Plague of Memory (30 page)

Too much information,
Maggie's voice said from inside my mind.
He's going to lose it if he doesn't reconcile the two sides of his persona. Which makes him afar better match for you than Reever is, now that I think about it. Pity I didn't know about him when I designed your comeback.

"Whatever SrrokVar did to you," I said to PyrsVar through gritted teeth, "cannot be changed. I know. I was another woman before I, too, was harmed and changed. I have to live with what she was, and the things that she did, but I do not have to be her. I am myself."

PyrsVar's rapid breathing slowed. "I was a thief. I remember it now. I stole because we had nothing. My siblings were starving. The war .. . the dishonor my father brought upon our line when he deserted ..." He shook his head and met my gaze. "We are going back to the desert. You will stay there with me until I can think of what I must do."

"What happened to SrrokVar?"

PyrsVar did not answer me, and sat for the remainder of the flight in silence, staring at the mountains we passed.

The outlaws had moved their encampment to a

288 S. L. Viehl

bleak region of stone cliffs, enormous boulders, and lifeless sand. The scout landed on a flat-topped outcropping and remained there only long enough for PyrsVar and me to disembark before flying away.

After the frigid climate of the mountain stronghold, the heat and humidity-heavy air seemed particularly thick and unpleasant. I saw the outlaws had tucked their camp below, in the maze of rocks and passages at the base of the hill.

"Come." PyrsVar took hold of my arm and led me to a winding passageway that had been cut into the rock, and gradually descended into the dark interior.

SEVENTEEN

I thought he might tie me up or lock me in another cage, but once we had entered the rough, cavelike enclave he was using as a shelter, he removed my bonds and gestured for me to sit.

"Be very careful, Jam,"
Maggie said.
"The self-controlled bastard may not look like it, but he's just about to go over the edge."

I knew what she meant, for I could see it in his eyes. Tension and fear, and a curious confusion that muddled the mind reeling beneath them. I had been to that same place too many times since waking up in Cherijo Torin's body.

"You should tell your men to stay away from us," I said cautiously. "They will become infected by the dust."

"They are raiding one of the outer settlements," he told me. "They will not return for several hours."

"All right, he's calmer, but you have to talk fast now,"
Maggie said.
"He needs help with accepting the truth of what he just learned about himself."

Which is?
I thought back.

"The fact that he was created by Dr. Tinhead solely to torment you,"
Maggie said.
"SrrokVar told him that just before he shot out the viewer and dragged you out i

there. What he needs is a friend now, Jam. Someone \

will tell him the truth."

If I could befriend the renegade Jorenian, somehow convince him to take me back to Hsktskt city, then I might still have a chance to stc the plague.

"I can see your thoughts on your face now," said, crouching down by the fire and warming hands. They had patches of dark skin on them, as i he had snowbite. "I could not do that before breathed in the dust. It is changing me."

"SrrokVar said that it invokes our deepest fear I sat down on the rug nearest to him. "I think brings some alteration of awareness as well."

"Oh, thank you so much,"
Maggie said sourly, "ft
always wanted to be a phobia crossed with a drug induced hallucination."

"My sire is not a simple man," PyrsVar said slowly. "I knew this as he brought me into being. I admired him for it. I believed the things that he told me. But the hatred he has for what the people have become ... " He shook his head. "It is like his hatred of you. They became entwined. Whatever happened between you altered him inside. It drove him insane."

I couldn't disagree with that. When he said nothing more, I went to his stores and busied myself preparing a pot of the dark beverage the outlaws brewed.

"You aren't afraid of me anymore," he murmured. "If you intended to harm me, you would have

left me with your sire. He is an expert in torturing slaves. That is what he did to me, before I hurt him." I brought him the tea and the meat strips I found in one of his supply bags, and presented them as an Iisleg woman would. "I am in your debt."

"I saw so many strange things in my head when I released you from that chamber," he admitted. "A world of flowers, and people with my skin and features. That was Joren?" I nodded. "It is as you said. And you. I look at you and I want to embrace you." He looked down into the server I had handed him. "I was right about you. This is not the first time we have met."

No, it was not. Thanks to the stream of memories Maggie had put into my head, I could now remember the first time I had kissed Kao, and made love with him. How hard I fought to keep him from dying of the Core plague, and how my extreme measures had eventually been the thing that had killed him.

It upset me for a moment, thinking of those memories as my own when they were Cherijo's alone. But Maggie and the effect of the bone dust had done this, and I could not reject experiences that now felt as much a part of me as if I had lived them on Akkabarr.

"We knew each other once," I said, banishing the memory of Kao dying in my arms. "You were someone for whom I had great affection. I was a different person. SrrokVar did not know I had forgotten you. He deliberately used my dead lover to create you in hopes that someday he could use you to harm me."

"I do not understand. Why go to all this trouble
for a Terran? We were to conquer Vtaga, and destroy the lines. We were to make everyone the same, so there would be no more outcasts, or hunger, or shame. A great equalizing revolution, he called it." He sounded like a lost child now. "I believed him, and it was all a lie. He did this so that he could make the people into animals, and have me spread this plague to other worlds. He wanted nothing but power and revenge."

"The woman I was hurt SrrokVar," I said. "He told me that he performed experiments on her when she was a slave. When she was finally freed by her people, she caused the injuries that made him as he is now. So I am partly responsible for his madness." I saw the medical case that I had brought to the Hanar's Palace sitting to one side. "The dust you breathed in at the stronghold is what causes the plague symptoms. You may still be Hsktskt enough for it to affect you as it does the people."

He followed the direction of my gaze. "What do you wish to do? Freeze me? Kill me before I go completely insane?"

I told him about the enzyme blocker ChoVa had created. "I think it will help until I can return to the lab with a sample of this dust."

PyrsVar nodded, and I removed an infuser and a specimen container. I set aside the instrument and opened the container, over which I shook my hair. Odnallak bone dust lodged in it drifted into the container. He came over and did the same, also brushing the dust from his tunic and face. Once I sealed the container, I prepared an infusion and rolled up his sleeve to administer it.

He watched as the green fluid slowly emptied from the chamber into his blood vessel. "You do not blame me for what my sire did."

"Cherijo, the woman I was, accidentally poisoned the Jorenian whose DNA was used to create you," I pointed out. "Should I be blamed for that?"

"No. It is only ... " The tension left his shoulders. "SrrokVar created me as a weapon. I understood this—the Hsktskt I was volunteered to do this—but now I have no purpose. I cannot continue attacking the people as he slowly kills them. I do not belong on this world or any other."

"There is a place for you," I assured him. "You have only to find it." "Jam," a cold voice said from the opening to the cave shelter. "Move away from the outlaw."

I looked up and saw Reever standing only a few feet away, the rifle in his hands pointed at PyrsVar's head. "My husband," I murmured, unable to quite believe my eyes. "How did you find me?"

"I planted a locator in one of the outlaws' supply packs," Reever said. "I thought it might be useful to know where they were hiding." He enabled the rifle's power supply. "It is good to be correct."

"You know, the guy may be as passionate as a geranium,"
Maggie said from inside me,
"but occasionally he does have his moments."

PyrsVar did not move. "So this is the day I die." His eyes moved to the Hsktskt who came up behind Reever. "The Akade himself. You must be an important female, Healer."

"TssVar." I rose to my feet, but I kept my body between Reever and PyrsVar. "Did they find ChoVa at

the Palace?"

He nodded. "She is recovering at my estate."

"This is PyrsVar, war master of the outlaws," I

told the men. "He saved my life." "He abducted you twice," Reever said. "He shot ChoVa and killed the Hanar."

"If you don't want little bits ofHsktskt-Jorenian alter-formed crossbreed all over you, Jam, you'd better start talking,"
Maggie advised me.
"Fast."

"The Hanar intended to give me to him, and kill ChoVa for what he imagined was a coup attempt," I said, and saw a flicker of confusion pass over TssVar's features. "The Hanar was infected with the plague. He was almost insane by the time we were taken to the Palace." When Reever did not lower his rifle, I added, "Who did you think was eating his guards?"

"It makes no difference," my husband said. "Step

aside, Cherijo."

"I am not Cherijo," I said for what I hoped was

the last time, "and PyrsVar is not Kao Torin." I nod

ded as Reever's gaze finally tangled with mine. "I

know about their relationship when she worked as

a doctor on K-2, and how she chose Kao over you.

Maggie is with me now."

"Maggie." He said the name like a death curse.

"Maggie was a disease you were well rid of."

"I love you, too, you unfeeling, obsessive jerk,"
Mag

gie said from behind my eyes.

"Husband," I said softly. "Kao Torin died on the

Sunlace
in my arms. He could not be brought back.

That PyrsVar was created with some of his cells is meaningless. He began life as a Hsktskt. He was only made to resemble Kao. This has nothing to do with us."

"It has everything to do with us," Reever said, enabling the rifle. "I will not let him come between us again. Not after all we have shared together."

"I can't believe he's still this jealous of Kao."
Maggie made a clucking sound.
"Honey, you better work with him on this."

Shut up, Maggie. "I
was made from Joseph Grey Veil's cells," I reminded him. "Does this make me my father?"

TssVar put his hand on the barrel of the rifle. "She is right, HalaVar."

PyrsVar's expression did not change even as my husband lowered his weapon. To TssVar, he said, "I was deceived by my sire, but it matters not. My men are raiding a settlement. When they return, I would ask a measure of mercy for them. They are all without line. It was to become what we are, or die alone on the sands."

"We have greater concerns at the moment than your criminal activities," the Akade said. "The entire city is infected with this plague. When word of the Hanar's death spread, many went mad with fear. There is rioting in the streets, and the citizens have taken to the street. They are burning buildings, and killing each other indiscriminately."

"I know why." I gave TssVar a short explanation of the bone dust, and how it had been used to induce the fear.
"I
still do not know how it is being distributed, but I imagine it is by air. The dust must be breathed in to affect the victim."

Reever rubbed his temple. "Like the plague of
K-2."
"So many happy memories of that place,"
Maggie chimed in.

"This is not a sentient colonial microorganism," I said. "We do not have to kill it. We only have to find a way to neutralize its effects on the brain." I gestured toward PyrsVar. "The war master has been exposed to a large amount of the dust, as have I. It can affect humanoids as well as Hsktskt. We need to find ChoVa and begin testing countermeasures immediately, before SrrokVar releases more dust into the atmosphere, or tries to smuggle it off planet."

"SrrokVar?" TssVar hissed the name with disgust. "That coward should have died after the fall of Catopsa. As it was, he nearly did, but then it was said that he elected to have reconstruction. His line was terminated and his name stricken from the official records. He was exiled from Vtaga for life."

"He has been here for years, building his secret stronghold and preparing his revenge," I said, and nodded toward PyrsVar. "The war master and the plague were merely components of his plan to take control of Vtaga and revive the war."

Now TssVar looked furious. "All of this was SrrokVar's doing? Tell me where this stronghold is."

"We'd better get moving on the plague and leave the big shoot-out revenge scene for later,"
Maggie reminded me.
"Unless you want all the lizards dead."

"First take me to ChoVa," I said.

Some of the small army with which Reever and TssVar had invaded the desert warren remained be

* d to capture the band of outlaws, but the bulk of e men escorted us back to the Akade's estate. I w ChoVa waiting at the landing pad, her head und with a thick bandage. PyrsVar walked between me and Reever, and owled when he saw the Hsktskt physician. "She

does not look pleased." "You shot her in the head and killed her ruler," I reminded him. "She is entitled to be displeased."

Reever and TssVar went to speak with the Akade's personal guard. ChoVa ignored the renegade Jorenian as she greeted us.