Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [201]
Just then, a new concept became apparent to her. The hydrogues were not afraid of the human rammers above. The deep-core aliens had planned a deadly ambush. Did the whole universe thrive on betrayal?
She was a child, just seven standard years old. That could work to her advantage if enemies underestimated her. She would have to be smarter, wilier, more unexpected than either the hydrogues or the Klikiss robots.
Making her mental message as clear as possible, she resonated her need through the hydrogues’ thought patterns, forming the concepts in images to communicate. She tried to show the aliens that Ildirans did not wish to continue this war, had not provoked it in the first place. The Mage-Imperator wanted to communicate with them.
As distinctly as she could, she thought, Millennia ago, Klikiss robots acted as intermediaries to arrange a nonaggression pact between Ildirans and hydrogues, while you fought other enemies.
Inside her head, Osira’h sensed an inexplicable loathing for the “turncoat” faeros, as well as a furious resentment against the verdani, and an equivalent group of water-based beings they called the wentals. They had made many enemies.
She continued, staying focused. But the Klikiss robots are not to be trusted. They poisoned you against us. She looked at the black machines just outside her crystal walls. She couldn’t guess whom the hydrogues would believe. But I will be your bridge. I am the conduit between hydrogue and Ildiran. Never before has there been direct communication between our races. We wish to understand you. I can facilitate a discussion with the Ildiran leader.
Her glass-walled bubble lurched and began to move. The hydrogues propelled it smoothly to hover near another, more crudely fashioned encounter vessel that sat empty in the high-pressure environment. As the aliens responded to her, Osira’h felt their antipathy toward the humans.
Overlapping hydrogue voices rang like a gong inside her head. They allied themselves with the verdani. They destroyed hydrogue worlds. They must be extinguished—as the original Klikiss race was.
Now the hydrogues brought her chamber to a low translucent structure that held a group of hapless human captives who looked forlorn and beaten behind the angled, transparent walls. They were dressed in an assortment of clothing, some military uniforms, some Hansa civilian attire, yet all wore the same hollow-eyed expression of endless fear. She wanted to know who they were, why the hydrogues kept them.
For experimentation. For amusement. For understanding. Humans must be destroyed. They used the Klikiss Torch to annihilate our worlds.
Osira’h urgently tried to get them to change their minds. Her only duty was to act as a conduit, but she didn’t think her father would object. Forgive them. They did not know you existed.
They have used the weapon again and again.
She frowned. There was so much she didn’t know!
Next she received a violent, insistent image of all humanity exterminated. And the verdani. And the faeros. The three quicksilver hydrogues transmitted a stream of thoughts so strong that they struck her like physical shockwaves. If you came to speak for humans, then we will destroy you now.
She sensed only a faint willingness to hear her plea in the name of the Ildiran Empire, but the hydrogues were adamant against including the humans in their consideration. Osira’h stared at the despondent prisoners within the geometrical cell, unable to help them. As the hydrogues moved her bubble away, she locked eyes with several hostages until she was drawn out of view.
She forced herself to focus her abilities once more. This was likely to be her only chance to deliver the Mage-Imperator’s invitation. For better or worse. Her siblings—indeed, all of the previous generations leading up to this culmination of the breeding experiments—had been genetically created for this single purpose.