The deadliest of poisons cannot be analyzed in any laboratory, for they are in the mind.
— RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL,
The Biology of the Soul
It had been nearly twenty years since the Omnius Scourge had swept across the League Worlds, leaving populations in ruins, and then burning itself out as the hardy survivors developed immunities and protected themselves with the spice melange. Still, from time to time pockets of the retrovirus still reappeared, forcing sudden and stringent containment measures to stop its resurgence.
After decades of adapting to the rich, chemical-saturated environment filled with strange fungi, lichens, and plant growths, a new strain emerged from the jungle canyons of Rossak— a mutated super-Scourge that far exceeded the mortality rate of even Rekur Van’s best genetic work.
League medical teams were called in; dwindling decontamination supplies and drugs were distributed. Specialists continued to face great risks to stamp out any new manifestation of the Omnius Scourge.
In the years since barely escaping the antitechnology mobs on Parmentier, and then reconnecting with Vorian Atreides after the Great Purge, Raquella Berto-Anirul and her companion Dr. Mohandas Suk had toured the League Worlds, plunging tirelessly into the hot spots. For HuMed— the Humanities Medical Commission— the pair of beleaguered physicians served as troubleshooters, traveling in the medical ship her grandfather had purchased for her, the LS Recovery. They cruised to more than thirty planets in their efforts to treat plague victims. No one knew more about the various forms of the Scourge than they did.
After the first reports, HuMed dispatched Raquella and Dr. Suk to face what became known as the Rossak Epidemic.
Other than its pharmaceutical merchants and drug distribution business, Rossak had always kept to itself. The Sorceresses were insular, preoccupied with their own work and claiming superiority over most people. Recognizing the hazard immediately, Ticia Cenva had imposed a draconian quarantine, refusing to let even the VenKee pharmaceutical ships depart. Rossak was completely walled off.
“It’ll make the quarantine more effective,” Mohandas said, quickly brushing his hand along her arm. “Easier to maintain.”
“But that won’t help any of the people down there,” Raquella pointed out. “The Supreme Sorceress has issued strict orders that anyone who comes to the surface will not be allowed to leave until the epidemic is officially over.”
“It’s a risk we’ve taken before.” Their medical ship took its place in a holding orbit, where it might have to remain for a long time.
“You should stay with the laboratories up here,” she said to him. “Keep working on the test samples I send up. I can go with some of the HuMed volunteers to administer our treatments.” Nothing they had developed so far was an actual cure, but the time-consuming and difficult treatments could clear the mysterious Compound X from a victim’s bloodstream and give the patient time to fight back the liver infection, keep him alive.
After so many years of working together, she and Mohandas had a strong collegial bond in addition to being lovers. Aboard the ship, Dr. Suk could work without interruption or fear of contamination, studying the new form of the Omnius retrovirus. So far, though, all indications were that the Rossak strain was far, far worse than the original Scourge.
Raquella was more interested in helping the afflicted people. She and her assistant Nortie Vandego shuttled down to the cliff cities in the habitable rift valleys. Vandego was a young woman with chocolate-brown skin and a cultured voice; she had graduated at the top of her class the year before, and then volunteered for this dangerous duty.
Arriving at a groundside processing facility, they went through a battery of tests themselves before being released to do their work. After long and unfortunate experience, Raquella knew to take thorough precautions, protecting their wet membranes, covering eyes, mouth, nose, and any open scratches— as well as consuming significant prophylactic doses of spice. “VenKee provides it all,” said one of the receiving doctors. “We get a shipment from Kolhar every few days. Norma Cenva never charges us.”
Raquella gave an appreciative smile as she accepted her ration of melange. “We had better get to the cliff city, so I can assess the magnitude of the problem.”
She and Vandego each carried a large, sealed container of diagnostic equipment as they headed across the spongy paved areas of the dense treetops. On their arms they wore patches bearing a crimson cross on a green background, the symbol of HuMed. High above them in orbit, Mohandas Suk would be waiting for a return shuttle to carry samples of infected tissue that he could culture and compare with antibodies obtained from those who had recovered from previous strains of the Scourge.
The air was filled with strange, peppery smells. People moved about on the ledges and stood in the open doorways of the cave cities. The tunnels looked like channels drilled into the cliff rock by hungry larvae.
Raquella heard the buzz of a bright green beetle as it dove out of dense purplish foliage, flew low along the polymerized leaves and canopy, then swooped higher above the treetops, its immense hard-shelled wings catching an updraft. The air was moist and oppressive from a recent tropical downpour. This place was rich with biological possibilities, festering and fecund. A perfect breeding ground for diseases, and possible cures.
Though their arrival was expected, along with other HuMed experts, no one came down from the cliff cities to meet them. “I’d think they would welcome us and our supplies,” Vandego said. “They’ve been cut off here and dying in droves, according to reports.”
Raquella squinted in the hazy daylight. “The Sorceresses don’t have much practice in asking for— or accepting— outside help. But this is one challenge that their mental powers cannot influence, unless they can control their bodies, one cell at a time.”
Raquella marched with her slender assistant toward the caves. When they reached the top level of the cliff openings, following walkways and bridges, they asked for directions to the hospital areas. Every tunnel and chamber seemed to be designated as infirmary space. Over half of the population was already affected, but the symptoms of the new Rossak Epidemic were variable and difficult to predict or treat. The death rate seemed to be significantly higher than the forty-three percent of the original Scourge.
The two HuMed women took a lift that dropped them along a channel on the outer face of the cliffs; the plunge was fast enough to make Raquella’s stomach queasy, as if even the lift was anxious for them to get started. As she and her companion stepped off, a small and dainty woman in a long, hoodless black robe greeted them inside an immense, high-ceilinged enclosure. Tiers, railings, and balconies rose above them. Statuesque women in black robes hurried along walkways, and darted in and out of rooms.
“Thank you for helping us here on Rossak. I am Karee Marques.” The young woman had shoulder-length pale hair, high cheekbones, and large emerald-green eyes.
“We’re anxious to begin work,” Raquella said.
Vandego looked around at all the gloomy black robes. “I thought the Sorceresses traditionally dressed in white.”
Karee frowned. The skin of her face was translucent, showing only a faint flush. “We wear black robes for mourning. Now it appears we may never stop, if these deaths continue.”
The young Sorceress led them through a central corridor, passing rooms filled with patients on makeshift beds. The facility appeared to be clean and well run, with black-robed women tending the patients, but she picked up the unmistakable odor of sour sickness and decaying flesh. In this devastating incarnation of the virus, pus-filled lesions on the skin gradually covered the entire body, killing the membranous skin cells, layer by layer.
Inside the largest grotto filled with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of patients in various stages of the disease, Raquella stared, reeling with the magnitude of the work to be done. She recalled Parmentier, how the Hospital for Incurable Diseases had struggled to make headway against the first manifestations of the epidemic. But it was like using a rag to mop up the tide.
Vandego swallowed hard. “So many! Where does one begin?”
Beside her, the black-robed young Sorceress stared, her eyes moist with frustration and grief. “In such a task, there is no beginning— and no end.”
* * *
FOR WEEKS, RAQUELLA toiled long hours with the patients, reducing their blistering pain with special medpacks that released supercooled melange gas into their pores. The medpacks were a joint invention she and Mohandas had developed. At the end of the Scourge so many years before, Raquella had hoped she would never need them again….
The Supreme Sorceress remained aloof, rarely bothering to visit or acknowledge Raquella’s presence. Ticia Cenva was a mysterious, elusive figure who seemed to float on air as she walked. Once, when they locked gazes from thirty meters away, Raquella thought she detected hostility or strange fear in the woman’s expression before Ticia hurried away.
The women on Rossak had always been very self-sufficient, ready to proclaim their superiority over others, demonstrating their mental powers. Perhaps, Raquella thought, the Supreme Sorceress did not want to admit that she was incapable of protecting her own people.
At a communal meal for the volunteer medical workers, Raquella asked Karee about her. The younger woman said in a low voice, “Ticia doesn’t trust others, especially outsiders such as yourself. She is more afraid of the Sorceresses appearing weak than she is of the virus. And… there are things here on Rossak that we would prefer to keep away from prying eyes.”
For a full week before requesting urgent aid from HuMed, Ticia Cenva and her Sorceresses had worked to combat the spreading plague in the cliffside cities, using their own cellular and genetic knowledge. They even turned to native herbs and drugs provided by the VenKee pharmaceutical researchers, who were also stranded on the planet due to the quarantine. But none of the attempts had been successful.
VenKee headquarters on Kolhar shipped massive amounts of melange, in hopes the spice could aid in staving off another League-wide outbreak. While Mohandas Suk worked diligently in his sterile orbital lab aboard the Recovery, Raquella sent regular samples up to him, along with personal notes, often telling him that she missed him. He reported back periodically, summarizing the variations he saw in the Rossak strain, the difficult resistance this new retrovirus showed to the barely effective treatments they had used last time….
Raquella became known for her gentle ways with patients, alleviating their pain and dealing with each of them as important individuals. She had learned her hospice methods long ago in the Hospital for Incurable Diseases. More often than not, her patients died. It was the nature of the new epidemic. She stared down at an aged and respected Sorceress who shuddered her last watery breath, then sank into stillness. It was a peaceful end, far different from the convulsions and psychic uproar caused by some of the victims who experienced heavy delirium before fading into unconsciousness.
“If that is your best effort, it isn’t good enough.” Ticia Cenva stood close behind her, her face frustrated and angry; streaks of tears had long ago dried on her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Raquella replied, not knowing what else to say. “We will find a better treatment.”
“You had better do it soon.” Ticia swept her gaze through the crowded infirmary as if the whole epidemic was Raquella’s fault. Her face hardened into the bony features of a raven.
“I came to help, not prove my superiority.” Raquella excused herself quickly and went to another ward, where she continued her work.