The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [143]
Definitely a crash, then. And it didn’t look like an accident.
He hit the transmitter, his voice breaking as he squawked, “Rlinda, it’s me! Are you there?” He waited a second — it seemed like a year — then repeated his message. “I found your ship, but where are you?”
Unexpectedly, a warm voice came over the comm speaker. “BeBob, it’s me. Don’t worry.” Before he could respond, Rlinda added, “Well, you can worry a little bit, but I think we’ll be okay . . . if you don’t wait too damn long. The bugs aren’t interested in us. Not at the moment, anyway.”
He was so shocked and thrilled that he nearly sent the ship into a spin as he fumbled with the comm controls. “I’m coming! Doesn’t look too good down there. Where in the world am I supposed to land? How do I find you?”
“Are you saying you won’t be able to tell me apart from a million giant cockroaches? Thanks a lot.” She spoke to someone else with her, then answered, “We’re inside the Curiosity . . . but as you can probably see, my ship’s not going anywhere. Land nearby.”
He wondered if this could be some kind of trick, if the Klikiss had managed to imitate Rlinda’s voice, but he doubted such creatures could have mimicked her personality so well. He altered course, descended to the wrecked vessel. “Who’s ‘we?’ You got company?” Maybe she had found Davlin after all!
“Margaret Colicos. She’s coming with us.”
Orli and Steinman had told him that the long-lost xeno-archaeologist was still trapped among the Klikiss. “I’ll try to land without squashing too many bugs.”
“Don’t worry, the breedex has plenty more where they came from, and right now the bugs are preoccupied with their superfissioning, or whatever they call it. But I’d sure appreciate getting the hell out of here.”
As soon as the Faith’s shadow fell over them, the gathered insects shuffled aside, clearing enough room for him to set the ship down with a hard thump, kicking up dust and powdery stones. Not his best landing, but he doubted Rlinda would scold him for being sloppy.
The Curiosity’s hatch glided open, and Rlinda emerged with another woman. They both looked dusty and sweaty, but apparently unharmed. They pushed their way through the monstrous ranks of secreters, diggers, warriors, and scouts, dodging toward the Faith. They were running. Maybe Rlinda wasn’t as confident as she’d sounded.
He opened the hatch and was almost overwhelmed by the smell of all the insects, but he shouted and waved. “Rlinda! Over here!” As if she didn’t know damned well where his ship was.
She pelted up to him and nearly bowled him over with a hug, driving him back into the ship. BeBob had known her for so long that he could see how deeply frightened she was. “Rlinda, what’s really going on? Did you find Davlin? How did you get Margaret free from those things?”
“The breedex is letting us go. No strings attached.” While he tried to process that, she continued in a rush. “The breedex is Davlin — at least in part. Davlin is controlling this hive . . . the whole damn race, in fact. Or he was.”
Looking agitated as well, Margaret Colicos boarded the Blind Faith just behind Rlinda. “The race is about to complete a massive new fissioning, pooling the genetic songs of all the diverse subhives. There will be One Breedex.” She looked devastated, as if only she understood what she was saying. “Until now, Davlin’s humanity kept a tenuous control over the Llaro subhive, but the domates are even now devouring representatives of all the defeated breedexes. It will be a massive, final fissioning, and after the other Klikiss attributes flood into the hive mind, Davlin is sure to be entirely subsumed.” She sealed the hatch. “We have to depart — now — before that happens.”
BeBob’s mind was already overloaded. “Is any of that supposed to make sense to me? You’ve both got a lot of explaining to do.”
“We’ll fill you in after