Blood of the Cosmos (18 page)

“How do we find your star system?” Keah asked. “I'll send an expedition there.”

The strange creature paused, contemplating, then picked up the General's datapad and accessed the screen. Keah was surprised the alien seemed so facile with CDF technology, but then she realized that telink would let the Onthos know anything a green priest knew.

Ohro said, “I can convert our astronomical knowledge into your parameters, your numerical systems.” His smooth fingers skittered over the surface; then he calculated with a flourish before handing the pad back. “These are the exact coordinates of our original home system.”

Keah's heart leapt. “Thanks, that's very important data!” She compared the coordinates with detailed Ildiran starmaps of the Spiral Arm. Frowning, she ran the analysis again, then glanced up Ohro. “You must have made a mistake. There's no star system at these coordinates, not even on the highest-res maps.”

Ohro gave a solemn nod. “That is because our star is no longer there. The Shana Rei have hidden it.”

 

CHAPTER

26

TOM ROM

The Pergamus researchers and technicians, the cutting-edge laboratory facilities, the mercenary security forces, not to mention Tom Rom's dangerous specimen-gathering missions, caused a constant drain on Zoe's financial resources. Fortunately, she had unlimited, albeit accidental, wealth discovered in the burned-out lichentree forests on Vaconda. A single clean prisdiamond would pay an average person's expenses for a year, and Tom Rom could retrieve cargo loads of the gems at a time.…

He returned from an uneventful solo mission to Vaconda, where Zoe had spent the first half of her life, after her parents adopted her from a few-questions-asked service on a seedy planet called Rakkem. Adam and Evelyn Alakis had staked their claim on uninhabited Vaconda, hoping to find new pharmaceuticals or marvels of natural science in the exotic wilderness.

When Zoe was just a child, Tom Rom had found his way there, working as one of the only Alakis employees after Evelyn was killed in a flyer crash. Other workers came and went quickly, unable to tolerate the lichentree stink, the burbling and aggressive slime molds, the thick spore dust that blew through the air. But Tom Rom had remained for years—always sticking close to Zoe.

He had gone to Vaconda with his own purpose, which he did not reveal; it had taken him years to track down where Zoe was taken after being born in a baby mill on Rakkem. He needed to be beside her, and he served Adam Alakis as a loyal worker, a bastion of strength and security. He stayed with Zoe during her father's years of degeneration due to Heidegger's Syndrome. Tom Rom never lost sight of the fact that Zoe could have been his own daughter.…

He still had work to do, and Zoe needed him more than ever.

After he liquidated his new cargo load of prisdiamonds at Ulio Station, he transferred the money to ten different accounts, not only making deposits in Confederation financial strongholds and Roamer clan banks, but also investing in long-term securities, just in case the prisdiamonds were ever depleted. He made sure that Zoe would never want for anything.

Then he flew back to Pergamus, on schedule. She tended to worry overmuch whenever he was late, and she looked very relieved when he arrived. Though walled off from her sterile central habitat, Tom Rom chatted with her over the comm.

His skin tingled from the first two levels of decontamination he had passed through just to get this close to Zoe, but he wouldn't dare go farther. Too much risk. Vaconda was rife with disease microorganisms, and the polyglot stew of humanity on Ulio Station probably exchanged just as many diseases among themselves. If Tom Rom ever brought a sickness here that managed to infect Zoe, he would walk out into the poisonous Pergamus atmosphere, unable to live with himself.

Now he studied her intense face on the screen. No, Zoe had none of his features, and her skin tone was all wrong, but he did detect the hints of another face he knew well. Muriel … a woman who had been special to Tom Rom once, a woman who had loved him, tricked him, turned into a monster. He could see a ghost of her mother whenever he looked at Zoe, but he did not hold it against her.…

He straightened in front of the screen. Formal and to the point, he reported, “I transmitted the records of my recent mission. With the new prisdiamonds, our accounts are flush.”

Zoe never paid attention to money. Instead, she said, “I've been looking over the Ildiran genetic records you acquired from that facility on Kuivahr. All the misbreeds … very interesting data, quite different from anything else we have. That halfbreed researcher is quite talented. Tamo'l has developed admirable insights.”

“I thought it worthwhile for you to have the data, although I don't see yet how it can be useful to the Pergamus work,” he said.

“One day we might expand our collection to include specimens of Ildiran diseases.” Zoe allowed herself a smile, then seemed troubled. “Alas, there's an infinite number of deadly diseases that strike the human race. I will focus on them for now.”

That was the opening he'd been looking for. “I wanted to bring something to your attention. Perhaps a new task for Pergamus.”

Zoe kept herself surrounded by numerous screens and reports as she sifted databases for interesting outbreaks in the Spiral Arm. “What is it?”

“Nine days ago, Prince Reynald collapsed unexpectedly on Theroc. The report was kept quiet, but the King and Queen are understandably distraught. His mysterious disease is progressing more rapidly than expected.”

Zoe showed little interest. “They already sent out a plea for a cure. It is an interesting disease, but I haven't given it priority. Too rare to bother with.”

“Heidegger's was rare.” Tom Rom said carefully, “Prince Reynald is an important person. The King and Queen could be vital allies, should we ever need their help—and dangerous enemies otherwise. If we devoted Pergamus researchers to searching for a cure, we might easily accomplish what less impressive Confederation teams cannot. Some time ago, Dr. Paolus sold us the Prince's entire genetic map and complete records of his confidential tests on the disease. We have everything we need.”

Zoe frowned. “Do you think I should assign a team? Any cure we find would belong to me, not to Prince Reynald.”

That had always been Zoe's attitude. Compassion did not penetrate the invisible scars within her. She had suffered much herself after the two of them left Vaconda behind. When she had needed help, when her father had died the long tragic death of Heidegger's, and later when she herself became gravely ill, all the competing researchers had been heartless.

“King Peter and Queen Estarra would be dangerous, and unnecessary enemies to make.”

“Pergamus is not part of the Confederation. They can't demand that I find a cure, so why would they become enemies? What do I care about them and their dying son?”

Tom Rom had accepted her hard-line position, letting Zoe make her own decisions, but now he pressed. “Zoe … if
I
were ill and another research facility had an effective treatment, wouldn't you want them to provide it for me?”

Her hard expression didn't change. “It doesn't matter what I'd want. People wouldn't help us, even in a desperate situation. It's happened time and again.” She seemed anxious to be reminded about her past, and now she sounded defensive. “We both know that Pergamus would do a better job than any other research facility. When you had the Onthos plague,
our
facilities and
our
researchers found the answer. For me.” Her voice hitched. “I was afraid you would die … but we saved you. You're alive.”

“I was also afraid I would die,” Tom Rom said. “But what I fear most is leaving you behind and unprotected.”

Tears appeared in her dark eyes, and she spoke quickly. “All right, I'll assign a team to study the Prince's disease. I can't promise we'll find anything.” She blanked the screen so he would not see her cry.

Tom Rom swallowed. He couldn't help feeling protective. After all, she could have been his daughter.…

*   *   *

After the death of her father, when Zoe angrily wanted to abandon Vaconda and all remnants of her past life, Tom Rom took her from planet to planet. It was the last year of the Elemental War, but where the two of them went, such galactic concerns were secondary.

He had Zoe. He protected her. And they lived.

Eventually, Zoe realized everything he had done for her, how he had been there for most of her life. In amazement she looked at him. “Why do you do this for me?”

“Because you're important. Important to me.”

“But
why?
Why am I so special to you?”

He had avoided answering such questions for so many years that she obviously didn't expect him to answer. In her sad confusion, though, this lost twenty-year-old had made a connection in her mind. “Wait … I'm adopted, and you showed up years later … and you never left Vaconda. What is it about me? What connection do we have?” She looked at him in disbelief. “I thought you might be my real father, but I used our lab facilities, ran genetic tests and comparisons. You're no relation to me at all.”

“No, but you've touched on the reason,” he finally answered, because he would never lie to her. “I did have a daughter once, about a year before you were born.” He faced her with a blank expression, though his emotions and his revelations were ready to explode inside him. “You have the same mother. I knew her very well, and she was a beautiful woman …
then
.” He paused to let that sink in. “Her name was Muriel. I met her on Rakkem.”

“Then we should go there,” Zoe said. “Maybe we can find her, if she's still alive.”

His expression darkened. “You would not want that. Rakkem is a contaminated, slimy underworld full of treacherous people and unsavory biological businesses.”

“Then … why were you there?”

“Because I go to places like that. Sometimes it is necessary.” Tom Rom felt a chill down his spine. “Muriel knew how to make herself beautiful, but it was all part of a trap.”

“Was she a prostitute?” Zoe's tone held no judgment. She cared so much for Tom Rom that she just wanted to understand.

“Far worse than that. We were together, and I thought we were in love. I was excited when I learned we were going to have a baby. A daughter … but then Muriel disappeared. Someone on Rakkem told her the value of an infant, and she vanished into a high-security baby factory.”

“For what purpose? For adoption?”

He felt the ice growing inside him, but he had to get through this. “Because babies are pristine, uncontaminated. Valuable flesh. And Muriel sold her baby—
our daughter
—on the Rakkem black market, for her organs. Stripped down, every piece harvested, even down to her skin, which was used for grafts.”

Somehow, he kept talking, his voice as cold and heavy as frozen lead. “I found out afterward, after it was too late. And I couldn't get to her in time.” He felt full of bile, but he forced himself to focus. “After she sold our baby for spare parts, Muriel volunteered to become a factory womb. Her business became getting pregnant, artificially inseminated. Her body was saturated with hormones that kept her constantly fertile, and she often carried multiple pregnancies at the same time, during different stages.”

Zoe listened in disgust.

“Muriel gave birth to you shortly after I found out what she had done. But you were lucky, Zoe. Adam and Evelyn Alakis paid more to adopt you than your infant body was worth as a biological sample. Just an accident of timing.”

Zoe wavered, then she bent over and retched.

Tom Rom wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how. “I couldn't get to Muriel, and it was too late for my daughter, but I hacked into some records on Rakkem. I learned that you were the only one of Muriel's babies still alive. You are not my daughter, but I tracked you down on Vaconda, because I wanted to be close. That is why I won't leave you.”

Fighting against her usual personal distance, young Zoe clung to him, and he held her in return. As he did so, he could sense her growing steely hard inside.

 

CHAPTER

27

LEE ISWANDER

When Iswander flew his son to Newstation, where he would go to school at Academ, he felt an odd combination of admiration and resentment. The new Roamer government center, built after the destruction of the former clan capital of Rendezvous, was an old-fashioned wheel: a central hub with radiating spokes, an outer ring, and numerous satellite docks. A commotion of clan ships came in to do business, set up trade agreements, and exchange goods from hundreds of independent operations across the Spiral Arm.

The immense complex orbited over a mostly empty planet, Auridia, which was noteworthy only in that it contained a Klikiss transportal wall and a small outpost of admin shacks and a backwater staff who monitored the dropoff point for those who used the interdimensional travel node. But Roamers preferred to fly ships from place to place, and the variety of vessels around Newstation was evident as spacecraft jockeyed for position at the available docking points. Individualistic Roamers liked to make their ships look distinctive. Therefore many of the vessels sported garishly colored hulls, eccentric affectations, and gaudy decorations that served no purpose.

Iswander's personal yacht was a tasteful high-end model, professional-looking. As he docked next to a bulbous orange-painted horror on which some Roamer had stenciled the names of his children, Iswander gave his son a tight-lipped frown. “Primary lesson of business, Arden. In order to be treated as a professional, you must
act
professional and
appear to be
professional. If you don't take yourself seriously, you can't expect potential trading partners to do so.”