The younger man took a deep breath and opened his eyes, still looking haunted but now more determined. “Ildiran splinter colonies have endured sickness before,” Dio’sh began. “We remember the losses of children and families who succumbed to fevers, toxins, or genetic diseases. But this …” He looked up sharply, his lobes flushing scarlet. “What sort of vindictive plague would first steal our sight, take from us the comfort of blessed light—and then make us die alone in quarantine, isolated from other Ildirans, lest we continue to spread this terrible disease?”

Dio’sh clenched his fist and held it out in front of him. Vao’sh could feel a deep horror growing within him. Raised under constant sunlight, surrounded always by comforting crowds, the Ildiran people had two primal phobias: fear of darkness, and fear of isolation.

Dio’sh continued, seeing nothing but his memories. “Crenna has a large moon, so that even during the night hours enough light shines down upon the landscape. We lit every home, every street, so that our central town was filled with illumination. We managed to drive back the shadows—but what good are all the torches in the Empire, once a disease robs you of sight? After the plague struck him blind, the Crenna Designate stood in the square and stared directly at the sun, but still he saw only blackness.”

Purple and green patterns of dismay and horror rippled across his lobed features. Vao’sh shuddered but made no comment, filing away every word. He could picture the Mage-Imperator’s son, the Crenna Designate, sightless, staring up into the blazing sun. That would make good drama. This section of history would be recounted and modified until the final, permanent words were chosen and entered into the Saga of Seven Suns.

“We do not know how the sickness began. On Crenna our scientist kithmen were mainly agricultural specialists, not bacteriological researchers. Within days of the first recorded case, a dozen more people fell sick—and then all those who tended the victims also succumbed. We have never known a plague so virulent, so contagious, and so deadly.

“Through the thism, every person in the town could feel the victims’ growing terror as the retinal damage progressed and the first sufferers fell blind. We knew that we should quarantine the colonists—but how could we look at a sick child, a blind child, and tell him we must leave him alone, isolated from the comfort and support of our people? That seemed worse than the disease itself. After the blindness, the nerve damage spread to other parts of the body until finally the lungs could no longer breathe, the heart could no longer beat.”