A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [37]
The bodyguard nodded gruffly. “Shall I deliver them here for your inspection first, Liege?”
“I have no need to see what they are. Such things are irrelevant.”
Bron’n left, never questioning, always competent. With a sigh, Cyroc’h leaned back so that his pallid skin was bathed in colored sunlight. With uncharacteristic wistfulness, he recalled when he’d been simply the Prime Designate and could leave important decisions to his own father. He had enjoyed the benefits of being the firstborn noble son, virile and healthy, his hair long and free and crackling with life.
He had known that pressures and duties would eventually be placed upon his shoulders, but the time had seemed so far off when he would lose his manhood and gain the thism. It was the same for every Prime Designate. But such a day always came, eventually.
Almost two centuries ago, he remembered when his father, Mage-Imperator Yura’h, had received word about the first contact with human generation ships. The Solar Navy commanders, bureaucrats, and noble kithmen had pondered the meaning of this new and intelligent race that wandered clumsily between the stars without faster-than-light travel…
But that wasn’t the only thing. Cyroc’h also kept locked in his memory the knowledge of what the hydrogues had done ten thousand years ago, in the previous titanic war. Only Mage-Imperators carried the dread information from generation to generation. Hydrogues had never bothered to understand other races, interested only in cosmic battles against the wentals and the verdani, and their volatile alliance with the faeros. They did not comprehend planet-bound Ildirans or the Klikiss, and the Mage-Imperator desperately needed a new kind of bridge, a powerful and skilled ambassador who could forge an alliance in a way the hydrogues could understand.
His own father had concocted the idea of using humans to augment the long-term but faltering Dobro breeding plan. After Yura’h‘s death, the new leader Cyroc’h had continued the hybrid program. And so must Jora’h, much as he would hate it. Or it would never come to fruition.
And now, with so many different plans under way, with the hydrogues reappearing and the fate of the Ildiran Empire at stake—why was his mortal body showing its failings? Seized by malignant growths as if by some cosmic joke? Why now?
He wanted to shout his anger to the blazing suns in the Ildiran sky, or go to the ossuarium and demand solutions from the glowing skulls of his ancestors. But nothing would give him the answer he needed.
When two medical kithmen entered, they sealed the chamber doors, maintaining strict confidentiality. The doctors had large eyes and nimble, flexible hands bearing an extra finger each. Their skinpads were sensitive, able to detect increases or decreases in body temperature. Each doctor’s nose was broad, with enlarged nostrils; they could smell an illness and determine its source. Medical kithmen could perform invasive surgery or external pressure-point massage. They understood pharmaceuticals and treatments, and they always worked together on a diagnosis.
The Ildiran doctors proceeded to repeat the full set of body scans they had performed three times before, but it was merely an exercise; the Mage-Imperator already knew the results. Through his thism connection, he would always know whether they lied to him or tempered their fears. It was the curse of knowing too much.
“There can be no doubt, Liege,” the first medical kithman said. “It is growing inside you, spreading through your brain and nervous system. Treatment is not possible.”
Cyroc’h moved his corpulent arms. His legs had long since lost their ability to bear his weight. He would never walk again as the invasive tumors blistered his spine. He had suspected the truth for a long time, and he cursed his fate. He did not fear his own mortality, able to see glimpses of the dazzling plane of pure light beyond the realm of life. He feared only what would become of the Empire, which was far more important than his own existence.
He dismissed the medical kithmen.