Outlanders Closing the Cosmic Eye, page 25
What was certain was that the interference transmission went horribly, catastrophically wrong.
And produced a reaction.
A SMALL, SOFT PALPUS at the end of a minor limb, tucked out of sight beneath her thorax, was poised above the contact that would surround the Circle queen in a hemisphere of impenetrable force—impenetrable at least, to her daughter's pitiable miniature plasma cannon. At the same moment it would trigger a pulse of energy that would scramble the neural bio-circuitry of every organism in the room—except Uvaluvu herself—incapacitating them instantly. It might kill some of her lesser, weaker servitors, but they were nothing. Neither, for that matter, were the silver immortals whom the marshal hadn't blasted; their lives were forfeit for permitting harm to threaten their queen.
The important thing was that the marshal herself survive. For her mother intended to make her passing...memorable. "Tell me," she said, proud of the quaver of feigned fear she allowed to tremble, ever so slightly, through her voice, "why are you doing this?"
Her daughter turned into a flowering bush.
The chamber became a seascape.
Became the center of a blazing nova, and the queen shrieked through all her spiracles as her flesh and eyes began to melt and run.
Became the center of a nursery for bipedal beings with gigantic heads and triple eyes, a species billion years dead.
Became everything.
And then—nothing.
"WHAT DID I JUST SEE?" asked Gilgamesh Bates, staring at the great screens in his combat control center.
Chaufat had his brown-furred head tipped to the side, indicating he was attending to his implant. "Something has happened within the Paa fleet. A probability weapon, perhaps. Although one of enormous power."
The screens showed images assembled by the flagship's AI from sensors not constrained by relativistic limits, so that they need not wait for tardy photons lagging a light-day or so behind. A wave of something had passed through the Paa fleet. Bates had seen; he shook his head and blinked. He had seen things he could not have: and he cared to remember no more.
But now he saw far fewer images than he had before. "The Circle flagship is gone, Excellency!" the Zuri yipped. "So is half their fleet. We receive their submission signal now ...the surviving Paa petition for admittance into our New Order!"
Cheers rang through the compartment. Bates waved a negligent hand. "Grant it," he said. "Promise them plenary amnesty."
The predator's big eyes, chocolate-colored and set on the front of his head, widened in outrage. "Excellency?"
Bates smiled indulgently. "We can always revoke it later, Chaufat," he said, "After we've got them safely in custody. Some nice public show trials, followed by equally public executions, will serve nicely to introduce our glorious new day to the citizens of the arm."
The Zuri dropped to all fours and pressed a furry jaw to the deck. "I abase myself before your genius, master! Truly are you the leader of the pack."
Bates waved a hand. "Oh, get up." But the gesture pleased him immoderately.
I could get to enjoy this, he thought. As a matter of fact, I believe I shall.
"Send out a squadron to secure the prisoners—that is, our new allies," he commanded. "Then pass the word throughout the Grand United Fleet—onward, to glory and eternal triumph!"
And the cheers and jubilant howls of his battle-bridge crew warmed him like the rays of a springtime sun.
"IT'S DONE," Wix reported.
Bug Mama seemed to sigh. She looked at the Cerberus four, and Pine and Svarri, all assembled with the techs, Servillon and a quartet of coalition bodyguards in the control center of the antipodal satellite. It was twin of the one they had fled some hours before. Marina remained aboard Forlorn Hope, where she had locked herself in her cabin and refused to see anyone.
The Forlorn Hope and the few coalition ships escorting it had taken a one-light-year jump out of the Eye system, then several more. Then they jumped back in, close to the second station. The outbound and inbound jumps were fantastically dangerous maneuvers, the insectile alien said, although she refused to elaborate on what the risks might be. None of the Terrans chose to press. The important thing was this roundabout route was still vastly less dangerous than trying to make one long direct jump this near the Eye, and much quicker than a series of safely small jumps would be. Brigid asked why their Grand Council enemies didn't do the same thing.
Bug Mama had cocked her big, big-eyed head. "First, the council major races aren't particularly subtle." She made no attempt to hide bitterness from the translation routine. "They don't have to be, with such a preponderance of force on their side. But by the same token we must be infinitely flexible, and resourceful, even to survive. "Second—" she drew a deep breath "—they're too blinded with greed to seize the Eye for themselves to bring themselves to fly away from it. They're too damn afraid someone else'll get there first!"
"What was that about absolute power?" Kane asked.
"Makes assholes of everybody," Grant replied.
"Very well," Bug Mama said. "Good work, boys and girls. We can jump out of here to relative safety. Got thought-box relays set up in either station so we can fire this bad boy psionically, through our Groks."
"I fear, Elder," Servillon said with soft sibilance, "that will not be possible."
"What?" She waved her antennae in annoyance. "What's that?"
Feeling a stab of point-man alarm, Kane started bringing up his right arm, curling his hand into a half fist to invoke his Sin Eater. It wasn't a fancy-dancy alien energy blaster, but it would splatter Servillon's brains all over the image of the Eye glaring through the viewport if he was trying to pull something.
Arms like steel pipes closed around Kane from behind. He fought with all his strength, but his arms were driven down to his sides and pinioned as though by stool rings. His Sin Eater pointed impotently at the deck.
He looked right to where Grant stood. But a Slump bodyguard held him up from behind in a bear hug, with Grant's feet kicking futilely in the air.
The other two coalition fighters stood with their chitinous purple arms encircling Brigid's and Domi's throats from behind. Each held a blaster pressed against a captive woman's ear.
Chapter 33
"Servillon," Bug Mama said sharply, "what on Earth do you think you're doing?"
Even in his current plight, Kane felt a stab of wondering just what the alien had said that the translation-AI rendered as Earth.
"Saving us all," the half-serpent alien said, "from our own folly. And achieving the ends of the glorious Coalition of Non-aligned Races. Which you seem, sadly, to have forgotten, Elder."
The mantis-headed alien stared in disdain at the huge-mouthed stubby hideout blaster the serpent-being pointed at her. "And just how do you propose to do that?"
Servillon waved a free hand at the strange two-lobed image smeared across the viewport. "All that power out there," he said. "Ultimate power. Do you seriously contemplate destroying it—robbing our cause of it?"
"No," Bug Mama said calmly. "I am totally resolved to destroy it. No contemplation involved."
Kane meanwhile tried going limp, planning to lull his captor into relaxing his grip and then bust free. Instead the bodyguard holding him from behind tightened his grip like a constrictor with weakening prey, making it hard for Kane to draw breath.
"Are you looking to sell us out to the council?" he managed to wheeze. "Is that your dirty little game?"
"Let’s say that I’d rather negotiate from a position of strength."
"And gain power for yourself, perhaps?" Brigid asked.
"Would that be wrong? I who have the vision to see what is necessary, the courage to act upon it? But you cannot be expected to understand—you come from far away. I do not disdain you humans as some do. But you know nothing of our history, of suffering, oppression, frustration!"
"Servillon, you're pathetic," Bug Mama said. “The Paa will eat you like a processed snack."
"You know the Paa well, don't you, Elder?"
The serpent alien turned to the Terrans. "You were not aware, I think, that our elder is herself Paa? It's true. And more—she's a daughter of the Circle queen herself!"
Bug Mama shrugged. "The queen has lots of daughters."
"Ah, but not like you! Not like you, Elder. You were the special creation, the super-administrator, the analyst! Your genes were assembled specifically so that you might hold power second only to the queen."
"Yeah. Well. Everybody makes mistakes. Including my mother. She made me a little too independent, I guess."
"See humans! You cannot trust her. What makes you think she does not plan to sell us all to the Paa?"
"Mebbe the fact that she's in the middle of wiring this whole damn solar system to blow," Grant grunted, "and you're pointing a gun at us."
"Servillon," a tech said nervously from the board, "a small ship approaches rapidly."
"What? What's that?" His slit-pupiled yellow eyes darted aside.
Searing yellow glare lit the control compartment. Looking for the main chance, Kane had never taken his wolf-gray eyes off the traitor. He saw a pencil of yellow light stab into the creature's serpent mouth as it opened to say something. The yellow-amber eyes went wide, then melted like a snowflake on a hot plate. For a tiny sliver of a second yellow beams shot out the eye sockets like searchlights.
The beam lanced out through the back of the flat skull and dissipated harmlessly on the view screen. A spray of cooked brains and blood splashed across the image of the Cosmic Eye.
The snake alien crumpled. Apparently the shot had pierced its medulla or equivalent.
Kane's eyes flicked to Bug Mama. The front of her robe had been flung open, revealing two set of arms. Each hand held a stubby hideout beamer.
The traitor's handpicked compatriots stood as if hit with paralysis rays, their brains unable to process the turn of even. The hands holding blasters moved independently. Kane's eyes widened as he stared down a muzzle that yawned as wide as a train-tunnel mouth.
It novaed into yellow glare.
It felt as ifs red-hot branding iron were pressed to Kane's left cheek. He smelled the hairs of his beard burning. Scalding fluids cascaded down the back of his neck as his ears rang from a crack he had never consciously heard. The iron-band grip released. He heard the clatter of a heavy hard-shelled body hitting the deck behind him.
He crouched, bringing up his right hand with Sin Eater still clutched in his fist, took a quick look around.
It was over. All over.
Domi stood beside Brigid, helping the taller woman bat out blue flames that ran like vermin through her thick red hair. A swatch of the albino's own white plush had been burned black along the top right of her own head, and a line of burn-reddened skin showed through. Past the two Terran women Pine huddled by a console with her arms protectively around her brother. She had a hand pressed over Svarri's face to shield his eyes from the sight. Being a human kid he had writhed so he could see through her fingers with wide blue eyes.
Kane turned his head the other way. The giant gray-skinned alien lay sprawled on its front. A dark puddle spread slowly from beneath its face.
"Grant?" Kane said.
He heard a grunt. Then the massive deadweight of the alien's corpse was raised up off the padded deck to the accompaniment of a growl rising steadily in volume. It became a shout of rage and triumph as the vast carcass slid aside and Grant reared upright on his knees.
"Most impressive," Bug Mama said. "You Terrans got some unlooked-for traits."
"So do you, Bug Mama," Kane said dryly as he straightened. He gingerly raised his left hand to brush at his cheek. His beard hadn't caught fire the way Brigid's glorious mane had, but rather crisped and melted in a swatch where the beam passed.
"I thought you were a pacifist," Brigid said, fending off Domi, who, tending as always to overdo things, batted at the archivist's now-extinguished hair as if fighting a swarm of soldier ants in a frenzy of helpfulness. Despite her recent experiences her voice was level and fully under control. Once again, not for the first time, nor the hundredth, Kane was impressed by her coolness under pressure. The sneaky blasters went back into snug little holsters strapped to Bug Mama's beetle carapace. Then the little auxiliary arms crossed, the hands grabbed the hems of the robe and pulled it to again. It sealed itself as seamlessly. "What gave you that impression, hon?" the alien said. "I command a whole network of freedom fighters—or terrorists, from my dear mother's point of view. You've seen them kill plenty of people. Hell, you helped."
The mouth parts worked to form a smile. "It's just not efficient for me to me around waving blasters like a warrior. Most of the time. I really was born to be the executive type, just like my treacherous assistant said."
"I notice you can shoot in different directions, too," Grant said. He was dusting his gloved hands against each other. "Just like those Paa commandos could."
She shrugged. "Well, I guess Mama wanted her special little gal to be able to take care of herself. If you think Grand Council politics is a full-contact sport, you should see Paa intrigue. Hoo, baby!
She turned to the technicians, who all stood ignoring their consoles and staring at her as if she'd turned into a human before their eyes.
"What?" she demanded. "Show's over. We got a universe to save, two black holes to destroy and a loudly ticking clock." "What about the vessel that was approaching us?" Brigid asked.
"Right," Bug Mama said. She didn't turn her head, but the little black eye spots moved to the tech who had announced the fact. He or she or it—Kane realized he had no idea what the Sidran sexes looked like, or even if they had them—turned back to the board.
"It has been intercepted by the Longshot," he said, naming one of the three vessels of their small escort squadron that had accompanied Forlorn Hope to this end of the Eye system. "It's calling as now."
He looked up at Bug Mama with eyes wide. "The IFF code identifies it as a longboat from the Guardian!" "Thand's ship!" Pine breathed. She had let go of her little brother and stood up. Svarri was peering with interest at the bodies scattered around the control room.
"Well, what're you waiting for?" Bug Mama said. "Put 'em on."
A solid-looking but miniature image of a compact ship's bridge materialized in midair. A sturdy figure with silver hair and mustache and startling blue eyes and clad in somewhat ragged cameo sat in the central chair of command flanked by three other similarly attired humans.
"Greetings, earthlings," said Major Mike Hays. "Take us to your leader."
"I wanted to say that!" Sean Reichert protested from his left.
"Why you alive?" Domi flared. Kane was startled to see her white cheeks gleaming with tears. "Thought you throw lives away in big macho sacrifice!"
"The sacrifice isn't scheduled to have happened yet, remember?" Larry Robison said.
"We got jacked up," Reichert said, "by our pal Thand and his goons."
Pine gasped.
"Don't tell me he's trying to grab the Eye, too!" Bug Mama said. For the first time in their brief acquaintance Kane heard agitation in her translated voice.
"'Too?" Hays asked. He leaned forward and squinted. "That must explain the bodies strewn around the deck, there. Thought they were decorative."
Kane realized they had to be seeing a similar projection of the station's command compartment.
"Negative to Thand grabbing for power," Robison said. "Just glory. They got the drop on us. Embarrassing as hell." "Anticlimactic, too," Hays said, "after we were all primed to go out in a blaze of glory ourselves."
"The glory?" Grant said. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Reichert shrugged "Ask him yourself. He's dying to talk to you."
"Not even our communications will punch through that monstrosity out there," Bug Mama said.
"I can talk this way," a deep familiar voice said. All eyes turned to Svarri, who had stopped ogling the chills and stepped away from his sister's embrace to stand upright with a strange fixed look in his eyes. The voice was not the giant human warrior's - not exactly. But its intonation and inflection and pacing were Thand's, and what emerged was amazingly deep and loud to be emerging from such a slight preadolescent chest and pharynx. "Can you hear me, Thand?" Bug Mama demanded, speaking loudly as if that would help her war chief hear her across two light-years and a great big hole in the fabric of the cosmos. "What the hell do you think you're up to?" "Doing my job," Thand said.
"You're not thinking of using the Eye yourself?" Bug Mama said.
Svarri laughed. The laugh boomed like a huge bass drum. It was way too big for the kid's slight frame.
"Now, that's just creepy," Robison said. Kane realized Team Phoenix was still on-line and watching the whole show. "Do you know me so little, Elder? I have fought the Grand Council and its hateful major races since their slavers devastated my village when I was but a child younger than the one I speak through now. Do you know that most of the fleets that warred over Sidra have entered the fringes of this system now? Even as we speak they fly toward this station as fast as they dare, to claim their prize. The completion of their great goal—the subjugation of all life to their evil will!" "We've been a little preoccupied by local events, Thand," Bug Mama said. She turned her eye spots toward Wix, who now bent over some other kind of instrument Kane didn't savvy any more than any of the others. The alien whitecoat nodded confirmation. "You still haven't explained what you're up to."
"I sent the outlanders away. This privilege is mine! I have earned it, and I claim it!"
"The right to throw your life away?" Brigid asked.
"Yeah," Reichert said ironically. "That's our job."
"Stupid gestures us," Robison said, "or we wouldn't even be here."
