Federations Read online

  “If you do half as well with that program as you have with mine, it’ll work, honey.”

  That remark startled Helva and she activated a magnification of his holographic image. But it was the hologram . . . one could see just the faintest hint of the light source. How could Niall know that he was a holo? Then she remembered the one they had done together at Astrada III when he had had to replay an historical event to prove a point to a skeptical audience. Surely that was his reference.

  “I can’t find any indication of how large the population is,” she added, having replayed the entry on Ravel several times.

  “Might be they don’t keep an accurate census. Do they even have a space facility?”

  “No, but they do have a satellite with a proximity alarm!” she cried in triumph.

  “And how far away is the nearest inhabited system that’d hear it, much less act?” Niall wanted to know. “Probably contains no more than the usual silly warning . . . ” And he chanted in the lifeless tones of an automated messager, “ . . . This . . . Is . . . An . . . Interdicted Planet. You . . . Will Not . . . Proceed Further.” He abandoned that tone and, in a pious falsetto, added, “Or you’ll get a spanking when the Fleet comes.”

  Helva gave him the brief chuckle he would have expected. “Our message will prompt action. No one ignores a B&B ship message.”

  “And rightly so,” Niall said, loyally fierce, pounding one fist for emphasis on the desk.

  There was no sound attached to that action. She’d have to work on that facet . . . when she’d managed to preserve the Chloists, or Chloe-ites or Inner Marian Circle Ravellians from the imminent arrival of the Kolnari. She’d have to be sure they knew just how dangerous and bloody-minded the Kolnari were so they’d make themselves as scarce as possible.

  Helva was now speeding along the ion trail, its dirty elements all the more pronounced as she reduced the distance separating them. She’d overtake the flotilla within twenty hours. And arrive at Ravel four or five days ahead of them. She’d have to start decelerating once she passed the heliopause, but so would the Kolnari.

  “Don’t forget to cloak,” Niall said, rising from his chair. He stretched until she was sure she could hear the sinews popping: which, she reminded herself, is why she hadn’t added more than vocal sound to the holo. Stretching he was allowed, but not the awful noise he’d make popping his knucklebones. “I’d better get some shut-eye before the party begins.”

  “Good idea. I’ll work on the hologram while you’re resting and call you for a critique.”

  Niall the holo walked across the main compartment and to the aisle and down to Niall’s quarters. Did it never realize that it melded with Niall’s stasis-held body on the bunk?

  She’d almost forgotten the cloaking mechanism that bent light and sensory equipment around the ship itself. She’d only used that device once and had held that up to Niall as a really unnecessary piece of technology for a B&B ship to waste credit on. So, it was coming in handy again. B&B ships had no weaponry with which to defend themselves and vanishing provided a much more effective evasion than the tightest, most impervious shielding.

  As she judiciously edited the tapes from the Kolnari occupation of Space Station 900, she mulled over the first encounter with the Chloe-ites. At least this time her brawn couldn’t be killed, however unintentional Jennan’s death had been. She also had more tricks in her arsenal than she had had as that raw young brain ship.

  She sped along and, well before any sensors the Kolnari might have could track her approach, she went into cloak. Of course, they became spots on her sensors, rather than three-dimensional ships. Still, by the size of the signals as she passed them, she learned a good deal about them. To begin with, there were more than she had anticipated, even taking into consideration all the dirty emissions. None of this lot matched the signatures of any of those that had attacked her friend, Simeon: not that that provided her with any consolation.

  The Kolnari fleet was an incredible mixture of yachts, large and small, prizes of other Kolnari attacks—a round dozen of them, stuffed far above the optimum capacity with bodies: some evidently stashed in escape pods as last-resort accommodation. The conditions on board those ships would have been desperate even if the life-support systems managed to cope with such overloading. Three medium-sized freighters, equally jam-packed with little and large Kolnaris. Two destroyer types, quite elderly, but these were loaded with missiles and other armaments. Two of the freighters were hauling drones, five apiece, which cut down on the speed at which the entire convoy could travel. Four drones contained nothing but ammunition, missiles and spare parts: the fifth probably food as she got no metallic signals from it. Nineteen ships. A veritable armada and certainly able to overwhelm the inhabitants of Ravel. Which was undoubtedly why that luckless planet had been picked.

  She pulsed an update of her earlier message with these details to the nearest Fleet facility—a good ten days away even by the speed of a pulse. The Admiralty had sworn blind that they intended to wipe Kolnari pirates out of space forever. So here was a chance for an ambitious picket commander to make that clean sweep and get a promotion. A small, modern force could easily overwhelm this shag-bag-rag-bag of barely spaceworthy vehicles. On the other hand, the Kolnari would fight to the last male child able to wield a weapon or fire a missile . . . and they had rather a few of those. Even Kolnari females were vicious fighters. Reviewing what was known of their lifestyle, it was likely a great many of the women were slaves, captured and forced to breed up more Kolnari offspring.

  She sped on, wishing she had more information on the Chloes. Living close to nature on another planet was fine in theory, but practice was another thing altogether. As the original religious group had found out the hard way on Daphnis and Chloe a hundred years ago.

  She had completed a holographic account of the less palatable habits of the Kolnari, including the modus operandi of their invasion of the peaceful planet, Bethel. The Tri-D coverage had been found in the space wreckage and used in the trial against those that had been captured at SS900. She was delighted to have found the one that showed vividly how the Kolnari dealt with anyone who defied them. That was the short sharp lesson she needed to project. She edited it, added some voice-over, and then programmed the exterior vid systems to play it.

  That ought to cut down the waste of time spent arguing. She wanted every single female resident of Ravel safely hidden away when the Kolnari arrived.

  She didn’t rouse Niall—why bother him when he was sleeping like the dead—or rather the holo of him. He had always been hard to wake, though once roused, he altered from sleepy to alert in seconds. She had the time, so she did a leisurely spin-in, quartering the globe from darkside to daylight and identifying congregates of life signs . . . all too many. She’d never make it to every settlement. How could these piously celibate folk have increased almost fourfold from the numbers of the registered settlers? “Multiply and be fruitful” might be a Biblical injunction but, if the last bunch had come four decades before, there were a great many more than there ought to be. Rabbits might multiply so. But virgin rabbits? Well, she’d get to as many . . . what had they called themselves—ah, cloisters—as she could. Maybe they had some form of communication between the settlements, widespread as they were on the sprawling main continent. She’d simply have to ignore the island groups and concentrate on the larger, juicier targets that the Kolnari would be likely to attack first.

  Smack-dab in the middle of the main continent, she easily identified what had been the landing field—well, a few square acres of burnt-out ground, a flimsy concrete-covered grid where ships or shuttles had landed to off-load people and supplies. Rows of temporary barracks, weathered and in need of maintenance, bordered two sides of the field to show that humans had once been accommodated there for however brief a time. There was a low-power source discernible and vegetation had not grown back over the landing area, though in forty-some years there should have been some weeds regaining a r
oot hold. A blocky tower, now tilting sideways, held the corner position of the two barrack rows. From her aerial advantage, she could also see four roads, each going away from the deserted landing place: north, south, east and west. She could see where auxiliary lanes had split off from the main ones, smaller arteries leading to probably smaller settlements. Though none appeared to be more than dirt tracks, the vigorous growths had not reclaimed the track, leaving a clear margin on both sides. Some sort of chemical must have been used to discourage succession.

  “I wonder how they decided who went in which direction,” she murmured, forgetting that oddity in the press of more important concerns.

  “Probably by divine intervention,” Niall said, and there he was, seated at the pilot’s console.

  She hadn’t put a voice-operated command in the program, but there he was, and she was rather pleased to hear another voice after the silent days of inward travel.

  “Makes it easier to have just four main directions to search in.”

  “Those tracks were made over a period of years or they wouldn’t be quite so visible since the last time they were used forty years ago.”

  “True. So, eeny, meeny, miny, moe . . . which track will we follow now? East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet,” he said in one of his whimsical moods.

  “Nothing for north and south?”

  “Well, we could go this way?” And he crossed his arms, pointing in two separate directions, neither of which was a cardinal compass point.

  “North, I think, and then swing round . . . ” Helva decided.

  “In ever-increasing circles?” His tone was so caustically bright!

  “Mountains, too. That’s good.”

  “ ‘Purple mountains’ majesty, above the fruited plain’ . . . ” he quoted.

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “I’ve forgot how it goes,” he said, frowning.

  “They do say that memory is the first thing that aging affects . . . ”

  “Thanks! I’ll remember that.”

  Cloaked and at low altitude, she followed the northern track, noting the offshoots and realizing she had bit off quite a lot to chew if she was going to warn even half the inhabitants. She refused to allow the fact to discourage her from her chosen task. And night was falling on the continent.

  “Ah-ha!” Niall pointed urgently at the view port. “Fires. Port three degrees.”

  “And far too much forest for me to land in.”

  “I don’t mind backtracking when you can find a landing spot . . . Oh, no, I can’t, can I?”

  “No, you can’t, but I appreciate your willingness to offer. Especially since I need to show my little vid to stir them to action.”

  “You could use the prosthesis,” he said in a wheedling tone, grinning at her.

  She said nothing—pointedly—and he chuckled. She might have to at that if daylight didn’t show her settlements she could reach. She could hover . . . but she’d need something to project the vid on to for maximum effectiveness.

  “I’ll just use the darkness for reconnaissance and find out how many places I’m going to have to visit.”

  “Good thinking. I’ll make a list of the coordinates. You might need them if the Fleet does come to our aid and comfort.”

  By morning his list of settlements, in all directions, had reached the three hundred mark. Some were small in the forested areas, but the plains or rolling hill country had many with several hundred inhabitants. All were ringed with walls, and these seemed to exude the power that showed up at every settlement, as well as a land-dike that Niall called a margin of no-woman’s-land. The largest congregation was sited at the confluence of two rivers.

  “If they have such a thing as an administrative center, that is likely it,” she said. “We’ll go there first thing in the morning. When I’ve had a quick look at that island complex.”

  “Whatever you say, love,” Niall remarked with unusual compliance.

  So she—they—arrived bright and early as the sun rose over the cup of the mountains that surrounded the largest congregation of Ravel’s Chloe-ites.

  “Rather impressive, wouldn’t you say?” Niall remarked. “Orderly, neat. Everyone must have a private domicile. Thought you said they were a cloistered order.”

  The arrangement of the town, small city, did surprise Helva. Streets laid out in the center while garden plots and some large fields were positioned all around but within the customary low surrounding wall. There were main gates at each of the cardinal points of the compass but they weren’t substantial: a Kolnari war axe would have reduced them to splinters with the first blow. A power source was visible on her sensors but it seemed to power the wall. What could they be keeping out that wasn’t very tall or large or strong? Odd. Larger buildings set in the midst of fenced fields suggested either storage or barn shelters. She saw nothing grazing, though the season looked to be spring, to judge by the delicate green of cultivated fields, all within the walled boundary.

  All four of the major avenues leading from the gates, for they were broad enough to be dignified with that title, tree-lined as well, led toward a large building which dominated the center. Part of it looked like a church, with an ample plaza in front of it for assemblies. Behind the church were low lines of buildings, possibly administration. This was a far-better-organized place than the original Chloe had been. Maybe they had learned something in the last century. She could hope.

  “Hey, get that, Helva,” Niall said suddenly, pointing to a slim structure atop the front of the building. “Not a steeple after all—no bells in it—but it’s got something atop it.”

  Their approach had now been sighted, for the avenues as well as the smaller lanes between the individual housing units were filling with figures, faces upturned. Most were racing towards the square in front of the church, or whatever the big building was.

  “Early risers . . . ” Helva remarked.

  “Early to bed—that power source is limited to the wall, not any electricity—and early to rise, you know,” Niall said in a revoltingly jocular tone of voice. Then he altered to a practical tone, “And there’s just about enough space for you to land in front of that church.”

  “So there is. But it’s also full,” she said, for they had arrived at the back end of the building and now that she had swung round, she could see that the plaza was filled with kneeling bodies. No one was working the fields.

  “The more you squash the fewer we’ll have to save from the Kolnari,” Niall said.

  “Oh, be quiet.”

  “It’s over and out to you, Helva love. Sock it to them.”

  The devout knelt with upturned faces. She could see their mouths open with dark O’s of surprise. But not fear. At some unseen signal, the kneelers rose and quickly, but without panic, moved back, out of the plaza.

  “Be not afraid,” Helva said gently, using her exterior sound system and ignoring the rich chuckle of amusement from Niall.

  “They’re not. Maybe you better alter your program, dear heart.”

  “I need to speak with you.”

  “Why don’t you just hover?”

  She made sure she was on interior sound only before she said sharply, “Will you shut up and let me handle this, Niall?”

  “Remind them that you saved them from the hellfire of Chloe, dear,” suggested Niall.

  “That’s my next line,” she said in a caustic aside. “I am called Helva.”

  “Hey, Helva, that’s you they’ve got mounted on that building.”

  In her careful vertical descent, she was now level with the spire. Which wasn’t a spire but a replica of her earlier ship-self, vanes and all.

  “Well, how’s that for being canonized!” Niall said, but she could hear a note of pride in his voice. “You may be able to pull this off after all, love.”

  Rather more shaken by the artifact than she’d ever let him know, she completed her landing. One of the improvements on her ship body was the vertical ca
bin and a ramp directly to it, rather than the old and inconvenient lift from the stern.

  “You even have a reception party of one,” Niall remarked, as a tall figure became visible on the starboard viewers. All around the square the others turned towards that figure, heads bowing in a brief obeisance.

  “How else are you called, Ship Helva?” said the tall woman, the hood falling back and revealing the serene face of an older woman.

  “Not bad at all,” Niall murmured. “She’d look even better in something feminine.”

  Indeed, Helva agreed with him since the woman had the most amazingly attractive face. A pity she had taken up religion instead of a man and a family. The long cassock robe she wore was one of those amorphous affairs, probably woven or pounded out of indigenous fibers and strictly utilitarian.

  “I am Ship NH-834, who was once also the JH-834.”

  The woman nodded and inclined forward from her waist in a deep bow.

  “Bingo!” said Niall.

  “We have sent eternal prayers for the repose of the soul of Jennan,” the woman said in a richly melodious voice, and from the onlookers rose a murmur of “Praise ever to his name.”

  “His memory is honored,” Helva replied sincerely. “May I ask your name?”

  “I am the Helvana,” the woman replied, again with a reverent bow of her head.

  “Oh, my God, Helva, you made it to sainthood,” Niall said with complete irreverence and rolled with laughter in the pilot’s chair. “With your own priestess caste system. Wow!”

  Somehow his reaction annoyed her so much she almost erased his program. But common sense reasserted itself. If she was indeed some sort of saint to these people, she needed his irreverence more than ever—to keep her balance.

  “You lead your people?”

  “I am she who has been chosen,” the woman said. “For many decades, we have hoped that you would honor us with your appearance . . . ”