Kevin Anderson - The Ashes of Worlds

Del Kellum joined them, putting his hands on his hips. “Every time I see one of those ships fly off, I can’t help but think of all the profits coming back to clan Kellum.”

Patrick stared upward, blinking into the bright light. “Every time I see one of those ships fly off, I’m just glad nobody’s shooting at it, and that we don’t have to worry about the hydrogues, the faeros, the Klikiss, the robots, or the EDF.”

Zhett’s father turned to her, looking stern. “Now, don’t go expecting your husband to have a free ride around here, my sweet. He’s got to pull his own weight, do as much work as I do — ”

“Better yet, Dad, I’ll make sure he does as much work asI do.” She slipped her arm around Patrick’s waist, knowing that he already put in long days at the facility. “I promised to make him spend at least two hours with me every day in the command center so I can explain how things work on a big skymine. We’ll make him into an adequate administrator sooner or later.”

Patrick gave her an indignant look. “Adequate?I was raised to be leader material — the head of the military, a captain of industry, a well-respected diplomat.”

“Yes, but can you do anywork, by damn? One of these days I’d like to retire, you know.”

Zhett gave her father a scornful laugh. “You, retire? It’ll never happen.”

“Oh? Something wrong with settling down? Brewing my orange liqueur — maybe even taking it commercial? Getting a few new tanks of angelfish. hell, how about a whole aquarium center of my own? I could run it as a tourist operation. Most Roamers haven’t seen a real live fish, you know.”

Two more cargo escorts streaked off. Billowing exhaust gases continued to spew out of the funnels in the skymine’s superstructure. Scout ships skated along the cloud tops, dangling long antenna probes deep into the misty layers to measure concentrations of valuable gases.

Across the gas giant’s skies, numerous other facilities hung suspended against gravity, filling tank after tank of ekti. Fortunately, Patrick thought, the open vastness had room for everyone.

171

Margaret Colicos

Over the course of weeks, the Davlin-breedex shared with Margaret and Anton all the story songs he deemed necessary, everything memorable about the entire Klikiss race. After hearing of the incredible conflicts, the rise and fall of numerous subhives, the cyclical Swarmings and subsequent consolidations and exterminations, Margaret felt breathless from the sheer volume of information.

Then one day, the breedex was finished.

In the hive city, all of the Klikiss marched briskly about, forming themselves into ranks, millions lined up in perfect order, all categorized by sub-breed.

“What’s going on out there?” Anton asked.

She shook her head. “Something I’ve never seen before.”

Through two of its warrior breeds, the hive mind summoned her and Anton into the yawning hall. The smells were thicker and the background buzz so loud that her teeth rattled.

Even before the myriad organism finished forming the crude human face, Margaret asked, “Davlin, tell us what’s happening.”

“In the distant past, the Ildiran Empire coexisted with the Klikiss. They avoided our colony worlds, and our hive wars remained irrelevant to them.”The alien voice paused for a long moment. “That will change now. Humans will not ignore us. The time will come when vengeful people will refuse to leave us alone. Thus, we can wait here and be exterminated. or we can go into hibernation and allow time to pass, perhaps another ten thousand years.”

Margaret couldn’t argue with the assessment. She doubted humans would ever leave the Klikiss in peace.

Anton said, “Those are your only two choices?”

“For a long time I thought so, but now I choose a different way to survive.”The simulated face seemed sad and preoccupied.“I am all that is left of the Klikiss. Therefore, as breedex, I shall leave. I will take what remains of my hive and go elsewhere — far, far from human and Ildiran civilization. I do not expect to meet any of my old race for thousands of years. Goodbye, Anton Colicos. Goodbye, Margaret Colicos. Thank you for gathering our songs.”

Davlin’s enormous face collapsed into a shapeless mass. With scraping sounds, the eight looming domates marched into the hall of the breedex and waded directly into the writhing, squirming mass of the hive mind. For a moment Margaret thought this was the beginning of another fissioning, that all the grubs would devour the domates. Instead the squirming creatures crawled over the eight towering figures, climbing up their hard exoskeletons until they covered each domate with a living, twitching blanket. Then the laden creatures lumbered out of the hall, carrying the dispersed breedex with them.

Margaret and Anton followed them out into Llaro’s bright sunlight and climbed to a tower opening from which they could observe the main city. Below them, Klikiss scientist breeds huddled around the transportal at the center of the metropolis. The tall trapezoidal frame shimmered, and the flat stone barrier melted away to reveal another world, a place of gray cliffs and steaming geysers under a dim indigo sky.

The ranks of Klikiss parted as the tiger-striped domates moved forward in a regimented march. Without pausing, they carried the dispersed breedex through the pulsing transportal.

As soon as the domates were away, the first ranks of warriors filed after them in a march that lasted more than an hour. Then came the workers, harvesters, excreters, scouts. one sub-breed after another, line after line in an awesome but orderly mass exodus from Llaro.

Margaret and Anton watched from their vantage. “Davlin is taking the seeds of the hive with him.”

The Klikiss flowed through the transportal in an endless stream, evacuating to an unidentified new world. The scientist sub-breeds remained beside the transportal, watching the passage of all the insects until the last yellow-shelled borers scuttled through.

Then the scientist creatures fiddled with the engraved circuitry and controls at the base of the trapezoidal frame. Satisfied, the Klikiss technicians plunged through the frame — all except one.

When the others were gone, the sole remaining Klikiss touched the transportal controls, and the stone doorway melted back into solidity, cutting off the passage to the other world. Sparks flew from the circuitry network, and parts of the coordinate tiles melted, permanently disabling the transportal.

His work finished, the Klikiss scientist died.

When she saw the dead scientist crumpled next to the opaque trapezoidal wall, Margaret was reminded of the lone Klikiss cadaver she and Louis had found inside the cliff city on Rheindic Co, also lying beside a transportal. Now she understood how the last remnants of the insect race had escaped from the black robots and the hydrogues.

And she understood what Davlin had done.

Margaret and Anton made their way down to the stone frame and looked at the vast and empty insect metropolis all around them. “The breedex picked a new planet, one that wasn’t marked on the normal coordinate tiles, so we’d never find them. Then the scientist sub-breeds destroyed the transportal to cover their tracks. I don’t expect even our best experts could figure out where the Klikiss have gone now.”

Anton nodded sadly. “It seems like a good ending to the hive song.”

His mother agreed. Davlin was gone, the Klikiss were gone, and she finally felt that her work was done.

Jess Tamblyn

Back at the ruins of Rendezvous, where the formerly inhabited asteroid facilities and artificial domes had once been strung together in a loose cluster, Jess gazed wistfully at the debris through his ship’s windowport. Dozens of Roamer craft flitted around, locking onto the largest pieces of the wrecked governmental complex and using their powerful thrusters to nudge the rubble back to a common gravitational center. Others used momentum cannons to fire rock pellets into space, gradually easing the asteroids into place.