Episode 414: Insomnia, Part Three
Sunday, 31 Aug 2521
Day 7
Arden’s analyzed the pills. He doesn’t have a full lab aboard but he’s able to discover that the pills have a fair amount of stimulant and some kind of psychotropic element. Brain altering drugs. Small doses, but over time they might accumulate with interesting effects. What Arden knows of the Pax is that Pax is fast-acting, inducing obedience. These pills could possibly act as a counter to it but in the way coffee counteracts alcohol. It’s not perfect. And just as coffee allows an inebriated person the appearance of sobriety, these pills can at best only delay the Pax taking effect on the user, not prevent it. Arden takes his findings to Dean in private.
Marcus Dean is not surprised. After all, the pill supply is hardly big enough to allow them to take the drugs for the rest of their lives. They are a stop gap measure, for emergencies when the free-floating Pax descends on them.
And that is something to consider: the Pax isn’t widespread on Miranda anymore. Our crew stayed on the ground for four months without a single incident. Perhaps Dean’s supply of pills is sufficient for their lifetimes. Until someone is able to map and track the Pax weather patterns, it’s anyone’s guess.
Seven days into our journey Arden notices something odd about our passengers. Their pupils are dilated wider than the lighting aboard our ship would warrant. Hmm. And Joshua notices that the shifts he’s arranged for mealtimes are missing their assigned diners, that they are swapping their mealtimes amongst themselves. The same number of people are filling up the table per shift, but random individuals are skipping meals or showing up for two meals in a row in back-to-back shifts. Which plays havoc with his system of ensuring everyone’s fed their three squares a day on time. Under other circumstances, Joshua wouldn’t worry about it, but Dean had stressed to him that his people’s discipline is fantastic and adhering to a schedule would fall under the disciplined category. And now people are drifting off it. Joshua finds Dean to discuss it.
Joshua: Your eating patterns for your folks have gotten kinda irregular. It’s not causing issues, I want you to realize, but I’m noticing people are not showing up for the right shift or they’re showing up two shifts in a row. I just wanted to make sure you knew.
Dean: I noticed this back in the service that some people just don’t adapt well to space flight and they spend more time in their cabin than usual. I figure once we get back planetside and they’re able to get some earth under their feet they’ll be a lot better off. Nothing to worry about.
Joshua: Okay, well, all right. Just do what you’re doing, I’m sure, and keep an eye on them. I’ll let you know if anything keeps up.
And Joshua goes back to work.
We’re all busy, it’s incredibly crowded, and yet … something’s not right. It’s not long before the rest of the crew starts noticing things. Arden surmises it might be possible that the drugs he’s analyzed could make our passengers’ pupils dilated, but since he’s unfamiliar with the drug in question he cannot be sure. Our ship’s resident twitch is working hard right along with the rest of us and knowing her tendency toward conspiracy theories, Nika takes pains to keep her engineer too busy to spin them up. Every time Rina reports to her about one job being done, Nika hands her another one. Did you notice the smell in the—? Right. Go fix it.
Even so, Rina does catch sight of some oddities amongst our passengers. Once, as she’s tracking down an airflow issue, she knocks on one of the passengers’ containers and getting no response, enters it thinking it’s empty. It’s not. There are two people lying on the stacked bunks in one cabin, dead to the world, sleeping.
Rina: Oh, sorry, I’ll just lea—.
Wait. Something’s not right. Look again.
There’s no response to her apology. Not even a twitch. On a ship crammed full of humanity, there is just the two of them in there. It’s also a man and a woman … flying in the face of the segregation regs.
Thoroughly hinked, Rina ducks out and finds Joshua. She pulls him aside and explains what she saw.
Rina: Two of them. Racked out. Dead to the world. They’re not supposed to be mixing it up and now they’re … (gestures) one bunk over the other … ? It just looks weird. Should we get Arden? I know there’s the rule about them not mixing.
Joshua: That was the way I understood it.
Yeah, but it wasn’t our job to police that.
Joshua: Were they sick or were they just sleeping?
Rina: I … (facepalm!) … didn’t check. There’s something seriously creepy about them. Look. I’ve seen people sleeping before. I know what it looks like. And that—? (points to container)
Joshua: Go on.
Rina: I’ve seen people sleeping before. This wasn’t it. It … it’s … Gut instinct was to get someone else on this. You. They’re passengers. Arden would probably be next.
Joshua: (flustered) Thank you? I’m just not sure how to take that to Arden. “Arden? There are two random people that were sleeping.” I mean, look, I get it. There’s some definitely weird behavior going on, some not quite right things. But on the other hand, there are 30 people crammed onto this ship—
Rina: Yes. Tell that to my plunger.
Joshua: I’m sure the plunger is very familiar with that. 30 people. Out of whom I don’t know how many of those 25 have a lot of experience travelling for long periods of time in space. Yes? No? I don’t know. I’m assuming they do, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they do for sure. The point is this could be cabin fever.
Rina just stares: You gotta be shittin’ me.
Joshua: I’m sorry I said that. Just—just keep an eye out. Don’t do anything crazy. Just keep an eye on them. I trust in you not to do anything crazy. Okay? All right?
Rina clearly isn’t happy with this but nods and gets back to work, her implicit promise given. Joshua keeps a closer eye on the passengers after this and truth to tell, there isn’t a lot to notice. He finds Nika.
Joshua: There’s been … what you might say a pattern of unusual behavior. No, no. Nothing that individually that seems overwhelming and even put together nothing that seems to be dangerous. It could just be cabin fever. But … the schedules seem to be slightly off. Rina says she saw a man and a woman in bunks together. Technically they weren’t together, fraternizing. They were in separate bunks. But, like …
Nika: Hm. That don’t sound like fraternizing to me.
Joshua: Well, she was saying that they were basically knocked out. That they were so far asleep that it felt weird.
Nika: Passed out?
Joshua: I don’t know. I didn’t see it and take into account who it’s coming from. I’m not saying worry. All I’m saying is just help me keep an eye on them.
And so it goes. We’re all working hard and doing rotating shifts through the night on top of it all, unwilling to have the ship fly unattended. At least one crew member is awake no matter the hour in case of emergency. Had we a larger crew, it wouldn’t be that bad a hardship. Since we’re only four people strong, it follows that standing watch is no cakewalk.
Arden is on graveyard watch that night. He keeps the bridge locked, though he checks the sensors there every hour, and he patrols the decks on a regular cycle, making himself available to anyone who might need him. As he’s patrolling the upper deck some hours into his watch, he hears something. It sounds like a … rhythmic thumping…pinging sound. It’s not something in distress but …
Arden goes down below to check it out. He steps off the bottom tread and pokes his head around the corner. He sees a figure standing in the dimmed night lighting of the corridor. It’s one of the passengers and he’s hitting his head on the door to one of the containers. Not hard. Just … deliberately and methodically hitting his head on the door. Arden rounds the corner and calls out.
Arden: Excuse me.
The passenger turns to look at him. Arden sees he has a bruise on his forehead and his eyes … His eyes look wrong. Dilated. Red. Big bags under them. He looks, in short, strung out. And he’s got a pretty big bruise on his forehead. Arden well remembers his own stint working around the clock as a resident on Osiris and knows that strung-out look.
Arden speaks calmly to him and comes closer, concerned.
Arden: That’s a pretty big bruise you got there.
Arden gently takes his arm and starts leading him to medbay. The passenger blinks, starts, and breathing deeply as if hoping the extra intake will keep his eyes open, making his speech halting and disjointed.
Head Banger: You’re … you’re the doctor, right?
Arden: Yes.
Head Banger: No, no … I’m okay. I just … Need some sleep.
Arden: Well I can help you with that. We have a nice—
Head Banger: No … I can’t take anything. We’re not supposed to … take anything.
Arden: Why?
Head Banger: We’re not supposed to take anything …
Arden: I’m just offering a place where you can be cool and relaxed and lie in a bed and …
And Arden starts leading him for the stairs and … Head Banger twitches and starts scratching his head, his neck. Arden can see he’s itchy and starting to gouge. Red tracks already mar his skin. Not good.
Head Banger: I don’t know …. I just don’t feel like lying down … gotta keep movin’… I have’ta … have’ta get movin’ …
Arden: Well, how about a glass of water. I can go get you one.
Head Banger: … Uhh …(sighs)
Arden: Let me go get you that glass of water.
Head Banger: Heyyyy … okay, okay. I’ll stay here…. It’s dark here. I like that.
Arden: Okay. That’s good.
And Arden makes tracks up the stairs for Nika’s door. He taps and calls softly. Nika’s pretty much out the door before he gets to say ‘Captain’ twice.
Nika: What?
Arden: There’s one of our passengers downstairs, strung out on sometning and digging furrows into his own skin with his fingernails and—
Nika: Oh, man….!
Arden: And bruising his head by banging it.
Nika: Christ.
Arden: And he’s kinda … Yeah.
Nika: All right, just lemme grab my pants.
She’s in nothing but a tank top and undies, clearly woken from sleep. She ducks back into her quarters. She yanks on her pants and pulls her hair free and says over her shoulder:
Nika: Go get whatshisname.
Arden: You mean Marcus?
Nika: Yeah. That one.
Arden: I’ll go get Marcus.
Arden knocks on Dean’s door as Nika braids her hair into something more presentable. Dean: opens his door with a question on his lips.
Dean: Are we under attack?
Arden: One of your people seems to be … well not quite in his own mind. He’s doing damage to himself.
Dean: What do you mean?
Arden: Scratching real hard. Furrows. He’s banging his head against the wall. Seems really out of sorts.
Nika: And likely to need to be restrained.
Dean: Yes. Let’s go take a look.
For a man woken up in the middle of the night with bad news, Dean seems to take it all in stride. Arden leads everyone back downstairs. Head Banger is not where Arden left him. Arden turns up the lights in the corridor and describes Head Banger to Dean, hoping for an identification.
Dean: Ah, yes … Josh. That surprises me. He seemed the healthy sort. Perhaps he’s in his room.
Arden: Perhaps.
Nika: All right. You go do that. I’ll go round up the rest.
Arden: The rest? The rest of what?
Nika: The rest of the crew.
They split up. Arden accompanies Dean to Josh’s room. Nika rousts the rest of the crew. Since Kiera’s technically still a passenger, Nika lets her sleep. Nika raps on Rina’s door first, waits for an answer. If there isn’t one, she’s fully prepared to knock them both out of Joshua’s room. But nope. Not this time. Rina drags out of her room, Joshua out of his. Both are in their jammmies.
Joshua: Captain?
Nika: (to them both) Just freakin’ pick a room and stick to it.
Nika marches off to join Dean and Arden. Rina catches Joshua’s eye across the corridor: What the hell?
We all make it to Josh’s assigned bunk and look inside. There is only one person in the double bunk. It’s not Josh. Well, where is he?
Arden: There’s only so many places he can be aboard the ship. Easily.
Joshua: Orders, Captain?
Nika: (sighing) Start sweeping.
Rina: (ditto) I’ll go aft. The engine room has a lot of nooks and crannies.
Dean: You said you had a weapons locker?
Arden: There is. It’s downstairs by the airlock.
Dean: Do you have a stunner?
Arden: Ah …
Joshua: Actually, we do. We got the one. And it’s in the weapons locker.
Dean: I’d go bring it. Just in case. If he’s acting strangely …
Nika: (to Arden) Go check the bridge. I’ll get the stunner.
Joshua gets the location Arden first found Josh and starts his search pattern there. Arden tells him that Josh is light sensitive, so keep it in mind. Nika sticks with Joshua and orders Rina to stick with Dean. Nobody is searching for a possibly dangerous crazoid alone.
Rina: Captain. You want me to put the lights on day-mode while I’m back there?
Nika: Yes.
Rina: You got it.
No point fumbling around in the dark, right? Nika stops in the weapons locker along the way to grab the stunner, then continues her search aftward from the bow as Joshua moves forward from the stern. Rina and Dean do the same on the deck above. Arden grabs a sedative from medbay and goes down to join Nika and Joshua.
Nika catches up with Joshua.
Nika: You know how to use the stunner?
Joshua: It’s a gun, isn’t it? That’s why you’re carrying it.
Nika: And I’m going to hit you with the butt end of it if you don’t get yourself out of the pacifist mode. I taught you how to shoot. You know how to shoot.
Joshua: No, actually I was ignoring you in every one of those lessons, Captain.
Nika: (sourly) Good. Next time you get to be the target.
Joshua: Fair enough. You learn that way.
All right. Back to searching.
As he catches up with Nika and Joshua below, Arden spies an access panel that has been removed, one that leads to the lower parts of the engineering section. He hits the nearest comm.
Arden: Rina. There’s a hatch loose down here that—
Rina: (over comm) Which one?
Arden: It leads to the lower—
Rina: I’m on my way.
Rina leaves the engine room, locks everything up tight, and runs for the stairs down. Dean has beat her to it and makes ready to worm inside the crawlspace. Arden stops him.
Arden: Try to keep from moving anything until Rina gets here. I have no idea what kind of jerry rigging she has in there or not.
Dean: I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble.
And he crawls right in. He looks around. Huh. Interesting….
When she arrives, Rina gets on her hands and knees on the deck and pokes her head in.
Rina: What are you doing down there? Get out of there. Do you have any id— (crawls in after him) Watch where you’re— Aarrgh! Will you get out of there, please?
Dean has already disappeared from view and Rina dives in after him. Arden gets in touch with Joshua and Nika to fill them in on the latest developments: They’ve found a loose hatch and Dean and Rina have crawled inside. Arden hears screaming. Oh, and now there’s screaming too.
Joshua looks at Nika.
Joshua: Marcus plus Rina plus screaming. That equals good all around. Maybe it’s just this time of night…
As far as the screaming goes—it’s frantic, followed by stern calming tones from Dean. Josh is thrashing and kicking, Dean is dodging and subduing, Rina comes close to getting hit in the head. It’s too tight in there for her and Dean to work together, so she backs out to the hatch again. There’s more screaming and then everything goes quiet. Very quiet.
Arden: Everything okay in there?
Joshua: (just arriving) How long have they been down there?
Arden: Three or four minutes. ( a beat) You missed the screaming part.
Nika: There was a screaming part?
Arden: Two of them.
There’s a shuffle of skin on metal. Rina backs all the way out to give the man some room and in a moment, Dean comes out of the hatch with Josh in tow. Josh is unconscious.
Nika: Rina. Is this the guy? Is this the guy that was passed out?
Rina: The one I saw in the container earlier? No.
Arden helps Dean get Josh flat on the deck and the doctor starts administering first aid. Josh’s pulse is very rapid, not dangerously so. But still. Arden installs Josh in medbay, intending on hooking him up to fluids and mild sedative and let the man sleep. However, checking him over with the equipment in medbay, sedatives look like a bad idea. Kiera advises it might push Josh’s vitals too low. Arden decides to keep a close eye on him. Rina watches from the door for a minute and then announces she’s going to check the crawlspace for damage. Arden ribs her on it.
Arden: Those things hanging by wires? They seem to be human ears.
Joshua: Ew.
Nika: Arden!
Rina: (on her way out, middle finger raised) Yebut s’vad, Arden.
Arden: What?
Nika: (eyeroll) I’m going to the bridge.
Arden: It has been an hour since I’ve checked sensors.
Joshua approaches Dean. Dean looks up from Josh.
Joshua: Marcus.
Dean: Yes?
Joshua: What’s going on?
Dean: (puzzled) This shouldn’t be happening. These are the ones who didn’t have any of these problems.
Nika: These problems?
Joshua: (off her tone) Okay. Let’s back up.
Nika: How prevalent are these problems? Why don’t you give a list of side effects have been on the people who don’t make the cut.
Joshua: Let’s back up a step. (steps between them) I feel like we’re coming in on the middle of the story here, so … They didn’t have these problems? What are we talking about?
Dean: The drugs … may cause some side effects in people.
Joshua: And these are the side effects?
Nika: Or were they having other problems but not these particular ones?
A pause. Then:
Dean: Well, you know when you asked me about their health? I may have … slightly … dissembled a little bit.
Joshua: I wasn’t there for that conversation? Come again?
Nika: Dissembled.
Arden: How much is “slightly” on a scale of 1 to 10?
Dean: I’m not sure where you’d put it on the scale. There’s a … a kind of … experimental way of dealing with the Pax. I assume from your own studies you’ve seen somebody research about—well, as you said yourself: Reavers and Prion disease.
Joshua: (softly) I don’t like where this conversation’s going.
Nika: Speaking more slowly is guaranteed to torque off the Captain at this juncture, so I recommend that you get to the short-short version and give us some details very quickly.
Arden: Try not to get too angry because it’ll upset the patient. And the doctor.
Dean: There’s an experimental use of the Prions to build up an immunity to the Pax.
Come AGAIN?!?
Nika: So let me get this straight—
Arden: I’m assuming it’s a different type of Prion.
Dean: It’s …Yes. I mean, I don’t know all the medical science about it but …
Arden: Yeah. This is not good.
Nika: Arden. When you say “not good”, is this along the lines of “That’s a helluva twinkie, Ray!”?
Arden: No. It’s along the lines of “This could be very very bad” or “It could be not so bad”, but I don’t have enough information yet.
Nika cuts loose a gusting breathe and reins in her anger.
Joshua: These symptoms? Have you seen a lot of them among your people?
Dean: Well, this is a modified strain of … ah … SFI.
Nika: How long ago did it get modified?
Joshua: SFI?
Dean: Sporadic Fatal Insomnia.
Nika: What?
Dean: But it’s modified, so it shouldn’t be fatal.
Arden: He did say he was not tired when I talked to him in the hallway, and I wanted him to lie down. He didn’t want to do that.
Dean: But it’s supposed to prevent the Pax from working.
Arden: Yeahhhhhh. The people who made the Pax don’t know how it works.
Dean: They must. Otherwise they—
Arden: No they don’t. They—
Joshua: Okay. Hang on.
Nika: Stop. Stop.
Everyone takes a breath.
Dean: There are some side effects—
Joshua: Wait a minute. Side effects?
Nika: (steely) All right, look. First of all, you’ve had several different modifications of this drug, I would assume, to try to weed out which one might or might not work for what you want. Yes?
Joshua: (softly) What?
Dean: No.
Nika: So this is the only version of this that you have tried?
Dean: Yes.
Nika: How big a group did you start with?
Joshua: (very softly) All of them.
Dean: Probably maybe … we weren’t merely selected for this.
Nika: How big a group did you start with?
Dean: We had perhaps 500 people.
Nika: And how many are left?
Joshua: (softer still) 24?
Dean: Probably 450 or so?
Nika: So you’ve lost—?
Dean: A handful of people.
Joshua steps aside and whispers to Arden:
Joshua: You know that anecdotal story about God? And the man of God?
Arden: Humility?
Joshua: It’s getting less and less anecdotal.
Meanwhile, Nika holds Dean’s feet over the proverbial coals.
Nika: How long? How long have you been … The side effects are kicking in now? Is this a normal time frame in which this should kick in? Or did it take him longer to do this?
Dean: (taken aback) Uh …
Nika: You said you hadn’t seen any of these side effects in any of the people that you’d brought.
Dean: Right …
Nika: Have they been on this medication long enough that it should have been seen before you boarded my boat?
Dean: (thinking aloud) … Should they have been on it long enough that I should have seen it before? … Yes. I should have seen it before.
Nika: All right.
Joshua: One second. What I need to figure out, and I am way too tired to try to figure this out—
Dean: I don’t think he’s a danger.
Arden: (sourly) Not right now.
Nika: I’m more concerned that we’re probably going to lose him en route.
Arden: His vital signs seem relatively strong. Thready but strong.
Joshua: What I’m concerned about is containing this. We got another ten days before Meridian and another three days before Miranda.
Nika: And he’s not going to be functionally capable of staying on Miranda.
Everybody looks over at Josh sleeping on the bed.
Joshua: I’m even less concerned about him—although, no offense—I’m just more concerned that if you weren’t expecting him to show these symptoms, what happens if more of them start showing it?
Nika: Yeah. That.
Joshua: What can we do—what can you do? What can we all do to keep this under control? Without killing anybody?
Dean: What do you mean, keep it under control? Hmm.
Joshua: Can you put in some sort of buddy system?
Nika: Is there some sort of normal flow to the side effects, to the point where someone either recovers or dies?
Dean: This is not the normal disease. This is the modified disease.
Nika: You said this is the only version you’ve tried.
Dean: Right.
Nika: You’ve tried it on 500 people. You’ve lost roughly 50 of them.
Dean: No. I’m not sure it was exactly 50 of them.
Nika: Still. You said this was the only strain of the drug you guys have tried. Which means you have—
Dean: There’s 25 of us out of the 450, so it’s more like … I’d say about 20 people died.
Nika: Okay. But you’ve seen enough people die of this so you know the general strain of—
Dean: Yes. About two weeks is about how long a person once he shows symptoms can last before …
Nika: Can it be reversed?
Arden: Before what?
Dean: Before they die.
So Josh has only two weeks to live?
Nika: Can you wean them off the drug and reverse the problem?
Arden: Chances are not.
Dean: It’s not the drug. The drug is there to …
Arden: The drug is the vector?
Dean: No. The drug isn’t the vector.
Joshua: I’m sure what he’s saying is that they all had it well before they came on board.
Dean: Yes. The treatment was before we got the drugs. The drugs are there to help us cope with it. The drugs are there to regulate our melatonin and other things.
Joshua: Sure. So. Once again. Back to the practical aspects of this. What can we do to keep –you said two weeks from symptoms to sleep-defying death? Does that sound right?
Nika: (nods to Joshua) How far into the side effects is he at this point?
Dean: I’d say roughly halfway. I don’t know exactly. It’s different with other people.
Nika: Right. Some people will go longer or shorter.
Joshua: Is anyone else starting to show signs of the side effects? We got about two weeks to go before we get to where we’re supposed to be going?
Dean: We’re all at peace with the possibility we might not make it.
What?
Joshua: Regardless of how you feel about your people not making it—and I’d like to see them all make it, trust me. More than anyone else that’s not you guys on this ship—but I’m also concerned about the fact that your guy was in an access panel.
Nika: Sleep deprivation causes a large number of symptoms that can be very violent.
Joshua: Yes. Violent to crew members. Violent to the ship. I want to see you all make it more than anything. I want to see us make it. I want to see the ship make it.
Dean: That’s what I don’t understand. We—our treatments were months ago. If anybody was going to be affected, it should have happened some time ago.
Joshua: You have any experts on this at all? You’re not a medical man? Do you have anybody else here who’s an expert?
Dean: No.
Joshua: Somehow I didn’t think so. I was afraid of that.
A beat. Kiera, who has been watching this all the while, speaks up and her words fall into the quiet.
Kiera: I was thinking he didn’t test them under varying conditions. They were run under normal G, normal pressure, normal air.
Nika: Has he been on the medication regularly?
Dean: The medication or the treatment?
Nika: You said the treatment was months ago. You said the medication was to mitigate the symptoms.
Dean: Yes. Everyone takes their pills.
Nika: Are you sure he’s been taking his?
Dean: Fairly sure. Who knows? If he’s been pretending to …?
Joshua: To be honest, Captain, it’s probably not just him. I did mention people were off their eating schedule. Our engineer saw two people passed out in their bunks. Dead to the world. My point is the first thing is his not taking his meds and there’s something going on. Once again I don’t want to have to lock everybody in their container. But if I feel like it’s going to be a problem with the ship’s ability to get us where we’re going, then I will. I’m not saying we’re at that point now.
Dean: I’ll talk to my people—you can talk to my people and we’ll make some sort of buddy system. We’ll check on people to make sure they’re not behaving strangely. I think we’re all behind that.
Joshua: Okay. Buddy system. And you should have somebody in place to be on patrol. To check on the buddy system. If you’ll check in with either me or the Captain on a regular basis to give us a report on what’s going on, we’ll move forward as best we can.
Dean: As long as we’re talking about this…
Joshua: I don’t like the sound of this.
Arden: What? The sound of the other shoe dropping?
Dean: It’s important that you understand where we’re coming from. What you think of as simple symptoms…
Joshua: Uh huh.
Dean: It’s … These are not bad things, from our perspective. (a beat) There is a … there is pain. But if you think of life, birth is a circumstance of pain. But birth heralds a new life and the pain they may suffer may also herald something new as well. And I don’t want to treat this religious experience as a contagion that needs to be arrested and contained. We will make every effort for the safety of your crew and ship. I understand that. And we are not primitives to believe this is not biological. This is both spiritual and biological. But if you treat my people as if they are merely plague victims, they will not respond well.
That’s one big damn shoe you’ve dropped there.
Joshua: Well. I’ll do my best, since I’m the one who has the most interaction with them on a daily basis. I’ll certainly do my best to treat this exactly as you say this is. Something that is a transformation for you. If you’re willing to make the effort to do what you can to make sure we can fly as smoothly as possible, then I’m willing to make sure that your experience on board is as smooth as possible. Because that’s my job.
Dean: I didn’t see any damage to your ship.
Joshua: I didn’t say I’d seen any damage, either. However, as I am sure you are probably on board with—just keep a preventative eye out. (turns to Arden) You’ll keep an eye on him for a little bit?
Arden: Yeah. At least til he wakes up and is coherent.
Joshua: Everybody get some sleep. (to Dean) We’ll see how everybody on your side is doing when we wake up in the morning.
Arden: Since I’ll be watching this guy, I need someone to take over my watch.
Nika: I’ve got it.
Joshua: I’m going to sleep then.
Nika: You will meet me up in the bridge just a minute before you do.
We break up the meeting and Joshua follows Nika to the bridge. Once they’re both inside and the door is closed, Nika turns to Joshua, arms crossed.
Nika: So…. explain this to me to make sure I’m understanding this correctly. They have given themselves some form of Prion disease to offset Pax that they expect to encounter on Miranda.
Joshua: Yup. That’s about right.
Nika: Where there mostly ain’t any Pax anymore in the atmo.
Joshua: Yup. I haven’t heard a question yet.
Nika: Do I have that straight?
Joshua: Pretty much. Is there something…?
Nika: So. We’re gonna drop them on this planet and leave them to it?
Joshua: Yeah.
Nika: Okay!
Joshua: You heard the man. It may not have been the—
Nika: Yep! (she’s done!) I’m good!
Joshua: Okay.
Nika: Go get some sleep. Cuz we’re gonna be tag teamin’ the shifts. Tell Rina to hit the rack.
Joshua leaves the bridge and carries out her orders.
In the medbay, Arden’s thinking over the information and figures that while there aren’t many cures for the Prion disease everyone’s familiar with, what is one Prion disease is different from another Prion disease and what Dean’s people have may not be the Prion disease that’s ravaged the Verse these past two years. It’s just a form of treatment devised to treat something else that also has the side effect of resistance to Pax. As he explains to Joshua when the steward stops by on his way off the bridge.
Joshua: It has a certain logical sense when you think about it.
Arden: Basically what it is, it’s a different type of drug that affects the system permanently.
Joshua: What do you do when there’s a drug floating around in the atmosphere that tends to want to put you to sleep forever? You give yourself a disease where you don’t want to sleep all that much. It makes a certain logical sense from a certain perspective. From there it has—and maybe the primary effect is that they’re going through a religious transformation. You know? That’s not something to be shrugged at.
And Joshua ducks back out to find Rina and she’s in the engine room, incongruously in her jammies, tinkering with something.
Joshua: Get some sleep. We’re going to be doing double shifts.
Rina: (putting up her tools) You don’t have to tell me twice.
Joshua: Good night.
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