Ceremony (31 page)

The touch was another thing the humans had difficulty accepting.

So much for enjoying herself. She could stall no longer. It was time to hear the latest bad news.

Marika gathered ghosts and hit the Up-and-Over. Stars twisted. The derelict materialized. Jackson’s dread formed a miasma around the darkship. But she would not yield to it. She ventured out as often as Marika would permit. There was a bit of silth in her, Marika thought. The stubborness of silth.

Marika left the alien female in the paws of her bath, entered the derelict. Now, more than ever, the old starship was the heart of dark-faring silthdom. An incredible sixty voidships called the relic home...

It was a completely unforeseen result of Marika’s struggles with the landbound silth of the homeworld. The terrors she had loosed back when had birthed an isolationism with which star-faring silth could not and would not deal. One by one, one darkship after another had broken with its dam Community rather than give up faring the void. Only a very few Mistresses fared homeward anymore.

A dying breed, Marika feared. No more were in training.

Marika entered the situation room, which had been refurbished by Jackson’s people. A half dozen of her folk’s starships orbited with the derelict now. Each of the room’s ends boasted a vast three-dimensional star chart. Each time Marika viewed one she felt a pang of loss. That Bagnel should have missed this!

The meth end of the room was crowded with agitated silth.

“Ruthgar gone,” Marika observed. “And Arlghor?”

An elder sister replied, “It is as you suspected, mistress. Someone is sealing the voidpaths.” Golden trails emanated from Marika’s star and zigzagged toward the meth homeworld. Though Marika’s folk had little intercourse with the dam planet, anomalies in that direction had caught their attention and had led them to investigate. Eight of the marked routes boasted stars hidden inside magenta haze. Those stars were the primaries of the worlds where dark-faring silth rested. Darkships sent to investigate those worlds had not returned.

The elder sister asked, “Will you do something now?”

“No.” She did not know what to do. Sending more investigators would be like throwing stones down a well.

Everyone assumed Starstalker was responsible. Marika had grimmer suspicions. The old enemy, with no more than seven very ancient silth to operate it, could not have the power to make deathtraps of so many worlds.

“And Arlghor?” she repeated.

“Nothing yet.”

She grunted. It was not yet Arlghor’s time. Soon, though. Soon. She strode to the far end of the room. Commander Jackson was considering her own portrait of peril.

Hers was a more vast star chart, filled with clouds of light. Individual pinpricks were hard to discern. The magenta there floated in puffs and streamers. “No change?”

“No. No incoming information.”

“That disturbs you?”

“We are a minor mission, far from home space, but there should be courier drones. All we hear is what your people bring us. They don’t understand us so their reports make little sense.”

For three years Marika’s protégés had been visiting and trading with the human starworlds. Marika did not understand the news they brought either, but it was evident that the human rogues had come out of hiding and there was a great struggle on.

“Ruthgar is gone,” Marika said. “Arlghor is next. If it goes I may leave this ship to you.”

“Would that be wise? If what you suspect is true... “Jackson paused. “To hell with regulations. Marika, you’ve never seen a warship. These ships here are scientific and exploratory craft. Small ships, armed only lightly. I’m not supposed to admit that anything nastier exists, but I don’t want you jumping into something blind.”

Marika eyed Jackson. Small ships? Lightly armed? That world she had visited had not shown her anything more sinister.

“They’ll be ready for you if they’re working with your enemies.”

True, Marika reflected. The sealing of the homeward starlanes might be meant to draw her into a trap. But just Starstalker? Would the alien rogues think her worth the bother?

Where did she stand? Damn! She had sworn to ignore the homeworld, to let it go to the All. If the Communities allowed yet another rogue resurgence, so be it. She owed the fools nothing more. But if Starstalker had acquired outside allies... Had she an obligation to defend the race?

This would become more than a power struggle. Humans were enough like meth that they could not ignore a power vacuum. Jackson’s people, nominally friendly, were trouble enough.

She and the woman had become friends, but there was little love lost elsewhere. Silth would be silth, especially in the far reaches of the dark, too often upon the human worlds they visited. Admonitions had little effect. They inundated the humans with arrogance and contempt, for the creatures had no silth class. They were little more than brethren technicians, working with their hands.

Marika sometimes wanted to shriek in frustration.

Perhaps it was in their genes. Perhaps she was more a sport than she suspected.

Chapter Forty-Five

I

Marika sensed a darkship approaching. She ignored it. She continued guiding three young Mistresses through maneuvers. They were doing well in their ghost-fencing.

She was old and feeling it, and thinking of recording all she had learned, all that had made her first among silth. All that had made her the most terrible silth of all time. She was considering revealing all her secrets. She thought such a document might illuminate a pathway, might betray the pitfalls and long ways around that she had encountered.

What might she have become had she lived in another time, free of constant strife? What might she not have done?

Mistress?

Yes, Henahpla?

The last route has been closed.

I suspected as much. Excellent move, Flagis! The youngest Mistress had used the Up-and-Over to seize a position of advantage. You have the makings of a strategist. She fended Flagis’s ghosts deftly. From the summit of age each probe seemed entirely predictable. Practice among yourselves now. Exercise restraint. I will tolerate no accidents. The young occasionally let pride carry them away and began trading blows seriously.

Marika brought her darkship beside Henahpla’s. Rude wood beside finely machined titanium. But the witch signs attached to Henahpla’s darkship were as old as time, crafted and blessed in the ancient ways.

My voidship has more character, Marika thought. More style.

The human senior is concerned.

Then we must ease her mind. Marika slipped into the Up-and-Over. She was inside the derelict before Henahpla reached orbit.

Jackson did seem rattled. “What is it?” Marika asked.

“A darkship returned from the human side of the cloud.”

“Bad news?”

“There was a big battle. My people were not victorious.”

“But still no message direct?”

“No. They’ve forgotten us.”

“What might this defeat mean?”

“That depends on the magnitude of the disaster. The rebels are outnumbered. They were never likely to succeed. The aftershocks will be more political than military.”

Marika nodded an understanding she did not quite possess. She guided Commander Jackson to the situation room and pointed out the fact that the last route to the meth homeworld had been closed. “The last route they know,” she added softly. “I can get there if I have to.”

Jackson sucked spittle between her teeth. The habit irritated Marika. The creatures possessed no self-discipline. “Will you flank them, then?”

“No. I’ll wait.”

“I wonder.”

“What?”

“I can see that you want them to come to you. But that might not be wise. You are not familiar with our warships.”

“We shall see who distresses whom.” She foresaw no difficulty dealing with human ships if it came to that. She was silth, darkwalker, strongest Mistress of the ages. The void was hers to command.

Those who had put the stopper into the bottle lost patience when she did not try to break out. Ten days after they closed the last route they invaded Marika’s star system.

Alarms howled in ship-night. Mistresses and bath scrambled from their quarters, raced to their darkships. Calmly, Marika strode to the situation room. Commander Jackson arrived before her. Already the human end, bustling, had adjusted to local scale.

It was real! Not the false alarm Marika had expected. But...

“One ship,” Jackson told her. “Destroyer size. Already deploying riders. We’ll have singleships in our hair in an hour. I hope it’s just a recon pass.” She indicated dots radiating from a common origin. “I have to get my ships out of orbit.”

Marika was irked. Why hadn’t her patrols warned her? They should have done so long before the humans detected the arrivals. She hurled anger outsystem, though her pickets were too distant to receive a general touch. “They’re going to run?” she asked.

“I have to protect my people.” The human scientists were evacuating the derelict hurriedly. “We can’t do much more than get killed if they attack.”

Baffled, Marika shook her head. She examined the situation, wheeled, stamped away to her wooden darkship. She cut the bath’s ceremonies short, drove into the void toward the incoming raiders.

A picket’s touch found her then, reporting the arrival with overtones of bewilderment. The Mistress had detected nothing until a small human ship almost overran her.

Marika shivered with a chill that penetrated her golden shield. The aliens did not touch. The touch’s absence rendered them invisible to Mistresses less talented than she. She should have realized.

She deployed her companion Mistresses.

Ghosts flung outward discovered an inward-bound formation of six small ships. Behind them, more sedately, came a second formation of one large ship, two a third its size, and four more small ships. Marika did not understand. Commander Jackson had spoken of one ship, a “destroyer,” arriving.

Go!

Darkships vanished into the Up-and-Over.

Marika emerged into fiery confusion. Webs of light clawed the void. Missiles were everywhere. The smaller human ships were almost as nimble as darkships. She drove toward the biggest ship. A moment later she felt the touch-screams of dying silth.

The size of the main enemy ship awed her. It was long and lean and cruel, like some monster ocean predator. Its mass had to be several times that of Jackson’s biggest ship.

A small ship exploded.

Another darkship died.

She had underestimated them. Terribly.

She flung a wild touch across the void, grabbed the system’s great black, yanked. This was no time for finesse.

A medium ship turned her way, accelerated incredibly. How had it detected her so easily? She grabbed the Up-and-Over, skipped, regained control of the great black. The ship found her again and closed swiftly, but the great black came too. Marika skipped again, flung the great black.

A strange screaming filled the void.

These humans touched when they died!

Their screams went on and on and on as their ship began breaking up.

Why so long?

Their dying tore at her nerves, distracted her from the broader struggle... Crewed by the dying, the disintegrating human ship ripped past, drives accelerating still, carrying the remains outsystem.

A bolt of light stabbed so close Marika imagined crisping heat. She tore her attention from her victim.

A small ship was almost atop her. She ducked reflexively, fired her rifle as it screamed past, and only then thought to fling the great black.

Tortured screams flooded the touch.

That was the last small ship of the main force. Marika probed for the leading group. It too had been hard hit. Three survivors were streaking back toward their dam ship.

Victory. But at a terrible price. She could not find half a dozen Mistresses.

The main force turned. Marika ordered pursuit abandoned. She wanted no more losses.

She trailed the enemy’s withdrawal, watched him recover his surviving rider, then his singleships. The smaller vessels all nestled into recesses in the larger’s flanks.

She tried for the main ship’s drives, but it kept her too busy evading fire to concentrate.

Riders recovered, the destroyer pulled away. Marika found its acceleration astounding. Such power!

The starship vanished. Like a darkship leaping into the Up-and-Over, yet with a twist that seemed to rend the fabric of the void itself. Marika shuddered to a shock that recalled nearby thunder. But there was no sound out there in the dark.

II

“They got whipped, but they’ll be back,” Commander Jackson prophesied. “They learned what they wanted to know.”

“Uhm.” Marika conversed in monosyllables, gruffly concealing her uncertainty. Seldom had she been so uncertain of her capacity to cope. The incredible, powerful technology behind that killing machine!

“They’ll come ready to fight, Marika. I wish I had orders.”

“Why did the smaller ships cling to the large one?”

“Economy. Military grade hyperdrives are costly and bulky. So each hypership carries riders equipped only with cheaper, less massive system drives. Military grade system drives. A Main Battle carries riders on its riders.”

Marika sighed. Despair began worming its way deep into her soul.

The destroyer had been gone four days. A ragtag fleet of voidships dropped from the Up-and-Over, badly mauled. Marika hustled her Mistresses out to meet them.

“They’re from my homeworld,” she told Jackson. “All who were able to fight their way through.” They were, in fact, the last star-faring silth save a few crews exploring and not yet aware that the beast was afoot.

“The voidship Starstalker has returned to home space. Accompanied by your enemies.” The news the touch carried was almost too grim to bear. “Silth talents have been of little value against alien technology in fighting on the surface.” The Communities were struggling bravely and desperately, but with scant hope. The general populace was giving no help. Even the long loyal brethren faction was making only token efforts at resisting.