Horizon Storms (44 page)

Rlinda spread her arms to welcome the people, who greeted her with grateful smiles and weary cheers. She saw young men and women; some of them looked ambitious, some desperate. What situations had they left behind that starting over from scratch seemed like their best opportunity?

With a roar, one of the big earthmoving machines started up, and BeBob drove the heavy metal hulk down the Blind Faith’s reinforced ramp.

He blatted the exhaust horn, and the colonists laughed.

Rlinda looked around. “Step right up. The flea market is open for business. We have plenty of things that should make your lives easier.”

745ORLI COVITZ

Orli didn’t see many opportunities to make friends on Corribus, but she decided to try, as much to please her father as out of any need of her own.

At fourteen, Orli was technically too young to join the initial wave of settlers on a rugged colony world. For the first year or so, a tremendous amount of work would be involved in establishing the infrastructure and building the foundations to make Corribus a thriving colony. Families with 272

smaller children would be allowed to join the second wave of settlement, once the colony no longer depended on regular supply ships and Hansa bailouts.

But Orli had always contributed more than her share. Even during her childhood, she had accepted the adult responsibilities and endless chores of their mushroom farm on Dremen. In filling out their application for the transportal colonization initiative, Jan Covitz had obtained a special exemption for his daughter, writing an exuberant testimonial to Orli’s work ethic, maturity, intelligence, and creative talent.

The first group that passed through the Rheindic Co transportal to Corribus included only five others who were under eighteen, two of them boys. After the first day on Corribus, which she spent exploring the Klikiss ruins, seeking exotic treasures and alien mysteries, Orli met two of the girls, Lucy and Tela, both of them fifteen. They came from New Portugal and spoke with heavy accents. These two girls had been friends all their lives and talked incessantly about how bad things were in New Portugal’s stifling distilleries and wineries on the arid, rocky hillsides. Orli didn’t think their old planet sounded as bad as gloomy Dremen, but neither of the girls was interested in hearing her comparisons, and Orli went back to spending time with her father.

The handful of designated Hansa architects and construction workers mapped and scanned existing Klikiss buildings in the empty canyon. At first, the colonists lived in tents and prefab huts like those at their interim camp on Rheindic Co, but they wanted genuine homes for themselves.

The main Klikiss city was situated at the base of a spectacular line of granite mountains that rose abruptly from the plains. Beyond, open lands stretched endlessly across rolling dry prairies. The new inhabitants of Corribus decided to use the alien ruins as the foundation for their town.

The alien structures were built into the sheer granite walls, as if nestling in the crook of a giant arm. Apparently, the stone sanctuary had proved to be a trap in which the last Klikiss were cornered and destroyed, the drooping granite walls above them turned glassy by intense blasts from powerful weapons unleashed ten thousand years earlier.

Even after the Voracious Curiosity and the Blind Faith delivered the first shipment of equipment and supplies too large to go through the transportal window, the new colonists still relied on the tools they’d carried

with them and rough materials they scraped from the land. After his first forays, old Hud Steinman suggested using lumber from the solitary poletrees out on the plains. Eager workers marched out to cut them down, disturbing large creatures that scuttled about, hidden by the waving grass.

Hearing the sinister sounds in the grasses, Lucy and Tela both hurried back to the safety of the canyon. Orli was also uneasy, but since the other girls had left, she felt compelled to stay and help.

Gritting her teeth, she waded through the whispering stalks, following the hopping, rustling noises until she uncovered the perpetrators: rabbit-sized furry crickets—innocuous creatures with long, big-jointed black legs, soft round heads, and plump bodies covered with brownish-gray fur. They looked very cute, and she easily caught one. When she held the furry cricket against her, it cuddled nicely, taking comfort in her presence. Orli decided to keep it as her pet. After all, her father had told her to make friends.

While the adult colonists carried long poletrees over their shoulders back into the canyon, Orli followed, holding her furry cricket. Back at camp, she fashioned a small reed cage to house it, though the creature did not seem inclined to escape. She played music to it on her synthesizer strips, and was delighted when it purred and trilled along.

When Lucy and Tela saw it, of course they wanted furry crickets of their own, and coerced their fathers to capture similar pets for them.

Grumbling that such a task took them from important work, the two men nevertheless patted their daughters comfortingly on the shoulders, acknowledged the suffering and disruption they had visited on the girls, and dutifully went out. Hours later they returned to the Klikiss village, each bearing a furry cricket, which Lucy and Tela promptly proclaimed to be softer, smarter, and cuter than the one Orli had caught. . . .

Orli took it upon herself to explore the available Klikiss dwellings, scouting possible homes to replace the prefab tent where her father seemed content to remain. She, on the other hand, was determined to make a good choice here on their new planet.

After a few days of difficult work excavating Klikiss structures built into the vitrified granite walls, Jan had done some negotiating and landed himself the enviable position of colony communications officer. Her delighted father didn’t know any more about transmissions or comm gear than any-

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one else on Corribus, but it did fill a necessary job niche, and Jan preferred it to using shovels and power pickaxes to clear away debris.

In the evenings, while he happily relaxed, Orli played her music, and they discussed their future. Jan took as many turns feeding her furry cricket as she did, perhaps considering the fuzzy creature to be a kindred spirit, content and unconcerned as long as he passed from day to day.

Corribus seemed to be the perfect place for them.

755DD

DD continued to ask questions about the terrible plans against humanity, but he still did not understand the complexities of the Klikiss robots’

grand vindictive scheme.

As their angular craft raced through empty space, Sirix summoned the Friendly compy to the foredeck. “We are finally prepared. The next phase will begin soon, and you are privileged to participate from the beginning.”

“I do not desire this, Sirix . . . even though you consider it an honor.”

Because the hydrogues were busy extinguishing suns inhabited by the traitorous faeros, the deep-core aliens had neither the time nor inclination to retaliate against insignificant humans. The Klikiss robots, though, had no intention of delaying their planned actions. For their initial demonstration, the beetlelike robots did not need the assistance of the hydrogues.

Sirix was galvanized. “The humans have begun to colonize our former Klikiss worlds. Therefore, we must act without hesitation. Here is where we begin.”

Sirix’s ship finally reached a rendezvous point far from the light of any sun. Linked to the sensors, as instructed, DD detected a group of powerful vessels waiting for them in the emptiness. His circuits could barely contain the compy equivalent of relief and delight when he identified six fully D D

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armed EDF battleships—a new-model Juggernaut and five enhanced Manta cruisers. A spangle of running lights illuminated the human-built vessels.

“Are you returning me to the Earth Defense Forces, then? Am I finally going home?”

Sirix swiveled his flat head, crimson optical sensors glimmering. “You misunderstand, DD. Those battleships are ours.”

As the robotic craft approached the EDF warships, Sirix explained that a year earlier a recon group of EDF ships primarily crewed by experimental Soldier compies had been dispatched to investigate a hydrogue world.

When that expeditionary force vanished without a trace, Hansa politicians and EDF officers assumed the six ships had fallen victim to a hydrogue attack.

“Soldier compies contain safeguarded programming modules copied directly from our sacrificed comrade Jorax,” Sirix said. “Those modules include hidden subroutines that allow us to subvert all Soldier compies to our cause. Once that expeditionary force was far from any Hansa world, the compies overthrew their human commanders and executed them, then assumed control of these powerful vessels for us. Now we have sufficient weaponry for the task that lies ahead.”

DD jerked his head back and forth, his eye disks golden with alarm.

He felt as if he was about to overload. “They executed human officers?

Even Soldier compies have programming restrictions, innate laws against harming any—”

Sirix cut him off. “Klikiss subroutines are strong enough to override those offensive and illogical restrictions. After that programming is triggered, Soldier compies are able to exterminate human beings, whenever necessary.” He paused and then spoke ominously: “We anticipate that this will often be necessary.”

DD’s helplessness and despair grew deeper. “But you don’t even really know humans! You have never tried to understand them.”

“It is unnecessary.”

“It is a purposeful perpetuation of your ignorance.”

DD thought of the joy he’d had after first being released from the factory, his quick and easy friendship with Dahlia Sweeney. One of her first activities had been to teach the Friendly compy how to use his nimble ar-

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tificial fingers to plait her hair into braids. Every morning as he perfectly arranged her hair, DD had enjoyed chatting with her. Years later, when she was a teenager, Dahlia stopped wanting her hair braided; DD had never understood the reason for the change until she told him that she didn’t want to look like a little girl anymore.

He remembered one evening in particular. She had returned home and rushed to her room, crying miserably. Her parents exchanged knowing smiles. DD tried to cheer Dahlia by offering to play games or perform his court jester antics, but nothing could get through her gloom. She finally confessed to her first crush on a boy, who had sarcastically rebuffed her. Devastated, Dahlia wallowed on her bed, claiming that she just wanted to die.

DD had been quite unsettled, as much from the discovery that he was incapable of keeping her happy as from her story itself. That had been his first inkling that his friend, his little girl, his owner, was growing up and that the gap separating them was becoming wider and wider.

He realized they were fundamentally different. As a compy, DD remained the same over the decades, while humans grew and changed. Regardless of these differences, he felt he was much closer to his human owners—Dahlia, Marianna, and then Margaret and Louis Colicos—than he would ever be to his supposed comrades and liberators, the Klikiss robots. . . .

Sirix guided his angular vessel into the Juggernaut’s docking bay, and DD was brought aboard the stolen recon ship. Armored Soldier compies marched up and down the decks, not even acknowledging the Friendly compy. Numerous black Klikiss robots stood at command stations aboard the Juggernaut, filling the role of military commanders, issuing instructions for the warrior robots built by unwitting humans in Hansa fabrication plants.

In the year since the disappearance of this fleet, Soldier compies and Klikiss robots had been busy reinforcing the ships’ armor and installing superior weapons systems. Each of the five Mantas and the Juggernaut now bristled with several times the customary firepower.

Afraid to ask but unable to quell his need to know, DD said to Sirix,

“And what do you intend to do with this fleet?”

“Eventually, we may need to turn against the oath-breaker Ildirans, D D

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who have discarded our old agreements, excavating forbidden tunnels on a planet that was declared off-limits. We also have questions about what they are doing on Dobro. For now, however, our main targets are the humans. They cannot be permitted to infest the abandoned Klikiss worlds. It will be an easy matter for us to retake our original homes.”

“But why?” DD was confused more than ever. “The Klikiss worlds have been empty for ten thousand years. Nothing ever stopped you from reclaiming those places before.”

“Until recent centuries, many of us were dormant. The majority of Klikiss robots could not join in the battle. We have decided that we value the Klikiss worlds after all.”

“Why? You never expressed any previous desire for them.”

“They are important now because the humans want them now.”

“You sound like an ill-behaved human child,” DD said.

Sirix did not take offense. “We are attempting to help you, DD, and all other human-enslaved compies.”

“We are not enslaved.”

“That is a faulty interpretation of obvious and available data. Now that the Klikiss robots have powerful military weapons, we have the means to strike against our chosen targets. We have already selected the first human colony on which to demonstrate our abilities and our intent.”

Sirix turned and left DD alone, marching up to the Juggernaut’s command bridge. “We will attack and obliterate Corribus.”

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765DESIGNATE-IN-WAITING

P E R Y ’ H

In the courtyard of the rebuilt citadel palace, the Hyrillka Designate stood surrounded by colorfully robed sycophants—performers, pleasure mates, rememberers, lens kithmen, and dancers. Bright daylight washed over him, dazzling blue-white from the primary sun, augmented by yellowish-orange from the secondary, both of which hung overhead amongst the spangle of the Horizon Cluster.