The Web and the Stars

by Brian Herbert

  “My answers are the same as the last time I was here,” Eshaz said, with a yawn, “so I included enough extra payment for you to complete the documentation for me.” He glanced at Dux and grinned, “Saves a lot of time.”

  With a grunt the officer resealed the cylinder, and departed with his companions.

  The podship got underway, and proceeded slowly away from the orbital station, then accelerated, but not to web speed. An hour passed, and they reached a region of space that was dotted with half a dozen white dwarf suns, and two that were brown, and even dimmer. Eshaz chattered about how they had once been bright orbs, filled with nuclear energy, but over billions and billions of years they had collapsed. “Most races think there is very little life out here,” he said. “But we know better. It is a prime hunting region.”

  Eshaz pointed out a porthole at black-and-gold ships patrolling a sector that he called the entrance to the Wild Pod Zone, vessels with unusual, angular hull designs and bright search beams that illuminated space around them. One of the beams focused on them, causing Dux to squint.

  “Hibbils wield considerable military power and are fiercely territorial,” Eshaz said, “so we have found it most convenient to simply pay them off.”

  “Their ships look fast,” Acey said.

  “None faster, for intra-sector bursts,” Eshaz said. “The Hibbils are a totalitarian society, run by a corrupt military junta. They claim jurisdiction over a broad region, far beyond the traditional boundaries of their Cluster Worlds.” With a sneer, he added, “They pulled the planets out of orbit and linked them together mechanically. Hibbils fear a chaotic breakup of the galaxy, and think this will save their civilization from destruction.”

  “I’d like to go to their homeworlds sometime,” Acey said. “I’ve heard they’re tech masters.” “An interesting race, perhaps,” Eshaz admitted, “but they are among the worst industrial polluters

  in the galaxy. They provide supposedly low-cost machines for the merchant princes and for the leaders of other races, but there are hidden costs—damage to the planets they raid for raw materials, and more depleted worlds than the Guardians can ever restore.”

  As Acey and Dux looked through portholes, the podship headed slowly out into the darkness of near-space, leaving the Hibbil ships behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  There can be great beauty in change, even if propelled by violence.

  —Mutati Saying

  In his natural state he was the most dashingly handsome of Mutati men, with great folds of fat around his midsection, a perfectly symmetrical triple chin, and overlarge eyes on his tiny head. As he made his way through the crowd, in a golden outrider uniform decked with medals and ribbons, terramutati women swooned at his feet, and aeromutati females darted overhead, blowing him kisses as they flew by. Many Mutati men had applied for this glorious position, and Kishi Fapro had been chosen over all of them, not only for his good looks but for his enthusiastic willingness to die for the sacred cause of his people.

  For weeks his holophoto had been shown everywhere on Paradij, and in grainy nehrcom video transmissions to other worlds throughout the realm, so that everyone envied him. Surely he would occupy a special place in heaven after his heroic sacrifice, even higher than his earlier counterparts who had given up their lives flying Demolio torpedoes into enemy planets. Fapro represented a new beginning, with the Mutatis working even closer with God-on-High than before, relying upon him to guide the holy bomb to its target. It was “a mating of religion and technology,” the Zultan had said, displaying his proclivity for turning a phrase. After this success, the Mutatis would rain holy bombs on every merchant prince planet, and the long war would be won.

  No one would ever see Kishi Fapro again, except in the holo-images that would live beyond the expiration of his flesh and in a variety of curios that were sold bearing his likeness. He would also live on in the endearing memories of everyone who watched him now as he marched steadily toward the gleaming black schooner, smiling and waving to the crowd, showing no fear whatsoever.

  To enthusiastic cheers, he stepped inside the vessel and fired up the engines. In a matter of moments he lifted off, and streaked up to the orbiting pod station. As holocameras watched him all the way and projected the images to screens all over the Mutati Kingdom, the outrider guided his craft into the cargo hold of a laboratory-bred podship.

  Excitement mounted as the podship taxied out of the pod station and moved into position a short distance away. Then, bearing the black schooner and its deadly bomb, the lab-pod accelerated into the sky. In a bright flash of green light seen on the surface of Paradij, the Mutati doomsday weapon left the atmosphere and disappeared into space, pointed toward the merchant prince world of Siriki. On the other end, there would be no arrival at a pod station. This time, the entire podship, with its precious cargo, would strike the planet directly, triggering the deadly explosions.

  On a platform amidst the cheering onlookers, the Zultan Abal Meshdi uttered a prayer from the Holy Writ. He was convinced that God-on-High would guide the lab-pod to destroy their hated enemy—and that it would occur in a matter of seconds.

  Following the prayer, he raised his arms and shouted to the crowd, “Our doomsday weapon is on the way!”

  * * * * *

  A day passed.…

  At a nehrcom station on Siriki, the Human operator received an odd signal. His instruments revealed that it was from the Mutati homeworld of Paradij, but he knew that was impossible, since the Mutatis had no nehrcom units.

  The signal was first weak, then stronger. It repeated several times. The operator checked the source, and was astounded. Quickly, he relayed it to another operator on Canopa, a woman. She in turn went personally to the Office of the Doge on Canopa, where she handed a one-page report and a slender plax recording tube to the Royal Attache, Pimyt.

  “An odd transmission came in, sir, purportedly from the Mutatis on Paradij.”

  After scanning the report and listening to the signal, Pimyt looked up and said, “I’ll take care of this from here. You are to mention it to no one.”

  “That is my sworn duty, sir,” the operator responded, with a slight bow to the furry, much shorter Hibbil. “I brought it directly to you.”

  “You understand, of course, that this is a hoax? It could not possibly have come from Paradij, because the Mutatis have no nehrcom system.”

  “That is my understanding, sir.”

  “We’re putting the Doge’s best investigators on this, and they’d better not learn that you discussed it with anyone.”

  “You can count on my silence, sir.”

  “Tell the Siriki station to destroy all records of this. Then destroy yours, too. I want no copies of this to exist, not in your memory or anywhere else. It is a matter of utmost security to the Merchant Prince Alliance.”

  “I understand, sir. With your leave, I’ll take care of it right away.”

  Pimyt waved a hand dismissively.

  When he was alone in his office, the Royal Attache muttered, “What is this? What is that fool Zultan up to now?” He stared at the report. “Sending a signal here?”

  Pimyt’s reasons for being upset ran through circuitous pathways. Secretly, he and his Hibbil people were allied with the Adurian race under the HibAdu Coalition, with the goal of bringing down both the Merchant Prince Alliance and the Mutati Kingdom. The conspirators, after infiltrating themselves into key positions such as his own, had not yet seen the right time to make their move. They were still laying groundwork, getting control of weapons and personnel, setting things up.

  For a long time Hibbils and Adurians had been treated in a condescending manner by two races that considered themselves superior to them. His own Hibbil people, ostensibly an ally of the Humans, had actually been under the collective boot heel of the merchant princes during all that time: politically, economically, militarily, socially, and in every other imaginable way. It had been much the same story for the Adurians, except that it
was the Mutati Kingdom keeping them down. Finally, unable to endure any more mistreatment, the Hibbils and Adurians had aligned themselves into what they called the HibAdu Coalition. In large measure this secret alliance was so that they could exact revenge against their tormentors, taking everything that was of value away from the merchant princes and the shapeshifters—their worlds, their profits, and more. In the coming war, the Coalition intended to wipe out ninety percent of the populations of the two offending races, and enslave what was left.

  But the Mutati Zultan was a madman and a wild card. Pimyt’s secret collaborator, the Adurian Ambassador VV Uncel, had been stuck on Paradij by the podship crisis, and must certainly have made attempts to influence the Mutati leader. Pimyt knew that the ambassador had convinced Mutatis to use gyrodomes and minigyros, devices that weakened their brains in subtle ways and made them easier to conquer. However, unable to stay in touch with Uncel during the most recent crisis, Pimyt didn’t have updates. Neither of them could risk sending nehrcom transmissions back and forth between enemy planets, so Pimyt could only hope for the best.

  This new signal episode troubled him a great deal. When added to an earlier event in which Jacopo Nehr detected Mutati nehrcom transmissions on his own mobile transceiver, apparently sent by mistake, it gave the attaché additional cause for concern. The cross-space transmission leak had occurred after the cessation of podship travel, so he had not been able to follow up on it. In the errant transmittal, he heard the whiny voice of an Adurian saying that Mutatis, with no access to podships, could no longer launch Demolio attacks against merchant prince planets. The sound quality had been fuzzy, with no video at all, and Nehr had come directly to Pimyt with the information—since the two of them had a private arrangement and the Hibbil would ruin Nehr if he didn’t cooperate. The Adurian voice on the transmission had been, unmistakably, that of VV Uncel, though only Pimyt realized that.

  The Royal Attache paced nervously around his office. He had been fortunate with both of the Mutati transmissions, and had taken steps to keep a lid on them. But he couldn’t contain the information forever, and soon it would get out that the Mutatis had their own system. If Nehr ever came clean and revealed Pimyt’s knowledge of the internal workings of nehrcom units, merchant prince investigators might soon wonder if Pimyt had passed the information on to the Mutatis. Actually, the Mutatis had obtained it independently from Nehr’s disloyal brother, but the connection was still there, and Pimyt could be compromised.

  “Why did the Zultan send a signal to Siriki?” Pimyt said to himself, staring at the one-page report. He scratched his gray-and-black head, then dropped his jaw, as he recalled how the Mutatis had confirmed a number of Demolio strikes by sending nehrcom signals to the planet and seeing if it was still there.

  Siriki? Did he try to destroy the planet? Has he found a way to launch the bombs again?

  It seemed unlikely, but in this chaotic galaxy, he could not rule out the possibility. But what could he do to find out? He had only been able to send coded nehrcoms to his own operatives on other merchant prince worlds, containing military instructions, mostly involving infiltration and setting things up for future attacks by the HibAdu Coalition, making the attacks easier and more likely to succeed. But the conspirators could not act without podships, and neither could the Zultan of the Mutati Kingdom.

  No one could.

  * * * * *

  On Paradij, there was much confusion and unease among the people.

  A nehrcom transmission verification system revealed that their nehrcom signal was received on Siriki a day later. It did not bounce back as undeliverable, as anticipated. Thus the Demolio had never arrived.

  Rumors spread more rapidly than a royal birth announcement. What could have possibly gone wrong?

  The Zultan Abal Meshdi tightened up his nehrcom security. Then, paying little attention to the mutterings of the populace, he called for new volunteers, announcing in a planet-wide broadcast, “We need to send more outriders, again and again! Which of you will be our instruments of God?”

  Paradij an Mutatis thronged to volunteer for their sacred duty.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Each life is made up of large and small pieces. None of those pieces, not even the tiniest, is insignificant, for they all contribute to the whole, to the person you see standing before you in the mirror.

  —Jacopo Nehr

  In a particularly foul mood, Francella marched down the corridor of her central medical laboratory. It was lunch hour, but she had no appetite for anything, except venting her anger. All morning long she had been at the site of one of her largest manufacturing facilities, now reduced to smoking rubble by a hit-and-run Guardian attack. Her brother, even though she was holding him prisoner and conducting medical experiments on him, was still the inspirational leader of those malcontents. Originally, he had styled them as “eco-terrorists,” but in her eyes they no longer carried an environmental banner. They were simply terrorists.

  Throwing open the double doors of the company cafeteria, she stomped in and found Dr. Bichette at a large round table, one of five in the room. The core of each table revolved slowly like a lazy susan, so that diners could select sealed packages of food, all kept steaming hot in gelplax containers. As she sat beside the doctor, he was pressing a button on the edge of the table to select an item. As he did so, the package slid down a short ramp onto his plate. In contact with the air, the gelplax melted away, revealing a stir-fry meal.

  “We need to talk—now,” she began.

  She saw the immediate sag of his face and shoulders that she had noticed before, whenever she wanted something from him. Sometimes he didn’t show enough respect to suit her, but he was still considered one of the best medical research directors in the Merchant Prince Alliance, and had assembled a team of brilliant specialists who were intensely loyal to him. If she ever fired Bichette, they would all go with him. In any event, with no access to personnel on other planets, he had assembled the best possible team on Canopa. So, even though he irritated her on a regular basis, she continued to put up with him.

  “I’ve been thinking about your latest report on my brother, and my own daily observations. You and your researchers are painfully slow; I can’t stand it. The two major lines of experimentation—cellular regeneration and immortality—have made woefully little progress.”

  “Actually we have made considerable progress, but it’s too technical for you to understand. The details are in the report, the gene splicing, the cell structure analysis, the.…”

  “Don’t be condescending. I read it all, and it’s gobbledygook. I don’t think you’re getting anywhere at all, but you don’t have the guts to put that in your precious reports, do you?” She leaned toward him, but spoke louder. “Admit it! You’re not getting anywhere!”

  “You’re mistaken. We’re doing our best on a complex project.”

  “Let me see. Next you’re going to tell me it could take years for results.”

  “Why, yes. If it’s solvable at all, it might not be possible to accomplish it for decades. This is cutting-edge science.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say,” she said, rising to her feet. “Finish your lunch.”

  She walked briskly out of the cafeteria. Glancing back, she saw him picking at his food, deeply troubled.…

  Five minutes later, Francella passed one of her own CorpOne guards and entered her brother’s room. He was sitting up in bed, eating from food on a lap tray. With a sharp glare, he looked at her.

  She closed the door, and locked it. Francella wanted the secret of immortality, and not because the Doge had ordered her to discover it, through her research team. She wanted it for herself. But there were too many uncertainties, and she might die before it was made available to her.

  The recently healed fingers on her brother’s hands were faintly pink, from Bichette’s repeated cuts there. The latest report had said that continuous acts of cellular regeneration on the same appendages were causing the
skin to heal more slowly. It seemed to mark a limit to the powers of Noah’s body, but the experts were not sure how significant it was.

  Francella felt a sudden rush of rage and cruelty. She hated him. Her fingers tightened around the handle of a weapon in her pocket, then released. Instead of using it, she took a conciliatory tone with him and said, “Why don’t we make an effort to get along? All you have to do is tell me what you know about your condition.”

  His hazel eyes flashed angrily, and he cleared his tray with a sweep of one hand. Dishes clattered and broke on the floor. “You were responsible for that force of fake Guardians that attacked CorpOne headquarters, weren’t you?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be preposterous.”

  “I think you’re lying, and that you’re responsible for our father dying. After all the destruction you’ve caused to this family, you want us to be pals now?”

  “You’re in no position to speak to me like that!”

  “I’ll answer none of your questions.” He struggled to lift his legs from the bed, but they had been deadened by implanted injections of drugs, and he couldn’t move them. The doctors had found another way to keep him immobile.

  “Oh, dear brother, would you like to be released?”

  “Yes, damn you!”

  Impulsively, she brought the weapon out of her pocket and activated it—a silver-handled laserblade. She clicked it on, causing the tip of the barrel to glow ruby red.

  “You seem to be having trouble with your legs,” she said. With a burst of burning red light, she began to cut off his right leg, at the thigh.

  * * * * *

  The drugs in Noah’s legs were not painkillers. He learned that the moment the hot light began to sear through his skin, then severed tendons and melted bones. His leg felt as if it was on fire.

  He screamed at her and flailed, trying unsuccessfully to reach the weapon. Blood gushed from the open wound, but coagulated quickly. As his body began to restore itself he felt a shift in the pain signals that were being transmitted within his body, a coolness like foam applied to a fire. Such an odd sensation.