by Timothy Zahn
“Well, then, get up and let’s get going,” Whist said. “So did Cruikshank mention why we’re the only two who got these block things, Dizz? Sounds like something that would be damn handy for all of us.”
“It was probably so that when you and I get stomped, everyone else can call for help,” Dizz said. “Seems the blocks do a real number on long-range comms.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they knock them out completely,” Dizz said. “I haven’t been able to raise the Hyperion since we turned them on.”
“Oh, well, that’s just great,” Whist growled. “Cruikshank could have at least mentioned that.”
“He could have if he’d known about it,” Dizz said. “We’re the field test, remember? Erin, you need a hand?”
“No, wait. I’m listening to something,” Erin said. “Can everyone be quiet a minute?”
The others fell silent. Erin strained her ears, trying to get a handle on the elusive sound. It was unlike anything she’d heard before, but it reminded her of…machinery? Voices? Impulsively, she rolled onto her back and pressed her helmet against the ground.
And there it was.
“So what is it?” Whist prompted. “Nap time?”
“It’s coming from the ground,” Erin said, listening hard. “Or through the ground. It’s like a combination of machinery, voices, and…singing.”
“You sure you’re not hearing something in your cooling system?” Dizz asked. “Maybe the turbines? All of that’s right there on your back.”
“It’s not that,” Erin assured him. “It’s…well, it’s like I said. Machinery, voices, and singing.”
“Zerg don’t use machinery,” Dizz said. “And as far as I know, they don’t sing.”
“It’s not something psionic, either,” Tanya put in. “Ulavu’s not getting anything.”
“Yeah, well, he also didn’t spot that hydralisk sneaking up on us,” Whist pointed out. “Psi block messing with you, Ulavu?”
There is a small effect, Ulavu admitted. But I continue to be capable of sensing notable zerg presence.
“Notable?” Whist echoed. “You mean, like more than one at a time? Great. Let’s hope Zagara doesn’t figure out she can send them in single file. So where is this zerg dance party of yours going on, Erin?”
“I don’t know how far away it is,” Erin said, fighting back her frustration. They didn’t believe her. None of them did. “Can you help me get this off?” she added, fumbling with her helmet. “Maybe it’ll be clearer that way.”
“Yeah, hang on,” Whist said. “There’s a trick to it.”
It took a minute, but he got it off. “Now what?”
“Now I try again,” Erin said, pressing the back of her head against the ground. The grass felt prickly, but not painfully so.
“Let me try, too,” Tanya offered, pulling off her visor. She lay down on the grass beside Erin.
And for the first time since they’d left the Hyperion, the two women were off the group comm circuit.
“Can I ask you a question?” Erin said in a low voice. “A personal question?”
There was a moment of silence. “All right,” Tanya said, her own voice studiously neutral.
“Ulavu,” Erin said, nodding her head microscopically toward the protoss. “What’s his story?”
“It’s not a secret,” Tanya said. “Some ghosts found him wandering around the edge of a battlefield after all the shooting was over. He told them he was a researcher, and that he’d gotten lost. They took him back to Ursa, cleaned him up, and contacted the protoss. Who didn’t want him back.”
Erin frowned. “Why not?”
“We don’t know,” Tanya said. “Or at least, I don’t know. Maybe someone higher up the ladder knows. Why do you ask?”
Erin hesitated. This was probably going to sound extremely racist. But Tanya had asked. “I just wonder if we can trust him, that’s all,” she said. “I mean, they did burn off Chau Sara, and—”
“Point one: that was over a decade ago,” Tanya cut in. “Point two: they’ve paid for their actions. Point three: Ulavu isn’t a warrior, he was nowhere near Chau Sara, and I would be grateful if you wouldn’t pin your prejudices against his race on his back. Clear?”
Mentally, Erin shook her head. She knew Tanya would take it wrong. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—”
“Well, don’t.” Abruptly, Tanya pushed off the ground and rose back to her feet.
“Well?” Whist asked.
“I hear it, too,” Tanya said, her voice calm and back to normal. “I’m not sure I’d call it singing or machinery, but I get the voices and mechanical noises.”
“So we know something’s there,” Dizz said. “I don’t suppose you can figure out where it’s coming from?”
“It’s a little hard to pin down,” Erin said. After rolling back onto her stomach, she pushed herself up to kneeling and then to standing, not nearly as smoothly as Tanya had managed. Still, her balance seemed better this time. “But as near as I can tell, the direction’s the same as the focal point we’re heading for.”
“I guess we’d better get there, then,” Dizz said. “And I don’t want to be here all day, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll start off at a walk, and as you get used to the suit, we’ll work our way up to a double-time jog. That’s about twenty klicks an hour.” He looked at Ulavu. “Can you handle twenty klicks an hour?”
Yes, Ulavu’s voice echoed inside of Erin’s head.
“If you can’t, we’re going to leave you behind,” Dizz warned. “Okay, Erin, let’s get your helmet back on and then go. Oh, and we’ll let Whist take point instead of you. That way he gets to the nasties before you do. Okay?”
Erin looked at the group of trees where the hydralisk had disappeared. “Oh, yes,” she said, a shiver running up her back. “Yes, indeed.”
—
“There,” Cruikshank said, pointing to the ground display. “You see it, sir?”
“I see it,” Admiral Horner confirmed, his voice giving nothing away. “I’m not sure it’s cause for immediate alarm.”
Cruikshank ground his teeth. Vac heads. Put ’em in space, and everything they ever knew about ground combat leaked straight out their ears. “Sir, those are all the ingredients for a classic Juno layered defense,” he said as calmly as he could. “It’s a favorite zerg counterploy to armored columns.”
“I’m familiar with Juno lines, Colonel, thank you,” Horner said, just as calmly. “I also know a typical Juno includes one to two hundred zerg. I’m only counting ten down there.”
“Which should be more than enough for two soldiers, a ghost, and two civilians,” Cruikshank countered. “If the comms don’t come up, and we can’t warn them to go around that cluster, I strongly recommend we get part of my force ready to go down as backup.”
Horner rubbed a finger across his lower lip. Cruikshank held his breath…
“I don’t want to entangle more forces down there than we need to,” the admiral said at last. “Not with all these leviathans up here that could suddenly decide to pounce on us. Especially not with Emperor Valerian elsewhere on the planet where he might need immediate extraction.”
Which was why I only said part of my force, Cruikshank grumbled to himself. “Understood, sir. And speaking of the emperor, shouldn’t we warn him that the truce might be failing?”
“I don’t want to interrupt his meeting until we have more data,” Horner said. “For all we know, this could just be a bunch of random zerg gathering around a water spring or something.” His lips compressed briefly. “But you’re right; we can’t simply abandon them. Go ahead and load thirty percent of your force—thirty percent only—for a possible rescue mission.”
“Yes, sir.” Cruikshank lifted his datapad and punched a single key.
An efficiency of movement that wasn’t lost on Horner. “I gather you already had the order logged?” the admiral asked.
“Old habits, sir,” Cruikshank admitted
cautiously. Some command officers hated when line officers did that, believing that it usurped their authority and made them little more than useless rubber-stamps in the military machine. Which, in some cases, was all to the good.
“Yes, I remember the days before long chains of command.” Horner looked back at the display. “When the stakes weren’t quite as high as they are now.”
“Yes, sir.” Though Cruikshank was pretty sure that the stakes always seemed high when you were in the middle of fighting for them. Did that say something about perception? Or did it say more about human nature in general?
And did he really care?
“But this is the hand we’ve been given,” Horner continued. “So get down to the bay and prepare our cards. And hope like hell we don’t need to play them.”
I do not believe our situations are so very different, Zagara said, her psionic voice a growl. Even now, Emperor Valerian, you strive to bring splintered terran factions together to one mind and purpose. You also, Hierarch Artanis, struggle with unity among the protoss. In that same way, I and the broodmothers under my authority wish to create a unified zerg.
“You had a unified zerg once,” Valerian reminded her. “The result was the slaughter of terrans and protoss and the devastation of entire planets.”
Do you accept responsibility for the evils of your father, Emperor Arcturus Mengsk? Zagara asked pointedly. It was he who established the psi emitter on the terran planet of Tarsonis that lured the Swarm and drove it to destroy all who dwelled there. Or do you, Hierarch Artanis, take accountability for the excesses of the Conclave in past years? None of us can change that which was. We can only accept that mistakes were made and that evil was often the result, and pledge ourselves to avoid both the mistakes and the evil.
And we are to believe that the essence of the zerg has truly changed? Artanis demanded. Because despite the evils of our forebears, the definitions of protoss and terran remain the same as always.
I understand your skepticism, Zagara said. But the zerg are truly not as we once were. The gift of the Queen of Blades has raised us to heights we could never have imagined. She who was once terran, then zerg, and now xel’naga has through her mercy and grace—
Enough discussion for now, Artanis cut in, standing up abruptly. I wish to examine the plants you have presented.
Zagara seemed taken aback. Of course, Hierarch, she called after him as he strode off toward the nearest of the display cases. His high templar and dark templar guards joined him, keeping a respectful but watchful distance. I will explain each in turn, both its function and its origin—
There will be a time later for explanation, Artanis again cut in. I will first examine them alone.
Valerian looked at him, then back at Zagara. Zerg faces being what they were, it was impossible for him to tell whether she was confused, embarrassed, angry, or something else. But it was the first time since their arrival that she’d been rendered speechless.
As for Abathur, the evolution master remained silent, as he had since the meeting began. For that matter, Valerian wasn’t even certain he could speak.
But right now, Artanis and his reaction were Valerian’s first priority. Something was clearly going on beneath the surface, and he needed to find out what it was. “If you’ll excuse me, Overqueen,” he said, standing up. He headed in Artanis’s wake, his own bodyguards moving to accompany him.
He caught up to the group of protoss at the first of the display cases. “Hierarch Artanis,” he greeted the protoss quietly.
Emperor Valerian Mengsk, Artanis responded. You do not need to be here.
“It’s clear that you’re troubled,” Valerian said.
My thoughts and troubles are private, Artanis said, his tone making it clear that further inquiry was unwelcome. They are not your concern.
“With all due respect, Hierarch, I believe they are,” Valerian said. “This meeting may well map out the future of our peoples, with life and death, war and peace, hanging in the balance. Anything that clouds our thoughts or judgment must be addressed.”
For a long moment Artanis was silent. You will consider it a small and foolish thing.
“Nothing that is important to even a single individual is small or foolish,” Valerian assured him.
Another long pause. Untold thousands of years ago, the protoss of Aiur were visited by a race of overbeings whom we named the xel’naga, he said at last. More than just visited. One of them, the one named Amon, stepped forward to nurture us—or so we believed—raising us over the centuries from our animal origins to the beings we are today. But even as this period came to its full glory, tribal passions arose within us. Slowly they eroded our unity, threatening our culture and our very existence. In our blind vanity we did the unthinkable: we attacked our benefactor. His response, and the response of his people, was to leave us.
Valerian remained silent, resisting the impulse to point out that he knew all this. Whatever Artanis wanted or needed to say, he needed to tell it in his own way.
The xel’naga’s departure drove us to despair and anger, guilt and violence, Artanis continued, the tone of his thoughts going darker. The protoss as a race nearly died then, swallowed up by the Aeon of Strife. It was only through the strength and wisdom of Khas and his discovery of the Khala, our communal telepathic link, that we were able to at last overcome our differences and begin to heal the bonds among us.
Valerian felt his throat tighten. Bonds that the battle against Amon had shattered by denying the protoss the use of the Khala. Artanis stood atop a branch point in protoss history, with the hope of unity on one side and the threat of chaos and a return to self-destruction on the other.
We were the first, Emperor Valerian Mengsk, Artanis said. The first among many others, or so we were told. Our path of honor would have one day led to our ascension to xel’naga. But Amon’s manipulation tore us from that path. It robbed us of our honor and our destiny. It nearly destroyed us. It most certainly drove us from our proper and rightful future. He hunched his shoulders. It is both a blessing and a curse to forge one’s own path. As you, too, know so well.
Abruptly, he turned to Valerian, his skin mottling violently with emotion. It is we who should have received the glory of being raised to the status of xel’naga. Sarah Kerrigan—Queen of Blades—perhaps she was worthy. I cannot judge. But what about us? We fought beside her against Amon. We died beside her. The victory was ours as well as hers. Why then was she permitted an honor that has been denied to all protoss?
“I don’t know,” Valerian said, his voice reflexively going into soothing political-negotiation mode even as the universe seemed to tilt a little around him. That was what had Artanis tied up in figure-eight knots? A one-of-a-kind creature had managed to ascend to xel’naga while the protoss had been left behind?
It seemed absurd. Petty, even. But Artanis was clearly taking it very seriously.
And really, why not? In Artanis’s mind, Kerrigan’s ascension had given both terrans and zerg some kind of vague, otherworldly stamp of approval.
It didn’t make much sense to Valerian. Kerrigan had been a unique case: unique among terrans for her extraordinary psionic ability, unique among the zerg for her free will and creativity. Given all that, he couldn’t see how her ascension reflected on either of the two peoples in general.
But Artanis didn’t see it that way. And for a race as proud as the protoss, that might well feel like the ultimate humiliation.
“Whatever happened to Kerrigan was a single, isolated event that has nothing to do with the protoss,” Valerian told him firmly. “You are a noble race, a race that has spent much of its existence serving as guardians for many other species. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Artanis emitted an odd sound, vaguely like a snort, though how he had managed it without a nose or mouth Valerian couldn’t guess. It was easy to stand above others when the Khala bound us together, he said. Now, with that unity diminished, what are we to do?
“You�
��ll find a new path,” Valerian said. “You’ve been beaten down countless times throughout your history, and have always risen from the ashes. You’ll do so this time, too.”
Perhaps, Artanis said. But you are wrong about the xel’naga. A single ascension may indeed be an isolated event. But there is also that. He jabbed a finger at the case they were standing beside. Explain to me, if you can, why the gift of xel’naga essence was given to the zerg but denied us.
“The—what?” Valerian interrupted himself, his brain suddenly skidding again. “What are you talking about? Where is there xel’naga essence?”
There, Artanis said, pointing again at the plant. Do you not see it?
Valerian peered through the transparent organic casing. There were three plants inside, each made up of four distinct shades of green with orange and red highlights. The plants were of slightly different heights, but all three had thick, woody-looking stalks tapering to a flowered tip, with a couple dozen leaf-bearing twigs along each stem. The leaves themselves were broad and pointed, with seven spread out on each twig. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “But then, I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
The number of leaves on each branch, Artanis said. The pattern of the branches as they spiral upward. The arrangement of veins and the pattern of margins in the leaves. Just as many terran flora and fauna echo numbers of the Fibonacci series, so, too, does the xel’naga essence manifest itself in numbers of the Cuccodujo series. He pointed again. They are not fully xel’naga. But they certainly contain xel’naga essence.
“Interesting,” Valerian said, his heartbeat picking up as he eyed the plants with new interest. “You’re sure?”
You doubt my word?
“Not at all,” Valerian said hastily. “I’m simply pointing out that the essence you recovered from the xel’naga bodies during the battle with Amon could have been corrupted, either by age or something else.”
It was not corrupted, Artanis said. And the conclusions and analyses are firm enough that I may state with certainty that these plants have incorporated xel’naga essence.