“Everything, of course! We’re friends now, aren’t we? You came here from an entirely different planet, and I’m fascinated by other worlds. You of all people must understand that.” She inclined her head toward The Interplanetary Pioneers. “So what is it like then, on Earth? What are humans like? Did you know any?”
“A few.”
Dessa’s eyes widened.
“Really? Did you know them well?”
Syl thought of Paul, and smiled. “I knew some pretty well.”
“What? Did they work for you?”
“No, they didn’t. They were my friends.”
“You were friends with humans? Wow! But aren’t the humans fighting us? Don’t they want us dead?”
“It’s not as simple as that. We invaded their planet, don’t you see? They’re just protecting their home. But once you get to know them, some of them are really nice. Kind. Gentle. Loving.”
“Loving?”
Syl blushed.
“Ah! You’re going red. What aren’t you telling me, Syl?” Dessa grinned wickedly. “Was there someone special?”
Syl bit her lip and shook her head. What was she thinking? Dessa was one of them, one of Tanit’s crew, one of Syrene’s darlings, but then Dessa had also intervened on her behalf when the Gifted were bullying Elda; Dessa had risked Tanit’s wrath to befriend Syl; Dessa had gotten Syl the book she wanted from a library that was off bounds to mere Novices, which must be against all the rules. And she said she would get Syl more illicit reading matter—all Syl had to do was ask.
“Oh come on, Syl. You can’t leave me hanging.”
Syl shrugged. What could the harm be?
“Well, there was this boy . . .”
• • •
Only after her visitor had left did it occur to Syl that Dessa could have asked Ani those same questions. Ani would probably have been more forthcoming too. What had she done in sharing with Dessa in this way? But really, did it matter? It had felt good to talk, and it wasn’t like her life history was a great secret to the Sisterhood anyway.
Shrugging it off, Syl reached for the book that Dessa had left her. She was sure that this book represented one small but crucial part of the puzzle that she was trying to solve. There was a secret here. Clearly others thought so too, or else why go to the trouble of defacing the other copies? She flicked quickly through it until she reached the final chapter. And there it was:
THE NEW WORLD
It had no name when we arrived, this azure jewel of a planet, floating in space like a precious nugget. It was the first celestial body we came to with any significant life on it at all, and what life it was, vast and abundant, with herds of gentle quadrupeds grazing as far as the eye could see. Creatures ancient and obscure roamed the green and luscious plains. Pristine seas teamed with sleek, gilled beasts that swam and dived.
On our in-flight system, the blue planet was logged as FE17, as is the nature of scientific labeling; later it would become known as Archaeon, and would be declared a restricted zone.
But for now, for us, it was alive with creatures great and small, creatures we could walk up to and touch, for they were as curious about us as we were about them and they knew no natural fear. For a glorious moment in time, verdant Archaeon was ours to explore, and what a wonder it was to behold . . .
CHAPTER 50
This was set to be the worst boost ever, thought Paul as he strapped himself into his chair. He and Thula had broken out some of the weaponry seized from the raiders, and all of the humans, as well as Peris and Alis, were now fully armed. Rizzo was dubious about taking possession of one of the new pulse rifles, even if they weren’t DNA locked. She was happier with a shotgun, but she consented to add a pulse pistol to her belt, just in case. Only Tiray remained unarmed. He told Thula that he had never yet held a pulse weapon, and didn’t see any reason to start now.
“Not being killed would be a good reason,” said Thula, but Tiray simply ignored him.
None of the weapons, though, would be of much help to them when they first emerged from the wormhole. The Illyri wouldn’t effectively seal off an entire system and then leave it unprotected. All of the ship’s defensive systems were activated, and Alis had linked herself to them, leaving Steven to take care of piloting the Nomad through the wormhole and do his best to get them out of trouble if—or when—they encountered any. Paul had also patched Tiray into the communications console in the faint hope that, if they were threatened with destruction by superior forces, the presence of the politician on board might help them. But not for the first time, Paul wondered just what they had let themselves in for by allying themselves, however uncertainly, with Tiray. All he knew was that if the Illyri had gone to such trouble to hide something in the Archaeon system, then it was probably worth finding out just what it was. He tried not to consider the possibility that finding out might be the last thing they ever did, and that the knowledge wouldn’t be much use to them if they were dead.
Steven waited for the order. Paul gave it.
“Take us in,” he said, and as the wormhole swallowed them Paul began to pray.
• • •
The first thing that struck Paul as they emerged was that the planet looked a lot like Earth: it had oceans, and visible continents, although it was much, much smaller than his homeworld. It was about the same size as Mercury, he reckoned.
“Planet identified as system homeworld, Archaeon,” said Alis.
Archaeon: classified as I-3, according to the ship’s display, supporting significant biodiversity—large mammals, reptiles, ocean life—but no advanced species comparable to Illyri or humans. It loomed before them, the wormhole practically on its doorstep. Small satellites circled it, but as he watched four of them detached themselves from orbit and moved toward the newly arrived ship.
“No life signs,” said Alis. “They’re drones.”
As the drones approached Paul saw that they were more oval than circular, with a central core than glowed as they neared the Nomad. A series of red warning flashes appeared on the cockpit display.
“They’re weaponized,” said Steven. “We’re being scanned. Advise, Lieutenant.”
“Hold your course,” said Paul. “No evasive action.”
The four drones surrounded the Nomad.
“Drone targeting systems are activating,” said Steven. A slight edge of panic crept into his voice. “If we’re going to do something about them, now would be a good time. Do we arm?”
“No. We wait.”
Nobody spoke. Nobody even moved, as though the slightest action might bring the drones down upon them. Paul found that he was clutching to the cross around his neck. If they open fire, we won’t know much about it, he thought. We’ll just go straight from existence to nonexistence without any stops in between. We won’t feel a thing. Well, not much anyway.
Alis broke the silence, although she still spoke softly.
“They’re communicating with the ship’s core operating system,” she said.
“And what is the operating system doing?” asked Paul.
“It’s answering back. I think it’s a clearance protocol.”
The warning flashes on the display turned green.
“Targeting off,” said Steven. “They’re withdrawing.”
And they were. They watched with relief as the drones returned to their stationary orbits around the planet. Paul let out the breath he had been holding since the drones locked in on them.
“What just happened?” said Thula.
“You didn’t die,” Paul told him.
“Well, all of this not dying is bad for my nerves,” Thula replied.
The cockpit display changed.
“We’re being offered a guidance route down to the planet’s surface,” said Steven.
“It’s automated,” said Alis. “I’m picking up no further communication.
”
“Take the route,” said Paul. Any deviation might cause the drones to reconsider their attitude to the Nomad.
• • •
Steven adjusted their setting, realigning the Nomad to bring them onto the correct approach path.
“Breaching atmosphere in five—four—three—two—one!”
The Nomad shuddered as it entered Archaeon’s atmosphere. They passed through thick banks of cloud. Lightning sparked angrily in their depths. Then they were out of the clouds, the detail of the landscape below gradually becoming apparent. They glimpsed forests, and gray-green meadows, and a lake that seemed to be awash with some form of algae. Closer now, closer. They saw the fields below filled with movement, like dark grass pulled back and forth by competing winds.
“Oh my god,” said Rizzo.
They saw hell.
• • •
At first, Paul mistook them for anemones somehow stranded far from the ocean, as though a great catastrophe had suddenly and fatally drained a seabed, leaving behind to die the life that it once contained. The anemone directly below the cockpit window was big, perhaps three or four feet in height, with thin reddish tentacles that twisted and stretched as they reached toward the sky. Its column, the anemone’s support structure, was flatter than those of its smaller counterparts on Earth, and seemed to pulse softly with some life of its own. It was only as they drew closer to the surface that Paul understood that what he was looking at was not quite an anemone, and what supported it was most certainly not a column.
The organism appeared to have erupted from the body of some form of mammal, four-legged and pale, with a flat, spadelike head that was embedded in thick shoulder muscles without any obvious neck in between. The entire left side of its body had been ripped open from within, and its innards exposed. The animal was still alive, although barely: its death agonies were almost at an end. It lifted its face, revealing soft, dark eyes, and its body shuddered for a final time. Its head dropped back to the ground, and a long green tongue lolled from its open mouth as it died.
The anemone contracted as the life left its host, its tentacles curling in upon themselves until it was barely half its previous size. And then, simultaneously, they spread themselves again, and Paul glimpsed a dark opening at the parasite’s heart. A great cloud of reddish spores rose from its insides and was carried into the air.
“Craft incoming,” said Steven.
He altered their flight path as, from the south, a zeppelin appeared. Paul had seen computer images of the helium zeppelins that were used on Illyr for the transportation of goods and people. This one was smaller than the Illyri craft—too small to be anything but automated—yet clearly modeled on the same design. The zeppelin moved in over the anemone, and a hatch opened in its belly. The trajectory of the spores altered as they were sucked into the zeppelin, the little vessel remaining in place as cloud after cloud of dust was expelled by the creature below. They left the zeppelin to its work and continued their exploration in near silence, stunned by the sight of a living world that had been transformed into a slaughterhouse.
They passed over more of the anemone-like creatures, some pumping their spores into waiting zeppelins, others dead or dormant amid the skeletons of long-deceased animals. Small herds of the mammalian hosts were dotted here and there, nibbling nervously on vegetation. As they watched, one of the mammals fell to the ground and began thrashing, its mouth wide as it moaned in pain. Immediately the rest of the herd separated from the unfortunate animal, retreating into the low bush in an effort to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their dying fellow. The mammal’s body swelled, and the crew of the Nomad could see the shape of the parasite within pressing against its insides. Then the animal burst, and from the bloody wound of its dying emerged the tentacles of the organism that had gestated inside it.
“There,” said Alis. “To the north.”
Paul turned in that direction, grateful to take his eyes from the terrible birth below, even if only for a few seconds. A series of low white buildings lay on the horizon, and above them loomed a cooling tower and a round containment structure. Water vapor poured from the opening in the tower.
“That looks like a nuclear reactor,” said Peris.
They made one low pass over it, but saw no signs of operatives or movement outside the facility. The lower structures around it were windowless, but appeared to be ventilated. As they came by for a second pass a door opened in one of the units, and from it emerged a herd of the mammals, although these were clearly smaller and younger than the others they had seen so far. A pair of small drones drove them away from the facility with the aid of electric prods, until the animals commenced grazing, their tails swinging contentedly behind them. Paul wondered how long that would last. Probably only, he guessed, until the first of them collapsed to the ground and began dying.
They continued north, following the curvature of the planet. They discovered four smaller nuclear facilities, but the only life-forms they saw were hosts and parasites. Meanwhile the zeppelins continued harvesting spores. In every case, once the parasites below had exhausted themselves, the zeppelins headed in the same direction: west.
“Follow that one,” Paul ordered as a zeppelin finished its work and, its cargo hold apparently full, rose higher in the air and turned west.
They stayed on its tail. It was gradually joined by others until the Nomad flew above a flock of silver zeppelins, like children’s balloons floating in unison. After a time, the zeppelins commenced their descent as they approached a fenced area with a trio of massive landing bays at its heart. Two were currently occupied by big cargo transporters, while the third lay empty. The zeppelins began an orderly docking, each attaching itself to a raised outlet on the hull of the first transporter. Unloading their cargo of spores took only minutes, after which each zeppelin ascended to begin its work again. Only the final zeppelin did not dock with the others, but moved instead to the second transporter.
“You see that?” said Steven.
“Looks like the first transporter has eaten its fill of spores,” said Paul. “Might be an idea to give it a little room.”
Steven took them up and away from the bays. A thought struck Paul as they ascended.
“Alis, how familiar are you with this ship’s systems?”
“I am . . . intimate with them,” she replied, and Paul knew what she meant, given that she had plugged herself into the flight recorder and, by extension, the Nomad itself.
“Does it have, I don’t know, any kind of tracking devices, something that we could use to monitor the progress of that transporter?”
Alis considered the question.
“There are cluster transmitters,” she said. “One of those might work.”
Cluster transmitters were used by Illyri craft to leave signals for other vessels, like electronic messages in floating bottles. They were linked to one another, forming a chain of markers.
“How quickly can you program one?”
“In minutes. What do you want it to do?”
“To drop a transmitter every time that transporter below enters or leaves a wormhole.”
“Consider it done.”
Alis left the copilot’s chair and moved to a console at the back of the cockpit. She laid her right hand palm up on the console, and pulled back a flap of skin from her wrist, revealing a tiny connector port. Using a cable attached to the console, she plugged herself into the Nomad’s systems again.
“Man, that’s weird,” said Thula.
“What, a woman taking a piece of outside equipment inside her?” said Rizzo.
“Yeah.”
“How do you think you were conceived?”
“I came down from heaven, like an angel.”
“I’m sure your mother would be fascinated to hear your theory of conception,” said Rizzo.
In the bay bel
ow, the metal docking restraints that held the transporter in place unlocked, leaving the ship free to fly.
“Departure imminent,” said Steven.
“Almost done,” said Alis.
Her left hand gripped the cable and pulled it free. She nodded at Paul.
“Done.”
“Activate it.”
A round device, resembling a clump of white bubbles, shot from the Nomad and attached itself to the hull of the transporter just as it began to rise from the bay. They watched it ascend slowly, then turn and head for the wormhole.
“Steven, continue the exploration,” Paul ordered. “If there’s anything else we need to know about this planet, I want you to find it. Rizzo, stay with him as a second pair of eyes. The rest of you, meet me in the briefing room in ten minutes.”
Paul left them. Peris and Tiray appeared to want to join him, but Paul shook his head. He wanted a little time alone before he spoke to them.
He needed to plan.
CHAPTER 51
“So, you think you’re one of us now?”
Syl stiffened. She was all alone in the locker room, for she was skipping her applied diplomacy class. She’d been about to open her locker, to put on the robes of a Service Sister again, to risk another foray beyond the Fourteenth Realm, only this time with the help of Lista’s cartograph. Now Syl looked over her shoulder as Tanit materialized behind her. She must have followed her in. The door clicked shut, and Sarea and Nemein stepped out of the shadows too. Without taking her eyes off them, Syl quietly posted the cartograph through the slot into her locker, then turned to face them.
“Skulking again?” said Tanit.
“No more than you are.”
Tanit stepped close and reared over her. “You have no importance at all, and yet you think you can compare your actions with mine?”
“We both breathe the same air, don’t we?”
“Only because I allow you, though you show no gratitude.”
“Well, thank you,” said Syl sarcastically, and Tanit sneered.
“You think you’re so damned clever, and yet you’re stupid enough to believe you can befriend the Lady Uludess, one of Archmage Syrene’s chosen? You—one who means nothing!”