A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [259]
Good.
Basil had not seen Lotze since he’d dispatched him to the abandoned Ildiran world of Crenna. The spy looked lean and well rested; his face and eyes showed an enthusiasm that the dry, dedicated expert had never exhibited before.
“What have you learned?” Basil said. “You’ve been gone much longer than I expected.”
“Wait till you see what we discovered!” said Rlinda. “And I expect to be damn well compensated, too. I hope you’ve got a clean pair of underwear handy. Once you hear about this, you’re bound to shit yourself.”
Basil looked skeptically at Davlin Lotze.
The spy nodded. “She is not exaggerating, Mr. Chairman. This find will change the Hanseatic League as we know it.”
Basil raised his eyebrows. Lotze had never been prone to hyperbole. “Did you discover what happened to Margaret and Louis Colicos?”
Lotze reported in a clipped voice, “Louis Colicos and the green priest Arcas were both murdered. We saw no evidence of the three Klikiss robots, the team’s compy, or Margaret Colicos herself. We believe, however, that she escaped to points unknown.”
“Escaped? Where did she go? Did she leave any records?” Basil asked.
Rlinda made a rude sound. “Chairman Wenceslas, would you just let him tell the story? One missing woman is beside the point right now.”
Davlin Lotze glanced at her. “Well, Margaret’s disappearance did lead me to unraveling the transportal system.”
Impatient, Basil crossed his arms over his chest. “What transportal system?”
Lotze explained about the alien transportation network that linked the Klikiss worlds, the abandoned cities, and perfectly habitable planets. “It is a system of instantaneous travel doorways that tie together dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of potential colony worlds. All of them empty, all of them waiting. And from what I’ve seen, most should be easily adaptable for human settlement. We’ve colonized far worse.”
Rlinda Kett leaned forward in anticipation, but didn’t see the reaction she’d hoped for. “Don’t you see, Mr. Chairman? Once you get to a transportal, you can travel from planet to planet in an instant—without ekti.”
Basil suddenly grasped the magnitude of the discovery. Hundreds of untouched worlds, already partially tamed by an ancient but now vanished civilization. “That would make interplanetary travel possible again! The destinations will be different from before, but Hansa expansion can proceed as rapidly as we can manage.”
Lotze added, “And once we analyze the technology, we may be able to program those doorways to take us to our own colony worlds and back here to Earth. After an initial expedition to set up a system and connect a new transportal to the network, we will no longer require ekti to get there.”
Basil looked for his cup of coffee, but saw that it sat empty on the desktop. “This news does indeed change everything.” He paced about the room, trying to contain his newfound excitement. “We’ll issue a decree and a challenge! A new start! Humans must set out on a full-scale exploration—and then colonization—of these empty worlds.”
A constant stream of hardy pioneers could go to the nearest abandoned worlds and flow through the Klikiss transportals, then set up new outposts.
“You’ve got the big idea, Mr. Chairman,” Rlinda Kett said, “but don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself?”
“Ms. Kett, I can’t tell you how good it feels to think optimistically about the future for a change.” He slapped the desktop. “This gives us a whole new landscape to settle and exploit. Nothing will stop us now.”
He chuckled and made the broad windows transparent again so that he could look out toward the horizon. “The hydrogues and the Roamers can go to hell! We won’t need to fight them for their precious ekti anymore. The Hansa will get into a whole new business.”
133
ANTON COLICOS
During the weeks of long sunset on Maratha Prime, tourists and vacationers prepared to leave the domed resort city and