McCollum - GIBRALTAR STARS (14 page)

There was also the competition from other forest dwellers for food. An early staple was the
lossa
fruit that grew in great clusters of succulent purple orbs suspended beneath the tangled mat of vegetation that made up the middle forest. Above this interlocking layer were the bright uplands; and below, the gloomy floor. With their nests high in the vines, gathering parties ventured down into the lower gloom to harvest the plump fruit.

They were not alone.

Colorful
four-wingers
buzzed around, darting forward to hover on wings moving too quickly to be seen as they pierced the orbs with spike-like proboscises. Slow moving
vine-imitators
also feasted on the
lossa.
They were a danger because their fleshy, legless bodies were camouflaged to resemble the vines themselves. An unwary traveler who reached for an anchor, only to find an
imitator
in his grasp could easily fall to his death.

But the Race’s mortal enemies were the
pelen
, small six-legged, warm-blooded vermin that ate everything in their path.
Pelen
traveled in swarms and their approach was heralded by the loud crackling noise they made as they chewed through wood. Their progress was marked by a wide brown swath of dying vegetation.

Upon the first hint of a swarm’s approach, watchmen blew alarm horns, sending a wailing call out to all members of the clan. The sounding of the horn was the signal to rush to the gathering grounds. Able-bodied males grabbed spears and positioned themselves between the mindless eaters and the clan’s fruit supply. A standard defense called for half the hunters to perch atop the midlevel mat while the other half waited below, suspended by one arm with the other holding a short, sharp spear.

When the swarm reached the defense line, the hunters slashed and stabbed wildly to send dead and dying vermin crashing through the leaves to the darkness of the forest floor below.

While males slowed the pests’ advance, females with cubs on their backs brachiated wildly, stripping fruit and placing it into harvest bags until they were nearly too full to lift.

In the mad rush to defend or harvest, males and females sometimes lost their grip. Those who could not quickly reestablish an anchor went crashing into the darkness below. Such accidents invariably resulted in a short, sharp death scream and increased snarls from the great beasts attracted by the smell of blood as the slain
pelen
rained down upon them.

A successful defense required close coordination. Holes had to be plugged quickly and orders followed with instant obedience. This led to an authoritarian ruling structure within the clans, leaders whose task it was to defend the forest. It was only natural for Zel-Sen’s ancestors to extend the forest culture to the whole of the planet following the Great Consolidation.

With central rule came the decision to build a single grand capital, one worthy of a newly unified Race. Once the site for Old City was chosen, no expense was spared. The greatest architect of the day was put in charge of building the new city, to be named Valar.

Yet, grand as the city was, it was too small for the modern era. Constrained by its defensive wall, Old City could not be expanded. Beyond the walls, a wide greensward encircled the battlements. The cleared approaches had once been a defensive killing field. They were now a park, a place of flowers and stone sculptures.

At the end of the green lay a ring of modern office buildings constructed by the Great Clans in the diverse styles of their home regions. Beyond the towers lay another green barrier, and encircling all, the sprawling warren where the subservients lived.

Tradition prohibited powered vehicles within the battlements of Old City. During the day, foot traffic congested the broad avenues. The overcrowding was not the fault of the genius who designed the city. He built for his own time and built grandly. He could hardly be blamed for underestimating the growth that would take place with the coming of the stargate.

#

Zel-Sen gazed out over the assembled clan masters from his perch high above the council floor. What he saw was controlled chaos.

The Council Chamber was a huge circular hall with a raised island at its center where Zel-Sen stood. He scanned the full circle and found the hall near its capacity. As custom demanded, the surrounding floor of polished pink granite was unadorned by furniture or accoutrements. It was merely a place for the Rulers of Civilization to congregate and debate matters of importance. Today, the assembled clan masters milled about shoulder-to-wide-shoulder in a random molecular motion that never ceased.

The chamber was large enough to have a distinct echo when empty. It did not echo today. Not only was it filled with bodies, but the building’s sound suppression field was running at full power, giving the crowd noise a curiously dead aura — much like the dense fogs that often blanked the capital of the Eastern Islands.

Immediately after Consolidation, membership in the Ruling Council was limited to only the most powerful clans. However, over the many great-gross cycles since, history conspired to broaden council membership far beyond the original two dozen.

The modern council barely fit in the ancient building. There were periodic suggestions that a larger hall be constructed, but custom decreed the laws of Civilization be made only in this place. Nor had it proved viable to reduce the size of the membership. Individual clans were too protective of their hard-won privileges to give them up voluntarily.

With the discovery that pathways could be driven beneath the substance of space-time to nearby star systems, the Ancestors went exploring. What they found was that life is ubiquitous, and intelligence is found in many of the star systems where life has developed.

The Ancestors took what they learned fighting
pelen
and applied it to each alien race. A threat that cannot be controlled is one that cannot be allowed to exist. And so it was that the Great Consolidation was taken to the stars.

The stargate proved the perfect instrument for conquest. No species lacking the gate could stand against them. Each race was locked into its home prison of space and time, and only the Race had the key to the cell door. If a species resisted, Broan war craft appeared without warning in their skies. Nor was post-conquest resistance effective. The Ancestors quickly developed strategies to handle recalcitrant species. Usually, the Race was able to turn an alien population docile within a generation or two. Those who could not be tamed were exterminated.

But a successful conquest was not without its problems. For once a world has been captured, what exactly does one do with it?

In the case of most worlds, the answer was “not much.” Each world was organized to provide the most benefit to the Race. However, many planets could not be occupied directly… either because of inhospitable climate, or chemical poisons, or dangerous microorganisms. Even worlds that proved hospitable were usually not permanently occupied. The Race’s low birthrate did not provide sufficient snouts each generation for Ssasfal to exercise direct control over its widespread holdings.

It had been inevitable, then, that lesser clans would be given suzerainty over conquered systems when the Great Clans were unable to provide personnel to do so. Slowly, Those Who Once Served transformed themselves into Those Who Now Rule and demanded a place on the council.

Zel-Sen let the history of this place run through his mind while he waited for the time mark that would signal the start of the session. Soon battle horns sounded, as they had for generations in the middle forest. It was time to begin.

He moved forward to stand on the dais that let him be seen by all. In many ways, the announcement platform reminded him of a traditional stage, where the performers balanced on a net spread taut across the vine tangle of the mid-layer, and the audience gazed down from their perches overhead. However, Zel-Sen was the one gazing down from on high. The arrangement did not feel natural, perhaps because it was the arrangement used by so many strider species.

He stood erect, pulling himself to his full height, and began to speak. His amplified words echoed back to him from the far corners of the hall.

“Clan Masters, you will note that only members of the council are present today. There are no staff members recording this meeting, nor are there subservients anywhere in Old City. This is a sealed conclave and you are sworn to secrecy by ancestor oath. I ask you all to acknowledge your understanding of these strictures.”

He waited for each master to thumb his personal computer and record his acknowledgement. Within a dozen heartbeats, a buzz in his ear indicated that all present had acknowledged their responsibilities.

“I will now tell you why you are here today. The news is as startling as it is disturbing.

“Clan Masters. We believe there is a wild species loose in Civilization!”

#

Along with intelligence comes the power of speech, or at least, of communication. It was a logical necessity. Without the ability to communicate, intelligence is of little use.

While taciturn when supervising subservients, Masters were highly vocal among themselves. As he knew it would, Zel-Sen’s announcement set off a storm of exclamations. The sudden roar was so quick that the sound suppression field took a moment to deaden it.

Zel-Sen touched a hidden screen. Dos-Val ascended a ramp into view of the clan masters. As the scientist knuckle-walked to the podium, the furious chattering died away.

Zel-Sen scanned his screen and selected the name of one of the oldest councilors to be first to speak.

“Bal-Tan of the Bal-Col,” his words echoed through the hall. “You wish to comment?”

“An inflammatory statement,” the grizzled oldster called. Like the Prime Councilor, his words were easily picked up by the sound sensors in the domed roof and directed to all present. “I presume you have evidence.”

Zel-Sen made the gesture of the affirmative. “I will ask Dos-Val of the Ministry of Science to explain what we have found.”

The Prime Councilor stepped aside and Dos-Val took his place. The scientist quickly sketched the situation. He told of how the fugitive bipeds came to the attention of Those Who Rule, and how the same two individuals were identified on two different planets a dozen jumps distant from one another.

“They called themselves Vulcans at Klys’kra’t, the first planet they visited, and Trojans at Pastol, the second. They used different epidermal paint schemes, but their biochemistry was identical. Apparently, the coloring was an attempt at disguise. Naturally, we originally thought we were dealing with a shipload of known criminals. That perception changed in the Etnarii system. The biped ship left its parking orbit about the agricultural planet of Pastol just as Commander Pas-Tek’s ship arrived…”

Dos-Val recounted the long chase by the Avenger
Blood Oath
as the bipeds fled toward the system’s stargate
.
“The fugitives made it to the star gate just in front of our ship, and began the jump sequence. Then, their ship appeared to explode, vaporizing the surrounding gate.”

Dos-Val pressed a control and the holographic image of the explosion appeared over his head. The assembled clan masters watched in silence as the freighter entered the gate, began to charge its generators, and then vaporized.

“Note that I said ‘appeared’ to explode,” Dos-Val exclaimed, picking up the narrative. “The explosion was extraordinarily violent and destroyed the gate. However, I do not believe the aliens were caught in it. Commander Pas-Tek made meticulous recordings and took readings of the local density of the gas cloud afterward. When we integrated his readings, we found only the mass of the gate. Of the Type Seven freighter, there was no trace.”

“That’s impossible,” an unidentified master called out. His words wafted upward to Dos-Val naturally. “How could a ship explode and leave no trace?”

“We do not believe it exploded. The aliens we seek somehow created the illusion after leaving the gate.”

“Do you suggest they left a bomb behind after they jumped?”

“They did not jump,” Dos-Val said. “No gravity wave was detected and
Blood Oath
was close enough that they would have been able to feel the disturbance without instruments.”

 “Then where is it?” the heckler shouted. This time, his words were picked up by the sound system and wafted over the assembled masters. There was a general murmur of agreement.

“That is a very good question,” Zel-Sen said, returning to the stage. “Answering it may well be the most important challenge the Race has yet faced.”

#

Chapter Fourteen

For the third time in his life, Mark Rykand sat in the wide, comfortable seat of a bullet car on the short trip from Zurich to Meersburg. The first time he’d ridden this line had been that awful morning after he’d learned of Jani’s death. He barely remembered the journey, consumed as he had been with grief and a burning desire to learn the truth. Of the rocket-like sprint through the Swiss countryside and under Lake Constance, he had no clear memory at all.

The second time followed the return of the first expedition into Broan space. He and Lisa had cuddled together one bright summer day and watched green fields filled with cows and vineyards slip by at 500 KPH, while soft rhythmic jolts pressed their bodies together as the car leaped from accelerator ring to accelerator ring, with nothing but Newton’s three laws to hold it aloft in the intervening gaps.

The trigger for that previous trip had been a summons to Stellar Survey Headquarters to report in person on what the expedition had found. It had been a journey as emotion-filled as the first, although less debilitating. Mark remembered being sad then, too; partly out of remembrance for lost Jani, but also because of the news they were delivering.

And now they found themselves summoned once more.
Amethyst
barely made parking orbit when the orders came through. The message on each of their comm units was written in the usual clipped Navalese: “Lieutenant-Commander Mark Rykand is relieved as Executive Officer and ordered to report in company with Lieutenant Lisabeth Rykand to Fleet Headquarters, Europe, on or about 15 February 2353 for debriefing and reassignment.”