Chapter Forty-Two
Infinity beckons.
—Parvii Inspiration
Perched inside the core of the most unusual biological organism in the galaxy, the tiny man noticed a hesitation in the sentient spacecraft. He had just established a course, but the podship had not yet responded.
Seconds passed. This had never happened to him before. By now, they should be speeding along the podways, racing past star systems, bound for the farthest regions of the galaxy.
The diminutive Parvii pilot required no food or water for sustenance, and none of the other nutrients commonly needed by the galactic races. And, while the various chambers of the large podship contained an ample supply of oxygen, the pilot didn’t require any. He could fly free in the vacuum of space, and in a swarm with other members of his race could reach tremendous speeds.
Until moments ago, Woldn had been in total control of the podship, having captured and tamed it with millions of his miniature followers, who subsequently departed for other duties. They were like wranglers of wild tigerhorses, and Woldn was the most skilled of them all. He was the Eye of the Swarm, commanding decillions of Parviis, an entire galactic race. Now he was performing a task he normally delegated, in order to keep his piloting and navigation skills sharp.
Finally, Woldn felt the great ship shudder into motion and accelerate.
In its wordless way, the podship was communicating with him, sending a stream of messages that filled Woldn’s brain. Through the sentient creature’s far-reaching eyes—indiscernible cells all over the outside of its body—Woldn peered deep with the podship, into the curving green webs of time and space.
Way off in the distance and directly ahead, an orange light flashed.
The blimp-shaped podship—carrying a variety of galactic races in its passenger compartment and cargo hold—accelerated onto the web on a new course, wrenching command away from the Parvii leader, though he struggled mightily, invoking the most severe guidance-and-control words in his repertoire. Mysteriously, his efforts were to no avail.
Within minutes, the spacecraft slowed near a debris field and circled it at a safe distance. Through the mind he shared with the pod, Woldn felt a tremendous sense of loss because a podship had just died here, along with its Parvii pilot.
Most unusual, a Parvii death here, and he’d received no signal of distress along the telepathic connections he maintained with all of his people, stretching across the entire galaxy. This suggested to him that there had either been a psychic breakdown, which occurred occasionally, or that the violent event had been so sudden and unexpected that the pilot had not had time to send a signal.
Woldn got his bearings and figured out where he was … and what was missing. A planet had exploded, a world the Humans called Mars. Within moments, he saw other podships approach and circle nearby, with Parviis inside their sectoid control chambers, helpless to control the spacecraft, trying to comprehend. This was the same solar system where an earlier explosion had occurred, the one that took Earth with it.
Both planets and their inhabitants had been dispatched to oblivion, their remnants scattered in space.
Was something wrong in this sector, causing a natural disaster—or could there be another explanation? Woldn would return to his people, and order a full investigation.…