"On your feet, Bapap." Dadab rubbed his palms before the heating coil. "Time to do the Ministry's work, and I need an able helper." When Bapap failed to rise, Dadab walked to Flim and pulled a tool kit from his pile. The larger Unggoy aspirated a bit of sludge as the pile settled, jerking him downward. But Dadab's bold move had stunned the petty tyrant, and Flim did not protest. "Bring a core," Dadab said to Bapap as he shouldered the tool kit. "We'll need the light." With that, he headed off toward the center of the orbital. He had just turned the first corner around the nearest junction when he heard feet padding along behind him. Dadab smiled and slowed his pace. Bapap drew along beside him, his arms cradling the requested core.
"Where are we going, Deacon?"
"This facility's control room, I believe."
"What are we looking for?"
"I'll know it when I see it."
As far as Rapid Conversion's Luminary was concerned, there was nothing interesting on the orbital. No relics and certainly no hint of the planet's Oracle, which had evaded the Luminary ever since the parley.
But Dadab knew there must be more of the aliens' intelligent boxes aboard the orbital. He was hopeful they contained information that would help Maccabeus fix the Oracle's location, and in so doing dispel his grim and distant mood—one that was, as best as Dadab could figure, a product of the Oracle's elusiveness and the Chieftain's resulting fears that his report to the Prophets had been deeply flawed.
On the other side of the junction was a cylindrical room built off the walkway between two thick wires linked to the spars above. The room had caught Dadab's eye every time he traversed the orbital; first and foremost because it was the facility's largest enclosed space, and second because the room's sliding metal doors were firmly locked together. The latter was easily remedied with a pry bar from the tool kit, and soon the two Unggoy were inside the room, Bapap's energy core brightening the shadows with flickering blue light.
A short flight of steps led down to a shallow, circular pit, the back half of which was lined with seven white towers set close together to form an arc. Even before Dadab pulled back one of the tower's thin metal paneling with his spiny fingers, he knew he'd guessed right about the room's contents. But he had no idea his instincts would yield such abundant results.
Each of the towers was packed with intelligent circuits, some in familiar dark metal boxes, others floating in tubes filled with a clear, cold fluid—all connected by an intricate web of multicolored wires. Dadab realized he wasn't looking at individual components stored together, but rather a single thinking machine. An associated intelligence that made Lighter Than Some's linked boxes seem primitive by comparison.
"Where are you going?" Bapap asked as Dadab bounded up the stairs to the walkway.
"Back to the cruiser!" Dadab shouted. Then, as he forced his way through the room's half- open doors: "Stay here! Don't let any one else inside!"
Dadab's jog to the umbilical left by the Spirit dropship took him past Flim's outpost. He didn't say a word to the Unggoy gathered there or to those at the next cable junction. He was so worried one of the other Unggoy might discover what he had found, he waited to contact Rapid Conversion until he had passed through the energy barrier.
The Jiralhanae that answered his request for an immediate pickup told him he would have to wait—that two of the cruiser's three operable dropships were engaged and the third held in reserve. But Dadab clarified that he had vital information for the Chieftain that simply couldn't wait, and the Jiralhanae bridge officer gruffly told him to standby.
A little while later, Dadab was inside the Spirit's cabin, standing beside a junior Jiralhanae with sparse brown fur and blotchy skin named Calid, who said nothing until the Spirit drew close to Rapid Conversion and he received a transmission through his signal unit that only he could hear.
"We must hold," Calid growled, fingers stabbing a series of holo-switches in the control panel before his pilot's seat. His tone told Dadab that, having already pressed his luck asking for this unscheduled flight, it would be wise not to question the delay. But Calid gave a reason without prompting—as if the only way he could make sense of the transmission was to repeat it out loud. "There is fighting. In the hangar."
All Dadab's impatience quickly turned to panic as his thoughts shifted to Lighter Than Some, floating unprotected in his troop-bay workshop. But despite Calid's own obvious consternation—the sour, biting stink that soon filled the Spirit's cabin—Dadab knew the Jiralhanae would follow orders. All he could do was wait.
Maccabeus had spent a lifetime delivering and receiving pain. He had an exceptionally high tolerance for it, but the agony of his cracked thighbone was almost too much to bear. Vorenus (who had been at the Spirit's controls when Maccabeus' injury occurred) had fitted the Chieftain with a magnetic splint that kept his leg immobile. But Maccabeus knew it would take at least a full sleep-cycle in Rapid Conversion's surgery suite before he could begin to focus on anything but the torture of his wound.
Unfortunately, he would get no such respite. Not right away, at least. The situation inside the hangar was dire, and if Maccabeus didn't take charge quickly, it was going to get a great deal worse.
The deck around the Chieftain's Spirit was littered with dead Yanme'e. It was difficult to tell how many. Tartarus' spike rifle had reduced most of the creatures to limb fragments and oozing shells. Other Yanme'e buzzed angrily from the hangar's walls to its ceiling vents and beams, their arrowhead craniums swiveling wildly as their antennae struggled to assess the crowded airspace. In a flash of angry wing-beats, one of the Yanme'e made a beeline for Tartarus, only to disappear in a yellow spray as a volley of red-hot spikes passed through its carapace and drilled into the starboard wall.
"Settle!" Tartarus swept his weapon across the enraged swarm. "Settle, or be cut down!"
His signal unit translated his words into the Yanme'e simple language—a cacophony of high- pitched clicks like the rubbing of their waxy wings that reverberated around the hangar.
Maccabeus gathered his strength and shouted: "Hold your fire!"
"They will come at it again!" Tartarus cried. Under his left arm, he held the wriggling Huragok.
The Chieftain hobbled down the ramp created by the Spirit's open troop bay door, leaning on the Fist of Rukt. At the sight of the Chieftain, the Yanme'e hunkered close to the hangar walls. But Maccabeus knew this sudden roosting didn't mean that they had calmed. The creatures' wings were still out and trembling, and as the Chieftain walked stiff-legged to Tartarus, he could feel dozens of gleaming orange eyes tracking his progress.
The instant the Spirit's troop bay doors had opened inside the hangar, the half-dozen Yanme'e that had survived the assault on the alien city had attacked the Huragok—mobbed the hapless creature as it floated from the broken Spirit's cabin back to its workshop, its tentacles full of circuit boxes and other components. This attack agitated dozens more Yanme'e already in the hangar, and were it not for Tartarus' quick reflexes and good aim, they would have torn the Huragok apart.
"Ease your grip." Maccabeus winced as he came to a stop before his nephew. Despite the splint, he could feel his shattered thighbone shift, its two jagged edges grind together. "Or you will be the death of it."
Tartarus' eyes darted across the anxious swarm. "No! The Yanme'e have gone mad!"
"Release it." Maccabeus exhaled to blunt the pain. "I will not ask again."
Tartarus turned on Maccabeus, bared his teeth, and snarled. The Chieftain knew the youth's blood was up. But Maccabeus' pain had taken all his patience. He delivered a vicious swipe across his nephew's chops, drawing bloody lines from cheek to lips. Tartarus yelped and quickly released the Huragok. Immediately the creature began flailing its pink, translucent limbs. But these weren't the deft motions of its sign language, rather an effort to regain its balance. Tartarus' tight grip had temporarily deflated many of its sacs.
"Give it room," Maccabeus growled. Tartarus took a few steps back, shoulders balled in a pose that wasn't entirely submissive. But the Chieftain lacked the strength to put his nephew firmly in his place. It had been an exhausting day.
Ritul was dead. The alien's clever attack had caught the inexperienced pilot by surprise.
When the young Jiralhanae's Spirit crashed—nosed into the field of fruit-bearing vines—he had become trapped inside its cabin. Tartarus (who was harnessed inside the same Spirit's troop bay) had barely enough time to save himself before the dropship caught fire. Even so, Tartarus had risked his life to save his pack mate—clawed at the strips of bent and broken metal that kept Ritul caged—until the flames' heat became too great. When Maccabeus' Spirit had settled beside the other to retrieve his nephew, the Chieftain had smelled Ritul's charred flesh on Tartarus' fur.
But Maccabeus knew Ritul's blood was on his hands. He could have kept his pack aboard the cruiser while it burned the aliens in their houses. There was no need for them to descend to the alien city, except that Maccabeus had chosen to continue his search for relics—in direct violation of the Ministry's instructions to glass the planet and all it contained. But the Luminary had shown the city was full of the holy objects, no doubt carried off by the aliens as they made their retreat. And the Chieftain could not bear to see such a blessed cache obliterated by his cruiser's cannon.
For as great a sin as it was to disobey the Prophets, Maccabeus had decided the destruction of the Gods' creations was even worse. And while he cared little for the aliens—felt no remorse as he herded them for slaughter—he was willing to delay their destruction if it meant recovering the relics they possessed, especially their Oracle.
Lighter Than Some's sacs erupted in series of panicked burps. Two Yanme'e had crept onto the damaged Spirit's troop bays and were preparing to skitter inside their half-open doors, into the Huragok's workshop. Then the Huragok did something Maccabeus had never seen before.
Each of its healthy sacs swelled to twice their normal size and it began beating itself with its tentacles—a surprisingly deep and menacing percussion. Lighter Than Some floated toward the Yanme'e, and would have continued right into their claws if Maccabeus hadn't grabbed hold of one of its tentacles and pulled it back.
"By the Prophets, what fresh insanity is this?" Tartarus growled.
"Vorenus," Maccabeus said, parrying angry blows from the Huragok's other tentacles. "Kill those two."
The tan-coated Jiralhanae drew his spike rifle from his belt and shredded the Yanme'e on the troop bays. These two deaths finally subdued the swarm; every insect in the hangar tucked their wings beneath their shells and drooped their antennae. But Vorenus' fire only served to increase the Huragok's dismay. It stopped beating the Chieftain about the arms, but only so it could sign at him with even greater ferocity.
Maccabeus waved Vorenus over, and gave him custody of the Huragok. "Fetch the Deacon," he said, leaning heavily on his hammer.
Vorenus' signal unit buzzed. "Chieftain. The Deacon waits outside the lock."
"Then by all means, let him in."
Almost instantly, Dadab's Spirit slid through the hangar's rippling energy barrier and came to a hasty stop beside Maccabeus' dropship. The Chieftain waited for the Deacon to make his way across the mess of dead Yanme'e before he pointed at the Huragok and ordered: "Tell me what it says." The Deacon and the Huragok began a lengthy conversation—a silent escalation of flashing limbs and fingers.
"Enough!" Maccabeus snapped.
"Speak!" "I am deeply sorry for the delay, Chieftain." The Deacon's voice was strained.
"The Huragok offers its sincerest apologies, but humbly requests that you keep the Yanme'e from disturbing its work inside the bays."
The Deacon's far-too-mannered explanation sent the Huragok into an angry, conversant spasm.
"Are you sure that is all it said?"
"It also wishes you to know …" The Unggoy's voice was now a muffled squeal inside his mask. "That it can very quickly undo what it has done!"
" 'What it has done'? Talk sense, Deacon!"
Dadab made a few simple signs with his hand. Then, as the Huragok headed into its workshop with an impatient bleat, Dadab dropped to his knees before Maccabeus. "I take full responsibility for its actions! And humbly beg for your forgiveness!"
Maccabeus stared down at the Deacon. It seems everyone has gone mad, he thought. But before he could tell the Unggoy to rise, he was distracted by the sound of creaking metal.
Maccabeus watched, amazed, as the two damaged bays fell apart—collapsed in a clattering heap of hull plating. All their internal structure had been removed. The Huragok floated proudly over the wreckage, as if it had long planned this dramatic unveiling. It took Maccabeus a moment to process what the creature had revealed.
Four vehicles now sat where the bays had stood. Each was a collection of slightly different parts, but they shared the same general design: two bladed wheels sandwiched together inside a reinforced chassis; behind each set of wheels was a single anti-gravity generator; and behind the generator a seat with high handles that Maccabeus assumed were the vehicles' steering mechanisms.
"But there's more!" the Huragok seemed to say as it bobbed from one vehicle to another, activating the energy cores mounted above the machines' generators. With a crackle of sparks and belching purple exhaust, the vehicles' seats rose from the hangar floor, perfectly balanced against the weight of their bladed wheels.
"What are they?" Maccabeus asked. "And what are they for?"
"The aliens!" the Deacon wailed, groveling closer to Maccabeus' shaggy feet.
Tartarus strode to the nearest vehicle. "But where are their weapons?"
After a pause, Dadab slowly raised his head from the floor. "Weapons?"
"Though these would have made short work of the whelps we faced today." Tartarus ran a thick finger down one of the wheels, assessing its blades' martial utility. If he still felt the sting of his uncle's blow, it didn't show.