The Ascendant Stars (44 page)

Berg nodded. ‘The AIs with the Hegemony fleet will now know that you’re aboard this vessel. And that we are too.’

‘In which case,’ Greg added, ‘it might be prudent for us to take our shuttle back to our ship.’

‘I’m … anxious about putting your lives at risk, gentlemen,’ Ngassa said. ‘No, I’d rather you stayed with us. Once aboard my flagship we will microjump straight to Darien and let you rejoin—’

‘Sir! – sir, the Hegemony formations have just microjumped in unison!’ said the pinnace captain from the holocomm. ‘They have reappeared at half their original distance from Darien, and still in that encircling array.’

‘Tightening the noose,’ Ngassa snarled. ‘And still no word from them?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Get me Paxton.’ A second later a rugged-looking officer appeared in the holopanel. ‘Commander, I want you to order the fleet to microjump to Darien vicinity immediately!’

Ngassa’s second-in-command was startled. ‘Now, sir? Before we get you aboard? We’re only three minutes … ’

‘Now, Paxton. Then I want you to use what I’m about to dictate – This is Vice-Admiral Ngassa. In accordance with the orders of the president of the Earthsphere alliance, the colony and planet of Darien is declared to be a provisional protectorate and is therefore under the administrative protection and guidance of the Darien Expeditionary Force, Vice-Admiral Ngassa commanding. All grievances and disputes will be heard by a commission consisting of myself and three judicial appointees. In addition, all communications and requests should be made on the main ES navy channel. Thank you for your attention. – Now have Central Comms widecast that on repeat, and put it out on tiernet channels as well, understand?’

‘Yes sir, and we’re less than a minute away.’

Greg glanced at Berg, who was taking it all with typical Tygran composure.

‘So … where does that put us, overall?’

Berg frowned. ‘We have the
Starfire
and the
Silverlance
, the Imisil have five ships, the Vox H are down to seventeen, and the vice-admiral brought sixty, minus the eight defectors, plus the
Retributor
… ’

‘So you don’t think that the Hegemony are going to play nice and be diplomatic?’

The Tygran raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not really their strong point.’

‘So how many all told?’

‘Eighty-four, while the Hegemony armada consists of a reported two thousand vessels.’

Greg almost laughed. ‘Is that what’s known as a crushing superiority?’

‘In some circles, yes.’

‘Ye know, when we get back to the
Starfire
I’ll have to lay hands on a set of that handy subarmour of yours.’

Berg’s smile was bleak. ‘I think we’ll need something a bit stronger than that.’

Sitting on a dusty stone plinth in the gloom of the roothouse, he let the wandering sight of his Seer eyes stretch itself out along the rootways, the underground interlinkage laid down by their most ancient forebears. Many of the essence strands had long since rotted away but the Artificer Uvovo teams had worked wonders with a variety of vines and roots brought from the daughter-forests. And their hard work was evident at many other roothouses scattered across the hills, the forests and the coastal plain. Days upon days of effort had borne their fruit, yet with the warpwell subverted and the return of the Legion of Avatars looking more than likely, could it all have been a waste?

Back when the Ancients still had corporeal form, this world, Umara, the dense forests of Segrana-That-Was, generated webs of power capable of defending the entire planet against attacks from near space. Greater nodes oversaw primary nodes, each of which gathered in an array of roothouses, hundreds, thousands. But all that Cheluvahar had to muster against the hostile forces building in the heavens, and against the flesh-and-machine horrors soon to emerge from Giant’s Shoulder, was a single secondary node and nineteen roothouses.

When the Zyradin transported him here from Tusk Mountain, it had been unswerving in its insistence that Chel prepare the nodes, the roothouses and the Artificer Uvovo for battle. And not long afterwards he had a visitation from the Pathmaster, his spectral form appearing even more tenuous and fragile than
before and his voice sounding scratchy and broken, like a cluster of insects.

I agreed to come here
, he had told the ancient, ancient remnant of the long-past forebear.
I agreed to prepare for battle, and the only reason I’m able to do so is the healing that I received from a vudron. Not due to anything you said or did
.

The Pathmaster’s thin, vaporous presence, his eyes in shadow, had smiled and nodded. A faint sibilant voice said,
Understanding is seldom understood
…

Then it had faded away, like threads of smoke dissolving in the air. Immediately Chel had felt ashamed at the blinkered anger of his response and now, sitting here, he felt a sting of regret. Could that have been the Pathmaster’s last fleeting words to the living before finally merging with the Eternal?

Seated on the stone plinth, his eyes were closed yet his Seer sight ranged forth from the roothouse, from this secondary node, drawn along the essence strands, dividing when they divided, spreading to join with the other roothouses from which the entwining web spread further. The Zyradin motes that he brought were doing their work. He could sense the slow gyring pulse of the planet, rising from hard and compacted depths to the thin uncertain crust over which organic life existed like a frail bubble. Yet it was frail organic minds that had learned how to harness the pulsing gyre of those colossal inner energies. And as Chel’s awareness expanded across the web of connections he could feel those energies, feel the ancient webs respond to them, opening to them, drawing on them.

This was the point where control had to be exerted. Were he to allow the new energies to flood the web of roothouses it would be like a beacon in the perceptions of some entities, particularly that resolute survivor, the Legion Knight. So he had to carefully gauge the flow of energies, making sure that their permeation was gradual and even, and to keep the roothouses themselves from trying to draw on this new source of fresh, vibrant power.

As his awareness continued to expand, and the energy of the depths seeped steadily in, the demands on his will-power grew.
His Seer talents drew more and more from his essential vitality and it seemed that the Zyradin was present, watching over him, watching it all.

There was movement off to one side. The central junction of the roothouse had four galleries leading off, all looking grey, a little misty, and it was in one of them that a tall figure stood. It was a Human, naked to the waist, the skin of his torso marked with many small wounds. And when Chel saw the flat metallic implants on the back and the neck he instantly knew that it was Rory, even before he glanced round for a moment before heading away into the shadows at a crouch.

Instinctively Chel drifted forward, wondering how Rory had managed to find his way here, to the roothouse. But when the darkened gallery melted away into somewhere in the open, somewhere flat and gloomy, he realised that he had strayed into the domain of that Seer talent that he called the Dream Speculator.

Ahead of him, the Human Rory was creeping across ground consisting of scattered flat stones and tufts of grass towards a dark, squat building. There were metallic gleams and the glowing red and blue pinpoints of machine displays. Suddenly Chel realised that this was Giant’s Shoulder, and even as the thought struck him the surface of the promontory began to quake. Big stone slabs quivered and shifted and Rory staggered. Some structures, low buildings and a couple of watchtowers, fell apart and collapsed. Then a crack opened and a harsh silver-grey radiance poured out. Rory dodged round and ran for the squat building. But the ground suddenly began to rise from the centre, like a growing mound, forcing Rory to clamber along on his hands and knees.

Until fractures appeared all across it, seconds before it erupted in a violent rushing blaze of harsh silver light, with a solitary figure silhouetted against the brightness for an instant …

Chel breathed in suddenly, a quick, cold chestful of air, and he was back on the stone plinth. Most of his awareness was still guiding itself out to the last extremities of the nineteen roothouses
and their networks of strands. The planetary energies continued to trickle through, and over on its mech-guarded fastness of Giant’s Shoulder the Legion Knight remained, unfathomable, yet perhaps also unsuspecting.

But the meaning of that vision – did it presage some kind of inevitable tragedy, or was it a warning, or something symbolic involving Rory? That was the problem with the Dream Speculator – the things it revealed could be thoroughly literal or abstrusely metaphorical, with scarcely any hint as to which was being observed. And right now he had neither time nor opportunity for the meditation that would make the vision clearer.

I must complete my work and trust that Rory’s path does not bring him more pain, him least of all
.

Bodiless in the cage, sights and sounds were all he knew. From a desperate, indiscriminate grasping at every audible and visual scrap he had grown in attentiveness and analytical acuity. Now he was almost attuned to the totality of the impressions that reached his eyes and ears.

Except that they were his no longer. He was a prisoner in his own brain, betrayed by his lifelong AI companion, Gratach, who now controlled his body. Kuros knew that he was only able to see and hear because Gratach permitted it.

At least the AI was not abusing the body it had seized. Kuros remembered rumours of other Sendrukans whose AIs had taken them over and proceeded to plunge into a frantic whirl of self-destructive pleasure-seeking, drug-taking and various forms of deviancy. Gratach had been modelled on General Gratach, the historical figure known for his severe austerity in personal matters, which accounted for the lack of self-indulgence. That said, the presence of the Clarified Teshak no doubt played an influential part.

The Clarified Teshak … over the days since his ruthless incarceration, Kuros had grown to hate Teshak with a unified, unwavering intensity that he had never felt before. This was given an extra edge by the fact that Teshak knew that Kuros was watching and listening; addressing Kuros directly from time to time clearly gave him a certain satisfaction.

But right now Teshak’s state of mind could hardly be described as anything as positive as satisfied.

‘Marshal Becker,’ he said in clipped tones while staring at the image on the comm screen. ‘This situation is intolerable. The ambassador and myself have been waiting on this primitive backwater for several days, expecting to be transported back to civilisation – if you know anything about the Clarified and the unique rank they carry in the hierarchy of the Hegemony, then you must also realise that obedience to my orders should take precedence for you.’

‘In any other situation that would indeed be the case, Clarified One,’ said the Ezgara. ‘But my orders come directly from the Second Tri-Advocate and they are very specific in both priority and objectives.’

‘And what would your objectives be?’

‘With great respect, Clarified One, I am not permitted to divulge … What?’ The Ezgara-Human turned his visored face to snap at someone out of view. ‘ … No, use the field pumps … ’ He turned back. ‘Clarified Teshak, Ambassador Kuros, my apologies but we have a critical situation that must be dealt with before I can come ashore. Till later.’

Then the screen went blank.

‘We should have dispensed with those Ezgara-Humans years ago,’ said Teshak. ‘Indeed, the fact that the Second Tri-Advocate has entrusted a high-value mission to a non-Sendrukan is further proof of the regime’s unfitness to rule.’

Gratach made no reply, just looked at the Clarified Teshak, who met his gaze and smiled.

‘Don’t be too hopeful, Kuros,’ he said, leaning closer. ‘There’s a Hegemony armada out there and before long a ship will come to take us back to Iseri where the last lingering shreds of your pitiful existence will finally be expunged.’

He straightened, exchanged a wordless look with Gratach along with a faint nod and a slight tilt towards the window with his head. Then he was out of the door and gone. Gratach got to his feet, closed the commset lid, moved round the table and went to the window. He scanned the night-bound sea, a black expanse glimmering from the meagre radiance of ionisation glows and
the now frequent shooting stars, pieces of battle debris burning up as they plunged into the stratosphere.

Then Gratach looked left to where a long, indistinct shape lay half-submerged in the shallows nearly a hundred sendru-paces offshore. A few worklamps had been set up along the upper hull but going by what Kuros had heard, Becker’s ship was disabled, unable to fly. During the last part of the descent, coming in over the coastal plain, it was hit by about a dozen ground-to-air missiles that wrecked the ship’s main suspensor node and killed three techs. With the thrusters they were able to stay in the air long enough to ditch in the sea close to the Brolturan base. Repairs were estimated to take at least two days.

So why is Becker here? Kuros thought. He said his orders came from the Second Tri-Advocate, whom the Clarified clearly consider an adversary. And the Hegemony’s fleet is in the system so it is reasonable to assume that they would like to regain control of the warpwell.