The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

Talavera brought the missile procession to a halt with a raised hand then spoke to the senior guard in Kelasti, one of the main tongues of the Yamanon refugees. In four weeks Julia had learned enough for basic communication and only caught a word or two from the exchange. Talavera looked round at the Enhanced, surveying them all, and smiled.

  ‘Just a slight change in our little cavalcade – Hurnegur’s orders. He wants a greater distance between you and the holy missiles …’ She waved the loader operators to continue, waited until a gap of about fifteen metres had opened up, then made a sweeping gesture, urging the rest to resume.

  ‘Onward, my friends, onward to victory!’ She laughed, moving alongside Julia. ‘Such long faces. This is a happy day, folks – you should be celebrating your amazing achievement. Hurnegur and Jeshkra have laid on a special surprise, a small ceremony to let the devout express their feelings for these babies and the great battle that lies ahead.’ Her smile widened. ‘I just know you’re going to find it fascinating.’

  With that she hurried on ahead to catch up with the missiles just as they were turning the next corner.

  ‘What is that bitch up to now?’ Konstantin said in a low murmur. ‘Is this it?’

  ‘Stay calm,’ she said while thinking the same, wondering what twisted pageant lay ahead. As they then turned the corner, Julia’s mind went back to the first time she saw Corazon Talavera, when she and her gang of mercenaries had walked into the dim-lit Highwatch observation lounge just minutes after the departure of the Qol-Valish, the ship that was meant to take the Enhanced on to Earth.

  Like her thugs, Talavera had been wearing dull green body armour but her smile had been wide and hungry.

  ‘Humans,’ she had said loudly. ‘I want the Humans!’

  Scores of frightened gazes had looked round to where Julia and the others were sitting in a bulkhead alcove with their escort, two of Velazquez’s officers from the Heracles. Both were shot dead as they drew their weapons, after which Talavera had smiled, crooked a beckoning finger at Julia and the rest and said, ‘This way and smartly if you please.’

  Weapon muzzles prodded them towards the main exit. Once they were out in the corridor Talavera had paused in the doorway, gloved hands resting on either side of the frame while her underlings aimed weapons into the lounge. Then she had started to speak in one of the common interlinguals, pointing to a number of shiny packages lying in a heap near where she stood. As she spoke, gasps and frightened moans came from the passengers, who comprised sentients from several different species. A moment later she stepped back and the doors closed and sealed.

  Inside the lounge, the fighting began.

  Julia and the others were taken down to the Qol-Valish’s cargo hold, past still bodies, splashes of blood and the sounds of weapons-fire. Talavera then oversaw their transfer via the big airlock to another vessel with pale walls and circular transverse passages and at no time did she mention what had just happened. She just had her thugs march them along to a room with three double cots and a small partitioned area, not answering Julia’s questions except with an intense, grinning stare.

  ‘Welcome to the revolution’ was all she said before the room’s only door slid shut and locked.

  Later, in hushed voices, they had debated it, trying to understand, arriving at a grotesque conclusion. That Talavera had told the passengers that the lounge would be evacuated to open space, then leaving them to fight over a small number of vacsuits. Only several days later, after their arrival on Zophor 3, did Julia find out that their guess was correct from a news article spotted during one of the brief sessions of tiernet research they were allowed.

  At the top of the final stretch of tunnel, the walls opened out to a large cave with a pair of armoured doors at the far end. Hurnegur and Jeshkra waited there, the former a hulking, four-armed Henkayan garbed in angular, dun-coloured combat armour while the Gomedran wore a featureless matt black suit that extended up to a cowl. They raised their hands and the procession slowed to a halt; the armoured doors emitted muffled thuds and began to draw apart.

  At once Julia heard a babble of voices coming from outside, chanting voices mounting higher and erupting in a mass roar. With the insurgent leaders at the front, the procession moved forward and the noise surged. Hurnegur and Jeshkra produced long wooden staffs wound with silver spiral patterns and began brandishing them in unison, and the crowd bellowed along in time. Julia exchanged glances with Konstantin and Irenya then recalled Talavera saying that this was a small ceremony. Before them a covered walkway led away from the armoured doors, a framework wrapped with off-white plastic sheeting. Devout Spiral followers were crammed in along either side, behind low barriers manned by guards with shockmaces. Underfoot the central aisle was covered in a textured matting, softening the rocky sand of the barren ground.

  As the first of the long, midnight-blue missiles came into view, the mob burst into a thunderous roar that was insensate and savage. A few moments later the procession came to a halt and the two leaders moved to either side, standing near the barriers, surveying scraps of paper held out by members of the crowd. A moment later they came back with two ragged-clothed pilgrims, a Kiskashin and a Gomedran, who were given small black sticks then led over to the missiles. Staring intently, Julia suddenly realised that the believers were writing on them – she could just make out embellished script in a shiny metallic ink. Several minutes later the pilgrims rejoined the crowds behind the barriers and the procession moved on.

  After about ten paces everyone stopped to repeat the inscription ritual. By now, Julia and the Enhanced had emerged fully from the cave and were standing in full view of the fervent wor-shippers. The full-length hooded garments had a function, she now realised, concealing much of their alien Human features while blinkering the wearers’ field of view. Yet Julia, out of curiosity, could not resist turning for a quick glance … and the faces she glimpsed were no different from those she had seen after arriving here, that first day on Zophor 3 …

  After less than a day aboard Talavera’s cylindrical vessel, they had been transferred to a small, battered cargo shuttle. As the craft made a jolting, shuddering atmospheric descent to some unknown world, Talavera had surveyed them with those dangerous, gleeful eyes.

  ‘Usually, recruits for revolutions get fast-tracked into the struggle, willingly or otherwise,’ she had said. ‘But you five, ah, you’re special. Heard about those engineered brains of yours, those neural pathways that you can program by yourselves. I mean, that’s practically like growing a quantum computer in your head and devoting a lifetime to its development. It’s almost like being a high-autonomy AI, but without all the tiernet bugs, all those loyalty issues. Any one of you would be considered an asset of unequalled value, and look – I’ve got five!’ She had snapped her gloved fingers and laughed.

  None of the Enhanced spoke. They had earlier agreed to say nothing unless under threat of violence, which had not so far played a part. But Julia had decided that it might be worthwhile risking a question or two.

  ‘What makes you so sure that we’re who you think we are?’ she had said. ‘Growing a computer in your head! Who ever heard of such a thing?’

  ‘Hmm, so the queen bee speaks at last,’ Talavera said. ‘What, you mean you’re really just innocent travellers, blameless tourists on your way to gape at the worlds of Halzaan and Fensahr before returning to Earth? With those military escorts of yours?’ She chuckled. ‘Sorry – I’ve seen the scans we carried out while you slept last night. Hell, I’ve seen your files! Yes, you are Julia Bryce and I claim my right as a cold-hearted mercenary bitch to hire you out to the highest bidder, who in this case happens to be the Covenant Order of the Spiral Prophecy.’

  The shuttle had trembled with turbulence and the pitch of the jets deepened.

  ‘Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up,’ Julia had said dryly. ‘What’s our cut of the deal?’

  ‘It’s great, the best,’ said Talavera, a dangerous gleam in her eye. ‘Basically, you do what you
’re told, and … you get to go on living.’

  ‘Could be worse.’ ‘You’ve no idea.’

  As the shuttle made its landing approach, Talavera took out a pistol-grip injector and gave them all a dose each.

  ‘Broad-spectrum shutout tailored for your very special profiles,’ she had said. ‘I still wouldn’t go kissing the locals, though.’

  The shuttle came down with a wavering, swaying motion ending with a cushioned thud. A side hatch unsealed with a wheeze of pressure equalisation and Julia felt her ears pop. Restraints were loosened and the Enhanced were steered down a ramp and out into a bright dusty heat. At the foot of the ramp Julia had paused to stare in astonishment at the vista of squalid poverty that spread in every direction. The shuttle had landed on a steep-sided outcrop overlooking a noisy sprawling expanse of shacks, huts, tents, and small, spidery-frameworked domes partially covered in grubby, sun-bleached sheeting. Inhabitants milled around, staring up at the newcomers, a variety of species, mainly Bargalil, Gomedran and Henkayans with a smattering of reptilian Kiskashin.

  At first she had been struck by a sense of chaos but she soon saw how a certain order and community was threaded through it all. A rough grid of lanes had been laid out and there were fenced play areas for young offspring, large handcarts wending around dispensing water, canopied stalls serving bowls of food. The signs of semi-permanence were evident, brightly coloured decorations on walls and awnings, some huts whose ground floors were of mud bricks or stone and mortar, the aerials and dishes adorning many roofs, while here and there sunlight glinted from suncell panels.

  The rocky outcrop was not the only major feature in the immense shantyscape. About three hundred metres away a large ship, its lines rounded and tapering, lay amid the habitations, its stern a cavelike hollow where the drives had once been. Instead, cabins and companionways lay exposed, entire decks where refugees had moved in to make their homes, building onto support spars, hanging washing and flags between levels. The hull itself seemed to have lost half its plating and more rickety extensions protruded from the gaps. Another vessel, bigger and more rectilinear, was visible a kilometre away and, turning to left and right, Julia saw several others, all in various states of decrepitude. Almost inevitably, she had thought about the Hyperion back on Darien and experienced a sudden, unexpected wave of homesickness.

  ‘Ah, you are admiring my valiant Pajentor, once a great traveller between the stars, now home to several hundred of my children.’

  This was her first meeting with Hurnegur, the Henkayan rebel leader, whose fluency in Anglic was a surprise. Henkayans were brawny and muscular, if a little shorter than Humans, and she had seen several on board the Qol-Valish. Hurnegur was in another category; he was at least seven feet tall with wide shoulders that bulked out the pale blue robe he wore, and large knuckly hands with four stubby, callused fingers. The second, more slender pair of arms, what Henkayans called their kindly arms, were clasped across his lower midriff. The face was broad and flat, the nose a wide, jutting flap while a protruding brow hooded the eyes.

  ‘Of course, the Pajentor will never fly again,’ Hurnegur said, lifting one hand to point at the nearest grounded vessel. ‘But she does make an excellent fortress.’

  ‘It is an honour to meet you,’ Julia said evenly.

  Hurnegur made a dismissive gesture. ‘I am merely a warrior of true words, a humble officer of the Covenant Order – is this not so, Commodity-Chandler Talavera?’

  Corazon Talavera emerged from behind the Henkayan, her demeanour as jaunty as ever.

  ‘Why General, your humility is only outshone by your skills in battle.’

  A knowing smile creased the wide Henkayan lips. ‘Do your commodities have names?’

  Talavera nodded and introduced the Enhanced to Hurnegur, and to the slender, dark-complexioned Gomedran who stood off to the side. This was Jeshkra, once a colonel in the Dol-Das army, now a general fighting for his faith.

  ‘Before coming over to greet you,’ Hurnegur went on, ‘I took a strange pill, very exotic, very expensive, but it lets me speak your odd Human language.’ He laughed, a deep chesty sound. ‘What strange noises you make! I offered one to my war-brother Jeshkra, there, but he refused, saying that it would pollute his blood!’ The Henkayan shrugged. ‘Even though I told him that it can be removed with another pill. But a certain fear of technology is ingrained in us now. We are the offspring of generations who lived like slaves under the Dol-Das tyrants, heretics and desecrators who used every clever, cunning piece of technology to oppress, control and subvert, to watch and to hear, even to interpret facial expressions and body movements. There was nothing they would not do in order to secure their dominion; no indignity or pain or gross torment was absent from their catalogue of cruelties.’ He looked at Julia. ‘And you Humans come from that interesting world, Darien.’

  Not knowing how to respond, Julia had remained silent as the Henkayan then gazed sombrely out at the sprawling expanse of crowded shanties.

  ‘Zophor Three has another fifteen sand cities like this,’ he had continued. ‘Almost all their inhabitants fled the Yamanon Domain, or their parents or great-parents did. I don’t expect you to understand – you’re a beyonder, and a Human – but while there is life there is belief, and where there is belief there is a stirring for ascent. Always there is the movement from lower to higher, darkness to light, difficult paths, sometimes, but always rising up.’ The broad lips had smiled. ‘All those here, under every roof you can see, have converted to the Spiral Prophecy. All my children, my poor, dusty, thirsty ragged children, believe in its promise with the raw force of the dispossessed, the bled and the bereaved. We believe in the sanctity of the prophecy and the past. And in avengement.’

  He had then smiled. ‘I have two other children, two very special, very powerful children. They are resting in cool dark chambers beneath this rock – come, I will show you.’

  It took an hour, and eleven pauses for ritual inscribing, for the missile procession to finally reach the end of the covered walk-way. As she trudged along with an aching slowness, Julia’s mind returned to the modifications they had made, picking over the theories, the schematics, the lab rigs and test results. All of it like a chipped tooth that her tongue could not leave alone.

  Designation – Sunfist; Primary Function – Pan-Strategic Assault Missile; Fabricator – Ixamar-Dol Industries at Awutur’s Triumph Yard; Length – 12.45 metres; Weight – 2,265 kg; Max Diameter – 1.98 metres; Reaction Drive – Cassig Military Systems ZD933 using Grade 2 pyrofractal fuel; Hyperspace Drive – Maluzu V18 (B) [range – 960 LY (T1), 1,140 LY (T2)]; Guidance System – Obspace/Subspace Tracking and Tactical Targeting With Pseudo-AI Element; Payload – 750 kT Nuclear Fusion Warhead …

  It had been an exhilarating challenge: take two hyperspace nuclear missiles and modify them so that they become invisible to four levels of sensor nets, from objective space down to the third level of hyperspace. Hurnegur provided the innards of a third similar missile – payloadless – for tests and lab trials while Talavera provided a wide variety of lab equipment and research materials. Julia and her team were already familiar with the principles and theory of hyperspatial energy physics and the various transition states, so they were looking for something else, some conceptual direction, some lateral perspective …

  Which they found. Transition between objective space and hyperspace caused tiny random variations in direction, which the navigationals normally acted to correct. The team saw how this, combined with a sequence of very short microjumps, could be patterned into a single coherent course converging on a target. Almost as if the one trajectory was broken up into myriad fragments randomly scattered around the destination, some in hyperspace as well as objective space. Ranges of modifications to the guidance and hyperdrive control systems were modelled and tested around the clock, then new routines for the AI element were coded and those too underwent testing and verification.

  In the middle of all this, Talavera had stopped by to o
bserve in silence before getting Julia alone for a brief exchange, encapsulated in just a couple of sentences:

  ‘If this doesn’t work, and Hurnegur and Jeshkra come looking for restitution, I don’t think I’ll be able to save more than one of you. And it may not be you, so make sure it works!’

  That night, while curled up in her cot, Talavera’s words and the stress of their confinement and the ever-present threat of violence went round and round in her head, and it was a struggle not to sob out loud. But with the day came composure, control and the reliable familiarities of work.

  Now, as they stood watching the last of the ritual inscribers finish their work on the missile casings, the dread truth of what she and the others had done forced itself into her thoughts. In modifying these missiles, they had in effect signed the death warrants of thousands of Humans and Brolturans. Because Julia, after thinking on the few fragments and hints that Talavera and Hurnegur had let slip, was now in no doubt that the armada was bound for the Darien system, and that the missiles were meant for the Earthsphere and Brolturan warships.

  What if the armada never reaches Darien? she thought. Or the defence nets detect and destroy the missiles, or the missiles just fail at some point … ?

  But she knew how good their work was. Barring some unforeseen occurrence, some unlikely roll of the cosmic dice, these missiles would find their way through their self-made random mazes of evasion and end their journeys in eruptions of destruction.

  The crowd noise of chants, cries and wailing surged louder as the last inscribers were steered back behind the barricades. Hurnegur and Jeshkra waved their spiral-decorated staves again and the crowds began wordlessly chanting along. Ahead, the covered walkway ended at the flank of a large transport, where a wide ramp led up into a dim hold. The wind was up outside and the sheeting was straining and bellying inward. A few joints and seals were less than perfect and a fine dust was hazing the overhead pinlights.

  As the missiles on their loaders angled smoothly up into the hold, the Enhanced were guided to where extendable steps led up into an open hatch lower on the hull. Inside, Henkayan guards took them along a narrow gloomy passage to a medium-sized chamber with a metal deck and bulkheads, and well-worn racks on the walls. A cargo hold, Julia realised just as Corazon Talavera entered.