Marcus was more than a little surprised to see Byrin and Miri back so early. He had thought, had hoped that the two would stay out all afternoon. Given enough time, the two could become good friends.
"Byrin, Miri? What?"
But Byrin blew on by without so much as glancing at the older doctor.
Miri however paused long enough to say, "He's had some sort of breakthrough..." then she too had disappeared into the lab.
Marcus looked down at the patient he was tending, the persistent Evvie who refused to die. She was too far gone to be aware of anything. He passed the pad in his hand to the nurse attending him, saying, "Keep on with the usual, Amber."
He didn't even hear her reply of, "Yes, doctor," as he too changed course and went to the lab. Inside he saw the basket and blanket from their picnic set in the corner, out of the way no doubt.
Byrin was multi-tasking, calling up information on a couple different computer screens and telling Miri what he wanted as he went. "I'm going to need genetic splices of the virus cells in your blood, mine, and Lily's. And then I'm going to need DNA mapped of each of us."
"What in the world have you stumbled on?" Marcus asked, trying not to get in the way.
"Genetics," Byrin answered, rolling the chair out of his way. "Miri made a comment about 'her' people and it was like lighting struck me. Marcus...everyone tested has had some form of this virus in their blood...but who is dying from it?"
"These people..."
"Colonists, Marcus! Descendants of Exiles. After so many years, all of these people are genetically linked."
"You're..."
"That's what was bothering me about the test results I was looking a right before the picnic...it just didn't click. Antibodies! The person whose blood I was looking at...had atibodies! I just checked to see who it was. Lily Bennett...another Colony child, has not only had this plague, but she's survived it!"
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