TAMO’L
The englobement of Kuivahr continued, the suffocating black shield growing, curving, walling off the whole sky.
Overhead, the black hex ships accelerated the process, distributing opaque plates like a blizzard of darkness assembling the shroud, piece by piece. Two-thirds of the sky was gone now. The sunlight had faded, and clouds churned as the unnatural vise grip closed around the world.
Osira’h, Prince Reynald, and the green priest had made it to the Kellum distillery in time to take one of the evacuation ships. Now, Tamo’l had to see that everyone else escaped—through the Klikiss transportal.
She worked furiously to prepare the population of the sanctuary domes. Shawn Fennis and Chiar’h rallied the misbreeds and readied their transport. The healthiest and most functional misbreeds carried the suffering ones, those who required special life support, respiration, body harnesses, or levitating platforms.
The Kuivahr tide was high, which made the seas rougher, mostly submerging the domes, and created additional difficulties for their exodus. They had access to only the top hatch and the smaller landing deck, where no more than ten people could gather at a time. During high tide, the people in the sanctuary domes normally hunkered down for a week in quiet isolation, but today Tamo’l knew everyone had to leave, at all costs. They had to reach the Klikiss transportal wall—but the domes had access to only a few boats, nothing suitable for a large-scale evacuation.
The domes’ small craft were primarily used to shuttle one or two people to the transportal wall, or to meet up with the swimmer kith, who lived on wandering kelp rafts. Tamo’l’s heart suddenly lurched as she thought of them: she’d been so focused on finding a way to save the misbreeds that she had entirely forgotten about the swimmers that thrived on Kuivahr! She felt responsible for them as well, because those generous swimmers had helped the sanctuary domes so often. But Tamo’l didn’t know how to save all of them, wasn’t even sure how to save her own misbreeds.
Tom Rom, though, claimed he could help.
A problem solver, he wore a determined expression without the slightest hint of panic as he stood outside on the upper deck. “I spent the past few hours compiling your medical data so that none of your research will be lost. I have a complete copy, and I am ready to go. Come with me, Tamo’l—my ship is on the other side of the transportal wall, landed on Auridia. We only need to choose the correct coordinate tile. These others can follow as they wish.”
“We go together,” Tamo’l insisted. “I have to save the misbreeds.”
His expression hardened. “Perhaps they cannot be saved. It is most important that you come with me. The medical knowledge you possess could be very useful to Pergamus. Come, I’ll take you.”
Shawn Fennis rushed up, his face flushed, panting hard. “You’re not in charge of transportation here, Mr. Tom Rom. Chiar’h and I agree that the Klikiss transportal is our best bet, but with this few boats, we need to start shuttling people over to the outcropping a few at a time, as many as the craft will carry.”
Tom Rom clutched the Ildiran medical data, glanced up at the darkening sky. “Then I suggest we do so soon.”
Though he limped and breathed hard, the misbreed Gor’ka toiled at the waterline and prepared the two small watercraft available. Tamo’l helped carry a levitating pallet that held one of the most deformed of the misbreeds. Soft, pale Mungl’eh was an invertebrate with a sluglike body and atrophied flippers for arms and legs. Despite her horrific body, Mungl’eh had a calm and complacent disposition, and when she sang, her voice was so sweet that she had made Mage-Imperator Jora’h weep. Each Ildiran breed had a useful purpose, and Mungl’eh had proved to Jora’h that even misbreeds could be precious.
When they made preparations on the platform under the terrifying, blackening sky, Tamo’l was dismayed by the size of the task. She shuddered, then forced herself to be strong. “Go, Chiar’h—take the first group to the transportal wall and send them away.” She began to move. “Use Gorhum as a transfer point. That’s where our supplies come from. The people there will be as ready as any.”
Tom Rom said to her, “You and I should be in the first group.”
Tamo’l glared at him. “I will go with you, Tom Rom, but only after everyone else is safe.”
For a moment the man looked as if he would seize her against her will, steal one of the boats, and simply race away, abandoning all the others. Instead, he scanned the people on the upper deck, as if calculating how many remained behind; then he looked up into the sky and assessed how the black shell had grown noticeably more complete in just the last few minutes. “There is no time to waste—I will assist in order to expedite the operation. But we have to move.”
Chiar’h took the first boat, and Gor’ka piloted the other one; they raced off carrying eight misbreeds, including Mungl’eh in her support bed. The dome’s other medical researchers brought more misbreeds to the upper deck, waiting, but there was no boat to take them away until the first two returned. They all crowded and waited, looking fearfully at the dark sky. Fennis stared after his Ildiran wife as she sped away, leaving a white wake in the choppy water.
Overhead, the shroud continued to grow as thousands more hex plates built the curve, drawing the opening closed. Only a quarter of the sky remained now.
Through her close connection with Osira’h, Tamo’l sensed that they had escaped into orbit … but her sister still wasn’t safe. Stronger yet, she felt a thrumming pain in the darkness above—Rod’h, helpless, a conduit that the creatures of darkness were using. Rod’h … She gathered her strength to call out to her brother, hoping that he could help them from inside the shadows, if only he could fight back.
Then, to her delight, she spotted figures in the water—graceful, sleek-skinned swimmers, hundreds of them. They had left their seaweed colonies and rushed to the sanctuary domes. With their large eyes and vestigial ears, they always looked astonished.
One of the swimmers called out to Tamo’l, waving at the black barrier in the sky. “They will swallow us up.”
“Escape through the transportal wall!” Tamo’l pointed with her hand, urging them. “We are taking as many as our boats can carry, but you swimmers can all go. Now! Reach the wall, travel to another world where you’ll be safe. Chiar’h is sending people to Gorhum. Go!”
Instead, the swimmers pulled themselves onto the platform, dripping wet, and stood before her. “But we can assist.”
“How?”
“We can ferry you, if you have any sort of flotation. We will pull you across to the transportal wall.”
Shawn Fennis brightened. “We have seven more levitating platforms in the infirmary. The swimmers can take the worst of the misbreeds.”
“We can take more than that,” said Tom Rom. “Those of you healthy enough can hold on to the platforms, while a misbreed rides aboard.” With swift efficiency, he grabbed Fennis by the arm, and the two men ducked back down into the sanctuary domes to retrieve the needed equipment.
Tamo’l insisted that many of the swimmers should go. “Get yourselves safe. Twenty-five swimmers should suffice. The rest of you, go through the transportal!”
Several swimmers dove under the water and swam away, arrowing toward the rock outcropping and the alien transportal wall.
Meanwhile, Tamo’l and her staff brought up the slow-moving misbreeds. The remaining ones were growing panicked. The darkness in the sky was oppressive, grinding down on them. The barricade seemed not only to cut off the sunlight but all contact with the rest of the universe.
Tom Rom and Shawn Fennis returned carrying the first of the levitating platforms. “Three can go on this. One or two more can hold on as the swimmers pull you.”
The waves were choppy, but the Ildiran refugees didn’t hesitate. Three misbreeds climbed aboard the first platform as it bobbed up and down centimeters above the waves. The swimmers attached a cable, two of them ready to pull the platform. Har’lc wrapped a flopping tentacle-like arm around the back of the levitating platform and dove into the water. One more grabbed onto the platform and held on. When they were ready, two swimmers pulled the caravan across the waves.
A second levitating bed was similarly loaded and set off. Tom Rom assessed the sky with concern, watching the myriad hex plates that kept adding to the rim of the shell. “We have less than an hour remaining.”
“It might be enough time,” Tamo’l said, but she wasn’t convinced.
A third levitating platform was loaded, and five more misbreeds escaped. Finally, Chiar’h and Gor’ka returned with now-empty boats ready to take another group.
“Quickly,” Tamo’l said. “Fill them up!”
“The transportal is difficult, Tamo’l,” said Chiar’h. “It is high tide, and the stone wall is partially submerged. When we open the dimensional gate, the Gorhum side is flooded.”
“No other choice,” Tom Rom said. “It is our only way off the planet now. Load up and go again.”
The two boats took eight more, but Tamo’l could see that the pilots would have to return for several more trips. Nevertheless, she felt hope. Many were getting away. Osira’h and Reyn had escaped along with the Kellum distillery workers, and if all the swimmers evacuated through the transportal wall, then that was most of them. Not so terrible a disaster as she had feared.
Her heart felt dark and cold as she reached out with her mind to touch Rod’h again—and he continued to scream in despair and pain, trying to warn Tamo’l. “The Shana Rei want you!” She closed her eyes and tried to link with him, tried to strengthen the bond so she could understand him better, and he wailed, “No—don’t!”
When she connected with him, it felt as if a dam had broken, and deep darkness flooded through. Shadows rose inside her mind, behind her vision, and Tamo’l gasped, blinded. On the precarious deck, she swayed and fought back with everything she could. She collapsed—but Tom Rom caught her in a grip like iron.…
She lost track of time. When her vision cleared, she saw that more groups of evacuees had gone. The last of the levitating beds had left, and the two boats had returned for a third trip. Only a few remained here on the platform.
Shawn Fennis rode one of the returning boats with Chiar’h. He shouted for the rest to get aboard. Everything was so dark, and Tamo’l realized that most of the sunlight was gone overhead. The black shroud was nearly closed, like the jaws of a predator clamping down.
How long had she been lost? What had happened to her?
Tom Rom urged her to the boat. “I met your conditions. Now we must go—immediately. This is the last trip.” He wrenched her arm and put her into the boat crowded with the others. They raced away across stormy waves, with a grim Tom Rom piloting the boat himself.
Tamo’l fought to clear her head, but she could barely see, because darkness had swallowed Kuivahr. The entire sky was closing up overhead. Once the shadows finished their englobement and cut Kuivahr off from the universe, she didn’t know if the Klikiss transportal wall would still function.
Tamo’l turned around, watched the sanctuary domes dropping away in the distance. They were mostly submerged, but now shadows had fallen over them as well. “Is everyone safe?”
“Safe?” Tom Rom looked at her. “They are gone, at least. That is the best we could hope for.”
The comm squawked as they raced along, bouncing on the waves. Suddenly a loud burst of chatter, numerous voices over competing channels filled the speakers. “This is Adar Zan’nh. The Solar Navy is here to pick up refugees—and also to fight the shadows. We have a full cohort and all the sun bombs available to the Solar Navy.”
Tamo’l’s heart leaped with hope, even though all those warliners could not help them down here. The inexorable englobement continued.
The Solar Navy battle would commence in orbit, but Tamo’l, Tom Rom, and the last of her refugees would find their own way off the planet.
They reached the rocky outcropping, which was now just a foam of waves and the upright trapezoidal wall partially submerged in the rough tide. Another group of refugees was there, activating a coordinate tile. As the dimensional gateway opened, Tamo’l saw a shimmer of another place behind it. A gush of seawater flooded through, and the refugees were swept into the doorway, safe on another world—and then the transportal closed.
Shawn Fennis and Chiar’h jumped out of the boats along with the last refugees and climbed the slick reef rocks. Chiar’h did not bother to tie up the boat, simply abandoning it.
Overhead, hexes linked to hexes, nearly finished sewing up the last opening in the sky.
The transportal opened, another dimensional doorway to Gorhum. Fennis and Chiar’h turned and gestured for Tamo’l and Tom Rom, but Tamo’l felt dizzy again. Too much blackness surrounded her eyes, closing in on her vision just as the englobement sphere overhead was closing off Kuivahr. She collapsed, and Tom Rom caught her before the waves swept her off the outcropping.
“Go!” he shouted to the others, hauling Tamo’l against the rush of breakers. “We’ll activate it again.”
Chiar’h, Shawn Fennis, and the last researchers leaped through the doorway to the planet Gorhum, and the wall solidified behind them.
When he and Tamo’l climbed up onto the stable rocks of the outcropping, she was too weak to walk, and so Tom Rom supported her. He secured his satchel with all the Ildiran genetic medical records. They stood on the slippery, wave-washed rocks, and he faced the alien wall with an odd, determined calmness. He scanned the ring of coordinate tiles, but intentionally did not choose the same one the others had used for evacuating.
“My ship is at Auridia,” he said. “I know a place where I can take you.” He activated a coordinate tile, and the stone wall shimmered again. Before Tamo’l could ask questions or argue, he grasped her wrist and pulled her with him. She could not have broken free if she tried. She took one last glance at the Kuivahr sky, but very little light remained. She couldn’t see much of anything else.
Then Tom Rom carried her through to safety.