Méridien (The Silver Ships Book 3) (24 page)

Inside their dark traveler, the First had sat with his legs folded under him, conserving energy and air, which had begun to run short while they were held in the grip of the Star Hunters, far outside the life-giving waves. The entire hive had assumed the same posture. There was nothing left to do but wait … and hope. Their lives were tenuous, like the memory scent of the endless seas that begged to be real once again. Although the First had never swum in his home world’s endless seas, he carried the memories of his line.

The craft’s viewer had lit up with more of the Star Hunters’ moving images and his twin eyestalks extended from his shell. His aural membranes had picked up the Star Hunters’ singing. The images and singing repeated over and over. The song had been long … the longest one the Star Hunters had sent. The message had galvanized the First despite the fading oxygen. The Star Hunters had indicated they sought to gain his People’s freedom. They had offered this despite the many Star Hunters the Swei Swee had sent to travel the endless seas. So many singers lost … His twin hearts had ached with the realization of what his People had done to the Star Hunters. Claws had snapped rapidly, longing to rend the Nua’ll, who had kept themselves so carefully hidden in the upper dwellings of their world traveler, far from the reach of his People’s claws.

His Third had whistled for attention and had sung of their position change. The Star Hunters had taken them back to the worlds. Great quantities of energy had accumulated on their shell, and their Nua’ll systems were brought to full functionality. The air had become sweeter, moistening their breath-ways, which had begun drying. His hive had been energized and had begun singing, but he had silenced them with a whistle.

The First had sung of their good fortune to his leader. The new star people, despite their soft appearance and the absence of rending claws, were powerful hunters. Against the Swei Swee’s dark travelers, they had proven to be the greater hunters. None had bested the dark travelers for generations. And now when the Star Hunter First could have sent many of the First’s hive to travel the endless waters, he had chosen life for them. The First believed the Star Hunters could be the ones the Swei Swee had waited so many cycles for, and he had sung his best song, hoping to convince his leader of the value of the Star Hunters as fellow searchers.

The First had sensed his leader wanted to believe, but the fate of the People hung in the balance and the hatchlings were at risk. In a fight to save the race, the hatchlings might be sacrificed, but the Swei Swee were protective where hatchlings were concerned. It was their nature to sacrifice their own lives to protect their young.

When the Swei Swee leader hesitated, the First thought of one truth to sway his decision. The Nua’ll didn’t sing. They communicated to the People by images sent to screens. The Star Hunters were different. They were attempting to learn the Swei Swee’s song, and one of the Star Hunters was a Hive Singer. The Swei Swee could not understand her message, but the hive was entranced by her song. The First’s pronouncement of the extraordinary find had caused the leader to whistle his negative, but the First had stood his ground, raising his claws in challenge, retorting that he and the hive had witnessed her song. Still, the leader had been doubtful. The People had lost their two Hive Singers when they were taken from their home world, and no others had ever blessed them. The People’s imprisonment had not been conducive to the production of a Hive Singer, a unique female who developed when the Hives were in their prime.

To convince the leader, the First had turned to the rear of their dark traveler and had lifted his rending claws and true hands to beseech the Star Hunters. He had sung his welcome and waited. He had sung again … his best welcome, hoping to coax the Star Hunters’ Hive Singer forth. If she had failed to share her song, he had only himself to blame—his poor entreaty would have deemed him unworthy of being the hive’s First.

Then the First had heard the Hive Singer’s opening note, so pure, so clear. She had entwined her second note around the first as only a Hive Singer could. He had settled to the dark traveler’s bed with the rest of the hive, and they had wrapped the Star Hunter’s song around them. Ancient memories had swum forth, elicited by her song. Her first song entwined with his had been a courtesy, a sharing with the hive. The second one had been different. Her song had raised the spirits of the People, reminding them of the tastes of freedom, the ancient tastes of the endless waters.

When the Star Hunter’s song had faded, the Swei Swee First, as in awe as all of his People were, sang his approval loud and clear. The First had relayed the leader’s message to his captors: the Swei Swee and Star Hunters would send the Nua’ll to travel the endless seas.

The First had been discussing the momentous opportunity with his People’s leader when his Second signaled the release of their dark traveler from the claws of the Star Hunters. It was a powerful sign to the First, and he quickly sang of the event to his leader.

To the First, this was the moment the People had waited generations to experience. He sang with all his hearts, pleading for the People to embrace the opportunity. And from the dreams of their ancestors came the Swei Swee First’s clever plan to sink claws into the flesh of the Nua’ll.

The next whistle alerted the First to the turn of the Star Hunter’s vessel toward the Nua’ll, and he gave the order to shelter. It was an overarching and primitive drive among the Swei Swee to seek shelter. In their ancient seas, they had not been the top hunters. Among the dreams of the ancestors lay the memories of many young lost in this fashion, failing to have kept the shelter of rocks and the sea beds close.

The Second, in coordination with the Third, maneuvered their dark traveler between the youngling that the Star Hunter carried on its back. More than once, they had witnessed the young detach itself from its parent and travel the worlds and return. If it felt secure riding on its parent’s back, what safer place for his dark traveler could there be than sheltered between parent and young?

Each patrolling dark traveler turned to intercept the Star Hunters. Reaching the interception point, but short of beam range, they curved their ships aside to trail the Star Hunters as directed by their leader.

The First of each intercepting ship sang to the Nua’ll of their dark traveler’s loss of energy as they neared the quarry. They could trail the hunters, they reported, but their beams could not stab. Each First sent his report with lament and requested orders. When the star singers were closed, whistles of derision echoed through the dark traveler. It had been many generations since the Swei Swee had been able to raise their claws at their masters.

But the Nua’ll message that caused the strongest response among the Swei Swee were their icons portraying the quarry as dangerous hunters of the Swei Swee. If some Swei Swee had not believed the Hive First, who had sung of the Nua’ll’s betrayal of the Star Hunters’ world, all had been convinced of this betrayal when they heard the Star Hunters’ Hive Singer. With the ending of the Nua’ll message deriding the Star Hunters, the Swei Swee lifted sharp and blunt claws, snapping and banging them together in anger and frustration.

On board the Nua’ll prison ship, the Swei Swee in their shallow pools waited to be called to their dark travelers by number. It was an insult each generation had endured. Each hive had a name, a proud name, celebrated from the ancestors to the present, each generation passing its name and songs on to the next.

A First’s eyestalks perked up when a viewer near his pool flashed his hive’s number, and he whistled to his hive for attention. They followed him out of their pools and down the slide chutes to the bay where their dark travelers waited. Once on board, the First was surprised to hear an urgent message repeated over and over from his leader. It was brief and to the point: “Load the younglings. Hide within the escorts. When able, escape to the world below. All People flee the world traveler.”

The First repeated the message to those still boarding, and several males raced back up the chutes to the pools, relaying the word. Males snatched transfer sacs and females began scooping up the hatchlings still in egg embryos and quickly transferring the twenty-eight-centimeter-long eggs into the sacs. Once a sac was filled, the males would lower it into the pool to fill it to the top with seawater, and then females would seal the sac.

As fast as they could, the Swei Swee filled their sacs, attempting to empty the incubation pools of eggs and escape before they were discovered. In the midst of transferring the first of their precious sacs to the bay, all the hives were called to their vessels. The Nua’ll had ordered all dark travelers out to defend the prison ship against the approaching intruder.

The Swei Swee were in preservation mode, hurriedly stacking the sacs of hatchlings in the rear of the first dark traveler in line. As the bed of the vessel was filled, the First and Second, already aboard, were joined by two young females who had just reached egg-bearing age. The elder mates of the First and Second would wait for later launches.

The two young females boarded and worked quickly to seal the shell. When the ship was ready, the Second signaled the Nua’ll, who opened the exit chamber door. The First slid the ship into the exit chamber. When the hind door closed and the air vacated, the exit bay door opened. The First guided his dark traveler out to join the escort ships protecting the world traveler. He signaled his success to his leader, who whistled back his compliment.

As those left inside the prison ship hurried to fill the next dark traveler, their breath-ways began to dry and burn, but they didn’t rest. Instead the males and females would leap into the pools with their sacs to quench the burning, then continue filling and transporting their sacs.

The Swei Swee filled a second ship, and it launched. Then a third was filled and it joined the other two on-station ships orbiting the prison ship. When the fourth dark traveler was filled, the First signaled for exit but the door remained closed. He signaled repeatedly, but the door never moved.

Dejectedly the Swei Swee carried the embryos back to the incubation pools, slipping into the waters to empty their sacs and hydrate their breath-ways. Three-fifths of the eggs had been rescued, but the remaining embryos and nearly two hundred Swei Swee remained captive.

The eldest matron began a song. It was not a lament. It was a song of hope—hope for their People once again to be free and live along the shores of the endless seas.

The three dark travelers filled with hatchlings waited on station, each First nervous for the safety of his People’s future that lay in sacs on his dark traveler’s bed.

Meanwhile, the dark travelers on planet received messages from the Nua’ll to lift and join the escorts around the world traveler. Each appeared to do so but with one change in the plan … the first destination. They sealed their ship and lifted, but raced for a point on the planet their leader had chosen. It was a beach, part sandy and part rocky, abutting high cliffs.