• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The insect creature clicked and chirped, and the translator spat out in a flat voice, 'We will find any remaining robots. Our warrior breeds will tear them limb from limb.'

The gigantic swarmships broke apart in a flurry of many hundreds of smaller craft. The detached Klikiss components flew past the Adar's warliners as if they did not exist, and streaked like angry hornets toward Maratha.

'Wait!' Zan'nh transmitted. 'I have many Ildiran troops down on the surface. They are not your enemies. They are also fighting the black robots. Do not let them be harmed in the crossfire.'

'Instruct them not to get in our way.' The Klikiss broke off the contact.

Zan'nh whirled to his comm officer. 'Contact our soldier kithmen down there. Warn Yazra'h that the Klikiss are coming.'

Thirty-six

Nahton

The Moon Statue Garden was one of the few places Chairman Wenceslas allowed Nahton to go. There, he could breathe the open air and feel unfiltered sunshine on his skin. The Hansa had kept him from his treeling for nearly two weeks. He had received no news from Theroc, nor had he been able to tell anyone what had happened to him here. He was cut off.

Here, at least, the green priest could spend time with the flowers and ferns that surrounded the sculptures of heroes and stylized representations of abstract concepts. King George had originated the garden, offering a competition among sculptors for the privilege of having their works displayed at the newly completed Whisper Palace. Crimson roses were in bloom around a graceful chrome piece made of reflective sine waves and disc shaped mirrors. Light glinted off the strips into his eyes as spinning moebius-strip pendants distorted the illumination. The title, ironically, was 'Variable Truth'.

Usually when he was out among the statues, hedges and flower beds, Nahton was very much aware of the royal guards, who observed his every move. This time, though, his watchers were conspicuously absent.

He heard voices and looked up to see Sarein and Captain McCammon talking with each other, their voices loud, expressions intent. The green priest assumed they were coming to find him, but the two pointedly did not look in his direction. Stepping behind a bristling hibiscus hedge whose trumpetlike flowers shone red and orange, they spoke in normal voices, seeming to argue, though they must have known that Nahton was within earshot. He felt like an eavesdropper in a clumsily staged play.

'Theroc is my home planet, and this imminent invasion is illegal,' Sarein said. The Hansa can't simply order the EDF to attack. If Chairman Wenceslas insists on this course of action, we must warn King Peter and Queen Estarra.'

'How can we do that?' McCammon sounded as if he had rehearsed this conversation. 'The Chairman has already gathered the ships. I heard him give the order to Admiral Willis. The attack force will launch within five days.'

Nahton frowned at what they were saying. An invasion of Theroc? Even the Chairman wouldn't dare do something so bold and foolish. But as he paused to reconsider, the green priest knew he was kidding himself. Basil Wenceslas would certainly dare.

'Once Basil makes up his mind, there's no changing it,' Sarein said. 'Maybe we can ask a trader to get a message there somehow. A courier could go directly to Theroc.'

'That would take days. There's no way to send a warning soon enough.'

Nahton held his silence on the other side of the hedge. Their intent could not be more painfully obvious. They needed to deny ever having spoken to him, and perhaps this awkward show was the best they could do. But he could not send a message unless he touched his treeling. He already knew it was kept in Queen Estarra's conservatory. Had that been an intentional slip from Captain McCammon?

The entire setup seemed so contrived as to be unbelievable. Suspicion drew his lips down in a frown. The Chairman was an insidious man, willing to consider any action if it met his strangely defined idea of 'the right thing to do'.