The Timeweb Chronicles: Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (34 page)

Chapter Seventy

The proper course of honor is not always clear. Is it more honorable to follow a family tradition, or to follow what is in your heart?

—Emir Hari’Adab

A tall metalloy platform stood at the center of the construction site, with a bubble cab atop the platform and eight crane booms extending from the core, like the legs of an immense spider. Eight robots inside the high cab operated the system, and with them stood a young Mutati in a purple-and-gold robe, watching the progress.

Hari’Adab Meshdi—son of the Zultan—could just as easily have supervised from the ground, but this high perch gave him a better vantage point. Besides, he felt dismal about the project, and wouldn’t mind too much if the whole rig toppled over and took him with it.

A gust of wind buffeted the cab, but the Emir didn’t bother to hold on. Dejectedly, he bumped against a window and leaned there for a moment before straightening himself.

The explosives belt under his robe felt uncomfortable against the soft flesh of his Mutati belly, and reaching under his clothing he loosened it a little.

One of the robots, a ball of rivets with red eyes, turned toward him without comprehension, then looked away and resumed its work. The cranes moved in synchronization, sliding mezzanine floor pieces into slots in vertical posts, and then snapping on the interior walls.

In only a few violent seconds, Hari could halt the rapid, efficient progress by blowing everything up himself. But disaster engineers combing through the wreckage afterward would figure out what he did, and it would smear his name. Already the name was tenuous, because of the successful enemy strike on the Demolio facility, a defensive failure that had been his personal responsibility.

One of his three hands rested on the detonation trigger. It wouldn’t take much, just a moment of courage. At least that would slow reconstruction of the immoral facility.

Just beyond a grassy rise, the debris of the former manufacturing site still remained, exactly as it had been left a few weeks ago, with destroyed torpedoes inside and the bodies of four hundred Mutatis who died in the sneak attack. Hari could have died with them. Earlier that day he had been inspecting the facility, and had left Dij by shuttle only moments before the unexpected offensive.

To a large extent the Mutatis had assumed that the previous facility would be protected by secrecy and its remote location—and they were still investigating how the young Human commandos got through. The episode had caused the Mutatis to close down their “fly trap” system of capturing and imprisoning small numbers of Humans, in order to get intelligence information out of them. Now an entire division of Mutati soldiers guarded the new Demolio manufacturing and training facility, armed with the latest detection technology. This facility could not be destroyed by outside attack again, not even if the enemy sent a huge force against it.

Following the surprise attack, his father had proclaimed the site sacred ground, and decreed that it was not to be disturbed. Just beyond the ruins of the largest building, facing the holy direction of sunrise, a monument had been erected to honor the fallen workers, brave martyrs who died in that brief but effective attack.

“Our enemy is without honor,” the Zultan had announced at the dedication ceremony the week before. “They will regret this dirty business.”

A crowd of well-dressed Mutatis, all in their natural flesh-fat forms, had cheered and called for the blood of every Human in the galaxy, annihilating them to the last man, woman, and child. Sitting on the stage as his father spoke, Hari’Adab had been deeply troubled by the aggressive statements, but had tried to conceal his feelings. Certainly all human beings could not possibly be evil. He’d heard of their magnificent historical religious leaders, such as Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Mohandas Gandhi, and Mother Theresa, any one of whom matched the stature of the greatest Mutati prophets.

And by all accounts, one of the most altruistic of modern Humans was Noah Watanabe. Not openly religious, he nonetheless professed a deep reverence for the sacred, interconnected nature of planets, and for the need to restore them after the damage caused by industrial operations. Such Humans did not deserve to die. The galaxy would not be a better place without them, or without future leaders like that.

Hari’Adab could not condone genocide.

Sadly, his own father and other Mutati leaders were so filled with blind hatred toward their enemies that they had lost touch with decency, with altruism. Instead, they continually looked for passages from
The Holy Writ
to support their positions, citing scripture that called for the complete destruction of all enemies of the Mutati people. But
The Holy Writ
had plenty of other passages that called for compassion and justice as well, and for reasoned diplomacy instead of warfare. The Mutati leadership, however, was only citing passages to support their militaristic positions, while ignoring other, even more significant scriptures.

In their fanatic zeal, they had become tunnel minded.

The Mutati Kingdom’s Demolio program was the exact antithesis of everything that Noah Watanabe stood for. If Watanabe learned about this deadly technology, the whole idea of cracking planets open would chill him to his soul, and Hari felt the same way. Such a program had no basis in morality. And yet, Hari found himself managing the industrial facility that built the torpedoes, and the training program for Mutati outriders.

As the Zultan’s eldest son, the Emir would assume the throne from his father someday, but that would be too late. Already, psychotic Mutati military commanders had destroyed three enemy planets, and many more were planned. It was terrible, just terrible. He didn’t care if the technology could be the turning point in the centuries-long long war, swinging the tide decisively in favor of his people.

Winning that way was not victory.

One of the Emir’s closest friends had even suggested that they arrange to have the Zultan killed, for the sake of the Mutati Kingdom, and to prevent continued bloodshed. No one could even remember why Mutatis and Humans were mortal enemies. A regime change seemed like the only way to break the continuing cycles of retribution and violence.

At first Hari had refused to consider patricide, one of the very worst sins that a Mutati could commit. In a huff, he had sent his friend away, and had not spoken to him since.

But maybe the idea had merit. It might just might end this folly once and for all. What if he brought the Zultan up here, along with some of the top generals, and blew them up with the Demolio facility? Hari would need to set up a political coup team to take over during the power vacuum, and he would not be around to run the government himself.

He’d always disliked his father anyway, couldn’t ever recall feeling close to him. The explosion would solve a lot of problems at once.

Hari loathed the Demolio program his father was sponsoring, could not comprehend the suffering and death one of the planet-buster torpedoes inflicted on human beings when it hit a planet. That was a fate he wouldn’t wish on even his most-despised enemies. He hadn’t even been aware of the diabolical extent of the program when his father commanded him to supervise it. The Zultan had only told him that it was an important military operation, and a secret that he didn’t want to entrust to anyone but his own son and heir apparent. The trust had been surprising considering their lack of closeness, but somewhat flattering, of only for a short while until he discovered what horrors the Demolio program entailed.

Still, the Emir had accepted the wishes of his father. In Mutati society, the young—even if they held an opposing opinion—were expected to show respect for their elders. Now Hari was in too deep to slide gracefully out of this Demolio assignment. His father would brand him a coward, and a traitor to the cause. The repercussions were severe if he didn’t do what he was told, if he didn’t carry on the militaristic family tradition of following orders and never questioning them.

But the repercussions were even more severe if he looked away, if he didn’t follow his conscience.

Thus far he had, at least, refused to wear the Adurian minigyro that his father gave to him. A proud young man, Hari did not need a mechanical device to help him make decisions. He’d never trusted the bubble-eyed aliens anyway, and certainly didn’t want their technology interfering with his thought processes.

If only it was possible to reach a peace accord with the Humans. The fighting didn’t make sense to Hari, just killing an enemy because it had been that way for a long time. There had to be a better way.

Chapter Seventy-One

There are many ways of getting from one place to another. When it comes to space travel, however, the options are strictly limited to podships—if you want to get there efficiently, not wasting time or money.

—From a merchant prince transportation analysis

Despite the tragic loss of his foot, Noah insisted on leaving the grid-plane. He had just shaved and cleaned up. “It’s cramped in here,” he said, hobbling around with a pair of crutches that Subi made by fusing together pieces of scrap alloy. “I need fresh air.”

“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” Tesh said, looking at him earnestly. “It’s very important.”

Noah nodded, though something about her still bothered him. For an unknown reason, he wasn’t sure if he could trust her. He would rather be alone to sort through his thoughts, and the shocking medical procedure that had been performed on him. But he had trouble saying no to her. Even trying to look past her beauty, he found her an intriguing, persuasive woman.

Leaning on the crutches, Noah led the way into the cargo hold of the former podship, then hobbled through an airlock to one of the sealed walkways of the pod station, where the air was breathable.

For several moments, he paused to stare through a filmy window at the podship in its berth, trying to comprehend some of the mysteries of the sentient creatures.

Intruding on his thoughts, Tesh said, “Your bunker on Plevin Four was actually a podship that crashed centuries ago, and then was modified. After the podship regenerated and shifted its skin back into position, the window walls fell away, and so did interior rooms that your Guardians added. The vessel now has a typical passenger compartment and a cargo hold, containing your grid-plane.”

“This podship lay dormant for centuries?”

“Yes.”

“And how do you know that?” Noah looked intensely at her, deep into her emerald green eyes.

Without answering, she began to walk beside the podship.

Keeping up with her, Noah almost fell, and she reached out to help him. Pushing her hand away, he supported himself on his own. The stump of his lower leg throbbed with pain.

“You said you were in a navigation chamber,” Tesh said, as they made their way along the walkway, past empty berths in the docking bay. “What did you mean by that?”

“Are you in the habit of responding to a question with a question?”

“I need you to bear with me, Noah. I know it’s difficult, but please trust me.”

“I trust you.”

“I don’t think you do, not entirely.”

He hesitated, then said, “The navigation chamber may have only been in my dream, but it seemed fantastically real. I felt as if I was at the controls of the podship, speeding through deep space. Without touching anything, I was using my brain signals to direct the vessel. It responded for awhile, then wouldn’t anymore. It was like …”

“Like what?”

The two of them were standing outside the waiting room of the pod station. Noah considered how to answer her, but his thoughts drifted away, like balloons floating up on a sudden breeze, just beyond a child’s grasp. He stared at the wall next to them, then looked along the walkway.

Like podships themselves, pod stations were mottled gray and black, with not-quite clear, filmy sections for windows. He’d heard that pod stations were also living creatures, just as the podships were, but they didn’t travel the podways of deep space like the ships. That left open the question as to how the pod stations—which were much larger than the sentient spacecraft—ever got sprinkled around the galaxy in the first place.

Perhaps the stations had once been spacefaring vessels themselves, and went into retirement. Or maybe they were amalgams of retired podships, having fused themselves together into different shapes. In any event, all of the ships and stations had an obvious symbiotic relationship, like different parts of one immense galactic organism. Noah had more questions than answers.

With a start, he realized that Tesh had been saying something to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Guess I’m not totally out of my coma. As I said, when I was asleep all that time, I had strange, vivid dreams.”

“You thought you were in some kind of a navigation chamber?”

“That’s right.”

“You said the podship responded for awhile, and then wouldn’t do so any longer. You were about to say something more.”

“Well, it seemed like someone else was in the chamber too, fighting me for control of the podship.”

“You
did
have a strange dream,” Tesh said.

“Now tell me how that thing changed from a bunker to a podship,” Noah said, nodding his head toward the vessel.

“Perhaps that’s best answered inside,” she said, leading the way back to the ship.

Intrigued, Noah hobbled along beside her, thumping the crutches on the walkway.

Just as they stepped from the airlock into the cargo hold, Anton greeted them. He looked nervous and upset.

“We need to talk,” the young man said to Tesh.

“This is a not a good time,” she said. “Maybe later?” Tesh looked at him inquisitively, as if concerned about his welfare. This was one of the things that Noah thought he liked about her, the way she seemed so caring, so nurturing. Assuming it was not all an act. He didn’t think it was, but couldn’t quite overcome his feelings of doubt.

“We used to be close,” Anton said, trying to move in front of her. “What went wrong?”

“I’ll talk to you later,” she promised. “I told you, this isn’t a good time.”

As she attempted to walk on, Anton grabbed her arm. She shook him loose, raised her voice. “Well, what is it?” she demanded. “What’s so important?”

“It’s about us, about our relationship.”

“And you’ve chosen to interrupt me when I’m busy? Why is it so urgent?”

“It’s urgent to
me
,” he said, “but I can see it isn’t to you.”

“That’s not true at all!”

“Then why are you and my uncle acting so cozy?”

“The green of jealousy is not a good color on you, Anton.…”

Noah leaned against a bulkhead of the cargo hold. With his arm he felt the leathery flesh of the podship, and he pressed his face against the creature. In the background of his consciousness, the animated voices of Tesh and Anton continued, but faded and blurred. They were occupied with their mounting argument, and weren’t looking at the man with the cane.

They did not notice that Noah’s eyes were closed, and that his eyelids were fluttering, as if in a REM dream state. But he was not sleeping. Far from it …