Blood of the Cosmos (71 page)

Robb shrugged. “Or find other clusters. Nobody's really bothered to look before.”

Tasia said, “Kett Shipping makes this offer to anybody here because I am still a Roamer at heart. Our distribution ties with Iswander Industries are severed—we figure that getting shot at by your trading partner does not indicate a good business relationship. We refuse to distribute their ekti-X any longer, so we'll have plenty of ships to take the ekti-X that any other clan produces. Robb and I would be happy to discuss terms.”

“The bloaters are just there for the taking,” Orli said. “And I could feel…”

Two clan leaders slipped out of the convocation chamber, maybe to deal with other business, but Tasia suspected they were eager to beat the rush in the search for other bloater clusters.

For generations, Roamers had produced ekti from huge skymines on gas giants, and now the traditional skyminers looked more dismayed than ever. Since the Roamer clans understood how quickly and easily stardrive fuel could be extracted from the ubiquitous bloaters, there would be a veritable “ekti rush.”

Kett Shipping would take advantage of that.

Prices would drop substantially, but the need would remain high. With efficient extraction and distribution, the Roamer clans would have plenty of ways to make money.

But Lee Iswander would be a pariah—that much was obvious.

“You can't do this to me,” he said. “I pulled myself up after a disaster, discovered ekti-X, rebuilt my business.…”

“You should have stayed on Sheol,” grumbled Sam Ricks. “Made the final count fifteen forty-
four
.”

Lee Iswander made his way to an empty seat where he collapsed.

“As Speaker for the clans, I will submit this matter to the Confederation legal system.” Ricks kept grinning foolishly as if he had just won an unexpected lottery. “Or would you prefer that we finish our business here first, Mr. Iswander? I believe you were calling a motion among the clans? A no-confidence vote?”

A large number of audience members had already left the chamber. There would likely be a long line of people waiting to use the services of Newstation's contract green priests, while others would simply fly away, rushing out to track down bloater concentrations so they could begin their work.

Clan Duquesne had set up their operations on a shoestring and apparently they had begun delivering ekti-X within weeks. Soon, all the clans would be draining bloaters dry wherever they found them in open space. Even without Ulio Station, the loss of which still stunned Tasia, there would be more stardrive fuel than had ever been available before.

With the looming possibility of war with the Shana Rei, the Confederation Defense Forces and the Ildiran Solar Navy would need a great supply. With fuel so cheap, she suspected there would also be a resurgence of prospectors and explorers, sniffing out new territory, mapping new worlds, new resources.

Robb leaned closer to her. “You know we've just changed the whole Confederation.”

“For the better, I hope.”

The possibilities seemed endless. The bloaters appeared to be an inexhaustible resource.

As the convocation chamber emptied, Iswander sat slumped, his shoulders fallen. He ran his hands through his hair and looked stunned; Tasia almost sympathized with him.

But she had only to recall Elisa Enturi charging after them and opening fire on the
Curiosity
, and also the massacre of the Duquesne site. The sympathy faded quickly.

 

CHAPTER

122

EXXOS

Now that the Shana Rei had replenished themselves with dark matter from the Dyson sphere, they spent that material extravagantly. Hanging over the doomed planet of Kuivahr, the hex cylinders ejected millions of black plates to assemble the opaque sphere, building it up piece by piece to swallow the whole planet.

Each hexagonal plate fit exactly against another, and the englobement grew steadily to form a perfect sphere. Surely such geometrical perfection was the antithesis of the complete chaos desired by the Shana Rei. The shadows continued to be contradictions to themselves. Exxos found it ironic, but he did not need to understand everything about them; the events served his purposes. He felt proud and strong now, controlling the powerful new warships the shadows had created for them. He had everything he wanted. Almost.

With the glut of free material from the Onthos home star, the shadows built whatever Exxos wished. Manipulating this matter caused them no pain, since they had already suffered for it millennia ago. Now, Exxos and his robots redesigned their black warships, making them superior even to the ones they had used at Ulio Station. He could not risk losing any more robots, so he demanded thicker hulls, increased shielding, more powerful weapons. Invincible ships, juggernauts of destruction.

The black robots dispersed, only ninety-eight of them left, but with these enhanced warships he could wreak tremendous havoc. Every single one of the remaining robots had mental processes identical to his own, so they could coordinate their attacks with unparalleled precision. Sentient life-forms would be doomed, starting with Kuivahr.

Meanwhile, deep in their cybernetic minds the networked robots continued to solve the problem of how to exterminate the Shana Rei, when it came time to do so. The design and theory for an entropy dampener proceeded, millions of steps being solved in the background, one at a time.

The black englobement below was more than half finished, and once the sphere completed itself, Exxos knew, all the screaming from the Kuivahr population would cease tormenting the Shana Rei. This would be a perfect victory, without the loss of a single robot.

His giant black battleships soared out of the shadow cloud, ranging closer to the enshrouded planet. He watched the trapped victims struggle in a useless attempt to flee. The robots had destroyed an automated cargo lifter and a holding platform, but that was just targeting practice. Several refugee ships had rushed away, panicked traders fleeing as soon as the Shana Rei arrived. The black robots pursued them, but the human pilots demonstrated unexpected prowess in evasive flight. It didn't matter.

His ninety-eight titanic battleships would be enough to secure the planet as the Shana Rei smothered it to death. All across the Spiral Arm, humans and Ildirans would grow very afraid.

By the time the rapid englobement was sixty percent complete, the planet had mostly quieted, but a final ship raced away. Hungry for the pursuit and the prize, Exxos guided his own battleship while linking his mind with the engines and the weapons systems. The angular craft was like an extension of his own mechanical body as he plunged after the last escapee.

The human pilot swooped and dodged, proving to be more nimble than the enormous robot warship, and Exxos was surprised when his first volley of energy bursts missed. He accelerated, increased weapons power, and launched another fusillade—but the human ship dove downward and astonishingly looped back and headed
straight for him
. Exxos couldn't adjust his targeting swiftly enough. Surely, this small vessel had no weapons that could harm him!

Four small defensive jazer blasts punched against his hull, causing little harm; then the ship changed course and roared upward. Exxos veered after it.

He intercepted a comm transmission, which was no doubt meant to be taunting. He saw a woman with long dark hair and intent eyes, crowded in the ship with a teenaged boy, a toddler, and other adults, one of them a green priest. Exxos identified Prince Reynald, the son of King Peter and Queen Estarra. Ah! He would consider it quite a victory if he could snuff out that one human life.

More important, another passenger, a female, was one of the halfbreeds that the Shana Rei desired so badly. Osira'h, child of a green priest and the Mage-Imperator. The Shana Rei would want to capture her, and Exxos wanted to kill her.

The female pilot sneered at him. “You bugbots wrecked my distillery, and now you're destroying our world. You're a real pain in the ass.”

The robot battleship closed in, but somehow the fleeing craft continued to dodge. “Toast your victory, smug son of a bitch,” said the man beside her; then the passengers all yelled in alarm as the pilot spun the ship, throwing them to one side.

The rear cargo doors opened, and containers tumbled out like chaff falling toward the robot battleship: drums, kegs, crates filled with bottles, all of which smashed against Exxos's hull. The debris and flash-vaporized liquid were merely a distraction. Exxos dodged, but the accelerating ship was gaining distance. But the prey had no place to go. Exxos could easily run them down.

Suddenly, with a flicker of movement and rapid deceleration, a blizzard of large, ornate ships appeared: Solar Navy warliners arriving in the Kuivahr system! In an instant, the Ildiran fleet filled empty space, hundreds of war vessels.

With flashing red optical sensors, Exxos scanned and counted—more than three times the size of the black fleet the Shana Rei had created for them. Exxos was surprised by this setback, but not alarmed. His ships were invincible. The Solar Navy would be inadequate to defend themselves.

Communication signals buzzed among the robots, all of whom reacted, pulling together. The lone escaping human ship raced pell-mell toward the Solar Navy cohort, blasting out a distress signal and begging for sanctuary. Exxos did not want to let the halfbreed girl or Prince Reynald go, but now he had a much bigger target. Even though these Solar Navy ships outnumbered the robots, his vessels were substantially more powerful, with greater armaments and tougher hull shielding. The Ildirans didn't stand a chance.

He finished his threat assessment in less than a second, and his robot counterparts came to the same conclusion. They responded to the challenge with a certain amount of glee. Yes, this would be a very satisfying fight. He looked forward to seeing Kuivahr's orbit strewn with massive amounts of wreckage.

The black robots synchronized their thoughts, synchronized their attack strategy, and drew into a unified, organized force. The black fleet activated their weapons systems and plunged toward the Ildiran Solar Navy.

 

CHAPTER

123

TAMO'L

The englobement of Kuivahr continued, the suffocating black shield growing, curving, walling off the whole sky.

Overhead, the black hex ships accelerated the process, distributing opaque plates like a blizzard of darkness assembling the shroud, piece by piece. Two-thirds of the sky was gone now. The sunlight had faded, and clouds churned as the unnatural vise grip closed around the world.

Osira'h, Prince Reynald, and the green priest had made it to the Kellum distillery in time to take one of the evacuation ships. Now, Tamo'l had to see that everyone else escaped—through the Klikiss transportal.

She worked furiously to prepare the population of the sanctuary domes. Shawn Fennis and Chiar'h rallied the misbreeds and readied their transport. The healthiest and most functional misbreeds carried the suffering ones, those who required special life support, respiration, body harnesses, or levitating platforms.

The Kuivahr tide was high, which made the seas rougher, mostly submerging the domes, and created additional difficulties for their exodus. They had access to only the top hatch and the smaller landing deck, where no more than ten people could gather at a time. During high tide, the people in the sanctuary domes normally hunkered down for a week in quiet isolation, but today Tamo'l knew everyone had to leave, at all costs. They had to reach the Klikiss transportal wall—but the domes had access to only a few boats, nothing suitable for a large-scale evacuation.

The domes' small craft were primarily used to shuttle one or two people to the transportal wall, or to meet up with the swimmer kith, who lived on wandering kelp rafts. Tamo'l's heart suddenly lurched as she thought of them: she'd been so focused on finding a way to save the misbreeds that she had entirely forgotten about the swimmers that thrived on Kuivahr! She felt responsible for them as well, because those generous swimmers had helped the sanctuary domes so often. But Tamo'l didn't know how to save all of them, wasn't even sure how to save her own misbreeds.

Tom Rom, though, claimed he could help.

A problem solver, he wore a determined expression without the slightest hint of panic as he stood outside on the upper deck. “I spent the past few hours compiling your medical data so that none of your research will be lost. I have a complete copy, and I am ready to go. Come with me, Tamo'l—my ship is on the other side of the transportal wall, landed on Auridia. We only need to choose the correct coordinate tile. These others can follow as they wish.”

“We go together,” Tamo'l insisted. “I have to save the misbreeds.”

His expression hardened. “Perhaps they cannot be saved. It is most important that
you
come with me. The medical knowledge you possess could be very useful to Pergamus. Come, I'll take you.”

Shawn Fennis rushed up, his face flushed, panting hard. “You're not in charge of transportation here, Mr. Tom Rom. Chiar'h and I agree that the Klikiss transportal is our best bet, but with this few boats, we need to start shuttling people over to the outcropping a few at a time, as many as the craft will carry.”

Tom Rom clutched the Ildiran medical data, glanced up at the darkening sky. “Then I suggest we do so soon.”

Though he limped and breathed hard, the misbreed Gor'ka toiled at the waterline and prepared the two small watercraft available. Tamo'l helped carry a levitating pallet that held one of the most deformed of the misbreeds. Soft, pale Mungl'eh was an invertebrate with a sluglike body and atrophied flippers for arms and legs. Despite her horrific body, Mungl'eh had a calm and complacent disposition, and when she sang, her voice was so sweet that she had made Mage-Imperator Jora'h weep. Each Ildiran breed had a useful purpose, and Mungl'eh had proved to Jora'h that even misbreeds could be precious.