Dark Foundations (47 page)

Azeras paused. “And then, just as embarkation was only days away, the Assembly force arrived and attacked. Jannafy's forces were caught by surprise and in the fighting, he was fatally wounded. The Assembly forces planted some sort of massive bomb and began to retreat back through the Gate. Knowing they had only hours, the surviving leaders of the Freeborn launched the ships deep into the Nether-Realms.”

Azeras sipped water again, cleared his throat, and winced slightly.

“Seven ships were launched, one after another, but only six emerged at the other end. The last—the seventh ship—was lost, presumably caught in the blast. That was another bad blow; the ship had much that was needed for making worlds habitable. Nevertheless, just over five thousand people made the passage safely. They checked their stars and realized they had come out over six hundred light-years from Earth. They knew they were safe for a long time.”

He paused again and Merral was aware of Vero and Perena, leaning forward with wide eyes, utterly engrossed in this extraordinary and unexpected tale.

“But they faced many troubles,” Azeras continued. “With the loss of the seventh ship they couldn't seed worlds as the Assembly did; they had neither the equipment nor the luxury of time. They had to use such worlds as they could find. But all they came to were poor ones; those with any oxygen were nothing more than slime worlds.”

“The algal scum worlds we sterilize before Seeding,” Merral interjected, too immersed in the account to keep silent.

“Exactly. And there were internal problems. Jannafy's death had left a gigantic void that was not easily filled. There were many disagreements. Some honored him, keeping his body in a mausoleum and praising him as the ‘Great Leader' and the ‘Father of the Freeborn.' Others felt that he had misled them and dragged them into a bitter wilderness. And there were differences on the way forward. Some wanted to create an utterly new culture and bury the past. Others wanted to preserve what had been good in the Assembly. Neither side won entirely, so the Freeborn worlds were a mixture of old and new. There was a new language, but the old Communal was not lost. And . . .”

Now Azeras fell silent for a moment, his worn face darkening. “There was something else. The stories do not speak about it plainly, but there are dark hints. In going through the Nether-Realms something became linked with our people. There a shadow fell on us, a shadow from which, alas, we have never been able to set ourselves free.”

“The steersmen,” Merral said, in the charged silence that followed. “Is that what you refer to?”

“Yeah. The steersmen and other extra-physical beings like them. The Freeborn people learned to travel Below-Space by using the steersmen. But those creatures drove hard bargains.”

Azeras sighed and from his expression Merral realized that he did not wish to say more on that topic. He continued, “And soon the Freeborn became divided and from then on there were always disputes and wars between them. They barely survived. There were never more than twenty-five worlds and the total population was almost never more than thirty million. Indeed, after some wars, our numbers were much less.”

He paused again and Merral caught a glimpse of Perena's face and noted the look of anguish and horror it bore.

“Then five hundred standard years ago things changed. A line—a lineage—began to take control of the central Freeborn worlds. Around the star we call Sarata, there are four habitable worlds. On one of them—Khalamaja, the most populated—a lineage, the House of Carenas, rose to power and began to crush its opposition. The Dominion had arrived. Soon there was order and stability in the inner worlds. But it came at a price.” Azeras shook his head. “Everything comes at a price. The stability the Carenids brought allowed them to create mighty armies that made them almost unstoppable. Their rule spread outward until the outer worlds united in resistance as the True Freeborn. Then, about fifty standard years ago, a new ruler of the Carenid dynasty appeared: Nezhuala.”

Azeras grimaced and with his right forefinger made an odd, circular gesture. “Nezhuala set himself up as lord-emperor and imposed his will on the Dominion. He began a new phase of expansion. One by one, the worlds of the True Freeborn were besieged, defeated, and brought into bondage. A year ago, my own world, Tellzanur, was attacked. We fought hard, but there is a power behind Nezhuala's forces that cannot be resisted. In the end . . .” A hard expression slipped across his face and he turned to stare at the sea.

“In the end . . . ,” he repeated, his voice faint, “Tellzanur fell and . . . was burned. Some ships escaped. How many, I do not know. I do not know whether the True Freeborn cause still exists or whether I am the last survivor.”

He paused, as if momentarily overwhelmed by his memories, and then continued. “We escaped, commandeered a Dominion vessel,
Rahllman's Star,
a freighter—”

“Freighter?” Merral asked in surprise.

“Yes, a freighter.” Azeras looked at Merral, as if puzzled at his surprise. He glanced at the others and then a hard smile broke across his face. “I see. You thought you had won against a military ship. No, merely a freighter with light armor and even lighter weapons.”

Merral, appalled at the revelation and its implications, looked at the others and saw expressions of dismay.
They realize the same thing. Threatened as we are, we had, at least, the small consolation that we had already defeated a military vessel. Now that most slender of comforts has been lost.

Azeras continued. “We were pursued by a warship. In desperation, we headed toward the Assembly.”

Vero raised his hand slightly. “You knew this world existed?”

“Yes, the Freeborn had long watched and listened to Assembly signals. We had always feared discovery and a new attack from the Assembly, although we have known for millennia that this world was the limit of your expansion in this direction. One or two expeditions were mounted to observe the Assembly. But they all failed; we could not enter your space. The steersmen spoke of a wall that they could not—or would not—go beyond. The steersmen lie, but on this they seemed to speak the truth. A few attempts to use ships without steersmen also failed.”

Azeras paused before continuing. “But we had no choice: we were prepared for death and we knew that death was preferable to what Nezhuala had in store for us. We prayed to our gods—to Fate or to Destiny. So, we fled headlong toward the Assembly, chased by the warship. I remember the steersman's screams shaking the ship. Then, somehow, we were through this barrier.”

Azeras drank water before speaking again. “We found the nearest inhabited system and drifted in carefully. We were pursued, but the warship kept its distance. We didn't really know what we were up against. But we knew we were likely to be followed sooner or later and we decided to hide somewhere uninhabited. Damertooth was good when it came to piloting—too bad his luck ran out—and we landed in good shape. We hoped we were unseen and tried to hide.”

“The last bit we deduced,” Merral said, “but go on.”

“Well, the good landing was the last bit of luck we had. It soon began to go sour. The crater was too cold. We had a dozen men on board and a hundred or so chimpies and bug boys.”

“‘Chimpies'? ‘Bug boys'?” Vero's voice sounded distant. “What we call ape-creatures and cockroach-beasts?”

“Yeah, I guess so. In hindsight, we should have voided almost all of them into the vacuum, but we didn't. Anyway, Damertooth tried to use them for recon to see what it was like to the south, but they bungled it.” Azeras shook his head. “Well, Captain—wherever in the Nether-Realms your soul is now—you paid for that decision. And we knew that you had discovered us. That's why Damertooth had the Gate blasted. Another bad move really.” He waved a finger. “I think toward the end, Damertooth's judgment was shot. He would go and talk with the steersman. That's not the way; everyone knows not to get too close to creepies. You simply tell them where you want to go, promise them something tasty, and you get out. But to listen to them?” He pursed his lips and for a moment Merral thought he was going to spit. “Nah. Everyone knows that sort of stuff rots your brains.”

“What sort of
something
tasty?” Merral said, remembering again the horror of crunching bones underfoot in the steersman chamber.

Azeras's expression was unreadable. “Prisoners, people who cause trouble. Relax! I never did it. I don't agree with steersmen, remember. And we fed no locals to him. None of yours. That was policy. We gave him a bug boy or a chimpie every dozen days. It wasn't what they wanted.”

Merral saw Perena's face pale and felt she wanted to be sick.
I sympathize.

“In the end, we men made a decision to take radical action. We decided to kill all the chimpies and bug boys, blast the steersman and the slitherwing, and put the Krallen pack on self-destruct. Then we'd take the ship, the men, and the two Allenix units and go south. The original landing zone was badly chosen. It was too cold and too exposed. We knew that when the Dominion came, they'd would find us. And after the encounter between you and the bug boys, we guessed you would be hunting us as well. So we planned a move to a better place to hide—some nice warm cleft covered in jungle.” He shrugged. “And ultimately, there was an idea of at least of some us merging with the population.”

“You were planning to
merge
?” Vero's voice was filled with incredulity.

Azeras seemed embarrassed. “It was an idea, that was all. We would have turned up in different communities over time with memory loss. In a world of thirty million people and no suspicions, it wouldn't be hard to lose a dozen men. You don't even have identity chips.”

“Is that why you learned our language so well?”

“Yeah.”

Vero, who had been staring into the distance, turned to look at the man in the bed. “With a green, four-legged talking machine?”

Azeras shrugged. “The Allenix units were superfluous. We would have got rid of them.”

Perena shook her head in a manner that suggested utter disbelief. “So, Sarudar, in order to merge into Ilakuma you would have ‘got rid of' Betafor?”

“Yeah.”

She expelled a long, slow breath. “I really don't know whether to find this funny, tragic, or utterly incomprehensible. She planned to get rid of you; you planned to get rid of her.”

“Lady Captain, that's a fair insight into how things work.”

Perena swallowed. “How they
worked
, Sarudar. Past tense. Things here are different.”

“All right.” Azeras tried craning his head to see her, but gave up the effort. “Have it your way—”

“It's not
my
way. It's the way things are done here. The Assembly belongs to the Lamb.” Perena's face was stern.

Azeras waved a dismissive hand. “Right. Apologies.
Sorry
. Anyway, I was dropped off on Ilakuma with that thing to survey a new site. I had been there a few days and had found a place. Betafor was to help on that. We were on the lookout in case the area was visited by hunting parties.”

Merral was suddenly struck by how the small details of the conversations highlighted the gulf between the cultures. The phrase
hunting parties—
presumably men pursuing animals to kill them for fun or food—was a case in point.

“Then the news came from the
Slave
that they were being watched and were preparing to leave urgently. The next morning we got the message that they were under attack. Then there was silence.”

Azeras fingered his bracelet.

“The Krallen on the ship. Whose were they?” Vero asked in a sharp tone.

“The Dominion's.”

“The Freeborn don't use them?”

“Well, only when we acquire them and reprogram them.”

“Are you sure? We want the truth.”

“Oh, well,” Azeras said with a shrug. “Both sides use them. And if any are captured, their loyalties are realigned.”

Merral saw Perena whisper something to Vero.

“One issue,” Vero asked. “A fundamental one. You talk of fate, destiny, and the powers: what do your worlds believe?”

“In the Freeborn Worlds there are—or were —no fixed beliefs. We are free, right? Some of us believe in a god or gods, others believe in Fate. Some believe that our destiny can be changed; others that we must play the parts that are written for us.”

He frowned and fell silent. “We also believe in the powers. Communal does not have an exact word for them.
Dark spirits?
Demons?
Perhaps. Things like the steersmen and the—” He stopped himself. “A man will do well to keep them away from him and his family. There are rituals—ways of keeping them away.” He made again the odd circular gesture with his forefinger and then sighed. “Or of
trying
to keep them away. But they are never fully defeated. The powers always win in the end
.
”

“They don't!” The sharp defiance in Perena's voice made everyone turn toward her.

“Fine words, Lady Captain, but you asked me for my beliefs. And when you have seen what I have seen, you may think otherwise.”

“And the Dominion?” Vero asked.

Azeras scowled. “The Dominion? They increasingly treat Nezhuala as a god. And they know no boundaries.” He looked around. “I swear on the powers: the Freeborn have always held to limits in their dealings with the powers, but not the Dominion. Nezhuala has gone furthest of all. He has summoned the most potent forces to aid him. His victories are not achieved just by his men or machines. He fights with things that cannot be resisted. Of—” Suddenly he broke off. “What Nezhuala is doing is not something I wish to talk about. Not now. Perhaps later.”

“Indeed,” Merral said. “We have spoken of that enough. But you know we have no such dealings? That we serve only the one God: Father, Son, and Spirit?”