by James Palmer
“We don’t like this place,” said Tarl.
Drizda glanced toward them, startled. “This place does have an eerie feeling. I’ll grant you that. But I’m not finished yet.”
“The Magus,” said Tarl.
“We need a plan,” added Zarl.
“I know,” said Drizda. She really didn’t want to think about him right now, but she supposed he had been useful in locating this particular section of ruins to check. He didn’t need her or the twins; she supposed this was his way of getting some servants to do his dirty work. His bodyguards were clearly not up to the task. She noted their behavior earlier. They were nervous, tense, wary of the alien ruins. She pushed these uncomfortable thoughts from her mind. She had found something.
Her left hand sought the far wall. One of the glyphs was raised, sticking out from the surface of the wall a few inches. She traced its outline with her finger talon. It was a triangular shape, composed of some brittle metal that did not match the building material used in the construction of the wall. She moved the light toward it. It wasn’t a glyph. A collection of dots with lines that intersected at a point between them made up its tableau. She worked it loose and held it in her palm. It glittered faintly in the light from her wand.
Drizda checked the wall where the triangular piece had been, and found a circular depression. Thin metallic strips moved away from the shape, obscured by the outer coating of the wall. Ancient circuitry? Drizda turned the shape over and noticed tiny metallic dots that, when the piece was installed, would line up perfectly with the strips in the wall.
“Some kind of interface,” Drizda said. This was a remarkable find. She showed it to Zarl and Tarl.
“Any idea what this might be?”
The twins looked it over, then exchanged glances, muttering to each other in that language they shared. Finally, Tarl said, “Looks like some kind of memory storage device.”
“Yes,” said Zarl.
Drizda nodded and placed it carefully in a pouch on her belt. “Now, what to do about the Magus?”
She looked about on the ground. The light from her wand picked something shiny out of the debris. It was another triangular piece, though this one was obviously ornamental. She picked it up and hefted it. “Perfect.”
“The old switcheroo, as the humans say,” said Zarl.
“Too bad they’ll kill us anyway,” reflected Tarl.
“Maybe not,” said Drizda.
“What did you have in mind?” Tarl asked.
“I’m not exactly sure yet,” said Drizda. “Just follow my lead.”
* * *
The Magus lurked outside, his personal guard flanking him, feeling quite pleased with himself. The scientist would soon have what he seeks, and he could leave this lifeless place, filled only with the ghosts of lesser beings. None felt their presence more than his spineless bodyguards, who even now shifted uncomfortably on their feet, their tails swishing nervously. He barked another order to be still, and it calmed them for the moment. The Magus couldn’t wait to be away from here. Once he had the Light of Ages in hand he would return to the throneworld, triumphant, the Empress Herself bowing before his newfound alien power.
They heard a strange noise, a kind of reedy susurration echoing from a nearby clump of ruins. The two guards raised their rail pistols, clustering close to their leader. The Magus shoved them away. “Go and see what it is,” he said testily. “Probably one of the servitors caught in some vegetation.”
The two looked at each other warily before skulking off into the willowy undergrowth. The Magus returned his attention back to the opening where Drizda and the freaks had gone. The conjoined twins were an abomination of nature and an affront to the Egg Mother. Their lives should have been extinguished at birth. The Magus would rectify this momentarily, as soon as he had what he needed.
The Magus heard the noise again, this time coming from the mouth of the opening through which Drizda and the conjoined monstrosities had gone. He uttered a growl of annoyance and stepped closer, his frail eyes staring into the gloom. A pale metallic object flew from the opening, and instinctively the Magus made to catch it. He hefted the triangular object in his hands, staring at it in awe. Was this really it? The Magus was so distracted by it he did not see his own rail pistol being pulled from its holster on his belt. He looked just in time to see Drizda leveling the weapon at his snout.
“What is this treachery?” the Magus roared.
“I would expect one such as you to know treachery when he sees it,” said Drizda evenly. “You have your prize. Now let us go.”
“Guards!” shouted the Magus, glancing around the jungle. “Where are my guards?”
“They are otherwise indisposed,” said Drizda with a click of her teeth.
In a moment Zarl and Tarl stepped into view, appearing behind where the Magus stood.
The deposed leader glared at them. “You freakish j’kaks. You’ve killed my honor guard.”
“No, old one,” said Drizda. “We have not killed our fellow Draconi. We’re not you. We merely took advantage of their obvious discomfort at being near these ruins, a discomfort based in their mindless superstition.”
The Magus hissed. “You would do well to reacquaint yourself with our ways, haughty one.”
“You should follow your own advice, traitor.”
“What do we do,” began Zarl.
“With him?” Tarl finished.
Drizda considered this a moment. “Tie him up with his guards. We’ll alert our people’s authorities once we’re in orbit. I’m sure he’ll have a grand time explaining himself to Her Majesty’s Special Inquisition.”
The Magus made to protest, but three firearms shoved in his face did much to silence him. He was old, and of the administrator class. He manipulated events using politics and subterfuge. What fight he might have once possessed had left him long ago. They herded him a short distance to the mouth of another entrance, the one Zarl and Tarl had used to exit the ruins. The guards were hunkered on the ground, tied tightly with carbon monofilament Zarl and Tarl must have had on their person. Their weapons were gone, tossed somewhere far into the thick tangle of brush that surrounded the ruins.
Drizda covered them while Zarl and Tarl tied the Magus to his guards.
“And this?” said the Magus, gesturing with the pyramid-shaped object he still clutched in his talons. “Is this really the Light of Ages?”
“No,” said Drizda. “Merely a trinket. A chunk of ornamentation. I learned something in there, Magus: there is no Light of Ages.”
“You lie!” said the Draconi. “You have taken it for yourself! I’ll have it! I’ll see you dead!”
Drizda gestured to Zarl and Tarl, and they left the Magus, still ranting while his guards struggled and squirmed in their bonds.
Chapter Seventeen
The Star Map
The trio wasted no time in returning to the Snark. The twins climbed into their pilot’s berth and instantly began the launch sequence, while Drizda strapped in next to the small vessel’s tightbeam relay.
“Does this thing work?”
Zarl craned his neck to glare at her. “Of course it works.”
Drizda flicked on the diskey and brought up the diplomatic channel. She sent a priority coded message to Draconi high command about the Magus and his activities, as well as where he could be found. She made to turn the machine off, then thought better. She dialed in another code—a human code—and waited. It took ten minutes, but she was eventually connected to the Solar Navy railship Zelazny.
Captain Hamilton smiled when he made out her face from the stream of decaying tachyons on his end. “Drizda. It’s nice to hear from you.”
“Is this line secure?” said Drizda.
He looked around warily. “Hang on.”
The screen went dark. When it winked to life a moment later, Hamilton was with Leda Niles, and the two of them were in another room, probably the Captain’s ready room, she knew from her time aboard the Onslaught.
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“We’re all secure now,” said Hamilton. “What’s going on? No offense, but we’re kind of in the middle of something.”
He filled her in on what had happened.
“I hadn’t heard,” Drizda said when Hamilton was done. “I’ve had some difficulties of my own, but I think I’ve found something important.”
She pulled the triangle from her pouch and showed it to Hamilton and Leda on screen.
Leda whistled and gave Hamilton a knowing glance.
“What?” said Hamilton.
“I know what that is,” she said. “I’ve seen that diagram before.”
“Where?” asked Drizda.
“The Swarm probe showed me that same image,” she said. “When we were mentally linked. I tried to draw it later, after everything was sorted out, but I couldn’t remember it perfectly. But that’s it. I’m sure of it.”
“So what the hell is it?” asked Hamilton.
“Hang on,” said Leda. “I’ll show you. Both of you.” She tapped furiously on a slate out of the tightbeam relay’s view, tongue jutting from a corner of her mouth. She made a swiping motion, and the image of her and Hamilton was replaced by a flat black and white image showing something very similar to the diagram in Drizda’s hand, if somewhat more crude.
“Back in the days before interstellar travel, before even manned spaceflight explored our solar system, we sent probes into space,” said Leda. “A few of them had simple star maps like this one, that showed the position of Earth relative to fourteen known pulsars, along with their rotation periods.”
The image vanished, replaced by Hamilton’s and Leda’s faces once more.
“I remember reading about that in a history class,” said Hamilton. “The idea was that if an alien civilization encountered one of our probes, and could identify these pulsars from their rotation periods and could map them all in three dimensional space, they could pinpoint where Earth is and come visit.”
“How forward-thinking your people are,” said Drizda, clicking her teeth. “And trusting. So you think this is a pulsar map.”
“That’s the only thing that makes sense,” said Leda. “Where did you find it?”
“On an obscure planet deep in Draconi space,” said Drizda. “Can you help me figure out this location? My resources at the moment are…limited.”
“Sure,” said Leda. “We’ll just need a scan of it. Our computer should be able to pinpoint these nine pulsars with these precise rotational periods. It might take some time though.”
“And we’re in the middle of a war,” Hamilton added.
“This isn’t your average Progenitor trinket,” said Drizda. “I believe whatever lies at the convergence of these pulsars could help us stop the Chaos Wave.”
Leda raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
“Because someone has already threatened to kill me in order to obtain it.” Drizda then told them an abbreviated version of their adventures with the Magus.
Hamilton and Leda glanced at each other before returning their attention to the screen. “Are you all right?” said Hamilton.
“Yes. I’m fine. At least for now. But I don’t know who else might be looking for the Icon.”
“I’d bet my commission Straker is,” said Hamilton.
“He’s still alive?” said Drizda.
“We think so,” said Leda. “His personal ship wasn’t among the wreckage of the Armitage. We’re operating under the assumption that he is still very much among the living.”
“OK,” said Hamilton. “Get somewhere safe. We’ll get back to you as soon as we parse this map.”
“Thank you, Captain. I’ll be staying on Tau Lambda Prime until I hear from you.”
Hamilton nodded and the screen went dark.
She turned to Zarl and Tarl, busy at the navigation controls, the ship pushing its way out of Shazara’s gravity well. “How much to secure your services on a short-term basis?”
The twins looked at each other, considering. If this was going to get expensive, Drizda figured she might as well know now.
Chapter Eighteen:
The Ix
As the tightbeam relay went dark, Hamilton looked at Leda grimly. “I don’t like this,” he said.
“Neither do I,” said Leda. “You think this Magus guy might have some connection to Straker?”
Hamilton shrugged, making his starched uniform rustle. “I don’t know. It’s possible. It’s also just as possible he’s just another power hungry tyrant like Straker. Either way, our friend is going to need some backup.”
“Do you really think Drizda has found the Light of Ages?” Leda asked.
Hamilton looked at her for a full minute before answering. “I honestly don’t know. You tell me. You’re the expert on such things. I always thought it was a story.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m up to my epaulets in invading aliens and sentient space probes. Now I’m certain of nothing.”
“I think it is,” said Leda.
“Why?”
“Because we need it to be.”
Hamilton moved to stare out the ready room’s viewing port, his back to her.
“Think about it,” said Leda. “It makes perfect sense. And if that’s true it could lead us to the location of the Light of Ages.”
“I’m not ready to go off on some alien treasure hunt,” said Hamilton. Especially in the middle of this new threat.”
“It could help us win this fight,” said Leda.
Hamilton turned and looked at her. “Either way, Drizda’s in trouble. And not only that, we need to bring everyone together if we stand a hairball’s chance in a black hole of defeating this Chaos Wave, man and Draconi.”
“What do you want to do?”
“The only thing we can right now. Let’s get those coordinates parsed. If Drizda can find a weapon that can stop this incursion, we need to help her all we can.”
Leda nodded. Her temple itched, as well as her arm. She was worried about what the strange alien circuitry was still doing inside her body. She vowed to get it checked later, but right now she was still on duty, and they had a lot of work to do.
“I know someone who can help Drizda, protect her and make sure she can see this thing through,” she said.
“Who?” Hamilton began, then waved it away with his hand. “Wait. Never mind. I don’t want to know. Make whatever arrangements you need to, then get back out on the command deck. I’ll get McGregor going on this pulsar map.”
He turned and left the ready room. Leda watched him go, then fired up the tightbeam once more. She could get Drizda the help she needed, provided said help was still alive and wanted to be found.
* * *
Leda returned to the command deck ten minutes later to find all hell was breaking loose. The ship shook and shuddered with muffled concussions, and the tactical display was alive with holographic fire as dozens of ship designations flashed in the air between her and Hamilton and the viewscreen. In the center of the chaos was the blue sphere of a planet.
“Sitrep?” she said as she moved to Hamilton’s side. “The ion trail leads to the planet Lethe. Ever heard of it?”
Leda nodded. Lethe was an early colony world known for its single four mile wide river that stretched around the entire planet from pole to pole. Three billion people called it home. And it was the Chaos Wave’s next target.
“Looks like we’re not alone,” Leda said, eying some of the yellow triangles that marked ships of the Solar Navy fleet.
“The 7th was already here. We’re going to rendezvous with them near the planet. I’ve already spoken with the commanders and told them we’re bringing company.”
“This is going to make history,” Leda said. “Humans and Draconi working together?”
“It’s going to make history anyway,” said Hamilton, his eyes never leaving the tactical wireframe. “Let’s just hope the Draconi can work and play well with others.”
Leda nodded. Hamilton had a point o
f course. They knew what it was like to fight the Draconi, but they had never worked with them, other than what little they had done when the Swarm probes had appeared and started eating everything in sight. Could they be trusted to follow a chain of command?
“We’re nearing the planet now, sir,” said Hudson.
“On screen,” said Captain Hamilton.
The viewer winked to life, showing a lush, green world, a single silver thread running through the center of it all. People spent their entire lives on that great river, traversing it from pole to pole. Space travel was a distant memory to the eldest among them. Leda wondered if they knew what was coming.
Massive blocky, blue-gray ships were approaching like a swarm of messenger wasps, seemingly oblivious to the presence of the 7th fleet already in orbit around the planet.
“Transmit our defense formation protocols to our Draconi friends,” said Hamilton. “Defense fields to full. Prime all weapons.”
Leda’s heart raced, but everything in her perception began to slow down. And everything was silent save for one sound that filled her mind. At first it sounded like a susurrus of crickets, but it soon congealed into a single, strange syllable, repeated over and over: Ix.
Ix. Ix. Ix. She didn’t know what it was, but for some reason the sound alone was enough to fill her with a monumental and all-encompassing dread.
Ix. Ix. Ix. In a moment she knew what it meant, and where it was coming from. The alien ships. That’s what the crew called themselves.
Ix. Ix. Ix.
“—vasive maneuvers,” Hamilton was saying now, his voice cutting through the fog surrounding Leda. She shook her head to clear it, and everything was suddenly back to normal, if you could call going into battle normal. Warning klaxons were going off, and the tactical display was alive with dozens of ships.
The Zelazny shook as a searing blue energy beam narrowly missed them.
“Their weaponry consists of some unknown form of plasma,” said Cade. “Extremely powerful. I’d love to know how it works.”