The Orphaned Worlds_Book Two of Humanity's Fire

by Michael Cobley

  Rory returned with Kao Chih and Baltazar Silveira and one other, Yash the vaguely simian Voth pilot. Greg found the Voth overly abrasive and faintly untrustworthy yet Kao Chih had vouched strongly for him so Greg decided to admit him to such discussions. Yash was walking beside Kao Chih, chortling at something as Greg made the introductions, ending with Silveira.

  ‘This gentleman was Vashutkin’s surprise,’ he said. ‘And now I get to pass it on. My friends, Mr B. Silveira is an agent for Earthsphere Intelligence and he is here in secret to advise and assist us against the thugs who are trying to steal our planet from under us!’

  Astonishment shone from the faces around the table, none more so than Rory’s.

  ‘That true, Mr Silveira? Does that mean Earth’s on our side now?’ He grabbed Silveira’s hand and shook it vigorously for a moment, then paused, frowning slightly. ‘So there’s just the one of ye, then?’

  Silveira was composed, smiling slightly. ‘Just me. Please understand, my presence here on Darien is very high-risk. If knowledge of it reached Hegemony ears, it would cause a grave diplomatic incident and leave the Darien colony even more isolated than it is already. And although it is part of my mission to offer advice I have to tell you that I have had to alter my plans in the light of what I have learned about Pyre. Very shortly Kao Chih and I will be leaving for the Roug system and from there we intend to go to Pyre.’

  ‘That’s a long way away,’ Greg said, trying to hide his disappointment. ‘Is this so that you can gather more data?’

  ‘Precisely so, Mr Cameron. From the moment I met Kao Chih and discovered his origins I knew I would have to modify my mission parameters. You see, Earthsphere Overcouncil is dominated by the Humanifold, which consists of representatives from Earth and the Integrated Colonies. The Pan-Asials, which include the Chinese Confederacy, form the largest single bloc within it, which naturally gives them considerable influence on a wide range of policies. So when they find out that a lost Human colony of Sino origins has been brutally oppressed by a Hegemony monoclan, there will be an uproar that could fundamentally shift attitudes towards the Sendrukan Hegemony and towards Darien.’

  Greg frowned. ‘Will it get the Brolturans out of our skies?’

  ‘The Hegemony will not want to risk damaging their alliance with Earthsphere, not while the latest Protection Wave operations are ongoing in the Yamanon Domain. They’ll be certain to make concessions by telling the Brolturans to pull out.’

  ‘Unless they don’t,’ said Rory. ‘They might no’, they might turn round and say tae Earth, “Aye, so what are ye gonna dae about it?”’

  Silveira gave a smiling shrug. ‘A possibility, but they have invested a great deal over many years in maintaining the alliance with Earthsphere and they will not put that in jeopardy.’

  Greg recalled some of the incredible things he had learned about the warpwell and its abilities – if the Hegemony was aware of them too, would they really relinquish their hold on Darien? Unconvinced by Silveira’s argument, Greg began to wonder if Rory was actually closer to the truth.

  All of which was incidental since the agent had clearly made up his mind.

  ‘So how will you get to your ship?’ he said. ‘Is it hidden nearby?’

  ‘It’s already on its way here,’ Silveira said. ‘It is very smart – with camouflage and low-level suspensor gliding it can avoid detection by Brolturan technology. It should be here in a few hours.’

  ‘Good,’ said the Voth pilot, Yash. ‘Can’t wait to get back to civilisation.’

  Greg stared at the Voth for a moment, then at Silveira. ‘You’re taking Yash as well?’

  ‘My good friend Captain Yash is well acquainted with the protocols and customs of the clientele zones of the Roug orbital Agmedra’a, while Kao Chih’s familiarity is restricted to the under-docks. With their help, I should be able to establish a useful dialogue with the Roug before moving on to Pyre.’

  ‘And I intend to establish a useful relationship with those credit lines that Gorol9 gave me,’ said Yash hungrily. ‘Doesn’t really compensate for the loss of the Viganli but maybe I’ll find something else at Agmedra’a.’

  ‘Yes, this mech Gorol9 sounds like an interesting entity,’ said Silveira. ‘Is it in the vicinity? Kao Chih and Yash said that it represents another machine called the Construct. I would very much like to ask it several questions.’

  Greg looked at Rory, who shrugged. ‘I saw him just before ye all arrived but no’ since.’

  ‘If he turns up, I’ll be sure to pass on your request,’ Greg told the Earthsphere agent. ‘Can’t guarantee that he’ll speak with you, though.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Silveira, turning to bow to Chel and the Listeners. ‘It saddens me to leave without the chance to converse with you. Please accept my thanks for your hospitality and for being a friend to my fellow Humans.’

  The meeting ended with Yash leading Kao Chih and Silveira away to find a sleeping place while Greg told Rory to wake him in time to see off the agent and his passengers. Four hours later, after being roughly shaken out of what felt like a five-minute drowse, he went with Rory out to a tree-shaded ravine beyond Tayowal’s southern entrance. Dawn’s first pale radiance was filtering down through the web of branches as they came to a broad stretch where Silveira, Kao Chih and Yash sat on boulders near a trickling stream. Nods and words of greeting were exchanged.

  ‘How long till your ship gets here?’ Greg said.

  Silveira smiled. ‘It’s just arriving,’ he said, standing to look up.

  In the leafy canopy above a mass of greenery rustled and shifted, the leaves rippling and taking on a bulbous, curved form whose surface changed as Greg watched, foliage distorting, melting through glassiness to a metallic grey with a faint diamond tile pattern. As it descended it reminded Greg of an enclosed zeplin gondola but with a wide aft section and a rounded stern bearing more than a dozen oval blisters. It stopped a few feet from the ground, hanging there in complete silence as a hatch slid open in its flank and some steps unfolded. Then an aperture opened next to the hatch and a segmented tentacle extended to give Silveira a plastic wallet full of documents.

  ‘Again, Mr Cameron, my apologies for this early departure,’ he said. ‘I had my ship prepare this for you, a compendium of tactics for use against the tektor and other Brolturan ploys. Farewell.’

  Greg accepted the wallet then shook hands with Kao Chih. ‘We’ve had some adventures together, my friend. Next time we meet, your folk will be coming to stay and we’ll learn each other’s dances and songs, eh?’

  ‘A fine idea, Gregory. I shall work hard for it.’

  Greg then turned to the Voth and gave him a single, stiff shake of his long-fingered, rough-callused hand.

  ‘Watch out for them Sendrukans, Human – the good ones are bad and the bad ones are the worst of the worst.’

  The three trooped into Silveira’s craft, which sealed itself and rose smoothly into the air. It quivered, turned glassy and reflective, and suddenly wasn’t there any more. Smiling, Greg studied the tree cover overhead and spotted where the branches shifted aside for a moment before whipping back into place.

  ‘Nice wee ship, chief,’ said Rory. ‘Can I have one?’

  ‘Aye, sure … oh wait, we don’t have the garage space.’

  ‘Och, that’s right … and I don’t have a licence either.’

  ‘And just think of the parking tickets.’

  Chuckling, they headed back along the ravine to Tayowal, then paused on seeing the droid Gorol9 coming the other way.

  ‘You missed an interesting encounter,’ Greg said. ‘We had a visit from an Earthsphere intelligence agent, and he wanted to meet you.’

  ‘I did not wish to meet him.’

  On spindly metal legs, the droid stalked across the rocks a short distance then stopped and lowered its armoured midsection into the rest position. Gorol9 had been relying on one of the Diehards to wheel him about in a cart until two weeks ago when a tech engineer called Buka
lin turned up, having fled the oppressions in Hammergard. With his personal tools, Bakulin had repaired the damage that the Construct droid had suffered during the clash with the Legion mech Drazuma-Ha.

  ‘Care to tell me why?’ Greg said.

  The droid angled one of its asymmetrical lens clusters in his direction.

  ‘He may not be who he claims to be.’

  Greg exchanged a look with Rory. ‘And you were careful to avoid him, I see, so there must be a reason.’

  ‘The man has a subspace positional tracker with codemasked signal patterns, a very sophisticated device – it allows Silveira and his ship to know where the other is with practically no chance of detection. However, both the device and that ship are not the kind of equipment normally issued to Earthsphere intelligence operatives.’

  ‘His superiors might not see this as a normal crisis,’ Greg said. ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘The Construct’s Garden of the Machines may be down in the lower tiers of hyperspace but our information on data-harvesting organisations like Earthsphere Intelligence is excellent. This Silveira could be an operative but more likely for another agency, perhaps even a non-Human one.’

  Greg glared at the droid. ‘So why didn’t ye come to me with these suspicions earlier, like last night when it would’ve been useful?’

  ‘Your anxiety about your friend’s safety is misplaced …’

  ‘Oh, ye think so, do ye?’

  ‘Yes – I am certain that this Silveira will carry out the mission as he described it and deliver your colleagues safely to the Roug orbital. He may then give a short but inspiring speech promising all manner of dazzling rescues and liberations before departing for his home territory.’

  Greg breathed deeply. The droid’s condescending tone wasn’t helping.

  ‘Forgive me, Gorol9, but I don’t share your confidence in the intentions of someone now possibly shown to be untrustworthy.’

  ‘I merely state likelihoods,’ the droid said. ‘Communication with the Roug themselves would prove useful in determining Silveira’s motives and safeguarding your colleagues’ safety.’

  ‘Right ye are,’ Rory said acidly. ‘We’ll just call ’em up on the old comm and tell them to look out for a shifty Human bugger …’

  But the Construct droid was oblivious to sledgehammer wit.

  ‘In his account of the investigation of the mountain stronghold, the Uvovo Cheluvahar spoke of his encounter with the Sentinel of the warpwell,’ Gorol9 said. ‘If I can speak to the Sentinel I can establish whether or not it still has lines of communication with the High Index of the Roug. Once, they were allies of those you call the Forerunners, back when their civilisation was young, vigorous and widespread.’

  The droid then raised its midsection and without another word retraced its steps. Greg watched it go, scratching his ear.

  ‘Every time I have a chat with an offworlder I end up with another piece of the puzzle,’ he said. ‘But they still don’t fit, and the puzzle gets bigger and …’

  ‘More puzzlin’, aye,’ said Rory, nodding sagely.

  Greg gave him a nonplussed look then laughed.

  ‘C’mon, let’s get back – folk’ll be waking up so it’s up tae us to choose some lucky volunteer bearers.’

  Rory shrugged. ‘And I was getting tae be so popular, as well!’

  10

  ROBERT

  Ship debris emerging from the planetoid shadow glittered like twisted golden fragments in the sun’s dull brassy light. A cloud of shining wreckage that drifted around a battered, ruptured hulk, the lifeless carcass of a big liner-scale vessel.

  ‘No lifeform readings,’ said Rosa. ‘No comms traffic, no beacons, no energy sources.’ She shrugged. ‘No surprise, really – it’s been here a long time.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen that kind of ship before,’ Robert said. ‘It’s not like the others.’

  During their stealthy evasion of the Legion Knight, dashing from planetoid to planetoid, they had discovered another five similar eviscerated wrecks. Those had all been quite small and of exotic, almost baroque design, and all were identified by the Plausible Response as rudimentary tierships from this or that Tier civilisation. This vessel, however, was huge in comparison, with a wide hull narrowing to a bulbous forward section. There were no hull markings of any kind to be seen, even with the detailed surface scan. But the visible damage betrayed its attacker as the Legion Knight, the ripped-open hull sections, the smashed drive assemblies, the jagged, gaping fissures where more debris floated.

  ‘It’s a Bargalil ship,’ Rosa said. ‘From the Indroma Plexus era, but how could it be this far down in hyperspace? Could have been a research vessel, perhaps …’

  ‘Contact at 48.95K,’ the Plausible Response said abruptly.

  ‘Legion Knight is emerging from occlusion, does not seem to have detected us yet.’

  ‘Take us into the debris cloud on slow thrust,’ Rosa said. ‘See if we can slip behind the wreck.’

  They glided forward, force shields configured to dampen impacts rather than create collision rebounds which might show up on a sensor sweep. The tactic seemed to work. The monitor widescreen displayed several exterior shots at various magnitudes; one subframe showed the Legion Knight’s positional data overlaid on an enhanced visual of the wreckage they were slipping through, which was obscuring everything beyond. The enemy had entered the planetoid’s shadow and the Plausible Response was relying on passive sensors to track it, both hull-mounted and free-floating. From the process model, it appeared that the Legion Knight’s course through the surrounding cluster of worldlets would allow it to maximise the sweep area of its scanners. Robert tried not to hold his breath as they approached the big derelict, swung behind it and halted, shielded fully at last from detection.

  Rosa and the Ship were discussing the channelling of data from some of the drift probes while Robert gazed up at the screen, surveying various views of the Bargalil hulk. One external cam followed a series of gashes along the hull to where a large trench had been cut into the ship – looking into it Robert could see the ragged edges of bulkheads and decks, severed pipes, trailing cables and lines, all tangled up with twisted spars and protruding razor-sharp blades of ruptured metal. Motionless agglomerations of flotsam and jetsam hung in the shattered gap, objects of unfamiliar design apart from what looked like garments, ripped and torn but large enough to fit the bulky, hexapedal Bargalil. Then a chill went through him as one close-up frame revealed that many of the garments were vacsuits and in the next moment a grim real-isation stole over him.

  ‘Where are the bodies?’ he said. ‘I don’t see any.’

  There was a moment of silence on the bridge before Rosa spoke.

  ‘It seems likely that they’ve been harvested, Daddy.’

  He frowned. ‘You mean by the Legion creature?’

  ‘The knights of the Legion of Avatars are cyborged entities,’ she said. ‘A flesh and blood brain sits at the core of that mechanised shell, from which a web of nerve tissue spreads through the systems and subassemblies. Essentially a bioelectrical control matrix augmented by tailored neural clusters …’ She paused, smiled a little. ‘Sorry, Daddy – what I’m saying is that any corpses would have been converted into some kind of nutrient, plus whatever other organic material it looted.’

  ‘And those other ships?’ he said.

  ‘We never took the time to get a close look but it’s highly probable that they met the same fate.’

  Robert stared at the scenes of ancient destruction on the widescreen and shook his head. It was horrible and grotesque and thoroughly in common with most of what he had witnessed thus far down here in the depths of hyperspace. But then the base reality of normal space held just as much grotesquerie and wholesale torment along with the advantage that one could avoid the pain and the horror by flying off into the vastness of space, losing oneself in an ocean of stars.

  ‘Our adversary has altered course, heading away to the next planetoid
,’ said the Ship.

  Rosa grinned at Robert. ‘If we can retrace our own course, we can find out if that drone has recovered Reski yet.’

  During the evasions and retreat after the Legion Knight’s earlier ambush, they had dropped a short-range smart-probe tasked with locating the droid Reski Emantes. Once that was accomplished it was to tow the droid off into the shadow of a nearby planetoid and wait for retrieval.

  But for now they would have to wait for the Legion Knight to slip behind one of the blank-faced worldlets before emerging from their hiding place. The Ship’s estimate was that this would take an hour so Robert retired to his cabin to lie down and rest in the darkness. Sleep was out of the question yet his thoughts were haunted by visions of wrecked ships and slashed and torn vacuum suits. Then there were human forms drifting towards him, dead forms, one with his own face, the other with Rosa’s, both staring emptily, blankly …

  He recoiled from the image, eyes snapping open to the dimmed room where a few standby LEDs glowed, amber and violet motes floating in the dark. He touched the edge of his bedside table and pale grey numerics lit up in its surface. Less than ten minutes left. Had he fallen asleep after all?

  Back up on the bridge, Rosa was still at her station, tirelessly alert.

  ‘Just a few minutes, Daddy, then we can be on our way.’

  ‘How far are we from those coordinates we got from Sunflow Oscillant?’ he said.

  ‘Five or six hours at maximum thrust,’ she said. ‘And until a short while ago it looked as if we and our pursuer were alone here, then we picked up a contact out near that location, right on the edge of our sensor range …’ She paused to look at the widescreen as the Indroma wreck slid gradually away and the Plausible Response moved out of the debris cloud. ‘Not long now.’

  Robert peered at a subframe displaying the thus far meagre data on the distant contact. ‘Is that who we’re supposed to be meeting? Why choose this place?’

  ‘It could be an elaborate trap,’ Rosa said. ‘The Bargalil mystic may have been an unwitting dupe for whoever set this up.’