ZOE ALAKIS
Though she had remained silent, Zoe had watched every moment, listened to every word of the encounter when Rlinda Kett came to Pergamus. And she was very disturbed.
The Confederation representative assumed she could sweet-talk or buy access to Zoe’s hoarded medical data. Other desperate people had done the same over the years, and her mercenary security always kept them away. But this time the Confederation had taken notice. Now they would never be left alone.
Pergamus had quietly existed for a decade, independent, part of no government. The Confederation had nothing to do with Zoe, and she had nothing to do with them. Isolated in her sterile dome, she was only peripherally aware of human politics at all. Her only interest in the rest of the Spiral Arm was as a source of intriguing new disease specimens that Tom Rom would go out to collect. But now they had been noticed!
Thanks to Tom Rom’s encouragement, she had tasked a research team to study Prince Reynald’s medical condition, and they had made some progress in categorizing and breaking down the exotic microfungus. But Zoe did not intend to participate in the contest for a cure; she had already been through that with Dr. Paolus. Why couldn’t they understand?
As soon as Rlinda Kett came calling, though, Zoe knew that their quiet existence had fundamentally changed. That idiot Paolus had revealed their location, and Pergamus would never again be safe. The King and Queen would never leave her alone now, and that made Zoe angry. She had to do something.
She sat inside her sealed dome, protected from the myriad biological threats whose sole evolutionary purpose was to kill human beings. This was her fortress … but now that others knew about it, Zoe no longer felt secure.
Forlorn, she called up images and files on twenty different screens, her medical triumphs and her most terrifying specimens, the cure for Heidegger’s Syndrome, which she had found years too late to help her father. There was Tamborr’s Dementia, and the fresh brain parasite that Tom Rom had retrieved from the fatal outbreak on Dhougal. She scrolled through scanning electron micrographs of bacteria, viruses, DNA mutations. Some of the most fascinating work was the study of the freakish Ildiran misbreeds, which the Kuivahr researcher had naïvely given to Tom Rom.
All these diseases, samples, and potential treatments were just part of her collection, much the same as another wealthy patron might collect interesting insects. Her library on Pergamus was unparalleled in human history, and it was hers, whether or not she intended to do anything with it. It was hers! That was what mattered.
As she stared at the thousands of records, the numerous ambitious research projects, she thought of Rlinda Kett’s plea in the name of Reynald, thought of the possibly dying Prince … and all the others over the years who had begged and demanded and bribed for cures. Zoe had never relinquished any items from her collection.
As she stared and pondered now, though, she feared that she might have to.
* * *
After her father’s death, she and Tom Rom had traveled aimlessly from spaceport to spaceport. They met people of all different types; many were untrustworthy, several tried to cheat them, but Tom Rom took care of her—and then took care of the cheaters. Once, two men tried to attack her when she went off alone on Teredit, but Tom Rom wasn’t far behind; he intercepted the men, killed them in front of her, and took Zoe away to safety.
But he could not protect her from the diseases of humanity. Vaconda, with its lichentree forests and its blizzard of pollens, produced numerous local diseases; Zoe had suffered through and recovered from all of them at a young age. But a life in isolation had left her unprepared for the normal sicknesses that one encountered in human settlements. She had no resistance, no immunity.
Tom Rom flew them away from Teredit—and a day into their voyage, Zoe fell ill with a high fever that left her writhing in her bunk. She was terrified. She had never been so sick. Although Tom Rom knew basic medicine, he also knew his limitations.
Zoe was nauseated, her muscles ached, her head pounded; auras appeared around her vision. “I think I’m dying.” She said it as a statement of fact, as if it might be something of scientific interest, not a wail of despair. “I hope I die quickly.” Memories of her father’s lingering debilitation horrified her. Heidegger’s Syndrome had stolen his mind, his humanity, and his life in tiny stages over the course of years. “Don’t let that happen to me.”
Tom Rom had gripped her hand fiercely. “I will not let you die.”
Despite his sickening memories of the place, he took her to Rakkem as her fever grew worse, sure that the biodealers could provide any cure. He took samples of Zoe’s blood, ran analyses, made a rough diagnosis. Medical records classified it as Conden’s Fever, and a vaccine existed. That was all he needed to know.
Zoe feared she might be contagious, but Tom Rom didn’t contract the fever; he had long ago gotten an immunity. She gave him a wan smile, then shuddered before falling back into a deep sleep.
After that, the sequence of events was murky in her memories. She knew they landed on Rakkem, and Tom Rom sealed her aboard the spaceship while he went out to find a solution. He returned to check on her, looking graver and graver each time. He tended her, providing stopgap measures that lowered the fever and gave her enough energy to wake up. Finally, he put a decontamination breather over her face, wrapped her in warm clothing, and carried her into the dim marshy city where buildings and biolaboratories sold anything and everything.
He took her to a cureseller. She was dizzy, barely had the strength to stand when he hauled her into the cluttered office, but he propped her up. “Look at her,” Tom Rom said to the biomerchant. “You have the vaccine in your archive. Help her.”
“Conden’s Fever.” The pale-skinned bald man clucked his tongue. He looked at them as if they were possible specimens. “Such a disease is rarely encountered, and so the vaccine would be at a premium. I can see your desperation, and that puts you in a very poor bargaining position.”
“She needs it,” Tom Rom said.
The cureseller shrugged. “I need many things too.” A calculating look crossed his face as he glanced at Zoe, then focused his attention on Tom Rom. “You have insufficient funds to buy even one dose of the vaccine, but here on Rakkem we always have a need for other commodities. You look healthy, fit. I assume you have two kidneys, two lungs … even two eyes. I think you can spare one of each. In fact”—he raised a finger, ignoring Tom Rom’s instant recoil—“this young woman also has a spare set.”
“Unacceptable.”
“Then I’m afraid we can’t do business. How much does the girl mean to you? What is a cure worth?”
Tom Rom did not hesitate. “You won’t take anything from her. She remains intact. But I…”
Zoe felt a surge of energy. “No, you will not!”
Tom Rom looked at her with a hard gaze. “I’ll do what I have to.”
Zoe put steel in her own voice. “You will do as I say. I forbid you to sacrifice any part of yourself for me.” Even if she survived the fever, she couldn’t live with herself if he did that.
He wrestled with his own obligations. “Then, I’ll find another way.” He gave Zoe a supportive arm, lifted her out of the chair, and they left the cure seller’s offices. The man didn’t bother to make another offer, didn’t call them back. It was as if he knew they were going to return anyway. No one else would give her a cure.
When they got back to the ship, Tom Rom placed her on the bunk, told her to rest. She lay reeling, feverish, knowing that a vaccine existed but remained out of reach. “They won’t help us. What are we going to do?”
“I am going to find a cure for you. And you are going to recover.”
She tried to ask him how, but she was too weary.
Several hours passed, or several days—Zoe wasn’t at all sure. What she knew next was Tom Rom standing next to her, injecting her. She could barely force herself awake. “What is that?”
“Your salvation.” He put the syringe away. “The vaccine.”
“How did you find it?”
“Don’t concern yourself with details.”
She drifted for a while, then forced herself back to consciousness. “How did you get it?”
Tom Rom lied. “I found a man who had recently recovered from Conden’s Fever. He still had antibodies in his bloodstream. I didn’t have enough money to buy your cure, but I did have enough to pay a contract laboratory to process the blood samples into the antibodies you needed.”
“Oh…” She fell back to sleep.
Later, she learned that Tom Rom had gone back to the cureseller, tried to threaten him, tried to break in to his vault, tried to harm him. But the Rakkem biomerchant had plenty of experience with desperate patients, and his security was such that even Tom Rom couldn’t defeat it. Instead, he did find a patient who had recovered from the same disease. Tom Rom had offered him significant pay for a mere blood sample—and that man had scornfully turned him down as well. “Why should I help your little whore?”
So Tom Rom killed him and took the blood he needed.
He eventually told her the whole story, after she had recovered. And Zoe remembered every detail of it.…
* * *
Now, separated by quarantine walls, she was glad to have Tom Rom returned from his necessary mission to eliminate the traitor Paolus. Together, they discussed via comm what they would do if the Confederation Defense Forces laid siege to the research facility. In order to be prepared, Tom Rom tapped into direct reports from Theroc, keeping an eye on activities there. But he was distraught, waiting for them to move on Pergamus.
Two days later, Zoe could see the excitement on his face. “You know I failed to deliver the Onthos plague data. Orli Covitz almost killed me, and I assumed all those records were lost.” His eyes lit up. “But she survived and delivered the complete database to the industrialist Lee Iswander. And he just delivered that data to Theroc … as a favor!”
Zoe quickly said, “We need to have it.”
“I’m convinced the King and Queen will share those records with us, all of them.” He paused. “But you know the price they will ask.”