By Force of Arms (23 page)

The view was quite pleasant Starfall occupied the foreground. Sun glittered off glass, worm orchards circled beyond, and hills shimmered in the distance. Pretty now, but what about later? After the Sheen came?

Andragna turned his back to the scene and resumed the climb. Refreshed, or at least partially so, the officer focused on the trail. The worm ruts had been filled with a mixture of gravel and bits of broken glass. They glittered like lost jewels as the admiral made his way to the top or, if not the top, a flat area where the remains of a once prominent building stood. Three of the four violet walls remained and, thanks to the work of a dozen robots, stood free of debris. In fact, so beautiful was the U-shaped enclosure that a stranger might have taken it for a piece of architectural art, and mistakenly assumed that it was supposed to look that way.

Now, as Andragna entered what felt like open arms he saw the mouth of a tunnel, one of many the indigenous population had left behind, and a magnet for the Thraki priesthood. The early histories had been lost, but much had been said and written during the last couple of hundred years regarding the possibility that the Thraki race was descended from subterranean ground dwellers. The theory was certainly tempting, accounting as it did for the race’s excellent night vision, the complex nearly warrenlike manner in which their space ships were laid out, and the average adult’s diminutive stature. Which, when combined with the prominence of the hill, would explain why the site had been selected.

An acolyte stood at the entrance of the tunnel, back straight, spear grounded at her side. It was a rare individual who wasn’t acquainted with Andragna’s face. Both the challenge and the response were a matter of form. “Who comes?”

“A seeker of truth.”

“Enter then … for all who seek truth are welcome here.”

Andragna stepped into the mouth of the tunnel, but his bodyguards were forced to remain outside. Weapons were not allowed on holy ground, unless they belonged to the priests themselves or their highly trained assassins. A fact that spoke volumes about the amount of power vested in the priesthood, the extent to which they influenced the government, and the reason for the officer’s visit.

A second acolyte, this one male, came forward to greet him. A triangle had been shaved into the fur on his forehead, a second-year kilt was buckled around his waist, and his demeanor was respectful. “The high priestess is expecting you. Admiral… please follow me.”

The passageway, which had been blocked at various points, was clear now, but work continued. Construction robots, many of which had only recently been retrieved from deep storage, would handle most of the work, with acolytes pitching in to help.

What light there was emanated from a spray-on fungus that Thraki scientists had harvested from a planet visited more than a hundred annums before and stored in the Armada’s extensive “life” banks.

Some of the Facers opposed the wholesale use of offplanet “biotools,” fearing the manner in which native species might be impacted, but the Runners, who still harbored hopes that the stop on Zynig47 was little more than a pause, had no such concerns. In spite of the fact that the priesthood was a theoretical mix of Facers and Runners, the leadership had a pronounced proRunner bias. A fact which had everything to do with Andragna’s visit.

While the priests didn’t swing enough votes to stop the Facers, and feared the backlash that might result from any attempt to leverage the secular political process, they could be counted on to support conservative initiatives. Or, so he hoped.

Suddenly, the passageway opened to an enormous cavern. Light poured down through a partially restored dome to paint the lake below. The water was smooth as glass. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” the acolyte said softly, and the admiral, who took the stars themselves as his standard of beauty, was forced to agree. “Yes, it certainly is.”

The trail, which had formerly resembled a gently turning trough, followed the cavern’s wall and wound down toward the lake. Once they arrived at the bottom Andragna discovered a large relatively fiat area only partially visible from above. It was there, where numerous tunnels met, that the priesthood was in the process of establishing its headquarters. The temple was only half built but had already started to resemble those seen in the ancient texts. A swarm of robots, priests, and acolytes were hard at work, their tools screeching and clattering. It seemed that, Runner sympathies not withstanding, the church was building a home. Not a good omen from Andragna’s point of view.

A tall, rather regal-looking female spotted the visitor, handed her power wrench to a priest, and made her way over. Her name was Bree Bricana, and beyond the almost palpable magnetism that surrounded her, there was nothing to distinguish the high priestess from her subordinates. Certainly not the rough work clothes, tool belt, or heavily abraded boots. Both were leaders and knew each other well. The tu, or nonsexual embrace appropriate to male-female friends felt both natural and unforced. Each took a step back. “You look well, admiral.”

“As do you,” Andragna replied truthfully. “Work clothes become you.”

Bricana laughed. “I understand that you chose to walk … Who would have thought that legs could be so useful?”

“Yes,” Andragna agreed soberly. “But for how long?

The Sheen are on the way.”

Fur rippled down both sides of Bricana’s face. “I share your concern. Come … we’ll find a place to sit.”

Andragna followed the high priestess through a maze of neatly stacked construction materials and into a fungus-lit tunnel. It wasn’t until he was within the corridor itself that he realized that he felt more comfortable there. Why? Because it resembled one of the passageways in a spaceship, that’s why. If he had his way, if the race continued its journey, how long would it be until Thraki were no longer comfortable beyond the hulls of their spaceships? A thousand annums? Ten thousand? And was that good or bad?

The question went unanswered as the tunnel opened into a cavern. Alcoves had been carved into the sides of the chamber, creating rooms of various sizes. Bricana chose the largest of these, dropped her tool belt, and gestured toward some upended boxes. “Which would the admiral prefer? Rations or wall fasteners?”

“Rations,” Andragna replied solemnly, “in case I get hungry.”

The priestess laughed and took the other seat. “So, my friend, tell me the worst.”

Andragna’s facial fur rippled in different directions. He chose his words with care. “In spite of the fact that this planet meets many of our needs—the Confederacy becomes stronger with each passing day.”

“Yes,” Bricana agreed, “I listened to the audio portion of this morning’s meeting. You were quite articulate. 1 think it’s safe to say that there’s no possibility whatsoever that the aliens will allow themselves to be manipulated in the manner first described by Sector 4.”

Andragna felt a sense of relief. “I’m glad we agree.”

“However,” the priestess continued soberly, “we foresee the possibility of an even greater danger.”

The admiral’s ears stood straight up. An even greater danger? One that had already been discussed? Here was something he didn’t know about but should have. He ordered his ears to relax and adopted a matter-of-fact tone. “Yes, our people face many threats… To which do you refer?”

But Bricana had seen the officer’s involuntary reaction and knew the truth. The possibility, no, the reality of what the Confederacy would do, hadn’t occurred to him yet. She kept her voice neutral. “We think the aliens will attack and, depending on how the conflict goes, might join forces with the Sheen.”

Andragna felt the fur bristle along the back of his neck. Of course! How could he have missed such an obvious possibility? Because he’d been trained to focus on the Sheen … and the tactics of flight. A threat such as the one posed by the Confederacy lay outside the framework of his training and experience. And his subordinates, who had the same background, were no better equipped. He felt a crushing sense of shame.

It must have shown. Bricana was gentle. “You musn’t feel that way … We are what we have been. It could happen to any of us.”

Andragna looked up. “It didn’t happen to you.”

“Ah,” Bricana replied, “but it did. The only reason we have discussed the matter is the fact that something very close to this situation is mentioned in the Book of Tomorrows.”

As with many members of his monotheistic culture Andragna had a pretty good understanding of the gods, their attributes and powers, but didn’t really know very much beyond that. The truth was that like his military peers, the officer had more faith in the laws of physics than the somewhat wordy Tomes of Truth, one of which was called the Book of Tomorrows. The fact that it covered something that might have practical value came as a pleasant surprise. “Really? What does it say?”

Bricana seemed to look through him to something else. Her voice, which had been conversational up till then, seemed to deepen. The words, written hundreds of years before, had an archaic quality. “.. . And our people will settle a new world. Some will call it ‘home,’ and wish to stay there, while others will point to the stars, and the menace that follows. Beware of those who call themselves ‘friends,’ for they may attack, or align themselves with the menace. Run if you can, but failing that, call on the twins.”

Andragna allowed the fur to bunch over his eyes. “The twins? What twins?”

The high priestess stood. “Follow me. I’ll show you.”

Bricana rose, led him across the open chamber, and entered a side tunnel. It was guarded by acolytes armed with blast rifles rather than ceremonial spears. Andragna registered surprise but kept the emotion to himself. What did the priesthood have that required such heavily armed sentries? It was difficult to imagine.

The tunnel turned left, ran for twenty units, turned right, ran for twenty units and turned left again. Each right angle turn represented a potential point of defense, each was monitored by a clutch of sensors, and each had been executed with machinelike precision. These walls appeared raw, as if only recently excavated, and still wore marks left by the tools used to make them. The odor of ozone mixed with some sort of sealant hung heavy on the air.

Bricana stopped before a blastproof hatch. Andragna noticed that it still bore the number of the ship from which it had been salvaged, still another sign of the power that the priesthood continued to wield. She placed her forehead on a reader, lasers scanned her retinas, and a blue light appeared. Servos whined, the door swiveled open, and the visitors stepped through. A priest was waiting. He was armed and wore the black robes favored by the Brother/ISisterhood of Assassins. Andragna couldn’t see them—but felt sure that others lurked nearby. The priest bowed. “Welcome. How can I be of assistance?”

Bricana bowed in return. “Thank you. The admiral and I would tike to visit the twins.”

If the assassin was surprised by the request, he gave no sign of it. He bowed a second time. “Of course … Please follow me.”

Thus began a second journey that was much like the first, a series of carefully planned rightangle turns that led to a second blastproof hatch. Andragna was more than intrigued … he was angry and fearful. What terrible secret had the priesthood been keeping? And if they had one, did they have others as well?

The second door opened. Bricana went first, followed by the males. There was nothing especially attractive about the cavern that lay beyond. No worm glass, no special lighting, no effort to smooth the recently machined walls. It was perhaps fifty units across and twenty units high. A pair of what appeared to be golden cradles, each heavily decorated with scroll work, sat on a raised dais. The twins, if that’s what they were, consisted of bright metal tubes. They were approximately ten units in length. It appeared that each construct was protected by a force field, which, if not identical to those used by the Sheen, then were very, very similar. There was no need to tell Andragna what they were … He knew. The twins were weapons.

The priestess waited for her military colleague to reach the obvious conclusion. He asked the same question she had asked so many years in the past. “How do they work?”

Bricana offered the Thraki equivalent of a shrug. “Given the nature of your responsibilities, I’m sure you are familiar with black holes.”

Andragna was. He knew that when gigantic stars explode, or go supernova, something remains. A “hole,” or an object so dense that nothing could escape its gravitational field, not even light itself. Anything that ventured sufficiently close, including starships, asteroids, or planets risked being sucked in. What happened after that was unknown since there was no way for information to come back out. “Of course. It’s part of my job to avoid them.”

Bricana offered what amounted to a smite. “Yes, and we appreciate your efforts!” Her expression grew more serious. “Ask yourself this … what happens to all the matter captured by a black hole? It’s reduced to amorphous energy. Ships, asteroids, planets, whatever. All transformed into radiation. Maybe it stays there, trapped in time and space, or maybe it exits somewhere else. Were it to emerge, the exit point could be referred to as a ‘white hole.’ Imagine how much energy we’re talking about—imagine how destructive it could be.”

Andragna took a moment to do so. The results would be awesome. His eyes met hers. “So that’s what these are? White holes?”

“Artificial white holes,” the high priestess corrected him, “created and suspended within an antimatter container, and housed in a normal matter shell.”