Chapter 12, Day 28 – 36: Prescription
Chapter 12, Day 28 – 36: Prescription
[JOURNAL ENTRY EXCERPTS]
Day 28,
…
Fathom appears to have slept through the night, and continues to do so even now. His vitals appear steady, though I have no data on what a healthy dragon might look like.
He did mention that injured dragons sleep deeply, so I’ll leave him be for now. In the meantime I’ll hunt and stockpile food whenever I can – no use feeding Fathom imperishables when fresh food is readily available. It is strange that wildlife appears to be abundant so close to Fathom’s home, but it certainly makes the task easier.
It’s a bit late, but I was finally able to complete a thorough check on the hull, which had thankfully not been penetrated. A few places showed visible dents, but it’s nothing that will significantly impact the integrity of the ship.
Now that the most pressing matters have been addressed, I’ve had some time to wonder about ‘Ighen’ (who I’ve decided to nickname ‘Pathogen’). I don’t believe he could have intended to cause the death of Fathom’s mate, but he clearly holds significant ill-will towards Fathom.
Perhaps Fathom can tell me the whole story when he wakes up, but if his enemy is truly as reprehensible as he claims then Pathogen might be trying to kill Fathom by infection – the repeated fights make sense if that is his motivation. Dragons may not be aware of germs, but they do believe sickness is caused by ‘dead things’ or decomposing matter. This belief is accurate enough for Pathogen to have realized that dirty talons increase the probability of infection.
The problem with this hypothesis is that Pathogen has been challenging Fathom for well over a decade now. If he were employing this method, he should have succeeded…unless he has rarely ever wounded Fathom, who has bragged as much, though those claims may be part bluster.
I’m not yet sure of what I am going to do. It would be difficult to find and communicate with another dragon without Fathom’s help, and it’s not as if I can just leave him here.
It seems the only thing I can do is to wait for him to recover.
…
Vital signs:
Respiratory rate: 5 bpm
Temperature: 38.02° Celsius*
Major heart rate: 33 bpm
Upper minor heart rate: 6 bpm
Lower minor heart rate: 6 bpm
Hydrogen heart rate: 12 bpmNote:
I’ve decided to name the heart rates major, upper minor, lower minor, and hydrogen, for reasons that I believe are self-explanatory.
*TL Note: The units of temperature have been translated for ease of reading, but Mainland humans use ‘Degrees Centragrade’ for temperature. Like the Celsius scale, water freezes and boils at 0° and 100° respectively, but due to this planet’s thicker atmosphere the boiling point of water is actually 111.9° Celsius, meaning that 100° Centragrade = 111.9° Celsius.
[Expedition Day 28]
Pryce sighed as he knelt down to take Fathom’s temperature.
This would have been a simple task if his patient were a human, but Fathom’s serrated teeth made an oral measurement quite infeasible, and inserting a stick up an unconscious dragon’s nostrils was a horrible idea for obvious reasons.
The only option Pryce had left was to lay the thermometer in the groove beside Fathom’s gums, so he gently lifted the dragon’s upper lip in order to-
“Ack – What arr you do-ing?” Fathom slurred, his eyelids and flight membranes sliding open as he stirred to wakefulness.
“You’re awake?” Pryce exclaimed, jumping backwards in surprise.
“No, I am sleeping,” Fathom grumbled sarcastically, and slowly raised his head.
“Do you feel good? Bad?” Pryce anxiously asked as Fathom glanced back on his bandage-covered body.
“I feel tired. And warm. And cold. And hungry,” Fathom grumbled, sniffing at the bandages. The dragon’s wings made it impossible to use bandages in the conventional way, so Pryce was forced to use grey tape to keep the dressings attached to Fathom’s torso. It worked quite well, though the result was rather patchwork and ugly.
“Don’t move very much, you will make wounds worse,” Pryce warned.
“You…fix my wing…?” Fathom asked in uncertain tones as he stared at his bandaged wing.
Pryce nodded. “I do not know if it will heal good, but yes, I try to fix your wing.”
“It…look good. Thank you,” Fathom said, bowing his head gratefully. “I do not know if my wing will heal good, but I will finish heal in one month. Maybe less.”
“That is very fast,” Pryce said, truly surprised by this timeframe. A broken arm would take a human months to heal at the very least.
“What is this?” Fathom asked, sniffing at the bandage on his broken wing.
“That is bandage. Bandages protect wound from dirty things.”
“Hrrm,” Fathom rumbled, then gingerly pushed himself up.
“Wait, don’t move so much! Where are you going?”
“Need to make inside things go outside,” Fathom grumbled, silencing Pryce as he hobbled off to do his business.
Later that day, Pryce managed to hunt and butcher a centaur, which he began to cook near the entrance to Fathom’s cave.
“What is this?” Fathom asked as he limped out of his cave, evidently drawn by the smell of roasting meat.
“It’s meat,” Pryce candidly replied.
“I know this is meat,” Fathom said, clicking in irritation. “This is from large animal. How you get this?”
“I hunt with rifle.”
Fathom blinked, looking quite taken aback. “...Rifle can do this?”
“Yes, why?”
“...You show me later,” Fathom quietly rumbled, looking perturbed by the rifle’s capabilities.
“Of course,” Pryce nodded. “Do you want to eat? The meat should be ready by now.”
Fathom nodded, and gingerly picked up a steak from the proffered plate to drop into his maw. The dragon chewed with a thoughtful air as he mulled over the taste of the foreign spices, and soon the plate was completely cleared.
It took Pryce half an hour to cook enough meat to satisfy Fathom, who nodded gratefully for the meal. “Thank you, I am full now. Human cooking is very good.”
“You’re welcome,” Pryce replied automatically.
“I am welcome? What is welcome?” Fathom asked, slowly tilting his head.
“Welcome is…thing you feel when you say ‘thank you’,” Pryce shrugged, struggling to define the word.
Fathom tilted his head. “I just tell you ‘thank you’. Why are you telling me what I am feeling?”
Pryce shrugged. “Human thing.”
Fathom snorted as he limped back to his cave. “I sleep now.”
“Yes, sleep,” Pryce agreed.
[JOURNAL ENTRY EXCERPTS]
Day 29,
Fathom’s wounds appear to be doing as well as could be hoped. Some of his injuries show signs of mild infection. I’ve continued to clean and treat them as well as I can. With luck, they won’t get any worse.
Cleaning and re-bandaging his wounds went well, though I had to be careful with removing the grey tape.
…
Vital signs:
Respiratory rate: 7 bpm
Temperature: 38.73° Celsius*
Major heart rate: 35 bpm
Upper minor heart rate: 7 bpm
Lower minor heart rate: 7 bpm
Hydrogen heart rate: 7 bpm
Pryce looked up from his journal, his brow creased with worry as he observed the slumbering dragon. Fathom’s body temperature was a little high, but he wasn’t human, and Pryce wasn’t sure what was normal for him. Even so, all life relied on the same proteins, and thirty-nine degrees was a bit concerning. The fever was probably a sign of infection, but it wasn’t serious yet. Hopefully Fathom’s immune system would do its job, but if not…
Pryce sighed, and got to work on some back-of-the-envelope calculations.
[Expedition Day 30]
Back on the Horizon, Pryce gathered whatever supplies he needed to make camp, as well as those needed to treat Fathom. A considerable number of trips were required to bring all of these items up the mountain, so it was a good thing that Fathom’s cave wasn’t very far away from the ship.
The most important of the supplies were two large bottles of penicillin-V, which Pryce packaged and protected using packs of dried meats and fruits. This variant of penicillin was administered orally, stable at room temperature, and had a decent shelf life: all traits that made it ideal for a remote expedition. However, Pryce knew that dragons had a particularly strong and fast digestive system, which meant their stomach acids were likely quite powerful. This led him to suspect that the effect of oral medications would be limited, but he didn’t have a choice at the moment.
Pryce would have given a great deal for a stock of the intravenously-delivered penicillin-G, but it was unstable at room temperatures and had to be constantly refrigerated to remain viable. As such, it was deemed unsuitable for a remote expedition. Even if they had brought any, the power outage would have rendered the drugs unsafe to use, and so he had no choice but to rely on the oral variant.
There was no way to properly estimate how much of the drug Fathom would require, but Pryce expected to use at least four and a half grams per day, spread out across four separate doses – that was assuming that dragons required as much of the drug per kilogram of body mass as humans, which was likely a conservative estimate due to the aforementioned stomach acid.
Pryce simply didn’t have the time to do things properly, and so he would have to begin with a small dose to see if it caused any adverse effects in Fathom. If it didn’t, then he would gradually up the dose until the dragon began to recover, or until the side effects caused more harm than good.
“Here, eat this,” Pryce said, offering Fathom several pills in his upturned hand. “This is penicillin. It’s a medicine that can cure infection.”
“Smell is very strange,” Fathom said, raising his head to sniff at the drugs. “Why you give this to me now?”
“You are a little sick. I need to give you more if you get worse, so I need to see if penicillin is poison to you.”
“...Understand,” Fathom gingerly nodded. The dragon somewhat awkwardly swallowed the pill with a few gulps of water, and waited. When nothing happened for a few minutes he began to relax, and soon afterwards he fell straight back to sleep.
Pryce was relieved to see that Fathom had no major reactions to the drug, though he continued to monitor the dragon for several hours afterwards to ensure that nothing went wrong.
[JOURNAL ENTRY EXCERPTS]
Day 30,
Vital signs:
Respiratory rate: 7.5 bpm
Temperature: 39.29° Celsius*
Major heart rate: 37 bpm
Upper minor heart rate: 6 bpm
Lower minor heart rate: 7 bpm
Hydrogen heart rate: 5 bpm…
Fathom’s fever has gotten worse, and he’s begun exhibiting rhinorrhea, but he has yet to show any of the usual adverse reactions to penicillin. I will continue to gradually increase the dosage in an attempt to treat his infection, and in two days I will give him a ‘full’ dose – assuming he can be treated as a 266 kilogram human.
I hope this will work.
[Expedition Day 31]
Pryce awoke early in the morning to an odd rustling sound.
He blinked groggily a few times, then slowly sat himself up to look for Fathom, who he soon realized was sound asleep.
Another rustle. Pryce whipped his head around and caught sight of a strange, furred creature on the opposite side of the cave, which sat hunched over one of his backpacks.
Several seconds elapsed as his somnolent mind struggled to recognize the animal, which he abruptly realized must have been a sickle-clawed monkey.
“Hey! Drop that!” Pryce barked, hoping to scare the creature away, but this only caused the ape-like animal to scamper out the cave with its prize clutched tight against its chest.
Pryce sprinted after the thief with all the haste that he could muster and chased it out of the cave. He was gaining on the creature – which moved clumsily along the ground – until something pelted him in the head. Stunned, Pryce staggered and slowed just long enough for the not-monkey to bolt straight up the nearest tree.
Pain radiated from the side of his head where he’d been struck, though Pryce could tell that the damage wasn’t serious. Celebratory screeches rang out from the treetops from a dozen other sickle-clawed monkeys, one of which had evidently assisted their daring comrade by pelting Pryce in the head with a hard fruit.
“Pesky little-” Pryce hissed, then turned to dash back into the cave to retrieve the rifle.
He sprinted back out a few seconds later, but the not-monkeys were already swinging away, and the thick canopy prevented him from getting a clear shot.
With his quarry escaping, Pryce fired a round into the trees, hoping that it would at least startle the creature into dropping the bag. As expected, this desperate shot hit nothing but branches and leaves, and the whooping animals swiftly escaped deep into the forest.
“Damnit!” Pryce swore, a heavy pit of dread forming in his stomach. He was almost certain that he knew which backpack had been stolen; even so, he bolted back to the cave to confirm his suspicion.
“What happened?” Fathom asked, blinking in confusion as Pryce began checking bag after bag.
“No no no no-” Pryce muttered as he rummaged through the bags one by one, until only one was left unaccounted for. “Fuck!”
“What is it? Why did you use your rifle?” Fathom questioned, his spines flaring anxiously as Pryce collapsed into a chair.
“The monkeys stole the penicillin,” Pryce growled through gritted teeth. “I didn’t think anything would happen to it, so I brought all of it in that bag.”
“Those things are very annoying,” Fathom chuffed, a wet and sickly noise. “Almost as bad as raptors, and harder to hunt. Can you follow their smell?”
“What?” Pryce asked, briefly confused by the odd question. “No, humans can’t do that. Can you?”
“Not now,” Fathom said, and sniffled to clear his nostrils. “I can not smell anything.”
“Damn,” Pryce swore again, and hung his head. “I’m…sorry.”
“It is okay, I do not need medicine,” Fathom said, and flicked his spines dismissively – though this effect was undermined by a bout of wet coughing.
Pryce looked away, and could only hope that his friend was right.
“Can you make more antibiotics with the tools that you have here?” Fathom asked, apparently attempting to sound unworried.
“No,” Pryce said, shaking his head. “Well, I do have the tools, but the antibiotic comes from a special type of mold, remember? And I don’t have that.”
Fathom sniffled as he mulled over this problem. “Do you know how mold can make more mold?”
Pryce frowned. “Mold uses spores to make more mold. Spores are like seeds, but much smaller, like dust.”
“Interesting,” Fathom murmured. “When was last time you make medicine? Maybe you have mold spores on your clothes?”
Pryce froze as he considered this possibility. It had been over three years since he worked on producing penicillin, and all of his clothes had long since been washed several times over.
There was only one thing he hadn’t washed.
Pryce tentatively reached into his pocket, and slowly took out the broken chronometer.
[JOURNAL ENTRY EXCERPTS]
Day 31, Night
…
The preparations are complete.
I’ve disassembled and swabbed every exposed crevice of the chronometer.
I just need a single dormant P. chrysogenum spore to start the culture, but even if I get lucky, I’ll still need at least ten days for the mold to proliferate through the glucose-rich medium that I’ve prepared.
[JOURNAL ENTRY EXCERPTS]
Day 32,
Vital signs:
Respiratory rate: 11 bpm
Temperature: 39.45° Celsius*
Major heart rate: 45 bpm
Upper minor heart rate: 8 bpm
Lower minor heart rate: 8 bpm
Hydrogen heart rate: 5 bpm…
Fathom’s wounds are healing well, but his sickness has only continued to worsen.
A few specks of bacteria are beginning to grow in the glucose-rich medium, though I see no visible signs of P. chrysogenum yet.
[Expedition Day 33]
Pryce tried to steady his hand as he carefully examined the fuzz beneath his magnifying glass.
The unique color of the blue-green conidia was quite distinct, and he was almost certain that he had successfully started a colony of P. chrysogenum.
It was still too early to celebrate, however. A visual inspection on this level was not enough to confirm the identity of the mold, and even then it might not be enough. Whatever bacteria infecting Fathom could easily be completely unaffected by the antibiotic.
With an effort, Pryce pushed aside these helpless scenarios, and focused on the only thing that he could do.
[JOURNAL ENTRY EXCERPTS]
Day 34,
Vital signs:
Respiratory rate: 11 bpm
Temperature: 39.79° Celsius*
Major heart rate: 48 bpm
Upper minor heart rate: 10 bpm
Lower minor heart rate: 11 bpm
Hydrogen heart rate: 4.5 bpm…
The mold colonies grew large enough for me to examine under a microscope today, and that allowed me to see the short, smooth stipes, biverticillate branches, ampulliform phialides, medium sized collula, and smooth, dark green ellipsoidal conidia[1] – all traits belonging to P. chrysogenum.
The colony is growing at a slower rate than expected, but estimates it will be ready for harvest in about ten days.
[1] This basically means:
-The stalk/stem of the fungi growths are smooth.
-The stalks branch into Y shapes twice rather than one, three, or more times.
-Disk-shaped tips.
-Roundish spore-making parts.
[Expedition Day 35]
“Hey, Fathom, how are you feeling?” Pryce asked. “Fathom?” He gently nudged the dragon, which didn’t work either. Only with persistent prodding did the dragon awake with great reluctance.
“I still feel...not…good,” Fathom struggled to reply. “I feel weak, and hot, and cold, and I want to sleep more.” His voice had been further altered by his sickness, and the rest of his body had likewise deteriorated over the course of the last few days.
The dragon’s webbed spines had visibly darkened with blood as his fever rose. Even his scales had begun to lift, which Pryce assumed was his body’s attempt to shed the excess heat.
“How is mold growing?” Fathom sluggishly asked as picked at his dinner.
“It’s the right type of mold, I’m sure of it,” Pryce firmly replied. “I still don’t know if penicillin will work on you or not, but I should have some ready in ten days.
“Ten days…” Fathom wetly rasped. “I can do that.”
[JOURNAL ENTRY EXCERPTS]
Day 36,
Vital signs:
Respiratory rate: 12 bpm
Temperature: 40.13° Celsius*
Major heart rate: 51 bpm
Upper minor heart rate: 11 bpm
Lower minor heart rate: 13 bpm
Hydrogen heart rate: 4 bpm…
Fathom’s fever continues to worsen, and his wounds are struggling to heal, even with daily bandage changes and ointment applications.
The ointment itself contains some amount of penicillin, but it's mainly meant to prevent infection rather than outright cure it. Any effect it has on his fever appears to be limited, despite liberal application.
Our only remaining hope lies with the mold colony, which will need another seven days to finish growing.
Any preparations that I can make have long since been completed.
I have the necessary chemicals aboard the ship to produce penicillin-G, which at least should circumvent the potential issue of the digestive tract.
I just hope Fathom can hold out long enough for us to try it.