Webdancers

by Brian Herbert

  “Our Coalition forces are in perfect position, my furry friend. With the merchant princes tied up in a distant battle, their planets will be easy pickings for our massive fleet of four hundred and seventy-six thousand lab-pods, filled with military armaments and fighters. Uncel gestured with his wiry hands as he spoke. “The only question being worked out now is how to distribute our forces for the simultaneous attacks on Merchant Prince Alliance and Mutati Kingdom targets. The Humans have spread themselves too thin, so we’re assigning more of our forces to the attacks on Mutati worlds.”

  Nodding, Pimyt said, “Our enemies have weakened themselves by warring against each other, and now the shapeshifters have been further weakened by the destruction of their homeworld, Paradij.”

  “Close call for me,” Uncel mused, tapping a long finger on the desk top. “I got away just in time.”

  A pity, Pimyt thought. His eyes felt hot as he glared at the Ambassador.

  Uncel paused, seemed nervous as he continued to speak. “Only two days before the destruction, I was with the Zultan Abal Meshdi, spent a night in his palace. He was completely insane, you know, with that Demolio program to blow up merchant prince planets—wiping out our potential prizes of war.”

  Pimyt nodded. “It is a double-edged sword, isn’t it? Less planets, but the Mutatis are weaker because of the loss of Paradij.”

  “Lucky for me, I had to get back here for an appointment.” Uncel scratched his wiry neck. “Hard to believe Meshdi’s own son did it, a murder conspiracy with a huge miscalculation that blew up the most important Mutati planet. Even though rumors are rampant that Hari’Adab did that, most Mutatis seem willing to forgive him. “

  “No figuring shapeshifters,” Pimyt said.

  “That’s for sure. Even so, both target empires still have many valuables for us. We’ll hit them hard, out of the blue.”

  “I’d like to meet our own leaders one day,” Pimyt mused, “especially High Ruler Coreq.”

  “Many things are far more important,” the Ambassador said, his tone sharp.

  Pimyt fumed. “Don’t you see? We have a lot in common, you and I, including important assignments from HibAdu commanders we’ve never met.”

  “No matter. Our careers are assured. Reports from each of us have proven invaluable to the HibAdu effort.”

  Pimyt grinned. “To make up for my perceived selfishness, I must give credit to your own resourcefulness in the not-too-distant past.”

  Uncel’s already-large eyes widened, and he smiled. “But I have so many accomplishments, my friend. As a team member, of course. Of what do you speak?”

  “I’m thinking of the time you obtained raw information from the Mutatis on the nehrcom cross-space communication system, a system that the Mutatis could not perfect. But our scientists certainly had no problems figuring it out, did they?”

  “No. Truly, our forces are poised, and are fortunate. With Hibbil manufacturing skills and Adurian biotech knowledge, it is a combination of the best. No longer will our people be under the boot heels of the Humans and Mutatis.”

  “We live in legendary times,” Pimyt said. “After the great HibAdu victory, perhaps historians will write of our own contributions, VV. To the team, of course. Incidentally, I was just teasing you when I exaggerated my own contribution. Sometimes it is quite simple to agitate you.”

  “Yes, friend, but rile me at your own peril. You think I’m a pushover, don’t you?”

  “I think a lot of things about you that are not productive to mention. A pushover? Perhaps, but I have never required a weak opponent to prevail.” He leaned forward over the desk. “But let us turn our talents elsewhere, shall we?”

  “Ah yes, an excellent suggestion. Combined, we are much stronger, aren’t we? And that’s what the Coalition is all about.”

  Chapter Ten

  I ought to exercise more caution, but it is not in my nature. My father was a risk-taker of the highest order, and it is my weakness that I have inherited this tendency from him. Hopefully, I have not also acquired the Zultan’s madness.

  —Emir Hari’Adab

  The Mutati delegation should have been able to reach the Tulyan Starcloud in a few minutes, but it was taking them much longer to cross the galaxy. Hari’s two lab-pods had been in the far reaches of space for more than a day so far, but they had not yet reached their destination. At the moment the vessels were dead in space, having been stopped by their crews to assess the unexpected situation. In the lead craft, Hari’Adab and his followers were in comlink contact with the other crew, trying to figure out the problem. And inside the holds of each vessel, HibAdu prisoners were being interrogated intensely.

  One thing seemed clear. The Hibbil navigation units on each ship, which the Mutati crews originally thought they understood, had sent them off-course by millions and millions of light years. But that could be made up quickly, if they could only determine where they were. At the speed of podships, even traveling along a damaged infrastructure, such distances could be covered in a relatively short time—and these lab-pods, like their natural cousins, were biological entities with seemingly unlimited travel capabilities. But the lab-pods were acting like blind birds flying headlong through space, not knowing where they were going.

  According to one of the prisoners, in all manufacturing tests the Hibbils had performed, covering multiple star systems, the nav-units had functioned perfectly. Apparently, he claimed, they did not function well in all sectors—and in the deepest reaches of space, far from the Hibbil Cluster Worlds, they were undoubtedly giving erroneous readings.

  Dismayed and frustrated, Hari conferred with Kajor Yerto Bhaleen. They sat at a small table in the spacious passenger compartment, examining an electronic clip pad that displayed an astromap of this galactic sector. Tapping a button on the pad, Bhaleen called up a holo image of the sector, showing planets, suns, an asteroid belt, and a stunning, butterfly-shaped nebula in the distance that glinted with golden light.

  “It’s incredibly beautiful in this region,” the Kajor said, “but that doesn’t help us figure out where we are. My officers are running and rerunning programs now, searching for answers. The prisoners may have thrown us off intentionally, providing false information.”

  “You think they’re fanatics?”

  “Maybe. Hard to tell.”

  “Give me your best guess,” Hari said. “How much longer do you think this will take?” Hari asked.

  “To figure out where we are, or to get to the starcloud?”

  “Both.”

  “Hard to judge, because even if—I mean, when—we figure out our location, we are still having problems with the nav-units. Even so, my officers are confident that we can compensate for the errors. They’re taking astronomical readings, and the ships’ computers should be able to figure out what we did, and how to correct it.”

  “But the computers allowed us to go off course?”

  “They did, but there have been problems with the podways on which these ships travel, with entire galactic sectors damaged so badly that we couldn’t travel through them, requiring that we go around.”

  “And now?”

  “With all the course mistakes and corrections we’ve made, we’re way off course. But don’t worry. My navigation officers will come up with new settings.”

  “At least that’s what they’re telling you.”

  “True enough, My Emir.” The Kajor smiled cautiously. “But you’ve always liked my optimism in the past.”

  With a broad grin, Hari patted him on the back.

  Just then, Bhaleen took a comlink call from the other ship. Under intense interrogation, the captured Hibbil and Adurian soldiers were offering no assistance whatsoever. The Kajor went on to discuss a mechanical question with someone on the other end of the line. Bhaleen was the most loyal of all military officers Hari had ever known, and could always be relied upon to perform his work well.

  That took some of the load off the young leader’s shoulders. But it had not be
en an easy journey for Hari to arrive at this point. In sharp contrast to the radical, demented militarism of his own father, he had always considered himself something of a moderate—a person who was willing to talk to the enemies of the kingdom and negotiate with them for the mutual benefit of two very different galactic races. And, just as he loved Parais d’Olor, he was certain that all of humankind was filled with relationships such as the one he knew with her, of people who didn’t care about ancient enmities and just wanted the fighting to stop.

  Normally, Hari was not an appeaser; while he was willing to negotiate, he also believed in negotiating from strength. In the present circumstances, however, that tactic was no longer possible. With the total destruction of the beloved Mutati homeworld of Paradij (an event that would always weigh heavily on his conscience), the shapeshifters had sustained a grievous setback. His people were still in possession of considerable military strength in other Mutati star systems, but the command center and the most powerful forces had been lost with Paradij. The brightest of the brightest had been wiped out, along with the greatest of all military minds and a great deal more.

  He tried not to dwell on the troubling details, but they kept surfacing to torment him, almost beyond the limit of his endurance. His heart sank at the thought of the great libraries that had been destroyed on the beautiful world, with all of the priceless ancient documents. All of the historical and cultural treasures. And most of all, the lives that had been taken, especially the young ones. Their imagined faces spun through his thoughts, and he fought off tears.

  Suddenly, Parais d’Olor burst into the passenger compartment. Excitedly, she almost lifted her wings, though she had no room to fly in there. “One of the Adurians is talking,” she said. “He’s a navigation technician who refused to say anything before. Now he’s telling our officers what we did wrong, and how we were misled by other prisoners.”

  “But can we trust him?” Bhaleen asked. He hurried past her, heading for the hold where the prisoners were.

  “Wish we had a Tulyan to use the truthing touch on him,” Hari said.

  When Hari and the others entered the spacious hold, he saw his officers and soldiers standing around one of the hairless, bulbous-eyed Adurians. The alien was spewing words like automatic projectile fire, technical information about astronomical coordinates and settings on the nav-units. One of Hari’s men was recording him, and another was entering notes on a clip pad.

  Finally, the HibAdu soldier fell silent.

  Pushing his way past the others, Kajor Bhaleen unfolded a knife and held the blade against the throat of the prisoner. The Adurian technician had dark, bulbous eyes that were comparatively small for his race. His gaze darted around nervously.

  “Why should we believe you?” Bhaleen asked. He drew a trickle of yellow blood from the alien’s neck.

  “Please don’t kill me! I’m telling the truth because I don’t want to die out here, marooned. I have told your men what they need to do.”

  “If he’s lying, we will know soon enough,” Hari said, placing a hand on Bhaleen’s shoulder.

  The Kajor hesitated, then withdrew the weapon. He wiped off the blade and folded it back into his pocket.

  The Adurian pleaded to be sent back to join his companions, and received assurance from his captors that his actions would be kept secret. Afterward, Mutatis checked and rechecked the new information. All calculations and projections showed that it was correct, and finally the ships got underway again.

  Three hours later, the Adurian was found dead in his sleeping quarters, strangled by a fellow prisoner.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sometimes it is possible to think about a thing too much.

  —Master Noah Watanabe

  For weeks, the Liberator fleet had been in the Parvii Fold, occupied with essential tasks. The complete vanquishing of the Parviis and their flight from the galactic pocket had only been the beginning. Now, at last, virtually all of the podships had Tulyan pilots and the galactic pocket had been secured against the return of enemy swarms, to prevent them from ever using it as a home base, or an area of racial recuperation.

  In addition to their concerns about Parvii survivors, the Tulyans in the Liberator force had devoted themselves to preparing the vast Aopoddae fleet for deep-space galactic recovery operations, matching them up with pilots and taking steps to remove and replace the ancient bonds that Parviis had placed on the sentient spacecraft in order to control them.

  Inside the main corridor of the flagship Webdancer, Noah had just spoken with Tesh Kori. Then she had returned to her isolated position in the sectoid chamber, from which she would pilot the vessel in the Parvii manner. She was about to get underway, but this time fleet command had decided that the big flagship would be among the last of the vessels to depart for the Tulyan Starcloud. For hours now, the rest of the fleet had been streaming out through the Asteroid Funnel, into deep space.

  As Noah hurried through the gray-green corridors of the vessel, he had mixed feelings. Some of his companions, including Anton del Velli and Subi Danvar, had said they hoped the entire Parvii race went extinct, for the greater good of the galaxy. To Noah that sounded horrific, but privately he’d admitted that it did make some sense. Still, he wanted to believe it was overkill, so he had been telling the others that there were worthwhile Parviis in the race. Tesh Kori had proven that, and her intentions had been verified by the Tulyan truthing touch.

  If only the remaining Parviis could be separated from the Eye of the Swarm and his influences, many of the race might be rehabilitated. For that matter, while Noah had seen the survivors through a Timeweb vision, and they had been hovering near the bolt hole on the other side, he wasn’t at all certain if Woldn remained with them. For security purposes, he had to assume they still had the same leader, and that he remained a danger.

  Noah stopped as something small scurried past his feet and disappeared around a corner. He’d gotten a good look at it, and his eyebrows lifted in surprise. A dark brown roachrat.

  “On a podship?” he murmured. Then, considering it more, he felt confident that the podship could selectively kill the rodent if desired. The sentient spacecraft must be aware of its presence (and perhaps others), just as it was aware of the pilot and passengers aboard.

  Continuing down the corridor, Noah entered the passenger compartment, which was filled MPA and Red Beret soldiers and the noise of conversations among them. He nodded to Doge Anton, who was conversing with one of his officers.

  Finding a chair by a porthole, Noah sat down and gazed outside, at large and small stones tumbling by in the Asteroid Funnel, obstacles that Tesh eluded skillfully. Previously the stones had only tumbled in one direction. Now Noah noticed them coming from both ends of the funnel, at varying speeds. Many of them bounced off the hull, transmitting dull thuds to the interior, but Tesh kept the ship going. Finally, the huge fleet was getting underway.

  When Noah’s ship reached open space, he felt a slight vibration in the chair and in the deck, which meant they were on a rough section of podway, where the strands of the paranormal infrastructure were frayed. Ahead, he saw other Aopoddae ships veering onto a side podway, and presently Tesh followed.

  Sitting by the porthole, Noah ran a finger up his left forearm, beneath the long sleeve of the tunic. Feeling the rough skin on the arm, he still didn’t want anyone to know about it yet, perhaps never. The gray-and-black streak ran from his wrist all the way up his arm to the shoulder, and down the front of his torso. Grayness now covered the spot beside his belly button where his sister had stabbed the dermex into him, but the vein had not started there. In his questing mind, this did not necessarily mean that she was not the cause of his strange physical changes. In fact, he strongly suspected that she had something to do with the phenomenon, perhaps as a catalyst.

  But beyond anything Francella might have had to do with his metamorphosis, it was as if …

  He took a deep breath before continuing the thought.

  Noa
h feared thinking about it, and couldn’t imagine it really being true, but his skin definitely looked like that of a podship hull. On a much smaller scale, of course, but the colors and texture were remarkably alike.

  Now, as he had done previously, he touched the actual podship skin, the interior of the wall. This time the creature did not tremble in fear.

  A note of progress, Noah thought.

  He made an attempt to connect with Timeweb again, but after several moments he realized it was to no avail, perhaps because the vessel was not nudging up against a galactic membrane like the last time. Apparently, the linkage to podway strands was not enough, perhaps due to breakages in the infrastructure. But as Noah withdrew his hand and stood straight, he realized that he was developing a headache, and it was quickly growing intense.

  He heard the voices of fellow passengers around him. Motioning to a tall Red Beret soldier, Noah asked if he had anything to help his headache.

  “I have just the thing, sir,” he said. “Acupuncture robotics.”

  Noah nodded. He’d tried the technique once, and it had worked.

  The soldier activated a small acu-robot—the size of a freckle—that scampered over Noah’s skull and through his hair, along the scalp. He barely felt the needle prick, just a little tickle. Gradually Noah’s thoughts calmed and his head began to feel better. But he still had an ache in the back of his head. In an attempt to relax more, Noah raised the back of his chair and leaned his head against a pad.

  While he was able to tune out the conversations around him, his mind continued to churn, dredging up a panoply of thoughts—from the most minuscule to the most significant.

  Abruptly, Noah felt a surge in his mind. Now, through sharp lances of eye pain he saw an internal vision of the planet Canopa, and a huge timehole near it, just beyond the atmosphere. The hole spun like a pale gray whirlpool, encircled by a luminous band of green light.