Horizon Storms (7 page)

On this planet, though, there was a primitive yet viable ecosystem in place. These oceans were filled with plankton and plants, shelled organisms, and soft-bodied swimmers. The wentals had come alive in the seas, but in spite of their bold strategy in saving Jess, they had restrained themselves here, choosing not to affect the other creatures.

The changes they had made in him were irreversible. He had the wental power as a permanent part of his physiology. He might even be able to harness that power to help his people . . . if only he could get off this planet.

For almost two centuries, Roamer clans had made life possible in the most terrible environments. They solved problems, they created innovative ideas and technologies to succeed where the Hansa would never even dare to try.

Jess was sure there was a way to get off of this planet.

Though the watery entities could hear the thoughts inside his head, he shouted across the waves in his impatience. “If you wentals are so powerful, why wait? We have work to do!” Out there, in the inaccessible vastness of the Spiral Arm, the hydrogues were continuing to plague Roamer outposts. “There’s still a war going on out in the Spiral Arm. Are you just going to give up now that you’ve finally been given a second chance?”

We flow from possibility to possibility. It is our nature.

“Then flow to a different one. How do I get out of here? You wanted to spread and propagate, didn’t you? Why should we just hope for someone to happen by? I doubt anyone’s been to this planet for centuries—if 24

ever.” He picked up a rock and tossed it into the waves, where it was swallowed without a ripple.

The wental answered, All the resources of this planet are available to you—from the rocks beneath you, to the metals and minerals in the water, to all the living creatures in the seas.

“How does that help me build a ship? I have no tools, nothing but my bare hands.”

You have us.

Jess jumped to his feet on the rocky shore. “What do you mean?”

Do not underestimate your new powers and abilities. With the strength of the wentals within you, creating a physical ship can be . . . relatively simple.

In his mind he received images and a sudden understanding that left him breathless with the possibilities.

This sea, even with its minimal prehistoric ecosystem, still contained billions of living creatures—from gigantic monsters to microscopic organisms. An incomparable workforce. With wental guidance, all of them would cooperate to build a ship, one molecule at a time.

The wentals showed him exactly how.

75CESCA PERONI

Jess Tamblyn had vanished. In her office chamber within the main Rendezvous asteroid, Cesca found it nearly impossible to concentrate on her leadership tasks.

This unified cluster of space rocks around a dim dwarf star was symbolic of the Roamer clans themselves: each separate, yet held together by invisible threads. In the centuries that Roamers had lived on this outpost, the clans had bound the asteroids together with support girders, connect-

ing walkways, and reinforcement cables. But such bonds could easily be severed and the asteroids of Rendezvous scattered again.

As Speaker, Cesca had to make sure the clans didn’t do the same.

Surrounded by thick walls, she reviewed reports from Roamer traders, studying the lists of goods, raw materials, and resources distributed among clan outposts. Forbidden from running their traditional skymines, some daredevil Roamers made blitzkrieg ekti strikes on gas giants, while others, such as those at the ambitious extraction facilities at Osquivel, broke down frozen comets to distill a trickle of stardrive fuel from their hydrogen. The EDF and the Hansa—the “Big Goose”—demanded any ekti the clans produced, and instead of being grateful for what the Roamers risked their lives to scrape together, they clamored for more and more, when none was available.

The clans were trapped in this uneasy business relationship, though they had theoretically established their independence, separating themselves from the Earth government long ago. The EDF seemed not to remember those details.

Cesca looked up as a visitor appeared in her office, a dark-haired young man with Asian features and an intent set to his narrow jaw. “Speaker Peroni, I’ve got news!”

Jhy Okiah had long held that remembering names and faces was a vital skill for a clan Speaker, and Cesca had diligently developed the skill, along with many others. She remembered that this young man flew one of clan Tylar’s ships, acting as an errand runner and delivery boy between Roamer outposts. He also had a reputation for getting easily lost . . . or at least sidetracked.

“It’s part of my job to receive news, Nikko Chan—though my preference would be to have good news for a change.” She saw from his flustered expression that such a report would not be forthcoming. She pushed the documents and commerce records aside. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

Nikko fidgeted, drying sweaty palms on his many-pocketed pants.

“Four days ago I was flying back from Hurricane Depot to deliver a load of spare parts and pick up some large-output thermal generators for Jonah 12. That’s the frozen moon where Kotto Okiah is establishing a—”

“I know where it is, Nikko. I authorized the plans myself.”

Derailed from his story, Nikko blinked. “Well, sometimes I like to . . .

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zigzag on my routes. Intentionally, you know.” He sounded defensive. “It doesn’t cost very much ekti, and who knows what I might find? A new settlement, maybe even the Burton?”

“And what did you find this time?”

“You probably remember that my distant uncle Raven Kamarov disappeared a while ago. He used to haul ekti to and from Hurricane Depot, but one day he didn’t show up at his destination. We sent out searchers, but no luck.”

Cesca nodded. A great many Roamer ships had vanished in the past several years, not just Jess Tamblyn’s. It was easy to blame the disappearances on hydrogues, but there was a simmering suspicion among the clans that the Earth Defense Forces were somehow involved. She guessed where Nikko’s story was leading. “And today you located the ship?”

“Not much of it.” Nikko frowned. “But I did find enough serial numbers on hull plates that I could do a proper ID. It’s the right vessel, that’s for sure.”

Cesca felt her stomach sink as if gravity had just increased. “Do you think it could have been a meteor impact or an engine overload?”

His shoulders sagged. “Neither. The marks were unmistakable, Speaker. Some hull sections were large enough that I could see what caused the damage. Jazer strikes. Direct and intentional.”

“Jazers? But only the Eddies use jazers.”

The young man nodded. “I brought all the wreckage with me. It’s in the cargo hold.” The energy traces and blast patterns on the ruined hull metal of Kamarov’s ship would be like a smoking gun.

Anger made Cesca push herself back a bit too quickly for the low gravity of Rendezvous, and her chair hit the wall with a loud bang. “You’re saying that the Eddies intentionally attacked and destroyed an unarmed Roamer vessel?”

“That’s what it looks like. We can do a full analysis, but I’m sure I’m right.”

“This changes everything, Nikko Chan. Ekti is our commodity, to be sold not under duress, but on our own terms, whether the Goose likes it or not.” Cesca drew herself up, assembling her steely resolve. “I need to meet with the clan representatives immediately.”

85DAVLIN LOTZE

His pack loaded with enough supplies for several days, Davlin Lotze stood in front of the flat stone surface of the alien transportal. Hundreds of tiles marked with strange symbols—coordinates for worlds once inhabited by the Klikiss—ringed the device. Most of them were still uninvestigated.

“Mr. Lotze, you are scheduled to return in less than a day,” said the technician at the monitoring station. Known Klikiss transportals, such as this one within the Rheindic Co ruins, were jumping-off points for anyone with the balls and the drive to go planet hunting. Someone like him.

Davlin shouldered his pack. He wore a standard khaki explorer’s jumpsuit of durable fabric that was appropriate for a range of temperatures.

Even when he planned to venture to a completely uninhabited world, he wore no garish colors, no jewelry, nothing to call attention to himself. “My mission parameters grant me a certain discretionary latitude in my schedule.” Considering his lengthy service record—not to mention the fact that he and Rlinda Kett had discovered this transportal network and brought the news back to the Hansa—he did not like to follow anyone else’s rules or schedules.

Though the insectlike race had long ago vanished from the Spiral Arm, the Klikiss had left behind a network of mysterious ruins. Since the alien species breathed the same atmosphere and had similar basic biological requirements to those of humans, the Hansa considered those habitable planets to be potential gold mines for colonization, minor victories they could declare in the turmoil of the hydrogue war.

But first those Klikiss worlds had to be identified, catalogued, and superficially explored. Davlin considered the task appropriate to his abilities.

Without further delay, he stepped through the blank trapezoidal stone and fell across the universe to another Klikiss world.

It was an eerie feeling to be all alone on a whole planet. Davlin smiled as the dry breezes brushed his face. He had arrived in the local morning, so 28

he had a full day to image the termite-mound buildings, the iron-hard organic structures left by the Klikiss. This world had strange trees draped with featherlike fronds, surrounded by plants with long spiky leaves like pin-cushions.

Wandering around the crumbling ruins, Davlin planted sensors and meteorological recorders. He measured the amount of groundwater and estimated the average rainfall. Eventually, if this world was chosen for full-scale Hansa colonization, explorers would bring self-launching satellites to allow faster and more comprehensive mapping of the landforms and weather patterns. For now, Davlin only needed to make the first broad-strokes report.

When darkness fell, he set up his imagers and recorded a full-scan astronomical survey, acquiring spectra of the brightest stars in the local sky.

Once he returned through the portal, Hansa astronomers and navigators would read the positions of primary stars, then backtrack and interpolate the location of this planet in order to match it to the coordinate tiles based on Klikiss symbology.

Davlin could have returned to base then, but he was enjoying the reverberant silence. He had never been enamored with the bustle and excitement of civilization. Even the Hansa station at Rheindic Co, which now served as a central point for eager researchers, seemed too crowded to him, too busy. He longed for peaceful days, remembering the quietly productive years when he’d impersonated a simple colonist on Crenna.

He got out a warm sleep sheet, a thin film to wrap around himself that inflated into a cushioned bed. He spent a peaceful, solitary night there on the empty world. At daybreak, he packed up all his instruments, returned to the trapezoidal stone wall, activated the transportal, and stepped through to Rheindic Co. . . .

Back inside the control room, he was immediately struck by an air of oppressive somberness. His dark brown eyes scanned expressions on faces around him, then noted that another of the numerous coordinate tiles had been marked in black. “Who did we lose?”

The technician looked at him, answering automatically. “Jenna Refo.

Three days overdue.”

Davlin blew out a long sigh, and the breath of air felt cold. That made five so far—five transportal explorers like himself who had chosen random

Klikiss coordinates, hoping to find viable colonization options on resource-filled planets that would mean huge profits for the Hansa.

But sometimes the coordinates were bad. Perhaps the transportal on the other end had been destroyed by an earthquake or other natural disaster . . . or perhaps the planets themselves were violently inhospitable.

“Damn.” The Hansa paid enough to make the risks worthwhile to some, yet each time an explorer stepped through to an unknown place, it was a gamble. Usually Davlin came back from a successful mission to cheers, congratulations, parties, and toasts. This time, though, he simply submitted his report, then went off to shower.

The following day, a salty old explorer named Hud Steinman returned crowing with delight, oblivious to the still-reticent expressions on the faces of the technical crew.

“I expect a bonus for this!” He twirled a victorious finger in the air.

“These coordinates”—he gestured behind him to one of the strangely marked tiles—“take us right back to where it all began, or ended, depending on the real story. I’ve found the transportal tile for Corribus.”

The technicians gasped; a few even applauded. Davlin nodded in appreciation.

Corribus, where Margaret and Louis Colicos had deciphered the plans for the Klikiss Torch, was an empty and scarred world that might have been the last stand of the Klikiss race against the enemy that had obliterated them. For anyone who studied xeno-archaeology, Corribus was the Rosetta Stone, a place etched deep with messages from the past. Also, in a practical sense, such a confirmed datapoint would help the Hansa explorers connect different paths throughout the transportal web—a valuable start to the road map.

Davlin pushed past skinny old Hud Steinman and activated the coordinate tile that would take him to Corribus. Some Hansa technicians looked up; one raised a hand as if to call him back. But Davlin was beyond their control. He had a direct mandate from Chairman Wenceslas himself.

He stepped through into windy silence.

The Klikiss city on Corribus looked precisely as it had appeared in the images submitted by the Colicos team: Towering granite canyon walls formed a sheltered valley with termite-mound structures on the ground, as 30