Blood of the Cosmos (75 page)

“Our brother is gone,” Muree'n said.

Gale'nh studied the wreckage of ships, the destroyed robot battleships, and also the surviving warliners that had faced the Shana Rei and driven them off.

“But we are still here,” Gale'nh said, and he took heart from that.

 

CHAPTER

128

TOM ROM

Tom Rom hauled Tamo'l through the transportal wall to Auridia, accompanied by a wash of seawater from Kuivahr. Behind them, the permanent night rushed toward them like a wave of darkness.

Tamo'l staggered onto the concrete apron on the other side of the Auridia transportal. She acted strangely dazed, no doubt overwhelmed by the loss of her planet and her sanctuary domes, but Tom Rom didn't allow her the time to be reluctant or confused. All of the misbreed specimens had gotten away to Gorhum, and he no longer needed to be concerned about them.

They were both drenched, and cold salt water poured off of them. With a firm arm around her waist, Tom Rom caught Tamo'l as they both swayed, adjusting to Auridia's higher gravity, the new sunlight, the new atmosphere. As more waves washed through the still-open transportal, Tom Rom collapsed onto the paved apron.

He heard shouts of surprise and dismay from the Auridia operations crew. Ignoring them, he pulled himself to his feet and blinked in the hazy gray sunlight, which was such a contrast to the midnight barrier that had engulfed Kuivahr. He saw a group of wide-eyed Roamer technicians in jumpsuits and two traders lounging around.

More seawater sprayed through the dimensional doorway, spilling across the floor and dousing equipment along with one of the traders, who sat drinking a bottle of distilled kelpbeer. Behind them, the transportal wall solidified, cutting off the passage to the blackness that had swallowed Kuivahr.

As Tom Rom wiped seawater out of his eyes, one of the Roamer technicians said, “What a mess! Give us a little warning next time.”

A dozen men and women scrambled to rescue chairs and electronic equipment from the spreading remnants of the flood.

Tamo'l stood shaking in her wet clothes, blinking her pearlescent eyes. “Where are we? This isn't Gorhum. I don't recognize this place.”

“It is called Auridia. The Roamer capital of Newstation orbits overhead, but not many people use the transportal down here. This is where my ship is parked.” Tom Rom had chosen Auridia because it was a quiet, sleepy transportal nexus. The Roamer staff was welcoming and not overly curious. He had paid a parking fee, and the station monitors were happy to take his credits.

Now the Roamer techs and the curious traders gathered closer. “What happened to you two?”

Tom Rom said, “We came from Kuivahr. That coordinate tile is no longer viable. Mark it.” Tamo'l shuddered.

The trader sipped his distilled kelpbeer, frowned. “Not many people go there anyway. What happened?” Tom Rom noticed that no one seemed to feel any sense of urgency.

“Overrun by Shana Rei. The whole planet is gone.”

“Now, that's newsworthy,” said one of the Roamers.

“Yes. It is.” Tom Rom glanced at Tamo'l, who still seemed disoriented. “My companion and I have to go. Please pass the information up to Newstation and on to Theroc.”

Tamo'l stood on her own, still shaking. “Where are the others? The misbreeds, Shawn Fennis, Chiar'h…”

“They should be safe,” he said.

“But, they're not here.”

“They went to Gorhum. I chose a different coordinate tile for us.”

“I need to be with them,” she said.

“They will be taken care of on Gorhum, but I want you to meet my employer. She will be very interested in your work with the misbreeds.” He clutched the protected case of medical records against his side. “I have all your data.”

She said, “I could sense Rod'h from the sanctuary domes … at the last moment. We connected.”

“By the Guiding Star, we need more of a story than that. Tell us what happened to Kuivahr,” said one of the Roamers.

“Not at the moment.” Tom Rom maneuvered Tamo'l toward his ship, and she did not resist. He felt very anxious to get away; he did not want to answer questions from these Roamers, didn't want others to realize who it was that accompanied him. Tamo'l would be useful at Pergamus. Once Zoe had thoroughly debriefed the Ildiran halfbreed, they could decide where to take her.

The Klikiss transportal stood on a slight rise from the surrounding plains. The transportal outpost consisted of a dozen prefab buildings, rickety-looking temporary office shelters, and a lot of brown grasses and spiny weeds.

His ship sat at the bottom of the transportal rise, just beyond the flimsy admin structures. Several local workers emerged from the prefab buildings, attracted by the commotion. Seawater from Kuivahr was puddled around the apron.

“Which coordinate tile did you say was no good?” called the team leader.

“Kuivahr,” Tom Rom said over his shoulder as he hurried Tamo'l to his ship. “Look it up.”

The Auridia operations staff seemed singularly uninterested, as if they preferred their usual routine over any sort of excitement.

“We should go to Gorhum,” Tamo'l said. “Through the transportal. I want to meet up with the rest of the misbreeds. They need me.”

Tom Rom opened the boarding door of his ship, eager to get her aboard before she posed too many more questions. “We can fly to Gorhum after we stop at Pergamus.”

Two Roamer workers used brooms to sweep the puddles of water off the apron while other staff members stood around watching. The team leader bent over his datapad calling up information; then he scrutinized the numerous Klikiss coordinate tiles around the flat stone trapezoid. “Found it!” he called, as if Tom Rom were interested. “Checking it out now.”

He felt a sudden foreboding as he got Tamo'l aboard. The men and women here seemed like lazy fools. He didn't care about them being lazy, but being
foolish
might cause problems. He shouted back, “Stop—that is not wise.”

But the tech activated the Kuivahr coordinate tile anyway, just to make sure, and the stone wall rippled. The others backed away, some curious, some laughing, some wary they would be doused with another surge of seawater once the doorway opened.

Tom Rom ducked inside the ship behind Tamo'l just as the transportal opened to reveal the utter blackness swimming on the other side. But the black seemed more tangible than mere darkness. The black moved, swirled, and pushed through the doorway to Auridia.

Tom Rom bolted to the cockpit and activated the engines. Because of his many missions for Zoe, his engines had preburners that remained lit for instantaneous takeoff; he could achieve full thrust within seconds. He also possessed far more powerful weapons than one would expect from a ship of this size. He had battled Roamer pirates before and chased away curiosity seekers who came too close to Pergamus. He was prepared.

His ship leaped up from the surface, leaving a scorched swath from the afterburners. He looked down at the small admin settlement, the transportal wall, to see people running in all directions. A pseudopod of shadows and smoke pushed through the transportal opening like a questing tendril. The dimensional doorway had broken open, and whatever had engulfed Kuivahr was now coming through. The transportal gushed shadows, a hemorrhage of black nothingness.

Tom Rom gained altitude and circled away under heavy acceleration. Tamo'l stared through the windowport, aghast.

Below, the darkness spread like an oil spill. It overwhelmed and swallowed up three of the fleeing personnel. The lazy trader with the bottle of beer charged toward the transportal in an attempt to reach the coordinate tiles. Tom Rom hadn't expected such bravery, though he hadn't counted on such stupidity in the first place.

Tamo'l fell into a seat, clutching her head. “So cold!”

Tom Rom knew what he would have to do. The personnel down there were lost, but if the Shana Rei could pour through this transportal, they might extend through other transportals as well. They could engulf Auridia, rise up to take over Newstation. It wasn't his job to save the Roamers or the Confederation, but he would do it to save Zoe and Pergamus. There were repercussions.

He activated his weapons systems, issued no warning—what was the point?—and circled back. He opened fire on the Klikiss transportal at full strength. He peppered the stone wall and the surrounding structures with jazers; he launched explosives, which destroyed all the infrastructure around the near-indestructible alien wall. The blackness swelled as if trying to vomit as much darkness as possible through in the last instant.

Tom Rom continued the bombardment and finally, deciding to take no chances, he dropped a small tactical nuke that turned the area into a crater filled with pooled glass. That wash of searing atomic light obliterated the pseudopod of shadows, and by the time the brightness faded, Tom Rom's ship was already soaring away from Auridia.

Even if the transportal survived the detonation, all the attendant mechanisms had been vaporized or at least severely damaged. If nothing else, the conduit to Kuivahr had been shut down.

In a panicked voice, Newstation Control insisted that he dock and answer questions. The Roamers aboard the station were furious and shocked. He didn't bother to respond to the shouted communications, the demands for answers; he simply flew his ship away. When he reached orbit, he kept going. He activated the Ildiran stardrive before the Roamers could do more than threaten.

“We're safe now,” he told Tamo'l. “I will take you to Pergamus.”

She had withdrawn into herself and sat alone, breathing deeply, struggling to control herself. Finally, she said, “I look forward to it. I am very curious to see Pergamus myself.”

She turned her head away before Tom Rom could notice the change that flooded through her pearlescent eyes—the spark of dark that rose up inside her before it withdrew into hiding again.

 

CHAPTER

129

ROD'H

When the Shana Rei attacked Kuivahr, that was his only contact with the outside universe, the only glimpse of worlds and stars he'd been allowed to see since his capture. And what he saw was no mercy. No mercy at all.

Rod'h had been lost in sensory deprivation, a cocoon of emptiness with no heat or cold, no sound except when the Shana Rei or Exxos tormented him. But in orbit above Kuivahr, they allowed him to watch the black shroud smother the whole world. Perhaps they did it to emphasize their power, or perhaps just to reinforce his feelings of helplessness.

During their panicked evacuation, he had sensed both Osira'h and Tamo'l, and he cried out in every way possible, but the void swallowed his words. Rod'h knew he had been bred for great things—perhaps even destined to be the savior of the Ildiran Empire—and now he was completely impotent. Worse, he was a dangerous vulnerability, a chink in the armor that could bring about disaster for all Ildirans.

He watched as the black shell engulfed the entire planet. Even the Solar Navy could do nothing to stop the suffocation of Kuivahr. He sensed Osira'h as she fled with Prince Reyn, and he sensed Gale'nh—and Muree'n!—aboard the warliners in the midst of the space battle.

Still down on the planet, Tamo'l seemed more open to him than his other siblings. She was sensitive, desperate, vulnerable. She opened up and reached out, trying to help him—as if he were one of her misbreed patients. He tried to hold on to her.

The Shana Rei appeared around him, inkblots hovering closer. He tried to pull away, but their voices thundered in his head. “We will follow you.”

Too late, Rod'h realized that this was exactly what they wanted! He struggled to break the connection. He knew Tamo'l was also seeking strength from him. The inkblots swarmed closer, wrapping around him like leech patches. Though he thrashed and fought, the creatures of darkness drilled into his mind, pressed harder, and seeped into him like a fever in the blood.

Then, Tamo'l was gone, as if she had been snuffed out, the connection broken … no, not broken, just
stretched
. She had vanished through the Klikiss transportal.

And in despair, he realized that the Shana Rei had followed her like a parasite hooked on to her
thism
through him, riding his mental connection to her!

Osira'h couldn't help him. Gale'nh and Muree'n couldn't help him.

Even watching the annihilation of virtually all the despised Klikiss robots gave him only a glimmer of hope. The barrage of far-superior sun bombs should have been a crushing defeat for the Shana Rei, but the shadows seemed not to care at all. They were much more satisfied with what they had done to him, with the bond they had forged through him … and with the damage his weakness had caused.

“We can now undermine those who cause us pain,” the Shana Rei said.

“We are not hurting you!” Rod'h shouted.

“You exist. And by existing, you create agony. Your thoughts scream at us. Your life is a stain on the cold purity that existed before creation. We must eliminate you all. We must rip out the underpinnings that corrupted the universe into an organized state. The Shana Rei were slumbering in our chaos until we were driven out by the increasing pain. Now it has grown too intense for us to bear.”

“But what did we do?” Rod'h shouted.

“Not you,” the inkblots pulsed. “Eternity's mind awakens, and we have little time to erase you all—and ourselves—before that scream of order becomes infinite.”

They tore at Rod'h's mind as if to give him a taste of the agony the Shana Rei said they experienced each instant.

“We have already found a way to destroy the verdani mind from within. Now that we possess you, we have a way into the
thism
as well.” The inkblots hovered around him like jackal lizards. “We can use you to cause great destruction to your own people—from within.”