Hellhole Inferno Read online

  Having run the government on Orsini, Enva had a talent for details; she understood the minutiae as well as the broad strokes and implications. When she’d arrived on Tehila, her mysterious benefactor had left her a small stipend with which to establish herself. She had a tiny apartment and was forced to rely on the kindness of Deep Zone strangers. Enva Tazaar was unfamiliar with the concept of charity. She had been a hard-edged planetary ruler, with little patience for those who could not take care of themselves. The people of Tehila, pioneers accustomed to helping one another for the survival of the colony, gave Enva what she needed, once she demonstrated her willingness to work.

  With her skill set, she pursued and easily obtained employment with the Tehila government offices. The job was dull, but easy for her, and she worked her way up quickly, although she was careful not to draw attention to herself. Until old Michella was deposed, or simply died from old age or too much spite, Enva was in danger. Her death sentence remained in place.

  Someday, she would make her way to General Adolphus on Hellhole, reveal her identity, and help him overthrow the Constellation. For now, Enva “Lien” was just a minor functionary, a nondescript bureaucrat.

  She walked up the wooden steps of the administrator’s headquarters. Each day when she reported for work, Enva found it amusing that the Tehila colonists called this a “mansion.” On the remote world, they had nothing else to compare it to.

  Tehila’s primary city had been established around the spaceport where regular shuttles took off for the stringline terminus ring in orbit. Previously, trade had flowed along the stringline to the Sonjeera hub, but General Adolphus had astonished them all by laying down a new Deep Zone stringline network that connected the frontier planets before he unilaterally declared a war of independence against Diadem Michella Duchenet.

  Inside the Tehila offices, minor functionaries milled about, taking care of clerical emergencies, filling out forms, filing documents, performing rote jobs. Her office mate was bent over her desk in consternation. Maruni Li was easily flustered and just as easily manipulated. Middle-aged with salt-and-pepper hair, she had already met or exceeded her life’s minimal ambitions. Many bland workers just like Maruni had served Enva on Orsini: a government couldn’t function without them.

  A man paced the office, presenting a new report full of images. Enva had worked with him before, but she wasn’t quite clear on his name or responsibilities. He was flustered about some problem at the Tehila spaceport.

  Maruni’s face melted with relief when she saw Enva. “Good, you can help us with this. We don’t want to overreact, but no one seems to know the best solution.”

  “I’ll try to help, but first I need to know what the problem is.”

  “It’s the walumps,” said the man who had brought in the new documents. “Last night they erected six more mud huts right on the edge of the spaceport.”

  Enva frowned. “You’d think the noise of landings and takeoffs would bother them.”

  “I doubt anything bothers them,” Maruni said.

  The innocuous and oblivious herd creatures were nicknamed “walumps”—short for “walking lumps,” which was an apt description, Enva thought. Each of the creatures had spindly legs and arms, rounded bodies like misshapen boulders, and a head that tucked down into its main body like a turtle’s. Walumps lived together in herds, or colonies, or hives—no one could quite tell. The passive creatures were completely indifferent to the human colonists.

  Attempts to communicate with the walumps had failed to evoke any kind of response—not anger, nor fear, nor defensiveness. They built their mud huts wherever they liked. They spoke with one another in low murmurs, but showed no reaction whenever a human addressed them. Because they cooperated with one another, built structures, and obviously communicated, they were classed as intelligent, but they were also an enigma.

  Enva scanned the reports, saw that a group of the creatures had erected numerous rounded huts, as if they had decided the edge of a spaceport was just the perfect place for a new settlement. “Leave them alone, so long as they don’t get in the way of space traffic. But if they build huts that encroach on our operations, then use dozers to knock them down.”

  “That’s what I was going to suggest,” said Maruni Li. Beside her, the man with the report muttered and agreed, seemingly glad to have someone offer the suggestion, which would let them point fingers back at Enva should anything go wrong. She could hold her own regardless.

  Much of her clerical work involved claims filed by refugees from the ruined planet of Candela. After asteroids destroyed Candela, hundreds of thousands of refugees had spread out to any other Deezee world that would take them. Because Tehila had so much unclaimed land, many refugees had come here.

  The original Tehila colonists did not like the intrusion, however, nor did they much care for the tyrannical way that General Adolphus commanded that their planet accept so many extra refugees. Tehila had no choice in the matter, even though they were already strapped for resources.

  From the grumbles, Enva had come to understand that many people here had never wanted to be part of the General’s rebellion in the first place. Tehila was so isolated that the Constellation paid little attention to it; the inhabitants had not felt as repressed by the Diadem as other Deezee colonists did, so independence wasn’t such an urgent matter for them.

  Enva could understand the General’s thinking about the refugees, how the Deep Zone worlds had to pool resources and support those who needed help. With her experience, she could see the broader picture. Other Deezees, though, including even an important man like Administrator Reming himself, had no such wide-ranging understanding and could not think beyond their own parochial concerns. They needed a better leader, a deeper thinker.

  If Enva’s plans worked out right, she would soon rise to a position to take over as Tehila’s planetary administrator. And that would be just a start.

  Now, looking at grievances from the Candela refugees, she compiled a summary of domicile requests, homestead applications, filings for food packages and relief, zoning alterations to allow the construction of multiple-unit dwelling complexes, colony kits removed from storage. The sheer number of people who needed interim shelter was staggering. The new crowded dwelling complexes reminded her of refugee camps; the comparison was problematic but unavoidable. Their situation would improve—like her own. In the meantime, everyone had to endure.

  She finished her report quickly, but killed time for an extra hour because Administrator Reming was not accustomed to sheer efficiency. When Enva saw her opportunity, she went to his office to deliver the final document. The door was ajar, and she pushed it open.

  Reming’s personal offices were more cramped and less well-appointed than those of a simple bureau deputy back on Orsini. But Karlo Reming seemed to consider them—and himself—extremely important. Enva saw that he was in deep discussion with three other men and one stern-looking woman.

  “I’ve rearranged the station shifts,” that woman said. “I personally chose all personnel aboard the terminus ring from the Hellhole line. That’s important.”

  One of the men said, “We need to secure the Sonjeera line as well. If anything happens to that, this plan falls apart.”

  “When do we send our ultimatum to the General?” asked Reming just before he looked up, and showed surprise when he saw Enva poking in through the door.

  She averted her eyes. “Excuse me, Governor. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “This is a private meeting,” snapped the third man; he was pale and angry.

  “This is one of my best employees,” said Reming. “Sometimes she’s too efficient for her own good. I wish I had more like her.” To Enva, his chuckle sounded like a nervous affectation.

  “I didn’t mean to intrude, Administrator.” It was hard for her to maintain a meek and subservient demeanor, but she was growing more practiced at it. “I brought the resettlement reports you requested.” Her pulse increased from hearing the s
nippet of conversation. What was Reming up to? “I’d like to offer my services, too. You mentioned that someone needs to go to Hellhole to deliver a report to the General?” Her thoughts were racing. She had been looking for an opportunity to leave all this behind and present herself to the man who should have been her ally, to reclaim her position of power.

  “We said nothing about going to Hellhole,” said the stern woman.

  “Yes, you did,” Enva said.

  Administrator Reming waved his hand. His hair was more gray than blond. His eyes looked sad, with heavy bags under them. He tried to dismiss Enva’s comment. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  Enva said, “I just want to put in my name as a volunteer. I’ve always wanted to see Hellhole.”

  Reming blinked. “You want to see Hellhole?”

  Enva just shrugged.

  “I’ll keep you in mind if an opportunity arises.” The administrator took the resettlement reports from her, glancing at the lists of Candela refugee requests: lodging, food, homesteads. He made an angry sound. “Parasites. Why did they all have to come here?”

  “I believe it was because their planet was destroyed, sir,” Enva pointed out. The others just scowled at her.

  Reming shooed her away. “That will be all for now, Enva. I’m very busy.” He set the reports aside, and she knew he didn’t care about solving the Candela refugee problem, simply wished it would go away.

  But she had watched and listened, and wheels had begun turning in her mind. She decided to find out what was going on.

  6

  Candela hung mortally wounded in space, the corpse of a once-beautiful world.

  Even before the stringline scout ship arrived above the damaged planet, Tanja Hu felt acid tears burning her eyes as dismay and hatred boiled up along with a bitter helplessness about how she had been unable to prevent the disaster.

  Piloting the ship as they raced along the iperion path from Hellhole, Ian Walfor fell silent, considerate of her grief. He didn’t need to utter any comforting platitudes, did not gently squeeze Tanja’s hand, although she would have appreciated that.

  He decelerated toward the stringline terminus ring that had once been a symbol of hope, a new transportation network that connected all the DZ planets like a safety net. It should have been the start of a commercial golden age for her planet, for Theser, for new consortiums of trading partners.

  When Candela appeared before them now with all its devastating scars, though, Tanja couldn’t help but gasp. Even the normally loquacious Walfor had no words. Tanja’s throat constricted, and the tears blurring her vision could not dull the horrific image of the devastated planet. She felt as if they were attending the wake for a dead world. “I knew what to expect, Ian, but I had to come back anyway. I had to see it for myself.” She shook her head. “I had to know for certain what was left.”

  Tears trickled down Walfor’s face as well. His voice was hoarse. “The Constellation has inflicted plenty of harm on us, but we can’t blame them for this.”

  No, for the Candela tragedy she couldn’t blame Diadem Michella. The Ro-Xayans were entirely responsible for this.

  No one had even known about the militant faction of the alien race until they struck a deathblow against Tanja’s world. How could anyone fight such a powerful foe? And if Encix’s fears were correct, the Ro-Xayans would come back to finish their work on Hellhole with an even more appalling asteroid bombardment.…

  Tanja had been Candela’s hard and efficient planetary administrator, helping her planet thrive in spite of the Constellation, which was always there to demand tribute, but absent and unhelpful whenever aid was needed. She’d been an early rebel, along with General Adolphus, but in all of her plans and efforts, no one had thought to watch out for planet-killing aliens from the past.

  “I remember how much it hurt when my uncle Quinn and his village were buried in a mudslide—too much mining and too little safety, just so they could meet the Diadem’s production quota,” Tanja said bitterly. “I’d never been so heartbroken, never imagined the pain could be greater, but now … my entire planet has been murdered.”

  Walfor reached over, stroked Tanja’s long black hair. She closed her eyes and let him, then opened them again. She felt obligated to stare at the ruins of Candela; she owed that to herself. Her world had been a proud independent colony before the Diadem annexed the entire Deep Zone into the Constellation. The jungles were lush and fertile; the city of Saporo, floating on the gem of a harbor, had been magnificent. An old funicular on a rail had once taken sightseers to the top of a hill so they could look across the verdant landscape.

  Now, though, Candela had been beaten bloody. A pair of gigantic asteroids had fallen like anvils from the sky on a malicious coordinated course. Remaining there in orbit until the last moment, Tanja had watched the inevitable and appalling cosmic strikes. Centuries ago, the planet Hellhole had suffered from a similar titanic impact that wiped out most indigenous life-forms there, including the Xayan civilization. That impact had cracked Hellhole’s crust, ignited volcanism, and churned the climate so badly that the planet still writhed in pain, even hundreds of year later.

  But what Candela had suffered was far worse. Huge craters still simmered with lava oozing up from the mantle. Impact rings were like ripples of rock extending for hundreds of kilometers. The jungles had been leveled and incinerated. The atmosphere was clogged with smoke as forest fires continued to surge across the landscape. Scarlet cracks showed shatter lines across the expanse of the continents. It would be centuries before even the most daring pioneers could set foot here again.

  It was a cosmic irony, Tanja thought, that even with so much devastation, the stringline terminus ring remained intact in orbit, allowing swift travel from Hellhole … although there was no reason for anyone to go back to Candela.

  Finally, Walfor spoke. “At least you saved two hundred thousand people, Tanja. You led the evacuation. They didn’t all die. We had some warning.”

  “I didn’t do enough,” she said.

  His brow furrowed, his gaze hardened. “You did what you could. No one could have saved more.”

  Her expression softened. “Yes, at least we did that—thanks to you.” If Walfor hadn’t accidentally discovered the inbound asteroids, aimed and accelerated by the merciless Ro-Xayans, Candela would have had no warning at all.

  Walfor deployed sensor packages to take detailed readings to chronicle the devastation down there. “I want a full record, including deep geological scans.”

  “Maybe with armored shelters a camp could survive down there, for a while at least.” Tanja couldn’t take her eyes from the awful devastation. “But why would anyone want to go there? There’s nothing left.”

  Walfor kept his voice low, as if in apology. “To see if the iperion can still be mined, of course.”

  She didn’t resent him saying it, knew that past the doorway of her grief she had pragmatic concerns to deal with. She was a planetary administrator without a planet. Candela had been the Deep Zone’s only known source of the vital molecular tag that allowed superfast stringline travel. The only other source was the planet Vielinger in the Crown Jewels, and those mines were nearly played out.

  “No one will ever be able to find iperion in that mess down there,” she said. “With all that upheaval? The whole landscape has been reshaped.”

  “Yes, but we know it’s there.” Walfor’s expression held forced hopefulness. “If not here, we need to hope our prospectors find iperion on other worlds. They’ve increased their efforts throughout the DZ. With all those planets, someone is sure to find another deposit.”

  Tanja wasn’t so hopeful. “We know how incredibly rare iperion is. Just because we found a strike on Candela doesn’t mean it exists on any other planet, particularly not one of the habitable ones.”

  He smiled at her. “Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, my dear. We found iperion on Candela and on Vielinger. Finding the substance on one planet makes it an anomaly. Findi
ng it on two, and especially two that are widely separated, means that it’s not unique. There’s no reason we can’t hope to discover it on three, or four, or many more planets. We just have to keep looking.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She tried to turn her thoughts elsewhere, to other important matters. Hundreds of thousands of Candela refugees needed to be relocated, settled. Most had gone to Tehila, which was where she and Walfor planned to live for the time being. Ian Walfor had also lost his home after Commodore Percival Hallholme attacked his icy planetoid of Buktu, capturing all the inhabitants—all of Walfor’s friends and family—and destroying everything in his wake.

  Apparently sensing what Tanja was thinking, he frowned. “I hope you and I find another home soon. The DZ has already lost two planets.”

  “Three planets, counting Theser. Sia Frankov and all her people slaughtered … leaving another lifeless world like this one.”

  “Theser was devastated, but not like this. I visited there. Yes, its main city was leveled, the people killed, but we can colonize the place again—and right now. When the Ro-Xayans destroyed Candela, though, they meant for that place to be lifeless for a very, very long time.”

  A chill went down Tanja’s spine, as she thought of the warnings Encix had made. “And they’re not finished yet.” She turned away from the scarred planet, gazed out into the emptiness of surrounding space. “Widen your sensor net, Ian. Let’s make sure there’s nothing around here spying on us.”

  They searched the planetary emptiness with scanners and circled the world, still checking—but detected nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, Tanja continued to watch, wary. The ominous feeling wouldn’t go away. She couldn’t shake the sensation that something was watching them. And it wasn’t friendly.