Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [22]
Jess’s fourteen volunteer “water bearers” were quietly distributing wentals to the lakes and oceans of uninhabited worlds where they were free to grow, and the water-based beings were beginning to expand. Though wentals were similar to the verdani, the worldtrees of Theroc, Jess’s volunteers had not been physically transformed to communicate directly with other wentals, as the green priests did with the worldforest.
Nikko was among the most susceptible, and most enthusiastic, of the volunteers. The water entities had allowed him to communicate with them, had even sent a quick alarm about the EDF strike on Hurricane Depot. But Jess doubted his other water bearers could read the details of the call that had just gone out from Nikko through the wentals.
In his own mind, Jess witnessed everything the young man managed to communicate to the wental water aboard his vessel. The Chan greenhouse asteroids had been seized, the Roamers living there captured, while Nikko himself outran the Eddy pursuers.
Now, as his ship descended into Golgen, Jess wrestled with his obligations. He was still a Roamer, and he felt honor-bound to do something to help—if he could. But the raid on the Chan greenhouses was already over, and so was the destruction of Rendezvous and Hurricane Depot. He could never get there in time to accomplish anything.
His water-and-pearl vessel would certainly startle the Eddy battleships, but he couldn’t fight the whole military force, no matter what his powers were. He hoped his sister Tasia was not among the invaders. She had joined the Earth military, but he couldn’t believe she was voluntarily preying upon Roamer outposts. Where was she now?
No, Jess knew he couldn’t allow himself to grow distracted. Better that he continue his quest to resurrect the wentals. If the hydrogues were not defeated, these petty squabbles among humans would eventually become irrelevant...
Around him Golgen’s clouds were impenetrable with stirred ammonia, hydrocarbons, phosphine, hydrogen sulfide. He felt an unexpected fear scrape like sharp fingernails along his bones. The reaction within him came from the wentals’ deep-seated alarm as they remembered the centuries of death and near annihilation the hydrogues had visited upon them.
“Strange, but I think we were destined to be allies,” Jess said. “Before I ever knew of wentals, I dealt the hydrogues a deep wound. I even used comets—frozen water—to do it. I’d like to see what my comets did.”
As the water-and-pearl vessel descended past layer after layer of convulsing clouds, Jess peered through the translucent bubble. Wispy shreds of vapor pulled away at an equilibrium layer, and he saw startling wreckage: enormous fragments of segmented domes, broken curves that had once been the structure of a hydrogue metropolis. The cityspheres had shattered and imploded from the unexpected barrage.
The eerie alien cities must have been magnificent, and Jess wondered how many hydrogues he had killed in the process. He decided the number couldn’t possibly make up for the innocent Roamer victims the hydrogues had slaughtered, or the whole populations of wentals they had eradicated ten thousand years ago.
The wentals said to him, Now that we are growing stronger, Golgen will be only the first of many victories against the hydrogues.
In all the wrecked components floating in the dense and turbulent atmosphere, Jess saw no sign of the Blue Sky Mine. The hydrogues had smashed his brother’s facility years ago, and he doubted the liquid-crystal creatures had any memory of the innocent people they had slain.
He thought of the last time he had seen Ross proudly riding his own skymine. His brother had been making a surprising success of his commercial venture, proving himself to his lovely young fiancée. Cesca. Back then Jess’s deepest worry had been hiding his secret love for her, knowing that she was betrothed to Ross...
In his mind, the wental voices offered a curious reassurance. We will release part of ourselves from this ship into the clouds of Golgen. The atmosphere has enough water molecules