Strangers In a Strange Land Episode 5: Strangers In a Strange Land, #5

By C. B. Maurice

A shameful illness arrives with a group of refugees, but before Aine and Daig can contain it, it leaps to the groups with little or no immunity. Suspicion and fear threaten to tear the rebellion apart before Livy, Jessie, and Kevin realize that the "shameful illness" is chicken pox and are able to bring some sanity to the situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christa Maurice
• Release date: Jun 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386093978

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright 2018 C B Maurice

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Also by C. B. Maurice

In the sixth episode

Episode 6 Bonus

Strangers In a Strange Land

Episode 5

By

Christa Maurice

Copyright 2018 C. B. Maurice

eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

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Chapter 1

Daig, wake up.

Daig jerked upright in bed. The room was pitch dark, but his sister was not on nights anymore. Why was she pounding on his bedroom door at this hour?

Daig!

The alarm in her voice made him lurch out of bed and across the room to the door. He yanked it open, forgetting he slept naked.

His sister had her medical uniform on and was trying to pull on a rain slicker without putting down her bag. We have an outbreak of the deilgneach. I need your help in the village.

Daig grabbed the uniform he’d discarded on the chair when he went to bed last night. They had been sitting up late in the board. Livy and her friends had been explaining some entertainment they enjoyed at home. He had never liked war movies, but he had stayed because she was there. Lars is on night patrol.

We must avoid him. If this gets out, there will be an uproar.

Do you have everything you need? He took her medical bag from her.

Nyan is meeting us at the elevator with the medicines.

Is it raining?

Yes.

We should go through the underground complex. Daig led the way through the door.

Won’t we be noticed?

No. It will be empty and in the rain, Lars will set up in the restaurant on the main square and send out patrols once an hour.

Aine pattered behind him to the elevator. Why now? she muttered. Things had been so quiet. Everyone in the village was working together. Getting along. You know what’s going to happen.

Daig stabbed the call button. Let’s just deal with the outbreak. How many have it?

Three. I think it came with the big group. Remember all those people right after you turned on the shield generators? It can incubate for two weeks. One of them must have been a carrier. We always check the refugees who come in, except for that bunch because there were so many, and Saida wanted them out of the fortress as soon as possible.

We can isolate three.

The elevator doors opened on the ground level. Nyan stood outside with a basket of gauze in her hands. Here’s the gauze you asked for, doctor, she said, too loudly, but there was no one to hear her.

Thank you, Nyan, Aine said, also too loudly. She took the basket. Good night.

Nyan was already hurrying back to the infirmary as the elevator doors closed.

He needed to keep this away from Livy. If she found out, she would think less of the Baile, and therefore, less of him. All his life he’d been fighting the image of his people as dirty and disease ridden. Not as bad as the Nubi or the Siberi who were barely human, but close. This disease would confirm the stereotype.

Livy had been so impressed when she found out he was the high poet on Baile. The fact that he had been famous on several planets had pleased her. It had done good things for the view of Baile throughout the galaxy. His disgrace at the hands of the Magyar ruined that.

Now this disease would ruin Livy’s esteem for him.

The elevator doors opened in the first level below ground.

Hurry. Aine ran ahead of him down the corridor.

If they could keep this quiet, Livy would never have to know.

***

You write fan fiction. Jessie sneered. Really?

Yeah. I write fan fiction. Kevin blushed. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Livy munched her pastry and watched the exchange, glad to not be the one in the focus. Jessie hadn’t even commented on the fact that she was