Eternity's Mind (20 page)

Zoe smiled. “Then it was an excellent deal all around … but I don't think we're finished. I want proof that Rakkem is shut down—I
need
to see the ruins.” A spark of anger flashed in her dark eyes; she wasn't seeing Tom Rom, but rather that appalling place, the biowarehouses, the factory mothers, just like her own treacherous mother Muriel … whom she and Tom Rom had killed. Zoe had no regrets, other than that she wished they had achieved a more permanent shutdown of that place.

Tom Rom nodded. “I expected you'd want more. I'll make a journey to Rakkem and bring back a report so you can see everything the CDF has done.”

“Make sure that place is broken … permanently.” She smiled. “But while you're out in the Spiral Arm, I have another mission. The Onthos plague…” She glanced at the screen, studying the high-res micrographs of the vanishingly small monster of the alien disease. “The Klikiss race were the original carriers, apparently unaffected but able to spread the disease to the Onthos race. I think there's more to learn from them that we can apply to our other diseases.”

“There are numerous abandoned Klikiss planets,” Tom Rom said. “I can investigate the ruins again, if you like, and then scout Rakkem.”

“Gather whatever data you can on the Klikiss. Get more tissue samples from their cadavers, and more royal jelly.” She frowned at the screen, at the scrolling charts of results that all showed alarming changes. “The plague organism in your blood has mutated into something even more deadly, a strain that is no longer affected by the cure that saved you. It's very resilient.”

“I will find more Klikiss specimens. I know of quite a few planets I can choose from.”

She slid the display screen aside and looked closely at his confident, placid expression. “So long as you're careful. That is the most important thing.”

“I am as careful as is feasible. You know that.” He leaned closer to Zoe, who resisted the urge to back away, to keep the distance between herself and any other person. She didn't like the haunted look in his eyes.

“I am not the only one in danger when I go out to other planets, Zoe. No place is safe. I trust that you read my full report about Kuivahr? The Shana Rei and the black robots are a significant threat. Not only did they obliterate Kuivahr, but many other human outposts and Ildiran colonies.”

Zoe didn't understand why that was relevant to them here on Pergamus. “Then you will have to stay away from them when you gather information for me.”

Tom Rom ate three bites in silence, then straightened. She had never seen him so intense. “Do you understand how dangerous they are, Zoe? The Shana Rei are more powerful than even the hydrogues. They're like a … plague.”

She was too young to remember the ruthless hydrogues, and since she and her parents had been isolated on the wilderness planet of Vaconda, the Elemental War had little bearing on them.

“I believe you, and I accept that the Shana Rei are dangerous, but you are one man alone with a fast ship, and you always keep your wits about you.” When Tom Rom didn't seem satisfied with her answer, she raised her hands. “I don't care about the Shana Rei, no matter how dangerous they seem. I have enough deadly organisms here at Pergamus to wipe out the entire human race ten times over. Danger doesn't bother me.”

She calmed herself and looked at him warmly. “There have always been things trying to eradicate us, Tom Rom. But we're still here.”

 

CHAPTER

31

ARITA

Racing back from the Wild after leaving Sarein's abandoned dwelling, Arita transmitted the grim news to her parents. Beside her in the piloting compartment, Collin looked shaky. She reached out to take his hand, and he laced his fingers through hers, then squeezed.

By the time they flew in, the fungus-reef city was on high alert. She and Collin were quickly led into the throne room, where her parents waited for them. “We're glad you made it home safe,” said Estarra. “But your report is horrific.”

Arita drew several deep breaths to steady herself. “There's more.” From the satchel at her side, she withdrew the old-fashioned bound journals that her aunt had kept. “These are Sarein's. She…”

Estarra's eyes widened, and she sat back as if to avoid what Arita had to say.

“Sarein is dead. The Onthos killed her. We think she discovered what the aliens are doing to the trees.” Arita's voice cracked. “I went over there as a naturalist. I was trying to find answers. All Sarein wanted was to be left alone, but she must have gone out to investigate the dying trees.”

Estarra inhaled a long breath and let it out slowly as she kept her eyes closed. Her lower lip trembled, but when she opened her eyes again, she was strong, her gaze flashing. “Damn them. We welcomed the Gardeners here, offered to let them settle in the Wild. Now, they've killed my sister.”

The tendons stood out on Peter's throat as he fought to control his anger. “The Spiral Arm seems to be tearing itself apart—and now here on Theroc, too.”

Arita saw Zaquel, a middle-aged woman who had been her friend and trainer back when she was an acolyte who read aloud to the trees. “We've been blind to what's happening in the Wild,” Zaquel said. “Your message is … impossible. Why did we not know? How could the trees hide it from us … and why? We could help them!”

“There's a blight inside the trees,” Collin said. “They're all dying over there, and no other green priest even seems to notice.”

Queen Estarra said, her voice as hard as a knife blade, “We'll put together an expedition to the Wild—and do what we have to do. If the Onthos killed Sarein and contaminated Kennebar and his green priests, it's time we revoke our hospitality.”

A familiar voice called out, “I'm going along!” Arita looked past the others to see her brother standing beside Osira'h.

A grin filled her face. “Reyn, you're back home!” She ran to her brother and gave him a large hug. He staggered from her enthusiasm, and Osira'h reached out to steady him. Arita realized her brother was far weaker than the last time she had seen him. She drew back and studied him.

Reyn blinked, embarrassed. He was gaunt and pale, and his face was a constant flicker of expressions, as if he struggled against a parade of pain within him.

Osira'h announced, “We developed treatments for him from kelp strains on Kuivahr … but Kuivahr is now destroyed, and we barely escaped with our lives.” She paused. “Did you know about Kuivahr?”

Arita reeled. “What happened there?”

“The Shana Rei,” Reyn said, then gave a dismissive gesture. “There'll be time for that story later. Everyone here has heard it. We want to know what you encountered in the Wild.”

“Collin can share it through telink, so all the green priests know,” Arita said.

But Collin seemed reluctant to touch the verdani mind and sink into it again. “It used to be a place of peace for me. What if I find darkness there?”

“Then we need to search it out and fight it where we can,” said Zaquel. She looked up at the young man, encouraging him. “Tell me, aloud, and I will send the story through telink, across the Spiral Arm.”

With added comments from Arita, Collin described what had happened, and Zaquel repeated the story as she touched the giant worldtree, for all the green priests to access.

The King and Queen were obviously troubled. “This sickness in the forest has to be addressed,” Estarra said. “Because the worldforest
is
our world.”

“And there's something else, another presence,” Arita said. “It helped us against the voidpriests, but only I could hear it.” When she described the immense, mysterious voice she heard inside herself, the green priests didn't know how to explain it. Arita still felt a flicker and a whisper ringing inside her head, senses magnifying and opening.

Now, with that strange acuity, she looked at Reyn again and saw him in a way she had not been able to grasp before, as if she had sharper lenses. She had watched her brother fading for so long, and she'd held out such a determined hope that he would get better. But she realized she had been fooling herself. Through her strangely focused and filtered vision, she could sense a blight inside him, a shadow that seemed remarkably similar to what she and Collin had discovered deep within the neural network of the worldtrees … similar to what lurked inside the Gardeners themselves.

Estarra's large, dark eyes shone with a veil of angry tears. “We'll gather an expedition and depart for the Wild as soon as possible.”

 

CHAPTER

32

GENERAL NALANI KEAH

When she went out on patrol rather than staying behind at CDF headquarters, General Keah felt that she was at least doing something useful. Always a restless person, she hated sitting behind desks, but sometimes the job demanded that. A desk was a desk, however, and Keah figured she could do her administrative work from the bridge of her flagship just as well as in the Lunar Orbital Complex. With her green priest, she could remain in direct and immediate contact if anyone really needed to bother her.

And those ominous new shadow clouds had to be investigated.

Now that her flagship was fully repaired, she was spoiling for a fight and ready to go. The
Kutuzov
was the most imposing ship in the CDF, and she was damned proud of it, but she wasn't naïve either. When she headed out to investigate the black nebula near the Relleker system, she brought along ten Manta cruisers, each loaded with enhanced sun bombs and armed with batteries of laser cannons. That should be enough to kick some ass.

According to reports from Adar Zan'nh, the Ildiran Solar Navy had completely wiped out the bugbots, smeared them into incandescent dust all over the Kuivahr system—and that was a good thing, one pain in the butt that she no longer needed to worry about. Zan'nh wasn't prone to hyperbole: if he said he had done something, then she could count on it. Those Shana Rei hex cylinders were intimidating enough.

During the two-day trip to Relleker, her battle group performed combat exercises, refought their previous engagement with the Shana Rei using realistic images, and got themselves mentally ready for a fight. Keah wanted their next encounter to be a
victory
rather than a “learning experience.” She was the leader of the CDF, damn it, and it was her job to protect these planets.

But when the
Kutuzov
and the ten Mantas arrived at Relleker, they dropped into the middle of a hellish battle. The shadow cloud had closed in on the heavily populated planet like a deadly thunderstorm. Its black tangles and swirls reached forward like pseudopods, and enormous hexagonal cylinders emerged, created from frozen darkness. Although the Shana Rei poured out waves of entropy that disrupted technological systems, bugbot ships were conducting the main attack. And those ships were larger and bristling with more weapons than Keah had seen before. Thousands of them—maybe even tens of thousands.

“So much for Adar Zan'nh's report that he eradicated the bugbots.” Keah clutched the arms of her command chair. “Mr. Patton, open fire with laser-cannon batteries one and two. All other commanders, feel free to participate!”

Lances of coherent light skewered several bugbot ships. The shielding on the angular black vessels must have been tougher than before. The first laser blasts merely caused superficial damage when they should have cut through the mechanical attackers like butter.

The robots returned fire with high-energy beams that thundered against the
Kutuzov
's shields. Sparks flew from bridge stations, and her techs scrambled to effect emergency repairs.

“They're packing quite a punch, General,” said Lieutenant Tait.

“Then let's punch back. Mr. Patton, spice up our laser cannons with a volley of sun bombs, too. I assume you can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

“And juggle beanbags, General,” he said, and activated controls.

Five pulsing plasma spheres rocketed out of the forward battery and curled into the mass of robot ships. The angular vessels scattered when they saw the sun bombs coming, but the blasts still erased at least ninety attackers.

But it was only ninety out of thousands. Tens of thousands.
Hundreds
of thousands. Beyond a certain point, the number of zeroes didn't much matter anymore. “Where did so many bugbots come from? Z said he destroyed them all!”

The robot ships were like angry hornets stinging a hapless victim to death. Most of the enemy attackers simply ignored General Keah's forces, choosing instead to plunge into Relleker's atmosphere, where they bombarded the colony cities. From the surface, the comm channels filled with a storm of panicked outcries and desperate calls for help.

The black robots had more than enough ships to obliterate the population, so they could also spare an overwhelming force to close around the
Kutuzov
and the ten Mantas. The bugbots could absorb thousands of times as many losses as Keah could. They didn't seem to care how many robots were destroyed; they just kept fighting.

More than a hundred angular black ships closed around one of her Mantas, singling it out and pounding away with a nonstop barrage of energy weapons. Even though the Manta's captain launched all her weapons, the cruiser's armor could not withstand the onslaught. In less than a minute, the shields failed, and the Manta exploded.

A thousand more robots—a very small fraction of the horde—closed in on Keah's remaining ships. She had never expected to fight a battle like this with only eleven ships. Ten, now.

The outcries from the trapped civilians on the surface had dwindled, transmissions jammed or silenced as the cities were wiped out by a ruthless succession of sterilization blasts. Each nuclear firestorm took out a section of the continents below, and the maliciously efficient robots saturated the landscape again. Keah was sure they intended to leave Relleker nothing more than a charred ball.