A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [208]
Clearing his throat, Stromo looked to his experts for an answer. “ Now what the hell is going on?”
108
BENETO
Standing in the grove of worldtrees planted by old Talbun, Beneto tried to soothe the anxious treelings. All day, he had felt a deepening dread throughout the forest network. The unsettled fear shuddered through him like a fever.
He touched the scaled trunks, sending questions through telink to determine why the trees were so upset, but the worldforest mind kept its secrets…as if trying to protect the green priests from some terrifying knowledge. But Beneto did not want to be protected from the truth.
Around him, Corvus Landing fell into an unnatural hush. Beneto felt an intense shiver, like the lash of a whip down his spine. The worldtree grove seemed to cringe, and he snatched his stinging fingers away. Then he looked up into the sky.
Four hydrogue warglobes appeared, spiked spheres larger than an eclipsed sun. They filled the blue emptiness and dropped lower, hovering…scanning. Then they found the worldtrees.
As Beneto stared in awe, a tiny droplet emerged from the equator of the nearest warglobe, a smaller sphere no larger than a bead of perspiration relative to the giant alien ship. The small sphere picked up speed.
Beneto thought he knew what it was. Encased in a similar pressurized chamber, a hydrogue emissary had visited the WhisperPalace on Earth…and then assassinated King Frederick.
As the emissary sphere plunged toward the inhabited areas, Beneto could already hear shouts and warbling alarms from the buildings in ColonyTown. Mayor Sam Hendy, his face florid, bellowed into an electronic megaphone, calling for everyone to take shelter, to grab their weapons. But none of their defensive measures would have any effect against a hydrogue attack.
The alien emissary passed over the town and sped instead to the grove of tall trees. Around him, the worldtree fronds rustled, as if flinching in the presence of the hydrogue. The emissary sphere dropped among the oldest worldtrees and landed on the soft, well-tended forest loam in front of him.
Beneto stood motionless, waiting.
The sphere steamed, as if it carried its own coldness like a halo around it. The transparent walls of the chamber contained a milky soup of poisonous-looking clouds. Inside, the mixture churned and coalesced until a thick metallic puddle formed itself into a figure—a human figure dressed in Roamer clothes, the same image Beneto had seen the original emissary use at the WhisperPalace.
Beneto kept one hand on the nearest worldtree, connected through telink. He sent his thoughts across the Spiral Arm to all green priests. “What do you want? Why have you come here?” Beneto demanded of the enemy visitor.
The hydrogue emissary turned a polished quicksilver face toward him. Though Beneto could not read expressions on the malleable face, he sensed a measure of disdain from the alien. Beneto felt a jolt of fear.
The hydrogue said, “You have allied yourselves with the verdani, our enemies. Like them, you must suffer, wither, and die.”
Beneto felt a burst of angry, frightened reaction through the whole worldforest network. He drew a deep breath, gathering strength. “I don’t know of anything called ‘verdani.’ ”
But when information from the forest network flowed into him, he understood. The trees! The sentient mind of the worldforest was what the hydrogue called verdani.
The emissary continued. “We have sensed a trace of the verminous trees here. We thought the worldforest was obliterated long ago, but there must have been hidden remnants…survivors. You have helped it to grow again.”
Beneto said defiantly, “Yes. Yes, we have.”
“They must all be destroyed.”
The worldforest seemed to be putting words into his mind. “Why? The trees do not wish to fight you. Perhaps you both survived that horrible war for a reason.”
The shimmering emissary was unmoved. “You will tell