“What’s the cure?” Bradok repeated.
“Sad to say, there isn’t one,” Corin answered, shaking his head. “Anyone infected down here is usually sent to a Zhome colony, often in a deep cave accessible only by an elevator.”
Rose gasped.
“What happens when they change into Rhizomorphs?” Bradok asked, his concern growing.
“The Rhizos usually don’t let it go that far,” Corin said. “Once one of their number starts showing the signs, they take him to a magma flow and throw him in.” A sick look flitted over Corin’s face, but it passed quickly. “Well, it has to be done, doesn’t it? That prevents the spores from spreading.”
Rose’s eyes were flashing with fear. “You seem to know a lot about this disease,” Rose said. “And you don’t sound very sympathetic.”
Corin nodded sadly. “Oh, I’m sympathetic. Maybe I’m just hardened by all my years of experience. My elder brother contracted the Zhome when I was just a boy,” he added. “My mother went to the visitors’ rock every week to see him and cheer him up.”
“How did he contract the disease?” Bradok asked. “I thought you said that all the spores were contained.”
“He didn’t get it from inhaling spores,” Corin said. “If you get the Zhome that way, you’d become a full blown Rhizomorph in a matter of hours.”
“How, then?” Rose demanded.
Corin shook his head. “No one knows. There were always a few cases a year, but none of them ever had any factors in common. The Zhome just seemed to strike without rhyme or reason.”
“What happened to your brother in the end?” Rose asked, her voice small.
“One week, my mother went to see him, but he wasn’t there. One of the others told her that he’d crossed over.” He sighed and slumped his shoulders, as if the memories carried a heavy weight with them. “My mother couldn’t handle the tragedy,” he said. “She went mad with grief. Father and I tried to keep her calm with various medicines, but finally she killed herself.”
Bradok put a comforting hand on Corin’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off. “I don’t think you’d better do that,” he said, taking a small step back. “At least until I know which of you isn’t feeling so well.”
Bradok cast a worried look at Rose, who involuntarily covered her bandaged arm.
“All right,” Corin said, stepping back into the light. “Let’s see.”
Rose hesitantly unwrapped her arm, and Corin took another step back. He looked at Bradok and nodded.
“It’s the Zhome all right,” he said with feeling.
“What can we do?” Bradok asked.
“Call Thurl,” Corin said with no trace of humor.
“What?” Rose and Bradok asked together.
“He knows ways to make death quick and painless,” Corin said. He pointed at Rose’s arm. “Death by the Zhome is neither, and to be honest, her Zhome might pose a danger to the rest of us.”
“So it’s contagious?” Rose gasped, looking at Bradok with terrified eyes.
“That’s just it,” Corin said. “I keep telling you. No one knows how the Zhome is spread.” He nodded at the bandage in Rose’s left hand. “By exposing it to us here, you might have doomed us as well.”
“I didn’t know,” Rose said, sounding defeated. “I only discovered this, uh, sore, when I was bathing recently.”
“With the women!” Corin gasped. “All the women could be infected.”
“Stop!” Bradok said. “This is pointless. You’re just scaring her. We don’t know how many women are infected or how dangerous this disease is, really.” He addressed Rose directly, feeling he had to say something to comfort her. “Much of what Corin has said is hearsay.”
Corin snorted, though he looked at Rose sympathetically.
“Wrap that back up for now,” Bradok said to Rose.
“We can’t let her back with the rest,” Corin said in a low voice.
“She voted to let you come with us,” Bradok retorted. “Besides, we have to. If the rest get a whiff of what you suspect, we’ll have a genuine panic on our hands. Even more people will die. Whoever has the disease now, has it.”
He looked from Corin to Rose until they both nodded.
“I propose we let Tal take a look at it,” Bradok continued. “There may be a reason why our people don’t normally get this disease. Maybe we carry a special immunity sometimes, or maybe Tal has some medicine that will treat it.”
Corin shrugged and Rose looked hopeful.
“It’s worth a shot,” Bradok said at last.
Ten minutes later Tal was peering through a bit of magnifying glass at the strange, gray patch on Rose’s arm.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he declared, looking up from the glass. “I’ve never even heard of anything like it.”
“Believe me, Doctor,” Corin said. “I know what it is, and it’s all too real.”
Tal took out a small needle and poked the gray skin.
“Did you feel that?” Tal asked.
Her face pale, Rose shook her head.
“I wonder,” her brother said, digging around in his pack for a moment. He emerged with a small, short bladed knife.
“What are you going to do with that?” Rose asked.
“Trust me, Sister,” he said then slid the sharp edge of the knife over the top of the infected area. He reached down with a curved metal prong and pulled open the skin, revealing a shallow cut. The flesh seemed rubbery, like a stiff pudding, with strange yellow veins running through it. Tal poked and prodded the exposed flesh with the point of the knife.
“You can’t feel any of that?” he said.
“No,” Rose answered dispiritedly.
Tal ran his knife along the cut again, slicing deeper.
“Ow,” Rose said, flinching as blood blossomed and began to seep up through the wound.
Tal released Rose’s arm and leaned back against the passage wall for a moment, his face screwed up in thought.
“It looks like the disease is transforming her skin,” he said. “Taking it over. ‘Occupying’ is what doctors sometimes say.”
Corin nodded. “What’d I tell you? Eventually she’ll start growing mushrooms. That’ll be the beginning of the end.”
Tal shot the Daergar a dark look. “Well,” Tal said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “The affected area’s not too big or too deep. Why can’t I just try to cut it out?”
“Does that work?” Bradok asked Corin, who just shrugged.
“I don’t know about cutting. My people believe the Zhome is an infallible death sentence. I’m sure they tried all sorts of things in the beginning, cutting, purifying, even praying. Nowadays they just send infected people to the colony.”
Rose stuck out her arm. “Cut it,” she commanded.
“There’s likely to be a fair amount of pain and blood,” Tal said, hesitating. “Not to mention scarring. If what Corin says is true, I’ll have to cut as deep as possible, past the affected tissue.”
“So get started,” she said again, sounding as though she had been injected with hope.
Tal exchanged looks with Bradok, who pursed his lips, frowning. “It’s worth trying,” Bradok said finally.
Tal dug into his bag and pulled out a silver flask. He gently pulled out the cork. Bradok could smell the potent dwarf spirits from where he stood. The smell caught Corin’s attention too. Neither had known that Tal was carrying any liquor.
“Take a swig of this,” Tal said, passing it to Rose. “Only one swallow, mind you. I don’t want you acting like a schoolgirl all of a sudden and running naked through the cave later.”
Rose blushed redder than her hair.
“That only happened once,” she said, half to her brother, half to Bradok, before her face cleared and she pushed the flask away. “I don’t need anything to bolster my courage.”
“You’re going to need something for the pain,” Tal insisted.
Rose shook her head. “If I cry out, even once, it’ll bring everyone in the cavern running,” she said. “Better that I keep my wits about me.”
Tal’s face clouded. “I tell you, this is not going to be pleasant,” he warned.
“We’ve been down here so long,” Rose said with the hint of a wink, “that I don’t even remember what ‘pleasant’ is.”