The Dark Ascent

by Walter H Hunt

  Djiwara's frown deepened. Anger flashed in his eyes.

  "What's more"—Owen said, adjusting himself in his seat; Djiwara's weapon followed the movement—"we wouldn't let it get that far. If we weren't what we seemed."

  Djiwara looked from Owen to Rafe and then back again. Owen never looked away, but tried to feign complete indifference with the weapon pointed directly at him.

  "All right," the merchant said at last. He laid the pistol on the cluttered desk in front of him. "No hard feelings," he added.

  "None at all," Owen answered.

  "Right," Rafe said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Nothing like good old Port Saud hospitality."

  Djiwara glared at him. "I still want to know where Abbas is."

  "I don't know," Owen said. "Honest to God, I'd tell you if I knew—if it were up to me, he'd be sitting in this office right now. But . . ."

  "But he's dead." Djiwara finished the sentence.

  "No, I don't think so. Someone—some thing—has been impersonating him for most of a Standard year, but it's dead now. As for Captain Abbas . . . Look, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

  "Try me."

  "A band of light swept him off the bridge of the Negri when we took it back from the bugs."

  "'Bugs'?"

  "I think you know what I'm talking about."

  "I'm supposed to have some insight into this preposterous story of yours." Djiwara's gaze traveled from Owen to Rafe and to his pistol. "You're right. I don't believe it—except that no one would make up something like that."

  "Look, we need your help," Rafe interrupted. The merchant's gaze slipped back to him. "We need to know what's going on here."

  "Here? On Port Saud? Nothing happens here. But maybe you can tell me what the hell is going on. I hear all kinds of things and most of 'em make no sense. Comm to Cicero is down—I suppose you know? There hasn't been any contact with it for nearly two months. Comm to Adrianople was down for several Standard days; it's working again—but there's something going on there, too.

  "People pass through here and talk about fleet movements out at this end of the Empire. Then you show up and tell me— " Djiwara rested his hand on his pistol again. Rafe shifted in his chair; the merchant slowly and carefully moved his hand away.

  "They're aboard Port Saud Station, aren't they?" Owen said quietly, knowing the answer.

  Djiwara held Owen's gaze for a long time. "Something is aboard. There are people . . . not acting the way they should. People I've known for a long time." He leaned back again in his chair, like the weight of the whole of Port Saud Station was on his shoulders.

  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Owen said again.

  The lighting dimmed for just a moment. All three men looked up; then the lights came back to normal levels.

  "The Solar Empire is at war," Owen said, his attention returning to Djiwara.

  "Bugs," Rafe added. "Shapechangers. They've been replacing people—people you know. People like—"

  "Abbas."

  "Yeah," Owen said. "Like Abbas. He's been gone for several months, at least. The—alien that replaced him took over the Negri Sembilan and has been operating it outside the Empire. Its disappearance was the first indication we got that something was happening."

  "'We'—meaning . . ."

  "The command at Cicero. Cicero belongs to the bugs. I . . . was stationed there." Owen's fists clenched. "Sounds like Port Saud belongs to them, too."

  Djiwara scowled at Owen and Rafe again. "What the hell does this mean? If there are . . . bugs . . . on Port Saud, what do they want?"

  "I have my suspicions," Owen said. "Believe me, this time you don't want to know."

  They made their way back from Djiwara's offices on the main concourse; it seemed less crowded now. Still, there was activity at several docking-bays, and foot traffic alongside them. They had come aboard lightly armed; nothing to attract attention, but no one would go into a free port armed with nothing but a smile.

  "Company," Rafe said, when they were several minutes along. He gestured above and to their left.

  Owen looked briefly where Rafe had pointed. A station crewman in overalls was keeping pace with them on an upper catwalk. Owen concentrated, and after a moment was confident that their shadow was an alien.

  "Fight or flight?" Rafe asked.

  'There's nowhere to run," Owen answered. "Let's see what he does."

  After a few hundred meters they had their answer. The one who was following them came down a ramp to meet two others. Together, the three aliens in human form turned to face Owen and Rafe as if they were waiting for them.

  Owen felt the slightest pressure in his mind. He turned to Rafe, who was shaking his head like flies were buzzing around it.

  "If you're looking for a fight," Owen said, from five meters away, "you'll get one."

  "We have a message for your captain," the middle alien said, crossing his arms. "We don't have time to bother with you . . ." He lowered his voice and added," . . . meat-creature."

  The term the aliens used to refer to humans, chilled Owen but he ignored it. "Fine. Let's hear the message."

  The alien smiled. "Tell your captain that the time has come to switch sides."

  "Why would he want to do that?"

  "Because his faction has already lost. Even her N'nr Deathguard will not protect Great Queen G'en in the end. He must know that."

  "The captain keeps his own counsel," Owen answered, trying to sound like he knew where the hell this was going. "Besides, what purpose would it serve, to switch sides at this point?"

  The three aliens looked at each other, then back at Owen and Rafe.

  "Just deliver the damn message," the leader said.

  "You know," one of the others said, "it only takes one of them to deliver the message."

  Rafe clenched his fists. "There's just one problem. There's only three of you. I don't even need this guy"—he gestured at Owen—"to help me wipe the deck with you."

  The leader didn't say anything, but looked up and to his right. Owen followed the glance to the catwalk; there he saw another tech watching the exchange. Owen's heightened senses, sharpened by his anger, made him certain it was another alien. He looked across the concourse at a group of cargo handlers: One of the group had stopped loading a canister and was watching as well; a few dozen meters farther on, a customs inspector stood, comp in one hand, the other resting on a sidearm. Both of them were aliens.

  "Rafe—" Owen began, but the alien leader interrupted:

  "Such audacity for a meat-creature," he said. "No. As entertaining as the idea might be, we have no instructions to disrupt your captain's mission." He turned to his two companions. "Let him go." He looked straight at Owen. "But you tell him."

  Owen and Rafe walked forward and past the group, headed for the side accessway that led to their berth. All the way back to the Negri Sembilan, Owen felt eyes watching his every step.

  Chapter 4

  THE LEGEND OF QU'U (continued)

  WITH THE VALLEY OF LOST SOULS LEFT BEHING, THE

  HERO MADE HIS WAY UPWARD ON THE PERILOUS

  STAIR. THE STAIR WAS A TRECHEROUS PATH,

  SOMETIMES NO MORE THAN A SET OF HANDHOLDS [The Perilous Stair]

  BARELY WIDE ENOUGH TO ACCOMODATE HIS TALONS;

  ELSEWHERE THERE WERE PLACES HE COULD STAND

  AND EVENN WALK FORWARD AND UPWARD. BENEATH THE

  TALONS OF HIS FEET, HE WAS CHILLED BY THE INDIGO

  ROCK OF THE ICEWALL.

  AFTER QU'U HAD CLIMBED SOME DISTANCE, HE

  PAUSED TO REST. THE WINDS TORE AT HIS WINGS AND

  THREATENED TO PULL HIM AWAY FROM THE STAIR,

  AND THE CHILL OF THE PLAIN OF DESPITE MADE HIS [Winds of Despite]

  BODY SHIVER AND HIS TALONS CLENCH. HIS CHYA

  REMAINED SHEATHED: THERE WERE NO ENEMIES TO

  FIGHT, AND HE NEEDED TALONS ON BOTH HANDS AND

  FEET TO MAINTAIN HIS PURCHASE.

  THOUGH IT PAINED HIM TO DO
SO, QU'U FLEW THE PATH

  OF HIS QUEST: FROM THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF

  THE SERVANT OF QU'U, TO THE JOURNEY WITH HIS

  FRIEND HYOS TO THE FOREST SANCTUARY, TO THE

  ENTRANCE TO THE PLAIN OF DESPITE. AS HE RESTED,

  HE WONDERED IF HE COULD GO ON. [Flying the Path]

  . . . EVEN THROUGH THE ENCCOUNTER WITH ANGA'E'REN,

  HE REMEMBERED HIS ONE TRUE ENEMY: THE SORCERER

  WHOSE FORTRESS LAY FAR ABOVE, HIDDEN IN THE

  SHROUDING FOG.

  BELOW HIM, ON THE PLAIN OF DESPITE, THE WAR

  CONTINUED BETWEEN THE CONTENDING FACTIONS OF THE

  ESGA'UYAL.

  SOMETIMES THE FOG PARTED, ALLOWING HIM TO

  VIEW THE BATTLES: THERE WERE SCENES OF VIOLENCE

  THAT FAR EXCEEDED THE BATTLES BETWEEN E'YEN

  AND THEIR ENEMIES IN U'HERA.

  Years of business partnership with Pyotr Ngo had made Dan McReynolds intimately aware of his friend's moods, particularly the bad ones. Without a word being exchanged, he could read the expression on Pyotr's face as the other man stood at the engineering station.

  I don't want to be here, either, Dan thought. Pyotr could read that response, too, but it didn't change anything.

  Fair Damsel was twenty seconds from jump transition. Their destination was Corcyra System, a wealthy colony-world that was probably only a few years from buying its own Class One status as a full member of the Solar Empire; it made the finest crystal anywhere, the sort that graced wardroom tables of the best-furnished starships in the Imperial Fleet. The emperor drank his best vintages from Corcyran goblets.

  One jump from Adrianople; one jump from Tamarind; one jump from Cicero—Fair Damsel was horribly, dangerously, exposed to an enemy that might take any of those places. Cicero was already theirs, and there might be a battle for Adrianople anytime.

  It made sense to go there: for Pappenheim and Tilly at least, and for the little carrier Bay of Biscay . . . But, for Dan's ship, and fellow merchanters Reese and Oregon, it was the last place they wanted to go. Still, orders were orders.

  Dan glanced at the chrono, which had already counted below ten seconds. Damsel's defensive fields, such as they were, and her meager weaponry, were ready to go online directly after transition.

  He nodded to Ray Li, sitting at the helm. Pyotr continued to scowl at the utterdark in the forward screen, waiting for the silver streams that accompanied transition from jump.

  "All right, everyone," Dan said. "Here we go."

  The pilot's board sprang to life as the darkness faded and stars appeared. Pappenheim appeared first, about two thousand kilometers downrange; it was two minutes ahead of the Fair Damsel.

  "Oh, crap," Ray said. "Jump-echoes. Big ones."

  "What's our status?" Dan asked, watching the other ships register on the board. It showed four enemy IDs, a third of the way around the circumference of the system.

  "Fields up, weapons online. Looks like everyone's here." Ray highlighted the icons for Pappenheim and the other five ships under Maartens' command.

  "What are the bogeys doing?"

  Ray didn't answer right away. As Dan watched, two of the IDs vanished, and in short order the third and fourth ones did as well.

  "They left."

  "They were on their way to transition?"

  "Looks like."

  "Comm the flag. We register four bogeys headed outsystem. What are your orders? Fair Damsel sends."

  The message went out to Pappenheim. Dan drummed his fingers on the arm of the pilot's seat. He was a few years out of starship command, but old habits died hard; he thought about what he'd do if he were sitting in Maartens' chair.

  Jump is a tricky business. It would've been possible for the bad guys to abort their jump if they'd noticed the arrival of the Imperial ships; but if they didn't notice, or didn't care, a jump outsystem would send them to their destination—and it would be a few days, at least, before they, or anyone they'd tell, would return.

  Given the firepower of this little squadron, Dan would want to be far gone by that time. So—whatever they were here to do, they'd better do it damned quickly or plan on getting out now.

  "Scan for hostiles in the system," Dan said.

  "We're not registering anything here—friend or enemy," Ray said. "Nobody here but us."

  "What about system defense?"

  "Nothing." Ray spun in his chair to face Dan. "No defense boats, no traffic control. Nothing on civilian or merchanter frequencies, either."

  That statement echoed for a moment on Fair Damsel's bridge. Corcyra was an industrial world with lots of commercial traffic. A quick comp check showed the population at a bit under two million.

  The comm board signaled. "Incoming from Pappenheim," Pyotr said, looking at the board. "We're ordered to proceed into the inner system."

  Pyotr Ngo's face was pale and drawn as he turned to face Dan, looking away from the display that showed telemetry scans of Corcyra's changing surface. Dan was unaccustomed to seeing his exec so upset; the pilot's board was already indicating that Maartens expected his report.

  "Pyotr?"

  "The world doesn't match the Grand Survey data at all, Dan. I mean, we're not equipped like an Imperial starship, but it's pretty damn clear that something . . . extraordinary has happened down there."

  "I'll ask you what Captain Maartens is going to ask me: What do you mean, 'extraordinary'?"

  "I mean that there's considerable atmospheric activity—the sort you'd associate with explosions or firestorms. All comm frequencies are jammed. But that's small-scale compared to the map data. It's almost as if the continents have changed."

  Dan looked at the board. "Corcyra Four does have a high degree of vulcanism, so there are earthquakes and volcanoes. Could there have been some sort of . . . I don't know . . . tectonic event?"

  "Not in this timescale. The Imperial Grand Survey mapped Corcyra most recently twenty years ago. Tectonic plates don't shift more than a few centimeters in twenty years even on a world as unstable as this one. What's more, there were almost two million people living on this world. Surely they'd have noticed if their continents were moving at high speeds . . ."

  "Is there any sign of them?"

  "Any sign of the people?" Pyotr looked down at the deck. "Nothing. It's as if they were never there."

  "That's impossible. There must be something, some evidence—"

  "Here." Pyotr pointed to the displays as Dan leaned over his station. "Look for yourself."

  Ten minutes later, when Dan made his report to Maartens, he had to admit the same.

  "Nothing. Look at the scans, Captain: It's a wasteland down there."

  "I spent some time in Exploratory, McReynolds, did I ever tell you that?" A vague outline of Pappenheim's ready-room showed near Maartens' holo, sitting in an empty area of Fair Damsel's bridge. Maartens sat leaning back, his face fairly impassive. "Five or six years ago I did a tour outside the Empire with the Grand Survey. Corcyra was an analysis site for Survey data; I must have visited here at least ten times.

  "There were labs, factories, homes, restaurants, bars . . . This was a living world, McReynolds. I remember it. A hundred years ago, people with our jobs saw what happened when the zor attacked human worlds: they burned, they bombed, they killed people. But they left something behind: foundations of buildings, ruined highways, corpses . . .

  "They left evidence, McReynolds. But this isn't anything like what the zor did. We probably watched the bastards jumping out of here.

  "Let's set aside the question of how, since it'll take intel and tech analysis to determine the answer. What about why?"

  "You want my opinion." Dan McReynolds didn't move, holding his commander's eye. But inside, he felt himself squirming, trying to decide what the older man was getting at.

  "Sure," Maartens answered. "Favor me with your opinion."

  "Well . . . First, by obliterating every visible trace of what caused this destruction, and returning the world to
something like its natural state, they've made it more difficult for us to fight back."

  "Makes sense." Maartens noted something on a comp in front of him. "What else?"

  "The zor were more interested in human deaths than in destroying equipment; they went after civilian targets whenever they had the chance. During the wars we even scavenged from places like Alya and Pergamum. There's nothing here left behind to scavenge. But I don't really think that's the reason this was done, sir."

  "All right, McReynolds. Why was this done?"

  Dan folded his hands in his lap and took a deep breath. "They mean to scare us, Captain. They want us to know that they can do this."

  "But what—?"

  "Think of it, sir." Dan let his gaze fall to the physical map of the world, rotating slowly on the pilot's board in front of him. It showed no cities, no roads, no structures of any kind. "That's Corcyra down there, but it could be New Chicago, or Mothaliah, or Shipley, or Dieron. Or Terra.

  "The enemy wants us to know they can destroy us, completely and utterly—as if we had never been. That's the sort of fear they want us to carry around."

  The shuttle began to settle slowly toward the tarmac. The ocean stretched, blue and pristine, occasionally dotted with whitecaps, for as far as he could see beyond the rim of Molokai. Off to his left he could just make out the long stretch of Shipwreck Beach on Lanai; while through the window he could pick out the hundred-story arcologies—self-contained cities of a hundred thousand or more—along Hanauma Bay on Oahu. Beyond Hanauma was Diamond Head, the dormant volcanic crater that formed the Imperial Palace enclosure.

  Randall Boyd hadn't made many visits to the Imperial presence and hadn't been here since the message from High Lord Ke'erl HeYen revealing the dark path to the Solar Emperor. This time, he was sure, his summons to the emperor's presence was likely due to the performance of the High Lord on broadcast 3-V. The Imperial ambassador on Zor'a had been called in and given a briefing on the High Lord's medical condition but the High Chamberlain, who had given the briefing, had been carefully and deliberately vague about the actual pronouncements.