Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (32 page)

It was true, so tragically true. And now all of the abuses of civilization were taking their terrible toll.

To aid in their caretaking efforts, the Tulyans did have a few podships that had been captured in the wild reaches of space, from intercepting the ancient migration routes of the creatures. But the pods had to be hidden carefully in order to avoid having them taken by Parvii swarms … or by the ravenous demons of the undergalaxy. With only limited resources, the dedicated Tulyans could not do much … nowhere near what they achieved in ancient, bygone times.

Emerging from his walk in the woods, Eshaz stared for a long while at the Humans bustling around the new Digger holes. The exterminators were dropping probes into the openings, to search for the malfunctioning machines.

Eshaz rather liked these Humans, especially Noah, who had more upstanding qualities than any other alien he’d ever encountered. In his long life, Eshaz had known many persons of various races, and some of them were extraordinary historical figures, males and females who were much honored by their people. Always, though, the Tulyan had tried to maintain his distance from aliens he admired. In large part this was to preserve his own emotional balance, since it was too difficult to get attached to sentients who had such short life spans in comparison with his own.

But now, for the first time, Eshaz was breaking that hard-and-fast rule. No matter how much he had tried to avoid it, he could not help feeling tremendous esteem for Noah Watanabe … and a strong bond of affection. While some of the reasons for this were obvious to Eshaz, he also felt something ineffable toward the Human, an almost instinctual sensation that was as inexplicable to him as his inability to peer through the veils of time.

Chapter Forty-Five

I only collect on promises. I don’t fulfill them.

—Doge Lorenzo del Velli

The Doge Lorenzo del Velli prided himself on his nefarious plots and schemes. He liked to do things behind the scenes to effect important changes, so that the persons targeted were blind-sided, and never figured out what happened to them. It was a game he liked to play. In his position, of course, he didn’t have to do that, because he was the most powerful man in the galaxy. But he preferred subtle methods rather than using hammers. He liked to compare his “little tricks,” as he called them, to a whispering wind that slipped up behind the victim unawares and suddenly transformed itself into a hurricane.

Several years ago, a warlord prince had been openly critical of Lorenzo’s administration, making the ridiculous assertion that the Doge was doing such a terrible job that he should relinquish his throne to the first person who asked for it—since anyone could do better. It was such an absurd idea that it didn’t deserve a response, at least not a direct one.

So, after considering the matter at length, Lorenzo and his Royal Attaché came up with a way to silence the outspoken critic. Pimyt spread a convincing rumor, complete with falsified evidence, that the grumbling Prince was having an affair with General Mah Sajak’s attractive, flirtatious wife. The General, who was often away from home in battles against the Mutatis, became so convinced of the story that he hired assassins to go after the Prince.

It all went perfectly, and when Lorenzo received confirmation of the killing, Pimyt could hardly control his elation, for he claimed that he had come up with the plan. The furry little Hibbil did four back flips and half a dozen spinning rolls, landing on his feet at the base of the Doge’s throne.

“Whatever do you think you’re doing?” Lorenzo had asked. “It was my idea, not yours.” This was not true, and the Doge knew it. But he also knew he could win any argument with the Hibbil.

“Oh, my mistake,” Pimyt said, in a tone that bordered on the sarcastic. Then, as if to sublimate any anger he could not express, he did the reverse of the gymnastics he had just accomplished, with six reverse spinning rolls followed by four front flips.

“There,” Pimyt said. “That neutralizes my little celebration, as if it never happened.”

Now the Doge had another serious problem, one that his lover Francella Watanabe wanted taken care of. She had told him about it in bed, asserting what a terrible, deceptive man her own brother was. Of course, Lorenzo was not foolish enough to believe all of those distortions, for he knew Noah personally and also knew how to spin his own tales. But he let on that he believed her, and she was most grateful for the sympathy he expressed, just one of his many skills.

That night—in return for his promise to have Noah killed at the first opportunity—Francella bestowed her generous personal favors on him. In the morning Lorenzo set in motion his own plan to accomplish the assassination. After all, he had plenty of excellent ideas himself, and didn’t need to always rely upon that fur-ball Pimyt to solve every problem.

Having solved that for the moment, Lorenzo turned to other matters, and conferred with his royal astronomers over the Earth-Mars disasters. They cited examples of other odd events occurring around the galaxy … ground giving way underneath people, exposing immense, seemingly bottomless sinkholes, and large chunks of planets (or entire small planets) disappearing into voids. Survivors told harrowing tales, and investigators were working on the problem, but thus far had not come up with any solutions.

“How could entire planets disappear?” Lorenzo asked them.

“If it were only Earth and Mars, we might think it was a problem with the yellow sun in that solar system,” the lead astronomer said, a grizzled old man who dressed impeccably. “We’ve seen at least one example of a sun giving off destructive solar energy that destroyed all of the planets orbiting it, one by one. But that can’t be the case here. The problem is too widespread, and the results differ. Sometimes we find space debris, and other times there’s nothing left … a complete vanishing act.”

“My grandfather used to tell me about Earth and Mars,” Lorenzo said. “He said that Human migrations departed from them thousands of years ago, spreading the seeds of our race across hundreds of star systems.”

“It’s a big loss,” the old astronomer said, shaking his head sadly.

Afterward, when he had time to think by himself, the Doge was left with an unsettled feeling. What if something terrible were to happen to Canopa or Siriki … or even worse, to Timian One? He could hardly imagine such events, and yet, something told him they were entirely possible.

Chapter Forty-Six

Thanks to medical technology, the average lifespan of a human being has risen steadily in modern times. It now stands at 106.4 years for women, and 94.1 years for men … with men lagging in large part because of war deaths.

—MPA Actuarial Office

On the grounds of his Ecological Demonstration Project, Noah Watanabe stood inside an energy production chamber, surrounded by crystalglax tanks and tubes. Checking gauges and meters, he monitored the progress of one of the experiments. This particular test system was the brainchild of a team of his brightest students. Designed to harness and amplify energy generated by thousands of green plants, it had sounded far-fetched to him at first, but just might work after all. Using collection units that floated over the plants, from field to field, they collected energy from various botanical species, for the purpose of observing differences between them and optimizing future Human exploitation of the technology.

Speaking into a computer, Noah instructed it to provide day by day comparisons for the past six months. Long charts scrolled down the monitor, providing field by field and species by species analyses. Curiously, imported Sirikan sporeweeds were beginning to outperform the other plants, whereas initially they had not done well at all. In recent days the technicians had found a way of tweaking the sensitive organisms, irritating them to create more oxygen and other cellular exhalants, for transfer to the EDP’s energy production chamber.

Subi Danvar opened the chamber door and entered, but it closed so hard behind him that the images on the screen jiggled. “Master Noah, you don’t need to perform these tasks,” the heavyset man said as he lumbered across the floor. We have people to do them for you.”

“This is turning into an important test program,” Noah said. “I want to check it firsthand.”

“You have thousands of employees, so that you can free yourself from such responsibilities.” His tone became acidic. “It’s called delegation.”

“Are you saying I don’t know how to manage people?” Noah asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Well,” Subi said, with his own blue-eyed sparkle, “you’ve never figured out how to keep
me
in line, have you?”

“I’ll grant you that, old friend.” He paused. “Of course, I could fire you.”

“Then who would protect your well-exposed backside?” Subi rubbed the purple birthmark on his own cheek, and it seemed to brighten.

“Is that all you are, Subi, padding for my derriere?”

“I could say something to devastate you now,” he countered, “but I’ll give you a break this time.”

“Sure, sure.”

They exchanged mock scowls.

The two men were not angry with each other, not in the least. It was just a typical bantering session between them, with each trying to gain a verbal leg up on the other. A mental wrestling match. It didn’t keep either of them from focusing on their work, and had actually proved to be a way of reducing the natural stresses of their jobs. They always took great care not to exchange sharp repartees in front of other employees, however, not wishing to give anyone the impression that the men did not respect one another.

Noah ordered a printout, then had to grab hold of a thick vertical tube when the chamber started to shake, accompanied by a loud rumbling noise.

“Uh oh,” Subi said. “I hope it’s not what I think it is.”

They hurried to leave, but stumbled and fell together when the konker floor buckled and cracked beneath them. Struggling back to their feet, they made it to the door, but it was stuck and would not open. Behind them, the floor was breaking apart, and the noise had become deafening. Cracking, roaring sounds, and loud engine noises.

“Diggers!” Noah shouted, as he and Subi pulled with all of their strength at the door. It budged, just a little.

The floor of the chamber erupted, with a deafening roar.

Noah and Subi got the door open and ran outside. Moments later, the walls and ceiling of the chamber collapsed and fell into a newly made hole. Noah barely got a glimpse of the tail end of a Digger as it dove back into the ground with the debris. The elongated, silvery machine was covered in dirt; it had huge treads, and large, spinning drill bits on its body. Anyone coming close to one would be torn apart, but Noah’s extermination squads had modern, remote controlled boring machines of their own to chase down the pesky, mole-like Diggers and wipe them out.

The most danger occurred if people were inside a building, because it often took so long to get outside and damage to the structure—as had almost happened to Noah and Subi—could prevent escape. If people were outside, however, they could usually get away from the errant machines without harm, since the contraptions made so much noise when they were coming that people had time to get out of the way.

But the renegade machines seemed to get irritated whenever they were attacked, and might even be self-replicating. For each one that was destroyed, two more seemed to pop out of the ground. The very act of chasing the Diggers down seemed to trigger a survival instinct in them. Still, reports reaching Noah showed that the population of the machines on Canopa was actually dwindling. Their behavior was decidedly curious.

Under Subi Danvar’s command, Anton Glavine and Tesh Kori, along with other anti-Digger commandos, dropped explosive depth-probes into the hole. Moments later, detonations sounded, and the ground shook.

“We’ve got ‘em on the run now,” Subi said. He started to grin, but Noah saw it fade suddenly, and heard more machinery noises, and gunfire.

On a handheld surveillance monitor, Noah saw silver vehicles approaching along the main road into the compound, and uniformed men running beside them. He recognized blue-and-silver CorpOne banners fluttering over the military squadron. His own sister Francella was in control of the family corporation now, and Noah was certain that this was no welcoming party. Not content to acquire all of the wealth of their father, she had apparently decided to go on the offensive against her twin.

As Noah and his adjutant ran for shelter and shouted commands into transmitters, his mind whirled. Did she hope to capture or kill him? There had been rumors that she wanted to make Noah the scapegoat for the death of Prince Saito Watanabe, and perhaps they were true after all.

Blue tracer fire hissed over their heads. Noah and Subi ducked into a bolt hole that they had opened with an electronic signal, and the hatch closed behind them. They joined hundreds of green-and-brown uniformed Guardians running for emergency stations. Everyone had done this drill before, and knew the priorities.

Noah continued to wonder. He had expected Francella’s attempt to blame him for the death of their father, but had not anticipated a military onslaught from her. That was far too brash, so she must have the backing of Doge Lorenzo for something like this. Yes, that was undoubtedly it. They were lovers, after all.

Guardians cleared the way for Noah and Subi, and the two of them boarded a grid-plane. Just as they jumped aboard, Noah noticed Tesh and Anton with a group of other Digger exterminators, all of them covered in dirt from the recent attack.

“Bring those two with us,” Noah ordered, and as many others as we can. Tell everyone possible to take off for EcoStation. Priority One. From there we might have time to figure out what to do.”

He knew that his Guardian Security Force was defending against the attack. He’d seen them beginning to fight back just before he and Subi made it into the bolt hole. But he also knew what CorpOne could throw against them, and worried about whether they had the firepower to defend the compound. He would stay there and man the guns himself, but Subi had developed contingency plans to keep enemies from getting to Noah, and Noah knew that his followers needed him for inspiration.