The Sea is Full of Stars

already had to have greater objectives in mind, particularly if the Empress knew how hard it would be to hold such an empire over time. Although it would cause untold suffering and loss of pride and honor, the worst thing the other nations could do to her was not to fight but to surrender.

So you conquer the island nearby and the immediate ocean, and then maybe you spread out, and within a few years you have the whole ocean and maybe, just maybe, a continent or two. Then what?

The only thing in the whole Well World that Josich needed to fear, the only thing the old Emperor had feared back in the Realm, had at least followed him here. Tann Nakitt wondered if Josich knew. Probably. They would have those kind of records in Zone, although it wasn’t clear how Josich would have had the sheer time to think of that. Sooner or later the new Empress would find out, though. Tann Nakitt didn’t want to face down Josich, but she’d love to have a little viewing camera there when Josich, now the Empress Hadun, found out that Jeremiah Wong Kincaid was somewhere here, too, as single-minded in his dedicated objective as Josich was to hers…

By the gods, she just had to get into this damned war somehow!

Kalinda

Ari looked at the pages of cuneiform-style characters and decided that he probably would never be able to learn it. Although it was actually printed by some kind of electromagnetic process on a stiff sheet that obviously was impervious to cold saltwater, no two of the little squiggles looked alike to him. How were you supposed to even start? Not, of course, that he could read actual writing even back in the Realm, but very few people could or needed to. You talked to the computer, the computer talked to you. You wanted drama, it was performed holographically all around you. You wanted information, the best research systems in the universe were at your beck and call. There were even just readings, from fiction to news, with no pictures if you were on the move or had some time to kill. For most people, except historians, archaeologists, people like that, and others who might be dealing with primitive new races, there simply wasn’t any use for it. It was like being skillful with a broadsword. At one time that was a good way of staying alive and not becoming a victim. In the Realm it had been, at best, impractical, and at worse, highly messy.

This book, however, did have things of interest. For one thing, the numbers for some reason had stuck in his head. Interesting souvenir of that link, not nearly as odd as having Ming along for the ride, but useful. He could look at the map and count and then check the guide to the races of the Well against the numbers. Reading the descriptions was out of the question, but there were some impressive photos on metal that had a holographic look and feel, showing each race. A few questions of his ever-present police “associates,” as they preferred to be called, as opposed to jailers—which they were—told him which race went with which number. He was impressed that just about all of the cops could read this stuff.

By now he’d had the history and briefing of what Josich and his cronies had already accomplished with the willing help of certain native rulers and races. It impressed him as it had impressed them, and made him understand all the more just why Kincaid had hunted them down for so long and so fanatically, and also why he hadn’t yet succeeded in polishing the bastards off.

It had looked so simple when he had his first interview with Shissik. Debrief, get him together with this “other,” find out what could be found out, then probably get them both jobs, although what jobs they could do without becoming literate that anybody from the Realm might enjoy doing wasn’t clear. In fact, those faceless superiors had kept him away from them and the other and stuck in endless repetitive debriefings for months now, and basically assigning him menial tasks in and around the police building, never without escort. Finally they’d enrolled him in the equivalent of basic adult education classes, intended for people who either hadn’t had much due to circumstances or who were still trying to figure out “big” and “little” in the flash cards. He’d learned a lot, including how to write and recognize his name, as well as day-to-day facts and even some history, but reading had so far completely eluded him. It was damned frustrating.

Take this basic kid’s anthropology book, kind of “The Peoples and Lands of the World,” local style. Gibberish. And it was supposedly at about a second grade level. Still, it was useful when you had some help; and because, even though they’d lightened up and loosened up considerably, he was never without some sort of “help,” he at least could make some use of it.

The fact that Josich was building up along the western edge of the same ocean they were in made it imperative to know just what they were up against. Check that—he was one of them now, too.

Chalidang… Type 302. Good God! They looked like cuttlefish! Triangular-shaped creatures with huge but very Terran human-looking eyes and a face full of tentacles. The tentacles all seemed quite short, but he was assured that they were coiled up in the shell and that at least some of them could flash outward up to four meters in milliseconds. The suckers could secrete a paralyzing poison that worked on the vast majority of races that could absorb through the skin, and squirt a nasty fluid to get into eyes, nose, ears, ass, any opening, to achieve the same end with those races that couldn’t be directly afflicted. Hydraulic jet propulsion could move the Chalidangers at incredible speeds as well, and selective natural jets allowed them to hover, rise, fall, or turn at angles that seemed impossible. Add to that the nasty weapons of their own design that attached to their extremely thick shells, and you had one mean batch of nasties.

“They’re not much on sentiment, either,” one of the cops assured him. “Kids who don’t measure up to expectations don’t tend to grow up. They’re species-specific level one telepaths, which means they can’t really read minds but exchange surface thoughts the same way you and I speak. They can also regenerate most anything. You can blow ’em away one by one if you can get them in the tentacle area, but you have to be able to drill a hole right through the eyes to get their brains and really take ’em out. Not easy when they can move like they do.”

“You sound like you’ve already fought some of them,” An noted.

“Not yet. But my sister was trade rep for us in Laskein. The Laskers got no love for ’em—they’ve had to live next door. There was a dispute over border rights to some minerals while she was there. Stupid little thing, but you say ‘good day’ to them wrong and they get insulted. Chalidangers, that is. Nasty little fight. The Laskers only got semi-tech, and they make sure they stay on their side, but over the eons they developed some stuff that can take out the ’Dangers. Got some nice volcanic steam vents and they harness the power really well. Steam-driven harpoons specially designed to bore into hard shells, that’s what they shoot, at a speed the ’Dangers have a hard time seeing until it hits ’em. Sis says that when one of the shells is bored through, the thing goes nuts and spins in jet-propelled circles until the pressure and life bleeds out. ’Course, you kill a ’Danger, they got to kill more of you just to fulfill their code of honor. They’ll do anything at all. Ugly people.”

“And yet they have allies? How could anybody talk to them?”

“Oh, they talk fine. Like-minded folks and ambitious types. The Quacksans got that spooky hypnotic thing and a yen to raise their tech levels, and they breathe air and have a rocky terrain and the ’Dangers breathe water and just aren’t designed for land, even to limits like we are. So them two get along just fine. All they need is an air force, so to speak, and they’ll have perfect balance. Then watch out!”

It wasn’t a pleasant thought. He turned some more pages, stopped at Type 41 and stared at it in surprise. Man and a woman, nicely built, in perfect condition, medium-brown complexion, kind of primitive-looking but very definitely relatives.

The sergeant in charge looked at the picture. “That your old people?”

“Sort of. I think we were related, anyway.”

“They were nasty, too. No more conscience nor respect for other races than the ’Dangers. Invaded and slaughtered a lot of their neighbors to get farms when they screwed up their own land. The neighbors finally got together, gassed them back into the age of rocks, and forced them all to switch to the neighbors’ nontech hex. Ain’t amounted to nothin’ since.”

Yeah, that sounds like Terrans all right. Only we don’t usually lose. “How long ago did that happen?”

The sergeant shrugged. “Who knows? It’s way, way back in ancient history, I’ll tell you. Just kind of a legend races like ours tell the kids as object lessons. It may or may not be true, but if we could