The three Klikiss robots silently absorbed the green priest’s words. But Sirix and his two companions made no comment at all.

101: JESS TAMBLYN

101JESS TAMBLYN

Jess returned to Golgen, alone, to watch the personal holocaust he had set in motion. He didn’t expect to feel any smugness or joy, but he hoped for a sense of closure at least… or satisfaction. Accomplishment. Triumph. Release?

Back in his family’s ice-mining facilities, Jess maintained a careful map with programmed dots that displayed the courses of each plunging comet he and his Roamer engineers had shoved out of a stable orbit. As the celestial missiles careened toward the gas giant, Jess knew that Golgen would soon become far more than his brother’s grave.

Bram Tamblyn had trained his Plumas foremen well. The pumps that brought water through the ice sheath to the surface wellheads operated so efficiently that Jess had little to do. His old father had kept himself busy by micromanaging his employees, maintaining a careful watch on their every activity. Jess preferred to trust the workers and let them do their jobs while he planned his revenge.

The anxious Roamers had called three more clan gatherings. Jess had attended every one and stayed on the sidelines, knowing that his comets were on their way. During the inevitable shouting matches, he kept his own counsel, sitting back in the group and watching the old Speaker struggle to lead the clans.

At least he was doing something.

While other family heads discussed politics and emergency measures, Jess observed Cesca, devouring the sight of her like a starving man, watching her every move, catching a flash of her dark eyes. Someday, Cesca. Someday we can be together. We will have our time… but right now, these months without you, waiting for you, seem to last forever.

Now his small ship hovered close enough to Golgen that he could observe the storms across its churning face. He thought of the other times he had been here, he and Ross together on the Blue Sky Mine, looking down into the clouds. Back then, his older brother had thought that his greatest danger was missing a debt payment. But those alien murderers had chosen him, had destroyed a cloud-harvester that had harmed no one.

And now they would regret it.

With grim fascination, Jess watched the first enormous comet riding downward, caught within Golgen’s gravitational pull. Surrounded by a grayish white halo of evaporating gases, the largest comet somehow seemed silent and motionless against the stars, but Jess knew it was hurtling at incredible speed, a bullet already aimed. Unstoppable. According to his calculations, the impact would occur within hours.

A beginning.

The changed trajectory and gravitational stresses had fractured the gigantic ball of ice and rock. Mountain-sized shards spread out in a line of frozen cannonballs, each one with enough force and momentum to deliver a blow equivalent to a thousand atomic bombs.