Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 28

Lord Felph had long tried to keep a low profile on Ruin. It seemed inevitable that the dronon would come to the Carina Galaxy, and he’d made certain that the coordinates of Ruin were kept quiet. The Carina Interplanetary Federation had removed the planet’s name from star charts. Conventional radio chatter on Ruin was kept minimal, and then broadcast only at low intensities on tight beams. Felph didn’t want the planet showing up under scrutiny.

As for ansibles, he didn’t own one. He knew it made him look reclusive to outsiders. Most planetary governments would have considered instantaneous communications a necessity. Not Felph. Billions of people had lived fine lives without the damned things, thank you. That’s what shuttles were for, carrying messages out to civilization.

But when the dronon appeared in the skies over Ruin,

Felph knew that some seventy years of painstaking precautions had been wasted. His world was the first in the galaxy to come under attack. The whole planet fell hostage in the blink of an eye.

Felph puttered about his palace, fretting all morning. Why this day, of all days? With Henn dead-Zeus and Gallen gone.

Felph tried, but after the dronon appeared, he couldn’t raise Gallen over the radio. The dronon’s jammers might have interrupted communications in any case, but Felph suspected that Gallen kept silent for other reasons. Even if Gallen couldn’t hear the transmissions, Felph reasoned he would hightail it back to the palace as soon as he saw the dronon. But apparently the Lord Protector knew enough to crawl under a rock when dronon invaded. Felph had to appreciate that.

At the same time, he wished he’d hired a more intrepid man. A real Lord Protector would have done something about the dronon.

Once Felph failed to contact Gallen, he decided to ask Arachne for counsel. That’s what he had created her for, but the woman was not at her loom, and a search by the droids proved she wasn’t in the palace.

As for Hera and Athena, neither of them had any idea why the dronon ships had arrived. Hera’s advice was, “Sit quietly, and see what happens.”

Athena was more practical. She set out to find Arachne, and by considering the places where the woman might have gone, she chanced upon several loose hairs and a couple of drops of blood in the lower corridors, by the launching bay.

She followed a trail of blood droplets into a droid access corridor, found hairs by a recycling shoot.

Moments later, she retrieved Arachne’s corpse, carried it up, laid it before Felph in his upper offices, and described how she’d found the body.

He stared at it in dismay, shaken, unwilling to believe his eyes, hardly hearing a word. Arachne, his best counselor, murdered. Her face was covered in blood and bruises.

Her silver hair mussed. Her dark eyes looked up blankly, like those of a stupid cow.

All that wisdom, all that beauty, all that insight lost. There was nothing for it but to clone her, start again. Yet. Felph wondered. Even if I clone her, will she be as wise? She’d accumulated so much knowledge in her short life; Felph despaired of ever recreating a creature quite as lovely, quite as prescient.

Felph’s heart hammered, and for a long while he simply stared at the corpse in shock. She’d been killed in the corridors, near Gallen’s ship. Beaten to death.

Who could have done it? Gallen? The bear? And why? Surely Zeus would not have done it, Felph told himself, even as a cold dread filled his breast.

Felph did not have long to wonder. Two hours after he’d first discovered the dronon presence and scant minutes after Athena located Arachne’s corpse, his perimeter security droids suddenly wailed a priority-one intruder alert.

The exterior security cameras showed a dozen craft approach from the southeast. Vanquishers, with black carapaces gleaming in the dull sunlight, skimmed through the grainfield on airbikes.

They halted at the front gate of the palace. Felph, flanked by his two remaining daughters, drove a house transport down to the main gate-a structure of rose quartz that stood some forty meters in the air, supported by twin pillars of red sandstone.

At the gate, Felph commanded the palace AI to open the doors; silently they swung outward.

Felph studied the Vanquishers. Each dronon rode a bike like nothing ever built by humans. The sleek silver machines reflected the dull red morning sun. The Vanquishers straddling them were more repulsive than Felph imagined they would be. Their black carapaces and amber wings appeared regal, but the clusters of eyes, along with the sensor whips protruding above the strikingly cruel mandibles, made them look too much like insects.

For all that, their appearance did not shake Felph so much as the casual way they held their weapons. The huge battle arms of each Vanquisher, with their serrated lower edges, looked crablike. Each arm cradled a dronon pulp pistol or incendiary rifle. The Vanquishers held the weapons as if they intended to use them.

One dronon pulled within a few meters of Felph; dozens of mouthfingers under its mandibles began clicking. A small device that seemed to be mounted to the exterior of the dronon’s skull, just above the mandibles, translated, “We seek the Lords of the Sixth Swarm, Gallen O’Day, and his Golden Queen, Maggie. Our Seekers detect her scent on your premises.”

Felph suddenly became aware of how fiercely his heart pounded. “Maggie, the Golden Queen?”

It suddenly made sense-a Lord Protector and his wife, here on the far edge of nowhere. Arachne must have known. Perhaps she’d said as much to Gallen, and in order to keep his secret, he’d murdered her.

As Felph recognized who Gallen was and why he’d come, a fierce hope began to burn within him.

I created Zeus to beat the Lords of the Swarms, Felph wanted to tell the dronon. He should be here now, to challenge your lords to Right of Charn.

But Zeus was with Gallen.

Felph looked to Hera, who stared at the Vanquishers, wonder and fear warring in her eyes. She was so beautiful, so flawless. She would make a fine Golden Queen. If only Zeus were here to fight beside her.

“Gallen and Maggie left, this morning, to work in the desert. They disappeared when you showed up.”

“They are hiding,” the dronon’s voice drummed out. “It is madness to hide from us. They dishonor their species. They will be destroyed.”

Not madness to hide, Felph wanted to say. Wisdom.

A plan began to blossom, taking solid form in his head. If the dronon found Gallen, they’d find Zeus, too.

“I think I know where they will hide. I’ll help you find them,” Felph whispered, “in exchange for a promise.”

“What do you require?” the dronon Vanquisher clicked.

“When the Lords of the Swarms challenge Gallen and Maggie to battle, I want to be there.”

In answer, the dronon Vanquisher did an unexpected thing. He put his head forward, crossing his battle arms in front of him, and bowed to Lord Felph.

“It is agreed.”