Hellhole Inferno (48 page)

“But you are certain they'll come?” Bolton asked. He had no way of getting any sort of technical verification.

Jonwi's words thrummed again. “They will come. There is no doubt.”

In the deepening night surrounded by the suspended red weed, Bolton shivered. He knew he should find a place on the soft groundcover to sleep, but what was the point of continuing to look for a way to survive? Of trying to save the Redcom? Despite the red weed that wrapped him, Escobar was obviously dying, and would probably perish even before the asteroid bombardment. Bolton found that tragic.

By now the searchers must have given up looking for them. Perhaps they had found the wrecked Trakmaster and what was left of Yimidi, maybe even the remains of Vingh in the arroyo. But if planet-killing asteroids were indeed hurtling in, why would anyone waste time or effort looking for a couple of escapees? Bolton stood under the whispering, drifting stalks of red weed, which emitted a shower of luminous spores that sparkled like fireflies as they were released into the air.

If only another few days remained, though, he wished he could be with his own people.…

As he worked in his pristine oasis, Jonwi seemed like a gentle soul, nurturing, even a dreamer. He had tended Escobar, kept him alive for this long, yet he refused to transport the gravely wounded man to a place where he could receive medical attention. Each time Bolton asked,
begged
for Jonwi's help, the alien rebuffed him, insisting that he would not leave his precious garden.

Bolton stood on the boundary of the red weeds now, peering into the bleak, starlit wasteland, as if daring some alien predator to leap out at him. Though he had enough to eat from the special vegetation that Jonwi told him was edible, his stomach rumbled. After several days, his body was growing less able to draw the nutrients he needed, and the flavors all had a bitter aftertaste. He longed for something familiar on his palate.

Escobar lay in a deep, fading coma. He had not awakened again since his restless mumbling the previous day. The deep gash on his neck was covered with a hardened scab, his skin was clammy and cold, and the pulse Bolton could feel on his neck was barely perceptible.

Bolton needed to take the man away from here! But he could not do so, if Jonwi refused to help. Regardless, he had no idea which direction to go in the wild landscape.…

As he watched the night skies, he noticed many tiny lights, an increased number of spacecraft, an apparent flurry of activity in orbit. Surely, General Adolphus would have detected the incoming asteroids—perhaps even now he was evacuating the planet. Bolton hoped at least that the Constellation prisoners in the camp would be taken to safety.

But that wouldn't do him, or Escobar, any good at all.

Sitting alone in the darkness with the humming sounds of native Hellhole life forms all around him, he wondered where Keana was … and if she might be worried about him.

When he went back to the glade where Escobar lay, he found that Jonwi had returned from a mysterious inspection of the densest forest. Bolton stood before him, said, “I have a solution, a possible way to save my friend.”

Jonwi gazed at him without saying anything, but in the alien's slowly spiraling eyes, Bolton detected what he thought was skepticism. “Your friend is dying. He cannot be saved.”

Bolton grasped at any possibility. “Unless we immerse him in slickwater. We were told the pools can heal people. Encix promised miracles when she tried to get us to join the converts. I implore you, help us get back to the settlement and the pools. Please! If the slickwater can save him, then why not give him that chance?”

“The slickwater was created by our enemies. I will not take you there … and I will not leave my oasis.”

Bolton pressed the issue, sensing that Jonwi wanted to help, if he could. “Look, General Adolphus sent out search parties to find us. It's a very small chance, but what if I were to light a signal fire, a big one? Maybe someone would see it. There seems to be increased air traffic. It would give us a chance! And you could remain here—no one would ever need to know.”

To Bolton's surprise, the Ro-Xayan slowly nodded his smooth head. He seemed almost relieved to have the opportunity. “It could be done … but to what purpose? All will be destroyed soon anyway.”

“For the same purpose that you will keep tending your garden here until the end. We have to at least
try
to save him! There is no time limit on hope.”

The big alien stood motionless, pondering for a long moment, as the silhouetted weed fronds drifted in the air. “Very well. We shall take your companion outside of the forest, into the open, where a signal can be seen.”

Bolton tensed. “But that's where the burrow foxes attacked us.”

“I have moved them away. They will be content with other vast prairies.” With an incline of his head and a twitch of the antennae, a faint humming of telemancy rippled out—and Escobar's wrapped body lifted off the ground. “Follow me.”

Moving his sluglike body, Jonwi wound through the resurrected Xayan forest, wandering past fungi and drifting jellyfish, until they reached the open terrain. Bolton felt energized, with tears stinging his eyes, but when he looked out at the bleak, rock-studded landscape, he realized it would not be so easy to light a large fire that could be seen by patrol ships.

Jonwi took Escobar's wrapped form over to a flat rock and used telemancy to deposit him gently on top of it. “You will not need to build a primitive fire. I can send the necessary signal—but it will be up to your people to respond. I will remain in the forest, tending my creations until the last days. Your people do not need to see me.”

The Ro-Xayan lifted his soft, fleshy hands toward the heavens. Behind him, towering stalks of red weed stirred, as if in anticipation. Psychic energy sparkled and crackled around his head. The intensity increased, the loops and squiggles of manifested energy became stronger, and with a loud
pop
of displaced air, a brilliant pillar of white light flared upward. Soaring high above the rocks and the tallest red weeds, it sprouted into a geyser of light, a spectacular psychic fountain in the night sky. It illuminated the terrain all around like daylight.

Jonwi kept the flare aloft in a brilliant beam of light that he played off the clouds, before finally letting it fade. Bolton stared in awe and hope.

The alien waited beside Bolton for a while, as if to keep him company. Escobar was motionless in his cocoon, but Bolton kept staring up into the skies, waiting for more than an hour. He began to think he had allowed himself to have foolish hopes.

If the General was in the midst of evacuating a world, then every ship, every competent person would already be dedicated to the massive project. Who would be interested in investigating a strange light out in the wilderness?

Then, to his amazement, he did hear engine noises, the thrum and roar of a large patrol craft that cruised low over the landscape, playing the bright spear of a spotlight down on the ground—searching!

“There is no time limit on hope,” Jonwi echoed Bolton's words back to him. “I will remember that, and I hope your people can achieve what you need.” The alien slipped back into the dense red weed forest as the patrol craft approached.

Bolton stood next to Escobar's form, and he waved his hands to draw the attention of the approaching craft. The light swiveled toward him, swept past, then returned, pinning him in its bright glare. Bolton kept waving, shouting … and realized he was weeping.

Armed soldiers leaped out and took Bolton into custody. A uniformed man whom Bolton recognized as Cristoph de Carre stepped out of the craft. “Major Crais? We have been searching for you, but we called off the effort earlier tonight. You're lucky someone spotted your signal. How did you possibly make a flare so bright?”

Instead of answering, Bolton urgently pointed to the weed-wrapped form on the rock. “Redcom Escobar Hallholme will die unless we can get him to the slickwater pools as soon as possible.”

Cristoph looked surprised. “He's wrapped up like a mummy.”

“The alien weed kept him alive, but he won't last much longer. We have to hurry—my duty is to protect my commanding officer.”

“From his own foolishness,” Cristoph muttered. He seemed to have other things to say, accusations, questions, but instead he told the soldiers to load them aboard the craft. “Any other survivors?”

Bolton drew a breath. “None.”

As the soldiers hustled to load the Redcom into the aft cargo section of the craft, Cristoph stared hard at Bolton. “I've looked at your record, Major Crais. It wasn't your idea to escape, was it?”

“The Redcom made the decision,” Bolton said. “And I decided to remain with him, even though I advised him it was a dubious plan. We lost two good men.”

The aircraft lifted off, and Cristoph guided them into the night sky for the long flight back to Slickwater Springs. He said, “We will lose a lot more good people. Asteroids are on the way, impact in a few days. There won't be time to evacuate everyone.”

Bolton did not let Cristoph know he was already aware of the Ro-Xayans and their asteroids. While the soldiers remained in the rear seats, Cristoph wanted Bolton up front, so he could begin the debriefing.

Yet Bolton was the one who studied the young man and said, “We have an interesting connection, you and I.”

“I know. Keana—your wife, my father's lover. She ruined my family … and I don't suspect you're grateful for what she's done either.”

Bolton drew a deep breath. He had long struggled to identify his feelings for her. “We had very different understandings of who we were and what our relationship was. But she's not the same person now—not the same at all.”

Cristoph remained silent for a long moment. “I know. My father died in disgrace and I was exiled here … but can I blame Keana Duchenet for all that? My life is different now, and in some ways more important and meaningful than it ever would have been back in the Crown Jewels. I'd certainly be on the other side of the war if I'd remained on Vielinger.”

“Have you been able to forgive her?” Bolton asked.

He didn't hesitate before answering. “I have.” Then he glanced up. “And right now, she's trying to save this planet.”

 

64

As Tanja listened to the Ro-Xayan's blithe pronouncement of racial suicide, her anger drove away any awe of this wondrous alien habitat.

While Keana-Uroa paused in the face of Zhaday's stubborn mind-set, Tanja pushed her way forward. “What allows you to be such a judge? Why are you a cosmic executioner?” Her voice grew louder as she confronted the creature. “My planet was your last target—hundreds of thousands of innocent people displaced or killed, and now you say we were just collateral damage? That we attracted your attention because a handful of Xayans happened to use telemancy to defend us against an outside attack? Preposterous!”

The bright blue pigmentation on Zhaday's upper body intensified. “We were alarmed and dismayed when the Xayan seed colony there unleashed surprising and tremendous telemancy. We did not understand how any of our people could have survived on that planet, but the danger was clear. We had to eradicate them before they grew stronger. It was an emergency.”

More of the Ro-Xayans came closer, and Zhaday continued. “Not until one of our original detection devices on the surface of Xaya was triggered did we understand just how much telemancy had already been restored—causing us to realize that the threat of imminent
ala'ru
was even more dangerous than before. We had to act swiftly and decisively before it was too late.”

The crowded aliens were agitated now, and Tanja saw their growing alarm.

Lodo said, “But your asteroids will not arrive soon enough—I know how close our race is to achieving the critical point.” His antennae quivered. “In the debate long ago, before your faction left Xaya, I, too, shared some of your concerns … but I am now convinced that
ala'ru
is our destiny. Our race has awakened and we are close enough, and desperate enough. You cannot stop
ala'ru
in time.”

“We must!” Zhaday said.

A low background of Xayan buzzing increased to a roar, like a storm about to burst.

Keana sounded oh-so-reasonable when she spoke. “But even if your faction doesn't wish to join the ascension, why would you deny that to the rest of your race?”

Zhaday looked at her. “I can sense the presence of Uroa inside you.
He
knows why, and
Lodo
knows as well.
Ala'ru
is not just an evolutionary step for the Xayan race. It would not simply allow the advancement of Xayan minds and powers.
Ala'ru
would change
everything
.” He paused, and his thrumming voice deepened. “It would destroy the very universe itself.”

Silence fell like a hammer, until Tanja burst out, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“If the Xayan race triggers
ala'ru
, they will create a crack in reality. The ascended Xayans will shift the fundamental physical constants of the cosmos. They will unravel the balance of the universe, rewrite gravity, shift the nuclear forces—the basics of existence will be altered forever.”

“Ridiculous,” said Ian Walfor. “One race on one planet in one solar system in a tiny corner of the galaxy? They can't have that much power.”

“
Ala'ru
would create a flashpoint,” said Zhaday. “And then the ascended Xayans will be able to rewrite the pattern and start again, like gods. But none of the rest of us would survive, no world, no star, no galaxy or remnant of anything that exists now.”

Keana wore a look of appalled horror on her face. She turned to Lodo. “Is he speaking the truth?” She reeled as the Original alien just regarded her in cool silence. “It's true and you knew it all along?”