Space station of the sluts

Megan hadn’t noticed any “symptoms” of the mysterious illness herself, but other stationers’ reactions had ranged from fatigue and muscular weakness to headaches, dizziness, and — most worrying to her and her medtech — temperature changes in both directions. She turned her blue-tinged hand back and forth, as if watching for changes in its seamless surface.

Shaylan clicked his tongue once in thought. “Pretty weird,” he said after a moment. The data in his pupils was still for a moment; he was conjecturing, not analyzing. “They’re functioning normally, but the data they report to your brains are going to be increasingly unreliable. False physical responses, sensory hallucinations. Some downright synesthesiac effects after a while — hearing colors and that sort of thing. Irritating, but probably not damaging. Even if your suit is telling you you’re burning up with fever, you’re not actually. You feel it, but it won’t damage your cells; kill your brain.”

Megan nodded. That about matched the experiences they’d had so far with the mysterious “plague,” people strangely sick or confused, then miraculously better, then relapsing again. And just enough cases of actual contamination — from people who’d been exposed to gasses without their daysuits — to keep her medtech looking for an external cause, rather than a suit malfunction.