Of Fire and Night

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Save her, Jess silently begged the wentals. Save her!

  Suddenly, she burst to the surface again, rising with a misty splash that clung to her like a halo. Her clothes and her skin were drenched, and now her eyes were bright. The bloodstains were gone. Her wet dark brown hair seemed to be alive. She rose, standing on nothing.

  “You’re alive again,” Jess said, his voice the breath of a whisper.

  When she stepped onto the shore, Cesca’s face was filled with an illuminating essence. “Not just alive.” Her voice was louder, clearer. “I feel more alive than I have ever been.”

  Jess came forward, scanning her face, afraid that he might discover the boiling destructive power of a tainted wental, as he had witnessed in the memory images. But he saw only Cesca—only her smile, and her freedom from pain. She was healed.

  He raised his hands, looked out at the living ocean of Charybdis, and shouted, “Thank you!” He gave a jubilant laugh. “Thank you!”

  Inside both of their heads now, the wentals said, We must always be cautious.

  “Yes. We will. But she’s alive, and you took that risk for me. Thank you for saving her life as well as mine.”

  Nikko had backed away to the repaired Aquarius, watching the two of them, his expression full of awe mixed with hesitancy. Jess and Cesca contained so much energy that the young pilot probably feared they would achieve some sort of critical mass when they were together.

  With an excitement he could not contain, Jess wrapped Cesca in his arms, touching her for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Jess could not measure how long he had wanted this, how much he had missed her. He stroked her hair. “See? There’s nothing to worry about.”

  The energy within her is unspoiled. Our actions have not created a tainted wental. She is part of us, but she is also changed forever.

  Jess held her shoulders, looked into her eyes. Long ago, when they were merely a man and a woman, their bond had been powerful. Now that both of them were more than human, their love was transformed and infinitely different, stronger than ever.

  Even the shadow of reality could not dampen his joy. He reiterated what she already knew. “From now on, Cesca, your touch will kill. We’re isolated.”

  She touched his cheek. “We’re not completely isolated, Jess. We’re together. Right now that seems like more than I could ever have hoped for.”

  Jess looked at her soberly. “Whether we want it or not, we’re in the same war, and the battles can be large or small. You and I have an unshakable purpose.”

  “I am still the Speaker for the Roamer clans. I have to bring them all together. But I’ll also stand with you, and the wentals, against the hydrogues.”

  Nikko stepped closer to the transformed couple. “Me too. Your water bearers and I were quietly spreading the wentals so they could grow strong before facing the drogues. But now, thanks to the comet at Theroc, the secret’s blown. The drogues know the wentals are back and ready to fight.” He fidgeted. “So, no more point in hiding, is there? Shouldn’t we get on with it?”

  Beyond the rocks, the phosphorescent ocean churned, and serpentine heads formed out of the liquid. Jess heard the eagerness of the water elementals in his head and knew what they had to do next. Yes, the battle must be engaged now.

  Jess slipped a strong arm around Cesca’s waist. “We need to bring the wentals together from all across the Spiral Arm and hurl them against the hydrogues. And the verdani are ready to help us, too. I will have to go to Theroc soon.”

  We are great races with vast differences. Verdani are passive and grounded in their worldtrees. They do not fight until they have no other choice. Wentals are fluid and spread widely, mist to mist and water to water, but we cannot easily form a solid resistance. Faeros are focused and destructive, but capricious. At one time, they fought beside the hydrogues, and now they fight against them.

  Hydrogues, though, are single-minded, dwelling in their gas planets, never forgetting their loss in the last war. They have spent ten thousand years preparing. They will not be easy to defeat.

  “So how do we do it, then?” Cesca asked.

  In their minds, Jess and Cesca both saw how the wentals intended to bring the battles to the clouds of every gas-giant planet in the hidden hydrogue empire. We use our strengths, we join with allies, and we fight. Deliver us to hydrogue worlds and we will contain or destroy them.

  “We have to carry the wentals to war?” Nikko looked skeptically at the small size of his Aquarius after Jess and Cesca had explained. “Like buckets of water for dousing the drogues?”

  “Like what I did in the clouds of Golgen to make that planet safe for skymining again—but this will be on a much larger scale.”

  Cesca added, “We need as many Roamer tankers as we can find to carry the energized water to gas giants.”

  Nikko ducked back into the Aquarius. “I’ve got maps of the planets infused with wentals, Jess. All of us volunteer water bearers exchange that information. We can use those worlds as reservoirs for anybody who’ll join us.”

  Cesca turned to Jess, her eyes bright. “No matter how I’ve changed, I can still meet with the clans as their Speaker. I can rally Roamers to use whatever ships they have and disseminate wentals to hydrogue gas giants.”

  “Together we’ll create a storm the hydrogues can’t resist.” Jess’s hair rose with static electricity, and damp wind rushed against his skin. “We fly to Plumas first. Clan Tamblyn has large water tankers. Exactly what we need.”

  Nikko soon flew away with enhanced speed. Jess took Cesca’s hand, and they stepped up to the shimmering membrane. He couldn’t remember when last they’d had time alone with each other. “Join me,” he said.

  “Forever.”

  Together they entered the water-and-pearl ship.

  27

  RLINDA KETT

  Riding a crest of self-forming ice, the resurrected woman came toward shore in a storm of steam, flying ice chips, and water. Karla clenched her ivory-skinned fists and launched repeated barrages of power into the ceiling, shattering off chunks. Great gouges had already been slashed into the roof.

  “She’s going to blow a hole right through and crack us open to space!” Caleb shouted. “We’ll be sucked out like snowflakes.”

  “Well, we were looking for a quick way out of here,” Rlinda said to BeBob as the two of them backed away, searching for shelter.

  Pent-up power boiled within Karla. It seemed to cause her pain unless she released it. The leaden sea froze beneath her every footfall as she walked toward the white shore, accompanied by the pack of pulsing nematodes.

  With an empty wail that was half song and half scream, Karla loosed her ethereal energy at one of the implanted artificial suns. The ice cracked around the support framework, and the spherical spotlight dangled for a moment, then swayed and broke free. The bright surrogate sun tumbled into the cold, gray sea, sending up a geyser of flash-evaporated water. Still burning as it sank, the light dwindled, surrounded by a surge of foam.

  BeBob groaned. “I wish we’d never escaped from the Moon.”

  Rlinda wanted to swat him. “If you waste all your pathetic whining, what’ll you have left if things get worse?”

  “Now there’s something to look forward to.”

  She didn’t want to stick around and learn what the ice woman intended to do to all of them. She doubted the Tamblyns had any sort of weapons that might be effective against this demonic apparition. “I really could use a flamethrower or an assault-model jazer right now.”

  “Here’s a shovel,” BeBob said, handing her a wide-bladed tool with a long handle. “Or maybe it’s an ice scraper.”

  Rlinda hefted it, frowning at BeBob. “Am I supposed to smack her in the head with this?”

  “No.” BeBob secured another shovel for himself. “But it might help against those worms she’s controlling.”

  Scarlet nematodes flexed and crawled onto the solid ice—hundreds of them, each one as long as a human leg. The Plumas
water miners scattered for the domed shelters, equipment huts, anyplace to hide. Armed with nothing more than the shovels, Rlinda and BeBob huddled behind a berm of piled ice and crystalline snow.

  The three Tamblyn brothers faced the woman in a last attempt at reason. “Karla, it’s us!” Torin shouted. “Don’t you recognize me? This is your home.”

  “Hoooome,” she repeated like a long gust of frigid wind blowing through a tunnel. “Solid walls. Prisons. Break them all down.” She casually extended her finger toward two running water miners who fled toward a habitation hut. It was as if she had sprayed a firehose of pure cold that petrified the hapless workers and covered them with a blanket of ice.

  “Karla, no!” Wynn screamed. “Please—”

  The woman launched a blast at him as well, but Wynn dove out of the way, rolling under a set of thick gas-separation pipes. All three Tamblyn brothers scrambled away in separate directions.

  “Return to fluid state,” she said. Karla directed her bombardment at more of the running miners, as if finding this more entertaining than cracking a hole through the ice ceiling. Next she destroyed one of the habitation huts, followed by a larger dwelling dome and a generator shed. “Perfect state of disorder.”

  Linked to her thoughts, the flurry of nematodes squirmed forward, looking very hungry. In the low gravity, the creatures had a strange adhesion with the vertical ice walls, crawling along the pipes and separating columns while leaving trails of slime. Rlinda thought of giant maggots squirming up the walls of a garbage bin.

  With a sound like rasping sand, the slithering nematodes crossed the ice pack like hunters. Their flexible bodies swelled, then contracted as they squirted along toward the wrecked complexes and hiding places.

  Rlinda heard screams and shouts. A man ran out of a storage shed and fired an ice-melting laser at three of the worms. Instantly hot, they bloated and then exploded, spraying red protoplasm in all directions. Emboldened by his success, he turned the melting laser toward Karla, but the heat had little effect. With a brief gesture, she covered both him and his weapon in a shroud of ice.

  On their hands and knees, Rlinda and BeBob scuttled to find better cover. The Roamers weren’t paying any attention to their captives right now. “I wish we could do something,” Rlinda said.

  “I wish we could get out of here. Think this might be our chance?”

  “Oh, sure, as long as we survive the next ten minutes.”

  Another explosion echoed through the underground grotto, and BeBob cringed beside her. “Right now, running and hiding looks like our best option.” BeBob looked up as another dislodged chunk of ice crashed down from the cracked ceiling. “It’s every innocent bystander for himself.”

  Rlinda lifted her eyes toward the fractured roof. “The Curiosity is just waiting for us up there—if the Roamers haven’t wrecked my ship.”

  “They were trying to fix it! I saw them bring spare parts up to the surface.”

  “Right, but if the Tamblyn brothers didn’t know what they were doing, then fixing the Curiosity and wrecking it could amount to the same thing.” She put a hand on her left hip and leaned on the shovel with the other. “Still, I’d rather be up there and trying. If the whole world’s going to fall apart, then I prefer to die aboard my own ship, if you know what I mean.”

  “Dying wouldn’t be my first preference at all, Rlinda . . . but at least I’ll be with you.”

  “You’re either a sweetheart or an idiot.” When their eyes met, the decision was clear in the frigid holocaust around them. She grabbed his hand and pulled him along. “Right now, I’ll take you either way.”

  28

  KOTTO OKIAH

  After finding no explanations in the deserted Osquivel shipyards, Kotto and his Analytical compies went looking elsewhere. “Quite a mystery,” Kotto said.

  “An enigma,” said GU.

  “A conundrum,” KR added.

  Though the scattered Roamer clans were in turmoil, Kotto had never paid much attention to general emergency plans, assuming someone would tell him where to go and what to do. Now, though, he had to take care of himself.

  Using the small ship’s navigational database, Kotto plotted a course for Jonah 12, where he had established an icy hydrogen-processing facility. “We don’t have the fuel or the time to wander around on a wild-goose chase. I’ll just go back to my old stomping grounds and see how everyone’s doing.” It was so long since he’d had any news.

  After he projected his path, he let the Analytical compies input the coordinates as the ship accelerated away from Osquivel. Kotto scratched his curly hair and sniffed under his arms, realizing that he’d been too busy of late to clean himself up. Facing off against the hydrogues at Theroc had certainly made him sweat.

  Kotto stripped off his jumpsuit and cast the wrinkled garments into a spinning fabric refresher. Walking naked through the chilly ship, he gathered rags and waterless cleansing gels so he could scrub himself down. He finished before the clothes were done cycling, and so he decided to give the Analytical compies a thorough cleaning as well.

  Kotto hummed while he worked, thinking about the miners on Jonah 12, mulling over the process of cooking down ices and storing hydrogen gas for later conversion to ekti. Now that the derelict had been taken from him, he looked forward to returning to his real work. He chatted with KR and GU about mechanical systems and chemical-extraction routines. “I’ll bet Purcell Wan will be glad to have me back. I can’t wait to see the expression on his face. I never expected to be gone so long when I went to help the Therons.”

  “You have accomplished much in the meantime, Kotto Okiah,” GU said. “You rebuilt the tree cities on Theroc, you studied the derelict at Osquivel, and you developed the doorbell membranes against the warglobes.”

  “I don’t need a cheering section,” he said, though he grinned anyway.

  Kotto called up blueprints of the Jonah 12 base, then designs of the crawler vehicles. Before long, his imager table was covered with active screens, and he asked the compies to run models and simulations, adjusting parameters to improve production. By the time the ship reached the system, he had drawn up new designs that would increase productivity by at least a hundred and fifty percent. It would be an exciting day when he marched into the main dome with his refit announcement.

  Kotto realized he was still naked, never having gotten dressed after the clothes refresher was finished. He tugged on his jumpsuit, ready for a new start.

  But when the ship approached the frozen planetoid, no one answered his hails. The ekti reactors in orbit were dead and cold. This was starting to seem uncomfortably familiar.

  Once in range, Kotto scanned the landscape and found only a gaping crater where the base had been. His crew, his workers! An explosion had occurred with such force that it had vaporized all signs of human habitation. Everyone was gone, completely wiped out.

  Kotto stared in complete disbelief. First he’d found Osquivel abandoned, and now this. What could have caused such a disaster? All those people—he hoped there had been time to evacuate. Most of the Jonah 12 workers were survivors of his crazy scheme on near-molten Isperos, who had followed him to this icy planetoid. They had trusted him!

  He gazed down at the huge ugly scar where the base should have been. “By the Guiding Star, what is going on?”

  The two compies looked at him as if considering whether he expected them to answer. KR and GU both decided to remain silent.

  29

  MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  After sending Osira’h away, Jora’h walked a curving path high in the skysphere dome, searching for a moment of tranquillity. Colored light shone through the faceted panes, and misters kept the air moist. Servant kithmen had polished the walkway, and agricultural kithmen tended the skysphere’s flora and fauna. Hanging vines and sweet flowers filled the huge terrarium; flying insects and feathered creatures darted about in flashes of vibrant red, green, blue.

  The Mage-Imperator absorbed the soothing ambiance, bu
t it could not counteract the ominous knowledge of the impending war. All around him, he felt the thrumming presence of his people. The Prism Palace was like a magnification lens, concentrating all of their faith and confidence in him. Jora’h could barely stand under the weight of it.

  He recalled a stanza from the Saga of Seven Suns, words he had always found disturbing: “There will come a time of fire and night, when enemies rise and empires fall, when the stars themselves begin to die.”

  That time is already here. And I have helped bring it about.

  His people did not understand the potential cost of his agreement with the hydrogues, but because he was their Mage-Imperator, they would not question it. They would do anything he asked, blindly follow their leader’s instructions—and somehow that made the situation even worse. How could he explain and justify his actions?

  Here inside the lush gardens he found the chunks of worldtree wood he had purchased from Roamer traders months ago. He had placed the fragments here to remind him of Nira. At least Osira’h will soon be with her mother . . .

  Yazra’h trotted toward him along the pathway from the opposite side of the skysphere. Her mane of coppery hair flowed behind her as she ran, eyes intent on her father. Even before she came to a stop, she had touched her right fist to the center of her chest, giving him a formal salute. “Liege, the Roamer trader Denn Peroni has just landed on Ildira.” Yazra’h gave a wolfish grin. “He says he wishes to sell us a full cargo of ekti.”

  Jora’h was surprised. With the Hyrillka insurrection, the dying sun of Durris-B, and the hydrogue ultimatum, he’d forgotten the Roamers’ request to reopen trade with the Ildiran Empire. “We certainly need it.” He frowned. “But be careful. Make sure he learns nothing about our dealings with the hydrogues.” If Denn Peroni suspected a secret alliance, then Jora’h would be forced to capture the man’s ship and hold him prisoner, just like the other humans being held in the Prism Palace. “Keep Sullivan Gold and his skyminers out of sight, as well as your friend Anton Colicos. I don’t want this Roamer to catch a glimpse of them. Their presence would raise far too many questions.”