Trembling, Meghina stood, and turning slowly, she looked through the window. To her amazement, she saw five people outside, their faces illuminated by lights from the space station. All of them wore jet packs but no spacesuits, and she quickly figured out why. These were the other elixir-immortals, including the Salducian, Kobi Akar, and a young Human woman she’d always liked, Betha Neider.
Meghina felt a surge of hope, but shouted, “I can’t get out!”
At first they looked perplexed. Then one of the Humans—a corpulent man named Llew Jarro, nodded and mouthed the words, “I understand.”
Soon his companions understood as well. They went away for several moments, then returned with a long girder that had broken loose from the space station. It looked odd for them to be handling such a large object, but they moved it around like an oversized toothpick in the weightlessness of space. After taking it several hundred meters from the space station, they turned on their jet packs to full power, shooting blue light from them, and surged toward Meghina at a high rate of speed.
Almost instinctively, though perhaps she didn’t need to, Meghina ducked out of the way. The beam slammed into the window and made a spider web crack in the glax, but did not penetrate. Back they went for another try, and another, and yet another. In zero-g, she thought they might be moving the stranded space station. Finally, they broke through the window, creating an opening that was large enough for Meghina to swim through, into space.
For several moments, she floated and swam out there in the void, which was noiseless except for a barely audible, seemingly distant hum. At first it was colder to her than in the space station, but as moments passed, it did not bother her at all. Except for light from the station it was dark where they were, with the sun hidden by the planet.
Then Jarro gave her a jet pack. “Manned maneuvering unit,” he explained as he helped her into it. His words made no sound to her ears, but she read his lips.
The Salducian pointed down at the planet with one of his crablike hands, and then rocketed toward it, leaving a streak of blue light behind him. His five companions followed.
As they entered the atmosphere, Meghina saw orange sparks of heat dancing around her, but felt none of it, due to an electronic shield generated by the jet pack. When they penetrated the cloud layer, Meghina made out the twinkling lights of a city below, with bridges across a river and large buildings. From the unique layout she realized that this was without question the city of Okk, capital of the unaligned world of Yaree. In what seemed like only one of her incarnations, she had traveled widely as a “Human” noblewoman, both on her own and with Lorenzo. In one of their business trips together, they had led a trade delegation to this mineral-rich world, to set up a commercial arrangement. The local ruler, a tall Ilkian named Wan Haqro, had been an attractive humanoid, with piercing blue eyes. He was not, however, a merchant prince, and by strict custom did not qualify for her attentions as a courtesan.
Now, to her alarm she saw the blue light of Akar’s MMU pack flicker off below her as his power pack failed, and he began to drop like a stone. Then the same thing happened to Jarro, and to the others. Meghina’s jet pack was the last to shut off. In a matter of moments, all six of them were tumbling toward the planet, in free fall.
The last thought Meghina had before blacking out was that this would be a true test of their immortality.
They crashed into buildings, hit motor vehicles and trees, and slammed into the ground. The carnage of their broken bodies was spread over portions of a four-block area.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Events occurred in the past that we cannot begin to imagine.
—Anonymous
Away from the Parvii Fold, Woldn was out of his comfort zone. As he led his small swarm out onto the podways, he was very nervous. Less than a hundred and ninety-four thousand individuals remained in his entire race, a proud people that once counted their numbers in the decillions. Not so long ago, Parvii swarms had been in every sector of the known galaxy, and the Eye of the Swarm had been in telepathic contact with them. They had been his distant eyes and ears, constantly reporting to him. Now he felt like a blind, deaf man, stumbling around in a vast chamber of stars, never knowing where his enemies or other perils were.
He knew it would be safer to remain back at the telepathic bubble, where all five breeding specialist latents had come to life and were beginning their important work of increasing the population. But Woldn had moved the bubble to a remote galactic sector, stationing only a small number of guards inside with the breeding specialists, who had come back to awareness along with the two war priests. The breeding specialists were already using genetic materials to produce future generations of Parviis. Before leaving, Woldn had been pleased to see three thousand Parvii embryos in incubation. Only an infinitesimal number by the standards of his race, but a beginning nonetheless.
It had been necessary to go back to the oldest of methods, all but starting over as a race. As part of that ancient formula for survival and advancement of the species, he needed podships, even if he could only capture a few and build from there.
Now Woldn stationed his mini-swarm along one of the main podway routes, waiting for ships to pass this way, so that he could overwhelm and capture them. He had just enough followers to commandeer one ship at a time, and when the first one was safely tucked away, they could move on to another, and another. His near-term goals were humble, but he had to make the effort. He could not just stand by and watch his race go extinct.
In the two millennia of his lifetime, Woldn had flown with his swarms to the farthest reaches of the known galaxy. In those days, Parviis had controlled a vast fleet of podships, a virtual monopoly that made them the most powerful and influential of all galactic races. The coin of the Parvii realm had not been monetary; rather it had been the extent of their domination over other galactic civilizations, and the extent that those peoples depended upon them. Because it was the pleasure of the Parvii race to provide podship service throughout the galaxy, and because it was the pleasure of the Eye of the Swarm to allow it to continue, it had.
Now, however, he found himself at the bottom of a spiral that had been spinning out of control. As much as Woldn hated to admit it, Noah Watanabe and the Tulyans had been right: the galactic infrastructure had been crumbling, decaying moment by moment. In the unique past position of the Parviis, swarming and piloting podships, Woldn’s people had seen the subtle signs of decomposition for centuries, but had not wanted to admit what was really happening. Because to admit it meant only one thing: that they needed to allow the Tulyans to go back to their ancient tasks of maintaining the galaxy, of using their arcane methods to keep everything going behind the scenes. The Parvii leader had hoped it was just a natural cycle, and that it would eventually reverse itself. But the hoped-for reversal had not taken place.
Long ago, eons before Woldn was ever incubated and born, an ancient Eye of the Swarm scored a huge military victory against the Tulyans, and took the podship fleet away from them. In that single event, more than one hundred thousand sentient Aopoddae fell into the Parvii domain. Assuming the mantle of leadership long afterward, Woldn had just continued the old ways, using the might and power of the swarms to keep the podships going on their regular routes. He and other Parvii leaders before him had always considered themselves generous for continuing this tradition, providing it free of charge to all races—except Tulyans had been monitored in their travels and kept from regaining the ships.
But other races think of us selfish, Woldn thought. They misunderstand us.
“Podship coming,” one of his followers said, transmitting the thought to him from close range. It was Vorlik, one of the two resurrected war priests. Though he reclaimed his old knowledge later than the other war priest (Yurtii), this one was the most famous of the pair. Vorlik had been among the most ferocious and successful of the ancients, and with each passing moment he seemed to increase in aggressiveness and hatred of outside races.
> Now, through his Parviis, Woldn heard the Aopoddae coming. He sent the signal for readiness. He could tell that it was a strong wild pod, one that had never been captured.
At precisely the right moment, more than one hundred and ninety thousand Parviis swarmed around the podship as it sped along. For several seconds, the Parviis kept up, but they didn’t have the energy to continue or to penetrate into the sectoid chamber, and they soon fell back without the prize.
To Woldn’s dismay, only a few of his people even got neurotoxin stingers into the thick hull of the podship, and the effect had not slowed the big, dumb creature at all. It just kept going.
Even with this failure, Woldn reminded himself that his people had been recovering. In concert, they could fire telepathic energy blasts—not very large ones, but perhaps enough to stop a podship. However, Woldn hesitated using that technique. He didn’t want to harm or kill any of the sentient spacecraft, and also feared setting off a reaction among all of the Aopoddae that would make them harder to capture. No, he should only utilize the traditional ways, pursuing podships at high rates of speed and using neurotoxins.
The Parviis waited for another ship. Hours passed. It wasn’t like the old days, when podships were constantly going this way and that. Finally one appeared, and again the tiny humanoids gave chase. This time, they did just as poorly. Their stingers, which had always drugged podships in the past, weren’t having any effect at all, and the flying speed of the Parviis—always faster than podships before—barely enabled them to keep up, and for only short distances.
In addition to the practical importance of recapturing podships, Woldn had gone on this hunt with another motivation. He had hoped to restore the confidence of his people and reduce their collective stress. But there had been an opposite effect. He sensed fear and panic in the ranks.
The Eye of the Swarm was deeply troubled, knowing his race must find a way to recuperate faster, or it would vanish entirely—a complete colony die-off. Too many galactic perils could kill them all if they weren’t strong.
He searched his memory, and—telepathically—the minds of everyone in the swarm. According to the secret knowledge of his people, known only to the most elite groups, the Parviis of ancient times had some sort of a connection with the Adurians. He did not know the details, nor did any of his followers. All information was lost in the dusty archives of Parvii racial memory. But he’d been thinking about going to see the Adurians, in an effort to find out what, if anything, they knew. This podway had been selected with that idea in mind; it was on the way to the Adurian homeworld.
As Woldn hovered in space, looking in dismay at the swarm, he became aware of two strong intellects, so close to him that their brain waves lapped against his own thoughts and almost penetrated them against his will.
Turning, he saw both of the war priests dressed in the black robes of their cult, the stocky man Vorlik and the hairless boy Yurtii. They trembled in anger as they hovered there, demanding entrance into his thoughts. Secretly, he thought they might break through even without his permission, an unsettling realization. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before, and he found it irritating, almost unnerving.
In the airless, soundless void, Vorlik’s lips moved as he transmitted his thoughts to Woldn. It was one of the Parvii methods of speaking in soundless space. “You summoned us?” Vorlik said.
“No.”
“We sensed an urgency in your energy waves,” Yurtii said. “Something you are about to do.”
“How do you know that?”
“We are war priests. For the survival of our species, we sense danger.”
“Danger? My thoughts are not dangerous!”
“That depends on what they are,” Vorlik said. A stocky Parvii with a ruddy, elfin face, he looked very worried.
“Well if you must know, I intend to go and visit the Adurians, to learn more about the ancient connection between our races.”
“The oral tradition,” Yurtii said, his words edged in scorn. “To what purpose?”
“Have you discovered any additional information in your own memory archives?” Woldn asked.
The two war priests shook their heads.
“Then we’ll go and find it another way.”
“That is not a good idea,” Vorlik said. He scowled.
“Why do you say that?”
“It is our instinct,” Yurtii said.
“Well, my instinct says otherwise, and I am the Eye of the Swarm. I have a strong feeling that the path to our salvation goes through the Adurian homeworld.”
“Are you sure it isn’t the path to our destruction?” Vorlik asked.
“Do not be insubordinate!” Woldn transmitted a psychic command to the swarm, and instantly they grouped into a formation, ready to follow him wherever he led them. The two war priests, after hesitating for several moments, joined them.
A flicker of doubt passed through Woldn’s mind, but he suppressed it, and concealed it from the others.
Like flying insects, they sped along the podway. Seconds later, the Parviis darkened the sky over the main Adurian world, and dropped down into the largest city, a sprawling, dusty metropolis. Having flown over the area numerous times, Woldn knew the way, even though he’d never set down on the planet before.
As the swarm hovered over the huge capital rotunda, Woldn heard alarm sirens and klaxons going off.
He led the others through open windows and vents in the rotunda, streaking past startled dignitaries and workers, who looked up at them and pointed. The immense central chamber was filled with the insectoid Adurians, who were having some sort of a government meeting. One of them had been giving a speech to the gathering. But he stopped, and stared in alarm at the swarm covering the dome and the high, ornamental ceiling.
Separating from the others, Woldn flew down to the speaker, and—hovering like a bee—he spoke into a microphone on his lapel. “I am the Eye of the Swarm,” he said, “leader of the Parvii race. We come in peace.”
“And why have you come in peace?” the speaker asked. A wiry insectoid, he glared at Woldn with bulbous eyes. An electronic nameplate on the lapel of his suit read, VV UNCEL.
“In ancient times, Parviis and Adurians worked closely together,” Woldn said. “I have come to discuss ways that we might do so again.”
“In ancient times?” Uncel said. “What are you talking about?”
“It is part of our oral tradition,” Woldn said. “Long ago, our races worked together.”
“In what ways?” asked one of the Adurians out in the audience.
“Swat him like a fly!” someone shouted.
“Details are sketchy,” Woldn said, ignoring the threat. “Non-existent, I must admit. I thought that someone here might have the answer.”
“Is this just curiosity?” Uncel asked, “or is what we hear true, that the Humans and Tulyans gave you a good thrashing?”
“That is true, I must admit. But look how we bypassed your defensive systems to get in here. We can slip into places where other galactic races cannot go. Despite our reduced strength, we Parviis still have unique powers.”
“That may be,” Uncel said, nodding. He pursed his lips, seemed to be thinking.
Another Adurian male stepped up to the podium. Deferring to him, Uncel stepped to one side. “I am Chief of Security,” this one said. Looking up, he shouted, “All of you are under arrest.”
Woldn heard mechanical noises, and before he could do anything, metallic plates slid over all windows and doors of the chamber. Only a few thousand of his sentries remained outside.
“How dare you?” Woldn shouted.
“How dare you come here uninvited?” a peculiar female voice echoed, through speakers all around the chamber. “I am Warlord Tarix, and your fate rests in my hands.”
“I stated our purpose honestly,” Woldn said. Panic filled him. The security chief swatted at him with an open hand, but Woldn flew beyond his reach.
“Bring in the bug spray,” someo
ne yelled.
Laughter pealed through the assemblage.
Flying as high as he could in the huge dome, Woldn rejoined thousands of his followers there, and hovered between his two war priests. “Our telepathic weapons are not strong enough to deal with them,” Woldn said to them, keeping his voice low.
“Not like before,” Yurtii said. “We aren’t ready for a big fight yet.”
“We told you not to come here,” Vorlik said.
“Don’t lecture me!”
Vorlik glowered down at the Adurians who were looking up at them and pointing. Then he said, “Maybe we should concentrate our energy and knock a few of them down, as a display of power.”
“I don’t think so,” Woldn said. “That could only provoke them to extreme violence, and we don’t want that.”
* * * * *
Unknown to the frustrated, enraged Parviis, the Adurians in the chamber had been discussing their own involvement in the HibAdu Coalition, a military organization that was totally unknown to Woldn or his minions. Overseeing the meeting from their tintplax private boxes around the chamber, the HibAdu triumvirate—Coreq, Enver, and Tarix—had been surprised at the ease of entry by the Parvii swarm, and by their contention that an ancient relationship existed between Parviis and Adurians.
Any ancient relationship between these races, if it ever existed, had been lost in the dusty archives of history. Nonetheless, seeing the potential value of the Parviis to the HibAdu cause—as spies or as swarms to capture natural podships—the triumvirate ordered the Adurian scientists to investigate Woldn’s claim.…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
How do we measure the accomplishments of our lives? By this do we measure our happiness, or our despair.
—Anton Glavine, Reflections
At his palatial military headquarters on Siriki, Noah was at times put off by the grandiosity around him. Knowing that some people lived quite primitively in the back country on this world, it seemed strange to him that anyone could live this way, in such contrasting fashion. He’d observed similar disparities on other merchant prince planets, of course, but never had he seen any royal residence more spectacular than the Golden Palace.
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