From heaven, Serena Butler watches over us. We try to measure up to her expectations, to the mission she set forth for the human race. But I fear she must be weeping to see the weak, slow progress we have made against our mortal enemies.
— RAYNA BUTLER,
True Visions
The deadly virus spread across Parmentier with appalling swiftness. Frightened, Rayna Butler watched from the governor’s mansion on a high hill overlooking Niubbe. She was too young to understand all the implications as her father frantically worked with his teams of experts to impose controls on the outbreak.
No one comprehended exactly what was happening, or what to do about it.
The girl knew for certain that it was a curse from the demon machines.
* * *
FEW PEOPLE RECOGNIZED the symptoms at first— slight weight loss and hypertension, yellowing of the eyes and skin, breakouts of acne and skin lesions. Most disturbing was a current of unruliness, distractibility, and undeniable paranoia that led to increased aggressive behavior. It manifested as a new movement of undefined fanaticism, a rush of wildness that had no focus and no goal.
Before Governor Butler and his staff could determine that the rash of mob activity and violence was caused by a disease, the first wave of victims had progressed to the next phase of the infection: severe and sudden weight loss, debilitating diarrhea, muscle weakness, tendon ruptures, intensely high fevers, then liver shutdowns that led to death. Thousands more, infected during the incubation period, began to show the initial symptoms several days later.
The unprecedented illness appeared almost simultaneously at villages and cities across Parmentier’s settled continent. Rikov and his civil advisors deduced that the cause was some kind of airborne virus released by the mysterious projectiles that had rained down into the atmosphere. “It has to be something Omnius sent,” Rikov announced. “The demon machines have developed genetically tailored viruses to wipe us out.”
Rayna’s father had not hesitated. He scratched all other priorities to launch a full-scale research program, dispensing unlimited funding, resources, and facilities to the planet’s best medical researchers. Knowing it was necessary to warn other worlds to be on the alert for the projectiles from space, he selected several home guard soldiers from isolated outposts— those least likely to have been exposed to the virus— and launched them with warnings to the nearest League Worlds.
Then, though he knew he might be imposing a death sentence upon his family and the population of his world, the governor announced an immediate and total quarantine of Parmentier. Fortunately, since the recent departure of Quentin Butler’s battalion, no new spacecraft had entered the system. This far out on the fringe of League space, cargo ships and merchant vessels arrived infrequently, usually only one or two per week. On the edge of Synchronized space, Parmentier was still considered a dangerous destination.
Next, Rikov ordered the strict isolation of any individual who showed the slightest hint of plague symptoms. While people shut themselves in their homes and many still-healthy citizens rushed out to the unpopulated countryside to try to avoid the epidemic, Rikov chose groups of men or women without families to crew defensive military stations in orbit. Their job would be to shoot down anyone trying to escape from Parmentier.
“If it is humanly possible,” he said in a statement, “we will not allow this sickness to spread to other League Worlds. This is our immense responsibility. We must think beyond ourselves to the good of the human race, and pray that Parmentier was the only target.”
As Rayna listened to her father deliver the speech, she felt proud of how brave and commanding he appeared. Because she was a member of the Butler family, her father always insisted that she receive a full political and historical education, and he had hired the best tutors and coaches for her. Rayna’s mother was just as firm in her convictions that the girl must receive a solid religious indoctrination. The quiet girl balanced both sets of knowledge so well that her father had once commented, “Rayna, you will be qualified to become either the Interim Viceroy or the Grand Matriarch one day.” The girl wasn’t certain she wanted either job, but knew he meant it as a compliment.
Kept at home for her safety, Rayna watched the city from a distance, saw the smoke of fires and sensed the terror and tension in the air. Her father looked gray and deeply concerned; every day he worked himself to exhaustion, meeting with medical experts and containment forces.
Her mother, showing clear signs of panic, shut herself for hours at a time in their private sanctuary, praying, lighting candles to the Three Martyrs, begging for the salvation of the people of Parmentier. Over half of the household servants had already left, some disappearing in the night to flee Niubbe, though no doubt some of the refugees took the sickness with them out into the countryside. There would be no safety, no matter how far they ran.
The paranoid and violent behavior of the initially infected joined with the fear and fanaticism from those who were not yet victims of the virus. The Martyrists staged long processions through the reeling city, carrying banners, offering prayers to the Three Martyrs. But the spirits of Serena, Iblis Ginjo, and Manion the Innocent did not seem to answer their pleas.
As panic increased, Rikov organized civil protection squads, arming them to maintain order in the streets. At all hours of the day and night, smoke curled into the air from makeshift crematory facilities set up to dispose of plague-ridden bodies. Despite disinfection and extreme isolation measures, the disease still spread.
Rikov was haggard, his eyes shadowed. “The infection rate is incredibly high,” he said to Kohe. “And almost half of them die unless they are constantly tended— but we don’t have nearly enough aid workers, nursing attendants, doctors, or medical practicioners of any kind! The scientists have found no cure, no vaccine, nothing effective. They can only treat the symptoms. People are dying in the streets because there are no open hospitals and insufficient volunteers even to deliver water, blankets, food. Every bed is full, shipments are delayed, everything is crumbling.”
“Everyone is dying from this scourge,” Kohe said. “What is there to do but pray?”
“I hate the demon machines,” Rayna said aloud.
When they noticed the girl eavesdropping, her mother shooed her away. But Rayna had already heard too much, and she mulled over what she had learned. Millions of people would die from this sickness spread by the evil machines. She could not conceive of all those bodies, all those empty homes and businesses.
Already, the orbital blockade had turned back two merchant ships before they could land. Their civilian pilots would rush to other League Worlds, spreading news of the medical crisis on Parmentier, but there was nothing anyone on the outside could do. Now that Governor Butler had imposed such a strict quarantine, this planet was doomed to let the plague run its course and burn itself out. Maybe everyone would die, Rayna thought. Unless God or Saint Serena could save them.
Already the deadly epidemic had flared on one of the seven orbital blockade stations. The sickness swept through the dedicated military crew trapped in the sealed station, infecting virtually everyone aboard so that they were all sick at once. Attempting to flee, some of the paranoid and angry soldiers took a ship— and were shot down by the other stations. Within days, the few weakened victims who remained aboard had also perished, and the whole station became nothing more than a tomb in space. Other soldiers, handpicked by Rikov, remained at their posts and did not swerve from their duties.
From the patio of her hilltop house, Rayna could sense the waves of fear and hopelessness carried on the breezes. Her mother had forbidden her from going down into Niubbe, hoping to protect her from exposure. If the Demon Scourge was truly a punishment from God, the girl didn’t think those measures would be sufficient, but she always listened to her parents’ admonitions….
One afternoon, Kohe went into her private shrine to pray, and Rayna didn’t see her for many hours. As the plague continued to spread across Parmentier, her mother spent more and more hours in consultation with the saints and with God, asking questions, demanding answers, begging for their help. Each day, she sounded more and more desperate.
Finally, Rayna grew lonely and concerned enough that she decided to join her mother in her devotions. The girl remembered many times when she and Kohe had prayed together; those were special, magical times that comforted her.
When she entered the personal chapel, though, she found Kohe sprawled on the floor, weak and feverish. Her body was drenched in sweat, plastering her hair to her head. Kohe’s skin felt as if it was on fire, and she shuddered, her eyes half-closed and fluttering with delirium.
“Mother!” Rayna rushed to hold her, lifting her head. Kohe tried to gasp something, but the girl could not understand.
Knowing she had to help somehow, Rayna took her mother by the arms and struggled to pull her away from the altar. Thin and gangly, Rayna was not a strong girl, but adrenaline gave her the determination she needed. She finally got her mother to the master suite she shared with Rikov. “I’ll call Father! He’ll know what to do.”
As Kohe groaned and struggled to push herself up on rubbery legs, Rayna helped her onto the low, soft bed. Her mother had just enough strength to sprawl like a boneless sack of skin across the blankets. Rayna refused to believe that her mother had contracted the demon scourge, insisting to herself that no one could be harmed while in the chapel praying. How could God or Saint Serena allow such a thing?
Receiving his daughter’s frantic call while in the government chambers down in the city, Rikov set aside his duties and abandoned an emergency meeting. He shouted curses at the sky as he raced to the governor’s mansion. He had seen so much death and disaster on this planet that he already looked shell-shocked and stricken every day when he came home. Now, he stared at his daughter with wild and faintly yellowed eyes as if Rayna herself had caused the sickness.
He held Kohe, propping her up in their bed, but she was unresponsive. Fever raged through her, and she had already slipped into a deep sleep. Sweat poured off her face and neck. Squirming deliriously, she had vomited off the side of the bed, and the mess filled the room with a foul, sour odor.
The girl stood beside them, anxious to do something. She looked at her parents, and they seemed just as vulnerable as anyone else. The governor had faced the realities of this epidemic enough to know that with symptoms this severe, Kohe had little chance of surviving; he could summon no medical aid, no cure. Rayna saw the terrible realization in his face. Even worse, he was so focused on his wife’s grim prognosis and the plight of all Parmentier that he did not notice the signs of the plague in himself….
* * *
WHEN SHE NOTICED she was hungry, Rayna got her own food from a pantry since she could find none of the servants. Hours later, when she felt nauseated and unsteady on her own feet, she made her way to the master suite to ask her father what she should do.
With perspiration beading on her forehead, the girl could barely manage to keep her balance. She weaved as she walked down the corridor, and when she touched her own forehead and cheeks, she realized that she had never felt her skin so warm before. Her head pounded, and her vision rippled as if someone had sprayed poisoned water into her eyes. It took her a long time to remember what she had been doing….
When she finally gripped the edge of the bedroom door just to stay on her feet, she saw her mother lying motionless on the bed, tangled in sweat-drenched sheets. Her father had collapsed in an awkward sleeping position beside her. Rikov stirred and moaned, but did not respond to his daughter’s calls.
Then, before Rayna could do anything else, she doubled over and retched. When she had finished vomiting, she collapsed to her knees, unable to keep herself upright. She needed to rest, needed to get her strength back. From other times when she’d been sick, the girl knew that her mother would have told her to go to bed, to lie there and pray. Rayna wanted to take her book of scriptures to read and reread some of her favorite passages, but she could not focus her vision. Nothing seemed to make sense.
When the disoriented girl finally reached her room, she found some tepid water in a cup beside her bed and drank it. Then, not knowing what she did or why, Rayna made her way into the womblike shelter of a cramped closet, where it was dark and quiet and comforting.
With a weak voice and a parched throat, the girl called out for her parents, then tried to summon the servants, but no one answered. She drifted on a river of delirium for a long time, abandoned to the currents, searching for something to keep her from going over the high waterfall ahead.
She closed her eyes and huddled there, drifting. She knew most of the favorite verses by heart anyway. She and her mother had recited them together so often. As thoughts and images swam inside her head, she muttered heartfelt prayers, taking comfort from the holy writings. The wildfire fever grew hotter and hotter within her, burning behind her eyes.
Finally, when she was far separated from the world, from her room and the dark closet, from reality itself, she dreamed of a beautiful white woman, Saint Serena. Shining and smiling, the woman moved her lips and said something important to her, but Rayna could not make out the words. She begged the woman to make herself clear, but as soon as she thought she heard her, the vision wavered and faded.
Rayna sank into a deep, deep sleep….