Hellhole (61 page)

“And this was a hygiene tool, I think,” Devon said. He had the idea it was a completely trivial item in the overall canvas of Xayan society, yet now it seemed very precious. “It’s hard to imagine what did or didn’t survive.”

In his mind, Birzh recalled the objects with the same sad fondness with which their human sides might have regarded mementoes from a lost loved one.

However, the artifact they had found at the devastated camp remained a mystery. The sleek, dark relic called to their Xayan memories with its nested curves, armored casings, and embedded crystals, but even after sifting through their Xayan experiences and knowledge, neither Birzh nor Jhera remembered anything like this. Antonia-Jhera picked up the black object, running her fingers along its edges while imagining other sensory appendages.

Perplexed, she handed the thing to Devon, and he cradled it, probing with his own skills of telemancy. “It’s definitely of Xayan design. I recognize the material, but nothing else. It could be . . . anything.”

“We should take it out to the shadow-Xayan settlement,” Antonia said. “Maybe one of the others will know.”

S
hortly after Goler returned from Hellhole, two heavily loaded stringline haulers arrived at Ridgetop carrying the reconditioned fleet of old ships, exactly as the Diadem had promised. Unit Captain Escobar Hallholme had utilized a pair of joined hauler frameworks from which the dozens of sleek hulls hung like angular metal fruit. The old-style FTL warships had enlarged engines and fuel tanks that looked like engorged sacks.

More than a decade ago, these very ships had terrorized many Constellation systems during Adolphus’s rebellion, and now they were being delivered to Territorial Governor Goler so that he could keep the unruly frontier in line. Though distances between DZ planets rendered the FTL ships slow and inefficient, the governor insisted that their mere presence at Ridgetop would help him crack down on suspicious activity in the local systems.

Goler shuttled up to the terminus ring to accept delivery from the son of legendary Commodore Percival Hallholme. When the Ridgetop governor met Escobar inside the small orbiting station, he shook the military man’s hand. The younger Hallholme was gruff and formal, giving the impression that Goler should be grateful that he had personally taken an interest in such a minor and irrelevant mission. “I hereby deliver these vessels to you in the name of the Diadem, as ordered, sir.”

“And I accept them in the same spirit,” Goler replied. “They will be a great help in protecting my planets.” Escobar seemed dubious.

There was paperwork to be signed, a thumbprint acknowledgment on a screen, a transfer of control codes for the ships. Once the formalities were completed, Escobar was anxious to reverse the hauler and leave the Deep Zone. He transmitted his order to the hauler’s skeleton crew. “Detach the FTL ships from their docking clamps and remote-pilot them a safe distance away. Do not let them block our path for departure. We’ll be heading back to the Crown Jewels with due dispatch.”

Moments later, twenty-one outdated military vessels dropped away from the expanded hauler frameworks. Goler admired them. “Those ships may be old, Captain, but they still look damned impressive.”

Escobar wore a faint grimace, though he seemed relieved to have completed his mission. “Those old wrecks were cluttering up the Lubis Plain shipyards, and my father spends too much time looking at them and reminiscing.” He straightened. “They’re your responsibility now, Governor. You have the people to crew the ships?”

“I’ll manage. There are plenty of qualified veterans out here in the DZ.” He gave his best reassuring smile. General Adolphus had recently dispatched nine of his trusted pilots to Ridgetop along the new string-line.

His official business completed, Escobar shook his head just before he prepared to depart. “I admire your optimism, Governor. Keeping a few of these old hulks in orbit won’t scare away any criminals – they’ll just slip around you. Ridgetop isn’t the only place in the Deep Zone where black-marketeers can trade.”

“I’m confident these ships will be effective,” Goler said amiably. “Such a fleet shows that we mean serious business. Besides, if the black-marketeers are using old FTL ships, best to combat them with the same sort of technology.”

“Suit yourself, Governor. I’ll be on my way, as soon as you send up your cargo containers with this period’s tribute payment.”

With a signal to the ground, Goler dispatched seventeen heavy upboxes to fill the haulers’ now vacant docking clamps. When the upboxes had settled into the appropriate cradles in the hauler framework, Escobar signed and thumbprinted the receipt documents, which identified the inventory as seven hundred tons of processed goldenwood.

Captain Hallholme waited impatiently, eager to get going. “I have important duties for the Constellation, sir. I’ll let you manage your disruptive influences out here. Best of luck with that.” His arrogance was plain. He seemed to regard Carlson Goler as an object lesson of what might happen to him if he didn’t attend to his own career back home.

“Give my regards to the Diadem,” Goler said, and the other man left. He liked the fact that the Constellation trusted and underestimated him. The Territorial Governor had been meek and cooperative for so long that no one suspected him of duplicity.

Once the hauler arrived at Sonjeera, however, Captain Hallholme would probably be in substantial trouble – when all the tribute upboxes were found to be full of rocks, covered by a thin layer of goldenwood planks . . .

With the stringline hauler safely gone, Goler summoned General Adolphus’s veteran pilots to prepare the new ships for further transport. The twenty-one refitted warships were moved to orbit the secret terminus ring that anchored the new line to Hellhole. While the veteran pilots prepped the vessels, Goler sent a personal message via one of the stringline mail drones originally designed for sending important governmental dispatches to Sonjeera. This time, he sent the drone to planet Hallholme: “General, your ships are here.”

As the sun set on Ridgetop, Goler relaxed in a chair, looking through the transparent panes at the hillsides, the lush trees, and the ever-shifting colors that streamed through the air. To welcome him into their conspiracy, Sophie Vence had sent one of her bottles of wine from Hellhole, and now the Territorial Governor held a glass in his hand, swirling the garnet liquid and staring out at the landscape. He poured a second glass of wine for Tasmine, but the old servant claimed she had too many household duties.

Goler stopped her. “I insist. Take a moment to celebrate, Tasmine. Everyone on Ridgetop will soon be wealthy, because we won’t have to surrender so much of our hard earnings to the Constellation.”

The old woman stopped, took a dutiful sip of wine, and puckered. “Enjoy it while you can, sir, because the bitch and her Constellation soldiers aren’t going to let you get away with it. We’ll be in trouble soon enough.” Tasmine set the still-full glass back on the table with a hard, impatient click. “The rest of the Deezees aren’t prepared for what she’ll do.”

“Then we’ll have to tell them just what Michella is capable of. Don’t you think it’s about time that the whole Constellation knew the truth?” Goler smiled at her startled expression. “General Adolphus once said you can’t join a revolution by degrees. You have to commit.” He finished his wine with a gulp, stood from his chair, and extended a hand to her. “I’ve already recorded the basics about the Ridgetop Recovery, along with the corroborating evidence we obtained from the burial sites, but you can add a lot of authenticity.”

Tasmine quailed. “I’ve kept my mouth shut for so long. You can’t just ask this now!”

“I can, and I am. We need you.
You
are the only person who was there when it happened. No one else can tell this story the way you can. Expose what the Diadem is really like.” He drew her toward his study, where he had left the imagers in place. “Come, you’ve thought about it long enough. Now get it off your chest.”

Tasmine scowled at the equipment. “You’ll send the message to all the planets?”

“As many as will receive it. Even Sonjeera. You’ll deal a greater blow to the Diadem’s authority than all those ships we just received.”

The old servant’s expression darkened as anger and nightmares bubbled in her memory. “Yes, it’ll be good to expose what the bitch did.” She sat down heavily in the chair – his chair – and turned her bird-bright eyes directly toward the imager. “I loathe how she smiles and pretends to be a sweet grandmother to the Constellation. She’s really just a viper.”

Goler played the grainy old recording that Tasmine had shown him earlier, and while images of the massacre ran in the background, he recorded her commentary. Like a flood unleashed from a crumbling dam, Tasmine spilled out the full story of the massacre, adding details that even Carlson Goler had never heard. He shuddered as Tasmine talked on and on . . . and on.

She held nothing back.

A
s he escorted Keana-Uroa to the deep mountain vault filled with Xayan marvels, Cristoph de Carre felt awkward. His own feelings had whiplashed into sympathy for this woman, despite the damage she had caused to his family. He felt some hope that she claimed to dislike Diadem Michella as much as he did, if not more. Joined with a once formidable Xayan leader, she might hold a solution for their current dilemma. A defense, perhaps?

Cristoph halted the Trakmaster at the shaft entrance on the side of the rugged mountain. Machinery, piles of rubble, and mineral-processing beds made the area look like any other mining operation. “By coming to Hallholme and joining the shadow-Xayans, you’ve really thrown a wrench into the General’s plans.”

She gave him a distant smile. “Once we talk with Encix and the other Originals, perhaps I can offer help as well. This colony needs to be strong, needs to be ready to face my mother’s anger. The shadow-Xayans and I might be able to offer defenses you can’t afford to ignore. Don’t underestimate telemancy.”

“We’ll see.”

Cristoph had spent the past several months in the mountain vault with the team of investigators as well as the four Originals. Their very strangeness made them frightening, though they claimed to be allies. He found them fascinating, but did not understand them. Not as well as Keana did – now.

In her deeper Uroa voice, she said, “I look forward to being reunited with Encix, Lodo, Tryn, and Cippiq. I will also grieve for Allyf . . . although so many Xayans have perished, it makes no sense to mourn just one. Still, he represents all who were lost.”

“If you were the supreme leader of their race, then they’ll be glad to see you as well,” Cristoph said.

“My role was not quite as straightforward as that,” Uroa said. “We each led our factions.”

Nothing’s ever straightforward
, Cristoph thought. “General Adolphus will meet us here.” He saw no sign of the General or his staff, who were coming here directly from Ankor.

Keana emerged from the Trakmaster without waiting for him and marched ahead by herself, drawn toward the tunnel that led to the buried museum vault. She was no longer as delicate and spoiled as he had expected. He led her to the shaft crawler that whisked them deep into the mountain, where numerous engineers and scientists were studying the library of Xayan artifacts.

As they reached the vault, the four pale-skinned alien creatures stood on a platform facing them, their large eyes gleaming in low illumination that oozed from the walls.

“We have waited for you, Uroa,” said Encix.

After several days of sharing her human body, Keana and Uroa had developed a cooperative routine. Now, as they faced the four Original Xayans, Keana felt a joined presence wrap around her – akin to the way Uroa had swept up on her in the slickwater pool, but these shared thoughts did not try to dominate her; they merely wanted to make a connection. She felt a sense of supreme calm and exhilaration, as if all the old pains in her body and heart were gone and would never return.

Light spiraled and sparkled over their heads. Keana stared in awe as the chamber’s walls and ceiling lit up in a parade of three-dimensional images that showed large populations of Xayans in the midst of ever-changing, animated structures. Music that her human ears could not hear vibrated against her sensitive skin, but the mental presence of Uroa allowed her to remember . . . and enjoy it.