Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 282
he tried to turn on his side. "We don’t know for sure that he’s
going after the queen."
"Yes. Well, it’s all we’ve got." Axel didn’t reply, and
after a moment she stood and went to the window. His
breathing deepened with sleep behind her, as Calandria looked
out and up at a blue sky full of rolling white clouds. She
fought the urge to look behind that facade at the alien
machinery that maintained it.
Losing the Desert Voice was a catastrophe. She loved
her ship, but more than that, they would have needed its power
in order to destroy Armiger. Somewhere out there, beyond the
rooftops and the clear air, he was hatching his schemes. She
should be able to see him, like a stain on the landscape, she
thought. It was horrifying that he should be invisible to the
people he was setting out to enslave.
Calandria hugged herself, remembering what it had been
like on the one world of 3340’s she had visited. The people of
Hsing had been traumatized to the point of madness; their only
goal in life--more an obsession--was to win the attention and
favor of 3340 by any means possible, so as to avoid destruction
and win immortality as one of its demigod slaves. People
would do anything, up to and including mass murder, to gain
its attention. And once enslaved, they became embodiments of
their most base instincts, in turn enslaving hundreds or
thousands of innocents; or simply slaughtering them as
unwanted potential competition.
And all the while, 3340 had eaten away at the skies and
earth, rendering the planet progressively more toxic for the few
unchanged humans who struggled to survive in the ruins.
Armiger might find the key he was looking for at any
moment. Irrevocable change would come sweeping from over
the horizon like a tsunami, and this time Calandria would not