Metal Swarm

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “But how do you do it?” Denn stared at the bustling spacedocks. In only an hour, it seemed, half of the hull plates had been installed on the frame of a new warliner. “Maybe I should hire Ildirans, if they work so well with humans. Can you give me any pointers?”

  “I can do better than that.” Her smile broadened, and her skin seemed to glow.

  As if he had been summoned, Kolker came into the chamber wearing a prismatic medallion over his bare emerald chest. “I’ve discovered a new technique. Thism, telink, and human thoughts. I can remove a blindfold that none of us knew we were wearing.”

  “Is it a trade secret, or are you willing to share? Name your price if it works as well as Ms. Huck says.”

  “There is no price. I’m glad that you’re so interested.” Kolker fingered the medallion. “I just need to show it to you.”

  “For free? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “My reward is seeing the expression on your face when you understand.”

  “Whatever you say.” Denn let the green priest lay a palm on his forehead, as if giving a blessing. “Is this some kind of religious ceremony? What does that have to do with—”

  “I believe I’m strong enough to do it without my treeling. I have the Lightsource, the soul-threads, the telink, and now if only I can find . . . ah, there.”

  The flesh of Kolker’s palm seemed to grow warmer against Denn’s brow. Before he could raise any questions, a thousand lightbulbs illuminated his mind. His senses filled to overflowing. He saw everyone and everything around him—the Hansa engineers, the Ildirans and their thism, the spacecraft, the construction yards, the planet itself, the six nearby suns. His mind felt as if it had been pulled wide open, and he could find no words to express his joy.

  “Wow!” was the best he could manage.

  83 SULLIVAN GOLD

  While the Voracious Curiosity was preparing to depart, the Mage-Imperator granted Sullivan the permission he needed to leave the Ildiran Empire. He found Captains Kett and Roberts in discussions with bureaucrat kithmen over Ildiran goods to be loaded aboard the ship. It took Rlinda a moment to recognize him. “Sullivan Gold, right? Weren’t you the administrator of the Hansa cloud harvester?”

  “Yes,” he said, but after that words failed him. It wasn’t really so much of a favor to ask, but it would mean the world to him. “Mage-Imperator Jora’h suggested I talk to you. I’m very anxious to get my life back to normal, to see my wife, my grandchildren. It’s been very difficult to get messages to Earth. Is there, um, is there a chance I could have passage aboard your ship?”

  “To Earth?” Roberts said. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “To Earth, or at least to some Confederation or Roamer outpost where I can book passage aboard another ship. I don’t care how long it takes, but I’m certainly not getting any closer to my family by staying here. The Mage-Imperator has promised to pay any fee you wish to charge.” When Rlinda snickered, he asked defensively, “What’s so funny?”

  “Ildirans don’t have a clue about how to negotiate. They can’t imagine someone might take advantage of an open-ended offer like that.”

  “I’m sure he’s sincere,” Sullivan said. The Mage-Imperator had already given him a case of precious gems and valuable metal chits that would pay off most of his family’s debts.

  “Oh, I believe it. But the Curiosity’s got a full load of trading items,” Rlinda said cautiously. “I’m the Trade Minister, you know. How many others do you expect to take along?”

  Sullivan scratched his cheek, feeling the rough stubble; he had forgotten to shave again. “It’ll just be me. The others are working with Tabitha on rebuilding the Solar Navy, and our green priest has become fascinated with new revelations, or religion, or whatever it is he calls it. They’ve all become rather inseparable—in more ways than one. I’m the only one who wants to go.”

  “We can work something out.” Rlinda picked up the diamondfilm sheet one of the Ildiran trade ministers slid toward her. “We’re leaving tomorrow, so you’d better start packing.”

  Tabitha and Kolker faced Sullivan aboard the main construction station, but their minds were elsewhere, preoccupied. Kolker seemed adrift in a silent conversation, as he had often done when chatting with green priests through telink. But this was something more.

  “Are you sure you want to stay here?” Sullivan asked for the third time.

  “We’re happy,” Kolker said.

  “And I’ve got the most cooperative workforce I’ve ever seen,” Tabitha said. “The Ildiran workers follow me around like little ducklings, and the Mage-Imperator is paying more than fairly. What more could I ask for?”

  “And you, Kolker? We could bring you back to Theroc.”

  “I can be on Theroc whenever I like simply by touching the worldtree. I have more important work to do here, and I already have many converts among the green priests.” Then he paused, musing. “And, now that Denn Peroni has joined us, I realize the greater possibilities in the Spiral Arm.”

  Sullivan was surprised at that. “Denn Peroni?”

  “He wanted to know how we can run our work so efficiently,” Tabitha said with a contented smile. “He was very impressed.”

  “And after I showed him, he felt as if he had suddenly seen the solution to a very complex puzzle he’d been working on all his life.”

  Tabitha was almost pleading. “It would take only a few minutes and you’d understand, Sullivan. You’d see the big picture, like we do.”

  He could see their fascination, their acceptance, but thankfully he wasn’t worried that they would force him. These two were still his friends, and they did not do anything against his wishes. They were not proselytizers or fanatics, just changed. “I’ve seen as much of the picture as I care to. I don’t begrudge you your happiness. I want to thank you for your years of service. It wasn’t always easy.”

  “It led us to here,” Tabitha said. “I don’t regret a moment of the journey.”

  He gave them each an awkward hug, hurriedly gathered his belongings, and went to find Captain Kett and her Voracious Curiosity.

  84 SIRIX

  As the robot-controlled battleships approached Llaro, Sirix planned his attack against the breedex and its growing subhive. With their resources limited, he and his robots would make a new and direct kind of assault. Although it was more dangerous, and risked the loss of his robots, it was also like the old wars—the very reason the robots had been created.

  As the group of ships entered orbit, QT pointed out helpfully, “I have downloaded all available background information about human activities on Llaro, their facilities and main industrial outputs. I can deliver a summary, if you wish.”

  “I am not interested in the human settlement. My concern is with the Klikiss infestation. We will destroy it, as we have destroyed the other subhives we encountered. The human presence there is not relevant.”

  The expanded sensor suite showed a thriving Klikiss subhive, exactly as Sirix had expected. Freshly built mounds and spires rose ten stories tall. Workers and equipment bustled around the old ruins. A newly erected transportal stood out in the open near a walled-in village of human colonists. All the vegetation around the infestation had been razed, and Sirix inferred that the breedex was about to fission. Other subhives around the Spiral Arm would be doing the same, preparing to fight each other. Sirix would stop them wherever he could.

  “Their defenses are significant,” PD said.

  “And their numbers as well,” QT added.

  “We will be ready for them.” Sirix convinced himself he was right. In previous attacks, he had preferred to operate from a safe distance, deploying the battle group’s large-scale explosives, ship-to-ship jazer banks, guided bombs, and atomic warheads. This would be a ground assault, and the EDF armories were still full of jazer rifles, pulse blasters, high-power stunners, and shoulder-mounted projectile launchers.

  Sirix assigned small arms to all Soldier compies and black robots. Together he had
nearly a thousand robots remaining and twice that many Soldier compies. The swift dropships had been stripped of safety interlocks so the robots could descend at projectile velocity, smash onto the strip-harvested ground outside the Klikiss city, and rush outward in a berserker charge. The subhive could not withstand that.

  Sirix rode down in the rattling, roaring dropship beside PD and QT. Though he knew they could be competent fighters, he was bringing the two compies along primarily to show them the awful nature of the Klikiss race. And so that the violent battle they witnessed would inform them of the scope of the ancient wars between the black robots and their creators. The two captive compies were very receptive to learning new things.

  Like a rain of meteors, the robot fighters slammed into the landscape outside the walled-in human settlement. Despite the rough landing, Sirix regained his footing immediately, opened the hatch, and emerged with the two compies beside him. Black robots and Soldier compies spilled out from all the dropships, heavily armed with EDF weapons.

  Marching forward, they began to open fire on any Klikiss target. Scouts, harvesters, and engineers died by the hundreds. The Klikiss squealed and whistled, while the robots and compies were ominously silent, moving forward meter by meter, faster than the hive mind could react.

  Ahead, the tall new transportal stood in front of the Klikiss city, and Sirix postulated that the breedex might already have sent many of its warriors to other planets to establish additional subhives or to wipe out rival breedexes. Prominent among the newly built Klikiss structures, he discerned the squat structure where the hive mind dwelled. That was his primary target.

  He noted without surprise that the barricade surrounding the human settlement was obviously Klikiss-made. Terrified-looking people had scrambled up makeshift ladders to stand atop the thick wall and stare at the forward push of the black robots. The breedex had trapped these colonists inside a well-defined boundary. Sirix could not fathom the reason. Was it just to keep the humans out of the way, or did the Klikiss have some other purpose? How could humans possibly be useful?

  Scrambling to put together a defense, hundreds of spiny warriors scuttled forward, some of them flying. With no regard for their own protection, the Klikiss warriors threw themselves upon the front ranks of Soldier compies, and they fell in great numbers to the barrage of high-powered jazers and rocket-launched projectiles.

  But the insect creatures advanced so swiftly that many of them were still alive to close with the Soldier compies. The Klikiss dismantled the compies and crashed into the black robots, ripping them apart. Sirix fought with a furious abandon. Seeing one of the towering domates emerge at the rear of the wall of spiny warriors, Sirix sent out a sharp signal to his comrades and the compies. “Destroy the domate. That is a primary priority.”

  The metal army caused great mayhem as they drove toward the well-defended hall of the breedex. Four of the robots clustered around the towering domate. They shot and smashed and attacked, and finally the silver-and-black striped creature fell, tumbling forward—a great victory.

  PD and QT marched along beside Sirix, shooting their own firearms and taking an impressive toll. QT turned his optical sensors back toward the stockade wall, where the helpless humans were watching the great clash. His words startled Sirix. “Look, the colonists have compies here, as well.”

  The black robot swiveled his flat head to see two compies standing together among the horrified humans. One was a drab Governess model, the other a Friendly. A familiar-looking Friendly compy. Sirix paused in his forward march.

  “That is DD.”

  85 ORLI COVITZ

  That is Sirix,” DD said, his artificial voice slipping up an octave in alarm.

  From the wall, Orli watched the swarms of black robots emerge from their dropships and begin massacring the Klikiss. Terrified of what the breedex would do to them, the colonists had prepared their meager defenses while getting one last group ready for a timely escape. But no one had anticipated this invasion.

  Earlier that day, Marla Chan and Crim Tylar—who’d come to think of themselves as Orli’s surrogate parents—had packed clothes and some food they really couldn’t spare, and made ready to send the girl off, if the chance should present itself. Orli had rolled up her lightweight synthesizer strips and stuffed them into her pack.

  Then the robots had landed.

  Orli didn’t know whether to cheer or scream. These black robots were killing more of the Klikiss than the human defenders could have hoped to. Yet these robots had slaughtered everyone on the Corribus colony, including Orli’s father. She hated them.

  “That is Sirix,” DD repeated. “We must escape from here.”

  “Those robots look a little busy right now,” said Mr. Steinman. “They don’t have time to bother with us.”

  As if to contradict the old man’s assurances, Sirix pointed an articulated metal arm toward the stockade and sent out a chittering signal. A group of the invading robots detached from the forward assault and turned toward the settlement. With their EDF weapons, they blasted the wall, chewing large craters in the resin cement.

  “Get to cover!” Davlin said. “They’re not shooting at us directly, but they obviously want to get inside.”

  “They want to get to us,” Orli said as they scrambled down behind the uncertain safety of the barricade.

  “And me.” DD sounded very afraid.

  The black machines swarmed toward the stockade, while others charged into the masses of spiny Klikiss.

  Marla and Crim had their groups of trainees ready to defend against the enemy with their scavenged firearms. But they were clearly reluctant to open fire on the black robots. “I hate to waste our ammunition,” Marla said.

  “I do want to waste some of those robots,” her husband answered.

  UR said, “I must protect the children. If this is an opportunity to escape, I suggest we take it.”

  “It’s more than an opportunity,” Davlin said. “With this diversion we can move twice as many people out of here as I’d hoped. Get a group and make a break for it while the Klikiss and the robots distract each other.”

  “Distract each other?” Mr. Steinman said. “They’re beating the crap out of each other!”

  “All the better,” Crim said. “Which side should we root for?”

  When Margaret joined them, she looked both dismayed and hopeful because of the unexpected attack. “No matter which group emerges victorious today, they will still want to destroy us.”

  “Where will we go?” DD said. “Will you be coming with us?”

  “It isn’t yet clear what I have to do.”

  Marla nudged her husband. “If there’s a group getting out of here, Crim, then you’ve got to go with them.”

  “I will not! I’m staying with you.”

  “We had an agreement. Neither one of us is going to be safe. The escapees in Davlin’s hideout will need your protection as much as these townspeople need mine. One of us has to get out of this alive for Nikko—wherever he is.”

  “We were supposed to flip a credit chip.”

  “I did—you lost. I’m a better shot anyway.”

  Crim was flustered. “No you’re not. We’re even.”

  “Not today. Go with them!” She gave him a quick kiss, squeezed Orli in a hug, and scrambled up a rickety ladder to the top of the thick wall, where her gunners had already begun to open fire. Marla and her recruits shot at the robots, knocking several of them from the wall like massive cockroaches.

  Davlin grabbed Mr. Steinman’s scrawny arm and pushed him toward Orli, the Governess compy, and the children. “Lead them back to the sandstone bluffs. Mayor Ruis, you join them.”

  “But how are we going to get out of here without anyone seeing?”

  A projectile-launched explosive from the swarming robots blew up one of the Klikiss towers. It slowly collapsed, crumbling, wobbling, then shattering on the ground.

  “This mess is going to last a long time. Just run! I’ll make a nice big do
or for you.” Davlin reached into his pocket and found the remote control; without hesitating, he pressed the detonator. The construction explosives he had planted blew a large gap through the barricade.

  Orli hesitated as the dust cleared. Now they could all flee to the open desolate plain, but there was little shelter in the arroyos and draws, only a few boulder outcroppings and dead, clawlike trees.

  UR marched forward, pushing the children ahead of her. Mr. Steinman, Mayor Ruis, and Crim Tylar ran along with a group of others. DD turned. “Come with us, Margaret!”

  The older woman hesitated and looked directly at Orli. “You have your synthesizer strips? Keep the others safe if the Klikiss come after you.”

  “What do you mean? Will the breedex still recognize me?”

  “Use your music. DD, go along and help them!”

  “Should I not remain with you, Margaret?” The compy’s voice clearly showed that he was torn.

  “You can do more good for them. Now go!”

  Several black robots clambered over the wall. Another part of the barricade was destroyed by repeated blasts from their weapons. Seeing Sirix approach was all DD needed to set him in motion again.

  86 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  As the Mage-Imperator greeted representatives of various kiths, he watched Daro’h’s face, reading the intelligence and sensitivity there. Instead of spending another day servicing one pleasure mate after another, as a Prime Designate normally did, Daro’h attended his father and Nira in the skysphere audience chamber.

  Jora’h had been poorly prepared when his father’s death had forced him to ascend prematurely to his position, and he would not make the same mistake with Daro’h. A Prime Designate must never forget that one day he would lead the Ildiran Empire. By now, the burn marks on the young man’s face had mostly healed, but the angry redness would remain for a long time. Daro’h remained distraught over what he feared the faeros might be doing.

  Jora’h couldn’t blame him. Since before Adar Zan’nh had left on his mission of mercy, the Mage-Imperator had sensed the constant arpeggio of anxiety across his Empire, like the plucking of taut strings on a musical instrument. There was also an emptiness, a troubling silence in the thism. His scouts had not returned from the Horizon Cluster. Neither had he received any report from Tal O’nh in his procession around the once-rebellious worlds, nor had he heard anything from the scientific team on Hyrillka. No one was reporting.