Starship Spring by Eric Brown Page A

since the day of the encounter with the Skeath, and as if in tacit agreement we had refrained from pressing her with questions relating to her involvement in the affair.
    Matt wandered from the villa like a man in a daze. He was staring down at a softscreen, eyes wide as he read.
    He dropped into a lounger beside mine and passed me the screen. “Well,” he announced. “News just in from Kallash, Antares… The entrepreneur and patron of the arts Dr Petronious… he’s been found dead in his penthouse suite in the capital. Took his own life, according to the report.”
    I stared at the moving picture of Petronious opening some cultural event on his planet, filmed just days before his suicide. The report contained no more than Matt had already precised.
    “I hope that doesn’t affect his purchase of your art, Matt,” Hannah said.
    “All that was completed weeks ago. His Foundation will continue with the exhibitions.” He looked up. “I’ve been thinking about the money, anyway—even before all this blew up. I was thinking of donating most of it to some scheme to assist novice artists. I couldn’t keep what he paid me, after what happened.”
    Kee stood up quickly and I became aware of a sudden charge in the air, as at the approach of a thunderstorm… which was absurd: the sun shone unremittingly; the temperature was in the high twenties.
    We all looked around, aware at the same time of movement in the forest that enclosed the pool area on three sides. I caught glimpses of fleet bodies there, glimpsed the flash of observant eyes.
    “Attention!” Kee sang out, rigid now and staring into the air between us.
    Seconds later the air shimmered, and a faint figure took shape in the sunlight. The Yall apparition floated, regarding us.
    My heart began a laboured pounding. I wanted to gauge the reaction of my friends, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from the spectre.
    “This will be the last time we will come to you, my friends,” the Yall began. “The galaxy has the Golden Columns, but more importantly, the galaxy is no longer threatened by the evil of the Skeath. I—we—thank you for your assistance once again.”
    Matt managed a question, “You knew this… the awakening of the Skeath… would occur one day?”
    “We knew of the danger of its happening, yes. For millennia after what we thought was our final battle with the Skeath, we searched for their remnants. My people, the Yall, became withdrawn. We left behind us the way of technology; we inhabited planets across the galaxy, this one included, and took to the forests. We adapted ourselves genetically to suit conditions here: over time we changed, devolved, you could say. Only a thousand years ago was the retreat of the Skeath discovered on Chalcedony.
    “Then we began the search for the key that would bring the army back to terrible life… But only when the Antarian, Dr Petronious, travelled here with the cone, did the Ashentay Elders understand.”
    Matt said, “Petronious was a Skeath?”
    The apparition gestured. “He was Antarian, but he knew the legend of the Skeath, and on behalf of his government he worked to bring the Skeath battalions from hibernation and, perhaps he dreamed of one day using their might on behalf of his planet. Little did he understand their evil; that they would fight for no one but themselves.”
    I said, “And where are they now, the Skeath battalions?”
    “We are not a violent people. We did not punish the Skeath with death. We merely banished them, without their ships or weapons, to a distant world where they will bother no one ever again. And the location of that planet shall remain a secret.”
    I noticed Kee then. She was kneeling before the spectral Yall, her head bowed as if in supplication, and something the ghost had said returned to me.
    “You said… you said that your people inhabited planets across the galaxy, including this one, and that you devolved…”
    “Devolved”, said the figure, “is a cruel word.