I‘m afraid we’ll have to use trial-and-error methods,” Dr. Suk said, his voice distorted by the communications patch in his complete anticontamination suit. He had shuttled down personally from his sterile orbiting lab on the Recovery. Under the stars, he met Raquella on the polymerized canopy landing pad across from the cave cities. “We don’t have any choice. Almost sixty percent of those infected will die, even after consuming melange.”

He faced Raquella as she stood bravely, wearing no protection other than a breather. She looked into his dark, liquid eyes and thought of all the close ties they had, both the warm love and the friendship that had formed between them. Now they were separated by a thin, impenetrable barrier of decontamination fabric. She had never been so much at risk; the Rossak Epidemic made the original Scourge seem almost like a practice run by comparison.

With a gloved hand, the doctor extended a transparent carrying case that contained ten vaccine vials. “Variants on the RNA treatments we used before. Some of them might work… some might be deadly.”

Raquella pressed her lips together and nodded. “Then they have to work.”

“Analyzing this retrovirus is like trying to solve a murder mystery with a billion suspects,” he said. “The mutated strain actually camouflages the genetic blueprint of its DNA, as far as our tests can determine. I’m looking for patterns, trying to map genomes and project the statistically probable components of the virus based on the available evidence. The melange molecule is no longer as effective in blocking the receptor sites.”

Raquella saw the concern etched in his compassionate brown eyes. Some of his thick black hair had slipped free of its clasp inside the helmet, giving him a disheveled appearance. She wanted to hug him.

Mohandas had not been able to develop a viable gene therapy technique, but he continued to try. Other than heavy preventive consumption of melange, which blocked some of the retrovirus from converting the body’s hormones into the poisonous Compound X, the only partially effective treatment involved specialized blood-filtering treatments from modified dialysis apparatus. Like its previous incarnation, this new retrovirus seated itself in the liver, but the slow and difficult dialysis procedure was not sufficient to cull out toxins faster than the infected body could produce them.

Staring at each other, he and Raquella discussed the test vaccines. One vial was a rich, deep blue, like the eyes of a spice addict. Mohandas gazed intently, longingly at her from behind his protective faceplate. He seemed to want to say so much more. “You are taking enough melange to protect yourself? Another VenKee ship just came from Kolhar.”

“Yes, but spice does not guarantee immunity, as you well know. I am exercising suffient care.”

But he wasn’t convinced. “You aren’t giving your spice ration to other patients?”

“I am taking sufficient amounts, Mohandas.” She lifted the case of vaccine vials. “I’ll get right to work on this. I need to determine which of the people are in greatest need.”

FOR DAYS, KEEPING careful records on circuit plaz files, Raquella administered the trial vaccines with the help of Nortie Vandego and the still-healthy Sorceress, Karee Marques. It seemed a terrible irony, but the most powerful Sorceresses seemed even more susceptible to this version of the retrovirus than the normal population of Rossak.

As they worked, Raquella noticed a strange-looking boy watching with doe-eyed curiosity, keeping his distance. She had seen him before, working quietly and diligently to clean the wards and bring food and supplies for the medical workers.

She knew that mutagens and chemical contaminants in the Rossak environment caused many birth defects, deformities, and various levels of mental retardation, especially among males. Karee noticed Raquella’s interest in the calm, curious young man. “He is Jimmak Tero, one of Ticia’s sons— though of course she does not claim him, considering his obvious faults. She says he belongs with the Misborn.”

The young man saw her looking in his direction and hurried away, flushing a deep red. Raquella drew a quick, sighing breath. “I’m surprised she didn’t kill him at birth. Does that mean Ticia Cenva has a heart after all?”

With a wan smile, Karee said, “I’m sure she had other reasons.”

Raquella gestured to Jimmak, luring him back as she spoke in a gentle, coaxing tone. “Come over here, Jimmak. I can use your help.”

Timidly, he approached, staring at her with inquisitive, round blue eyes. He looked delighted that she would ask for his assistance. “What do you need, Doctor Lady?” His words were halting with a loose enunciation.

“Doctor Lady?” She smiled, tried to judge his age. Fifteen or sixteen, she thought. “Could you bring us some drinking water from the sterilizer, please? Nortie and I have been working so hard that we haven’t had anything to drink for hours.”

He glanced around nervously, as if afraid that he was doing something wrong. “You want something to eat? I could get food from the jungle. I know where to find things.”

“Just water for now. Maybe food later.” She saw instantly how much this pleased him.

After administering the test vaccines, Raquella performed regular blood tests to check the efficacy of the treatments, but the results were disappointing. None of Dr. Suk’s trial batches of potential cures showed much promise.

Many patients were hooked to rows of overworked blood-filtering apparatus, pumps taking blood from the veins in the arm, scrubbing out the toxic Compound X, then recirculating the blood. But the infected livers continued to produce the deadly compound, and the patients would require the modified dialysis all over again within a few hours. There weren’t nearly enough machines.

Raquella noted Ticia Cenva stalking through the rows of patients, snatching circuit plaz records and skimming them, while talking briskly to two Sorceresses beside her. She seemed edgy, barely holding on to her fear. In a derisive tone, Ticia said, “Your medicine is no better than the prayers of a Cultist. A wasted effort.”

Raquella did not rise to the provocation. She had enough guilt of her own and didn’t need the Supreme Sorceress to add to it. “Better to make an attempt and fail than just to let nature take its course. If humans did not fight against impossible odds, we would all be slaves of Omnius.”

Ticia gave her a superior smile. “Yes, but we fought effectively.”

Angry now, Raquella put her hands on her hips. “HuMed dispatched us here because you were having no success.”

“We didn’t ask you to come. HuMed forced you upon us. You’re not doing any good here— in fact, the plague has gotten worse since your arrival. Count the casualties.” Irritation and tension suffused the voice of the Supreme Sorceress. “Maybe you brought a new strain with you. Or maybe your supposed cures are spreading the disease even faster.”

“That’s ridiculous superstition,” Raquella said. “If your methods are better, then why have so many of your best Sorceresses died?”

Ticia recoiled as if Raquella had slapped her. “The weak ones are dying. The strong ones could have solved the problem by now.” With that, she and her companions marched off.

Jimmak had returned, carrying a tray piled with a container of water and loose pieces of fresh-picked fruits and mushrooms, but he huddled against one of the stone walls, waiting for his aloof mother to go away. Ticia had not acknowledged the shrinking boy in any way. When Raquella smiled at him, though, Jimmak hurried forward and showed her his prizes: dark and fuzzy little lumps, a large yellow melon, and something pear-shaped in an unappetizing greenish-black color.

“I like these the best,” he said, pointing at the fuzzy lumps. “In the jungle we call them rossies.”

Raquella took the fruits. “I’ll keep these for later. They look delicious.” She didn’t trust whatever the young man had picked in the deep jungle.

Jimmak lowered his voice conspiratorially. “My mother doesn’t like you.”

“I know. She doesn’t think I belong here. But I’m trying to help.”

“I could help you,” Jimmak said, his face bright, his voice breathless. “Some things in the jungle make people feel better.”

“How interesting.” She knew about all the drugs and pharmaceuticals VenKee workers harvested out in the wilderness. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

OVER THE NEXT several days, Raquella and her young friend spent more time together, and she even began to sample the things he brought her from the jungle after carefully washing them. Jimmak had an odd, feral sort of intelligence she had not understood at first. An outcast, he must have been forced to take care of himself, living out in the wilderness.

Eventually, she began to wonder if perhaps he did have interesting solutions to offer. None of the powerful Sorceresses took the Misborn boy seriously, but by now she was getting desperate.

Exhausted and frustrated by her lack of progress, she sometimes took short breaks and walked with Jimmak along pathways that cut through thick, overhanging vegetation down on the jungle floor. One trail in particular filled her with a sense of awe and wonder, as sunlight filtering through plants in the canopy created a rainbow effect on the ground, with colors that danced as the trees moved.

“I don’t feel any wind,” Raquella said, “and I don’t see how any wind could get in here. But those trees above us are moving, causing the colors to shift.”

“Trees are alive,” Jimmak said. “They make colors for me with sunlight. I talk to them sometimes.” A rainbow flickered in front of him, then seemed to change shape, into a prismatic ball, splashing colors all around it. Then another ball appeared, and yet another. Laughing, Jimmak juggled the three illusory balls in his hands, splashing colors around him, until they disappeared into the canopy.

Amazed, Raquella asked questions, but Jimmak didn’t tell her anything more. “Many secrets in the jungle.” The more she pressed, the more silent he became. She decided to let the matter go, for now.

Jimmak showed Raquella mushrooms as big as ponds, odd lichens, berries that crawled by themselves. He was always scampering off into the deepest levels of the shadowy jungle, retrieving unusual plants and leaves for her to examine, even telling her some of their medicinal characteristics, which he had learned from helping VenKee prospectors.

The jungle of Rossak, however, yielded no magic cure to help with the local epidemic. And people kept dying.