The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4) (26 page)

The spin brought them to a position where he could see their clothes, flung out of the reach the of the gravity generators, strewn upon the floor. He pursed his lips.

“I guess it’s time,” he said. “Planetfall will be any minute now.”

She grunted in agreement, but showed no sign of moving from where they were.

He grinned, stroked her back affectionately, and then the room canted violently.

The gyroscopes in the arms supporting the gravity generators responded, but not quickly enough. The equilibrium was upset, and every generator flew in a different direction. Two collided, sending a shower of sparks that bent three different ways before burning out. Jav and Hilene were cast against the wall and pressed there by artificial gravity that was no product of any of the generators or of the Vine’s main system. Something had struck the Vine and knocked it off true.

Jav scanned the space beyond the transparent walls but could see nothing but cloud vapor racing by. He fought the forces acting against them and instinctively took hold of Hilene. “Hold on!” he cried.

Everything blurred for an eternal instant. Jav’s teeth rattled, his eyeballs shook in their sockets. He and Hilene rose up, along with their clothes, the severed, non-functioning gravity generators, the debris of the ruptured support arms. Then everything came crashing back down upon the wall, sliding down the sharp angle it maintained. The internal gravity was working again, but the Vine remained off true and had made planetfall in that state. Hilene had already become insubstantial and was making her way out of the chamber.

Jav pawed through the fallen wreckage filling the pit of the floor, raised a silvery garment, and called out to Hilene. “It may be impractical, time will tell, but clothes?”

She nodded and started back towards him and was nearly swallowed by the floor as another concussive jolt shook the Palace in its entirety. Jav managed to steady himself against a sizable chunk of fallen machinery.

“Warning,” came a female voice over the Palace-wide public address system. “Root Palace under attack by unidentified threat of vast potential. Gran bays, currently inaccessible. All Shades scramble for immediate intercept. Repeat. All Shades scramble for immediate intercept. Grans will be dispatched as soon as possible.”

Foregoing his own clothes, Jav flung Hilene’s to her, went Dark, and clambered for the exit.

“There’s a tether launch bay close by. I’ll meet you outside,” he said.

Jav sprang from the open doors of the tether launch bay, using AI to hurl himself high into the air where he remained, turning slowly to take in his surroundings. The planet appeared to be primitive, with no settlements within view. The sun was high in the sky and fierce winds blew in competing currents. In the immediate vicinity, there was nothing but trees. An impressive range of mountains rose up perhaps a hundred kilometers from where the Vine had—what? crashed? Roughly the same distance away, looking past the crooked Palace, he could see beautiful white coastline with a rhythmic green tide lapping at it. Nowhere did he see any sign of civilization or of anything that might have been responsible for the attack on the Palace. Or did he?

There
was
something. It was an area denuded of trees in the thick of the jungle forest. He used AI to augment his vision and stared open-mouthed behind his skull helmet at what he saw. At first, he thought to himself, “Again?” but then he uttered words which he hadn’t realized he knew—at least not in the context which tickled maddeningly at his broken memory.

“Dyna. . . sore. . .”

Jav felt his ribs compress, and vomit very nearly squeezed out of him. Along with the sudden, impossibly strong, even force pressing three hundred and sixty degrees around his torso, he became acutely aware of being at the center of the dyna sore’s focus. He felt his head lurch backwards and the scenery flashed by for almost a full second before he realized that he was being reeled in towards what must have been responsible for the assault on the Vine. He was far less capable than the Vine of taking punishment on the scale he’d witnessed, so he wasted no time in exercising his mastery of Approaching Infinity. Jav had learned over time that even extremely powerful telekinesis relied heavily, if not exclusively, upon perspective, so it was not difficult to use AI to create a wedge of “additional” space and slip the monster’s mental grasp.

Sensitive to it now, Jav felt the TK reaching out for him again, this time to envelop him wholly. He calculated furiously, to avoid capture, darting this way and that. He’d never experienced TK on this order before, wondered fleetingly if the Empire had, but most of his mental faculties were occupied with remaining outside the invisible grasp. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Porta Fighter sail by him towards the dyna sore.

“Nils, be careful,” Jav said through his Artifact. “Whatever it is, it’s a powerful telekinetic. Powerful enough to upset our planetfall.”

“Understood, General Holson.”

It was only then that Jav nearly swallowed his heart in shock. “Hilene!” he cried through his Artifact.

Silence.

“
Hilene
!”

Jav tried to put her out of his mind for the time being. With Nils already moving to attack, it might be to their advantage to try to overwhelm their assailant. Jav adjusted his tactics, shot forward to trail behind Nils while still fending off the incessant grabbing TK.

“Nils, the first sign of pressure, break up.”

As if on cue, the Porta Fighter bobbed in the air as if encountering severe turbulence, but Jav’s advice had come just in time, and the Fighter burst apart to allow the Cloud of Gnats to flow liquidly through the air on the same trajectory.

Raohan La was equally astonished and unimpressed by what had come to Stolom. A giant plant housing some unnatural power which was used to augment tiny humans? This was the end of the Universe? The girl had been immune to his telekinesis, which was a first for him. He’d teleported her to the other side of the planet, to the bottom of Stolom’s deepest ocean. Now this skeleton man was also challenging his power, though in an altogether different way.

What was it about humans, anyway? How could things so frail be so adaptable? Surely reptiles were more durable, more capable. He fought against his prejudice and knew that he wouldn’t be living in Stolom’s ancient past if humans weren’t in fact the most successful organism in existence. The capacity for genius, tenacity, self-sacrifice: all the things that Raohan La most respected and which he tried with all his being to exemplify were human traits before they were reptile. Perhaps the reptile would have its day, but there was work to do first.

Another one, even more unusual than the first two, approached now, all spinning blades and deadly force, but there was no doubt that, in spite of the armor and twisted shape, this one, too, was human. Raohan La had not as yet found his limit with telekinesis. He could worry the skeleton man and still ensnare the barbed one. But as he reached out with his power to do so, Raohan La saw the metallic shape burst apart and pour through the air like mercury—no, it was particulate and elusive.

Raohan La had suffered few bouts of surprise in his life despite all that he and his people had been through. He was surprised now. The particulate matter was still racing towards him, had come too close, and was even now reassembling. His head shot back with the sharp pain of impact, sending up a great wash of red blood into the sky. The barbed thing had entered into his right orbit, ground the contents to thin, watery paste, and hollowed it out. Raohan La bent his neck and raised his short, thick right arm to press against the gaping wound. He pulled his paw away and seemed to draw out a half visible sphere like a giant shimmering soap bubble from the socket. Within the bubble was the barbed man-thing, contained and immobile. Raohan La regarded the thing inside, narrowing his remaining eye, seething and staring death.

For the first time in his life, Raohan La embraced his anger and as yet unexpressed, unconscious hate for the human species. Keeping his lone eye upon the bubble, Raohan La drew his head back somewhat, cocking at a slight angle, then drove it forward with an open-mouthed roar. There was a flash and an impossibly loud boom which seemed to hang in the air for minutes after it had occurred, but the bubble and its contents were gone.

Jav halted in the air abruptly at the sound of the boom. The TK, for the moment, had been withdrawn, but his entire left side flared with sudden and extreme heat. Something had nearly struck him, something moving at an incomprehensible velocity. He stared dumbly for a moment at the giant reptile before crying aloud, “
Nils
!”

Light flashed from behind, reaching over and around Jav. He turned to look back, realizing what the light was even before he saw the Palace Lightning Gun batteries laying more lighting lashes upon the blue sky. He returned his attention to the dyna sore and saw that the guns were proving their worth. One had scored a hit, leaving an impressive scorch mark upon the monster’s breast, but subsequent shots were turned away by its telekinesis or some other means. It took three lumbering steps backwards with one paw raised defensively, lightning strikes making ninety degree turns to seek the surrounding trees, then it simply disappeared.

Jav had not moved. The batteries had ceased, but several fires had resulted from their fusillade. Black smoke rose in ominous billows from all around the clearing the dyna sore had occupied as the trees roared with flames. Something still within the clearing caught Jav’s eye.

“Scanlan, tell me you’re still with us,” Jav said through his Artifact.

“I am,” came the reply, “but I don’t understand whatever it is you may be suggesting.”

“Nils and Hilene are gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“I mean
gone
. And so’s the dyna sore. At least for now.”

“What’s a dyna sore?”

“I don’t know. Whatever attacked us. I’m sure the Lightning Gun techs have images. There’s some machinery leftover, though, that’s about to be consumed by fire. Do you think it’s worth recovering, that it might provide a clue as to why this planet appears to be populated with a single giant reptile instead of the human civilization we were expecting?”

“Yes, by all means, collect what you can. The Gran Bay doors are nearly serviceable, but it might be faster if I came in a jump ship.”

“Right. Have them send the Grans out when they’re able.

“Vays,” Jav continued through his Artifact, “you and Raus ride with Scanlan.

“Icsain, Gran Bay doors or no, you and your troops should be mobile. Create a line around the Palace. Send runners every twenty degrees to scout as far as you can reach.

“Brin, get to the main Lightning Gun battery. You’ll be able to see everything in every direction for kilometers there. Wire into the external PA and be prepared to shout. Also, keep the techs alert for any movement that isn’t ours.”

With everyone’s assent, Jav started forward again, cautiously at first, then with an AI boost that brought him instantly to the clearing. The fire was thick all around, but he descended into its midst. Most of the ground here had been trampled flat with little fuel left to lure the flames into the circle. He could see now that there were shattered and smoldering machines at the perimeter, but felt that they’d been brought to that state before the use of the Lightning Guns. What had initially drawn his attention still stood unscathed within the clearing, though. It was a ring of what looked like heavy bronze, two meters in diameter, standing on edge. Jav approached it, his AI sense, alert and acute, extending. Flames were encroaching from several sides now. They weren’t dangerous, but would become so if left unchecked. He took a moment to stamp them out before proceeding once again to the ring.

When he put his hand to it, Jav felt the hum of unimaginable power coursing just beyond the metal surface. He guessed, and not wrongly, that the entire planet was powering the ring. But what was it for? He tried to move it and found that it wouldn’t budge, not with all his prodigious strength, both natural and unnatural. He could probably unloose it with the application of AI, but somehow didn’t think that that would be a good idea.

He patiently waited the few minutes it took for the sleek, triangular jump ship to arrive. Vays stepped down from the hatch first. He was followed by Scanlan, then by Raus, both making the ship bob.

“I don’t think we’re going to be taking anything back to the Palace,” Jav said.

“What do you mean?” Scanlan said.

“See for yourself.”

“Jav, what happened to the rest of my team?” Vays said.

Jav shook his head. “I don’t know. Hilene was gone when I came out. I think Nils was hit with the same force that struck the Palace just prior to planetfall.”

Vays cocked his head. Raus made a sour face, pursed his lips, and hissed air out through them.

Scanlan, however, had approached the ring and was doing what Jav had suggested. He was examining it with the all the scrutiny the Creation Cogs could afford him. After a moment he mimicked Raus’s expression of pained awe.

“This is extraordinary,” Scanlan said. He shot a look up the length of the Vine, to where it bent sharply, and noted with a start, that beyond that point, there was no more Vine.

“If I may direct your attention upwards, gentlemen?” Scanlan said.

Everyone looked and gawked.

“How can that be possible?” Raus said.

“It’s all a matter of time, Mr. Kapler.”

“What?”

“Time,” Scanlan said simply. “More detail will require quite a bit more investigation, I’m afraid.”

“Was I right, Scanlan?” Jav said.

“Indeed you were, General Holson. It wouldn’t do to move this, not unless we want to dig up a good third of the planet in the process.”

“Not today,” Jav said. “Will you need anything from the Palace?”

Scanlan shook his head. “Gran Mal should be sufficient.”

Raohan La cursed himself for his pride and stupidity. A dark sliver of depression had worked its way into his heart as well. Humans. Would they prove to be his bane even after all his grand achievements? Wrapped in a light-bending shell borne of his own mind, he studied the clearing, trying to determine the full threat these humans presented. He didn’t like that he’d had to leave the temporal window unattended, but they’d surprised him, hurt him. He’d burned out the hollow of his eye to stop the bleeding and prevent infection, but the organ was lost. His senses were many and varied, but his sight would never again be the same, not even with the aid his mate could provide.