Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [109]
Jess stood firm. “I’ll carry on by myself if the rest of you decide to stop assisting me. Though many of our friends and families have been terribly hurt, the EDF is not our worst enemy. If the hydrogues are not stopped, civilization across the Spiral Arm is at stake. They have attacked Theroc in an attempt to exterminate the remnants of the verdani, and without question the enemy will strike the worldforest again.
“But we have an advantage. The hydrogues don’t yet know about the return of the wentals, their other opponent from the great ancient war. Before they come back to Theroc, we must complete our work so that the wentals will be ready to renew their alliance with the verdani.”
“And all of us,” said one of the volunteers. “I hope it comes soon enough, before the Eddies wipe out every clan in the Spiral Arm.”
Nikko balled both hands into fists. “Well, I’m a Roamer, and I can’t just ignore this. Isn’t there something—”
Jess could read the distress among his water bearers. “Yes, there’s a way you all can help. Many distant Roamer outposts don’t even know what’s happened. Others have scattered from Rendezvous and are now in hiding. As you continue your search for isolated worlds for the wentals, you can spread the warning. You’ll encounter other families, other Roamer settlements, and you can form an important communication network.”
The water bearers still were not happy. “But if the wentals are so powerful, can’t they help us at all?”
“Yes.” He finally smiled with a bit of good news. He explained how the hydrogues had been driven from Golgen, that the wentals would keep the planet safe for skymining. “Any Roamer clan with ekti-processing equipment can flock to the gas giant. The wentals will protect them as they begin full-scale skymining again. We can produce enough stardrive fuel to save us.”
The volunteers murmured amongst themselves; the very idea that the water entities could recapture an entire gas giant impressed them. “Then let’s make sure that’s just the first of many gas giants the wentals take back,” growled a volunteer.
Jess had another mission for Nikko Chan Tylar. “Try to find Cesca, wherever she’s gone to ground. I’m sure she has dispatched messages, invoked emergency plans. Do what you can to help her draw the clans together again.”
“I’ll find her,” Nikko said. “Knowing Speaker Peroni, she already has a plan.”
After another hour of discussions and strategy debates, the volunteers had more information and guidance. Riled up and ready to work, the water bearers in fourteen ships left the remarkable glowing comet behind and raced off to their next destinations.
For himself, Jess intended to make a long-delayed trip back to his family’s water mines on Plumas. Back home.
Chapter 51—CESCA PERONI
More and more black robots came alive behind them. Scrambling backward down the corridor, Cesca and Purcell could feel the walls shudder as the Klikiss machines hammered their way out of the tomb of ice.
“They’re all coming to kill us!” the acting administrator cried over the suit radio. “How many of those robots were in there?”
“I didn’t see very deep into the chambers. It could be a whole army.” Over the same comm frequency, she heard whistles and pops, crackles of static, then modulated electronic shrieks—a robot language. “Better observe radio silence. They’re listening in.”
“But can they understand us?” Purcell said.
“They can track us.” That was enough to cut off any further discussion.
Their grazer was parked outside on a rise above the tomb entrance, but it seemed very far away. The tunnels went on forever. She hadn’t realized that poor Danvier had led them so deep.
Finally, up ahead, she saw a swath of black universe spangled with stars. The two Roamers reached the tunnel entrance and burst out into the empty night. The hemispherical grazer vehicle sat near the top of the rise not far away.
Breathless from running even in the low gravity, Cesca paused and turned. Deep behind them, flashes of red reflected on the planes of