A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [84]
“When Thara emerged, all of her hair had fallen out, and her skin had turned a bright green.” Nira rubbed her own arms. “And she had the ability to communicate with the trees. She could remember everything the forest had ever seen, and the trees told her about the man’s other victims. When she returned to the settlement and accused him, showing the elders where the bodies were buried, the man was sentenced to death—the first criminal on Theroc. He was tied at the top of the canopy and left there until a wyvern came along and slaughtered him.”
Some of her listeners were intrigued, others clearly skeptical, but the young man made another joke. “Oh, does that explain why your skin is green? I always thought you were just another strange half-breed.”
“Show some respect,” Benn Stoner said. “The Designate chooses her for the breeding barracks more often than any of us.” He said this as if it were some sort of honor. “We thank you for your story, Nira.”
Nira went back to her bunk, where she could still hear them talking. Stoner took his turn, keeping the oral tradition alive, telling the old and garbled stories. He spoke vaguely about a long journey, a home that was not called Earth, but Burton. They didn’t even know.
According to their own legends, these people had come to Dobro in friendship, living in happy prosperity with the Ildirans. But some terrible and unforgivable crime—they could not say what it was—had caused the Ildirans to turn their colony settlement into an armed camp. None of the captives knew how many more generations would have to pay for this sin.
Feeling deeply sad for them, Nira said from her bunk, “It isn’t like this everywhere, you know. There are billions of people on countless worlds. Dobro is one of the worst.”
Benn Stoner lifted his chin and spoke gruffly as he indicated the walls of the barracks and, by implication, the fences and the bleak landscape that led nowhere. “Dobro is all we have, Nira Khali. Your fantasies can’t help us here.”
42
PRIME DESIGNATE JORA’H
The Solar Navy rescue shuttle descended through the flame-streaked sky, approaching the Hyrillka citadel palace. It arrived just as the second warglobe attacked.
This new hydrogue sphere dispersed a kind of weapon none of the Ildirans had seen before: devastating waves of cold punctuated by jets of white mist that froze anything they touched. The frigid onslaught swept across the vegetation, shattering thick vines. Hyrillka’s verdant landscape cringed like a beaten cur, crumpled and shriveled.
Then the two warglobes circled back for another onslaught.
Jora’h grabbed his son’s thin arm and they raced out of the courtyard, dodging explosions in the citadel palace. The alien bombardment thundered down from the skies as the four surviving Solar Navy warliners hammered ineffectually against the marauders.
“What are we to do?” Thor’h cried. “Why won’t they stop?”
Jora’h had no answer for him.
Frantic courtiers and performers rushed about inside the banquet chambers. The three lens kithmen herded people out into the open to avoid the collapsing buildings; other Ildirans fled deep inside to find shelter. No place seemed safe. The hydrogues had no particular target in mind. They destroyed as much of the uninhabited vine forests and vegetation as they did of the Ildiran city.
“Help!” Thor’h shouted, as if the citadel itself could respond. He ran to a colored window, but his father yanked him back an instant before it shattered. Crystal shards and a gust of cold air blew inward in the wake of a warglobe discharge, and Jora’h pulled the young man down as debris tinkled around them. Thor’h touched numerous stinging cuts on his face and arms, and saw that his fine clothes were shredded. He stammered in disbelief. “We’ve got to find my—my uncle. He will know w-what to do. He will save everyone.”
“No he won’t,” Jora’h said. “He cannot.