Chapter Nineteen
Noah is a composite man, a puzzle person forged in a galactic crucible. I can’t help being drawn to him.
—Tesh Kori, private notes
In only a short time, Doge Anton del Velli made the most important decision of his brief political career. After consulting with the robot leader Thinker, as well as with his other top advisers, Anton divided the twenty-four thousand podships under his control into three task forces. Anton and Nirella would take twelve thousand of them to the merchant prince homeworld of Canopa, while Noah would lead six thousand in the Siriki mission. Another six thousand podships would be assigned to the military needs of the Mutati planet of Dij.
As the meetings and submeetings formed, military officers and Tulyan caretakers flowed into the large chamber and headed for their various sessions. To accommodate the acoustic needs of the groups the Elders used shimmering energy fields to separate the sections.
In nine hours all of the plans were essentially complete, and the various groups began to break up. The ecological recovery operations would follow ancient patterns. On the military side, the tactics for the rescue of each of the three planets had to proceed with caution because of the lack of clear intelligence from the field.
As Anton concluded his Canopa meeting, Tesh and he talked with the largest Tulyan Elder, Dabiggio. The stern Elder looked down at Tesh and said to her, “Before you depart, I must comment on your own pod, the one you call Webdancer. Prior to your involvement with the vessel, it was marooned on Plevin Four for a long time.”
“That is correct.” She felt perplexed.
“I must tell you that the podship had a different appellation in ancient times—Clegg. It was one of the strongest and fastest ships, high-spirited but unproved, and only known to the Tulyans for a short while before the entire race of podships was swarmed and taken by the Parviis. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“I know some things about Webdancer, but the vessels are enigmatic, as you know.”
“So, you didn’t know what I told you?”
She smiled. “I didn’t say that.”
“And how did it get marooned?” Anton asked.
Dabiggio hesitated, appeared to calm himself with a heave of his wide shoulders. Then: “We have learned from a variation of the truthing touch that the vessel rebelled against its Parvii masters and fled into space. For hundreds of thousands of years it roamed the cosmos, and no one could capture it. The rest of its story remains, thus far, unrevealed to us.”
“My podship has a rather independent personality,” Tesh said, giving the Tulyan a gentle smile. “Perhaps it will reveal its full story to me one day.”
He stared at her rigidly. “Unlikely. Parviis do not have the telepathic skills of Tulyans, so you would have difficulty conversing with him.”
“But we do have some of those skills, as you know.”
“True enough, but beside the point. Here’s what I want to tell you. By tradition, the names of podships have always remained unchanged. Once Clegg, always Clegg.”
The remark hit Tesh hard and took something personal away from her. She looked at the clearglax floor and the starcloud mists visible beyond.
“Do you understand what I am saying to you?” Dabiggio asked in a gruff tone.
“You want me to change the name back?”
“Exactly. It is not good luck to do otherwise.”
“Nonsense,” First Elder Kre’n interjecting as she came over to them. “Tell her what we decided as a Council, not what you believe independently.”
Dabiggio wrinkled his reptilian face in displeasure. He said nothing.
“I’ll tell her, then,” Kre’n said. She looked at the Parvii woman and said, “Tesh Kori, you are admired by the Council of Elders, and there is widespread recognition of your contributions to the success of the Liberators. Even Dabiggio—who tries to argue with everything—cannot really dispute this. In honor of your service to the cause, we have decided that you may continue to use the appellation Webdancer for the pod.”
“That pleases me very much,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
As Anton and she left the chamber together, he said, “I would have allowed you to keep the name, anyway. Those old Elders can’t tell us everything to do, even though they might think they can.”
“Would that really have been a battle you should have picked?” she asked, remembering for a moment how close the two of them had once been.
Darkness came over his features. “Maybe I’m a bit of a rebel myself. Now, let’s move on to the battles that really matter.”
O O O
Tulyan wranglers separated twenty-four thousand podships from the main fleet, and further divided the smaller portion into three even smaller fleets, earmarked for Canopa, Siriki, and Dij.
For the Sirikan rescue mission, Noah Watanabe controlled six thousand sentient warships, which he quickly calculated to be five percent of the entire Liberator fleet. After receiving the ships, he and Subi Danvar supervised the details of their military assault force, passing instructions on to their subordinates about how they wanted personnel and equipment loaded into the podships.
All the while, the wranglers and other Tulyan specialists coordinated and synchronized the various vessels in each of the military fleets. Anton’s portion, the largest, would get underway first, in part because of the already proven leadership qualities of the flagship, Webdancer. But there were larger reasons. Canopa was unarguably the most important of the surviving planets, and Noah had reported to Anton his troubling vision in which the planet—and Noah’s former EcoStation orbiting it—appeared to be drifting toward a dangerous timehole. Noah had also arranged with the Elders to have a Tulyan repair team sent there.
Discussing that in the Tulyan Council Chamber, Anton had said, “I know what you’re thinking, Noah, that you would prefer to go on the Canopa mission. But I need you to head up the Sirikan operation for me. I’m weighing all the factors, and that is my decision.”
Noah had nodded, but recalled chewing the inside of his own mouth to the point of rawness, as he resisted arguing with his superior … a wound that still hurt a little.
“A timehole,” Anton had said. “If that additional element is indeed added to the already ongoing military operations there, I’m not certain what any of us can do to keep the planet and the orbiter from vanishing into the cosmic whirlpool. I only know that I have to be there firsthand, to do whatever I can.”
It was the mission that Anton wanted, so he would have it.
Noah’s smaller fleet, and the one of matching size assigned to the Mutati rescue mission, would have individual flagships, thus requiring more preparations and coordination—work that was not commenced until after the Tulyan Elders decided on the allocation of the vessels.
Finally, having rushed around tending to numerous important matters involving his task force, Noah sent an aide to summon Subi Danvar for a brief, final meeting. While waiting, Noah settled into a deep-cushion chair in his onboard office. Subi would arrive any moment, so Noah closed his eyes, just for a few seconds.
As he sank into the fleshy podship cushion, Noah sighed, and a deep sense of calm came over him. Minutes passed, only a few, and he felt himself sinking into the most restful state of relaxation he could imagine.
Subi seemed to be taking a long time to arrive. Not wanting to fall asleep, Noah decided to open his eyes. As he did so, however, he experienced a sensation like opening an unusual circular door, one that irised open with shocking suddenness. Abruptly, he felt himself catapulted through an amorphous opening, and he hurtled and spun out into the starry, eternal night of space.
He was back in Timeweb, via a slightly different entry point.
A rush of excitement passed through Noah, tempered by the realization that he could not remain there long, that he needed to go back and get his podship fleet underway. But at the same time, he couldn’t pass up this opportunity either.…
***