The Span of Empire: Chapter Ten

    A starship appeared in the depths of the sun. Slowly it clawed its way from the plasma, through the corona, out into empty space.

    Third-Mordent almost cringed. The dissonance! What had occurred here? Descant-at-the-Fourth had built such strong harmony in this system, and now it was gone, replaced by dissonance that shrieked. What had happened?

    Slowly the small Ekhat ship moved away from the sun, slave crew lashed by Third-Mordent’s tongue and not infrequently directed by blows. Bit by bit they gathered information: no active ships in the system, large debris fields where none existed before, ship fragments slowly spinning through space.

    Third-Mordent almost broke when they found the wreckage of the World Harvester. To know that Descant-at-the-Fourth, one of her own collateral ancestors, was gone . . . it almost put her own song away.

    Then they discovered the planet.

    Ekhat do not pale, or blanch. But Third-Mordent’s tegument lost sheen; so much so that the next-highest Ekhat on the ship sang a query.

    Third-Mordent’s response was slow in coming.

    “We return. This account must be taken to our harmony masters.”

    For once her song was quiet. “Someone has dared to break our harmony. There will be a price for this.”

    Soon the Ekhat ship left the system.

    Dead ships still floated in space. Wisps of rarefied atmosphere touched lightly on rubble on a dead planet.