Blood of the Cosmos (11 page)

As soon as they received clearance, Xander descended into the atmosphere. It was a bumpy ride, but nothing like when they had piloted through the nebula barrier to visit Fireheart Station. The bright grid lights below punched through the diffuse fog, placing a halo over the Dremen spaceport without making it look heavenly.

“Not much traffic,” Xander said. “Looks like we have our choice of landing areas.”

A stern voice on the comm admonished them. “Set your ship down in the designated space only. You'll be met by local officials. Please transmit your
full
manifest for inspection.”

Terry complied while Xander muttered, “Did the documents mention that this is a planet of hardasses?”

“You're the person who wanted to check this place off on the list.”

“I think one visit will be enough,” Xander said as he brought the
Verne
down in the correct landing area.

Terry activated his antigrav belt and leaned on Xander's shoulder, instead of the usual support of OK. The two men emerged onto the ramp and blinked in the chill fog at a group of twenty uniformed men and women, all of whom looked angry.

A man at the front stepped forward, his face knotted in barely controlled fury. “Are you the only two crewmembers?”

Terry spoke up, sensing the tension. “Yes, sir, just the two of us from Kett Shipping. I'm Terry Handon, and this is Xander Brindle. We've brought this delivery—”

The officious man cut them off. “I'm Colony Leader Chaklen. We are impounding your ship and taking you into custody for bearing hazardous cargo.”

“What the hell?” Xander said, as the uniformed men and women intercepted them on the ramp. Another group moved aboard the ship without asking permission.

Both of them were dismayed and confused. Terry said, “They're going to ransack the
Verne
!”

Colony Leader Chaklen gestured, and the escort team marched the two men away from the ship, with Terry holding on to Xander for balance.

“What's all this about?” Xander said. “This is our first run to Dremen, and we brought only the requested supplies. The order is on file.”

“The
requested supplies
.” Chaklen shot him a look of pure venom. “This is Kett Shipping's third delivery of medical products from Aldo Cerf. We weren't able to intercept the first two shipments, and somebody has to pay for all the misery and death they've caused.” His voice broke. “But that'll never make it right.”

Terry was alarmed. “But … we have all the proper documentation.”

“There's always proper documentation,” Chaklen sneered. “That doesn't do any good. Do you even know what's in your cargo hold? What it does to the poor victims?”

Terry remained silent, and Xander shook his head. “No idea. We don't read the messages or open the containers. That's not allowed—”

Chaklen pressed. “Do you know where it comes from? Do you know who this Aldo Cerf is?”

Again, Xander could offer only a weak answer. “We're a shipping company. We just carry cargo.”

“Really?” Chaklen said, leading them to a group of buildings on the edge of the spaceport. “So you could be carrying nuclear warheads or biological weapons, and that wouldn't bother you?”

“I assure you, that's not the case, sir,” Terry said.

“How do you know if you don't ask questions?”

Xander didn't have a snappy answer, or any answer at all.

The two of them were held in a cooling-off room for more than an hour, no windows, no communication. The walls were painted a sickly shade of pale green that seemed to induce anxiety.

“We're just the delivery service! Next thing you know they're going to punish us for slander in a letter we're carrying. If we had OK, he could quote all the regulations, chapter and verse,” Xander said.

“We'll just have to wing it.” Terry shook his head. “Maybe there's some local loophole.”

Leader Chaklen finally opened the door and stood there regarding them in silence. His eyes were red. Finally, he said, “Your manifest checked out. We've isolated the medical supplies, then searched your other containers to verify that they matched what was on the lists, but I doubt anybody will touch the rest of your cargo.”

Terry said, “Mr. Chaklen, we honestly don't know what you're talking about. I couldn't tell you how much previous business Kett Shipping has done with Aldo Cerf. It's not our business to know all the details about our trading partners.”

Xander added, “We just deliver whatever we're commissioned to carry.”

Chaklen turned about. “Follow me.”

They went in a grim and silent procession under gloomy skies to a medical center not far from the spaceport. Leader Chaklen was focused on his own problem, for which he apparently blamed Kett Shipping, with Xander and Terry as convenient scapegoats. Chaklen stopped outside one of the patient rooms. He didn't look at the two young men but instead steeled himself before entering.

“Five people already died,” Chaklen said. “My wife survived … unfortunately.” He glanced over his shoulder with a razor-edged grimace. “Don't even think of calling her one of the lucky ones.”

On the hospital bed lay a mass of suppurating flesh shaped like a human body—an oozing red mannequin of muscle tissue from which all the skin had been flayed. The staring eyes had no lids, but were bathed with mists of saline solution.

“She wanted to look beautiful,” Chaklen said. “Aldo Cerf sold a boutique skin-rejuvenation treatment, claiming it would remove wrinkles, erase all signs of aging. She paid a fortune for it, secretly. She didn't want me to notice the crow's-feet around her eyes, but I never noticed them anyway. And now look…” His voice hitched. “Through heroic efforts the doctors kept her alive when the other victims died.” He spun to glare at them. “And you're delivering more of the stuff that did this?”

“We didn't know,” Terry whispered. “The shipment said ‘medical supplies.'”

“Untested, unregulated—and deadly.” Chaklen was trembling with anger. “And that's not all. Two other Dremen colonists suffering from terminal diseases purchased expensive and completely ineffective miracle cures, also from the same man. Those were delivered by an independent trader.”

“That's awful,” Xander said, “but why don't you file charges against Aldo Cerf? The Confederation will crack down—”

“No one can find him, and he claims to operate outside of Confederation jurisdiction. Oh, there was fine print every time, no guarantees, no acceptance of responsibility. Then who's responsible?” He stared at Xander and Terry. “Who?”

“Sir, I assure you, we had no idea. We can bring this to the attention of Rlinda Kett herself. She'll cut off all further dealings with this man.”

Chaklen seemed to deflate as he stared at the figure in the bed. He left the room after touching his lips, giving a silent goodbye kiss to the unrecognizable woman. Defeated, he spoke in a small voice. “You needed to know what damage that cargo caused. I just needed you to know.”

*   *   *

Without further consultation or argument, Xander and Terry were returned to the spaceport. The crates of “medical supplies” had been set in an isolated section of the paved landing area. Their other cargo crates, the foodstuffs and specialty notions, were all stacked by the loading ramp.

Chaklen said, “You'd best load that back aboard—there's no market for it here. And the medical supplies … we won't let those harm any other people.”

A security team backed away from the piled medical crates. Before Xander could ask what they intended to do with the shipment, a uniformed woman triggered a detonator, and a flash of directed-thermal explosives turned the crates into an incandescent bonfire. Within seconds, the deadly shipment collapsed into glowing ash.

“They're letting us go?” Terry asked quietly.

“Don't ask.” He hurried his partner aboard to prep for departure. Xander reloaded the other crates himself, since none of the people on Dremen seemed inclined to help. They both wanted to get away as quickly as possible, before Colony Leader Chaklen changed his mind.

 

CHAPTER

14

ZOE ALAKIS

It was an unreasonable fear, Zoe knew, but she couldn't bear the thought of losing Tom Rom. While he went out on his missions, she remained safe inside her private, sterile fortress on Pergamus, just waiting for him to return.

The air in the isolation dome was filtered, processed, and disinfected until she considered it safe to breathe, and her personal chambers sat behind twelve layers of decontamination. The Pergamus medical researchers, plague teams, and specimen organizers worked in separate domes scattered across the planet's harsh landscape, sealed against the poisonous atmosphere. The most dangerous biological investigations were conducted in Orbital Research Spheres.

Her existence was as safe as she could make it.

All of the teams reported directly to her, so that Zoe could hoard their discoveries. Her Pergamus library was the most complete collection of pathogens, disease organisms, viruses, and genetic mutations ever gathered in human history. Zoe was proud of her accomplishments, and she didn't share them with anyone—at least not while she remained alive. People had refused to help her, time and again, during her greatest need, but she and Tom Rom had survived and succeeded regardless.

Zoe often wondered if the human race was even worth saving, but even though she possessed enough viral specimens to wipe out every living person in the Spiral Arm several times over, she had no interest in causing humanity's extinction. She just wanted nothing to do with anyone else. She had cut herself off from the Confederation and called no attention to her facility or her work. She didn't need any outside help, and she liked it that way.

Zoe had assigned her best research teams to study the Onthos space plague that had nearly killed Tom Rom. She was obsessed with this particular disease, afraid of it because of what it had done to him. The plague made her feel weak and ignorant, despite all her precautions. And Zoe Alakis did not like to feel weak or ignorant.…

When Tom Rom's ship finally returned from Serenity's Reach and entered orbit over Pergamus, she felt a wash of relief. As her mercenary security ships escorted him in, Tom Rom contacted Zoe on a direct channel. “I got what you asked for—and I am safe.”

Her voice hitched. “Any complications?”

“A perfectly smooth mission. I have what may be the last existing specimens of the nematodes that wiped out the Dhougal colony.”

Zoe studied his face, his mahogany skin tight against high cheekbones, his deeply set eyes, and a reticent smile that he only occasionally let her see. “Last specimens? Did the colonists find a way to cure it?”

“By incinerating the island. I escaped with only a few minutes to spare.”

Her expression hardened. “I told you not to cut it so close. You can't risk yourself!”

“My job entails risk. If you won't let me take risks, then you won't let me do my job, and that would destroy who I am as much as any disease would.”

She didn't want to argue with him. “Bring the samples to me directly. I want to look at them in person. Inside my dome.”

He shook his head. “That I will not do, Zoe. I'll deliver them to one of the teams, and they can start work.”

“If you can take risks, then so can I.”

“My risks are necessary. Yours are not. Don't be petulant.”

“I still want to see you in person. I'll set all the decontamination procedures in motion so you can come inside my dome.”

“That will take some time. Do you have another mission for me?”

“I do—and I'll tell you when you get here.” They stared at each other on the comm screen for a long moment; then she lowered her voice. “I just want to see you.” She was still shaken after his close call with the plague.

“All right, then you will see me.” He ended the transmission.

Remotely on a dozen different sensors, Zoe watched Tom Rom as he transferred the specimens of the Dhougal brain parasite to exosuited researchers, who took the samples to one of the quarantine domes for cataloguing and study.

She knew that Tom Rom was correct in refusing to bring the sample in here. Zoe had been testing him, pushing him, but he would never let her come to harm. She wished she could make the same promise to him.

She watched via a succession of monitor screens as he entered the main Pergamus complex and began his long journey through the multiple decontamination locks, like a penitent following the Stations of the Cross. He stripped down and showered in antibacterial foam, then let his body be irradiated with brief high-intensity flashes of UV light. Suited doctors ran medical checks, took blood tests, scanned his perspiration, analyzed his breath—then declared him fit to move through to the next level of protection. The entire process took six hours, and Zoe waited, ever more anxious to see him.

His naked body was lean and muscular, as if carved from weathered wood. Tom Rom was not her lover, but she loved him all the same. He was old enough to be her father, and had protected her since she was just a child on the jungle planet of Vaconda, where both of her adoptive parents had died.

Zoe had never taken a lover; the very idea disgusted her, with so much chance for infection in the exchange of fluids. She eschewed physical contact entirely. She had seen micrographs of the menagerie of creatures that lived on human skin, in human hair, in saliva. She had not left her protective dome in years until recently, when she insisted on being beside Tom Rom's treatment bed in the Orbital Research Sphere. After he was cured, though, she had returned to the shelter of her isolation dome, and Tom Rom insisted on going on scout missions, as if nothing had changed. But Zoe felt that her life could never return to exactly the way it had been.