The Dark Between the Stars

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “I understand, young man. I’ve dealt with wars and unimaginable crises, but I find social obligations to be tedious and exhausting.”

  Reyn was surprised that he felt so comfortable in front of this man. “They’re all impressive people, and I know that it’s important to meet them, but nobody knows me. They just know who I am.”

  Eldred Cain, the former right-hand man of Chairman Basil Wenceslas, had never had the charisma or ruthlessness to be Chairman. Since the end of the Hansa, Cain had served as the transitional representative, overseeing the constitution of the new Confederation, helping broker agreements among the loosely allied planets, clans, entities, and cultures. Because of his soft touch, soft voice, and wise counsel, Cain had helped create a powerful network ruled by a King and a representative council.

  During his unexpected hour off, Reyn relaxed in a quiet lounge. Deputy Cain sat on an overstuffed sofa. “I don’t envy you, Prince. Your father was chosen for his position after being observed and tested. They knew he had the material to become a King before anyone ever saw his face. But you’re more shy and introspective, not comfortable as a showy, heroic leader like the people want.”

  Reyn couldn’t disagree. “Is that why you never tried to take over yourself?”

  Cain laughed. “Oh, the King can get all the attention. I’d rather stay behind the scenes and keep the engines functioning.”

  Reyn was surprised. “You’d rather be an engineer than a captain?”

  “Exactly. I’ve watched how kings are made. King Frederick was killed by politics.” He grew more serious. “Prince Adam was quietly erased when he didn’t prove to be acceptable, and Prince Daniel was groomed, crushed, groomed again, and then sent away. No one’s seen him for twenty years, if he’s even still alive. Peter and Estarra barely survived assassination attempts. Why would I want to invite that upon myself? I have everything I need—people get in trouble when they want more than that.”

  Reyn nodded. “Being the firstborn son doesn’t necessarily make me the best choice for the job.” He knew how the populace liked the fairy tale of royalty, a colorful figure they could look up to. “Even so, I’m determined to rise to the challenge.”

  A lightning strike of pain shot through the network of his nerves, and he struggled to hide the wince. It lasted less than a second, and afterward a wash of cold sweat prickled his skin. His heart pounded, and he couldn’t take more than a shallow breath, yet somehow Reyn maintained a calm smile.

  “I think it’s time for our next meeting,” the young man said. “I want to finish my obligations because I’m having dinner with Rlinda Kett.”

  The smell was so delicious it made his mouth and eyes water. Rlinda kept main residences on several planets, and she claimed that each one was home. When Reyn requested a private meeting with her, she insisted that he come for dinner and changed her entire schedule for him. “I’d move the Moon itself to have dinner with you, Raindrop—but I don’t really have to, since the Moon’s no longer there.”

  During her years as the Confederation’s trade minister, spending so much time on Theroc, Rlinda had become something of a godmother to Reyn and Arita. She always gave him such enthusiastic hugs that he felt swallowed up in the soft enormity of her body.

  He was so eager to speak with Rlinda that his tremors grew worse, but he no longer had to keep up pretenses. She was so intent on being the hostess that she didn’t notice how shaky he looked—not right away, but he was sure she would. She had visited Theroc often as he grew up, and she knew him too well.

  Rlinda still ran Kett Shipping, but her main love was cooking and her restaurants. Even at home, half of the apartment space was devoted to her kitchen. She stood behind a large sizzling griddle as Reyn hovered next to her. She tossed a jumble of sliced onions onto the hot surface, where they danced and spat in the grease from a ground beef patty. She tended the burger with a spatula, forming it, pressing out just enough of the juices.

  “I can’t believe you’re the son of the King and you’ve never had a cheeseburger.” She flipped the patty, and peeled off a rectangle of orange cheddar from a package beside the grill, which she placed over the meat.

  “Even if I had, it wouldn’t be as good as yours.”

  Rlinda laughed. “That’s a guarantee.”

  She slid the burger onto a toasted bun, used the spatula to scoop up the browned onions and spread them across the melted cheese. In the small dining area, she presented it to Reyn with the appropriate condiments. Like a scientist explaining a complex physical theorem, she instructed him in how to add the finishing touches. “Of all the exotic foods on all the strange worlds, nothing sums up the joy of eating better than a good cheeseburger.”

  Reyn took a bite, and the flavors exploded in his mouth. It was as delicious as she had promised. He ate, wiping his mouth so often between bites that Rlinda had to fetch a stack of fresh napkins.

  “I love to cook for special guests, and if I don’t have any guests around, then I cook for myself. Used to cook for BeBob. He was always my guinea pig.” She sighed. “Ten years now . . .”

  Reyn remembered when her “favorite ex-husband” Branson Roberts, affectionately known as BeBob, had died. Although Reyn had been a young boy at the time, he had felt the waves of grief coming from the usually jovial woman. Even a decade later, the mere mention of BeBob brought a tightness to her face and a stillness to the conversation.

  She heaved a breath, and Reyn stopped eating. She gestured for him to pick up the cheeseburger again. Resting her elbows on the table, she leaned forward and changed the subject. “I know you and your sister adore me, Raindrop, and I know I’m the most sparkling company anyone could possibly want.” Her dark brown eyes were shrewd. “But why are you here? Really? You look sick.”

  He set down the remnants of the messy burger and looked plaintively up at her. “I need something, Rlinda. Something important.”

  As if released from a cage, the nerve fire rattled through his body again, and he could not hide the shudder of pain. He breathed hard, glad he didn’t need to pretend anymore. “This has to remain confidential. Can you help arrange a private consultation with the very best Earth doctors? I need tests to identify what’s wrong, find a treatment . . . if there is one. The symptoms have been getting worse over the past six months.”

  She leaned back, deeply concerned. “Your parents are the King and Queen. They should be able to arrange everything.”

  “I’ve done my own research, talked to a few Theron doctors, but . . . my parents don’t know yet. They’d make a galactic incident, send out a call across the Spiral Arm. Every colony and planetary government would send comforting messages and offers of help, and my parents would go mad with worry. And I don’t want that. It’s private. I don’t want pity or sympathy.” His hands began shaking uncontrollably, and a sparkle of hot tears welled in his eyes.

  Rlinda gave him a look of grave concern. “All right, I won’t betray your trust.” Her brow furrowed as she concentrated. “I know some people. I can make the necessary contacts.” He could see she had made up her mind not to disturb him further by letting him see her anxiety. “I’ll help you in any way I can, Raindrop.” She laid a big hand across his forearm and squeezed it. For a while, the warmth of her touch made the pain go away.

  FOURTY-FOUR

  ZOE ALAKIS

  A private ship flew into the Pergamus system, disregarding the warning transmissions from the guardian stations. No one had invited the vessel, and the pilot refused to give his name. He demanded to speak with Zoe Alakis in person.

  That was always a bad sign.

  Her security ships scrambled from the orbital picket lines. Ground-based defenses tracked the incoming blip. From her sterile central dome, Zoe triggered the standard lockdown procedures that sealed her groundside facilities and Orbiting Research Spheres. Incineration protocols and complete data-wipes were placed on hair-trigger standby. She would not allow any of her work or stockpiles to get loose. With all the valua
ble—and often dangerous—medical specimens in her numerous laboratories, Zoe maintained enough security to drive off an army. They could handle one annoying intruder.

  When Tom Rom appeared on her private screen, Zoe felt the sense of relief that he always brought. He had just returned from the Klikiss ruins on Eljiid with the royal jelly samples, and he remained on Pergamus, awaiting his next assignment. “Do I need to solve this problem, Zoe? I can chase away the ship—destroy it, if necessary. The cleanup would take extra work, but it’s still manageable.”

  The fact that Tom Rom had offered Zoe the choice was in itself calming. “Not just yet. We don’t want to initiate an outside investigation. There’s no telling how many people knew this man was coming here.”

  Tom Rom looked neither pleased nor disappointed. “I am here. Let me know what you need.”

  Two security ships launched from orbit, while three other defenders rose from the surface to intercept the small ship. The stranger flitted around the satellite stations, dodging pursuit. He kept transmitting, sounding more desperate. “I need to speak to Zoe Alakis. My name is James Duggan. My wife is Andrea—Andrea Duggan. Maybe you’ve heard of her? She’s an artist, quite well known.” On the screen, his young face looked gaunt, and beard stubble covered his cheeks. “Dammit, why won’t you respond?”

  “Mr. Duggan, you are not authorized here,” said one of her security pilots. “Pergamus is a private facility. If you do not depart immediately, we will consider you dangerous and defend ourselves with lethal force.”

  Duggan’s eyes widened, but he was so determined that the threat barely made him flinch. “I just want to talk. I need to speak with Ms. Alakis.”

  On the private channel, Tom Rom said, “I’m ready anytime, Zoe. Waiting.”

  She hated how this intrusion would distract her researchers from their important work. She didn’t need to be reminded that Pergamus was vulnerable. “Let me try one more thing.” Zoe adjusted her chair, glanced at her reflection, then activated the transmit function. “Mr. Duggan, this is Zoe Alakis. I don’t know you. I don’t wish to speak with you. I don’t want you here. Please leave.”

  Duggan leaned closer to the screen as intense as if no one else existed but the two of them. Zoe felt a chill. “I’ve got nowhere else to go,” he said. “You’re my only chance—my wife’s only chance. She has . . . she has Heidegger’s Syndrome, in its final stages.”

  Zoe’s expression hardened. So that’s what it was. “If she’s in the final stages of Heidegger’s, then it is incurable. Go home. Be with your wife, comfort her.”

  “She’s already nearly blind, the degeneration of the optic nerve was the worst for her. She’s an artist, a laser artist. She’s famous. You must’ve seen her work.”

  “I don’t look at art, Mr. Duggan. I don’t leave Pergamus. We have too much work to do here.”

  “It’s Heidegger’s! I know you’re researching it. I know you have a cure.”

  “Heidegger’s Syndrome is incurable. You can read that anywhere.”

  “You have a cure,” he insisted. “You can help my wife.”

  “I could help a lot of people . . . and if I did, there would still be more who need it, and even more after that.” Her work was too important to let herself plunge into that quagmire.

  The pathetic man had let himself and his wife fall into this trap. The universe was not a fair place, and it wasn’t her job to rectify injustices. She didn’t like him, didn’t like that he had intruded here, didn’t like how he assumed that after all her years of effort, all her expenses, all the trial and error, all the extreme measures she had taken in the pursuit of a cure for Heidegger’s, while her own father degenerated . . . that she would just give it to this man because he was sad and desperate? She felt no sympathy for him whatsoever.

  “If I had a cure for Heidegger’s Syndrome, Mr. Duggan, then it would be my cure. I developed it. I tested it. I keep it. I don’t have to share.” No one had bothered to help when her father needed it. She had learned much about human nature.

  “I can pay you,” Duggan said. “My wife can create original masterpieces if she gets her sight back.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. Even after intensive treatment, the chances of repairing the damage to the woman’s optic nerve were minuscule. And what use did Zoe have for artwork anyway? There were too many threats in the universe, too many germs, too many dangers to watch out for at every turn. She had no desire to cover up the risks with pretty pictures.

  “You miss the point, Mr. Duggan. If you don’t leave now, I am within my rights to have Pergamus security destroy you. I have a full record of this conversation. You have been warned several times. You are trespassing.”

  Duggan reeked of naïve disbelief. His voice was hoarse. “You’re not human. How can you do this?”

  “You don’t know what I am, or what I’ve been through.”

  She switched over to Tom Rom’s private channel. “Encourage him to depart with all due speed.” Then, as a last kindness she added, “But don’t harm him, don’t destroy his ship. Let him go back to his wife.”

  After looking at her for a long moment, Tom Rom acknowledged and switched off. Zoe was sure he understood her justifications, though it had taken her a while to figure it out for herself.

  James Duggan reminded Zoe of what she had been like years ago. At one time she had been desperate too, willing to do anything to cure her father as his Heidegger’s progressed on Vaconda. No one had rescued her then. In those last months, she had been forced to watch the awful worsening of his symptoms, even though Tom Rom had done his best to help. . . .

  For Adam Alakis, the course of the disease manifested differently from Andrea Duggan’s symptoms. His sympathetic nerves had suffered the worst damage, making it harder and harder for him to breathe, making his heart forget how to beat.

  He lost the ability to control the muscles of his throat, so he couldn’t even swallow his food; Zoe had to hook him up to intravenous nutrient drips in the forest watchtower. Even when he did manage to breathe, he couldn’t control his voice. Unable to speak or write for the last few months, he communicated with his daughter only through longing, hopeless looks; his unexpressed thoughts piled up like drifts of old gray snow that refused to melt. She’d been nineteen.

  Zoe refused to believe there was no cure for Heidegger’s. In their watchstation above the lichentree forests, with the droning symphony of insect songs and the trill of reptile-birds, she used to sit in the window enclosure. She propped her father in his comfortable chair, adjusted the nutrient drip, and let him stare out at the undulating lichentree colors. Tendrils of orchid vines broke off in strong breezes and drifted across the treetops before they dropped into the underbrush and tapped into other plant systems.

  While her father faded, day by day over the course of five long years, Zoe made it her cause to understand everything known about Heidegger’s. The Alakis watchstation library had a wealth of medical records, as well as all the data the Vaconda teams had collected for decades on the pharmaceutical possibilities of native insects, flowers, spores, and poisonous saps.

  Heidegger’s was a rare disease, with fewer than a thousand recorded cases across the Terran Hanseatic League. Zoe did discover several recent studies, and a medical research team on New Portugal that had made interesting progress. A few obscure research papers suggested promising data, but that research had never been pursued—Zoe didn’t know why. She found it maddening. If that research team had simply followed up with trials, they could have had a test treatment by now, something that Zoe’s ailing father could try.

  She sent pleas to the research teams, begging them to release anything they had—unpublished studies, unverified experiments. But she was just a teenaged girl, and she received no response. At the time, the hydrogues had launched their war across the Spiral Arm, and the entire Hansa was in turmoil. Hydrogue warglobes were attacking numerous planets, the Ildiran Empire was reeling—and nobody cared about a lone biological researche
r and his daughter on a small wilderness planet.

  As Adam’s health failed, Tom Rom dismissed the few remaining volunteers on Vaconda, who were glad to get away. But he stayed, as he always did. After Zoe told him about the abandoned Heidegger’s research she had found, Tom Rom looked at Adam, then gave a brisk nod to Zoe. “I’ll go find them, retrieve their data, and interview them to see if they can offer any hope.” He left the two alone in the watchstation.

  Zoe wished she could take her father away to some kind of hospice, where he would receive the care he needed as his health failed, but Adam refused to leave Vaconda. With great effort he managed to make his answer clear: no. She knew his reasons. He had spent many years here, and his wife had died here. He knew full well that no one could help him—in fact, he seemed to accept that fact long before his daughter did.

  Zoe was frightened and frustrated by her inability to do anything except care for him. How was it possible that human intelligence and science could be defeated by some mindless germ?

  While they were alone in the vast planetary wilderness, she read aloud to her father, played his favorite music, talked about how she would find a cure for Heidegger’s Syndrome—and not stop there. She would cure many other medical conditions too. She waited for Tom Rom to come back from New Portugal.

  He was gone for a month, and he returned at last with a disappointed expression and a pack of data that amounted to little. “There was not much progress, Zoe. The experiments were incomplete and inconclusive.”

  Her voice cracked as she felt her last hopes slipping through her fingers. “So you spoke to the research teams, then? Did they run into some difficulties? Maybe we can work—”

  “I brought you all the results they had,” Tom Rom said. “From early indications, I have no doubt that they could have developed a cure, or at least an effective treatment, but they never bothered to pursue it, because Heidegger’s is so rare. The work did not meet their cost-benefit requirements.”