Horizon Storms (54 page)

vain for some sign of agreement from her parents. “Doesn’t that make you the least bit suspicious?”

Idriss shook his head. “Frankly, we need their help. I don’t see any downside.”

Sarein let out an exasperated breath. “Look at all the worldtree wood they’re taking away from Theroc. They’ll turn that into a valuable commodity and make enormous profits from it.”

“We offered the worldtree wood as payment for their help,” Alexa said with extended patience. “Without being asked, Cesca Peroni promised to share some of those profits with us.”

“Do you have anything in writing? Did you negotiate proper terms for Theroc? What sort of percentage are the Roamers going to give back?”

Idriss sat back in his chair. “I’m sure it’ll be fair. She had no obligation to do so in the first place.”

“Hundreds of Hansa traders and businessmen would have bid for the right to process and distribute the fallen worldtree wood. You didn’t even ask for competitive plans. You simply handed it all to the Roamer clans.

That makes no sense—”

Finally her father showed a flash of impatience. “Sarein, dear, look out the window at all the work being done. Do you see any representatives of the Hanseatic League offering assistance? Do you see a single team of civil engineers from the Earth Defense Forces helping us rebuild? No, you do not. You see only Roamers. Why should we reward anyone else?”

Alexa stood up from her gilded chair. “I have no wish to continue this discussion until you have made overtures to Cesca, Sarein. It would be best for the two of you to speak face-to-face and settle your differences. If the hydrogues hadn’t killed Reynald, she would be your sister-in-law now.

Your father and I very much want you to be friends.” She took Idriss by the arm and left Sarein standing there, feeling like a little girl.

Sarein found the Roamer Speaker in a soot-covered forest meadow and asked her for a private conversation. “My parents insist that I speak with you.”

Speaker Peroni raised her eyebrows. “And why is that?”

“They say my suspicions and doubts are unfair to you people.”

Cesca’s dark eyes widened slightly. “Your suspicions and doubts?

That’s interesting, considering that the Hansa has hounded, cheated, and persecuted us for generations. When I learned that you’d returned to Theroc, I hoped you would act as an intermediary between the Hansa and the Roamer clans, since you are Reynald’s sister. Therons are independent, so I thought you might be more open-minded.”

It occurred to Sarein that if she could heal this breach, then Basil would be indebted to her for years. “Restore ekti deliveries, and I’ll consider intervening for you with the Hansa.”

“Do you represent the people of Theroc, or are you merely a mouth-piece for Chairman Wenceslas and his Eddy guard dogs?”

Sarein was affronted. “You descend to the lowest insults when I’m trying to settle our differences?”

“Insults? I’m exercising admirable restraint. The Chairman already knows what he needs to do before we’ll resume ekti deliveries. The ball’s in his court.”

Sarein knew she was in the stronger bargaining position. “Don’t make the mistake of assuming that ekti gives you the power to coerce the Hansa in any way. Earth has already received several shipments from our cloud harvester on Qronha 3. Once we establish other such facilities, and after our transportal colonization initiative takes hold, we’ll no longer need Roamer ekti at all. Then where will you be?”

Cesca did not rise to the bait. “Self-sufficient and independent, I believe. Just think it through, Ambassador. The Hansa stole from us and committed murder—why else would we have stopped selling ekti? It was our most profitable export. But I’ve seen what the Eddies do to our helpless cargo ships and the innocent men and women who work on them.”

“Fabricated stories.”

“I have indisputable proof,” Cesca retorted. “Would you like to see the wreckage for yourself? See the jazer burns?”

Sarein hardened her expression, refusing to believe. “Chairman Wenceslas would never authorize such outrageous acts, and the King would certainly never condone them.” But in the back of her mind, Sarein remembered some of the shadowy things Basil had already done. Was hijacking a Roamer cargo ship and stealing its ekti much different? She didn’t want to consider the possibility.

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“Then why hasn’t he bothered to deny, or even address, our griev-ances?”

The heavy lifters droned overhead, carrying fallen trees. Earthmovers pushed broken debris aside while groups of green priests found fertile patches of soil and manually planted treelings. The two women seemed to be in a bubble of emptiness, while activity continued around them.

Sarein’s back was straight, and her lips were pale. All her muscles remained tense.

Suddenly, a florid-faced Roamer in a uniform covered with embroidery and pockets came running up. “Speaker Peroni, there is an emergency! It’s Hurricane Depot!”

With a sidelong look at Sarein, the man leaned close to whisper to Cesca Peroni. Her face grew dark with rage, then she turned to glower back at Sarein. “As if we needed more proof! A battle group of your Earth Defense Forces just attacked one of our largest facilities. They stole our ekti and our supplies, kidnapped every person aboard the station—and then completely destroyed it.”

“I . . . don’t believe that.” At first Sarein didn’t think the news could possibly be true . . . but would Speaker Peroni simply concoct such an outrageous lie, or send a shill with a fictitious message? Not likely.

Before leaving Earth, Sarein had suspected that Basil intended to make some sort of gesture against the Roamers, but she had never guessed it would be so bold or provocative. As the hydrogue war continued, the Chairman had become more aggressive, more of a hawk. Had he and General Lanyan finally stepped over the line?

“I intend to submit full documentation and verifiable images to the Whisper Palace.” Speaker Peroni was visibly containing her fury. “Drogue attacks are bad enough—but coming from the Hansa? I had hoped to resolve this in a calm and fair manner, but the Big Goose has shown its plumage for all to see. You had best reconsider just how reliable your friends are, Ambassador—for the good of all Theron people.”

Then she raced with the Roamer message runner back to his ship.

925KOTTO OKIAH

The ship accommodations were minimal on Kotto’s journey to Osquivel, but he didn’t notice one bit. His attention was elsewhere. He had already forgotten about the work on Theroc and delved into other problems and mysteries.

Cesca Peroni had arranged a spare bunk for him on an outbound cargo escort to the Osquivel shipyards. He had food, water, and air. That was all he needed. The captain of the cargo escort was a solitary person who didn’t particularly welcome passengers, but since the eccentric engineer kept to himself and his calculations, the two men got along well.

En route, Kotto remained preoccupied with the idea of investigating a genuine hydrogue ship—intact! His mind crackled with possibilities. Unfortunately, so little was known about drogue vessels that he couldn’t even extrapolate or develop theories until he saw it. So he turned his restless mind to other challenges.

First it had been impossible heat on Isperos, where several people had lost their lives. So he resolved to do better on ultracold Jonah 12, where lakes of liquid methane surrounded by icebergs of frozen ammonia gave the planetoid a fairyland appearance. Because the atmospheric gases were in solid form, Roamer workers in durable tractors had been able to go out with shovel apparatus and scoop the hydrogen right off the ground.

But most man-made mechanical systems could not function for long in such a cold environment. Now, on his bunk, Kotto did a complete re-vamp of the crawlers and extractors, then designed a more compact kind of vacuum-baffle insulation for the engines.

He had never considered himself a particularly adventurous man, but he remembered Cesca Peroni’s challenge to all Roamers on the day she’d become Speaker, taking over the job from Kotto’s mother. The young woman had looked so intent, so beautiful, and so dedicated that Kotto had made up his mind not to disappoint her. . . .

In his free time, he also studied all published documents about Klikiss transportals and even some of the papers about the Klikiss Torch. The in-

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sectoid civilization had developed completely alien forms of mathematics and engineering, but it was all intriguing, and Kotto liked to put ideas together in different ways. His thoughts were like a projectile ricocheting at random in zero gravity.

But when the cargo escort reached its destination, Kotto put everything in the back of his mind. Barrel-chested Del Kellum met him when the ship docked. Kellum stood with his hands on his hips and his bushy beard protruding. “By damn, Kotto, your mother always told us we should listen to your harebrained ideas. Now you get a chance to be as harebrained as you like.”

Kotto took no insult from the clan leader’s bluster. “I appreciate the opportunity.” He glanced around inside the docking room. “So where is the derelict? I’m anxious to get started.”

“We wouldn’t keep a thing like that near our populated facilities—the drogues might come looking for it.” He clapped a hand on Kotto’s shoulder and led him deeper inside. “No, some of my workers took it to the other side of the rings, where it sits all alone, just waiting for you.”

On a wall screen, Kellum projected an orbital diagram with a marker blip indicating where the small hydrogue sphere had been placed in a stable orbit at the outer fringe of the ring. “I’ve assigned five of our Listener and Friendly compies to be your assistants, but you’ll be the only human out there. Unless you need somebody else?” He raised his eyebrows, hoping Kotto wouldn’t disagree.

The engineer shook his head. “No, I’d prefer to be by myself.”

“Good. I’ve got a full stash of supplies, diagnostics, and lab equipment ready for you to go.” When Kellum called up a photographic image of the alien sphere, Kotto stared at it, mesmerized. “Now you figure the thing out.”

935DAVLIN LOTZE

By the time Davlin’s ship limped to the edge of the Relleker system, only fumes remained in the stardrive chambers, but his transmitter still called out for help. Relleker’s sun looked bright, its planets brilliant dots—all of them impossibly far away. He spent hours in detailed calculations, considering and dismissing many desperate alternatives.

Finally, with careful timing, he fired a burst of his engines, flaming out the last of his fuel to give the ship a push, taking it out of its decreasing velocity curve so that he could coast just a bit farther. He would drift closer to one of the planets, but much too slowly.

After a day, when he’d begun to lose hope that he would be spotted in time, his ship was intercepted by an outlying picket scout keeping watch for hydrogue incursions. The Relleker defense scouts were not formally part of the EDF, and apparently poorly trained, but at least they were in the right place. As soon as they brought him aboard, knowing he had no time to lose, Davlin hauled out his old credentials from Chairman Wenceslas and flaunted his EDF rank. When the scouts still appeared uneasy, he used silver-beret techniques to commandeer the picket ship so that he could race to Relleker and make his demands.

The people on Crenna were freezing, dying . . . and counting on him.

The Relleker population, though, was as unprepared for austerity measures as most colonies. This had been a luxury world, a spa and vacation spot that catered to wealthy Hansa citizens. Far from being self-sufficient, the inhabitants had long since used most of their ekti to gather emergency materials and discretionary items they thought they needed to survive.

When Davlin presented himself to the Relleker governor, a well-fed-looking woman named Jane Pekar, she said she had no resources to assist the Crenna colonists. She shrugged. “Irrespective of your credentials, Mr.

Lotze, and your clear urgency, we simply can’t help you.”

“Your people don’t appear to be trying very hard to come up with solutions.” Davlin remained standing in the governor’s office long after the 344

woman had become uncomfortable. But he had no way to force Relleker to take action, not even to tempt them into offering assistance. He couldn’t believe that despite overwhelming odds he had made it here, only to find himself with a new set of obstacles and no time to work around them. He was frustrated at his own helplessness. Had he come this far only to fail the people of Crenna after all?

Finally, with a sigh, Governor Pekar said, “We’re due to have a scheduled supply run in another day or two. Someone named Kett . . . the Voracious something. Maybe they can help you.”

Davlin smiled at last.

When Rlinda Kett and Branson Roberts arrived in their two ships, Davlin immediately went to meet them. “You did tell me to contact you if I ever needed any help.” He found it fundamentally unsettling to depend on anyone. “Now I need it.”

Rlinda gave him a huge grin as he explained the situation. “Hah! I’m happy to help. You didn’t think I was one of those government types who goes back on a promise, did you?”

Both she and Roberts dumped everything from their cargo bays, emptying out all the crates and materials that should have been distributed to other colonies. “I’ll just add it to Relleker’s tab. A hundred and thirty people, you said? Are they at least thinner than I am?” She patted her wide hips.

“I can promise that.”

“Then let’s go.”

The Voracious Curiosity and the Blind Faith descended into the darkness of the smothered Crenna system. Davlin rode in the cockpit next to Rlinda Kett, much more animated and intense now than he had been when she’d dropped him off at Crenna not long ago. He could barely contain his relief.

A transmission came from the Blind Faith. “We’re here, but somebody switched off the sun, all right. Can’t even tell we’re in a planetary system.”