Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (110 page)

There might be a few outriders still in deep space with the capability of firing torpedoes, and he could only hope that they were not on prearranged attack schedules. But he knew that the Demolio torpedo program could not continue on a large scale, since the Zultan had coordinated everything himself, and Mutatis would not do anything important without his blessing.

Now, in his private chapel, Hari went to a cabinet and removed a ceremonial sword. Unsheathing it, he pressed the tip of it against his fleshy midsection. And prepared to fall upon it.

At that moment, Parais d’Olor—hurrying to tell Hari about the podship landings—flew by the chapel window and looked through it. Seeing what he was about to do, the beautiful aeromutati crashed through the plax and knocked the sword away with one of her powerful wings.

“My darling, my darling!” she exclaimed, gathering her wings to pull him to her bosom.

Looking up at her gentle, compassionate face, Hari wished he had been faster with the sword. But that would have required bravery, which he did not have. He felt the deepest, most mournful sadness anyone could ever experience, for he knew with certainty that he would be condemned to the eternal damnation of the undergalaxy for this. He had indelibly blackened his soul.

There could be no redemption for what he had done.

“But why, why would you do this to yourself?” she asked.

After saving Hari’s life, Parais escorted him into his palace and put him to bed. “You must rest,” she said. “Everything will look better in the morning.”

“That is not possible,” he said.

“I will remain with you,” she promised, “never taking trips away from you, never leaving your side. I love you so much, and you must believe me when I tell you that life is worth living.”

Deeply despondent, Hari admitted what he did—the unimaginable, accidental destruction of Paradij in an attempt to stop his father’s psychotic military program. As he told her he saw shock and horror register on her face. But she recovered quickly, and spoke to him in a soothing tone. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It must have been the will of God-On-High.”

“More likely, it was influenced by the demons of the undergalaxy.”

“Forgive me for saying this, but your father was the most evil Mutati I’ve ever met. I was chilled to the bone in his presence. The galaxy is a better place with him gone.”

He nodded, but did not brighten.

“Don’t be sad, my darling. Wherever you’re going, I’ll be by your side.”

“You would kill yourself?”

“Without you, I would have no reason to live.”

Struggling to maintain his composure, Hari touched her face with one of his three hands, and followed her perfect contours with his fingertips, the exquisite bone structure and classic features. He could not imagine her dying, but knew of no way to keep her alive unless he remained among the living.

“With the Zultan dead,” she said, “the victim of his own demented plan, the Mutati people need a strong, ethical leader to keep them on the proper path. And you—as Abal Meshdi’s eldest son—are that leader. You shall be the new Zultan.”

They placed their hands on a copy of
The Holy Writ,
and shared a prayer.

After Hari had rested, Parais told him of the strange podship landings on the other side of Dij, and of the Adurian and Hibbil soldiers that had disembarked. She expected him to say he already knew about it, but he looked shocked.

Immediately he dispatched his own military forces to the site, with orders to rout the intruders. In the operation, his fighters killed half of the aliens and captured the rest. They also took control of two podships. But these vessels, his scientists determined by tracking their DNA histories, proved to be of the laboratory-bred variety that his father had been cloning on a secondary world in the star system. And these two, unlike the others that had been so unreliable for cross-space shots, had navigation systems that worked perfectly, taking test pilots out into deep space and back.

None of the prisoners would reveal anything, but Hari’s linguistic experts soon learned that the nav-units had Hibbil markings on them.

Chapter Eighty-Two

It should not be possible for a vast connective tissue to exist, touching every celestial body in the heavens, but this is, nonetheless, the galactic design. How do planets orbit suns when the webbing is intact, and fall out of orbit in sectors where the webbing has decayed? To comprehend, it is necessary to expand your mind, and when you believe comprehension is reached you must suspend it, because the true answer comes from a different portion of your brain.

—Noah Watanabe

Disembarking from the grid-plane, Noah led Anton and Subi along an electronic-camouflaged path to the main entrance of the subterranean headquarters. It was early evening, with stars twinkling faintly against a charcoal-gray backdrop. They walked inside a moving infrared bubble, which permitted them to see through the darkness in all directions.

“Are you taking me to the podship?” Anton asked. “Is that where Tesh is?” “Possibly, but we don’t want to alarm her by going directly there. It is best to act more casual, and broach the matter with her in my office, or over a meal.” “You’re right. I’m just impatient to get on with it.” “So am I, but we need to be careful what we say to her.”

“You mean, what / say to her,” Anton said. “I have to convince her on my own, remember?” Noah shot him a rueful smile, and considered the situation. Despite the electronic camouflage, certain realities were apparent. Anton’s father—Lorenzo del Velli—already knew the location of the facility, so Noah saw no point in concealing it from the young Doge. The information was out anyway, and besides, there was a cease-fire and Noah needed to work with Anton closely if the Human race—and every other race, for that matter—had any chance of surviving the growing galactic cataclysm. He even wished the Mutatis well, as long as it didn’t come at the expense of humankind.

Though Noah had been indoctrinated from an early age to despise all Mutatis, he had never really understood the historical underpinnings of the conflict, and now he could not bring himself to wish extinction on them. There must be good and bad Mutatis, just as there were good and bad Humans.

Maybe Princess Meghina was one of the good shapeshifters. After all, she had tried to prevent Francella from shooting him on the Canopa pod station. Meghina was known as a courtesan, but she also had a reputation for being compassionate, and for donating funds to animal-welfare groups as well as to impoverished people on various MPA planets, especially those living in the back country of her own homeworld, Siriki. She had even been kind to Noah’s father, Prince Saito Watanabe, caring for the old man more than any courtesan should.

In the red darkness, Noah saw a wide stone that marked one of the secondary entrances to the headquarters. Touching a button on his belt, the stone slid aside, revealing a metalloy door. From another control on his belt, Noah sent coded signals. The door did not open.

“I just changed the codes,” Subi said.

“Yeah, I know,” Noah said, “but I thought you programmed the new ones into my belt.”

“I did.”

“Don’t worry,” Noah said, as he transmitted more signals. “I still have other ways of getting in, an access override.”

“We shouldn’t have to use the overrides,” Subi said, watching as Noah transmitted an alternate code. “Okay, there it goes.”

The large door irised open, revealing a dark tunnel beyond. Subi led his companions inside, and closed the entrance behind them. Lights flashed on in the tunnel, and they hurried through it.

“In all the excitement,” Anton said, walking beside Noah, “I forgot that I need to maintain contact with my own office, or they will worry about me. Can you get a message to them, under my seal?”

“Of course.”

“You want to help with my diplomatic mission?” Tesh asked, staring at Doge Anton. Glancing over at Noah, she said, “Did you tell him everything?”

“Yes.” Noah sat beside the merchant prince leader, sipping a glass of redicio wine. They were inside a large subterranean cafeteria, serviced by robot waiters. Noah saw Tesh’s green eyes flash at him, and he felt the emotional charge between himself and her. He also noticed the interaction between her and Anton, the remnants of what once had been an intimate relationship.

“But how can you trust this man?” she demanded. “He’s the Doge now, the leader of the Merchant Prince Alliance. Your enemies! How could you do such a thing?”

“You trusted me once,” Anton said. On the tabletop, he touched her hand.

She pulled away.

“I want you to take me to the Tulyan Starcloud,” Anton said. “It’s essential to begin the diplomatic mission there. Your idea about going to the Parviis is a fine one, but it can’t be done casually, not the way you did it the first time. No, I’m going to advocate that it must be a full-fledged mission, led by the finest diplomats, both Human and Tulyan.”

Glaring at Doge Anton, she kept her thoughts to herself.

“For something this important, I need to go myself,” Anton said, as if anticipating a question she might have.

“And your entourage?” she said.

“Not needed for this initial trip. Though the Tulyans respect Noah, they do not generally trust Humans. I must take this gradually.” He smiled stiffly at his former girlfriend.

Tesh swished the wine in her glass, didn’t drink it. “Something doesn’t feel right here,” she said. Looking at Noah, she asked, “What do you have to say about this?”

“I’m outranked by my nephew. He’s doing the talking.”

“Are you being deceptive? I’m sensing something else going on here.”

“This is an important matter with far-reaching consequences,” Anton said. “We don’t have time
for feelings.”

Wrong way to put it,
Noah thought, shaking his head.

Flashing an angry look at Anton, Tesh rose. “You’re in no position to be condescending.” She walked away.

“Tesh, wait,” Anton said.

But she kept going, and didn’t look back.

“That went well,” Noah said to Anton, when she was out of earshot. “She’s not stupid, you know.”

“I remember,” Anton said. “She always was difficult for me to handle, and that hasn’t changed. What do we do now?”

“Wait for her to cool off,” Noah said.

After reducing herself in size, Tesh entered the sectoid chamber of the podship. Scurrying up a wall, she attached herself to the green flesh, where she felt the gentle, soothing pulse of the creature. Bathed in the lambent green light, she heard the faint background hum that had historically linked all of these creatures in the galaxy. Holding on to the thick flesh was no effort for Tesh at all. Through the connection, she peered through the eyes of the podship into the darkness, and up to the vault of stars.

Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift.

It was so peaceful here, and seemed to Tesh like the safest place in the universe, where she could gather her thoughts and sort through problems. Since landing near the Guardian headquarters, Tesh went to the sentient spaceship a couple of times a day, just to be by herself. Now she pressed her tiny face against the flesh, and felt the creature’s warmth, and the subtle changes in its pulse. Each day that she was with the alien organism she felt closer to it … as if it was becoming part of her, and she was becoming part of it.

“I dub thee Webdancer,” she whispered, on impulse.

It was an appellation that brought to her mind romantic images of podships skittering along the web, from star to star. She sometimes wondered if these simple, beautiful creatures should be left free and wild, to roam the galaxy on their own.

It had agitated her seeing Anton again, since it reminded her of some of the arguments they’d had after she met Noah, when Anton accused her falsely of not being faithful to him. She’d been with possessive men before, and had never liked it. Anton had taken it relatively well when she broke up with him, though he had seemed genuinely sad.

Sifting through her thoughts, she realized that she felt gloomy just sitting at the same table with him. Once there had been strong feelings between them, almost love, and she still cared about him. She also knew him well enough to sense when he was not telling the truth, or when he was concealing something from her.

But what could it be?

Anton wanted to travel to the Tulyan Starcloud very badly, to see the Council of Elders. Supposedly to make sure they performed caretaking operations for MP A sectors. In truth, that might be part of it.

Or …

She didn’t want to think about the alternative.

Abruptly, Tesh detected an increasingly strong tugging at her mind, something trying to break her mental and physical link with the podship, trying to take Webdancer away from her.

Her serenity broken, Tesh came to sharp awareness and fought back.

Deeply fatigued, Noah had been drifting off to sleep, just beginning to peer into a dream world of alpine lakes and canopa fir trees, with gnarled rocks above … formations that looked like living, fairy tale creatures. The rocks moved slightly, as if they were talking to each other, but they did not seem threatening to him. They were like sentinels, protecting the realm of his reverie.

But an odd, intrusive sensation began to come over Noah, as if two dimensions were rubbing together, grating on the tranquility of his dream. In a violent jerk, he had suddenly been ripped away from slumber and thrust out into the cosmos.

He found himself spinning along the vast, curving strands of the web. From what he’d heard, he’d expected to see only a few podships out there, occasional wild ones. But there were hundreds of gray creatures flying one direction and another, maybe more of them than that, taking courses that seemed different from those he had seen before. These ships were going slower, skipping along the web for a distance, slipping off, and getting back on again. Still, they were making their way across the galaxy at much higher speeds than conventional solar sailers or vacuum rockets.

To his dismay, Noah noticed great rips in sections of the web, ragged holes in the fabric of the galaxy and regions where planets and stars slid and tumbled out of orbit, with no web tissue connecting them at all. The podships went around those problem sectors, but even where the web looked normal the sentient vessels could not go as fast or as efficiently as the podships he had seen previously.