Claimh Solais

Wednesday Weird #13: The Illness

I was going to post a Wednesday Weird last week on the topic that was also the thing that had been keeping away from the blog: moving into a new home (or HQ as the case may be). However, un-packing was not leaving me with much energy for the blog, so I delayed it until this week.

Then, I got sick Tuesday and spent the last couple of days at home with the worst cold I've had since.....maybe this time last year.

I'm on the road to recovery and have the perfect topic for this belated Wednesday Weird.

A character has taken ill. At first, all seems normal....but then it gets weird.

My answer for this edition of the Weird if for a Sci-Fi setting. After landing on a newly discovered planet, a crew-member becomes ill. At first it appears that the crew-member has a common cold but further research shows something rather strange. There is something growing inside the lungs of the crew-member that the med-computers can not identify. At first, it is thought to be bacteria but it resists most of the cures known so far. The only thing the crewmember did different while on the planet was when he deeply inhaled the scent of a native flower. Checking that, it does not appear to be anything from plant pollen. Further analysis reveals it as a microscopic civilization, complete with buildings carved out of the tissue of the lung walls and some form of technology.

The Madrosians are a society of bacteria-sized creatures that live their lives are enhanced speed. While on the surface of the planet, the crew-member enhaled a scouting ship of Madrosians while kneeling down to sniff a strange flower.....a flower that the Madrosian ship was exploring.

Since the crew-member enhaled the ship, the Madrosians have lived through a hundred generations and the descendents of the Madrosian scout ship have learned to survive and thrive in their new environment despite the great winds that threaten their society every day or so.

The crew-member may die if the Madrosians continue to live in his lung. They are using up the "resources of their new land" and destroying his lungs. Can the crew find a way to communicate with the microscopic, super-speed society or a way to transplant them before it is too late?

Posted by Nuadha at December 16, 2004 11:19 AM