Hellhole Awakening

by Brian Herbert

  As the aircraft lifted off, Adolphus noted the bright, mirrorlike pools of slickwater and the ever-expanding camp for the human volunteers who wanted to immerse themselves. He had left Sophie there to manage the new arrivals, and a new group was due to arrive at Michella Town that afternoon. “More and more people are coming, immersing themselves in slickwater. They’re afraid of the Constellation fleet, and they believe Xayan personalities and powers will help protect them.”

  “We all believe that,” Tryn said. “Do you not?”

  He responded with a skeptical frown, though he doubted the Xayan could read human expressions. “If you were convinced of that, you wouldn’t be evacuating a hundred of your people to Candela.”

  “It is simply a … safeguard.” Her facial membrane thrummed, and retractable feelers emerged from her forehead to wave in the air, as if questing for the truth. “Our separate colony will be analogous to the museum vault, which survived the asteroid impact. This is no less.”

  Adolphus knew that if his stringline trap worked, then most of the fears would be moot.

  As the craft flew along, he could see the scarlet splash of alien red weed, like a bloodstain across the valley. Even with the details of the landscape blurred by haze and stirred dust, he saw swatches of red, blue, and turquoise that indicated the spread of vegetation—more plant life than he had previously seen. “This planet seems to be softening its mood.”

  “Xaya is part of us, and it is awakening, as if a planetary spring has returned,” Tryn said. “With so many of our lives and memories restored from the slickwater, it builds the charge in our racial psychic battery. All of us have begun generating the telemancy necessary to achieve ala’ru.”

  As the two cargo aircraft soared across the landscape, winds buffeted them, jostling the passengers inside. The pilots had to gain altitude to fly over the turbulent system. As if in silent agreement, the shadow-Xayans crowded in the cargo hold closed their eyes and concentrated. Adolphus felt a unified thrumming in the air, and a cone of stillness surrounded the two distressed craft. Then he felt a lurch as the aircraft accelerated.

  The pilot yelped and spoke over the intercom. “General, sir, I’m not doing this!”

  The shadow-Xayans continued their synchronized concentration. Tryn remained calm. “We will arrive at Ankor spaceport safely, and with all due speed.”

  Adolphus responded to the pilot. “I think we’re in good hands.” A huge static discharge leaped up from the storm clouds and surrounded them in a ball of electric blue light, but the telemancy deflected the blast and dissipated it into the air. He watched the ease with which the danger had been shunted aside. He muttered to himself, “Diadem Michella doesn’t know what she’s up against.”

  Tryn agreed. “No, she does not.”

  An hour later, when the two cargo craft landed at Ankor, he descended the ramp next to Tryn. Rendo Theris hurried out of the operations building, staring at the sluglike body of the Original Xayan. Adolphus smiled at him. “You look as if you’ve never seen an alien before, Mr. Theris.”

  “I haven’t, sir.” The spaceport administrator reached out his hand in a tentative greeting, then withdrew it, not sure whether he wanted to touch the supple hand extending from Tryn’s torso. “Administrator Hu has already sent her stringline ship and an escort for the new colony. She says she found a suitable place for the shadow-Xayans on Candela.”

  “Administrator Hu is very efficient like that.”

  Persistent quakes had continued over the past several days, but not enough to damage the spaceport structures. The General’s expert engineering team was already studying the unstable ground beneath the spaceport; they had drafted a plan to drain the slickwater aquifer into an adjacent basin, but they had not yet agreed on the specifics. Theris was eager to continue his spaceport expansion, but not until he could be sure the alien liquid would not interfere.

  Overhearing them with her sensitive membranes, Tryn said, “Do not damage our slickwater database. The Xayan civilization is contained within.”

  “The slickwater survived an asteroid impact,” Adolphus said. “Our construction machinery isn’t likely to damage it.” He looked around him at the bustling complex. “Ankor is the center of Hellhole’s commerce now—our new capital. Besides, once you achieve ala’ru, the slickwater won’t matter anymore, correct?”

  Tryn considered. “True. After ala’ru, the Xayan race will be gone, and we will have no further need of this planet.”

  As shadow-Xayans filed out of the other cargo craft to stand around the landing area, Adolphus was surprised to recognize one of the men. Rendo Theris spotted him at the same time and called out, “That’s Tel Clovis! Has he come back to take over his duties as Ankor administrator again?” Adolphus heard a hint of hope in the man’s question.

  “No, Mr. Theris. Tel is one of them now. He’s going to Candela.”

  Theris sighed as he regarded the lanky man who walked in casual lockstep with the other alien converts. He nodded. “He looks good, though. Happier … or at least at peace. Last time I saw him, he was so distraught—I was afraid he’d kill himself after what happened to his partner.”

  Adolphus had been worried about that as well. “He surrendered in a different way.”

  Her antennae vibrating, Tryn said, “He seized hope and took a new chance.” The Original lurched forward on her caterpillar feet, urging the General and Rendo Theris to follow.

  Tel Clovis saw them coming and gave a pleasant smile. “You’ve done well with Ankor, Mr. Theris.” He spoke in his old voice, but with a softer, calmer presence.

  Although Tanja Hu had promised to nurture the new colony in exchange for telemancy protection, the shadow-Xayan colonists carried cases of alien artifacts with them, preserved items that Lodo, Keana-Uroa, and Cristoph de Carre had removed from the subterranean museum vault.

  “We brought the original writings of Zairic as well as our recorded history, some Xayan poetry, and music,” Tryn said, sounding exuberant. “It is what we need to make our colony whole.”

  The General looked at the artifacts with interest. “Are you sure we can’t use anything here to defend Hellhole?”

  “Everything is of use,” Tryn said, “if one knows how to use it.”

  “That’s not very helpful,” Adolphus said. “I was hoping for weapons technology.” Even with his detailed scheme, he never stopped thinking of alternative plans, just in case.

  A lean and energetic woman emerged from the Ankor operations building dressed in a trim, comfortable uniform that was part jumpsuit and part business attire. She had short brunette hair, dark eyes, and a pointed chin. A well-behaved ten-year-old boy followed her; his brown hair showed a prominent cowlick. The woman’s manner was crisp to the point of brusqueness. “General Adolphus, I am Bebe Nax, aide to Administrator Hu. She sent me to fetch the new colonists.” She glanced at Tryn but showed no alarm at the alien form, nor did she seem bothered by the shadow-Xayans. “It’ll be different, I admit, but I’m not one to judge.”

  The silent boy stood at her side, keenly interested and unable to tear his gaze from the Xayan. Bebe remembered her manners. “This is my adopted son, Jacque. He’s never been away from Candela, and I want him to see and learn as much as possible.”

  The General extended his hand. “Welcome, Jacque.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The boy seemed more in awe of him than of the alien. “I’ve read about your rebellion.”

  “And I made sure he read the correct history, too,” Bebe Nax said. “Not the Crown Jewel propaganda.”

  “If only everyone in the Constellation would do the same,” he said.

  Bebe looked at the group, mentally counting and assessing the space they would need aboard the transport. “We can ferry these people up twenty at a time in a passenger shuttle. I’m ready to go as soon as they are.”

  “We are ready.” Tryn twitched the retractable feelers on her forehead.

  “I support your goal, you know that.” The General pa
used, thinking of the telemancy powers he had already seen. “Just don’t ascend yourselves and vanish on me before we defeat the Diadem and ensure peace.”

  15

  At midmorning, Sophie stood near the shimmering slickwater pools, reservoirs of preserved alien memories. Her lightweight blue-and-gold jacket—a gift from the General—carried insignia of the Deep Zone Defense Force, and she wore it proudly.

  While awaiting an aerocopter filled with a group of eager, and nervous, new arrivals, she saw continuing construction activity as workers framed another lodging structure on the west side of the property near the landing field.

  This “resort” was the site of the original discovery of slickwater, where Fernando Neron had stumbled into the strange pool and emerged with a full-fledged alien personality and memories from the planet’s supposedly extinct race. After Hellhole cut itself off from the Crown Jewels, tourists from these worlds stopped coming, but increasing numbers flocked in from the DZ itself, people curious or determined to bring back the Xayan race and use newfound alien powers to help defend Hellhole. Thousands of shadow-Xayans already lived nearby in their own settlement.

  To accommodate all the visitors, many of whom stayed for days before they could summon the courage to plunge into the slickwater, Sophie had arranged for tents, cabins, and larger lodgings. On a boardwalk that encircled the nearest of the three pools, Sophie surveyed a new group of volunteers pausing at the edge of the strange, viscous water. As she watched, one of them slipped into the pool, splashed, remained submerged for a very long time, and then rose to the surface with a changed, beatific expression and an eerie shimmer in her eyes. So many visitors had come to Slickwater Springs that she no longer tried to keep track of them; she had enough trouble remembering her own staff.

  An office aide named Marie Cluré hurried up to Sophie, her steps sounding on the boardwalk. She had never summoned the courage to immerse herself in the pools, but had proved invaluable in managing the flow of visitors. Now she carried a printout of a high-res image. “I thought you should see this, ma’am! Observation sats detected something unusual out on the prairies to the north—a fresh expanse of wild, fernlike vegetation. It wasn’t even there on the survey a month ago. The growth is unbelievable. Like the whole plain was reseeded and watered.”

  Mystified, Sophie looked at the image. “I’ve heard of patches like this cropping up all over.” Several months earlier, one of her scouts had discovered the explosion of red-weed growth, a resurgence of life to the devastated landscape. This new outburst of vegetation had appeared within the space of a few weeks.

  “We’ll investigate it later,” she said, “when we don’t have to worry about the Constellation fleet.”

  With the General’s declaration of independence, fear and tension had spread across the DZ. By now everyone had also heard the real story of the massacre on Ridgetop, when the Diadem had brutally retaliated against a frontier colony that had dared to defy her. The rebels knew what could happen to them unless they defended themselves, and some believed that the best line of defense was for them to gain access to Xayan telemancy.

  Governor Carlson Goler had recently led a rally on Ridgetop, calling for volunteers to immerse themselves in the Hellhole slickwater, and a new group had just arrived via stringline. As the volunteers disembarked from the landed aerocopter, Sophie went out to greet and reassure them. For the most part they were strong young men and women, with a few hardy-looking older colonists. Regardless of their current physical condition, the slickwater would heal and strengthen them. By coming here, they had already agreed to join the Deep Zone Defense Force.

  A man in his thirties, Rolf Jessup, told Sophie he was their unit commander, though they wore no uniforms. Jessup had a presence about him that she found appealing, an intensity and intelligence in his eyes and a confident way of carrying himself. He would become a different person—even stronger, she hoped—once he acquired a Xayan companion personality.

  Jessup gave her a firm handshake. “We’re not much to look at, ma’am, but every one of us will give you as much dedication and fighting spirit as you could want. And we won’t lose this time.”

  As the manager of Slickwater Springs, Sophie frequently encouraged visitors to acquire Xayan personalities, but she felt like a hypocrite. Though she had seen wonder and satisfaction on so many faces, she would never plunge into one of the pools herself. She still struggled to accept the changes that had occurred in her own son. Devon was the real reason she had left their Crown Jewel home of Klief and come to Hellhole, to give him a new start—but she hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t expected to lose him.

  “He is still here, Sophie,” Adolphus had said when she expressed her concerns. “But he isn’t the same.”

  “I know. He’s tried to reassure me—and I can convince myself rationally of all the benefits he says he’s enjoying from Birzh—more than he ever had before, more memories, a wealth of ideas, mental powers.” She realized she was just repeating the words Devon had told her, as if trying to convince herself. “He’s achieved and experienced an existence that he could never have dreamed of in his normal life.” She drew a deep breath, shook her head in dismay. “I see flashes of the old Devon, but … he’s not nearly as close to me anymore.”

  “He and the shadow-Xayans may save us all.”

  Now, as two new converts emerged from the slickwater, dripping wet, the liquid oozed off them and returned to the pool. They stood together, changed, amazed, strong. Sophie forced herself to congratulate them.

  * * *

  Returning to Elba that afternoon, she found Devon and Antonia in the General’s parlor. The slender, brown-haired young woman sat at the piano, picking at the keys with an expression of intense concentration on her face.

  Sophie knew that Devon had been smitten with the girl from the moment she took shelter in their warehouse during a growler storm. Now the two were not just lovers, but were connected with a pair of alien personalities who also loved each other.

  Devon perked up as his mother arrived, and sounded like his old self. “Come listen—Antonia is about to play a special song.”

  Plinking the keys, Antonia said, “My mother was an excellent pianist and taught me how to play. My Xayan counterpart is also a musician, so Jhera and I decided to combine our skills. A duet like there’s never been!”

  Antonia’s old life on Aeroc had been idyllic and luxurious, until it all came crashing down when a sadistic boyfriend murdered her parents. She had fled to the Deep Zone to escape him … but even Hellhole hadn’t been far enough.

  Antonia-Jhera looked up from the piano, turned her shimmering eyes toward Devon, and played a few more notes. “Listen…”

  As she grew more comfortable, Antonia entered a sort of trance, playing faster, adding familiar melodies with an unexpected counterpoint of music constructed on an entirely different set of mathematics. The composition started out lovely and haunting, a simple tune that became more energetic and complex as she immersed herself in it, then slowed and wound back to what it had been, then took an entirely different and equally complex route into another high-energy variation of the underlying melody.

  Antonia kept exploring tributaries of the core music, then returning. From the distant look on her face and the spiral shimmer in her eyes, Sophie knew the alien Jhera was fully immersed in the performance. The hypnotic swirl of notes and tones seemed impossible from a piano, and the sound resonated throughout the parlor.

  It was a concerto of sound different from anything Sophie had ever experienced. Hearing it, a flickering of images filtered into her mind, and her head filled with frightening but indefinable shapes. Instinctively, she wanted to flee the parlor, but just as she became conscious of her panic, she felt the opposite and sat back down, as if the music drew her back, welcoming her and wrapping its soothing notes around her in a comforting blanket of sound that contrasted sharply with the preceding sounds.

  She looked at her son, who also sat transfixed. See
ing the love for Antonia in his eyes, Sophie began to cry. Maybe it was the music, or maybe it was her own heart.

  16

  While some Deep Zone worlds were rugged places fit for only the hardiest settlers, most were attractive in their own ways: untamed, with vast landscapes to explore, untapped resources, and far from the stifling Crown Jewels. Tanja Hu had no desire for any other world besides jungled Candela, but she could understand why her friend Sia Frankov loved Theser.

  The planet had a wide-open landscape forested with spiny succulents, and was rich in minerals. Numerous ancient asteroid strikes had left deep and lush crater valleys, and the largest bowl provided a comfortable, sheltered habitat for Theser’s capital city of Eron. Moisture tended to settle in the lowlands. Low cloudbanks watered the agricultural fields that thrived on the porous soil of the crater floor. The city itself was built in terraced layers of the steep crater walls.

  After passing through Tanja’s new stringline hub recently installed above Candela, she and Ian Walfor transported the six rebuilt warships along the direct path to Theser. Ambitious, Tanja had made the new iperion route a high priority. Her people had finished it at breakneck speed, and a trailblazer ship was already laying down a second line from Candela to Cles. She expected that in due time her world would become a major DZ commercial center.

  Sia Frankov was a like-minded woman, and she and Tanja often got together on their respective planets, sharing a drink of the local alcoholic specialty, plotting their dreams, negotiating commercial alliances, anticipating a bright future for the Deep Zone. Tanja wished the damned military preparations would stop interfering with her commercial ambitions, but she also wanted to humiliate Diadem Michella after all the bitch had done.

  Walfor used a powerful tractor ship to drag its towline of vessels that required stardrive engines from the Theser engineers. He seemed to enjoy operating the huge and unwieldy vessel so he could show off his piloting skills for her. Sitting next to Walfor on the command deck, Tanja smiled as she watched how smoothly he did it. And she would let him show off for her. Someday, they would be able to enjoy peace and she could think of romance; for now, she had to remain focused.