58
Caleb Tamblyn
Caleb had never much liked people, but this maddening solitude was getting on his nerves. Lost on a barren planetoid, he felt like Robinson Crusoe. From what he remembered of that old tale, Crusoe had been ingenious at using scant materials to make a functional home for himself.
Caleb figured he could achieve a lot more than that. After all, he was a Roamer.
Having scavenged the few marginally useful items at the melted ruins of the hydrogen-extraction facility, he used them to reinforce his modest habitat. After that, he resigned himself to utilizing the slim pickings in his escape pod. The only other technological items on Jonah 12 were orbiting ekti reactors, automated cargo-transfer satellites, and communications boosters, but they circled high above the frozen planetoid.
Eventually, with all the time in the world to think, Caleb convinced himself that those items might not be out of reach after all.
Though the pod’s transmitter wouldn’t reach beyond the Jonah system, he could use it to send coded commands to the mothballed equipment in orbit. It might take a while to decipher the protocols and Roamer programming, but it wasn’t as if Caleb had anything else to do. Tinkering with the emergency transmitter, he scanned through hundreds of possible frequencies and tried different electronic handshake routines as he attempted to wake up at least one of the satellites. Though he was wasting battery power, he considered the gamble worthwhile, given the potential payoff.
Finally, his constant pleading ping was answered when a production satellite recognized the signal. Caleb lurched over to the slanted control panel and keyed in the secondary protocol, which locked the two signals together. “Gotcha!”
The production satellite dutifully transmitted its schematics so that Caleb could see what he had latched onto. It was little more than a box with attitude-control thrusters, a storage unit holding supplies for passing cargo ships so they would not need to drop into Jonah 12’s shallow gravity well.
Now, if he could remember his basic celestial mechanics.
Since Jonah 12 had no atmosphere to speak of, he couldn’t use drag to slow down the satellite; that meant he would have to bring it down under its own power. At least he had a good estimate of the planetoid’s gravity, and that was the main thing he needed.
Under his command, the satellite’s rockets fired, decreasing its orbital velocity and forcing it to spiral down. It was easy to make the satellite crash; the tricky part was making it crash nearby. Even bounding along in the low gravity, he wouldn’t be able to cover much distance in an environment suit.
Four more orbits, and the satellite had spiraled down until it raced only a thousand feet above the surface. Caleb suited up, carefully checking his seals, locking his helmet down, closing the faceplate, and pressurizing his suit. One more orbit, he guessed, and the satellite was going to come down.
He stood outside, watching for the tiny glimmer to pass overhead as he stared up at the stars. They all looked like lonely, cold eyes.
The satellite came over the foreshortened horizon and roared past him, so close and so fast that he jumped — accidentally propelling himself ten meters off the ground. At the apex of his leap, he watched the production satellite keep going on its final plunge until it scraped along a line of frozen hills no more than a kilometer away. A starburst pattern of fresh ice and steam marked the bull’s-eye where the satellite had come in for a hard landing.
Caleb bounded across the ice, each leap seemingly carrying him halfway to the small planetoid’s horizon. When he reached the crash point, he saw that the satellite’s metal walls had buckled, but at least the contents weren’t strewn across the cratered terrain. With clumsy gloved hands he pried apart the broken pieces of metal, eager to see what equipment and supplies were inside. Again, he felt like Robinson Crusoe finding a cargo crate washed up on his shores.
The Roamer engineers had thought of everything: spare energy packs, generalized components that could be assembled into any number of useful gadgets, a standard emergency kit with basic medicines, even concentrated rations (though Caleb couldn’t imagine why anyone would really need such a thing out in orbit).
As he looked at the remnants of the large satellite, Caleb thought he might be able to cannibalize some of the structure itself, put a nice addition on his cramped escape pod. If he was going to be stranded here for the rest of his life — however long that might be — he could at least be comfortable.
Knowing he would have to make several trips, Caleb gathered the most vital objects, made one of the flat solar-panel wings into a sled, then happily began his jaunt back to the pod. He climbed up over the low, frozen hills, raced down into the valleys, and skipped around wide, black fissures.
As he approached his small camp, Caleb was startled to see a glow permeating the ice, shimmering as if from an inner fire. The eerie luminescence spread out to the width of a broad lake near his landed escape pod.
He stopped in his tracks, feeling a chill go down his spine. Still moving under its own momentum, the loaded solar-panel sled bumped into his heels, startling him. Something very strange was going on here. . . .
But he couldn’t stay outside to wait and watch; his suit’s battery pack and air tank were already down to twenty-five percent. Gathering his courage, Caleb headed toward the strange glow that surrounded his pod.
59
Anton Colicos
While the Mage-Imperator remained a “special guest” in the Whisper Palace until Chairman Wenceslas figured out what to do with him, Anton was under orders to take Rememberer Vao’sh to the university. He had no idea what sort of interrogation or debriefing the other professors would inflict upon him, but he supposed Vao’sh could hold his own.
Anton had spent most of his scholarly career here, and this should have been a happy return for him . . . but it didn’t feel that way. “I’ve wanted to show you this place for a long time, Vao’sh. I’m afraid the Hansa’s actions have dampened my enthusiasm for all the things I used to be proud of.”
The old rememberer, though, was surprisingly accepting of the circumstances. “Even in troubled times, a rememberer should always observe and absorb. I intend to learn as much about your human culture as your experts intend to learn from me.”
Anton looked closely at his friend, trying to read his moods from the colors of his expressive lobes. “How are you holding up so far away from the rest of your people?”
“I can bear it, for now. The Mage-Imperator is close, and I know where the rest of my people are. I do not feel entirely alone.” With forced good cheer, the rememberer took Anton’s arm as they walked together onto the campus grounds. “After my previous ordeal with the isolation madness, perhaps I have a greater tolerance than other Ildirans.”
The expansive parklike campus was crowded with earnest young students who were not yet scarred by the cynicism of real life. As a researcher here, Anton had been oblivious to the treacheries and convolutions of faculty politics, which were a far cry from mythic story arcs and great epic cycles. His goals had seemed lofty to him at the time: striving for tenure, submitting a unique interpretation or a new translation, engaging rival professors in vehement but irrelevant academic debates. Since then, he had experienced so much more — from the Ildiran Empire, to treacherous black robots, the hydrogues, the worldforest . . . and now, betrayal by his own government. Yes, university politics seemed laughably insignificant by comparison.
As the two walked across the campus, Anton tried to ignore the veritable army of security guards that accompanied them at a not-terribly-discreet distance. He stopped by a mirrored fountain whose design had been copied from a counterpart in Mijistra. “This section of the campus is the Department of Ildiran Studies. This is where we’ll be spending most of our time.”
Before Anton’s departure years ago, the dean had promised that as long as he was on his remarkable mission to Ildira, Anton would be considered a great asset to the department, a feather in the university’s cap.
Now, when he led Vao’sh into the old college administration building, he didn’t realize what a stir he would cause. Hansa guards rushed ahead to sweep the building, to inform the administrators and their staff. Anton was embarrassed by all the attention.
The dean bustled out to greet them, speaking with a German accent. “I am so pleased you have finally returned to us, Dr. Colicos.” He held out a big hand. “And Rememberer Vao’sh, we have heard much about you.” The dean, an older man whose thick red hair was obviously dyed, had somewhat heavyset cheeks and lips too large for his face. He was said to have an acid wit, especially at cocktail parties after a glass or two of wine, though Anton had never been invited to such a prestigious department function.
Looking askance at the Hansa guards who stood by the doorway, the dean shook Anton’s hand, then did the same to Vao’sh. “We were absolutely delighted to receive your first translations of the Saga, Dr. Colicos. They were delivered here — smuggled, actually. We’re greatly indebted to the trader captain, whoever she was.”
“I could tell you her name, but I’m afraid the Hansa might punish her.”
“Pffft! They are perfectly happy with our Ildiran studies. In fact, I’ve assigned four full professors to study your translations. You have given us fodder for years of work.”
“That epic took my people millennia to compose,” Vao’sh pointed out.
“Of course. Of course,” the dean said, grinning. “These translations are worth more than a hundred dissertations. Come, we’ve restored your office exactly as you remember it.”
Restored it? So the dean had reassigned his office in the meantime, but must have scrambled to put everything back in order as soon as the Chairman’s instructions had come down.
“We found your notes for the biography of your parents. Fascinating people.” The dean stumped down the hall on short legs. “I glanced at a few of your drafts. I hope you don’t mind.” Actually, Anton did mind, but he decided not to make an issue of it. “For the time being, however, your Ildiran work must take priority.”
Hansa guards waited at the far end of the hallway, still cautious, still watching. The dean looked uncomfortable. “And I understand Rememberer Vao’sh will be helping us with a research project for the Chairman?”
Let our scholars debrief him thoroughly, Basil Wenceslas had said. Anton wasn’t surprised at how the dean had interpreted it.
“I am willing to tell parts of the Saga,” Vao’sh said. “That is my purpose as a rememberer.”
“So, you will deliver guest lectures? We can host an entire series of talks, as many as the rememberer chooses to give. Would they be private affairs, or open to the entire student body?”
Anton tried to hide his surprise. “Oh, we’d like to make them as public as possible.”
60
Hyrillka Designate Ridek’h
He found Tal O’nh sitting outside the caves again, staring with impunity into the multiple suns. After returning from the obliterated camp of Hyrillka refugees — the people he was supposed to protect — the young man no longer felt like a mere substitute for his father, whom Rusa’h had killed. Now he finally, wholeheartedly thought of himself as the true Hyrillka Designate.
Ridek’h joined his mentor. “I should not be hiding here in these caves.”
“No, you should not. None of us should . . . but do we flee? Do we provoke the faeros? Do we engage in a direct battle — and all die? We will get no guidance from the Mage-Imperator, as long as he remains imprisoned by the humans, and we have no way of rescuing him. And what can we do ourselves?”
“Indeed,” Ridek’h said. “What can we do ourselves?” He voiced it as a challenge rather than an admission of failure.
After the Mage-Imperator had been returned to the thism web, his presence had shone like a reignited blazer. Across the Empire all of the panicked and dismayed Ildirans would have felt at least a glimmer of reassurance. In response, Tal Ala’nh, who commanded one of the remaining cohorts of free Solar Navy ships, had gathered his dispersed warliners and charged back to Ildira. Seven complete maniples, 343 battleships, all ready to throw themselves at the fireballs.
Adar Zan’nh had stopped them, refusing to let so many warliners be destroyed in a pointless sacrifice. And so a frustrated Tal Ala’nh waited at a distance, in nominal command of the gathering off-planet military force, with orders to remain intact, ready, and unobtrusive.
After what he had seen in the burned refugee camp, Ridek’h’s attention was focused on the remaining Hyrillkans on Ildira. More than a million of the people evacuated from his world were still scattered across the Ildiran landscape. The faeros could exterminate them at any time they chose, whenever the mad Designate let them. Ridek’h could barely contain himself, quivering with the need to act.
“I should challenge him. I am the rightful Hyrillka Designate. I have faced Rusa’h before, and he didn’t kill me.”
“Some would call that a miracle,” O’nh said, his scarred face troubled by memories of that awful encounter. “What would it accomplish to tempt fate again?”
“I will sacrifice myself if I must.”
“I would prefer you did not, young man. I can see no way it would be helpful.”
Ridek’h tried to make his decision sound less impulsive than it was. “In the command nucleus of your warliner, Rusa’h said we would face each other again. I want to do it now, on my own terms. I will make the long journey back to Mijistra alone, enter the Prism Palace, and confront him. If Rusa’h was going to kill me, he would have done it already.”
“And what can you say to him?”
“I will make him realize what he is doing to his own people! If he is still Rusa’h, at least in part, then he must see the horror of what he has let loose. Who is truly in control — him, or the faeros? Maybe an Ildiran heart still beats within him.”
O’nh let out a sigh, though he clearly longed to do something himself. “You are being foolish. I forbid it.”
The young man raised his voice. “I am the Designate. You follow my commands, not the other way around. Need I remind you of your own teachings? Followers follow, but leaders must lead. I have the blood of the Mage-Imperator in me. You told me that if I could think of something that might save us, then I am morally obligated to do it.”
The veteran allowed a small smile to cross his face. “So, you were listening to me after all.”
“Yes, to every word. There I will stand, Hyrillka Designate to Hyrillka Designate. This is a time for desperate acts. The Mage-Imperator is no longer with us, and so we must make these decisions for ourselves.” He found himself breathing heavily.
Tal O’nh remained seated, still staring at the suns. “Desperate acts. Perhaps we should all consider them. I see no other way to save the Empire.”
61
Mage-Imperator Jora’h
Now that the Chairman had become busy with his new cooperative scheme with the black robots, his interest in the Mage-Imperator waned. Young King Rory and the Archfather of Unison had announced the retooling of existing groundside compy factories while the black robots diligently repaired and reassembled EDF vessels in orbit.
Though Jora’h was no expert in the nuances of human emotions, even he could see that the Archfather looked nauseated by the words he was forced to speak. The bearded Unison spokesman seemed offended by the very idea of suggesting, on religious grounds, that the black robots were tantamount to saviors.
If only the Archfather had been so obviously offended by the idea of kidnapping the leader of the Ildiran Empire. . . .
Frustrated, and dismissive, now that the Mage-Imperator had failed to yield, the Hansa Chairman abruptly removed Jora’h and Nira from their quarters in the Whisper Palace and sent them back to the Moon, accompanied by Captain McCammon and a group of royal guards. Holding their heads high, Jora’h and the green priest boarded the shuttle and prepared to depart. No newsnet imagers were allowed to attend the event.
Though he would be closer to his fell
ow hostages, being returned to the lunar base brought Jora’h neither joy nor satisfaction. He needed to be back on Ildira. He needed to be fighting the faeros.
As the EDF transport ship made the passage to the Moon, Jora’h sat quietly with Nira on the cold metal seats. She clutched his hand, and he loved her nearness; yet he needed more than that.
Captain McCammon watched them, saying nothing. The guard captain was hard to read, possibly sympathetic, definitely reticent.
After the shuttle docked inside one of the enclosed lunar craters, Jora’h took Nira by the arm and emerged from the shuttle into the dusty landing zone, looking cool and imperial. McCammon and his royal guards followed closely.
The Ildiran guard kithmen, stripped of their weapons, stood against the back wall to watch the Mage-Imperator’s arrival. The bestial-looking guard kithmen swelled their armored chests, simmering with the desire to do something. Many prisoners from the captured warliner had been allowed into the chamber to witness the reception. Jora’h guessed that his people had been unruly and agitated in his absence. He did not try to hide his grim smile.
An EDF squad led by Commandant Tilton stepped forward to receive them formally. “I didn’t expect to say this, but I am glad to have you back here, Mage-Imperator. I hope that now I can expect a return to order on my base.” He had never wanted to host these hostages in the first place.
Jora’h faced the embarrassed-looking lunar commandant. “The Chairman has sent us to rot here while my planet burns and my people die by the thousands each day.”
Though they were heavily outnumbered, the growling Ildiran guards flexed their enlarged muscles and claws. If Yazra’h had been here, she would have thrown herself upon the enemy without a second thought.
Commandant Tilton paled, and his men seemed uneasy, holding their weapons ready. Another squad of EDF soldiers marched into the landing bay, guarding the doors, as if to remind the Mage-Imperator that it would be foolish to try anything.
The Ashes of Worlds Page 20
