Hidden Empire (16 page)
Taking the proud name of “Roamers,” they negotiated with their Ildiran benefactors for stardrive technology, in exchange for
which some of them agreed to operate three large Ildiran ekti-processing plants on the gas-giant Daym. Ildirans hated the
skymining industry and were glad to find willing workers. The Roamers set themselves to the task with great gusto, and soon
began to carve a niche for themselves and expand their capabilities.
No one else—not the Terran Hanseatic League, the Therons, or the Ildiran Empire—realized just how much the Roamers had profited
from their innovations. As the next chosen Speaker, Cesca Peroni promised herself she would continue that strategy.…
After its long journey, the space yacht arrowed closer to garnet-colored Meyer. Seen from afar, the red dwarf was unremarkable,
not to be noticed on any starchart. But as she and Jhy Okiah approached the out-of-the-way settlement of Rendezvous, Cesca
greatly looked forward to getting home.
E
ven at night, the Theron forests remained mysterious and inviting. Without fear, Estarra crept to her curved window in the
fungus-reef city and peered out, catching shuttered glimpses of stars through the canopy.
Dawn already warmed the treetops, spreading like a colorful yawn through the interconnected worldforest. Enough light for
her to explore. Calcified footholds let her clamber down several levels to reach the ladders and pulley-lifts. On the soft
forest floor, scuttling beetles the size of hamsters dug beneath dried leaves. She smelled a lingering cool mist of compost
and a sweet hint of fertile decay. She sprinted off into the dimness.
Her parents would not notice that Estarra had gone off by herself. Because they had raised their three older children to positions
of importance, Mother Alexa and Father Idriss spoiled her, as if they had run out of energy for making her learn things the
hard way. “Don’t worry about it, child,” her mother often said.
Estarra could have wallowed in her pampered existence, but instead she promised herself to achieve more. When she had tried
to talk to her father about her future, he had simply smiled through his black beard. “Whatever you want to do, dear.” He
had promised full support but offered no suggestions or practical advice.
Only her brother Beneto took time to tell her things. She envied the green priest his passion for serving the worldforest,
but she didn’t want to follow his path. Praying to trees was not for her.
Lights burned in adjoining dwellings, smaller fungus reefs that grew on separated trees. Green priests—most of them married
couples venturing out this early—climbed the trees to greet the dawn. All day long they would read to the half-sleeping mind
of the worldforest. Today, though, the priests seemed hushed and troubled about something they had sensed from the trees.
Maybe Beneto would tell her about it later…
Curious, she explored for more than an hour. Finally, as a wash of daylight spilled across the forest and ground mist rose
like praying hands, Estarra came upon a thicket of high trees. Hanging like a bulbous papier-mâché lump on the nearest trunk,
a huge misshapen mass pulsed as crowded creatures stirred inside, nearly roused from their sleep.
Hive worms made their sealed structures from chewed vegetable matter, mud, resin, and extruded web fibers. The enormous colonies
were both nests and cocoons, hundreds of meters in diameter. In the center a grublike queen gave birth to larvae that became
large worms anchored to the colony’s heart. The worms extended their segmented stalks outward with heads like huge petals
surrounding a voracious mouth.
Normally, the worms extended from their nest to capture any prey that ventured within reach. After digesting animals and insects,
they fed the nutrients back to the queen in the center of the nest. At night the sleeping worms drew their facepetals together
like a flower returning to a bud.
When this phase of growth was complete, the larval worms pulled back into the nest, sealed the openings, and converted the
hive into an armored fortress. Her work done, the queen died, and the sleeping worms digested her body while they gestated.
It was incredibly rare to discover a pupating hive, especially one ready to hatch.…
She had to find Beneto. Estarra hurried back, knowing her brother would be planting new treelings in one of the sundappled
clearings. She found him working in the shade, surrounded by pots into which he packed fertile soil.
Beneto looked up at his sister with a smile that always warmed her heart. The marks of his accomplishments, tattoos and designs
of the green priesthood, gave his features a totemic appearance. She thought her brother was very handsome and suspected that
he would soon choose a mate—probably from among the green priests, though that was not required for marriage.
Beneto knelt, intent on his young trees. Gently, he stroked the tiny fronds as if to apologize for cutting them loose of the
parent tree. “These four are scheduled for Dremen, where it’s cool and moist but without much sun,” he said to Estarra. “Though
there’s no green priest assigned to the planet, we will still plant a grove for telink access.”
Beneto pointed to other strong treelings. “These two will be potted and carried aboard merchant vessels, though eventually
they’ll grow large enough that they’ll need to be planted in soil again. At that time, we’ll ask the trees where they want
to go.” Then Beneto noticed her breathless excitement. “All right, what have you brought for me this day, little sister? A
new insect? An untasted berry? Or a flower with a perfume that will make me sneeze?”
“It’s too big to carry, Beneto.” Catching her breath, she told him about the sleeping worm hive. “It’s big enough for a dozen
families at least! We’ve needed new quarters for over a year.”
“Indeed we have,” Beneto said. “A remarkable discovery, and a very good omen. I’m sure Mother and Father will pat you on the
head.” Estarra scowled, and he laughed at her predictable reaction. “It’s a valuable find, Estarra. When do you predict it
will hatch?”
“Two weeks, I think. Three at the most. Probably about the time Reynald returns from his peregrination.”
“You love to explore and find the forest’s secrets, don’t you? Make sure you mark its location and keep an eye on its progress.”
Beneto placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “In the coming days, the worldforest may have many important tasks for us green
priests, but I promise I will be there so we can watch it hatch together.”
R
heindic Co called out to Margaret like an ancient book filled with secrets, a book that waited to be opened. The desert was
raw and rich with muted colors, browns and ochres, tans and rusts. So much to see and explore, but so much work to do setting
up camp before they could get started.
She looked out upon the mysterious wasteland. They had chosen a site near the most obvious Klikiss ghost city, though the
slot canyons and banded cliff sides might hold innumerable other settlements.
Beside her, Louis wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, scattering perspiration. He leaned over to give her a polite
kiss on the cheek. “We’ve been to worse planets, dear.”
Chairman Wenceslas had given the Colicoses their pick of any world to investigate, and they had chosen this abandoned planet.
Rocky bluffs extended like mysterious monuments under a burnt-orange sky. Lava protrusions broke the monotony of dry alkaline
lakebeds that gleamed like mirage mirrors.
Arroyos cracked the landscape where only a memory of rushing water remained.
“It’s here, old man,” Margaret said in a breathy voice. “I can sense it. I know we’ll find something. Even the Klikiss robots
seem to think so.”
“I’m not one to argue.” Louis had a boyish grin on his weather-lined face. “After all these years, you’ve said ‘I told you
so’ enough times that I’ll trust your instincts.” He looked appraisingly at his wife. “We’ll never know until we get our hands
dirty, dear.”
A metal clanging shattered the still air as the green priest Arcas worked with a simple hydraulic assembly. The standard-issue
drill pump chewed its armored bit into the ground, questing for a buried aquifer to provide fresh water. Next, he angled the
solar panels that would provide energy for the camp lights, cookstoves, and comm systems, as well as their modular analysis
lab and computers.
The newly purchased compy servant DD assisted him ably, though the green priest seemed somewhat nonplussed at being next to
the small Friendly-model android. Margaret didn’t think the reticent Arcas actually resented the chest-high companion, but
he seemed to prefer his own company.
The Colicos team worked without extravagance. Margaret and Louis laid out the plan for their base camp and erected portable
aluminum-roofed sheds and polymer-walled tent structures. The litany of tedious tasks was welcome work to Margaret. She was
glad to be back on a dig.
After the success of the Klikiss Torch, she and Louis had attended many celebrity functions and served as guest speakers at
numerous gatherings. Hating the limelight, she had pulled every string with the Hansa to get to Rheindic Co as quickly as
possible. Sarcastically, she had once muttered, “Maybe the Klikiss race really disappeared just to hide from persistent alien
paparazzi.”
As contract Hansa employees, Margaret and Louis surrendered all commercial rights to any useful discoveries, though they did
receive substantial bonuses. Margaret didn’t much care about the income stream, since she enjoyed doing what she loved, and
Louis was happy as long as he had full freedom to publish all the scholarly papers he wished.
She and Louis had been married for thirty-seven years, and this would be their fourth Klikiss dig. They had investigated archaeological
mysteries on Earth and Mars, but the ancient insectoid race fascinated them most of all. What had happened to this civilization?
Why had the Klikiss left, and where had they gone? And why had they left behind their hulking armored robots, ten feet tall
and sentient, looking like burly upright insects?
Although the Ildirans had frequently encountered remnants of the lost civilization, they had left the abandoned sites alone.
“Why should we delve into the story of a vanished race?” Adar Kori’nh had asked Margaret aboard the observation platform at
Oncier. “We have the
Saga
, which tells all the history we could possibly want to know.”
Indeed, the epic poem mentioned the Klikiss race numerous times, but only in passing, giving no details about the culture
of the vanished civilization. Margaret’s scholar son Anton, studying ancient records at a university on Earth, had told her
that it wasn’t clear whether the Ildirans had encountered the living Klikiss, or only their remnants. Their lack of interest
in the topic struck her as incurious to the point of narrow-mindedness.
In the early years of Terran and Ildiran cooperation, human “colony prospectors” had scouted the unclaimed habitable worlds
listed in Solar Navy records. One team, a woman named Madeleine Robinson and her two sons, had gone to Llaro, where they were
astonished to find ruined cities and numerous dormant Klikiss robots, which they had accidentally reawakened. Since then,
dozens of other Klikiss sites had been surveyed, and many more of the black beetlelike machines had turned up. The Ildirans,
though, had known about them for centuries.
Now, the three ancient Klikiss robots who had surprisingly requested to join the Rheindic Co expedition used their massive
mechanical strength to erect a weather tower at the camp perimeter. Finished with that task, the three big machines moved
with a weird gait on flexible fingerlike legs toward marker stakes in the dry ground, where they began to raise the walls
of a heavy storage shed.
Margaret looked at her hastily sketched site diagram and hurried over to the nearest alien robot. “Not there. You’re five
meters off position.”
“It belongs here,” the robot said in a thin, humming voice.
“Which one are you? Sirix? Or Dekyk?” The trio looked identical to her.
