Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (97 page)

At the appointed time, in full daylight, Eshaz left his three alien companions at his home, and climbed alone to a high point of rock that overlooked his property, telling them only that he wanted time for contemplation. Reaching the pinnacle, he closed his eyes and focused all of his mental energies in the manner that the Elders had instructed him to do. In doing this, he, like other Tulyans involved in the effort, were energy boosters for the Elders, who were themselves performing more complex defensive and guidance functions.

They called it a telekinetic weapon.

In the universe of his mind, Eshaz saw the misty starcloud and its three planets, looking as if they were floating in a bath of milk. He felt the energy level rising, and then saw fiery comets and meteors approaching from space as if drawn to a magnet, along with glowing asteroids. At the last moment the celestial visitors veered off and headed for the largest swarm of Parviis, terrifying the tiny creatures and scattering them into space.

Eshaz felt a supreme relaxation of tension, and opened his eyes.

Like an island oasis in the troubled galaxy, the Tulyan Starcloud floated serenely and peacefully in the ethereal mists, as if nothing unusual had occurred at all, just as it had looked since ancient times.

It was the way the galaxy should be, unchanging and constant… eternal. But beneath the surface, beyond what Eshaz could see, he knew that the fabric of existence was shredding.

The Parviis, who had been thwarted in their desire to penetrate the mindlink energy shield, were now dispersed into the frozen void and sent spinning off in confusion, with their morphic field disrupted. As a result they lost contact with Woldn, who had been in their midst and had been controlling their movements.

Their connection to the Eye of the Swarm interrupted, billions of the tiny creatures flew off in all directions. Furious, Woldn dispatched squads to locate them. But when only a small portion of his people returned, it became clear to him that the others had perished, and that his power base had been eroded.

He hoped it was only temporary.

With the Parviis in disarray, the Tulyan Council of Elders sent out more than seventy hunting teams aboard as many podships, to the Hibbil Sector and to galactic sectors far and wide, where the wild podships migrated at this time of year.

Eshaz, having earlier merged with an alpha pod in order to capture an entire herd, piloted the same vessel now. He was the Aopoddae ship and it was him. The spacefaring vessel bore his reptilian face on the front of its hull, and its skin had taken on a scaly, gray-bronze hue.

Inside the passenger compartment stood six Tulyan hunters, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to go to work, to practice the ancient methods of capturing the mysterious, sentient creatures. Acey and Dux were on board with them, but Tesh—at Dabiggio’s insistence—remained back at the Starcloud Visitor’s Center. There had been something of a tug of war between her and the Council through intermediaries, and Tesh had held firm that if she was not permitted to join the hunt she was not going to release control of her podship to anyone. So, it remained sealed and motionless, floating in its docking bay at the starcloud. Through regular truth-touching to verify her motives and allegiances she was declared pure, and by majority vote the Council judged that she had at least earned the respect she was demanding.

But, like all Parviis, she had other information deep in her mind, and knew things that the mortal enemies of her people could never draw out of her. Not unless she told them.…

“Eshaz wants you boys to enjoy yourselves,” said one of the Tulyan hunters in the alpha pod. A squat reptile with an angular grin, he went by the name Viadu. “Old Eshaz says you’re experienced hunters.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Dux said. “We were just observers the last time out.”

“Well you’re part of the team now, though you can’t go outside and wrangle.”

“Maybe we can,” Dux said. He glanced over at Acey, who was removing articles from a pack he brought along.

“What do you have there?” Viadu asked.

“Just something I put together with spare parts, while I was banging around in the Visitor’s Center. It kept me busy.”

Dux knew what it was. As he and the Tulyans watched, Acey brought out a helmet with a plax face plate, and a green protective suit modeled after the larger Tulyan models, to keep from being drugged or poisoned by thorns. He put the gear on.

Looking at him, the Tulyans laughed.

“Hey,” Acey said, “I’m pretty handy with things, and I really can breathe inside this thing. I tested it. Made one for my cousin, too, but he’s not as brave as I am.”

“Not as
foolhardy,
you mean,” Dux said.

“So, you want to go upstairs, eh?” Viadu said, to Acey.

The young man nodded vigorously, inside his outfit. His voice came through a built-in speaker, sounding thin: “This suit is perfectly sealed, and has oxygen for me to breathe. It’s also thermally protected, since we Humans weren’t born with much insulation.”

“All right, but there are certain things you can’t do, since the pods only respond to telepathy.”

“I just want a front row seat up there,” Acey said.

“All right, but if you get in the way, I’m sending you back down here.”

“Agreed,” the teenager said.

The Tulyans unpacked shipping cases and got into their own protective suits, after which they brought out thorn vines wrapped in broad leaf packages, and other items they would need. One of the Tulyans mixed liquids, powders, herbs, and thorn scrapings in small bowls, then tossed everything into a cauldron and heated it with fire cylinders in the alloy casting. Dux and Acey had seen Eshaz do this before, but they found it no less fascinating now.

Viadu murmured incantations and tossed spheres overhead, which played serene music and then floated down into the cauldron and melted into the boiling liquid. Working fast, the Tulyans filled silver vials with the liquid, then removed their protective suits and smeared pigment rings on their bodies, creating the network of intricate, iridescent designs that they had previously seen Eshaz create.

The Tulyans, slipping into a collective trance, murmured incantations and handled the multicolored thorn vines without protection, wrapping them around their waists and making red crowns for their heads. Bravely, Acey stepped forward, and Viadu wrapped a vine around his protected torso, along with a red-vine crown on his helmet.

Dux began to feel afraid for his cousin, but didn’t say anything. They had already discussed this at length, and Acey would not be deterred. Being more circumspect, Dux thought it was too reckless, but he had tested the oxygen and thermal systems in the two helmets and suits himself, and had assured himself that it all worked. As far as Dux could tell, Acey had done his usual excellent job in putting the gear together.

A few minutes later the podship slowed, and Dux heard the Tulyans saying wild podships had been sighted. Moving quickly, Viadu opened a hatch and leaped outside, pulling Acey with him. The hatch closed quickly behind them. Through a filmy window that formed on the ceiling, Dux saw them standing on top of the sentient spaceship, leaning forward. From listening to the Tulyans, Dux had learned something that reassured him somewhat about Acey’s safety. They said that all podships had protective fields around them, enabling pilots to ride outside, even at high speeds.

Eshaz guided the craft toward the rear of a formation of wild podships, and Dux saw Viadu use thought-commands to fire sedative vials at the creatures, causing them to slow, one by one. The alpha pod, sensing pursuers, turned around to confront them. Eshaz steered straight at him, and Viadu leaped onto the back of the creature, connected the harness, and dug thorn vines into its sides. Soon he merged into the flesh of the podship, and his face appeared on the prow.

Next the other five Tulyans in the hunting party went onto the top of Eshaz’s vessel, one at a time, and in short order they captured five more podships and metamorphosed them into amalgam creatures with Tulyan pilots, while additional hunting teams came in and helped mop up the herd. From a porthole in the passenger compartment Dux watched in astonishment as Tulyans and podships seemed to create another race of hybrid spaceships.

Utilizing methods more mystical than technological, the Tulyans first fought Parvii swarms with comets and meteors and then wrangled more than three hundred additional wild podships, which they returned in short order to the security of the starcloud.

It was a historic day, and a reminder of legendary glories.

Chapter Sixty-Three

It is said that wisdom comes with age. I have lived for almost a million standard years, but I still have a great deal to learn.

—Ruminations of Eshaz

For the past month, Francella Watanabe had locked herself on the lower floors of her villa, refusing to see anyone. In all that time, she had not been to the laboratory complex or to her new CorpOne offices, and had not responded to requests from Lorenzo for appointments. While Lorenzo had relocated his office and residence to the orbital space station, he still had an unexpired lease for the top-floor suite of her villa, though he had not been seen there in some time.

Each day Francella sent telebeam messages to Dr. Bichette, asking for progress reports on the new elixir research program. He and his staff of brow-beaten, under-pressure scientists worked around the clock, with the desperate feeling that they were not just trying to save Francella’s life, but their own as well. To enforce her orders, Francella had sent CorpOne security troops to ring the laboratory complex, and was not letting anyone out. Food was sent in, and the sleeping arrangements were improvised. Bichette sent constant, increasingly nervous responses to his menacing boss.

Failure was not an option.

The reason for Francella’s isolation at the villa was obvious to anyone. The last time Bichette saw her she had been aging rapidly, at a pace that must have terrified her. He had been frightened himself, just seeing the way her face changed, day by day. Now it must look much worse, so shocking that no amount of makeup could conceal it.

One afternoon the doctor’s medical assistant, Reez Carthur, sat at a desk preparing a response to Francella, informing her of the latest research results. As with the prior communiqués, the information was accurate, but he put the lab results in layman’s terms, so that Francella could understand. Carthur spoke into a microphone, which transcribed his words and typed them into the telebeam transmitter.

Just then, Dr. Bichette burst into her tiny, windowless office. “Don’t send it,” he said. “I have an important update.”

With great excitement, he dictated a message, telling Francella that at last he and his dedicated staff had been able to synthesize an elixir using Noah’s blood, but there were distinct limitations. He told her they had taken a genetic blueprint from the plasma, but it was so complex that it defied any form of written or electronic documentation. Curiously, though, they had still been able to get the DNA of the plasma to transmit manufacturing instructions through a computer network, to produce an elixir. Computer projections indicated that the elixir could extend the lifetimes of Human beings.

He paused, and thought to himself.
Could extend.
The computer projections indicated something more as well, a bit of information he was not revealing to her yet. The elixir would only work on a small number of people, what he called a “micro percentage” of the population. It seemed best to omit that tidbit for now, and hope for the best. He had tried to get a probability of success percentage from the computer, but so far he had been unable to obtain it. The only answer had been, repeatedly: “Data incomplete.”

Another detail troubled him, and thus far he kept this to himself, too. In the elixir manufacturing process, tiny amounts of Noah’s original blood plasma would be used up, so production could not go on forever … unless they could take him captive again, or otherwise gain access to him. So many problems, but indications were that the plasma they had on hand would be enough to produce millions of capsules. .

Francella did not respond by telebeam. Instead, she showed up in person hours later, looking haggard and demanding a dose of the miracle drug. Only thirty-eight, she looked twice that age. “We’re not in production yet,” Bichette said. “I’m not made of patience,” she said, something he already knew from personal experience.

“As I understand it, you don’t want us to scientifically test the elixir before you take it? We only have computer projections at this point.”

“You understand me perfectly.”

Bichette heaved a sigh of resignation. Apparently she had not noticed the distinction he had made in his telebeam message to her, that the elixir
could
extend the lifetimes of Human beings. She wanted it to work so much that she was willing to take the optimistic view, and overlook any downside. Afraid to argue with her or point out pitfalls, he had no choice except to do as she demanded.

Under Francella’s withering eye, Dr. Bichette and his staff rushed to set up a small-scale manufacturing facility in one of the laboratory rooms. In less than twenty-four hours they began producing capsules of blood-red elixir.

“This is not to be swallowed,” Dr. Bichette said, having taken a capsule directly from a machine hopper and handed it to her. “Instead, it is to be squeezed between the fingers and injected into the skin by tiny needles.”

With shaking hands, Francella squeezed the capsule. She closed her eyes, then opened them and looked angry. “I don’t feel anything yet.”

“We don’t know how long it’s supposed to take. We tried to get that information out of the computer, but got no answer. Besides, I suspect it’s different for every person.”

The used capsule in Francella’s hand had become flat and gray. She tossed it aside. “Give me more,” she said.

“Listen to me, please. Wait for a few days to see if you start feeling better. We’ll check you and monitor your progress.”

“Do as I say.”

Stepping close to her, Bichette placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Please listen to me on this. I care about you, and I don’t want you to overdose.”