Blood of the Cosmos (43 page)

When clan entrepreneurs had set up this installation, it was a true Roamer dream—seemingly impossible, spectacular, and ultimately profitable. The founders must have faced a great deal of disbelief when they showed their original designs, but early on Kotto Okiah had given his stamp of approval for the sheer audacity of the idea, if nothing else. And once Kotto gave his thumbs-up, the founders had no further difficulty getting people to join in the project.

Garrison and Ruskin had worked together for several days; after only four hours of training, Garrison intuitively knew how to do the job, so his partner simply let him work. Now, the two men finished hanging a new energy film in an empty array.

But Garrison's eyes were constantly drawn toward the enormous torus.… To a Roamer with engineering background like himself, the Big Ring seemed as breathtaking a creation as the nebula itself.

“I'm only on your crew for a week,” he reminded his coworker. “That was my agreement with the Station Chief.”

“I heard it was ‘open for discussion' after a week.” The other man already sounded disappointed.

“I've already had the discussion with myself.” He turned to face the enormous construction hanging in space. “I'm going to work on the Big Ring.”

 

CHAPTER

70

TOM ROM

Necessary things.

Tom Rom remained focused on the larger goal, uninterested in discretionary activities. His main mission was to protect Zoe Alakis, and for that he would do anything that was required. Anything. He drew no enjoyment from what he had to do now, nor did he feel guilt. If it was necessary, then there was nothing else to say.

Zoe's rules were clear and inflexible. Everyone who worked for Pergamus—whether at the facility itself or as an outside provider—agreed to abide by those rules. An inappropriate revelatory remark could cause as much harm to the high-security installation as any careless lab accident.

Dr. Benjamin Paolus should have known better. He had breached that trust, and now the Confederation knew about them.

Tom Rom had been uneasy about the researcher for some time. From the beginning, Paolus had demonstrated that he was untrustworthy, although in a useful way, when he breached his own ethics by selling Prince Reynald's medical records. Now, however, the doctor had betrayed not only his royal patient, but also Zoe Alakis. That changed everything, and Tom Rom had to take care of it.

It was necessary.

When he flew to Earth on business, no one noticed him. He had all the appropriate licenses and identification cards under false names. He did not call attention to himself.

Zoe did not like to be disturbed, did not like to be revealed. She wanted Pergamus to remain unobtrusive, safe. Now that the fool Paolus had exposed their operations, there could be a flood of pathetic supplicants beseeching Zoe for cures that she had no intention of sharing. Larger organizations, black-market companies, even ruthless governments might want to raid Pergamus.

And the Confederation might take direct action. Rlinda Kett's overtures had been rebuffed, but he did not imagine for a moment that the King and Queen would let it go. Benjamin Paolus had placed them all in extreme danger. The damage was already done, Tom Rom knew, but there was a required response.

Arriving at Earth, he had little difficulty tracking down Paolus. After making his deal with Theroc, the doctor had basked in his reward, and obviously let it go to his head. Tom Rom studied the man's movements, hacked into his transactions, and discovered that Paolus was drowning in extraordinary debt. No surprise there, but it was worse than he had thought. Even the large payment from the King and Queen barely put him in a stable financial position.

The undeserved second chance hadn't taught Paolus any fiscal sensibility, though. For three nights in a row, the man had flaunted himself at high-class restaurants, drinking expensive wine, taking out friends, picking up bloated tabs.

He did not seem so much fearless as oblivious. His penthouse apartment had routine security in the lower entrance, motion detectors, laser locks … the usual. Nothing that caused Tom Rom any problem.

The night was still early when he broke into the penthouse. He had plenty of time, for the researcher was out dining again with his companions, who were rapidly becoming his sycophants, thanks to his liberal spending. Tom Rom resealed all the penthouse doors, reactivated all the security codes, and sat in the shadows waiting: quiet, motionless, contemplative. He liked to center his thoughts, to absorb the world around him, to rest and to plan.…

Years ago, after he had left Vaconda with the young Zoe Alakis, they had traveled long distances between the stars, and he had taught Zoe how to center herself. Not as formal meditation; it was just
thinking
. People didn't spend enough time thinking. If they did, they wouldn't make such stupid mistakes as Dr. Paolus had.

In the dim apartment, Tom Rom thought of Zoe alone in her sterile dome, surrounded by the best researchers. How different it was from the festering underworld on Rakkem, where Zoe's mother had been, a disgusting baby mill that cranked out healthy replacement organs in the form of neatly packaged infants. Tom Rom hated that place, hated what they did, hated what Muriel had become … but the biological black market could also be useful. Rakkem made it easy to hide things. Tom Rom could use that now.

When Dr. Paolus entered his penthouse, he was clearly under the influence of good wine and recreational drugs—no doubt expensive ones too. When he sealed his door, increased the illumination, and saw Tom Rom rising out of a chair, Paolus paled as if his skin had been bleached. He sobered very quickly. “What are you doing here?”

Tom Rom remained silent, weighed various answers, but decided not to bother with any of them. He unclipped a small medical kit from his waist.

Paolus tried to run for the door.

Tom Rom reached forward in a fluid movement, grabbed the doctor by the arm, spun him around. Paolus flailed, but Tom Rom brought his heel down in a hard stomp that shattered the man's fibula with a loud hollow snap. The man collapsed to the floor, his leg folded in the wrong place. He wailed, cursed, but Tom Rom had no interest in it.

“I'm sorry,” Paolus gasped through his pain. “I did it for the Prince! We're helping people. If you do have a cure—”

“We don't have a cure, yet—but that's not the point. You broke an oath, and you exposed Pergamus. Now we are in great danger, and my job has gotten much more difficult because of you.”

“I'm a medical researcher. I felt it was important to cure a disease, to save an innocent young man.”

Tom Rom removed an autosyringe filled with a paralytic. “You'll get your chance to contribute to medical research.” He zapped Paolus with the paralytic at the base of his neck. The doctor thrashed and twitched, then became a statue.

This particular drug had no pain-dampening qualities, so the pathetic man could still sense every edge of agony in his broken leg. When Tom Rom straightened and set the bone, he did it slowly; then he removed other items from his medical kit, following through on his detailed plan.

“You want to know where I'm taking you,” he said. “We're going to Rakkem. I'm sure somebody will find you useful there.”

*   *   *

The biological black-market city was in a low-lying marsh filled with a lush soup of rotting vegetation. The sprawling low forest was filled with pale plant life, mostly moss variants because the sunlight was too dim and the skies too gray to make photosynthesis a viable option.

Rakkem was not exactly a lawless place, because it had a strict hierarchical government that had reaped profits through biological trafficking. Buildings were scattered throughout the fetid swamp: pontoon buildings, trading bazaars, surgical complexes, and specimen warehouses. Rain slurried the streets, and murky swampwater rose up in the gutters.

Tom Rom remembered a name from his deep past, sure that Aldo Cerf had no memory of him whatsoever. Cerf was a successful organ broker who specialized in selling “viable flesh,” sometimes still alive, sometimes ready for transplant. For a substantial fee, Cerf had helped Tom Rom track down the infant Zoe after she'd been adopted by Adam and Evelyn Alakis.

He was glad to find that Cerf was still in business, but if not him, there were countless similar businessmen on Rakkem who could take care of the matter at hand.

Tom Rom contacted Cerf from his ship even before he landed, and they negotiated a price. Although this was an unorthodox thing for Tom Rom to do, Cerf acted as if it were an everyday occurrence. Maybe it was.

In the back of the ship, Paolus was half awake, still paralyzed, unaware of the medical alterations that had been made to him. He was in pain, but could not move, couldn't even whimper aloud. An agonized expression rippled across his face, just enough to please Tom Rom.

“I will sell him intact and still alive,” he said to Cerf, and he struck a hard bargain, although with her unlimited supply of prisdiamonds, Zoe had little need for the money. If he didn't haggle, though, the merchant would be suspicious. “This man is a medical researcher from Earth, but he has run his course of usefulness.”

Aldo Cerf sounded interested. “Maybe he should work for me then.”

“He's unreliable. You'd profit more from his organs.”

“All right, but I insist on charging an additional disposal fee, since you obviously want this man gone.”

Tom Rom acceded to the fee. Shortly after he landed, Aldo Cerf's masked and uniformed minions came to the ship to remove Paolus, who was wide-eyed and aware, twitching, but the paralytics still held.

“He won't be able to move for another day or so,” Tom Rom explained to Cerf's assistants. “If you don't want to contaminate the tissue, you can avoid using additional anesthetic when you remove all the organs.”

Paolus's eyes were wild. Tom Rom didn't look at him.

The body handlers nodded gruffly, made a notation on a pad, and accepted the transfer of funds. “I included a full med scan,” Tom Rom said helpfully. “He seems to have all his organs intact, though the liver might be questionable.”

“Livers are valuable,” said one of the workers, inspecting the scan on his pad. “It'll be good enough.”

Tom Rom looked at Paolus with a poignant expression of regret. “They'll disassemble you completely. I've worked with Aldo Cerf before. He doesn't waste anything. Rest assured, you'll continue to be of help to the medical industry.”

After they took the body away, Tom Rom was eager to leave Rakkem. The place still nauseated him. He despised what they did here, but in this case it was useful. He was able to take care of one necessary thing—eliminating Dr. Paolus—while also accomplishing a
desirable
thing, just for him and Zoe: Tom Rom had also impregnated Paolus's tissue with a latent toxin, and all of his organs were saturated with it. In the next day or so, when Cerf's surgeons removed his kidneys, lungs, heart, eyes, and everything else—the surgeons would be exposed to the poison and die within hours. And that would help Tom Rom finish his grudge against Rakkem, too.

He flew away, satisfied.

 

CHAPTER

71

LEE ISWANDER

After his offensive meeting with Speaker Ricks—there was no other word for it but “offensive”—Iswander went over to Academ, half convinced he should withdraw his son from the Roamer school.

Londa had already visited the boy and satisfied herself he was thriving in such a vibrant environment with children his own age. Iswander understood that, but if Sam Ricks was an example of what the Roamers epitomized now, he wasn't sure he wanted his son to have anything to do with them. He wanted to make Arden into a different kind of Roamer—the right kind of Roamer.

Inside the hollowed comet, he found Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni in front of an attentive group of students as they summoned sparkling droplets of water from the internal walls. In the zero-gravity core, the class hung in open air, maneuvering with small hand jets or anchoring themselves with tethers. They observed as diamond chains of crackling water drops flickered around them.

As Jess and Cesca worked together, extending their hands, the droplets coalesced, tiny remnants of wental energy that seeped out of the comet. The droplets danced through the air like a luminous river, reeling out from Jess's open hand, slowly arcing across the gap to Cesca's outstretched palms. She caught the sparkling chain before it rose and dispersed into vapor in the air, leaving them surrounded by a humid luminosity, like a halo.

Jess said to the group in a loud voice, “The wentals dissipated after the Elemental War, and their energy is no longer deadly. In fact, it is mostly gone, even from inside Cesca and me.”

Cesca opened her hands as the faint droplets faded. She seemed sad. “Some remnants still reside here in this comet, and others live on water worlds. But that's all. Like the hydrogues, they've gone dormant and faded from the Spiral Arm.”

Iswander maneuvered himself forward awkwardly with the hand jet. He had removed his business suit and now just wore a dress shirt and slacks. “Dad!” Arden called, and Iswander found him among the group, surprised to see him next to another familiar boy. Seth Reeves? It wasn't surprising that Garrison would have taken his son back to Academ, but he hadn't expected Arden and Seth to be friends. He wondered if Elisa knew where her boy was.

Iswander maintained his calm as he looked up at Jess and Cesca. “I came because I'm concerned about what Roamers are being taught these days, and whether or not it can benefit my son. I'm not entirely sure the Roamers and clan Iswander have the same Guiding Star.”

“Why do you say that?” Jess asked.

“For one thing, I've met directly with Speaker Ricks.”