Infinite Day (98 page)

Ethan was never sure how he made it through that day as the news became progressively darker and any number of what had been fanciful worst-case scenarios were successively exceeded by reality.

He could not escape the horror of what had happened. At every meeting, he was with people who either had relatives on worlds that had fallen or had sons or daughters on ships. There were those too who had lost contact with relatives and feared the worst.

It is almost too vast to comprehend. We have tried to prepare for this—and worse—for months. But now that it is upon us, we understand that we could never have prepared for it
.

The endless succession of meetings achieved little, because in reality, there was little that could be done. It was all too far away and too utterly enormous.

By evening the devastation had reached a point where the mind was simply too numb to take it all in.

They tried to analyze what had happened. It was not easy. The onslaughts had been so sudden and wholesale, and the information recovered before the Gate links were severed so limited, that it was hard to be sure what precisely had gone wrong. However, unnerving stories from at least two worlds suggested that the blades that had been so effective against Krallen at Farholme had failed to work.

At first, it was assumed that Dominion had utterly torn up the battle plan recovered from the
Sacrifice
. Then, as a fuller summary was pieced together, a pattern emerged. The prediction that the Dominion would punch a narrow hole in the Assembly toward Earth had been correct. It had just been carried out not in phases but all at once.

Flurries of decisions were made by tired, sad, and shaken men and women. Reinforcements were urgently ordered through the Gates to Ramult and Harufcan. A review of the use of blades against the Krallen was initiated. On the assumption that an attack on Earth might be only days away, the Tahuma installations were made ready to be occupied at a moment's notice, and preparations were advanced for an immediate transfer there of the Gate control. The dispersal of the ADF staff and resources from Jerusalem and other potential targets was begun. All vacations and leaves were canceled; medical and military reservists were called up. Special services and prayer vigils were encouraged.

Late that night, as the last Gates in the occupied cylinder of space were being locked down, a message deploring the attacks and asking for dialogue was transmitted to the Dominion forces.

No answer was expected, and none came.

The lord-emperor Nezhuala sat in the little compartment off the Vault of the Final Emblem that he used for planning and evaluated the information from the attacks. The new Nether-Realms communication transmitters were crude—many of the ships were already on their third or fourth units—but seemed to be working.

There had been losses, yet they were bearable. But it was plain he could not have left the attack any later; the Assembly had indeed been arming itself fast. Yet his gamble of the sudden strike had paid off. Including Bannermene and Jigralt, a total of twenty-four worlds and twenty-six Gates were now his.

Nezhuala sat back in his chair and tried to concentrate. The whispering of the voices in his head now seemed to be almost continuous. At times he felt he could make out words and even sentences. But the voices seemed to drain his energy. At times he wanted to tell them to shut up.

The constant vibration hurt him too. In a structure as long as the Blade of Night, resonances inevitably built up and had to be compensated for by one of a thousand or so thruster motors. The result was a fluctuating series of vibrations of different pitches that teased and tugged at his nerves.

He heard a noise outside the door. He knew who it was from the sound of shuffling.

“Enter!”

A man, hunchbacked with a great silver crystal bulge on the back of his head, entered slowly. Inside the glassy unit, a pale liquid pulsed rhythmically.

“Ape.”

The topologist murmured and gestured with his hands. He was mute.

“Ape, you have surveyed the Gates we have acquired. Are you satisfied?”

The bare wall came alive with text.
Sir, they are undamaged. But we cannot use them due to a system lockdown.
Wild black eyes stared at him out of a face scarred by red veins and searched for acknowledgment.

“I understand. We need all the Gates.”
That has been made clear to me by the great serpent; through Ape, he will be able to use the Gates to unite the realms
.

“Sir, 14,502 working Gates exist. We must have at least 98 percent of these. AND THEY MUST BE UNLOCKED.”

“Don't shout, Ape!”
This monstrous beast is one of the few creatures without any real fear of me. But then there is no replacement for his unique blend of flesh-and-blood instinct and computer logic
.

The writing continued. “They will lock them all the moment we reach Earth. We must gain the key!”

“Of course, Ape. Now continue refining the calculations. Go!”

After the man-machine had shuffled away, Nezhuala sat back in the chair, trying to ignore both the whispers and the vibrations, and considered the battle reports again.

I am nearly there.

On impulse, Nezhuala did what he rarely allowed himself and peered into his past. So distant, so long ago.
Are these even my memories? Who knows whether I remember what happened or whether I remember what I have been programmed to remember
.

He shook his head.
Where I am now, so close to triumph, so close to retribution, should bring me pleasure, but it does not. Where has pleasure gone?

He felt himself shake with some inexpressible emotion.
Once, I found pleasure in good things. I remember sunlight, trees, light, duty, beauty, the touch of a woman.
He blinked
. Later I found pleasure in what some call evil: power, authority, rebellion, the crushing of those who opposed me, the breaking of barriers.

And now?
He sighed
. Now I find pleasure in nothing. My years have made me empty. At my core is a gnawing void
.

He stared at his black-gloved hands.
I will have no delight in the final victory, only a cold satisfaction. Perhaps that is, in some ways, no bad thing. I must be careful with my hatred that I do not lash out and totally destroy the Assembly. My master has plans for them.

He looked up, and his gaze fell on the fresh patch of bare metal on the far wall. It was part of the many hasty repairs that they had had to make after the inexcusable events at Sarata.

D'Avanos did this!

For hours, Nezhuala mused on D'Avanos, his stomach writhing with hatred and concern.

How strange that, with such mighty forces, with so many machines and weapons, my concerns focus on this one man. Do I fret too much? How much damage can he do?
Yet every time he asked such questions, the answer was the same.
Like Ringell—whose identity tag he wears—D'Avanos may yet frustrate the plans of the Freeborn
.

It was frustrating. He had consulted the powers on this, yet none of them seemed to have anything meaningful to say.
They can predict nothing. All I get are vague warnings.
Their silence made him uneasy.

Eventually, in a cooler
,
more analytical frame of mind, Nezhuala considered the latest news he had intercepted. Somehow, having eluded both Lezaroth and—it seemed—his own people, D'Avanos was now on Earth.
He even had
reports—garbled and inconsistent—that a confrontation had occurred between D'Avanos and this rabble-rousing cleric Delastro. Some talked of D'Avanos being wounded in the process and the cleric exiled. That, at least, was good news. Dissent amongst enemies was always to be encouraged. And, where possible, exploited.

Can I turn these events to my own good? Perhaps . . .

Fear returned and gnawed again at his mind.
Things are happening here that I do not understand. As ever, the one who opposes the great serpent is devious and cunning. Who can guess his plans? I must ensure that D'Avanos is slain. I will spare Lezaroth one last time so that he may seek out and kill this man. I cannot risk the presence of the great adversary when the labor of years comes to fruition.

He turned to consider his battle strategy.

There were two worlds between his forces and the Solar system.
Logic says take them one by one. But logic also said take the outer worlds one by one, and my intuition overruled and was vindicated. Let me surprise them!

He would swiftly move his forces to the very edges of the Solar system.

My time comes.

Dr. Lucian Clemant sat hunched in the locked compartment of the freighter heading toward the moon. His flight had been scheduled before the wave of attacks on the previous day, and no one had seen fit to cancel it. The nature and scale of the attacks had registered, and his troubled brain was already interpreting them.

It is the end. Corradon and Gerry Habbentz are dead. The prebendant is exiled. Chaos is unleashed and flooding through the worlds. Order becomes disorder.
He shook his head bitterly.
All that I fought for is now lost. Anarchy is here.
He clenched his fists so tightly that the nails bit into his palms.
I tried, and I failed.

He stared around the compartment, which had been made out of the storage bay.
It smells. I should ask for cloths, a broom. Disinfectant.
He felt himself frown. His eyes alighted on a scrap of paper.
And the paint—so many scratches and chips!

He stared out through the small port at the blackness of space.

How silent, how clean. There is perfection in space.

He turned to his faith to comfort him and found that his faith had fled.
I believe . . . nothing.

He stood up and stared out the thick port window, and he knew what he was going to do.

He called the guard and told him that he was feeling sick and wished to use the facilities. As they walked past the air lock door, Clemant struck the unsuspecting man hard under the chin. He tumbled, unconscious, to the ground.

Then Clemant opened the air lock door, walked in, closed the door behind him, and, ignoring the warning signs, used the emergency manual override to open the outer door.

With a waning roar of air, he was tugged out into space. His last thought before the cold froze him and the vacuum tore the air from his lungs was simple.

How silent. How clean. How sterile.

Merral woke up and, for a second, wondered where he was. The room was dimly lit.

The electronic screens with their dull green lighting gave it away.
Of course—in a hospital ward
. In a corner, Anya lay asleep in the chair.
It must be very early morning.

He was aware of someone by his side. He turned slowly—his side hurt—to see a tall and solid black figure standing next to him. A form that did not seem to belong to the room or indeed to the world he lived in.