Return - Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy (24 page)

“Proceed!” Cornelian ordered.

“Immediately, High Leader!” Hon-Tet answered, positioning himself to one side of the king and raising the blade high over his head.

Dalin, facing Tabrel Kris and Shatz Abel—who howled with pain and rage within his containment field—nodded once to the pirate and then let his gaze meet that of Tabrel, who was crying.

“I love you forever,” he said, mouthing the words. Weeping, she nodded.

Hon-Tet stood up on tiptoe, the blade held high and gleaming, his two fat hands tight on the handle.

“For One World, High Leader!” Hon-Tet shouted. “No!” Visid shrieked, as the blade came down in a swift, hissing arc—

Everything froze in the room.

S
am-Sei, Machine Master of Mars, stepped out of nothingness into the midst of the locked diorama he had created. Dispassionately, he reviewed the still figures, letting his gaze linger briefly on Visid before approaching Prime Cornelian and pausing to remove the blade, centimeters from Dalin Shar’s neck, from the grip of Hon-Tet, whose face was sealed in a look of predatory anticipation. The blade clattered to the floor as the Machine Master dropped it.

Standing before Prime Cornelian, he moved a finger over the flat device in his hand.

The High Leader gasped a breath, then whispered hoarsely, “Sam-Sei …”

“Yes,” the Machine Master said.

“How long …”

“I have been here, under cloak, for quite some time,” Sam-Sei said.

His voice strengthened, Cornelian said, “Then you have returned to me!”

“No.”

“But of course you have! You will help me again, as you always have! I command it!” Suddenly the High Leader’s face went bright with pain, and his dark eyes widened in their ruined sockets.

“I am dying, Sam-Sei! You must transfer me to the carapace at once!”

Reaching out a steady hand, the Machine Master plucked the amplification device from its station in front of the High Leader’s lips. Examining it with interest for a moment, he then deactivated it and dropped it to the floor. “I was here when you spoke of your plans for Visid,” he said.

Prime Cornelian’s dark eyes flared in their distorted sockets. “I will … preserve … her, if that … is what … you wish! But … first you must … save … me …”

“I do not believe you,” Sam-Sei said. “And what you have done must end—”

There came a crackling whine from the room’s wall-sized Screen; it flared into life, showing the horrifically painted face of Wrath-Pei, whose eyes widened in surprise and glee.

“Brother! You escaped Mars! And you are visiting your old friend the Bug—who doesn’t look like much of a bug these days! How lovely!” Wrath-Pei studied the rest of the room. “Heavens above—it’s a regular celebrity party in there!”

Sam-Sei faced the Screen but said nothing.

Wrath-Pei cackled, making his gyro-chair rock. “Room for one more? I’ll be there in about six minutes with lots of concussion bombs as party treats!”

“What …” Prime Cornelian said hoarsely. “What … are …”

“Cat got your tongue, Bug? Or don’t you understand plain speaking? I’m coming to wipe you from the face of the Solar System!”

From without the chamber, there came a pounding on the door; there was a growing commotion, and someone shouted, “High Leader! A flotilla of ships is heading straight for Cornelian City!”

“You … can … not …” High Cornelian hissed. Trying to move within his swaddle of blankets, he managed to raise himself a centimeter before howling with anguish.

Wordlessly, Sam-Sei turned from the Screen, ran his hand over the flat device in his hand. Instantly, Visid, Benel Kran, Dalin Shar, Shatz Abel, and Tabrel Kris came to life.

“Machine Master!” Visid cried.

“There is work for us at Sacajawea Patera, Visid,” the Machine Master replied. “And we must get these others to safety”

Before the others could react, the Machine Master had removed a second device from his tunic and activated it.

“Good-bye, High Leader,” the Machine Master said; and in a moment the room was filled with swirling counterclockwise energy that, when it dissipated, left only the High Leader and the reanimated Hon-Tet behind.

On the Screen, Wrath-Pei howled with glee. “What a comedy! What a lovely comedy!”

There was a greater commotion outside the door. When someone repeated the warning of approaching doom, Hon-Tet’s fat face went florid with terror. He clawed at the door, pushed it open, and fled into the mayhem without.

“Come … back … !” The High Leader hissed, in failing breath.

Wrath-Pei screamed, “Just you and me, Bug—just you and me!”

Hitching tiny breaths of rage, the High Leader rose on his deformed hands and pushed himself forward. His body, screaming agony, fell to the floor. He began to crawl, his body bending itself uncontrollably into horrible twisted lengths, toward the miniature carapace, as the swaddle of blankets unrolled around him.

“You look just like a bug crawling out of its cocoon!” Wrath-Pei howled.

Outside the residence of the High Leader, in the streets of Cornelian City, there came the wail of sirens, and the mingled shouts of frightened Martians.

With whispered screams of torment, Prime Cornelian pulled himself forward, centimeter by centimeter, until he reached the miniature carapace. Bending his twisted fingers around one of the front legs, he pulled himself incrementally up until he teetered on his knees. The pain of resting on them nearly made him lose consciousness, but he continued, reaching his lengthened, deformed hands up to his face. Mewling, he pawed at his head; his eyes were affixed to the open brain pan of the carapace, which beckoned invitingly.

With a wrench of searing anguish, hands still clawing at his skull, the High Leader fell onto his back and stared with failing breath out of the window at a stream of ships like bombs falling towards him. The sky was filled with screams: his own, the Martians’ of Cornelian City, and Wrath-Pei’s, whose livid, shrieking face on the Screen announced, “Ready or not, here I come!”

Chapter 30

V
isid, Benel Kran, and Sam-Sei watched the destruction of Cornelian City from the Piton on Sacajawea Patera. There was the sight of Wrath-Pei’s ships falling like darts from the sky; then a breath of silence before a dome of light spread up and outward, followed by the distant rumble of thunder.

Then, silence. The dust cloud reached its apex and flattened, fell back on itself as it rolled outward, and then stopped.

Then: nothing. It was as if Cornelian City had never existed.

“I developed that device,” the Machine Master of Mars said quietly, turning away.

H
e led Visid and Benel through the glass corridors of the Piton, which had been Carter Frolich’s dream, and into a place that had been Frolich’s nightmare. Behind a glass wall backed by artificial light was a secret chamber, filled floor to ceiling with control devices for the entire planet’s terraforming equipment.

“From here,” Sam-Sei said, “Carter Frolich could override any system on Venus; could take control of the planet itself.”

There was a Screen in the middle of one wall, surrounded by banks of equipment and switches, huge dials and glowing panels. The Machine Master of Mars ran a hand across the front of the Screen and it came on, showing the blind, sad, lined face of Carter Frolich. His hands trembled, but his voice was strong when he spoke.

“I have done a terrible thing,” he said, “and now I will undo it. Venus cannot be put into the hands of someone like Prime Cornelian. Targon Ramir, my protégé and friend, was right about this. He was right when he said that he would rather Venus wait two hundred years for free men than become a paradise now for slaves. Soon the work will be done.” Tears flowed from his empty eyes. “Targon Ramir, forgive me!”

The Screen went blank, and Sam-Sei turned to Benel and Visid. “We have much work to do. When I found this room, Carter Frolich’s sabotage had already taken effect. I was not able to slow it down. In twenty Earth days it would have been complete. That was nineteen days ago.”

Without another word, the three of them went to work.

N
ear Wollstonecraft, which had been one of Venus’s first colonies but, due to its comparatively harsh climate, had been abandoned after its feeder station had been completed, Dalin Shar walked with Tabrel Kris.

It was not a rose garden through which they walked hand in hand, but the next best thing. A jungle growth of twisted vines and humid temperatures had produced, in Wollstonecraft, a natural hothouse for orchids, which sprouted in perfumed abundance. At one point, a veritable canopy of the blooms, in yellow, red, and even bright green and blue, arched overhead.

Stopping, Dalin turned to Tabrel, smiled, and gazed into her almond eyes. “They’re not roses.”

“I never forgot that other garden. Never,” Tabrel said.

“Neither did I.”

They kissed, and it seemed the kiss would go on forever.

Dalin heard Shatz Abel politely clearing his throat nearby. The kiss ended and he turned to the pirate, who stood staring at the ground with embarrassment.

“Sorry to interrupt you, Sire.”

Dalin laughed. “It must be important—what is it?”

Shatz Abel looked up, grinning. “Only that the Machine Masters of Mars and Venus have been successful in stabilizing the planet’s terraforming equipment. Also, word has reached us that the Martians, deprived of Prime Cornelian and nine-tenths of their military leadership, are suing for peace. They’ve agreed to your leadership of any interim government; privately, they’re saying that whatever government you form will become permanent, as long as Martians are represented.”

“Will they agree to an Earth king ruling equally with a Martian queen?” Dalin inquired, smiling in Tabrel’s direction.

“I should say so!” the pirate enthused. “When shall I tell them the marriage will take place?”

“Soon,” Dalin answered. “Soon …”

He was captivated again by Tabrel’s gaze, and when he remembered the pirate’s presence, he looked up to see that Shatz Abel had gone.

Taking Tabrel’s hands in his own, Dalin Shar said, “Soon.”

“And forever …” Tabrel answered.

Again they kissed.

O
n Sacajawea Patera, while Benel Kran slept in a corner after the exhausting work, Sam-Sei and Visid looked, through the Piton’s huge front windows, at the Sun.

“This will be a beautiful planet,” Sam-Sei said, his ugly features, never ugly to Visid, illuminated by Sol’s natural light. Below them, beyond the flattened, swept crater that had been Cornelian City, the rest of Venus spread like a waiting banquet: green fields, budding forests, deepening seas, the freshest of rivers, and the bluest of skies.

“And you will help us build it,” Visid said.

“No,” Sam-Sei said, “I will not. It is too late for me. I have done too many terrible things.”

“But—”

The Machine Master of Mars looked down at Visid. “I have taught you much, but now there are things that you could teach me. Prime Cornelian craved offspring, but I feel as if I have had one.” Gently, he put his hand on her head and looked at Benel Kran. “And I imagine when you are older, our physicist friend will let his feelings for you be known.”

“Machine Master! What will you do?” Visid asked.

Sam-Sei turned his face to the Sun again. “There is someplace I must visit.”

And so quickly that she could not prevent him, he drew out his own ’roo, activated it, and tossed it from the swirling top-shaped energy stream as it surrounded and carried him off.

“I won’t be returning,” he said, and was gone, smiling sadly at her.

When Visid picked up the ’roo and studied it, she saw that it had been set to transport him to the middle of the Sun.

Epilogue

D
alin Shar, ruler of a new world, stood by himself to study the night sky. From the deck of the old Engineering Corps residence, hewn out of the jungle and now temporary palace, the stars greeted him like old friends. The night was clear and deep black; he could see the scarred worlds of Earth and Mars on opposite horizons, where they would stay.

What can you tell us?
Dalin thought.
Here we are on our One World, with a new beginning—what do you, the ruined worlds, have to teach us?

It is time for you to look farther,
came the answer in Dalin’s head.

He gasped; and high above, in the midst of the infinite depths of stars, three shadows of light appeared and intertwined as they approached him. He felt again that voice in his head he had felt before.

You have passed a test, it said.

“Test? What do you mean?” Dalin said to the sky.

The three light bands shimmered and grew closer, hovering over the deck. You are here. There are others.

“Others? You mean other worlds?”

Oh, yes. They are out there. And it is time for you to know that.

“Where are they?”

When it is time. It is only important that you know of them now. Know that you are not alone.

“Time for who? We or them?”

The luminescence faded to a shower of sparkles and was gone, leaving silence in its wake.

Dalin looked up into the heavens and saw, not planets, but beyond, to the stars.

“We’ll be ready,” he said.

Author’s Note

T
he worlds of our Solar System are the most obvious objects in the sky. The larger planets are also the most observable, as anyone who has ever studied beautiful Saturn in a telescope with an objective lens as small as 60mm knows.

Even among the readily observable planets there are special cases—such as Mars, which has fired the imagination of both scientist and fantasist for centuries, and will no doubt continue to do so for centuries more. Ruddy Mars, because its surface can be studied from Earth in teasingly clear (i.e. fuzzy) detail (leading some pre-Hubble Telescope observers, such as the great fantasist and scientist Percival Lowell, to see things that weren’t there, such as canals), because it holds an atmosphere and sports jaunty polar caps, because it merely looks like a place where life should have been, if not be, has become the repository of many of our hopes and dreams (and nightmares) as far as extra-Earth life is concerned. The recent revelations of probable ancient bacterial life on the Red Planet, made public during the present author’s composition of the Five Worlds books, was one of many stimuli, and made the writing of these volumes only more enjoyable.