Of Fire and Night

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Admiral!” The compies grabbed Ramirez, and she battered at their optical sensors with the butt of her weapon. She shouted his name as they surrounded her, something that might have sounded like “Go!” Stromo almost moved, almost went forward to assist her, to go down fighting.

  But the lift opened at last. He saw it was empty and waiting. A miracle!

  Before he could see Ramirez fall under the attacking compies, Stromo scrambled into the lift and punched the selector controls for the hangar bay. He tried to remember how to fly EDF ships. He had the training, of course. He’d received instruction long ago, but he couldn’t recall the last time he’d actually sat in a cockpit. Did he even know how to open the launching-bay doors?

  Stromo set his jaw. With a Remora’s jazers, he could blast right through the damned hull if necessary. He stood ready, knowing what to do now, as the elevator opened.

  Hundreds of compies filled the hangar bay, all of them waiting for him. They pressed toward the lift’s open door.

  Stromo’s two remaining shots did not last long. He backed against the inner wall, and the compies pushed in on him.

  33

  ENGINEERING SPECIALIST SWENDSEN

  Only a constant barrage from the silver berets kept the robots contained within the barricaded factory. Sergeant Paxton dismantled his temporary command post and took up residence in a large armored vehicle, where he prepared for the second phase of the assault. This time, no one would underestimate the rampaging Soldier compies.

  Swendsen huddled inside the claustrophobic vehicle, racking his brains for a workable solution. What had caused the compies to go wild?

  “We could call down an airstrike to annihilate the whole facility,” Paxton growled. “Melt ’em all into puddles. Solve the problem.”

  “That would stop the compies here, but it wouldn’t affect the larger emergency,” Swendsen pointed out. “We can’t just blow up every EDF ship where the compies are running wild, now can we? All of my compy schematics and management protocols are in that factory. That seemed the logical place to keep everything. If this is a pervasive programming error, we have to find a way to shut them all down. I can’t do that until I understand what went wrong, and it would be difficult to get any data from a lump of melted metal.” He stared at his datapad, scrolling from one assessment to another. Without knowing what had gone wrong with the governing modules in the first place, it was damnably hard to fix things. “We don’t even know for sure if this is intentional sabotage, or just an accidental glitch.”

  “An accident?” Paxton looked at him in complete disbelief. “Occurring across the whole EDF? Some coincidence!”

  Swendsen shrugged his bony shoulders, still denying what he knew to be true. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Not in my career.”

  “All right . . . not in mine either.” He didn’t want to let the sergeant know that he—the Hansa’s primary engineering specialist—had no idea what to do.

  Reinforcements had arrived. One hundred twenty-eight armored assault vehicles surrounded the factory, blasting any compy that broke loose. Elite commandos were stationed at the primary entrances and shipping bays, but the facility was enormous. If the compies made a concerted effort to break free . . .

  Touching the numeric pad, Swendsen estimated how many new robots had been ready for deployment, then calculated the additional number that could have been produced in the meantime. Even with new arrivals, the commandos were already greatly overextended. They could never hold back all the compies.

  Someone pounded on the closed hatch of the armored carrier, identified himself to the observation eye, then keyed in his code. A silver beret escorted a thin Asian man wearing a serious expression. “Sergeant Paxton, this man claims to be a compy specialist, a cyberneticist with a great deal of experience in Soldier models and their programming.”

  Swendsen jumped to his feet. “Dr. Yamane!”

  “Dr. Swendsen.” Yamane stepped forward for a brief but enthusiastic handshake. “I understand you’re having some trouble.”

  “A bit.” Swendsen’s excitement surged as Yamane explained his experience with the battle group at Osquivel, observing the Soldier compies in action.

  “Here’s the interesting part, Dr. Swendsen. When they rescued us, the Roamers also salvaged a hundred Soldier compies, erased their programming, and put them to work. We had a situation similar to what’s going on here, compies going berserk—and I caused it. Intentionally.”

  Paxton rested his elbows on the consultation table inside the armored vehicle. “How—and why—did you manage to do that?”

  “We needed a diversion so Commander Fitzpatrick could attempt to escape. Because of my work with the Soldier compies, I knew how to cancel their behavioral restrictions. An insidious little repeater virus that, for lack of a better term, turned them into loose cannons.” A wan smile crossed Yamane’s face.

  Swendsen’s eyebrows shot up. “And did it work?”

  “They certainly created a diversion, but once the compies clicked into chaos mode, we had no way to stop them. They ended up destroying much of the Roamer shipyards.”

  Swendsen considered. “So, someone transmitted a similar virus to trigger our current revolt?”

  Yamane shook his head. “Transmitted? No, the breakdown is not localized. Soldier compies are simultaneously subverting command protocols all across the Spiral Arm, which means it must be embedded. Some timed instruction must have been included during their initial activation. That implies a long-term plan, which is much more sinister than a programming gremlin.”

  Swendsen offered the cyberneticist a folding seat inside the crowded vehicle. Yamane looked into his colleague’s bright blue eyes. “However, it occurs to me that we could use something similar to achieve the opposite effect. A repeater virus that would serve as a big wrench thrown into their modules.”

  “That’s an idea! I understand.” He shot a look over to Sergeant Paxton. “We understand.”

  “Then I suggest you two get to work as soon as possible,” Paxton said.

  34

  MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  With Osira’h gone, the Mage-Imperator summoned Adar Zan’nh, senior members of the scientist and engineering kiths, military strategists, even Rememberer Vao’sh. Each was the best his kith had to offer. With the help of these men, Jora’h had to find a way to stand against the hydrogues and save the Empire.

  He waited in front of the immense gates of the Prism Palace. At the top of the ellipsoidal hill on which the Palace had been built, the rushing water of seven converging streams thundered like the roar of a storm. In straight lines, the streams came together at this point, flowing uphill. From his high vantage, he could see their courses extending to the perimeters of Mijistra, where the landscape sculptors had finally allowed the rivers to bend back into their natural patterns. He had called the meeting here for a specific purpose.

  “Observe the seven streams,” the Mage-Imperator said in his most commanding voice, “and consider exactly what Ildirans accomplished here.”

  Klie’f, an old and distinguished member of the scientist kith, and Shir’of, a younger but talented representative of the engineering kith, studied the convergence point with its foaming water, as if Jora’h had just posed a new technical challenge. Vao’sh nodded, recalling the historical tale.

  In a complex engineering feat, the Prism Palace builders had channeled these streams to flow toward the seat of the Mage-Imperator. Using gravity-assist steps and locks, scientists had wrestled the currents, manipulated the water itself, so that the streams flowed against nature, climbing in a white torrent until they reached the apex. Here before the main gate, the seven streams joined to pour down a wide well in a circular waterfall, at the bottom of which the gushing water was redistributed from outlets below and behind the Palace hill.

  Jora’h waited, but no one ventured a response. In angry impatience, he shouted above the roar of the water, “We did the impossible! A
nd we must do it again. Long ago, Ildirans used their ingenuity to defy the laws of the universe. They achieved the unachievable because the Mage-Imperator demanded it of them. I now demand the same from all of you.”

  The representatives seemed intimidated; Adar Zan’nh’s expression remained stoic, but he nodded. Rememberer Vao’sh looked intrigued.

  “Answer this question and you will save our Empire.” Jora’h paused. “How can we stand against the hydrogues?”

  Klie’f and Shir’of looked at each other, then at the military strategists; they all turned to the commander of the Solar Navy. Zan’nh said, “None of our weapons have proven effective. Adar Kori’nh destroyed many warglobes, but at a cost far too great for us ever to achieve victory.”

  Jora’h stepped to the lip of the furious waterfall as it vanished down the deep well. “That is why I called you. The hydrogues have given me an ultimatum that I find unacceptable. I bought time by pretending to agree. Now I need you to give me another solution to another impossible challenge. You are my best. Take these questions to your fellow kithmen, work together with them. Push yourselves beyond your usual boundaries. If you succeed, I guarantee you a place in the Saga of Seven Suns, memorialized for all time. What Ildiran could ask for more than that?”

  “You are asking us to stand up against the undefeatable, Liege,” Klie’f said.

  “Yes, I am. Give me new strategies, new defenses, new weapons!”

  Zan’nh bowed toward his father. “You are the Mage-Imperator, Liege. You are our leader, and we comprise your Empire. If we cannot solve this problem, then we have failed you indeed.”

  “If you do not find a way,” Jora’h said in an oddly flat voice, “then two races may die.”

  Rememberer Vao’sh, though fascinated by the conversation, looked at his leader. “Liege, I am a mere storyteller. What can I do?”

  Knowing more of the historical truth than he had ever wanted to learn, Jora’h had often cursed his predecessors for hiding so much information about past encounters. He had to break that long-standing censorship. “We have fought the hydrogues before, but many of the records of that conflict are locked away in the apocrypha. Unseal them and study them. Learn what has been forgotten, and bring me any clues you may discover about our enemies.”

  “An immense task, Liege. I will inspect all our records here, but there are important archives on distant planets, particularly Hyrillka.”

  Jora’h recalled that the first Klikiss robots had been excavated from their long hibernation on a moon of Hyrillka. Centuries ago. Was something more buried in that system? Some lost document explaining the ancient compact that had changed the alliances in the first great war? Perhaps a record of how Ildirans had once shared a bond with the faeros, as the hydrogue emissary had accused? So many tangled connections!

  “I am sending the new Designate with a recovery team to Hyrillka to help rebuild the areas destroyed by the revolt. Accompany them, Rememberer Vao’sh. Learn anything you can.”

  Jora’h watched resolve harden on each of the faces before him. The scientist and engineer would develop weapons that might succeed against the deep-core aliens. Adar Zan’nh would guide the military applications and consider new tactics. The rememberer would dig through hidden history. For just a moment Jora’h felt confident. He briskly clapped his hands. “All of you, find me answers. Do whatever you deem necessary. I place my faith in you.”

  Jora’h once again resented the poor choices of his predecessors. Instead of gambling everything on a breeding program to create a telepathic negotiator, the Ildiran Empire could have spent ten thousand years creating better weapons. Now they had to do it all within a few days.

  35

  OSIRA’H

  With her mission completed, Osira’h was obviously no longer needed on Ildira. Her father had sent her back to Dobro to get her out of the way while he continued to work his plans with the hydrogues.

  The splinter colony looked no different from how she remembered it: the Ildiran town, the grassy hills, the fenced-in breeding camp. But she was different. She had met the hydrogues and come back, and she had watched the Mage-Imperator bow to their heinous demands. Osira’h felt that the whole universe had changed. As it had so many times before . . . and would again.

  In the dust-hazed sunlight on Dobro, worker kithmen unloaded supplies from the shuttle. Disembarking guard kithmen walked around her as if she were a rock in a stream. The girl tracked her gaze from side to side and finally saw Designate Udru’h striding toward her. “Osira’h, I welcome you back to Dobro!”

  When she saw him, her body and mind seemed torn in two. One part of her recalled the Designate warmly, as a father figure. He had cared for her, made her work hard to achieve her destiny. She’d wanted so badly to please him. Yet crystal-sharp memories from her mother made her want to recoil. Nira knew his cruel side, his hated touch, all the pain he had inflicted upon her mind and body.

  As the Designate came closer, Osira’h wondered if he would show warmth, if he would embrace her. Would her skin crawl? But he stopped two steps in front of her. The words tumbled out of his mouth. “We received word that you had succeeded.” His face showed satisfaction, contentment with his duty. “I want to hear about it.”

  Osira’h looked at him, feeling a swell of resentment, even hatred, burn deep inside her. She wanted to shout at him: I did what you trained me to do. I accomplished everything I was born for. I used my powers to communicate with the hydrogues. I opened my mind and formed a bridge, and I am now permanently connected to their alien thoughts. I can’t get them out of my head!

  And I dragged the hydrogues to Mijistra so the Mage-Imperator could speak to them. It was what I was supposed to do—and instead, my father, the leader of my people, could not bargain with them. He had nothing the hydrogues wanted. They threatened Ildira with destruction, and the Mage-Imperator crumbled. He agreed to a terrible bargain that will result in the damnation of Ildirans and the destruction of my mother’s race!

  But she could say none of that to the Dobro Designate. Instead, she simply answered, “I succeeded. What more is there to tell?” She knew she was a pawn, always a pawn, but she didn’t have to play along.

  He noticed the metal in her tone, and a flicker of a frown crossed his expression like a wisp of cloud passing in front of the sun. “Tell me what happened. Did Jora’h speak with the hydrogues?”

  Succinctly and without unnecessary detail, Osira’h outlined the conversations between her father and the emissary, describing what he had agreed to do. Udru’h did not seem disturbed by the terms. In fact, he appeared relieved that the Ildirans might survive after all; that was his only concern.

  He finally reached out to clasp her shoulder. “You have been through a terrible ordeal. Your encounter with the hydrogues must have been difficult, but you understand why it was necessary.”

  Osira’h was careful not to agree with him. “You explained my duty and my obligations, Designate.”

  Udru’h gave her an uncertain smile. “Surely your quarters in Mijistra were far more elegant than these humble buildings?”

  Osira’h looked away. “The Mage-Imperator sent me back. He wanted me safely away from the Prism Palace—with my mother. When can I see her?”

  “Your mother . . . is not here.” Udru’h scowled, surprised by the unexpected comment. “Not at the moment.”

  Osira’h wanted to scream. Another lie! Either her father or the Dobro Designate was lying to her! Anxious, the girl glanced around, but did not see young Daro’h in the press of Ildirans. Her half brother seemed like a good man, not corrupted by excuses and justifications, as Udru’h had been. “Where is the Designate-in-waiting? Has he taken over his duties yet?” Perhaps Daro’h could bring about the necessary changes in this splinter colony.

  “Daro’h is off on another mission.” Udru’h would say no more—evasive, curt . . . as he had always been.

  In the Ildiran part of the settlement, Osira’h stood in the doorway of the humbl
e dwelling she had shared with her siblings, all of Nira’s children. The Designate had not accompanied her, claiming other duties. Her younger siblings gathered around her in awe. What did Designate Udru’h think about her half-breed brothers and sisters now that they were superfluous to his plans?

  “What were the hydrogues like?” Rod’h asked. He was her nearest brother, less than a year younger than she was, the son of Udru’h. Because she had her mother’s memories, whenever Osira’h looked on Rod’h, she remembered the repeated rapes Nira had endured until the Designate succeeded in impregnating her. Shortly after he was delivered, the infant had been taken away from her and raised elsewhere. The boy had never felt even a glimmer of love for his mother. He had never known Nira at all. But he was not to blame for that. Udru’h was.

  “The hydrogues are as strange as we expected.” Osira’h sat at a small table and they began to share food, simple Dobro fare. Barely managing to maintain a calm façade in front of them all, Osira’h told how her protective sphere had plunged into the clouds of Qronha 3, how she had used all her powers to touch the incredibly alien minds.

  “Were you frightened?” asked Gale’nh, her next oldest brother.

  “Of course I was frightened. The hydrogues have destroyed everyone else who tried to communicate with them. I had to be better than anyone in history.”

  When Gale’nh nodded somberly, Osira’h saw a flicker of his father, stoic Adar Kori’nh, whom she had seen in countless historical records. She knew from darker documents that the commander of the Solar Navy had been ordered to father a child upon Nira. The Adar had done his duty, as always, but was ashamed at what he’d been forced to do.

  Tamo’l, Nira’s second daughter—this one sired by a lens kithman—listened intently. Both she and her sister Muree’n were too young to grasp the magnitude of what Osira’h had been asked to do. Muree’n, fathered by a guard kithman, was strong and heavily built for her age, more interested in play and physical activity, barely able to concentrate on meticulous mental exercises. Osira’h could not imagine what the experimenters had hoped to achieve with that pairing. By then Designate Udru’h might simply have been toying with Nira, or punishing her. . . .