George Zebrowski by The Omega Point Trilogy

Author:The Omega Point Trilogy [Trilogy, The Omega Point]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IX. Graveyard of Titans

“Their blood runs round the roots of time like rain;

She casts them forth and gathers them again;

With nerve and bone she weaves and multiplies

Exceeding pleasure out of pain.”

— Swinburne,Laus Veneris

AS THE WHISPER SHIP flashed westward toward the mountains, Gorgias watched the screen for signs of hunters. His scanners could penetrate a planet to reveal approaching vessels in normal space, but there was no way to predict a sudden appearance from bridgespace. If Myraa was right, he might only have time to retrieve the cylinder and run; he could not be sure of returning here safely in the near future.

He pictured the pursuit. A large ship would come up behind him in jumpspace, open its field-effect basket and swallow the Whisper Ship. Of course, the hunters would need an even start to have a chance of catching him, but that could happen if they surprised him.

His facial muscles tightened; fear constricted his stomach. He stared into the screen, trying to decide whether to leave the system at once or go after the cylinder. There was no visible sign of danger yet. He was so close this time. Myraa was only trying to frighten him. Once he had the cylinder, it would not matter if he ever came back here again.

He saw the snow-covered peaks that divided the continent. The ship went over, up into thunderheads, out into blue sky; he saw grassland again as the vessel dropped lower.

The ship sped forward, pulling the horizon into the screen. At any moment, it seemed, a sudden surge would carry him over the planet’s edge.

He saw the first of the spires — tall starships still pointing starward. Chained to the planet, they seemed stoic in defeat.

The ship slowed and came in low as it crossed into the desert. Four hundred years later, the land was still dead here, a sickly yellow splashed across the green plain. Only near the edges was there any sign of typical desert life. Those last intermittent bursts of lift from the emergency landfall engines of dying warships had assured that nothing would grow here for a long time to come.

The Whisper Ship eased forward between the huge vessels, hovering only a few meters above the sand. “Discarded toys,” his father would have said.

An army had died here, its will broken by the sight of enemy energies tearing at the home planet, bodies slowly sickening from a lack of provisions and medical supplies.

The great ships were slipping into the sand. Drifts had accumulated in the open locks, a dry sea lapping slowly at the sinking vessels on its surface.

The enemy had sent no help to the dying, only killers not yet full of killing. When their interest had died, the survivors had been left to perish.

Twenty square klicks of desert, wind blown into sterile dunes, exposing here and there the rocky bones of the planet. The greatest concentration of ships was toward the center, around the flagship. The illness had worked its way outward from there, until the life of the planet had stopped it.

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