Exodus, page 57
“Dagon was supposed to meet up with Gyvoy Enfoe, that’s all we know.”
“Where is Gyvoy now?”
“He’s been outsystem for twelve years now. The Diligent left through the ingress Gate to Hoa Quinzu.”
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
“A Mara Yama fleet has recently flown into the Hoa Quinzu system; they’re in orbit around a gas giant, de Verya, refueling.”
“You think Gyvoy is working for the Mara Yama?”
“If he is, I doubt it’s voluntarily.”
“What do the Mara Yama want?” Terence asked. It was intimidating to think just how much attention and effort Celestials were focusing on boring old Santa Rosa. Even if we are only proxies, it’s not like we’ll ever make any difference to a single dominion. So why?
“From the Crown Dominion?” Makaio-Faraji mused. “We believe that ultimately they will seek to occupy the HeSea and make it their own.”
“Okay, I get that. But how does observing what I do help them?”
“A good question. I imagine the answer will be along the lines of non-specific advantage. That is, you don’t know what you need until you acquire it, so you simply acquire as much as you can. Information has no price. It also gives you a high level of understanding about what you are dealing with. Case in point, the information you have gathered for me over the years has allowed a full comprehension of human politics in the Kelowan system. Like this movement for more human liberty. Knowing what they are doing, the campaigns they launch, the kind of appeal they have, allows the governor and the marchioness to quietly counter it.”
“Yeah, human politics is getting a lot louder these days. But you know why.”
“Yes. Josias Aponi.”
“There’s been no whisper of him receiving dark funds from offworld. Everything he’s done, he’s built from scratch. And his Regal Democrats are attracting a lot of support with their call for liberalization. They’re even taking supporters from Human Liberation. He’s really hit the motherlode of quiet dissatisfaction, there. Very clever of him.”
“Indeed. I find it incredible that one human can cause so much disruption to an equilibrium that has benefited your species for eight hundred years.”
“That’s Josias for you. I know him quite well; our kids hang out with his kids when we’re in Hafnir. He can be…persuasive. His origin makes him a legend on Gondiar, of course, along with how successful Hafnir is—and boy, does he know how to exploit that. But I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Josias only has one goal, and one agenda: himself.”
“Quite. He is remarkable for a human. It’s like watching ancient history come to life.”
“So what do you want us to do?”
“Keep gathering information for me. It’s invaluable. Chase every lead you have on Bopbe and Varmor; they are the key to this. Two archons risked physical confrontation because of whatever Bopbe did. They knew that would expose them to me, but still they considered it important enough that they would sacrifice their obscurity.”
“So just carry on, then? Same old same old?”
“Always. That’s what we live for, Terence: making sure the Crown Dominion remains inviolate and unchanging.”
“Sure. Okay. You’re the boss.”
“I appreciate how frustrating this is for you. But when Gyvoy returns, you can question him about Dagon. Who knows, that might give us a sense of what the Mara Yama are doing, and how big their operation here is. If we’re lucky, we might uncover it in your lifetime.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“That was another compliment, Terence. Normally I’d expect a game like this one to run for three or four centuries at least. But you’re doing an excellent job. I will not forget your service.” Makaio-Faraji looked at Jaeiff. “This human we will remember, and honor as our friend and ally.”
“Yes, father.”
Terence kept his face politely blank. Why do I always allow myself to forget how non-human they are?
Chapter Twenty
The Annoton decelerated into orbit five thousand kilometers above Uixic’s equator. It was a relatively small starship by Celestial standards—a smooth, gloss-gray ovoid a hundred fifty meters long. Slim radial lines of photothermal radiators were inset on the aft quarter, shining a near-invisible violet as they expelled the excess heat generated by the onboard systems. Active and passive sensors scanned local space for stray micrometeorites or other interplanetary debris that could cause impact damage.
They didn’t register the dark fleck of matter that approached in an orbit that was almost parallel with Annoton, giving it a relative velocity that was no danger at all. It was barely five millimeters across, with a density that made a snowflake seem like lead by comparison. When it did gently graze the hull, between a couple of the radiators, the contact was weaker than a ghost’s kiss. But it stuck. The touch made the molecular structure change, causing the fleck to flatten itself out into a circle barely ten molecules thick. There it remained, an invisible stain, waiting passively for the next alteration trigger.
Another, identical, fleck touched the hull, and held fast. The starship’s CI was unaware of them, or the others drifting steadily inward.
* * *
—
As soon as the ion drive cut out, Lord Ualana-Lyon directed the Annoton’s CI captain to spin up the life support ring. They’d arrived in the Kelowan system a week ago. During the flight from the Gate of Heaven to Uixic, he’d spent most of the time oscillating between turning around and resolving to carry on. But right at the center of his muddled thoughts, the memories of Liata and Delfina burned bright, their lost smiles providing him the strength he needed. Now he used the contact bulb to call up the starship’s sensor feeds. His mind looked down at the wretched world that had birthed Lord Bekket.
Nobody knew Ualana-Lyon was here. As far as the court was aware, he had set aside his current duties and retreated to the Panrako family’s estate on Wynid, taking a sabbatical after the sad death of Liata. Such an event was relatively normal, and would probably last until his mindline’s next hosting, whereupon he’d return to court where he could serve the queen in a new fashion. The Annoton was registered to an enterprise housed in a habitat on Wynid’s georing. There was nothing to associate it with him; even Gahiji-Calder would find it difficult to prove it was his. Not that Gahiji-Calder needed to prove anything.
Satisfied the orbit was stable and registered with Uixic’s spaceship authority, Ualana-Lyon’s mind reviewed the ship’s properties. The Annoton was listed as a private yacht, the kind a mid-level Grand Family would use to travel around the Crown Dominion and beyond, providing them a decent level of comfort as they voyaged. Its cargo capacity was modest yet useful, while the internal mechanisms were of excellent quality, as befitted a species whose individuals lived for tens of thousands of years.
But beneath that expansive display of ship system routines lay another set that could only be perceived with a specific neural code. They gave him command over the weapon systems that lay concealed just below the ultrabonded fuselage.
So now when he looked down on the dull mountainous continents and small seas of Uixic, he perceived them through targeting data. A single thought, naught but a wish made real, would unleash a level of destruction upon the unsuspecting world that would take it millennia to recover from. Or, if concentrated on a specific area, would wipe that land from existence.
And who would truly blame me for making that wish?
“Father?”
Ualana-Lyon closed his eyes and banished the targeting data. When he looked around, his son, Shoigu, was giving him a curious look from the other side of the cabin. His two spawn brothers, Lucio and Pavel, floated beside him, watching anxiously. The boys had several facial features they shared with their dead spawn sisters; just seeing them, eager yet adrift, was enough to bring Ualana-Lyon’s focus back to the task. He smiled. “My sons. Annoton is starting to spin up the life support section, so you’ll have gravity while I’m away.”
“I do know how spaceships work, father,” Pavel said indignantly. “We all do.”
“Of course. Sorry.” He is always the most impulsive. A quality I used to favor—an excellent instinctive host trait—but I’d welcome him having his own life, too, now that his sisters are gone. Perhaps I should look for other qualities. Goddess, why am I so conflicted over this? It’s not like I haven’t lost royal congregant daughters before.
“It’s Princess Thyra that bothers you, isn’t it?” Shoigu said in a voice that was too old for his biological age. “You hate her.”
“I think you must already be carrying too much of my mindline. But hate is a strong allegation.”
“She killed our sisters,” Lucio declared. “All of us hate her.”
“Second Trial is…difficult to judge,” Ualana-Lyon said calmly. “It doesn’t seem like she was involved.”
“She’s the queen’s favorite. Everyone knows that.”
“Yes. Which is why we must be very careful what we say when we are at court.”
“But we’re not at court anymore,” Pavel said. “And we can certainly think it.”
“We can.”
“I have another problematic thought,” Shoigu said.
“Which is?”
“Take me down to the planet with you. Please, father.”
“No: me!” Lucio and Pavel both shouted in unison.
“Father, me.”
“I should go, please.”
Ualana-Lyon chuckled approvingly. “Boys, boys, I don’t know what I’m going to find.”
“If it’s that dangerous, then you shouldn’t go,” Lucio said.
“Yet I have to. I am unsettled over Lord Bekket. You know this.”
“He’s not a lord,” Pavel said in a sulky tone. “Not a proper one anyway. Not like you. You and our family have immense history, the nobility of over fifteen thousand years. He is a new life. A nobody. I am more alive than he.”
“True.”
“If it is going to be dangerous, that is an even greater argument in favor of me accompanying you,” Lucio said. “An Imperial Celestial should always be in contact range of their next host body—especially one as important as you, father.”
“What am I going to do with the three of you?” he asked fondly.
“Take me with you.”
Right there, in the center of Ualana-Lyon’s mind, the ghosts of two dead girls gave him reproachful looks. “If I were to say—”
“I will be utterly silent,” Shoigu vowed. “I will follow every word you speak without complaint; you will barely be aware of me. And I was first to ask; the privilege is mine by right.”
His brothers looked on in dismay.
“And how will you treat your two spawn brothers after such a time shared with me? For they are equally keen, and equally able, to host.”
“I will treat them fairly and equally, of course, as befits their status.”
“Bullshit!” Pavel yelled.
Shoigu started laughing. “I’ll try, father. Really.”
“He won’t!” Lucio claimed hotly. “You know this, father.”
“Very well.” Ualana-Lyon held up a hand. “I cannot take all three of you into such uncertainty. My decision is that Shoigu will accompany me.”
“Yes!”
“No! Father, that’s unfair!”
“My choice is not to be questioned. You are my aspects, and this you know to be right.”
Two heads dropped sullenly.
“Yes, father,” spoken in resentful unison.
Ualana-Lyon regarded Shoigu, taking in the poorly hidden gleam of victory. “You, I will hold rigidly to the silence and obedience part of the deal.”
* * *
—
Thousands of flecks had attached themselves to the Annoton’s hull now. Several had overlapped as they flattened out. That was the next activation trigger. The flecks merged, their discreet molecular machinery clusters combining, increasing their processing power and physical abilities. They started to move slowly across the hull, like raindrops trickling down a windowpane. The motion was random. They just kept going until they touched another of their own, then a further merger would occur.
* * *
—
The Annoton’s hangar was forward from the life support ring. Its outer door opened in a circular ripple that spread back to the rim, exposing an arrowhead-shaped spaceplane. Ualana-Lyon and Shoigu looked out of its curving windscreen at the uninspiring planet below.
“I’m launching our netsats,” Ualana-Lyon said.
The hangar’s launch rail swung down in front of the spaceplane, aiming along the Annoton’s orbital path. It started firing the netsats: fist-sized globes wrapped in a null-spectrum coat. They had to wait for fifteen minutes for all nine hundred of them to deploy.
“It’ll take three hours for them to reach their full coverage formation,” Ualana-Lyon told Lucio and Pavel over a lnc. “But once that’s complete, we’ll have secure communication with you no matter where we are on the planet. I need one of you to be awake at all times, so sort out a rota between yourselves. In the very unlikely event we need extraction, launch the surface slammer.”
“We’ll be here, father,” Pavel told him. “You can count on us.”
“Thank you, boys. Thirty seconds to spaceplane departure.” He checked the squat cone of the surface slammer that was in the cradle next to the spaceplane. It was an antimatter-powered craft, designed with one purpose: to get down to the surface of a planet fast, accelerating and decelerating at eighty gees. It would come streaking down to rescue anyone in trouble, then fly them back to the relative safety of orbit at a punishing ten gees. And if Gahiji-Calder ever found out he’d borrowed ten grams of antimatter, then the shit really would hit the fan. Only navy and archon craft were authorized to use antimatter within the Crown Dominion.
He put his hand over the contact bulb and told the spaceplane to launch.
* * *
—
After the spaceplane left, the hangar door remained open, ready for the surface slammer to depart in an instant if it was called. Several patches of amalgamated flecks slithered around the rim of the hangar door and into the bay. Outside, nearly five percent of the hull was covered in them, and still more were arriving.
* * *
—
The spaceplane performed a long retroburn, taking it down to the troposphere, where it started to aerobrake. Ualana-Lyon directed it to land at Husnak, a town of some half million citizens. The approach wasn’t promising. The land below the spaceplane was rugged and dry, with jagged rock teeth rising up out of yellowed soil. Vegetation clung to long, meandering clefts, its red-brown leaf color of questionable origin.
“Was this world even terraformed?” Shoigu questioned.
“Back at the start of the Remnant Era, supposedly—before even the Crown Dominion was formed.”
“So what happened?”
“Wars between cultures and people we no longer even know the names of anymore. Long centuries where no one lived here, so the terraforming stalled. Then the Kiu Celestials came, fleeing some war halfway round the Cluster. They wanted a different kind of flora to ascend. That was when the Crown Dominion arose and the Banishment Campaign began, where Imperial Celestials forced them to leave—or the majority of them anyway.”
“Did you take part in that?”
“No. At that time I was a brigade leader for the Colovax Ranger Knights. We were busy on Patrigi for almost two centuries. Our glorious queen was pleased with my actions; it was the first time I was granted the honor of being consort. I was raised to Her court that day, where I have served faithfully ever since, building our family to the status it enjoys today. And now here we are,” he said bitterly, “poking around this dismal world of failures and has-beens.”
He looked down to see Shoigu’s hand resting on his arm. “What do you hope to find?” the boy asked.
“I’m not sure. But after so many thousands of years of dealing with the terrible machinations of court politics, including seven hundred and twenty-eight years as an archon, I know when something is not right. I will know it when I see it.”
“I didn’t know you were an archon.”
“During dark times, many millennia ago. But the Great Game sharpened my instincts. Instincts I trust. Instincts that have brought us here.”
Husnak’s flight traffic CI assigned the spaceplane a landing pad at the city spaceport, and it settled on the blue-gray circle, stirring up a tall twister of sand and dust.
Shoigu stared through the windscreen. “There’s no livestone,” he said in surprise. The buildings that were cluttered together on the slope outside were the same metallic shade as the landing pad.
“It doesn’t grow well here; the soil bacteria the Kiu introduced affects it. Plus, Husnak is on the edge of the White Burn Desert. There’s not enough water for livestone to grow anyway.”
“Then I know what the city is made from, father: aerolite.”
“Well done, yes. This whole city is one structure that expanded out of its kake in less than a day. Somewhere there are anchor spikes a couple of kilometers long stabbing into the ground to hold the entire edifice down. The stuff is so lightweight that a decent breeze would blow the city away without them.”
“A metaphor for Uixic itself, then; cheap and easy, with no depth or permanence.”
Ualana-Lyon patted the boy’s hand. “Very good.”
“What now?”
“Now I become Stephein-Engel of the Capnik family; we are moderately successful traders looking to expand our enterprise. Particularly with Bekket’s family, the Guillrameos.”
