Saga of Shadows 1: The Dark Between the Stars (86 page)

Sitting next to Reyn, Osira’h said, “The faeros came because I called them, but they suffered losses, too. I tried to thank them, but it’s difficult to know if they understood. There’s no guarantee that they’ll respond again if I call them. They are unpredictable. We need to be prepared to fight the Shana Rei even without the faeros.”

“I still find it difficult to trust the faeros,” said Queen Estarra, “after what they did to the worldforest.”

“Therefore, more sun bombs.” General Keah took the klee Rlinda handed her and slammed it down as if it were a shot of whiskey.

Three green priests sat in the room, each with a potted treeling. All at once, they sat upright, turning to one another and then back to the King and Queen. “The verdani battleships are reacting. Something is coming.”

Keah leaped to her feet as did the Manta pilots. Touching the comm on her shoulder, she said, “Keah to
Kutuzov
—battle stations! Full sensor sweep.” She activated the screens inside the chamber.

Rlinda paused to stare, then moved out of the way so others could see the screens. The
Kutuzov
and the armed Mantas remained on high alert, poised in a widespread defensive formation. The huge verdani battleships spread apart, their thorny boughs now green and powerful again, recovered from the battle against the nightshade.

Sensor Chief Saliba transmitted from the
Kutuzov
, “General, our deep scans detect a flurry of incoming ships—small unidentified vessels.”

Keah said, “Is it the Solar Navy?”

“Definitely not, sir. They’re too small—and there’s an accurate count, not a multiple of seven. Ildiran ships always travel in multiples of seven.”

“At least you’re learning, Lieutenant Saliba,” she said. “How many then?”

“Ninety-nine.”

The small vessels streaked in like shotgun pellets. The CDF ships raised their shields, stood in defensive formations. The weapons officer called, “Should we open fire, General?”

Glancing at the General, Queen Estarra shook her head, keeping her eyes on the curious expressions of the green priests. “Let’s wait and see.”

Peter added, “We can’t just shoot at anything that approaches Theroc.”

“Agreed,” Keah said, though she didn’t sound happy about it. “Hold your fire, Mr. Patton. But keep your fingers on the firing controls, just in case.”

The verdani battleships spread out, leaving obvious gaps for the incoming ships to pass through. One of the green priests said, “The treeship pilots . . . know them.”

“Who are they?” Peter asked.

The
Kutuzov
’s comm officer said, “The unidentified ships don’t respond to any transmissions.”

As the flurry of small vessels streaked past the picket line of CDF Mantas, the long-range imagers resolved details: the strange ships were small, featureless ovoids like armored seedpods. They bore no markings, no external lights—and, thankfully, no weapons ports.

The ninety-nine ships cruised past, wove their way among the restless verdani battleships, then dropped through the cloudy Theron atmosphere to the heart of the worldforest.

The green priests looked up from their treelings and rose to their feet. “The Gardeners have returned. We should welcome them.”

Everyone in the chamber left the fungus-reef to head outside and watch. Wisskoff started to gather up the klee service, but Rlinda was already moving out. The maître d’ said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting to offer a free banquet to all our new visitors, as well?”

“Let’s see if they’re hungry first,” she said. “And what they eat.”

Outside, the podships poured down through the sky like shooting stars. Each craft was no larger than a cargo shuttle. Finding gaps in the worldforest canopy, they landed in the expansive meadow like armored raindrops.

The teardrop-shaped podships settled down on their wide, rounded ends, with the narrower portions tilted upward. Seams appeared in their polished hulls, which split into triangular sections, unfolding like the petals of a large artificial flower.

Each podship held several creatures crowded together: small-statured and smooth-skinned, with rounded heads and heavy brows. They belonged to no race Rlinda had ever seen before, though they looked vaguely familiar.

King Peter and Queen Estarra stood together as the strange aliens emerged, beings that the green priests called Gardeners. Hundreds of them stepped out of the opening podships, filling the meadows in the forest, standing in the clearings between trees. They were eerily silent and looked gentle, contemplative.

Now the worldtrees trembled, and the green priests tapped into the verdani mind but found confusion rather than information. It was as if the worldforest were reaching for memories only to find them missing.

One of the silent creatures walked over to the nearest tree, ignoring the crowd of observers. The Gardener touched the gold-scaled bark, closed its eyes, and let out a long sigh, as if finally reconnecting with an energy source. The other aliens scurried forward to touch the trees as well, gathering information from the worldforest mind—and adding information as well.

Once the aliens made contact, the gathered green priests looked startled, their eyes open wide. Finally, the strange creatures turned, now identifying Estarra and Peter as the leaders. After drawing the information they needed from the verdani mind, they spoke in perfectly comprehensible trade standard.

“We are the last survivors of the Onthos. We are also called the Gardeners—though we have not been able to tend the blessed trees for thousands of years.”

As more and more of the Onthos tapped into the worldforest network, they acquired knowledge, language, and the details of history over a vast gulf of time. They seemed overwhelmed by their new situation . . . but more than anything, relieved.

“We were the first tenders of the worldtrees, the original worldforest that thrived on our world,” said the Onthos who had initially spoken. “That forest was entirely destroyed by the Shana Rei. In doing so, they carved out and extinguished all of those memories from the verdani mind. No one remembers . . . but us.”

The green priests in the meadow buzzed with excitement.

Amazed, Arita looked at her mother. “Where could they have been for so long?”

The Gardener heard her question. “Darkness engulfed our world, killing all of the worldtrees. We did manage to scatter some treelings before it was too late . . . and those remnants have grown into the current worldforest.” The little aliens spread their hands in a strange unison. “It has been centuries . . . millennia since we had treelings of our own. We have nothing. We are the last refugees from the Shana Rei.”

In a choreographed pattern, the Onthos bowed, and turned to face the King and Queen. “We ask to live here with the forest in peace, to become Gardeners once again. We beg sanctuary from the creatures of darkness.”

G
LOSSARY

ACADEM:
Roamer school inside a hollowed-out comet, near the Roamer complex of Newstation. The school is run by Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni.

ADAM, PRINCE:
failed candidate to replace old King Frederick of the Hansa.

ADAR:
highest military rank in Ildiran Solar Navy.

AELIN:
green priest, brother of Shelud.

AGUERRA, RAYMOND:
original name of King Peter.

AHLAR:
Ildiran splinter colony, site of an ancient Shana Rei attack.

ALAKIS, ADAM:
researcher on Vaconda, father of Zoe Alakis, died of Heidegger’s Syndrome.

ALAKIS, EVELYN:
researcher on Vaconda, mother of Zoe Alakis, killed in a flyer crash when Zoe was young.

ALAKIS, ZOE:
wealthy head of the Pergamus medical research facility.

ALEXA, MOTHER:
wife of Idriss, former ruler of Theroc.

ARAGAO, OCTAVIO:
communications officer aboard the
Kutuzov.

ARBOR:
Rlinda Kett’s restaurant on Theroc.

ARITA, PRINCESS:
daughter of King Peter and Queen Estarra, a budding naturalist.

ATTENDER:
servile Ildiran kith.

AURIDIA:
sparsely inhabited planet over which Newstation and Academ orbit. Auridia contains a Klikiss transportal for access into the transportal network.

AZZAR:
Klikiss robot.

BALI’NH, ADAR:
historical Ildiran commander, first Ildiran to contact human generation ships.

BEBOB:
Rlinda Kett’s pet name for Branson Roberts, her favorite ex-husband.

BEKH
:
Ildiran curse.

BENETO:
green priest brother of Estarra, killed by the hydrogues.

BIG GOOSE:
deprecating name for the former Terran Hanseatic League.

BIG RING:
Kotto Okiah’s large experimental accelerator under construction at Fireheart Station.

BJORN:
spaceship engineer in clan Reeves.

BLACK ROBOTS:
intelligent and evil beetlelike robots built by the Klikiss race; most of them were wiped out in the Elemental War.

BLIND FAITH
:
ship flown by Captain Branson Roberts.

BLOATERS:
strange organic nodules found in deep, empty space.

BLONDIE:
diner owner in the human enclave in Mijistra.

BO:
Teacher compy from Academ, tasked to teach Roamer children from clan Reeves.

BOLAM, DENNIS:
administrator of the Eljiid research camp.

BOONE’S CROSSING:
former Hansa colony, wiped out by a hydrogue attack in the Elemental War.

BREEDEX:
central mind of the Klikiss.

BRIA’NH, TAL:
historical Ildiran commander, one of the first to combat the Shana Rei.

BRINDLE, ROBB:
administrator of Kett Shipping, married to Tasia Tamblyn, father of Xander.

BRINDLE, XANDER:
one of the pilots of Kett Shipping vessel
Verne
, son of Robb Brindle and Tasia Tamblyn.

BUGBOT:
deprecating slang term for a Klikiss robot.

BUZZBEETLE:
Theron insect.

CAILLIÉ
:
generation ship from Earth whose passengers colonized Theroc.

CAIN, DEPUTY ELDRED:
former deputy of the Terran Hanseatic League, now an administrator of Earth loyal to the Confederation.

CARII:
Ildiran splinter colony, site of an ancient Shana Rei attack during an eclipse.

CARLIN, REESE:
Retroamer.

CELLI:
green priest, married to Solimar, who tends a terrarium dome in Fireheart Station. Celli is the sister of Estarra and Sarein.

CHAIRMAN:
true leader of the Terran Hanseatic League.

CHIAR’H:
Ildiran woman of the noble kith, volunteer worker on the Kuivahr sanctuary domes, married to human Shawn Fennis.

CHRYSALIS CHAIR:
reclining throne of the Mage-Imperator.

COLICOS, ANTON:
historian, known for his work with Ildiran records, first to translate portions of the Saga of Seven Suns; the son of famed xeno-archaeologists Margaret and Louis Colicos.

COLICOS, LOUIS:
xeno-archaeologist, husband of Margaret Colicos, specializing in ancient Klikiss artifacts, killed by Klikiss robots at Rheindic Co.

COLICOS, MARGARET:
xeno-archaeologist, wife of Louis Colicos, spent much of Elemental War as prisoner of the Klikiss. She and her son Anton collated the only known Klikiss history,
The Song of the Breedex.