The Web and the Stars

by Brian Herbert

  “Just something I put together with spare parts, while I was banging around in the Visitor’s Center. It kept me busy.”

  Dux knew what it was. As he and the Tulyans watched, Acey brought out a helmet with a plax face plate, and a green protective suit modeled after the larger Tulyan models, to keep from being drugged or poisoned by thorns. He put the gear on.

  Looking at him, the Tulyans laughed.

  “Hey,” Acey said, “I’m pretty handy with things, and I really can breathe inside this thing. I tested it. Made one for my cousin, too, but he’s not as brave as I am.”

  “Not as foolhardy, you mean,” Dux said.

  “So, you want to go upstairs, eh?” Viadu said, to Acey.

  The young man nodded vigorously, inside his outfit. His voice came through a built-in speaker, sounding thin: “This suit is perfectly sealed, and has oxygen for me to breathe. It’s also thermally protected, since we Humans weren’t born with much insulation.”

  “All right, but there are certain things you can’t do, since the pods only respond to telepathy.”

  “I just want a front row seat up there,” Acey said.

  “All right, but if you get in the way, I’m sending you back down here.”

  “Agreed,” the teenager said.

  The Tulyans unpacked shipping cases and got into their own protective suits, after which they brought out thorn vines wrapped in broad leaf packages, and other items they would need. One of the Tulyans mixed liquids, powders, herbs, and thorn scrapings in small bowls, then tossed everything into a cauldron and heated it with fire cylinders in the alloy casting. Dux and Acey had seen Eshaz do this before, but they found it no less fascinating now.

  Viadu murmured incantations and tossed spheres overhead, which played serene music and then floated down into the cauldron and melted into the boiling liquid. Working fast, the Tulyans filled silver vials with the liquid, then removed their protective suits and smeared pigment rings on their bodies, creating the network of intricate, iridescent designs that they had previously seen Eshaz create.

  The Tulyans, slipping into a collective trance, murmured incantations and handled the multicolored thorn vines without protection, wrapping them around their waists and making red crowns for their heads. Bravely, Acey stepped forward, and Viadu wrapped a vine around his protected torso, along with a red-vine crown on his helmet.

  Dux began to feel afraid for his cousin, but didn’t say anything. They had already discussed this at length, and Acey would not be deterred. Being more circumspect, Dux thought it was too reckless, but he had tested the oxygen and thermal systems in the two helmets and suits himself, and had assured himself that it all worked. As far as Dux could tell, Acey had done his usual excellent job in putting the gear together.

  A few minutes later the podship slowed, and Dux heard the Tulyans saying wild podships had been sighted. Moving quickly, Viadu opened a hatch and leaped outside, pulling Acey with him. The hatch closed quickly behind them. Through a filmy window that formed on the ceiling, Dux saw them standing on top of the sentient spaceship, leaning forward. From listening to the Tulyans, Dux had learned something that reassured him somewhat about Acey’s safety. They said that all podships had protective fields around them, enabling pilots to ride outside, even at high speeds.

  Eshaz guided the craft toward the rear of a formation of wild podships, and Dux saw Viadu use thought-commands to fire sedative vials at the creatures, causing them to slow, one by one. The alpha pod, sensing pursuers, turned around to confront them. Eshaz steered straight at him, and Viadu leaped onto the back of the creature, connected the harness, and dug thorn vines into its sides. Soon he merged into the flesh of the podship, and his face appeared on the prow.

  Next the other five Tulyans in the hunting party went onto the top of Eshaz’s vessel, one at a time, and in short order they captured five more podships and metamorphosed them into amalgam creatures with Tulyan pilots, while additional hunting teams came in and helped mop up the herd. From a porthole in the passenger compartment Dux watched in astonishment as Tulyans and podships seemed to create another race of hybrid spaceships.

  Utilizing methods more mystical than technological, the Tulyans first fought Parvii swarms with comets and meteors and then wrangled more than three hundred additional wild podships, which they returned in short order to the security of the starcloud.

  It was a historic day, and a reminder of legendary glories.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  It is said that wisdom comes with age. I have lived for almost a million standard years, but I still have a great deal to learn.

  —Ruminations of Eshaz

  For the past month, Francella Watanabe had locked herself on the lower floors of her villa, refusing to see anyone. In all that time, she had not been to the laboratory complex or to her new CorpOne offices, and had not responded to requests from Lorenzo for appointments. While Lorenzo had relocated his office and residence to the orbital space station, he still had an unexpired lease for the top-floor suite of her villa, though he had not been seen there in some time.

  Each day Francella sent telebeam messages to Dr. Bichette, asking for progress reports on the new elixir research program. He and his staff of brow-beaten, under-pressure scientists worked around the clock, with the desperate feeling that they were not just trying to save Francella’s life, but their own as well. To enforce her orders, Francella had sent CorpOne security troops to ring the laboratory complex, and was not letting anyone out. Food was sent in, and the sleeping arrangements were improvised. Bichette sent constant, increasingly nervous responses to his menacing boss.

  Failure was not an option.

  The reason for Francella’s isolation at the villa was obvious to anyone. The last time Bichette saw her she had been aging rapidly, at a pace that must have terrified her. He had been frightened himself, just seeing the way her face changed, day by day. Now it must look much worse, so shocking that no amount of makeup could conceal it.

  One afternoon the doctor’s medical assistant, Reez Carthur, sat at a desk preparing a response to Francella, informing her of the latest research results. As with the prior communiqués, the information was accurate, but he put the lab results in layman’s terms, so that Francella could understand. Carthur spoke into a microphone, which transcribed his words and typed them into the telebeam transmitter.

  Just then, Dr. Bichette burst into her tiny, windowless office. “Don’t send it,” he said. “I have an important update.”

  With great excitement, he dictated a message, telling Francella that at last he and his dedicated staff had been able to synthesize an elixir using Noah’s blood, but there were distinct limitations. He told her they had taken a genetic blueprint from the plasma, but it was so complex that it defied any form of written or electronic documentation. Curiously, though, they had still been able to get the DNA of the plasma to transmit manufacturing instructions through a computer network, to produce an elixir. Computer projections indicated that the elixir could extend the lifetimes of Human beings.

  He paused, and thought to himself. Could extend. The computer projections indicated something more as well, a bit of information he was not revealing to her yet. The elixir would only work on a small number of people, what he called a “micro percentage” of the population. It seemed best to omit that tidbit for now, and hope for the best. He had tried to get a probability of success percentage from the computer, but so far he had been unable to obtain it. The only answer had been, repeatedly: “Data incomplete.”

  Another detail troubled him, and thus far he kept this to himself, too. In the elixir manufacturing process, tiny amounts of Noah’s original blood plasma would be used up, so production could not go on forever … unless they could take him captive again, or otherwise gain access to him. So many problems, but indications were that the plasma they had on hand would be enough to produce millions of capsules. .

  Francella did not respond by telebeam. Instead, she showed up in pe
rson hours later, looking haggard and demanding a dose of the miracle drug. Only thirty-eight, she looked twice that age. “We’re not in production yet,” Bichette said. “I’m not made of patience,” she said, something he already knew from personal experience.

  “As I understand it, you don’t want us to scientifically test the elixir before you take it? We only have computer projections at this point.”

  “You understand me perfectly.”

  Bichette heaved a sigh of resignation. Apparently she had not noticed the distinction he had made in his telebeam message to her, that the elixir could extend the lifetimes of Human beings. She wanted it to work so much that she was willing to take the optimistic view, and overlook any downside. Afraid to argue with her or point out pitfalls, he had no choice except to do as she demanded.

  Under Francella’s withering eye, Dr. Bichette and his staff rushed to set up a small-scale manufacturing facility in one of the laboratory rooms. In less than twenty-four hours they began producing capsules of blood-red elixir.

  “This is not to be swallowed,” Dr. Bichette said, having taken a capsule directly from a machine hopper and handed it to her. “Instead, it is to be squeezed between the fingers and injected into the skin by tiny needles.”

  With shaking hands, Francella squeezed the capsule. She closed her eyes, then opened them and looked angry. “I don’t feel anything yet.”

  “We don’t know how long it’s supposed to take. We tried to get that information out of the computer, but got no answer. Besides, I suspect it’s different for every person.”

  The used capsule in Francella’s hand had become flat and gray. She tossed it aside. “Give me more,” she said.

  “Listen to me, please. Wait for a few days to see if you start feeling better. We’ll check you and monitor your progress.”

  “Do as I say.”

  Stepping close to her, Bichette placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Please listen to me on this. I care about you, and I don’t want you to overdose.”

  “You’d better be right about this,” she said, then whirled and left.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  For our race, web caretaking is the most ancient of tasks, the one for which we were born. Alas, alas, alas. So much in our heritage remains unfulfilled.

  —Lament of the Tulyans

  For Tesh, it had been a stunning sight that had captured her full attention and a wide range of emotions, seeing hundreds of podships arrive at the Tulyan Starcloud, all bearing the faces of Tulyans on their prows, reminiscent of the figureheads on sailing ships in the old days of Lost Earth. For this epic event, she had been standing on a sealed observation deck of the orbital Visitor’s Center, along with many excited Tulyans and a handful of dignitaries of other races.

  As a Parvii, she knew she should not have felt that it was a wonderful moment, but she had been unable to escape the sensation of delight, and a chill had run down her spine.…

  Now two days had passed, and as she stood alone on the same observation deck, she had not changed her impressions or her sentiments. It seemed to her that her own people had been in the wrong for much of the galaxy’s history and she had been an unwitting part of it, a contributor in her own limited way. Long ago, Parvii swarms used powerful telepathic weapons to steal the fleets of podships away from their original custodians, the Tulyans, and then took actions to round up every last sentient spaceship that the Tulyans happened to get their hands on. For Tesh, born into the situation only seven centuries ago, she had not been provided with a context about this that would have enabled her to understand the immensity of the historical act.

  She wondered if she had been brainwashed.

  In orbital space, she watched a Tulyan face appear on one of the tethered ships. It was not Eshaz. The ship moved around to the other side of the formation, and disappeared from view.

  Suspecting that Parvii belief systems had been imposed on her in subtle and deceptive ways, Tesh wondered how far the historical fraud might have gone. Did the Eye of the Swarm and others close to him know the true nature of the situation, or was he a pawn himself, having been fed false information that had become part of Parvii lore? Her people had no written history, only the oral traditions passed on from generation to generation, so she had no place to go and look anything up, no documentation. At least not through her own race. That was unfortunate. She wondered as well what documents or other forms of proof the Tulyans had, and if they might be tricking her now in some way.

  But her heart told her otherwise, an innate sensibility that she always carried with her. Was the truth right in front of her eyes? From her private vantage point, she saw almost four hundred captured podships moored in nearby space, the bounty of two hunts, including the one she went on with Eshaz and the teenage Humans. The Council of Elders had decided to tether them at the center of the starcloud for maximum security, a strong point where the mindlink energies of the race were maximized.

  Increasingly it seemed to Tesh that the decay of Timeweb might in large degree be the fault of her own race, for removing the Tulyan web caretakers from their jobs and only allowing a few of them to go about their work, not nearly enough for such a massive job. Considering this, with doubts seeping into her consciousness, she began to feel great shame. Not for doing anything wrong herself, since she must have been a dupe like so many others, but for the very fact that she was a Parvii. Such thoughts! Did she carry within her cells, within her DNA, the dark remnants of her genetic past, the shameful detritus of those in her race who had been directly and consciously to blame?

  Yes. The truth stared her in the face.

  But she knew that she needed to set these worries aside at this critical juncture in history, and begin anew with a fresh awareness and fresh eyes, doing her very best to right the wrongs of the past. As a result of those wrongs, the entire galaxy was out of balance, and crumbling away. She had to reveal certain information to the Tulyans, and saw no alternative.…

  As she watched, two other ships took on Tulyan faces, and moved to other moorages. Even though she had seen the extraordinary piloting process several times now, Tesh didn’t know if she could ever get used to it. The Tulyan method of piloting podships was so different from that of the Parviis. In a sense it seemed more personal to her, merging as they did with the sentient spacecraft. She wondered how the Aopoddae felt about it.

  Prior to meeting Eshaz and sharing time with him, Tesh had considered his people her enemy. After all, they were a race that wanted to take away what Parviis had, control over the enigmatic podships that traversed the galaxy at tachyon speeds. She had seen Tulyans over the centuries, whenever they came around the Parvii Fold to perform timeseeing duties and other tasks, and whenever they rode as passengers in ships she piloted … but now she was beginning to perceive them as a tragically lost people, making a desperate, last-ditch attempt to regain their power and perceived purpose.

  They are no longer my enemy, she thought as tears formed in her eyes.

  With remarkable clarity she was beginning to see the error of Parvii ways, of aggressive actions that might have led to the extinction of any other galactic race except the Tulyans. Ironically, they were tough and resilient and were actually fighting to survive, unexpected qualities in a race that had professed pacifism for so long.

  All her life Tesh had known that Tulyans were nearly immortal, since they were immune to disease and other forms of cellular degeneration, though it was known that they could be injured or even killed in accidents. Now she was beginning to understand that their twin curses of longevity and pacifism had forced them to watch as the galaxy and its Timeweb infrastructure disintegrated in front of their eyes. It must have been a terrible penalty for them to pay, a constant reminder of their supreme failures and of their once-glorious past.

  At long last, their pacifism was over, and so, perhaps, was their longevity. The increasing physical discomforts the Tulyans were experiencing suggested that a process of bodily disorder and deteri
oration might be beginning in their race. Additionally she had heard that hundreds of Tulyans had disappeared, while working on their limited assignments around the galaxy. Though Tesh was not inside their skins, she felt as if she was beginning to get inside their heads, suffering with them, thinking more like them than a Parvii.

  Nevertheless, it troubled her that her own people had scattered outside the Tulyan Starcloud and flown off in disorder. To her knowledge, nothing like that had ever happened before. Tesh knew full well what Woldn would do next, but she could not permit that to happen.…

  That morning at the Tulyan Starcloud, Tesh approached Eshaz, in the lounge of the Visitor’s Center. She slid into a seat opposite him at a table, after raising the chair to conform to her body size, which even in its magnified state was still considerably smaller than Tulyans. Since this was a diplomatic facility, the furnishings were designed to accommodate a variety of racial types and sizes. The two of them ordered cocaxy drinks in frosty, frozen glasses. It was as if Eshaz had waited for her to arrive before getting anything for himself, even though they had made no arrangements to meet.

  “We received a message from Master Noah,” the Tulyan said. “He asked about you.” “So?” She tried to still the quickened beating of her heart. “How is that of interest to me?” Reaching into a body pouch in his side, he brought out a piece of folded parchment and placed it in front of her. “A transcript of Noah’s message,” he said. “A touch on your skin could tell me how it is of interest to you.”

  Tesh took a sip of the tart, aromatic drink and scanned the document, which had been printed in the widely understood language of Galeng. Noah’s words were few, and she finished them quickly. “It’s just an official communication; nothing personal here at all.”

  “That depends upon how you look at it. Right after mentioning your name, he asks that you and your traveling companions return as soon as possible.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m looking at his words now, and they refer to all of us, not just me.”