by Chris Walley
I agonized over what to do. Should I express my concerns and try to force a tired and war-weary Assembly to expend its resources on an inordinately expensive—and potentially quite futile—chase among the stars? It seemed to me unwise. Space is big. Men and women were putting the past behind them; there was a new and healthy mood in the Assembly. And personally, I had no desire for any more destruction or pursuit. And yet I knew that my silence could create a future threat to the Assembly. What was I to do? In the end I solved the dilemma, at least to my satisfaction, by having the sentinels created. I concealed the specific focus of my concern and simply gave them a mandate to watch out for the return of evil. Whether I acted wisely or not is for a higher court to decide.
But I should say it was not just the fate of the Assembly that drove my decision. I felt we had perhaps been over-ruthless with Jannafy and his people. If some part of them had survived, then it seemed to me that it might be due to the desire of the Gracious One to give them a second chance, in the hope that their end might be better than their beginning. May it be so. The matter thus passes from my hands.
Finally: to you who have found this, let me say, if my fears have been justified then I offer you my sincerest apologies.
Vero switched off the microscope and rose to his feet.
“Thank you,” he said, and without another word left the archive. At the entrance to the library he turned to Trichetov’s portrait.
“Apologies accepted,” he whispered.
Vero returned to the ADF offices. He had been given a room there, an endless supply of fine coffee, and was already known by some as Mr. V.
I’m beginning to feel at home, he thought as he sat in his office looking at some of the files he had brought with him from the Sacrifice. He was uploading them onto a new computer that seemed to have unbounded memory and speed.
He paused at the password-protected file that contained the scanned copies of the priest’s books.
I really don’t need these. I know the principles, and I’ll never use them. I ought to erase them. Yet he did nothing. It’s knowledge, and I don’t like destroying that. So, in the end, he copied over the file.
Vero enjoyed being the center of attention at the ADF offices. He had only to go and get coffee and everyone clustered round him asking him questions.
“Tell me, Mr. V., what do you think is going to happen next?” a tall blonde woman with a very self-assured manner asked him.
“From the campaign plan we saw, I’d guess that the Dominion will move slowly, world by world, toward us.”
She looked dubious. “I’ve seen the files you brought us on that. But it’s almost a month since the battle of Bannermene. We had that assault at Jigralt, which we now understand. But other than that, there have been no further major attacks.”
He looked at her. “I suspect the campaign plan will hold. The difficulties of long-distance communication require a strategy like this. If they take a fairly direct path to Earth, there are twenty-four worlds between Bannermene and here. I suspect they’ll fall one after the other. Like dominoes.”
“Dominoes?”
“Dominoes was . . . a game. Two teams pushed against each other on a field, I think. Sometimes they all fell over, one after the other. Or so I’ve assumed.”
“How interesting.”
Although, as we have just seen, Vero could be wrong on little matters, he was generally right on weighty ones. But today was an exception; he was wrong on the serious matters, too.
Very badly wrong.
32
Two days later, on the second of February at 9:22 Jerusalem time, the Dominion launched a simultaneous and massive attack on twenty-two of the worlds between Bannermene and Earth.
These pages recount the tale of Merral D’Avanos and his friends. Justice cannot be done here to what happened on that terrible day, to the heroism and tragedies as the men and women of the Assembly resisted the men, creatures, and machines of the Dominion.
Others may tell, at length, of the great battles in space and air and on land and sea. They can recount the bloody encounters on the attacked worlds; the fighting on their plains and deserts, in their forests and parks, in their cities and villages. They can speak of the enemies that appeared: the attack skimmers—like those on the Sacrifice—that raced across planetary surfaces, destroying all defensive installations; the giant Krallen, with rockets mounted on them, that demolished any resistance; the machines like giant caterpillars that uncoiled out of the sky before slithering slowly through towns wrecking buildings; and the terrifying attacks by slitherwings.
They can describe how, in places, the new-forged weapons of the Assembly were able to hold back the attackers for a time, while elsewhere the enemy was so powerful as to sweep all before it. They can recount the few, brief victories: how at Manprovedi, an entire battle group was lured into an asteroid belt; how at Fanoa, an army of Krallen was destroyed on ice; how at Tiberat, a freighter destroyed a suppression complex; and how on Kheldave an entire Dominion task force was lured onto lava fields and cremated.
They can tell too how in places baziliarchs appeared, casting terror before them like a cloud, and how, in response, the angels of the Lord of All emerged from heaven and fought against them in a fury so awesome that skies seemed split apart by fire and thunder.
Such other, fuller accounts may do justice to the courage shown by those who resisted the lord-emperor’s attacks. They may speak more adequately of the women, men, and children who yielded their lives to fission bombs, kinetic energy weapons, and the claws and teeth of Krallen rather than let the flag of the Lamb among the Stars be replaced by the serpent of the Final Emblem.
Of these matters, others may tell. Here though, we must briefly speak of the losses. One by one, the worlds fell. Ragtag bunches of survivors escaped through closing Gates with burned ships carrying wounded and bearing tales of worlds aflame. Within minutes, the death toll amongst the Assembly had run into thousands, and then tens of thousands, and, finally, by the time all the Gates were closed and communications terminated, the figure was in the millions.
Within twenty-four hours of the start of the attack, all twenty-two worlds had surrendered. Across a long cylinder of space, Assembly worlds were now under the control of the Dominion. At their closest, the lord-emperor’s forces were now barely thirty light-years from Earth. Only two worlds, Ramult and Harufcan, stood in the way.
Ethan was never sure how he made it through that day as the news became progressively darker and any number of what had been fanciful worst-case scenarios were successively exceeded by reality.
He could not escape the horror of what had happened. At every meeting, he was with people who either had relatives on worlds that had fallen or had sons or daughters on ships. There were those too who had lost contact with relatives and feared the worst.
It is almost too vast to comprehend. We have tried to prepare for this—and worse—for months. But now that it is upon us, we understand that we could never have prepared for it.
The endless succession of meetings achieved little, because in reality, there was little that could be done. It was all too far away and too utterly enormous.
By evening the devastation had reached a point where the mind was simply too numb to take it all in.
They tried to analyze what had happened. It was not easy. The onslaughts had been so sudden and wholesale, and the information recovered before the Gate links were severed so limited, that it was hard to be sure what precisely had gone wrong. However, unnerving stories from at least two worlds suggested that the blades that had been so effective against Krallen at Farholme had failed to work.
At first, it was assumed that Dominion had utterly torn up the battle plan recovered from the Sacrifice. Then, as a fuller summary was pieced together, a pattern emerged. The prediction that the Dominion would punch a narrow hole in the Assembly toward Earth had been correct. It had just been carried out not in phases but all at once.
Flurries of dec
isions were made by tired, sad, and shaken men and women. Reinforcements were urgently ordered through the Gates to Ramult and Harufcan. A review of the use of blades against the Krallen was initiated. On the assumption that an attack on Earth might be only days away, the Tahuma installations were made ready to be occupied at a moment’s notice, and preparations were advanced for an immediate transfer there of the Gate control. The dispersal of the ADF staff and resources from Jerusalem and other potential targets was begun. All vacations and leaves were canceled; medical and military reservists were called up. Special services and prayer vigils were encouraged.
Late that night, as the last Gates in the occupied cylinder of space were being locked down, a message deploring the attacks and asking for dialogue was transmitted to the Dominion forces.
No answer was expected, and none came.
The lord-emperor Nezhuala sat in the little compartment off the Vault of the Final Emblem that he used for planning and evaluated the information from the attacks. The new Nether-Realms communication transmitters were crude—many of the ships were already on their third or fourth units—but seemed to be working.
There had been losses, yet they were bearable. But it was plain he could not have left the attack any later; the Assembly had indeed been arming itself fast. Yet his gamble of the sudden strike had paid off. Including Bannermene and Jigralt, a total of twenty-four worlds and twenty-six Gates were now his.
Nezhuala sat back in his chair and tried to concentrate. The whispering of the voices in his head now seemed to be almost continuous. At times he felt he could make out words and even sentences. But the voices seemed to drain his energy. At times he wanted to tell them to shut up.
The constant vibration hurt him too. In a structure as long as the Blade of Night, resonances inevitably built up and had to be compensated for by one of a thousand or so thruster motors. The result was a fluctuating series of vibrations of different pitches that teased and tugged at his nerves.
He heard a noise outside the door. He knew who it was from the sound of shuffling.
“Enter!”
A man, hunchbacked with a great silver crystal bulge on the back of his head, entered slowly. Inside the glassy unit, a pale liquid pulsed rhythmically.
“Ape.”
The topologist murmured and gestured with his hands. He was mute.
“Ape, you have surveyed the Gates we have acquired. Are you satisfied?”
The bare wall came alive with text. Sir, they are undamaged. But we cannot use them due to a system lockdown. Wild black eyes stared at him out of a face scarred by red veins and searched for acknowledgment.
“I understand. We need all the Gates.” That has been made clear to me by the great serpent; through Ape, he will be able to use the Gates to unite the realms.
“Sir, 14,502 working Gates exist. We must have at least 98 percent of these. AND THEY MUST BE UNLOCKED.”
“Don’t shout, Ape!” This monstrous beast is one of the few creatures without any real fear of me. But then there is no replacement for his unique blend of flesh-and-blood instinct and computer logic.
The writing continued. “They will lock them all the moment we reach Earth. We must gain the key!”
“Of course, Ape. Now continue refining the calculations. Go!”
After the man-machine had shuffled away, Nezhuala sat back in the chair, trying to ignore both the whispers and the vibrations, and considered the battle reports again.
I am nearly there.
On impulse, Nezhuala did what he rarely allowed himself and peered into his past. So distant, so long ago. Are these even my memories? Who knows whether I remember what happened or whether I remember what I have been programmed to remember.
He shook his head. Where I am now, so close to triumph, so close to retribution, should bring me pleasure, but it does not. Where has pleasure gone?
He felt himself shake with some inexpressible emotion. Once, I found pleasure in good things. I remember sunlight, trees, light, duty, beauty, the touch of a woman. He blinked. Later I found pleasure in what some call evil: power, authority, rebellion, the crushing of those who opposed me, the breaking of barriers.
And now? He sighed. Now I find pleasure in nothing. My years have made me empty. At my core is a gnawing void.
He stared at his black-gloved hands. I will have no delight in the final victory, only a cold satisfaction. Perhaps that is, in some ways, no bad thing. I must be careful with my hatred that I do not lash out and totally destroy the Assembly. My master has plans for them.
He looked up, and his gaze fell on the fresh patch of bare metal on the far wall. It was part of the many hasty repairs that they had had to make after the inexcusable events at Sarata.
D’Avanos did this!
For hours, Nezhuala mused on D’Avanos, his stomach writhing with hatred and concern.
How strange that, with such mighty forces, with so many machines and weapons, my concerns focus on this one man. Do I fret too much? How much damage can he do? Yet every time he asked such questions, the answer was the same. Like Ringell—whose identity tag he wears—D’Avanos may yet frustrate the plans of the Freeborn.
It was frustrating. He had consulted the powers on this, yet none of them seemed to have anything meaningful to say. They can predict nothing. All I get are vague warnings. Their silence made him uneasy.
Eventually, in a cooler, more analytical frame of mind, Nezhuala considered the latest news he had intercepted. Somehow, having eluded both Lezaroth and—it seemed—his own people, D’Avanos was now on Earth. He even had reports—garbled and inconsistent—that a confrontation had occurred between D’Avanos and this rabble-rousing cleric Delastro. Some talked of D’Avanos being wounded in the process and the cleric exiled. That, at least, was good news. Dissent amongst enemies was always to be encouraged. And, where possible, exploited.
Can I turn these events to my own good? Perhaps . . .
Fear returned and gnawed again at his mind. Things are happening here that I do not understand. As ever, the one who opposes the great serpent is devious and cunning. Who can guess his plans? I must ensure that D’Avanos is slain. I will spare Lezaroth one last time so that he may seek out and kill this man. I cannot risk the presence of the great adversary when the labor of years comes to fruition.
He turned to consider his battle strategy.
There were two worlds between his forces and the Solar system. Logic says take them one by one. But logic also said take the outer worlds one by one, and my intuition overruled and was vindicated. Let me surprise them!
He would swiftly move his forces to the very edges of the Solar system.
My time comes.
Dr. Lucian Clemant sat hunched in the locked compartment of the freighter heading toward the moon. His flight had been scheduled before the wave of attacks on the previous day, and no one had seen fit to cancel it. The nature and scale of the attacks had registered, and his troubled brain was already interpreting them.
It is the end. Corradon and Gerry Habbentz are dead. The prebendant is exiled. Chaos is unleashed and flooding through the worlds. Order becomes disorder. He shook his head bitterly. All that I fought for is now lost. Anarchy is here. He clenched his fists so tightly that the nails bit into his palms. I tried, and I failed.
He stared around the compartment, which had been made out of the storage bay. It smells. I should ask for cloths, a broom. Disinfectant. He felt himself frown. His eyes alighted on a scrap of paper. And the paint—so many scratches and chips!
He stared out through the small port at the blackness of space.
How silent, how clean. There is perfection in space.
He turned to his faith to comfort him and found that his faith had fled. I believe . . . nothing.
He stood up and stared out the thick port window, and he knew what he was going to do.
He called the guard and told him that he was feeling sick and wished to use the facilities. As they walked past the air lock door, Clem
ant struck the unsuspecting man hard under the chin. He tumbled, unconscious, to the ground.
Then Clemant opened the air lock door, walked in, closed the door behind him, and, ignoring the warning signs, used the emergency manual override to open the outer door.
With a waning roar of air, he was tugged out into space. His last thought before the cold froze him and the vacuum tore the air from his lungs was simple.
How silent. How clean. How sterile.
Merral woke up and, for a second, wondered where he was. The room was dimly lit.
The electronic screens with their dull green lighting gave it away. Of course—in a hospital ward. In a corner, Anya lay asleep in the chair. It must be very early morning.
He was aware of someone by his side. He turned slowly—his side hurt—to see a tall and solid black figure standing next to him. A form that did not seem to belong to the room or indeed to the world he lived in.
“You.”
“Indeed,” replied the envoy in that strange voice that seemed to sound the same wherever one heard it.
“I was expecting to see you on Lathanthor. Among the trees.”
“I was there. I kept watch. But it was not the time to talk to you.”
“No. It would not have been profitable. Do I owe you an apology?”
“Me? No. You seem to have put things right with my Master, and that is what counts.”
“So there is no rebuke?”
“None.”
“So why are you here? Just visiting the sick?” He felt a twinge of pain. “Do you do that?”
“I have accompanied many from these places into their Father’s presence.”
“Aah, am I dying then?”
“I can tell you that death is not your immediate fate. No, I was asked to encourage you at a time of bad news.”
“That. I heard yesterday. Twenty-two more worlds.” He shook his head. “Worse than we could have ever imagined.”
