I sense a myth enfolding me, or is it a true vision? Great things will arise from my Sisters, provided they can be chosen with adequate care.
— REVEREND MOTHER RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL
Raquella’s return to life after her near-fatal bout with the mutated Scourge gave her a second chance, and an unexpected resource, to save the dying population.
Jimmak sat beside her against the stone wall of a crowded recovery room, sharing food he had scrounged from the jungle. He seemed to think everything was back to normal. Raquella could barely look at the placid young man, fearing that her guilt would show, because she planned to betray his trust… his simple request. But morally, she had no choice. Every delay cost more and more lives.
“Jimmak, would you make me more of your special tea, please?”
“Doctor Lady still weak?”
“No, I’m feeling better. But I’d still like some. Please?”
Happily, he scuttled off. Once he was gone on her make-work errand, Raquella removed the still-soaked garments she had stored beneath the suspensor gurney. Careful to preserve every drop, she sealed the clothes inside waterproof films and packaged them in a sample container.
Then, working alone in a small lab, Raquella also drew several vials of her own blood. Between the curative chemicals lacing the cenote’s water and the antibodies in her blood, perhaps Mohandas could find the key. She dispatched the samples in a fast shuttle up to the LS Recovery with a message, begging him to work swiftly. For good measure, she also offered a prayer.
Jimmak returned with a cup of his bitter herbal tea, along with a glass of water for himself. He sat beside her, smiling. “Glad I could help.”
“Maybe you can help these other sick people, too.” Her voice was heavy.
He looked frightened. “No. Can’t take anyone else to the water. You promised.”
With a cold smile, Raquella acknowledged that his fear of Ticia Cenva was legitimate. Far from being relieved by Raquella’s recovery, the woman had actually seemed angry and suspicious. If the Supreme Sorceress thought the Misborn had found a cure, she would hate them just for doing what she could not. The same reasons lay at the core of her increasingly irrational resentment toward the HuMed doctors and researchers.
“Yes, I promised.” But I have also sworn an oath to help those in need of my medical skills….
Late that evening, Mohandas sent a hurried transmission to tell her his preliminary results, amazed at what he had found. He had not yet determined the specific chemical composition of the alkaloids, minerals, and long-chain molecules that pervaded the water of the subterranean pool. It seemed impossible to duplicate or synthesize— like the spice melange itself.
From the blood samples, he concluded that something peculiar had happened inside Raquella’s body, a biochemical transformation he had never seen before. The battle between the retrovirus and the strange chemicals in the cenote had done something to her biochemistry, changing her in fundamental ways.
Hoping he could produce a vaccine or a drug, Mohandas urged her to send many more liters of the cenote water, but she could not help him.
Frustrated to have a solution so close at hand, Mohandas said, “Every delay is a further death sentence for these people, Raquella. With the small amount of water I got from your garments, it’s nearly impossible to run all the tests I need to do. How am I to isolate and synthesize the effective ingredient?” His face looked as wan and weary as her own. She wondered if he ever slept, even up in his safe orbital lab. “Can’t you take us to the source? I need many liters more. Where did this water come from?”
Her love and admiration for him was clear and undiminished… and yet she had already committed enough of a betrayal. Raquella doubted she could even find the pool again. Certainly, Jimmak would never help her. “I… can’t, Mohandas.”
But each time she heard the moans of the sick in the huge infirmary cave chambers, every day as she looked at the tally of dead, smelled the stench of funeral pyres as stacks of bodies were burned out on the barren plateau above the jungle, her conscience cried out for her to do something.
Since she had returned, a high percentage of the remaining Sorceresses— more than half of them— had suddenly come down with the plague, as if their immune systems had given out simultaneously. More distrustful than ever, Ticia Cenva stood defiant and haggard, as if to prove that her own hard determination and mental powers would transcend the worst ravages of the epidemic.
Raquella harbored no personal animosity toward the Supreme Sorceress, except for how she had treated her son. Her harsh ways might have served her community well during the fury of the Jihad, when numerous Rossak women had sacrificed themselves to obliterate the enemy cymeks. But the resurgence of the epidemic was something she could not fight.
As Raquella pondered, an odd but importunate thought intruded. Now that I’ve recovered, Ticia sees me as a threat. That’s why she doesn’t want the others to be around me. Does she believe I want to lead the Sorceresses myself? If I succeed here, then in her view it will mean that she has failed.
Only women born on Rossak had ever exhibited the boosted mental powers that made them into the famed Sorceresses. No offworlder had even been considered worthy of joining them. Yet, Raquella had been dramatically influenced by the planet herself, cured in the mysterious cenote, her chemistry altered down to the cellular level. She could feel it inside her, a mental metamorphosis that had come from being physically annealed in the mutated Scourge.
She hoped Mohandas Suk would find something soon, even a trial serum to save a few of the worst-afflicted women.
Looking down at Jimmak, she saw him gazing back at her with the adoration of a child for its mother. It was a peculiar sensation for Raquella. This slow-witted young man had given so much to help her, taken such personal risks without concern for his own safety.
The thought saddened her. I have to make certain he isn’t harmed by what I have done.
Raquella watched the landing lights of a shuttle coming down from orbit to the wide paved treetops. She recognized the configuration of the HuMed transport, and her heart surged. “I have to go meet Dr. Suk.”
Jimmak beamed at her, cheerful and oblivious to her agony of indecision. “Need help?”
“No, I want you to go to the Misborn, ask them if they’ll reconsider. The cenote water can save so many— “
His alarmed expression was like a knife in her heart. “They won’t!”
She squeezed his shoulder, showing compassion. “Please try one more time. For me.” As she touched him, she planted a tiny tracer in the fabric of his loose, stained shirt. When he ran out into the dense jungle, the small device would send out a signal to pinpoint the location of the cenote.
He trotted off.
With a leaden heart, she hurried out into Rossak’s mysterious night, stepping across the spongy polymerized canopy. The landing area lights bathed the treetops in a harsh yellow-white glow. None of the Rossak men or women came to greet the shuttle; all routines had shut down entirely with the epidemic.
When the medical craft’s airlock cycled and the hatch opened, a man emerged wearing a white-and-green decontamination suit adorned with the crimson cross of HuMed. She recognized Mohandas from his movements and mannerisms. He carried a sealed case and waved eagerly at her, smiling behind his faceplate. Even through the helmet, she could see his look of fresh enthusiasm. “This is a new trial vaccine— it shows some promise, but only more of your miracle water would be sufficiently effective.”
Raquella glanced away. “I… that may change soon.” Looking into his dark brown eyes, she saw the hope and enthusiasm there. She wanted to kiss him, return to orbit with him, and just spend a day holding him, feeling him against her in their cabin aboard the LS Recovery. But that wasn’t possible. Not until the epidemic was over.
“It may not be soon enough, Raquella. We have to try everything. I’ve contacted the Supreme Sorceress and arranged for her to help administer this new sample.”
Taken aback, Raquella hesitated. “Ticia actually agreed to help?”
“She intends to administer the vaccine personally.” He spoke with a voice of authority. “It’s political, I think. She wants to be in the loop.”
Raquella wasn’t surprised. She accepted the case of vials from Dr. Suk. “I’ll let you know if it works.”
“There’s enough here for a dozen test cases,” he said. “But I’m ready to ramp up to full-scale production in the orbiting lab. We can’t wait— “
Ticia Cenva strode out of the cliffside opening and across the canopy, accompanied by three black-robed Sorceresses. “I will take those. I am in charge here.”
Raquella did not want to antagonize the volatile woman. “I’ll help you administer the vaccines. This could be our best hope.” Until I find the cenote and its healing water….
“We don’t require your assistance.” A glint of barely suppressed hostility flickered in Ticia’s eyes.
“So you have said for weeks.” Raquella tried to keep the edge out of her voice. “But you saw my symptoms— I clearly had a fatal case of the Scourge. I was in the final phase, from which no one else has ever recovered. I am the only one.”
“Perhaps your remission is only temporary.” The tall, pale woman took the vials, nodded curtly to Mohandas as he stood in front of his shuttle. “If this serum works, then you are all welcome to leave Rossak as soon as possible.”
She and the other women marched back into the cliffside doorway. Raquella sighed but maintained her high hopes. If nothing else, Jimmak would inadvertently lead them to the cenote soon.