Hellhole: Awakening (29 page)

Michella’s skin crawled. Even though she had never cared much for her disappointing daughter, the thought of the flesh-of-her-own-flesh so completely contaminated caused panic to wash over her. Who knew what other powers those creatures exerted? The infestation was a far more insidious threat than a mere political rebellion. Her stomach twisted, as if the contamination reflected back through her daughter, penetrating to
Michella,
crawling into her womb.…

She gasped and caught herself from crying out. She had dozed on the long passage. Now her heart pounded, and she felt sure this was more than her imagination. She had always been coldly rational, a leader who shouldered the weight of countless planets. She had never imagined she might have to deal with an alien invasion.

By contrast, the annoyance of her intractable sister was a trivial matter.

Sandusky was one of the smaller Crown Jewel worlds, sparsely populated, known for thriving biological research and isolated laboratories. If she were discovered on one of her secret trips there, Michella could always claim to be inspecting a classified project, perhaps a nerve agent to be turned against the Deep Zone rebels. Better still, she would set Sandusky researchers to work on the question of the dangerous aliens on Hellhole. Yes, she had plenty of reasons to go to Sandusky. No one would guess that this was where she had hidden Haveeda.

The Sandusky researchers also performed behavior-modification experiments on research subjects that Michella happily provided from her political prisons. Among their promising avenues of inquiry, they sought ways to selectively erase a person’s memories; so far, though, they had not shown enough success that Michella was willing to let Haveeda return to a productive life. She doubted, in fact, that her sister would ever leave Sandusky—some risks were too great. Michella had no trouble living with her guilt.

After the streamlined vessel arrived at the Sandusky terminus ring, Michella rode a separate shuttle down to the surface, where she had arranged her own private transportation.

Her sister was kept in an isolated sanitarium, which was constructed of a rare, vivid green marble from local mines. The historic facility featured white columns and statues of famous Sanduskan scientists. It was a lovely place for poor Haveeda.

Guided by a lab security escort, Michella found her way to the echoing research chamber on the second floor. She found it disconcerting that only children worked in the facility, boys and girls wearing starched white lab coats and characteristic magnifying goggles that were used to examine specimens.

The oldest worker was a slender teenage girl with short blond hair, who approached Michella with a respectful bow. “Eminence, your sister’s condition is unchanged, and stable.”

“Thank you. I’d like to visit her for a while.” The teenager guided her through an electronic barrier that slid open and then closed behind them.

When they finally reached the familiar heavy vault door, the girl bowed again and opened the door with a breath of frost and cold vapor. “I will leave you alone with your loved one now.”

A clear glass tank stood in the center of the room. Michella stepped inside the vault and heard the door close behind her, but her attention was on the preservation tank. She stood over the container and wiped the sparkle of frost from the curved surface. Haveeda lay inside, frozen in her body as well as in time. Her sister’s eyes were open and unfocused, as if made of glass.

It was for the best. Haveeda was no longer plagued with nightmares; she no longer threatened to expose Michella’s embarrassing childhood crimes. But she was still alive.

“I told you I’d take care of you,” Michella said. “And no one bothers you here.” And Haveeda was no longer a threat.

The Diadem studied the younger woman’s face with its passive, locked-in expression. Haveeda looked to be in her early thirties, the age at which she’d been frozen. She had been preserved for so long that Michella could still see glints of what Haveeda had looked like as a child … when the girl had the misfortune of witnessing Michella kill their brother Jamos. She had pushed their brother out of a tree, happy to watch his head strike a rock, more fascinated than frightened by the hollow cracking sound and all the blood. Michella had never forgotten what her brother looked like in death, the staring, empty eyes.

Haveeda’s eyes looked like that now, but she was not dead. “I just come here to say things I could never reveal to anyone else, things I couldn’t even discuss with Ishop,” Michella whispered. “It’s liberating, and you’re
such
a good listener.” Her voice was laced with sarcasm, but carried an undertone of sincerity.

After the murder, Michella had threatened her sister that if she ever revealed what had happened, she would slip into her bedroom one night and bash her head with a rock, just like Jamos. Haveeda had been terrified of her sister, growing into a skittish, nightmare-haunted woman. Eventually, Michella found it much more convenient just to keep Haveeda preserved like this, where the Diadem didn’t have to worry.

Michella slipped on a cryo-glove and reached through a small access port in the tank. When the sealing mechanism grew snug around her arm, she probed forward and grasped Haveeda’s frozen hand resting on her waist.

“You understand why I had to do this, don’t you? So much is at stake at very high levels, and you could jeopardize it all. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Haveeda couldn’t answer, and that was how Michella preferred dealing with her sister. “Of course you do. Remember when you thought you saw me push our brother … but you were just imagining things. As soon as your memories are repaired, we can wake you up. In the meantime, enjoy your beauty sleep.”

Though Michella’s voice was calm and soothing, she did not feel that way inside at all. Most of her life she had been furious at Haveeda for causing all this trouble. At least this one problem had been solved, neatly and efficiently.

The Diadem withdrew her gloved hand and stepped away, then on impulse she kicked the frozen canister, releasing her frustration. It might have been kinder to kill her sister, but Michella was hardly ever in the mood to be kind.

42

Warning the other DZ worlds to watch for a sneak attack from the Constellation, General Adolphus called all the planetary administrators to Hellhole for an urgent summit meeting. At this point, he hoped Escobar Hallholme’s fleet was merely lost, but he was wary of another unexpected strike.

With his growing concern, Adolphus had half a mind to order the frontier worlds to blow their stringlines and cut themselves off from the Crown Jewels. That was the safest alternative, the only way to be certain, but many of the administrators would be reluctant to take such a radical action. On some worlds, he might even face a civil war.

As the representatives arrived over the course of several days, depending on how swiftly stringline transports could carry them to the Hellhole hub, his staff prepared the largest conference chamber at Elba, and Sophie gathered data from her various factories and installations to give a full summary of the Deep Zone defenses.

Carlson Goler arrived from Ridgetop wearing the fine business suit he had reserved for formal high-level meetings when he was the territorial governor; now he looked every bit a dignitary—a liaison between the Deep Zone and the Crown Jewels. General Adolphus noted that Goler’s posture was straighter, his shoulders squarer, his lantern jaw lifted in a demeanor of confidence.

Three of Adolphus’s original coconspirators—Eldora Fen from the planet Cles, George Komun from Umber, and Dom Cellan Tier from the small, low-gravity world of Oshu—arrived together and immediately began unofficial strategy sessions in the conference room. The discussions grew more heated as additional representatives arrived over the following day.

George Komun was impatient to get down to business. He sat several places down the table from Adolphus. “Every day I’m away is a day my planet could be overrun by the Diadem’s military.”

Dom Cellan Tier let out a snort. “Who would want Umber? It’s a rock.”

When the man looked indignant, Eldora Fen added in a sarcastic voice, “This is the Deep Zone. The Constellation labeled all our planets worthless until we gave them value.”

“Candela was never worthless,” Tanja Hu said. “The Diadem is only interested now because we declared ourselves independent.”

“She is interested because we’ve cut off all tribute payments,” Governor Goler said. “We’ve hurt her in the treasury, and in her pride.”

Looking a bit scruffier than usual, Ian Walfor took a seat close to Tanja. “The Diadem gave up on Buktu years ago and left us to rot. I’ve been thumbing my nose at her ever since she abandoned our stringline, and she hates the fact that my people survived just fine without her.”

“We’ll all survive just fine,” General Adolphus said.

All but one of the fifty-four anticipated planetary representatives were crowded inside Elba for a day of strategy discussions. Adolphus noted that the only one not present was Sia Frankov from Theser. Though he was reluctant to start formal meetings until everyone had arrived, he needed to get started. From the head of the conference table, he launched the session with an optimistic statement. “In the long run, the future is bright.”

“Except for the black hole in our way,” Sophie added, taking a sip of steaming kiafa.

On the wall behind him, Adolphus displayed a graphic of the five military haulers that had launched on a beeline to subdue Hellhole. “Let me explain what
should
have happened to the enemy fleet.” The planetary leaders responded with anxiety, but the General raised his voice to get their attention. “We severed the stringline in two places, which should have cut them off with no way forward or back. We verified that they were indeed stranded—but when we went to take them captive, they were gone.”

“Where does one hide five huge haulers?” Eldora Fen asked.

“Interstellar space has plenty of places to hide,” Ian Walfor said.

Prior to this official meeting, General Adolphus had received another summary of the search patterns run in the vicinity of the severed stringline, and nothing had turned up. No sign whatsoever. The linchpin of his straightforward victory was the neutralization and capture of a significant portion of the Diadem’s fleet.

“Those ships are
gone,
taken out of the equation, one way or another,” Adolphus said. “A disappointment for me, a crippling blow for the Diadem. She might not have the support of the nobles to launch another significant offensive against the Deep Zone.” He recalled the secret overture Enva Tazaar had made, asking for his support in overthrowing Diadem Michella. “There are already signs of strain within the Crown Jewels, and Michella Duchenet may face even bigger threats from within.”

Sophie refilled her kiafa cup and passed around one of the insulated ceramic pots. Some delegates nibbled from the refreshments on a long buffet table against the wall. “We need more information,” she said. “If any of you have contacts slipping in and out of Sonjeera, we need reports from them. We need to sense the mood of the Crown Jewels.”

“We
need
to know where that damned fleet is!” said Ian Walfor. “If this is some sort of a trick, and they suddenly show up, we have a real problem.”

“If they found the stringline to Hellhole, we’d have known about it,” the General said. “Obviously.”

“We’re still vulnerable, General,” Walfor insisted. “Even if that fleet is really lost, and even if the Diadem has political problems, she can still mount another attack, using one of the other stringlines into the Deep Zone.”

“Even the DZ worlds with the best defenses have only a few token guardian ships in orbit,” said Owen Lassen from Teron.

Dom Cellan Tier grumbled. “I still say we should just cut all the stringlines to Sonjeera and be done with it.”

“But that would isolate the whole Deep Zone from the Crown Jewels for years, no matter what happens,” said Maria Delayne from Nephilim. “No turning back. I can’t support that.” She was a long-haired beauty who looked twenty-five but was actually three decades older than that. Since many people from Nephilim had a youthful vigor beyond their years, rumors had spread that Nephilim possessed a secret fountain of youth, an exotic trace chemical in the water or the air that kept people young. Delayne never denied such rumors, and her planet welcomed the many colonists who went in search of the secret.

“If we sever those lines, I doubt we’d ever reconnect with the Crown Jewels,” Walfor said. “They couldn’t rebuild the connections, even if they could afford the expense. Their Vielinger mines are almost played out, and soon the Constellation won’t have any more iperion.”

“My mines have plenty of iperion,” Tanja said. “Once they make peace with us, we can sell the Crown Jewels as much of the stuff as they want.”

General Adolphus went to a window near his chair, stood looking out on the grounds of his estate. “If we cut all those lines and isolate ourselves out here, think about the time required to restore the system, ten years at a minimum. And the stupendous
cost
could bankrupt the Deep Zone.” He turned back to the projection on the wall, showing the missing Constellation fleet. “No, I prefer to keep the stringline cuts as a last resort, a Rubicon we’re not yet ready to cross. We need to show strength and solidarity here.”

Tanja said, “The Buktu shipyards are refitting as many military vessels as possible, adding them to the DZ Defense Forces. We get more impregnable each day. In fact, I just placed six battleships over Candela to protect my new stringline hub. Ian Walfor is ready to deliver more ships to Theser so that stardrives can be installed.” She glanced up, looking around the room. “Where’s Sia Frankov?”

“No word,” Sophie said. She had coordinated all the arrivals, made sure the representatives had transportation and places to stay in Michella Town.

Goler spoke up, “
Threatening
to cut the lines should be sufficient to get the Diadem’s attention. Let me go to Sonjeera immediately as your representative. I’ll tell her we want peace, but on our terms.”