Dr. Veer Quel's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Veer stared at the thirty cloudy vials. Warm air and daylight killed the cure within hours. He had solved the disease but not the vessel. His notes lay stacked on the plague doctor's desk, page after page of tests. None of them held the answer. He rubbed his eyes and looked up. The wooden clock on the wall read half past midnight. He had until the next dying patient, and no way to keep the cure alive. He needed cold. The raw sample had lasted longer over ice on the bench. Warmth broke the mixture. Cold slowed it. He knew this from the lung fluid days ago. He scanned the room. Jars. Herbs. A sink. Then, across the lab, he saw a tall metal cabinet against the far wall. A cooling box. The ward used it to store fresh tissue samples for study. Veer crossed the floor and pulled the door open. Cold air rolled out over his hands. He worked fast. He gathered the vials two at a time and set them on the wire shelves inside. He capped each one tight to keep the air out. Cold and sealed. That was the test. He shut the door and turned back to the desk. He waited. He copied his notes clean while the clock ticked. He wrote the herb amounts, the water, the order of each step. If the cure held, others would need to make more. Every few minutes he glanced at the metal door and made himself sit still. At one o'clock he could not wait longer. He opened the cabinet and lifted a vial to the lamp. He held his breath and turned it slowly. The mixture was clear. No cloud at the bottom. He checked a second. Then a third. All clear. All whole. He set the vial down and gripped the edge of the desk. Thirty doses, alive and stable. The cold had done it. He had a cure he could carry to a bed, a ward, a city. He thought of a cold hand two years gone. He had said words then. Now he had this. But the cabinet was bolted to the wall. He could not carry it. The cure held only while it stayed cold, and the cold lived here, in this locked ward. He looked at the wall of jars and the sealed vials on the wire shelves. He could save the dying now, but only the ones brought to this room. Veer picked up his pen. He needed a way to keep the cold with the cure on the road. Ice would melt. A box would warm. He had the answer trapped in one cabinet in one building. Now he had to move it into the world, before the next patient ran out of time.