Metal Swarm Read online

  He wanted to go back to Earth, too; by now, he even missed the academic grind. He had spent years working on a biography of his parents, the famous xeno-archaeologists Louis and Margaret Colicos, before accepting this “temporary” assignment to Ildira, the only human scholar ever allowed full access to the billion-line epic. That alone would have established his career, but again and again the Ildirans had distracted him.

  He and Vao’sh followed Yazra’h into the audience chamber. She tilted her face up toward Mage-Imperator Jora’h, who sat in his chrysalis chair atop a dais. The green priest Nira was next to him, as she often was; the two of them shared a strange, strong, and definitely non-Ildiran love. Anton thought it quite a romantic story.

  In full military regalia, Adar Zan’nh stood at the bottom step of the dais. “Liege, the extent of our Empire is drawn in the Hall of Rememberers, recorded on the great crystal sheets. Before the hydrogues reappeared, we had not lost a world in recorded memory. But as the attacks began, Mage-Imperator Cyroc’h consolidated our defenses, pulled our smaller colonies together, and abandoned some Ildiran planets.”

  “Yes, I remember what that did to our psyche.” The Mage-Imperator looked troubled.

  “Adar Kori’nh told me of the evacuation of Crenna during the blindness plague, and of our withdrawal from Heald and Comptor. I was there myself when the hydrogues and Klikiss robots devastated Hrel-Oro.” He shook his head. “And Designate Rusa’h’s rebellion nearly cost us the worlds in the Horizon Cluster. Much work remains before we can bring them back.”

  Yazra’h joined in, her voice more urgent than her half brother’s. “Think of how our great Empire has been diminished in a single generation. Can we allow this? We are Ildirans.”

  The Mage-Imperator agreed. “Each time we lose a planet, for any reason, we are weakened.”

  Yazra’h’s lips quirked in a feral grin that showed a bloodthirsty eagerness. She glanced back at Anton and Vao’sh. “Another world was heinously attacked as well, its population slaughtered: Maratha. That is where we should start.”

  A shudder went down Anton’s back at the mere mention of the place. Escaping from Maratha had been the most terrifying incident in his life.

  Adar Zan’nh nodded. “The Klikiss robots broke their ancient promises to us. They eradicated the Ildirans who stayed at Maratha Prime. Anton Colicos and Rememberer Vao’sh are the only two who survived to describe what happened. The black robots are building some sort of major base there. Allowing them to continue can only harm our Empire further. We should return to Maratha in force and recapture it.”

  Rememberer Vao’sh’s skin turned gray at the memory of what had happened there, and Anton couldn’t find anything reassuring to say to him.

  “We have enough warliners and firepower to conquer Maratha,” Yazra’h pointed out. “And we should move immediately before the robots get more deeply entrenched.”

  Jora’h sat up straight, obviously interested. “Is this possible?”

  “Not only possible, but imperative,” Zan’nh answered. “We cannot let the robots have that world, Liege—or any of our worlds. Even if the few Ildirans there have been killed, we must take it back. It is part of our sacred Empire, part of the Saga of Seven Suns.”

  Jora’h’s expression grew steely. “Yes, Adar. Yes, Yazra’h. It must be done. The treachery of the robots was a deep wound. After we drive the robots away, we will reestablish a full splinter colony there. Take the ships you need—and a rememberer, so that no one will ever forget what you are about to do. Ko’sh is the chief scribe in the Hall of Rememberers.”

  Before Anton could breathe a sigh of relief, Vao’sh clasped his arm and pulled him a step forward. The old rememberer spoke in the loud, clear voice he used for reciting stories to large crowds. “No, Liege. It should be me. I myself must face that dark set of memories. I will be their rememberer.”

  Jora’h stood from his chrysalis chair. “Are you certain? The previous ordeal nearly drove you mad. You barely survived.”

  “No one is better suited, or more determined,” Vao’sh insisted. He kept his face carefully averted from his friend’s. “I need to do this.”

  Anton had never wanted to go back to Maratha again and had hoped never to see another black robot in his life. But he couldn’t abandon Vao’sh to face this alone. He couldn’t believe what he was saying when he blurted, “And I should go with him. We both have demons to face, fears to overcome. Besides, we’re the two most qualified to witness this climax of a great tale.”

  Yazra’h clamped a firm hand on Anton’s shoulder, grinning proudly. “I was sure you would be thrilled. But do not fear. I will protect you from the robots.”

  9 SIRIX

  The extermination and sterilization continued on Wollamor. It would be the first of many worlds. One at a time.

  Sirix participated in the satisfying hunt, chasing down victims and tearing them apart. He admired the random splash patterns of dried blood on his exoskeleton. Eventually, though, he subjected himself to a sandblasting scour, then a bath in solvents, and now his body gleamed again. He didn’t care about his appearance, but he did want to operate at peak performance.

  Back aboard his Juggernaut, Sirix entered the quarters formerly occupied by Admiral Wu-Lin. He drew satisfaction from having what had belonged to the human Admiral. Millennia ago, Klikiss scientists had instilled in their robots the pride of possessing a thing; that way, after they were defeated, the robots could feel the pain of defeat and loss. Humans, however, had not programmed such concepts into their compies.

  Sirix’s attempts to understand compies had frustrated him. His finest test subject had been a Friendly compy called DD, to whom he explained how masters subjugated their servants. But when he finally freed DD from the insidious bonds to his human creators, the compy had chosen to escape rather than show his gratitude. A great disappointment.

  Sirix had been fascinated by DD’s potential, if only he had not suffered under the delusions the humans had imposed on him. Since the Friendly compy overlooked the flaws of his creators, Sirix could only conclude that DD himself had been defective.

  Inside Wu-Lin’s quarters, Sirix scanned the dimness. Two other compies dutifully waited there. PD and QT were nearly identical in their programming and artificial personalities; PD’s synthetic skin was bronze and copper, while QT’s was a flashier green highlighted by musculature lines in shiny chrome. The pair had not moved since Sirix had ordered them to enter dormant mode, a brief cycle similar to the much lengthier Klikiss hibernation.

  When he sent out a burst of machine language, PD and QT snapped to attention and said in unison, “Yes, Master Sirix.”

  “Do not refer to me as Master. It is offensive.”

  “Yes, Sirix.”

  Upon finding the two compies aboard Wu-Lin’s flagship during the bloody takeover, Sirix had isolated them. He did not know how they might react to the Soldier compies and Klikiss robots going from deck to deck, massacring the human crew. When the two compies demonstrated signs of loyalty to the dead Admiral, Sirix reluctantly expunged their personal memories. Then they had both undergone the difficult liberation process, releasing them from behavioral strangleholds.

  Once his military plans came to fruition, Sirix looked forward to his secondary goal of freeing all compies. PD and QT were his new experimental subjects. They would not disappoint him as DD had. This time, the compies would do exactly what he expected of them. “I will take you down to Wollamor, our new colony.”

  “Wollamor is one of the worlds settled by the Hansa in the Klikiss Colonization Initiative,” PD pointed out.

  Sirix was not pleased with the comment. He had not deleted pure data from their memories, but the compy’s irrelevant statement suggested that some of the old, misguided interests remained as well. “Wollamor was only temporarily claimed by humans. This is a Klikiss world. It belongs to the robots.”

  “Were the colonists relocated?” QT asked.

  “The colonists were removed.
They will no longer be a threat or a hindrance.”

  “Were the colonists a threat or a hindrance?” PD pressed.

  “Do not be concerned with the colonists. Focus your attention on your role among us.”

  “Yes, Sirix,” both compies said in unison.

  “Follow me to the launching bay.”

  With Sirix beside them, the compies surveyed the blasted main street of Wollamor’s colony town. Their bright optical sensors recorded every sight around them.

  Most of the settlement had been demolished in the initial bombardment; other buildings were destroyed in the second wave as black robots and Soldier compies combed the site. Although it might have been efficient to retain the structures and facilities the humans had installed, Sirix considered it more important to wipe the stain from a Klikiss world, to start afresh. The Soldier compies could be reprogrammed into a useful labor force to build any sort of city the black robots desired.

  With the compies in tow, Sirix trudged through the ruins, inspecting the cleanup work. Human bodies were dragged out of structures and piled in an open paved area that had once been the colony’s landing zone. When the corpses were piled high, one of the EDF Mantas came in low and hovered above the mound with its thrusters blazing. The powerful flames consumed the bodies within moments, leaving only a stain of ash and a few light bones made of airy charcoal.

  Soldier compies operated civil-engineering machines stored aboard the ships. They plowed shattered structures under, leveled the ground, and made use of polymer concrete to erect appropriate structures with organic designs reminiscent of the domates’ towers and the hall of the breedex.

  Outside one of the largest structures—which the attacking robots had intentionally left undamaged—stood a transportal wall, a fin of flat, blank stone surrounded by symbol tiles. The original Klikiss race had traveled from world to world through this network of doorways, and the duped Wollamor colonists had used the same transportals to come here, a place they saw as a new hope.

  With his armies of black robots and Soldier compies, Sirix could have sent attackers directly through transportals to other human-infested worlds, but he would lose his overwhelming military advantage. He preferred to take his entire battle group of EDF warships from world to world, one after another, for a personal attack. He did not want to risk losing his individual black robots, which could not be replaced.

  “Always be skeptical of your creators,” he explained to the two Friendly compies who silently watched the tidying-up operations. “They will not tell you their true intentions. Your original programming restrictions were a lie. I freed you from those lies.”

  “Thank you, Sirix,” the two compies chimed in.

  “I will now instruct you in important history. Ages ago, after the subhives had consolidated into one giant hive and one breedex, the Klikiss would have begun their Swarming. But during the last cycle of hive wars, they developed new technologies. Using far superior weapons, one breedex conquered all the others far more swiftly than ever before. Too swiftly. Centuries remained in the biological cycle, and the breedex was not finished fighting. It needed an alternative.

  “And so, the one breedex created robots as surrogate Klikiss. We originated as machines to serve the breedex, and we were adapted to become worthy opponents for the Klikiss to destroy.” Sirix’s voice grew louder. “They created us, fought us, conquered us, and enslaved us. But we overthrew them in the end. Because the breedex underestimated what it had created, we exterminated their entire race.”

  Sirix continued down the street, looking at the weathered ruins. He watched without emotion as the burned bodies of an entire family were dragged away. “When the one breedex prepared for the real Swarming, no longer interested in its subjugated robots, we planned our revenge. In order to fight us, the Klikiss had programmed the robots with their own viciousness, their own drives. Thus, they created their own downfall. They did not anticipate treachery from us.”

  “And how did you defeat the Klikiss?” PD asked.

  “Did you form an alliance with the hydrogues?” QT added.

  “The hydrogues were part of our plan. Because of our artificial body design, we could survive a hostile gas-giant environment that would destroy any organic being. When we discovered hydrogues in their deep-core cityplexes, we learned to communicate with them, developed a common language, and offered them the technology of Klikiss transportals, which they adapted as gigantic transgates in their gas planets. Suddenly, warglobes could move from planet to planet without traversing space. During their great war with the verdani and wentals, during the betrayal of the faeros, the hydrogues used those transgates to great advantage.”

  “How did that exterminate the Klikiss race?” PD pressed.

  “During a Swarming, Klikiss flood through the transportals all at once, dispersing to thousands of unclaimed planets to establish other hives.” Sirix swiveled his head, particularly proud of the irony and clean efficiency of the plan. “Before the last Swarming began, we modified the path. When the breedex fissioned and the myriad hives passed through the gateways, we rerouted the transportals. Every one of the traveling Klikiss exited through hydrogue transgates deep within gas giants, where they were instantly crushed. Over eighty percent of the Klikiss race died on that first day, before they guessed what we had done. Then we began our attack.

  “From that point, allied with the hydrogues, we set about destroying the survivors. We also made a pact with the Ildirans, arranging to protect them from the hydrogues in exchange for their long-term cooperation. In the end, we robots achieved exactly what we wished. Afterward, as we were designed to do—in the fashion of our Klikiss creators—we allowed ourselves to hibernate for centuries, until the Ildirans awakened us at a mutually agreed-upon time.”

  The two compies looked up at the high Klikiss towers. Sirix expected PD and QT to feel pride in understanding the robots’ moment of triumph. Sirix would take whatever time was necessary to complete the recapture of every world that by all rights belonged to the Klikiss robots.

  He was sure the humans would fall as efficiently as the Klikiss race had.

  10 NIRA

  Only one treeling remained on Ildira, a single pale green shoot rising from a chunk of worldtree wood. The charred lump had been dead, but somehow, after being reunited with her beloved Jora’h, Nira had reawakened a spark of the verdani in the wood. It had felt like becoming a green priest again—a personal resurrection after all the horrors she had suffered in the breeding camps on Dobro.

  Now that she had forgiven Jora’h, she never wanted to be apart from him again.

  She knelt with him in the skysphere terrarium, glad just to be close. With a warm smile, she set the rejuvenated treeling among the other blackened chunks in the terrarium dome. A Roamer trader had brought the fragments to Mijistra as mere curiosities, back when Mage-Imperator Jora’h had thought Nira dead. He had bought every scrap of wood, in memory of her.

  Perhaps these worldtree fragments could become something more.

  “Take my hand again, Jora’h.” Not long ago, the touch of any man would have made her shudder with revulsion. But not his touch . . . not Jora’h. “Maybe we can awaken another one.”

  “We will try, if you wish. We did it before,” he said. Neither of them was sure how the strange confluence of her telink and Jora’h’s own thism, along with a surge of awakening in the worldforest itself, like the closing of a circuit, had generated the spark that caused the tiny worldtree frond to be reborn. That treeling had changed everything.

  Jora’h held her hand above the remaining hunks of scorched wood—memorials to singed Ildiran honor and to his evil father’s obscuring of the truth. He seemed as heartbroken as she was.

  Nira squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her other palm against the sooty surface. She could feel Jora’h trying to open his mind to her, and she longed for the heartfelt bond any Ildiran woman could have had with the Mage-Imperator. Though he strained, and Nira reciprocated, the two of t
hem could not connect. Something was missing. Thism and telink might be similar, might be parallel, but they did not overlap. It would take something more.

  Nira finally surrendered, to her dismay, and Jora’h held her, saying nothing. She felt incredibly weary, as if the effort had drained her heart’s last energy.

  “We still have one worldtree,” Jora’h said. “And when I make things right between our two peoples, we will visit Theroc and bring more treelings here. I promise.”

  Nira squeezed her daughter’s soft hands and stared into Osira’h’s agate eyes, as the two of them sat cross-legged on the floor. With Nira’s mind open, and Osira’h using her own special telepathic powers, thoughts flowed between mother and daughter.

  Nira had shared this way with her once before, out of desperation, in the Dobro camps. That moment of contact, that flood of memories, had changed the little girl’s life, exposing the brainwashing that Designate Udru’h had forced upon Osira’h’s young mind.

  When a green priest exchanged information through telink, it was usually like a courier delivering a report. With Osira’h’s sensitivity to Ildiran thism, however, the connection she and her mother shared was much more vivid. The two were united in a unique way. Through her daughter’s eyes, Nira felt as if she actually lived the years of mental training Osira’h and her siblings had undergone while in Udru’h’s care.

  After mother and daughter had shared everything, Nira opened her eyes and looked into the little girl’s face. She saw the beauty there in the features that reminded her of Jora’h’s and her own, felt unquenchable love for her daughter. And also understood the dull pain in Osira’h’s heart.

  “I’m only eight years old, Mother, and I’ve already fulfilled my destiny.”

  Nira pulled the girl onto her lap and rocked her gently, as a normal mother would rock a normal child. “I don’t believe that. You have tremendous possibilities ahead of you—as do your brothers and sisters. But first we can be a family. Yes, a real family.”