David Farland - Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Karthenor’s words dashed Thomas’s hopes for a quick release. Shortly after, they departed the shepherd’s shack, the toddler riding the front of an airbike, tucked under Karthenor’s arm.

By midday they reached a gate, left Tremonthin for a heavily populated world with high technology. There, Karthenor abandoned the toddler, leaving him on a deserted road at the edge of a city.

In rapid succession they drove through several gates, till they reached a gray alien planet with tortured, pitted plains. Strange animals seemed almost to agonize under a dim red sun.

Karthenor stopped to make a radio transmission, then waited. By evening, a huge walking vehicle approached, a black city that stalked across the ruined land like a giant tick, the metal of its legs crashing and grinding as if each step were agony. At its front, three red lights blazed like fire, showing Thomas his first dronon-creatures that in the distance he thought looked like giant flying ants. They manned the city’s gun emplacements.

The dronon city marched to them, halted. Karthenor and his men ascended, climbing handholds along one huge leg.

Thomas had never thought himself afraid of heights, but when he’d reached sixty meters in the air, he looked below at the rocky plain, gray in the twilight, and his hands began shaking.

“Do not be afraid,” Karthenor ordered from below. Thomas’s Guide stilled his shaking hands; he climbed with confidence.

The dark interior of the hive city smelled acrid, a biting scent that burned Thomas’s sinuses. White powder dusted the metal floors. Karthenor warned Thomas to avoid the dust. He bid Thomas follow through dark halls, dimly lit with red globes, passing dronon sentries who lined the tunnels, sometimes clinging with all six limbs to a ceiling so they hung like gaudy fixtures.

Deeper within, the air became hotter, stifling. Bangs and groans issued from deep recesses of the hive. As the city turned and walked, the floor pitched like a ship at sea. The jostling did not bother the dronon, who scurried about on six legs, but it was hell for a human to walk in here. Sometimes the group would stop, then climb rungs on the wall to reach a higher level. Thomas studied everything-the black-carapaced warriors so large and cruel; the elegant, almost gaunt, scholars with their tan bodies and green facial markings. Small white workers rushed everywhere, like immature roaches, prodding and carrying items.

As for the machinery-the alien angles to the tubing, the strange faceted lights-for Thomas it provided only a bizarre and incomprehensible backdrop to the dronon activities. He was, after all, nothing but an old man from a world where his people shunned anything more complex than a rake.

At last Karthenor reached a great room with a gently curving floor, where a bloated dronon queen sat, gorging herself on huge chunks of meat. Small workers frantically scurried about, attending her needs. The queen dronon had ruddy golden-colored chitin, with faint bronze tints beneath her legs.

When Karthenor reached this chamber, he and his men each fell to one knee, bowed their heads, and held their arms forward, palms raised above the floor. Karthenor said, “I have come, My Queen, as you bid.”

The queen spoke, her mouthfingers tapping her voicedrum. A translator pinned to Karthenor’s lapel spoke. “You are just in time. The great work is accomplished. A few hours past, an ansible transmission pinpointed the location of the human’s Golden Queen in a far galaxy. We will fly to her. The Tharrin will not have time to warn her. She will not escape.”

“Excellent,” Karthenor said. “It will be an honor to accompany you, as it is an honor to serve you.”

The dronon queen dismissed him. Thomas followed Karthenor and his men to a small chamber within the city.

In a dim room, several levels down from the queen’s chamber, Karthenor and his men rested. Fresh air blew into this room through open vents, and the dronon had placed six cots in three tiers along the walls. Nothing about the room seemed quite right. The dronon had made the beds too long and too narrow, as if expecting men who were nine feet tall and thin as rails. Some beds were on the floor, others smashed right up against the ceiling. These dronon, Thomas felt sure, had never seen a human.

Once in the room, Karthenor unpacked a bit of food for his men and gave Thomas a bar of some kind of grain with fruit and nuts mixed in. Karthenor was an odd man. Sometimes he’d forget to feed Thomas all day. Other times he overfed him. Whatever his mood called for. Thomas felt grateful to eat.

Karthenor said, “I have good news for you, news I dared not speak until now-not on any human world.

“You’ve traveled through the world gates, Thomas, something almost no one ever does. The Tharrin jealously guard gate technology, fearing the gates could be ill-used. But when the dronon got control of the Tharrin’s Omni-mind, they pried some secrets from it, and learned that gate technology is far more powerful than the Tharrin ever let on.

“As you’ve seen them, the gates lead from world to world, each taking you to only one destination. But there is no reason a gate cannot be programmed to take you to any destination you desire. Nor is there any reason a gate cannot be built large enough to send a ship across space.

“Of course the Tharrin would never use them this way. They wouldn’t like the idea of warships winking across the galaxy in the time it takes you to drink a shot of whiskey. It would make mankind too powerful, lead to easy confrontations.

“Fortunately, the dronon don’t have the Tharrin’s compunctions against the use of gate technology.

“The Lords of the Seventh Swarm have built a gate that leads to all worlds, and they’ve built it large. Large enough for warships to fly through.

“Tonight, we fly through it, and you will see your niece for the last time. Tomorrow, the galaxy will be ours.”

When Zeus woke, Hera had already left the room. Her side of their huge bed was empty. Zeus sprawled on his back, naked, luxuriating in the extra space. Hera is a clinging vine, he thought. She clung to him in her sleep, chasing him across the sheets all night in an effort to cuddle. She clung to him around other women. It annoyed him when she stepped between him and Maggie, just when Maggie felt ready to succumb to his persuasions.

Zeus did not eat when he rose. His stomach seldom woke before midday. He got up, decided to stroll around the palace naked. He’d enjoyed the sensation of the morning air on his skin yesterday, had reveled in his newfound freedom. Today he would celebrate Felph’s absence by going out naked for the whole day, if the mood took him.

He went first to the garden where he’d rendezvoused with Maggie. If the wench had enjoyed his presence last night, he hoped she would come this morning. Besides, she’d left her shoes by the fountain. Perhaps she’d return for them. She might even use them as an excuse in her own mind to justify a walk in the garden, hoping for his return.

Zeus reached the north halls, found the sun high. He usually woke near dawn, but it must be nearly nine o’clock. No wonder Hera had slunk off before he awoke.

Zeus whistled as he made his way between the rose hedges, hoping it might attract Maggie, if she couldn’t see him.

When he reached the peacock fountain, resplendent in the morning sun, he found Herm sitting on the stone bench, tinkering with a gun, cleaning it.

Herm looked up at him, saw he was naked. “My, you look elegant this morning.”

“I just couldn’t find a thing to wear,” Zeus laughed, walking up to the fountain. The nereid viviform swam about, just under the clear waters, rolling to her back, then to her stomach. Her generous breasts were so inviting, Zeus found it bothersome. Unfortunately, her maker had not given her all the female parts Zeus would have wished.