Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [170]
"Our teams are working without rest, making remarkable progress. It is the greatest and swiftest mobilization of manpower and resources ever attempted by the Solar Navy. We learned innovative techniques from Sullivan Gold and his engineers." Zan'nh seemed awkward with his pride. "What we lack in time, we make up for in workers and dedication. Your people will not let you down."
"Good, Adar. When the cohorts leave, I want you to command them personally."
Zan'nh seemed taken aback, but then rallied his resolve again. "Yes, Liege. No one else should have to bear that burden."
Much later, Nira and Jora'h were alone in his high tower room. They stood on the transparent balcony, staring across the magnificent skyline. He put an arm around her shoulders. "Because you are human, we can never share our souls through the bonds of thism . . . yet words seem inadequate for all that we have to say to each other."
"That is why it's so important that I can trust you." Nira thought wistfully of the time they had spent together when he was Prime Designate. Those had been peaceful times.
"You are as beautiful to me as ever, Nira, but neither of us is who we were." He drew back to look into her eyes. "Our love cannot be the same as before. I--"
"I know." In order to become Mage-Imperator, he had surrendered his manhood--the price of controlling the thism to hold his people together. She herself had been damaged, abused. The two of them would no longer have a sexual relationship, but now perhaps their love would be even stronger. Physical passion would instead become inseparable companionship.
They stared for a long time at the dazzling, clear skies, at the reflections of the curved buildings. After a while, she finally said, "Oh, how I long to touch the forest mind again! Do you have a treeling? Where are the treelings that Ambassador Otema and I brought?"
Jora'h shook his head, looking extremely sad. "I have no treelings at the Prism Palace. They were all destroyed." He pressed his lips together, as if catching himself before he could utter another outright deception.
Nira could tell he was still hiding something, keeping secrets. It was as obvious as dark knots in a pale beam of wood. Would it never end?
100
TAL O'NH
After the faeros had destroyed the watchdog hydrogues in Hyrillka's sky, Tal O'nh seized the opportunity to continue his rushed deployment of construction crews and equipment. He dispatched more ships to the spaceport, adding to the numerous teams already on the ground. Hundreds of warliners emptied their holds and distributed food, machinery, and raw materials.
Like a swarm of constructor beetles rebuilding a hive after a storm, soldiers, engineers, and many strong workers erected new buildings. The exhausted people were uplifted by the progress all around them, seeing structures rise and fresh rows of crops laid down in the ash-fertilized soil.
The crews managed to work for several days before the next disaster occurred.
The one-eyed commander rode in the near-empty flagship warliner to better survey the activities below. He had barely slept in days; his short gray topknot was frayed, not tightly braided and waxed as he normally kept it. He did, however, take the time to polish his reflective Lightsource medallion and the facets of his jeweled eye. O'nh felt an urgency to get his work done.
Several members of the skeleton crew in the command nucleus sat up abruptly as sensor alerts sounded. "Tal!"
He turned his good eye to the main screens. "Report."
"They are coming from all sides, on a hundred different vectors. An armada the likes of which we have never seen. Sensor stations are overloaded."
"An armada of what?"
"Hydrogue warglobes--all coming to Hyrillka! We cannot possibly stand against them."
The alien spheres swirled in from outside the system like a blizzard of diamond chips. They must have been dispatched from numerous gas-giant planets, emerging from transgates deep