Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (74 page)

“No comment,” she said.

Dux and Acey exchanged perplexed glances.

Eshaz took a deep, excited breath. “I am about to tell you something that Woldn would not like.”

He paused as Tulyan waiters brought in large plates of food, the aromatic vegetarian fare that this race favored. In their entire history, they had apparently never eaten meat, seafood, or anything that had once been alive—other than the special plants that they grew for their leaves and other foliage, and trimmed without ever killing the plants. According to one of the main dining room waitresses, the Tulyans even had religious ceremonies and rituals involving the plants. It was a very serious, very spiritual matter to them.

Dux rather liked the dishes he’d been served here before, though Acey ate them only grudgingly, because he had no choice. As the waiters removed the lid from Dux’s plate, he inhaled the rich odor of a golden stew. He thought it might be something they called
watilly,
which had what the waitress had called “a rainbow of flavors.” Sampling it with a spoon, he wasn’t so sure. This tasted slightly different, with a cilantro aftertaste. Maybe it was still
watilly,
but seasoned in a different fashion.

When the waiters were gone, Eshaz said, “I intend to hunt and capture wild podships, the way my people did in the early years of the galaxy.”

Looking alarmed, Tesh protested, asserting that her people—and especially Woldn—would never permit it, and even if Eshaz was successful he would soon be swarmed and the pods would be taken away. This was the way it had always been when Tulyans obtained podships.

“I don’t want any part of it,” Tesh said.

“We seem to be missing some details here,” Dux said.

“Wild podships?” Acey said, ignoring his cousin’s comment.
“Row fantastic!
We can go, too?”

“I’ve got to keep you boys out of trouble, don’t I?” Eshaz wiped stew off his own chin, and grinned. “Of course, we will require transportation for such a grand adventure. That’s where our friend Tesh comes in.”

While the wide-eyed boys listened, Eshaz provided them with general information about Parviis and Tulyans, and their age-old battle for control of podships. He told them Tesh was not really Human, that she was a Parvii in disguise, and that she had piloted the podship that brought her and Eshaz here to the starcloud. Then he looked at Tesh and asked, “Do you want to add anything to that?”

She shook her head, and her emerald eyes flashed. “Perhaps later.”

Reaching across the table, Eshaz touched her hand. Despite the magnification system he knew she had, Eshaz was able to connect with her cellular structure and read her thoughts, her innermost wishes and dreams. Earlier, he had done this to the Parviis who were clustered around him at the Palace of Woldn, probing the neuron highways of their brains, picking up some of their innermost wishes and dreams. He knew that Tesh had disagreed with Woldn before, and so had others. Now she was one of the most outspoken ones, inciting the displeasure of the leader. He had seen that firsthand, and now he learned more about her reasons, her independent way of looking at things, her strong sense of personal integrity and morality. Woldn had murdered passengers on podships, and she hated him for it. The terrible act had made her ashamed to be a Parvii.

She looked at him oddly, knowing that he was intruding on her thoughts, but letting him do it.

“Well, are you a Parvii first or a citizen of the galaxy?” Eshaz demanded, taking a new tack. “Can’t you think of a situation where the health of the galaxy comes before the interests of your people? Noah’s Guardians have performed recovery operations on only a handful of planets—not nearly enough. All of us need to do more.” He paused. “Noah wants us to do more.”

Now Eshaz found that her thoughts became troubled and murky, with flashes of near-decision that changed quickly and flitted off in other directions, some of which involved her personal feelings of attraction for Noah. In only a few moments, she explored too many ancillary considerations for him to follow. He didn’t like to connect with mental impulses that shot in several directions like that, since it invariably gave him terrible headaches.

With a gentle smile, he withdrew his hand.

While Tesh considered his proposal, Eshaz said that Noah should expand his ecological recovery operations, to encompass more planets. In order to accomplish that, a fleet of Guardian-operated podships would be necessary, and Noah—if he ever escaped from imprisonment—could eventually merge operations with the entire race of Tulyans, the original caretakers of the galaxy.

“We Tulyans are working on methods of concealing podships from Parviis, and we think it might be possible to maintain control of every wild pod we capture.” Pausing, he added, “Actually, it’s something I’ve been wanting to discuss with Noah, but circumstances were never right—emergencies kept intruding.”

“How do your people capture wild Aopoddae?” Tesh asked. “It is something I have always wondered about.”

“I have already revealed a Tulyan confidence to you about our plans,” Eshaz said. “Just as Woldn is not pleased with you, the Tulyan Council thinks I may be a bit too much on the eccentric side. Still, they have given me permission to go on a special mission—if you consent, of course. We know that you have sealed the sectoid chamber, preventing intrusion. On wild podship hunts, we always stop at a certain planet first in the Tarbu Gap, and I will need to pilot us there, since you cannot know the location.”

“We are not enemies anymore,” she said. “That much I will accept, but it must be reciprocal.”

“Ah yes, to a degree. You concealed the location of the Parvii Fold from my truthing touch, hiding the galactic coordinates of your sacred place. Your people were the same to my touch; they told me nothing.”

“And you Tulyans have your own sacred secrets as well.” She shook her head. “It’s too bad you and I can’t fully trust one another.”

He smiled in a serene, perhaps ancient way. “Tell me where the Parvii Fold is, then, and I will tell you where the Tarbu Gap is. A quid pro quo.”

“Just like that? But what if I give you the wrong information?”

“Then I will do the same for you. Don’t forget. I have been traveling this galaxy for almost a million years, and I will know the truth … or the lie … of the coordinates you give me.”

“It is at the far end of Nebula 9907,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I have been to that region many times, and saw no galactic fold.”

“There is an asteroid funnel that is veiled by a Parvii swarm that guards it constantly, a swarm that has changed its appearance to make it look like there is no opening at all.”

“One of your nasty Parvii tricks,” Eshaz said. He nodded his head. “Yes, that location rings true.”

“And you Tulyans have no tricks of your own?” she said, with a smile. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Very well. The Tarbu Gap is in the Isuki Star System.”

“Where?”

He grinned, revealing large reptilian teeth. “In the five hundred seventy-seventh quadrant, past the Tlewa Roid Belt.”

She thought for a moment. “I’m drawing a blank.”

“It is a region of burned-out stars, and of dwarf stars, both white and brown. It is one of the Aopoddae breeding grounds.”

“I don’t know how we missed it.”

Eshaz shrugged. “It’s a big galaxy. If you are ready, I shall give you coordinates to take us there.”

“Have you used Tulyan mindlink to veil the region in some manner?”

“I have told you enough,” he said curtly.

“Be nice to me or I’ll inform Woldn, and he will have the swarms cut you off from that area. He will end your podship hunts forever.”

“But your true allegiance is not to Woldn, is it?” Eshaz said. “It is to the well-being of this galaxy. I see it in your eyes, and … I felt it … in your touch.”

Tesh did not look surprised. She looked down at her hand, where Eshaz had made physical contact with her, and smiled.

“Will you take us to Tarbu Gap?” Acey asked her.

“Just let anyone try and stop me,” Tesh said.

The four of them reached across the table, and clasped hands.

Chapter Twenty-Five

From any point in time or space, the possibilities are endless.

—Noah Watanabe

While Giovanni Nehr was considering a plan to rescue Noah, he remembered seeing the underwater door of the Max One prison. The stone structure had once been a nobleman’s castle, so he thought that was probably a secret escape route, with an airlock on the other side. But there might not be an airlock on the other side, or it might not be functional anymore.

To deal with that unknown, Gio now envisioned a scuba-commando team of Humans and fighting machines, attaching a mobile airlock to a wall underwater. They could then find a way to open the door and go through.

Finding Thinker in one of the robot construction chambers, Gio outlined his plan to him.

Blinking his metal-lidded eyes, Thinker said, “Your concept of a mobile airlock is intriguing, but it has never been done before. Granted, the underwater door on the prison may not have an airlock of its own, so your idea has some merit. But it presents difficulties, not the least of which is the method of sealing such a device against a wet surface, especially with the rock that the prison is made of. It’s Canopan sangran, a material that cannot be climbed with adhesive shoes, since malleable foreign substances do not stick to it. In my data banks, I have information about the difficulties they had in formulating mortars.”

“But they came up with a mortar, obviously.”

“Yes, and I know the formula. But it requires materials that are not readily available to us on Canopa.”

“There must be a way,” Gio said.

“If we had the right materials, yes, but the lack of podship travel.…” Thinker hesitated. “Ah,” he said.

“What did you come up with?”

“Come with me,” Thinker said. He led Gio down a long tunnel into a side cavern. At a barracks building, he asked to see one of the new recruits, a young woman named Kindsah. “Tell her to bring her friend, too,” he added.

After a few minutes, she came over. A stocky woman in her early twenties with curly black hair, she smiled readily. Gio had never met her before, but had seen her with an unusual little alien—one she had with her now, visible from the top of an open carrying bag in her hand.

Thinker explained the problem to her, and he said, “I’ve seen you demonstrating Lumey’s flexibility, and the way he can change shape and stick to surfaces with the most powerful adhesive quality I’ve ever seen. Could he stretch himself thin and do what we need, forming a gasket?”

Reaching into the bag, Kindsah brought out the dark-brown amorphous creature that Noah Watanabe had originally rescued from an industrially polluted planet. “To save Noah, this fellow would do anything. Of course, he could do that.” She touched the creature soothingly as she murmured to it, and in a few seconds it became long and thin.

“See if he can stick to this,” Thinker said. He brought a large gray chunk of sangran out of a bucket of water, and extended it.

Like a snake, Lumey darted forward and adhered himself to the wet stone, so that no one could pull it free. Then, holding him by the tail, Kindsah swung Lumey and the heavy stone over her head like a lasso. Only when she stopped and spoke soothingly to the creature, telling it to let go, did it do so.

Next, Kindsah caused the creature to spread all over the floor of the cavern like the thinnest of crepes on the surface, face-up.

“This is going to work,” Thinker said. He knelt down and touched Lumey gently with the metal tip of a probe, then looked at Gio. “Now let’s solve the other problems presented by your plan.”

* * * * *

Giovanni Nehr had not anticipated such a woeful possibility, but as he developed the rescue plan with Thinker and Subi Danvar, he feared that he may have painted himself into a corner. Too late, a range of unwelcome possibilities occurred to him. The bottom line: If his plan did not result in Noah’s safe return, he could very well be demoted to a mere fighter again, no more significant than the dead-brain robots who followed Thinker. Or worse, Gio envisioned the end of his career path in the Guardians.

But he had to proceed anyway. He had no alternative. So he recommended the key details of a dangerous, risky plan. At every opportunity, he tried to spread the potential blame as widely as possible, even to the young female recruit who cared for Lumey. With such an uncertain result, he preferred to cushion his own fall. But everyone kept complimenting him on the boldness and cleverness of his ideas, and looking to him to spearhead the effort.

It soon became apparent to Gio that the blame—or credit—would all go to him.

In the plan, he set the time and means of infiltrating Max One prison, in a daring attempt to liberate the beloved founder of the Guardians. The penal facility had been constructed on a manmade canal to resemble its notorious, blood-stained predecessor on Timian One, the Gaol of Brimrock.

Finally, Gio and his team were ready to go, not knowing that Noah wasn’t even there anymore.…

Chapter Twenty-Six

“The noble-born princes call themselves aristocracy and cavort about in fine trimmings, but they are empty shells, for they have earned nothing and only came into their wealth through the deaths of their ancestors. But each chain of inheritance actually began with someone earning the wealth. Hence, it is beyond comprehension how the noble-born princes can consider themselves superior to those of us who have amassed great assets through ingenuity and hard work. Alas, this has been a dynamic of history, the eternal clash of old and new money.”

—Prince Saito Watanabe, public address on “The Nouveau Riche”

Seated in a front-row seat of the operating theater, Francella Watanabe leaned forward in anticipation. Having been unavoidably detained by a meeting, she had come in late. It was late morning now, and every window shade in the facility had been drawn so that bright yellow sunlight only came in through slits.

Dr. Bichette, standing over Noah at the central table, was injecting him with something. Four burly security guards stood nearby, ready to spring into action if her brother tried to escape again. Electronic straps no longer held him, and guards reported that he had shown interest in the electronic containment field of his cell, apparently trying to think of ways to disable it, too. But this was a different, far more powerful system, and thus far it seemed capable of holding Noah. No one was taking any chances, though. Additional guards had been assigned to him around the clock.