further and further out to even find them.”
Well, that was the truth, just not the whole truth. However her answer seemed to satisfy Frank who nodded.
“No point in hording supplies if there’s going to be no one alive to use them,” he agreed. “Besides, no matter how long we’ve been on this planet, it’s still got it’s dangers and the further we go out to find them, the greater the risk of getting struck down by a wild animal or something.”
Vera nodded feeling greatly relieved. After the reception of her concerns over the suspected purgative, Vera wasn’t willing to have her fears shot down again. She didn’t care how many tests had been run on the things, the very idea of using them on people infected with a gastro virus made her severely uncomfortable.
The next time Vera went to check on Frank after his sleep, she found that the virus had finally gotten to him. He looked at her with apology in his eyes while she put on the IV brace.
“Don’t… don’t run yourself to exhaustion,” he warned her wearily. “Just… make yourself more susceptible.”
“I won’t.”
Vera got some more rest after that. She checked on all the patient after her eight hours of sleep and after her round slept for another two before heading back down to Dianwood Point. She checked up on Gretel first.
“You’re looking much better!” she said with the most enthusiasm she had felt in hours.
“I feel much better, thank you,” Gretel replied. “Not out of the woods yet by any mean but I… I think I could help you now.”
Vera frowned.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You wouldn’t want to make yourself worse again.”
Gretel shook her head.
“You said…” she swallowed. “You said there were only four others here who were still alive.”
Vera chewed her bottom lip and nodded.
“Well, I’m sure I can take care of them,” Gretel said firmly.
“Do you know how to refill the cartridges?” Vera asked after a moments’ pause.
“Ahh… no I don’t.”
“Okay, I’d better show you then.”
Gretel smiled. The two travelled to the other houses, checked on everyone and cleaned up. They collected the empty cartridges and Vera showed her how to clean and refill them.
“I’m sorry I’ve borrowed your hovercraft,” Vera apologised.
Gretel waved a hand at her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I don’t think I’m really up to driving just yet. Do you now how to check the communications centre for messages?”
“No, only how to send and receive live ones.”
“Right, well, now I have something to show you,” Gretel smiled. “Check the comm centre every day and I’ll keep you updated on how things are going. If you don’t hear from me after any 24 hour period, come and check okay?”
Vera nodded in agreement.
Vera soon returned to SomeNameHere. Once again she rested, then did the round again. This time, however, like as at Dainwood Point, Vera started to see some improvement amongst the patients there. There were still dead bodies to be found but Vera realised that there were more and more people capable of having a conversation with her.
She rested frequently, and when Vera did get around to checking the comm centre for messages, she discovered a number of messages from other settlements. Some had no sign of the virus and were requesting any information if there was anyone out there who could respond. These she replied to, saying the virus was still active, but they had finally had some improvement amongst the patients. She also advised them against using the plant, informing them that when they had stopped using it in the cartridge mix they had also started seeing the improvement. She signed her name of course, and didn’t much care if they decided that she had exceeded her authority or not. She sent this message to the settlements that reported that they had the virus amongst them. A few of the messages were begging for information.
Vera made careful note of which settlements didn’t send messages, and checked the last received dates for the settlements that reported they did. She tensed grimly when she discovered that Terninos Lake was one of those with.
Gretel reported that everything was well.
The next few days became a blur. Vera rested when she could - sometimes without even intending to. She checked, changed, cleaned and refilled cartridges. She cleaned poo and spew. She checked communications once a day. But there were so many people, and so often she was late in changing cartridges, usually by hours. The cleaning never seemed to be done.
Every now and then she would remember to feed herself.
Still, despite her constant state of exhaustion, there was some encouragement to be had. The improvement she had already seen increased. Other settlements that had been fighting the virus were able to report that their patients were recovering. Slowly but surely people started getting better and when the day came that one of Vera’s many patients offered to help she burst into tears.
That one patient was the first of many. Vera was so relieved to have help. Not wanting to strain anyone or to risk relapse she taught and directed them to do the simpler tasks, such as cleaning and refilling cartridges, and even a few took on manning the communications for her. Vera made sure that she took on the major cleaning, however. People started to cook proper meals and enough medical personal recovered to be able to make decisions on things like when they could remove the IV braces.
Gretel called to say that she and her patients were fully recovered, and someone went out to pick them up and take them to SomeNameHere where the five were willing and able to help. The deaths had stopped and so many people were on the mend that Vera was no longer exhausted from her individual efforts.
She had received a good deal of criticism from certain people who were recovered enough to find out what was going on. The stores managers’ head assistant was particular unforgiving about the depletion of nutrient stocks, and there were a few doctors and medical researchers who objected to Vera’s notion of the plant being a purgative. Fortunately most people dismissed them, busying themselves with the more important task of seeing that everyone made a full recovery. Some people did try to get the plant nutrients put back in the cartridge mix, but Vera’s earlier observation about having to go too far away to harvest the plants was still valid. As far as she knew no one was successful in this endeavour, of those who had been willing to go out and look for the plants.
Finally the recoveries started to outnumber those who were still sick. The dead were identified and the bodies burned. At final count they determined that they had lost just over a third of their population, and four settlements had been either wiped out or lost so much of their population they may as well have been.
During the aftermath, Vera received further criticism from “the hoarders” and from the odd doctor who was annoyed with her for ignoring instructions (the fact that she was right in omitting the plant was inconsequential). Frank and Gretel were amongst her most verbal supporters (although Frank was a little put out that Vera didn’t tell him the real reason for her omission). However, those who criticised were amongst a minority, and that minority decreased even further when multiple, new studies from both sides determined that Vera’s assertion that the plant was a purgative was correct.
Actually what bothered Vera the most was the people that declared Vera was a hero. Vera objected strenuously to this idea, declaring she had done nothing that anyone else wouldn’t have done. Many argued saying she had been the only one who knew the plant was a purgative, to which Vera pointed out that sooner or later Frank or someone else would have stopped going out to harvest the plant eventually. The retort to this was that Veras’ knowledge caused the omission to happen sooner rather than later and how many more people would have died in the meantime?
It was hard to argue with that.