Someday she might even have a chance to be creative again, a sculptor or an artist.
Two Candelan refugees accompanied Enva in the patrol craft. More than three hundred people were already on the ground setting up the first encampment. The stringline hauler that had transported all the colonists was still in orbit, unloading more passenger pods and downboxes full of supplies, generators, tools, and components for living quarters, everything General Adolphus could spare.
She saw obvious parallels between Theser and Hellhole—and now she understood how Adolphus must have felt when he was first exiled there.
Enva had mixed feelings about what the General was doing for her. On one level, she appreciated having a new chance—but she had wanted to rule the Crown Jewels, as his equal, his ally … not someone who needed to prove herself. Still, she knew her own history, and understood why he didn’t entirely trust her. Yet, grandiose dreams died hard. Theser was a proving ground for her. If she succeeded here, and demonstrated her abilities for the General, surely he would let her do more important things.
In the back of the craft, a structural engineer and a terraforming expert spoke in low tones about the blasted landscape, the total devastation caused by the cruel whim of Lord Riomini. Diadem Riomini now. That news had come directly from the second-wave follow-up ship of supplies that had joined the group out at Theser as soon as the General returned from Tehila. It was a travesty that such an evil man had risen to that position instead of Enva Tazaar. Riomini’s ascendancy reaffirmed the decadence of the entrenched Constellation noble families. Perhaps together, she and General Adolphus could change the Crown Jewels, and set a new course for humankind.
The pilot flew close to the steep crater walls, which had once held towering laboratories and factories where eccentric engineers constructed spacecraft engines. Enva looked out the window, shaking her head. “Not much evidence left that this was once a vibrant city.”
Below, she saw charred ground, slag piles, and only a few identifiable remnants of foundations. She stared at a piece of cloth fluttering in the wind.
That, as discovered by her first party of explorers, was the hateful black flag Riomini had mounted in the ruins to flaunt his victory. When Ian Walfor had first discovered the disaster here, he had knocked down the banner, but it still caught the wind from the ground, where it lay with the pole attached. Someday Enva wanted to strangle Riomini with one of his own flags. In fact, she had already decided to create a memorial here, just like the one Governor Goler had built to mark all those who had been slaughtered in the Ridgetop Recovery.
Theser was a planet-size graveyard, with the souls of the dead still present. She intended to do something to avenge them, even if it was only symbolic. And Riomini’s flag was a symbol like a knife in the back.
“Set down there,” she said to the pilot, pointing to a flat spot by one of the destroyed buildings.
When the patrol craft landed on a stable clearing, Enva emerged to stand before the Riomini flag, which drooped now from a change in the wind. With emotion welling up inside her, she ripped the black banner from the pole and tossed it on the rubble. She asked for the engineer’s assistance and poured some siphoned fuel on the fabric, which she lit on fire.
The Riomini banner burned brightly for a full minute, and then the flaming embers were lifted in a gust of wind before vanishing into the sky.
51
Adolphus realized he had bigger problems than a traitor seizing the stringline hub.
When Lodo saw projected images of the inbound asteroids, he quivered. His alien face was unreadable, and he shared a silent communion with Encix in the Ankor conference room. To Adolphus, their mutual dread was palpable.
Lodo had rushed to the spaceport at General Adolphus’s urgent summons. He needed the most powerful telemancers to help him develop a swift and decisive defense against the cosmic impact … if that was even possible.
The screen display showed fuzzy, very-long-distance images of the twenty clustered asteroids. Orbital projections confirmed that Hellhole was sitting in the middle of the cosmic crosshairs.
“The Ro-Xayans are shoving the asteroids toward us using telemancy,” Lodo said, “just as my volunteers turned the empty civilian ships into projectiles at Tehila. The entire Ro-Xayan faction is using the sum of its telemancy to drive those rocks.”
Encix added, “With such an outpouring of psychic power, they will drain themselves to nothingness! You see, General, the Ro-Xayans are irrational. They are so intent on preventing us from achieving our destiny that they will destroy themselves to do it.”
Tanja Hu and Ian Walfor had joined the General at Ankor. Outside, a dust storm whipped up brown swaths of mist and caused ball lighting to jump from the grounding towers around the launch structures, but the storm was projected to last only an hour. Adolphus had far more to worry about than inclement weather. And he still needed to deal with George Komun’s ultimatum.
The storm across Tanja’s face mirrored the weather outside. “That bastard’s betrayal is bad enough, but those incoming asteroids—it’s like Candela, but far worse. Ian and I watched my planet’s last hours. We went back to see the aftermath—and that devastation was from only two asteroids. This is twenty.”
“Initially, the Ro-Xayans thought one would be sufficient to wipe everything out,” said Walfor, looking at Encix and Lodo. “You sure must’ve made them upset with you.”
“That was a long time ago,” Lodo said.
Keana had also rushed to Ankor with Lodo, and she was not just representing the shadow-Xayans. Initially, Adolphus had called her to help respond to Komun, thinking that as the former Diadem’s daughter, she might have been useful in negotiating with the Constellation. But the asteroid threat was entirely separate from Constellation politics. Nevertheless, of all the shadow-Xayans, Keana-Uroa had demonstrated some of the greatest telemancy skills. Her grasp of alien powers and her communion with her Xayan mental partner set her above most of the other converts. Adolphus hoped she might be able to offer insights—preferably a solution.
Keana shook her head. “Even through Uroa, I still can’t understand the Ro-Xayans’ venom and hatred.” She turned a perplexed expression to the two Originals. Lodo and Encix regarded each other in silence, as if sharing a secret, but they refused to answer.
Tanja was impatient and frustrated. “We went through this already on Candela. We need to begin an evacuation immediately, General! You have more time and resources than I had. Because Hellhole is the main stringline hub, there are ships coming and going all the time. You have the Michella Town spaceport and the Ankor spaceport to get people off-planet. There’s every reason to believe you could do a better job than we managed at my planet.” She was urgent and desperate, leaning forward. “But you have to start now!”
“Komun is in the way. I don’t control the stringline hub,” Adolphus said. “If he detonates the mines as he threatens, we’ll have no way of evacuating anybody at all. And if those asteroids hit, everyone dies.”
“Komun can’t possibly want that,” Walfor said.
“Diadem Riomini does,” Adolphus said. “He issued explicit orders that this planet is to be sterilized, just like he did on Theser.” He clenched his jaw. “If Komun prevents us from evacuating, the Constellation will reward him for it.”
Tanja clenched her fists. “Then launch an immediate strike, General. Take back the hub. You don’t have any choice.”
Actually, Adolphus did have a choice: He could surrender himself to Komun, who would then release the stringline hub. It would be worth the sacrifice if that let him save all of these people, but Adolphus didn’t believe for a moment that it would work. He had too much experience with people who issued ultimatums. He would surrender … and Diadem Riomini would still order everyone here to be left to die.
“George Komun can’t want to see us all dead,” Walfor insisted. “He can’t! He was my friend, dammit—let me talk with him.”
Adolphus gritted his tee
th. “I’ll talk with him. I knew him well, too, Ian … or I thought I did.” He operated the comm controls on the embedded conference room screen to contact the hostage stringline hub. “Maybe he’ll see reason.”
But Adolphus doubted it.
Though the traitor’s voice had sounded confident, even flippant at times when he last spoke with General Adolphus, George Komun now showed clear signs of stress. On his screen image, the crow’s-feet around his eyes had deepened, but he still seemed inflexible. “General, I know about those incoming asteroids. We’ve detected them, too. Face it, your circumstances have changed. You need to end this now. We both understand the danger your planet faces.”
“We appeal to you,” Adolphus said. “You know full well what will happen when the asteroids strike. No one will survive. We have to get these people off-planet—and that means we have to go through the stringline hub. We have to start evacuating! We have less than six days.”
Komun tapped his fingers together. “General, your decision is clear, and my job is easy. We can end this immediately. Simply come up here in a shuttle, unarmed, and present yourself to me. I’ll accept your surrender, we’ll take care of the formalities, and then we can start the more important job of evacuating your people.”
Adolphus responded in an icy voice, “I had hoped you’d be more reasonable than that, George. I can’t believe you’d accept all that blood on your hands.”
“Not on my hands. Your stubbornness doesn’t make me a monster. I’m making a simple enough request, and I have obligations to the Constellation. I’m thinking of my world, too. Which do you hold more precious, General—your population, or your pride?”
Angrily, Tanja Hu pushed her way into the field of view. “George, stop this nonsense! General Adolphus will never surrender, and you know you won’t blow the stringline hub because it would mean the death of everyone down here. You also know the Constellation won’t keep any promise they made to you. They’ll take Umber for themselves after you’ve given them what they want.” Her face was drawn, and her dark eyes flashed. “I already lived through this once at Candela. Thousands of my people died because I couldn’t get them off-planet in time.”
Walfor interrupted at her side. “It doesn’t have to be that way. We’ve got a chance. Don’t ruin it.”
Komun laughed uneasily. “Yes, I know General Adolphus well. When I came here, I knew that even with the element of surprise I had no more than an even chance of succeeding, but now I’ve got undeniable leverage—and you have a ticking clock. The sooner General Adolphus surrenders, the sooner you can start evacuating.” He gave a thin smile. “I’ll even contribute my thirteen ships to help with the effort.” He looked back at the General, his expression sincere and sad. “Don’t wait too long. Every minute that passes is a minute that could be used to get another load away. You know what you have to do. The asteroids are coming.” He ended the transmission.
Adolphus looked toward Keana and the two Original Xayans. “Thousands of your shadow-Xayan converts have been training with telemancy to defend this planet. Can’t you push back against the Ro-Xayans, nudge those asteroids and deflect their orbits—or at least slow them down?”
Lodo said, “It would be insufficient. Last time, the entire Xayan race couldn’t stop the momentum of a single asteroid.”
“But the converts are strong,” Keana interrupted. “With our hybrid vigor we’re much more powerful than the Originals.”
Encix glanced at her as if Keana had insulted her race.
Lodo added, “And there are also many Ro-Xayans. They have been using their powers to push those asteroids toward us, increasing their speed. All the converts combined could perhaps deflect one or two if we poured our concentration into a single telemancy blast. But it still wouldn’t save Xaya.”
Encix grew more agitated. “The solution is plain! If we had more shadow-Xayans—many more—we would also have more telemancy. You lead the humans on this planet, General Tiber Adolphus. Command them to enter the slickwater pools and join us! Once we reach the critical point and achieve ala’ru, the Ro-Xayans and the asteroids—not to mention your petty Constellation factions—no longer matter. Force your people to enter the slickwater.”
“I will not,” the General said. “That was not part of our agreement.”
“That was before the Ro-Xayans returned,” Encix said.
Adolphus frowned. “I will evacuate this planet before I herd thousands of people into the slickwater pools against their will. We have enough time, barely—if I can resolve the problem of the stringline hub first.”
“You may save your people,” Lodo said, “but we will lose all that Xaya was. In the slickwater pools are a large proportion of our memories, our personalities.”
“The Ro-Xayans want to destroy everything. That much is clear,” Adolphus said. “They delivered no ultimatum, asked for nothing—neither here nor at Candela. They don’t seem to care what sort of collateral damage they inflict.”
Keana turned to face him. “I’ve thought of a possibility,” she said.
* * *
As her thoughts grasped the idea, Keana felt her alien companion respond inside her. Uroa knew the Ro-Xayans, even remembered some of the individuals, and provided her with images of the esoteric factional debates, the friction, and finally the split that tore the race apart … Zairic and his visions of ala’ru, his dream of the race ascending to a higher plane of existence, while the Ro-Xayans insisted on preventing that at all costs. They wanted to trap the Xayan race to its mortality and physical form.
Through Uroa’s thoughts, Keana could remember how the Ro-Xayans had left their planet, abandoned their comrades, and dispatched the killer asteroid to shatter any possibility of ala’ru. And the silent, malevolent enemy would ensure that nothing survived this time.
Giving only a glance to the two Originals, she turned to General Adolphus. “The Ro-Xayans are out there right now, guiding the asteroids. I want to go there and face them, talk with them, act as an emissary. If I could have a high-speed ship and a pilot, we’ll travel to those asteroids and send out a call. It’s been centuries since the original rift—I am both human and Xayan. I can be a liaison, unlike anything the Ro-Xayans have experienced before.”
Encix reacted angrily. “That will do no good. We cannot waste our efforts or provoke the enemy. Our only goal now must be to reach ala’ru as fast as we possibly can. That must be our solution.”
Ian Walfor turned to Keana. “I have my ship. Tanja and I can take you out there, but I don’t think the Ro-Xayans want to be found.”
“A preposterous idea!” Encix said. “You must not communicate with that insane faction.”
Keana rounded on her. She thought of her own mother imprisoned in the bungalow at Slickwater Springs. For years, the Diadem had also ordered Keana around, held her back, forced her to become weak and manageable. “You don’t command me.”
Encix shoved Keana with a wall of telemancy, but Keana dredged up energy from both Uroa and herself. She had been growing stronger and stronger during the joint telemancy exercises, steadily improving her abilities. Many shadow-Xayans were equal to the Originals, but Keana had become more powerful than the others. Now she drove the force away from Encix, summoned her own telemancy, and retaliated. She found a strength that was unfamiliar even to her, and she kept pushing until Encix was forced down.
“You don’t order me,” Keana repeated. Uroa gave a satisfied whisper inside her mind.
Waves of anger and fear emanated from Encix.
The General’s eyes narrowed in concern. “I’m willing to try any possible solution, but the asteroids are already coming. Even if you find the Ro-Xayans, what can you accomplish?”
Keana felt calm and hopeful. “What do we have to lose?”
Walfor smiled. “Why not let us try? If the Ro-Xayans are out there, maybe Keana can make them feel guilty.”
After a long pause, Adolphus said, “It may be a fool’s errand, but we have no good alternative
s. Try it.”
“It is not a fool’s errand,” Lodo said. “I agree with Keana-Uroa’s approach, and I volunteer to join the expedition. Perhaps together we can make headway with the Ro-Xayans.”
Encix had recovered, straightening her flexible body. “This must not be done!”
“It will be done.” Adolphus nodded to Walfor. “Ian, load your ship, take whatever fuel you need, and depart as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I have to recapture that stringline hub so we can start evacuating.”
52
After enduring so much adversity already, Bolton Crais had become fatalistic about their chances of survival.
Yet now, as the alien Jonwi guided the two humans into the red weed forest, Bolton felt as if he had received a reprieve. In the back of his mind, he had never expected Escobar’s foolish escape idea to succeed; confidence alone wasn’t enough of a plan. As proof of that, the Hellhole wilderness had killed Yimidi and Vingh, and seriously injured Escobar.
This strange alien, though, was giving them a second chance.
Once inside the thick oasis of alien foliage, Jonwi placed the comatose Escobar on a thicket of swollen spores and fleshy groundcover that sent sparkling tendrils into the air. Jonwi seemed concerned, but preoccupied, as he moved about his self-contained Eden.
Bolton was numb with dismay and exhaustion, not to mention physically weak and starving. He slumped against the tall, floating stalks of red weed, while Escobar clung to life, still bleeding, still unconscious. Jonwi, who seemed to have an affinity for the lush growth around them, tended to the barely alive man. He pulled the leathery leaves of the red kelp down, separated the fronds, and draped them across the battered and bloody Redcom.
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