Hellhole Inferno

by Brian Herbert

  It would happen only if Ian’s ship got there before the slickwater converts triggered ala’ru and eradicated the foundations of the universe. And only if Keana-Uroa could stop Encix in time. In their fast ship, they could reach Hellhole well ahead of the asteroids, but not necessarily soon enough to prevent ala’ru.

  Full acceleration pushed them all back against their seats. Walfor soared away from the inbound asteroids and set course toward the planet. The ship seemed oddly empty without the hulking form of Lodo. And in the back compartment, Keana sat silent and preoccupied, possibly trying to contain all the new power within her body. She closed her eyes and clenched her hands in her lap, reaching out with her mind, questing with telemancy to gather information.

  Suddenly she opened her eyes in alarm. “Encix has gone out of control! We have to hurry.”

  “This is what hurrying feels like,” Walfor said. “Any more acceleration, and I don’t know if the ship will hold together.”

  Nevertheless, he squeezed more speed out of the engines, ignoring the risk of disaster or fuel cost. Tanja looked at the controls, saw the readings edging into the red zone. She hoped the ship could take it.

  When they approached Hellhole, Tanja was astonished to see all the warships surrounding the stringline hub. The planet looked like a hornet’s nest of activity. “What’s going on here? Those weren’t here when we departed.”

  Walfor ran a second high-resolution scan. “Most of those are Constellation ships. Do you think they’re helping with the evacuation? An act of mercy in the midst of war?”

  From the back, Keana said, “We can’t concern ourselves with who they are and why they’re at Hellhole. There’s no time. Encix is pulling together all of the converts down there, summoning the slickwater, and engulfing thousands more. She will reach the critical point soon, and there will be no stopping ala’ru.”

  “So where do I go?” Walfor asked. “It’s a big planet.”

  “Slickwater Springs. We’ll start there.”

  Tanja scanned the trajectories of the asteroids. The Ro-Xayans continued to apply the full force of telemancy, pushing the asteroids toward Hellhole.

  Walfor was scanning the surface, mapping out the ships crowded in orbit, the stringline haulers departing from the hub, no doubt loaded with refugees. Orbital space was like a shooting gallery, and he had to guide his own craft in without crashing into any evacuation vessels.

  Alarmed, he reported, “Ankor seems to be shut down. There should be hundreds of shuttles and passenger pods rising up loaded with people, but there’s not a single one from what I can tell. The gantries and control center are inactive.” Walfor switched the channel, listening in on Michella Town. “The other spaceport’s in turmoil, too. Don’t they realize time is running out? They need to get those ships loaded and into orbit!”

  Keana hunched over, as if struggling against cramps in her chest and a pounding migraine in her head. “The evacuation is a lesser concern. We must get down there—now!”

  “I’m trying!” Walfor said.

  Tanja scanned the ship traffic patterns, shaking her head. So much had happened in the short time they were gone. This had been a chaotic mess when they departed, and now it was even worse. She snorted. “You go away for a day or two, get captured by an alien race and held inside a hollow asteroid, and the whole world goes to hell.”

  Walfor shot in toward tight orbit, cruising along the daylit side of the planet, dodging ships, not bothering to respond to inquiries. He maintained full control, cutting corners so he could shave time off their flight, using the autopilot for suggestions only. They streaked over the gigantic bull’s-eye impact scar. It was awe-inspiring, hinting at the power of the asteroid strike … and that was only a prelude of what the Ro-Xayans had set in motion this time.

  From behind them, Keana said in a hoarse voice, “I feel something extraordinary down there—psychic power building. Encix is unleashing all of the slickwater, triggering the Xayan survival systems. I feel the telemancy surge growing and growing. But now I sense something else—”

  She lifted her hand, opened her fingers, and then squeezed them into a fist. “All the energy that Zhaday and the Ro-Xayans gave me and the leftover resonance from Lodo … I can barely control it.” Her shoulders hunched, and she lowered her head. “Encix grows stronger, too, though. So many more converts! The shadow-Xayans are vastly increasing in numbers.”

  Walfor’s ship began to rattle and shake as he took a steep dive, plowing through the atmosphere. “I’m heading for Slickwater Springs. I’ll have to skim the edge of a growler storm, but this ship can take it. Caution isn’t a good idea right now.”

  “An undue moment of caution could bring about the end of everything,” Keana said.

  “Direct course for Slickwater Springs, then.”

  Tanja called up the scanners, probing the surface. She found the settlement around the three primary slickwater pools and detected turmoil there. Tanja couldn’t guess what the shadow-Xayans might throw against them, but she feared they were facing a huge fight ahead.

  76

  Clinging to the rooftop of the lodge building, Sophie had little time for regrets. She would fight to the end, but the foundation and walls of the lodge were trembling. The viscous fluid flowed upward from the underground aquifers, as if searching for her.

  Feeling helpless but defiant, Sophie shouted from the rooftop. “Am I really that important? I’m not worth all this effort!”

  Below, the shadow-Xayans remained eerily silent, communicating by their own means. Sophie didn’t suppose hurling curses at them would do any good.

  A silver ship streaked through the air, flying low. She heard the sonic boom as it approached. She craned her neck, watching the glint in the air, wondering where it was headed. Not long ago, she’d seen dozens of ships heading toward the POW camp in the next valley, presumably Commodore Hallholme’s rescue vessels—but they wouldn’t be coming here. She was on her own.

  This new ship, however, wasn’t part of that group, but rather a small cargo runner, decelerating hard as it approached. She could hear the roar of its engines ripping the sky. Ian Walfor’s ship!

  With a surge of hope, Sophie leaped to her feet on the rooftop, waving her arms frantically to get the pilot’s attention. The ship circled, came in tight. She saw only part of what Walfor must be seeing from up there. Slickwater Springs had been flooded and devastated; most of the bungalows were collapsed, the tents washed away. And as the glistening waters withdrew from other areas, a great crowd of converts stood around, waiting.

  Walfor’s ship buzzed the besieged lodge building, then arced around and swooped past again to signal that he’d seen Sophie on the roof. His engines roared with the strain, decelerating until he came around and dropped lower, switching to stabilizer power so he could hover above the lodge house. A side hatch opened, and Tanja Hu leaned out, clinging to a support bar, extending her hand. Still much too far away.

  The ship edged closer to the roof edge. There was a yawning gulf between Sophie and the hatch, and only roiling slickwater below waiting to claim her, but Sophie didn’t hesitate. She sprang across. Tanja caught her and swung her inside. She collapsed on the deck, gasping.

  Keana-Uroa stood in the back compartment, grim and determined. “Ian Walfor, you must land. I need to address the shadow-Xayans.”

  Walfor called from the cockpit. “It doesn’t look stable down there.”

  “I intend to make it stable,” Keana said. “With the new infusion of power from the Ro-Xayans, I think I can control the slickwater. And I can protect us if they try to attack us with telemancy.”

  Sophie’s heart was pounding. She wanted to have Walfor fly them up to orbit, where she could board the Jacob and watch Hellhole’s final day at the side of Tiber Adolphus.

  “No need to land,” Sophie said. “I must be the only one here who was left unconverted. There’s nobody else to rescue. Only shadow-Xayans are down there now, and they don’t want to leave.”
<
br />   “We are not rescuing any of them,” Keana answered. “We are trying to save the universe.”

  Sophie blinked, thinking the full answer would likely be a long story. “Then it sounds like you have a busy day ahead of you.”

  Keana went to stand at the open hatch of the hovering ship. She directed her gaze like an invisible battering ram, and beneath them the slickwater swirled, twitched, and began to pull away, draining back into the primary aquifers.

  “Land in front of the lodge. The shadow-Xayans need to hear me. There are thousands here … and others will hear me through telemancy.” She lowered her voice. “I can only hope they will hear me in time.”

  From the cockpit, Walfor looked at Tanja, who paused a moment, then nodded. “We’re in this, no matter what, Ian. We know what’s at stake.”

  But Sophie didn’t understand what they meant. “We don’t have much time to escape to orbit. There are ships waiting to take us aboard.”

  “Not our priority right now,” Tanja said, then explained—to Sophie’s amazement—what they had learned about ala’ru.

  When Walfor finally landed his vessel in the strangely dry clearing in front of the lodge building, Keana went to the hatch. Looking regal, she stepped out to face the multitude of shadow-Xayans who crowded together, regarding her with puzzlement.

  One of the shadow-Xayans called, “We are going to achieve ala’ru, Keana-Uroa. Join us.”

  From where she watched in the ship’s back compartment, Sophie was dismayed to spot a transformed Arlen Carter standing among the crowd, as well as other Slickwater Springs workers who, like herself, had previously refused to immerse themselves.

  “We have learned that ala’ru is a lie!” Keana enhanced her voice through telemancy so that it boomed and echoed across the compound. The shadow-Xayans could also hear, understand, and believe her through their own psychic connections. “It is much more than you were told. Ala’ru is not just an evolutionary step, an ascension to a greater state of being—it is the end of all existence! Every planet, solar system, and galaxy will disappear. Ala’ru will undo the fabric of the universe. In achieving its destiny, the Xayan race will annihilate everything else.”

  She paused. The shadow-Xayans remained silent, tense—some disbelieving, some angry, others frightened.

  “This is the truth,” Keana insisted. “We learned from the Ro-Xayans what Zairic didn’t want you to know, what the Originals refused to tell you. Even most Xayans were not aware of the consequences—they merely went along because their leaders convinced them. All of you converts, touch the Xayans inside your minds, reach for the truth. Speak to your mental companions. We cannot allow ala’ru! We must protect the universe, even if it means the end of the Xayan race. It is a terrible, but necessary price.”

  Sophie tried to understand what Keana was saying. Ala’ru had always been an incomprehensible prospect, but now the idea that it could trigger the end of everything seemed even more impossible.

  She heard concerned murmurs growing among the gathered converts, but then a distinct change entered the rising tone. Though Sophie and Tanja were reluctant to venture onto the unprotected ground where the slickwater had surged only moments ago, they could see the open sky and what seemed like a black blur: thousands of tiny flying forms rushing toward them.

  It reminded Sophie of one of the large clouds of predatory insects that occasionally gushed forth from nests on Hellhole, like the voracious torpedo ants that had killed Ishop Heer. Sophie tried to discern the forms—they were much larger than insects, and they looked human. She’d seen this before, when all the shadow-Xayans had flown across the continent. And she could make out the large alien form in the lead. Encix.

  All of the converts at Slickwater Springs stared at the approaching swarm. Keana squared her shoulders. “It is Encix and thousands of new shadow-Xayans.” She paused for a long moment, then said in a smaller voice, her own human voice, “They may be too strong.”

  * * *

  As wave after wave of shadow-Xayans came from the skies toward Slickwater Springs, Keana stepped away from Walfor’s landed ship and looked up, preparing to face them. Thousands of possessed humans came in, borne by telemancy, and hundreds more milled around the settlement. Keana was caught between the two groups—and she had to be strong.

  Encix looked ungainly as she flew in the lead. Her extended alien body was not sleek or aerodynamic, but she still sped smoothly through the air. With Lodo absorbed by the Ro-Xayans, she was the only remaining Original, the last of those preserved in a vault deep beneath the crust—the last living Xayan who remembered the pristine planet, Zairic’s ambitions, the terrible rift that had torn the race into factions. Encix was not aware that Lodo was gone, nor that Keana had a portion of his powers and memories, along with the combined strength of Zhaday and the other alien faction.

  Standing by herself, Keana turned back to Sophie Vence, Ian Walfor, and Tanja Hu. “Remain inside the ship, for your safety. If I do not succeed, you may be able to escape.” She did not point out that if she failed to prevent ala’ru, there would be no place to which they could escape.

  Seeing her rival, Encix maneuvered with telemancy. Keana did not flinch as the large Xayan’s soft body settled to the ground in front of her. Like human-shaped raindrops, the converted shadow-Xayans gently landed all around her. They filled the grounds of the compound, spreading out around the slickwater pools, swelling into a huge army that covered the landscape.

  Keana would have to stand against them, by herself. More important, she would have to stand against Encix—who was obsessively driven to achieve ala’ru. But Encix did not know what Keana knew.

  The only surviving Original lifted her arms, rejoicing. “Can you feel it, Keana-Uroa? The power is in our minds and in the air. At last we have the numbers we need! The Xayan race has fully awakened, our minds and our memories are burning bright. And with the catalyst of our human partners, we are more powerful than our race ever was, even at its pinnacle before the asteroid strike.” Encix spread her alien fingers, and the air itself seemed swollen with energy.

  A subvocalized humming sound came from all the shadow-Xayans she had brought with her. The converts from Slickwater Springs were more uneasy, having heard Keana’s initial warning, but the sound grew louder until the hum became deafening. Encix called on them all, using her pure telemancy to whip them into a frenzy and drive them over the brink.

  “Ala’ru!” she shouted in her thrumming alien voice.

  As storm clouds congealed in the sky—turmoil caused by the energy unleashed by so many shadow-Xayans—Keana could feel all of Hellhole tensing. Within herself, she summoned her own strength and commanded the Uroa presence to work with her, along with remnants of Lodo. Together, they called upon Keana’s innate and grown telemancy, as well as the power and knowledge the Ro-Xayans had given her. Before, she and Uroa had proved that they were as powerful as Encix, and now Keana could draw upon even more alien strength.

  But Encix could also summon more from all those gathered with her.

  Interrupting the buildup of energy, Keana used telemancy to communicate with the newly arrived shadow-Xayans, as well as the vast numbers of converts across the planet. She had already revealed the dark secret of ala’ru to those who could hear her at Slickwater Springs, and now she did the same with the throng around Encix—the ones who had been immersed against their will at the POW camp and the forcibly immersed crews of the Constellation vessels that had landed to rescue them. Their human halves had been forced to join a cause they neither believed in nor understood. Keana sent them the truth, cracked through even the walls of delusions held inside the stored Xayan memories. And she stunned them all with her revelation.

  Encix recoiled as she felt the weakness and sudden doubt spread around her and beyond, like unraveling threads in a vast tapestry. The Xayan leader struggled, then pulled the waves of telemancy into herself—and fought back against Keana.

  The Original seemed to find an insane strengt
h in the pinnacle of her race’s destiny and her personal obsession. Her voice was an angry shout. “You must not weaken us now, Keana-Uroa! You are a shadow-Xayan, so you realize the importance of achieving our destiny. You know what we must do!”

  Keana scoffed. “No, I know what that destiny is now, as do Uroa and the Ro-Xayans. None of Zairic’s followers agreed to destroy the universe as a condition of advancing themselves. You tricked them into a destiny none of them really wants.”

  “The whole reason our race exists is for the ascension!” Encix hammered back at Keana with her combined telemancy powers. Some of the still-deluded shadow-Xayans joined in, recklessly pursuing their false dream.

  But inside Keana’s mind, connected to the great ocean of telemancy and the stored lives of the Xayans, she was able to commune with others, rational alien minds astonished by the revelations, hesitant to take the risk. If they did not exactly support her, at least they withdrew their energy from Encix, much to the Xayan leader’s shock.

  But the tapestry of lives that Keana summoned contained more than the original Xayan race—the shadow-Xayans, forcibly converted, had their human halves as well. She could feel the doubts, the resistance, even the horror of all those people who had been swallowed by the inexorable flood of slickwater. They did not all want to help Encix—and now they fought back, pulling against the destructive Xayan destiny.

  Keana clung to the unexpected support, called on their strength, and continued to send out waves of her own, taking the new converts away from Encix. She called upon their human partners to question what they were being forced to do. She felt all the shocked and beaten Constellation prisoners who had been shoved into the backs of their own minds, and the numerous refugees who had rushed to the Ankor spaceport.

  She found Cristoph de Carre, and he fought back against Encix, against this unwanted abduction. He added a spark to the flames of Keana’s own telemancy, and she grew brighter still. Inside her mind, inside his mind, she shared how much she had cared for his father, and through her eyes Cristoph could see Louis de Carre—which made him stronger still.