At first, he thought the Kriani had aimed and fired at him. But Tarkos’s suit tracked the beam as it cut through the sea mist: the Kriani aimed at the top of the cliff above them.
Tarkos told the drone, still standing at the mouth of the tunnel, to take to the air. Its propeller started with a faint buzz and it lurched into the sky. In a moment, Tarkos could see through its cameras the cliff wall and then the grassy hillocks above. Other Kriani gathered here—he counted five. They had no antennae, and they aimed their weapons down at the Kriani below. Walking through the low grass behind the Kriani came a herd of small robots, black and sleek, with ominously heavy limbs and shielding.
Tarkos grunted. Bria had launched a surveillance drone, and seen no Kriani in the area. So both these groups of Kriani had to have come here, straight to the foot of the storm, on some kind of fast transportation. He could think of only two probable explanations: some of them had somehow tracked the cruiser here—or they were tipped off. But which side was tipped off, and which side was instead here to fight their pursuers?
Tarkos told his suit’s drone to return. It hit the stone floor fast and ran, almost stumbling, past him. Then it turned and folded its wing. Tarkos instructed it to crawl to the edge of the entrance again. Its legs a blur of dull metal in motion, it slipped out to cling to the cliff face, where it could divide its attention between the steps below and the cliff face above.
“I need to get you out of the line of fire,” Tarkos told Tiklik. He dragged the robot farther down the vent tunnel, till their line of sight revealed only churning clouds glowing an eerie dark green as they were lit from behind by the blue gas giant Dâk-Kir. There, he leaned Tiklik against the wall again and walked alone back up to the entrance, stepping awkwardly to avoid treading the corpses of the bird-like creatures that had died in the cross-fire. They had long, thin scales instead of feathers, and were colored bright red and purple. Beautiful creatures, if they’d not been cut into pieces. He stood at the entrance and scanned the cliff edges, the stairs, the visible stones below. No Kriani showed themselves, but his suit reported being battered by radar signals. The Kriani were one of the few oxygen order species to have evolved radar, and each one had a different signal pattern. In the tall grass at the cliff top, dozens of Kriani were looking down at him. He pinged the ship, which Bria had wisely moved several kilometers up the coast. It responded with an all well signal.
His armor squealed. He lurched back out of reflex. Sparks skittered across his armor where laser beams ablated shielding.
A panel on the wall held only a single symbol. Tarkos pressed it. The petals surrounding the entrance to the tunnel shuddered, straining, but closed down only half way. It was enough to shield him from the beams, but it still meant the tunnel was open to the weather and waves.
“All right,” he told Tiklik, as he started down the vent tunnel. “A lot of wind and rain are going to be coming down this vent tunnel. Because the shutters are busted. The lasers must have cut into some essential mechanism. Not to mention me dropping on two of the petals.”
He stopped at Tiklik’s side. Before them, about a hundred meters ahead, a dim green light glowed, and some round shape filled their view.
“Can you walk?” he asked Tiklik. The slim black robot seemed a broken heap, where it lay on the dusty stone floor. “If I help you?”
“I am uncertain,” the robot said.
Tarkos bent down, hands hesitating as he wondered how to touch the broken machine without hurting it more.
Then his armor pinged. It had located and exchanged ID with Bria’s armor. And Bria’s armor was screeching with frantic damage reports and medical warnings. Bria was hurt. She was hurt bad.
“Commander?” Tarkos called. “Commander, you’re injured! What’s happening?”
CHAPTER 8
“Kill me,” the collapsed Kriani librarian told Pala Eydis.
Eydis jerked back, raising her hands to her face till her fingertips touched her oxygen mask. After a moment she seemed to remember herself, and she lowered her hands and said, “No, Librarian. You’re a Kriani. No race in the history of the universe has suffered like your race, and yet, you survived. You built a world. That’s what you are: survivors. A race of survivors. And you’re the librarian! Each day you look at hard truths, and do not turn away. That requires strength. You’ll get better. You’ll survive.” She reached forward with both hands, and touched the Kriani’s antennae, a formal greeting.
“And don’t you see?” she added softly. “You didn’t do it. You still have your antennae. You see that, don’t you? You see that you struggled, like all the Kriani have struggled, and you won.” She squatted there a long while, waiting for an answer that did not come. But finally the Kriani seemed to sigh again, and Eydis nodded, as if it signified agreement. She stood.
Bria said, “Find book. Haste.”
“Haste!” the Thrumpit echoed. It ran off into the shelves, feet slapping.
Ki’Ki’Tilish reached forward with a single delicate leg and touched Eydis. “Human, what happens here?” she asked. “What terrible truth is not spoken? Before this one dies here, let this one face danger knowingly.”
Eydis shook her head, and then looked pointedly at the Librarian. Her point was clear to Bria, if not to the Kirt: she did not want to speak of this in front of the Librarian. Eydis walked to the far side of the pit, and stopped by another of the narrow halls made by stacks of books. Ki’Ki’Tilish and Bria followed. The OnUnAn’s encounter vehicle stayed where it sat, facing the Librarian, as if considering the Kriani.
“The Kriani were the slaves of the Ulltrians,” Eydis said, speaking only on audio. “But more than slaves. The Ulltrians are parasites at the beginning of their lives, in the first phase of their development. In this larval stage, the Ulltrian’s eat their host alive. And the Kriani were their hosts.”
“Know this,” Bria said. Though her nostrils closed in disgust again, to be reminded of the horror. Hidden within her armor, all her fur stood erect. Somehow actually talking with a Kriani, for the first time in person this day, and seeing that it was a person, a person that thought and hoped and breathed—this made the horror new. And to imagine then that millions of others like this Librarian had died from a growing parasite churning and chewing at their organs, all the while wholly aware of the source of their agony, hoping for a quick death but well knowing it would not come soon. It made Bria grind her teeth.
“In a galaxy of horrors,” Ki’Ki’Tilish clicked softly, “this is the most horrible. All decry this origin, worst of worst, most miserable in a miserable universe.”
“Well, what you may not know is that the Ulltrians bred obedience into the Kriani,” Eydis said. “The punishment for a disobedient Kriani was to force it to cut off its own antennae. It deprives them of their radar sense, their primary sense. To this day—or, I guess, until yesterday—‘antenna biter’ was the worst insult you could possibly say to a Kriani. It was a reminder of their most slavish moments of an enslaved past, when the Ulltrians ruled them. When I saw Kriani without antennae, back at the palace of state, I assumed others had attacked them. I did not believe that they could do this to themselves again.”
Bria knew enough about humans to recognize and understand the tears that gathered in Eydis’s little white human eyes. The woman’s voice quieted as she said, “These are a people that have struggled so hard. They have tried so hard to be something more, to escape their past. You cannot imagine the overwhelming shame, the catastrophic tragedy of shame, they must feel now. To have the Ulltrians return, and have some Kriani feel compelled to obey and to… apologize, to pay homage, for their attempt to make themselves better and free…. It’s too terrible. And the fact that so many did it, that even this Librarian almost did it—that will shame them beyond endurance.” She blinked out two tears, which slipped down each cheek until the oxygen mask checked their path.
Bria growled, a soft low sound. “We grieve also, citizen. So we strive now. Stop other suffering
.”
Eydis nodded.
“Here behold!” a voice cried behind them. “Tall tome of star records, from dim past of world-wrecking Ulltria!”
“The Thrumpit found the book,” Eydis said, sniffing back her tears.
Bria led the way as they returned to the center of the library. The Thrumpit gestured commands at a small robot that emerged from the dark stacks behind it, and which looked like nothing so much as a walking table. On its back, a large black book lay closed. It stopped directly before them.
Eydis reached forward and flipped up the heavy cover. “Ulltrian books opened, and were read, from bottom to top,” she said. “The writing is strange, in that it can go in either direction: we think the Ulltrians had supersymmetric visualization abilities, so that writing in either direction was simple for them to understand.”
“Have,” Bria said.
Eydis nodded. “Have supersymmetric visualization abilities. Now….” She turned the heavy pages. Black writing filled the thick, pale sheets. The letters—all points and spikes and edges—looked to Bria like little, biting bugs, something that would get into your fur and make you furious. Bria bent forward. Gowgoroup’s encounter vehicle noisily tromped around to stand behind the group, its legs extending so that Gowgoroup could look over their shoulders.
“Much of this,” Eydis said, “is descriptions of the political debates that surrounded the study of The World Hammer, as the double system was called. Their astronomers discovered it some months before it passed their world. For a few rotations—that is, rotations of this world around the gas giant, each of which is about 14 Earth days—the Ulltrians thought the black planets might hit Dâk-Ull—I mean, this planet, The Well of Furies. The huge dark worlds grew in the sky, looming ever larger. It must have been terrifying. So there was total chaos, as they tried to think of a possible response. They had only sent uncrewed probes to other moons in this system then. Colonization of another planet was at that time still impossible. A lot of violence followed debates about the possibility of an orbiting life boat, and who would be on it.” She turned a few pages, and laid open a spread of diagrams with crowded circles representing orbits. “Here. The initial trajectory. I never studied this part.” She turned the page, and another spread of diagrams followed. “And here, the trajectory out of the star system. They actually did manage to land a probe on the smaller of the two passing planets. It radioed back data for a year. The trajectory is here.” She planted a finger on a snarl of letters, written small, in a corner of the page. “There are details, but the main header here says that the pair of planets headed straight for Kal-La, which means the blue star.”
“Only book that describes event?” Bria asked.
“The only one I know of that has data,” Eydis said. She looked at the Thrumpit. “Ruinreader, do you know of another?”
“I have wandered, wondering, through all the tomes of these towering shelves, bent under centuries. Never have I seen another that writes of those wild worlds. These pages plot the way, alone of all the books before us.”
“Take it,” Bria said. “We go.”
“Wait,” Eydis said. “We can’t take the book. The Kriani forbid anything leaving the museum.”
Bria bent her head down, and closed her top two eyes. “Human, worlds will die in coming days. Whole worlds. Fewer, perhaps, if have book.” She gestured toward the hall behind them. “Come now. Tides rise.” Bria reached down for the book, the sharp points of her armor’s gloves opening.
“Please,” Eydis said. “At least let this robot carry it out. It’ll protect the book.”
“Wait,” Ki’Ki’Tilish clicked softly. She reached a leg forward and, careful not to touch the page, pointed at the drawing of stars in the center of the page. “Wait. This one has considered the diagram, against the constellations of Ulltrian system. This one keeps starmaps in implants. The blue star looks probably to be—”
Behind the Kirt, Gowgoroup’s encounter vehicle reared up on its back legs, the sharp spikes of the front two legs reaching high into the air. Bria threw up her arms, preparing to leap at the machine, but she was too late: the encounter vehicle slammed its front two legs down hard on Ki’Ki’Tilish’s back. The blow drove the Kirt flat onto the floor, and her legs splayed. The robot with the book tottered away, into Bria, preventing her from jumping forward. In that moment, Gowgoroup’s encounter vehicle raised again one of its front legs, and hammered down on the face of Ki’Ki’Tilish. The visor of the suit bent but did not break, but a sickening crunch sounded out from inside, transmitted over the radio link for all to hear.
The Thrumpit shrieked a trio of chorusing high pitched cries, warbling in horror. Eydis was thrown back and rolled across the floor.
Bria howled in anger. She kicked the robot aside and sent the book toppling. She snapped both arms forward, and gun barrels protruded from behind her wrists. She fired one laser across the front of the opaqued glass of the vehicle, hoping to kill some of Gowgoroup’s slugs. She reached the other arm low and fired under the vehicle, aiming for less shielded portions of its engines.
Black smoke spit from the underside of the vehicle. It stumbled backward and clattered across Ki’Ki’Tilish’s limbs, then it toppled to one side, scratching at the steps of the sunken recess. But quickly the machine found its balance. The two front legs unfolded claw-tipped arms. It leapt forward, seized the Ulltrian book off the floor, gripping it roughly by two corners. The hydraulic vice grips bit into the ancient material. The encounter vehicle ran off through the stacks, toward the entrance, black lines of smoke spitting off the armor as Bria played lasers across it.
Bria knelt by Ki’Ki’Tilish. The Kirt’s suit was torn, and through the material seeped thick yellow ichor mixed with red blood.
“Esteemed citizen,” Bria growled. “Speak. Fight for life.”
Dark red blood covered the interior of the visor to Ki’Ki’Tilish’s suit. Bria could only dimly see the Kirt’s mandibles twitching behind the glass. A radio signal, suit to suit, hissed in Bria’s helmet. “Tell this one’s mothers that… that… this one did not fail in the moment of death. Look at the book. Look…. Path is opposite….”
Ki’Ki’Tilish did not finish. Bria bared her teeth, and lifted her head slowly, looking off the way the OnUnAn had run.
“Harmonizer,” Eydis said, getting uneasily to her feet. “It’s getting away.”
“No,” Bria said. She held up one claw. She spread her fingers wide. A sharp crack followed, echoing back in the vast hall.
Bria leapt up and ran through the stacks, with Eydis following. At the end of the stacks they found the book laying on the ground, with shards of metal covering the ground all around it. A few measures ahead, the bottom half of one of the encounter vehicle’s legs lay on the stone floor.
They ran on, hard footfalls echoing in the chamber.
Just inside the entrance to the tunnel, Bria stopped and held a hand out. “Stay here,” Bria said. “Vehicle dangerous.” Before them, a dozen paces away, the OnUnAn’s encounter vehicle stood in the center of the tunnel, tilting forward, the front window open. One of its legs had been blown off at the knee.
“You put a charge on one of the vehicle’s legs!” Eydis shouted. “That’s what you did. When you helped it get around that book.”
Dust spiraled up into the air around them, stirred by a sudden wind coming up the tunnel. Bria pointed down the hall, aiming her arm lasers. She kicked the magnification on her suit’s visor up twentyfold, and laid over infrared. She could see, down the straight hall, the big sealed door cracking open onto the cold dark beyond. Water, darkest black with cold in the infrared view, poured through the door. Six bright forms, warm bodies shining in the infrared, were doused by the wave: the parts of Gowgoroup. They slipped through, into the water, single file.
“It goes outside,” Bria hissed.
“Why leave its encounter vehicle?” Eydis asked. “It should walk slower on three legs, but it would still be quick. And safer.”
>
The encounter vehicle began to tilt back, moving on its own. Bria watched it begin to glow in the infrared. Then it’s diamond-hard hull splintered, and long razor shards bent and pointed away from the vehicle, so that in a few seconds it looked like a silver sea urchin.
Shrapnel, Bria realized. The empty encounter vehicle was preparing shrapnel.
Bria roared. She seized Pala Eydis and roughly folded the soft human before pressing Eydis hard to her armored chest. She turned her back to the entranceway and crouched down into a ball.
Bria’s visor went black, defensive shields dropping over her face. The shockwave hit her before the sound did. It flung her forwards. She slammed down on the ground, landed on her forearms, and slid across the rough floor, the armor on her knees and elbows throwing bright sparks as they scraped over the stone. Her suit whined in a range of tones, screeching a dozen warnings. After a long moment of stunned dullness, her awareness focused, and a sharp pain shot up from behind her left knee.
Bria rolled off of Eydis, releasing the human woman, who coughed at the huge cloud of dust engulfing them. Bria had a camera view of the room now. Debris and pale dirt fell around them. Smoke rolled in great clouds through the stacks of books.
Pain stabbed at Bria’s left leg again. Still laying on her back, she bent forward to examine it. A long needle of shrapnel stuck out of the joint behind her knee. A miraculously unlikely event: the thin scrap of superhard metal had hit the one most vulnerable part of her suit—the bend in the back of the knee joint. It had penetrated through thin armor and then through the suit’s muscle-metal, and into her flesh. She grabbed at the thin shard, extruded the gecko grips from her gloves, and with all her might pulled. She roared, more in anger than in pain, as she tore the shard free. It glistened with dark red blood. She threw it aside, and it rang as it bounced across the stone floor.
Next to Bria, Eydis coughed again loudly. The human had lost her oxygen mask in the tumble. She untangled the gas line, tracing it from her backpack, trying to find the end and the mask so she could put it back on.
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