The Destroyer of Worlds Page 9

  *

  As the shuttle rose through the atmosphere, Srak stared out the window at the receding capital and the desert beyond it.

  “Home,” he muttered. “This might be the last time I ever see it.”

  “I thought you hated it,” said Agatha.

  Srak grunted without turning from the window. “But I still miss it.”

  The sky began to darken as they left atmo. Ghroga's curvature became clearer.

  Closing his eyes, Srak turned from the window. “I made my choice long ago. Now I have to live with it.” He shrugged. “Nothing else I can do.”

  He was silent for a while, then added, “Would you believe, I got in trouble when I was young?”

  “Oh, no, really?” said Agatha with an exaggerated expression of shock.

  “My hatch-parents … those are the ones who look after the eggs and hatchlings, not the actual genetic parents … they always had a problem with me. As a hatchling I was always finding ways out of the pen and going exploring. Everyone else was asleep under the heat-lamps or learning about Varanid history. I wanted to go and do stuff.

  “By the time I was an adolescent, the Ghroga already felt too small. I spent a lot of time hanging around the docks, drinking a lot of rakta and trying to talk to the offworld traders about aliens. Sometimes it worked. I saw a Tethyan there once. That was where I met Kuta. She was the hatch-daughter of a trader who wanted to go in the opposite direction. She was seeking a council position. I didn't understand her at all! So we made a sort of friendship out of arguing. And fighting sometimes.”

  He grinned. “I found an opening eventually. A position doing shitwork on a trader that went all the way to the Glaber territories. Not entirely legal. Lowest of the low sort of thing, but I'd never seen a Glaber before, and they sounded exciting, so I took it. Just before I left, I got a message from my hatch-parents. They'd found out what I was doing. They said I was being a fool. And if I left, they'd repudiate me, label me as an exile. I wouldn't be able to come back.”

  Agatha leaned forward. “What did you do?” she whispered.

  “I thought screw you and took the job anyway. Halfway there, I realised I'd never get to see Kuta again. Anyway, at the end of it, we got into a fight and the captain left me stranded offworld with a bunch of Glaber who wanted to kill me.” Srak shrugged. “Then things got a bit too busy to worry about it anymore.”

  “Do you regret it? Leaving?” Agatha asked.

  “I thought I did for a long time … but now, I still think I'd rather be here, with you, living on the Dauntless, than down there.” Srak looked out the window once more. Ghroga was just a ochre and red globe floating among the stars. “But it would be nice to be able to go back there one day.”

  Chapter 23: If We Give him a Mystery

  At Millicent's characteristically light knock, Pierce summoned her in. He'd already set up his tablet in preparation.

  “Arka wants to speak to you.” she said.

  “And it is Arka this time?” said Pierce.

  Millicent smiled shyly. In fact, she'd been the one who had alerted Pierce to the fact that the last caller was a different Varanid pretending to be Arka. “Yes,” she said. “It's him.”

  Pierce settled back in his chair. “Very well,” he said. “Put him through.”

  Arka's face appeared against the colourful background of a Varanid CIC. His face was bruised and cut; a transparent plaster covered an ugly hole where his left eye should have been. “Mr. Pierce,” he said.

  “My goodness, Arka. You look in a bad way,” said Pierce.

  Arka shrugged. “Four against one. Including a Tethyan with effector fields.”

  “And the eye?”

  Arka waved a hand dismissively. “It'll be fine.” He stopped and looked intently at Pierce with his remaining eye. Then he laughed. “Of course! You don't grow them back, do you? No. It'll be fine in a couple of weeks. The lack of depth perception is a bitch, but that's all.”

  Pierce sat back and gave Arka a warm smile. “Good,” he said. “It'd be a shame for you to lose it permanently. As to Hanson and his allies?”

  Arka faltered. “There were four of them,” he explained again. He paused while Pierce waited patiently. “They were still alive when I rescued them. The humans might have died from their injuries, but Srak and the Tethyan … no.”

  “So, potentially, all four of them are alive?” Pierce kept his warm, unconcerned expression.

  “Yes”

  “What are the connector artefact?”

  “I … had to leave it behind.”

  “I see.” Pierce struggled to hold his composure. Inside him, it felt like something was clawing at his gut. He wanted to cut Arka off, stand up, and go back to spend time with the Oracle – except he knew the Oracle wouldn't have anything to say to him if he hadn't advanced the plan.

  But he kept his calm, warm expression. Even if he wasn't smiling.

  “Where is the connector now?”

  “On Ghroga. The Varanid Republic has it.”

  And with that, Pierce realised, there was no way to get it back. Ghroga was all but impregnable, and Arka was his only contact there.

  “Mr. Pierce,” began Arka.

  It cheered Pierce a little to see a Varanid such as Arka – a monstrous reptile, giant even by their standards – looking so scared of him. But it wasn't enough. “You'll have to wait for further instructions while I sort out this problem,” he said, and cut the link.

  As soon as Arka was gone, he slumped back in his chair, put his hand across his forehead, and closed his eyes. He needed a connector artefact, and only one option remained.

  He noticed Millicent standing beside his chair awkwardly, looking down at him. He sighed, and said to her, “We have to get the connector on Mars.”

  “In the SIS headquarters?” she said, slightly incredulous. And rightly so – the SIS headquarters was the most well-protected building in the Solar System.

  Pierce nodded slowly. “It's doable,” he said. “It's difficult and risky … but it's doable. We just have to make them move it.” He frowned. “My only concern is Hanson. As soon as he knows what we're doing, he'll be there – and the plan goes from difficult to impossible. We could try and kill him, but he's resistant to that. We could try and distract him, but he's liable to figure it out.”

  “Mr. Pierce?” offered Millicent softly. “We could do both.”

  Pierce looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “If we give Hanson a mystery, he'll follow it. If we try and kill him … either we succeed, in which case he's gone. Or he survives, in which case, because he's been attacked, he has a good reason to believe he's on the right track, so we can offer him another clue, and keep him distracted for even longer.”

  Standing, Pierce said, “Yes … yes. That makes sense. And Arka should serve as perfect bait. So we find a place where we can send Arka so Hanson will hear about it.”

  Millicent brought up something on her tablet. “May I suggest …?”

  “Yes?”

  “Kalbraica.” She offered him the tablet.

  “The Albascene colony?”

  “Hanson has a Petaur technician,” explained Millicent. “Going to Kalbraica could cause some serious problems for her.”

  As Pierce read the tablet, he began to smile. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it could.”

  Chapter 24: Shadowwalker

  As soon as she saw the jump in, Serafin killed ship activity, activated the stealth systems, and watched.

  The ship wasn't like anything she'd seen before. The Black Cat's expert systems scanned it for radiation, exhaust signatures, and architectural features to try and match it to a known species – but came up blank.

  Like the rogue planet, it was almost invisible. With nothing to illuminate it, the only hint as to its size and shape came from its ambient radiation. Which, according to Black Cat, suggested it had an internal temperature over 200 degrees below zero. It was a little over average size, just over fo
ur hundred metres long. There was a small, roughly conical body at the centre. But most of its mass seemed to be made up of a knotted mass of tentacles – hundreds of them – covered in odd structures like antennae and pincers.

  The ship shifted towards the Black Cat using some silent sublight engine. A few of its tentacles unknotted and reached out.

  Serafin's breath caught. Had it seen her?

  Perhaps it was just going after the Ancient artefact. She let the Black Cat drift away from the artefact.

  This wasn't a ship, she realised. It was an organism. Not just the tentacles were moving, but the pincers too. She checked the chemical sensors on the hull: Some proteins, some fats. And methanol. She smiled despite herself. This thing used antifreeze like humans used water.

  And yet … it had a jump drive. That couldn't be naturally evolved, could it?

  Its tentacles stopped a few metres from the Ancient artefact, wrapping around it without actually touching it. Then they pulled away. The ship – the lifeform – turned suddenly towards her and advanced.

  “Signal incoming,” the Black Cat informed her.

  The cockpit suddenly felt very cold.

  Serafin called the signal up and analysed it. The Black Cat's translation modules said it resembled the Tethyan language, almost. At least this thing wasn't also speaking English. She ran a translation.

  “Creature of the light,” the signal said. “You leave your home to trespass upon ours. Why?” In the time she'd taken to analyse and translate, the signal had repeated two more times.

  Transmitting in the Tethyan language, Serafin said, “I'm sorry, I didn't intend to trespass. I didn't know this was your home.”

  The response came a few seconds later: “Our home. The dead space between the stars, the lightless, the cold, the void. You are of the light, we are of the dark. Why are you here?”

  “Do you know of the Ancients?”

  “Yes. They [untranslatable] us.”

  Serafin sat back and watched the entity on her screen and considered a reply. In the visible spectrum, it was still just a mass of moving shadows. She'd been trained in first contact scenarios, but none of them seemed relevant here. “I'm trying to learn more about the Ancients,” she said. “Would you be willing to help me?”

  “Perhaps,” said the entity.

  “First, may I ask, what is your name?”

  “Names are not.”

  “Not … what?”

  “Names are not.”

  You don't have a name. Well, that's helpful. Serafin sighed. You walk in the shadows. You're a Shadowwalker. And you're of the night, so your name is … Vlad. She smiled to herself. “Well, then. Could you tell me what this artefact does?”

  “It speaks.”

  “Yes, but what was it meant to do?”

  “Ancient intentions hard to decipher. It was meant to speak.”

  “But … why?”

  “Communication is necessary for life, for civilisation, for mind.”

  Serafin sat back, feeling frustrated. She could just leave now, she supposed, and report on what she found. But when she was on the edge of first contact with a new species who knew about the Ancients? No. there must be some way to get more information out of Vlad.

  “Please tell me,” she said. “What do you know of the Ancients? How did this artefact come to be here?”

  “Most left long ago. Some were fragmented.”

  Serafin was about to respond, but Vlad seemed to have shifted into a more talkative mood. He continued:

  “The Ancients do not die easily. When they are fragmented, the fragments live on.”

  That tracked with what Serafin knew: Ancient technology was always active, even if it seemed incomprehensible.

  “But it is still a fragment. It tries to be part of a whole. It speaks and it listens, but there is no-one there. It remembers being a part of something much greater, but now it is alone.”

  “Like a dog abandoned by the side of the road,” murmured Serafin to herself. “Pining for its master.” She transmitted again: “Can you speak to it?”

  “Partially. Not truly. It has been alone for a million years. It has lost its sense of reason.”

  She stared at the screen, feeling … she wasn't sure.

  Like she was seeing a multi-million year galactic tragedy?

  An odd thought occurred to her. “Are there others of your kind?”

  “We are creatures of the darkness. We are many.”

  “Did you descend from the Ancients? Are you related to them? Are you Ancients?”

  The silence seemed to drag out. “No,” said Vlad at last. “We are related to creatures of the light. We are related to Tethyans.”

  Chapter 25: New Destination

  Hanson sat in his ready-room, watching the stars through his small, circular window. They were halfway to Tethya. After three hours, his rib was nearly healed, but it still twinged every time he moved.

  Srak was making a fine recovery. By now, Hanson expected nothing less of him.

  Agatha seemed happy, but still cold towards him. But she was professional enough to get on with the job and not let it distract her, of that he was certain. And for the moment, he'd have to be content with that much.

  “Sir,” came Miller's voice over the comms. “Message from you from Ghroga. It's councillor Kuta.”

  Hanson sat in front of his desk and place his tablet upright. “Put her through.”

  A moment later, Kuta's face appeared.

  “Councillor,” said Hanson. “How are things over there?”

  “Rok is still sulking,” said Kuta, with a faint grin. “But that's not why I'm calling. You wanted to find Arka?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we've just seen his ship registry appear on a planet called Kalbraica. He docked there less than half an hour ago.”

  Hanson leaned forward. “Isn't Kalbraica an Albascene world? How do you know what's happening here?”

  Kuta grinned. “Humans aren't the only species with a secret service,” she said. “Kalbraica isn't actually part of the Albascene nation. It's laws are a little more lax … there are more than a few shady dealings that go on there.”

  Hanson nodded. “Thank you, councillor,” he said. “I believe that's two good turns we owe you now.”

  Kuta grinned again. “Don't worry,” she said. “I'm keeping count. Kuta out.”

  As soon as she was gone, Hanson gestured at his tablet, calling up all the information the databases had on Kalbraica.

  It was close, a little over two hours away. Perhaps they could catch Arka – and his accomplices – after all.

  He activated the comms. “Hanson to CIC. Mister Fermi, please cancel the current jump computations. We have a new destination.”

  Chapter 26: Kalbraica

  Kalbraica appeared on the display above the command console: A cold, grey, airless rock, pockmarked with craters. It looked rather like the moon, but it was larger – almost as big as Earth, with a gravity of 0.73 gees.

  It was only as they got closer that Hanson could see evidence of inhabitation. The dead grey surface was covered in a network of blue-green lines, winding idly between the craters.

  Originally, the planet had been covered with giant canyons, three or four kilometres deep. The Albascene hadn't gone to the trouble of terraforming the whole thing. Instead, they simply put a roof over the canyons, warmed them up, and filled them with air and water and life. Every canyon was divided into two storeys. The top level was just a few hundred metres high, and used exclusively for farming to feed the colony. Below that, kilometres deep, was the actual living space.

  “Send them a docking request,” ordered Hanson.

  “We've been given a choice of spaces,” said Miller.

  There was no knowing where Arka's ship was, and no easy way of finding out from orbit. “Get us as close to the AC3 headquarters as you can,” Hanson said.

  “Yes, sir. I've got one less then a kilometre away.”

  “Take us i
n.”

  They approached the planet.

  After a moment, Miller said, “We've got a call from the local docks. They've noticed the ship is damaged, and they're asking if we want repairs.”

  Hanson pursed his lips. The Dauntless was damaged – it had lost a good third of its laser turrets and several volatile tanks. But the damage wasn't critical. More importantly, he wanted to be able to get out of the dock on a dime if saw Arka leave.

  That, and the fact that he didn't entirely trust Kalbraica. To get a lead on Arka so soon after they'd lost him seemed a little too good to be true.

  “Thank them for the offer, but politely decline.”

  The Dauntless decelerated gradually as it approached the surface. As they grew closer, the true size of the canyon became clear. Its slightly curving roof, just ten metres below the surface of the planet, was translucent. It glowed faintly in blue and green, but showed nothing of the habitat below. It stood out brilliantly against the airless desert to either side.

  The dock was at the lip of the canyon. It was just a series of berths open to the vacuum, with a few surrounding repair stations and fuel tanks, docking tubes and disembarkation lounges.

  The Dauntless settled into the dock, nestled by effector fields, and came to a halt. The docking tube connected with a thump.

  “Keep the engines primed,” Hanson ordered. “I want us to be able to get off the surface in less than ten seconds if need be.” He nodded at Lanik. “You have the deck, XO.”

  At the airlock, he met up with his team. A full house this time: Yilva, of course – plus Moore, Agatha, Srak and Vyren.

  Outside, half a dozen Albascene milled about. A couple had heavy-set suits covered in armour and inset lasers. These were the guards. Others were merely officials.

  One came up to Hanson as he left the ship. It pulled out a contracted tablet from a socket in its suit and, holding the tablet in its effector fields, extended it. “We have taken payment for six hours,” it told him. “If you wish to stay longer, you must pay within the next five hours. Otherwise, you must vacate this berth by 19:28 hours and 23 seconds. Should you stay longer, we will add a penalty charge by the second.”