Foothold For A Loner

I awoke with a terrible headache; my head was hurting so much that I wanted to be unconscious again. I didn’t even try to open my eyes because I knew that the light would just make things worse.

A door opened with a slight click, and someone entered the room, or maybe the ward. I made an effort and slightly opened my eyes. Despite my worst expectations the pain didn’t intensify. Quite the opposite: I was lying on a narrow bed around which were cumbersome medical devices standing on tripods and supports, flashing with dozens of lights of many colors. My body was connected to these contraptions via transparent tubes and cables. Also, I was covered from head to toe with sensors, injectors and other devices that electrically stimulated the muscles, judging by the occasional light pricking that I felt.

Two people entered the ward: a middle aged man with a flat device in his arms and a young attractive woman behind him. They came towards me.

“How do you feel?” asked the man looking at me attentively.

The language he spoke seemed perfectly strange to me and sounded very unusual. Nevertheless, I understood everything he said. Dr. Silk had warned me before the transfer that both my new body’s memory and skills would remain. But fluent knowledge of a foreign language leaves one with a strange feeling.

“I have a bad headache,” I tried I to answer, and judging by his nod, I succeeded.

“That’s not surprising, Igor. You’ve awaken. This is amazing. We expected it no earlier than three days after the radial therapy, and it’s been only one day.”

“I see, Ilya Sergeyevich,” I managed to recall the doctor’s name and was glad. “Can you do something for my headache so that I can think clearly.”

“Yes, Igor, but it’s best to sleep now. Olga, give the patient some dekateral.”

“Ilya Sergeyevich,” I tried to make my voice sound firm. “You know I have little time left. I prefer to spend it conscious. I’ve plenty of unfinished business and I want to see it all through to completion before… you know what.”

The doctor knew. Asteroid fever’s terminal stage leaves a man with no chance to act consciously: the pain is so strong that even powerful drugs can’t help.

Ilya Sergeyevich wanted to object but he changed his mind.

“Olga, forget the dekateral. Use maltrin. Can I do something else for you, Igor?

„Yes, please. Could I ask for a tablet and network access?”

“Of course. Olga will bring everything you need.”

“And…” listening to my cravings, “can I have something to eat?”

“You have an appetite? That’s quite unusual. You've been fed intravenously for some time, hence your stomach isn’t used to normal food. You can start with a mug of vegetable broth, no more than that. Anything else?”

“Thank you, Ilya Sergeyevich, nothing else.”

After the shot of maltrin my headache receded. Nurse Olga got me a tablet and a mug of hot vegetable broth, and I tried to recall from my renewed memory all the information for the treatment of asteroid fever that Dr. Silk’s brilliant guys had put in my head. We called this disease by another name. Here, miners working in the asteroid belt were the first to get this ‘bug’, and so the name stuck. These humans were lucky that asteroid fever posed a risk to just three percent of the population.

Due to its particular qualities the pathogenic agent couldn’t survive in the bodies of the vast majority of people. If this fungus, however, found a way to survive in the hostile environment of the human body, then it began to modify cells into a favorable form. This process in the early stages was very slow since the immune system killed most of the malignant cells, but gradually the modified cells increased and their number grew steadily. They continued to divide, generating new cells that replaced the normal ones. The lesions grew in size: first a man felt a certain discomfort, then pain, and then organ failure. Eventually, it was like an avalanche and a person died in terrible agony.

Doctors tried to stop this disease, and drug treatments and radiation therapy slowed and even partially reversed the spread of the affected cells. But this treatment greatly damaged the body because the medicine was highly toxic, as was the radiation. The modified cells died, but healthy cells also were killed. As a result, in just a few months death occurred no matter what.

In my world they found a treatment for this disease 150 years ago, and it came unexpectedly at the intersection of two very different sciences: biochemistry and nuclear physics. Now my task was to convey the essence of the idea to people capable of making the necessary equipment.

All right, let’s try to analyze our assets and liabilities – me and my new body. I, Igor Yakovlevich Lavroff, just 15 years of age, five feet eleven inches tall, am thin and now look like a skeleton. I’m neither handsome, nor ugly. I’m Russian, a citizen of the Earth Federation. I am a resident of Saturn’s moon, Titan, in the Solar system terraformed by Russians long before all the states on Earth merged to form a single political entity. I am on Titan at the moment. I study, or rather, studied at high school, specializing in xenology. Hence, I study mankind’s malicious enemies.

My father perished five years ago in the asteroid belt near the Van Maanen star system. Why the quargs were so interested in this dim white dwarf in the Pisces constellation remains unknown. However, we fought desperately for it. The fight ended in a draw, but my father never returned home. No details were given about his fate. We were just told that the merchant ship where he was head doctor had been hit by a powerful torpedo from a quarg destroyer. No one survived.

My mother taught at a local elementary school. We lived off her salary, which was decent, as well as the state compensation for my father’s death. But after I fell ill our savings soon ran out. Insurance wouldn't cover all the medical bills.

Now, I have two weeks left, probably three, although I shouldn’t rely on this.

Actually, that’s all that was significant. I didn’t really know much. I’m physically underdeveloped, not to mention this damned disease… On the other hand, all this refers to Igor Lavroff, and there is another me, Brigadier General Dean of whom nobody here knows anything. And Brigadier General Dean has an incomparable trump card in his pocket: the knowledge put in his brain. That was the card that could be and should be put on the table right now.

I sipped some hot and tasty vegetable broth from my mug, thinking about how to start. I could ask for the doctor and explain the treatment for asteroid fever, but he’ll probably think I was panicking due to my fear of an imminent death. As a mere teenager, and certainly not a genius, there was no logical way I could know such things, especially since Ilya Sergeyevich knew my father. They weren’t friends, but were on good terms. The doctor knew enough about me and wouldn’t believe in my sudden enlightenment without solid proof.

So, I shouldn’t start with him, but with independent people who are competent in the areas important for me. I need to attract their attention, must be interesting to them, and must convince them to listen carefully to me. And where should we look for them, Mr. 15-year-old Brigadier General? Well, what do we lack to be taken seriously? Education – an official confirmation of my qualifications. Hence, it was clear that I should look for such people in institutions of higher learning.

I began to surf the web. What am I interested in? Medicine in general, and biochemistry in particular. On the other hand, I need physics; can’t get by without it. What do we have here on Titan? Ok, The Colonial Technological Institute. That’s what I need. Well, that’s for physics and probably for biochemistry. What about medicine? Oh! A branch of the Military Medical Academy. That will do! Where do we start? Physics is closest to me since my days as a general.

I found the distance learning section on the Colonial Technological Institute’s website. Distance learning is encouraged and supported by the Earth Federation. It’s free of charge and to start I only have to pass the admission exam. Then, at the end of each stage is another test. Well, how interesting this is: I’ll be able to do all the training without meeting professors, even online. If something isn’t clear, I’ll be able to consult a professor online, but it’s not obligatory. Besides, there are no limits regarding the time frame for completion of the curriculum. I can take exams even 10 times a day. Great! As for the mandatory course exam, it includes the grading of tests by a professor in person or a commission. In case they have questions, I must answer in person. Well, I’ll make sure they have questions. Personal contact – that’s what I really need.

I enrolled in the distance learning section by placing my finger on a sensor, and signed the contract using a personal digital signature. As expected, I had no problems with the admission test and I became a student.

There were concerns that the knowledge placed in my brain would in practice appear to be something like an encyclopedia, that is to say a repertoire of knowledge, no more than that. From the experience of my former life I remembered that theoretical knowledge wouldn’t necessarily provide a student with the skills to solve problems or to perform practical study. To do that one needs special training and additional skills.

In case my concerns should materialize then I’d most likely face some difficulties when taking further exams that included both theoretical issues and problems to solve, as well as lab experiment imitations. But my worries proved to be in vain. All the knowledge successfully settled in my brain. I don’t know if this was Dr. Silk’s accomplishment or the stimulation of my new brain by the transfer of senses properly arranged as it should be. Anyway, I understood almost immediately what had to be done while taking the exams.

The exams seemed endless: I spent about four hours continuously tapping on the tablet’s virtual keyboard and answering questions aloud. Nurse Olga twice entered my room and asked if it was time to rest. I answered that I felt better, and claimed that such activity was evidently doing me good. She shook her head unbelievingly, but apparently the monitor’s readings and the way I looked confirmed my words, hence she didn’t object.

The final test took me two hours and it was very interesting. I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t noticed a small thumbnail image that appeared in the corner of my display. That was Professor Stein who had connected with my tablet. He waited in silence until the test was over. I leaned back on my pillow satisfied, and he said:

“Good afternoon.”

Quite surprised, I twitched slightly. I brought the tablet closer to my face in order to reduce the webcam’s field of view and turned on a video link. The professor appeared to be in his fifties, although I could be wrong since I didn’t really know what the local doctors were capable of.

„Good afternoon, professor. I’m really glad you dropped in.”

Stein raised his eyebrow, clearly amazed.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“You’ve made it possible for me to get in touch with a competent authority and to express some ideas.”

“Really? But I’m here not for this. At least, for the moment. Igor Yakovlevich.”

“Just call me Igor. Sorry for interrupting you, professor.”

“Hmmm, well, Igor, then call me Ivan Gerkhardovich. So, Igor, you’ve surprised everybody here and, to be perfectly frank, instigated a number of queries and questions. I’ll specify them one by one. First, you passed the admission exam with the highest mark, being just 15 years old. Well, that's not unheard of. It happens. Second, you already passed all the midterm and final exams, with the highest scores. Now, that doesn’t happen. Third, you never before demonstrated such knowledge. All children prodigies participate first in children’s contests, then in school competitions, win grants; in brief, they have a high level of activity in a certain area before entering high school. But you haven’t proved yourself at all. You specialize in xenology. Your marks have been average, you scored four out of five in physics and you just completed the ninth grade. You shouldn’t even be able to pass the admission exam.”

“However, here am. Ivan Gerkhardovich, ask me questions.”

“I’ve already asked, Igor. And if you don’t understand the question, I’ll briefly reiterate. How is this possible?”

I went silent, and then sighed and pushed the tablet aside so that the ward became visible in the webcam.

“I’ve had a very strong incentive, professor. VERY strong. I’ve had asteroid fever for six months. I want to stay alive, Ivan Gerkhardovich. I need your assistance.”

To say that Stein was confused would be a colossal understatement. The professor just lost it.