Accustomed to the smooth and precise arrivals of the Halcyon, the Wau felt slowness and confusion when his Ozy, worn out, unpainted metallic gray, purchased on the Lennox black market, emerged from Drift into the distant orbit of Booz - a yellow dwarf, vaguely immersed in a nebula that gave deep space a uniquely greenish-blue hue.
His first attempt at approaching the Brotherhood had failed: posing as a freight ship on the route to Ur, he had been boarded by two pirates. Had he been clumsy? Overconfident? Whatever the case, after some threats exchanged, they had fled. The legend that they used brain fluid from Booz Owls to foresee the future might have had some truth to it.
His second card to play was Lucky's tale: according to him, the Brotherhood's headquarters was near swamps where Owls could be found, on Booz.
An Endymion was patrolling the orbit: the Hades. A motionless mass of dark steel above the planet and beneath its many dancing moons, it stood like an ominous guardian. An operator from the Hades contacted the Ozy:
- "Ozymandias arriving in the orbit of Booz, please identify yourself, your passengers and cargo, and the purpose of your journey."
The Wau brought up a fake portrait on the communications terminal, generated on the fly by his AIs.
- "Captain Kalina of the Ozymandias Vayu, registered at Lennox. No cargo. No passengers. I'm looking for work on Booz - passenger or freight transport. Worst case, I'll do a bit of tourism."
- "Ozymandias Vayu, you do not have permission to latch onto Booz Prime. Please remain in orbit ten kilometers from our Endymion and await further instructions."
The Wau complied. Once at the required distance, he established a connection with the Endymion's internal communications network, and his AIs hacked it with some difficulty, given the military-grade security. He traced the signal back to the communications room where he identified his interlocutor, an androgynous individual named Klee, from whom he even obtained an image via an internal camera. Concentrating, he directed his psychic beam toward Klee, so he would come to the evident realization that the Ozymandias could very well descend to Booz Prime.
Meanwhile, other ships - Ravens - were entering Drift after having latched onto the orbital anchoring port.
Klee resumed contact:
- "Ozymandias Vayu, thank you for your patience. You may descend to Booz Prime."
- "Order canceled," shouted another voice over the channel.
- "Captain…"
- "Silence, officer, you are relieved of duty. Ozy Vayu, cease your psychic intrusion immediately or a storm of fire will rain upon your ship. Prepare for boarding by a squadron. They have orders to kill you if you show the slightest sign of hostility."
Through the camera, the Wau identified the Captain who had spoken: Solstice - who, in one of those marvelous coincidences that bring two individuals together among billions, had once been Ada's jailer. Gorylkin, avenging sun, everyone orbits around you… Not the least bit worried, he took his time exploring Solstice's psyche and cross-referencing it with AI data to reconstruct her background.
After disposing of Ada, Sol had obtained the position of second officer on the ship, using every possible means to get there, thanks to a new Fleet regulation requiring Psi officers. The Captain of the Hades, one Liupold, had told her how, after Aleph's initial communication, he planned to give a speech to the crew proposing they retreat out of the aggressor's range to prepare a counterattack. She had struck him down instantly with a fatal epileptic seizure, then, after reporting to the Aleph-submitted high command, had been promoted to Captain with congratulations from Aleph itself. Comfortable in her authority and in her ability to wield fear, she had resumed wearing her silver hairpins and rings while still donning the regulation uniform. Today, she was on Booz to supervise a team assigned to a "top secret project." In her projections, she saw herself at Aleph's side on Origin.
Out of creative options, the Wau unleashed a psychic blast that knocked out the entire crew, including the commandos approaching his ship in camouflage suits, and dove toward Booz.
Booz was a planet of verdant continents, with a single freshwater ocean and an inland sea, with no mountains and no ice caps either. In the wilder parts, a layer of cloud cover could be seen. The planet had two coastal cities a thousand kilometers apart: Booz Prime, an administrative center, relatively modern, located on the inland sea; and little Booz, commonly called Babylon or New Babylon, on the ocean coast. Booz in general, and Babylon in particular, although they were HS trading posts, had a population composed 90% of Xenos - a situation all the more remarkable given that the Xenos came from a thousand different worlds. Booz had many unknown villages, unmapped, sometimes invisible or imperceptible to humans, inhabited only by Xenos drawn by the presence of massive freshwater. In addition to the famous Owls, its ocean and sea - which mysteriously communicated - housed a creature resembling a primordial eel, blind, twenty kilometers long and half a kilometer high.
As the ship fell at maximum speed toward the planet, the Wau analyzed the topography. There was indeed a swampy expanse fifty kilometers from Babylon. At two kilometers in altitude, he ejected. The Ozy adjusted its course on autopilot to hide twenty meters below the surface of the nearby ocean, while the armored being dropped straight down, trying to slow his descent to traumatize the environment as little as possible. The impact was loud, and in the swamps, the Wau sank six meters deep until he touched solid ground beneath the mud. Beneath his feet, he felt the vibration of a strong current - the underground passage from the sea to the ocean, which surfaced somewhere around here and created the marsh. He rose with a single impulse to find himself, a giant covered in earth, among curious fish with legs, small floating gas-filled sacs, luminous insects, and featherless birds - reptilian, but capable of flight - whose screeching drove one mad. Booz's nebulous sky, then in nighttime, yet tinting its moons gold, was half-obscured by large mineral formations that grew like trees.
He advanced in the direction opposite Babylon. Nearby, he thought he had seen, during his descent, a few rudimentary buildings.
His considerable weight made him sink into the mud. The worst terrain imaginable for someone heavy and two-legged. Each time he dropped ten or twenty meters to reach solid ground, he leapt again, creating a crater. In the end, he advanced by jumping from one mineral protrusion to another - living silicon, moving too slowly for the eye to perceive. From one of these great ridges, he spotted the constructions. No one visible here, but frightened psyches were emanating, and he let himself drop onto a patch of silicon torn from the surroundings. It was in this living mineral that three very poor houses had been built.
No door, just openings. A few decorative items, some worn clothing. Captured creatures were hanging from the ceiling, drying. Against a wall was a double partition behind which three people must have been hiding. He declared aloud:
- "Inhabitants of this place, I am a Wau. A friend and protector of all humans, whoever they may be. I am going to approach you, but I don't want you to be afraid at any moment. Not only do I mean you no harm, but if you feel in danger, I can provide the protection you need."
He felt no need to emphasize his statement with a mental caress and cautiously removed the wall of their hiding spot. Two women dressed in torn technical suits, a nine-year-old child covered in mud. One of the women was holding a short-beam laser cutter, aimed at the Wau. The other declared:
- "If you mean us no harm, then leave!"
The child hid behind her.
- "You're not hiding from me. Then who are you hiding from?" asked the Wau, without even glancing at the laser cutter.
- "Please, leave us alone…" she sobbed.
- "Why not return to the HS? I can provide you with a ship."
- "Yeah, right! Like that's gonna happen!"
The Wau reached into her consciousness with a hypnotic "Who are you?"
Even for an Omega, it was very difficult to read mental information that wasn't clearly formulated as thought. But asking the question was enough. Even if the interlocutor intended to say nothing or lie, they would still inventory everything they knew about themselves.
Thus, the woman, named Kali, had known only slavery since childhood. She could never trust him. This problem of slavery was beyond the Wau. That there were marginal occurrences of it was one thing, but Kali's psyche implied that slaves numbered in the thousands. Three thousand diverted Ozy, Andreï had said. Average crew of five people. Fine. But what to do with those slaves? One can't sell thousands of slaves in the HS, not even in the true Abyss. Where were they?
He seized the laser cutter without force. The one who held it - Prudentia - let it go with a limp hand before collapsing into Kali's arms with a cry of fear. He went outside, cut a sheet of silicon, and engraved with the cutter a very precise topographic map before returning the cutter. He gestured to them to come closer.
- "Here are the swamps. Here is Babylon. If you go due north here - north is where the moon that doesn't move is, see? - you'll reach the ocean, at this Xeno village. Make a few friends. Then, you have to swim a hundred meters and dive. You'll find an Ozymandias. It's yours."
- "I don't know how to fly a spaceship," said Kali, sniffing.
- "Would you like me to teach you?"
Kali was wary, but his tone was gentler. They had to be starting to understand that he could've killed them from the start if he'd wanted to.
- "Well… yeah."
He touched Kali's forehead with the index finger of his metal hand, which was gigantic. And boom, all the piloting information was transferred instantly. The Wau even added a star map to reach Prospero and directions to slip away quickly beneath the Endymion's nose.
- "Holy shit, what did you do!" screamed Kali, holding her forehead. "But… damn… how did you…"
- "The HS isn't doing too well these days, but that doesn't mean you won't find food, care, and safety there. Without having to pay… in thalers or otherwise. Your child seems to be cognitively impaired from malnutrition. Doctors will know how to treat that."
- "He's not my child."
- "My name is Malak," he said, with an almost toothless smile.
- "I don't blame you, Kali. But take care of him, as I have taken care of you today. And be for others the helping hand I've been for you. There are many Kali and Malak in this world."
He added to himself: at least, I hope not too many…
- "Alright," said Prudentia. "And you show up like an angel, and what do you want in return?"
- "Nothing. But if you'd be willing to answer some questions, you'd save me time."
They looked at each other, bewildered - the kind of service they'd never been asked for before, and that strangely made them feel valued. Kali sniffled again and said:
- "What kind of questions?"
- "Who are you hiding from?"
- "From the Brotherhood, damn it."
- "And from the soldiers," added Prudentia.
- "The Brotherhood of the Two Worlds AND the Stellar Fleet soldiers are here?"
- "Yeah, with insane weapons and screaming ships right over our huts. What, three hours ago, Prud?"
- "They were here at sunset."
- "They're over there, where it's really dark with the caves."
- "Are they fighting each other?" asked the Wau, scanning Prudentia's psyche to pinpoint the exact area.
- "If only. No, they're hunting the Xeno."
- "The Owls?"
- "The big frogs with eyes, and who tilt their heads. Bastards… they're really kind Xenos."
- "Are there many slaves like you? Well, not fugitives. Human slaves."
- "Mostly on the Royal Planet."
Prudentia lowered her sad eyes.
- "Excuse me, what is the Royal Planet?"
They looked at the Wau as if he were testing them. He, for his part, was scanning them. There was indeed a planet ruled by a King, called the Royal Planet, where many Xeno and Human slaves could be found. The Wau had vague flashes of their lives, where they pulled wooden carts, harvested plants in fields under a blue sky, and sold their bodies in primitive pleasure houses.
- "The Royal Planet… is just the Royal Planet."
- "Alright. Who is the King?"
- "Well, we call him the King…"
- "No," said Prudentia. "He has a name. I think it's Huan."
- "And the kingdom, does it have a name?"
- "The Kingdom of the Two Worlds," replied Kali as if speaking to a dimwit.
- "Alright, sorry for insisting - this is all obvious to you, but it's new information to me. Are we talking about a different planet from the one we're on?"
- "Yes. The Royal Planet."
- "So Booz is not the headquarters of the Brotherhood of the Two Worlds?"
This question seemed to tie many knots in Kali's head, but Prudentia, who seemed to have more sensitivity and sense, declared:
- "On Booz, it's the Lord of the Far Throne."
- "Yes, the Lord of the Far Throne. He's the head of the Brotherhood here. He's insane, sir. Dangerously insane."
- "Do you think that if I go see the Lord of the Far Throne, I might find the Royal Planet?"
- "He's dangerously insane, we told you. But yes. Yeah. It's even the only way."
The Wau reflected. He wasn't certain that his mission - to locate and ally with the Brotherhood's armed forces - had anything to do with this unknown Royal Planet. But in any case, he added this entry to his endless to-do list.
- "Very well. Kali, Prudentia, Malak… you'll make it. You have the map. Farewell."
The Wau stepped through the doorway and, in the light of the six visible golden moons, leapt into the night toward the west.