value your experience and military insight, even your
dissenter's viewpoint. But there's something else yon
bring to our clandestine scheming, something that could
prove crucial.'
Theo laughed. 'Somehow I don't think you're refer
ring to my charm and boyish good looks.'
Sundstrom gave him a sidelong look.
T believe that you and your old friends from the
Corps call it "the assets".'
Still standing, Theo almost froze but made himself
relax. 'The assets?'
'A substantial quantity of arms and ammunition went
missing after the Winter Coup, along with explosives,
tech gear, and some vehicles. Now, assuming that this
materiel has been stored at various locations in the
vicinity of the colony townships, it's entirely possible
that such hideaways may have come to the attention of
some intel-gathering arm of government. In which case
that data could be sitting in files that will shortly
become, as I've already indicated, somewhat less than
secure. Of course, if these stores turned out to be empty
then such files could be closed and erased without
delay.' He smiled. 'I don't know why you held on to it -
perhaps you harboured long-term ambitions, or maybe
you kept it so that it wouldn't fall into other hands.
Either way, I'm glad that you did.'
Theo smiled blandly. 'Holger, I am at a loss to know
how to reply to all that,' he said. 'But I shall give it care-
ful consideration.'
'That's all I ask.'
'There is one small favour you might do for me,' he
said.
'Which is?'
Theo smiled. 'From your communications with the
Earth ship, were you told anything about the Forrestal
and the TenebrosaV
'That was one of my first questions,' Sundstrom said.
'But it seems that they have not been found - the dis-
tinction of first contact is ours.'
'After which we will come under the microscope, no
doubt.'
'Why is that?'
'To find out how our experiment in cultural admix-
ture turned out,' Theo said. 'The original colonial
project back on Earth computer-modelled a wide variety
of national-cultural combinations, with the aim of find-
ing those most likely to be able to survive conditions on
alien worlds. And to build a worthwhile society.'
Sundstrom gave a rueful grin. 'Scandinavians,
Russians and Scots - what were they thinking?'
A moment later the female assistant entered with
Theo's overcoat. He donned it, shook the president s
hand and moments later found himself outside the villa
again. It was darker and colder now and he felt a dis-
tinct nip in the air as he left the villa grounds by I
tree-shrouded pair of gates designed to look like the
entrance of an adjacent property. The spinnercab he had
ordered earlier was waiting at the side of the road, and
took him downhill towards the city. Hammergard was
spread along a narrow isthmus which separated Loch
Morwen from the Korzybski Sea and the ocean beyond,
both bodies of water glimmering with reflections of the
night sky's starmist hues. But Theo was dwelling on
Sundstrom's closing remarks about the Diehards, not to
mention the assets, which was something of an unset-
tling surprise. And yet the president had decided to tell
Theo that the assets were vulnerable, a revelation that
could have only a limited number of implications, all of
which spelled trouble.
He had the driver let him out on the Loch Morwen
shore road in the city's Northvale district. With the hum
of the spinnercab fading as it returned to the city centre,
Theo took out his comm as he headed up the sideroad
that led home. It was an older, larger model, its sang-
wood case scored and darkened from use, but the
exterior belied its customised, upgraded components. A
few thumbpresses later the blue oval screen read
'Welcome To The Crypt', and when he raised it to his
ear he heard jaunty bagpipe music for a moment or two
before someone answered.
'Aye, whit is it now}''
Theo cleared his throat. 'Rory, it's me.'
Silence for a moment. 'Ach, sorry about that, Major -
I just had Stef on the line from Tangenberg bitching
about the trainin' rota because he wants tae watch the
Earth ambassador arriving on the vee and I thought
that wiz him again—'
'That's okay, never mind,' Theo said. Rory McGrain
was his deputy, quartermaster and researcher all rolled
into one. 'Listen, we'll need to roust out some loaders
and crews tonight.'
'Won't be easy, chief. What's it for}'
'Sundstrom knows about the assets.'
'Aw, naw . . .'
'Or more accurately, he knows that government intel
knows about them, so we have to move them all
tonight.'
'Hell's fire, chief - are we gonna have to shoot our
way out}'
Theo slowed as he reached the leaf-wreathed stair-
way leading up to his hab.
'That's the funny part, Rory -1 don't think there'll be
anyone watching the caches, never mind getting ready to
jump us. Listen, I'm at my house right now. Have
Ivanov or Janssen pick me up in fifteen. And one more
thing - see what you can find out about a special forces
guy called Donny.' He gave a brief description iron
memory.
'That must have been some meeting ye had up at the
palace,' Rory said. 'Am I right in thinking that this
ambassador's meet 'n' greet isna all it seems}'
'Rory, you don't know the half of it.'
And as he hurried up the wooden steps, he thought -
And I don't think I do either.
3
LEGION
It was a contract survey ship called Segmenter that
found the planet Darien while studying the perilous
gulfs of the Huvuun Deepzone.
Through tangled swirls and curtains of interstellar
dust and debris, Segmenter had painstakingly (and
clandestinely) plotted and scanned and measured for
several long weeks before stumbling over an uncharted
star system, complete with four planets, one of which
was habitable. Since this part of the Huvuun was cur-
rently claimed by two antagonistic civilisations, the
Brolturans and the Imisil, there then followed a tense
hour or more during which the system was scanned
for any other ships, beacons, probes or sensor nets.
Once it was clear that there were no such hazards in
the area, Segmenter moved in closer while its crew set
to work.
Data soon began arriving: a variant-three habitable
world, with a cluster of medium-tecli-level settlements
and also a large habitable moon. The planet's sentients
were confirmed as Human, and their rudimentary infor-
mation network revealed a population of approximately
2.75 million. The moon was inhabited by an indigenous
biped sentient specie
s called the Uvovo, who coexisted
with an extensive forest ecology . . .
A full report was compiled by one of Segmenter's
scanners, then passed up to the captain. He saw at once
that the Human element made it too important for his
remit and had the report encrypted and dispatched via
Tier 2 hyperspace comnet to the headquarters of the
Suneye Combine, the huge interstellar corpora tic 1
which had contracted Segmenter's services. From there it
flashed to the Office of External Measures on Iseri, the
supreme homeworld of the Sendruka Hegemony. Six
hours after leaving Segmenter, the report's contents were
being discussed by the highest Hegemony figures and
their AIs, and policy formulation was well under way.
But the Segmenter's, captain was not above trying to
sell the same goods twice and had quickly found a cus-
tomer at the rogue port of Blacknest. Pleased with his
new acquisition, the datadealer deposited a tidy sum in
a secure account, then streamed the data directly to a
number of patrons with standing orders for informa-
tion on new planets.
One patron was a Kiskashin line-pirate on Yndyeri
Duvo, a 2nd-echelon world in the Erdindeso Autarky.
His reputation for selling anything to anyone had gained
him a string of customers for whom the word 'eccentric'
was merely a starting point. And amongst the most tac-
iturn was one he had named Lord Mysterious. Lord
Mysterious had appeared nearly twenty years ago with
a solid tap of Piraseri credit and a terse description of his
information requirements tagged with a secure, localnet
address on Duvo's sister world, Yndyeri Tetro, The
Kiskashin was a phlegmatic merchant, and as long as a
customer's credit held up he had no interest in finding
out much more about them. So as soon as the Darien
report blinked into his portable dataspace (while he was
haggling with a tekmarker over the cost of band-depth
for the coming hexad) he recognised this as the kind of
thing Lord Mysterious had specified in his gatherer pro-
file. But rather than sending it on immediately, he
abstracted it and pondered the contents: a long-lost
Human colony discovered in the middle of the Huvuun
Deepzone with the Imisil in one corner, the Brolturans in
the other, and the Hegemony looming over it all - hmm,
a risky place to be, without a doubt, and fascinating.
The Kiskashin did not know any Humans, but if any
contacted him with a lucrative proposal in mind he
would certainly-be open-minded about it.
And just in case some of his other clients might be
interested in this little morsel, he slotted the report into
one of the slower outgoing queues. That would give him
time to examine it later and assess its resale potential.
After all, business is business.
4
CHEL
Every time he stepped aboard a Human vehicle, Chel
found himself having to learn forbearance anew. They
were hard, hollow things, completely lacking in the
vitality of organic life yet endowed with cunning engines
that drove them along their way. When the government
zeplin set down at Port Gagarin, Chel breathed more
easily as he hurried down the gantry to the hard ground
of the sunken landing bay. It was difficult to trust to a
thing that neither breathed nor had a beating heart, a
thing that had no lifesong.
Yet we must have been very different in the long-dis-
tant past, he thought, gazing back up at the dirigible.
Once, the Uvovo worked with cold, dead stone and
built places like the temple on Waonwir. What kind of
people were we then?
The short nightflight from Waonwir, which the
Humans called Giant's Shoulder, to Port Gagarin was only
the first stage of his journey. He was met at the landing
bay exit by a breathless, harried-looking young Human
female who introduced herself as Oxana as she quickly
guided him along enclosed walkways to one of the big
loading bays. There they boarded a large, ponderous
freighter named Skidhbladnir, its appearance so battered
and grimy as to make the government zeplin seem pristine
by comparison.
Once inside, Oxana apologised for the rush, blaming
incompetent couriers, and gave him his tickets for the
rest of the journey.
'It should not take more than six or seven hours, and
there are five stops along the way before you reach
Invergault, where you will be met by someone from
Ibsenskog. When you are ready to return, simply send us
a message from the monitor office in the town.'
'I shall remember, Oxana,' Chel said. 'My thanks.'
'Think nothing of it, Scholar,' she said. 'Safe journey.'
After she was gone, Chel sought out the padded shelf
that was his accommodation while the thuds and shouts
of loading continued down in the main hold. A short
while later the hold door was finally raised and the
cargo zeplin lurched as its moorings were uncoupled.
Engines droned and the shelf vibrated faintly beneath
him, then a swaying sensation told him that they were
aloft and under way.
However, Oxana's six or seven hours turned into
nearly nine. As the freighter flew through the night and
on into the morning, Chel managed to doze for a span,
once he had grown accustomed to the dead hollowness
of the Human craft. He almost grew used to the rattle
of the hawser drums, the cries of the hefter crews, and
the sounds of cargo being shifted. But by the time the
Skidhbladnir arrived at Invergault it was an undeniable
relief to clamber down to the zeplin station's small plat-
form, with the cargo dirigible hanging overhead,
creaking on taut cables.
Invergault was a small town sitting upslope from i
pebbly cove near the end of a steep-sided sea loch. Like
most of the Eastern Towns, it was a meeting point and
marketplace for hunters, fishers and trappers. As he
descended from the platform, he noticed that almost all
roofs now carried windspinners, as well as large afftcg
roots affixed to their chimneys and flues, absorbing the
ash and fumes from hearth and cooking fires, chan-
nelling heat into other uses rather than letting it escape
Chel knew from his teachers that, before the Humans
sent their craft up to the home of Segrana, the colonists
had been enthusiastic over-exploiters of natural resources
and had scarcely practised any kind of wardenship. After
the Accord of Friendship, the Uvovo were able to help
the Humans to give up certain wasteful, destructive
habits by showing them how to cultivate and use the
many kinds of sifter root. This opened the way to the
establishment of the seven daughter-forests, from which
a change in cultural attitudes slowly percolated through
the Humans' society. Wardenship of the natural world
gradually became part of their custom an
d tradition.
On the pebbly slope near the zep station, Chel was
met by a young female Uvovo dressed in plain green
garments and wearing a Benevolent amulet. She looked
anxious surrounded by the taller, bulkier Humans, but
her face brightened when she spotted Chel. She intro-
duced herself as Giseru and led him up to a lohig pen
where an elderly Human stocksman tethered out
riding pair and lashed on the saddles with almost care
less expertise. Moments later, Chel and his guide were
heading out of town and along a broad, rutted track
that led into a bushy gully and the wooded hills beyond.
Chel had to suppress the urge to laugh as he gripped
the reining rod and followed Giseru through the trees.
Lohig were six-legged creatures whose segmented bodies
were protected by bony plates, and whose large dark
eyes were veiled by flickering inner eyelids. Beneath the
canopies of Segrana, they usually grew no larger than
hand-size, but such marked divergence was found in
several strains of plants and animals common to Umara
and its forest moon. Chel had spoken with a few
Human ecologists and heard them speak excitedly of
this or that theory which tried to account for these dif-
ferences. While they acknowledged that once the Uvovo
had inhabited both planet and moon, they failed to
understand that Segrana too had once held sway on
both worlds and that the loss of that blessed presence
was the root cause. The Humans spoke of 'die-back'
and 'extinction events', but Uvovo legends told of a vast
and terrible conflict, the War of the Long Night, a strug-
gle between the Ghost Gods and the Dreamless which
led to the burning of the world that Humans now called
Darien. Human record-keepers and teachers knew of
the Uvovo's legends but did not understand them, just as
they came to visit the high homes,of Segrana but did not
hear her song.
He smiled ruefully, knowing that was not strictly
true. There were a few whose perceptions ran a little
deeper, like Lyssa Devlin or Pavel Ivanov, who might
one day glimpse the outlines of the greatness of Segrana.
Yet there was one Human, a female scientist called
Catriona Macreadie, whose qualities of intellect might
Michael Cobley - Humanity's Fire book 1 Page 4
