Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5

by Gillian Andrews

  She stroked the neck of the seal brown canth, which dipped its head in appreciation. “You were magnificent,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  The canth tossed its head, then blew air out of its long nose and looked in the direction of the clover hay which Bennel had hung from the nearest Eletheian tree. Some things were more important than thanks.

  Six watched as the two canths made their way slowly across to a patch of soft sand, bent their legs under them to sink down onto the yellow mantle and roll luxuriously over and over, and then stagger to their feet again to stretch their long necks and begin to crop contentedly at the hay net. It was as if they had gone back in time, and none of the last few weeks had taken place. In fact, he had to stop himself turning around to look for Grace, who had been with them last time they had visited here.

  They were still there when the magsled arrived from the donor headquarters. A carer got gingerly down, with a small figure strapped to her in a sort of papoose. She walked over to Diva, unstrapped the harness from her own body, and strapped it to Diva, who was looking more alarmed than when she had faced an army of sycophants in the battle for New Kwaide.

  “What ... what am I supposed to do?” she asked.

  “Just carry the baby with you. She will become accustomed to your body rhythms, to the way you move, the way your heart beats and the way you smell. It will help her to adjust more quickly when we bring her to you permanently in a few weeks. Please make sure Valhai Six bonds with her too.”

  Diva gazed down at the small being. The child was staring at the new face above her with crossed eyes. “Hello, baby!” she tried, tentatively. “I am ... I am your mother.” Her eyes met Six’s across the small being wrapped close to her chest, and widened with the realization that she was a mother. Despite having 154,832 children, this was the first that she had held in her arms. Diva stared at Six, a flood of unexpected emotion flowing over her.

  Six reached forwards to curl one finger around Raven’s little hand. “I bonded with her the first time I saw her. Welcome, Raven. We will take you to meet some canths in a moment.”

  They introduced the tiny girl to the man who spoke to canths, and to Bennel, who looked down at the dark-haired child with a tinge of regret.

  “She reminds me of my own daughter, Quenna, who is six now. I ... I was not able to be with her as much as I would have liked when she was a baby.”

  Diva smiled. “Would you like to hold Raven?”

  Bennel’s face shone. “May I?”

  He took the small bundle carefully, and jiggled her about, in the manner of a man accustomed to babies. The little girl gurgled, clearly loving it. Bennel gave a wide smile. “She is a beautiful baby,” he said politely.

  Diva fastened the harness around her again, and gave a nod. “She will be the next leader of Coriolis.”

  Six gave a snort. “Then I hope somebody has got rid of Tartalus first!”

  Diva stared down at Raven’s small, but passionate eyes. “She will be more than a match for anyone!”

  “Like her mother!”

  Diva found herself staring, unsure if that was a compliment or not.

  “What? —Well, you are one of the best fighters I have ever seen,” he said defensively. “If she inherits your strength with a sword, she will be someone to be reckoned with!”

  Bennel inclined his head. “May the heavenly apex make it so!”

  Diva was disconcerted. This being-a-mother thing was new to her, and she wasn’t quite sure that it suited her. Then she found her attention dragged down again to Raven’s tight little face and knew that she could get used to it very easily.

  THE FIRST PERSON Grace saw on the space station above Kwaide was Tartalus. She walked out of the New Independence, where Arcan had transported her, and straight into a group of travelers who were walking to the next docking port.

  Tartalus was accompanied by Ledin, who was walking stiffly by his side, and by both Six’s sisters, who were chattering to the Coriolan as if they were old friends. The acolytes who had accompanied him brought up the rear. As Tartalus walked past her Grace felt a flare of dislike race through her whole being.

  Diva’s cousin lifted his dark eyes in her direction as the group walked past her, and Grace saw a momentary gleam of triumph inside their depths. Although both Samaliya and Jalana ignored her presence, she knew that they had noticed her and were deliberately pretending they hadn’t.

  To her surprise, her own husband also ignored her, and so she made her way to the bridge, where she could wait for him to finish his duties.

  When he joined her there, he was apologetic. “I didn’t want to have to present you to them all. It would have meant you had to shake their hands and would have delayed their departure. I couldn’t wait to get rid of them.”

  “Never mind, at least they have gone now.”

  Ledin scratched his forehead. “I wish it were that easy. Haven’t you heard?”

  “What?”

  “Coriolis and Old Kwaide have reached an agreement to establish formal diplomatic relations. The president of New Kwaide was unable to stop it. Tartalus is to be the next ambassador to Kwaide. He will be based in Benefice.”

  Grace’s face fell. “I don’t like that.”

  “Neither do I. He won’t live there permanently, of course, but he will be traveling through the space station frequently, so I will be seeing quite a lot of him.”

  “Not much fun.”

  “No.” Ledin looked rueful. “And it will cause a lot of bother. That man is turning into a real nuisance.”

  “Lucky you are here, then.”

  He gave a sigh. “I suppose it is. Are you staying over?”

  “Yes. I have to go to Coriolis tomorrow, to find out how much they expect in exchange for the loss of their heavy-duty shuttle. Then I will come back here in the evening.”

  “Good. Tartalus and his cronies will be gone by then.”

  LEDIN WAS UNPREPARED for the whirlwind presence of Arcan only three days after they had all left Valhai. The orthogel entity appeared in front of him as he was overseeing the overhaul of one of the shuttles of the New Independence.

  “Arcan,” he acknowledged. “You are back early. I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

  “The morphics tell me that they can now lead us to the three planets they have found which may be the ones we are looking for. They have checked out all the sites we gave them, and there are only three possibilities within the parameters. They are confident that they have found the right planets.” Arcan scintillated. “Which means that I can bring the others back here – as soon as you are ready, of course.”

  “Err ... I can probably get everything done by the end of today,” said Ledin, “but not before that. Grace will give me a hand as soon as she gets back from Mesteta.”

  Arcan nodded. “That will be fine. I will tell the others to be ready in a few hours’ time.”

  “All right.” Ledin looked distracted. “I hope I have thought of everything we might need.”

  “I am sure you have.”

  Ledin rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and it looked as if he wouldn’t get much rest. He pulled a face at the other Kwaidians on duty. “We need to get this finished as fast as we can.”

  His fellow-workers nodded. They would do their very best for the orthogel entity. They owed him that much. There was a general bustling amongst the staff of the Kwaide Orbital Station as they hurried to meet the new deadline.

  Ledin looked around at the station. He missed it when he was away, yet now it was progressively more and more difficult to come back to. When he was here he was keenly aware that he had seen too many new places in the universe, witnessed too many new things. In a sense, he felt as though his life didn’t belong to him anymore; it belonged to Arcan, to Grace, and to the canths and the morphics. And now that Tartalus was getting a foothold on Kwaide, he felt even less inclined to run the space station. Yet he was one of the few people who knew exactly what Tartalus was capable of, and tha
t might be important, one day. He had gradually come to realize that he would probably have to turn down the Ambassadorship which he had just been offered, however much he was tempted to take it.

  He tried to shake off the feeling of discomfort, but it was impossible. He found himself frowning. Perhaps he was just too tired.

  He worked as steadily as he could and was reasonably pleased with the results. All of the systems of both the space trader and the shuttles had been overhauled, and there were enough supplies for a voyage of several weeks. He had asked that as many mask packs and bodywraps as could be spared be placed both in the New Independence and in the two shuttles, and had stocked all three with nutripacks and waterpacks.

  He walked over to one of the exit hatches leading outside onto the hull of the space station. It was the one he had used on the original space station, when Grace had fooled her brother into thinking the whole station had been destroyed. He wondered if he would ever be able to look down at unimpeded views of his home planet again.

  Arcan reappeared in front of him, and Ledin immediately snapped out of his reverie. The orthogel entity flashed a deep orange colour, and then looked at the hatch curiously. “Is there a fault with this piece of machinery?”

  Ledin explained about how he had been wondering if they would ever be able to see his planet again unimpeded by rexelene visors.

  “That is easy,” said Arcan, and Ledin found that he was sitting perched on the outside plating of the space station, surrounded by an almost invisible bubble of orthogel, and able to examine the whole of the galaxy laid out in front of him. At the same time, Grace appeared, almost falling as she stumbled on one of the large rivets which held the station together. She looked around her, open-eyed.

  “What on Sac—?”

  “I hear you like to see the view from outside,” said Arcan, obviously pleased with himself. “I can’t think why.”

  Grace sat down gingerly on one of the reinforcing ribs, fearing it might be too cold, and would permanently freeze her clothes to the metal. Then she saw that the bubble encompassed them totally, and also insulated them from the cold. “It is pretty,” she said.

  “It is bleak.”

  “Arcan! Bleak? You can see the whole galaxy, teeming with stars.”

  “What is so special about the stars?”

  Grace choked. “What is—? Why, everything! How can you not see that?”

  “Stars are simply large fires. They have no soul, cannot think.”

  “Yes, but they give life to everything.”

  “How many stars are there in the galaxy?”

  She looked at her husband thoughtfully. “I don’t know ... maybe 300 billion?”

  “And how many planets?”

  “I have no idea. I’d say at least one star in three has planets, many of them multiple systems. Say a minimum of 100 billion?”

  “And how many have life?”

  “Well, apart from the binary system, three that we know of. Except one of those has been swallowed up by the black hole. I think the visitor said that the Dessites had found around 100 planets with some sort of life on them, generally extremely basic.”

  Arcan shimmered. “That would mean that only 1 in every 3 billion stars has managed to generate and sustain life of any kind. So, almost all that you can see in the night sky is dead, inanimate.”

  Grace found herself shivering. “I suppose it is. Is that all you see, Arcan? Dead planets circling around old fires?”

  “Of course. They remind me that I am the only one of my species. What do you see?”

  Ledin twisted his head to stare up at the myriads of stars twinkling above them. “I see something bigger than me. Something immense, that I want to understand more, something that makes me feel insignificant.”

  “Of course, you would feel like that; I think I begin to understand,” Arcan told him. “—Your existence is so ephemeral that you must be overwhelmed by things like stars. I suppose if we put everything in the perspective of your life expectancy, the rest is too enormous for you to even contemplate.” The orthogel entity shadowed over. “It must be very hard to live for so little time.”

  Then Arcan went a silvery colour, and there was a moment’s pause. “But all is relative, and even my own life will last only a second in comparison to a star’s.” He seemed taken aback. “I must think about that. We have more in common than I had realized.”

  Grace looked interested. “What do you see, Arcan?”

  “I see cold wastelands and deep voids. I see emptiness and loneliness. I see lifeless rocks tumbling forever about implacable furnaces. I see barrenness, and desolation.”

  “Very pleasant. But even you must admit that the night sky as seen from here is absolutely stunning.”

  “It is, to me, the most beautiful sight, but at the same time it is chilling.”

  Grace frowned. “You sound ... different ... almost depressed, Arcan.”

  The orthogel entity flashed. “Since I discovered that I am merely an improbable mutation, my view of things has changed, I must admit.”

  “But you are still the most powerful being in the galaxy.”

  “I am destined to disappear. Oh, my cells will regenerate for many thousands of years yet, but eventually, I will die. There is no other being with whom I can reproduce.”

  “No-o-o. I see that would make you feel isolated.” Grace’s hands unconsciously smoothed the front of her tunic. “But you still have all that time in front of you. We transients have only a few score years.”

  “What if those thousands of years are sterile? Regeneration is sterile; it only degrades, it cannot evolve.”

  Grace felt almost overcome by the sheer scale of this immense feeling of gloom. She blew out a long sigh, and looked aghast. “I ... I don’t know what to say. I would like to help you, but I don’t know what would give you hope.”

  Arcan shimmered sadly. “You are right. I have felt unfulfilled ever since I realized that I am nothing more that the unlikely product of an endothermic reaction. I am bound to stagnate, like the Ammonites, like the Sellites, like the Kwaidian Elders, like everything that cannot evolve. All these races have become poorer in spirit, unable to adapt, hidebound and destined to disappear sooner or later.” The shape in front of them became tinged with darkness.

  It was Ledin who thought of something.

  “Yes, but you can evolve, Arcan!”

  “How?” The voice of the orthogel entity reverberated rather emptily around in their heads.

  “The trimorphs, of course!”

  There was a long pause, and then Grace’s eyes sparkled. “He is right! The trimorphs are, in a way, the evolution of both you and the lost animas of Xiantha. Don’t you see?”

  There was an even longer silence. When Arcan finally spoke there was a tinge of light in his colour. “You could have a valid point.” He sounded surprised. “I need to consider that argument. But you may be right, Ledin. I suppose it is evolution, of a sort.” Arcan flashed. “I have brought the others over while we have been talking. Perhaps you would like to get back now?”

  Ledin nodded. “Reproduction is merely a continuance. You have said yourself that our physical bodies are inefficient, and faulty. Evolution takes us many thousands of years. But, by combining species like you do in the trimorphs, evolution is bound to be far quicker.” He scrambled to his feet, then reached down to pull Grace up too.

  They looked for one last time at the panoramic view of the night sky in front of them, breathing in deeply. Grace was amazed to realize that the way she looked at the stars had been changed by the conversation they had just had. Infinity somehow seemed bigger, and colder, than it had before. She gave a shiver and felt sorry for Arcan. She grabbed hold of Ledin’s hand and gave it a squeeze. He smiled down at her, and seemed to know what she was thinking, because he gave a small nod. It was a pity that Arcan would never feel the sort of bond they shared.

  Then, as they watched, the stars melted away, and they found themselves back again in
side the Kwaide Orbital Space Station, face to face with the rest of their friends.

  Chapter 16

  SIX TURNED OFF the video and looked over to Grace and Ledin. They were sitting staring at the screen on the bridge of the New Independence, still moored to the Kwaidian Orbital Space Station. They looked absolutely stunned by the recording of the black hole.

  “That was incredible,” gasped Grace. “You are so lucky to have been there!”

  “Maybe.” Six didn’t sound convinced. “But there isn’t anything in this galaxy which would tempt me back.”

  “Nor me.” Arcan pulsated. “That black hole was very nearly the end of me.”

  “And us!” The trimorph twins began to spin, remembering their useless struggles to free themselves from the dying planet. Their agitation transferred itself to the visitor, who darkened in sympathy, and also began to spin.

  “Why do we have to find these lost animas of Kintara?” asked one of the twins. “They have already nearly killed most of us.”

  “We can’t leave them there to rot for all eternity, trapped in ortholiquid.” Grace sounded horrified.

  “Well, why not?” The visitor was in full agreement with the trimorphs. “They seemed quite happy to risk our lives, why should we be worried about theirs? I’m a Dessite, remember, at heart.”

  Six muttered something, and the bimorph turned on him instantly. “What was that?”

  “I said, you haven’t got a heart. You are only a few bits of brain. If you can call it that.”

  “I have very superior neurons!”

  “Only because you can fly, tin can!”

  “Take that back! There is no way you can call me a tin can, not now!”

  “Can too!”

  “Can’t!”

  Six and the bimorph circled each other warily. The other occupants of the bridge waited impatiently for them to stop posturing.