The Web and the Stars Read online

  Deep in thought and troubled, Eshaz boarded the vessel. He had left word for Acey and Dux that he expected to return in a matter of days, but in the chaos around him he knew that might not be possible.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Those infernal podships are holding all of us prisoner, leaving our worlds only connected by a thread … the nehrcom communication system.

  —Doge Lorenzo del Velli

  Following the destruction of Timian One and the Palazzo Magnifico, the Doge had relocated to quarters that were suitable to his position. His courtesan wife, Princess Meghina, had her own royal apartments on Canopa—in Rainbow City—and when the podships stopped she found herself stranded there, unable to return to her beloved planet of Siriki. Lorenzo liked having her nearby, and enjoyed the company of Francella as well. But the two women barely tolerated one another, and had always competed for his affections.

  His relationship with them was different in so many ways. The Doge maintained Meghina as his favorite courtesan, taking care of all of her expenses and siring children by her, seven daughters so far. The girls were all on Siriki now, but remained in touch with their mother by nehrcom. Lorenzo hardly ever spoke with them himself, or cared to. Though they were financial heirs to him, they could never step into his shoes to rule the Merchant Prince Alliance. The noblemen would never stand for a female doge.

  In contrast, while Francella was his lover as well, she was financially independent from Lorenzo, and loathed the very concept of a courtesan, considering such women to be no more than well-dressed harlots who lived off men. No paragon of virtue herself, Francella had borne him a male child out of wedlock, who, while a bastard, might still be accepted by the princes as their doge.

  Wishing to maintain his own independence, Lorenzo did not want to live with either of the two women in his life. Even though he had formalized the relationship with Meghina by marrying her, she had—by mutual agreement with him—maintained her status as a courtesan, having relationships with the most famous princes in the realm. And he had his own wandering eye.

  With the loss of his palazzo, Lorenzo had taken over a large suite on the top floor of the opulent cliffside villa of the late Prince Saito Watanabe, generously offered to him by Francella, the late tycoon’s daughter. The lease fee had been substantial, as part of the deal she made to also let him use the top three floors of offices in her own CorpOne headquarters building. The villa lease included cliffside terraces nearby, where Lorenzo arranged for Meghina to construct a private zoo, featuring exotic breeds. The facility, nearing completion, would be much smaller than the one she had on Siriki, but it would serve to cheer her up, missing her pets and her daughters as she did.

  Raiding private and public collections for animals, the Doge was limited to whatever was available on Canopa. But it was a large, wealthy planet, with an extensive selection. He obtained the services of a genetic technician—a “gene-tech”—who located a number of rare humanoids and animals for the new facility. The gene-tech, while an Adurian by birth, had sworn allegiance to the Merchant Prince Alliance, and had passed a thorough loyalty test administered personally by Lorenzo’s Royal Attache, Pimyt.

  Despite the fact that the major galactic races could not interbreed, the gene-tech told Lorenzo it was still possible to obtain interesting combinations within the various genetic families. His Adurian race had special knowledge in the field of biotechnology.

  * * * * *

  One evening at his villa, Lorenzo met with his military leaders and advisers, who summarized the lack of progress that the forces led by the Doge and Francella were making against Noah’s rebellious group. The Guardians seemed to be increasing in number and power, and there had been disturbing reports of robots fighting alongside them.

  “Of course we have our own sentient machines,” General Jacopo Nehr said, “and they are replicating themselves at a high rate. We should be able to counter anything they throw at us. The tide will turn.”

  “Our machines are breeding like rabbits,” Lorenzo said, “or should I say like robots?” He looked pleased at his witticism.

  “Yes, our machine leader Jimu is doing a fine job,” Nehr said, “and we will need every one of them.” He stood up and paced the room. “The Guardians are clever. We can’t figure out where they are or what they will do next. They make guerrilla attacks against our most fortified installations, somehow threading their way through and finding our weaknesses. It is very disturbing.”

  Lorenzo heard an explosion outside, rocking the furniture and reverberating in his ears. “What the hell?” he yelled, running to a window and looking out. The officers gathered around him. He saw flames in the crescent-shaped dry dock area at the base of the cliff, and quickly figured out what was burning.

  “Damn them!” he said. “They got my space yacht!”

  Flames rose high over the burning vessel, illuminating other pleasure craft moored by noblemen at the dry dock. He also saw the shadow of an unlit aircraft speeding away from the scene.

  As Nehr and the other officers ran to the door, the Doge shouted after them: “Find out who fell asleep on the job and bring them to me! I’ll interrogate them personally for this.”

  “We’re on it, Sire,” Nehr shouted back. “We’ll get whoever’s in that aircraft, too.”

  Lorenzo heard Nehr yelling into a com unit, dispatching grid-copters to take up the chase. Moments later, the Doge saw aircraft flying out over the valley. At least that was going efficiently. Maybe they would capture or destroy the bastards this time. If so, it would be one of the few successes.

  Suddenly he whirled to cross the room, and nearly tripped over Pimyt, the Royal Attache. Lorenzo had forgotten that the little Hibbil was in the room.

  “Sorry, Sire,” Pimyt said, picking himself up, and wiping a trickle of blood off his own furry gray chin.

  “Get me a report on this whole sorry affair,” the Doge snapped. He kicked a message cube that had fallen on the floor. The cube struck Pimyt in the chest, an unintended result.

  Pimyt’s red eyes glowed brightly, like the embers of a fire, and his face contorted in anger.

  For a moment, the Doge focused on the burning glare, but was not frightened by it. His aide was just intense, and Lorenzo had always liked that. Abruptly, the eyes softened, and the little alien smiled. Then Pimyt hurried away.

  * * * * *

  Too edgy to sleep, the Doge went out in the middle of the night to his in-progress zoo. As he stepped out into the cool air, a dozen of his house guards snapped to attention and accompanied him.

  The Adurian gene-tech, KR Disama, was summoned, and hurried out of his small house on the grounds.

  Then, beneath bright lights Lorenzo examined animals that were being kept in temporary cages. One was a dagg-sized creature with high-gloss blue fur and a head on each end.

  “Where are its private parts?” Lorenzo wanted to know, for he could not see any.

  The gene-tech, a completely hairless homopod with a small head and bulbous eyes, smiled and responded, “It does not have any. Hence, it is, by design, perfectly house-trained.”

  “But how does it relieve itself?”

  “It exudes through its pores, into the air. Fear not, though. The substance dissipates quickly and is completely odorless.”

  As the animal walked around its cage, Doge Lorenzo could not tell whether it was going forward or backward. Despite everything on his mind, he laughed out loud. For a few minutes, he almost relaxed.

  Then he remembered his destroyed yacht, and scowled ferociously.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Parvii Fold is the end of the entire galaxy, the place where all known reality drops off into enigma.

  —From a Parvii scientific report

  Bound for the rendezvous point ordered by the Parvii leader, Tesh piloted her podship through the narrowing, dangerous Asteroid Funnel, at the far end of a magnificent spiral nebula. Linked to the sentience of the living spaceship under her command, she felt the creature
’s primal fear, its hesitancy to proceed. But as she clung to a wall of the sectoid chamber at the core of the ship, she had the Aopoddae vessel under total control, and it could do nothing to resist her.

  All around them, glassy stones hurtled by, glowing luminous white in their passage. She saw it all through the visual organs all over the outer skin of the vessel. Maneuvering carefully to avoid full impact, Tesh felt smaller stones bouncing off the podship, causing the creature’s angst to increase. But it flew onward, combining its own abilities with Tesh’s as they reacted with split-second precision to select the safest route.

  Steering sharply into a gray-green side tunnel that was clear of loose stones, Tesh soon exited into the legendary Parvii Fold, a broad, enclosed region that was bigger than most solar systems. Concealed from the rest of the galaxy, this was the back of beyond, and the sacred breeding zone of the Parvii people. While her race had no homeworld, they did possess this uncommon, highly secure region that few outsiders had ever been permitted to see, or even to know about.

  Inside the sunless, worldless fold she saw scores of Parvii swarms—each in its own distinctive formation—and each containing tens of millions of tiny, flying people. The Parvii race did not require oxygen to breathe, or common nutrients for sustenance.

  As Tesh guided her podship into the cavernous galactic fold, she saw many other sentient vessels off to one side, an immense basin of the blimp-shaped, sentient creatures tethered together in the airless vacuum. Instead of steering in that direction, however, she headed straight for the central swarm, where she expected to find Woldn. When her ship moved forward, the multitude parted and let her through … but hundreds of the strongest pilots boarded the craft with her, and she felt their mental presence monitoring her movements and decisions, preparing themselves to take control of the craft away from her if necessary. She absorbed their thoughts and they absorbed hers.

  Just ahead, she made out an elaborate structure floating in space, glowing in multicolors and formed by the living, interlocked bodies of Parviis. This was the magnificent Palace of Woldn, which had been shaped according to his exacting specifications. Docking there and disembarking from the podship, she relinquished control of the craft to one of the other pilots. Keeping her personal magnification system switched off, she remained her normal tiny self.

  As she entered the palace, she felt simulated gravity that was formed by a specialized telepathic field. Stepping onto a simulated mosaic floor that was generated by the closely-knit forms of her people, she admired the elegant and intricate new designs they had created by radiating a variety of glowing colors. All around her were Herculean facsimile sculptors and paintings that had been created in the same manner, by the arrangement of living organisms. The large scale of the palace enabled Woldn to entertain visiting dignitaries from the few other races who knew of the existence of Parviis. It was a small list, including the Tulyans, and anytime they brought a visitor in, it was done in a way that blocked all information on the whereabouts of the secret galactic fold.

  In Parvii society, the Eye of the Swarm was not a godlike figure, but he was the supreme commander and all-powerful central brain of this ancient galactic race. Like his followers, Woldn was mortal, although he was expected to live longer than normal, from the beneficial strength and energy imparted to him by his followers. For some time he had expressed concern, however, as the average Parvii life span had been dropping precipitously. For millions of galactic years, since the beginning of known time, Parviis could be expected to live for 2,500 or more years, but the average was down to 2,085 now, and continued to fall. He was himself 2,172 years old, and had told his followers he felt the coldness of his mortality fast approaching.

  As Tesh entered the glittering central chamber of the palace, she saw the distinctive reptilian outline of a Tulyan in the middle of the large room, with a layer of Parviis all over its body, as if it had been dipped in a batter of them. Only the Tulyan’s face was uncovered, and she recognized him as Noah’s friend, Eshaz. Tiny Woldn, wearing a silvery robe, was perched on top of his head.

  Joining the cluster on the reptilian man’s chest, Tesh felt him absorb information from her by the touch of his skin against hers—a physical connection between two races that had coexisted uneasily since time immemorial. Tulyans could read the minds of each other and of other galactic races through direct skin contact, their truthing touch. With respect to these Parviis, it meant he was absorbing data from them in order to perform timeseeing services for the swarming race.

  Even though the two races had never been on friendly terms after Parvii swarms took control of virtually all podships long ago, they did have a long-standing diplomatic arrangement by which a limited number of Tulyans were permitted to journey around the galaxy as podship passengers—the only race that had been limited in its space travel, prior to the recent cessation of podship service to all Human and Mutati worlds.

  “Well?” Woldn demanded impatiently. Hands on hips, the diminutive man continued to stand on top of Eshaz’s head. “What do you see in our future?”

  “Even in the best of circumstances I can see only a short distance into the future, and sometimes not at all,” Eshaz said.

  “Don’t stall me!” Woldn screamed. “This is critically important, damn you! The galaxy is crumbling; our lives are shortening!”

  “I see nothing at the moment,” Eshaz said hesitantly. “Only layers and layers of darkness. This has never happened before, so I must interpret it. Darkness could mean everything will soon be gone, and nothing will be left. Or it might only refer to you, Woldn, and perhaps to your entire Parvii race.”

  “Stop lying to me!” Woldn screeched. He stomped a tiny foot on the Tulyan’s thick skin.

  “I’m not lying! Previously when I was unable to timesee, a wash of brilliant light filled my eyes and mind, without details. This is much different.” Tesh thought he sounded nervous, and she felt a slight trembling in his skin.

  “Your future is linked to Timeweb,” Eshaz said, after a long pause.

  “A boilerplate answer,” Woldn snapped, “imparting no real or useful information. Stop stalling around or we’ll dump you in deep space, with no way to return home.”

  “That would create a diplomatic incident.”

  “No matter. We hold the upper hand over your people.”

  “I am not afraid of any threats,” Eshaz said. Gently, he brushed Parviis off his body, and most of them flew a short distance away, like gnats without wings. Woldn, Tesh, and a few others remained on him, but moved to one shoulder, where Eshaz could see them peripherally.

  Eshaz went on to say that Timeweb had been deteriorating, and that its troubles seemed to parallel those of the Parvii race, and those of other races around the galaxy, including the Tulyans. “We are an immortal people,” he said, “but our immortality is linked to the web and all of its problems. Some of us are feeling aches and pains for the first time, and falling ill.”

  Woldn fell silent for a long time. Inside the palace, his swarms stopped flying and alighted wherever they were, on their densely grouped companions who were shaped in the architectural components of the structure.

  On the way there, Tesh had resolved to express her dissent against Woldn for dumping podship passengers into space, and she wanted to make a salvage claim on the podship. Locking gazes briefly with the Eye of the Swarm, she felt him receive this information telepathically. She would feel better speaking it, but under the circumstances—with a Tulyan present—this would have to do.

  But Tesh had momentarily forgotten an important detail, the fact that she was touching the skin of the Tulyan. She felt him absorb information from her, but she remained where she was anyway. Both she and Eshaz were Guardians, and she felt safe with him.

  “Guardians,” Woldn said, in a sharp and sarcastic tone. He lifted off and flew around angrily. “Both of you have sworn allegiance to the strange Human, Noah Watanabe, haven’t you? Eshaz, you continue to deceive me. Is there no honor l
eft in your people? And Tesh, you continue to disappoint me.”

  Neither of them responded.

  “I have decided on punishments for both of you. Tesh, you are banished for the rest of your days. I officially declare you an outcast, never to return to the Parvii Fold or associate with any member of this race. You are to take that unreliable podship with you, and Eshaz as well to avoid a ‘diplomatic incident,’ as he calls it. I won’t transport him, not after his complete failure—whether through deception or ineptitude, it really doesn’t matter. As for the podship, we can swarm and take it back whenever we please. There are ways to overcome your hold on it. Now, go!”

  The two of them boarded the podship, but as Tesh hovered in the air in front of Eshaz, she had an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. In the background of her consciousness, she only half heard Eshaz tell her that he had important ecological work to do, and that he urgently needed her assistance in transporting him to the Tulyan Starcloud.

  “What?” She hesitated inside the passenger compartment.

  He repeated himself.

  “For what purpose?” she asked.

  “My position is sensitive. I cannot confide in you without permission from the Council of Elders. Do you think a Parvii such as yourself could ever trust a Tulyan? We both work for Noah Watanabe and admire him, so our goals must be similar. At the moment, I’m in a hurry, and I must place myself at your mercy.”

  “We each have secrets,” she said. “Woldn concealed the location of the Parvii Fold from you, one of our racial necessities.”

  “That is true. I was blindfolded in a sense, unable to determine where we were going. Presumably you would do the same on the return trip.”

  She nodded.

  It occurred to her that he might try to steal her podship at the first opportunity, or might lure her into a Tulyan trap where others did so, but she dismissed the thought. This was a trusted friend of Noah Watanabe, and she did not think he would harm a fellow Guardian. As she hovered in front of Eshaz with a slight buzz, she wondered if the Tulyans and Parviis could ever reconcile their differences. Maybe this would be a step in that direction, even if it involved only two people. She vowed to give it a try.