Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [38]
The pleasure mates froze, looking to Rusa’h for further instructions. They seemed disappointed. The mad Designate turned back toward the imagers to look the Adar in the eye. “Your surrender must be unconditional. Command all captains of the remaining warliners to surrender their ships to Hyrillka. You are the Adar, and they will obey you.”
“Not without conditions,” Zan’nh insisted. “Give me your word—as a son of a Mage-Imperator—that you will not harm them.”
Rusa’h considered this. “Very well. As long as you cooperate, I will not kill or injure members of the Solar Navy crew—and I have no intention of harming you either, Adar. You would make a fine partner in our cause.”
“I will never join your insurrection.”
“Then at least he will make a good hostage,” Thor’h pointed out. “Since we no longer have Pery’h.”
Zan’nh clenched his hands, struggling to find some way out of this nightmarish situation without watching another several thousand crewmen die. At the moment he saw nothing else he might do...but that didn’t mean he might not find a solution later. Time. He needed time.
Someone among his crew would find an opportunity to recapture the warliners. Even after he ostensibly took control, the Hyrillka Designate couldn’t have enough followers to stand against all the Solar Navy soldiers. In order to command the forty-six remaining vessels, Rusa’h would need trained crews, experts. The small group of rebels could not control this battle group for long.
The situation would change. It had to.
Zan’nh knew he had been defeated for now, but it was only temporary. He would trust his abilities and his crew. Ultimately, they would find a way to escape and bring Rusa’h and Thor’h to justice. But at the moment, Zan’nh could not tolerate any further loss.
Thor’h had been right. The Adar could not stomach ordering his own warliners to open fire on Qul Fan’nh’s first battleship. To achieve victory by committing such a sin was unconscionable.
With a sick heart, Zan’nh turned to his communications officer. “Let me address all ships.” The words tasted like poison in his mouth. “Attention all septars, all warliner captains. Surrender your warliners to Rusa’h and his rebels. You will not be harmed. I have given my word that we will not resist.”
For now, he repeated to himself. For now.
Chapter 16—CELLI
When Celli looked at the figure made of animated wood, she couldn’t help seeing her brother Beneto, who had departed from Theroc almost eight years ago. The golem’s features were a perfect replica of the calm and smiling face she remembered from her childhood. Her facsimile brother’s expressions were the same, though his movements were jerky and unpracticed.
Preoccupied with the ruin of the worldforest around her, Celli hadn’t realized how much she missed him. After learning that the hydrogues had killed her brother last year on Corvus Landing, Celli had never imagined she’d see him again.
Now the Beneto golem stood in the clearing under the rebuilt fungus-reef city, staring with grain-swirled eyes at the gathering crowd. Celli was sure he could do something to help them all. The people watched the apparition in amazement. The green priests stared in hope and confusion at the strange and wonderful emissary from the worldforest.
“You are all connected to the worldforest,” Beneto said in a voice that could never have come from a human throat, yet it had a vaguely familiar timbre. “We are satellites of the trees, bound by telink. After the hydrogues destroyed me and my entire grove, my spirit lived within the nurturing mind of the verdani.”
Climbing down from the fungus-reef city, Celli’s older sister Sarein came to watch and listen. Though she was the official Theron ambassador to the Hansa, Sarein seemed uncomfortable here in the damaged forest, as if she had forgotten about the trees and remembered only cities and shops and palaces and Hansa boardrooms. Sarein had come home to help, but with obvious reluctance. Celli knew her sister would much rather have been on Earth dealing with the subtleties of politics than with