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You know as well as I do that if the virus reaches Arcturus we will have no way of stopping it.  If the most advanced medical research institutes of the Imperium cannot find a cure, what hope do we have?  It’s rare for our only hospital to even have an adequate supply of antibiotics, let alone painkillers…”
    “I didn’t realise that things had gotten so bad, so quickly.  To have already reached this far, on the very edge of the Imperium.” My voice trailed off as I tried to comprehend the magnitude of the unfolding disaster.  “And there has been no progress with treatment, not even a vaccine?”
    “None.  They have tried everything, nothing works, the virus mutates too quickly.  By the time they have mapped its genetic structure and synthesised an antibody, the virus has already mutated a dozen times over and the cure is useless.”
    “The mutations are just as potent as the original virus?”
    “If anything they seem to be getting ever more virulent, the latest strains have a mortality rate of over ninety percent.  They even fear that some of the latest strains have gone airborne.  There have been cases reported on almost every planet in the Imperium, some of the more remote planets that have become infected seem to have dropped off the corporate-extranet completely, either that or there is just nobody left alive to communicate with.”
    “They still haven’t found the source?” I asked weakly.  While I was no doctor even I knew that if we could find an original strain of the virus then perhaps we could find a cure, which would work on all mutations.
    “There doesn’t seem to be a source,” my father slapped his palm on the desk in frustration.  “Whilst the first official case was reported on Sagouran VI, additional investigation has found a dozen similar cases on other planets.  It doesn’t help that the virus has such a long incubation period, weeks in some cases.”
    This was what made Sagouran Fever so lethal.  Most virulent outbreaks quickly burnt themselves out, killing the carrier before the virus could spread further, but this one was different.  It could remain dormant and undetected in the bloodstream, quietly multiplying and spreading, before suddenly flaring up and killing the host in a matter of hours.
    It was the perfect killer.  Silent.  Long-lasting.  Easily spread and ever so deadly.
    I just could not take it all in and for a brief moment wondered if my father was perhaps mistaken and that this was all just a bad dream.  But as this had been going on for years, surely I would have woken up by now?  Anybody else would have dismissed my father as the ravings of a madman, after all, how could he possibly know?  Trapped inside this isolated house, with no power, no visible sign of communications and never any visitors.  Yet he had never been wrong before and I had my own theory, one he had just unwittingly confirmed with his reference to the corporate-extranet.  Although the mega-corporations hated each other, even they had to communicate between themselves, if for no other reason than to trade with each other. As a result of this the corporate-extranet had come into existence, which was a simple bridge linking each of the corporation’s internal data networks.
    It mattered little that it was mostly used by the various corporations to try and attack each other, with huge cyber-warfare battles taking place daily, as each tried to outwit, undermine or subjugate the others.  As far as I knew, there were only two terminals, or Superluminal Transmitters, on Arcturus.  One at the spaceport where I worked, mostly used to transmit shipping schedules, the other at the Planetary Governor’s residence, where he could receive orders from his corporate superiors.
    Still I suspected a third, hidden somewhere in this house, most probably in this very room as my father spent most of his time in here.  I still didn’t understand how this was possible, as the link was maintained