They had crashed on a planet where the atmosphere was toxic. The pods were safe and able to be moved together to create a larger shelter, and with only four of them, the shelter was big enough for at least a month, though rescue stated they'd be there in about two weeks given the distance and lack of short cuts in that area. Their patient's infection showed by day two. The human frowned, seeing it, then began to cut apart citrus peels that had developed a fungal mold, working with the fungus in a way that smelled awful.
"Human, what are you doing? You said you had a way to treat the infection?"
The human looked upon their friend. "I do, it's called penicillin." -- Lessons
Everybody knew that Humans were strange, but this... this had to take some variety of confectionery pastry. Human Vis, though ordered to rest, had taken to rummaging through the waste receptacles after his injury began leaking something green. There was no fully-trained Medik among the survivors to take over what they were doing. Therefore those with him at least attempted to help.
What Human Vis wanted was orange peels. He had already set one of the food printers to create as much sterile surgical-grade saline as it could. Further, they were processing the orange juice into citric acid. Once the orange peels came together, the next step was apparently sorting blue-green from black.
If the atmosphere around their crash site were not sulphur dioxide, the other three survivors might have suggested Human Vis take a walk in the fresh air. They were still more than a week from the arrival of the rescue team and this... was a regrettable necessity. What coffee filters had to do with it was currently baffling.
Traveler Tob, who had assisted Human Vis in his strange procedure, asked the question that the rest had been thinking. "What is all this for? You have lowered the air quality for a... strange soup?"
Human Vis filled another coffee filter over another prepared bottle of special solution to encourage the resultant soup to flourish. "I'm growing penicillium and hoping for the best," he said. "It's going to be gross, especially with the shunt and washing the wound, but it will give us time."
They still had access to the infonets, and a little bit of research revealed a worrying truth. "You are making penicillin?"
"Yeah. Gotta treat the infection before it spreads or gets stronger."
"Isn't that one of the oldest, and therefore least reliable antibiotics?"
"Do you know how to make bacteriophages? Because I don't. This is what we've got," said Human Vis. "For the record, I don't like it either."
That, from a Human, was hardly reassuring.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Kateryna_Kon]
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