End of the Circle Page 16

  And oddly enough, it was Jessie he was thinking about now, laser-cutting a path through the verdant foliage of a new world, staring at Marie Crystal’s shapely, jumpsuited derriere.

  What the hell’s coming over me? Rick asked himself, tearing his eyes away. He had not felt quite so lustful since Sue Graham had tried to seduce him one afternoon in the Ark Angel’s situation room.

  Rick stopped short on the narrow trail, only to have Karen Penn bump up against his back.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “I didn’t see you give a signal to halt.”

  “I, er, that is,” Rick began. “Listen, Captain, why don’t you go on ahead for a while.”

  “Certainly, sir,” she said, brushing past him, face to face.

  Cripes! he thought. Two women to leer at now.

  Angelo Dante had the point, the rest of the human and XT scouting party spread out behind in a trailing wedge. The four Alpha/Beta VTs were Battloid-reconfigured on a flat spot of high ground where they had left them only moments before. The land was an undulating temperate zone forest of analogue firs, raucous with the calls of black birds that confined themselves to the upper reaches of the canopy. The sun was intense where it shone through; the air was aromatic, rich with the smell of life. Scans initiated from the SDF-3 had indicated the presence of an intense bio-energy nexus in the region, but several low-level passes had revealed little to add to what had already been gleaned from the ship’s data readouts, and so Rick had ordered the Veritechs down.

  He was not sure just what had made him think of Jessie after all those years. It was true that the argument with Lisa had touched off a cascade of angry thoughts, but no sooner had he lowered the VT’s canopy in the launch bay than they had been cleared from his mind. And Marie Crystal’s butt had not been responsible, either, no matter how pleasing a sight it was. Because for all the lust, Rick was experiencing strong waves of nostalgia as well. A yearning for simpler times or alternative presents.

  He felt certain that something in the air had brought it on, or perhaps it was the trees themselves and the memories of northern California redwoods and home fires that their piney aroma elicited.

  Memories of Earth before the wars.

  Jack Baker appeared from the underbrush a few steps behind Rick, waved, and came up alongside. Rick not only saw a bit of himself in the younger man but noticed the same wistful look in Baker’s green eyes. He tracked Baker’s gaze to Karen’s backside.

  “What’s on your mind, Captain?”

  Baker was red-faced when he turned around. “Begging the admiral’s pardon, sir. I guess I was just daydreaming.”

  “Daydreaming, Baker?”

  “Well, fantasizing, actually, sir.” He made a circular motion with his hand. “It’s this place, Admiral. It reminds me so much of where I was brought up. North Carolina, sir—before Dolza, I mean.”

  “You’re wondering what it would have been like if things had gone differently for Earth.”

  Jack looked at him searchingly. “That’s it, sir. I keep thinking this planet’s trying to remind us of what we lost.”

  In a dark corner of the galaxy lost to the SDF-3, silhouetted against the swirling, malevolent backdrop of Ranaath’s Star, floated the first nearly completed products of Haydon’s IV’s mining and manufacturing efforts: ships—massively proportioned—with featureless spherical hulls, attended and ministered to by hundreds of labor drones.

  Inside the Ark Angel, Vince, Cabell, Penn, and the Nichols team were fortifying themselves with strong caffie when an unexpected transmission was received from Haydon IV.

  “Veidt, is that you?” Vince asked in a rush, eyes riveted to the situation room’s commo screen. They had spent part of the Sentinels campaign together, but Vince had not seen the Haydonite in years. Even so, save for the color of his forehead sensor, a certain warmth to his sendings, and a definite swagger to his glide, Veidt was nearly identical to countless other “male” beings on Haydon IV.

  A synthesized voice answered for Veidt. “Yes, Commander. It’s good to see you again.”

  “And you, too,” Vince said. “I only wish it could be under different circumstances.”

  Beneath the static of the signal, Veidt’s expression conveyed a wry smile. “You discern my very thoughts.”

  For hours the Ark Angel had been hailing the Awareness without response. The flagship of the Karbarran flotilla had been attempting the same and had finally issued the reconfigured artifact world with an ultimatum: Release all Karbarran prisoners by 1200 standard hours or suffer the consequences of a full assault. Cabell had appealed to the Karbarran legation to rethink their position, but the threat stood as delivered.

  “You know about the ultimatum?” Vince asked.

  “I have only just learned about it, yes. But you must convince the Karbarrans to rescind.”

  Cabell leaned toward the camera. “You leave them no alternative, Veidt.”

  “I will endeavor to explain,” the Haydonite said after a moment. “Be advised, however, that Vowad and I have undertaken communication with you at great personal risk. Should my visage abruptly vanish from the screen, you will understand why.”

  “Then save your thoughts,” Vince said. “We think we’ve got a fair idea of what’s been going on.” Quickly, he summarized the scenario Louie and Cabell had arrived at. Veidt listened in silence. “We just need to learn where these ships you’re manufacturing are headed,” Vince concluded. “You have our word we won’t interfere with the Awareness in any way. We only want permission to tag along, if that’s possible.”

  Veidt shook his head. “That is quite impossible, Commander. Your ship is inadequate for such a journey.”

  Vince glowered at the screen. “Try to understand our side of it, Veidt. This may be our only shot at locating the SDF-3. Think about Rick and Lisa and the crew. They’re your friends, Veidt, and they’re in trouble.”

  Veidt’s features betrayed little. “I might also ask that you appraise things from our vantage, Commander. To comprehend after thousands of years that your sole purpose had been to function as caretakers for a race who, if they did not create you, then surely redirected you from your evolutionary course.” The Haydonite paused. “And now, even in the face of this realization, to be helpless.”

  Vince turned away from the camera to glance at Cabell and Penn. “We’re sorry, Veidt. But all this doesn’t mean we can stand by and do nothing.”

  The Haydonite’s shoulders seemed to shrug under his robe.

  “The Awareness must be persuaded to release all offworlders—immediately.”

  “The Awareness is no longer responding to us, Commander,” Veidt sent with a touch of impatience. “We are responding to it. In any case, all offworlders will be released in due course. In the meantime, everyone is being well cared for. Exedore and the Sterlings are in good health. I have even seen to it that they have been equipped with a monitoring device linked to the Awareness itself.”

  Louie put a hand down on the communication console’s interrupt stud and turned his back to the optical pickup. “Ask him if he can put us on-line with Exedore.”

  Vince studied Louie’s face for a moment, then reactivated the system’s audio feed. “Listen, Veidt, can’t you at least allow us to get in touch with Exedore and Max, just so we know they’re all right?”

  Veidt computed the feasibility. “I can so arrange,” he said at last.

  His back still turned to the screen, Louie smiled. “That may be all we need,” he whispered.

  Exedore, Max, Miriya, and the Sterling daughters listened attentively while Cabell brought them up to date on current events and the speculative history of Haydon IV. The five of them were huddled around the monitor, hands gripping one another’s arms in contained excitement.

  “Yes, yes, it all fits precisely with the facts,” Exedore was telling the old sage. “The experiment shaped by Haydon has finally succeeded. The Invid have exited the continuum and opened a breach to a new realm. And the SDF-3 i
s trapped there.” He shook his head in astonishment. “This could account for all the irregularities, Cabell—this tightening of the cosmic fabric.”

  “We think so,” Cabell said. “The creation of that breach, as you call it, has possibly doomed the world we know to ultimate collapse. It is as though Haydon’s ‘success’ has rendered all evolving life in this Quadrant obsolete. Only one was needed to achieve that passage.” The Tiresian shook his head. “For the rest of us, a pat on the back and an accelerated heat death.”

  “Jeez, you guys,” Dana cut in, “try not to sound so cheery about it, huh.”

  “Tough break, but they’re right about it, Lieutenant,” Louie said, his goggled, smiling face on-screen all at once.

  “Louie!” Dana yelled.

  “Hey, Dana. Told you you’d see me again before long.”

  Dana recalled the send-off party Louie’s gang had thrown for the 15th aboard Wolfe’s ship. The memory stirred thoughts of Jonathan and their last night together. “So where’d you spend the occupation, mechie?” she asked.

  Louie grinned. “No time to go into that now, Dana.” He looked to Exedore. “We need to know whether the device Veidt gave you can access the Awareness.”

  The Zentraedi scratched at his thatch of barn-red hair. “Only in the most limited of capacities.”

  “But you can get in?” Louie pressed.

  “Yes, but I don’t see—”

  “We’re going to find out where Haydon’s headed by hook or by crook, Exedore. The Karbarrans, God help them, are finalizing their plans. But their attack is going to provide us with the diversion we need.”

  “Well, we’re all set down here,” Dana enthused.

  Catching sight of Max and Miriya’s concern, Vince said, “Now look, Dana, don’t try anything rash. Veidt’s already told us you’ll be released.”

  “Sorry, Commander,” Dana countered with a dismissive wave at the screen, “but we’re all out of trust down here. Besides, there’s no harm in creating a second diversionary front while you’re running your op, is there? Who knows, we might even be able to place a coupla monkey wrenches of our own.”

  “Dana,” Max and Louie said at the same time. Max motioned for Nichols to continue.

  “There’s one more thing we’re gonna try first, Dana,” Louie told her. “We’ve got someone on board who might be able to tell us where the Regess went.”

  Dana flashed him a dubious look. “Yeah? What’d you do, Louie, bring an Invid along for the ride?”

  Louie stroked his cleft chin. “Never was any fooling you, Lieutenant.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Come let me show you our common bond,

  it’s the reason that we live.

  Flower, let me hold you.

  We depend upon the Power that you give.

  We should protect the seed, or we could all fade away;

  Flower of Life, Flower of Life, Flower …

  Tiresian chant of the Cult of the Three-in-One

  For once even Vard was concerned. Are you certain of what you’re accomplishing here? he would ask at least once a day. And Zor could answer only with that maniacal grin that had become his ever-present look on Optera: Of course he was certain. And wasn’t this exactly what their elders in Tiresia expected of them: to return from these technovoyages with something extraordinary? And if that wasn’t enough, who were these Invid that they should have these incredible flowers to themselves? That they alone should possess the ability to reshape the world about them? No, this was for all worlds, Zor had suggested to Vard—for the galaxy in all its wondrous variety!

  Mad, in those times; possessed, though he would not recognize it in himself …

  But to achieve it, thus, Vard would point out. To achieve it by deceiving the hive queen of the race—this Regess. To lay claim to royalty by pretending to be the long-expected one returned, the Bringer of the Flower. And to resort to seducing the secrets from this naive being …

  This was central to Vard’s concern—the fact that Zor had done nothing less than make love to this creature. In her approximation of human guise and human-made raiments. In her very chambers and in her very bed … For such was the only way that the secrets could be revealed. The process, dear Vard, required a complete joining—mind-to-mind, body-to-body—and passion to accompany it. Or, in Zor’s case, an approximation of passion, a semblance of love.

  Oh, in a sense he did love her, he supposed. He certainly envied her, lusted after the knowledge the Flower of Life had imparted to her. But as to all this mindspeech about remaining on Optera, about actually relinquishing some of his physical form so that they might remain mates here … Well, that was arrant nonsense. He could no more live here—even with the secret shared and revealed—than he could abandon the quest for enlightenment that had already taken him to scores of star systems and hundreds of planets.

  Furthermore, there was a husband to consider.

  Nothing like the Regess, this creature that called himself the Regent. And Zor had barely given him a second thought when it had come down to formulating his plan for seduction and conquest. But there was something about the Regent that rendered him more human than the Regess could ever be, for all her recently evolved anatomic curves, erogenous zones, and self-shaping talents. And it was just this mysterious humanness that Zor made use of to ensure that the Regent was absent from the hive for long periods at a stretch.

  The Regent, it seemed, had a curiosity for Zor and his kind that rivaled Zor’s curiosity for the Regess. Only the Regent was less interested in the physical and psychological differences that separated them than he was in the very artifacts the technovoyagers used in their everyday lives and travels. It was as though the creature wished only to fill his world with such things—instruments and devices and ships. So it had been easy enough to arrange for the Regent to be taken on a tour through this or that part of the ship or flown to distant places on his own Optera when the need arose.

  And that need had arisen often these past months …

  Zor smiled to himself, lying with the Regess now, his arms wrapped around her. He recognized that the transference was almost complete, the language of the Flower almost his. But he recognized, too, that there were rules governing the use of this language and, quite possibly, that he had been made aware of something misunderstood by the Queen-Mother herself. The Flower of Life apparently held a secret of its own, one that had yet to be seduced from it.

  A secret Zor would one day call Protoculture.

  Scott Bernard sat stiffly in his chair as the two majors led Marlene into the Ark Angel’s briefing room. Cabell, the Grants, Louie Nichols, and several intelligence officers from G2 were seated at the long table. Bulkhead displays flashed color-enhanced visual close-ups of Haydon IV, an updated count of production vessels, an alphanumeric Karbarran attack countdown. The ship had turned slightly to port to keep the reconfigured artifact centered in the exterior viewports. The accretion disc of Ranaath’s Star pinwheeled in the background, a sinister wheel of fortune.

  Marlene, red hair pulled back behind her ears, looked ill.

  “Take a seat,” Vince began, sounding like a physician about to deliver bad news.

  With a nervous glance at Scott, Marlene lowered herself into one of the plastic chairs. He held her gaze for a moment and looked away, tight-lipped.

  Niles Obstat cleared his throat. “I think you know why we’ve asked you here.”

  “I’m—I’m not sure,” Marlene told the intel chief.

  Vince grimaced and blew out his breath. “We’ve tried to give you time to think through your position, er, Marlene. But I’m afraid time has run out for all of us. We have reason to believe you can tell us where the Regess is, and we need that answer now.”

  Marlene swallowed and found her voice. “I’ve been trying—”

  “Don’t give us any of that,” Obstat said, cutting her off. “You’re Invid, and what one of you knows, you all know. Just tell us where we can find
the Regess, and we’ll put an end to this. It’s for your own good, too,” he added. “How else are you planning to get home if we don’t take you there?”

  Scott was tempted to tell Obstat how Sera had gone home but held his tongue. Marlene was staring at the director, lower lip trembling.

  “But don’t you see, I’m not all Invid,” she replied. “I have—”

  “You’re all Invid as far as we’re concerned,” a woman officer sneered.

  Marlene closed her eyes and shook her head. “If that’s true, then how is it that one of your own kind loves me?” Her eyes found Scott, as did everyone else’s in the room. “Tell them, Scott, please. Make them understand.”

  “Well, Colonel?” Vince said, averting his eyes. “Suppose you tell us.”

  Scott’s hands clenched beneath the tabletop. He looked at Marlene as he slowly rose to his feet.

  “I’m sorry, Commander,” he began, “but I guess our trick didn’t work.” Again he locked eyes with Marlene. “It was a good idea to make it seem like you were releasing her in my custody, but I guess she just didn’t buy it. I certainly did my part to convince her that I … loved her, sir. But she wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  Scott swallowed hard and continued. “Hell, I would have told her anything she wanted to hear to get that information. I sure don’t mind admitting now that this was the toughest charade I’ve ever had to play out. Pretending love for this … Invid. And all the while thinking about what they did to Earth, what they’ve probably done to our friends and comrades on the SDF-3.” Scott snorted, averting his eyes from the table. “I think all I managed to do was help convince her she really is human, Commander. Imagine that, will you—this Invid, human.”

  Wide-eyed through Scott’s confession, Marlene suddenly put her hands to her head and screamed.

  The scream was a nonhuman one.