Joe had woken up in a cramped space that did not feel much different than her equally cramped quarters. Her sluggish mind struggled to recognize the unfamiliar surroundings. Slowly looking around she was able to identify the cramped interior of the infirmary, not much more than a re-tasked storage cabinet.
A face drifted into her field of view, it took her a moment to identify it as belonging to the Chief.
"Wha… Wha… What happened?" Joe asked with quite some difficulty.
"You'll be alright, don't worry. It's going to be fine." The Chief reassured her.
"Doc, she is awake." Joe heard him call out.
Another face swam into her view, this time it was an unknown woman.
"Hello Ms. 9, how are you feeling?" The woman asked while she shone a bright light into her eyes.
Joe tried to answer. "Tired, thirsty."
"Of course." the woman said and placed a straw at Joes lips. "Slowly, you don't want to overdo it."
Joe carefully drank the cool liquid and felt immediately better. Her head was still a bit foggy but far less than just mere minutes ago. If only she would not be so tired.
"Thanks, much better. What happened?"
"You caught something on the planet below that we had never seen before. You gave us a good scare but you'll be fine." The woman explained.
"By the way, I'm Doctor Fredrichs. The Physician for this expedition, I don't think we've met before."
Joe tried to listen to the words but was loosing the battle against sleep fast.
"Doc, I think she fell asleep again." the Chief noted.
The Doc made an unintelligible sound and checked Joes vitals. "No wonder. Her blood-pressure and blood-sugar is still very low. I need another I.V. bag, clucose 20/40, could you please get me one."
"Of course." The chief answered and went to the closet to get another I.V.
After the new I.V. had been attached the infirmary became silent again but for the steady sound of the monitor showing Joes vitals.
"Much better. The flush worked, we have most of it out of her system. We should let her rest, please call me if she wakes up or anything changes."
"Of course Doc." The chief grabbed a stool and settled next to the bed.
The next time Joe woke up the fog was gone. She was feeling much better, rested and sharp. The overwhelming feeling of tiredness was gone. She looked around the infirmary, the light was dimmed, most likely for her benefit. She found the chief sleeping on a stool in a corner, hunched over a tablet he was obviously reading until he fell asleep.
As she felt thirsty again she looked for something to drink. Thankfully somebody had placed a cup of water next to her bed which she carefully picked up and emptied in one go. She noticed the monitor next to her bed displaying her vital signs. To her they looked pretty much like they should but she was not really an expert. As she felt fine and didn't want to stay in bed longer than necessary she tried to get up. Lifting the covers she noticed the I.V. line attached to her arm. Several probes had been attached to her body in various places. She didn't want to dislodge anything by accident so she carefully tried to wake to chief up.
"Hey, Chief." She tried. No reaction.
"Hey! Chief." She tried a bit louder. He jerked awake, tossing his pad to the floor.
"I'm awake, what happened." He blurted out as he startled awake.
"Ensign! You're awake!" He shouted.
"Yes chief, thanks for noticing. I'd like to get up if that is possible, but I'd like some help with disconnecting these wires and other things if possible."
"Of course, please stay still for a moment while I get the Doc." He stated and exited the small compartment.
With nothing better to do Joe settled back down and watched the ceiling until the Doc came. To occupy her mind she started counting the bolt that held the ceiling plates in place. She managed to count to 433 when the door opened again.
A vaguely familiar woman entered, followed by the Chief. She took a look at the monitor, ignoring Joe for the moment.
Satisfied, she turned her head towards Joe and started speaking "Good morning, Ms. 9. How are you feeling?"
"I'm feeling fine, thanks. Who are you again?"
"Of course, sorry. I'm Dr. Fredrichs. I'm the physician for this expedition. Together with the Chief I took care of you for the last few days." That shook Joe a lot.
"Days? How long was I out? What happened?" She started shouting.
"Easy, try to stay calm. What is the last thing you remember?"
Joe took a moment and thought back.
"We where down on the planet, we finished with the third and last landing spot. After the science team had collected all their material and the drill was set up we launched back to the ship. I docked the pod with the Hermes and returned to my quarters. That is all that I remember."
The Doc and the Chief looked at each other.
"That was four days ago. We have finished surveying the ringplanet and moved on to the next planet, which we are currently orbiting." The Doc explained carefully.
"What? What happened to me?"
The Doc sat down at the side of Joes bed and slowly told her.
"Apparently you returned to the ship and went straight to your quarters where you fell asleep. You reported to the meeting the next morning but collapsed before it could even start. We brought you here and immediately started to stabilize you. Once you where stable we started investigating what was wrong with you."
"What did you find?" Joe asked in a small voice.
The Doc stood up and turned to the monitor. She input some commands and the display changed, showing a rather simple organism.
"We found this in your bloodstream and your lungs. It is very similar to our bacteria. It produced a toxic substance that put your immune system into overdrive. So much that you had an atypical allergic reaction in the sense that you did not show classical symptoms like restricted breathing, rashes are anything else. Instead your body completely focused on fighting this substance. So much that your body had nothing else left to keep you going. When we got you here you where crashing from the shock.
We managed to stabilize you though. The organism was easily dealt with by a combination of broadband antibacterial therapies. We managed to flush the toxic product out of your system with a simple agent that is normally used for enhancing contrast during scans. The toxic bonded to it and was flushed out by your kidneys.
Since then your vitals slowly improved until you woke up.
You did wake up the day before yesterday, do you remember that?"
"Vaguely, it's all a haze like a dream."
"That is understandable. I'd like to keep you here for some scans. If everything is fine you can be released to your quarters. You're off-duty for at least the next three days, I have already informed the Captain. Is there anything we can do for you in the meantime?"
"Actually, could I get something to eat? I'm quite hungry."
The Doc smiled for the first time since entering. "Of course. Chief, would you mind fetching the Ensign something light. A salad and water to start her with."
"Of course." He grinned and exited the compartment.
"You haven't eaten solid food in at least three days, I don't want to overtax your stomach."
"Ok, you're the Doc, Doc."
"Exactly." The Doc moved to a cabinet to get a scanner.
"Let's get started."
"I'm still stunned how much I missed in just three days." Joe said slowly, her hands wrapped around a big mug of comfortably warm tea.
She was sitting in the cafeteria with Sandra who was telling her friend about the very unique ecosystem they had discovered.
"I have never witnessed such a tight-knit system on such a scale. We know very fine tuned systems exist but on a much smaller scale. This is planet-wide, still awes me to no end."
"Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see you this exited but you try and explain it to me in layman-terms?"
Sarah thought for a moment.
"Sure." she said slowly.
"You have heard about the food-chain?"
"I'm not that dumb, you know?" Joe said with a slight sneer.
"Of course. Although the food chain is not really a chain but more a circle. Humans are supposed to be at the top of the food chain because we can eat basically anything on earth. We're the ultimate apex-predator."
"Right, that much I learned in school."
"It is much simplified. What happens when we die? We decompose and our matter becomes part of the food chain again, starting at the bottom."
"So it is a circle in the end?"
"More or less, yes. In this simplified version. The ecosystem on earth is much more complicated, there are whole other food chains that don't involve humans at all and are completely independet."
"Right."
"When we now look at the food chain down on this planet what we have found is a global system that is totally in sync. It starts with bacteria that break down organic matter, creating a rich soil that would grow basically anything you'd plant in it. On this planet though we only found one species of plant that grows here. This plant in turn is consumed by a species of herbivores that are, for lack of a better comparison, the equivalent of elephants. They consume the plant, digest it and expel excrement that covers the ground completely."
"That explains the smell. The ground was covered in poop. Poor Tony."
"Exactly. But that is not the fascinating thing about this. This whole system wanders the planet in one direction. The plants always grow to the east and get consumed from the west. It never changes direction. As far as we can tell the elephants can only move in one direction."
"That is nuts. How could this system work? A single disturbance would potentially crash the whole thing."
"Absolutely. It speaks for a system that has been stable for a very long time without the slightest disturbance at all for millennia at the very least."
"Fascinating. But that would make this planet a rather poor choice for a colony world of any kind, right?"
"If you think conventionally, maybe. But the soil is made for farming and it should accept our plants with little to no problem. You'd just have to keep moving to the east…"
"But would that not introduce chances in this system that would eventually topple the whole system?"
"Maybe, but so far every system we have encountered is able to adept to change. And we're not the savages of old that ignore all of these considerations and do whatever they want like the explorers of old earth."
"Hopefully you're right." Joe mused, sipping her tea.
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