The Dark Between the Stars

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “You’ll understand my reluctance to share proprietary operations.” His expression darkened; his voice became harder. “Since everyone turned their backs on me in my company’s time of greatest crisis, I need to protect my assets.” Then he seemed to remember where he was. His expression softened, and he smiled again. “As I said, my operations could benefit the entire human race. The ekti-X I brought is my token of thanks for all of your hard work in holding the Confederation together. I expect my business to expand greatly in the coming year.”

  Peter thought that Iswander looked too smug, as if he had succeeded in washing all the blood from his hands. “You remind me of Chairman Basil Wenceslas, Mr. Iswander.”

  The Roamer man nodded, accepting the assessment as a compliment, though Peter certainly had not intended it as such.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  AELIN

  When he heard that Lee Iswander had come to Theroc with his new business success, against all odds, Aelin knew what he had to do. He hadn’t realized it before, but he had been waiting a long time for this. Shelud was already gone on a great adventure with clan Reeves on a derelict alien station. He could do no less!

  Iswander’s return was, in and of itself, an act of bravery, Aelin thought. Many other company heads, when confronted with such a terrible disaster, would have gone into permanent hiding, unable to face the shame and the accusations. But Lee Iswander refused to be defeated. By his demeanor now, the industrialist looked strong, and Aelin found his optimism and determination inspirational. Maybe he deserved another chance after all.

  Mr. Iswander had always made an impression on him. While recovering from his treedancing accident when he was young, Aelin had a window near the spaceport landing zone. As his broken leg healed, he watched the commercial ships, Roamer vessels of all kinds, diplomatic yachts for planetary reps, and exotic visiting Ildiran shuttles.

  One day, he saw Mr. Iswander arrive in a fancy cruiser. Though his leg wasn’t entirely healed, Aelin felt restless and hobbled out to see the ships. He tried to sneak aboard the Iswander Industries cruiser, hoping to stow away and see other planets, but his plan was poorly thought out, and he was caught. The crew tried to chase him off, but Iswander took pity on the young Theron man, took him aboard, and showed him around. During an hour-long tour, Iswander was interrupted so many times that he finally sent Aelin away with apologies. “I’m sorry, that’s all the time I can spare.”

  Nevertheless, he had shown Aelin what he needed to see—how important such a man was. Whole planets, the Confederation, the Roamer clans, all depended on Iswander’s business. It made Aelin realize how parochial the previous concerns of his life had been. He never forgot the impression Lee Iswander made on him.

  Now, while Iswander was meeting with the King and Queen, Aelin made inquiries about speaking with the man before he departed. But Lee Iswander had filed no formal schedule, and the green priest couldn’t figure out how he might make an appointment. So, he climbed to the canopy landing field, found the Iswander Industries shuttle, and hunkered down to wait. . . .

  Several hours later, when the sky was darkening at sunset and the blue moths came out, Lee Iswander returned to his ship and was surprised to find a green priest waiting for him.

  Aelin rose to his feet and gave a formal, uncertain bow. “Mr. Iswander, my name is Aelin. I’m a green priest.”

  Iswander eyed him up and down, wearing a cautious, polite smile. “I can see that.”

  Aelin had trouble getting his words out. “I’m not sure if you remember me, but when I was just a boy—”

  Iswander’s smile widened. “Yes! The curious one with the broken leg.”

  “Yes, sir. Would you possibly have any use for a green priest in your operations? I could send any messages you like through telink, and I have access to the knowledge in the worldforest.” Aelin had already checked, and although Iswander had made a few peremptory inquiries about using telink services in his Sheol operations, the industrialist had no green priest working for him yet in his mysterious new venture.

  Iswander looked at him for a long moment, as if running a thorough analysis. “My operations are high security. I can’t have any proprietary details shared with the rest of the Confederation.”

  “Green priests work in strict confidence, Mr. Iswander. We’re trusted in commercial operations, isolated colonies, even aboard the CDF fleet. I would transmit no information without your permission.”

  The industrialist pondered again, longer this time, weighing suspicions, then discarding them. “Considering our isolation, and my wide-ranging activities, I’ve often thought a green priest could be useful for instantaneous communication—not to mention an emergency link—but also to monitor the activities of other ekti producers, the ebbs and flows of the market.” He narrowed his eyes. “But how can I be reassured that you would keep my business secrets? I would lose a great deal if a competitor discovered what I’m doing.”

  Aelin blinked at him. “I’m a green priest, sir. I give you my word.” He didn’t know if that could be enough.

  Iswander finally said, “I do remember you, young man. I saw something in your eyes . . . and, yes, green priests are considered trustworthy. So I’ll take you at your word. What you see must remain strictly confidential, unless I give you permission to reveal any details. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Iswander opened the hatch of his shuttle and motioned Aelin aboard. “Join me, and I’ll show you something quite remarkable.”

  SEVENTY-THREE

  DALE REEVES

  Each new chamber they opened contained dead aliens.

  Dale and Shelud found the mummified creatures preserved by the cold, desiccated space environment. The first ones were sprawled in the corridor, like discarded rag dolls. Their skin was gray and discolored by blotches. The puckered eyelids had turned into iron-hard leather, their lips drawn back as muscles contracted to reveal tiny rounded teeth.

  The bodies were naked. The preserved skin looked hard and smooth, and they appeared sexless, as if they were all dolls made from an identical mold. Dale recognized the Onthos from the images in the library chamber. He found it strange for a race to be in such a large city with no garments, no pockets, no adornments. Shelud, who wore only a loincloth, did not think it unusual.

  The green priest paused at the open hatch. “They’re all dead.” In order to explore farther, he would have to step over the fallen alien bodies.

  Dale tried to be brave. “Of course they are—it’s been thousands of years. Now we know where at least some of them went.” The mystery of this gigantic empty city had grated on him like a subsonic vibration. “Not knowing is more frightening than the truth.”

  He ventured ahead, and Shelud followed. They opened the habitation chambers. Doors scraped and groaned aside to reveal more stacked bodies, some carefully arranged, some sprawled in desperate positions, arms and legs at odd angles.

  In a large gathering chamber, they found hundreds of the Onthos. Dale turned away and instinctively covered his mouth, but after so much time the only smell that lingered was a papery sweetness that reminded him of tobacco.

  Shelud stared at the corpses. The aliens had died together, and in a relatively short period of time. They looked as if they had known their fate. “How could they all have died at once?” Shelud asked.

  The green priest had spent his life on Theroc and didn’t understand the rigors of living in space. Dale explained, “Okiah is an isolated city, entirely dependent on energy systems, air, water, and food brought in from outside. One small failure could have been enough.”

  Dale thought of disasters that had befallen Roamer installations, not just the recent debacle at Sheol, but also dome settlements that experienced sudden decompression after meteor impacts; on Teritha, a slow buildup of poison in the central life-support system had made an entire colony succumb before anyone realized the danger.

  “We found air inside the city when we first broke open the hatches,” Sh
elud pointed out. “The Onthos power reactors were still intact even after so many centuries. We got them running with only minimal repairs. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Dale didn’t know the answer either. “These fatalities weren’t instantaneous. Some of the Onthos died before others, because you can see that their bodies were tended, while the rest fell like stragglers. That argues against a sudden, massive decompression.” As he considered the undreds of corpses, Dale slowly shook his head. “Let’s go back, Shelud. We need to tell my father.”

  Once the news spread, the Retroamers needed to understand why their new home had become a mysterious graveyard. Olaf Reeves sent teams into spoke five to learn what they could about the fallen aliens. He wanted to put the matter to rest.

  Shelud retrieved his treeling and accompanied the team. If they found another library chamber to explain what disaster had caused the deaths, he would tap into the worldforest mind and translate the Onthos language.

  In Okiah’s central hub, Olaf held up a hand before Dale could rush back out to spoke five. “I know you’re pleased with yourself, but you’re a Roamer and you should tend to your family.”

  Dale blinked. “What’s wrong with my family?”

  “BO brought both of your sons back from their lessons today. They’ve fallen ill, something going around among the children. I pulled Sendra from her duties to watch them, but you’re their father. You should be with them, too.”

  Dale put aside a flash of resentment; Olaf had never wasted any time tending his sons when they were sick. “I’ll go to them right now. Have they seen the doctors?” Among the group that left Rendezvous, six were fully qualified doctors and surgeons with various specialties, and another ten had basic medical knowledge.

  “The medical bays are busy.” The clan leader snorted. “A lot of people are claiming to be sick. I think it’s just an excuse to get off their duty shifts so they can go exploring. See what you started?”

  Dale lowered his eyes, but then felt a strength and raised his chin. “See what I found? Now we understand more about this city.”

  Olaf grumbled and sent him off, not wanting to make any admissions.

  Inside the quarters that Dale’s family had claimed, he found both of his boys in their sleep clothes, wrapped in blankets. Scott was dozing fitfully, his face flushed. Jamie looked miserable as he sat watching one of his favorite interactive entertainment loops, though he wasn’t interacting much. Dale didn’t see Sendra. “Where’s your mother?”

  Jamie seemed to need extra time to process the question, then he nodded toward the reclamation chamber. “In there.”

  Sendra emerged, wringing out a wet towel, then wiping her mouth—clearing vomit away? “I think I caught it too,” she said. She coughed and looked queasy. “The doctor sent over broad-spectrum antivirals and antibiotics, but we probably have to ride this out.” She ducked back into the reclamation chamber.

  Because Roamers lived in enclosed habitats with reprocessed air, sicknesses were rare and usually brought in from the outside. The sterile environment, however, left them with little resistance when they did encounter a virus.

  He sat next to sleeping Scott; Jamie’s eyes were heavy-lidded, not watching his entertainment loop. In such close quarters, Dale supposed he couldn’t avoid catching the bug himself. He could wash his hands, get rest, take vitamin supplements, but it was a lost cause. The flu would strike most of clan Reeves.

  “I’ll make some soup,” he said.

  Shelud came to talk with him before he presented his information to Olaf Reeves. Standing at the door to Dale’s quarters, the green priest looked concerned. “We need to tell your father—and soon. As clan leader, he has to decide the best way to inform everyone.”

  Dale felt tired and feverish, though he hadn’t yet suffered the full-blown symptoms of the strange flu. Both of his boys had high fevers, and Sendra—normally so dynamic and independent—stayed in bed most of the day, too tired to get up and help. Dale didn’t want to leave his family, but the look in Shelud’s eyes disturbed him greatly. “What did you find? More records?”

  The green priest swallowed. “Yes, more records—the last log entries, which I translated through the worldforest mind. I know why all the aliens died.”

  Inside the hub chamber that Olaf Reeves used as his office, the clan leader looked haggard, though not sick from the same illness that so many were suffering. Olaf’s heavy brows drew together as the two entered. He ignored the green priest and turned to his son. “By the Guiding Star, where have you been?”

  “Tending my family, as you told me to. They’re sick.”

  Olaf sighed, as if Dale had disappointed him again. “Everyone’s sick. It’ll pass.”

  Shelud’s voice was urgent. “I don’t think so.” He set his potted treeling on the clan head’s makeshift desk. “The aliens all died from a plague. We found more information about the Onthos.”

  Olaf shook his head. “You said the aliens came here to escape from the Klikiss. That’s why they built the city. They even took refugees from wiped-out Onthos settlements.”

  The green priest nodded. “Yes, the Klikiss attacked them on their worlds, and the survivors came seeking refuge. But some of the wounded were infected by a disease the Klikiss carried—and they brought it here.”

  “Are you saying the Klikiss were struck by a plague, too?” Dale asked.

  “They were just carriers, unaffected. They had some kind of resistance, but the disease mutated, infected the Onthos, and spread throughout their race. This refuge city became a death house.” Tears shimmered in the green priest’s eyes. “Even I could hear the passion and despair in the Onthos voice. Their leader said, ‘We marked this city with pink triangles to warn everyone off. We used the symbol to let all visitors know that this is a plague station.’ ”

  Dale said, “Pink triangles? How were we supposed to know what that means?”

  Olaf hung his head in defeat, and Dale was surprised by his father’s reaction. He expected the man to be scornful about irrelevant matters from millennia ago, but Olaf looked at a desk screen filled with names; he rotated the file so that Dale and Shelud could see a report from the medical bay.

  “The doctors just transmitted this list to me. Fifty of our clan members have been struck by the flu, and the sickness seems to be getting worse. No one was ill before we came aboard Okiah.”

  Dale couldn’t stop thinking about his two boys still shivering and miserable after two days. “But it can’t possibly be the Onthos plague. It’s been centuries—and it affected an entirely different race. Diseases don’t translate across species.”

  “Klikiss were the original carriers,” Shelud said, “and the disease adapted to the Onthos. Who’s to say it can’t adapt to human biology, too?”

  Dale stared down the list of names. Fifty sick already . . . and how many more felt feverish like himself with the first stages of the disease?

  Olaf looked at the green priest. “Translate the records and give our doctors whatever information you have, any clues that will help them cure this.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but the Onthos never found a cure. Thousands of inhabitants of this space city . . . and every one of them died from the disease.”

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  TOM ROM

  When Tom Rom passed through the Klikiss transportal to Kuivahr, he saw that the tides were substantially down from the previous time. The flat seas were more of a quagmire.

  On this trip, though, he would not be visiting Del Kellum’s distillery. Zoe’s researchers had already tested the sample kelp extracts and plankton distillates, from which they identified interesting antioxidants, as well as immunity and metabolic enhancers.

  Now he meant to see what the Ildiran researchers had to offer.

  After sending discreet inquiries, Tom Rom had made arrangements to go to the sanctuary domes. If he could convince Tamo’l that his employer had similar interests, the Ildiran researcher might even be willing to provide him wit
h all the genetic data she had compiled on her misbreeds.

  Now that the seas had dropped with the tide, the reef outcropping that held the Klikiss transportal stood high above a wet basin. Stagnant pools swirled with an oily sheen of plankton; dark clumps of kelp looked like tangled hair caught in a drain. The water level was so low that more mud than open water showed.

  Tom Rom glanced at his chronometer. Tamo’l should have arranged transportation for him, but he saw no sign of a boat from the sanctuary domes. He heard a buzzing sound and saw a small open-framed flying craft wobbling toward him, dipping and bobbing in the air.

  He worked his way down the outcropping that supported the transportal wall to an open area where the flying vehicle could land. It came in, extending struts to keep it balanced. The pilot stepped out, a human with reddish brown hair and freckles on his face. “Are you Mr. Rom? I’m here to give you a lift.”

  He regarded the man coolly. “Call me Tom Rom. I wasn’t aware that humans worked at the Ildiran medical facility.”

  “My name is Shawn Fennis, and I was born on the Dobro colony. My wife is Ildiran, and we volunteered to work with the misbreeds. Tamo’l thought you might like to see a recognizable face when you arrived. Some of the misfits are . . . startling.”

  “I’ll thank her in person for the consideration, but it was unnecessary.”

  Fennis gestured to a seat behind him in the craft. The gossamer flyer had a sturdy but ultralight construction. “Hop in and buckle up. And no sudden moves, because this thing is hard to balance.”

  Tom Rom climbed inside and braced himself against the framework. The insubstantial flyer seemed likely to break apart in a strong gust of wind. When his passenger was situated, Fennis powered up the engines, and used his feet to nudge the flyer a few inches off the ground. At the last moment, the engines caught, and the craft flew away from the reef outcropping. With Tom Rom’s extra weight, the craft dipped low toward the pools of mud and plankton.