Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [30]
'Well? So what did you two talk about?'
'You want to know the truth, Dad? What we talked about was how much he missed his parents and how worried he is about them. They disappeared when the Eddies seized the Hhrenni greenhouses. Nobody knows where they were taken.'
Her father nodded soberly. 'We'll learn a lot in the next few months, and it can't all be bad news. Stay in contact with that young man. I can tell he has a crush on you.' She rolled her eyes, and Del cut off her retort. 'I know, I know. Everybody has a crush on you. But it's something to consider. I can't start spoiling my grandchildren until you actually have some of them.'
'Not ready for that. In fact, I'm not interested in romance at all right now.'
'So, you're still not over Patrick Fitzpatrick then?'
Her eyes flared. 'Over him? I was never interested in him at all. Never.'
'Of course not, my sweet. Of course not.' His knowing smile was maddening. He got up to fetch them some dessert, but Zhett hurried from the commissary before he could pepper her with more questions.
Fifteen
Davlin Lotze
With methodical precision, the insect invaders began to reap the crops the Llaro colonists had lovingly planted and tended. Worker swarms razed every field, whether ripe or unripe, gatherers swept along scything and collecting. A few farmers tried to defend their scattered plots on the outskirts of the settlement, and the insect workers killed them.
But instead of devouring what they gathered, the Klikiss stored the unprocessed food in bins loaded on open-framework vehicles that rattled back to the ever-growing city.
Alien flying contraptions swooped over the terrain, retrieving bins from the harvesters. Other bugs winged back to the towering structures the builders had erected, conical spires that overwhelmed the older relics from the first Klikiss habitation.
Always alert, Davlin had begun to compile notes about Klikiss technology, though he hadn't been able to get close enough to determine how any of it worked.
'How are we going to survive?' Mayor Ruis hovered beside him with a forlorn expression on his chubby face. 'We'll starve! That's our only food supply.' He saw Davlin as a hero ever since he'd rescued the Crenna colonists from their dying sun. After long years as a spy, an infiltrator, and former silver beret, Davlin had wanted nothing more than to live peacefully and retire from the unpalatable missions Basil Wenceslas regularly assigned him.
'I'm going to ask Margaret Colicos,' Davlin said. He couldn't tear his eyes from the relentless strip-harvesting operations, trying to interpret what it meant. 'She can talk to those things.' When she'd returned through the transportal, he had been astonished to learn the woman's identity. Years ago, the Hansa Chairman had ordered Davlin to discover what had happened to the Colicos team on Rheindic Co. Imagine Margaret Colicos, living among the Klikiss for all these years!
After observing Margaret's interaction with the bugs, he had tested their tolerance himself. Two days ago he had slipped away from the settlement and circled back to the Klikiss towers. He was interested to learn that, as long as he did not interfere, the creatures did their tasks as if he were invisible.
One of the warrior breeds, covered with sharp spines and scarlet colourations, had watched him warily, its wing casings partially spread, mantis like claws raised. Davlin continued his slow movements, noted when the warrior became most agitated, and then backed away, not wanting to provoke it.
Other Klikiss had been tunnelling out chambers and installing generators, while a different breed - scientists or thinkers, Margaret had called them - would be sealed inside the rooms to cover the walls with weblike strings of equations.
He knew where the original transportal was inside the old city, if he could make his way to the stone trapezoidal wall, he could flee to another world - though he supposed that any other planet on the network was just as likely to be infested with returning Klikiss. And he doubted the bugs would