Wrack and .............. ruin?

[Stoat]

Doctor Reed sat in his office and studied the report on his most recent patient intently. He was no stranger to treating some of the most unusual cases Bretonia had to offer - Queen Carina's on Leeds was generally considered the finest hospital within the house. This was different though. Different enough for him to have ignored the missive from Max DeVirgo, head of the Bounty Hunters Guild. Rather than immediately place Stoat into suspended animation, Reed had attempted to find out what was going on with the guildmaster. So far, guildmaster Stoat had been diagnosed by six different specialists. Each diagnostician had come to the same conclusion. Stoat appeared to be suffering from a progression of extremely severe, predominantly neurological diseases, each seemingly lasting for a few hours before regression, or cure, and the guildmaster reverting to a comatose state.

First up was trigeminal neuralgia, a disorder usually affecting people of at least 50 years of age, characterised by extreme pain in the facial area. The guildmaster had come out of the comatose state he had been admitted in, and started screaming in pain. Four hours of investigation had identified the condition, and a microvascular decompression, a relatively simple surgical procedure, cured it. Stoat had come round from the anaesthesia long enough for the doctors to see that the procedure had been successful, before slipping back into a comatose state.

Eight hours later the guildmaster reawakened, and immediately started to complain of tingling, crawling, and pins and needles in his left leg. His right leg showed numbness and tremors, and any attempt to walk showed a considerable gait abnormality. More tests were run and this time peripheral neuropathy diagnosed. Administration of a tricyclic antidepressant had all but instantaneously removed all symptoms, but the guildmaster slipped back into a comatose state approximately fifteen minutes later.

Once again, eight hours later, he reawakened, this time his body completely taken over by tremors, hypokinesia, rigidity, and postural instability. Tests finally showed conclusively that the guildmaster was suffering from full blown Parkinson's disease, a condition not seen in the Sirius sector since the very earliest days of colonisation. At a loss for suitable treatments, Reed had administered an MAO-B inhibitor, and within five minutes all symptoms of Parkinsons had receded, and again Stoat slipped into his coma.

The cycle continued every eight hours. Stoat would awaken showing the symptoms commonly associated with a patient suffering from the diseases for several years, if not decades. Myasthenia gravis was then followed by basal ganglia disease. As soon as a suitable drug was administered, or surgical procedure carried out, all symptoms and trace of the disorder would recede and then disappear, and the guildmaster would become comatose again.

That was until yesterday. Stoat had awakened showing symptoms including loss of muscle coordination, muscle weakness, visual problems, hearing problems, mental retardation, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, a respiratory disorder and autonomic dysfunction. Seventeen hours of tests and analysis showed signs of drastic mutations within his mitochondrial DNA. He was at least stable, but Doctor Reed was out of time. Representatives of Max DeVirgo would arrive in approximately four hours, and the guildmaster now had to be put into suspended animation.

He was secretly relieved that the representatives of the Bounty Hunters Guild arriving to reclaim the guildmaster. What they thought they might be able to achieve that Queen Carina'€™s could not was beyond him. Still, it was their problem now. He had more than enough on his plate dealing with all the wounded that continued to pour in from the war with Kusari. He pressed a botton on his communicator.

'€œGeorge, prepare guildmaster Stoat for transit. He'€™s due to be collected in four hours. Full suspended animation please, George.'€

'€œYes doctor,'€ came the reply. '€œWill do.'€

**************************************

Captain Harding landed the Armoured Transport, PTS Last Chance, softly on the landing pad of Queen Carina's. As the vessel powered down he made his way to the cargo bay and opened the doors. There, waiting for him, was a single white coated doctor, along with two orderlies with a suspended animation chamber between them. He moved to the doctor, holding out his hand.

"Doctor Reed?" The man nodded in affirmation. "This is the guildmaster I take it?"

"As requested by your Mr DeVirgo. He's safely in SA, although there were several," Reed paused as he searched for the right words, "oddities we had to overcome before he could be safely out under. His condition is stable, but critical. As I told DeVirgo, I think moving the guildmaster is a grave mistake. I cannot believe he will be any better off being shipped out to the Omegas."

"Not my problem, Doc. I'm just here to carry the poor bastard, nothing more. You got something for me to sign?"

Reed nodded, and handed across a clipboard holding the release papers. Harding signed them and passed them back. Turning to the orderlies he shouted

"Right lads, get him on board then. No need to be hanging around!"

The orderlies hurried to push the SA chamber onto the transport as Harding turned back to the doctor.

"Cheers, doc. Been a pleasure." He nodded once and moved into the cargo hold himself. With the chamber secured, the orderlies left and Harding secured the doors and returned to the bridge. Strapping himself in, he opened a comms channel.

"Volke, Gilgamesh, Amber, I am launching now. Get your birds ready."

The transport powered up into the Leeds cloudbase.

**************************************

Finally safe aboard Rostock, Captain Harding relaxed and let out a long deep sigh. It had been a long time since he had come that close to death. As the sweat on his forehead dried, his comms snapped into life.

"Harding! This is DeVirgo. I hear you ran into some trouble. I want your logs now, Captain. And arrange for guildmaster Stoat to be transferred to Capetown immediately."

The comms closed before he could respond. Jerk, he thought, as he transferred all of his logs through to DeVirgo....

The data sent, he moved to arrange for the transfer to Capedown. He'd be glad to get rid of this particular burden.

**************************************

DeVirgo looked up at his terminal as a datastream arrived. It was the feed from Captain Harding. As he read through each item of the logs, his eyebrows raised slightly.







"Jackson!" he shouted, as he finished examining the final details. His aide appeared immediately, gliding across the floor towards him.

"Sir?"

"Get a message to Dales on Capetown. Guildmaster Stoat will be arriving there shortly. I want full quarrantine lockdown, he's got a possible nomad infestation coming his way. And not a damned word to leak out of his department this time! Tell him it's his head otherwise."

**************************************

Guildmaster Stoat tossed and turned on the hospital bed. It was no good, he was never going to get to sleep. He sat upright, looking around the murkily lit room he was in. Two weeks he'd been here now. Two weeks of white coated doctors and neurosurgeons and nurses and psychologists and pyschotherapists and other, far more shady "scientists" all prodding, and poking, and questioning, and suspecting, and querying, and accusing. They'd not yet resorted to out and out torture, but he could feel the edges of his sanity fraying already.

Frustrated , he grabbed the glass of water at his bedside and hurled it across the room. The plastic glass failed to shatter, and bounced noisly across the floor.

"Bloody, damned, sodding platic bloody glass!!" he screamed. Throeing off the sheets he leaped off the bed, tearing the matress up and sending into the same wall as the glass. He turned to the everpresent security monitor bolted safely out of reach.

"Get me the hell out of here! I've had it, I tell you. No more bloody tests. No more probes. NO MORE DAMNED DOCTORS!"

As he raved at the camera, three burly orderlies burst into the room, tackling him to the floor. He struggled in vain against his opressors. A syringe pressed into his neck and he drifted off into insensibility.

**************************************

He awoke again several hours later in the same room, the same bed and the same sheets, but this time he was strapped down and gagged. A doctor entered the room, looking at the various monitor readings. Stoat struggled and tried to shout, but only managed a muffled grunting and a slight ruffling of the sheets. The doctor looked over at him impassively.

"Quiet down, guildmaster. Save your energy." He left the room without a further word.

The fight drained out of Stoat. He knew what was coming. He'd been involved in a close encounter with the Wilde, and they'd left him alive. That meant one of two things. He was infested already, or they wanted him to be. Judging by the tests he'd already been subjected to, he supposed it was the latter. If it was the former he'd be dead already. All he could do was relax, wait, and hope that DeVirgo didn't want him dead - when he finally made an appearance.

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