'Well hepatitis is usually transmitted through the faeco-oral route,' he notes wryly. 'So it isn't inconceivable that it could be carried through contaminated fruit. Hepatitis, or another infection. It would be helpful to take a sample from someone who is in the very early stages of the disease, to try and analyse the organism. Someone not yet infectious, for safety reasons, you understand.'
"I was in the army in the Great War but was put in service duty here. My father was a merchant and when he died I returned here and with my part of his fortune I decide to buy this property that was near bankrupt; the owner spend all his money in gambling, women and liquor; it wasn't very dificult to make this profitable. Well, if you want to test people, you have a lot of my workers, you can make all the tests you want, just solve this mess".
"Very well, I'l do it iimediatly. just help me bring the machine".
With your help, he bring it from the box.
At first glance, it appears to be a confusing mass of glass pipes and tubes woven through a system of gears and brass apparatus, with a large control panel on top. On the control panel is a row of ten small glass-lined indentations resembling Petri dishes, each a couple of inches across.
The workers are lined in front of the machine. Some seem completly healthy (like the first one), others are in terible shape, coughing and even vomiting; the ones that are worst, are in barracks.
Hee asks for a sample of the saliva of the first one who is very suspicious, but comply. Shapiiro puts it in a dish. A large button at the end of the row of dishes initiates the testing process. The sample is then run through a different series of tubes connecting to varying apparatus to test for an array of criteria. 10 minutes latter a green light appears and means that the analysis is complete and a series of numbered wheels (in groups of three, in three rows, on the far side of the panel from the dishes) turn to show a series of numbers. These numbers are then referenced in a manual compiled by Caduceus. The manual is spread over several 1,000- page volumes, each of densely printed type. The resulting numbers reveal the technical specifications of the infectious subject (lethality, stages of infection, time-spans, and so on), as well as the chemical formula for an antidote (including an assessment if its effectiveness). Another 10 minutes latter he finally says with a somber voice: "The machine has identified the sample as yellow death, stage one. I'l manufacture a cure immediatly for everyone. I won't bother to test everyone, it will take too much time. Those that are still in stage one will be cured, the others are dooned anyway. About those that are in the barracks, I can only assume that they are already in the phase 2 or 3 and we cannot do anything for them, better to let them die in peace."
He starts immediatly working.
"Jolly good," Crowley still looks pleased, despite the death and misery. "That ticks off one of our tasks, does it not, Shapiro? Yellow thing confirmed."
"Now, we need to find out if the opposition are here in Borneo, do we not?"
"How fast can you manufacture the antidote? Can we bring it to the other people or shall we bring the people here to be inoculated?" Butch asks as he watches the machine work and tries to figure out the mechanics of it.
Life is a tragedy to those who feel
Life is a comedy to those who think
Life is a fantasy to those who game
"Mount me please a tent and then I'l start to create the maximum I can; I don't know how many, this has never been tried at this scale. Then try to ask the locals everything you can to detect who is the agent from the organization responsable for this; the disease was created by a serpent man and we must try to discover him."
"We have to identify the enemy before we can shoot him," says Harry, helping to pitch the tent. "How can we tell if someone's a snake man in disguise?"
"Jusr ask for someone acting strange lately. Or the people that is working in the camp doing the survey, maybbe one is a serpent men inflltrated Now, let me work".
“You could ask everyone who wants the antidote to take their shirt off. We can then look for scales. If someone refuses- then that in itself is suspicious.”
Jan suggested.
“I want to take a walk round the area- check out these strange beasts and flora- make sure the bad guys don’t get the jump on us.”
"Well, shall we go speak to the survey camp team? At least we'll all speak English and they'll be educated." Crowley has no problem with sweeping racism and snobbery.
