"The Naked God - Faith" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F.)

Chapter 02

Fifty years ago, Sinon had visited the Welsh-ethnic planet Llandilo, where he’d spent a cold three hours straddling sunrise to watch a clan of New Druids welcome the first day of spring. As pagan ceremonies went, it was a fairly boring affair for an outsider, with off-key singing and interminable Gaelic invocations to the planet’s mother goddess. Only the setting made it worthwhile. They’d gathered on the headland of some eastward-facing coastal cliffs, where a line of tremendous granite pillars marched out to sea. God’s colonnade, the locals called it.

When the sun rose, pink and gold out of the swaddling sea mist, its crescent was aligned perfectly along the line of pillars. One by one, their tops had blazed with rose-gold coronas as the shadows flowed away. Gladdened by nature’s poignancy, the congregation of white-clad New Druids had finally managed to achieve a decent harmony and their voices rang out across the shore.

It was a strange recollection for Sinon to bring to his new serjeant body with its restricted memory capacity. He certainly couldn’t remember his reason for retaining it. An overdose of sentiment, presumably. Whatever the motive, the Llandilo memory was currently providing a useful acclimatisation bridge to the present. Nine thousand of the serjeants trapped on Ketton’s island had gathered together near the edge of the plateau to exert their will, with the remainder joining their endeavours via affinity as they walked resolutely over the mud towards the rendezvous point. They weren’t praying, exactly, but the visual similarity with the New Druids was an amusing comfort. The beleaguered Edenists needed whatever solace they could garner from the dire situation.

Their first, and urgent, priority had been to stem the gush of atmosphere away from the flying island before everybody suffocated. A simple enough task for their assembled minds now they had acquired some degree of energistic power; the unified wish bent whatever passed for local reality into obedience. Even Stephanie Ash and her raggedy little group of followers had aided them in that. Now it was as though the air layer around the outside of the island had become an impregnable vertical shield.

Encouraged and relieved, they stated their second wish loud and clear: to return. In theory, it should have been easy. If a massive concentration of energistic power had brought them here to this realm, then an equally insistent concentration should be able to get them back. So far, this argument of logical symmetry had failed them utterly.

“You dudes should give it a rest,” Cochrane said irritably. “It’s real spooky with all of you standing still like some zombie army.”

Along with the others of Stephanie’s group, the redoubtable hippie had spent a quarter of an hour trying to help the serjeants open some kind of link back to the old universe. When it became obvious (to them) that such a connection was going to be inordinately difficult, if not impossible, he’d let his attention drift. They’d ended up sitting in a circle round Tina, giving her what support and comfort they could.

She was still very weak, sweating and shivering as she lay inside a heavily insulated field sleeping bag. One of the serjeants with medical knowledge who’d examined her said that loss of blood was the biggest problem. Their direct infusion equipment didn’t work in this realm, so it had rigged up a primitive intravenous plasma drip feed for her.

Stephanie’s unvoiced worry was that Tina had suffered the kind of internal injuries they could never repair properly with their energistic power, however much they willed her to be better. As with Moyo’s eyes, the subtleties of the flesh had defeated them. They needed fully-functional medical nanonic packages. Which wasn’t going to happen here.

Her other concern was exactly what would happen to the souls of anyone whose body died in this realm. Their connection with the beyond had been irrevocably severed. It wasn’t a prospect she wanted to explore. Though looking at Tina’s poorly acted cheer, she thought they might all find out before too long.

Sinon broke out of his trance-state, and looked down at Cochrane. “Our attempt to manipulate the energistic power is not a physically draining exercise. As there is nothing else for us to do here, we consider it appropriate to continue with our efforts to return home.”

“You do, huh? Yeah, well, I can dig that. I purge myself with yoga. It’s righteous. But, you know, us cats, we’ve got to like eat at some time.”

“I’m sorry, you should have said.” Sinon walked over to one of the large piles of backpacks and weapons which the serjeants had discarded. He found his own and unfastened the top. “We don’t ingest solid food, I’m afraid, but our nutrient soup will sustain you. It contains all the proteins and vitamins required by a normal human digestion system.” He pulled out several silvery sachets and distributed them round the dubious group. “You should supplement the meal with water.”

Cochrane flipped the cap off the sachet’s small valve and sniffed suspiciously. With everyone watching intently, he squeezed a couple of drops of the pale amber liquid onto his finger, and licked at them. “Holy shit! It tastes like seawater. Man, I can’t eat raw plankton, I’m not a whale.”

“Big enough to qualify,” Rana muttered under her breath.

“We have no other source of nourishment available,” Sinon said in mild rebuke.

“It’s fine, thank you,” Stephanie told the big serjeant. She concentrated for a moment, and her sachet solidified into a bar of chocolate. “Don’t pay any attention to Cochrane. We can imagine it to be whatever taste we like.”

“Bad karma’ll get you,” the hippie sniffed. “Yo there, Sinon. You got a glass going spare? I figure I can still remember what a shot of decent bourbon tastes like.”

The serjeant rummaged round in his pack, and found a plastic cup.

“Hey, thanks, man.” Cochrane took it from him, and transformed it into a crystal tumbler. He poured a measure of the nutrient soup out, watching happily as it thinned into his favourite familiar golden liquor. “More like it.”

Stephanie peeled the wrapper from her chocolate, and bit off a corner. It tasted every bit as good as the imported Swiss-ethnic delicacy she remembered from her childhood. But then, in this case the memory is the taste, she told herself wryly. “How much of this nutrient soup have you got left?” she asked.

“We each carry a week’s supply in our pack,” Sinon said. “That period is calculated on the assumption we will be physically active for most of the time. With careful rationing it should last between two and three weeks.”

Stephanie gazed out across the rumpled grey-brown mud which made up the surface of the flying island. Occasional pools of water glinted in the uniform blue-tinted glare that surrounded them. A few scattered ferrangs and kolfrans nosed around the edges of drying mires, nibbling at the fronds of smothered vegetation. Not enough to provide the combined human and serjeant inhabitants with a single meal. “I guess that’s all the time we’ve got then. Even if we had warehouses full of seed grain, three weeks isn’t enough time to produce a crop.”

“It is debatable if the air will sustain us for that long anyway,” Sinon said. “Our estimate for the human and serjeant population on this island is twenty-thousand-plus individuals. We won’t run out of oxygen, but the increase in carbon dioxide caused by that many people breathing will reach a potentially dangerous level in ten days’ time unless that air is recycled. As you can see, no vegetation survives to do this. Hence our determination to explore the potential of our energistic power.”

“We really ought to be helping you,” Stephanie said. “Except I don’t see how we can. None of us have affinity.”

“The time might come when we need your instinct,” Sinon said. “Your collective will brought us here. It is possible that you can find a way back. Part of our problem is that we don’t understand where we are. We have no reference points. If we knew where we were in relation to our own universe, we might be able to fashion a link back to it. But as we played no part in bringing the island here, we don’t know how to begin the search.”

“I don’t think we do either,” Moyo said. “This is just a haven for us, a place where the Liberation isn’t.”

“Interesting,” Sinon said. More serjeants started to listen to the conversation, eager for any clue that might be scattered amid the injured man’s words. “You weren’t aware of this realm before, then?”

“No. Not specifically. Although I suppose we were aware that such a place existed, or could exist. The desire to reach it is endemic among us—the possessors, that is. We want to live where we don’t have any connection to the beyond, and where there’s no night to remind us of empty space.”

“And you believe this is it?”

“It would seem to fill the criteria,” Moyo said. “Not that I can vouch for the lack of night,” he added bitterly.

“Are the other planets here?” Sinon asked. “Norfolk and all the others? Were you aware of them at any time?”

“No. I never heard or felt anything like that when we moved here.”

“Thank you.” Instinct appears to be the governing factor,he said to the others. I don’t believe we can rely on it for answers.

I don’t understand why we can’t simply wish ourselves back,choma said. We have a power equal to theirs; we also have a commensurate desire to return.

The united minds in their mini-consensus decided there were two options. That the possessed had spontaneously created a sealed continuum for themselves. An improbable event. While that would account for several properties of this realm—the failure of their electronic hardware, the cutting off of the beyond—the creation of an entirely new continuum by manipulating existing space-time with energy would be an inordinately complex process. Coming here was achieved by sheer fright, which discounted such a procedure.

More likely, this continuum already existed, secluded among the limitless dimensions of space-time. The beyond was such a place, though with very different parameters. They must have been thrown deep inside the multitude of parallel realms conjunctive within the universe. In such circumstances, home would be no distance at all away from where they were now. At the same time, it was on the other side of infinity.

There was also the failure to open even a microscopic wormhole, despite a formidable concentration of their energistic strength. That did not bode well at all. Before, ten thousand possessed had opened a portal wide enough to embrace a lump of rock twelve kilometres in diameter. Now, twelve thousand serjeants couldn’t generate a fissure wide enough to carry a photon out.

The explanation had to be that energy states were different here. And in eleven days’ time, that simple difference was going to kill them when the clean air ran out.

Stephanie watched Sinon for a couple of minutes, until it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything else. She could sense the minds of the serjeants all around her, just. There was none of the emotional surges which betrayed normal human thoughts. Just a small, even, glow of rationality, which occasionally fluttered with a hint of passion, a candle flame burning a speck of dust. She didn’t know if that was indicative of Edenist psyches, or normal serjeant mentality.

The swarthy bitek constructs remained unnervingly motionless as they stood in a loosely circular formation. Every new platoon which arrived immediately discarded their backpacks and joined their fellows in stationary contemplation of their predicament. As far as Stephanie could tell, they were the only humans among them. The newly arrived serjeants had all given the remnants of Ketton a wide berth. Yet she could sense a stir of minds amid the ruined town. As first puzzled why not one of them had ventured out to talk to the serjeants, she’d now assigned a certain resignation to the fact.

“We should go over and talk to the others,” she said. “Having this kind of division is ridiculous in these circumstances. If we’re going to survive, we have to cooperate and work together.”

McPhee sighed, and wriggled his large frame comfortably over the sleeping bag he was lying on. “Oh lass, you only see good in everyone. Open your eyes. Remember what yon bastards did to us, and let them stew.”

“I’d like to open my eyes,” Moyo said harshly. “Stephanie’s right. We should at least make an attempt. Setting up different camps is stupid.”

“I didn’t mean to offend. I’m just pointing out that they’ve made no attempt to talk to us or the serjeants.”

“They’re probably too nervous of the serjeants,” Stephanie said. “It’s only been half a day, after all. I doubt they even know how much trouble we’re in. They’re not as disciplined as the Edenists.”

“They’ll find out eventually,” Rana said. “Let them come to us when they’re ready. They won’t be so dangerous then.”

“They’re not dangerous now. And we’re in a perfect position to make the first move.”

“Whoa there, sister,” Cochrane said. He struggled up into a sitting position, which sent a lot of bourbon slopping out of his tumbler. “Not dangerous? Like funky! What about the Ekelund chick? She put up some mighty fine barricades last time we waved goodbye.”

“That situation hardly applies anymore. You heard Sinon. We’re going to die if we don’t find a way out of here. Now I don’t know if their help will make any difference, but it certainly won’t reduce our chances.”

“Urrgh. I like hate it when you’re reasonable, it’s the ultimate bad trip. I know it’s bigtime wrong, and I can never escape.”

“Good. You’ll come with us, then.”

“Oww shit.”

“I’ll stay here with Tina,” Rana said quietly, and gave her friend’s hand a small squeeze. “Someone has to keep her comfortable.”

Tina smiled with hollow defiance. “I’m such a nuisance.” There was a chorus of indignant reassuring no’s from the group. They all hurriedly smiled at her or made encouraging gestures. Moyo’s face wore a forlorn expression as he fumbled round for Stephanie’s guiding hand.

“We won’t be long,” she told the pair of them positively. “Sinon?” She tapped the serjeant lightly on its shoulder. “Would you like to come with us?”

The serjeant stirred. “I will. Making contact is a good idea. Choma will accompany us, also.”

Stephanie couldn’t quite sort out the reason she was doing this. There was none of the automatic protectiveness which had driven her to help the children back on Mortonridge. Not even the sense of paternalism which had kept them all together in the weeks before the Liberation. She supposed it could have been simple self-preservation. She wanted the two sides working together to salvage this situation. Anything other than their wholehearted effort might not be enough.

The ground outside Ketton had suffered few changes following the quake. There was the shallowest of curves across the width of the island, betraying the original shape of the valley from which it had been snatched. Long hummocks bordered the slowly drying mires, rambling gently across the slope like the sand-ripples of a tidal estuary. All that remained of the forests which had smothered the foothills were denuded black branches poking resolutely skywards. There was no sign of the roads which had survived the deluge; the quake had swept them away. Twice they found craggy sheets of carbon concrete jutting up from the mud, leaning over at acute angles. Neither of them corresponded to their memory of where the road had been.

With the loam all churned up again, Stephanie found her feet sinking a couple of inches at every step. It wasn’t as bad as when they’d raced to keep ahead of the jeeps, but walking was an effort. And they still hadn’t fully regained their strength. Half a mile from the outskirts of the town, she stopped for a rest, disappointed at how hard she was breathing. Each inhalation made her feel guilty at the way she was poisoning the air.

From a distance, Ketton was at least different to the surrounding land. Individual, tightly-packed zones of colour supported the theory that although most of the buildings were damaged, they at least remained loosely intact. Now she could see what a fallacy that was. She should have been warned by the complete absence of trees.

Cochrane prodded his narrow purple sunglasses up to his forehead, and peered ahead. “Man oh man, what were you cats thinking of? I mean, this is like wasted , with the world’s biggest capital W.”

“The harpoon assault against Ketton was intended to deprive the occupying possessed of any tactical cover,” Sinon said. “We have suffered considerable attrition due to your booby traps and ambushes. As you were determined to make a stand here, General Hiltch was equally resolved to deny you any advantage the town itself could offer. I believe the quake was also supposed to be a psychological blow as well.”

“Yeah?” the hippie scoffed. “Well that backfired on you, didn’t it? Look where scaring us shitless got you.”

“You consider yourself better off here?” McPhee laughed snidely at Cochrane’s chagrin.

“Is it bad?” Moyo asked.

“There’s nothing left,” Stephanie told him. “Nothing at all.” Up close the patches of colour were actually just dull variations of grime, low mounds of rubble that fused into the mud. Even with their energistic power almost undimmed, the possessed had made no attempt to resurrect the buildings. Instead, people were picking their way among the ruins, a constant swarm of movement.

As they drew closer, she realized there was nothing aimless and disorientated in the actions of the survivors. They were methodically excavating the mounds, scooping out quantities of bricks and shattered concrete with a combination of physical and energistic force. It was all very purposeful and efficient. In other words, organized.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she said in a low voice as they reached the outer knolls of rubble. “I think Ekelund might still be in charge here.”

“In charge of what?” Cochrane asked. “This is like a municipal landfill site. And they’ve only got ten days to live.”

A team of two women and one man, barely out of his teens, were working away on one of the piles, shifting large metal frames as if they were made of plastic. They’d already dug several short tunnels into the pile. Battered composite boxes of sachets had been stacked neatly just above the mud. The three of them stopped what they were doing as Stephanie and Sinon walked over. Stephanie’s spirits fell even further when she saw they were wearing army fatigues.

“We thought we ought to see if there was anything we could do to help,” she said. “If there’s somebody trapped in the wreckage, or anything.”

The young man scowled, looking between her and her companions. “Nobody trapped. What you doing with those Kingdom monster things? You some kind of spy?”

“No, I’m not a spy,” she said carefully. “There is nothing for anyone to spy on here. We’re on this island together. Nobody has anything to hide any more. There’s nothing to fight for, not amongst ourselves.”

“Oh yeah? How much food have you got? Not much, I’ll bet. Is that why you’re here?” His anxious glance slipped to the small stack of boxes they’d uncovered.

“The serjeants have enough food to last us, thank you. Who’s actually in charge here?”

The man was opening his mouth to answer when an incredible stab of hot pain punctured Stephanie’s hip. It was so intense she couldn’t even cry out in shock. She was flung back by the force of the impact, the world spinning madly about her. Landing on her back, she saw her limbs splayed out in the air. Gore and blood splattered onto the mud around her as she went limp.

I’ve been shot!

Everyone was shouting wildly. Dashing about in total confusion. The air hazed over with bright scintillations, thickening protectively around her. Stephanie raised her head, looking along her body with numb interest. Her trousers and blouse were glistening crimson with blood. There was a long rent in the fabric over her hip, showing the torn flesh and splinters of bone underneath. Shock gave her vision a perfect clarity. Then her head suddenly became very warm, and the hideous pain returned. She screamed, her vision turning grey as her muscles relaxed, dropping her head down into the mud again.

“Stephanie! Fuck, oh fuck, what’s happened?”

That was Moyo, his anguish and fright making her frown.

“Ho-lee shit! Those dudes shot her. Yo, Stephanie, babe, you hear me? You hang on. It’s like a scratch. It’s nothing. We’ll fix it for you.”

A dark demon was kneeling beside her, its carapace alive with wriggling sparks.

“I’m applying pressure. It should stop the bleeding. Focus your thoughts on repairing the bone first.”

Stephanie was receding from them, only vaguely aware of a dry liquid spilling all across her torso. It was deepest over her hips, exerting a cool weight. A beautiful opalescent cloud twinkled languidly in front of her eyes. Soothing to watch. She could feel her yammering heart slowing to a more pedestrian rhythm. Which brought her frantic gasps back under control. That was good. She still harboured a lot of guilt about using all that air.

“It’s sealing up.”

“God, the blood.”

“She’s all right. She’s alive.”

“Stephanie, can you hear me?”

Long shivers were rippling up and down her body. Her skin had turned to ice. But she could blink her eyes into focus. The faces of her dear friends were staring down, paralysed with grief.

Her lips flicked into a tiny smile. “That hurt,” she whispered.

“Just take it easy,” Franklin grunted. “You’re in shock.”

“Certainly am.” Moyo’s hand was clutching her upper arm so tightly it was painful. She tried to reach for him, offer some reassurance.

“The wound has been repaired,” Sinon said. “You have lost a considerable amount of blood, however. We’ll need to take you back to our camp, and get some plasma into you.”

Something familiar was creeping into her sphere of consciousness. Familiar and unwelcome. Cold, hard thoughts, reeking of callous satisfaction.

“I told you so, Stephanie Ash. I told you not to come back here.”

“You piece of fascist shit!” McPhee bellowed. “We’re no’ armed.”

Stephanie struggled to lift her head. Annette Ekelund was standing at the head of some thirty or so soldiers. She was wearing an immaculately pressed pale khaki field commander’s uniform, complete with forage cap. Three stars glinted unnaturally on her epaulettes. A powerful hunting rifle was cradled casually in her hands. Holding Stephanie’s gaze, she worked the bolt slowly and deliberately. A spent cartridge case was ejected.

Stephanie groaned, her shoulders sagging with dismay. “You’re insane.”

“You bring the enemy into our camp, and you expect to go unpunished. Come come, Stephanie, that’s not how it works.”

“What enemy? We came to see if you needed help. Don’t you understand?” She wanted to retreat back into the numb oblivion of pain and shock. It was preferable to this.

“Nothing has changed simply because we’ve won. They are still the enemy. And you and your loony bin refugee friends are traitors.”

“Excuse me,” Sinon said. “But you have not won. This island has no food. The air will run out in ten days’ time. All of us have to find a way back before then.”

“What do you mean the air’s running out?” Delvan asked.

Sinon’s voice became louder. “There is no fresh air in this realm, only what we brought with us. At the current rate, our breathing will exhaust it in ten days, a fortnight at the most.”

Several soldiers in the ranks behind Ekelund exchanged solicitous glances with each other.

“Simple disinformation,” Annette said dismissively. “It sounds very plausible. If we were back in our old universe I’d even believe it myself. But we’re not. We’re in the place of our choosing. And we chose an existence that would carry us safely down through eternity. This is as close to classical heaven as the human race will ever get.”

“You specified the boundary qualifications,” Sinon said. “A realm where you were cut off from the beyond, and night is a null concept. But that’s all you did. This realm isn’t going to safeguard you from folly. It’s not some actively benign environment that will happily provide every need. You are responsible for what you bring here, and all you brought was a lump of lifeless rock with a thin smear of air on top. Tell me, I’m interested, how do you think this island is going to sustain you for tens of thousands of years?”

“You are a machine. A machine designed with one purpose, to kill. That is all you understand. You have no soul. If you had, you would feel at one with this place. You would know its glory. This is where we longed to be. Where we are safe, and at peace. You have lost, machine.”

“Yo there.” Cochrane had raised his hand. He smiled broadly, radiating enthusiasm like an eager schoolboy. “Um, lady, I’m normally like organic I’m so in touch with the music of the land. And I gotta tell you, I don’t feel shit for this lump of mud. There’s no karmic vibes here, babe. Believe me.”

“Believe a seditious junkie? I think not.”

“What do you want?” Stephanie asked. She could see Cochrane losing his cool if he kept on arguing with Ekelund. That would turn out bad for everybody. Ekelund needed very little justification to exterminate all of them. In fact, Stephanie was wondering what was holding her back. Probably just enjoying her gloat.

“I don’t want anything, Stephanie. You broke our arrangement and came here to me, remember?”

“In peace. Wanting to help.”

“We don’t need help. Not from you. Not here. I have everything under control.”

“Stop this.”

“Stop what, Stephanie?”

“Let them go. Give these people back their liberty. For pity’s sake, we’ll die here if we can’t find a way out, and you’ve got them fenced in by your authoritarian regime. This isn’t heaven. This is a huge mistake we got panicked into making. The serjeants are trying to help us. Why can’t you cooperate with that?”

“Ten hours ago, these things you’ve befriended were trying to kill us. No, worse than kill. Any of us they capture, they throw back into the beyond. I didn’t see you rushing to hand back your nice new body, Stephanie. You went crawling out of Ketton hoping to hide in the dirt until they passed over.”

“Look if it’s some kind of revenge trip you want, then just shoot me in the head and get it over with. But let the others go. You can’t condemn everyone on this island just because you have so much fear and hatred inside.”

“I abhor your assumed nobility.” Annette walked past Cochrane and Sinon to stand over Stephanie. The barrel of the rifle hung inches above her clammy forehead. “I find it utterly repellent. You can never accept that you might be wrong. You perpetually claim the moral high ground as if it’s some kind of natural inheritance. You use your own sweetness-and-light nature as a shield to ignore what you’ve done to the body you’ve stolen. That disgusts me. I would never try to deny what I am, nor what I’ve done. So just for once, admit the truth. I did what was right. I organized the defence of two million souls, including yours, and prevented you from being cast back into that horror. Tell me, Stephanie, was that the right thing to do?”

Stephanie closed her eyes, squeezing small trickles of moisture out onto her cheeks. Maybe Ekelund is right, maybe I am trying to ignore this monstrous crime. Who wouldn’t? “I know what I’ve done is wrong. I’ve always known. But I haven’t got a choice.”

“Thank you, Stephanie.” She turned to Sinon. “And you, death machine, if you believe what you say, then you should switch yourself off and allow real humans to live longer. You’re wasting our air.”

“I am human. More so than you, I suspect.”

“The time will come when we will throw the serpent back out into the emptiness.” She smiled without humour. “Enjoy the fall. It looks like being a long one.”

Sylvester Geray opened the doors to Princess Kirsten’s private office and gestured Ralph to go through. The Princess was sitting at her desk, with the French doors open behind her, allowing a slight breeze to ruffle her dress. Ralph stood to attention in front of her, saluted, then put his flek down on the desk. He’d worked on the single file stored inside during the flight over from Xingu.

Kirsten looked at it with pursed lips, making no attempt to pick it up. “And that is . . . ?” She said it with the air of someone who knew very well what it contained.

“My resignation, ma’am.”

“Rejected.”

“Ma’am, we lost twelve thousand serjeants at Ketton, and God knows how many possessed civilians went with them. I gave the order. It is my responsibility.”

“It certainly is, yes. You assumed that responsibility when Alaistair placed you in charge of the Liberation. And you will continue to bear that responsibility until the last possessed on Mortonridge is placed in zero-tau.”

“I can’t do it.”

Kristen gave him a sympathetic look. “Sit down, Ralph.” She indicated one of the chairs in front of the desk. For a second it appeared as though Ralph might refuse, but he gave a subdued nod and eased himself down.

“Now you know what being a Saldana is like,” she told him. “Admittedly, we’re not faced with quite such momentous decisions every day, but they still pass across this desk here. My brother has authorized fleet deployments which have resulted in a far higher cost of life than Ketton. And as you of all people know, we indirectly license the elimination of people who would one day cause trouble for the Kingdom. Not very many, and not very often, perhaps, but it mounts up over the course of a decade. Those decisions have to be made, Ralph. So I grit my teeth, and give the necessary orders, the really tough ones that the Cabinet would have a collective fit over if they were ever made to take them. That’s genuine political power. Making the decisions which affect other people’s lives. The overall daily running of the Kingdom is our domain, us Saldanas. Now call us what you like: ruthless dictators, heartless capitalists, or benign guardians appointed by God. The point is, what we do, we do very well indeed. That’s because we take those decisions without hesitation.”

“You’re trained to, ma’am.”

“True. But so are you. I admit the scale here is vastly different to what an ESA head of station is accustomed to. But in the end, you’ve been deciding who lives and who dies for some time now.”

“I got it wrong!” Ralph wanted to shout at her, make her see reason. Something in his subconscious held him back. Not out of respect, or even fear. Perhaps I just want to know I did the right thing. Nobody else in the Kingdom, except perhaps Alaistair II himself, could provide that assurance and have it mean anything.

“Yes Ralph, you did. You got it very badly wrong. Squeezing the possessed into Ketton was a bad move, even worse than using electron beams against the red cloud.”

He looked up in surprise, meeting the Princess’s uncompromising stare.

“Were you looking for compassion, Ralph? Because you won’t get it in here, not from me. I want you back on Xingu revising the advance across Mortonridge. Not just because you’re there to stop me and the family from taking the blame. I remember you the night we discovered Ekelund and the others had landed on this planet. You were driven, Ralph. It was mighty impressive to watch. You didn’t compromise a single decision to Jannike or Leonard. I enjoyed that. People of their rank don’t often get publicly stone-walled.”

“I didn’t realize you were paying me that much attention,” Ralph grunted.

“Of course you didn’t. You had one job to do, and nothing else mattered. Now you have another job. And I expect you to see it through.”

“I’m not the right man. That drive you saw, that’s what landed us with the Ketton fiasco. The AI gave me several options. I chose the brute force approach because I was too fired up for a rational alternative. Hammer them with overwhelming firepower and battalions of troops until they capitulate. Well now you know what that policy leaves us with. A damn great hole in the ground.”

“It was a painful lesson, wasn’t it?” She leant forward, determined to convince rather than alienate. “That just makes you better qualified to carry on.”

“Nobody will trust me.”

“Snap out of that self-pitying bullshit routine right now.”

Ralph almost smiled. Sworn at by a Saldana Princess.

“This is what war is about, Ralph. The Edenists aren’t going to carry grudges; they were part of the decision-making process to storm Ketton. As for the others, the marines and occupation forces, they all hate you anyway. One more cock-up by the chief isn’t going to make any difference to their opinion. They’ll get their orders for the next stage, and the lieutenants and NCOs will make sure they’re carried out to the letter. I want you to issue those orders. I’ve asked you twice, now.” Her finger pushed the flek back over the desk, a chessmaster going for checkmate.

“Yes ma’am.” He picked up the flek. Somehow he’d known all along it would never be that easy.

“Right,” Kirsten said briskly. “What’s your next move?”

“I was going to recommend my successor change our assault policy again. One of our principal concerns over the Ketton incident is how the inhabitants and serjeants are going to survive. Even if the possessed were stockpiling all the town’s supplies, there can’t be much food left wherever they’ve gone.”

“You’re guessing.”

“Yes ma’am. But unless we have totally misread the situation, it is a logical one. Prior to this, the possessed have removed entire planets to this hidden sanctuary dimension of theirs. A planet gives them a viable biosphere capable of feeding them. Ketton is different, it’s just rock with a layer of mud on top. It’s just a question which they run out of first, air or food.”

“Unless they find one of the other planets where they can take refuge.”

“I hope they can do that, ma’am, I really do. I don’t know what kind of conditions exist wherever they are, but they would have to be very weird indeed if it enables them to land that section of rock on a planet. In fact, we believe the strongest possibility is that they’ll return once they realize how much trouble they’re in. The geologists say that’ll cause all kinds of trouble, but we’re preparing for the eventuality.”

“Good grief.” Kirsten tried to imagine that vast section of countryside coming down to land in its own crater, and failed. “You realize, if they do come back, it will have a profound implication for the other planets? That would be proof that they can be returned as well.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“All right, this is all interesting theorizing, but what was the change of policy?”

“After we reviewed Ketton’s problems, we started to consider the supply situation on Mortonridge itself. Thanks to the deluge, there is no fresh food left at all; the satellites haven’t managed to find a single field of crops left intact on the whole peninsular. Some animals managed to survive; but they’re going to die soon because there’s nothing left for them to feed on. We know the possessed cannot use their energistic power to create any food, not out of inorganic matter. So it’s only a matter of time until they run out of commercially packaged food.”

“You can starve them out.”

“Yes. But it’s going to take time. Mortonridge had an agricultural economy. Most towns have some kind of food industry, either a processing factory or warehouse. If the possessed organize properly and ration what they’ve got, they can hold out for a while yet. What I’d suggest we do is continue the front line’s advance, but modify the direction they’re taking. The serjeants can still engage small groupings of possessed in the countryside without too much worry. Larger concentrations in the towns should be left alone. Set up a firebreak around them, leave a garrison to watch, and then just wait until the food runs out.”

“Or they pull another disappearing act.”

“We believe Ketton happened because the possessed we’d trapped there were pressured into reacting by the assault. There’s a big psychological difference between seeing ten thousand serjeants marching towards you and simply squabbling among yourselves over the last sachets of spaghetti bolognese.”

“The longer we leave them possessed, the worse condition the bodies will be in. And that’s before malnutrition.”

“Yes, ma’am. I know that. There’s also the problem that if we just simply contract the front line the way we have been doing, we’ll push a lot of possessed into one giant concentration in the middle. We’ll have to split Mortonridge into sections. That’ll mean redeploying the serjeants to drive inland in columns and link up. And if we’re leaving serjeants behind as garrisons, the numbers available for front line duties will be depleted just when we need them most.”

“More decisions, Ralph. What I said to you the other day about providing political cover still stands. Do what you have to on the ground, leave the rest to me.”

“Can I expect any improvement in the medical back-up situation? We’re really going to need it if we start sieges.”

“The Edenist ambassador has indicated that their habitats will take the worst cancer cases from us, but their voidhawks are badly stretched. Admiral Farquar is looking into making troop transports available, at least they have zero-tau pods in them. In fact, I’ve asked Alaistair for some Kulu Corporation colony transport ships. We can start storing patients until the pressure on facilities eases off.”

“That’s something, I suppose.”

Kirsten stood and datavised Sylvester Geray that the audience was over. “The most fundamental rule of modern society: Everything costs more and takes longer. It always has done, and always will do. And there’s nothing you or I can do about it, General.”

Ralph managed a small bow as the doors opened. “I’ll bear it in mind, ma’am.”

“I think I can manage to walk now,” Stephanie said.

Choma and Franklin had carried her back to the serjeant’s camp on an improvised stretcher. She’d lain on the muddy ground beside Tina, a sleeping bag wrapped round her legs and torso and a plasma drip in her arm. Too weak to move, she’d dozed on and off for hours, falling victim to vague anxiety-drenched dreams. Moyo had stayed at her side the whole time, holding her hand and mopping her brow. Her body was reacting to the wound as if she’d come down with a fever.

Eventually, the cold shivers passed, and she lay passively on her back gathering her woozy thoughts back together. Nothing much had changed: the serjeants were still standing motionless all around. Occasionally, a circular patch of air high above them would inflate with white light and pulse briefly before extinguishing. If she closed her eyes, she could sense the flow of energistic power into the zone they designated: an intense focal point that was attempting to tear a gap in the fabric of this realm. The pattern which they applied the energy changed subtly every time, but the result was always the same: dissipation. This realm’s reality remained stubbornly intact.

Choma looked over from where he was examining Tina’s lower spine. “I would rather you did not exert yourself for a while longer,” he said to Stephanie. “You did lose a lot of blood.”

“Just like me,” Tina said. It was little more than a whisper. Her arm lifted a couple of inches off the ground, hand feeling round through the air.

Stephanie touched her, and they twined fingers. Tina’s skin was alarmingly cold.

“Yes, I ought to take things easy, I suppose,” Stephanie said. “We won’t get better if we stress ourselves.”

Tina smiled and closed her eyes, a contented hum stealing away from her lips. “We are getting better, aren’t we.”

“That’s right.” Stephanie kept her voice level, hoping the discipline would also keep her thoughts from fluttering. “Us girls together.”

“Just like always. Everybody’s been so kind, even Cochrane.”

“He wants you back on your feet, so he can carry on trying to get you on your back again.”

Tina grinned, then slowly dropped back into a semi-slumber.

Stephanie raised herself onto her elbows, imagining the sleeping bag fluffing up into a large pillow. The fabric rose up to support her spine. Her friends were all there, watching her with kind or mildly embarrassed expressions. But all of them were concerned. “I’m such an idiot,” she said bitterly to them. “I should never have gone back to Ketton.”

“No way!” Cochrane boomed.

McPhee spat in the direction of the ruined town. “We did the right thing, the human thing.”

“It’s not you who is to blame,” Rana said primly. “That woman is utterly deranged.”

“Nobody knew that more than me,” Stephanie said. “We should have taken some elementary precautions at least. She could have shot all of us.”

“If showing compassion and trust is a flaw, then I’m proud to say I share it with you,” Franklin said.

“I should have guarded myself,” Stephanie said, almost to herself. “It was stupid. A bullet would never have done any damage before; we were careful back on Ombey. I just thought we would all pull together now we’re in the same predicament.”

“That was a big mistake.” Moyo patted her hand warmly. “First you’ve made since we met, so I’ll overlook it.”

She took his hand, and brought it up to her face, kissing his palm lightly. “Thank you.”

“I don’t think being prepared and paranoid would have been much use to us anyway,” Franklin said.

“Why not?”

He held up one of the nutrient soup sachets. The silver coating gradually turned blue and white as the shape rounded out. He was left holding a can of baked beans. “We’re not as strong here. Changing that sachet would have taken an eyeblink back in the old universe. And that’s why they can’t get back.” He indicated the serjeants just as another white blaze of air above them broke apart into expanding rivulets of blue ions. “There isn’t enough power available here to do what we did. Don’t ask me why. Presumably it’s got something to do with being blocked from the beyond. I expect those rifles Ekelund has could cause quite a bit of harm no matter how hard we make the air around ourselves.”

“Any more good news for the patients?” Moyo asked, scathingly.

“No, he’s right,” Stephanie said. “Besides, hiding from the facts now isn’t going to help anyone.”

“How can you be so calm about it? We’re stuck here.”

“Not exactly,” she said. “Being an invalid has had one benefit. Sinon?”

Since the unfortunate trip to Ketton, the serjeants had been keeping a cautionary watch on the town in case Ekelund made any hostile move. Sinon and Choma had taken the duty, combining it with helping the two patients. It wasn’t particularly difficult; from their slightly raised elevation they could see anything moving across the bland stretch of ochre mud between them and the desolated town. There would be plenty of warning if anyone came.

Sinon was checking over a batch of the sniper rifles which the serjeants were equipped with. Not that he expected they would be used. If Ekelund did send her people, the serjeants would simply establish a barrier around their camp similar to the one holding in the air around the island, offering passive, yet insurmountable, resistance.

He put down the sight he was cleaning. “Yes?”

“Are you and the others aware we’re actually moving?” Stephanie asked him. For some time, she’d been watching what passed for a sky in this realm. When they’d first arrived, it had appeared to be a uniform glare being emitted from some indefinable distance all around them. But as she’d lain there looking at it, she became aware of subtle variants. There were different shades arching above the flying island, arranged like flaccid waves, or streamers of thin mist. And they were moving, sliding slowly in one direction.

As Stephanie started to describe them, more and more serjeants broke away from their mental union to look upwards. A mild emotion of self-censure washed through the assembled minds. We should have noticed this. Direct observation is the most basic method to gather data on an environment.

By using affinity to link their vision together, the serjeants could scan the sky like some multi-segment telescope. Thousand of irises tracked the same faint wavering irregularity as it passed gently overhead. Parallel minds performed basic mental arithmetic to derive the parallax, putting the aberration roughly fifty kilometres away.

“As the bands of dimmer light seem to be fluctuating slightly in width, we conclude there is some kind of extremely tenuous nebula-like structure enveloping us,” Sinon told the fascinated humans. “However, the source of the light remains indeterminable, so we cannot say for certain if it is the nebula or the island which is moving. But given that the speed appears to be close to a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, we are tentatively assigning movement to the island.”

“Why?” Rana asked.

“Because it would take a great deal of force to move the nebula at that speed. It’s not impossible, but as the environment outside the island is essentially a vacuum, the problem of what force could be acting on the nebula is multiplied by an order of magnitude. We cannot detect any physical or energy impacting against the island, ergo, there is no ‘wind’ to push it along. We concede that it could still be expanding from its origin point, but as the fluctuations within it indicate a reasonably passive composition, such a possibility is unlikely.”

“So we really are flying,” McPhee said.

“It would appear so.”

“I don’t want to like piss all over your parade or anything,” Cochrane said. “But have you cats ever considered we might be like falling ?”

“The direction of flow we can see in the nebula makes that unlikely,” Sinon said. “It appears to be a horizontal movement. The most probable explanation is that we emerged at a different relative velocity to this nebula. Besides, if we had been falling since we arrived, then whatever we are falling towards would surely be visible by now. To exert such a powerful gravitational field, it would be massive indeed; several times the size of a super-Jovian gas-giant.”

“You don’t know what kind of mass or gravity are natural in this realm,” McPhee said.

“True. This island is proof of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our gravity hasn’t changed since we arrived. Yet we are no longer part of Ombey. We assumed it has remained normal because the subconscious will of everyone here required that it do so.”

“Holy shit.” Cochrane jumped up, giving the bottom of his wide velvet flares a startled glance. “You mean, we’re only dreaming there’s gravity?”

“Essentially, yes.”

The hippie clenched his hands, and pressed them hard against his forehead. “Oh man, that is a total bummer. I want my gravity to be the real stuff. Listen, you don’t fool around with something as basic as this. You just don’t.”

“Reality is now essentially contained in your mind. If you perceive gravity acting on you, then it is real,” the serjeant said imperturbably.

A large lighted reefer appeared in Cochrane’s hand, and he took a deep drag. “I am heavy,” he chanted. “Heavy, heavy, heavy. And don’t no one forget that. You listening to me, people? Keep thinking it.”

“In any event,” Sinon told McPhee. “If we were in the grip of a gravity field, the nebula would be falling with us. It isn’t.”

“Some good news,” McPhee grunted. “Which is also no’ natural here.”

“Forget the academics of the situation,” Moyo said. “Is there any way we can use it?”

“We intend to set up an observation detail,” Sinon said. “A headland watch, if you like, to see if there is anything out there in front of us. It could be that all the other planets the possessed removed from the universe are here in this realm with us. We will also start using our affinity to call for help; it’s the only method of communication we have that works here.”

“Oh man, no way! Who’s going to hear that? Come on, you guys, get real.”

“Obviously we don’t know who, if anyone, will hear. And even if there is a planet out there, we doubt we’d be able to reach its surface intact.”

“You mean alive,” Moyo said.

“Correct. However, there is one strong possibility for rescue.”

“What?” Cochrane yelled.

“If this is the realm where all the possessed yearn to go, then it is conceivable Valisk is here. It might hear our call, and its biosphere would be able to support us. Transferring ourselves inside would be a simple matter.”

Cochrane let out a long sigh, blowing long trails of sweet-smelling green smoke from his nostrils. “Hey, yeah, more like it, dude. Good positive thinking. I could dig living in Valisk.”

Watching was one thing the humans could do almost as well as the serjeants, so Stephanie and her friends hiked across the final kilometre to the edge of the island to help establish the headland lookout camp. It took them over an hour to get there. The terrain wasn’t particularly rough. Crusted mud cracked and squelched under their feet, and they had to go around several pools of stagnant water. But Tina had to be carried the whole way on a stretcher, along with her small array of primitive medical equipment. And even with energistic strength reinforcing her body, Stephanie had to stop for a rest every few minutes.

Eventually, they reached the top of the cliff, and settled themselves down fifty metres short of the precipice. They’d chosen the brow of a mound, which gave them an excellent uninterrupted view out across the glaring emptiness ahead. Tina was placed so she could look outward by just raising her head, making her feel a part of their enterprise. She smiled a painful tired thanks as they rigged her plasma container up on an old branch beside her. The ten serjeants accompanying them clumped their backpacks together, and sat down in a broad semicircle like a collection of lotus-position Buddhas.

Stephanie eased herself down on a sleeping bag, quietly content the journey had ended. She promptly turned a sachet of nutrient soup into a ham sandwich and bit in hungrily. Moyo sat beside her, allowing his shoulder to rest against hers. They exchanged a brief kiss.

“Groovy,” Cochrane hooted. “Hey, if love is blind, how come lingerie is so popular.”

Rana regarded him in despair. “Oh very tactful.”

“It’s a joke,” the hippie protested. “Moyo doesn’t mind, do you, man?”

“No.” He and Stephanie put their heads together and started giggling.

Giving them a slightly suspicious look, Cochrane settled down on his own sleeping bag. He’d changed the fabric to scarlet and emerald crushed velvet. “So how about a sweepstake, you dudes? What’s going to come sailing over the horizon first?”

“Flying saucers,” McPhee said.

“No no,” Rana said primly. “Winged unicorns ridden by virgins wearing Cochrane’s frilly white lingerie.”

“Hey, come on, this is serious, you guys. I mean, like our lives depend on it.”

“Funny,” Stephanie mused. “Not so long ago I was wishing death was permanent. Now it could well be, and I’d like to keep on living just that little bit longer.”

“I would like to ask why you believe you will actually die?” Sinon enquired. “You have all indicated that is what will happen in this realm.”

“It’s like the gravity, I suppose,” Stephanie said. “Death is such a fundamental. That’s what we expect at the end of life.”

“You mean you are willing your own extinction?”

“Not exactly. Being free of the beyond was only a part of what we wanted. This realm was supposed to be marvellously benign. It probably is, if we were on a planet. We wanted to come here and live forever, just like the legends of heaven. And if not forever, certainly thousands of years. A proper life, like we used to think we had. Life ends in death.”

“In heaven, death would not return you to the beyond,” Choma ventured.

“Exactly. This life would be better than before. Energistic power gives us the potential to fulfil our dreams. We don’t need a manufacturing base, or money. We can make whatever we want just by wishing it into being. If that can’t make people happy, nothing can.”

“You would never know a sense of accomplishment,” Sinon said. “There would be no frontier to challenge you. Electricity is virtually non-existent, denying you any kind of machinery more advanced than a steam engine. You expect to live for a good portion of eternity. And nobody can ever leave. Forgive me, I do not see that as paradise.”

“Always the downside,” Cochrane muttered.

“You might be right. But even a jail planet trapped in the Eighteenth Century followed by genuine death is better than the beyond.”

“Then your energies would surely be better directed in solving the problem of human souls becoming trapped in the beyond.”

“Fine words,” Moyo said. “How?”

“I don’t know. But if some of you would cooperate with us, then avenues of possibility would be opened.”

“We are cooperating.”

“Not here. Back in the universe where the Confederation’s scientific resources could be marshalled.”

“All you ever did when we were on Ombey was assault us,” Rana said. “And we know the military captured several possessed to vivisect. We could hear their torment echoing through the beyond.”

“If they had cooperated, we wouldn’t have to use force,” Choma said. “And it was not vivisection. We are not barbarians. Do you really think I wish to consign my family to the beyond? We want to help. Self-interest dictates that if nothing else.”

“Another wasted opportunity,” Stephanie said sadly. “They do mount up, don’t they.”

“Someone is coming from the town,” Choma announced. “They are walking towards our encampment.”

Stephanie automatically turned to look back over the mud prairie behind them. She couldn’t see anything moving.

“It is only five people,” Choma said. “They don’t appear hostile.” The serjeant continued to give them a commentary. A squad was dispatched to intercept the newcomers, who claimed they were leaving Ekelund, disillusioned by the way things were in the ruined town. The serjeants directed them to the headland group.

Stephanie watched them approach. She wasn’t surprised to see Delvan was with them. He was dressed in his full nineteen-hundreds army officer regalia, a dark uniform of thick wool with plenty of scarlet, gold, and imperial purple-ribbons.

“Phallocentric military.” Rana sniffed disdainfully, and made a show of turning round to gaze out over the precipice.

Stephanie gestured to the newcomers to sit down. They all seemed apprehensive about the kind of reception they’d receive.

“You dudes had enough of her, huh?”

“Admirably put,” Delvan conceded. He turned a sleeping bag into a tartan-pattern blanket, and lounged across it. “She’s gone completely batty. Mad with power, of course. Saw it enough times back in the Great War. Any spark of dissension is classed as mutiny. I expect she’ll have us shot, if she ever sees us again. Quite literally.”

“So you deserted.”

“I’m sure she’ll see it that way, yes.”

“We believe we can keep her forces away,” Sinon said.

“Glad to hear it, old chap. Things were getting pretty dire back there. Ekelund and Soi Hon are still preparing for some kind of conflict. She’s got the power, you see. Now there’s no beyond for souls to flee back into, the threat of discipline is jolly effective. And of course she’s in charge of dishing the food out. A whole bunch of silly asses still believe in what she’s doing. That’s all it ever takes, you know, one leader with a bunch of loyalists to enforce orders. Damn stupid.”

“What does she think is going to happen?” Stephanie asked.

“Not too sure about that. I don’t think she is, either. Soi Hon keeps sprouting on about how we are as one with the land, and how you serjeant chaps are ruining our harmony. They’re egging each other on. Trying to convince the rest of those poor sods over there that everything will be dandy once you’ve been thrown over the edge. Utter bilge. Any idiot can see this chunk of land isn’t going to be the slightest use to anyone no matter who’s on it.”

“Only Annette could think that this island is worth fighting over.”

“I agree,” Delvan said. “Sheerest bloody folly. Seen it before. People become obsessed with one idea and can’t let go. Don’t care how many die in the process. Well, I’m not going to help her. I made that mistake before. Never again.”

“Yo, man, welcome to decentville.” Cochrane held out a silver flask.

Delvan took a small nip, and smiled appreciatively. “Not bad.” He took a larger drink, and passed it on. “What exactly are you all looking for out there?”

“We don’t know,” Sinon said. “But we’ll recognize it when we see it.”

Jay spent twenty minutes correcting and castigating the universal provider after breakfast that morning. It kept reabsorbing the dress and extruding a new one for her. The variations were small, but Jay was determined to get it right. Tracy had sat in on the session for the first five minutes, then patted Jay lightly and said: “I think I’ll leave the pair of you to it, sweetie.”

The design she wanted was simple enough. She’d seen it back in the arcology one day: a loose, pleated reddish skirt that came down to the knee, and blended smoothly up into a square-cut neck top that was bright canary-yellow, the two colours interlocking like opposing flames. It had looked wonderful on the shop mannequin two years ago, expensive and attractive. But when she asked, her mother said no, they couldn’t afford it. After that, the dress had come to symbolise everything wrong with Earth. She always knew what she wanted in life, but she could never get to it.

Tracy knocked on the bedroom door. “Haile will be here in a minute, poppet,” she called.

“Coming,” Jay yelled back. She glared at the globe floating over the wicker chair. “Go on, spit it out.”

The dress glided out through the purple surface. It still wasn’t right! Jay put her hands on her hips, and sighed in disgust at the provider. “The skirt is still too long. I told you! You can’t have the hem level with the knee. That’s awful.”

“Sorry,” the provider murmured meekly.

“Well I’ll just have to wear it now. But you’re going to get it right when I come back this evening.”

She hurriedly pulled the dress on, wincing as it went over the bruise on her ribs (the edge of the surfboard had whacked her hard when she fell off). Her shoes were totally wrong as well: white sneakers with a tread thick enough to belong on a jungle boot. Blue socks, too. Sighing at her martyrdom one last time, she picked up the straw boater (at least the provider had got that right) and perched it on her head. A quick check in the mirror above the sink to see just how bad the damage was. That was when she saw Prince Dell lying on the bed. She screwed her face up, riddled with guilt. But she couldn’t take him with her to Haile’s home planet. Just couldn’t. The whole flap over the dress was because she was the first human to go there. She felt very strongly that she ought to look presentable. After all, she was kind of like an ambassador for her whole race. She could imagine what her mother would say; carrying a scruffy old toy about with her simply wasn’t on.

“Jay!” Tracy called.

“Coming.” She burst through the door and scampered out onto the chalet’s little veranda. Tracy was standing beside the steps, using a small brass can with a long spout to water one of the trailing geraniums. She gave the little girl a long look.

“Very nice, poppet. Well done, that was a good choice.”

“Thank you, Tracy.”

“Now just remember, you’re going to see lots of new things. Some of them are going to be quite astonishing, I’m sure. Please try not to get too excitable.”

“I’ll be good. Really.”

“I’m sure you will.” Tracy kissed her lightly. “Now run along.”

Jay started down the steps, then stopped. “Tracy?”

“What is it?”

“How come you’ve never been to Riynine? Haile said it’s really important, one of their capital planets.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Too busy when that kind of sightseeing would have excited me. Now I’ve got the time, I can’t really be bothered. Seen one technological miracle, seen them all.”

“It’s not too late,” Jay said generously.

“Maybe another day. Now run along, you’ll be late. And Jay, remember, if you want the toilet, just ask a provider. No one’s going to be embarrassed or offended.”

“Yes, Tracy. Bye.” She pressed a hand on the top of her boater, and raced off across the sand to the ebony circle.

The old woman watched her go, over-large knuckles gripping the handle of the watering can too tightly. Bright sunlight caught the moisture poised at the corner of her eyes. “Damn,” she whispered.

Haile materialized when Jay was still ten metres away from the circle. She whooped, and ran harder.

Friend Jay. It is a good morning.

“It’s a wonderful morning!” She came to a halt beside Haile, and flung an arm round the baby Kiint’s neck. “Haile! You grow every day.”

Very much.

“How long till you get to adult size?”

Eight years. I will itch all that time.

“I’ll scratch you.”

You are my true friend. Shall we go?

“Yes!” She did a little jump, smiling delightedly. “Come on, come on!”

Blackness plucked both of them away.

The falling sensation didn’t bother Jay at all now. She just shut her eyes and held her breath. One of Haile’s appendages was coiled comfortingly round her wrist.

Weight returned quickly. Her soles touched a solid floor, and her knees bent slightly to absorb the impact. Light was shining on her closed eyelids.

We are here.

“I know.” She was suddenly nervous about opening her eyes.

I live there.

Haile’s tone was so eager Jay just had to look. The sun was low in the sky, still casting off its daybreak tint. Long shadows flowed out behind them across the large ebony circle they’d arrived on. It was out in the open air, with the rumpled landscape sweeping away for what seemed like a hundred kilometres or more to the horizon. Flat-cone mountains of pale rock, crinkled with pale-purple gorges, rose regally out from the lavish mantle of blue-green vegetation; not strung out in a range as normal, but spread out across the whole expanse of steppe. Large serpentine rivers and tributary streams threading through the vales glinted silver in the fresh sunlight, while tissue-fine sheets of pearl-white mist wound around the lower slopes of the mountains. The vista was nature at its most striking. Yet it wasn’t natural; this was what she imagined the inside of an Edenist habitat would be like, but on an infinitely larger canvas. There was nothing ugly permitted here; designed geology ensured this world would have bayous rather than dark, stagnant marshes, languid downs instead of lifeless lava fields.

That didn’t stop it from being truly lovely, though.

There were buildings nestled amid the contours; mainly Kiint domes of different sizes, but with some startlingly human-like skyscraper towers mingled among them. There were also structures that looked more like sculptures than buildings: a bronze spiral leading nowhere, emerald spheres clinging together like a cluster of soap bubbles. Each of the buildings was set by itself; there were no roads, or even dirt tracks as far as she could see. Nevertheless, undeniably, she was in a city; one that was conceived on a vaster, grander scale than anything the Confederation could ever achieve. A post-urban conquest of the land.

“So where do you live?” she asked.

Haile’s tractamorphic arm uncoiled from her wrist and straightened out to point. The ebony circle was surrounded by a broad meadow of glossy aquamarine grass-analogue bordered by clumps of trees. They at least looked like natural forests rather than carefully composed parkland. Several different species were growing together, black octagonal leaves and yellow parasols competing for light and space; long smooth boles, capped with a fuzzy ball of pink fern-fronds, had stabbed up from the tops of more bushy varieties, resembling giant willow reeds.

A steel-blue dome was visible through the gaps in the trees half a kilometre away. It didn’t look much bigger than the ones back in Tranquillity.

“That’s nice,” Jay said politely.

It has difference to my first home in the all around. The universal providers have eased life greatly here.

“I’m sure. So where are all your friends?”

Come. Vyano has been told about you. He would like to initiate greetings.

Jay gasped as she turned to follow the baby Kiint. There was a huge lake behind her, with what she assumed could only be the castle of some magical Elf lord. Dozens of featureless, tapering white towers rose from its centre; the tallest spires were those right at the centre of the clump, easily measuring over a kilometre high. Delicate single-span bridges wove their way through the gaps between the towers, curving around each other without ever touching. As far as she could understand it, they followed no pattern or logic; sometimes a tower would have as many as ten, all at different levels, while others had only a couple. The whole edifice scintillated with brilliant red and gold flashes as the strengthening sunlight slithered slowly across its quartz-like surface. It was as dignified as it was beautiful.

“What is that?” she asked as she hurried after Haile.

This is a Corpus locus, a place for knowledge to grow and ripen.

“You mean like a school?”

The baby Kiint hesitated. Corpus says yes.

“Do you go to it?”

No. I am still receiving many primary educationals from the Corpus and my parents. First I must understand them fully. That is a hardness. When I have understanding I can begin to expand my own thoughts.

“Oh, I get it. That’s like the way we do it, too. I have to receive a lot of didactic courses before I can go on to university.”

You will go to university?

“I suppose so. I don’t know how on Lalonde, though. There might be one in Durringham. Mummy will tell me when she comes back and things get better.”

I hope for you.

They had reached the lake’s shore. Its water was very dark, even when Jay stood on the shaggy grass-analogue right at the edge and peered over cautiously she couldn’t see the bottom. The surface reflected her image back at her. Then it started to ripple slightly.

Haile was walking out towards the white towers. Jay paused for a moment to watch her friend. There was something not quite right about the scene, something obvious which her mind couldn’t quite catch.

Haile was about ten meters from the shore when she realized Jay wasn’t following. She swung her head round to look at the girl. Vyano is in here. Do you not want to meet him?

Very slowly, Jay cleared her throat. “Haile, you’re walking on the water.”

The baby Kiint looked down at where her feet-pads were dinting the surface of the lake. Yes. Query puzzlement. Why do you find wrongness?

“Because it’s water!” Jay shouted.

There is stability for those wishing to attend the locus. You will not fall in.

Jay glared at her friend, though intense curiosity was a strong temptation. Tracy’s warning rang clear in her mind. And Haile would never trick her. She put a toe cautiously on the water. The dark surface bent ever so slightly as she began to apply pressure, but her shoe couldn’t actually break the surface tension and get wet. She put even more weight on her foot, allowing her whole sole to rest on the water. It supported her without any apparent strain.

A couple of tentative steps, and Jay glanced from side to side, giggling. “This is brilliant. You don’t need to build bridges and stuff.”

You have happiness now?

“You bet.” She started to walk towards Haile. Slow ripples expanded out from under her shoes, clashing and shimmering away. Jay couldn’t stop the giggles. “We should have had this in Tranquillity. We could have got out to that island, then.”

Rightness.

Smiling happily, Jay let Haile’s arm tip wrap round her fingers, and together they walked over the lake. After a couple of minutes the towers of the locus seemed no closer. Jay began to wonder just how big they were.

“Where’s Vyano, then?”

He comes.

Jay scanned the base of the towers. “I can’t see anybody.”

Haile stopped, and looked down at her feet, head swaying from side to side. I have sight.

Promising herself she wouldn’t yelp or anything, Jay looked down. There was movement beneath her feet. A small pale-grey mountain was sliding through the water, twenty metres beneath the surface. Her heart did sort of go thud, but she clamped her jaw shut and stared in amazement. The creature must have been bigger than any of the whales in her didactic zoology memories. There were more flippers and fins than Earth’s old behemoths, too. A smaller version of the creature was swimming along beside it, a child. It curved away from its parent’s flank, and started to race upwards, its fins wriggling enthusiastically. The big parent rolled slowly, and dived off into the depths.

“Is this Vyano?” Jay exclaimed.

Yes. He is a cousin.

“What do you mean cousin? He’s nothing like you.”

Humans have many sub-species.

“No we don’t!”

There are Adamists and Edenists, white skin, dark skin; more shades of hair than colours in the rainbow. This I have seen for myself.

“Well, yes, but . . . Look here, there’s none of us live underwater. That’s just totally different.”

Corpus says human scientists have experimented with lungs that can extract oxygen from water.

Jay recognized that particular mental tone of pure stubbornness. “They probably have,” she conceded.

The aquatic Kiint child was over fifteen metres long; flatter than a terrestrial whale, with a thick tractamorphic tail that was contracting into a bulb as it neared the surface. Its other appendages, six buds of tractamorphic flesh, were spaced along its flanks. To help propel it through the water, they were currently compressed into semicircular fans that undulated with slow power. Perhaps the most obvious pointer to a shared heritage with landbound Kiint was the head, which was simply a more streamlined version that had six gills replacing the breathing vents. The same large semi-mournful eyes were shielded with a milky membrane.

Vyano broke surface with a burst of spray and energetic waves, which churned outward. Jay was suddenly trying to keep her balance as the lake’s surface bounced about underneath her like some hyperlastic trampoline. Haile was bobbing up and down beside her, in almost as much trouble, which was slightly reassuring. When the swell had eased off, a mound of glistening leaden flesh was floating a couple of metres away. The aquatic Kiint formshifted one of its flank appendages into an arm, tip spreading out into the shape of a human hand.

Jay touched palms.

Welcome to Riynine, Jay Hilton.

“Thank you. You have a lovely world.”

It has much goodness. Haile has shared her memories of your Confederation worlds. They are interesting also. I would like to visit after I am released from parental proscription.

“I’d like to go back, too.”

Your plight has been spoken of. I grieve with you for all that has been lost.

“Richard says we’ll pull through. I suppose we will.”

Richard Keaton is attuned to Corpus,haile said. He would not tell untruths.

“How could you visit the Confederation? Does that jump machinery of yours work underwater as well?”

Yes.

“But there wouldn’t be much for you to see, I’m afraid. Everything interesting happens on land. Oh, except for Atlantis, of course.”

Land is always small and clotted with identical plants. I would see the life that teems below the waves where nothing remains the same. Every day is joyfully different. You should modify yourself and come to dwell among us.

“No thank you very much,” she said primly.

That is a sadness.

“I suppose what I mean is, you wouldn’t be able to see what humans have achieved. Everything we’ve built and done is on the land or in space.”

Your machinery is old to us. It holds little attraction. That is why my family returned to the water.

“You mean you’re like our pastorals?”

I apologise. My understanding of human references is not complete.

“Pastorals are people who turned away from technology, and lived life as simply as they can. It’s a very primitive existence, but they don’t have modern worries, either.”

All races of Kiint embrace technology,haile said. The providers cannot fail now; they give us everything and leave us free.

“This is the bit about you which I don’t really get. Free to do what?”

To live.

“All right, try this. What are you two going to be when you grow up?”

I shall be me.

“No no.” Jay would have liked to stamp her foot for emphasis. Given what she was standing on, she thought better of it. “I mean, what profession? What do Kiints spend all day doing?”

You know my parentals were helping with the Laymil project.

All activity has one purpose,vyano said. We enrich ourselves with knowledge. This can come from simply interpreting the observed universe or extrapolating thoughts to their conclusion. Both of these are complementary. Enrichment is the result life is dedicated to. Only then can we transcend with confidence.

“Transcend? You mean die?”

Body lifeloss, yes.

“I’m sure doing nothing but thinking is all really good for you. But it seems really boring to me. People need things to keep them occupied.”

Difference is beauty,vyano said. There is more difference in the water than on land. Our domain is where nature excels, it is the womb of every planet. Now do you see why we chose it over the land?

“Yes. I suppose so. But you can’t all spend the whole time admiring new things. Somebody has to make sure things work smoothly.”

That is what the providers do. We could not ascend to this cultural level until after our civilization’s machinery had evolved to its current state. Providers provide, under the wisdom of Corpus.

“I see, I guess. You have Corpus like Edenists have Consensus.”

Consensus is an early version of Corpus. You will evolve to our state one day.

“Really?” Jay said. Arguing philosophy with a Kiint wasn’t really what she had in mind when she wanted to visit Riynine. She gestured round, trying to indicate the locus and all the other extravagant buildings: an act of human body language which was probably wasted on the young aquatic Kiint. “You mean humans are going to wind up living like this?”

I cannot speak for you. Do you wish to live as we do?

“It’d be nice not having to worry about money and stuff.” She thought of the Aberdale villagers, their enthusiasm for what they were building. “But we need concrete things to do. That’s the way we are.”

Your nature will guide you to your destiny. It is always so.

“I suppose.”

I sense we are kindred, Jay Hilton. You wish to see newness every day. That is why you are here on Riynine. Query.

“Yes.”

You should visit the Congressions. That is the best place for a view of the physical achievement which you value so.

She looked at Haile. “Can we?”

It will have much enjoyment,haile said.

“Thanks, Vyano.”

The aquatic Kiint began to sink back below the water. Your visit is a newness which has enriched me. I am honoured, Jay Hilton.

When Haile had told Jay that Riynine was a capital world, the little girl had imagined a cosmopolitan metropolis playing host to a multitude of Kiint and thousands of exciting xenocs. The Corpus locus was certainly grandiose, but hardly kicking.

Her impression changed when she popped out of the black teleport bubble onto one of Riynine’s Congressions. Although the physical concept was hardly extravagant for a race which had such extraordinary resources, there was something both anachronistic and prideful in the gigantic cities which floated serenely through the planet’s atmosphere. Splendidly intricate colossi of crystal and shining metal that proclaimed the true nature of the Kiint to any visitor; more so than the ring of manufactured planets. No race which had the slightest doubt about its own abilities would dare to construct such a marvel.

The one in which Jay found herself was over twenty kilometres broad. Its nucleus was a dense aggregation of towers and circuitous columns of light like warped rainbows; from that, eight solid crenated peninsulas radiated outwards, themselves bristling with short flat spines. The bloated tufts of cloud it encountered parted smoothly to flow around its extremities, leaving it at the centre of a doldrum zone whose clarity seemed to magnify the landscape ten kilometres below. Shoals of flying craft spun around it, their geometries and technologies as varied as the species they carried; starships equipped with atmospheric drives cavorted along the same flightpaths as tiny ground-to-orbit planes. All of them were landing or taking off from the spines on the peninsulas.

Jay had arrived at one end of an avenue which ran along the upper reaches of a peninsula. It was made from a smooth sheet of some burgundy mineral, host to a web of glowing opalescent threads that flowed just below the surface. Every junction in the web sprouted a tall jade triangle, like the sculpture of a pine tree. A roof of crystal arched overhead, heartbreakingly similar to an arcology dome.

Jay held on to Haile’s arm with a tight grip. The avenue thronged with xenocs, hundreds of species walking, sliding, and in several cases flying along together in a huge multi-coloured river of life.

All her pent up breath was exhaled in a single overwhelmed “Wow!” They hurried off the teleport circle, allowing a family of tall, feathered octopeds to use it. Globes similar to providers, but in many different colours, glided sedately overhead. She sniffed at the air, which contained so many shifting scents all she could really smell was something like dry spice. Slow bass grumbles, quick chittering, whistles, and human(ish) speech gurgled loudly about her, blurring together into a single background clamour.

“Where do they all come from? Are they all your observers?”

None of them are observers. These are the species who live in this galaxy, and some others. All are friends of Kiint.

“Oh. Right.” Jay walked over to the edge of the avenue. It was guarded by a tall rail, as if it were nothing more than an exceptionally big balcony. She stood on her toes and peeked over. They were above a compact city, or possibly a district of industrial structures. There didn’t appear to be any movement in the lanes between the buildings. Right in front of her, spacecraft swished along parallel to the peninsula’s crystal roof as they vectored in on their landing sites.

The Congression was high enough above the land to lose fine details amid the broader colour swathes of mountains and savannahs. But as though to compensate, the curvature of the horizon could be seen, a splinter of purple neon separating the land and the sky. A coastline was visible far ahead. Or behind. Jay wasn’t sure which way they were travelling. If they were.

She contented herself with watching the spacecraft flying past. “So what are they all doing here, then?”

Different species come here to perform exchanges. Some have ideas to give, some require knowledge to make ideas work. Corpus facilitates this. The Congressions act as junctions for those who seek and those who wish to give. Here they can find each other.

“That all sounds terribly noble.”

We have opened our worlds to this act for a long time. Some races we have known since the beginning of our history, others are new. All are welcome.

“Apart from humans.”

You are free to visit.

“But nobody knows about Riynine. The Confederation thinks Jobis is your homeworld.”

I have sadness. If you can come here, you are welcome.

Jay eyed a quartet of adult Kiint walking along the avenue. They were accompanied by what looked suspiciously like spectres of some slender reptilians dressed in one-piece coveralls. They were certainly translucent, she could see things through them. “I get it. It’s sort of like a qualifying test. If you’re smart enough to get here, you’re smart enough to take part.”

Confirm.

“That’d be really helpful for us, learning new stuff. But I still don’t think people want to spend their life philosophising. Well . . . one or two like Father Horst, but not many.”

Some come to the Congressions asking for our aid, and to improve their technology.

“You give them that, machines and things?”

Corpus responds to everyone at a relative level.

“That’s why the provider wouldn’t give me a starship.”

You are lonely. I brought you here. I have sorrow.

“Hey,” she put her arm round the baby Kiint’s neck, and stroked her breathing vents. “I’m not sorry you brought me here. This is something not even Joshua has seen, and he’s been everywhere in the Confederation. I’ll be able to impress him when I get back. Won’t that be something?” She gazed out at the fanciful craft again. “Come on, let’s find a provider. I could do with some ice cream.”