[MINGLE] Just don't touch the puffball

[markwatney]

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Town Hall
WHEN: 7 June, after lunch
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: n/a
NOTES: Please note in your subject line if a top-level is to Mark (or whoever)

---

I have to be honest, as a botanist, there's a lot about this new, expanded world to be excited about. It seems like almost every time I go out to collect samples, I find something I haven't seen before, and nearly every minute I'm not working in the fields or greenhouse, I've been in Ravi's lab doing tests and compiling observations. Some of the specimens are pretty spectacular, but for a lot of them, the things that make them impressive are also things that could be a problem for the average villager.

Which is why I'm here now, in the town hall, lining up a variety of plants on a long table at the front of the room, some dried, some placed carefully under glass, many seeded in whatever I could find to use as a pot: Sauce pans, old boxes, tea cups.

Early this morning, I left a message on the blackboard in the Inn in big chalk letters:

Seminar on new native plants
TODAY - TOWN HALL - AFTER LUNCH
IMPORTANT INFO!!

In the old place, I used to take folks out one at a time and give them a crash course on what was edible and what was poisonous, but that's just not going to cut it now.

As I wait for folks to arrive (As I wait, hoping folks will arrive), I lay out labels in front of each plant listing what I've been calling it, whether it's dangerous, and any known properties. Once I'm done running my mouth, people can come up and get a good look.

Comments

[markwatney]

Ah, that sort of biological danger. Not an unfounded concern when you hear the stories about where some of the folks here come from.

"Yeah, I saw that," I slowly reply with a tilt of my head. I fully understand where the kid is coming from, and at some point in life I became the guy people bring this kind of stuff to. Not just here, but back home, too.

"Word is she is, or at least believes she is, a vampire," I add with a lift of my eyebrows. "I haven't talked to her. I probably should. Or at least someone should. See what the contagion situation is like. The good news is she seems willing to be transparent."

I pull in a breath and motion Owen's way. "It's cold comfort, I know, but I don't think letting smallpox run rampant is on the agenda of the people in charge, at least not right now. It's like... taking care of your toys. However we're here, they went to a lot of effort to make it happen. But, who you really need to talk to is Ravi. Infectious diseases is one of his specialties. He was working on a cure for a zombie virus back home before he turned up here. Any info I give you is going to be broad strokes unless it's a plant-based contagion."

[underpinnings]

Ravi, from what he's seen, has struck Owen as the sort of rabbity academic who survived too long in a basement lab--talks too much, too fast, without any care if you can follow what he's saying. The sort of person you leave in the basement lab, until that mind that is so good at those very specific things, produces something useful.

Owen himself only maintains the social skills that overlap with survival, but he isn't looking forward to the conversation.

But if he isn't here to be judgmental of the girl, he's not going to waste it on the doctor either. It's Mark's followup that gives him the opening: Owen's gaze flicks up from lowered consideration to Mark's eyes. "What about fungal," he asks, a flip in his stomach as he takes the plunge. "I'm not asking anyone to take a hard stance on the girl--or, if I am, I'm asking you to take it on me, as well. It hasn't become an issue," he hedges, because it hasn't. "But where I'm from, a mutant Cordyceps species killed half the population, and I want to make sure I'm not carrying it."

[markwatney]

"Do you know the growth rate?" I ask, instinctively dropping my gaze and lifting it again, looking for signs of anything unusual on Owen's person and predictably finding none. "Is there any typical dormancy in a human host?"

Cordyceps generally can be quite aggressive, but he'd said mutant, implying the typical assumptions might not apply.

"I tell you what. Go over to the hospital and have some blood drawn. Tell them I said I needed it for lab work. I live just a couple of houses up from here, other side of the road. The dark green house. We can take the sample over to Ravi's lab and I can take a look, make sure you're clear. Alright?"

My inclination is to think the kid's probably fine unless the Cordyceps has an unusually long incubation period, but it's definitely better to be completely sure.

[underpinnings]

Marlene spent enough years focused on a cure that they all knew a bit; lab shifts were a kind of downtime they could offer their agents, when they were spread too thin in a world that didn't give vacation days. He isn't incurious, and he isn't stupid. "Normally it takes weeks, isn't fatal; but the kind we dealt with took hold in a matter of days."

Death took longer, but in months he hasn't so much as suffered a headache, hasn't lost any vision.

He's fine, which isn't the same as safe. "If I thought that was the problem," he says, "I'd probably be at the bottom of the lake. I just need to know, and I need--I need you and Ravi to know, if it's there." Not that Mark seems to need real convincing. "So, thank you, and just let me know what you find."

[markwatney]

"Yeah, of course," I reply, of the need to know. Even if I suspect that whatever tests we're able to run in this place will come back clear, it's still better know for sure. We're just lucky, I guess, that something like a Cordyceps should be easy to spot even with rudimentary equipment we have on hand.

"We'll make it a priority to get it looked at, I promise." Not that Ravi will need much encouragement on that count; he'll probably just be delighted to have something to do.