Webdancers

by Brian Herbert

  If this worked, it would test the limits of his own “immortality,” and his ability to return to this realm through a timehole, or through some other means he did not yet know about. But these considerations were not a priority. For the sake of his own galaxy, and for all he held dear, he was more than willing to sacrifice his own life—in whatever form that sacrifice took. It might just save Tesh and their child, and the Liberator fleet could then attack the weakened HibAdu forces and take back the Human and Mutati planets they controlled.

  Thinker, are you picking this up? Noah thought.

  Yes.

  Tell the fleet to disengage, and why. Tell them to remain here, without me.

  I’m doing it now, Master.

  * * * * *

  Noah envisioned a sector far across the galaxy, a region where he had seen numerous timeholes, through the paranormal lens available to him. It was beyond Yaree and the Kandor Sector—so far away, so desolate and off the beaten path that he didn’t know of a name for it, or even an astronomical number. Even with all of the sector mapping that had been completed by the various races, there were still places like this, and it was exactly what he wanted. If he had to set off an explosion there, it would be as far as possible from population centers, and it presented the possibility of escape routes to the undergalaxy, where he would go if necessary. One way or another, he would make a statement.

  This time, the movement across space was not nearly instantaneous, as it had seemed to be before. He felt the podships tremble around him as he transmitted psychic energy to them, but he urged them to go—he commanded it, and they went into motion. There was a tightening inside his skull, and a searing pain as the collective entity accelerated along one podway and then another, heading for the far reaches of the galaxy at tachyon speeds. The discomfort in his skull was enormous—as if the Aopoddae didn’t want to cooperate in this—but he did not let up.

  Through his cocoon eyes at the rear, Noah saw the curvature of the web, and black forms scrambling along it behind him, trying to keep up. The smaller Web Spinners were in front of the big one now. He summoned the cocoon to greater speed, but it resisted. Despite this, he was still going at tremendous speed, because he saw suns and solar systems passing by in a blur.

  But as he peered through the eyes behind the pod-amalgam, he knew he was not going fast enough. After initially falling back, the predators were gradually gaining on him, with the smaller ones running along parallel strands and the big one looming behind.

  The hybrid space station began to vibrate and slow down slightly, and Noah realized that the strand beneath his ship was disintegrating, about to break. Before he could react, the cocoon spun and somersaulted away through space. It had fallen off the galactic track. He struggled for control, and to see what is going on, but for several moments he could do neither. One of the smaller pursuers was ahead of the others, and very near him now. Running along a parallel strand, it reached out to swipe at the cocoon with a claw, but narrowly missed.

  Noah managed to engage with another podway strand and he accelerated along it, momentarily leaving the creatures behind—until they got on the same podway and began to gain on him again. He urged the cocoon to greater speed, but it resisted.

  Desperately, Noah looked for an alternate way to get to the remote sector where he wanted to detonate the primal charge and get rid of these alien bastards. He changed course three times to again head in that direction, but each time he looked back, the pursuers were a little bit closer. Judging the distance he still needed to travel and the limited velocities the cocoon seemed able to attain, he knew he would never make it that far.

  Now he had to find the nearest timehole. Desperately, Noah took a series of looping turns and skimmed a gray-green membrane that didn’t seem to belong there, since it was nowhere near the perimeter of the galaxy. Like a wavering, broken piece of wall, it might be a remnant of the long-ago galactic construction project, a huge unused piece that had just drifted away. Or, more likely, it had something to do with the faltering state of the cosmos. He did find podways that were faster on the membrane, but he couldn’t locate a timehole. The geometric spiders were much closer now, only a few seconds behind him. The largest one moved up to the center of the pack.

  Again the Web Spinners displayed internal lights and colors, but this time only in their heads, where the energy glowed brightly and danced inside the facets, as if in anticipation of the kill. As the monsters neared, Noah was startled to identify facial features on them that were contorted but still resembled those of various galactic races—Humans, Salducians, Adurians, Hibbils, Jimlats, Mutatis, Churians, and even Tulyans.

  The faces were chiseled and hard instead of organic … features buried within facets.

  The Queen looked like an amalgamation of the others, more ferocious and predatory in appearance than any monster of the imagination. She revealed immense pincers on two of her eight feet—claws that could easily rip the space station apart. Looking like an arachnid, a crustacean, and a host of unknown organisms from her demonic realm, she was a nightmare come to life.

  A particularly fast spinner streaked ahead of the others, but this one did not have yellow-sun eyes—these burned red. The contorted face resembled that of Pimyt, the Royal Attaché to Lorenzo del Velli. Noah had no time to be amazed, or to wonder. He fired a blast from the cocoon weapon that slowed the creature down, and it fell back with the others.

  The Queen of the Undergalaxy moved to the front of the pack. Focusing through the multiple humanoid eyes at the rear of his cocoon, Noah saw that she and her minions were almost on top of him now. While continuing to run ahead of his pursuers, he glowed brighter green, preparing to fire at them.

  Suddenly Noah saw bursts of green light ahead of him, like flowers in space, and thousands of podships emerging, one after the other. It was the Liberator fleet led by Webdancer, catching up because of the circuitous route he had taken. But he was not happy to see them, and commanded Thinker to tell them so. Noah was troubled. The Liberators were not only risking their own safety, but it was a foolish gesture, because their destruction would leave much of the known galaxy in the hands of the HibAdus. With no Liberator force to oppose them, Human and Mutati worlds would be forever lost to the conspirators.

  Thinker sent the message, but his comlink call had no effect. The fleet surged around Noah, more than one hundred thousand of them heading en masse toward the advancing Web Spinners, firing every weapon they had. Curiously, most of the vessels did not have Tulyan faces on them, suggesting that they were under Aopoddae control.

  This new tactic had some effect on the monsters, as it forced them to veer off course and come back around. Even the Queen shifted course in the barrage of fire, and when she and her demon-companions took new routes toward Noah, the fleet harassed them. Even so, the Web Spinners tried to ignore them, and did not counterattack. They just kept going around and focusing on Noah.

  Send another message! Noah said to Thinker, through their organic link. Tell them I was trying to lure the Web Spinners to a remote region, and preferably into the undergalaxy, where I planned to set off a big explosion. Now I’ll have to do it here, but first the fleet needs to be as far away as possible.

  Moments later, Thinker reported back: Fleet command reports that most of the podships are flying out of their control, not responding to the commands of their Tulyan pilots. Only Tesh, Eshaz, and a few hundred other pilots, for reasons that no one understands, report that they can convince their podships to do what they want. But they’re here of their own volition, too—and they’re setting up battle formations with the others.

  Tell Tesh to go back! Noah said, worrying about her and their unborn child. Maybe the others will follow.

  A momentary delay. Then: She won’t do it, Master Noah, won’t abandon the fleet. Or you.

  Desperately, Noah looked for opportunities to fire at the Web Spinners, but worried about hitting the thick clusters of Liberator ships, and especially Webdancer, which
Tesh piloted. He still knew where Tesh was—Webdancer was the largest ship in the fleet, and beside that, he saw through Timeweb to the sectoid chamber where she clung to a wall inside, piloting the craft. But he could not linger to watch over her, and couldn’t justify trying to save her at the expense of the others. Then he was heartened, but only a little, to see his friend Eshaz bring his ship Agryt and others in close to Webdancer, forming some protection for the flagship. But against such behemoths of space, the effort couldn’t amount to much.

  Changing course, Noah went around to a flank position, where he was able to fire the primal weapon at several smaller Web Spinners on the perimeter. He used a little higher intensity than before, but far short of the massive detonation he planned. Once more, the creatures were not harmed, but he did manage to knock five of them further away, forcing them to scramble back. If any of those blasts had accidentally hit a Liberator vessel, however, he had no doubt the vessel would not survive. The Aopoddae ships were now following the lead of the flagship, coordinating attacks on the monsters that were beginning to have some effect, albeit only like the collective effect of pesky flies.

  Reaching the limit of her patience, the Queen finally began thrashing around with her multiple legs, snaring podships on the sticky surfaces of her skin and smashing the vessels together, killing the Aopoddae and their passengers. So far, Webdancer eluded this fate, as did Eshaz’s ship Agryt, but to his horror Noah saw them heading straight toward her. This time she had her deadly pincers extended toward them.

  Noah fired two bright green blasts of energy across the bows of the ships, hitting the Queen’s pincers and momentarily deterring their destructive work. Webdancer and Eshaz veered away, but soon came back around to continue the fight.

  I’ve got to change this equation, Noah said to Thinker, across their linkage.

  Abruptly, he took the cocoon in a sharp turn and headed through a small spiral nebula, passing through it and heading toward a region that was commonly known as the Heart of the Galaxy, the theoretically exact mathematical center of all galactic mass and gravitation. He wished he’d been able to go farther, into uncharted regions. But at least there were no known resident populations in this region.

  The Queen of the Undergalaxy was right behind him, picking up speed. Her pincers were extended in anticipation, and she opened her mouth as well, a black, deadly maw in the expanse of space. Wherever she went, color and light vanished—other than her brilliant yellow eyes. She seemed to inhale entire suns and planetary systems, which vanished after she passed near them, though she did not grow perceptibly larger. Oddly—and he began to wonder if it was because of some power the Aopoddae had—she had not been able to do that to them, or to him.

  Just then, Noah saw hundreds of Liberator ships on either side of him, keeping up on parallel podways. All except one—Webdancer—had Tulyan faces on their prows. Webdancer took a lead position on one side of the cocoon, and Agryt—piloted by Eshaz—was at the lead on the other side, like flanking guards. Soon, more and more podships—the much larger group of faceless ones—caught up.

  The Queen still managed to get past the fleet, and attacked the underside of the cocoon. She lashed out at the space station with one of her immense chelicerae claws, and barely scratched the hide of the amalgamated podships, but deep enough to cause them to cry out to Noah in pain. Quickly, they began to heal the wound, while Noah slowed and veered off, taking a position to protect Webdancer, and Tesh.

  Behind him, he saw five of the smaller Web Spinners do something unexpected. In concert, they flew directly at the Queen’s other pincer, and smashed into it. Enraged, she stabbed them with her pincers and tossed the smaller creatures aside. Noah saw a familiar face in one of the dying spinners—a glimmering, distorted countenance that still had the features of Princess Meghina. Then he saw other Human faces inside the facets of the other dying creatures—and recognized them as the Humans who had consumed the Elixir of Life to become immortals. Were they really dying now? Earlier, he had seen Pimyt’s face on one of the Web Spinners. What did it all mean? How—and why—had they been recruited into the ranks of the Web Spinners? At least Meghina and four of her companions had not been converted entirely. They had not lost their loyalty to the cause of humanity. Even Meghina, unhappy at being born a Mutati, had proved that she deserved to be considered Human, in the best definition of the race.

  The smaller creature with the face of Pimyt swiped at Webdancer, and struck the ship a glancing blow. Noah darted in that direction and slammed hard into the spiderlike demon, knocking it away into space.

  On a Thinker-to-comlink relay, Noah had the robot say to Tesh, “Go away! Save yourself and our baby!”

  She did not respond, and returned to her course, flying alongside the cocoon with the other podships. Webdancer had scratches on its hull where it had been clawed and scraped, but the injuries didn’t seem to be severe.

  In a sudden movement, the Queen struck out at Eshaz’s ship, and grabbed it in a powerful pincer grip. Then, to his horror, Noah saw the monster bite into the face of Eshaz on the prow of the ship. For a moment, the entire podship changed shape into a larger-than-life version of Eshaz’s natural reptilian body, struggling to get away from the spinner. It was to no avail. She ripped through Eshaz and cast him away. He tumbled, alternately changing shape to Aopoddae and Tulyan, then became amorphous and black, with eight legs sprouting out from his lower body. In a matter of moments, the newborn horror raced toward Noah, and Eshaz’s face began to glimmer on its faceted face. It had become one of the small Web Spinners.

  Noah didn’t have time to grieve, or to think about the other podships and pilots who were being converted when the Queen got to them, vessel by vessel. He continued to take evasive maneuvers from the pack of spinners, all the while trying to keep them away from Webdancer.

  Filled with anger and frustration, Noah felt a trembling in the cocoon flesh. Casting green light from his eyes around the hull of the space station, he gazed out on the thousands of podships in the fleet, many of which kept flying directly at the Queen’s pincers in obvious, though suicidal, efforts to deter her. It was working to some extent, as she continued to deal with them while still pursuing Noah. It had the effect of slowing her down, and her companions with her. She seemed to be the only one who could stab the attackers and convert them into spinners. If it kept going like that, however, Noah realized that she would eventually convert the entire podship fleet and command them as well. But she could only convert as many as she could reach—and so far she’d barely made a dent in the Liberator fleet.

  Through Timeweb, Noah expanded his mind into each of the interiors of the podships. He wasn’t really touching them, at least not physically, but the contact was significant, nonetheless. His mind raced, exploring new possibilities as they occurred to him.

  In a form of gestalt, Noah realized that he could do much more than he had previously thought possible with the weapon. The cocoon and all of the other podships could accomplish more than the sum of their individual possibilities. He saw a new way to use the tremendous firepower, a way that even the podships themselves might not realize. After all, they had not used it until he appeared.

  In the midst of his racing thoughts, Noah caught himself, and felt a chill of realization as information seeped out of the armored Aopoddae memory core in his brain and entered his consciousness. The sentient spacecraft had known the full potential of the weapon all along, but needed him to prove he was worthy of using it. He had to figure it out himself, while they remained in close proximity to him—taking control of most of the fleet away from the pilots.

  Even facing their own destruction, the podships were behaving unpredictably, in ways that did not always seem to help their own survival. Their behavior almost seemed … religious to him, as if they believed in fate and destiny. But whatever their motives, they concealed them from him. Noah had the feeling that he would never figure out the ancient aliens to any great extent, even if he managed to get thr
ough this great challenge with them.

  With that realization, Noah felt a shift in space and time around him, and abruptly his face and eyes appeared on the prow of each ship in the Liberator fleet, in addition to his multiple countenances all around the cocoon. Protectively, he was on the prow of Webdancer, with Tesh inside.

  In the past, when Noah’s powers were embryonic and unpredictable, he had, for a time, been able to guide a single podship by remote control, extending his thoughts into its sectoid chamber. Now he found that he could do this for all of the Aopoddae at once—more than one hundred thousand of them—psychically connecting the sectoid chamber of the cocoon with all of the smaller sectoid chambers in the fleet.

  Every ship in the fleet glowed faintly green, and Noah felt the pulsing of the flesh of every vessel, the coordinated heartbeat of one collective organism. Noah was that organism, and it was him. The ships all glowed brighter, matching the intensity and hue of the cocoon.

  Then Noah fired the incredible primal weapon at the Queen and her minions, not holding anything back. The blasts were white this time—with the ships in the fleet firing at the smaller Web Spinners and the cocoon firing directly at the Queen of the Undergalaxy. He hit her with far more power than all of her slaves received combined. In all, it was exponentially more force than he had used before.

  This was enough to disintegrate every one of the smaller Web Spinners in hot bursts of primal whiteness that turned them into dust particles so infinitesimal that they could no longer be seen. They just seemed to vanish. But that didn’t happen with the Queen. The tremendous force of the biggest blast knocked her into another star system, but she recovered and roared back, her yellow-ember eyes more intense than ever and her body flashing all of the colors in the universe.

  Noah hit her again, this time directing blasts at her from the cocoon and from every podship. The tremendous combined force hit her on all sides and broke her into parts, but the parts kept moving, kept trying to regroup. It reminded Noah of himself, the way he repeatedly regenerated his body after his sister hacked it apart. Tesh had worried about what kind of a monster he might be. He hoped he was not one, and had dedicated himself to proving it. But this Queen was something else entirely. Could she ever be stopped?