The Ashes of Worlds

by Kevin J. Anderson

  After what was happening on the Moon, Jora’h doubted the Hansa Chairman would be particularly interested in consolidating Roamer skymines. Nevertheless, he needed to vacate the solar system before the faeros spotted their single remaining warliner. “Very well. We will go to Golgen.”

  101

  Anton Colicos

  For weeks Anton had tried to keep Rememberer Vao’sh occupied at the university, first out of courtesy and friendship, then out of desperation. Once the Mage-Imperator had been taken back to his prison in the lunar EDF base, the comforting thism that had protected the old historian had stretched thinner and thinner.

  But Chairman Wenceslas insisted that Vao’sh stay so that he could continue disseminating information about Ildira to other scholars. The dean of the Department of Ildiran Studies sent repeated glowing reports back to Hansa HQ, but Anton doubted the Chairman agreed with the academic priorities. For that, he was glad.

  On the faculty, Anton had garnered a great deal of clout and prestige by arranging for the Ildiran historian to give lectures. Vao’sh entertained audiences of students for hours with dramatic presentations from the Saga of Seven Suns. Though the students and professors had studied the alien race and culture, they had never seen an actual rememberer perform before.

  At first, the old historian had seemed pleased to have such enthusiastic audiences, but no matter how well the academic elite treated him, Vao’sh never forgot why and how he was here. And neither did Anton. Anger and resentment always remained in the background of his thoughts. There were no justifications for the Chairman’s behavior, but no one would listen to the outrage of a mere scholar or an alien storyteller.

  Over the past several days, the old rememberer had begun to weaken visibly. Seeing his friend’s anxiety and nervousness, Anton did his best to support him, just as when the two of them were drifting alone in space following their escape from the Klikiss robots on Maratha. Even with his newfound strength and certitude, having survived the isolation madness once already, Vao’sh found it difficult to grasp the tenuous strands of thism when his people were so far away. The Moon was not so close after all. . . .

  Maintaining appearances as best they could, they departed from a lecture hall that had been filled to capacity with fascinated listeners. Anton and the rememberer had stayed for an appropriate amount of time to greet friends and colleagues. Vao’sh was such a consummate performer that few others would have noticed his uneasiness, but Anton was attuned to how much his friend was hurting. He was amazed by Vao’sh’s strength and adored his determination. He was sure no normal Ildiran could have survived.

  Outside the lecture hall they found the students and teachers abuzz, shocked by something that was occurring in the news. Emergency announcements blared from a current-events transmission screen mounted on the wall of a student lounge. Anton had seen plenty of emergencies lately, but this one must be different from the usual Hansa propaganda, judging by the reaction of the university audience.

  Vao’sh stared at a sequence of long-distance images that showed a group of Ildiran warliners fleeing from the lunar base. He quickly understood what was going on. “The Solar Navy is rescuing the Mage-Imperator, and I am here.” He turned meaningfully toward Anton. “And I am here.”

  Anton caught his breath. “They’ll come back for you. They have to. You’re an important rememberer.”

  “I am expendable. They have come only for the Mage-Imperator.”

  “The Ildirans are attacking our Moon!” cried a blustery professor. “Do they think they can get away with that? How dare they!”

  Anton snapped at him, “We kidnapped their leader and held him hostage. How did you expect the Solar Navy to respond?”

  One young female student shook her head sadly. “They shouldn’t have resorted to war. We never need to resort to war. Diplomacy could have solved the problem.”

  Next, the situation became worse, much worse, as the faeros attacked, then destroyed the Moon itself.

  The crowd fell speechless, quickly forgetting their indignation toward the Solar Navy. Several of them dropped into chairs, unable to stand. Vao’sh stared at the screen, all color draining from his facial lobes. Images from Conrad Brindle’s battle group showed the fragmented, glowing-hot rubble of the Moon driven in all directions by the liberated energy. The EDF ships had to retreat swiftly with shields on full power as they were pummeled by flying debris.

  The old rememberer looked at the black emptiness of stars into which the Solar Navy warliners had disappeared. Anton turned to his friend with tears in his eyes. The others certainly misinterpreted the reason for his weeping.

  In a devastatingly flat tone, Vao’sh said, “I am the only Ildiran in the entire solar system.”

  102

  Nikko Chan Tylar

  Nikko Chan Tylar was pleased to be flying the Aquarius again on a mission as one of Jess Tamblyn’s water bearers, and this time his father accompanied him. Crim was glad to be safely away from Llaro, both from the Eddies and from the bugs. He didn’t seem too sure, however, about taking instructions from his son. “At least let me help with the navigation, Nikko. Admit it; that was never your strong point.”

  Nikko blushed. “Okay, I admit it.”

  “And we can’t afford any lost time. In fact, I’ll even pilot the ship if you want. Go take a nap or do some homework.”

  “I completed my schooling five years ago.”

  “Nobody ever completes schooling. You can always keep learning.”

  “You never wanted to pilot a ship before. Come to think of it, when you worked in our greenhouse domes, I don’t think you liked it there either.”

  Crim let out a long sigh. “At least in the greenhouses I was with your mother.” Both of them fell silent for a moment, remembering how Marla Chan Tylar had been killed by the Klikiss. “I guess I have a pretty dim Guiding Star. For the time being I’m satisfied to be working with you.”

  “I’m glad we got that resolved, then.”

  And they were off to Jonah 12, where Jess and Cesca had planted a seedpool of wentals some months earlier. “Did I ever tell you what happened the time I came to supply the Roamer base, but found all the Klikiss robots already there? I rescued Speaker Peroni — ”

  “You’ve told everyone that story more than once,” Crim said, but not in a surly voice. “It seems to grow more dramatic each time.”

  “I couldn’t make this stuff up.”

  “Well, you handled yourself well; that’s all I’ve got to say.”

  Nikko was happy to accept the compliment.

  The ship finally arrived at the frozen planetoid, its cargo bay ready to be filled with a swell of fresh wentals. A few old Roamer control satellites and orbital-processing stations remained high overhead; the radio bands were silent except for the background hiss of static. Nikko felt a lump in his throat, remembering the terrors he had endured in this place. As he flew the ship down toward the planetoid, his father stared out the windowports, awestruck at the size of the ice crater left by the reactor explosion.

  “Look!” Crim said. “I see lights down there.”

  “Must be reflections from stars. Nobody’s left on Jonah 12.”

  His father scowled at him. “I know what a reflection looks like. That’s intrinsic phosphorescence. Something luminous is locked in the ice.”

  Nikko studied his readings, saw energy blips. “Then it’s probably the wentals waiting for us.” During the descent, he spotted more than just the refrozen ice of the crater or the shimmer of energy. He saw some makeshift structures — a little hut connected to an escape pod.

  Frowning, he fiddled with the communications system, turned up the pickup strength, and searched standard Roamer emergency bands. Finally, he picked up a faint oscillating pulse. “Someone’s crashed down there, Dad!”

  Crim had already reached the same conclusion. “So land the ship already.”

  Once on the surface, Nikko made out a very cleverly constructed shelter that appeared to be
made from the remnants of a large satellite appended to a Roamer escape pod. He detected energy sources and strong thermal readings emanating from inside the shelter. “Chances are, whoever crashed is still alive.”

  Crim was already suiting up, and as soon as locking bolts secured the Aquarius to the ice, Nikko scrambled out to join his father. “An escape pod contains supplies only for a week or so, right?”

  “Depends on how many people are inside,” Crim transmitted over the helmet radio as the two emerged from the airlock. “I’d be very disappointed if our survivor died yesterday because we didn’t show up soon enough.”

  They hurried across the ice. Nikko saw splashes of glowing light beneath his feet as if each footstep ignited some kind of luminescence. He stopped in front of the pod and studied the satellite fuselage attached to its side. “Do we knock?”

  The dwelling was cobbled together without neat corners and angles; flat pieces were stuck everywhere, even if they didn’t fit — no aesthetic accomplishment, but it seemed functional. Nikko couldn’t believe that such a hodgepodge could be airtight and structurally sound, but a cocoon of flowing ice had covered the joints and sealed them. Obviously, the wentals had armored and insulated this place. Maybe they had even supplied additional energy to keep the person or people alive.

  Crim transmitted, “Hello, escape pod. Anybody in need of a rescue in there?” He pounded on the hatch with his gloved fist.

  The pod’s access door was so small that only one of them could cycle through at a time. With a knot in his stomach, hoping he wouldn’t find one or more bodies inside, Nikko went first.

  Inside stood a shaggy old man with beard stubble, unkempt hair, and rumpled clothes. He had a huge grin on his face. “Well, it’s about damn time. I could use some company besides those flashing lights.”

  Nikko recognized him. “Caleb Tamblyn?” As soon as he popped open his faceplate and took a breath, the stench made him wrinkle his nose: body odor, stale air, improperly recycled wastes. He doubted old Caleb could even notice the smell anymore (not that the man had ever smelled as fresh as a rose). The escape pod’s life-support systems must have been on their last gasp. He stepped away from the hatch so that his father could cycle through. When Crim Tylar entered behind his son, the escape pod became extremely crowded.

  “How long have you been here?” Nikko asked.

  “About three weeks, as far as I can tell. Maybe four.”

  “Impossible,” Crim said. “Your supplies couldn’t last that long.”

  Caleb snorted. “Any Roamer worth his salt can figure out solutions . . . and, well, I had a little help from the wentals. They provided enough energy to get by on less food. I’m awfully damn hungry, though. You have mealpax aboard your ship?”

  “Plenty of them,” Nikko said.

  Once aboard the Aquarius, Caleb wolfed down self-heating rations. He explained how the faeros had destroyed his water tanker and Denn Peroni had been obliterated. “I didn’t think anyone would be looking for us, but I wasn’t about to give up.” Caleb shrugged his bony shoulders. “Those faeros really piss me off. We didn’t do anything to deserve this. Poor Denn . . .”

  He looked around for a bunk so he could take a nap, but Crim told him in no uncertain terms that it would be a wise idea for him to use the ship’s sanitary facilities to clean himself up first.

  “We can take you directly to Plumas,” Nikko suggested. “I assume you want to go back to the water mines?”

  “Wynn and Torin are probably overloaded with work and mad at me for leaving them, but I’ve had a long time to sit there and think about my Guiding Star.” Caleb leaned back in a hard passenger chair. “This war seems a lot more important than the family water business. If you’re gearing up to fight those faeros, I’d like to see this through to the end.”

  103

  Del Kellum

  On the Golgen skymine, Del Kellum was happy to receive Kotto Okiah and his entourage. Whatever the engineer came up with would certainly be interesting. Kotto came to the Osquivel shipyards in a midsized Roamer transport that seemed a little too large, given his limited piloting abilities. When Kellum learned that Tasia Tamblyn was in the cockpit, however, he granted permission for the craft to land on a small mid-level landing deck. He took a lift down from the ops center, pulled on a jacket against the cool breezes, and went out to meet them.

  As expected, the inventor had brought a shipful of gadgetry with him. “You never know what might come in handy,” he said, as he walked down the exit ramp while Tamblyn finished shutting down the systems in the cockpit. He looked over his shoulder, back toward the ship. “I’ve brought some friends along. I find them very helpful in my work . . . at least nondistracting. They’ve never been aboard a skymine before.”

  Three compies descended the ramp after him; each had a different body coloration, two of them Technical models, the last a Friendly. Kotto flushed. “Well, those aren’t friends, they’re compies . . . although at times I think of them as friends.” Finally, a teenaged girl and an older man came down the ramp. “I was talking about these two — Orli Covitz and Hud Steinman.”

  Steinman seemed a bit seasick; Orli, though, stared around her at the huge open skies of Golgen, the high clouds, and the bright sunlight, and she smiled in delight. Tasia Tamblyn emerged from the piloting deck, wiping her forehead and shading her eyes from the sun.

  “I’ll find quarters for you all. Plenty of extra room.” Kellum gestured toward the other three. “Have a look at whatever you like — just don’t break anything. Tamblyn, you know your way around a skymine. Give them a tour.”

  Tasia took her two companions off across the deck. “Look at what Kotto’s brought,” she called back at Kellum. “It’s a military necessity. Jess put him up to it.”

  Kellum turned to the inventor. “Now what have you concocted? I’m sure it’s intriguing.”

  “Oh, definitely.” He jumped right into his excited spiel as they tromped up the ramp. “New defenses — a genuinely novel concept. We’re dispersing them throughout the Confederation . . . although I don’t have a clue why the faeros would attack you out here. They’ve never shown any interest in gas giant planets. Jess Tamblyn and Speaker Peroni told me to make sure the Confederation is ready, though.”

  Kellum paused in his step, startled. “Faeros? Here? By damn, what are you talking about?”

  “They challenged me to develop new weapons to use against the fireballs, and they gave me some wental water to work with. Incredible stuff. Lots of potential.”

  When the two men entered the large cargo bay, Kotto increased the illumination. Bright light shone down on the gleaming hydrogue derelict that sat next to what looked like some kind of satellite transmitter dish.

  “Why did you bring that damned drogue sphere?” Kellum demanded. Intellectually, he knew the hydrogues were defeated, and he hoped never to see them again, but the reminder was quite unsettling.

  Kotto glanced at it. “Oh . . . never mind, that has nothing to do with the wental weapons. And this other device is a prototype to be used against the Klikiss. I was expecting to test it soon — which is the main reason why Tasia Tamblyn came along, as a matter of fact.” He seemed to realize he had gone off on a tangent and brought himself back to the point. “First, though, I’ve got to deliver and install the new wental weapons.”

  Kellum shook his head. “So you brought everything along with you, just in case?”

  “One never knows when some component or other might be useful. The Klikiss Siren needs a bit of tuning up when I get the time, and I might find another way to test the derelict. My investigations are never finished.”

  “So what’s this amazing new weapon?”

  Like an excited boy, Kotto went to a large cubical bin, punched in an access code, and slid open the top. The container’s interior was frosty, shimmering with a bluish chemical light that emitted no heat whatsoever. Faint wisps of steam wafted upward like the breath of an ice ogre. Kellum peered inside to see dozens of c
ylindrical objects with pointed ends, like artillery shells as long as his forearm and a hand-span wide.

  “That’s frozen wental water,” Kotto said. “Projectiles. I fashioned them with the help of the wentals, of course — I couldn’t do anything without their cooperation. They’re the right caliber to fit into the standard projectile cannons that the shipyards installed as defenses in most Confederation vessels.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Kotto grinned. “Frozen wentals, explosive bullets to shoot at the faeros. I don’t really know what’ll happen, but I assume that if a fireball gets shot with that kind of shell, the effects would be . . . extreme. Frankly, I’m not anxious for a chance to test it out, since that would mean finding some faeros. But better to be prepared for anything, don’t you think?”

  Kellum couldn’t disagree.

  “Fashioning them was quite interesting — I simply made some calculations and communicated to the wentals what I wanted them to do. Then they shaped themselves, cooled down into solid ice, and — voilà! — perfect artillery shells. I wish everything was that easy.”

  As the two men emerged from the ship’s hold, Kellum looked up into the yellowish skies. He was startled when proximity alarms howled throughout the skymine complex. “Now what?”

  Over the intercom, voices bellowed for all skyminers to man their stations, telling any armed craft to launch immediately. “More than eight hundred large ships inbound! No, make that a thousand!”

  Tasia Tamblyn came sprinting back, her face flushed. “Kellum, do you have a green priest on the skymine? I can send a message to Osquivel — call for Confederation reinforcements.”

  Frantic Roamer ships were launching from the lower decks, and the sky was filled with a chaos of unfiled flight plans. More craft streaked away from nearby skymines. Kellum sprinted to an intercom and demanded a report, though his people had little more information to give him. “Even I didn’t think the Eddies would come back with cojones that big. We are in deep poop.”