…
"In light of this, I find myself asking whether God is powerless to the suggestion of irony or so malevolent as to enact it." - From Markus's final log.
…
Dr. Mick followed the traffic of colonists down the narrow corridors of the colony. It wasn't so much the size the population that often made the building feel cramped, as it was the size of the complex itself. While it was the biggest homestead colony ever built for a new world, the proportion of its size to its population didn't change the sensation of being crammed in a metal can. The community was tiny compared with those found on the Galilean worlds, but Victor Prime was the first interstellar colony. It required a sizable population of a hundred, and the supplies for machines to build the complex took twenty light years to get there. The structure was only just large enough to comfortably house the homestead effort.
Still, Mick was comfortable with the tight conditions. He was one of the first to arrive on the planet, and had been in similar conditions serving on missionary projects on Mars. As the first interplanetary colony, it too featured similar tight spaces throughout much of its architecture, a testament to how far interplanetary, and now interstellar, colonization had come.
He swaggered into the medical bay as the most experienced physician the colony had to offer by far, carrying with him an attitude that suggested he'd seen more action than anyone else in the room. He was comfortable in his sixties, wearing his age like a tailored suit.
The medical bay was minimalist in design with eight stalls, each housing a roof mounted robotic system, that looked like a crab with multiple arms. In truth, the arms did much of the work. The physicians just administrated the bot's AI. But Dr. Mick didn't see it that way. He was the conductor of a great orchestra, a general commanding his troops to victory. This medical bay was his. Though not officially, the colony was his as well; his to make last into the next great chapter of the Hegemony's reign.
His usual patient stumbled into the med bay, coughing up a lung. Brutus didn't want his mother helping him to the stall, second from the left. Like most teenage boys, he didn't want to look weak, relying on mommy. Yet deep down, the boy did want his mother. His lungs burned as he coughed his way to the table. The mother, Julia, waved for doctor Mick.
"I'll be in shortly," the veteran physician called out to her.
Julia ducked back into the stall, while doctor Mick fixed himself a cup of coffee. Another doctor, doctor Douglas, was busy pouring his sixth packet of sugar into his own cup. "Sounds terrible," whispered doctor Douglas.
"Don't you start," answered doctor Mick. He already had one paranoid physician on staff to contend with. He didn't need the one doctor he trusted questioning his judgement. Admittedly, he felt doctor Douglas was in more of a position to voice his concerns than the other one. And yet, doctor Douglas still paled in experience compared to his decades of practice on less hospitable worlds than Ganymede.
"No, no. I agree," replied doctor Douglas with his usual soft tone. "The chances are slim with the new filters they installed after last year's outbreak." Douglas was convincing himself more than Mick. He was still a newcomer to Victor Prime, having arrived from Ganymede. Unlike some of the colonists, he was drafted and deployed to serve as the third physician for this particular colony.
Victor Prime had several colonies around the sizable planet. Every year, new ships dropped off families and individuals with desirable backgrounds and skills to the isolated complexes. Douglas was just one of a handful to be added to this particular colony, and the stories people told him about the outbreaks that occurred unnerved him.
"I've seen it already," Mick reminded him. "I know what it looks like."
"You don't have to convince me. Still, doesn't it pay to have a healthy level of concern?"
Mick balked.
It annoyed Douglas that his pier was so headstrong. He relied on his experience, but the ego could be a bit much. Still, such a strong personality made it easy to know what the man needed. "Help me," Douglas said, "In your expertise, what should I consider a healthy level of concern."
Mick smiled broadly. "I've come to just one certainty," the doctor bragged. "And that's if you ever see me concerned, don't bother praying. I've done everything I can."
A clatter broke the conversation between the opposite physicians. It came from the second stall to the left, where his usual patient was.
Mick rushed to the stall with Douglas following close behind.
"You're not his doctor!" Julia screamed from the stall.
Doctor Mick gritted his teeth. What is that amateur doing now?
Mick found Sully holding a gas mask to his patient, sending him to sleep. "Get away from my patient you hack!"
"You haven't checked him, Mickey," Sully responded calmly.
"I checked him last week you egotistical—"
"That was last week, Mickey," said Sully, cutting him off.
"Doctor Sullivan—"
Now Mick interrupted, "Don't credit this lunatic with a title."
Sully didn't take issue so much with Mick's insults as he did the older doctor's arrogance. He had learned what arrogance does and how it could kill so many young men. Sully wanted to be done taking orders from men who cared more about being right than the body count they left behind. The young physician turned to Julia. "Mickey's not doing his job."
"How dare you!" Mick shouted. "Not doing my—Remind me. How much experience do you have? Oh, that's right. You just got your implant, downloaded the bare minimum and shipped yourself in the first rocket thinking you're special."
This was what he hated most about men like Mick. He could respect the knowledge they carried and the experience they had. What he couldn't stand was using that experience to grandstand. No, Sully hadn't been to the Mars slums, nor had he been on Victor Prime from the beginning. But Sully wasn't green, fresh out of an academy on Ganymede either. He had experience. He just didn't want to talk about it.
"I've been out here on every new colony that's popped up for the last twenty years!" Mick continued, taking Sully's silence as an invitation.
Sully just continued. Keep talking, Mickey, he thought to himself as he grabbed a bronchoscope from the metal arm.
"And why do you insist on doing things yourself like some Earth barbarian?"
Sully sighed. "Me Sul-Tar. Me smash infection with big hammer."
"He's not infected!" screamed Julia as she wailed on Sully.
Meanwhile, Beth's recording spoke in Sully's ear, "You're not God, you know…"
Sully snapped. "You might be right. But if he is, and I didn't at least check him, he isn't the only one who pays!"
"Sully! My office!" shouted a voice. It came from the administrator, who was standing at the stall's entrance.
Sully turned to face the med-bay's administrator. You don't understand, he wanted to tell him. I can't let anyone else die. Not again. He saw Julia cradling her son, removing the gas mask from his face. He wondered if he'd do this to his own son, and remembered why he was here, on Victor Prime.
Sully's face paled as he realized what he just did might've cost him everything he worked for. "I'm sorry," he said. "That was uncharacteristic—"
"Now!" the administrator cut him off.
Beth spoke in his head, "Squirmy walked today! He's so strong! Just like his daddy. Can you believe it?" Ijust killed you and our son for no reason, Sully thought to himself.
He turned to Brutus who stared at the young doctor, terrified. "Hope you get well soon," Sully said earnestly. Then, he walked out with the administrator.