McKinney, Jack (Brian Daley & James Luceno) - Robotech 18 - The End of the Circle

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Robotech: The End of the Circle

Book 18 of the Robotech Series

FOREWORD

The publication of The End of the Circle, the eighteenth book of the series,

concludes the Robotech saga. The story now spans five decades, from 1990 to

2040 or thereabouts, save for a period of "lost years," covering the rise of

Mon-ument City and the Army of the Southern Cross, an account of which may yet

see the light of day. Some of this material is in fact already being covered

by other sources.

With nearly one million words of print in the Ballantine/Del Rey series

alone, eighty-five episodes of powerful ani-mation, an equal number of comic

book adaptations, numerous art and role-playing books, and supplemental source

material—including several college theses—it should be clear that Robotech has

traveled a great distance since "HAL," Haruhiko Mikimoto, sat down at his desk

one day and inked the first sketch of raven-haired songbird, Lynn-Minmei.

As most readers of Robotech are aware, the eighty-five "continuous"

animated episodes (which still show up in U.S. television markets) were

actually a complete reworking—in terms of music, dialogue, and storylines—of

three separate anime series that appeared in Japan over the course of several

years: Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeda. Credit for this unique

accomplishment goes to Carl Macek, as well as Harmony Gold U.S.A. Inc.

Together with a talented team of writers, voice-over artists, and production

personnel, Robo-tech Master Macek found an overall grand visual theme in the

Japanese series and redefined both Robotechnology and Protoculture.

It is a source of continuing disappointment that the project, as

envisioned by Mr. Macek, was never brought to completion. The result would

have been an additional sixty-five ep-isodes of animation detailing the

exploits of the Sentinels, and who knows how many more devoted to the material

cov-ered in this final book, presented here for the first time.

But perhaps Robotech's most important contributors have been the fans

themselves, who have kept this project vital for five years running. More than

seventy thousand strong have been aided and abetted in their efforts by the

following, to whom the author wishes to express his heartfelt gratitude:

Comico Comics, especially Markalan Joplin, who died shortly before completion

of the illustrated series; Eternity-Comics, which has inherited the mantle and

is currently pub-lishing twice-monthly issues of the Sentinels; Kevin Siem-

bieda and the staff at Palladium Books for their role-playing games; Kay

Reynolds and Ardith Carlton, creators of the Starblaze Robotech Art Books;

Kevin Seymour of Books Nippan; and a special thanks to Claude Pelletier,

Michel Gareau, Alain Dubreuil, and the staff at Protoculture Addicts, the

official Robotech fanzine.

We should all do it again sometime.

PART I

WHEEL IN SPACE

CHAPTER ONE

"Beware the skies, for the cerulean raiments of that sweetscented realm mask a

darkness and evil that know no bounds. And do not look to heaven for peace,

for there resides hell. And beware all who descend from those skies, for they

are the harbingers of death and destruction."

Dogma of the Church of Recurrent Tragedy as quoted in Weverka T'su's

Aftermath: Geopolitical and Religious Movements in the Southlands

The starship Ark Angel hung in geosynch, 36,000 kilometers above Brazilas in

the Southlands. Recently returned from a distant campaign, it alone had been

spared the wrath of the Invid's transubstantiating departure, one ship among

scores in that moment of victorious defeat.

Scott Bernard had yet to decide whether its survival constituted a curse

or a blessing.

He could just make out the warship's underbelly through a small oblong

viewport set high' up in the curved hull of the chemical shuttle's passenger

cabin. A soft-soled boot, freefloating, drew his attention forward, and he

watched it for a moment, thinking: Weightless. Hugged to the padded contours

of an acceleration couch by web belts and Velcro straps, as if on some

nostalgia-steeped theme park ride.

Although restrained might have been a better word to describe his

present circumstance, as in temporarily prevented from doing harm to himself

or others. Not that he would. But there were half a dozen G2 analysts

planetside who thought differently.

Scott sniggered aloud, unperturbed by the curious glances his self-

amusement had elicited. He returned the looks with interest until one by one

each of his fellow passengers in the cramped cabinspace turned away.

Oh, he had it, all right: what Rand had once called the look of the

lost.

Scott inclined his head to one side to get a better angle on the ship,

her dark symmetry obscuring a narrow sweep of stars. Built and christened on

the other side of the Quadrant, she was the very ship Colonel Wolff had

pirated from Tirol orbit years before. The ship that had become the Sentinels'

own.

Running lights illuminated an array of weapons and sensor ports dimpling

her underside-retrofitted sometime during the three years since Scott had last

seen her-along with a swath of heavily blistered alloy, where angry tendrils

loosed from the Invid's mindstuff phoenix had brushed her just three months

before. She rested alone in gravity anchor, save for the countless metal

fragments that drifted above and below her: the lingering debris clouds of

Dolza's fleet; of Little Luna, the Zentraedi factory satellite; of the

hapless, goosenecked ships of Mars, Venus, and Jupiter Divisions; of the

Robotech Expeditionary Force's tri-thrusters and Karbarran manufactured

boilerlike monstrosities.

Earth was in fact haloed by death and destruction. But liberated-or so

it seemed.

A Tiresian-accented voice cautiously interrupted Scott's painful

reverie.

"Colonel Bernard," the woman repeated as Scott turned from the view. She

stood wavering in the narrow aisle, Velcroed in place, strands of auburn hair

wafting out from under a pearl-gray shuttle bonnet. The smile, too, seemed

fastened there, detachable with the slightest tug.

"What is it?" Scott asked, masking his thoughts.

"Sir, General Grant wishes you to be informed that he'll be on hand to

meet the shuttle. Mrs. Grant and Senators Huxley and Penn are with him, sir."

Scott nodded and put on a pleasant face, certain it read as a twisted

malicious grin. But the woman only broadened her smile in response and asked

if there was anything he needed before docking. He told her he was fine and

leaned over to watch her space-step down the aisle, a child learning to walk.

So much to relearn, he told himself. So much to forget.

The chemical shuttle itself was symbolic of the change. Launched from a

twenty-five-year-old reconstructed base in Venezuela Nueva, the ferry and a

handful of others like it were humankind's only existing links with near

space. There was the Angel, of course, but she had remained in geosynch ever

since the disastrous finale to the assault on Reflex Point, the Invid queen's

hivelike stronghold on the North American continent. Word had it that a small

portion of the REF's mecha-Alphas and Shadow fighters, principally-was still

functioning, but most of the older generation Cyclones and Veritechs had

simply given up the ghost.

No one knew what to make of the events that had occurred at Reflex

Point. In the wake of the Invid departure all sorts of reports had reached

Scott and his team of freedom fighters. The REF fleet had been destroyed; it

had survived. The Invid had exited the solar system; the Regis had relocated

her horde in the Southlands. The SDF-3 had been destroyed; it had manifested

from fold and been swallowed up by the Invid phoenix; it had failed to appear

at all . . . Eventually, Scott learned that the fleet had indeed been

vaporized and that the flagship had failed to emerge from hyperspace. He had

not bothered to wait around for verification. With an assist from Lunk and

Rand, he had managed to commandeer and make serviceable an anni-disc-ravaged

Beta, only to find that the VT was not much good outside the envelope and that

the Ark Angel had removed herself to stationary orbit over the Southlands.

It had begun to make sense after the initial anger and disappointment

had washed through him. Much of the northern hemisphere was devastated, and

where else would reconstruction commence but in the south, where several

cities had actually flourished during the occupation. Norristown, once the

site of a Protoculture storage facility, was fast emerging as the leader of

the pack, and it was there that Scott had ultimately set down. Like a fly on

lacquered paper. Mired in red tape for close to two months before Provisional

Command had okayed his request to be among those shuttled up to the starship.

The question he had heard most often those two months had been: "Scott

who?"

It seemed that Mars and Jupiter Divisions were filed away in Command's

mainframe as having gone down with all hands, and so the person claiming to be

Lieutenant Scott Bernard of the 21st Squadron, Mars Division, had to be a

ghost, a zone loonie, or an ambulatory case of what the neurometrics were

calling Post-Engagement Synaptic Trauma-PEST, for short.

Ask Dr. Lang about Scott Bernard, he had pressed. I'm his godson, for

chrissake!

Only to hear: "We're sorry, er, Lieutenant Bernard, but Doctor Lang is

not available at this time."

Later, Scott would learn that his godfather and mentor had been aboard

the ill-fated SDF-3 when it had jumped from Tirol. But in the meantime he

suggested that Captain Harrington might be able to vouch for him. Harrington

had commanded the first wave of Cyclone ground teams the REF had directed

against Reflex Point.

After all, it wasn't like he was asking for medals, Scott had assured

the analysts. But the least Command could do was acknowledge what he had

achieved on the yearlong road to Reflex Point or applaud his one-on-one with

the Invid Corg in the seasonally shifting skies above the hive cluster. Why,

some of Harrington's team had even seen the Invid simulagent's flame cloud,

had even seen Scott go into the central dome!

He was sorry he said it even before the words had left his lips.

"Now, uh, what was that you were saying about talking to the Regis,

Lieutenant?" the boys from G2 had asked. "You did say something about her

being, let me see here, `a bald-headed column of light twenty feet high.'"

And so he had played the PEST for them, steering clear of any mention of

Marlene or Sera or any of the mind-boggling time-space displacements he'd

experienced inside the hive chambers.

In retrospect, he had to ask himself whether pulling out all the stops

would have brought the med teams' debriefing reports to Jean Grant's attention

any sooner, but they had reached her on their own momentum in any case, and

Scott had finally been granted permission to come aboard.

And issued a battlefield commission to full bird, to boot.

For Scott it was something else to snigger at: a promotion, in an armed

force without ships or soldiers, defenders and liberators of a world that

wanted little part of them even now.

The shuttle docked in one of Ark Angel's starboard bays just as Sol was

flooding the eastern coast of the Southlands with morning light. Scott drank

in the view that had been denied him when Mars Division had approached a year

earlier: Earth's characteristic clouds and swirling weather fronts, its deep-

blue water oceans and healing landscape. And for the first time in years he

found himself thinking about Base Gloval, his father's forefinger thrust

upward into the Martian night, pinpointing a homeworld. Huddled afterward in

the prewarmed comfort of his sleep compartment, he would grapple with the

notion-that faint light, a home. But even after his family had been

transferred to the factory satellite to work on the SDF-3, Scott could not

regard Earth as such. And he had so few memories of those years that he called

Tirol home now and perhaps always would.

Only a week ago he had learned that his parents were still there.

The memories surrendered to more recent recollections as Scott and the

rest of the shuttle's privileged boarded a transfer vehicle that ferried them

into the ship proper, Ark Angel's artificial gravity settling on him like

oppression itself. Nearly every component of the ship was different from what

he remembered, from the illumination grids that checkered the holds to the

persistent foot-tingling basso of the dreadnought's internal systemry.

He soon caught sight of Vince Grant, towering walnut-brown and square-

shouldered over a small gathering of civilians and military personnel

bottlenecked at the arrival hold's security gate. There were hands in the air,

salutes, a welter of voices that brought to mind vid-scenes of turn-of-

the-century airport arrivals, and it was obvious to Scott all at once that the

REF was as altered as the Angel herself. He sensed something cool but

determined in the ship's slightly sour air, a single-mindedness at work he had

not experienced since Tiresia.

A male aide appeared out of the crowd to escort him through security,

and a moment later he stood facing the Grants and the two Plenipotentiary

Council senators. "Colonel Bernard, reporting as ordered," Scott said with a

crisp salute. "Permission to come aboard, sir?"

"Granted," Vince returned, working the muscles of his massive jaw into a

tight-kipped smile. "Welcome home, Scott. "

"Oh, Scott," Jean said, rushing forward to embrace him. "God, let me

look at you."

He took a step back to allow for just that, extending a hand at the same

time to Justine Huxley, then Dr. Penn. Vince and Jean were outfitted in

modified REF uniforms, collarless now but with flared shoulders and simleather

torso harnesses retained. The senators wore loose-fitting jumpsuits of a

design that had originated on Garuda.

"Good to see you, my boy," Penn said with paternal sincerity. "I only

wish Emil and Karen could be here with us." There was no mention of Karen's

lover, Jack Baker; certainly there was no love lost between Dr. Penn and

Baker, in any case. Karen, like Bowie Grant, had elected to ship out aboard

the SDF-3. Let them all have better luck than Marlene and I had, Scott

thought. Even if that means dying together. The scientist's words had thrown a

curtain of silence around the five of them, a spot of stasis amid the bustling

activity in the hold. "Is there any word?" Scott asked, hoping to break the

spell.

Jean shook her head, her dark honey complexion paled by the exchange.

Her hair was pulled back into a tight chignon, imparting a touch of severity

to what was normally the warmest of faces. "We've received some garbled

subtrans from Tirol. The ship folded soon after Rheinhardt and the others were

away. There's been no word from the SDF-3 since. "

"I think we should have this discussion elsewhere," Vince said with a

hint of suggestion in his voice. "We all have a lot of catching up to do. "

"Colonel," Huxley said before everyone set off, "I do want to apologize

for this somewhat subdued welcome." She gestured around the hold with a

quivering, aged-hand. "As you can well imagine, we've all been trying to

adjust to the loss of our friends and compatriots."

Scott could see that she was referring to the destruction of the fleet

rather than the presumed loss of the SDF-3. "I understand, Senator," he told

her. "No need for apologies."

"Besides, Colonel," Huxley continued after a deep breath, "what with the

Council trying to set up summits with our planetside counterparts and Jean's

medical teams doing what they can . . . Well, I'm certain you do understand,

Colonel Bernard."

Scott did not envy either group but thought it might be particularly

rough going for the Council itself. To the last they had been respected

members of the United Earth Government. But that was before the ascendancy of

the Army of the Southern Cross, the arrival of the Robotech Masters and the

Invid, and the factionalism and isolationalism that had thrived during the

occupation. Those would-be leaders below barely trusted their neighbors, let

alone a council of lawmakers and theoreticians absent for fifteen years. Scott

was not sure whether Huxley, Penn, and the rest had grasped the fact that

Earth was a changed world.

Scott found Vince Grant studying him when he looked up. "I know the

promotion might not seem like much, Scott, but we haven't gotten around to

honoring individual effort just yet."

Scott was taken aback. "Excuse me, sir, but if you're talking about

medals or citations-"

"You've certainly earned them, Scott," Jean said hurriedly, glancing up

at Vince before showing Scott an uncomfortable look. "We just want you to

know-"

Scott held up his hands to stop her from saying anything further. It was

a sham, and everyone knew it-or at least they should have. There were no

heroes this go-round, Scott said to himself, as he had so often the past three

months. No matter who had done what at Reflex Point or anywhere on either side

of the envelope.

There were only survivors.

CHAPTER TWO

There isn't a man or woman aboard the [Ark Angel] that wasn't thinking about

the SDF-1 when Dr. Penn announced our intention to make a trial jump to the

moon. But do we have a choice? Doesn't it make more sense to strand the ship a

safe distance from Earth rather than strand her in Martian orbit as some have

suggested out of sheer superstitious fear of repeated misfortune? All this, of

course, presupposes that the fold generators will fail, which I am inclined to

believe will not be the case. As for our inadvertently ending up near Pluto or

some such celestial locale, I can only pray that doesn't occur. Should it,

however, I might as well state now that I have always regretted missing the

jump that landed Claudia and the rest at the frozen edge of our home system.

Perhaps I'm bound by destiny to follow her now.

General Vincent Grant, ship's log of the Ark Angel

See you on the dark side of the moon.

Late twentieth-century song lyric

Jean Grant purposely fell out of step with Vince and the two senators so that

she might observe Scott without setting him off as she had almost done in the

arrival hold. Her sentiments had been sincere if awkwardly expressed. She was

not unaware of the meaninglessness of promotions and medals at this stage of

things-she had always held that battles were better forgotten than

immortalized by ribbons, in any case-but gestures were important for morale,

even of the salute and handshake variety favored by armies the Quadrant over.

And God knew morale was in short supply just now.

She took note of the slight limp in Scott's long-legged stride as Vince

led everyone to his personal quarters aft of the Ark Angel's bridge. Up close,

when she had felt Scott stiffen in her short-lived embrace, she had seen the

scars on his still youthful face and graceful hands. Nineteen now-or

twenty-six in Earth-relative years (a system she readily dismissed because of

the havoc it wreaked on her own age)-he was growing to resemble his father

more and more. But from beneath the broad forehead and slick black hair peered

the dreamy eyes of his mother. He had her prominent ears as well, but the limp

and the stoop in his formerly erect carriage were gifts of a war that refused

to go away.

REF staffers and administrative officers stared openly as they hurried

through the ship's corridors, trying no doubt to puzzle out the identity of

the stranger who had been admitted into their midst, the undernourished

apparition in rust-red knee boots and tattered mauve and purple flightsuit

adorned with Mars Division unit patches. The scarred warrior wearing an

archaic Badger on his hip.

Jean listened closely to Scott's words as everyone settled themselves

behind drinks in Vince's quarters. And she heard the strange accent he had

acquired during his time on Earth, the bitterness in his breaking voice when

he recounted the Mars Division's assault against Invid-occupied Earth-how the

ships had literally come apart in space, defeated long before the Regis's

Shock Troopers and Pincers had moved in to loose their hyphenstorms, their

fiery coup de grace.

Scott told them about the long road to Reflex Point, a journey that

seemed to have become something of a personal odyssey to despair and

disillusionment. Of the rogues, traitors, and cowards who populated that war-

torn landscape. Of his encounters with Jonathan Wolff (Scott's template for

cynicism, Jean thought), with the geriatric star-struck mechamorphs who had

returned with Major Carpenter; and with Sue Graham of the Jupiter Division's

36th. Jean remembered the photojournalist well and the agony, real or

imagined, she had put Lisa Hayes Hunter through.

Her ears pricked up when Scott mentioned Reflex Point itself and spoke

of some of the things he had described to neurometric analysts planetside. She

saw no reason to doubt the veracity of Scott's claims-that he had actually

conversed with the Invid hivequeen-but she also sensed that Scott was leaving

something unsaid. G2 had tried to put a trace on the freedom fighters Scott

claimed had accompanied him inside the complex, but a search had proved

impossible among the population displacements and shifting conditions below.

In turn, Vince caught Scott up on the incredible events that had

transpired on Optera shortly after Mars Division had folded for home space.

Scott was attentive, but it was apparent that he had already-heard most of it

from REF mecha pilots. Nevertheless, he had questions about Dana Sterling's

nearly miraculous appearance and the so-called Nichols drive that powered the

Shadow fighters and retrofitted Ark Angel.

Jean waited for a lull in the shop talk before attempting to return the

conversation to personal concerns. She had risen from her chair to gaze out

the viewport, mesmerized by the scintillating dance of Earth's orbiting

debris. Of late, every viewport in the ship seemed to be a window into her

private torment. She could not regard Earth or stars without recalling the

phoenix vision she had beheld when the Tokugawa had met its terrible end above

Optera or the real-time manifestation of that phoenix as it had scorched its

way through the expeditionary fleet.

Nor could she help thinking of Gardner and Ackerman and Gunther

Rheinhardt, all dead. And Rolf Emerson-dear Rolf, who had died in Bowie's

arms. The news of his death had seemed unreal on Tirol, but now, so close ...

"We were so sorry to hear about Marlene, Scott," she said at last.

By sheer reflex, Scott's hand went to his breast to feel for the heart-

shaped holo-locket he wore under his flightsuit. "Her parents are onboard,"

Jean added.

Scott nodded grimly. "And I'm sorry to hear about Bowie," he said,

meeting her eyes.

Jean saw concern and hatred in those eyes-hatred for Musica, the

Tiresian clone Bowie was in love with. Jean saw little purpose in going into

it now that Scott was exhibiting signs of outright xenophobia. She wondered

whether Dana, too, would fall prey to his distrust. Dana, who had remained

with her parents on Haydon IV.

"We'll find them," Scott said suddenly, watching as meaningful glances

were exchanged. Then: "All right, what aren't you people telling me? You said

you received transmissions from Tirol."

"From Cabell," Vince answered, setting aside his drink. "But it's only

what we've told you, Scott. The SDF-3 executed its fold shortly after

Rheinhardt's Neptune and Saturn groups were away. Rheinhardt's final

communique with Admiral Hunter-"

"Rick," Jean thought to point out.

"-involved decisions on deployment of the Cyclones and Shadow fighters."

Vince paused. "And the use of the neutron `S' missiles if all else failed."

Scott's eyes widened. Then the rumors were true: Rheinhardt had been

prepared to render the planet uninhabitable rather than surrender it to the

Invid. "Madness, " he said through clenched teeth.

Vince looked to his wife and let out a long breath.

"It wasn't an easy decision to arrive at, Colonel," Senator Huxley said.

"There was a high probability that most of the Southern hemisphere would

survive the saturation."

Scott stared at her, then ran his hands down his face. "So where the

hell's the ship if they completed their fold? It's been three months now!"

"Easy, Scott," Vince said, straightening in his chair. "We're doing all

we can."

Scott glared at him. "By sitting here? No, I don't think so. Hasn't

anybody thought of returning to Tirol? There has to be some trace of them."

Dr. Penn cleared his throat. "The truth is, son, we're not sure we can

return. We are, however, planning to execute a trial jump to lay all doubts to

rest."

Scott nodded in comprehension. "The Protoculture. The one thing that's

plaguing most of the mecha downside. The reason I had to ride a damn chemical

shuttle up here. Nothing's working, is that it?"

"Yes and no," Penn said quickly. "Some of the Veritechs are functional

and fully capable of mechamorphosis. Others have limited capacity for flight

or combat maneuvering. Now it this last is something I find disturbing."

Scott glanced at Vince before responding; if the general was willing to

let Penn's comment slide; so would he. "I heard some talk: there's something

different about the Flowers you harvested from Optera-"

"New Praxis," Justine Huxley amended.

"New Praxis, then. But why would the older models suddenly shut down

now?"

At the viewport, Jean folded her arms. "We were hoping you might be able

to tell us, Scott."

Scott touched his fingertips to his chest. "Me? What could I-" Then it

occurred to him. "The Regis," he snorted. "We've read your debriefing reports,

Colonel," Huxley said. "You claim you were inside the central hive just before

the end, that you actually spoke with the Regis."

Scott swallowed and found his voice. "Yeah, it's true, but come on, it's

not like she explained herself to me."

"Then what did she say?" Jean asked.

Scott smoothed back an undisciplined comma of hair. "What did she say?"

He laughed nervously. "I'm still not sure what I heard and what I imagined.

But I think we were, well, arguing."

"Arguing?" Huxley said dubiously.

"Yeah. About ... ethics. About whether the Invid had a right to Earth

after what the Masters had done to Optera." Scott searched the faces

appraising him. "It sounds crazy, I know, but she was just raving about what

warlike beings we are, about how the universe would be better off without us."

No one said anything for a moment.

"Anyway, I still don't see what all this has to do with the SDF-3. The

Invid are history, aren't they?"

Jean turned to the viewport and thought of the phoenix once more, the

transubstantiation of an entire race. "Maybe the ship went where she went,"

she suggested softly. Vince sent her a questioning look as she swung around.

"The Regis, I mean."

Penn made a knowing sound. "It's a pity there are no Invid left to quiz

as to just where she might have gone."

Scott put a hand over his mouth as though to bite back his words.

Somewhere below, in one of the burgeoning cities of the Southlands or

wandering the waste of the Northlands, were two of the three children the

Regis had conjugated in human form. Sera and Marlene-clone-close in appearance

to the Marlene lost to him over a year ago.

Could he face them again? he asked himself. Could he enlist the enemy's

help in finding his friends?

"What is it, Scott?" Jean said, watching him.

Scott clamped his jaws shut, then relented. "Not all the Invid have

left," he told them at last.

Above them rose crystal palaces and translucent spires, mansions of

white-frost gingerbread and platforms of smoky blue glass, elfin halls and

minarets, stately columns, onion domes, and ethereal towers.

Above them were alloy plains three hundred miles wide and burnished

smooth as a looking glass, idyllic landscapes dotted with sea-green lakes, and

skies of gold filled with conediers, hovercraft, and outsize magical carpets.

A dreamy world of perfect days and tranquil nights, of exotic biota and

Eliding beings in high-collared robes whose silent speech was a gentle thought

carried on the wind.

And below them . ._ . below them was that which had given shape to the

illusion above: the ultratech complexities of a planet-sized artifact, birthed

in the mind of an alien genius who had left his mark on half the far-flung

worlds of the Fourth Quadrant. A genius met in lore and legend or encountered

in towering shrines that masked the being himself.

He had perhaps imparted his name to the artifact or left that for others

to do, but that his very essence was there erected-in those spires and domes

and artificial lakes-was not to be denied.

And suspended between-in the boundless chamber that confined them-was

this place of instrumentality nodes and info-networks, the material interface

with the Awareness-Haydon had set in place to mind his clever works. So this

place was neither one nor the other but a middle ground from which to know

creator and created, sacrosanct, then, truly suspended. For from, where else

could one take the proper measure of things?

Exedore ceased his mystical musings even before he sensed the soft

intrusion of Veidt's sendings. This was what mingling with humans and Garudans

had wrought, he told himself, a penchant for the metaphysical. Questions

commencing with why.

How far he had come from the directed, purposeful nature of the

Imperative! he would catch himself thinking. Feeling as remote from that now

as his recontoured physical self was from the genetic vats that had conceived

him. Normalized in both size and aspect and drained of the conquering urge,

the compulsion to obey without question. Given to metaphysical ponderings. How

un-Zentraedi, indeed! And how Great Breetai would have mocked him!

"A moment more and the requested correlations will be available," Veidt

sent from the data column.

Exedore swiveled in his chair to regard the limbless Haydonite-his

partner these past years. A response formed on the tip of his tongue, though

there was little need of it. An old habit, difficult to break. "I, um . . ."

Veidt hovered through a quarter turn to face him with what nearly

approximated a smile.

"I am well aware that my workings please you, Lord Exedore. Your words

are an echo, you understand-an unnecessary redundancy."

Exedore favored him with a genuine grin, as difficult to suppress as the

habit itself. This was as close as they came to jesting or arguing, he still

was not sure which. Veidt's face had already resumed its normal configuration,

which was to say, blank. As featureless as an unfinished mannequin's, a tech

aboard the SDF-3 had once commented in Exedore's presence.

"Featureless, yes," Veidt sent, "but hardly unfinished, Exedore:"

Early on Exedore had found it somewhat unnerving to have his thoughts

scanned on a moment-to-moment basis, but he was long past concern or

misgiving. It was logical, in fact, that he open his mind to Veidt, if only to

expedite the unraveling of the cosmic puzzles someone had seen fit to send

their way.

And "baffling" only began to describe them.

The SDF-3 was missing, not merely disappeared into hyperspace but

vanished from the Quadrant. The ship had not emerged from fold anywhere in

known space, nor was it trapped in the netherscape of the hyperdomain. Haydon

IV's Awareness had told them that much already. But what the artificial

sentience could not tell them was where the ship was or whether it existed at

all. The SDF-3 had simply ceased to be, and yet there were no indications that

it had met with any of the thousand ills matter was heir to.

That the dematerialization had coincided with a reawakening of a myriad

slumbering computer components, Exedore initially read as a sign that the

artifact planet had been in some sense, responsible for the event. Subsequent

investigation, however, had led him to the conclusion that the Awareness had

not been responding to the SDF-3's plight, after all, but to a concurrent

phenomenon that had taken place clear across the Quadrant:

Along a spacetime curve that led to Earth.

Something originating there had sent an energy pulse through the fabric

of the continuum, whose destination seemed to be the distant collapsed giant

the Tiresians knew as Ranaath's Star.

Haydon-he has returned to our world! Veidt had sent at the time, and-

novice astrophysicist that he was-Exedore had taken him literally. But

literalness was not something the Haydonites practiced with regularity, and

the expression-for that was what it was-was best translated by the Terran

self-condemning phrase Well, I'll be damned!

The very one Exedore had used sometime later when he bad learned of the

Invid's departure-months ago, Earth-relative, after a series of mostly

interrupted exchanges between Earth and Tirol and between Tirol and Haydon IV.

Since then, the Awareness had been spewing out a steady stream of mathematical

calculations and puzzling data readers, conversing with itself on an

information level the likes of which Exedore had never encountered. Veidt had

been successful in eavesdropping on the Awareness's inner dialog and enticing

it to display some of its findings-in holographics, projecbeam, and the

occasional verbalization, remarkably enough, issued forth in fluent Tiresian

(linga franca). But little of it made any sense to Exedore, on whose shoulders

the search for the missing flagship had fallen. The Zentraedi could almost

smile, recalling Zor's original fortress, the SDF-1. He had been successful in

tracing that one, but that hardly qualified him as an expert in the field.

Cabell had promised to tear himself away from Tiresia to join in plying

the Awareness with questions, but Exedore thought the coded outpourings might

outdistance even the master himself.

They needed Emil Lang or the Zor-clone, Rem, who had contributed so much

to the facsimile matrix fashioned by the REF to empower its fleet. They needed

the combined intellect of the SDF-3's Robotechnicians.

Better still, they needed Haydon. "My thought exactly, Lord Exedore."

Exedore chuckled to himself. "Yes, Veidt. The Earthers have a saying, I

believe. `Great minds think-'"

The chamber had begun to vibrate. That in itself was nothing unusual. In

fact, during the five years Exedore had been on-world he had known instances

where the vibrations were strong enough to rattle the alloy walls and rumble

data discs out of their holders. But the sudden tremor was more intense than

any he had experienced.

"Another atmospheric cleansing?" the Zentraedi asked in a quavering

voice. "A seasonal change? An internal overhaul, the upwelling of a new lake

or the damming of a stream-send something, will you!"

Veidt had glided back to his station by the central data pillar, his

high-collared cape a screen for projecbeam schematics, a dizzying light show

of flashing alphanumeric analogues and equational abstracts.

"An intruder, perhaps," Exedore continued, his stubby hands spread atop

leaping sheets of hard copy like some Ouija board reader. "An unannounced

ship-"

"I heard you," Veidt sent with a sting. "It is none of those things.

Something novel, unprecedented."

Exedore ceased his futile efforts to steady his work and with some

difficulty swiveled to regard the strobing databanks of the Awareness, data

scrolls and cards tattooing to the floor at his feet. The information traffic

displayed was enough to render the Invid leave-taking a minor itch.

"What is it, Veidt?" Exedore pressed, a note of alarm in his voice. A

deep-space view of Haydon IV advanced through the 3-D field of a projecbeam, a

variegated ball in time-lapse motion. "Veidt," he repeated.

"Primary activation sequences have commenced," the Haydonite sent with

curious detachment. "Atmospheric integrity is constant for the moment. Surface

damage is projected to be well within accepted parameters. Casualties among

offworlders are not expected to exceed a thousand."

"Casualties?" Exedore said; up on shaky legs, bulging eyes darting

between Veidt and the projecbeam field.

Veidt rotated to face him, a lavender brightness pulsating from the

center of his smooth forehead. "The crossing is achieved. The Event is

occurred. Praise Haydon."

Careful not to be too literal, Exedore reminded himself. Praise Haydon

could mean almost anything. "The Event?" he asked cautiously.

Veidt nodded. "Haydon IV is leaving orbit. Shortly, we will depart the

Briz'dziki system entirely."

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Robotech:TheEndoftheCircleBook18oftheRobotechSeriesCopyright1989byJackMcKinneyFOREWORDThepublicationofTheEndoftheCircle,theeighteenthbookoftheseries,concludestheRobotechsaga.Thestorynowspansfivedecades,from1990to2040orthereabouts,saveforaperiodof"lostyears,"coveringtheriseofMon-umentCityandtheArmyof...

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McKinney, Jack (Brian Daley & James Luceno) - Robotech 18 - The End of the Circle

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