“Reynald went to Earth,” Peter said. “Arita went to Eljiid.”
“Never heard of it. Is it an Ildiran world?”
“Klikiss world,” Arita said. “Lots of ruins.”
The old man grimaced and levered himself out of the chair. “I kept this chair warm for you, Granddaughter. You’ll have to take my place. Watch closely, listen closely. There are important matters afoot.”
“Important matters?” Arita asked. “What’s happening?”
Father Idriss shook his head. “I don’t know—ask your mother. I’m going to go lie down.”
After he made his slow way out of the throne room, Arita settled into the secondary throne, as instructed, while King Peter called for the next petitioners.
Ten green priests entered, led by tall, humorless Kennebar. Arita’s friend Collin was with them, and her heart skipped a beat; she caught his eyes, and he turned away but not before she saw a confused patchwork of emotions in his eyes: embarrassment, guilt, and worst of all, pity for her.
Arita felt disappointed in how her childhood friend seemed to be giving her a cold shoulder. They had been so close, had cared so much for each other. Did Collin believe the trees might think less of him if he maintained his friendship with her? Now he spent most of his time with Kennebar’s increasingly isolated green priests.
As children, she and Collin had been equally fascinated with bugs and plants. Neither of them had imagined the verdani would accept one of them and abandon the other. Even if he no longer saw her as a proper partner, romantic or otherwise, Arita missed his friendship. It wasn’t unheard of for a green priest and a normal person to fall in love…
Now Kennebar presented himself to her parents. “Mother Estarra, Father Peter, my people and I have reached a decision.”
That sounded ominous, Arita thought.
Estarra said, “You’ve served Theroc well. How can we help you?”
“We intend to become examples of what it means to be true green priests. Unlike so many other priests who have scattered themselves to far worlds, we serve the trees, not any human government. My group will leave here and go into the Wild.” Even after generations of settlement, huge parts of Theroc’s other main continent, the Wild, remained unexplored and undocumented. Kennebar glanced at his followers, at Collin. “Two hundred of us will travel across the sea to where the worldforest is pristine and uninhabited. By living all alone with the trees, we can do our real work without distractions.”
Arita gazed at Collin, wishing she could accompany the green priests, but she didn’t belong among them.
“Did someone offend you here?” King Peter asked, clearly troubled. “Have we hurt you in some way?”
Kennebar shook his head. “Too many green priests have become part of the Confederation and have forgotten that they belong to the worldforest. My people and I don’t wish to be exploited. Our work is sacred. We should serve the trees—not outsiders.”
Queen Estarra said with a sigh, “I cannot give you instructions if the trees tell you otherwise. We hope you find what you’re looking for in the Wild.”
Kennebar gave a brusque farewell, and his group of green priests followed him out. Arita tried to hide her pain and disappointment when Collin didn’t even turn to give her a glance…
That evening, Arita attended a banquet that was thrown for her. Many Therons welcomed her back home, asking questions about the desert planet and the whispering cacti. She was weary, she missed Reyn, and she felt sad that Kennebar’s green priests were departing.
Late at night, when she entered her room, she sensed that something was different. The soft round window in the fungus-reef let in a night breeze, as well as the buzz of jungle insects. On the shelf near the window, some of her keepsakes had been nudged aside, and she found a note on the gossamer sheets of her bed—just a small scrap of leaf paper. It was from Collin.
The young green priest must have climbed the outer walls of the fungus-reef, knowing exactly which window was hers. Had he been too embarrassed to send a message through the trees knowing that all green priests could hear what he said? His handwritten message had a single word, “Sorry.”
Arita picked it up, felt the texture of the scrap, and held it close for a long while.
FORTY-SEVEN
EXXOS
The black void was incomprehensible to his sensors, to his racing thoughts, and to his thousands of years of experience. It was not part of the same universe, did not follow the same physical laws, to which he was accustomed. Exxos was lost in an infinite, formless darkness.
The three surviving robot ships had plunged into the shadow cloud, hoping to elude the pursuing humans and Ildirans. But this irrational gulf seemed worse than nonexistence. As soon as his vessels were swallowed up in the dark nebula, the systems shut down, and the armored hulls crumbled and vanished, as if the matter itself were being unmade—leaving the robots drifting and helpless in a confusing nowhere.
The flood of data was irreconcilable. Space-time paused and shifted. The hundreds of black robots found themselves tumbling in a place where the universe itself seemed—literally—unreal.
Exxos sent sensor sweeps through his lenses and detectors. He could still communicate with his comrades, and their flow of inquiries shot back and forth like weapons fire. Although the black robots were materially identical, Exxos served as their de facto leader. Yet he had no answers either. His diagnostics made no sense out of the swirling void, and the boundaries seemed infinite.
The darkness around him changed, and a small section became impossibly blacker, a pulsing random shape, an inkblot that defined the very concept of unlight. Other blots manifested in the darkness, and in the center of each ebony blob there appeared an eerie and improbable eye.
The bizarre shadow-eyes brightened… focused on the black robots. On Exxos.
“You are different.” The thundering voice poured into his complex robot mind. “You are aware. You are intelligent—but your thoughts do not scream into the flesh of the universe. What are you?”
Instantly wary, Exxos guarded his information. “We are unique,” he said. Scouring his memory, he searched through his exhaustive internal database of historical records and personal experiences, including numerous encounters with the Ildiran Empire and their recorded history. He reached the inevitable conclusion: “You are the Shana Rei.”
“We are the purity and personification of the void.” The throbbing voice seemed to come from the staring inkblot in front of him, but also emanated from all the others that surrounded the helpless, drifting robots. “We cannot hear the scream of your existence, unlike all other sentients.”
“We are unique,” Exxos said again, trying to understand what the Shana Rei were saying. Something had interested the creatures of darkness enough that they kept the robots alive.
One of the floating, aimless Klikiss robots—Exxos identified the argumentative Azzar—split open his rounded carapace, extended angular wings. Thrusters sent heated exhaust through tiny rocket ports in the beetlelike body as Azzar tried to escape, though Exxos did not know where he intended to go. The void appeared infinite around them.
The Shana Rei focused on Azzar, and the robot froze in space, suspended like an ebony insect in obsidian amber. As if with invisible hands, the Shana Rei plucked the long wings from the robot’s body, one at a time. They tore the angular alloy film, crumpling it. Azzar struggled, but the Shana Rei were fascinated with their deconstruction activity.