Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [161]
The people muttered, growled, cheered, or cried out.
‘I speak to give you hope, but first we must face an unpleasant reality. First you must understand why the demons have come. You see, we have brought this punishment upon ourselves. We have shunted aside our religion for secular concerns, paying more attention to business and politics than to God.'
Basil smiled at the surprised expression on Cain's face. ‘I thought that was a nice touch.'
‘First the hydrogues nearly destroyed us, but we defeated them. Then even our King and Queen turned against us, abandoned Earth and the Hansa - and as soon as they did so, the Klikiss returned.‘ He nodded sagely. 'That is when we went astray. Peter continues to speak his poisonous words against the Chairman, against the Hansa - against all of you. He cannot be forgiven for that, and you will continue to pay the price if you listen to him.
‘The Klikiss demons have come as chastisement for our indiscretions. If we are to save ourselves, we must change our way of thinking. In the coming days, I will lay out a great plan for our survival. God punishes us only as a reminder of how we have disappointed Him. But as always, God is kind, and He shows us the path to redemption.'
The people cheered. Basil was extremely satisfied. Cain, however, seemed perplexed. ‘But Unison has always been a very uncontroversial religion, so much a compromise of every faith that all of its power was drained away. I thought that was the original purpose behind forming it, to disarm fanatics and let us follow our business pursuits unhampered.'
Basil pursed his lips. ‘At one time that was true, but Unison can no longer be a bland religion. Not in times like these. Under my guidance, this is just the first of many speeches the Archfather will deliver.'
One hundred
Margaret Colicos
The flat, tinny melody played against a fugue of human screams. In the alien ruins to which she had retreated, Margaret sat looking out a tower opening. Her feet were curled under her as she huddled against the rough wall. She had tried her best, but she had known from the beginning that the colonists had no chance. Now even DD was gone, and she was completely alone among the monsters. Just like before.
She had struggled to communicate with the breedex - shouting in their harsh scraping language, demanding that the Klikiss not harm the colonists, emphasizing that these people were her hive. She had drawn equations on the ground, played her music.
But the breedex no longer heard her. Even her music box did little to impress the Klikiss. The hive mind meant to consume every human it had ‘stored' to foster a great fissioning. The hive needed to expand, to replenish the numbers it had lost in recent battles, including four of its eight domates. Margaret wondered how that would affect the fissioning. The Klikiss offspring would depend even more on the human attributes the hive mind meant to incorporate. She remembered the handful of Klikiss hybrids that had resulted from poor Howard Palawu's assimilation.
That wouldn't save any of the colonists.
Driven away from the battle, untouched by the mayhem, Margaret had watched Klikiss warriors recapture some escaping Roamers and drive them back into the boundaries of the camp. Labouring non-stop, multilegged workers circled the battleground, picking up human corpses and throwing them back into the stockade. When the domates fed, they could acquire what they needed from dead flesh as easily as from living victims.
Bearers had brought dozens of grublike excreters to create resin-cement to seal the human survivors inside again. Very soon, the rebuilt stockade became a festering chamber of horrors. The people had been starved now for, two days since the battle. Their water had been cut off. The