Eric Flint: The Sorceress of Karres

The strange box. The thing that Marshi had sought so desperately, but had thought to be a map. Without thinking about her last experiences, merely tidying her environment, Goth took it down.

And like the last time, she dropped it. Pausert picked it up for her.

He seemed to hold it without any distress. He held it out to her. The moment her fingers touched it, she pulled them away. It wasn't right to feel that much hate and fear. "Leewit?"

"Yeah?"

"Take that box, please. Tell me if you feel anything?"

Her sister did. Held it. Looked at it. Shrugged. "Nope."

"And you didn't feel anything either, Captain. Vezzarn, let's try you."

The old spacer held the box, and examined it. "Good workmanship. It's got a tiny hole here underneath, but I can't say that I see anything else special about it, missy."

He put it down and took a tiny electronic probe from his pocket. Explored the little hole with it… there was a click. The box began to unfold as they watched. Very soon it was a sheet of metal, and looking carefully they could see circuitry traced within it.

"Well, that's one little mystery solved, but it doesn't help at all," said Goth, rather crossly. "You can't feel anything coming out of it, can you?"

The little old spacer was running one of his lock-picking tools over it. "There is some energy there," he said. "Low level. It's probably on standby."

Goth sighed again. "That's not really what I mean. It's the feelings. The images."

In her mind the Toll teaching pattern clicked in, at last recognizing the manifestations. In her mind Toll's cool voice said: "It's a rare klatha skill, Goth. Quite disturbing until you learn how to channel and control it. Powerful emotions and images leave an imprint of sorts on objects. It's the same phenomenon that gives rise to the images some people can perceive as 'ghosts'-you are just far more sensitive than most."

"Well, I wish it would go away," muttered Goth.

The Toll-pattern was cool, sympathetic, and firm. "Klatha powers don't, as you know, Goth. You can either channel them or they will destroy you. This is probably just the start of it, daughter. You must use this pattern to put a buffer between you and it. To switch it off and allow just enough through."

She traced the thin cool intricate pattern in her mind, building the buffer. Then she undid it and did it again. Then Goth reached out and touched the Illtraming map…

It had been a navigational tool, a part of the flagship once. A navigational computer. And the device that identified the ship. That prevented friendly fire, when the vast armada of ships-most of them robot ships, drones, had set out finally to cleanse the galaxy of the mother-plant.

Even through the buffering, Goth felt their hatred and fear of the mother-plant. It was almost overwhelming in its intensity. The mother-plant enslaved and used and killed the people. It infested them until their hair fell out and they died, consumed the haploids' reproduction. Using the ability to surf the dimensional edges, the armada had harried the mother-plant. Many of the people had died, enslaved, fighting for the mother-plant. They hated it worse for that. But at last they'd burned the mothertrees that covered continents on world after world. Bombed and destroyed the nurseries. And then taken the battle to the homeworld. The place where the Illtraming and the mother-plant had evolved. A beautiful world of water and gentle rains.

They had set out to destroy it. The robot ships had launched wave after wave of missiles. The mother-plant's slaves had destroyed what attackers and missiles they could. But the end was certain.

And then the mother-plant had retaliated with a weapon that had shattered countless robot ships-and the flagship. It had torn pieces out of the ships in ever widening discontinuities. The flagship had crashed. The people on it had died. But the mother-plant was dead also. And the blessed-place was safe. The Illtramings' idea of the perfect world. The place where the mother-plant died.

It wasn't Goth's idea of a perfect place. But the Illtraming surely loved Megair 4. The little hairy six-legged web-foots didn't mind being wet. They were amphibians, anyway.

Goth stood up. She was unaware that she'd even sat down.

"Lots of klatha," said the Leewit quietly from the chair where she was sitting. "That was scary, Goth. But the Toll pattern said I mustn't mess with you while you were under."

"How long… "

"'bout two days now. Scary."

"Where is the captain?"

"He and Ta'zara went to get some more of the local plant to feed the prisoners. I was all for turning them out into the swamp," said the Leewit cheerfully. "Vezzarn is keeping watch in the turret. We've camouflaged the ship as much possible. And we have found out that this place is just like the other one. The place where the Cannibals are living. That mound is full of whole lot of tunnels too. Only they're empty." She cocked her head. "Sounds like them coming back now."

It was. The captain hugged her fiercely. "There was a sort of glow around you," he said. "The Leewit said not to touch."

"She was right. I found out how come we got in. And what we've done wrong." She pointed at the sheet of alien circuitry. "That identified us as a friend. It's an IFF beacon for the Illtraming fleet. Those are robot drones out there. They do what ordinary ships can't."

"So… why did they attack us then?"

"Because we brought back the IFF for the flagship… and landed at the base of the murderers."

Goth sighed. "I was getting it off the stones of the Megair base. It… was just too intense. And I didn't know how to make sense of it. The Megair Cannibals-wherever they came from, were invited to this place. The Illtraming thought that as they were animals, they must be allies. Friends. Good things. Illtraming only eat plants… the only predator they ever knew was the mother-plant. You have to understand the Illtraming are basically not fighters at all. They only fought because the mother-plant had them in terror. They knew, sooner or later, it would come to their safe-haven. If it couldn't enslave them, it would destroy them. So they took pre-emptive steps. In the end their fleet mostly got destroyed, but so did the mother-plant. Except it seems it didn't quite."

"And so the Megair Cannibals promptly murdered and ate all of them," said Pausert, heavily.

Goth nodded sadly. "It must have been like killing babies to the Megair Cannibals."

"Yeah?" said the Leewit. "They'd just been at war. They couldn't be that soft."

"They must have really hated the mother-plant to go to war with it," said Pausert. "I can understand that."

"More like they were utterly terrified of it and disgusted by it," said Goth.

The Leewit looked suspicious still. "They still fought."

"They only did so because they had to. And they used their robots to do the actual fighting," explained Goth.

"The mother-plant made the Illtraming," said Pausert. "I know that from being part of that cursed plant. The Illtraming didn't evolve to be terribly intelligent. So the mother-plant bred them for it."

"So it didn't breed them brave," said the Leewit. "That makes sense."

Goth shrugged. "They're plant-eating prey animals. Of course they weren't brave to start with. And what did the mother-plant need that for? It wanted them clever and good at making things. So the Illtraming made proxies to fight their war. When the Megair Cannibals turned up, the Illtraming thought they'd make great proxies. Only they started on the Illtraming first."

"And then, when they'd run out of these Illtraming, they went hunting in space. Only now they can't get off-world because of the Phantoms. They could deal with the Nuri's, remember."

"Yeah. Maybe the Nuri's enabled them to get off-world, by chasing off the Phantom ships. And it's possible that the Megair Cannibals came from some other dimension through the discontinuities. Possibly exactly why Manaret and the Lyrd-Hyrier came here to the Chaladoor. Now Moander and the Nuri globes and Manaret are gone… the Phantom ships are back. In huge numbers."