The Ashes of Worlds

Once the ship came to a rest, Margaret went to the shuttle’s hatch, unsealed it, and casually stepped out among the Klikiss. She called over her shoulder, “Mr. Chairman, you have to see the breedex. Come.”

She looked annoyingly calm before the monstrous insects, and Basil did not like someone else taking the initiative. He instructed the pilot to remain inside to protect the craft (if such a thing were possible) and followed Margaret through the hatch, with Anton close behind him. The chamber’s stale but breathable air was filled with a bitter alkaline stench.

The spiny chitinous bodies looked like armored tanks. The ones Margaret identified as domates had silvery armor slashed with black stripes; their faces were mosaics of small bony plates that shifted into skeletal, almost-human visages.

He faced the nearest domate — one with a horned head-crest — as if he were addressing a formal ambassador. “I am the Chairman of the Terran Hanseatic League. I have an appointment to meet with your breedex.”

Margaret said in a quiet voice, “They have no individuality. When you speak to any of them, youare speaking to the breedex. The hive mind is listening to all of our conversations.”

“Then why didn’t they just send an emissary to us?” Basil grumbled.

Margaret cocked her head at him. “Because the impact isn’t the same. Follow me.”

The towering domates and spiny warriors guided them with a swift and clicking gait along strangely intestinal corridors. Basil saw so many Klikiss crowding the passages that he felt certain the hive mind had no intention of letting them out of this hellish place.

When they finally reached a central chamber, Basil stared at a festering, shifting horror of mucus, broken pieces of slaughtered Klikiss, bits of debris, shiny pieces of metal, shattered glass, and grubs. many, many grubs. He reeled, and his ears rang with a constant deafening buzz that penetrated to subsonic levels, making his bones vibrate. All of his schemes, negotiating skills, and confidence wilted in an instant.

He had never felt so out of his depth.

Margaret stepped close to the edge of the horrific mass. “This is the One Breedex.” She seemed less certain now. “It’s. different from anything I’ve seen before.”

Basil’s legs had locked up, but he forced himself to move closer. His voice was husky. He had never felt so overwhelmed. “I am Chairman Basil Wenceslas. I believe we have diplomatic matters to discuss?”

Margaret remained close, and she called down into the buzzing, shifting mass with a hint of hope in her voice. “Are you still there, Davlin? Any part of you? Speak to us.”

On the shuttle flight, Margaret had tried to convince him that Davlin’s personality and memories had come to live inside the hive mind. Basil found the whole idea preposterous.

The squirming, separated pieces of the hive mind shifted like clay being squeezed by a sculptor’s hands until it formed a towering face that resembled the Klikiss. Then the features flickered, softened, became familiar. He stared at it in awe as the rough face loomed up out of the mass of the shifting hive mind. “It. does look like Davlin.”

“So, some part of him is still there, even after the last massive fissioning.” She sounded relieved.

“I know you, Chairman Wenceslas.”The lips of the giant sculpture moved, but the voice came from everywhere.“Know your enemy.”

So many things had already fallen apart, but this bizarre turn of events was no stranger than the rest. Basil clung to the knowledge that the breedex had called for him by name. Even though he saw little of the man who had served him for years as a “specialist in obscure details,” he knew that Davlin must remember him.

“And I know you, Davlin. You were my greatest expert, and I’m sure you remember your loyalties. The Hansa wants to make peace with the Klikiss.” He thought it best not to mention Admiral Diente’s previous attempt, or bring up General Lanyan’s attack, or speak of the robots.

The expression on the simulated face didn’t change.“I remember you, Chairman Wenceslas. You cannot keep secrets.” A frisson of fear gave Basil gooseflesh. The real Davlin Lotze did know much about his personality, and maybe that wasn’t entirely a good thing.

Then the vaguely human visage lost its features again, sharpened, enlarged, and became a kaleidoscope of the most horrific Klikiss warriors, monstrous domates, spiny insectoid beasts.“You dispatched humans to our worlds. Your Colonization Initiative. You sent battleships to destroy our subhive at Pym.”

When Basil spoke, his voice scraped through a dry throat. “It was a misunderstanding. At the time I felt I had no alternative. The Hansa means the Klikiss no harm. We can be allies. There is no need for hostility.”

“You cannot hide what you have done.”Suddenly, all semblance of the breedex’s integrity — whether Davlin’s face or a Klikiss head — collapsed into churning turmoil again. Even Margaret backed away in alarm. The hive mind’s voice, however, continued to thunder from countless throats, echoing, accusing.“You made an alliance with the robots. You have cooperated with our enemies.”

The domates and warriors moved farther into the central chamber, raised their serrated arms.

Basil’s heart turned to ice. All around them the swarmship began to vibrate, humming and moving. The Klikiss shifted in agitation.

“It was part of a carefully orchestrated plan,” Basil insisted. “Sirix intended to betray us. I always knew that. I set up a trap to wipe out the black robots once and for all. Nothing would please me more than to see them gone.”

Startlingly, the breedex formed the face of Davlin Lotze again.“I know you, Chairman Wenceslas. You believe in. situational truth.”

“I tell you it was never a real bargain, always a trap.”

But any hint of Davlin Lotze, any humanity at all, was gone from the thrumming voice.“Two of my swarmships will pursue and destroy the black robots. The rest will sterilize Earth for cooperating with our enemies.”

Basil shouted in desperation. “Davlin, listen to me. I promise it will all become clear.” He tried to summon his composure again as the Chairman. “When you encounter the black robots, you’ll recognize what I did, both for humanity and for the Klikiss. If you know me as you say, then you know it is what I would do.”

He prayed that the subtle plan he had implemented against Sirix would function as he had designed it to. Otherwise, there was no conceivable way he could stop the Klikiss onslaught.

142

King Peter

Aship as large as a Manta rarely landed in the Palace District. The local spaceport’s tethering and support facilities could not easily accommodate the cruiser’s subsidiary mooring systems and stabilizing struts.

“I’ll use the hovering engines to keep us in place,” Admiral Willis decided. “No need for a full-fledged landing and hours of docking procedures. Too much hassle, and we’re in a hurry. We’ll take our troops out on small skimmers.”