by Diane Carey
“Since the Formless gave us dynadrive,” Shucorion said, “we have no rest from the eternal conflict between us. With starspeed, we can reach each other’s planet any time. We will never rest again. Kauld have every reason to rejoice and no reason to offer a friend’s hand to us. Yet you come today to speak with me, at a time when alliance makes no sense for you. True?”
“In the way you mean it, yes, it’s true.”
“This is mystifying, Battlelord.”
“I took information from that ship before I destroyed it. We have translated it now, and it speaks of trouble for us all.” The elegant enemy paused, realizing he wasn’t being believed.
Not a good start, to begin with a lie, Shucorion thought. He knew Vellyngaith had been monitoring the survey ship’s transmissions for months and clumsily translating the messages.
Vellyngaith let a few seconds slip by, then spoke bluntly. “New people are coming to this cluster. They call themselves ‘Federation.’ ”
“And you just dragged their representatives into the moon,” Shucorion snapped. “Many have prodded around this cluster. Prinda, Meram, the Formless—all have passed by this star system for one or another reason. Bad strategic location, unremarkable properties, too far-flung, or wrong for their bodies somehow. Why do you bother to destroy a little scan ship out by itself?”
“You sent a Savage to attack the scan ship too, Avedon.”
“I wanted only to drive them out. It wasn’t in my plans to destroy them.”
Vellyngaith narrowed his deepset eyes. “Were you squeamish about killing them?”
“Killing them would not have served me yet. My plan was to drive them off, strand them in open space, and let them limp away. They would have reported to their people that they found hostility here and were violently driven away. Then they would have left us alone. Now that you’ve destroyed them, their people will come searching for them. You, Battlelord, have sent an irresistible flash to Federation and beckoned them here.”
A gritty silence fell between them. The battlelord’s eyes hardened as if there were a real chemical change occurring, so strong were his emotions. His hands clenched. His guards raised their weapons a few inches, drawing upon subtle signals from their leader. His lips pressed and worked. Despite the overture of approach, Shucorion felt the cruel vibrations of pure animosity.
“I had not thought of that,” Vellyngaith admitted when he could speak again. “You have an interesting mind, Avedon. However, my actions change nothing. The information from the scanner ship told of many horrifying things. The size of Federation, first of all—according to the records, they are enormous! Far more immense than you can imagine. Your people and mine have been locked together for generations and always will be, but we have always lived in a great empty ocean. Now the ocean is crowding. The scanner ship’s log tells us that Federation is coming here, now, as we speak today, in a great single movement of ships. They mean to settle this planet.”
Shucorion pointed at the wide viewing portal at the end of the Savage deck. “That planet?”
“Yes.”
“But you Kauld . . .”
“Yes, my own people have a plan to build our first off-world base there. So you know about it?”
“Everyone knows about—” Shucorion’s mind began to spin off a simple answer to a very complex possibility as he realized what Vellyngaith had just said. Yes, everyone knew that the Kauld were planning to construct a huge military base to house their entire force, to replace the facility that had served them through so many Elliptical Wars. Ambitious—and fantastical in its providence. They were building it off their world!
Instantly he couldn’t contain himself. His hand once again flew toward the vision on the screen. “That planet?”
Control yourself! Don’t give anything away! Don’t laugh.
He clamped his lips shut and fought to drive the raving delight from his face. Sober, sober, don’t give it away. He knew they were planning to build off their world, but on this particular planet?
“Seems,” he struggled, “inconvenient. . . . Why . . . would Kauld bother to build a fortress away from your world? How could you defend your world?”
“With starspeed we will be able to defend.” Vellyngaith turned suddenly gaunt in the face, as if this observation disturbed him. “With all these changes, we must all start thinking in a more interstellar way, Avedon.”
What kind of answer was that? Kauld were not known for their philosophy.
“Are you,” Shucorion prodded, “prepared to build there soon?”
“We’re making preparations. This is the first time for us to move off our planet. We are forced to do most of the building in established facilities, then move the constructed parts. And, of course, you Blood would rather we failed.”
The critical moment had arrived. Shucorion’s next claims would be the hinge upon which the future would turn. Yes, I would prefer failure, if I didn’t know what I know today.
Moving slowly, Shucorion forced himself to pace as if in thought, as if changing his mind.
“I would rather you failed,” he stalled, thinking hard. “A Kauld installation of significant proportions, outside of our binary system, would be troublesome for Blood. It would be our end.”
“You were here to look at the planet, weren’t you?” Vellyngaith asked candidly.
Guarding his expression, Shucorion faced him and handed him his deception back in a new form. “We could never hope to stop your constructions, Battlelord. Both our races are weak with repeated conflict through the generations. You can barely expand, and we could not possibly stop you.”
Vellyngaith nodded. “We want to expand, but it is difficult while in the middle of conflict that will never rest from now on. We can build an installation, put our army there, and spend the next years destroying Blood. Or you and I, today, can make history.”
Shucorion smiled, letting a hint of his overwhelming delight spark through. “We’ve already done that, Battlelord.”
“Yes, though more can happen,” Vellyngaith said. “You can join me, as a signal to your people that things need not be destruction between us anymore. We could destroy you all, or all of you can live under our hand. Life is better, I think.”
Oh, this was too much. Shucorion folded his arms. “What do you want? Why offer me this?”
“Because Federation is coming. It changes everything.”
“How does it change everything?”
“If they build on that planet before Kauld can make our installation, we will never have the strength to dislodge them. Federation is soft and warm and harmless . . . until you cut it. Then it is all claws and teeth. Both Kauld and Blood should be concerned that Federation be kept away from here, or we will undoubtedly be under them.”
True, then. Vellyngaith didn’t know what the sparkles in space meant. He hadn’t analyzed them correctly. Otherwise he wouldn’t still be talking about wanting that planet.
Was that possible? Was Shucorion the only man in space who possessed the specialized knowledge to decipher those readings? The surge of realization nearly made him laugh, an eruption which he managed to catch back at the last second. Astounding!
“There’s nothing essential for them on that planet,” he pointed out carefully. “It hasn’t even any name.”
“They have named it. In their language they call it ‘Belter.’ ”
“Belter . . . What does that mean?”
“We have no idea what it means,” Vellyngaith said.
“Why would they build there?”
“According to the recorder library of the scan ship, they seem to do things just to do them. They come to live on planets where the air and water are right for them, and even tolerate extremes of temperature.”
“What do they do on these planets?”
“Live on them, apparently.”
“Leave their homes without a reason?”
Vellyngaith’s squarish eyes widened. “Adventure is their reason. Wanderlust.
”
“Adventure . . .” Shucorion squinted at the word, shook his head, paused, tried to imagine such a wild unessential goal, then shook his head again. Wanderlust? Wanderlust.
“To us it seems frivolous,” Vellyngaith confirmed. “But they do it. We have come to believe, if we interpret their messages correctly, that Federation has conquered planets far-flung for light-years around their primary star system. If they’re coming here, we must all learn to think differently for the first time in our history. You, Shucorion, among Blood, are the one who thinks differently.”
Cautious before his own men, Shucorion made no claim to that accusation, remaining noncommittal and silent.
“You’re right,” Vellyngaith went on. “Kauld and Blood have battled each other to weakness. Before dynadrive, the years of separation between cycles gave us a chance to rebuild and face each other again with strength, but those periods of rest are gone forever. If Federation settles here while we are still weak, this will be their space by the time of the next cycle. They’ll overrun both of us. The time for fighting between us will have to be over. I am surprised too. Necessity is a hard bargainer.”
Shucorion gazed at the other man’s piercing eyes in their squarish frame of silver lashes. “Are you lying?”
Are you pretending not to know about the moon?
Vellyngaith made no oaths. “Federation will bring a thousand fighting men for every Kauld and Blood man, woman, apprentice, or infant. We must establish our installation on their chosen planet, so they decide not to come here at all. Unless we work together, we will be their next conquest.”
Unpleasant, these new ideas.
Shucorion nodded, mostly to himself. “Killing each other was getting a little dull. . . .”
“We saw no other way,” Vellyngaith said. “Now the other way has found us.”
Disturbing, to get words from your enemy which seemed completely truthful. Strange, odd, unbalanced.
“What do you want?” Shucorion asked forthrightly.
“I want you to carry a message of cooperation to Blood Core. We must work to discourage Federation from coming to our star cluster long enough for my people to build our army fortress. Then, Kauld and Blood can embark on a future that will not leave us all dead and our planets barren. I believe that you, Avedon Shucorion, among your people have the nerve to do this.”
Without waiting for further discussion, Vellyngaith cast one glance at Dimion, then gestured his men back to the transfer caskets. “Will you transfer us back alive, or shall I contact my barge?”
“You will go back alive,” Shucorion promised. “If I have you killed in the transfer process, your barge will slaughter us all.”
“Yes.” Vellyngaith stepped into the first casket, and his men stepped into their own, until all ten were loaded. “Take time to think. You will come to the conclusion that this is not a risk. To show you that I do not lie today, you and your Plume will be allowed to leave this star system, no matter what you decide.”
* * *
“He went!” Dimion gasped. “You made him go! How did you do that? He’s letting us live when he could sla—”
“He wants us alive,” Shucorion said, “or so he tells me. He calls it ‘time to think.’ ”
Lowering as if weak, Dimion sat on a Savage’s landing strut and groaned. “Thinking is dangerous. He’s trying to make us confused.”
Shucorion folded his arms and looked down at him. Nearby, Derron and his squad watched their leader with undisguised nervousness. Some of the guards had rushed back to their posts to watch the Kauld battlebarge warily, to see if Vellyngaith’s word turned out to be worth anything, but Derron and the primary squad would remain here to escort Shucorion back to the control core, where he would make his decisions known to the rest of the crew.
“He has succeeded then. I’m confused,” he admitted. “Overtures of peace? Why? Dynadrive was the last curse for Blood. It eliminated the period of rest between wars. The Kauld were ultimately going to defeat us, because we would never again catch up to all their advantages. Now Federation is poking around, and suddenly the Kauld want truce? It doesn’t make sense. There can only be one reason. Kauld want to build their fortress on that . . . on ‘Belter,’ while Blood go off to fight someone stronger. This is a way for them to keep us fighting while they rest and build their installation away from the disasters of our solar system.”
“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Dimion stood up, his legs shaking. “If they’re willing to let us get away . . .”
“Nothing comes without a price, Dimion.” Shucorion paced away a few steps, staring at the deck. “I’ve been thinking about the Blood Curse, our people saddled with a star system that brings us to war every few generations. And now this enormous change . . . and that moon . . .”
His mind spun. He pressed his knuckles to the sides of his head.
“Vellyngaith’s forces are stronger, but not so strong that they need not keep an eye on the Blood Many. Now he conjures to spread us out, make us thin, weaker. But I see another possibility here. He doesn’t know about that moon.”
“What about it?” Dimion asked.
Shucorion almost told him, but held back. He was still locked in his own rocketing thoughts. “Is this an opportunity? Do we dare think in terms of trying something so radically new?”
Derron and the other guardsmen came around the ring to gather near him, to listen to what their avedon and Dimion were saying to each other. Shucorion preferred privacy, but how could he have it? They were all understandably curious, hovering here on the edge of destruction and having just made history. Shucorion felt their eyes and wished away those expressions of trust and near-worship. He had stoked his own legend in favor of his people, and these men were the truest believers. Many, like Dimion, had been clearance contractors who worked after every disaster, who took their refuge in that occupation, for there was always work. Without work, what future was there?
Instead they had come to space with him, to forge a new kind of future.
“I was like any other Blood,” Shucorion mused, “until the one day when I got lazy and took a risk. That’s all it was, you know, laziness. Yet things suddenly became better for me. You know the story. What if I am the instrument of change for all our people?” Careful not to meet the eye of any man, to corner any individual into declaring belief aloud, he wondered, “What if a curse runs out with enough work?”
“What does that mean?” Dimion asked. “Are you saying you’ll become Vellyngaith’s ally? What if Core Command disagrees?”
“If they disagree . . .” Shucorion allowed his words to trail off as he considered more alternatives than most of his people would dare.
Disagree?
Almost immediately he made his decision. “I won’t tell them.”
His men stared at him. The risk bewildered them. Yet they were tempted by his example.
Quickly, to smother any idea that he was going too far over a line, he went on. “If I tell Blood Core, then they’ll be forced to make a decision that should be mine, in a situation I invited to happen. If I take action myself, without consulting them, then the disaster will be my fault and Core will be able to claim truthfully that they sanctioned nothing I did. Vellyngaith won’t be able to use my mistake against Blood, because no one will know but us.”
Speaking for a crew of ninety, people who trusted him,
“You are favored among Blood.” Dimion gazed at him in the way Shucorion hated and also relied upon. “You may be the one to turn the curse away.”
Shucorion let a few moments pass, the new idea settle in. “We mustn’t hope. But if things can change for us, Dimion, I may be the element of that change. If we can once turn the future in our favor, the Blood Curse might be broken forever.”
This was a day for astonishments, one after the other.
The men around him freely showed their apprehension and with their silence gave him permission to get them all killed. None wanted to be the first
to speak up against him. For a moment he took this as a testimonial, only moments later to decide that they had been ready to die in space together for a long time and that this was but one more step toward the inevitable.
Not today, though.
“Why would they bother to build a new fortress at all? As far as they know, they’ve won. They have star-drive, and they are stronger than Blood. That means they’ve won if they simply bide their time. Why embark on a massive movement of all their forces off-world?”
“Could they be trying to reduce potential losses by separating targets?”
“Possibly. Because their planet is more stable, they’ve always been able to house and train all their military people in one massive complex on the lower hemisphere of their planet, away from the rest of the population. With star-drive, they can be on two planets, put their fleet strength away from our star system, avoid the Ellipse disasters, and never have to rebuild their military base because of storms or quakes.”
Frantic, Dimion gulped, “We can’t let them build there!”
Shucorion put out a calming hand. “Things are not as they seem anymore. I believe, at last, the Blood Curse is lifting for us.”
“How? Do you think we can stop them from building it?”
“No, no . . . not stop them. Everything is different today.” Shucorion spoke slowly, intending to be completely clear, if not understood. “Today, I want them to build their base.”
“You want—” Dimion choked on his own words. “But that’s—that’s—”
“Treason. I know.” Ripples of amazement—no, even horror—broke and ran from face to face among the crew. No one knew what to say.
“The Federation surveyor has given me a template,” Shucorion went on. “How gallant, how robust they were! I expected them to run. I would’ve run and come back later. They turned and stood their ground . . . even during the Elliptical War I never saw anything like that. I have to learn from it, or we’ll fail. Dimion, get me all the recordings you can find that come from Federation’s signals.”