First raptors. Then a T. rex. Then an army, and another T. rex. Now a haunted island. It wouldn’t really be haunted, of course, that had to be an old legend or a misperception of Keeper ruins there—Selva had looked on the satellite scans and seen evidence of artificial structures. Still, as he contemplated the supplies men carried aboard the Argo (what else would Professor Temerin call it?) he felt hesitant to throw himself into another adventure.
“My freeman Temerin!” a young messenger ran up, outstretched arm holding a rolled scroll. “From the Lords of the Assembly themselves!”
Temerin took it and read it. His eyes widened. “Says they’ve voted to appoint me ambassador to anyone we meet on our journey. Empowered to form alliances and render aid so as to stop the Panarchy.” He turned back to the messenger. “Thank you.”
“One more thing,” the messenger continued. “Lord Leon will be departing back to Highwater Mountain tomorrow, and wishes to know if any of you care to join him.”
“Any takers?” Temerin asked.
Eric considered for a moment, then swallowed his doubts. They had a mission to complete.
The Argo sailed on, more of a square-rigged caravel from Christopher Columbus’ time than something out of the Odyssey or the Iliad. Still, it seemed too small for comfort when the shoreline of Primus dropped below the horizon. Selva stood at stern with a computer tablet, directing navigation along wind currents detected from orbit. She gave up trying to correct Captain Vonlal when he insisted on calling it magic.
Eric remained at the railing, looking down at the sea and the huge dark shapes which he saw moving beneath them. What sort of life had the Keepers put in Meridian’s oceans?
“Plesiosaurs or mosasaurs, I think.” Rachel pointed. “See the four fins?”
Eric squinted. One looked more like a giant shark.
“It is not good to stare.” A short, young crewman came up from behind. “You may draw their notice, and such monsters have killed men.”
Rachel stepped back from the railing. “Really a caring bunch, these Keepers.”
“Selva said whatever grand plan they had was interrupted when the colonists revolted,” Eric replied. “But still, to strand people on an isolated planet without modern technology…” Nothing but pawns, to them.
Night fell, the wind slowed. Eric sat next to Kadelius, the crewman from earlier, listening to another, bearded, sailor spin a tall tale, when Selva stood up from her cybernetic trance and announced:
“There is a problem in orbit.”
“Orr-bit?” A man with missing teeth pronounced the strange word.
“The moon! Look!”
It hung about forty degrees above the horizon, a lumpy grey shape with—dandelion seeds sprouting from it? Eric realized he was seeing the plasma exhausts of fusion engines, spreading out in a fan-like shape as it expanded in vacuum. The pinprick of light at each contrail’s source would be a ship, but there were so many of them. Dozens, rising forth from somewhere on Meridian’s sole moon.
“Replicators,” Cobb said. Even now, it still happened that the Star Patrol found a forgotten solar system infested with self-replicating machinery gone feral or left over from an old war—and in the early days of the Stellar Compact such cleanups had been wars unto themselves.
Eric looked further out across the sky and saw another engine flare—a spaceship, burning hard to escape. The XRD vessel?
“What’s Agent Vela saying?” Temerin asked.
“I’ve—I’ve lost contact.” For the first time since the expedition started, Selva seemed unsure. “The replicators must be blocking the signal.”
“Didn’t this system get swept for nests?” Eric asked.
“It must be a buried one somewhere on the moon we overlooked. Now it’s gone active…”
Not an unexpected development, Eric figured. Made sense the Keepers would’ve left a surprise to discourage recontacts. But then why didn’t it attack sooner?
Smaller points of light left the fusion torch flares of the replicator ships. Missiles. They accelerated out towards the retreating spacecraft, but found something else to hit. Maybe a station or a satellite, which with a flashbulb blast flew apart into glittering metal confetti.
They watched in silence a while longer, more missiles shot out and burst with the flashes of fusion explosions. Rising above the horizon came a cluster of misshapen stars from some larger object fragmented apart, Eric wondered how much the Meridianite crew understood what they were seeing.
“Will they attack the surface?” Rachel asked.
“Unlikely,” Selva answered. “But we’d do well to keep radio-silent. The Patrol will send a fleet, eventually, to take out the replicators.”
“And until then?”
“We’re on our own.”
