Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [200]
Somehow, she had to become an intermediary between them and the Mage-Imperator. She wasn’t supposed to agree to anything, just convince them to speak with her father. Even so, she hoped she could make them understand there was no reason for any war. Hydrogues and “rock dwellers” had no conflicting needs, did not compete for resources. But they also had no common ground, no shared experience, no mutual understanding...unless Osira’h became a bridge.
The quicksilver bodies stood in front of her like large toy soldiers. She felt a vibration in her thoughts, as if they were trying to reach her through the atmosphere of her crystal chamber. Osira’h let her eyes fall half closed and called on all her abilities: the inherited telepathy from her green priest mother, the skills she’d been taught by Designate Udru’h on Dobro, the tingle of thism from her father and the love she’d sensed the first time they met.
She drove aside all of her doubts and dark thoughts. Focus. Focus...
There. When the connection was made, it felt as if an electric arc sparked from the hydrogues to Osira’h herself. Communication, an open door, the first step toward mutual understanding. But they were so alien!
Her initial impulse was to shut down her mind and drive away the inhuman presence, but she forced herself to maintain the contact. Her small hands clenched. She must become a conduit between hydrogue concepts and Ildiran thoughts. There had to be a shared means of expression. Klikiss robots had served in that capacity millennia ago. Osira’h would do the same now.
Although she could not at first pick up clear terms and concepts, her comprehension was progressing rapidly—much more so, she hoped, than the hydrogues guessed. In touching their vague and mostly incomprehensible thoughts, she began to sense that the hydrogues were agitated or distressed. Their citysphere was a blur of activity, swept up in actions and plans that she couldn’t decipher.
Finally she received a clutter of concepts with images that made her understand: A group of human battleships had arrived in the clouds above, bringing a new kind of weapon. At the same time, she could sense that the hydrogues had a terrible surprise for the human vessels.
In the images she saw that her own Ildiran septa had departed, and Osira’h’s heart fell. So, Yazra’h had abandoned her down in the clouds...But that had been her sister’s mission, under orders from the Mage-Imperator. They could never have rescued her anyway. Everything depended on Osira’h’s success with the hydrogues.
Next, with a sudden rush of surprise and fear, she learned that the deep-core aliens were also ready to launch another devastating attack against the verdani. She sensed hatred curdling through the hydrogue thoughts.
Theroc, the home of the worldforest!
Osira’h stiffened with alarm, careful not to send out a readable message with her reaction. Her mother’s world! The girl had never visited the planet herself, but Nira had shared so many vivid images that Osira’h felt as if she herself belonged among the worldtrees. She had touched the delicate treeling in the Mage-Imperator’s private chamber, and it had felt right.
Yet she also belonged with the Ildirans. Perhaps she could accomplish something for both races. She had to do more than just convince the hydrogues to communicate with the Mage-Imperator.
She pressed her small hands against the curved crystal wall, attempting to send a distinct, nonverbal message. She peered out at the amorphous structures of the citysphere and was astonished to see two black Klikiss robots marching down ramps and over curved loops to approach her. They had broken their agreement to keep the Ildiran Empire safe, yet they remained among the hydrogues!
She felt a chill. More secrets, more treachery? The beetlelike machines stood beside the quicksilver hydrogues, buzzing and clicking in a brisk exchange of information