Triorion Omnibus
Page 36
How could their immune system be so developed at their age—and with human lineage? she wondered.
As Triel concluded her initial assessment, she found that her mind couldn’t reconcile the twin girls as the dreaded Volkor. They’re so ordinary, she thought, her mind comparing their peach-smooth faces to the domineering images of the General from the newreels. Without a collection of shiny medals or a towering, authoritative stature, they seemed powerless.
How could they be the ones that masterminded the destruction of my people?
Refocusing herself, Triel sensed that the injuries sustained by the one on her left were more serious and made her way to her bedside.
“I’m starting my internal assessment,” she said, checking the biofeed on her arm that relayed her vital signs to the medical team watching safely behind the observation window. With shaky fingers, she tapped the screen. Is my heart rate really 118?
Triel hesitated at the bedside of her unconsciousness patient. The steady beeping of her patients’ synchronous heart rates and her rapid breathing filled in the silence.
“Hey, Starfox,” a jovial voice said over the com. “I got some more soup made up for you, just in case.”
Hearing Bacthar’s voice, Triel smiled. She picked up a pair of laser scissors and hovered over the patient. “I can do this...”
With a deep breath, she cut the clothing off the patient’s chest and poised her hands over her sternum and abdomen. Doubt crept into her head: Gods—I haven’t healed anyone in years.
Thinking back, she realized the last time she performed a full restoration had been on Algar, with her father’s aide. Before I rebelled—before the Scare. Back when my father believed I could be the next Great Mother.
Triel scorned the idea. Me, the Great Mother—the spiritual leader of all the Prodgies of Algar. No, I’m the girl who ran away.
“No,” Triel whispered, fighting her uncertainties. “I can do this.”
Her breath hitched in her chest as she laid her hands on her patient’s bare skin. The warmth surprised her. As she sank deeper into the patient’s body, Triel lost sight of the medical bay and gained a better view of the extent of her wounds. The virus was everywhere, crawling through her like an infestation of mites, but as she had noted before, the patient’s immune system had definitely slowed its advancement. She needed to know more.
The Healer aligned her mind and body with the host’s to begin the restoration. When she dipped farther inside the patient, past the barriers of her physical being, she realized how unprepared she was.
“Triel, your heart rate has doubled. Are you alright?” she heard someone say, but she had gone too deep to respond.
My Gods...
Healing a fellow telepath was always a different experience, as her father had once told her. Non-telepathic minds presented as flat signatures in the psionic spectrum, much like antiquated television screens, making it easy to differentiate host from Healer. But telepathic minds were different. They reacted to the Prodgy mind, creating a new reality, making it almost impossible for the Healer to distinguish between their own identity and that of their host. Whatever afflicted the host, whatever brought them joy or sorrow, affected the Healer as well.
They’re just kids—how could they have such complex emotions? she thought as she gazed within the girl’s mind. Her patient’s life, compounded by the thousands of years of experience absorbed in seven years, aged her beyond any being Triel had ever restored. I underestimated them...
Not many of the disjointed memories made sense, giving the Healer only fleeting glimpses of the girl’s life. Triel found herself running from a hulking Cerran-humanoid that chased her with a belt, and then dodging the fists of an older child in a Core uniform. She felt afraid and desperate as she entered a Core officer’s mind and copied the knowledge she would need to win the games they made her play, and dirty and violated when it was over.
I don’t want any of this! the girl cried out.
Being left behind on a market outing left her feeling not only jealous and lonely, but angry at herself. She wept in guilt and rage at the condition of her dirty apartment. Cold, hungry and alone, she sat in the corner of a Dominion cell, ready for death to grant her relief.
The foreign emotions threatened to submerge Triel as she delved deeper, blurring the lines between Healer and patient. Terrible shame and guilt walled her in, entrenching her in its emotional drag as she watched herself force another child laborer into doing her work in the antechamber of the coolant room. It was only a mistake, the girl’s voice echoed in the back of Triel’s mind. She saw the boy’s rigid, lifeless body and shuddered. I never meant to hurt him!
Another emotion, even stronger than the death of the child laborer, pulled Triel down through the deepest layers of the girl’s psyche.
Who is that? Triel wondered, seeing a boy with black hair and blue eyes that lit up his face when he smiled. The girl’s bond with him felt warm, safe, and understanding, not unlike the unspoken connection Triel had once shared with her siblings. Conversely, the sense of loss associated with him wrenched her gut, enough to stir up Triel’s own memories of her last moments on Algar.
The girl’s identical image, her sister, glided in and out of her awareness, a persistent and intense presence throughout the girl’s life. She had known other telepathic twins, but she had never encountered such a brilliant connection. Their suffering and the constant battle for survival shaped their relationship, as well as the love that both pulled them together and pushed them apart.
This girl loves and admires her sister, Triel realized, but there’s something more—a carefully guarded fear...
(What is she so afraid of?)
The more Triel experienced this girl, the less she could justify her grudge. She was no worse than any other Sentients she had known—flawed, fallible, culpable—but other qualities shone like a star at the center of her being.
Triel swallowed hard, her heart thudding in her chest, and extended herself. The patient was receptive to her, almost inviting, like a soul reaching for its other half. As she connected, a barrage of images coalesced into a yearning she found all too familiar.
Acceptance and belonging, Triel realized. And forgiveness.
Pulling back to a more comfortable distance, the Healer reminded herself of her purpose: I’m supposed to heal her, not empathize with her. Strangely, though, she felt less anxious than before, even though she now felt the illness saturating not just her patient, but herself.
Monitors alerted in the distance. I can’t wait any longer—I have to quarantine the virus.
With considerable exertion she managed to isolate the disease, and as she navigated through the girl’s immune system, she discovered the artificial enhancements that had evolved not only her defenses, but her growth pattern. Comparing the two, she realized something peculiar: The way the virus attacks the body is not unlike the way the patient’s immune system marshals the body’s defense, as if the same program basics that steer the virus are driving the patient’s immune system. This can’t be coincidental that the two are so alike. What if they were manufactured by the same designer?
Triel finished her sweep as quickly as she could. She purged the virus from the girl’s body but did not heal her remaining injuries. Her body will heal itself in no time. I have to move on.
Triel’s vision returned, and she withdrew from the patient’s body.
“We’ve identified the patients,” one of the surgeons announced over the intercom. “The one you just treated is Jaeia. The other one is Jetta.”
“That’s the little stinker, Starfox,” Bacthar chimed in.
Triel pinched the webbing between her fingers and turned to her next patient. She guessed that this one—Jetta—must be the driving force behind Volkor.
Even before she laid her hands on the girl, Triel intuited that this would be different from the first healing. Jetta radiated a distinct second shadow, or telepathic aura, and she wasn’t sure why.
Her father’s teachings came to mind: “Telepaths sustaining abnormal connections over a long period of time suffer from hallucinations, disorientation, paranoia, and eventually psychosis. You must be centered when you heal these patients, or you could easily Fall.”
I have to protect myself from her, Triel concluded.
Triel cut away the top of her patient’s clothing but kept an eye on her unconscious form. Placing her hands in the same position, the Healer expected the warm sensation of gradually sliding inside, but fell straight through.
Oh Gods, Triel exclaimed, preparing for an assault. Instead, she found herself intact with her full faculties.
I have to stay alert—the attack may still come.
After making her initial assessment, noting the patient’s wounds and viral invasion, the Healer braced herself for the deeper connection.
This is Volkor, she reminded herself. The potential to commit his atrocities had to have come from somewhere, and she hadn’t found that kind of malice in Jaeia’s mind.
Triel did not want to touch minds with this one. I don’t want to turn into a Dissembler, not now, after all I’ve survived.
(But if I don’t help these sisters, who will save us against the Deadwalker army?)
Keeping her essence tightly furled, Triel waded deeper. Without barriers, the Healer spiraled downward to Jetta’s core.
That’s why, Triel realized, seeing all of the girl’s energies directed at a single objective. All else—her memories, emotions, and personality—were ensnared within it.
Triel knew she should simply proceed and heal her patient, but curiosity gave her pause.
Did her essence give rise to Volkor?
If that was the case, the Alliance would have to make do with Jaeia; she couldn’t bring herself to heal such a monster.
In the shifting light of her psionic plane, Triel reached out to touch the static sphere that encapsulated Jetta’s being. The black surface felt smooth and hard beneath her fingers, stirring up images, sights, and sounds—
Triel screamed as the same hulking humanoid she had seen in Jaeia’s mind leapt at her, his belt raising stinging welts on her skin. The Healer pulled back from the horror of the memory, but the sensations continued to resonate in her nerve endings.
Taking a deep breath, she sank back in.
“Jahx, if only you would let me. This could all be over with...” Jetta said as the memory shifted forward. She hurt everywhere, and one of her eyes had swelled shut. Triel could barely lift her head to make out the blurry images. Two children hovered over her, their deep though strained connection pulling the three of them closer than physical contact ever could.
As he held her hand, the dark-haired boy whispered, “No, Jetta, we can’t. We can’t let ourselves become monsters like him.”
Jetta’s rage became palpable in Triel’s mind, unmitigated by time and completely resolute. Her telepathic abilities flexed with anger, barely kept in check by her siblings.
The old memory dissolved, and a new one wrenched Triel in another direction. Predatory minds surrounded her in a dark forest, closing in on her, their twisted desires creeping into her head, making her skin crawl.
“Pearly—pretty and white—like a brand new,” she heard one of them say.
Jetta’s reacted instinctively, and caught up in the memory, Triel understood her response all too well. But the things the girl felt—the pleasure in making her assailants suffer the horrors of their own demons, the pure ecstasy of finally letting go of her own anger—horrified the Healer.
This is Volkor. This is the potential the Dominion Core harnessed.
Uprooted again, Triel spun downward into another memory. Broken images of screaming men in Core uniforms flashed past, followed by jarring images of a crash-landing. She saw glimpses of a mutated monster staggering toward her and a Liiker clicking away in a pool of black blood, but they passed too quickly to let her extrapolate any meaning from them. She continued to fall, faster and faster, until she suddenly stopped.
Jetta sat before her, curled up tightly and rocking back and forth, the only thing visible in a world of endless shadow.
(Jahx, where are you Jahx? Please!) she cried to herself, seemingly unaware of Triel.
(I must find you—)
(Forgive me, Jahx—)
(I never meant to hurt you)
(To hurt anyone...)
Overcome by emotion, Triel flung herself away, fearing what could result if she stayed too long in a mind as powerful as Jetta’s.
With the medical bay bright and solid around her again, Triel took a deep breath to steady herself, trying to understand what she just experienced.
Jahx.
She had seen him in Jaeia’s head too. The boy who had become the Liikers’ telepathic hub. He was everything to his sisters, but especially to Jetta. There was something very special between Jetta and Jahx, she realized, something so important that Jetta suffered immeasurably from it.
I can’t believe it.
And she almost didn’t want to. She had convinced herself that the sisters were cold-blooded killers, sociopaths, but her glimpses of their lives, the good and the ugly alike, bespoke something very different.
Jetta is conflicted, Triel recognized. Her rage is just as strong as her self-hatred for the things she has done.
Reflecting further, the Healer couldn’t ignore the fact that war criminal or not, Jetta wasn’t without empathy or love for her family.
Jetta’s mind is capable of Volkor’s atrocities, Triel thought, but she is not Volkor.
The Healer couldn’t stop the tears from running down her cheeks. She had spent too many years running and hiding, subsisting on the dwindling hope that she would find an answer for all her suffering. As her convictions dissolved into uncertainty, she realized that she had never really wanted to find peace or forgiveness, or even an answer.
My father would be so ashamed.
When Triel had finished the final purge of the virus, she opened her eyes. Her throat felt scratchy and swollen, and fatigue weighed down on her body, but something deep inside her felt invigorated, though she couldn’t pinpoint why.
“You have fifteen minutes left, Triel. Better work on clearing the virus out of your own body before your air runs out,” one of the infectious disease doctors reminded her.
Triel stumbled over to an empty bed and lay down. Looking within herself, the Healer concentrated her energies from head to toe, gradually forcing the infection from her body in a foul-smelling sweat that discharged from her pores. When she was through, she signaled the team to release the pharon particles. The overhead lights dimmed, and she closed her eyes. She wasn’t as worried now about what would happen next, even though she knew her chances of survival were slim.
I wasn’t expecting any of that, she thought. Tears fell from her eyes as conflicting feelings of disappointment and relief took away her control.
ADMIRAL UNIPOESA ORDERED the medical team to revive Triel prematurely so he could get a full report. Sitting on the end of her infirmary bed, pale and shaky, the Healer tried to field all of his questions about the Kyron sisters.
“Why do they look like they’re young adults? I thought they were kids.”
“I think the Motti tampered with the twins’ hormone regulation and immune system in order to convert them into Liikers,” she said, concentrating on every word. “But more disturbing is its link to the plague on Tralora—the plasmids have identical signature sequences. It’s the same designer DNA.”
The admiral stared at her blankly.
“Look,” she said, “a plasmid is a little loop of DNA that the engineers use to insert new genes into a host. They build a certain sequence into the DNA that’s like the designer’s trademark. Not hard to find if you’re looking for it.”
“So the twins’ ‘alterations’ and
the plague were manufactured by the same designer?”
“I believe so.”
“What does this mean?” The admiral said. Triel sensed his trouble hiding his emotions from her. His Rai Shar is not as practiced as the others.
“Given what happened to the girls and what I saw coded into the virus, I’m guessing that the Motti were testing a mass conversion method on the Narki, though they sold it to the Dominion under a different pretense. If the Motti betrayed the Core, they would need a fast means for converting all those soldiers. I think the plague on Tralora is the key.”
“I thought that plague was sent to destroy the Narki,” the admiral said.
Triel shook her head. “If the Narki hadn’t tried to treat it, I think it would have solely affected the neural pathways in their nucleus accumbens and the anterior insula, the parts of the brain responsible for decision making, putting them in a type of state of susceptibility, almost like a stupor. Reht would say they would have turned into zombies.”
“He can’t know of this, of course. This is strictly classified information,” the admiral reminded her.
Triel sighed and pulled her blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “I know you’re going to imprison me after all this is done. And you’ll tell me it’s for ‘my safety.’”
The admiral tried not to break eye contact. “That’s not at all what I want, Triel. You’re too young to be so cynical.”
“I’m nineteen, but don’t let my age fool you. I’m almost as old as those girls I treated today.”
The admiral lifted an eyebrow.
“It’s a telepath thing. It’s termed ‘cumulative age,’ at least for Healers. We take on certain elements of the host when we restore them, and it adds to our mental age. Something similar has happened to Jetta and Jaeia. All those foreign memories, and the knowledge they’ve taken—it really adds up. They certainly aren’t seven years old.”
The admiral sighed. “I can agree with you there.”
“My advice,” she said, leaning forward. “Don’t treat them like launnies.”
The admiral chuckled. “Don’t worry, I don’t intend to.”