Hidden Empire (71 page)
She sent a telink acknowledgment of the request and, grabbing up the nearest treeling, hurried out of her chambers as fast
as her weary legs could carry her. As she raced down the crystalline halls, she bumped into Nira emerging from her room, wide-eyed
and frightened. While reading the
Saga
to the worldtrees, her young assistant had also heard the emergency telink message, as had all green priests across the Spiral
Arm. The news of the hydrogue arrival on Earth had spread as quickly as the worldforest learned of it.
“Come with me, Nira,” she said, cutting off the girl’s question. “I may need you to call the Prime Designate if we must interrupt
a meeting between the Mage-Imperator and the Chairman.”
The two priests hurried to the skysphere audience chamber, but only a few low-level workers and court nobles were there. Otema
spoke harshly to the first bureaucrat she encountered. “Where is the Mage-Imperator?”
“He must not be disturbed,” said the bureaucrat and turned away.
Otema snatched at his shimmering striped garment with an iron grip. “I have an urgent communiqué for Chairman Wenceslas from
the Terran Hanseatic League. The Mage-Imperator will want to hear my news as well.”
Alarmed and disturbed, the bureaucrat hesitated. His eyes glazed over for a moment, as if the Mage-Imperator sensed something
through the
thism
. The bureaucrat finally said, “This way.”
The two women hurried, sharing the burden of the heavy treeling. Otema continued to rest her fingers against the scaly trunk,
primed to receive further news as it occurred. Her counterpart inside the Whisper Palace described each event as it unfolded,
and the words were instantly transmitted to her. In her imagination, Otema saw the hydrogue emissary’s crystalline environment
sphere enter King Frederick’s Throne Hall.
When she and Nira burst into the private meeting room, Basil Wenceslas was interrupted in midsentence. Turning to see Otema’s
wrinkled and tattoo-marked face, he frowned with impatience.
“I have a message for both Chairman Wenceslas and the Mage-Imperator.” Without being welcomed, Otema stepped into the chamber.
Nira set the potted treeling on a small table, moving aside a smooth onyx statuette.
Otema and the Chairman had a great deal of history together, much of it frustrating and combative. As the Theron ambassador
to Earth, Otema had stonewalled Basil at every turn, and the Chairman resented her for it, calling her old-fashioned and needlessly
restrictive, hindering progress and commerce that would benefit all humanity. She suspected that he had engaged in numerous
manipulations to see that she retired, and a much more cooperative Sarein took her place.
“These events are unfolding at this very moment.” The old woman rapidly summarized the warglobe appearance at Earth and the
sealed environment tank that held the hydrogue emissary.
An annoyed, then astonished Basil Wenceslas heard her words. The Mage-Imperator reclined in his chrysalis chair, also intent.
Adar Kori’nh looked from his leader to the green priest, absorbing the necessary information.
Basil said, “King Frederick can’t handle this situation himself. He’s never done such a thing before.” He looked up at Otema,
all business now. “He needs my guidance. Can you relay instructions? Does he have a green priest nearby?”
“He has a priest and a tree beside his throne.”
Basil clenched his fists so hard his nails left half-circle marks in his palms. “Good. Tell him that—”
Otema held up her hand. “The alien emissary is speaking.” She listened to echoes of repeated words through the forest telink.
“He says the hydrogues will no longer tolerate trespass by dangerous rock dwellers—that’s what he calls us.”
“What does that mean?” Basil said.
Otema repeated words that the hydrogue emissary spoke. “He says, ‘We will no longer allow parasites on our worlds.’ ”
“Frederick, you’d better not muddle this one up,” Basil muttered. “Has the King responded?”
“I think he is as astonished as you are,” Otema said.
“Tell him to stall,” the Chairman said urgently. “Don’t agree to anything.”
Otema repeated this through telink, but she added her own comment back to Basil. “Mr. Chairman, I do not believe the hydrogues
are seeking any sort of concessions from us. The emissary is simply delivering an ultimatum.”
Basil looked aghast. “They won’t let us near any gas-giant planets? Preposterous! That means no more skymining, no more ekti—”
Adar Kori’nh turned to the Mage-Imperator. “Liege, without ekti for our stardrives the Ildiran Empire will crumble.”
Basil interjected, “And the Hansa will fall apart as well. The hydrogues will starve us out. Trillions will be isolated and
die. We cannot comply.” He pointed a finger at Otema. “Tell that to King Frederick. He has to say it to the alien ambassador.”
The Chairman lowered his voice. “Damn, I wish I could put words in his mouth.”
After Otema relayed the message, she observed genuine fear on Basil’s face. Neither Ildirans nor humans could tolerate the
restrictions the deep-core aliens had just imposed. A shutdown of ekti processing would effectively destroy space travel in
the galaxy.
Otema repeated another message from the hydrogue emissary, word for word. Her voice was dry and she was unable to believe
what she said. “He says, ‘We hereby declare all gas planets off-limits. Any facilities processing the hydrogen reservoirs
in our clouds are henceforth forbidden and must be removed or destroyed.’”
She closed her eyes, trying to drown out the gasps she heard in the room. As if granting a benevolent favor, the hydrogue
emissary continued, “‘We will allow a brief but sufficient time for the withdrawal of all skymines. After that, any parasite
we discover within our clouds will be annihilated.’”
A
very nervous King sat on his throne, cold and overwhelmed. He glanced sideways to the green priest, who relayed a few words
that—unfortunately—did not comfort him.
He’d been enormously relieved to hear from Basil, foolishly imagining that the Chairman would instantly know how to respond,
would tell him how to fix the situation. But the hydrogue emissary had delivered his appalling ultimatum, and Frederick still
didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe what he had heard.
The liquid-crystal alien hung in its high-pressure vessel before the King. Having delivered his message, the creature fell
silent.
King Frederick, fearing that the containment globe would now withdraw and the alien representative would not parley at all,
spoke quickly. “Wait! This is … unprecedented. And unnecessary! You are overreacting.”
The perfectly sculptured face shifted its human expression to an inappropriate reflection of an openmouthed scream of terror.
No doubt the deep-core aliens had no understanding of facial subtleties. “You have destroyed one of our worlds. There can
be no peace between us.”
“But your gas planets contain a vital resource that our civilization requires.” King Frederick prayed that his voice wouldn’t
crack with fear. “To my knowledge, our skymines have caused no damage to your worlds, nor have they harmed your ecosystems
or weather patterns. But we must process vast volumes of hydrogen to obtain sufficient ekti for our stardrives.”
“Your request is denied,” the hydrogue emissary said from his chamber. “Remove all rock-dweller parasites from our clouds,
or we will eliminate them.” Another squealing release of steam belched from a tiny vent.
The King looked quickly down at his ancient Teacher compy OX, hoping for some small flicker of stability and confidence. Back
when he’d first begun training to become the next Great King, young Frederick had spent months with OX, learning from the
compy’s great store of wisdom and experiences. Now, unfortunately, Frederick doubted that even wise OX could provide diplomatic
assistance against this incredibly strange alien.
“Please, listen to me.” The King rose from his throne and stepped down one of the levels of his dais, closer to the emissary’s
containment sphere. He gripped his scepter as if it were a cane. “On behalf of our entire population and all governments of
the Hansa worlds, allow me to express my deepest regrets and my most sincere apologies.”
There, that sounded good
.
“You must understand that this has been a terrible mistake. Our test of the Klikiss Torch at Oncier was not meant as an attack
against your people. We had absolutely no knowledge of your hidden empire. I give you my word as King that we will never undertake
another such test. Surely there can be some reparations made?” His voice had a pleading tone, and he stood straighter, tried
to sound firmer.
“Rock dwellers have nothing the hydrogues want or require,” the emissary said. “You could not possibly provide reparations.”
The King felt more desperate. He tried to sound benevolent, to play upon any glimmer of feelings these aliens might experience.
“You do not understand just how much damage such an embargo would cause. Without stardrive fuel, commerce across the Hanseatic
League will grind to a halt, and our colony worlds will starve. Think of the suffering! There must be room for negotiation.
Please, let us find some compromise.”
Wearing the silvery face of a dead Roamer, the alien emissary stared straight ahead. “I was not sent here to negotiate, merely
to deliver my message. Has the statement been recorded and transmitted, so that all may hear my words?”
King Frederick looked over at OX, who would be preserving every nuance of the encounter. On the other side of his throne,
the green priest finished sending his summary through telink to Basil Wenceslas and the Mage-Imperator on Ildira. Local media
representatives broadcast these events as they happened, uploading signals to widespread information networks for eventual
distribution via commercial spacecraft across the Spiral Arm.
Frederick felt defeated. “Emissary, your words have already been heard by millions. An account of this meeting will spread
to the other worlds of the Terran Hanseatic League as well as the Ildiran Empire.”
“Then my mission is complete.” The hydrogue sank back into his thickening opal clouds. His liquid-crystal humanoid form became
fluid again, dispersing.
One of the royal guards touched a transmitter pickup to his ear, listened to a report, and quickly took a step closer to the
throne. “Sire! The main warglobe has just withdrawn from Earth orbit.”
Frederick couldn’t believe what he had heard. “Then how will the emissary get back to his mothership?”
The green priest suddenly jerked his head up, looking away from his tall treeling, as if he’d been burned. “Sire, Chairman
Wenceslas expresses extreme concern. He advises your highest level of caution.”
OX spoke, his words overlapping the green priest’s. “The emissary does not expect to return.”
The King backed away from the hovering containment sphere, stumbling up a step to the throne. The sphere’s curved walls were
opaque now, and he could no longer see the liquid crystal form of the hydrogue emissary.
“Evacuate the Throne Hall!” he said. “Get everyone to safety! I want—”
Thin cracks appeared along the outer skin of the environment sphere, a pattern of lines that had been laid down within the
thick diamond walls. A series of apparent circular hatches were surrounded by a jagged starburst of stress-fractures, cracking,
splitting….
The hydrogue emissary blew open the armored seals of his containment vessel, unleashing an atmosphere dense enough to crush
hydrogen gas into metallic form, to rearrange carbon into diamond. The sudden, complete release of pressure sent a shock wave
through the Throne Hall.
A hammer of overpressure obliterated the opulent room, demolished the ornate stained-glass windows, pulverized the hapless
spectators. The explosion crushed the Whisper Palace throne and hurled the Teacher compy OX into a stone wall.
The blast wave turned Old King Frederick—the man who had ruled the Terran Hanseatic League for forty-eight years—into boneless
jelly. And forever changed the course of history.
