"Neutronium Alchemist - Consolidation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F.)Chapter 04Ralph Hiltch was gratified and relieved by the speed with which Ombey’s senior administration reacted to what they’d taken to calling the Mortonridge crisis. The people at Hub One were joined by the full complement of the Privy Council security committee. This time Princess Kirsten herself was sitting at the head of the table in the white bubble room, relegating Admiral Farquar to a position adjacent to her. The tabletop mutated into a detailed map showing the top half of Mortonridge; the four towns which the rogue Longhound bus had visited—Marble Bar, Rainton, Gaslee, and Exnall—glinted a macabre blood-red above the rumpled foothills. Flurries of symbols flickered and winked around each of them, electronic armies harassing their foes. Once the last of Moyce’s delivery lorries had been tracked down and eliminated, Diana Tiernan switched the entire capacity of the AIs to analysing vehicles that had left the four towns, and stopping them. In one respect they were fortunate: it was midnight along Mortonridge, the volume of traffic was much reduced from its daytime peak. Identification was reasonably easy. Deciding what to do about both cars and towns was less so. It took twenty minutes of debate, arbitrated by the Princess, before they thrashed out an agreed policy. In the end, the deciding factor was Gerald Skibbow’s completed personality debrief which was datavised down from Guyana. Dr Riley Dobbs appeared before the committee to testify its provenance; an apprehensive man, telling the planetary rulers that they were being assaulted by the dead reborn. But it did provide the justification, or spur, necessary for the kind of action which Ralph was pressing for. And even he sat through Dobbs’s report in a state of cold incredulity. If I’d made a mistake, shown a single gram of weakness . . . The expanded security committee decided that all ground vehicles which had left the Mortonridge towns were to be directed to three separate holding areas established along the M6 by the police AT Squads. Refusal to comply would result in instantaneous SD fire. Once at the holding area, they would be required to wait in their vehicles until the authorities were ready to test them for possession. Failure to remain in the vehicle would result in the police AT Squads opening fire. For the towns, a complete martial law curfew was to be effected immediately, no vehicular traffic or pedestrians allowed. Low orbit SD sensor satellites would scan the streets constantly in conjunction with the local police patrols. Anyone found disobeying the prohibition would be given exactly one opportunity to surrender. Weapons engagement authorization was granted to all the police personnel responsible for enforcing the curfew order. At first light tomorrow the operation to evacuate the four towns would begin. Now that Diana Tiernan and the AIs were reasonably satisfied that no possessed were left anywhere else on the continent, Princess Kirsten agreed to dispatch marine troops from Guyana to assist with the evacuation. All Xingu police reserves would be called in, and together with the marines they would encircle the towns. Squads would then move in to conduct a house-to-house examination. Non-possessed members of the population were to be escorted out and flown on military transports to a Royal Navy ground base north of Pasto where they would be housed for the immediate future. As for the possessed, they would be given a stark choice: release the body or face imprisonment in zero-tau. No exceptions. “I think that covers everything,” Admiral Farquar said. “You’d better make it clear to the marine commanders that they’re not to use assault mechanoids under any circumstances,” Ralph said. “In fact, the more primitive the systems they deploy, the better.” “I don’t know if we’ve got enough chemical projectile weapons in store for everyone,” the admiral said. “But I’ll see that all our current stock is issued.” “It wouldn’t be too difficult for Ombey’s engineering factories to start production of new projectile rifles and ammunition,” Ralph said. “I’d like to see what can be done in that direction.” “It would take at least a couple of days to set up,” Ryle Thorne said. “Our current situation should have been settled by then.” “Yes, sir,” Ralph said. “If we truly have got all the possessed trapped on Mortonridge this time. And if no more sneak on to the planet.” “Starship interception has been one hundred per cent throughout the Ombey system for the last five hours,” Deborah Unwin said. “And you were the first ship to arrive from Lalonde, Ralph. I guarantee no more possessed will escape from orbit down to the planet.” “Thank you, Deborah,” Princess Kirsten said. “I’m not doubting the competence of your officers, nor the efficiency of the SD network, but I have to say I think Mr Hiltch is correct in requesting contingency arrangements. What we’ve seen so far is simply the very first encounter with the possessed; and combating them is absorbing nearly all of our resources. We have to assume that other planets will not be as successful as us in containing the outbreaks. No, this problem is not one which is going to go away in the near or even mid-future. And, as is likely, it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that there is both an afterlife and an afterworld, the philosophical implications are quite extraordinary, and profoundly disturbing.” “Which brings us to our second problem,” Ryle Thorne said. “What are we going to tell people?” “Same as always,” Jannike Dermot said. “As little as possible, certainly to start with. We really can’t risk the prospect of a general panic right now. I would suggest we use the energy virus as a cover story.” “Plausible,” Ryle Thorne agreed. The Home Secretary, the Princess, and her equerry put together a statement for general release the next morning. It was instructive for Ralph to see the Saldana body politic at work in the flesh, as it were. There was no question of the Princess herself delivering the statement to the news companies. That was the job of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. A Saldana simply could not announce such appalling news. It was the function of royalty to offer comments of support and sympathy to the victims at a later date, and people were going to need all the comfort they could get when that byte of official news hit the communications net. #149; #149; #149; The town of Exnall sat two hundred and fifty kilometres below the neck of Mortonridge, where the peninsula joined the main body of the continent. It had been founded thirty years ago, and had grown with confidence ever since. The soil around it was rich, the haunt of any number of aboriginal plant species, many of which were edible. Farmers came in the hundreds to cultivate the new species alongside terrestrial crops which thrived in the moist tropical climate. Exnall was a town dominated by agriculture; even the light industries attracted by the council produced and serviced farm machinery. But by no means a hick town, Chief Inspector Neville Latham thought as his car drove along Maingreen, which ran straight through the centre. Exnall had amalgamated with the local harandrid forest instead of chopping it down to make way for buildings as other Mortonridge towns had done. Even twenty minutes after midnight Maingreen looked superb, the mature trees importing an air of rustic antiquity for the buildings, as if the two had been coexisting for centuries. Streetlights hanging from overhead cables cast a glareless haze of orange-white light, turning the harandrids’ dripping leaves a spooky grey. Only a couple of bars and the all-nighter coffee shop were open; their liquid glass windows swirling in abstract patterns, making it impossible to see exactly what was happening inside. Not that anything wild ever did take place; Neville Latham knew that from his days as a patrol officer twenty years ago. Terminal drunks and stim victims slummed the bars, while night shift workers took refuge in the coffee shop, along with the duty police officers. The car’s drive processor datavised an update request, and Neville directed it off Maingreen and into the police station’s car park. Almost all of Exnall’s twenty-five-strong police complement were waiting for him in the station’s situation management room. Sergeant Walsh stood up as he entered, and the rest stopped talking. Neville took his place at the head of the room. “Thank you all for coming in,” he said briskly. “As you know from the level two security datavise you’ve received, the Prime Minister has decreed a continent-wide curfew to come into effect from one o’clock this morning. Now, I’m sure we’ve all accessed the rumours streaming the net today, so I’d like to clarify the situation for you. First the good news: I’ve been in communication with Landon McCullock who assures me that Ombey has not been contaminated by a xenoc biohazard as the media has been hinting. Nor are we under any sort of naval assault. However, it seems someone has released an extremely sophisticated sequestration technology down here on Xingu.” Neville watched the familiar faces in front of him register various levels of apprehension. The ever-dependable Sergeant Walsh remained virtually emotionless, the two detectives, Feroze and Manby, wary and working out angles, genuine disquiet among the junior patrol officers—who knew full well they’d have the dirty job of actually going out in their cars and enforcing the curfew order. He waited a few moments for the grumbles to subside. “Unfortunately, the bad news is that the Privy Council security committee believes several examples of this technology may already be loose here in Exnall. Which means we are now under a full state of martial law. Our curfew has to be enforced one hundred per cent, no exceptions. I know this is going to be difficult for you, we’ve all got family and friends out there, but believe me the best way to help them now is to make sure the order holds. People must not come into contact with each other; which is how the experts think this technology spreads. Apparently it’s very hard to spot anyone who has been sequestrated until it’s too late.” “So we just sit in our homes and wait?” Thorpe Hartshorn asked. “For how long? For what?” Neville held up a placatory hand. “I’m coming to that, Officer Hartshorn. Our efforts will be supported by a combined team of police and marines who are going to seal off the entire area. They should be here in another ninety minutes. Once they arrive all the houses in the town will be searched for any victims of the sequestration, and everyone else is going to be evacuated.” “The whole town?” Thorpe Hartshorn asked suspiciously. “Everybody,” Neville confirmed. “They’re sending over a squadron of military transports to take us away. But it’s going to take a few hours to organize, so it falls upon us to ensure that the curfew is maintained until then.” DataAxis, Exnall’s sole news agency, was at the other end of Maingreen from the police station; a shabby, three-storey flat-roofed office module which made few creditworthy concessions to the sylvan character of the town. The agency itself was a typical small provincial outfit, employing five reporters and three communications technicians who between them combed the whole county for nuggets of information. Given the nature of the area their brief was wide-ranging, dealing in local human interest stories, official events, crime (such as it was), and the horrendously mundane crop price sheets which the office processors handled with little or no human supervision. Out of this fascinating assortment of articles they had managed to sell precisely four items to Ombey’s major media companies in the last six weeks. But that had certainly changed today, Finnuala O’Meara thought jubilantly as the desktop processor finished decrypting the level two security datavise from Landon McCullock to Neville Latham. She’d spent a solid ten hours fishing the net streams today, digesting every rumour since yesterday’s Guyana alert. Thanks to the trivia and paranoid nightmares which every bulletin site geek on the planet had contributed she’d felt completely stimmed out and ready to pack it in. Then an hour ago things got interesting. AT Squads had seen action in Pasto. Violent action by all accounts—and still no official media release on that from the police. The motorways were being shut down clean across the continent. Reports of SD fire on vehicles abounded, including a clear account of a runaway bus being vaporized not a hundred and fifty kilometres south of Exnall. And now, Xingu’s police commissioner, in person, informing Neville Latham that an unknown, but probably xenoc, sequestration virus was loose in Exnall. Finnuala O’Meara datavised a shutdown order into the desktop processor block and opened her eyes. “Bloody hell,” she grunted. Finnuala was in her early twenties, eleven months out of university in Atherstone. Her initial delight at landing a job within two days of qualifying, had, during the first quarter of an hour at the agency, turned into dismay. The Exnall agency didn’t deal in news, it churned out anti-insomnia treatments. Dismay had slumped to surly anger. Exnall was everything which was rotten with small towns. It was run by a clique, a small elite group of councillors and businessmen and the richer local farmers, who made the decisions which counted at their dinner parties and out on their golf course. It was no different from her own hometown, the one over on the Esparta continent where her parents never quite made the leap to real money contracts because they lacked the connections. Excluded, by class, by money. She did nothing for half a minute after the decrypted datavise slipped from her mind, sitting staring at the desktop processor. Accessing the net’s police architecture was illegal enough, owning a level two decryption program was grounds for deportation. But she couldn’t ignore this. “Hugh?” she called. The communications technician sharing the graveyard shift with her cancelled the Jezzibella album he was running and gave her a disapproving look. “What?” “How would the authorities announce a curfew to the general public, one where everyone is confined to their house? Specifically, a curfew here in Exnall.” “Are you having me on?” “No.” He blinked away the figments of the flek and accessed a civil procedures file in his neural nanonics. “Okay, I’ve found it; it’s a pretty simple procedure. The chief inspector will use his code rating to load a universal order into the town’s net for every general household processor. The message will play as soon as the processor is accessed, no matter what function you asked for—you tell it to cook your breakfast or vacuum the floor, the first thing it will do is tell you about the curfew.” Finnuala patted her hands together, charting out options. “So people won’t know about the curfew until tomorrow morning after they wake up.” “That’s right.” “Unless we tell them first.” “Now you really are winding me up.” “No way.” The smile on her face was carnivorous. “I know what that prat Latham is going to do next. He’ll warn his friends before anyone else, he’ll make sure they’re ready to be evacuated first. It’s his style, this whole bloody town’s style.” “Don’t be so paranoid,” Hugh Rosler said edgily. “If the evacuation is under McCullock’s command, nobody will be able to pull a fast one from this end.” Finnuala smiled sweetly and datavised an order into the desktop processor block. It accessed the net’s police architecture again, and the monitor programs she designated went into primary mode. The results simmered into Hugh’s mind as a cluster of grey, dimensionless icons. Someone at the police station was datavising a number of houses in the town and outlying areas. They were personal calls, and the households they were being directed at were all depressingly familiar. “He already is,” Finnuala said. “I know these people as well as you do, Hugh. Nothing changes, not even when our planet is under threat.” “So what do you want to do?” “What this agency is supposed to do: inform people. I’ll assemble a package warning everyone about the sequestration, but instead of just releasing it on the media circuit I want you to program the agency processor to datavise it to everyone in Exnall right away, coded as a personal priority message. That way we’ll all have an equal chance to get clear when the military transports arrive.” “I don’t know about this, Finnuala. Maybe we ought to check with the editor first . . .” “Bugger the editor,” she snapped. “He already knows. Look who was seventh on Latham’s list. Do you think his priority is to call us? Do you? Right now he’s getting his fat wife and their backwards brat dressed ready to take off for the landing site. Are your wife and kids being told, Hugh? Are they being made safe?” Hugh Rosler did what he always did and offered no resistance. “All right, Finnuala, I’ll modify the processor’s program. But by Christ, you’d better be right about this.” “I am.” She stood up and pulled her jacket off the back of the chair. “I’m going down to the police station, see if I can get a personal comment from that good man Chief Inspector Latham on the crisis facing his little fiefdom.” “You’re pushing it,” Hugh warned. “I know.” She grinned sadistically. “Great, isn’t it.” Ralph knew he didn’t have anything to prove anymore. The AT Squads were alert to the terrible danger, they’d been fully blooded. So there was no practical reason for him to take a police hypersonic out to Mortonridge. Yet here he was with Cathal, Will, and Dean heading south at Mach five. His justification . . . well, the marine brigade coming down from the orbital bases would need to be brought up to speed. And he might have some advice invaluable to those on the ground. In reality, he needed to see those towns cordoned off for himself. The threat contained, pinned down ready for extermination. “It looks like your idea about zero-tau was on the ball,” Roche Skark datavised. “All six prisoners we captured at Moyce’s have now been placed in the pods shipped down from Guyana. Four of them fought like lunatics before the AT Squads could force them in. The other two were apparently cured before they went in. In both cases the possessors just gave up and left the bodies rather than undergo exposure to temporal stasis.” “That’s about the best news I’ve had for ten hours,” Ralph replied. “They can be beaten, squeezed out without killing the body they’re possessing. It means we’re not just fighting a holding action.” “Yes. Well, full credit to you for that one, Ralph. We still don’t know why the possessed can’t tolerate zero-tau, but no doubt the reason will turn up in debrief at some time.” “Are you shoving the cured prisoners into personality debrief?” “We haven’t decided. Although I think it’s inevitable eventually. We must not get sidetracked from neutralizing the Mortonridge towns. Frankly, the science of it all can wait.” “What sort of state are the prisoners in?” “Generally similar to Gerald Skibbow, disorientated and withdrawn, but their symptoms are nothing like as severe as his. After all they were only possessed for a few hours. Skibbow had been under Kingston Garrigan’s control for several weeks. Certainly they’re not classed as dangerous. But we’re placing them in secure isolation wards for the moment, just in case. It’s the first time I’ve agreed with Leonard DeVille all day.” Ralph snorted at the name. “I meant to ask you, sir. What is it with DeVille?” “Ah, yes; sorry about him, Ralph. That’s pure politics between us and our dear sister agency. DeVille is one of Jannike’s puppets. The ISA keeps tabs on all major Kingdom politicians, and those who are squeaky clean are nudged forward. DeVille is obnoxiously pure in heart, if devious in mind. Jannike is grooming him as a possible replacement for Warren Aspinal as Xingu’s Prime Minister. Ideally, she’d like him in charge of the hunt operation.” “Whereas you had the Princess appoint me as chief advisor . . .” “Exactly. I’ll have a word with Jannike about him. It’s probably heretical of me, but I think the problem the possessed present us might be slightly more important than our little internal rivalries.” “Thank you, sir. It’d be nice to have him off my back.” “I doubt he’d be much more of a problem anyway. You’ve done some sterling work tonight, Ralph. Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed. You’ve condemned yourself to a divisional chief’s desk for the rest of eternity now. I can assure you the boredom is quite otherworldly.” Ralph managed a contemplative smile in the half-light of the hypersonic’s cabin. “Sounds attractive right now.” Roche Skark cancelled the channel. With his mind free, Ralph datavised a situation update request to Hub One. The squadron of Royal Marine troop flyers were already halfway down from Guyana. Twenty-five police hypersonics carrying AT Squads were arrowing across the continent, converging on Mortonridge. All motorway traffic had now been shut down. An estimated eighty-five per cent of non-motorway vehicles had been located and halted. Curfew orders were going out to every general household processor in Xingu. Police in the four Mortonridge towns were preparing to enforce the martial law declaration. It looked good. In the computer, it looked good. Secure. But there must be something we missed. Some rogue element. There always is. Someone like Mixi Penrice. Someone . . . who abandoned the Confederation marines in Lalonde’s jungle. Who left Kelven Solanki and his tiny, doomed command to struggle against the wave of possessed all alone. All actions which were fully justifiable in the defence of the realm. Maybe I’m not so dissimilar to DeVille after all. Twenty minutes after Neville Latham had issued his assignment orders, the station situation management room had settled down into a comfortable pattern. Sergeant Walsh and Detective Feroze were monitoring the movement of the patrol cars, while Manby was maintaining a direct link to the SD centre. Any sign of human movement along the streets should bring a patrol car response within ninety seconds. Neville himself had taken part in issuing dispatch orders to the patrol officers. It felt good to be involved, to show his people the boss wasn’t afraid of rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in there. He’d quietly accepted the fact that for someone his age and rank Exnall was a dead end posting. Not that he was particularly bitter; he’d realized twenty-five years ago he wasn’t cut out for higher office. And he fitted in well here with these people, the town was his kind of community. He understood it. When he retired he knew he would be staying on. Or so he’d thought until today. Judging from some of the latest briefing updates he’d received from Pasto, after tomorrow there might not be much of Exnall left standing for him to retire to. However, Neville was determined about one thing. Nonentity he might be, but Exnall was going to be protected to the best of his ability. The curfew would be carried out to the letter with a competence which any big city police commander would envy. “Sir.” Sergeant Walsh was looking up from the fence of stumpy AV pillars lining his console. “Yes, Sergeant.” “Sir, I’ve just had three people datavise the station, wanting to know what’s going on, and is the curfew some kind of joke.” Feroze turned around, frowning. “I’ve had five asking me the same thing. They all said they’d received a personal datavise telling them a curfew was being effected. I told them they should check their household processor for information.” “Eight people?” Neville queried. “All receiving personal messages at this time of night?” Feroze glanced back at one of his displays. “Make that fifteen, I’ve got another seven incoming datavises stacked up.” “This is absurd,” Neville said. “The whole point of my universal order was to explain what’s happening.” “They’re not bothering to access it,” Feroze said. “They’re calling us direct instead.” “Eighteen new datavises coming in,” Walsh said. “It’s going to hit fifty any minute.” “They can’t be datavising warnings to each other this fast,” Neville murmured, half to himself. “Chief,” Manby was waving urgently. “SD control reports that house lights are coming on all over town.” “What?” “Hundred and twelve datavises, sir,” Walsh said. “Did we mess up the universal order?” Neville asked. At the back of his mind was the awful notion that the electronic warfare capability Landon McCullock warned him about had glitched the order. “It was straight out of the file,” Feroze protested. “Sir, we’re going to run out of net access channels at this rate,” Walsh said. “Over three hundred datavises coming in now. Do you want to reprioritize the net management routines? You have the authority. We’d be able to re-establish our principle command channels if we shut down civilian data traffic.” “I can’t—” The door of the situation management room slid open. Neville twisted around at the unexpected motion (the damn door was supposed to be codelocked!), only to gasp in surprise at the sight of a young woman pushing her way past a red-faced Thorpe Hartshorn. A characteristics recognition program in his neural nanonics supplied her name: Finnuala O’Meara, one of the news agency reporters. Neville caught sight of a slender, suspicious-looking processor block which she was shoving back into her bag. A codebuster? he wondered. And if she has the nerve to use one inside a police station, what else has she got? “Ms O’Meara, you are intruding on a very important official operation. If you leave now, I won’t file charges.” “Recording and relaying, Chief,” Finnuala said with a hint of triumph. Her eyes with their retinal implants were unblinking as they tracked him. “And I don’t need to tell you this is a public building. Knowing what happens here is a public right under the fourth coronation proclamation.” “Actually, Miss O’Meara, if you bothered to fully access your legal file, you’d know that under martial law all proclamations are suspended. Leave now, please, and stop relaying at once.” “Does that same suspension give you the right to warn your friends about the danger of xenoc sequestration technology before the general public, Chief Inspector?” Latham blushed. How the hell did the little bitch know that? Then he realized what someone with that kind of command access to the net could do. His finger lined up accusingly on her. “Have you datavised personal warnings to people in this town?” “Are you denying you warned your friends first, Chief Inspector?” “Shut up, you stupid cow, and answer me. Did you send out those personal alarm calls?” Finnuala smirked indolently. “I might have done. Want to answer my question now?” “God in Heaven! Sergeant Walsh, how many calls now?” “One thousand recorded, sir, but that’s all our channels blocked. It may be a lot more. I can’t tell.” “How many did you send, O’Meara?” Neville demanded furiously. She paled slightly, but stood her ground. “I’m just doing my job, Chief Inspector. What about you?” She arched an eyebrow, aspiring to hauteur. “Everybody.” “You stupid—The curfew is supposed to be averting a panic; and it would have done just that if you hadn’t interfered. The only way we’re going to get out of this with our minds still our own is if people stay calm and follow orders.” “Which people?” she spat back. “Yours? The mayor’s family?” “Officer Hartshorn, get her out of here. Use whatever force is necessary, and some which isn’t if you want. Then book her.” “Sir.” A grinning Hartshorn caught Finnuala’s arm. “Come along, miss.” He held up a small nervejam stick in his free hand. “You wouldn’t want me to use this.” Finnuala let Hartshorn tug her out of the situation management room. The door slid shut behind them. “Walsh,” Neville said. “Shut down the town’s communications net. Do it now. Leave the police architecture functional, but all civil data traffic is to cease immediately. They mustn’t be allowed to spread this damn panic any further.” “Yes, sir!” The police hypersonic carrying Ralph had already started to descend over the town of Rainton when Landon McCullock datavised him. “Some bloody journalist woman started a panic in Exnall, Ralph. The chief inspector is doing his best to damp it down, but I’m not expecting miracles at this point.” Ralph abandoned the hypersonic’s sensor suite. The image he’d received of Rainton was all in the infrared spectrum, rectangles of luminous pink glass laid out over the black land. Glowing dots converged in the air above it, marine troop flyers and police hypersonics ready to implement the isolation. Given they were the forces of salvation, their approach formation looked strangely like the circling of giant carrion birds. “I suggest you or the Prime Minister broadcasts to them directly, sir. Appeal to them to follow the curfew order. Your word should carry more weight than some local dignitary. Tell them about the marines arriving; that way they’ll also see that you’re acting positively to help them.” “Good theory, Ralph. Unfortunately Exnall’s chief inspector has shut down the town’s net. Only the police architecture is functional right now. The only people we can broadcast to are the ones sitting in the patrol cars.” “You have to get the net back on-line.” “I know. But now it seems there’s a problem with some of the local management processors.” Ralph squeezed his fists, not wanting to hear. “Glitches?” “Looks like it. Diana is redirecting the AIs to interrogate Exnall’s electronics. But there aren’t nearly enough channels open for them to be as effective as they were in Pasto.” “Hellfire! Okay, sir, we’re on our way.” He datavised a quick instruction to the pilot, and the hypersonic rose above its spiralling siblings before streaking away to the south. Two hundred and fifty kilometres above Mortonridge, the SD sensor satellite made its fourth pass over Exnall since the network had been raised to a code three alert status. Deborah Unwin directed its high-resolution sensors to scan the town. Several specialist teams of security council analysts and tactical advisors were desperate for information about the town’s on-the-ground situation. But they weren’t getting the full picture. In several places the satellite images were fuzzy, edges poorly defined. Switching to infrared didn’t help; red ripples swayed to and fro, never still. “Just like the Quallheim Counties,” Ralph concluded morosely when he accessed the data. “They’re down there, all right. And in force.” “It gets worse,” Deborah datavised. “Even in the areas relatively unaffected we still can’t get a clear picture of what’s going on below those damn harandrid trees. Not at night. All I can tell you is that there are a lot of people out on the streets.” “On foot?” Ralph queried. “Yes. The AIs loaded travel proscription orders into all the processor controlled vehicles in the town. Some people will be able to break the order’s code, of course. But basically the only mechanical transport left in Exnall right now are the bicycles.” “So where are all the pedestrians going?” “Some are taking the main link road to the M6, but it looks like the majority are heading for the town centre. I’d say they’re probably converging on the police station.” “Damn it, that’s all we need. If they congregate in a crowd there’s no way we’ll be able to stop the possession from spreading. It’ll be like a plague.” Frank Kitson was angry in a way he hadn’t been for years. Angry, and just a bit alarmed, too. First, woken up in the dead of night by a priority message from some O’Meara woman he’d never heard of. Which turned out to be a paranoid fantasy about xenoc takeovers and martial law. Then when he tried to datavise the police station about it he couldn’t get through to the duty officer. So he’d seen the lights on next door, and datavised old man Yardly to see if he knew what was going on. Yardly had received the same priority datavise, as had some of his family, and he couldn’t get through to the police either. Frank didn’t want to make a fool of himself by appearing panicky, but something odd was definitely going down. Then the communications net crashed. When he accessed the general household processor for an emergency channel to the police station there was an official message in the processor’s memory from Chief Inspector Latham announcing the curfew, setting out its rules, and assuring all the citizens they would be evacuated in the morning. Genuinely worried now, Frank told his little family to get ready, they were leaving right away. The car processor refused to acknowledge his datavise. When he switched the car to manual override, it still wouldn’t function. That was when he set off to find a police officer and demand to be told just what the hell was going on. It was a few minutes short of one o’clock when the curfew was officially due to start. And in any case, he was an upstanding subject of the King, he had every right to be on the street. The curfew couldn’t possibly apply to him. A lot of other people seemed to have the same idea. Quite a group of them marched down the wide road out of their tranquil residential suburb heading for the town centre, shoulders set squarely against the night air. Some people had brought their kids, the children sleepy, their voices piping and full of queries. Comments were shouted back and forth, but no one had any answers to what was actually going on. Frank heard someone call his name, and saw Hanly Nowell making his way towards him. “Hell of a thing,” he told Hanly. They worked for the same agrichemical company; different divisions, but they drank together some nights, and their two families went on joint outings occasionally. “Sure.” Hanly looked distracted. “Did your car pack up?” Frank nodded, puzzled by how low Hanly was keeping his voice, almost as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “Yes, some kind of official traffic division override in the processor. I didn’t even know they could do that.” “Me neither. But I’ve got my four-wheeler. I can bypass the processor in that, go straight to manual drive.” They both stopped walking. Frank threw cautious glances at the rest of the loose group as they passed by. “Room in it for you and the family,” Hanly said when the stragglers had moved away. “You serious?” Maybe it was the thick grey tree shadows which flapped across the street creating confusing movements of half-light, but Frank was sure Hanly’s face was different somehow. Hanly always smiled, or grinned, forever happy with life. Not tonight, though. Guess it’s getting to him, too. “Wouldn’t have offered otherwise,” Hanly said generously. “God, thanks, man. It’s not for me. I’m scared for the wife and Tom, you know?” “I know.” “I’ll go back and get them. We’ll come around to your place.” “No need.” And now Hanly was smiling. He put an arm around Frank’s shoulders. “I’m parked just around the corner. Come on, we’ll drive back to your house. Much quicker.” Hanly’s big offroad camper was sitting behind a thick clump of ancient harandrids in a small park. Invisible from the street. “You thought about where we can go to get clear?” Frank asked. He was keeping his own voice low now. There were still little groups of people walking about through the suburb, all making their way to the town centre. Most of them would probably appreciate a ride out, and wouldn’t be too fussy how they got it. He was bothered by how furtive and uncharitable he’d become. Focusing on survival must do that to a man. “Not really.” Hanly opened the rear door and gestured Frank forwards. “But I expect we’ll get there anyway.” Frank gave him a slightly stiff smile and climbed in. Then the door banged shut behind him, making him jump. It was pitch black inside. “Hey, Hanly.” No answer. He pushed at the door, pumping the handle, but it wouldn’t open. “Hanly, what the hell you doing, man?” Frank had the sudden, awful realization that he wasn’t alone inside the camper. He froze, spread-eagle against the door. “Who’s there?” he whispered. “Just us chickens, boss.” Frank whirled around as a fearsome green-white light bloomed inside the camper. Its intensity made him squeeze his eyes tight shut, fearing for his retinas. But not before he’d seen the sleek wolverine creatures launching themselves at him, their huge fangs dripping blood. From his seat in the situation management room, Neville Latham could hear the crowd outside the police station. They produced an unpleasant ebb and flow of sound which lapped at the building, its angry tone plain for all to hear. The final impossibility: a mob in Exnall! And while he was supposed to be enforcing a curfew. Dear Lord. “You must disperse them,” Landon McCullock datavised. “They cannot be allowed to group together for any length of time, it would be a disaster.” “Yes, sir.” How? he wanted to shout at his superior. I’ve only got five officers left in the station. “How long before the marines land?” “Approximately four minutes. But, Neville, I’m not allowing them in to the town itself. Their priority is to establish a secure perimeter. I have to think of the whole continent. What’s loose in Exnall cannot be allowed out.” “I understand.” He glanced at the desktop processor’s AV projector which was broadcasting Exnall’s status display. The SD sensor satellite wasn’t producing as many details as he would have liked, but the overall summary was accurate enough. Approximately six hundred people were milling along Maingreen outside the station, with dribs and drabs still arriving. Neville made his decision and datavised the communications block for a channel to each patrol car. It was all over now, anyway: career, retirement prospects, probably his friends, too. Ordering the police to open fire with sonics on his own townsfolk wouldn’t make the recriminations appreciably worse. And it would be helping them, even though they’d never appreciate the fact. #149; #149; #149; Eben Pavitt had arrived at the police station ten minutes ago, and still hadn’t managed to get anywhere near the doors to make his complaint. Not that it would do him much good if he had got up there. He could see those at the front of the building hammering away at the thick glass doors to no avail. If that pompous dickbrain Latham was in there, he wasn’t doing his duty and talking to the crowd. It was beginning to look like his walk (two bloody kilometres, dressed in a thin T-shirt and shorts) had all been for nothing. How utterly bloody typical that Latham should bungle tonight. Ineffective warnings. Sloppy organization. Cutting people off from the net. The chief inspector was supposed to be helping the town, for crying out loud. By God, my MP is going to hear about this. If I get out in one piece. Eben Pavitt glanced uneasily at his fellow townsfolk. There was a constant derisory shouting now. Several stones had been thrown at the police station. Eben disapproved of that, but he could certainly understand the underlying frustration. Even Maingreen’s overhead streetlights seemed to be sharing the town’s malaise, they weren’t as bright as usual. Away in the distance, above the fringes of the crowd, he could see several of them flickering. He wasn’t going to achieve anything here. Perhaps he should have hiked straight out of town? And it still wasn’t too late, if he started now. As he turned around and started to push his way through the press of aggrieved people, he thought he saw a large flyer curving through the sky above the western edge of town. Trees and the wayward streetlights swiftly cut it from his view, but there wasn’t much else that gold-haze blob could be. And the size could only mean a military transport of some kind. He grinned secretively. The government was doing something positive. Perhaps all was not lost after all. Then he heard the sirens. Patrol cars were racing along Maingreen, approaching the crowd from both ends. Those people around him were straining to catch a glimpse of the latest distraction. “LEAVE THE AREA,” an amplified voice bellowed from the police station. “THE TOWN IS NOW UNDER MARTIAL LAW. RETURN HOME AND REMAIN THERE UNTIL YOU RECEIVE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.” Eben was sure the distorted voice belonged to Neville Latham. The first patrol cars braked dangerously close to people on the edge of the main crowd, as if their safety systems had somehow become uncoupled. Several jumped clear hurriedly, two or three lost their footing and fell over. One man was struck by a patrol car, sending him cannoning into a woman. They both went sprawling. A deluge of boos were directed at the patrol cars. Eben didn’t like the mood which was emerging among his fellow citizens. These weren’t the usual peaceable Exnall residents. And the police reaction was unbelievably provocative. A lifelong law abider, Eben was shocked by their actions. “LEAVE THE AREA NOW. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ASSEMBLY.” A single lump of stone tumbled through the air above the bobbing heads of the crowd. Eben never did see the arm which flung it. One thing remained certain, though, it was thrown with incredible force. When it hit the patrol car it actually managed to fracture the bonded silicon windscreen. Several taunting cheers went up. Suddenly the air was thick with improvised missiles raining down on the patrol cars. The response was predictable, and immediate. A couple of assault mechanoids emerged from the rear of each patrol car. Sense-overload ordnance shot out, red flares slicing brilliant ephemeral archways across the stars. They should have been warning shots. The mechanoids had a direct-attack prohibition loaded into their processors which only Neville Latham could cancel. The ordnance activated two metres above the compressed bustle of bodies at the heart of the crowd. The effect was almost as bad as if live ammunition had been fired straight at them. Eben saw men and women keel over as though they’d been electrocuted. Then his eyes were streaming from intolerable light and wickedly acidic gas. Human screams vanished beneath a hyper-decibel whistle. His neural nanonics sensorium filter programs were unable to cope (as the ordnance designers intended), leaving him blind, deaf, and virtually insensate. Heavy bodies thudded into him, sending him spinning, stumbling for balance. Pinpricks of heat bloomed across his bare skin, turning to vicious stings. He felt his flesh ballooning, body swelling to twice, three times its normal size. Joints were seizing up. Eben thought he was screaming. But there was no way to tell. The solid sensations, when they started to return, were crude ones. His bare legs scraping over damp grass. Limp arms banging against his side. He was being dragged along the ground by his collar. When he’d regained enough rationality to look around, the scenes of suffering on Maingreen outside the police station made him want to weep with rage and helplessness. The crazed assault mechanoids were still pummelling people with their ordnance from point-blank range. A direct hit brought instant death, for those nearby the activation it was outright torture. “Bastards,” Eben rasped. “You bastards.” “Pigs are always the same.” He looked up at the man who was pulling him away from the melee. “Christ, thanks, Frank. I could have died if I’d stayed in there.” “Yeah, I suppose you could have,” Frank Kitson said. “Lucky I came along, really.” The police hypersonic landed next to the five big marine troop flyers. They were strung out along the link road which connected Exnall to the M6; a quintet of dark, menacingly obese arachnids whose landing struts had dinted the carbon concrete. The start of the town’s harandrid forest was two hundred metres away, a meticulous border where the aboriginal trees finished and the cultivated citrus groves began. As he came down the hypersonic’s airstairs, Ralph’s suit sensors showed him the marine squads fanning out along the edge of the trees. Some kind of barrier had already been thrown across the road itself. So far a perfect deployment. The marine colonel, Janne Palmer, was waiting for Ralph in the command cabin of her flyer. It was a compartment just aft of the cockpit with ten communications operatives, and three tactical interpretation officers. Even though it was inside and well protected, the colonel was wearing a lightweight armour suit like the rest of her brigade. Her shell helmet was off, showing Ralph a surprisingly feminine face. The only concession to military life appeared to be her hair, which was shaved down to a two-millimetre stubble of indeterminable colour. She gave him a fast nod of acknowledgement as he was escorted in by a young marine. “I accessed a recording of the operation at Moyce’s,” she said. “These are one tough set of people we’ve got here.” “I’m afraid so. And it looks like Exnall is the worst infestation out of all the four Mortonridge towns.” She glanced into an AV pillar’s projection. “Nice assignment. Let’s hope my brigade can handle it. At the moment I’m trying to establish a circular perimeter roughly fifteen hundred metres outside the town. We should have it solid in another twenty minutes.” “Excellent.” “That forest’s going to be a bitch to patrol. The SD sensor sats can’t see shit below the trees, and you’re telling me I can’t rely on our usual observation systems.” “ ’Fraid not.” “Pity. Aerovettes would be exceptionally handy in this case.” “I must advise against using them. The possessed can really screw our electronics. You’re far better off without them. At least that way you know the information you’re receiving is accurate, even though there isn’t much of it.” “Interesting situation. Haven’t handled anything like this since tac school, if then.” “Diana Tiernan told me the AIs have got very few datalinks left into Exnall. We’ve definitely lost most of the town’s communications net. Even the police architecture has failed now. So the exact situation inside is unknown.” “There was some kind of fight outside the police station which finished a couple of minutes ago. But even if that crowd which gathered along Maingreen have all been possessed, that still leaves us with a lot of the population which have escaped so far. What do you want to do about them?” “Same as we originally planned. Wait until dawn, and send in teams to evacuate everyone. But I wish to Christ that curfew had held. It did in all the other towns.” “Wishes always wind up as regrets in this game, I find.” Ralph gave her a speculative look, but she was concentrating on another AV projection. “I think our main concern right now is to contain the possessed in Exnall,” he said. “When it’s light we can start worrying about getting the rest out.” “Absolutely.” Janne Palmer stared straight at the ESA operative, and gave him a regretful grin. “And come dawn I’m going to need the best information I can acquire. A lot of lives are going to depend on me getting it right. I don’t have any special forces types in my brigade. This was a rush operation. But what I do have now is you and your G66 troops. I’d like you to go in and make that assessment for me. I believe you’re the best qualified, in all respects.” “You don’t happen to know Jannike Dermot, do you?” “Not personally, no. Will you go in for me? I can’t order you to; Admiral Farquar made it quite plain you’re here to advise, and I have to take that advice.” “Considerate of him.” Ralph didn’t even need any time to decide. “There’s a platoon assembled and waiting for you in flyer four.” Finnuala O’Meara had passed simple frustration a long time ago. Over an hour, in fact. She had been sitting on a bunk in the police station’s holding cell for an age. Nothing she did brought the slightest response from anyone, not datavises into the station processor, nor shouting, or thumping on the door. Nobody came. It must have been that prick Latham’s orders. But she could nail him. Anytime she wanted, now. He must know that. Which was probably why he’d kept her in here while the rest of She’d heard the noises from outside, the sound of a crowd gathering and protesting. A large crowd if she was any judge. Then the sirens of the patrol cars rushing along Maingreen. Speakers blaring a warning, pleas, and threats. Strange monotonous thumps. Screams, glass smashing. It was awful. She belonged outside, drinking down the sight. After the riot, or whatever, it had become strangely quiet. Finnuala had almost drifted off to sleep when the cell door did finally open. “About bloody time,” she said. The rest of the invective died in her throat. A huge mummy shuffled laboriously into the cell, its bandages a dusty brown, with lime-green pustulant fluids weeping from its hands. It was wearing Neville Latham’s immaculate peaked cap. “So sorry to keep you waiting,” it apologized gruffly. Colonel Palmer’s field command officers informed Ralph’s reconnaissance team about the woman as they were about to enter Exnall. Datavise bandwidth was being suppressed by the now-familiar electronic warfare field, preventing anything other than basic conversation. They certainly couldn’t receive a full sensevise, or even a visual image, so they had to rely on a simple description instead. As far as the SD sensor satellites could tell, the town’s entire population had retreated back into the buildings. Earlier on there had been a considerable amount of movement under the umbrella of harandrids, blurred infrared smears skipping about erratically. Then as dawn rose even those beguiling traces vanished. The only things left moving in Exnall were the treetops swaying back and forth in the first morning zephyr. Roofs, and even entire streets, appeared blurred, as if a gentle rain was pattering on the satellite’s lenses. Visually, the town was a complete hash, except for a solitary circle, fifteen metres across, in front of a diner which served the link road to the M6. And in the middle of that was the woman. “She’s just standing there,” Janne Palmer datavised. “She’ll be able to see anything approaching up the link road into town.” “Any weapons apparent?” Ralph asked. Along with the twelve-strong platoon the colonel had assigned him, he was crouched down at the side of the road, a hundred metres short of the first houses. They were using a small embankment for cover as they crept in towards the town. His head was ringing with a mental version of tinnitus, which he suspected was due to the stimulants. After only two hours sleep in the last thirty-six he was having to use both chemical and software excitants to keep his edge. But he couldn’t afford to relax his guard, not now. “Definitely not,” Janne Palmer told him. “At least not any heavy-calibre hardware, anyway. She’s wearing a jacket, so she could be concealing a small pistol inside it.” “Not that it makes any difference if she’s possessed. We’ve not seen them use a weapon yet.” “Quite.” “Dumb question, but is she alive?” “Yes. We can see her chest moving when she breathes, and her infrared signature is optimum.” “She’s some kind of bait, do you think?” “No, too obvious. I’d guess some kind of sentry, except they must know we’re here. Several squads have skirmished while we were setting up the perimeter.” “Hell, you mean they’re loose in the woods?” “ ’Fraid so. Which means I can’t confirm that all the possessed are inside the cordon. I’ve requested some more troops from Admiral Farquar to start searching the locality. The request is up before the security committee as we speak.” Ralph cursed silently. Possessed roaming around in this area would be nigh on impossible to track down. The Mortonridge countryside was a rugged nightmare. Pity we haven’t got any affinity-bonded hounds, he thought. The ones he’d seen the settlement supervisors use back on Lalonde would have been perfect for the job. And I can just see Jannike Dermot’s face if I make that suggestion to the security committee. But . . . hell, they’re what we need. “Ralph, one moment please,” Colonel Palmer datavised. “We’ve run an ident check on our lady sentry. It’s confirmed, she’s Angeline Gallagher.” “Hell. That changes everything.” “Yes. Opinion here is that she’s wanting to talk. She’s not stupid. Allowing herself to be seen like this must be their equivalent of a white flag.” “I expect you’re right.” Ralph gave the platoon’s lieutenant an order to halt their advance while the security committee came on line. The marines formed themselves into a defensive circle, scanning the trees and the nearby houses with their most basic sensors. Ralph let his automatic rifle hang at his side as he squatted in the middle of some thick marloop bushes. He had a terrible intimation that Gallagher (or rather her possessor) wasn’t about to lay out some convenient terms of surrender. There never can be surrender between us, he acknowledged gloomily. So what could she want to say? “Mr Hiltch, we concur with Colonel Palmer that the woman wants to negotiate,” Princess Kirsten datavised. “I know it’s a lot to ask after all you’ve been through, but I’d like you to go in there and talk to her.” “We can set up SD ground-strike coverage to support you,” Deborah Unwin datavised. “Put you in the eye of a hurricane, so to speak. Any tricks or attempts to overwhelm you, and we’ll laser out a two-hundred-metre circle with you at the centre. We know they can’t withstand the SD platform’s power levels.” “It’s all right,” Ralph told his invisible audience. “I’ll go in. After all, I was the one who brought her here.” Strangely enough, Ralph didn’t think of very much at all when he was walking the last five hundred metres along the road. All he wanted to do now was get the job over. The road which had started at the mouth of a titanic river on a different, distant planet finished inside a pretty rural town on the rump of nowhere. If there was an irony to be had in those circumstances, Ralph couldn’t taste it. Angeline Gallagher’s possessor waited calmly outside the cheap single-storey diner as he walked towards her. Dean, Will, and Cathal accompanied him for most of the way; then when they were still a hundred metres away from her he told them to wait and carried on alone. Nothing moved in any of the simple, elegant buildings which lined the link road. But he knew they were waiting behind the walls and blanked windows. The conviction grew inside him that they weren’t showing themselves because it wasn’t yet their time to do so. Their part in the drama would come later. This was a surety he’d never known before, a kind of psychic upswelling. And with it his intimation of disaster grew ever stronger. The closer he got to the woman, the less the electronic warfare field affected his implants and suit blocks. By the time he was five metres away, the security committee was receiving a full sensevise again. He stopped. Squared his shoulders. Took off his shell helmet. Her smile was almost pitying in its sparsity. “Looks like we’ve arrived at the crunch time,” she said. “Who are you?” “Annette Ekelund. And you are Ralph Hiltch, the ESA’s head of station on Lalonde. I might have known you would be the one they set on us. You’ve done quite a good job so far.” “Could we cut the bullshit? What do you want?” “Philosophically, to live for ever. Practically, I want you to call off the police and marines you’ve got circling this town along with the other three we’ve managed to occupy. Right now.” “No.” “I see you’ve already learned not to make threats. No “Zero-tau.” Annette Ekelund frowned as she considered the response. “Yes. Possibly. It is, I admit, certainly frightening enough for us. But there’s no finality to that, not anymore. If we flee our possessed bodies to escape zero-tau, we can still return. There are already several million possessed walking upon the Confederation worlds. Within weeks, that number will be hundreds of millions, a few days later billions. I will always have a way back now. As long as a single human body is left alive my kind can resurrect me. Do you understand now?” “I understand the zero-tau option works. We will put you in the pods; and we will keep putting you in the pods until there are no more of you left. Do you understand that?” “I’m sorry, Ralph, but as I said, you simply cannot threaten me. Have you worked out why yet? Have you worked out the real reason I will win? It is because you will ultimately join me. You are going to die, Ralph. Today. Tomorrow. A year from now. If you’re lucky, in fifty years time. It doesn’t matter when. It is entropy, it is fate, it is the way the universe works. Death, not love, conquers all in the end. And when you die, you will find yourself in the beyond. That is when you and I will become brother and sister in the same fellowship. United against the living. Coveting the living.” “No.” “Do not speak about something you know nothing about.” “I still do not believe you. God is not that cruel. There will be more to death than this emptiness you found.” She laughed bitterly. “Fool. Know-nothing fool.” “But a living fool. A fool you have to contend with here and now.” “There is no such thing as God, Ralph. Only humans are stupid enough to create religions. Have you noticed that? None of the xenocs we’ve encountered need to bandage their insecurities and fears with promises of incorporeal glory that are every soul’s due. Oh, no, Ralph; God is merely the term an ignorant primitive uses when he wants to say quantum cosmology. The universe is an entirely natural structure, one which is exceptionally vicious in its attitude to life. And now we have an opportunity to leave it for good, a chance of salvation. We’re not going to let you stop us, Ralph.” “I can, and I will.” “Sorry, Ralph, but your intransigent belief in humanity is your principal weakness, one which you share with the rest of this Kingdom’s devout population. We intend to exploit that to the full. What I’m about to say might seem inhuman, but then, that’s what you think I am anyway. As I told you, the dead cannot lose this fight, for you have no lever on us. We cannot be threatened, coerced, nor pleaded with. Like death itself, we are an absolute.” “What is it you have to say?” “Am I talking to this planet’s authorities, the Saldana Princess?” “Yes. She’s on-line.” “Good. Then I say this: You almost managed to exterminate us last night, and if our fight continues along those same lines today then a great many people will be killed, a situation neither of us would welcome. Therefore I propose a standoff solution. We will keep Mortonridge for ourselves, and I pledge none of us will leave it. If you do not believe me, and I expect trust to be lacking on your part, you have the physical power to set up a blockade across the neck of this land where it joins the continent.” “No deal,” Princess Kirsten datavised. “The Kingdom will not abandon its subjects,” Ralph said out loud. “You ought to know that by now.” “We acknowledge the Kingdom’s strength,” Annette Ekelund said. “And that is why we propose this ceasefire. The outcome of the struggle between the living and our kind will not be decided by what transpires here. We are too evenly matched. However, not every Confederation planet is as advanced or as competent as Ombey.” She raised her head, closing her eyes as she did so, looking blindly up at the sky. “Out there is where both our fates are being decided right now. You, like I, will have to wait for the outcome to be determined by others. We know that we will triumph. Just as your misplaced faith tells you that the living will be victorious.” “So you’re saying we should just sit it out on the sidelines?” “Yes.” “I don’t even have to ask the security committee for their opinion on that one. We’re not the sideline, we’re the front line, we are a major part of the struggle against you. If we can show other planets that it is possible to stop you from spreading, banish you from the bodies you’ve captured, then they will have faith in their own ability.” Annette Ekelund nodded sadly. “I understand. Princess Saldana, I have tried reason; now I must use something stronger to convince you.” “Ralph, our satellite sensors just came back on-line,” Deborah Unwin reported. “We can see a lot of movement down there. Oh, Christ, they’re swarming out of the houses. Ralph, get out of there. Now. Do it now! Run.” But he stood his ground. He knew the Ekelund woman wasn’t threatening him personally. This was to be a demonstration. The one he’d anticipated, and dreaded all along. “Do you want ground-strike support?” Admiral Farquar datavised. “Not yet, sir.” His enhanced retinas showed him doors opening all the way along the street, people emerging onto the pavements. At Ekelund’s invisible signal, the possessed were bringing out their hostages. The illusory bodies on display were deliberately gaudy, ranging from historical warlords to fictitious creatures, blighted monsters and necromantic demigods. Fantasies chosen to emphasise the impossible gulf between them and their frightened prisoners. Each of the sorcerous apparitions was paired with one of Exnall’s surviving non-possessed residents. Like their captors, they were a cross section of the community, young and old, male and female; dressed in nightgowns, pyjamas, hurriedly thrown on shirts, even naked. Some struggled, the diehards and the fatalists; but most had been tyrannized into obedience. The possessed restrained them with the greatest of ease as they hustled them forwards, their energistic ability giving them a mechanoid’s strength. Children wailed fearfully as they were gripped by hands and claws as hard as stone. Men grimaced in subdued fury. A symphony of cries and hopeless shouts laid siege to Ralph’s ears. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled at Ekelund. His arm swept around. “For Christ’s sake, you’re hurting them.” “This is not all,” Annette Ekelund said impassively. “Tell your people to look four kilometres south-west of the town at a lake called Otsuo. There is an abandoned offroad camper there belonging to one of Exnall’s residents.” “Hang on, Ralph,” Deborah Unwin datavised. “We’re scanning now. Yep, there’s a vehicle parked there all right. Registered to a Hanly Nowell, he works at an agrichemical plant in the town’s industrial precinct.” “Okay,” Ralph said. “It’s there. Now tell your people to ease off those hostages.” “No, Ralph,” Annette Ekelund said. “They will not ease off. What I am trying to make clear to you is the fact that we have spread beyond this town. I could only know where the vehicle was if I ordered the driver to leave it there. And it is not the only one, not from this town nor the others. We have escaped the clutches of your marines, Ralph. I organized the four towns which the Longhound bus visited very carefully; we were busy last night while you were chasing after the possessed in Pasto. My followers spread out along the whole peninsula; on foot, on horseback, on bikes, in manual control vehicles. Even I don’t know where they all are any more. The marines barricading the towns are worthless. Now you will have to block off Mortonridge in its entirety to prevent us from contaminating the rest of the continent.” “No problem.” “I’m sure. But you’ll never retake this land from us, not now. You can’t even claim back this single town, not without committing genocide. You’ve already seen what a single one of us can achieve when we have to defend ourselves. Imagine that destructive power focused with evil intent. Suburban fusion plants ruptured, hospitals incinerated, day clubs crashing down on their young occupants. So far we have never killed anyone, but if we chose to do so, if you leave us with no alternative, this planet will suffer enormously.” “Monster!” “And I’ll do it, Ralph. I’ll give the order for my followers to start the campaign. It will come right after my order for every non-possessed in Exnall to be murdered. They’re going to be killed right here on the streets in front of you, Ralph. We will crush their skulls, snap their necks, strangle them, cut their bellies open and leave them to bleed to death.” “I don’t believe you.” “No, you don’t want to believe me, Ralph. There is a difference.” Her voice became smooth, taunting him. “What have we got to lose? These people you see around you will join us one way or the other. That is what I’m trying to tell you. Either their bodies will be possessed, or they will die and possess in turn. Please, Ralph, don’t allow yourself and others to suffer because of your stupid beliefs. Ralph wanted to kill her, hating and fearing the serene way she talked about slaughter, knowing she wasn’t bluffing. The most basic human urge, to wipe out your enemy hard and fast, came firing up from his subconscious. His neural nanonics had to reduce his heart rate. One hand moved fractionally towards the pistol holster on his belt. And I can’t do it. Can’t kill her. Can’t end it all with the one act of barbarism which we’ve always resorted to. Dear God, she’s already dead. Annette Ekelund’s eyes followed the tiny motion of his hand. She smiled and turned to beckon one of the figures that had emerged from the diner. Ralph watched numbly as a mummy wearing a peaked police cap shuffled forwards. The girl held in its solid embrace couldn’t have been more than fifteen. All she wore was a long mauve T-shirt. Her bare legs were grazed and streaked with dirt. She’d been crying profusely. Now she could only whimper as she was dragged towards him. “Nice-looking girl,” Annette Ekelund said. “A fine body, if a little young. But I can alter that. You see, if you blow big chunks out of this body of Angeline Gallagher’s, Ralph, the girl will become the one I possess next. My colleague here will break her bones, rape her, rip the skin from her face, hurt her so terribly she’ll make a pact with Lucifer himself to make it stop. But it won’t be Lucifer who answers her from the afterlife, only me. I shall come forth again; and you and I will be right back where we started, except that Gallagher’s body will be dead. Will she thank you for that, do you think, Ralph?” Nerve impulse overrides prevented Ralph’s hands from tearing Ekelund’s head from her shoulders. “What do you want me to say?” he datavised to the security committee. “I don’t think we have any choice,” Princess Kirsten replied. “I cannot allow thousands of my people to be killed out of hand.” “If we leave, they’ll be possessed,” Ralph warned her. “Ekelund will do exactly what she described to this girl, and all the others. Not just here, but right along the whole length of Mortonridge.” “I know, but I have to consider the majority. If the possessed are outside the marine cordons, then we’ve already lost Mortonridge. I cannot lose Xingu, too.” “There are two million people living on Mortonridge!” “I am aware of that. But at least if they’re possessed they will still be alive. I think that Ekelund woman is right; the overall problem of possession isn’t going to be solved here.” There was a moment’s pause. “We’re cutting our losses, Ralph. Tell her she can have Mortonridge. For now.” “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered. Annette Ekelund smiled. “She agreed, didn’t she?” “You may have Mortonridge,” Ralph relayed imperturbably as the Princess started to outline the conditions. “We will instigate an immediate evacuation procedure for people from areas you have not yet reached; any attempt to sabotage vehicles will result in SD strikes against areas where we know you are concentrated. If any of you try to pass the cordon we establish between Mortonridge and the main body of the continent you will be put into zero-tau. If any of you are found outside the cordon you will be put into zero-tau. If there is any terrorist assault against any Ombey citizen or building we will send in a punitive expedition and throw several hundred of you into zero-tau. If you attempt to communicate with other offplanet possessed forces, you will again be punished.” “Of course,” Ekelund said mockingly. “I agree to your terms.” “And the girl comes with me,” Ralph declared. “Come come, Ralph, I don’t believe the authorities actually said that.” “Try me,” he challenged. Ekelund glanced at the sobbing girl, then back to Ralph. “Would you have bothered if she was a wizened old grandmother?” she asked sarcastically. “But you didn’t choose a wizened old grandmother, did you? You chose her because you knew how protective we are towards the young. Your error.” Ekelund said nothing, but made a sharp irritated gesture to the mummy. It let the girl go. She floundered, trembling so badly she could hardly stand. Ralph caught her before she fell. He winced at the weight that put on his injured leg. “I’ll look forward to the day you join us, Ralph,” Ekelund said. “However long it takes. You’ll be quite an asset. Come and see me when your soul finally obtains a new body to live in.” “Fuck you.” Ralph scooped the girl up and started to walk down the road. He ignored the hundreds of people standing in front of the prim buildings, the indifferent possessed and their wailing distraught victims, the ones he’d failed so completely. Staring resolutely ahead, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. He knew if he took it all in, acknowledged the magnitude of the disaster he’d wrought, he’d never be able to carry on. “Enjoy your magnificent victory with the girl,” Annette Ekelund called after him. “This one is only the beginning,” he promised grimly. |
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