Blood of the Cosmos (2 page)

When the battered ships return to the Ildiran Empire, the Mage-Imperator sends Adar Zan'nh out to find the lost
Kolpraxa
. Osira'h goes along, because she can follow her telepathic link to her brother Gale'nh. Out in the emptiness, they find the
Kolpraxa
entirely encased in a black shell, cold and dark. Aboard, they discover that all of the Ildiran crew are gone; the only survivor is Gale'nh, nearly driven mad, claiming that the Shana Rei attacked, but he somehow was able to resist the shadows owing to his halfbreed genetics. Adar Zan'nh and Osira'h rush him back to lldira, where he can be healed.

At the Confederation capital of Theroc, General Keah arrives to report to King Peter and Queen Estarra about the shadow cloud and the black robots. Zhett Kellum also reports about the shadows swallowing up Golgen. The King and Queen put the military defenses on high alert to prepare against this powerful, unknown enemy.

Arita, the daughter of the King and Queen, is fascinated with nature; she and her boyfriend Collin both grew up wanting to become green priests; they trained hard and studied, but when they went into the forest to be accepted by the trees, Collin emerged as a green priest, but Arita was rejected, although the sentient trees altered her mind somehow. Now, Collin leaves Arita to join a group of isolationist green priests led by Kennebar, and they retreat to an uninhabited continent, the Wild.

Arita's brother, Prince Reyn, is being groomed as the Confederation's next leader, but he has a secret illness, a degenerative condition that seems to have no cure. Keeping his illness to himself, Reyn goes to Earth, where he asks Rlinda Kett to connect him with Dr. Benjamin Paolus, a preeminent neurological researcher. Paolus studies Reyn, but offers little hope for a treatment. Next, Reyn goes on a diplomatic trip to Ildira, where he will learn about the Empire. He is welcomed by Mage-Imperator Jora'h and Nira, but spends most of his time with Osira'h, who takes him under her wing. As they grow fond of each other, Reyn reveals his condition to Osira'h, and she vows to use all the resources of the Ildiran medical researchers to find him a cure.

While Reyn is on Ildira, the shadows strike—but not in a direct physical attack. The Shana Rei have found a way into the Ildiran telepathic network of
thism
, and they possess weak-minded Ildirans to attack a procession of Jora'h and Nira. The insane Ildirans are killed, and the Mage-Imperator is shaken with the knowledge that the shadows may be infecting the entire race, attacking from within.…

Back in the Confederation, Garrison and Seth have returned to his estranged clan at the abandoned site of Rendezvous. Olaf Reeves always dominated Garrison, wore him down, and now Olaf demands that the two accompany the rest of the clan out to their new home in space. But Garrison refuses to let Seth be raised in such an oppressive environment. The rest of clan Reeves flies away, while Garrison takes Seth back to Newstation, where he will find work and the boy will go to school.

Meanwhile, thanks to the information Elisa brought him, Lee Iswander has established a thriving, though secret, worksite in the middle of another bloater cluster, where they are extracting stardrive fuel, ekti-X. It seems an inexhaustible supply as they drain bloater after bloater. Now they have to distribute the fuel, so Iswander can build up his fortune again. Elisa meets with Xander Brindle, the young son of Robb Brindle and Tasia Tamblyn, and his partner Terry Handon, both of whom work for Kett Shipping. They work a deal to distribute ekti-X.

Eager to recover from his disgrace, Iswander presents a large and valuable load of ekti-X to King Peter and Queen Estarra on Theroc. Many people are desperate to know where he is getting so much stardrive fuel and so cheaply, but he refuses to reveal his source. As he departs from Theroc, Iswander takes a green priest with him, Aelin, who will assist with distant communication.

Olaf Reeves and the rest of his family arrive at their new home in space—a huge derelict city far from any star system. No one knows who built the alien space city. The clan settles in and reactivates the systems, while others explore the giant city, looking for clues about the original builders. They discover a library of records showing a previously unknown race, the Onthos, who took shelter there in deep space, and then they find hundreds of Onthos bodies—all of them dead from a plague. Before long, the members of clan Reeves also grow sick and begin to die en masse.

Rlinda Kett, who supplied clan Reeves with what they needed for their new home, is concerned about them. One of her old friends, Orli Covitz, recently came to Rlinda after the breakup of her marriage, looking for something to do with her life. Rlinda signs on Orli and her faithful compy DD as pilots of a trading ship and sends them to go check on clan Reeves. When Orli arrives at the derelict space city, though, she discovers that every single member of clan Reeves has died from the alien plague. And now Orli is infected as well.…

Prince Reyn's doctor, Benjamin Paolus, is secretly working for Zoe Alakis on Pergamus, and he delivers samples of Reyn's exotic illness. Paolus is paid well for the information. Tom Rom is eager to keep delivering rare samples for the Pergamus library, and when he learns about the Onthos plague, Tom Rom sets off for the derelict city, determined to acquire the virus for Zoe's collection.

In the space city, Orli doesn't dare allow the plague to spread, so she copies all the medical and archaeological data on the unknown alien race, before she destroys the city and flies away as her own symptoms grow worse. She will transmit the data to the Confederation, and then die out in space where she cannot infect anyone. But Tom Rom arrives; Orli offers him her data, but he wants the organism itself. She tries to escape, but he hunts her down, and traps her on an asteroid, where he boards her ship and steals vials of her infected blood, which he will take back to Pergamus. Orli is distraught, thinking she has failed; DD manages to fix her ship and they fly away.

On his way back, Tom Rom experiences an accident aboard his ship, and he too is infected with the plague. As his own symptoms worsen, he flies to Pergamus to give Zoe this specimen, knowing it will be the last thing he does.

Back at the Iswander bloater-extraction yard, the green priest Aelin learns of all those who died from the Onthos plague, and he also hears mysterious voices from the bloaters themselves. Eager to make contact with them through his telink powers, he takes a scout pod into the bloater field, where he is caught in a power surge that crackles among the nodules. His treeling is destroyed, and he is nearly killed; Aelin is never quite the same afterward, both euphoric and delirious.

Meanwhile, Mage-Imperator Jora'h has nightmares, sure that he is infected by shadows. Tal Gale'nh struggles to recover from his horrific ordeal on the
Kolpraxa
, and he fears the Shana Rei have a hold on him. Zan'nh strengthens the Solar Navy defenses, but no one knows what weapons might be effective against the creatures of darkness. Anton Colicos and other Ildiran rememberers comb through ancient records of the Shana Rei, looking for any clues, and they discover plans for “sun bombs” that caused great damage previously.

General Keah and Adar Zan'nh continue war exercises, hoping to be ready for the Shana Rei. During maneuvers over the frozen planetoid of Plumas, a shadow cloud appears and enormous Shana Rei ships emerge, accompanied by a destructive force of black robot battleships. After a desperate battle, suffering great losses, the Solar Navy and the Confederation Defense Forces retreat, completely trounced by the enemy.

King Peter and Queen Estarra go to Ildira to discuss the incomprehensible war, and also to see their son Reyn, eager to bring him back home. Reyn reveals to his parents that he is suffering from an incurable disease, which shocks the King and Queen, but they vow to do everything possible to find a treatment. Another uprising of shadow-possessed Ildirans occurs, and they barely escape with their lives. Mage-Imperator Jora'h sends Osira'h back to Theroc with Reyn, hoping that she will be safer there.

When Elisa learns that her son Seth is in school at Newstation—not killed in the bloater explosion after all, as she had assumed—she leaves the Iswander extraction field and rushes there, determined to get her son back. She seizes him from the school and takes him with her out to the ekti operations. Too late to stop her, Garrison pursues Elisa, following her to the hidden industrial field, where he is captured to prevent him from revealing the source of ekti-X.

While he is trying to get his son released, an ominous shadow cloud appears before the industrial operations. Exxos and the black robots begin to attack, and the Iswander employees evacuate. In the chaos, the slightly deranged green priest Aelin escapes, but instead of trying to get away, he flies out to the bloaters, which call to him. He removes his environment suit and immerses himself inside one of the bloaters, the protoplasm he calls the “blood of the cosmos,” through which he receives great revelations. The invincible Shana Rei, however, hang over the bloater field, and then simply withdraw without explanation. Unable to believe he has dodged the bullet, Iswander puts his people back to work immediately.

Not long afterward, Orli and DD stumble upon the bloater extraction field. Orli is near death from the plague, and all she wants to do is transmit the database she took from the Onthos space city before she dies; DD will self-destruct the ship to remove any chance of contamination. But Aelin insists he knows how to cure Orli—she merely needs to immerse herself in the blood of the cosmos. Garrison talks with her extensively on the comm, convinces Orli that she has nothing to lose, so she makes the attempt. She is cured! As she regains her strength in a quarantined section of the Iswander operations, Garrison grows very close to her, but neither is allowed to leave and reveal the ekti-X operations. Soon enough, though, that becomes unnecessary: as the drifting bloaters come close to a star, they undergo a metamorphosis that transforms them into astounding flying creatures that race off into space. Afterward, as the Iswander operations disperse, Orli goes with Garrison and Seth to a quiet colony planet, Ikbir, where they hope to live quietly.

Tom Rom, on the verge of death, barely makes his way back to Pergamus, bringing a sample of the Onthos plague—in his own bloodstream. Zoe refuses to let him die, though, and devotes all the resources of her medical facility to discovering a cure. Tom Rom is kept in an orbital isolation facility as he is treated, and Zoe leaves her sterile dome for the first time in many years so she can be with him. He pulls through, thanks to a treatment discovered in the wealth of information held in the Pergamus library.

On Ildira, shadow-possessed Ildirans gather weapons and march on a peaceful human enclave, where settlers have built a human town to share their culture with Ildirans. It is a complete massacre, all the humans slaughtered—and the Mage-Imperator knows this will be an appalling strain on their alliance with the Confederation. Desperate to understand, he orders studies on the dead bodies of the shadow-possessed Ildirans, but when researchers cut into their brains, gouts of deadly black smoke rise up and wipe out the medical specialists; the laboratory itself is annihilated in order to stop the spread. Jora'h doesn't know how he can stop the shadow that is surely within all of them.…

The Shana Rei also strike Theroc, drawn there to wipe out the worldforest, which causes them pain. As black robot ships attack General Keah's warships, the Shana Rei vessels begin building an enormous barrier in orbit, an eclipse plate that will block out all sunlight and smother the sentient trees. The Confederation Defense Forces cannot defeat these powerful opponents, no matter how many weapons they use. But then Adar Zan'nh arrives with a battery of the ancient sun bombs, which destroy part of the “nightshade.” Osira'h also uses her special telepathic powers to summon the fiery elementals that caused such havoc during the Elemental War. She controls the faeros, convinces them to attack the creatures of darkness, and all together they succeed in driving away the Shana Rei, though at great damage to the faeros, which retreat again to hide inside their stars.

As the worldforest recovers from the attack, a hundred strange ships arrive in the Theron system, an alien configuration never seen before. All hundred ships land in the worldforest, and, to the amazement of King Peter and Queen Estarra, aliens emerge—the Onthos, refugees who were nearly eradicated by the Shana Rei long ago. The Onthos claim that they, too, were tenders of a worldforest, now destroyed, and they gather under the great trees, requesting sanctuary.

 

CHAPTER

1

AELIN

The universe was vast and full of wonders—some too marvelous to understand, some too terrifying.

In an empty wasteland of space, far from any star system, the ekti-X extraction operations worked at full capacity, a swarm of activity. Lee Iswander had found another cluster of mysterious bloaters that appeared out of nowhere, drifted aimlessly, then went nowhere.

No one but Iswander's crew knew that the protoplasmic sacks were filled with energy-dense ekti. The secret fuel-harvesting operations proceeded in the deep emptiness, light-years from any possible observers. Pumping rigs and extraction siphons descended on one bloater at a time like bizarre mechanical mosquitoes, sucking each nodule dry. They filled canister after canister with stardrive fuel and left the discarded husks to drift away. Iswander's crew, sworn to secrecy, loaded distribution tankers and delivered the stardrive fuel to hidden dropoff points, from which carefully vetted representatives would distribute the fuel to trading depots. No one else in the Confederation knew where ekti-X came from, and frustration was increasing across the Spiral Arm.

This bloater cluster would eventually be depleted, but Iswander's scouts had already located other drifting conglomerations in the dark spaces between the stars.