“It’s good to meet all of you,” nodded Kaufield with a wide smile, seizing the opportunity to demonstrate how to shake hands with each of them. “Welcome aboard the Pathfinder.”
“This is Snee Vasten from Clan Zaketh,” noted Adam, gesturing toward the large man with the squinty blue eyes and shaved head. “He’s a former troop squadron commander and my current XO, someone who has proven to be a reliable ally and trusted go between when I need help from his troops.” He shifted his gaze to the other tall, muscle bound officer. “Kra Wonin here is a more recent acquaintance from Clan Yakiir, who I’m certain must still harbor a few doubts about us. Unfortunately, we began this entire affair by attacking his ship and commandeering it. So I won’t call him a friend just yet, at least not until he is able to return the favor.”
“I have significantly less doubts about you now than in recent days, Adam Roh,” Wonin replied sincerely, boldly studying all of the strange new faces in the luxuriously designed conference room. “Your own, personal abilities were impressive, true. But until the recent flyby of this vessel we had no concrete evidence that you actually did have the kind of powerful friends that you regularly spoke about. Quite obviously they are indeed real and willing to help us.” The Yakiir soldier glanced toward Adam thoughtfully. “The question that remains, how best do we go about effecting real change in the Wasteland? I can tell you from personal experience that my people would like the war to end as much as anyone. And yet our families are constantly threatened and at the mercy of the Kuth who work to manipulate us. You have approached us in a benign manner, but we would not want to simply trade the Caucus for new tyrants. We want to be certain you are truthful.”
“I assure you, sir, we have already begun the process of severing your ties with them,” nodded Noah in response. He was sitting at the far end of the table, and for all intents and purposes appeared to be just another civilian member of Kaufield’s group. Apparently, the Proteus alien wanted to keep his true identity a secret for now, so Adam simply accepted that fact and kept the rest to himself.
He made certain that everyone found a seat, also urging Snee Vasten, Kra Wonin and their escorts to help themselves to anything they wanted to eat. They were warriors to the core, used to eating when and where the opportunity to do so presented itself. All of them dug into the food and drink without the slightest bit of shyness or hesitation, working busily to ingest as many calories as they could. “Have you discovered anything new from that military installation’s database?” Adam inquired curiously. The hope in his heart died a little as he watched his younger brother shake his head negatively.
“All of the data is specific to station operations,” Thomas told him, his own apparent frustration and disappointment plainly obvious. “We can tell you anything you want to know about the fighters and other support vessels stationed there, quashing missile production and the bio-services lab that assists Kuth warriors in gaining the ability to shape shift into humans.” He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “There’s even a fuel refinery attached to one end of that place. We dug through every last digital shred of data, but there wasn’t anything to be found in the way of navigation charts or listings of foothold planets or other bases. The governing Kuth Caucus obviously considers the concealment of that information to be critical. Undoubtedly it is passed along to people outside of those locations only on a need-to-know basis.”
Kra Wonin nodded in agreement. “Even those of us who have lived on their home worlds, at one time or another, have no knowledge of their actual location,” he pointed out. “We can look up into the sky at night, and try to use the stars to determine where we are,” he continued, frowning noticeably. “However, the vast destruction of viable stars in the Wasteland and the resulting nebulae clouds are pretty much all that is left to be seen. There is never anything concrete that we can focus on and use to determine a specific coordinate set.”
“So you have lived on one of these worlds?” asked Julie Markham curiously. “What was it like?”
“I was only allowed brief visits,” Wonin acknowledged pensively. “Occasionally, if we fight honorably enough and win battles against other clans, we are permitted to visit our families for short periods of time.” He folded his arms together and his expression soured noticeably. “They’re beautiful worlds with many human communities well segregated away from most of the Kuth cities. At least that used to be the case. In recent years, almost all of the humans I know of who have traditionally lived on the home worlds have been forced to emigrate. All of our people, many of whom used to enjoy a favored status with the Kuth as long as they remained hard workers and productive, are now living on dead worlds and lifeless moons. Some of them are even hidden away on asteroids in large belts where it is difficult for an enemy – sometimes even for those of us who know they are there – to find them. We know they plan to destroy us too, once they’re done using our people to kill off the other clans, but there is very little we can do about it.” He held up his hands helplessly.
The short, petite Mary Fredericks studied him sympathetically. “You obey or become the evening meal.”
Kra Wonin bowed in response. “Essentially, yes. Although, as we have seen only recently aboard the military installation, there are other… unpleasant things that the Kuth can and do visit upon us.”
“Ali Rinai told me that she used to live on one of those home worlds too,” noted Adam regretfully. “She said that she ‘fell out of favor’ somehow, and that is how she ended up on this vessel. With her sophisticated technical skills and years of direct experience working with PTP flight technology it seems highly unlikely that the Kuth would let someone like her go unless they absolutely had no choice.”
“She may simply have been told that she fell out of favor,” shrugged Wonin indifferently. “The Kuth tell us many things, many of which prove to be untrue. But we obey because disobedience is promptly punished.”
“Or they no longer needed her skills,” suggested Nori Roh speculatively. “The simple fact that the Kuth have been pushing the Yakiir to eliminate other clans, rather than just war with them on a continual basis, is a clear indicator that their plans have changed significantly. I think they’re preparing for the next stage of their migration into this universe, for whatever will happen next.”
“That’s what should concern you the most,” Karen Simmons declared sternly to Kra Wonin. “Traditionally the Kuth needed you for three things: your skilled people work on their projects, others fight their wars for them, and everyone else…”
“…is just meat to them,” growled Snee Vasten, turning toward Wonin with a deliberate stare, “or medical specimens for those experiments of theirs.”
“That is the major factor influencing my current trust in you,” said Wonin curtly. “It is why I have become unafraid to call Adam Roh a new friend. My people and I have watched the video feed that he recorded while over on the Kuth military station. We saw for ourselves what they were doing to those humans in their genetic laboratory, and it has caused us to reexamine everything that we previously believed to be true. In the past, many of my family and friends on a home world would be safe and sound during the brief times we were allowed to visit. Others would simply be gone, and we were told that they perished in some sort of accident or due to an unexpected medical condition.” He glanced toward a Yakiir Lieutenant seated next to him. “Now those types of explanations would seem to have been just more lies.”
“On my most recent visit to a home world, I had an experience that rattled my very soul,” the Lieutenant spoke up suddenly. An emptied plate sat in front of him along with a half empty cup of coffee, but his eyes were downcast as though he was hesitant to look the others in the eye. “A woman who I had developed a relationship with and hoped would someday be my wife approached me and completely spurned me,” he continued, face paling and fear noticeably clouding his expression. “She treated me like I was some kind of toy, as though my emotions no longer meant anything to her. The woman that I knew and fell in
love with was never like that, she could never, would not do that kind of thing. She seemed like a completely different person when she so easily tossed me aside as though I no longer mattered to her. And now we have discovered that she might… that she might actually have been a completely different person.”
“No doubt a Kuth soldier was testing his newfound abilities on an unsuspecting human,” agreed Snee Vasten. “That would make sense. They obviously have no conscience, and if they feel emotions they take no care in trying to control them. To them, humanoids are just food and cannon fodder.”
“We need to know where their foothold worlds are,” stressed Kaufield adamantly. “And in order to accomplish that, the next step would seem to lead us toward the capture and interrogation of one or more of these Kuth aliens. Unless we catch someone from their Caucus and somehow manage to obtain the information from them, they’ll never allow us to determine the location of their safe bases.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “And unfortunately my people are not the type to just up and torture someone. I don’t expect that just asking them for the information will accomplish a whole lot.”
“If necessary, I believe we can extract what we need directly from their brains without causing them any pain,” Thomas replied softly. “I’ve been studying the incident where Adam tried to read Bok’s thoughts, and I think we can use one of the implants, on its own and without a human brain, to obtain what we need.” He exchanged a confident glance with his old friend, Glen Fredericks. “However, the Kuth are extremely dangerous and I think that interrogating them should be our last option. As we have seen, their physical strength is astonishing.”
Noah appeared intrigued by the prospect. “What then, would you suggest as the immediate alternative to capture?” he inquired curiously, his eyes shifting back and forth between Thomas and Glen.
“We’ve been conducting a detailed study of the evolution of the Wasteland, and discovered some pretty amazing things,” noted Glen. “Thomas and Dr. Markham did most of the work, because I was busy prepping the Pathfinder for its journey into the Wasteland. But what we have discovered simply by observation may offer the answer we seek… or at least a very decent starting point.”
“What do you mean?” wondered Kaufield. “Stars have been randomly destroyed in this particular spiral arm for more than forty-six thousand years. Right?” He placed significant emphasis on the final word and Julie chuckled at his manner.
“At first,” she told him. “That’s one of the reasons why, just like ten years ago, I asked for a series of shorter PTP transits prior to our final arrival here. I used one of the navigation telescopes to take a series of pictures on our way in.” She opened her laptop and activated its projection screen. An overhead image appeared in the area immediately above the laptop, showing a small oblong shape of darkness in the center of the galaxy’s fourth spiral arm. “Everything started out random in the beginning, but as we have seen there is also plenty of evidence indicating that the Kuth have consistently, meticulously worked to manipulate everything that is taking place within the Wasteland.”
She waved a hand above her laptop and a sequence of images began to flash by, one by one, in a poor imitation of animation. And yet her point became perfectly clear as image after image betrayed exactly what was happening over time, what was immediately, undeniably obvious if only one had the ability to look back in time – as she had – using photographs and then study the progression of star collapses. Fortunately, the Pathfinder and its capacity to transit over both long-and short-ranges offered her just that opportunity… a unique glimpse into the history of the Wasteland.
“Do you see it?” asked Thomas curiously. “Can you see what Dr. Markham is getting at?”
“I’ll run the sequence of images again, this time on a repeating loop.” Julie Markham tapped a few commands into the laptop using its keyboard and then they watched the area of dead stars again, first as a brief, oblong clump. Long tendrils of dead stars appeared next, poking outward like fingers before they too expanded in all directions. As the images taken from regular, pre-planned points many light years distant continued to evolve, it became blatantly clear just what was taking place within the Wasteland.
“It’s an almost perfect sphere,” gasped Kra Wonin suddenly, watching the cycle repeat once more. “It didn’t start out that way, and at many points through the centuries the shape has varied out on the perimeter. But in every case, the various fronts in our war always suddenly seem to change direction and push directly toward the star systems needed to keep the overall shape of the Wasteland spherical.”
“Ten years ago, we were looking at your galaxy from above,” Julie told him. “Our Observatory computer was designed to look for and photograph abnormalities, especially those with a possible man-made pattern. We saw a spot of dead stars in the fourth spiral arm of your galaxy where none should be and investigated. This time, we came in at a horizontal angle to the galactic core and the spherical structure of the destruction was much more easily discernible.”
Thomas smiled wryly, pleased that the results of their latest project had yielded such unexpected results. He was always happiest when his work produced something useful, and this had proven to be yet another of those occasions. “This is why I don’t think we need to be rounding up Kuth soldiers and interrogating them just yet,” he informed everyone boldly. “Perhaps we don’t know where all of the Kuth footholds are at this particular moment in time, but I can lay you odds as to where we will find at least one of them… and probably their most important one.”
“They’re obviously hiding something valuable at the center of the Wasteland,” guessed Arte Kasik suddenly. “That’s why they keep forcing all of us to fight for territory and foothold worlds out on the perimeter. We’re just useful tools, workers who are continually expanding the safe zone around them.”
“That’s right,” agreed Thomas with a firm nod. “The Kuth have deliberately and unconscionably used the clan wars for almost fifty thousand years now so that they can eliminate stable stars with the potential for habitable worlds in the immediate area surrounding the location of their secret base. The quashing of each star produces the energy necessary for them to bring ships, crew and resources across their ‘Bridge’ between universes. The residual nebulae left behind in the aftershock of the explosions from so many stars are an intermixed series of constantly shifting dust clouds, some illuminated and some not, but all of them helping to conceal their secret from everyone serving in the clan wars on the frontier. Only the Pathfinder and its ability to transit across large distances in a single hop have allowed us to analyze their historical pattern and determine how carefully they have shaped things.” He chuckled lightly. “You have to admire the beauty of their plan… who would look for one or more stable stars in the darkest area of the Wasteland… in an area devoid of stars for centuries?”
“If the goal is to topple the Kuth and their ability to manipulate the humanoid clans, I would agree that this new target is the perfect place to begin,” said Kaufield approvingly.
“Most certainly,” agreed Kra Wonin. “And yet, though you have convinced me and the others aboard the Ali Rinai, I do not yet understand how we can win over the rest of my people. Their fear and loathing of the Kuth is a powerful yoke to break – I fear that we are looking at another war that could take quite some time to win. All of our ships are no doubt under orders to locate and destroy us, and they will do just that.”
“When I first entered the Wasteland,” Adam told him suddenly, “my primary objective was to learn as much as I could about each clan by living in the war zone for a while and then report that information back to my home base. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we would be at the point where we find ourselves today. There is an old saying among my people. When you do not know where you are going, try running as far as you can. From your new position, you can see farther.”
“The center of that sphere is the best place to start,” concluded Snee
Vasten. “We must discover all of their secrets in order to win.”
“Especially given the fact that the Ali Rinai is now the primary target of the Caucus,” observed Kaufield, nodding in acknowledgement of Kra Wonin’s statement. “We’ve also been monitoring ship-to-ship communications ever since we entered the area, and the Kuth are absolutely furious regarding what you did to Admiral Deek and his convoy. The subsequent attack on their military facility has left them absolutely rabid… every ship in the area does indeed have orders to search the nebulae along this part of the perimeter until you’re discovered and destroyed.”
“That won’t take them long,” Adam realized suddenly. “All someone has to do is stumble across us, and then they can close a sphere of ships around us. They will know our maximum transit range and respond accordingly.”
“Which is why we showed up when we did,” said Glen firmly. “It’s time we used the Pathfinder’s CAS drive once again to move you out of here. They’ll never expect us to be able to transit thousands of light years at a time. We have an opportunity to catch the enemy of the Wasteland completely by surprise. They’ll never see us coming if we are decisive and act quickly enough.”
“I think it’s time that we do exactly that,” Kaufield agreed intently, looking first to Snee Vasten and then to Kra Wonin. “How trustworthy are the men you have aboard the Ali Rinai?”
“My men will follow orders, regardless of what else happens,” predicted Snee Vasten.
“Mine should too, although there are a few of them who will need to be watched,” Kra Wonin added. “Bok recruited some of them into his private little shipboard ‘network’. Most of those I put with the rest of the prisoners, but it is always hard to identify all undercover operatives unless they give themselves away.”
“Then let’s draw up a battle plan and get to work,” suggested Kaufield. “Let’s take this war directly to the center of the Wasteland, the place where everything seems to have begun.”
The Pathfinder Trilogy Page 67
