The Web and the Stars

by Brian Herbert

  This nocturnal adventure lifted her spirits; each day that she had an appointment she looked forward to it, even though the two of them had only held hands so far. She hadn’t pushed for more, not even a kiss. She hadn’t told him of her attraction for him, though she could tell that he knew it anyway. Thus far she had only confided that she was interested in his well-being, and would tell him no more. To her credit, she pulled it all off with an air of mystery.

  At first the young man had seemed confused by her attentions, and then grateful. In return for her payoffs to the guards, she had obtained better treatment for him. So far he had been spared intensive interrogations or torture, but one of the guards told her he didn’t know if he could promise that for much longer.

  Though she had given him no name, Anton had recognized her, and had told her so. Once when he started to utter her name, she’d pressed a hand against his mouth. “Shhh,” she had said. “We don’t want the wrong people to find out I’m helping you.”

  Some of the guards had recognized her, despite her efforts to remain cloaked and to conceal her features as much as possible. In delivering her payments to the guards, Meghina’s intermediary had commanded them to look away whenever “the lady” came to visit. Most of the guards had done so, but she had seen a couple of them peeking, trying to get a glimpse of her. One of them might have seen her full face a couple of weeks ago, when her hood slipped off as she was leaving.

  Tonight, as she moved stealthily down the corridor, she was surprised to see another female visitor, already with Anton in his cell, speaking to him in low tones. The princess recognized Francella Watanabe immediately, unmistakable with her high forehead and shaved eyebrows. She wore a long black coat.

  Slipping into a darkened alcove only a few meters away from the orange bars of the cell’s containment field, Meghina eavesdropped on the conversation.

  “Are you well, my son?” Francella asked. She stood inside the cell, while he remained seated on the lower bed of his bunk.

  Looking away from her, he said, “I’ve told you before. I have no feelings for you, so we have nothing to discuss. Why do you keep coming back?”

  “Because I neglected you for too long. I beg you to forgive me, my son. Am I not worthy of your slightest sympathy?”

  “You are only worthy of my contempt.”

  “At least you have some feelings for me,” she said, with an emotional edge to her voice. She looked down, then said, “I could help you more, if you’d give me a chance. Already I have prevented them from torturing you.”

  Anton didn’t respond, but it occurred to Meghina that he had at least two female protectors now. Undoubtedly the guards were playing both of the women to maximize their payoffs, saying to each that they didn’t know how much longer they could continue to protect the prisoner.

  Moments later, Francella used a transmitter to release the containment field, stepped out, and then reactivated it. Without another word she swept down the corridor, while Princess Meghina remained in the shadows. In his cell, Anton threw something metal that clanked on the rock floor.

  Stepping out of the alcove, Meghina said, “You’re popular tonight.”

  He looked at her, his face filled with tragedy. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time. Can you come back another day? I appreciate what you’re doing for me, but I just don’t.…” He seemed at a loss for words.

  “You don’t need to explain,” she said, softly. “I understand.”

  As Meghina left the prison the same way she had entered, she felt no sympathy for Francella; the selfish woman gave up her maternal rights when she abandoned him as a baby. Of that she was certain.

  But the Sirikan princess was not sure what to make of Francella Watanabe’s involvement now … this adversary she loathed so much, who competed with her for the affections of Meghina’s own husband, Doge Lorenzo. Admittedly, the courtesan and the Doge had reached an understanding between them, an open marriage. But she wished he had better taste in some of the other women he saw.

  * * * * *

  It arrived, like so much information, as an unconfirmed rumor, a horrific story of butchery committed against Noah by his own sister. A new Guardian recruit, a young woman, came to Subi and Thinker with the dreadful tale.

  “Everyone’s talking about it,” she said. “I don’t know who said it first, or where it came from.”

  “His own sister, eh?” Subi said, seething.

  “That’s what they saying.”

  Subi sent out investigators to scour Rainbow City and the Valley of the Princes, seeking hard information. Finally it arrived, late that night. One of the investigators had spoken with a medical researcher who claimed to have actually seen the carnage.

  Under cover of darkness, Subi led a commando squad himself. In a frenzy, the Guardians stormed CorpOne’s headquarters complex, the inverted pyramid and surrounding buildings. Quickly, they took control of the complex and killed or captured all of the guards.

  Feeling a rush of adrenaline, Subi then ordered his squad to aim incendiary rockets at the headquarters building. He hesitated before giving the order to fire. This was the most famous of Prince Saito Watanabe’s buildings, and the most architecturally interesting. The late prince had been Noah’s father, and as such he deserved respect. Especially since Noah came to feel that the two of them might have been close, if not for the vindictive interference of his own sister.

  Francella.

  But rage suffused Subi as he envisioned her face, and her terrible acts, not only against Noah but against her own father. Over a megaphone, he shouted: “Everyone in the building, you have five minutes to get out.”

  Some of the offices had lights on, while most were dark. He saw movement up on one of the top three floors that had been leased to Doge Lorenzo.

  Within minutes, a dozen people rushed out of the building on the ground level, and were taken into custody. No one important; just mid-level office staffers and janitorial workers.

  Subi made a chopping motion with his right arm, a gesture he selected intentionally, as a visual reminder of Francella’s terrible crime against Noah.

  A volley of incendiary rockets struck the building’s top levels exactly where Thinker had told him to hit, causing the entire structure to collapse and burn. It burned like a torch, lighting up the Valley of the Princes.

  Chapter Forty

  “There are new experiences, and then again there are new experiences! This blows the top off my skull!”

  —Acey Zelk, comment to Dux Hannah

  Early in the morning, according to the artificial diurnal time established by the hunters, their mottled gray-and-black podship proceeded slowly through the Hibbil Sector, taking a roundabout, seemingly wayward course. In this manner they hoped to avoid alerting their prey.…

  Inside the low light of the passenger compartment, Eshaz opened the large shipping cases and brought out a protective suit like the one he had worn on Tarbu. After putting it on, he removed the contents of the other cases, and arranged various items on the deck and on top of a bulkhead table.

  These included thorn vines in varying colors, all carefully wrapped in broad leaf packages. Each parcel was marked in a Tulyan dialect that Dux could not read, labels that Eshaz said identified the toxins and drugs in the vines, along with the sizes of the clippings. Other cases held vials of liquid and powder, small bowls, fire cylinders, herbs, music spheres, pigment rings, a big alloy cauldron, and an intricately folded, gilded harness that was decorated with mythological animals. Cheerily, Eshaz described some of the items as he brought them out.

  In complete fascination, the boys watched as he mixed liquids, powders, and herbs in the bowls, took scrapings from the thorn vines, and combined everything in the cauldron, which he heated by inserting the fire cylinders into receptacles around the bottom of the thick alloy casting.

  “I’ll let this cook for a while,” he said.

  “Sort of a witch’s brew?” Acey asked.

  “Your termino
logy limits comprehension,” Eshaz retorted. “A common Human frailty. When roaming the galaxy, you must avoid thinking in preconceived terms.”

  Acey nodded, but he looked puzzled.

  Dux took a deep breath, and tried to keep his own mind open.

  Presently Eshaz murmured incantations and tossed the music spheres overhead, which played monastic-sounding chants and polyphonies and then floated down into the boiling cauldron, melted into the liquid, and were silenced.

  “It’s time,” Eshaz said, looking around.

  “What?” Acey said.

  “Tesh is coming to a stop.”

  Running to a porthole, Dux and Acey looked out into a region of space that was oddly illuminated by a pale bluish-gray light that had no discernible source. Acey went to another porthole. “I don’t see any wild podships,” he said.

  “Nonetheless, we are in the right place.”

  Now, using long spoons, Eshaz dipped solution out of the cauldron and poured it into silver vials, which he sealed with sharp-pointed tops and placed into a bag. Then, removing the protective suit and his other clothing, he smeared iridescent pigment rings on his body, changing the scaly bronze surfaces of his skin to a network of intricate, colorful designs.

  His slitted eyes were glazed over now, and he seemed to take no notice of Dux or Acey. Invoking new incantations, he handled the thorn vines without protective clothing, and wrapped a selection of them around his waist, then used straps to secure the bag of vials to his chest. He placed a bright red vine on his head, wearing it like a crown, and murmured what Dux imagined might be a Tulyan blessing.

  As the boys watched, spellbound, Eshaz grabbed the gilded harness, which was still folded. Opening a hatch, he leapt out into the eerily illuminated vacuum of space, and quickly closed the door behind him. Through the mysterious workings of the podship, there was no explosive decompression that might have been caused by the inrushing vacuum of space. Instinctively, the boys held their breaths, then began breathing a few moments later, uneasily at first but with more comfort as the cabin oxygen level replenished quickly.

  “Look!” Acey said, pointing upward.

  A filmy window began to form on the top of the passenger compartment, and the teenagers saw Eshaz harnessed to the top of the podship, leaning forward.

  * * * * *

  The Tulyan felt the craft accelerate along a course that he had specified for Tesh. Squinting to peer ahead, he made out a herd of podships there, moving in their typical vee-formation away from him. As he neared them at a higher rate of speed, he saw that they were one of the largest wild-pod herds he had ever seen, with at least seventy individuals.

  “Ubuqqo, atra mii, “ he murmured in his ancient tongue. “Thanks be to the Sublime Creator.” In the time-honored way of his people, Eshaz held two silver vials—one in each hand, pointed toward the podship formation. At his mental command, the vials shot out of his hands, faster than any projectile weapon. Grabbing more vials from the bag, he released one after another, and all hit their targets, sedating the podships one by one from the rear of the formation—though they continued to fly with their visual sensors looking forward, and did not send warnings to the leader.

  Gradually the entire formation slowed down—with the exception of the alpha pod—and came to a dead stop in space.

  * * * * *

  Inside the passenger cabin beneath Eshaz, the teenage boys pressed their faces against portholes, staring out. Limited by his Human sensations, Dux had not felt the accelerations, decelerations, or turns of the podship in which he rode. Now, as if experiencing a dream, he saw a herd of podships come into his view. Most of them appeared to be drifting.

  Their own podship, still under the guidance of Tesh, floated slowly past the sedated creatures.…

  * * * * *

  When he was just behind the lead podship, which remained unaware of the flurry of silent activity behind it, Eshaz reached deep into his mind, and focused all of his energy. He must be especially precise now, capturing the alpha pod and taking full control of it. It could not be sedated like the others or permitted to escape, or it would react by reviving them and leading all of them to commit suicide.

  At the last possible moment, just as the alpha pod seemed to sense something, Eshaz made a floating, zero-g leap onto the creature’s back, connected his harness, and dug thorn vines into its sides.

  The podship was a big one, with ragged scars on its sides, perhaps marking prior attempts to capture it. The creature squealed out, an ancient protest that Eshaz heard despite the vacuum, and he held on.

  Like a wild stallion of Lost Earth, the creature bucked, spun, whirled, and tried to throw off its rider. With expert precision, Eshaz brought out more vines and dug the sharp thorns into the creature’s hide, injecting toxins. Finally the podship settled down.

  On top of the pod, Eshaz lay flat, facing downward. Spreading his hands out, he felt the creature tremble, as it sensed what was about to occur. The Tulyan felt himself dropping slowly, like sinking into a thick bog. He merged into the flesh, and into the creature’s primitive brain.

  The podship altered appearance. Eshaz’s face and eyes formed on the front, on a scale equal to the much larger size of the creature, and its skin became scaly, a gray-bronze hue that combined the two races. Immersed in every cell of the Aopoddae, Eshaz changed the direction of the vessel, causing it to veer off to the right. The other wild pods followed.

  Exhilarated, Eshaz accelerated onto a podway, with the entire formation following, and Tesh’s pod just behind them.

  * * * * *

  From the sectoid chamber, Tesh heard Acey and Dux hooting with excitement inside the passenger compartment. Then, as the podships reached open space, beyond the protection of the Wild Pod Zone, she saw a small contingent of Parvii scouts on one side, keeping pace with them. Her emotions warred with one another.

  Eshaz, leading the pack of sentient spaceships, must have seen them, too, because he urged the alpha pod—with its hybrid, reptilian face—to greater speed. The unpiloted podships accelerated, keeping up.

  But the Lilliputian scouts kept pace, too.

  Tesh knew they were communicating with others within telepathic range, summoning a full swarm … enough to take control of the wild podships. She and Eshaz had discussed this possibility, and knew they wouldn’t have much time to escape. In one sense she felt like a traitor to her race, but she knew her actions were absolutely necessary.

  Chapter Forty-One

  There are countless ways to die, but only those specified in the sacred texts guarantee your entrance into heaven.

  —The Holy Writ of the Mutatis

  On the Mutati capital world of Paradij, the Zultan Abal Meshdi lounged on oversized pillows in his palace harem, watching as his personal menagerie of shapeshifters danced for him. Fifteen of the most beautiful Mutati women of the three subspecies—terramutati, aero mutati, and hydro mutati—danced on the floor, in the air, and inside a large tank of water. They moved in perfect synchronization, kinetic kilos of undulating flesh, the most graceful he had ever seen. But this evening he did not feel any desire for them. He had too much on his mind, had worked too hard for too long. At last everything was coming together: all of the important pieces were moving into position.

  He had never witnessed such a malevolent, misanthropic frenzy all across the planet, and it pleased him immensely. In each city, town, and hamlet, every citizen was contributing mightily to the war effort against humankind, marshaling resources, channeling energy, performing all of the small and large tasks required for the ultimate, grand victory of the Mutati Kingdom.

  As the inspirational leader, the Zultan knew he had been the catalyst for this new thrust, but lately the whole thing was taking on a life and energy of its own. Bioengineering laboratories were creating an abundance of lab-pods, while factories were churning out simulated merchant schooners with built-in Demolio torpedoes, and training facilities were preparing the outriders. Buildings everywhere carried g
iant electronic murals of the Zultan, along with holos of the most popular outrider volunteers, those Mutati men and women who would pilot the planet-busting bombs to their destinations.

  Rumors abounded that the Zultan himself would ride one of the deadly Demolios to glory, and he allowed the stories to persist. They did no harm, and actually served to inspire the people even more, by showing that he was willing to give his all for the cause. Privately, he had no intention of getting to heaven that way. His own deeds spoke for themselves; he had already paid for his ticket.

  I’ll come up with some good excuse, he thought, as he watched the bulky beauties perform a shapeshifting dance, contorting their abundant mounds of flesh in provocative ways. Some delaying tactic to keep others boarding the lab-pods ahead of me.

  His thoughts shifted as he watched a lithesome hydromutati slide through the water. He could never marry that subspecies or conceive children with a non-terramutati, but the Holy Writ did permit certain dalliances.…

  * * * * *

  Though Noah’s body looked substantially restored, with all of its exterior parts and appendages, scars remained that were slow to heal, along with faint, pink discolorations on his freckled skin. His internal organs ached, especially his kidneys and lungs. Signals reaching his brain told him the organs were healed and functioning well, but they remained traumatized, like separate, sentient life forms huddling inside his body. The pain had been excruciating. Any other Human would have died under such a violent onslaught, but Noah, with his enhanced life functions, lived through more agony than any other person had ever endured in the entire history of his race. The trauma had gone on and on, without relief—with the exception of intermittent, unpredictable mental excursions that diverted his attentions elsewhere, but for only brief moments. During the worst of it he would have welcomed death, but the Grim Reaper had not awaited him with open arms.

  In his continuing suffering, with his paranormal linkage to Timeweb, Noah was in the process of discovering something new and disturbing, over which he had no control.…