"Neutronium Alchemist - Consolidation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F.)Chapter 09Nicolai Penovich tried not to show how outright shit-scared he was when the stern-faced gangsters ushered him into the Nixon suite. Not that the macho-routine facade would do a hell of a lot of good, they’d already let slip that the possessed could pretty much tell what was going on in your mind. But not read it direct, not pull out exact memories. And that was his ace. One memory, and a prayer. As prayers went it was a goddamn feeble one to be gambling not just his life but also his life after death. He was shown into a giant living room with a fluffy white shag carpet and pale pink furniture which resembled fragile glass balloons. There were several doors leading off to the rest of the suite, plain gold slabs three metres high. The far wall was a window looking down on New California. The view as the terracompatible planet slowly drifted past was magnificent. One of the gangsters used his Thompson machine gun to prod Nicolai into the middle of the room. “Stand there. Wait,” he grunted. About a minute later one of the tall doors opened silently. A young girl walked out. Despite his predicament, Nicolai couldn’t help staring. She was ravishing, a mid-teens face with every feature highlighted by the purest avian bones. All she wore was a long gossamer robe revealing an equally sublime physique. When he thought about it, she was obscurely familiar. He couldn’t imagine meeting her and not remembering, though. She walked straight past him to a pile of travelling cases on the other side of the living room. “Libby, where’s my red leather playsuit? The one with the silver chain collar. Libby!” Her foot stomped on the carpet. “Coming, poppet.” A harried woman shuffled into the lounge. “It’s in the brown case, the one with your after-party informal collection.” “Which one’s that?” the girl complained. “This one, poppet. Honestly, you’re worse now than when we were touring.” She bent over to open the case. Nicolai gave the nymphet a more intense scrutiny. It couldn’t be . . . Al Capone hurried in, followed by a number of cronies. And there was no doubt at all of his identity. A handsome man in his early twenties, with jet-black hair, slightly chubby cheeks which emphasised his near-permanent soft smile. His clothes were as antique (and as ridiculous to Nicolai’s eyes) as the other gangsters’, but he wore them with such panache it really didn’t matter. He took one glance at Jezzibella and grimaced. “Jez, I told you before, will you stop goddamn prancing around in front of the guys like this. You ain’t wearing diddly.” She looked back over her shoulder, pouted, and twirled a lock of hair around one finger. “Oh, come on, Al baby, it gives you a kick. The boys can all see what it is you’ve got, and they can never have. Living proof you’re top doggy.” “Jez-us.” He raised his eyes heavenwards. Jezzibella sauntered over to him and pecked him lightly on the cheek. “Don’t be long, precious. I’ve got parts of me that need a serious seeing to.” She beckoned Libby to follow, and made for the door. The woman walked after her, a garment made up from about five slender red leather straps draped over her arm. Jezzibella treated Nicolai to a cutely bashful smile from the middle of a cloud of gold-blond curls. Then she was gone. Al Capone was staring at him. “You got something on your mind, fella?” “Yes, sir.” “And what’s that?” “I’ve got some information for you, Mr Capone. Something that could be very useful to your Organization.” Al nodded curtly. “Okay, you got through the door, that proves you got balls enough. Believe me not many get this far. So now you’re here, make your pitch.” “I want to join your Organization. I hear you make room for non-possessed people with special talents.” Al pointed a thumb at Avram Harwood III who was standing among the little cluster of lieutenants. “Sure do. If savvy Avvy here says what you got is good news, then you’re in.” “Is antimatter good news?” Nicolai asked. He caught the shudder of horror on the broken mayor’s face. Al rubbed a finger thoughtfully over his chin. “Could be. You got some?” “I know where you can get it. And I can assist your starship fleet when it comes to handling the stuff. It’s a tricky substance, but I’ve had the training.” “How come? You’re a fed, or close to it; a G-man for sure. I thought it was illegal.” “It is. But Idria is a small asteroid sharing a star system with some powerful institutions. A lot of groundside politicos talk about strengthening our general assembly into a systemwide administration or union. Some of Idria’s council and SD officers don’t appreciate that kind of talk. It took us a long time to gain our independence from the founding company, and it wasn’t easy. So we made preparations. Just in case. Several of our companies make components that can be used to build antimatter confinement systems and drives. Strategic Defence Command also established a link with a production station.” “So you can get it anytime you want?” Al asked. “Yes, sir. I have the coordinate of the star which the station is orbiting. I can take you there.” “What makes you think I want this stuff?” “Because you’re in the same position Idria was. New California is big, but the Confederation is a lot bigger.” “You telling me I’m penny-ante?” “You might wind up that way if the First Admiral comes knocking.” Al grinned broadly, he put his arm around Nicolai and patted his shoulders. “I like you, boy, you got what it takes. So here’s the deal. You go sit in a corner with my friend Emmet Mordden, here, who is a real wiz with electric machines and stuff. And you tell him what you know, and if he says it checks out, you’re in.” #149; #149; #149; Al shut the door behind him and leaned against it, taking a moment out of life, that essential chunk of time alone in his head which allowed his worn-down resolution to build itself up again. I never realized being me was so goddamn Jezzibella had shifted to the trim athlete persona again, strong and haughty. She lay on the bed, arms stretched above her head, one knee bent. The playsuit had gripped her breasts with tight silver chains, forcing hard dark nipples to point at the ceiling. Every time she breathed her whole body flexed with feline allure. “Okay,” Al said. “So tell me what the fuck is antimatter?” She arched her back, glaring defiantly at him. “Never.” “Jez! Just tell me. I don’t have time for this crap.” Her head was tossed from side to side. “Goddamnit!” He strode over to the bed, grabbed her jaw, and forced her to face him. “I want to know. I gotta make decisions.” A hand came arching through the air to strike him. He managed to catch it just before it reached his face, but his pale grey fedora was knocked off. She started to struggle, pushing him aside. “Games huh?” he shouted angrily. “You wanna play fucking games, bitch?” He grabbed both her arms, pinning them against the pillows. And the sight of her chest heaving below the playsuit’s revealing confinement ignited the dragon’s fire in his heart. He forced her further down into the mattress, gloating at the sight of her superb muscles straining helplessly. “Who’s in charge now? Who fucking owns you?” He ripped the leather off her crotch and prised her legs apart. Then he was kneeling between her thighs, his clothes evaporating. She groaned, making one last desperate attempt to break free. Against him, she never stood a chance. Somewhen later, his own fulfillment made him cry out in wonder. The orgasmic discharge from his body was primitive savagery, enrapturing every cell. He held himself rigid, prolonging the flow as long as he could bear before collapsing onto the rumpled silk sheets. “That’s better, baby,” Jezzibella said as she stroked his shoulders. “I hate it when you’re all uptight.” Al grinned languidly at her. She’d changed back into the teen-kitten again, all worshipful concern crowned by a frizz of golden curls. “No way, lady. No way are you human.” She kissed his nose. “About the antimatter,” she said. “You need it, Al. If there’s any chance at all, then grab it.” “I don’t follow,” he mumbled. “Lovegrove says it’s just a different kind of bomb. And we got ourselves plenty of the atom explosives already.” “It’s not just a better kind of bomb, Al; you can use it to power combat wasps and starships, too, bump up their performance by an order of magnitude. If you like, it’s the difference between a rifle and a machine gun. They both fire bullets, but which would you prefer in a rumble?” “Good point.” “Thanks. Now even with the asteroid campaign going well, we haven’t got anything like numerical parity with the Confederation’s conventional forces. However, antimatter is a superb force multiplier. If you’ve got some, they’re going to think twice before launching any sort of offensive.” “Jeeze, you are a fucking marvel. I gotta get this organized with the boys.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and started to reconstitute his clothes out of the magic realm where they’d been banished. “Wait.” She pressed up against his back, arms sliding around to hug. “Don’t go rushing into this half-cocked, Al. We’ve got to think this through. You’re going to have problems with antimatter, it’s vicious stuff. And you don’t help.” “What do you mean?” he bridled. “The way your energistic ability gronks out electronics and power circuits, you just can’t afford that with antimatter. Put a possessed anywhere near a confinement system and we’re all going to be watching the last half of the explosion from the beyond. So . . . it will have to be the non-possessed who work with the stuff.” “Sheesh.” Al scratched his mussed hair, desperately uncertain. His Organization was built along the principle of keeping the non-possessed in line, under his thumb. You had to have some group at the bottom who needed to be watched on a permanent basis, it kept the Organization soldiers busy, gave them a purpose. Made them take orders. But give the non-possessed antimatter . . . that would screw up the balance something chronic. “I ain’t so sure, Jez.” “It’s not that big a problem. You just have to make sure you’ve got a secure hold over anyone you assign to handle the stuff. Harwood and Leroy can fix that; they can arrange for you to hold their families hostage.” Al considered it. Hostages might just work. It would take a lot of effort to arrange, and the Organization soldiers would really have to be on the ball. Risky. “Okay, we’ll give it a shot.” “Al!” Jezzibella squealed girlishly and started kissing his throat exuberantly. Al’s half-materialized clothes vanished again. The chiefs of staff’s office was as extravagant as only senior government figures could get away with; its expensive, handcrafted furniture arranged around a long hardwood table running down the centre. One wall could be made transparent, giving the occupants a view out over the SD tactical operations centre. Al sat himself down at the head of the table and acknowledged his senior lieutenants with a wave of his hand. There was no smile on his face, a warning that this was strictly business. “Okay,” he said. “So what’s been happening? Leroy?” The corpulent manager glanced along the table, a confident expression in place. “I’ve more or less kept to the original pacification schedule we drew up. Eighty-five per cent of the planet is now under our control. There are no industrial or military centres left outside our influence. The administrative structure Harwood has been building up seems to be effective. Nearly twenty per cent of the population is non-possessed, and they’re doing what they’re told.” “Do we need them?” Silvano Richmann asked Al, not even looking at Leroy. “Leroy?” Al asked. “For large urban areas, almost certainly,” Leroy said. “The smaller towns and villages can be kept going with their possessed inhabitants providing a combined energistic operation. But cities still require their utilities to function, you just can’t wish that much shit and general rubbish away. Apparently the possessed cannot create viable food out of inorganic compounds, so the transport network has to be maintained to keep edible supplies flowing in. At the moment that’s just stock from the warehouses. Which means we’ll have to come up with a basic economy of some sort to persuade the farms to keep supplying the cities. The problem with that is, the possessed who are living out in the rural areas aren’t inclined to do too much work, and in any case I haven’t got a clue what we could use for money—counterfeiting is too damn easy for you. We may just have to resort to barter. Another problem is that the possessed cannot manufacture items which have any permanence; once outside the energistic influence they simply revert to their component architecture. So a lot of factories are going to have to be restarted. As for the military arena, non-possessed are unquestionably necessary, but that’s Mickey’s field.” “Okay, you done good, Leroy,” Al said. “How long before I’m in charge of everything down there?” “You’re in charge of everything that counts right now. But that last fifteen per cent is going to be a hard slog. A lot of the resistance is coming from the hinterland areas, farm country where they’re pretty individual characters. Tough, too. A lot of them are holed up in the landscape with their hunting weapons. Silvano and I have been putting together hunter teams, but from what we’ve experienced so far it’s going to be a long dirty campaign, on both sides. They know the terrain, our teams don’t; it’s an advantage which almost cancels out the energistic ability.” Al grunted sardonically. “You mean we gotta fight fair?” “It’s a level playing field,” Leroy acknowledged. “But we’ll win in the end, that’s inevitable. Just don’t ask me for a timetable.” “Fine. I want you to keep plugging away at that economy idea. We gotta maintain some kind of functioning society down there.” “Will do, Al.” “So, Mickey, how are you holding out?” Mickey Pileggi scrambled to his feet, sweat glinting on his forehead. “Pretty good, Al. We broke forty-five asteroids with that first action. They’re the big ones, with the most important industrial stations. So now we’ve got three times as many warships as when we started. The rest of the settlements are just going to be a mopping-up operation. There’s nothing out there which can threaten us anymore.” “You got crews for all these new ships?” “We’re working on it, Al. It isn’t as easy as the planet. There’s a lot of distance involved here, our communications lines aren’t so hot.” “Any reaction from the Edenists?” “Not really. There were some skirmishes with armed voidhawks at three asteroids, we took losses. But no big retaliation attacks.” “Probably conserving their strength,” Silvano Richmann said. “It’s what I would do.” Al fixed Mickey with Mickey’s eyes performed a desperate search for allies. “Maybe.” “It’s a question of how you want them, Al,” Emmet Mordden said. “I doubt we could ever subdue them, not make them submit to possession, or hand the habitats over to the Organization’s control. You’ll just have to trust me on this, they’re completely different from any kind of people you have ever met before. All of them, even the kids. You might be able to kill them, destroy their habitats. But conquest? I don’t think so.” Al squeezed his lips together and studied Emmet closely. Emmet was nothing like Mickey; timid, yeah, but he knew his stuff. “So what are you saying?” “That you’ve got to make a choice.” “What choice?” “Whether to go for the antimatter. You see, Edenism has a monopoly on supplying He “Right,” Al said reasonably. “You’ve been talking to this Nicolai Penovich character, Emmet, is he on the level?” “As far as I can make out, yeah. He certainly knows a lot about antimatter. I’d say he can take us to this production station of his.” “We got ships which can handle that?” Emmet gave an unhappy scowl. “Ships, yeah, no problem now. But, Al, starships and antimatter, it means using a lot of non-possessed to run them. Our energistic power, it’s not good for space warfare, if anything it puts our ships at a disadvantage.” “I know,” Al said smoothly. “But, shit, we can turn this in our favour if we handle it right. It’ll prove that the non-possessed have got a part in the Organization just as much as anyone. Good publicity. Besides, those boosted guys, they helped out in the asteroids, right?” “Yes,” Silvano admitted reluctantly. “They’re good.” “That’s it then,” Al said. “We’ll give our ships a crack at the Edenists, for sure. See if we can snatch the helium mines they got. But in the meantime we take out a sweet little insurance policy. Emmet, start putting together the ships you’ll need. Silvano, I want you and Avvy to work on who’s gonna crew them. I only want you to use non-possessed who are family guys, catch? And before they leave for the station, I want those families up here in Monterey being given the holiday of a lifetime. Shift everyone out of the resort complex, and house them there.” Silvano produced a greedy smile. “Sure thing, Al, I’m on it.” Al sat back and watched as they started to implement his instructions. It was all going real smooth, which threw up its own brand of trouble. One which even Jez had overlooked—but then this was one field where he had a shitload more experience than she had. The lieutenants were getting used to wielding power, they were learning how to pull levers. They all had their own territories right now, but pretty soon they’d start to think. And sure as chickens shat eggs, one of them would try for it. He looked around the table and wondered which it would be. #149; #149; #149; Kiera Salter sat down on the president’s chair in Magellanic Itg’s boardroom and surveyed her new domain. The office was one of the few buildings inside the habitat; a circular, fifteen-storey tower situated at the foot of the northern endcap. Its windows gave her a daunting view down the interior. The shaded browns of the semi-arid desert were directly outside, slowly giving way to the tranquil greens of grassland and forest around the midsection, before finally merging into the rolling grass plains, currently dominated by some vivid pink xenoc plant. Moating that, and forming an acute contrast, was the circumfluous sea; a broad band of near-luminous turquoise shot through with wriggling scintillations. High and serene above it all, the axial light tube poured out a glaring noon-sun radiance. The only incongruity amid the peaceful scene was the dozen or so clouds which glowed a faint red as they drifted through the air. There was little other evidence of the coup which she had led, one or two small smudges of black smoke, a crashed rent-cop plane in the parkland surrounding a starscraper lobby. Most of the real damage had occurred inside the starscrapers; but the important sections, the industrial stations and spaceport, had sustained only a modest amount of battering. Her plan had been a good one. Anyone who came into contact with a possessed was immediately taken over, regardless of status. A ripple effect spread out from the seventeenth floor of the Diocca starscraper, slow at first, but gradually gaining strength as the numbers grew. The possessed moved onto the next starscraper. Rubra warned people of course, told them what to look out for, told them where the possessed were. He directed the rent-cops and the boosted mercenary troops, ambushing the possessed. But good as they were, the troops he had at his disposal were heavily dependent on their hardware. That gave the possessed a lethal advantage. Unless it was as basic as a chemical projectile weapon, technology betrayed them, failing at critical moments, producing false data. He didn’t even attempt to take Valisk’s small squad of assault mechanoids out of storage. Out on the docking ridges, the polyp hulls of possessed starships began to swell below a shimmer of exotic light patterns, emerging from their convulsions as full-grown hellhawks. Fantastically shaped starships and huge harpies zoomed away from the habitat to challenge the voidhawks and Srinagar frigates that were edging in cautiously. The military ships had pulled back, abandoning their effort to assist the beleaguered population. Kiera’s authority now extended the length of the habitat, and encompassed a zone a hundred thousand kilometres in diameter outside the shell. All in all, not a bad little fiefdom for an ex-society wife from New Munich. She’d glimpsed it briefly once before, this position, the influence, importance, and respect which authority endowed. It could have been hers for the taking back then; she had the breeding and family money, her husband had the ambition and skill. By rights a cabinet seat awaited, and maybe even the chancellorship (so she dreamed and schemed). But he’d faltered, betrayed by his ambition and lack of patience, making the wrong deals in search of the fast track. A weak failure condemning her to sitting out her empty life in the grand old country house, working studiously for the right charities, pitied and avoided by the social vixens she’d once counted as her closest friends. Dying bitter and resentful. Well, now Kiera Salter was back, younger and prettier than ever before. And the mistakes and weaknesses of yesteryear were not going to be repeated again. Not ever. “We finished going through the last starscraper three hours ago,” she told the council she’d assembled (oh-so-carefully selecting most of the members). “Valisk now effectively belongs to us.” That brought applause and some whistles. She waited for it to die down. “Bonney, how many non-possessed are left?” “I’d say a couple of hundred,” the hunter woman said. “They’re hiding out, with Rubra’s help, of course. Tracking them down is going to take a while. But there’s no way for them to get out; I’ll find them eventually.” “Do they pose any danger?” “The worst case scenario would be a few acts of sabotage; but considering we can all sense them if they get close enough to us, it would be very short-lived. No, I think the only one who could hurt us now would be Rubra. But I don’t know enough about him and what his capabilities are.” Everyone turned to look at Dariat. Kiera hadn’t wanted him on the council, but his understanding of affinity and the habitat routines was peerless. They needed his expertise to deal with Rubra. Despite that, she still didn’t consider him a proper possessed; he was crazy, a very ruthless kind of crazy. His agenda was too different from theirs. A fact which to her mind made him a liability, a dangerous one. “Ultimately, Rubra could annihilate the entire ecosystem,” Dariat said calmly. “He has control over the environmental maintenance and digestive organs; that gives him a great deal of power. Conceivably he could release toxins into the water and food, replace the present atmosphere with pure nitrogen and suffocate us, even vent it out into space. He can turn off the axial light tube and freeze us, or leave it on and cook us. None of that would damage him in the long term; the biosphere can be replanted, and the human population replaced. He cares less for the lives of humans than we do, his only priority is himself. As I told you right at the start, everything else we achieve is completely pointless until he is eliminated. But you didn’t listen.” “So, shitbrain, why hasn’t he done any of that already?” Stanyon asked contemptuously. Kiera put a restraining hand on his leg under the table. He was a good deputy for her, his intimidating strength accounting for a great deal of the obedience she was shown; he also made an excellent replacement for Ross Nash in her bed. However, vast intelligence was not one of his qualities. “Yes,” she said levelly to Dariat. “Why not?” “Because we have one key element left to restrain him,” Dariat said. “We can kill him. The hellhawks are armed with enough combat wasps to destroy a hundred habitats. We’re in a deterrence situation. If we fight each other openly, we both die.” “Openly?” Bonney challenged. “Yes. Right now, he will be conferring with the Edenist Consensus about methods of reversing possession. And as you know, I’m investigating methods of transferring my personality into the neural strata without him blocking it. That way I could assume control of the habitat and eliminate him at the same time.” Which isn’t exactly the solution I want, Kiera thought. “So why don’t you just do it?” Stanyon asked. “Shove yourself in there and fight the bastard on his own ground. Don’t you have the balls for it?” “The neural strata cells will only accept Rubra’s thought routines. If a thought routine is not derived from his own personality pattern it will not function in the neural strata.” “But you fucked with the routines before.” “Precisely. I made changes to what was there, I did not replace anything.” Dariat sighed elaborately, resting his head in his hands. “Look, I’ve been working on this problem for nearly thirty years now. Conventional means were utterly useless against him. Then I thought I’d found the answer with affinity enhanced by this energistic ability. I could have used it to modify sections of the neural strata, force the cells to accept my personality routines. I was exploring that angle when that drunk cretin Ross Nash blew our cover. So we went overt and showed Rubra what we can do; fine, but by doing that we threw away our stealth advantage. He is on his guard like never before. I’ve had enough evidence of that over the last ten hours. If I try to convert a chunk of the neural strata ready to accept me, it drops out of the homogeneity architecture, and he does something to the cells’ bioelectric component, too, which kills them instantly. Don’t ask me what—breaks down the natural chemical regulators, or simply electrocutes them with nerve impulse surges. I don’t know! But he’s blocking me every step of the way.” “All very interesting,” Kiera said coldly. “What we need to know, however, is can you beat him?” Dariat smiled, his gaze unfocused. “Yes. I’ll beat him, I feel the lady Chi-ri touching me. There will be a way, and I’ll find it eventually.” The rest of the council exchanged irritated or worried glances; except for Stanyon who merely gave a disgusted groan. “Can we take it then, that Rubra does not pose any immediate threat?” Kiera asked. She found Dariat’s devotion to the Starbridge religion with its Lords and Ladies of the realms another indication of just how unstable he was. “Yes,” Dariat said. “He’ll keep up the attrition, of course. Electrocution, servitor housechimps cracking rocks over your skull; and we’ll have to abandon the tubes and starscraper lifts. It’s an annoyance, but we can live through it.” “Until when?” Hudson Proctor asked. He was an ex-general Kiera had drafted in to her initial coterie to help plan their takeover strategy. “Rubra is in here with us, and the Edenists are outside. Both of them are doing their damnedest to push us back into the beyond. We have to stop that, we must fight back. I’m damned if I’m prepared to sit here and let them win.” He glanced around the table, buoyed by the level of silent support shown by the council. “Our hellhawks are easily a match for any voidhawk,” Kiera said. “The Edenists cannot get inside Valisk, all they can do is sit at a safe distance and watch. I don’t consider them a problem at all, let alone a threat.” “The hellhawks might be as good as a voidhawk in a fight, but what’s to make them stay and guard us?” “Dariat,” Kiera said, irked at having to defer to him again. But he was the one who’d worked out how to keep the hellhawks loyal to Valisk. “The souls possessing the hellhawks will help us for as long as we want,” Dariat said. “We have something they ultimately want: human bodies. Rubra’s descendants can all use their affinity to converse with Magellanic Itg’s blackhawks. That means the souls can get out of the hellhawks and into those bodies the same way as they got in. During our takeover we captured enough of Rubra’s descendants to provide each hellhawk possessor with a human body. They’re all stored in zero-tau, waiting.” “Waiting for what?” Hudson Proctor asked. “This is what gets me. I don’t even know why we’re bothering with this discussion in the first place.” “What do you suggest we should be doing, then?” Kiera asked. “The blindingly obvious. Let’s just go. Now! We know we can do it; together we have the power to lift Valisk clean out of this universe. We can create our own universe around us; one with new laws, a place where there’s no empty eternity around us, and where we’re safely sealed off from the beyond. We’ll be safe there, from Rubra, from the Edenists, from everybody. Safe and immortal.” “Quite right,” Kiera said. Most possessed had only been back for a few hours, but already the urge was growing. To run, to hide from the dreadful empty sky. Enclosed Valisk was better than a planet; but Kiera had hated the starscrapers with their windows showing the naked stars, always reminding her of the beyond. Yes, she thought, we will have to leave that sight eventually. But not yet. There were other, older instincts prising at her thoughts. For when Valisk departed to a universe where anything became possible to every individual, the need for leadership would fade away, lost among the dream of eternal sybaritic life into which they would all fall. Kiera Salter would cease to be anything special. Maybe it was inevitable, but there was no need to rush into it. “What about the threat from ourselves?” she asked them, a high note of curiosity in her voice. As if they’d already solved the obvious problem. “What threat?” Stanyon asked. “Think about it. How long are we intending to leave this universe for?” “I wasn’t planning on coming back,” Hudson Proctor said caustically. “Me neither. But eternity is rather a long time, isn’t it? And those are the terms we’re going to have to start thinking in nowadays.” “So?” he demanded. “So how many people are there in Valisk right now? Stanyon?” “Close to nine hundred thousand.” “Not quite nine hundred thousand people. And the purpose of life, or the nearest definition I’ll ever make, is to experience. Experience whatever you can for as long as you can.” She gave the councillors a morbid smile. “That isn’t going to change whatever universe we occupy. As it stands, there aren’t enough of us; not if we want to keep providing ourselves with new and different experiences for all of eternity. We have to have variety to keep on generating freshness, otherwise we’ll just be playing variants on a theme for ever. Fifty thousand years of that, and we’ll be so desperate for a change that we’ll even come back here just for the novelty.” She’d won them; she could see and sense the doubt and insecurity fission in their minds. Hudson Proctor sat back in his chair and favoured her with a languid smile. “Go on, Kiera, you’ve obviously thought this through. What’s the solution?” “There are two possibilities. First, we use the hellhawks to evacuate ourselves to a terracompatible world and begin the possession campaign all over again. Personally I’d hate to risk that. Srinagar’s warships might not be able to break into Valisk, but if we tried to land on the planet it would be a shooting gallery. Alternatively, we can play it smart and gather people in to us. Valisk can support at least six or seven million, and that’s without our energistic ability enhancing it. Six million should be enough to keep our society alive and fresh.” “You’re joking. Bring in over five million people?” “Yes. It’ll take time, but it can be done.” “Bringing some people in, yes, but so many . . . Surely our population is going to grow anyway?” “Not by five million it isn’t. We’d have to make permanent pregnancy compulsory for every female for the next ten years. This council might be in command now, but try implementing that and see how long we last.” “I’m not talking about right now, I’m talking about after. We’ll have children after we leave.” “Will we? These aren’t our actual bodies, they’d never be “All right, even assuming you’re right, and I’m not saying you are, how are you going to get that kind of influx, launch the hellhawks on pirate flights to capture people?” “No,” she said confidently. “Invite them. You’ve seen the Starbridge tribes. There are the disaffected just like them in every society throughout the Confederation. I know, one of the charities I used to work for helped rehabilitate youngsters who couldn’t cope with modern life. Gather them all together, and you could fill twenty habitats this size.” “But how? What’s going to make them want to come here, to Valisk?” “We just have to find the right message, that’s all.” #149; #149; #149; Even by day, Burley Palace stood aloof from the city of Atherstone; surrounded by extensive parkland at the top of a small rise, it surveyed the sprawling lower districts with a suitably regal detachment. At night the isolation made it positively imperious. Atherstone’s lights turned the motorways, boulevards, and grand squares into a gaudy mother-of-pearl blaze which shimmered as though it were alive. Right in the centre, however, the palace grounds were a lake of midnight darkness. And in the centre of that, Burley Palace shone brighter than it ever did under the noon sun, illuminated by a bracelet of five hundred spotlights. It was visible from almost anywhere in the city. Ralph Hiltch observed it through the Royal Navy Marine flyer’s sensor suite as they approached. It was a neoclassic building with innumerable wings slotting together at not quite geometrical angles, and five quadrangles enclosing verdant gardens. Even though it was nearly one o’clock in the morning, there were a lot of cars using the long drive which cut through the parkland, headlights creating a near-constant stream of white light. Although highly ornamental, the palace was the genuine centre of government; so given the planet’s current state of alert, the activity was only to be expected. The pilot brought the flyer down on one of the discreetly positioned rooftop pads. Roche Skark was waiting for Ralph as he came down the airstairs, two bodyguards standing unobtrusively a few metres behind. “How are you?” the ESA director asked. Ralph shook his hand. “Still in one piece, sir. Unlike Mortonridge.” “That’s a nasty case of guilt you’ve got there, Ralph. I hope it’s not clouding your judgement.” “No, sir. In any case, it isn’t guilt. Just resentment. We nearly had them, we were so close.” Roche gave the younger operative a sympathetic look. “I know, Ralph. But you drove them out of Pasto, and that’s got to be a colossal achievement. Just think what would have happened if it had fallen to the likes of Annette Ekelund. Mortonridge multiplied by a hundred. And if they’d possessed that many people they wouldn’t have been content to stay put like they are on the peninsula.” “Yes, sir.” They walked into the palace. “This idea the pair of you came up with. Is it workable?” Roche asked. “I believe so, sir,” Ralph said. “And I appreciate you allowing me to outline it to the Princess myself.” The notion had evolved from several strategy reviews he and Colonel Palmer had held during the occasional lull in the frantic two days of the Mortonridge evacuation. Ralph knew that it contained suggestions which had to be made to the Princess personally. He feared it being diluted by navy staff analysts and tacticians if he routed it through the correct procedural channels. Smooth minds polishing away the raw substance to present a sleek concept, one that was politically acceptable. And that wouldn’t work, nothing short of hundred per cent adherence to the proposal would produce success. Sometimes when he stood back and observed this obsessional character he’d become he wondered if he wasn’t simply overdosing on arrogance. “Given the circumstances, it was the least we could do,” Roche Skark said. “As I told you, your efforts have not gone unnoticed.” Sylvester Geray was waiting for them in the decagonal reception room with its gleaming gold and platinum pillars. The equerry in his perfect uniform gave Ralph’s borrowed marine fatigues a reluctant appraisal, then opened a set of doors. After the opulence of the state rooms outside, Princess Kirsten’s private office was almost subdued, the kind of quietly refined study a noble landowner would run an estate from. He couldn’t quite make the leap to accepting that the entire Ombey star system was ruled from this room. He stepped up to the desk, feeling he ought to salute, but knowing it would appear ridiculous; he wasn’t military. The Princess didn’t look much different from her images on the news, a dignified lady who seemed to be locked in perpetual middle age. No amount of discipline was able to stop him checking her face. Sure enough, there was the classic Saldana nose, slender with a downturned end; which was almost her only delicate feature, she had an all-over robustness of a kind which made it impossible ever to imagine her growing into a frail old grandmother. Princess Kirsten acknowledged him with a generous nod. “Mr Hiltch. In the flesh at last.” “Yes, ma’am.” “Thank you so much for coming. If you’d like to sit down, we can start.” Ralph took the chair next to Roche Skark, grateful for the illusion of protection his boss gave him. Jannike Dermot was eyeing him with what was almost a sense of amusement. The only other person in the room, apart from the equerry, was Ryle Thorne, who didn’t appear to care about Ralph’s presence one way or the other. “We’ll bring in Admiral Farquar now,” Kirsten said. She datavised the desk’s processor for a security level one sensenviron conference. The white bubble room emerged to claim them. Ralph found he was sitting to the right of the admiral, down at the end of the table away from the Princess. “If you’d like to summarize the current Mortonridge situation for us, Mr Hiltch,” Kirsten said. “Ma’am. Our principal evacuation operation is now finished. Thanks to the warnings we broadcast, we managed to lift out over eighteen thousand people with the planes and Royal Navy transport flyers. Another sixty thousand drove up the M6 and got out that way before the motorway failed. The sensor satellites show us that there are about eight hundred boats carrying refugees which are heading up to the main continent. Our priority at the moment is to try and take people off the smaller ones, which are desperately overcrowded.” “Which leaves us with close to two million people stranded in Mortonridge,” Admiral Farquar said. “And not a damn thing we can do about it.” “We believe most of them are now possessed,” Ralph said. “After all, Ekelund’s people have had two days. And those that aren’t possessed will be by tomorrow. We keep running into this exponential curve. It’s a frightening equation when it’s translated into real life.” “You’re absolutely sure they are being possessed?” Princess Kirsten asked. “I’m afraid so, ma’am. Our satellite images are being fudged, of course, right across the peninsula. But we can still use sections of the communications net. The possessed seem to have forgotten or ignored that. The AIs have been pulling what images they can from sensors and cameras. The overall pattern is constant. Non-possessed are tracked down, then systematically hurt until they submit to possession. They’re fairly ruthless about it, though they do seem to be reticent with children. Most of those reaching the evacuation points now are under sixteen.” “Dear Heaven,” the Princess muttered. “Any of the possessed trying to get out?” Ryle Thorne asked. “No, sir,” Ralph said. “They seem to be sticking to the agreement as far as we can tell. The only anomaly at the moment is the weather. There’s a considerable amount of unnatural cloud building up over Mortonridge, it started this morning.” “Unnatural cloud?” Ryle Thorne inquired. “Yes, sir. It’s an almost uniform blanket spreading up from the south, which doesn’t appear to be affected by the wind. Oh, and it’s starting to glow red. We believe it could be an additional form of protection from the sensor satellites. If it continues to expand at its current rate, Mortonridge will be completely veiled in another thirty-six hours. After that we’ll only have the sensors hooked into the net, and I don’t believe they’ll overlook them for much longer.” “A red cloud? Is it poisonous?” Princess Kirsten asked. “No, ma’am. We flew some drones through it, taking samples. It’s just water vapour. But they’re controlling it somehow.” “What about its potential as a weapon?” “I don’t see how it could be used aggressively. The amount of power necessary to generate it is quite impressive, but that’s all. In any case, the border we’ve established at the top of Mortonridge is an effective block. The troops are calling it a firebreak. The SD lasers have cleared a two-kilometre-wide line of scorched earth straight across the neck. We’re combining satellite observation with ground patrols to monitor it. If anything moves out there it’ll be targeted immediately.” “What happens if the cloud tries to move over?” “Then we’ll attempt to burn it back with the SD lasers. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll need your authority to launch punitive strikes, ma’am.” “I see. How will you know how to target these punitive strikes if the red cloud covers all of Mortonridge?” “Scout teams will have to go in, ma’am.” “Let us pray the cloud can be halted by the lasers, then.” “I can see you’re geared up to prevent any attempt at a mass breakout,” Ryle Thorne said. “What have you done to prevent individual possessed sneaking out among the refugees? We all know it only takes one to restart the whole nightmare. And I monitored aspects of the evacuation, it was rather chaotic at times.” “It was chaotic getting the refugees out, sir,” Ralph said. “But the other end was more straightforward. Everyone was tested to see if they had this energistic effect. We didn’t find anybody. Even if they did manage to get through, the refugees are all being held in isolation. We think the only possessed on Ombey are on Mortonridge.” “Good,” Princess Kirsten said. “I know Roche Skark has already congratulated you, Mr Hiltch, but I’d like to express my own gratitude for the way you’ve handled this crisis. Your conduct has been exemplary.” “Thank you, ma’am.” “It galls me to say it, but I think that Ekelund woman was right. The final outcome isn’t going to be decided here.” “Excuse me, ma’am, but I told Ekelund I thought that was incorrect, and I still believe that.” “Go on, Mr Hiltch,” Kirsten told him cordially. “I don’t bite, and I’d dearly love to be proved wrong in this instance. You have an idea?” “Yes, ma’am. I think just waiting passively for this problem to be resolved somewhere else would be a vast mistake. For our own peace of mind, if nothing else, we have to know that the possessed can be beaten, can be made to give up what they’ve taken. We know zero-tau can force them to abandon the bodies they’ve stolen; and it may be that Kulu or Earth, or somewhere with real top-grade scientific resources, can find a quicker more effective method. But the point is, whatever solution we eventually come up with we still have to get out there on the ground and implement it.” “So you want to start now?” Admiral Farquar asked. “The preparation stage, yes, sir. There is a lot of groundwork to be laid first. Colonel Palmer and myself believe the possessed have already made one critical mistake. By possessing everyone left in Mortonridge they have given up their blackmail weapon. They cannot threaten us with a massacre as they did in Exnall, not anymore, because they have no hostages left. There is only us and them now.” “Ralph, you’ve had firsthand experience of how hard they fight. It would cost us a couple of marines for every four or five possessed we captured. That’s a bad ratio.” Ralph switched his attention to the Princess, wishing they were out of the sensenviron. He wanted physical eye contact, delivering her the truth of what he believed. “I don’t believe we should use our own marines, sir. Not in the front line. As you say, they would be wiped out. We know the possessed have to be completely overwhelmed before they can be subdued, and those kinds of battles would demoralize the troops long before we made any real inroads.” “So what do you want to use?” Kirsten asked curiously. “There is, ma’am, one technology which can function effectively around a possessed, and is also available in the kind of quantities necessary to liberate Mortonridge.” “Bitek,” Kirsten said quickly, vaguely pleased at making the connection. “Yes, ma’am.” Ralph made an effort to rein in his surprise. “The Edenists could probably produce some kind of warrior construct which could do the job.” “There’s even an appropriate DNA sequence which they could employ,” she said, enjoying the game, her thoughts racing ahead, mapping our possibilities. “A Tranquillity serjeant. I’ve accessed sensevises of them. Nasty-looking brutes. And Ione is a cousin of ours, I’m sure acquisition wouldn’t be a problem.” The rest of the security committee remained silent, startled by her apparent eagerness to discard taboos. “We would still need a massive conventional army to occupy and hold the land we regained, and support the bitek constructs,” Ralph said cautiously. “Yes.” The Princess was lost in thought. “You’ve certainly offered a valid proposal, Mr Hiltch. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you are aware, I could not conceivably approach the Edenists with such a request. The political implications of such an alliance would undermine some of the Kingdom’s basic tenets of foreign policy, a policy which has been maintained for centuries.” “I see, ma’am,” Ralph said stiffly. “ #149; #149; #149; As soon as New California fell to the Capone Organization the Consensus of the thirty habitats orbiting Yosemite started preparing for war. It was a situation which had never before occurred in the five centuries since Edenism was founded. Only Laton had ever threatened them in the past, but he was one man; the staggering pan-Confederation resources they had were adequate to deal with him (so they considered at the time). This was different. Adamists throughout the Confederation nearly always allowed prejudice to contaminate their thinking towards the Edenist culture. They assumed that as it was both wealthy and cloistered it would be if not decadent, then at least timorous. They were wrong. Edenists prided themselves in their rational approach to all facets of life. They might deplore violence, favouring endless diplomatic negotiations and economic sanctions to any form of conflict, but if there was no alternative, they would fight. And fight with a coldly logical precision which was frightening. Once the decision was taken, Consensus began the job of coordinating the gas giant’s resources and priorities. The extensive clusters of industrial stations which surrounded each habitat were immediately turned over in their entirety to armaments manufacture. Component production was integrated by Consensus, matching demand to capability within hours, then going on to harmonize final fabrication procedures. Barely four hours after the operation started, the first new combat wasps were emerging from their freshly allocated assembly bays. After conquering New California itself, Capone began his campaign against the system’s asteroid settlements. Consensus knew then it would only be a matter of time. Yosemite was the source of He Perhaps if Capone had ordered an all-out assault on Yosemite as his first action he might have been successful. Instead, taking over the asteroid settlements was a tactical error. It allowed the Consensus precious days to consolidate the gas giant’s defences. Not even Emmet Mordden really grasped the awesome potential of an entire civilization converted to a war footing, especially one with Edenism’s technological resources. How could he? It had never happened before. Voidhawks hovering seven hundred thousand kilometres above New California’s poles observed the three new squadrons being assembled among the fifty-three asteroids orbiting the planet. Their composition, numbers, and in some cases even the armament specifications were duly noted and relayed to Yosemite. Unknown to the Organization, the voidhawks were not the summation of the Edenist intelligence gathering operation, they simply coordinated the observation. Thousands of stealthed spy sensor globes the size of tomatoes were falling past the asteroids like a constant black snow. All the information they gathered was passed back to the voidhawks through affinity links with their bitek processors. The possessed couldn’t detect affinity, nor was it susceptible to either conventional electronic warfare or the interference by the energistic ability, all of which allowed the spy globes to reveal a minute by minute account of the buildup. Had anyone in the Organization realized just how detailed the Edenist knowledge was, they would never have dispatched the starships. Thirty-nine hours after Capone had given the go-ahead to try to capture the Yosemite cloudscoops, two of the three squadrons of ships docked in the asteroids departed. Consensus knew both the vectors of the ships and their arrival time. Yosemite orbited seven hundred and eighty-one million kilometres from the G5-type star of the New California system. At a hundred and twenty-seven thousand kilometres in diameter it was slightly smaller than Jupiter, although its storm bands lacked the vigour normally associated with such mass; even their coloration was uninspiring, streamers of sienna and caramel meandering among the pristine white upbursts of ammonia crystals. The thirty Edenist habitats orbited sedately three-quarters of a million kilometres above the equator, their tracks perturbed only by gentle resonances with the eight large innermost moons. It was that radial band where the Consensus had concentrated its new defensive structure. Each of the habitats was englobed by beefed-up Strategic Defence platforms; but given the demonstrated ruthlessness of the attackers, Consensus was attempting to prevent any Organization ships getting near enough to launch a combat wasp salvo. With the vectors identified and timed, Consensus redeployed twelve thousand of the combat wasps out of the total of three hundred and seventy thousand it had already seeded across the gas giant’s equatorial zone. Their fusion drives ignited for a few minutes, putting them on a loose interception trajectory with the area of space the attackers were likely to emerge in. A hundred of the patrolling voidhawks were moved closer. The first seven attackers to emerge, as per standard tactics programs, were all front-line navy rapid-response frigates. Their mission was to assess the level of opposition, and if necessary clear the incoming squadron’s designated emergence zone of any hostile hardware. Even as their event horizons vanished, leaving them falling free, twenty-five voidhawks were accelerating towards them at ten gees. Distortion fields locked on, ruining the equilibrium of space around their hulls, preventing any of them from jumping clear. Combat wasps were already shooting over the intervening distance at twenty-five gees. The frigates immediately launched defensive salvos, but with their sensors hampered by the energistic flux of their own crews, the response was too slow in coming, and even when it did they were hopelessly outnumbered. Each of the frigates was the target of at least a hundred and fifty combat wasps, streaking in at them from every direction. At most, they could fire forty defenders. To have stood a good chance they would have needed close to five hundred apiece. Within a hundred seconds all seven frigates were destroyed. Ten minutes later, the rest of the Organization’s starships started to emerge from their ZTT jumps. Their predicament was even worse. They were expecting the specialist frigates to have established a defensive perimeter. It took time for an ordinary Adamist starship to deploy its sensor clusters and scan local space for possible danger; time which in this case was lengthened by malfunctioning equipment. When the sensors finally did relay an image of the external arena, it seemed as though a small galaxy was on the move. Yosemite was almost invisible behind a sparkling nebula of fusion drives; thousands of combat wasps and tens of thousands of submunitions were generating a fraudulent dawn across half of the colossal planet’s nightside. And the nebula was contracting, twin central whorls twisting lazily into two dense spires which were rising inexorably towards the emergence zones. One by one, the Organization starships crashed against the terrible, moon-sized mountains of light, detonating into photonic avalanches which tumbled away into the yawning darkness. Two hours later, the voidhawks on observation duty above New California reported that Capone’s third squadron was leaving the orbital asteroids. When they were a quarter of a million kilometres above the planet, the starships activated their energy patterning nodes and vanished. Consensus was puzzled by the vector; they weren’t aligned on any known inhabited world. #149; #149; #149; Not even the ending of the physical threat had brought any relief to the turmoil in Louise’s head. They had flown all the way into orbit to dock with the The starship itself wasn’t quite as impressive as she’d been expecting. The interior was like servants’ quarters, except made out of metal and plastic. There were four spheres grouped together in a pyramid shape, which the crew called life-support capsules, and that was the total available living space; apparently the rest of the ship inside the hull was solid machinery. Everything was so dreadfully small—tables, chairs, bunks; and what wasn’t being used had to be folded away. And to complete her misery, free fall was an utter nightmare. It was ironic. As Genevieve had perked up during the spaceplane flight, so Louise had felt gradually worse. As soon as the rocket engines finally cut out, leaving them floating free, Genevieve had yelled delightedly, releasing her webbing and hurtling around the cabin, giggling as she bounced and somersaulted. Even Fletcher, after his initial alarm at the sensation, had relaxed, smiling cautiously as he attempted a few simple gymnast manoeuvres with Genevieve cheering him on. But not her. Oh, no. She’d been wretchedly sick three times during the rendezvous, what with the spaceplane juddering around the whole time. It had taken her several tries to learn how to use the sanitation tube provided for such instances, much to the disgusted dismay of the others in the cabin. She had then continued to be sick, or at least have the stomach spasms, after they floated through the airlock tube into the starship’s tiny lounge. Endron, the ship’s systems specialist who doubled as medical officer, had towed her into the sick bay cubicle. Twenty minutes later when the horrid warm itch inside her stomach faded, and some kind of cool fluid was sprayed into her mouth to rinse away the taste of vomit, she began to take stock for the first time. Her ears felt funny, and when she touched one she could feel something hard cupped around the back of it. “That’s a medical nanonic,” Endron told her. “I’ve put one package behind each ear. Don’t try and take them off, they’ve knitted with your inner ears. It ought to solve your balance problem.” “Thank you,” she said meekly. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.” “You’re not. If only your sister was as quiet as you.” “Oh. I’m sorry. Is she being a nuisance?” He laughed. “Not really. We’re just not used to girls her age on board, that’s all.” Louise stopped fingering the medical package. When she brought her hand away she saw a strange green bracelet on her wrist; it was made from a substance like lustreless polythene, an inch wide and about half an inch thick. There was no join, it was solid. On closer inspection she saw it had fused to her skin, yet it wasn’t painful. “Another package,” Endron said dryly. “Again, don’t touch it, please.” “Is it for my balance as well?” “No. That one is for your other condition. It will keep your blood chemistry stable, and if it detects any metabolic problem starting from free-fall exposure it’ll datavise a warning to me.” “Other condition?” she asked timidly. “You did know you were pregnant, didn’t you?” She closed her eyes and nodded, too ashamed to look at him. A complete stranger knowing. How awful. “You should have told Furay,” he remonstrated gently. “Free fall exerts some strong physiological changes on a body, especially if you’re unaccustomed to it. And in your state, you really should have been prepared properly before the spaceplane took off.” A warm tear squeezed out from under her eyelids. “It’s all right, isn’t it? The baby. Oh, please, I didn’t know.” “Shush.” Endron’s hand stroked her forehead soothingly. “The baby is just fine. You’re a very healthy young girl. I’m sorry if I frightened you; like I said, we’re not used to passengers. I suppose it must be equally strange for you, too.” “It’s all right, really?” “Yes. And the nanonic will keep it that way.” “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.” “Just doing my job. I’ll have to consult some files about your diet, though, and check what food stocks we’ve got on board. I’ll get back to you on that one.” Louise opened her eyes, only to find the cabin blurred by liquid stretching across her irises. A lot of blinking cleared it. “Let’s get you mobile again,” Endron said, and released the seal on the straps holding her down on the couch. “Though you’re not to whizz about like your sister, mind.” His tone was identical to Mrs Charlsworth’s. “I won’t.” The rest of the sentence died on her lips as she caught sight of him. Her first thought was that he was suffering some kind of terrible affliction. Endron’s head was ordinary enough. He was a man in his late fifties, she guessed, with a short crop of fading black, curly hair and cheeks which appeared almost bloated, eradicating wrinkles. However, his body . . . He had very broad shoulders atop an inflated rib cage, she could actually see the lines of individual ribs under his glossy green ship-suit. She’d seen holograms of terrestrial sparrows at school, and the anatomical arrangement put her in mind of that puffed-out bird. His chest was huge, and very frail-looking. “Not seen a Martian before, huh?” he asked kindly. Furious with herself for staring, Louise turned her head away. “I’m not sure. Do all Martians look like you?” “Yep. So you’d better get used to it. This is an SII line ship after all, the rest of the crew are the same as me. Except Furay of course; that’s why he’s on board. We couldn’t fly the spaceplane down to terracompatible planets. Can’t take the gravity.” “How . . .” She wasn’t sure if this was really a fit subject to discuss so casually. It was almost as though they were talking about a terminal illness. “Why are you like that?” “Geneering. It’s very deliberate, dates back a while. Even with terraforming we don’t have a standard atmosphere on Mars. Our ancestors decided to meet the problem halfway. As we’re a Communist society, naturally everyone got the modification to expand our lung capacity; and that was on top of the earlier adaptations we made to ourselves to survive in the Moon’s gravity field.” “The Moon?” Louise asked, trying to sort things out in her mind. “You lived on the Moon first?” “It was the Lunar nation which terraformed Mars. Didn’t they teach you that at school?” “Uh, no. At least, we haven’t got to it yet.” She decided not to question him on the communism bit. Given Daddy’s opinion on that topic, it would make life a little too complicated right now. He was smiling gently at her. “I think that’s enough history. It’s nearing midnight, Norwich time. Perhaps you’d better get some sleep, yes?” She gave him an eager nod. Endron coached her in the elementary movements necessary to get about in free fall. Speed was not a requirement, he insisted, arriving safely and accurately at your destination was. And you must be careful of inertia, it creates huge bruises. With his encouragement she made her way into the life support capsule they’d been allocated: a lounge five yards to a side, made from grubby pearl-grey composite walls which were inlaid with several instrument panels with tiny orange and green lights winking below their dark glass surfaces. Plastic doors which were like a kind of solidified liquid flowed apart to reveal three “cabins” for them to sleep in (the wardrobes she had in her Cricklade bedroom were larger). There was a bathroom in the upper deck at which Louise took one look and promptly recoiled, vowing not to go to the toilet again until they were safely back on a planet. Genevieve shot up to embrace her as soon as she glided through the ceiling hatch. Fletcher smiled a welcome. “Isn’t this truly wondrous!” the little girl proclaimed. She was floating with her toes six inches off the decking, spinning like a ballerina. Two ponytails stood out at right angles from her head. When she spread her arms wide her speed slowed. A neat toe kick, too quick to follow, and she soared up to the ceiling, clasping a grab hoop to kill her movement. Enchanted eyes smiled at Louise. “Bet you I can do seven somersaults before I reach the floor.” “You probably can,” Louise said wearily. “Oh.” Genevieve’s face was instantly contrite. She levitated back to the decking until she was level with Louise. “I’m sorry. How are you feeling?” “Fine now. And it’s time for bed.” “Oww, Louise!” “Now.” “All right.” Endron proffered the girl a squeeze bulb. “Here, it’s a chocolate drink. Try it, I’m sure you’ll like it.” Genevieve started sucking eagerly on the nozzle. “You are recovered, lady?” Fletcher asked. “Yes. Thank you, Fletcher.” They looked at each other for a long moment, unaware of Endron watching them. One of the instrument panels let out a quiet bleep. Endron scowled and drifted over to it, anchoring himself on a stikpad. “Shoddy components,” he muttered. Fletcher gave Louise an apologetic grimace, mildly embarrassed. “I can’t stop it,” he said in a whisper. “Not your fault,” she whispered back. “Don’t worry. The ship still works.” “Yes, lady.” “That was nice,” Genevieve announced. She held out the empty squeeze bulb and promptly burped. “Gen!” “Sorry.” With Endron showing her how the cabin fittings worked, Louise finally got Genevieve into bed; a heavily padded sleeping bag stuck to the decking. Louise tucked her sister’s hair into the hood and kissed her gently. Genevieve gave her a drowsy smile and immediately closed her eyes. “She’ll sleep for a good eight hours now she’s got that sedative in her,” Endron said, holding up the empty squeeze bulb. “And when she wakes up she won’t be anything like as hyper. Furay told me what she was like when you boarded the spaceplane. She was having a bounceback response to the hangar fire. In a way that kind of overreaction is as bad as depressive withdrawal.” “I see.” There didn’t seem anything to add. She glanced back at Genevieve before the funny door contracted. For one whole night there would be no possessed, no Roberto, and no Quinn Dexter. I’ve done what I promised, Louise thought. Thank you, Jesus. Despite how tired she was feeling, she managed a prideful smile. No longer the worthless, pampered landowner daughter Carmitha had such contempt for just scant days ago. I suppose I’ve grown up a bit. “You should rest now, lady,” Fletcher said. She yawned. “I think you’re right. Are you going to bed?” For once Fletcher’s sedate features showed a certain lightness. “I believe I will linger awhile longer.” He indicated a holoscreen which was displaying the image from an external camera. Cloud-splattered landscape was rolling past, pastel greens, browns, and blues illuminated by Duke’s radiance. “It is not often a mortal man is permitted to view a world over the shoulder of angels.” “Good night, Fletcher.” “Good night, lady. May the Lord guard your dreams from the darkness.” Louise didn’t have time to dream. A hand pressing her shoulder woke her soon enough. She winced at the light coming through the open door. When she tried to move, she couldn’t, the sleeping bag held her too tight. “What?” she groaned. Fletcher’s face was a few inches from hers, a gloomy frown spoiling his brow. “I apologise, lady, but the crew is in some confusion. I thought you should know.” “Are they on board?” she cried in dismay. “Who?” “The possessed.” “No, Lady Louise. Be assured, we are perfectly safe.” “What then?” “I think they are in another ship.” “All right, I’m coming.” Her hand fumbled around until she found the seal catch inside the bag; she twisted it ninety degrees and the spongy fabric split open along its length. After she dressed she wrapped her hair into a single artless ponytail, and swam out into the tiny lounge. Fletcher showed her the way to the bridge, wriggling along the tubular companionways which connected the life-support capsules, and through dimly lit decks which appeared even more cramped than their lounge. Louise’s first sight of the bridge reminded her of the Kavanagh family crypt beneath the manor’s chapel: a gloomy room with candlelike crystals sitting on top of instrument consoles, spilling out waves of blue and green light which crawled across the walls. Machinery, ribbed tubes, and plastic cables formed an untidy glyptic over most bulkheads. But most of all it came from the four crew members lying prone on their bulky acceleration couches; eyes closed, limbs immobile. A thin hexagonal web was stretched over them, holding them down on the cushioning. Furay and Endron she recognised, but this was the first time she’d seen Captain Layia and Tilia, the “Now what?” she asked Fletcher. “I am not sure, their repose refutes any disturbance.” “It’s not sleep, they’re datavising with the flight computer. Joshua told me that’s what happens on a starship bridge. Um, I’ll explain later.” Louise blushed faintly; Joshua had become such a fixture in her life it was hard to remember who he actually was. She used some grab hoops to move herself over to Furay’s couch, and tapped him experimentally on the shoulder. Somehow the thought of disturbing the others didn’t arise, a child-fear of how those strange figures would respond. Furay opened his eyes in annoyance. “Oh, it’s you.” “I’m sorry. I wanted to know what was happening.” “Yeah, right. Hang on.” The webbing peeled back and curled up, vanishing into the edge of the couch’s cushioning. Furay pushed off, and slowly twisted his body around to the vertical, using a stikpad to anchor himself in front of Louise. “Nothing too good, I’m afraid. The navy squadron’s commanding admiral has put every ship on condition amber, which is one stage short of an actual combat alert.” “Why?” “The Louise flashed a guilty glance at Fletcher, who remained unperturbed. The action did not go unnoticed by Furay. “The “The rebels were close behind us,” Louise said quickly. “Perhaps they stowed away on the other spaceplane.” “And took over an entire frigate?” Furay said sceptically. “They have energy weapons,” Louise said. “I’ve seen them.” “Try waving a laser rifle around on the bridge of a Confederation Navy starship and the marines would cut you into barbecue ribs.” “I have no other explanation,” she said earnestly. “Hummm.” His stare informed her he was having big second thoughts about bringing her on board. “What remedial action does the admiral propose?” Fletcher asked. “She hasn’t decided yet. The “She?” Fletcher asked in surprise. “Your admiral is a lady?” Furay pulled at his chin, trying to work out just what the hell he was dealing with. “Yes, Fletcher,” Louise hissed. “We don’t have many female estate managers on Norfolk,” she explained brightly to Furay. “We’re not used to ladies holding important positions. Do excuse our ignorance.” “You don’t strike me as unimportant, Louise,” Furay said. His tone was so muddled, silky, and scathing at the same time, she couldn’t decide if he was making what Mrs Charlsworth called an overture, or just being plain sarcastic. Furay suddenly stiffened. “It’s moving.” “What is?” “The “The ship is flying away?” Fletcher asked. “That’s what I just said!” Furay told him in irritation. “They must be heading up for a jump coordinate.” “What’s the admiral doing about it?” Louise asked. “I’m not sure. The “We must follow it,” Fletcher announced. “Pardon me?” Louise glared at him with silent urgency. “This ship must follow the frigate. People must be warned of what it carries.” “And just what does it carry?” Furay asked mildly. “Rebels,” Louise said hurriedly. “People who’ve looted and murdered, and will do so again if they aren’t arrested. But I’m sure we can leave the administering of justice to the Confederation Navy, can’t we, Fletcher?” “Lady—” “Exactly what has got you so all-fired het up?” Captain Layia asked. Her couch webbing peeled back allowing her to glide over towards the three of them. Her face did have a few feminine qualities, Louise admitted, but not many; the shaven scalp was too unsettling—all ladies had long hair. The judgemental way Layia took in the scene betrayed her authority; that she was in command had never been in doubt from the moment she spoke, it had nothing to do with the silver star on her epaulette. “I am concerned that we should follow the frigate, ma’am,” Fletcher said. “The rebels on board cannot be allowed to spread their sedition any further.” “Nor will they be allowed to,” Layia said patiently. “I can assure you the admiral does not regard the hijacking of a navy frigate lightly. However, it is a navy matter, and we are just a supply ship. It is not our problem.” “But they must be stopped.” “How? If you use combat wasps you’ll kill everyone on board.” Fletcher appealed to Louise, who could only shrug, though the motion didn’t quite come off in free fall. “The admiral will send a ship to pursue them,” Captain Layia said. “When it arrives in a star system it will simply broadcast the situation to the authorities. The “Those on board will not be allowed to disembark?” Fletcher asked apprehensively. “Absolutely not,” the captain assured him. “Providing the pursuit ship manages to keep up with them through their ZTT jumps,” Furay said pessimistically. “If “Ma’am, please,” Fletcher entreated, “if there is any chance the rebels can escape, we have to fly after them.” “One, you’re a passenger. I believe Mr Furay explained how we are obliged to stay in Norfolk orbit as long as the navy requires, and no amount of money can alter that. Two, if I broke orbit to chase the “Yes, Captain,” Louise said, feeling an inch small. “Sorry to bother you. We won’t do it again.” “Aw shit,” Endron called from his acceleration couch. “I’m getting multiple processor dropouts. Whatever this glitch is, it’s multiplying.” Layia looked at Louise, and jabbed a finger at the hatch. Louise grabbed Fletcher’s arm and pushed off with her feet, trying to propel them towards the hatchway. She didn’t like the expression of anguish on his face one bit. Her trajectory wasn’t terribly accurate, and Fletcher had to flip them aside from one of the consoles. “What are you trying to do?” Louise wailed when they were back in the lounge they’d been allocated. “Don’t you understand how dangerous it is to antagonize the captain?” She caught herself and clamped a hand over her mouth, distraught at the gaffe. “Oh, Fletcher, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” “Yet you spoke the truth, lady. As always. It was foolish of me, I admit, aye, and reckless too. For you and the little one must remain safe up here.” He turned and looked at the holoscreen. They were over the side of Norfolk which was turned to face Duchess, a harsh vista of reds and black. “Why, Fletcher? What was so important about following Quinn Dexter? The navy can take care of him. Are you worried what’ll happen if he gets loose on another planet?” “Not exactly, lady. Alas, there are many possessed abroad in your fine Confederation now. No, I have seen into that man’s heart, and he frightens me sorely, Lady Louise, a fright more profound than the hell of beyond. He is the strange one I felt earlier. He is not as other possessed. He is a monster, a bringer of evil. I have resolved this matter in my own mind, though it has taken many hours of struggle. I must become his nemesis.” “Dexter’s?” she said weakly. “Yes, my lady. I think he may be the reason Our Lord blessed me to return. I am vouchsafed a clarity in this regard I cannot in conscience ignore. I must raise the alarm before he can advance his schemes further to the misery of other worlds.” “But it’s not possible for us to go after him.” “Aye, lady, such a conundrum has a fierce grip upon my heart, borrowed though it be. It squeezes like a fire. To have been so close, and to lose the scent.” “We might not have lost him,” Louise said, her thoughts aching they were spinning so fast. “How so, lady?” “He said he was going to Earth. To Earth so he could hurt someone . . . Banneth. He was going to hurt Banneth.” “Then Banneth must be warned. He will commit such terrible atrocities in pursuit of his devilsome aims. I can never purge what he said of the little one from my mind. To even think such filth. Only in his head do such ideas dwell.” “Well, we are going to Mars anyway. I expect there will be more ships flying to Earth than to Tranquillity. But I don’t have a clue how you could find Banneth once you get there.” “Every voyage is divided into stages, lady. It is best to sail them one at a time.” She watched him for some while as the holoscreen’s pallid light washed across his rapt face. “Why did you mutiny, Fletcher? Was it truly terrible on the He gazed at her in surprise, then slowly smiled. “Not the conditions, lady, though I doubt you would much care for them. It was one man, my captain. He it was, the force moving my life towards the shore of destiny. William Bligh was my friend when the voyage started, strange though it is to recount such a fact now. But oh, how the sea changed him. He was embittered by his lack of promotion, fired by his notions of how a ship should be run. Never have I witnessed such barbarism from a man who claimed to be civilized, nor endured such treatment at his hands. I will spare you the anguish of detail, my fair lady Louise, but suffice it to say that all men have a breaking point. And mine was found during that long, dreadful voyage. However, I endure no shame over my actions. Many good and honest men were freed from his tyranny.” “Then you were in the right?” “I believe so. If this day I were called before the captains in a court-martial, I could give a just account of my actions.” “Now you want to do something similar again. Freeing people, I mean.” “Yes, lady. Though I would endure a thousand voyages with Bligh as my master in preference to one with Quinn Dexter. I had thought William Bligh versed in the ways of cruelty. I see now how mistaken I was. Now, to my horror, I have looked upon true evil. I will not forget the form it takes.” |
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