The Timeweb Chronicles: Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (27 page)

They got underway quickly, engaging with the podways of deep space, connective fibers so fine that they could not be seen by anyone except the podships, and a handful of other races. Parviis were among the select few, but in their case it was only while at the helms of podships. Tesh was not certain who the pilot of this craft was, since assignments changed regularly. She could go into the sectoid chamber and find out—perhaps it was an old friend—but it was risky to do so, since she might be observed while changing her personal magnification system, getting smaller and later getting larger again. Usually, she did not take the chance, and certainly not this time, when she wanted to be near Noah and do whatever she could to keep him alive.

At least he was breathing regularly, and from the expression on his face he did not appear to be in any pain. Such an attractive man, she thought, with his freckles and curly red hair. He was the strong, take-charge type, so certain of his purpose in life and able to inspire others around him.

You certainly inspired me
, she thought. Gently, she touched his temple on the uninjured side of his head, and felt the reassuring pulse of his heartbeat.

She caught a hard gaze from Anton, who sat by a porthole, intermittently looking out into the cargo hold or at her. Since picking up Dr. Bichette, Tesh had noticed Anton acting irritably, as if jealous of her former lover. She felt nothing for Bichette anymore, not for months now. That relationship was over.

Or was Anton jealous of Noah instead? While expressing concern for his injured uncle, Anton might actually resent the attention she was giving him herself. And she really did care about him. Maybe Anton had noticed something. She didn’t care. In her long lifetime, Tesh had known many men, and always knew that she would have to end each relationship one day. Her lifespan was much longer than theirs, after all, and she didn’t want to stay with a person who was going to die. She didn’t think it was cruel on her part. In reality, she was overly sensitive and always tried to keep from getting too close to anyone, since that only made it more difficult. Her feelings for Noah were developing, but different from anything she had experienced before. She felt excitement at this, and fear.

The podship made only two brief stops along the way, at pod stations in remote sectors where there was not much activity. On board the grid-plane, Tesh and Dr. Bichette rounded up pillows, blankets, and anything else they could find to make the patient more comfortable. Once, Noah had moved his hands, as if gesturing with them while he talked, and his lips moved, without making any sounds. Then he became motionless again, except for his regular breathing and pulse.

Through it all, Eshaz said nothing, did nothing. To Tesh, it was very strange. She thought he should be doing something to help.

Only a few minutes after leaving Canopa and journeying far across the galaxy, the sentient spacecraft arrived at a pod station orbiting the planet of Plevin Four, in a belt of dead galactic stars. Subi provided details as he guided the grid-plane out of the cargo hold, then through a docking bay of the pod station, and out into orbital space. He shifted the propulsion system to conventional hydion, since they were away from the grid-system of Canopa.

“This world was stripped of its natural resources long ago by CorpOne mining operations,” he said. “PF—its common name—is technically still owned by the corporation but is valued on their balance sheets at virtually nothing. We Guardians have been ‘squatting’ here for years without detection, using it as a training station and bolt-hole.”

“Doesn’t look like much,” Anton said, studying a report on the ship’s computer. “Hardly any natural beauty, bad weather, irritable natives. I see why you weren’t noticed here.”

“It’s a good training ground,” Subi said.

The craft headed down through a hazy atmosphere, toward the surface of the planet, with its gray-and-yellow hills, rivers, and lakes. “We do terraforming experiments here, practicing our ecological engineering methods for use elsewhere.”

Through the front window of the grid-plane, Tesh saw a deep scar running for perhaps a thousand kilometers on the surface of PF. She asked about it, and when the adjutant did not reply Anton checked the on-board computer terminal.

“CorpOne leased it out to a strip mining operation,” he said. “Doesn’t say here what they took out, but whatever it was, they must have gotten all that was worth getting. Looks dead down there now.”

The grid-plane flew low over the terrain. In six hours they reached the dark side of the planet, and Tesh made out a dark, serpentine river below. They flew over it for a distance, then slowed and hovered in front of a high embankment, illuminated by spotlights from the aircraft. Two big doors yawned open in the river bank, revealing a large, dark chamber beyond. With the aircraft’s spotlights probing ahead, making fingers of illumination, they flew into the chamber. Looking back, Tesh saw the cliff doors close.

As Subi landed and shut down the engines, he said, “Centuries ago, PF was under Mutati control. How the MPA took it away from them, I don’t know. This is a military bunker. originally built by Mutati civil engineers. A short ways downriver, it empties into a swirling, pale yellow sea.”

“Sounds picturesque,” Anton said, his voice caustic. “Can’t wait to see it tomorrow.” He caught a sharp glance of displeasure from Tesh, who then went to check on Noah. She watched Dr. Bichette replace the healing pads on his patient’s injured foot.

“Head’s OK but his foot doesn’t look any better,” Bichette said. “It’s badly mangled and in need of more than these pads.”

Tesh felt tears welling in her eyes. She looked away. Through the portholes and front window, she saw that they had landed below the level of the river. Murky water could be seen through thick glax viewing plates and airlocks.

“Wonder where everyone is,” Subi said. He stood at the open hatch of the grid-plane, gazing out into the cavern. Behind him, a heavy plate slid over the control panel of the aircraft, apparently preventing anyone from stealing it. Tesh noticed him slip something into his pocket.

Deep in thought, the big adjutant bounded down the steps to the rock floor of the chamber, then ducked around the tail of the aircraft to the other side. She saw him open a heavy metal door and stride through, into what looked like a room, or perhaps a corridor. A while later, he returned. By then, Tesh and Anton were outside the grid-plane, looking around themselves. Dr. Bichette and Eshaz were still inside with Noah.

Subi said, “Hundreds of Guardians are supposed to be here, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for months.”

“What do we do now?” Tesh asked. “This doesn’t look like any place to stay, especially with Noah’s condition. You said it had a medical facility.”

“That wasn’t entirely true,” Subi admitted, rubbing the purple birthmark on his cheek. “They used to have a small clinic here, but I was hoping that Master Noah would come back to consciousness, especially after we got the doctor. Noah wanted to come here, so I thought I should do what he wanted.”

She frowned. “But you’ve been to other planets with him, all the ecological reconstruction projects around the galaxy. Surely one of them is better than this place?”

He shook his head. “They’re all well known, so the Doge probably sent forces to them, taking control of the projects. In fact, any of the main merchant princes worlds are a problem now, because of the dragnet that’s out for us.”

“I see.” Tesh felt frustrated, and angry that Noah wasn’t getting the care he needed.

She heard what sounded like an anguished cry, coming from the grid-plane. Worried, she ran up the steps into the passenger cabin.

Dr. Bichette held a bloody white cloth, wrapped around something.

“One of Noah’s feet was so badly shot up that I had to amputate it,” he said, in an emotionless voice.

Horrified, Tesh looked down at the unfortunate Noah, who lay on the deck, face up. His head rested on a pillow, and he had a thin blanket over him. Another bloody white cloth was wrapped around the stump where his foot used to be. He slept, as before, except now his face was a mask of anguish.

“You fool!” Tesh screamed. “Why did you do that?”

“I did what I had to do. It was either that, or infection would have set in and he would have lost his entire leg. Or his life.”

“But the healing pads …”

He shook his head. “They don’t solve everything. I had no choice.”

“Why didn’t you consult with the rest of us? Maybe we could have figured out another place to go, where they have medical facilities. Damn you, Hurk!”

“And you, Eshaz!” she howled, glaring at the motionless Tulyan. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I’m not a doctor, madam.”

Turning back to Bichette, she started beating on his chest. The doctor backed up, looking surprised and shocked.

Anton pulled her off him, and forced her to sit on the deck, where he knelt beside her. “You need to calm down,” he said. “The doctor only did what he thought was best. He couldn’t consult with us. As Eshaz said, we aren’t doctors. The decision was Dr. Bichette’s alone.”

“Let go of me,” she demanded, trying to pull free of his strong grip.

But he held on. “Not until you promise to calm down.”

Stubbornly, she shook her head, and Anton held tight.…

The surgical procedure had been a traumatic event for his uncle, but Anton couldn’t suppress feeling envy, having noticed that Tesh was overly interested in Noah.

It was driving the young man crazy.

Chapter Fifty-Five

A thought has no dimensions, no weight, no color, no texture, no way to look at it, touch it, or hold it in your hands. And yet, it has substance. It is the spark of every galactic race, the flame of their hopes and dreams. It is the spark of the robot race.

—Thinker, Contemplations

It looked like no more than a dull gray metal box, sitting on an observation deck at the Inn of the White Sun. Inside, a sentient robot was in deep contemplation, having folded himself inward to avoid distractions and interruptions.

In the decades since Hibbils had manufactured him on their Cluster Worlds, Thinker had interacted with countless Humans. Some he liked and some he did not, but always he treated them with deference and respect, since Humans had designed him and paid for his manufacture and he was honor-bound to serve their needs. Even now, after they discarded him in a trash heap, and he and others like him had to regenerate themselves, he bore no feelings of malice toward the people who threw him away.

That may, in fact, have been a blessing to him.

By virtue of his own ingenuity and perseverance, Thinker had developed a considerable degree of independence from Humans. Certainly, he did not serve them on a daily basis anymore, and saw far fewer of them than he used to. In addition, he had discovered new abilities that he didn’t know he had, and which he didn’t think had ever been programmed into him.

He had thought up the idea of creating a machine army out of discarded robots, and for more than a year they had been training down on the surface of Ignem. Not so long ago, Jimu led a squad of his soldiers on a mission to save Doge Lorenzo from an assassination attempt, and they were so gloriously successful that the Doge had invited them to join his special force, the prestigious Red Berets.

Sensing something, Thinker unfolded himself into the familiar form of a flat-bodied robot, the way he had looked when Humans first designed him, before he later added the folding feature himself.

Out in space not far from the inn, he saw a burst of green luminescence as a podship arrived, seeming to pop out of another dimension into this one. The gray-and-black vessel, making one of the stops on its route, proceeded to the pod station.

Thinker hurried to the lobby of the inn, to see if there were any guest arrivals. He was not the innkeeper; other robots did that for him. But as one of the machines who founded the inn, he liked to break his intense contemplation routines on occasion to see the colorful galactic races and robots that stopped off here on their various personal, business, and government missions.

Ten minutes later, only one passenger stepped into the lobby of the machine-run lodge in the orbital ring, having taken a shuttle from the pod station. Carrying no luggage, he strode to the registration desk, and spoke to the robot clerk. Curious, Thinker eavesdropped from a short distance away.

“My name is Giovanni Nehr,” the man said. “I’m on my way to Timian One, but first I need a little R and R.”

Searching his data banks, Thinker found entries about this tall, sharp-featured man, and visuals to confirm the identity. This was the younger brother of the famous nehrcom inventor, Jacopo Nehr. He had a healing pad on his left arm, over the bicep.

“Seven nights, please,” the visitor said. Reaching into his pocket, he dumped a handful of lira chips into a hopper. The alloy pieces rattled around, and the machine dropped his change into a tray. Nehr stuffed the smaller denominations into his pocket.

“I see you are hurt,” Thinker said, stepping closer with a clatter.

After looking him over, Nehr said, “It’s nothing. Just a nick.”

“Would you like us to look at it?”

“No, thank you.” The smile was stiff, making Thinker suspicious, as if he might be hiding something.

“That looks like a Mutati healing pad,” the robot observed. “It has a distinctive fold and color.”

“Oh? I wasn’t aware of that. A passenger on the podship handed it to me.”

“A
Mutati
passenger?”

The man reddened. “If so, I wasn’t aware of it. He looked Human to me. He seemed kind enough, and wouldn’t have cared about me if he really was a Mutati. Would he?”

“You wouldn’t think so. Unless he was trying to get information out of you. Did he ask a lot of questions?”

“Like you, you mean?” Nehr smiled stiffly.

“Yes.”

“Well, come to think of it, he was rather curious.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Mmmm, not much. The cross-space journey was brief, only a few minutes.”

“Forgive my questions, but we are very security conscious here, and our data banks require information.”

“I am quite tired,” Nehr said, “so if you will forgive me, I’d like to go to my room now.”

But Thinker took a step closer, and his voice intensified, since he always worried about what Mutatis were up to, and the harm they constantly inflicted on Humans. “Did you see any Mutatis that were recognizable?”

“By name, you mean? I’m not personally acquainted with their kind.”

“By
race
, Mr. Nehr. Did you see any shapeshifters in their natural, fleshy form, perhaps in the neutral confines of the podship?”

“Yes. They travel, as all of the races do.”

“I’m sensing something more. Forgive me, Mr. Nehr, but I am very perceptive. I have developed my mind and senses to very high levels. Sometimes I wonder if I have what you Humans refer to as a sixth sense. Am I mistaken about you?”

Chewing at the inside of his mouth, Nehr said, “Not exactly.” He paused, and leaned back against the registration desk. “I went to a planet called Nui-Lin for a vacation, and found out it was a Mutati front. They took me prisoner and put me on a prison moon. I barely escaped with my life.” He touched his injured arm.

Thinker detected a mélange of truth and fiction, but didn’t press any more, and bade the man good day. As Nehr followed a bellhop robot to his room, Thinker sorted through what he had just heard, and combined it with what he had been learning from other travelers. The Mutatis were more active along the space corridors than they had been in many years. Historically, this meant they were up to something big, perhaps a surprise military attack. They were a race of devious tricksters, able to assume many guises and sneak behind enemy lines to learn information.

Quickly, Thinker dictated a letter into his internal word processor and transferred it to a disk cylinder, for delivery to the Doge Lorenzo del Velli. With no nehrcom transmitter available at the Inn of the White Sun, the missive would go out on the next podship, carried to the merchant prince capital by Agar, a repaired messenger robot.

Unfortunately, due to a programming glitch, Agar would become lost in deep space and never make it to his destination. No one ever would ever hear from him again.