The Golden Queen

Chapter 18 (part 3 of 3)

"I suppose it did," Gallen smiled, self-satisfied. "When we get back to Tihrglas, will you marry me?"

Of course I'll marry you, she thought. But then her heart fell. "I'm not going back to Tihrglas."

"Not going back?" Gallen asked.

"Why would I want to go back? What's for me there? You said it yourself not a moment ago. In all my life, you've never seen me so happy. Gallen, how can I begin to explain this-right now, I want to tear this city apart," she said, waving toward the ship and the dronon city around her, "and discover exactly how it works. Like those little dronon message pods. Until two hundred years ago, that was the only form of communication the dronon used. They hadn't discovered radio waves at all, until we showed them. The pods have miniature antigravity drives in them, and no technician that I've ever heard of has disassembled one of the buggers and figured out how it worked. Gallen, I've got a pocket full of dronon technology, and right now I feel as rich as can be. It's amazement and discovery. Here I'm free to learn and grow. I can't get that on Tihrglas. Pick any other world we've been to. I don't care which. I could go back and be happy, but you'll never see me smile again on Tihrglas."

Gallen stumbled over his words. "Maggie, I-we don't belong here. I can't protect you here."

"I don't want your protection," Maggie said. "You asked to be my husband, not my bodyguard."

Her flippant words didn't answer his real concerns, she realized. He was a bodyguard. It came naturally to him. Part of him cried out that at all costs he had to protect those around him, maintain a semblance of order. But in these past few days, they had staggered through so many worlds that he was left confused, overwhelmed. He had not been able to discern the underlying order in the worlds around him, simply because the human societies they had visited were all experimenting and growing, twisting away from any predefined shapes.

"You have your mantle," Maggie said. "It has to be teaching you something. In time, you'll become a Lord Protector, like Veriasse." Or perhaps a frustrated fanatic, like Primary Jagget, she wondered. When Jagget's world had twisted out of shape on him, he had not been able to adapt. He kept calling Wechaus "my world," but it was peopled by folks who over the millennia had become strangers to him.

And suddenly Maggie understood. In his way, Gallen already was a Lord Protector. Back in Tihrglas, he'd planned to run for sheriff of County Morgan, and in a few years he'd have become the Lord Sheriff of all the counties. He'd been born to become the Lord Protector of Tihrglas.

Gallen's eyes misted. After a moment he said softly, "Maybe, maybe I can find a world we could both live with."

Maggie took his hand in hers. "Maybe we can find that world together."

In his dream, Veriasse rode his airbike, speeding over the dull plains of Dronon with Everynne beside him. Ahead were dark clouds, gray as slate. He could hear the distant rumble of thunder. They drove hard toward the sun as it prepared to dip below the clouds, and he passed under the sprawling leg of a dronon hive city. There was so little daylight left that Veriasse despaired of ever making it to the horizon.

The sun dipped below the distant hills, and Veriasse gasped. Grief passed through him as the night descended. Yet suddenly the white sun flared out on the horizon as if it had reversed in its course, blazing across the blasted land, filling him with hope.

The dream was so real that Veriasse stirred, heard a distant rumble, and realized that thunder was brewing on the horizon. He would have gone back to sleep, but Gallen shouted, "Over here! Come over here!"

Everynne stirred from his arms.

Veriasse sat up. Gallen had fired his incendiary rifle into the air. White chemical fire streamed in the sky like a brilliant flare, then arced toward the ground. Gallen and Maggie had come out of the dead hive city and were now standing on a gun mount. They shouted and waved, and Veriasse looked out over the horizon. In the distance, something massive and black moved in the darkness, crawling over the plains, heaving its bloated body along like a gigantic tick. Veriasse could only see it by the lights at its battle stations, lights that glowed in the night like immense red eyes.

The ground shook and rumbled in pain. Veriasse had not heard thunder in his dreams but the sound of a dronon hive city groaning as it pulled itself over the broken earth.

Gallen hooted and shot another round from his rifle, shouting in an exaggerated brogue, "Come on, you lousy bastards! Drag your ass on over here! We're tired of chasing after you!"

The dronon city changed course and began moving toward them, its turrets swiveling as the dronon searched for sign of enemies. Veriasse's heart pounded in his chest. His breath came ragged. They had found the enemy.