Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [245]
The Klikiss robots looked virtually identical, but DD had enough precise patterns stored in his memories that he could distinguish one shape he had seen before. The robot now striding through had been one of the three accompanying the Colicos expedition to Rheindic Co. This machine had dragged DD away from his masters Margaret and Louis in their last stand in the Klikiss caves. “You are Dekyk. I remember you.”
The black robot scanned DD for a moment, then dismissed him, turning instead to Sirix. He spoke in a staccato series of clicks and hums, which DD was able to interpret. “The Ildirans have changed the parameters. Our agreement has been discarded.”
Sirix said, “What has the Mage-Imperator done?”
“For centuries they hid a breeding program from us. The Ildirans have developed a telepath to act as an ambassador, one who can meld with the hydrogues, as we did. It is a female, no more than a child. However, she will make the Klikiss robots irrelevant.”
Sirix said dismissively, “We ceased to be Ildiran pawns long ago. They reawakened our first hibernating robots five centuries ago, as agreed in the ancient treaty. None of us suspected the Ildirans would betray us. We had no choice but to abandon them.”
Dekyk hummed and clicked as he considered the information. “There is more. The Ildirans on Maratha excavated our ancient tunnels. A small group discovered our subterranean base, which, by ancient agreement, was to have been left alone.”
“Have they managed to disseminate this information?”
“No. By now, our robots there should already have disposed of the Ildirans who discovered us.”
Sirix considered for a long moment. “They must all be exterminated, along with the humans. We will be methodical, and successful.”
Due to the nature of Szeol’s murky night, the purple clouds and the dim sunrise, DD could not accurately determine the diurnal cycle. His internal chronometer told him that many hours passed while the Klikiss robots and the Soldier compies went about their sinister business in the dead alien city.
The robots did not restrain him in any way, but the macabre world intimidated the Friendly compy. Margaret and Louis Colicos would have wanted him to gather information that might help save other humans, though DD had little chance of escaping to distribute that intelligence.
One of the interior transportal windows activated. The stone wall flickered, and air pressure equalized with a sudden explosive bang that was trapped within the narrow layer of the transportation gate itself. Three Klikiss robots stepped through, their bodies instantly covered with glossy frost and steaming vapors that boiled around them. DD caught just a glimpse of swirling hellish gases in the image behind the transportal wall.
“The hydrogues are ready at Qronha 3,” one robot reported. “The trap has been sprung. All sixty rammer ships the Earth Defense Forces sent are now ours.”
DD tried to assess what he had just seen. “Hydrogues use the same technology as the Klikiss?”
“Hydrogue transgates operate on the same principle, because long ago we robots shared the technology with them,” Sirix explained. “The entire interdimensional network is connected. The map is laid down in the fabric of the universe.”
DD, busy processing this information, did not respond. The hydrogues had long used transgates to travel from one gas giant to another, stitching together their hidden empire, while humans neither saw nor guessed at their presence deep within the clouds.
Margaret Colicos herself had escaped through one of the Klikiss transportals; if she had accidentally connected to a hydrogue transgate, then she was certainly dead. But DD still held out hope that his master had escaped to a safe place and was simply lost somewhere.
Sirix and Dekyk moved close to the Friendly compy, closing in. “We have another reason to make this a great day of celebration, DD—for you and all of the enslaved human compies.”
DD could not flee.