Topic summary
Descolada
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Speaker for the Dead.
Setting
Shortly after the colony's founding, many of the colonists die from the Descolada virus (Portuguese for "uncoiled"), which alters DNA and causes terrible pain, rampant cancerous growth of fungus and even extra limbs, decay of healthy tissue, and death. The xenobiologists Gusto and Cida von Hesse manage to create a treatment for the virus before succumbing to it themselves (1936 S.C.), leaving behind their young daughter Novinha.