Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 18

Thomas Flynn regarded himself as pragmatic. He wanted little from life-a woman to keep him warm at night, decent food in his belly, a fine instrument to play. And he wanted to live forever.

But now, as a slave with Lord Karthenor’s Guide directing his every action, Thomas’s hopes grew cold.

The morning after he’d killed the shepherd’s wife for Lord Karthenor, Thomas Flynn conjured an escape plan. He did not know how to remove the Guide Karthenor had affixed to his skull. He could not run or fight.

But he could plot. Karthenor himself had given Thomas the key, the night he’d ordered Thomas to play and sing.

In the morning, Thomas found that his Guide would not let him speak, but as Thomas set the fire and began frying up fresh eggs and ham for Karthenor’s men and the shepherd’s toddler, a tune came to mind. Thomas found himself humming. It took him several moments to realize that though his Guide would not let him speak, it would let him sing. Thomas had long known that with a song he could melt the heart of most young maidens, and lighten the heart of the sourest codger.

So all morning he pondered the message he would send, then, when his plan felt complete, he composed a song. It was not a perfect song-in fact, Thomas found it damned bad by any standard, but Karthenor had ordered him to sing a sweet tune, and Thomas composed a sweet tune for the words. They let him say what he needed to say, so as Karthenor sat spooning eggs to the orphaned child, Thomas got down the lute and sang,

“You say All lives have meaning,

Like you, I want to live in the sky,

But I am bound,

By you I’m bound.

In these chains I slowly die.”

Karthenor stopped feeding the boy, who immediately began grabbing for the spoon. Karthenor glanced up at Thomas in surprise. “You have something to say? Speak, Thomas.”

Thomas tried to infuse his words with charm and sincerity. “This Guide is a damned nuisance, man! I’m an artist. Even if you think me only a drudge, thumping my lute strings as if I were beating a rug, I’ll be needing use of my fingers to practice.”

Karthenor laughed. “Fine, you may practice your instrument and sing-so long as you don’t grow tedious. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Thomas said, and found his heart thumping, voice tight. He wasn’t sure if the lie would come off. “You told me last night something of your philosophy, and I’ve been thinking. I agree with you. I came from a backward world, and when I saw the chance to get out, I jumped. And as for recognizing the worth of man, well, a man’s only worth comes from what he makes of himself, sure. So I want to know, how do I join you?”

Karthenor smiled, a clever, intimidating smile. His gold mask gleamed brightly, half-reflecting the sun that shone in through the window by the rocking chair, where Karthenor sat.

“I’ve seen potential in you,” Karthenor said. “When I questioned you, I saw that you could be one of us, perhaps.

“But I must ask: do you expect me to believe you would help us hunt and destroy your niece, your only kin? On your world, family bonds are important.”

Thomas dared not lie, but his Guide allowed him some freedom in answering. He skirted the truth, choosing his words carefully, “Maggie is my only kin. But that didn’t stop me from leaving her to grow up alone. Facing trials in life builds strength, and I’d rather have a strong niece than some weepy cow. I tracked her down when I heard she had an inheritance coming. I wouldn’t have stolen it. I planned only to use it as seed money, to make a little profit for myself, then leave her with what she owned.”

“But would you fight her?” Karthenor asked.

“For the right cause,” Thomas said, recognizing that he could hide behind half-truths, evade answering all night. “Yes, I’d fight her.”

Karthenor grinned slyly. “Is the dronon cause the right cause? Is my cause the right cause? Tell me fully.”

The Guide would not let him lie to so direct a question. “No, it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with using people, that is the basis of the capitalistic system. Folks hire themselves out like oxen, trading their lives cheap. But I don’t believe you use them well, Karthenor. I don’t believe you understand how to manipulate others subtly, and I don’t think you have to make a person’s life miserable, even if you do take him slave. There’s no justification for being plain vile.”

Karthenor nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. I tend to be crude in my attempts at manipulation. To expand on your metaphor, I sometimes yoke racing stallions to the plow.

“And it may just be,” Karthenor said, “I’m not as idealistic as I like to pretend. To be blunt, it amuses me to use people. I like the thrill, the power.”

Karthenor looked at his men to see their reactions. Neither seemed surprised. Karthenor continued, “If I did not like your singing voice, Thomas, I’d dispose of you. But … in my mercy, I spare you. This also makes me feel powerful. Maybe that’s all I’m really about-power.

“Those with the least power tend to crave it most. Perhaps when you have been a slave long enough, you too will crave power. You might yet become dronon.

“But I suspect it will take time. A very long time …”

Karthenor’s words dashed Thomas’s hopes for a quick release. Shortly after, they departed the shepherd’s shack, the toddler riding the front of an airbike, tucked under Karthenor’s arm.

By midday they reached a gate, left Tremonthin for a heavily populated world with high technology. There, Karthenor abandoned the toddler, leaving him on a deserted road at the edge of a city.

In rapid succession they drove through several gates, till they reached a gray alien planet with tortured, pitted plains. Strange animals seemed almost to agonize under a dim red sun.

Karthenor stopped to make a radio transmission, then waited. By evening, a huge walking vehicle approached, a black city that stalked across the ruined land like a giant tick, the metal of its legs crashing and grinding as if each step were agony. At its front, three red lights blazed like fire, showing Thomas his first dronon-creatures that in the distance he thought looked like giant flying ants. They manned the city’s gun emplacements.

The dronon city marched to them, halted. Karthenor and his men ascended, climbing handholds along one huge leg.

Thomas had never thought himself afraid of heights, but when he’d reached sixty meters in the air, he looked below at the rocky plain, gray in the twilight, and his hands began shaking.

“Do not be afraid,” Karthenor ordered from below. Thomas’s Guide stilled his shaking hands; he climbed with confidence.

The dark interior of the hive city smelled acrid, a biting scent that burned Thomas’s sinuses. White powder dusted the metal floors. Karthenor warned Thomas to avoid the dust. He bid Thomas follow through dark halls, dimly lit with red globes, passing dronon sentries who lined the tunnels, sometimes clinging with all six limbs to a ceiling so they hung like gaudy fixtures.

Deeper within, the air became hotter, stifling. Bangs and groans issued from deep recesses of the hive. As the city turned and walked, the floor pitched like a ship at sea. The jostling did not bother the dronon, who scurried about on six legs, but it was hell for a human to walk in here. Sometimes the group would stop, then climb rungs on the wall to reach a higher level. Thomas studied everything-the black-carapaced warriors so large and cruel; the elegant, almost gaunt, scholars with their tan bodies and green facial markings. Small white workers rushed everywhere, like immature roaches, prodding and carrying items.

As for the machinery-the alien angles to the tubing, the strange faceted lights-for Thomas it provided only a bizarre and incomprehensible backdrop to the dronon activities. He was, after all, nothing but an old man from a world where his people shunned anything more complex than a rake.

At last Karthenor reached a great room with a gently curving floor, where a bloated dronon queen sat, gorging herself on huge chunks of meat. Small workers frantically scurried about, attending her needs. The queen dronon had ruddy golden-colored chitin, with faint bronze tints beneath her legs.

When Karthenor reached this chamber, he and his men each fell to one knee, bowed their heads, and held their arms forward, palms raised above the floor. Karthenor said, “I have come, My Queen, as you bid.”

The queen spoke, her mouthfingers tapping her voicedrum. A translator pinned to Karthenor’s lapel spoke. “You are just in time. The great work is accomplished. A few hours past, an ansible transmission pinpointed the location of the human’s Golden Queen in a far galaxy. We will fly to her. The Tharrin will not have time to warn her. She will not escape.”

“Excellent,” Karthenor said. “It will be an honor to accompany you, as it is an honor to serve you.”

The dronon queen dismissed him. Thomas followed Karthenor and his men to a small chamber within the city.

In a dim room, several levels down from the queen’s chamber, Karthenor and his men rested. Fresh air blew into this room through open vents, and the dronon had placed six cots in three tiers along the walls. Nothing about the room seemed quite right. The dronon had made the beds too long and too narrow, as if expecting men who were nine feet tall and thin as rails. Some beds were on the floor, others smashed right up against the ceiling. These dronon, Thomas felt sure, had never seen a human.

Once in the room, Karthenor unpacked a bit of food for his men and gave Thomas a bar of some kind of grain with fruit and nuts mixed in. Karthenor was an odd man. Sometimes he’d forget to feed Thomas all day. Other times he overfed him. Whatever his mood called for. Thomas felt grateful to eat.

Karthenor said, “I have good news for you, news I dared not speak until now-not on any human world.

“You’ve traveled through the world gates, Thomas, something almost no one ever does. The Tharrin jealously guard gate technology, fearing the gates could be ill-used. But when the dronon got control of the Tharrin’s Omni-mind, they pried some secrets from it, and learned that gate technology is far more powerful than the Tharrin ever let on.

“As you’ve seen them, the gates lead from world to world, each taking you to only one destination. But there is no reason a gate cannot be programmed to take you to any destination you desire. Nor is there any reason a gate cannot be built large enough to send a ship across space.

“Of course the Tharrin would never use them this way. They wouldn’t like the idea of warships winking across the galaxy in the time it takes you to drink a shot of whiskey. It would make mankind too powerful, lead to easy confrontations.

“Fortunately, the dronon don’t have the Tharrin’s compunctions against the use of gate technology.

“The Lords of the Seventh Swarm have built a gate that leads to all worlds, and they’ve built it large. Large enough for warships to fly through.

“Tonight, we fly through it, and you will see your niece for the last time. Tomorrow, the galaxy will be ours.”