As more ships surrounded Elisa, she activated her own defensive weapons. Xander was surprised at how utterly unrepentant the woman seemed. “You can try to capture me, but you won’t be happy with how it turns out. I did not come here for a firefight. I offered my services to work.”
Xander opened the comm and used his most reasonable voice, which he doubted would be sufficient. “Elisa, we’ll escort you to Rendezvous, see that you get a fair hearing. No need for shooting.”
Terry added, “Would you rather serve a prison sentence or have your ship join the shrapnel here at Relleker? These people are ready to shoot.”
In response, Elisa opened fire—at the Verne.
“Whoa!” Terry said, holding on.
Linked to the piloting controls on full standby, OK reacted even more swiftly than Terry or Xander could. He put the Verne into a corkscrew spin and accelerated upward so that Elisa’s deadly blasts streaked past. One jazer beam skimmed the shields, while the others missed them entirely.
“Excellent work, OK.” Terry looked ashen.
Xander was impressed. “Good thing we paid for all those new systems.”
The other Roamers began to open fire as Elisa accelerated away.
The compy reported, “I should inform you that Elisa Enturi’s weapons were not set to low-intensity or damage-only bursts. That shot was meant to kill. We would have been destroyed if I had not evaded.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Xander muttered.
Spinning about, Elisa’s ship raced through the Relleker debris field, heading out of planetary orbit. Seven Roamer ships pursued her, ready for the kill.
“I would have been a good asset to your operations,” Elisa shot back to the Verne, her voice icy. “I would have made you great profits. I already did make you great profits.” She dodged the sharklike wreckage of a robot ship, then swooped around, opening fire so that she incapacitated Annie D’s craft. The two Selise ships closed in, taking potshots, presumably to damage Elisa’s engines and stop her ship, but their aim was terrible. Elisa dodged and flew, racing toward the sparser debris in outer orbit, where she could accelerate harder.
Xander looked at Terry. “We did invest in the best engines money could buy. Let’s see what the Verne can do.”
“You’re on!” Terry said.
“Shall I pilot?” OK asked.
Xander and Terry both shook their heads. “Not on your life.”
The Verne’s acceleration was powerful, but smooth, like a velvet glove shoving them back into their seats. They swiftly overtook the other pursuers and raced past them. Xander used all of his concentration to fly. Fortunately, the Verne’s delicate response systems and improved maneuverability were just as good as the enhanced speed.
Terry worked the weapons grid, worried. “I was planning to test all these systems out, but under controlled circumstances.” He let out a quick exhale. “I suppose there’s no time like the present.”
OK also studied the full systems displays. “All modules optimal. Our jazers should be sufficient to knock out her engines. Our targeting systems are highly calibrated.”
“Good, then this should all be over in just a few minutes,” Xander said.
The Verne leaped ahead like a greyhound reaching the end of a race, closing in on their quarry. Elisa’s ship soared out of the planetary system, dodging the Roamer weapons fire and pulling away from the pursuers. Xander was surprised at how well she was doing. He doubted her engines were superior to any of these ships’, but she did have one thing in her favor—she had nothing left to lose. She was willing to burn out all of her systems just to get away.
Xander didn’t plan on letting her do that. They closed in on her ship, and OK and Terry enlarged the targeting cross. “Last chance, Elisa,” he called.
“You owe me,” she said back, “but I don’t owe anything to you. We’re clear.”
Behind them, one of the reckless pursuing Roamers squawked with a distress emergency. “Damn! We just got winged by spaceship debris. We’re damaged, leaking air! Life-support systems failing.”
Xander gritted his teeth. It was instinctive to turn around and help any other ship in distress, but he kept his eyes forward, focusing on Elisa. There were plenty of other ships that could help the damaged craft. But if Elisa got away, she might never be brought to justice.
“Ready to open fire,” Terry said, swallowing hard. “You sure about this, Xander?”
“I’m sure, but let’s try not to blow her out of space. I’d much rather see her make excuses in front of a clan jury.”
Xander accelerated the Verne. Elisa’s ship had reached open space, far enough from all except for the last few hulks of Relleker ships. Xander recalled, just for a fraction of a second, how Elisa had approached them at Ulio Station, offering two young traders the deal of the century—exclusive distribution rights to ekti-X. This woman had made a fortune for Kett Shipping, but in the end, just as Rlinda feared, the money had blood on it.
Together, he and Terry activated the firing controls.
Elisa seemed to sense the oncoming barrage. She adjusted course at the last instant. Instead of a direct hit on her engines, the Verne’s jazer blasts hammered her shields at full force, caused them to collapse, and then scored her lower hull.
But she impetuously activated her stardrive, and the engines flared even as the Verne closed in. Battered, damaged, yet still functional, Elisa’s ship flashed away into lightspeed, escaping into trackless infinity.
An instant later, the Verne flew through the empty spot in space where her ship had been. In frustration, Xander slammed his fist on the control panel.
OK announced, unnecessarily, “She escaped.”
“She didn’t have time to set a course,” Terry said. “Who knows where she went.”
“We might get lucky,” Xander muttered. “Maybe she accidentally flew into a black hole.”
Shaking his head, he eased back on their engines, spun around, and headed toward Relleker, in case some damaged Roamer ships still needed assistance.
CHAPTER
98
ORLI COVITZ
Bursting with their new understanding about the bloater clusters and the enormous, sentient mind they comprised, Orli was excited to meet the Kellum production staff. They headed up to the bridge of the large ship that served as the ops center for the Kellum extraction field.
As soon as they reached the old bridge, a blustering Del Kellum came in to greet them. “We used to have a giant skymine at Golgen with big skies and all the elbow room you could want. We’re a lot cozier aboard a bunch of mothballed ships, but, by damn, it’s much easier to harvest ekti-X from bloaters than in the clouds of a gas giant.”
Orli burst out, “But there’s something you don’t know! These bloaters are more important than you think.”
Arita nodded briskly. “Orli and I just figured out what they really are.”
Zhett looked out the bridge windowport, made a broad gesture with her hand. “The bloaters are appearing everywhere, like naturally occurring fuel tanks. The clusters aren’t even hard to find. Cheap ekti will be commonplace before long.”
Patrick was more serious. “That’s why we’d better bank a decent profit soon.”
“Everybody needs stardrive fuel. We can still make it economically feasible if we keep our operations efficient,” Del said, then added with a snort, “Remember, we weren’t making much money at our Kuivahr distillery either.”
Outside, as the ships and extractors flitted among the bloaters, another sequence of bright flashes ignited in the nuclei of the nodules. Orli flinched and then smiled with wonder, while Arita gasped beside her, grabbing her arm to share the connection. A wide-eyed Collin clutched his treeling and muttered reports to all the connected green priests.
Orli pointed out the windowport. “Did you see that? The bloaters are part of something that’s bigger than we can imagine. They’re gigantic cells with nuclei, parts of a coalescing mind.”
Arita
nodded. “Those flashes are like neural impulses, a sequence of thoughts as the great mind awakens. It’s an emerging cosmic sentience—I don’t know how else to explain it. Those scattered chains and clusters of bloaters are akin to ganglia.”
Zhett laughed out loud at the idea, while Patrick remained skeptical. Del just blinked as if trying to be sure he had heard correctly.
DD interrupted, like a small compy lecturer. “Shana Rei shadow clouds have spontaneously appeared throughout the Spiral Arm. We know that more bloaters are also appearing, and they are demonstrably connected across interstellar space in huge, diffuse structures. We have also seen recent reports that some of the Shana Rei shadow clouds are collapsing spontaneously, as if from an external force. Perhaps there is a connection.”
“There is definitely a connection,” Orli said. “It is Eternity’s Mind, and it’s awakening. It made us both understand. Just as the Shana Rei returned, so did this cosmic sentience—and it’s the only thing strong enough to fight the shadows.”
Del Kellum made a loud rumbling sound in his throat. “By damn! Are you telling me these bloaters are … the mind of God? And we’re waking it up?”
Orli’s voice was firm. “We’re trying to tell you that it’s huge and it’s aware—and it’s also aware of us, and of the Shana Rei.”
“And it’s on our side,” Arita said.
As if the great diffuse mind could hear their conversation, the nearby bloaters sparkled in sequence, brighter than before. Strobing lights raced around the cluster, like a flurry of thought. With the flashes, Orli felt a shudder go through her mind and body like a lightning bolt connected to her brain. She reeled, nearly overwhelmed.
Garrison hurried over to support her, but for the moment she was so inundated with energy and wonders that she couldn’t talk. Orli clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, but she still felt all the colors and flares swimming around her mind. Behind her closed eyes she saw deep crimson and bright scarlet swirled with black and gray, then sparks of brilliant intensity. She did feel a connection. A communication.
A year ago, she had nearly died from the Onthos plague, weak, delirious, and she had survived only by immersing herself in bloater protoplasm. Orli still remembered that heady, mysterious baptism, and now the same sensory flood was happening again. When she had been swallowed up in that embrace, Orli had touched a part of the immense slumbering mind. Now, that mind continued to make contact with her.
Arita seemed just as entranced, and the two women connected as well, although they didn’t understand how. But they each realized that the space mind was being extraordinarily careful in its contact with them, attempting to control itself so as not to harm them.
Without words, Orli understood that Kotto Okiah had encountered a similar thing, opening himself to whatever Eternity’s Mind wanted to share—but his brain had been wiped out by the enormity of the imparted knowledge. The bloaters and their connected sentience now struggled to show restraint in an effort to communicate with Orli and Arita. She understood that the entity was also attempting to touch the Ildiran thism network, as well as the verdani mind that struggled against the Onthos blight—also a manifestation of the shadows.
Now that Orli was more aware of the threat to the cosmos, she could grasp the extent of the Shana Rei infiltration into the real universe—and what she saw terrified her. The space mind was fighting back with inconceivably powerful defenses, crushing the emerging shadow clouds and burning away the darkness.
But the shadows were everywhere … everywhere.
Orli also realized something else: even though Eternity’s Mind was awakening and should have been increasing in power, it experienced constant stabs of pain, ripples of debilitating agony. Something was harming its components even as it tried to save the cosmos.
Another great flash from the bloater nuclei, and suddenly Orli’s connection was broken. She blinked and collapsed into her seat in the Kellum HQ ship. Perspiration covered her. Beside her on the Roamer bridge, Arita was also reeling. They shared their thoughts, connected with the pain of the bloaters, the growing mind.
DD hummed in front of her, concerned. “Would you like a drink of water, Orli Covitz?”
But she shook her head. Arita had the same reaction. Collin was deeply concerned, stroking her forehead. “Can you explain?” he pressed. “What did you just experience?”
Arita looked at Orli and asked, “Why is the space mind in pain? It’s struggling to fight the Shana Rei, but all that pain…”
As Orli stared through the windowport of the Kellum operations center, looking at the extraction operations, she did understand. “Eternity’s Mind is in pain because it’s being systematically slaughtered.”
Outside, the Roamer ships finished draining another bloater sack, filling their ekti tanks and then towing away the flaccid discarded husk.
“Cell by cell,” she said. “And we’re the ones killing it.”
CHAPTER
99
ZOE ALAKIS
Somehow, they made it to Tom Rom’s ship.
The robot assault on the Pergamus installation continued, like a murderous swarm of mechanical insects tearing apart a rival hive. They broke into a third research dome, and the screams of the scientists and disease techs inside reached a crescendo, then fell silent as the sudden influx of unbreathable atmosphere killed most of them, while others fell victim to the marauding robots.
“Hurry!” Tom Rom pulled Zoe’s arm as they raced aboard his ship. She nearly dropped her satchel of rescued belongings, the only thing she took from Pergamus. All the rest would be destroyed; she knew it.
“I set the timer. The sterilization blasts will go off in only a few minutes,” he said, “and I need to get you to a safe distance.”
Zoe saw the mayhem behind them, thousands of skittering robots and the looming shadow cloud in the sky. “What is a safe distance? And where?” She did not mean to be sarcastic.
“Leave that to me.” He urged her into the back compartment to find a secure place as he grabbed the piloting controls.
Zoe felt disoriented and numb. Perhaps it was shock, not just from the violence all around her, but from the singularly horrifying idea that she was out of her sterile sanctuary, that she had already been exposed to the countless lethal organisms on the outside. Even after all this fighting, even if Tom Rom managed to escape the attacking robots, the universe itself was still hostile to human life. The smallest microorganisms would attack her, unseen. Everything wanted to kill her.
But she could not fault Tom Rom’s decision. By escaping, they would live for another day at least. That was the mantra she and Tom Rom had gone by when they’d left the ruins of Vaconda two decades ago, when her entire life had changed.
Black robots began to cluster outside the hangar as Tom Rom dropped the barrier field and raced forward for takeoff. His ship lurched ahead, and the heavy-thrust engines kicked in, but the robots were swarming toward them. Though the beetle-like machines looked hulking and sluggish, they moved with surprising agility.
His ship plowed down dozens of them on his way out of the hangar. Smashing their metallic bodies and scattering segmented parts, he rose up into the fume-filled sky of Pergamus. But Zoe saw they weren’t free yet.
Several robots on the ground spread open their carapaces, extended metallic wings, and launched themselves into the air after the escaping ship. Tom Rom was able to dodge and use his weapons at the same time. He picked off the nearest robots that threatened their flight, then concentrated on getting away.
The Pergamus sky was full of angular black ships, and they closed in, seeing him as prey. The robots had not let any other Pergamus ships get away, and they had no intention of letting this one slip through, either.
Zoe was thrown to the deck as Tom Rom made a barrel roll to avoid enemy weapon blasts. She slid against the back bulkhead, skinned her knee. He called over his shoulder, “Strap yourself in! I don’t want to worry about you right now.”
Zoe pi
cked herself up, tried to balance on unsteady legs. “You always worry about me.”
She lurched to the rear compartment, retrieving her satchel with its packed specimens. She stowed it by the engine wall and secured it with a strap to the deck; then she fought her way back to the cockpit, dropping into a seat near Tom Rom, fighting against the acceleration and the jarring evasive maneuvers as he tried to get away. Her body felt lighter now, and her heart was pounding; adrenaline sang through her bloodstream. She was terrified, but this was also exciting. She felt startlingly alive!
She wondered if this was why Tom Rom enjoyed the perilous tasks of collecting specimens for her. But with Pergamus destroyed, her samples, her data, her collection would be wiped clean. She would either have to start a new facility from scratch, or simply give up. Tom Rom wouldn’t let her give up. At least she had managed to save that rarest and deadliest of microorganisms, the Onthos plague.
A metal swarm of robot ships closed in. Tom Rom chose his targets with great precision and opened fire—not to defeat the robots but to blast a hole in their cordon so he could fly through. Still, the ships came racing after them.
The first countdown ended, and one of the research domes below flared bright as the gamma-ray sterilization burst obliterated everything inside and wiped out the encroaching black robots within a hundred-meter radius. Tom Rom didn’t even flinch from the nearby blast, but the robot pursuers reeled in identical surprise, as if all of their cybernetic minds were somehow connected. Tom Rom took advantage of the disorientation among the enemies, and he altered course and accelerated away, looking for a chance to streak upward.
Then the second dome thumped with the sterilization protocol. The Shana Rei cloud kept growing larger in the sky. Pseudopods pushed down toward Pergamus as if to engulf the research domes in black fog.
Tom Rom roared along the surface, putting distance between himself and the research station. Hundreds of robot ships came slavering after them.
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