Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [52]
The Ildiran rescuers suited up in anticontamination films, tough membranes that covered their muscular bodies to protect against disease organisms. Adar Kori'nh peeled on a thin suit of his own, tugging the membrane into place and snugging it against his skin. The polymer film made a slurping sound as he adjusted it, and then he breathed sterilized air through the permeable layer. He flexed his arms and stood at the troop carrier's hatch, ready to march out with his soldiers into the wounded colony.
As the dozens of rescue ships landed in the main square of the Crenna city, haunted-looking survivors stared in amazement and relief. For Kori'nh, their ache, their terror, was palpable in the air. Once their Designate had succumbed, they had lost all direct telepathic contact with the Mage-Imperator. The Crenna colony was like an amputated limb, slowly twitching and bleeding to death.
Now the stricken settlers came forward, hesitant. The soldiers could feel them exuding pain and fear. Some evacuation personnel were stunned into confusion, while others worked doubly hard to hurry these poor people away.
Earlier, the Crenna colonists had gathered their dead and cremated them in huge bonfires in the open streets, as if hoping the hot flames would whisk their souls from the darkness of death to a brighter place. Kori'nh could see the sooty stains of ashes and blistered bones. Some of the colony structures that had been used as hospitals, and then death wards, had also been burned to the ground with all the bodies inside.
"Leave everything!" he shouted through the protective membrane. "No keepsake or piece of furniture is worth the risk of bringing this infection back to Ildira. Take only your lives and count yourselves lucky."
Personally, he would have liked to vaporize every vestige of the colony town. The Mage-Imperator had already negotiated with the Terran Hanseatic League for ownership of this planet, and Kori'nh wanted to leave nothing for the parasites. Since human physiology was different from Ildiran biochemistry, the disease organism was not likely to infect them in the way it struck down Ildirans—or so the Terrans hoped. Human medical researchers and scientists were waiting to continue their investigations, eager to move to an already-tamed planet. Such blatant Terran opportunism in the face of Ildiran tragedy made the Adar uneasy.
Kori'nh remained on Crenna for the rest of that day as thousands of colonists crowded aboard troop carriers and were taken to specified hospital warliners. The refugees would remain in isolation behind decontamination fields. Though separated by bulkheads and sterile barriers, the survivors would be able to feel the comforting presence of other Ildirans. The thickness of hollow walls could not block the thism.
As he sat back aboard the final troop carrier while the pilot returned them to orbit, Kori'nh looked down at the empty colony. He and his troops had performed an efficient and commendable operation, and he would derive a great deal of acclaim from this accomplishment.
While the warliners assembled in orbit, Kori'nh saw other ships already approaching Crenna, Terran research vessels that carried their eager scouts, ready to grab the abandoned colony from the very moment it became available.
He scowled, as always failing to understand why humans were in such a hurry, why they needed to acquire so much land and wealth simply for the sake of possessing it.
With a muttered lukewarm blessing, the Adar let them have this place of death, loneliness, and misery.
24 BASIL WENCESLAS
In Old King Frederick's ring-studded hand, the Medal of Glorious Commendation glittered like a star ready to go nova.
Basil Wenceslas watched the ceremony from behind the scenes, as usual. He paced the floor in his dedicated office suite, observing through close-up media cameras that showed him everything from the King to the milling crowd in the presentation