Hellhole: Awakening (41 page)

But Goler thought,
I only wish it weren’t so soon.

Up until the moment the armed escort came for him at sunset, he kept waiting for a message of clemency, or at least a delay. Yet, he did not believe the Diadem was bluffing—she had too much pride and bullheadedness for that, and she would never change her mind once she’d made her announcement.

Goler clung to his only lifeline, a thin thread of hope that Enva Tazaar might take swift and secret action. He suspected she had been behind the recent assassination attempt on the Diadem—General Adolphus would never try to solve the problem with a hidden bomb. Lady Tazaar had already suggested she could eliminate Michella and take her place, but though she might want to help him, he doubted she had the connections or the time to plan his rescue.

When the guards escorted him out of his cell, Goler walked with his back straight and head held high. He had only his pride and confidence in the justness of his cause; this was the last service he could do for General Adolphus.

From the moment the dying trailblazer captain Ernst Packer had arrived at Ridgetop, Goler had understood that he needed to choose sides … and he also knew that the Diadem would never forgive him for picking the wrong side. His only remaining option was to make a good accounting of himself, to stand out as a man willing to die for Deep Zone independence and the downfall of the corrupt Constellation government. His dignity and legacy were all he really had left.

They brought him out to Heart Square in front of a carefully selected crowd; the viewing stands were filled with the most powerful nobles. Projection screens showed Riomini’s huge military ships gathered at the Sonjeera hub, ready to fall like hammers on a half dozen DZ planets. Goler felt deep sorrow for all those innocent colonists. Obviously, the Diadem wanted him to see this.

When he stepped out into the fading sunlight, the crowd howled and hissed, as they had been primed to do. The nobles in the stands raised their fists and shouted, like wolves scenting blood. He recognized some of them, noblemen and ladies who had once been friendly toward him, but no longer.

Goler did not cringe, didn’t look down at the ground; instead, he swept his gaze across these people who were pouring out hatred for him and decrying what he stood for. To his dismay, he saw Enva Tazaar among them, her face red as she joined a chorus of “Kill the traitor!”

Knowing her overtures to General Adolphus, he could have revealed her plans, perhaps earning himself a reprieve by doing so. What was such information worth to the Diadem? But when he saw the hatred on Lady Tazaar’s face, he knew it was an act to divert suspicion. He forgave her for it—and he hoped that she did, in fact, find a way to bring down Diadem Michella and open the door of peace to the Deep Zone.

A blank wall had been erected as a divider in the center of Heart Square. The guards marched him to it, and Goler saw five uniformed men wearing the colors of the Diadem’s personal guard; they all shouldered projectile rifles and stared at him without expression.

Riomini stood beside the old Diadem, who sat on a portable facsimile of the Star Throne. When Goler faced Michella from below, she did not rise, did not grant him the smallest gesture of respect. Instead she spoke into a voice amplifier. “Carlson Goler, former territorial governor, you have traitorously aided our greatest enemy, General Tiber Maximilian Adolphus. I was merciful before to the General, and that small benevolent gesture cost countless lives. I have learned my lesson and shall not show mercy again.”

Goler stood with his lips pressed together. It was exactly what he’d expected her to say.

“As a convicted traitor, you are hereby sentenced to death, the execution to be carried out immediately so as not to delay the departure of our fleet.” She looked around at the audience. “Lord Riomini is anxious to secure the rebellious Deep Zone worlds.”

Although she had not invited him to issue any last statement, Goler shouted out. He needed no amplifier. “I am the formally appointed ambassador from the independent Deep Zone! Whenever
you
send your own envoy to meet with the General, I only hope the Deep Zone receives him or her with more courtesy and honor than you have shown me.”

The Diadem looked annoyed and impatient. “Oh, don’t speak to me of
honor
! I dispatched you to oversee eleven Deep Zone planets, and you turned against us. You were never an important person. Do you think anyone I would assign to the frontier is that important?”

The guards placed him against the flat wall, then walked away. Goler continued to stare at her as he shouted back, “You aren’t the one who made me important—General Adolphus did!”

The Diadem gave the order, and her personal guards raised their projectile rifles, all the barrels pointed at him. Goler didn’t close his eyes. He saw the bright flash of muzzle flares, and the bullets struck him before he even heard the sound of gunfire.

63

Bolton Crais had always been good at solving problems, but his definition of a “problem” had changed dramatically. It had been a major crisis when Keana fled to Hellhole in an ill-advised quest to find Cristoph de Carre, and then she’d joined the bizarre alien cult. Bolton had been ready to do anything to save his wife from her own foolishness.

Now he didn’t know how many more days he would be
alive,
or if it was even possible to rescue his wife.

Keana had long been disappointed with their marriage. She and Bolton kept their distance from each other, and he interfered little with her activities, even her romantic dalliances. Keana hadn’t flaunted them, and they’d had an “understanding,” as she often said, though it was more
Keana’s
understanding than Bolton’s. He had accepted it, so as not to lose her completely.

Once, at the private lakeside cottage, she had hosted a garden party, inviting the sons and daughters of many noble families. However, in her self-centered way, Keana hadn’t bothered to study the schedule, and her party conflicted with a major anniversary parade for Lord Selik Riomini. Since Riomini appeared to be the heir apparent to the Star Throne, most of the guests opted to attend the Black Lord’s parade rather than her party.

In preparation, she had spent a fortune—Bolton doubted Keana even knew the cost—to buy four new watercolor paintings by Enva Tazaar, whose artistic aspirations were evident to everyone in the Council (though her artistic talent was not). Enva’s father, the powerful Azio Tazaar, one of Lord Riomini’s greatest rivals, had dragged his daughter to the anniversary parade, just to make certain they were seen.

Keana had displayed the paintings proudly outside in the open garden terrace, and her party was an embarrassing failure. She was so upset when her guests did not arrive that she ran inside, inconsolable.

When Bolton learned how much money his wife had spent on the poorly planned event and on the paintings, he worried how they would pay for it all. Even the Diadem’s daughter and the oldest son of the Crais family did not have infinite wealth. The situation became even worse when a rain squall passed overhead while Keana was inside the cottage crying, and the downpour ruined the new paintings.…

Angry at her own foolishness, and spiteful toward the nobles who had snubbed her, Keana did not even understand the magnitude of the disaster, nor did she understand why she still had to pay for the wrecked paintings, which had no salvage value. Bolton had realized that if Enva Tazaar learned how her new artwork had been so carelessly destroyed, her noble family would take great offense, which might start a bitter feud between the Craises and the Tazaars—a feud that Bolton’s family could ill afford.

So, he had taken the damaged paintings (along with photographs of what they were supposed to look like) to the best art restorer on Sonjeera, agreed to pay double to keep the work secret, then went to his father Ilvar and asked for a loan. Ilvar Crais had looked at his son, pressing his lips tightly together. “And how would our family benefit from
that
investment, Bolton? You and your wife seem to have no understanding of finances, and your prospects of making it on your own are restricted. You’ve already achieved the highest military rank that you’re likely to manage.” The old lord’s tone had conveyed his disappointment.

Bolton had straightened and said, “It would save us great embarrassment, Father—and embarrassment to me has a ripple effect on my brothers and on you. The other nobles will wonder if every Crais is as big a failure as I am.”

Ilvar stared at him for a full ten seconds before smiling thinly and nodding. “A reasonable argument. I will loan you half. Get the rest from Diadem Michella. She must be just as disappointed in her daughter as I am in you.”

“She is. The Diadem makes no secret of it.”

Now, aboard the stranded fleet, Bolton finished his calculations and stepped out of his dim, barely tolerable quarters. This crisis was so much worse than any concern over paintings or finances or noble family feuds. He shivered. The biting cold affected him with every breath.

The food supplies and fleet power requirements had finally forced the Redcom into holding another kind of lottery. At random, two hundred names of soldiers and crewmen would be chosen from the anesthetized thousands who lay connected to life support and nutrient drips. That group would be deactivated, the power shunted to other vital systems, the nutrients prioritized to keep others alive for a few more days. It was necessary. By now, the trailblazer was close. It had to be.

When Bolton presented Escobar with his list, he said, “These are the names you asked for, Redcom, selected at random. If you prefer a merit-based selection, I can run a different algorithm.”

The Red Commodore looked as if a thunderclap had exploded behind him. “I will not do that, Major. I will not stoop to Carrington’s level.”

“We’ve all reached a very primitive level, sir.” Bolton swallowed hard. He felt the jaws of hunger in his gut again. “The sedative stockpiles are running too low for us to put as many people into comas as I would like. As macabre as it sounds, there is another plan we must consider seriously, now that we’ve reached the point where we are taking steps to let crewmen die. We have the bodies—as well as the two hundred on this list. We have the automated means to process all that flesh into … usable protein. We don’t even need to tell the rest of the crew what we’re doing—in fact, I suggest we do not. Just provide their rations and give them what they need to survive.”

Escobar looked as if he wanted to vomit. “We can’t keep a secret like that. They’ll find out, and kill us!”

“At least most of them will be
alive
in ten days when Zabriskie and Caron return.
If
they return. Or would you have more die because you refuse to cross a moral line?”

The Redcom drew a deep breath. “Six weeks ago, I might have given you a different answer.” He scanned the list of names and froze. His bloodshot eyes widened. “Lieutenant Cristaine?”

Bolton had already noted her name on the list. “It was a random selection, sir. I can get another name. We’ll classify her with us, as key personnel.”

Escobar straightened. “That would entail killing someone else. If I abide by this, then I have to abide by it
all,
to the letter. If we survive, Major Crais, we are going to be judged by what we do.”

“We will be judged, most certainly,” Bolton said.

Escobar passed the list back. “Do what you need to do. Divert the nutrients and make the protein. Take away the life support for these people, and list them as casualties of war. There have already been deaths, and now we have more. Do everything possible to keep the crew from discovering the details.” Escobar lowered his head. “When will you need to select another two hundred names?”

Bolton stood at the Redcom’s door; he had not yet run the calculations of how much protein the bodies would provide. “Very soon, sir. I’m sorry.”

64

Flying en masse by telemancy, the group of shadow-Xayans streaked across the battered landscape of Hellhole. Thousands of human forms, along with Encix, levitated themselves into the sky and cruised on a mission to the gigantic impact basin where an asteroid had struck Xaya five centuries ago, leaving a weak spot in the planetary crust. Devon hoped they could perform mental surgery with their innate alien powers and ease the world’s festering wound.

From the height of the flying telemancers, Devon and Antonia could look down and see the curvature of the northern crater wall, a high line of broken swells so vast it looked like a mountain range, with the deep floor shattered and oozing lava in places. Hundreds of kilometers across, the impact crater swallowed up all sense of scale. The opposite rim was beyond the horizon, and the complete bull’s-eye could only be recognized from orbit.

Within him, Birzh could feel the simmering turmoil deep beneath the surface, like a blister rising up, growing more dangerous.

In a mass migration, thousands of shadow-Xayans gathered on the northern rim, where they had the best vantage of the upheavals in the center of the crater. Encix landed next to Devon and Antonia, and the entire group—minds joined—knew what they had to do. Directed in a symphony of mental powers, the converts began to concentrate, and Devon could feel their strength and stability adding to his own.

Far below, in the expansive impact valley, a volcano spewed a scarlet stream of lava and dark smoke into the air. The wind carried a sulfurous stench that burned his nose and eyes. As if drawn by the turbulence, thunderclouds congealed in the sky, and static electricity built up in a cauldron that created a huge growler storm.

As the telemancers concentrated, the ground trembled, poised on the verge of another large quake, fighting back against them. The crater felt like a struck tuning fork, Hellhole’s crust throbbing and vibrating. Out on the floor of the impact zone, slabs of stone cracked, split apart, and heaved up. Devon felt a jab of pain inside his head, and the shadow-Xayans murmured restlessly. Birzh gave him strength.