“It is not weight that I fear, Nira. It is darkness.”
“Then close your eyes and dream about the light.”
She kissed his eyelids, and he lay back, pretending that he didn’t feel the cold shadow inside of him. But the more he wished for peaceful dreams, the more harshly his body and mind reacted.
In the human enclave, shopkeepers opened their doors, set out their wares, and prepared for the day’s business. Blondie cooked meals for her human customers. Crisp, savory aromas of frying onions and spattering grease wafted from the sizzling griddle. The coffee-shop owner brewed a new batch.
The artist who made mirrored wind spinners and colorful dreamcatchers hung out new creations that she had made the previous day, and now they turned in the faint breeze, reflecting light. The dulcimer maker propped up one of his new instruments, crafted from a combination of rosewood and imported black pine. Taking the soft hammers, he began to tap out lovely ethereal music, but he couldn’t seem to find the tune.
The writer sat at his usual place at an outdoor table drinking a second cup of coffee, which tasted just as bitter as the first one. He couldn’t concentrate on words to put down in his tablet.
The coffee-shop owner took a seat next to him with a foamy cup of cappuccino. She looked out at the quiet city of Mijistra, which seemed to be holding its breath to the point of suffocation.
Blondie came over, wearing an apron tied across her skirt. The heavyset woman brought two large cinnamon rolls drizzled with white frosting. “These were leftover from yesterday. If they don’t get eaten today, they’ll be wasted.”
The coffee-shop owner said, “I don’t feel welcome here anymore. I’m considering packing up and moving back to Ramah.”
A gust of wind rippled through the enclave, twirling the dreamcatchers and wind spinners. Suddenly, they fell still. The dulcimer player stopped his music and looked around. The hush deepened.
The writer glanced up to see a group of Ildirans coming down the streets toward the shop district of the human enclave.
Blondie set forks next to each cinnamon roll. “Looks like we might have customers after all.”
The writer kept staring at the approaching Ildirans. His brow furrowed, and he slid aside his coffee cup. He had not touched the cinnamon roll. “I’m not sure they’re here as customers.”
The Ildirans came from all kiths, judging by the mixture of clothing and body types, but they moved as if choreographed into a single unit. Their steps were somnolent, their expressions affectless.
The dulcimer maker put on his performance smile and played several notes before falling silent. Other humans came out of their shops and homes to watch.
The Ildiran crowd revealed clubs and crystal-bladed weapons. Without increasing speed, without yelling or showing any emotion at all, they began to smash and attack everything in sight.
Jora’h found no pathway to the Lightsource from within his nightmares. He dreamed of the lens kith, who smiled and gave him advice in a language he didn’t understand. They appeared one after another in a circle around him, and he spun around, desperate to learn what they were saying.
But every time he turned his back on one, the lens kithmen drew a dagger and stabbed him between the shoulder blades. When he whirled, trying to get away, a different lens kithman stabbed him. Each jolt of pain thrummed out through the thism, and made the stain grow.
One of the lens kith handed him a large round lens. “Peer through this, Liege, and you will see what truly awaits.”
But when Jora’h stared through the lens, it merely painted the whole world black.
The humans in the enclave tried to defend themselves. The writer fought with a chair. Blondie returned with cutting knives and heavy pans.
The marching Ildirans fell upon the dulcimer shop, smashing and jangling the instruments. When the musician tried to stop them, they smashed his skull to a pulp and stomped on his ribs until his body was a broken pool of flesh.
They set fire to Blondie’s diner, and the flames and black smoke rose high.
The writer and the dreamcatcher artist barricaded themselves inside a home, but the structure was not defensible for long. Ildirans smashed the windows, broke down the door, and pushed their way inside with clubs and crystal blades. Eight Ildirans managed to fit into the small home, and they closed on the cornered victims. Each one took a turn at the stabbing.
The massacre continued. All the artwork, signs, businesses, and homes were vandalized, desecrated. The fire began to spread. They slaughtered every human, dragging some out from bolt-holes and cutting them to pieces in the streets. Others were simply locked inside their dwellings and burned alive.
Throughout it all, the mob made no sound. When they were finished and every human was murdered, the Ildirans reawakened and became aware of who they were.
Looking around at the bloodshed and destruction they had caused, they began to wail. Their return to consciousness was no mercy, though, but a brief revelation so they could know despair at what they had done.
Then, like harvested grain, every one of them fell dead in the bloody streets.
When Jora’h tore himself out of sleep, he was screaming. Nira shook him, held him against his thrashing. She shouted his name.
He stared at her and finally his eyes focused.
Nira put her arms around him. “I’m here. It’ll be all right.”
But he knew that it was far from all right. He dreaded going out into Mijistra to discover exactly what had just occurred.
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE
KING PETER
During the Kutuzov’s return to Theroc from the Ildiran Empire, the mood aboard was somber, not like a celebratory homecoming.
King Peter had already been aware that the shadow clouds were immensely destructive—General Keah’s encounters proved that, as did the obliteration of the Golgen skymine. But in Mijistra, he and Estarra had also seen how the darkness infected random Ildirans like a murderous poison. The Shana Rei were a far more insidious enemy than he had imagined.
If the creatures of darkness had declared war on intelligent life itself, human and Ildiran, there could be no reasoning with them, no negotiation. The Shana Rei and the Klikiss robots would have to be fought, defeated, destroyed.
He and Estarra were glad to have their son back, though dismayed to learn of Reyn’s debilitating medical condition, which he had hidden from them. He had revealed his illness to Osira’h—and to Arita, months ago—before telling his parents. Peter was shocked that he hadn’t recognized the signs. The clues seemed so obvious now.
And just when Reyn had finally decided to accept all the help that others could offer, the Spiral Arm might be at war again with an enemy more terrible than they could comprehend. As the Confederation’s King, Peter had to defend all of his worlds, but as a father he couldn’t help worrying about his son. . . .
As the Kutuzov arrived at Theroc, General Keah stood on the bridge, regarding the ferocious verdani battleships and the heavily armed Manta cruisers placed in orbit to protect the planet. She propped her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you we’re safe now, Sire, but these aren’t exactly normal circumstances. We have the Solar Navy’s sun bomb designs, and I intend to have our armaments industries at the LOC manufacture them at top speed.”
Peter looked out at the thorny verdani treeships as the Juggernaut glided past. Osira’h and Reyn watched the forward viewscreens together; the two seemed inseparable. The halfbreed girl tilted her head, and her brow furrowed. Her feathery hair twitched just slightly. “Do the treeships always feel so . . . uneasy?”
“That’s a question for the green priests,” Estarra said. “I’m just glad we’re all home.”
While General Keah remained aboard her flagship, the rest of them returned to the fungus reef. Reyn seemed glad for the opportunity to show Osira’h the wonders of the worldforest, though he was disappointed to learn that his sister was off by herself in the Wi
ld. He wanted Osira’h and Arita to meet.
Anton Colicos joined them, bringing a thick stack of documents with him. Though shaken by the assassination attempt and the death of his assistant, he refused to abandon his work. Even on Theroc, he would continue to study forgotten tales about the Shana Rei, while rememberers on Ildira did further translations.
Inside the throne room of the fungus-reef, Peter picked up on the tension in the air that Osira’h had detected. He whispered to Estarra, “I can feel it. Something’s not right.”
The Queen’s dark eyes were troubled. “I thought it was just my imagination after what happened on Ildira, but . . . I agree.”
Documents and obligations had piled up while they were away. The business of the Confederation continued as usual. Space traffic and trade to Theroc remained undeterred, and planetary representatives met inside large conference-room chambers.
A delegation of green priests insisted on seeing Mother Estarra and Father Peter; they pushed their way to the front of the schedule, much to the annoyance of a shipping company and an allied planetary cluster that wished to formalize an extended trade agreement.
The four green priests stood close together, two women, two men. A slender female said in a warning voice, “The worldforest is deeply disturbed. The trees sense a terrible force coming here.”
The throne room’s wallscreens activated, their blank dullness replaced by an image of General Keah. “Something’s going on out here, Sire! The tree battleships are shaking.” She glanced up quickly as one of her bridge officers gave her an urgent message, and Keah’s eyes widened. “There’s a disturbance in space, sensors going wild . . . aww, shit, it’s one of those damn shadow clouds!” She squared her uniformed shoulders, deadly serious. “The CDF will do everything possible to defend Theroc, Sire. You can count on the Kutuzov and all my Mantas.”
Estarra said, “That may not be enough. You saw what they did at Plumas.”
“We’re still going to fight—we don’t have any of those Ildiran sun bombs yet, but we’ll try everything else in our arsenal.”
Everyone in the throne room watched the wallscreens as an inky stain bled out of a rip in the universe into the starry openness of space. Three enormous hexagons emerged from the tear, cylindrical vessels that looked like blunted spears.
Peter felt cold inside, as if the Shana Rei had found some way to leak a shadow into his body.
Estarra turned to the delegation of green priests. “We’ll need the verdani battleships to help defend us.”
The orbiting treeships spread their thorny branches and swelled into a defensive line. Peter had seen them wrap those massive boughs around hydrogue warglobes and crush them. Maybe they could fight back against the Shana Rei hex ships.
When the Mantas attacked, jazers did little more than make a darker scratch on the ebony surface of the hexagon ships. Each time a CDF vessel approached the Shana Rei vessels, their systems were scrambled, and many of the shots missed.
Out of arrogance, or maybe because they simply didn’t care, the Shana Rei ignored the provocation. Instead, the black hex cylinders aligned themselves at the edge of the widening shadow cloud, but did not approach.
Peter ordered General Keah to back off and take a defensive position. “Don’t lose any more ships until we find a better way to fight.”
As a desperate alterative, he and Estarra tried to open communications with the creatures of darkness. “Shana Rei, this is King Peter, leader of the human Confederation. We have no desire for war. What have we done to provoke you?”
At the beginning of the Elemental War, when the hydrogues began to attack human settlements, the Terran Hanseatic League had no idea what they had done to incite the deep-core aliens . . . and by the time they had learned the answer, it was much too late.
Peter and Estarra sent message after message to the Shana Rei, but received no response. The gigantic black ships just hung there, directing the flat ends of the hexagonal cylinders toward the forested planet. The continuing silence was a void in itself.
Then something changed on the dark battleships. A thin slice of the hexagonal end separated from the main cylinder and twirled away. Identical slices peeled off the ends of the other two cylinders and hexagonal plates spun off into space—toward Theroc.
Slice after slice produced plates that flew together until they took up position high above the verdani battleships. One hexagon linked to a second, edge to edge, and a third nestled in like a piece of a puzzle. Another hex, then another. More slices continued to spin away from the black cylinders, connecting to the other plates.
Piece by piece, they began to construct a wall in space.
On the comm General Keah shouted to her weapons officer, “Full bombardment! Knock that structure apart.”
The CDF ships launched jazers and high-velocity railgun projectiles against the growing barricade. The most concentrated explosions broke some of the hexagonal plates apart, but the hexes drifted back together as if they were magnetically bound.
Hanging motionless above Theroc, nested in their shadow cloud, the Shana Rei cylinders continued to split off plate after plate, piece after piece, by the thousands, which did not even seem to diminish the size of the gigantic ships. The hexagonal components locked together and spread the barricade wider.
Peter was the first to recognize what it was. “It’s an occultation barrier—to create an artificial eclipse over Theroc. Without even coming closer, they can block out the sun.”
Estarra put it more bluntly, “All of the worldtrees will wither and die.”
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR
TOM ROM
After half an hour of processing, Tom Rom’s navigation interpolation systems managed to pinpoint where he was. He had dropped out of lightspeed somewhere between the stars, reeling out of control in the escape pod, but the computers were able to map the brightest points, the closest stars, and determine his position, then suggest alternatives of where he could go.
When designing the ship, he had tried to ensure that he could survive any emergency. His escape pod contained extended life-support capabilities and minimal engines. He had food and air for a long voyage, supplemental power blocks, enough to be self-sufficient for quite a while, whatever it might take for him to get back to civilization.
Now that he had been exposed to the plague, though, what Tom Rom did not have was time. He no longer needed to worry about preserving the vials of Orli’s infected blood for Zoe Alakis. He himself was a walking specimen—but he had to survive long enough to get back to Zoe, and he was far from any hope of rescue.
He studied his engine-thrust capacity, the ekti levels that remained. He reviewed all available information about any inhabited systems in the vicinity. Pergamus was much too far away. The nearest possibility was a small, obscure transfer station with a Klikiss transportal node. Vuoral.
He just might make it there. It was his only chance.
According to his most optimistic calculations, he would never live to reach the next closest planet on the list, not to mention survive the journey back to Pergamus from there, provided he could arrange transportation. He wanted to see Zoe one more time.
The Vuoral transfer station had its advantages. He’d be able to find one or two ships there, while avoiding questions that might delay him.
Tom Rom needed to be meticulous. Although his desire to deliver the alien microorganism to Zoe was paramount, he also had to make sure that the plague did not spread. That was not, nor would it ever be, his intention. The deadly disease had to be properly contained; Orli Covitz had been correct in that respect.
He set course and ignited the pod’s engines, applying full thrust with the stardrive and burning his fuel at a rapid clip. No sense in conserving ekti if he could shave an hour or two off of his ETA. Tom Rom would have at most two or three days before the plague symptoms became obvious to anyone who glanced at him. And an infected captain would raise suspicions and complicate the rest of his plan.
Tom Rom could not go down to the surface, because that would release the plague. He had to find some other ship—and soon.
Fortunately, as he approached Vuoral he spotted a small independent trading ship in orbit, one of the unaffiliated vessels that eked out a living by working niche routes and serving out-of-the-way places, sometimes making a profit, sometimes suffering a loss.
Yes, the ship would serve his purposes nicely.
He had already developed his story, and he began transmitting a distress beacon directly toward the trader. “Declaring an emergency—I need help. Life support is failing, stardrive fuel almost gone. This escape pod is all that’s left of my ship, and it’s not holding together. Please pick me up!”
It was like casting bait into a lake. He didn’t see any other ships at Vuoral, so there was only one option, and the trader ship responded as he had known it would. A distress call must be answered: few things were so ingrained in the mind of anyone who flew aboard a spaceship.
The response came immediately. “This is the Pigeon. We’re on our way. What’s your status?”
“Surviving—for now. But hurry.”
After a quick check, he found that the ship’s hatches were compatible with his own, so Tom Rom knew he could transfer across. He prepared himself, gathered the few things he needed, then set the timer aboard the escape pod. He had to clean up the mess behind him, leave no trace.
While the ships maneuvered into position, the other captain chatted over the comm. The Pigeon was a courier vessel that had arrived at Vuoral en route to a succession of other planets that Tom Rom had never heard of. He was a plump and kindly older man with long gray hair and a beard. He said he was retired and doing this for fun with his wife (who was even plumper); she looked thirty years his junior, but she adored him.
The Dark Between the Stars Page 58