Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 27

Gallen looked through one of the Nightswift’s viewers for signs of a Qualeewooh flying over the red desert. He was searching the sky, one square kilometer at a time, scanning images of the rim rock, and the yellow-and-orange sands below. The ship’s long-range sensors could give good visuals on any Qualeewooh within fifty kilometers.

The ship hovered twenty kilometers in the air, and as Gallen conducted a visual search, the Seeker Maggie had made circled Felph’s palace on a wide trajectory.

They had been hunting for two hours. Gallen had asked the ship’s AI to display anything with a wingspan of more than four feet. So far the AI had shown nothing, but suddenly Maggie’s Seeker picked up a scent and rocketed north on a zigzag course.

Gallen could see nothing in that direction; he ordered the ship to watch for him while he rested his eyes.

Gallen let the sensors on his mantle show him the scene behind his back. Orick, Maggie, Tallea, and Zeus all sat on the bridge behind him.

Orick had been teaching Tallea. He said, “‘Then the disciples went to Jesus, and asked, Lord, if a man sins; then repenteth afterward, and sins. again, how many times shall we forgive him? ‘Til seven times?’

“Jesus answered, ‘I say unto you, not seven times, but ‘til seventy times seven.’ “

Tallea asked, “Four hundred and ninety times? Why that number?”

Orick sighed in exasperation. His lesson on repentance and forgiveness seemed taxing for the bear. Orick’s Christian concepts seemed almost beyond Tallea’s grasp, but Orick had understood these concepts since he was a cub. The knowledge of such things was in the air back on Tihrgias.

“It’s not the number of times you forgive that’s important,” Orick answered Tallea. “It’s just a metaphor. What Jesus really meant was that we should continue to forgive offenses, even when we’ve tired of it.”

Zeus asked Orick, “This god of yours, Orick, why does he care what we do?”

“He is the father of our spirits,” Orick answered. “If you had a child, and I harmed it, you would rightfully take offense. In the same way, if you harm God’s child, He takes offense.”

Zeus said, “You say your god is forgiving. But who will he forgive? And what?”

“He will forgive you,” Orick said boldly. “He has said ‘Though your sins be as, scarlet, yet shall they be white as snow.’”

Zeus looked away. His long black hair was mussed, his dark brown eyes intense, brooding. His jaw quivered, as if in anger or fear. This talk of sin seemed to aggravate him.

Zeus suddenly whirled back toward Orick. “Quit staring at me, bear! I don’t need your repentance!”

“I … I’m sorry,” Orick said. “But you look-agitated. I thought maybe I could help.”

“I don’t need your help,” Zeus said.

“Perhaps you need God’s help,” Orick answered.

Zeus stood abruptly, turned his back to Orick, and gazed into the monitors above Maggie’s chair. He said, “There’s our quarry!”

Maggie had aimed her monitor well north of the Seeker, where two lonely Qualeewoohs flapped their wings slowly in the morning light. The picture was grainy, but Gallen could clearly make out the dark feathers.

Gallen said, “Ship, send, the Seeker north at six hundred kilometers per hour until it intersects those Qualeewoohs. I want to see how they smell before we go in.”

“Affirmative,” the Al said.

Gallen’s mantle whispered a warning, flashed an image of Zeus standing behind him, slightly crouched, as if ready to spring. Zeus’s hand strayed to the. pistol holstered on his right hip.

The bears crowded near to look at the screen, unaware of Zeus. Gallen could see from Zeus’s shaking hand, from the quivering jaw, he wanted to draw his weapon and fire. Yet he was afraid-for good reason. Gallen realized, Zeus doesn’t know the powers of a Lord Protector.

Go ahead, draw, Gallen silently urged. Gallen would spin and shoot before Zeus knew what hit him.

Zeus hesitated, eased his stance. He’d decided to wait.

So we wait, Gallen thought. Yet he wondered at the reason behind Zeus’s show of aggression. He doesn’t trust me to bring in the Qualeewoohs, Gallen knew. But something more seemed to be going on.

Gallen took the helm, brought the ship down, keeping the Qualeewoohs in sight. The ship bounced as it pounded through air currents, shaking the cameras.

In moments the Seeker screamed up behind the prey.

When the Qualeewoohs sensed the pill-shaped Seeker on their tails, the birds split-one right, one left-and hurtled to a small hillock crested by standing stones.

“Quarry identification is positive,” the ship’s AI whispered, its deep voice filling the helm.

The Seeker followed the Qualeewooh that had split right. Winging toward a cleft in the rocks, the Qualeewooh spun in the air, folding its wings to make the narrow escape.

The Seeker, traveling at just under ninety kilometers an hour, could not match the bird’s deft maneuver. It slammed into a stone abutment and exploded into a fireball.

In seconds Gallen’s ship reached the site. The Qualeewoohs dived into the rocks, seeking shelter in a crevice. On the barren plain beyond this rock pile, Gallen didn’t see so much as a bush or gully for a kilometer. He’d cornered the Qualeewoohs.

Gallen reached into his pack, pulled out the Qualeewooh translator Felph had given him, and hooked it to the voice mike he’d been carrying ever since he’d confronted the Lords of the Sixth Swarm on dronon.

That done, Gallen opened the ship’s hatch and called, “You two in the rocks, come out.” His voice rang as if with a shout, echoing back from the stone walls below.

Gallen waited, but the Qualeewoohs didn’t emerge from hiding. He repeated the order.

After a full minute, he looked over at Orick and. Maggie. “I guess I’ll have to go get them. Anyone want to follow?”

He didn’t want Maggie to come, felt relieved when she declined. Orick said, “They won’t be so afraid if you meet them alone. Maybe it should just be you who is talking to them.”

“Good point,” Gallen said.

Zeus immediately grumbled, “I’m coming, too.”

Maggie lowered the ship a meter from the ground, and Gallen climbed down, followed by Zeus. The hillock stood no more than sixty meters high, yet Gallen found it a rough climb up the huge stone slabs, leaping from foothold to foothold. He stretched his senses, let his mantle magnify incoming sounds. Everything was still. He ordered the mantle’s motion detectors to kick in.

He wasn’t afraid. Instead he felt coiled, ready. He’d hunted more dangerous prey. Yet the Qualeewoohs couldn’t be ignored as a threat. One had mastered the art of aerial decapitation.

Together, Zeus and Gallen reached the top of the hillock, stood on a huge flat rock. Gallen looked down on all sides. To the east, he heard a scratching sound, something scraping rock as it tried to dig deeper for cover.

“Come out,” Gallen said. “We must talk.”

Almost instantly he was aware of a form to his right, swerving up to meet him. It came so fast, only his mantle let him react. He drew an incendiary rifle, leveled it at the bird.

A Qualeewooh whipped up the ravine toward them, batted the air with its wings so it hovered nearby, staring at. them. Gallen hadn’t been prepared for the awesome sight.

The bird was huge, at least thirteen feet at the wingspan. Forever after, he’d hold the image of that encounter, the Qualeewooh beating its wings, the wind coming off them like a storm, the dark purple brooding of its feathers, the strange black mask over its long face, filigreed with swirls of silver, the dark eyes, like black quartz with a tinge of violet, staring at him.

Gallen wasn’t prepared for the intelligence in those eyes, the intensity, the crazed gleam. The Qualeewooh opened its mouth and whistled, a strange sound that somehow reminded Gallen of ropes twisting in the air. Gallen saw rows of teeth in that deep, beaklike face.

“Even if you take my mask, you will have no soul,” the Qualeewooh whistled.

Gallen pointed his rifle at the Qualeewooh’s breastbone. “If I wanted to wear your mask, you’d be dead. I came to talk.”

“Speak,” the Qualeewooh whistled. Only then did Gallen notice that the creature bore a thin blade, a scimitar, in its left hand. The small hand protruded from the apex of the wings, and the Qualeewooh had expertly concealed the blade in its pinion feathers.

“You killed our friend,” Gallen said. “Yesterday. You ate him.”

The Qualeewooh swooped forward, landed on the rock beside Gallen. Standing up, it was nearly as tall as a man. It held its head back on a snakelike neck and stood for a moment gazing at Gallen, just blinking.

“We killed an animal,” the Qualeewooh said. “Not human. It had wings.”

“It was a human with wings,” Gallen said. “He was my brother!” Zeus shouted.

The Qualeewooh made a high, keening whistle, and bobbed its head up and down rapidly while blinking. The translator on Gallen’s lapel interpreted the keening wail. “Noooooo!”

The Qualeewooh waddled forward, extending its neck, and laid its head on the ground, twisted up slightly to the side. “Blood debt we owe. Blood debt. Two lives for one.”

With the sound of that wail a second Quaieewooh, a small and beautiful female, scrabbled from the rocks, winged its way up the slope, and lit nearby, bobbing its head, calling, “Two lives! Two lives!”

The Qualeewoohs looked at one another, a mournful glance, and the female waddled forward. “An egg is in my pouch. We are two. Slay us. Cooharah shall live.”

“No, I plead to the fourth degree,” the male said. “Aaw shall live. Slay me and her chick.”

Gallen studied the Qualeewoohs. Both birds appeared to be hot. The blue gathers of skin at their throats jiggled, cooling them. With them sitting on the rock, wings folded, they did not look so noble or marvelous. He could see spots on the male where feathers were missing or broken, could see the wear on their lone blade, the thin nap on the bag the female wore. The bag Aaw wore strapped across her chest was decorated with feathers and beads, held closed by a circular pin. It looked to be made of some thin strands of woven reed.

Gallen noticed blood at the edge of Cooharah’s mask. These Qualeewoohs were poor, tired. They had nothing to offer but their useless lives, and they begged to throw them away, pleading loudly, squawking. Honorable and pathetic.

Gallen decided to put Zeus to the test. “Here are your murderers. They don’t want a trial. You want to kill them?”

Zeus stared at the Qualeewoohs in disgust, his hands bunched into fists, his face pale. He seemed to struggle, to seek control. Back in the ship’s cabin, fifteen minutes earlier, Orick had been preaching about understanding and forgiveness.

“No.” Zeus looked away, shook his head. “Let the damned things go.”

Gallen said softly, so the translator would not pick up his words. “Felph will be angry.”

Zeus shook his head. “I don’t care.”

Gallen stared into Zeus’s dark eyes. “Maggie believes you want to leave Lord Felph, leave this world. Is that true?”

Zeus took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, looked up at the clear sky, the distant sun beating mercilessly. “Leave this happy place? The family fortune? I don’t know.” Gallen understood. It’s hard to leave comfort for the unknown.

Gallen remembered when he’d left his home. He’d not had it so soft as Zeus. A life of poverty and work, but with the comfort of good friends and family as recompense.

“Where were you going?” Gallen asked the Qualeewoohs.

Cooharah, answered. “We look for an oasis, a place to nest.”

Gallen debated in his mind whether to warn the Qualeewoohs that Felph wanted them dead. Judging from how they acted, the fool birds would probably demand to return to the palace for execution. So Gallen said, “You’ll find an oasis two hundred kilometers to the northeast, but you won’t be safe there. Men may hunt you. Continue on till you get to the great tangle.”

“Negative to the fourth degree,” Aaw said. “We owe blood debt. We must pay. The ancestors tell us so.”

“We can’t take your lives,” Gallen said. “Human law won’t allow it. You are forgiven the blood debt.” Gallen unsnapped the canteen from his belt and poured water into an indentation in the rock so the birds could drink. “Go in peace.”

Gallen turned and climbed down from the rock, heading for the ship, acutely aware that behind him, Zeus had not yet moved.

Zeus eyed Gallen’s back, tense, as if considering Gallen’s rationale. If Zeus did not attack now, if he did not slay the Qualeewoohs here, he’d lose the opportunity. Gallen used the sensors in his mantle to study the big man.

At last, Zeus followed, leaping down from rock to rock. “Stinking, ignorant savages,” he murmured.

The Qualeewoohs flapped their wings, glided downhill, then circled the ship, gawking, and flew off to the north.

Gallen stood watching them leave, when his mantle sent a warning that rang in his head. “Warning-imminent attack!

Gallen ducked and spun to block, imagining Zeus was attacking, but Zeus only startled backward in surprise. Gallen’s mantle continued. “Fifteen heavy battle cruisers have exited hyperspace at one hundred kilometers. Neutron mines have fired into orbit.”

From the Nightswift, Maggie shouted through the hatch.

“Gallen, get in here!” Apparently she was getting the same news.

“Neutron mines?” Gallen asked his mantle as he ran for the ship. The heavy mass of densely packed neutrons made it almost impossible to navigate a jump into hyperspace, the gravitational distortions caused by the mines could send a ship slamming into a star or crashing into a planet. If Gallen left Ruin now and hit a mine, his ship might even tear apart in the upper atmosphere. Yet there was a secondary danger: if the mines were set too close to Ruin’s gravity well, they’d get pulled in like meteors-meteors heavy enough to shoot through the planet’s crust like bullets, creating a global catastrophe. Enough neutron mines placed in low orbit could decimate a world.

Gallen reached the ship, jumped into the hold, ran to the bridge. Their little cruiser was fast, very fast for a civilian vessel, but it lacked weaponry and didn’t have enough armor for combat. Maggie stood at the console, looking about, obviously upset.

“Identify those ships!” Gallen ordered the ship’s AI, hoping against all odds that for some reason he couldn’t fathom, human boats would be in the sky.

The ship’s AI answered in its damned neutral voice, “Six dronon Golden-Class vessels, and nine dronon War Hives. Sensor jammers have just been initiated. All radio contact is now impossible. I cannot confirm new arrivals of ships, nor can I verify the locations of mines.”

Gallen looked at Maggie. “Six Golden-Class vessels!” she breathed.

“What does that mean?” Zeus asked.

“The dronon Lords of the Swarms are here-all of them,” Gallen said.

Maggie asked, “Ship, with the jammers on, can the dronon read our position?”

“So it’s true, what Arachne said?” Zeus asked Gallen. “You and Maggie really are the Lords of the Sixth Swarm?”

“Negative,” the ship answered Maggie. “The dronon cannot read our position unless they make visual contact.”

Maggie glanced back to Gallen. “We need to get under cover. The palace?”

Gallen shook his head, thinking furiously. “No, your scent is everywhere there.” The dronon would obviously send Seekers. And in his mind, he saw a vision of clouds, of the towering storms above Teeawah. Felph said they raged there almost constantly.

“Ship,” Gallen nearly shouted, “take us to Teeawah. Get us under the clouds, top speed.”

With a lurch, the ship hurtled forward. Gallen feared the moving ship would show easily on dronon scanners, but he only hoped that now, having just reached Ruin, the dronon wouldn’t have had time to begin extensive planetary surveillance. Besides, even if they had, he imagined, the tangle was huge. He could hide in that mess for weeks.

For twelve long minutes his ship hurtled through the sky at mach fifteen, fast enough so the heat shielding on the ship’s hull began to flame. Gallen’s heart raced; his breathing came uneasy.

Almost as soon as he saw thunderheads looming, lightning at their crowns, they slowed, bursting into their envelope. Under sullen skies, the tangle gleamed wet. Dark purple trees thrust up in exotic corkscrews or folded on themselves like nautilus shells; others towered like giant hairs.

As the ship maneuvered through this growth, the wind drove rain against the viewscreens in steady sheets.

The storm here had worsened over the past two days. Gallen had never seen a deluge like it, as if the heavens poured out all the waters in the world.

Gallen changed course, let the rains cool the burning hull. He imagined how the ship must look from outside this behemoth oozing steam. If the dronon used infrared sensors, even these clouds might not hide the ship. Gallen only hoped that the rain would cool the hull soon.

The ship soared over something huge and pale, slightly pink, like a blind snake void of pigment, worming its way through the trees. The creature must have been two hundred meters long. and eight meters in diameter.

Zeus studied the viewscreen. “Mistwife,” he said. “It must be hungry to hunt in daylight. It comes up from the ocean.”

“At the bottom of the tangle?” Gallen asked. “Yes,” Zeus said. “They live in deep water and hunt on nights when rain slicks the trees.”

Perhaps they are amphibious, Gallen decided, or perhaps like large worms. In any case, it sounded as if they needed moisture. As the ship soared past the creature, Gallen suddenly saw dozens of others like it, worming their way out of the tangle.

“It’s excited,” Zeus said. “It senses our movement.”

Then Gallen understood. There were not dozens of mistwives. This was a single organism. He suddenly envisioned it, like an enormous anemone, sending up tentacles to fetch food. Yet Gallen found that almost impossible to imagine. The ship was two thousand meters above sea level, yet this creature sent dozens of tentacles up through the tangle, questing, searching for food. How large was a mistwife? How powerful?

Gallen didn’t want to find out.

He soared under the storm, counting on the steady throb of lightning, the ionization of the atmosphere, to shield him from the dronon’s electronic detection. The ship began to pick up urgent broadcasts from Lord Felph.

That could only mean that the dronon had turned off their signal jammers, so that they could begin their hunt. Gallen dared not answer Felph’s calls.

And be dared not stay airborne. The dronon would search the planet via conventional radar and with imaging detectors. The constant lightning that speared through the clouds should make it difficult for the dronon to search with infrared, but Gallen couldn’t be certain. If the clouds thinned, if the lightning slowed even for a few moments, he might be found.

The wisest course would be to land immediately, but not near this mistwife. It might crush the ship. Gallen wondered if he could find a region that would be safer, more secure.

But it wasn’t a hiding place that he wanted. They could hide in the tangle, maybe for weeks, but they’d run out of food, if the dronon didn’t find them first.

Now that the dronon had set a picket around the planet, he wouldn’t be able to blast off.

We cannot hide, and we cannot run, Gallen realized.

Which meant that he would have to fight. On a sudden impulse, he commanded the ship to return to the coordinates where he’d gone on his brief expedition with Lord Felph.

“Where are you going?” Maggie asked. “You don’t plan to look for the city?”

“The dronon will find us eventually,” Gallen said softly. “I won’t just hide. We have to do something.”