Dark Allies

  … and then there was a fierce rustling in the trees nearby, as if something was pushing down on the treetops. There was a sound of bending and breaking, and branches being splintered …

  … and suddenly the roof caved in. Everything was shaking them from all around, and there was the very quick flash of blackness.

  Arango looked up from his mother's arms. He heard the shriek from his mother as the Black Mass descended, but was unable to process the information as being anything other than a loud noise. As for the Black Mass, there was something attractive, even beautiful, in the way that it was slithering, and Arango burbled happily just before the Black Mass dropped down on him after having eaten through his mother in less time than it took him to make a cooing noise. He didn't have time to comprehend his fate before it was upon him, and as he vanished into the maw of the Black Mass, his descendants who would never be cried out in protest, and somewhere the Organians wept for the future of all life in the galaxy.

  Si Cwan had no idea where to look first. He was so excited that he ran back and forth on the bridge of the cruiser until finally his uncle, the noble Sedi Cwan, fed up, grabbed him firmly by the wrist and shook him. Si Cwan's feet lifted clear of the deck and his body snapped about like a whip being jiggled. "Stop it! Stop it!" Si Cwan cried out, his protestations and slightly shrill voice garnering amused glances from others aboard the bridge. "Sedi! Let me go!"

  "You let yourself go," he said sternly. Sedi Cwan was not especially tall, but he was wide and beefy and his strength was almost as legendary as his temper. The weight of Si Cwan did not daunt him at all. Nevertheless, he opened his thick fingers and allowed his nephew to thud to the floor. "You let your emotions go. That is not the discipline one wants to see in a young nobleman, Si Cwan. Even one of your tender years."

  Si Cwan stumbled to his feet, rubbing the posterior that he'd been dropped on. "I was just excited," he said with as much defiance as he could reasonably muster, given the circumstances. "I think it's understandable."

  "Anything is understandable. One understands why an infant messes itself. One, however, can still be offended by the stench of immaturity. You should not be acting like a child."

  "But I am a child!" protested Si Cwan, which was true enough. He was not quite eight years old.

  "Have you ever seen a drunken man?"

  Si Cwan blinked, not following the question. "Yes."

  "As have I. Many more than you have, I fancy. Most of them, however, have the good decency to at least try and act as if they are sober. It may be obvious to anyone seeing them what their true condition is, but one at least gives them points for effort. You are a young prince and noble, Si Cwan. Do you think it unreasonable that you be held to the same standard as a drunken man?"

  The young man sighed heavily. "I guess not."

  "You guess not?"

  "No, it's not unreasonable."

  The corners of Sedi Cwan's mouth twitched ever so slightly, but from long practice he prevented it from becoming anything more pronounced than that. "This is my flagship, Si Cwan," he said gravely. "How you behave yourself becomes a reflection upon me. Do not embarrass or disgrace me."

  "I won't, Sedi Cwan."

  "Good." He nodded approvingly. "The Thallonian Empire has a grand and glorious tradition. We have never lost a battle. Such a rich tradition stems from equally rich discipline. I know that I can trust you to uphold it."

  "Thank you, Sedi Cwan."

  "Sedi Cwan!" The call came from the officer manning the tactical station. Sedi Cwan crossed the bridge, and Si Cwan followed, appropriately, in his footsteps. In his heart, Si Cwan had mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was embarrassed that he had allowed himself to get so rambunctious. On the other hand, he was so excited to be on a ship for the first time—and the flagship of the great Sedi Cwan at that—that he could understand why he might be a bit out of control. And if it was understandable to him, why couldn't it be understandable to Sedi Cwan? Well… perhaps, Si Cwan realized, it was just that Sedi Cwan had so many other things on his mind.

  Si Cwan tried to peer unobtrusively around Sedi Cwan to see what the readout was on the tacticals. Sedi noticed from the corner of his eye that his nephew was trying to get a better view. He reached out, got a grip on Si Cwan's shoulder and eased him around to another angle so that he could see. Si Cwan tried to understand what he was looking at, but much of it was a jumble of indecipherable readings. Nevertheless, he made as serious a face as he could and nodded as if comprehending everything that he was seeing.

  Sedi Cwan, on the other hand, clearly understood it all, and didn't like what he was seeing. "How is it possible?" he demanded. "How could they have gotten so far, so fast? Where were our observation stations? Our early warning facilities?"

  "Our facilities are state of the art, Lord Cwan," one of his men said. "And they were entirely within keeping with the time required, based upon the Mass' previous attack, to alert us as to movement."

  "So what went wrong… ?"

  "The Mass… moved faster…"

  Sedi Cwan made a rather angry-sounding noise in his throat. Si Cwan, knowing that he should simply remain quiet, was unable to help himself. "Is it the Black Mass, Sedi? As the instruments said?"

  Happily for Si Cwan, Sedi did not remonstrate with the boy for speaking out of turn. Instead he said very gravely, "Oh, yes. Yes, it is most definitely the Black Mass. And the situation is worse than we have imagined. Are we in visual range?"

  "At extreme magnification, yes, Lord Cwan."

  Sedi Cwan turned and faced the viewing array.

  "Let's see it," he said. It seemed to Si Cwan that Sedi was steeling himself, preparing for a sight that he did not particularly want to see.

  The viewing array shifted from the starscape that was before them, and then a world appeared on the screen that was so black, it appeared to have been covered with some sort of thick liquid. Si Cwan couldn't believe it. His understanding had been that, for a world to be that dark, it had to be situated so far from its sun that light never reached it. But this was…

  Then he gasped as he realized that the planet… was throbbing. At least, its surface was. Like a great heart, it pulsed, the covering around it writhing about as if it were having…

  "…a feeding frenzy," he whispered. Si Cwan had been on a hunt once, less than a year before, and he had seen a pack of beasts running. One of them had been wounded by a shot from one of the hunters, and Si Cwan had expected that the pack would simply leave it behind. Instead, several members of the pack, sniffing the blood, had turned on their wounded fellow, and proceeded to tear him to pieces. Consequently, the hunters made a larger capture than they would have, previously, as the attackers were so busy devouring the wounded one, they forgot about their own self-preservation. Si Cwan had been told that the term was a "feeding frenzy."

  Now Sedi Cwan nodded when Si Cwan spoke. "You're very right," he said, and although under normal circumstances Si Cwan's little chest would have swollen with pride over being told that he was right about something so grown-up, in this instance all it did was sicken him. "The only difference," continued Sedi Cwan, "is that other creatures lose their heads and give in entirely to instinct during such a time. The Black Mass is … something else again."

  "Where did they come from, Sedi? Where is its ship? Are they animals? Or a sentient race? Or … ?"

  "Not… not now, Si Cwan," Sedi said. There was no anger in his voice, but instead focused concentration. Then he turned to several of his men. "Toth. Bring weapons on line. Prepare to fire."

  The one known as Toth looked confused. "Fire at what, precisely, Lord Cwan?"

  "I'll tell you in a moment. Sanf, put me in communication with the other ships."

  Within moments, Sedi Cwan was in touch with the four other vessels that had accompanied them to the site of the Black Mass' migration, and had—in quick, straightforward terms—outlined a plan of attack calling for a simultaneous assault at different points on the planet upon which the M
ass was feeding.

  As the ships moved into position, Si Cwan couldn't remove his eyes from the undulating sheet of parasitic life that had enveloped Rolisa. "The people," said Si Cwan. "The people of Rolisa… where are they?" he asked suddenly. "Where are their escape ships? Where are—"

  His voice trailed off as he saw the look in Sedi Cwan's eyes. "No," he whispered.

  "They are gone," Sedi Cwan said flatly, making no effort whatsoever to sugarcoat the truth for the boy. "As we speak, they are in the belly of that… whatever it is."

  "All those people…" Si Cwan could barely grasp it One death, he could understand, he could relate to. Two deaths, three… these were simple quantities for him to grasp. But there had been hundreds of millions of people on Rolisa, according to what he had heard Sedi Cwan say when they first launched.

  Sedi Cwan's voice hardened. "It means nothing," he said.

  "Nothing?" Si Cwan couldn't fathom whether his uncle was saying these things because he believed them, or out of some belief that it was necessary to toughen the boy up in some manner. "It's lives. It's people. How can you say it's nothing… ?"

  "You're embarrassing me, young noble," Sedi said sharply, and Si Cwan immediately fell silent. "In the Thallonian Empire, all that matters, truly matters, are we Thallonians. That's it. That's all. You should know that. If your tutors have not made that clear to you, then I am going to be having some serious discussions with them."

  "Yes. They've made that clear," said Si Cwan. "But they have also made it clear that waste is a sin. This is a waste of lives, and therefore a great sin."

  "They were nothing, Si Cwan. Rolisa was an unadvanced planet with an unadvanced people who were never going to make the slightest difference to anyone except themselves. Whether they are here or gone matters not in the slightest. The Black Mass, on the other hand, presents a threat. A threat that we shall deal with… now. Toth… ?"

  "All ships are in position, Lord Cwan," Toth informed him.

  "Excellent. Attention, all vessels: When we fire upon the Black Mass, it will come after us. The plan is simple, but effective: Divide and conquer. The Mass will not know which ship to attack first and—theoretically, at least—will split up and come after each of us. When they do…" and his voice dropped to a deadly tone, "then we simply fry the bastards. Prepare to fire, on my order."

  Si Cwan watched the flurry of activity on the bridge as they prepared to go to war with an unknown, and unknowable, opponent. He wished that there was something he could do, but realized that there are times when one simply has to stand by and let others who know their business attend to things. He couldn't wait, though, for a time when he would be old enough to become involved in a great and glorious battle against an incredibly bizarre foe.

  "Three, two, one…" Sedi Cwan paused a moment—dramatically, it seemed—and then shouted, "Fire!"

  And the ships cut loose with everything they had.

  They used disruptors, they used plasma cannons, they used controlled fusion and thermite bombs…they used, in short, every weapon of mass destruction they had in their arsenal.

  The Black Mass ate it.

  Si Cwan couldn't believe what he was seeing. In fact, he was certain that what he was perceiving—what he was believing to be the case—had to be just flat out wrong. There was no way, simply no way, that the Black Mass was somehow absorbing their assault. But that was what it seemed as if they were doing.

  "This isn't possible," Sedi Cwan said, and the fact that he was clearly so stunned by what he was witnessing was probably the most upsetting thing of all for Si Cwan. As far as he was concerned, his uncle was unflappable, a rock, a pillar of strength who had endless war stories through which he swaggered with confidence and gusto, overcoming all manner of opponents with equal ease and facility. "Is it… is that thing…absorbing it somehow?"

  "It… appears so, Sedi Cwan," said Toth. He was looking at his instrumentation and he appeared as thunderstruck as his commander. "The Black Mass is completely ignoring us. We haven't… sir, we haven't even really gotten its attention."

  As humiliating as it was to admit, that was indeed the case. The Black Mass had not the least interest in departing the world upon which it was feeding. Instead it simply ate…

  …and ate …

  …and ate.

  The Thallonian fleet fired again, and again. They used everything they could think of on the Black Mass, every weapon, every tactic. But it was simply impossible to make any sort of effective attack upon an enemy that doesn't even seem inclined to acknowledge your existence. For over an hour it went on, as Sedi Cwan consulted with his scientists, his fellow commanders—even, in desperation, his personal fortune teller, who intoned that the day would be long remembered in the annals of Thallonian military history, but refused to say just what it would be remembered for. This was, of course, less than useful.

  In the meantime, the planet which had once been Rolisa continued to shrink, the Black Mass converging upon itself as its feast diminished in size.

  Sedi Cwan walked right up to the viewing array, staring at it intensely. Si Cwan watched in silence from nearby. And then Sedi Cwan leaned forward, his hands flat against the screen, and he hung his head and shook it in a most dismaying fashion.

  "Sedi… ?" whispered Si Cwan. He had not spoken during the entirety of the assault. "Sedi… what are you going to do now?"

  When his uncle looked at him, it was with darkened and haunted eyes. "Do?"

  "There has to be something else… there has to—"

  Sedi Cwan sighed deeply, and called out, "Stand down all weapons. Withdraw to a safe distance."

  There was a collective gasp from the bridge crew which was quickly smothered, and they worked smoothly to carry out their orders. Si Cwan stood bolt still, transfixed to the place where he had just heard his renowned uncle give an order for retreat. "Withdraw? You mean… we're going to run away?"

  "No, Si Cwan," said Sedi Cwan softly. There was a sound in his voice that Si Cwan had never heard before. It took him a moment to hazard a guess as to what it might be: It was the sound of defeat. "No… we are going to remain… and we are going to watch. So that we will be able to sear into our brains the memory of this day. The day when the collective might of the Thallonians… was utterly useless."

  Si Cwan shook his head in disbelief as he stared at the feasting Mass. "What… are they?" he asked finally. He had asked the question before, but the answers he had received had been terse, tossed at him in an offhand fashion as if the question were going to be moot in short order, since the Black Mass certainly couldn't hope to stand up to Thallonian supremacy.

  "They swarm from the Hunger Zone, Si Cwan," his uncle told him, "an area of space that no Thallonian has ever been. That is, indeed, forbidden to all. If anyone ever has been there, then he has not lived to return and speak of it."

  "Why is it called the Hunger Zone?"

  "Because… it is where the Black Mass resides until such time that its hunger becomes overwhelming. At which point, the migration begins." He shook his head, obviously still barely able to believe it. "The Mass migration can be in any one of an infinite number of directions out of the Hunger Zone, and no one ever knows when it will be. It depends, I suppose, on how much they consume during their time out of the Zone. They have not been seen for over fifty years before this day; the time before that, however, was only a ten-year stretch… before that, ninety. There is simply no way of telling. They may return during your lifetime, Si Cwan. I pray, for your sake, that they do not."

  "Is it one creature? One being? Or millions, or billions, or—"

  "I don't know, Si Cwan!" and Sedi Cwan made no effort to hide his frustration. Considering his formidable powers of self-control, there was no greater indicator of just how utterly dismayed he was. "I don't know. Nobody knows. If we knew something about it, perhaps we could defeat it. It is not like a traditional enemy… it's not like any enemy at all, it's…" He stared at it with a combination of horror and awe. "I
t is like a force of nature."

  "Lord Cwan!" Toth said suddenly. "It's on the move!"

  "Are you certain?"

  "Positive, milord!"

  He was right. The Black Mass was moving away from the world around which it had swarmed. And in its place was… nothing. A few stray bits of rubble; that was all that remained. The Mass began to re-form itself, then, slithering about and reshaping into something that Si Cwan fancied looked a bit like a ship. It seemed vaguely symmetrical, with downward scoops that rippled as the ship moved.

  "Wait…. look!" Si Cwan said, excitement growing. "Look where it's going! It's killing itself! Our problems are over!"

  Sedi Cwan, unlike the overenthused Si Cwan, didn't immediately trust the evidence of his eyes. "Check its heading. Make sure that it's going… where we think it's going," he said with a glance toward Si Cwan.

  "It is, milord!" said Toth. Clearly he was fighting to contain his own enthusiasm. He likewise couldn't believe that it was going to be this easy. "It's heading directly into the Rolisan sun!"

  Technically, since there was no more Rolisa, it was wrong to refer to it as the Rolisan sun. But no one bothered to correct him, for the important thing was that the Black Mass had apparently decided to end its collective existence. It was angling, straight and true, toward the heart of a star.

  "Track it," said Sedi Cwan. "Bring all the ships back to maximum distance. If there's some sort of disruption, some sort of nova, I want to make sure we don't suffer any casualties. Not when we stand on the brink of ending this."

  The ships obediently retreated, watching as the Black Mass continued to head straight and true toward the blazing star.

  "It cannot be this easy," Sedi Cwan was muttering. "It simply can't be. The Black Mass will veer off. That's the only answer. It will veer off and…"

  It didn't. Instead it began to spread out, to become even larger as it approached the sun.

  "Lord Cwan!" said Toth, "we're losing sensor readings on it!"

  "What do you mean?"

  "There's some sort of…" He shook his head in befuddlement. "Some sort of spacial distortion developing around the Mass, as if it's bending or warping space as it's moving."