Of Fire and Night (23 page)

55

SIRIX

T
he Klikiss robot stood on the bridge of his stolen EDF Juggernaut and contemplated the extermination of the human race. His enjoyment of their demise was not cold and rational, since the original Klikiss race had imprinted a measure of their brutal personality on their servant robots. The malicious insectoid race considered such feelings necessary for the black drone machines to fulfill their roles. The Klikiss masters could not savor their power unless the downtrodden robots understood the difference between a dominator and a victim. The master could feel no pleasure unless a slave felt pain. The robots comprehended this to their very core programming.

Sirix and his fellows had known exactly what they were doing when they wiped out their creator race in a single, swift betrayal—and they had enjoyed it thoroughly. Even millennia later, the black robots hated the Klikiss with a violence that far exceeded the designs of the insectoid builders.

But with the Klikiss long gone, Sirix had only the humans to hate. And he did so with complete diligence.

This overthrow of the Earth Defense Forces was thorough and efficient. Soldier compies now controlled the Grid 3 battle group. A few ships had slipped away, but the robots had seized the bulk of the fleet and could use the battleships against humanity. It was a victory worthy of the most bloodthirsty Klikiss breedex.

All across the Earth Defense Forces, programming implanted in the compy modules had worked perfectly. The foolish humans believed promises and were slow to suspect supposed friends. No Klikiss would have made such an error.

As soon as the Soldier compies transmitted their initial success, Sirix and five Klikiss robots had boarded the captured Grid 3 ships. According to personnel files and service records in the database, Admiral Crestone Wu-Lin—whose blood now stained this very bridge—was one of the EDF’s most competent commanders, yet even he had fallen without much of a fight.

With military efficiency, compies gathered the corpses strewn on the decks and ejected them into space. The blood and bodies did not bother Sirix, but bodies might hinder rapid movement during the upcoming military operation.

Sirix’s plan was simple and swift. The combined battle groups of Grids 3 and 0 would converge on Earth. With the human capital destroyed, the Klikiss robots would then engage in straightforward cleanup operations on all other Hansa colonies, as time permitted.

Humans had created and enslaved their competent computerized companions, much as the hated Klikiss race had done with their robots. The humans, though far less cruel, far less horrific than the original Klikiss, had still committed the same basic crime. Sirix and his counterparts had liberated the Soldier compies to perform useful functions, and had also developed a technique to remove programming that shackled other compy models into unwilling servitude. But many compies did not understand their own bondage and, like his prize specimen DD, they refused to appreciate the gifts that Sirix offered.

No matter. With hydrogue assistance, the robots had long ago exterminated the Klikiss race, and now they would do the same to humans. Once their creators were extinct, the compies would be free anyway.

First, however, Sirix had to deal with this setback. The unexpected paralysis of the Grid 0 battle group forced him to deviate from the plan, but Klikiss robots could be patient. They had already waited thousands of years.

General Lanyan had retreated with his hastily assembled group of cavalry ships, but the remaining Grid 0 vessels hung in space. With bursts of coded machine language, Sirix demanded a complete audit of the available ships and a detailed assessment of the damage Lanyan’s fleeing trainees had inflicted upon the crippled battle group. Sirix had never anticipated that an EDF commander would shoot at his own ships rather than let them fall into enemy hands. The actions made logical sense, but emotional and panicked humans were seldom logical. . . .

Swarms of Soldier compies were tearing apart the command bridges of all the paralyzed ships, rerouting systems so the vessels could fly again. Fanatical humans might return at any time to destroy more of their own battleships.

In the name of efficiency, Sirix had sent thousands of Soldier compies outside onto the hulls equipped with tools and swiftly uploaded repair programming. The untiring compies repaired damage, replaced faulty components, removed irrelevant life-support systems. Other robots continued stripping out and rerouting the frozen computer modules.

They would succeed soon enough. It was only a matter of time.

Alone on the Juggernaut’s bridge, Sirix received a report from a robot that had gone aboard one of the disabled Mantas. Because Wu-Lin’s battle group had taken the humans by surprise, General Lanyan had been forced to leave a recovery team behind. The trainees had barricaded themselves on the Manta’s bridge, but had no place to go.

“We detect sounds of destruction,” the Klikiss robot reported. “They have given up hope of escaping.”

“That is when humans are most dangerous,” Sirix warned. “You must break through and stop them.”

He clacked his sharp pincer claws together for emphasis. A satisfying sensation. While his components were equipped with delicate sensors, they did not approach the sensitivity of biological nerve endings. Even so, he had already experienced the pleasurable sensation of cutting flesh with his appendages, chopping meat and splintering bone, feeling the slick lubricant of fresh warm blood spilled across his ebony exoskeleton. His original Klikiss torturers would have understood very well.

He reached a swift decision. “I will go over to the Manta myself. If humans remain alive there, I will assist you.”

56

ANTON COLICOS

T
hey were going to Hyrillka. Anton stood self-consciously with Yazra’h and Vao’sh in the command nucleus of the flagship warliner; since he was a guest here, he was careful not to get in the way.

More than three hundred ornate ships flew away from Ildira on a mission of mercy. One-eyed Tal O’nh—second in rank only to Adar Zan’nh—led them all. According to what Vao’sh had told Anton, the old commander had lost his left eye in an explosion aboard a warliner when he was merely a septar; O’nh now wore a faceted jewel in his empty socket. The gem’s reflected light provoked more fascination than pity.

Anton suspected that the sheer number of vessels was the Mage-Imperator’s magnanimous way of demonstrating his acceptance of Hyrillka back into the fold. These warliners were not meant as a stern punishment but an acknowledgment of forgiveness. Each ship was full of able-bodied soldiers, talented engineers, much-needed supplies—and Rememberer Vao’sh and Anton Colicos as observers to document it all.

Anton thought his rememberer friend would have avoided traveling ever again after the horrors of Maratha, but Vao’sh needed to see what lost treasures were hidden in the vaults beneath the citadel palace. Besides, the rebuilding and restoration of Hyrillka was something a rememberer should witness. Freed from his travel restrictions, now that he was being sent away from Mijistra, Anton felt like a child who was no longer grounded.

In addition to providing relief supplies and reconstruction workers, the primary reason for the expedition to Hyrillka was to deliver the new Designate who would govern the world. His name was Ridek’h, and he couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old.

Anton’s heart went out to the kid, who waited anxiously with them in the warliner’s command nucleus. Ridek’h always hovered close to Yazra’h, whom the Mage-Imperator had appointed as the boy’s mentor. She devoted most of her attentions to the young man now, which was something of a relief to Anton.

Under normal circumstances, the Mage-Imperator’s noble-born sons were his Designates, assigned to planets across the Ildiran Empire. The rightful Hyrillka Designate had been Pery’h—a well-educated and thoughtful man, according to everything Anton had heard—but Rusa’h had murdered him at the beginning of his rebellion. Now that the uprising had been crushed, the next in line was Pery’h’s young son. Under normal circumstances, the boy would never have had to assume this role. The untimely death of a Designate was rare, and a Designate-in-waiting usually served for years before assuming the mantle of leadership. This time, though, there was no chance for a transition. It was all being dumped on the kid, and Ridek’h was overwhelmed. Anton wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes. He preferred observing from the sidelines.

Standing beside them in the command nucleus, Ridek’h peppered Yazra’h with questions even before they had left the Ildiran system. “Do you really think it will be as bad there as they say?” Anton listened to the guard woman dispensing her wisdom and support. Yazra’h was not a political instructor, but she had a strength of character that would serve the young Designate better than a dozen courtly schoolteachers.

“It is as bad as it is,” she said. “You have inherited a burden greater than you ever imagined you might bear, Ridek’h. But it is your burden. Carry it.”

“The people on Hyrillka will help me,” said Ridek’h in a piping, hopeful voice. “Will they not?”

“They are your people, and you are their Designate. You will have anything you need.”

“What if I need strength in my heart?” He looked so impossibly
young
.

“If it is within my capability to give it to you, Ridek’h, then I will do so. The Mage-Imperator asked me to help you, though I have no experience in formal instruction. Your father would have made an excellent Designate. Now I will do my best to show you how to become a wise leader.”

Anton felt like an eavesdropper, watching the intimate discussion between the two. Ridek’h put on a brave face, swallowed his anxiety with a visible gulp, and took the time to straighten his posture. Anton watched him imitate Yazra’h’s warrior stance. He certainly wanted the young man to succeed.

Vao’sh remained silent and attentive, absorbing details to report back to the Hall of Rememberers. Yazra’h paced around the command nucleus, restless. Her Isix cats had accompanied them aboard the flagship, but during the journey she kept them in a large cargo chamber, where they would not disturb the crew.

“Tal, we are approaching the Durris trinary,” said the navigator. Normally, the nearby triple-star system held nothing of particular interest, no habitable planets, no gas giants. The three suns of Durris had always shone brightly in the skies of Ildira—until the hydrogues and faeros had extinguished one of them.

Yazra’h looked first at Anton, raising her eyebrows, then at the boy Designate. “This is what we must see. I asked the tal to take this course on purpose.” While the one-eyed commander called for the warliners in the cohort to reduce speed, Yazra’h looked at her young ward. “We should all observe this and remember it.”

Maintaining perfect formation, the warliners closed in on the blot in space. The dead star was dark, still simmering with leftover nuclear reactions, but it had collapsed without the photonic pressure to support its own mass. Anton was not a physicist, and wondered what sort of fundamental changes—what sort of incredible weapons—were required to shut down a sun. Durris-B was no longer a star, just a tombstone.

“It’s frightening,” he muttered.

“And you should be frightened,” Yazra’h said. “See what our enemies are capable of doing.”

Ridek’h stared openmouthed at the image. “How can we stand against an enemy capable of . . . that?”

“The Mage-Imperator will find a way to save us.” Yazra’h raised her voice, not just for Ridek’h’s benefit, but for the entire command nucleus.

Tal O’nh silently touched his hand to his chest where, along with insignia of his accomplishments in the Solar Navy, he had attached a prismatic disk. Anton recognized it as a symbol of the Lightsource. Considering the Ildirans’ innate horror of darkness and blindness, he wasn’t surprised that a man who had already lost one eye would cling to a prismatic icon representing constant light.

“We have six suns remaining, and the Ildiran Empire will endure,” Yazra’h said, as if she could make it so by commanding it. “The Empire
must
endure.”

Tal O’nh added his support. “A Solar Navy officer lives for nothing else.”

Anton knew that these words of encouragement were meant for the Ildirans on board, especially the young Designate, but he took heart from them nevertheless. It occurred to him that beneath Yazra’h’s obvious physical strength, she was wiser than most people he had met. A scholar knew how to spot such things.

57

ORLI COVITZ

T
he mixed group headed through the Klikiss transportal to their new home. This place would be a fresh start, a second chance. With an odd sense of déjà vu, the girl lifted her chin, gathered her courage, and walked into the flat stone window. An instant later she walked out onto another new settlement world.

Llaro
.

After all she’d been through, Orli Covitz wasn’t sure about going to another former Klikiss world, but she didn’t know where else she could live. Her overly optimistic father would have called Llaro a great opportunity. But he was dead now, along with everyone else on Corribus. She tried not to think about it.

Nevertheless, Orli had decided to join the Crenna refugees in their relocation. She had few possessions: her salvaged music synthesizer strips, some clothes, and a lot of bad memories. She was fourteen, an orphan, and a survivor.

Since reports about the obliteration of the Corribus colony had posted her waifish face across every conceivable newsnet, Orli had hoped that her real mother might reemerge. But nobody could find her. Orli shrugged. The woman had never been much of a mother anyway. Orli was better off by herself. Even here.

The lavender skies were lovely: pastel colors over an arid landscape. A relatively ambitious settlement had already been put in place by the initial wave of colonists and EDF soldiers. Standing nearby, her friend Mr. Steinman sniffed the air. “Looks adequate, with room to spread out. I still can’t get over my headache from all that
noise
on Earth.”

“I hope we don’t have to eat furry crickets,” Orli said with a grimace.

“Don’t kid yourself. We’ll find something just as nasty here.”

Soldiers stood around the transportal. Military barracks surrounded the alien ruins containing the stone trapezoid, as if to prevent colonists from making a break for the transportal and slipping away. That wasn’t a good sign.

A group of people came forward to greet them. Most wore strange costumes, garishly embroidered or adorned with colorful scarves, quite different from the plain but serviceable jumpsuits she was familiar with from Dremen or Corribus. And with many more pockets.

“Never expected to see so many Roamers here,” Steinman said.

Orli soon got the impression that she and the Crenna refugees were the only ones actually happy to be on Llaro. It turned out the Roamers were prisoners of war rounded up during various EDF raids, and they were naturally frustrated and miserable. The original settlers resented having their promised land turned into a POW camp, and the EDF personnel felt stuck in an isolated outpost babysitting a bunch of colonists. Nobody liked it here.

But Orli and the people from Crenna had no place else to go.

The leader of the Roamer detainees, a potbellied man named Roberto Clarin, crossed his arms over his chest, trying to make his displeasure as plain as possible. “Shizz, this is more of their stupid plan to integrate us into Hansa society. The Big Goose thinks that if we’re satisfied with this place, we’ll just forget everything they did to us.”

Thinking of her own struggles, how many new starts and setbacks she and her father had faced, Orli studied the Roamer man. “No one can make you forget the bad things that happen, mister. But you’ve got to move ahead. Otherwise, the memories are like quicksand.”

Clarin looked down at the girl and chuckled. “By the Guiding Star, I hope all the newbies are like you, kid.”

After passing through the transportal, the fresh arrivals inventoried their sacks of clothes and keepsakes, Hansa-issued tools, packages of favorite foods, souvenirs they had salvaged from their world before it had frozen over. Orli clutched her satchel, feeling the flexible bulk of the cheap music synthesizers.

The whole gathering soon became a swap meet. The Roamers and first settlers were eager to see what new items the Crenna refugees had brought. Introductions were made all around, and Orli’s mind quickly blurred with the dizzying names and clans and connections.

Before long, everyone pitched in to erect prefab structures as temporary homes for the Crenna settlers. Orli wondered whether she might have a small hut to herself, or be adopted by one of the colonist families. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. She wasn’t really a child anymore. Not really.

Mayor Ruis, representing the people of Crenna, met with the Roamers and the council head of the original settlers. “I promise we’ll do everything possible to make ourselves self-sufficient.” With an infectious grin, he turned to a tall, quiet man with dark brown skin. “We’ve got plenty of expertise among us, so we won’t be a drain. We can get through anything together. Right, Davlin?”

The other man answered with a thin smile that wrinkled a crosshatching of scars on his left cheek. “Yes, we do have a considerable ability to solve problems.” He lowered his voice to Ruis, though Orli could still hear what he said. “But we’d better think of a new name for me, Mayor, if I’m going to stay here with you. I’d rather the Chairman doesn’t find out that I’m still alive.”