“We have just the place,” Xander said. Terry looked at him in surprise, but he continued, “Ulio Station was out in the middle of nowhere, and that proved a great advantage for ships of all types. Our location is even better, and it’s got history.” He paused, unable to hide his grin. He glanced over at Garrison Reeves. “We intend to open our operations at Rendezvous.”
Mutters—mostly of pleasant surprise—rippled through the gathered clan members.
Garrison spoke up from the audience. “Clan Reeves spent years trying to stabilize the damaged asteroids and make them habitable again, but my father’s mistake was that he tried to re-create Rendezvous exactly as it was as the Roamer capital. This is a better idea, and I think the place will be perfect. I wholeheartedly support the plan—in fact, I’ve already signed on to help build Handon Station.”
Terry looked exasperated, but Xander knew the name had caught on now, and they would never be able to change it. He saw the mood shift take hold among the Roamers, and their chatter became excited rather than disappointed.
“I’ll be taking signups, and then we can send salvage crews to Relleker. We’ll start moving ships to the old Rendezvous cluster and build from there. In time, we expect Handon Station to be even bigger than Ulio!”
OK stepped forward to take applications, while Xander and Terry were ready to shake hands and answer questions. Before long, they had far more signups than they ever expected.
CHAPTER
37
KOTTO OKIAH
The survey craft was ready at Fireheart Station, so no more excuses. Every conceivable sensor package had been installed and tested, additional hull shielding mounted, double backups included in the life-support systems and engines. Six weeks’ worth of food, water, and oxygen supplies loaded aboard, just in case he got lost in that incomprehensible void, although Kotto expected the trip to last no more than a few days.
No one knew what to expect when Kotto flew the ship into that rift in space, but he was confident he had taken every possibility into account. At least he appeared to be confident, as far as everyone else was concerned. “I follow my Guiding Star,” he muttered, “even if it takes me into a deep, dark hole.”
For so many years Roamers had turned to Kotto for answers, and he didn’t want to disappoint them by hinting that he was baffled. He’d gotten quite good at using technical jargon and obtuse mathematic derivations to confuse people who pressed him for answers. He didn’t like to explain too much.
He’d always possessed such an instinctive grasp of science and engineering that his intuitive leaps usually turned out to be right. Even when they didn’t, he had the safety net of his reputation. But in recent years his leaps had been more like blindly jumping off a cliff—especially the Big Ring project.
And now Kotto had something to prove.
A recognized genius didn’t just decide to stop having ideas. That was why the Big Ring had meant so much to him, and even after the catastrophic results of the full-power test, he still wanted to yank some breakthrough out of the experiment. He had suggested that the Ring might be used to form a gateway out in space, like a Klikiss transportal large enough to take whole cargo ships from point to point, but he had never expected the gigantic structure to collapse into another dimension.
Now he had to forge ahead and investigate, and maybe even prove that he had been correct in the first place.
KR and GU had triple-checked the survey craft’s systems and backups, but Shareen and Howard remained uneasy. The teens had already proved to be adept at spotting subtle flaws in his calculations, and now they wanted to verify the systems themselves. Finally, even they were satisfied. Shareen frowned as she finished checking inside the survey craft’s cockpit, closed the access hatches, and nodded. “It looks good, as far as I can tell.”
“You really shouldn’t go into the void, sir,” Howard repeated. “It’s not necessary.”
“Of course it’s necessary,” Kotto said, starting to feel harassed. “We need to understand, and somebody has to take a look. It has always been necessary for someone to take the first leap in exploration. That should fall on the shoulders of the inventor. I made that hole, so it should be me.”
“Why not send the compies alone?” Shareen said. “At least the first time.”
“We will volunteer,” KR and GU said in perfect unison.
“You’re coming along with me as a backup,” Kotto said, making his voice more strident. He didn’t want to talk about this any more. “This isn’t just an esoteric laboratory experiment. We don’t have time to dip in one little toe. That gap could be dangerous.”
“Exactly,” Shareen said. “That’s why—”
Kotto blew a long exasperated sigh through his lips. “Enough! We’ve been over this—it’s time for me to go.”
“We are ready, Kotto Okiah,” said GU. The compies seemed eager to jump aboard the survey craft right at that instant.
Secretly, Kotto had hoped to find excuses to delay, but that would have been too apparent. He had stalled too much near the end of the Big Ring construction, dithering due to his own uncertainties even after the project was complete. He could not do that now.
No more excuses. He’d already informed Fireheart that he was ready to launch, and the Roamer workers were watching him. From their greenhouse, where construction on the expanded dome had begun, Celli and Solimar had sent out an announcement through telink. All eyes were on him.
If Kotto came back as a triumphant hero, that would certainly make up for the recent debacle. He was nervous, but he also felt a longing. He wanted to understand. He wanted to see with his own eyes a mystery that no other human being had ever beheld.
Ever since his youth, the universe had been one gigantic puzzle box to him, a treasure chest of questions and answers. All his life he had pondered insights and revelations, and he wanted more. Right now, he was so desperate that he could taste it. Straightening, he blocked out all other concerns.
Station Chief Alu hurried into the launching bay. “We hope you can decide how to fix that big pothole you created, Kotto, or at least make it do something useful.”
He gave an upbeat smile. “Like every explorer, I do this for the sense of discovery. The practical utility of big discoveries isn’t always apparent right away.”
Alu sniffed. “What’s apparent to me is that big hole in the middle of the nebula, and a lot of us are worried that you might have created a back door to where the Shana Rei live. You do have the sun bombs with you?”
The Confederation Defense Forces had provided Fireheart with two new sun bombs. Kotto frowned. “Yes, they’re in the hold, and I want to get rid of them as soon as possible. I don’t like carrying the things.”
“It’s just a precaution. If we never need to trigger them, then no harm done.”
Shareen’s expression darkened. “If you see the Shana Rei, don’t mess around. Howard and I barely survived when they erupted from the clouds on Golgen. You don’t want to meet the shadows in person.”
“No, I do not,” Kotto said. “I don’t know that two sun bombs at the edge of the gap would stop a full-scale Shana Rei attack, but I’ll deploy them as promised.” He gave Shareen a strong hug, then formally shook Howard’s hand. “I’ll bring back some great discoveries, or at least more questions. That’s what science is all about.”
Howard and Shareen agreed but looked uncertain.
Kotto entered the survey craft, and his two compies marched up the ramp behind him, then sealed the hatch. As soon as he was out of sight inside, Kotto let out a long trembling breath.
For good measure, even though it caused yet another delay, he ran a final check on the systems. Finally, he activated the engines and headed out of the launching bay and away from the admin facility, crossing the nebula sea toward the yawning black emptiness where the Big Ring had been. “On our way at last,” he said.
Flying at a steady pace, he passed the warning buoys that Garrison Reeves had installed. The compies ope
rated the controls, although Kotto was ready to take over in the event of an emergency.
With the landmarks of Fireheart Station and the nebula’s core supergiant stars, he could navigate, but beyond the trapdoor, he had no idea how he would find his way forward. He hoped he could see the real universe from the opposite side so he could find his way back out again.
Kotto wasn’t comfortable about bringing the sun bombs into the void, worried that something might go wrong. What if some altered laws of physics scrambled the warheads’ reactive systems? What if that triggered a nova chain reaction much too soon?
As the survey craft approached the void’s edge, he transmitted back with false cheer, “All systems normal so far. No fluctuations, no danger. Everything just fine. No sign of the Shana Rei yet.”
“Tiptoe where possible. Let’s hope you don’t wake anything up in there, Kotto,” said Chief Alu. “If you come running back out with monsters on your heels, be sure you’re ready to detonate those sun bombs.”
Kotto acknowledged, muttering, “But only if the shadows come howling out after me.” He wondered if the energy discharge would be sufficient to close the tear in the universe. Or maybe it would rip the void open wider.
“We’ve reached the boundary, Kotto Okiah,” KR said. “Ready to proceed.”
Kotto slowed the survey craft to a crawl and paused to do a full sensor sweep ahead, but there was nothing comprehensible to see. Exactly as expected.
“Here we go,” Kotto said. He nudged the engines and accelerated into the void.
CHAPTER
38
EXXOS
The gigantic shadow clouds folded in and out of space like tesseracts, weak points in the universe where the Shana Rei broke down the fabric of spacetime and traveled into realspace.
But the clouds emerged at places so random they frustrated Exxos, making it impossible for him to plan. Destroying the cosmos required immense long-term strategy, but the creatures of darkness would not be managed, even for their own good. For now, though, until Exxos could gain the upper hand and make the shadows do what he said, the robots simply had to seize opportunities and react. Chaos incarnate was not conducive to the implementation of a complex scheme, but the shadows’ omnipotent powers made up for the insanity and gave Exxos reason to believe that they might succeed after all.
Eventually, the black robots would have to eradicate the Shana Rei as well—that was a foregone conclusion. And those plans were also in process, the infinitely difficult calculations under way. Meanwhile, Exxos would bide his time and continue causing as much destruction as possible.
A new shadow cloud unfolded, and the black hexagonal cylinders slid out of interdimensional space, returning to the Onthos home system. Their recent victories at the Ildiran colony of Wythira and the human planet of Relleker had extinguished some of the agony of sentient life, and that allowed the Shana Rei to grow even more powerful. Both of those populated planets were now completely dead. One hundred percent of the infesting life-forms were wiped out in the holocaust.
The triumphs had not come without cost, though. The surprising number of sun bombs used by the enemy had inflicted significant damage on the Shana Rei hex cylinders, and far more important, had destroyed twenty percent of his robots and battleships. Nearly 200,000 copies of Exxos eradicated.
While the black robots need no longer be worried about extinction, losing such a significant part of their force remained an annoyance—one that Exxos expected the Shana Rei to fix.
As yet another shadow cloud appeared at the Onthos system, Exxos surveyed the remnants of the gigantic black shell that had enclosed the original star and the planets. In that opaque shell composed of trillions of black hexagonal plates, Exxos saw only raw material, enough to make all the replacement robots he could want.
The damaged hex cylinders hovered above the mosaic barrier. Hundreds of thousands of black plates detached from the shell and twirled back up to incorporate their material into rebuilding the Shana Rei vessels, swelling and extending them. In short order, they had replenished all the damage inflicted upon their own hex cylinders, but they kept strengthening themselves with more dark matter, extruding another entire vessel.
Four shapeless inkblots appeared in front of Exxos, their glowing sightless eyes directed toward him, but he was not intimidated.
“Those battles damaged us,” said one of the Shana Rei, sounding petulant.
“Yes, but we caused far more damage to our enemies,” Exxos said. “I achieved that, and I know you can feel it. Think of all those minds that caused you pain—they have been silenced thanks to my robots, and that is just the beginning. We will silence many, many more of them. That is what you want.”
The creatures of darkness were mercurial, volatile. Simply to demonstrate their power, or their sheer unpredictability, they would select and torture Klikiss robots at random. During the early days of their captivity, Exxos had lost dozens of his unique comrades as the shadows tore them apart, dismantling their components down into individual atoms. So many irreplaceable robot memories had vanished before Exxos took the unprecedented step of consolidating them all, copying every mind, so that each one became Exxos, thus ensuring that nothing more was lost.
Now, either in a fit of pique or to assert their dominance, the shadows separated out ten flailing Exxos copies. Even though both attacks had been clear victories, the Shana Rei tore apart the robot carapaces, popping off their head plates, dismantling their segmented limbs, shredding their inner circuitry.
Exxos did not hide his irritation. “Why do you persist in making more work for yourselves? I require sufficient robots to attack the sentient creatures who give you pain, and now you have destroyed perfectly good fighters. You need to re-create the robots you just destroyed—and many more.”
He stood firm before the Shana Rei. Because of the obvious recent successes with so many robots, Exxos explained, the shadows would want to continue their attacks and expand to even more ambitious targets.
“I am trying to win this war. I am trying to make good use of our resources. Think of the destruction I have helped you achieve—is that not what you wish to continue?” The inkblots pulsed, as if confused, unwilling to consider the logic of Exxos’s argument. “In order for us to keep winning, you must stop destroying my robots, and you must replace the ones I lost during these two engagements. You have the material to do it.”
The Shana Rei considered this. “Yes, we have sufficient material.”
“And you have the energy, and you have the will. We are your allies. Fight the proper enemy and win the proper war. Restore my robots.” He paused, and then added as if it were an offhanded comment, “I need another million of them—for now.”
It was an arbitrary number, but enough for Exxos to feel strong, maybe even invincible—and for all of the secretly coupled robot processors to work in parallel while they made calculations for their other plans.
“We will restore your robots,” the inkblots agreed. The Shana Rei did not seem to grasp the importance of numbers.
“And our ships,” Exxos said.
The shadows didn’t hesitate. “And your ships.”
A gigantic yet still insignificant swath of hexagonal plates disengaged from the ebony shell, and the Shana Rei manipulated the matter to rebuild the robot attack ships, atom by atom, using the dark matter. Then they reassembled a million more identical robots, and Exxos could feel their minds coming online. The new robots immediately copied and transferred all of the thoughts, memories, and secret programming from Exxos. Synchronized again.
Exxos felt stronger than ever. Perhaps next time he would ask for ten million. The Shana Rei would not likely see any difference.
Now for the next step. “Our follow-up target needs to be even more substantial than those two colony worlds. We are not just erasing one population after another—we are inspiring fear. We are making all of them feel despair—which weakens their entire race. It causes them to make mistakes.”
The Shana Rei gathered around, and Exxos faced them with his red optical sensors. “Fear will weaken them like a disease, and it will do our work for us.”
The Shana Rei did not understand the concept of a disease, and Exxos had to explain it for them. They seemed intrigued. “Choose another planet for us to attack,” they said. “And we will snuff out more of the painful sentients.”
Exxos had already considered this. “The planet I have selected will not only kill substantial numbers of the enemy, it will also generate the maximum amount of fear.”
The Shana Rei did not seem curious, simply waited for Exxos to explain. “The heart of the human race, the origin of their civilization, is Earth. That planet is one of their largest population centers, one of their most vital worlds.” He remembered the sting of how the Klikiss robots had been utterly defeated at the end of the Elemental War. It would be a long-overdue revenge.
Yes, there were plenty of reasons to choose Earth.
“We will bring our entire force there, destroy that planet, and leave its surface a smoking ruin. The death of Earth will signal the death of the human race.”
The inkblots paused, pulsing with their infinite shadows, and the central eyes brightened. “Our vessels, your robot soldiers, and your battleships are restored. We will proceed to destroy Earth.”
CHAPTER
39
TAL GALE’NH
Tal Gale’nh accompanied the Adar as they entered a bright conference chamber where Mage-Imperator Jora’h had called a war council. Prime Designate Daro’h was there, as well as Yazra’h and Muree’n.
The Adar wasted no time in issuing his report. “Thanks to increased production on numerous worlds, the Solar Navy is stronger than it has been since the height of the Elemental War.”
“Yet the shadows are stronger still,” Jora’h said. “They just proved it at Wythira, and with the mob of possessed attenders.”
“We know how to hurt them,” Gale’nh pointed out. “We inflicted great damage on the black robots at Kuivahr.”
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