Defender of the Future
book one of
The Tidesinger Trilogy

Chapter Twenty-One

The Foe ship was listing, dragging heavily to one side. The engines no longer sounded smooth as if they were purring--they surged and coughed, and the lights brightened and dimmed in tandem with them. In places, the tubes and conduits that stretched across the passages had fractured, and jets of pale white mist spilled out into the corridor. Struggling through them, Ecco and Karkol singed themselves more than once.

"You did a heck of a lot of damage," the shark said admiringly, as the lights flickered on and off again. "You think the ship's crippled?"

"Not yet," Ecco answered, glancing back--he could hear Foe screaming back there, and the alien creatures sounded enraged. "The engines are still on, Karkol. This thing's still moving, wherever it's actually moving to."

"Where are we going, anyway?"

Ecco was trying once more to follow the sound of the engines. They drew him irresistibly upward; he picked passages almost at random, through some sort of instinct he hadn't known he had. But the Foe ship was a maze, and every passageway that appeared at first sight to lead there straight, usually turned back on itself or looped about like a pretzel. He rounded a corner and sighed with irritation as he saw a door at the end, almost closed. There was only a few inches of space underneath--not enough for them to wriggle through.

Karkol cruised past him and examined the door for a moment, then shoved his wedge-shaped nose underneath it. Ecco watched silently as the shark braced himself against the ground, splaying his fins out on the ridged metallic floor of the ship, then heaved upwards. With a scream of stressed metal, the door rose jerkily. Once again Ecco was impressed by the shark's strength, and he wondered what Karkol would become when he had his full growth.

"Come on," the shark said simply, and slipped under the gap he had made. Ecco followed.

Several Foe were in the wide space beyond--they looked up, or at least raised their heads in that manner, and froze for a moment. It was enough to seal their fates--Karkol charged, roaring, and his jaws snapped through the spine of one. Ecco stopped the others dead in the water, and the shark turned and came at each one in turn. It was a neat job, but all the same one flailing limb caught Karkol around the head and scored a deep mark that just missed the eye. Dark blood billowed into the water.

"Owch," Ecco winced.

The shark shook his head, fighting against instincts that saw pain as an invitation to start chewing on the nearest organic substance. "I--I'm okay," he managed.

"You sure?"

"Yeah... all under control." Karkol grinned a little and then turned to look around.

They had entered a much wider intersection, where five or six tunnels turned into one great hall. In front of them, two giant doors (wide open now, thanks to Ecco's playing with the controls) led into an even bigger room. It towered above them like a cliff. Glittering banks of strange machinery filled the place, but Ecco's attention was instantly drawn past all that. Slowly, with eyes wide with wonder, he swam forward into the room and over to the giant translucent bubble that shielded off one half of the room.

"Oh my..." he said softly.

The bubble's edge was like a window, letting him see out of the ship itself. A panoramic vista of purest blackness, velvety and chill as the deep-down dark, filled his entire field of vision. All across it, stars shone--not the faded stars of a night sky on Earth, but pure glittering lights, pale and frosty and unbearably bright. There were hundreds of thousands of them, far too many for him to count. Right in the center of his field of view, five stars seemed to shine brighter than the rest. Ecco felt a pricking on his forehead, and he knew that his own star-markings were blazing up under the starlight. So it's not the moon that makes them glow, he thought. It's Delphinius... it's the stars themselves.

Below them, vaster than should have been possible, was a blue-green globe, its face covered with slowly shifting wisps of white and gray. It shone faintly luminescent in the darkness, as if it were giving off its own diffuse light. The moon was not visible right now--perhaps it was behind the Earth, or perhaps it was simply hidden behind the bulkheads of the Foe ship. Ecco stared down at the warm blue-green vision with a lump in his throat. That was it... that was home. And that was probably the closest he was ever going to get to it again.

He could see now, from up here, what nobody ever realized from down there. The Earth was alive. It lived and breathed, it suffered and it could even die. And it was indescribably beautiful.

For the first time Ecco thought: perhaps the killer whales were right. Perhaps it was best to die for something like this. Something that was truly worth dying for...

Karkol was beside him, looking down at the Earth without saying anything; he knew that the shark was having his own thoughts on their final task here. Slowly, Ecco turned and swam away from the window towards the ship's controls. He looked over the gleaming banks of buttons and switches, and then his attention was caught by an odd pulsating bubble that floated above one particular control deck. He cruised over to it, looked down at the panel, and carefully pressed a button. A three-dimensional scene flickered to life inside the bubble, the small image wavering slightly from ripples passing across the surface. The picture showed the interior of the tank room. A few Foe were poking around on the control panel he had ruined there.

Ecco pressed the button again, and the scene switched to the interior of one of the tunnels, viewing a door. He suddenly had an idea, and began to press it swiftly, flicking through various images of the inside of the ship. Come on, come on, where's the hatchery...

Suddenly there it was--he had to stop himself automatically pressing the button again. The small image in the bubble displayed the ruined hatchery with its mists still creeping slowly across the floor. The dolphins were visible in the center of the room, clustered together. Ecco grinned and looked down at the controls again. Corse had mentioned a light which lifted them out of the water...

He pulled a lever. Something moved at the top of the little scene--he wasn't able to see it or hear what was going on, but he saw the dolphins shrink back in fright. "Don't be afraid," Ecco begged, though he knew they couldn't hear him. "Everything's okay now..."

He jabbed at another button, and a strong golden light spilled down from that half-invisible thing at the top of the scene. The dolphins were caught in it; they froze still, as if it was stopping them from moving. Ecco grimaced. Have to hurry now... open the portal, get them back into Earth's atmosphere... There had to be something here to open that trapdoor. He grasped a lever that looked hopeful and yanked down on it, and was rewarded as the entire floor of the hatchery swung open onto another panoramic view of Earth, close up. Ordinarily that would have released a swarm of Foe larvae into Earth's atmosphere, but as it was only a few pieces of eggshell fell and drifted slowly down. The dolphins were still and silent in the golden beam.

Ecco searched the controls for something that looked like it would lower them. It needed to be something that went down... His eye was caught by a slider; he gently depressed it. The beam strengthened and intensified, stabbing down to some point beneath the shifting clouds of Earth; the captive dolphins were lowered steadily towards it, out of the bottom of the ship. Ecco grimaced, hoping that he had managed to hit the five-sixths that was water on the Earth's surface and not the one-sixth that was land.

"That's it," he called to Karkol, as the dolphins disappeared from sight into the cloud cover. "They're gone. We're all alone here."

The shark tore his attention away from the view with some difficulty, and came back towards him. "Then there's only one thing left to do," he said simply. "We gotta kill the brood mother."

"I don't know how we'd do that," Ecco said worriedly. "We don't even know where she is. Karkol, I've had another idea--maybe we could destroy the ship."

"With us on it," the shark remarked.

He lifted his head and looked Karkol in the eye. "We're not going to get out any other way, Karkol. The beam is the only thing that could get us back down to Earth, and it has to be operated from here. Even if we managed that somehow, we'd be leaving the ship up here and the mother too. Destroying the ship would solve all our problems."

"It sure would," Karkol said with an ironic twist to his voice. "Well, let's get on with it then." Without another word, he turned and swam off to take a look at the rest of the controls. Ecco watched his retreating tail with an unhappy feeling. The shark was so loyal, so accepting of his fate... He wished he felt the same, but even though sight of the silent Earth outside the window strengthened his resolve, he felt as if inside he was being chewed up by a million tiny sharks. He didn't want to die, damnit!

He turned and examined the controls again, moving slowly from one panel to another. Behind him, the bubble-picture showed an empty hatchery devoid both of life and atmosphere. Karkol jabbed his snout into a couple of buttons in a desultory fashion, but nothing much seemed to happen. Ecco looked away from the shark and found what he was looking for on the biggest control deck there: a whole range of switches. Something told him that this was it. He cruised over and lightly pressed down the green-lit one. Lights flickered into life across the deck, and the bubble at the top flashed up a long list of alien symbols. Ecco blinked at them, unsure what they meant exactly; he hoped he didn't have to enter a password.

Now... Very carefully, he flipped two switches and then pushed a small lever. The unhealthy whine of the engines died into silence. Ecco glanced over the console once more, and then pressed a button. A long list of symbols came up; he skipped over them, pushed another button. More hieroglyphics. Ecco blinked, noticing that the pictures were the same as the ones on the keys before him. Could that be it..?

"Hurry it up, Ecco," Karkol said tensely. "We've got company."

There were Foe in the doorway. Hundreds of them--perhaps all the Foe left on the ship. They were silent. The flickering lights gleamed off their dark carapaces. Ecco glanced up, puzzled. "Why don't they attack?" he asked softly.

"I dunno," Karkol answered, frowning. "It's like they're waiting for something..."

There was a grinding noise from above. The Foe, silent in the doorway, made no move. Ecco and Karkol stared up in shock and horror as the ceiling of the room began to part, sliding back on itself. Cracks were revealed which became sliding panels, moving back to reveal a dark circular hole. Something moved within it.

An immense, fleshy bulk descended slowly into the room, with a horrible smooth alien grace. It looked Foe-like, or like the Foe larvae perhaps, but it was terribly different. For one thing, it was huge--hundreds of times bigger than Ecco or Karkol. It filled nearly the whole of the room. And then... the thing had eyes. Glittering, pupilless, blood-colored gems.

The Foe mother was black, armored in chitin like some hideous insect--the best thing Ecco could compare her to was a clawless lobster with a hideously swollen belly, and even that could barely come close to describing the gigantic monstrosity before them. Two pairs of jaws worked slowly, one inside the other; the teeth flashed metallic in the electric light of the control room. The creature bristled with spiked limbs; her stalked gaze fell upon them like the gaze of a shark, but a thousand times worse for the silent, mindless hunger in it.

"Ssssssssttthh..."

Karkol began to backfin slowly, with difficulty. Ecco was frozen at the control panel, able to do nothing more than stare. The mother--the Queen of the Foe--swollen with unborn young, floated slowly towards them. Segmented tentacles whipped out, smashing control panels and snapping conduits. Showers of multicolored sparks rained down around her from the damaged ship. The Foe drones remained unmoving in the doorway, watching silently.

"Sssshhreeeeee..!"

"Karkol," Ecco said slowly, struggling to get the words out, "I can destroy the ship, but I need more time..."

The shark didn't even look at him. His eyes remained fixed on the apparition of the Foe Queen. "I'll try and distract her. Get going."

Ecco turned and faced the control panel again. The weird alien writing spread out before him in the field of the bubble. To gain access... He stared at the screen and then swiftly pressed down the first key in the sequence. The bubble cleared and a red light began to flash steadily on and off in the room.

With a scream of rage, the Foe Queen floated forward, reaching out with barbed tentacles to smash Ecco into pieces--but Karkol was there before him. The shark charged forward, slamming into the Queen's chest, and then darted away as a tentacle slashed at the air where he had been. He ducked and dived and then swam in again to bite a chunk out of her shoulder. A cloud of dark ichor--only by a great stretch of the imagination could it be called blood--gouted into the water. The Queen shrilled her rage and lashed out again, but Karkol dodged. He faced off with her; the two circled slowly, small shark and gigantic shellfish.

Ecco tried to shut out all sounds and sights and concentrate on the panel before him. There had been twelve digits. Squeezing his eyes shut, he visualized that screen again, and then very carefully pressed the first of the twelve keys. A shape appeared before him in the bubble.

The Queen turned towards him again, sensing his intention. Karkol dived down and bit deep into one of the tentacles--black fluid gushed again. She flailed at the shark and caught him on the back, opening a long ragged gash in his dark gray skin. Undeterred, he charged her again, dodged two of the flailing limbs and rammed her in the forehead, between the evilly gleaming ruby eyes. His jaws scraped the chitinous armor, and he slid away alongside her again. Enraged, she pursued him.

Now what... Ecco stared at the bubble, willing himself to remember the sequence. Three more symbols floated before his mind; swiftly he pushed the keys down. Three more shapes appeared within the bubble, forming part of an interlocking arc. He frowned at it, trying to think what it could mean. He needed nine more keystrokes... He visualized the symbols that had come up beforehand, stared at the keys, pressed one more. Another piece flashed into being on the screen.

The Queen turned again, and Karkol whizzed down and severed one of the segmented tentacles with one perfectly judged bite. She shrilled in pain. The Foe in the doorway began to advance slowly, and Ecco let out a wail of panic. He stared at the keys with terror in his eyes. Shark-tooth or star next? He couldn't remember..! "Tidesinger!" he wailed in despair.

Something flashed outside the window--the stars of Delphinius, gleaming bright and hot in the squid-ink sky. From far away there drifted a faint sound, that singing Ecco had heard so long ago in Sapphire Bay. Singing in the stars... but this time, without Earth's atmosphere in the way, he could understand the words.

Time is our river
Along it we pass
Through seas of wonder
The pale mirror's glass
Pass first the stone
To ward off the fight
Carry the star
To infinite light
Let nose touch to tail
Return to the start
Love be our guide
And music our art

Ecco stared at the keys. The first one he had pressed was two wavy lines... something like a river? The connection was tenuous at best, but maybe... just maybe...

He frowned. The last one he had pressed had been the one shaped like an oval... the stone? Again he stared at the keys. If so... Pass first the stone to ward off the fight... a key that carried the very essence of fighting. Ecco grinned desperately and pushed down the key with the symbol like a shark's tooth. Another shape flashed into being in the bubble, turning the arc into almost half a circle of interlocking jigsaw pieces. Now the star... He pressed it, and got another piece of the puzzle.

The Queen lashed out as Karkol flew around her like a hyperactive sprat--next to the gigantic Foe mother, he looked little bigger. The Foe drones were heading straight for him now. Ecco clenched his jaws together as he stared at the keys, knowing that there was almost no time left. Infinite light... nose to tail... He shoved down the key with the infinity symbol on it, then one with a horseshoe shape. Two more puzzle-pieces flashed up on the bubble. The dolphin's mind raced as he tried to remember the last three lines of the song. Return to the start... love be our guide... The spiral then the one that looked like a heart...

Suddenly one of the tentacles lashed out and caught Karkol's outstretched pectoral fin, shearing the black tip right off. The shark roared in pain as more of his blood entered the water. Then... He had fought off his instincts this long, but the added injury sent him over the edge. Karkol's black eyes rolled back, his jaw came forward, and he charged straight at the Queen, bristling with teeth. Blood hung about him in a cloud. The shark took a slap from one of the barbed tentacles which laid him open from gills to stomach, and then his jaws sank deep into one of the pupilless ruby eyes and put it out for good.

The Foe Queen screamed.

Panels shattered at the sound of that dreadful cry--eruptions of sparks jetted out into the control room. Long cracks splintered across the face of the window. The Foe drones rushed forward as one, but they weren't as fast as their blinded mother. She lunged forward, tentacles whipping out like stingers. They caught the shark dead center and tore into his skin. The shark writhed in the grip of the bladed things, snapping and tearing at them even then, refusing to give up, and then the Foe Queen simply ripped him apart. A cloud of hot red blood billowed into the water.

"KARKOL, NO!" Ecco screamed. Gruesome pieces floated down towards the floor. The Queen, half-blind and bleeding, turned ponderously in his direction as the disturbed currents in the room carried what was left of his friend away.

Rage filled him as if he were a beacon of fire. He could have rushed her then, attempted to avenge his friend. Ecco found his fury went even deeper than that. Quite deliberately, he turned his back on the advancing Queen and looked at the panel again. There was one more key, only one, that he had not pressed. It carried the symbol of a musical note, a song... the song of Tidesinger... All sorts of confused ideas flashed up in his mind for a moment, but all died swiftly to make way for one thing only. The symbol of the musical note seemed huge in his eyes, as if it were the only thing in the universe.

All things, Ecco thought, for a dolphin, come down to one thing only. The song. The song is what is.

He pressed the final key. The last piece of the puzzle burst into life, and the bubble lit up with a shimmering diagram of the Foe ship, its passages and conduits illuminated in hot light of red, green and blue. Its alien symmetry, laid out before his eyes in entirety, seemed almost beautiful.

He felt a sharp impact upon his side, low down near his tail where the Foe had first wounded him, and then the sickening pain as deep and heavy as the Crushing Dark. Blood clouded his vision on that side. The Queen's blades, it had to be... and by the dark crimson color of that liquid in the water, she had severed an artery.

Ecco's grin was a rictus of pain, but there was a fire of triumph in his brown eyes. The hot burning in his forehead told him Delphinius's constellation was ablaze. He felt all the ancient magic stir in his failing blood, turning him into a vessel for Tidesinger's power. The Power of Song.

He gazed at the diagram, and then used all the Power in his body, pouring his heart and soul into one single word of song.

"BREAK!"

The bubble exploded in a blast of golden flame. An instant after, the panel exploded, and then the fire burst out through everything else in the room. The cables and conduits exploded one after the other as it traveled along them. The room became filled with the sound of explosions. Then, a great roaring wash of water hit Ecco and the cracked glass window burst outwards in shimmering, starlike splinters. Hungry as a shark, the darkness outside pulled out everything that had been in the room--the water exploded out, freezing into chunks of ice. The Foe exploded too, one after the other as the drastic decrease in pressure hit them.

Ecco was blown out through the window, and suddenly found himself spinning in empty space. Stars surrounded him. He felt the pressure dropping, felt the agony as his tissues began to expand, and then saw the Queen.

She floated, turning slowly, out of the window of the crippled ship, tentacles lashing in futile rage. Her body bled, the dark stuff freezing into trails of crystal even as they exited the wounds within her alien flesh. The body of the Foe matriarch was coated with ice. The monster turned her half-blind head towards him, opened her jaws and shrilled without sound. Then, the swollen egg sac of her belly burst asunder and was followed, a moment later, by the rest of her. The Foe Queen, the dreadful mother, was no more... merely rags and tags of frozen flesh gyrating in the frozen expanse of the Sea of Stars.

As the agony in his side began to fade, Ecco felt a warmth around him and saw a cool blue glow that was emanating from his own skin. Asterite, he thought dreamily. Your power... it's still with me. It didn't matter any more. Sparkling crystals of red ice drifted past his eyes--frozen blood from the wound in his flank. He was flying away through space, helpless, trailing a cloud of crimson vapor. Before him the Foe ship shook and shuddered, great parts of it now alight from within with that golden flame. As he watched, one of the bulkheads blew out in another cloud of silent fire. Pieces detached and drifted slowly towards the blue-green Earth below. It was so beautiful...

The Earth rolled slowly away from him, and he became conscious of another, far greater radiance. Ecco's remaining senses were beginning to fade now, but he could still see. His eyes filled with hot whiteness. He was floating towards a globe of white fire that hung in the darkness like the lantern of an unimaginably huge angler-fish. For a moment, he even thought that he saw the bristling needle-jaws and gigantic round eyes, above and below it.

So this is the truth, he thought sleepily to himself. He was almost comfortable now. The Sea of Stars... it is nothing more than a sea. And I'm a mote, a tiny little scrap of life floating through it.

Darkness crept over his vision. His eyes began to close of their own accord. There was a trail of crimson ice behind him now, though the Asterite's power was still strong around his body, protecting him from the freezing vacuum.

Momentarily Ecco was conscious of a flash of movement on either side, and dreamily thought he saw long white bodies speeding towards him through the Sea of Stars, or heard the soft, eerily beautiful voices of dolphins.

Then, all was gone.