Saga of Shadows 1: The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson Page A

arrived in Pergamus orbit, Zoe reminded them that she would tolerate no delay. She wanted to see him as soon as possible.
    Of course, her own protective systems caused most of the delay—he would take hours to pass through seventeen successive levels of decontamination and sterilization before she let him see her face-to-face—but she would not loosen those requirements, not even for him. People were too dangerous, diseases were too dangerous, and she had no need for any closer contact.
    Zoe kept her dark hair short, so she could easily don a decon suit and cap in an emergency. She had prominent eyebrows, deep brown eyes, and pale skin. She was careful to breathe through her nose, for added protection from the implanted filters in her nostrils. She ate bland food—processed and cooked, never anything raw.
    Pergamus was a medical-research complex and extensive disease library, the largest one in existence. And it belonged to her alone: privately funded and beholden to no government, university, or research consortium. No one else could be trusted. No one else deserved it. Zoe Alakis had it all.
    Pergamus barely qualified as a planet, as it wasn’t much larger than an asteroid. It held only a tenuous atmosphere, and what little there was proved to be poisonous. The facility was isolated and safe.
    Zoe insisted on layers of precautions—she had her reasons—and any researcher who wanted to work for the obscenely high pay she offered had to agree to certain conditions. They could share nothing about their work—absolutely nothing, with anyone, on pain of death. Those specific words were in their contracts. She owned their breakthroughs, their cures and treatments, all of their records, and the genetic mappings of any viruses and bacteria that couldn’t be cured.
    Zoe resided alone in the facility’s central dome, which she never left. Separate from the main dome, fourteen isolated laboratory domes had been built at varying distances, far enough to protect them if a sterilization blast were required. In those groundside domes, researchers conducted studies on cancers, neurological disorders, brain deterioration. Eight of the domes were devoted to various infectious diseases—at least the ones considered tame enough to be studied on the planet’s surface. For the more dangerous organisms and risky treatment protocols, she had twelve Orbiting Research Spheres, some spinning to provide artificial gravity, others motionless for zero-G research.
    Every one of the laboratories, the groundside domes as well as the orbiting satellites, had thorough fail-safe sterilization protocols, along with a no-exceptions set of rules as to when they were to be used. She would allow no unnecessary risks, no outbreaks. Everything was controlled by her inflexible procedures, programmed in black and white. Zoe never let herself get personally attached to her researchers, nor did she want anyone else to have a moment of personal doubt in a crisis.
    On the monitor screens inside her central dome, she followed Tom Rom’s progress through decontamination. She opened the comm. “How much longer?”
    He turned his face to the image pickup and smiled at her, his eyes bright. “As long as it takes. No shortcuts. I’d never risk exposing you.”
    She monitored him as he passed through airlock after airlock, one decon chamber after another and yet another. Chemical sprays, UV bursts. Each one made him cleaner, safer. He risked so much out there for her.
    Tom Rom had a lean and muscular body that she admired without the least bit of arousal. Though she loved him more than any other human being, he was not her lover. No one had ever been her lover. The thought of physical intimacy disgusted her. The sharing of bodily fluids—not just semen but saliva, perspiration, sloughed-off skin cells, pubic hairs, even exhaled breath—not only repelled her, it sent her into a panic. She abhorred the thought of kissing someone, holding hands, touching in the most