By Blood Alone (32 page)

And it was there, protected from the sun’s wicked rays, that the great worms spun their gossamer cocoons, “sang” their epic love songs, and manufactured the optically switched computers for which they were so justifiably famous.

Among the businesses that went together to comprise Chien-Chu Enterprises was a well-known “glass house,” as chip-based computer companies were known.

That being the case, Maylo had gone to some lengths to educate herself where related technologies were concerned. Rather than create conventional computers, in which electrons follow pathways etched into tiny silicon chips, the Araballazanies had developed processors that used laser beams in place of electrons.

The executive knew that conventional chips housed thousands of transistors, each one of which functioned like a switch. When one of the transistors was on, current could flow, and when it was off, the current stopped. Data was represented by billions of binary ons and offs.

The Araballazanie machines used tiny mirrors in place of transistors, and gallium arsenide “window shades” to switch the light on and off.

Not only that, but the light-based computers ran programs based on the same binary codes developed for use with “glass” machines, which made the technologies compatible.

Humans had pursued the technology as well, but the Araballazanie machines were not only superior, but ideal for the global telecommunications systems required by the more populous races.

The fact that huge, subsurface dwelling worms profited from a technology based on light struck Maylo as a delightful irony. She heard someone approach but was reluctant to take her eyes off the view.

The voice belonged to her uncle. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Maylo agreed, looking at the planet below. “Although I’ve never seen one that wasn’t.”

“No,” Chien-Chu replied. “Neither have I. Look, over there—enormous, isn’t she?”

Careful lest he get sideways with the sometimes testy admiral who controlled the surrounding fifty thousand cubic miles of space, the destroyer’s captain had successfully negotiated his way through heavy traffic and dropped into final orbit. Now, as the warship’s navcomp made some final adjustments, the one-time battle wagon came into view.

Though originally of human manufacture, the vessel had been overhauled, rebuilt, and modified so many times that she could no longer be considered the product of any particular race. A fitting symbol for a diverse organization.

Besides the Earth-humans, and the Clone Hegemony, there were the Dwellers, the Turr, the Ramanthians, the Dra’ nath, the Pooonara, the Say’lynt, the Araballazanies, and—though not members in the true sense—the Hudathans, who, though presently confined to their home system, lobbied tirelessly for their freedom. Not a very good idea, considering the horrors they had perpetrated during the last two wars.

“You should be proud,” Maylo said, eyeing the enormous vessel. “The history books credit
you
with the concept.”

Chien-Chu remembered the end of the first war, the effort to knit the sentient races together, and the manner in which the idea had been born.

Unable to agree on much of anything, least of all where to place the capital, the senate had been deadlocked. To break the impasse, and move on to what he regarded as more important issues, Chien-Chu suggested that the newly formed Confederacy use a spaceship as its capital, orbit a different world each year, and spread the honor around.

The concept proved extremely popular. The battlewagon
Reliable
was refitted for the purpose and renamed the
Friendship
. And now, so many years later, she floated there in front of him. “Yes,” he responded slowly, “I
am
proud of her—if not of every action taken within her hull.”

A rating stuck her head through the hatch. “The shuttle is ready, sir.”

Chien-Chu turned and smiled. “Thank you. Please inform the pilot that we’re on the way.”

The crew member nodded, said, “Yes, sir,” and disappeared. The industrialist turned to his niece.

“It seems that the moment has come, my dear.... It won’t be easy. Are you ready?”

Maylo remembered the cage, Qwan’s leering face, and the water rising around her shoulders. She summoned a smile. “You think it will be
that
bad?”

Chien-Chu nodded. “Our enemies hold the high ground; they’re entrenched and highly motivated. Our weapons may be words ... but we must make each one of them count.”

Maylo nodded, took the old man’s hand, and felt his strength. Earth had been taken, but the counterattack was under way.

As with all such quarters, the compartments assigned to the Ramanthian diplomatic mission had been equipped for their comfort—in this case, a warm, humid environment similar to the one found deep within their native jungles.

Senator Alway Orno used his hard, chitinous tool legs to preen the areas to either side of his beak. The electroactive contact lenses took thousands of fragmented pictures produced by his compound eyes and combined them into a single image.

The figure that sat in front of him was small and somewhat hunched, as if long hours spent before computer screens had ruined his posture. Beads of perspiration dotted the surface of the human’s sallow, gray skin, his clothing hung in damp, untidy folds, and the chair, which had been designed to accommodate the needs of sixty-three percent of known bipedal sentients, made him restless.

“Yes,” Orno said smoothly, “I understand your need for additional income. Dream dust is rather expensive ... or so I am told. Who knows? If the information is even half as good as you claim it is, a bonus might be in order. So
give
. . . . What little gem have you mined for my benefit?”

The words, translated by the computer woven into the senator’s day robes, sounded only slightly stilted.

Thus prompted, the spy, a minor member of the President’s staff, started to talk.

The information was important,
extremely
important, or would have been if it had been delivered five days earlier. The report tailed off, concluded with another request for funds, and finally came to an end.

Though well aware of the effect the gesture had on humans, the Ramanthian yawned, and the operative, who hated the sight of the wormlike organs that waved from the interior of the other being’s mouth, tried not to shudder.

“Interesting,” the politician concluded. “
Very
interesting, but made a good deal less valuable, since ex-President Chien-Chu is scheduled to land within the next standard hour or two. There will be
no
bonus. Fetch something more valuable next time.”

The use of word “fetch” was intentional—and the meaning was clear. Head hung low, the human withdrew.

The War Orno, number two in the typical Ramanthian tripartite bonding, stood silent in a corner. Senator Orno waited till the spy was clear before issuing his instructions. “Ex-President Chien-Chu must be quite elderly by now—
so
elderly it’s difficult to imagine that he poses much of a threat. Still, the humans have a saying: ‘The better part of valor is discretion.’ ”

“Slip out the back, visit our friends, and give them the news. This Chien-Chu person may seek to reverse all that we have accomplished.”

The War Orno signaled respect with his pincers, replied with the traditional “Yes, lord,” and was gone.

The politician took a deep draught of the heavily humidified air and marveled at how important he was.

Like it or not, the tricentennial birthing was less than three annums away, which meant an additional fifty billion Ramanthian beaks to feed, house, and defend. They would need planets—rich,
green
planets—on which to hive. Planets that, unbeknownst to the rest of the Confederacy, the Ramanthian government had already selected, surveyed, and named. Orno’s job was to gain control of them . . . to do so without the expense of a war ... and to complete the task
before
the hatchlings squirmed out of their eggs. An awesome responsibility, but one that he relished.

 

Like all Hudathans, Doma-Sa was big, about three hundred fifty pounds to be exact, all bone and muscle. His temperature-sensitive skin was gray at the moment, but would turn black if the air grew cold enough, or white when exposed to direct sunlight.

He had a large, humanoid head, the hint of a dorsal fin that ran front to back along the top of his skull, funnel-shaped ears, and a thin, froglike mouth. It was rigid with effort.

The sword, which was more than a thousand years old, was known as
Head Taker
, and had been handed down through Hiween Doma-Sa’s family. Not
willingly,
but by
force
, the moment one of the offspring became strong enough to take and keep it. The weapon weighed less than twenty-five pounds, thanks to the localized human-normal (HN) 96.1 gee gravity field maintained for the Hudathan’s comfort.

It flashed under the light, transitioned to a flank attack, and finished in what humans refer to as the Fle’che, or the straight-on assault that symbolized the way Hudathans liked to do things. By force rather than finesse.

Doma-Sa’s holographic fencing partner, a warrior who had been dead for three hundred sixty-two years, bellowed in pain and died yet again.

Satisfied that his skills were intact, the Hudathan walked through his recently fallen foe and racked the sword. A weapon he would have happily, cheerfully, used on at least half the sentients aboard.

But that was impossible. His people were twice defeated, confined to a slowly dying star system, and in no position to attack.

His
mission, if the doing of political deals could be referred to as such, was to weaken the quarantine to whatever extent he could, retain as much of the empire as was feasible, and work toward the day when threats—by which Doma-Sa meant other species—could be controlled or terminated. Not because he hated them, but because each one of them represented a variable, and variables that
could be
controlled
should be
controlled.

That
was the reason why Doma-Sa would enter his spartan sleeping quarters, don his ambassadorial robes, and keep his appointment with Senator Orno.

The shame of what he had to do weighed heavily on the Hudathan’s shoulders as he dropped the loincloth, shuffled into the shower, and stood under the freezing water.

His
mind,
his
body, were all the Hudathans had. Some might have laughed—
would
have laughed—but many of them were dead.

 

If the
Friendship
seemed enormous when viewed from a considerable distance, she was huge close up. Her five-mile-long hull was at least half a mile thick and covered by a maze of heat exchangers, weapons blisters, com pods, tractor projectors, and other installations too arcane for Chien-Chu to identify.

The six-place shuttle was a modest affair, more so than most of the craft that swarmed around it, all jostling for precedence.

But that was the way that every three-month-long session began, and the crew was used to it. Computer-controlled co-orbiting robobeacons had been dropped into place more than a week before enabling even the most incompetent or inebriated pilot to find his way into the
Friendship’
s bay. Or so it seemed.

Some still managed to fail, however, or would have if it weren’t for the repellor beams, and a fleet of six search-and-rescue craft all ready for launch.

The naval pilot experienced no difficulty whatsoever. He ran the beacon-lit obstacle course like the pro he was, fired retros at the last possible moment, and dropped his craft into the assigned parking slot.

The landing bay, which was easily as large as a major sports arena back on Earth, was far too busy to function as an airlock. That being the case, most visitors had no choice but to don their space suits or wait for a pressurized crawler to pick them up.

Chien-Chu didn’t
need
oxygen, not much anyway, and knew his body could function in a hard vacuum—a fact that had saved his life once in the past.

Maylo had no such advantage, however, and was forced to wear a Navy-issue space suit. It was a little too large, but not enough to matter. She sealed herself in and followed her uncle through the lock. A luggage-laden autocart trailed behind.

Organized chaos ruled the repulsor-blackened flight deck. Space-suited bio bods rushed to deal with newly arrived ships, robot hoses nosed their way into receptacles, and two-person maintenance sleds flew over their heads.

A pathway that consisted of two parallel yellow lines zigzagged across the enormous deck, terminating in front of a well-marked hatch. The words “Many” minds but with one purpose” had been inscribed over the lock.

A pair of Trooper IIs stood guard. Their armor had been buffed to a dull sheen, and each wore two arm-mounted energy cannons. Their elbows came forward and their arms went vertical at Chien-Chu’s approach.