The Timeweb Chronicles: Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus

by Brian Herbert

  But why had the podship crashed on Plevin Four in the first place? Something must have gone wrong with the Parvii pilot … an illness, a misjudgment? Or some failure by the podship itself. Such events were rare, but over the course of millenniums did occur.

  Another realization hit her.

  We are no longer on Plevin Four. It doesn’t exist anymore.

  The cosmic blackness and flickering, distant suns were stark confirmation, seen around drifting chunks of the dead world. The podship, even with improvised Mutati window walls, had survived the explosion. In its present state, with the body as cold and hard as stone, the podship had effectively armored itself against the explosion, and this had not been compromised by the Mutati alterations.

  The planet is gone, and we are drifting in space. What happened?

  She could not imagine. An entire planet! She had been in the midst of a huge explosion.

  Above all, Tesh could not shake the intense sadness over her lost comrade, even though she had never known him personally. But she had no time for emotion.

  Podships were hardy creatures, and it might just be possible to revive this one. She had to hurry. The bunker was tightly sealed, but soon her companions could run out of air. She did not have that problem. It was one of the principle advantages of Parvii evolution.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The Eye of the Swarm is in telepathic contact with his Parvii swarms, all over the galaxy. It is a vast morphic field, but has been subject to increasing problems, running parallel with the disintegration of the cosmic web.

  —Thinker’s data bank: Galactic Leaders

  They were as thick as locusts, but did not fly over hills and crops, looking for plants to ravage. Instead, they journeyed from one star system to another on a mission that was nearly as old as the galaxy itself. A distant observer might have wondered what was moving so rapidly through the heavens, and would have undoubtedly guessed wrong.

  At Woldn’s command, the swarm appeared to take the shape of a comet, then an asteroid belt, and then a string of planets flung out of orbit by God. These were shapeshifters on an immense scale, a malleable multitude that covered much of a galactic sector at a time … and even more, if they switched on their personal magnification systems simultaneously. But individually, they were exceedingly small, like tiny pixies or fairies.

  For more than a thousand years, Woldn had been the Eye of the Swarm, the leader of the entire Parvii race. At the center of the formation, he flew with them now, speeding past brilliant suns and multicolored nebulas, swooping, diving, circling, going faster than podships or as slow as a Human walking through space. At times, Woldn felt like an artist of movement, the conductor of a great galactic symphony.

  Some of his followers rose through the ranks because they displayed special talents, the most gifted of whom were wranglers who specialized in the capture of wild, migrating podships, and pilots who could guide the mysterious sentient spacecraft on long journeys.

  Periodically, the wranglers and pilots were given rest between assignments, time on their own that could last for years in succession. In the typical lifetime of a Parvii, that was not very long at all. Woldn himself had lived for nearly two millennia.

  I am the Eye of the Swarm.

  At will, Woldn’s thoughts expanded and contracted as he guided his beloved throng, directing their movements telepathically, knowing their collective and individual thoughts as if they were part of his own body. He made them curve upward and then down, like a rollercoaster in space, and then formed them into a twisting Mobius strip that looked like a contorted conveyor belt.

  He was in fact the eye of many, many Parvii swarms in all sectors of the galaxy, controlling them with his powerful beaming thoughts, keeping track of them at all times, no matter how far away they were. His minions had telepathic powers as well, but on nowhere near the scale of his. Woldn’s abilities—while still subject to the limitations of psychic breakdowns that affected all members of his race, and inhibited by an increasing number of telepathic dead zones in the galaxy—were historically unparalleled. He was the chosen one, the most gifted of the gifted, capable of wrangling and piloting podships, capable of stretching his thoughts, and his swarms, across vast distances.

  It was his raison d’être to capture and control every podship possible. His swarms were relentless, and he would send millions of the tiny breed on a mission to capture just a few podships, or only one. That’s how valuable the sentient Aopoddae were to them, for they were the best means by which the various galactic races could travel across vast distances of space at hyper speeds.

  Had they been savvy businessmen, with avaricious hearts like those of the merchant princes, the Parviis could have turned this monopoly into huge profits and used the funds to build an empire. But they had no use for money; it was not the currency of their existence. They did not live on planets or have any desire for worldly things. Beautiful objects meant nothing to them. They did not even need the oxygen of a planet, and traveled through space without any sort of breathing apparatus.

  Parviis measured their accomplishments in terms of the success of their race. In the overall perspective, the individual was of little consequence to them, for he could do almost nothing without the collective strength of his companions.

  Even so, one Parvii inside the sectoid chamber of a podship—when trained and entrusted with that position—could control that marvelous creature, guiding it though the treacherous pathways of space. But as many podships as they controlled, there were always wild pods out in the far reaches. Though some of their migration patterns were known, no one knew where Aopoddae came from originally, whether they were generated through some sexual liaison or just appeared out of the ether.

  Woldn led his swarm to the dark side of the Tulyan Starcloud, a region where the sun never shone. He had received intelligence reports from Parvii operatives that this was where the bronze, scaly Tulyans were hiding podships, reports that he had picked up telepathically. They told him exactly where to look.

  But the ships were not there anymore. Were they all out on the podways, transporting Tulyans to unknown regions?

  Stretching his swarm out and using all of the eyes of its members, Woldn picked up their thoughts, and beheld a region of space as large as four ordinary solar systems. Though he usually paid little attention to beauty, here he felt truly stirred to the depths of his soul. This was one of the most spectacular regions he had ever seen, very nearly as lovely as the Parvii Fold, that sacred galactic region where his people bred, and where they went to die when their long lifetimes wound down.

  Cosmic mists floated through the starcloud, a rainbow of swirling gas that at times seemed to take on magical shapes. He’d heard a legend that the mists conformed to the vivid, collective imaginations of the Tulyans themselves, and that the entire region, with its islands of land, were products of their minds.

  Woldn doubted if that could be true. The Tulyans had not been powerful enough to defeat his people, so he did not see how such an extrasensory feat could be possible. After all, if they were that powerful they could just visualize weapons to defeat the Parviis, something customized to block the telepathic signals that controlled the swarms. He and his minions had been here before, and occasionally made captures of hidden podships in this region. But the Tulyans were clever, with a variety of tricks in their repertoire.

  He steered the swarm through a thick mist that grew intensely red as he got into it, and then became darker and completely encompassed the multitude of Parviis. Soon Woldn could see nothing at all. He sensed the fear and mounting panic of his people around him, but ordered them to change the configuration of the formation and continue on, which they did, in the shape of a wide, spinning fan blade.

  Faster and faster they spun as they flew, in an effort to dissipate the mist by sweeping it out of position, but Woldn felt something resisting his efforts, as if the legend was true and the Tulyans really were holding the mist in place through the collect
ive power of their minds.

  Then he felt something give way. The mist separated, and Woldn saw dozens of podships floating in the vacuum of space, tethered together. For a moment, he hesitated, as this was more than they usually had at one time. In the clearing, shuttles approached the podships, and Woldn saw Tulyans inside the shuttles, peering out of the portholes with their slitted gray eyes. They were so peculiar in appearance, looking in his direction, seeing their Parvii enemies.

  He felt his swarm wanting to surge forward, but he held them back, and watched as the shuttles moved between the gray-and-black pods, depositing Tulyans into each spaceship. Woldn was amused by their pathetic effort to escape.

  As the Tulyan pilots took control of the podships, the vessel hulls metamorphosed, taking on scaly, reptilian skin and Tulyan facial features. The podships got underway, and accelerated. But as fast as they were, they could not escape, not even on the podways. The pursuing swarm split into as many segments as there were pods and ran each of them down. Woldn remained behind, but experienced the simultaneous captures telepathically.

  In short order, the Parviis took control of the small fleet, and as their pilots went to work the podships changed back to their original blimp-like appearances. The Eye of the Swarm had all of the sentient spacecraft brought to him, and ordered his people to imprison the Tulyans inside the shuttles. He didn’t kill his enemies, but refused to listen when they protested that they needed the podships to perform important ecological work on a galactic scale.

  “I sentence all of you to retirement!” Woldn shouted. As he spoke, his people uttered the words simultaneously to the Tulyans inside the shuttles, producing an eerie synchronized voice.

  Muttering with displeasure, the bronze-scaled aliens did not fight back. As big as they were, Tulyans had traditionally been a non-violent race. They also knew they were powerless against such a formidable enemy.

  In short order Woldn led his swarm, the captured podships, and the imprisoned Tulyans to a point in deep space, where he assigned a pilot to each craft and turned them loose on the podways, increasing the galactic transport fleet under his command.

  This had all happened before, an eternal cycle of dispute between the two races. The Tulyans, no matter their losses and inadequacies, continually tried to regain control of podships and hide them from their unrelenting Parvii competitors, using different methods of concealment.

  And these newly captured Tulyans, like others before them, would be used as bargaining chips for timeseeing services the Parviis wanted from those few Tulyans who had such abilities, so that the Parviis could obtain reports on events a short distance in the future. While the most gifted timeseers had only imperfect abilities, it was, nonetheless, a highly-desired service to the tiny, swarming creatures.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  In a special corner of my imagination there is no distinction between thought and reality, as one melds gently into the other, along a vast continuum. There, perception takes on substance, and thoughts are as tangible as anything perceived with the known senses.

  —Noah Watanabe, Drifting in the Ether (unpublished notes)

  A short while ago, the dreaming man had been immersed in a cacophony of chaos.

  In the din and violence of his physical awareness, he had tried to prepare himself for a realm where he would have no more need for thoughts, no worries or desires to clutter his mind. He had been wondering what sort of reality that might be, and if, on some level, he would still be conscious of it. The answer to these questions meant a great deal to him.

  But clarity was elusive.

  For some time now, Noah Watanabe had been seeking doorways out of the darkness that encompassed him. He had been sending mental probes in various directions, searching for escape from the barless prison of his comatose mind.

  His mind was the key to his body, for his physical form could not function without mental impulses. But he sensed that his intellect was also the key to something far greater than one mortal body and all of the trivial details that made up its daily routines. He felt a tremendous frustration as he realized this with absolute certainty, while his brain was completely locked up and unable to attain its potential.

  Once more he tried to escape, and again he failed. Unable to come out of the coma, Noah’s thoughts focused on a prison within a prison. He re-experienced the onslaught on EcoStation by Red Beret forces, saw them running through the corridors, shouting commands. In painstaking detail he relived the attack, and his escape in the grid-plane.

  Through the porthole, he saw the Doge’s red gunships again, firing at the escaping vessel, tearing through the hull just as Subi was increasing the acceleration. Only moments away from freedom.

  In the void between the spacecraft, Noah saw the path of enemy projectiles as they sped toward him. As yet, nothing had hit Noah or any of his companions.

  For a long, lingering moment, Noah awaited the inevitable, knowing there was no escape from that fate, or the one that held him tightly now. Silence encased him, the eerie stillness of impending death.

  The grid-plane was not going fast enough!

  The projectiles drew closer. They were right outside the porthole now, only a fraction of a second from impact. He flinched, then felt searing pain. He tried to scream, but in the vault of darkness he had no voice.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Visual observation is not the same as confirmation.

  —Sulu Granby, Philosopher of Old Mars

  Resembling a small, bronze-scaled dragon, Eshaz knelt beside the comatose form of Noah, who lay on the carpeted deck of the grid-plane, with a blanket over him and a pillow beneath his head. His Human friend had not been doing well; the vital signs had declined precipitously to a dangerous level. In addition, the Tulyan’s own bodily aches and pains had been worsening of late—the apparent link with the decline in Timeweb—but he tried not to think about all those things.

  Instead, he gazed off into the distance, seeing through the walls of the grid-plane and the damaged, stranded podship that encompassed it and floated in space. Debris from the planetary explosion bobbed near them like flotsam on the sea, great chunks of rock and turf. But none of that inhibited his vision in the least. He saw through it all, to the other side.

  With slitted gray eyes, Eshaz peered far into the galaxy, as if through a child’s looking glass. But this was no juvenile activity. Nothing ever had been for him, since he had always taken his responsibilities seriously. His ancient ability permitted him to gaze far across the galaxy, to stars and planets and his own starcloud, floating like an oasis in a vast wasteland, most of which was entirely devoid of life.

  Home.

  Whenever he peered into the galaxy, he always liked to start out this way, making certain the sacred Tulyan homeland was still intact, that the Council Chamber was lit, and everything was all right. Considering the tenuous state of the galaxy, this was not always a certainty. There were no distance or time factors diminishing the sighting. He was peering into the present, not the past. Like using a super zoom lens that spanned the curvatures, folds, and distances of time and space.

  A tear of relief ran down the bronze, scaly skin of his face. The legendary Tulyan Starcloud floated serenely in space, looking no different from this distant vantage than it had long ago. He knew, because he had lived for nearly a million standard years.

  The visual confirmation gave him great comfort, but on this occasion he took only a moment to look in that direction, because of a pressing matter that required his attention. Sadly, there were so many of them nowadays, an acceleration of bad events.

  Refocusing, he saw a tiny Parvii woman exploring the hidden passageways and chambers of the stranded podship that contained his grid-plane. As was the case with all Tulyans, Eshaz’s ability to see Parviis in this paranormal manner was limited: for unknown reasons, he and his comrades could not see their tiny enemies in swarms, but occasionally they could see individuals, especially when the individual was far from the center o
f a swarm.

  With a start, Eshaz recognized the Parvii woman.

  Tesh!

  He’d thought something was strange about her, but had been unable to determine what. Though he knew Parviis could alter their size, he hadn’t suspected her of being one of them. But he had no time for personal reproach. Something was far more important than that, or than the control of a single sentient pod.

  Eshaz, like all Tulyans, could see Timeweb, the exceedingly strong, hidden strands that connected an entire galaxy. He saw that this podship was hung up on one of the strands, and that it had been propelled into that position by the explosion on Plevin Four. What caused such a catastrophe? He had no idea.

  He spotted a tiny rip in the web adjacent to the podship—a defect just starting to form in the fabric of space. It was an early stage timehole, barely discernible by his trained eye, and not visible to other galactic races at all. If left unchecked, it would grow in severity, eventually reaching a dangerous advanced stage, when it was visible to Humans and other races. The most severe timeholes, if they occurred in proximity to planets, could rip portions of earth and rock away, sucking them into bottomless holes in the cosmos.

  It was frustrating to him. Wherever he went in the galaxy he fixed these web defects, or thought he did, but frequently another one appeared only a short distance away. He had hoped that these ominous signs of galactic disintegration would reverse and either heal themselves or stop appearing, but that had not been the case at all.

  This one, while small, was in a bad location, out in the middle of space by a vital, structural fold in the galaxy, where it could easily enlarge and cause serious havoc in an entire sector.

  But he wasn’t thinking so much about that. He had another thought in mind. Still kneeling by Noah, but not looking at him, he placed a scaly hand over the man’s forehead, and felt the life ebbing away.