A teenage girl and a small silver robot on a barren hilltop watch a river of giant yellow-and-black beetle-like aliens pour from a stone gateway in alien ruins toward a small colony. — Llaro, chapter one: days after they first appeared, the Klikiss are still pouring through the transportal, and Orli Covitz and DD watch from the hill.

The Saga of Seven Suns · Book VI · 2007

Metal Swarm

The hydrogues are beaten. Now the Klikiss come home, the robots they built want a world of their own, and Rusa’h is on fire.

Metal Swarm (2007) is the sixth of Kevin J. Anderson’s seven Saga of Seven Suns novels, and the first set after the hydrogue war has been won. It appeared first in Britain, from Simon & Schuster in July 2007, and that December in the United States from Orbit, the series’ new American house after five books with Warner Aspect. Like the books before it, it is a mosaic: 146 short chapters, each titled with its viewpoint character — thirty-four of them — between a “Story So Far” recap and a glossary.

With the hydrogues bottled up in their gas giants, the saga turns to the enemies left over. The Klikiss, the insect race whose empty cities humans have been excavating since Book I and settling since Book III, come home through their transportals. The black robots they built go looking for a world of their own. Rusa’h, fused with the faeros, begins burning his way toward the Mage-Imperator. And on Earth Chairman Basil Wenceslas, abandoned by his king and queen, invents a religion.

Sirix has the most chapters and Tasia Tamblyn the next most, but the book’s centre of gravity is Llaro, a colony suddenly inside a hive. It picks up days after Book V ends, and it closes with the Ildiran capital taken by fire, the Mage-Imperator a prisoner of the Hansa and the worldforest burning.

Movement 1

The Swarm on Llaro

Llaro was supposed to be a backwater. Hansa colonists under Mayor Ruis live beside the termite-mound ruins of a vanished race, and the EDF keeps Roamer detainees there under their spokesman Roberto Clarin, among them Nikko’s parents, Crim Tylar and Marla Chan. At the end of Book V the transportal in the ruins came alive. Metal Swarm opens days later, and still they come: an “unending swarm of giant, beetlelike Klikiss poured through the transportal on Llaro for days”.

Orli Covitz, the teenage survivor of the robots’ massacre on Corribus, here with old Hud Steinman, watches from a barren hill. With the swarm come DD, the Colicoses’ Friendly compy, and Margaret Colicos, who fled through the Rheindic Co transportal in Book I and has lived among the Klikiss ever since. Strangely haunted, she becomes the colonists’ interpreter. Asked whether the hive has a queen, she answers: “Not a queen — a breedex, neither male nor female.” The Klikiss’s primary enemies are the black robots they built. The subhive turns on the EDF guards, and with the transportal in Klikiss hands, nobody leaves. Davlin Lotze, the Hansa spy who faked his death to retire here, finds his retirement over.

Sirix, leader of the black robots, fled the battle of Earth with stolen EDF warships and the Soldier compies whose hidden programming turned the fleet against Earth. He keeps two wiped compies, PD and QT, as students, and corrects them primly: “Do not refer to me as Master. It is offensive.” For a home he picks Wollamor, a near-forgotten Klikiss outpost where he was persecuted thousands of years ago, now held by human colonists.

On Dobro the air still smells of burned flesh, and the heat still singes Daro’h’s skin. Rusa’h, the rebel Designate who flew into Hyrillka’s sun and merged with the faeros, has come back as a flaming avatar and incinerated Udru’h, whom he blames for his failure; glassy footprints and a blackened stain are all that is left. When Jora’h’s eldest noble-born son Daro’h, now Prime Designate, finds the courage to shout, Rusa’h steps out of the fire. He will leave now to “light other fuses”, and he has a warning for Daro’h’s father: “The false Mage-Imperator will be burned if he tries to stop me.”

The war’s survivors take stock. King Peter and the pregnant Queen Estarra, whom Basil had ordered to end the pregnancy, escaped Earth in the chaos of the battle with help from her sister Sarein, Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain, Captain McCammon and the old Teacher compy OX, and declared a Confederation on Theroc. Peter hands out posts (Cesca’s father, Denn Peroni, gets one) and wants green priests and telink on every Confederation world. Tasia Tamblyn and Robb Brindle, freed from the hydrogues, join him, though Robb’s father Conrad insists their duty is to the EDF. Asked about the Chairman, Peter turns cold: “Chairman Wenceslas is no longer a part of the legitimate government.”

Over Ildira, Adar Zan’nh is dismayed by how few warliners remain, but with the Hansa engineer Tabitha Huck’s help the Solar Navy rebuilds fast. Her haggard boss, Sullivan Gold, is still held there with his skyminers. Nira watches over Osira’h, only eight and still carrying the brainwashing Udru’h forced on her.

On Earth, Basil is isolated as colonies defect; he and Cain stand at the lip of the glassy crater that was the compy factory. He has General Lanyan rebuild the crippled EDF around its three remaining Juggernauts and calls on Lanyan and Admiral Sheila Willis to bring the breakaway colonies back. Nahton, the one green priest on Earth, is under house arrest in the Whisper Palace; Basil thinks he slants his reports. And Patrick Fitzpatrick III, a deserter now, roams the Roamer worlds in his grandmother’s space yacht, the Gypsy, looking for Zhett Kellum, who still resents him.

A grey-haired woman in dusty field clothes walks out of a crowd of giant yellow-and-black beetle-like aliens with a small silver robot beside her. — **VI · 1 Margaret Comes Back** Margaret Colicos, missing since she fled through the Rheindic Co transportal and left Louis to the black robots, walks back into human company with the swarm, DD at her side. She has lived among the Klikiss ever since and comes back strangely haunted, to become the colonists’ interpreter of the hive, its breedex, and its hatred of the robots its people built.

A young golden-haired alien nobleman stands on scorched black ground looking down at footprints melted into glass while a fireball recedes into the sky. — **VI · 2 Glassy Footprints** Dobro, moments after Udru’h’s death, the heat still singeing Daro’h’s skin. Rusa’h, merged with the faeros in Hyrillka’s sun, has come back as a flaming avatar and incinerated the Designate he blames for his failure. Daro’h, Jora’h’s eldest noble-born son and now Prime Designate, stares at the footprints the fire has melted into glass. Backing toward his burning ship, Rusa’h leaves a warning for Daro’h’s father: “The false Mage-Imperator will be burned if he tries to stop me.”

A hulking black beetle-shaped robot with red eyes raises a jointed limb over two small pale robots on a warship’s bridge. — **VI · 3 Sirix and His Students** Sirix, leader of the black Klikiss robots, got away from the battle of Earth with stolen EDF warships and the Soldier compies whose hidden programming turned the fleet against Earth. He has wiped two compies, PD and QT, to raise as his students, and they are firmly told not to call him Master. The lesson he has planned next is a planet: Wollamor.

A fair-haired young king and a pregnant queen with braided hair stand on a forest balcony while a big trader woman tousles a laughing pilot’s frizzy hair. — **VI · 4 A Court in the Trees** On Theroc, Peter and the pregnant Estarra, escaped from Earth in the chaos of the battle, build a government out of whoever came with them. Peter hands out posts, Cesca’s father Denn Peroni among the appointees, and wants green priests and telink on every Confederation world, while Rlinda Kett tousles BeBob’s frizzy grey-brown hair. The Confederation’s capital is a fungus city in the trees.

Movement 2

Makers and Machines

On Llaro, Klikiss workers tear the colony’s modular barracks to scrap and wall the people in. Davlin tests how far the barrier lets them go; his warning has already made the colonists hide their food, and with Mayor Ruis and Roberto Clarin he draws up maps and plans a defence. Margaret explains the hive’s logic: a breedex fissions, and subhives make war until only one breedex remains, controlling the whole race.

Sirix learns it the hard way. His robots take Wollamor from its colonists; then the transportal comes alive and a host of Klikiss march through. The Soldier compies throw themselves on the warriors and crack their exoskeletons until another wave pours in; PD and QT run in panic, and Sirix barely escapes with them, destroying the transportal behind him and falling back to Maratha, an Ildiran world where his robots are building a base.

The Ildirans strike back. Yazra’h and Adar Zan’nh set out to retake lost worlds, Maratha first, and Yazra’h talks Anton Colicos and Rememberer Vao’sh, who nearly died there when the robots took it, into coming to record it for the Saga of Seven Suns. The Solar Navy bombards the robots’ hive tunnels and half-built battleships, then lands to wipe out the last machines.

Rusa’h, meanwhile, learns what he has become. The faeros incarnate can spark new faeros by burning Ildiran souls, and on Dzelluria he finds it easy to cut the people off from the Mage-Imperator and reopen the thism web under his own control.

In the Prism Palace, Osira’h coaxes her half-siblings, Rod’h, Gale’nh, Tamo’l and Muree’n, to link their minds, while Tamo’l protests that they are just children. Kolker, the green priest long cut off from the worldforest, carries the prismatic medallion the dying lens kithman Tery’l gave him, and a lesson: “Tery’l taught me that telink isn’t as all-encompassing as I’d imagined.” He begins to experiment.

Basil closes Earth’s last window onto the worldforest: with a sound of disgust he has Captain McCammon take Nahton’s treeling away, and McCammon obeys, privately disagreeing. But Nahton has overheard talk of an invasion of Theroc. Sarein, McCammon and Cain secretly free him; he reaches a treeling locked in a greenhouse and sends a telink warning. Caught just after, he tries to surrender, and the Hansa guards gun him down. His helpers are not found out, and the warned Confederation scrambles to defend itself.

On Theroc the new government argues over what the green priests owe it, and Yarrod speaks for their reservations. Denn Peroni and Jess’s uncle Caleb Tamblyn run water for the wentals out of Plumas; Jess and Cesca, both wental-infused, can touch no one but each other.

General Lanyan lands at Rheindic Co, the hub of the transportal network, to send two thousand ground troops through. He marches them to Pym; the Klikiss follow them back, and to stop them Lanyan has to destroy the Hansa’s main transportal nexus. The headlong collision shakes him badly.

At Golgen, where the Roamers have started skymining again, Patrick finds Zhett, and she refuses him. After a trial the deserter is sentenced to walk the plank over the open clouds; he is on the plank when Zhett’s voice stops him: “All right. I’ll speak on his behalf. Don’t execute him.” She talks her father, Del Kellum, into a pardon.

A tall dark-skinned man walks along the inside of a high curved alien wall while two beetle-like aliens watch him from its top. — **VI · 5 The Barrier** Klikiss workers tear the colony’s modular barracks into scrap and wall the people in. Davlin Lotze — Hansa spy, former silver beret, and a man who came here for a quiet life — nods grimly at the new barrier and starts testing how far it lets them go. Thanks to his warning, the colonists have already hidden their supplies.

Spiny yellow-and-black beetle-like aliens pour out of a stone gateway in overgrown ruins and crash into a line of grey combat robots, while a black beetle-shaped robot directs them and two small pale robots turn to run. — **VI · 6 Sirix at Wollamor** Sirix takes Wollamor, the forgotten Klikiss outpost where he was persecuted thousands of years ago, from its human colonists, and then its transportal opens and his makers march through. His Soldier compies throw themselves on the Klikiss warriors and crack their armour, until another wave pours through. PD and QT run in panic. Sirix barely escapes with them, destroys the transportal behind him and falls back to Maratha.

A man-shaped figure cloaked in roaring flame stands on palace steps before a vast fireball while a city’s people kneel far below. — **VI · 7 Fire on Dzelluria** Rusa’h learns what he has become. The faeros incarnate can spark new faeros by burning Ildiran souls, and on Dzelluria he finds it easy to cut a whole world off from the “false Mage-Imperator” and reopen its thism web under his own control. The Ildiran Empire is held together by the thism, and Rusa’h has learned how to steal it, one world at a time.

Five half-alien children with faintly golden-green skin sit in a ring beside a palace pool with their eyes closed, faint threads of golden light between them. — **VI · 8 Osira’h’s Ring** Osira’h, only eight and still carrying the conditioning Udru’h forced on her, teaches her half-siblings Rod’h, Gale’nh, Tamo’l and Muree’n to join their minds, and they come close, though Tamo’l objects that they are just children. Nira’s half-breed children have powers of their own, and before this book ends they will need them.

A tall green-skinned priest sits among potted plants beside a small golden tree in a pot as a grey-haired man in a dark suit points at it and a guard captain steps forward reluctantly. — **VI · 9 The Treeling Taken** Nahton is the only green priest left on Earth, under house arrest in the Whisper Palace, and Basil suspects he slants his reports. So the Chairman comes to his room with Captain McCammon and two royal guards and, with a sound of disgust, orders the treeling taken away. McCammon obeys, and privately disagrees. When Nahton reaches a treeling again, it will be to warn Theroc, and it will cost him his life.

Grey-armoured soldiers march into a rippling stone gateway as spiny beetle-like aliens burst out of it, a hard-faced general turning to shout. — **VI · 10 Through to Pym** General Lanyan lands at Rheindic Co, the hub of the transportal network, and sends two thousand ground troops through to Pym, the world of a powerful subhive. The Klikiss come back through after them, and to stop them Lanyan has to destroy the Hansa’s main transportal nexus. The headlong collision shakes him badly.

A fair-haired young man stands at the end of a narrow plank jutting from a floating industrial platform over endless clouds, while behind him a dark-haired young woman runs forward calling out and a bearded man watches grimly. — **VI · 11 Zhett Speaks Up** At Golgen, where the Roamers are skymining again, Patrick at last finds Zhett, and she wants nothing to do with him. After a trial the EDF deserter is sentenced to walk the plank over the open clouds. He accepts it, and he is staring into the swirling clouds when Zhett’s voice stops him. She speaks for him, and talks her father, Del Kellum, into a pardon.

Movement 3

Admirals and Archfathers

Admiral Sheila Willis, a salty, hard-voiced veteran, studies spyflyer images of Theroc, the target of Basil’s planned invasion, and knows it could not stand up to the EDF; reluctantly, she prepares to follow orders. Sirix, after his setbacks, goes back on the offensive.

On Llaro the warriors return from the hive’s wars with three black robots taken intact, “a gift for the breedex,” Margaret says; when the Governess compy UR, who guards seven young children, asks what the breedex will do with them, the answer is that it will torment them. Strange newbreeds appear with something human about them: when the lost Hansa scientist Howard Palawu was brought before the breedex, the domates incorporated his genetics. Clarin and Ruis ration the food smuggled into the stockade, and Davlin slips out to set up a hideout in the most defensible grotto he can find.

Basil, losing the argument for loyalty, manufactures it. With his media team he turns Unison, the Hansa’s official religion (its Archfather crowned Peter and married him to Estarra), into a weapon and puts its Archfather forward as its face: a former actor who could pass for old Saint Nicholas.

Then he puts the Archfather to work, sending him with Lanyan to make an example of Usk, a weak but rebellious farming colony that has torn up the Hansa Charter and sworn allegiance to the Confederation. Remoras bomb its fields and barns, troops round up the colonists, and the Archfather descends at a leisurely pace in a diplomatic shuttle. Lanyan’s one restraint is to spare the green priest, so that the message reaches every breakaway world. The visit ends in a bloody pogrom and the deaths of the leaders who defied the Chairman.

Patrick stays at Golgen, and Zhett relents. She gives him a satiny ribbon embroidered with clan patterns, the betrothal band her proud father says she has worked on for years, and Del Kellum booms at the pair to hold out their wrists. The spoiled EDF recruit of the early books is bound to a Roamer; in Book VII he introduces her as his wife.

Willis is given Rhejak, an ocean world of luxurious reefs whose people live in empty medusa shells. Rlinda Kett is there on a trade mission, and the Voracious Curiosity radios a warning that ten EDF ships are coming. Willis sets up her base over local protest, and grows fond of the place.

A grey-haired woman and a teenage girl watch from a distance as giant yellow-and-black beetle-like aliens drag three captured black beetle-shaped robots toward an alien hive. — **VI · 12 A Gift for the Breedex** The subhive’s warriors come back from its wars with prisoners of their own: three black robots, taken intact. “A gift for the breedex,” Margaret explains, and when the Governess compy UR asks what the breedex will do with them, the answer is that it will torment them. Orli, who saw the robots massacre Corribus, finds she has no pity to spare.

A thin teenage girl sits with her chin in her hands by a fence beside a small silver robot while two gangly beetle-like aliens stare back from a distance. — **VI · 13 The Newbreeds** Two strange newbreeds walk into view with a stuttering gait, curious about the prisoners, with something oddly human about them. Margaret knows why: when the lost Hansa scientist Howard Palawu was brought before the breedex, the domates incorporated his genetics. The pair are chased away, and DD translates a domate’s verdict for Orli: “The domate says those newbreeds are defective.”

A portly white-bearded old man in white-and-gold robes is dressed by attendants backstage while a grey-haired man in a dark suit watches with folded arms. — **VI · 14 The Archfather** Losing the argument for loyalty, Basil manufactures it. With his media team he turns the Hansa’s official religion, Unison, into a weapon and puts forward its face: the Archfather, a former actor readied by groomers and personality coaches, a reassuring figure who looks like old Saint Nicholas. On Ildira, meanwhile, a faith nobody designed is about to begin.

A big bearded man holds an embroidered ribbon over the joined hands of a fair-haired young man and a dark-haired young woman on a skymine deck at sunset. — **VI · 15 Bound at Golgen** The deserter stays, and Zhett relents. She gives him a satiny ribbon embroidered with clan patterns: a betrothal band, says her proud father, that she has been working on for years. Del Kellum booms at the pair to hold out their wrists, and Zhett sets Patrick’s hand palm to palm with hers. The spoiled EDF recruit of the early books, grandson of a Hansa Chairman, is bound to a Roamer.

A big trader woman on the terrace of a giant pearly sea-shell house in a turquoise lagoon looks up as grey warships descend from a blue sky. — **VI · 16 The Shell Houses of Rhejak** Rhejak is an ocean world that lives off its sea, a luxurious reef colony whose people make their homes in empty medusa shells. Rlinda Kett is there to trade when the *Voracious Curiosity* radios a warning: ten EDF ships are coming, under Admiral Willis, to bring the colony back into line. Willis sets up her base over local protest, and grows fond of the place.

Movement 4

Suns Going Out

Kolker’s experiments pay off. Wearing the medallion over his bare emerald chest, he announces a technique that joins telink to the Ildiran thism, and converts Tabitha Huck and the stranded Hansa engineers. Sullivan Gold will not be converted, however hard they press him; he leaves Ildira and goes home to his wife, Lydia, on Earth. Kolker’s converts turn up even on Theroc.

The faeros, meanwhile, are hunting. Jess cannot understand why the fireballs have turned their vengeance on the wentals, and even the wentals do not comprehend it; but it is the wentals they want. Then Hyrillka’s sun begins to go the way of Crenna’s and Durris-B’s, and the young Designate Ridek’h and his mentor, the one-eyed veteran Tal O’nh, evacuate the doomed planet to Ildira.

Patrick, pardoned and now a strong supporter of the Confederation, broadcasts a damning message that lays the Hansa’s problems squarely on Lanyan and the Chairman. On Earth Basil rebukes his grandmother, the former Chairman Maureen Fitzpatrick, the Battleaxe, rejuvenated at great expense, and sees the hunger in her eyes: she wants to be Chairman again. Perhaps she set up her own grandson to bring him down.

A bare-chested green-skinned priest wearing a mirror-bright medallion speaks with open palms to an eager woman engineer while a tired grey-haired man stands back with folded arms. — **VI · 17 Kolker’s Medallion** Kolker comes into the chamber wearing a prismatic medallion over his bare emerald chest, the gift of the old lens kithman Tery’l, and announces a new technique: telink and the Ildiran thism joined into one. Tabitha Huck and the stranded Hansa engineers convert. Sullivan Gold, pressed by Kolker and Tabitha alike, refuses, and goes home to his wife Lydia on Earth.

Under a swollen, guttering red-orange sun, a one-eyed grey-skinned commander directs ornate alien warships lifting off while a golden-haired boy looks up at the sky. — **VI · 18 Hyrillka’s Sun** Hyrillka, rebuilt after Rusa’h’s rebellion, loses its sun, the way Crenna and Durris-B lost theirs. When the star itself begins to die, the young Designate Ridek’h and his mentor, the one-eyed veteran Tal O’nh, know the planet is doomed. Warliners carry its people to Ildira.

A faintly glowing man stands knee-deep in a blue-green glowing sea under a night sky, staring at fireballs plunging into the water far off on the horizon. — **VI · 19 Fire Against Water** Jess Tamblyn cannot understand why the fireballs have turned their vengeance on the wentals, the living water that fought beside him against the hydrogues; even the wentals do not comprehend it. But it is the wentals they want. The faeros are growing, fed by the souls Rusa’h burns for them, and before the book is out they will scorch the oceans of Charybdis, the wentals’ primary world.

Movement 5

Mutiny

Lanyan’s battle group arrives at Rhejak to do to it what was done to Usk. Willis has had enough. She tricks Lanyan, stuns him and takes over his ships before he can launch his attack — an outright mutiny by an admiral against her own commander.

Then the fire spreads. Touring the systems Rusa’h has ravaged, Ridek’h and Tal O’nh meet the faeros incarnate; the faeros surround their warliners and incinerate the crews, and Rusa’h burns Tal O’nh, blinding him, but spares the boy, saying they will meet again. Tabitha Huck, Kolker’s convert and captain of a new warliner by her own appointment, takes it on its shakedown cruise close to the dead star Durris-B. Faeros erupt from the ember and reignite it; drawn by her conversion, they destroy her and her ship.

Near the icy planetoid Jonah 12 the faeros destroy a Plumas tanker full of wentals: Denn Peroni, another of Kolker’s converts, is killed, and Caleb Tamblyn escapes in a lifepod and is marooned. Aboard their ship of living water, Jess and Cesca feel the wentals’ death scream. The faeros go on to Charybdis, the wentals’ primary world, and by the time the two arrive its living seas are scorched.

Jora’h goes to Theroc to proclaim an alliance with Peter’s Confederation in public, bringing Nira home at last in a ceremonial warliner, with Anton and Vao’sh aboard; under the worldtrees the Mage-Imperator and the King swear it. Basil answers by sending Admiral Esteban Diente, whose family he holds hostage, to intercept the Mage-Imperator on his way home. Racing back as he feels his capital begin to burn, Jora’h runs into Diente’s battleships; they cripple his warliner’s engines, and Diente appears on the screen to “extend an invitation to the Mage-Imperator”.

On Llaro the breedex is preparing to fission, and the colonists are to be the material for it. Margaret and DD agree to help free them. Then another subhive attacks the Llaro breedex, and Klikiss fighting Klikiss gives the prisoners their chance.

A grey-haired woman admiral faces a square-jawed general on a warship’s bridge, a compact pistol held low at her side out of his sight. — **VI · 20 Willis Mutinies** General Lanyan brings a battle group to Rhejak to do to the colony what the EDF has done to rebels before. Willis has grown fond of the place, and she has had enough. She tricks Lanyan, stuns him and takes over his ships before he can launch his attack: an outright mutiny by an admiral against her own commander.

On the bridge of an alien warship, a one-eyed grey-skinned commander holds a golden-haired boy behind him as fireballs fill the forward viewport. — **VI · 21 Fire on the Bridge** Touring the systems Rusa’h has ravaged, Ridek’h and Tal O’nh meet the faeros incarnate. They try to escape, but the faeros surround their warliners and incinerate the crews. Rusa’h burns the old one-eyed veteran, blinding him, and spares the boy Designate, saying that they will meet again. Adar Zan’nh will find the burned warliners, and hear their warning about Ildira.

A small ornate alien warship races toward a dead dark star that is cracking open in a blinding flare of fireballs. — **VI · 22 Durris-B Reignites** Tabitha Huck, one of Kolker’s converts, takes a newly built warliner on its shakedown cruise, pleased with the title of captain she has given herself, and swings close to look at Durris-B, a dead star, a cooling ember. Faeros erupt from it and reignite it. Drawn to her by her conversion, they destroy her and her ship: the engineer who helped the Solar Navy rebuild so fast dies in one of its newest warliners.

Inside a ship of glowing water, a dark-haired woman cries out as a man holds her by the shoulders, both turned toward a small burst of fire far off among the stars. — **VI · 23 Tremors in the Water** Aboard their ship of living water, Cesca Peroni and Jess Tamblyn feel a horrific scream run through the wentals: the faeros have struck a Plumas tanker full of wentals in the Jonah system, with Cesca’s father Denn and Jess’s uncle Caleb aboard. Near the icy planetoid Jonah 12 the tanker is destroyed. Caleb escapes in a lifepod and is marooned; Denn, Peter’s appointee and lately one of Kolker’s converts, is killed.

An ornate alien warship rests in a meadow among colossal trees as a green-skinned woman in gold silk steps down with her face lifted to the fronds, a golden-haired ruler watching behind her. — **VI · 24 Nira Comes Home** The Mage-Imperator brings Nira home to Theroc at last, in a ceremonial warliner that fills the meadow Roamer engineers cleared for it: the green priest he loved in Book I, kept from him for years in the breeding camps of Dobro, now his consort. Under the worldtrees Jora’h and Peter swear an alliance between the Ildiran Empire and the Confederation. On the way home, one of Basil’s admirals will be waiting.

Movement 6

Fire and Flight

Davlin’s plans fall quickly into place: one last Remora, fuelled and ready, and night after night of preparation by starlight while small groups of colonists slip away to his cave hideout. Tasia, Robb and Nikko Chan Tylar fly in to rescue the detainees, expecting a few bored EDF guards; the Klikiss shoot them down into a remote ravine, and Davlin brings them to the hideout. Nikko sees the Llaro warriors finish off the last of a rival subhive and gapes at its captive breedex, the hive’s greatest prize.

Then the Klikiss march on the stockade to kill the humans who are left. The captives fight back with makeshift defences, explosives and firearms, and Sirix leads his black robots against the Llaro subhive, meaning to destroy every breedex he can find. In the turmoil Orli, DD, Hud and many others reach Davlin’s hideout. Davlin’s own last chapter, the 143rd of 146, ends at the fissioning: larvae devour the domates, and the seed of the next breedex turns its glinting eyes on him. He does not recoil. He throws himself on it, trying to impose his will on it, and the hive mind swallows him. In Book VII Orli does not know what became of him.

In Mijistra, meanwhile, the faeros that found Tabitha through her conversion come for Kolker and his converts, and the capital burns. Rusa’h comes to the Prism Palace demanding the Mage-Imperator, and Daro’h, left in charge, has to run. Fifty guard kithmen form a living barricade, and a wall of fire rolls over them. Osira’h and her siblings use their powers to protect the Prime Designate and Yazra’h; Osira’h and Rod’h leap together from the foaming waterfall into the pool below, the others follow, and all of them escape through the water channels beneath the palace. The Ildiran capital belongs to the fire.

The last chapter is Celli’s. Estarra’s youngest sister has made up her mind to become a green priest, like Solimar and her brother Beneto, and now fire comes to the worldforest. Six worldtrees, seized and possessed by the faeros, blaze over the canopy like torches while the rest of the forest seems to shrink away. The book ends at its smallest scale and its largest at once:

As Celli and Solimar ran away from the flames, the unquenchable fire spread.

At night under a sky crowded with stars, a tall man crouches over maps by a shielded lamp at the mouth of a rocky grotto where a small spacecraft waits under netting. — **VI · 25 Davlin’s Grotto** Llaro has plenty of stars to light the way, and Davlin’s eyes adjust easily to the dark. His hideout is the most defensible grotto he could find, sheltered by sandstone overhangs, and one last Remora is fuelled and ready to go. After night upon night of preparation his plans fall quickly into place: a hideout, a ship, and a way out for the people in the stockade.

In a cramped amber-lit cockpit a dark-haired woman pilots, a brown-skinned man checks a scanner and a young man leans between them toward a night landscape with a red glow on the horizon. — **VI · 26 The Rescue Run** The Llaro prisoners have not been forgotten. Tasia Tamblyn, Robb Brindle and Nikko Chan Tylar, whose parents are among the Roamer detainees, fly a rescue ship to Llaro expecting a handful of bored EDF guards. They run into the Klikiss instead; their ship is shot down into a remote ravine, and Davlin finds them. Nikko sees the hive at war, and the captive breedex of a rival subhive, a horrific monstrosity.

A teenage girl, a scruffy old man and a small silver robot run through the dark toward the viewer while an alien hive burns on the horizon behind them. — **VI · 27 Out of the Stockade** Klikiss fight Klikiss, the captives fight back with explosives and makeshift defences, and Sirix’s black robots fall on the Llaro subhive, meaning to destroy every breedex they can find. In the turmoil Orli, DD, old Hud Steinman and many others get out and run for Davlin’s hideout. Davlin himself goes into the hive mind, and when Book VII begins, Orli still does not know what became of him.

A burning man-shaped figure strides along the high terraces of a crystal palace under a white-gold sky while children leap from a foaming waterfall into a pool far below. — **VI · 28 Mijistra Burns** With the Mage-Imperator gone, the faeros incarnate comes for Mijistra, demanding to know where he is. Fifty guard kithmen form a living barricade on his way to the skysphere, and a wall of fire rolls over them. Osira’h and her siblings use their powers to protect Prime Designate Daro’h and Yazra’h; Osira’h and Rod’h leap together from the foaming waterfall into the pool below, the others follow, and all of them escape through the water channels beneath the Prism Palace.

A young woman and a broad-shouldered green-skinned man run along a giant branch as towering trees burn behind them. — **VI · 29 The Unquenchable Fire** The last chapter is Celli’s. Estarra’s youngest sister has made up her mind to become a green priest, like Solimar and her brother Beneto, and now the fire reaches the worldforest. The faeros have seized six of the great trees, which blaze over the canopy like torches, hotter and hotter, while the rest of the forest seems to shrink away. The book’s final sentence leaves Celli and Solimar running from flames that will not go out.

Continuity notes

Dead in this book: Nahton (shot by Hansa guards after his warning); Tabitha Huck (at Durris-B, with her new warliner); Denn Peroni (his tanker destroyed by the faeros near Jonah 12); the EDF garrison on Llaro; the crews of Ridek’h’s and Tal O’nh’s warliners; the fifty guard kithmen in the Prism Palace; the leaders of Usk. Udru’h’s death by Rusa’h’s avatar comes at the very end of Book V; this book opens moments after it.
Wounded: Tal O’nh, already one-eyed, is blinded by Rusa’h. Caleb Tamblyn escapes the tanker in a lifepod and is marooned.
Left open on purpose: Davlin Lotze throws himself on the breedex larva in his last chapter, the 143rd, and the hive mind swallows him; in Book VII Orli assumes he is dead but does not know. Estarra’s pregnancy ends somewhere between here and the start of Book VII, which opens with baby Reynald; the birth chapter is not pinned.
Changed sides: Tasia and Robb leave the EDF to rebuild the Confederation’s military, over Conrad Brindle’s protests; Willis mutinies against Lanyan at Rhejak; Patrick is bound to Zhett and the Kellum clan (his wife by Book VII) and broadcasts against Lanyan and Basil; Sarein, Cain and McCammon secretly free Nahton; Kolker’s converts include Tabitha, the Hansa engineers, Denn and green priests on Theroc; Sullivan Gold, unconverted, goes home to Earth.
Where everyone is at the end: Rusa’h in Mijistra (installed in the Prism Palace by Book VII); Daro’h, Yazra’h, Osira’h and her four siblings fled through the water channels; Jora’h and Nira taken by Admiral Diente on the way home from Theroc, bound for the EDF base on Earth’s Moon; Hyrillka evacuated to Ildira; Orli, Hud and DD at Davlin’s hideout, with Tasia, Robb and Nikko; Sirix, whose Maratha base the Solar Navy has bombed, leading his robots against the Llaro subhive; Basil on Earth with Unison and its Archfather; Celli and Solimar running from the fire in the worldforest.

Notes

Shape. 146 numbered chapters, each titled with its viewpoint character (thirty-four in all; Sirix has eleven, Tasia ten), with no parts, prologue or epilogue: just “The Story So Far” in front and a glossary behind. The six movements on this page are the companion’s, not the author’s.
Editions. The Simon & Schuster hardcover (London, July 2007) came first; Orbit’s US hardcover followed on 10 December 2007, the first of the series under Orbit after five with Warner Aspect, and Paul Di Filippo noted that the change of publisher had “slightly delayed” it. The unabridged audiobook is read by David Colacci (Brilliance Audio, 19 hr 16 min).
A tuckerization. Admiral Sheila Willis is named for the editor Sheila Williams and the novelist Connie Willis (Di Filippo).
Two new faiths. Basil’s Unison is pushed forward by a media team around an actor; Kolker’s joining of telink and thism spreads on its own. Book VII’s own recap makes the darker connection explicit: the faeros could sense Tabitha because of her conversion, destroyed her and her warliner, then went to Ildira for Kolker and all his converts, and Mijistra began to burn.
Reception. Publishers Weekly found that it “fails to satisfy on its own merits,” blaming an “unwieldy cast”; Di Filippo called it “just more of what has come before.” Readers were kinder; one said the book “positions the chess pieces” for the finale.

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