Lazarus Rising

1.31 The New Solution

With a clatter Lazarus's cup fell to the table and shattered. "What! How!" his voice wavered incredulously.

"A terrible accident." As Noor spoke he collected the pieces of Lazarus's broken cup up and placed them in a neat pile at the centre of the table. "At the one of the laboratories there was an accidental venting of a contaminant. Within minutes the whole research facility was flooded with a lethal virus. Then there was a breach of protocol as those seeking to avoid being infected broke through the sealed doors out into the Bio. By doing so they allowed the contaminant to be realised into the bio's atmosphere, in effect committing all the others to certain death. Once the outbreak got into the population they were all infected. Death followed so quickly we were helpless even to alleviate their suffering. I'm sorry."

"But....when was this?"

"Twenty five years ago." Noor laid his hand on Lazarus's shoulder in attempt to console him. "Nothing could be done, Lazarus. I know this community owed much to the Lazarus Collective for its creation, part of your life's work. Have no doubt we tried everything but we had no time, within hours the whole community here was wiped out."

"But, but.." Lazarus looked bewildered, his eyes flashed from Jamek to Cheyenne. "The popper production continued, supplies to Earth have not been interrupted ever since this facility was set up."

"We cleaned up, buried the dead and made Urbaine aware of the accident. He came here and wanted to take over the facility, he could not afford for popper supplies to Earth to stop. He wanted Earth to believe all was fine. Poppers going to Earth guarantee supplies to Mars. Urbaine was not prepared to risk his supply chain."

"But you are here and Urbaine's men are not?" Jamek tensed and looked about him. "Are they?"

"No, no they are not." Noor said softly his voice barely gaining purchase over the noise of the insects in the trees below. "We had something we felt sure Urbaine would be interested in, we traded it. In return he allowed us to stay here continue production. After all this is our home. So a deal was struck. What is the saying on Earth, it washed both ways?"

"But with Urbaine, a deal with Urbaine?" Cheyenne could not keep the shock from her voice. "The man's insane, how could you countenance it?"

"Twenty –five years ago Urbaine was not the man he is now, he was Sector19's man on Mars. We did what we understood we should have."

"But he never told Earth."

"What he discussed with his masters on Earth I cannot know. Urbaine told us it would be too much for the general population on Earth to know, there would be wholesale panic. That seemed logical to us. We were to say nothing but continue production in the best way we could. We did what we were instructed. It is our way."

"But the Poppers, without the scientists here, how could you develop them. How, without the labs being open, could you introduce new vaccines into them? Do you have that skill, that knowledge?" Lazarus's tone hardened with the mention of Urbaine's name.

"No Lazarus, we didn't. " Charisa said softly, "We took a different course of action."

"What course, what do you mean?"

Noor crossed his hands on his lap and took a slow breath. "You must all know that the cause of the epidemics on Earth was the continued use of penicillin strains that the world population became resilient to. As diseases mutated on Earth, the cures for those diseases became increasingly facile. As new epidemics proliferated, new drugs introduced to the population had become increasingly ineffective. In an arms race in the current form there could be only one loser –mankind. The scientists here in the bio were coming to this conclusion. A different way had to be found and they knew what it was but did not have the resolve to implement it, because of the reality of what it meant. After a great debate they were on the cusp of doing what had to be done but then the accident wiped them all out."