Webdancers

by Brian Herbert

  The yacht took a position on the perimeter of the moorage basin. Then, at a signal from General Nirella, hundreds of podships separated from the others, forming a procession heading out to space. This was the first wave of them.

  Within the hour, three hundred podships—a small portion of the force that had been allocated to the Mutati leader—would depart for Siriki on a new assignment—at the request of Emir Hari’Adab. The new operation would be under joint Human and Mutati command, and the shapeshifter Emir was being permitted to accompany them, so that he could personally check on the welfare of his lady friend, Parais d’Olor. A disturbing report from the Sirikan back country suggested that she could be in grave physical danger.

  The lead ship accelerated with Hari’Adab aboard, and in a bright burst of green it was the first to vanish into the cosmic web. The others followed, and in tight military precision one split space every three seconds.…

  * * * * *

  With two passengers aboard, the dark bird beat its wings rhythmically, and lifted slowly into the air. Holding onto the mane of feathers behind Parais’s neck, Dux thought she was slightly smaller now, but not that much. She seemed stronger, but he heard her wheezing as she exerted herself.

  In the midday sky, gray clouds sagged above them, as if pregnant with water and about to release their contents. So far, though, Dux felt no moisture in the air, just a warm updraft. It was not a comforting warmth, though, coming as it did from the lava-flooded valley and woodlands below, the remote area where he, Acey, and their grandmother had spent many happy years. Now it was fast disappearing. Here and there some of the homesteads on higher ground held out, but gradually all of them were being inundated. Dux hoped that some people were able to escape, and he felt considerable survivor’s guilt for having gotten away himself.

  From the left, he heard what he thought were the sounds of battle, loud percussive thumps and explosions. Looking in that direction—approximately where they had been shot down earlier in the crop-duster plane—he saw bright bursts of blue and orange beyond tree-lined hills. Now, as Parais rose higher, Dux saw an aerial dogfight, and one fighter craft shot down the other. From this distance he couldn’t make out military markings, but he assumed it was a force sent by Noah to root out the HibAdus that Kekur had reported there.

  Suddenly he felt a shudder in the bird, and saw the wings slow their beating, and then stop. The aeromutati lost altitude, slowly at first, and then faster as she had difficulty keeping her wings spread. Intermittently, finding strength, she would attempt to use the wings again, but she couldn’t sustain the effort.

  “Hold on!” Parais shouted. Dux couldn’t grip her any harder, and even his normally courageous cousin shivered in fear as he held onto Dux.

  Increasingly, as the shapeshifter’s wings threatened to completely tuck themselves against her body, she began to fall like a feathered rock, only intermittently getting the wings out a little. Somehow she managed to keep herself upright, or the boys might have fallen off. Below, trees were fast approaching.

  Shuddering and groaning, Parais extended her wings, and at the last possible moment she was able to regain her aerodynamics and glide. As seconds passed, however, she continued to lose altitude. They were away from the flow of lava but too near the battle zone for comfort. Dux heard the sounds of fighting even louder than before, and saw a red-and-gold MPA gridjet speed overhead.

  Skimming the tops of evergreen trees, Parais barely cleared them. Finally, over a small meadow her strength gave out, and she drifted down for a bumpy landing. As she hit the ground, her passengers tumbled off.

  Scrambling to his feet, Dux assessed his new bumps and bruises, as did Acey near him.

  “Now we’ve survived two crashes around here,” Acey said.

  The boys hurried to check on Parais, who lay on the ground breathing hard, with one wing tucked and the other half extended. Though she didn’t say anything, she clearly wanted to fold her other wing in, so Dux and Acey helped her accomplish this.

  After several deep, gasping breaths, she said, “Thank you.” Her eyes were open, and though they looked better than before, they still had a sickly yellow cast to them, with small purple veins running through them more visibly than ever.

  “Look!” Acey husked in a low voice. He pointed toward the woods.

  Through an opening in the trees, they saw an orange-and-gray aircraft. It was sleek, had a pointed nose, and—from the number of portholes on the side behind the cockpit—the craft looked large enough to carry at least ten passengers.

  “HibAdu ship!” Acey said.

  Out in the meadow the three of them were exposed, but so far the HibAdus did not seem to have noticed them. At least no one was bursting out of the woods and running toward them, or firing at them.

  Moving as quickly and silently as they could, Dux and Acey helped Parais walk into the cover of trees, perhaps a hundred meters from the ship. From there, they watched for several long minutes, detecting no activity around the vessel.

  “Could be an escape craft,” Acey said. “Stashed here for officers. It looks fast. See those jet tubes on the sides? I’ll bet that baby can scoot. I don’t see any guards, but you can bet they’ll be back pretty quick.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Dux asked. He grinned. “I don’t even need to ask that question.” Looking at Parais, he said to her, “Acey and I are soldiers, and we need to either steal that ship or sabotage it.”

  “I understand,” she said, her voice raspy.

  “Do you want to stay here or go with us?” Dux asked, as he stroked the feathers on her back.

  “If I’m not too much of a burden, I’d like to go with you.”

  “After what you did for us,” Acey said, “you’re no burden at all.” He looked toward the sleek craft. “Let’s go.”

  They were slowed by having to help Parais walk toward the ship, and they found it easier to go back out to the edge of the meadow with her. Agonizingly long minutes passed, and finally they made it to the rear of the vessel. Still no sign of anyone, not even any robotic guards. On the back side of the craft, a ramp was down.

  The boys assisted Parais up the ramp, and Dux found her a spot on the aft deck of the passenger cabin, where she plopped down unceremoniously. Acey had hurried to the cockpit, and Dux heard him up there muttering to himself as he tried to figure out the controls. He hit a toggle, and the engines surged on. They made a high-pitched whine that irritated Dux’s ears.

  Hurry, hurry, he thought.

  But he heard angry shouts. Looking out a porthole, Dux saw three HibAdu soldiers running toward them. Two Adurians and a Hibbil.

  “Get the ramp up and take off!” Dux shouted. “We’ve been spotted!”

  “I’m trying, dammit!”

  Seeing a handgun in a holster on the bulkhead, Dux grabbed the weapon. His thoughts accelerated, and he remembered Acey showing him how to operate a similar one earlier. Touching a pad on the barrel, he caused the energy chamber on top to glow yellow.

  Just as Acey got the ship to move off the ground a little, one of the insectoid Adurians ran up the ramp and burst into the passenger cabin. Dux hit him in the chest with an energy burst, and the soldier dropped. The other Adurian and the Hibbil got on before Dux could get off another shot, and they jumped behind a half-bulkhead, just inside the passenger compartment.

  The ramp closed with a loud click, and the craft lifted into the air. As the engines whined louder, the ship went faster. Suddenly they shot up into the sky at an angle, and it was all Dux could do to keep from falling backward. The Hibbil lost his footing and tumbled past Dux, into the aft section.

  Dux wanted to fire at him, but by the time he regained his footing, he saw Parais attacking the Hibbil, tearing at him with beak and talons. The furry little alien screamed in pain, so it looked as if the shapeshifter had found enough strength to deal with him. At least, Dux hoped so. He didn’t want to shoot in that direction and hit her.

  Having lost track of
the Adurian, Dux crept forward around the seats. Just ahead, he heard the Adurian say something from the cockpit, but Dux couldn’t see him. “Turn this ship around and land!” the soldier said in a whiny voice. “Now!”

  “No!” Acey shouted.

  Now Dux saw the barrel of a gun around the bulkhead, a weapon that was pointed at Acey. Dux couldn’t get a good angle to shoot at him. And from behind he heard a sudden shot, and then Parais crying out, as if she’d been hit. But she kept attacking the Hibbil.

  “I’ve got my hand on the self-destruct button,” Acey said, glancing back at the Adurian. “Put down your weapon, or I’m going to put all of us down.”

  Deciding to help Parais first, Dux hurried aft, watching all the while in case the Adurian spotted him. In the small rear section he found a bleeding, badly injured Parais battling the much smaller but still deadly Hibbil. She had managed to knock his weapon away and it was nowhere to be seen—but the Hibbil was by no means defenseless, and he was very fast. Bleeding badly himself, he kept getting around her beak and talons and ripping into her flesh with his sharp teeth.

  Even in her weakened, injured condition, with purple blood soaking her feathers, Parais had some cellular regeneration ability as a shapeshifter. The Hibbil, with no such ability, finally fell back on the deck from his injuries. As he tried to get back on his feet, Parais drove a sharp talon through his chest, like a spike into his heart. He stopped moving, but Parais had expended almost all of her energy. To Dux’s horror, her cellular structure started to break down in front of his eyes. Pieces of flesh and feathers sloughed off onto the deck, in a purple mass of goo.

  Then, giving him some hope, he saw a substantially smaller version of Parais stabilize her shape.

  Just then the ship lurched, and Dux heard Acey shout, “Have a nice trip!”

  The Adurian screamed, and through a porthole Dux watched him tumble out of the aircraft.

  Running forward, Dux saw to his amazement that Acey had found another hatch door, this one for the cockpit, and he had skillfully opened it just as he steered the ship sharply in the opposite direction, causing the Adurian to fall out.

  “Nice move,” Dux said. He told Acey about the other two enemy soldiers, then added, “We each got one of the bad guys, but we need to get Parais some medical attention. She’s having trouble back there.”

  Acey set course for the headquarters at the Golden Palace, while Dux went back to do what he could for Parais. She was only around half as big as she had been when she carried the boys and Kekur on her back. One of her wings was badly torn and she didn’t seem able to regenerate its cellular configuration. All over her body and on her once-beautiful face, open wounds oozed purple.

  Barely alive, the brave Mutati slumped to the deck, quivering and shaking. Dux found her a blanket and massaged her gently where it didn’t seem to cause her pain. She looked at him thankfully, but he felt helpless.

  “Hang on,” he said in a soothing voice.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Maturity is not something that can be given to you, or which you can gain by simply growing older. It is something you must earn, through the harsh lessons of personal experience.

  —Subi Danvar

  “Siriki below,” the robot soldier reported to a group of Human and Mutati officers who stood on a cargo deck of the Aopoddae flagship. One of the shapeshifters sneezed from an allergic reaction to Humans, but he smiled and adjusted a tiny medical booster on his wrist, which enhanced the allergy protector implanted in his body.

  Anxious to board the shuttle, Hari’Adab stood at the forefront of the group. Unlike most of his race, he had never felt a physical aversion toward Humans, and neither had his girlfriend, Parais. He had always wondered how much of it was psychosomatic, based upon stress, mass hysteria, or the power of suggestion.

  Now he tried to be patient. Looking through a filmy viewing window, he watched a shuttle approach to take them down to the planet. Somewhere down there on the blue-green world, his precious Parais was in trouble, and he desperately wanted to get to her. He hoped and prayed that she was still alive, and that she would recover.

  “Shuttle two minutes away,” the robot said. Slender and compact, the sentient machine had a neckless head, and arms that were kept in compartments and only appeared when needed. At the moment, one of the arms was saluting in an awkward fashion, while his mechanical face looked at no one in particular.

  Hari sighed. As a Mutati, he naturally gloried in the marvels of flesh and the creative possibilities that a shape-shifting body could assume. Just looking at this robot (or any other one), and seeing the rigid physical structure—the manufactured, non-biological components—he was always struck by the inferiority of machines and their distinct limitations. As far as he was concerned, their artificial intelligence did not elevate them in the least. It was a synthetic thing, and unnatural.

  He knew he should not be thinking this way, that it touched on the feelings of racial superiority that Mutati leaders had long felt, especially in comparison with Humans. Some people considered sentient machines a separate galactic race, though this seemed like quite a stretch to Hari. Even Noah Watanabe, whom Hari greatly respected, was reported to hold that opinion. As evidence of that, he was said to point to the example of his machine leader and trusted adviser, Thinker.

  Considering it more, Hari wondered if he could really dispute that position. After watching the irritating robot Jimu in action, with all of his clever maneuverings, there certainly seemed to be a spark of life there … albeit an irritating one. The loyalty of robots to Humans was legendary, and so pervasive that it seemed to go beyond anything that could have been programmed into them. Jimu was watching Hari now, from a mezzanine over the cargo deck.

  The cargo door opened, and Hari hurried through an airlock into the shuttle. It seemed to take forever for the other passengers to load, though he knew it was less than ten minutes. But every minute and every second away from Parais tormented his heart.

  * * * * *

  When it came to mechanical things, Acey had always been a quick study. Almost a year ago he and Dux had been on a treasure-hunting crew, a motley bunch of rowdies many of whom had had experience working on conventional spaceships. When their craft broke down, the teenage Acey had helped figure out the problem, just one of many instances in which he had proved himself capable.

  And Acey had done it again, though it might not be enough to save Parais. Under pressure from three attacking soldiers, he had figured out the operation of the sleek HibAdu craft and had flown it away. Now the vessel sped over mountains, lakes, and forests, while Dux remained in the aft section, tending to the grievously wounded Mutati. Though she had fought valiantly for survival, she seemed to have been shot in a vital place, one that her already destabilized condition had prevented her from healing. From what he had heard, a Mutati could often survive terrible wounds by changing its cellular structure around and finding new body forms. But this seemed different. She’d been wounded when she was already weak from the problem of having taken on too much mass.

  Clearly, her condition was worsening. During the flight Parais had been devolving in a frightening way, as her body was losing its distinctive features and becoming a quivering mass of salmon-colored flesh. Moments ago, her eyes had slipped back inside the fatty cellular structure, but Dux had not been repulsed, and had not moved away from her at all. He kept talking to her in a soothing voice, using her name and massaging where her shoulders and neck used to be. The pulse of her flesh was slowing, but occasionally—as if in direct response to his words or touch—she would revive. Then, moments later, she would fade again. He only knew that he had to keep trying, letting her know that someone cared about her.

  In his pocket he had Grandma Zelk’s pouch of healing powder, and he had considered sprinkling some of it on the Mutati. But he had hesitated, not wanting to risk doing anything that could worsen her condition, or even cause her death.

  Through a porthole Dux saw the gli
ttering spires of the Golden Palace nearing, and the military compound that had grown up around it. Having established comlink contact a half-hour ago, Acey now circled the landing field, waiting his turn after a shuttle that was setting down. Dux allowed himself to feel a surge of hope.

  A minute later he heard the welcome, reassuring voice of Noah Watanabe over the comlink: “Okay, Acey. Bring her in next to the shuttle. We have doctors waiting for your patient.”

  As Acey went into hover mode and landed, Dux saw at least a hundred Humans and Mutatis standing on the groundpad. With the engines whining down, the hatch and ramp of the HibAdu craft opened.

  Mutatis rushed on board first, and it soon became apparent that they were a medical team. Having shapeshifted into various modes of appearance, all wore pale blue uniforms. Dux stayed out of their way, and watched as they carried her down the ramp on a metalloy stretcher to a waiting ambulance.

  Noah Watanabe and a robed Mutati hurried along with them. Having seen holophotos of the Mutati before, Dux knew it was the shapeshifter leader, Hari’Adab.

  Noah and the Emir shook hands. Then the somber Mutati climbed into the ambulance with Parais, and the vehicle sped off.

  Seeing Acey and Dux leave the HibAdu aircraft, Noah went to them. “Good to see you boys,” he said, giving each of them a hearty hug. “You’ll get commendations for this.” His face darkened. “Sorry to hear about your grandmother. Terrible conditions in the back country.”

  “Thanks,” Acey said. “We lost Kekur, too.”

  “I know. A fine robot, that one.”

  Taking one of his staff cars, Noah accompanied the teenagers back to their barracks on the palace grounds. On the way he told them about a wounded HibAdu lab-pod that had been found on Siriki, having been hit by ion-cannon fire.

  “I just got back from seeing it,” Noah said. “Some of my aides wanted to kill it because of the damage such podships cause to the galactic infrastructure. I couldn’t do that, though. It’s defective, but it’s still a living creature. Eshaz is here on a brief stopover, and he said it might be revived with a green dust that he carries around with him, but he didn’t recommend doing that.”