End of the Circle Page 24

  It’s back, the message had been, yet there was no sign of the sparkling rain that had spirited away Gnea and Dante. But there were two figures in the middle of the field, scrambling around animatedly.

  There were confused transmissions overlapping each other on the nets, but at last Rick got some order on the tactical freq. “Hold your fire, I say again, hold your fire! The swirling lights came back just as our point elements were entering the field, then disappeared. We have a visual on what appear to be Gnea and Angie. All elements stand fast and hold fire unless otherwise ordered.”

  With the field covered from all sides and other elements watching for a trap or sneak attack, Rick selected a recon team and elected to walk point. Jack Baker, Karen Penn, Lron, and Crysta checked their weapons, then spread out in a skirmish line, moving forward. Baldan came, too, carrying communications gear patched to the SDF-3’s TIC and bridge.

  No doubt about it, the sergeant and the Amazon were there once more. Rick was not sure what the flurry of activity had been when they had first reappeared, but it sure looked like some hasty clothes donning.

  He and his team went carefully, testing the ground and watching the air around them, but there was no sign of a threat. Angelo and Gnea, squared away, were wandering around the spot where they had appeared, apparently searching for something. As Rick came up to them and Angelo came to attention, Gnea was carving a big X in the ground with her halberd, on the spot where they had popped back into sight, so that it could be found later if necessary.

  Angelo pumped off a nervously crisp salute. “Urn, Sergeant Dante reporting, sir. We, ah, that is—”

  “Just take it slow, Angie. One thing at a time. Is there still a threat here?”

  The big tanker swallowed. “There is, everywhere in these parts, sir. But no more here than anyplace else.”

  Gnea had joined them. Rick could not help noticing that she stood rather close to Dante, leaning on her halberd. “Give me the high points first,” Rick told them.

  Angelo’s chest expanded as he drew a deep, resolute breath. But Gnea got the story in motion first. “We met the Invid Regess. This whole newspace is her realm. She’s got the SDF-3’s fold drives and won’t give them back. She doesn’t want us to leave.”

  Angelo still had his chest full of air. He let it out in one long sigh. “She says the real universe is ending, Admiral.”

  Rick looked at the X in the ground. “Does she know we’re not finished with it yet?”

  He said it to cover the fact that he was dumbfounded. What the hell was going on? The SDF-3 had been on its way home to fight the Regess. Was the war already lost?

  Rick glanced from Gnea to Dante. “Looks like we’re in for one helluva debriefing.”

  The communicator toned. The tiny screen showed not a TIC officer but Lisa’s face. “Rick, we’ve had a new development here. Suggest you return to SDF-3 ASAP.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, wondering why it had not all gone white. “What’s happened?”

  He could tell it took some effort for her to stay calm. “The children—Roy and the others. They’ve made contact with Aurora Sterling. It seems there’s a rescue ship on the way, but—the kids’re in some kind of trance, and Segundo can’t rouse them out of it.”

  There was a sudden ground-shaking eruption of flame and blast. Where Kazianna’s powered armor had stood, there was only burning grass. High above, her armor darted for the SDF-3.

  “No closer!”

  Segundo looked ridiculously small blocking Kazianna’s path to the circle of children, but he did not budge an inch when she seemed about to trample him flat.

  Instead, she stopped. The humans knew more about young ones than she, and there was an undeniable ring of moral force in the Micronian’s voice.

  Still, it took a lot to keep her distance when Drannin sat bewitched with the others, droning Aurora’s name. What made it all insane was that Aurora’s image, or specter, floated in the center of their circle. Her eyes held the same macabre glow theirs did.

  Lisa stood nearby, barely restraining herself from going to Roy. “Emilio, if this is a case of waking the sleepwalker, I’m willing to risk it rather than have their minds stolen.”

  She felt Rick’s hand grip hers and give it a sustaining squeeze.

  But Dr. Segundo was shaking his head. “It’s not that. They are still in their bodies, as it were, and I believe Aurora is, too. But this is not the sort of thing you can end simply by dashing water in someone’s face.

  “Some exchange of information is taking place; we can all feel that. Let it, for I suspect the children will not desist until it does.”

  Kazianna wavered like a tree swaying in a monsoon, then held her place. “For how long?”

  Before the pediatrician could answer, someone shouted, “Look!”

  Aurora was looking beyond the circle of children to where Lisa and the rest stood. She raised her hand to them in greeting or farewell—Lisa could not tell which—as the chanting grew louder.

  Au-ro-RA!

  Then the chanting stopped, and Aurora faded away. Roy and the others rose and faced their parents, their eyes still alight. Segundo had the sense to move aside this time; nothing was going to keep Kazianna from Drannin’s side. Lisa and Rick ran to Roy, and other parents were right behind.

  Lisa threw her arms around her son, possessed or not. She half expected him to feel clammy or wooden in her embrace, but he was just a little boy who might well do with a bath sometime soon.

  As she knelt by him, though, he put one hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “Mommy, ’Rora’s gonna be here soon.”

  Rick hunched down by his son. “When? How, Roy?”

  “Comin’ in a big round ship. We told her how to find us. Mommy, we have to go.”

  “Yes, hon. We’ll take you home right now.”

  Roy shook his head, eyes still flashing eerily. “Uh uh, I mean go from here. ’Rora said. Before it’s too late.”

  “What did she mean?” Rick gripped Roy’s shoulders and forced himself to look into the beacon eyes. “Too late how?”

  “I can tell you,” he heard somebody say.

  Rick and Lisa rose, Lisa holding Roy. Before them stood Rem and Minmei, hand in hand.

  “And the boy is right,” Rem added. “There isn’t much time.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Why are Terrestrials so surprised there was no fossil evidence or other indication of the Flower’s origin left behind on Earth—or the Pollinators’ either? Hasn’t it penetrated yet that we are talking about Haydon?

  Cabell, Zor and the Great Transition

  Even set in a row as they were, locked on their thrones on the flying carpet like so many trophies on a mantelpiece, the Robotech Elders made their acid resentment known—by their eyes, their mental timbre, their very aura.

  Why are you not mustering your war machines? You must crush the Amazons!

  Haydon was One again, standing afoot, as he rarely did, far across the machine plain, tall as a peak. Nevertheless, he caught their sour, almost pouting thought.

  Haydon turned to them, rising from the alloy flatland and drifting toward the fantastic tower on whose pinnacle they rested. He was so huge that winds moaned and swirled in turbulence at his passing. Even at that thin-aired height, his head loomed above them.

  YOU ARE SUCH PETTY AND UNTHINKING ORGANISMS. NO WONDER YOU CAME TO THE PITIFUL STATE IN WHICH I FOUND YOU.

  The Elders shot back, You need the Flowers!

  I HAVE ALREADY MADE THAT KNOWN TO THE PRAXIANS, the great head sent forth its words.

  What? No! You must take them by surprise, smash all resistance with your first blow! The artificial world must already be depleted by construction of the sphere ships; surely it could not sustain a prolonged war.

  Haydon drew back, light as a feather though he stirred immense air currents with his movement. YOU KNOW NOTHING. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO ACCOMPLISH GOALS BESIDES MURDER AND DESTRUCTION.

  As he
hung in the air, Haydon worked yet another change upon himself. This time the Elders were so shocked that even their crotchety sourness of spirit failed them.

  Power systems had long since been installed on New Praxis, but tonight’s ceremony decreed the light of torches.

  The city had the look of traditional Amazonian architecture, which often reminded humans of a blend of classical Japanese and Dark Ages Nordic. Here, though, it was worked in local materials, the rough-cut stone being little different but the lumber taken from Flowers permitted to grow to massive fruition. Though the feud wars of the Praxians had ended generations ago, their buildings still had the look of fortifications.

  The importance of the Second Generation Flowers went far beyond building supplies. As the only complex plant that would thrive in Opteran soil, it sustained much of the CO2-oxygen cycle that made the planet inhabitable. Thus, much of the Praxians’ effort at recolonization had been directed at a third seeding of the place.

  Down the center way of their rebuilt city the Sisterhood came in a throng, marching somberly, torches held high. They were turned out in their best armor and accoutrements, weapons sharpened and polished, their fantastic war helms burnished.

  At the end of the main avenue of their old cities was usually the Whaashi, a birthing center or crèche. Though the women warriors knew nothing of courtship, sexuality, or pregnancy, at least until the Sentinels War, the monolithic Whaashi saw to it that their race endured. It had always been so, since the legend times of Haydon’s appearance.

  That was no Whaashi, though, at the end of the main thoroughfare of the new Sisterhood capital of Zanshar. It was a big block of a place, reminiscent of the birthing places, but had been built with Tirolian and human help—because all the Whaashi had been lost when Praxis had been rent by planetary apocalypse.

  Among the Sisters trooping along in silence with their fluttering firebrands, a few smaller figures could be seen—a child sheltered under the flow of a mother’s embroidered cape or walking alongside, trotting to keep up.

  They were children—all female. Some were from the Praxians’ contact with humans or, in a handful of cases, clones of Tirol. But they were few, and while they were loved, they were not the offspring of the Whaashi, and the rites and gifts of the Whaashi were ingrained in the Amazon psyche.

  The building at the end of the avenue was another kind of lifeplace, where the sciences of Tirol could bring forth clones of Sisters who longed for progeny. These children, too, were cherished and made welcome, but they were not the blessing of the Whaashi, either, and most Sisters yearned for the mental communion with the Whaashi that brought forth a new and destined infant.

  Waiting at the top of the steps at the cloning center was Bela, a rank of guardswomen below her also bearing torches. As the crowd entered the plaza before her and spread out to fill it, Bela threw back her campaign greatcloak to expose her sword hilt, its grip wound in golden wire, its pommel a flashing blue gem held in a claw of black iron. From the other side of her belt hung a big, use-worn Badger pistol.

  She rested her gauntleted hand on the sword hilt. Out of the sky darted a bright shape of silver-blurring double wing sets. Hagane, Bela’s malthi, perched on her shoulder and gave a piercing warning cry. When the Sisters had poured into the plaza and there was silence, Bela spoke.

  “I have had the dreams, even as all of you have. I have seen the reports of how the stars are disappearing from the sky. What these things mean, I do not know. Yet, as we were called to this place and time by voices within us, so we have come.

  “Has Haydon truly spoken to us? I cannot say, and all the reports and messages from other worlds are in conflict and confusion. But the dream I dreamed showed me a rebuilt Whaashi, even as it did you, and—”

  She stopped, feeling a presence behind her. Hagane uttered a jarring whistle but then fell uncharacteristically silent. The throng gasped, and Bela turned to see Haydon. It took her a moment to find her tongue.

  “Greetings, O Mother,” Bela cried, and kowtowed. The rest of the Praxians genuflected.

  Over them hung the image of the changed Haydon, a Haydon of the Yin aspect. The conformations of the blank skull, the contours of the vast body under its cloak, the very emanations the figure gave off—these left nothing in doubt. Haydon was as Haydon had been in a bygone age.

  The final proof lay in the tone of the mindvoice, unmistakably feminine. AS I SAID I WOULD SO LONG AGO, I HAVE COME BACK TO THE SISTERHOOD OF PRAXIS.

  The figure had come from nowhere and might as easily have been some transignal image or holograph. But the Praxians’ inner senses knew differently.

  “We thank you,” the thousands of voices murmured together.

  It was the great secret the Praxians had hidden from all others, even their Sentinel allies: the distaff side of Haydon’s godhead that had made itself manifest nowhere else in the universe.

  I WILL RESTORE THE WHAASHI. AND IN RETURN YOU WILL DO THAT WHICH I REQUIRE OF YOU.

  Bela had always considered herself devout, and the very thought of a new Whaashi was enough to make her heart leap. But something had happened to her in her service with the Sentinels, experiences that had taught her that a leader could not afford the simple, open faith that others clung to.

  Thus, when the glad shouts of the Amazons died away, Bela raised her formidable voice. “We thank you and praise you for this benevolence, Haydon, First Mother! Yet what is the nature of the task you require of us?”

  There were some angry mutterings from her subjects over her impertinence.

  GO FORTH NOW AND GATHER IN ALL OF THE FLOWERS OF LIFE THAT HAVE NOT REACHED FRUITION. THOSE THAT HAVE BORNE FRUIT OR WILL BEAR IT, LET BE. ALL OTHERS ARE NOW CONSECRATED TO ME.

  Immature Flowers? “Protoculture,” Bela breathed to herself, not daring to say it aloud. Then, as loudly as she could, she demanded, “Why does the First Mother want Protoculture? We, who have fought in wars caused by it, must know for what purpose it is intended!”

  The objections and chastisements of the crowd were louder. “What does it matter?” “You blaspheme!” “Anything! Anything for the Whaashi!”

  The former Sentinel allies had engaged in open combat, and the political brew of the Local Group was turning toxic. The concerns and dangers of other planets were no longer the Praxians’ affair, especially since defying Haydon would jeopardize the granting of the Whaashi. Such was the popular sentiment in the plaza.

  The singular organ in the center of Haydon’s forehead burgeoned open and lit like a star. Her wrathful voice filled their minds. THAT IS NOT FOR YOU TO QUESTION! DO AS I BID YOU OR FEEL MY DISPLEASURE!

  Even more terrifyingly, Optera/New Praxis ground like ill-fitting bones under their feet. The Amazons, who had already lost one homeworld to upheaval, moaned their dismay.

  There were hundreds of voices crying out to surrender the Flowers. Bela drew her weighty, two-handed shortsword from its scabbard so that the blade flashed with light from the torches and from glimmering Haydon.

  “I forbid it! Not until we know the purpose behind this commandment.”

  She had received word of the SDF-3’s disappearance, of course, and the events at Haydon IV—conflicting reports that only added to her misgivings about setting free more Protoculture. The apparition Haydon might even somehow be the trick of an unknown enemy.

  But the crowd was not with her. Their fear of Haydon’s anger and planetary catastrophe and their need for the Whaashi were too great. With a unified roar, they swept up the steps.

  Bela’s personal bodyguard wavered, some of them more attuned to the crowd’s position than to the queen’s. But it hardly mattered; hesitating to hack or open fire on their own Sisters, they went down under the wave of tall fighting women.

  Bela herself stood straddle-legged on the steps, sword in one fist, assault pistol in the other, to meet them. But when she saw faces she loved, comrades she’d served with, mothers of children she’d held coming for her, she knew she could not do them harm.<
br />
  The crowd had stopped short before her, daunted by her even in the extremity of their passion.

  Bela holstered her pistol, sheathed her sword, and stood with arms hanging limply at her sides. The crowd turned back the way it had come. Already Amazons were organizing harvesting operations. Haydon, looking down, found Her handiwork good.

  “And so the final phase of my—Zor’s—plan was set in motion,” Rem said.

  He lifted his hand to Rick and Lisa Hunter. “And the cycle of the story comes around to Earth once more. The last planet Zor seeded, or rather, in Earth’s case, reseeded with the Flower. With the SDF-1.”

  “And Zentraedi help,” Kazianna murmured while she was mulling over all the things he had told them.

  “Yes, the first to fall prey to the lure of song,” Rem told her soberly. He reached out his arm to encircle Minmei’s shoulders. “I suppose every child of Tirol is susceptible to it, really.

  “The Protoculture gave me insights into the power of the Cosmic Harp and how music could throw down even the Robotech Masters’ mental domination.”

  Doha found that out, Lisa thought, but kept it to herself so as not to switch the conversational track.

  They were assembled in the big bilevel conference area—most of the leaders and certain others whose testimony was pertinent. Caffie and other refreshments had been brought. Screens kept a constant vigil on the children and their chanting, but nothing seemed to have changed except that Aurora’s form phased in and out from time to time. She would not or could not respond to any of the grown-ups, but everyone got the feeling there was a lot of information being exchanged between her and the SDF-3’s children.

  “With music, Zor—reprogrammed, I guess you could say, a few of the Zentraedi most loyal to him,” Rem said. “Although I prefer to think of it as liberating them. It never occurred to the Masters that the Zentraedi could find a cause higher than obedience.”

  “Lucky for Earth they didn’t learn their lesson,” Rick whispered to Lisa.