“Good, Adar. When the cohorts leave, I want you to command them personally.”
Zan’nh seemed taken aback, but then rallied his resolve again. “Yes, Liege. No one else should have to bear that burden.”
Much later, Nira and Jora’h were alone in his high tower room. They stood on the transparent balcony, staring across the magnificent skyline. He put an arm around her shoulders. “Because you are human, we can never share our souls through the bonds of thism . . . yet words seem inadequate for all that we have to say to each other.”
“That is why it’s so important that I can trust you.” Nira thought wistfully of the time they had spent together when he was Prime Designate. Those had been peaceful times.
“You are as beautiful to me as ever, Nira, but neither of us is who we were.” He drew back to look into her eyes. “Our love cannot be the same as before. I—”
“I know.” In order to become Mage-Imperator, he had surrendered his manhood—the price of controlling the thism to hold his people together. She herself had been damaged, abused. The two of them would no longer have a sexual relationship, but now perhaps their love would be even stronger. Physical passion would instead become inseparable companionship.
They stared for a long time at the dazzling, clear skies, at the reflections of the curved buildings. After a while, she finally said, “Oh, how I long to touch the forest mind again! Do you have a treeling? Where are the treelings that Ambassador Otema and I brought?”
Jora’h shook his head, looking extremely sad. “I have no treelings at the Prism Palace. They were all destroyed.” He pressed his lips together, as if catching himself before he could utter another outright deception.
Nira could tell he was still hiding something, keeping secrets. It was as obvious as dark knots in a pale beam of wood. Would it never end?
100
TAL O’NH
After the faeros had destroyed the watchdog hydrogues in Hyrillka’s sky, Tal O’nh seized the opportunity to continue his rushed deployment of construction crews and equipment. He dispatched more ships to the spaceport, adding to the numerous teams already on the ground. Hundreds of warliners emptied their holds and distributed food, machinery, and raw materials.
Like a swarm of constructor beetles rebuilding a hive after a storm, soldiers, engineers, and many strong workers erected new buildings. The exhausted people were uplifted by the progress all around them, seeing structures rise and fresh rows of crops laid down in the ash-fertilized soil.
The crews managed to work for several days before the next disaster occurred.
The one-eyed commander rode in the near-empty flagship warliner to better survey the activities below. He had barely slept in days; his short gray topknot was frayed, not tightly braided and waxed as he normally kept it. He did, however, take the time to polish his reflective Lightsource medallion and the facets of his jeweled eye. O’nh felt an urgency to get his work done.
Several members of the skeleton crew in the command nucleus sat up abruptly as sensor alerts sounded. “Tal!”
He turned his good eye to the main screens. “Report.”
“They are coming from all sides, on a hundred different vectors. An armada the likes of which we have never seen. Sensor stations are overloaded.”
“An armada of what?”
“Hydrogue warglobes—all coming to Hyrillka! We cannot possibly stand against them.”
The alien spheres swirled in from outside the system like a blizzard of diamond chips. They must have been dispatched from numerous gas-giant planets, emerging from transgates deep within and spewing into nearby space.
O’nh stepped up to his place at the command rail. In destroying the three watchdog warglobes, the faeros must have provoked the deep-core aliens. He stared at the tactical screen that showed incredible numbers of oncoming warglobes, far outnumbering the Ildiran ships.
“Prepare for our final battle.”
Given luck and determination, his cohort might cause extraordinary damage to the enemy in a flurry of suicidal attacks. But even if every single warliner destroyed a hydrogue globe, they could never win. The enemy numbers were overwhelming.
He wished Rememberer Vao’sh and his human companion had come up here with him. This would certainly be something for them to observe, for the sake of history. However, they were not likely to survive long enough to record their experiences.
“Should we form a defensive line, Tal? Concentrate our forces above the central city?”
O’nh squinted to watch the blips of enemy ships. “Inform Designate Ridek’h that I will do my best. Have all crews ready to move on my command, but do not overreact. Warglobes have come before and did not attack.”
The alien armada rocketed closer, never slowing. Then, in an endless storm, they streamed past Hyrillka and headed toward its blue-white primary sun.
The warliner’s command crew cheered in disbelief, while O’nh watched with his brow furrowed. “They are not after us at all. Hyrillka does not matter to them. Even their bargain with the Mage-Imperator has lost its priority because of the faeros.”
“That is good news indeed, Tal!”
Relief lasted only a few moments, and then his suspicions turned to dread, for he had seen a similar thing before. “Not necessarily. This could be even worse.”
Like moths drawn to a flame, the warglobes swarmed around Hyrillka’s main sun, swirled in the corona, and began to attack the star itself.
Flushed out by the sudden barrage, faeros ellipsoids erupted from the roiling plasma seas. Numerous flaming shapes slammed into the hydrogues in a blinding display. The battle was engaged.
With a sick heart, O’nh knew that the faeros were likely to lose. Hyrillka’s primary would be extinguished, just like Durris-B. There was nothing Tal O’nh or his warliners or Designate Ridek’h or even the Mage-Imperator could do about it.
As he stared at the screen, O’nh made a mental tally of the population on Hyrillka, all who had survived the first hydrogue attack and then Rusa’h’s rebellion. He considered the disposition of ships in the Solar Navy, closed his one eye, and visualized which grouping would be closest.
“Send an immediate message to Tal Ala’nh. Summon his cohort to Hyrillka as swiftly as possible. I do not know how much time we have before that sun dies.” He opened his eye and looked again at the bright main sun, where flashes and sparks of the conflict churned through the solar layers. “We will need every one of his warliners and all of mine to effect a total evacuation of this planet. After all our work, Hyrillka cannot be saved.”
101
CESCA PERONI
After Jess left for Theroc and the fourteen Plumas water tankers set off to primordial Charybdis, Cesca went to Yreka hoping to reestablish connections with the dispersed Roamer families. She still thought of herself as the Speaker, though after all the turmoil, she knew it might take some time for Roamers to reestablish their identity and determine their place in the changed Spiral Arm.
Since she flew only a small craft scrounged from Plumas, everyone assumed Cesca was just another clan trader coming to the bustling outpost. Her ship settled onto the crowded landing field, and she stepped out into the dusty air, feeling the energy tingle through her skin. The colors, the noise, the smells, the chatter of cordial conversation! She hadn’t seen so many Roamers together since before the destruction of Rendezvous.
The place looked more like a crowded bazaar than a spaceport. Smiling clan members wore flashy clothes, embroidered jumpsuits, jackets with a multitude of pockets, clips, and zippers. The Yrekans’ serviceable clothes and plain overalls were now embellished with bright scarves and ribbons.
As she scanned the other ships, Cesca’s heart leapt when she recognized the Dogged Persistence. Denn emerged from his craft, saw her, and his face beamed. He ran forward, words jetting out of his mouth like engine exhaust. “Cesca! Cesca, what happened to you? Where have you been? Kotto came here and said Jonah 12 was destroyed! I was so—”
&n
bsp; She scrambled back up the ramp, holding up her hands to fend off his attempted embrace. “Dad, no! Stop! Stay back.” For the first time she realized how Jess had felt. “I’d love a hug, too . . . but it would kill you. Lots of things have changed. I’ve changed.”
He blinked in confusion. “What do you mean a hug would kill me? And what’s that glow about you? Your skin looks—” He caught his breath. “By the Guiding Star, I heard what happened to Jess Tamblyn! Is this the same thing? You’re . . . possessed by some strange life force?”
Her dark hair swirled with static electricity as if alive. “Otherwise I’d be dead right now. Jess saved me. The wentals saved me. But they had to change me.” Even his questions and the obvious strangeness of the circumstances could not diminish Denn’s joy at seeing her. She wished she could wrap her arms around him, but she did not complain. “Oh, it’s good to see you, Dad.”
“People have been asking about you. We’re doing the best we can—which is damned good, if I do say so myself—but the clans need their Speaker. What a mess!”
“And I need them, too, Dad. We’ve got a whole new mission now, our most important task ever. With Roamer help and Roamer ships, Jess and I have found allies that can help us trounce the drogues, once and for all. Across the Spiral Arm, clan ships are gathering to take part. Jess’s water bearers are organizing distribution points at many wental worlds.”
Colonists and Roamer trade intermediaries came toward her ship, eager to take an inventory of whatever she might have to sell. Cesca spotted curly-haired Kotto Okiah, whom she had last seen on Theroc before sending him to investigate the hydrogue derelict. “Kotto!”
The eccentric scientist was clearly happy to see her. “Speaker Peroni! Wait until you hear the new ideas I’ve been working on. We’ve pulled out all the stops, making resonance doorbells and getting ready—”
“Kotto, wait.” His rush of words stopped, and he noticed her expression. She could see the point at which he understood exactly what she was going to tell him. Cesca turned to her father. “Dad, I need to see you and Kotto aboard my ship for a few minutes.”
When the three of them had a moment of quiet, with Cesca standing on the far side of the small cargo chamber, she said, “Kotto, your mother died on Jonah 12. I’m so sorry. We went there after the Eddies blew up Rendezvous. It was just our temporary base of operations, but . . . everything went wrong.”
The engineer nervously kept looking at her, then away. “I went there. I saw the crater, but no signs of life.” He quickly lifted his chin. “But you escaped. Please tell me that some of the others got away.”
Memories whipped past her, cutting like sharp ice chips in the wind. “No, Kotto. Only me. Nikko Chan Tylar came to rescue me, but our ship was shot down by the Klikiss robots. Then Jess saved us, and convinced the wentals to change me before I died.”
And that opened up more and more questions. She explained about the Klikiss robots found frozen under Jonah 12 and how they had destroyed the base in a rampage. Kotto looked as if his whole body was sagging in a heavy gravity well. “So my mother died there, with all of them.”
She shook her head. “Jhy Okiah died peacefully, Kotto. She passed away while resting in the base dome. Purcell Wan and I arranged a fitting Roamer funeral for her and launched her into space. It was afterward that all hell broke loose.” Kotto seemed to take comfort from that.
“I remember when your mother died, Cesca,” Denn said. “Roamers are supposed to adapt to drastic changes, to roll with disasters. But I thought I’d never recover from it.”
“Even so, you did.” Cesca smiled sadly. “She told you to, and you always did what she asked.”
Unlike many Roamers who died suddenly in accidents, killed by equipment failures or the vagaries of space, Cesca’s mother had had time to come to terms with her imminent death. Lyra Peroni had flown her own merchant ship, and because of a failed sensor panel, she didn’t know that one of her cockpit radiation shields had slipped away. Cesca’s mother flew a dozen runs before a routine maintenance check noticed the problem. By then, the dosage she’d received was several times the lethal amount.
Denn had rushed her to Rendezvous for treatment, but there was nothing Roamer doctors could do. Cesca had been there, training to become Speaker Okiah’s heir apparent. Cesca and her father had hovered over Lyra for weeks as her condition deteriorated. The previous time her mother had come to Rendezvous was to help embroider the symbolic Roamer chain and dress her daughter in colorful ribbons for her betrothal to Ross Tamblyn.
A million years ago, and in a completely different universe . . .
Denn had begged his wife to go to a Hansa medical facility, which he believed had better equipment, a better chance of saving her. But Lyra refused. She knew, as did the Roamer doctors, that there was no chance. She had instructed Denn to “get over it.” To live his life. To adapt to the changes. After his wife’s death, he’d followed her last request with great difficulty.
“I guess we’ve got more changes ahead,” Denn said.
“Major changes,” Cesca said. “And we need your help.”
When she went outside again to meet the crowds, Denn and Kotto helped keep a wide perimeter around Cesca. She took nearly an hour to explain the crisis point of the Spiral Arm, and the listeners showed as much awe at hearing her tales as they did from seeing the unearthly changes in her body. Her father was shocked to hear about the tainted-wental nightmare on Plumas, which he had only recently visited. Cesca doubted she would have trouble convincing the Roamers to follow her.
“Tell us where to go, and we’ll do what we have to, Cesca,” Denn said. “Seems a better use of our time than to sit here waiting for the drogues to come to us. I’d rather fight them on their own turf.”
“Give me a chance to show Roamer ingenuity in action,” Kotto said, struggling to find his determination. His two compies came forward carrying rolled-up polymer mats. Kotto took one and spread it out in front of Cesca like a red carpet. “This is one of my doorbells, Speaker. It’s how we mean to fight the hydrogues. With enough of these, we can crack open drogue warglobes like rotten eggs.”
Denn laughed. “We’ve already made over a hundred thousand of these little things, and we expect to double that number within a few days, now that the production lines are up and running. By the Guiding Star, the drogues’ll wish they’d never crawled out of their gas giants.”
Cesca wanted to kiss him. “Excellent work, Kotto. I’m very proud of you.”
He beamed. “You’re the one who gave us the challenge, Speaker. I never stopped thinking of new things that might defeat the drogues.”
“As long as we have minds like yours, Kotto, the Roamers will survive. Keep manufacturing those doorbells. I have to go to Charybdis, where our largest tankers are gathering—and as many of you who can come. The drogues are in for more of a fight than they could ever imagine.”
102
SAREIN
Prince Daniel’s coming-out banquet was a “private” affair for two hundred of the Hansa’s most important representatives. It was impeccably produced, every dish, every seat, every bouquet of flowers arranged with exquisite care. Sarein hadn’t seen such extravagance since Peter and Estarra’s wedding.
Unlike the royal marriage, however, there were no representatives of Hansa colonies, no Mother Alexa and Father Idriss from Theroc, no governors or dignitaries from planets that were now cut off from EDF protection. Sarein was the only offworld ambassador in attendance.
Hansa-approved camera drones flitted about, transmitting the spectacle to viewers across Earth. The signals were also beamed into space so that soldiers serving in the EDF defensive cordon could watch, though she couldn’t imagine a handful of last-stand fighters being interested in watching a Prince’s banquet.
Sarein took her seat beside Chairman Wenceslas. She maintained her composure, smiling at not-so-clever jokes made by politicians and other notables. It was hard to be near Basil when he’d been so distant lately
, increasingly distracted and aloof. He seemed to have lost interest in everything but the continuing disasters. In the back of her mind, she kept thinking about the accusations Estarra had made. . . .
Before the banquet, Sarein had wandered through the conservatory again, mulling over what she had learned. The familiar Theron plants reminded her of how Estarra had loved to explore the wilderness as a little girl. As Sarein pondered, preoccupied, she had glanced down and was surprised to note that the cluster of poisonous fauldur berries was gone. Some gardener must have removed them, though their colors had been fresh, at their peak. She’d thought it odd at the time, but quickly dismissed it. . . .
Now the bearded Archfather of Unison droned through a traditional prayer, and the banquet began. Since Prince Daniel was the center of attention at the feast, servers presented his plate first, a carefully measured portion of appetizer rolls and cheeses. When other attendees received larger servings, the Prince did his best not to let his disappointment show. Though the boy had been overweight the last time Sarein had seen him, Daniel now appeared gaunt. A hollowness haunted his eyes, and he snapped to do everything Basil told him, like a puppy eager to please.
Had he really been kept drugged and out of the way for the last several months, as Estarra claimed?
As the salads were distributed, Sarein glanced at her sister. The King and Queen were seated at an isolated table at the front of the huge banquet hall, where private servants took care of them. Ostensibly, those were the prime seats, with the best view and the most privacy, but Sarein wondered if Basil had put Peter and Estarra there to keep them from speaking to anyone.
Sarein wrestled with her suspicions. Instead of marching to Basil’s penthouse and confronting him with the claims, she had quietly checked as many details as she could, using news databases and classified Hansa memos. Without much trouble, she verified even the least believable of her sister’s claims.
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