Webdancers

by Brian Herbert

  “Yeah, they are temperamental, aren’t they? Like our famous prisoner here.”

  Kobi Akar shouted obscenities at them in two languages, until they set the controls to prevent his mouth from moving. After that, he could only grunt—and each time he even did that, he received an electric shock. Soon, glowering crazily, he settled down.

  Because of poor podway conditions, the flight took more than an hour and a half. Finally, they reached the pod station over Canopa and docked. The prisoner was transferred to a shuttle.

  But as the shuttle descended over Canopa, a glowing green hole suddenly opened in the sky—just large enough to swallow the craft before closing afterward. Witnesses on the ground and in space reported seeing a small timehole for a few seconds before it vanished, taking the ship and passengers with it.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  We have no superiors—not even those who created us.

  —High Ruler Coreq, remarks to the other two

  members of the HibAdu triumvirate

  He was shorter than the typical Adurian and taller than most Hibbils, with features of each race. His oversized, pale yellow eyes took in everything around him as he passed through security doors and strutted into the laboratory complex. The odors of flesh and strong chemicals permeated the air, as Adurian scientists and research technicians went about their tasks at spotless, gleaming work stations. All of them wore sealed body suits and helmets to prevent contaminating the genetic samples they were handling, while electronic bio-barriers kept any visitor at a safe distance. Complex machines hummed and throbbed. Concise, technical words filled the air as staff members discussed their experiments.

  The yellow-suited Adurian workers seemed to hardly give the hybrid any notice as he passed by, but he knew they were watching him peripherally, and fearfully. In the past, some of their predecessors in these labs had even called him a freak and other improper terms, but never to his face. No matter, High Ruler Coreq always found out who they were from cellular-memory readings and had them eliminated. Permanently. Those who were left now seemed to be relatively stable, though they always needed to be monitored, and checked. There was another problem with them at the moment, however. They did not want to perform a particular task that the triumvirate had ordered them to do—the one involving the Parviis.

  Coreq considered the Adurians weaklings, only good for limited, assigned functions. When the time was right, he and his triumvirate would orchestrate the breeding of an entirely new hybrid race, one that would kill or enslave all other sentients in the galaxy.

  By the standards of most galactic races, the High Ruler was still quite young, having not yet passed his fifteenth birth marker. But that only accounted for his physical self, part Hibbil and part Adurian, bred under optimal laboratory conditions. Inside his mind—the part that mattered much more than the external appearance—he was exceedingly old, because the wisdom and violence of the ancients had been infused into him, but not in any random or cluttered manner. He had their cellular memories, but only those that mattered for the success of the galactic-wide military force that his triumvirate led.

  I am first among equals, he thought, thinking of his two companions.

  It was his own observation, but an apt one. The others—Premier Enver and Warlord Tarix—deferred to him on virtually all matters of importance. Sometimes this surprised him whenever they were discussing military or security matters, since Tarix knew considerably more about those subjects than he did. But she always phrased her statements with exquisite care, so that she was the adviser and Coreq the decision maker.

  Even so, Coreq didn’t entirely trust her, or Enver, either. He always suspected they were plotting against him, planning to take over at the first opportunity. But the High Ruler was no fool. Wherever he went, he had his personal retinue of elite robot guards close behind, and robotic security agents checking the route ahead. Tiny biomachines tasted his food and beverages for poisons, and even flew in front to test the air he was about to breathe. He’d thought of everything. Some of them hovered above him now, still taking readings and sending audible electronic signals to him, while others went further ahead, to scout where he intended to go.

  Presently he left one lab section and entered the large central chamber, where some the most famous experiments were conducted. It always gave him a rush coming in here, because he and his two HibAdu cohorts had been created at these very lab stations, had taken their first breaths here.

  Ahead, Coreq saw a flurry of biomachines in the air, like a horde of insects. He heard their high-pitched exchanges and reports as they confirmed the area was safe for the High Ruler to enter. Because of their tiny size, the units reminded him of Parviis, but the comparison did not go much beyond that. Coreq could control these biomachines with an implanted transmitter in his own brain, while Parviis required a different sort of attention.

  For the moment, Coreq’s aides had arranged for Woldn and his followers to occupy all of the observation galleries around the central chamber, where they clustered on the other side against the thick glax, and peered into the huge laboratory. Security sensors reported more than one hundred and sixty thousand of the tiny aliens there, packed into the enclosures.

  Though the High Ruler had tried to secure the galleries and prevent the escape of the pesky visitors, the tiny humanoids had a form of collective paranoia, in which Woldn kept them in a state of hyper alertness, constantly checking and maintaining routes of escape. Obviously, it was a survival mechanism and Coreq would have found it interesting, had he not wanted to dominate these creatures and take them into custody. But, to keep the situation calm and under control, he had been forced to back off, leaving some escape routes open.

  Woldn had presented twenty volunteer Parviis to the Adurian scientists for dissection and detailed analysis. This reflected the purpose of the Parvii leader’s visit: to investigate a possible ancient connection between Adurians and Parviis. Seventeen days ago, upon first hearing this claim from his private box in the assembly hall, Coreq had almost dismissed the notion out of hand, since his enhanced and focused memories carried no reference to such a connection. But—via an intercom that connected the leaders’ private boxes—Warlord Tarix and Premier Enver had convinced him otherwise. Enver said he had a faint but undocumented sensation that the contention might very well be true. While no data actually existed in the Premier’s conscious memory, not even a fragment, he said it was important sometimes to follow through on sensory feelings. He and Tarix had recommended that they look into the matter, so Coreq had agreed.

  And, although the Adurian scientists had been reluctant to say much, Coreq knew they were fearful of this line of inquiry. It had to do with an odd psychosis of their tunnel-minded race, in which—despite great successes in genetics and bioengineering—they were afraid of their collective past, and ashamed of it. According to legend, terrible things had happened to them as a race long ago, and their collective humiliation had caused them to stop talking about such matters, and to gradually try to forget them. Even so, fragments of the past remained in their consciousness, of lost wars and planets destroyed. The details were vague, however, , despite the fact that the Adurians had the ability to track genetic memories back for thousands of generations. It seemed logical to Coreq that some Adurians must have gone privately into the cellular archives and learned the full truth, but if so they were not talking about it—and thus far he had been unable to discover anything through the ongoing police methods of reading the cells of citizens.

  In the days since Coreq had ordered the new investigation, highly agitated Adurian scientists had been delving further into the genetic memories of their own people, and of the hundred Parviis from the swarm, seeking information, some common ground. The old data did not come through clearly, but clues were surfacing along genetic paths that the researchers followed backward, using complicated techniques. The scientists did this with both races, and as ancient memories came back they were processed, converted to data, and
projected onto screens.

  Now, on a large wall screen of the central chamber, the lab technicians displayed two side-by-side composite projections, one for the combined memory cells of each race. Images sped up and slowed, as the experts searched for connections, for similarities. As Coreq stood looking up at the screen, the Parvii side showed views of deep space, of suns, planets, and swirling nebulas in a hypnotic array of colors and shapes.

  To the left of it, the Adurian side was much more limited in astronomical scope, showing trips through space, but comparatively more images of the Adurian homeworld itself. Coreq recognized his own capital city, always bustling in its various stages of historical development, and he saw yellow-suited scientists that worked long ago, looking very much like their modern counterparts.

  Now the laboratory manager—an old Adurian with a pointed chin—pushed back the hood of his suit and joined Coreq. “I wish you had not asked us to research this matter, sir, for it has put my staff on the verge of a nervous breakdown. They are holding together as well as possible, but I am worried about them.”

  “Don’t ever come to me with such drivel,” Coreq said. “My time is valuable, and if you’re not careful, your time will be limited.”

  “I have already enjoyed a long and productive life, but I do not wish to displease you. In addition, High Ruler, I must admit that I am finding the ancient lab procedures intriguing as they are revealed to us, though many of them would be of little interest to you. There is … Wait! I just saw something.”

  Though Coreq normally cared little about names, he had remembered the name of this particular scientist, because he had been on the team that grew the three triumvirate leaders in this very laboratory. He called himself Bashpor, and might need to be dealt with eventually because of his arrogance, even though he had never been proven disloyal. For the moment, at least, he remained useful.

  From a high-caste family, Bashpor and his team had initially tried to exert control over the HibAdu triumvirate. That had soon proved impossible, because the hybrids were so dominating and powerful, so the Bashpor group had slipped into what appeared to be a subservient position. And, while they were not entirely pleased with this, Coreq had the surveillance reports to prove that they had formed no conspiracy against the triumvirate, and that they held considerable emotional affection for their three laboratory creations.

  Of utmost importance, from all appearances the galactic aims of the top Hibbil and Adurian scientists and of the HibAdu hybrids matched: Eliminate the Merchant Prince Alliance and the Mutati Kingdom. Thus far, the military successes had been gratifying, but a great deal of work remained to be completed, mopping up the remaining—and significant—resistance forces.

  With a wave of his hand, Bashpor stopped the Adurian screen images from moving, and backed them up. Then, as the scientist enhanced the image of a table at the rear of the long-ago laboratory, Coreq saw what looked like tiny humanoids inside a clearglax enclosure. It took several seconds, but with more enhancement and enlargement, the images came into focus.

  “Parviis?” the High Ruler asked.

  “It would appear so, Your Eminence. I’ll do more checking, but it looks to me like we created them in our laboratories.”

  Around him, Coreq heard the Parviis clamoring inside the observation galleries. A microphone clicked on, and it was Woldn, “That’s the proof, isn’t it?”

  “It is a possible indication,” the lab manager said, transmitting to him. “We shall investigate it further.”

  “I was right!” Woldn shouted, with his small voice made large by the lab’s sound amplification system.

  * * * * *

  Later that day, the HibAdu leaders received a more complete report from the lab manager.

  Inside a sleek office suite, High Ruler Coreq sat at a wide, polished desk, with Premier Enver on one side of him, and Warlord Tarix on the other. They stared blankly with their overlarge, pale yellow eyes, and listened.

  “An intriguing tableau has emerged,” Bashpor said. “Now that I’ve opened my mind to it, I must admit that it is very interesting.” He paced back and forth in front of the big desk. “In ancient times, we Adurians were even more involved in biotechnology than we are now. Content with our present scientific and societal conditions, we never thought to delve so far back in our genetic history.”

  “Not content,” Coreq said. “Fearful is more like it. But continue.”

  The old Adurian paused, and looked at the three. “We have always believed that the future is a more interesting domain.”

  “Undoubtedly that is one of the reasons that you created us,” Tarix said, her oddly-echoing voice reverberating through the room. Her long white teeth glistened, which she liked to display to throw terror into underlings. At the moment, it had its effect on Bashpor, as he could not hold gazes with her. To avoid that uncomfortable position, he resumed pacing.

  “In ancient days, we were engaged in countless wars, some of which did not go well for us. In modern times we knew that had occurred, but only in general. Here’s a specific detail that rises above others: Long ago, we created two galactic races in our laboratories.”

  Coreq leaned forward. “Two? One was the Parviis, I assume?”

  “Correct. The other has no name, but they are even smaller than Parviis, and have a domain that is quite surprising and intriguing. For want of a better term I shall refer to them as sub-biologicals, or sub-bios. Mmmm. They are nano-creatures, so I shall call them Nanos instead. Yes. In the most unlikely of all places, the Nanos live inside the galactic webbing, the structure that Tulyans and Parviis call Timeweb.”

  “I think we should call them Webbies instead of Nanos,” Enver said. Sometimes he said off-the-wall things, focusing on irrelevant points. Just the same, Coreq thought the name that Enver suggested was preferable, so he nodded.

  “Very well,” Bashpor said. “Regarding their exact function, we don’t know how to test any hypothesis, but we think the … Webbies … may explain how Tulyans are said to communicate across vast distances over the galactic infrastructure. If that is the case, the infinitely small creatures might also have something to do with the nehrcom transmission system of the Humans, a system we have replicated, without really understanding how it works. It is believed to operate through some sort of web-related cosmic frequency. I have more to tell you, much more.”

  Bashpor increased the speed of his pacing, as if charged with a drug. “Long ago, other galactic races took offense at our laboratory methods, so they went to war with us over them. Among our enemies were the Blippiqs and the Huluvians, and they forced to us to abandon our laboratory attempts to create new races. It seems that we went back to doing the forbidden things anyway, however, when we created you three HibAdus. Of course, that doesn’t amount to an entire race yet, but I know your professed intentions in that regard.”

  “Will you stop pacing!” Coreq said. “My neck aches from watching you go back and forth.”

  Looking very nervous, Bashpor slumped into a chair in front of the leaders. Then, not making firm eye contact with them, he continued to speak. “In those long-ago days, the other galactic societies considered our experiments dangerous and unethical—which led to the hostilities. After using their war machines and forcing treaties on us to shut down that phase of our researches, the Blippiqs and Huluvians made attempts to eradicate the entire Parvii race. This proved unsuccessful.” He paused. “But in response to the threat, the Parviis bred at a high and efficient rate, and soon their aggressive swarms wreaked havoc in the galaxy by taking control of the podship race away from the Tulyans. It seems that we caused a bit of trouble in space, albeit indirectly and unintentionally.”

  “And we’re doing it again,” Tarix said. “But this time, no one will stop us. We are no longer mere Adurians. We are HibAdus.”

  “There is one thing more of particular interest,” Bashpor said. “We have long suspected this, but now we have the proof, having followed the genetic markings back in time and u
nraveled the details: Genetic mutations of the Parviis led to the abhorrent Human race.”

  “Good reason to wipe out both races,” Tarix said, causing a long, eerie echo at the conclusion of her words.

  * * * * *

  Awaiting word from the triumvirate, Woldn felt a change of pressure in the linked observation galleries. He exchanged telepathic alarm signals with his followers. All of them went into a frenzy as those stationed at the perimeters, in the ducts, and at all previously unsealed areas sent information to him. Outside the dome, the sentries he had positioned relayed additional information. With all of this data, the Eye of the Swarm knew the Adurians were making a more concerted and overt effort to seal the galleries and prevent escape.

  “We reject your offer of close cooperation between Adurians and Parviis,” Coreq said, his voice booming over the speaker system.

  “And I reject your rejection!” Woldn shouted back.

  Ever-wary and prepared for this, Woldn knew exactly where the weakest Adurian security points were—and where he should focus the telepathic attention of his swarm. Though not yet at their full mental or physical powers, he and his followers had been growing collectively stronger, and they had telepathic detonators that functioned passably well. He led his swarm through a heating duct system, blasting everything out of the way in mini detonations. Soon they found themselves in free space.

  Woldn determined their course for the return voyage across the galaxy. Moments later, at the head of the small swarm, he vowed, “This Adurian insult shall not go unanswered!”

  But he wondered who—and what—that odd creature in the laboratory had been. It looked male, as well as part Adurian and part Hibbil. A horrific combination of genes, from the look of it. Certainly it should have been a failed experiment, but the creature looked to be in charge of the entire operation.

  Woldn had never seen anything like it. The very sight of the monster had given him chills.