The Golden Queen (20 page)

She watched a civilian try to dodge behind a tree in hopes of eluding a ball that flamed toward him, growing in size. The chemical charge from the rifle splattered across the tree and across the man’s arm, erupted into flames hotter than the sun. He screamed and held out his arm, spinning once, kicking up detritus from the forest floor. In less than a second, he succumbed to the heat and lay burning.

The sight horrified Everynne to the core of her being. As a Tharrin, she was bred to be empathic. She detested violence. Somehow, knowing that Lord Shunn and his workers had volunteered to die in the woods this day made Everynne feel ashamed, weak. She only wanted the killing to stop, everywhere, but she was forced into a deadly contest and could not escape.

Suddenly on the highway ahead of Everynne, sirens began blaring as army hovertrucks approached. Veriasse pulled his own old bus off the highway to let them pass. Everynne disengaged the telepresence link and looked up. Three truckloads of vanquishers were heading south at full speed, perhaps sixty green-skinned giants. Ahead of her, Veriasse relaxed in his seat for a moment, breathed easier. The soldiers could only have come from the Cyannesse gate. Their ruse was working.

Veriasse let the soldiers pass, gunned the throttle. Everynne engaged her telepresence again, saw how the battle was progressing.

For four more minutes, the battle continued. Suddenly, far to the south, a spaceship lifted over the horizon, a distant white sphere that floated higher and higher into the morning sky. Lady Frebane began broadcasting urgent messages to Shunn and his troops. “My lord,” she called, “the lady’s ship is away! Repeat, the mission has succeeded. The lady’s ship is away. Break off your attack!”

Lady Frebane continued broadcasting for two minutes. The dronon vanquishers sent low-altitude fliers to intercept the ship, but they did not make it in time. Lady Frebane jumped into hyperspace before the fliers got into range, and Everynne was filled with a deep sense of regret. If she’d been on that ship, she would have made her escape already. But Veriasse had insisted that the ship was too dangerous, too large a target. He had opted for the double feint. The real battle lay ahead.

“We’re about sixty seconds from our gate,” Veriasse warned. “Gallen—” he began to say, but the young man was already playing his part. He lowered the hood to the hovercraft and got out his incendiary rifle, flipped it on so that its indicator glowed red.

For a moment, as Gallen’s black robes flapped, Everynne caught glimpses of the silver bangles of his personal intelligence, the lavender of his mask, and Gallen reminded her of Veriasse. But he turned and she caught the profile of his face, and the illusion dissipated. Everynne gazed across the desert. Three kilometers north of the gate was a line of low yellow hills. At any moment, three phalanxes of fliers would stream over the hills at four thousand kilometers per hour. The vanquishers would have less than three seconds to take cover.

Veriasse focused on the gate. The hoverbus hummed, bouncing as it hit small thermals. In the distance, Everynne spotted a flash of sunlight reflecting from the flier’s windshields, and she began counting: three, two … one. The saucer-shaped fliers were in a tight
V
, fifteen of them; suddenly the formation split and the fliers veered east and west. Antiaircraft fire erupted from the vanquishers’ outpost at the gate. Everynne watched gray pellets rain from the fliers, beacons designed to fool intelligent missiles.

Then the incendiary bombs landed. They were so small that Everynne did not see them drop. Instead, the ground around the gate erupted into a wall of flame that leapt thirty meters into the air. Everynne found it hard to believe that anyone or anything could survive that inferno, but Veriasse had insisted that the fliers make a second pass, and then a third.

By now, their hoverbus had reached the turn where the highway veered west, but Veriasse simply kept his northern course, slowing dramatically; the hover bus leapt from the shoulder of the highway.

The engines roared, straining as they raced down a small ravine, throwing up clouds of dust. The second wave of fliers was sweeping over the hills now, sooner than Everynne had anticipated, and they dropped a barrage of conventional explosives. Dust and burning bodies pitched into the air, twisting in a great whirlwind. Smoke and fire obscured the nearly indestructible gate, but Everynne pulled out her key and pressed the open sequence. The light under the arch shimmered.

Already the flames from the incendiary bombs were beginning to die. The third and final phalanx of fliers closed over the hills, spraying out their ordnance, an oily black substance that civilians referred to as “Black Fog.” It had no toxic properties, but absorbed light so completely that in seconds the sky turned black.

A black cloud boiled toward them, and Veriasse stared in concentration as they hit the wall of darkness. Everynne felt as if her eyes had been painted over. At first she could see no light at all, yet they were hurtling toward the gate; she feared that Veriasse would crash into a post.

Some vanquishers must have heard their hoverbus, for two balls of white fire whizzed over Everynne’s head. She screamed and ducked. Gallen returned fire at the unseen targets. Veriasse shouted, “I can’t see the gate!”

Gallen fired his incendiary rifle; a fireball of actinic light spattered one gate post, only twenty yards ahead. Veriasse hit the reverse thrusters, shouting, “Run for it.”

Everynne leapt from the hovercar. It was so dark, she could see only the fiery light above the gate. Orick tried to leap out of the hovercar but slipped. He yelled, “Damn!”

Everynne turned but could not see the bear. Maggie, Gallen, and Veriasse could be detected only by the faint shimmering of their masks; they floated above the ground like wraiths. Maggie grabbed Everynne’s hand, urging her to hurry forward, but they tripped over the body of an ogre. Everynne was just struggling up when the creature grabbed her ankle. She screamed and simultaneously the thing shouted weakly, “Vanquishers to me!”

“Gallen, help!” Maggie cried.

Everynne tried to kick free, but the ogre held her tight. Orick, hidden by the inky blackness, roared and pounced on the creature. The vanquisher let go, and Everynne heard more than saw the ensuing scuffle.

Suddenly the vanquishers surrounded them, too close to use incendiary rifles, faintly visible in the light from the arch. Gallen and Veriasse pulled out their swords and began swinging, but the vanquishers were armored. By the time Veriasse and Gallen brought one down, three more had taken its place.

Everynne had no choice. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a ball of glowing light. “Stop!” She stood defiant, holding the ball high, though her heart was faint.

“You vanquishers, do you see this?” she asked. “You know what it is?”

“A Terror,” one vanquisher said, a sergeant in heavy armor.

“If you don’t surrender now,” Everynne said, “I’ll destroy this world. My mantle is linked to eighty-four other Terrors spread across the galaxy, including one on Dronon itself. I’ve already initiated the arming sequence. They will begin detonating in three minutes, unless you surrender now! You will not have time to issue a warning. You will all die!”

Everynne gasped for breath. She did not know if the vanquishers would fall for her ruse. She was a Tharrin, dedicated to peace. All her training, all the engineering her ancestors had built into her, screamed that even to risk destroying a world was wrong. Yet she held a Terror aloft, hoping the dronon would treat her threat seriously.

From the darkness, a dronon limped forward. The fire had burned its wings, and it dragged one hind leg. A familiar clicking began as mouthfingers tapped its voice drum. “I am broadcasting your demands to Lord Annitkit, our supervisor on this world. He will contact the Golden Queen, Tlitkani, and learn her will in this matter. It will take several hours to learn her reply.”

“You don’t have that long,” Everynne said. “We’re leaving.” She turned to the others. “Get through the gate, now!”

She began inching backward through the crowd of vanquishers, moving carefully. It might be that Lord Annitkit would order them to kill her, risk losing eighty worlds in order to keep the thousands they had gained. But Everynne had to hope that he would take her threat seriously. The dronon were often as paranoid as they were violent, but they loved their queen. She did not know of a dronon who would risk the chance that his queen would be killed.

The dronon vanquisher rushed forward, and a segmented hand erupted from the hidden compartment in its battle arm, grasping her arm, pinning Everynne to the spot.

“I do not believe you will detonate the Terror,” the dronon said. “A Tharrin would not destroy a world.”

“Can you be so certain?” Veriasse shouted from behind the dronon. “Others of our people have detonated Terrors on your worlds. My mantle, too, has the access codes for these weapons, and I am not a Tharrin. Believe me, if you do not let us go, we will kill your precious Golden Queen.”

The dronon hesitated. He seemed to be stalling as he waited for further orders. “If you have a Terror on Dronon, why have you not used it? I do not believe you have another Terror.”

Veriasse strode forward, put his face close to the vanquisher’s, and looked into its eye cluster. “Perhaps we only take our orders from a higher source,” he whispered threateningly. “Perhaps we do not completely comprehend their plans for your queen. I only know that I am not free to contravene those orders. Friend, take your hand off the woman’s arm. If she drops the Terror, it could break open. We wouldn’t want any accidents.…”

The dronon held Everynne’s hand. It had a tiny metal device clipped to one of its feelers, and the device buzzed. The dronon addressed Veriasse and Everynne simultaneously.

“Lord Annitkit demands your word of honor that if we release you, you will relinquish your attack on Dronon!”

“Once I pass through the gate, I will initiate the disarming sequence. I will spare your queen, for now,” Veriasse said.

The dronon began walking, wrenched Everynne toward the gate. Maggie and Orick leapt through ahead of her, but Gallen and Veriasse stood on each side of the gate. The chemical fire of the incendiary rifle burned white across the arch. With their dark robes, weapons drawn and faces masked, Gallen and Veriasse looked like doormen to some hell.

They each took one of her hands. Together they leapt into the light.

Chapter 12

Gallen stood up to his knees in the warm water of a new world, panting, holding onto Everynne’s hand. He spared the world a quick glance: twin white-hot suns spun on the horizon. In every direction, a shallow sea reflected the yellow sky, and fingers of vapor climbed from the water. The sea was calm, with only tiny lapping waves, and when Gallen looked toward the distant suns, a strange prismatic effect caused the waves to sparkle in a rainbow. Maggie and Orick were searching about, unable to spot land. But to the southeast, Gallen’s mantle showed him distant bluffs of coral, rising from the water.

“Where the hell are we?” Gallen asked angrily. He was shaking—they’d come close to getting butchered on Fale, and Gallen didn’t like that. Even worse, he didn’t appreciate Everynne hiding things from him—like the fact that she carried a weapon that could destroy a world. She put the Terror into a fold of her robe. Veriasse opened his map.

“We’re on Cyannesse, of course,” he said. The map showed them as a fiery dot of red, but showed no gates. Veriasse pushed a corner of the map, and its scale expanded to display a continent—if continent you could call it. Cyannesse was mostly ocean, and the land here looked to be only a rough archipelago. “Ah, here is the gate,” he said, pointing to a blue arch. “Only about a thousand kilometers. We’re not far from a city.” He pointed southeast, toward the cliffs. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t get it,” Orick bawled. “Why don’t we see the gate from this side? Why did we get dumped in the water?”

“You don’t see a gate from this side,” Veriasse explained, “because the gate doesn’t have two sides. Each gate on a planet is like a bow, shooting you toward a single destination, and you are the arrow. You simply land where you are pointed, within reason. An intelligence is built into each gate, and that intelligence continually tracks the destination planet. There is a beacon buried beneath us that tells the gate how deep the soil is, so you don’t land in a bed of rock. When this gate was built, this spot was on land, but now the oceans have risen. Still, I’ve been through this gate before—this spot is only underwater during high tides. We can make it to shore easily enough.” Veriasse made as if to depart.

“Wait!” Gallen said, looking first to Veriasse, then to Everynne. Gallen still had not sheathed his sword; it dripped blood into the clear, warm water. “Neither of you are going anywhere until I get some answers.”

“What?” Veriasse said. “You wear the mantle of a Lord Protector for two days and think you can beat me in combat?”

Gallen stuck his sword into the sand under the water, swiftly pulled his incendiary rifle, aimed it at Veriasse. “I’ve known you less than a week, but I have heard two very different stories about your plans. First, you said you planned to start a war to win back your realm. But a minute ago, you said you plan to destroy nearly a hundred worlds. I may be a Backward, but I’ve learned a few things in the past week. If that Terror breaks, it will destroy this planet. You are jeopardizing every world you set foot on. No one has that right! You’ve been traveling between the Maze of Worlds, and by your own admission you have sabotaged world upon world. Though you may be a Tharrin, Everynne, I have yet to see evidence of the compassion that you claim as your birthright.”

Maggie and Orick kept still, not daring to interrupt. Veriasse held back. Everynne watched Gallen and licked her lips.

“You are right, of course,” she said. “I’m not what I seem. On Fale, they so wanted a new incarnation of their great judge that they were willing to believe I was her without any evidence. But I am not so certain that I am my mother’s daughter.”

“Don’t say that!” Veriasse interrupted. He said to Gallen, “How dare you! How dare you set yourself up to judge her, you miserable little piece of filth!”

“And how dare you create a god to judge me without my consent!” Gallen shouted. “I’ll not aid you further. In fact, I’ll kill you both dead right now, unless I get some answers!”

“Don’t, Gallen—” Orick growled.

“If he must know the truth,” Everynne said to Veriasse, “I prefer to answer his questions.” She held her head high, gazed evenly into Gallen’s eyes. He could detect no fear in her, no deceit.

“You’re right about me. I don’t feel that I deserve to be the Lord Judge of your world or any other. I haven’t earned that right, and I doubt I’m worthy of it. Certainly, I’m not sure that my people would approve of me. The Tharrin do not just insert a Lord Judge as a ruler. They breed and train and test tens of thousands of candidates for every position that is filled—and I fear that if they knew me, they would be horrified by me. Yes, I carry a device in my pocket that could destroy this world! Yes, I’ve let hundreds of people throw their lives away so that I can win back my mother’s place. I—I don’t even want the position! Maggie—” She looked at the girl. “You told me the other day about how you hated working in your little inn, scrubbing dirt from the floors, washing, feeling like a slave. Yet can you imagine being asked to clean the filth from ten thousand worlds? Can you imagine being the sole arbiter in a hundred thousand disputes per day, sentencing thousands to die every hour? I-I cannot imagine any post that would make me feel more corrupt!”

Tears filled her eyes, and Everynne began coughing, heaving in great sobs. She fell to her knees in the water, folding her arms over her stomach. “Did you see how many died for me today? When I look at the things I’ve done …”

“Shhh …” Veriasse said, sloshing through the water to comfort her. “No matter, no matter. You must only take the post for awhile—long enough for the Tharrin to send a replacement.”

Gallen studied them. It was said that the Tharrin were bred for compassion. He could now see how Everynne suffered. She carried weapons to destroy a world, yet those weapons tore at the very fabric of her sanity, and as he watched her sobbing, saw her self-loathing, part of him realized that if he were to be judged by a god, she was the one he wanted.

Veriasse held Everynne, but he stared up at Gallen with angry, brooding eyes.

“What are your plans?” Gallen asked, “I want every detail.”

“We are going to make war with the dronon,” Veriasse answered. “The Terrors are set on their most heavily occupied worlds. We will only detonate them if we are forced to.”

“Father, don’t!” Everynne said. “No more lies! They’ve earned the right to learn the truth.”

“You can’t—” Veriasse urged, but Everynne said, “Veriasse and I are going to Dronon, to battle the Lords of the Swarm in single, unarmed combat. If Veriasse can defeat them, then by dronon law we will become their lords, and I can order the dronon to retreat from human territory. It’s the only way to save our worlds. It is what my mother wanted. Everything we’ve done—the Terrors, the talk of war, all have been a ruse.”

Gallen considered—his mantle carried a great deal of battle information, and he recalled the dreams it had been sending. Veriasse had made detailed studies of how to fight the dronon in unarmed combat, and Gallen pondered upon the possibility. Nature had gifted the dronon vanquishers with armor. They were larger, stronger, and more mobile than a human, and had an array of weapons that was frightening. A human could hardly hope to win against one in unarmed combat.

“Why not a full-scale war?” Gallen asked. “You could win a war like the one you described on Fale. Destroy Dronon and the occupied worlds. A few fleets could then clean up the mess.”

“We could win a war temporarily,” Veriasse said, “but we would weaken this entire arm of the galaxy. The dronon despise weakness. They try to root it out, destroy it. We would open ourselves to certain attack by other swarms. In time, we would lose. The only way to defeat them with any hope of retaining our territories for an extended period is to beat them decisively while retaining a strong navy. This means that we cannot risk destroying our old guardians, the ones you call “ogres.” Each guardian takes orders through the omni-mind. We have to win Everynne’s omni-mind back and regain control of our navies. We must make the dronon fear our species more than they already do.”

“What do you mean, fear us more than they do? I have seen no evidence that they fear us.”

“The dronon rule by a rigid hierarchy,” Veriasse said. “When a Golden Queen takes over as Lord of the Swarm, then the lords of her defeated enemy do obeisance, accepting her as their rightful leader. But it has been six years now since the dronon conquered us, and few of our lords have subjugated themselves to dronon authority. Instead, our resistance fights the dronon continually, while our lords publicly apologize to the dronon for the ‘madmen’ in our midst who have not yet accepted their queen. But the dronon are not stupid—they see the pattern. Although it goes against their very nature to destroy all members of a defeated hive, they have resorted to xenocide on dozens of our defeated worlds. They fear that, as a species, we are insane.”

“Why do you keep your plan a secret, then?” Gallen said. “If you plan to challenge the Lords of the Swarm in combat, why not be more forthright?”

“Some factions would try to stop me,” Everynne said. “The aberlains, for instance, hope to reap great profits under the Dronon Empire, and they would sabotage our efforts. But there is a more compelling reason to keep this a secret: by dronon law, those who do battle against the Lords of the Swarm must earn ‘Charn’—the right to pass through hive territories—by battling each lesser queen and her escorts.”

“We’ve had to pass through fourteen occupied worlds so far,” Veriasse said. “If we had kept dronon law, I would have had to fight the ruling Lord Escort on each planet. You are wearing my mantle, Gallen. You know how difficult it will be for a mere human to win against dronon vanquishers in unarmed combat. I can’t risk fighting many Lord Escorts. In any given battle, if I lost, then the Lord Escort would try to mar Everynne by wounding her. If Everynne is wounded, she would forfeit her eligibility to succeed the Golden Queen.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

“Among the dronon, the Golden Queens must be unblemished,” Veriasse answered. “And though some humans have been integrated in dronon society for sixty years, we are not even sure that the dronons will accept a human as Lord of the Swarms. But if they will even consider her as a contender, Everynne can have no visible defects, no scars. I hope the dronon will accept Everynne as an example of one of our own Golden Queens—one who is flawless. One born to rule. For her entire life, we have managed to keep Everynne from ever taking an injury that would leave a scar. That is why I work so hard to keep her from jeopardizing herself.”

“I have one question more,” Gallen said. “You carry a Terror. If you plan only single combat, why do you need such a device?”

“In case we lose totally,” Veriasse said. “Everynne and I are going to the planet Dronon itself. If they reject our suit for the right to engage in ritual combat, they may try to kill us outright. Under such conditions, we have no choice but to begin the fruitless war that we have tried so hard to avoid. We hope that the very presence of the Terror will force the queen’s hand, so that she will have to let us challenge. But, if necessary, Everynne’s mantle will detonate the Terror. When dies, the dronon will lose contact with the omni-mind. Their automated defenses will close down, and our freedom fighters will attack.”

Gallen did not need to ask what would happen next. His mantle whispered the answers. If Dronon was destroyed, forty percent of the hives would die with it. Lesser queens might take over their own realms on distant worlds, but a long and bitter civil war would begin as hives battled to determine who would become the new Lords of the Swarm. Other dronon swarms around the galaxy would be tempted to invade during that time. Even if new lords were found, the inexperienced leaders would be weak. Leadership might turn over several times within the first few months. During such turmoil, the humans would be given time to win back lost territories, gain a stronger foothold. But as Veriasse had said before, it would pose a terrible risk in the long term.

“There is one scenario that you have not described,” Gallen said, “and I am afraid it is the most likely. What if the dronon let you battle for succession and you lose?”

“Then we will at least have established a precedent that would give humans
the right
to battle for succession,” Veriasse answered. “I have provided key people on several worlds with tissue samples from Everynne. Thousands of clones could be made. In time, one of her escorts could win the battle.”

“Would you then detonate the Terror on Dronon?”

Everynne shook her head. “We couldn’t. Our best hope for success in this contest is to fight the dronon within the bounds of their laws. My mother and the Tharrin considered this course of action for many years. This is the best way to win back our worlds. Otherwise, billions of innocent people will die on both sides of the battle. Surely you see that this is how it must be?”

“But if you don’t win,” Maggie said, “you will be subjecting your people to years of domination by the dronon. You can’t let that happen. The aberlains are making such far-reaching changes that in another generation, our children will no longer be human. You can’t let that happen!” Maggie’s eyes went wide. Though she had appeared calm over the past two days, Gallen could see how her experience on Fale had devastated her.

Veriasse sighed, and Everynne tried to comfort her. “It will be a sad day, even if we win,” Everynne admitted. “Under Tharrin law, we also permitted upgrades on humans—but only within the limits agreed upon by their parents. We wanted all people to be decent and free, and earn the right to immortality. Sometimes we allowed upgrades of whole civilizations so that a people might become better adapted to their own world. But these sad creatures the dronon are forming—my heart bleeds for them. I fear that there will be little place for them in our society. We will give them the opportunity to go to Dronon, if they so desire, carve a niche among the hives. Those who choose to remain with us may have their children reverse-engineered. And I promise you, the aberlains will be punished.”

Gallen could see that Everynne was not gambling with the future of her people. She would either win and live, or she would die and give her people new hope in the process. In either case, Gallen suddenly yearned to go to Dronon to see what would happen—even if it meant dying in the nanotech fire of a world-burning Terror.