by S. L. Viehl
I did not look down, or anywhere else. The speed of the glider caused the wind to rip at us, the displacer rounds were exploding all around us, and I thought I might scream if I did. Instead, I closed my eyes and clutched Marel tightly.
“Faster, Daddy,” my daughter crowed, evidently delighted. “This is fun.”
I promised myself to have a long talk with my child about her concept of entertainment as soon as we were not in imminent danger of being blown up or crashing to the ground. When I gathered the courage to open my eyes, I saw Reever studying a holomap on the glider’s control panel.
“How far?” I asked.
“Approximately two hundred kilometers.” He turned the glider north and increased our speed.
Even as fast as Reever was flying, it took nearly an hour before I saw the first sign of civilization below; the outlands of one of the large Hsktskt family estates beyond the Hanar’s city. The scent of the air changed as we crossed over the city’s airspace, and I saw smoke rising from the rooftops of the dwellings beneath us. Many small fires were burning, but they did not appear to be the result of weapons fire or any sort of attack. The flames seemed to be emanating from large black torches placed in the centers of the rooftops.
Marel had fallen asleep in my arms, and I rubbed her back absently. Had PyrsVar and the outlaws had time to make it to the city and do this? It seemed unlikely. I had injected the renegade Jorenian with a massive dose of neuroparalyzer, and I doubted his men would abandon him there to give chase. If the war master were to attack the city, he would do more damage than what would leave a few small fires burning.
Something bothered me more than the smoke and flames below us. Reever had concealed but not destroyed the devices he had taken from the other gliders—something he could have easily done with the displacer weapons he had taken from the camp.
I leaned forward. “Why did you only disable the other gliders? Why not destroy them?”
“If I had, those men would die out there.”
I had seen Reever fight PyrsVar. He had been in a killing rage. “Why let them live after what they did to us?”
Reever did not answer me for a long time—so long I was sure he would not. Then he said, “Because the one who leads them is Xonea’s Clan-Brother.”
TssVar’s guards and retainers swarmed around us as soon as Reever landed, and held their weapons trained on us. All of the guards wore garb that reminded me of decontamination suits.
“Stay where you are.” One of the guards stepped forward and scanned us quickly. “Do not approach the Akade’s compound.”
“We were abducted by outlaws,” Reever said. “I must speak with the Akade at once.”
I saw two forms moving quickly toward us, flanked on either side by the Adan. “I think he comes there.”
The pair were TssVar and his mate, although they, too, were wearing full protective suits. The Adan were not. UgessVa went directly to her son to inspect him.
“Mother, why do you wear that?” CaurVar asked, trying to touch the sleeve of her suit.
UgessVa backed away. “No, my son, make no contact with me.” She looked at her mate, her gloved claws curled into shaking fists. I realized that it was taking all her self-control not to sweep her child up into her arms.
Qonja came to me. “Are you well?”
“Yes, but why this?” I gestured toward the Hsktskt’s envirosuits.
“They do not want to infect the boy,” Qonja said, nodding toward CaurVar.
“It would have been better if you had stayed in the desert,” I heard TssVar say to Reever. “After the attack, thirteen members of my household came down with second-stage symptoms of plague. ChoVa is here and has confirmed that we all have some amount of this enzyme, tohykul, in our brain tissue, which would indicate some degree of infection. I have quarantined the estate.”
“Can your family not be moved to the hospital in the city?” I asked.
“ChoVa came to tell us that the plague is sweeping through the city as well,” UgessVa said to me, her voice low and tight. “There is no more room at the facility. Those who become infected are being quarantined where they fall sick.”
“That cannot be done.” I thought of the violent symptoms the infected had displayed. “Outside a medical facility, there are few viable means to control them.” I drew in a sharp breath as a spike of terror and anger twisted inside me. What I had thought were large torches being burned might not be torches at all. “Are they being killed as soon as they display symptoms? Is that why they are burning the bodies in the city?”
“ChoVa reported that some families are doing so, to protect those who are still well.” The Akade looked as exhausted as I felt. “I directed my daughter to bring her equipment from the city and work from here now. She will do what she can for our people.” He looked at Reever. “CaurVar has none of the enzyme in his brain tissue, and has shown no sign of symptoms yet. I wish one of my blood to survive this thing, if that can be done. Will you take him back to your ship?”
“Father,” CaurVar said, shocked now.
My husband said something under his breath.
The Akade put a gloved hand on the boy’s head. “I know what I ask of you, HalaVar, but he is the last of my line. There will be other Hsktskt not on Vtaga whom he can join with when he is older. Until then, I trust you to look after him.”
“‘Grieve when the heart is still,”’ I said, invoking an old Iisleg proverb, “‘not while it is still thumping.”’ I turned to Reever. “Even if you do not care about TssVar’s concerns, we will still need some healthy subjects removed and kept segregated from the infected for test purposes. Under the circumstances, it is wisest to take the boy to the ship while I remain here and work with ChoVa toward finding a treatment.”
“There is the small matter of the outlaws who abducted us,” my husband reminded me. “They will try again.”
“The Akade will ensure that they fail this time.” I handed Marel to him. “The Adan will be happy to assist him with that.”
“As long as you are here, I am staying,” Reever said. He turned to Qonja and handed our sleeping daughter to him. “Take the children back to the ship. Have Xonea signal me as soon as possible.”
I did not want my husband to have to choose between me and Marel. “You need not remain here. We have little time left. I know I will be spending all my hours working with ChoVa.”
“The only thing that will ever separate us again,” Reever said flatly, “is death.”
Even as the look in his eyes frightened me, I remembered the enveloping warmth of his love flooding through the link we had shared in the desert. That emotion had been for me, not Cherijo. He may have loved her, but now I knew he loved me as much. After losing her during a separation, obviously he did not wish to leave me. It also had something to do with PyrsVar, and Reever saying he was Xonea’s ClanBrother.
“Very well.” I had to concentrate on what I could understand: creating a vaccine to combat the pathogen. I would be safer with Reever there to personally guard me, too. “Qonja, look after my daughter and the Akade’s son. CaurVar, wish your parents farewell.”
The young Hsktskt went to his father, his blunted claws curled as tightly as his mother’s were. “I thought I wanted to stay on the Jorenian’s ship, but now I do not want to leave you.” His eyes clouded. “Will you and Mother and our line die?”
“We all die,” TssVar said. “But if your sister and Dr. Torin are successful, I hope not for many years.” He placed one hand on the boy’s head. “The line continues with you.”
CaurVar nodded and faced his mother. “I will not disgrace you or our blood.”
“I know you will not.” UgessVa gave him a direct look. “You are the son of the Akade, second to the Hanar. You will conduct yourself as such, and remember that you are in my thoughts, and will be so until we are together again.”
CaurVar bowed his head. “I will remember.”
I found it difficult to watch the Adan board the
launch with the children and initiate the engines. Each time Marel and I were parted, I felt the wrench more keenly. Perhaps I did understand Reever’s strange attachment to me, after all.
“Your people,” UgessVa said to me. “They will treat my son with respect?”
I nodded as the launch disappeared into the dark sky. “The Jorenians cherish children of all species.”
“A pity we have not followed suit.” TssVar’s mate didn’t wait for me to answer but trudged away toward the main dwelling.
FOURTEEN
There was no time for any of us to stand and mourn being separated from our children and friends, for every minute would count now. I asked TssVar to take me and Reever to ChoVa, whom I learned had commandeered one of the large outbuildings for use as her laboratory.
The Akade was silent as we crossed the compound, but a sharp cry from the inside of his main dwelling made his head turn and his tongue flicker.
“The symptoms can be controlled for a time with neuroparalyzer,” I said quietly to him. “At least for the next day or so.”
“ChoVa indicated the same.” He removed a device to open one of the secured gates in the innermost compound wall. Reever went ahead of us, but TssVar gestured for me to remain there with him. “I have never been defeated by anyone but your mate. But this sickness—I cannot fight it. I cannot even see it. I have never feared anything in my existence as I do this thing.”
After what Reever had told me about the Hsktskt attitude toward fear, the admission startled me.
“An epidemic is like standing in the center of an ice field during a thaw and watching the cracks from crevasses forming race toward you from all sides. There is no evading them. They cannot be reasoned with or fought. Ptar wings do not magically spring from your back to permit you to fly away from them. You can only stand still and endure their passage and hope that before it is over the ice does not collapse under you.”
TssVar stared down at me. “So what is it that we can do? Walk to the edge of this crevasse?”
“We stand upon it now,” I suggested. “Our task is not to look down or dwell on how far we might fall.”
We continued on to ChoVa’s temporary lab, where TssVar unlocked the outer access door. “My daughter is very angry with me, and with you,” he mentioned. “I think what the Omorr said to her when she was on your ship shocked her. She has never confronted the reality of what other species think of us. A painful revelation, but I think … a valuable one. ChoVa thinks too much like a warm-blood.”
I hid my amusement. “I cannot say that is a bad thing.”
ChoVa had hastily rigged her lab equipment into a workable arrangement, in the center of which she now stood measuring what appeared to be doses of some pale green liquid. She glanced up briefly to nod to her father and Reever before she handed a datapad to me.
“That is the data on an enzyme blocker I wish to use on those who have been infected,” she told me. There was no friendliness in her voice, and no deference in her manner. “I am combining it with a mild dose of neuroparalyzer. Together they should stabilize the level of tohykul in the brain and keep the infected calm for a short period, perhaps thirty or forty hours.”
Her voice sounded strained with more than annoyance. Of course, she served the Hanar. The pressure being put on her to find a solution must be tremendous.
“Are you infected?”
“Not yet, but as I have been exposed to everyone here who is, I think it only a matter of time.” ChoVa handed me one of the vials and gestured toward her father. “Would you infuse the Akade while I prepare more doses for the rest of the household?”
I went to TssVar and administered the treatment. There were no signs of relief or any change in his expression, but most of the tension in his muscles relaxed to a small degree, and his breathing slowed and deepened.
“I am going to scout the perimeter of the building,” Reever said abruptly. “Signal me if you need me.” He walked out into the night.
“I must go and attend to your mother,” TssVar said to ChoVa. “If you need anything, you have but to ask.”
“I will, Father.” ChoVa watched him leave, and then set down the dosage of blocker she was mixing and bowed her head. “Just an hour ago he asked me to give him the means to kill himself. He would rather end his life sane, he said, than die like a raving, wild animal.” Her huge yellow eyes met mine. “I am afraid I will fail, Jarn. Just as he is. I do not know how to cope with such fear. It wants to paralyze me.”
“There is still time,” I promised her. “We know one of the signs of infection now. We will work from there and find a way.”
“If I do not go mad first.” ChoVa sighed and picked up her dosage beaker. “My father said that you were abducted from his elevation rite by outlaws. Were they the same ones who attacked the hospital?”
I nodded. “They are encamped in the desert—or were—about two hundred kilometers from the city.” Telling her that the head of the criminal group was a Jorenian did not seem like a good idea. “They live out there like outcasts. Is that what is done with those who are no longer accepted among your society?”
“Those without line are driven from us. Many go into the desert to live secluded and die alone. I have never heard of them banding together, but perhaps that is what these outlaws have done.” ChoVa handed me an infuser and pulled up the sleeve of her jacket, baring yellow- and green-scaled flesh. “You must inject me with the blocker.”
“You told me that you were not infected.”
“The tests I performed on myself showed no trace of the enzyme, but that may change now that I have been exposed to my father’s household.” She stretched out her arm. “In any event, it is the closest thing we have to a vaccine. Infuse me.”
I watched her as I did so, and her reaction was almost identical to the Akade’s. “How long before the amount of neuroparalyzer in your bloodstream reaches toxic level?”
“With regular infusions,” she said as she rolled down her sleeve, “three days.”
ChoVa and I worked through the night examining and testing the tissue from the patient we had autopsied on the Sunlace, as well as blood samples she had collected from TssVar and the other members of his household. No trace of the enzyme showed up in any of the specimens, which indicated several things.
“The enzyme could be an immune response to the pathogen,” ChoVa decided. “Very specific, very localized, and the levels increase as the infection worsens.”
“We have biopsied that gland cluster seventeen times.” I lifted my tired eyes from a scope viewer and switched off the light emitter. “We have found nothing but healthy tissue.”
“Cryopreservation is killing the carriers, but it may also be destroying the pathogen in the process.” She collected the cellular slides and placed them in a cold case. “Considering how hypersensitive my species is to low temperatures, it also seems logical.”
I considered the theory. “The only way to know is to biopsy the gland of a living patient.”
“That would prove fatal to the subject.” She pulled up a diagram of the Hsktskt brain. “The gland cluster regulates most of the vital involuntary nerve and muscle functions. Respiration, muscle contraction, and conscious thought processing cannot take place without the gland functioning.”
“How can the pathogen invade only the brain tissue without spilling into the bloodstream?” I regarded her head and then consulted the diagram. “The back of your sinus cavities is three centimeters from the frontal region of the gland cluster. Could an airborne organism be inhaled and infect the cluster?”
“There is a membrane between the two that prevents any such contamination,” ChoVa said, and then she jerked as if she had been punched in the abdomen. “Did you see an intact membrane in the skull of the patient we autopsied? It would look like”—she pulled up another image on the console, this time of thin, pale tissue stretched between two curved bones—“this.”
I concentrated and recalled the dissection of the
corpse’s cranial case. “There was tissue, but it was not that color. It was black.”
“It may have been diseased.” She went to the case with the autopsy samples and threw it open. “Did you harvest a sample?”
“No, I did not,” I said.
ChoVa slammed the case shut. “We must retrieve another corpse and examine the membranes.”
“The estate has been quarantined,” I reminded her. “We cannot leave.”
“We cannot wait until one of my father’s household dies,” she snarled at me. “Assuming they will. We have no cryolab here. I cannot freeze them to death to suit our purpose.”
“Would you rather kill one of the infected, to save time? Who will you choose? Is there one of your father’s retainers you particularly dislike?” I watched the anger fade from her eyes. “There has to be another way. You serve the Hanar, so you must have some influence with him. Ask that one of the victims from the city be brought here for us to autopsy. If they are afraid of contamination it can be delivered by humanoid slaves.”
“The Hanar will not do so,” she informed me. “I did not tell my father, but the Supreme One issued orders that all of the dead are to be burned.”
The Hanar was afraid of being infected himself, that much I could see. “Ask him not to burn one. Only one. It may be what helps us find the cure.”
“I would, but he will not listen. He is almost mad with fear—” She closed her eyes and slammed her fists into the nearest flat object, which turned out to be an exam table. Her blows made the surface of the table buckle, and she stepped back, staring at it with bleak astonishment.
“I have always wanted to do that.” I admired the depth of the indentations. “I wish I had your strength.”
“And I your composure.” Her shoulders sagged. “Jarn, I can do nothing right, and I become more frustrated by the hour. Even if I am not infected, soon I will be of no use to you.”
“Nonsense.” I felt more inclined to agree with her, but that would not provide any motivation. “This is only a small setback. All we need do is remain calm and think clearly.”
