For Those Who Fell Read online

  Of course even the most promising career can be destroyed by a superior who is determined to bring it down, but to do so would incur the wrath of Charles Winther Vanderveen, Christine’s father, and an advisor to the president. All of which meant that it was best to tolerate the little bitch, look for an opportunity to transfer her to some hellhole, and bring in a more amenable staffer.

  Wilmot grabbed a fistful of hard copy, fanned it out in front of her, and touched the appropriate button. “Send her in.”

  One of two metal-core doors opened, and Vanderveen entered. Wilmot summoned her best, “I’m terribly busy but still pleased to see you” smiles, and said, “Good morning.” Vanderveen answered in kind and took one of two guest chairs. It faced the ambassador’s rather imposing desk and the huge window beyond. A low-flying air car zipped past, slowed as it approached a building to the south, and entered via a sixth-floor parking bay.

  Vanderveen noticed that all the objects on the surface of the ambassador’s desk had been chosen with care. There was the clock that Nankool had given her, a chunk of rock crystal from Earth, and a photo of her standing next to Earth’s governor.

  As for the woman herself, Wilmot appeared to be in her late thirties, was attractive rather than beautiful, and slightly overweight. Not much, only ten pounds or so, but just enough to exaggerate the roundness of her face and the fullness of her breasts. Physical attributes that the ambassador took advantage of at times yet sought to hide at others, as if her chest was something of an embarrassment. Wilmot cleared her throat. “So, is the briefing ready?”

  Vanderveen nodded. “I sent a copy. If you would be so kind as to pull it up, we can review it.”

  “Good,” Wilmot said as she turned in the direction of her desk comp, “I’m looking forward to . . .”

  But Vanderveen never got to hear what the ambassador was looking forward to because that was the moment when the Prithian appeared outside the window, hit the hardened glass at full speed, and caused it to shatter. His body made a loud thump as it hit the floor. Wilmot screamed, and attempted to escape, only to have her chair fall over sideways.

  Vanderveen felt a sudden stab of fear, but, thanks to the rebellion on LaNor, had become somewhat inured to sudden violence. There was no mistaking Sok Tok’s yellow beak, white head feathers, and blue shoulder plumage. The translator issued a croaking sound as Vanderveen went to the Prithian’s aid. Though not a diplomat, Sok Tok was a member of the embassy’s staff, and Vanderveen liked him. One of the alien’s wings fluttered weakly, and the other was clearly broken. There was blood, a lot of blood, and Vanderveen called to Wilmot, who was up on her feet by then. “Call Dr. Fortu! Tell her to hurry! Sok Tok is bleeding to death.”

  “No,” Tok warbled, as the fingers of his right wrapped themselves around her left ankle. “It’s too late. . .” The Prithian coughed and a half cup’s worth of blood spilled out onto the hardwood floor. That was when Vanderveen noticed the dagger that protruded from the alien’s back. He’d been stabbed, yet managed to fly to the embassy.

  “Save your strength,” Vanderveen said, “the doctor will be here in a moment, and . . .”

  “There is nothing she can do,” Tok croaked. “Now listen carefully, whatever you do, don’t trust the Thrakies. They claim to be neutral, but . . .”

  The Prithian’s words were interrupted by another racking cough followed by a second rush of blood. But it just kept coming this time, flooding the area around his head, and drowning his words. Dr. Fortu burst into the office right about then and rushed to his side, but it was too late. Tok was gone, taking whatever he had hoped to warn his employers about with him, his fingers still locked around Vanderveen’s ankle. Fortu pried them off, but a circle of blood remained and proved difficult to remove.

  PLANET ALGERON, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS

  Corporal Nowake Longsleep stood on a rocky ledge not far from the village in which he had been born and looked toward the east. He’d been part of the Legion for seven years by then and fought on three planets, none of which were as beautiful as his native Algeron, a world that completed a full rotation every two hours and forty-two minutes. The phenomenon created a world-spanning mountain range called the Towers of Algeron. Longsleep knew that the highest peaks, some of which topped eighty thousand feet, would dwarf Earth’s Mount Everest, and the knowledge made him proud.

  All of which was intellectually interesting but didn’t begin to describe the sheer beauty of the quickly rising sun, the soft pink light that glazed the snowcapped peaks to the south, or the feeling that rose to fill his chest. He’d been away too long—and it felt good to be home.

  A light breeze ruffled the short gray fur on Longsleep’s unprotected back and brought him the fresh clean scent of his sister’s perfume. The legionnaire turned as a rock clattered, and she climbed to join him. “I thought I’d find you here,” Lighttouch Healsong said, reaching up to take his hand. “Nodoubt Truespeak wants to see you.”

  Longsleep was on leave, Truespeak was the village chief and would be eager for news. The soldier nodded. “Of course . . . I’ll follow you back.”

  Lighttouch had big eyes, full lips, and was dressed in an everyday outfit of blouse, jerkin, and black pantaloons. The fur that remained visible was gray, interrupted by streaks of black, just like her mother’s. She was pretty, very pretty, and would take a mate soon. Not the old way, by an arranged marriage, but someone of her choosing.

  The legionnaire followed his sibling back along the cliff-hugging trail, down a series of hand-cut steps, and onto the granite ledge where more than three dozen earthen domes steamed under the quickly rising sun. At least a third of the homes were abandoned now, slowly melting away as the wind, rain, and snow conspired to wear them down. Eventually, after three or four years, they would be little more than mounds on which wild grasses would grow.

  Longsleep knew that most, if not all, of the empty dwellings resulted from families leaving the village when one or more of their males joined the Legion. Odds were that they lived in the squalor adjacent to Fort Camerone. A vast labyrinth of mud huts that the humans referred to as Naa Town. Life was hard there, but very few of them ever came back, suggesting that conditions were even worse in Sunsee.

  The soldier sidestepped a mound of steaming dooth droppings, kept to the relatively clean stepping-stones that the villagers employed to keep themselves up out of the muck, and said good-bye to his sister as she set off on an errand.

  As befitted the owner’s status, Truespeak’s house was one of the largest and sat at the center of the village. Longsleep sat on a bench outside, removed his Legion-issue boots, and tapped a brass cylinder with a hammer made of bone. Many hours of painstaking craftsmanship had gone into cutting designs into the metal, but the howitzer casing still looked like what it was and bore Legion markings. There was a resonant bong, followed by a basso voice, and the word “Come!”

  It was warm inside thanks to the nearly odorless dried-dooth dung fire and the blankets that served to seal the narrow door. Longsleep slid between them, made his way down a short flight of stairs, and found himself on the main level.

  The interior was carpeted with colorful hand-loomed rugs, each overlapping the next, so they covered the earthen floor. An open fire pit and a funnel-shaped chimney dominated the center of the home. One section of the circular space that surrounded it was reserved for cooking, while others had been set aside for sitting or sleeping. “Welcome,” Truespeak said from his place by the fire. “Sit and tell me of other worlds.”

  The invitation was that of one warrior to another. A tacit recognition of Longsleep’s status as a legionnaire and a far cry from the almost dismissive attitude that Truespeak had shown toward the youngster before he left.

  The chieftain was big, and his shaggy orange fur made him look even bigger. He didn’t rise, which would have been normal, but waved the legionnaire over. “Excuse me for not getting up to greet you, but I took a fall and broke my leg.”

  Now, as
the soldier sat down on the semicircular bench-style seat, he realized that a homemade wooden brace had been applied to the chieftain’s stiffly extended leg. It was a reminder of the crude medicine that most villages still relied upon. “I’m sorry, sir. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Tell me what you’ve been up to for the last seven years,” Truespeak suggested gruffly. “It will take my mind off my leg, and give me a better picture of what’s going on out there. We get more news than we did when you were a cub, but it still tends to be spotty.”

  Longsleep chose to pick up the story at the point where he left the village, and spoke for the next two hours. Truespeak listened carefully, occasionally interrupted with a question, but generally remained silent while the legionnaire told his tale. But that changed when Longsleep spoke of the Friendship, the bomb that had been assembled deep inside the hull, and the subsequent evacuation. The soldier had been there, among the legionnaires assigned to protect the president, and that seemed to pique the chieftain’s interest. “You must tell me about him,” Truespeak said urgently, “every detail no matter how small it may be.”

  So Longsleep did, describing how Nankool handled the chaos that followed the destruction of the ship, what he had heard about initial skirmishes with the buglike Ramanthians, and the president’s efforts to find a new capital. And it was then that the chieftain seized the younger warrior by the arm and stared into his eyes. “You speak truly? Nankool is here? With General Booly?”

  Longsleep nodded. “Yes, I speak truly. Why? Is that important?”

  “It could be,” Truespeak said, releasing his grip to stare into the fire. “The humans have used Algeron for a long time. Thousands of Naa have died in their battles. And for what? A few supply drops during the winter? Doctors who visit twice a year? The metal we salvage from their garbage pits?

  “Now they plan to convene their government here, rather than on a planet like Earth, and their new enemy will follow them. Just as the Hudathans did in my father’s time. They owe us more, much more, and debts must be paid.”

  The words were said with such passion, such conviction, that Longsleep was taken aback. The humans were far from perfect, as was the Legion, but there were other evils, some of which were pretty nasty. “Much of what you say is true, sir, but not entirely fair. It’s worth pointing out that the Council of Chiefs is represented on Earth.”

  “Yes,” Truespeak agreed bitterly, “and what good has it done us? General Booly’s grandfather served as our first representative, and things improved for a time. But the humans always look to their needs before ours. The Naa people deserve more, they deserve a seat on the Senate itself and a say in what the Confederacy does. Not as subjects of Earth—but as an independent people. Now, as the government meets on Algeron, we must demand that which is rightfully ours. There will never be a better time.”

  It was an audacious idea, one that was almost certain to run into a great deal of resistance, especially since the very beings who would have to approve it represented the spacefaring races. Not only were they unlikely to want their power diluted, but if a Naa senator was admitted to the Senate, other heretofore marginalized races would demand representation, too, thereby raising all sorts of complicated questions having to do with definitions of sentience, the meaning of the word “civilization,” and levels of racial maturity.

  Still, Truespeak was correct, or so it seemed to Longsleep, and the legionnaire felt a sudden surge of anger. “I see your point, sir. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Truespeak smiled grimly as he made use of both hands to shift his injured leg. “Why yes, son, as a matter of fact there is.”

  RAMANTHIAN PLANET, HIVE

  The security around Hive had always been tight, but now, in a time of all-out war, it could only be described as intense. An entire fleet had been assigned to protect the Ramanthian home world, and in recognition of his role in what the Queen liked to refer to as the “Sheen affair,” Admiral Enko Norr had been placed in command of it.

  Though not an especially brilliant individual, he was extremely diligent, a virtue where military officers are concerned. And because of his diligence Norr had gone to great lengths to protect the entire solar system, realizing that even though the other four planets were largely uninhabited, it was extremely important not to let the enemy gain a foothold on any of them.

  That was why a destroyer escort issued a challenge to Ambassador Alway Orno’s ship only seconds after it dropped hyper and appeared in-system. Codes were exchanged, checked, and double-checked. Then, and only then, was the sleek courier ship allowed to proceed toward the precious mottled brown sphere beyond.

  A senator until the destruction of the Friendship, the politician had become an overnight hero on Hive and cemented his position among the ranks of the Queen’s most trusted advisors. Now, having assumed the mantle of Ambassador at Large, he was returning from a visit to the Clone Hegemony.

  But no one, not even the great Orno, was allowed to bypass the orbital security system that kept the home world free of contamination. The word had come to mean not only off-world microorganisms, but all manner of cyborgs and cleverly designed robots as well. An exhausting task, since every race that had the capacity to do so, spent billions of credits each year trying to penetrate Ramanthian security. The efforts that would only increase now that hostilities were under way.

  The first stop was one of the twenty-four heavily armed space stations that orbited Hive, where Orno had to disembark and pass through a detox center. Then, having been cleansed of artificial contaminants, the diplomat was scanned and sampled to ensure that he was who he claimed to be, before being released into the station proper.

  But, rather than waiting for a regular shuttle as he had in the past, Orno was escorted to one of the vessels reserved for top government officials. The ship broke contact with the space station, bumped its way through the atmosphere, and entered a high-priority flight path. Orno, who never tired of looking at his home planet, peered through a viewport. Thanks to the common vision that had been passed from one queen to the next, Hive looked much the way it had during preindustrial times, only better.

  In marked contrast to the sprawling cities that covered Earth like a scabrous disease, Hive was the very picture of refinement. Once undisciplined rivers flowed within carefully shaped banks, rows of fruit trees marched army-like across low green hills, and crops flourished within well-irrigated circles. All of which was made possible by the fact that consistent with both their instincts and the dictates of reason, the insectoid species lived underground. That strategy maximized the use of arable land, made the industrial base almost impervious to attack, and protected the citizenry.

  Provident though the race had been, however, the gods of evolution had still seen fit to challenge Ramanthian ingenuity. Rather than rely on the three eggs produced by each three-person family unit for its survival, the race had been gifted with a secondary means of reproduction, one that threatened as well as served them. Every three hundred years or so the current queen would produce billions of eggs, a number so large that previous hatchings had triggered significant advances, one of which opened the way to interstellar travel and enabled the Ramanthian people to journey among the stars.

  Of course there was a dark side as well, because more often than not, the sudden increase in population resulted in famine and civil war. Now, with an estimated 5 billion new souls on the way, the race was struggling to cope.

  However, thanks to the advent of spaceflight, it was now possible to ship most of the excess population off-planet. That was why the Queen and senior members of her government had worked so hard to secure additional planets, the spaceships required to move billions of eggs, and the infrastructure required to support the newborn nymphs. Not just for days, weeks, or months, but for years.

  It was an enormous challenge, and one for which a great deal had been sacrificed, even including one of Orno’s mates. But such service was an honor, and trying though it might be
, the Ramanthian was determined to do his best.

  The shuttle swooped in for a vertical landing, jerked as a platform lowered the vessel into the ground, and soon vanished from sight. A few minutes later Orno disembarked in the underground city called The Place Where The Queen Dwells, entered a government vehicle, and was whisked away.

  The cell-powered car carried him along busy arterials, through vast chambers, and under a heavily reinforced arch. The diplomat knew that a blastproof door was hidden above the structure and stood ready to fall if the planet were attacked. The Queen, not to mention billions of eggs stored in the climate-controlled vaults below, lived within walls so strong that not even a subsurface torpedo could destroy them.

  The car was forced to stop for two different identity checks before being allowed to proceed through the royal gardens, along a gently curving ramp, and up to the royal residence itself. The carvings that hung above the entryway told the story of the first egg, the first hatching, and a glorious future. They were said to be more than three thousand Hive-years old.

  The car came to a stop, an attendant opened the rear door, and a squad of heavily armed warriors came to attention as Orno backed his way out of the vehicle. Then, unsure of the reception he might receive, the diplomat entered the building.

  A series of ramps led up to a broad, scrupulously clean platform that surrounded the hive mother. Her body, which had once been of average size, had grown steadily over the last year until it was so huge that it required the support of a specially designed cradle. Though swathed in colorful silk and tended by dozens of retainers, Orno knew that the Queen felt like a prisoner. Something that made her cranky, unpredictable, and therefore dangerous.

  The diplomat’s sense of smell was centered on the two short antennae that sprouted from his upper forehead. The rich pungent odor of recently laid eggs triggered the release of certain chemicals into his bloodstream causing the functionary to feel protective, receptive, and subservient, reactions that 98 percent of the race felt in the presence of their Queen. That made it difficult for subjects to lie to her, but it also limited the amount of objective advice the monarch received, something she had a tendency to forget at times.