Blood of the Cosmos (53 page)

Tom Rom's face remained placid on the screen, waiting to hear what she would suggest. “I am listening.”

Zoe had been giving the idea much thought as well. “A concession and a bargaining chip. We have something the King and Queen want—all of our research into the Prince's condition. But they also have something I want—Lee Iswander delivered all those Onthos historical records and the full database of medical files about the plague that almost killed you. We have the disease sample from your bloodstream, and the Iswander database would fill out our specimen set. I believe that's worth a trade. That would be my opening gambit.”

Even with the flat distance of the comm screen, she could see him struggling to control his surprise. “It would buy us time. But you don't actually have a cure to Prince Reynald's illness.”

“They don't know that—and I would not make them promises. I've learned all too well about the treachery of sharing, but right now, we may have no other choice.”

*   *   *

After recovering from Conden's Fever, young Zoe became morbidly fascinated with the disease that had nearly killed her, along with the vaccines that others had denied her. Once she was healthy again, Zoe considered those people to be
her
enemies. And Tom Rom was not one to forgive such an insult, especially when it had endangered the life of the young woman who could have been his daughter.

They traveled to Earth, then to Yreka, New Portugal, and Cotopaxi. On Cotopaxi they learned that one of the planetary council members was also dying of Heidegger's Syndrome, and he had flown away, chasing after a new and miraculous cure that was being offered on Rakkem. For a substantial fee.

Zoe felt a sharp pang. If such a cure had been offered years earlier, her father could have been saved, or at least his suffering might have been alleviated. “I want to know what that cure is,” she told Tom Rom. “And then I'll buy it.”

He was disturbed. “But you don't suffer from Heidegger's.”

“No, but I still want it.”

So he took her to Rakkem to investigate this cure that sounded too good to be true. There, they met with a biomerchant named Aldo Cerf, who advertised many remarkable and guaranteed treatments—all of which came with exorbitant price tags. Cerf's library of cures seemed unbelievable, miraculous. How could this seedy-looking biomerchant on a festering black-market planet have drugs and treatments that the best medical facilities in the Confederation didn't offer? Zoe wanted to learn why, to know whether or not she could have acquired this cure back when her father was still alive.

Tapping into their newfound wealth of prisdiamonds, Tom Rom dressed as a respectable businessman from the reef settlements on Rhejak. He met with Aldo Cerf, explained that he—Tom Rom—had been diagnosed with the initial stages of Heidegger's Syndrome, and he was anxious to obtain the cure before the disease progressed to the next stage.

Cerf was expansive and gracious, insisted that his treatment was new, that it would quite likely cure Heidegger's. At the very least, he claimed, it would give the patient renewed energy and certainly prolong his life. Seeing the fine clothes Tom Rom wore, Cerf raised his price. Later, Zoe discovered that the council member from Cotopaxi had paid even more for the same treatment.

In addition to the Heidegger's cure, Cerf advertised an entire catalogue of miracle drugs pulled together from the best medical researchers across the Spiral Arm. That was the reason why desperate patients constantly came to him.

Zoe and Tom Rom departed from Rakkem, glad to be away from the festering swamps and biomarkets, disease-testing stations, organ samples, and unethical people. She kept the Heidegger's treatment like a trophy, a keepsake. It reminded her of her father, made her sad that she had found it too late.

Several months later, they learned that the council member from Cotopaxi had died of an accelerated progression of Heidegger's.

Tom Rom spent more prisdiamonds to commission a rigorous analysis of the supposed cure, only to find that the treatment was a complete scam. Aldo Cerf's treatment was just a concoction that produced mild euphoria so the patient felt healthier, believed he was getting better … and burned out faster.

Zoe was outraged at the con job. Back when her father was dying, she would have paid anything for this supposed cure … which would have killed him even sooner. Cerf's treatment was merely a placebo—and worse.

Zoe wanted to do something about the twisted place, and so they investigated further. Tom Rom applied his considerable skills to digging into the biomerchant's dealings, but Aldo Cerf was unremarkable among many similar con men, curesellers, and organ merchants.

More important, though, Tom Rom made the remarkable discovery that Zoe's mother was still alive after all.…

*   *   *

The thought of Rakkem made Zoe cringe inside her sterile isolation dome. So many diseases at that place, so many corrupt people, and it was still in existence, still as corrupt.

On Pergamus, she operated differently, kept everything under tight control, neatly labeled and in its own place. She did not prey upon desperate sufferers, did not sell any of her work at all.

But she could not let the Confederation seize control of her facility. She couldn't allow that to happen.

More determined than ever, she spoke to Tom Rom on the screen. “We need to make that bargain. We have to get something out of this and keep ourselves protected, at least for now.”

Tom Rom accepted that. “I'll depart immediately for Theroc and speak to King Peter and Queen Estarra. I will negotiate terms. I promise I will save us.”

But she shook her head. The words caught in her throat, but she forced them out. She was terrified of her decision, but there could be no better way to demonstrate the seriousness of her offer. “Not just you, Tom Rom. I need to make a dramatic gesture.”

His eyes widened slightly, convinced that he wasn't going to like what she intended to suggest.

“I will leave this dome and go with you and face the King and Queen in person.”

 

CHAPTER

88

ROD'H

Facing their fear, Solar Navy and CDF teams explored the deep darkness inside the sealed Onthos star system. General Keah dispatched a squadron of solo CDF scout ships, but Ildirans hated to be alone, and their terror was only amplified by the dark impenetrable shell.

As a halfbreed, though, Rod'h was strong enough to handle it, as was his brother Gale'nh. Their mixed heritage gave the two men an anchor against traditional Ildiran fears, and they were even stronger because of the close psychic bond among all of Nira's halfbreed children. They volunteered to be part of the first exploratory team to set foot on the dark Onthos planet.

And the human historian Anton Colicos insisted on going along as well.

The large transport that departed from the flagship warliner was practically an expedition, a personnel shuttle large enough to carry fifty scientists, guards, engineers, and astronomers, as well as Rod'h, Gale'nh, and Rememberer Anton. They headed toward the dark, frozen sphere that had been home to the Gardeners and another separate worldforest.

Rod'h was eager and curious, while the rest of the Ildirans were intimidated, tense. Gale'nh, oddly enough, looked strong and focused, even with the scars of the Shana Rei all around them. His pale hair and skin were unsettling to Ildirans, a constant reminder of the hell he had endured—much as the burn scars on Prime Designate Daro'h's face proclaimed how he had once faced the faeros and mad Designate Rusa'h.

Rod'h, though, remained undamaged—his bravery and defiance had no chinks.

The expedition descended to the dark planet—a lifeless, cold emptiness that showed no city lights, nor gave off any thermal readings. The sun had been extinguished, the outside stars eclipsed, and the Onthos homeworld had withered in complete darkness.

The pilot of the transport circled over the dark planet, playing high-intensity blazers across the landscape to illuminate a rugged, uneven surface like scratched obsidian. Anton Colicos took diligent notes, keeping a record to write later.

After the transport cruised above the dark landscape for an hour, Rod'h was impatient. “Land the ship,” he declared, to the consternation of the Ildiran scientists. He gave them a sour look. “We will never have our answers unless we set foot down there. Directly.”

Tal Gale'nh outranked everyone on board, and he issued the order. “My brother is correct. We have come this far. We must finish our mission.”

Anton nodded. “I agree. We have to bring back our discoveries—everyone is waiting to see what we find out.”

The pilot found a supposedly safe spot to land. Rod'h was the first to don an environment suit, and Gale'nh joined him. The two of them assisted each other in checking the seals, adjusting the gloves and life-support packs, and sealing the swirled, conch-shaped helmets. Anton Colicos needed help suiting up, but he soon stood prepared, ready to set foot outside.

Armed guard kithmen suited up in the main gathering bay, wearing larger armored suits with built-in energy weapons. Each also carried a reinforced cudgel with a sharp crystalline blade, which might have been useful for direct physical combat, though less graceful in space or low gravity.

“We have sufficient weaponry for protection,” announced one of the guard kithmen. Rod'h did not expect they would face combat here, however. This world was a dead place, and he doubted anything could harm them here other than their own Ildiran fears.

Rememberer Anton said, “It would be more useful to make sure that we each carry enough light.”

Rod'h took a handheld blazer and activated the power. Gale'nh and Anton did the same, and the guards followed suit. The landed transport was a blaze of bright reflections, alone in the cold darkness.

They opened the hatch and exited into the blackest forest imaginable filled with angular monoliths frozen into obsidian, like towers of long razors. The skeletal remains of the trees were only blacker silhouettes against an utterly lightless sky.

The group moved cautiously forward in their environment suits, leaving footprints in the powdery ground. Gale'nh and Rod'h walked shoulder-to-shoulder, while the guard kithmen spread out in a protective formation. Anton Colicos ventured off, curious, shining his blazer in different directions. Three nervous scientist kithmen performed their expected mission, taking samples of the soil and indecipherable frozen matter.

The bright beams made a spray of razor-edged shadows. Around them towered the black behemoths of long-dead worldtrees, nightmarish forms that seemed to have been carved from skeletal obsidian. Dead trees loomed, the dusty bones of a once great worldforest, but there were also signs of the ancient Onthos civilization.

These immense trees were connected by the remnants of looping artificial skyways, metal bridges and arches built long ago. Spikelike towers rose high into an impenetrable sky, piercing what once had been a dense, lush canopy.

Rod'h marched forward, shining his handblazer ahead as he approached the nearest worldtree. The shadows were so dark and the glare of the light so bright that the massive trunk looked distorted, different from the worldtrees that lined parklike boulevards in Mijistra. This dead obelisk had no golden bark scales, no soft green fronds. With a gloved hand, he touched the trunk, but felt only sharp, cold resistance.

Gale'nh spoke through the comm, his voice startlingly loud in the helmet, “When I was in darkness, I lost a major part of myself, but I am trying to gain it back. These trees, though … they will never gain back what they have lost.”

“We need to retrieve samples,” said Anton. “A lot of samples.”

Two scientist kithmen stepped forward, removing sharp hammers and narrow chisels from their specimen kits. When they struck the points against the petrified trunk to remove a splinter, the entire mammoth tree shuddered—and then shattered into a rain of black dust that fell glittering in the beams of their blazers. Rod'h and Gale'nh hunched over to protect themselves, but the obsidian flakes were mere black sparkles of the massive trunk. The ghost of the worldtree disintegrated into black shards.

“Now we have plenty of samples,” Rememberer Anton said, helping the scientists to scoop up the ebony splinters. The ground was covered with black charcoal.

As they continued through the silent wreckage, shining lights in the darkest corners, they found many more collapsed trees, uprooted titans that had pulled down the once-majestic Onthos buildings and walkways.

Anton Colicos sounded amazed. “It must have been a thriving and beautiful world. I've seen the Gardener refugees on Theroc—so quiet, so grateful. They're the only ones who escaped.”

Embedding blazer beacons in the ground to mark their way, the party explored further. They stopped when they found the skeletons of thousands and thousands of small-statured Onthos encircling a mound of tumbled trunks caked with powdery residue. “The Gardeners must have come here, knowing they were about to die,” Anton said.

“They would have frozen or suffocated,” Rod'h said. “Once their sun was snuffed out and the black sphere enclosed the solar system, they had no chance. But they all gathered here—I wonder why.”

Anton approached the black mound and reached forward with a gloved hand. “These are boughs from the worldtrees—pieces of wood piled here.” He rubbed with his gloves, looked at the black dust on his fingers. “It's nearly disintegrated now. These remnants are more fragile than the other trees. It reminds me of…” He drew in a quick, audible breath as the understanding came to him. “This was a
fire
—a gigantic bonfire.” He stood up. “When their sun went out and night fell forever, the last of the Onthos must have gathered the dead worldtree wood, maybe even cutting down other trees. They created a huge bonfire. They must have been starving for any kind of light.”