Genesis Force Read online

  “My Overseer,” said the old advisor in a quavering voice, “we have just received an update from the Federation. There can be no mistaking it: The Genesis Wave will reach Aluwna in sixty units—two dawns from today.”

  The monarch scowled, feeling much older than his sixty-two cycles, which still made him relatively youthful for a ruler of this courtly planet. He demanded, “What about Starfleet? They are evacuating other planets—what about us! They promised to send the Klingon fleet. Where are they?”

  The advisors recoiled from the enraged monarch, and their babbling grew more intense. In the jumble of words, Tejharet could make out a few desperate excuses: “They are spread too thin!” and “They have been delayed!” or “The Klingons will arrive, but not in time to evacuate the whole planet!”

  Overseer Tejharet rubbed his head ridges, which were distinguished by triple rows of silvery eyebrows. “I never trusted the damn Federation,” he grumbled. “Maniacs and murderers, that’s all they are. This is their doing—this Genesis device is their weapon!”

  “But, sire,” said the eldest advisor, “would they turn such a terrible force upon themselves? The reports from Sector 879 have been truly horrific. Twenty-three inhabited planets have been destroyed, and the death toll is over fifteen billion.”

  “And we are doomed to add to that total!” snapped Tejharet, dropping his hands to the sides of his brocaded satin tunic.

  “Not everyone must die,” a young advisor assured him. “The trade fleet and the royal yachts have been summoned, and all ships will be in orbit well before sixty units.”

  “What is that—ten ships? Eleven?” asked the ruler derisively. “No doubt, all of you have your seats picked out, but I’m not willing to sacrifice eighty million loyal subjects without a fight. That’s eighty million innocent souls who have done nothing to deserve this cataclysm. And not just our people—I understand this weapon will terraform our planet and destroy our civilization! Do any of you have a single idea what to do . . . beyond saving yourselves?”

  The advisors looked sheepishly at one another, unable to admit that they had been totally dependent upon the Federation, who were nothing but a collection of bumblers and primitives. Overseer Tejharet scowled more deeply and said, “You must summon her.”

  The scientists looked more horrified by this proclamation than by the actual threat of the Genesis Wave. The elder stepped forward, his outstretched hand shaking in his billowing sleeve. “Surely, sire, you don’t mean—”

  “You know who I mean!” snapped the monarch of Aluwna. “Summon her immediately. By the Hand of the Divine, I pray she can save us.”

  With that, Overseer Tejharet turned his back on his trembling advisors, who scraped and bowed their way out of the chamber. Once again the hereditary ruler gazed out the archway at the bustling courtyard, where unsuspecting citizens laughed and talked, ate and danced, and filled the sparkling plaza in the early light. He wanted to weep for them, or at least hug each one, because they were so innocent and unaware of the mortal danger bearing down upon them.

  * * *

  Professor Marla Karuw ate a hearty breakfast consisting of a small game bird called a nestarn, plus several pinkish tubers. Unlike most of her compatriots on Aluwna, the striking brunette with six red eyebrows ate meat, and lots of it. Unlike her mealymouthed colleagues, the professor spoke her mind and did what she felt was necessary, and she maintained their respect even as she curried their antipathy. Therefore, her room in the bowels of the old hospital was more like a laboratory than a prison cell, and she had access to outside communications. Through a video terminal, she avidly followed the destructive path of the Genesis Wave, which had appeared from nowhere unexpectedly to slash a widening path through the Alpha Quadrant. From a distant video feed, she witnessed an unprepossessing rock of a planet get razed by a fiery green wall of pulsating energy, turning it into a throbbing, churning mass of monstrous new life.

  Her female guard, Juwarni, sat at a small table outside the forcefield door, watching the same viewscreen that Karuw watched. The jailer put down her utensils, unable to finish her meager breakfast of porridge and greens. With shocked horror, she asked, “That isn’t coming here, is it?”

  “We’ll know soon enough,” answered Marla Karuw. “Of course, the instant we find out for sure, we may all be dead.”

  The older, stocky female scowled. “You shouldn’t talk like that. Of course, you haven’t got much to lose—with a life sentence and all.”

  “Life in a prison is preferable to that,” answered the professor, motioning to the screen. “But that’s clearly life, too. As I perceive it, the Genesis effect isn’t death, really, but a reborning into something new.”

  “What?” asked the guard uncertainly.

  The scientist shrugged. “It’s hard for us to tell. Such experiments will get you imprisoned for life on our provincial planet. I should have fled to the Federation cycles ago.”

  “So you could make a weapon that destroys planets and kills everything in sight?” Juwarni snorted derisively.

  The dark-haired woman turned and stared at her keeper with sharp golden eyes flecked with lavender. “I would like to discover all the secrets of life and death. You have only to look at this looming disaster to know that ignorance is worse than death.”

  Suddenly the guard bolted to attention and listened intently to orders coming through her earpiece. “Yes, sir!” she responded, then moved closer to the door. “Marla,” she said, “you had better finish your breakfast, because they’re coming to fetch you.”

  That brought a worried frown to the scientist’s face. “If I were you, I’d take the rest of the day off and spend it with my family.”

  “Why?” asked the jailer puzzledly.

  “If they are sending for me,” answered Marla Karuw, “then we’re in trouble.” She dabbed the animal grease from the corner of her mouth and primped in front of her mirror. By the time the scientist was finished, two pale-faced elders from the Science Council arrived at the cell door, looking grim indeed.

  “Marla Karuw,” one of them intoned, “Overseer Tejharet requires your immediate presence, but this in no way implies that you—”

  “Skip the speeches,” she answered, moving toward the door. “How much time do we have?”

  They looked uncertainly at one another, and she demanded again. “How much time?”

  “A little over sixty units,” one of them answered in a shaken whisper.

  “Send Juwarni home,” she ordered, motioning to her stocky guard.

  “We do not take orders from you,” answered the underling with a sneer.

  “Oh, don’t you?” Marla Karuw paused in the doorway with her arms crossed, refusing to leave her cell until they obeyed her.

  With a shrug of his scrawny shoulders, the elder turned to the guard and said, “You are relieved of duty for today, but remain on call.”

  “Thank you,” said the woman, with a worried frown. With a glance at her prisoner, she hurried away.

  Wordlessly the three scientists climbed the stairs from the dungeon to the spotless yellow hospital lobby, where they stepped into three separate blue transporter booths. The staff and patrons gawked at Marla Karuw, because everyone knew the famous prisoner in the basement.

  “The Summer Palace,” Karuw told the computer. “Priority One.”

  “Bioscan complete,” answered an efficient computer voice. “Marla Karuw, prepare for transport. Authorization limited to a one-way trip.”

  “A lot of us may go one-way,” answered the scientist grimly.

  As her molecules were disassembled, concentrated, and beamed across a relatively short distance to the monarch’s residence, the professor decided how she would save the inhabitants of Aluwna. Or at least a good percentage of them. When she emerged from the transporter booth in the cavernous assembly room, Karuw was met by an even larger contingent of the scientific community, most of whom despised her and her forbidden work. Once again, they bombarded her with wa
rnings and disclaimers, and she dismissed them with a wave.

  “Komplum, you may come with me,” she told a young scholar who had once been her student. “The rest of you stay here. I know my way to the overseer’s chambers.” The lad nodded, and slipped a wry smile to his stunned colleagues as he dashed after her.

  The royal advisors sputtered in protest, but none of them moved to stop Professor Karuw as she climbed the grand staircase to the second story of royal suites, with young Komplum in tow. At an ornate golden door inlaid with jewels and a crest depicting the fanged beast Rahjhu, Marla was met by more sullen guards with stun sticks, and they looked as if they wanted to challenge her as well. Before they could speak, the doors opened automatically, and the professor lifted her chin and strode past them into the royal receiving room. Komplum scrambled after the deposed professor with barely a glance behind him. Marla recalled the last time she had graced this palace—the day she had been condemned for heresy—plus her many private meetings with Overseer Tejharet.

  * * *

  The monarch of Aluwna stood hunch-shouldered at the archway leading to his balcony, and he continued to gaze upon the unsuspecting crowd in the courtyard below. He had to tell them—he had to do something—because the candle wick was burning low for his beloved world. Every minute was precious, and he felt the urgent need to act now. But what do I tell them? he pondered. What do I do?

  He heard an imperious clearing of a throat, and he whirled around to find Professor Marla Karuw staring at him. Tejharet almost shouted with joy. He longed to rush forward and sweep her off her feet in a passionate embrace, but his regal reserve stiffened his back and slowed his legs. He stepped toward her and took her hand in a courtly manner.

  “Marla, I’m very glad you’ve come,” rasped the ruler.

  “I don’t doubt it,” she replied with a sniff. Hearing the happy voices and music of the crowd in the courtyard, she shook her head sadly. “They know nothing about this, do they?”

  “No,” said the monarch. “You know how insular most of our people are. I take it, you’ve been studying the outside reports?”

  She nodded. “They can’t stop it—they can’t even find the source. How many ships do we have?”

  Tejharet’s shoulders slumped, and he scowled with disbelief. “Marla, I expected more from you than ‘How many ships?’ I can get that from these other bookworms.” He motioned to the young scholar slouching in her shadow.

  “You misunderstand,” said Marla, pacing thoughtfully across his brilliant mosaic floor. “The ships are only for logistical support. We can’t carry millions of people in a handful of freighters, but we don’t have to. We have a very mobile population and a system to move them. Why, we must have a million transporter booths dotting our countryside—”

  “Two million,” interjected the overseer.

  She gazed at him with intense golden eyes. “Forgive me, I’ve been locked away for a couple of cycles. Our transporter booths are still controlled by a complex network of geosynchronous satellites, are they not?”

  “Yes,” answered Tejharet excitedly. He was beginning to see where she was headed with this line of reasoning.

  The professor talked as she snapped her fingers, and her aide made rapid notes on his padd. “When the passengers are en route to their destinations, their patterns are stored in the transporter buffers on the satellites. True, it’s seldom for more than an instant or two, but it could be much longer. There is a case in the Federation—a Starfleet engineer named Scott—whose pattern was frozen in a transporter buffer for seventy-five Terran years.”

  “Seventy-five years,” echoed the monarch in amazement. “Do you really think you could do that? How long can these transporter buffers last?”

  Marla Karuw shrugged. “We would only need a few days, I believe . . . until the Genesis Wave passes. You are full of facts and figures, my overseer, so how many passengers can the transporter system move at full capacity?”

  “Approximately ten percent of the population,” he answered.

  “Eight million,” said the professor softly. “That is the number of lives we can save, not counting those who travel on the ships. We’ll have to use our vessels to tow the satellites safely out of the way, and that will be a logistical nightmare. We’ll return when it’s over, but I warn you—from what I understand, this scheme will do nothing to save our planet.”

  She motioned around the sumptuous chamber and added somberly, “Nothing can save it. Everything you see here . . . everything on Aluwna . . . will be destroyed.”

  Overseer Tejharet wanted to bury his face in his hands and weep, but he couldn’t allow himself that indulgence. “Yes, then our world will die. We haven’t colonized other planets or joined far-flung alliances . . . it is all here on Aluwna. Please, Marla, save as many of our species as you can.”

  “Not just our race,” she was quick to add. “We’ll need lots of plant and animal samples in order to reseed the planet. We’ll come back stronger than ever!”

  A throat cleared in a kind of squeak, and the two elders turned to see the young scholar, Komplum, inching forward. “Professor Karuw, may I remind you that the satellite computers have living, biological components—the bioneural network. I don’t think we can expect all those transporter patterns to last . . . an indefinite time.”

  “No, but the biological components make rapid expansion and scaling possible.” Marla Karuw turned to Overseer Tejharet and crossed her arms. “So how many ships do we have?”

  “Eleven full-sized vessels, a dozen shuttles and ketches.”

  “You must grant me a pardon and put me in command of all ships,” declared Karuw. “Better yet, just give me the powers of a regent.”

  “My powers?” replied the monarch with a gasp. “You want me to give you my powers?”

  “I don’t have time to convince people to help me,” snapped the professor. “Make me a regent, and do it now . . . unless you prefer to be the ruler of nothing.”

  His lips thinned, and his hands twitched; but the overseer nodded his acquiescence. After he abdicated power to the greatest thorn in his side, his subjects would all know how serious the situation was. He might never again rule this world, or these people, but he had made a decision to save the greatest number of lives possible. If Marla Karuw could not drive this desperate rescue effort to success, then no one could. He would only be in the way.

  The monarch nodded, and was about to call his chancellor to make the proclamation when the side door banged open and his wife came storming into the reception room. She was in a white mourning gown, fresh from her trip to the sanctuary that sunrise. Seeress Jenoset stared in disbelief at her husband and demanded, “What is this I hear—”

  When her eyes lit upon Marla Karuw, Jenoset really exploded. “What is she doing here? I’ll call the guards!”

  “No!” insisted Tejharet, actually stamping his foot at the fair-haired beauty who was his spouse. “She is here to save our world. I’ve just made her regent.”

  “Regent!” shrieked Seeress Jenoset in astonishment. “This is a joke, right? You appoint the biggest blasphemer on Aluwna as our regent? Do you want the people to overthrow you? I’ve got plenty of followers, and we’ll call for a referendum. Or a general strike.”

  “They’ll all be dead before you could do anything,” snapped the overseer. “There’s no time for dramatics, dear—the Genesis Wave is headed for Aluwna, and we’re going to perform miracles just to save ten percent of the population.” Before anything could stop him, he hit a communications button on his desk.

  “This is Overseer Tejharet, security code rayje-tekedmetsoi. Be it known to the chancellor and all the citizens of Aluwna, I hereby pardon Professor Marla Karuw from all past crimes and convictions. Furthermore, I appoint her regent of Aluwna for an indefinite period of time, with all the rights and duties attendant to the office of overseer—”

  “You fool!” screeched his wife, almost jumping across his desk to get him. “You’ve lost t
he kingdom!”

  “Half true,” he answered, lifting his chin. “I have both lost and saved it.”

  Three

  In the morning shadows of the immense Summer Palace, Farlo Fuzwik dashed through the crowd of merrymakers with his best friend, Candra, chasing him at full speed. Their playful game of tag had a purpose, because they often bumped into adults—romantic strollers, fat vendors, dreamy-eyed musicians, solemn artists, anyone with a beadsack. When they could easily snatch the prize and keep running, they did, but the Aluwnans weren’t stupid. Most revelers had their beads of worth wrapped around their necks or waists to allow easy access to pay for trinkets and food. It was common to part with great sums in the square on a leisure day, and everyone wore the colorful beads with the intention of spending them. When Farlo and Candra couldn’t steal a purse from someone laden with beads, they remembered that person for later, when they donned their tattered beggar clothes.

  The stiff petticoat breeches and tunics were their “rich” clothes, the ones they wore to cavort with polite society and look as if they fit in. Or at least look as if they had parents. Farlo dashed behind a column on the shadowy side of the palisade and paused to catch a breath and inspect the two beadsacks he had swiped. For a moment, he thought he had actually escaped from his accomplice, but Candra swooped around the curve of marble and tagged his shoulder . . . hard. “You’re it! Whatcha got there?”

  She tried to snatch the prizes from Farlo, but he held tightly and pushed her away with a burst of strength. A cycle ago, Candra would have easily taken the beadsacks from him and left him crying, but the thirteen-cycle-old had grown in stature and muscle since those days. Candra, too, was becoming a woman, and no doubt she would have to ply the pleasure trade down on the esplanade level, or become a hostess in the resort trade. For those of low breed, there weren’t a lot of opportunities. Farlo couldn’t imagine growing up, because thieving and begging were all he knew. For now, he and Candra were content to be two well-dressed street urchins, trying to make a dishonest bead.