The Web and the Stars (41 page)

Whirling, he saw the image of his sister Francella—looking haggard and old but with a fanatical energy and the fierce gleam of madness in her eyes. Screaming soundless epithets, she flew at him across space, firing lightning bolts from her fingertips—eerie, noiseless lances of light in rapid succession.

He dodged them and fought back in the same manner—as if the two of them were mythological beings battling one another in the heavens. Moment by moment, Noah felt Timeweb suffusing him with power, and he drove the crazed apparition back, hitting her with so many energy bolts that her entire form lit up in flames that should not have been possible in the oxygenless void.

She screamed, again without making a sound, and disappeared into a ragged rip in the web of time.

Chapter Eighty-Five

Think of secrets, small and large. Secrets within each individual’s mind and expanding outward into the cosmos, until the entire universe is filled with them. Based largely on selfishness and narcissism, they have become an unhealthy, dangerous energy.

—Master Noah Watanabe

Unknown to Doge Anton or Lorenzo del Velli, two laboratory-bred podships filled with HibAdu soldiers had slipped through Canopa’s security network and landed on a desolate, remote prairie. Activating an electronic veil over them, they made themselves—and their new military camp—invisible to satellites or aircraft.

After the soldiers were set up with their assault aircraft and other equipment, Pimyt made arrangements to use one of the lab-pods, along with its crew. At shortly past midnight, the lab-pod flew to a prearranged rendezvous point north of Rainbow City, where the scheming attaché boarded it, taking with him a bound, drugged man. The prisoner, carried by a bulky robot, was Jacopo Nehr.…

The subsequent journey across space took more than an hour, a very slow passage that Pimyt learned was due to deterioration of the galactic infrastructure on which they traveled. The sections they had to traverse for this trip were especially rough.

A few minutes into the flight, Nehr stirred from his bench in the passenger compartment and struggled with the electronic cuffs securing his wrists, then tumbled onto the deck. Unknown to him, a Hibbil sat in a comfortable VIP chair at the rear.

“What is this?” the inventor demanded. “I’m on a podship? Who’s back there?” Craning his neck, he tried to see across the compartment to the rear, where he seemed to sense another passenger. His voice was slow and slurred, the residual effects of the drug.

Pimyt muttered to himself. Without replying, he transmitted a signal to release the electronic restraints.

He heard Nehr walking around the compartment, and in a few moments he saw the enraged, confused man. The eyes were red and bleary, the graying hair tousled. Watching him, Pimyt sat calmly on his padded chair, so short that he couldn’t be seen until now.

“You did this to me,” the enraged inventor said, holding onto the back of a chair to keep from falling. He looked around at the mottled gray-and-black walls, which to him must look like a standard podship. “But how? Podships are operating again?”

“In a sense,” Pimyt said, bouncing off his chair.

“What do you mean?”

The Hibbil shrugged, and smiled enigmatically.

“Shouldn’t we be somewhere by now?” Jacopo asked, going over to a porthole and peering out.

Gazing calmly past him, Pimyt saw stars, nebulas, and brilliant suns flash by. “We’re taking the long way,” he said.

“The long way? I didn’t know there was such a thing. I’ve never heard of a podship trip longer than a few minutes. Eleven or twelve at most. Where is my wife? Where is Lady Amila?”

“She’s back on the orbiter. Now just sit back and relax,” Pimyt said. “We’ll be there in due course.”

Pacing nervously around the cabin, Jacopo opened cabinets and inspected vending machines and mechanical gaming stations. “What kind of a podship is this?” he asked, standing in front of a plax-fronted mechanical galley. “I’ve never seen amenities like these. Have they been custom fitted into the compartment? How did they get the podship to accept all this stuff?”

“You ask a lot of dull questions,” Pimyt said, with no intention of telling him that this was a lab-pod.

The secretive Hibbil saw it as a game, fending questions and not providing any answers. He was not happy with Jacopo Nehr for losing his position as Supreme General of the Merchant Prince Armed Forces, punishment for the foolish attack on a sealed government warehouse and storage yard. The resulting fallout made Nehr less useful to the HibAdu Coalition, since he could no longer be used as a conduit for coded military messages. Most of the important military communications had already been sent through Jacopo, but a number of details remained, and Nehr’s blunder was hampering their operations.

Even so, his firing did not make him entirely useless. He was still the father of Nirella Nehr, who was now the supreme Human military commander. Having the inventor-prince as a hostage might give Pimyt some leverage with her, to make her the new conduit. If he could ever get through to her and make the additional threat to reveal the secret of her company’s nehrcom units. So far, she had been too busy to see him.

Finally, the agitated Jacopo took a seat near the front of the compartment. Several times, he got up and walked around, looking increasingly nervous and upset. At last he laid down on a bench and closed his eyes.

A short while later, Pimyt shook him.

“Whah?” Jacopo said. He seemed to have dozed off.

“We’ve arrived.”

Pimyt climbed on a bench and looked through a porthole. Below, he saw the largest of the Hibbil Cluster Worlds, and shivered with pleasure. He always felt this way when returning to the planet where he was born, the place where he had happy memories of long ago, before he began to work with the irritating merchant princes.

Glancing to one side, he saw Jacopo looking through another window. “You will be permitted to oversee your robot manufacturing operations on the Cluster Worlds,” Pimyt said. “You will not, however, be allowed to contact anyone back home, and you will have no access to your own nehrcom transmitting system.”

“Why have you done this to me?”

“Patience, and you will find out.”

Ipsy had been on the Hibbil planets for several weeks, and had survived surprisingly well—largely because he was viewed by the furry little people as a novelty, with his patched-together body and free-spirited ways. After initially earning money by telling stories on street corners, Ipsy had talked his way into a job at Jacopo Nehr’s largest machine manufacturing plant. A facility that used to export huge numbers of robots to the Merchant Prince Alliance, it was now getting by on much lower sales to other galactic races. Ipsy, with his marketing success at the Inn of the White Sun, had boasted that he could build this business, too.

When Jacopo arrived and entered his own office, he found Ipsy there, sitting at the factory owner’s own desk. Knowing that the wealthy man was due to arrive, the little robot had positioned himself boldly, in order to get the most attention.

Remaining in his boss’s chair, the fast-talking robot spewed forth a steady stream of marketing ideas. “The Adurians need to replace their delivery robots,” he said, “and the Salducians are complaining about getting thousands of bad machines from one of your competitors.
Lemons.
And I can give you a whole list of additional opportunities. I’ve been doing my research, you know.”

Feeling angry and irritated, Jacopo lifted the robot out of the chair and placed him roughly in a side chair. “Let’s get one thing straight in the beginning,” the former general said, slipping into his own chair. “I sit here, and you only take a seat if I give you permission.”

“Of course, of course,” the robot said. “You like my ideas, I assume.”

“Do you know why I’m here?” Jacopo asked.

After a moment of processing data and blinking lights, the robot said, “To supervise your business operations here?”

“No. I could have done that from Canopa. Do you have any idea why I was brought to this planet?”

More blinking lights. “Not known.”

“Can you find out for me?”

“You are the boss. But do you like my sales ideas? I worked very hard on them, and I wish to please you.”

“Nothing pleases me at the moment.”

“I will work hard to rectify that.”

Jacopo nodded.

In the days that followed, Jacopo overcame his initial irritation and began to institute some of Ipsy’s suggestions, many of which had excellent prospects of success. But the robot failed in one important respect, because he could not obtain information that Jacopo wanted. The reason he had been brought to the Hibbil worlds.

Chapter Eighty-Six

Francella’s moral fabric ripped open and she plunged through, into something entirely unexpected.

—Secret notes of Dr. Hurk Bichette

For the better part of a day Noah had been using an intermediary in an attempt to find out about Francella, but no one at her villa or at her offices provided any information. The supernatural battle with her had seemed so real to him, and there had been the strange sexual encounter before that with Tesh—an event that she insisted had actually occurred. Could that possibly mean that Francella was dead? In the fight, she had fallen through a rip in Timeweb.

Hesitant to discuss the situation with Anton, Noah decided to say nothing about it to him. The two of them got together for breakfast and lunch, and both times they discussed Tesh, speculating what she was thinking and what her answer might be. Once they saw her walking briskly through a tunnel with other Guardians, but she strode right past them without speaking or making eye contact.

Every couple of hours, Noah went alone to his office to check status reports on his wicked sister. Just after dinner he received a telebeam response, ostensibly from Francella’s house manager, a Mr. Vanda. Floating in the air, the words said, “I regret to inform you that Ms. Watanabe is deceased. She died here peacefully within the hour.”

Noah felt an unexpected surge of pain and grief. Tears flowed onto his cheeks. Angry at this display of weakness, he brushed them away. He shouldn’t have such feelings for her.

Now he had to talk with Anton. Inviting him to his office, Noah sat at his own desk, waiting. When the door opened and the young Doge walked in, Noah saw a mask of grief on his face.

“You know about her?” Noah asked.

“For most of my life I hated my mother for abandoning me,” Anton said, “without knowing who she was. When I finally met her, I hated her even more. Then, when I spoke with her and her feelings opened up to me, I began to sympathize with her.”

“I always felt sympathy for Francella,” Noah said. “Even when I loathed her the most, I tried to be understanding.” He paused to reflect. “It wasn’t always easy, because of her mental illness.”

“You’ve been a good brother and a good uncle,” Anton said.

“I’d like to pay your mother my last respects,” Noah said. “It’s the least I can do, and I’d like to do it right now.”

His blond eyebrows arched. “Now?”

“Yes. I don’t want to attend any funeral service for her, not with crowds of mourners. She was a famous, powerful lady, and the mother of Doge Anton. They’ll come in droves. I just want to say a few last words to her. Do you want to go with me?”

“What about security?”

“I can arrange it. We know from reconnaissance how she guarded the villa. Under merchant prince tradition, her body will remain there for at least a day.”

“This could be a trap laid for you,” Anton said. “I’ll go with you, and you can use me as a hostage if anything goes wrong.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,
Sire!”

“I understand more about politics than you do, Uncle. I’m going with you, and you can’t stop me.”

Noah bowed his head.

In short order, Noah put together a security squadron led by Jimu, and went to the villa in a groundtruck. It was a clear night, with stars sparkling overhead like diamonds. The vehicle didn’t stop at the front gate; with the robots firing their weapons, it burst through. Against superior firepower, the guards ducked for cover, not shooting back.

Disembarking at the great house, a hundred robots stormed the building, followed by Noah and Anton. They met no resistance, as the guards fled into the darkness.

Jimu set up a perimeter around the villa, then accompanied Noah and Doge Anton into the lobby. There, Noah spoke with the balding house manager, Nigel Vanda, a short, dark-skinned man who couldn’t seem to stand still.

“Sorry I didn’t give you advance notice,” Noah said. “You know who we are?”

The man nodded. “Though I am surprised to see you together.” He bowed to Anton.

“Where is she?” Noah demanded.

Looking dismal, Vanda gestured to the right, constantly twitching. “Mistress is in the master suite.”

Noah had come on impulse, wanting to say his final, respectful good-bye to a woman he had always loathed and always loved, in his own private way. He felt recurring waves of sadness, more than he had expected. She was not only his sister; she was his fraternal twin. In the natural order of things they should have been very close, but it hadn’t been that way and never would be. Their ill-fated relationship seemed symptomatic of the chaos in the universe.

He wanted a few moments alone with her body, but to play it safe he had brought the robots along, to prevent falling victim to one of Francella’s schemes. Considering the possibilities, Noah had an odd, overcommitted feeling. Though he had brought along considerable firepower, something prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. He glanced around, met Anton’s equally concerned gaze, and then looked back at the house manager, who stood shaking in front of him.

The nervous little man looked cheerless, with sadness filling his eyes and his mouth downturned. He looked as if his mistress might very well have died, and he had cared about her. Anton said he had seen her good side, and Noah had heard about some of her kindnesses from others as well. She just never showed that side to him.

And now she was gone.

“Take us to her,” Noah said to Vanda.

“We haven’t moved her yet,” the house manager said. “I have sent for the proper attendants. Procedures must be followed.”

“I understand,” Noah said.…

Francella’s body lay on the marbleine floor, surrounded by expended elixir capsules. She looked very dead, with her eyes staring into nothingness. Jimu checked the suite first, dispatching twenty robots into all of the connecting rooms. Presently, the dented little robot announced, “All clear, Master. I’ll check the body now.”

“No,” Noah said, leaning down and feeling her neck for a pulse. There was none. “She’s gone.” Then, to Anton, he asked, “Could I have a few moments alone with her?”

“Of course.”

Doge Anton, the house manager, and the robots left.

As Noah leaned over Francella he picked up her unwashed odor, and nearly gagged. The rooms were a cyclone, with furnishings and food scattered everywhere. She wore a filthy blue robe and lay in a fetal position, with her face turned to one side.

Out of the corner of his eye Noah saw something move, and he jerked in reaction. A black roachrat scampered over the garbage, ignoring him. Shuddering at the conditions under which his sister had been living, and in which she had died, Noah threw a holobook at the rodent. The creature ran off.

Feeling a wave of sadness Noah reached out and gently massaged Francella’s high forehead. The wrinkled skin was still warm, so perhaps she had not died when he had the cosmic confrontation with her. She must have passed away sometime afterward. He felt his own heart skip a beat. She looked like a very old woman, one that had not aged well.

Why did she look this way?

All of a sudden Francella came to life and struck out at him with a dermex, stabbing it into his stomach. He stumbled backward, grabbed at the medical device, and finally hurled it aside.

“Too late,” she said. The face was cadaverous, the eyes dark and hellish cesspools. “I injected you with my own blood. Now let’s see if you are truly immortal after all.”

“But how? You had no pulse!”

“Either I’m a zombie or CorpOne has a medical division, and there are drugs to simulate death.” She cackled with fiendish delight.

Noah struggled to his feet, trying to assess how he felt.

Laughing cruelly, Francella then brought a knife out of her robe and held it to her throat. She paused, and her expression saddened. For a moment, Noah saw a softer side to his sister. “I’m so tired,” she said.

“Hand me the knife.” Noah tried to sound calm, but heard his own voice crack.

“So you can kill me with it?”

“Don’t talk that way, Francella. Let me help you. Give me a chance.
Please.”

Madness overtook her face, especially in the gleaming eyes. “I’d rather do it myself,” she said. With an efficient move, she slashed her own throat. Blood spurted from the wound, and she slumped to the floor.

Noah hurried to her and tried to stem the flow of blood by pressing his fingers against an artery. It wouldn’t seal, and sprayed in his face. “Jimu!” he shouted. “Get in here!”

The door exploded inward, and a dozen robots surged into the room, followed by Doge Anton.

“Master!” Jimu said.

The house manager ran forward. He looked confused, and in apparent disbelief. A good performance, if that’s what it was.

“She wasn’t dead,” Noah said, glaring at the little man. In his arms, he felt her go limp and lifeless. He cradled her and rocked her, but refused to cry.

Jimu sent for reinforcements, and in a matter of minutes a small army of Guardians surrounded the villa.

On the second level, Noah took a shower and changed into clothes that were brought for him. Then, in the dining hall, a medical team led by Dr. Bichette performed a battery of tests on him.

Finally Bichette met privately with Noah, in an anteroom. “There seems to be no injury or adverse effect on you,” the doctor announced.

But in Noah’s private thoughts he was not so certain. Returning to his headquarters at shortly past dawn, he slumped into a soft, oversized chair in his private sleeping quarters.

He had never expected to be with Francella when she died, not like that. It was as if she had perished twice, first in the paranormal space battle and later in the villa. Somehow she had entered Timeweb with him in the earlier encounter, and she should not have been there. But it really had happened. One aspect of her, the spiritual one, had fallen through a timehole and vanished into another realm.

Then the rest of her, all that was left of her demented, anguished existence, finished herself off.