ROD’H
Surrounded by disorienting blackness and silence, Rod’h felt cold, hungry, and lost. His thoughts were torn open and exposed.
He had not meant to surrender information that would help the creatures of darkness. They interrogated him, tormented him … then did it all over again.
Every last building block of strength, every hidden corner of his personality had been ripped away, and Rod’h struggled to rebuild it. Earlier, the Shana Rei had toyed with Gale’nh, wiped his memories and discarded him on the haunted Kolpraxa. But they kept Rod’h so they could do it repeatedly. And when that wasn’t enough, they allowed one of the black robots to work on him.
The Shana Rei needed to learn from him—and Rod’h tried to turn it against them. He observed even in his greatest agony. He tried to glean data and draw conclusions by studying their ignorance. The basic things the shadows didn’t know might reveal a weakness, a blind spot.
Appalled, he discovered that the Shana Rei considered life itself to be the source of pain, that they hated the agony of creation and that their goal was to unmake the universe and then annihilate themselves so they could find solace.
That understanding was in itself frightening. No matter what, there could never be peace with the creatures of darkness. They had to be defeated, Rod’h knew—wiped out utterly, or existence itself would end. But even if he discovered some flaw from this gulf of captivity, some way to fight them, how would he ever convey it to anyone who could respond to it?
The Shana Rei imprisoned Rod’h in an entropy bubble inside one of the enormous hexagonal ships that had been assembled from night and emptiness. Not giving up, he reached out with thism, casting threads anywhere in hope that he might find some contact outside. But the shadows caught those threads and used them to spin deeper into the thism network like a spreading blight.
The inkblots appeared around him with blazing eyes and maddening voices. “You are our conduit.”
“No!” Rod’h tried to block out his thoughts, but the Shana Rei simply toyed with him, letting him know that they would destroy the thism from the inside.
He found himself spinning, screaming, and they penetrated his mind despite the walls he tried to erect. His flesh was healed, but scarred. The black robot’s pincers had torn him open, dissected him, and the Shana Rei put him back together again, never letting him die, although he felt and remembered every instant of terrible pain. The robot Exxos could keep doing that endlessly.
Although the Shana Rei wanted to use him as a gateway to infiltrate the thism, Rod’h was merely a halfbreed, and his connection to the purely Ildiran telepathic network was not exceptional. Perhaps the creatures of darkness had overestimated him, and when they realized their mistake, they would discard him as they had with Gale’nh … or perhaps they would just let the black robots continue toying with him.
But he was strong in other ways.
During his moment of greatest torment, Rod’h used all of his mental powers, everything the countless training sessions on Dobro had taught him, and reached out for anyone, anything—and for just a flicker of an instant he felt the connection he had experienced only once. A touch of what he had felt at the turbulent star Wulfton. The faeros! He clutched at them like a lifeline, and they knew what the shadows were doing to him. He begged the fiery elementals for help, but they snuffed out the mental link and fled.…
Rod’h drifted, and the Shana Rei did what they liked.
When the five hexagonal cylinders emerged from the dark layers beneath space, the Shana Rei allowed the entropy bubble to become transparent, to taunt him. Rod’h could see where they were.
At first he wept just to see the bright sparkle of stars in the real universe, a nearby sun, a planet below. Rod’h could sense something down there, calling. As if a blindfold had been removed and plugs taken from his ears, he felt the thism again, bright and intense. There were Ildirans down on that planet … as well as Osira’h and Tamo’l!
This must be Kuivahr, the Ildiran sanctuary world. The creatures of darkness had come to gather two more of his halfbreed siblings. Experimental subjects, just like him!
Then he remembered what else Tamo’l did down there in the sanctuary domes. All those misbreeds … genetic anomalies, outcasts with painfully visible flaws, but very poorly understood abilities. The shadows wanted to snuff them out, too! Or maybe test them for hidden skills.
He felt a shudder in the entropy bubble around him. The huge hex ships slowly turned, reorienting themselves toward the doomed planet. The Shana Rei began to spin off hex plates that whirled down to low orbit, connecting edge-to-edge, forming another black barrier.
Rod’h knew what they were going to do: they would not just seize his two sisters; they would destroy the world as well. At the Onthos home, the Shana Rei had created a Dyson sphere so enormous that it englobed an entire star system. This time, though, they would merely encase the planet in an impenetrable suffocating shell of black. The entire planet.
Countless hex components made the shell grow, swiftly, inexorably. The Shana Rei were in no hurry. They were relentless.
In desperation, Rod’h used his special connection to anchor himself with Tamo’l, with Osira’h. His older sister had always been the strongest of Nira’s children, and he clutched at that strength now. He had to warn them.
“Osira’h!” he cried out in his mind.
He felt her realize that he was there, and Tamo’l also recognized the contact. His sisters were at first overjoyed, then terrified. He could feel Osira’h trying to shore up his strength from a distance, Tamo’l adding her mind and her connection, as well. Rod’h longed to be with them, to beg for help and to feel relief, but instead, he summoned all of his energy to send out one blasting command, knowing that his sisters would understand—and he prayed that they would obey.
“Do not try to help me. Escape! You must escape!”