Eternity's Mind (60 page)

Tasia activated the comm. “Rlinda, are you there? Are you safe?” She felt an empty sadness when
Declan's Glory
didn't respond. Finally, more than a minute later, the big woman said, “Define safe.”

A nearby explosion knocked out half of their shields. The
Curiosity
spun out of control. The passengers shouted in panic, and Howard and Shareen tumbled together across the deck. Because Robb and Tasia were strapped in, they managed to stabilize the ship.

Robb said, “I think it's time to go.”

As the ship soared out of the nebula on a trajectory away from the two shadow clouds, Howard and Shareen picked themselves up from the deck and came to the piloting compartment. Several of the
Curiosity
's control panels had gone dark, and a shower of sparks flew up from another, but Tasia nonchalantly bypassed the circuits, then shut down extraneous components. Robb kept flying.

With a gasp, Shareen pointed out the front windowport. “Look at the first shadow cloud!”

One of the black masses clenched and convulsed, as if recoiling. Diving in from the outside fringe of the nebula, an unexpected swarm of flying nodules arrowed straight toward the nearest shadow cloud, like birds of prey.

“It's bloaters,” Tasia shouted. “They're bloaters!” She remembered seeing the cluster at the Iswander extraction field, but these bloaters had transformed, come alive—and they sent out ripples like gravitational waves that stirred the Fireheart gases. The invisible force was directed toward the amoeba-like shadow cloud, crushing the darkness like a fist.

“Looks like we're not the only ones fighting,” Robb said.

The black swirling cloud collapsed, falling inward. As the cloud crumpled under its own mass, the flying bloaters followed it in, vanishing into the last remnants of darkness, like moths to a flame.

“Hang on!” Tasia said.

One gigantic shadow cloud still remained.

So far the
Curiosity
's engines hadn't been damaged, and she wrung out every last bit of acceleration, dodging as the bright nebula tore itself apart around them.

 

CHAPTER

116

CELLI

The crack widened in the glass of the terrarium dome overhead, splitting sideways and forking into several branches. The brittle snapping sound was even louder than the rumble of shock waves from nearby explosions.

Outside, a panoply of flashes marked the ongoing space battle, but Celli could focus only on the groaning trees. She could feel it in her muscles and bones, dreading the imminent disaster when the dome failed.

Rlinda Kett was bursting with urgency. “We all have to get out of here. Now, dammit!”

With growing wonder, Celli embraced the warm, pulsing glow of the wental water. “No,
you
have to go.”

Solimar folded his hands over hers on the wental container and looked up at the trader woman, hopeful now. “Believe me, Rlinda—this is why you came here. You've done your part. Now, run to your ship. Celli and I can't do what we need to do with you still here.”

With a groan of frustration, Rlinda looked up at the lengthening cracks in the dome overhead; then she turned and ran.

Now that she no longer needed to worry about the other woman, Celli felt her heart swell with elation, as well as terror … but she had lived with terror for a long time. Now the wental water gave the two of them an opportunity to save these trees, to save themselves … and to change forever.

Taking the wental cylinder, they knelt before the pair of suffering trees. Once the terrarium dome shattered, the trees would be killed, but now the wentals gave them another option.

“We will be magnificent,” Solimar said.

Celli was breathing hard with wonder. “We'll soar through the universe. It will be perfect.”

The metamorphosis would destroy the greenhouse, but it would allow the transformed trees to fly free. There was a finality to their symbiosis with the trees. Celli and Solimar would never be able to touch each other again, to make love, to sit side by side with skin touching skin as they looked out at the swirling nebula.

But they would be more … so much more.

Above, the crystalline ceiling split with a much longer fissure, enough that a scream of escaping air whistled through the gap. It was going to fail within seconds.

Celli poured the wental water around the base of the two worldtrees. The elemental liquid seeped into the soil and into the roots, swelling into the trunk like lightning. She and Solimar kissed, ignoring the escaping air as the dome crack split farther. A great wind roared through the greenhouse.

They touched one last time, let their fingertips linger, and then they turned back, each facing the enormous bole of a worldtree. Inviting and welcoming, the gold-barked trunk split open, forming an opening for them to enter.

Escaping air rushed and swirled inside the terrarium. Mulch and debris from the crop fields swept up in small whirlwinds to vanish through the fissures in the dome.

Celli climbed inside the waiting tree, which was like a perfect cocoon. As she backed in, she took one last look at Solimar, who had also found his home inside the heartwood. Her eyes met his—and then the tree gap sealed shut again, its pristine wood folding over her.

She could feel the fibers lacing around her like a mesh that became part of her green skin, then dipped into her muscle tissue, her nervous system, her bloodstream. The wentals reproduced and flooded through the water inside the trees, pulled up through capillary action to energize the heartwood.

Celli felt her vision diminishing, but also expanding. As a green priest, she had been able to peer through the verdani mind, but now she became part of it in a more intimate way.

She had always been a slip of a girl, wiry and athletic, able to treedance across the fronds. She had leaped into the air, and strong Solimar was always there to catch her without any effort at all. He would swing her up, throw her to another branch, and she would swing around and bound back to him.

Now she felt enormous and powerful. She had many arms, countless branches and fronds—a hybrid worldtree form that encompassed not just her small figure, but also the giant tree. Her new body still ached, having been bent over for too long, nearly broken. Now, though, she was free.

Finally, as she and Solimar both transformed into verdani treeships, Celli knew it was time. She was wental and she was verdani … and she was also still very human. The surge of strength came with a rush of joy, and she straightened her long-stunted body, stretched her magnificent tree form so that she stood upright at last.

Celli reached out many wooden arms with countless fingers made of green fronds. It took almost nothing to shatter the crystal terrarium dome, break apart the support beams, and knock aside the partially constructed new dome. Solimar did the same.

The two newborn verdani treeships, with Celli and Solimar integrated as pilots, sprang free. Beneath them, the tree roots broke through the lower deck and the base of the terrarium, and the massive branches pushed upward, outward. They tore free of the chains that had bound them for far too long.

It was glorious! In the flood of nourishing light from the Fireheart nebula, her arms and branches grew and grew. She could feel the strength pouring into the tree's heartwood and what remained of her mortal cells, but also the energizing sunlight from the hot core stars in the nebula.

The two new verdani ships soared out into the chaotic battlefield of Fireheart, and Celli felt exhilarated and free.

 

CHAPTER

117

ELISA ENTURI

Garrison's ship was offensive in so many ways. The
Prodigal Son
was originally an Iswander ship that he had stolen from Sheol and used to kidnap her son. Elisa knew he didn't possess enough weaponry even to force Lee Iswander to turn down a thermostat, yet he flew here making arrogant demands.

She watched Iswander's face when Garrison's companions blithely commanded him to cease all ekti-X extraction operations. The arrogance! As if Lee Iswander hadn't already been hammered enough? Her rage extended beyond what she saw in his expression, but she knew Iswander felt it inside his heart too. She was attuned to him. She felt for him, and she had often made the hard decisions and performed the dark tasks that he wouldn't admit he needed.

In the control center, Iswander stood in front of the comm screen. He scowled at Garrison. “Let me get this straight, Mr. Reeves. You flew here to demand that I shut down my operations and cease all ekti-extraction work? And everyone else in the Confederation has received the same demand, thereby cutting off the supply of stardrive fuel throughout the Spiral Arm? That's ridiculous—how is civilization supposed to survive?”

“Right now we're focused on letting the
universe
survive,” Garrison answered in a cool voice. “We have to think bigger than one industry. Bloaters are the brain cells of a cosmic mind powerful enough to fight the Shana Rei.”

“Preposterous,” Elisa said.

“It's true, Mother,” Seth said. “We saw it ourselves.” When he appeared on the screen, her heart skipped a beat. Garrison had brought her son to use him as emotional blackmail, no doubt placing him in harm's way. There were no depths to which that man wouldn't stoop.

With the
Prodigal Son
hanging amid the bloaters, the extraction operations had ground to a halt as the workers waited to hear an answer. Alec Pannebaker moved around the control center looking flustered and confused.

Princess Arita transmitted a harder warning. “You are still part of the Confederation, Mr. Iswander. All operations received the same command. If you wish to file a complaint with the King and Queen, you can go to Theroc.”

“And bring Elisa with you when you do,” Orli said with an edge in her voice. “The Confederation courts want to have words with her.”

Elisa turned to Iswander. “You can't let them walk all over you, sir.”

“No, Elisa. No, I can't. They have hounded me enough already.” He pounded his fist on the comm deck and opened a channel across his ekti operations. “Attention Iswander Industries personnel. I'm giving you a clear directive to continue your work. Ignore the threats of these intruders. This is a private facility outside of Confederation jurisdiction, and my business is my own. You've stood with me for this long. Thank you for having faith in me a little longer.”

Though obviously uneasy, Pannebaker nodded. “We're with you, Chief.”

Garrison transmitted back, “Mr. Iswander, the bloaters have to be protected. We can't let you harm any more of them—you're damaging Eternity's Mind.”

“This is my company,” Iswander shouted back, and Elisa was proud to see the emotions rising inside him. “I'm trying to provide for my people—and I have had
enough.
The Roamer clans have disrespected me again and again. I've been beaten down, yet I pulled myself back up. I have played by the rules. I have fought, and I have succeeded—only to have someone come and take it from me again. No more!” He yelled at the screen. “No matter what I do, someone finds a way to turn it against me. You cannot take everything. Do you hear me? You cannot take everything.” Sweat appeared on his forehead.

Now Elisa grew alarmed at the intensity. Iswander was actually shaking, and she worried that he might suffer a breakdown. “You can't take everything,” he repeated in a quieter voice.

Elisa understood what he needed her to do. She had always understood. He didn't just need her as his adviser and as his deputy; he needed her personal strength. He needed her to take necessary action—he always had, even though he wouldn't admit it. Elisa had to do what he wouldn't: that was why she was so important to him. That was why she was a part of Iswander Industries in a more intimate way than any other employee.

Iswander hadn't meant it when he claimed that he didn't know what she was capable of, to pretend that he hadn't realized what instructions he implied, when his instructions had been perfectly clear to her.

She heard what he said now, and she knew what his heart meant. Lee Iswander demanded to be the one in control of his own fate, when too many cosmic vagaries had knocked him back and forth. He was through being pummeled. Elisa had seen it happen again and again. She had to save him. No one else could.

She slipped away from the admin center as Garrison and his companions continued to argue over the comm, trying to make Iswander “see reason.” But they weren't going to see reason. Elisa would make them understand just how determined Lee Iswander was, however. She would make
him
see just how determined he had to be. Some things could not be done by half-measures.

Racing to the launching bay and her waiting ship, Elisa knocked workers aside, paying no attention to their surprised shouts and questions. She had the engines prepared within moments. She didn't ask permission to launch, didn't bother with safety checks or interlocks.

Using the emergency-release system to open the launching-bay doors she dropped her ship out and away, and soon she was among the bloater operations: the protected clusters of nodules, the pumping stations, and the fuel-tank arrays full of stardrive fuel even though there was no current market for it.

Elisa saw the
Prodigal Son
and headed straight for it.

Garrison had brought that ship here to poke a sharp stick in her eye. He had brought Seth to flaunt the boy in front of her—but this was a necessary action, and it would be Garrison's fault. He had dragged the boy into danger, so he would be responsible for how these next few minutes played out.

They might claim that the nodules were living cells in a bizarre space brain, but Elisa also knew how dangerously volatile the bloaters were. And so did Garrison.