Saga of Shadows 1: The Dark Between the Stars (61 page)

They were fascinated by the challenge, in part because it gave them an opportunity to learn more about human genetics. Unfortunately, although they were eager and curious, they could offer Reyn little hope beyond promising to find out all that they could about the mysterious disease.

He maintained his confidence, remembering what he had promised his sister, but Osira’h beseeched the researchers. “In the name of the Mage-Imperator, apply all your knowledge, all your imagination, all your skills to find a cure for this man.” Her eyes sparkled. “He is important to me.”

The doctors bowed. “We will do everything possible, with all the resources of our kith. If it is within our power, we will find a treatment.”

Reyn said, “Thank you.” And when Osira’h reached over and squeezed his hand, he felt even stronger.

N
INETY
-
THREE

A
RITA

Arita spent her days in the Wild surrounded by the lush Theron forest and thousands of species just waiting to be documented and categorized. For the most part, Kennebar and his green priests ignored her, but how could she feel alone out here? She found the ecosystem endlessly fascinating, and it was a full-time job just to
glimpse
as many species as she could. Genuine understanding would come after years of investigation conducted by armies of naturalists. Arita could never do it all, but at least she was laying the groundwork.

She would have been able to learn so much more if she could tap into the verdani mind like a green priest. Instead, when she was alone in the wilderness the tantalizing, even maddening, echo whispers did nothing to help. The sounds and thoughts simply reminded her how much of the worldforest remained out of her reach.

The trees were huge and powerful, and occasionally the ghost whispers grew louder in her head. When she closed her eyes, she saw faint flashes of light, as if she were at the edge of a presence that was incredibly vast . . .
more
vast than even the worldforest.

Arita continued her work, gathering vials of interesting spores, imaging fungal growths without destroying their delicate soft tissue, scanning myriad insects, even hard seedpods that startlingly took flight when she tried to pick them up.

Arita could have stayed at home and not managed to document all the species within a few kilometers of the main fungus-reef city, but she wanted to put footprints in unexplored territory, to see exciting new plants and creatures in the Wild. She also wanted to get away—like her aunt Sarein had when she chose to exile herself to the empty continent.

Decades ago, Sarein had been an influential person in the Hansa. Before the Elemental War, she’d been the lover of Chairman Wenceslas, an ambassador, and a manipulator who had made many questionable decisions, as well as a few wise ones. Arita didn’t know the full story; her mother did not talk much about her own sister, leaving the details in shadow, but Arita had always wanted to know more.

One day, she packed up supplies, records, and equipment, double-checked the logs so that she had a general idea of where she was going, and set off in search of Sarein. She knew the general location where her aunt made her isolated home, and Arita wanted to get to know her and understand what she had done that caused her to hide from other people.

On the way, Arita continued to image and collect samples. Of course, she would never convince Sarein that she had “accidentally” stumbled upon her out in the empty worldforest.

She wandered farther afield, but found no sign of Sarein, though she was sure she had the location right. After two days, Arita focused her efforts more intensely, but gradually realized that she had no idea where to go. Eventually, Arita admitted that she was lost in the depths of the worldforest. She couldn’t even find her way back to the meadow and her ship.

While growing up and running free through the forests, she had always had an instinctive feel for direction, but here, nothing looked familiar. With a sinking feeling, she sat down with her back against one of the worldtrees and forced herself to gather her thoughts. “Now what?”

Collin descended from the fronds above, working his way down the trunk from one bark scale to another. He landed in front of her. “Need some help?”

“I’m so glad to see you!” She didn’t want to let him see her relief. “Wait—have you been
spying
on me?”

He shrugged his bare shoulders. “I don’t have to spy—the worldtrees see everything. But you are far from your ship—far from anything, in fact.”

“I was looking for Sarein. I know she can’t be far from here.” Arita lowered her head. She’d gotten herself into this mess.

Collin said, “All right, I confess, I was watching to make sure you were all right. You’re not even close to where Sarein lives, you know. Would you like a hint?”

Indignant, Arita said, “I’m on the right continent, at least.” Chuckling, he took her hand. “Follow me.” He led her back to where she had been an hour before, then set off in a different direction. “I was going to try that way,” she said, “but I didn’t know.”

He nodded. “It’s because you can’t hear the trees.” “Stop reminding me.”

They were actually closer than Collin had implied. By late afternoon he led Arita to a tree from which dangled an empty hiveworm nest, a papery structure suspended between branches. The hive had once been filled with thrashing, ravenous worms, but after transforming into giant moths, they left their nest behind. Therons had long used hiveworm nests as dwellings.

“There she is.” Collin pointed up at the hive, then lowered his voice. “Good luck.” He darted off into the worldtrees, and Arita was amazed at how quickly he vanished.

From below, the hiveworm nest looked to be a clean, though austere, home, with a few window hangings and some technological conveniences Sarein had brought from the main continent.

Hearing the voices, a woman appeared at one of the windows cut from the side of the papery nest and frowned down on Arita. “I came out of hiding for my father’s funeral, and now everyone thinks I’m ready to receive visitors?”

“Not everyone,” Arita said. “Just me.”

Sarein recognized her niece, of course, but she had never shown any particular warmth toward her. Arita lifted up her pack and samples to show them. “I’m collecting and cataloguing specimens from the Wild. Since I was on the continent, I wanted to talk with you.”

“About what?”

“Do I need a written agenda? I’ve been here alone for a couple of weeks. Kennebar and his green priests aren’t very hospitable.”

Sarein made a sound of disapproval. “They choose to be alone as if it’s some matter of pride. I’m alone because the other parts of my life required it.”

“Like when you used to work for the Hansa?” A troubled look crossed Sarein’s face, but she didn’t move from the window above. Arita continued. “I just want to visit, get to know you. But I’ll leave if I’m not welcome.” She started to walk away, hoping her aunt would respond.

Eventually, she did. “Come on up, then, but I don’t have a lift. You’ll have to climb.”

Arita laughed—as if
that
would present some sort of challenge. She secured her specimens, tightened her pack, and scrambled up to the nest.

Everything in Sarein’s home was functional: no artwork, decorations, or other frippery. Expecting no guests, she had only one lightweight polymer seat, so Arita swung up into the cocoonweave hammock that served as a bed. “What do you do here all day?”

Sarein took the lone chair, which sat next to a flat platform she used as a writing desk. “I think, and I write down what I remember, the decisions I made, the events I was part of.” She hesitated. “All the crimes I watched Basil commit. I’ve tried to recreate my rationalizations for why I didn’t stop him. The reasons seem pretty weak now.”

“So you’re writing your memoir?”

“I’m documenting history—as objectively as I can. No excuses. I don’t need to paint myself with pretty colors.”

“Can I read what you’ve written?”

“No.”

“Then what is it for?”

“For myself. I’ve spent years working through what I remember.”

Now Arita thought she understood. “Ah, like a kind of confession.”

Sarein frowned. “As I said, I’m documenting history. Sometimes when I get lonely I need to remind myself why I withdrew from public view.” She glanced at Arita’s sample packs and noted the Confederation logo. “I don’t miss any of it, and I don’t like interruptions. That’s why I wish those green priests hadn’t moved into my Wild.”

Arita felt awkward, decided to respect her aunt’s privacy. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Back home I stay away from politics. Exploring nature is what makes me happy. Even though I’m the daughter of the King and Queen, all I ever wanted was to be a simple green priest.”

Sarein looked at her with greater interest now. “Then why didn’t you? It’s a good tradition. My sister Celli is a green priest. So was my brother Beneto.”

Arita’s eyes burned. “I tried . . . but that’s my story, and if you’re not going to tell me about yourself, then I have a right to keep my own secrets.”

“Yes,” Sarein said. “Yes, you do.”

At her small stove unit, she began heating water, to which she added ground worldtree seeds, making them each a cup of klee. “You can use my hive as a base camp, if you like. It’s better than sleeping on the ground—as long as you don’t bother me too much.”

N
INETY
-
FOUR

O
RLI
C
OVITZ

Orli had been exposed to the plague, and she knew it.

The clan Reeves compies worked throughout the Onthos space city, rewiring the power blocks and the alien energy reactors, setting up a thorough network of detonations. Meanwhile, Orli tried to convince herself that her racing pulse, feverish feeling, and nausea were just a response to stress. The disease’s incubation period had to be much longer than this. She wouldn’t know for some time yet if she was infected.

But judging from the mortality rate—one hundred percent—if she did contract the plague, then she was going to die. She couldn’t go back to civilization and risk exposing anyone else. Meanwhile, BO and the other five compies were precluded from destroying the infected city while she remained aboard.

The other compies were focused on their task, which was not so difficult as it was time-consuming. The sequence would have to be carefully synchronized and monitored, and the five compies, plus BO, would take separate stations . . . or they would have to spend even more time to automate the process. While two Worker compies primed the reactor for an overload, two other compies went up and down the spokes of the city, opening every module to hard vacuum, venting the air to space, just in case some self-contained sections survived the massive planned explosion. They were meticulous and thorough.

Olaf Reeves had been careful in his instructions, insisting that the compies must be vaporized along with the station. No trace. BO repeated the man’s words to Orli, even imitating the clan leader’s gruff voice. “By the Guiding Star, I know how people are, especially greedy ones. A dire warning will only make them more curious. Bleeding hearts will try to save us long after we’re dead. Prospectors and historians will come here to poke around, looking for lost treasure, convinced that a few sterilization routines are good enough. No, I’m not going to doom the whole damned race because somebody will be an idiot—it might take years, might take centuries, but they’ll come. We have to wipe out this city, every speck of it, at all costs. Leave no chance whatsoever that this disease can spread. If it ever got loose in a populated area . . .”

Orli’s gut twisted, and her head was pounding. She closed her eyes, even though she knew BO and DD were staring at her, waiting for a response. “He’s absolutely right,” she said.

At all costs.

Since Orli and DD’s unexpected arrival, the Retroamer compies had reassessed their timing and instituted a delay—for her, even though Orli hadn’t asked them to do so. BO said, “If you are still alive, Orli Covitz, we cannot trigger the detonation, because then we would knowingly be causing your death. Our programming precludes that.”

Orli thought she could probably alter their basic routines, adding logical loopholes and justifications. They had to know that by obliterating the plague, they would save millions, if not billions, of human lives at the cost of one. It was simple mathematics.

Or, she realized, instead of making such a complex argument, Orli could just rig the reactors to explode by herself.

“I’ll live for a week, ten days at the outside, right?” She had made the grim calculations herself. “And if you refuse to destroy the station until I’m dead—that might give someone else enough time to get here. I am the first, but there’ll be more soon. The green priest sent out his warning through telink, and other people may already be on their way.”

DD said in his usual naïve fashion, “If others were warned to stay away, we will be safe. Why are you concerned, Orli?”

“Because the louder you tell someone to stay away, the more eager they’ll be to come here. Olaf Reeves knew that, too.”

“That is illogical.”

“Yes, people often are.”

But Orli realized there was another consideration if this ancient city was destroyed without a trace. BO took the time to show her the Onthos library chamber, the images and records of the small group of aliens, remnants of their waning race who had fled out here in the hope of remaining safe. According to translations by the green priest Shelud, most of the Onthos had been wiped out by some great disaster even before the Klikiss swarm wars, but BO didn’t know the details. Every bit of information was entirely new.

That would all be lost.

As she looked at the images of the strange, small-statured aliens, Orli felt sad to know she was destroying the last remnant of an intelligent civilization. No one had previously encountered any Onthos relics, as far as she knew. Neither the Ildirans nor the humans had any inkling that the race had existed. The worldforest held only a faint memory of the Onthos and had asked Shelud to transmit every bit of information he could. But according to BO, the green priest had barely begun the task before he succumbed to the plague. And once this station was vaporized, all that knowledge would be gone. . . .