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Description
He looked around the room, squinting a little as he tried to make out faces in the darkened seating section. "We wanted to make sure that all of the hotel security staff are up to date on the developing situation, as well as government workers on board the hotel ships and the leaders of some of the larger groups attending meetings and conventions here." He stared directly at the woman in green as he said the last part, and she nodded briefly in response. "My name is John Taylor, and I'm from the Department of Protection. What I'm about to tell you—we want you to keep it to yourselves for now, while we decide on the best course of action. Essentially, you are being sworn to secrecy. We've asked you all here because we feel that when this news is released, you are in the best position to help maintain calm and order. That said, I'll get on with telling you what this is all about."

There was an impatient stir in the room as the suited man turned and gestured to the large screen behind him. A video began to play on the screen, showing what looked like a devastated area of forest. Trees were flattered and burnt, and the ground was scorched black in some places. Smoke curled and rose over the tops of the few trees left standing and gave the whole scene a hazy look.

"As you might have guessed, this is the site of the Mahli explosion from two weeks ago. I'm sure you've heard plenty of rumors in the media. All kinds of things about bombs and terrorism. It wasn't a bomb, though."

On the screen, the camera began to zoom in; focusing on the area the smoke was coming from. Now I could make out figures standing in small groups close to the source. They were swathed head-to-toe in bright yellow biohazard suits, and they all seemed busy writing on clipboards or holding up meters or talking on radios. It looked as though what they were all standing around was a very large, very deep hole in the ground. Smooth-edged and round from what I could see, it was obscured in large part by the dark smoke. The remains of trees around the edge of the hole were still smoldering.

Taylor spoke again. "It was nothing man-made at all. It was a meteorite. A big one. It was detected by the Mahlian warning systems some time ago, but since it was predicted to land in an unoccupied region, they opted not to intervene."

The scene changed. Now it showed the yellow-suited workers in a large laboratory of some kind. There were a couple dozen of them, and they hurried from bench to bench with containers holding chunks of rock and beakers of chemicals. A sudden commotion in the front of the lab drew my attention. It seemed that one of the scientists had spilled a container of liquid onto himself. He yelled and brushed at it with a towel, but the liquid—it must have been an acid—fizzed and smoked. Within seconds, I could clearly see the skin of his arm. It had burned right through the suit. Other scientists fussed around him, quickly rushing him out of the room.

"The chemical burn the man received was minor," Taylor said, "and no one thought much of it. Within a week of the incident, he began to experience fever and severe headaches."

This sent a buzz through the audience. No one had caught a disease for over two hundred years. Every illness affecting humans had been decisively wiped out as soon as the technology to do so was developed. I found myself once again catching the eye of the woman in green. She drily raised her eyebrows in a look of interest, though not genuine surprise.

"That's not all," Taylor continued, interrupting the murmur of the crowd. He turned back to the screen, and once again we were shown a new scene. This time, it was a man lying in a hospital bed. He looked like he was in unimaginably bad shape. He was pale, with bloodshot, sunken eyes, and his head lolled weakly against the pillow as he struggled to look up at the camera. The veins stood out darkly against his whitened skin, and he was gaunt. Skeletally thin. The most shocking aspect of the whole picture was the huge, dark, bulging growth on his neck. It was made up of several round lumps, and it looked heavy and blotchy and bruised.

"As you can see, his condition deteriorated rapidly. He was, of course, quarantined as soon as symptoms developed, but several days had passed by then. Thirty-six hours after this was recorded, the patient died."

If the news about his illness had caused a stir, this latest revelation led to alarm. There were gasps and small muffled shouts, and people looked at each other with wide, frightened eyes. No one alive today could remember a time when people got sick and died. Sure, accidents happened, but people knew what to do with accidents. Doctors knew what to do with accidents. Accidents didn't spread.

"We were hoping this might be a contained, isolated incident due to some kind of toxicity from the meteorite exposure," said Taylor, but unfortunately several members of this man's family have also developed symptoms within the last few days. It seems as though we are facing a contagious pathogen of some kind. Mahlian authorities are keeping us fully informed as the situation progresses, and they assure us that they are doing everything they can to limit the spread of this…" he hesitated over the unfamiliar word. "Disease."

The screen went blank. Apparently the show-and-tell section of the briefing was over.

"The danger is that the time during which the patient is contagious appears to coincide with the incubation period, meaning that it is very difficult to establish who may or may not have been exposed to the pathogen."

"I have family on the surface! We all do!" The voice—a woman's voice, high and alarmed—came from the other side of the room, and with the dimmed lights I could not see who had spoken.

"Your family members are in no danger under the present circumstances," Taylor said. "There are only four confirmed cases on Mahli and none at all on Etalia. We fully expect that the situation will be controlled shortly and there will be nothing to worry about. We are informing you in this way simply because news of this kind could very easily lead to mass panic, and in a confined situation like these hotels, that could be more dangerous than the disease."

Description
He looked around the room, squinting a little as he tried to make out faces in the darkened seating section. "We wanted to make sure that all of the hotel security staff are up to date on the developing situation, as well as government workers on board the hotel ships and the leaders of some of the larger groups attending meetings and conventions here." He stared directly at the woman in green as he said the last part, and she nodded briefly in response. "My name is John Taylor, and I'm from the Department of Protection. What I'm about to tell you—we want you to keep it to yourselves for now, while we decide on the best course of action. Essentially, you are being sworn to secrecy. We've asked you all here because we feel that when this news is released, you are in the best position to help maintain calm and order. That said, I'll get on with telling you what this is all about."

There was an impatient stir in the room as the suited man turned and gestured to the large screen behind him. A video began to play on the screen, showing what looked like a devastated area of forest. Trees were flattered and burnt, and the ground was scorched black in some places. Smoke curled and rose over the tops of the few trees left standing and gave the whole scene a hazy look.

"As you might have guessed, this is the site of the Mahli explosion from two weeks ago. I'm sure you've heard plenty of rumors in the media. All kinds of things about bombs and terrorism. It wasn't a bomb, though."

On the screen, the camera began to zoom in; focusing on the area the smoke was coming from. Now I could make out figures standing in small groups close to the source. They were swathed head-to-toe in bright yellow biohazard suits, and they all seemed busy writing on clipboards or holding up meters or talking on radios. It looked as though what they were all standing around was a very large, very deep hole in the ground. Smooth-edged and round from what I could see, it was obscured in large part by the dark smoke. The remains of trees around the edge of the hole were still smoldering.

Taylor spoke again. "It was nothing man-made at all. It was a meteorite. A big one. It was detected by the Mahlian warning systems some time ago, but since it was predicted to land in an unoccupied region, they opted not to intervene."

The scene changed. Now it showed the yellow-suited workers in a large laboratory of some kind. There were a couple dozen of them, and they hurried from bench to bench with containers holding chunks of rock and beakers of chemicals. A sudden commotion in the front of the lab drew my attention. It seemed that one of the scientists had spilled a container of liquid onto himself. He yelled and brushed at it with a towel, but the liquid—it must have been an acid—fizzed and smoked. Within seconds, I could clearly see the skin of his arm. It had burned right through the suit. Other scientists fussed around him, quickly rushing him out of the room.

"The chemical burn the man received was minor," Taylor said, "and no one thought much of it. Within a week of the incident, he began to experience fever and severe headaches."

This sent a buzz through the audience. No one had caught a disease for over two hundred years. Every illness affecting humans had been decisively wiped out as soon as the technology to do so was developed. I found myself once again catching the eye of the woman in green. She drily raised her eyebrows in a look of interest, though not genuine surprise.

"That's not all," Taylor continued, interrupting the murmur of the crowd. He turned back to the screen, and once again we were shown a new scene. This time, it was a man lying in a hospital bed. He looked like he was in unimaginably bad shape. He was pale, with bloodshot, sunken eyes, and his head lolled weakly against the pillow as he struggled to look up at the camera. The veins stood out darkly against his whitened skin, and he was gaunt. Skeletally thin. The most shocking aspect of the whole picture was the huge, dark, bulging growth on his neck. It was made up of several round lumps, and it looked heavy and blotchy and bruised.

"As you can see, his condition deteriorated rapidly. He was, of course, quarantined as soon as symptoms developed, but several days had passed by then. Thirty-six hours after this was recorded, the patient died."

If the news about his illness had caused a stir, this latest revelation led to alarm. There were gasps and small muffled shouts, and people looked at each other with wide, frightened eyes. No one alive today could remember a time when people got sick and died. Sure, accidents happened, but people knew what to do with accidents. Doctors knew what to do with accidents. Accidents didn't spread.

"We were hoping this might be a contained, isolated incident due to some kind of toxicity from the meteorite exposure," said Taylor, but unfortunately several members of this man's family have also developed symptoms within the last few days. It seems as though we are facing a contagious pathogen of some kind. Mahlian authorities are keeping us fully informed as the situation progresses, and they assure us that they are doing everything they can to limit the spread of this…" he hesitated over the unfamiliar word. "Disease."

The screen went blank. Apparently the show-and-tell section of the briefing was over.

"The danger is that the time during which the patient is contagious appears to coincide with the incubation period, meaning that it is very difficult to establish who may or may not have been exposed to the pathogen."

"I have family on the surface! We all do!" The voice—a woman's voice, high and alarmed—came from the other side of the room, and with the dimmed lights I could not see who had spoken.

"Your family members are in no danger under the present circumstances," Taylor said. "There are only four confirmed cases on Mahli and none at all on Etalia. We fully expect that the situation will be controlled shortly and there will be nothing to worry about. We are informing you in this way simply because news of this kind could very easily lead to mass panic, and in a confined situation like these hotels, that could be more dangerous than the disease."