The Web and the Stars Read online

  THE WEB AND THE STARS

  Book 2 of the Timeweb Chronicles

  Brian Herbert

  Digital Edition 2011

  WordFire Press

  www.wordfire.com

  eBook ISBN 978-1-61475-101-4

  First publication in 2007 in conjunction with Tekno Books and Ed Gorman

  Copyright © 2007 by DreamStar, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Published by

  WordFire Press, an imprint of

  WordFire Inc

  PO Box 1840

  Monument CO 80132

  Electronic Version by Baen Ebooks

  http://www.baen.com

  Dedication

  For my loving wife and incredible soul-mate, Jan. Thank you for believing in me wholeheartedly, and for never doubting me when I told you truthfully that I had dedicated Timeweb to you, and the printer forgot to include that page. With Book Two in the series, The Web and the Stars, I am including that original dedication:

  Of all the books I have written, I owe the most to Jan for this one. You are the love of my life and my daily inspiration. Thank you for being so understanding while I spend much of my life in my study, taking fantastic journeys through space and time. You are a blessing beyond words.

  Chapter One

  A thought can be immortal, even if its creator is not.

  —Noah Watanabe

  They floated in orbital space, torn fragments of thick, lifeless flesh, drifting apart slowly in bright sunlight. Nearby, the powerful sensor-guns of a pod station waited for the emergence of another podship, in a flash of green light. But it did not happen. Now, following three explosions in a matter of hours … obliterating as many podships and all of their passengers … an eerie silence prevailed.

  Looking through the porthole of a shuttle as it made its way through the carnage, Noah Watanabe felt the deepest sadness in his entire life. To his knowledge, nothing like this had ever before happened in history. He had been responsible for it and felt considerable guilt, but reminded himself that the violence had been necessary to prevent further Mutati attacks, and that podships and their passengers had been dying anyway, each time the shapeshifters used their super-weapon against a merchant prince planet. Entire worlds had been annihilated!

  For millions of years the gentle Aopoddae had traversed the galaxy to its farthest reaches and back, making their way through perilous meteor storms, asteroid belts, exploding stars, black holes, and a myriad of other space hazards. The sentient spacecraft had survived all of those dangers, and might have continued to do so for the rest of eternity.

  If not for the unfortunate intervention of galactic warfare.…

  * * * * *

  They’re shooting podships out of space!

  In the millennium that he had been the Eye of the Swarm, the leader of the Parvii race, Woldn had never faced a crisis of this dimension. Now he had to make a quick decision and knew it would be the defining moment of his life, the event that would be remembered for eternity.

  He flew from star system to star system and then back again in a matter of moments, accompanied by an entourage of only a few million Parviis, moving with him almost as if they were part of his body. Usually he had many more of his kind with him, linked telepathically, but now he needed solitude and room to think. This small group constituted his royal guard, and now he was performing the Parvii equivalent of pacing, flying back and forth across great distances.

  His worries caused him to fly faster. He reached such a speed that he very nearly left the others behind. Just before flying into the heart of a red giant sun, he spun around and returned, speeding past his entourage again, in the other direction.

  He knew what had led up to the podship crisis, the Mutati torpedoes that destroyed four merchant prince planets, attacks that stemmed from the long-standing enmity between the Humans and their shapeshifting enemies.

  When his guards had finally caught up with him, Woldn had made his difficult, monumental decision. The slender Parvii had slowed in the spiral arm of the galaxy, and come to a dead stop in space. His defenders gathered around.

  From there, where no outsider could see him, the powerful Eye of the Swarm communicated his decision to his Parvii minions, sending mental signals so powerful that they reached completely across the galaxy, to every sector.

  Effective immediately, without regard to who was at fault for the destruction of the three podships at Canopa, the Parviis would cut off all podship travel to and from Human and Mutati worlds. No notices would be sent; podships would simply no longer go to those places. Throughout the rest of the galaxy, service would continue. Furthermore, all podships presently operating in Human and Mutati sectors were to jettison their passengers and cargoes, and report to a remote region of the galaxy.

  He transmitted the telepathic commands, ranging far and wide. In those targeted sectors, the bellies of hundreds of podships opened in-flight and everything tumbled out, sending the unfortunate, unwitting passengers to their instantaneous deaths.

  * * * * *

  In a matter of hours, Woldn received a troubling report that his messages had not reached every Parvii pilot. He had feared this might happen, since the number of telepathic dead zones in the galaxy had been increasing at an alarming rate, running parallel with the disintegration of Timeweb.

  Boarding a podship, the Eye of the Swarm prepared to broadcast from a sectoid chamber directly to pilots in other sectoid chambers, a method that boosted his signal strength. In Woldn’s lifetime this had never been necessary, but it was one of the methods his predecessors had employed successfully in times of need. On the downside, it might injure the podship he transmitted from, due to the painful amplification of signal strength. But that was a risk he had to take.

  Too much was at stake.

  Chapter Two

  In the vast universe, there are always hunters and their prey, either overt or latent. As a corollary, all relationships are only temporary, depending upon circumstances, mutual needs, and the availability of alternate sources of energy to satisfy the basic requirements of the living organisms. Symbiosis is only an illusion, and a potentially dangerous trap for the unwary.

  —Master Noah Watanabe

  As Tesh clung to the wall of the sectoid chamber at the nucleus of her podship, she guided the vessel along the gently curving strands of a deep-space web. Thinking back to a very special wild pod hunt centuries ago, she recalled her initiation into the ancient process. It had been in one of the darkest and most mysterious sectors of the galaxy, where hardly anything could be seen by the naked eye or instrumentation. But from an intense racial need, or survival-based instinct, Parviis on the hunt were able to see with a powerful inner eye—one that illuminated the fleeing podships as glowing green objects, like luminescent whales in a stygian sea.

  She had been with other Parviis flying freely in space, millions and millions of them swarming to capture the feral pods, using neurotoxin stingers on the big, dumb creatures to subdue and train them. Gradually, as the podships were controlled and began to respon
d to the commands of their handlers, the Parviis cut back on the drugs, and drastically reduced their own numbers … until finally one tiny Parvii could control each Aopoddae vessel.

  Employing that procedure, Tesh was given command of her first sentient ship. It had been an extraordinary, exhilarating experience, and she came to feel that the captured podship was her very own, like a Human teenager with a pony. At the time she knew the ownership sensation was preposterous, because her people rotated piloting duties, but she couldn’t help feeling it. Afterward, in due course, she passed the pod on to one of her comrades and went on to other duties.

  Reminiscing now, she sighed and felt a profound, deeply satisfying connection with her people and their collective past. For hundreds of years Tesh had piloted countless other podships, but none had been as special as that first capture; like a first love, none had ever occupied the same place in her heart.

  Within a narrow range, each Aopoddae ship had a subtly distinct personality, a slightly different way of responding to her commands. While all podships were similar in appearance, her trained eye could make out slightly different vein patterns on the skins, and with a touch she was able to distinguish varying textures. Inside the green, glowing core of this one, she inhaled deeply and identified barely perceptible musk odors, some of which reminded her of that first pod.

  She was thinking how relaxing it was out here, speeding along the faint green web strands, hearing only the faint background hum of the sectoid chamber. Then the podship vibrated and slowed.

  Using her linkage to peer through the eyes of the sentient vessel, Tesh saw that the web strand—ahead and behind—was slightly frayed, with tiny filaments fluttering in space, as if dancing on a cosmic breeze. Still vibrating, the vessel proceeded slowly over a rough section, making Tesh uneasy. She’d known the web was deteriorating but had never discovered the reason, and as a pilot she had never experienced anything like this before.

  Presently the strand’s integrity improved, and the podship accelerated again.

  The web was a living organism, and over the eons slight aberrations had appeared in it, sections that were not perfectly symmetrical, but this was different. If she’d been a close confidante of the Eye of the Swarm, as she used to be, she could have asked him about it. Woldn was a storehouse of such information.

  Parviis communicated with each other in a variety of ways. When flying in a swarm of only a few million individuals, they could beam thoughts to one another telepathically, and could communicate through speech when in close proximity. They could also transmit messages across great distances of space, from sectoid chamber to sectoid chamber, when piloting podships.

  But since bygone times, the most important means by which Parviis remained in contact was through the extrasensory morphic field that extended outward from the Eye of the Swarm, reaching Parviis in all sectors of the galaxy. It was one-way, with only Woldn able to transmit freely across space with it, but for Tesh it had always been a comforting, wordless presence, an ineffable sensation that she was part of a larger organism, linked to the Eye and to every Parvii who had ever lived.

  Recently, however, she had felt her connection to the morphic field weakening, and an odd, growing impression that she would one day be completely on her own. She wondered if it had anything to do with this podship she had taken control of without Woldn’s approval. She was a podship pilot by profession, but was only authorized to operate one that had been captured by a Parvii swarm, under Woldn’s supervision.

  This Aopoddae was entirely different, a peculiar vessel that she had struggled against Noah Watanabe to control, and which he had eventually permitted her to operate while he took heroic action in an effort to save humankind.

  Noah was unlike any humanus ordinaire who had ever lived. He had unfathomable powers, abilities that in some respects went beyond those of the Parviis, and of the Tulyans. He frightened her. She sensed that he could take control of the ship back from her at any moment, by reaching out telepathically and overriding her commands. It would do her no good to turn the podship over to the swarm; Noah could just take it back.

  Her earlier experience with Noah had occurred during a hiatus from Tesh’s duties as a pilot, an ongoing break that had not been relaxing at all, not with all of the problems in the galaxy, including the terrible war between the merchant princes and the shapeshifters. She hoped Noah was safe, but since their parting she had only heard hearsay about him, that he had been taken into custody by the Doge Lorenzo, despite his selfless bravery.

  With respect to the podship she was guiding now, she had never heard of a Parvii taking command of one this way. Tesh knew the situation was a gray ethical area, but perhaps in her unique situation she could make a salvage claim to Woldn, and be awarded long-term control of the vessel. She had never heard of a case exactly like this one, but over the millennia some Parviis had received rewards for extraordinary exploits. She recalled some details of other cases, drawing parallels so that she might argue her case to Woldn.

  Besides, what if this particular vessel had been contaminated by Noah’s connection with it? It might make sense for her to keep it separate from others in the fleet, to avoid having all of them fall under Noah’s strange, potentially dangerous spell.

  But a sinking feeling told her this was an unfounded fear, a rationalization of her questing mind to come up with an excuse for keeping the podship.

  Inside the green luminescence of the sectoid chamber, the background hum intensified, and she heard the Eye of the Swarm communicating with her over the strands of the podways. Tesh’s heart sank. But it was not a message for her alone … it was for all Parviis in sectoid chambers around the galaxy, and with it she heard the distant squeal of Woldn’s podship, from the extreme pain of the galactic transmission.

  The urgent, drastic command of her superior appalled her. Despite the destruction of three podships by merchant prince guns, and the ongoing state of war between Humans and Mutatis, that did not justify Woldn’s decision. He was committing murder.

  Impulsively, Tesh guided her podship through deep space at high speed, searching the main podways for jettisoned passengers that she might rescue. Time after time she arrived too late, however, and found the horribly damaged, space-frozen bodies and other remnants of victims, from most of the galactic races.

  And no survivors.

  Trying to maintain her composure, Tesh speculated on Woldn’s reasoning, that he wanted to discontinue all space travel immediately in the dangerous regions. Such a terrible way to do it, though. He should have ordered the ships to sectors that were not controlled by Humans or Mutatis, permitting the passengers to disembark safely.

  Tesh was already considered something of a malcontent in the collective consciousness of her people. In the past she had voiced her opinions openly to Woldn, often to his annoyance. The last time she had defied him, he’d briefly suspended her privilege to pilot a podship. Something like that could happen again, or worse. But she could not worry about that; the stakes were too high. When she saw him again, she would be even more vociferous … no matter the consequences.

  Stubbornly, Tesh continued to search the podways for signs of life, taking a few minutes longer. Then she set course toward the distant rendezvous point specified by Woldn, which for Parviis was the most secret, most secure place in the entire galaxy.

  Chapter Three

  Send nehrcom messages to the best research and development people on the Hibbil Cluster Worlds, and tell them we need faster-than-light spaceships to replace podships. Such a new invention is a matter of utmost priority. The entire Merchant Prince Alliance depends upon it.

  —Private wordcom, Doge del Velli to his Royal Attaché

  “Our prisoner was right,” the uniformed officer announced. He stood stiffly at the center of the richly appointed office while the old nobleman, Doge Lorenzo del Velli, paced along a window wall.

  They were in the Doge’s new headquarters on Canopa, established as the capital world of t
he Merchant Prince Alliance after the Mutatis had destroyed Timian One. Francella Watanabe had leased him the top three floors of her own CorpOne headquarters building—for a steep fee, of course.

  “Oh?” Lorenzo said. He paused and faced his subordinate, Captain Sheff Uki. In his tailored military garb the young officer had the appearance of a fashion model, but he was tougher than he looked. He was also irritatingly sycophantic at times.

  Off to one side, the Doge’s Royal Attaché, Pimyt, looked on sternly. The furry little Hibbil stood motionless, his red-eyed gaze fixed on the officer.

  “Well, one-third right, Sire,” Uki said. “The lab just gave me a report. One out of the three pods carried a deadly explosive device, with Mutati markings on it. Some sort of mega-bomb, our people are saying, a massively powerful torpedo.”

  “It might be the technology the Mutatis used to destroy Earth, Mars, Plevin Four, and Timian One,” Pimyt suggested. The little alien scowled, scrunching his salt-and-pepper beard.

  Lorenzo the Magnificent nodded, said, “I want the remains analyzed from every direction, turned inside out. Maybe we can build our own planet-buster and turn it on the slimy shapeshifters.”

  “That might be possible,” Uki said, “but it would take time. We’d have to ramp up, with only bits of information available right now. There would be a big learning curve.”

  “What about the other pod stations where we set up sensor-guns? Any useful information there?”

  “No reports of activity yet. We’re getting a steady stream of nehrcom reports from all seven hundred ninety-two of them, orbiting the same number of worlds. No additional MPA planets have been lost, and no more podships have appeared.”

  The Doge rubbed his projecting chin. “So, Noah wasn’t crazy after all. Thank the stars I moved quickly, instead of turning his recommendation over to the Council of Forty for study. Those noblemen would have set up committees and wasted a lot of time.”