Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [40]
Beneto nodded ponderously. “This endeavor will keep the verdani alive—no matter what happens here.”
Celli whispered to Solimar, “It’s kind of like that old story of Johnny Appleseed, wandering the countryside and planting trees, spreading orchard after orchard.”
Yarrod remained anxious. “But if we take the treelings offworld, how then will we restore Theroc? Isn’t that our priority? This is our home!”
Beneto paused for a long moment, as if receiving messages from the widely dispersed worldforest. Then, with his swirling bronze eyes, he looked strangely at Celli and Solimar. “We can achieve both. The forest here has great power. To recover from these great wounds, it needs only to be awakened again.”
Chapter 17—DENN PERONI
With the EDF hunting down Roamer traders wherever they found them, the ringed gas giant Osquivel, a designated gathering point, seemed one of the safest places for the clans to congregate. Here, a giant Eddy battle group had been defeated by the hydrogues, and the military wasn’t likely to come back anytime soon. As far as the Hansa knew, there had never been any clan operations here, so why would they bother to look again?
Denn Peroni flew the Dogged Persistence to the shipyards run by clan Kellum. He had no doubt that plenty of other outlaws would come here to grumble with indignation, to wait and plan. He hoped his daughter Cesca, the Speaker of the clans, might be here. He didn’t even know if she had survived the attack on Rendezvous...And if she was alive, had she escaped or been captured? No one knew where the prisoners had been taken, and the turmoil was still spreading.
Only a few days ago, Denn had been on Theroc helping the people rebuild their worldforest settlement, when Nahton, the green priest from the Whisper Palace on Earth, had delivered the astonishing news about Rendezvous. Mother Alexa and Father Idriss understood that Denn and his fellow workers were now at risk. “Chairman Wenceslas knows you are here assisting us,” Alexa had said. “You must leave. We can’t protect you if the EDF comes.”
Denn had felt sick inside. “There’s still plenty of work to do, but we don’t want to put you in the middle of this. You’ve already suffered enough.”
And so the engineers and construction specialists had vanished into the stellar distances. First Denn had gone to Plumas, hoping to find Cesca there; instead, he found one of the old Tamblyn brothers running the water mines, and the two of them had flown to Osquivel. They hoped some sort of organization might be occurring; Del Kellum had always gotten things done.
“Shizz, the Eddies are pissed off at the drogues, so they’re lashing out at anything in reach—and we happen to be convenient targets,” Denn muttered to Caleb beside him. Now the Roamers had no customers and no external economy—and the Big Goose still didn’t have its ekti.
Caleb Tamblyn scratched his gray-yellow hair; for a water miner, he seemed awfully stingy using the stuff for washing. “Damned stupid politics!” he said with a snort.
While Denn tried to dress the part of a respectable trader, Caleb paid little attention to his appearance; in fact, much of the “embroidery” on his clothes was really just patches and stitches that repaired rips in the worn fabric. Denn would never have been seen in public like that, though Caleb had already made several snide comments about him being a “dandy.” Obviously, they saw things from drastically different perspectives.
“Damned stupid politics, you bet. Say, Caleb, didn’t your niece Tasia go join the Eddies? Maybe we can get in touch with her through a back door—”
Caleb flashed an angry glance back at him. “Don’t confuse her with one of those goose-stepping morons. Tasia went to fight the drogues at the start of this bloody war. She didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because she’s a Tamblyn!” He grumbled under his breath, “What more do you need to know?”
Not wanting to press the issue, Denn kept his silence as he carefully