Hidden Empire (81 page)
The three ancient machines were probably following them, even now.
Margaret did not doubt that she and Louis would be their next victims. During their stumbling flight, Louis seemed to have
worked through his questions, but found no acceptable answers.
At the metal scaffolding that leaned against the sheer walls, allowing them easy access to the cliff city, Margaret urged
Louis to ascend first. His footfalls were heavy, and she understood how utterly exhausted he was, not only from the exertion
but from the toll of fear.
Hearing them climbing the metal staircase, DD came to the open overhang. His silvery body glinted in the light, and the Friendly
compy seemed quite enthusiastic. “Ah, Margaret and Louis, you have returned. Come, I have found something—”
“DD, help us up. Have you seen the Klikiss robots?”
“No, Margaret, not since this afternoon. Do we need their help?”
Louis reached the cave opening and collapsed to his knees, wheezing. Margaret hurried after him. “No. DD, help me. We’ve got
to tear down the staircase.”
Louis looked at her, then nodded grimly. “May as well make it a siege.”
“Whatever for?” DD asked. “We will have a much harder time getting down, although there are some ropes back with our equipment.”
“Just do it, DD!” Margaret snapped.
She and Louis worked with the small compy to disengage the anchor bolts from the cave mouth. With a powerful shove and a loud
clamor of bent metal and struts, the scaffolding crashed into the narrow canyon. Rubble pattered down the walls, and the clatter
shot into the night with all the subtlety of a brass band.
Louis gazed down the long cliff as if he were an ancient knight standing atop a castle wall, assessing the defenses of their
moat and preparing for a siege. “Well, are we safe now, dear?”
Margaret shook her head. “I doubt it, old man.” Now that she could pause, the furious panic and the avalanche of questions
roared around her, overwhelming her imagination. She held Louis close.
“Please explain what has happened, Margaret,” DD said.
“Arcas is dead.” The words sounded unreal in her mouth. “The worldtrees have all been destroyed. Our records and our communications
transmitter have been smashed. The camp is a wreck.”
“The Klikiss robots did it,” Louis said, as if admitting it to himself for the first time.
The Friendly compy was taken aback, and he remained silent as his computer brain processed the radical new information. “Then
we are stranded here on Rheindic Co.”
“Of course,” Margaret said, shoring up her helplessness with a veneer of anger.
“I have discovered new information that might shed light upon this mystery,” DD said. “A section of hieroglyphics that were
covered up on a wall not far from the stone-window chamber.”
Intensely interested in whether it had some bearing on their survival, Margaret stood up, glad for the distraction, for something
positive she could do. “I’ll go look at it.” She glanced at her husband, who seemed too distraught to move. “Louis, stay here
and keep watch. Shout if you see anything.”
Louis swallowed hard and leaned against the overhang wall, looking out into the night. Without question, Sirix, Dekyk, and
Ilkot would come for them. And since the archaeologists were stranded here on the ghost planet, the black robots had all the
time in the world.
In a tunnel deeper within the cliffside, away from the portal wall chamber, DD had scraped away a broad section of powdery,
resinous covering. “It was similar to plaster, obscuring the hieroglyphics. When I scanned the wall, I discovered the markings
underneath. I thought you would like to inspect them, Margaret, so I carefully cleaned the overlay. Notice several instances
of the symbol that corresponds to the Klikiss robots.”
Margaret drank in the information. “Good work, DD. You’ll make a fine xeno-archaeologist someday.” Tracing her fingertip along
the symbols, she read quickly from what she knew of the language. She’d had enough practice by now that she could interpret
the general meaning without recourse to her carefully compiled databases and dictionaries. No wonder some ancient Klikiss
survivor—perhaps the cadaver they had found in the machine room—had wanted to hide this last testament.
“Is it important information, Margaret?” DD asked.
Her heart grew colder as she understood the markings. “Yes, DD. This might just be the last piece of the puzzle.” She began
to walk numbly back toward the main overhang. Louis had to know what she had learned.
As she passed the portal wall chamber, she glanced inside and saw the clutter of their day’s work. Next to her notes lay part
of a sandwich and a protein wafer, the small but beautiful music box Anton had given her. Feeling a pang, Margaret snatched
the music box and pocketed it.
Louis’s shout rang out before she could make her way back to him. “Margaret, here they come!”
Her instincts were torn between confronting the treacherous black robots and just taking her husband and fleeing deeper into
the catacombs. Perhaps they could find some escape, some protection inside the empty Klikiss city.
But it was not, after all, a difficult choice. She went to stand beside Louis.
At the edge of the overhang, he looked down into the dark canyon, his seamed face fearful but his eyes flashing. The scaffolding
lay smashed on the ravine floor. Far below, the three beetlelike shapes crunched along the dry riverbed. Their optical sensors
glowed like malevolent fireflies in the shadows.
“I don’t see how they can get up here,” Louis said, but Margaret had her doubts about how impregnable this empty city would
be. “Did you learn anything, dear?”
“I found the answer to all of our questions,” she said.
Louis Colicos, the lifelong xeno-archaeologist, managed to summon enough enthusiasm for his passion in life that he actually
looked up with interest. “Well, a lot of good it’ll do us if we can’t tell anybody.”
“You and I will know, old man,” Margaret said, patting him on the arm.
Down below, Sirix and the other two robots stopped, swiveling their geometric heads upward. “Margaret and Louis Colicos, we
know you are up there.”
“And we know you’re down there,” Louis said. “Now leave us alone.”
“We wish to discuss our creators with you. We want to learn everything you have discovered.”
“And then kill us afterward?” Margaret called down, challenging.
The three black robots fell silent for a long moment, then they buzzed and chattered with each other in their strange electronic
language. Sirix finally looked back upward. “Yes, and then kill you.”
Margaret was surprised the robot would be so blunt. “Well, at least they’re honest,” Louis said.
Margaret called, her words clear and sharp in the silent canyon. “We know all about the first hydrogue war. I read hidden
descriptions of the ancient battle between the Klikiss and the hydrogues, and even the Ildirans.” Louis looked at her, astonished,
while the three black robots pondered the information.
“Then you know that we robots fought in that war,” Sirix said.
“I know that you turned against your creators.” She looked at Louis. “Their own robots are what destroyed the Klikiss race.
That’s why we see no living remnants of an entire species.”
Louis looked down, hoping the revelation would shock some sense into Sirix, Ilkot, and Dekyk. The trio of black robots paused,
waiting at the base of the sheer cliff. “Well, what do you have to say about that? Why did you do it?” he shouted, taunting.
“Does it jar any memories loose?”
“We already know,” Sirix answered in a chillingly flat tone.
Margaret realized deep in her heart that the Klikiss robots could never allow any of that damning information to reach the
other civilizations in the Spiral Arm.
“Now what?” Louis whispered to his wife. “Are they just going to stay down there and keep us treed like squirrels?”
As if they had heard him, the three Klikiss robots stood apart at the base of the cliff. Their black carapaces split open
at the back to reveal emerging wings. Ignoring the broken scaffolding and discarded stairs, the Klikiss robots easily took
flight and rose toward the cliff city.
D
evastating reports came to Basil Wenceslas, one after another, like a succession of death sentences.
From his executive suite atop Hansa headquarters, he stared out into the setting sun. He received each message with growing
dread. He read the war reports, watched the scant but terrifying footage. The hydrogues were unstoppable.
For the first time in his successful career—in his entire life—Basil Wenceslas wanted nothing better than to hide, to find
a place of safety where he could avoid the responsibility and the dangerous times ahead. He didn’t have the slightest idea
what to do. More than anything else, Basil hated feeling helpless.
After the EDF debacle on Jupiter, the deep-core aliens had launched repeated attacks with a vengeful thoroughness, emerging
from dozens of gas giants. Crystalline warglobes had destroyed all ekti-harvesting operations across the Spiral Arm, everything
from the outdated Ildiran factories, to the cumbersome processing facilities the Hansa had fielded, to the remaining Roamer
skymines that had refused to evacuate.
More than any other group, the Roamers were suffering from the full-scale crackdown, unable to obtain or market stardrive
fuel… but they would merely be the first victims. As word spread of the complete futility of attempted cloud mining, the hydrogue
attacks had slackened. There was no one left to threaten.
Without ekti, all Hansa commerce, all interaction with the Ildiran Empire, would grind to a halt. The business of the Spiral
Arm, and then the livelihood of the scattered colonies, would slowly wither.
Most of the settlements had come to depend on regular shipments, resources, foodstuffs. Travel between the nearest star systems
would now require years, decades, at top speeds available to conventional propulsion systems. No colony was an island, cut
off, meant to exist all on its own. The infrastructure of many worlds simply did not allow them to be self-sufficient. Now
they would have to learn—or die.
On the images transmitted to his table update screens, Basil looked down to watch newly crowned King Peter on his throne,
delivering well-scripted proclamations, demanding increased weapons development, calling upon the population for additional
EDF recruits.
Basil did not know what such measures would actually accomplish, but he would never let it appear that the Hansa did not know
what to do. The people must continue to have hope. The EDF had already confiscated most stockpiles of ekti for military use,
though some colonists on the more distant Hansa planets were hoarding the fuel themselves, saving it for what they knew would
be terrible times ahead.
The citizens had accepted King Peter. His coronation had been embraced with the full enthusiasm of a family sharing grief.
Peter had done well enough so far. He was a likable young man, charismatic and strong, very attractive, with a good, sonorous
voice. But in spite of being surrounded with all the opulence of the Whisper Palace, the fine foods, the pleasures and trappings
of power, Peter would not enjoy his rule for a moment.
A lesser man might have felt a pang of guilt and sadness for what Basil had done to bright-eyed young Raymond Aguerra. But
some people could not choose their responsibilities—neither he, nor the young orphan. However, he did not envy King Peter
the difficulties he would face in his new reign.
At least Sarein had been appointed the new ambassador from Theroc, a kindred spirit, someone who would listen to rational
debate about the uses of green priests in the growing war effort. That might be an advantage—though a minimal one. She had
used him to gain her position. He wondered if Sarein would choose to be his lover again, now that she had Otema’s coveted
position, now that she’d found her prestigious place on Earth.
With the ready supply of ekti cut off for the foreseeable future, all space travel must henceforth be severely restricted.
The Terran Hanseatic League and the ancient Ildiran Empire were effectively shut down.
The nightmare was only beginning.
