Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (67 page)

“That’s if this doddering fool ever stops speaking!” Six sounded disgusted. “At this rate we will still be sitting here when Kwaide falls into Lumina!”

“Don’t exaggerate, Six,” Diva told him crossly. “There! See! He has finished. He is sitting down.”

“Thank Sacras for that!”

“Shh!”

“Don’t shush me, Grace!”

“Look, the band is going to play! They are going to hoist the new flag!”

“They could have saved us all a lot of trouble by doing
that
two hours ago,” grumbled Six.

“Shh! Listen!” The rest of the spaceport fell silent to hear the first strains of the New Kwaide Anthem. Six’s voice fell into the lull before the band struck up.

“I hope to Sacras
they
are not going to go on all night too!”

The rebels all around laughed – most of them heartily agreed with Six’s sentiments – and clapped. Six had the grace to look abashed.

“There!” hissed Diva. “Now see what you have done, nomus!”

“Well, honestly! If I had known it would entail sitting through this deadly ceremony I wouldn’t have started this revolution in the first place!” protested Six. “It won’t be ‘New’ Kwaide any more by the time they’re done.”

“I thought ‘
we’
started the revolution, nomus. Where did all this ‘I’ stuff come from?”

“I meant ‘
we’
,” Six said hastily.

“Because if
I
thought you were getting too big for your boots, Kwaidian,
I
might just have to do something about it!”

“Yeah, like that is going to scare me!”

Diva unraveled herself from the bench. “Say that to my face!”

“I would, but your face is the scariest part of you right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you looked in a mirror recently, Diva? With that hair you look like something a vaniven had for breakfast.”

“I so do NOT!”

Six put on a silly voice to mock her. “I so do not.”

The band started up, and the rest of those present turned to watch the flag being hoisted ceremoniously above the spaceport, on a slender flag post which had been hastily erected for the occasion. Neither Six nor Diva took the slightest bit of notice. They were glaring at each other.

“Are you suggesting my hair looks like grass?” demanded Diva.

“Not at all.” Six held up his bandaged hand to halt any further conversation and tipped his head on one side, considering her. “Now I come to think about it, you look more like a broccoflower.”

“A
what
?”

“
Great
vegetables! You know, those things with dark green trunks and clumps of spiky blue-green flowers—”

“I know what broccoflowers are, cretin!”

“Tough as old boots and full of thorns, of course.”

Grace giggled and even Ledin couldn’t stifle a grin.

“Are you calling me as tough as an old boot?” Diva took another pace forward, eyes narrowed.

“And thorny,” Six was anxious she shouldn’t leave anything out. He lifted up his injured hand again and assumed a pathetic expression to prevent retaliation.

She growled deep in her throat and made a lunge. Six took a hasty step back, tripped over something, and fell sprawling to the ground.

Diva collapsed laughing into her seat, and Six was left to scramble up. He looked round suspiciously to see what he had tripped on, but found nothing except Ledin, who appeared to be looking quite innocently on.

“What in Lumina did I trip over?” Six demanded.

Ledin shrugged. “Part of the bench, I expect. Anyway, look – the flag is nearly at the top!”

“Hmm!” Six was still eyeing him suspiciously, but sank down obediently on the bench, rubbing his shin.

The colours of New Kwaide were now flapping triumphantly over the spaceport, and the band drew to the end of their repertory. There was general applause as the members of the band marched off the terrain.

The last act before the final declaration was the exchange of prisoners. A Kwaidian warthog – chosen as the symbol of New Kwaide – was led ceremoniously out from behind each of the two stands by four young children. Both warthogs and children had been washed and polished for the occasion. A line of prisoners of war then emerged, moving slowly behind each warthog. Little by little each line left their captors behind, and crossed with their counterparts from the other side in the centre of the terrain before reaching their fellow combatants. Ten abreast, they marched rather raggedly to safety. The rebels scoured the returning prisoners, eager to find friends and family amongst them. But there were many more prisoners leaving the northern side than those leaving the south, and they were in far better condition. Even the sporadic cries of welcome were silenced as the rebels realized how badly their fellow refugees had been treated. Silence fell over the rebel stand.

The warthogs reached the opposing benches, turned, and then slowly made their way back to the centre of the terrain, just in front of the flowers which marked the spot where Gerrant had fallen and where Solian had fought so desperately. When they reached it the warthogs were nudged gently to either side of the twisted wreckage of the space shuttle, and turned to face a small plinth that had been brought in and placed, together with its corresponding structure, exactly between the two stands. The last prisoners had finally reached the Elders’ stand, and all eyes were now on that central podium.

There was a pause, and then the designated president got to his feet to make the proclamation they had all been waiting so long to hear.

He looked solemnly over at the stand, letting his eyes run over the rebels who had taken part in the revolution. As his examination reached the lowest row they rested for a moment first on Cimma, then Diva, then Grace, then finally on Six. He seemed to incline his head slightly.

The tension of waiting was almost unbearable to the refugees. They were collectively holding their breath in a strangled silence. The president looked over to the wreckage of the space shuttle, the two garlands of flowers, and the proud escort of warthogs and children. The children nearest him could see the glisten of tears in his eyes, and he was seen to give a swallow.

Then he straightened his shoulders, cleared his throat and put his chin up, going on to pronounce the one thing that could make all the sacrifices worthwhile, allowing each weighty word to resonate individually around the spaceport.

“I – hereby – declare – the – independence – of – NEW – KWAIDE!”

The roars of the refugees deafened everything else. They rose, as one person, to their feet, and shouted themselves hoarse. They clapped each other on the back, and hugged each other with tears streaming down their cheeks.

Grace hugged first Six, and then Diva, and then both of them together. Then she looked at Ledin, uncertain what to do. He was not. He grabbed her by the shoulders, drew her towards him, and planted a kiss full on the lips. Grace was so surprised that she nearly fell over. Ledin steadied her, looked her right in the eyes, and then gave her another kiss.

“Just so as you know,” he said, “that wherever you go next there is somebody – somewhere – waiting for you.”

Grace looked towards Diva and Six, who were both watching, open-mouthed. She giggled, and then joined the rest of the crowd in cheering the new flag, the new independence, the New Kwaide. Perhaps the planet was not so bad after all.

The End

That is the end of
Kwaide
, the second book in the Ammonite Galaxy series.

This omnibus edition continues with Xiantha ...

XIANTHA

BOOK THREE IN THE AMMONITE GALAXY SERIES

By

GILLIAN ANDREWS

This book is dedicated to Damian, with my love. If it weren’t for him, none of the books would have ever made it to print.
 

AS SHE WALKED back across the spaceport after the independence ceremony on Kwaide, Grace stopped to bow her head in front of the memorial to Solian and Gerrant. The crumpled remains of the space shuttle would be there for all eternity – an eternity which would always remind her of that hateful day, of what had happened. She felt a miserable churning in her stomach, and found that her eyes were wet as she remembered those last few moments of Solian, in the heat of the battle. He had died to save her, she knew. He had struggled to distract them, to give her more time. She could still hear his battle cry as he faced certain death, in those few seconds before he was decimated by the sycophants. Guilt swirled again in her stomach, and she hoped that she wouldn’t be sick.

Footsteps told her that somebody had come up to stand beside her. The person was silent for a long while, gazing with her at the twisted remains in front of them. Without looking, she knew who it was.

“It wasn’t your fault, Grace,” Ledin said. “What happened to them was because of the war.”

“It was my idea to use the fuel pipes,” she said brokenly. “If I hadn’t had that stupid idea—”

“—If you hadn’t had that stupid idea, Kwaide would be under Elder rule again, and the sycophants would be purging this spot of the no-names like me.”

Grace closed her eyes for a long time, and breathed deeply. Eventually she said, “Yes, I suppose they would. But that doesn’t make it right, does it?”

“Grace, you are a heroine to New Kwaide. When you thought up a way to get through to the shuttles you prevented the Elders from getting their hands on the orbital station. That was the one defining moment of the whole war!”

The corner of her lip quivered. “I don’t feel like a heroine. I feel guilty all the time.”

He touched her shoulder, gently. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. It will eat away at you inside.”

She gave a slight sniff and nodded through eyes that had suddenly filled with tears. “I know. It is just that my mind seems
 
… stuck. I see that one scene over and over in my head.”

“Both Solian and Gerrant would be horrified if they knew that you were agonizing over their death. They were proud to die for New Kwaide. So would I have been.”

Her expression softened. “I know.”

“There was only one thing I would have regretted, and I have remedied that now.”

Grace found herself blushing slightly. She thought she might know what that one thing was.

“And I don’t regret a thing.” His tone was defiant. “Faint Kwaidian never won fair lady.”

That provoked a weak smile at last. “Six and Diva will tease me about it,” she pointed out.

“It will keep them from heckling one another. I have done them a favour.”

“They always heckle each other. They got into the habit when they were held captive on Valhai and there was nobody else to talk to. But Diva would cut the hand off any outsider who criticized Six, and Six would do the same for her.”

“I know. In fact, I have sometimes wondered if First Six …”

Grace gave a doubtful shake of her head. “Diva was brought up as a princess on Coriolis. I think her elitist upbringing would stop her even considering allying herself to a no-name, however much she might like him.” 

“Well – you never know. We Kwaidians are very persistent. We don’t give up easily.”

Since Grace wasn’t completely sure that he was referring only to Six she found that difficult to answer, and was cross to realize that her cheeks were reddening again. She indicated the waiting shuttle with one hand and a slight inclination of her head, and they walked slowly away from the wreckage behind them.

THEY TOOK A shuttle to the Kwaide International Orbital Platform to meet up with Six and Diva. Arcan had agreed to transport his new spaceship over, together with the visitor. They were to decide what their following steps would be, although Ledin would be staying on the orbital station above Kwaide. His work as the most experienced pilot left on New Kwaide would be essential once the others departed on their travels.

Grace and Ledin made their way into the main control room where Ledin greeted Arcan and the visitor with deference, and then excused himself. He had work to do, although he was suddenly rather loath to do it. Things had happened today which would be difficult to forget. He forced surprisingly reluctant legs to do his will, gave a nod of goodbye which encompassed everybody, and disappeared in the direction of the shuttle bays, where all the shuttles were now in need of fairly comprehensive services.

“Ah, Grace! How’s the boyfriend?” Six’s voice was teasing.

“He is NOT my boyfriend!”

“Oh, come on, he kissed you in front of the whole planet!”

“He got carried away in the heat of the moment!”

“In the heat of something, certainly. I didn’t see you pulling away! In fact you looked as if you might be enjoying it!”

Grace went bright red, and shuffled her feet. “It meant nothing,” she mumbled.

Six’s eyes glinted, and he took no notice of Diva’s warning look. “And that whole bit he said about you always having someone to come back to – did that mean nothing, too?”

“Shut UP, Six! It was just a kiss, right?”
 

The visitor’s little video camera whirred curiously.

“What is a kiss?” it asked with interest.

Grace glared at the Kwaidian. “Now see what you have done!” she said. “How can I explain what a kiss is?”

“You could always call Ledin back and give a demonstration!” suggested Six.
 

Grace wilted him with a look. “It is a physical manifestation of an attraction between two people,” she explained.

The tiny globe crackled. “It is the way you reproduce?” it hazarded.

Arcan shimmered. “No,” he told the small machine. “It is, I believe, the forerunner to such activities.”

Grace was by now as red as a crimson butterfly. It was rather too much to hear the orthogel entity instructing the alien visitor in such matters.
 

“It meant nothing,” she repeated again.

Six, who had belatedly realized how truly embarrassed she was, was now looking repentant. “It was just a kiss,” he assured the visitor. “Like this!” He grabbed at Diva – who was quite unsuspecting and therefore only able to give a strangled shriek, twisted her round, and gave her a quick peck on the lips before she squirmed away from him.

“Eugh! Ack!” she muttered, wiping at her mouth with her sleeve. “What on Sacras are you doing?”

“Just giving a demonstration,” said Six calmly. “Getting Grace out of a tight spot. You see, Visitor? Just a kiss. No forerunner to sexual activities!”

“You do not appear to be very adept at it,” whirred the globe.

“Yeah, like
you
are going to know anything about it!”
 

“If the object is to make the female happy, you failed rather spectacularly,” said the video camera reasonably, focusing its lens on Diva who was still looking extremely thundery, and had one hand on her Coriolan dagger.

“And I should listen to a strand of protein in a jam-jar, I suppose?”

“Six!” Grace was hurt for the visitor’s feelings.

“What—?” he responded, “—All right, I know it saved my life, and I am very grateful. But that doesn’t mean we have to be best friends forever, does it? It is always making all those whirring noises. It insulted me! It gets on my nerves.”

“I expect the feeling is mutual!” said Diva drily.

“And just how many feelings does your ladyship think a strand of brain in a bowl of soup can have?”

“Probably more than you.”

Six’s mouth dropped open with outrage. “I … I—”

Grace giggled. “Let’s leave it, shall we? I thought we were here to sort out the journey to Xiantha.”

“Xiantha? No. I have already told you! We are going,” said Arcan, “to find my origins.”

“But first,” Diva seemed suddenly anxious, “we have to go to Xiantha.”

The bubble representing Arcan shimmered and darkened. “Why? It is far more important to travel to the—” He paused and his ‘head’ turned to stare sternly at the small machine hovering in space and transmitting back to the visitor. “Are you forwarding any of this to the Dessite homeworld?”
 

The machine gave an indignant click. “No,” it said primly, “I am not. I haven’t transmitted your private conversations since I agreed not to last year.”

“—the Pictoris system, then. What reason is there to go to Xiantha?”

Diva shuffled from one foot to the other. “I have to go there,” she said. “I have to find out what happened to all the … the genetic material they took from me.”

The visitor’s machine, still hovering unseen above them, made its presence felt with a whirr of sudden interest. “Is this procreation again?” it asked.

“No! —Well, yes!” Diva told it how the Sellites had removed all her genetic material, and how she might at this moment have a couple of hundred thousand offspring somewhere at the toddler stage on Xiantha. “At least, I think they all went to Xiantha,” she finished. “Atheron told me that although the surgeon was Cesan, the man who came to oversee the operation was Xianthan. If they were divided between the two planets, we may have to go to Cesis too.”

“Pictoris,” said Arcan, darkening even more.

“Excuse me?”

“Pictoris. I wish to go to the Pictoris system first. I have transported the visitor’s ship into the hold of the new space trader – he’ll have to come with us, since he is the only one who can visualize where we have to go. There is nothing to stop us going there first, is there? This is far more important than visiting Xiantha, which you can do afterwards. I will transport you over there in this ship if you like.”

“Hang on a minute, Arcan!” said Six. “Don’t you think we ought to talk about this? I mean, here you are, planning to transport us instantaneously half-way across the galaxy for the first time in history. It seems a bit hasty just to go – we might need protection of some sort. Bodywraps and mask packs and that sort of thing.”

The visitor gave a small mechanical cough. “The system we are going to is perfectly safe for you to breathe,” it said. “Your feeble bodies need no protection at all.”

“Feeble? That’s just fine coming from two neurons stuck together in a glass of water!”

“I never travel personally to planet surfaces,” the machine told him kindly. “That is why I use these video cameras.”

Grace cleared her throat. “But shouldn’t we get Arcan’s foundation set up first, back on Valhai? We need to have something in place for when the first payment from the Sellites arrives, don’t we?”

A ripple of colour ran through Arcan. “We are only going for a quick trip,” he said defensively. “I want to go NOW! You can sort out all the details about the Sellite contract when we get back, Grace.”

“Me?” she squeaked. “Why me? I thought we were
all
going to sort out the details!”

Arcan pulsed slightly. “It was your idea,” he pointed out. “Of course you will be the one to head the foundation. We can decide all the rest when we get back. I do not foresee any difficulty.”

“But Arcan, I don’t think I …” Grace’s heart sank. The last thing she wanted to do for the next years was take charge of large amounts of money and interplanetary billing. But Arcan was right – it had been her idea, and she supposed that she had a certain obligation. She gave a long sigh, and prayed to Almagest that she might only have a nominal role in the whole thing.

“If going to Pictoris first is a priority for you, Arcan, then I suppose we can wait to visit Xiantha,” said Diva. “As long as I get over there reasonably soon, I don’t mind. I didn’t realize that traveling to Pictoris was so important to you.”
 

The visitor added its prim voice to the mass of opinions, “The orthogel entity and I are the only category 2 species here present; it is natural that our wishes be respected.”

“Says who?” said Six, eyebrows snapping together. “We category 3 species just might have something to say in the matter, you know.”

The machine chirruped. “You can say whatever you like,” it offered. “but that will not affect beings as important as Arcan and myself. How could it?”

Six reached out and grabbed the tiny sphere out of the air, covering it in his hand, where it buzzed agitatedly its distress.