Reopening his eyes and staring at the war priest, Woldn said, “Long ago, our race had many masters of illusion. I wish to restore what is good about the old days.”
Simultaneously, Woldn and Yurtii focused their gazes on the tiny timehole through which their small swarm had escaped. As seconds passed, a telepathic bubble emanated from the two linked minds, an invisible enclosure that passed through empty to the other side, unseen and undetectable by the guardian ships of the enemy. The swarm could enter it and travel undetected, concealed from view.
With new excitement, the Eye of the Swarm led the way through, into the safety of the bubble. Then, filled with Parviis, the invisible bubble floated away, to a remote corner of the Parvii Fold. Behind, the timehole appeared to seal over, so that it no longer seemed to exist.
Under Woldn’s leadership the tiny creatures were coming back to awareness. They were angry and single-minded, and wanted to regain control of the podships. They saw this as their only purpose in life, their sacred and eternal destiny. But their numbers were far too small to even consider resurrecting the ancient glories, at least not yet. All of them were feeling better physically and mentally, but most of the individuals no longer had the effective neurotoxin stingers that were needed to capture and control podships.
Still, inside the Parviis’ invisible bubble lay potential salvation, because it offered the means of escape, a tiny pocket within the traditional galactic fold that had always been their sacred place. It was warmer inside the bubble, much better for breeding than out in space.
But the five latent breeding specialists had not yet returned to consciousness. And without their guidance, the Parviis could not breed at all. They could only die.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Timeweb holds this galaxy together. But there are galaxies on top of galaxies in this vast universe. Are they also linked to the cosmic web that we know, or are their structures entirely different and unimaginable to us?
—Tulyan report to the Council of Elders
In times long past, so many years ago that Eshaz could hardly remember them, he had been a skilled podship pilot for the Tulyans, transporting web caretaker teams around the galaxy. After the insidious, selfish Parviis took away control of the podship fleet, Eshaz—having lost the means of performing his specialty—had been forced to adapt. As a consequence, he had perfected other skills authorized by the Council, among them the ability to timesee. In addition, he had become a web caretaker himself, performing occasional timehole repair duties in the limited travels that became available to him.
Eventually he’d met Noah Watanabe, the first Human to ever grasp the concept of galaxy-wide ecological interdependence. Joining Noah’s idealistic team of “eco-warriors,” Eshaz and scores of other Tulyans engaged in ecological monitoring operations, and—in secrecy—they occasionally used ancient Tulyan methods to complete timehole repairs.
In recent years, Eshaz had seen conditions worsening, but he had been unable to do much about it until now. With more than ninety-six thousand podships dedicated to their tasks, the Tulyans were mounting the most massive ecological recovery operation in history. After assembling reports from web caretakers, the Elders were looking at the vast galaxy as if it were a battlefield, with wounded soldiers lying all over it. In their way of prioritizing, each of the timeholes became like an injured person, and the Tulyan leaders were using a triage method to determine which wounds needed attention first.
At long last, the Tulyans—who had always considered themselves a peaceful people—were going to war, in a very aggressive, organized fashion.
As the leader of one of the repair divisions, Eshaz stood with a throng of other Tulyans on a space platform while the craft floated past the immense fleet of rescued, moored podships. Presently the glax-enclosed platform came to a stop and rocked gently in the vacuum, an optimal moorage basin at the stationary center of the planets of the Tulyan Starcloud. In recent months, Eshaz had been resurrecting his old piloting skills, having gone on a hunt for wild podships and having piloted one of the sentient vessels in the Liberator Fleet.
Now the Tulyan portion of the Liberator Fleet was embarking on an even greater, task. In a sense it was linked to the military operations of the Humans and Mutatis in their efforts to save their planets and stop HibAdu lab-pods from damaging the podways—but this was a far more delicate and wide-scale operation. Everything had to be done perfectly. The fate of the galaxy rested on their skills.
For some time the Tulyans had been re-training themselves, updating their old aptitudes and methods. Because they led exceedingly long lives, hundreds of thousands and even millions of years, many living Tulyans recalled the old days. But after so long, memories had a way of slipping in the clutter of events, and some of Eshaz’s race were better at recalling details than others. There had been numerous arguments about the proper methods to use, but the proof had been in the tests they had performed. Handling a few wild pods—which Tulyans had continued to do for centuries—was not the same as organizing and coordinating the actions of thousands of them. Large numbers of Aopoddae behaved quite differently from smaller numbers, and needed specialized techniques to manage them. Determining which methods to use was like a filtering process, eliminating the ideas that didn’t work and implementing those that did.
Just getting the podships here from the Parvii Fold had involved much of that, perfecting ways of piloting the vessels in large formations to selected destinations. Now the ships no longer had gun ports on their hulls, for their passengers had different requirements, and the sentient spacecraft had made adjustments. Their passenger compartments and cargo holds were filled with ecological repair teams, with all of the equipment and esoteric equipment needed for that purpose. The articles taken along weren’t things that could be manufactured in a conventional factory. Rather, they were thorn vines, pouches of green dust, and books of incantations that would be needed to ward off the evil spirits of the undergalaxy.
To an extent the Tulyans understood what they were up against: Galara, the powerful evil spirit of the undergalaxy, was punching holes in the Known Galaxy, penetrating the protective membrane at numerous points in order to undermine and conquer. For millions of years the malevolent one had been working at this, and finally, with the momentum of the decay Galara had set in motion, the adverse conditions were accelerating. Long ago, the Tulyans had an easier task, because they could respond quickly whenever timeholes appeared, and could seal them quickly. But with all the years of decline the job was much bigger now, and the prospects were uncertain at best. Certainly, all of these thousands of podships and teams of Tulyans were a formidable force to save the galaxy. But was it too late? Could they make enough of a difference to reverse an immense-scale decline?
Just as Tulyans knew that there were ancient enemies among the galactic races, so too they believed there were competing spirits and gods of the various galaxies. Just as people wanted to dominate one another, so too was it in higher orders of existence, where the stakes were much greater.
Eshaz bowed his bronze head in reverence to Ubuqqo, the Sublime Creator, and whispered a prayer for the salvation of the galaxy. “Ubuqqo, anret pir huyyil.”
A benign spirit seemed to encompass the reptilian man now, and he felt supremely comforted in its presence. Closing his slitted eyes, Eshaz murmured an incantation to beckon a nearby, familiar podship in the ancient way, commanding it to come closer: “Aopoddae, eyamo ippaq azii … Aopoddae, eyamo ippaq azii … “
When Eshaz opened his eyes moments later, the large gray-and-black pod was bumping up against the platform, and an open access hatch was open on the hull. The ship drifted back just a little, but remained close. With a rush of excitement, Eshaz leaped off the platform into space. Like an eager lover, the podship scooped him up, and he found himself inside.
Once more it was like old times, when Eshaz had been a caretaker-team pilot. He placed his hands on a warm interior wall and felt the pulsing consciousness of the ancie
nt creature, and repeated its name, which he knew well. In the times of lore, this had been one of the podships he had piloted across vast distances.
Agryt.
Walking down the corridor, Eshaz reached the sectoid chamber, and found the access hatch open as expected, revealing a glowing green enclosure beyond. The podship awaited his commands.
Eshaz took a deep, satisfied breath and stepped across the threshold into the core of the vessel. The access hatch closed behind him, bathing him in green luminescence, but he was not afraid. In the age-old way of his people, the Tulyan touched the glowing flesh and merged into it.
On the prow of the podship, Eshaz’s face appeared, very large now in his metamorphosed state. He felt euphoric, like a reborn creature ready to leap and frolic across vast expanses of the heavens. But he knew he could not do that, could not do anything trivial or selfish with this critically important assignment that had been entrusted to him.
Instead, as the leader of a five-hundred-ship ecological repair team, Eshaz guided Agryt around the other vessels assigned to him, signaling to them telepathically, as they had practiced. Tulyan faces appeared on the prows of ship after ship, and the vessels fell into formation behind him, their countenances rigid and expressionless.
The Tulyan caretaker had many things on his mind, the concerns of the day. And of all those matters, one surfaced above others. Noah had been telling everyone that he sensed a “terrible danger” out in the cosmos, beyond anything they already knew. Eshaz wondered if his friend could possibly be right, and if so, what it might conceivably be. Something to do with Galara that was even worse?
A chill ran down his spine. In this galaxy, anything seemed possible.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Just as there are byways and hidden passages within any sentient mind, so too is it with larger groups of living beings. As individuals, and as groups, conscious organisms have an obsession to do things that others do not know about. It is their way of controlling situations—or of altering their perception so that they believe they are in control.
—Thinker, data bank file * * * * *34ΩÆØ
Having been summoned to his homeworld of Adurian, the Ambassador waited patiently for the dignitaries to arrive. His pulse quickened. Uncel had received notification that the three leaders of the HibAdu Coalition would finally identify themselves, and that they would make a major military announcement. At last, he would learn who they were!
VV Uncel stood with other diplomats and local Adurian leaders, all gathered in a grand reception hall that had been converted from the remains of an old spacecraft. A buzz of anticipation filled the air, and people kept looking up at the speaking balcony and at the grand staircase that descended to their level, where the triumvirate might appear.
In its original form the large spacefaring vessel had contained numerous reception halls and meeting rooms, and had been built in an opulent style for one of the early Adurian emperors, Oragem the Third. The walls and ceilings were hand-painted and framed in gold filigree along the moldings and on the railings and banisters.
A tall Churian with thick red eyebrows worked the gathering, offering drinks that he balanced precariously on two trays.
“I’ll have a ku-royale, please,” Uncel said, pointing.
Nodding, the Churian contorted a very flexible leg that had long, prehensile toes on the foot, which he used to grasp the drink and pass it on to Uncel.
As the servant moved away, the Ambassador took a long sip of the alcoholic beverage, and tasted its delicate, minty sweetness. Surrounded by conversations around him in which he was not taking part, he took a few moments to reflect. Though born to wealth and privilege, Ambassador VV Uncel had always worked hard to improve himself, and took pride in his achievements. A pureblood Adurian born on the planet of the same name, his father had been a successful biochemist who earned numerous patents, while his mother had been a product designer who worked on the team that developed Endo, the most popular of all Adurian games.
Educated at the elite Sarban University in the capital city, Uncel had always known he would succeed. Everyone who knew him commented on his many attributes, especially his keen intelligence, his way of getting along with virtually anyone, and his burning desire to succeed. He had graduated first in his class.
For years, Uncel had been on the ascendancy in his career, culminating with his appointment as Ambassador to the Mutati Kingdom at the very young age of sixty years, quite youthful by the biologically-enhanced Adurian standards. In his professional life he had known the Adurian emperor and his advisers very well, and had established a vital communication line with the Mutatis and their difficult Zultan, Abal Meshdi.
Uncel had even been in on the early planning sessions of the Hibbil and Adurian rulers, in which they resolved to form a clandestine alliance to defeat both the Mutati Kingdom and the Merchant Prince Alliance. When the HibAdu alliance got underway, however, Uncel had been frustrated to find himself increasingly out of the loop, and that he was one of the people who only received information on a “need to know” basis. In answer to his queries about various issues, the Adurian Emperor and his advisers began to defer to what they called the Royal Parliament, which they said was making the key decisions about HibAdu military plans. Three names and titles had surfaced in that governing body, but not their faces: High Ruler Coreq, Premier Enver, and Warlord Tarix.
Prior to that, Uncel had never heard of the trio or their governing body, and he’d never been able to determine where they met. Rumor held that the Royal Parliament had been established on one of the secondary Hibbil worlds, which gave Uncel concern. But his life was busy with diplomatic assignments, and he saw the immense war machine building all around him, with thousands of factories gearing up to produce armaments and laboratory-bred podships, all necessary for the upcoming attacks on the enemy.
A career diplomat, VV Uncel had always managed to land on his feet when political winds blew, as they invariably did. With the HibAdu Coalition and weapons manufacturing in full swing, he fell into a pattern of just playing his part as a diplomat and as a spy against the Mutatis, without totally understanding what was occurring on his own side. But he had faith that it would all turn out for the best. Mutatis and Humans were the most loathsome of galactic races, and deserved the terrible punishment that was being delivered upon them.
“Another drink, sir?” The Churian was back.
“No.” Uncel watched as the prehensile foot extended again, and took the glax from him. The servant drifted away.
In one of the high points of his career, Ambassador Uncel had tricked the Mutatis into using Adurian gyrodomes and minigyros, devices that weakened their brains in subtle ways and made them easier to conquer. Afterward, his HibAdu superiors had sent him a laudatory message telling him he had done an excellent job of softening up the enemy for the imminent attack.
Uncel prided himself on an ability to get along with people he did not like, while artfully concealing any antipathies he felt from them. That included not only the Mutati Zultan, but the duplicitous little Hibbil, Pimyt. Though Uncel and Pimyt worked closely together on the Hibbil Cluster Worlds, Uncel had never trusted the furry little devil. Something troubled him about Pimyt’s red-tinged eyes, which seemed to conceal too much. While Pimyt professed to know as little as Uncel himself, the Ambassador did not entirely believe him. Pimyt was the sort of person who had schemes within schemes, and fallback positions to protect himself while sacrificing others.
As attaché to the former Doge Lorenzo del Velli, Pimyt had connections to leaders of the Merchant Prince Alliance, and for all Uncel knew he might have spilled the plans to them. Of course, the HibAdus had systems to check on such things, a way of taking cellular samples from Pimyt and others (and even from Uncel), samples that they could read in laboratories to obtain information. Uncel’s own father had developed the biotechnology and had been well-rewarded for it. Though VV held no legal rights to the particular patents involved with reading cells, si
nce the patents were considered high-security assets of the state, he recalled how as a child his father had shown him that biological cells contained memories—memories that could be read in order to obtain evidence of a crime or of disloyalty to the government. It was the ultimate police tool, and a key contribution of the Adurians to the HibAdu Coalition.
But Hibbils were crafty. They possessed significant technology of their own, and might even have secret methods of thwarting the cellular lie-detection system of the Adurians. Pimyt was with the Humans now, ostensibly on a clandestine HibAdu assignment. Uncel would like to be a proverbial fly on the wall around that one.
The buzz of conversation intensified around him, and he heard exclamations. Looking up at the speaking balcony, Uncel gasped at the sight of three peculiar figures standing there, all dressed in orange-and-gray robes. HibAdu colors.
From their bodies and facial appearances, he thought two were men and one a woman. They were quite different from any galactic race he had ever seen before, but familiar to him at the same time, in a haunting and disturbing sort of way. A single word came to his mind, one he dared not utter, because he strongly suspected that these were the HibAdu leaders. At long last, they were presenting themselves.
Freaks.
He couldn’t help the thought, though he knew it was dangerous. Their heads were of the Adurian insectoid shape, with large, bulbous eyes. But the eyes were pale yellow instead of the darker shades typical of Adurians, while their heads and exposed hands had Hibbil features. All three leaders were fur covered, and they had stunted bone structures. These were laboratory-grown people, horrific hybrids of the two races.
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