Moving Earth

by Dean C. Moore

  Anor nodded. It sounded almost too good to be true. “What you’re suggesting would take an ability to affect the ratio of gains to losses across galaxies with how much our munitions take out of their hides, versus how much theirs takes out of ours. And affecting those ratios in turn would involve countless delicate negotiations across so many borders…”

  “You leave the bean counting to me and my accountants. Between them and my spies, which are simply everywhere, I will have all the intel I need to accomplish the task. You will find I am a man who is true to his word.”

  Anor had heard much of the Shadow Warriors in Sonny’s employ, including the Special Forces among them that answered to him, not to Leon. He knew enough anyway to know that Sonny might well be able to back up his boasts. Though Anor had yet to actually lay eyes on a single one of these Shadow Warriors. They were more a subject of myth and legend, as few lay claim to having encountered one directly, possibly understanding well enough the fast track to enhanced torture interrogations such knowledge would lead to.

  “I feel so relieved already.” Anor shook Sonny by the neck so vigorously Sonny thought he was going to lose his head. It was all he could do to control his temper. This was how Argassian ambassadors sealed a deal; it was more binding than any contract.

  Anor released Sonny, stepped back just enough to bow respectfully several times over. He continued to do so even as Sonny beamed out.

  ***

  Anor watched his chief coconspirator, Sonny, fading from view on Argassia. Anor didn’t wait until Sonny was gone to entertain the most obvious thoughts: the bastard had somehow brought this situation about for the Argassians, just so he could profit from it. But there was no time to ascertain how Sonny had accomplished this. The Argassian heads of state were hemorrhaging money. Quadrillions by the second, which, even to a galactic economy, was no tentacle-sucking matter.

  The gods forbid Anor’s people ever find out that a moneyed economy wasn’t even necessary. The galaxy could supply everyone everything they needed and a standard of living that far exceeded even what the oligarchs allowed themselves for fear of not being able to conceal the truth from the masses.

  Even if they had to split the wealth between a universally distributed income, and what was needed to feed an intergalactic war machine, their people would still live so comfortably that a new class of warriors would have to be bred who could tolerate the hardships of war, cutting into profit margins even further for those who wanted more money, more power, and more control than most.

  And the gods especially forbid anyone find out that sexually preying upon and feeding on their own people was nothing more than indulgence instead of the social engineering project they pretended it to be, culling the weak, and less evolved for the good of all. It had taken hundreds of thousands of years of brainwashing for people to accept their place at the bottom and their role as foodstock. Forget that they were every bit as capable as those at the top, and not a stitch less intelligent or resourceful.

  No, Sonny had the oligarchs of the Premonox Galaxy by the balls—all twelve of them—and he knew it. The longer they resisted the inevitable deal with him, the more their civilization threatened to unravel.

  Worse than The Collectors intervening would be the Premonox Galaxy’s inability to resume intergalactic warfare, which they might well not be able to. The Collectors tended not to keep a close eye on things, so long as everyone was doing their part to kill one another. So Sonny may well have war-suppression-schemes in place that The Collectors could not contain. Such a person might well hold the keys to this prison that was The Collectors’ Menagerie if he could bring about a cessation of all intergalactic tension; The Collectors would be only too happy to get rid of him. And word had already reached Anor that Leon was Sonny’s match, both working on a prison escape from The Collectors’ Menagerie from different sides of the same coin. Either one of them might be enough to do it, and both together might well be unstoppable.

  No, Anor would bide his time for now and play into Sonny’s hands. There would be time enough later to find out how Sonny’s subterfuge was managed, and to get the upper hand. The other advantage of playing along: Premonox might get to be one of the galaxies that found its way out of the Menagerie. And that would be one less foil in the form of The Collectors to contend with. Sonny and Leon would be all the easier to manage then.

  Though, if he were to be entirely honest with himself, if Sonny’s claims proved true, Anor might be heavily inclined to look the other way as regards how Sonny worked his miracles. Profits would be higher than ever, erasing any motivation on Anor’s part to rock the boat.

  ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE

  THE JARDARIAN GALAXY, MEMBER OF THE COLLECTORS’ MENAGERIE,

  PROXIMATE TO THE PLANET ENOQUIN, A GAS GIANT

  IN THE MURMURA SOLAR SYSTEM

  ON THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET ORIGINE—CURRENTLY CLOAKED

  “Origine is within the Murmura solar system,” Voya said, addressing Sonny, or rather his clone that had been left on Origine to oversee the uplifting.

  They both glanced at the ongoing orgiastic rites of their peoples transpiring about them in the open. Barely a brush, a tree, a pile of rocks was unoccupied, these locations used less often as a cover for privacy and more often as a stage to enact their violent rites of passion.

  Sonny and Voya glanced away with a shared feeling of disgust; it was one of many things that bonded them together these days. Heated sexual passion was one thing, and doing it in the name of uplifting all of their species, as good an excuse as any, but this kind of self-indulgence… It reminded them of their more animalistic days, and unlike many species that looked back on those days fondly, neither Sonny’s people nor the Saran did. This was a painful reminder of all they’d left behind.

  Still, they both knew that if their psychic soldiers had lost control to this degree it was because either the Zalics crystals or the galactic core psychic amplifier were to blame, possibly both working in cahoots. And bigger forces were in play here in which they were simply caught up. Independent actors, yes, but like fish caught in the flow of any river, doing their best to live within the current, and at times swim upstream of it. Though the only ones swimming upstream of the flow today were Sonny and Voya.

  “Our role begins then,” Sonny said, thinking of being within psychic range of Enoquin.

  “We’ll soften up the Jardarian high command, most of all the Imperials, enough for the version of you that will negotiate with them directly when the time is right.”

  They bowed to one another as a mutual sign of respect before going to speak to their own peoples. The already-pregnant females of both the Dog People and the Saran would handle bringing the rest of the Origine clans around, getting them to attune to the same brainwave patterns they exhibited; they were that powerful. Always the Origine locals were a handful to manage. Their distrust of higher orders and unities beyond the tribal level bordered on the rabid. In time, that quality, integrated with the other bloodlines, so it could be softened and disciplined, would do them all good, further protecting them against the oligarchs determined to oversee galactic empires throughout the cosmos, but until then, it was a damn pain in the ass. And without the psychic amplifier at the core of the planet tuning all the instruments of the various players so they could play concerts together, it would have been impossible, even with the amplified psychic power of the impregnated females.

  Hours later, after much in-fighting that had led to some deaths, the brainwave attunement between the three interbreeding bloodlines was obtained.

  None of the pregnant mothers had been lost; that was the main thing. But they were well protected, with their own security details from each tribe.

  Origine, now with the help of the Saran, was a force to be reckoned with.

  The effects on the Jardarian Galaxy were immediate.

  ***

  THE JARDARIAN GALAXY

  THE MURMURA SOLAR SYSTEM

  THE GAS GIANT PLANET ENOQUIN
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  THE FLOATING EMPEROR CITY OF GAMORA

  Sonny beamed down to Gamora, already taking note of the numberless floating sister emperor cities crowding even the gas giant before he’d finished solidifying. He’d viewed the details on his mindchip briefs, supplied him by his Shadow Warriors, but seeing was believing. This galaxy was insane even by his standards.

  Each emperor city oversaw millions of worlds and artificial habitats in the galactic sectors assigned to them. Each of those millions of worlds were inhabited enough for some leadership hierarchy to prove necessary to manage the madness. Issues that simply could not be managed at a planetary or solar system level were booted up here to the emperor cities.

  While each world had its own emperor, worlds and solar systems were grouped by strategic affiliations. Each was a battle grouping strong enough, and versatile enough in its products, supply chains, and other logistics to keep the other groupings around them stalemated. Unless, of course, greater alliances could be forged, others broken up. Those kinds of negotiations happened within the emperor cities.

  Each emperor city housed a thousand emperors that in turn oversaw at least a thousand worlds, but that number could vary in the hundreds depending on the logistics suggested by the star charts of those regions, and how impregnable the grouping may have been with or without the greater number of planetary bodies.

  And the gas giant planet Enoquin was where strategic warfare in a winner take all game was conducted on the highest of levels within Jardaria.

  It was what the Gypsy Galaxy might be when it grew up, by Sonny’s thinking. These people might well put even Leon to shame for fast-tracking warfare advancements in terms of strategies and tactics, evolution of weapons and soldiers, you name it, anything and everything related to war.

  No one but the emperors lived in the emperor cities of Enoquin. Instead of flotillas of humanoid attendants who could be lorded over and used as sex slaves, the Jardarian super-emperor class, or The Imperials, elected for robot slaves. To have low level humanoids in their proximity would have just invited intelligence leaks, subverting their Machiavellian plans, or worse, encouraging far too many of the rank and file to rise to their level simply by being proximate to this much genius.

  Sonny, prone to drooling anyway with the fraction of his genes that traced their evolution from canines, was glad to get it out of the way before solidifying fully on Gamora.

  In so much as Enoquin had a capital city, Gamora was it. Here is where the current masters of the game, the Imperials, who oversaw the emperors, that had evolved Jardaria to its present state and its latest stalemates were housed, so they could have proximity to one another, ensuring they continue to evolve their strategic and tactical advantages above and beyond the other emperors.

  Enoquin did not have military protection. It did not need it. The gas giant was a supersentience not to be messed with. Any military fleet attempting to get anywhere near the solar system, or any of its neighbors would run into the supersentient gas giant planets slaved to her. Her solar system, as well as her neighboring solar systems were made up primarily of gas giant planets. And each of the other gas giant planets did have armadas – vast enough and parked within the gas giants, serving as garages for these galactic fleets – that should anyone thinking of threatening Enoquin get within a few dozen neighboring galaxies or more, the various armadas would deploy. The entire galaxy could choose to rebel at once, and send everything they had at Enoquin, and the galactic fleets would be reduced to so much space debris in a matter of weeks. Like any good corporate heads, the Imperials knew better than to sell off anything but legacy tech to the upstart trading blocs within the Jardarian galaxy.

  They must all be wondering right now what in hell Sonny thought he had to offer them, what threat he could possibly employ that would be little other than amusement to these masterminds of Gamora, operating at their level. They had probably scheduled talks with him as part of the evening’s entertainment.

  But Sonny had studied his enemy. He knew that Origine would not be enough to check the mind power of Gamora, far less Enoquin.

  So he’d had The Planet Eaters clone Origine many times over. He had a ring of psychic amplifiers orbiting Enoquin now, all cloaked, of course. And he had one deposited within each galactic super-sector these pissant Gamoran Imperials oversaw.

  But he hadn’t stopped there.

  These people were way too evolved and sophisticated to be won over simply by having their minds messed with. He couldn’t just play to their wildest fears, their more primitive emotions. He had to play to their higher centers of reason. They were master chess players, as Sonny was. Nothing less would stand a chance.

  So, with that in mind, he had recruited Pan-Galactica, the consortium of philosopher kings that would likely be used in the days ahead to keep the Gypsy Galaxy Grouping together, peaceful, and evolving in a general direction that Leon would have approved of.

  Pan-Galactica, as a consortium of intellectuals, had been recruited by Sonny to exert their influence on Jardarian warriors. It was like asking a Spartan culture to intermarry with Athens, Greece, in its heyday. At least that’s how Sonny sold the idea to Sopos and the rest of the Mentas Galaxy elite. Sopos’s reasoning for playing along may have been every bit as slippery as Sonny’s; Sonny sensed a kindred spirit in Sopos.

  Using the Planet Eaters to both clone Cerebra, the planet used by Pan-Galactica to coordinate the Mentas Galaxy, and Cerebra’s consortium of intellectuals, down to the smallest of atoms, many times over, and assigning to each Cerebra clone a clone of the Origine artificial world psychic amplifier, to broadcast the best of Pan Galactica’s thinking to galactic super-sectors throughout Jardaria—the sectors these condescending bastards on Gamora and Enoquin, as a whole, oversaw—Sonny’s coup to capture the Jardarian Galaxy for his own uses was well underway.

  Increase the weight of Mentas’s influence on Jardaria just enough, and the seesaw dipped in the direction of accelerating the amount of philosopher kings who were also warriors—the kinds that inhabited Enoquin, thus increasing the threat to the ruling elite and their ability to maintain control. Tilt the seesaw down too much, and Jardaria’s war games came to an end, as warriors sat around debating all day the best course of action to the most auspicious ends—like true philosophers.

  Either way the seesaw tilted, Sonny had Enoquin by the throat. That was all the more true for the highest on high, the Imperials, the ones that resided in Gamora. And the highest of the high there, was a general known as Machia.

  The Cerebra clones had been deployed in tandem with the many clones of Origine, tasked not with softening up the higher reasoning centers of the galactic leaders, but the ones at the bottom of the food chain, the soldiers, eager to fight and die.

  Believe it or not, the Jardarian galaxy had no other citizens. You were either a soldier or you had risen through the ranks as a soldier to be a leader of men in times of endless war.

  These warriors had endured countless generations of hardship. Sonny knew he was going to have trouble putting a dent in their resolve to be anything other than what they were even with the cloaked armada that he’d teleported into their galaxy without any of the Jardarian galactic sectors knowing.

  It was hard to threaten these people with even more hardship. The systemic attack would have to be far subtler, far more multifaceted, and not possible without the superthinkers of Pan-Galactica.

  Sonny, not a total fool, had made sure to leave the original Pan-Galactica where it was and to bless it with several Origine clones all its own to empower the spread of peace that Sopos was determined to affect. This Sonny did in no small part as a peace offering to Leon, for when Leon came knocking on Sonny’s door, looking to strangle him for all he’d done behind his back to compromise a trans-galactic alliance Leon was forging even as he was forging it—as only Sonny could.

  One thing Sonny knew, however negotiations went today with Machia, there was no way he or Leon was going to leave the Jardaria Galaxy
behind in The Collectors’ Menagerie.

  Even if they were an empire to end all empires, and not exactly modeled on Leon’s egalitarian ideals.

  The Jardarians would mean too much to Leon for the purposes of evolving his own war-gaming on a trans-galactic level. For the Jardarians didn’t just war with one another for sport. They warred with other galaxies in The Collectors’ Menagerie with far more serious intent. Their egos were on the line there even more than they were with their intra-galactic war games. Their intent was to get all surrounding galaxies to submit to them sooner or later. Once conquered, anyone in those galaxies who didn’t offer genuinely increased complexity to war gaming, would be eliminated, replaced with people who could make the game more fun, more challenging.

  While the longer-term goal for the Jardarians was ostensibly to put together what they needed to escape The Collectors, the Jardarians were happy to live within The Collectors’ confines indefinitely—so long as The Collectors continued to imprison more galaxies to make their war games more fun and more challenging. Only by failing at that task would the Jardarians turn against them in earnest.

  Something told Sonny The Collectors wouldn’t be so stupid.

  And Leon’s willingness to play with fire was as great as Sonny’s. Neither man would have any problems entertaining the threat the Jardarians posed to the Gypsy Galaxy Grouping as they marched right out of The Collectors’ Menagerie, once the key to the prison was in hand. The Jardarians would be the greatest asset to Leon’s agenda, even if they also posed the greatest threat to it, much as Sonny himself.

  Sonny, fully materialized now on Gomora, shook Machia’s hand. Of all of them on Gomora, he was the biggest of the big fish. He’d managed to steal more territory away from the others within Jardaria, and he’d conquered more galaxies outside it as well.