The mutated RNA retrovirus spread like poisonous smoke through the caves of Rossak. Standard protective devices proved ineffective, sterilization routines sometimes failed, and even potent doses of melange did not guarantee safety. In time, more than three-quarters of the population in the cliff cities was infected, and the majority of those died.
Raquella Berto-Anirul and Dr. Mohandas Suk were out of their depth and failing in their efforts to treat the disease.
So far, none of Dr. Suk’s trial vaccines had shown positive results, and the epidemic continued to rage through the communal caves, eating away at the remaining healthy members of Rossak’s population.
Each day and far into the night, Raquella labored in the crowded cliff warrens that served as hospital wards. Every bed, every clear space on the floors, was filled with stricken men, children, and Sorceresses. Taking her daily dose of spice delivered by VenKee drop pods, Raquella pushed her body beyond its limits. Though she wore a sterile breather and eye films, the miasma of sickness accompanied by a constant clamor of the suffering and dying weighed upon her psyche. But Raquella steeled her resolve to defeat the virus.
In previous years, jihadi warriors and suicidal Sorceresses had thrown themselves against impossible odds, fighting swarms of thinking machines with no thought for their own survival. Raquella could do no less, fighting in her own way. “Victory at any cost.”
Jimmak Tero followed Raquella like a slow but loving puppy, eager to help. Each day he brought her food fresh from the jungle: silvery fruits, fuzzy fungi, and juice-laden berries. He made her a strange, tart herbal infusion that left an odd aftertaste, but Jimmak seemed particularly proud of it. He looked at her with his broad, simple smile and bright eyes.
After a grueling day in humid heat, with another dozen patients dead under her watch, Raquella felt emotionally and physically drained. One of the victims was a premature baby cut from its mother after she’d succumbed to the plague. Since Raquella was the only member of the staff in the main ward, she sat down on the cool stone floor and wept.
Trying to find the strength to continue, Raquella wiped the tears from her already moist cheeks. Hot and dizzy, she struggled to her feet— and nearly lost her balance. She waited a moment to catch her breath, thinking she had risen too quickly, but the discomfort only worsened, and she felt herself falling….
“You okay, Doctor Lady?”
She looked up into Jimmak’s round, concerned face. He was holding her shoulders in his strong arms. “I fainted… too tired. I should’ve eaten more, taken another dose of spice….”
Then Raquella realized that she was lying on a bed with feeding tubes and gauges hooked to her. How much time had passed? She touched her arm, recognized the dialysis machines that had shown some benefit for the worst victims of the new Scourge.
Her dark-skinned assistant Nortie Vandego stood nearby, checking the equipment. Vandego looked at her with dark eyes that held a glint of fear. “You just finished the first blood-scrubbing treatment. We caught the buildup of Compound X before it damaged your liver, but… you are infected. I’ve given you an additional dose of melange.”
Raquella shook her head, then tried to climb out of bed. “Nortie, you should be tending other patients, not me.”
The assistant put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back onto the bed. “You’re a patient now. You deserve the same care you gave to all the others.”
Raquella knew that if she was infected, her odds of survival were not good. She summoned her courage. “It may just be an allergic reaction to the jungle foods I’ve been eating. I let myself get too run-down, and I need rest.”
“That’s probably it. Just rest now.”
Raquella recognized that tone only too well: It was the voice she had heard her assistant use to soothe the dying.
TWO DAYS LATER, Nortie Vandego fell ill herself and was taken to a different ward. The job of tending Raquella now fell to the petite Sorceress Karee Marques, who administered a number of pharmaceuticals and unproven treatments as if Raquella were a test subject. Raquella didn’t mind, though she believed Mohandas was more likely to find a cure. Did he even know she was sick?
The nights in the cliff warrens were deep and black. Oppressive and mysterious sounds came from the dense jungle outside. Raquella was lying half asleep from a cocktail of drugs administered to her when she heard a loud, angry voice nearby. Opening her eyes narrowly, she saw Ticia Cenva berating Karee, telling her to spend time on other patients. “Let this one die. She is not one of us, and her meddling may have made the epidemic worse.”
“Worse? She has exhausted herself to help us.”
“And how do we know for certain that she saved anyone? The plague will only take the weakest among us,” Ticia insisted, her voice as hard as armor plating and a taint of wildness in her eyes. The Supreme Sorceress seemed even more frayed, less in control. “The Scourge will weed out the inadequate stock and leave the Sorceresses stronger.”
“Or it will kill all of us!”
As Raquella lay struggling with her aches, her fatigue, her nausea, she focused on one part of the debate. They think I’m dying. It was an awkward thought for a doctor, a healer. Perhaps it is true. She had seen enough death to be ready for the inevitability of her fate, though she was deeply disappointed at being unable to finish her work here.
But her body did not surrender easily. She fought the disease for days, struggling to remain conscious, to remain alive. After the first few treatments, Raquella was not hooked to the blood scrubbers again, and she knew that the toxic Compound X was rapidly building up. Her skin was yellow, pocked with lesions; she was always desperately thirsty.
The Sorceresses had given up on Raquella, leaving her to die.
Only Jimmak bothered to tend her. He sat at her side, wiping her brow with a cool cloth. He gave her his bitter tea, fed her small bits of fruit, and tucked a blanket around her to make her comfortable. Once, she thought she even saw Mohandas, but it was only a fever-induced hallucination. When was the last time they had talked… touched?
The Rossak Epidemic had already gone on forever.
In what seemed like another life, she recalled quiet, private days with him, when they’d had time to be lovers like any two normal human beings, on other worlds in other times. She missed the sweetness of his smile, the warmth of his embrace, the engrossing discussions they’d had as dedicated colleagues.
“How is Nortie?” she asked Jimmak in a brief lucid moment. “My assistant. Where is she?”
“Tall lady die. Sorry.” Raquella didn’t want to believe it. The slow-witted boy leaned closer to where she lay in her sweat-damp sheets. His broad, smooth face was fixed with determination. “Doctor Lady won’t die, though.”
He scuttled away, then returned with an empty suspensor gurney that the healthy workers used for hauling away bodies. Jimmak pushed it in front of him, as if he knew what he was doing. He maneuvered the floating platform and lowered it next to Raquella’s bed.
“Jimmak? What are you doing?” She tried to keep her thoughts straight.
“Call me Doctor Boy!” With strong hands, he rolled her onto the gurney, then stuffed clothing, towels, and a blanket into a storage compartment beneath it.
“Where… are you taking me?”
“The jungle. Nobody to take care of you here.” He pushed the drifting gurney ahead of him.
Struggling to prop herself up on her elbows, Raquella saw Ticia Cenva standing in the corridor, watching the tableau. Jimmak ducked his head, as if hoping his aloof mother wouldn’t notice him. Raquella tried to meet the gaze of the black-robed Supreme Sorceress, who seemed momentarily disappointed. Wishing that Jimmak was carting off Raquella’s dead body, perhaps? The stern, ravenlike woman said nothing, and let them pass.
As darkness settled over Rossak, the boy loaded her into a lift and worked his way all the way down to the jungle floor. He ignored the threatening sounds, the shadows, the thick vines, and pushed her deep into the dense alien wilderness.