The Web and the Stars Page 18

  Finally, with control over a mounting treasury, he sent word down to the officers on Ignem that he wanted to spend the funds on improving the army. In a return message, they declined his offer.

  Ipsy seethed, but refused to give up.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Life always rises from death … in infinite, and sometimes startling, forms.

  —Tulyan Wisdom

  It was unlike anything seen in a medical journal in the history of mankind, or in the annals of any other galactic race. Dr. Hurk Bichette, at first horrified and repulsed at what Francella did to her own brother, now stared in disbelief at the grisly scene before him … Noah’s bleeding, severed body parts piled inside a clearplax-covered life-support unit.

  Did something just move there? The doctor wasn’t sure, and the gauges showed nothing at all, no sign of life. The system, particularly the mini-atmosphere of the large, coffin-sized enclosure housing the remains, was supposed to preserve any life that remained, but that probably didn’t amount to anything at all. The trauma to the body had been so severe that no one, not even a person imbued with the powers Noah had displayed, could recover from it.

  Alone in a small, heavily guarded chamber, Bichette walked slowly around the plax case containing the grisly remains of the body, chunks of flesh, bone, and brain matter. On the left, a fragment of skull with Noah’s red hair on it, matted with blood. In the center an eyeball, severed and amazingly intact, staring into nowhere … no change there in the forty-two hours since the horrific incident.

  Punching buttons on a panel, he brought up original holophotos of the remains, and compared them with what he was looking at now. Everything was the same, except for the increasing decay, and the stench. Disappointment filled him.

  From a medical standpoint, it was more a matter of observing and hooking up monitoring equipment than anything else; this wasn’t the sort of patient who could be helped by any known medical treatment. Noah had to recover on his own, drawing resources from his secret, mysterious source.

  Bichette rubbed his own eyes. They must be playing tricks on him. Even through the sealed plax, Bichette could still smell the putrid odors of blackened, decaying flesh, a smell that seemed to permeate everything. He didn’t think he could ever put it out of his memory, or erase the recollection of what he had seen the madwoman do … his demented boss.

  In the background, from another room of the medical complex, he heard Francella shouting at someone. The day before, the two of them had reached an understanding, that she would stay away from Noah from now on and not interfere in any way with procedures that needed to be done. She said she just wanted a vial of Noah’s blood, which she took with her. The conversation seemed moot now. A mortician would be of more use here than a doctor.

  No, wait. What is that?

  Bichette stopped dead in his tracks, and watched in astonishment as the damaged brain matter writhed and gathered together, then stopped moving. Moments passed. Slowly, the brain matter began to combine with a mass of flesh, and then inched toward the intact, still motionless eyeball.

  A wave of fear passed through Bichette. He started to yell for his assistants, but changed his mind. The doctor felt a personal connection to this case, almost an ownership over it.

  I’m witnessing medical history.

  How could the body possibly be regenerating, after such severe trauma? With cellular material destroyed and gone, what was he using for nutrients, for energy? Flesh and bones should not be able to grow out of nothing. Medical science was not magical. And yet, this was happening anyway, defying the most basic laws of science and creation.

  * * * * *

  The mass of brain and flesh had now encircled the eyeball, touching it, cradling it like a precious child. Abruptly the eyeball moved, and looked directly at Bichette.

  The doctor stood frozen in his tracks.

  Moment by moment, the flesh and bone gathered and metamorphosed, while a holocamera recorded everything.

  Some would call the creature before him an abomination, and Bichette knew he had to keep information about it from going public. That would only invite unwelcome inquiries, and perhaps even worse—an attack on the facility by the Guardians. Already they had made a commando assault on Max One, where Noah used to be kept.

  By the end of the morning, the entire head had regenerated, and it lay face up with facial features that clarified minute by minute, bringing out the scarred, one-eyed countenance of Noah Watanabe. The top of his skull had patches of reddish hair that were gradually filling in. The missing eye began to emerge from the skull and take shape. Through the changes, the face grimaced, as if in continuing pain, and no sounds came forth. Wounds healed, but at the bottom of the head, where the brain stem remained visible, the ragged tissue did not cauterize, and remained open and moist with blood.

  As all of this occurred, the life-support system collected information and transmitted it to the gauges. The vital signs were weak, but improving. This creature—and that was all Bichette could call it at the moment—did not have any body, but it still had an erratic pulse.

  Hours passed. All of the remaining cellular material began to gather at the base of the skull where the brain stem had remained exposed, and gradually covered it over. By the end of the afternoon, the head had become the seed of a new body, which grew from the neck down, filling in the upper body and then the rest … the arms, hands, legs, feet. In all respects, it appeared to match Noah’s previous form, with scars that continued to heal and fade.

  At last, in the middle of the night the process stopped, and the instruments showed that Noah—as if exhausted from the effort—was slipping into a fitful slumber. He kept drifting off, but every few moments he would suddenly twitch and reawaken. The eyes looked blankly at Bichette.

  All through the process, as Noah’s features solidified and the scars disappeared, his face had been a mask of pain. The suffering had been troubling to the doctor, but he had been afraid to administer medications out of fear that they might interfere with the arcane regeneration processes occurring in the body. But now, looking at the intact, regenerated person, he took the chance. Opening a panel in the life-support case, he injected a powerful mix of opiates into Noah, then closed the case.

  According to the instruments, Noah slipped into more comfortable sleep, going deeper and deeper through the stages, but occasionally coming back to REM state, dreaming.

  Afraid something might go wrong, Bichette remained at his side, and checked the monitoring mechanisms on the plax case, including the alarm system. Finally, assured that he could do no more for the moment, the doctor fell asleep himself, on a gurney.…

  * * * * *

  During the entire restoration process Noah had been linked to Timeweb in its alternate dimension, a cosmic intravenous line feeding nutrients into his body, from one realm to another. During the restoration process, he’d been thinking of venture deeper into the cosmic realm, but had been too fatigued for any attempt. He felt pain in every muscle, bone, and joint of his body.

  He had also thought of Tesh, recalling in particular the intelligent beauty of her face and the confident way she comported herself. Noah wondered how she was doing, and hoped all was well with her.

  Then he became aware of the medications kicking in, dulling his senses. At first Noah was angered at the intrusion, feeling his abilities slow and his mind reel back in. As moments passed, however, he welcomed the drugs and the relief they gave him from all of his troubles.

  * * * * *

  Very little occurred in the CorpOne medical laboratories without the knowledge of Francella Watanabe. Either she received reports on the various activities, or she could see them firsthand, through holocams inside the principal laboratory rooms.

  From her office in the complex, she had watched the entire process in three-dimensional holo-images that floated in the air. It had been almost as good as being in the room with her brother and Bichette, and had the advantage of keeping her at a distance, pr
eventing her from interfering with the unknown forces that were bringing Noah back to life.

  Too often she had stormed around the building, yelling at people, venting her frustrations, even slashing the face of a scientist as he cowered in her presence and tried to fend off the surgical knife she swung at him. The man had been lucky to escape her full rage. In fact, she’d had to use all of her willpower to avoid going into the chamber where all of the real action was occurring.

  While slashing at the scientist and chasing him down the corridor, she had demanded answers from him. “What will happen if I inject Noah’s blood into my own body? I’m his fraternal twin. What bearing will that have?”

  “I don’t know,” he had whimpered. “I just don’t know.”

  “Get out of my sight, then!”

  The wounded man had disappeared around a corner, presumably to find a doctor himself. The fool was lucky she didn’t kill him.

  Now at the end of a long day, Francella did not feel any weariness at all. Curiously, while she loathed her brother and wanted only the worst for him, she felt exhilaration at his Lazarus trick, since it confirmed to her that his blood had supernatural powers. She could use it to gain eternal life for herself. Doctors and medical-research scientists knew nothing of immortality; she shouldn’t even have asked them about it. They only knew how to treat injuries and illnesses, and how to analyze diseases.

  Nothing like this.

  In fact, this sort of thing, if widespread, did not bode well for the medical profession at all. With death vanquished, people would not need doctors. But those professions did not need to worry, since she would not permit the secret to get out. Even if he could not be killed, her brother could still be kept in captivity and used for whatever purposes she desired. She envisioned Noah continually providing her with blood and other cellular materials, a lab animal kept alive to be milked of its nutrients.

  The excited woman smiled to herself. In the low light of her office, she stared at the vial of blood that sat on her desk, at the rich, wine-colored elixir inside the small plax container. She touched the surface of the plax, and knew she had the secret of perpetual life at her fingertips.

  Connecting the vial to a dermex medical instrument, she pressed it against her left arm, injecting the contents into her own bloodstream.

  As the fluid raced into her veins, Francella felt supremely confident. It was said that twins had special, even paranormal connections, and she had convinced herself that this was true. The demented woman thought she was giving herself eternal life, but in reality something quite unanticipated would occur.…

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I think about my sister often. Sometimes I imagine that I already know her better than I know myself.

  —Noah Watanabe

  Like a fetus to an umbilical cord, Noah had remained linked to Timeweb during the intense ordeal of his physical restoration, as he returned to life, defying all odds. He had, in a very real sense, gone through a remarkable process of rebirth, on a scale beyond that of any other creature who had ever walked the worlds of the universe, or moved from star system to star system.

  The drugs administered to Noah had caused his mind to release its tensions, which should have enabled him to drift into peaceful, restful slumber. But the act of letting go had resulted in an unexpected consequence. Through a veil of consciousness, he saw his sister in her private office, removing a dermex unit from her arm. With a satisfied smile on her face, she leaned back on her chair and closed her eyes.

  Noah felt himself forming into a mist as he had done before. Looking down, he saw that it had again taken the shape of his physical form. It floated around the room, even touching Francella briefly when he passed close. The moment the mist came into contact with her, she opened her eyes and sat straight up.

  Since he was her twin, Noah sensed how deeply troubled she was, and he knew that virtually all of the hatred she could muster—a considerable amount, indeed—was focused on him, even though she did not know he was there with her. He realized as well that there was nothing he could do about it. She would always feel that way, to the last breath she took. Her wide-open eyes reflected the internal sea of her madness.

  He saw her shiver and shudder. She grabbed a coat, hurried to the door, and rushed out into the corridor.

  Noah followed, a mist in her wake that clung to her like a shadow.

  “You sense I’m here, don’t you?” he shouted.

  Nervously, she looked behind her, and almost tripped as she picked up her pace and left the building. He heard the noises she was making, but didn’t know if she could hear him. Just another oddity added to the long list he was accumulating in his mind.

  A limocar took her home, and Noah stayed with her all the way, riding invisibly on the seat beside her. She kept twitching, looking around, talking to herself and scrunching in a corner, trying to assure herself that she was not crazy, that she just needed some rest. “I’ve been working too hard,” she said.

  He was enjoying this, making her nervous, lingering where she couldn’t do anything about it.

  Once, just before they got out of the limocar at her palatial home, she passed her hand through the air where Noah sat in his misty form, but her expression was perplexed and she said nothing about him, didn’t use his name.

  The vehicle was coming to a stop, still rolling slowly, when she leapt out, ran inside the main entrance of her home and locked the door behind her. Francella then instructed her personal servants to lock all doors and windows, and to draw the shades in every room.

  As the attendants scurried about their business, Noah stuck to her, trying to scuff against the skin of her arms and face whenever he could, which had the effect of further agitating her. She went straight to bed, fully clothed, and pulled the covers over her head.

  Noah took that as a barrier. Even in this circumstance, where he was functioning outside of his corporal form, he didn’t want any hint of incest. Instead, he would wait for her to awaken, and would resume the torment.

  He realized as he did these things that he had stooped low (though nowhere near to her level), and he felt shame, but only a modicum of it. His rage gave him righteousness, and more than anything he wanted to see her dead.

  Now he felt full shame. This was not like him, not at all. As he watched her sleep—the lump under the covers—he felt his resolve weakening. At the same time his connection to the ethereal realm seemed to slip. The images in her bedroom grew more faint. He heard Francella snoring, and felt himself floating involuntarily back to the locked room in the laboratory where they kept him.…

  * * * * *

  When Francella awoke the following morning, troubling thoughts of the incident still clung to her like raindrops from a storm. But she reminded herself that she had been fatigued when the strange energy seemed to chase her out of the office, and she ascribed it to her own imagination.

  She hoped it was that, wanted to think it was, and that it had nothing to do with the blood she had injected.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  There are many forms of children. They do not always need a physical form in order to breathe.

  —Saying of the Sirikan Hill People

  For weeks, Princess Meghina had been making clandestine visits to a man, always in the middle of the night. Wearing a dark, hooded cloak, she moved silently down a rock-walled corridor, clinging to pockets of darkness.

  As a renowned courtesan, this was not particularly unusual behavior on her part. She liked to be discreet. Her customary appointments, however, were with princes and other refined noblemen, from the best families in the galaxy. The man she was seeing now had noble blood, but only on his paternal side. He didn’t live in a magnificent palace or a castle on a hill. The object of her affection was a prisoner in the Doge’s prison, but not a lowly detainee. This one had status.

  She had paid off the right guards with Sirikan gemstones, and thus far her secret remained intact. Since first laying eyes on Anton Glavine at t
he pod station where he was arrested, Meghina had felt an instant attraction. It was always like that with the men in her life, an immediate connection that soon became physical.

  But to test herself, she always liked to go through a selection process with her potential paramours. Anton was far more handsome than most of them, but that had little to do with it, as far as she was concerned. Of utmost importance, each of her lovers needed to occupy a special and unique niche in the galaxy; they must not be cut from cookie-cutter molds.

  Her dear Prince Saito Watanabe had qualified with flying colors. The self-made tycoon, born into relative obscurity, had raised himself by his own hard labors and force of personality. As for the Doge Lorenzo del Velli, he had his own individuality, particularly his forward-thinking way of elevating commoners to nobility based upon their accomplishments in life. He had done exactly that with Saito, with Jacopo Nehr, and with others. It took courage for him to take those actions, bucking thousands of years of noble tradition. The hardships that her prospective lover, Anton Glavine, was going through now would ultimately build his character. She liked that in a man.

  As Princess Meghina hurried down the corridor, she reminded herself that she also had an important humanitarian purpose in mind. It was obvious to her that the mysterious young man had not been treated in a manner befitting his station. He was, after all, the son of Doge Lorenzo, and could even become the ruler of the Merchant Prince Alliance one day, given the right political winds. But she didn’t care about the politics.

  It struck her with some excitement that she had never done anything quite like this before, grooming a relationship to this extent, and she laughed a bit at herself. Perhaps she was going a bit “rock happy,” losing some of her senses from being confined to one planet, albeit a large and wealthy one. For much of her life she had flitted between glittering worlds, and her restriction to this one made her feel dismal much of the time.