Horizon Storms (8 page)

well as dwellings built into cliff faces that were lined with large, blocky crystals. Steinman had been correct—the terrain was unmistakable.

Davlin studied the ghostly world, where watery sunshine illuminated cliffs studded with lumps of crystal. The Klikiss must have considered the sheer granite walls to be protective, like fortress barricades. The stone looked shiny, half-melted, as if it had been subjected to some inconceivable destructive force.

He tried to imagine what could have struck the insectoid civilization.

What enemy had been powerful enough to make them create the Klikiss Torch? The hydrogues? In the end, even the Torch hadn’t been enough to protect them, and their race had been wiped out.

Davlin knew the Hansa would send colonists to Corribus. He just prayed that whatever had happened here would not occur again.

95MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

In the private ossuarium chamber beneath the Prism Palace, where no one could see him, Jora’h stood before the skull of his father—and hated him. “You’re forcing me to continue the most dishonorable of schemes.”

His unbraided living hair writhed like crackling strands of static electricity, and his words came back to him as mocking echoes in the eerie silence.

“Bekh! Not even the humans have developed foul enough words to convey my anger over what you were—and what I have become.”

Only a day had passed since the funeral blaze, and his father’s skull had already been installed in the cold ossuarium, a private, silent place where a Mage-Imperator could ponder his rule. He wished he could just hide in a deep sub-thism sleep, like the Hyrillka Designate.

The skull, glowing pearly white, remained mute, its eye sockets hollow M A G E - I M P E R A T O R J O R A ’ H

31

and empty, the smooth teeth grinning, as if the dead Mage-Imperator were laughing at his son’s predicament.

Almost a century ago, no doubt Cyroc’h had faced the same knowledge and decisions when he, too, learned of the breeding program and the captive humans—like Nira. Had his father felt even a twinge of guilt, or had he simply grasped the new “resources” and turned them to the service of the Empire?

Jora’h now regarded the glowing bones of his grandfather, who had been Mage-Imperator when the human generation ship Burton was found.

For millennia, success had eluded the Ildirans in their ongoing efforts to create an interspecies bridge in the form of a powerful telepath who could meld thoughts and images with the hydrogues and represent both species.

In a desperate twisted attempt to boost the experiments on the splinter colony of Dobro, his grandfather had decided to mix the bloodlines of the Burton descendants with talented Ildirans. The experimenters impregnated the human women, used the men as studs, and kept the breeding work going.

As soon as possible, Jora’h swore he would go to Dobro and find his beloved Nira. As Mage-Imperator he had the power to free her at last from her breeding servitude, and he would also meet his daughter Osira’h. He would begin to make amends to her, and even to the enslaved humans. . . .

He shuddered to think of the secrets that his father had kept, knowing his naïve son would not understand everything until he took his father’s place. He now knew about the part Ildirans had played in the previous hydrogue war, and he also understood why the peaceful Empire—which had supposedly never faced an outside enemy in a thousand years—main-tained such a large and powerful Solar Navy and kept such a vast stockpile of ekti in reserve. Everything had been in long-term preparation for the eventual return of the hydrogues—and the unreliability of the Klikiss robots.

“Why did you allow the humans to test their Torch at Oncier, if you knew what might happen?” Even with full access to the thism, he could not understand his father. “Why would you take the risk, tempt fate?” Jora’h did understand, though, that the previous Mage-Imperator—and all Ildirans—had often underestimated or misinterpreted the ambitions of humanity. Had Cyroc’h never truly believed what the scientists of the 32

Hanseatic League meant to do? Perhaps Cyroc’h had simply not grasped the magnitude of human folly. . . .

Jora’h frowned at the phosphorescent skull, determined to defy the untenable position in which he found himself. He felt a chill in the air, heard faint whispers, but he faced the judgmental bones of his predecessors. “Yes, Father, I will serve my people and guide them through every crisis, if it is in my ability to do so. But yours is not the only way. If I can find any other solution, I will change these paths.”

His son Zan’nh, acting as Adar, had submitted an analysis of current ekti stockpiles, and the Mage-Imperator was dismayed to see how quickly their resources were being depleted. Despite contingency reserves, no one had anticipated that ekti production might cease entirely. The Empire required stardrive fuel to survive. Their stockpiles needed to be replenished.

Zan’nh would soon take on the official mantle in command of the Solar Navy. His predecessor and mentor, Adar Kori’nh, had been killed along with a full maniple of warliners in a suicidal offensive at Qronha 3; all indications led them to conclude that the hydrogues had been driven from the gas planet, and the clouds were ripe for ekti harvesting again . . . at least until the hydrogues came back.

That was something he could do, at least. The Empire faced challenges that forced Jora’h to consider desperate gambles. But refusing to try was far worse than taking risks.

As he turned from the luminous reliquary, ignoring the unhelpful skulls of his ancestors, Jora’h felt confident of his decision. With Qronha 3 free of the enemy, for now, he would command Zan’nh to reassemble one of the large cloud-harvesting facilities and return there with a full complement of miner kithmen, bred to be ekti harvesters. It was a positive, proac-tive step—one more victory purchased by the heroic death of Adar Kori’nh.

With a grim smile on his face, Jora’h turned to leave his silent ancestors behind and called for his son Zan’nh.

105SuLLIVAN GOLD

Opportunity always knocks: Sometimes it scratches quietly, and sometimes it pounds like a blustery drunk demanding to be let in.

When news came to the Hansa that the hydrogues had been defeated at Qronha 3, they quickly took advantage of the circumstances. Rich hydrogen clouds were available for the taking, at least temporarily, and all that potential ekti could not be ignored.

Enormous cargo transports rushed components from orbiting industrial centers to the empty Ildiran gas planet, where they would be assembled at the fringes of the dense cloud decks. Highly paid volunteers signed up to work the new Hansa cloud harvester. Only a crazy person, or an overly optimistic one, would have taken such a job.

Sullivan Gold accepted the assignment to become the facility’s manager, knowing full well the risks and potential rewards. It was a business decision that made perfect sense to him. The payoff would be either a feather in his cap, or a fitting epitaph on his tombstone.

Now, as the first wave of Hansa transport ships arrived at Qronha 3, Sullivan watched swarms of workers guide the massive components together. Heavy storage tanks, ekti reactors, life-support modules, and engineering decks came together one at a time, like the pieces of a puzzle. He scrutinized every step of the process, checking and double-checking the work.

Though hundreds of laborers came here initially to set up the huge skyfactory, only a few dozen would remain once the cloud harvester came online. The elite. The sitting ducks. Sullivan considered having the men paint a logo or mascot on the side of the huge facility. A mallard might be nice . . . or a bull’s-eye.

He had a practical wife named Lydia, three sons, a daughter, and (so far, at least) ten grandchildren, all of them intelligent and ambitious, sure to be movers and shakers someday. When the Hansa had called for an industrial head to run the new cloud harvester, Sullivan had gathered his 34

family for dinner and sprang his suggestion. “With the terms the Hansa is offering, there’s no way for us to lose!”

“Well, you can, dear,” Lydia said. Then she took out a sheet of paper, marking one side Pros, the other side Cons. They had discussed the matter late into the night, always coming back to her stern finger tapping the columns that listed advantages and disadvantages.

On the pro side, the Hansa was offering the Gold family major industrial concessions, interest-free business loans, guaranteed orders for a large variety of products—enough to transform them from simple businessmen into an actual dynasty. The cloud harvester would be designed to allow for a rapid evacuation; there was a chance (though not a good one) that Sullivan and his crew might escape if they were attacked by hydrogues. At least it looked possible on paper.

The disadvantages were obvious. . . .

Now, in the glassed-in forward dome of the largest Hansa vessel, the green priest assigned to this venture joined Sullivan as he continued his observation. Unusual among green priests, Kolker worked as a freelance telink communicator, hiring himself out from one Hansa ship to another.

He wasn’t one of the nineteen volunteers who were assisting the EDF; he had already spent years in the commercial empire.

Though Kolker was always available to submit Sullivan’s important status reports to the Hansa or relay friendly messages to Lydia, the green priest spent the majority of his time sitting with one hand resting against the trunk of his potted treeling, wearing a distant smile. The loquacious Kolker never seemed to tire of chatting with his fellow priests through the telink network. He shared messages incessantly, sometimes talking aloud, sometimes just listening, even when there was no news.

A long time ago, Sullivan remembered finding a chest of his grandfather’s keepsakes, including a bundled stack of old-fashioned photo postcards. Seeing Kolker engaged in so much contact via the worldforest reminded him of those postcards. At least the telink didn’t require Kolker to add extra postage from the gas giant.

“I’ve described everything to the worldtrees and my fellow green priests, Sullivan.” He smiled, showing green gums. “New information and experiences help to distract them from all the damage the hydrogues have

inflicted. But . . . I feel guilty to be here instead of helping in the burned forest.”

Sullivan pursed his lips as he watched the final cloud-harvester components being riveted together by groups of engineers wearing levitation packs. “You aren’t going to leave this station, are you, Kolker? I need your services. Sending a carrier pigeon just isn’t an option for me.”

“Leave here? Not on your life, Sullivan Gold. I am in an intriguing new environment, and only I can describe the details for the curious trees. They haven’t had many opportunities to see a gas giant. Besides”—he looked lovingly down at his treeling in its ornate pot—“it’ll do the forest good to see a place where our enemies have been resoundingly defeated.”

Sullivan glanced out into the expanse of clouds. “We don’t know for certain that the drogues are completely gone here, but we can hope.” As soon as the factory was completed, the cloud harvester’s lead engineer intended to design deep probes that would keep an eye out for returning hydrogues. Just for insurance, though Sullivan didn’t know how much good they would do.

The assembly work in Qronha 3’s high atmosphere continued at a furious pace. Sullivan scanned the project timetable again and proudly confirmed that each phase had been completed on schedule. Within a few days the facility would be brought online, and they would begin collecting ekti for the Terran Hanseatic League. Then the fun would start.

The knot in his chest began to loosen. Nothing to worry about . . .

36

Tasia’s cruiser arrived at Ptoro bearing the doomsday weapon. Here we are, you bastards. Ready or not.

On the viewscreen, Ptoro was a cold ball without the pastel cloud bands of Jupiter or Golgen, without the majestic rings of Osquivel, color-less, lifeless, and gray—just waiting to be lit up with a bit of dazzle.

As the escort EDF battleships drew closer, they reported their positions. Tasia spoke through the Manta’s intercom, calling all engineers and support personnel to prepare the Klikiss Torch.

Tasia’s battle group had been obliged to bring two of the EDF’s green priests to properly coordinate the deployment of the Torch. Older and more withdrawn than Rossia, Yarrod had expressed doubts about continuing to serve the Earth military during the worldforest’s greater need, but Tasia hoped he would change his mind after the success of this mission.

Touching his treeling, Rossia closed his eyes and sent thoughts through telink, then verbalized a report for Tasia. “Yarrod says he and the other engineers are in position at the neutron star. Their wormhole generators are distributed outside the gravitational perimeter.” He blinked again.

“Those are the words he gave me, Commander Tamblyn. I don’t know what it means.”

She leaned forward with a grim smile. “It means that when we fire our torpedoes into Ptoro’s clouds, we’ll make an anchor point for this end of the wormhole. The engineers at Yarrod’s station will open up the mouth, feed it the neutron star, which then gets dumped smack into the lap of the drogues down there. The extra mass will be enough to implode Ptoro into a new star.”

Rossia stroked the thin gold bark on his treeling. “Oh, the hydrogues won’t like that.”

“And there isn’t a damn thing they can do to stop us.”

Tasia listened to the preparations, shouted confirmations, transmitted checks and double-checks as the systems were readied. EDF scout ships flew out, scanning the iron-gray clouds, dipping close to the atmosphere,

and then retreating to orbital safety. Exo-meteorologists documented the wind patterns and temperature layers that delineated the gas giant’s internal topography.