§ § § -- January 1, 2001
"Which," a fifth voice, a female, spoke up, "is the question of your physical condition. You cannot deny that you have been through a great medical trauma, and from our viewpoint it appears to have affected your overall health on a permanent basis. And in spite of our longevity as compared with Earth humans, you have already lived out well over half of your expected lifespan. What say you to that?"
"We will all pass on at some point," said Roarke laconically.
When he offered nothing further, the fifth voice sighed. "Don't be flippant, Roarke. I remind you that you, like so many of our people before you, suffered from the bone-eating disease for a time, and nearly died from it. Putting aside the fact that you were cured, there is the issue of how you came down with the disease, as well as its lingering effects in the aftermath." His face must have betrayed his confusion at the final clause, for the voice added, "I see your blank look. We will return to that. Firstly, we must deal with your contraction of the disease. Please summarize for us, if you would, the situation that led to it."
What, you don't already know? thought Roarke, surprised at his own slight sense of impatience. Carefully controlling all emotion, he spoke, his face as expressionless as his voice. "For those who may not have been aware, I was visited by Paola, who as you may or may not know was one of our people—though not of my clan. I was never certain exactly which clan she did belong to. However, this meant that she possessed at least some, if not all, of the powers I have, and in addition, she was mentally ill. I wanted only to help her if it were at all possible; but while she was not trained, she had somehow managed to learn something about use of the mental abilities, for she gained control over my mind. I had not known she was of our people before then, and her attack caught me utterly unprepared. I believed for a time that I was in love with her. Eventually, she overreached herself; she kidnapped Leslie with the intention of killing her, and in the meantime succeeded in transferring the bone-eating disease to me."
"In what way?" the sly one interrupted.
The second voice snapped, "One more of your irrelevant outbursts, and I will introduce a motion to remove you from this council! Roarke has already stated that under Paola's influence, he believed he loved her. And you know full well the methods of transmission of the disease. What, since you seem to have forgotten, is the eventual natural outgrowth of falling in love with someone?"
More laughter greeted that; even Roarke smiled faintly. At least one council member seemed to be squarely in his corner. Sullenly the sly one said, "Question withdrawn. You may continue, Roarke."
Roarke had used the interruption to pour a glassful of water and had taken a few sips to refresh himself. Setting the glass back on the table, he gathered his thoughts again. "As I said, she kidnapped Leslie, once she felt that she had me sufficiently under her control. But Paola took her to some remote part of my island, and in so doing was unable to maintain her mental control, as she was no longer in constant proximity. I gradually regained control and, with some assistance, was able to put a halt to Paola's activities before she caused any further damage. But then I…" There he stopped.
"…discovered you had the disease," said the fifth voice. "And, as we understand it, a particularly virulent form of it."
"Paola's condition was greatly advanced," said Roarke. "In fact, she was very close to dying of the disease herself. And I am certain you are all well aware that the stage of the disease at the time of transmission determines its severity in the one newly infected."
"Ah, yes, of course," said the fifth voice, as if reminded. "Thus it took far more of a physical toll on you."
"How could Paola have been close to death at the time she infected Roarke?" the second voice wanted to know. "She was ambulatory enough to wreak havoc with him and his daughter; yet when the disease took hold in Roarke, he remained bedridden throughout. How is this possible?"
"The vagaries of the bone-eating disease are still largely a mystery to us," the first voice explained, with a touch of regret. "Even in two persons at the same stage of its progress, it will have quite different symptoms. In Paola's case, she remained active till the very end of her life; in Roarke's, it almost completely debilitated him. The symptoms and effects are unpredictable in any given individual, although it has been observed that in families who have it, said symptoms and effects are grossly similar. But new knowledge is exceedingly difficult to obtain, and most of what we have learned has come from many centuries of observation. In the case of the cure, I can only surmise that it was a combination of persistence and blind luck." This sentence carried an arid tone that evoked a few quiet chuckles. "I trust that answers your question."
The second voice said, "Yes, that is satisfactory, thank you. Please continue."
The fifth voice said, "Thank you. Now, I wish to bring up the next point: your mental vulnerability to Paola. It seems a sign of weakness."
"I beg your indulgence, but I must disagree," Roarke parried spiritedly, wondering if this council member had really listened to what he'd just said. "I believe I said quite plainly that Paola was one of our people. That put us on an equal mental level. The only difference is that I was trained, and she was not." He hesitated, long enough for the sly one to pounce.
"What are you holding back from us, Roarke?" it demanded.
Feeling uncomfortably like a small boy sitting in the principal's office, Roarke glanced at the form that had seemed to be the source of the first voice. "Is it necessary to answer that?" he asked.
"If it's relevant to your argument, Roarke, then you may find it useful to do so," said the first voice, not unkindly. "It may even work to your advantage."
Roarke considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. In my quest to help Paola with her mental problem—which she described as demons whose voices continuously tormented her—I made a journey through her mind, with her permission and assistance. I did in fact encounter the sounds of the voices she claimed to hear, but try as I might, I could not break her free from their hold on her. In looking back on that incident, I have come to the realization that while our minds were linked, she must have culled some sparse knowledge of my own trained abilities, which she put to use later on."
There was an uneasy rustling at this, but notably, the sly one said nothing. "I submit," the second voice ventured after a moment, "that whatever perceived 'mental weakness' Roarke may have exhibited was not of his making. Tell me, Roarke, does it appear to you in retrospect that all of Paola's damage to you was done after this mental sojourn?"
Again Roarke considered the question, then shook his head. "No, only the majority of it. From the moment she set foot on the island, I felt…strange. She must have immediately begun to exert her influence over me, although she did no actual damage otherwise until after we had linked minds."
"And you did that," the second voice prodded, "in an attempt to help cure her of her mental illness, these demons you say she claimed to be possessed by."
"Yes, that was my sole intention," Roarke said.
"All right," the fifth voice conceded with good grace. "We shall consider that matter closed. My next point is the illness itself. How long did it take you to contract it?"
"Approximately two weeks," Roarke told her. "I noticed symptoms within a few days of banishing Paola from my island, but I didn't realize what they were: as noted earlier, the disease acts differently in each individual it attacks. And I did not even have my father's experience to draw upon, since he contracted the disease differently from the way I did, and his was a gradual progression over a number of years while my own affliction was highly advanced and thus very rapid to take hold."
"How long before you were given the cure?" asked the fifth voice.
"From the time Leslie learned from Rogan what I had, it was fourteen days," said Roarke. "Is that relevant?"
"Only fourteen days?" the fourth voice spoke up unexpectedly. "You quite nearly died. All that kept you alive was the palliative tonic." Roarke simply sat in silence, seeing no need to respond to that; after all, it had been made clear how severe his case had been. After a moment the voice questioned, "How long did it take the cure to work, then?"
"Overnight," said Roarke.
"That may not mean anything," the first voice pointed out. "Like the disease, the cure may act differently in different individuals."
"If I may?" Roarke ventured, and when the first voice gave assent, he continued: "My daughter is engaged to a prince who is currently mired in an arranged marriage to the younger sister of Paola. She and her father, an Italian count, also had the disease; and when we obtained the cure, we shipped doses to the count and the young woman. Leslie was in touch with the prince, and was informed that for the woman, at least, the cure also took effect overnight. I did not hear how it acted for the count."
"That may help the research," the first voice said. "Thank you."
"I believe," the fifth voice said tightly, "that we are drifting away from the topic under question here. I don't know about you, but I should like to move along."
The first voice sighed with mild amusement. "You need not be so impatient, and in any case, I don't see the thrust of your current point. Why are you asking Roarke how long he had the disease and how long it took the cure to make him well?"
"There may be some significance in how quickly he came down with the illness," the fifth voice said, sounding a bit disconcerted. "And you yourself noted that his information on the cure might be beneficial to the ongoing research. Please, allow me to continue."
"Then by all means, do so," the first voice replied.
"You are the first, Roarke, to have ever survived the bone-eating disease," the fifth voice said. "No one has any way of knowing what the long-term effects may be of having had it, since all other victims have perished from it…"
Roarke sat up. "One moment," he said, frowning. "You had knowledge of the cure's existence: I never mentioned it before it came up in the course of this discussion. You must therefore have been fully aware that my cousin had found it. Why, pray tell, did you not take him to task for not immediately making the cure known to all of our people? How long had he possessed the knowledge and the formula before my daughter and his son finally got the recipe from him? It seems, as well, that he was running a business very similar to my own on a small island, but from what he told me, I inferred that he was coerced into it; he made it clear that he didn't enjoy it. In any case, I must ask you why he was never taken in hand. There are not many of our people remaining on this planet, and who knows how many of us died needlessly before my cousin gave up the secret?"
His anger seemed to truly surprise the council, and there was an uncomfortable silence. A sixth voice, heretofore silent, cleared its throat nervously. "Your cousin was a very secretive and private sort," it said. "However, other than his son, he was the only other living member of the Roarke clan, and we feared that with your time nearing its end, another was needed. So we set him up in a business identical to yours."
"He turned out to be a most ungrateful sort," the sly third voice remarked sourly. "He simply hated the job, and grumbled and complained every time he received new clients. He did perform admirably when called upon, but the operation was a botch almost from the start. The moment he decided to don attire to reflect his overall attitude, we saw that the entire venture was doomed. His assistants were less than willing and constantly trying to escape, and when he noticed their failed attempts, he brought down needlessly severe punishments upon them. His business failed spectacularly before we were forced to act—fortunately so, since we had no real idea what we should do about it."
"That is all that will be said on that subject," announced the first voice with finality. "Will that be enough to satisfy your curiosity, Roarke?"
Roarke looked askance at the shadowy form. "If there is to be no further discussion, then there is only one answer to that, is there not?" Amusement rippled around the half-dozen council members, and the fifth voice demanded attention again.
"Please, I currently hold the floor," it said impatiently. "As I was trying to say, Roarke, it has been nearly two years now since you contracted the illness and were cured of it, and so far you appear to be holding your own, mostly."
"Mostly?" echoed Roarke, frowning. "I don't understand."
The fifth voice gentled, saying kindly, "This is the point I said we would come back to. You are more easily irritated, more easily angered and fatigued, a little quicker to become frustrated when things do not go as smoothly as you strive for. When your daughter made her attempt at granting her friend a fantasy last summer, you were unusually angry with her and made it all too clear. You have become perceptibly less tolerant as well. Have you not noticed all this? Before the illness, this was not true, and I find myself concluding that this is a sign that your immune system has lost some of its strength."
Stunned, Roarke sat and stared in the direction of the fifth voice; no one spoke for a long, charged minute. "You find my recent emotional peculiarities to be a result of having been afflicted with the bone-eating disease?" he finally asked incredulously.
"I did mention that you become tired more quickly," the fifth voice pointed out.
Roarke let this sink in, turning this point over in his mind; the council waited in patient silence. At last he said quietly, "Should you require it, I will submit to a thorough physical examination, by whomever you choose. But I might present the fact that my cousin's son, Rogan, seems to have extensive knowledge of the disease, however he came by it; and he never once suggested that there would be long-term aftereffects in the wake of my being cured. He is the sort who, should he notice anything unusual, would not hesitate to bring it to my attention; and he has never done any such thing."
"Has Rogan knowledge of the long-term effects of survival, then?" the third voice asked sardonically. "Either that, or he simply doesn't see you often enough to notice anything out of place. I wouldn't put much credence in his opinions."
"Perhaps we should obtain his daughter's testimony," said the fifth voice. "She sees him every day, and I have no doubt she would enumerate the various instances of Roarke's weariness and shortened temper."
Roarke said, "Let me be certain I understand this. Because I occasionally grow weary, and because I took exception to my daughter's taking it upon herself to grant a fantasy without consulting me, you attribute this to a weakening in my immune system and therefore justification for removing me from my job, my residence and my very life."
"You leap to absurd conclusions, Roarke," the fifth voice said sternly.
"What else can I do when I am presented with such arguments?" he asked. "As I told you, I will be more than happy to undergo a complete physical examination. If you are unwilling, unable or unprepared to administer it—"
The second voice interceded again. "Forgive me, Roarke…but if I may ask, exactly how many such instances of weariness and irritability have there been since he was cured of the disease?"
Sensing the question was not directed at him, Roarke remained silent; when the fifth voice replied, it sounded reluctant. "Five in all."
"Over two years," said the second voice. "Frankly, I don't see that as abnormal. We all have moments of unusual fatigue and short temper. Why should Roarke be any different? Are you so unwilling to give him some leeway?"
The first voice said, "I believe that will be sufficient debate on this topic. Five cases of temporary exhaustion or irascibility in two years do not make enough of a case against him to hold up…and he has stated twice that he will gladly undergo examination. I see no reason to belabor the subject; so let us move to the next issue: the state of this planet."