Hellhole Inferno

by Brian Herbert

  Herald appeared startled by her vehemence. “I am aware of your pain, but a Xayan presence would comfort and strengthen you.”

  In a clipped voice, she cut him off. “I’m a stubborn woman. It’s my own choice. Encix promised that no one would be forced.” She frowned. “With Slickwater Springs, I’ve gone to great effort to recruit converts for you. That should be more than enough.”

  “And it is. You will not be forced.” Herald bowed, then slipped back down the trail, leaving her alone again as he called over his shoulder: “But I can still hope.”

  * * *

  By the time Sophie made her way back to the resort complex, the sky was darkening with angry clouds; there had been no rain for weeks, just meteorological bluster, but even with satellite reports Hellhole’s weather was unpredictable and dangerous. The dry air crackled in her nostrils.

  Walking through the camp, she strode along a boardwalk that skirted the pools. She heard the excited chatter of new converts regaling others with stories about the alien lives they adopted; she saw fresh arrivals who hesitated before taking the plunge. With more and more people immersing themselves, there had been occasional accidents, as optimistic or desperate volunteers slipped into a coma instead of emerging revitalized with vivid memories and exotic powers. These new volunteers had to make up their own minds.

  She very much wanted this whole crisis to be over. If the Xayans were correct, their awakening race was very close to the psychic critical mass they needed, and then they would ascend to some higher plane of existence, leaving Hellhole to the colonists. She doubted that would solve all problems, but she was confident Tiber Adolphus could handle the rest. She smiled at the thought of him.

  She loved Adolphus, but in the flurry of events surrounding the war, there had been little time for them. He and Sophie had already struggled together to tame a planet—wasn’t that enough? She felt deeply weary, both physically and emotionally.

  A group of shadow-Xayans gathered at the edge of the largest pool, crowded together. Among them, Sophie saw the large, misshapen form of the Original alien Tryn. With her caterpillar body and human torso, Tryn already looked strange, but now the female Xayan was physically distorted and twisted, damaged in a disruptive surge of telemancy that had ricocheted along the stringline to Candela. Tryn had survived—barely—along with one human convert, Tel Clovis, although both were gravely injured. The other converts on the Candela seed colony had been wiped out in the backlash.

  With laborious movements, Tryn worked her lower body to the edge of a sloping ramp that led from the boardwalk down into the shimmering slickwater. The gathered shadow-Xayans watched, offering silent encouragement but no active assistance. Alongside Tryn, the injured Tel Clovis limped and shuffled. Both were in pain, their flesh fused and half-melted. Clovis was so deformed he barely looked human anymore.

  Reaching the ramp, Tryn placed one of her soft arms around Clovis’s shoulder. The pair hesitated, as if gathering courage, and then together they slid down the ramp and into the oily liquid. They sank under with barely a ripple, and a few moments later they emerged, rising above the surface. Tryn floated in the slickwater as if it were alien amniotic fluid, her large body buoyed by the reservoir of racial lives. With her bent arms, she cradled Tel Clovis against her torso, and both of them drifted together, communing in silent telepathy.

  Tryn said aloud, “Thank you,” and turned to the gathered shadow-Xayans who observed the strange ritual. Her smooth alien face was unreadable.

  “What is happening?” Sophie whispered, but the converts continued to stare.

  As if releasing something inside of herself, Tryn relaxed, collapsed, and dissolved into the slickwater. Her skin, her cells, her entire body dissipated as if surrendering to the liquid. Clovis tried to hold on to her, but her alien body softened and flowed, slipping through his fingers and vanishing.

  Now, though, the distorted man gained a new strength and vigor. He seemed to draw upon the energy and life that Tryn had surrendered. The convert’s twisted back and arms straightened, realigned, and he began to swim, striking out freely in the slickwater. He laughed, and his eyes shone with an even more intense strangeness, as if he had just been reborn.

  The shadow-Xayans happily welcomed him back.

  When Clovis made his way back to shore and climbed the ramp, dripping viscid fluid from his body, he wore a beatific expression. “I already had a Xayan companion, but now I am more. I am three … and I am many.” His peculiar voice thrummed, as if he carried layers of alienness within him. The intensity in his shimmering eyes spiraled, frightening Sophie when his gaze fell on her. But he didn’t seem to be focused on her at all.

  “Now I am also Tryn, who is merged into my mind in a manner that has never before occurred. I have absorbed the essence of a fully alive Original Xayan, a unique synthesis … because that is what Tryn knew had to happen. Now I am more than any of the other shadow-Xayans. I can see more and do more, accomplish more, experience more. I know more. The possibilities expand like kaleidoscope views.”

  Clovis reached the boardwalk before turning back to gaze out on the pool from which he had just emerged, breathless with excitement.

  Shadow-Xayans gathered closer, while some of the curious potential converts also listened. Still feeling trepidation, Sophie stepped up to him, sounding pragmatic. “I hope that whatever you learned can help save us from the Ro-Xayans. If they’re coming.”

  The shimmer in Clovis’s eyes sharpened, and he smiled at her with just a hint of his old personality. Sophie had known this man for many years, back to when he and his husband ran the secret construction project of the Ankor spaceport. “We must go to Sonjeera—that is where we will retrieve Cippiq and Zairic. Their remnants are in a quarantined hangar, sealed there after Diadem Michella destroyed their bodies, but important traces are still there, and we need them. I know it. Zairic will give us the key to reaching ala’ru immediately—and then we can defeat the Ro-Xayans.”

  Sophie put her hands on her hips, knowing that the shadow-Xayans didn’t recognize sarcasm. “Well, it’s simple then. Just go and ask the old Diadem nicely.” Michella Duchenet was already desperately afraid of what she called “alien contamination,” enough so that she had placed an impenetrable quarantine zone around a spaceport hangar. No one would be able to break through all the security systems.

  “There will be a way,” Clovis said with such power and confidence that he nearly drove away all of Sophie’s doubts. Unable to argue, she could only watch in awe and unease as Clovis turned away from her and walked with restored health and vigor down the boardwalk toward the heart of the resort complex. Other shadow-Xayans fell into formation behind him.

  Seeing his transformation, two of the hesitant humans made up their minds, and entered the slickwater before they could reconsider.…

  4

  Ishop Heer had noble blood. He could feel it running warm and hot through his veins. He had proved his pedigree to the lords and to Diadem Michella herself, and he was entitled to regain his family birthright after seven centuries of ignominy. It was his due.

  He had spilled a lot of noble blood to obtain it.

  And since the ambitious noblewoman Enva Tazaar had been disgraced and stripped of her holdings on Orsini, Ishop Heer had asked to rule her former planet. A small enough reward for all the years of dark service he had given the Diadem.

  He had planned carefully for this, worked hard to attain it, step by bloody step. It was his due!

  He had presented his irrefutable case in the Council chamber. He had looked at the gathered nobles, expecting to watch them accept him as one of them. He had the proof. Yet they had either scoffed or ignored him, brushing aside his assertion. Even Diadem Michella dismissed his claim with an amused chuckle and told the Council to get back to important work. Knowing he was one of them, the nobles still regarded him with scorn! Despite his lineage, they saw him as a person who did not realize his place in society, a mere servant who should never hope to s
it at the master’s table.

  Oh, Michella appreciated his service, and she made use of his skills whenever she needed something done. She offered him rewards—villas, money, women if he so desired. But what he desired was his birthright. The Diadem refused to understand that.

  In a gracious gesture, Michella had recently transferred the title on a large central-city apartment to him, even though she had already given him a different house not long before. This was a furnished unit on an upper floor with a partial view of Heart Square and the government buildings, including Council Hall. She expected that these perks, and perhaps a pat on the head, were all that was necessary to ensure his loyalty.

  Even though she knew exactly what Ishop was capable of, Michella did not seem to realize that she had made a dangerous enemy. He had already attempted to kill her once, but that was just practice. Ishop vowed to keep trying until he succeeded.

  Fuming, he used an ID transmitter to unlock the door to the new apartment. Like throwing a dog a bone! Despite his large frame, Ishop moved smoothly and gracefully, remaining wary, always vigilant against anyone trying to harm him. His pale-green eyes spotted no threat. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his shaved scalp.

  He had been to this apartment only once before and knew it would never feel like the home he deserved. He should have been the lord of a nobleman’s palace, ruler of a planet. Now as Ishop stepped into the foyer, he smelled fresh paint. He saw his red-haired assistant Laderna Nell arranging paintings and sculptures in the parlor, government-commissioned works by various local artists. He saw the expensive masterpieces as nothing more than trappings. Consolation prizes.

  Laderna came out and greeted him with a kiss. His assistant was thin, even gangly, with brown, almond-shaped eyes and a steady, intelligent gaze. She was his confidante as well as his lover, and they celebrated with sex whenever they accomplished some part of their overall schemes. Ishop knew she fancied more of a close personal relationship than the physical one they already had, but even so, she recognized the requirement that he take a noble wife, since he was of noble blood himself—regardless of whether the Diadem recognized his claim. Laderna wanted him to succeed, and she would bask in his glory.

  Yes, she truly was a perfect partner, with shared goals and the desire to help him achieve the glory he deserved. They both agreed that it was essential for Ishop to advance as far as possible in the hierarchy of the Constellation, and Laderna would let no one stand in his way—not even herself. At times, it bothered him that by not accepting her as a person equal to his station, he was in effect treating Laderna just as Michella had treated him. But at least he recognized Laderna’s value; he would never forget that, and he often told her how much he appreciated her.

  It was the rest of the Constellation that frustrated him so.

  In the parlor of his cold, uncomfortable new apartment, Ishop studied a glass sculpture, a hodgepodge that included a cornucopia, a flower, and some impossible sea creature. “I don’t like this one.” With a wave to emphasize his artistic judgment, he knocked the piece over, shattering it on the hard tile floor.

  Scowling, taking out his deep-seated anger at how he had been treated by his supposed peers, he wandered around the apartment, breaking other pieces, even slashing a painting with a knife.

  Laderna did not scold him as he released his frustrations. “We can say that vandals ransacked the place before we arrived, and that we want a new security system.”

  “They’ll just replace these pieces with artwork that’s just as bad,” he replied, then smiled. “And if necessary, we’ll keep getting our security system redone.”

  They shared a gourmet meal and wine in the dining chamber, delivered by an in-house catering service that the landlord provided for the tenants. It was a convenience, but not the same as having a personal serving staff.

  As she finished her rare filet with butter-drenched mushroom caps, Laderna said, “At least we know that Enva Tazaar won’t be eating a meal like this. Where she’s gone, she may have to settle for a warmed noodle dish in a company cafeteria.”

  Ishop smiled. “Do they have cafeterias on Tehila? I thought on a backwater planet like that, she might have to hunt her own food with a rock and a stick.” After the noblewoman’s disgrace and death sentence, Ishop and Laderna had secretly arranged for her escape out to the Deep Zone planet of Tehila—strictly because they knew it would embarrass Diadem Michella. In fact, Enva did not know the identity of her mysterious benefactor. He suspected, though, that even in her exile Enva was no wilting flower of a noblewoman; she was tough, ambitious, and resourceful.

  A pity that the woman’s plans to overthrow Michella had failed. She would have made a worthy Diadem, or a valuable noble wife for Ishop. Enva was exiled now, but someday she might reclaim her house and wealth. Further changes were in store—he and Laderna would make sure of that.

  Laderna saw his preoccupied expression. “What are you thinking about?”

  He told her only a half-truth. “How I wish I could get even with Michella. I have noble blood, just as she does.”

  She smiled. “And you and I have a lot of that blood on our hands, from each of the houses that wronged your family so many centuries ago.” She gave a wistful smile. “I have so enjoyed helping you go through the list. If only we could have finished it—”

  Ishop cut her off. “It’s finished.”

  “No, we still have a Duchenet name on the list. Simply tricking Michella’s daughter into a dangerous war zone isn’t good enough—and we know Keana Duchenet is still very much alive.”

  Ishop grimaced, not wanting the reminder. “I’ll eliminate the Diadem herself, sooner or later. That’ll take care of the Duchenet name.”

  “That may be too difficult, at least for now. She is well-guarded, and lucky.” Laderna raised her eyebrows, and he could tell she was holding a secret. “But I have found another.”

  He was surprised. “Another Duchenet? Some distant cousin?”

  Laderna took her time with a bite of the mushrooms. “No, someone very close. Remember, Michella has a sister. Haveeda.”

  “Had a sister. Haveeda disappeared decades ago. No one has seen her in—”

  “Thirty-two years. But it doesn’t matter. She is still alive—I found her.”

  Ishop raised his eyebrows, always admiring her skills. “How?”

  She sniffed. “After all I’ve accomplished so far, you need to ask? I tracked down all the old records of noble families from when your ancestors were banished. I compiled the evidence that you have noble blood. I found all the tiniest clues, no matter how cleverly they were hidden. Do you think tracking down Michella’s sister was really all that difficult? The Diadem thinks she covered all the tracks, swept Haveeda under the rug. But I just needed to look a little harder. I have my methods, just as you have yours.”

  Now Ishop was intrigued. “Where is she?”

  “Michella has been hiding her for years, keeping her quiet because Haveeda witnessed something in their childhood. It was never proved, but I am convinced Michella murdered their own brother. Haveeda probably saw it. Right now she is being hidden on Sandusky, no doubt under extremely high security—I am still tracking down her exact location.”

  Ishop stopped eating, no longer interested in the food or wine. “Sandusky? An unpleasant place—full of laboratories and isolated research centers, isn’t it? If she’s been trapped there, poor Haveeda must be quite distraught. It would be a humanitarian service to take the woman out of her misery.”

  “And finally check the last name off our list.” Laderna nodded. “I am ready to leave in the morning. I’ll finish the job.”

  “Then Haveeda is as good as dead. Your track record is impeccable, dear Laderna—in fact, we might as well celebrate our success tonight.”

  She smiled back at him and began to unbutton her blouse.

  5

  Exiled. Fallen from grace. But at least she was still alive. Enva Tazaar tried to comfort herself with that, but didn’
t quite manage to convince herself. The injustice of how far she had sunk simmered within her, but she was helpless—for now. She had been cheated, sentenced to death, and forced to flee from the Crown Jewels to save her life. Diadem Michella had made a spectacle of her, stripping Enva of her noble titles and holdings, her family prestige and wealth.

  The Tazaars had built a grand empire on Orsini for centuries; her father had been a great lord whose power and personality had been a match for even Selik Riomini—until Lord Tazaar was murdered by an unknown assassin, leaving Enva with the wealth and power.

  But she’d lost it all and now found herself on this worthless frontier planet of Tehila. Everything had been torn from her, like an infant stolen from its mother’s arms. If only Enva had moved more swiftly and consolidated her noble alliances, she could have been Diadem herself by now, replacing the vile old leader. She had arranged a cooperative pact with General Adolphus on condition that he help her remove the spiteful crone from power. Enva was sure the General had not betrayed her—no, it was someone else.

  By now, if Michella had her way, Enva would have been executed—painfully and slowly, before a large audience. But she had frustrated the old bitch’s plans in that, at least. Enva could cling to this as a small victory. She had been locked in a high-security Sonjeera prison without any real reason to hope, but someone—she had no idea who—had given her a chance to escape, smuggling her away on a secret transport aboard a stringline hauler heading off into the Deep Zone, as far away as conceivable.

  Now she was safe enough, although forgotten and powerless. But she was still Enva Tazaar. She had the skills and ambition to change her situation. One step at a time.

  Ready to go to work, she clipped on her ID badge before entering the Tehila administrator’s mansion. The badge identified her as “Enva Lien” and the picture showed a woman who was still unfamiliar to her. Beautiful—nothing could hide that—but her blonde hair was now close-cropped and dyed a muddy brown. She wore no makeup on her pale face—giving her the appearance of a clerk, a civil servant, someone beneath notice. Enva felt a knot of resentment whenever she looked at herself, but it had to be this way … for now.