Estarra glanced at Peter and turned to face the General. “The word is given.”
CHAPTER
82
GARRISON REEVES
Roamer clans knew how to roll with sudden changes. Garrison had the Handon Station operations running smoothly—accepting salvaged ships, bringing in new workers, setting up habitation quarters. So when he announced that he had to go—because Orli needed to go—others could handle the duties he was leaving behind.
Rajesh Clinton, who had previously worked with Garrison at the Lunar Orbital Complex repair docks, waved him off. “No worries, I can watch over things as much as they need watching. The teams are pretty much self-sufficient.” He was dark-skinned and thirtyish, with a bright smile and heavy eyebrows. “Roamers don’t need much supervision.”
“Thanks, Jesh.” He hurried to help Seth pack for their trip to Theroc.
Orli was eager to go, with a sparkle of wonder in her eyes after hearing the call of that strange awakening presence.
The Prodigal Son was ready within two hours. Rajesh promised to send word to the Relleker salvage fields to inform Xander and Terry. Garrison reassured him, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t worry.”
He would stay with Orli until she found her answers. Maybe that would be on Theroc, or maybe Theroc was just the start of their journey. The Prodigal Son raced away from the asteroid cluster and set course for the worldforest planet.
During the flight away from the Rendezvous asteroids, Orli kept rubbing her temples. She would start conversations and try to explain to Garrison, but she couldn’t describe what was going on inside her mind. Finally, she said, “Do you remember when we flew away from Ikbir, and we found that cluster of bloaters? All the strings connecting them like a network through space?”
Garrison smiled. “How could I forget?”
“It’s something out there. Not just Ikbir, but … everywhere. The bloaters are more than just gas bags.” Orli bit her lower lip. “Arita and I are connected to them and to each other. We need to meet face-to-face.”
* * *
When the Prodigal Son arrived, Garrison was intimidated by the fearsome-looking verdani battleships in orbit, as well as the battered CDF ships that guarded the Confederation’s capital. He transmitted his request to meet with the daughter of the King and Queen.
No one in the capital had any reason to know Garrison Reeves or Orli Covitz, and Arita had no prior contact with them, but the request was unusual enough to draw attention. He was surprised to receive clearance so easily, and even more so when Arita herself sent a message. “Orli? Yes, I’ve been expecting you … I think.”
When the Prodigal Son landed on the polymerized canopy, Orli stepped out into the hazy sunlight and scanned the people moving about the landing zone, technicians and support staff, CDF soldiers and Confederation functionaries. She immediately spotted the young black-haired woman who hurried forward to meet them, accompanied by a young green priest.
“You hear it too,” Arita said. “Something that just started humming, thinking—communicating across the universe.”
Orli was excited. Arita felt like an old friend, although they had just met. “Yes, and it’s connected to the bloaters.”
Arita lit up, and she turned to the green priests. “Collin, that’s it! The bloaters—I heard the surge of awakening when we were off in the blighted area. Orli’s right. Now I understand.”
“But … what do you understand?” he asked.
Orli said in a rush, “For whatever reason, Arita and I have some connection with that presence. Come with us to the bloaters.”
Arita’s face was full of wistful wonder. “For so long I thought I was a failure because the verdani didn’t accept me, but when they changed me I made a sort of contact—I just didn’t realize it. I never quite fit in, because my connection wasn’t here.” She waved a hand vaguely toward the sky. “It was out there.”
“Exactly,” Orli said. “The answer is out there among the bloaters. We’ll go in the Prodigal Son and try to communicate with that presence. Maybe together we can learn what it wants.”
Arita’s eyes flashed with determination. “Or what it needs.”
CHAPTER
83
TOM ROM
Tom Rom increased speed so he could get back to Pergamus when Zoe expected him. He knew how much she worried if he was late.
Zoe Alakis was not his biological daughter, but a perverse combination of circumstances had made her a daughter in his heart. Since he had failed to save his real child from the butchers at Rakkem, he had sworn not to fail this surrogate daughter. He always delivered every specimen Zoe wanted, and gathered the data she needed for her research programs. He retrieved prisdiamonds from the lichentree jungles of Vaconda whenever she needed to refill her treasury.
But he never gave her all the details of his jobs, knowing it would alarm her. He had not told her about his close escape when he had obtained the Dhougal brain parasite for her collection. He had not told her how a group of Roamer pirates had once tried to steal his load of prisdiamonds and leave him to die on Vaconda.
In his own calm, efficient way, Tom Rom took care of crises. Zoe didn’t need to know the details. Zoe didn’t need to worry.
As soon as his ship entered the Pergamus system, her mercenary security troops intercepted him, and Zoe immediately greeted him on the comm, full of relief. She was cool and remote when she spoke to anyone else, showing no desire for friendship, but with Tom Rom it was different. It had always been different.
After he landed, she asked to see him in person, wanted him to pass through the decontamination levels, like some penitent completing the Stations of the Cross, but this time he begged off. “I need to touch base with the Orbital Research Spheres, meet with the main testing teams, and check the disease archives. Has Tamo’l reported regularly?”
“I wish all my researchers were as diligent. She keeps herself busy, although she hasn’t provided any significant results. I’ve been tracking her research, and she’s surprisingly interested in our deadliest diseases.” Zoe pursed her lips. “It may be worth reassigning her to other work. With her Ildiran training she might have new insights. She seems to be very curious about Pergamus.” Zoe’s face brightened, and she was clearly finished with the discussion. “Now, if you won’t come in and visit me in person, find some food and sit there so you can at least have a virtual lunch with me.”
Expecting that, Tom Rom had already ordered a meal tray for himself. As he situated himself in front of the imagers, Zoe warmed a bowl of sterile protein mash and fixed a cup of hot tea inside her sterile chamber. As soon as they both settled in, facing each other’s screen as if they were across a dining table, Tom Rom told her about the Klikiss worlds he had surveyed. “I did bring more tissue samples and royal jelly for analysis, but there is another matter of great concern.” He showed her the surprising devastation on Eljiid, blasted by an outside enemy. “As I’ve warned you before, Zoe, the Shana Rei are becoming a substantial threat. They did this to a mostly unpopulated world, but I received word that they also attacked and exterminated the Confederation colony of Relleker. It is dangerous out there.”
Zoe didn’t seem concerned. “Good thing we have nothing to do with the Klikiss or the Confederation.” She called up the files he had transmitted for her. “This is the information I wanted, but the genetic profile of the Onthos plague has evolved substantially since you first brought it to me. We’ll test the old treatment to confirm that it’s no longer effective.”
She sounded resigned rather than disappointed.
He called up images for her to view on her own screens. “Let me show you something else, something I think you’ll like. You don’t need to worry about Rakkem anymore.” Taking immense satisfaction, he showed her how the burgeoning black-market center had been brought to its knees.
Zoe’s dark eyes drank in the images of the abandoned warehouses, the hopeless and broken people, the spread of disease among t
he refugees. Her voice was cold. “I would rather that place was completely obliterated, like the Klikiss world you just showed me.” Then her lips quirked in a smile. “But it’ll do.”
Tom Rom knew she was likely thinking of her obscene, bloated mother, a factory womb who had borne countless children. He also thought of the greedy cure sellers who had refused to treat young Zoe when she was dying from Conden’s Fever.
After the death of Adam Alakis, when he and Zoe had abandoned Vaconda to wander across the Spiral Arm, they had seen the worst, the sickest, the most manipulative that the human race had to offer. Zoe recognized early on that her father and Tom Rom were two rarities, honest and honorable people; such types were as endangered a species as the rarest organism in her collection. Most people were easily corrupted.
When they had discovered a fortune of prisdiamonds hidden beneath the Vaconda jungles, Zoe found herself with unexpected and inconceivable wealth. She had made up her mind to build the greatest disease research facility in the Spiral Arm, gather the largest collection of organisms—and construct the most protected fortress to hold them. When young Zoe had explained her ambitious dreams, Tom Rom developed the practical details.
And then he had gone searching, doing everything necessary to create the facility that she wanted. He took the parameters Zoe suggested and added strictures of his own. He scouted alone to find a planet that would conform to what he thought of as the “lethal Goldilocks” rule—not too dangerous, not too deadly, but just poisonous and hazardous enough to keep people away.
Pergamus, with its poisonous atmosphere, was inhospitable enough to be of no interest to settlers, but not so harsh as to exceed the protective abilities of standard hardened structures. It had no exotic resources to interest ambitious Roamer clans. The unwanted planet was there for the taking.
With an inexhaustible supply of prisdiamonds, Tom Rom spread money around, dividing the project’s design work among twenty different developers. Roamer construction crews built the surface domes, outfitted the laboratory facilities, and installed reliable life-support systems. Tom Rom designed the disintegration fail-safe systems himself, to make absolutely certain that no lethal microorganism could escape.
While Pergamus was constructed, he vetted the workers carefully, knowing he couldn’t guarantee the facility would remain secret, but he paid them substantial stipends for their silence.
The ruthless sterilization systems had been used twice during the first year of research, when insufficiently cautious researchers hadn’t followed proper protocols; Zoe was forced to trigger the vaporization burst, eliminating whole teams along with their promising research. After that, the domes were rebuilt with more rigorous containment systems, and the next groups of spooked researchers were more careful. In the following years, there had been relatively few incidents, considering the amount of work being done.
The impressive, secure facility had achieved exactly what Zoe had set out to do, and she was exceedingly proud of her collection, a viral museum unlike anything compiled in human history. Her researchers found cures and treatments, merely as part of the study of such specimens.
Zoe did not share her cures, even with those who desperately needed them. Some of those who pleaded for the treatments accused Zoe of lacking compassion, but Tom Rom knew that she merely lacked interest. She justified her actions to herself, and she refused to become any kind of cure seller or biomerchant. She had seen too much of that vileness on Rakkem.
Even so, Tom Rom pondered whether the existence of Pergamus was a sufficient reason unto itself. A collection of diseases and cures just … because? That was Zoe’s decision, and he would not challenge it. He never challenged her.
At least she wasn’t cheating dying people, bankrupting them with the hope of impossible cures, creating factory wombs to sell innocent infants for their parts. Others could accuse Zoe Alakis of being selfish, but she and Tom Rom had both seen far worse.
Now, as Zoe chatted with him on the other side of the screen, he ate with her and listened. She fell into a comfortable silence as she reviewed the images he had brought back from his expedition.
He spoke up in a hoarse voice. “Don’t let this place become Rakkem, Zoe. Don’t ever turn Pergamus into something like that.”
She turned pale and frowned at him. “Never. I would destroy it all first.”
And he knew she would.
CHAPTER
84
TAL GALE’NH
Gale’nh had never seen the Mage-Imperator so distraught.
When Jora’h summoned him into the Skysphere audience chamber, the attenders, court functionaries, and noble kithmen were dismissed; the Mage-Imperator even sent away Nira and Prime Designate Daro’h. He wanted to see Tal Gale’nh—and no one else.
Gale’nh felt intimidated, but when he saw the expression on Jora’h’s face, the naked need behind his eyes, he stepped up to the chrysalis chair. “I am here to do my duty, Liege.”
When Adar Zan’nh gathered his Solar Navy warliners to join General Keah at the Fireheart nebula, Tal Gale’nh desperately wanted to go along, to prove himself. He had hoped to command a warliner of his own, perhaps even an entire septa in the remarkable last-chance battle. He had proved himself in space combat, and he wanted to reclaim his rank and his respect. If this was indeed their final stand against the shadows, then he needed to be there.
But the Mage-Imperator had asked Gale’nh to stay behind as the Adar sailed off with a maniple of the Solar Navy’s greatest ships, 343 warliners ready for battle.
Now, though, Gale’nh understood that Jora’h did indeed need him more. He bowed at the base of the dais. “I will serve you to the best of my ability, Liege.”
They were alone under the dome of the Prism Palace, where the light of all seven suns shone through the angled crystal. Flying creatures flitted about in the high levels. Mists created clouds that held a projected image of the Mage-Imperator’s benevolent face—a face much different from the drawn and frightened expression that Gale’nh saw before him now.
“Tell me what you know,” Jora’h said. “Tell me how I can resist the shadows the way you did. How did you become immune?”
Gale’nh had struggled with that very question so many times before. “Why do you think I know, Liege?”
“Because you were there inside the Kolpraxa. The shadows had you, but you resisted them somehow. They couldn’t possess you the way they’ve already possessed so many helpless Ildirans.” He swallowed hard, and his voice was hollow. “I fear it is in me too, hidden and lurking. I dare not let the rest of my people know, but I have to fight it.”
Gale’nh squared his shoulders. “You are the Mage-Imperator. You are stronger than any of us.”
“Obviously not stronger than you, Tal Gale’nh. The shadows could not break you.”
“Or maybe the shadows just didn’t want me. They couldn’t use me. I had nothing that they needed.” Gale’nh drew a deep breath, remembering the suffocating blackness, how everyone else—his crew, his friends—had been uncreated by the creatures of darkness. He whispered, “Or maybe they did take everything they wanted from me … and left me alive as one last torment.”
The Mage-Imperator shook his head. “That I will not believe. I realize you have doubts, and you are afraid the shadows are still in you, but I know they are not. I know you are strong.”
Gale’nh stood before him with an enduring expression. It was not his place to contradict the Mage-Imperator. “The shadows were inside me, and they’ve taken Rod’h as well, and now … I can’t find Tamo’l. I don’t know where she is, but I sense a darkness around her, too.”
The Mage-Imperator leaned back, his lips furrowing in a frown. “Stay with me and help me. I have countless soldier kithmen and attenders, but you I trust, because you have already been through the worst nightmare, and you survived. Maybe you can help me survive. Maybe I can purge them from the thism as well.”
Gale’nh stopped himself from shaking his head. “I
remember very little of the time I was in darkness, Liege. How can I be sure the Shana Rei didn’t simply let me return so they could use me against you at the moment we are most vulnerable?” He took a step back from the dais. “How do you know that I won’t try to kill you the way so many other possessed Ildirans tried to kill you?”
Jora’h’s voice was cold. “Because they did not try to kill me. The possessed attenders had the opportunity. They slaughtered so many in the audience chamber, but when they came toward me, they simply turned away and chose another target.”
“Maybe they thought you were too strong.” Gale’nh tried to make himself believe the statement.
The Mage-Imperator shook his head. “Or maybe they thought I was already lost. You alone have demonstrated the ability, Tal Gale’nh. You beat them.” He leaned forward in the chrysalis chair, and his smoky topaz eyes narrowed. “I need you to teach it to me, or our Empire is lost.”
CHAPTER
85
OSIRA’H
Arita and Collin were ready to depart with Orli Covitz and Garrison Reeves. The two visitors had brought mysterious news that explained the strange voices Arita heard in her mind, and now Reyn’s sister had a bright eagerness in her eyes, excited by the possibility of finding the bloaters.
Osira’h accompanied him up to the top of the trees so he could say farewell to his sister. He insisted that he felt fine, although he fooled no one.
Standing out on the expansive canopy landing area surrounded by sunshine and rustling leaves, Arita embraced Reyn. “Keep up hope. We know that something out there in the worldforest has the key to curing your sickness, but there are millions of possibilities.”
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