Starfall: A Starstruck Novel (12 page)

Another agonizing wait, then: “
REPORT RECEIVED.”
 

I let out the breath I’d been holding, but I didn’t dare relax.
Are you still coming? You won’t…terminate Nuath, will you?

There was an even longer silence, during which I sensed several minds in conflict with each other, like they were arguing. By focusing harder, I was gradually able to discern actual thoughts, or, rather, images, though one overlapped another so quickly none of them made much sense. A weird ovoid object hovering in space. Hundreds of small, sparkling clouds moving together in a cluster. A collection of brightly colored marbles scattered across a swath of black velvet.

Then, finally:
“NOT NECESSARY.”

I was almost afraid to believe it.
So…you’re not coming here after all?

Instead of an answer, the projections abruptly cooled in my hands, the signal that the Grentl had hung up. I tried again to stretch out with my mind, but now there was nothing to touch. It was like when the walls of my quarters on the
Quintessence
had blocked Rigel’s thoughts from me. Even so, I hung on for another few minutes.

While I waited, I tried to decipher the jumble of images I’d received from the Grentl before their last reply. Again I saw that ovoid shape in space. A ship, maybe? I wasn’t sure. And those bright marbles…
 

As I concentrated, the memory grew clearer. The black velvet I’d seen was the blackness of space, dotted with distant stars. And those marbles resolved into what were unmistakably planets. But which planets? Though my eyes were fixed unseeingly on the device I still grasped, in my mind I still saw those wheeling orbs of various sizes and colors. A blue one swam into focus and it was all I could do not to exclaim aloud.
 

Surely, that marble in the center was Earth? Which would make that reddish one off to the left Mars, the brilliant white one on the other side Venus. I could even see—yes!—a tiny white sphere next to the larger blue one. Earth’s moon. But…I had no clue what it all meant.

Finally I let go of the device, stepping away with a cautious sigh of relief. Whatever those images had been about, they’d definitely told me they weren’t planning to come here and destroy Nuath. Which meant I’d now done everything I could to keep the colony safe and could move on to what mattered most to
me
: getting back to Rigel.

 
“Well?” Molly asked breathlessly when I turned. “What did they say? They must have said
something,
you looked so intense. Are they…really coming?”

“No. After I sent my report on that data chip, they said it wasn’t necessary.”

Sean let out a whoop, making me jump. “You did it! Again!” He was grinning ear to ear.
 

Now Molly was grinning, too. “Dad and the others
have
to let you go back to Earth now. As soon as you name a Regent, anyway.”

At that, Sean’s smile dimmed noticeably. “Right. What Molly said.” The sudden shift in his emotions from jubilant to jealous was impossible to ignore.

“I’m sorry, Sean, but you know I have to try to fix what they did to Rigel.”

“I know. And I’ll help any way I can, just like I promised. I owe you both that. It’s just… Never mind. C’mon, let’s get back upstairs and tell Dad and the others the good news.”

*
   
*
   
*

When we all got back upstairs I sent a quick message summoning Mr. O and the other two traitors back to Conference Room Three. I invited Sean and Molly to come along this time, so they could hear the whole story, too.
 

All three men looked wary when they arrived.
 

“May I ask what is this about, Excellency?” Devyn sounded far more respectful than before, just as Cormac predicted. Good. “Surely you don’t have news about the Grentl already?”

“Actually, I do.” Though I was still royally pissed, I allowed myself a small smile. “I’ve just communicated with them again and it appears they don’t intend any harm to Nuath after all.”

“Oh?” A skeptical eyebrow went up, though Devyn’s tone remained respectful. “On what do you base this, ah, encouraging news?”

I sat down and gestured for the others to do the same. “In going through some secure entries in the Sovereigns’ private files, I discovered that the Grentl have been requesting reports every forty years or so. Since it had been longer than that since the last one, I hoped sending a new one might change their minds about coming here—and it seems to have worked.”

“But…what exactly happened? Did you actually speak with them?” Mr. O asked eagerly. Along with curiosity, I sensed distress—distress I’d noticed the moment he arrived. Was it possible he was finally sorry now for what he’d done?

Now wasn’t the time to ask. “After I’d put my report together, I went back to the device. It took the Grentl a minute to answer, then they pulled a little more out of me, bringing them up to the present. Finally, I was able to ask a question or two.”

“And what did you ask?” Devyn demanded. “What did they say?” The respect wasn’t nearly as pronounced now. I shot him an irritated glance and had the satisfaction of seeing him straighten slightly.
 

“I asked if they’re really coming here. They said yes. So I asked why—what they were coming to do. They said… ‘Terminate experiment.’”

I heard Molly gasp from behind me and suddenly fear dominated all three men’s emotions.
 

“Terminate… But you just said they weren’t going to— What experiment? Nuath?” Nels’s voice shook.

“I assumed so. Anyway, that’s when I sent my report. After a couple of minutes, they said they’d received it, so I asked if they were still planning to come here, if they still planned to terminate us. And they said it was no longer necessary.”

Devyn frowned. “Then Nuath is safe now? That report was all they wanted?”

“I think so. I did ask, just to be sure, but they…” I hesitated, that jumble of impressions I’d sensed, or thought I sensed, teasing me again. “They, um, hung up,” I concluded. Until I figured out what all those images meant, better to stick to the facts.
 

All three men sat back in obvious relief, any earlier skepticism gone.
 

“This is excellent news,” Mr. O’Gara said. “We have cause to be grateful to you yet again, Excellency.”

“Yeah, well, try not to show it the way you did before,” I couldn’t resist saying.
 

Now there was no mistaking the guilt in both his expression and emotions. “Please believe I never intended to cause you so much distress, Excellency. Perhaps, had I realized—”

“You realized. Or would have, if you’d been willing to.”

He bowed his head, not even attempting a denial now.

“It’s obviously too late now.” I was in no mood yet to be forgiving. “Anyway, while Nuath may be safe from the Grentl, it turns out we have another problem.”
 

“Oh?” Mr. O’s head came up and new tension suddenly radiated from everyone in the room.

“While I was putting that report together, I called up the history of energy use and power reserve levels, among other things, and discovered that Faxon used a crap-ton of power over the fifteen years he was in charge. Why our so-called acting Minister of Energy never noticed, I don’t know.” I flicked a glance at Nels, since he should have caught that, too, during his time as Interim Governor. “It looks like Nuath is going to run out of power a lot sooner than anyone thought.”

Devyn leaned forward again, clearly concerned. “If that’s true… Can you perhaps send us the figures you’re talking about, Excellency? We should go over them, see if anything has been missed, brainstorm ideas.”

“I can direct you to the pertinent databases. Most of them are accessible to anyone who bothers to look.”
 

The more I thought about it, the more outrageous it seemed that no one else had noticed the problem long before this. While as Sovereign I had the advantage of pulling all of the colony databases together quickly and easily, surely Nuath’s various acting ministers should have checked the ones dealing with their own areas of influence?

Mr. O’Gara was frowning thoughtfully. “Even without a Grentl threat, this news about the power reserves will likely make accelerated emigration advisable. Given that, it might be useful to speak with the acting Minister of Space Travel, so we’ll have his most current figures and projections to hand. I’ll arrange for a meeting first thing tomorrow. Ah, if that meets with your approval, Excellency?”

“Yes, I think that would be very useful. Please message me with the time and place, once a meeting is set. I’ll let you know when I’ve resolved the matter of a Regent.”
 

I rose and the others, caught off guard, had to scramble to their feet to bow before I left them again.

Sean returned to my apartment for dinner, claiming that eating with his father would kill his appetite, he was still so upset at him. While I had a hard time believing much of anything could put a dent in Sean’s enormous appetite, I didn’t object. Once dinner was over, though, I didn’t encourage him to hang around.

“No, it’s not because I’m mad at you,” I said when he asked. “Though I still think you should have told me about that video a lot sooner. But now that I’ve kept my promise about the Grentl, I need to figure out who to name as Regent.”

“Oh. Yeah. Guess I can’t be much help with that—though once you have some names, maybe I’ll know things about some of them and can help you narrow it down?” A question still lurked in his eyes, but I wasn’t ready to
completely
forgive him yet.
 

“Sure, that would be great. Thanks. And if you really don’t want to go back to your dad’s apartment, you and Molly can always go do something else. I’ll just be watching a bunch of vids and taking notes until bedtime.”

After a moment’s discussion, they decided to check out the Palace’s gym—something I ought to do myself, it had been so long since I’d gotten any real exercise. But I had every intention of being back on Earth practicing taekwondo again before I got
too
much more out of shape.
 

Molly went to change and I headed to my office to start plowing through the three or four dozen videos sent to me by hopeful Regents.

By the time I got too sleepy to continue, I hadn’t even made it through a quarter of the Regent applications. Only three had been from people I’d actually met—two members of the
Echtran
Council, still on Earth, and Phelan Monroe, who’d been on the
Quintessence
with us.
 

Some of the videos lasted twenty minutes or more, with long, boring lists of accomplishments and lofty plans for Nuath. But even the more interesting ones only showed that the applicant was a decent speaker, not whether he or she was trustworthy. For all I knew, half of those impressive claims weren’t even true. This past week had severely eroded my confidence in the honesty—or competence—of Royals in general.

Finally, after reading back over the very short list I’d made of those who might be marginally acceptable, I gave up and went to bed. Though I was tempted to chat with my Archived ancestors for a bit first, I resisted, since Mr. O had messaged that our meeting with the acting Minister of Space Travel was scheduled for nine a.m. I’d get back to my interminable queue of videos after that.

Ambrose, the acting Minister of Space Travel, turned out to be one of the few
non
-Royal acting ministers—an Engineer who also headed up the Space Transportation facility in Arregaith.
 

As he went over his report, two things became obvious: first, that he was far better prepared than any of the Royal acting ministers I’d met with. Second, that Mr. O had intentionally put off this particular meeting until after the
Luminosity
left Mars.

“Please note, Excellency, that while we prefer to wait until a ship is booked to at least eighty percent capacity, occasionally one will launch with fewer aboard.” He pointed to a detailed holographic chart showing the manifests and schedules of all four ships for the rest of the current launch window.
 

Sure enough, there was the
Luminosity
, due to arrive in Bailerealta, Ireland shortly before dawn tomorrow morning. The
Horizon
, currently en route to Mars from Dun Cloch, Montana, would land here the next day. Now that we were near the middle of the launch window, trips each way only took three days instead of the four our
Quintessence
journey had taken last month.
 

“There seem to be more people traveling in this direction than to Earth,” I commented with a glance at Mr. O. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around? We’ve known for a while now that Nuath’s power is starting to run out.”

Acting Minister Ambrose’s eyebrows rose. “In fact, that is something I’ve suggested myself, Excellency. However, the interim legislature has so far been unwilling to mandate such a thing.”

“Hm. If we do manage to persuade the legislature—and the people—to go along with an accelerated emigration plan, just how quickly
could
we transport Nuathans to Earth?”

He immediately pulled up a different set of holographic charts but unfortunately his figures were even more discouraging than Mr. O’s estimate had been.

“As you can see, though a ship can theoretically complete a round trip journey in ten days during the middle month of a launch window, in practice our ships have waited at least a week at each end before returning. This is to allow for thorough systems checks, any necessary recalibrations and occasional reconfigurations.”

“Reconfigurations?”

“Of living and common areas, to better accommodate specific bookings, such as when you traveled here aboard the
Quintessence
. To refit all four ships for
maximum
capacity would require much more extensive changes and would likely take a month or more.”

After raising his eyebrows at me in an “I told you so” way, Mr. O brought up Faxon’s preparations and asked if they might help at all.