David Farland - Lords of the Seventh Swarm

“They’re landing now, out near Devil’s Bunghole. Four people, according to the ship’s logs, milady,” Felph said, smiling broadly in spite of his nervousness. Though he was her lord and her creator, Felph stood in awe of Arachne. The weaver woman had been made for this purpose, to comprehend mankind better than they comprehended themselves, to sift through subtle clues to the motivations and desires of others, then predict what they would do. Yet even as he’d designed her mind, trained and nurtured his creation, Felph had never imagined that Arachne would become what she had become. Felph felt immensely gratified with his creation. At the same time, he was humbled by her, frightened of her abilities. “Two-two of them are humans, a young man and a pregnant woman. The other two are genetically enhanced bears.”

“What class of starship do they command?” she asked.

“A TechKing Fleet Courier.”

“A fast ship. Expensive …” the waver mumbled. “They must be rich. But why would they come to Ruin? You say they’re landing at Devil’s Bunghole?”

She thought a moment. If they were tourists, they’d land at the salt pillars of Kloowee, or at the twelve towers of Sandomoon Breeze, or perhaps at the opal plains. If they were here to study Qualeewooh ruins, they’d have contacted Felph before landing. He was the foremost authority on such ruins.

Felph wondered what the weaver might be thinking. He enjoyed watching Arachne solve puzzles. “They are fugitives,” she said with finality. Turning back to her loom.

“I don’t know. They could be so many things-explorers, entrepreneurs, settlers,” Felph said. “Why do you imagine them fugitives?”

She did not bother to reply. She absently gazed at the tapestry taking shape on her loom. “There is something you’re not telling me?” she accused.

Had she heard an unusual silence after his last question, an expectant undertone?

“There is one thing,” Felph admitted. “According to his ship’s log, the man is a Lord Protector, and his wife is a Lord Technologist. I’m thinking of hiring them. The Lord Protector could teach Herm and Zeus a few things-tactics and self-defense-”

“-And you hope he can find the Waters for you …”

“Well, yes,” Felph said. “I’d thought of that.”

“And little else,” Arachne said. “Certainly you’ve considered little else.” The damning tone of her voice said that she was already considering ramifications that were far beyond Felph’s ability to comprehend.

“I–I thought the woman might help in my creations,” Felph said, to prove that he’d indeed been considering the possibilities. “Hephaestus is coming along fine.”

“It’s Aphrodite you want to make next. Why don’t you just finish her?” It was not really a question. The weaver’s tone suggested dismissal. Felph stood, stroking his short gray beard. Arachne was lost in her own thoughts, but mumbled, “So, a Lord Protector.…We have powerful refugees then. Running from the dronon.”

“I doubt it. The dronon have been vanquished-”

“Temporarily!” Arachne sighed, as if weary of Felph’s stupidity. I must seem simpleminded to her, Felph thought for the thousandth time. She turned at her work. “Have you considered the danger of bringing them here?”

“Danger?” Felph asked. “What danger? They won’t harm us.”

“I’m not afraid of what they’d do to us. It’s what we’ll do to them .”

Arachne turned to Felph, head cocked toward the sunlight, as if straining to hear distant music from outside the window. Suddenly she grunted in surprise at a thought that occurred to her. “I want to meet them, immediately,” she said, ordering him to fetch the off-worlders.

“Well, uh, yes. Of course,” Felph said. “I’ll plan a dinner party, tonight. I’ll invite the whole planet.”

The whole planet wasn’t many. A few odd hermits, a couple of xenobiologists, five dozen ill-bred refugees who performed various odd jobs for Felph.

“Perfect.” The weaver woman took a small pick from the workbench beside her chair and began plucking yarn from her tapestry, destroying the image of Felph’s murder. She muttered under her breath, “New people on the planet. This changes the weave, this changes everything.…”

It annoyed Felph that Arachne prophesied his demise. If he were to be murdered, it would be a nuisance-having his memories downloaded into a new body, making all those minor adjustments that come with your unanticipated death.

But somehow it annoyed him that the murder was off. “Wait,” Felph shook a finger at her. “Are you telling me that a dinner party is all it will take to win this reprieve? You think Zeus won’t kill me, if I arrange a party?”

“At least for now,” she said. “Zeus is easily distracted. A young woman to ogle, especially a pregnant one, will intrigue him. I assume she is pretty-a Lord Protector would not likely marry an ugly woman. Go tell Zeus to help prepare for the party, and it will drive all thoughts of murder from his mind-for two or three days, at least.”

Felph chuckled softly, shaking his head. “So, Zeus plots against me, and you would do nothing to stop him?”

“Zeus takes no counsel from me-or anyone else,” Arachne said. “He’s stubborn.”

Felph considered. His son, Zeus, was a brilliant young man, prone to ruthlessness. The young man wore a Guide that was supposed to control him, keep him from acting on his violent impulses. But Zeus had managed to remove the Guide three years past, and might do so once again. On that occasion, Zeus had tried to murder Felph. He’d first crept into the revivification chamber and tried to erase all records of Felph’s genetic mapping, along with certain other security programs. Only a minor error had kept Zeus’s plot from reaching fruition.

Felph nodded slightly to Arachne, thinking, Well, if my son plots against me, perhaps I need a Lord Protector at my side .

Maggie was not impressed by Felph’s palace, nor was she impressed by the local mode of travel. The florafeem she, Gallen, and the bears rode thundered over a redrock ridge the color of flame; the roaring clack of the thousands of fanlike wings on the florafeem’s underbelly had dulled her hearing. The beast handler, who rode beside her, was a man named Dooring. He spoke loudly.

Dooring had explained to her that the florafeems were native to Ruin, strange creatures that sucked nectar from the dew trees out in the tangles. Big animals. In shape they resembled some strange flower, with four “wings” shaped like petals, but the wings did not flap. Instead, thousands of bony fanlike appendages under the creature’s rigid surface fluttered at a tremendous speed, creating enough upward force to keep a florafeem aloft. On top, the creature’s skin seemed to be only a thick membrane over an upper frame of cartilaginous bone. That membrane was covered over by grasslike purple hairs, and small creatures lived on it.

The florafeem measured some fifty meters in diameter. This beast had a saffron-colored silk pavilion erected on its back.

Dozens of blue-scaled birds swooped and dived around the florafeem, feeding off insects that lived on its back, giving high, croaking calls. In the pavilion behind her, Maggie was vaguely aware of Gallen, resting his hand on her back, sometimes massaging her weary muscles.

The bears, Orick and Tallea, both lay on their paws, staring ahead, tired.

The journey to Felph’s palace had taken nearly three hours, and Maggie’s back felt stiff from sitting. Though she was past the point in her pregnancy where she should have felt morning sickness, she’d been fighting nausea for the past two hours. A dozen times she wished that she and Gallen had refused to travel by florafeem. The idea had seemed quaint upon invitation, yet she hadn’t known how unbearable the journey might be. Still it was not the discomfort of the journey that unsettled her on the final approach. It was Felph’s palace.