One cannot understand humanity without taking a sufficiently long view. We are in an excellent position to achieve this.
— Rossak Archives,
“Statement of Purpose”
The bloodlines of humanity formed an intricate and beautiful tapestry, but only for those who were able to see it. The warp and weft of DNA threaded from family to family, generation to generation. Nucleotide sequences combined and recombined, shuffling genes, creating a near-infinite number of human patterns. Not even the Omnius evermind could comprehend the potential that lay within beings that sprang from this awe-inspiring double-helix molecule.
Ticia Cenva and the Sorceresses of Rossak had taken on that project as their charge and their quest.
Deep inside the cliff cities, far from the sounds and smells of the silvery-purple jungle, far from the scars left by the recent attacks of the swarming piranha mites, Ticia stood with one of her tall, pale sisters inspecting their vital— and highly illegal— computers. These record-keeping devices were anathema to the League of Nobles, yet here they were absolutely necessary. The Rossak women had no other way to sort and manage the overwhelming genealogical data they had acquired. The Sorceresses kept many deep secrets from the rest of humanity, and this was one of their boldest.
For generations the Sorceresses had maintained breeding records of all the families on this one planet. The environment of Rossak played havoc with human DNA, causing frequent mutations— some of which were horrific embarrassments, while others actually improved the species. The information collated during the Scourge offered them vastly more data to track and study.
Turning to the woman beside her, a young Sorceress named Karee Marques, Ticia said, “Now that we have compiled the basic bloodline data and followed many possible permutations, just imagine what we can do with this amazing information. Now we can finally put it to use.” She pressed her pale lips together and admired the computers. “Projections. Perfection. Who knows what new human potential we can uncover? Our limitations can be erased. In fact, why should we stop at attempting the merely superhuman? There may be abilities we have not yet dreamed of.”
She and Karee left the database rooms with their humming circulatory systems and power generators. The genetic computers were kept safe and shielded.
The two women entered one of the communal dining halls where a group of Sorceresses and their young female trainees gathered for a brief meal and quiet conversation. Ticia had arranged this place for the women to dine together so that they could speak of relevant problems rather than endure the inane chatter of the men about business interests. As the Supreme Sorceress took a seat, women and their students looked up and gave nods of respect to her.
The pleasant mood, though, was broken by a disturbance in the hall, people calling out, a slurred male voice. A short, broad-shouldered young man staggered in, helping another man walk. The young man’s legs were short, his mop of blond hair disheveled. “Need help. Man sick.”
Ticia drew her mouth into a tight frown of disapproval. Jimmak Tero was one of the Misborn, a birth defect who had lived. His face was wide and round, his forehead sloped, his blue eyes innocent and wide-set. He had a sweet disposition that did not make up for his dull intellect. Despite her constant scorn, Ticia had never been able to convince Jimmak that he simply wasn’t welcome in the cliff city with all the normal people. He kept coming back.
“Man sick,” Jimmak repeated. “Need help.”
Jimmak half walked, half dragged the man to a seat at one of the dining tables. The man slumped face first onto the table. He wore a VenKee jumpsuit with many tools and pockets and sample pouches. He was one of the pharmaceutical prospectors who wandered through the Rossak jungle. Jimmak, a feral child, often helped such people out, showing them around the convoluted maze of the jungle’s darkest levels.
Ticia came forward. “Why have you brought him here? What happened?”
Karee Marques stayed by Ticia’s side. Jimmak helped to roll the man over. Karee gasped when she saw his face. Neither of them had seen such symptoms in almost two decades, but the signs were unmistakable. “The Scourge!”
Many of the women in the dining room stood up quickly, and withdrew. Ticia’s breath came quick in her mouth, drying her tongue and her throat. She forced her voice to be calm and analytical. She could not afford to let them see her flinch. “Perhaps. But if so, it’s a different strain. There’s a flush in his cheeks and discoloration in his eyes. But those blotches on his face are different….” She sensed an indefinable certainty deep inside that told her what should have taken hours of testing to determine. “But basically, I believe it is the same virus.”
Ticia had known that the thinking-machine threat was not at an end. Although Omnius had attacked them with piranha mites, Norma’s warning had been extreme, hinting at a far greater disaster than the mechanical mites. Perhaps the crashed pods had also contained the RNA retrovirus… or more likely the disease had simply gone dormant on Rossak, where it could have spent years brewing in the jungle, mutating, growing deadlier.
“He’s going to die,” Ticia said, looking at the drug prospector, then turned her stern gaze on Jimmak. “Why didn’t you take care of him yourself? That way he might have infected all of you Misborn and put you out of your misery.” Energy crackled in her blond-white hair as her anger began to slip out of control. But Ticia focused her concentration again. “You shouldn’t have brought him to us, Jimmak.”
The young man stared at her with his bovine eyes, looking hurt and disappointed.
“Go!” she snapped. “And if you find more victims, don’t bring them here.”
Jimmak scuttled away, moving backward with a clumsy grace. When he turned away, his gait was awkward, his head hunched down, as if trying to hide.
Staring after him, Ticia shook her head, ignoring the plague victim for the moment. She resented the Misborn for making a squalid living for themselves out in the jungle instead of just dying from their defects. No one knew how many of them there were. She would have despised all of them even if one— Jimmak— had not been her own son.