Search Worlds Without End

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Far Frontiers, Volume IV (1986), edited by Jim Baen and Jerry Pournelle. It can also be found in the collection Ad Statum Perspicuum (1990). The novella was later incorporated in the fixup novel Dydeetown World (1989).

Steven Dalt should have died in that cave on the planet Kwashi. After all, as the natives say, of a thousand people attacked by the cave-dwelling alaret, one will not die. But Dalt is that one. He survives, but not without personal cost: he has picked up a passenger: an alien intelligence transferred itself from the alaret to take up residence in his brain. Steven Dalt will never be alone again.

But Pard, as Dalt names the alien who shares his life, doesn't believe in freeloading. He pays his rent by using cellular-level consciousness to maintain Dalt's body in perfect health - no disease, no aging. And now Dalt appreciates the full meaning of the Kwashi natives' saying: Of a thousand struck down by an alaret, one will not die... ever.

Spanning twelve hundred years, Healer follows Dalt and Pard through the centuries as they become known as The Healer, an enigmatic figure with the power to cure diseases of the mind. And when a wave of interstellar slaughter threatens the civilizations of the LaNague Federation, only The Healer has the resources to face the onrushing doom.

Canny old Pete Paxton thinks there's a monstrous conspiracy brewing that threatens the LaNague Charter and the freedoms it guarantees for Federation planets. The only way to head it off is to enlist the aid of Josephine "Jo" Finch, the current CEO of Interstellar Business Advisors, a firm Pete co-founded with Jo's grandfather more than half-a-century before.

Jo mistrusts Pete and suspects he may be responsible for the bizarre death of her father, but she is soon convinced that the old man's fears are more than justified. Jo and Pete are soon matching wits with one of the shrewdest, most devious politicos in the Federation, threatened by a ruthless psi-talent whose victims face a fate far worse than mere death. They must also deal with the Vanek - the gentle, enigmatic inhabitants of the planet Jebinose who, against all logic, claim to have murdered Jo's father.

Peter LaNague's voice was low but his eyes blazed as he spoke:
"I propose a revolution, one without blood and thunder, but one that will shake this world and the entire outworld mentality as no storm of violence ever shall. History is filled with cosmetic revolutions where a little new paint is daubed on an old face or, in the more violent and destructive examples, a new head set on an old body. Mine will be different, truly radical... which means striking at the root. I'm going to teach the outworlds a lesson they will never forget. When I'm through with the Imperium, the people of the outworlds will swear never again to allow matters to reach the state they are in. Never again!"

Meet Peter LaNague - citizen of the planet Tolive, devotee of the Kyfho philosophy, revolutionary agent provocateur.

But LaNague is planning a unique revolution. One that not only topples the entrenched Outworld Imperium, but fundamentally alters every outworlder's concept of government as well. To accomplish this he must ally himself with a madman, trust the word of the last of Sol System's robber barons, make incisive use of the consummate warriors from the planet Flint without letting them run amok, confound at every turn the omnipresent forces of the Imperium, and every now and then make it rain money.

But those are the easy parts. His greatest challenge will be to see his plan through to successful completion without becoming the very enemy he has vowed to destroy.

Welcome to the future...

Where the cream of humanity has left for the outworlds, leaving the rest behind...

Where genetically redesigned T. rexes have supplanted pit bulls...

Where population control measures have created an underclass of Urchins, unlicensed children who have no rights - not even the right to exist...

Where wireheads with chips in their brains live vicariously through the downloaded experiences of others...

Where the UN has been turned into a brothel known as Dydeetown, peopled by clones of famous personalities from history and entertainment...

Where a Dydeetown clone of Jean Harlow asks a down-and-out private eye named Sig Dreyer to find her missing lover. Though Sig loathes the idea of working for a clone, Harlow-c is paying in gold, and that's hard to turn down. Just a missing-person case... should be simple enough.

But neither realizes that Sig's investigation will tip the first domino in a cascade of events that will turn their world upside down.

Heroes don't always look the part.

He was a tery, a lean, bearish creature with no name. The human soldiers left dead. Just another dumb animal on their extermination list.

But he didn't die.

Animals weren't the only beings on the list. Certain humans were marked for extinction as well. A fugitive band found him and brought him back from the brink. He became their pet, their mascot.

And still he had no name. He was simply "the tery."

He soon learned that these were no ordinary humans, and learned too that he was no ordinary tery. The humans had no idea that the creature they fed table scraps and patted on the head would soon turn their world upside down and change it forever.

By then he had a name.