Eternity's Mind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  After everything he had done to save the two of them from the black robots and the Shana Rei, after he had sacrificed the researchers on Pergamus, using every last trick just to get away, just to rescue Zoe—now this.

  “Remember when I had Conden’s Fever?” Zoe said, clearly trying to keep her voice strong, which Tom Rom knew was more for his benefit than her own. “How far you flew in search of a cure, everything you did for me? You took me to Rakkem, and you got me the treatment I needed.”

  “I’d do it again,” he said. “But Rakkem is empty, and any possible cure was destroyed on Pergamus.”

  “That cure wouldn’t have worked on the new strain anyway,” Zoe said. “I ran the test myself. The Klikiss royal jelly is no longer effective. I’m glad it saved you, though.”

  She looked up from her bed in the back compartment. She was sweating, her skin gray except for where it was mottled with darkening spots. “And you? Any symptoms yet?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I feel fine. I’m capable of taking care of you.”

  “You would take care of me no matter how you felt,” she said, and added a faint smile. “I’m glad you’re still immune. It was my stupid mistake. All my life I knew that if I dropped my guard, some disease would get me. It’s almost as if the viruses were planning revenge for everything I did to wipe them out.” She tried to prop herself up on the bunk.

  As the ship flew onward into the emptiness of nowhere on autopilot, Tom Rom knelt beside her. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Just stay here. I think I might like to review the records of the old plague after all. I never much cared about those maudlin last messages from clan Reeves, but would you watch them with me now? I want to see how those people said farewell as they faced the same disease.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” said Tom Rom. “You’re different from all of them. Stronger than all of them. They were just Roamers, afraid of their own shadows. They ran into hiding because they couldn’t face society. You’re nothing like that.”

  Zoe raised her eyebrows. “Really? We hid on Pergamus. We kept ourselves away from the rest of the Confederation.”

  “You weren’t hiding. You were isolating yourself. You were protecting your specimens and your research. There’s a difference.”

  “You’re just rationalizing,” she said. “I was keeping my work away from everyone else in the Confederation. I didn’t think they deserved any of it after what they had done to me.”

  Tom Rom nodded. “It was your decision to make. It was your research, your discoveries.”

  He thought of how the two of them had tended Adam Alakis during his slow death from Heidegger’s Syndrome, how they had gone to the biomerchants on Rakkem, seen the hideous profitability of cures and vaccines, as well as crackpot treatments.

  Even with her huge research facility, Zoe had never preyed on other people, had never taken advantage of the sick and dying. She just wanted to build her own collection. Was that so terrible? A wealthy man who collected antiques wasn’t obligated to share them with anyone else who wanted them. Why should Zoe’s collection of disease specimens and cures be any different? She had paid for it. She had monitored her scientists, who produced magnificent work, and Tom Rom was proud that he had contributed to the Pergamus effort. He had obtained so many of those specimens. For her.

  Even though Zoe didn’t ask for it, he brought her water and an energy infusion, which she needed despite claiming she didn’t want it. “Do it for me,” he said. “I need you strong, and I need you to fight. We’ll find some way to treat this plague, just the way you saved me. You devoted everything to curing me when it was obvious I was going to die. We’ll find a miracle for you, too.”

  She reached out to touch his arm. “That’s no better than the platitudes the cure-sellers on Rakkem gave to desperate dying people. Those patients believed anything, but I’m not so gullible. We know how dangerous the Onthos plague is. We know we can’t let it come into contact with any other human. Even if you’re still immune, you’re exposed.” Her gaze was hard and strong. “A carrier.”

  “I know I can never go anywhere,” he said. “I’ll just stay here with you—but I won’t stop trying to find a cure. I have all the Pergamus records. I can comb through the research. Maybe I’ll find something.”

  “It’s just data,” Zoe said. “No matter what you find, you don’t have the facilities to produce any sort of treatment. And I’ve read all the records myself. I know more than you can ever learn in time, Tom Rom. Believe me, this strain is worse than the one that infected you and Orli Covitz.”

  Tom Rom was surprised Zoe knew all the details. He had been careful about how much he revealed to her. He had never told Zoe what he’d done in order to obtain the specimen from Orli Covitz, how he had hunted her down and been accidentally infected.

  Now, despite all of Zoe’s precautions, she was in the same situation. This new strain was even more virulent than the original, and the progress of her illness seemed swifter. From the way her symptoms were manifesting, he could see she was four days ahead of where he had been in this point of his infection.

  She wasn’t going to last long, but he couldn’t tell her. In Zoe’s eyes though, he could see that she understood it herself.

  He wanted to rail at her in misplaced frustration, demand to know why she had felt it so important to take that one specimen out of storage when he’d made the data available to her anyway. The rest of her disease specimens had been destroyed on Pergamus. She should have left this one behind, too.

  This specimen was the one that had almost killed him. He knew that was what had so fascinated her.

  But there would be no point in scolding her. She was already blaming herself, and he didn’t want to ruin a single moment of the few days they had left.

  “I have one more mission for you, Tom Rom,” she said, surprising him. “You saved the complete data library of Pergamus. All along, I refused to share it with anyone, but now … it doesn’t matter. Those cures could save countless lives. After I die, I want you to take our data somewhere. Transmit the whole library to a research center—in fact, give it to King Peter and Queen Estarra. They did a good job wiping out Rakkem, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, they did,” Tom Rom said. “But are you sure? This goes against everything you’ve commanded for so many years.”

  Her face looked determined. “Think of it as another way to strike against all the other biomerchants and cure sellers that are bound to crop up. If you can offer the real cures, then we’ll hamstring those charlatans.” She let out a quick, painful laugh. “Yes, that’ll be another form of revenge, and it makes me glad. I’ll be content with that.” She looked up at him. “Promise me you’ll do it.”

  “I promise.”

  She knew she could count on his promises. He would transmit the entire medical library to a worthy recipient, and then he would fly off. When Zoe was dead, his purpose in life would be over anyway. Tom Rom just needed to spend his time in peace at last with Zoe, so they could be close, talking, facing each other without decontamination walls and comm screens between them.

  “I’m sorry this is all there is,” he said. “I’ve failed by letting you die here all alone in the ship.”

  She sat up and squeezed his hand so hard it hurt. “No, Tom Rom, not alone. I’m with you. Always you.”

  Zoe looked at him with a burning intensity that gave her energy even with her last threads of strength. “And after I am dead, Tom Rom, I want you to do another thing for me.”

  “You know I will.”

  “Your previous antigens seem to be keeping you safe, and that means you have time, even if you are a carrier. I want you to find a medical research center and make them work to cure you, make you clean again so you have a real life. Pay them every last prisdiamond on Vaconda. Do the impossible—you’re good at that.” She heaved a long, trembling breath. “I want you to live, Tom Rom. Find a way to save yourself.”

  He squeezed her hand again, si
tting at the edge of her bed. “I will do my best, Zoe.”

  “Not good enough. Promise me!”

  “Of course, I promise.”

  But he knew that the plague had lain dormant in the derelict Onthos space city for thousands of years, then became virulent again as soon as the humans encountered it. Even if his new exposure to the disease did not kill him, it still resided in his cells, whether or not he showed symptoms. He could never guarantee that some person he encountered might not be infected, then pass it on to another person, and another. He could never risk that.

  This entire ship was contaminated, as was Zoe’s body, and his own. He could never guarantee that the most rigorous cleansing routines could sterilize him. He had already made up his mind that after he transmitted the Pergamus data, he would choose his place—maybe somewhere quiet and alone, or maybe somewhere spectacular like the Fireheart nebula or a black hole. Then he would self-destruct his ship.

  No matter what Zoe insisted, Tom Rom could not be sure, and he would do what was necessary, as he always did.

  It was the only promise to Zoe he would ever break.

  As the ship drifted, she grew progressively sicker, delirious, in agony. Her fever spiked, and blotches covered her skin as the plague ate away at her. But Zoe held on, and Tom Rom didn’t feel the slightest bit sick. That was the worst part, he realized—that he remained immune and alive while she died next to him.

  He held her hand and sat at her side, stroking her sweaty, fevered forehead and clasping her fingers until they finally fell limp.

  And then he was truly alone aboard the ship, flying nowhere.

  CHAPTER

  128

  OSIRA’H

  Osira’h felt uncomfortably hopeful as she led the Gardeners to the fungus-reef city. She still felt the ache from knowing she had lost Rod’h and Tamo’l, but she also knew the damage they had inflicted on the Shana Rei, how they had weakened and possibly even destroyed the creatures of darkness.

  The defeated and despairing aliens also knew exactly what they had done. Fully aware now for the first time in many lifetimes, their guilt clawed within them, as apparent as the insidious shadows that had resided there for so long.

  She recalled how the possessed Ildiran mob members back in Mijistra had died from the appalled realization when they recovered and saw what they had been forced to do. The Onthos, though, had lived with their inner shadows for much longer—for generations, in fact. Now they were hollow, but still anguished at what they had done.

  Ohro abased himself before the throne, but Osira’h took no satisfaction. Right now, she wanted to see Reynald, to hold his hand and give him strength. She had not been away for long … but she didn’t know how much longer he had left. Unless the aliens could do something.

  The Onthos representative said, “We have caused great harm to the worldforest. We should have been stewards of the verdani mind, but we lost our own trees and then wandered for millennia until we encountered Theroc. We brought the blight here. We made the trees suffer when we should have cared for them.” Ohro looked up, directed his intensity to Queen Estarra. “We killed your sister Sarein.” They all swayed, muttered, clustered together. “We absorbed Kennebar and his green priests. We have caused irreparable damage.”

  Zaquel and five other green priests stood tensely around the edge of the throne room as the King and Queen stared at the groveling aliens. The priests did not offer further accusations, but they listened intently.

  Ohro hung his head. “We have betrayed the verdani mind. Those of us who survive will now depart from Theroc. We will no longer have any contact with the trees. We are not worthy.”

  “And that will be punishment enough?” Estarra asked in a cold voice. “For all the harm you caused?”

  The green priests muttered among themselves, and what Zaquel said surprised Osira’h. “You must not go. The trees still want you here. They say you are an integral part of the verdani mind—a missing part. They need you to help Theroc recover. They say there is more that you can do.”

  King Peter angrily rose from his throne, but Zaquel continued before anyone else could make a sound. “You can help Prince Reynald.”

  * * *

  The Gardeners, fundamentally altered from within now that the Shana Rei had been eliminated, gathered around Prince Reyn in his sickbed in the fungus-reef city. Osira’h would not think of it as his deathbed, though that seemed to be the unspoken consensus among those tending him, even his parents.

  Osira’h had rushed here to be with Reyn. After she had seen the aliens recover from their internal blight, part of her had naïvely hoped that Reyn would improve as well, but there was no miraculous cure. He lay unchanged, clinging to a thread of life; if anything, his coma seemed to have deepened. He was gaunt to the point of looking skeletal. Nutrient fluids were pumped into him, because he could no longer awaken to eat.

  But Osira’h still refused to believe that there was no way to save him.

  The Onthos representatives stood around the bed, quietly chittering. Ohro said, “The disease that afflicts him was known to us in ancient ages, but when our worldforest died, we lost all those memories—or so we thought.”

  Zaquel nodded. “The green priests can feel the emptiness in the verdani mind. All that knowledge is gone, lost when the Onthos trees were eradicated.”

  “But our race reproduces by using the trees. We are an integral part of them, down to our cells, down to our chromosomes,” Ohro said. “The Gardeners are different from human green priests. Our spore mothers enter a dying tree and in a symbiotic reaction, the trees give birth to other Onthos.”

  He looked around at the audience, waiting for them to understand. “Our own cells grew out of the ancient worldtrees before we fled our homeworld. Our bodies contain DNA from that ancient worldforest. The original worldtrees that we tended and nurtured are part of us. Just as the shadow blight was intrinsic to us, so is that lost verdani knowledge.” The alien looked at Zaquel. “The Gardeners know how to recover those long-lost memories. There is a ceremony we can undertake.”

  Osira’h gasped at the possibility. She bent over and squeezed Reyn’s hand, wondering if those ancient memories might contain a secret that could help him. If the Gardeners had already known about a disease like Reynald’s, if they had prior experience with it …

  King Peter and Queen Estarra straightened, filled with questions. “And what do you need to do?”

  Ohro looked around at his companions. “We must go outside under the trees, amidst the fronds and the roots.” He paused, and Osira’h thought he seemed tense and afraid. “And it must be me.”

  The Gardeners chittered and agreed.

  * * *

  On the worldforest floor, the group of Gardeners moved away from the fungus-reef city, accompanied by an entourage of green priests, the King and Queen, and Osira’h.

  Ohro touched stray fronds as he walked past, and he let his pale fingertips brush against the gold-scaled tree bark. He seemed to be searching for the right place, and he finally chose an appropriate clearing. When he stopped, his pale alien companions encircled the area. The worldtree fronds drooped nearly to the ground. Branches were dense all around, and exposed worldtree roots protruded from the soil. His companions picked up small sharp sticks they found among the forest debris.

  Ohro knelt down and stroked the exposed roots to initiate contact. After a long pause, he nodded to the other Gardeners.

  Zaquel seemed concerned, picking up on the tension in the aliens. The rest of the green priests didn’t know what the Onthos intended to do.

  “The memories of the old worldforest are deep inside me,” Ohro said. “And inside all the members of my race. As we are symbiotic allies of the trees, we have drawn from the verdani, and now we give back. I will surrender everything I possess to the forest mind.” The leader of the Onthos stood, spread his arms, and closed his large black eyes.

  The other Gardeners swarmed forward and fell upon him with their sharp sti
cks, stabbing swiftly and repeatedly.

  Osira’h gasped. Peter and Estarra cried out, but they could do nothing to stop the murder.

  The alien leader made no sound, and it was over swiftly. Their pale flesh stained, the other Gardeners poured Ohro’s blood onto the upraised roots, smeared it on the scaled tree bark, moistened the soil, where it was swiftly absorbed. The alien hands were covered with red. Ohro’s body lay drained, torn, and motionless on the forest floor.

  Estarra shouted, “This was necessary? You killed him!”

  The other Gardeners nodded. “It was the way to extract what we needed. What the worldforest needed.”

  “Now the verdani can draw all the locked secrets directly from his blood, his DNA.”

  “The lost verdani memories are restored.”

  Shaking and hesitant, Zaquel went to the nearest tree and pressed her palms against the bark scales. The tree no longer showed any sign of the blood, having absorbed it all into its own cells. Other green priests came forward and did the same. Their eyes went wide with wonder as they drank in the new knowledge.

  “There is so much more inside the trees now,” Zaquel said. “Before, the verdani mind was incredibly vast, but now there’s a whole new era of history, as if a huge additional library opened up.” She looked around, trying to share her amazement with the others. “Those more ancient trees understand themselves and what they knew, and now our own worldforest understands more than it ever did.”

  More green priests gathered around, rushing forward to press themselves against the nearby trees, and they plunged their eager minds deep into the worldforest. They meditated, concentrated, while Osira’h waited tensely for an answer. Just having more knowledge was not good enough for her.

  When Zaquel emerged, her face was filled with indescribable wonder. Her breathing was fast, and she stared at Osira’h and the King and Queen. “Yes—it is here. The knowledge is here! The trees understand exactly what afflicts Prince Reynald. And how to cure it.”