The Orphaned Worlds (11 page)

‘I will so instruct him, your Clarity,’ Kuros said, scarcely able to realise that he was not facing demotion and disgrace after all. ‘Is there any other service which we can render, your accommodation for example?’

‘That will not be necessary – I will be residing aboard the
Purifier.
’ The Clarified started towards the door. ‘A transport bearing the Namul-Ashaph is due to assume orbit by tomorrow morning. I shall inform you before then of possible landing sites and initial tactics.’ With the door partly open, Teshak looked over his shoulder. ‘I look forward to our cooperation, Ambassador.’

Then he was gone.

At once, Kuros subvocalised his companion’s call-phrase and General Gratach appeared. He seemed normal, the intricate details of his power armour gleaming with heightened radiance, his form edged with a nimbus missing from the earlier virtual image.

‘Has the Clarified Teshak departed?’ Kuros said flatly.

‘
He is aboard a squad-flyer that is now taking to the air
.’ Gratach’s demeanour was formal and inexpressive.

Kuros gazed at his mind-brother, emotions conflicting.

‘How limited was your autonomy during the Clarified’s period of dominance?’ he said.

‘
Completely. The Clarified Teshak made it clear that he exercised power of erasure over my subspace link. I was to answer questions, obey directions and do nothing else
.’

‘What kind of questions? What was their purpose?’

‘
The Clarified mostly queried me as to the veracity of your own replies, while some referred to my own ensigilate origin and my role as your mind-brother. Purpose – testimony corroboration.’

Kuros regarded Gratach, his image a perfect reproduction of the hero of the Three Revolutions War. He wondered how the real General Gratach would have reacted to such a thoroughgoing humiliation. Almost certainly with ritual suicide. Mind-siblings, however, were incapable of choosing to negate their own sentient existence.

‘What are your thoughts on this experience?’ he said.

Gratach’s eyes narrowed. ‘I experience feelings of fury and shame, but duty to you remains my prime consideration. I intend to improve my efficiency, to extend and augment my skills, so that I may be prepared for all tasks and eventualities.’

‘Your steadfast nature, as ever, is a source of strength to me, brother. Leave now and tell my technical assisters to compile a list of effectives who will be instructed in the operation of Namul-Ashaph.’

Gratach straightened to attention. ‘It will be as you command, brother … Brother, the datanode office reports an incoming high-priority call from the Ezgara commander, Juort.’

‘Put it through on a screen then attend to your tasks.’

Gratach disappeared and a holoframe appeared, showing a blue-armoured, dark-visored Ezgara officer from the waist up.

‘Captain, what occasions this call?’

‘Ambassador, we have pinpointed one of the commandos we thought battle-dead on the forest moon four weeks ago. Atmospheric sampler drones have traced Tygran DNA to a specific location near the southern coast, therefore I ask your permission to carry out an extraction mission.’

‘If your commando is still alive, Juort, why has he made no attempt to contact either you or the Brolturan garrison?’

‘Possible explanations are limited, Ambassador,’ said the officer. ‘I believe that he has been captured by the indigenes, who have used some kind of psycho-active agent to break his conditioning. Severed from the battle-death reflex and unable to take the Night Road, he may have revealed important information.’

‘Perhaps it would be wise to eliminate any Uvovo found nearby,’ Kuros said. ‘After you recover the man, how will you deal with him?’

‘He will be taken back to Tygra and debriefed under neural scan. If found non-culpable he may be assigned to menial civilian work; otherwise he would face the choice of self-death or execution, or mind-shredding if betrayal took place.’

‘Harsh but necessary,’ Kuros said. ‘Very well, Captain, proceed.

My operations assister will dispatch the assent to Security and Transorbital Control.’

Juort inclined his helmeted head. ‘My thanks, Ambassador. We will keep your office informed.’

‘Very good. One more thing – remind me which commandery you belong to … is it the Black Sun?’

‘No, Ambassador – all of us assigned to Darien are from the Fireblades Commandery. The Black Sun is led by the Marshal Paramount.’

‘Of course. My thanks and farewell.’

Once the Ezgara was gone, Kuros called up the Sky Balcony simulation again, set it for dusk, and sat there gazing down at the brilliantly lit expanse of Erizan, its spires and domes, the towering clusters of the monoclan mercholds, shining and glittering, while thousands of aerial vessels flowed in and out in strings and chains, streams of glowing beads. He pondered the punishments that Juort had just described, comparing them to the ignominy he would have suffered had Teshak decided to dismiss him. Yet the Clarified had instead made him privy to some astonishing truths about the other two Human colonies, not the kind of information to be shared with someone marked for dishonour.

On the contrary, might it not be a sign of better things to come? Kuros smiled. If he was careful, and proved his worth to the Clarified Teshak, who knows how high his name might rise?

CATRIONA

Cradled in the growing green darkness, Catriona listened, eyes closed, as Segrana sang to her.

The song was sad, a braided river of lament that ran beneath the hard harmony of sensations that flowed through Cat’s perceptions. The remnants and leftovers of recent showers leaked from tree trunk crannies or spilled like tears from cupping leaves nudged by a breeze or the weight of a bird alighting for a moment on the supporting sprig. Down a thousand paths water trickled, rilled and pattered, and to Catriona it was as if it all poured over her own skin. At the same time she felt the heat of the sun, bathing the upper canopy’s sprigs, leaves and blooms in a delicious blaze. Yet Segrana’s song was an undeniable undercurrent of double premonition. It had begun with low, faint notes of warning as the first Brolturan troops had stepped ashore. When it became apparent that a large offensive force was being assembled, undertones of warning turned to sorrow at the prospect of more death.

Cat could feel their presence at the edge of the forest, could almost sense the weight of their booted feet. In the few weeks since the murder of President Sundstrom, her mind and her reflexes had become more deeply intertwined with the psionic weave of the continental forest. There was a breath and a pulse to it, the wave of heat and light as dawn swept continuously around the moon, the tug and sweep of weather systems bringing wind and rain. Then there was the purpose of the Brolturans, their occupation of Darien and their grand invasions of Segrana, of which this would be the fifth. Were they still trying to test the defences, or were they engaged in a war of what they imagined was attrition? The latter might make sense, were it not for the huge technology gap – the Brolturans could have fielded land, sea and air attack vehicles or even sprayed the forest with defoliant, yet they had not.

They want something, the temple-halls perhaps, or the ancient knowledge chambers, or Segrana herself
, she thought.
Or perhaps they’re unsure what’s hidden here and are making these probing attacks to see where we fight hardest
.

She shrugged her shoulders and shifted slightly in her leaf-padded recess. It was a cuplike cavity in the branching shoulder of one of Segrana’s colossal pillar trees. During her sleep, pale rootlets had sprouted from the wood to curl about her brow while other tendril tresses spilled down around her neck and shoulders. Slender vines entwined her limbs and fine opaque filaments spread across her bare hands and feet. The Listeners called these recesses Speaking Places and they were located near the forest floor. Cat’s was some twenty feet up and veiled by mossy creeper curtains, shrouded in humid gloom broken by the glows of tethered ineka beetles. Uvovo guarded her Speaking Place, above and below, and two Listener sisters watched over her.

She was only peripherally aware of her immediate surroundings, while her conscious perceptions moved in many directions. Her mind felt faster, sharper and more versatile than it had for a long time, certainly since her teenage years when her Enhanced talents had been at their peak. But this interweaving, this melding with Segrana’s far-flung dominion was on an entirely different level. To be an Enhanced was to be in possession of an intellectual ferocity that dragged the focus inwards and that sometimes seemed on the verge of mania and cold, cruel thoughts. To be joined with Segrana was to see with myriad eyes, to hear with all manner of ears and membranes, to smell and to taste and feel multifariously …

Herself
curled up in the Speaking Place, lit by inekas – above, the Listener sisters huddle together, exchanging murmurs – beneath, four Uvovo spear-carriers crouch in the lower bushy shadows, alert to the approaches – high above, another half a dozen watch and listen …

Theo
standing at the midpoint of a rope-and-wood footbridge that curves between two huge hillside trees less than a mile away – she sees him from several viewpoints, forest creatures small and not so small, their images of him patchworking together into a shimmering composite, almost seen in the round – he leans on the bridge’s rope rail, fingers of both hands slowly shredding a sprig, leaf by leaf – he frowns, lined face dark with worry – Cat knows he is thinking about the defences he helped to prepare, the traps, the pits, the snares, the overhead drops – he is also frustrated at being kept away from the scene of the action, nearly two hundred miles away and still watched over by a Uvovo escort – fragments of leaf and twig fall from Theo’s fingers into the hazy depths as he sighs and shakes his head …

Malachi
the Tygran sits on a high woven platform not far from Theo’s location, overseen by a Listener and five armed Uvovo – Cat observes him through the eyes of an umisk perched overhead and two kizpi foraging in nearby masses of foliage – Malachi is clad in grubby work clothes scrounged from the refugee Human researchers, kept safe half a continent away – He sits with his back against the mossy trunk, legs folded under him as he stares at the insects dancing a shaft of sunlight slanting in through a break in the canopy – The bright column makes the moist air glow, warming the insects that bob and sweep – Malachi is so entranced that he scarcely moves – Cat knows from Theo’s reports that since the suicide device was removed weeks ago the Tygran commando has steadily become more forthcoming, gradually learning how to be more human – But Cat cannot bring herself to talk with him at any great length – The memories of dead Uvovo haunt her still …

Listener Malir speaks to Listener Josu
across more than a mile of Segrana’s forested hinterland – Each occupies a
vudron
, thoughts and words merging with Segrana’s great sweeping psionic weave, now heightened by Catriona’s talents – Each is attended by senior scholars while messengers constantly come and go, bringing scout reports, taking orders to other Listeners leading smaller teams of Uvovo – The two Uvovo Listeners are quite different in temperament, yet Theo taught them well – Lessons in mobility were soon tested against the Brolturans’ assaults – He has shown them how to build traps that are portable and easy to assemble, or at least easier – Pits are permanent defences and have been dug at points on those routes most accessible to a ground force moving inland from the south-west – But the interweaving branchways of the mid- and upper forest allow the Uvovo to be incomparably more mobile …

… In the Speaking Place, Catriona stirred, opened her eyes to the silent, soft-lit gloom, the restless, glowing inekas, the haloed golden radiance of a lantern hanging from a leafy creeper curtain. The air was cold in her lungs and the odour of leaves and blooms felt reviving. She levered herself upright, rolled her head back, left to right, massaged the aches out of her shoulders and stretched her limbs before sitting back, closing her eyes and slipping back into the weave …

The presence of Segrana
speaks, saying – The Time Is Here, The Time Is Now, Unmaker Sends War …

The Brolturans
move into the forest, squad after squad of tall, camo-armoured forms hurrying from daylight into shadow – Cat can feel the impact of their boots and track their progress along a shallow valley running westward – Ahead of them, pathfinders try to probe the ground through tangled undergrowth, flagging the location of pitfalls exposed during previous forays – Cat estimates their numbers at roughly 400 while Malir and Josu can command little more than half as many – This is by far the largest force to be pitted against Segrana …

Theo’s words
from a recent discussion come back to her – ‘This Brolturan commander, he has been cunning. So far he has only sent in small detachments to get a feel for the land and to gauge the Uvovo strengths and weaknesses. When he commits a larger formation he will have made up his mind and … it could get bloody.’ He had then gone on to tell her that they almost certainly would have some kind of map derived from orbital scans, which would reveal features of the terrain but not the ground or cover condition.

The invaders
continue their advance – Squads move up, cutting aside dense weaves of foliage with power blades while other units provide overwatch, ready to unleash suppressing fire and cross-fire …

Listener Malir
sees through Segrana’s stream of awareness – He shares thoughts and observations with Listener Josu and Catriona – Malir’s hundred or more Uvovo are divided between the teams on the high branchways, carrying ambush materials, and the lesser ground force whose job is to kill or capture stragglers – Listener Josu’s four score are armed with spears, slings and darts and traverse the midlevel branches, stealthily following in the Brolturans’ wake, waiting for the order to pounce on the rear units – Surprise is the essence of Uvovo fighting tactics, Theo had told them, endlessly drilling them in the need for speedy hit-andrun attacks – But then …