Blood of the Cosmos (65 page)

“You just let them do their work, boys,” she said. “I'm already doing you a favor by picking up the tab, but if my mechanics charge me overtime because you're pests, I'll take the surcharge out of your wages.”

Xander was embarrassed. “I just want to be sure my ship is taken care of properly.”

Rlinda put a beefy arm around his shoulders and guided him out of the repair hangar, while OK and Terry followed. “Don't you worry, a good meal prepared by an excellent chef—by which I mean me—will take your mind off it.”

Terry brightened at the prospect.

Xander had already seen the repair schedule for the battered ship: roughly one third of the hull plates would need to be swapped out; two engines had to be repaired, one replaced entirely; whole electronics packages had been burned out; defensive weaponry was depleted and would need to be restored.

He had also seen the estimated bill. Some owners might have suggested simply scrapping the ship, taking whatever they could get for salvage, and buying an entirely new vessel. But this was the
Verne
, and Xander wouldn't even consider that. When his parents returned from snooping around the Iswander ekti-extraction fields, he was sure they'd agree with his decision.

In her quarters in a habitation tower near Kett Shipping, Rlinda made them feel right at home. The compy stood at polite attention as she bustled about to “scrounge up” something to eat—which did not prove very difficult at all. “I only have desserts. Primarily pastries. I hope that'll do.”

Terry was already licking his lips. “Anything special?”

“It's all special, dear boy.” Rlinda put her hands on her generous hips. “The lightest, flakiest, cream-filled delights you could possibly imagine. Some of them are more frosting than substance—intentionally so.” She put a large plate of exotic pastries in front of him and Terry. “There's even a delicate cream kringle with a hint of saffron.”

“Saffron.” Xander felt suddenly sad. “All that saffron. Maria left us half a ton of the stuff in her treasure vault on Ulio, but it's all blown up by the damn robots and the Shana Rei.” He pictured the wondrous stockpile of valuables the old woman had stashed away for years and years. “Oh, you should've seen it, Rlinda. A museum and a treasure trove. You couldn't imagine…”

“What I don't want to imagine is you two being dead. You got away from Ulio Station when a lot of people didn't. Be satisfied with that.”

“That's what I keep telling myself.” He took a bite of the kringle, and explosive sweetness filled his mouth. “But Terry lost a fortune, an absolute fortune.”

His partner seemed much less bothered by the loss. “Once the
Verne
is repaired, I'll have everything I want. A fortune would have been nice, yes, but I don't dwell on it.”

“Well, I do!” Xander was upset that his partner was so aloof about the loss. “Not so we could have a decadent lifestyle—but we could have tried dozens of different treatments, ones that were always too expensive for you to consider before! I can't believe there isn't somebody who could fix your spinal damage, who could give you your legs back again.”

Terry's expression fell, and he leaned over to clasp Xander's forearm. “I haven't been able to use my legs for so long I don't even think about it anymore, and all the saffron and prisdiamonds and firegems in the Spiral Arm won't make any difference.”

“But Maria had an even bigger fortune in her other accounts, and it just vanished, down in flames with the Ulio Central Offices.” He picked up another pastry and pushed it into his mouth as if it were a matter of self-defense. “All inaccessible to us now.”

Standing quietly in position, the compy startled them by speaking up. “The funds are not inaccessible so long as we have the account numbers, the routing codes, and the passwords.”

Xander sighed and licked confectioner's sugar from his fingertips. “In other words,
inaccessible
. Maria had hundreds of account numbers and twenty-digit randomized passcodes. We wouldn't even know where to begin.”

OK spoke up. “Not accurate, Xander. I have all of those codes. They were displayed on the Central Office screens at Ulio Station.”

“We didn't have time to input them before the shadows attacked,” Terry said. “The accounts are locked.”

“But I recorded all of the data. I have complete recall of every single number displayed on that screen,” the compy said. “We can access the accounts as soon as I connect to the Confederation banking system networks.”

Xander caught his breath. “You're kidding.”

“No, Xander. If I were kidding, I would establish the basis for humor more clearly.”

Terry stared, oblivious to the frosting around his mouth. “You have the account numbers for all that money?”

“It is your money, Terry Handon.”

Rlinda let out an explosive laugh, but Terry remained astonished. “Why didn't you say so, OK?”

“I did not realize it was a concern. You expressed dismay that all of the tangible assets, such as the saffron and prisdiamonds, were destroyed, and I could do nothing about that. Now the
Verne
is being repaired, and since Rlinda Kett is paying to fix our ship, I did not realize that the lack of money caused you distress. I apologize that I did not give this greater priority.”

Xander sprang to his feet and wrapped his arms around the compy. “I should never underestimate you, OK!” Now he could start the long process of searching for medical help for Terry, without worrying a whit about the cost.

“Thank you, Xander,” the compy said.

Rlinda couldn't stop laughing. “This changes everything. Most importantly”—she pointed a stern finger at the two young men—“now you can pay for your own damn repairs.”

 

CHAPTER

111

TAL GALE'NH

Back at Ildira, the four warliners that had survived the battle at the Onthos system underwent full repairs. Their structural damage was fixed, their laser-cannon batteries were recharged, their sun bomb arsenal was resupplied.

Angry at what had happened but refusing to admit defeat, Adar Zan'nh rallied an entire cohort above Ildira—343 warliners consisting of seven maniples, each with forty-nine battleships. The frantic work had an edge of desperation. No one knew when or where the shadows would appear next.

True to her promise, General Keah had provided a large shipment of the enhanced sun bombs, which she swore were substantially more powerful than the original Ildiran designs. Adar Zan'nh took her at her word and commanded that the new nova weapons be added to the arsenal already loaded aboard the warliners. Gale'nh had not seen them function, but he did not discount human ingenuity.

*   *   *

Gale'nh also had a sad, personal duty to finish. At the Prism Palace, Gale'nh presented himself to the Mage-Imperator and Nira with a heavy heart. “Rod'h is lost, Mother. The shadows swallowed him.”

Jora'h and the green priest already knew the facts of the situation, thanks to telink reports from Nadd aboard the
Kutuzov
, but they had not heard the full story. “Muree'n could sense that something had happened to Rod'h,” Nira said, struggling to contain her emotions. “She told me as soon she felt the shock, but we didn't know for sure. Nadd couldn't tell me anything about Rod'h.”

In the skysphere audience chamber, his half-sister looked even more dour than usual, standing like a statue in her armor. “Our brother is still alive, and still fighting,” Muree'n said. “I cannot always feel him, but I know he is in great pain.”

“Yes, great pain—and terror,” Gale'nh agreed. “I failed to protect him. He insisted on investigating the verdani battleship alone. I left him vulnerable. I could not save him.”

Prime Designate Daro'h hurried into the large chamber, his eyes flashing from side to side. “Is it true? I felt it in the
thism
, but I could not be sure. The shadows have killed Rod'h? That cannot be so! He was my friend, my adviser. He was braver than…”

Gale'nh looked at the anxious Prime Designate. He continued to be haunted by the last memory, when he had watched the shadow cloud swallow his brother's ship. “Rod'h is not dead. He is strong. He still fights them.”

Daro'h was shocked and angry. “How long can he last against the Shana Rei? It is not possible!”

“He will last as long as I did. Long enough.”

Nira said, “He was desperate to prove his worth. He had high expectations of himself, and he intended to show it. And now the creatures of darkness have him.”

“They released you.” Daro'h clung to hope. “Perhaps they will release him as well.”

Gale'nh did not say that he doubted the Shana Rei would make the same mistake again.

Jora'h said, “Adar Zan'nh will continue his training exercises in orbit. The creatures of darkness have caused us enough losses. It is time to fight back.”

Gale'nh bowed. “I will review all encounters, Liege, and assess what I know. If I cannot discover how to rescue Rod'h, I will at least try to learn ways that we can defeat the Shana Rei the next time they attack.”

 

CHAPTER

112

KOTTO OKIAH

With the Big Ring finally completed, Kotto felt giddy with joy and anticipation, yet also intimidated.

For years he had led the Roamers to this, guided the construction crews, drawn his designs, and told the clan engineers what to do. He had racked up an incalculable expense—not that he had ever been good at finances or budgeting. The data produced during the test might change fundamental comprehension about the underlying structure of the universe, might open up huge system-to-system transportals like the much smaller ones the Klikiss had left behind in their ruins. Or it might do something else entirely.

This project was not hubris—it was
audacity
. Such was the heart of a Roamer, and Kotto wanted to remind all of the clans, as well as the Confederation and the Ildiran Empire, exactly what Roamers were best at. He wanted his Big Ring to be a bright example for the bold, optimistic vision that had always driven the clans.

After receiving the completion report from Station Chief Alu, Kotto just stood inside his laboratory module and stared out the windowport. It was
done.

The Ring design was deceptively simple, just a giant doughnut loaded with a cascading loop of power blocks that, when operated in sequence, would create a ring current greater than anything ever recorded. That current would generate a cross-magnetic field, turning the Big Ring into a freestanding magnetic coil with the diameter of a small moon.

Right now, the Ring hung edge-on to the incredible furnace of the keystone stars in the Fireheart nebula. When the experiment began, maneuvering jets would turn the Big Ring on its axis, so that the intense stellar flux would flow through the center of the Ring, like a high-energy fire hose gushing through the superconducting magnetic coil. That would cause a logarithmic increase in the magnetic field, thereby increasing the current in the Ring, which would in turn further enhance the magnetic field … in an ever-accelerating spiral.

Kotto felt excited just to imagine the possibilities, but even his highest-order mathematics could not predict what would happen beyond that point. He just hoped the experiment would
work
, that his legacy as a genius would remain secure. It had been a long time since Kotto had shown he was the greatest Roamer scientist, and he needed to prove it again—to himself as well as to everyone else.

Shareen Fitzkellum and Howard Rohandas had surprised him with how easily they solved problems that had stymied him for years. When they grew older they would build upon his work and maybe stand beside him in the history books. But not yet. The Big Ring would put Kotto back on a pedestal for years to come.

Chief Alu pressed him for a demonstration date, but this was no time to rush the work. Three more days. Although the Ring was constructed and could be operated at any time, Kotto exercised due caution. He called for more extended testing to verify every single connection, every vital component. He didn't consider it stalling. Now that he had reached this point, he was a little afraid to see the project come to its end, one way or another.

And if it failed …

As instructed, Shareen and Howard had delivered their proposed new designs for the filter-flow system, along with a thorough analysis on another frivolous brainstorm he'd had one sleepless night years ago—a kind of photonic shield that could bend light around objects and make them invisible. Howard Rohandas had written a lengthy proof, demonstrating that the concept was physically impossible and could not work along the lines Kotto suggested. He took Howard at his word without going through the many pages of derivation. Kotto himself had never been able to solve that particular problem, though he had secretly harbored the hope that his young lab assistants might find a miraculous work-around. No such luck.

Well, it didn't really matter. The Big Ring was the focus of his energies and his dreams right now.

He invited Shareen and Howard to join him as he went to the station's launching bay, where he had reserved an inspection pod large enough to carry three passengers. “This is my reward for the good work you two have done.”

Shareen's eyes were bright. “Are we going out there? To see the Ring for ourselves?”

“Thank you, sir.” Howard was polite, as always. “We both very much look forward to seeing the Big Ring.”

“We will commence the actual experiment in a few days and demonstrate the wonders of big science.” Kotto ushered them toward the inspection pod.

Since Shareen had plenty of experience flying, she offered to pilot the pod, and Kotto happily gestured her toward the controls. He was a competent pilot himself, but he preferred to spend his attention looking out the windowport. The Big Ring always took his breath away.