Webdancers

by Brian Herbert

  “And with good reason, Tesh. I hate to say this, but our race has been making terrible mistakes for a long time, grievous errors that have had widespread consequences. I know you want to be a podship pilot—perhaps for the glamour of it—but I have long wondered if that is our true calling as a race. Certainly it is not the honorable pursuit our leaders make it out to be.”

  Astar paused. Presently, looking into Tesh’s eyes, the wrinkled breeding specialist said, “I suspect you’re wondering how I can keep such blasphemous thoughts away from the telepathic probes of the Eye of the Swarm. Let me just say that there are ways. And perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but I think your child just might be part of the solution, a way for us to alter the course of Parvii destiny. I sense goodness in you, Tesh. Otherwise, I would not be saying such things to you.”

  Placing her own hand on the old woman’s face, Tesh said, “I believe you.”

  After that, Astar revealed things about the intricacies of the Parvii female body, and described specific methods that could be used to become pregnant with the child of an alien. Then the old woman made Tesh repeat it all back to her, in detail. The younger woman got it right the first time.

  “Never forget what I have taught you,” Astar said, in the most solemn and ominous of voices.

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  “There are so many more things I would like to tell you, Tesh, but I don’t have the energy to do so, and perhaps it would not be right anyway. Know and understand, though, that you will face great, undetermined dangers in taking the path I have outlined. You will be bearing a forbidden child, considered a horror by our people. But our people are wrong.”

  Weakened by the exertion of the flight and all she had to say, the old woman slumped to the floor of the foldcave. Tesh eased her down, and sat on the hard surface, holding Astar’s head on her own lap.

  Looking up into Tesh’s face, the aged woman smiled. Then her facial expression became stony and she said, “There is one more thing I must tell you. I don’t have the specifics, but long ago, in the early days of the galaxy … “ Astar coughed, struggled to speak.

  Tesh comforted her, but couldn’t help wanting to know what the old woman had to say.

  Finally, Astar said, “What I am about to tell you is all I know about a particular subject, and that is not very much. It is a fact known to all breeding specialists, but it is only a fragment of information. Long ago, so distant in time that it has been all but erased from our memories, the Parvii race had a connection with another galactic race.”

  “The Tulyans,” Tesh said. “We defeated them in battle, took the podships away from them.”

  “Not that type of connection, child. No, not that at all. Something entirely different and more cooperative in nature.” She sighed. “Oh, if we only knew more than that morsel of information, and more than the name of the race!”

  In Tesh’s arms, the old woman trembled, and then said, “I speak of an important connection between Parviis and Adurians. What it is, I do not know, and the races seem so different. But there are similarities that are apparent to one in my profession.”

  “Both races have extensive breeding knowledge?”

  “Precisely.” The smile returned, though a wary one. “With the specialized knowledge I have imparted, you are now a limited breeding specialist, with just enough information to navigate your own remarkable future. I wish you all of the good things in life, for you and your unusual family.”

  “Thank you.”

  The old woman closed her eyes, and against Tesh’s fingertips she felt Astar’s pulse slowing. The younger woman turned away, crying.

  Nearly an hour passed. Finally, the aged breeding specialist slipped away, into her own eternity.…

  * * * * *

  Now, in the privacy of the sectoid chamber, Tesh had been using a combination of things she knew about the internal workings of her own body—the things that every Parvii woman knew, along with the secret knowledge that Astar had shared with her. Already, she had used the secret knowledge to protect something precious that Noah had given to her, something she had been concealing within her body for two months.

  Reaching under the side of her collar, Tesh touched a place on her skin that she knew was a tiny, dark mark, beneath which lay the implanted med-tech device that operated her body’s magnification system. This time, though, instead of rubbing the spot to activate the magnifier and enlarge the appearance of her body, she held a forefinger there for several moments, until she felt another feature of the med-tech unit click on.

  Over Tesh’s head, a hologram appeared, a full-color, life-size videocam of the interior of her body. Using the technology, she conducted her own private medical examination. Along with the projected images in front of her eyes, data flowed into her brain, telling her the exact condition of every organ, every muscle, and every cell—even every atom and subatomic particle, if she chose to analyze them in detail. Barring an accident, she could expect to live for almost fifteen hundred additional years. So far, this was an analysis that any Parvii could accomplish.

  But that was not what Tesh was looking for.

  Taking a deep breath, she activated one of the hidden features of the system that Astar had revealed to her centuries ago. This went beyond what Tesh had already done to her body as a result, the keeping and preserving of Noah’s gift within her. That only allowed her time to think, to consider possibilities and decide if she wanted to go on to the next stage. Now, she was certain.

  Staring into the hologram, Tesh felt a beam of bright light wash over her, causing her to shiver in anticipation. Her vision became foggy and unfocused, and her mind seemed to expand outward, into a luminous green cosmos that stretched into infinity. And far away in that realm of apparent space, in the place that Astar had told her how to reach, Tesh saw an opening, like a tunnel in the universe. But she knew this was inside her own body instead, a special feature of the embedded medical apparatus. She hesitated, felt her metabolism quicken, and then plunged psychically into the tunnel.

  In a matter of moments, Tesh emerged on the other side, in a tiny, colorless chamber of her own body. And there she saw what she sought: a sac of the alien cellular material that she had been storing in her body, ever since her sexual encounter with Noah Watanabe.

  Again, she hesitated. But she knew the decision no longer hung in the balance. She had gone this far, and had to continue.

  Carefully, mentally adjusting the med-tech device in the precise manner that Astar had revealed to her, Tesh opened the sac and let Noah’s sperm flow through her body, bypassing the racial firewalls that had been designed to prevent breeding between Parviis and any other ethnic group.

  Now she felt Noah with her again, his physical closeness and warmth, as if they were making love once more. The rapture she shared with him was even more intense than it had been previously, wave upon wave of pleasure building to a grand climax in her mind and body. Finally, as after a great storm, the fury of passion subsided and she lay there in the green luminescence, completely sated.

  Having done this, Tesh no longer felt alone, and that gave her some comfort. But she sensed grave perils ahead. To face them, she would need to reach deep for all the strength she could muster, and for all the strength she could draw from others. She knew absolutely that she had to attempt this difficult path, no matter where it took her … and her child.

  And no matter how anyone felt about it. Even Noah.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Time is a measuring stick, but it goes in a circle.

  —Tulyan observation

  As Eshaz continued to lead his ecological repair team around the galaxy, he thought he must be one of the busiest Tulyans alive. He not only had to coordinate the work assignments of his caretakers, but he liked to get involved personally, and perform some of the important web repair tasks himself. Some of his team members wondered how he could possibly do so much, and to that inquiry, Eshaz invariably had a simple reply: “I don�
��t sleep anymore.”

  It was an exaggeration, but not much of one. He slept only a couple of hours a day now, and somehow he kept going anyway. Humans would have said their adrenaline was causing it, or caffeine, or one of the designer drugs that kept them awake. In Eshaz’s case, it was sheer desperation. He knew he would never again face such an important challenge. The responsibility of managing five hundred podships and the Tulyans aboard them weighed heavily on him. He felt up to the challenge, but knew when it was completed, if he ever got back to his beloved Tulyan Starcloud, he wanted to sleep for a month straight.

  At the moment, he was performing yet another duty, having merged into the flesh of the lead podship, Agryt, in order to pilot it and lead the repair fleet across the galaxy. They were just leaving the Tarbu Gap, a sacred and secret Tulyan region whose location was concealed from the prying eyes and telepathic probes of outsiders by electrical disturbances.

  Ahead, if he kept on this route, lay the legendary Wild Pod Zone. He wished he could go there as he had in the past, but knew that was impossible. It was now in the Hibbil Sector.

  Through visual sensors on the hull of the pod, combined with his own enhanced eyes, Eshaz saw far out into space, to the dim dwarf stars of that region, white or brown in color. But even if he was able to go there, he suspected it would not be the same as the past. In all likelihood there were dangerous galactic conditions there, things that needed the attention of his expert team. To him, the threat of military action by the HibAdus didn’t seem any worse than some of the other dangers around the galaxy. It seemed like a matter of priorities, that he should just barrel ahead and try to complete as many repairs in that sector as he could. But the Council of Elders had forbidden him from going there. They were keeping part of the Liberator fleet to perform military operations to enforce the web repairs that were needed, and perhaps at this very moment other Tulyans were conducting operations in that region. If he went against orders, he could compromise their efforts.

  My superiors know better than I, he thought.

  Grudgingly, Eshaz changed course sharply, and headed for yet another star system, in a different sector. The other podships followed. One by one, he was completing the tasks on his list. In only a few minutes, he would be in the next work zone, unless he had to take an alternate route due to web conditions.

  In his lifetime of nearly a million years, Eshaz had seen many things, and had done many things. He had been a renowned and talented timeseer, among a small number in all of the Tulyan Starcloud who could see portions of the future. It had always been an imperfect talent, affected and limited by cosmic conditions and by other factors that were largely unknown to him. In one of his most distasteful assignments, the Council had ordered him to perform timeseeing duties for Woldn and the Parviis—an unusual cooperative arrangement between the races that existed before the latest hostilities. The attempt had not gone well, and as a result Woldn had not been pleased. But Eshaz had been painfully honest with him; he really had not been able to provide the information sought by the Parvii leader.

  Sometimes—both under assignment and on his own—Eshaz had tried to visualize other specific futures. Prime among them, he had endeavored to discern the path lying ahead of the most remarkable of all Humans, Noah Watanabe … the galactic ecologist, Timeweb traveler, and immortal. Against all odds, this Human might outlive the most ancient of Tulyans. Remarkable, indeed. And, though Noah denied it, he might be the messiah foretold in Tulyan legends.

  But each time that Eshaz had made the effort to focus his timeseeing abilities on Noah, he had encountered only chaos around the man, a cosmic, veiling murkiness that prevented any intrusion. The more he had tried to probe, the more Eshaz had found himself with a ferocious headache, so he had gradually given up the effort. Some things were truly impossible.

  Now as he sped along the webway, Eshaz attempted something that seemed even more broad that focusing on Noah’s life. Mulling it over, however, he realized that it was something that stemmed from Noah, or at least from something Noah had said—and this might add to the difficulties of timeseeing.

  With his far-seeing eyes, Eshaz gazed beyond the physical reality of the galaxy around him, into an alternate dimension that was connected to the web of time. Having already commanded his podship to follow a particular course, he could take a few moments to make this new attempt.

  For a good distance, the ethereal realm opened up to him and he saw where Timeweb was connected to the substance and mass of the known galaxy, and where many of the Tulyan caretaking repair teams had either completed important work or were continuing with it.

  And far, far beyond that, he peered into the place where all things were heading with each passing moment, an inexorable flow of time and destiny from countless directions. Like streams and currents. There! he thought, feeling a surge of excitement, but one that was tinged in dread.

  Something dark and amorphous lay in the future of all living beings in the galaxy, blocking all paths, preventing any way around it. But what? As he attempted to see farther into the lens of time, his corporeal limitations intruded, and he felt the worst headache of his entire life. And Eshaz knew that if he pressed forward, he would create such pain and such internal cellular damage that he could die.

  This risk did not matter to him, not with such so much at stake. As a consequence, he pressed on with his own form of psychic timeseeing, looking with the specially attuned eyes that he had been received as a gift with his birth. The pain! Sharp lances surged into his awareness.

  But he refused to back off.

  Less than a minute passed, though it seemed like much longer to Eshaz, as in the compression of a dream … or a nightmare. Finally, something kicked him out, hard, and he landed back in the reality of the podship speeding through space.

  Moments later, Agryt reached the destination that Eshaz had provided, and slowed down. The rest of the Aopoddae behind did the same. All of their pilots and crews awaited Eshaz’s further instructions. He wondered what his own face must look like on the prow of the vessel.

  He didn’t feel in any condition to guide the team. His head screamed in pain. Then, as moments passed he felt the discomfort diminishing, and he realized that Agryt was comforting him, using some unfathomable Aopoddae method to bring a foolish Tulyan back to awareness and function.

  Presently, Eshaz felt fully restored, and grateful to his symbiotic companion. But he was left with a certainty that troubled him above all others.

  Noah had been right. There really was a great and towering danger out there—more than any of the galactic races had ever encountered before—and to complicate the situation even more, no one could identify it.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  In this universe of wondrous possibilities, certain constants exist, and all of them are linked to the symbiosis of science and religion. These two divisions of the Ultimate Truth are—in the basic analysis—one and the same, and their respective subparts contribute to the whole. Are certain acts morally wrong and repugnant to civilization? In pre-Scienscroll times, many purported scientists claimed that there were no immoral acts, and that moral templates were no more than artificial constructs. When at long last humanity saw the light, such views were righteously tossed into the dustbins of history.

  —Scienscroll, 1 Eth 77–78

  With Princess Meghina right behind him, Noah negotiated a spiral, rock stairway that led down to the ancient dungeons of the palace. Bright lights illuminated the way, so that they could walk more safely on the uneven, stained surface—stairs that had been worn down in places by the passage of many feet. It was early morning.

  “As you know, it was pretty dark down here before,” he said, “so we added more lighting.”

  “My palace has a long history,” she said, “much of it unsavory. I’m afraid there were torture chambers down here centuries ago.”

  “We found some evidence of that. No machines, but there were still shackles on the walls.”

  Noah
pushed open a heavy iron door, revealing a corridor lined with glowing orange, electronic containment cells. His officers had converted this to a military gaol, always necessary to confine fighters and a limited number of others that the forces encountered who needed to be taken into custody. And, though it was not large or crowded with prisoners today, it became, nonetheless, quite noisy as they approached a cell on the far end.

  “Finally!” the Salducian diplomat shouted as he jumped up from a cot. His normally impeccable gray suit was wrinkled and soiled, and at the knees of some of his numerous legs the fabric was torn and bloody, with visible wounds. Glaring through the containment field at Noah, he then shifted his gaze to the Princess. At that point his demeanor changed, and in a pleasant tone he said to her, “Thank you for coming to get me out. I have spent a most uncomfortable night.”

  “I’m not here for that,” she said.

  “What?” Confusion moved across Kobi Akar’s oblong face. His crab-pincer hands flexed back and forth behind the containment field, as if looking for something to grab onto and rip apart. Looking at Noah, he asked, “Are you attempting to assert military jurisdiction over me?”

  “No,” Noah said. “Your confinement is presently military, since that offers the best security. However, the jurisdiction is civilian. As soon as possible, you will be transferred to Canopan authorities.”

  “In the midst of a war? What outrage is this? I want a lawyer!”

  “You will have access to lawyers on Canopa,” Noah said.

  “This is outrageous!”

  “It is the law,” Noah said. “A serious charge has been placed against you.”

  In an indignant tone, the Salducian said, “One of the guards mentioned something about sex with a minor girl. It’s a complete lie!”

  “You will have your opportunity to prove that. Reportedly it occurred on the orbital gambling casino, over Canopa.”

  “It’s all a monstrous fabrication, designed to extort payment out of me. However, just for the sake of argument, I ask you: How can there be any Canopan civilian jurisdiction over an orbiter that is in space? That falls under intergalactic law, not planetary law.”