This is a fan translation of Dark Skies (Тёмныенебеса) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the fourth book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).

I claim no rights to the contents herein.


Chapter 21

Junior Adviser Patta

Waiting was agonizing to humans. The time seemed wasted, crossed out from life, for life was the most valuable think to humans, an adventure that would never be repeated. Humans genuinely believed that its every moment, every second had to bring joy or sorrow, new images, new impressions, or even the kind of utility that could be extracted from lectures and scientific folios. If their lives were monotonous, lacking in novelty, and passed among Martian deserts, Venusian volcanoes, or in the safety and boredom of terrestrial megalopolises, they knew how to add some variety to it: they had books and entertainment, food and drink, pleasures of the spirit and the flesh, all the fictions, all the fantasies that had been thought up by humankind since the times of the Pyramids.

But waiting did not bother the Dromi. Their life was service, and the younger ones were used to waiting for orders from their elders, their elders waited for elders of their own, and so forth, up to the venerated progenitor, who had also once been young and remembered what waiting was like. They were able to wait for as long as necessary, without exhibiting impatience and remaining motionless, in order to preserve their strength and to avoid wasting food or water.

Patta waited. He waited for the Hossi-moa, who had established contact with him, to come and do as he had promised. The phase of his life where he was a Sinn-ko, a Zong-tii, Tihava's pupil and emissary, had ended, like a thought to which nothing more could be added, and something else awaited him, an existence in the world of the humans and the Twice-Splinters. Lacking in imagination, Patta had trouble picturing it, so he didn't bother thinking and dreaming, he simply sat against the wall in the dark and warm compartment and recalled his mentor's tales.

Tihava had said that the Grir-vatura-ono, the Life-Changers, had places on three or four planets in the Lo'ona Aeo sector, and that these worlds were rich in vegetation, water, and sunlight. They had cold and warm areas, they had fresh and salt water, and they had plenty of creatures, wild and not always harmless, which lived on land and in the ocean. According to Tihava, their homeworld of Fytarla-Ata had been like that in the distant past, before the Dromi multiplied and consumed all its non-thinking creatures. As for the Twice-Splinters, they, based on Tihava's words, were not a clan and lived differently than the rest of the Dromi: they were not led by a Patriarch, and there was no division among them other than old and young. The elders taught the young and forbade them from using their teeth and claws, and each Hallaha was under constant observation. There was plenty of food and water, as the elders did not reproduce more than necessary, and their total number was determined by their agreement with the humans and the Servs of the Secretive Ones. Each elder, who possessed a mind, could ask them anything he wanted and answer their questions, for the Serves were teaching the Dromi and the humans a common language.

How had Tihava known that? It was as much a mystery as his mentor's origins, his strange ideas, and unexplainable knowledge. Reflecting on that, Patta was approaching the thought that Tihava himself was a Twice-Splinter, who had come to Fytarla-Ata from the worlds of the Lo'ona Aeo. It was consoling for Patta to think that: if it was possible to travel from the Secretive Ones to the sector of the Clans, then, obviously, the path in the other direction was also open. Perhaps, when his mentor had been a Sinn-ko, he was specifically prepared to infiltrate the ruling clan, hoping that, in time, he would become a Patriarch or, at least, a Sidura-zong… maybe other tribes had their own Tihavas and dozens, hundreds of their pupils… maybe the Twice-Splinters wanted to change the entire life of their race, and war was a convenient pretext for such a change… Perhaps! While there was no way for Patta to test his theory, he was not impatient, figuring that his splintered brethren would know the answers to all of his questions.

The most remarkable thing in Tihava's tales was the lack of strong authority among the Twice-Splinters, embodied in the persona of a progenitor. For a Sinn-ko, or, for that matter, for the older members of a clan, such a situation was incomprehensible, unbearable even. The progenitor's step-by-step development of the mind and life extension beyond the natural limits led to the idea of him being a higher being, one almost equal to the Thought Giver. Respect for and obedience to the Patriarch, present on the genetic level, were the kernel, without which the structure of a clan would have fallen apart, and stringent order would have been replaced by chaos. Every Dromi required guidance, both simple and complex instructions, depending on the age and rank, or, at least, the thought that such instructions could be received. Patta also experienced this need, the only difference being that, to him, Tihava was the highest authority. This substitution was his salvation, for his mentor, unlike the Patriarchs, was wise and patient. Humans would call him kind, but the Dromi lacked such a concept.

Imperceptibly, Patta fell into a dozing trance. The stream of thought did not, however, end, except he was no longer recollecting Tihava's stories but thinking of what was happening at Ho just then. If the Patriarch was dead, then none of the Splinters' advantages, none of their strength and might mattered anymore; maybe there were fewer Hossi-moa, but they would be able to destroy the clan. Patta imagined uncontrollable crowds of Sinn-ko rushing about under the sky of the Cold World, broken combat vehicles, collapsed masts with emitters, ruins in place of buildings… Without interrupting his dozing, he scratched his shoulder with a claw, sacrificing a drop of blood to the Thought Giver. The recognition of fulfilled duty was as pleasant as the warmth coming from the walls.

The war was already lost on this world.