Chapter Two
The most ancient patterns of the heavens are falling victim to new laws of science. From time immemorial, comets, asteroids, and planetary systems have traveled through space at regular, predictable orbits, speeds, and inclinations. Previously it was possible to calculate exactly when a particular comet would transit Venus, to the hour and minute. It was like clockwork; but no more. Cosmic bodies, even entire galactic sectors, have vanished into timeholes.
—Professor Daviz Joél, report to
the Merchant Prince Alliance
Two mottled gray-and-black podships sped along the galactic web, one right after the other. Though they traveled so rapidly that a Human eye would not be able to see them, their speeds were nonetheless diminished from the norm, in large part due to the decline of the infrastructure.
Bred in a laboratory, these large, sentient vessels were not piloted like their natural cousins. Instead of Parviis inside the sectoid chambers, or Tulyans merged into the flesh of the creatures, each was under the control of a Mutati operating a Hibbil navigation unit. Behind the pilot in the lead craft stood the Emir Hari’Adab, leader of the shapeshifter race … a position he had attained after assassinating his own father, the Zultan Abal Meshdi.
Hari had Hibbil and Adurian prisoners in the cargo hold, all of them soldiers. For a reason they refused to divulge, they had landed a small military force on his own planet of Dij. The Emir’s fighters had overcome them, killing most and taking the rest into custody along with their two unusual ships. His own demented father had authorized the breeding of what were known as “lab-pods,” but these two spacecraft were of a higher order. They actually had Hibbil nav-systems that worked quite well, in sharp contrast with those of the Zultan.
The prisoners were members of the “HibAdu Coalition.” One of them had carried a document fragment bearing the name of that military force, inscribed on a remnant of papers the soldiers had tried to destroy, along with all electronic records. But the salvaged document and other articles found with the soldiers had only succeeded in generating more questions, which none of the captives would answer.
Historically, Hibbils were allies of Humans, while Adurians had a similar relationship with Mutatis. And, since Humans and Mutatis had been the archenemies of one another since time immemorial, everyone had assumed that Hibbils and Adurians should be the same. Perhaps it was only a splinter group that had landed on Hari’s planet, but he sensed it might be something much more significant, and dangerous. The well-armed soldiers had carried the sophisticated weaponry and communications equipment of a much larger, well-financed force. They appeared to have been on a reconnaissance mission.
They call themselves HibAdus, Hari thought as he watched the Mutati pilot seated ahead of him, operating the touch-panel controls of the ship. Very strange.
Perhaps the Tulyans—with their ability to determine truth or falsehood through physical contact—could determine who his prisoners really were. And Hari had an additional motive for approaching the reptilians in their legendary starcloud. They were rumored to be close to Noah Watanabe and other Human leaders of the Merchant Prince Alliance. Perhaps the Tulyan Council of Elders could broker a peace agreement between the warring MPA and the Mutati Kingdom, ending the insane, ages-old hostilities between the two races. No one could even recall why they had been battling for so long, and Hari had always believed that there should be some way of bringing it all to a peaceful end. This had put him in direct conflict with his stubborn father, but now—after the unthinkable act Hari had committed—perhaps the Humans would believe him. If necessary, he would even submit himself to the truthing touch of the Tulyans.
At the sound of the cockpit door sliding open behind him, Hari turned to exchange smiles with his girlfriend, Parais d’Olor. While Hari and the pilot (like most other shapeshifters) were terramutatis who walked, she was an aeromutati, able to spread her wings and soar into the air, should she ever desire to do so. Just before departing on the trip with him, she had metamorphosed into the guise of a colorful Alty peacock, a very large bird with a red-and-gold body and black, silver-tipped wings that were now tucked tightly against her body. In the confinement of the lab-pod, she got around by walking, and from her own morphology she had developed a way of walking smoothly on her two bird legs, instead of hopping around in the customary avian fashion.
Behind her stood Yerto Bhaleen, a career military officer who held the rank of kajor in the Mutati High Command. A small, muscular terramutati with the standard complement of three slender arms and six stout legs, he was a four-star kajor, just beneath the highest of ranks. Like Hari, he had refused any higher designation, since his own commanders had died in the tragic loss of Paradij, the horrific collateral damage involved in the assassination of the Zultan.
“We should be there soon, My Emir,” Bhaleen said. “All is in readiness.”
“Very good,” Hari said.
The officer moved back a couple of paces and stood rigidly, awaiting any further commands.
Glancing at Parais, the Mutati leader said, “You can’t wait to fly on your own, can you? Perhaps after we arrive the Tulyans will permit you to fly around their starcloud.”
“Only if we gain their trust,” she suggested.
Rubbing up against his side, she smiled gently at him. Her lovely facial features were fleshy, with a small beak and oversized brown eyes that were totally without guile. “But I don’t need to fly,” she said. “Wherever you are is where I want to be.”
Hari adored her. Without Parais’ guidance and inspiration, he would not be able to go on with his life, and with the new, very ambitious purpose he had undertaken. If anyone deserved to lead the Mutati people, it was her, and not him. But the shapeshifter race was very traditional, and Hari had the right of ascendancy by birthright, no matter the terrible thing he had done to accelerate the process.
It had been an act of violence that went terribly wrong in the trajectory calculation of a planet-busting Demolio torpedo. Aimed at a moon his father was visiting, the missile went off course and destroyed the Mutati homeworld of Paradij instead, wiping out billions of Hari’s own people. The orbiting moon and the mad Zultan Abal Meshdi had been annihilated in the cataclysm as well, but that had been little solace. Hari could hardly bear to think of the scale of the tragedy.
Not yet having admitted to the Mutati people what he did, or the reason, Hari carried a terrible burden of guilt on his shoulders. At Parais’s encouragement, he continued to lead the shapeshifter race, but he insisted on doing it as Emir, a princely governor’s designation, rather than the customary Zultan title his father and most predecessors had held. It was Hari’s way of saying privately that he did not yet deserve the higher title, that he had not earned it, and perhaps he never would.
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