But as Noah seeped into the podship now, the interior was a little out of focus. Like a phantom, he floated silently through a wide corridor, then darted into a narrow one that the Red Berets had not been able to enter, or even see. Just ahead, Noah made out the entrance to the navigation chamber that he had previously sealed, to keep Tesh and any other intruders out.
Mentally, he gave the instruction to unseal it, so that he could pass through the flesh of the podship, into its most sacred and sheltered chamber, the heart and mind of the creature. Cautiously, Noah’s ghost-self moved forward, and pressed itself against the entryway.
He entered the navigation chamber.
But something was happening back in the tunnel, where his physical form remained.…
Shifting his focus, Noah felt something cold and hard against his jugular.
“I should cut your throat,” a woman’s voice whispered. “But would you die?”
With a quick movement, Noah grabbed the knife by its razor-sharp blade, cutting deeply into his hand. Despite the blood and pain, he tried to pull the weapon from her grip, but could not. She was extremely strong. Blood spurted from the hand as he pulled it away, but within seconds it coagulated. In the low light, he watched with her as the skin healed. The searing pain stopped.
She withdrew the knife from his neck. “Talk,” Tesh demanded, glaring at him.
“I am indestructible. You cannot kill me. I cannot even commit suicide. I’ve been doing little tests lately, self-inflicted stab wounds, even injected poison into my arm. I always heal perfectly. Do you know why this is happening to me?”
“I don’t know what you are,” she responded.
I don’t know what you are, either, Noah thought, as he remembered seeing Tesh in her tiny, secret form, trying to gain entrance to the navigation chamber. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said. “We need to talk.”
She sheathed the knife at her waist, and followed his lead.
* * * * *
The two of them trekked upward along a circuitous route of tunnels to the main cavern, crossed it and went out through the camouflaged main entrance, after using Noah’s security alarm code. It was much warmer outside, with the foliage and ground baked by a late afternoon sun. They climbed to a knoll and sat on it, gazing out across the countryside toward the southern edge of his former ecological demonstration compound.
From this vantage, Noah could not see any of the buildings, only the familiar sloping hills and dark green trees of his beloved land. He longed to have it back, to free himself from the yoke of the misfortunes that had befallen him. If only he and his father had not become estranged, perhaps this whole unfortunate chain of events would never have occurred.
“I have something to tell you,” Tesh said. Sunlight sparkled on her long black hair, and her emerald eyes were filled with concern.
“And I have a lot of questions,” he said.
They talked well past sunset, when a cool night breeze began to pick up, rustling the nearby shrubs and canopa trees. Noah offered her his coat in case she was cold. She accepted, and he sat there shivering without it, while trying to keep his mind on other things. High overhead, the moon peeked around from behind a cloud, casting low illumination on the landscape, creating strange shadows around them.
She revealed to him that she was a Parvii, a major—but clandestine—galactic race that had held dominion over another race, the Aopoddae, since ancient times. Tesh spoke of her magnification system, and demonstrated it as they spoke, but Noah did not admit having previously seen her in her natural state.
“We Parviis do not confide in other races,” she said as she switched the magnification system back on. “But in view of my unparalleled experiences with you, and the unfortunate condition of the galaxy … I must trust you. Please understand, it is not easy for me.”
Pausing, Tesh looked at him. He saw her eyes glint in the low light. The wind blew her hair forward, and with one hand she brushed it out of her eyes, and continued.
“In part from time dilation during space travel, my people live for centuries. Before dying, our oldest person attained the age of three thousand and eighty-eight standard years, while I am more than seven hundred myself. Even so, we can still die of diseases and injuries.”
“My story is not so clear,” he said. “You and I seem to have shared a paranormal experience in which we fought for control of a podship. I suspect that each of us has information … and abilities … that the other does not.”
“I agree,” she said. “It’s all part of a vast galactic puzzle, and we must solve it together.” She paused. Then: “You are … or were … a primitive Human on the evolutionary scale, but Eshaz altered that with one brash act.”
Even when he’d seen Tesh in her tiny size, she’d looked Human to Noah. Was that the future of humanity—to get smaller and live longer?
“Eshaz should never have granted you access to Timeweb,” she said, “which he did when he healed you. He committed a terrible, dangerous act, and will surely pay the price for it. His action is unprecedented, and so, to my knowledge, are you. I do not believe that you are immortal, however. Our leader, Woldn, has always told us that there are no deathless creatures in the universe. Some are just harder to kill than others, that’s all.”
Noah actually did feel immortal, but said only, “Well, I’m definitely hard to kill. Anyway, I didn’t try to do anything wrong, so don’t be angry with me. I still don’t understand what happened to me, or … you called it Timeweb?”
She nodded. “It’s a vast web that holds the entire cosmos together, but it’s extremely fragile. Think of an immense ecosystem, with planetary and other organisms intricately woven together and utterly dependent upon each other … a large-scale version of what it is like on each world. Your concept of galactic ecology is very close to the truth.”
He struggled to comprehend. “But it sounds more complicated than anything I imagined.”
“The old ways of the galaxy are in chaos, and this may have permitted you to gain unprecedented access to the web. I cannot say, but I do know this. You and I must journey into Timeweb in a podship … together.”
“With you?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that idea.
“I sense great danger, and we must move quickly. Do you know that our podship has been sitting at the pod station, exactly where we … where you … left it?”
He nodded. “I, too, sense peril, but have not known how to deal with it, or if I am the right one to deal with it.”
“We might be able figure it out as a team. Something is afoot in the galaxy, and we must discover what it is.”
Noah considered her proposal, wondering if it might be a trick, so that she could take control of the sentient spacecraft away from him. In the moonlight, he stared at the knife that she had sheathed.
As if to answer his unspoken concerns, she smiled gently and said, “You are, as we have learned from our podship experience, stronger than I am in Timeweb.”
“But you know your way around better than I do.”
“Perhaps I only know different aspects of it than you do.”
He told her about the fantastic vision in which he journeyed in his mind across space, and saw Francella and the Doge Lorenzo del Velli in a podship, and overheard her saying she wanted Noah killed. Noah also told of seeing Thinker and his small army of robots in another podship, and of seeing Mutatis at the controls of ten schooners that were painted with merchant prince colors, all with unidentifiable tube mechanisms built into their hulls.
“The Mutatis were in orbit over their own planets,” Noah said. “Some sort of defensive operation, I guess, maybe listening posts. But why are they using merchant ships?”
“They probably stole them,” Tesh suggested. “But with that devious race, nothing is as it seems. Woldn has long warned of Mutati treachery, saying they are a danger to the entire galaxy, and not just to Humans.”
“Sometimes I wonder if the galaxy would be better off without Mutatis o
r Humans,” Noah said.
“Don’t say that. You know the goodness of humankind.”
“And the evils.”
“We’d better get out there and see what the Mutatis are up to,” she said, pressing.
He didn’t respond, and didn’t tell her he had been conducting a remote experiment when she interrupted him, to see if he could get into the core while not physically on board the podship. He’d proven to himself he could, and had no doubt that he could also pilot the ship remotely. But the less she knew about his powers the better—this Parvii female probably had more tricks than he could imagine.
“Will you go with me to the podship?” she asked.
“You could shrink yourself and sneak past the guards at the ship,” he said.
“That wouldn’t do me any good. You sealed the navigation chamber, and I can’t get in without you.”
“So it seems.” Looking into her seductive, moonlit eyes, Noah wondered if he could ever trust her. “I need time to process all of this,” he said.
“When will you have an answer?” Her voice sounded anxious.
“I’ll let you know. You can’t get into the navigation chamber without my help.”
“So it seems.” She touched his hand. He felt warmth from her, which was remarkable considering her magnification system.
Gently, Noah pushed her hand away. He gazed into the night sky, scanning the twinkling, distant stars. Doubts about her assailed him. She was using her physical beauty and charm to get what she wanted, obviously a method she was accustomed to using.
She pulled his face to hers, and their lips met—or seemed to—but for only a fraction of a second. Quickly, Noah pulled away. The more attraction he felt for her, the more it worried him.
Tesh tried again, and this time Noah was more forceful in response. “I will make my decision logically,” he snapped, “not emotionally.”
And he stalked off.
* * * * *
Alone in the darkness of his room, Noah probed the vast cosmic domain, his thoughts skipping along the faint green filigree of Timeweb. He needed to conduct an experiment to discover if he really could pilot a podship by remote control, but he decided it would be best to try other sentient vessels, not the one at the Canopa pod station. He didn’t want to disturb that one now, not until he determined how best to put it to use. Aside from his concern about keeping information from Tesh, he was afraid that something might go wrong in a remote takeover attempt, preventing him from ever controlling that ship.
At random, he selected a podship speeding along the web, and zeroed in on it. His mind seeped inside, first into the passenger compartment and cargo hold, and then into the green, glowing navigation chamber at the core of the vessel. He saw a Parvii clinging to a wall there, guiding the ship along one galactic strand and another.
Focusing all of his mental energy, Noah tried to commandeer the ship, and for a moment he felt a mental linkage with the mysterious creature, though not as strong as he had experienced previously, with the other vessel. This time he caused the podship to slow, just a little. Then he felt increasing resistance, and noticed that the tiny humanoid had moved to another section of wall, a bright green patch.
The podship followed the Parvii’s commands now and disregarded Noah’s, no matter how much he tried. Finally giving up the effort to overcome the other pilot, Noah wondered how much his difficulty had to do with the remote connection, and if he had more power when he was actually on board a craft before attempting to pilot it.
Moments later, the podship pulled into a pod station and docked.
While passengers and small vessels unloaded from the ship, Noah again touched the core with his probing thoughts, and once more he experienced a mental linkage with the sentient creature. The Parvii resisted him as expected, but only briefly this time, before losing the battle.
I did it! Noah thought.
He waited for the unloading to finish, but before any passengers or cargo could be loaded, he ordered the podship to close the entrance hatches and leave the dock. To his elation, these commands were followed. He then took the vessel out on the podways and guided it along one strand and another, as he pleased.
Eventually he let the connection go, and allowed the disturbed Parvii pilot to resume control.
During the next hour, Noah conducted additional experiments on other podships around the galaxy. In each case he found that he could not maintain control of a pod that was already in motion, but he could if the vessel was docked when he made the attempt.
Noah was gaining skills in Timeweb, like a child learning how to walk.
Chapter Eighty-Three
There are countless ways to destroy a foe … and to destroy yourself. You must take care that one does not lead to the other.
—Mutati Wisdom
Two Mutatis stood high inside one of the spires of the Citadel of Paradij, gazing out on the jeweled buildings of the capital city, the glittering colors in afternoon sunlight. One of the shapeshifters—the Zultan Abal Meshdi—was the more massive, though his son could not be considered petite.
In the time that had passed since the enemy attack on his Demolio manufacturing facility, the Zultan had restored the program. Now there were hundreds of doomsday machines, and they had been dispatched to strategic locations in the Mutati Kingdom and in other star systems, where their outriders had been told to await further instructions.
Those final commands would be sent via his new instantaneous cross-space communication system. Pursuant to the information received from the turncoat Giovanni Nehr, the Mutatis had established deep-shaft emerald mines on a number of planets, and had been harvesting the piezoelectric gems that were required for nehrcom transceivers.
The new communication program was ancillary to the overall doomsday plan, and would facilitate the obliteration of merchant prince planets. Meshdi could have distributed the deadly torpedoes without the instantaneous communication system, by sending outriders with predetermined attack schedules (as he had done in the past), but he had been waiting for instructions from God-on-High.
Finally, while inside his gyrodome the day before, the Zultan had been told what to do. The blessed Creator of the Galaxy had appeared to him, as if from a cosmic mist, and had commanded him to make Humans suffer by destroying them progressively—rather than all at once. But unknown to Meshdi, it had not really been a divine directive at all. Rather, it had been the result of psychic influences exerted by the Adurian gyrodome and minigyros—mechanisms that swayed his decisionmaking processes and caused him to preserve the most valuable merchant prince worlds, which the clandestine HibAdu Coalition wanted as prizes of war.
Abal Meshdi had been feeling disappointment all day, and had summoned his eldest son Hari’Adab to this private meeting, to discuss what to do next. Now the Zultan snapped his fingers, causing a clearplax door in front of them to slide open. He led the way out onto a balcony, and felt the floor flex under their combined weight.
“I wish you hadn’t asked for my advice this time,” the younger Mutati said. He placed three hands on the balcony railing, and gazed blankly out on the city. “You know how I feel about your Demolio program.”
“As my heir apparent, you must accept it anyway, just as I must accept the will of God-on-High. Each of us has our superior, you see, and we cannot alter what is meant to be, the natural order of affairs. If I had my way it would all be over quickly. I would attack every enemy world simultaneously, blasting them all to oblivion.” He paused. “Beyond oblivion, I hate Humans so much.”
Hari’Adab did not respond.
“We will annihilate them,” the Zultan said. He tasted the destructive word and smiled to himself, forming a tiny curvature of the mouth atop his impressive mountain of fat. Such a delicious, salivating sound to it.
“We will annihilate them!” he repeated.
“If I had my way, Father, I would negotiate with the merchant princes and form a lasting peace. Our militarism only generates more of the s
ame by our opponents. I say this to you with all respect, My Zultan, for the ultimate decision is yours and I would not think to question it. I only offer my humble opinion.”
“I’ve heard that all before from you, Hari, and you would be wise not to press me further on that issue, considering how far you have to fall if I decide to tip you over the railing.” He grinned at his son, and caught an angry glance in return. Then Hari’Adab looked away and stared into the distance, as if wishing he could be anywhere else.
Shifting on his feet and feeling the balcony floor move again, Meshdi said, “Maybe I shouldn’t be so disappointed at the order from God-on-High. Perhaps it is for the best, after all. By inflicting anguish on our enemy in stages, we will strike more terror into their black little hearts. Think of it, Hari! They will know the end is coming without being able to stop it!”
Almost imperceptibly—but not quite—the young Emir shook his undersized head, but said nothing, obviously trying to show the proper respect for his elder, as required in Mutati society. Hari had, however, refused to wear the Adurian gyro that his father shipped to him. A proud young terramutati, he’d said that he did not need a mechanical device to help him make decisions. It had been another disappointment for Abal Meshdi, and he had been struggling to overcome it.
But at the thought of making his enemies suffer, the Zultan cheered up and trembled with excitement. “Let them scramble like ants from a fire, trying to save themselves,” he said. “It will do them no good.”
Chapter Eighty-Four
The symbiosis of man and machine. That may be the best way to describe my relationship with the robot leader.
—Noah Watanabe
In the weeks they had known one another, Noah and Thinker were developing a surprisingly close friendship, something neither of them had anticipated, since they seemed so different. This is not to say that they failed to notice one another’s faults. Early one morning as they ventured outside the tunnel complex, the robot commented that Noah had a tendency to be overly trustful of people he met, always trying to see the good in them, even if he had to struggle to do so.
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