Dark Foundations (50 page)

“Go ahead.”

There was another rough smile. “The lord-emperor wants his ship back very badly. He wants
Rahllman's Star.
”

Funny.
I remembered it being called
Slave of Rahllman's Star
earlier.

Vero pushed his dark glasses up his nose and gestured at the sea. “Well, he's lost that. It's in a million pieces at the bottom of Lake Fallambet.”

“Ah-ah.” Azeras wagged a reproving finger. “There are some things that none of you know. How do you think we got here, Commander? Do you think that ship brought us here? Did you believe we could fit a Nether-Realm drive into that hull?”

Perena placed her glass on the table with exaggerated care. “Are you saying, Sarudar, that you did
not
travel here on that ship?” Her words held an electric tremor.

“Of course not. It was not built for that. It's the lander—what we call a ‘slave.' That's where the name comes from:
Slave of Rahllman's Star.
”

“T-there's another ship!” Vero said and, beneath the glasses, Merral saw a look of puzzlement visibly transforming itself into one of understanding. “Oh, what a
fool
I've been! Another ship. Why didn't—?”

Azeras raised a hand to quiet him. “The parent ship is the
Rahllman's Star—
A much larger vessel with a Nether-Realms drive. And it's hidden.”

“Where?” Merral asked, a hundred implications cascading into his mind.

Azeras gestured upward. “In the Nether-Realms or what you would call Below-Space. I have the coordinates and, if I can get near it in Standard-Space, I can summon it.”

“It will work?” Perena asked, eagerness and hope erupting in her voice. “Will—?”

“C-can it get us to the rest of the Assembly?” interrupted Vero.

“Slowly!” Azeras said. “I knew this would be news. Let me take it bit by bit. There is a ship buried in Below-Space. Probably no more than two or three million kilometers away by now; it was set to drift toward your world. It can be accessed, but it would take perhaps two or three days to get it up and running again. You could replace the
Slave
unit by one of your own ships, but you'd have to do some engineering in order to dock it smoothly. I'd guess a week's work to get everything done.

“How quickly can we—?” Vero began.

“There's where you need to make a hard decision.” Azeras's tone was sharp. “I've done the calculations on the time for a ship to return to the Dominion and a military force to be sent out. The lord-emperor will not have delayed. I think they will be here soon—very soon. And if they surface while the
Rahllman's Star
is in Standard-Space, we're all finished. They may be lurking in the uppermost Nether-Realms even now. So we could try and recover the ship now. But it would be risky.”

“But won't they find it when they come?” Merral asked.

“No, at those depths, the Nether-Realms are too deep and too dark.”

Perena nodded. “The opaque zone.”

“Yeah. Oh, after a lot of fishing they
might
find it. But unless they know our exact trajectory, it might take a year.”

Vero stared at Azeras. “But if we found this ship, brought it to the surface, took it over, we'd reach Bannermene when?”

“Four weeks or thereabouts.”

“Four weeks!” The excitement rang in Vero's voice.

Merral gestured caution. “There are decisions we need to make before that happens, Vero.”

Azeras grunted. “If you go, you ought to go soon. The chance of being caught is high and it is rising by the day.”

Perena raised a finger. “Why does this lord-emperor want this ship so badly?”

“He'll probably want to recover the ship so it doesn't fall into Assembly hands. But he particularly wants it because Zhalatoc is on it.”

Merral remembered the disfigured bust he had seen on the ship with its defaced inscription:
Zhalatoc, Great Prince of the Lord-Emperor Nezhuala's Dominion
. “Zhalatoc is living on this ship?”

“
Living?” Azeras gave a sour grin. “
Bah!
That's an overstatement! Zhalatoc is biologically dead and has been for centuries, or so I've heard. But his body is kept—I'm afraid there is no Communal word for much of this and you won't like it—intact. And his spirit and mind reside in it. Sort of. And as he is a close ancestor of Nezhuala's, the lord-emperor wants him back. That's partly why they pursued us. It's clan honor.”

Perena shook her head. “This is almost too much. But why is this done? Why isn't he allowed to die? Why all this nightmarish stuff with his being kept alive?”

Azeras stared at her. “Captain, they fear death. So they seek to stay alive. By whatever means.”

Perena blanched. “Those who belong to the Assembly do not fear death. We know what lies beyond it for the King's people.”

Azeras bowed his head. “Ah, fine words, as ever, Captain. Perhaps when you meet death you may reconsider.”

“
Please!” Merral said sharply. “But how do they do such things?”

“They have agents—the Wielders of the Powers—who deal with the beings in the Nether-Realm. They ensnare the steersmen for the ships; they give them bodies and use their powers to bind the dying so they cannot die. Only Nezhuala himself has greater abilities than the Wielders of the Powers.”

“Is that what happens among the True Freeborn as well?”

“Those faced with death sometimes seek such a remedy. I do not deny it.”

“You realize,” Merral said with haste, “that anything like contacting these powers is utterly detestable to the Assembly?”

“I understand.”

“Very well, this Nezhuala will want the ship you stole. But what will he want of us? Will he come himself?”

“He may send others. We've . . . I've heard of a project that occupies him. . . . I will not speak of that today and not because it needs to be hidden from the commander.” He sipped his drink noisily. “Nezhuala's ambition knows no limits. By now he will, I expect, have finished off the True Freeborn and all the twenty-five worlds will be his. Even without any gap in the barrier, I'd have predicted that his ambition would now turn to the Assembly. Now that venture is certain. And I can promise you this: he'll aim for conquest. His goal will be to join all the worlds of humanity under the Dominion's banner.”

“The uniting of the realms,” Merral said aloud, remembering the steersman's threat and wishing he could forget it.

Azeras looked keenly at him. “That phrase.
The uniting of the realms.
Where did you hear it?”

Merral hesitated, resolving not to mention the dreadful words that had followed about the coming of the end of the Assembly. “The steersman said it. I didn't understand it at the time.”

“‘The steersman said it?' Ah,
very
interesting. It is a phrase Nezhuala used as the watchword of his campaign against us. I had always taken it to refer to the Dominion and the True Freeborn worlds. But perhaps it means more than any of us had seen.”

It was Perena's turn to speak. “But, Sarudar, how can Nezhuala hope to win against the Assembly? By your own admission, the Dominion is a fraction of the size of the Assembly.”

Azeras bowed his head. “As ever, Captain, a good question. But remember that neither size nor numbers is everything. You are unarmed and Nezhuala's forces are powerful; more powerful than you can imagine. But he will proceed carefully. And there, I think, lies your world's hope.”

“
Our
hope, Officer,” Perena added.

“I stand corrected, Captain.” His half smile seemed uneasy. “You seem to be disposed to ensure that I do not overlook you. But I think whoever he sends here will want to learn all he can about you. It is an ideal chance to learn about the Assembly. And he wants the Assembly, but he fears it.”

He leaned back in his chair, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood and staring toward the sea. Suddenly he glanced at the toothpick and tossed it over his shoulder. “Sorry. I must learn manners. Still you have more pressing problems than etiquette.”

“Indeed.”

Vero leaned forward. “He fears us? Why? How?”

“You may have overlooked us, but we have never forgotten you. Through the history of the Freeborn, the Assembly has always been a shadow on the edge of our lives. On Tellzanur, children are taught to fear that one day Ringell—”

“Ringell?” Merral gasped.

There was a puzzled look from Azeras, but he continued. “Ringell and his men would descend in the night and slay them.”

“Why him?” Vero asked, screwing up his dark eyes.

“Lucas Ringell led the attack in the battle at Centauri. It was he who killed Jannafy. It was he who, it is presumed, stopped the seventh ship from leaving. What more do you need?”

“But he is long dead,” Merral protested.

There was a dismissive shrug. “Such figures live on in legend. And legend says that as the great adversary, Ringell will return.”

“‘The great adversary'?”

“Part of the myth. A soldier from the Assembly that the Freeborn will have to defeat or else they will be destroyed. Ringell, or someone like him. It's not clear—I told you, it's a legend.”

“And the Dominion believes in this figure?” Merral asked.

“Probably. They have no doubt altered the belief. They have their own myths.”

Vero raised a finger in inquiry. “If the Dominion comes, what forces will they have?”

Azeras thought for a moment. “A full-suppression complex, I'd guess. Great big ugly slab of a ship, well over a kilometer long, with enough firepower to reshape a world. A single Y-class caused a world to surrender.”

“W-will they use nuclear weapons? Or kinetic or beam weapons?”

“They will have all of them, but they will only use them if they have to—if, say, there is determined resistance. Nezhuala doesn't seem to like destroying worlds, buildings, or infrastructure. He likes to take over things in good working order. Energy spent in rebuilding is a waste of energy that might be used in conquest.” Suddenly a strange woeful expression seemed to darken Azeras's face and he looked away out to sea. Merral had a sudden sense of a man who carried terrible burdens.

“S-so how will he plan to take this world?” Vero asked, but it was Merral who answered him.

“Krallen,” he said, and as he said it, the word seemed somehow sharp and misshapen.

“Aha,” said Azeras, swinging around, his sad expression replaced by a look of intense interest. “The commander has met the Krallen. I'm amazed you survived. So you will know that Krallen are like Betafor but far,
far
nastier?”

There were nods and Azeras continued. “A full-suppression complex might have around a hundred thousand Krallen. There were rumors of a new, larger class of suppression complexes, worse than the Y-class, so there could be more. The battlefield versions are a bit heavier than the ship pack types you met. There would be a variety of landers to deploy them plus supports.”

“Ooof,”
muttered Vero as if he had been punched.

“I had no idea,” Merral said quietly. The vision the envoy had shown him seemed to have taken a terrible step closer to reality. “None at all.”

“Are there any humans?” Perena asked, her low voice barely audible over the mewing calls of the gulls.

“Normally, very few. Perhaps twenty. And one or two Allenix to watch and listen.”

“Why so few men?”

“Humans, Captain, are hard work. They tire, they need food, they grumble, they scheme. And they prefer to stay alive, rather than face death.”

“So is that why they use Krallen?” Perena's face showed consternation.

Azeras scratched a scar on his cheek. “One reason. But another reason is this: Krallen do no real damage to any infrastructure. You'd send what—a thousand Krallen packs?—into somewhere like your Isterrane and they'd slash every living being to shreds in a few days. But there'd be no damage. Just a few doors torn down, a few windows smashed and a lot of blood. You'd just hose the place down and it would be fine.” He paused. “And there's another reason: Krallen terrify people. People can stand the idea of being bombed or vaporized, but humans have a deep-seated fear of being hunted.”

Merral felt chilled, as if an invisible cloud of horror had blocked the sun.

“S-so an entire ship full—fuller than we can imagine—of Krallen may be on its way,” Vero said, turning his troubled face away toward the ocean.

“And there will be other things too.”

“Go on.”

“Slitherwings
.
And maybe even a baziliarch.” Azeras's expression was somber.

“Tell us more.”

“No. We don't know much about them and what we do, we don't talk about. But let's trust to the Fates that they haven't sent one.”

Vero grunted. “We have a better hope than Fate, Sarudar.”

“If there's a baziliarch around, you will need one.”

“So what can we do?” Merral asked.

Azeras shook his head. “I have told you the problem. The answers—if there are any—are for another day.”

There was a long heavy silence in which no one seemed to want to say anything. Suddenly it came to Merral that it was bizarrely incongruous to talk about such dark things amid palm trees, a beach, and a blazing sun. But he ended his reflection; there were more questions to be asked if they were to try and recover the
Rahllman's Star
.

“Thank you,” he said. “I was wondering when—”

Merral stopped, aware of a noise behind him and catching others' eyes swinging toward the bleached buildings. He turned round to see Lloyd's large form pounding down the path toward them, gesturing at the diary he held aloft.