Blood of the Cosmos (13 page)

For the next several hours of the passage to Fireheart, Del slept in his seat, snoring loudly, while Shareen and Howard played games. Howard plied her with little-known facts about Fireheart Station, their output of power blocks, isotope-enriched metal films, exotic polymers, until the transfer ship's pilot announced over the comm, “Arriving at the nebula's outer gas-shock boundary. It'll be bumpy, so strap in.”

Her grandfather snorted, woke up, and looked around. Ignoring the pilot's advice, Shareen and Howard crowded against the nearest windowport.

The nebula's high-flux newborn stars had pushed the surrounding dust outward, leaving it piled up like the outer skin of a cocoon. As the ship passed through the denser ripples, Shareen and Howard held on through the turbulence, both grinning. Del pretended to be blas
é
about the trip, but Shareen knew that even her grandfather was intrigued. He had been here only twice before in his life.

When the transfer ship plowed through and emerged into the brighter gases beyond the gas-shock boundary, Shareen stared in awe at the drifting Roamer facilities, which were like islands scattered across a colorful sea. Unique isotope-processing factories gathered the highly ionized gases, sifting and sorting the swirl of exotic molecules.

Howard pointed at a pair of huge tankers drifting through the nebula, skimming gases with enormous sheets of collecting material. “There's so much going on here.”

“Even more exciting than a kelp distillery, isn't it?” Del teased.

Shareen's eyes sparkled as she said, “Now this is a place where we can do something interesting.”

 

CHAPTER

17

ZHETT KELLUM

The waveskimmer tore across the choppy seas of Kuivahr. Zhett felt like laughing as the salty wind whipped her long black hair, but she tried to control her expression. She didn't want her son to notice how much fun she was having, because that would make him even more reckless.

Against her better judgment she had let Kristof, who preferred to be called Toff, pilot the skimmer from the distillery, heading to open water. Toff was perfectly competent at the controls, despite the fact that he was only thirteen. He had an innate talent for piloting almost any kind of vehicle. Most Roamers were like that; it seemed to be in their blood. Zhett was proud of him, even though he did tend to take chances—just as she had done at his age.

“I can take the long way to the sanctuary domes, Mom—map the kelp along the way.” He looked up from the water-splashed windscreen. “You never can tell what might be useful for the fermenting tanks, or what might taste good.”

She knew he was just looking for an excuse to stay out on the water longer. “None of them taste good, no matter what your grandfather says.” Del Kellum was inordinately (and incorrectly, she thought) proud of his recipes for distillations of the native sea plants.

“People still buy them,” Toff pointed out.

“And thank the Guiding Star, otherwise we'd be bankrupt.” Zhett didn't really believe that, though. With her husband's family fortune, as well as the wealth that clan Kellum had gained, and lost, over the years, they would survive somehow. Six months ago, she and Patrick Fitzpatrick had been running a skymine on the gas giant Golgen, until the complete disaster there. She had never imagined she would be managing a distillery.
Roamers adapt
, Zhett thought.

The skimmer hit a rough patch of foamy waves, and Kristof cried out in delight even though he was nearly thrown from the controls. Zhett held on as they bounced along. “We're just going to make a delivery to the Ildiran sanctuary domes. You may be a reckless teenager, but your mother has responsibilities.”

Toff snorted. He didn't believe it for a minute. They both knew she could have delegated someone else to make the run, but she wanted to leave the distillery and take the ride across the waves with him.

“All right, you caught me,” she admitted. “But we do have to get back. Your father might sell the distillery out from under us if I leave him in charge for more than a few hours.” Zhett was just teasing. Patrick was as dedicated to the business as she was, and they both intended to make a good profit from it.

Toff guided the skimmer along at a speed that made Zhett anxious, but she didn't complain. At his age, she had felt immortal too, but after what she had seen during the Elemental War, after the many times she and clan Kellum had nearly lost everything, she knew that the universe sometimes played with people, like a cat with a ball of string.

“Do you think Tamo'l will let us see the misbreeds this time?” Toff asked. “I promise not to stare.”

At the sanctuary domes, Tamo'l and a team of medical kithmen studied the unfortunate genetic amalgamations left over from the Ildiran breeding program on Dobro. The misshapen survivors now lived in protective dome habitats below the waterline, a refuge where the misbreeds lived out their lives as best they could. Tamo'l, a halfbreed herself, dedicated herself to helping the unfortunate creatures. The breeding program was a shameful scar on Ildiran history, and the innocent children of kiths that were never meant to be mixed had paid the price of the previous Mage-Imperator's ambitions.

“You know the misbreeds like their privacy,” she said. “We'll deliver the new extracts, nothing more.”

“But we just want to help them,” Toff said.

“And we can help by leaving them alone, since that's what they want. That's your first lesson for today.”

Zhett's distillery team had extracted potent chemicals in new kelp strains found on the sloshing tides, pharmaceutical-grade distillates that had either a narcotic or euphoric effect on humans; she hoped that Ildirans might have a similar response. Tamo'l was always eager to receive new potential treatments for her misbreeds, and the Kellums liked to be good neighbors.

In the disjointed everything-is-important-right-now thought pattern of a teenage boy, Toff said, “So is our family ever going back to skymining, or are we stuck at the distillery now?”

Zhett glanced up Kuivahr's cloud-locked sky, then back to her son. “I thought you didn't like skymining.”

He shrugged. “It was okay.”

Zhett raised her eyebrows. “I could always send you after Shareen and Howard. They'd love to have you with them at Fireheart Station.”

He gave her a look of mock horror. “Shareen thinks solving math problems is
fun
, and I can only tease her and Howard so much. I'll work here, thank you.”

For her own part, Zhett longed to be back aboard a skymine, drifting in the serene clouds of a gas giant.… Well, not always serene, since on Golgen poisonous shadows had boiled up from the deep cloud levels. Zhett and her family had barely evacuated in time.
Circumstances beyond our control
.

Toff pushed the waveskimmer forward, making a serpentine wake in the water. Ahead, seeing the transparent domes that protruded from the waves like giant blisters, Zhett activated the comm. “We're ready with our delivery—docking soon, if someone would like to come pick up the package.”

By the time Toff guided the skimmer to the domes' receiving deck, a redheaded man waited for them next to a regal-looking Ildiran woman and willowy young Tamo'l herself, who showed the mixed genetics of a human mother and an Ildiran lens kithman.

Toff guided the skimmer against the landing deck so that the hull just kissed the structure. Zhett was impressed.

She greeted the redhead. “You must be Shawn Fennis.”

“Yes, and this is my wife Chiar'h.” The Ildiran noble female bowed slightly as she was introduced.

Toff grabbed the case of the distillations and bounded onto the receiving deck, offering the package to Tamo'l. She took it gratefully and thanked him. “If these new distillates are similar to the last ones you delivered, I may be able to formulate excellent palliatives.”

“Can we go inside and meet some of the misbreeds?” Toff blurted. “Maybe I can help too.”

“Perhaps some other time,” said Tamo'l. “They are often shy around visitors.”

“He didn't mean any offense,” Zhett said.

Fennis added, “They've been stared at all their lives. This is a place where they can be free of that.” He relieved Tamo'l of the heavy case of samples. “But if this helps to improve their lives, maybe some misbreeds will come to thank you in person.”

Zhett's heart skipped a beat, not sure how the distillery workers would react to that. Nevertheless, she said, “We would be honored.”

 

CHAPTER

18

TAMO'L

As the lift descended beneath the ocean surface, Tamo'l reviewed the new kelp distillations Zhett and Toff had just delivered. Yes, they showed promise, and she always maintained hope.

In the submerged sanctuary domes, her team continued their research to help the misbreeds, as well as any other sufferer who might benefit. The Kellum distillery prepared concoctions with the mutable kelp strains the swimmers harvested out on the oceans, but the Roamer zymurgists did not know exactly what Tamo'l was looking for … though honestly, neither did she. She tried every chemical variation on the chance that one combination might work, and the misbreeds were desperate enough to allow the experimentation. They were trapped in the purgatory of being too malformed to be accepted into society, yet functional enough to remain alive. And so more than a hundred of them had found a home with her here on Kuivahr.

Tamo'l was quietly surprised that so many of the misbreeds were still alive more than a quarter century after the breeding program had been terminated. Most of them had severe physical difficulties, chronic ailments, organs that didn't function as they were supposed to. Others, though hideously deformed, were healthy—in an objective sense.

The Ildiran race had kiths, or subspecies, that ranged from squat and muscular miners, to willowy singers, nimble-fingered medical kithmen, agile-minded engineers, elite and strikingly handsome nobles, rememberers with expressive facial lobes that accentuated the tales they told from the Saga of Seven Suns. The combinations of those kiths were a mixed bag, often with alarming results.

Tamo'l's father had been a lens kithman, because the Dobro Designate had hoped the combination of the philosopher kith's mental acuity and the female green priest's telink would result in the telepathic savior the Ildirans so badly needed. Although her older sister Osira'h was the one who had succeeded in that desperate gambit, Tamo'l nevertheless inherited a deeply introspective and philosophical mindset, which she turned toward helping the discarded victims of the breeding program.

When the lift doors opened into the subsurface habitat, Shawn Fennis stepped out, proudly carrying the heavy box of kelp extracts. Several misbreeds came forward to greet them. Tamo'l announced brightly, “We have more medicinal specimens to study.”

Har'lc—always helpful, even cheerful—was the result of a truly unwise mating of a swimmer kith female and a scaly kith male, subspecies evolved for the water and the desert, respectively. Har'lc was unable to tolerate either environment, and his skin was a patchwork of rashes and peeling blotches, but even though he always looked miserable, he maintained a pleasant and optimistic disposition.

Gor'ka was another helpful one, with three eyes, the outlier in a socket low down on the cheekbone. He held one shriveled arm against his chest, while the other dangled loose like a tentacle. His skin was leathery, and his face looked made of melted wax. Even so, Gor'ka seemed perfectly comfortable using his floppy limb, which was made of cartilage rather than bone. He would often hover near Tamo'l in her lab, hoping to make himself useful. He insisted on considering his physical differences as not-yet-classified
advantages
instead of deformities—who knew what secret abilities his scrambled genetics might offer? His earnestness made Tamo'l's heart go out to him.

More misbreeds joined her and Fennis as they made their way through the corridors toward the lab dome. She was anxious to get her facilities working on the chemical analysis, pharmaceutical formulations, and toleration trials. Two other domes served as infirmaries and hospices, as well as dwelling complexes. The misbreeds had so many physical problems that for them the hospital facilities were part of their way of life.

Some of the misbreeds had formed family units. There were friends, even lovers, companionable groups that played games, composed music; some told stories from the classic Ildiran Saga. One of the most malformed inhabitants, Mungl'eh, had such a beautiful singing voice that she had brought the Mage-Imperator to tears when she performed in the Prism Palace years ago. That, more than anything, had convinced Jora'h to allow the creation of the sanctuary domes.

When Tamo'l had first begged the Ildiran leader for permission to establish this facility on isolated Kuivahr, she wanted to give the discarded misbreeds a place of their own, a place of dignity. But as Tamo'l spent time treating them, counseling them, listening to them—she discovered a common trait among them. These “errors,” the discards from the grim Dobro breeding program, all wanted
meaning
in their lives, a reason for being what they were. They did not believe that Osira'h was the
only
useful result of the program. They felt they had something special like a gem hiding in their scrambled genetics.

Tamo'l's older brother Rod'h—who possessed nearly the same powers as Osira'h—was quite determined to achieve his potential, even though he had not ultimately been needed during the Elemental War. And the misbreeds had potential, too, even if no one else could see it. Tamo'l wanted to assist them in any way possible.

When her group reached the medical laboratory, Tamo'l had more volunteers than she could possibly use for the new round of pharmaceutical tests. Fennis and Chiar'h were well trained in the work, and the misbreeds had also studied Ildiran medical sciences and techniques. Their lives depended on it, and Tamo'l could not ask for a more dedicated set of workers.