Reality Dysfunction:
Expansion
=========



Chapter 01
==========


Graeme Nicholson sat on his customary stool beside the bar in the Crashed
Dumper, the one furthest away from the blaring audio block, and listened
to Diego Sanigra, a crewman from the Bryant, complain about the way the
ship had been treated by Colin Rexrew. The Bryant was a colonist-carrier
starship that had arrived at Lalonde two days ago, and so far not one of
its five and a half thousand colonists had been taken out of zero-tau. It
was a ruinous state of affairs, Diego Sanigra claimed, the governor had
no right to refuse the colonists disembarkation. And the energy
expenditure for every extra hour they spent in orbit was costing a
fortune. The line company would blame the crew, as they always did. His
salary would suffer, his bonus would be non-existent, his promotion
prospects would be reduced if not ruined.

Graeme Nicholson nodded sympathetically as his neural nanonics carefully
stored the aggrieved ramblings in a memory cell. There wasn’t much which
could be used, but it was good background material. How the big conflict
reached down into individual lives. The kind of thing he covered so well.

Graeme had been a reporter for fifty-two of his seventy-eight years. He
reckoned no journalist didactic course could teach him anything new, not
now. With his experience he should have been formatting didactic courses,
except there wasn’t a news company editor in existence who would want
junior reporters corrupted to such an extent. In every sense he was a
hack reporter, with an unerring knack of turning daily misfortune into
spicy epic tragedy. He went for the human underbelly every time,
highlighting the suffering and misery of little people who were trampled
on, the ones who couldn’t fight back against the massive uncaring forces
of governments, bureaucracies, and companies. It was not from any
particular moral indignation, he certainly didn’t see himself as
championing the underdog. He simply felt emotions laid raw made for a
better story, with higher audience ratings. To some degree he had even
begun to look like the victims he empathized with so well; it was partly
reflexive, they were less suspicious of someone whose clothes never quite
fitted, who had thick ruddy skin and watery eyes.

His brand of sensationalism went down well with the tabloid broadcasts,
but by concentrating on the seedy aspects he knew best, building a
reputation as a specialist of dross, he found himself being squeezed out
of the more prestigious assignments; he hadn’t covered a half-decent
story for a decade. Over the last few years his neural nanonics had been
used less for sensevise recording and more for running stimulant
programs. Time Universe had given him a roving assignment eight years
ago, pushing him off onto all the shabby little fringe jobs that no one
else with a gram of seniority would cover. Anything to keep him out of a
studio, or an editorial office where his contemporaries had graduated to.

Well, no more. The joke was on the office has-beens now. Graeme Nicholson
was the only man on the ground, the one with the clout, the one with the
kudos. Lalonde was going to earn him the awards he’d been denied all
these years; then maybe after that one of those nice cosy office seats
back home on Decatur.

He had been on Lalonde for three months to do a documentary-style report
on the new world frontier, and gather general sensevise impressions and
locations for the company library’s memory cores. Then this wonderful
calamity had fallen on Lalonde. Calamitous for the planet and its people,
for Rexrew and the LDC career administration staff; but for Graeme
Nicholson it was manna from heaven. It being war, or an Ivet rebellion,
or a xenoc invasion, depending on who you were talking to. He had
included accounts of all three theories on the fleks Eurydice had taken
to Avon last week. But it was strange that after two and a half weeks the
Governor had still made no official announcement as to exactly what was
happening up in the Quallheim and Zamjan Counties.

“That executive assistant of Rexrew’s, Terrance Smith, he’s talking about
sending us to another phase one colony world,” Diego Sanigra grumbled. He
took another gulp of bitter from his tankard. “As if that’s going to be
any help. What would you say if you were a colonist who paid passage for
Lalonde and came out of zero-tau to find yourself on Liao-tung Wan?
That’s Chinese-ethnic, you know, they wouldn’t like the
EuroChristian-types we’ve got stored on board.”

“Is that where Terrance Smith suggested you take them?” Graeme Nicholson
asked.

He gave a noncommittal grunt. “Just giving you an example.”

“What about fuel reserves? Have you got enough He3 and deuterium to get
to another colony world and then return to Earth?”

Diego Sanigra started to answer. Graeme Nicholson wasn’t listening too
hard, he let his eyes wander round the hot crowded room. One of the
spaceport shifts had just come off duty. At the moment there were few
McBoeing flights. Only the three cargo ships orbiting Lalonde were being
unloaded; the six colonist-carriers were waiting for Rexrew to decide
what to do with their passenger complements. Most of the spaceport crews
simply turned up at the start of each shift so they could keep claiming
their pay.

I wonder what they feel about the end of overtime, Graeme asked himself.
Might be another story there.

The Crashed Dumper certainly wasn’t suffering from the troubles
afflicting the rest of the city; this outlying district didn’t protest or
riot over Rexrew and the Ivets, it housed too many LDC worker families.
There were a lot of people in tonight, drowning their sorrows. The
waitresses were harried from one end of the long room to the other. The
overhead fans were spinning fast, but made little impression on the heat.

Graeme heard the audio block falter, the singer’s voice slowing,
deepening to a weird bass rumble. It picked up again, turning the voice
to a girlish soprano. The crowd clustered round started laughing, and one
of them brought his fist down on it. After a moment the loud output
returned to normal.

Graeme saw a tall man and a beautiful teenage girl walk past. Something
about the man’s face was familiar. The girl he recognized as one of the
Crashed Dumper’s waitresses, although tonight she was dressed in jeans
and a plain cotton blouse. But the man—he was middle-aged with a neat
beard and small pony-tail, wearing a smart leather jacket and ash-grey
shorts, and he was very tall, almost like an Edenist.

The glass of lager dropped from Graeme’s numb fingers. It hit the mayope
planks and smashed, soaking his shoes and socks. “Holy shit,” he croaked.
The fright constricting his throat prevented the exclamation being more
than a whisper.

“You all right?” Diego Sanigra asked, annoyed at being interrupted in
mid-complaint.

He forced himself to look away from the couple. “Yes,” he stammered.
“Yes, I’m fine.” Thank Christ nobody was paying any attention, if he had
looked round . . . He reddened and bent down to pick up the shards of
glass. When he straightened up the couple were already at the bar.
Somehow they had cut straight through the crush.

Graeme ran a priority search program through his neural nanonics. Not
that he could possibly be mistaken. The public figures file produced a
visual image from a memory cell, recorded forty years ago. It matched
perfectly.

Laton!



Lieutenant Jenny Harris twitched the reins, and the dun-coloured horse
gave the big qualtook tree a wide berth. Her only previous experience
with the animals was her didactic course and a week in the saddle five
years ago during an ESA transportation training exercise back on Kulu.
Now here she was, leading an expedition through one of the toughest
stretches of jungle in the Juliffe tributary network and trying to avoid
the attention of a possible military invasion force at the same time. It
wasn’t the best reintroduction to the equestrian art. She thought the
horse could sense her discomfort, he was proving awkward. A mere three
hours’ riding and every muscle in her lower torso was crying for relief;
her arms and shoulders were stiff; her backside had gone from soreness to
numbness and finally settled for a progressive hot ache.

I wonder what all this bodily offensive is doing to my implants?

Her neural nanonics were running an extended sensory analysis program,
enhancing peripheral vision and threshold audio inputs, and scrutinizing
them for any signs of hidden hostiles. Electronic paranoia, basically.

There had been nothing remotely threatening, except for one sayce, since
they left the Isakore, and the sayce hadn’t fancied its chances against
three horses.

She could hear Dean Folan and Will Danza plodding along behind her, and
wondered how they were getting on with their horses. Having the two ESA
G66 Division (Tactical Combat) troops backing her up was a dose of
comfort stronger than any stimulant program could provide. She had been
trained in general covert fieldwork, but they had virtually been bred for
it, geneering and nanonic supplements combining to make them formidable
fighting machines.

Dean Folan was in his mid-thirties, a quiet ebony-skinned man with the
kind of subtle good looks most of the geneered enjoyed. He was only
medium height, but his limbs were long and powerful, making his torso
look almost stunted by comparison. It was the boosted muscles which did
that, Jenny knew; his silicon-fibre-reinforced bones had been lengthened
to give him more leverage, and more room for implants.

Will Danza fitted people’s conception of a modern-day soldier;
twenty-five, tall, broad, with long, sleek muscles. He was an old
Prussian warrior genotype, blond, courteous, and unsmiling. There was an
almost psychic essence of danger emanating from him; you didn’t tangle
with him in any tavern brawl no matter how drunk you were. Jenny
suspected he didn’t have a sense of humour; but then he’d seen action in
covert missions three times in the last three years. She’d accessed his
file when the jungle mission was being assembled; they had been tough
assignments, one had earned him eight months in hospital being rebuilt
from cloned organs, and an Emerald Star presented by the Duke of Salion,
Alastair II’s first cousin, and chairman of the Kulu Privy Council’s
security commission. He had never talked about it on the journey upriver.

The nature of the jungle started to change around them. Tightly packed
bushy trees gave way to tall, slender trunks with a plume of
feather-fronds thirty metres overhead. A solid blanket of creepers
tangled the ground, rising up to hug the lower third of the tree trunks
like solid conical encrustations. It increased their visibility
dramatically, but the horses had to pick their hoofs up sharply. High
above their heads vennals leapt between the trees in incredible bounds,
streaking up the slim trunks to hide in the foliage at the top. Jenny
couldn’t see how they clung to the smooth bark.

After another forty minutes they came to a small stream. She dismounted
in slow tender stages, and let her horse drink. Away in the distance she
could see a herd of danderil bounding away from the trickle of softly
steaming water. White clouds were rolling in from the east. It would rain
in an hour, she knew.

Dean Folan dismounted behind her, leaving Will Danza sitting on his
horse, keeping watch from his elevated vantage point. All three of them
were dressed identically, wearing a superstrength olive-green one-piece
anti-projectile suit, covered with an outer insulation layer to diffuse
beam weapons. The lightweight armour fitted perfectly, with an inner
sponge layer to protect the skin. Thermal-shunt fibres woven into the
fabric kept body temperature to a pre-set norm, which was a real blessing
on Lalonde. If they were struck by a projectile slug the micro-valency
generators around her waist would activate, solidifying the fabric
instantly, distributing the impact, preventing the wearer’s body from
being pulped by automatic fire. (Jenny’s only regret was that it didn’t
protect her from saddle sores.) The body armour was complemented by a
shell-helmet which fitted with the same tight precision as the suit. It
gave them all an insect appearance, with its wide goggle lenses and a
small central V-shaped air-filter vent. The collar had a ring of optical
sensors which could be accessed through neural nanonics, giving them a
rear-view capability. They could even survive underwater for half an hour
with its oxygen-recycling capacity.

The stream was muddy, its stones slimed with algae, none of which seemed
to bother the horses. Jenny watched them lapping it up, and requested a
drink from her shell-helmet. She sucked ice-cold orange juice from the
nipple as she reviewed their location with help from the inertial
guidance block.

When Dean and Will swapped position she datavised the armour suit’s
communications block to open a scrambled channel to Murphy Hewlett. The
ESA team had split up from the Confederation Navy Marines after leaving
the Isakore. Acting separately they thought they stood a better chance of
intercepting one of the sequestrated colonists.

“We’re eight kilometres from Oconto,” she said. “No hostiles or locals
encountered so far.”

“Same with us,” the marine lieutenant answered. “We’re six kilometres
south of you, and there’s nobody in this jungle but us chickens. If
Oconto’s supervisor did lead fifty people in pursuit of the Ivets, he
didn’t come this way. There’s a small savannah which starts about fifteen
kilometres away, there are about a hundred homesteads out there. We’ll
try them.”

Static warbled down the channel. Jenny automatically checked her
electronic warfare suite, which reported zero activity. Must be
atmospherics.

“OK. We’re going to keep closing on the village and hope we find someone
before we reach it,” she datavised.

“Roger. I suggest we make half-hourly check-ins from now on. There isn’t
. . .” His signal dissolved into rowdy static.

“Hell! Dean, Will, we’re being jammed.”

Dean consulted his own electronic warfare block. “No activity detected,”
he said.

Jenny steadied her horse and put her foot in the stirrup, swinging a leg
over the saddle. Will was mounting hastily beside her. All three of them
scanned the surrounding jungle. Dean’s horse snickered nervously. Jenny
tugged at the reins to keep hers from twisting about.

“They’re out there,” Will said in a level tone.

“Where?” Jenny asked.

“I don’t know, but they’re watching us. I can feel it. They don’t like
us.”

Jenny bit down on the obvious retort. Soldier superstitions were hardly
appropriate right now, yet Will had more direct combat experience than
her. A quick hardware status check showed that only the communications
block was affected so far. Her electronic warfare block remained
stubbornly silent.

“All right,” she said. “The one thing we don’t want to do is run into a
whole bunch of them. The Edenists said they were most powerful in groups.
Let’s move out, and see if we can get outside this jamming zone. We ought
to be able to move faster than them.”

“Which way?” Dean asked.

“I still want to try and reach the village. But I don’t think a direct
route is advisable now. We’ll head south-west, and curve back towards
Oconto. Any questions? No. Lead off then, Dean.”

They splashed over the stream, the horses seemingly eager to be on the
move again. Will Danza had pulled his thermal induction pulse carbine
from its saddle holster; now it was cradled in the crook of his right
arm, pointing upwards. The datavised information from its targeting
processor formed a quiet buzz at the back of his mind. He didn’t even
notice it at a conscious level, it was as much a part of the moment as
the easy rhythm of the horse or the bright sunlight, making him whole.

He made up the rear of the little procession, constantly reviewing the
sensors on the back of his shell-helmet. If anyone had asked him how he
knew hostiles were nearby he would just have to shrug and say he couldn’t
explain. But instinct was pulling at him with the same irresistible
impulse that pollen exerted on bees. They were here, and they were close.
Whoever, or whatever, they were.

He strained round in the saddle, upping his retinal implants’ resolution
to their extreme. All he could see was the long thin black trunks and
their verdant cone island bases, outlines wavering in the heat and
unstable magnification factor.

A movement.

The TIP carbine was discharging before he even thought about it, blue
target graphics sliding across his vision field like neon cell doors as
he dropped the barrel in a single smooth arc. A red circle intersected
the central grid square and his neural nanonics triggered a
five-hundred-shot fan pattern.

The section of jungle in the central blue square sparkled with orange
motes as the induction pulses stabbed against the wood and foliage. It
lasted for two seconds.

“Down!” Will datavised. “Hostiles four o’clock.”

He was already slithering off the horse, feet landing solidly on the
broad triangular creeper leaves. Dean and Jenny obeyed automatically,
rolling from their saddles to land crouched, thermal induction pulse
carbines held ready. The three of them turned smoothly, each covering a
different section of jungle.

“What was it?” Jenny asked.

“Two of them, I think.” Will quickly replayed the memory. It was like a
dense black shadow dashing out from behind one of the trees, then it
split into two. That was when he fired, and the image jolted. But the
black shapes refused to clarify, no matter how many discrimination
programs he ran. Definitely too big for sayce, though. And they were
moving towards him, using the shaggy treebases for cover.

He felt a glow of admiration, they were good.

“What now?” he datavised. Nobody responded. “What now?” he asked loudly.

“Reconnaissance and evaluation,” said Jenny, who had just realized even
short-range datavises were being disrupted. “We’re still not out of that
jamming effect.”

There was a silent orange flash above her. The top third of the tree ten
metres to her left began to topple over, hinging on a section of trunk
that was mostly charred splinters. Just as it reached the horizontal, the
rich green plumes at the top caught on fire. They spluttered briefly,
belching out a ring of blue-grey smoke, then the fire really caught. Two
vennals leapt out, squeaking in pain, their hides badly scorched. Before
the whole length of wood crashed down, the plumes were burning with a
ferocity which matched the sun.

The horses reared up, whinnying alarm. They were pulled down by boosted
muscles.

Jenny realized the animals were rapidly becoming a liability as she clung
on to hers. Her neural nanonics reported the suit sensors had detected a
maser beam striking the tree, which was what snapped it. But there was no
detectable follow-up energy strike to account for the ignition.

Dean’s sensors had also detected the maser beam. He fired a fifty-shot
barrage back along the line.

The fallen tree’s tip fizzled out. All that was left was a tapering core
of wood and a heap of ash. Blackened ground creepers smouldered in a wide
circle around it.

“What the hell did that?” Dean asked.

“No data,” Jenny answered. “But it isn’t going to be healthy.”

Globules of vivid white fire raced up the trunks of several nearby trees
like some bizarre astral liquid. Bark shrivelled and peeled off in long
strips behind them, the naked wood below roaring like a blast furnace as
it caught alight. The flames redoubled in vehemence. Jenny, Will, and
Dean were surrounded by twelve huge torches of brilliant fire.

Jenny’s retinal implants struggled to cope with the vast photon flood.
Her horse reared up again, fighting her, neck sweeping from side to side
in an effort to make her let go, forelegs cycling dangerously close to
her head. She could see the terror in its eyes. Foam sprayed out of its
mouth to splatter her suit.

“Save the equipment,” she shouted. “We can’t hang on to the horses in
this.”

Will heard the order as his horse began bucking, its hind legs kicking
imaginary foes. He drove his fist into its head, catching it between the
eyes, and it froze for a second in stunned surprise, then slowly buckled,
collapsing onto the ground. One of the blazing trees gave a single creak
of warning and keeled over. It slammed down on the horse’s back, breaking
ribs and legs, searing its way into the flesh. Oily smoke billowed up.
Will darted forward, and tugged at the saddle straps. His suit datavised
an amber alert to his neural nanonics as the heat impact of the flames
gusted against the outer layer.

Balls of orange flame were hurtling through the air above him, spitting
greasy black liquids: vennals, fleeing and dying as their roosts were
incinerated. Small withered bodies hit the ground all around, some of
them moving feebly.

Dean and Jenny were still struggling with their horses, filling the air
with confused curses. Will’s suit sounded a preliminary caution that
thermal input was reaching the limit of the handling capacity. He felt
the saddle strap give, and jumped backwards, hugging the equipment packs.
The suit’s outer dissipator layer glowed cherry red as it radiated away
the excess heat, and wisps of smoke rose from around his feet.

More trees were falling as the flame consumed the wood at a fantastic
rate. For one nasty moment they were completely penned in by a rippling
fence made up from solid sheets of that strange lethal white flame.

Jenny salvaged her equipment packs from her horse and let go of the
bridle. It raced away blindly, only to veer to one side as another
burning tree fell in its path. One of the fiery vennals landed on its
back, and it charged straight into the flames, screaming piteously. She
watched it tumble over. It twitched a couple of times, trying to regain
its feet, then flopped down limply.

By now a ring of ground a hundred metres in diameter was burning, leaving
just a small patch at the centre untouched. The three of them grouped
together at the middle as the last two trees went down. Now there was
only the ground creepers burning, sending up forked yellow flames and
heavy blue smoke.

Jenny pulled her packs towards her and ran a systems status check. Not
good. The guidance block was putting out erratic data, and the suit’s
laser rangefinder return was dubious. The hostiles’ electronic warfare
field was growing stronger. And according to her external temperature
sensors, if they hadn’t been wearing suits with a thermal-dispersal layer
they would have been roasted alive by now.

She gripped the TIP carbine tighter. “As soon as the flames die down I
want a sweep-scorch pattern laid down out to four hundred metres. Fight
fire with fire. They’ve shown us what they can do, now it’s our turn.”

“All right,” Will muttered happily.

Rummaging round in her packs for one of the spherical heavy duty power
cells she was carrying, she plugged its coiled cable into the butt of her
carbine. The other two were doing the same thing.

“Ready?” she asked. The flames were only a couple of metres high now, the
air above them swarmed with ash flakes, blotting out the sun. “Go.”

They stood, shoulders together, forming a triangle. The TIP carbines
blazed, sending out two hundred and fifty invisible deadly shots every
second. Targeting processors coordinated the sweep parameters,
overlapping their fields of fire. Neural nanonics ordered their muscles
to move in precise increments, controlling the direction of the energy
blitz.

A ripple of destruction roared out across the already cremated land, then
started to chew its way into the vegetation beyond. Dazzling orange stars
scintillated on tree trunks and creepers, desiccating then igniting the
wood and tangled cords of vine. The initial ripple became a fully-fledged
hurricane firestorm, exacerbated by the relentless push of the carbines.

“Burn, you mothers,” Will yelled jubilantly. “Burn!” The entire jungle
was on fire around them, an avalanche of flames racing outward. One again
the vennals were dying in their hundreds, plunging out of their igneous
trees right into the conflagration.

Dean’s neural nanonics reported that his carbine was stuttering whenever
he wiped the barrel across a certain coordinate. He brought it back and
held it. The shot rate declined to five a second.

“Shit. Jenny, they’re locking their electronic warfare into my carbine
targeting processor.”

“Let me have the section,” she said.

He datavised the coordinates over—no problem with communication any more.
When she aimed her own TIP carbine along the line its output dropped off
almost immediately, but her suit blocks were coming back on-line. “Jeeze,
that electronic warfare of theirs is the weirdest.”

“Want me to try?” Will asked.

“No. Finish the sweep-scorch first, we’ll deal with them in a minute.”
She turned back to her section. Watching the invincible rampart of flame
cascade over the jungle had sent her heart racing wildly. The awe that
she could command such fearsome power was soaring through her veins,
taking her to a dangerous high. She had to load a suppression order into
her neural nanonics, which restricted the release of natural adrenalin
sharply. The sweep pattern was completed, and her flesh cooled. But she
still felt supreme.

A holocaust of flame raged a hundred and twenty metres away.

“OK, they’ve given their position away,” she said. “Dean, Will:
gaussguns, please. Fragmentation and electron-explosive rounds,
forty–sixty ratio.”

Will grinned inside his shell-helmet as he bent down to retrieve the
heavy-duty weapon. The gaussgun barrel was dark grey in colour, a metre
and a half long. It weighed thirty kilograms. He picked it up as if it
was made from polystyrene, checked the feed tube was connected to the
bulky magazine box at his feet, datavised in the ratio, and aimed it out
through the shimmering flames. Dean deployed its twin beside him.

Jenny had been probing through the flames, using her TIP carbine to
determine the extent and location of the dead zone simply by recording
where it cut out. She datavised the coordinates over to Dean and Will: an
oval area fifty metres long, roughly three hundred metres away.

“One hundred and fifty per cent coverage,” she said. “Fire.” Even she had
to marvel at how the two men handled the weapons. The gaussguns hurled
ten rounds a second, leaving the muzzle at five times the speed of sound.
Yet they hardly moved as the recoil hammered at them, swaying gently from
side to side. She doubted her boosted muscles could cope.

Away beyond the first rank of flames, a wide island of intact jungle
erupted in violent pyrotechnics. Explosions five metres above the ground
slammed out hundreds of thousands of slender crystallized carbon shrapnel
blades. They scythed through the air at supersonic velocity, sharp as
scalpels, stronger than diamond. Those trees which had survived the
firestorm disintegrated, shredded instantly by the rabid aerial swarm.
Confetti fragments blew apart like a dandelion cloud in a tornado.

The rest of the shrapnel impacted on the ground, slicing through the
tangled mat of creepers, blades stabbing themselves thirty to forty
centimetres down into the loose moist loam. They never had a chance to
settle. EE projectiles rained down, detonating in hard vicious gouts of
ionic flame. Plumes of black loam jetted up high into the ash-dimmed sky.
The whole area was ruptured by steep-walled two-metre craters, undulating
like a sea swell.

Looking down on the desolation, it was hard to believe even an insect
could have survived, let alone any large animal.

The three ESA agents stared through the ebbing flames at the dark cyclone
of loam particles and wood splinters obscuring the sun.

Jenny’s neural nanonics ran a series of diagnostic programs through her
suit equipment blocks. “That electronic warfare field has shut down,” she
said. There was a faint quaver to her voice as she contemplated the
destructive forces she had unleashed. “Looks like we got them.”

“And everybody knows it,” Dean said flatly. “They must be able to see
this fire halfway back to Durringham. The hostiles are going to come
swarming to investigate.”

“You’re right,” she said.

“They’re still there,” Will pronounced.

“What?!” Dean said. “You’ve cracked. Nothing could survive that kind of
barrage, not even an army assault mechanoid. We blasted those bastards to
hell.”

“I’m telling you; they’re still out there,” Will insisted. He sounded
nervous. Not like him at all.

His edginess crept in through the comfortable insulation of Jenny’s suit.
Listening to him she was half convinced herself. “If someone survived,
that’s good,” she said. “I still want that captive for Hiltch. Let’s move
out. We’d have to investigate anyway. And we can’t stay here waiting for
them to regroup.”

They quickly distributed the remaining ammunition and power cells from
their packs, along with basic survival gear. Each of them kept their TIP
carbine; Will and Dean shouldered the gaussguns without a word of protest.

Jenny led off at a fast trot across the smouldering remnants of jungle,
towards the area they had bombarded with the gaussguns. She felt terribly
exposed. The fire had died down, it had nothing left to burn. Away in the
distance they could see a few sporadic flames licking at bushes and knots
of creeper. They were in the middle of a clearing nearly a kilometre
across, the only segment of colour. Everything was black, the remnants of
creepers underfoot, tapering ten-metre spikes of trees devoured by
natural flames (as opposed to the white stuff the hostiles threw at
them), cooked vennals that lay scattered everywhere, other smaller
animals, a savagely contorted corpse of one of the horses, even the air
was leaden with a seam of fine dusky motes.

She datavised her communication block to open a scrambled channel to
Murphy Hewlett. To her surprise, he responded straight away.

“God, Jenny, what’s happened? We couldn’t raise you, then we saw that
bloody great fire-fight. Are you all OK?”

“We’re in one piece, but we lost the horses. I think we did some damage
to the hostiles.”

“Some damage?”

“Yeah. Murphy, watch out for a kind of white fire. So far they’ve only
used it to set the vegetation alight, but our sensors can’t pick up how
they direct the bloody stuff. It just comes at you out of nowhere. But
they hit you with an electronic warfare field first. My advice is that if
your electronics start to go, then lay down a scorch pattern immediately.
Flush them away.”

“Christ. What the hell are we up against? First that paddle-boat
illusion, now undetectable weapons.”

“I don’t know. Not yet, but I’m going to find out.” She was surprised at
her own determination.

“Do you need assistance? It’s a long walk back to the boat.”

“Negative. I don’t think we should join up. Two groups still have a
better chance to achieve our objective than one, nothing has changed
that.”

“OK, but we’re here if it gets too tough.”

“Thanks. Listen, Murphy, I’m not aiming to stay in this jungle after
dark. Hell, we can’t even see them coming at us in the daytime.”

“Now that sounds like the first piece of sensible advice you’ve given
today.”

She referred to her neural nanonics. “There are another seven hours of
daylight left. I suggest we try and rendezvous back at the Isakore in six
hours from now. If we haven’t captured a hostile, or found out what the
hell is going down around here, we can review the situation then.”

“I concur.”

“Jenny,” Dean called with soft urgency.

“Call you back,” she told Murphy.

They had reached the edge of the barrage zone. Not even the tree stumps
had survived here. Craters overlapped, producing a crumpled landscape of
unstable cones and holes; crooked brown roots poked up into the sky from
most of the denuded soil slopes. Long strands of steam, like airborne
worms, wound slowly around the crumbling protrusions, sliding into the
holes to pool at the bottom.

Over on the far side she watched three men emerging from the craters,
scrambling sluggishly for solid ground. They helped each other along,
wriggling on their bellies when the slippery loam proved impossible to
stand on.

Jenny watched their progress in the same kind of bewildered daze which
had engulfed her as the fantastical paddle-steamer sailed down the river.

The men reached level ground sixty metres away from the ESA team, and
stood up. Two were recognizable colonist types: dungarees, thick cotton
work shirts, and woolly beards. The third was dressed in some kind of
antique khaki uniform: baggy trousers, calves bound up by strips of
yellowish cloth; a brown leather belt round his waist sporting a polished
pistol holster; a hemispherical metal hat with a five-centimetre rim.

They couldn’t possibly have survived, Jenny found herself thinking, yet
here they were. For one wild second she wondered if the electronic
warfare field had won, and was feeding the hallucination directly into
her neural nanonics.

The two groups stared at each other for over half a minute.

Jenny’s electronic warfare block reported a build-up of static in the
short-range datavise band. It broke the spell. “OK, let’s go get them,”
she said.

They started to circle round the edge of the barrage zone. The three men
watched them silently.

“Do you want all three?” Will asked.

“No, just one. The soldier must be equipped with the most powerful
systems if he can create that kind of chameleon effect. I’d like him if
we can manage it.”

“I thought chameleon suits were supposed to blend in,” Dean muttered.

“I’m not even sure we’re seeing men,” Will added. “Maybe the xenocs are
disguising themselves. Remember the paddle-steamer.”

Jenny ordered her suit’s laser rangefinder to scan the soldier; its
return should reveal the true outline to an accuracy of less than half a
millimetre. The blue beam stabbed out from the side of her shell-helmet.
But instead of sweeping the soldier, it broke apart a couple of metres in
front of him, forming a turquoise haze. After a second the rangefinder
module shut down. Her neural nanonics reported the whole unit was
inoperative.

“Did you see that?” she asked. They had covered about a third of the
distance round the barrage zone.

“I saw it,” Will said brusquely. “It’s a xenoc. Why else would it want to
hide its shape?”

The distortion in the datavise band began to increase. Jenny saw the
soldier start to unbuckle his holster.

“Stop!” she commanded, her voice booming out of the communication block’s
external speaker. “The three of you are under arrest. Put your hands on
your head, and don’t move.”

All three men turned fractionally, focusing on her. Her neural nanonics
began to report malfunctions in half of her suit’s electronics.

“Screw it! We must break them up, even three of them are too powerful.
Will, one round EE, five metres in front of them.”

“That’s too close,” Dean said tensely as Will brought the gaussgun to
bear. “You’ll kill them.”

“They survived the first barrage,” Jenny said tonelessly. Will fired. A
fountain of loam spurted up into the air, accompanied by a bright
blue-white sphere of flame. The blast-wave flattened some of the nearby
piles of soil.

Jenny’s neural nanonics reported the electronics coming back on-line. The
loam subsided, revealing the three men standing firm. A faint whistle was
insinuating itself into the datavise band; her neural nanonics couldn’t
filter it out.

“One metre,” she snapped. “Fire.”

The explosion sent them spinning, tottering about for balance. One fell
to his knees. For the first time there was a reaction; one of the two
farmer-types started snarling and shouting. His face above the beard was
black, whether from loam or a flashburn she couldn’t tell.

“Keep firing, keep them apart,” Jenny called to Will. “Come on, run.”

Explosions bloomed around the three men. Will was using the gaussgun the
way riot police employed a water cannon, harrying the men as they tried
to come together. Blasts that would rip a human to pieces barely affected
them, at the most they tumbled backwards to sprawl on the ground. He was
tempted to land a round straight on one, just to see what it would do.
They scared him.

Jenny’s feet pounded over the scorched creepers. The packs and the TIP
carbine weighed nothing as her boosted muscles powered up and took the
full load. Will was doing a good job, one of the men had been separated
from the other two. He was the farmer-type who had shouted earlier. She
brought her TIP carbine round and aimed it at his left ankle, neural
nanonics allowing her to compensate for the vigorous motion of her body.
If they could disable him, they could chase off or kill the other two. A
severed cauterized foot wasn’t lethal.

Her neural nanonics triggered a single shot. She actually saw the
induction pulse. A complete impossibility, her mind insisted. But a
slender violet line materialized in the air ahead of her. It struck the
farmer’s ankle and splashed apart, sending luminous tendrils clawing up
his leg. He yelled wildly, and tumbled headlong.

“Dean, subdue him,” she ordered. “I want him in one piece. Will and I
will fend off the other two.” Her carbine’s targeting circle slithered
round on the soldier as she stopped running. He was taking aim with his
revolver. They both fired.

Jenny saw luminous purple tapeworms writhing across the neatly pressed
khaki uniform. The soldier began to jerk about as if he was being
electrocuted. Then the bullet struck her with the force of a gaussgun’s
kinetic round. Her suit hardened instantly, and she found herself
somersaulting chaotically, grey sky and black land streaking past in a
confused blur. There was an instant’s silence. She landed hard, and her
suit unfroze. She was rolling, arms and legs jolting the ground sharply.

The gaussgun was roaring three metres away. Will was standing his ground,
feet apart to brace himself, swivelling from the hip to send EE rounds
chasing after each of the men.

Jenny scrambled to her feet. The soldier and one of the farmers were
fifty metres away. They were facing Will, but retreating in juddering
steps from the onslaught of projectiles. Somehow she had hung on to the
TIP carbine, and now she lined it up. Radiant purple lines shivered
across the soldier once more. He threw up his hands, as if he was
physically warding off the intense energy pulses. Then both he and the
farmer looked at each other. Something must have been said, because they
both turned and ran towards the rim of the jungle eighty metres behind
them.

Dean Folan dropped his gaussgun and backpack, which allowed him to cover
the last thirty metres in two and a half seconds. In that time he fired
his TIP carbine twice. The beams tore into glaring purple streamers which
knocked the farmer down into the soft loam. With his opponent out for the
count, Dean took the last five metres in a flying tackle, landing
straight on top of him. The weight of his own body and the suit and his
equipment should have been enough to finish it. But the man started to
rise straight away. Dean gave a surprised yelp as he was lifted right off
the ground, and went for a stranglehold, only to find a hand clamping
round each wrist pulling his arms apart. He fell onto his back as the
farmer regained his feet. A booted foot kicked him in the side of his
ribs. His suit hardened, and he was thrown onto his belly by the force of
the blow. The farmer must be a construct made entirely out of boosted
muscle! His neural nanonics combat routine programs went into primary
mode. He swung the TIP carbine round, and another vicious kick actually
cracked the casing. But he lashed out with his free arm, knocking the
farmer’s other leg out from under him. The farmer went down heavily on
his backside.

Somewhere in the distance the gaussgun was thumping out a stream of EE
projectiles.

Both of them struggled into a semi-crouch, then launched themselves. Once
again, Dean found himself losing. The farmer’s impact sent him reeling
backwards, fighting to keep his feet. Arms with the strength of a
hydraulic ram grappled at him. His neural nanonics reviewed tactical
options, and decided his physical strength was dangerously inferior. He
let himself sway backwards, taking the farmer with him. Then his leg came
straight up, slamming into the man’s stomach. A classic judo throw. The
farmer arched through the air, snarling in rage. Dean drew his
twenty-centimetre fission blade and twisted round just in time to meet
the man as he charged. The blade sliced down, aiming for the meat of the
right forearm. It struck, cutting through the cloth sleeve. But the
yellow glow faded, and it skated across the skin, scoring a shallow gash.

Dean stared at the narrow wound, partly numbed, partly shocked. Will was
right, it must be a xenoc. As he watched, the skin on the forearm
rippled, closing the gash. The farmer laughed evilly, teeth showing white
in his grubby face. He started to walk towards Dean, arms coming up
menacingly. Dean stepped inside the embrace, and ordered his suit to
solidify below his shoulders. The farmer’s arms closed round him in a
bear hug. Composite fibres, stiffened by the suit’s integral valency
generators, creaked ominously as the farmer’s arms squeezed. A couple of
equipment blocks snapped. Instinct made Dean switch off the fission
blade’s power, leaving a dull black blade with wickedly sharp edges. The
hostiles seemed capable of controlling and subverting any kind of
electrical circuit—maybe if the knife wasn’t powered up . . . He pressed
the tip up into the base of the farmer’s jaw.

“You can heal wounds on your arm. But can you heal your brain as it’s
sliced in half?” The blade was shoved up a fraction until a bead of blood
welled out around the tip. “Wanna try?”

The farmer hissed in animosity. He eased off his grip around Dean’s chest.

“Now keep very still,” Dean said as he unlocked his suit. “Because I’m
very nervous, and an accident can happen easily and quickly.”

“You’ll suffer,” the farmer said malevolently. “You’ll suffer longer than
you have to. I promise.”

Dean took a pace to one side, the blade remaining poised on the man’s
neck. “You speak English, do you? Where do you come from?”

“Here, I come from here, warrior man. Just like you.”

“I don’t come from here.”

“We all do. And you’re going to stay here. For ever, warrior man. You’re
never going to die, not now. Eternity in purgatory is that which awaits
you. Do you like the sound of that? That’s what’s going to happen to you.”

Dean saw Will walk behind the farmer, and touch the muzzle of the
gaussgun to the back of his skull.

“I’ve got him,” said Will. “Hey, xenoc man, one bad move, one bad word,
and you are countryside.” He laughed. “You got that?”

The farmer’s dirty lips curled up in a sneer.

“He’s got it,” Dean said.

Jenny came over and studied the strange tableau. The farmer looked
perfectly ordinary apart from his arrogance. She thought of his two
comrades that had run into the jungle, the hundreds—thousands—more just
like him out there. Maybe he had a right to be arrogant.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

The farmer’s eyes darted towards her. “Kingsford Garrigan. What’s yours?”

“Cuff him,” Jenny told Dean. “We’ll take him back to the Isakore. You’re
going for a long trip, Kingsford Garrigan. All the way to Kulu.” She
thought she saw a flash of surprise in his eyes. “And you’d better hope
your friends don’t try and interfere with us. I don’t know what you are,
but if you attempt to screw up our electronics again, or if we have to
cut and run, the first thing we drop is you. And drop you we will, from a
very great height.”

The farmer spat casually on her foot. Will jabbed him with the gaussgun.

Jenny opened a communication channel to the geosynchronous platform, and
connected into the Kulu Embassy dumper.

“We’ve got you one of the hostiles,” she datavised to Ralph Hiltch. “And
when I say hostile, I’m not kidding.”

“Fantastic. Well done, Jenny. Now get back here soonest. I’ve got our
transport to Ombey arranged. The ESA office there has the facilities for
a total personality debrief.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it working,” she said. “He’s immune to a TIP shot.”

“Repeat, please.”

“I said the TIP carbine doesn’t hurt him, the energy pulse just breaks
apart. Only physical weapons seem to have any effect. At the moment we’ve
got him subdued with a gaussgun. He’s also stronger than the G66 boys, a
lot stronger.”

There was a long silence. “Is he human?” Ralph Hiltch asked.

“He looks human. But I don’t see how he can be. If you want my opinion,
I’d guess at some kind of super bitek android. It’s got to be a xenoc
bitek, and a pretty advanced bitek at that.”

“Christ Almighty. Datavise a full-spectrum image over, please. I’ll run
it through some analysis programs.”

“Sure thing.”

Dean had the man’s hands behind his back to slide a zipcuff over his
wrists. It was a figure-of-eight band of polyminium with a latch buckle
at the centre. Jenny watched Dean tighten the pewter-coloured loops; no
electronic lock, thank heavens, just simple mechanics.

She ordered her neural nanonics to encode the retinal pixels, and
datavised the complete image over to the embassy. Infrared followed, then
a spectrographic print.

Dean ejected the power magazine from his broken TIP carbine and handed it
to Jenny along with the spares, then recovered his gaussgun. With Will
covering their prisoner, they started walking back towards the Isakore at
a brisk pace. Jenny aimed them off at a slight tangent, taking them
quickly back into the jungle. She still felt too exposed in the firestorm
clearing.

“Jenny,” Ralph called after a minute. “What did the hostile say his name
was?”

“Kingsford Garrigan,” she replied.

“He’s lying. And you’re wrong about him being a xenoc android, too. I’ve
run a search program through our records. He’s a colonist from Aberdale
called Gerald Skibbow.”



“It is a wet, humid night here in Durringham, as they always are on this
poor benighted planet. The heat clogs my throat and my skin sweats as
though I have caught a fever. But still I feel cold inside, a coldness
that grips the very cells of my heart.” Was that a bit too purple? Oh
well, the studio can always edit it out.

Graeme Nicholson was squatting on aching ankles in the deepest shadows
cast by one of the spaceport’s big hangars. It was drizzling hard, and
his cheap synthetic suit was clinging to his flabby body. Despite the
warmth of the water he really was shivering, the fat rolls of his beer
belly were shaking the same way they did when he laughed.

Fifty metres away a defeated yellow light shone from an office in the
spaceport’s single-storey administration block. It was the only occupied
office, the rest had shut long ago. With his retinal implants straining,
Graeme could just make out Laton, Marie Skibbow, and two other men
through the grimed glass. One of them was Emlyn Hermon, the Yaku’s
second-in-command, who had met Marie and Laton in the Crashed Dumper. He
didn’t know the fourth, but he must work for the spaceport administration
in some capacity.

He just wished he could listen to whatever deal they were making. But his
boosted hearing was only effective inside a fifteen-metre radius. And no
prize in the universe would make him creep any closer to Laton. Fifty
metres was quite close enough, thank you.

“I have followed the arch-diabolist here from the city. And nothing I
have seen has given me the slightest hope for the future. His interest in
the spaceport can only indicate he is ready to move on. His work on
Lalonde is complete. Violence and anarchy reign beyond the city. What
monstrous curse he has let loose is beyond my imagination; but each new
day brings darker stories down the river, sucking away the citizens’
hope. Fear is his real weapon, and he possesses it in abundance.”

Marie held out a small object Graeme took to be a Jovian Bank credit
disk. The spaceport administration official proffered its counterpart.

“The alliance has been formed. His plan advances another notch. And I
cannot believe it will bring anything other than disaster upon us. Four
decades has not reduced the fear. What has he achieved in those four
decades? I ask myself this question time and again. The only answer must
be: evil. He has perfected evil.”

The office light went out. Graeme emerged from his sheltered recess, and
walked along the side of the hangar until he could see the administration
block’s main entrance. The drizzle was worsening, becoming rain. His suit
felt cool, and unbearably clammy, restricting his movements. A prodigious
amount of water was running off the ezystak-panel roof overhead,
splattering onto the chippings round his soaking feet. Despite the
physical discomfort and nagging consternation at Laton’s presence, he
felt an excitement that had been absent for years. This was real
journalism: the million to one break, the hazardous follow-up, getting
the story at any cost. Those shits back in the editing offices could
never handle this, safe paunchy career creatures; and they would know it
too. His real victory.

Laton and his cohorts had all emerged into the bleak night wearing
cagoules against the weather. They had their backs to him, heading for
the flight line where the indistinct outlines of the parked McBoeings
formed windows into an even graver darkness. Laton (betrayed by his
height) had his arm around Marie.

“The beauty and the beast, look. What can she see in him? For Marie is
just a simple colony girl, proud and decent, loving her new planet,
working long hours like all of this city’s residents. She shares the
planetary ethic of her neighbours, striving hard to achieve a better
world for her children. Yet somehow she has stumbled. A warning that none
of us is immune to the attraction of the dark side of human nature. I
look at her, and I think: there but for the grace of God go I.”

Halfway along the McBoeings was a smaller spaceplane. It was obviously
Laton’s goal. Bright light shone out of its open airlock, casting a grey
smear across the ground. A couple of maintenance crew personnel were
tending the mobile support units under its nose.

Graeme sneaked up to the big undercarriage bogies of a McBoeing forty
metres away, and crouched down below the broad tyres. The spaceplane was
one of the small swing-wing VTOL marques starships carried in their
hangars. He switched his retinal implants to full magnification and
scanned the fuselage. Sure enough, the name Yaku was printed on the low
angular tail.

Some kind of argument was going on at the foot of the steps leading up to
the airlock. The administration official was talking heatedly to another
man wearing a cagoule with the LDC emblem on the arm. Both of them were
waving their arms around. Laton, Marie, and Emlyn Hermon stood to one
side, watching patiently.

“The last obstacle has been reached. It is ironic to consider that all
that stands between Laton and the Confederation is one immigration
official. One man between us and the prospect of galactic tragedy.”

The argument ended. A Jovian Bank disk was offered.

“Can we blame him? Should we blame him? It is a foul night. He has a
family which looks to him for support. And how harmless it is, a few
hundred fuseodollars to avert his eyes for one swift minute. Money which
can buy food for his children in these troubled times. Money which can
make life that fraction easier. How many of us would do the same? How
many? Would you?” Nice touch that, involve people.

Laton and Marie went up the battered aluminium stairs, followed by a
furtive Emlyn Hermon. The administration official was talking to the two
ground crew.

Just as he reached the airlock hatch, Laton turned, the hood of his
cagoule falling back to reveal his face in full. Handsome, well
proportioned, a hint of aristocracy: Edenist sophistication, but without
the cultural heritage, that essential counterbalance which made the
affinity gene carriers human. It looked as though he was staring straight
at Graeme Nicholson. He laughed with a debonair raffishness. Mocking.

Everyone in the Confederation who accessed the sensevise in the weeks
which followed experienced the old journalist’s heart thud inside his
ribs. All of a sudden breath was very hard to come by, stalling in his
throat.

That pause, the derision. It wasn’t an accident, chance. Laton knew he
was there, and didn’t care. Graeme was too far beneath him to care.

“He is going now. Free to roam the stars. Should I have tried to stop
him? Put myself up against a man who can make entire worlds tremble at
the mention of his name? If you think I should, then I am sorry. For I am
so frightened of him. And I do not believe I would have made any
difference, not against his strength. He would still be on his way.”

The airlock hatch shut. The two ground crew scuttled about, hunched
against the rain, unplugging the thick dark-yellow ribbed hoses from
their underbelly hatches. Compressors wound up, kicking out micro-squalls
of the heavy rain. Their reedy sibilance built steadily until the
spaceplane rocked on its undercarriage. It lifted into the murky sky.

“My duty now is to warn you all. I will do what I can, what I must, to
ensure this sensevise reaches you. So that you know. He is coming. It is
you who must fight him. I wish you luck. Those of us left here have our
own battle against the calamity he has unleashed out in the hinterlands.
It is not one for which we are well prepared, this is not a planet of
epic heroes, just ordinary people like yourselves. As always, the burden
falls upon those least able to shoulder it; for a terrible night has
fallen on Lalonde, and I do not think we will see the dawn again.”

The spaceplane swooped up in a sharp climb, its wings beginning to fold
back. It arrowed into the low, bulging cloud base, and disappeared from
view.



A dozen paltry fires spluttered and hissed on the broad road outside the
Governor’s dumper, the flames devouring fence posts and broken carts that
had been snatched for fuel. Little knots of protesters clustered round
them under the watchful eyes of the sheriffs and deputies circling the
carbotanium cone. An uneasy truce had broken out after the anger and
violence of the day. The earlier barrages of stones and bottles had been
answered each time by cortical-jamming impulses from the sheriffs.
Thankfully the protesters had refrained from using any real weapons
today. Now the chanting had stopped. The naked menace in a thousand
throats screaming in unison wasn’t something Colin Rexrew was accustomed
to dealing with. He could never make out what they had been chanting for
these last few days; he thought they weren’t entirely sure themselves
apart from wanting the turmoil to end. Well, so did he. Very badly.

Each time Colin Rexrew looked out of his window he could see some new
plume of smoke rising from the vista of dark rooftops. Tonight the
horizon was dotted with three or four fierce orange flares as buildings
burned. If it wasn’t for the rain and humidity Durringham would have been
reduced to a single giant firestorm days ago.

And the deteriorating civic situation in the city wasn’t even his real
problem.

When Candace Elford came into the office Colin Rexrew was behind his desk
as always, gazing vacantly at the window strip and the luckless city
outside. Terrance Smith gave her a fast, expressive grimace, and they
both sat down.

“I’m afraid I have now effectively lost control over a third of the
city,” she started.

It was the nightly situation briefing. Or the nightly crisis meeting,
depending on how cynical Colin felt. The intensifying pressures seemed to
make it hard to concentrate at the very times he needed his full mental
resources. He would have given a lot to be able to run a stimulant
program through his neural nanonics, or even escape into a MF album for a
few hours like he used to in his adolescence. It would have made the
strain a little easier to bear.

Not even his neural nanonics with their top of the range managerial
programs were much help. There were too many unaccountable—downright
weird—factors cropping up to apply standard responses. Had there ever
been a stage one colony governor who had lost all control of his planet?
The memory cells held no record of any.

What a way to get into the history books.

“Is it the invaders?” he asked.

“No, as far as we can make out they are still some distance away. What
we’re dealing with here is mainly opportunist looting, and some organized
grabs for power. Nothing political, but there are some strong criminal
gangs who have been quick to take advantage of the unrest. I’d point out
that most of the districts my sheriffs have been excluded from are on the
south-eastern side of town. Those are the newest and poorest; in other
words the most disaffected to begin with. The heart of the city, and more
importantly the merchant and industrial sectors, remain stable. If
anything, the older residents resent the lawlessness. I’m looking to
recruit more deputies from them.”

“How long before you can start to regain control of the south-east
districts?” Terrance Smith asked.

“At the moment I’m just looking to contain the trouble,” Candace Elford
said.

“You mean you can’t?”

“I didn’t say that, but it isn’t going to be easy. The gangs have
captured two dumpers, and their fusion generators. We can’t afford to
damage them, and they know that. I lost a lot of good people in Ozark and
on the Swithland fiasco. Plus we have to deal with the transient
colonists. They seem to be the biggest problem right now; they’re holed
up in the docks and I can’t shift them. There are barricades across every
access route and there’s a lot of wanton destruction and looting going
on. So half the port is currently unusable, which has antagonized the
boat captains; and I have to deploy a lot of people to keep an eye on
them.”

“Starve them out,” Colin said.

She nodded reluctantly. “That’s one option. About the least expensive at
the moment. But it will take time, there was a lot of food stored in
those warehouses.”

“The merchants won’t like that,” Terrance Smith said.

“Screw the merchants,” Colin said. “I’m sorry about the transients’ gear
being looted, but that doesn’t excuse this kind of behaviour. We can help
them eventually, but not if they’re going to hamper every effort with
petty-minded belligerence.”

“Some families lost everything—”

“Tough shit! We are in danger of losing an entire planet of twenty
million people. My priority is to the majority.”

“Yes, sir.”

There were times when Colin just felt like telling his aide: here’s my
seat, you take over, you with your situation summaries and cautiously
formulated response suggestions. Instead, the Governor walked over to the
drinks cabinet and searched through the bottles for a decent chilled
white wine, and to hell with the chief sheriff’s disapproval.

“Can we defend Durringham from the invaders?” he asked quietly as he
flipped the neck seal and poured out a glass.

“If we had enough time to prepare, and you declared martial law, and if
we had enough weapons.”

“Yes or no?”

Candace Elford watched the glass in the Governor’s hand. It was shaking
quite badly, the wine nearly spilling. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Whatever it is that’s out there, it’s strong, well armed, and well
organized. The Confederation Navy office thinks they are using some kind
of sequestration technology to turn colonists into a slave army. Faced
with that, I don’t think we really stand much of a chance.”

“Sequestration nanonics,” Colin mumbled as he sank back into his chair.
“Dear God, who are these invaders? Xenocs? Some exiled group from another
planet?”

“I’m not one hundred per cent certain,” she said. “But my satellite image
analysis people found these this morning. I think it may throw a little
light on the situation.” She datavised an order into the office’s
computer. The wall-screens lit up, showing a blank section of jungle
fifty kilometres west of Ozark.

The satellite had passed over in the middle of the afternoon, giving a
clear bright image. Trees were compacted so tightly the jungle looked
like an unbroken emerald plain. Five perfectly straight black lines began
to probe across the green expanse, as if the talons of a huge invisible
claw were being scored down the screen. The satellite cameras zoomed in
on the head of one line, and Colin Rexrew saw trees being bulldozed into
the ground. A big ten-wheeled vehicle rolled into view, grey metal
glinting dully, a black bubble-cab protruding from a flat upper surface.
It had a blunt wedge-shaped front that smashed through trunks without the
slightest resistance. Viscous sprays of red-brown mud were being flung up
by its rear wheels, caking the metal bodywork. There were another three
identical vehicles following it along the track of shattered vegetation
it was ripping through the jungle.

“We positively identified them as Dhyaan DLA404 landcruisers; they are
made on Varzquez. Or I should say, were made. The Dhyaan company stopped
producing that particular model over twenty years ago.”

Colin Rexrew datavised a search order into the office computer. “The LDC
never brought any to Lalonde.”

“That’s right. The invaders brought them. What you’re seeing is the first
definite proof that it is an external force behind all this. And they’re
heading straight towards Durringham.”

“Dear God.” He put his empty wineglass down on the desk, and stared at
the screens. The enemy had a physical form. After weeks of helpless
wrestling with an elusive, possibly imaginary, foe, it was finally real;
but a reason for the invasion, logical or otherwise, was impossible to
devise.

Colin Rexrew gathered up what was left of his old determination and
resolve. Something tangible gave his psyche a fragment of very welcome
confidence. He accessed the one neural nanonics program he had thought he
would never have to use, strategic military procedure, and put it into
primary mode. “We have to stop deluding ourselves we can handle this on
our own. I need combat troops backed up with real fire-power. I’m going
to blow these invaders right off my planet. We only need to locate the
headquarters. Kill the brain and the body is irrelevant. We can see about
removing the sequestration nanonics from people later.”

“The LDC board will need convincing,” Terrance Smith said. “It won’t be
easy.”

“They will be told afterwards,” Colin said. “You’ve seen those
landcruisers. They’ll be here in a week. We must move fast. After all,
it’s the board’s interest I’m ultimately protecting; without Lalonde
there will be no LDC.”

“Where can you get troops from without going through the board?” Terrance
asked.

“The same place they would ultimately get them from. We buy them on a
short-term contract.”

“Mercenaries?” the aide asked in surprised alarm.

“Yes. Candace, where’s the nearest port we can get enough in reasonable
numbers? I want armed ships, too; they can provide the fire-power back-up
from low orbit. It’s expensive, but cheaper than buying in
strategic-defence platforms. They can also prevent any more of the
invader’s ships from landing.”

The chief sheriff gave him a long, testing stare. “Tranquillity,” she
said eventually. “It’s a base for blackhawks and the so-called
independent traders. Where you find the ships, you find the people. Ione
Saldana might be young, but she’s not stupid, she won’t throw out the
undesirables. The plutocrats who live in the habitat have too many uses
for them.”

“Good,” Colin said decisively. “Terrance, cancel all work on Kenyon as of
now. We’ll use the money earmarked for mining its main chamber. It always
was bloody premature.”

“Yes, sir.”

“After that, you can take one of the colonist-carrier ships to
Tranquillity and supervise the recruitment.”

“Me?”

“You.” Colin watched the protest form and die unvoiced on the younger
man’s lips. “I want at least four thousand general troops to re-establish
order in Durringham and the immediate counties. And I also want teams of
combat scouts for the Quallheim Counties. They are going to have to be
the best, because they are going to be assigned the search and destroy
mission in the deep jungle. Once they locate the invader’s home base they
can zero it for the starships’ weapons. We can pound it from orbit.”

“What sort of armaments are we looking for on these starships?” Terrance
asked guardedly.

“Masers, X-ray lasers, particle beams, thermal inducers, kinetic
harpoons, and atmospheric penetration nukes—straight fusion, I don’t want
any radioactives clogging the environment.” He caught the aide’s eye.
“And no antimatter, not under any circumstances.”

Terrance gave a cautious grin. “Thank you.”

“What ships have we got available in orbit right now?”

“That was something I was going to mention,” Terrance said. “The Yaku
left its parking orbit this evening. It jumped outsystem.”

“So?”

“Firstly, it was a cargo ship, and only fifty per cent of its cargo had
been unloaded. And cargo is the one thing we are still bringing down to
the spaceport. It had no reason to leave. Secondly, it had no permission
to leave. There was no prior contact with our Civil Flight Control
Office. The only reason I found out it had left was because Kelven
Solanki got in touch with me to query it. When I checked with flight
control to ask why they hadn’t informed us about it, they didn’t even
know Yaku had lifted from parking orbit. It turns out someone had erased
the traffic-monitor satellite data from the spaceport computer.”

“Why?” Candace asked. “It’s not as if we have anything that could prevent
them from leaving.”

“No,” Colin said slowly. “But we could have asked another ship to track
it. Without the monitor satellite data we don’t know its jump coordinate,
we don’t know where it went.”

“Solanki will have a copy,” Terrance said. “Ralph Hiltch too, I suspect.
If he was pressed.”

“That’s all we need, another bloody puzzle,” Colin said. “See what you
can find out,” he told Candace.

“Yes, sir.”

“Back to the original question. What other ships are available?”

Terrance consulted his neural nanonics. “There are eight left in orbit;
three cargo ships, the rest colonist-carriers. And we’re due for another
two colonist-carriers this week, as well as a Tyrathca merchant ship
sometime before the end of the month to check on their farmers.”

“Don’t remind me,” Colin said sorely.

“I think the Gemal would be the best bet. That only has forty Ivets left
in zero-tau. They can be transferred to the Tachad or the Martijn, both
of them have spare zero-tau pods. It wouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

“Get onto it tonight,” Colin said. “And, Candace, that means the
spaceport has to be defended at all costs. We have to be able get those
troops down in the McBoeings. There’s nowhere else for them to land. The
scouts can use VTOLs to take them direct to the Quallheim Counties, but
the rest will have to use the McBoeings.”

“Yes, sir, I am aware of that.”

“Good, start organizing for it, then. Terrance, I want you back here in
ten days. Give me one month, and I’ll have these bastards begging me for
surrender terms.”



The gaussgun’s fragmentation round hit the man full in his chest, and
penetrated to a depth of ten centimetres, already starting to crater the
flesh, impact shock pulverizing the entire mass of organs held within his
rib cage to mucilaginous jelly. Then it exploded, silicone shrapnel
reducing the entire body to a spherical cascade of scarlet cells.

Will Danza grunted in acute satisfaction. “Try rebuilding yourself out of
that, my xenoc friend,” he told the slippery red leaves.

The hostiles were impervious to almost any major injury. The little ESA
team had found that out long ago. Gaping lacerations, severed limbs—they
barely slowed the hostiles down as they emerged from the thick bushes to
harass the party. Wounds closed up, bones knitted in seconds. Lieutenant
Jenny Harris might insist on calling the prisoner a sequestrated
colonist, but Will knew what it really was. Xenoc monster. And its
friends wanted it back.

Twice in the last three kilometres Jenny Harris had been forced to order
a sweep-scorch pattern. The things had been throwing that eerie white
fire of theirs. Once a ball had struck Dean Folan’s arm, burning through
the suit’s energy diffusion layer as if it wasn’t there. The medical
nanonic package they’d put on his arm looked like a tube of translucent
green exoskeleton.

“Hey!” Dean yelled. “Get back here!”

Jenny Harris looked round. Gerald Skibbow was running into the jungle,
both arms pumping wildly. “Shitfire,” she muttered. He had been zipcuffed
a moment ago. Dean was lining up his gaussgun.

“Mine,” she called. Her blue TIP carbine targeting graphic centred on a
tree five metres ahead of the running man; the shots punched straight
through the slim trunk, puffs of steam and flame squirted out. Gerald
Skibbow swerved frantically as the tree toppled across his path. Another
volley of shots and the jungle around him caught light. One final shot on
his knee knocked his legs from under him.

The three of them trotted over where he lay sprawled in the crushed muddy
vines.

“What happened?” Jenny asked. She had assigned Dean to guard the
prisoner. Unless a gaussgun was in his back the whole time, Gerald
Skibbow felt free to cause as much trouble as possible.

Dean held up the zipcuff. It was unbroken. “I saw a hostile,” he said. “I
only turned away for a second.”

“OK,” Jenny sighed. “I wasn’t blaming you.” She bent over Gerald Skibbow,
whose grimed face was grinning up at them, and jerked his right arm up.
There was a narrow red line braceleting the wrist, an old scar. “Very
clever,” she told him wearily. “Next time, I’ll order Dean to slice your
legs off below the knee. We’ll see how long it takes you to grow a new
pair.”

Gerald Skibbow laughed. “You don’t have that much time available, Madame
bitch.”

She straightened up. Her spine creaked and groaned as if she was a
hundred and fifty. She felt older. The fire was crackling loudly in the
surrounding bushes, flames inhibited by the green twigs.

It was another four kilometres back to the Isakore, and the jungle was
becoming progressively thicker. Vines here wrapped the trees like major
arteries, creating a solid hurdle of verdant mesh between the trunks.
Visibility was down to less than twenty-five metres, and that was with
enhanced senses.

We’re not going to make it, she realized.

They’d been expending gaussgun ammunition at a heavy rate ever since they
set off. They had to, nothing else worked against the hostiles. Even the
two TIP carbines were down to forty per cent of their power reserve. “Get
him up,” she ordered curtly.

Will clamped an arm round Gerald Skibbow’s shoulder and hauled him to his
feet.

White fire burst out of the ground around Jenny’s feet, damp loam tearing
open to spit out dazzling globules which spiralled up her legs like a
liquid repelled by gravity. She screamed at the pain as her skin
blistered and burned inside the anti-projectile suit. Her neural nanonics
isolated the nerve strands, eliminating the raw impulses with analgesic
blocks.

Will and Dean started firing their gaussguns at random into the blank
impassive jungle in the vain hope of hitting a hostile. EE projectiles
mashed the nearby trees. Shreds of sappy vegetation whirred through the
air, forming a loose curtain behind which vivid explosions boomed.

The viscid beads of white fire evaporated as they reached Jenny’s hips.
She clenched her teeth against the solid ache from her legs. Frightened
by the damage her neural nanonics were shielding her from. Frightened she
couldn’t walk. The medical program was choking up her mind with red
symbols, all of them clustered around schematics of her legs like bees
round honey. She felt faint.

“We can help you,” silver voices whispered in chorus.

“What?” she asked, disorientated. She sat on the lumpy ground to take the
strain off her legs. Her trembling muscles had been about to dump her
there anyway.

“You all right, Jenny?” Dean asked. He was standing with the gaussgun
pointing threateningly into the broken trees.

“Did you say something?”

“Yes, are you OK?”

“I . . .” I’m hearing things. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“First thing you have to do is get a medical nanonic package on those
legs. I think there’s enough,” he said, uncertainty clouding his voice.

Jenny knew there wasn’t, not to get her patched up for a hike of four
kilometres under combat conditions. The neural nanonics prognosis wasn’t
good; the program was activating her endocrine implant, sending a potent
stew of chemicals into her bloodstream. “No,” she said forcefully. “We’re
not going to get back to the boat like this.”

“We ain’t going to leave you,” Will said hotly.

She grinned unseen inside her shell-helmet. “Believe me, I wasn’t going
to ask you to. Even if the medical nanonics can get me walking, we don’t
have enough ordnance left to blast our way back to the Isakore from here.”

“What then?” Will demanded.

Jenny requested a channel to Murphy Hewlett. Static crashed into her
neural nanonics, that eerie whistling. “Shitfire. I can’t get the
marines.” She hated the idea of abandoning them.

“I think I can see why,” Dean said. He pointed at the treetops. “Smoke,
and plenty of it. South of here. Some distance by the look of it. They
must have laid down a sweep-scorch pattern. They got troubles, too.”

Jenny couldn’t see any smoke. Even the leaves at the top of the trees had
turned a barren grey. Her vision was tunnelling. A physiological-status
request showed her endocrines were barely coping with the flayed legs.
“Sling me your medical nanonics,” she said.

“Right.” Will fired six EE rounds into the jungle then hurriedly detached
his backpack and tossed it over. He was back watching the abused trees
before it reached her.

She ordered her communications block to open a channel to Ralph Hiltch,
then turned the backpack seal’s catch and fumbled around inside. Instead
of the subliminal digital bleep that signalled the block was interfacing
with the geosynchronous platform, all she heard was a monotonous buzz.

“Will, Dean, open a channel to the geosync platform, maybe a combined
broadcast will get through.” She picked up her TIP carbine, and pointed
it at Gerald Skibbow, who was squatting sullenly beside a swath of vines
four metres away. “And you, if I think you are part of the jamming
effort, I will start a little experiment to see exactly how much thermal
energy you can fight off. You got me, Mr. Skibbow? Is this message
getting through the electronic warfare barrier?”

The communication block reported the channel to the embassy was open.

“What’s happening?” Ralph Hiltch asked.

“Trouble—” Jenny broke off to hiss loudly. The medical nanonic package
was contracting round her left leg, it felt as though a thousand
acid-tipped needles were jabbing into the roasted gouges as the furry
inner surface knitted with her flesh. She had to order the neural
nanonics to block all the nerve impulses. Her legs went completely numb,
lacking even the heavy vacuum feeling of chemical anaesthetics. “Boss, I
hope that fall-back scheme of yours works. Because we need it pretty
badly. Now, boss.”

“OK, Jenny. I’m putting it in motion. ETA fifteen minutes, can you hang
on that long?”

“No problem,” Will said. He sounded indecently cheerful.

“Are you secure where you are?” Ralph asked.

“Our security situation wouldn’t change if we moved,” Jenny told him,
marvelling at her own understatement.

“OK, I’ve got your coordinates. Use your TIP carbines to scorch a
clearing at least fifty metres across. I’ll need it for a landing-zone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m on my way.”

Jenny swapped her TIP carbine for Dean’s gaussgun. By sitting with her
back to a tree she could keep it pointed at Gerald Skibbow. The two G66
troops began slashing at the jungle with their TIP carbines.



The captain of the Ekwan was a middle-aged woman in a blue ship-suit,
with the kind of robust, lanky figure that suggested she was from a
space-adapted geneered family. The AV projector showed her floating ten
centimetres above the acceleration couch in her compact cabin. “How did
you know we were leaving orbit?” she asked. Her voice was slightly
distorted by a curious whistle that was coming through the relay from the
LDC’s geosynchronous communication platform.

Graeme Nicholson smiled thinly at her puzzled tone. He diverted his eyes
from the projection for a second. On the other side of Durringham
spaceport’s flight control centre Langly Bradburn rolled his eyes and
turned back to his monitor console.

“I have a contact in the Kulu Embassy,” Graeme said, returning to the
projection.

“This isn’t a commercial flight,” the captain said, a fair amount of
resentment bubbling into her voice.

“I know.” Graeme had heard of the Kulu Ambassador throwing his authority
around and virtually commandeering the Kulu-registered colonist-carrier.
A situation which became even more interesting when he discovered from
Langly that it was Cathal Fitzgerald who was in orbit making sure the
captain did as she was told. Cathal Fitzgerald was one of Ralph Hiltch’s
people. And now, as Graeme looked through the flight control centre’s
window, he could see a queue of people standing on the nearby hangar
apron, shoulders angled against the rain as they embarked on a passenger
McBoeing BDA-9008. The entire embassy staff and dependants. “But it is
only one memory flek,” he said winningly. “And the Time Universe office
will pay a substantial bonus when you hand it in to them, I can assure
you of that.”

“I haven’t been told where we’re going yet.”

“We have offices in every Confederation system. And it would be a
personal favour,” Graeme emphasized.

There was a pause as the captain worked out that she would receive the
entire carriage fee herself. “Very well, Mr. Nicholson. Give it to the
McBoeing pilot, I’ll meet him when he docks.”

“Thank you, Captain, pleasure doing business with you.”

“I thought you sent a flek out with the Gemal this morning?” Langly
observed as Graeme switched off the metre-high projection pillar.

“I did, old boy. Just covering my back.”

“Are people really going to be interested in a riot on Lalonde? Nobody
even knows this planet even exists.”

“They will. Oh, indeed they will.”



Rain slammed against the little spaceplane’s fuselage as it dived out
through the bottom of the clouds. It made a fast rattling sound against
the tough silicolithium-composite skin. Individual drops burst into
streaks of steam, vaporized by the friction heat of the craft’s Mach five
velocity.

Looking over the pilot’s shoulder Ralph Hiltch saw the jungle blurring
past below. It was grey-green, sprinkled by flexuous strands of mist. Up
ahead was a broad band of brighter grey where the clouds ended, and
getting broader.

“Ninety seconds,” Kieron Syson, the pilot, shouted over the noise.

A loud metallic whirring filled the small cabin as the wings began to
swing forward. The spaceplane pitched up at a sharp angle, and the noise
of the rain impacts increased until talking was impossible. Deceleration
hit three gees, forcing Ralph back into one of the cabin’s six plastic
seats.

Sunlight burst into the cabin with a fast rainbow flash. The sound of the
rain vanished. They levelled out as their speed dropped to subsonic.

“We’ll need a complete structure fatigue check after this,” Kieron Syson
complained. “Nobody flies supersonic through rain, half the leading edges
have abraded down to their safety margins.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ralph told him. “It’ll be paid for.” He turned to
check with Cathal Fitzgerald. Both of them were wearing the same model of
olive green one-piece anti-projectile suits as Jenny and the two G66
troops. It had been a long time since Ralph had dressed for combat, a
cool tension was compressing his body inside and out.

“Looks like your people have been having themselves a wild time,” Kieron
said.

Away in the southern distance a vast column of dense soot-laden smoke was
rising high into the pale blue sky, a ring of flames dancing round its
base. Ten kilometres to the east a kilometre-wide ebony crater had been
burned out of the trees.

The spaceplane banked sharply, variable-camber wings twisting elastically
to circle it round a third, smaller, blackened clearing. This one was
only a hundred metres across. Small licks of flame fluttered from the
fallen trees around the perimeter, and thin blue smoke formed a mushroom
dome of haze. There was a small green island of withered vegetation in
the exact centre.

“That’s them,” Kieron said as the spaceplane’s guidance systems locked on
to the signal from Jenny Harris’s communication block.

Four people were standing on the crush of vine leaves and grass. As Ralph
watched, one of them fired a gaussgun into the jungle.

“Down and grab them,” he told Kieron. “And make it fast.”

Kieron whistled through closed teeth. “Why me, Lord?” he muttered
stoically.

Ralph heard the fan nozzles rotate to the vertical, and the undercarriage
clunked as it unfolded. They were swinging round the black scorch zone in
decreasing circles. He ordered his communication block to open a local
channel to Jenny Harris.

“We’re coming down in fifty seconds,” he told her. “Get ready to run.”

The cabin airlock’s outer hatch hinged open, showing him the fuselage
shield sliding back. A blast of hot, moist air hurtled in, along with the
howl of the compressors.

“Faster, boss,” Jenny shouted, her voice raw. “We’ve only got thirty
gaussgun rounds left. Once we stop this suppression fire they’ll hit the
spaceplane with everything they’ve got.”

A fine black powder was churning through the cabin like a sable
sandstorm. Environment-contamination warnings sounded above the racket
from the compressors, amber lights winked frantically on the forward
bulkhead.

“Land us now,” Ralph ordered Kieron. “Cathal, give them some covering
fire, scorch that jungle.”

The compressor noise changed, becoming strident. Cathal Fitzgerald moved
into the airlock, bracing himself against the outer hatch rim. He began
to swing his TIP carbine in long arcs. A sheet of flame lashed the
darkening sky around the edge of the clearing.

“Ten seconds,” Kieron said. “I’ll get as close to them as I can.”

Ash rose up in a cyclonic blizzard as the compressor nozzle efflux
splashed against the ground. Visibility was reduced drastically. An
orange glow from the flames fluoresced dimly on one side of the
spaceplane.

Jenny Harris watched the craft touch and bounce, then settle. She could
just make out the name Ekwan on the narrow, angled tail. Ralph Hiltch and
Cathal Fitzgerald were two indistinct figures hanging on to the side of
the open airlock. One of them was waving madly; she guessed it was Ralph.

Will Danza fired the last of his gaussgun rounds, and dropped the big
weapon. “Empty,” he muttered in disgust. His TIP carbine came up, and he
started adding to the flames.

“Come on, move!” Ralph’s datavise was tangled with discordant static.

“Get Skibbow in,” Jenny ordered Dean and Will. “I’ll cover our backs.”
She brought her TIP carbine to bear on the soot-occluded jungle, putting
her back to the spaceplane.

Will and Dean grabbed Gerald Skibbow and started to drag him towards the
sleek little craft.

Jenny limped after them, trailing by several metres. The last heavy duty
power cell banged against her side, its energy level down to seven per
cent. She reduced the carbine’s rate of fire, and fired off fifteen shots
blindly. Grunting and shuffling sounds were coming down her headset,
relayed by the suit’s audio pick-ups. She flicked to her rear optical
sensors for a moment and saw Gerald Skibbow putting up a struggle as four
people tried to haul him through the spaceplane’s airlock hatch. Ralph
Hiltch slammed his carbine butt into Gerald’s face. Blood poured out of
the colonist’s broken nose, dazing him long enough for Will to shove his
legs through.

Jenny switched her attention back to her forward view. Five figures were
solidifying out of the swirl of ash. They were stooped humanoids; like
big apes, she thought. Blue targeting graphics closed like a noose around
one. She fired, sending it flailing backwards.

A ball of white fire raced out of the gloom, too fast to duck. It
splashed over her TIP carbine, intensifying. The weapon casing distorted,
buckling as though it was made of soft wax. She couldn’t free her fingers
from the grip; it had melted round them. Her throat voiced a desolate cry
as the terrible fire bit hard into her knuckles. The flaming remnants of
the carbine fell to the ground. She held up her hand; there were no
fingers or thumb, only the smoking stump of her palm. Her cry turned to a
wail, and she tripped over a root protruding from the loam. The woody
strand coiled fluidly round her ankle like a malicious serpent. Four dark
figures loomed closer, a fifth lumbering up behind.

She twisted round on the ground. The spaceplane was twelve metres away.
Gerald Skibbow was lying on the floor of the airlock with two suited
figures on top of him pinning him down. He looked straight at Jenny, a
gleeful sneer on his blooded lips. The root tightened its vicelike grip,
cutting into her ankle. He was doing it, she knew that then.

“Lift,” she datavised. “Ralph, for God’s sake lift. Get him to Ombey.”

“Jenny!”

“Make it mean something.”

One of the dark figures landed on her. It was a man, strangely corpulent,
bulky without being fat; thick matted hair covered his entire body. Then
she couldn’t see anything; his belly was pressed against her shell-helmet.

That quiet chorus spoke to her again. “There is no need for fear,” it
said. “Let us help you.”

Another of the man-things gripped her knees, his buttocks squashing her
damaged legs into the ground. The front of her anti-projectile suit was
ripped open. It was difficult to breathe now.

“Jenny! Oh Christ, I can’t shoot, they’re on top of her.”

“Lift!” she begged. “Just lift.”

All the neural nanonics analgesic blocks seemed to have collapsed. The
pain from her legs and hand was debilitating, crushing her thoughts. More
ripping sounds penetrated her dimming universe. She felt hot, damp air
gust across her bared crotch.

“We can stop it,” the chorus told her. “We can save you. Let us in.”
There was a pressure against her thoughts, like a warm dry wind blowing
through her skull.

“Go to hell,” she moaned. She sent one final diamond-hard thought
needling into her faltering neural nanonics, a kamikaze code. The order
was transferred into the high-density power cell, shorting it out. She
wondered if there would be enough energy left for an explosion big enough
to engulf all the man-things.

There was.



The Ekwan fell around Lalonde’s equator, six hundred kilometres above the
brown and ochre streaks of the deserts which littered the continent of
Sarell. With its five windmill-sail thermo-dump panels extended from its
central section, the colonist-carrier was rotating slowly about its drive
axis, completing one revolution every twenty minutes. A passenger
McBoeing BDA-9008 was docked to an airlock tube on its forward hull.

It was a tranquil scene, starship and spaceplane sliding silently over
Sarell’s rocky shores and out across the deepening blues of the ocean.
Thousands of kilometres ahead, the terminator cast a black veil over half
of Amarisk. Every few minutes a puff of smoky yellow vapour would flash
out of a vernier nozzle between the starship’s thermo-dump panels, gone
in an eyeblink.

Such nonchalant technological prowess created an effect which totally
belied the spectacle inside the airlock tube, where children cried and
threw up and red-faced parents cursed as they fended off the obnoxious
sticky globules. Nobody had been given time to prepare for the departure;
all they had brought with them was clothes and valuable items stuffed
hastily into shoulder-bags. Children hadn’t even been given anti-nausea
drugs. The embassy staffers shouted back and forth in angry tones,
disguising both relief at leaving Lalonde and disgust at the flying
vomit. But the Ekwan’s crew were used to the behaviour of planet
dwellers; they floated around with hand-held suction sanitizers, and
cajoled the reluctant children towards one of the five big zero-tau
compartments.

Captain Farrah Montgomery watched the picture projected from an AV pillar
on the bridge command console, indifferent to the suffering. She’d seen
it all before, a thousand times over. “Are you going to tell me where we
are heading?” she asked the man strapped into her executive officer’s
acceleration couch. “I can start plotting our course vector. Might save
some time.”

“Ombey,” said Sir Asquith Parish, Kulu’s Ambassador to Lalonde.

“You’re the boss,” she said acidly.

“I don’t like this any more than you.”

“We’ve got three thousand colonists left in zero-tau. What are you going
to tell them when we get to the Principality?”

“I’ve no idea. Though once they hear what’s actually happening down on
the surface I doubt they’ll complain.”

Captain Montgomery thought about the flek in her breast pocket with a
glimmer of guilt. The reports they’d been receiving from Durringham over
the past week were pretty garbled, too. Maybe they were better off
leaving. At least she could transfer the responsibility to the ambassador
when the line company started asking questions.

“How soon before we can leave orbit?” Sir Asquith asked.

“As soon as Kieron gets back. You know, you had no right to send him on a
flight like that.”

“We can wait for two more orbits.”

“I’m not leaving without my pilot.”

“If they’re not airborne by then, you don’t have a pilot any more.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Just what is going on down there?”

“I wish I knew, Captain. But I can tell you I’m bloody glad we’re
leaving.”

The McBoeing undocked as the Ekwan moved into the penumbra. Its pilot
fired the orbital manoeuvring rockets, and it dropped away into an
elliptical orbit which would intercept Lalonde’s upper atmosphere. Ekwan
started her preflight checks, testing the ion thrusters, priming the
fusion tubes. The crew scurried through the life-support capsules,
securing loose fittings and general rubbish.

“Got him,” the navigation officer called out.

Captain Montgomery datavised the flight computer, requesting the external
sensor images.

A long contrail of blue-white plasma stretched out across Amarisk’s
darkened eastern side, its star-head racing over the seaboard mountains.
Already fifty kilometres high and rising. Bright enough to send a
backwash of lame phosphorescent light skating over the snow-capped peaks.

Ekwan’s flight computer acknowledged a communication channel opening.

Ralph Hiltch watched the hyped-up Kieron Syson start to relax once he
could datavise the starship again. It should have been something for
Ralph to be thankful about, too, communications had been impossible in
the aftermath of the landing. Instead he treated it like a non-event, he
expected nothing less than the communications block to work. They were
owed functional circuitry.

Environment-contamination warning lights were still winking amber, though
the pilot had shut off the cabin’s audio alarm. The air was dry and
calciferous, scratching the back of Ralph’s throat. Gravity was falling
off as they soared ever higher above the ocean, curving up to rendezvous
with the big colonist-carrier. The prolonged bass roar of the reaction
rockets was reducing.

The air they breathed was bad enough, but the human atmosphere in the
spaceplane’s confined cabin was murderous. Gerald Skibbow sat at the rear
of the cabin, shrunk down into his plastic seat, a zipcuff restraining
each wrist against the armrests, his hands white knuckled as he gripped
the cushioning. He had been subdued since the airlock hatch closed. But
then Will and Dean were looking hard for an excuse to rip his head off.
Jenny’s death had been fast (thank God) but very, very messy.

Ralph knew he should be reviewing the memory of the ape-analogue
creatures, gaining strategically critical information on the threat they
faced, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Let the ESA office on
Ombey study the memory sequence, they wouldn’t be so emotionally
involved. Jenny had been a damn good officer, and a friend.

The spaceplane’s reaction drive cut off. Free fall left Ralph’s stomach
rising up through his chest. He accessed a nausea-suppression program and
quickly activated it.

Huddled in his chair, Gerald Skibbow began to tremble as the forked
strands of his filthy, blood-soaked beard waved about in front of his
still-bleeding nose.

Ekwan’s hangar was a cylindrical chamber ribbed by metal struts; the
walls were composed of shadows and crinkled silver blankets. The
spaceplane, wings fully retracted, eased its squashed-bullet nose through
the open doors into the waiting clamp ring. Actuators slid catches into a
circle of load sockets behind the radar dome, and the craft was drawn
inside.

Three of Ekwan’s security personnel, experts at handling troublesome
Ivets in free fall, swam into the cabin, coughing at the ash dust which
filled the air.

Will took the zipcuffs off Gerald Skibbow. “Run, why don’t you,” he said
silkily.

Gerald Skibbow gave him a contemptuous glance, which turned to outright
alarm as he rose into the air. Hands clawed frantically for a grip on the
cabin ceiling. He wound up clutching a grab loop for dear life.

The grinning security personnel closed in.

“Just tow him the whole way,” Ralph told them. “And you, Skibbow, don’t
cause any trouble. We’ll be right behind, and we’re armed.”

“You can’t use TIP carbines in the ship,” one of the security men
protested.

“Oh, really? Try me.”

Gerald Skibbow reluctantly let go of the grab loop, and let the men tug
him along by his arms. The eight-strong group drifted out into the
tubular corridor connecting the hangar to one of the life-support
capsules.

Sir Asquith Parish was waiting outside the zero-tau compartment, a
stikpad holding his feet in place. He gave Gerald Skibbow a distasteful
look. “You lost Jenny Harris for him?”

“Yes, sir,” Will said through clamped teeth.

Sir Asquith recoiled.

“Whatever sequestrated him has several ancillary energy-manipulation
functions,” Ralph explained. “He is lethal; one on one, he’s better than
any of us.”

The ambassador gave Gerald Skibbow a fast reappraisal. Light strips
circling the corridor outside the zero-tau compartment hatch flickered
and dimmed.

“Stop it,” Dean growled. He jabbed his TIP carbine into the small of
Skibbow’s back.

The light strips came up to full strength again.

Gerald Skibbow laughed jauntily at the shaken ambassador as the security
men shoved him through the hatch. Ralph Hiltch cocked an ironic eyebrow,
then followed them in.

The zero-tau compartment was a big sphere, sliced into sections by mesh
decking that was only three metres apart. It didn’t look finished; it was
poorly lit, with bare metal girders and kilometres of power cable stuck
to every surface. The sarcophagus pods formed long silent ranks, their
upper surface a blank void. Most of them were activated, holding the
colonists who had gambled their future on conquering Lalonde.

Gerald Skibbow was manoeuvred to an open pod just inside the hatchway. He
glanced around the compartment, his head turning in fractured movements
to take in the compartment. The security men holding him felt his muscles
tensing.

“Don’t even think of it,” one said.

He was propelled firmly towards the waiting pod.

“No,” he said.

“Get in,” Ralph told him impatiently.

“No. Not that. Please. I’ll be good, I’ll behave.”

“Get in.”

“No.”

One of the security men anchored himself to the decking grid with a toe
clip, and tugged him down.

“No!” He gripped both sides of the open pod, his features stone-carved
with determination. “I won’t!” he shouted.

“In!”

“No.”

All three security men were pushing and shoving at him. Gerald Skibbow
strove against them. Will tucked a leg round a nearby girder, and smacked
the butt of his TIP carbine against Gerald Skibbow’s left hand. There was
a crunch as the bones broke.

He howled, but managed to keep hold. His fingers turned purple, the skin
undulating. “No!”

The carbine came down again. Ralph put his hands flat against the decking
above, and stood on Gerald Skibbow’s back, knees straining, trying to
thrust him down into the pod.

Gerald Skibbow’s broken hand slipped a couple of centimetres, leaving a
red smear. “Stop this, stop this.” Rivulets of white light began to
shiver across his torso.

Ralph felt as though his own spine was going to snap, the force his
boosted muscles were exerting against his skeleton was tremendous. The
soles of his feet were tingling sharply, the worms of white light coiling
round his ankles. “Dean, switch the pod on the second he’s in.”

“Sir.”

The hand slipped again. Gerald Skibbow started a high-pitched animal
wailing. Will hammered away at his left elbow. Firefly sparks streaked
back up the carbine every time it hit, as though he was striking flint.

“Get in, you bastard,” one of the security men shouted, nearly purple
from the effort, face shrivelled like a rubber mask.

Gerald Skibbow gave way, the arm Will had hammered on finally losing
hold. He crashed down into the bottom of the pod with an oof of air
punched out through his open mouth. Ralph cried out at the shock of the
jolt that was transmitted back up his cramped legs. The curving lid of
the pod began to slide into place, and he bent his knees frantically,
lifting his legs out of the way.

“No!” Gerald Skibbow shouted. He had begun to glow like a hologram
profile, rainbow colours shining bright in the compartment’s gloom. His
voice was cut off by the lid sliding into place, and it locked with a
satisfying mechanical click. There was a muffled thud of a fist striking
the composite.

“Where’s the bloody zero-tau?” Will said. “Where is it?”

The lid of the pod hadn’t changed, there was no sign of the slippery
black field effect. Gerald Skibbow was pounding away on the inside with
the fervour of a man buried alive.

“It’s on,” Dean shouted hoarsely from the operator’s control panel.
“Christ, it’s on, it’s drawing power.”

Ralph stared at the sarcophagus in desperation. Work, he pleaded
silently, come on fuck you, work! Jenny died for this.

“Switch on, you shit!” Will screamed at it.

Gerald Skibbow stopped punching the side of the pod. A black emptiness
irised over the lid.

Will let out a sob of exhausted breath.

Ralph realized he was clinging weakly to one of the girders, the real
fear had been that Gerald Skibbow would break out. “Tell the captain
we’re ready,” he said in a drained voice. “I want to get him to Ombey as
quickly as we can.”


Chapter 02
==========


The event horizon around Villeneuve’s Revenge dissolved the instant the
starship expanded out to its full forty-eight-metre size. Solar wind and
emaciated light from New California’s distant sun fell on the dark
silicon hull which its disappearance exposed. Short-range combat sensors
slid out of their jump recesses with smooth animosity, metallic black
tumours inset with circular gold-mirror lenses. They scoured a volume of
space five hundred kilometres across, hungry for a specific shape.

Data streams from the sensors sparkled through Erick Thakrar’s mind, a
rigid symbolic language written in monochromic light. Cursors chased
through the vast constantly reconfiguring displays, closing in on an
explicit set of values like circling photonic-sculpture vultures.
Radiation, mass, and laser returns slotted neatly into their parameter
definition.

The Krystal Moon materialized out of the fluttering binary fractals,
hanging in space two hundred and sixty kilometres away. An
inter-planetary cargo ship, eighty metres long; a cylindrical
life-support capsule at one end, silver-foil-cloaked tanks and dull-red
fusion-drive tube clustered at the other. Thermo-dump panels formed a
ruff collar on the outside of the environmental-engineering deck just
below the life-support capsule; communication dishes jutted out of a grid
tower on the front of it. The ship’s midsection was a hexagonal gantry
supporting five rings of standard cargo-pods, some of them plugged into
the environmental deck via thick cables and hoses.

A slender twenty-five-metre flame of hazy blue plasma burnt steadily from
the fusion tube, accelerating the Krystal Moon at an unvarying sixtieth
of a gee. It had departed Tehama asteroid five days ago with its cargo of
industrial machinery and micro-fusion generators, bound for the Ukiah
asteroid settlement in the outer asteroid belt Dana, which orbited beyond
the gas giant Sacramento. Of the star’s three asteroid belts, Dana was
the least populated; traffic this far out was thin. Krystal Moon’s sole
link to civilization (and navy protection) was its microwave
communication beam, focused on Ukiah, three hundred and twenty million
kilometres ahead.

Erick’s neural nanonics reported that pattern lock was complete. He
commanded the X-ray lasers to fire.

Two hundred and fifty kilometres away, the Krystal Moon’s microwave
dishes burst apart into a swirl of aluminium snowflakes. A long brown
scar appeared on the forward hull of the life-support capsule.

God, I hope no one was in the cabin below.

Erick tried to push that thought right back to the bottom of his mind.
Straying out of character, even for a second, could quite easily cost him
his life. They’d drilled that into him enough times back at the academy.
There was even a behavioural consistency program loaded into his neural
nanonics to catch any wildly inaccurate reactions. But flinches and
sudden gasps could be equally damning.

The Villeneuve’s Revenge triggered its fusion drive, and accelerated in
towards the stricken cargo ship at five and a half gees. Erick sent
another two shots from the X-ray cannon squirting into the Krystal Moon’s
fusion tube. Its drive flame died. Coolant fluid vented out of a tear in
the casing, hidden somewhere in the deep shadows on the side away from
the sun, the fountain fluorescing grey-blue as it jetted out from behind
the ship.

“Nice going, Erick,” André Duchamp commented. He had the secondary
fire-control program loaded in his own neural nanonics. If the newest
crew-member hadn’t fired he could have taken over within milliseconds.
Despite Erick’s performance in the Catalina Bar, André had a single
nagging doubt. After all, O’Flaherty was one of their own—after a
fashion—and eliminating him didn’t require many qualms no matter who you
were; but firing on an unarmed civil ship . . . You have earned your
place on board, André said silently. He cancelled his fire-control
program.

Villeneuve’s Revenge was a hundred and twenty kilometres from the Krystal
Moon when André turned the starship and started decelerating. The hangar
doors began to slide open. He started to whistle against the push of the
heavy gee force.

He had a right to be pleased. Even though it had only been a tiny
interplanetary jump, two hundred and sixty kilometres was an excellent
separation distance. Since leaving Tehama, Villeneuve’s Revenge had been
in orbit around Sacramento. They had extended every sensor, focusing
along the trajectory Lance Coulson had sold them until they had found the
faint splash of the Krystal Moon’s exhaust. With its exact position and
acceleration available in real time, it was just a question of
manufacturing themselves a jump co-ordinate.

Two hundred and sixty kilometres, there were voidhawks that would be
pushed to match that kind of accuracy.

Thermo-dump panels stayed inside the monobonded silicon hull as the
Villeneuve’s Revenge rendezvoused with Krystal Moon. The jump nodes were
fully charged. André was cautious, they might need to leave in a hurry.
It had happened before; stealthed voidhawks lying in wait, Confederation
Navy Marines hiding in the cargo-pods. Not to him, though.

“Bev, give our target an active sensor sweep, please,” André ordered.

“Yes, Captain,” Bev Lennon said. The combat sensors sent out fingers of
questing radiation to probe the Krystal Moon.

The brilliant lance of fusion fire at the rear of the Villeneuve’s
Revenge sank away to a minute bubble of radiant helium clinging to the
tube’s nozzle. Krystal Moon was six kilometres away, wobbling slightly
from the impulse imparted by the venting coolant fluid. Thrusters flared
around the rear bays, trying to compensate and stabilize.

Ion thrusters on the Villeneuve’s Revenge fired, nudging the bulky
starship in towards its floundering prey. Brendon piloted the
multifunction service vehicle up out of the hangar and set off towards
the Krystal Moon. One of the cargo-bay doors slowly hinged upwards behind
him.

“Come on, Brendon,” André murmured impatiently as the small auxiliary
craft rode its bright yellow chemical rocket exhaust across the gap.
Ukiah traffic control would know the communication link had been severed
in another twelve minutes; it would take the bureaucrats a few minutes to
react, then sensors would review the Krystal Moon’s track. They’d see the
spaceship’s fusion drive was off, coupled with the lack of an emergency
distress beacon. That could only mean one thing. The navy would be
alerted, and if the Villeneuve’s Revenge was really unlucky a patrolling
voidhawk would investigate. André was allowing twenty minutes maximum for
the raid.

“It checks out clean,” Bev Lennon reported. “But the crew must have
survived that first X-ray laser strike, I’m picking up electronic
emissions from inside the life-support capsule. The flight computers are
still active.”

“And they’ve suppressed the distress beacon,” André said. “That’s smart,
they must know we’d slice that can in half to silence any shout for help.
Maybe they’ll be in a cooperative mood.” He datavised the flight computer
to open an inter-ship channel.

Erick heard the hiss of static fill the dimly lit bridge as the AV pillar
was activated. A series of musical bleeps came with it, then the distinct
sound of a child crying. He saw Madeleine Collum’s head come up from her
acceleration couch, turning in the direction of the communication
console. Blue and red shadows flowed over her gaunt, shaven skull.

“Krystal Moon, acknowledge contact,” André said.

“Acknowledge?” a ragged outraged male voice shouted out of the AV pillar.
“You shithead animal, two of my crew are dead. Fried! Tina was fifteen
years old!”

Erick’s neural nanonics staunched the sudden damp fire in his eyes. A
fifteen-year-old girl. Great God Almighty! These interplanetary ships
were often family operated affairs, cousins and siblings combining into
crews.

“Release the latches on pods DK-30-91 and DL-30-07,” André said as though
he hadn’t heard. “That’s all we’re here for.”

“Screw you.”

“We’ll cut them free anyway, Anglo, and if we cut then the capsule will
be included. I’ll open your hull up to space like the foil on a
freeze-dried food packet.”

A visual check through the combat sensors showed Erick the MSV was two
hundred metres away from the Krystal Moon. Desmond Lafoe had already
fitted laser cutters to the craft’s robot arms; the spindly white waldos
were running through a preprogrammed articulation test. Villeneuve’s
Revenge was lumbering along after the smaller, more agile, auxiliary
craft; three kilometres away now.

“We’ll think about it,” said the voice.

“Daddy!” the girl in the background wailed. “Daddy, make them go away.”

A woman shushed her, sounding fearful.

“Don’t think about it,” André said. “Just do it.”

The channel went silent.

“Bastards,” André muttered. “Erick, put another blast through that
capsule.”

“If we kill them, they can’t release the pods.”

André scowled darkly. “Scare them, don’t kill them.”

Erick activated one of the starship’s lasers; it was designed for
close-range interception, the last layer of defence against incoming
combat wasps. Powerful and highly accurate. He reduced the power level to
five per cent, and lined it up on the front of the life-support capsule.
The infrared beam sliced a forty-centimetre circle out of the
foam-covered hull. Steamy gas erupted out of the breach.

André grunted at what he considered to be Erick’s display of timidity,
and opened the inter-ship channel again. “Release the pods.”

There was no answer. Erick couldn’t hear the girl any more.

Brendon guided the MSV around the rings of barrel-like cargo-pods
circling the Krystal Moon’s mid-section. He found the first pod
containing microfusion generators, and focused the MSV’s external cameras
on it. The latch clamps of the cradle it was lying in were closed solidly
round the load pins. Sighing regretfully at the time and effort it would
cost to cut the pod free, he engaged the MSV’s attitude lock, keeping
station above the pod, then datavised the waldo-control computer to
extend the arm. Droplets of molten metal squirted out where the cutting
laser sliced through the clamps, a micrometeorite swarm glowing as if
they were grazing an atmosphere.

“Something’s happening,” Bev Lennon reported. The electronic sensors were
showing him power circuits coming alive inside the Krystal Moon’s
life-support capsule. Atmosphere was still spewing out of the lasered
hole, unchecked. “Hey—”

A circular section of the hull blew out. Erick’s mind automatically
directed the X-ray lasers towards the hole revealed by the crumpled sheet
of metal as it twirled off towards the stars. A small craft rose out of
the hole, ascending on a pillar of flame. Recognition was immediate:
lifeboat.

It was a cone, four metres across at the base, five metres high; with a
doughnut of equipment and tanks wrapped round the nose. Tarnished-silver
protective foam reflected distorted star-specks. The lifeboat could
sustain six people for a month in space, or jettison the equipment
doughnut and land on a terracompatible planet. Cheaper than supplying the
crew with zero-tau pods, and given that the mother ship would only be
operating in an inhabited star system, just as safe.

“Merde, now we’ll have to laser every latch clamp,” André complained. He
could see that Brendon had cut loose half of the first pod. By his own
timetable, they had nine minutes left. It was going to be a close-run
thing. “Knock that bloody lifeboat out, Erick.”

“No,” Erick said calmly. The lifeboat had stopped accelerating. Its spent
solid rocket booster was jettisoned.

“I gave you an order.”

“Piracy is one thing; I’m not being a party to slaughter. There are
children on that lifeboat.”

“He’s right, André,” Madeleine Collum said.

“Merde! All right, but once Brendon has those pods cut free I want the
Krystal Moon vaporized. That bloody captain has put our necks on the
block by defying us, I want him ruined.”

“Yes, Captain,” Erick said. How typical, he thought, we can go in with
lasers blazing, but if anyone fights back, that’s unfair. When we get
back to Tranquillity, I’m going to take a great deal of unprofessional
pride in having André Duchamp committed to a penal planet.

They made it with forty-five seconds to spare. Brendon cut both
cargo-pods free, and manoeuvred them into the waiting cargo hold in the
Villeneuve’s Revenge. X-ray lasers started to chop at the Krystal Moon as
the MSV docked with its own cradle to be drawn gingerly into the hangar
bay. The remaining cargo-pods were split open, spilling their wrecked
contents out into the void. Structural spars melted, twisting as though
they were being chewed. Tanks were punctured, creating a huge vapour
cloud that chased outward, its fringes swirling round the retreating
lifeboat.

The starship’s hangar door slid shut. Combat sensors retreated back into
the funereal hull. An event horizon sprang up around the Villeneuve’s
Revenge. The starship shrank. Vanished.

Floating alone amid the fragmented debris and vacuum-chilled nebula, the
lifeboat let out a passionless electromagnetic shriek for help.



The word was out even before the Lady Macbeth docked at Tranquillity’s
spaceport. Joshua’s landed the big one. On his first Norfolk run, for
Heaven’s sake. How does he do it? Something about that guy is uncanny.
Lucky little sod.

Joshua led his crew into a packed Harkey’s Bar. The band played a martial
welcome with plangent trumpets; four of the waitresses were standing on
the beer-slopped bar, short black skirts letting everyone see their
knickers (or not, in one case); crews and groups of spaceport workers
whistled, cheered, and jeered. One long table was loaded down with
bottles of wine and champagne in troughs of ice; Harkey himself stood at
the end, a smile in place. Everyone quietened down.

Joshua looked round slowly, an immensely smug grin in place. This must be
what Alastair II saw from his state coach every day. It was fabulous. “Do
you want a speech?”

“NO!”

His arm swept out expansively towards Harkey. He bowed low, relishing the
theatre. “Then open the bottles.”

There was a rush for the table, conversation even loud enough to drown
out Warlow erupted as though someone had switched on a stack of AV
pillars, the band struck up, and the waitresses struggled with the corks.
Joshua pushed a bemused and slightly awestruck Gideon Kavanagh off on
Ashly Hanson, and snatched some glasses from the drinks table. He was
kissed a great many times on his way to the corner booth where Barrington
Grier and Roland Frampton were waiting. He loaded visual images and names
of three of the girls into his neural nanonics for future reference.

Roland Frampton was rising to his feet, a slightly apprehensive smile
flicking on and off, obviously worried by exactly how big the cargo
was—he had contracted to buy all of it. But he shook Joshua warmly by the
hand. “I thought I’d better come here,” he said in amusement. “It would
take you days to reach my office. You’re the talk of Tranquillity.”

“Really?”

Barrington Grier gave him a pat on the shoulder and they all sat down.

“That Kelly girl was asking after you,” Barrington said.

“Ah.” Joshua shifted round. Kelly Tirrel, his neural nanonics file
supplied, Collins news corp reporter. “Oh, right. How is she?”

“Looked pretty good to me. She’s on the broadcasts a lot these days.
Presents the morning news for Collins three times a week.”

“Good. Good. Glad to hear it.” Joshua took a small bottle of Norfolk
Tears from the inside pocket of the gold-yellow jacket he was wearing
over his ship-suit.

Roland Frampton stared at it as he would a cobra.

“This is the Cricklade bouquet,” Joshua said smoothly. He settled the
three glasses on their table, and twisted the bottle’s cork slowly. “I’ve
tasted it. One of the finest on the planet. They bottle it in Stoke
county.” The clear liquid flowed out of the pear-shaped bottle.

They all lifted a glass, Roland Frampton studying his against the yellow
wall lights.

“Cheers,” Joshua said, and took a drink. A dragon breathed its diabolical
fire into his belly.

Roland Frampton sipped delicately. “Oh, Christ, it’s perfect.” He glanced
at Joshua. “How much did you bring? There have been rumours . . .”

Joshua made a show of producing his inventory. It was a piece of neatly
printed paper with Grant Kavanagh’s stylish signature on the bottom in
black ink.

“Three thousand cases!” Roland Frampton squeaked, his eyes protruded.

Barrington Grier gave Joshua a sharp glance, and plucked the inventory
from Roland’s hands. “Bloody hell,” he murmured.

Roland was dabbing at his forehead with a silk handkerchief. “This is
wonderful. Yes, wonderful. But I wasn’t expecting quite so much, Joshua.
Nothing personal, it’s just that first-time captains don’t normally bring
back so much. There are arrangements I have to make . . . the bank. It
will take time.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll wait?” Roland Frampton asked eagerly.

“You were very good to me when I started out. So I think I can wait a
couple of days.”

Roland’s hand sliced through the air, he ended up making a fist just
above the table. Determination visibly returned his old spark. “Right,
I’ll have a Jovian Bank draft for you in thirty hours. I won’t forget
this, Joshua. And one day I want to be told how you did it.”

“Maybe.”

Roland drained his glass in one gulp and stood up.

“Thirty hours.”

“Fine. If I’m not about, give it to one of the crew. I expect they’ll
still be here.”

Joshua watched the old man weave a path through the excited crowd.

“That was decent of you,” Barrington said. “You could have made instant
money going to a big commercial distribution chain.”

Joshua flashed him a smile, and they touched glasses. “Like I said, he
gave me a break when I needed it.”

“Roland Frampton doesn’t need a break. He thought he was doing you a
favour agreeing to buy your cargo. First-time captains on the Norfolk run
are lucky if they make two hundred cases.”

“Yeah, so I heard.”

“Now you come back with a cargo worth five times as much as his business.
You going to tell us how you did it?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so. I don’t know what you’ve got, young Joshua. But by God,
I wish I had shares in you.”

He finished his glass and treated Barrington to an iniquitous smile. He
handed over the small bottle of Norfolk Tears. “Here, with compliments.”

“Aren’t you staying? It’s your party.”

He looked round. Warlow was at the centre of a cluster of girls, all of
them giggling as one sat on the crook of his outstretched arm, her legs
swinging well off the floor. Ashly was slumped in a booth, also
surrounded by girls, one of them feeding him dainty pieces of white
seafood from a plate. He couldn’t even spot the others. “No,” he said. “I
have a date.”

“She must be quite something.”

“They are.”



The Isakore was still anchored where they had left it, prow wedged up on
the slippery bank, hull secure against casual observation by a huge
cherry oak tree which overhung the river, lower branches trailing in the
water.

Lieutenant Murphy Hewlett let out what could well have been a whimper of
relief when its shape registered. His retinal implants were switched to
infrared now the sun had set. The fishing boat was a salmon-pink outline
distorted by the darker burgundy flecks of the cherry oak leaves, as if
it was hidden behind a solidified waterfall.

He hadn’t really expected it to be there. Not a quantifiable end, not to
this mission. His mates treated his name as a joke back in the barracks.
Murphy’s law: if anything can go wrong, it will. And it had, this time as
no other.

They had been under attack for five hours solid now. White fireballs that
came stabbing out of the trees without warning. Figures that lurked half
seen in the jungle, keeping pace, never giving them a moment’s rest.
Figures that weren’t always human. Seven times they’d fallen back to
using the TIP carbines for a sweep-scorch pattern, hacking at the jungle
with blades of invisible energy, then tramping on through the smouldering
vine roots and cloying ash.

All four of them were wounded to some extent. Nothing seemed to
extinguish the white fire once it hit flesh. Murphy was limping badly,
his right knee enclosed by a medical nanonic package, his left hand was
completely useless, he wasn’t even sure if the package could save his
fingers. But Murphy was most worried about Niels Regehr; the lad had
taken a fireball straight in the face. He had no eyes nor nose left, only
the armour suit sensors enabled him to see where he was going now,
datavising their images directly into his neural nanonics. But even the
neural nanonics pain blocks and a constant infusion of endocrines
couldn’t prevent him from suffering bouts of hallucination and
disorientation. He kept shouting for them to go away and leave him alone,
holding one-sided conversations, even quoting from prayers.

Murphy had detailed him to escort their prisoner; he could just about
manage that. She said her name was Jacqueline Couteur, a middle-aged
woman, small, overweight, with greying hair, dressed in jeans and a thick
cotton shirt. She could punch harder than any of the supplement-boosted
marines (Louis Beith had a broken arm to prove it), she had more stamina
than them, and she could work that electronic warfare trick on their suit
blocks if she wasn’t being prodded with one of their heavy-calibre
Bradfield chemical-projectile rifles.

They had captured her ten minutes after their last contact with Jenny
Harris. That was when they’d let the horses go. The animals were
panicking as balls of white fire arched down out of the sky, a
deceitfully majestic display of borealis rockets.

Something made a slithering sound in the red and black jungle off to
Murphy’s right. Garrett Tucci fired his Bradfield, slamming explosive
bullets into the vegetation. Murphy caught the swiftest glimpse of a
luminous red figure scurrying away; it was either a man with a warm cloak
spread wide, or else a giant bat standing on its hind legs.

“Bloody implants are shot,” he muttered under his breath. He checked his
TIP carbine’s power reserve. He was down to the last heavy-duty power
cell: twelve per cent. “Niels, Garrett, take the prisoner onto the boat
and get the motor going. Louis, you and I are laying down a sweep-scorch.
It might give us the time we need.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered.

Murphy felt an immense pride in the tiny squad. Nobody could have done
better, they were the best, the very best. And they were his.

He drew a breath, and brought the TIP carbine up again. Niels was shoving
his Bradfield’s muzzle into the small of Jacqueline Couteur’s back,
urging her towards the boat. Murphy suddenly realized she could see as
well as them in the dark. It didn’t matter now. One of the day’s smaller
mysteries.

His TIP carbine fired, nozzle aimed by his neural nanonics. Flames rose
before him, leaping from tree to tree, incinerating the twigs, biting
deeply into the larger branches. Vines flared and sparkled like fused
electrical cables, swinging in short arcs before falling to the ground
and writhing ferociously as they spat and hissed. A solid breaker of heat
rolled around him, shunted into the ground by his suit’s dispersal layer.
Smoke rose from his feet. The medical nanonic package around his knee
datavised a heat-overload warning into his neural nanonics.

“Come on, Lieutenant!” Garrett shouted.

Through the heavy crackling of the flames Murphy could hear the familiar
chugging sound of the Isakore’s motor. The suit’s rear optical sensors
showed him the boat backing out from under the cherry oak, water boiling
ferociously around its stern.

“Go,” Murphy told Louis Beith.

They turned and raced for the Isakore. Murphy could just targeting
graphics circling his back.

We’ll never make it, not out of this.

Flames were rising thirty metres into the night behind them. Isakore was
completely free of the cherry oak. Niels was leaning over the gunwale,
holding out a hand. The green-tinted medical nanonic package leaching to
his face looked like some massive and grotesque wart.

Water splashed around his boots. Once he nearly slipped on the mud and
tangled snowlily fronds. But then he was clinging to the side of the
wooden boat, hauling himself up onto the deck.

“Holy shit, we made it!” He was laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming
out of his eyes. “We actually bloody made it.” He pulled his shell-helmet
off, and lay on his back, looking at the fire. A stretch of jungle four
hundred metres long was in flames, hurling orange sparks into the black
sky far above.

The impenetrable water of the Zamjan shimmered with long orange
reflections. Garrett was turning the boat, aiming the prow downriver.

“What about the Kulu team?” Louis asked. He’d taken his shell-helmet off,
showing a face glinting with sweat. His breathing was heavy.

“I think that was a sonic boom we heard this afternoon,” Murphy said,
raising his voice above the flames. “Those Kulu bastards, always one move
ahead of everyone else.”

“They’re soft, that’s all,” Garrett shouted from the wheel-house. “Can’t
take the pressure. We can. We’re the fucking Confed fucking Navy fucking
Marines.” He whooped.

Murphy grinned back at him; fatigue pulled at every limb. He’d been using
his boosted muscles almost constantly, which meant he’d have to make sure
he ate plenty of high-protein rations to regain his proper blood energy
levels. He loaded a memo into his neural nanonics.

His communication block let out a bleep for the first time in five hours;
the datavise told him that there was a channel to the navy ELINT
satellite open.

“Bloody hell,” Murphy said. He datavised the block: “Sir, is that you,
sir?”

“Christ, Murphy,” Kelven Solanki’s datavise gushed into his mind. “What’s
happening?”

“Spot of trouble, sir. Nothing we can’t handle. We’re back on the boat
now, heading downriver.”

Louis gave an exhausted laugh, and flopped onto his back.

“The Kulu team evacuated,” Kelven Solanki reported. “Their whole embassy
contingent upped and left in the Ekwan this evening. Ralph Hiltch called
me from orbit to say there wasn’t enough room on the spaceplane to pick
you up.”

Murphy could sense a great deal of anger lying behind the
lieutenant-commander’s smooth signal. “Doesn’t matter, sir; we got you a
prisoner.”

“Fantastic. One of the sequestrated ones?”

Murphy glanced over his shoulder. Jacqueline Couteur was sitting on the
deck with her back to the wheel-house. She gave him a dour stare.

“I think so, sir, she can interfere with our electronics if we give her
half a chance. She’s got to be watched constantly.”

“OK, when can you have her back in—” Kelven Solanki’s datavise vanished
under a peal of static. The communications block reported the channel was
lost.

Murphy picked up his TIP carbine and pointed it at Jacqueline Couteur.
“Is that you?”

She shrugged. “No.”

Murphy looked back at the fire on the bank. They were half a kilometre
away now. People were walking along the shoreline where the Isakore had
been anchored. The big cherry oak was still standing, intact, a black
silhouette against the blanket of flame.

“Can they affect our electronics from here?”

“We don’t care about your electronics,” she said. “Such things have no
place in our world.”

“Are you talking to them?”

“No.”

“Sir!” Garrett yelled.

Murphy swung round. The people on the shore were standing in a ring,
holding hands. A large ball of white fire emerged from the ground in
their midst and curved over their heads, soaring out across the river.

“Down!” Murphy shouted.

The fireball flashed overhead, making the air roil from its passage,
bringing a false daylight to the boat. Murphy ground his teeth together,
anticipating the strike, the pain as it vaporized his legs or spine.
There was a clamorous BOOM from behind the wheel-house, the boat rocked
violently, and the light went out.

“Oh shit, oh shit.” Garrett was crying.

“What is it?” Murphy demanded. He pulled himself onto his feet.

The boxy wooden structure behind the wheel-house was a smoking ruin.
Fractured planks with charred edges pointed vacantly at the sky. The
micro-fusion generator it had covered was a shambolic mass of
heat-tarnished metal and dripping plastic.

“You will come to us in time,” Jacqueline Couteur said calmly. She hadn’t
moved from her sitting position. “We have no hurry.”

The Isakore drifted round a bend in the river, water gurgling idly around
the hull, pulling the fire from view. A duet of night and silence closed
over the boat, a void surer than vacuum.



Ione wore a gown of rich blue-green silk gauze. A single strip of cloth
which clung to her torso then flared and flowed into a long skirt, it
forked around her neck, producing two ribbonlike tassels that trailed
from each shoulder. Her hair had been given a damp look, it was bound up
and held in place at the back by an exquisite red flower brooch, its
tissue-thin petals carved from some exotic stone. A long platinum chain
formed a cobweb around her neck.

The trouble with looking so elegant, Joshua thought, was that part of him
just wanted to stare at her, while the other part wanted to rip the dress
to shreds so he could get at the body beneath. She really did look
gorgeous.

He ran a finger round the collar on his own black dinner-jacket. It was
too tight. And the butterfly tie wasn’t straight.

“Leave it alone,” Ione said sternly.

“But—”

“Leave it. It’s fine.”

He dropped his hand and glowered at the lift’s door. Two Tranquillity
serjeants were in with them, making it seem crowded. The door opened on
the twenty-fifth floor of the StOuen starscraper, revealing a much
smaller lobby than usual. Parris Vasilkovsky’s apartment took up half of
the floor, his offices and staff quarters took up the other half.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Joshua said as they stood in front of the
apartment door. He could feel the nerves building in the base of his
stomach. This was the real big time he was bidding for now. And Ione on
his arm ought to impress Parris Vasilkovsky. Precious little else would.

“I want to be with you,” Ione murmured.

He leant forward to kiss her.

The muscle membrane opened, and Dominique was standing behind it. She had
chosen a sleeveless black gown with a long skirt and a deep, highly
revealing V-neck. Her thick honey-blonde hair had been given a slight
wave, curling around her shoulders. Broad scarlet lips lifted in
appreciation as she caught the embrace.

Joshua straightened up guiltily, though his errant eyes remained fixed on
Dominique’s cleavage. A host of memories started to replay through his
mind without any assistance from his neural nanonics. He’d forgotten how
impressive she was.

“Don’t mind me,” Dominique said huskily. “I adore young love.”

Ione giggled. “Evening, Dominique.”

The two girls kissed briefly. Then it was Joshua’s turn.

“Put him down,” Ione said in amusement. “You might catch something.
Heaven only knows what he got up to on Norfolk.”

Dominique grinned as she let go. “You think he’s been bad?”

“He’s Joshua; I know he’s been bad.”

“Hey!” Joshua complained. “That trip was strictly business.”

Both girls laughed. Dominique led the way into the apartment. Joshua saw
her skirt was made up from long panels, split right up to the top of her
hips. The fabric swayed apart as she walked, giving Joshua brief glimpses
of her legs, and a pair of very tight white shorts.

He held back on a groan. It was going to be hard to concentrate tonight
without that kind of distraction.

The dining-room had two oval windows to show Mirchusko’s dusky
crescent—south of the equator two huge white cyclone swirls were
crashing, in a drama which had been running for six days. Slabs of warmly
lit coloured glass paved the polyp walls from floor to ceiling, each with
an animal engraved on its surface by fine smoky grooves. Most of them
were terrestrial—lions, gazelles, elephants, hawks—though several of the
more spectacular non-sentient xenoc species were included. The grooves
moved at an infinitesimal speed, causing the birds to flap their wings,
the animals to run; their cycles lasted for hours. The table was made
from halkett wood (native to Kulu), a rich gold in colour, with bright
scarlet grain. Three antique silver candelabras were spaced along the
polished wood, with slender white candles tipped by tiny flames.

There were six people at the dinner. Parris himself sat at the head of
the table, looking spruce in a black dinner-jacket. The formal evening
attire suited him, complementing his curly silver-grey hair to give him a
distinguished appearance. At the other end of the table was Symone, his
current lover, a beautiful twenty-eight-year-old whose geneered
chromosomes had produced a dark walnut skin and hair a shade lighter than
Dominique’s, a striking and delightful contrast. She was eight months
pregnant with Parris’s third child.

Joshua and Dominique sat together on one side of the table. And
Dominique’s long legs had been riding up and down his trousers all
through the meal. He had done his best to ignore it, but his twitching
mouth had given him away to Ione, and, he suspected, Symone as well.

Opposite them were Ione and Clement, Parris’s son. He was eighteen,
lacking his big sister’s miscreant force, but quietly cheerful. And
handsome, Ione thought, though not in the mould of Joshua’s wolfish
ruggedness; his younger face was softer, framed with fair curly hair that
was recognizably Parris’s. He had just returned from his first year at
university on Kulu.

“I haven’t been to Kulu yet,” Joshua said as the white-jacketed waiter
cleared the dessert dishes away, assisted by a couple of housechimps.

“Wouldn’t they let you in?” Dominique asked with honeyed malice.

“The Kulu merchants form a tight cartel, they’re hard to crack.”

“Tell me about it,” Parris said gruffly. “It took me eight years before I
broke in with fabrics from Oshanko, until then my ships were going there
empty to pick up their nanonics. That costs.”

“I’ll wait until I get a charter,” Joshua said. “I’m not going to try
head-butting that kind of organization. But I’d like to play tourist
sometime.”

“You did all right penetrating Norfolk,” Dominique said, eyes wide and
apparently innocent over her crystal champagne glass.

“Hey, neat intro,” he said enthusiastically. “We just slid into that
subject, didn’t we? I never noticed.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“You got off lightly, Joshua,” Parris said. “Me, I get lumbered with her
subtlety all day every day.”

“I would have thought she was old enough to have left home by now,” he
said.

“Who’d have her?”

“Good point.”

Dominique lobbed a small cluster of grapes at her father.

Parris caught them awkwardly, laughing. One went bouncing off across the
moss carpet. “Make me an offer for her, Joshua, anything up to ten
fuseodollars considered.”

He saw the warning gleam in Dominique’s eye. “I think I’ll decline,
thanks.”

“Coward.” Dominique pouted.

Parris dropped the grapes onto a side plate, and wiped his hand with a
napkin. “So how did you do it, Joshua? My captains don’t get three
thousand cases, and the Vasilkovsky line has been making the Norfolk run
for fifty years.”

Joshua activated a neural nanonics memory cell. “Confidentiality
coverage. Agreed?” His gaze went round the table, recording everyone
saying yes. They were legally bound not to repeat what they heard now.
Although quite what he could do about Ione was an interesting point,
since her thought processes were Tranquillity’s legal system. “I traded
something they needed: wood.” He explained about the mayope.

“Very clever,” Dominique drawled when he finished, though there was a
note of respect in amongst the affected languor. “Brains as well as
balls.”

“I like it,” Parris said. He studied his cut-crystal glass. “Why tell us?”

“Supply and demand,” Joshua said. “I’ve found a valuable hole in the
market, and I want to fill it.”

“But the Lady Macbeth hasn’t got the capacity to do it by herself,”
Clement said. “Right?”

Joshua had wondered how smart the lad was. Now he knew. A real chip off
the Vasilkovsky block. “That’s right. I need a partner, a big partner.”

“Why not go to a bank?” Dominique asked. “Charter some ships for
yourself.”

“There’s a loose end which needs tying up.”

“Ah,” Parris, showing some real interest at last, leant forward in his
seat. “Go on.”

“The power mayope has over Norfolk lies in keeping it a monopoly, that
way we can keep the price high. I have a provisional arrangement with a
distributor on Norfolk who’s agreed to take as much as we can ship in.
What we need to do next is pin down the supply to a single source, one
that only we can obtain. That is going to take upfront money, the kind
which can’t be explained away to bank auditors.”

“You can do that?”

“Parris, I have never been on a planet more corrupt than Lalonde. It’s
also very primitive and correspondingly poor. If you, with all your
money, went there, you would be its king.”

“No, thank you,” Parris said sagely.

“Fine, but with money pushed into the right credit disks we can guarantee
that no one else gets an export licence. OK, it won’t last for ever,
administration people move on, traders will offer counter-bribes when
they find what we’re doing; but I figure we ought to get two of Norfolk’s
conjunctions out of it. Two conjunctions where your ships are filled to
capacity with Norfolk Tears.”

“Every ship? I do have quite a few.”

“No, not every ship. We have to walk a fine line between greed and
squeeze. My Norfolk distributor will give us most favoured customer
status, that’s all. It’ll be up to us to work out exactly how much we can
squeeze them for before they start to protest. You know how jealously
they guard their independence.”

“Yes.” Parris nodded thoughtfully.

“And what about Lalonde?” Ione asked quietly. Her glass was dangling
casually between thumb and forefinger, she rocked it from side to side,
swirling the champagne around the bottom.

“What about Lalonde?” Joshua asked.

“Its people,” Symone said. “It doesn’t sound as though they get a very
good deal out of this. The mayope is their wood.”

Joshua gave her a polite smile. Just what I need, bleeding hearts. “What
do they get at the moment?”

Symone frowned.

“He means they get nothing,” Dominique said.

“We’re developing their market for them,” Joshua said. “We’ll be pumping
hard cash into their economy. Not much by our standards, I admit, but to
them it will buy a lot of things they need. And it will go to the people
too, the colonists who are breaking their backs to tame that world, not
just the administration staff. We pay the loggers upriver in the
hinterlands, the barge captains, the timber-yard workers. Them, their
families, the shops they buy stuff from. All of them will be better off.
We’ll be better off. Norfolk will be better off. It’s the whole essence
of trade. Sure, banks and governments make paper money from the deal, and
we slant it in our favour, but the bottom line is that people benefit.”
He realized he was staring hard at Symone, daring her to disagree. He
dropped his eyes, almost embarrassed.

Dominique gave him a soft, and for the first time, sincere kiss on his
cheek. “You really did pick yourself the best, didn’t you?” she said
challengingly to Ione.

“Of course.”

“Does that answer your question?” Parris asked his lover, smiling gently
at her.

“I guess it does.”

He started to use a small silver knife to peel the crisp rind from a
date-sized purple fruit. Joshua recognized it as a saltplum from Atlantis.

“I think Lalonde would be in capable hands if we left it to Joshua,”
Parris said. “What sort of partnership were you looking for?”

“Sixty-forty in your favour,” he said amicably.

“Which would cost me?”

“I was thinking of two to three million fuseodollars as an initial
working fund to set up our export operation.”

“Eighty-twenty,” Dominique said.

Parris bit into the saltplum’s pink flesh, watching Joshua keenly.

“Seventy-thirty,” Joshua offered.

“Seventy-five-twenty-five.”

“I get that percentage on all Norfolk Tears carried by the Vasilkovsky
Line while our mayope monopoly is in operation.”

Parris winced, and gave his daughter a small nod.

“If you provide the collateral,” she said.

“You accept my share of the mayope as collateral, priced at the Norfolk
sale value.”

“Done.”

Joshua sat back and let out a long breath. It could have been a lot worse.

“You see,” Dominique said wickedly. “Brains as well as breasts.”

“And legs,” Joshua added.

She licked her lips provocatively, and took a long drink. “We’ll get the
legal office to draw up a formal contract tomorrow,” Parris said. “I
can’t see any problem.”

“The first stage will be to set up an office on Lalonde and secure that
mayope monopoly. The Lady Mac has still got to be unloaded, then she
needs some maintenance work, and we’re due a grade-E CAB inspection as
well thanks to someone I met at Norfolk. Not a problem, but it takes
time. I ought to be ready to leave in ten days.”

“Good,” said Parris. “I like that, Joshua. No beating around, you get
straight to it.”

“So how did you make your fortune?”

Parris grinned and popped the last of the saltplum into his mouth. “Given
this will hopefully develop into quite a large operation, I’ll want to
send my own representative with you to Lalonde to help set up our office.
And keep an eye on this upfront money of mine you’ll be spending.”

“Sure. Who?”

Dominique leaned over until her shoulder rubbed against Joshua’s, a hand
made of steel flesh closed playfully on his upper thigh. “Guess,” she
whispered salaciously into his ear.



Durringham had become ungovernable, a city living on spent nerves,
waiting for the final crushing blow to fall.

The residents knew of the invaders marching and sailing downriver,
everyone had heard the horror stories of xenoc enslavement, of torture
and rape and bizarre bloodthirsty ceremonies; words distorted and swollen
with every kilometre, like the river down which they travelled. They had
also heard of the Kulu Embassy evacuating its personnel in one madcap
night, surely the final confirmation—Sir Asquith wouldn’t do that unless
there was no hope left. Durringham, their homes and jobs and prosperity,
was in the firing line of an unknown, unstoppable threat, and they had
nowhere to run. The jungle belonged to the invaders, the seven
colonist-carrier starships orbiting impotently overhead were full, they
couldn’t offer an escape route. There was only the river and the virgin
sea beyond.

The second morning after Ralph Hiltch made his dash to the relative
safety of the Ekwan, the twenty-eight paddleboats remaining in the
frightened city’s circular harbours set off in convoy downriver. Price of
a ticket was one thousand fuseodollars per person (including a child). No
destination was named: some talked about crossing the ocean to Sarell;
Amarisk’s northern extremity was mooted. It didn’t matter, leaving
Durringham was the driving factor.

Given the exorbitant price the captains insisted on, and the planet’s
relative poverty, it was surprising just how many people turned up
wanting passage. More than could be accommodated. Tempers and desperation
rose with the brutal sun. Several ugly scenes flared as the gangplanks
were hurriedly drawn up.

Frustrated in their last chance to escape, the crowd surged towards the
colonists barricaded in the transients’ dormitories at the other end of
the port. Stones were flung first, then Molotovs.

Candace Elford dispatched a squad of sheriffs and newly recruited
deputies, armed with cortical jammers and laser rifles, to quell this
latest in a long line of disturbances. But they ran into a gang
ransacking a retail district. The tactical street battle which followed
left eight dead, and two dozen injured. They never got to the port.

That was when Candace finally had to call up Colin Rexrew and admit that
Durringham was out of control. “Most urban districts are forming their
own defence committees,” she datavised. “They’ve seen how little effect
the sheriffs have against any large-scale trouble. All the riots we’ve
had these last few weeks have shown that often enough, and everyone’s
heard about the Swithland posse. They don’t trust you and me to defend
them, so they’re going to do it for themselves. There’s been a lot of
food stockpiled over the last couple of weeks. They all think they’re
self-sufficient, and they’re not letting anyone over their district’s
boundary. That’s going to cause trouble, because I’m getting reports of
people in the outlying villages to the east abandoning their land and
coming in looking for a refuge. Our residents aren’t letting them
through. It’s a siege mentality out there. People are waiting for
Terrance Smith to come back with a conquering army, and hoping they can
hold out in the meantime.”

“How far away are the invaders?”

“I’m not sure. We’re judging their progress by the way our communications
with the villages fail. It’s not constant, but I’d say their main force
is no more than ten or fifteen kilometres from Durringham’s eastern
districts. The majority are on foot, which should give us two or three
days’ breathing space. Of course, you and I know there are nests of them
inside the city as well. I’ve had some pretty weird stories about
bogeymen and poltergeists coming in for days now.”

“What do you want to do?” Colin asked.

“Revert to guarding our strategic centres; the spaceport, this sector,
possibly both hospitals. I’d like to say the port as well, but I don’t
think I’ve got the manpower. There have been several desertions this
week, mostly among the new deputies. Besides, nearly all of the boats
have left now; there’s been a steady exodus of fishing craft and even
some barges since the paddle-boat convoy cast off this morning, so I
can’t see a lot of point.”

“OK,” Colin said with his head in his hands. “Do it.” He glanced out of
the office window at the sun-lashed rooftops. There was no sign of any of
the usual fires that had marked the city’s torment over the last weeks.
“Can we hang on until Terrance returns?”

“I don’t know. At the moment we’re so busy fighting each other that I
couldn’t tell you what sort of resistance we can offer to the invaders.”

“Yeah. That sounds like Lalonde through and through.”

Candace sat behind her big desk, watching the situation reports paint
unwelcome graphics across the console displays, and issuing orders
through her staff. There were times when she wondered if anyone out there
was even receiving them, let alone obeying them.

Half of her sheriffs were deployed around the spaceport, spending the
afternoon digging in, and positioning some large maser cannons to cover
the road. The rest took up position around the administration district in
the city, covering the governor’s dumper, the sheriff’s headquarters,
various civic buildings, and the Confederation Navy office. Five combined
teams of LDC engineers and sheriffs went round all the remaining dumpers
they could reach, powering down the fusion generators. If the invaders
wanted Durringham’s industrial base, such as it was, Rexrew was
determined to thwart them. The He3 and deuterium fuel was collected and
put into storage at the spaceport. By midafternoon the city was operating
on electron-matrix power reserves alone.

That more than anything else brought home the reality of the situation to
the majority. Fights and squabbles between gangs and districts ended,
those barricades which had been erected were strengthened, sentry details
were finalized. Everyone headed home, the roads fell silent. The rain
which had held off all day began to slash down. Beneath its shroud of
miserable low cloud, Durringham held its breath.

Stewart Danielsson watched the rain pounding away on the office windows
as the conditioner hummed away efficiently, sucking the humidity from the
air. He had made the office his home over the last week; Ward Molecular
had seen a busy time of it. Everybody in town was keen to have the
ancillary circuits on their electron-matrix cells serviced, especially
the smaller units which could double as rifle power magazines at a pinch.
He’d sold a lot of interface cables as well.

The business was doing fine. Darcy and Lori would be pleased when they
got back. They hadn’t actually said he could sleep over when they left
him in charge, but with the way things were it was only right. Twice he’d
scared off would-be burglars.

His sleeping-bag with the inflatable mattress was comfy, and the office
fridge was better than the one in his lodgings; he’d brought the
microwave cooker over from the cabin out back of the warehouse. So now he
had all the creature comforts. It was turning into a nice little sojourn.
Gaven Hough stayed late most nights, keeping him company. Neither of them
had seen Cole Este since the night after the first anti-Ivet riot.
Stewart wasn’t much bothered by that.

Gaven opened the door in the glass partition wall and stuck his head
round. “Doesn’t look like Mr. Crowther is coming to pick up his unit now,
it’s gone four.”

Stewart stretched himself, and turned the processor block off. He’d been
trying to keep their work records and payments up to date. It had always
seemed so easy when Darcy was handling it. “OK, we’ll get closed up.”

“We’ll be the last in the city. There’s been no traffic outside for the
last two hours. Everyone else has gone home, scared of these invaders.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No, not really. I haven’t got anything an army would want.”

“You can stay here tonight. I don’t think it’ll be safe walking home
through this town now, not with the way people are on edge. There’s
enough food.”

“Thanks. I’ll go and shut the doors.”

Stewart watched the younger man through the glass partition as he made
his way past the workbenches to the warehouse’s big doors. I ought to be
worried, he thought, some of the rumours flying around town are blatantly
unreal, but something is happening upriver. He gave the warehouse a more
thoughtful glance. With its mayope walls it was strong enough to
withstand any casual attempt at damage. But there were a lot of valuable
tools and equipment inside, and everybody knew that. Maybe we should be
boarding the windows up. There was no such thing as an insurance industry
on Lalonde, if the warehouse went so did their jobs.

He turned back to the office windows, giving them a more objective
appraisal; the frames were heavy enough to nail planks across.

Someone was walking down the muddy road outside. It was difficult to see
with the way the rain was smearing the glass, but it looked like a man
dressed in a suit. A very strange suit; it was grey, with a long jacket,
and there was no seal up the front, only buttons. And he wore a black hat
that looked like a fifty-centimetre column of brushed velvet. His right
hand gripped a silver-topped cane. Rain bounced off him as though his
antique clothes were coated in frictionless plastic.

“Stewart!” Gaven called from somewhere in the warehouse. “Stewart, come
back here.”

“No. Look at this.”

“There’s three of them in here. Stewart!”

The native panic in Gaven’s voice made him turn reluctantly from the
window. He squinted through the partition wall. It was dark in the
cavernous warehouse, and Gaven had shut the wide doors. Stewart couldn’t
see where he’d got to. Humanoid shapes were moving around down by the
stacks of crates; bigger than men. And it was just too gloomy to make out
quite what—

The window behind him gave a loud grating moan. He whirled round. The
frames groaned again as though they had been shoved by a hurricane blast.
But the rain was falling quite normally outside. It couldn’t be the wind.
The man in the grey suit was standing in the middle of the road, cane
pressing into the mud, both hands resting on the silver pommel. He stared
directly at Stewart.

“Stewart!” Gaven yelled.

The window-panes cracked, fissures multiplying and interlacing. Animal
reflex made Stewart spin round, his arms coming up to protect his head.
They’re going to smash!

A two and a half metre tall yeti was standing pressed up against the
glass of the partition wall. Its ochre fur was matted and greasy, red
baboon lips were peeled back to show stained fangs. He gagged at it in
amazement, recoiling.

All the glass in the office shattered at once. In the instant before he
slammed his eyelids shut, he was engulfed by a beautiful prismatic cloud
of diamonds, sparkling and shimmering in the weak light. Then the slivers
of glass penetrated his skin. Blood frothed out of a thousand shallow
cuts, staining every square centimetre of his clothes a bright crimson.
His skin went numb as his brain rejected outright the shocking level of
pain. His sight, the misty vermilion of tightly shut eyes, turned
scarlet. Pain stars flared purple. Then the universe went harrowingly
black. Through the numbness he could feel hot coals burning in his eye
sockets.

“Blind, I’m blind!” He couldn’t even tell if his voice was working.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” someone said to him. “We can help you.
We can let you see again.”

He tried to open his eyelids. There was a loathsome sensation of thin
tissues ripping. And still there was only blackness. Pain began to ooze
its way inwards, pain from every part of his body. He knew he was
falling, plummeting to the ground.

Then the pain in his legs faded, replaced by a blissful liquid chill, as
if he was bathing in a mountain tarn. He was given his sight back, a
spectral girl sketched against the infinite darkness. It looked as though
she was made up from translucent white membranes, folded with loving care
around her svelte body, then flowing free somehow to become her fragile
robes as well. She was a sublime child, in her early teens, poised
between girlhood and womanhood, what he imagined an angel or fairy would
be like. And she danced all the while, twirling effortlessly from foot to
foot, more supple and graceful than any ballerina; her face blessed by a
bountiful smile.

She held out her arms to him, ragged sleeves floating softly in the
unfelt breeze. “See?” she said. “We can stop it hurting.” Her arms rose,
palms pressing together above her head, and she spun round again,
lightsome laughter echoing.

“Please,” he begged her. “Oh, please.”

The pain returned to his legs, making him cry out. His siren vision began
to retreat, skipping lightly over the emptiness.

She paused and cocked her head. “Is this what you want?” she asked, her
dainty face frowning in concern.

“No! Back, come back. Please.”

Her smile became rapturous, and her arms closed around him in a
celebratory embrace. Stewart gave himself up to her balmy caresses,
drowning in a glorious tide of white light.



Ilex coasted out of its wormhole terminus a hundred thousand kilometres
above Lalonde. The warped gateway leading out of space-time contracted
behind the voidhawk as it refocused its distortion field. Sensors probed
round cautiously. The bitek starship was at full combat stations alert.

Waiting tensely on his acceleration couch in the crew toroid, Captain
Auster skimmed through the wealth of data which both the bitek and
electronic systems gathered. His primary concern was that there were no
hostile ships within a quarter of a million kilometres, and no weapon
sensors were locking on to the voidhawk’s hull. A resonance effect in
Ilex’s distortion field revealed various ship-sized masses orbiting above
Lalonde, then there were asteroids, satellites, moons, boulder-sized
debris. Nothing large was in the starship’s immediate vicinity. It took a
further eight seconds for Ilex and Ocyroe, the weapons-systems officer,
working in tandem, to confirm the absence of any valid threat.

<< OK, let’s go for a parking orbit; seven hundred kilometres out,
>>Auster said.

<< Seven hundred? >>Ilex queried.

<< Yes. Your distortion field won’t be so badly affected at that
altitude. We can still run if we have to. >>

<< Very well. >>

Together their unified minds arrived at a suitable flight vector. Ilex
swooped down the imaginary line towards the bright blue and white planet.

“We’re going into a parking orbit,” Auster said aloud for the benefit of
the three Adamist naval officers on the bridge. “I want combat stations
maintained at all times; and please bear in mind who could be here
waiting for us.” He allowed an overtone of stern anxiety to filter out to
the Edenist crew to emphasize the point. “Ocyroe, what’s our local space
situation?”

“Nine starships in a parking orbit, seven colonist-carriers and two cargo
ships. There are three interplanetary fusion drive ships en route from
the asteroid Kenyon, heading for Lalonde orbit. Nothing else in the
system.”

“I can’t get any response from Lalonde civil flight control,” said Erato,
the spaceplane pilot. He looked up from the communication console he was
operating. “The geosynchronous communication platform is working, as far
as I can tell. They just don’t answer.”

Auster glanced over at Lieutenant Jeroen van Ewyck, the Confederation
Navy Intelligence officer they had brought with them from Avon. “What do
you think?”

“This is a backward planet anyway, so their response isn’t going to be
instantaneous. But given the contents of those fleks I’d rather not take
any chances. I’ll try and contact Kelvin Solanki directly through the
navy ELINT satellites. Can you see if you can get anything from your
planetside agents?”

“We’ll broadcast,” Auster said.

“Great. Erato, see what the other starship captains can tell us. It looks
like they must have been here some time if there are this many left in
orbit.”

Auster added his own voice to Ilex’s affinity call, spanning the colossal
distance to the gas giant. Aethra answered straight away; but the
immature habitat could only confirm the data which Lori and Darcy had
included in their flek to the Edenist embassy on Avon. Since Kelven
Solanki had transmitted the files to Murora there had only been the usual
weekly status updates from Lalonde. The last one, four days ago, had
contained a host of information on the colony’s deteriorating civil
situation.

<< Can you tell us what’s happening? >>Gaura asked through the affinity
link between Aethra and Ilex. He was the chief of the station supervising
the habitat’s growth out at the lonely edge of the star system.

<< Nobody is answering our calls, >>Auster said. << When we know
something, Ilex will inform you immediately. >>

<< If Laton is on Lalonde he may make an attempt to capture and subvert
Aethra. He has had over twenty years to perfect his technique. We have no
weaponry to resist him. Can you evacuate us? >>

<< That will depend on the circumstances. Our orders from the First
Admiral’s office are to confirm his existence and destroy him if at all
possible. If he has become powerful enough to defend himself against the
weapons we are carrying, then we must jump back to Fleet Headquarters and
alert them. That takes priority over everything. >>Auster extended a
burst of sympathy.

<< We understand. Good luck with your mission. >>

<< Thank you. >>

<< Can you sense Darcy and Lori? >>Auster asked Ilex.

<< No. They do not answer. But there is a melodic in the affinity band
which I’ve never encountered before. >>

The voidhawk’s perceptive faculty expanded into Auster’s mind. He
perceived a distant soprano voice, or a soft whistle; the effect was too
imprecise to tell. It was an adagio, a slow harmonic which slipped in and
out of mental awareness like a radio signal on a stormy night.

<< Where is it coming from? >>Auster asked.

<< Ahead of us, >>Ilex said. << Somewhere on the planet, but it’s
skipping about. I can’t pin it down. >>

<< Keep tuned in to it, and if you track down its origin let me know
right away. >>

<< Of course. >>

Jeroen van Ewyck datavised his console processor to point one of Ilex’s
secondary dishes at a navy ELINT satellite orbiting Lalonde, then opened
a channel down to the office in Durringham. There was nothing like the
usual bit rate available, the microwave beam emitted by the navy office
was well below standard strength. A flustered rating answered, and
switched the call straight through to Kelven Solanki.

“We’re here in response to the flek you sent on the Eurydice,” Jeroen van
Ewyck said. “Can you advise us of the situation on the planet, please?”

“Too late,” Kelven datavised. “You’re too bloody late.”

Auster ordered the bitek processor in his command console to patch him
into the channel. “Lieutenant-Commander Solanki, this is Captain Auster.
We were dispatched as soon as we were refitted for this mission. I can
assure you the Admiralty took the report from you and our Intelligence
operatives very seriously indeed.”

“Seriously? You call sending one ship a serious response?”

“Yes. We are primarily a reconnaissance and evaluation mission. In that
respect, we are considered expendable. The Admiralty needs to know if
Laton’s presence has been confirmed, and what kind of force level is
required to deal with the invasion.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“Sorry if I shouted off,” Kelven said. “Things are getting bad down here.
The invaders have reached Durringham.”

“Are these invaders acting under Laton’s orders?”

“I’ve no idea yet.” He started to summarize the events of the last couple
of weeks.

Auster listened with growing dismay, a communal emotion distributed
equally around the other Edenists on board. The Adamists too, if their
facial expressions were an accurate reflection of their thoughts.

“So you still don’t know if Laton is behind this invasion?” Auster asked
when he finished.

“No. I’d say not; Lori and Darcy had virtually written him off by the
time they got to Ozark. If it is him backing the invaders, then he’s
pulling a very elaborate double bluff. Why did he warn Darcy and Lori
about this energy virus effect?”

“Have you managed to verify that yet?” Jeroen van Ewyck asked.

“No. Although the supporting circumstantial evidence we have so far is
very strong. The invaders certainly have a powerful electronic warfare
technology at their fingertips, and it’s in widespread use. I suppose
Kulu will be the place to ask; the ESA team managed to get their prisoner
outsystem.”

<< Typical of the ESA, >>Erato said sourly.

Auster nodded silently.

“How bad are conditions in the city?” Jeroen van Ewyck asked.

“We’ve heard some fighting around the outlying districts this evening.
The sheriffs are protecting the spaceport and the government district.
But I don’t think they’ll hold out for more than a couple of days. You
must get back to Avon and inform the First Admiral and the Confederation
Assembly what’s happening here. At this point we still can’t discount
xenocs being involved. And tell the First Admiral that Terrance Smith’s
mercenary army must be prevented from landing here, as well. This is far
beyond the ability of a few thousand hired soldiers to sort out.”

“That goes without saying. We’ll evacuate you and your staff
immediately,” Auster said.

<< Forty-five of them? >>Ocyroe asked. << That’s pushing our life-support
capacity close to the envelope. >>

<< We can always make a swallow direct to Jospool, That’s only seven
light-years away. The crew toroid can support us for that long. >>

“There’s some of the ratings and NCOs I’d like to get off,” Kelven
Solanki datavised. “This wasn’t supposed to be a front-line posting.
They’re only kids, really.”

“No, all of you are coming,” Auster said flatly.

“I’d like to capture one of these sequestrated invaders if possible,”
Jeroen van Ewyck put in quickly.

<< What about the marines, Erato? >>Auster asked. << Do you think it’s
worth a try? >>

<< I’ll fly recovery if we can spot them, >>the pilot said. His thoughts
conveyed a rising excitement.

Auster acknowledged his leaked feelings with an ironic thought. Pilots
were uniformly a macho breed, unable to resist any challenge, even
Edenist ones.

<< The Juliffe basin is proving difficult to resolve, >>Ilex said with a
note of annoyance. << My optical sensors are unable to receive a clearly
defined image of the river and its tributaries for about a thousand
kilometres inland. >>

<< It’s night over the basin, and we’re still seventy thousand kilometres
away, >>Auster pointed out.

<< Even so, the optical resolution should be better than this. >>

“Commander Solanki, we’re going to attempt to recover the marines as
well,” Auster said.

“I haven’t been able to contact them for over a day. God, I don’t even
know if they’re still alive, let alone where they are.”

“None the less, they are our naval personnel. If there’s any chance, we
owe them the effort.”

The statement drew him a startled glance from Jeroen van Ewyck and the
other two Adamists on the bridge. They quickly tried to hide their gaffe.
Auster ignored it.

“Christ but—All right,” Kelven Solanki datavised. “I’ll fly the recovery
myself, though. No point in risking your spaceplane. It was me who
ordered them in there to start with. My responsibility.”

“As you wish. If our sensors can locate their fishing boat, do you have
an aircraft available?”

“I can get one. But the invaders knocked out the last plane to fly into
their territory. One thing I do know is that they’ve got some lethal
fire-power going for them.”

“So has Ilex,” Auster said bluntly.



Joshua Calvert fell back onto the translucent sheet and let out a
heartfelt breath. The bed’s jelly-substance mattress was rocking him
gently as the waves slowed. Sweat trickled across his chest and limbs. He
gazed up at the electrophorescent cell clusters on Ione’s ceiling. Their
ornate leaf pattern was becoming highly familiar.

“That’s definitely one of the better ways of waking up,” he said.

“One?” Ione unwrapped her legs from his waist and sat back on his legs.
She stretched provocatively, hands going behind her neck.

Joshua groaned, staring at her voraciously.

“Tell me another,” she said.

He sat up, bringing his face twenty centimetres from hers. “Watching
you,” he said in a throaty voice.

“Does that turn you on?”

“Yes.”

“Solo, or with another girl?” She felt his muscles tighten in reflex.
Well, that’s my answer, she thought. But then she’d always known how much
he enjoyed threesomes. It wasn’t Joshua’s cock which was hard to satisfy,
just his ego.

He grinned; the Joshua rogueish-charm grin. “I bet this conversation is
going to turn to Dominique.”

Ione gave his nose a butterfly kiss. They just couldn’t fool each other;
it was a togetherness similar to the one she enjoyed with the habitat
personality. Comforting and eerie at the same time. “You mentioned her
name first.”

“Are you upset about her coming to Lalonde with me?”

“No. It makes sound business sense.”

“You do disapprove.” He stroked the side of her breasts tenderly.
“There’s no need to be jealous. I have been to bed with Dominique, you
know.”

“I know. I watched you on that big bed of hers, remember?”

He cupped her breasts and kissed each nipple in turn. “Let’s bring her to
this bed.”

She looked down on the top of his head. “Not possible, sorry. The
Saldanas eradicated the gay gene from their DNA three hundred years ago.
Couldn’t risk the scandal, they are supposed to uphold the ten
commandments throughout the kingdom, after all.”

Joshua didn’t believe a word of it. “They missed erasing the adultery
gene, then.”

She smiled. “What’s your hurry to hit the mattress with her? The two of
you are going to spend a week locked up in that zero-gee sex cage of
yours.”

“You are jealous.”

“No. I never claimed to have an exclusive right to you. After all, I
didn’t complain about Norfolk.”

He pulled his head back from her breasts. “Ione!” he complained.

“You reeked of guilt. Was she very beautiful?”

“She was . . . sweet.”

“Sweet? Why, Joshua Calvert, I do believe you’re getting romantic in your
old age.”

Joshua sighed and dropped back on the mattress again. He wished she’d
make up her mind whether she was jealous or not. “Do I ask about your
lovers?”

Ione couldn’t help the slight flush that crept up her cheeks. Hans had
been fun while it lasted, but she’d never felt as free with him as she
did with Joshua. “No,” she admitted.

“Ah hah, I’m not the only one who’s guilty, by the looks of it.”

She traced a forefinger down his sternum and abdomen until she was
stroking his thighs. “Quits?”

“Yes.” His hands found her hips. “I brought you another present.”

“Joshua! What?”

“A gigantea seed. That’s an aboriginal Lalonde tree. I saw a couple on
the edge of Durringham, they were eighty metres tall, but Marie said they
were just babies, the really big ones are further inland from the coast.”

“Marie said that, did she?”

“Yes.” He refused to be put off. “It should grow all right in
Tranquillity’s parkland. But you’ll have to plant it where the soil is
deep and there’s plenty of moisture.”

“I’ll remember.”

“It’ll grow up to the light-tube eventually.”

She pulled a disbelieving face.

<< I will have to run environmental compatibility tests first,
>>Tranquillity said. << Our biosphere is delicately balanced. >>

<< So cynical. >>“Thank you, Joshua,” she said out loud.

Joshua realized he had regained his erection. “Why don’t you just ease
forward a bit?”

“I could give you a treat instead,” Ione said seductively. “A real male
fantasy come true.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. There’s a girlfriend of mine I’d like you to meet. We go swimming
together every morning. You’d like that, watching us get all wet and
slippery. She’s younger than me. And she never, ever wears a swimming
costume.”

“Jesus.” Joshua’s face went from greed to caution. “This isn’t on the
level,” he decided.

“Yes, it is. She’s also very keen to meet you. She likes it a lot when
people wash her. I do it all the time, sliding my hands all over her.
Don’t you want to join me?”

He looked up at Ione’s mock-innocent expression, and wondered what the
hell he was letting himself in for. Gay gene, like bollocks. “Lead on.”



They had walked fifty metres down the narrow sandy path towards the cove,
Ione’s escort of three serjeants an unobtrusive ten paces behind, when
Joshua stopped and looked round. “This is the southern endcap.”

“That’s right,” she said slyly.

He caught up with her as she reached the top of the bluff. The long,
gently curving cove below looked tremendously enticing, with a border of
shaggy palm trees and a tiny island offshore. Away in the distance he
could see the elaborate buildings of the Laymil project campus.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I won’t have you arrested for coming here.”

He shrugged and followed her down the bluff. Ione was running on ahead as
he reached the sand. Her towelling robe was flung away. “Come on,
Joshua!” Spray frothed up as her feet reached the water.

A naked girl, a tropical beach. Irresistible. He dropped his own robe and
jogged down the slope. Something was moving behind him, something making
dull thudding sounds as it moved, something heavy. He turned. “Jesus!”

A Kiint was running straight at him. It was smaller than any he’d seen
before, about three metres long, only just taller than him. Eight fat
legs were flipping about in a rhythm which was impossible to follow.

His feet refused to budge. “Ione!”

She was laughing hysterically. “Morning, Haile,” she called at the top of
her voice.

The Kiint lumbered to a halt in front of him. He was looking into a pair
of soft violet eyes half as wide as his own face. A stream of warm damp
breath poured from the breathing vents.

“Er . . .”

One of the tractamorphic arms curved up, the tip formshifting into the
shape of a human hand—slightly too large.

“Well, say hello, then,” Ione said; she had walked up to stand behind him.

“I’ll get you for this, Saldana.”

She giggled. “Joshua, this is my girlfriend, Haile. Haile, this is
Joshua.”

<< Why has he so much stiffness? >>Haile asked.

Ione cracked up, nearly doubling over as she laughed. Joshua gave her a
furious glare.

<< Not want to shake hands? Not want to initiate human greetings ritual?
Not want to be friends? >>The Kiint sounded mournfully disappointed.

“Joshua, shake hands. Haile’s upset you don’t want to be friends with
her.”

“How do you know?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.

“Affinity. The Kiint can use it.”

He put his hand up. Haile’s arm reached out, and he felt a dry, slightly
scaly, bud of flesh flow softly around his fingers. It tickled. His
neural nanonics were executing a priority search through the xenoc files
he had stored in a memory cell. The Kiint could hear.

“May your thoughts always fly high, Haile,” he said, and gave a slight
formal bow.

<< I have much likening for him! >>

Ione gave him a calculating stare. I might have known that charm of his
would work on xenocs too, she thought.

Joshua felt the Kiint’s flesh deliver a warm squeeze to his hand, then
the pseudo-hand peeled back. The itchy sensation it left in his palm
seemed to spread up along his spine and into his skull.

“Your new girlfriend,” he said heavily.

Ione smiled. “Haile was born a few weeks ago. And boy, does she grow
fast.”

Haile started to push Ione towards the water, flat triangular head
butting the girl spiritedly, beak flapping. One of her tractamorphic arms
beckoned avidly at Joshua.

He grinned. “I’m coming.” His scalp felt as if he’d been in the sun too
long, an all-over tingle.

“The water eases her skin while she’s growing,” Ione said as she skipped
ahead of the eager Kiint. “She needs to bathe two or three times a day.
All the Kiint houses have interior pools. But she loves the beach.”

“Well, I’ll be happy to help scrub her while I’m here.”

<< Much gratitude. >>

“My pleasure,” Joshua said. He stopped. Haile was standing at the edge of
the water, big eyes regarding him attentively. “That was you.”

<< Yes. >>

“What was?” Ione asked, she looked from one to the other.

“I can hear her.”

“But you don’t have an affinity gene,” she said, surprised, and maybe a
little indignant.

<< Joshua has thoughts of strength. Much difficulty to effect
interlocution, but possible. Not so with most humans. Feel hopelessness.
Failure sorrow. >>

He swaggered. “Strong thoughts, see?”

“Haile hasn’t quite mastered our language, that’s all,” Ione smiled with
menace. “She’s confused strength with simplicity. You have very
elementary thoughts.”

Joshua rubbed his hands together determinedly, and walked towards her.
Ione backed away, then turned and ran giggling into the water. He caught
her after six metres, and the two of them fell into the small clear
ripples whooping and laughing. Haile plunged in after them.

<< Much joyness. Much joyness. >>

Joshua was interested by how well the young Kiint could swim. He would
have considered her body too heavy to float, but she could move at a fair
speed; her tractamorphic arms spread out into flippers, and angled back
along her flanks. Ione wouldn’t let her go out to the little island,
saying it was still too far, which ruling Haile accepted with rebellious
sulks.

<< I have seen some of the all-around’s park space, >>she told Joshua
proudly as he rubbed the dorsal ridge above her rump. << Ione has shown
me. So much to absorb. Adventureness fun. Envy Joshua. >>

Joshua didn’t quite understand how to collect his thoughts into a voice
Haile could understand, instead he simply spoke. “You envy me? Why?”

<< Venture as you please. Fly to stars so distant. Welcome sights so
strange. I want this, muchness! >>

“I don’t think you’d fit in the Lady Mac. Besides, human ships that can
carry Kiint have to be licensed by your government. I haven’t got that
licence.”

<< Sadness. Anger. Frustration. I may not venture beyond adult defined
constraints. Much growth before I can. >>

“Bumming round the universe isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Most of the
Confederation planets are pretty tame, and travelling on a starship is
boring; dangerous too.”

<< Danger? Excitement query? >>

Joshua moved down towards Haile’s flexible neck. Ione was grinning at him
over the xenoc’s white back.

“No, not excitement. There’s a danger of mechanical failure. That can be
fatal.”

<< You have excitement. Achievement. Ione narrated many voyages you have
undertaken. Triumph in Ruin Ring. Much gratification. Such boldness
exhibited. >>

Ione turned her giggle into a cough. << You’re a flirt, girl. >>

<< Incorrect access mode to human males, query? Praise of character,
followed by dumb admiration for feats; your instruction. >>

<< Yes, I did say that, didn’t I. Perhaps not quite so literally, though.
>>

“That was a while ago now,” Joshua said. “Of course, life was pretty
tricky in those days. One wrong move and it could have been catastrophic.
The Ruin Ring is an ugly place. You’ve gotta have determination to be a
scavenger. It’s a lonely existence. Not everyone can take it.”

<< You achieved legend status. Most famous scavenger of all. >>

<< Don’t push it, >>Ione warned.

“You mean the Laymil electronics stack? Yeah, it was a big find, I earned
a lot of money from that one.”

<< Much cultural relevance. >>

“Oh, yeah, that too.”

Ione stopped rubbing Haile’s neck and frowned. “Joshua, haven’t you
accessed the records we’ve been decoding?”

“Er, what records?”

“Your electronics stack stored Laymil sensevise recordings. We’ve
uncovered huge amounts of data on their culture.”

“Great. That’s good news.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “They were extremely advanced biologically.
Well ahead of us on the evolutionary scale; they were almost completely
in harmony with their habitat environment, so now we have to question
just how artificial their habitats were. Their entire biology, the way
they approached living organisms, is very different to our own
perception. They revered any living entity. And their psychology is
almost incomprehensible to us; they could be both highly individual, and
at the same time submerge themselves into a kind of mental homogeneity.
Two almost completely different states of consciousness. We think they
may have been genuine telepaths. The research project geneticists are
having furious arguments over the relevant gene sequence. It is similar
to the Edenist affinity gene, but the Laymil psychology complements it in
a way which is impossible to human Edenist culture. Edenists retain a
core of identity even after they transfer their memories into the habitat
personality at death, whereas the Laymil willingness to share their most
private selves has to be the product of considerable mental maturity. You
can’t engineer behavioural instinct into DNA.”

“Have you found out what destroyed their habitats yet?” Joshua asked.
Haile shuddered below his hand, a very human reflex. He felt a burst of
cold alarm invading his thoughts. “Hey, sorry.”

<< Fright. Scared feel. So many deaths. They had strength. Still were
defeated. Query cause? >>

“I wish I knew,” Ione said. “They seemed to celebrate life, much more
than we do.”



The Isakore was bobbing about inertly on the Zamjan as though it was a
log of elegantly carved driftwood, ripples slopping against the hull with
quiet insistence. They had rigged up a couple of oarlike outriggers to
steer with during the first day—the rudder alone was no good. And they’d
managed to stick more or less to the centre of the river. It was eight
hundred metres wide here, which gave them some leeway when the current
began to shift them towards one of the banks.

According to Murphy Hewlett’s inertial-guidance block they had floated
about thirty kilometres downriver since the micro-fusion generator had
been taken out. The current had pushed them with dogged tenacity the
whole time, taking them away from the landing site and the burnt
antagonistic jungle. Only another eight hundred plus kilometres to go.

Jacqueline Couteur had been no trouble, spending her time sitting up in
the prow under the canvas awning. If it hadn’t been for the ordeal they’d
been through, the price they’d paid in their own pain and grief, to
capture her, Murphy would have tied the useless micro-fusion generator
round her neck and tossed her overboard. He thought she knew that. But
she was their mission. And they were still alive, and still intact. Until
that changed, Lieutenant Murphy Hewlett was going to obey orders and take
her back to Durringham. There was nothing else left, no alternative
purpose to life.

Nobody had tried to interfere with them, although their communication
channels were definitely being jammed (none of the other equipment blocks
were affected). Even the villages they had sailed past had shown no
interest. A couple of rowing dinghies had ventured close the first
morning, but they’d been warned off with shots from one of the
Bradfields. After that the Isakore had been left alone.

It was almost a peaceful voyage. They’d eaten well, cleaned and reloaded
the weapons, done what they could about their wounds. Niels Regehr swam
in and out of lucidity, but the medical nanonic package clamped over his
face was keeping him reasonably stable.

Murphy could just about allow himself to believe they would return to
Durringham. The placid river encouraged that kind of foolish thinking.

As night fell at the end of the second day he sat at the stern, holding
on to the tiller they had fixed up, and doing his best to keep the boat
in the centre of the river. At least with this job he didn’t have to use
his leg with its achingly stiff knee, though his left hand was incapable
of gripping the tiller pole. The clammy air from the water made his
fatigues uncomfortably sticky.

He saw Louis Beith making his way aft, carrying a flask. A medical
nanonic package made a broad bracelet around his arm where Jacqueline
Couteur had broken the bone and it glimmered dimly in the infrared
spectrum.

“Brought you some juice,” Louis said. “Straight out the cryo.”

“Thanks.” Murphy took the mug he held out. With his retinal implants
switched to infrared, the liquid he poured from the flask was a blue so
deep it was nearly black.

“Niels is talking to his demons again,” Louis said quietly.

“Not much we can do about it, short of loading a somnolence program into
his neural nanonics.”

“Yeah, but Lieutenant; what he says, it’s like it’s for real, you know? I
thought people hallucinating don’t make any sense. He’s even got me
looking over my shoulder.”

Murphy took a swallow of the juice. It was freezing, numbing the back of
his throat. Just perfect. “It bothers you that bad? I could put him
under, I suppose.”

“No, not bad. It’s just kinda spooky, what with everything we saw, and
all.”

“I think that electronic warfare gimmick the hostiles have affects our
neural nanonics more than we like to admit.”

“Yeah?” Louis brightened. “Maybe you’re right.” He stood with his hands
on his hips, staring ahead to the west. “Man, that is some meteorite
shower. I ain’t never seen one that good before.”

Murphy looked up into the cloudless night sky. High above the Isakore’s
prow the stars were tumbling down from their fixed constellations. There
was a long broad slash of them scintillating and flashing. He actually
smiled, they looked so picturesque. And the hazy slash was still growing
as more of them hit the atmosphere, racing eastwards. It must be a
prodigious swarm gliding in from interplanetary space, the remains of
some burnt-out comet that had disintegrated centuries ago. The meteorites
furthest away were developing huge contrails as they sizzled their way
downwards. They were certainly penetrating the atmosphere a long way,
tens of kilometres at least. Murphy’s smile bled away. “Oh my God,” he
said in a tiny dry voice.

“What?” Louis asked happily. “Isn’t that something smooth? Wow! I could
look at that all night long.”

“They’re not meteorites.”

“What?”

“They’re not meteorites. Shit!”

Louis looked at him in alarm.

“They’re bloody kinetic harpoons!” Murphy started to run forwards as fast
as his knee would allow. “Secure yourself!” he shouted. “Grab something
and hold on. They’re coming down right on top of us.”

The sky was turning to day overhead, blackness flushed away by a
spreading stain of azure blue. The contrails to the west were becoming
too bright to look at. They seemed to be lengthening at a terrific rate,
cracks of sunlight splitting open across the wall of night.

Kinetic harpoons were the Confederation Navy’s standard tactical
(non-radioactive) planetary surface assault weapon. A solid splinter of
toughened, heat-resistant composite, half a metre long, needle sharp,
guided by a cruciform tail, steered by a processor with preprogrammed
flight vector. They carried no explosives, no energy charge; they
destroyed their target through speed alone.

Ilex accelerated in towards Lalonde at eight gees, following a precise
hyperbolic trajectory. The apex was reached twelve hundred kilometres
above Amarisk, two hundred kilometres east of Durringham. Five thousand
harpoons were expelled from the voidhawk’s weapons cradles, hurtling
towards the night-masked continent below. Ilex inverted the direction of
its distortion field’s acceleration wave, fighting Lalonde’s gravity.
Stretched out on their couches, the crew raged impotently against the
appalling gee force, nanonic supplement membranes turning rigid to hold
soft weak human bodies together as the voidhawk dived away from the
planet.

The harpoon swarm sheered down through the atmosphere, hypervelocity
friction ablating away the composite’s outer layer of molecules to leave
a dazzling ionic tail over a hundred kilometres long. From below it
resembled a rain of fierce liquid light.

Their silence was terrifying. A display of such potency should sound like
the roar of an angry god. Murphy clung to one of the rails along the side
of the wheel-house, squinting through squeezed-up eyelids as the solid
sheet of vivid destruction plummeted towards him. He heard Jacqueline
Couteur moaning in fear, and felt a cheap, malicious satisfaction. It was
the first time she had shown the slightest emotion. Impact could only be
seconds away now.

The harpoons were directly overhead, an atmospheric river of solar
brilliance mirroring the Zamjan’s course. They split down the centre, two
solid planes of light diverging with immaculate symmetry, sliding down to
touch the jungle away in the west then racing past the Isakore at a speed
too fast even for enhanced human senses to follow. None of them, not one,
landed in the water.

Multiple explosions obliterated the jungle. Along both sides of the
Zamjan gouts of searing purple flame streaked upwards as the harpoons
struck the earth, releasing their colossal kinetic energy in a single
devastating burst of heat. The swath of devastation extended for a length
of seven kilometres along the banks, reaching a kilometre and a half
inland. A thick filthy cloud of loam and stone and wood splinters belched
up high into the air, blotting out the heat flashes. The blast-wave
rolled out in both directions, flattening still more of the jungle.

Then the sound broke over the boat. The roar of the explosions
overlapped, merging into a single sonic battering-ram which made every
plank on the Isakore twang as if it was an overtuned guitar string. After
that came the eternal thunderclap of the air being ripped apart by the
harpoons’ plunge; sound waves finally catching up with the weapons.

Murphy jammed his hands across his stinging eardrums. His whole skeleton
was shaking, joints resonating painfully.

Debris started to patter down, puckering the already distressed surface
of the river. A sprinkling of fires burnt along the banks where shattered
trees lay strewn among deep craters. Pulverized loam and wood hung in the
air, an obscure black fog above the mortally wounded land.

Murphy slowly lowered his hands, staring at the awful vision of
destruction. “It was our side,” he said in dazed wonder. “We did it.”

Garrett Tucci was at his side, jabbering away wildly. Murphy couldn’t
hear a thing. His ears were still ringing vociferously. “Shout! Datavise!
My ears have packed up.”

Garrett blinked, he held up his communications block. “It’s working,” he
yelled.

Murphy datavised his own block, which reported the channel to the ELINT
satellite was open.

A beam of bright white light slid over the Isakore, originating from
somewhere above. Murphy watched as the beam swung out over the water,
then tracked back towards the boat. He looked up, beyond surprise. It was
coming from a small aircraft hovering two hundred metres overhead,
outlined by the silver stars. Green, red, and white strobes flashed on
the tips of its wings and canards. His neural nanonics identified the
jet-black planform, a BK133.

Murphy’s communication block bleeped to acknowledge a local channel
opening. “Murphy? Are you there, Murphy?”

“Sir? Is that you?” he asked incredulously.

“Expecting someone else?” Kelven Solanki datavised.

The beam found the Isakore again, and remained trained on the deck.

“Have you still got your prisoner?”

“Yes, sir.” Murphy glanced at Jacqueline Couteur, who was staring up at
the aircraft, shielding her eyes against the spotlight.

“Good man. We’ll take her back with us.”

“Sir, Niels Regehr is injured pretty badly. I don’t think he can climb a
rope ladder.”

“No problem.”

The BK133 was descending carefully, wings rocking in the thermal
microbursts generated by the harpoons’ impact. Murphy could feel the
compressor jets gusting against his face, a hot dry wind, pleasant after
the river’s humidity. He saw a wide hatch was open on the side of the
fuselage. A man in naval fatigues was slowly winching down towards the
Isakore.



Floodlights on the roof of the navy office showed the grounds around the
building were thick with people. All of them seemed to be looking up into
the night sky.

Murphy watched them through the BK133’s open mid-fuselage hatch as Kelven
Solanki piloted it down onto the roof pad. A wedge-shaped spaceplane was
sitting on one side of the roof, wings retracted; it only just fitted,
tail and nose were overhanging the edges. It was one of the most welcome
sights he had seen in a long long while.

“Who are all those people?” he asked.

“Anyone who saw Ilex’s spaceplane taking the staff away earlier,” Vince
Burtis said. He was the nineteen-year-old navy rating who had winched the
marine squad to safety. To him the invasion was exactly what he had
signed on for, adventure on alien worlds; he was enjoying himself. Murphy
hadn’t the heart to disillusion him. The kid would realize soon enough.

“I guess they want to leave too,” Vince Burtis said soberly.

The BK133 settled on the roof. Kelven datavised the flight computer to
power down the internal systems. “Everyone out,” he said.

“Hurry, please.” Erato’s appeal was relayed through his communication
block. “I’m in touch with the sheriffs outside. They say the crowd is
already at the door.”

“They shouldn’t be able to get in,” Kelven datavised.

“I think some of the sheriffs may be with them,” Erato said hesitantly.
“They’re only human.”

Kelven released his straps and hurried back into the cabin. Vince Burtis
was guiding Niels Regehr’s tentative footsteps, helping him down through
the hatch. Garrett Tucci and Louis Beith were already out, marching
Jacqueline Couteur towards the spaceplane at gunpoint.

Murphy Hewlett gave his superior a tired smile. “Thank you, sir.”

“Nothing to do with me. If the Ilex hadn’t shown up you’d still be
paddling home.”

“Is everyone else from the office out?”

“Yes, the spaceplane made a couple of flights earlier this evening, we’re
the last,” Kelven said.

They both hopped down onto the roof. The noise of the spaceplane’s
compressors rose, obscuring the sound of the crowd below. Kelven did his
best to ignore the sensation of guilt. He had made a lot of friends among
Lalonde’s civil administration staff. Candace Elford had turned over the
BK133 as soon as he asked, no questions. Surely some people could have
been taken up to the orbiting colonist-carriers.

Who though? And who would choose?

The best—the only—way to help Lalonde now was through the Confederation
Navy.

The stairwell door on the other side of the BK133 burst open. People
began to spill out onto the roof, shouting frantically.

“Oh, Christ,” Kelven said under his breath. He could see three or four
sheriffs among them, armed with cortical jammers, one had a laser hunting
rifle. The rest were civilians. He looked round. Vince Burtis and Niels
Regehr were halfway up the stairs to the airlock. One of the Ilex’s crew
was leaning out, offering a hand to Niels. Vince was staring over his
shoulder in shock.

“Get in,” Kelven datavised, waving his arms.

Two sheriffs were rounding the nose of the BK133, more people were
crouched low scuttling under the fuselage. Still more were running out of
the open door. There must have been thirty on the roof.

“Wait for us.”

“You can carry one more.”

“I have money, I can pay.”

Murphy aimed his Bradfield into the air and fired off two shots. The
heavy-calibre weapon was startlingly loud. Several people threw
themselves down, the rest froze.

“Don’t even think about it,” Murphy said. The Bradfield lined up on one
of the ashen-faced sheriffs. A cortical jammer fell from the man’s hands.

The noise of the spaceplane’s compressors was becoming strident.

“There’s no room on board. Go home before anyone gets hurt.”

Kelven and Murphy started backing towards the spaceplane. A young
brown-skinned woman who had crawled under the BK133 straightened up, and
walked towards them defiantly. She was holding a small child in front of
her, it couldn’t have been more than two years old. Plump face and wide
liquid eyes.

Murphy just couldn’t bring himself to point the Bradfield at her. He
reached the foot of the spaceplane’s aluminium stairs.

“Take him with you,” the woman called. She held the child out. “For
Jesus’s sake, take my son, if you have a gram of pity in you. I’m begging
you!”

Murphy’s foot found the first step. Kelven had a hand on his arm, guiding
him back.

“Take him!” she shrieked over the swelling compressor efflux. “Take him,
or shoot him.”

He shuddered at her fervour. She meant it, she really meant it.

“It would be a kindness. You know what will happen to him on this cursed
planet.” The child was crying, squirming about in her grip.

The other people on the roof were all motionless, watching him with hard,
accusing eyes. He turned to Kelven Solanki, whose face was a mask of
torment.

“Get him,” Kelven blurted.

Murphy dropped the Bradfield, letting it skitter away across the silicon
roof. He datavised a codelock into its controlling processor so no one
could turn it on the spaceplane, then grabbed the child with his right
hand.

“Shafi,” the woman shouted as he raced up the stairs. “His name’s Shafi
Banaji. Remember.”

He barely had a foot in the airlock when the spaceplane lifted, its deck
tilting up immediately. Hands steadied him, and the outer hatch slid shut.

Shafi’s baggy cotton trousers were soiled and stinking; he let out a long
fearful wail.


Chapter 03
==========


Including Tranquillity, there were only five independent (non-Edenist)
bitek habitats to be found within the boundaries of the Confederation.
After Tranquillity, probably the most well known, or notorious depending
on your cultural outlook and degree of liberalism, was Valisk.

Although they were both, technically, dictatorships, they occupied
opposite ends of the political spectrum, with the dominant ideologies of
the remaining three habitats falling between them, a well-deserved
mediocrity. Tranquillity was regarded as elitist, or even regal given its
founder: industrious, rich, and slightly raffish, with a benevolent, chic
ruler, it emphasized the grander qualities of life, somewhere you aspired
to go if you made it. Valisk was older, its glory days over, or at the
very least in abeyance: it played host to a more decadent population;
money here (and there was still plenty) came from exploiting the darker
side of human nature. And its strange governorship repelled rather than
attracted.

It hadn’t always been so.

Valisk was founded by an Edenist Serpent called Rubra. Unlike Laton, who
terrorized the Confederation two and a half centuries later, his
rebellion was of an altogether more constructive nature. He was born in
Machaon, a habitat orbiting Kohistan, the largest gas giant in the
Srinagar star system. After forty-four years, he abandoned his culture
and his home, sold his not inconsiderable share in his family’s
engineering enterprise, and emigrated to a newly opened Adamist asteroid
settlement in Kohistan’s trailing Trojan cluster.

It was a period of substantial economic growth for the star system.
Srinagar had been colonized by ethnic-Hindus in 2178 during the Great
Dispersal, a hundred and sixteen years earlier. Basic industrialization
had been completed, the world was tamed, and people were looking for new
ways of channelling their energies. All across the Confederation emerging
colony planets were exploiting space resources and increasing their
wealth dramatically. Srinagar was eager to be numbered among them.

Rubra started with six leased interplanetary cargo ships. Like all
Serpents he was a high achiever in his chosen field (nearly always to
Edenist embarrassment, for so many of them chose crime). He made a small
fortune supplying the Trojan cluster’s small but wealthy population of
engineers and miners with consumer goods and luxuries. He bought more
ships, made a larger fortune, and named his expanding company Magellanic
Itg—joking to his peers that one day he would trade with that distant
star cluster. By 2306, after twelve years of steady growth, Magellanic
Itg owned manufacturing stations and asteroid-mining operations, and had
moved into the interstellar transport market.

At this point Rubra germinated Valisk in orbit around Opuntia, the fourth
of the system’s five gas giants. It was a huge gamble. He spent his
company’s entire financial reserves cloning the seed, mortgaging half of
the starships to boot. And bitek remained technology non grata for the
major religions, including the Hindu faith. But Srinagar was sufficiently
Bolshevik about its new economic independence from its sponsoring
Govcentral Indian states, and energetic enough in its approach to
innovation, to cast a blind eye to proscriptions announced by
fundamentalist Brahmians on a distant imperialist planet over two
centuries earlier. Planet and asteroid governments saw no reason to
impose embargoes against what was rapidly evolving into one of the
system’s premier economic assets. Valisk became, literally, a corporate
state, acting as the home port for Magellanic Itg’s starship fleet
(already one of the largest in the sector) and dormitory town for its
industrial stations.

Although Valisk was a financially advantageous location from which Rubra
could run his flourishing corporate empire, he needed to attract a base
population to the habitat to make it a viable pocket civilization.
Industrial stations were therefore granted extremely liberal weapons and
research licences and Valisk started to attract companies specializing in
military hardware. Export constraints were almost non-existent.

Rubra also opened the habitat to immigration for “people who seek
cultural and religious freedom”, possibly in reaction to his own formal
Edenist upbringing. This invitation attracted several nonconformist
religious cults, spiritual groups, and primitive lifestyle tribes, who
believed that a bitek environment would fulfil the role of some
benevolent Gaia and provide them free food and shelter. Over nine
thousand of these people arrived over the course of the habitat’s first
twenty-five years, many of them drug- or stimulant-program addicts. At
this time, Rubra, infuriated with their unrepentant parasitical nature,
banned any more from entering.

By 2330 the population had risen to three hundred and fifty thousand.
Industrial output was high, and many interstellar companies were opening
regional offices inside.

Then the first blackhawks to be seen in the Confederation began to
appear, all of them registered with Magellanic Itg, and captained by
Rubra’s plentiful offspring. Rubra had pulled off a spectacular coup
against both his competitors and his former culture. Voidhawk bitek was
the most sophisticated ever sequenced; copying it was a triumph of
genetic retro-engineering.

With blackhawks now acting as the mainstay of his starship fleet, Rubra
was unchallengeable. A large-scale cloning programme saw their numbers
rising dramatically; neural symbionts were used to give captaincies to
Adamists who had no qualms about using bitek, and there were many. By
2365 Magellanic Itg ceased to use anything other than blackhawks in its
transport fleet.

Rubra died in 2390, one of the wealthiest men in the Confederation. He
left behind an industrial conglomerate used as an example by economists
ever since as the classic corporate growth model. It should have carried
on. It had the potential to rival the Kulu Corporation owned by the
Saldana family. Ultimately it might even have equalled the Edenist He3
cloud-mining operation. No physical or financial restrictions existed to
limit its inherent promise; banks were more than willing to advance
loans, the markets existed, supplied by its own ships.

But in the end—after the end—Rubra’s Serpent nature proved less than
benign after all. His psychology was too different, too obsessional.
Brought up knowing his personality pattern would continue to exist for
centuries if not millennia, he refused to accept death as an Adamist. He
transferred his personality pattern into Valisk’s neural strata.

From this point onward company and habitat started to degenerate. Part of
the reason was the germination of the other independent habitats, all of
whom offered themselves as bases for blackhawk mating flights. The
Valisk/Magellanic Itg monopoly was broken. But the company’s industrial
decline, and the habitat’s parallel deterioration, was due principally to
the inheritance problem Rubra created.

When he died he was known to have fathered over a hundred and fifty
children, a hundred and twenty-two of whom were carefully conceived in
vitro and gestated in exowombs; all had modifications made to their
affinity gene, as well as general physiological improvements. Thirty of
the exowomb children were appointed to Valisk’s executive committee,
which ran both the habitat and Magellanic Itg, while the remainder, along
with the rapidly proliferating third generation, became blackhawk pilots.
The naturally conceived children were virtually disinherited from the
company, and many of them returned to the Edenist fold.

Even this nepotistic arrangement shouldn’t have been too much trouble.
There would inevitably be power struggles within such a large committee,
but strong characters would rise to the top, simple human dynamics
demanded it. None ever did.

The alteration Rubra had made to their affinity gene was a simple one;
they were bonded to the habitat and a single family of blackhawks alone.
He robbed them of the Edenist general affinity. The arrangement gave him
access to their minds virtually from the moment of conception, first
through the habitat personality, then after he died, as the habitat
personality.

He shaped them as they lay huddled in the metal and composite exowombs,
and later in their innocent childhood; a dark conscience nestled
maggot-fashion at the centre of their consciousness, examining their most
secret thoughts for deviations from the path he had chosen. It was a
dreadfully perverted version of the love bond which existed between
voidhawks and their captains. His descendants became little more than
anaemic caricatures of himself at his prime. He tried to instil the
qualities which had driven him, and wound up with wretched neurotic
inadequates. The more he attempted to tighten his discipline, the worse
their dependence upon him became. A slow change manifested in the habitat
personality’s psychology. In his growing frustration with his living
descendants he became resentful; of their lives, of their bodily
experiences, of the emotions they could feel, the humanness of glands and
hormones running riot. Rubra was jealous of the living.

Edenist visits to the habitat, already few and far between, stopped
altogether after 2480. They said the habitat personality had become
insane.



Dariat was an eighth-generation descendant, born a hundred and
seventy-five years after Rubra’s body died. Physically he was virtually
indistinguishable from his peer group; he shared the light
coffee-coloured skin and raven hair that signalled the star system’s
ethnic origin. A majority of Valisk’s population originated insystem,
though few of them were practising Hindus. Only his indigo eyes marked
him out as anything other than a straight Srinagar genotype.

He never knew of his calamitous inheritance until his teens, although
even from his infancy he knew in his heart he was different; he was
better, superior to all the other children in his day club. And when they
laughed at him, or teased him, or sent him to Coventry, he laid into them
with a fury that none of them could match. He didn’t know where it came
from himself, only that it lay within, like some slumbering lake-bottom
monster. At first he felt shame at the beatings he inflicted, blood for a
five-year-old is a shocking sight; but even as he ran home crying a
different aspect of the alien ego would appear and soothe him, calming
his pounding heart. There was nothing wrong, he was assured, no crime
committed, only rightness. They shouldn’t have said what they did,
catcalled and sneered. You were right to assert yourself, you are strong,
be proud of that.

After a while the feelings of guilt ebbed away. When he needed to hit
someone he did it without remorse or regret. His leadership of the day
club was undisputed, out of fear rather than respect.

He lived with his mother in a starscraper apartment; his father had left
her the year he was born. He knew his father was important, that he
helped to manage Magellanic Itg; but whenever he paid mother and son one
of his dutiful visits he was subject to moody silences or bursts of
frantic activity. Dariat didn’t like him, the grown-up was weird. I can
do without him, the boy thought, he’s weak. The conviction was as strong
as one of his didactic imprints. His father stopped visiting after he was
twelve years old.

Dariat concentrated on science and finance subjects when he began
receiving didactic courses at ten years old, although right at the back
of his mind was the faintest notion that the arts might just have been
equally appealing. But they were despicable moments of weakness, soon
swallowed by the pride he felt whenever he passed another course
assessment. He was headed for great things.

At fourteen the crux came. At fourteen he fell in love.

Valisk’s interior did not follow the usual bitek habitat convenience of a
tropical or sub-tropical environment. Rubra had decided on a scrub desert
extending out from the base of the northern endcap, then blending slowly
into hilly savannah plain of terrestrial and xenoc grasses before the
standard circumfluous salt-water reservoir at the base of the southern
endcap.

Dariat was fond of hiking round the broad grasslands with their subtle
blend of species and colours. The children’s day club which he used to
dominate had long since broken up. Adolescents were supposed to join
sports groups, or general interest clubs. He had trouble integrating, too
many peers remembered his temper and violence long after he had stopped
resorting to such crude methods. They shunned him, and he told himself he
didn’t care. Somebody told him. In dreams he would find himself walking
through the habitat talking to a white-haired old man. The old man was a
big comfort, the things he said, the encouragement he gave. And the
habitat was slightly different, richer, with trees and flowers and happy
crowds, families picnicking.

“It’s going to be like this once you’re in charge,” the old man told him
numerous times. “You’re the best there’s been for decades. Almost as good
as me. You’ll bring it all back to me, the power and the wealth.”

“This is the future?” Dariat asked. They were standing on a tall altar of
polyp-rock, looking down on a circular starscraper entrance. People were
rushing about with a vigour and purpose not usually found in Valisk.
Every one of them was wearing a Magellanic Itg uniform. When he lifted
his gaze it was as though the northern endcap was transparent; blackhawks
flocked around their docking rings, loaded with expensive goods and rare
artefacts from a hundred planets. Further out, so far away it was only a
hazy ginger blob, Magellanic Itg’s failed Von Neumann machine spun slowly
against the gas giant’s yellow-brown ring array.

“It could be the future,” the old man sighed regretfully. “If you will
only listen how.”

“I will,” Dariat said. “I’ll listen.”

The old man’s schemes seemed to coincide with the pressure of conviction
and certainty which was building in his own mind. Some days he seemed so
full of ideas and goals he thought his skull must surely burst apart,
whilst on other occasions the dream man’s long rambling speeches seemed
to have developed a tangible echo, lasting all day long.

That was why he enjoyed the long bouts of solitude provided by the
unadventurous interior. Walking and exploring obscure areas was the only
time the raging thoughts in his brain slowed and calmed.

Five days after his fourteenth birthday he saw Anastasia Rigel. She was
washing in a river that ran along the floor of a deep valley. Dariat
heard her singing before he saw her. The voice led him round some genuine
rock boulders onto a shelf of naked polyp which the water had scoured of
soil. He squatted down in the lee of the boulders, and watched her
kneeling at the side of the river.

The girl was tall and much much blacker than anyone he’d seen in Valisk
before. She appeared to be in her late teens (seventeen, he learned
later), with legs that seemed to be all bands of muscle, and long
jet-black hair that was arranged in ringlets and woven with red and
yellow beads. Her face was narrow and delicate with a petite nose. There
were dozens of slim silver and bronze bracelets on each arm.

She was only wearing a blue skirt of some thin cotton. A brown top of
some kind lay on the polyp beside her. Dariat caught some fleeting
glimpses of high pointed breasts as she rubbed water across her chest and
arms. It was even better than accessing bluesense AV fleks and tossing
off. For once he felt beautifully calm.

I’m going to have her, he thought, I really am. The certainty burned him.

She stood up, and pulled her brown top on. It was a sleeveless waistcoat
made from thin supple leather, laced up the front. “You can come out
now,” she said in a clear voice.

Just for a moment he felt wholly inferior. Then he trotted towards her
with a casualness that denied she had just caught him spying. “I was
trying not to alarm you,” he said.

She was twenty centimetres taller than him; she looked down and grinned
openly. “You couldn’t.”

“Did you hear me? I thought I was being quiet.”

“I could feel you.”

“Feel me?”

“Yes. You have a very anguished spirit. It cries out.”

“And you can hear that?”

“Lin Yi was a distant ancestress.”

“Oh.”

“You have not heard of her?”

“No, sorry.”

“She was a famous spiritualist. She predicted the Big One2 quake in
California back on Earth in 2058 and led her followers to safety in
Oregon. A perilous pilgrimage for those times.”

“I’d like to hear that story.”

“I will tell it if you like. But I don’t think you will listen. Your
spirit is closed against the realm of Chi-ri.”

“You judge people very fast. We don’t stand much of a chance, do we?”

“Do you know what the realm of Chi-ri is?”

“No.”

“Shall I tell you?”

“If you like.”

“Come then.”

She led him up the river, bracelets tinkling musically at every motion.
They followed the tight curve of the valley; after three hundred metres
the floor broadened out, and a Starbridge village was camped along the
side of the river.

Starbridge was the remnants of the cults and tribes and spiritualists who
had moved into Valisk during its formative years. They had slowly
amalgamated down the decades, bonding together against the scorn and
hostility of the other inhabitants. Now they were one big community,
united spiritually with an outré fusion of beliefs that was often
incomprehensible to any outsider. They embraced the primitive existence,
living as tribes of migrants, walking round and round the interior of the
habitat, tending their cattle, practising their handicraft, cultivating
their opium poppies, and waiting for their nirvana.

Dariat looked out on the collection of ramshackle tepees, stringy animals
with noses foraging the grass, children in rags running barefoot. He
experienced a contempt so strong it verged on physical sickness. He was
curious at that, he had no reason to hate the Starbridge freakos, he’d
never had anything to do with them before. Even as he thought that, the
loathing increased. Of course he did, slimy parasites, vermin on two legs.

Anastasia Rigel stroked his forehead in concern. “You suffer yet you are
strong,” she said. “You spend so much time in the realm of Anstid.”

She brought him into her tepee, a cone of heavy handwoven cloth. Wicker
baskets ringed the walls. The light was dim, and the air dusty. The
valley’s pinkish grass was matted, dry and dying underfoot. He saw her
sleeping roll bundled up against one basket, a bright orange blanket with
pillows that had some kind of green and white tree motif embroidered
across them, haloed by a ring of stars. He wondered if that was what he’d
do it on, where he’d finally become a real man.

They sat crosslegged on a threadbare rug and drank tea, which was like
coloured water, and didn’t taste of much. Jasmine, she told him.

“What do you think of us?” she asked.

“Us?”

“The Starbridge tribes.”

“Never really thought about you much,” Dariat said. He was getting itchy
sitting on the rug, and it was pretty obvious there weren’t going to be
any biscuits with the tea.

“You should. Starbridge is both our name and our dream, that which we
seek to build. A bridge between stars, between all peoples. We are the
final religion. They will all come to us eventually; the Christians and
Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists, even the Satanists and followers of
Wicca; every sect, every cult. Each and every one of them.”

“That’s a pretty bold claim.”

“Not really. Just inevitable. There were so many of us, you see, when
Rubra the Lost invited us here. So many beliefs, all different, yet
really all the same. Then he turned on us, and confined us, and isolated
us. He thought he would punish us, force us to conform to his
materialistic atheism. But faith and dignity is always stronger than
mortal oppression. We turned inwards for comfort, and found we had so
much that we shared. We became one.”

“Starbridge being the one?”

“Yes. We burned the old scriptures and prayer books on a bonfire so high
the flames reached right across the habitat. With them went all the
ancient prejudices and the myths. It left us pure, in silence and
darkness. Then we rebirthed ourselves, and renamed what we knew was real.
There is so much that old Earth’s religions have in common; so many
identical beliefs and tenets and wisdoms. But their followers are forced
apart by names, by priests who have grown decadent and greedy for
physical reward. Whole peoples, whole planets who denounce one another so
that a few evil men can wear robes of golden cloth.”

“That seems fairly logical,” Dariat said enthusiastically. “Good idea.”
He smiled. From where he was sitting he could see the whole side of her
left breast through the waistcoat’s lace-up front.

“I don’t think you have come to faith that quickly,” she said with a
trace of suspicion.

“I haven’t. Because you haven’t told me anything about it. But if you
were telling the truth about hearing my spirit, then you’ve got my full
attention. None of the other religions can offer tangible proof of God’s
existence.”

She shifted round on the rug, bracelets clinking softly. “Neither do we
offer proof. What we say is that life in this universe is only one
segment of the great journey a spirit undertakes through time. We believe
the journey will finish when a spirit reaches heaven, however you choose
to define that existence. But don’t ask how close this universe is to
heaven. That depends on the individual.”

“What happens when your spirit reaches heaven?”

“Transcendence.”

“What sort?”

“That is for God to proclaim.”

“God. Not a goddess, then?” he asked teasingly.

She grinned at him. “The word defines a concept, not an entity, not a
white man with a white beard, nor even an earth mother. Physical bodies
require gender. I don’t think the instigator and sovereign of the
multiverse is going to have physical and biological aspects, do you?”

“No.” He finished the tea, relieved the cup was empty. “So what are these
realms?”

“While the spirit is riding a body it also moves through the spiritual
realms of the Lords and Ladies who govern nature. There are six realms,
and five Lords and Ladies.”

“I thought you said there was only one heaven?”

“I did. The realms are not heaven, they are aspects of ourselves. The
Lords and Ladies are not God, but they are of a higher order than
ourselves. They affect events through the wisdoms and deceits they reveal
to us. But they have no influence on the physical reality of the cosmos.
They are not the instigators of miracles.”

“Like angels and demons?” he asked brightly.

“If you like. If that makes it easier to accept.”

“So they’re in charge of us?”

“You are in charge of yourself. You and you alone chose where your spirit
roams.”

“Then why the Lords and Ladies?”

“They grant gifts of knowledge and insight, they tempt. They test us.”

“Silly thing to do. Why don’t they leave us alone?”

“Without experience there can be no growth. Existence is evolution, both
on a spiritual and a personal level.”

“I see. So which is this Chi-ri I’m closed against?”

Anastasia Rigel climbed to her feet and went over to one of the wicker
baskets. She pulled out a small goatskin bag. If she was aware of his
hungry look following her every move she never showed it. “These
represent the Lords and Ladies,” she said as she sat back down. The bag’s
contents were tipped out. Six coloured pebble-sized crystals bounced on
the rug. They had all been carved, he saw; cubes with their faces marked
by small runes. She picked up the red one. “This is for Thoale, Lord of
destiny.” The blue crystal was held up, and she told him it was for
Chi-ri, Lady of hope. Green was for Anstid, Lord of hatred. Yellow for
Tarrug, Lord of mischief. Venus, Lady of love, was as clear as glass.

“You said there were six realms,” he said.

“The sixth is the emptiness.” She proffered a jet-black cube, devoid of
runes. “It has no Lord or Lady, it is where lost spirits flee.” She
crossed her arms in front of herself, fingers touching her shoulders,
bracelets falling to the crook of her elbows. She reminded Dariat of a
statue of Shiva he’d seen in one of Valisk’s four temples; Shiva as
Nataraja, king of dancers. “A terrible place,” Anastasia Rigel murmured
coolly.

“You don’t think I have any hope?” he asked, suddenly annoyed at this
primitive paganish nonsense again.

“You resist it.”

“No, I don’t. I’ve got lots of hope. I’m going to run this habitat one
day,” he added. She ought to be impressed by that.

Her head was shaken gently, hair partly obscuring her face. “That is
Anstid deceiving you, Dariat. You spend so much time in his realm, he has
an unholy grip upon your spirit.”

“How do you know?” he said scornfully.

“These are called Thoale stones. He is the Lord I am beholden to. He
shows me what is to unfold.” A slight, droll smile flickered over her
lips. “Sometimes Tarrug intervenes. He shows me things I should not see,
or events I cannot understand.”

“How do the stones work?”

“Each face is carved with the rune of a realm. I read the combinations,
how they fall, or in the case of the emptiness where it falls in relation
to the others. Would you like to know what your future contains?”

“Yeah. Go on.”

“Pick up each crystal, hold it in your hands for a moment, try to impress
it with your essence, then put it in the bag.”

He picked up the clear one, naturally. Love Lady. “How do I impress it?”

She just shrugged.

He squeezed the crystals one at a time, feeling increasingly stupid, and
dropped them in the goatskin bag. Anastasia Rigel shook the bag, then
tipped the crystals out.

“What does it say?” Dariat asked, a shade too eagerly for someone who was
supposed to be sceptical.

She stared at them a while, eyes flicking anxiously between the runes.
“Greatness,” she said eventually. “You will come to greatness.”

“Hey, yeah!”

Her hand came up, silencing him. “It will not last. You shine so bright,
Dariat, but for such a short time, and it is a dark flame which ignites
you.”

“Then what?” he asked, disgruntled.

“Pain, death.”

“Death?”

“Not yours. Many people, but not yours.”

Anastasia Rigel didn’t offer to sleep with him that time. Nor any of his
visits during the month which followed. They walked round the savannah
together, talking inanities, almost as brother and sister. She would tell
him about the Starbridge philosophy, the idiosyncrasies of the realms. He
listened, but became lost and impatient with a worldview which seemed to
have little internal logic. In return he told her of his father, the
resentment and the confusion of loss; mainly in the hope she’d feel sorry
for him. He took her down into a starscraper; she said she’d never been
in one before. She didn’t like it, the confining walls of the apartments,
although she was fascinated by the slowly spinning starfield outside.

The sexual tension died down from its initial high-voltage peak, though
it was never laid to rest. It became a sort of game, jibes and smirks,
played for points that neither knew how to win. Dariat enjoyed her
company a lot. Someone who treated him fairly, who took time to hear what
he said. Because she wanted to. He could never quite understand what she
got out of the arrangement. She read his future several times, though
none of the readings ever proved quite as dire as the first.

Dariat spent more and more time with her, almost divorcing himself from
the culture lived out in the starscrapers and industrial stations (except
for keeping up on his didactic courses). The portentous aspirations in
his mind lost their grip when he was in her presence.

He learnt how to milk a goat, not that he particularly wanted to. They
were smelly, bad-tempered creatures. She cooked him fish which she caught
in the streams, and showed him which plants had edible roots. He found
out about the tribe’s way of life, how they sold a lot of their
handicrafts to starship crews, chiefly the rugs and pottery, how they
shunned technology. “Except for nanonic medical packages,” she said
wryly. “Amazing how many women become technocrats around childbirth
time.” He went to some of their ceremonies, which seemed little more than
open air parties where everyone drank a strong distilled spirit, and sang
gospel hymns late into the night.

One evening, when she was wearing just a simple white cotton poncho, she
invited him into her tepee. He felt all the sexual heat return as the
outline of her body was revealed through the fabric by the light of the
tepee’s meagre oil lamp. There was some kind of clay pot in the centre
with a snakelike hose coming from the side. It was smoking docilely,
filling the air with a funny sweet and sour scent.

Anastasia took a puff on the pipe, and shivered as if she’d swallowed a
triple whisky. “Try some,” she said, her voice rich with challenge.

“What is it?”

“A wide gate into Tarrug’s realm. You’ll like it. Anstid won’t. He’ll
lose all control over you.”

He looked at the crimped end of the tube, still wet from her mouth. He
wanted to try it. He was frightened. Her eyes were very wide.

She tipped her head back, expelling two long plumes of smoke from her
nostrils. “Don’t you want to explore the realm of mischief with me?”

Dariat put the tube in his mouth and sucked. The next minute he was
coughing violently.

“Not so hard,” she said. Her voice sounded all furred. “Take it down
slow. Feel it float through your bones.”

He did as he was told.

“They’re hollow, you know, your bones.” Her smile was wide, shining like
the light-tube against her black face.

The world spun round. He could feel the habitat moving, stars whipping
round faster and faster, smearing across space. Smeared like cream. He
giggled. Anastasia Rigel gave him a long, knowing grin, and took another
drag on the tube.

Space was pink. Stars were black. Water smelt of cheese. “I love you,” he
told her. “I love you, I love you.” The tepee walls were palpitating in
and out. He was in the belly of some huge beast, just like Jonah.

<< Bloody hell. >>

“What did you say?”

<< Shit, I can’t filter . . . What’s green? What are you— >>

“My hands are green,” he explained patiently.

“Are they?” Anastasia Rigel asked. “That’s interesting.”

<< What has she given you? >>

“Tarrug?” Dariat asked. Anastasia had said that was who they were going
to visit. “Hello, Tarrug. I can hear him. He’s talking to me.”

Anastasia Rigel was at right angles to him. She pulled the poncho off
over her head, sitting crosslegged and naked on the rug. Now she was
totally upside-down. Her nipples were black eyes following him.

“That’s not Tarrug you hear,” she said. “That’s Anstid.”

“Anstid. Hi!”

<< What is it? What is in that bloody pipe? Wait, I’m reviewing the local
memory . . . Oh, fuck, it’s salfrond. I can’t hold onto your thoughts
when you’re tripping on that, you little prick. >>

“I don’t want you to.”

<< Yes, you do. Oh, believe me you do, boy. I’ve got the keys to every
dark door in this kingdom, and you’re the golden protégé. Now stop
smoking that mind-rotting crap. >>

Dariat very deliberately stuck the tube in his mouth, and inhaled until
his lungs were about to burst. His cheeks puffed out. Anastasia Rigel
leant forwards and took the tube from between his lips. “Enough.”

The tepee was spinning in the opposite direction to the habitat, and
outside it was raining shoes. Black leather shoes with scarlet buckles.

<< Shit! I’m going to kill that little black junkie bitch for this. It’s
high bloody time I shoved the Starbridge tribes out of the airlock.
Dariat, stand up, boy. Walk outside, get some fresh air. There’s some
medical nanonic packages in the village, the headman’s got some. They can
straighten out your blood chemistry. >>

Dariat’s giggles returned. “Piss off.”

<< GET UP! >>

“No.”

<< Weakling! Always bloody weaklings. You’re no better than your bastard
father. >>

Dariat squeezed his eyes shut. The colours were behind his eyelids too.
“I am not like him.”

<< Yes, you are. Weak, feeble, pathetic. All of you are. I should have
cloned myself when I had the chance. Parthenogenetics would have solved
all this bullshit. Two fucking centuries of weaklings I’ve had to endure.
Two centuries, fuck it. >>

“Go away!” Even stoned, he could tell this wasn’t part of the trip. This
was more. This was much much worse.

“Is he hurting you, baby?” Anastasia Rigel asked.

“Yes.”

<< I’ll fucking cripple you if you don’t get up. Smash your legs, shred
your hands to ribbons. Do you like the sound of that, boy? A life spent
grubbing round like a snail. Can’t walk, can’t feed yourself, can’t wipe
your arse. >>

“Stop it,” Dariat screamed.

<< Get up! >>

“Don’t listen to him, baby. Close your mind.”

<< Tell that bitch from me, she’s dead. >>

“Please, both of you, stop it. Leave me alone.”

<< Get up. >>

Dariat tried to rise. He got up to his knees, then fell into Anastasia’s
lap.

“You’re mine now,” she said gladly.

<< No, you’re not. You’re mine. Always mine. You can never leave. I won’t
allow you to. >>

Her hands ran over his clothes, opening seals. Kisses with the sharp cold
impact of hailstones fell on his face. “This is what you wanted, what you
always wanted,” she breathed in his ear. “Me.”

The nauseating colour stripes blitzing his sight swirled into blackness.
Her hot skin sliding up and down against him. Weight pressing against
every part of him. He was doing it! He was fucking! Tears poured out of
his eyes.

“That’s right, baby. Up inside me. Purge him. Purge him with me. Fly, fly
into Venus and Chi-ri. Leave him behind. Free yourself.”

<< Always mine. >>

Dariat woke feeling awful. He was lying on the stiff tousled grass of the
tepee without a stitch of clothing. The entrance flap was open, a slice
of bright morning light sliding through. A heavy dew mottled his legs.
Something had died and decomposed in his mouth, his tongue by the feel of
it. Anastasia Rigel was lying beside him. Naked and beautiful. Arms
tucked up against her chest.

Last night. I fucked her. I did it!

He tried to smother an ecstatic laugh.

<< Feeling better? >>

Dariat screamed. It was inside his head. Anstid. The realm demigod.

He jerked around, hugging himself, biting his lower lip so hard he drew
blood.

<< Don’t be an idiot. I’m not a bloody spirit bogeyman. There’s no such
thing. Religion is a psychological crutch for mental inadequates.
Spiritualism is for mental paraplegics. Think what that makes your girlie
friend. >>

“What are you?”

Anastasia Rigel woke up, blinking against the light. She ran her hand
through her wild hair and sat up, looking at him with a curious
expression.

<< I’m your ancestor. >>

“A lost spirit from the emptiness?” he asked, wide eyed with fright.

<< Give me one more word of mythology and I really will have your legs
broken. Now think logically. I’m your ancestor. Who can I be? >>

Information from his didactic history courses tumbled into his thoughts.
“Rubra?” The idea didn’t make him feel any better at all.

<< Well done. Now stop panicking, and stop shivering. I don’t normally
talk direct to someone your age, I like to let you have sixteen years to
yourself. But I’m not going to allow you to become a dopehead. Do not
ever smoke that stuff again. Understand? >>

“Yes, sir.”

<< Stop vocalizing. Concentrate your thoughts. >>

“What are you saying, baby?” Anastasia Rigel asked. “Are you still
tripping?”

“No. It’s Rubra, he’s . . . We’re talking.”

She pulled the white poncho round herself, giving him an alarmed look.

<< I’ve got plans for you, boy, >>Rubra said. << Big plans. You’re
destined for Magellanic Itg’s executive committee. >>

<< I am? >>

<< Yes. If you play your cards right. If you do as you’re told. >>

<< I will. >>

<< Good. Now I’ve been lenient letting you sow your oats with dinky
little Anastasia. I can understand that, she’s got a nice body, good
tits, pretty face. I had a sex drive myself, once. But you’ve had your
fun now; so put your clothes on and say goodbye. We’ll find someone a bit
more suitable. >>

<< I can’t leave her. Not after . . . last night. >>

<< Take a real good look at yourself, boy. Rutting with a bubblehead
primitive on a filthy mat in a tepee. Some friend, she filled your brain
with two kinds of shit. That’s not how Valisk’s future ruler is going to
behave. Is it? >>

<< No, sir. >>

<< Good boy. >>

He started to pick up his clothes.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Home.”

“He told you to.”

“I . . . What is there here?”

She gave him a forlorn look over the white poncho which was still clasped
to her body. “Me. Your friend. Your lover.”

He shook his head.

“I’m human. That’s more than he is.”

<< Come on. Leave. >>

Dariat pulled on his shoes. He paused by the entrance flap.

“It’s Anstid,” she said in a mournful tone. “That’s who you really talk
to.”

<< Pseudobabble. Ignore her. >>

Dariat walked slowly out of the village. Some of the elders gave him
strange looks as he passed their steaming cooking pits. They couldn’t
understand. Why would anyone leave Anastasia’s bed?

<< That’s their trouble, boy. They’re too backward. The real world is
beyond them. I really must get round to cleaning them out one day. >>



Now Dariat knew what he was, what he was destined for, the didactic
courses took on a whole new level of importance. He listened to Rubra’s
advice on the specializations he needed, the grades he had to achieve. He
became obedient, and a shade resentful at his own compliance. But what
else was there? Starbridge?

In return for acquiescence Rubra taught him how to use the affinity bond
with the habitat. How to access the sensitive cells to see what was going
on, how he could call on vast amounts of processing power, the tremendous
amount of stored data that was available.

One of the first things Rubra did was to guide him through a list of
possible replacement girls, eager to bury the lingering traces of
yearning for Anastasia Rigel. Dariat felt like a voyeuristic ghost,
watching the prospective candidates through the sensitive cells; seeing
them at home, talking to their friends. Some of them he watched having
sex with their boyfriends, two with other girls, which was exciting.
Rubra didn’t seem to object to these prolonged observations. At least it
meant he didn’t have to pay for bluesense fleks any more.

One girl he chanced on was nice, Chilone, nine months older than him. As
black as Anastasia (which was what first caught his attention), but with
dark auburn hair. Shy and pretty, who talked a lot about sex and boys
with her girl friends.

Still he hesitated from meeting her, even though he knew her daily
routine, knew her interests, what to say, which day clubs she belonged
to. He could contrive a dozen encounters.

<< Get on with it, >>Rubra told him after a week of cautious scrutiny. <<
Screw her brains out. You don’t think Anastasia’s still pining over you,
do you? >>

<< What? >>

<< Try using the sensitive cells around the tepee. >>

That was something he’d never done, not using the habitat’s perception
faculty to spy on her. But the tone Rubra used had a hint of cruel
amusement in it.

Anastasia had a lover, Mersin Columba, another Starbridge. A man in his
forties; overweight, balding, with white pallid skin. They looked
horrible locked together. Anastasia flinched silently as she lay
underneath his pumping body.

The old white-hot infantile fury rose into Dariat’s mind. He wanted to
save her from the repellent humiliation; his beautiful girl who had loved
him.

<< Take my advice. Go find young Chilone. >>

Like juvenile Edenists, it hadn’t taken Dariat long to discover how to
fox the habitat’s sensitive cells. Unless Rubra’s principal personality
pattern was concentrating on him in particular, the autonomous monitoring
of the subroutines could be circumvented.

Dariat used the sensitive cells to follow Mersin Columba out of the
tepee. The podgy oaf had a smug smile on his face as he made his way down
to the stream. Anastasia Rigel was curled up on her rug, staring at
nothing.

Mersin Columba made his way down the valley before stripping off his
shirt and trousers. He splashed into a wide pool, and began to wash off
the smell and stains of sex.

The first blow from Dariat’s wooden cudgel caught him on the side of his
head, tearing his ear. He grunted and dropped to his knees. The second
blow smashed across the crown of his skull.

<< Stop it! >>

Dariat aimed another blow; laughing at the surprise on the man’s face.
Nobody does that to my girl. Nobody does that to me! A cascade of blows
rained down on Mersin Columba’s unprotected head. Rubra’s furious demands
were reduced to a wasp’s buzz at the back of Dariat’s raging mind. He was
vengeance. He was omnipotent, more than any realm Lord. He struck and
struck, and it felt good.

The water pushed at Mersin Columba’s inert body. Long ribbons of blood
wept from the battered head, turned to tattered curlicues by the current.
Dariat stood over him. The bloody length of wood dropped from his fingers.

<< I didn’t realize what I’d created with you, >>Rubra said. The silent
voice lacked its usual conviction.

Dariat shivered suddenly. His heart was pumping hard. << Anastasia is
mine. Well, she certainly doesn’t belong to poor old Mersin Columba any
more, and that’s a fact. >>

The body had drifted five metres downstream. Dariat thought it looked
repugnant, sickly white, bloated.

<< Now what? >>he asked sullenly.

<< I’d better get some housechimps to tidy up. And you’d better make
tracks. >>

<< Is that it? >>

<< I’m not going to punish you for killing a Starbridge. But we’re going
to have to work on that temper of yours. It can be useful, but only if
it’s applied properly. >>

<< For the company. >>

<< Yes. And don’t you forget it. Don’t worry, you’ll improve with age. >>

Dariat turned and walked away from the river. He hiked up out of the
valley and spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the savannah.

His thoughts were glacial. He had killed a man, but there was no remorse,
no sense of guilt. No sense of satisfaction, either. He felt nothing, as
if the whole incident was an act he’d seen on an AV recording.

When the light-tube began to dim into brassy twilight he turned and made
his way towards the Starbridge village.

<< Where do you think you’re going? >>Rubra asked.

<< She’s mine. I love her. I’m going to have her. Tonight, always. >>

<< No. Only I am for always. >>

<< You can’t stop me. I don’t care about the company. Keep it. I never
wanted it. I want Anastasia. >>

<< Don’t be a fool. >>

Dariat detected something then, a strand of emotion wound up with the
mental voice: anxiety. Rubra was worried.

<< What’s happened? >>

<< Nothing’s happened. Go home. It’s been a hellish day. >>

<< No. >>He tried to use the sensitive cells to show him the village.
Nothing, Rubra was blocking his affinity.

<< Go home. >>

Dariat started running.

<< Don’t, boy! >>

It was over a kilometre back to the valley. The pink and yellow grass
came up to his waist in places, blades whipping his legs. He reached the
brow of the slope and looked down in dismay. The village was packing up,
moving on. Half of the tepees were already down, folded into bundles and
put on the carts. Animals were being rounded up. All the fire pits were
out. It was a crazy time to be moving. Night was almost here. His sense
of calamity redoubled.

Dariat sprinted down the steep slope, falling twice, grazing his knees
and shins. He didn’t care. Faces turned to watch as he dashed towards
Anastasia’s tepee.

He was shouting her name as he shoved the entrance flap aside.

The rope had been tied to the apex of the tepee. She must have used a
stack of her wicker baskets to stand on. They were scattered all over the
floor.

Her head was tilted to one side, the rope pressing into her left cheek,
just behind the ear. She swayed slightly from side to side, the tepee’s
poles letting out quiet creaks.

Dariat stared at her for some immeasurable time. He didn’t understand
why. Not any of it.

<< Come on, boy. Come on home. >>

<< No. You did this. You made me leave her. She was mine. This would
never have happened if you’d stayed out of my life. >>Tears were pouring
down his cheeks.

<< I am your life. >>

<< You’re not. Not not not. >>He closed out the voice. Refusing to hear
the pleas and threats.

One of the wicker baskets had a piece of paper lying on top. It was
weighted down by Anastasia’s goatskin bag. Dariat picked it up, and read
the message she’d written.



Dariat, I know it was you. I know you thought you did it for me. You
didn’t. You did it because it’s what Anstid wanted, he will never allow
you an alliance with Thoale. I thought I could help you. But I see I
can’t; I’m not strong enough to defy a realm Lord. I’m sorry.

I can’t see any purpose in staying in this universe any more. I’m going
to free my spirit and continue my flight towards God. The Thoale stones
are my gift to you; use them please. You have so many battles to fight.
Seeing the future may help you win some.

I want you to know I loved you for all the time we were together.

Anastasia Rigel



He loosened the thong at the top of the bag and spilled the six crystals
onto the dusty rug. The five which were carved with runes landed with the
blank face uppermost. He slowly picked them up, and threw them again.
They came up blank. The empty realm, where lost spirits go.

Dariat fled the Starbridge village. He never went back. He stopped taking
didactic courses, refused to acknowledge Rubra’s affinity bond, argued a
lot with his mother, and moved into a starscraper apartment of his own at
fifteen.

There was nothing Rubra could do. His most promising protégé for decades
was lost to him. The affinity window into Dariat’s mind remained closed;
it was the most secure block the habitat personality pattern had ever
known, remaining in place even while the boy slept. After a month of
steady pressure Rubra gave up, even Dariat’s subconscious was sealed
against subliminal suggestions. The block was more than conscious
determination, it was a profound psychological inhibition. Probably
trauma based.

Rubra cursed yet another failure descendant, and switched his priority to
a new fledgeling. Monitoring of Dariat was assigned to an autonomic
sub-routine. Occasional checks by the personality’s principal
consciousness revealed a total drop-out, a part-time drunk, part-time
hustler picking up beer money by knowing people and where to find them,
getting involved with deals which were dubious even for Valisk. Dariat
never got a regular job, living off the starscraper food pap, accessing
MF albums, sometimes for days on end. He never approached a girl again.

It was a stand-off which lasted for thirty years. Rubra had even stopped
his intermittent checks on the wrecked man. Then the Yaku arrived at
Valisk.



The Yaku’s emergence above Opuntia six days after it left Lalonde never
raised a query. None of Graeme Nicholson’s fleks had yet reached their
destination when the cargo starship asked for and was granted docking
permission. As far as both the habitat personality and the Avon Embassy’s
small Intelligence team (the only Confederation observers Rubra would
allow inside) were concerned it was just another cargo starship visiting
a spaceport which handled nearly thirty thousand similar visits a year.

Yaku had emerged a little further away from Valisk than was normal, and
its flight vector required a more than average number of corrections—the
fusion drive was fluctuating in an erratic fashion. But then a lot of the
Adamist starships using Valisk operated on the borderline of CAB
spaceworthiness requirements.

It docked at a resupply bay on the edge of the three-kilometre-wide disk
which was the habitat’s non-rotational spaceport. The captain requested a
quantity of He3 and deuterium, as well as oxygen, water, and some food.
Spaceport service companies were contracted within ten minutes of its
arrival.

Three people disembarked. Their passport fleks named them as Marie
Skibbow, Alicia Cochrane, and Manza Balyuzi; the last two were members of
Yaku’s crew. All three cleared Valisk’s token immigration and customs
carrying small bags with a single change of clothing.

The Yaku undocked four hours later, its cryogenic tanks full, and flew
down towards Opuntia. Whatever its jump coordinate was, the gas giant was
between it and Valisk when it activated its energy patterning nodes. No
record of its intended destination existed.



Dariat was sitting up at the bar in the Tabitha Oasis when the girl
caught his eye. Thirty years of little exercise, too much cheap beer, and
a diet of starscraper gland synthesized pastes had brought about a
detrimental effect on his once slim physique. He was fat verging on
obese, his skin was flaky, his hair was dulled by a week’s accumulation
of oil. Appearance wasn’t something he paid a lot of attention to. A
togalike robe covered a multitude of laxities.

That girl, though: teenaged, long limbed, large breasted, exquisite face,
bronzed, strong. Wearing a tight white T-shirt and short black skirt. He
wasn’t alone in watching her. The Tabitha Oasis attracted a tough crew.
Girl like that was a walking gang-bang invitation. It had happened
before. But she hadn’t got a care in the world, there was an élan to her
which was mesmerizing. All the more surprising, then, was her table
companion.

Anders Bospoort: physically her counterpart; late twenties, slab muscles,
the best swarthy face money could buy. But he didn’t have her youthful
exuberance, his mouth and eyes smiled (for that money they ought to) but
there was no emotion powering the expression. Anders Bospoort was in
almost equal proportions gigolo, pimp, pusher, and blue-sense star.

Strange she couldn’t see that. But he could pile on the charm when
necessary, and the expensive wine bottle sitting on the table between
them was nearly empty.

Dariat beckoned the barkeeper over. “What’s her name?”

“Marie. Arrived on a ship this afternoon.”

That explained a lot. Nobody had warned her. Now the wolves of the
Tabitha Oasis were circling the camp-fire, enjoying her elaborate
seduction. Later they would be able to share the corruption of youth,
sensevising Anders Bospoort’s boosted penis sliding up between her legs.
Have her surprise and pleading in their ears. Feel the ripe body molested
by powerful skilled hands.

Maybe Anders wasn’t so stupid, Dariat thought, bringing her here was a
good advert. He could ask an easy ten per cent over the odds for her flek.

The barkeeper shook his head sadly. He was three times Dariat’s age, and
he’d spent his every year in Valisk. He’d seen it all, so he claimed,
every human foible. “Pity, nice girl like that. Someone should tell her.”

“Yeah. Anywhere else, and someone might.” Dariat looked at her again.
Surely a girl with her beauty couldn’t be that naïve about men?



Anders Bospoort extended a gracious arm as they rose from the table.
Marie smiled and accepted it. He thought she looked glad at the
opportunity to stay close. The gazes she drew from the men of the Tabitha
Oasis weren’t exactly coy. His size and measured presence was a
reassurance. She was safe with him.

They walked across the vestibule outside the bar, and Anders datavised
the starscraper’s mechanical systems control processor for a lift.

“Thank you for taking me there,” Marie said.

He saw the excitement in her eyes at the little taste of the illicit. “I
don’t always go there. It can get a little rough. Half of the regulars
have Confederation warrants hanging over them. If the navy ever comes
visiting Valisk the population on penal planets would just about double
overnight.”

The lift arrived. He gestured her through the open doors. Halfway there,
and it was going so smoothly. He’d been a perfect gentleman from the
moment they met outside the Apartment Allocation Office (always the best
place to pick up clean meat), every word clicking flawlessly into place.
And she’d been drawn closer and closer, hypnotized by the old Bospoort
magic.

She glanced uncertainly at the floor as the doors closed, as if she’d
only just realized how far from her home and family she was. All alone
with her only friend in the whole star system. No going back for her now.

He felt a tightening in his stomach as the anticipation heightened. This
would all go on the flek; the prelude, the slow-burning conquest. People
appreciated the build in tension. And he was an artiste supreme.

The doors opened to the eighty-third floor.

“It’s a walk down two floors,” Anders told her apologetically. “The lifts
don’t work below here. And the maintenance crews won’t come down to fix
them. Sorry.”

The vestibule hadn’t been cleaned for a long time and rubbish was
accumulating in the corners. There was graffiti on the walls, a smell of
urine in the air. Marie looked round nervously, and stayed close to
Anders’ side.

He guided her to the stairwell. The light was dim, a strip of
electrophorescent cells on the wall whose output had faded to an insipid
yellow. Dozens of big pale moths whirred incessantly against it. Water
leaked down the walls from cracks in the polyp. A cream-coloured moss
grew along the edge of every step.

“It’s very kind of you to let me stay with you,” Marie ventured.

“Just until you get your own apartment sorted out. There are hundreds of
unused ones. It’s one of life’s greater mysteries why it always takes so
long for the Allocation Office to assign one.”

Nobody else was using the stairs. Anders very rarely got to meet any of
his neighbours. The bottom of the starscraper was perfect for him. No
quick access, everyone stayed behind closed doors to conduct their chosen
business in life, and no questions were ever asked. The cops Magellanic
Itg contracted to maintain a kind of order in the rest of Valisk didn’t
come down here.

They left the stairwell on his floor, and he datavised a code at his
apartment door. Nothing happened. He flashed her a strained smile, and
datavised the code again. This time it opened, juddering once or twice as
it slid along its rails. Marie went in first. Anders deliberately kept
the inside lights low, and codelocked the door behind him—at least the
processor acknowledged that. He put his arm round her shoulder and
steered her into the biggest of the three bedrooms. That door was
codelocked too.

Marie walked into the middle of the room, eyes straying to the double
bed. There were long velvet straps fixed to each corner.

“Take your clothes off,” Anders told her. An uncompromising sternness
appeared in his voice. He datavised an order to the overhead light panel,
but it remained at its lowest level. Shit! And she was obediently
stripping off. Nothing for it, he’d have to stay with the deep shadows
and hope everyone found it erotic.

“Now take mine off,” he ordered. “Slowly.”

He could feel her hands trembling as she pushed the shirt off his broad
shoulders, which made a nice touch. Nervous ones were always more
responsive.

His eyes ran over her with expert tracking as she walked ahead of him to
the bed, capturing every square centimetre of flesh on display. When she
was lying on the water mattress his hands traced the same route. Then his
boosted cock was swelling to its full length, and he focused on her face
to make sure he captured her fear. That was always a big turn on for the
punters.

Marie was smiling.

The lights sprang up to full intensity.

Anders twisted round in confusion. “Hey—”

At first he thought someone had crept up and snapped handcuffs round his
wrists, but when he looked he saw it was Marie’s elegant feminine hands
gripping him.

“Let go.” The pain as she squeezed harder was frightening. “Bitch! Let
go. Christ—”

She laughed.

He looked back down at her, and gasped. She was sprouting hair right
across her chest and stomach, thick black bristles that scratched and
pricked his skin where he lay on top of her. Individual strands began to
harden. It was like lying on a hedgehog hide. The long tips were
puncturing his own skin, needling in through the subcutaneous layers of
fat.

“Fuck me, then,” she said.

He tried to struggle, but all that did was push more needle spines into
his abdomen. Marie let go of one wrist. He hit her then, on the side of
her ribs, and her flesh gave way below his fist. When he brought his hand
away it was covered in yellow and red slime. The spines piercing him
turned to worms, slick and greasy, licking round inside the swath of
puncture holes down his torso. Blood trickled out.

Anders let out an insane howl. She was rotting below him, skin melting
away into a putrescent crimson film of mucus. It was acting like glue,
sticking him to her. The stench was vile, stinging his eyes. He puked,
the wine from the Tabitha Oasis splattering down on her deliquescing face.

“Kiss me.”

He bucked and floundered against her, weeping helplessly, praying to a
God he hadn’t addressed in over a decade. The worms were wriggling
between his abdominal muscles, twining round tendon fibres. Blood and pus
squelched and intermingled, forming a sticky glue which wedded them belly
to belly like Siamese twins.

“Kiss me, Anders.”

Her free hand clamped onto the back of his skull. It felt like there was
nothing left on it but bone. Sludge dripped into his coiffured hair.

“No!” he whimpered.

Her lips had dribbled away like candle wax, leaving a wide gash in the
bubbling corruption that was her face. The teeth were a permanent grin.
His head was being forced down towards her. He saw her teeth parting,
then they were rammed against his own face.

The kiss. And hot, black, gritty liquid surged up out of her throat.
Anders couldn’t scream any more. It was in his own mouth, kneading its
way down his air passage like a fat, eager serpent.

A voice from nowhere said: “We can stop it.”

The liquid detonated into his lungs. He could feel it, hot and rancid
inside his chest, swelling out to invade every delicate cavity. His
ribcage heaved at the alien pressure from within. He had stopped
struggling.

“She’ll kill you unless you let us help. She’s drowning you.”

He wanted to breathe. He wanted air. He would do anything to breathe.
Anything.

“Then let us in.”

He did.



Using the sensitive cells in the polyp above Anders Bospoort’s bed,
Dariat watched as the injuries and manifestations reversed themselves.
Marie’s glutinous skin hardened, bristles retracting. The wounds down
Anders Bospoort’s abdomen closed up. They became what they were before:
satyr and seraph.

Anders began to stroke himself, hands tracing lines of muscle across his
chest. He looked down on his body with a childlike expression of awe
which swiftly became a broad grin. “I’m magnificent,” he whispered.
“Utterly magnificent.” The accent was different to Anders’ usual. Dariat
couldn’t quite place it.

“Yes, you look pretty good,” she replied indifferently. She sat up. The
sheets were stained a faint pink below her back.

“Let me have you.”

Her mouth wrinkled up with indecision.

“Please. You know I need to. Hell, it’s been seven hundred years. Show a
little compassion here.”

“All right then.” She lay back down. Anders started to lick her body,
reminding Dariat of a feeding dog. They fucked for twenty minutes, Anders
rutting with a fervour he’d never shown in any of his fleks. Electric
lights and household equipment went berserk as they thrashed about.
Dariat quickly checked the neighbouring apartments; a stimulant-program
writer was yelling in frustration as his processors crashed at tremendous
speed; a clone merchant’s vats seethed and boiled as regulators fried the
fragile cell clusters which they were wired up to. Doors all around the
vestibule opened and shut like guillotines. He had to launch a flurry of
subversive affinity orders into the floor’s neural cells to prevent the
local personality subroutines from alerting Rubra’s principal
consciousness.

When he arrived, puffing heavily, outside the apartment, Marie and Anders
Bospoort were getting dressed. He used a black-market customized
processor block to break the door’s codelock, and walked straight in.

Marie and Anders looked up in alarm. They ran out of the bedroom. The
processor block died in Dariat’s hand and the apartment was plunged into
pitch darkness.

“The dark doesn’t bother me,” he said loudly. The sensitive cells showed
him the two of them were walking towards him menacingly.

“Nothing will bother you from now on,” Marie replied.

The belt of his toga robe began to tighten round his belly. “Wrong.
Firstly you won’t be able to tyrannize me like you did poor old Anders,
I’m not that weak. Secondly, if I die Rubra will see exactly what’s been
going on, and what you are. He might be crazy, but he’ll fight like a
lion to defend his precious habitat and corporation. Once he knows you
exist you’ve lost ninety per cent of your advantage. You’ll never take
over Valisk without my help.”

The lights came back on. His belt loosened. Marie and Anders regarded him
with expressionless faces.

“It’s only thanks to me he doesn’t know already. You obviously don’t
understand much about bitek. I can help there as well.”

“Perhaps we don’t care if he knows,” Anders said.

“OK, fine. You want me to lift the limiter orders I put on this floor’s
sensitive cells?”

“What do you want?” Marie asked.

“Revenge. I’ve waited thirty years for you. It’s been so long, so very
tiring; I nearly broke on more than one occasion. But I knew you would
come in the end.”

“You expected me?” she asked derisively.

“What you are, yes.”

“And what am I?”

“The dead.”


Chapter 04
==========


Gemal emerged from its jump six hundred and fifty thousand kilometres
above Mirchusko, where the gas giant’s gravity anchored it in a slightly
elliptical orbit; Tranquillity, in its lower circular orbit, was trailing
by two hundred thousand kilometres. Oliver Llewelyn, the
colonist-carrier’s captain, identified his starship to the habitat
personality, and requested approach and docking permission.

“Do you require assistance?” Tranquillity asked.

“No, we’re fully functional.”

“I don’t get many colonist-carrier vessels visiting. I thought you might
have been making an emergency maintenance call.”

“No. This flight is business.”

“Does your entire passenger complement wish to apply for residency?”

“Quite the opposite. The zero-tau pods are all empty. We’ve come to hire
some military specialists who live here.”

“I see. Docking and approach request granted. Please datavise your
projected vector to spaceport flight control.”

Terrance Smith datavised a sensor access request into the starship’s
flight computer, and watched the massive bitek habitat growing larger as
they accelerated towards rendezvous in a complex manoeuvre at two-thirds
of a gee. He opened a channel to the habitat’s communication net, and
asked for a list of starships currently docked. Names and classifications
flowed through his mind. A collation program sorted through them,
indicating possibles and probables.

“I didn’t realize this was such a large port,” he said to Oliver Llewelyn.

“It has to be,” the captain replied. “There are at least five major
family-owned civil carrier fleets based here purely because of the tax
situation, and most of the other line companies have offices in the
habitat. Then you’ve got to consider the residents. They import one hell
of a lot; everything you need to live the good life, from food to clothes
to pretentious art. You don’t think they’ll eat the synthesized pulp the
starscrapers grow, do you?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“A lot of ships pick up contracts for them, bringing stuff in from all
over the Confederation. And of course Tranquillity is the Confederation’s
principal base for blackhawk mating flights now Valisk is falling from
favour with the captains. The eggs gestate down in the big inner ring. It
all adds together. The Lords of Ruin have built it into one of the most
important commercial centres in this sector.”

Terrance looked across the bridge. Seven acceleration couches were
arranged in a petal pattern on its composite decking, and only one of
them was empty. The compartment had an industrial look, with cables and
ducts fixed to the walls rather than being tucked neatly out of sight
behind composite panels. But then that was a uniform characteristic
throughout the Gemal and her sister ships which shuttled between Earth
and stage one colony worlds. They were bulk carriers whose cargo happened
to be people, and the line companies didn’t waste money on cosmetic
finishes.

Captain Llewelyn was lying inertly on his acceleration couch, surrounded
by a horseshoe of bulky consoles; a well-built sixty-eight-year-old
oriental with skin as smooth as any adolescent. His eyes were shut as he
handled the datavise from the flight computer.

“Have you been here before?” Terrance asked.

“I stopped over two days, that was thirty-five years ago when I was a
junior officer in a different company. Don’t suppose it’s changed much.
Plutocrats put a lot of stock in stability.”

“I’d like you to talk to the other captains for me, the independent
trader starships we want to hire. I haven’t exactly done this kind of
work before.”

Oliver Llewelyn snorted softly. “You let people know what kind of flight
you’re putting together, then start flashing that overloaded Jovian Bank
credit disk around, and you’ll be beating them off with a stick.”

“What about the mercenaries and general troops?”

“The captains will put you in touch. Hell, the combat boosted will pay
the captains for an introduction. You want my advice, delegate. Find
yourself ten or twenty officer types with some solid experience, and let
them recruit troops for you. Don’t try and do it all yourself. We haven’t
got time, for a start. Rexrew gave us a pretty tight schedule.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re paying, remember?”

“Yeah.” It had taken twenty thousand fuseodollars just to get Oliver
Llewelyn to agree to take the Gemal to Tranquillity. “Not part of my LDC
contract,” the captain had said stubbornly. Money was easier than
datavising legal requirements at him. Terrance suspected it was going to
cost a lot more to take the Gemal back to Lalonde. “You sound like you
know what you’re talking about,” he said, mildly intrigued.

“I’ve flown a lot of different missions in my time,” the old captain said
indifferently.

“So where do I meet these starship captains?”

Oliver Llewelyn accessed a thirty-five-year-old file in his neural
nanonics. “We’ll start at Harkey’s Bar.”



Fifteen hours later Terrance Smith had to admit that Oliver Llewelyn had
been perfectly correct. He didn’t need to make any effort, the people he
wanted came to him. Like iron to a magnet, he thought, or flies to shit.
He was sitting in a wall booth, feeling like an old-style tsar holding
court, receiving petitions from eager subjects. Harkey’s Bar was full
with starship crews hunched around tables, or concentrating in small
knots at the bar. There was also a scattering of the combat boosted in
the room. He had never seen them before, not in the flesh—if that’s what
it could be called. Several of them resembled cosmoniks, with a tough
silicon outer skin, and dual—even triple—lower arms, sockets customized
for weapons. But the majority had a sleeker appearance than the
cosmoniks, whose technology they pilfered; they’d been sculpted for
agility rather than blunt EVA endurance, although Terrance could see one
combat boosted who was almost globular, his (her?) head a neckless dome,
with a wrap-around retinal strip, grainy auburn below its clear lens. The
lid rippled constantly, a blink moving round and round. There were four
stumpy legs, and four arms, arranged symmetrically. The arms were the
most human part of the modified body, since only two of them ended in
burnished metal sockets. He tried not to stare at the assembled
grotesqueries, not to show his inner nerves.

The bar’s atmosphere was subdued, heavy with anticipation. It was long
past the time the band were usually jamming on stage, but tonight they
were drinking back in the kitchen, resigned to a blown gig.

“Captain André Duchamp,” Oliver Llewelyn said. “Owner of the Villeneuve’s
Revenge.”

Terrance shook hands with the smiling round-faced captain. There was some
contradiction in his mind that such a jovial-seeming man should want to
join a military mission. “I need starships capable of landing a scout
team on a terracompatible planet, then backing them up with tactical
ground strikes,” he said.

André put his wineglass down squarely on the table. “The Villeneuve’s
Revenge has four X-ray lasers and two electron-beam weapons. Planetary
bombardment from low orbit will not be a problem.”

“There could also be some anti-ship manoeuvres required from you. Some
interdiction duties.”

“Again, monsieur, this is not a problem from my personal position; we do
have combat-wasp launch-cradles. However, you would have to provide the
wasps themselves. And I would require some reassurance that we will not
be involved in any controversial action in a system where Confederation
Navy ships are present. As a commercial vessel I have no licence to carry
such items.”

“You would be operating under government licence, which allows you to
carry any weapons system quite legitimately. This entire mission is
completely legal.”

“So?” André Duchamp gave him a quizzical glance. “This is excellent news.
A legal combat mission is one I will welcome. As I say, I have no
objection to conducting anti-ship engagements. May I ask which government
you represent?”

“Lalonde.”

André Duchamp had a long blink while his neural nanonics almanac file
reviewed the star system. “A stage one colony world. Interesting.”

“I am negotiating with several astroengineering companies with stations
here at Tranquillity for combat wasps,” Terrance Smith said. “There will
also be several nuclear-armed atmospheric-entry warheads to be taken on
the mission. Would you be prepared to carry and deploy them?”

“Oui.”

“In that case, I believe we can do business, Captain Duchamp.”

“You have yet to mention money.”

“I am authorized to issue a five hundred thousand fuseodollar fee for
every ship which registers for Lalonde naval duty, payable on arrival at
our destination. Pay for an individual starship is three hundred thousand
fuseodollars per month, with a minimum of two months’ duty guaranteed.
There will be bonuses for enemy starships and spaceplanes destroyed, and
a completion bonus of three hundred thousand fuseodollars. We will not,
however, be providing insurance cover.”

André Duchamp took a leisurely sip of wine. “I have one further question.”

“Yes?”

“Does this enemy use antimatter?”

“No.”

“Very well. I would haggle the somewhat depressing price . . .” He cast a
glance around the crowded room, crews not quite watching to see what the
outcome would be. “But I feel I am not in a strong bargaining position.
Today it is a buyer’s market.”

From his table on the other side of the bar Joshua watched André Duchamp
rise from Terrance Smith’s booth. The two of them shook hands again, then
André went back to the table where his crew were waiting. They all went
into a tight huddle. Wolfgang Kuebler, captain of the Maranta, was shown
to Smith’s booth by Oliver Llewelyn.

“That looks like five ships signed up,” Joshua said to his crew.

“Big operation,” Dahybi Yadev said. He drained his beer glass and sat it
down on the table. “Starships, combat-boosted mercs, enhanced troops;
that’s a long, expensive shopping list. Big money involved.”

“Lalonde can’t be paying, then,” Melvyn Ducharme said. “It doesn’t have
any money.”

“Yes, it does,” Ashly Hanson said quietly. “A colony world is a massive
investment, and a very solid one if you get in early enough. A healthy
percentage of my zero-tau maintenance trust-fund portfolio is made up
from development company shares, purely for the long-term stability they
offer. I’ve never, ever heard of a colony failing once the go-ahead has
been given. The money may not be floating around the actual colonists
themselves, but the amount of financial resources required simply to
initiate such a venture runs close to a trillion fuseodollars. And
Lalonde has been running for over a quarter of a century, they’d even
started an asteroid industrial settlement project. Remember? The
development company has the money; more than enough to hire fifteen
independent traders and a few thousand mercenary troops. I doubt it would
even cause a ripple in their accountancy program.”

“What for, though?” Sarha Mitcham asked. “What couldn’t the sheriffs
handle by themselves?”

“The Ivet riots,” Joshua said. Even he couldn’t manage any conviction. He
shrugged under the sceptical looks the others gave him. “Well, there was
nothing else while we were there. Marie Skibbow was worried about the
scale of the civil disturbance. Nobody quite knew what was happening
upriver. And the number of troops this Smith character is trying to
recruit implies some kind of ground action is required.”

“Hard to believe,” Dahybi Yadev muttered. “But the actual mission
objective won’t be known until after they’ve jumped away from
Tranquillity. Simple security.”

“All right,” Joshua said. “We all know the score. With Parris Vasilkovsky
backing us on the mayope venture we have a chance to make macro money.
And at the same time, with the money we made from the Norfolk run we
certainly don’t need to hire on with any mercenary fleet.” He looked at
each of them in turn. “Given the circumstances, we can hardly take Lady
Mac to Lalonde ahead of the fleet. I’ve heard that Terrance Smith has
ordered a batch of combat wasps from the McBoeing and Signal-Yakovlev
industrial stations. He’s clearly expecting some kind of conflict after
they arrive. So the question is, do we go with him to find out what’s
happening, and maybe protect our interest, or do we wait here for news?
We’ll take a vote, and it must be unanimous.”



Time Universe’s Tranquillity office was on the forty-third floor of the
StCroix starscraper. It was the usual crush of offices, studios, editing
rooms, entertainment suites, and electronic workshops; a micro-community
where individual importance was graded by allocated desk space, facility
size, and time allowance. Naturally, given the make-up of the habitat’s
population, it had a large finance and commerce bureau, but it also
provided good Confederationwide news coverage.

Oliver Llewelyn walked into the wood-panelled lobby at ten thirty local
time the day after the Gemal had docked. The receptionist palmed him off
on a junior political correspondent called Matthias Rems. In the
composite-walled office Matthias used to assemble his reports he produced
the flek Graeme Nicholson had given him and named a carriage fee of five
thousand fuseodollars. Matthias wasn’t stupid, the fact that the Gemal’s
captain had come direct from Lalonde was enough to warrant serious
attention. By now the entire habitat knew about the mercenary fleet being
assembled by Terrance Smith, though its purpose remained unknown. Rumour
abounded. Lalonde was immediate news; plenty of Tranquillity residents
would have LDC shares sleeping in their portfolios. First-hand sensevises
of the planet and whatever was happening there would have strong ratings
clout. Ordinarily Matthias Rems might have hesitated about the shameless
rip-off fee (he guessed correctly that Llewelyn had already been paid),
especially after he accessed the company personnel file on Graeme
Nicholson; but given the circumstances he knuckled under and paid.

After the captain left, Matthias slotted the flek into his desktop player
block. The sensevise recording was codelocked, so Graeme Nicholson had
obviously considered it important. He pulled Nicholson’s personal code
from his file, then sat back and closed his eyes. The Crashed Dumper
invaded his sensorium; its heat and noise and smell, the taste of a
caustic local beer tarring his throat, unaccustomed weight of a swelling
belly. Graeme Nicholson held the fragments of a broken glass in his hand,
his arms and legs trembling slightly; both eyes focused unwaveringly on a
tall man and lovely teenage girl over by the crude bar.

Twelve minutes later a thoroughly shaken Matthias Rems burst in on
Claudia Dohan, boss of Time Universe’s Tranquillity operation.

The ripple effect of Graeme Nicholson’s flek was similar to the sensation
Ione’s appearance had caused the previous year, in every respect save
one. Ione had been a feel-good item: Laton was the antithesis. He was
terror and danger, history’s nightmare exhumed.

“We have to show a sense of responsibility,” a twitchy Claudia Dohan said
after she surfaced from the sensevise. “Both the Confederation Navy and
the Lord of Ruin must be told.”

The AV cylinder on her desktop processor block chimed. “Thank you for
your consideration,” Tranquillity said. “I have informed Ione Saldana
about Laton’s reappearance. I suggest you contact Commander Olsen Neale
yourself to convey the contents of the flek.”

“Right away,” Claudia Dohan said diligently.

Matthias Rems was glancing nervously round the office, disturbed by the
reminder of the habitat personality’s perpetual vigilance.

Claudia Dohan broke the news on the lunchtime programme. Eighteen billion
fuseodollars was wiped off share values on Tranquillity’s trading floor
within quarter of an hour of the sensevise being broadcast. Values crept
back up during the rest of the afternoon as brokers assessed possible war
scenarios. By the end of the day seven billion fuseodollars had been
restored to prices—mainly on astro-engineering companies which would
benefit from armaments sales.

The Time Universe office had done its work well, considering the short
period it had in which to prepare. Its current affairs channel’s usual
afternoon schedule was replaced by library memories of Laton’s earlier
activities and earnest studio panel speculation. While Tranquillity’s
residents were being informed, Claudia Dohan started hiring starships to
distribute copies of Graeme Nicholson’s flek across the Confederation.
This time she had a small lever against the captains, unlike Ione’s very
public appearance; she had a monopoly on Laton’s advent and they were
bidding against each other to deliver fleks. By the evening she had
dispatched eighteen starships to various planets (Kulu, Avon, Oshanko,
and Earth being the principals). Those Time Universe offices would in
turn send out a second wave of fleks. Two weeks ought to see the entire
Confederation brought up to speed. And warned, Claudia Dohan thought,
Time Universe alone alerting the human and xenoc races to the resurgent
danger. A greater boost to company fortunes simply wasn’t possible.

She took the whole office out to a five-star meal that night. This coup,
following so soon after Ione, should bring them all some heady bonuses,
as well as boosting them way ahead of their contemporaries on the
promotion scale. She was already thinking of a seat on the board for
herself.

But it was a hectic afternoon. Matthias Rems (making his debut as a
front-line presenter) introduced forty-year-old recordings of the broken
Edenist habitat Jantrit, its shell cracked like a giant egg where the
antimatter had detonated. Its atmosphere jetted out of a dozen breaches
in the five-hundred-metre-thick polyp, huge grey-white plumes which acted
like rockets, destabilizing the cylinder’s ponderous rotation. The wobble
built over the period of a few hours, until it developed into an
uncontrollable tumble. On the outside, induction cables lashed round in
anarchic hundred-kilometre arcs, preventing even the most agile voidhawks
from rendezvousing. Inside, water and soil were tossed about, acting like
a permanent floating earthquake. Starscrapers, weakened by the blast,
broke off like rotten icicles, whirling away at terrific velocities. And
all the while their air grew thinner.

Some people were saved as the voidhawks and Adamist starships hurtled
after the spinning starscrapers. Eight thousand out of a population of
one and a quarter million. Even then utter disaster might have been
averted. The dying Edenists should have transferred their memories into
the habitat personality. But Laton had infected Jantrit’s neuron
structure with his proteanic virus and its rationality was crumbling as
trillions upon trillions of cells fell to the corruption every second.
The other two habitats orbiting the gas giant were too far away to
provide much assistance; personality transference was a complex function,
distance and panic confused the issue. Twenty-seven thousand Edenists
managed to bridge the gulf; three thousand patterns were later found to
be incomplete, reduced to traumatized childlike entities. Voidhawks
secured another two hundred and eighty personalities, but the bitek
starships didn’t have the capacity to store any more, and they were
desperately busy anyway, chasing the starscrapers.

For Edenists it was the greatest tragedy since the founding of their
culture. Even Adamists were stunned by the scale of the disaster. A
living sentient creature thirty-five kilometres in length mind-raped and
killed, nearly one and a quarter million people killed, over half a
million stored personality patterns wiped.

And it had all been a diversion. A tactic to enable Laton and his cohorts
to flee without fear of capture after their coup failed. He used the
community’s deaths as a cover; there was no other reason for it, no grand
strategic design.

Every voidhawk, every Confederation Navy ship, every asteroid settlement,
every planetary government searched for Laton and the three blackhawks he
had escaped with.

He was cornered two months later in the Ragundan system: three
blackhawks, armed with antimatter and refusing to surrender. Three
voidhawks and five Confederation Navy frigates were lost in the ensuing
battle. An asteroid settlement was badly damaged with the loss of a
further eight thousand lives when the blackhawks tried to use it as a
hostage, threatening to bomb it with antimatter unless the navy withdrew.
The naval flotilla’s commanding admiral called their bluff.

As with all space engagements there was nothing left of the vanquished
but weak nebulas of radioactive molecules. There was no body to identify.
But it couldn’t have been anyone else.

Now it seemed there must have been four blackhawks. Nobody could mistake
that tall, imperious man standing on the steps of the Yaku’s spaceplane,
laughing at a cowering Graeme Nicholson.

The guests Matthias Rems invited into the studio, a collection of retired
navy officers, political professors, and weapons engineers, observed that
Laton’s actual goal had never been declared. Speculation had been rife
for years after the event. It obviously involved some kind of physical
(biological) and mental domination, subverting the Edenists through the
(fortunately) imperfect proteanic virus he had developed. Changing them
and the habitats. But to what grandiose ideal had been thought for ever
unknown. The studio debate concentrated on whether Laton was behind the
current conflict on Lalonde, and if it was the first stage in his bid to
impose his will on the Confederation again. Graeme Nicholson had
certainly believed so.

Laton was different to the kind of planetary disputes like Omuta and
Garissa; the perennial squabbling between asteroid settlements and their
funding companies over autonomy. Laton wasn’t a violence-tinged argument
over resources or independence, he was after people, individuals. He
wanted to get into your genes, your mind, and alter you, mould you to his
own deviant construct. Laton was deadly personal.

One of the keenest observers of the Time Universe programmes was Terrance
Smith. The Laton revelation had come as a profound shock. He, and the
Gemal’s crew, became the objects of intense media interest. Hounded every
time he left the colonist-carrier, he eventually had to appeal to
Tranquillity for privacy. The habitat personality agreed (a resident’s
freedom from intrusion was part of the original constitution Michael
Saldana had written), and the reporters were called off. They promptly
switched their attention to anyone who had signed on as a member of the
mercenary fleet, all of whom protested (truthfully) that they knew
nothing of Laton.

“What do we do?” Terrance Smith asked in a bleak voice. He was alone with
Oliver Llewelyn on the Gemal’s bridge. Console holoscreens were showing
the Time Universe evening news programme, cutting between a studio
presenter and segments of Graeme Nicholson’s recording. The captain was
someone whose opinion Terrance valued, in fact he’d grown heavily
dependent on him during the last couple of days. There weren’t many other
people he confided in.

“You don’t have many options,” Oliver Llewelyn pointed out. “You’ve
already paid the registration fee to twelve ships, and you’ve got a third
of the troops you wanted. Either you go ahead as originally planned, or
you cut and run. Doing nothing isn’t a valid alternative, not now.”

“Cut and run?”

“Sure. You’ve got enough money in the LDC’s credit account to lose
yourself. Life could get very comfortable for you and your family.”
Oliver Llewelyn watched Terrance Smith closely, trying to anticipate his
reaction. The notion obviously appealed, but he didn’t think the
bureaucrat would have enough backbone.

“I . . . No, we can’t. There are too many people depending on me. We have
to do something to help Durringham. You weren’t down there, you don’t
know what it was like that last week. These mercenaries are the only hope
they’ve got.”

“As you wish.” Pity, Oliver Llewelyn thought, a great pity. I’m getting
too old for this kind of jaunt.

“Do you think fifteen ships is enough to go up against Laton?” Terrance
Smith asked anxiously. “I have the authority to hire another ten.”

“We’re not going up against Laton,” Oliver Llewelyn said patiently.

“But—”

The captain gestured at one of the console holoscreens. “You accessed
Graeme Nicholson’s sensevise. Laton has left Lalonde. All your
mercenaries are faced with is a big mopping-up operation. Leave Laton to
the Confederation; the navy and the voidhawks will be going after him
with every weapon they’ve got.”

The notion of taking on Laton was something the starship captains had
been discussing among themselves. Only three were sufficiently alarmed to
return Terrance Smith’s registration fee. He had no trouble in attracting
replacements, and bringing the number of the fleet up to nineteen—six
blackhawks, nine combat-capable independent traders, three cargo
carriers, and the Gemal itself. Virtually none of the general troops or
the combat-boosted mercenaries resigned. Fighting Laton’s legions, being
on the right side, gave the whole enterprise a kudos like few others; old
hands and fresh youngsters queued up to sign on.

Three and a half days after he arrived, Terrance Smith had all he came
for. The one request from Commander Olsen Neale to hold off and wait for
a Confederation naval investigatory flight was smilingly refused.
Durringham needs us now, Terrance told him.



Ione and Joshua walked down one of Tranquillity’s winding valleys in the
late afternoon, dew-heavy grass staining their sandals. She was wearing a
long white cotton skirt and a matching camisole, a loose-fitting outfit
which allowed the air to circulate over her warm skin. Joshua just wore
some long dark mauve shorts. His skin was tanning nicely, she thought, he
was almost back to his old colour. They had spent most of his stopover
outside; swimming with Haile, riding, walking, having long sexual
adventures. Joshua seemed to get very turned on having sex beside and in
the bountiful streams meandering through the habitat.

Ione stopped at a long pool which formed the intersection of two streams.
It was lined by mature rikbal trees, whose droopy branches stroked the
water with their long, thin leaves. They were all in flower, bright pink
blooms the size of a child’s fist.

Gold and scarlet fish slithered through the water. It was tranquillity,
Ione thought, small t, created by big T; name chasing form, name creating
form. The lake—the whole park—was a pause from the habitat’s bustle; the
habitat was a pause from the Confederation’s bustle. If you wanted it to
be.

Joshua pushed her gently against a rikbal trunk, kissing her cheek, her
neck. He opened the front of her camisole.

Hair fell down across her eyes, she was wearing it longer these days.
“Don’t go,” she said quietly.

His arms dropped inertly to his sides, head slumping forwards until his
brow touched hers. “Good timing.”

“Please.”

“You said you weren’t going to dump this possessive scene on me.”

“This isn’t being possessive.”

“What then? It sounds like it.”

Her head came up sharply, pink spots burning on both cheeks. “If you must
know, I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be.”

“Joshua, you’re flying into a war zone.”

“Not really. We’re flying escort duty for a troop convoy, that’s all. The
soldiers and combat boosted are in at the hard edge.”

“Smith wants the starships to provide ground strikes; he’s bought combat
wasps for interdiction missions. That’s the hard edge, Joshua, that’s the
dead edge. Bloody hell, you’re going up against Laton in an antique wreck
that barely rates its CAB spaceworthiness licence. And there’s no reason.
None. You don’t need mayope, you don’t need Vasilkovsky.” She held his
arm, imploring. “You’re rich. You’re happy. Don’t try and tell me you’re
not. I’ve watched you for three years. You’ve never had so much fun as
when you gallivanted around the galaxy in the Lady Macbeth. Now look at
what you’re doing. Paper deals, Joshua. Making paper money you can never
spend. Sitting behind a desk, that’s your destination. That’s where
you’re flying to, Joshua, and it isn’t you.”

“Antique, huh?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“How old is Tranquillity, Ione? At least I own the Lady Mac, it doesn’t
own me.”

“I’m just trying to shock some sense into you. Joshua, it’s Laton you’re
facing. Don’t you watch the AV recordings? Didn’t you access Graeme
Nicholson’s sensevise?”

“Yes. I did. Laton isn’t on Lalonde. He left on the Yaku. Did you miss
that bit, Ione? If I wanted to go on suicide flights I’d chase after the
Yaku. That’s where the danger is. That’s where the navy heroes are going.
Not me, I’m protecting my own interests.”

“But you don’t need it!” she said. God, but he could be bonehead stubborn
at times.

“You mean you don’t.”

“What?”

“Not convenient, is it? Me having that much money. That much money would
mean I make the decisions, I make the choices. It gives me control over
my life. Where does that fit into your cosy scenario of us, Ione? I won’t
be so easy to manipulate then, will I?”

“Manipulate! One glimpse of a female nipple and your fly seal bursts
apart from the pressure. That’s how complicated your personality is. You
don’t need manipulating, Joshua, you need hormone suppressors. All I’m
doing is trying to think ahead for you, because God knows you can’t do it
for yourself.”

“Jesus, Ione! Sometimes I can’t believe you’re bonded to a cubic
kilometre of neuron cells, you don’t display the IQ of an ant most days.
This is my chance, I can make it. I can be your equal.”

“I don’t want an equal.” Ione jammed her mouth shut. She’d nearly done
it, nearly said: “I just want you.” But torture wouldn’t bring that from
her lips, not now.

“Yeah, so I noticed,” he said. “I started with a broken-down ship. I made
that work, I earned a living flying it. And now I’m moving on, moving up.
That’s life, Ione. Growing, evolving. You should try it sometime.” He
turned and stomped off through the trees, sweeping the hanging branches
aside impatiently. If she wanted to say sorry, she could damn well come
after him and do it.

Ione watched him go, and fumbled with the front of her camisole. What an
arsehole. He might be psychic, but only at the expense of common sense.

<< I’m so sorry, >>Tranquillity said gently.

She sniffed hard. << What about? >>

<< Joshua. >>

<< There’s no reason. If he wants to go, let him. See if I care. >>

<< You do care. He is right for you. >>

<< He doesn’t think so. >>

<< Yes, he does. But he is prideful. As are you. >>

<< Thanks for nothing. >>

<< Don’t cry. >>

Ione glanced down, seeing her hands as blobs. Her eyes were horribly
warm. She wiped at them vigorously. God, how could I have been so stupid?
He was just supposed to be a fun stud. Nothing more.

<< I love you, >>Tranquillity said, so full of cautious warmth that Ione
had to smile. Then she winced as her stomach churned, and promptly threw
up. The bile was acid and disgusting. She cupped her hands to capture
some of the cool pool water so she could rinse her mouth out.

<< You are pregnant, >>Tranquillity observed.

<< Yes. The last time Joshua came back, before he made the Norfolk run. >>

<< Tell him. >>

<< No! That would only make it worse. >>

<< You are both fools, >>Tranquillity said with unaccustomed ardour.



Stars slid across the window behind Commander Olsen Neale. Choisya was
the only one of Mirchusko’s moons visible, a distant grey-brown crescent
sliver peeping up over the bottom of the oval every three minutes. Erick
Thakrar didn’t like the sight of the starfield, it was too close, too
easy to reach. He wondered, briefly, if he was developing a space-phobia.
It wasn’t unheard of, and there were a lot of associations involved. That
horrified, distraught voice coming from the Krystal Moon; a
fifteen-year-old girl. What had Tina looked like? It was a question he’d
been asking himself a lot recently. Did she have a boyfriend? What mood
fantasy bands did she cherish? Had she enjoyed her life on the old
interplanetary vessel? Or did she find it intolerable?

What the fuck was she doing in the forward compartment below the
communication dishes?

“The micro-fusion generators were handed directly over to the Nolana as
soon as we docked,” Erick said. “They never even passed through
Tranquillity’s cargo-storage facility. Which means there was no data
work, no port manager’s inspection. And of course we were all on board
the Villeneuve’s Revenge until the transfer was finished. I couldn’t get
a message out to you.”

“We’ll track the Nolana, of course,” Olsen Neale said. “See where the
generators go. It should expose the distribution net. You’ve done well,”
he added encouragingly. The young captain looked haggard, nothing like
the bright eager agent who had wangled himself a berth on the
Villeneuve’s Revenge those long months ago.

It hits us all in the end, son, Olsen Neale thought soulfully to himself.
We deliberately bring ourselves down to their level so we can blend in,
and sometimes it costs just too much. Because nothing can go lower than
human beings.

Erick remained unmoved by the compliment. “You can have Duchamp and the
rest of the crew arrested immediately,” he said. “My neural nanonics
recording of our attack on the Krystal Moon will be more than enough to
convict them. I want you to tell the prosecutor to ask for maximum
penalties. We can have them all committed to a penal planet. The whole
lot of them, and that’s better than they deserve.”

And it transfers your guilt, as well, Neale thought silently. “I don’t
think we can do that right now, Erick,” he said.

“What? Three people have died just so that you have enough evidence
against Duchamp. Two of them I killed myself.”

“I’m truly sorry, Erick, but circumstances have changed somewhat
radically since your mission began. Have you accessed Time Universe’s
Lalonde sensevise?”

Erick gave him a demoralized stare, guessing what was coming. “Yes.”

“Terrance Smith has signed on the Villeneuve’s Revenge for his mercenary
fleet. We’ve got to have somebody there, Erick. It’s a legal mission for
a planetary government, there’s nothing I can do to prevent them from
leaving. Christ, this is Laton we’re talking about. I was about ten years
old when he destroyed Jantrit. One and a quarter million people just so
he could make a clean getaway, and the habitat itself; the Edenists had
never lost a habitat before, their life expectancy is measured in
millennia. And now he’s had nearly forty years to perfect his
megalomaniac schemes. Shit, we don’t even know what they are; but what
I’ve heard about Lalonde is enough to frighten me. I’m scared, Erick,
I’ve got a family. I don’t want him to get his hands on them. We have to
know where he went on the Yaku. Nothing is more important than that.
Piracy and flogging off black-market goods are totally irrelevant by
comparison. The navy has to find him and exterminate him. Properly this
time. Until he’s dead, we have no other goal. I’ve already sent a flek to
Avon, a courier left on a blackhawk an hour after the Time Universe
people told me about their recording.”

Erick’s brow crinkled in surprise.

Olsen Neale gave a modest smile. “Yes, a blackhawk. They’re fast, they’re
good. And Laton will ultimately have them too if we don’t stop him. Their
captains are just as unnerved by him as we are.”

“All right.” Erick gave up. “I’ll go.”

“Anything. Any piece of data. What he’s done out in the Lalonde
hinterlands. Where the Yaku went. Just anything.”

“I’ll get whatever I can.”

“You could try asking this journalist, Graeme Nicholson.” He shrugged at
Erick’s expression. “The man’s smart, resourceful. If anyone on that
planet had the presence of mind to track the Yaku’s jump coordinate,
it’ll be him.”

Erick rose to his feet. “OK.”

“Erick . . . take care.”



The heavy curtains in Kelly Tirrel’s bedroom were drawn across the two
oval windows. Ornate wall-mounted glass globes emitted a faint turquoise
light. It made the white bedsheets shimmer as if they were the surface of
a moonlit lake; human skin was dark and tantalizing.

Kelly let Joshua run his hands over her, parting her legs so he could
probe the damp cleft hidden below her tangle of pubic hair.

“Nice,” she purred, squirming over the rumpled sheets.

His teeth shone as he parted his lips. “Good.”

“If you take me with you, there will be five days of this. Nonstop; and
in free fall, too.”

“A powerful argument.”

“Money as well. Collins will pay triple rate for my passage.”

“I’m already rich.”

“So get richer.”

“Jesus, you’re a pushy bitch.”

“Is that a complaint? Did you want to be with someone else tonight?”

“Er, no.”

“Good.” Her hand slid round his balls. “This is the one for me, Joshua.
This is my make or break chance. I blew the Ione story because of someone
not a million kilometres from here.” Her fingers tightened slightly.
“Opportunities like this don’t come to a place like Tranquillity three
times in a life. If I pull it off I’ll be made; top of the seniority
table, good assignments, a decent bureau posting, a real salary. You owe
me this, Joshua. You owe me very big.”

“Suppose the mercenaries don’t want you with them?”

“You leave them to me. The way I’ll pitch it at them, they’ll eat up the
offer. Heroes up against frightening odds helping to flatten Laton,
rogues with a heart of gold, sensevised into every home in the
Confederation. Come on!”

“Jesus.” There was still an uncomfortable pressure round his balls, long
red nails touching his scrotum, a little too sharply to be described as
tickling. She wouldn’t. Would she? Her smart, expensive grey-blue Crusto
suit was folded neatly over a chair by the dresser. It had been taken off
with military regimentation as she prepared for sex.

She probably would. Jesus.

“Of course I’ll take you.”

Thumb and forefinger nipped one ball impishly.

“Yow!” His eyes watered. “You don’t think you’re getting carried away
with this idea, do you? I mean, there are career moves and career moves.
Landing on a hostile planet behind enemy lines is pushing company loyalty
to extremes.”

“Crap.” Kelly rolled onto one elbow and glared at him. “Did you see who
Time Universe had introducing their studio segments? Matthias bastard
Rems, that’s who. Just because he was in the right place at the right
time. That lucky little shit. He’s younger than me, barely out of his
nursery pen. And they gave him three days prime scheduling time. And
market research says he’s popular because he’s boyish. Some women like
that, it turns out. Eighty-year-old virgins, I should think. The reason
Time Universe won’t let him record sensevises is because then we’d all
know for sure he hasn’t got any balls.”

“Not a problem in your case, is it?”

It came out before he could think. Kelly spent a hot violent twenty
minutes making him wish it hadn’t.



The nineteen starships under Terrance Smith’s command assembled a
thousand kilometres beyond Tranquillity’s spaceport: the Gemal with five
thousand general troops, three cargo clippers carrying their equipment
and supplies, and fifteen combat-capable ships, six of which were
blackhawks.

Tranquillity watched their drives come on, and the flotilla moved in
towards Mirchusko at one gee. The Adamist starships employed a
single-file formation (with Gemal leading) which the blackhawks encircled
insolently. Strategic-defence sensor-platforms detected a vast amount of
encrypted data traffic being exchanged between the ships as communication
channels were tested and combat tactics exchanged.

They curved around the gas giant, heading towards its penumbra. Their
drive exhausts shortened and vanished while they were still a hundred and
eighty-four thousand kilometres above the unruly cloudscape, coasting
towards the jump co-ordinate. Tranquillity saw the faint blue flickers of
ion jets perfecting their orbital tracks; then the thermo-dump panels and
sensor clusters began to withdraw. The blackhawks rushed away from the
main convoy, freed of the constraints imposed by their Adamist partners,
expanding in a perfectly spaced rosette. Then the bitek starships
performed their swallow manoeuvre, jumping on ahead to scout for any
possible trouble. Space reverberated with the gravity-wave backwash of
their wormhole interstices snapping shut behind them, impinging on the
habitat’s sensitive mass-detection organs.

Gemal jumped. Tranquillity noted its spacial location and velocity
vector. The trajectory was aligned exactly on Lalonde. One by one the
remaining starships fell into the same jump coordinate and triggered
their energy patterning nodes, squeezing themselves out of space-time.


Chapter 05
==========


Since the advent of its independence in 2238, Avon’s government had
contracted civil astroengineering teams to knock fifteen large (twenty-
to twenty-five-kilometre diameter) stony iron asteroids into high orbit
above the planet using precisely placed and timed nuclear explosions.
Fourteen of them followed the standard formula of industrialization
adopted throughout the Confederation. After their orbits were stabilized
with a perigee no less than a hundred thousand kilometres, their ores had
been mined out and the refined metal sent down to the planet below in the
form of giant lifting bodies which coasted through the atmosphere to a
splash-glide landing in the ocean. The resulting caverns were expanded,
regularized into cylindrical shapes, the surface sculpted into a
landscape, sealed, then turned into habitable biospheres. At the same
time the original ore refineries would gradually be replaced by more
sophisticated industrial stations, allowing the asteroid’s economy to
shift its emphasis from the bulk production of metals and minerals to
finished micro-gee engineered products. The refineries moved on to a
fresh asteroid in order to satisfy the demand of the planetary furnaces
and steel mills, keeping the worst aspects of raw-material exploitation
offplanet where the ecological pollution on the aboriginal biota was zero.

Anyone arriving at a terracompatible planet in the Confederation could
tell almost at a glance how long it had been industrialized by the number
of settled asteroids in orbit around it.

Avon had been opened for colonization to ethnic Canadians in 2151 during
the Great Dispersal, and conformed to the usual evolutionary route out of
an agrarian economy into industrialization in slightly less than a
century. A satisfactory achievement, but nothing remarkable. It remained
a pedestrian world until 2271 when it played host to the head of state
conference called to discuss the worrying upsurge in the use of
antimatter as a weapon of mass destruction. From that conference was born
the Confederation, and Avon seized its chance to leapfrog an entire
developmental stage by offering itself as a permanent host for the
Assembly. Without any increase in exports, foreign currency poured in as
governments set up diplomatic missions; and the lawyers, interstellar
companies, finance institutions, influence peddlers, media conglomerates,
and lobbyists followed, each with their own prestige offices and staff
and dependents.

There was also the Confederation Navy, which was to police the fragile
new-found unity between the inhabited stars. Avon contributed to that as
well, by donating to the Assembly an orbiting asteroid named Trafalgar
which was in the last phase of mining.

Trafalgar was unique within the Confederation in that it had no
industrial stations after the miners moved out. It was first, foremost,
and only, a naval base, developing from a basic supply and maintenance
depot for the entire Confederation Navy (such as it was in the early
days) up to the primary military headquarters for the eight hundred and
sixty-two inhabited star systems which made up the Confederation in 2611.
When First Admiral Samual Aleksandrovich took up his appointment in 2605
it was the home port for the 1st Fleet and headquarters and training
centre for the Marine Corps. It housed the career Officer Academy, the
Engineering School, the Navy Technical Evaluation Office, the First
Admiral’s Strategy Office, the Navy Budget Office, the principal research
laboratories for supralight communications, and (more quietly) the
headquarters of the Fleet Intelligence Arm. A black and grey peanut
shape, twenty-one kilometres long, seven wide, rotating about its long
axis; it contained three cylindrical biosphere caverns which housed a
mixed civilian and military population of approximately three hundred
thousand. There were non-rotational spaceports at each end: spheres two
kilometres in diameter, the usual gridwork of girders and tanks and
pipes, threaded with pressurized tubes carrying commuter cars, and
docking-bays ringed by control cabins. Their surface area was just able
to cope with the vast quantity of spaceship movements. The spindles were
both fixed to Trafalgar’s axis at the centre of deep artificial craters
two kilometres wide which the voidhawks used as docking-ledges.

As well as its responsibility for defence and anti-pirate duties across
the Confederation it coordinated Avon’s defence in conjunction with the
local navy. The strategic-defence platforms protecting the planet were
some of the most powerful ever built. Given the huge numbers of
government diplomatic ships, as well as the above average number of
commercial flights using the low-orbit docking stations, security was a
paramount requirement. There hadn’t been an act of piracy in the system
for over two and a half centuries, but the possibility of a suicide
attack against Trafalgar was uppermost in the minds of navy tacticians.
Strategic sensor coverage was absolute out to a distance of two million
kilometres from the planetary surface. Reaction time by the patrolling
voidhawks was near instantaneous. Starships emerging outside designated
areas took a formidable risk in doing so.



Ilex was calling for help even before the wormhole terminus closed behind
it. Auster had ordered the voidhawk to fly straight to Avon, over four
hundred light-years from Lalonde. Even for a voidhawk, the distance was
excessive. Ilex needed to recharge its energy patterning cells after ten
swallows, which involved a prolonged interval of ordinary flight to allow
its distortion field to concentrate the meagre wisps of radiation which
flittered through the interstellar medium.

The voyage had taken three and a half days. There were sixty people on
board, and the bitek life-support organs were rapidly approaching their
critical limit. The air smelt bad, membrane filters couldn’t cope with
the body gases, CO2 was building up, oxygen reserves were almost
exhausted.

Trafalgar was five thousand kilometres away when the wormhole terminus
sealed. Legally, it should have been a hundred thousand. But a long
sublight flight to a docking-ledge would have pushed Ilex’s life-support
situation from critical to catastrophic.

The asteroid immediately went to defence condition C2, allowing the duty
officer to engage all targets at will. Nuclear-pumped gamma-ray lasers
locked onto the voidhawk’s hull within three-quarters of a second of the
wormhole opening.

Every Edenist officer in Trafalgar’s strategic-defence command-centre
heard Ilex’s call. They managed to load a five-second delay order into
the defence platforms. Auster gave a fast resume of the voidhawk’s
situation. The delay was extended for another fifteen seconds while the
duty officer made her evaluation. A squadron of patrol voidhawks closed
on Ilex at ten gees.

“Stand down,” the duty officer told the centre, and datavised a lockdown
order into the fire-command computer. She looked across at the nearest
Edenist. “And tell that idiot captain from me I’ll fry his arse off next
time he pulls a stunt like this.”

Ilex swooped in towards Trafalgar at five gees as traffic control cleared
a priority approach path ahead of it. Six patrol voidhawks spiralled
round it like over-protective avian parents, all seven bitek starships
exchanging fast affinity messages of anxiety, interest, and mild rebuke.
The northern axial crater was a scene of frantic activity while Ilex
chased the asteroid’s rotation, looping around the globular non-rotating
spaceport to fly in parallel to the spindle. It settled on a titanium
pedestal with eight balloon-tyre maintenance vehicles and crew buses
racing towards it, bouncing about in the low gravity.

Lalonde’s navy office personnel disembarked first, hurrying along the
airlock tube to the waiting bus, all of them taking deep gulps of clean,
cool air. A medic team carried Niels Regehr off in a stretcher, while two
paediatric nurses soothed and patted a blubbering Shafi Banaji.
Environment-maintenance vehicles plugged hoses and cables into the crew
toroid’s umbilical sockets, sending gales of fresh air gusting through
the cabins and central corridor. Resenda, Ilex’s life-support officer,
simply vented the fouled atmosphere they’d been breathing throughout the
voyage, and grey plumes jetted up out of the toroid, seeded with minute
water crystals that sparkled in the powerful lights mounted on the
spindle to illuminate the crater.

Once the first bus trundled away, a second nosed up to the airlock. A
ten-strong marine squad in combat fatigues and armed with chemical
projectile guns marched on board. Rhodri Peyton, the squad’s captain,
saluted an exhausted, unwashed, and unshaven Lieutenant Murphy Hewlett.

“This is her?” he asked sceptically.

Jacqueline Couteur stood in the middle of the corridor outside the
airlock, with Jeroen van Ewyck and Garrett Tucci training their
Bradfields on her. She was even dirtier than Murphy, the check pattern of
her cotton shirt almost lost below the engrained grime picked up in the
jungle.

“I’m tempted to let her show you what she can do,” Murphy said.

Kelven Solanki stepped forwards. “All right, Murphy.” He turned to the
marine captain. “Your men are to have at least two weapons covering her
at all times. She’s capable of emitting an electronic warfare effect, as
well as letting loose some kind of lightning bolt. Don’t try to engage
her in physical combat, she’s quite capable of ripping you apart.”

One of the marines snickered at that. Kelven didn’t have the energy left
to argue.

“I’ll go with her,” Jeroen van Ewyck said. “My people need to be briefed
anyway, and I’ll let the science officers know what’s required.”

“What is required?” Jacqueline Couteur asked.

Rhodri Peyton turned, and gave a start. In place of the dumpy middle-aged
woman there was a tall, beautiful, twenty-year-old girl wearing a white
cocktail gown. She gave him a silent entreating look, the maiden about to
be offered to the dragon. “Help me. Please. You’re not like them. You’re
not an emotionless machine. They want to hurt me in their laboratories.
Don’t let them.”

Garrett Tucci jabbed the Bradfield into her back. “Pack it in, bitch,” he
said roughly.

She twisted, like an AV projection with a broken focus, and the old
Jacqueline Couteur was standing there, a mocking expression on her face.
Her jeans and shirt were now clean and pressed.

“My God,” Rhodri Peyton gasped.

“Now do you see?” Kelven asked.

The now nervous marine squad escorted their prisoner along the connecting
tube to the bus. Jacqueline Couteur sat beside one of the windows, five
guns lined up on her. She watched the bare walls of sterile rock
impassively as the bus rolled back across the crater and into a downward
sloping tunnel that led deep into the asteroid.



First Admiral Samual Aleksandrovich hadn’t set foot on his native
Russian-ethnic birth planet Kolomna for the last fifty-three of his
seventy-three years; he hadn’t been back for a holiday, nor even his
parents’ funeral. Regular visits might have been deemed inappropriate
given that Confederation Navy career officers were supposed to renounce
any national ties when they walked through the academy entrance; for a
First Admiral to display any undue interest would have been a completely
unacceptable breach of diplomatic etiquette. People would have understood
his attending the funerals, though. So everyone assumed he was applying
the same kind of steely discipline to his private affairs that ruled his
professional life.

They were all wrong. Samual Aleksandrovich had never been back because
there was nothing on the wretched planet with its all-over temperate
climate which interested him, not family nor culture nor nostalgic
scenery. The reason he left in the first place was because he couldn’t
stand the idea of spending a century helping his four brothers and three
sisters run the family fruit-farming business. The same geneering which
had produced his energetic one metre eighty frame, vivid copper hair, and
enhanced metabolism, bestowed a life expectancy of at least a hundred and
twenty years.

By the time he was nineteen years old he had come to realize that such a
life would be a prison sentence given the vocations available on a planet
just emerging from its agrarian phase. A potentially blessed life should
not be faced with such finite horizons, for if it was it would turn from
being a joy into a terrible burden. Variety was sanity. So on the day
after his twentieth birthday he had kissed his parents and siblings
goodbye, walked the seventeen kilometres into town through a heavy
snowfall, and signed on at the Confederation Navy recruitment office.

Metaphorically, and otherwise, he had never looked back. He had never
been anything other than an exemplary officer; he’d seen combat seven
times, flown anti-pirate interdictions, commanded a flotilla raiding an
illegal antimatter-production station, and gained a substantial number of
distinguished service awards. But appointment to the post of First
Admiral required a great deal more than an exemplary record. Much as he
hated it, Samual Aleksandrovich had to play the political game; appearing
before Assembly select committees, giving unofficial briefings to senior
diplomats, wielding Fleet Intelligence information with as much skill as
he did the rapier (he was year champion at the academy). His ability to
pressure member states was admired by the Assembly President’s staffers,
as much for its neatness as the millions of fuseodollars saved by
circumventing fleet deployment to trouble spots; and their word counted
for a great deal more than the Admiralty, who advanced the names of
candidates to the Assembly’s Navy Committee.

In the six years he had held the office he had done a good job keeping
the peace between sometimes volatile planetary governments and the even
more mercurial asteroid settlements. Leaders and politicians respected
his toughness and fairness.

A great deal of his renowned even-handed approach was formed when at the
age of thirty-two he was serving as a lieutenant on a frigate that had
been sent to Jantrit to assist the Edenists in some kind of armed
rebellion (however unbelievable it sounded at the time). The frigate crew
had watched helplessly while the antimatter was detonated, then spent
three days in exhausting and often fruitless manoeuvres to rescue
survivors of the tragedy. Samual Aleksandrovich had led one of the
recovery teams after they rendezvoused with a broken starscraper. With
heroic work that won him a commendation he and his crew-mates saved
eighteen Edenists trapped in the tubular honeycomb of polyp. But one of
the rooms they forced their way into was filled with corpses. It was a
children’s day club that had suffered explosive decompression. As he
floated in desolated horror across the grisly chamber, he realized the
Edenists were just as human as himself, and just as fallible. After that
the persistent snide comments from fellow officers about the tall aloof
bitek users annoyed him intensely. From then on he devoted himself body
and soul to the ideal of enforcing the peace.

So when the Eurydice had docked at Trafalgar carrying a flek from
Lieutenant-Commander Kelven Solanki about the small possibility (and he
had been most unwilling to commit himself) that Laton was still alive and
stirring from his self-imposed exile, First Admiral Samual Aleksandrovich
had taken a highly personal interest in the Lalonde situation.

Where Laton was concerned, Samual Aleksandrovich exhibited neither his
usual fairness nor a desire for justice to be done. He just wanted Laton
dead. And this time there would be no error.

Even after his staff had edited down Murphy Hewlett’s neural nanonics
recording of the marine squad’s fateful jungle mission, to provide just
the salient points, there was three hours of sensorium memory to access.
When he surfaced from Lalonde’s savage heat and wearying humidity, Samual
Aleksandrovich remained lost in thought for quarter of an hour, then took
a commuter car down to the Fleet Intelligence laboratories.

Jacqueline Couteur had been isolated in a secure examination room. It was
a cell cut into living rock with a transparent wall of metallized silicon
whose structure was reinforced with molecular-binding-force generators.
On one side it was furnished with a bed, wash-basin, shower, toilet, and
a table, while the other side resembled a medical surgery with an
adjustable couch and a quantity of analysis equipment.

She sat at the table, dressed in a green clinical robe. Five marines were
in the cell with her, four of them carrying chemical-projectile guns, the
fifth a TIP carbine.

Samual Aleksandrovich stood in front of the transparent wall looking at
the drab woman. The monitoring room he was in resembled a warship’s
bridge, a white composite cube with a curved rank of consoles, all facing
the transparent wall. The impersonality disturbed him slightly, an
outsized vivarium.

Jacqueline Couteur returned his stare levelly. She should never have been
able to do that, not a simple farmer’s wife from a backwoods colony
world. There were diplomats with eighty years of experienced duplicity
behind them who broke into a sweat when Samual Aleksandrovich turned his
gaze on them.

He likened the experience to looking into the eyes of an Edenist habitat
mayor at some formal event, when the consensus intellect of every adult
in the habitat looked back at him. Judging.

Whatever you are, he thought, you are not Jacqueline Couteur. This is the
moment I’ve dreaded since I took my oath of office. A new threat, one
beyond anything we know. And the burden of how to deal with it will
inevitably fall heaviest on my navy.

“Do you understand the method of sequestration yet?” He asked Dr Gilmore,
who was heading the research team.

The doctor made a penitent gesture. “Not as yet. She’s certainly under
the control of some outside agency, but so far we haven’t been able to
locate the point where it interfaces with her nervous system. I’m a
neural nanonics expert, and we’ve got several physicists on the team. But
I’m not entirely sure we even have a specialization to cover this
phenomenon.”

“Tell me what you can.”

“We ran a full body and neural scan on her, looking for implants. You saw
what she and the other sequestrated colonists could do back on Lalonde?”

“Yes.”

“That ability to produce the white fireballs and electronic warfare
impulses must logically have some kind of focusing mechanism. We found
nothing. If it’s there it’s smaller than our nanonics, a lot smaller.
Atomic sized, at least, maybe even sub-atomic.”

“Could it be biological? A virus?”

“You’re thinking of Laton’s proteanic virus? No, nothing like that.” He
turned and beckoned to Euru.

The tall black-skinned Edenist left the monitor console he was working at
and came over. “Laton’s virus attacked cells,” he explained.
“Specifically neural cells, altering their composition and DNA. This
woman’s brain structure remains perfectly normal, as far as we can tell.”

“If she can knock out a marine’s combat electronics at over a hundred
metres, how do you know your analysis equipment is giving you genuine
readings?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked.

The two scientists exchanged a glance.

“Interference is a possibility we’ve considered,” Euru admitted. “The
next stage of our investigation will be to acquire tissue samples and
subject them to analysis outside the range of her influence—if she lets
us take them. It would require a great deal of effort if she refused to
cooperate.”

“Has she been cooperative so far?”

“For most of the time, yes. We’ve witnessed two instances of visual
pattern distortion,” Dr Gilmore said. “When her jeans and shirt were
removed she assumed the image of an apelike creature. It was shocking,
but only because it was so unusual and unexpected. Then later on she
tried to entice the marines to let her out by appearing as an adolescent
girl with highly developed secondary sexual characteristics. We have AV
recordings of both occasions; she can somehow change her body’s
photonic-emission spectrum. It’s definitely not an induced hallucination,
more like a chameleon suit’s camouflage.”

“What we don’t understand is where she gets the energy to produce these
effects,” Euru said. “The cell’s environment is strictly controlled and
monitored, so she can’t be tapping Trafalgar’s electrical power circuits.
And when we ran tests on her urine and faeces we found nothing out of the
ordinary. Certainly there’s no unusual chemical activity going on inside
her.”

“Lori and Darcy claimed Laton warned them of an energy virus,” Samual
Aleksandrovich said. “Is such a thing possible?”

“It may well be,” Euru said. His eyes darkened with emotion. “If that
creature was telling the truth he would probably have been attaching the
nearest linguistic equivalents to a totally new phenomenon. An organized
energy pattern which can sustain itself outside a physical matrix is a
popular thesis with physicists. Electronics companies have been
interested in the idea for a long time. It would bring about a radical
transformation in our ability to store and manipulate data. But there has
never been any practical demonstration of such an incorporeal matrix.”

Samual Aleksandrovich switched his glance back to the woman behind the
transparent wall. “Perhaps you are looking at the first.”

“It would be an extraordinary advance from our present knowledge base,”
Dr Gilmore said.

“Have you asked the Kiint if it is possible?”

“No,” Dr Gilmore admitted.

“Then do so. They may tell us, they may not. Who understands how their
minds work? But if anyone knows, they will.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about her?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked. “Has she said anything?”

“She is not very communicative,” Euru said.

The First Admiral grunted, and activated the intercom beside the cell’s
door. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

The marines inside the cell stiffened. Jacqueline Couteur’s expression
never changed; she looked him up and down slowly.

“I know,” she said.

“Who exactly am I talking to?”

“Me.”

“Are you part of Laton’s schemes?”

Was there the faintest twitch of a smile on her lips? “No.”

“What do you hope to achieve on Lalonde?”

“Achieve?”

“Yes, achieve. You have subjugated the human population, killed many
people. This is not a situation I can allow to continue. Defending the
Confederation from such a threat is my responsibility, even on a little
planet as politically insignificant as Lalonde. I would like to know your
motives so that a solution to this crisis may be found which does not
involve conflict. You must have known that ultimately your action would
bring about an armed response.”

“There is no ‘achievement’ sought.”

“Then why do what you have done?”

“I do as nature binds me. As do you.”

“I do what my duty binds me to do. When you were on the Isakore you told
the marines that they would come to you in time. If that isn’t an
objective I don’t know what is.”

“If you believe I will aid you to comprehend what has happened, you are
mistaken.”

“Then why did you allow yourself to be captured? I’ve seen the power you
possess; Murphy Hewlett is good, but not that good. He couldn’t get you
here unless you wanted to come.”

“How amusing. I see governments and conspiracy theories are still
inseparable. Perhaps I’m the lovechild of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe come
to sue the North American Govcentral state in the Assembly court for my
rightful inheritance.”

Samual Aleksandrovich gave her a nonplussed look. “What?”

“It doesn’t matter. Why did the navy want me here, Admiral?”

“To study you.”

“Precisely. And that is why I am here. To study you. Which of us will
learn the most, I wonder?”



Kelven Solanki had never envisaged meeting the First Admiral quite so
early in his career. Most commanders were introduced, certainly those
serving in the 1st Fleet. But not lieutenant-commanders assigned to minor
field-diplomat duties. Yet here he was being shown into the First
Admiral’s office by Captain Maynard Khanna. Circumstances muted the sense
of excitement. He wasn’t sure how the First Admiral viewed his handling
of events on Lalonde, and the staff captain had given him no clues.

Samual Aleksandrovich’s office was a circular chamber thirty metres
across, with a slightly domed ceiling. Its curving wall had one window
which looked out into Trafalgar’s central biosphere cavern, and ten long
holoscreens, eight slowly flicking through images from external sensors
and the remaining two showing tactical displays. The ceiling was ribbed
with bronze spars, with a fat AV cylinder protruding from the apex
resembling a crystalline stalactite. There were two clusters of
furniture; a huge teak desk with satellite chairs; and a sunken reception
area lined by padded leather couches.

Maynard Khanna showed him over to the desk where the First Admiral was
waiting. Auster, Dr Gilmore, Admiral Lalwani, the Fleet Intelligence
chief, and Admiral Motela Kolhammer, the 1st Fleet Commander, were all
sitting before the desk in the curved blue-steel chairs that had extruded
out of the floor like pliable mercury.

Kelven stood to attention and gave a perfect salute, very conscious of
the five sets of eyes studying him. Samual Aleksandrovich smiled thinly
at the junior officer’s obvious discomfort. “At ease, Commander.” He
gestured at one of the two new chairs formatting themselves out of the
floor material. Kelven removed his cap, tucked it under his arm, and sat
next to Maynard Khanna.

“You handled Lalonde quite well,” the First Admiral said. “Not perfectly,
but then you weren’t exactly prepared for anything like this. Under the
circumstances I’m satisfied with your performance.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Bloody ESA people didn’t help,” Motela Kolhammer muttered.

Samual Aleksandrovich waved him quiet. “That is something we can take up
with their ambassador later. Though I’m sure we all know what the outcome
will be. Regrettable or not, you acted properly the whole time, Solanki.
Capturing one of the sequestrated was exactly what we required.”

“Captain Auster made it possible, sir,” Kelven said. “I wouldn’t have got
the marines out otherwise.”

The voidhawk captain nodded thankfully in acknowledgement.

“None the less, we should have given your situation a higher priority to
begin with, and provided you with adequate resources,” Samual
Aleksandrovich said. “My mistake, especially given who was involved.”

“Has Jacqueline Couteur confirmed Laton’s existence?” Kelven asked. Part
of him was hoping that the answer was going to be a resounding no.

“She didn’t have to.” Samual Aleksandrovich sighed ponderously. “A
blackhawk”—he paused, raising his bushy ginger eyebrows in emphasis—“has
just arrived from Tranquillity with a flek from Commander Olsen Neale.
Under the circumstances I can quite forgive him for using the ship as a
courier. If you would like to access the sensevise.”

Kelven sank deeper into the scoop of his chair as Graeme Nicholson’s
recording played through his brain. “He was there all along,” he said
brokenly. “In Durringham itself, and I never knew. I thought the Yaku’s
captain left orbit because of the deteriorating civil situation.”

“You are not in any way to blame,” Admiral Lalwani said.

Kelven glanced over at the grey-haired Edenist woman. There was an
inordinate amount of sympathy and sadness in the tone.

“We should never have stopped checking, all those years ago,” she
continued. “The presence of Darcy and Lori on Lalonde was a rather
miserable token to appease our paranoia. Even we were guilty of wishing
Laton dead. The hope overwhelmed reason and rational thought. All of us
knew how resourceful he was, and we knew he had acquired data on Lalonde.
The planet should have been thoroughly searched. Our mistake. Now he has
returned. I don’t like to think of the price we will all have to pay
before he is stopped this time.”

“Sir, Darcy and Lori seemed very uncertain that he was behind this
invasion,” Kelven said. “Laton actually warned them of this
illusion-creating ability the sequestrated have.”

“And Jacqueline Couteur agrees he isn’t a part of this,” Dr Gilmore said.
“That’s one of the few things she will admit to.”

“I hardly think we can take her word for it,” Admiral Kolhammer said.

“Precise details are for later,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “What we
have with Lalonde is shaping up into a major, and immediate, crisis. I’m
tempted to ask the Assembly President to declare a state of emergency;
that would put national navies at my disposal.”

“In theory,” Admiral Kolhammer said drily.

“Yes, and yet anything less may not suffice. This undetectable
sequestration ability has me deeply worried. It has been used so freely
on Lalonde, hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. How many
people does the agency behind it intend to subjugate? How many planets?
It is a threat which the Assembly cannot be allowed to ignore in favour
of its usual horse trading.” He considered the option of total
mobilization before reluctantly dismissing it. There wasn’t enough
evidence to convince the president, not yet. It would come eventually, he
was in no doubt of that. “For the moment we will do what we can to
contain the spread of this plague, whilst trying to find Laton. The flek
from Olsen Neale also went on to report that Terrance Smith has met with
some success in recruiting mercenaries and combat-capable starships for
Governor Rexrew. That blackhawk made excellent time from Tranquillity; a
little over two days, the captain told me. So we may just be able to put
a brake on Lalonde before it gets totally out of hand. Terrance Smith’s
ships are scheduled to depart from Tranquillity today. Lalwani, you
estimate it will take them a week to reach Lalonde?”

“Yes,” she said. “It took the Gemal six days to get from Lalonde to
Tranquillity. With the starships in Smith’s fleet having to match
formation after each jump, a single extra day is a conservative estimate.
Even a navy flotilla would be hard pushed to match that. And those are
not front-line ships.”

“Apart from the Lady Macbeth,” Maynard Khanna said in a quiet voice. “I
accessed the list of ships Smith recruited; the Lady Macbeth is a ship I
am familiar with.” He glanced at the First Admiral.

“I know that name . . .” Kelven Solanki ran a search program through his
neural nanonics. “The Lady Macbeth was orbiting Lalonde when the trouble
first broke out upriver.”

“That wasn’t mentioned in any of your reports,” Lalwani said. Her slim
forehead showed a frown.

“It was a commercial flight. Slightly odd, the captain wanted to export
aboriginal wood, but as far as we could tell perfectly legitimate.”

“This name does seem to be popping up with suspicious regularity,”
Maynard Khanna said.

“We should be able to look into it easily enough,” Samual Aleksandrovich
said. “Commander Solanki, the principal reason I asked you here was to
inform you that you are to act as an adviser to the squadron which will
blockade Lalonde.”

“Sir?”

“We’re launching a dual programme to terminate this threat. The first
aspect is a Confederationwide alert for Laton. We have to know where the
Yaku went, where it is now.”

“He won’t stay on board,” Lalwani said. “Not after he reaches a port. But
we’ll find him. I’m organizing the search now. All the voidhawks in the
Avon system will be conscripted and dispatched to alert national
governments. I’ve already sent one to Jupiter; once the habitat consensus
is informed, every voidhawk in the Sol system will be used to relay the
news. I estimate it will take four to five days to blanket the
Confederation.”

“Time Universe will probably beat you to it,” Admiral Kolhammer said
gruffly.

Lalwani smiled. The two of them were sparring partners from way back. “In
this case I wouldn’t mind in the least.”

“Be a lot of panic. Stock markets will take a tumble.”

“If it makes people take the threat seriously, so much the better,”
Samual Aleksandrovich said. “Motela, you are to assemble a 1st Fleet
squadron, a large one, to be held on fifteen-minute-departure alert. When
we find Laton, eliminating him is going to be your problem.”

“What problem?”

“I admire the sentiment,” Samual Aleksandrovich said with a touch of
censure. “But kindly remember he escaped from us last time, when we were
equally hungry for blood. That mistake cannot be repeated. This time I
shall require proof, even though it will no doubt be expensive. I imagine
Lalwani and Auster will agree.”

“We do,” Lalwani said. “All Edenists do. If there is any risk in
confirming the target is Laton, then we will bear it.”

“In the meantime, I want Lalonde to be completely isolated,” Samual
Aleksandrovich said. “The mercenary force is not to be allowed to land,
nor do I want any surface bombardments from orbit. Those colonists have
suffered enough already. The solution to this sequestration lies in
discovering the method by which it is implemented, and devising a
counter. Brute force is merely dumping plutonium in a volcano. And I
suspect the mercenaries would simply be sequestrated themselves should
they land. Dr Gilmore, this is your field.”

“Not really,” the doctor said expressively. “But we shall put our female
subject through an extensive series of experiments to see if we can
determine the method of the sequestration and how to cancel it. However,
judging by what we know so far, which is virtually nothing, I have to say
an answer is going to take a considerable time to formulate. Though you
are quite right to instigate a quarantine. The less contact Lalonde has
with the rest of the Confederation the better, especially if it turns out
Laton isn’t behind the invasion.”

“The doctor has a point,” Lalwani said. “What if the Lalonde invasion is
the start of a xenoc incursion, and Laton himself has been sequestrated?”

“I’m keeping it in mind,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “We need to know
more, either from the Couteur woman or Lalonde itself. Our principal
trouble remains what it has always been: reaction time. It takes us far
too long to amass any large force. Always our conflicts are larger than
they would have been if we had received a warning of problems and threats
earlier in their development. But just this once, we may actually be in
luck. Unless there was some supreme diplomatic foul-up, Meredith
Saldana’s squadron was due to leave Omuta three days ago. They were in
the system mainly for pomp and show, but they carried a full weapons
load. A squadron of front-line ships already assembled and perfectly
suited to these duties; we couldn’t have planned it better. It’ll take
them five days to get back to Rosenheim. Captain Auster, if Ilex can get
there before they dock at 7th Fleet headquarters and all the crews go on
leave, then Meredith might just be able to get to Lalonde before Terrance
Smith. And if not before, then certainly in time to prevent the bulk of
the mercenary troops from landing.”

“Ilex will certainly try, First Admiral,” Auster said. “I have already
asked for auxiliary fusion generators to be installed in the weapons
bays. The energy patterning cells can be recharged directly from them,
reducing the flight time between swallows considerably. We should be
ready to depart in five hours, and I believe we can make the two-day
deadline.”

“My thanks to Ilex,” Samual Aleksandrovich said formally.

Auster inclined his head.

“Lieutenant-Commander Solanki, you’ll travel with Captain Auster, and
carry my orders for Rear-Admiral Saldana. And I think we can manage a
promotion to full commander before you go. You’ve shown considerable
initiative over the last few weeks, as well as personal courage.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Kelven said. The promotion barely registered,
some irreverent section of his mind was counting up the number of
light-years he had flown in a week. It must be some kind of record. But
he was going back to Lalonde, and bringing his old friends help. That
felt good. I’ve stopped running.

“Add an extra order that the Lady Macbeth and her crew is to be
arrested,” Samual Aleksandrovich told Maynard Khanna. “They can try
explaining themselves to Meredith’s Intelligence officers.”



The Santa Clara materialized a hundred and twenty thousand kilometres
above Lalonde, almost directly in line between the planet and Rennison.
Dawn was racing over Amarisk, half of the Juliffe’s tributary network
flashing like silver veins in the low sunlight. The early hour might have
accounted for the lack of response from civil traffic control. But
Captain Zaretsky had been to Lalonde before, he knew the way the planet
worked. Radio silence didn’t particularly bother him.

Thermo-dump panels slid out of the hull, and the flight computer plotted
a vector which would deliver the starship to a five hundred kilometre
equatorial orbit. Zaretsky triggered the fusion drive and the ship moved
in at a tenth of a gee. Santa Clara was a large cargo clipper, paying a
twice-annual visit to the Tyrathca settlements, bringing new colonists
and shipping out their rygar crop. There were over fifty Tyrathca
breeders on board, all of them shuffling round the cramped life-support
capsules; the dominant xenocs refused to use zero-tau pods (though their
vassal castes were riding the voyage in temporal suspension). Captain
Zaretsky didn’t particularly like being chartered by Tyrathca merchants,
but they always paid on time, which endeared them to the ship’s owners.

Once the Santa Clara was underway, he opened channels to the nine
starships in parking orbit. They told him about the riots, and rumours of
invaders, and the fighting in Durringham which had lasted four days.
There had been no information coming up from the city for two days now,
they said, and they couldn’t decide what to do.

Zaretsky didn’t share their problem. Santa Clara had a medium-sized VTOL
spaceplane in its hangar, his contract didn’t call for any contact with
the human settlements. Whatever rebellion the Ivets were staging, it
didn’t affect him.

When he opened a channel to the Tyrathca farmers on the planet they
reported a few skirmishes with humans who were “acting oddly;” but they
had prepared their rygar crop, and were waiting for the equipment and new
farmers the Santa Clara was bringing. He acknowledged the call, and
continued the slow powered fall into orbit, the Santa Clara’s fusion
exhaust drawing a slender thread of incandescence across the stars.



Jay Hilton sat on the rock outcrop fifty metres from the savannah
homestead cabin, her legs crossed, head tipped back to watch the starship
decelerating into orbit, and mournful curiosity pooling in her eyes. The
weeks of living with Father Horst had brought about a considerable change
in her appearance. For a start her lush silver-white hair had been
cropped into a frizz barely a centimetre long, making it easier to keep
clean. She had cried bucketfuls the day Father Horst took the scissors to
it. Her mother had always looked after it so well, washing it with
special shampoo brought from Earth, brushing it to a shine each night.
Her hair was her last link with the way things used to be, her last hope
that they might be that way again. When Father Horst had finished his
snipping she knew in her heart that her most precious dream, that one day
she’d wake up to find everything had returned to normal, was just a
stupid child’s imagination. She had to be tough now, had to be adult. But
it was so hard.

I just want Mummy back, that’s all.

The other children looked up to her. She was the oldest and strongest of
the group. Father Horst relied on her a great deal to keep the younger
ones in order. A lot of them still cried at night. She heard them in the
darkness, crying for their lost parents or siblings, crying because they
wanted to go back to their arcology where none of this horrid confusion
and upset happened.

Dawn’s rosy crown gave way to a tide of blue which swept across the sky,
erasing the stars. Rennison faded to a pale crescent, and the starship’s
exhaust became more difficult to see. Jay unfolded her legs and clambered
down off the rocks.

The homestead on the edge of the savannah was a simple wooden structure,
its solar-cell roof sheets glinting in the strong morning light. Two of
the dogs, a Labrador and an Alsatian, were out and about. She patted them
as she went up the creaking wooden stairs to the porch. The cows in the
paddock were making plaintive calls, their udders heavy with milk.

Jay went in through the front door. The big lounge whiffed strongly—of
food, and cooking, and too many people. She sniffed the air suspiciously.
Someone had wet their bedding again, probably more than one.

The floor was a solid patchwork of sleeping-bags and blankets, their
occupants only just beginning to stir. Grass stuffing from the makeshift
mattresses of canvas sacks had leaked out again.

“Come on! Come on!” Jay clapped her hands together as she pulled the reed
blinds open. Streamers of gold-tinged sunlight poured in, revealing
children blinking sleep from their eyes, wincing at the brightness.
Twenty-seven of them were crammed together on the mayope floorboards,
ranging from a toddler about two years old up to Danny, who was nearly
the same age as Jay. All of them with short haircuts and rough-tailored
adult clothes which never quite fitted. “Up you get! Danny, it’s your
gang’s turn to do the milking. Andria, you’re in charge of cooking this
morning: I want tea, oatmeal, and boiled eggs for breakfast.” A groan
went up, which Jay ignored; she was just as fed up with the changeless
diet as they were. “Shona, take three girls with you and collect the
eggs, please.”

Shona gave a timid smile as well as she could, grateful for being
included in the work assignments and not being treated any differently to
the others. Jay had drilled herself not to flinch from looking at the
poor girl. The six-year-old’s face was covered in a bandage mask of
glossy translucent epithelium membrane, with holes cut out for her eyes
and mouth and nose. Her burn marks were still a livid pink below the
overlapping membrane strips, and her hair was only just beginning to grow
back. Father Horst said she ought to heal without any permanent scarring,
but he was forever grieving over the lack of medical nanonic packages.

Coughs and grumbles and high-pitched chattering filled the room as the
children struggled out of bed and into their clothes. Jay saw little
Robert sitting brokenly on the side of his sleeping-bag, head in his
hands, not bothering to get dressed. “Eustice, you’re to get this room
tidied up, and I want all the blankets aired properly today.”

“Yes, Jay,” she answered sullenly.

The outside door was flung open as five or six children rushed out
laughing, and ran for the lean-to, which they used as a toilet.

Jay picked her way over the rectangles of bedding to Robert. He was only
seven, a black-skinned boy with fluffy blond hair. Sure enough, the navy
blue pants he wore were damp.

“Pop down to the stream,” she said kindly. “There will be plenty of time
to wash before breakfast.”

His head was lowered even further. “I didn’t mean to,” he whispered, on
the verge of tears.

“I know. Remember to wash out your sleeping-bag as well.” She caught the
sound of someone giggling. “Bo, you help him take the bag down to the
stream.”

“Oh, Jay!”

“It’s all right,” Robert said. “I can manage.”

“No, you won’t, not if you want to be back in time for breakfast.” The
big table was already being pulled out from the kitchen corner by three
of the boys, scraping loudly across the floor. They were shouting for
people to get out of the way.

“Don’t see why I should have to help him,” Bo said intransigently. She
was an eight-year-old, meaty for her age, with chubby red cheeks. Her
size was often deployed to help boss the smaller children around.

“Chocolate,” Jay said in warning.

Bo blushed, then stalked over to Robert. “Come on then, you.”

Jay knocked once on Father Horst’s door and walked in. The room had been
the homestead’s main bedroom when they moved in; it still had a double
bed in it, but most of the floor space was taken up with packets, jars,
and pots of food they’d taken from the other deserted homestead cabins.
Clothes and cloth and powered tools, anything small or light enough to be
carried, filled the second bedroom in piles that were taller than Jay.

Horst was getting up as the girl came in. He’d already got his trousers
on, thick denim jeans with leather patches, a working man’s garment,
requisitioned from one of the other savannah homesteads. She picked up
the faded red sweatshirt from the foot of the bed and handed it to him.
He had lost a lot of weight—a lot of fat—over the last weeks; slack bands
of flesh hung loosely from his torso. But even the folds were shrinking,
and the muscles they covered were harder than they had ever been, though
at night they felt like bands of ignescent metal. Horst spent most of
every day working, hard manual work; keeping the cabin in shape,
repairing and strengthening the paddock fence, building a chicken run,
digging the latrines; then in the evening there would be prayers and
reading lessons. At night he dropped into bed as if a giant had felled
him with its fist. He had never known a human body could perform such
feats of stamina, least of all one as old and decrepit as his.

Yet he never wavered, never complained. There was a fire in his eyes that
had been ignited by his predicament. He was embarked on a crusade to
survive, to deliver his charges to safety. The bishop would be hard
pressed to recognize that dreamy well-meaning Horst Elwes who had left
Earth last year. Even thinking about his earlier self with its disgusting
self-pity and weaknesses repelled him.

He had been tested as few had ever been before, his faith thrown onto
towering flames that had threatened to reduce him to shreds of black ash
so powerful was the doubt and insecurity fuelling them: but he had
emerged triumphant. Born of fire, and reforged, his conviction in self,
and Christ the Saviour, was unbreakable.

And he had the children to thank. The children who were now his life and
his task. The hand of God had brought them together. He would not fail
them, not while there was a breath left in his body.

He smiled at Jay who was as grave faced as she always was at the break of
day. The sounds of the usual morning bedlam were coming through the door
as bedding was put away and the furniture brought out.

“How goes it today, Jay?”

“Same as always.” She sat on the end of the bed as he pulled on his heavy
hand-tooled boots. “I saw a starship arrive. It’s coming down into low
orbit.”

He glanced up from his laces. “Just one?”

“Uh huh,” she nodded vigorously.

“Ah well, it’s not to be today, then.”

“When?” she demanded. Her small beautiful face was screwed up in
passionate rage.

“Oh, Jay.” He pulled her against him, and rocked her gently as she
sniffled. “Jay, don’t give up hope. Not you.” It was the one thing he
promised them, repeating it every night at prayers so they would believe.
On a world far away lived a wise and powerful man called Admiral
Aleksandrovich, and when he heard what terrible things had happened on
Lalonde he would send a fleet of Confederation Navy starships to help its
people and drive away the demons who possessed them. The soldiers and the
navy crews would come down in huge spaceplanes and rescue them, and then
their parents, and finally put the world to rights again. Every night
Horst said it, with the door locked against the wind and rain, and the
windows shuttered against the dark empty savannah. Every night he
believed and they believed. Because God would not have spared them if it
was not for a purpose. “They will come,” he promised. He kissed her
forehead. “Your mother will be so proud of you when she returns to us.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

She pondered this. “Robert wet his bed again,” she said.

“Robert is a fine boy.” Horst stomped on the second boot. They were two
sizes too large, which meant he had to wear three pairs of socks, which
made his feet sweat, and smell.

“We should get him something,” she said.

“Should we now? And what’s that?”

“A rubber mat. There might be one in another cabin. I could look,” she
said, eyes all wide with innocence.

Horst laughed. “No, Jay, I haven’t forgotten. I’ll take you out hunting
this morning, and this time it will be Danny who stays behind.”

Jay let out a squeal of excitement and kicked her legs in the air. “Yes!
Thank you, Father.”

He finished tying his laces and stood up. “Don’t mention the starship,
Jay. When the navy comes it will be in a mighty flotilla, with their
exhaust plumes so strong and bright they will turn night into day. Nobody
will mistake it. But in the meantime we must not pour cold water on the
others’ hopes.”

“I understand, Father. I’m not as dumb as them.”

He ruffled her hair, which she pretended not to like, wriggling away.
“Come along now,” he said. “Breakfast first. Then we’ll get our
expedition sorted out.”

“I suppose Russ will come with us?” she asked in a martyred voice.

“Yes, he will. And stop thinking uncharitable thoughts.”

The children already had most of the bedding off the floor. Two boys were
sweeping up the dried grass from the sack mattresses (Must find a better
replacement, Horst thought). Eustice’s voice could be heard through the
open door, yelling instructions to the children airing the linen outside.

Horst helped to pull the big table into the middle of the room. Andria’s
team were scurrying round the kitchen corner, tending the equipment and
the meal. The big urn was just starting to boil, and the three IR plates
were heating up the boiling pans ready for the eggs.

Once again Horst gave a fast prayer of thanks that the solar-powered
equipment functioned so well. It was easy enough for the children to use
without hurting themselves, and most of them had helped their mothers
with the cooking before. All they needed was some direction, as they did
in every task he set them. He didn’t like to think how he would have
coped if the homestead hadn’t been empty.

It took another fifteen minutes before Andria’s cooking party were ready
to serve breakfast. Several of the eggs Shona brought back were broken,
so Horst himself scrambled them up in a pan on a spare IR plate. It was
easier to feed Jill, the toddler, that way.

The tea was finally ready, and the eggs boiled. Everyone lined up with
their mug and cutlery and eggcup, and filed past the kitchen bar which
doubled as a serving counter. For a few wonderful minutes the room was
actually quiet as the children drank, and cracked their eggs open, and
pulled faces as they munched the dry oatmeal biscuits, dunking them in
the tea to try and soften them up first. Horst looked round his extended
family and tried not to feel frightened at the responsibility. He adored
them in a way he had never done with his parishioners.

After breakfast it was wash time, with the extra two tanks he had
installed in the rafter space struggling to provide enough hot water.
Horst inspected them all to make sure they were clean and that they had
jell-rinsed their teeth. That way he could have a few words with each of
them, make them feel special, and wanted, and loved. It also gave him the
chance to watch for any sign of illness. So far there had been remarkably
little, a few colds, and one nasty outbreak of diarrhoea a fortnight ago,
which he suspected was from a batch of jam that had come from another
homestead.

The morning would follow its standard pattern while he and Jay were away.
Clothes to be washed in the stream and hung out to dry. Hay to be taken
into the cows, corn to be measured out into the chicken-run dispensers
(they never did that very well), lunch to be prepared. When he went away
it was always the packets of protein-balanced meals from Earth—all they
had to do was put them in the microwave for ninety seconds, and nothing
could go wrong. Sometimes he allowed a group to pick elwisie fruit from
the trees on the edge of the jungle. But not today; he gave Danny a stern
lecture that no one was to wander more than fifty metres from the cabin,
and someone must be on watch the whole time in case a kroclion turned up.
The plains carnivores hadn’t often plagued the homesteads, but his
didactic memory showed what a menace the lumbering animals could be. The
boy nodded earnestly, eager to prove his worth.

Horst was still suffering from stings of doubt when he led the group’s
one horse from its stable. He trusted Jay to be left in charge, she acted
far older than her years. But he had to hunt for meat, there were hardly
any fish in the nearby stream. If they stuck to the cache of food in his
bedroom it would be gone within ten days; it existed to supplement what
he killed and stored in the freezer, and acted as an emergency reserve
just in case he ever did get ill. And Jay deserved a break from the
homestead, she hadn’t been away since they arrived.

He took two other children with him as well as Jay. Mills, an energetic
eight-year-old from Schuster village, and Russ, a seven-year-old who
simply refused to ever leave Horst’s side. The one and only time he had
gone hunting without him the boy had run off into the savannah and it had
taken the whole afternoon to find him.

Jay was grinning and waving and playing up to her jealous friends when
they set off. The savannah grass quickly rose up around their legs; Horst
had made Jay wear a pair of trousers instead of her usual shorts. A thick
layer of mist started to lift from the waving stalks and blades now the
sun was rising higher into the sky. Haze broke the visibility down to
less than a kilometre.

“This humidity is worse than the Juliffe back in Durringham,” Jay
exclaimed, waving her hand frantically in front of her face.

“Cheer up,” Horst said. “It might rain later.”

“No, it won’t.”

He glanced round to where she was walking in the track he was making
through the stiff grass. Bright eyes gleamed mischievously at him from
below the brim of her tatty felt sun-hat.

“How do you know?” he asked. “It always rains on Lalonde.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not any more, not during the day.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you noticed? It only ever rains at night now.”

Horst gave her a perplexed stare. He was about to tell her not to be
silly. But then he couldn’t remember the last time he’d rushed indoors to
shelter from one of Lalonde’s ferocious downpours—a week, ten days? He
had an uncomfortable feeling it might even have been longer. “No, I
hadn’t noticed,” he said temperately.

“That’s all right, you’ve had a lot on your mind lately.”

“I certainly have.” But the chirpy mood was broken now.

I should have noticed, he told himself. But then who regards the weather
as something suspicious? He was sure it was important though, he just
couldn’t think how, or why. Surely they couldn’t change the weather.

Horst made it a rule that he was never away for more than four hours.
That put seven other homestead cabins within reach (eight counting the
ruins of the Skibbow building) as well as allowing enough time to shoot a
danderil or some vennals. Once he had shot a pig that had run wild, and
they’d eaten ham and bacon for the rest of the week. It was the most
delicious meat he’d ever tasted, terrestrial beasts were pure ambrosia
compared to the coarse and bland aboriginal animals.

There was hardly anything of any value left in the cabins now, he had
stripped them pretty thoroughly. After another couple of visits there
would be little point in returning. He caught himself before brooding
turned to melancholia; he wouldn’t need to go back, the navy would come.
And don’t ever think anything different.

Jay bounded up to walk beside him, adjusting her stride to match his. She
gave him a sideways smile, then returned her gaze to the front, perfectly
content.

Horst felt his own tensions seeping away. Having her so close was like
the time right after that dreadful night. She had screamed and fought him
as he pulled her away from Ruth and Jackson Gael. He had forced her
through the village towards the jungle, only once looking back. He saw it
all then, in the light of the fire which pillaged their sturdy tranquil
village, snuffing out their ambitions of a fair future as swiftly as rain
dissolved the mud castles the children built on the riverbank. Satan’s
army was upon them. More figures were marching out of the dark shadows
into the orange light of the flames, creatures that even Dante in his
most lucid fever-dreams had never conceived, and the screams of the
ensnared villagers rose in a crescendo.

Horst had never let Jay look back, not even after they reached the trees.
He knew then that waiting for the hunting party to return was utter
folly. Laser rifles could not harm the demon legions Lucifer in his wrath
had loosed upon the land.

They had carried on far into the jungle, until a numbed, petrified Jay
had finally collapsed. Dawn found them huddled together in the roots of a
qualtook tree, soaked and shivering from a downpour in the night. When
they eased their way cautiously back towards Aberdale and hid themselves
in the vines ringing the clearing they saw a village living a dream.

Several buildings were razed to the ground. People walked by without
paying them a glance. People Horst knew, his flock, who should have been
overwrought by the damage. That was when he knew Satan had won, his
demons had possessed the villagers. What he had seen at the Ivet ceremony
had been repeated here, again and again.

“Where’s Mummy?” Jay asked miserably.

“I have no idea,” he said truthfully. There were fewer people than there
should have been, maybe seventy or eighty out of the population of five
hundred. They acted as though devoid of purpose, walking slowly, looking
round in befogged surprise, saying nothing.

The children were the exception. They ran around between the somnolent,
shuffling adults, crying and shouting. But they were ignored, or
sometimes cuffed for their trouble. Horst could hear their distraught
voices from his sanctuary, deepening his own torment. He watched as a
girl, Shona, trailed after her mother pleading for her to say something.
She tugged insistently at the trousers, trying to get her to stop. For a
moment it looked like she had succeeded. Her mother turned round.
“Mummy,” Shona squealed. But the woman raised a hand, and a blast of
white fire streamed from her fingers to smite the girl full in the face.

Horst cringed, crossing himself instinctively as she dropped like a
stone, not even uttering a cry. Then anger poured through him at his own
cravenness. He stood up and strode purposefully out of the trees.

“Father,” Jay squeaked behind him. “Father, don’t.”

He paid her no heed. In a world gone mad, one more insanity would make no
difference. He had sworn himself to follow Christ, a long time ago, but
it meant more to him now than it ever had. And a child lay suffering
before him. Father Horst Elwes was through with evasions and hiding.

Several of the adults stopped to watch as he marched into the village,
Jay scuttling along behind him. Horst pitied them for the husks they
were. The human state of grace had been drained from their bodies. He
could tell, accepting the gift of knowledge as his right. Six or seven
villagers formed a loose group standing between him and Shona, their
faces known but not their souls.

One of the women, Brigitte Hearn, never a regular churchgoer, laughed at
him, her arm rising. A ball of white fire emerged from her open fingers
and raced towards him. Jay screamed, but Horst stood perfectly still,
face resolute. The fireball started to break apart a couple of metres
away from him, dimming and expanding. It burst with a wet crackle as it
touched him, tiny strands of static burrowing through his filthy
sweatshirt. They stung like hornets across his belly, but he refused to
reveal his pain to the semicircle of watchers.

“Do you know what this is?” Horst thundered. He lifted the stained and
muddied silver crucifix that hung round his neck, brandishing it at
Brigitte Hearn as though it was a weapon. “I am the Lord’s servant, as
you are the Devil’s. And I have His work to do. Now stand aside.”

A spasm of fright crossed Brigitte Hearn’s face as the silver cross was
shaken in front of her. “I’m not,” she said faintly. “I’m not the Devil’s
servant. None of us are.”

“Then stand aside. That girl is badly hurt.”

Brigitte Hearn glanced behind her, and took a couple of steps to one
side. The other people in the group hurriedly parted, their faces
apprehensive, one or two walked away. Horst gestured briefly at Jay to
follow him, and went over to the fallen girl. He grimaced at the singed
and blackened skin of her face. Her pulse was beating wildly. She had
probably gone into shock, he decided. He scooped her up in his arms, and
started for the church.

“I had to come back,” Brigitte Hearn said as Horst walked away. Her body
was all hunched up, eyes brimming with tears. “You don’t know what it’s
like. I had to.”

“It?” Horst asked impatiently. “What is it?”

“Death.”

Horst shuddered, almost breaking his stride. Jay looked round fearfully
at the woman.

“Four hundred years,” Brigitte Hearn called out falteringly. “I died four
hundred years ago. Four hundred years of nothing.”

Horst barged into the small infirmary at the back of the church, and laid
Shona down on the wooden table which doubled as an examination bed. He
snatched the medical processor block from its shelf and applied a sensor
pad to the nape of her neck. The metabolic display appeared as he
described her injuries to the processor. Horst read the results and gave
the girl a sedative, then started spraying a combination analgesic and
cleansing fluid over the burns.

“Jay,” he said quietly. “I want you to go into my room and fetch my
rucksack from the cupboard. Put in all the packets of preprocessed food
you can find, then the tent I used when we first arrived, and anything
else you think will be useful to camp out in the jungle—the little
fission blade, my portable heater, that kind of stuff. But leave some
space for my medical supplies. Oh, and I’ll need my spare boots too.”

“Are we leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Are we going to Durringham?”

“I don’t know. Not straight away.”

“Can I go and fetch Drusilla?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. She’ll be better off here than tramping
through the jungle with us.”

“All right. I understand.”

He heard her moving about in his room as he worked on Shona. The younger
girl’s nose was burnt almost down to the bone, and the metabolic display
said only one retina was functional. Not for the first time he despaired
the lack of nanonic medical packages; a decent supply would hardly have
bankrupted the Church.

He had flushed the dead skin from Shona’s burns as best he could, coating
them in a thin layer of corticosteroid foam to ease the inflammation, and
was binding her head with a quantity of his dwindling stock of epithelium
membrane when Jay came back in carrying his rucksack, It was packed
professionally, and she had even rolled up his sleeping-bag.

“I got some stuff for myself,” she said, and held up a bulging
shoulder-bag.

“Good girl. You didn’t make the bag too heavy, did you? You might have to
carry it a long way.”

“No, Father.”

Someone knocked timidly on the door post. Jay shrank into the corner of
the infirmary.

“Father Horst?” Brigitte Hearn poked her head in. “Father, they don’t
want you here. They say they’ll kill you, that you can’t defend yourself
against all of them.”

“I know. We’re leaving.”

“Oh.”

“Will they let us leave?”

She swallowed and looked over her shoulder. “Yes. I think so. They don’t
want a fight. Not with you, not with a priest.”

Horst opened drawers in the wooden cabinet at the back of the infirmary,
and started shoving his medical equipment into the rucksack. “What are
you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said woefully.

“You said you had died?”

“Yes.”

“What is your name?”

“Ingrid Veenkamp, I lived on Bielefeld when it was a stage one colony
world, not much different to this planet.” She twitched a smile at Jay.
“I had two girls. Pretty, like you.”

“And where is Brigitte Hearn now?”

“Here, in me. I feel her. She is like a dream.”

“Possession,” Horst said.

“No.”

“Yes! I saw the red demon sprite. I witnessed the rite, the obscenity
Quinn Dexter committed to summon you here.”

“I’m no demon,” the woman insisted. “I lived. I am human.”

“No more. Leave this body you have stolen. Brigitte Hearn has a right to
her own life.”

“I can’t! I’m not going back there. Not to that.”

Horst took a grip on his trembling hands. Thomas had known this moment,
he thought, when the disciple doubted his Lord’s return, when in prideful
arrogance he refused to believe until he had seen the print of nails in
His hand. “Believe,” he whispered. “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing ye might have life through His name.”

The Brigitte/Ingrid woman bowed her head.

Horst asked the question that should never be asked: “Where? Where, damn
you!”

“Nowhere. There is nothing for us. Do you hear? Nothing!”

“You lie.”

“There is nothing, just emptiness. I’m sorry.” She took an unsteady
breath, seemingly gathering up a remnant of dignity. “You must leave now.
They are coming back.”

Horst shut the flap on his rucksack and sealed it. “Where are the rest of
the villagers?”

“Gone. They hunt fresh bodies for other souls trapped in the beyond, it
has become their quest. I haven’t the stomach for it, nor have the others
who remained in Aberdale. But you take care, Father. Your spirit is hale,
but you could never withstand one of us for long.”

“They want more people to possess?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Together we are strong. Together we can change what is. We can destroy
death, Father. We shall bring eternity into existence here on this
planet, perhaps even across the entire Confederation. I shall stay as I
am for all time now; ageless, changeless. I am alive again, I won’t give
that up.”

“This is lunacy,” he said.

“No. This is wonder, it is our miracle.”

Horst pulled his rucksack onto his back, and picked Shona up. Several
adults had started to gather around the church. He walked down the steps
pointedly disregarding them, Jay pressing into his side. They stared at
him, but no one made a move. He turned and headed for the jungle, mildly
surprised to see Ingrid Veenkamp walking with him.

“I told you,” she said. “They lack nerve. You will be safer if I am with
you. They know I can strike back.”

“Would you?”

“Perhaps. For the girl’s sake. But I don’t think we will find out.”

“Please, lady,” Jay said, “do you know where my mummy is?”

“With the others, the pernicious ones. But don’t look for her, she is no
longer your mother. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she mumbled.

“We’ll get her back for you, Jay,” Horst said. “One day, somehow. I
promise.”

“Such faith,” Ingrid Veenkamp said.

He thought she was mocking, but there was no trace of a smile on her
face. “What about the other children?” he asked. “Why haven’t you
possessed them?”

“Because they are children. No soul would want a vessel so small and
frail, not when there are plentiful adults to be had. Millions on this
planet alone.”

They had reached the fields, and the soft loam was clinging to Horst’s
feet in huge claggy lumps. With the weight of the rucksack and Shona
conspiring to push him into the ground he wasn’t even sure he could make
it to the first rank of trees. Sweat was dripping from his forehead at
the effort. “Send the children after me,” he wheezed. “They are hungry
and they are frightened. I will take care of them.”

“You make a poor Pied Piper, Father. I’m not even sure you’ll last until
nightfall.”

“Mock and scorn as you like, but send them. They’ll find me. For God
knows I’ll not be able to travel far or fast.”

She dipped her head briefly. “I’ll tell them.”

Horst staggered into the jungle with Jay beside him, her big shoulder-bag
knocking against her legs. He managed another fifty metres through the
inimical vines and undergrowth, then sank panting painfully to his knees,
face perilously red and hot.

“Are you all right?” Jay asked anxiously.

“Yes. We’ll just have to take it in short stages, that’s all. I think
we’re safe for now.”

She opened the shoulder-bag’s seal. “I brought your cooler flask, I
thought you might need it. I filled it with the high-vitamin orange juice
you had in your room.”

“Jay, you are a twenty-four-carat angel.” He took the flask from her and
drank some of the juice; she had set the thermostat so low it poured like
slushy snow. They heard someone pushing their way through the undergrowth
behind them, and turned. It was Russ and Andria, the first of the
children.



Trudging across the savannah wasn’t quite the holiday Jay had told
herself it would be. But it was lovely being away from the homestead,
even if it was only going to be for a few hours. She longed to ride the
horse, too; though there was no way she was going to plead with Father
Horst in front of the boys.

They arrived at the Ruttan family’s old homestead after forty minutes’
walking. Untended, it had suffered from Lalonde’s rain and winds. The
door which had been left open had swung to and fro until the hinges
broke, and now it lay across the small porch. Animals (probably sayce)
had used it for shelter at some time, adding to the disarray inside.

Jay waited with the two boys while Father Horst went in, carrying his
laser hunting rifle, and checked over the three rooms. The abandoned
cabin was eerie after the noise and bustle of their own homestead. She
heard a distant rumble, and looked up, thinking it was approaching
thunder. But the sky remained a perfect basin of blue. The noise grew
louder, swelling out of the west.

Father Horst emerged from the homestead carrying a wooden chair. “It
sounds like a spaceplane,” he said.

The grimed window-panes were rattling in their frames. Jay searched the
sky frantically as the sound began to fade into the east. But there was
nothing to be seen, the spaceplane was too high. She gave the distant
mountains to the south a forlorn glance. It must have been going to the
Tyrathca farmers, she thought.

“Have a hunt round,” Horst said. “See if you can find anything useful;
you might try the barn as well. I’m going to the roof to cut the
solar-cell sheets down.” He put the chair down under the eaves, and stood
on it, squirming his way up onto the roof.

There was nothing much in the cabin; fans of grey fungus had established
a foothold in the cracks between the planks, and greenish ripples of
mould patterned the damp mattresses. She pulled a couple of clay mugs out
from under one of the beds, and Russ found some shirts in a box below the
kitchen workbench.

“They’ll be all right once we wash them,” Jay declared, holding up the
smelly, soiled garments.

They had more luck in the barn: two sacks of protein-concentrate cakes
used to feed young animals that had just come out of hibernation, and
Mills discovered a small fission-blade saw behind a pile of old
cargo-pods. “Good work!” Horst told them as he clambered down. “And look
what I got, all three sheets. We’ll be able to heat the water tanks up in
half the time now.”

Jay rolled up the solar-cell sheets while he lifted the sacks into the
plough horse’s big saddle-bags.

Horst handed round his chill flask full of icy elwisie juice, then they
set off again. Jay was glad of her hat. The sunlight was scorchingly hot
on her arms and back, air rippled and shimmered all around. I never
thought I’d miss the rains.

There was a river to cross before they reached the Soebergs’ homestead.
It was less than a metre deep, but about fifteen metres wide. A fast,
steady flow from the mountains, winding in broad curves along the
savannah’s gentle contours. The bottom was smooth rock and rounded
pebbles. Snowlily plants were growing right across it, their long fronds
waving in the current. Flower buds as big as her head bobbed on the
surface, the first splits starting to appear in their sides.

Jay and Horst took their boots off, and waded across clinging to the side
of the horse. The water was invigorating, numbing her toes. She could
easily believe it must have come directly from the snow peaks themselves,
she wouldn’t have been surprised to see nuggets of ice bobbing about.
After she sat on the bottom of the bank and dried her feet she thought
she could walk for another hundred kilometres. Her skin was still
tingling delightfully when they started up the bank.

They had been walking for another ten minutes when Horst held up his
hand. “Mills, Russ, come down off the horse,” he said with quiet
insistence.

The tone he used set up an uncomfortable prickling along Jay’s spine.
“What is it?” she asked.

“The Soebergs’ homestead. I think.”

She peered over the tops of the wavering grass stems. There was something
up ahead, a white silhouette against the indistinct horizon, but the
sun-roiled air made it hard to tell exactly what.

Horst fished his optical intensifier from a pocket. It was a curving band
of black composite that fitted over his eyes. He studied the scene ahead
for a while, his right forefinger adjusting the magnification control.

“They are coming back,” he said in a soft murmur.

“Can I see?” she asked.

He handed her the band. It was large and quite heavy; the edges annealed
to her skin with a pinching sensation.

She thought she was looking at some kind of AV recording, a drama play
perhaps. Sitting in the middle of the savannah was a lovely old
three-storey manor house, surrounded by a wide swath of tidy lawns. It
was made of white stone, with a grey slate roof and large bay windows.
Several people were standing under the portico.

“How do they do that?” Jay asked, more curious than alarmed.

“When you sell your soul to Satan, the material rewards are generous
indeed. It is what he asks in return you should fear.”

“But Ingrid Veenkamp said—”

“I know what she said.” He removed the band from her face, and she
blinked up at him. “She is a lost soul, she knows not what she does. Lord
forgive her.”

“Do they want our homestead too?” Jay asked.

“I shouldn’t think so. Not if they can build that in a week.” He sighed,
and took one final look at the miniature mansion. “Come along, we’ll see
if we can find a nice fat danderil. If we get back early I’ll have time
to mince the meat, and you can have burgers tonight. What do you say?”

“Yeah!” the two boys chanted in chorus, grinning.

They turned round, and started to trek back across the heat-soaked
savannah to the homestead.



Kelven Solanki floated through the open hatch into the Arikara’s bridge.
The blue-grey compartment was the largest he’d ever seen in a warship
before. As well as the normal flight crew it had to accommodate the
admiral’s twenty-strong squadron-coordination staff. Most of their
couches were empty now. The flagship was orbiting Takfu, the largest gas
giant in the Rosenheim star system, taking on fuel.

Commander Mircea Kroeber was stretched out along his couch, supervising
the fuelling operation with three other crew-members. Kelven had seen the
cryogenic tanker as Ilex docked with the huge flagship. A series of
spherical tanks stacked on top of a reaction drive section, and sprouting
thermo-dump panels like the wings of a mutant butterfly.

The squadron of twenty-five ships was in formation around the Arikara,
holding station five hundred kilometres away from Uhewa, the Edenist
habitat which was resupplying them with both fuel and consumables. It was
just one of the priority operations Ilex’s arrival in the star system had
kicked off ten hours ago. Rosenheim’s planetary government had
immediately placed a restriction on all starship passengers and crew
wanting to visit the surface. They now had to go through a rigorous
screening process to make sure Laton wasn’t amongst them, creating a vast
backlog in the low orbit port stations. The system’s asteroid settlements
had swiftly followed suit. Reserve naval officers were being called up,
and the 7th Fleet elements present in the system had been put on alert
status along with the national navy.

Kelven was beginning to feel like a plague carrier, infecting the
Confederation with panic.

Rear-Admiral Meredith Saldana was hanging in front of a console in the
C&C section of the bridge, his soles touching the decking’s stikpads. He
was wearing an ordinary naval ship-suit, but it seemed so much smarter on
him, braid stripes shining brightly on his arm. A couple of his staff
officers were in attendance behind him. One of the console’s AV
projection pillars was emitting a low-frequency laser sparkle. When
Kelven looked straight at it he saw Jantrit breaking apart.

Meredith Saldana datavised a shutdown order at the console as Kelven let
the stikpad claim his shoes. The Rear-Admiral was six centimetres taller
than him, and possessed a more distinguished appearance than the First
Admiral. Could the Saldanas sequence dignity into their genes?

“Commander Kelven Solanki reporting as ordered, sir.”

Meredith Saldana gave him a frank stare. “You are my Lalonde advisory
officer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Just been promoted, Commander?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It always shows.”

“Sir, I have your orders flek from the First Admiral.” Kelven held it out.

Meredith Saldana took the black coin-sized disk with some reluctance. “I
don’t know which is worse. Three months of these ridiculous ceremonial
fly-bys and flag-waving exercises in the Omutan system, or a combat
mission which is going to get us shot at by unknown hostiles.”

“Lalonde needs our help, sir.”

“Was it bad, Kelven?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose I’d better access this flek, hadn’t I? All we’ve received so
far are the emergency deployment orders from Fleet headquarters and the
news about Laton showing up again.”

“There is a full situation briefing included, sir.”

“Excellent. If we run to schedule we should be departing for Lalonde in
eight hours. I’ve requested another three voidhawks be assigned to the
squadron for liaison and interdiction duties. Is there anything else you
think I need immediately? This mission’s code rating gives me the
authority to requisition almost any piece of hardware the navy has in the
system.”

“No, sir. But you will have a fourth extra voidhawk, Ilex has been
assigned to the squadron as well.”

“You can never have too many voidhawks,” Meredith said lightly. There was
no response from the young commander. “Carry on, Kelven. Find yourself a
berth, and get settled in. Report for duty here to me an hour before
departure time, you can give me a first-hand account of what we can
expect. I always feel a lot happier being brought up to date by someone
with hands-on experience. Meanwhile I suggest you get some sleep, you
look like you need it.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”

Kelven twisted his feet free of the stikpad, and pushed off towards the
hatch.

Meredith Saldana watched him manoeuvre through the open oval without
touching the rim. Commander Solanki seemed to be a very tense man. But
then I’d probably be the same in his place, the admiral thought. He held
up the flek with a sense of foreboding, then slotted it into his couch
player to find out exactly what he was up against.



Horst was always glad to get back to the homestead and greet his scampish
charges; after all, when all was said and done, they were only children.
And profoundly shocked children at that. They should never be left on
their own, and if he had his way they never would. Practicality dictated
otherwise, of course, and there had never yet been any major disaster
while he was roaming the savannah for meat and foraging the other
homesteads. To some extent he had grown blasé about his trips. But this
time, after encountering the possessed out at the Soeberg homestead, he
had forced the return pace, stopping only to kill a danderil, his mind
host to a whole coven of thoughts along the theme of what if.

When he topped a small rise six hundred metres away and saw the familiar
wood cabin with the children sporting around outside he felt an eddy of
relief. Thank you, Lord, he said silently.

He slowed down for the last length, giving Jay a respite. Sweat made her
blue blouse cling to her skinny frame. The heat was becoming a serious
problem. It seemed to have banished the hardy chikrows back into the
jungle. Even the danderil he’d shot had been sheltering in the shade of
one of the savannah’s scarce trees.

Horst blinked up at the unforgiving sky. Surely they don’t mean to burn
this world to cinders? They have form now, stolen bodies; and all the
physical needs, urges, and failings which go with them.

He squinted at the northern horizon. There seemed to be an effete pink
haze above the jungle, dusting the sharp seam between sky and land, like
the flush of dawn refracted over a deep ocean. The harder he tried to
focus upon it, the more insubstantial it became.

He couldn’t believe it was a natural meteorological rara avis. More an
omen. His humour, already tainted by the Soeberg homestead, sank further.

Too much is happening at once. Whatever polluted destiny they are
manufacturing, it is reaching its zenith.

They were a hundred metres from the cabin when the children spotted them.
A scrum of small bodies came running over the grass, Danny in the lead.
Both of the homestead’s dogs chased around them, barking loudly.

“Freya’s here,” the boy yelled out at the top of his voice. “Freya’s
here, Father. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Then they were all clinging to him, shouting jubilantly and smiling up
with enthusiasm as he laughed and patted them and hugged them. For a
moment he revelled in the contact, the hero returning. A knight protector
and Santa Claus rolled into one. They expected so much of him.

“What did you find in the cabins, Father?”

“You were quick today.”

“Please, Father, tell Barnaby to give my reading tutor block back.”

“Was there any more chocolate?”

“Did you find any shoes for me?”

“You promised to look for some story fleks.”

With his escort swirling round and chattering happily, Horst led the
horse over to the cabin. Russ and Mills had slithered off its back to
talk with their friends.

“When did Freya arrive?” Horst asked Danny. He remembered the dark-haired
girl from Aberdale, Freya Chester, about eight or nine, whose parents had
brought a large variety of fruit trees with them. Kerry Chester’s grove
had always been one of the better maintained plots around the village.

“About ten minutes ago,” the boy said. “It’s great, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It certainly is.” Remarkable, in fact. He was surprised she had
survived this long. Most of the children had turned up during the first
fortnight while they were still camping in a glade a kilometre away from
Aberdale. Five of them walking from Schuster. They had said a woman was
with them for most of the journey—Horst suspected it was Ingrid Veenkamp.
Several others, the youngest ones, he had found himself as they wandered
aimlessly through the jungle. He and Jay made a regular circuit of the
area round the village in the hope of finding still more. And for every
one they did save he suffered the images of ten more lost in the
ferocious undergrowth, stalked by sayce and slowly starving to death.

At the end of a fortnight it was obvious that the messy, hot, damp glade
was totally impractical as a permanent site. By that time he had over
twenty children to look after. It was Jay who suggested they try a
homestead cabin, and four days later they were safely installed. Only
five more children had turned up since then, all of them in a dreadful
state as they tramped down the overgrown track between Aberdale and the
savannah. Dispossessed urchins, totally unable to fend for themselves,
sleeping in the jungle and stealing food from the village when they
could, which wasn’t anything like often enough. The last had been
Eustice, two weeks ago when Horst skirted the jungle on a hunting trip; a
skeleton with skin, her clothes reduced to tattered grey rags. She
couldn’t walk, if the Alsatian hadn’t scented her and raised the alarm
she would have been dead inside of a day. As it was, he had nearly lost
her.

“Where is Freya?” Horst asked Danny.

“Inside, Father, having a rest. I said she could use your bed.”

“Good lad. You did the right thing.”

Horst let Jay and some of the girls lead the horse over to the water
trough, and detailed a group of boys to remove the danderil carcass he’d
secured to its back. Inside the cabin it was degrees cooler than the air
outside, the thick double layer of mayope planks which made up the walls
and ceiling proving an efficient insulator. He said a cheery hello to a
bunch of children sitting around the table who were using a reading tutor
block, and went into his own room.

The curtains were drawn, casting a rich yellow light throughout the room.
There was a small figure lying on the bed wearing a long navy-blue dress,
legs tucked up. She didn’t appear starved, or even hungry. Her dress was
as clean as though it had just been washed.

“Hello, Freya,” Horst said softly. Then he looked at her fully, and even
more of the savannah’s warmth was drained from his skin.

Freya raised her head lazily, brushing her shoulder-length hair from her
face. “Father Horst, thank you so much for taking me in. It’s so kind of
you.”

Horst’s muscles froze the welcoming smile on his face. She was one of
them! A possessed. Below the healthy deeply tanned skin lay a wizened
sickly child, the dark dress hid a stained adult’s T-shirt. The two
images overlapped each other, jumping in and out of focus. They were
enormously difficult to distinguish, obscured by a covering veil which
she drew over his mind as well as his eyes. Reality was repugnant, he
didn’t want to see, didn’t want truth. A headache ignited three
centimetres behind his temple.

“All are welcome here, Freya,” he said with immense effort. “You must
have had a terrible time these last weeks.”

“I did, it was horrible. Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t speak to me. I hid in
the jungle for ages and ages. There were berries and things to eat. But
they were always cold. And I sometimes heard a sayce. It was really
scary.”

“Well, there are no sayce around here, and we have plenty of hot food.”
He walked along the side of the bed towards the dresser below the window,
every footfall magnified to a strident thump in the still room. The noise
of the children outside had perished. There was just the two of them now.

“Father?” she called.

“What do you want here?” he whispered tightly, his back towards her. He
was afraid to pull the curtains open, afraid there might be nothing
outside.

“It is a kindness.” Her voice was deepening, becoming a morbid atonality.
“There is no place for you on this world any more. Not as you are. You
must change, become as us. The children will come to you one at a time
when you call. They trust you.”

“A trust that will never be betrayed.” He turned round, Bible in hand.
The leather-bound book his mother had given him when he became a novice;
it even had a little inscription she had written in the cover, the black
ink fading to a watery blue down the decades.

Freya gave him a slightly surprised look, then sneered. “Oh, poor Father!
Do you need your crutch so badly? Or do you hide from true life behind
your belief?”

“Holy Father, Lord of Heaven and the mortal world, in humility and
obedience, I do ask Your aid in this act of sanctification, through Jesus
Christ who walked among us to know our failings, grant me Your blessing
in my task,” Horst incanted. It was so long ago since he had read the
litany in the Unified prayer-book; and never before had he spoken the
words, not in an age of science and universal knowledge, living in an
arcology of crumbling concrete and gleaming composite. Even the Church
questioned their need: they were a relic of the days when faith and
paganism were still as one. But now they shone like the sun in his mind.

Freya’s contempt descended into shock. “What?” She flung her legs off the
bed.

“My Lord God, look upon Your servant Freya Chester, fallen to this
unclean spirit, and permit her cleansing; in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Horst made the sign of the cross above the
furious little girl.

“Stop it, you old fool. You think I fear that, your blind faith?” Her
control over her form was slipping. The healthy clean image flickered on
and off like a faulty light, exposing the frail malnourished child
underneath.

“I beseech You to grant me Your strength, O Lord; so that her soul may be
saved from damnation.”

The Bible burst into flames. Horst groaned as the heat gnawed at his
hand. He dropped it to the floor where it sputtered close to the leg of
the bed. His hand was agony, as though it was dipped in boiling oil.

Freya’s face was screwed up in determination, great rubberlike folds of
skin distorting her pretty features almost beyond recognition. “Fuck you,
priest.” The obscenity seemed ludicrous coming from a child. “I’ll burn
your mind out of your skull. I’ll cook your brain in its own blood.” Her
possessed shape shimmered again. The lame Freya below was choking.

Horst clutched at his crucifix with his good hand. “In the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, I order you, servant of Lucifer, to be gone from this
girl. Return to the formless nothing where you belong.”

Freya let out a piercing shriek. “How did you know!”

“Begone from this world. There is no place in the sight of God for those
who would dwell in Evil.”

“How, priest?” Her head turned from side to side, neck muscles straining
as though she was fighting some invisible force. “Tell me . . .”

Heat was building along Horst’s spine. He was sweating profusely,
frightened she really would burn him. It was like the worst case of
sunburn he had ever known, as though his skin was splitting open. His
clothes would catch fire soon, he was sure.

He thrust the crucifix towards the girl. “Freya Chester, come forth, come
into the light and the glory of our Lord.”

And Freya Chester was solidly before him, thin sunken face racked by
pain, spittle on her chin. Her mouth was working, struggling around
complex words. Terror pounced from her black eyes.

“Come, Freya!” Horst shouted jubilantly. “Come forth, there is nothing to
fear. The Lord awaits.”

“Father.” Her voice was tragically frail. She coughed, spewing out a
meagre spray of saliva and stomach juices. “Father, help.”

“In God we trust, to deliver us from evil. We seek Your justice, knowing
we are not worthy. We drink of Your blood, and eat of Your flesh so we
may share in Your glory. Yet we are but the dust from which You made us.
Guide us from our errors, Lord, for in ignorance and sin we know not what
we do. And we ask for Your holy protection.”

For one last supremely lucid moment the demon possessor returned. Freya
glared at him with a ferocity which withered his resolution by its sheer
malice.

“I won’t forget you,” she ground out between her curled lips. “Never in
all eternity will I forget you, priest.”

Unseen hands scrabbled at his throat, tiny fingers, like an infant’s.
Blood emerged from the grazes sharp nails left around his Adam’s apple.
He held the crucifix on high, defiant that Christ’s symbol would triumph.

Freya let out a last bellow of rage. Then the demon spirit was gone in a
blast of noxious arctic air which blew Horst backwards. Neatly stacked
piles of food packets went tumbling over, the bedlinen took flight, loose
articles stampeded off the dresser and table. There was a bang like a
castle door slamming in the face of an invading army.

Freya, the real Freya, all crusty sores, ragged clothes, and bony famined
figure, was stretched out on the bed, emitting quiet gurgles from her
chapped mouth. She started to cry.

Horst clambered to his feet, hanging on to the edge of the bed for
support. He drew a gasping breath, his body aching inside and out, as
though he had swum an ocean.

Jay and a troop of frantic children rushed in, shouting in a confused
babble.

“It’s all right,” he told them, dabbing at the scratch marks on his
throat. “Everything’s all right now.”



When Jay awoke the next morning she was surprised to see she had
overslept. She hardly ever did that, the few minutes alone to herself at
the start of each morning were among the most precious of the day. But it
had to be dawn. A pale tinge of hoary light was creeping into the cabin’s
main room around the reed blinds. The other children were all still sound
asleep. She quickly pulled on her shorts, boots, and an adult-sized shirt
she had altered to something approximating her own size, and slipped
quietly out of the door. Thirty seconds later she ran back in shouting
for Father Horst at the top of her voice.

Far above the lonely savannah cabin, the long vivid contrails of thirteen
starship fusion drives formed a cosmic mandala across the black pre-dawn
sky.


Chapter 06
==========


Lewis Sinclair had been born in 2059. He lived in Messopia, one of the
first purpose-built industrial/accommodation/leisure complexes to be
constructed on Spain’s Mediterranean coast; a cheerless mathematical
warren of concrete, glass, and plastic which covered five square
kilometres and sheltered ninety thousand people against the ferocious
armada storms which were beginning to plague Earth. It was a heavily
subsidized experiment by the European Federal Parliament, by that time
desperate to tackle the cancerous underclass problem thrown up by the
continent’s eighty-five million unemployed. Messopia was a qualified
success; its medium-scale engineering industries provided only a minimal
return for investors, but it provided a foretaste of the huge arcologies
which in the centuries to come would house, protect, and employ Earth’s
dangerously expanded population.

His path through life was never going to be anything other than
troublesome; born to low-income parents, who were only in the new
microcosm city because of the parliamentary law requiring a socially
balanced population. There was no real niche for him in an enterprise
geared so resolutely towards the middle-class job/family/home ethic. He
played truant from school, turned to crime, drugs, violence. A textbook
delinquent, one of thousands who ran through Messopia’s architecturally
bankrupt corridors and malls.

It could have been different, if the education system had caught him
early enough, if he had had the strength to hold out against peer
pressure, if Messopia’s technocrat designers had been less contemptuous
of the social sciences. The opportunities existed. Lewis Sinclair lived
in an age of quite profound technological and economic progress, and
never really knew it, let alone shared in it. The first batches of
asteroid-mined metal were starting to supplement depleted planetary
reserves; biotechnology was finally living up to its initial promise;
crude examples of the affinity bond were being demonstrated; more and
more non-polluting fusion plants were coming on-stream as the supplies of
He3 mined from Jupiter’s atmosphere increased. But none of it reached
down to his level of society. He died in 2076, seventeen years old; one
year after the bitek habitat Eden was germinated in orbit around Jupiter,
and one year before the New Kong asteroid settlement began its FTL
stardrive research project. His death was as wasteful as his life, a
fight with power-blade knives in a piss-puddled subterranean warehouse,
him and his opponent both high on synthetic crack. The fight was over a
thirteen-year-old girl they both wanted to pimp.

He lost, the power blade chopping through his ribs to slice his stomach
into two unequal portions.



And Lewis Sinclair made the same discovery as every human eventually
made. Death was not the end of being. In the centuries that followed,
spent as a virtually powerless astral entity suspended in dimensional
emptiness, perceiving and envying mortals in their rich physical
existence, he simply wished it were so.



But now Lewis Sinclair had returned. He wore a body again, weeping for
joy at such simple magnificence as raindrops falling on his upturned
face. He wasn’t going to go back into the deprivation which lay after
physical life, not ever. And he had the power to see that it was so; him
and all the others, acting in combination, they were supreme badasses.

There was more to him than before, more than the strength which flesh and
blood provided. Part of his soul was still back there in the terrible
empty gulf; he hadn’t emerged fully into life, not yet. He was trapped
like a butterfly unable to complete the transformation from dirt-bound
pupa to wing-free ephemeral. Often he felt as though the body he had
possessed was simply a biological sensor mechanism, a mole’s head peeking
out from the earth, feeding sensations back to his feeling-starved soul
via an incorporeal umbilical cord. Strange energistic vortices swirled
around the dimensional twist where the two continua intermingled, kinking
reality. The bizarre effect was usable, bending to his will. He could
alter physical structures, sculpt energy, even prise open further links
back into the extrinsic universe. His mastery of this power was
increasing gradually, but its wild fluxes and resonances caused havoc in
cybernetic machinery and electronic processor blocks around him.

So he watched through the spaceplane’s narrow curving windscreen as the
Yaku (now operating under a forged registration) dwindled against the
sharp-etched stars, and felt his new muscles relaxing below the seat
webbing. The spaceplane systems were an order of magnitude simpler than
the Yaku’s, and critical malfunctions were highly unlikely now.
Starflight was a disturbing business, so very technical. His dependency
on the machines which his very presence disrupted was unnerving. With
some luck he would never have to venture across the interstellar gulf
again. He and his five colleagues riding down to the surface would be
sufficient to conquer this unsuspecting world, turning it into a haven
for other souls. Together they would make it their own.

“Retro burn in five seconds,” Walter Harman said.

“OK,” Lewis said. He concentrated hard, feeling round a chorus of distant
voices with the peculiar cell cluster in this body’s brain. << We’re
coming down now, >>he told Pernik Island.

<< I look forward to your arrival, >>the island personality replied.

The affinity voice sounded clear and loud in his mind. Bitek functioned
almost flawlessly despite the energistic turmoil boiling around his
cells. It was one reason for selecting this particular planet.

The manoeuvring rockets at the rear of the little spaceplane fired
briefly, pushing him down into the angle of the seat. The conditioning
grille above his head was emitting an annoyingly loud whine as the fan
motor spun out of control. His fingers tightened their grip on the
armrests.

Walter Harman claimed to have been a spaceplane pilot back in the 2280s,
serving in the Kulu Navy. As only three of them had even been in space
before, his right to pilot the spaceplane went unchallenged. The body he
used belonged to one of Yaku’s crew, possessed within minutes of Lewis
boarding the starship. It was equipped with neural nanonics, which unlike
bitek proved almost useless in the constant exposure to the hostile
energistic environment a possession generated, so Walter Harman had
activated the spaceplane’s manual-control system, an ergonomic joystick
which deployed from the console in front of the pilot’s seat. A
projection pillar showed trajectory graphics and systems information,
updating constantly as he muttered instructions to the flight computer.

The spaceplane rolled, and Lewis saw the mass of the planet slide round
the windscreen. They were over the terminator now, heading into the
penumbra.

Night was always their best time, putting mortal humans at a
disadvantage, adding to their own potency. Something about the darkness
embraced their nature.

The spaceplane shook gently as the upper atmosphere began to strike the
heatshield belly. Walter Harman pitched them up at a slight angle, and
swung the wings out a few degrees, beginning the long aerobrake glide
downwards.

They were still in the darkness when they dropped below subsonic. Lewis
could see a hemispherical bauble of light glinting on the horizon ahead.

“Your approach is on the beam,” the island personality informed them over
the microwave channel. “Please land on pad eighteen.” A purple and yellow
flight vector diagram appeared on the console’s holoscreen.

“Acknowledged, Pernik,” Walter Harman said. A three-dimensional
simulacrum of the island materialized inside Lewis’s skull, an image far
sharper than the porno holographs he used to peddle back in Messopia. He
automatically knew which pad eighteen was. A burst of doubt and anxiety
blossomed in his mind, which he did his best to prevent from leaking back
down the affinity bond to the island personality. This Edenist consensual
set-up was so smooth. He worried that they might be taking on more than
they could reasonably expect to accomplish.

The island personality had accepted his explanation that he was
representing his merchant family enterprise from Jospool. Not every
Edenist used the voidhawks to carry freight, there simply weren’t enough
to go round.

Lewis studied the mental simulacrum. Pad eighteen was close to the rim
and the floating quays, there would be machinery there. It would be easy.

Pernik’s coating of moss made the two-kilometre disk a black hole in the
faintly phosphorescent ocean. Pale yellow radiance shone from a few
windows in the accommodation towers, and floodlights illuminated all the
quays. It was 4 a.m. local time, most of the inhabitants were asleep.

Walter Harman set the spaceplane down on pad eighteen with only a minor
wobble.

<< Welcome to Pernik, >>the personality said formally.

<< Thank you, >>Lewis replied.

<< Eysk is approaching. His family runs one of our premier fishing
enterprises. He should be able to fill your requirements. >>

<< Excellent, >>Lewis said. << My thanks again for receiving me so
promptly. I have spent weeks on that Adamist starship; it was becoming
somewhat claustrophobic. >>

<< I understand. >>

Lewis wasn’t sure, but he thought there was a mild dose of puzzlement in
the personality’s tone. Too late now, though, they were down. Excitement
was spilling into his blood. His part of the scheme was by far the most
important.

The airlock opened with a couple of jerky motions as the actuators
suffered power surges. Lewis went down the aluminium stairs.

Eysk was walking across the polyp apron towards pad eighteen. A ridge of
electrophorescent cells circling the pad were casting an austere light
over the spaceplane. Lewis could see very little of the island beyond;
there was one accommodation tower forming a slender black rectangle
against the night sky, and the sound of waves sloshing against the rim
came from the other side of the spaceplane.

“Keep him busy,” Lewis ordered Walter Harman as the pilot followed him
down the stairs.

“No problem, I’ve got a thousand dumb questions lined up. Atlantis hadn’t
been discovered when I was alive.”

Lewis reached the landing pad and tensed—this was it, make or break time.
He had altered his facial features considerably during the starflight;
that old journalist back on Lalonde had given him a nasty moment. He
waited for the approaching Edenist to shout an alarm to the island.

Eysk gave a slight bow in greeting, and directed an identity trait at
Lewis. He waited politely for Lewis to return the punctilio.

Lewis didn’t have one. He hadn’t known. His only source of data on
Edenist customs was far beyond his grasp.

Deep down at the centre of his brain there was a presence, the soul which
used to own the body he now possessed. A prisoner held fast by the
manacle bonds of Lewis’s thoughts.

All of the possessors had a similar prisoner, visualized as a tiny
homunculus contained within a sphere of cephalic glass. They pleaded and
they begged to be let out, to come back; annoying background voices, a
gnat’s buzz across consciousness. The possessed could use them, torment
them with glimpses of reality in return for information, learning how to
blend in with the modern, starkly alien society into which they had come
forth.

But the centre of Lewis’s mind contained only a heavy darkness. He hadn’t
told the others that, they were all so boastful of how they controlled
their captives, so he just brazened it out. The soul he had usurped as he
came to this body neither entreated nor threatened. Lewis knew it was
there, he could sense the surface thoughts, cold and hard, formidable
with resolution. Waiting. The entity frightened him, he had come to
possess the body the same way he had walked Messopia’s corridors, The
King of Strut—thinking he could handle it. Now the first fractures of
insecurity in his hyped-up confidence were multiplying. The usurped
soul’s personality was far stronger than him; he could never have
withstood such dread isolation, not simply beyond sensation, but knowing
sensation was possible. What kind of person could?

<< Are you all right? >>Eysk asked kindly.

<< I’m sorry. I think it may have been something I ate. And the ride down
was a god-fucking bitch. >>

Eysk’s eyebrow rose. << Indeed? >>

<< Yeah, feel like I’m gonna puke. Be all right in a minute. >>

<< I do hope so. >>

“This is Walter Harman,” Lewis said out loud, knowing he was making a
colossal balls-up of things. “A pilot, so he claims. After that flight,
think I’m going to ask the captain for a dekko at his licence.” He
laughed at his witticism.

Walter Harman smiled broadly, and put out his hand. “Pleasure to meet
you. This is one hell of a planet. I’ve never been here before.”

Eysk seemed taken aback. “Your enthusiasm is most gratifying. I hope you
enjoy your stay.”

“Thanks. Say, I tasted some gollatail a year back, have you got any round
here?”

<< I’m just going for a walk, get some air, >>Lewis said. Down in his
memories were a thousand hangovers; he gathered together the phantom
sensation of nausea and cranial malaise, then broadcast them into the
affinity band. << It ought to clear my head. >>

Eysk flinched at the emetic deluge. << Quite. >>

“I’d like to try some again, maybe take back a stock of my own,” Walter
Harman prompted. “Old Lewis here can tell you what our ship’s rations are
like.”

“Yes,” Eysk said. “I believe we have some.” His gaze never left Lewis’s
back.

“Great, that’s just great.”

Lewis stepped over the half-metre ridge of electrophorescent cells around
the pad, and headed towards the island’s rim. There was one of the
floating quays ahead, a twenty-metre crane to one side for lifting
smaller boats out of the water.

<< Sorry about this, >>Lewis told the island personality. << A flight has
never had this effect before. >>

<< Do you require a medical nanonic package? >>

<< Let’s leave it a minute and see. Sea wind always was the best cure for
headaches. >>

<< As you wish. >>

Lewis could hear Walter Harman chattering away inanely behind him. He
reached the metal railing that guarded the rim, and stood beside the
crane. It was a spindly column and boom arrangement made from monobonded
carbon struts, lightweight and strong. But heavy enough for his purpose.
He closed his eyes, focusing his attention on the structure, feeling its
texture, the rough grain of carbon crystals held together with hard plies
of binding molecules. Atoms glowed scarlet and yellow, their electrons
flashing in tight fast orbits.

Miscreant energistic pulses raced up and down the struts, sparking
between molecules. He felt the others in the spaceplane cabin lending
their strength, concentrating on a point just below the boom pivot. The
carbon’s crystalline lattice began to break down. Spears of St Elmo’s
fire flickered around the pivot.

A tortured creaking sound washed across the rim of the island. Eysk
looked round in confusion, peering against pad eighteen’s glare.

<< Lewis, move now please, >>the island personality said. << Unidentified
static discharge on the crane. It is weakening the structure. >>

<< Where? >>He played it dumb, looking round, looking up.

<< Lewis, move. >>

The compulsion almost forced his legs into action. He fought it with
bursts of mystification, then panic. Remembering the power blade as it
descended, the sight of blood and chips of bone spewing out of the wound.
It hadn’t happened to him, it was some horror holo he was watching on the
screen. Distant. Remote.

<< Lewis! >>

Carbon shattered with a sudden thunderclap. The boom jerked, then began
to fall, curving down in that unreal slow motion he’d seen once before.
And nothing had to be faked any more. Fear staked him to the ground. A
yell started to emerge from his lips—



—Mistake. Your greatest and your last, Lewis. When this body dies my soul
will be free. And then I can return to possess the living. And when that
happens I will have the same power as you. After that we shall meet as
equals, I promise you—



—as the edge of the boom smashed into his torso. There was no pain, shock
saw to that. Lewis was aware of the boom finishing its work, crushing him
against the polyp. Body ruined.

His head hit the ground with a brutish smack, and he gazed up mutely at
the stars. They started to fade.

<< Transfer, >>Pernik ordered. The mental command was thick with sympathy
and sorrow.

His eyes closed.

Pernik awaited. Lewis saw it through a long dark tunnel, a vast bitek
construct glowing with the gentle emerald aura of life. Colourful phantom
shapes slithered below its translucent surface, tens of thousands of
personalities, at once separate and in concord: the multiplicity. He felt
himself drifting towards it along the affinity bond, his energistic nexus
abandoning the mangled body to infiltrate the naked colossus. Behind him
the dark soul rose as smoothly as a shark seeking wounded prey to
re-inherit the dying body. Lewis’s tightly whorled thoughts quaked in
fright as he reached the island’s vast neural strata. He penetrated the
surface, and diffused himself throughout the network, instantly
surrounded by a babble of sights and sounds. The multiplicity murmuring
amongst itself, autonomic subroutines emitting pulses of strictly
functional information.

His dismay and disorientation was immediately apparent. Ethereal
tentacles of comfort reached out to reassure him.

<< Don’t worry, Lewis. You are safe now . . . >>

<< — >>

<< What are you? >>

The multiplicity recoiled from him, a tide of thoughts in swift retreat,
leaving him high and dry. Splendidly alone. Emergency autonomic routines
to isolate him came on-line, erecting axon blockades around the swarm of
neural cells in which he resided.

Lewis laughed at them. Already his thoughts were spread through more
cells than the body which he’d abandoned had contained. The energistic
flux resulting from such possession was tremendous. He thought of fire,
and began to extend himself, burning through the multiplicity’s
simplistic protection, seeping through the neural strata like a wave of
searing lava, obliterating anything in his path. Cell after cell fell to
his domination. The multiplicity shrieked, trying to resist him. Nothing
could. He was bigger than them, bigger than worlds. Omnipotent. The cries
began to die away as he engulfed them, receding as though they were
falling down some shaft that pierced clean to the planet’s core.
Squeezing. Compressing their fluttering panicked thoughts together. The
polyp itself was next, contaminated by swaths of energy seething out of
the transdimensional twist. Organs followed, even the thermal potential
cables dangling far below the surface. He possessed every living cell of
Pernik. At the heart of his triumphant mind the multiplicity lay silent,
stifled.

He waited for a second, savouring the nirvana-high of absolute mastery.
Then the terror began.



Eysk had started to run towards the rim as the crane creaked and groaned.
Pernik showed him the boom starting to topple down. He knew he was too
late, that there was nothing he could do to save the strangely
idiosyncratic Edenist from Jospool. The boom picked up speed, slamming
into the apparently dumbfounded Lewis. Eysk closed his eyes, mortified by
the splash of gore.

<< Calm yourself, >>the personality said. << His head survived the
impact. I have his thoughts. >>

<< Thank goodness. Whatever caused the crane to fail like that? I’ve
never seen such lightning on Atlantis before. >>

<< It . . . I . . . >>

<< Pernik? >>

The mental wail which came down the affinity link seemed capable of
bursting Eysk’s skull apart. He dropped to his knees, clamping his hands
to his head, vision washed out by a blinding red light. Steel claws were
burrowing up out of the affinity link, ripping through the delicate
membranes inside his brain, shiny silver smeared with blood and viscid
cranial fluid.

“Poor Eysk,” a far-off chorus spoke directly into his mind—so very
different to affinity, so very insidious. “Let us help you.” The promise
of pain’s alleviation hummed in the air all around.

Even numbed and bruised he recognized the gentle offer for the Trojan it
was. He blinked tears from his eyes, closing his mind to affinity. And he
was abruptly alone, denied even an echo of the emotional fellowship he
had shared for his entire life. The grotesque mirage of the claw
vanished. Eysk let out a hot breath of relief. The polyp below his
trembling hands was glowing a sickly pink—that was real.

“What—”

Hairy cloven feet shuffled into view. He gasped and looked up. The
hominid creature with a black-leather wolf’s head howled victoriously and
reached down for him.



Laton opened his eyes. His crushed, faltering body was suffused with
pain. It wasn’t relevant, so he ignored it. There wasn’t going to be much
time before oxygen starvation started to debilitate his reasoning.
Physical shock was already making concentration difficult. He quickly
loaded a sequence of localized limiter routines into the neuron cells
buried beneath the polyp on which he was pinned by the twisted crane
boom. Developed for his Jantrit campaign, their sophistication was orders
of magnitude above the usual diversionary orders juvenile Edenists
employed to avoid parental supervision. Firstly he regularized the image
which the surrounding sensitive cells were supplying to the neural
strata, freezing the picture of his body.

At that point his heart gave its last beat. He could sense the desperate
attempts by the multiplicity to ward off Lewis’s subsumption of the
island. Laton was banking everything on the primitive street boy using
brute force to take over. Sure enough Lewis’s eerily potent, but crude,
thought currents flowed through the neural strata below, flushing every
other routine before him; though even his augmented power failed to root
out Laton’s subversive routines. They were symbiotic rather than
parasitic, working within the controlling personality not against it. It
would take a highly experienced Edenist bitek neuropathologist to even
realize they were there, let alone expunge them.

Laton’s lips gave a final quirk of contempt. He cleared a storage section
in the neuron cells, and transferred his personality into it. His final
act before consciousness and memory sank below the polyp was to trigger
the proteanic virus infecting every cell in his body.



Mosul dreamed. He was lying in bed in his accommodation tower flat, with
Clio beside him. Mosul woke. He looked down fondly at the sleeping girl;
she was in her early twenties with long dark hair and a pretty flattish
face. The sheet had slipped from her shoulders, revealing a pert rounded
breast. He bent over to kiss the nipple. She stirred, smiling dreamily as
his tongue traced a delicate circle. A warm overspill of gently erotic
images came foaming out of her drowsy mind.

Mosul grinned in anticipation, and woke. He frowned down in puzzlement at
the sleeping girl beside him. The bedroom was illuminated by a sourceless
rosy glow. It shaded Clio’s silky skin a dark burgundy colour. He shook
the sleep from his head. They had been making love for hours last night,
he was entitled to some lassitude after that.

She responded eagerly to his kisses, throwing aside the sheet so he could
feast on the sight of her. Her skin hardened and wrinkled below his
touch. When he looked up in alarm she had become a cackling white-haired
crone.

The pink light shifted into bright scarlet, as though the room was
bleeding. He could see the polyp walls palpitating. In the distance a
giant heartbeat thudded.

Mosul woke. The room was illuminated by a sourceless rosy glow. He was
sweating, it was intolerably hot.

<< Pernik, I’m having a nightmare . . . I think. Am I awake now? >>

<< Yes, Mosul. >>

<< Thank goodness. Why is it so hot? >>

<< Yes, you are having a nightmare. My nightmare. >>

<< Pernik! >>

Mosul woke, jerking up from the bed. The bedroom walls were glowing red;
no longer safe hard polyp but a wet meat traced with a filigree of
purple-black veins. They oscillated like jelly. The heartbeat sounded
again, louder than before. A damp acrid smell tainted the air.

<< Pernik! Help me. >>

<< No, Mosul. >>

<< What are you doing? >>

Clio rolled over and laughed at him. Her eyes were featureless balls of
jaundiced yellow. “We’re coming for you, Mosul, you and all your kind.
Smug arrogant bastards that you are.”

She elbowed him in the groin. Mosul shouted at the vicious pain, and
tumbled off the raised sponge cushion which formed his bed. Sour yellow
vomit trickled out of his mouth as he writhed about on the slippery floor.

Mosul woke. It was real this time, he was sure of that. Everything was
dangerously clear to his eyes. He was lying on the floor, all tangled up
in the sheets. The bedroom glowed red, its walls raw stinking meat.

Clio was locked in her own looped nightmare, hands raking the top of the
bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Unformed screams stalled in her
throat, as though she was choking. Mosul tried to get up, but his feet
slithered all over the slimed quaking floor. He directed an order at the
door muscle membrane. Too late he saw its shape had changed from a
vertical oval to a horizontal slash. A giant mouth. It parted, giving him
a brief glimpse of stained teeth the size of his feet, then thick yellow
vomit discharged into the bedroom. The torrent of obscenely fetid liquid
hit him straight on, lifting him up and throwing him against the back
wall. He didn’t dare cry out, it would be in his mouth. His arms thrashed
about, but it was like paddling in glue. There seemed no end to the
cascade, it had risen above his knees. Clio was floundering against the
wall a couple of metres away, her body spinning in the hard current. He
couldn’t reach her. The vomit’s heat was powerful enough to enervate his
muscles, and the stomach acid it contained was corroding his skin. It had
risen up to his chest. He struggled to stay upright. Clio had disappeared
below the surface, not even waking from her nightmare. And still more
poured in.



As far as Lewis Sinclair was aware, Laton’s corpse lay perfectly still
under the crumpled crane boom. Not that he bothered to check. Pernik
Island was big, much larger than his imagination had ever conceived it,
and for someone with his background difficult to comprehend. Every second
yelled for his attention as he sent out phobic fantasies through his
affinity bonds with the slumbering populace, invading their dreams,
breaking their minds wide open with insane fear so more souls could come
through and begin their reign of possession. He ignored the bitek’s
tedious minutiae—autonomic organ functions, the monitoring routines which
the old multiplicity employed, enacting muscle membrane functions. All he
cared about was eliminating the remaining Edenists; that task received
his total devotion.

The island’s cells glimmered a faint pink as a result of the energistic
arrogation, even the shaggy coat of moss shone as though imbued with
firefly luminescence. Pernik twinkled like a fabulous inflamed ruby in
the funereal gloom of Atlantis’s moonless night, sending radiant fingers
probing down through the water to beckon curious fish. An observer flying
overhead would have noticed flashes of blue light pulsing at random from
the accommodation tower windows, as though stray lightning bolts were
being flung around the interior.

Long chill screams reverberated around the borders of the park, emerging
from various archways at the base of the towers. By the time they reached
the rim they had blended into an almost musical madrigal, changes in
pitch matching the poignant lilt of the waves washing against the polyp.

Housechimps scampered about, yammering frantically at each other. Their
control routines had been wiped clean by Lewis’s relentless purge of the
multiplicity and all its subsidiaries, and long-suppressed simian tribal
traits were surfacing. Fast, violent fights broke out among them as they
instinctively fled into the thicker spinneys growing in the park.

The remaining sub-sentient servitor creatures, all eighteen separate
species necessary to complement the island’s static organs, either froze
motionless or performed their last assigned task over and over again.

Unnoticed amid the bedlam and horror, Laton’s corpse was quietly
dissolving into protoplasmic soup.

Edenist biotechnicians examining the wreckage of Jantrit had called the
process Laton used to doctor the habitat’s neural strata a proteanic
virus. In fact, it was far more complex than that. Affinity-programmable
organic molecules was a term one researcher used.

Deeply disturbed by the technology and its implications, the Jovian
consensus released little further information. Research continued, a
classified high-priority project, which concentrated on developing
methods to warn existing habitats of the sub-nanonic weapon being
deployed against them, and a means of making future habitats (and people)
immune. Progress over the intervening forty years was slow but
satisfactory.

Of course, unknown to the Edenists, at the same time Laton was equally
busy on Lalonde refining his process, and meeting with considerable
success.

In its passive state, the updated proteanic virus masqueraded as inert
organelles within his body cells—no matter what their nature, from liver
to blood corpuscles, muscles to hair. When his last affinity command
activated them, each organelle released a batch of plasmids (small,
artificially synthesized DNA loops) and a considerable quantity of
transcription factors, proteins capable of switching genes on or off.
Once the plasmids had been inserted into the cell’s DNA, mitosis began,
forcing the cells to reproduce by division. Transcription factors
switched off the human DNA completely, as well as an entire series of the
new plasmids, leaving them to be carried passively while just one type of
plasmid was activated to designate the function of the new cell. It was a
drastic mutation. Hundreds of thousands of Laton’s cells were already
dying, millions more were killed by the induced mitosis; but over half
fissioned successfully, turning into specialist diploid gametes.

They spilled out of the arms, legs, and collar of his one-piece ship-suit
in a magenta sludge, draining away from stubborn clusters of dead cells
that retained their original pattern—kernels of lumpy organs, slender
ribs, a rubbery dendritic knot of veins. As they spread across the polyp
they started to permeate the surface, slipping through microscopic gaps
in the grainy texture, seeping down towards the neural stratum four
metres below. Pernik’s nutrient capillaries and axon conduits speeded
their passage.

Four hours later, when dawn was breaking over the condemned island, the
majority of the gametes had reached the neural stratum. Stage two of the
proteanic virus was different. A gamete would penetrate a neural cell’s
membrane and release the mission-specific plasmid Laton had selected (he
had four hundred to choose from). The plasmid was accompanied by a
transcription factor which would activate it.

Mitosis produced a neuron cell almost identical to the original it
replaced. Once begun, the reproduction cycle was unstoppable; new cells
started to supplant old at an ever-increasing rate. A chain reaction of
subtle modification began to ripple out from the rim of the island. It
went on for a considerable time.



Admiral Kolhammer was almost correct about Time Universe beating the
Edenists to inform the Confederation about Laton. Several dozen star
systems heard the news from the company first. Governments were put in an
embarrassing position of knowing less than Time Universe until the
voidhawks carrying diplomatic fleks from Admiral Aleksandrovich and the
Confederation Assembly President arrived, clarifying the situation.

Naturally enough, public perception was focused almost exclusively on
Laton: the threat from the past risen like the devil’s own phoenix. They
wanted to know what was being done to track him down and exterminate him.
They were quite vociferous about it.

Presidents, kings, and dictators alike had to release statements assuring
their anxious citizens that every resource was being deployed to locate
him.

Considerably less attention was drawn to the apparent persona
sequestration of Lalonde’s population. Graeme Nicholson hadn’t placed
much emphasis on the effect, keeping it at the rumour level. It wasn’t
until much later that news company science editors began to puzzle about
the cost-effectiveness of sequestrating an entire backward colony world,
and question exactly what had happened in the Quallheim Counties. Laton’s
presence blinded them much as it did everyone else. He was on Lalonde,
therefore Lalonde’s uprising problem was instigated by him. QED.

Privately, governments were extremely worried by the possibility of an
undetectable energy virus that could strike at people without warning. Dr
Gilmore’s brief preliminary report on Jacqueline Couteur was not released
for general public access.

Naval reserve officers were called in, warships were placed on combat
alert and brought up to full flight-readiness status. Laton gave
governments the excuse to instigate rigorous screening procedures for
visiting starships. Customs and Immigration officers were told to be
especially vigilant for any electronic warfare nanonics.

There was also an unprecedented degree of cooperation between star
systems’ national groupings to ensure that the warning reached everybody
and was taken seriously. Within a day of a flek courier voidhawk
arriving, even the smallest, most distant asteroid settlement was
informed and urged to take precautions.

Within five days of Admiral Lalwani dispatching the voidhawks, the entire
Confederation had been told, with just a few notable exceptions. Most
prominent of these were starships in transit.



Oenone raced in towards Atlantis at three gees. There were only sixty
cases of Norfolk Tears left clamped into its lower hull cargo bay. Since
leaving Norfolk, Syrinx had flown to Auckland, a four-hundred-light-year
trip. Norfolk Tears increased in price in direct proportion to the
distance from Norfolk, and Auckland was one of the richer planets in its
sector of the Confederation. She had sold sixty per cent of her cargo to
a planetary retailer, and another thirty per cent to a family merchant
enterprise in one of the system’s Edenist habitats. It was the first
shipment the Auckland system had seen for fifteen months, and the price
it raised had been appropriately phenomenal. They had already paid off
the Jovian Bank loan and made a respectable profit. Now she was back to
honour her deal with Eysk’s family.

She looked through Oenone’s sensor blisters at the planet as they
descended into equatorial orbit. Cool blues and sharp whites jumbled
together in random splash patterns. Memories played below her surface
thoughts, kindled by the sight of the infinite ocean. Mosul’s smiling
face.

<< We’re not going to stay very long, are we? >>Oenone asked plaintively.

<< Why? >>she teased. << Don’t you like talking to the islands? They make
a change from habitats. >>

<< You know why. >>

<< You stayed in Norfolk orbit for over a week. >>

<< I had lots of voidhawks to talk to. There are only fifteen here. >>

<< Don’t worry. We won’t stay long. Just enough time to unload the
Norfolk Tears, and for me to see Mosul. >>

<< I like him. >>

<< Thank you for the vote of confidence. While we’re here, would you ask
the islands to see if anyone has a cargo they need shipping outsystem. >>

<< I’ll start now. >>

<< Can you give me a link through to Mosul first, please. >>

<< It is midnight on Pernik. The personality says Mosul is unobtainable
at the moment. >>

<< Oh dear. I wonder what her name is? >>

<< Syrinx. >>

<< Yes? >>

<< Pernik is wrong. >>

<< What do you mean? Mosul is available? >>

<< No, I mean the personality is different, altered. There is no joy in
its thoughts. >>

Syrinx opened her eyes and stared round the contoured walls of her cabin.
Familiar trinkets she had picked up on her voyages were lined up in
glass-fronted alcoves. Her eyes found the fifteen-centimetre chunk of
whalebone carved into a squatting Eskimo which Mosul had given her. But
Oenone’s unease was too unsettling for the crude statue to register the
way it usually did, bringing forth a warm recollection intrinsic to both
of them.

<< Perhaps there has been an accident on one of the fishing boats, >>she
suggested.

<< Then the grief should be shared, as is proper. >>

<< Yes. >>

<< Pernik hides behind a facade of correctness. >>

<< Is Eysk available? >>

<< One moment. >>

Syrinx felt the voidhawk’s mind reach out, then Eysk was merging his
thoughts with her. Still the same old kindhearted family elder, with that
deeper layer of toughness that made him such a shrewd businessman.

<< Syrinx, >>he exclaimed happily, << we were wondering where you had got
to. >>

<< Did you think I’d skipped out on you? >>

<< Me? >>He projected mock horror. << Not at all. The arrest warrant we
had drawn up was a mere precaution. >>

She laughed. << I’ve brought your cases of Norfolk Tears. >>

<< How many? >>

<< Sixty. >>

<< Ah well, my family will be through that lot before the week’s out. Are
you coming down tonight? >>

<< Yes, if it’s not too late. >>

<< Not at all. I’ll have some servitors lined up to unload your flyer by
the time you get down. >>

<< Fine. Is everything all right on the island? >>

There was a moment’s hesitation, a thought-flash of bemused
incomprehension. << Yes. Thank you for asking. >>

<< Is Mosul there? >>

<< Sex, that’s all you young people think of. >>

<< We learn by example. Is he there? >>

<< Yes. But I don’t think Clio will welcome an interruption right now. >>

<< Is she very pretty? >>

<< Yes. >>He generated an image of a girl’s grinning face, half hidden by
long dark hair. << She’s bright, too. They are on the point of
formalizing the arrangement. >>

<< I’m happy for him, for both of them. >>

<< Thank you. Don’t tell Mosul I said so, but she’ll make a splendid
addition to the family. >>

<< That’s nice. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. >>

<< I’ll look forward to it. Just remember, Mosul learnt everything he
knows from me. >>

<< As if I could forget. >>She broke the contact.

<< Well? >>Oenone asked.

<< I don’t know. Nothing I could put my finger on, but he was definitely
stilted. >>

<< Shall I ask the other islands? >>

<< Goodness, no. I’ll find out what’s troubling them once I’m down. Mosul
will tell me, he owes me that much. >>



Hooked into the flyer’s sensors, Syrinx couldn’t be sure, but Pernik
appeared aged somehow. Admittedly it was darkest night, but the towers
had a shabby look, almost mouldered. They put her in mind of Earth’s
Empire State Building, now carefully preserved in its own dome at the
centre of the New York arcology. Structurally sound, but unable to throw
off the greying weight of centuries.

Thirty-two years old, and you see everything in such jaded terms, she
told herself wearily. Pity that Mosul had formed a permanent attachment,
though. He would have made a good father.

She clucked her tongue in self-admonition. But then her mother had
conceived two children by the time she was thirty.

<< There’s always Ruben, >>Oenone suggested.

<< It wouldn’t be fair to him, not even to ask. He’d feel obligated to
say yes. >>

<< I would like you to have a child. You are feeling incomplete. It
upsets you. I don’t like that. >>

<< I am not feeling incomplete! >>

<< You haven’t even prepared any zygotes for my children yet. You should
think about these things. >>

<< Oh goodness. You’re starting to sound like Mother. >>

<< I don’t know how to lie. >>

<< Rubbish! >>

<< Not to you. And it was you who was thinking of Mosul in that light. >>

<< Yes. >>Syrinx stopped trying to argue, it was stupidly blinkered. <<
What would I do without you? >>

Oenone wrapped her thoughts with a loving embrace, and for a moment
Syrinx imagined the flyer’s ion field had leaked inside the cabin,
filling it with golden haze.

They landed on one of the pads in the commercial section. The
electrophorescent-cell ridge around the metal grid shone with a strong
pink radiance. Few of the accommodation tower windows were lit.

<< It looks like they’re in mourning, >>Syrinx said to Oxley in singular
engagement mode as she walked down the aluminium stair. They had flown
down alone so that the little flyer could carry more cargo, but it was
still going to take three trips to bring all sixty cases down.

<< Yes. >>He glanced about, frowning. << There aren’t many fishing boats
in dock, either. >>

Eysk and Mosul walked out of the shadows beyond the ridge.

Syrinx forgot everything else as Mosul sent out a burst of rapturous
greeting, mingled with mischievously erotic subliminals.

She put her arms around him and enjoyed a long kiss.

<< I’d like to meet her, >>she told him. << Lucky thing that she is. >>

<< You shall. >>

They stood about on the pad, chatting idly, as the island’s
lizard-skinned housechimps unloaded the first batch of cases under
Oxley’s careful direction and stacked them on a processor-controlled
flat-top trolley. When all eighteen cases were on, the drone trundled off
towards one of the low warehouse domes ringing the park.

<< Do you want me to bring the rest down tonight? >>Oxley asked.

<< Please, >>Eysk said. << I have already organized sales with other
families. >>

The pilot nodded, winked at Syrinx, who was still standing with Mosul’s
arm around her shoulder, and went back into the flyer. Sitting in the
command seat he linked his mind with the controlling processor array.

Something was affecting the coherent magnetic-field generation. It took a
long time to form, and he had to bring compensator programs on-line. By
the time he finally lifted from the pad the fusion generator was
operating alarmingly close to maximum capacity.

He almost turned back there and then. But once he rose above a hundred
metres the field stabilized rapidly. He had to cut the power levels back.
Diagnostic programs reported the systems were all functioning flawlessly.

With a quick curse directed at all Kulu-produced machinery, he ordered
the flight computer to design an orbital-injection trajectory that would
bring him to a rendezvous with Oenone.

<< See you in three hours, >>Syrinx called as the sparkling artificial
comet performed a tight curve around the accommodation towers before
soaring up into the night sky.

<< Three hours! >>Oxley let his groan filter back down the affinity link.

<< You’re professionals. You can handle it. >>

He put the flyer into a steep climb. One thing about an oceanic world,
there was no worry about supersonic-boom footprints stomping all over
civic areas. He was doing Mach two by the time he was fifteen kilometres
away.

Pernik vanished from his affinity perception. Ordinarily a contact would
simply fade with distance until it was no more. But this was different,
like steel shutters slamming into place. Oxley was over a hundred and
fifty years old, in his time he’d visited almost ninety per cent of the
Confederation, and he had never known an Edenist habitat to react in such
a manner. It was alien to the whole creed of consensual unity.

He switched in the aft sensors. A luminous red pearl haunted the horizon,
sending shimmer-spears of light dancing across the black water.

“What is . . .” The words dried up at the back of his throat.

<< Pernik? >>he demanded. << Pernik, what is going on? What is that
light? >>

The silence was total. There wasn’t the slightest trace of the
personality’s thoughts left anywhere in the affinity band.

<< Syrinx? >>

Nothing.

<< Oenone, something’s happening on Pernik, can you reach Syrinx? >>

<< She is there, >>the worried voidhawk answered. << But I cannot
converse with her. Something is interfering. >>

<< Oh, heavens. >>He banked the flyer round, heading back for the island.

Affinity broadened out from the single tenuous thread to the orbiting
voidhawk, offering him the support of innumerable minds combining into a
homogenized entity, buoying him up on a tide of intellect. He wasn’t
alone, and he wasn’t anxious any more. Doubts and personal fears bled
away, exchanged for confidence and determination, a much-needed
reinforcement of his embattled psyche. For a moment, flying over the
gargantuan ocean in a tiny machine, he had been horribly lonely; now his
kind had joined him, from the eager honoured enthusiasms of
sixteen-year-olds up to the glacial thoughts of the islands themselves.
He felt like a child again, comforted by the loving arms of an adult,
wiser and stronger. It was a reconfirmation of Edenism which left him
profoundly grateful for the mere privilege of belonging.

<< This is Thalia Island, Oxley, we are aware of Pernik’s withdrawal from
affinity and we are summoning a planetary consensus to deal with the
problem. >>

<< That red lighting effect has me worried, >>he replied. The flyer had
dropped below subsonic again. Pernik gleamed a sickly vermilion eight
kilometres away.

Around the planet, consensus finalized, bringing together every sentient
entity in an affinity union orchestrated by the islands. Information,
such as it had, was reviewed, opinions formed, discussed, discarded, or
elaborated. Two seconds after considering the problem the consensus said:
<< We believe it to be Laton. A ship of the same class as the Yaku
arrived last night and sent a spaceplane down to the island. From that
time onward Pernik’s communication has declined by sixty per cent. >>

<< Laton? >>The appalled question came from Oenone and its crew.

<< Yes. >>The Atlantean consensus summarized the information that had
been delivered by a voidhawk two days earlier. << As we have no orbital
stations our checks on arriving ships were naturally less than ideal,
depending solely on civil traffic control satellite-platform sensors. The
ship has of course departed, but the spaceplane remained. Pernik and its
population must have been sequestrated by the energy virus. >>

<< Oh no, >>Oxley cried brokenly. << Not him. Not again. >>

Ahead of him, Pernik issued a brilliant golden light, as though sunrise
had come to the ocean. The flyer gave a violent lurch to starboard, and
began to lose height.



Syrinx watched the little flyer disappear into the east. The night air
was cooler than she remembered from her last visit, bringing up
goosebumps below her ship-tunic. Mosul, who was dressed in a baggy
sleeveless sweatshirt and shorts, seemed completely unaffected. She eyed
him with a degree of annoyance. Macho outdoors type.

This Clio was a lucky woman.

<< Come along, >>Eysk said. << The family is dying to meet you again. You
can tell the youngsters what Norfolk was like. >>

<< I’d love to. >>

Mosul’s arm tightened that bit extra round her shoulder as they headed
for the nearest tower. Almost proprietary, she thought.

<< Mosul, >>she asked on singular engagement, << what’s wrong down here?
You all seem so tense. >>It was a struggle to convey the emotional weight
she wanted.

<< Nothing is wrong. >>He smiled as they passed under the archway at the
foot of the tower.

She stared at him, dumbfounded. He had answered on the general affinity
band, an extraordinary breach of protocol.

Mosul caught her expression, and sent a wordless query.

<< This is . . . >>she began. Then her thoughts flared in alarm. Oenone,
she couldn’t perceive Oenone! “Mosul! It’s gone. No, wait. I can feel it,
just. Mosul, something is trying to block affinity.”

“Are they?” His smile hardened into something which made her jerk away in
consternation. “Don’t worry, little Syrinx. Delicate, beautiful little
Syrinx, so far from home. All alone. But we treasure you for the gift you
bring. We are going to welcome you into a brotherhood infinitely superior
to Edenism.”

She spun round, ready to run. But there were five men standing behind
her. One of them—she gasped—his head had grown until it was twice the
size it should be. His features were a gross caricature, cheeks deep and
lined, eyes wide and avian; his nose was huge, coming to a knife edge
that hung below his black lips, both ears were pointed, rising above the
top of his skull.

“What are you?” she hissed.

“Don’t mind old Kincaid,” Mosul said. “Our resident troll.”

It was getting lighter, the kind of liquid redness creeping across the
island’s polyp which she associated with Duchess-night on Norfolk. Her
legs began to shake. It was shameful, but she was so alone. Never before
had she been denied the community of thoughts that was the wonder of
Edenism. << Oenone! >>The desperate shout crashed around the confines of
her own skull. << Oenone, my love. Help me! >>

There was an answer. Not coherent, nothing she could perceive, decipher.
But somewhere on the other side of the blood-veiled sky the voidhawk
cried in equal anguish.

“Come, Syrinx,” Mosul said. He held out his hand. “Come with us.”

It wasn’t Mosul. She knew that now.

“Never.”

“So brave,” he said pityingly. “So foolish.”

She was physically strong, her genes gave her that much. But there were
seven of them. They half carried, half pushed her onwards.

The walls became strange. No longer polyp but stone. Big cubes hewn from
some woodland granite quarry; and old, the age she thought she had seen
on the approach flight. Water leaked from the lime-encrusted mortar,
sliming the stone.

They descended a spiral stair which grew narrower until only one of them
could march beside her. Syrinx’s ship-tunic sleeve was soon streaked with
water and coffee-coloured fungus. She knew it wasn’t real, that it
couldn’t be happening. There was no “down” in an Atlantean island. Only
the sea. But her feet slipped on the worn steps, and her calves ached.

There was no red glow in the bowels of the island. Flaming torches in
black iron brands lighted their way. Their acrid smoke made her eyes
water.

The stairway came out onto a short corridor. A sturdy oak door was flung
open, and Syrinx shoved through. Inside was a medieval torture chamber.

A wooden rack took up the centre of the room; iron chains wound round
wheels at each end, manacles open and waiting. A brazier in one corner
was sending out waves of heat from its radiant coals. Long slender metal
instruments were plunged into it, metal sharing the furnace glow.

The torturer himself was a huge fat man in a leather jerkin. Rolls of
hairy flesh spilled over his waistband. He stood beside the brazier,
cursing the slender young woman who was bent over a pair of bellows.

“This is Clio,” Mosul’s stolen body said. “You did say you wanted to meet
her.”

The woman turned, and laughed at Syrinx.

“What is the point?” Syrinx asked weakly. Her voice was very close to
cracking.

“This is in your honour,” the torturer said. His voice was a deep bass,
but soft, almost purring. “You, we shall have to be very careful with.
For you come bearing a great gift. I don’t want to damage it.”

“What gift?”

“The living starship. These other mechanical devices for sailing the
night gulf are difficult for us to employ. But your craft has elegance
and grace. Once we have you, we have it. We can bring our crusade to new
worlds with ease after that.”

<< FLEE! Flee, Oenone. Flee this dreadful world, my love. And never come
back. >>

“Oh, Syrinx.” Mosul’s handsome face wore the old sympathetic expression
she remembered from such a time long ago now. “We have taken affinity
from you. We have sent Oxley away. We have taken everybody from you. You
are alone but for us. And believe me, we know what being alone does to an
Edenist.”

“Fool,” she sneered. “That wasn’t affinity, it is love which binds us.”

“And we shall love the Oenone too,” a musical chorus spoke to her.

She refused to show any hint of surprise. “Oenone will never love you.”

“In time all things become possible,” the witching chorus sang. “For are
we not come?”

“Never,” she said.

The corpulent paws of Kincaid the troll tightened around her arms.

Syrinx closed her eyes as she was forced towards the rack. This is not
happening therefore I can feel no pain. This is not happening therefore I
can feel no pain. Believe it!

Hands tore at the collar of her ship-tunic, ripping the fabric. Hot
rancid air prickled her skin.

This is NOT happening therefore I can feel no pain. Not not not—



Ruben sat at his console station in Oenone’s bridge along with the rest
of the crew. There were only two empty seats. Empty and accusing.

I should have gone down with her, Ruben thought. Maybe if I could have
provided everything she needed from life she wouldn’t have gone running
to Mosul in the first place.

<< We all share guilt, Ruben, >>the Atlantean consensus said. << And ours
is by far the larger failing for letting Laton come to this world. Your
only crime is to love her. >>

<< And fail her. >>

<< No. We are all responsible for ourselves. She knows that as well as
you do. All individuals can ever do is share happiness wherever they can
find it. >>

<< We’re all ships that pass in the night? >>

<< Ultimately, yes. >>

Consensus was so large, so replete with wisdom, he found it easy to
believe. An essential component of the quiddity.

<< She is in trouble down there, >>he said. << Frightened, alone.
Edenists shouldn’t be alone. >>

<< I am with her, >>Oenone said. << She can feel me even though we cannot
converse. >>

<< We are doing what we can, >>the consensus said. << But this is not a
world equipped for warfare. >>

The part of Ruben which had joined with the consensus was suddenly aware
of Pernik igniting to solar splendour—and he was sitting strapped into a
metal flea that spun and tossed erratically as it fell from the sky.

<< SYRINX! >>Oenone cried. << Syrinx. Syrinx. Syrinx. Syrinx. Syrinx. >>

The voidhawk’s affinity voice was a thunderclap roar howling through the
minds of its crew. Ruben thought he would surely be deafened. Serina sat
with her mouth gaping wide, hands clamped over her ears, tears streaming
down her face.

<< Oenone >><< , restrain yourself, >>the consensus demanded.

But the voidhawk was beyond reason. It could feel its captain’s pain, her
hopelessness as the white-hot metal seared into her flesh with brutal
intricate skill while in her heart she thought of nothing but their love.
Lost in helpless rage its distortion effect twisted and churned like a
frenzied captured beast pummelling at its cage bars.

Gravity rammed Ruben down into his seat, then swung severely. His arms
outside the webbing were sucked up towards the ceiling, their weight
quadrupling. Oenone was tumbling madly, its energy patterning cells
sending out vast random surges of power.

Tula was yelling at the voidhawk to stop. Loose pieces of junk were
hurtling round the bridge—cups and plastic meal trays, a jacket, cutlery,
several circuit wafers. Gravity was fluctuating worse than a
roller-coaster ride. One moment they appeared to be hanging upside-down,
the next they were at right angles, and always weighing too much. A
spinning circuit wafer sliced past Edwin, nicking his cheek. Blood
squirted out.

Ruben could just make out the calls of the other voidhawks in orbit above
Atlantis, trying to calm their rampant cousin. They all started to alter
course for a rendezvous. Together their distortion fields could probably
nullify Oenone’s supercharged flailings.

Then the most violent convulsion of all kicked the crew toroid. Ruben
actually heard the walls give a warning creak. One of the consoles
buckled, big skinlike creases appearing in its composite sides as it
concertinaed down towards the decking. Coolant fluid and sparks burst out
of the cracks. He must have blacked out for a second.

Gravity was at a forty-degree angle to the horizontal when he came to,
and holding steady.

<< I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming, >>Oenone was braying.

Horrified, Ruben linked into the voidhawk’s sensor blisters. They were
heading down towards Atlantis at two and a half gees. Reaction to the
berserker power thundering through the energy patterning cells made the
muscles in his arms and legs bunch like hot ropes.

Fast-moving specks were rising above the hazy blue-white horizon,
skimming over the atomic fog of the thermosphere like flat stones flung
across a placid sea. The other voidhawks: their calls redoubled in
urgency. But Oenone was immune to them, to the Atlantean consensus’
imperious orders. Rushing to help its beloved.

They’re too far away, Ruben realized in dismay, they won’t reach us in
time.



The consensus relaxed its contact with Oxley, allowing him complete
independence to pilot the floundering flyer, letting his instinct and
skill attempt to right the craft unencumbered. He shot order after order
into the bitek processors, receiving a stream of systems information in
return. The coherent magnetic generators were failing, databuses were
glitched, the fusion generator was powering down, electron-matrix crystal
power reserves were dropping. Whatever electronic warfare techniques
Pernik had, they were the best he had ever encountered, and they were
trying to kill him.

He concentrated on the few control channels which remained operational,
reducing the spin and flattening out the dive. The faltering magnetic
fields squeezed and pushed at glowing ion streams, countering the
corkscrew trajectory. Black ocean and lustrous island chased each other
round the sensor images at a decreasing rate.

There was no panic. He treated it as though it was just another
simulation run. An exercise in logic and competence set by the CAB to try
and trip him.

At the back of his mind he was aware of further pandemonium breaking out
amid the consensus. A ghost image lying across the flyer’s sensor input
visualization showed him Oenone plummeting towards the planet.

With only a kilometre of altitude left the flyer lost its spin. The nose
was dangerously low. He poured the final power reserves into raising it,
using the craft’s ellipsoid surface as a blunt wing, gaining a degree of
lift in an attempt to glide-curve away from the island. Distance was his
only chance of salvation now. Streaks of reflected starlight blurred on
the sable water below, growing closer. There was no sign of the
electronic warfare assault abating.

Pernik’s resplendent silhouette winked out. Silence detonated into the
affinity consensus, absorbing the entire planet’s mental voice.

Into the emptiness came a single devastating identity trait.

<< Your attention, please, >>Laton said. << We don’t have much time.
Oenone, resume your orbit now. >>

The flyer’s crashed systems abruptly sprang back into zealous life. And a
shock-numbed Oxley was pressed deep into his seat as it vaulted back into
the sky.



Lewis Sinclair watched keenly as the torturer manipulated Syrinx’s
mangled leg with a pair of ruddy glowing tongs and a mallet. She wasn’t
screaming so loudly now. The fight was going out of her. But not the
spirit, he suspected. She was one tough lady. He had seen the type before
back in Messopia; cops mainly, the special forces mob, hard-eyed and
dedicated. A pusher Lewis worked for had captured one once, and it didn’t
matter what was done to the man, they couldn’t get him to tell them
anything.

Lewis didn’t think the possessed were going to gain control of the
voidhawk through Syrinx. But he didn’t say anything, let them sweat it.
It wasn’t so much his problem, possessing the island gave him a measure
of security a mere human body could never offer. The range of physical
sensations and experiences available to him was truly astonishing.

The sensitive cells woven through the polyp were fantastically receptive;
people with their mundane eyes and ears and nose were almost insensate by
comparison. His consciousness roved at random through the huge structure,
tasting and sampling. He was getting the hang of splitting himself into
multiples, supervising a dozen actions at once.

Syrinx groaned again as the souls from beyond sang into her mind with
their strange icy promises. And Lewis saw a girl standing at the back of
the dungeon. The quake her presence sent through his psyche perceptibly
rocked the entire island, as though it had ridden over a tidal wave. It
was her! The girl from Messopia, Thérèse, the one he’d fought and died
over.

Thérèse was tall for thirteen, skinny, with breasts that had been pushed
into maturity by a course of tailored growth hormones. Long raven hair,
brown eyes, and a pretty, juvenile face with just the right amount of
cuteness; everybody’s girl next door. She was wearing black leather
shorts to show off her tight little arse, and her breasts were almost
falling out of a scarlet halter top. Her pose was indolent, chewing at
her gum, one hand on her hip.

<< Where the hell did she come from? >>Lewis asked.

<< What? >>the possessed Eysk asked.

<< Her. Thérèse. There, behind you. >>

Eysk turned round, then frowned angrily at the ceiling. << Very funny.
Now fuck off. >>

<< But— >>

Thérèse gave a bored sigh and sauntered out of the dungeon.

<< Can’t you see her? >>

None of them answered him. He knew she was real, he could hear her
clicking walk, feel the weight of her black stilettos on his polyp,
olfactory cells picked up the sugary whiff of gum on her exhaled breath.
She walked away from the dungeon, down a long corridor. For some reason
it was difficult to keep his perception focused on her. She was only
walking, but she seemed to be moving so fast. He barely noticed as the
polyp of the corridor gave way to concrete. The light became a harsh
electric yellow coming from bulbs on the ceiling, each one cupped by a
protective wire cage. She hurried on ahead of him, feet sending out that
regular click click click as her stilettos rapped the ground. His filthy
jeans restricted his movements, clinging to his legs as he trailed after
her. The air was cooler here, he could see his breath emerging as white
streamers.

Thérèse slipped through a big set of grey-painted metal doors ahead.
Lewis followed her into the empty subterranean warehouse in Messopia five
hundred and fifty years ago. He gagged. It was a square chamber, sixty
metres to a side, twenty metres high, rough poured concrete ribbed with
steel beams coated in red-oxide paint. Striplights cast a feeble
moon-white glow from on high. As before, leaking sewage pipes dripped
rank liquids onto the floor.

She stood in the middle of the floor, looking at him expectantly.

He glanced down, seeing his body for the first time. “Oh no,” he said in
a desperate voice. “This isn’t happening.”

Loud, positive footsteps sounded from the far end of the warehouse. Lewis
didn’t wait to see who was emerging from the gloom, he spun round. There
was no door any more, just a concrete wall. “Jesus Almighty. Fuck!”

“Hello, Lewis.”

His body was compelled to turn, leg muscles working like dead meat fired
by a cattle prod. He bit hard on his trembling lip.

Thérèse had gone. The person walking towards him was the body he had
possessed on Lalonde.

“You’re dead,” Lewis whispered through a fear-knotted throat.

Laton merely smiled his superior smile. “Of all the people resident in
this universe today, Lewis, you should know there is no such thing as
death.”

“I’m in charge here,” Lewis yelled. “I am Pernik.” He tried to fling the
white fire, to conjure up energistic devastation, to flay the zombie to
its stinking corrupt bones and beyond.

Laton halted five metres away. “You were Pernik. I told you once that we
would meet again as equals. I lied. You cannot even begin to conceive the
processes involved in your manifestation within this universe. You are a
Neanderthal out of time, Lewis. You believed brute force was the key to
conquest. Yet you failed to even think about the source of your
energistic power. I know, I’ve been analysing your tiresomely sluggish
thoughts ever since you possessed my body.”

“What have you done to me?”

“Done? Why, Lewis, I have made you a part of me. Possession of the
possessor. It is possible given the right circumstances. In this case I
simply corrupted Pernik’s neural stratum with my biological weapon. The
neuron cells and nerve paths only conduct my thought impulses now. You
can kill the cells, but you can’t subvert them. It’s a question of
coding, you see. I know the codes, you don’t. And please don’t ask me for
them, Lewis, it’s nothing as simple as a number. You now operate only as
a subsidiary part of me, you only think because I allow you to. That is
how I summoned you here.”

“I think because I am! I have been me for centuries, you bastard.”

“And were you to go back there to the beyond, you would be you again.
Free and independent. Do you want to go, Lewis? That is your escape from
my bondage. In this universe you require a physical, living biological
matrix in which to function. You may depart now if you wish.”

A weight pulled at Lewis’s belt. When he looked down he saw it was the
power-blade knife hanging in its sheath. “No.” He shook his head feebly,
quailing at the prospect. “No, I won’t. That’s what you want. Without me
Pernik would be free again. I’m going to stop that, I’m going to beat
you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Lewis. I will never allow you to resume your
barbaric act of sodomy. You think of yourself as strong, as purposeful.
You are entirely incorrect. You and the other returners have a nebulous
plan to re-establish yourselves permanently in this physical universe.
You do so because of your own quite pathetic psychological weaknesses.”

Lewis snarled at his tall tormentor. “So fucking smart, aren’t you. Let’s
see what you’re like after a hundred fucking years of nothing; no food,
no breathing, no touch, just fucking nothing. You’ll be begging to join
us, shithead.”

“Really?” Laton’s smile no longer contained even a vestige of humour.
“Think what you are, Lewis. Think what all the returners are. Then ask
yourself, where is the rest of the human race? The hundreds of billions
who have died since the day our ancestors first struck two flints
together, from the time we watched the glaciers retreating as we battled
with mammoths.”

“They’re with me, billions of them. They’re waiting for their chance. And
when they get into this universe they’re gonna come gunning for you,
shithead.”

“But they’re not with you in the beyond, Lewis, there are nothing like
enough souls to account for everyone. You cannot lie to me, you are part
of me. I know. They’re not there. Ask yourself who and why, Lewis.”

“Fuck you.” Lewis drew the knife from its scabbard. He thumbed the switch
in a smooth motion and the silver blade emitted a dangerous buzz.

“Lewis, kindly behave yourself; this is my perceptual reality, after all.”

Lewis watched the solid blade curve round towards his fingers. He dropped
the knife with a yell. It vanished before it reached the floor, making as
little fuss as a snowflake landing on water. “What do you want with me?”
He raised his clenched fists, knowing that it was all futile. He wanted
to pound his knuckles into the concrete.

Laton took another few paces towards him. And Lewis came to realize just
how imposing the big Edenist was. It was all he could do not to back away.

“I want to make amends,” Laton said. “At least part way. I doubt I will
ever be fully forgiven in this universe, not for my crime. And it was a
crime, I admit that now. You see, from you I have learnt how wrong I was
before. Immortality is a notion we all grasp at because we can sense that
there is continuity beyond death. It is an imperfect realization due to
the weakness of the fusion between this continuum and the state of
emptiness which follows. So much of our misunderstanding of life is
rooted in this, so many wasted opportunities, so much religious claptrap
born. I was wholly wrong to try and achieve a physical life extension,
when corporeal life is but the start of existence. I was no better than a
monkey trying to grasp a hologram banana.”

“You’re mad!” Lewis shouted recklessly. “You’re fucking mad!”

Laton became pitying. “Not mad, but very human. Even in this hiatus state
I have emotions. And I have weaknesses. One of them is the desire for
revenge. But then you know all about that, don’t you, Lewis? Revenge is a
prime motivator; glands or no glands, chemical fury or otherwise. You
burnt for it in the empty beyond, revenge on the living for the crime of
living.

“Well, now I shall have my revenge for the agonies and degradations you
so joyfully submitted my kind to. My kind being the Edenists. For I am
one. At the end. Flawed, but proud of them, their silly pride and honour.
They are a basically peaceful people, those of Pernik more than most, and
you delighted in shattering their sanity. You also destroyed my children,
and you revelled in it, Lewis.”

“I still do! I hope it fucking hurt you watching! I hope the memory makes
you scream at nights. I want you in pain, you shit, I want you weeping.
If I’m part of your memories then you won’t ever be able to forget, I
won’t let you.”

“Oh, Lewis, haven’t you learnt anything yet?” Laton drew his own knife
from a scabbard he brought into existence. Its wickedly thrumming
power-blade was half a metre long. “I’m going to free Syrinx and warn the
Atlantean consensus as to the exact nature of the threat they face.
However, the remaining possessed do present a slight problem. So I need
you to overcome them, Lewis. I shall consume you, completely.”

“Never! I won’t help.”

Laton took a pace forwards. “It isn’t a question of choice. Not on your
part.”

Lewis tried to run. Even though he knew it was impossible. The concrete
closed in, shrinking the warehouse to the size of a tennis court, a room,
a cube five metres across.

“I require control of the energistic spillover, Lewis. The power which
comes from colliding continua. For that I must have the you which is you.
I must complete my possession.”

“No!” Lewis raised his arms as the blade came whistling down. Once again
there was the dreadful grinding sound as bone was pierced and fragmented.
A flash of intolerable pain followed by the devastating numbness. His
blood spilled onto the floor in great spurts from his elbow stump.

“Goodbye, Lewis. It may be some time before we encounter one another
again. But none the less I wish you luck in your search for me.”

Lewis had collapsed twitching into a corner, soles of his boots slipping
on his own blood. “Bastard,” he spat through white lips. “Just do it. Get
it over with and laugh, you shithead prick sucker.”

“Sorry, Lewis. But like I told you, I shall consume you in your entirety.
It’s almost a vampiric process, really—though I expect that particular
irony is sadly lost on you. And in order for the transfer to work you
must remain conscious for the entire feast.” Laton gave him a lopsided,
half-apologetic smile.

The true meaning of what the Edenist was saying finally sank in. Lewis
started to scream. He was still screaming when Laton picked up his
severed arm and bit into it.



Pernik’s illumination returned to normality with eye-jarring suddenness.
The accommodation towers blazed with diamond-blue light from every
window, winding pathways through the park were set out by orange fairy
lanterns, circular landing pads glowed hotly around the entire rim, the
floating quays were like fluorescent roots radiating out into the opaque
glassy water.

Oxley thought it looked quite magnificent. So cruelly treacherous, that a
creation of such beauty could play host to the most heinous evil.

<< Land immediately please, Oxley, >>Laton said. << I don’t have much
time. They are resisting me. >>

<< Land? >>Oxley felt his throat snarl up as outrage vied with a shaky
form of laugh. << Show me where you are, and I’ll come to you, Laton.
I’ll be doing around Mach twenty when we embrace. Show yourself! >>

<< Don’t be a fool. I am Pernik now. >>

<< Where’s Syrinx? >>

<< She lives. Oenone will confirm that. But you must pick her up now, she
requires urgent medical attention. >>

<< Oenone >><< ? >>He sent the querying thought lancing upwards, while at
the back of his mind he was aware of Laton delivering a vast quantity of
information to the Atlantean consensus.

The voidhawk registered as a subdued jumble of thoughts. It had stopped
its crazed descent; now it was rising laboriously up out of the
mesosphere, its distortion effect generating barely a tenth of a gee.

<< Oenone >><< , is she alive? >>

<< Yes. >>

The emotional discharge in the voidhawk’s thought brought tears to his
eyes.

<< Oxley, >>Ruben called, << if there’s any chance . . . please. >>

<< OK. >>He studied the island. Pinpricks of light were blooming and
dying right across it, stars with a lifetime measurable in fractions of a
second. It looked quite magical, though he didn’t like to dwell too hard
upon what their cause would be.

<< Consensus, should I go in? >>

<< Yes. No other spaceplanes can reach Pernik in time. Trust Laton. >>

That was it, the universe had finally gone totally insane. << Oh, shit.
OK, I’m taking the flyer down. >>



Fires had taken hold in the central park when Oxley piloted the flyer
down onto one of the pads. He could see a spaceplane further along the
row, wings retracted, lying on its side with its undercarriage struts
sticking up in the air and its fuselage cracked open around the
midsection. Bodies were sprawled on the polyp around the base of the
nearest accommodation tower; most of them looked as though they had been
caught in a firestorm, skin blackened, faces unrecognizable, clothes
still smoking.

An explosion sounded in the distance, and a ball of orange flame rolled
out of a window on the other side of the park.

<< They are learning, >>Laton said impassively. << Grouped together they
can ward off my energistic assaults. It won’t do them any good in the
long run, of course. >>

Oxley’s nerves were raw edged. He still thought this was some giant trap.
The steel-clad jaws would snap shut any second; conversation might just
be the trigger. << Where’s Syrinx? >>

<< Coming. Open the flyer airlock. >>

He felt the consensus balance his insecurities with an injection of
urbane courage. Somehow he was giving the order to cut the ion field and
open the airlock.

Faint shouts and the drawn out screeching of metal under tremendous
stress penetrated the cabin. Oxley sniffed the air. Mingled with the
brine was a frowsty putrescence which furred the roof of his mouth. With
his hand clamped firmly over his nose he made his way aft.

Someone was walking towards the flyer. A giant, three metres tall,
hairless, naked skin a frail cream colour, virtually devoid of facial
features. It was holding a figure in its outstretched arms.

“Syrinx,” he gasped. He could feel Oenone pushing behind his eyes,
desperate to see.

Three-quarters of her body was engulfed by green medical nanonic
packages. But even that thick covering couldn’t disguise the terrible
damage inflicted on her limbs and torso.

<< The nanonic packages do not function well in this environment, >>Laton
said as the giant mounted the flyer’s airstairs. << Once you are airborne
their efficiency will recover. >>

<< Who did this? >>

<< I do not know their names. But I assure you the bodies they possessed
have been rendered nonfunctional. >>

Oxley backed into the cabin, too shaken to offer further comment. Laton
must have loaded an order into the flight-control processors, because the
front passenger seat hinged open to form a flat couch. It was the one
designed for transporting casualty cases. Basic medical monitor and
support equipment slid out from recesses in the cabin wall above it.

The giant laid Syrinx down gently, then stood, its head touching the
cabin ceiling. Oxley wanted to rush over to her, but all he could do was
stare dumbly at the hulking titan. Its blank face crawled as though the
skin was boiling. Laton looked down at him.

“Go to the Sol system,” the simulacrum said. “There are superior medical
facilities available there in any case. But the Jovian consensus must be
informed of the true nature of the threat these returning souls pose to
the Confederation; indeed to this whole section of the galaxy. That is
your priority now.”

Oxley managed to jerk a nod. “What about you?”

“I will hold the possessed off until you leave Pernik. Then I will begin
the great journey.” The big lips pressed together in compassion. “If it
is of any comfort, you may tell our kind I am now truly sorry for
Jantrit. I was utterly and completely wrong.”

“Yes.”

“I do not ask forgiveness, for it would not be in Edenism’s power to
grant. But tell them also that I came good in the end.” The face managed
a small, clumsy smile. “That ought to set the cat among the pigeons.”

The giant turned and clumped out of the cabin. When it reached the top of
the airlock stairs it lost all cohesion. A huge gout of milky white
liquid sloshed down onto the metal grid of the landing pad, splattering
the flyer’s landing gear struts.



The flyer was five hundred kilometres from Pernik and travelling at Mach
fifteen up through the ionosphere when the end came.

Laton waited until the diminutive craft was beyond any conceivable blast
range, then used his all-pervasive control to release every erg of
chemical energy stored in the island’s cells simultaneously. It produced
an explosion to rival an antimatter planetbuster strike. Several of the
tsunami which raced out from the epicentre were powerful enough to
traverse the world.


Chapter 07
==========


It was a quiet evening in Harkey’s Bar. Terrance Smith’s bold little
fleet had departed the previous day, taking with it a good many regulars.
The band audibly lacked enthusiasm, and only five couples were dancing on
the floor. Gideon Kavanagh sat at one table; the medical nanonic package
preparing his stump for a clone graft was deftly covered by a
loose-fitting purple jacket. His companion was a slim
twenty-five-year-old girl in a red cocktail dress who giggled a lot. A
group of bored waitresses stood at one end of the bar, talking among
themselves.

Meyer didn’t mind the apathetic atmosphere for once. There were some
nights when he really didn’t feel like maintaining the expected image of
combination raconteur, bon viveur, ace pilot, and sex demon—the qualities
that independent starship captains were supposed to possess in abundance.
He was too old to be keeping up that kind of nonsense.

Leave it to the young ones like Joshua, he thought. Although with Joshua
it was hardly an act.

<< Nor was it always an artificial pose for you, >>Udat said.

Meyer watched one of the young waitresses swish past the end of the
booth, an oriental with blonde hair whose long black skirt was split up
to her hips. He didn’t even feel remotely randy, just appreciative of the
view. << Those days seem to be long gone, >>he told the blackhawk with an
irony that wasn’t entirely insincere.

Cherri Barnes was sitting in the booth with him; the two of them sharing
a chilled bottle of imported white Valencay wine. Now there was a woman
he felt perfectly comfortable with. Smart, attractive, someone who didn’t
feel compelled to talk into any silences, a good crew member too; and
they’d been to bed on several occasions over the years. No
incompatibility there.

<< Her company lightens you, >>Udat proclaimed. << That makes me happy. >>

<< Oh, well, as long as you’re happy . . . >>

<< We need a flight. You are growing restless. I am eager to leave. >>

<< We could have gone to Lalonde. >>

<< I think not. Such missions do not sit well with you any more. >>

<< You’re right. Though Christ knows I would have liked a crack at that
bastard Laton. But I suppose that’s something else best left to Joshua
and his ilk. Though what he wanted to go for after the money he pulled in
on the Norfolk run beats me. >>

<< Perhaps he feels he has something to prove. >>

<< No. Not Joshua. There’s something odd going on there. And knowing
Joshua, money is at the root of it. But no doubt we’ll hear about it in
due course. In the meantime the Lalonde mission has left a pleasing
shortage of starships docked here. Finding a charter should be relatively
easy. >>

<< There were those Time Universe charters available. Claudia Dohan
specifically wanted blackhawks to deliver the fleks of Graeme Nicholson’s
sensevise. Time was of the essence, she said. >>

<< Those charters were all rush and effort. >>

<< It would have been a challenge. >>

<< If I’d wanted my mother as a permanent companion rather than a
blackhawk I would never have left home. >>

<< I am sorry. I have upset you. >>

<< No. It’s this Laton business. It has me worried. Fancy him turning up
again after all this time. >>

<< The navy will find him. >>

<< Yeah. Sure. >>

“What are you two talking about?” Cherri asked.

“Huh? Oh, sorry,” he grinned sheepishly. “It’s Laton, if you must know.
Just thinking of him running round free again . . .”

“You and fifty billion others.” She picked up one of the menu sheets.
“Come on, let’s order. I’m starving.”

They chose a chicken dish with side salad, along with a second bottle of
wine.

“The trouble is, where can you travel to that’s guaranteed safe?” Meyer
said after the waitress departed. “Until the Confederation Navy finds
him, the interstellar cargo market is going to be very jumpy. Our
insurance rates are going to go through the roof.”

“So shift to data-courier work. That way we don’t have to physically dock
with any stations. Alternatively, we just fetch and carry cargo between
Edenist habitats.”

He shifted his wineglass about on the table, uncomfortable with the idea.
“That’s too much like giving in, letting him win.”

“Well, make up your mind.”

He managed a desultory smile. “I dunno.”

“Captain Meyer?”

He glanced up. A smallish black woman was standing at the end of the
booth’s table, dressed in a conservative grey suit; her skin was black
enough to make Cherri seem white. He guessed she was in her early
sixties. “That’s me.”

“You are the owner of the Udat?”

“Yes.” If it had been anywhere else but Tranquillity, Meyer would have
pegged her as a tax inspector.

“I am Dr Alkad Mzu,” she said. “I wonder if I could sit with you for a
moment? I would like to discuss some business.”

“Be my guest.”

He signalled to a waitress for another wineglass, and poured out the last
of the bottle when it arrived.

“I require some transportation outsystem,” Alkad said.

“Just for yourself? No cargo?”

“That is correct. Is it a problem?”

“Not for me. But the Udat doesn’t come cheap. In fact, I don’t think
we’ve ever carried just one passenger before.”

<< We haven’t, >>Udat said.

Meyer quashed a childish grin. “Where do you want to travel? I can
probably give you a quote straight away.”

“New California.” She sipped her wine, peering at him over the rim of the
glass.

Out of the corner of his eye, Meyer could see Cherri frowning. There were
regular commercial flights to the New Californian system from
Tranquillity three or four times a week, and more non-scheduled charter
flights on top of that. The Laton scare hadn’t stopped any departures
yet. He was suddenly very curious about Alkad Mzu.

OK, let’s see how badly she wants to get there. “That would be at least
three hundred thousand fuseodollars,” he told her.

“I expected it to be about that,” she replied. “Once we arrive, I may
wish to pick up some cargo to carry on to a further destination. Could
you supply me with the Udat’s performance and handling parameters,
please?”

“Yes, of course.” He was only slightly mollified. Taking a cargo on
somewhere was a viable excuse for an exclusive charter. But why not
travel to New California on a regular civil flight, then hire a starship
after she arrived? The only reason he could think of was that she
specifically wanted a blackhawk. That wasn’t good, not good at all. “But
Udat is only available for civil flights,” he stressed the word lightly.

“Naturally,” Alkad Mzu said.

“That’s all right then.” He opened a channel to her neural nanonics and
datavised the blackhawk’s handling capacity over.

“What sort of cargo would we pick up?” Cherri asked. “I’m the Udat’s
cargo officer, I may be able to advise on suitability.”

“Medical equipment,” Alkad said. “I have some type-definition files.” She
datavised them to Meyer.

The list expanded in his mind, resembling a three-dimensional simulacrum
of magnified chip circuitry, with every junction labelled. There seemed
to be an awful lot of it. “Fine,” he said, slightly at a loss. “We’ll
review it later.” Have to run it through an analysis program, he thought.

“Thank you,” Alkad said. “The journey from New California will be
approximately two hundred light-years, if you’d care to work out a quote
based on the cargo’s mass and environmental requirements. I will be
asking other captains for quotes.”

“We’ll be tough to beat,” he said smoothly.

“Is there any reason why we can’t know where we’re going?” Cherri asked.

“My colleagues and I are still in the preliminary planning stage of the
mission. I’d prefer not to say anything more at this time. But I shall
certainly inform you of our destination before we leave Tranquillity.”
Alkad stood up. “Thank you for your time, Captain. I hope we see each
other again. Please datavise your full quote to me at any time.”

“She hardly touched her wine,” Cherri said as the doctor departed.

“Yes,” Meyer said distantly. Five other people were leaving the bar. None
of them space industry types. Merchants? But they didn’t look rich enough.

“Are we putting in a formal bid?”

“Good question.”

<< I would like to visit New California, >>Udat said hopefully.

<< We’ve been before. You just want to fly. >>

<< I do. It is boring sitting on this ledge. >>Udat relayed an image of
whirling stars as seen from Tranquillity’s docking-ledge, speeded up,
always tracing the same circles. The edge of the habitat’s spaceport disk
started to grey, then crumbled and broke apart with age.

Meyer grinned. << What an imagination you have. I’ll get us a charter
soon. That’s a promise. >>

<< Good! >>

“I think we need to know a little bit more about this Mzu woman,” he said
out loud. “No way is she on the level.”

“Oh, really?” Cherri cooed; she cocked her head on one side. “You noticed
that, did you?”



Ione let go of the image. Her apartment rematerialized around her.
Augustine was walking determinedly across the dining-room table towards
the remains of the salad she had pushed away, moving at a good fifty
centimetres a minute. At the back of her mind she was aware of Alkad Mzu
standing in the vestibule of the thirty-first floor of the StMartha
starscraper waiting for a lift. There were seven Intelligence agency
operatives hanging around in the park-level foyer above her, alerted by
their colleagues in Harkey’s Bar. Two of them—a female operative from New
Britain, and the second-in-command of the Kulu team—resolutely refused to
make eye contact. Strange really. For the last three weeks they had spent
most of their off-duty hours in bed together screwing each other into
delirious exhaustion.

<< In my history courses I recall an incident in the twentieth century
when the American CIA tried to get rid of a Caribbean island’s Communist
president by giving him an exploding cigar, >>Ione said.

<< Yes? >>Tranquillity asked loyally.

<< Six hundred years of progress—human style. >>

<< Would you like me to inform Meyer that Alkad Mzu will not be granted
an exit visa? >>

<< Informing him I’ll blow him and the Udat out of existence if he leaves
with her would be more to the point. But no, we won’t do anything yet.
How many captains has she contacted now? >>

<< Sixty-three in the last twenty months. >>

<< And every contact follows the same pattern, >>she mused. A request for
a charter fee quote to carry her to a star system, then picking up a
cargo to take onwards. But never the same star system; and it was Joshua
who was asked to quote for Garissa. Ione tried not to consider the
implications of that. It had to be coincidence.

<< I am sure it is, >>Tranquillity said.

<< I was leaking. Sorry. >>

<< There was never any follow-up to her meeting with Joshua. >>

<< No. But what is she doing, I wonder? >>

<< I have two possible explanations. First, she is aware of the agency
observers—and it would be hard to believe she is not—and she is simply
having fun at their expense. >>

<< Fun? You call that fun? Threatening to recover the Alchemist? >>

<< Her home planet has been annihilated. If the humour is somewhat rough,
that is to be expected. >>

<< Of course. Go on. >>

<< Secondly, she is attempting to produce a range of escape options which
exceed the observers’ ability to keep track of. Sixty-three is an
excessive number of captains to contact even for a warped game. >>

<< But she must know it isn’t possible to confuse you. >>

<< Yes. >>

<< Strange woman. >>

<< A very intelligent woman. >>

Ione reached over to her discarded plate, and began shredding one of the
lettuce leaves. Augustine crooned adoringly as he finally reached the
pile of shreds, and started to munch at them.

<< Is it possible for her to circumvent your observation? Apparently
Edenists can induce localized blindspots in their habitats’ perception. >>

<< I would say it is extremely unlikely. No Edenist has ever succeeded in
evading me, and there were many attempts in your grandfather’s day. >>

<< Really? >>She perked up.

<< Yes, by their Intelligence agency operatives. All failed. And I
acquired some valuable information on the nature of localized
circumvention patterns they employed. Fortunately I do not use quite the
same thought routines as Edenist habitats, so I am relatively
insusceptible. And Alkad Mzu does not have affinity. >>

<< Are we sure? She was missing for some time between Garissa’s
destruction and turning up here, four years. She could have had neuron
symbionts implanted. >>

<< She did not. A complete medical body scan is required for
health-insurance coverage for all Laymil project staff when they start
work. She has neural nanonics, but no affinity symbionts. Nor any other
implants, for that matter. >>

<< Oh. I’m still unhappy over these continual encounters with starship
captains. Perhaps if I had a private word with her . . . explain how
upsetting it is. >>

<< That might work. >>

<< Did Father ever meet her? >>

<< No. >>

<< I’ll think about what to say then, I don’t want to come over all heavy
handed. Perhaps I could invite her for a meal, keep it informal. >>

<< Certainly. She always maintains her social propriety. >>

<< Good. In the meantime, I’d like you to double the number of serjeants
we keep in her immediate vicinity. With Laton running loose in the
Confederation, we really don’t want to add to Admiral Aleksandrovich’s
troubles right now. >>



Meyer and Cherri Barnes took a lift up from Harkey’s Bar to the
StMartha’s foyer. He walked with her down a flight of stairs to the
starscraper’s tube station, and datavised for a carriage.

“Are we going back to the hotel or Udat?” Cherri asked.

“My hotel flat has a double bed.”

She grinned, and tucked his arm round hers. “Mine too.”

The carriage arrived, and he datavised the control processor to take them
to the hotel. There was a slight surge of acceleration as it got under
way. Meyer sank deeper into his cushioning; Cherri still hadn’t let go of
him.

His neural nanonics informed him a file stored in one of the memory cells
was altering. Viral safeguard programs automatically isolated the cell.
According to the menu, the file was the cargo list Alkad Mzu had
datavised to him.

The viral safeguard programs reported the change had finished; tracer
programs probed the file’s new format. It wasn’t hostile. The file had
contained a time-delay code which simply re-arranged the order of the
existing information into something entirely different. A hidden message.

Meyer accessed the contents.

“Holy shit,” he muttered fifteen seconds later.

<< Now that would be a real challenge, >>Udat said excitedly.



Ombey was the newest of Kulu’s eight principality star systems. A Royal
Kulu Navy scoutship discovered the one terracompatible planet in 2457,
orbiting a hundred and forty-two million kilometres from its G2 star.
After an ecological certification team cleared its biosphere as
non-harmful, it was declared a Kulu protectorate and opened for
immigration by King Lukas in 2470. Unlike other frontier worlds, such as
Lalonde, which formed development companies and struggled to raise
investment, Ombey was funded entirely by the Kulu Royal Treasury and the
Crown-owned Kulu Corporation. Even at the beginning it couldn’t be
described as a stage one colony. It couldn’t even be said to have gone
through a purely agrarian phase. A stony iron asteroid, Guyana, was
manoeuvred into orbit before the first settler arrived, and navy
engineers immediately set about converting it into a base. Kulu’s larger
astroengineering companies brought industry stations to the system to
gain a slice of the military contracts involved, and to take advantage of
the huge start-up tax incentives on offer. The Kulu Corporation began a
settlement on an asteroid orbiting the gas giant Nonoiut, which assembled
a cloudscoop to mine He3. As always within the Kingdom, the Edenists were
excluded from germinating a habitat and building an adjunct cloudscoop, a
prohibition rationalized by the Saldanas on religious grounds.

By the time the first wave of farmers arrived, the already substantial
government presence produced a large ready-made consumer base for their
crops. Healthcare, communications, law enforcement, and didactic
education courses, although not quite up to the level of the Kingdom’s
more developed planets, were provided from day one. Forty hectares of
land were given to each family, along with a generous low-interest loan
for housing and agricultural machinery, with the promise of more land for
their children. Basic planetary industrialization was given a high
priority, and entire factories were imported to provide essentials for
the engineering and construction business. Again, government
infrastructure contracts provided a massive initial subsidy. The company
and civil workers arriving during the second ten-year period was equal to
the number of farmers.

In 2500 its population rose above the ten million mark, and it officially
lost its protectorate status to become a principality, governed by one of
the King’s siblings.

Ombey was a meticulously planned endeavour, only possible to a culture as
wealthy as the Kulu Kingdom. The Saldanas considered the investment costs
more than worthwhile. Although the Principality didn’t start to show a
return for over ninety years, it allowed them to expand their family
dynasty as well as their influence, both physical (economic and military)
and political, inside the Confederation. It made their position even more
secure, although by that time a republican revolution was virtually
impossible. And it was all done without conflict or opposition with
neighbouring star systems.

By 2611 there were twelve settled asteroids in orbit and two more on
their way. Planetary population was a fraction under two hundred million,
and the twelve settled asteroids in the system’s dense inner belt were
home to another two million people. Subsidies and loans from Kulu had
long since ended, self-sufficiency both industrially and economically had
been reached in 2545, exports were accelerating. Ombey was a thriving
decent place to live, bristling with justified optimism.



Captain Farrah Montgomery had expected the flight from Lalonde to take
four days. By the time the Ekwan finally jumped into the Ombey system,
emerging two hundred thousand kilometres above the planet’s surface, they
had been in transit for eight. The big colonist-carrier had endured a
multitude of irritating systems failures right from the very first minute
of getting underway. Mechanical components had broken down, electrical
circuits suffered a rash of surges and drop-outs. Her crew had been
harried into short-tempered despair as they attempted patchwork repairs.
Most worrying, the main fusion tubes produced erratic thrust levels,
adding to the difficulty of reaching plotted jump coordinates, and
increasing the flight duration drastically.

Fuel levels, while not yet critical, were uncomfortably low.

Sensors slid out of their jump recesses, and Captain Montgomery performed
a preliminary visual orientation sweep. Ombey’s solitary moon, Jethro,
was rising above the horizon, a large grey-yellow globe peppered with
small deep craters, and streaked with long white rays. They were above
the planet’s night side; the Blackdust desert continent straddling the
equator was a huge ebony patch amid oceans that reflected jaundiced
moonlight. On the eastern side of the planet the coastline of the
Espartan continent was picked out by the purple-white lights of towns and
cities; there were fewer urban sprawls in the interior, declining to zero
at the central mountain range.

After Captain Montgomery had cleared their arrival with civil flight
control, Ralph Hiltch contacted the navy base on Guyana, and requested
docking permission along with a code four status alert. Ekwan closed on
the asteroid at one and a quarter gravities, holding reasonably steady.
The base admiral, Pascoe Farquar, after receiving Ralph’s request, backed
by Sir Asquith, authorized the alert. Nonessential personnel were cleared
from the habitation cavern the navy used. Commercial traffic was turned
away. Xenobiology, nanonic, and weapons specialists began to assemble an
isolation confinement area for Gerald Skibbow.

The Ekwan docked at Guyana’s non-rotating spaceport amid a tight security
cordon. Royal Marines and port personnel worked a straight five-hour
shift to bring the Ekwan’s three thousand grumbling, bewildered colonists
out of zero-tau and assign them quarters in the navy barracks. Ralph
Hiltch and Sir Asquith spent most of that time in conference with Pascoe
Farquar and his staff. After he accessed sensorium recordings Dean Folan
made during the jungle mission, as well as the garbled reports of Darcy
and Lori claiming Laton was on Lalonde, the admiral decided to raise the
alert status to code three.

Ralph Hiltch watched the last of the fifty armour-suited marines floating
into the Ekwan’s large zero-tau compartment. They were all muscle boosted
and qualified in free fall combat routines; eight of them carried
medium-calibre automatic recoilless projectile carbines. The sergeants
followed Cathal Fitzgerald’s directions and started positioning them in
three concentric circles surrounding Gerald Skibbow’s zero-tau pod, with
five on the decks either side in case he broke through the metal grids.
Extra lights had been attached to the nearby support girders, beams
focused on the one pod in the compartment which was still encased by an
absorptive blackness, casting a weird jumble of multiple shadows outside
the encircling ring of marines.

Ralph’s neural nanonics were relaying the scene to the admiral and the
waiting specialists. It made him slightly self-conscious as he anchored
himself to a girder to address the marine squad.

“This might look excessive for one man,” he said to the marines, “but
don’t drop your guard for an instant. We’re not entirely sure he is
human, certainly he has some lethal energy-projecting abilities that come
outside anything we’ve encountered before. If it’s any comfort, free fall
does seem to unnerve him slightly. Your job is just to escort him down to
the isolation area that’s been prepared. Once he’s there, the technical
people will take over. They think the cell they’ve prepared will be able
to confine him. But getting him there could get very messy.”

He backed away from the pod, noting the half-apprehensive faces of the
first rank of marines.

God, they look young. I hope to hell they took my warning seriously.

He checked his own skull-helmet, and took a deep breath. “OK, Cathal,
switch it off.”

The blackness vanished from the pod revealing the smooth cylindrical
composite sarcophagus. Ralph strained to hear the manic battering which
Skibbow had been giving the pod before the zero-tau silenced him. The
compartment was quiet apart from the occasional scuffling of the marines
as they craned for a glimpse.

“Open the lid.”

It began to slide back. Ralph braced himself for Skibbow to burst out of
the opening like a runaway combat wasp with a forty-gee drive. He heard a
wretched whimpering sound. Cathal gave him a puzzled glance.

God, did we get the right pod?

“All right, stay back,” Ralph said. “You two,” he indicated the marines
with the carbines, “cover me.” He pulled himself cautiously across the
grid towards the pod, still expecting Skibbow to spring up. The
whimpering grew louder, interspersed with low groans.

Very, very carefully, Ralph eased himself up the side of the pod, and
peeked in. Ready to duck down fast.

Gerald Skibbow was floating listlessly inside the curving cream-white
composite coffin. His whole body was trembling. He clutched his shattered
hand to his chest. Both eyes were red rimmed, blood was still oozing from
his mashed nose. The smell of jungle mud and urine clogged in Ralph’s
nose.

Gerald continued his weak gurglings, bubbles of saliva forming at the
corner of his mouth. When Ralph manoeuvred himself right over the pod
there was no reaction from the unfocused eyes.

“Shit.”

“What’s happened?” Admiral Farquar datavised.

“I don’t know, sir. It’s Skibbow all right. But it looks like he’s gone
into some kind of shock.” He waved a hand in front of the colonist’s
filthy, bloody face. “He’s virtually catatonic.”

“Is he still dangerous, do you think?”

“I don’t see how he could be, unless he recovers.”

“All right, Hiltch. Have the marines take him down to the isolation area
as quickly as possible. I’ll have an emergency medical team there by the
time you arrive.”

“Yes, sir.” Ralph pushed himself away, allowing three marines to pull the
still unresisting Skibbow from the zero-tau pod. His neural nanonics
informed him the asteroid was being stood down to code six status.

I don’t understand, he thought bleakly, we brought a walking nuke on
board, and wind up with a pants-wetting vegetable. Something wiped that
sequestration from him. What?

The marine squad departed the compartment noisily, joking and catcalling.
Relieved they hadn’t been needed after all. With one hand holding idly on
a girder, Ralph hung between the two decking grids long after the last of
them left, staring at the zero-tau pod.



Three hours after Guyana’s alert status was reduced to code six, life
inside had almost returned to normal. Civilians with jobs in the
military-run cavern were allowed to resume their duties. Restrictions on
communication and travel were lifted from the other two caverns.
Spaceships were permitted to dock and depart, although the spaceport
where the Ekwan was berthed was still off-limits to anything but navy
ships.

Three and a half hours after the marines delivered a virtually comatose
Gerald Skibbow to the isolation cell, Captain Farrah Montgomery walked
into the small office Time Universe maintained on Guyana and handed over
Graeme Nicholson’s flek.



It was an hour after the maids had served Cricklade’s breakfast, and Duke
was already rising across a sky that was ribbed with slender bands of
flimsy cloud. Duchess-night had seen the first sprinkling of rain since
the midsummer conjunction. The fields and forests glimmered and shone
under their glace coating of water. Aboriginal flowers, reduced to
wizened brown coronets after discharging their seeds, turned to a pulpy
mess and started to rot away. Best of all, the dust had gone from the
air. Cricklade’s estate labourers had started their morning in a cheerful
mood at the omen. Rain this early meant the second crop of cereals should
produce a good heavy harvest.

Louise Kavanagh didn’t care about the rain, nor the prospect of an
impending agricultural bounty. Not even Genevieve’s playful enthusiasm
could summon her for their usual stroll in the paddock. Instead, she sat
on the toilet in her private bathroom with her panties round her ankles
and her head in her hands. Her long hair hung lankly, tasselled ends
brushing her shiny blue shoes. It was stupid to have hair so long, she
thought, stupid, snobbish, impractical, a waste of time, and insulting.

Why should I have to be preened and groomed like I’m a pedigree show
horse? It’s a wicked, filthy tradition treating women like that. Just so
that I look the classic-beauty part for some ghastly clot-head young
“gentleman’. What do looks matter, and especially looks that come from a
pseudo-mythical past on another planet? I already have my man.

She clenched her stomach muscles again, squeezing her guts hard as she
held her breath. Her nails dug into her palms painfully with the effort.
Her head started to shake, skin reddening.

It didn’t make the slightest difference. She let the air out of her
straining lungs in a fraught sob.

Angry now, she squeezed again. Let out her breath.

Squeezed.

Nothing.

She wanted to cry. Her shoulders were shivering, she even had the hot
blotches round her eyes, but there were no tears left. She was all cried
out.

Her period was at least five days overdue. And she was so regular.

She was pregnant with Joshua’s baby. It was wonderful. It was horrible.
It was . . . a wretched great mess.

“Please, Jesus,” she whispered. “What we did wasn’t really a sin. It
wasn’t. I love him so. I really do. Don’t let this happen to me. Please.”

There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to have Joshua’s
baby. But not now. Joshua himself still seemed like a gorgeous fantasy
she had made up to amuse herself during the long hot months of Norfolk’s
quiescent summer. Too perfect to be real, the kind of man who melted her
inside even as he set her on fire with passion. A passion she didn’t
quite know she had before. Previous daydreams of romance had all sort of
blurred into vague unknowns after her tall, handsome champion kissed her.
But lying in bed at night the memory of Joshua’s cunning hands exploring
her naked body brought some most unladylike flushes below the sheets.
There hadn’t been a day gone by when she didn’t visit their little glade
in Wardley Wood, and the smell of dry hay always kindled a secret glow of
arousal as she thought of their last time together in the stable.

“Please, my Lord Jesus.”

Last year one of the girls at the convent school, a year older than
Louise, had moved away from the district rather abruptly. She was from
one of Stoke County’s more important families, her father was a landowner
who had sat on the local council for over a decade. Gone to stay with a
wealthy sheep-farming relative on the isle of Cumbria, the Mother
Superior had told the other pupils, where she will learn the practical
aspects of house management which will adequately prepare her for the
role of marriage. But everyone knew the real reason. One of the Romany
lads, in Stoke for the rose crop, had tumbled her in his caravan. The
girl’s family had been more or less shunned by decent folk after that,
and her father had to resign his council seat, saying it was due to ill
health.

Not that anyone would dare do that to any branch of the Kavanagh family.
But the whispers would start if she took a sudden holiday; the tarnish of
shame would never be lifted from Cricklade. And Mummy would cry because
her daughter had let her down frightfully badly. And Daddy would . . .
Louise didn’t like to think what her father would do.

No! she told herself firmly. Stop thinking like that. Nothing terrible is
going to happen.

“You know I’m coming back,” Joshua had told her as they lay entwined by
the side of the sun-blessed stream. And he said he loved her.

He would return. He promised.

Everything would be all right after that. Joshua was the one person in
the galaxy who could face up to her father unafraid. Yes, everything
would be fine just as soon as he arrived.

Louise brushed her—fearsomely annoying—hair from her face, and slowly
stood up. When she looked in the mirror she was an utter ruin. She
started to tidy herself up, pulling up her panties, splashing cold water
on her face. Her light flower-pattern dress with its long skirt was badly
creased. Why couldn’t she wear trousers, or even shorts? She could just
imagine Nanny’s reaction to that innocent suggestion. Legs on public
display? Good grief! But it would be so much more practical in this
weather. Lots of the women working in the groves did; girls her age, too.
She started to plait her hair. That would be something else which changed
after she was married.

Married. She grinned falteringly at her reflection. Joshua was going to
be in for a monumental shock when he returned and she told him the
stupendous news. But, ultimately, he would be happy and rejoice with her.
How could he not? And they would be married at the end of summer (which
was as quick as decency versus a swelling belly could allow), when the
Earth flowers were at their peak and the granaries were full from the
second harvest. Her bulge probably wouldn’t show, not with an adequately
designed dress. Genevieve would adore being chief bridesmaid. There would
be huge marquees on the lawns for the reception. Family members she
hadn’t seen for years. It would be the biggest celebration in Stoke
County for decades, everyone would be happy and they would dance under
the neon-red night sky.

People might guess because of the speed. But Joshua was going to be her
father’s business partner in this exciting mayope venture. He was rich,
of good blood (presumably—how else would he inherit a starship?), a fine
manager able to take on Cricklade. An eminently suitable (if unusual)
match for the Cricklade heir. Their marriage wouldn’t be that
extraordinary. Her reputation would remain intact. And the Kavanaghs’
respectability would remain unblemished.

After the wedding they could travel Norfolk’s islands for their
honeymoon. Or maybe even to another planet in his starship. What was
important was that she wouldn’t have the baby here, with everyone noting
the date of birth.

Real life could match up to her most fantastical daydreams. With a
fabulous husband, and a beautiful baby.

If Joshua . . .

Always, if Joshua . . .

Why did it have to be like that?



The lone Romany caravan stood beside a tall Norfolk-aboriginal pine in a
meadow which until recently had been a site for more than thirty similar
caravans. Rings of flat reddish stones confined piles of ash, cold now.
Grass along the bank of the little stream was trampled down where horses
and goats had drunk and people had scooped water into pails. Several
piles of raw earth marked the latrines, their conical sides scored with
fresh runnels, evidence of last Duchess-night’s rain.

The caravan, a hybrid of traditional design riding modern lightweight
wheels, had seen more prosperous times. Its jaunty and elaborate
paintwork was fading, but the wood was sound. Three goats were tethered
to its rear axle. Two horses waited outside, one a mud-spotted piebald
shire-horse with a wild shaggy mane which was used to pull the caravan,
the other a black riding stallion, its coat sleek and glossy, the
expensive leather saddle on its back polished to a gleam.

Grant Kavanagh stood inside the caravan, stooping so he didn’t knock his
head on the curving ceiling. It was dark and faintly dusty, smelling of
dried herbs. He enjoyed that, it brought back sharp memories of his
teenage years. Even now, the sight of the Romany caravans winding their
way through Cricklade’s wolds as midsummer approached always made him
feel incredibly randy.

The girl pulled back the heavy curtains hanging on a cord across the
middle of the caravan. Her name was Carmitha, twenty years old, with a
big broad-shouldered body, which, Grant knew with depressing instinct,
would be horribly overweight in another six or seven years. Rich black
hair hanging below her shoulders harmonized with dark, smooth skin. She
had changed into a flimsy white skirt and loose-fitting top.

“That looks fantastic,” he said.

“Why, thank you, kind sir.” She curtsied, and giggled effusively.

Grant drew her closer and started to kiss her. His hands fumbled with the
buttons down the front of her blouse.

She pushed him away gently, and removed his hands, kissing the knuckles
lightly. “Let me do that for you,” she said coquettishly. Her fingers
moved down to the top button in a slow, taunting caress. He looked in
delight as her body was exposed. He pulled her down onto the bed,
immensely gratified by her ardour.

The caravan squeaked as it started rocking. A hurricane lantern hanging
from a brass chain on the ceiling clanged loudly as it swayed gently to
and fro. He barely heard it above Carmitha’s exuberant whoops of joy.

After a time which was nowhere near long enough, he came in drastic
shudders, his spine singing raptures. Carmitha quickly squealed, claiming
multiple orgasms were nearly making her swoon.

He collapsed onto the bed, prickly blankets scratching his back. Dust
mingled with sweat and trickled among the curly hair on his chest.

By God but summer conjunction makes life worth living, he thought. A time
when he could prove himself again and again. The Tear crop had been one
of the best ever; the estate had made its usual financial killing. He had
tumbled nearly a dozen young girls from the grove teams. The
meteorological reports were predicting a humid month ahead, which meant a
good second harvest. Young Joshua’s audacious mayope proposal could only
add to the family’s wealth and influence.

The only blot on the horizon was the reports coming out of Boston on the
disturbances. It looked like the Democratic Land Union was stirring up
trouble again.

The Union was a motley collection of reformists and political agitators,
a semi-subversive group who wanted to see land distributed “fairly” among
the People, the foreign earnings from the sale of Norfolk Tears invested
with social relevance, and full democracy and civil rights awarded to the
population. And free beer on Friday nights, too, no doubt, Grant thought
caustically. The whole blessing of a Confederation of eight hundred plus
planets was that it gave people a massive variety of social systems to
choose from. What the Democratic Land Union activists failed to
appreciate was that they were free to leave for their damned Communistic
workers’ paradise as soon as the workshy little buggers earned enough
cash to pay their passage. But oh no, they wanted to liberate Norfolk, no
matter how much damage and heartache they caused in the process of
peddling their politics of envy.

A chapter of the Democratic Land Union had tried to spread its sedition
in Stoke County about ten years ago. Grant had helped the county’s chief
constable round them up. The leaders had been deported to a Confederation
penal planet. Some of the nastier elements—the ones found with home-made
weapons—had been handed over to a squad of special operations constables
from the capital, Norwich. The rest, the pitiful street trash who handed
out leaflets and drank themselves into a coma on the Union-supplied beer,
had been given fifteen years’ hard labour in the polar work gangs.

There hadn’t been sight or sign of them on Kesteven ever since. Some
people, he thought sagely, just never learn. If it works, don’t try and
fix it. And Norfolk worked.

He kissed the crown of Carmitha’s head. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow. Most of my family has already left. There is fruit-picking
work in Hurst County. It pays well.”

“And after that?”

“We’ll winter over in Holbeach. There are many deep caves in the cliffs
above the town. And some of us get jobs in the harbour market gutting
fish.”

“Sounds like a good life. Don’t you ever want to settle down?”

She shrugged, thick hair sloshing about. “Be like you, tied to your cold
stone palace? No thanks. There might not be much to see in this world,
but I want to see it all.”

“Better make the most of the time we’ve got, then.”

She crawled on top of him, calloused hands closing round his limp penis.

There was a pathetic scratching knock on the caravan’s rear door. “Sir?
Are you there, sir?” William Elphinstone asked. The voice was as quavery
as the knock.

Grant chopped back on an exasperated groan. No, I’m not in here, that’s
why my bloody horse is outside. “What do you want?”

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s an urgent phone call for you at
the house. Mr. Butterworth said it was important, it’s from Boston.”

Grant frowned. Butterworth wasn’t going to send anyone after him unless
it was genuinely important. The estate manager knew full well what he was
up to at a slack time like this. He was also wily enough not to come
looking himself.

I wonder what young Elphinstone has done to annoy him, Grant thought
irreverently.

“Wait there,” he shouted. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” He deliberately
took his time dressing. No damn way was he going to come dashing out of
the caravan tucking his shirt into his trousers and give the lad
something to tell all the other junior estate managers.

He straightened his tweed riding jacket, smoothed down his muttonchops
with his hands, and settled his cap. “How do I look?”

“Masterful,” Carmitha said from the bed.

There was no detectable irony. Grant fished around in his pocket and
found two silver guineas. He dropped the gratuity into a big china bowl
sitting on a shelf beside the door as he went out.



Louise watched her father and William Elphinstone ride up to the front
door. Grooms appeared, and took charge of the horses. From the way the
animals were sweating it had been a hard ride. Her father hurried into
the house.

Poor old Daddy, always busy.

She strolled over to where William was talking to the grooms, both boys
younger than her. He saw her coming and dismissed them. Louise stroked
the black stallion’s flank as the big animal was led past her.

“Whatever is all the fuss about?” she asked.

“Some call from Boston. Mr. Butterworth thought it important enough to
send me out looking for your father.”

“Oh.” Louise started to move away. Rather annoyingly, William walked in
step with her. She wasn’t in the mood for company.

“I’ve been asked to the Newcombes’ bash on Saturday evening,” he said. “I
thought it might be rather fun. They’re not quite our people, but they
set a decent table. There will be dancing afterwards.”

“That’s nice.” Louise always hated it when William tried to put on
graces. “Our people” indeed! She went to school with Mary Newcombe.

“I hoped you would come with me.”

She looked at him in surprise. Eagerness and anxiety squabbled over his
face. “Oh, William, that’s jolly nice of you to ask. Thank you. But I
really can’t. Sorry.”

“Really can’t?”

“Well, no. The Galfords are coming to dinner on Saturday. I simply must
be there.”

“I thought that perhaps now he’s left, you might find more time for my
company.”

“Now who’s left?” she asked sharply.

“Your friend, the gallant starship captain.”

“William, you really are talking the most appalling tosh. Now I’ve said I
can’t attend the Newcombes’ party with you. Kindly leave the subject.”

He stopped and took hold of her arm. She was too surprised to say
anything. People simply did not take such liberties.

“You always found plenty of time for him,” he said in a flat tone.

“William, desist this instant.”

“Every day, it was. The two of you galloping off to Wardley Wood.”

Louise felt the blood rising to her cheeks. What did he know? “Remove
your hand from me. Now!”

“You didn’t mind his hands.”

“William!”

He gave her a humourless smile and let go. “I’m not jealous. Don’t get me
wrong.”

“There is nothing to be jealous of. Joshua Calvert was a guest and friend
of my father’s. That is the end of the matter.”

“Some fiancés would think otherwise.”

“Who?” she squawked.

“Fiancés, my dearest Louise. You must be aware there is some considerable
speculation upon whom you are to marry. All I’m saying is that there are
some Kesteven families of good breeding, and eligible sons, who would
take exception to your . . . shall we call it, indiscretion.”

She slapped him. The sound rang across the lawn as her palm struck his
cheek. “How dare you!”

He dabbed at his cheek with the fingers of his right hand, a look of
distaste on his face. The imprint of her palm was clearly etched in pink.
“What an impetuous creature you are, Louise. I had no idea.”

“Get out of my sight.”

“Of course, if that’s what you wish. But you might like to consider that
should word get out, your currently enviable position may well become
less than secure. I don’t want to see that happen, Louise, I really
don’t. You see, I am genuinely very fond of you. Fond enough to make
allowances.”

She seemed utterly incapable of movement, condemned to stand there in
front of him, gaping in astonishment. “You . . .” It came out in a
crushed gasp. For a distressing instant she thought she was going to
faint.

William knelt in front of her.

No, she thought, oh no no no, this can’t be happening. Joshua bloody
Calvert, where are you?

“Marry me, Louise. I can obtain your father’s approval, have no fear of
that. Marry me, and we can have a wonderful future together here at
Cricklade.” He held his hand out, face soft with expectancy.

She drew herself up into the most regal pose she could manage. And very
clearly, very calmly said: “I would sooner shovel bullock manure for a
living.” One of Joshua’s better expressions, though admittedly not
verbatim.

William paled.

She turned on a heel and walked away. Her back held straight.

“This is not the last time we shall pursue this topic,” he called after
her. “Believe me, dearest Louise, I will not be defeated in my suit for
you.”



Grant Kavanagh sat himself down behind the desk in his study and picked
up the phone. His secretary had put a call through to Trevor Clarke,
Kesteven’s lord lieutenant. Grant didn’t like the implications of that
one jot.

“I need you to bring Stoke’s militia to Boston,” Trevor Clarke said as
soon as they had exchanged greetings. “A full turnout, please, Grant.”

“That might be difficult,” Grant said. “This is still a busy time here.
The rosegroves need pruning, and there’s the second grain crop to drill.
We can hardly take able men from the land.”

“Can’t be helped. I’m calling in all the county militias.”

“All of them?”

“ ’Fraid so, old chap. We’ve blacked it from the news, you understand,
but the situation in Boston, frankly, doesn’t look good.”

“What situation? You’re not seriously telling me that bloody Union rabble
worries you?”

“Grant . . .” Trevor Clarke’s voice dropped an octave. “Listen, this is
totally confidential, but there are already five districts in Boston that
have been completely taken over by this mob, rendered ungovernable. We
have a state of open insurrection here. If we send the police in to
re-establish order they don’t come out again. The city is under martial
law, insofar as we can enforce it. I’m worried, Grant.”

“Dear Christ! The Democratic Land Union has done this?”

“We’re not sure. Whoever these insurrectionists are, they seem to be
armed with energy weapons. That means offplanet complicity. But it’s hard
to believe the Union could ever organize something like that. You know
what they’re like, hotheads smashing up tractors and ploughs. Energy
weapons break every letter in our constitution; they are everything this
society was set up to avoid.”

“An outside force?” Grant Kavanagh could hardly believe what he was
hearing.

“It may be. I have asked the Chancellor’s office in Norwich to request
the Confederation Navy squadron extends its duty tour. Fortunately the
personnel are all still here having their shore leave. The squadron
commander is recalling them back up to orbit now.”

“What good is that?”

“The navy starships can make damn sure nothing else is delivered to the
insurrectionists from outsystem. And as a last resort they can provide
our ground forces with strike power.”

Grant sat perfectly still. Ground forces. Strike power. It was unreal.
Through the windows he could see Cricklade’s peaceful wolds, rich and
verdant. And here he was calmly talking about virtual civil war. “But
God’s teeth, man, this is a city we’re talking about. You can’t use
starship weapons against Boston. There are a hundred and twenty thousand
people living there.”

“I know,” Trevor Clarke said mordantly. “One of the militia’s major
assignments will be to help evacuate the civilians. You will be
minimizing casualties, Grant.”

“Have you told the Chancellor what you’re planning? Because if you
haven’t, I damn well will.”

There was a silence which lasted for several seconds. “Grant,” Trevor
Clarke said gently, “it was the Chancellor’s office that recommended this
action to me. It must be done while the insurrectionists are concentrated
in one place, before they have a chance to spread their damnable
revolution. So many people are joining them. I . . . I never thought
there was so much dissatisfaction on the planet. It has to be stopped,
and stopped in a way that forbids repetition.”

“Oh, my God,” Grant Kavanagh said brokenly. “All right, Trevor, I
understand. I’ll call in the militia captains this afternoon. The
regiment will be ready for you by tomorrow.”

“Good man, Grant. I knew I could rely on you. There will be a train to
collect you from Colsterworth Station. We’ll billet you in an industrial
warehouse outside town. And don’t worry, man, the starships are only a
last resort. I expect we’ll only need one small demonstration and they’ll
cave in.”

“Yes. I’m sure you’re right.” Grant returned the pearl-handled phone to
its cradle, a morbid premonition telling him it could never be that
simple.



The train had six passenger carriages, room enough for all of the Stoke
county militia’s seven hundred men. It took them twenty-five minutes to
embark. The station was a scene of pure chaos; half of the town’s streets
were clogged with carts, carriages, buses, and farm-ranger vehicles.
Families took a long time saying goodbye. Men were shifty and irritable
in their grey uniforms. Complaints about ill-fitting boots rippled up and
down the platform.

Louise and Marjorie were pressed against the wall of the station with a
pile of kitbags on one side, and olive-green metal ammunition boxes on
the other. Some of the boxes had date stamps over ten years old. Three
hard-faced men were guarding the ammunition, stumpy black guns cradled in
their arms. Louise was beginning to regret coming, Genevieve hadn’t been
allowed.

Mr Butterworth, in his sergeant-major’s uniform, marched up and down the
platform, ordering people about. The train was gradually filled; work
teams began to load the kitbags and ammunition into the first carriage’s
mail compartment.

William Elphinstone came down the platform, looking very smart in his
lieutenant’s uniform. He stopped in front of them. “Mrs Kavanagh,” he
said crisply. “Louise. It looks like we’re off in five minutes.”

“Well, you mind you take great care, William,” Marjorie said.

“Thank you. I will.”

Louise let her gaze wander away with deliberate slowness. William looked
slightly put out, but decided this wasn’t the time to make an issue of
it. He nodded to Marjorie and marched off.

She turned to her daughter. “Louise, that was extremely rude.”

“Yes, Mother,” Louise said unrepentantly. How typical of William to
volunteer even though it wasn’t his militia, she thought. He only did it
to be covered in glory, so he would seem even more acceptable to Daddy.
And he would never be in the front line sharing the risk with the poor
common troops, not him. Joshua would.

Marjorie gave her daughter a close look at the unexpected tone, seeing
the sulky stubborn expression on her usually placid face. So Louise
doesn’t like William Elphinstone. Can’t say I blame her. But to be so
public was totally out of character. Louise’s decorum was always
meticulously formal and correct, gratingly so. Suddenly, despite all the
worry of Boston, she felt delighted. Her daughter wasn’t the meek-minded
little mouse any more. She wanted to cheer out loud. And I wonder what
started this episode of independent thinking, though I’ve a pretty shrewd
idea. Joshua Calvert, if you laid one finger on her . . .

Grant Kavanagh strode vigorously along the side of the train, making sure
his troops were settled and everything was in place. His wife and
daughter were waiting dutifully at the end of the platform. Both of them
quite divine, Marjorie especially.

Why do I bother with those little Romany tarts?

Louise’s face was all melancholic. Frightened, but trying not to show it.
Trying to be brave like a good Kavanagh. What a wonderful daughter.
Growing up a treat. Even though she had been a bit moody these last few
days. Probably missing Joshua, he thought jovially. But that was just
another reminder that he really would have to start thinking seriously
about a decent bloodmatch for her. Not yet though, not this year.
Cricklade Manor would still echo with her laughter over Christmas,
warming his heart.

He hugged her, and her arms wrapped round his waist. “Don’t go, Daddy,”
she whispered.

“I have to. It won’t be for long.”

She sniffed hard, and nodded. “I understand.”

He kissed Marjorie, ignoring the whistles and cheers which rang out from
the carriages at the rear of the train.

“Now don’t you try and prove anything,” she said in that weary
half-censorious way which meant she was scared to the core. So he said,
“Of course I won’t, I’ll just sit in the command tent and let the
youngsters get on with it.”

Marjorie put her arm around Louise as they waved the train out of the
station. The platform was a solid mass of women with handkerchiefs
flapping from frantic wrists. She wanted to laugh at how silly they must
all look to the men on the train. But she didn’t because she was a
Kavanagh, and must set an example. Besides, she might have started crying
at the futility and stupidity of it all.

In the clear sky above, silver lights flashed and twisted as the navy
squadron changed formation and orbital inclination so that Boston was
always in range to one of their number.



Dariat was nerving himself up to commit suicide. It wasn’t easy. Suicide
was the culmination of failure, of despair. Since the return of the dead
from the realm of emptiness, his life had become inspiring.

He watched the couple make their cautious way down the starscraper’s
fetid stairwell. Kiera Salter had done well seducing the boy, but then
what fifteen-year-old male could possibly resist Marie Skibbow’s body?
Kiera didn’t even have to enhance the physique she had possessed. She
just put on a mauve tank top and a short sky-blue skirt and let nature
wreak havoc on the boy’s hormone balance—as she had done with Anders
Bospoort.

The monitoring sub-routine assigned to observe Horgan flowed through the
neural cells behind the stairwell’s polyp walls, spreading out through
the surrounding sectors to interface with the starscraper’s existing
routines. An invisible, all-encompassing guardian angel. It was checking
for threats, the possibility of danger. Horgan was another of Rubra’s
myriad descendants. Cosseted, privileged, and cherished; his mind
silently, stealthily guided into the correct academic spheres of
interest, and bequeathed a breathtaking arrogance for one so young. He
had all the hallmarks of conceit endemic to Rubra’s tragic protégés.
Horgan was proud and lonely and foul tempered. A lanky youth with dark
Asian skin, and giveaway indigo eyes, if his chromosomes had granted him
the muscle weight to back up his narcissistic personality he would have
been involved in as many fights as the young Dariat.

Naturally he admitted no surprise when Kiera/Marie confided her
attraction to him. A girl like that was his due.

Kiera and Horgan stepped out of the stairwell onto the eighty-fifth-floor
vestibule.

Dariat felt the monitoring routine flood into the apartment’s stratum of
neural cells and interrogate the autonomic routines within, reviewing
local memories. This was the crux. It had taken him two days to modify
the apartment’s routines. None of his usual evasions had ever had to
withstand examination by such a large personality sub-routine before, it
was virtually sentient in its own right.

There was no alarm, no bugle for help to Rubra’s principal consciousness.
The monitor routine saw only an empty apartment waiting for Horgan.

“They are coming,” Dariat told the others in Anders Bospoort’s bedroom.
All three possessed were with him. Ross Nash who rode in Bospoort’s own
body, a Canadian from the early twentieth century. Enid Ponter, from the
Australian-ethnic planet Geraldton, dead for two centuries, who occupied
Alicia Cochrane’s mortal form. And Klaus Schiller, possessing Manza
Balyuzi’s body, a German who muttered incessantly about his Führer, and
seemingly angered at having to take on an Asian appearance. The body was
now markedly different to the image contained in his passport flek the
day he disembarked from the Yaku. His skin was blanching; jet-black hair
streaked with expanding tufts of fine blond strands; the gentle facial
features shifting to rugged bluntness, eyes azure blue. He had even grown
a couple of centimetres taller.

“And Rubra?” Enid Ponter asked. “Does he know?”

“My disruption routines have worked. The monitor can’t see us.”

Ross Nash looked slowly round the bedroom, almost as though he was
sniffing a trace of some exotic scent in the air. “I sense it. Behind the
walls, there is a coldness of heart.”

“Anstid,” Dariat said. “That’s what you sense. Rubra is just an aspect of
him, a servant.”

Ross Nash made no attempt to hide his disgust.

None of them really trusted him, Dariat knew. They were strong enemies
who had agreed a precarious truce because of the damage they could each
inflict on the other. Such a stand-off could never last long. Human
doubts and insecurities gnawed at such restraints, chafing at
reasonableness. And the stakes on both sides were high, accelerating the
devout need to see treachery in every hesitant breath and wary footstep.

But he would prove his worthiness as few had done before. Entrusting them
with not merely his life, but his death as well. It was all so absurdly
logical.

He needed their awesome powers of manifestation, and at the same time
retain his affinity. Their power came from death, therefore he must die
and possess a body with the affinity gene. So simple when you say it
quick. And completely mad. But then what he had seen these last few days
defied sanity.

Horgan and Kiera entered the apartment. They were kissing even as the
door closed.

Dariat concentrated hard, his affinity strumming the new neural routines
alive with a delicate harmony of deceit. The image of the twined figures
was incorporated into one of them. An illusive fallacy; generated by a
misappropriated section of the habitat’s neural cells massing ten times
that of the human brain. Small in relation to the total mass of the
neural strata, but enough to make the illusion perfect, giving the
phantom Horgan and Kiera weight and texture and colour and smell. Even
body heat. The sensitive cells registered that as they started to tug
each other’s clothes off with the typical impatience of teenagers in lust.

Most difficult of all for Dariat to mimic was the constant flow of
emotion and feeling Horgan emitted unconsciously into the affinity band.
But he managed it, by dint of careful memory and composition. The monitor
routine looked on with tranquil disinterest.

There was a split in Dariat’s mind, like alternative quantum-cosmology
histories, two realities diverging. In one, Horgan and Kiera raced for
the bedroom, laughing, clothes flying. In the other . . .

Horgan’s eyes blinked open in surprise. The kiss had delivered every
promise her body made. He was primed for the greatest erotic encounter of
his life. But now she was sneering contemptuously. And four other people
were coming into the lounge from one of the bedrooms. Two of the men were
huge, in opposite directions.

Horgan barely paid them any attention. He had heard of deals like this,
whispered terrors amongst the kids in the day clubs. Snuffsense. The
bitch had set him up as the meat they would rape to death. He turned, his
leg muscles already taut.

Something—strange, like a hard ball of liquid—hit him on the back of the
head. He was falling, and in the distance a choir of infernal angels was
singing.

Dariat stood aside as Ross Nash hauled the semiconscious Horgan into the
bedroom. He tried not to stare at the boy’s feet, they were floating ten
centimetres in the air.

“Are you ready?” Kiera asked, her tone dripping with disdain.

He walked past her into the bedroom. “Do we get to screw afterwards?”

Dariat had favoured an old-fashioned capsule you swallowed rather than a
transfusion pad or medical package. It was black—naturally—two
centimetres long. He had acquired it from his regular narkhal supplier. A
neurotoxin, guaranteed painless, she promised. As if he could complain if
it wasn’t.

He grinned at that. And swallowed, almost while his conscious mind was
diverted. If it did hurt she was due for some very pointed lessons on
consumer rights from an unexpected direction.

“Get on with it,” he told the figures grouped round the bed. Tall and
reedy, they were now, mud-brown effigies a sculptor had captured through
a blurred lens. They bent over the spread-eagled boy and sent cold fire
writhing up and down his spine.

The poison was fast acting. Guaranteed. Dariat was losing all feeling in
his limbs. Sight greyed out. His hearing faded, which was a relief. It
meant he didn’t have to listen to all that screaming. “Anastasia,” he
muttered. How easy it would be to join her now. She only had a
thirty-year head start, and what was that compared to infinity? He could
find her.

Death.

And beyond.

A violent jerk of both body and mind. The universe blew away in all
directions at once, horrifying in its immensity. Silence shrouded him; a
silence he considered only possible in the extremity of intergalactic
space. Silence without heat or cold, without touch or taste. Silence
singing with thoughts.

He didn’t look around. There was nothing to look with, nowhere to look,
not in this, the sixth realm. But he knew, was aware of, what shared this
state with him, the spirits Anastasia had told him about as they sat in
her tepee so long ago.

Nebulous minds wept tears of emotion, their sorrow and lamentation
splashing against him. And whole spectra of hatreds; jealousy and envy,
but mostly self-loathing. They were spirits, all of them, lost beyond
redemption.

Outside of this was colour, all around, but never present. Untouchable
and taunting. A universe he was pleased to call real. The realm of the
living. A wondrous, beautiful place, a corporeality crying out for
belonging.

He wanted to beat against it, to demand entry. He had no hands, and there
was no wall. He wanted to call to the living to rescue him. He had no
voice.

“Help me!” his mind shrieked.

The lost spirits laughed cruelly. Their numbers pressed against him, vast
beyond legion. He had no single defined location, he found, no kernel
with a protective shell. He was everywhere at once, conjunctive with
them. Helpless against their invasion. Lust and avarice sent them prising
and clawing at his memories, suckling the sweet draught of sensations he
contained. A poor substitute for intrinsicality, but still fresh, still
juicy with detail. The only sustenance this arcane continuum boasted.

“Anastasia, help me.”

They adored his most shameful secrets, for they carried the strongest
passion—stolen glances at women through the habitat sensitive cells,
masturbating, the hopeless yearning for Anastasia, impossible promises
made in the depth of night, hangovers, gluttony, glee as the club smashed
against Mersin Columba’s head, Anastasia’s vital body hot against him,
limbs locking together. They drank it all, deriding him even as they
idolized him for the glimpse of life he brought.

Time. Dariat could sense it going by outside. Seconds, mere seconds had
elapsed. Here, though, it had little relevance. Time was the length of
every memory, governed by perception. Here it was defied as his rape went
on and on. A rape which wasn’t going to end. Not ever. There were too
many of them for it to end.

He would have to abide by it, he realized in dread. And join in. Already
he craved the knowledge of warmth, of touch, of smell. Memories of such
treasures were all around. He had only to reach out—



The bedroom was damp and cold, its furniture cheap. But he couldn’t
afford anything more. Not now. The dismissal papers were still in his
jacket pocket. The last pay packet was in there with it, but slim now. It
had been fatter this afternoon. Before he went to the bar, doing what any
man would.

Debbi was rising from the bed, blinking drowsily up at him. Voice like a
fucking cat, complaining complaining complaining. Where had he been with
his no-good friends? Did he know what time it was? How much had he drunk?
Like she always did.

So he told the bitch to shut up, because for once he was utterly pissed
off with all the grief she gave him. And when she didn’t quieten down he
hit her. Even that didn’t do it. She was shrieking real loud now, waking
up the whole goddamn neighbourhood. So he hit her again, harder this time.



—to devour the pitiful echoes of sensation.

“Holy Anstid, help me your eternal servant. For pity’s sake. Help!”

Laughter, only laughter. So he raged back and lost himself from the
mockery in—



The sun glinting off the Inca temple that rose unchallenged into the sky.
It was greater than any cathedral he had ever seen. But its builders were
now a nation quelled before Spain’s might. And the wealth inside the
broken city was beyond that of kings. A life of glory awaited its
conquerors.

His armour acted like a furnace in the heat. And the gash on his leg was
host to strange brown pustular styes, spores of accursed jungle. Already
he was frightened he wouldn’t live to see Spain’s shores again.



—which wasn’t an answer. Calamity and pain were thin substitutes for the
explosion of experience which lay in the vaguely perceived extrinsic
universe.

Ten seconds. That was all the time that had passed there since he died.
And how long had some of the spirits been here? How could they stand it—



Centuries which ache like a lover’s heart laid still. To leech and leech
what is new to find only that which is stale. Yet even such an insipid
taste surpasses the hell which lies further from the taunting glimmer of
the lost home of our flesh. Madness and dragons lie in wait for those
that venture away from what we discern. Safer to stay. Safer to suffer
the known rather than the unknown.



—Dariat could distinguish bursts of Horgan’s pain, flashing into the
nothingness of the sixth realm like flames licking through black timber.
They came from where the spirits were clustered thickest, as though they
were dogs fighting for scraps of the rarest steak.

Colours were stronger there, oozing through cracks that curved across
dimensions. And the lost spirits howled in a unison of hatred, tempting
and taunting Horgan to accede, to surrender. Maidens promised oceans of
pleasure while malefactors threatened eternities of torment.

The cracks from which the rich slivers of pain emerged were growing wider
as Kiera, Ross, Enid, and Klaus exerted their power.

“Mine,” Dariat proclaimed in defiance. “He is mine. Prepared for me. He
belongs to me.”

“No, mine.”

“Mine.”

“Mine.”

“Mine,” rose the cry.

“Kiera, Ross, help me. Let me come back.” He knew he could not stay here.
Cool quiet darkness called, away from the universe of birth. Where
Anastasia had gone, where they would meet again. To linger here with only
the memories of yesterday’s dreams as a reason was insanity. Anastasia
was brave enough to venture forth. He could follow in her wake, unworthy
though he was.

“Stop it, I beg,” Horgan called. “Rescue me.”

The uniformity in which Dariat was suspended began to warp. A tight
narrow funnel resembling a cyclone vortex that led down into the
fathomless unknowable heart of a gas giant. Spirits were compelled
towards it, into it. Dariat was one of them, pressed ever tighter against—



A poorly cobbled street with cottages on either side. It was raining
hard. His bare feet were numb with cold. Wood smoke hung in the air,
wisps from the chimneys swirled low by the wind. Water was soaking his
ragged coat and making his cough worse. His thin chest vibrated as the
air bucked in his throat. Ma had taken to giving him sad smiles whenever
he told her how bad it felt inside.

Beside him his little sister was sniffling. Her face was barely visible
below her woollen bonnet and above her coat collar. He held her hand in
his as she tottered along unquestioningly. She looked so frail, worse
than him. And winter was only just beginning. There never seemed to be
enough broth; and the portions they had were made mostly from vegetables.
It didn’t fill the belly. Yet there was meat in the butchers.

Townsfolk walked along with them as the church bell pealed incessantly,
summoning them. His sister’s wooden clogs made dull rapping sounds
against the cobbles. They were full with water, swelling her small white
feet, and making the sores worse.

Da earned a good wage labouring in the squire’s fields. But there was
never extra money to spend on food.

The worn penny piece with Queen Victoria’s face was clutched in his free
hand. Destined for the smiling, warmly dressed pastor.

It just didn’t seem right.



“Please,” Horgan called, weaker now, thoughts bruised by the pain.

Dariat slid in towards the boy. “I’ll help, I’ll help,” he lied. Light
trickled through from the far end of the tunnel, flickering and shifting,
glowing like sunlight shining through stained glass into a dusty church.
But the other spirits were promising the boy salvation as well—



Cold claimed the whole world. There was no such thing as warmth, not even
inside his stiff, stinking furs. In the distance the ice wall glared a
dazzling silver-white as the sun beat upon it. The others of the tribe
were spread out across the grassy plain, sloshing their way through
ice-mushed puddles. And glimpsed up ahead through the tall, swaying
spires of grass was the mammoth.



“Come then, Dariat,” Ross Nash called.

Dariat saw his thoughts take form, become harder, as groping fingers of
energy reached for him. He was strengthened from the touch, given weight,
given volume; hurtling past the other spirits, victory rapturous in his
mind. They howled and cursed as he was sucked down and down. Faster—in.

Even midnight-blackness was a sight to rejoice.

Eyelids blinked away tears of joy. Pain was glorious because it was real.
He moaned at the wounds scored across his thin body, and felt a strange
sensation of dry fluid bathe his skin. It flowed where his mind directed.
So he put forth his will and watched the lacerations close. Yes!

Oh, my darling Anastasia, you were right all along. And always I doubted,
at the core, in my secret spirit. What have I done?

Kiera smiled scornfully down at him. “Now you will forget your feeble
quest for revenge against Rubra, and work with us to capture Magellanic
Itg’s blackhawks with your affinity so we may spread ourselves across the
stars. Because to lose now will mean returning to the incarceration of
the beyond. You were there for fifteen seconds, Dariat. Next time it will
be for ever.”



Ione didn’t sleep. Her body was drowsy, and her eyelids were heavy enough
to remain closed. But her mind floated at random through the habitat’s
perception images. She reacquainted herself with favourite slices of
landscape, checking on the residents as they slumbered or partied or
worked their way through the small hours. Young children were already
stirring, yawning staff arrived at the restaurants which served
breakfast. Starships came and (a lower number than normal) went from the
spaceport outside. A couple of oddball scavenger craft were rising slowly
out of the Ruin Ring along Hohmann transfer orbits which would bring them
to an eventual rendezvous with the habitat. Mirchusko was ninety per cent
full, its ochre-on-saffron storm-bands bold against the starfield. Five
of its seven major moons were visible, various lacklustre crescents
strung out across the ring plane.

Far inside the gossamer ribbon of the Ruin Ring two dozen blackhawks were
rushing towards the gas giant’s equator on a mating flight. Three eggs
had already been ejected into Mirchusko’s thick inner rings. She listened
to their awed, inquisitive exchanges with the blackhawks who had helped
stabilize them; whilst racing on ahead their dying parent radiated
sublime gratification.

Life goes on, Ione thought, even in dire times like these.

A sub-routine pervading the lakeside house warned her Dominique was
approaching the bedroom. She dismissed the habitat perception and opened
her eyes. Clement was lying on the furred air mattress beside her, mouth
open, eyes tight shut, snoring softly.

Ione recalled the night fondly. He was a good lover, enthusiastic,
knowledgeable, slightly selfish—but that was most likely due to his age.
And for all the enjoyment, he wasn’t Joshua.

The muscle membrane door opened to allow Dominique in. She was dressed in
a short royal-purple robe, carrying a tray. “So how was my little
brother?” She leered down at the two naked bodies.

Ione laughed. “Growing up big and strong.”

“Really? You should abolish incest, I could find out for myself then.”

“Ask the bishop. I only do civil and financial laws. Morals are all down
to him.”

“Breakfast?” Dominique asked, perching on the end of the bed. “I’ve got
juice, toast, coffee, and quantat slices.”

“Sounds fine.” Ione nudged Clement awake, and ordered the window to
clear. The glass lost its deep hazel tint to reveal the placid lake at
the foot of the cliff. Tranquillity’s axial light-tube was just starting
to fluoresce its way up through the orange spectrum.

“Any word in about Laton?” Dominique asked. She sat cross-legged facing
Ione and Clement, pouring juice and handing round toast.

“Nothing to add to what the navy voidhawk brought yesterday,” Ione said.
It was one of the reasons she had turned to Clement, for the comfort of
physical contact, the need to be wanted. She had accessed the
Confederation Navy’s classified report on the energy virus with growing
concern.

As soon as Tranquillity reported the contents of Graeme Nicholson’s flek
she had placed an order for another ten strategic-defence platforms from
the industrial stations orbiting outside the spaceport, supplementing the
thirty-five which already protected the habitat. The companies were glad
of the work, starship component manufacturing was slowing along with the
declining number of flights. It didn’t take a military genius to work out
that Laton was going to try and spread his revolution; and Tranquillity
was almost on a direct line between Lalonde and Earth, the core of the
Confederation. The first pair of new platforms were nearly ready to
deploy, with the rest being completed over another six days. And she was
already wondering if she should order more.

Within an hour of the navy voidhawk delivering the warning flek from
Trafalgar, she had hired twelve blackhawks to act as close-range patrol
vessels, and equipped them with nuclear-armed combat wasps from
Tranquillity’s reserve stocks. She was thankful there were enough of the
bitek craft available to charter. But then since her grandfather opened
the habitat as a base for mating flights the blackhawks and their
captains had been pretty loyal to Tranquillity and the Lord of Ruin.

What with the extra defences and the patrols, the habitat was developing
a siege mentality in the wake of Terrance Smith’s departure.

But were her precautions enough?

“How is the alert hitting the Vasilkovsky Line?” Ione asked.

Dominique took a drink of juice. “Hard. We’ve got twenty-five ships idle
in Tranquillity’s dock right now. No merchant is going to risk sending
cargo until they know for sure Laton isn’t at the destination. Three of
our captains arrived yesterday, all from different star systems. They all
said the same thing. Planetary governments are virtually quarantining
incoming starships, asteroid governments too. Give it another week, and
interstellar trade will have shut down altogether.”

“They’ll find the Yaku by then,” Clement said, tearing a corner off his
toast. “Hell, they’ve probably found it already. The navy voidhawk said
it was a Confederationwide alert. No ship is ever more than ten days from
a star system. I bet a navy squadron is blowing it to smithereens right
now.”

“That’s what gets me the most,” Ione said. “No knowing, having to wait
for days for any news.”

Dominique leant forwards and squeezed her knee. “Don’t worry. The 7th
Fleet squadron will stop him from becoming involved. They’ll all be back
here in a week with their tails between their legs complaining they
didn’t get a chance to play soldier.”

Ione looked up into deep, surprisingly understanding eyes. “Yeah.”

“He’ll be all right. He’s the only man I know who could lie his way out
of a supernova explosion. Some leftover megalomaniac isn’t going to be a
problem.”

“Thanks.”

“Who?” Clement asked around a full mouth, looking from one girl to
another.

Ione bit into a slice of her orange-coloured quantat. It had the texture
of a melon, but tasted like spicy grapefruit. Dominique was grinning
roguishly at her over a coffeecup.

“Girls’ talk,” Dominique said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Clement threw a quantat rind at her. “It’s Joshua. You’ve both got the
hots for him.”

“He’s a friend,” Ione said. “And he’s in way over his silly little head,
and we’re worried about him.”

“Don’t be,” Clement said briskly. “Joshua showed me round the Lady
Macbeth. She’s got more combat potential than a front-line frigate, and
Smith armed her with combat wasps before they left. Anyone damn stupid
enough to go up against that starship is dead meat.”

Ione gave him a kiss. “Thank you, too.”

“Any time.”

They ate the rest of their breakfast in companionable peace. Ione was
debating what to do for the rest of the day when Tranquillity called.
That was the thing with being the absolute ruler of a bitek habitat, she
reflected, you don’t really have to do anything, thoughts were acted on
instantly. But there was the human side to consider. The Chamber of Trade
was nervous, the Financial and Commerce Council more so, ordinary people
didn’t know what was going on. Everybody wanted reassurance, and they
expected her to provide it. She had done two interviews with news
companies yesterday, and there were three delegations who wanted personal
audiences.

<< Parker Higgens is requesting an immediate interview, >>Tranquillity
told her as she was finishing her coffee. << I recommend you grant it. >>

<< Oh, you do, do you? Well, I think there are more important things for
me to attend to right now. >>

<< I believe this to be more important than the Laton crisis. >>

<< What? >>It was the ambiguity which made her sit up straighter on the
furry bed. Tranquillity was emitting a strong impression of discomfort,
as if it was unsure of a subject. Unusual enough to intrigue her.

<< There has been some remarkable progress with the Laymil sensorium
recordings in the last seventy hours. I did not wish to trouble you with
the project while you were involved with upgrading my defence and
soothing the residents. That may have been my mistake. Last night some of
the researchers made an extremely important find. >>

<< Which is? >>she asked avidly.

<< They believe they have located the Laymil home planet. >>



The path leading from the tube station to the octagonal Electronics
Division building was littered with ripe bronze berries fallen from the
tall chuantawa trees. They crunched softly as Ione’s shoes helped flatten
them further into the stone slabs.

Project staff emerging from the stations gave her the faintly guilty
glance of all workers arriving early and finding the boss already in.

Oski Katsura greeted her at the entrance, dressed in her usual white lab
smock, one of the few people in the habitat who never seemed perturbed by
Ione’s escort of serjeants. “We haven’t made an announcement yet,” she
said as they went inside. “Some of the implications are only just sinking
in.”

The hall where the Laymil stack was kept had changed considerably since
Ione’s first visit. Most of the experimental electronic equipment had
been cleared out. Processor blocks and AV projectors were lined up along
the benches, forming individual research stations, each with a rack of
fleks. Workshop cubicles behind the glass wall had been converted into
offices. The impression was one of academic endeavour rather than out and
out scientific pioneering.

“We use this mainly as a sorting centre now,” Oski Katsura said. “As soon
as they have been decrypted, the sensorium memories are individually
reviewed by a panel of experts drawn from every discipline we have here
at the project. They provide a rough initial classification, cataloguing
incidents and events depicted, and decide if there is anything which will
interest their profession. After that the relevant memory is datavised to
an investigatory and assessment committee which each division has formed.
As you can imagine, most of it has been sent to the Cultural and
Psychology divisions. But even seeing their electronics used in the
intended context of mundane day-to-day operation has been immensely
useful to us here. And the same goes for most of the physical
disciplines—engineering, fusion, structures. There’s something in most
memories for all of us. I’m afraid a final and exhaustive analysis is
going to take a couple of decades at least. All we are doing for now is
providing a preliminary interpretation.”

Ione nodded silent approval. Tranquillity’s background memories were
revealing how hard the review teams were working.

There were only five other people in the hall, as well as Lieria. They
had all been working through the night, and now they were clustered round
a tray from the canteen, drinking tea and eating croissants. Parker
Higgens rose as soon as she came in. His grey suit jacket was hanging off
the back of one of the chairs, revealing a crumpled blue shirt. All-night
sessions were obviously something the old director was finding
increasingly difficult to manage. But he proffered a tired smile as he
introduced her to the other four. Malandra Sarker and Qingyn Lin were
Laymil spaceship experts, she a biotechnology systems specialist, while
his field was the mechanical and electrical units the xenocs employed in
their craft. Ione shook hands while Tranquillity silently supplied
profile summaries of the two. Malandra Sarker struck her as being young
for the job at twenty-eight, but she had her doctorate from the capital
university on Quang Tri, and references which were impeccable.

Ione knew Kempster Getchell, the Astronomy Division’s chief; they had met
during the first round of briefings, and on several formal social
occasions since then. He was in his late sixties, and from a family which
lacked any substantial geneering. But despite entropy’s offensive,
leaving him with greying, thinning hair, and a stoop to his shoulders, he
projected a lively puckish attitude, the complete opposite to Parker
Higgens. Astronomy was one of the smallest divisions in the Laymil
project, concerned mainly with identifying stars which had
Laymil-compatible spectra, and searching through radio astronomy records
to see if any abnormality had ever been found to indicate a civilization.
Despite frequent requests, no Lord of Ruin had ever agreed to fund the
division’s own radio-telescope array. They had to make do with library
records from universities across the Confederation.

Kempster Getchell’s assistant was Renato Vella, a swarthy
thirty-five-year-old from Valencia, on a four-year sabbatical from one of
its universities. He acted both excited and awed when Ione greeted him.
She wasn’t quite sure if it was her presence or their discovery which
instigated his jitters.

“The Laymil home planet?” Ione asked Parker Higgens, permitting a note of
scepticism to sound.

“Yes, ma’am,” the director said. The joy that should have been present at
making the announcement was missing, he seemed more apprehensive than
triumphant.

“Where is it?” she asked.

Parker Higgens traded a pleading glance with Kempster Getchell, then
sighed. “It used to be here, in this solar system.”

Ione counted to three. “Used to be?”

“Yes.”

<< Tranquillity? What is going on? >>

<< Although it is an extraordinary claim, the evidence does appear to be
slanted in their favour. Allow them to complete their explanation. >>

<< All right. >>“Go on.”

“It was a recording that was translated two days ago,” Malandra Sarker
said. “We found we had got the memory of a Laymil spaceship crew-member.
Naturally we were delighted, it would give us a definite blueprint for
one of their ships, inside and out, as well as the operating procedures.
Up until now all we’ve had is fragments of what we thought were spaceship
parts. Well we found out what a Laymil ship looks like all right.” She
datavised one of the nearby processor blocks; its AV pillar shone an
image into Ione’s eyes.

The Laymil ship had three distinct sections. At the front were four
white-silver metal ovoids; the large central unit was thirty metres long,
with the three twenty-metre units clustered around it—obviously
life-support cabins. The midsection was drum shaped, its sides made up
from interlaced stone-red pipes packed so tightly there was no chink
between them, an almost intestinal configuration. Five black
heat-radiation tubes protruded at right angles from its base, spaced
equally around the rim. At the rear was a narrow sixty-metre-long
tapering fusion tube, with slim silver rings running along its length at
five-metre intervals. Right at the tip, around the plasma exhaust nozzle,
was a silver foil parasol.

“Is it organic?” Ione asked.

“We think about eighty per cent,” Qingyn Lin said. “It matches what we
know of their use of biotechnology.”

Ione turned away from the projection.

“It is a passenger ship,” Malandra Sarker said. “From what we can make
out, the Laymil didn’t have commercial cargo ships, although there are
some tankers and specialist industrial craft.”

“This would seem to be correct,” Lieria said, speaking through the small
white vocalizer block held in one of her tractamorphic arms. “The Laymil
at this cultural stage did not have economic commerce. Technical
templates and DNA were exchanged between clan units, but no physical or
biotechnology artefacts were traded for financial reward.”

“The thing is,” Malandra Sarker said, sinking down into a chair, “it was
leaving a parking orbit around their home planet to fly to Mirchusko’s
spaceholms.”

“We always wondered why the ship fuel tanks we found were so large,”
Qingyn Lin said. “There was far too much deuterium and He3 stored for
simple inter-habitat voyages, even if they made fifteen trips in a row
without refuelling. Now we know. They were interplanetary spaceships.”

Ione gave Kempster Getchell a questioning look. “A planet? Here?”

A wayward smile formed on his lips, he appeared indecently happy about
the revelation. “It does look that way. We checked the star and planet
positions gathered from the spacecraft’s sensor array most thoroughly.
The system we saw is definitely this one. The Laymil home planet used to
orbit approximately one hundred and thirty-five million kilometres from
the star. That does put it rather neatly between the orbits of Jyresol
and Boherol.” He pouted sadly. “And here I’ve spent thirty years of my
life looking at stars with spectra similar to this one. All the time it
was right under my nose. God, what a waste. Still, I’m back on the
cutting edge of astrophysics now, and no mistake. Trying to work out how
you make a planet disappear . . . ho, boy.”

“All right,” Ione said with forced calm. “So where is it now? Was it
destroyed? There isn’t an asteroid belt between Jyresol and Boherol.
There isn’t even a dust belt as far as I know.”

“There is no record of any extensive survey being made of this system’s
interplanetary medium,” Kempster said. “I checked our library. But even
assuming the planet had literally been reduced to dust, the solar wind
would have blown the majority of particles beyond the Oort cloud within a
few centuries.”

“Would a survey now help?” she asked.

“It might be able to confirm the dust hypothesis, if the density is still
higher than is usual. But it would depend on when the planet was
destroyed.”

“It was here two thousand six hundred years ago,” Renato Vella said. “We
know that from analysing the position of the other planets at the time
the memory was recorded. But if we are to look for proof of the dust I
believe we would be better off taking surface samples from Boherol and
the gas giant moons.”

“Good idea, well done, lad,” Kempster said, patting his younger assistant
on the shoulder. “If this wave of dust was expelled outwards then it
should have left traces on all the airless bodies in the system. Similar
to the way sediment layers in planetary core samples show various
geological epochs. If we could find it, we would get a good indication of
when it actually happened as well.”

“I don’t think it was reduced to dust,” Renato Vella said.

“Why not?” Ione asked.

“It was a valid idea,” he said readily. “There aren’t many other ways you
can make something that mass disappear without trace. But it’s a very
theoretical solution. In practical terms the energy necessary to
dismantle an entire planet to such an extent is orders of magnitude above
anything the Confederation could muster. You have to remember that even
our outlawed antimatter planetbuster bombs don’t harm or ablate the mass
of a terracompatible-sized planet, they just wreck and pollute the
biosphere. In any case an explosion—multiple explosions even—wouldn’t do
the trick, they would just reduce it to asteroidal fragments. To turn it
into dust or preferably vapour you would need some form of atomic
disrupter weapon, probably powered by the star—I can’t think what else
would produce enough energy. That or a method of initiating a fission
chain reaction in stable atoms.”

“Perfect mass-energy conversion,” Kempster muttered, his eyebrows beetled
in concentration. “Now there’s an idea.”

“And why wasn’t the same method used against the Laymil habitats?” Renato
Vella said, warming to his theme. “If you have a weapon which can destroy
a planet so thoroughly as to eradicate all traces of it, why leave the
remnants of the habitats for us to find?”

“Yes, yes, why indeed?” Kempster said. “Good point, lad, well done. Good
thinking.”

His assistant beamed.

“We still think the habitats destroyed themselves,” Parker Higgens said.
“It fits what we know, even now.” He looked at Ione, visibly distressed.
“I think the memory may show the start of the planet’s destruction. There
is clearly some kind of conflict being enacted on the surface as the ship
leaves orbit.”

“Surely that was an inter-clan dispute, wasn’t it?” Qingyn Lin asked
dubiously. “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

“You are all mistaken in thinking of this problem purely in terms of the
physical,” Lieria said. “Consider what we now know. The planet is
confirmed to have been in existence at the same time the habitats were
broken. The Laymil entity whose memory we have accessed is concerned
about the transformation in the life-harmony gestalt which is being
propagated across an entire continent. A drastic metaphysical change
which threatens nothing less than the entire Laymil racial orientation.
Director Parker Higgens is correct, these events cannot be discounted as
coincidence.”

Ione glanced round the group. None of them looked as though they wished
to contradict the Kiint. “I think I’d better review this memory myself.”
She sat in the chair next to Malandra Sarker. << Show me. >>

As before, the Laymil body hardened around her own, an exoskeleton which
did not—could never—fit. The recording quality was much higher than
before. Oski Katsura and her team had been working long hours on the
processors and programs required to interpret the stored information.
There were hardly any of the black specks which indicated fragmentary
data drop-outs. Ione relaxed deeper into the chair as the sensorium
buoyed her along.

The Laymil was a shipmaster, clan-bred for a life traversing the barren
distance between the spaceholm constellation and Unimeron, the prime
lifehost. It hung at the hub of the ship’s central life-support ovoid as
the drive was readied for flight. There was nothing like the human
arrangement of decks and machinery, present even in voidhawks. The
protective metal shell contained a biological nest-womb, a woody growth
honeycombed with chambers and voyage-duration pouches for travellers,
creating an exotic organic grotto. Chambers were clustered together
without logic, like elongated bubbles in a dense foam; the walls had the
texture of tough rubber, pocked with hundreds of small holes to restrain
hoofs, and emitting a fresh green radiance. Organs to maintain the
atmosphere and recycle food were encased in the thicker partitions.

The all-pervasive greenness was subtly odd to Ione’s human brain. Tubular
buttress struts curved through the chamber around the Laymil body,
flaring out where they merged with a wall. Its three hoofs were pushed
into holes, buttocks resting on a grooved mushroom-stool; its hands were
closed on knobby protrusions. A teat stalactite hung centimetres from the
feeding mouth. The position was rock solid and immensely comfortable, the
nest-womb had grown into a flawlessly compatible layout with the
shipmaster’s body. All three heads slid around in slow weaving motions,
observing small opaque composite instrument panels that swelled out of
the wall. Ione found it hard to tell where the plastic began and the
cells ended; the cellular/mechanical fusion was seamless, as though the
womb-nest was actually growing machinery. Panel-mounted lenses projected
strange graphics into the Laymil’s eyes, in a fashion similar to human AV
projectors.

As the heads moved they provided snatched glimpses into other chambers
through narrow passageways. She saw one of the Laymil passengers cocooned
in its voyage-duration pouch. It was swaddled in translucent glittery
membranes that held it fast against the wall, and a waxy hose supplying a
nutrient fluid had been inserted into its mouth, with a similar hose
inserted into its anus, maintaining the digestive cycle. A mild form of
hibernation.

The Laymil shipmaster’s thoughts were oddly twinned, as though the
recording was of two separate thought patterns. On a subsidiary level it
was aware of the ship’s biological and mechanical systems. It controlled
them with a processor’s precision, preparing the fusion tube for
ignition, maintaining attitude through small reaction thrusters,
computing a course vector, surveying the four nest-wombs. There was a
similarity here to the automatic functions a human’s neural nanonics
would perform; but as far as she could ascertain the shipmaster possessed
no implants. This was the way its brain was structured to work. The
ship’s biotechnology was sub-sentient, so, in effect, the shipmaster was
the flight computer.

On an ascendant level its mind was observing the planet below through the
ship’s sensor faculty. Unimeron was remarkably similar to a
terracompatible world, with broad blue oceans and vast white cloud
swirls, the poles home to smallish ice-caps. The visual difference was
provided by the continents; they were a near-uniform green, even the
mountain ranges had been consumed by the vegetation layer. No piece of
land was wasted.

Vast blue-green cobweb structures hung in orbit, slightly below the
ship’s thousand-kilometre altitude. These were the skyhavens, most two
hundred kilometres in diameter, some greater, rotating once every five or
more hours, not for artificial gravity but simply to maintain shape. They
were alive, conscious with vibrant mentalities, greater than that of a
spaceholm even. A combination of spaceport and magnetosphere energy node,
with manufacturing modules clumped around the hub like small bulbous
tangerine barnacles. But the physical facets were just supplementary to
their intellectual function. They formed an important aspect of the
planet’s life-harmony, smoothing and weaving the separate continental
essence thoughts into a single unified planetwide gestalt. Mental
communication satellites, though they contributed to the gestalt as well,
sang to distant stars. That voice was beyond Ione completely, both its
message and its purpose, registering as just a vague cadence on the
threshold of perception. She felt a little darker for its absence, the
Laymil shipmaster considered it magnificent.

The skyhavens were packed close together, with small variants in
altitude, allowing them to slide along their various orbital inclinations
without ever colliding. No segment of the planet’s sky was ever left
open. It was an amazing display of navigational exactitude. From a
distance it looked as though someone had cast a net around Unimeron. She
tried to gauge the effort involved in their growth, a planet-girdling
structure, and failed. Even for a species with such obvious biotechnology
and engineering supremacy the skyhavens were an awesome achievement.

<< “Departure initiation forthcoming,” >>the shipmaster called.

<< “Venture boldness reward,” >>the skyhaven essence replied. <<
“Anticipate hope.” >>

Unimeron’s terminator was visible now, blackness biting into the planet.
Nightside continents were studded with bright green lightpoints, smaller
than human cities, and very regular. One southern continent, curving
awkwardly around the planet’s mass away from the ship’s sensors, had
delicate streamers of phosphorescent red mist meandering along its
coastal zones with exploratory tendrils creeping further inland. The
edges were visibly palpitating like the fringes of a terrestrial
jellyfish as they curled and flowed around surface features, yet all the
while retaining a remarkable degree of integrity. There was none of the
braiding or churning of ordinary clouds. Ione considered the effect quite
delightful, the mist looked alive, as though the air currents were
infected with biofluorescent spoors.

But the Laymil shipmaster was physically repelled by the sight. <<
“Galheith clan essence asperity woe.” >>His heads bobbed around in
agitation, letting out low hoots of distress. << “Woe. Folly
acknowledgement request.” >>

<< “No relention,” >>the skyhaven essence answered sadly.

As their orbits took them over the continent, the skyhavens would hum in
dismay. The life-harmony of Unimeron was being disrupted, with the
skyhavens refusing to disseminate the Galheith clan essence into the
gestalt. It was too radical, too antagonistic. Too different. Alien and
antithetical to the harmony ethos that had gone before.

A tiny flare of sharp blue-white light sprang out of the red mist, dying
down quickly.

<< “Reality dysfunction,” >>the shipmaster called in alarm.

<< “Confirm.” >>

<< “Horror woe. Galheith research death essence tragedy.” >>

<< “Concord.” >>

<< “Impetuosity woe release. Reality dysfunction exponential. Prime
lifehost engulfed fear.” >>

<< “Reality dysfunction counter. Spaceholm constellation prime essence
continuation hope.” >>

<< “Confirm. Hope carriage.” >>The shipmaster quickly reviewed the other
Laymil hibernating in the nest-wombs; both mental traits converging for
the evaluation. << “Essencemasters condition satisfactory. Hope reality
dysfunction defeat. Hope Galheith atonement.” >>

<< “Hope joined. Rejoice unity commitment.” >>

Where the flare of light had sprung, the jungle was now alight. Ione
realized the glimmer of orange must be a firestorm easily over ten
kilometres wide.

The spaceship was crossing the terminator. Skyhavens ahead glowed a
fragile platinum as the Van Allen radiation belt particles gusted across
their web strands.

<< “Departure initiation,” >>the shipmaster announced. Ionized fuel was
fired into the fusion drive’s magnetic pinch. A jet of plasma slowly
built up. Information streamed into the Laymil’s brain, equations were
performed, instructions were pushed into the nest-womb’s neurons and the
coincident hardware’s circuits. There was never any doubt, any
self-questioning. The terms did not apply.

Unimeron began to shrink behind the ship. The shipmaster focused his
attention on the spaceholm constellation, and the frail song of welcome
it emitted, so much quieter than the prime lifehost’s joyous spirit.

And the memory expired.

Ione blinked free of the stubbornly persistent, green-polluted images.
Emotions and sensations were harder to discard.

“What is a reality dysfunction?” she asked. “The shipmaster seemed
frightened half to death by it.”

“We don’t know,” Parker Higgens said. “There has never been any reference
to it in any of the other memories.”

“Ione Saldana, I believe the term reality dysfunction refers to a massive
malevolent violation within the Laymil life-harmony essence,” Lieria
said. “The nature of the Galheith clan was being radically altered by it.
However, the impression conveyed by the memory is that it is more than a
mental reorientation, it also incorporated a distortion within the local
physical matrix. Example: the energy flare.”

“It was a weapon?” She shot a tense glance at the two astronomers.

Kempster scratched at his shadow of stubble. “That flare definitely
started a fire, so I would have to say yes. But one forest fire is a
little different from something which can cause a planet to vanish.”

“If it went on to spread through the entire planet’s life essence, as
seems more than likely,” Malandra Sarker said, “then it would have
Unimeron’s entire technical resources at its disposal. Placed on a war
footing, a race like that would have a frightening armaments-production
wherewithal.”

“I disagree,” Renato Vella said. “Granted they could build fleets of
ships, and hundreds of thousands of nukes, probably antimatter too. But
they are not that much further advanced than us. I still maintain the
energy required to destroy a planet is beyond this level of technology.”

<< I was just thinking of the Alchemist, >>Ione said to Tranquillity. She
was almost afraid to mention it in case Lieria could intercept the
thought. << What was it Captain Khanna said? One idea in a lifetime is
all it takes. The Laymil might not have had the initial physical
resources, but what about the mental potential of a planetary mind
devoted to weapons design? >>

<< The possibility is an alarming one, >>Tranquillity agreed. << But why
would they turn it on themselves? >>

<< Good question. >>“Even if they built a weapon, why would they turn it
on themselves?”

The group regarded her with puzzled faces—a child innocently flooring
adult logic with a simple question. Then Renato Vella smiled suddenly.
“We’ve been assuming it was destroyed, how about if they just moved it
instead?”

Kempster Getchell chuckled. “Oh my boy, what a wonderful notion.”

“I bet it would require less energy than obliteration.”

“Good point, yes.”

“And we’ve seen they can build massive space structures.”

“We are evading the point,” Parker Higgens said sternly. “We believe this
reality dysfunction, whatever it is, is behind both the removal of the
Laymil planet and the suicide of the spaceholms. Our priority now has to
be to establish what it was, and if it still exists.”

“If the planet was moved, then the reality dysfunction is still around,”
Renato Vella said, refusing to be deflected. “It is wherever the planet
is.”

“Yes, but what is it?” Oski Katsura asked with some asperity. “It seems
to be many things, some kind of mental plague and a weapon system at the
same time.”

“Oh shit,” Ione said out loud as she and Tranquillity made the connection
simultaneously. “Laton’s energy virus.”

Tranquillity allowed the group to access the report from Dr Gilmore
through the hall’s communication net processors, giving the images direct
to Lieria via affinity.

“My God,” Parker Higgens said. “The similarities are startling.”

“Similarities, hell,” Kempster half-shouted. “That fucker’s come back!”

The director flinched at the astronomer’s coarse anger. “We can’t be
sure.”

“I’m sorry, Parker, but I cannot in all sincerity consider this to be a
coincidence,” Ione told him.

“I concur,” Lieria said.

“The Confederation, specifically the First Admiral, must be informed
immediately,” Ione said. “That goes without question. The navy must
understand that they are not facing Laton himself but something far more
serious. Parker, you will act as my representative in this matter; you
have both the authority and knowledge necessary to convey the severity of
this reality dysfunction to the First Admiral.”

He looked shocked at first, then bowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oski, prepare copies of every Laymil memory we have. The rest of you put
down what observations you can for the navy staff, whatever you think may
help. Tranquillity is recalling one of the patrol blackhawks now, it will
be ready to leave for Avon in an hour. I will ask the Confederation Navy
office to provide an officer to escort you, Parker, so you had better get
ready. Time is important here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

<< Ione Saldana, I also request a blackhawk to convey one of my
colleagues home to Jobis, >>Lieria said. << I judge these events to be of
sufficient portent to warrant informing my race. >>

<< Yes, of course. >>She was aware of Tranquillity summoning a second
armed blackhawk back to the docking-ledges even as she acknowledged the
Kiint’s request. All the remaining resident blackhawks would have to be
conscripted for patrol duties now, she thought tersely, probably the
independent traders too. Then a stray thought struck. << Lieria, did the
Kiint ever hear the skyhavens’ starsong? >>

<< Yes. >>

The finality of the tone stopped Ione from enquiring further. But only
for now, she promised herself. I’ve had enough of this mystic superiority
crap they keep peddling. “Kempster, that red mist over Unimeron’s
southern continent, was that a part of the reality dysfunction, do you
think? There’s no mention of it being present on Lalonde.”

“Its nature would suggest so,” Kempster said. “I can’t see that it’s a
natural phenomenon, not even on that planet. Possibly a secondary effect,
a by-product of the interaction with Unimeron’s life essence, but
definitely connected. Wouldn’t you agree, lad?”

Renato Vella had been lost in deep contemplation ever since he accessed
Dr Gilmore’s report. Now he nodded briefly. “Yes, it is likely.”

“Something on your mind?” the old astronomer asked, his cheerfulness
reasserting itself.

“I was just thinking. They could build living space structures that
completely encircled their world, yet this reality dysfunction still
defeated them. Their spaceholms were so frightened of it they committed
suicide rather than submit. What do you think is going to happen to us
when we confront it?”


Chapter 08
==========


“Jesus, what’s all that red gunk in the air? I don’t remember that from
the last time we were here. It’s almost as if it’s glowing. The bloody
stuff’s covering the whole of the Juliffe tributary network, look.”
Joshua abandoned the Lady Mac’s sensor input and turned to Melvyn
Ducharme on the acceleration couch next to his.

“Don’t look at me, I’m just a simple fusion engineer. I don’t know
anything about meteorology. Try the mercs, they’re all planet-bred.”

“Humm,” Joshua mused. Relations between the Lady Mac’s crew and the
mercenary scout team they were carrying hadn’t been exactly optimal
during the voyage. Both sides kept pretty much to themselves, with Kelly
Tirrel acting as diplomatic go-between—when she was out of the free-fall
sex cage. That girl had certainly lived up to her side of the bargain, he
thought contentedly.

“Anybody care to hazard a guess?” he called.

The rest of the crew on the bridge accessed the images, but no one
volunteered an opinion.

Amarisk was slowly turning round into their line of sight as they closed
on the planet. Nearly half of the continent was already in daylight. From
where they were, still a hundred thousand kilometres out, the Juliffe and
most of its tributaries were smothered in a nebulous red haze. At first
inspection it had looked as though some unique refraction effect was
making the water gleam a bright burgundy. But once the Lady Mac’s
long-range optical sensors were focused on Lalonde, that notion had
quickly been dispelled. The effect was caused by thousands of long narrow
cloud bands in the air above the surface of the water, clinging to the
tributary network’s multiple fork pattern with startling accuracy.
Although, Joshua realized, the bands were much broader than the actual
rivers themselves; where the first band started, just inland from the
mouth of the Juliffe, it was almost seventy kilometres across.

“I’ve never seen anything like it on any planet,” Ashly said flatly.
“Weird stuff; and it is glowing, Joshua. You can see it stretching beyond
the terminator, all the way to the coast.”

“Blood,” Melvyn intoned solemnly. “The river’s awash with blood, and it’s
starting to evaporate.”

“Shut it,” Sarha snapped. The idea was too close to the thoughts bubbling
round in her own mind. “That’s not funny.”

“Do you think it’s hostile?” Dahybi asked. “Something of Laton’s?”

“I suppose it must be connected with him,” Joshua admitted uneasily. “But
even if it is hostile, it can’t harm us at this distance. It’s strictly
lower atmosphere stuff. Which means it may be a hazard for the merc
scouts, though. Sarha, tell them to access the image, please.” They were
less likely to insult a woman.

A grumbling Sarha requested a channel to the lounge in capsule C where
the seven mercenary scouts and Kelly Tirrel were lying on acceleration
couches as the Lady Mac accelerated in towards Lalonde. There was a gruff
acknowledgment from her AV pillar, and Joshua grinned in private.

The flight computer alerted him that a coded signal was being transmitted
from the Gemal. “We’ve detected an unknown atmospheric phenomenon above
Amarisk,” Terrance Smith said pedantically.

“Yeah, those red clouds sticking to the tributaries,” Joshua answered.
“We see it too. What do you want us to do about it?”

“Nothing yet. As far as we can make out it is simply polluted cloud,
presumably coming from the river itself. If a sensor sweep shows it to be
radioactive then we will reassess the landing situation. But until then,
proceed as ordered.”

“Aye, aye, Commodore,” Joshua grunted when the channel was closed.

“Polluted cloud,” Melvyn said in contempt.

“Biological warfare,” Ashly suggested in a grieved tone. “Not nice.
Typical of Laton, mark you. But definitely not nice.”

“I wonder if it’s his famed proteanic virus?” Dahybi said.

“Doubt it, that was microscopic. And it didn’t glow in the dark, either.
I’d say it has to be radioactive dust.”

“Then why isn’t the wind moving it?” Sarha asked. “And how did it form in
the first place?”

“We’ll find out in due course,” Warlow said with his usual pessimism.
“Why hurry the process?”

“True enough,” Joshua agreed.

The Lady Mac was heading in towards the planet at a steady one gee. As
soon as each ship in the little fleet had emerged from its final jump
into the Lalonde system, it had accelerated away from the coordinate, the
whole fleet spreading out radially at five gees to avoid presenting an
easy target grouping. Now they were holding a roughly circular formation
twenty thousand kilometres wide, with Gemal and the cargo ships at the
centre.

The six blackhawks were already decelerating into low orbit above Lalonde
to perform a preliminary threat assessment. Bloody show-offs, Joshua
thought. Lady Mac could easily match their six gee manoeuvres if she
wasn’t encumbered with escort duties.

Even with naval tactics programs running in primary mode, Terrance Smith
was ever cautious. The lack of any response from Durringham was extremely
bad news, although admittedly half anticipated. What had triggered the
fleet commander’s paranoia was the total absence of any orbital activity.
The colonist-carrier starships had gone, along with the cargo ships. The
inter-orbit craft from Kenyon were circling inertly in a
five-hundred-kilometre equatorial parking orbit, all systems powered
down—even their navigation beacons, which was contrary to every CAB
regulation in the flek. Of the sheriff’s office’s ageing observation
satellite there was no trace. Only the geosynchronous communication
platform and civil spaceflight traffic monitoring satellites remained
active, their on-board processors sending out monotonously regular
signals. He lacked the transponder interrogation code to see if the navy
ELINT satellites were functional.

After a quick appraisal, Smith had ordered a descent into a
thousand-kilometre orbit. His fleet moved in, the combat-capable
starships dumping small satellites in their wake to form an extensive
high-orbit gravitonic-distortion-detector network. If any starship
emerged within five hundred thousand kilometres of the planet, the
satellites would spot it.

The blackhawks released a quintet of military-grade communication
satellites as they raced towards the planet. Ion engines pushed the
comsats into geostationary orbit, positioning them to give complete
coverage of the planet, with overlapping reception footprints covering
Amarisk in its entirety.

Twenty thousand kilometres out from Lalonde, the blackhawks split into
two groups and swept into a seven-hundred-kilometre orbit at differing
inclinations. Each of them released a batch of fifteen observation
satellites, football-sized globes that decelerated further, lowering
themselves into a two-hundred-kilometre orbit; their parallel tracks
provided a detailed coverage sweep over a thousand kilometres wide. The
blackhawks themselves, with their powerful sensor blisters augmented by
electronic scanner pods, were integrated into the effort to reconnoitre
Durringham and the Juliffe tributary basin. The intention was to compile
a comprehensive survey with a resolution below ten centimetres for the
mercenary scouts to use.

“It’s virtually impossible,” Idzerda, the captain of the blackhawk
Cyanea, told Terrance Smith after the first pass. “That red cloud is
completely opaque, except for the edges where it thins out, and even
there the images we’re receiving of the land below are heavily distorted.
I’m not even sure cloud is the word for it. It doesn’t move like cloud
should. It’s almost as if a film of electrophorescent cells has been
solidified into the air. Spectrographic analysis is useless with that
light it emits. One thing we have noticed; we ran a comparison with the
old cartography memory from the sheriff’s observation satellite which you
supplied. The cloud is brightest over towns and villages. Durringham
shines like there’s a star buried under there. There is no way of telling
what is going on below it. The only villages we can even see are the ones
furthest up the tributaries where the glow peters out. And they are
wrong.”

“Wrong?” Terrance Smith asked.

“Yes. They’re the most recently settled, the most primitive ones, right?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve seen stone houses, gardens, domelike structures, metalled roads,
heck, even windmills. None of it was there on the old images you gave us,
and they were only recorded a month ago.”

“That can’t possibly be correct,” Terrance said.

“I know that. So either the whole lot are holograms, or it’s an illusion
loaded directly into the observation satellite processors by this
electronic warfare gimmick you warned us about. Although we can’t see how
it disrupts the blackhawks’ optical sensors as well. The people who put
up that cloud have got some startlingly potent projection techniques. But
why bother? That’s what we don’t understand. What’s the point of these
illusions?”

“What about power emission centres?” Terrance Smith asked. “It must take
a lot of energy to generate a covering layer like that red cloud.”

“We haven’t found any. Even with their electronic jamming we should be
able to spot the flux patterns from a medium-sized fusion generator. But
we haven’t.”

“Can you locate the jamming source?”

“No, sorry, it’s very diffuse. But it’s definitely ground based. It only
affects us and the satellites when we’re over Amarisk.”

“Is the red cloud radioactive?”

“No. We’re fairly sure of that. No alpha, beta, or gamma emission.”

“What about biological contamination?”

“No data. We haven’t attempted to sample it.”

“Make that your priority,” Terrance said. “I have to know if it’s safe to
send the combat scout teams down.”

On its following pass, the Cyanea released two atmospheric probes. The
vehicles were modified versions of the marque used by planet-survey
missions, three-metre delta-wing robots with the central cylindrical
fuselage crammed full of biological sampling and analysis equipment.

Both of them pitched up to present their heatshield bellies to the
atmosphere, curving down towards the surface as they aerobraked. Once
they had fallen below subsonic velocity, airscoop intake ramps hinged
back near the nose, and their compressor engines whirred into silent
life. A preprogrammed flight plan sent them swooping over the first
fringes of the red cloud, fifteen kilometres to the south-east of
Durringham. Encrypted data pulsed up to the newly established bracelet of
communication satellites.

The air was remarkably clear, with humidity thirty per cent down on
Lalonde’s average. Terrance Smith accessed the raw image from a camera in
the nose of one probe. It looked as though it was flying over the surface
of a red dwarf star. A red dwarf with an azure atmosphere. The cloud, or
haze—whatever—was completely uniform, as though, finally, an
electromagnetic wavefront had come to rest and achieved mass, then
someone had polished it into a ruby surface. There was nothing to focus
on, no perspective, no constituent particles or spores; its intensity was
mechanically constant. An optically impenetrable layer floating two
kilometres above the ground. Thickness unknown. Temperature unknown.
Radiating entirely in the bottom end of the red spectrum.

“No real clouds anywhere above it,” Joshua murmured. Like most of the
fleet’s crews he had accessed the datavise from the atmospheric probes.
Something had bothered him about that lack; ironically, more than the
buoyant red blanket itself. “Amarisk always had clouds.”

Sarha quickly ran a review of the images the fleet had recorded on their
approach, watching the cloud formations. “Oh my Lord, they split,” she
said disbelievingly. “About a hundred kilometres offshore the clouds
split like they’ve hit something.” She ran the time-lapse record for
them, letting the tumbling clouds sweep through their neural nanonics’
visualization. Great billowing bands of cumulus and stratocumulus charged
across the ocean towards Amarisk’s western shoreline, only to branch and
diverge, raging away to the north and south of the Juliffe’s mouth.

“Jesus. What would it take to do that? Not even Kulu tries to manipulate
its climate.” Joshua switched back to a real-time view from Lady Mac’s
sensor clusters. A cyclone was being visibly sawed into two unequal
sections as it pirouetted against the invisible boundary. He ordered the
flight computer to open a channel to the Gemal.

“Yes, we’ve seen it,” Terrance Smith said. “It has to be tied in with the
red cloud cover. Obviously the invaders have a highly sophisticated
method of energy manipulation.”

“No shit? The point is, what are you going to do about it?”

“Destroy the focal mechanism.”

“Jesus, you can’t mean that. This fleet can’t possibly go into orbit now.
With that kind of power available they’ll be able to smash us as soon as
we’re within range. Hell, they can probably pull us down from orbit.
You’ll have to abort the mission.”

“It’s ground based, Calvert, we’re sure of that. It can’t be anywhere
else. The blackhawks can sense the mass of anything larger than a tennis
ball in orbit, you can’t disguise mass from their distortion fields. All
we have to do is send in the combat scout teams to locate the invader’s
bases. That’s what we planned on doing all along. You knew that when you
signed on. Once we find the enemy, the starships can bombard them from
orbit. That’s what you’re here for, Calvert. Nobody promised you an easy
ride. Now hold formation.”

“Oh, Jesus.” He looked round the bridge to make sure everyone shared his
dismay. They did. “What do you want to do? At five gees I can get us to a
suitable jump coordinate in twelve minutes—mark.”

Melvyn looked thoroughly disgusted. “That bloody Smith. His naval
programs must have been written by the most gung-ho admiral in the
galaxy. I say jump.”

“Smith has a point,” Warlow rumbled.

Joshua glanced over at the big cosmonik in surprise. Of everyone, Warlow
had been the least eager to come.

“There is nothing hostile in orbit,” the bass voice proclaimed.

“It can chop up a bloody cyclone,” Ashly shouted.

“The red cloud is atmospheric. Whatever generates it affects lower
atmospheric weather. It is planet based, centred on Amarisk. The
blackhawks have not been destroyed. Can we really desert the fleet at
this juncture? Suppose Smith and the others do liberate Lalonde? What
then?”

Jesus, he’s right, Joshua thought. You knew you were committed after you
took the contract. But . . . Instinct. That bloody obstinate, indefinable
mental itch he suffered from—and trusted. Instinct told him to run. Run
now, and run fast.

“All right,” he said. “We stay with them, for now. But at the first—and I
really mean first, Warlow—sign of the shit hitting the fan, then we are
out of orbit at ten gees. Commitment or no commitment.”

“Thank God somebody’s got some sense,” Melvyn murmured.

“Sarha, I want a constant monitor of all the observation satellite data
from now on. Any other shit-loopy atmospheric happenings pop up and I
want to be informed immediately.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Also, Melvyn, set up a real-time review program of the grav-detector
satellite’s data. I don’t intend us to be dependent on the Gemal
informing us whether we’ve got company.”

“Gotcha, Joshua,” Melvyn sang.

“Dahybi, nodes to be charged to maximum capacity until further notice. I
want to be able to jump within thirty seconds.”

“They aren’t designed for long-term readiness—”

“They’ll last for five days in that state. It’ll be settled one way or
another by then. And I have the money for maintenance.”

Dahybi shrugged his shoulders against the couch webbing. “Yes, sir.”

Joshua tried to relax his body, but eventually gave up and ordered his
neural nanonics to send overrides into his muscles. As they began to
slacken he accessed the fleet’s command communication channels again, and
started to format a program which would warn him if one of the ships
dropped out of the network unexpectedly. It wasn’t much, but it might be
worth a couple of seconds.

The atmospheric probes began to lose height, sliding down towards the
surface of the red cloud. “Systems are functioning perfectly,” the
flight’s controlling officer reported. “There’s no sign of the electronic
warfare effect.” She flew them to within five metres of the top, then
levelled them out. There was no reaction from the serene red plain. “Air
analysis is negative. Whatever holds the boundary together seems to be
impermeable. None of it is drifting upwards.”

“Send the probes in,” Terrance ordered.

The first probe eased its way towards the surface, observed by cameras on
the second. As it touched the top of the layer a fan of red haze jetted
up behind it, arcing with slow smoothness, like powder-fine dust in low
gravity.

“It is a solid!” Terrance exclaimed. “I knew it.”

“Nothing registering, sir, no particles. Only water vapour, humidity
rising sharply.”

The probe sank deeper, vanishing from its twin’s view. Its data
transmission began to fissure.

“High static charge building up over the fuselage,” the control officer
reported. “I’m losing it.”

The probe’s datavise dissolved into garbage, then cut off. Terrance Smith
ordered the second one down. They didn’t learn anything new. Contact was
lost twenty-five seconds after it ploughed into the cloud.

“Static-charged vapour,” Terrance said in confusion. “Is that all?”

Oliver Llewelyn cancelled the datavise from Gemal’s flight computer. The
bridge was dimly lit, every officer lying on an acceleration couch, eyes
closed as they helped coordinate the fleet’s approach. “It reminds me of
a gas giant’s rings,” the captain said. “Minute charged particles held
together with a magnetic flux.”

“The blackhawks say there is no magnetic flux, only the standard
planetary magnetic field,” Terrance corrected automatically. “Was there
any sign of biological activity?” he asked the flight control officer on
the Cyanea.

“No, sir,” she said. “No chemicals present either. Just water.”

“Then why is it glowing?”

“I don’t know, sir. There must be a light-source of some kind deeper
inside, where the probes can’t reach.”

“What are you going to do?” Oliver Llewelyn asked.

“It’s a screen, a canopy; they’re covering up whatever they’re doing
below. It’s not a weapon.”

“It might only be a screen. But it’s beyond our ability to create. You
can’t commit your forces against a total unknown, and certainly not one
of that magnitude. Standard military doctrine.”

“There are over twenty million people down there, including my friends. I
can’t leave without at least making one attempt to find out what’s going
on. Standard military doctrine is to scout first. That’s what we’ll do.”
He drew a breath, entering the newly formatted data from the probes into
his neural nanonics and letting the tactics program draw up a
minimum-risk strategy for physical evaluation of the planetary situation.
“The combat scout teams go in as originally planned, although they land
well clear of the red cloud. But I’m altering the search emphasis. Three
teams into the Quallheim Counties to find the invader’s landing site and
base; that section of the mission hasn’t changed. Then nine teams are to
be distributed along the rest of the Juliffe tributaries to appraise the
overall status of the population and engage targets of opportunity. And I
want the last two teams to investigate Durringham’s spaceport; they now
have two objectives. One, find out if the McBoeing spaceplanes are still
available to effect a landing for the general troops we’re carrying in
the Gemal. Secondly, I want them to access the records in the flight
control centre and find out where the starships went. And why.”

“Suppose they didn’t go anywhere?” Oliver Llewelyn said. “Suppose Captain
Calvert is right, and your invaders can just reach up and obliterate
ships in orbit?”

“Then where is the wreckage? The blackhawks have catalogued every chunk
of matter above the planet, there’s nothing incongruous this side of
Rennison’s orbit.”

Oliver Llewelyn showed him a morbid grin. “Lying in the jungle below that
red cloud.”

Terrance was becoming annoyed with the captain’s constant cavils. “They
were unarmed civil ships, we’re not. And that makes a big difference.” He
put his head back down on the couch’s cushioning, closed his eyes, and
began to datavise the revised landing orders through the secure combat
communication channels.



The fleet decelerated into a one-thousand-kilometre orbit, individual
ships taking up different inclinations so that Amarisk was always covered
by three of them. Repeated sweeps by the swarm of observation satellites
had revealed no new information on ground conditions below the red cloud.
The six blackhawks rose up from their initial seven-hundred-kilometre
orbit to join the rest of the starships, their crews quietly pleased at
the extra distance between them and the uncanny aerial portent.

After one final orbit, alert for any attack from the invaders, the
mercenary scout teams clambered into the waiting spaceplanes, and
Terrance Smith gave the final go ahead to land. As each starship crossed
into the umbra its spaceplane undocked and performed a retro-burn which
pushed it onto an atmosphere interception trajectory. They reached the
mesosphere nine thousand kilometres west of Amarisk and aerobraked over
the nightside ocean, sending a multitude of hypersonic booms crashing
down over the waves.



Brendon couldn’t keep his attention away from the red cloud. He was
piloting the spaceplane from the Villeneuve’s Revenge, taking the
six-strong mercenary scout team down to their designated drop zone a
hundred kilometres east of Durringham. The cloud had been visible to the
forward sensors when they were still six hundred kilometres offshore.
From there it hadn’t been so bad, a colossal meteorological marvel. Now
though, up close, the sheer size was intimidating him badly. The thought
that some entity had constructed it, deliberately built a lightway of
water vapour in the sky, was acutely disconcerting. It hung twenty
kilometres off the starboard wing, inert and immutable. Far ahead he
could just see the first fork as it split to follow one of the
tributaries. That more than anything betrayed its artificiality, the fact
that it had intent.

As the spaceplane eased down level with it he could see the land
underneath. Unbroken jungle, but dark, tinted a deep maroon.

“It’s blocking a lot of light under there,” said Chas Paske, the
mercenary team’s leader.

“Oui,” Brendon agreed, without looking round. “The computer estimates
it’s about eight metres thick at the edge, getting thicker deeper in,
though,” he reported. “Probably three or four hundred metres at the
centre, over the river itself.”

“What about the electronic warfare field?”

“It’s there all right, I’m having some trouble with the flight control
processors, and the communication channel is suffering from interference,
the bit rate is way down.”

“As long as we can transmit the coordinates for the starships to
bombard,” Chas Paske said. “That’s all we need.”

“Oui. Landing in three minutes.”

The spaceplane was approaching the natural clearing they had chosen.
Brendon checked with the blackhawks, which were still supervising the
observation. He was assured there was no human activity within at least
two kilometres of the clearing.

Qualtook and baby giganteas ringed their allocated landing site. Inside
them, burnt and broken stumps were still visible through the mantle of
vines, evidence of the fire which had raged decades ago. The spaceplane
nosed its way cautiously over the edge of the trees, as if afraid of what
it might find. Birds took to the air in dismay at the huge predator shape
and the clarion squealing it emitted. A radar pulse slashed across the
ground, slicing straight through the vine leaves to uncover the extent of
the stumps. Landing struts unfolded from the fuselage, and after a minute
of jostling to avoid the more hazardous protrusions it settled gently on
the ground, compressor nozzles blasting dusty fountains of dead leaves
and twigs into the air.

Even as silence stole back into the clearing the outer airlock hatch was
opening. Chas Paske led his team out. Five disc-shaped aerovettes swooped
into the sky, rim-mounted sensors probing the encircling jungle for
motion or infrared signatures.

The mercenaries began to unload their equipment from the open belly
holds. They were all boosted, their appearance way outside the human
norm. Chas Paske was bigger than any cosmonik, his synthetic skin the
colour of weather-worn stone. He didn’t bother with clothes other than
weapon belts and equipment straps.

“Hurry it up,” Brendon said. “The jamming is getting worse, I can hardly
get a signal through to the satellites.”

Pods and cases began to accumulate on the battered carpet of vines. Chas
was hauling down a portable zero-tau pod containing an affinity-bonded
eagle when an aerovette datavised him that there was a movement among the
trees. He picked up a gaussrifle. The aerovette was hovering a metre over
the trees, providing him an image of heads bobbing about through the
undergrowth. Nine of them, making no attempt to hide.

“Hey,” a woman’s voice shouted.

The mercenaries were fanning out, positioning the aerovettes to provide
maximum coverage.

“The blackhawks said there was no one here,” Chas Paske said. “For
Christ’s sake.”

“It’s the optical distortion,” Brendon replied. “It’s worse than we
thought.”

The woman emerged into the clearing. She shouted again and waved. More
people came out of the trees behind her, women and a couple of boys in
their early teens. All of them in dirty clothes.

“Thank God you’re here,” she said as she hurried over to Chas. “We waited
and waited. It’s terrible back there.”

“Hold it,” Chas said.

She didn’t hear him, or ignored him. Looking down to pick her way over
thick tangles of vines. “Take us away. Up to the starships, anywhere. But
get us off this planet.”

“Who the hell are you? Where do you come from?” At the back of his mind
Chas thought how odd it was that his appearance didn’t affect her. People
normally showed at least some doubt when they saw his size and shape.
This woman didn’t.

His neural nanonics cautioned him that the gaussrifle’s targeting
processor was malfunctioning. “Stop,” he bellowed when she was six metres
away. “We can’t take any chances; you may have been sequestrated. Now,
where are you from?”

She jerked to a halt at the volume he poured into his voice. “We’re from
the village,” she said, slightly breathless. “There’s a whole group of
them devils back there.”

“Where?”

The woman took another pace forward and pointed over her shoulder.
“There.” Another step. “Please, you must help us.” Her haggard face was
imploring.

All five aerovettes fell out of the sky. The ground below Chas Paske’s
feet began to split open with a wet tearing sound, revealing a long
fissure from which bright white light shone upwards. Neural nanonics
overrode all natural human feelings of panic, enforcing a smooth threat
response from his body. He jumped aside, landing beside the smiling
woman. She hit him.



Terrance Smith had lost contact with three of the eleven spaceplanes
which had landed, and the remaining three in the air were approaching the
Quallheim Counties. The observation satellites were unable to provide
much information on the fate of those that had been silenced, the images
they produced of the drop zones were decaying by the minute. None of them
had crashed, though, the blackout had come after they landed. Encouraged
by his tactics program, which estimated forty per cent losses at the
first landing attempt, Terrance assumed the worst, and contacted the last
three spaceplanes.

“Change your principal drop zone to one of the back-ups,” he ordered. “I
want you to land at least a hundred and fifty kilometres from the red
cloud.”

“It’s moving!” Oliver Llewelyn shouted as Terrance was receiving
acknowledgements from the pilots.

“What is?”

“The red cloud.”

Terrance opened a channel to the processor array which was correlating
the observation satellite images. Whorls and curlicues were rippling
along the edges of the red bands, flat streamers, kilometres long, were
shooting out horizontally, like solar prominences. The eerie symmetry of
the velvet-textured clouds was rupturing, their albedo fluctuating as
vast serpentine shadows skated erratically from side to side.

“It knows we’re here,” Oliver Llewelyn said. “We’ve agitated it.”

For one brutally nasty second Terrance Smith had the idea that the
massive formation of forking cloud bands was alive, a gas-giant entity
that had migrated across interplanetary space from Murora. Damn it, the
thing did resemble the kind of convoluted storm braids which curled and
clashed in week-long hostilities among the hydrogen and frozen ammonia
crystals of gas-giant atmospheres. “Don’t be absurd,” he said. “Something
is deliberately causing those disturbances. This may be our best chance
yet to discover how they shape that thing. Get onto the blackhawk
captains, I want every sensor we have available focused on it. There has
to be some kind of energy modulation going on down there. Something has
to register on some spectrum we’re covering.”

“Want to bet?” Oliver Llewelyn muttered under his breath. He was
beginning to wish he had never agreed to fly the Gemal for Smith, and to
hell with the legalities of refusing. Some things were more important
than money, starting with his life. He grudgingly began datavising
instructions round the blackhawks.

The communication links with another two spaceplanes dropped out. But
three had landed their mercenary teams without incident and were already
back in the air.

It is possible, Terrance told himself fiercely as the pearl-white specks
soared to safety above the tangled tributary basin. We can find out
what’s happening down there.

He observed the red cloud sending huge pseudostorm streamers boiling
ferociously out across the jungle. A navigational graphics overlay
revealed the position of the spaceplanes still on the ground. The largest
swellings were heading for the landing zones with unerring accuracy.

“Come on,” he urged them through clenched teeth. “Get up. Get out of
there.”

“Sensors report no energy perturbation of any kind,” Oliver Llewelyn said.

“Impossible. It’s being directed. What about the sensors the invaders
used to track our spaceplanes, have we detected those?”

“No.”

Five more spaceplanes were back in the air, streaking away from the
grasping claws of red cloud. Two of them were ones they had lost contact
with earlier. Terrance heard a cheer go round the Gemal’s bridge, and
added his own whoop of exhilaration.

Now the mission was starting to come together. With the combat scout
teams on the ground they would have targets soon. They could start
hitting back.

The last three spaceplanes landed in the Quallheim Counties. One of them
was from the Lady Macbeth.



The Villeneuve’s Revenge had the standard pyramid structure of four
life-support capsules at its core. They were spherical, divided into
three decks, with enough volume to make life for the crew of six very
agreeable. Fifteen passengers could be accommodated with only a modest
reduction in comfort. None of the six mercenaries they had brought to
Lalonde had complained. The fittings, like the rest of the ship’s
systems, could be classed as passable with plenty of room for
improvement, upgrading, or preferably complete replacement.

Erick Thakrar and Bev Lennon sailed headfirst through the ceiling hatch
of the lounge deck above the spaceplane hangar. The compartment’s
surfaces were coated in a thin grey-green foam with stikpads at regular
intervals, though most of them had lost their cohesiveness. Furniture was
all lightweight composite that had been folded back neatly into alcoves,
producing a floor made up of labelled squares, hexagons, and circles like
some mismatched mosaic. Walls were principally storage lockers, broken by
hatchways into personal cabins, the red panels of emergency equipment
cubicles, and inbuilt AV player blocks with their projector pillars.
There was a watery vegetable smell in the air. Only two of the
lightstrips were on. Several purple foil food wrappers were drifting
through the air like lost aquatic creatures, with a couple more clamped
against the roof grilles by the gentle air flow. A black flek was
spinning idly. It all added up to lend the lounge a discarded appearance.

Erick slapped casually at the plastic-coated ladder stretching between
floor and ceiling, angling for the floor hatch. His neural nanonics
reported André Duchamp opening a direct communication channel.

“He’s docking now,” the captain datavised. “Or attempting to.”

“How is the communication link? Can you get anything from inside?”

“Nothing. It’s still a three per cent bit rate, just enough to correlate
docking procedures. The processors must have been bollocksed up quite
badly.”

Erick glanced over his shoulder at Bev, who shrugged. The two of them
were armed; Bev with a neural jammer, Erick a laser pistol he hoped to
God he wouldn’t have to use.

The spaceplane had emerged from the upper atmosphere and re-established
contact with a weak signal from a malfunctioning reserve transmitter.
Brendon claimed the craft had been subject to a ferocious electronic
warfare attack which had decimated the on-board processors. They only had
his word for it, the link had barely enough power to broadcast his
message, a full-scale datavise to assess the internal electronic damage
was impossible.

In view of the known sequestration ability of the invaders, André Duchamp
wasn’t taking any chances.

“That anglo Smith should have anticipated this,” André grumbled. “We
should have had an examination procedure set up.”

“Yes,” Erick agreed. He and Bev traded a grin.

“Typical of this bloody bodge-up mission,” André chuntered on. “If he
wants proper advice he should have experienced people like me on his
general staff, not that arsehole Llewelyn. I could have told him you need
to be careful when it comes to sequestration. Fifty years of experience,
that’s what I’ve got, that counts for a hell of a lot more than any
neural nanonics tactics program. I’ve had every smartarse weapon in the
Confederation thrown at me, and I’m still alive. And he goes and chooses
a Celt who makes a living from flying the brain dead. Merde!”

Bev’s legs cleared the rim of the hatch into the lounge, and he datavised
a codelock at it. The carbotanium hatch slid shut, its seal engaging with
a solid clunk.

“Come on, then,” Erick said. He slipped through the floor hatch into the
lower deck. His neural nanonics provided him with an image from the
starship’s external sensor clusters. The spaceplane was floundering, just
metres away from the hull. Without a full navigational datalink, Brendon
was having a great deal of trouble inserting the spaceplane’s nose into
the hangar’s docking collar. Novice pilots could do better, Erick
thought, wincing as reaction-control thrusters fired hard, seconds before
the radar dome tip scraped the hull. “Ye gods. We might not have anything
left to inspect at this rate.”

The lower deck was severely cramped, comprising an engineering shop for
medium-sized electromechanical components, a smaller workshop for
electronic repairs, two airlocks, one for the spaceplane hangar, one for
EVA work, storage bins, and space armour lockers. Its walls were naked
titanium, netted with conduits and pipes.

“Collar engaged,” André said. “Madeleine is bringing him in now.”

The whine of actuators carried faintly through the starship’s stress
structure into the lower deck. Erick accessed a camera in the hangar, and
saw the spaceplane being pulled into the cylindrical chamber. A moth
crawling back inside a silver chrysalis. The retracted wings had a
clearance measured in centimetres.

He datavised orders into the hangar systems processors. When the
spaceplane came to rest, power lines, coolant hoses, and optical cables
plugged into umbilical sockets around its fuselage.

“There’s very little data coming out,” Erick said, scanning the docking
operations console holoscreen to see the preliminary results of the
diagnostic checks. “I can’t get any internal sensors to respond.”

“Is that the processors or the sensors themselves which are
malfunctioning?” André asked.

“Difficult to tell,” Bev said, hanging from a grab hoop behind Erick to
look over his shoulder. “Only ten per cent of the internal databuses are
operational, we can’t access the cabin management processors to see where
the fault lies. God knows how Brendon ever piloted that thing up here.
He’s missing half of his control systems.”

“Brendon is the best,” Madeleine Collun said.

The console’s AV pillar bleeped, showing a single communication circuit
was open from the spaceplane. Audio only.

“Anyone out there?” Brendon asked. “Or have you all buggered off to
lunch?”

“We’re here, Brendon,” Erick said. “What’s your situation?”

“The atmosphere is really bad, total life-support failure as far as I can
make out . . . I’m gulping oxygen from an emergency helmet . . . Get that
airlock connected now . . . This is killing my lungs . . . I can smell
some kind of plastic burning . . . Acid gas . . .”

“I can’t cycle the cabin atmosphere for him,” Erick datavised to André.
“Our pumps are working and the hose seals are confirmed, but the
spaceplane pressure valves won’t open, there’s no environmental circuit.”

“Get him into the airlock, then,” André said. “But don’t let him into the
life-support cabin, not yet.”

“Aye, aye.”

“Come on!” Brendon shouted.

“On our way, Brendon.”

Bev ordered the airlock tube to extend. The spaceplane’s fuselage shield
panel slid back to reveal the circular airlock hatch below.

“Lucky that worked,” Erick muttered.

Bev was staring into the AV pillar’s projection, watching the airlock
tube seal itself to the hatch rim. “It’s a simple power circuit. Nothing
delicate about that.”

“But there’s still a supervising processor—Hell.” Environment sensors
inside the airlock tube were picking up traces of toxic gases as the
spaceplane’s hatch swung open. The console holoscreen switched to a
camera inside the metal tube. A curtain of thin blue smoke was wafting
out of the hatch. A flickering green light shone inside the cabin.
Brendon appeared, pulling himself along a line of closely spaced grab
hoops. His yellow ship’s one-piece was smeared with dirt and soot. The
copper-mirror visor of the shell-helmet he was wearing covered his face,
it was connected to a portable life-support case.

“Why didn’t he put his spacesuit on?” Erick asked.

Brendon waved at the camera. “God, thanks, I couldn’t have lasted much
longer. Hey, you haven’t opened the hatch.”

“Brendon, we have to take precautions,” Bev said. “We know the invaders
can sequestrate people.”

“Oh, sure, yes. One moment.” He started coughing.

Erick checked the environmental readings again. Fumes were still pouring
out of the spaceplane cabin; the airlock tube filters could barely cope.

Brendon opened his visor. His face was deathly white, sweating heavily.
He coughed again, flinching at the pain.

“Christ,” Erick muttered. “Brendon, datavise a physiological reading
please.”

“Oh God it hurts.” Brendon coughed again, a hoarse croaking sound.

“We’ve got to get him out,” Bev said.

“I don’t get any response from his neural nanonics,” Erick said. “I’m
trying to datavise them through the airlock tube’s processor but there
isn’t even a carrier code acknowledgement.”

“Erick, he’s in trouble!”

“We don’t know that!”

“Look at him.”

“Look at Lalonde. They can build rivers of light in the sky. Faking up
one injured crewman isn’t going to tax them.”

“For God’s sake.” Bev stared at the holoscreen. Brendon was juddering,
one hand holding a grab loop as he vomited. Sallow globules of fluid
burped out of his mouth, splashing and sticking to the dull-silver wall
of the tube opposite.

“We don’t even know if he’s alone,” Erick said. “The hatch into the
spaceplane isn’t shut. It won’t respond to my orders. I can’t even shut
it, let alone codelock it.”

“Captain,” Bev datavised. “We can’t just leave him in there.”

“Erick is quite right,” André replied regretfully. “This whole incident
is highly suspicious. It is convenient for somebody who wants to get
inside the ship. Too convenient.”

“He’s dying!”

“You may not enter the airlock while the hatch into the spaceplane
remains open.”

Bev looked round the utilitarian lower deck in desperation. “All right.
How about this? Erick goes up into the lounge and codelocks that hatch
behind him, leaving me in here. That way I can take a medical nanonic in
to Brendon, and I can check out the spaceplane cabin to make sure there
aren’t any xenoc invaders on board.”

“Erick?” André asked.

“I’ve no objection.”

“Very well. Do it.”

Erick swam up into the empty lounge, and poised himself on the ladder.
Bev’s face was framed by the floor hatch, grinning up at him. “Good
luck,” Erick said. He datavised a codelock at the hatch’s seal processor,
then turned the manual fail-safe handle ninety degrees.

Bev twisted round as soon as the carbotanium square closed. He pulled a
medical nanonic package from a first aid case on the wall. “Hold on,
Brendon. I’m coming in.” Red environmental warning lights were flashing
on the panel beside the circular airlock tube hatch. Bev datavised his
override authority into the management processor, and the hatch began to
swing back.

Erick opened a channel into the lounge’s communication net processor, and
accessed the lower deck cameras. He watched Bev screw up his face as the
fumes blew out of the open hatchway. Emerald green light flared out of
the spaceplane’s cabin, sending a thick, blindingly intense beam searing
along the airlock tube to wash the lower deck. Caught full square, Bev
yelled, his hands coming up instinctively to cover his eyes. A ragged
stream of raw white energy shot along the centre of the green light,
smashing into him.

The camera failed.

“Bev!” Erick shouted. He sent a stream of instructions into the
processor. A visualization of the lower deck’s systems materialized, a
ghostly reticulation of coloured lines and blinking symbols.

“Erick, what’s happening?” André demanded.

“They’re in! They’re in the fucking ship. Codelock all the hatches now.
Now, God damn it!”

The schematic’s coloured lines were vanishing one by one. Erick stared
wildly at the floor, as if he could see what was happening through the
metal decking. Then the lounge lights went out.



“Five minutes until we land at our new drop zone, and the tension in the
cabin is really starting to bite,” Kelly Tirrel subvocalized into a
neural nanonics memory cell. “We know something has happened to at least
five other spaceplanes. What everyone is now asking themselves is, will
the extra distance protect us? Do the invaders only operate below their
protective covering of red cloud?”

She accessed the spaceplane’s sensors to observe the magnificent,
monstrous spectacle again. Thousand-kilometre-long bands of glowing red
nothingness suspended in the air. Astounding. This far inland they were
slim and complex, interwoven like the web of a drunken spider above the
convoluted tributaries. When she had seen them from orbit, calm and
regular, they had intimidated her; up close and churning like this they
were just plain frightening.

Coiling belts were edge-on with the starboard wing, growing larger as
they spun through the sky towards the spaceplane. It was an excellent
image, a little bit too realistic for peace of mind. But then the
spaceplane’s sensor array was all military-grade. Long streamlined
recesses on both sides of the fuselage belly were now holding tapering
cylindrical weapons pods—maser cannons providing a
three-hundred-and-sixty-degree cover, an electronic warfare suite, and a
stealth envelope. They weren’t quite an assault fighter, but neither were
they a sitting duck like some of the spaceplanes.

Typical that Joshua would have a multi-role spaceplane. No! Thank God
Joshua had a multi-role spaceplane.

Forty minutes into the descent, and already she missed him. You’re so
weak, she swore at herself.

Kelly was starting to have serious second thoughts about the whole
assignment. Like all war correspondents, she supposed. Being on the
ground was very different to sitting in the office anticipating being on
the ground. Especially with the appearance of that red cloud.

The seven mercenaries had discussed that appearance ad nauseam the whole
way in from the emergence point. Reza Malin, the team’s leader, had
seemed almost excited by the prospect of venturing below it. Such adverse
circumstances were a challenge, he said. Something new.

She had taken time to get to know all of them reasonably well. So she
knew what Reza said wasn’t simple bravado. He had been a Confederation
Navy Marine at one time. An officer, she guessed; he wasn’t very
forthcoming about that period of his life, nor subsequent contracts as a
marshal on various stage one colony planets. But he must have been good
at the second oldest profession, money in large quantities had paid for a
considerable number of physical enhancements and alterations. Now he was
one of the elite. Like a cosmonik, blurring the line between machine and
human. The kind of hyper-boosted composite the mundane troops stored in
zero-tau on the Gemal aspired to become.

Reza Malin retained a basic humanoid shape, although he was now two
metres tall, and proportionally broad. His skin was artificial, a tough
neutral grey-blue impact-resistant composite with a built-in chameleon
layer. He didn’t bother with clothes any more, and there were no
genitalia (rather, no external genitalia, Kelly recorded faithfully).
Cybernetic six-finger claws replaced his natural hands. Both forearms
were wide, with integral small-calibre gaussrifles, his skeleton rigged
to absorb recoil. Like Warlow, his face was incapable of expression.
Black glass bubble-shields covered both eyes; the nose was now a flat
circular intake which could filter chemical and biological agents. The
back and sides of his bald skull were studded with a row of five sensor
implants, smooth centimetre-wide ulcerlike bulges.

Despite the lack of expression, she learned a lot from his voice, which
was still natural. Reza wasn’t easily flustered. That and a civilized
competence, the way the other six followed his orders without question,
gave her more confidence than she would otherwise have had in the
scouting mission. In the final analysis, she realized, she trusted him
with her life.

The spaceplane banked sharply. Kelly was aware of Ashly Hanson focusing
the optical sensors on a small river three kilometres below. The silvery
water had a curious speckling of white dots.

“What does he think he’s doing?” Pat Halahan asked. The team’s second in
command was sitting in the seat next to her. A ranger-scout, as he
described himself, slimmer and smaller than Reza, but with the same
blue-grey skin, and powerful adipose legs. Each forearm had twin wrists,
one for ordinary hands, one a power data socket for plug-ins—weapons or
sensors. His senses were all enhanced, with a raised rim of flesh running
from the corner of his eyes right around the back of his skull.

“Hey, what’s happening, Ashly?” he called out. Electronic warfare was a
thought all the mercenaries were sharing.

“I’m going to land us here,” Ashly said.

“Any particular reason?” Reza Malin asked with quiet authoritativeness.
“The surveyed back-up landing site is another seventy kilometres
south-east.”

“Listen, anyone who can create that damn cloud can intercept our
communications without even trying. They’ll have every site Terrance
Smith ever reviewed marked in a big red circle that says ‘hit this’.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Smart man,” Pat Halahan muttered to Kelly. “I wish we’d had him on the
Camelot operation. Lost a lot of good people because the general hired
too many virgins.”

“Go ahead,” Reza said.

“Thank you,” Ashly sang back. The spaceplane dived steeply, spiralling at
an angle which sent Kelly’s stomach pressing up against her collar bones.
“Are you quite sure you want to land?” the pilot asked. “You ask me,
we’re in way over our heads. Terrance Smith couldn’t organize a gang-bang
in a brothel.”

“If Smith is going to beat the invaders, the starships have to know where
to hit them,” Reza said. “For that you need us. We always go in at the
shit end. It’s what we’re good at.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Don’t worry about us. Ultra-tech never works well in jungle terrain,
nature is just too damn messy. And I don’t think I’ve seen many jungles
worse than this one. They can probably swat us with some energy blast,
even lob a baby-nuke on us if they’re feeling particularly bitchy. But
they’ve got to find us first. And rooting us out of that forest
wilderness is going to be tricky, I’ll make bloody sure of that. You just
make sure you and young Joshua stay intact to pick us up afterwards.”

“If I’m alive, I’ll pick you up.”

“Good, I’ll hold you to that.”

The spaceplane’s yaw angle reversed as it performed an abrupt roll. Kelly
clung to the armrests with white knuckles as the webbing shifted its hold
around her body. This wasn’t a clean aerodynamic dive, it was a death
plummet.

“How you doing, Kell?” Sewell shouted, sounding hugely amused. Sewell was
one of the team’s three combat-adept types, and looked it. Standing two
metres thirty, his leathery skin matt-black, and woven through with a web
of energy absorption/dispersal fibres. His head was virtually globular, a
glossy shell that protected his sensors, sitting on a short neck.
Trunklike upper arms supported dual elbows; he had attached heavy-calibre
gaussrifles to the top joints.

Chuckles went round the cabin. Kelly realized her eyes were tight shut,
and forced herself to open them. The spaceplane was shaking.

“You should eat, take your mind off it,” Sewell crowed. “I’ve got some
big gooey slices of strawberry creamcake in my pack. Want some?”

“When you were boosted, the doctors wired your neural nanonics to your
liver,” she said. “It was one fuck of a lot smarter than your brain,
bollockhead.”

Sewell laughed.

A judder ran through the cabin as the wings began to sweep out.

“Irradiate the drop zone, Ashly, please,” Reza said.

“Affirmative.”

“There might be civilians down there,” protested Sal Yong, another of the
combat-adepts.

“Doubt it,” Ashly said. “The nearest village is fifty kilometres away.”

“We’re not on a Red Cross mission, Sal,” Reza said.

“Yes, sir.”

The spaceplane twisted again.

Great swaths of maser radiation poured out of the unblemished sky around
the small shallow river. Hundreds of birds dropped to the ground or
splashed into the water, charred feathers smoking; vennals tumbled from
the trees, limbs still twitching; sayce howled briefly as their hides
wizened and cracked, then died as their brains broke apart from the
intense heat; danderil nibbling at the vegetation collapsed, their long
elegant legs buckling as their viscera boiled. The verdant emerald leaves
of the trees and vines turned a darker, bruised shade of green. Flowers
shrivelled up. Berries and fruit burst open in puffs of steam.

The spaceplane came down fast and level. It actually landed in the river,
undercarriage struts crushing the stony bed, nose jutting over the grassy
bank. Steam and spray erupted from the water as it was struck by the
compressor jets, sending a large circular wave sloshing outwards over the
bank.

Sewell and Jalal were first out, the two big combat-adept mercenaries
didn’t wait for the aluminium airlock stairs to extend. They jumped down
into the lathery water, covering the quiet wilting trees with their
gaussrifles, and sprinted ashore. The half-metre depth didn’t even slow
them down.

Reza released a couple of aerovettes, ordering them to scan the immediate
jungle. The stealthed, disc-shaped aerial combat robots were a metre and
a half wide, their central section a curving mesh-grid to protect the
wide-cord contra-rotating fans in the middle. Five infrared lasers were
mounted around their rim, along with a broad passive-sensor array. They
hummed softly and slipped through the air, climbing up to traverse the
top of the nearby trees.

Pat Halahan and Theo Connal were second to emerge, following the first
two mercenaries ashore. Theo Connal had a short body, one and a half
metres tall, boosted for jungle roving. His skin was the same tough
chameleon envelope as Reza and Pat, but his legs and arms were
disproportionately long. Both feet were equipped with fingers instead of
toes. He walked with an apeish stoop. Even his bald head portrayed simian
characteristics, with a tiny button nose, squashed circle mouth, and
slanted eyes, heavily lidded.

He activated the chameleon circuit when he landed in the water, and
scrambled up the shallow incline of the bank. Only a faint mauve optical
shimmer betrayed his silhouette. As soon as he reached a tree he seemed
to embrace it, then levitated, spiralling round the trunk. At which point
the spaceplane sensors lost him, even the infrared.

“My God,” Kelly said. She had wondered why Reza had included someone as
basically harmless-looking as Theo on the team. A small buzz of
excitement began in her belly. This kind of flawless professionalism was
darkly enticing; it was easy to see how combat missions became so
narcotic.

Another pair of aerovettes skimmed off over the trees. Sal Yong and
Ariadne, the second ranger, came down the airlock steps. Ariadne was the
only other female on the team, although her gender was obscured like all
the others. There was very little difference between her and Pat, maybe
lacking just a few centimetres in height, and her sensor band was broader.

“Now or never, Kelly,” Reza said.

“Oh, now,” she said, and stood up. “Definitely.” The visor of her
shell-helmet slid down. Collins had given her carte blanche on selecting
her equipment back in Tranquillity, so she had asked for Reza’s advice
and bought what he suggested. After all, it was in his own interest not
to have a liability tramping through the jungle with the scout team.
“Keep it simple, and make it the best,” he’d said. “You’re not combat
trained, so all you have to do is keep up with us and stay undetected.”

“I can load combat programs into my neural nanonics,” she’d offered
generously.

Reza simply laughed.

She had wound up with a one-piece suit of rubbery body-armour, produced
in the New Californian system, that would protect her from a modest level
of attack from both projectile and energy beam weapons. Reza had taken
her to an armourer who serviced mercenary equipment, and had a chameleon
layer added.

More aerovettes whirred overhead as she hurried down the airlock steps
into the river. Steam hung in the air. She was glad of the shell-helmet’s
air filters, cremated birds bobbed around her ankles.

Pat Halahan and Jalal were unloading the gear from the forward cargo hold.

“Help them,” Reza ordered Kelly. He was wading through the shallows,
carrying some composite containers. A nylon harness held a black metallic
sphere about twenty centimetres in diameter to his right side, just above
his equipment belt. Kelly wondered what it was, her neural nanonics
couldn’t identify it, there were no visible features to assist the search
and comparison program. None of the other mercenaries had one. She knew
this wasn’t the time to ask.

The spaceplane’s steps were already folding back into the fuselage. She
set to, stacking the metal cases and composite containers on the muddy
grass of the bank.

Reza and Pat carried a trunk-sized zero-tau pod ashore. The black
negating surface evaporated to reveal a white plastic cylinder. It split
open, and a mahogany-coloured geneered hound lumbered out. Kelly thought
its fangs could probably cut through her armour suit.

Reza knelt down beside the big beast and ruffled its head fondly with his
hand. “Hello, Fenton. How are you, boy?”

Fenton yawned, pink tongue hanging limply between his front fangs.

“Go have a look round for me. Go on.”

Reza patted his hindquarters as he rose. Fenton swung his neolithic head
round to give his master a slightly maligning look, but trotted off
obediently into the undergrowth.

Kelly had been standing perfectly still. “He’s well trained,” she said
vaguely.

“He’s well bonded,” Reza replied. “I have affinity neuron symbionts
fitted.”

“Ah.”

Pat and Jalal were wading ashore with a second zero-tau pod.

“Adieux,” Ashly datavised.

The spaceplane lifted with a brassy shriek. Vigorous geysers of water
sprouted under the compressor nozzles, splashing up against the
carbotanium fuselage. Then it was above the trees, undercarriage folding
up, and the geysers withering away to white-foam ripples.

Kelly tracked her shell-helmet sensors round the forbidding wall of
water-basted jungle. Oh, crap, I’m committed now.

She watched the spaceplane pitch up nearly to the vertical and accelerate
away into the eastern sky at high speed. Her neural nanonics said they
had landed less than three minutes ago.



The explosion was large enough for the Gemal’s ordinary sensor clusters
to pick it up as the starship fell into the planet’s umbra, leaving
Amarisk behind. For the vastly more sensitive observation satellites in
low orbit it registered as a savage multi-spectrum glare, overloading
some scanners.

Terrance Smith’s neural nanonics informed him it was the spaceplane from
the blackhawk Cyanea, which had been landing a scout team in the
Quallheim Counties. It had been on the ground when the blast happened.
“What the hell did that?” he demanded.

“No idea,” Oliver Llewelyn replied.

“Shit. It was over seventy kilometres from the nearest piece of red
cloud. Did the scout team get clear?”

“No response from any of their personal communicator blocks,” one of the
bridge’s communication officers reported.

“Bugger.” His neural nanonics’ strategic display showed him the remaining
four spaceplanes climbing into orbit. Seven more had already docked with
their parent starships. Two were manoeuvring for a rendezvous.

“Do you want to divert a spaceplane for a rescue?” Oliver asked.

“Not without confirmation that someone is alive down there. It was a hell
of an explosion. The electron matrices must have shorted out.”

“Neat trick if you can do it,” Oliver said. “They have a lot of
safeguards built in.”

“Do you suppose that electronic warfare—”

“Sir, message from the Villeneuve’s Revenge,” the communications officer
said. “Captain Duchamp says the invaders have boarded his ship.”

“What?”

“That was one of the spaceplanes we lost contact with,” Oliver said.

“You mean they’re up in orbit?” Terrance asked.

“Looks like it.”

“Christ.” He datavised the processor managing the command communication
channels, ready to issue a general alert. But his neural nanonics
informed him a couple of starships were leaving their assigned orbital
slots. When he requested the strategic display it showed him Datura and
Gramine under acceleration, rising out of the thousand-kilometre orbit.
His fist hit the acceleration couch cushioning. “What is happening?”

“The spaceplanes from both the Datura and Gramine experienced
communication difficulties,” Oliver said in a strained voice. He glanced
over at Terrance Smith. The ordinarily prim bureaucrat looked haunted.

“Cut them out of our communication net,” Terrance ordered. “Now. I don’t
want them to access our observation satellite data.”

“They’re running,” Oliver said. “They must be heading for a jump
coordinate.”

“Not my problem.”

“The hell it isn’t. If they are xenocs, you’ll be letting them loose in
the Confederation.”

“If they have the technology to put together that cloud, they already
have bloody starships. My concern and mission is Lalonde. I’m not sending
the blackhawks to intercept them, we don’t have the numbers to send ships
off on wild-goose chases.”

“Their drives aren’t right,” Oliver said. “They aren’t burning the fuel
cleanly. Look at the spectroscopic analysis.”

“Not now, fuck it!” Terrance shouted. He glared at Oliver. “Contribute
something positive or shut up.” His neural nanonics linked him in to the
communication processor, opening direct channels to the remaining
starships. “This is an emergency warning,” he datavised. Even as the
painful phrase emerged, he wondered how many listeners were still under
his command.



The Lady Macbeth’s bridge was completely silent as Terrance Smith’s voice
came out of the AV pillars.

“Oh, Jesus,” Joshua moaned. “This is all we need.”

“It looks like Datura and Gramine are preparing to jump,” Sarha said.
“Sensor clusters and thermo-dump panels are retracting.” She frowned.
“Most of them, anyway. Their thrust is very erratic. They should be above
the five-thousand-kilometre gravity-field boundary in another four
minutes.”

“This invasion force is too big, isn’t it,” Joshua said. “We’re not going
to save Lalonde, not with what we’ve got.”

“Looks that way,” Dahybi said in a subdued tone.

“Right then.” Joshua’s mind was immediately full of trajectory graphics.
A whole range of possible jump coordinates to nearby inhabited star
systems popped up.

You’ll be abandoning Kelly, a voice in his head said.

It’s her choice.

But she didn’t know what was happening.

He instructed the flight computer to retract the thermo-dump panels.
Fully extended, the panels couldn’t withstand high-gee acceleration. And
if he was going to run, he wanted to do it fast.

“As soon as Ashly returns we’re leaving,” he announced.

“What about the merc team?” Warlow asked. “They are dependent on us
knocking out the invader’s bases.”

“They knew the risks.”

“Kelly is with them.”

Joshua’s mouth tightened into a hard line. The crew were looking at him
with a mixture of sympathy and concern.

“I’m thinking of you, too,” he said. “The invaders are coming up here
after us. I can’t order you to stay in these circumstances. Jesus, we
gave it our best shot. There isn’t going to be any mayope again. That’s
all we ever really came for.”

“We can make one attempt to pick them up,” Sarha said. “One more orbit. A
hundred minutes isn’t going to make much difference.”

“And who’s going to tell Ashly he has to go down there again? The
invaders will know he’s coming down for a pick-up.”

“I’ll pilot the spaceplane down,” Melvyn said. “If Ashly doesn’t want to.”

“She’s my friend,” Joshua said. “And it’s my spaceplane.”

“If there’s any trouble in orbit, then we’ll need you, Joshua,” Dahybi
said. The slightly built node specialist was uncharacteristically firm.
“You’re the best captain I’ve ever known.”

“This is both melodramatic and unnecessary,” Warlow said. “You all know
that Ashly will pilot it.”

“Yes,” Joshua said.

“Joshua!” Melvyn shouted.

But Joshua’s neural nanonics were already feeding him an alarm. The
gravitonic distortion warning satellites were recording nine large gaps
in space being forcibly opened.

Thirty-five thousand kilometres above Lalonde, the voidhawks from
Meredith Saldana’s 7th Fleet squadron had arrived.



An electronic warfare technique that can knock out power circuits as well
as processors? What the hell have we come up against?

A single gleam of bright pale green light shone up into the lounge
through the inspection window in the middle of the floor hatch. There was
movement below.

“Erick, what’s happening?” André Duchamp datavised.

The channel to the lounge’s net processor was thick with interference.
Erick’s neural nanonics had to run a discriminator program to make any
sense of the captain’s signal.

“We’re getting power drop-outs all over the ship!” Madeleine called.

Erick pushed off from the ladder, and grasped the floor hatch’s handle to
steady himself. Very gingerly he edged his face over the fifteen
centimetre diameter window and directly into the beam of light. A second
later he was airborne, arms and legs cycling madly as a twisted shout
burst from his lips. He hit the ceiling. Bounced. Grabbed at the ladder
as his body spasmed in reaction.

Erick had looked into hell. It was occupied by goblinesque figures with
hideous bone faces, long, reedy limbs, large arthritis-knobbed hands.
They dressed in leather harnesses sewn together with gold rings. A dozen
at least, boiling out of the airlock tube. Grinning with tiny pointed
teeth.

Three of them had clung to Bev, yellow talon fingers slashing rents in
his ship-suit. His head had been flung back, mouth open in black horror
as the abdominal gashes spewed entrail strands of translucent turquoise
jelly. And suicide-terror shone in his eyes.

“Did you see that?” Erick wailed.

“See what? Merde! The net is screwed, our databuses are glitched. I’m
losing all control.”

“Dear God, they’re xenocs. They’re fucking xenocs!”

“Erick, enfant, dear child, calm down.”

“They’re killing him! They love it!”

“Calm! You are an officer on my ship. Now calm. Report!”

“There’s twelve—fifteen of them. Humanoid. They’ve got Bev. Oh, God,
they’re chopping him to pieces.” Erick shifted a stored sedative program
into primary mode, and immediately felt his breathing regularize. It
seemed heartless, callous even, wrapping Bev’s suffering away behind an
artificial cliff of binary digits. But he needed to be calm. Bev would
understand.

“Are they heavily armed?” André asked.

“No. No visible weapons. But they must have something in the spaceplane,
that light I saw—”

All six electronically operated bolts on the floor hatch thudded back
together. The metallic bang rang clear across the lounge.

“God . . . André, they just cracked the hatch’s codelock.” He stared at
it, expecting the manual bolts to slide open.

“But none of the systems processors are working in that capsule!”

“I know that! But they cracked it!”

“Can you get out of the lounge?”

Erick turned to the ceiling hatch and datavised the code at it. The bolts
remained stubbornly in place. “The hatch won’t respond.”

“Yet they can open it,” André said.

“We can cut through it,” Desmond Lafoe suggested.

“Our hatches and the capsule decking have a monobonded carbon layer
sandwiched in,” Erick replied. “You’d never get a fission blade through
that stuff.”

“I can use a laser.”

“That will allow them into the other capsules, and the bridge,” André
said. “I cannot permit that.”

“Erick’s trapped in there.”

“They will not take my ship.”

“André—” Madeleine said.

“Non. Madeleine, Desmond, both of you into the lifeboats. I will stay.
Erick, I am so sorry. But you understand. This is my ship.”

Erick thumped the ladder, grazing his knuckles. This life-support
capsule’s lifeboats were accessed from the lower deck. “Sure.” You
murdering pirate bastard. What the fuck do you know about honour?

Someone started hammering on the floor hatch.

They’ll be through soon, Erick thought, monobonded carbon or not. Count
on it.

“Call Smith for help,” Desmond said. “Hell, he’s got five thousand troops
on the Gemal, armed and itching to kill.”

“It will take time.”

“You got an alternative?”

Erick looked round the lounge, inventorying everything in sight—cabins,
lockers filled with food and clothes, emergency equipment cubicles. All
he had was a laser pistol.

Think!

Open the floor hatch and pick them off one at a time as they come through?

He aimed the laser at a cabin door, and pressed the trigger stud. A weak
pink beam stabbed out, then flickered and died. Several small blisters
popped and crackled where it had struck the composite.

“Bloody typical,” he said out loud.

Look round again. Come on, there must be something. Those dreary months
spent on CNIS initiative courses. Adapt, improvise. Do something.

Erick dived across the intervening space to a wall of lockers, catching a
grab loop expertly. There wasn’t much in the emergency cubicle: medical
nanonics, pressure patches, tools, oxygen bottles and masks, torch,
processor blocks with ship’s systems repair instructions, fire
extinguishers, hand-held thermal sensor. No spacesuit.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy.”

“Erick?” André asked. “What is happening?”

“Got an idea.”

“Erick, I have spoken with Smith. Several other ships have been hijacked.
He is taking some of his troops out of zero-tau, but it will be at least
another thirty minutes before anyone can rendezvous with us.”

The lounge was getting lighter. When Erick looked over his shoulder he
saw a ring of small hemispherical blue flames chewing at a patch of the
hard grey-green foam on the floor decking. Little twisters of smoke
writhed out from the edge. When a circle of titanium roughly a metre in
diameter had been exposed it began to glow a dull orange. “No good,
Captain. They’re coming through the decking, some sort of thermal field.
We haven’t got five minutes.”

“Bastards.”

Erick opened the tool-box, and took out a fission-blade knife. Please, he
prayed. The blade shone a cool lemon when he thumbed the actuator. “Sweet
Jesus, thank you.”

He flew cleanly through the air. A stikpad anchored him near the middle
of the ceiling. He pushed the fission blade into the reinforced composite
conditioning duct, and started to saw a circle about thirty centimetres
wide.

“Madeleine? Desmond?” he datavised. “Are you in spacesuits yet?”

“Yes,” Desmond replied.

“You want to do me a real big favour?”

“Erick, they cannot stay on board,” André warned.

“What do you want, Erick?” Desmond asked.

“Hauling out of here. Soon.”

“I forbid it,” André said.

“Stuff you,” Desmond retorted. “I’m coming down, Erick. You may count on
me, you know you can.”

“Desmond, if they break into the lounge I will scuttle the ship,” André
datavised. “I must do it before they glitch the flight computer.”

“I know. My risk,” Desmond replied.

“Wait to see if they break out of the lounge first,” Erick said. “That’ll
give Desmond a chance to get clear if this doesn’t work.”

There was no answer.

“You owe me that! I’m trying to save your ship, damn you.”

“Oui, d’accord. If they get out of the lounge.”

The yellow patch on the floor had turned white. It started to hiss,
bulging up in the centre, rising into a metre-high spike of light. A ball
of fire dripped off the end, gliding up to hit the ceiling where it broke
into a cluster of smaller globes that darted outwards.

Erick ducked as several rushed past. He finished cutting a second circle
out of the duct and moved along.

Another ball of fire dripped off the spike. Then another. The patch was
spreading out over the floor decking, scorching away more of the foam.

“I’m by the hatch, Erick,” Desmond datavised.

The empty lounge was awhirl with small beads of white fire. They had
stung Erick several times now, vicious skewers of pain that charred out a
centimetre-wide crater of skin. He glanced at the ceiling hatch’s
inspection window to see the sensor-studded collar of an SII spacesuit
pressed against it, and waved.

Erick had cut eight holes in the duct when he heard a shrill creaking
sound rise above the hiss. When he glanced down he saw the floor decking
itself had started to distend. The metal was cherry red, swelling and
distorting like a cancerous volcano.

He watched, mesmerized, as the top burst open.

“Erick,” a voice called out of the rent. “Let us out, Erick. Don’t make
it hard on yourself. It’s not you we want.”

The triangular rips of radiant metal began to curl back like petals
opening to greet the dawn. Shapes scuttled about in the gloom below.

Erick kicked away from the stikpad that was holding him to the ceiling.
He landed beside the floor hatch.

“We want the ship, Erick, not you. You can go in peace. We promise.”

A big bloodshot eye with a dark green iris was looking at him through the
floor hatch’s inspection window. It blinked, and the lounge lights came
back on.

Erick gipped the manual lock handle, twisted it ninety degrees, and
pulled up.

The possessed came up through the open hatch, cautiously at first,
glancing round the sweltering smoky lounge with wide eyes. Their skin was
as white as bleached bone, stretched tight over long wiry muscles. Oily
black hair floated limply. They started to advance towards him, grinning
and chittering.

“Erick,” they cooed and giggled. “Erick, our friend. So kind to let us in
when we knocked.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Erick said. He had positioned himself beside one of
the cabin doors, a silicon-fibre strap round his waist tethering him to a
grab hoop. Level with his shoulder, the environment control panel’s cover
swung free. Erick’s right hand rested on a fat red lever inside. “Your
friend.”

“Come with us,” the one in front said as they floated sedately towards
him. “Come join us.”

“I don’t think so.” Erick yanked the atmosphere-vent lever down.

The vent system on board a starship was included as a last resort to
extinguish fire. It dumped the affected life-support capsule’s air
straight out of the hull, cutting off oxygen to the flames and killing
them dead. And because of the danger a fire represented inside the
confined cabin space of a starship, the vent was designed to be quick
acting, evacuating an entire deck within a minute.

“NO!” The leader of the possessed screamed in fury and panic. His hands
were flung forwards towards Erick in a futile belated attempt to stop the
lever clicking home. Spears of white fire arced out of his fingertips.

The panel, its lever, the circuitry behind, Erick’s hand, and a half
metre circle of wall composite flamed into ruin. Molten metal and a fount
of incendiary composite blasted outwards.

Erick cried out in agony as his entire right arm was flayed down to the
bone. His neural nanonics responded instantly, erecting an analgesic
block. But the shock was too much, he lurched away from consciousness,
only to have stimulant programs bully him back. Menus and medical
physiological schematics appeared inside his dazed fragile mind. Options
flashed in red. Demands for drugs and treatments to be administered at
once. And a single constant pressure alarm.

The very air itself howled like a tormented banshee in its rush to escape
from the lounge. Thin, layered sheets of smoke drifting around the ruddy
cone torn in the floor condensed to form airborne whirlpools underneath
the five ceiling grilles. They spun at a fantastic rate, betraying the
speed of the air molecules as they were sucked into the duct.

The possessed were in turmoil, clinging desperately at grab hoops and
each other, their assumed shapes withering like glitched AV projections
to reveal ordinary bodies underneath. All of them were buffeted savagely
by the tempest force drawing them inexorably towards the ceiling. One
flew up through the hatch from the lower deck, curving helplessly through
the air to slam against a ceiling grille. Suction held him there,
squirming in pain.

Another lost hold of a grab hoop, to be sucked backwards up to a grille.
Both of them tried to push their way off, only to find it was impossible.
The strength that the external vacuum exerted was tremendous. They could
feel themselves being pulled through the narrow metal bands of the
grille. Sharp edges cut their clothes and began shredding the flesh
underneath. Ripples of blue and red energy shimmered around their bodies
for a short time, delaying the inevitable; but the exertion proved too
much, and the ghostlight quickly faded. The bands of metal sawed down to
their ribs. Strips of lacerated flesh were torn off. Blood burst free
from a hundred broken veins and arteries, foaming away down the conduit.
Organs started to swell through the gaps between the ribs.

Erick activated the Confederation Navy’s emergency vacuum-survival
program stored in his neural nanonics. His heart began to slow; muscles
and organs were shut down, reducing the amount of oxygen they took from
his blood, extending the time which the brain could be kept alive. He
hung inertly from the strap fastening him to the wall, limbs pulled
towards the ceiling. The charred remnant of his right hand broke off and
smacked against a grille.

Blood oozed from the blackened meat of his upper arm.

Scraps of paper, clothing, tools, miscellaneous litter, and personal
items from the cabins and lower deck plunged through the lounge to crash
into the grilles. There might have been enough material to block them, at
least long enough for the possessed to rally and try and shut down the
vent or retreat back into the spaceplane. But the extra holes Erick had
cut into the duct allowed an unrestricted flow of smaller articles into
space. Tattered ribbons of water from the shower and taps in the bathroom
poured through the open door to streak through the nearest hole.

The uproarious torrent of air began to abate.

Through pain-hazed eyes, Erick had watched the group’s leader turn from
semi-naked ogre to a podgy forty-year-old man in dungarees as the
micro-storm raged. He was hanging onto a grab loop two metres away, legs
pointing up rigidly at the nearest grille, trousers and shirt flapping
madly. His mouth worked, bellowing curses and obscenities that were
snatched away. A red glow grew around his hand, bloodlight shining
through the skin, illuminating the bones within. Mucus and saliva
streamed from his nose, joining the flood of debris and liquids vanishing
into the duct. The seepage began to turn pink, then crimson.

Now the glow from his hand was fading along with the sound and the fury
of the evacuating air. He fixed Erick with a disbelieving stare as tears
began to bubble and boil from the surface of his eyes. Balls of blood
were spitting out of his nostrils with each beat of his heart.

The last wisp of air vanished.

Erick swung round as the force waned, rotating languidly on the end of
the tether strap. The physiological medical schematic his neural nanonics
were displaying appeared to be a red statue, except for the right arm
which was completely black. Each turn swept the lounge into view. He saw
the surviving possessed struggling through the solid cloud of junk that
filled the achingly silent compartment. It was difficult to tell which of
them were alive. Corpses—two badly mutilated—floated and tumbled and
collided with the ones trying to reach the floor hatch. Dead or alive,
everyone was weeping blood from their pores and orifices as capillaries
ruptured and membranes tore from the immense pressure gradient. They were
acting out a bizarre three-dimensional wrestling match in slow motion,
with the hatch as their prize. It was macabre. It swam from his view.

Next time round there were fewer movements. Their faces—those he would
remember without any help from his neural nanonics image-storage program.
Turning.

They were slowing, running down like mechanoids suffering a power drain.
The vacuum was turning foggy with fluid. He realized some of it was his
own. Red. Very red.

Turning.

All purposeful movement had ceased within the lounge. There was only the
gentle stirring of soggy dross.

Around and around. And the redness was fading to grey with the ponderous
solemnity of a sunset.

Around.



Ilex and its eight cousins flew into a standard defence sphere formation
two and a half thousand kilometres wide. Their distortion fields flared
out to sample the masses and structure of local space. In their unique
perceptive spectrum Lalonde hung below them like a deep shaft bored into
the uniformity of space, radiating weak gravity streams to bind its three
smaller moons and Kenyon, as it in turn was bound to the bright
blue-white star. The interplanetary medium was rich with solar and
electromagnetic energy; Van Allen belts encircling the planet shone like
sunlight striking an angel’s wings. Starships and spaceplanes were
revealed in orbit, dense knots in the fabric of space-time, pulsing hotly
with electrical and magnetic forces.

Electronic sensors detected a barrage of narrow-beam maser radiation
flying between small high-orbit sensor satellites, communication-relay
satellites, and the starships. Terrance Smith was being informed of their
presence, but there was no hostile response. Satisfied there was no
immediate threat, the voidhawks maintained their relative positions for
another ninety seconds.

Near the centre of the formation a zone of space the size of a quark
warped to an alarming degree as its mass leapt towards infinity, and the
first frigate emerged. The remaining twenty warships jumped insystem over
the next six minutes. It was a textbook-sharp manoeuvre, giving Admiral
Meredith Saldana the widest possible number of tactical options. All he
needed was the relevant data to evaluate.

The normal background murmur of voices on Arikara’s bridge died away into
a shocked hush as the first sensor scans came in. Amarisk occupied the
centre of the planet’s daylight hemisphere, the red cloud bands above the
Juliffe resembling a jagged thunderbolt captured in mid-discharge.

“Was there ever anything like that on this God-blighted planet before?”
Meredith Saldana asked in a voice that strained for reasonableness.

“No, sir,” Kelven replied.

“Then it is part of the invasion, a new phase?”

“Yes, sir. It looks that way.”

“Captain Hinnels, do we know what it is?” the Admiral asked.

The staff science officer looked round from a discussion with two of the
sensor evaluation team. “Haven’t got a clue, Admiral. It’s definitely
optically radiant, but we’re not picking up any energy emission. Of
course, we’re still a long way off. It’s rearranging the local weather
patterns, too.”

Meredith datavised for the sensor image again, and grunted when he saw
the clouds being parted like candyfloss curtains. “How much power would
that take?”

“It would depend on the focal accuracy—” Hinnels broke off at the
Admiral’s gaze. “Controlling the weather over a quarter of a continent? A
hundred, two hundred gigawatts at least, sir; I can’t be more specific,
not until I understand how they apply it.”

“And they have that much power to spare,” Meredith mused out loud.

“More importantly, where’s it coming from?” Kelven said. “Durringham had
thirty-five fusion generators in the dumpers, and three smaller units in
the navy office. Their entire power output didn’t add up to more than
twenty megawatts.”

“Interesting point, Commander. You think there has been a massive landing
operation since you left?”

“Shipping generators in would be the logical answer.”

“But?”

“I don’t believe it. The amount of organization necessary to set it up
would be incredible, not to mention the number of starships involved. And
you saw the flek of Jacqueline Couteur, she can summon up energy from
nowhere.”

The admiral gave him a dubious stare. “There is a difference between
flinging fireballs and this.” His hand waved expansively at one of the
big bridge holoscreens showing the planet.

“A difference of scale, sir. There are twenty million people on Lalonde.”

Meredith didn’t like either alternative. Both implied forces immeasurably
superior to that available to his squadron. Probably superior to the
whole damn navy, he thought in apprehension. “Hinnels? Give me an
evaluation. Is it safe to move the squadron closer?”

“Given the capability the invaders are demonstrating, I’d say it’s not
safe even being here, Admiral. Moving into low orbit will obviously
increase the risk, but by how much I wouldn’t like to say.”

“Thank you,” Meredith said acidly. He knew he shouldn’t take out his
anxiety on the crew. But damn, that red cloud was unnerving. The size of
it.

“Very well, we shall attempt to accomplish the First Admiral’s orders and
halt any use of force by Smith’s starships, with the proviso that at the
first sign of aggression from the invaders we withdraw at once. I’m not
committing the squadron to fight that . . . whatever it is.” He was aware
of the relieved looks flashing round the bridge, and diplomatically
ignored them. “Lieutenant Kanuik, have you completed a status review of
the mercenary ships?”

“Yes, sir.”

Meredith datavised the computer for a tactical situation display. The
mercenary starships seemed to be in considerable disarray, with three
under power, heading out of orbit. Probably running for a jump
coordinate. Small VTOL spaceplanes were docked to five of the blackhawks.
The Adamist craft left in orbit all had their hangar doors open. Another
two spaceplanes were rising up from the planet. He cursed silently. They
must have landed their scout teams already.

One of the Adamist starships was venting heavily, a grey jet of
atmospheric gas shooting out of the hull. Its ion thrusters glowed bright
blue to compensate the wayward thrust.

He saw a blackhawk’s purple vector line begin to curl up like a
corkscrew. Long-range optical sensors showed him the bitek starship
tumbling and twisting hectically.

“Sir!”

He cancelled the datavise. Lieutenant Rhoecus, his staff voidhawk
coordination officer, was wincing. “One of the blackhawks, it’s . . .”
The Edenist puffed his cheeks out and jerked up from his acceleration
couch as though someone had thumped him in the belly. “Its captain is
being attacked . . . tortured. There are voices. Singing. The blackhawk’s
frightened.” He closed his eyes, teeth gritted. “They want the captain.”

“Who does?”

Rhoecus shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s fading. I had the impression
of thousands speaking to the captain. It was almost like a habitat
multiplicity.”

“Signal from the Gemal, Admiral,” a communications rating said. “Terrance
Smith wants to talk to you.”

“Does he now? Put him on.”

Meredith looked into his console’s AV projection pillar, seeing an
exceptionally handsome man with perfectly arranged black hair. Corporate
clone, the Admiral thought. Although the usual smooth flair of competence
endemic to the type was in danger of crumbling. Terrance Smith looked
like a man under a great deal of pressure.

“Mr Smith, I am Admiral Saldana, commander of this squadron; and under
the authority invested in me by the Confederation Assembly I am now
ordering you to suspend your military operation against Lalonde. Recall
all your personnel from the planetary surface and do not attempt to
engage the invader’s forces. I also require you to hand over all combat
wasps and nuclear devices to the navy. The starships currently under your
command are free to leave this system once they have complied with my
instructions, except for the Lady Macbeth, which is now under arrest. Do
you understand?”

“They’re up here.”

“Pardon me?”

Terrance Smith’s eyes flicked to one side, glancing at someone out of
pick-up range. “Admiral, the invaders are up here. They came up in the
spaceplanes that took my scout teams down. They’re sequestrating my
crews.”

Meredith took a second to compose himself. Four minutes into the mission,
and already it was catastrophe. “Which crews? Which starships?” He
suddenly looked across the bridge at Lieutenant Rhoecus. “Is that what
was happening to the blackhawk captain? Sequestration?”

“It could be, yes,” the startled Edenist replied.

“I want two voidhawks on that blackhawk, now. Restrain it, I don’t want
it to leave this system. They are authorized to engage it with combat
wasps if it resists. Deploy the remaining voidhawks to prevent any of the
Adamist starships from leaving. Commander Kroeber.”

“Sir?”

“Squadron to move in now. Full interception duties, I want those
starships neutralized. Alert the marine squads, have them stand by for
boarding and securement.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

He turned back to the AV pillar. “Mr Smith.”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“Which ships have been taken over?”

“I don’t know for certain. The only ones which haven’t sent spaceplanes
down to the surface are the Gemal, the Lythral, the Nicol, and the Inula.
But the Cyanea’s spaceplane never made it back.”

“Admiral,” Kelven interjected.

“Yes, Commander?”

“We don’t know the Gemal didn’t send a spaceplane down. There is no
visible evidence of sequestration, certainly not over a communication
channel.”

Gravity returned to the Arikara’s bridge as the fusion drive came on,
building swiftly. The Admiral squirmed his shoulders, trying to get
completely comfortable before the high gees squashed him. “Point taken,
Commander Solanki, thank you. Commander Kroeber, all starships are to be
intercepted, no exceptions.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Meredith checked the tactical situation display again. There was only one
spaceplane which hadn’t rendezvoused with its parent starship now. “And
tell that spaceplane to remain where it is. It is not to dock. Solanki,
start working out how we are going to restrain any starship crew-members
that have been sequestrated.”

“Sir, if this sequestration produces the same energy-control ability in
the crews that it has in Jacqueline Couteur, I recommend the marines
aren’t sent into the ships at all.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. However, we will certainly have to make at least
one attempt.”

“Admiral,” Lieutenant Rhoecus called through gritted teeth. “Another
blackhawk captain is being sequestrated.”

“Acknowledged, Lieutenant.” Meredith reviewed the tactical display again,
observing the blackhawk’s crazed course, a moth caught in a tornado.
“Send a voidhawk to intercept, full interdiction authority.” That was a
third of his voidhawk force committed already. He needed the rest to
contain the Adamist starships. If any more blackhawks were taken over he
would have to order a combat wasp launch. They would probably fight back.

With his options diminishing before his eyes, Meredith let out a pained
hiss of breath as the Arikara accelerated past six gees. Sensors reported
another mercenary starship’s fusion drive igniting.



Ashly Hanson came through the airlock tube from the spaceplane and
drifted straight into the barrel of a laser rifle. Warlow was holding it,
aiming it directly at his forehead.

“Sorry,” the hulking cosmonik boomed. “But we have to be sure.”

Ashly realized there was a fission saw plugged into his spare left elbow
socket, a glowing saffron blade nearly a metre long.

“Sure of what?”

Warlow rotated his principal left arm around the blade. He held a
processor block in his hand. “Datavise something into this.”

“Like what?”

“Anything, doesn’t matter.”

Ashly datavised a copy of the spaceplane’s maintenance record.

“Thanks. It was Joshua’s idea. From the reports we’ve had it looks like
they can’t use their neural nanonics.”

“Who can’t?”

“Spaceplane pilots who have been sequestrated.”

“Oh, God. I knew it, they can intercept our communications.”

“Yes.” Warlow executed a perfect mid-air roll, and headed for the airlock
tube. “I’m going to check the spaceplane’s cabin, make sure you didn’t
bring any up. Nothing personal.”

Ashly eyed the deck’s ceiling hatch. It was locked, red LEDs blinking to
show the manual bolts were engaged on the other side. “The invaders are
up in orbit?”

“Yes. Busy hijacking starships.”

“What’s Smith doing about it?”

“Nothing. A naval squadron has arrived, it is in their hands now. They
have aborted our mission. Oh, and we’re under arrest, too.” His diaphragm
rattled a metallic approximation of a chuckle.

“The whole fleet? They can’t do that. We’re operating under bona fide
contract to the Lalonde government.”

“No, just the Lady Mac.”

“Why us?” But he was talking to a pair of disappearing horned feet.



“Erick? Erick, are you receiving this?”

“His organs are critical, heading for all-out cellular collapse. For
God’s sake cancel that suspension program.”

“Got it. Physiological data coming through.”

“Program the nanonic packages for total cranial function support. We have
to sustain the brain. André, where the hell’s that plasma? He’s lost
litres of blood.”

“Here, Madeleine. Erick, you wonderful crazy Anglo. You got them, do you
hear me? You got them!”

“Mesh the infuser with his carotid.”

“It was magnificent. Pull one little lever and all of them, baboom, dead.”

“Shit. Desmond, slap a nanonic package on that stump, the epithelium
membrane isn’t strong enough, he’s leaking plasma everywhere.”

“His lungs are filling up too, they must be ruptured. Up the oxidization
factor. His brain is still showing electrical activity.”

“It is? Oh, thank God.”

“Erick, don’t try and datavise. We’ve got you. We won’t let you go.”

“Do you want to put him in zero-tau?”

“Hell, yes. We’re days from a decent hospital. Just let me try and get
him stabilized first.”

“Erick, my dear one, don’t you worry about a thing. For this I will buy
you the best, the greatest, clone body in Tranquillity. I swear. Whatever
the cost.”

“Shut up, Captain. He’s in enough shock as it is. Erick, I’m going to put
you back under. But don’t worry, everything is going to be just fine.”



The last of the six aerovettes stopped transmitting. Reza Malin upped his
cranial audio receptors to full sensitivity, trying to hear the noise of
the little vehicle’s impact. The sounds of the jungle invaded his
brain—insect chirps, animal warbles, leaves crackling—filtered and
reduced by discrimination programs. He counted to ten, but there was no
crash.

“We’re on our own now,” he said. The aerovettes had been sent off to the
west at a fast walking pace as a decoy, giving the scout team time to
melt away into the jungle. He had guessed the invaders could track
anything electronic; as Ashly said, if they could create the cloudbands,
they could do almost anything. They weren’t invincible though, the fact
that the team had landed was proof of that. But they were definitely
going to provide a formidable challenge. Possibly the greatest Reza would
ever face. He liked that idea.

His two hounds, Fenton and Ryall, were slinking through the undergrowth
two hundred metres ahead of the scout team, sniffing out people. So far
the jungle had been deserted. Pat Halahan’s affinity-bonded harpy eagle,
Octan, was skimming the treetops, retinal implants alert for the
slightest motion below the fluttering leaves. The animals provided a
coverage almost as good as the aerovettes.

The team was following a danderil track, heading roughly north-east
towards its operational target, the Quallheim Counties. Sal Yong was
leading, brushing through the dense vines with barely a sound. With his
chameleon circuit activated it looked as though a heavy miniature breeze
was whirling along the track. The other six followed quickly (Theo was up
overhead somewhere), all of them loaded down with packs, even Kelly. He
was pleased to see she was keeping up. If she didn’t, it would be a maser
pulse through her brain, which would upset some of the team. But he
wasn’t having a liability of a reporter holding them back. He wondered if
she realized that, if it lent a note of urgency to her steps. Probably.
She was smart enough, and her bureau chief would certainly have known the
deal. So would Joshua, for all his youth, wise beyond his years.

Fenton arrived at a river, and peered out of the bushes lining the steep
bank. Reza requested a chart from his inertial-guidance block, and
confirmed their position.

“Pat, there’s a river one eighty metres ahead, it leads into the
Quallheim eventually. Send Octan along it to check for any boat traffic.”

“Right.” The voice seemed to emerge from a small qualtook tree.

“Are we going to use it?” Ariadne asked, a clump of knotted tinnus vines.

“Yes, providing Octan says nobody else is. It’s narrow enough, good tree
cover. We can cut a day off our time.” He called silently to his hounds,
and ordered them to cut back behind the team, covering their rear.

They reached the river three minutes later, and stood at the top of the
four-metre bank.

“What is that stuff?” Jalal asked.

The water was clotted with free-floating fleshy leaves, pure white discs
a couple of metres in diameter, a tiny purple star in their centre. Each
had an upturned rim of a few centimetres, natural coracles. They bobbed
and spun and sailed calmly along with the current, undulating with the
swell. Some overlapped, some collided and rebounded, but they all kept
moving along. Upstream or downstream, whichever way the team looked, the
river was smothered in them.

Kelly smiled inside her shell-helmet as the daylight dream of her Lalonde
didactic course came slithering into her conscious thoughts. “They’re
snowlilies,” she said. “Quite something, aren’t they? Apparently they all
bloom at the same time then drift downstream to drop their kernel. It
really screws up the Juliffe basin for boat traffic while they’re in
season.” She tracked her retinal implants along the river. It was all
going into a neural nanonics memory cell, scenes of Lalonde. Capturing
the substance of a place was always important, it gave the report that
little edge, adding to reality.

“They’re a bloody nuisance,” Reza said curtly. “Sewell, Jalal, activate
the hovercraft; Pat, Ariadne, point guard.”

The two combat-adepts unslung the big packs they were carrying, and took
out the programmed silicon craft, cylinders sixty centimetres long,
fifteen wide. They slithered down the bank to the water’s edge.

Kelly focused on the sky downstream. At full magnification the northern
horizon was stained a pale red. “It’s close,” she said.

“An hour away,” Reza said. “Maybe two. This river winds a crooked course.”

Sewell shoved a couple of snowlilies aside and dropped his cylinder into
the clear patch of water. The hovercraft began to take shape, its
gossamer-thin silicon membrane unfolding in a strict sequence, following
the pattern built into its molecules. A flat boat-shaped hull was
activated first, five metres long, fifteen centimetres thick. Water was
pumped into its honeycomb structure, ballast to prevent it from blowing
away. The gunwales started to rise up.

Theo Connal dropped lightly to the ground beside Kelly. She gave a slight
start as he turned off his chameleon circuit.

“Anything interesting?” Reza asked.

“The cloud is still shifting about. But it’s slower now.”

“Figures, the spaceplanes have gone.”

“All the birds are flying away from it.”

“Don’t blame ’em,” Pat said.

Kelly’s communication block reported that a signal was being beamed down
from the geostationary satellites, coded for their team. It was a very
powerful broadcast, completely non-directional.

“Kelly, Reza, don’t respond to this,” Joshua said. “It looks like our
communications are wide open to the invaders, which is why I’m
transmitting on a wide footprint, a directional beam will pinpoint you
for them. OK, situation update; we’ve got big problems up here. Several
spaceplanes were taken over while they were on the ground, the invaders
are now busy hijacking starships, but nobody can tell which ones. You
know Ashly wasn’t sequestrated, so that means you should be able to trust
me. But don’t take orders from anyone else, especially don’t broadcast
your location. Problem two, a navy squadron has just arrived and shut
down the strike mission. Jesus, it’s a total fucking shambles in orbit
right now. Some of the hijacked ships are trying to run for a jump
coordinate, I’ve got voidhawks blocking the Lady Mac’s patterning nodes,
and two of my fellow combat-capable trader starships are heading up to
intercept the navy squadron.

“Your best bet is to turn round from that cloud and just keep going, out
into the hinterlands somewhere. There’s no point in trying to locate the
invader’s bases any more. I’ll do my best to pick you up in a day or two,
if this cockup gets sorted by then. Stay alive, that’s all you have to
worry about now. I’ll keep you informed when I can. Out.”

The two hovercraft had finished erecting themselves. Sewell and Jalal
were unpacking the energy matrices and superconductor fan motors ready to
slot them into place.

“Now what?” Ariadne asked. The team had all gathered around Reza.

“Keep going,” he said.

“But you heard what Joshua said,” Kelly exclaimed. “There’s no point. We
have no orbital fire-power back-up, and no mission left. If we just
manage to survive for the next few days it’s going to be a bloody
miracle.”

“You still haven’t grasped it yet, have you, Kelly?” Reza said. “This is
bigger than Lalonde; this isn’t about doing a dirty job for money, not
any more. These invaders are going to challenge the entire Confederation.
They have the power. They can change people, their minds, their bodies;
mould whole planets into something new, something that we have no part
in. Some time soon those ships in orbit are going to have to try and
attack, to put a stop to it all. It doesn’t matter whether it is Smith or
the navy squadron. If the invaders aren’t stopped here, they’ll keep on
coming after us. Sure we can run, but they’ll catch us, if not out in the
hinterlands than back at Tranquillity, or even Earth if you want to run
that far. But not me. Everyone has to make a stand eventually, and mine
is right here. I’m going to find a base and let the ships know.”

Kelly held her tongue, she could well imagine how Reza would react to her
wheedling.

“More like it!” Sal Yong proclaimed.

“OK,” Reza said. “Finish fitting out the hovercraft, and get our gear
stowed.”

It took a surprisingly short five minutes to complete their preparations
and clamber in. Fully assembled the hovercraft was a simple affair, with
a big fan at the rear and two cycloidal impellers filling the skirt with
air. It was steered mechanically, by vanes behind the fan.

Kelly sat on a bench at the rear of her craft, riding with Sal Yong, Theo
Connal, and Ariadne. Now the decision had been made, she was quite glad
to be free of the pack and walking through the jungle.

Reza’s lead hovercraft moved out from the bank, skimming easily over the
snowlilies, and turned downstream. Fenton and Ryall sat in the prow,
blunt heads thrust out into the wind as they picked up speed.


Chapter 09
==========


One thing Princess Kirsten had always insisted on after ascending to the
throne of the Principality of Ombey was keeping breakfast a family
affair. Crises could come and go, but giving the children quality time
was sacrosanct.

Burley Palace, where she ruled from, was situated at the top of a gently
sloping hill in the middle of Ombey’s capital, Atherstone. Its
pre-eminent location gave the royal apartments at the rear of the
sprawling stone edifice a grand view over the parks, gardens, and elegant
residential buildings which made up the city’s eastern districts. Away in
the distance was the haze-blurred line of deeper blue that was the ocean.

Atherstone was only fifteen degrees south of the equator, putting it
firmly in the tropical climate belt, but the early morning breeze coming
in off the ocean kept the temperature bearable until about ten o’clock.
So Kirsten had the servants set the table on the broad, red-tiled balcony
outside her bedroom, where she could sit amid the yellow and pink flowers
of the aboriginal tolla vines that choked the back of the palace, and
have a leisurely hour with her husband and three natural-born children.

Zandra, Emmeline, and Benedict were aged seven, five, and three
respectively, the only naturally conceived children she and Edward had
produced. Their first five offspring had been gestated in exowombs after
the zygotes had been carefully geneered to the latest physiological
pinnacle which the Kulu geneticists had achieved. It was the Saldana
family way; incorporating the freshest advances into each new generation,
or at least that part of it destined to actually hold high office. Always
the elder children, following the old Earth European aristocratic
tradition.

Kirsten’s first five children would probably live for around two hundred
years, whereas she herself and the natural-born three could only hope for
about a hundred and eighty years. She had been sixty-six in 2608, when
she was crowned in Atherstone Cathedral, two months after her brother
Alastair II had assumed the throne on Kulu. As the ninth child, she had
always been destined (barring an accident among her older brothers and
sister) to rule Ombey, the newest principality.

Like all her nine exowomb siblings, and the five natural-born children of
her mother and father, she was tall and physically robust; geneering gave
her dark red hair and an oval face with well-rounded cheeks—and of course
a thin nose with a tip that curved down.

But geneering could only provide the physical stamina necessary for the
stresses resulting in a century of wielding the supreme authority vested
in a reigning monarch. She had been in training for the intellectual
challenge from birth; first loaded up with the theory, endless politics
and economics and management didactic courses, then five years at Nova
Kong University learning how to apply them. After serving a twelve-year
naval commission (compulsory for all senior Saldanas) she was given
divisional management positions in the Kulu Corporation, the massive
kingdom-wide utilities, transport, engineering, energy, and mining
conglomerate founded by Richard Saldana when he settled Kulu (and still
owned solely by the king), graduating up to junior cabinet posts. It was
career designed with the sole intent of giving her unrivalled experience
on the nature and use of power for when she came to the throne.

Only the siblings of the reigning monarch ruled the Kingdom’s
principalities on his behalf, keeping the family in direct command. The
hierarchy was long established and extraordinarily successful in binding
together nine star systems which were physically spread over hundreds of
light-years. The only time it had ever come near to failure was when
Crown Prince Michael germinated Tranquillity; and the Saldana family
would never let anything like that happen again.

Kirsten came out onto the balcony the morning after the Ekwan’s arrival
feeling distinctly edgy. Time Universe had been triumphantly broadcasting
its Laton exclusive since yesterday evening. She had given the news
programmes a quick scan after she woke, and the deluge hadn’t yet abated.
Speculation over the Ekwan and Guyana’s code two alert was red hot. For
the first time since her coronation she found herself considering
censorship as an option for calming the mounting media hysteria.
Certainly there would have to be some sort of official statement before
the day was over.

She pushed up the voluminous sleeves of her rising robe and looked out
over the superb lawns with their mixture of terrestrial and xenoc
flower-beds, and the artificial lakes graced by black swans. The sky was
a deep indigo, without any cloud. Another gorgeous, balmy day; if not in
paradise, then as close as she would ever see. But the sunshine panorama
left her unmoved. Laton was a name which carried too many adolescent
fear-images with it. Her political instinct was telling her this wasn’t a
crisis that would blow over in the night. Not this one.

That same political instinct which had kept the Saldana family securely
on their various thrones for four hundred years.

The children’s nanny brought her excitable charges out of the nursery,
and Kirsten managed to smile and kiss them all and make a fuss. Edward
lifted little Benedict into his lap, while she seated Emmeline next to
her own chair. Zandra sat at her place and reached eagerly for the jug of
dorze juice.

“Grace first,” Kirsten admonished.

“Oh, Mummy!”

“Grace.”

Zandra sighed woundedly, clasped her hands together and moved her lips.
“Now can I eat?”

“Yes, but don’t bolt it.” She signalled one of the four attendant footmen
to bring her own tea and toast.

Edward was feeding Benedict slim slices of bread along with his boiled
egg. “Is the news still all Laton?” he asked over Emmeline’s head.

“Yes,” Kirsten said.

He pulled a sympathetic face, and dangled another bread soldier in front
of a cheerful Benedict.

They had been married forty years. A good marriage by any reasonable
standards, let alone an institution as odd as a royal marriage. Edward
was old money, titled as well, and an ex-navy officer who had served with
some distinction. He was also geneered, which was a big plus; the court
liked matches with the same range of life expectancy—it made things tidy.
They hadn’t quite been pushed into it by the family, but the pressure had
been there for someone like him. All the senior Saldanas displayed for
public consumption the Christian monogamy ideal. Divorce was, of course,
out of the question. Alastair was head of Kulu’s Church, Defender of the
Faith throughout the Kingdom. Royalty didn’t break the commandments, not
publicly.

However, she and Edward enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect, and
trust, and even considerable fondness. Maybe love had been there too at
the start of it, forty years ago. But what they had now was enough to
carry them through the next century together without bitterness and
regret. Which was an achievement in itself. When she thought of her
brother Claude’s marriage . . .

“Mummy’s thinking again,” Emmeline announced loudly.

Kirsten grinned. “Thinking what to do with you.”

“What?” Emmeline squealed.

“Depends what you’ve done wrong.”

“Nothing! Ask Nanny, I’ve been good. All day.”

“She pinched Rosy Oldamere’s swimming towel yesterday,” Zandra said.
Emmeline burst into giggles. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”

“It was so funny. Miss Eastree had to lend Rosy hers, she was shivering
all over.”

“Her skin was turning blue,” Emmeline said proudly.

“Who’s Laton?” Zandra asked.

“A bad man,” Edward said.

“Is he on Ombey?”

“No,” Kirsten said. “Now eat your rice chips.”

Her neural nanonics gave a silent chime, which warned her from the start
it was going to be bad news; her equerry would never allow a datavised
message through unless it was serious, not at breakfast. She accessed the
Defence and Security Council datapackage.

“Trouble,” she said resentfully.

Edward glanced over as she rose.

“I’ll help get them ready for day club,” he said.

“Thanks.” He was a good man.

She walked through the private apartments and emerged into the wide
marbled corridor which led to the cabinet offices, drawing startled looks
and hurried bows from staff who were in early. She was still dressed in
her turquoise and grey rising robe.

The official reception room was a decagonal chamber with a vaulting roof
that dripped chandeliers. A horizontal sheet of sunlight was pouring in
through a ring of azure windows halfway up the walls. Pillars were inlaid
with gold and platinum under a lofriction gloss which kept the metal
permanently agleam. Holoprints of impossibly violent stellar events
alternated with oil paintings around the walls. There were no modern
dreamphase or mood-effusion works; the Saldanas always favoured antiquity
for the intimation of timeless dignity it gave.

Three people were waiting for her in the middle of the black tushkwood
tile floor. Sylvester Geray was at their head; her equerry, a
thirty-six-year-old captain wearing his Royal Kulu Navy dress uniform.
Hopelessly formal, she always thought, but he hadn’t put a foot wrong
since he took up the post three months after her coronation.

The other two, both wearing civilian suits, were a less welcome sight.
Roche Skark, the director of the ESA office on Ombey, smiled politely at
his princess and inclined his head. Despite geneering, he was a rotund
man, in his eighties, and twenty centimetres shorter than Kirsten. He had
held his post for thirteen years, dealing with threats and perceived
threats throughout the sector with pragmatism and a judicious application
of abstruse pressure on the people who counted. Foreign governments might
grumble endlessly about the ESA and its influence and meddling in local
internal politics, but there was never any solid proof of involvement.
Roche Skark didn’t make the kind of elementary mistakes which could lead
to the diplomatic embarrassment of his sovereign.

Jannike Dermot, on the other hand, was quite the opposite of the demure
ESA director. The fifty-year-old woman wore a flamboyant yellow and
purple cord stripe suit of some expensive silk-analogue fabric, with her
blonde hair arranged in a thick, sweep-back style. It was the kind of
consummate power dressing favoured by corporate executives, and she
looked the part. However, her business was strictly the grubbier side of
the human condition: she was the chief of the Internal Security Agency on
Ombey, responsible for the discreet maintenance of civil order throughout
the principality. Unlike its more covertly active sister agency, the ISA
was mostly concerned with vetting politicians and mounting observations
on subversives or anyone else foolish enough to question the Saldana
family’s right to rule. Ninety-five per cent of its work was performed by
monitor programs; fieldwork by operatives was kept to a minimum. Also
within its province was the removal of citizens deemed to be enemies of
the state; which—contrary to popular myth—was actually a reasonably
benign affair. Only people who advocated and practised violence were
physically eliminated, most were simply and quietly deported to a
Confederation penal planet from which there was never any return.

Quite where the boundaries of the respective agencies’ operational fields
were drawn tended to become a little blurred at times, especially in the
asteroid settlements or the activities of foreign embassy personnel.
Kirsten, who chaired Ombey’s Defence and Security Council, often found
herself arbitrating such disputes between the two. It always privately
amused her that despite the nature of their work the agencies were both
basically unrepentant empire-building bureaucracies.

“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Sylvester Geray said. “The matter was
deemed urgent.”

“Naturally,” Kirsten said. She datavised a code at one set of high double
doors, and gestured for them to follow. “Let’s get on with it.”

The doors opened into her private office. It was a tastefully furnished
room in white and powder blue, though lacking in the ostentation of the
formal State Office next door where she received diplomats and
politicians. French windows looked out into a tiny walled garden where
fountains played in a couple of small ornamental ponds. Glass-fronted
cabinets and bookshelves stood around the walls, heavy with exquisite
gifts from visitors and institutions who enjoyed her patronage. A
malachite bust of Alastair II sat on a pedestal in an alcove behind her
desk (Allie looking over her shoulder, as always). A classic Saldana
face, broadly handsome, with a gravity the sculptor had captured
perfectly. She remembered her brother practising that sombre poise in the
mirror when he was a teenager.

The doors swung shut and Kirsten datavised a codelock at them. The
processor in her desk confirmed the study was now physically and
electronically secure.

“The datapackage said there has been a new development in the Ekwan
case,” she said as she sat in her high-backed chair behind the desk.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jannike Dermot said. “Unfortunately there has.”

Kirsten waved a hand for them to sit. “I didn’t think it would be good
news.”

“I’d like to bring in Admiral Farquar,” Sylvester Geray said.

“Of course.” Kirsten datavised the processor for a security level one
sensenviron conference and closed her eyes.

The illusion was of a curving featureless white chamber with a central
oval table; Kirsten sat at the head, with Roche Skark and Pascoe Farquar
on one side, and Jannike Dermot and Sylvester Geray on the other.
Interesting that the computer should be programmed to seat the two agency
directors opposite each other, she thought.

“I would like to formally request a system-wide code two defence alert,”
the Admiral said as his opening gambit.

Kirsten hadn’t been expecting that. “You believe Laton will attack us?”
she asked mildly. Only she could issue a code two alert, which allowed
the military to supersede all civil administration, and requisition
whatever personnel and materials it required. Basically it was a
declaration of martial law. (A code one alert was a full declaration of
war, which only Alastair could proclaim.)

“It’s a little more complicated than that, ma’am,” the Admiral said. “My
staff have been reviewing the whole Lalonde-Laton situation. Now this
reporter Graeme Nicholson has confirmed Laton was present on the planet,
we have to begin to consider other factors, specifically this energy
virus which the Edenists reported.”

“I find it quite significant they wanted their findings to be known,”
Roche Skark said. “In fact they actually requested that we should be
told. Which is an unusual step given the Kingdom’s standard relationship
with Edenism. They obviously considered the threat dangerous enough to
exceed any political differences. And considering what happened to our
G66 troops in Lalonde’s jungle I believe they were totally justified.”

“Our analysis of both Jenny Harris’s jungle mission and subsequent events
on Lalonde suggests that the energy virus and this prevalent
sequestration are the same thing,” said the Admiral. “What we are dealing
with is an invisible force that can take over human thought processes and
bestow an extremely advanced energy manipulation ability. Sophisticated
enough to act as an electronic warfare field, and construct those white
fireballs out of what appears to be thin air.”

“I reviewed parts of the jungle mission,” Kirsten said. “The physical
strength those people had was phenomenal. Are you suggesting anyone who
is infected will acquire similar capabilities?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How is the energy virus transmitted?”

“We don’t know,” the Admiral admitted. “Though we do consider the fact
that Laton called it a virus to be significant. The very nature of the
term virus, whether employed in the biological or software sense, implies
a pattern that can reproduce itself within its host, usually at an
exponential rate. But again, I’m not sure. We really are working in the
dark on this one, putting together appraisals from observed data. There
has to be a priority to discover its exact nature.”

“We can find out relatively easily,” Jannike Dermot said. “The answer is
in Gerald Skibbow’s memory—how he was infected and sequestrated, how the
energy virus behaves, what its limits are. I consider him to be the key
to alleviating our lack of knowledge.”

“Has he recovered yet?” Kirsten asked.

“No. The doctors say he is suffering from a case of profound trauma; it’s
touch and go if he ever will recover his full intellectual faculties. I
want him to undergo a personality debrief.”

“Is that wise, in his state?”

The ISA director showed no emotion. “Medically, no, not making him relive
the events. But a debrief will provide us with the information we
require.”

It was a responsibility Kirsten could have done without; Skibbow was
somebody’s child, probably had children of his own. For a moment she
thought of Benedict sitting in Edward’s lap. “Proceed,” she said, trying
to match the ISA director’s impersonality.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“The report from Lalonde said it was Laton himself who warned the
Edenists of this energy virus? He claimed he was being attacked by it.”

“That’s right, ma’am,” Admiral Farquar said. “Which is what makes our
current problem even more acute.”

“You think he was telling the truth, that it is a xenoc incursion?”

“Under the circumstances, I have to give it strong consideration. Which
is why I want a code two alert. It will give me the resources to defend
the Ombey system should they back up the virus with a physical invasion.”

Kirsten felt her palms tingle, that earlier unsettling notion that this
wasn’t just an ordinary crisis was abruptly resumed. “What do you mean:
back up the virus?”

The Admiral flicked a glance at Roche Skark. “It is a possibility that
the Ekwan brought it to Ombey,” he said.

“Oh, dear God. Do you have any proof?”

“We are ninety per cent convinced Gerald Skibbow has been purged,
although none of the science team can offer an explanation as to how that
happened. However, in their haste to get him here, the Lalonde Embassy’s
Intelligence team may have overlooked the fact that some of their own
people were carrying it. After all, Graeme Nicholson’s report confirms
that Laton—presumably a sequestrated Laton—was in Durringham the day they
left. We have to assume the virus was also present in the city’s
population at that time.”

“When the Admiral’s staff informed me of this probability, my Guyana
operatives immediately tried to round up the Ekwan’s crew and all the
embassy staff,” the ISA director said. “Three embassy people were
unaccounted for: Angeline Gallagher, Jacob Tremarco, and Savion Kerwin.
We subsequently found that all three took a spaceplane down to Ombey as
soon as the code three restrictions were lifted. We know they landed at
Pasto Spaceport seven hours ago. The spaceplane which brought them down
suffered from several systems failures and processor glitches during the
flight.”

“Ekwan’s flight from Lalonde was one long list of malfunctions. But since
it docked at Guyana its systems have functioned smoothly,” the Admiral
said.

“And the spaceplane?” Kirsten asked, guessing.

“When my people arrived at the spaceport it was in the line company’s
engineering hangar,” Jannike Dermot said. “The maintenance crews couldn’t
find a thing wrong with it.”

“And there was some difficulty with the zero-tau pod when Gerald Skibbow
was put in it,” Roche Skark added. “The implication is that this energy
virus isn’t quite under control, it interferes with nearby electronic
equipment on a permanent basis.”

“So what you’re telling me is that they’re down here,” Kirsten said.

“Yes, ma’am,” the ISA director acknowledged. “I’m afraid we have to
assume they are. We’re hunting them, of course. I’ve already alerted the
police.”

“What about the others who were on board the Ekwan?”

“As far as we can tell, they have not been infected.”

“Exactly how do you tell?”

“Those that have neural nanonics can use them. We thought that if the
energy virus does have an unrestrained capacity to interfere with
circuitry then implants would be the first to suffer a loss of
efficiency.”

“Good idea,” she said.

“The rest of Ekwan’s complement of colonists are being brought into close
proximity with delicate electronics. So far none of the processor arrays
have been affected, but we’re repeating the procedure every few hours
just to be sure.”

“What about people the three from the embassy came into contact with
while they were in Guyana?”

“We have reviewed the spaceport crews,” the Admiral said. “And we’re
drawing up a schedule now to run the entire asteroid population through
these assessments. Including myself, no exceptions.”

“I see.”

“Will you declare a code two alert, ma’am?”

“I would point out that a code two alert will allow me to quarantine the
Xingun continent,” Jannike Dermot said. “It is unlikely that Gallagher,
Tremarco and Kerwin have left yet. I can shut down all air transport to
and from the rest of Ombey. I can also order all road traffic to be
suspended, though it may prove difficult to enforce in practice. We might
get lucky and trap them in Pasto City itself.”

Kirsten summoned up the emergency statutes file from a memory cell and
began to review it. Her neural nanonics started to chart a course of
action, balancing necessity against the chaos that would come with an
attempt to suspend all Ombey’s civil and industrial activities. “Without
direct evidence of a physical threat I cannot issue a code two alert,”
she said. “However, I am declaring a code three alert, and a biohazard
isolation order for the orbiting asteroids. I want them insulated from
each other, from the planet, and from incoming starships. Our orbital
facilities are essential to our defence, and I agree that they must be
safeguarded against the carriers of this virus. Admiral Farquar, you are
to order and enforce a complete quarantine as of now. All civil
spacecraft in transit to return to their port of origin.

“Your primary military task is the defence of Ombey and the orbital
asteroids with their associated strategic-defence systems. A code three
alert will give you the authority to mobilize our resident naval reserve
forces; although if it is to mean anything the quarantine order must
apply equally to the fleet. Crews will have to be rearranged to ensure
that personnel from different asteroid bases are not mixed together. The
navy’s secondary role will be guarding against further risk of
infiltration within the star system as a whole. That means all incoming
starships to be refused docking permission.

“As to Xingu, I agree that it should be segregated from the rest of the
planet. Sylvester, you are to inform the Xingun continental parliament’s
speaker that there is now a state of civil emergency in existence. Shut
down its air transport links now. And I do mean now, all planes in the
air to return to their departure airport. Admiral, if any refuse to
comply you are ordered to shoot them out of the sky. Use the low-orbit
strategic-defence platforms.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kirsten watched Sylvester Geray’s image freeze as he started to datavise
her orders into the secure government communication net. “Roche, do you
believe the embassy three are going to try and spread the virus among our
population?”

“Their actions so far indicate that is their main goal, yes, ma’am.”

“So it’s not just them we’re looking for, we’re going to have to round up
anyone they came into contact with?”

“Yes, ma’am. Speed in this instance is going to be essential; the faster
they are caught, the fewer possible contamination cases we will have to
worry about. It’s an exponential problem again. If they go free for too
long then it may well escalate beyond our ability to contain, as it did
on Lalonde.”

“Jannike, do the police on Xingu have sufficient resources to track them
down?”

“I believe so, ma’am,” the ISA director said.

“May I suggest we use someone more familiar with people who have been
sequestrated by the virus?” Roche Skark said smoothly. “I’m sure the
civil authorities are capable, Jannike, but I feel hands-on experience
will be of immense benefit in this instance. Someone who is perfectly
aware of the urgency, and knows how to react should things turn ugly. And
judging by Lalonde that may well happen.”

The ISA director stared at him levelly. “One of your agents, you mean?”

“It is a logical appointment. I recommend Ralph Hiltch is sent to Xingu
to oversee the search.”

“Him? The man who didn’t even know Laton was on Lalonde, the greatest
criminal psychopath the Confederation has ever known!”

“I feel that’s slightly unfair, Madam Director. The Confederation and the
Edenists believed Laton was dead after the navy destroyed his blackhawks.
How many corpses are you currently investigating?”

“Enough,” Kirsten said. “That will do, both of you. In this situation I
think every resource has to be deployed without prejudice; I’d like to
believe we can deal with this incident better than a stage one colony
planet. That was a good suggestion, Roche; have Ralph Hiltch sent to
Pasto immediately. He is to liaise with the civil authorities there, with
a brief to advise and assist with the capture of the embassy personnel
and identification of anyone else who has been sequestrated.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll inform him at once.”

“I just hope he can contain them,” she said, allowing her deeper worries
to surface momentarily. “If not, he could be facing a one-way trip.”



The cloudband which lay over the Quallheim was a muddy rouge colour when
seen from the underside, streaked with long rusty gold ridges as though
it was reflecting the twilight rays of a sinking sun. It grew ever
broader, the frayed edges stirring and flexing in disquiet as it swam out
lazily over the sweltering jungle.

Kelly, casually accustomed to the enormousness of Tranquillity, was
dumbfounded by its size. To the west and east there was no visible end,
the band could encircle the world for all those sitting in the hovercraft
knew. Straight ahead, to the north, there might have been a hairline of
blue sky above the black treetops. Amarisk was slipping gently into a
deep luminous cavern.

Thunder, strident bass rumbles that echoed strangely, taking a long time
to fade, had been audible for the last twenty minutes as the two
hovercraft eased their way towards the Quallheim over the buoyant mass of
snowlilies coating the unnamed tributary. There was no sign of any
lightning.

The hovercraft slipped under the tempestuous lip of cloud, and red-tinged
darkness tightened around them like a noose. With the morning sun high in
the sky, the transition into shadow was abrupt, leaving none of the scout
team in any doubt of the change. Kelly couldn’t help a shiver inside her
armour even though the suit kept her skin temperature at a comfortable
constant.

Reza’s communication block reported it had lost the geosynchronous
communication-satellite’s beacon. They were cut off from Smith, Joshua,
and the navy squadron.

Trees lining the bank became dark and sullen, even the flowers which
eternally sprouted from the vines lost their perky glimmer. Snowlilies
were the rancid colour of drying blood. High overhead large flocks of
birds were embarking on their first ever migration, flapping and gliding
towards the brightness sleeting down beyond the cloud.

“The cloud stretches across the heavens like the Devil’s own wedding
veil. It is the coming of an immortal penumbra as Lalonde is eclipsed by
a force before which nature trembles in fear. The planet is being
forcibly wedded to a dark lord, and the prospect of cold alien offspring
issuing forth is one which gnaws menacingly at the team’s fragile spirit.”

“Please!” Sal Yong protested loudly. “I want to eat sometime today.” The
big combat-adept mercenary was sitting on the bench ahead of Kelly,
shoulders slewed so the front of his rounded, dull-gloss head was aligned
on her.

“Sorry,” she said. She hadn’t been aware she was talking out loud. “This
is crazy, you know. We should be running the opposite way.”

“Life is crazy, Kell. Don’t let that stop you from enjoying it.” He swung
his doughty shoulders back.

“The problem is, I’d like to go on enjoying it, preferably for decades.”

“Then why come here?” Ariadne asked. She was sitting next to Sal Yong,
steering the hovercraft with a small joystick.

“Born stupid, I guess.”

“I’ve been with Reza for a decade now,” the female ranger scout said.
“I’ve seen atrocities and violence even your scoop-happy company would
never show for public consumption. We’ve always made it home. He’s the
best combat scout team leader you’ll ever meet.”

“On a normal mission, yes. But this bloody thing—” Her arm rose to take
in the cloud and gloomy jungle with an extravagant sweep. “Look at it,
for Christ’s sake. Do you really think a couple of well-placed maser
blasts from orbit are going to knock it out? We need the whole
Confederation Navy armed with every gram of antimatter they’ve ever
confiscated.”

“Still got to have somewhere to shoot that antimatter down at,” Sal Yong
said. “The navy would have to send the marines in if we weren’t already
here shovelling shit. Think of the money we’re saving the Confederation
taxpayer.”

Beside Kelly, Theo broke into a high-pitched chuckle. He even sounds like
a monkey, she thought.

“Regular marines couldn’t handle this,” Ariadne said cheerfully, guiding
the hovercraft round a rock. “You’d need the Trafalgar Greenjackets.
Special-forces types, boosted like us.”

“Bunch of knuckle shufflers, all theory and drills,” Sal Yong said
witheringly. The two of them started arguing over the merits of various
regiments.

Kelly gave up. She just couldn’t get through to them. Perhaps that was
what made mercenaries so different, so fascinating. It wasn’t just the
physical supplement boosting, it was the attitude. They really didn’t
care about the odds, staking their life time and again. That would make a
good follow-up story back at Tranquillity; interview some ex-mercs, find
out why they had quit. She loaded a note in her neural nanonics. The
pretence of normality. Keep the mind busy so it doesn’t have time to
brood.

The hovercraft arrived at the Quallheim itself after another forty
minutes. It was four or five times the width of the tributary, over two
hundred and fifty metres broad. Both banks were overrun with tall trees
that leant over the river at sharp angles, plunging aerial roots and
thick vines into the water. Snowlilies lay three deep on the surface,
moving at an infinitesimal pace. Where the tributary emptied into the
Quallheim they formed a mushy metre-high dune on top of the water.

Now the scout team headed upriver, keeping close to the northern bank and
the paltry cover of the trees. Reza seemed more concerned about lying
exposed to the cloud than proximity to possible hostiles on the land.
With nothing but the lightly furrowed carpet of snowlilies opening out
like an empty ten-lane motorway ahead, the hovercraft began to pick up
speed.

It was dark on the river, under the centre of the cloudband, an
occultation which made all the team switch to infrared vision. The trees
blocked any sight of the natural sunlight beyond it. Thunder was a
constant companion, booms slithering up and down the river like the
backwash of some vast creature burrowing its way through the vermilion
vapour above. Big insects, similar to terrestrial dragonflies but without
wings, skipped across the snowlilies, only to be hurled tumbling by the
wind of the hovercraft’s passage. Vennals, burning with a pink-blue
radiance of charcoal embers, hung in the branches of the trees, watching
the small convoy rush past with wide, soft eyes.

Towards the middle of the morning, Reza stood up and signalled the second
hovercraft towards the northern bank where there was a break in the
trees. Ariadne rode the craft up the lush grass to a halt next to its
twin. Fenton and Ryall were already bounding off into the undergrowth.

“I didn’t want to datavise,” Reza said when they all gathered round. “And
from now on we’ll operate a policy of minimal electronic emission.
Ariadne, have you detected any broadcasts from the invaders?”

“Not yet. I’ve had our ELINT blocks scanning since we landed. The
electromagnetic spectrum is clean. If they’re communicating it’s either
by ultra-tight beam, or fibre optics.”

“They could be using affinity, or an analogue,” Pat said.

“In that case, you can forget homing in on them,” she said. “Nobody can
intercept that kind of transmission.”

“What about the blackhawks?” Jalal asked. “Could they detect it?”

“No good,” Pat said. “They can’t even detect the bond between me and
Octan, let alone some xenoc variant.”

“Never mind,” Reza said. “The Quallheim Counties were the origin of the
invasion. There has to be a large base station around here somewhere.
We’ll find it. In the meantime, there is a village called Pamiers a
couple of kilometres ahead. Pat says Octan has located it.”

“That’s right,” Pat Halrahan said. “He’s circling it now, at a reasonable
distance. The whole place is illuminated with white light, yet there is
no break in the cloud overhead. There are houses there as well, about
thirty or forty proper stone buildings alongside the wood shacks the
colonists build.”

“Smith said there were buildings like that in villages the observation
satellites did manage to view,” Reza said.

“Yeah, but I can’t see where they came from,” Pat said. “There are no
roads at all, no way to bring the stone in.”

“Air or river,” Sewell suggested.

“Invade a planet then airlift in stone houses for the population?” Pat
said. “Come on, this is weird, but not insane. Besides, there is no sign
of any construction activity. The grass and paths haven’t been churned
up. And they should have been, the houses have only been here a fortnight
at most.”

“They could be something like our programmed silicon,” Kelly said, and
rapped a gloved knuckle on the hard gunwale behind her. “Assembled in
minutes, and easily airlifted in.”

“They look substantial,” Pat said with vague unease. “I know that’s not
an objective opinion, but that’s the way it feels. They’re solid.”

“How many people?” Reza asked.

“Twenty or twenty-five walking about. There must be more inside.”

“OK, this is our first real chance to obtain serious Intelligence data as
to what’s going on down here,” Reza said. “We’re going to deactivate the
hovercraft and cut through the jungle around the back of Pamiers. After
we’ve reached the river again and set up a retreat option, I’ll take
Sewell and Ariadne with me into the village, while the rest of you
provide us with some cover. Assume anyone you meet is hostile and
sequestrated. Any questions?”

“I’d like to come into Pamiers with you,” Kelly said.

“Your decision,” Reza said indifferently. “Any real questions?”

“What information are we looking for?” Ariadne asked.

“Intent and capability,” Reza said. “Also physical disposition of their
forces, if we can get it.”

Hackles raised inside her armour, Kelly let the team shove a couple of
hovercraft electron matrices into her pack before they all set off again.
Reza didn’t want them to walk in single file, for fear of ambush; instead
they fanned out through the trees with chameleon circuits on, avoiding
animal paths. There was a method of trekking through the raw jungle,
Kelly learnt, and for her it was always walking where Jalal walked. He
seemed to instinctively find the easiest way around trees and thick
undergrowth, avoiding having to force his way against the clawing
branches and heavy loam. So she kept her helmet sensors focused on the
low-power UV pin-point light at the nape of his neck, and bullied her
legs to keep up.

It took them fifty minutes to skirt the village and wind up back at the
river. Sewell and Jalal set to activating the hovercraft at the top of a
short slope above the water. Kelly dumped her pack into the locker at the
rear of the second craft, and felt as though she could fly without the
extra weight. With equipment stowed, the team fitted their weapons,
checked power and projectile magazines, and set off back towards Pamiers.



Reza found the first corpse two hundred metres short of the village
clearing. It was Ryall who smelt it for him, a sharp tang of dead flesh
which even the jungle’s muggy air couldn’t disguise. He sent the hound
veering off towards it. Ryall promptly smelt another corpse, causing Reza
to hurriedly damped down his reception of the hound’s olfactory sense.

It was a child, about five or six, he guessed. Ryall had found it sitting
huddled up at the foot of a mayope tree. Age was hard to determine; there
wasn’t a lot left, so he had to go by size. Insects and humidity had
accelerated the decomposition, though it was strange no animal had
disturbed it. According to his didactic memory, sayce were supposed to be
fairly brutal carnivores.

He led Sewell, Kelly, and Ariadne through the trees to the body, and
dispatched Ryall to the second.

“It’s a girl,” Ariadne said after examining the remains. She held up a
nondescript length of filthy, dripping-wet fabric. “This is a skirt.”

Reza wasn’t going to argue. “How did she die?” he asked.

“There are no broken bones, no sign of violence. Judging by the way she’s
curled up between the roots I’d say she crawled here to die. Poisoned?
Starving? No way of knowing now.”

“Scared of the invaders,” Reza said thoughtfully. “They probably didn’t
bother to sequestrate the children.”

“You mean the adults just ignored her?” Kelly asked in disgust.

“Ignored her, or drove her away. A child like this wouldn’t walk around
in the jungle by herself. The village had been established long enough
for her to pick up basic jungle lore.”

Ryall trotted up to the second corpse, emitting a warm feeling of
satisfaction as his muzzle touched the putrefying flesh. Reza picked up
the sense of accomplishment and expanded the affinity band allowing
himself to see through the hound’s enhanced retinas. “It’s another kid,”
he told them. “A bit older, there’s a baby in its arms.” Ryall could
scent more decaying meat in the humid air, three or four blends, all
subtly different. Closer to the river, Fenton had picked up a further
series of traces. “My God,” Reza growled in a dismayed whisper. “They’re
everywhere, all around.”

A village like Pamiers would start off with a population of about five
hundred. Say two hundred families, and they’ve been here a couple of
years. That would mean about a hundred and fifty children.

He stood, scanning the jungle. Slender yellow target graphics slid up
over the black and red image in an uncomplicated, unprogrammed reflex. He
wanted to shoot something dead. His neural nanonics ordered a slight
endocrine effusion, stabilizing the sudden hormonal surge.

“Come on, she can’t help us any more,” he said, and began pushing briskly
through the bushes and vines towards the village. He turned his chameleon
circuit off, and after a few paces the others followed suit.

Pamiers followed the standard configuration of settlements along the
Juliffe’s tributaries. A semicircular clearing chopped out of the jungle
along the side of the river. Crude single-storey houses clustered
together in no particular order at the centre, along with larger barns, a
church, a meeting hall, an Ivet compound. Wooden jetties ventured ten or
fifteen metres into the water, with a few fishing skiffs tied up. Fields
and plots ringed the outside, a surfeit of crops pushing out of rich
black loam.

However, Pamiers’ layout was all that remained recognizable as the four
of them stepped out of the trees.

“Where is this light coming from?” Kelly asked, looking round in
surprised confusion. As Pat had reported, the village bathed luxuriantly
in a bright pool of sunlight, and yellow pollen was thick in the air. She
scanned the cloud overhead, but there was no break. Thunder, muted while
they were in the trees, rolled insistently around them once more.

Ariadne walked on a few paces, activating her full implant sensor suite
as well as the specialist blocks clipped to her belt. She turned a
complete circle, sampling the environment. “It’s omnidirectional. We’re
not even leaving shadows. See?”

“Like an AV projection,” Reza said.

“Yes and no. The spectrum matches Lalonde’s sun.”

“Let’s go see what those new houses are made of,” he said.

Pamiers’ fields had been left untended. Terrestrial plants were fighting
a fierce battle for light and height with the vines that had surged out
of the jungle to reclaim their native territory. Fruit was hanging in
mouldy white clusters.

Yet inside the ring of fields, the grass around the houses was short and
tidy, studded with what looked suspiciously like terrestrial daisies.
When he had studied the sheriff’s satellite images on the flight from
Tranquillity Reza had seen the way the village clearings were worn down
and streaked with muddy runnels. Grass and weeds grew in patchy clumps.
But this was an even, verdant carpet that matched Tranquillity’s parkland
for vitality.

Stranger still were the houses.

Apart from three burnt-out ruins, the original wooden shacks had been
left standing, their planks bleached a pale grey, shuttered windows open
to the weather, bark slates slipping and curling, solar-cell panels
flapping loosely. They were uninhabited, that was obvious at a glance.
Mosses, tufts of grass, and green moulds were tucked into corners and
flourishing promisingly. But jammed at random between the creaky cabins
were the new structures. None of them was the same, with architectural
styles ranging across centuries—a beautiful two-storey Tudor cottage, an
Alpine lodge, a Californian millionaire’s cinderblock ranch, a circular
black landcoral turret, a marble and silverglass pyramid, a marquee which
resembled a cross between a Bedouin tent and a medieval European
pavilion, complete with heraldic pennants fluttering on tall poles.

“Having some trouble with my blocks,” Ariadne said. “Several
malfunctions. Guido and communications are right out.”

“If it begins to affect the weapons we’ll pull back,” Reza cautioned.
“Keep running diagnostic programs.”

They cleared the fields and started to walk over the grass. Ahead of them
a woman in a long blue polka-dot dress was pushing a waist-high
gloss-black trolley that had a white parasol above it, and huge spindly
wheels with chrome wire spokes. Whatever it was, it was impossibly
primitive. Reza loaded the image’s pixel pattern into his neural nanonics
with an order to run a comparison search program through his
encyclopaedia. Three seconds later the program reported it was a
European/North American style pram circa 1910–50.

He walked over to the woman, who was humming softly. She had a long face
that was crudely painted in so much make-up it was almost a clown’s mask,
with dark brown hair worn in a severe bun, encased by a net. She smiled
up happily at the four members of the team, as though their weapons and
equipment and boosted form were of no consequence.

That simpleton smile was the last straw for Reza, whose nerves were
already stretched painfully thin. Either she was retarded, or this whole
village was an incredibly warped trap. He activated his short-range
precision sensors, and scanned her in both electromagnetic and magnetic
spectrums, then linked the return into a fire-command protocol. Any
change in her composition (such as an implant switching on or a neural
nanonics transmission) and his forearm rifle would slam five EE rounds
into her. The rest of his sensors were put into a track-while-scan mode,
allowing his neural nanonics to keep tabs on the other villagers he could
see walking about among the buildings behind her. He had to use four
backup units, several principal sensors had packed up altogether. The
overall resolution was way down on the clarity he was used to.

“What the fucking hell’s going on here?” he demanded.

“I have my baby again,” she said in a lilting tone. “Isn’t he gorgeous?”

“I asked you a question. And you will now answer.”

“Do as he says,” Kelly said hastily. “Please.”

The woman turned to her. “Don’t worry, my dear. You can’t hurt me. Not
now, not any more. Would you like to see my baby? I thought I’d lost him.
I lost so many back then. It was horrible, all those dead babies. The
midwives tried to stop me seeing them; but I looked just the same. They
were all perfect, so beautiful, my babies. An evil life it was.” She bent
forwards over the pram and lifted out a squirming bundle draped in lacy
white cloth. The baby cooed as she held it out.

“Where have you come from?” Reza asked. “Are you the sequestration
program?”

“I have my life back. I have my baby back. That’s what I am.”

Ariadne stepped forward. “I’m going to get a sample from one of those
buildings.”

“Right,” Reza said. “Sewell, go with her.”

The two of them walked round the woman and started off towards the
nearest house, a whitewashed Spanish hacienda.

The baby let out a long gurgle, smiling blithely, feet kicking inside the
wrap. “Isn’t he just adorable,” the woman said. She tickled his face with
a finger.

“One more time,” Reza said. “What are you?”

“I am me. What else could I be?”

“And that?” He pointed to the cloud.

“That is part of us. Our will.”

“Us? Who is us?”

“Those who have returned.”

“Returned from where?”

She rocked the baby against her chest, not even looking up. “From hell.”

“She’s either nuts, or she’s lying,” Reza said.

“She’s been sequestrated,” Kelly said. “You won’t get anything out of
her.”

“So sure of yourselves,” the woman said. She gave Kelly a sly look as she
cuddled the baby. “So stupid. Your starships have been fighting among
themselves. Did you know that?”

Reza’s neural nanonics’ optical-monitor program reported more people were
appearing from the houses. “What do you know about it?”

“We know what we feel, the pain and the iron fire. Their souls weeping in
the beyond.”

“Can we check?” Kelly asked urgently.

“Not from here.”

The woman laughed, a nervous cackle. “There aren’t many left to check, my
dear. You won’t hear from them again. We’re taking this planet away,
right away. Somewhere safe, where the ships can never come to find us. It
will become paradise, you know. And my baby will be with me always.”

Reza regarded her with a chill of foreboding. “Yes, you are a part of
this,” he said quietly. The yellow target graphics locked on to her
torso. “What is happening here?”

“We are come, and we are not going to leave. Soon the whole world will be
hiding from the sky. From heaven. And we shall live on in peace for ever.”

“There will be more of this red cloud?”

The woman slowly tilted her head back until she was staring straight up.
Her mouth fell open as though in wonder. “I see no clouds.” She started
to laugh wildly.

Reza saw Ariadne had reached the hacienda. The ranger scout was bending
over, scraping at the wall with some kind of tool. Sewell was standing
behind her, the long gaussrifle barrels he had plugged into his lower
elbow sockets swivelling from side to side in an automatic sweep pattern.

“Ariadne,” Reza bellowed. “Get back here. We’re leaving now.”

The woman’s laughter chopped off. “No, you’re not.” She dropped the baby.

It was Reza’s infrared sensors which caught the change. A wave of heat
emerged right across her body and started to flow like a film of liquid,
rushing along her arms as she brought them up, becoming denser, hotter.

His left forearm’s gaussgun fired five electron explosive rounds just as
a white light ignited around her hands. There was three metres between
them. Impact velocity alone would have been enough to tear her body
apart, with the EEs detonating as well there was nothing left for the
last three rounds to hit.

Kelly’s armour hardened protectively as the blast wave slammed into her.
Then she screamed as a jet of spumescent gore slopped across the front of
the paralysed fabric.

“Sewell, zero the area!” Reza shouted.

The twin heavy-calibre gaussrifles the big combat-adept mercenary carried
began to blaze, squirting out a barrage of EE projectiles. Emerald-green
laser beams emerging from Reza and Ariadne snapped on and off, traversing
the clearing in a strobe waltz as their lighter weapons picked off
targets.

Kelly’s armour unlocked. She fell to her knees, centimetres from the
baby. Her hand went out instinctively, twitching the blood-soaked lace
aside to see if it was still alive.

There was a vennal inside the wrap. The little xenoc creature had been
distorted, its vulpine skull swollen and moulded into a more globular
shape, scales melded together and stretched. They were losing their
distinctive blue-green pigmentation, fading to pale pink. Its forepaws
had become chubby, tiny human hands scrabbled feebly at the air. Squeals
of terror emerged from its toothless mouth.

Her neural nanonics were unable to quell her stomach spasm in time. An
emergency program triggered the shell-helmet’s quick-release seal, and
the visor sprang open. She vomited onto the neatly mown grass.

Sewell ran backwards across the grass, making almost as much speed as he
could travelling forward. An autonomic locomotion program took care of
that, guiding his feet round possible obstacles, leaving his conscious
thoughts free to assist with target selection.

The first fire sequence had ripped into the houses, smashing them apart
in plumes of ionic flame and smoke. Even Sewell, who was aiming for
maximum destruction, was surprised by the devastating effect the rifles
inflicted. As soon as the first EE projectile hit the buildings their
bright colours switched off, leaving behind a neutral grey. The rifles
laid down a comprehensive fire pattern. Walls and roofs buckled and
collapsed, sending out billowing clouds of thick dust, support timbers
splintered then seemed to crumble. Within seconds the whole area had been
reduced to pulverized rubble. The old shacks bent and bowed before the
pressure blasts; they were far sturdier than the new houses. Several
keeled over, wood twisting and shrieking. Slate-tile roofs somersaulted,
intact walls slewed through the air rippling like giant mantas.

Sewell switched to the people, concentrating on coordinates where the
target-allocation program had located individuals. The feed tubes from
his backpack magazine hummed smoothly as they supplied the gaussrifles
with fresh ammunition. There had been eighteen people visible to his
sensors before Reza’s shouted order. He pumped airburst shrapnel rounds
after them as they dived for cover amid the shattered houses.

Infrared sensors showed him eccentric waves of heat shimmering amid the
expanding dust. White fire, like an earthbound comet, streaked towards
him. Boosted muscles flung him aside. The gaussrifles swung round to the
origin, compensating for his dive. EE projectiles pummelled the area.

“Up, you bitch!” Reza yelled at Kelly. “Back to the hovercraft.”

She rolled over, seeing a fermenting red cloudscape sky lit by green
lasers and white fireballs. Fear and hatred fired her limbs and she
jerked to her feet. The houses were a flattened circle belching smoke and
dust. White fire raged in a spiral maelstrom above them, slinging out
splinters that arced overhead. Trees fell and fire bloomed where they
struck the wall of jungle. Sewell and Ariadne were charging towards her,
both firing back into the rubble.

Kelly took three paces towards the trees then stopped. She pulled her
nine-millimetre automatic pistol from her holster in one smooth movement.
The gun’s familiarization and targeting program went into primary mode,
and she fired two bullets into the mutated vennal. Then she sprinted
after Reza, neural nanonics releasing a torrent of adrenalin and
amphetamines into her bloodstream.

Pain stabbed into the back of Ariadne’s left thigh as the fireball struck
her. Neural nanonics erected an analgesic block straight away.
Compensator programs shifted her balance, favouring her right leg,
activating those left thigh muscles which remained functional. Valves in
the veins and arteries of her pelvis and knee sealed, limiting the blood
loss. Her speed was barely reduced. She caught up with Kelly just as a
fireball hit the reporter in the side of her ribs.

Kelly’s armour gleamed an all-over ruby as it tried to disperse the
energy. A circle of the suit flared as it melted. The fire lingered round
the rent, chewing at the exposed skin. She stumbled and fell, rolling on
the damp loam of an overgrown strawberry patch, beating wildly at the
flame with her gauntlets.

“Keep going,” Ariadne shouted. Her targeting program located another
figure moving through the thinning dust cloud. The TIP pistol plugged
into her wrist socket fired a burst of energy at it.

The entire left side of Kelly’s ribs had gone numb, frightening her at a
deeper level than programs or chemicals could relieve. None of the
mercenaries were slowing down. They’re not going to help me!

Kelly ordered her neural nanonics to override her trembling muscles and
scrambled to her feet. Her integral medical program was signalling for
attention. She ignored it and ran on. The clearing’s sourceless sunlight
went out, plunging her back into the stark red and black landscape of the
infrared image.

It took her eight minutes to reach the hovercraft. Eight minutes of
furiously punching vines out of her way and skidding on mud while the
three mercenaries hurled out a barrage of fire through the jungle to
cover their retreat. Eight minutes of white fireballs twisting and
swerving round trunks, pursuing the team with the tenacity of smart
seeker missiles. Of thunder roaring overhead and flinging down stupendous
lightning bolts that rocked the ground. Sudden impossible gusts of wind
rising from nowhere to slap her around like a lightweight doll. Of neural
nanonic programs and endocrine implant effusions assuming more and more
control of her body as its natural functions faltered under the
unrelenting demands of her flight.

One hovercraft was already rushing down the slope into the
snowlily-congested river when she arrived at the little glade.

“Bastards!” she yelled weakly.

Lightning struck twenty metres behind her, sending her sprawling. Reza
was sitting behind the second hovercraft’s control panel, hand playing
over the switches. The impeller fans began to spin, forcing air into the
skirt. It began to rise slowly upwards; Sewell and Sal Yong stood on
either side of it, their gaussrifles blasting away at unseen targets.

Kelly started to crawl. The first of the white fireballs shot out of the
trees, curving round to drop on the hovercraft. Lightning flashed down
again. A mayope tree toppled over with a sepulchral splintering. It
crashed down ten metres behind her, one of the upper boughs coming down
straight on top of her legs. Her armour stiffened, and her bent knees
were pushed sharply into the yielding loam.

“Wait!” Kelly begged in a rasp. “For fuck’s sake, you shitheads. Wait!”

The hovercraft’s skirt was fully inflated, twigs and leaves were thrown
out from under the thick rubbery fabric. Sewell hopped over the gunwale.

“Jesus God, I can’t move. Help me!” Her vision contracted to a tunnel
with the hovercraft at the far end.

“Help me!”

Sewell was standing in the middle of the hovercraft. One of his
gaussrifles turned towards her. Leaves and small branches rustled and
slithered like serpents over her legs, she could feel them coiling round
her calves. Then Sewell fired. The explosions sent her cartwheeling over
the ground. She slammed into something hard. It grated along the side of
her armour suit. Moving. Hovercraft! Her hands scrabbled with animal
passion against it. And she was being lifted effortlessly into the air.
Rationality ended there and she kicked and flailed against the air. “No!
No! No!”

“Easy there, Kell, I’ve got you.”

Her world spun round as the big mercenary dumped her unceremoniously on
the floor of the hovercraft. She gagged, limbs juddering as the neural
nanonics stopped sending out compulsive overrides. After a minute she
began to sob, the quivering muscle motions starting deep in her belly and
emerging through her mouth.

“You made it,” Sal Yong said later. How much later Kelly didn’t know, her
mind was furred with tranquillizers, thoughts slow. She tried to sit up,
and winced at the bands of pain tightening around her ribs. A medical
diagram unfolded inside her skull. Her body’s decay in unwelcome detail.

“The tree!” she barked hoarsely.

“We got it,” Sewell said. “Shitfire, but that was weird.”

“You were going to leave me!” Panic set her skin crawling. Blue lights
flashed silently around the physiological display. More tranquillizers.

“You’re going to have to learn to keep up, Kell,” Reza said in his normal
level tones. “We’re on a combat mission. I told you when we started, I
can’t spare anyone for baby-sitting duties.”

“Yes.” She flopped back down. “So you did. I’m sorry.” I simply didn’t
realize you were serious, that you would leave a fellow human being
behind, to face . . . that.

“Hey, you did all right,” Sal Yong said. “Lotsa people would have screwed
up, they had all that shit thrown at them.”

“Oh, thanks.”

There were mechanical clunks from somewhere behind her as Sewell detached
his gaussrifles. “Let’s see about getting that armour off you, Kell. You
look like you could do with some field aid.” She felt him touch the
suit’s seal catch, and then humid sticky air was sliding over her skin.
Her helmet came off, and she blinked dizzily.

Sewell was sitting on a bench above her, holding a couple of medical
nanonic packages. Kelly avoided looking at her ribs; the physiological
display was bad enough.

“Looks like I’m not the only one,” she said, smiling bravely. His
artificial skin was pitted with small deep blackened craters where the
white fire had struck, including a long score on the side of his glossy
head. Blood and fluid dribbled out of the cracks each time he moved. “Or
are you going to say they’re just flesh wounds?”

“Nothing critical.”

“Oh, crap, I’m drowning in macho culture.”

“You can put your gun down now, Kell.”

The nine-millimetre pistol was still in her hand, fingers solidified
round its grip. She gave it a bewildered stare. “Right. Good idea.”

He tilted her gently on her right side, then peeled the covering off the
nanonic package. It moulded itself to her left side, curving round to
cover her from her navel to her spine. The colours of her physiological
display changed, reds diluting to amber, as it began knitting itself to
her wound.

“Where are we going?” she asked. The hovercraft was moving faster than it
had before. Humidity was making her sweat all over, the smell of
vegetation was rank, itching her throat. Lying half-naked racing through
a xenoc jungle being chased by monsters and cut off from any hope of
rescue. She knew she ought to be reduced virtually to hysterics, yet
really it was almost funny. You wanted a tough assignment, my girl.

“Aberdale,” Reza said. “According to the LDC’s chief sheriff, that’s
where the first reported trouble started.”

“Of course,” Kelly answered. There was a strange kind of strength on the
far side of utter despair, she found, or maybe it was just the
tranquillizers.

“Kell?”

She closed her leaden eyelids. “Yes.”

“Why did you shoot the baby?”

“You don’t want to know.”



The navy squadron closed on Lalonde at seven gees, crews prone on their
acceleration couches with faces screwed up against the lead-weighted air
which lay on top of them. When they were seventeen thousand kilometres
out, the fusion flames died away and the starships rotated a hundred and
eighty degrees in a virtuoso display of synchronization, ion thrusters
crowning them in a triumphant blue haze. The Arikara and the Shukyo
released twenty combat communication-relay satellites, streaking away at
ten gees to englobe the planet. Then the warships began to decelerate.

As the merciless gee force returned to Arikara’s bridge Meredith Saldana
accessed the tactical display. The voidhawks had performed small swallow
manoeuvres, taking them to within two and a half thousand kilometres of
the planet and curving into orbit ahead of the Adamist warships to which
such short-range precision jumps were impossible. But the mercenary fleet
was leading the bitek starships a merry dance. Three blackhawks were
racing away from Lalonde, striving for the magic two thousand kilometre
altitude where they would be outside the influence of the planet’s
gravitational field, allowing them to swallow away. Voidhawks were in
pursuit. Four of the nine combat-capable independent traders were also
under acceleration. Two of them, Datura and Cereus, were heading on a
vector straight towards the squadron at two and a half gees. They
wouldn’t respond to any warning calls from the Arikara, nor Terrance
Smith.

“Haria, Gakkai, go to defensive engagement status, please,” Meredith
datavised. The situation display showed him the two frigates end their
deceleration burn, flip over, and accelerate ahead of the rest of the
squadron.

“What is the state of the remaining mercenary ships?” the Admiral
enquired.

“Smith claims the starships remaining in orbit are obeying his orders,
and therefore haven’t been hijacked,” said Lieutenant Franz Grese, the
squadron Intelligence officer.

“What do you think?”

“I think Commander Solanki was right, and we’d better be very careful,
Admiral.”

“Agreed. Commander Kroeber, we’ll send a marine squad into the Gemal
first. If we can verify that Smith himself hasn’t been hijacked or
sequestrated it may just make our job that bit easier.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The tactical situation warned him the Datura and Cereus were launching
combat wasps. Meredith observed in astonishment as each of them released
a salvo of thirty-five; according to the accompanying identification
codes the starships were small vehicles, forty to forty-five metres in
diameter. They couldn’t have held back any reserves—what absurd tactics.
The drone armaments began to accelerate from their launch craft at twenty
gees.

“No antimatter, Admiral,” datavised Second Lieutenant Clark Lowie, the
Arikara’s weapons officer. “Fusion drives only.”

That’s something, Meredith thought. “What’s their storage capacity?”

“Best estimate would be forty combat wasps maximum, Admiral.”

“So they haven’t left any for their own defence?”

“Looks that way, sir.”

Haria and Gakkai launched a counter salvo; eighty combat wasps leaping
ahead to intercept the incoming hostiles at twenty-seven gees. Purple,
red, and green vector lines sprang up in Meredith’s mind, as if someone
was performing laser acupuncture right across his skull. The combat wasps
started to squirt megawatt electronic warfare pulses at each other.
Active and kinetic submunitions began to scatter. Two disc-shaped swarms
formed, five hundred kilometres across, alive with deceitful impulses and
infrared signatures. Electron beams flashed out, perfectly straight
lightning bolts glaring against the starfield. The first explosions
flared. Kiloton nuclear devices were detonated on each side. Smaller
explosions followed as combat wasps blew apart under the prodigious
energy impact.

A second, smaller, salvo was launched by the frigates, compensating for
the loss.

“Admiral, the Myoho reports the blackhawk it’s chasing is about to
swallow outsystem,” Lieutenant Rhoecus called. “Request permission to
follow.”

“Granted. Follow and interdict; it is not to come into contact with
inhabited Confederation territory.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

A vast circle of space burst into pyrotechnic oblivion as the two
antagonistic combat wasp swarms collided, as though a giant wormhole had
been torn open into the heart of a nearby star. The annular plasma storm
eddied violently, radiating down through the visible spectrum in seconds
until only nebulous violet mists were left.

Arikara’s sensor clusters struggled to burn through the conflagration and
present an accurate representation of events through the tactical
situation display. Some submunitions from both sides had survived. Now
they were accelerating towards their intended targets. All four combatant
ships began high-gee evasive manoeuvres.

Myoho and its blackhawk disappeared from the display. Granth and Ilex
both fired a volley of combat wasps at their respective prey.

Haria’s masers began to fire as the remaining submunitions closed on it.
Small vivid explosions peppered nearby space. Rail guns thumped out a
stream of steel spheres which formed a last-ditch kinetic umbrella. Eight
surviving submunitions drones detected it, three of them were gamma-pulse
lasers. A second before they struck the umbrella they fired.

Large oval sections of the frigate’s hull turned cherry red under the
radiation assault. Molecular-binding generators maxed out as they fought
to keep the monobonded silicon’s structure intact. The energy-dispersal
web below the silicon struggled to absorb and redistribute the intense
influx. All the sensor clusters either melted or had their electronics
burnt out by the gamma-ray deluge. Replacement clusters rose immediately;
but the starship was blind for a period of three seconds.

In that time the remaining five submunitions hit the kinetic umbrella.
They disintegrated instantly, but hypervelocity fragments kept coming.
With the sensors unable to see them and direct the frigate’s close-range
weapons they struck the hull and vaporized. The binding generators,
already heavily stressed, couldn’t handle the additional loading. There
were half a dozen localized punctures. Fists of plasma punched inwards.
Internal systems melted and fused as they were exposed. Fuel tanks ripped
open sending hundred-metre fountains of vaporizing deuterium shooting out.

“Bellah, assist, please,” Commander Kroeber ordered. “Rescue and
recovery.” The stricken frigate’s emergency beacon was howling across the
distress bands. The life-support capsules should have easily withstood
the strike. Even as he requested more information from the computer the
sensor image showed him ion thrusters firing to slow the frigate’s
wayward tumble.

With all of their combat-wasp stocks exhausted in the first salvo, Datura
and Cereus were left with only short-range masers to defend themselves
against the assault from the frigates’ drones. The electronic warfare
barrage was unrelenting as the drones closed at twenty gees, defeating
the starships’ sensors. The two mercenary starships exploded within
seconds of each other.

A cheer went round the Arikara’s bridge. Meredith felt like joining in.

“Admiral, another blackhawk is leaving orbit,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said.

Meredith cursed, he really couldn’t spare another voidhawk. A quick check
on the tactical display revealed little information, the blackhawk was on
the other side of Lalonde from the squadron. “Which is the nearest
voidhawk?”

“The Acacia, Admiral.”

“Can they hit it with combat wasps?”

“They have a launch window, but estimate only a thirty per cent chance of
success.”

“Tell them to launch, but remain in orbit.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Bellah reports survivors from the Haria have been detected, Admiral,”
Commander Kroeber said. “They’re matching velocities.”

“Good. Hinnels, has there been any reaction from the Juliffe cloud bands?”

“Nothing specific, sir. But they’ve been growing wider at a constant
rate, the area they’re covering has increased by one and a half per cent
since we arrived. It adds up to a respectable volume.”

Another combat-wasp battle raged high above Lalonde’s terminator as the
drones from the Granth encountered defences fired by their prey. Then the
blackhawk vanished down a wormhole interstice. Three seconds later Granth
followed.

“Damn,” Meredith muttered.

But the Ilex was having better luck. Its combat-wasp salvo had forced the
blackhawk it was chasing to flee back down towards the planet.

The Admiral requested a channel to the Gemal. “We shall be boarding you
first, Smith. Any resistance and the marines will shoot to kill,
understood?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Terrance Smith replied.

“Have you received any updates from the teams you landed?”

“Not yet. I expect most of them were sequestrated,” he added gloomily.

“Tough. I want you to broadcast a message that their mission is over. We
will pick up any survivors if at all possible. But none of them is to
attempt to penetrate under the cloud, no hunting of enemy bases. This is
now a Confederation Navy problem. I don’t want the invaders antagonized
unduly.” Not while my squadron is so close to that bloody cloud, he
finished silently. It was the sheer quantity of power involved again.
Frightening. And the berserk way the hijacked ships were behaving didn’t
help.

“I’m not sure I can guarantee that, Admiral,” Smith said.

“Why not?”

“I issued the team leaders with kiloton nukes. It would give them a
fall-back in case the starships were unable to provide strike power. I
was worried the captains might balk at bombarding a planetary surface.”

If it hadn’t been for the fierce gee force Meredith would have put his
head in his hands. “Smith, if you get out of this with your life, it
won’t be on my account.”

“Well, fuck you!” Terrance Smith yelled. “You Saldana bastard, why do you
think I had to hire these people in the first place? It’s because Lalonde
is too poor to rate decent navy protection. Where were you when the
invaders landed? You would never have come to help us put down that first
insurrection, because it didn’t affect your precious financial interests.
Money, that’s what you shits respect. What the hell would you know about
ordinary people suffering? You were born with a silver spoon in your
mouth that’s so big it’s sticking out through your arse. The only reason
you’re here now is because you’re frightened the invasion might spread to
worlds you own, that it might hit your credit balance. I’m doing what I
can for my people.”

“And that includes nuking them, does it?” Meredith asked. He’d been
subject to anti-Saldana bigotry for so long now the insults never even
registered. “They’re sequestrated, you cretin, they don’t even know
they’re your people any more. This invasion isn’t going to be beaten by
brute force. Now, you will broadcast that message, make the mercenary
teams turn back.”

The tactical display sounded an alarm. A broad fan of curving purple
vector lines were rising high over Wyman, Lalonde’s small arctic
continent. Someone behind the planet had launched a salvo of fifty-five
combat wasps.

“My God,” Meredith muttered. “Lowie, what are they aimed at?”

“Unclear, Admiral. There is no single target, it’s a rogue salvo. But
from the vectors I’d say they were seeking to engage anything in the
thousand-kilometre orbit . . . Bloody hell.”

A second salvo, of equal size, was curving round the south pole.



“Jesus, that’s a neat pincer movement,” Joshua said. At some ridiculous
private level he was delighted he didn’t need any intervention from his
neural nanonics to remain calm. He felt his mind function with that same
cool reserve which had manifested itself back in the Ruin Ring when
Neeves and Sipika appeared.

This is me, what I am: a starship captain.

The Lady Mac’s three fusion drives came on almost without conscious
thought. “Stand by for combat gees,” he warned.

“How many?” Sarha asked nervously.

“How high is up?”

Other starships were getting under way, retracting their thermo-dump
panels. Three of them launched combat wasps in a defensive cluster
formation.

“Remain in orbit,” Smith ordered over the command net. “The navy squadron
will provide us with protective cover from the salvo.”

“Like bollocks they will,” Joshua said. The squadron was still four
minutes from orbital injection. A sensor scan revealed blackhawks and
voidhawks alike racing up for a higher altitude; the slower Adamist
starships were following, with three exceptions, Gemal one of them.

The gee force in Lady Mac’s bridge passed five gees. Ashly groaned in
dismay. “My bones can’t take this.”

“You’re younger than me,” Warlow countered.

“I’m more human, too.”

“Wimp.”

“Castrated mechanoid.”

Sarha suddenly noticed the trajectory Joshua had loaded into the flight
computer. “Joshua! Where the hell are you taking us?”

Lady Mac was rising above the equatorial plane at seven gees, decreasing
altitude at the same time.

“We’re going under them.”

“This trajectory is going to graze the atmosphere!”

He watched more of the mercenary starships launching combat wasps. “I
know.” It had been an instinctive manoeuvre, opposing every tactic
program in the flight computer’s memory core; they all said altitude was
the key in orbital combat situations, giving you more room to manoeuvre,
more flexibility. Everyone else in the little mercenary fleet was
clinging to that doctrine, escaping from Lalonde with fusion drives
operating way out on the limit. “Dad was always telling me about this
one,” he said in what he hoped was a confident manner. “He always used it
in a scrape. Lady Mac’s still about, isn’t she?”

“Your bloody father isn’t!” Sarha had to datavise, she couldn’t expel
enough air from her lungs to talk. The acceleration had reached nine
gees. She hadn’t known even Lady Mac could produce that kind of drive
level. Every internal membrane supplement had turned rock hard. An
arterial implant at the base of her neck was injecting oxygen into her
bloodstream, making sure her brain didn’t starve. She couldn’t ever
remember having to use it before. Joshua Calvert, we are not a bloody
combat wasp!

“Look, it’s very simple,” he explained, trying to sort out the logic in
his own mind. As usual, rationality was trailing well behind impetuosity.
“Combat wasps are designed for deep-space operations. They can’t operate
in the atmosphere.”

“We are designed for deep-space operations!”

“Yes, but we’re spherical.”

Sarha couldn’t snarl, she would have dislocated her jaw bone; but she
managed to grate her teeth together.

Lady Macbeth flew over the Sarell continent in forty-five seconds,
arching down sharply towards the brown and yellow volcanic deserts. She
was three hundred kilometres in altitude when she passed over the
northern coastline; the north pole was two and a half thousand kilometres
ahead. Seven hundred kilometres above, and four thousand kilometres
ahead, the combat wasp salvo spotted her. Six of them abruptly altered
course and dived down.

“Here they come,” Joshua said. He fired eight of Lady Mac’s combat wasps,
programming them for a tight defence-shield formation. The drones leapt
upwards at twenty gees, scattering submunitions almost immediately.

Aft sensors showed the starships in orbit behind and above were releasing
more and more combat wasps. Even the Gemal was breaking out of its
thousand-kilometre orbit, the old colonist-carrier could only make one
and a half gees. And there was no escort, Joshua saw sadly. Far away to
the east, barely above the horizon, there was a volley of explosions
followed by the unmistakable larger smeared detonation of a starship.
Wonder who that was? It didn’t seem to matter much, only that it wasn’t
him.

“Melvyn, keep monitoring the grav-detector satellite data. I want to know
if any ships start jumping outsystem, and if possible where to.”

“I’m on it, Joshua.”

“Dahybi, I can’t believe the voidhawks can keep jamming our nodes with
all this going on, the second they slip I want to know.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The sensors showed Joshua the attacking combat wasps releasing their
submunitions. Particle beams lanced out from both swarms. “OK, everybody,
here we go.” He shot an order directly into the drive deflector coils,
and Lady Mac lurched downwards.

Meredith Saldana caught the crazy flight vector developing and datavised
a request into the tactical situation computer for confirmation. The
vector was recomputed and verified. Half of the squadron’s frigates would
be unable to produce a nine-gee thrust. “Who’s that idiot?” he asked in
reflex.

“Lady Macbeth, sir,” Lieutenant Franz Grese said. “None of the others
have triple-fusion drives.”

“Well, if they all suicide on us I shall be a very happy man.”

It wasn’t looking good. He had already changed the squadron’s operational
orbit from one thousand kilometres to two thousand three hundred, which
would give them a superior look-down shoot-down position—but only if the
mercenary ships stayed put. Injection was in ninety seconds. Combat wasps
were being launched at a prodigious rate from the mercenary fleet.
Intelligence and tactics programs couldn’t say which were defensive and
who was attacking whom. Each of his squadron’s ships had launched a
defence cluster salvo.

One of the voidhawks exploded with appalling savagery, and the victorious
blackhawk skirted its roiling debris plume to vanish into a wormhole
interstice.

“Who?” he asked Rhoecus.

“Ericra, but they saw the combat-wasp barrage approaching. Ilex has their
memory patterns safe.”

Even now, after all the truths he had seen in his cosmopolitan life,
Meredith felt the old twang of prejudice. Upon death, souls departed this
life for ever. It was the Christian way. They were not to be ensnared in
a mockery of God’s living creatures.

You can leave the Kingdom, he acknowledged jadedly, but it never leaves
you.

Go in peace, he prayed silently for the dead Edenists. Wherever you roam.

On a more pertinent level he was down to six voidhawks.

“Combat wasps have locked on to the Gemal, sir,” Clarke Lowie reported.

The gee force on the bridge was reducing rapidly as the Arikara slid into
orbit.

Thank Christ for small mercies, Meredith thought. “Commander Kroeber,
squadron to engage all combat wasps launched by the mercenary fleet.
We’ll sort out who’s friendly and who isn’t when events become a little
less immediate.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Arikara trembled as a salvo was fired.

“Issue a blanket order for all mercenary starships to cease acceleration
and evasive manoeuvres as soon as the combat wasps have been cleared.
Failure to comply will result in naval fire.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

When the Lady Mac reached one hundred kilometres’ altitude Joshua
withdrew all but five sensor clusters. Wyman’s fjord-etched coastline was
directly below. Three hundred kilometres overhead, the two combat-wasp
swarms were firing a fusillade of kinetic missiles and coherent radiation
at each other. They clashed at a closing speed of over seventy kilometres
per second. A patch of sky burst into pure white atomic fury, bringing a
transient dawn to the arctic continent’s month-long night underneath.

Eleven submunitions broke through to descend on the Lady Macbeth with
cybernetic mayhem in their silicon brains. Two of them were one-shot
gamma pulsers. They tracked the hurtling starship as it buffeted its way
through the upper atmosphere, then discharged the energy in their
electron matrices with one swift burst. The resulting gamma-ray beam
lasted for a quarter of a second.

A sheath of ions had already built up around the Lady Macbeth’s hull, a
tangerine florescence that radiated away from the forward fuselage in
hypersonic ripples. But they were swiftly lost against the incandescent
streams of energized helium emerging from the fusion tubes. The
stratosphere reeled from the unrestrained tumult of the starship’s
passage. Her exhaust stretched out over a hundred and fifty kilometres
behind her, evanescing into titanic electrical storms which lashed the
sharp icy steppes seventy-five kilometres below with a vigour that
threatened to split the glaciers open to the bedrock. Insubstantial green
and scarlet borealis spectres cavorted over the ice-encrusted continent
in a display which rivalled the bands over the Juliffe in scale.

“Breakthrough!” Warlow cried.

Systems schematics filled Joshua’s mind, laced with red symbols. The
hull’s molecular-binding generators, already labouring with the burden
imposed by the ion sheath, had overloaded in half a dozen places as the
gamma pulses drilled into the monobonded silicon.

He switched back to the flight management display. The thrust from one of
the fusion tubes was reducing. “Any physical violation?” The thought of
needles of blazing atmospheric gases searing in over the delicate modules
and tanks at this velocity was terrifying. Neural nanonics effused an
adrenalin antidote into his bloodstream.

“Negative, it’s all energy seepage. But there’s some heavy component
damage. Losing power from generator two, and I’ve got cryogenic leakages.”

“Compensate, then, just keep us functional. We’ll be through the
atmosphere in another twenty seconds.”

Sarha was already datavising a comprehensive list of instructions into
the flight computer, closing pipes and tanks, isolating damaged
sub-components, pumping vaporized coolant fluid from the malfunctioning
generator into emergency dump stores. Warlow began to help her,
prioritizing the power circuits.

“Three nodes are out, Joshua,” Dahybi reported.

“Irrelevant.” He took the starship down to sixty kilometres.

The nine remaining kinetic missile drones followed. They were, as Joshua
said, intended for deep space operation: basically a sensor cluster
riding on top of fuel tanks and a drive unit. There was no streamlining,
no outer fuselage; in a vacuum there was no need for such refinements.
All they had to do was collide with their victim, mass and velocity would
obey Newton’s equations and combine to complete the task. But now they
were flying through the mesosphere, a medium implacably alien and
hostile. Ionization started to accumulate around their blunt circular
sensor heads as the gas thickened, turning to long tongues of violet and
yellow flame which licked back along the body. Sensors burnt away in
seconds, exposing the guidance electronics to the radiant incoming
molecules. Blinded, crippled, subject to intolerable heat and friction
pressures, the kinetic drones detonated in garish starburst splendour
twenty kilometres above the Lady Macbeth.

The Arikara’s tactical situation display showed their vectors wink out
almost simultaneously. “Very smart,” Meredith said grudgingly. It took a
hell of a nerve to pilot a starship like that—nerve and egomaniacal
self-confidence. I doubt I would have that much gumption.

“Stand by. Evasive manoeuvring,” Commander Kroeber said.

And Meredith had no more time to reflect on the singular antics of Joshua
Calvert. Punishing gravity returned abruptly to the flagship’s bridge. A
third salvo of combat wasps leaped out of their launch-tubes.

Lady Macbeth soared out of the mesosphere, throwing off her dangerous
cloak of glowing molecules. Behind her, Wyman’s ice-fields glimmered
under eerie showers of ethereal light. Combat-sensor clusters rose out of
their hull recesses on short stalks, their golden-lensed optical scanners
searching round.

“We’re in the clear. Thank you, sweet Jesus.” Joshua reduced the thrust
from the fusion drives until it was a merely uncomfortable three gees.
Their trajectory was taking them straight away from the planet at a high
inclination. There were no combat wasps within four thousand kilometres.
I knew the old girl could do it. “Told you so,” he sang at the top of his
voice.

“Awesome,” Ashly said, and meant it.

On the couch next to Joshua, Melvyn shook his head in dazed admiration
despite the gee force.

“Thanks, Joshua,” Sarha said gently.

“My pleasure. Now, damage assessments please. Dahybi, can we jump?”

“I’ll need time to run more diagnostics. But even if we can jump it isn’t
going to be far. Those three nodes were physically wrecked by the gamma
pulses. Our energy patterns will have to be recalculated. Ideally, we
need to replace the nodes first.”

“We’re only carrying two spares. I’m not made of money. Dad always jumped
with nodes damaged and—”

“Don’t,” Sarha pleaded. “Just for once, Joshua. Let’s deal with the
present, OK?”

“Somebody’s jumped outsystem,” Melvyn said. “The grav-detector satellites
registered at least two distortions while we were performing our dodo
impersonation, I think there may have been a wormhole interstice opened
as well. I can’t tell for sure, half of the satellites have dropped out.”

“There is no jamming from the voidhawks any more,” Dahybi said.

“OK, great. Warlow, Sarha, how are our systems coping?”

“Number two generator’s out,” Warlow said. “I’ve shut it down. It took
the main strike from the gamma rays. Lucky really, most of the energy was
absorbed by its casing. We’ll have to dump it when we dock, it’s got a
half-life longer than some geological eras now.”

“And I’d like you to stop using the number one fusion-drive tube,” Sarha
said. “The injection ionizers are damaged. Other than that, nothing
serious, we’ve got some leaks and some component glitches. But none of
the life-support capsules were breached, and our
environmental-maintenance equipment is fully functional.”

“Got another jumper,” Melvyn called out.

Joshua reduced thrust to one gee, cutting drive tube one altogether, then
accessed the sensors. “Jesus, will you look at that?”

Lalonde had acquired its own ring, gloriously radiant stripes of fusion
fire twining together to form a platinum amulet of immense complexity.
Over five hundred combat wasps were in flight, and thousands of
submunitions wove convoluted trajectories. Starships initiated high-gee
evasive manoeuvres. Nuclear explosions blossomed.

The Lady Macbeth’s magnetic and electromagnetic sensors were recording
impulses nearly off the scale. It was a radiative inferno.

“Two more wormhole interstices opening,” Melvyn said. “Our bitek comrades
are leaving in droves.”

“I think we’ll join them,” Joshua said. Just for once in her life, Sarha
might be right, he conceded. It was the now which counted. Lady Mac was
already two thousand kilometres in altitude, and rising steeply from the
pole; he shifted their inclination again, carrying them further north of
the ecliptic and away from the conflict raging above the planet’s
equatorial zones. Another three thousand kilometres and they would be out
of the influence of Lalonde’s gravity field, and free to jump. He made a
mental note to travel an additional five hundred klicks—no point in
stressing the nodes, given their state. About a hundred seconds at their
current acceleration. “Dahybi, how is the patterning coming?”

“Reprogramming. Another two minutes. You really don’t want to rush me
with this one, Joshua.”

“Fine, the further we are from the gravity field the better.”

“What about the mercs?” Ashly said. It wasn’t loud, but his level voice
carried the bridge easily.

Joshua banished the display showing him possible jump coordinates. He
turned his head and glared at the pilot. Why was there always one awkward
bastard? “We can’t! Jesus, they’re killing each other back there.”

“I promised them, Joshua. If they were alive I said I would go down and
pick them up. And you said something similar in your message.”

“We’ll come back.”

“Not in this ship, not in a week. If we dock at a port, it’ll take a
month to refit. That’s without any hassle from the navy. They won’t be
alive in two days, not down there.”

“The navy said they’d pick up any survivors.”

“You mean that same navy which right now is shooting at our former
colleagues?”

“Jesus!”

“There isn’t going to be a combat wasp left in thirty minutes,” the pilot
said reasonably. “Not at the rate they’re expending them. All we have to
do is sit tight for a couple of hours out here.”

Instinct pushed Joshua, repelled him from Lalonde and the red cloud
bands. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, Ashly, but no. This is too big for us.”
The coordinate display flipped up in his mind.

Ashly looked desperately round the bridge for an ally. His eyes found
Sarha’s guilty expression.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Joshua?”

“Now what!”

“We should jump to Murora.”

“Where?” His almanac file produced the answer, Murora was the largest gas
giant in the Lalonde system. “Oh.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “There’s even an Edenist station in orbit to
supervise their new habitat’s growth. We can dock there and replace the
failed nodes with our spares. Then we can jump back here in a day or so
and do a fast fly-by. If we get an answer from the mercs, and the navy
doesn’t shoot us on sight, Ashly can go down to pick them up. If not, we
just head straight back to Tranquillity.”

“Dahybi, what do you think?” Joshua asked curtly. Most of his anger was
directed at himself; he should have thought of Murora as an alternative
destination.

“Gets my vote,” the node specialist said. “I really don’t want to try an
interstellar jump unless we absolutely have to.”

“Anybody else object? No? OK, nice idea, Sarha.” For the third time, the
jump coordinate display appeared in his mind. He computed a vector to
align the Lady Mac on the gas giant, eight hundred and fifty-seven
million kilometres distant.

Ashly blew Sarha a kiss across the bridge. She grinned back.

Lady Macbeth’s two remaining fusion drives powered down. Ion thrusters
matched her course to the Murora jump coordinate with tiny nudges. Joshua
fired a last coded message at the geostationary communications
satellites, then the dish antenna and various sensor clusters started to
sink down into their jump recesses.

“Dahybi?” Joshua asked.

“I’ve programmed in the new patterns. Look at it this way, if they don’t
work, we’ll never know.”

“Fucking wonderful.” He ordered the flight computer to initiate the jump.



Two kinetic missiles hammered into the frigate Neanthe, almost severing
it in half. When the venting deuterium and glowing debris cleared,
Arikara’s sensors observed Neanthe’s four life-support capsules spinning
rapidly. Still intact. Kinetic missiles found two of them while a
one-shot pulser discharged eighty kilometres away, stabbing another with
a beam of coherent gamma radiation.

Admiral Saldana clenched his teeth in helpless fury. The battle had
rapidly escalated out of all control, or even sanity. All the mercenary
ships had fired salvos of combat wasps, there was simply no way of
telling which were programmed to attack ships (or which ships) and which
were for defence.

The tactical situation computer estimated over six hundred had now been
launched. But communications were poor even with the dedicated
satellites, and sensor data was degraded by the vast amount of electronic
warfare signals emitted by everybody’s combat wasps. One of the bridge
ratings had said they’d be better off with a periscope.

When it came, the explosion was intense enough to outshine the combined
photonic output of the six hundred-plus fusion drives whirling round
above Lalonde. An unblemished radiation nimbus expanded outwards at a
quarter of the speed of light, engulfing starships, combat wasps,
submunitions, and observation satellites with complete dispassion; hiding
their own detonation behind a shell of scintillating molecules. When it
was five hundred kilometres in diameter it began to thin, swirling with
secondary colours like a solar soap bubble. It was three thousand
kilometres ahead of the Arikara, yet it was potent enough to burn out
every one of the sensors which the flagship had orientated on that sector
of space.

“What the hell was that?” Meredith asked. The fear was there again, as
always. Antimatter.

Seven gees slammed him down in his couch as the starship accelerated away
from the planet and the dwindling explosion.

Clark Lowie and Rhys Hinnels reviewed the patchy tactical situation data
leading up to the explosion. “It was one of their starships which
imploded, sir,” Clarke Lowie said after a minute’s consultation. “The
patterning nodes were activated.”

“But it was only three thousand kilometres above Lalonde.”

“Yes, sir. They must have known that. But they took out the Shukyo and
the Bellah. I’d say it was deliberate.”

“Suicide?”

“Looks that way, sir.”

Five ships. He had lost five ships, and God knows how much damage
inflicted on the rest of them. Mission elapsed time was twenty-three
minutes, and most of that had been spent flying into orbit from the
emergence point.

“Commander Kroeber, withdraw all squadron ships from orbit immediately.
Tell them to rendezvous at the jump coordinate for Cadiz.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

A direct repudiation of the First Admiral’s orders, but there was no
mission left, not any more. And he could save some crews by retreating
now. He had that satisfaction, for himself.

The gravity plane shifted slightly as the Arikara came round onto its new
vector, then reduced to five gees. Another salvo of combat wasps was
fired as enemy drones curved round to intercept them.

Madness. Utter madness.



The river was one of the multitude of smaller unnamed tributaries that
covered the south-western region of the colossal Juliffe basin. Its roots
were the streams wandering round the long knolls which made up the land
away to the south of Durringham, merging and splitting a dozen times
until finally becoming a single steadfast river two hundred kilometres
from the Juliffe itself.

At the time the spaceplanes brought down the mercenary scout teams there
was still a respectable current running through it, the deflected rains
hadn’t yet begun to affect the flow of water. In any case, the lakes and
swamps which accounted for a third of its length formed a considerable
reservoir, capable of sustaining the level for months.

The snowlilies, too, were relatively unaffected. The only difference the
red cloud made was to extend the period it took for the aquatic leaves to
ripen and break free of their stems. But where it ran through the
thickest jungle that made up the majority of the Juliffe basin, the
snowlilies seemed almost as numerous as always. Certainly they managed to
cover the river’s thirty-metre width, even if they weren’t layered two or
three deep as they had been in previous seasons.

Where the tributary ran through a quiet section of deepest jungle, one of
the snowlilies five metres from the bank bulged up near the centre, then
tore. A fist with grey water-resistant artificial skin punched through
and began to widen the tear. Chas Paske broke the surface, and looked
round.

The banks on either side of him were steep walls made from the knotted
roots of cherry oak trees. Tall trunks straddled the summit, their white
bark stained magenta from the light filtering through the tenebrous
canopy far overhead. As far as the combat-boosted mercenary could see
there was nobody around. He struck out for the shore.

His left thigh had been badly damaged by the white fire flung by the
women who’d ambushed them. It was one reason for diving into the river as
his team fled from the spaceplane’s landing zone. Nothing else seemed to
extinguish the vile stuff.

Their shrill, delighted laughter had reverberated through the trees as
the mercenaries crashed through the undergrowth. If he had just been
granted another minute to unload their gear, establish a perimeter
defence formation, the outcome would have been so very different. They
had enjoyed it, those vixen women, that was the terrifying part of it,
calling happily to each other as the mercenaries ran in panic. It was a
game to them, exhilarating sport.

They weren’t people as he understood. Chase Paske was neither a
superstitious nor religious man. But he knew that whatever evil had
befallen Lalonde had nothing to do with Laton, nor was it going to be
solved by Terrance Smith and his rag-tag forces.

He reached the bank and started to climb. The roots were atrociously
slippery, his left leg dangled uselessly, and his arms and back were
badly burnt, debilitating the boosted muscles. It was a slow process, but
by jamming his elbows and right knee into crannies he could lever and
pull himself upwards.

The women, it appeared, hadn’t understood the feats a boosted metabolism
was capable of. He could survive for an easy four hours underwater
without taking a breath. A useful trait when chemical and biological
agents were being used.

Chas scrambled up the last couple of metres to the top of the woody bank,
and rolled into the lee of a crooked trunk. Only then did he start to
review the bad news his neural nanonics medical program was supplying.

The shallow flesh burns he could ignore for now—although they would need
treating eventually. Almost half of his outer thigh had been burnt away,
and the dull glint of his silicolithium femur was visible through the
minced and charred muscle tissue. Nothing short of a total rebuild was
going to get his leg functioning again. He started picking long white
worm-analogues from the lairs they were burrowing into the naked wound.

He didn’t even have his pack with him when the women attacked. There was
only his personal equipment belt. Which was better than nothing, he
thought phlegmatically. It contained two small neural nanonic packages,
which he wrapped round the top of his thigh like an old-fashioned
bandage. They didn’t cover half the length of the wound, but they would
stop poisoned blood and aboriginal bacteria from getting into the rest of
his circulatory system. The remainder of it was going to fester, he
realized grimly.

Taking stock, he had a first aid kit, a laser pistol with two spare power
magazines, a small fission-blade knife, a hydrocarbon analyser to tell
him which vegetation contained toxins his metabolism couldn’t filter, a
palm-sized thermal inducer, and five EE grenades. He also had his guido
block, a biological/chemical agent detector block, and an electronic
warfare detector block. No communications block, though, which was a
blow; he couldn’t check in with Terrance Smith to request evacuation, or
even find out if any other members of his team had survived.

Finally there was the kiloton fusion nuke strapped to his side in its
harness. A black carbotanium sphere twenty centimetres in diameter,
thoroughly innocuous looking.

Chas did nothing for five minutes while he thought about his situation;
then he began to cut strips of wood from the cherry oaks to form a splint
and a crutch.



Hidden behind its event horizon, the singularity came into being two
hundred and twenty thousand kilometres above Murora, its intense mass
density bending the course of nearby photons and elementary particles in
tight curves. It took six milliseconds to expand from its initial
subatomic size out to fifty-seven metres in diameter. As it reached its
full physical dimensions the internal stresses creating the event horizon
ceased to exist.

Lady Macbeth fell in towards the gas giant, ion thrusters squirting out
long spokes of cold blue fire to halt the slight spin caused by venting
coolant gases. Thermo-dump panels stretched wide to glow a smoky cardinal
red as they disposed of the excess thermal energy acquired during the
starship’s frantic flight through Lalonde’s polar atmosphere. Sensor
clusters swept the local environment for hazards while star trackers
fixed their exact position.

Joshua exhaled loudly, allowing his relief to show. “Well done, Dahybi.
That was good work under pressure.”

“I’ve been in worse situations.”

He refused to rise to the bait. “Sarha, have you locked down those
malfunctioning systems yet?”

“We’re getting there,” she said blandly. “Give me another five minutes.”

“Sure.” After the harsh acceleration of Lalonde orbit, free fall was
superbly relaxing. Now, if she’d just give him a massage . . .

“That was one hell of a scrap back there,” Melvyn said.

“We’re well out of it,” Warlow rumbled.

“Feel sorry for the scout teams, trapped on a planet full of people who
behave like that.” Melvyn stopped and winced, then gave Joshua a cautious
glance.

“She knew what she was going down to,” Joshua said. “And I meant what I
said about going back to check.”

“Reza Malin knew what he was about,” Ashly said. “She’ll be safe enough
with him.”

“Right.” The flight computer datavised an alarm into Joshua’s neural
nanonics. He accessed the sensor array.

Murora’s storm bands were smears of green and blue, mottled with the
usual white ammonia cyclones. A thick whorl of ochre and bronze rings
extended from the cloud tops out to a hundred and eighty thousand
kilometres, broken by two major divisions. The gas giant boasted
thirty-seven natural satellites, from a quartet of hundred-kilometre
ring-shepherds up to five moons over two thousand kilometres in diameter;
the largest, M-XI, named Keddie, had a thick nitrogen methane atmosphere.

Aethra had been germinated in a two hundred thousand kilometre orbit, far
enough outside the fringes of the ring to mitigate any danger of
collision from stray particles. The seed had been brought to the system
in 2602 and attached to a suitable mineral-rich asteroid; it would take
thirty years to mature into a structure capable of supporting a human
population, and another twenty years to reach its full
forty-five-kilometre length. After nine years of untroubled development
it was already three and a half kilometres long.

In the same orbit, but trailing five hundred kilometres behind the young
habitat, was the supervisory station, occupied by fifty staff (it had
accommodation for a thousand). The Edenists didn’t use bitek for such a
small habitational environment; it was a carbotanium wheel seven hundred
and fifty metres in diameter, eighty metres wide, containing three long
gardens separated by blocks of richly appointed apartments. Its hub was
linked to a large non-rotating cylindrical port, grossly under-used, but
built in anticipation of the traffic which would start to arrive once the
habitat reached its median size and He3 cloud-scoop mining began in
Murora’s atmosphere. During the interim there were just two inter-orbit
vessels docked, which the station staff used to commute to Aethra on
their inspection tours.

Lady Macbeth had emerged forty thousand kilometres away from the solitary
Edenist outpost, a jump accuracy Joshua was entirely satisfied with
considering the conditions. Her sensors focused on the station in time to
see it break apart. The rim had been sliced open in several places,
allowing the atmosphere to jet out. Small thrusters were still firing in
a useless attempt to halt the ominous wobble which had developed. Optical
sensors revealed trees, bushes, and oscillating slicks of water rushing
out of the long gashes.

“Like the Ruin Ring,” Joshua whispered painfully.

Small circular spots on the carbotanium shell glowed crimson. The tough
metal was visibly undulating as the structure’s seesaw fluctuations
increased. Then one of the cryogenic fuel-storage tanks in the
non-rotating port exploded, which triggered another two or three tanks.
It was hard to tell the exact number, the entire station was obscured by
the white vapour billowing out.

As the cloud dispersed large sections of the wheel tumbled out of the
darkening centre.

A hundred kilometres away, two fusion drives burnt hotly against the icy
starscape, heading for the immature habitat. One of the ships was
emitting a steady beat of microwaves from its transponder.

“They’re here already,” Melvyn said. “Bloody hell. They must have jumped
before we did.”

“That is the Maranta’s transponder code,” Warlow said without any notable
inflection. “Why would Wolfgang leave it transmitting?”

“Because he’s not the captain any more,” Ashly said. “Look at the
vectors. Neither of them is maintaining a steady thrust. Their drives are
unstable.”

“They’re going to kill the habitat, aren’t they?” Sarha said. “Just like
Laton did all those years ago. Those bastards! It can’t hurt them, it
can’t hurt anybody. What kind of sequestration is this?”

“A bad one,” Warlow grumbled at an almost subliminal volume. “Very bad.”

“I’m picking up lifeboat beacons,” Melvyn said with a rush of excitement.
“Two of them. Somebody escaped.”

Joshua, who had felt eager triumph at their successful jump to Murora and
anger at the station’s violation, was left empty, leaving his mind in an
almost emotion-free state. His crew was looking at him. Waiting. Dad
never mentioned this part of captaining a ship.

“Melvyn, Sarha; recalibrate the injection ionizers for the number one
fusion tube. Whatever thrust we can get, please. I’m going to need it.
Ashly, Warlow, get down to the airlock deck. We won’t have much time to
bring them on board, make sure they come through as fast as possible.”

Warlow’s couch webbing peeled back immediately. The cosmonik and the
pilot went through the floor hatch as though they were in a race.

“Dahybi, recharge the nodes. I’ll jump outsystem as soon as we have them
on board.” If we get them on board.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Stand by for combat gees. Again!”

On the other side of hugely complex schematic diagrams, Sarha smiled
knowingly at the hard-used martyred tone.

Lady Macbeth’s fusion drives ignited, driving the ship towards the
twirling wreckage of the station. Thermo-dump panels hurried back into
their recesses as the gee force climbed. The starship’s sensors tracked
the two fusion drives forty thousand kilometres ahead. Joshua was
wondering how long it would take for them to spot the rescue attempt. If
they use the sensors the way they do the fusion drives they may never see
us. Maranta was only accelerating at half a gee.

Melvyn and Sarha finished their work on fusion tube number one, and gave
him control, warning it wouldn’t last for long. Joshua brought Lady Mac
up to five gees, and held her there.

“They’re launching combat wasps,” Dahybi said.

Joshua observed the flight computer plotting purple vector lines. “That’s
odd.” The six combat wasps were flying around Aethra, forming a loose
ring. Their drives went off when they were two hundred kilometres from
the habitat, coasting past it. Submunitions burst out from two, and
accelerated towards the slowly rotating cylinder.

“Kinetic missiles,” Joshua said. “What the hell are they doing?”

Bright orange explosions rippled across the rust-red polyp surface.

“Injuring it,” Sarha said with terse determination. “That kind of assault
won’t destroy it, but they’ll inflict a lot of harm. Almost as if they’re
deliberately mutilating it.”

“Injuring it?” Dahybi asked. The normally composed node specialist was
openly incredulous. “What for? People injure. Animals injure. Not
habitats. You can’t hurt them like you can a mammal.”

“That’s what they’re doing,” Sarha insisted.

“It does look that way,” Joshua said.

The Maranta’s drive came on again, followed a few seconds later by the
second ship.

“They’ve seen us,” Joshua said. It had taken eight minutes, which was
appallingly sloppy detection work. Lady Mac was over halfway towards the
lifeboats. Less than twenty thousand kilometres away now. The other ships
were barely five hundred kilometres distant from the squealing beacons.
“This is where it gets interesting.” He launched eight combat wasps and
upped the Lady Mac’s acceleration to seven gees. The drones shot ahead at
twenty-five gees. An answering salvo of twelve emerged from the two
starships.

“Shit,” Joshua exclaimed. “They’re running for Aethra.”

“Clever,” Melvyn said. “We can’t use the nukes when they’re close to it.”

“No, but I can still use the gamma pulsers for offence.” He fired off a
string of coded instructions to the combat wasps. “And it may give us the
time we need to pick up the lifeboats. None of their combat wasps are
targeting them.” He thought for a moment. “Sarha, broadcast a tight-beam
warning to the lifeboats. Tell them to deactivate their beacons now.
Anyone warped enough to maim a habitat won’t think twice about snuffing
refugees.”

The first combat-wasp conflict took place five thousand kilometres from
Aethra, a ragged rosette of plasma sprawling across six hundred
kilometres. Joshua watched several attackers come through unscathed and
launched another salvo of five drones, programming three to form a
defence-shield formation. The bridge’s gravity plane shifted sharply as
he initiated an evasion manoeuvre.



The children were crying with their voices and minds. Gaura broadcast a
soothing harmonic in the general affinity band, adding to the compulsion
of the other adults. What I need, he thought, is someone to calm me.

The lifeboat was a sturdy cylinder ten metres long and four wide. It had
no propulsion system apart from the solid-fuel booster to fire it clear
of any conceivable emergency, and reaction thrusters to hold it stable
while the refugees waited for rescue. Like all the systems on the station
it was spacious and well equipped. There were eight seats, lockers with
enough food for a fortnight, and a month-long oxygen supply. For
Edenists, even disasters would be inconvenient rather than dangerous.

Such arrogance, he cursed inside the confines of his own skull, such
stupid blind faith in our technological prowess.

Right now there were fourteen adults and five children crammed inside.
There hadn’t been time for them to reach another lifeboat. With a hubris
which hindsight revealed to be quite monstrous, the disasters which the
designers anticipated had all been natural. Even a meteorite strike would
leave most of the wheel intact, and evacuation would be a calm rational
process.

What had never been even a theoretical contingency was insane Adamist
starships slicing the station apart with lasers.

It had all happened so fast. Now little Gatje and Haykal hugged Tiya,
their mother, faces distraught as she kept them anchored. The air was too
hot, it stank of vomit. Aethra couldn’t hide its torment over the kinetic
missile attack that bit deep into its shell from the young impressionable
minds. Candre’s death convulsions as she went through explosive
decompression was still causing wintry shivers along Gaura’s spine. The
combined psychological stresses of the last fifteen minutes was going to
leave a trauma scar that would take a long time to heal even for the
well-balanced psyche of an Edenist.

And it was all his fault. As station chief he should have taken
precautions. He had known about the civil strife on Lalonde. Yet he had
done nothing.

<< It is not your fault, >>Aethra said softly into his mind. << Who could
have anticipated this? >>

<< I should have. >>

<< From the information you had, this was not predictable. >>

<< I had enough data from Ilex. It was chaos on the planet when they
left. >>

<< These starships did not come from Lalonde. They are mercenaries,
recruited elsewhere. >>

<< I could still have done something. Put people into apartments closer
to the lifeboats. Something! How are Candre and the others? >>

<< I have them. But now is not a good time to begin raising my
consciousness to multiplicity status. >>

<< No. And you? How are you? >>

<< I was angry, frightened. Now I feel sorrow. It is a sad universe where
such wanton acts can take place. >>

<< I’m sorry we brought you into existence. You have done nothing to
deserve this. >>

<< I am glad I live. And I may yet continue to live. None of the craters
is more than twenty metres deep. I have lost a lot of nutrient fluid
though, and my mineral-digestion organs have been damaged from the
shockwaves. >>

Gaura’s hand squeezed the grab hoop he was holding. Fury and helplessness
were alien to him, but he felt them now with a daunting strength. << The
physical damage can be repaired. It will be repaired, never doubt that.
Not as long as one Edenist remains alive. >>

<< Thank you, Gaura. You are a fine supervisor. I am privileged to have
you and your staff attend the dawn of my intellect. And one day Gatje and
Haykal shall run around in my park. I will enjoy their laughter. >>

A solid beam of intolerable white light stabbed into the lifeboat through
its one small, heavily shielded port. Space was being devastated by
another hail of fusion explosions. The children started crying again.

Through Aethra’s much-degraded perception he saw the long white fusion
exhaust of the third Adamist starship decelerating towards them. With its
tremendous velocity it had to be a warship, but there had been no contact
apart from the curt woman telling them to switch off the beacon. Who were
they? Who were the other two? Why had they attacked Aethra?

Not knowing was difficult for an Edenist.

<< You will soon be safe, >>Aethra said. It widened its broadcast to
include the Edenists on both lifeboats. << All of you will be safe. >>

Gaura met his wife’s frightened stubborn eyes. << I love you, >>he said
for her alone.

The blast light was fading. He looked out of the port, his mind welcoming
inquisitive contacts, showing the children their solidly real rescuer
approaching.

Whoever the pilot was, he was coming very close. And moving far too fast.

Space directly outside the lifeboat was filled with the brilliant fusion
exhaust. Gaura flinched, jerking back from the port. << It’s going to
hit! >>

There were screams behind him. Then the exhaust vanished, and a huge
spherical starship was a hundred metres away, small sensor clusters
sticking out of its dark silicon hull like metallized insect antenna. Its
equatorial ion thrusters exhaled fountains of sparkling blue ions,
halting its minute drift.

<< Bloody hell! >>It was a collective sentiment from the adults.

The starship rolled towards the lifeboat as though there was a solid
surface below it. And its extended airlock tube was suddenly coming round
to clang against the hatch.

Gaura took a moment to recover his poise. A voidhawk would be very hard
put to match that display of precision manoeuvring.

The lifeboat’s bitek processors reported the short-range inter-ship
channel was picking up a transmission.

“You people in the lifeboat, as soon as the hatch opens we want you
through the tube and into the lounge,” commanded the female voice they’d
heard earlier. “Make it fast! We’re running out of combat wasps and we’ve
got to pick your friends up as well.”

The hatch seal popped and it swung back. Little Gatje squealed in alarm
as one of the biggest cosmoniks Gaura had ever seen floated in the
airlock tube.

<< It’s all right, >>he told his dismayed daughter. << He’s a . . .
friend. Really. >>

Gatje clutched at the fabric of her mother’s suit. << Promise, Daddy? >>

“Shift your bastard arses through here now!” Warlow bellowed.

The children gulped into fearful silence.

Gaura couldn’t help it, after all the horror they’d been through to be
greeted by such utter normality, he started to laugh. << I promise >>.



“Oh, Jesus, they’ve cracked it,” Joshua told the three crew-members left
on the bridge when Lady Mac rendezvoused with the second lifeboat.
Another combat wasp was curving round over Aethra’s bulk, accelerating
sharply. “I knew they’d work out the numbers game eventually.” He fired a
salvo of three drones in defence. It was a terrible ratio. One which the
Lady Mac could only ever lose. Three defenders was an absolute minimum to
guarantee an attacker didn’t get through. If he could just have flown
evasive manoeuvres, or attacked, or been able to run, the numbers would
have shifted back towards something near favourable.

“Jesus!” The fourth solo combat wasp appeared from behind Aethra. He had
to launch another three from Lady Mac’s diminishing reserves.

“Fifteen left,” Sarha said with morbid cheerfulness. The starship’s maser
cannons fired at a kinetic missile that was sixty kilometres away. Five
nuclear-tipped submunitions exploded perilously close to Aethra, reducing
the latest attacking combat wasp to its subatomic constituents.

“Did you have to tell us that?” Melvyn said laboriously.

“You mean you didn’t know?”

“Yes. But I could always hope I was wrong.”

Joshua accessed a camera on the airlock deck. Warlow had anchored himself
to a stikpad beside the airlock tube. He was grabbing people as they came
out and slinging them into the chamber. Ashly and one of the Edenist men
were on a stikpad below the ceiling hatch, catching then shoving the
human projectiles up into the lounge above.

“How many more to come, Warlow?” Joshua datavised.

“Six. That makes forty-one in total.”

“Wonderful. Stand by for combat acceleration the second the airlock
seals.” He sounded the audio warning so the Edenists would know. The
flight computer showed his plot of an open-ended vector heading away from
Murora. At eight gees they could outrun the other starships easily, and
jump outsystem. That kind of prolonged acceleration would be tough on the
Edenists (no sinecure for the crew, either), but it was one hell of a lot
better than staying here.

“Joshua, Gaura has asked me to say some of the children are very young,
they can’t possibly survive high gees,” Warlow datavised. “Their bones
aren’t strong enough.”

“Jesus shit! Kids? How old? How many gees?”

“One girl was about three. There were a couple of five-year-olds as well.”

“Fuck it!”

“What is it?” Sarha asked, real concern darkening her sea-green eyes for
the first time since they’d entered the Lalonde system.

“We’re not going to make it.”

The fifth solo combat wasp appeared from behind Aethra. Seven of the Lady
Mac’s submunition drones detonated their nuclear explosives in immediate
response. Joshua launched two more.

“Even if we jump without an alignment trajectory, from here, it’ll take
us fifteen seconds to retract the sensors and prime the nodes,” he said.
“We’ll be blind for ten seconds. It’s not long enough.”

“So run,” Sarha said. “Fire every last combat wasp at them and go. Lady
Mac can make eight gees even with tube one down. Maranta can’t make more
than four gees. We can get clear.”

“That vector’s already loaded. But we’ve got kids on board. Shit! Shit!
Shit!” He saw the last Edenist being yanked out of the airlock tube by
Warlow. The flight computer was shutting the hatch before his feet were
fully clear.

Do something, and do it now, Joshua Calvert, he told himself. Because
you’re going to be dead in twenty seconds if you don’t.

His mind ordered the flight computer to start the fusion tube ignition
sequence.

Another whole two seconds to think in.

There was nothing in the tactics programs, even Dad had never dug himself
a hole this deep in the shit.

Can’t run, can’t fight, can’t jump out, can’t hide . . .

“Oh yes I can!” he whooped.

The fusion drives came on, and the Lady Mac accelerated down the vector
plot that sprang from Joshua’s mind even as the idea unrolled. Three
gees, heading straight in towards the gas giant.

“Joshua!” Dahybi complained. “We can’t jump if you take us inward.”

“Shut up.”

Dahybi settled back and started into a recital of a scripture he
remembered from his youth. “Yes, Captain.”

“Warlow, activate the three zero-tau pods we’ve got in capsule C, and
cram the children in. You’ve got four minutes maximum before we start
accelerating properly.”

“Right, Joshua.”

The sensors reported that four combat wasps were pursuing them. Joshua
fired an answering salvo of five. He could hear Dahybi muttering
something that sounded like a prayer, it had the right dirge-like
resonance.

“They’re coming after us,” Melvyn said a minute later.

Maranta and its cohort were accelerating away from Aethra.

“That’s the Gramine,” Sarha said after studying the image. “Look at the
angle its drive is deflected through. There isn’t another starship that
can do that. Wissler was always boasting about their combat agility.”

“Just wonderful, Sarha, thanks,” Joshua proclaimed. “You got any other
morale boosters for us?”



Warlow climbed the ladder into the lounge deck, boosted muscles lifting
him easily against the heavy gravity. Carbon composite rungs creaked in
dismay under his tripled weight. There were Edenists packed solid across
the lounge floor, none of the acceleration couches had been activated—not
that there were enough anyway. They didn’t have neural nanonics, the
cosmonik realized. And because of it their children whimpered and
snivelled in wretched distress without any cushioning below them.

He walked over to the smallest girl, who was lying wide-eyed and terribly
pale beside her mother. “I’m putting her into zero-tau,” he announced
shortly, and bent down. He had plugged a pair of cargo-handling arms into
his elbow sockets before coming up the ladder, they had wide metal
manipulator forks which would act as a good cradle. The girl started
crying again. “There will be none of this acceleration in the pod.
Explain to her. She must not squirm when I pick her up. Her spine will
break.”

<< Be brave, >>Tiya told her daughter. << He will take you to a safe
place where you won’t hurt so. >>

<< He’s horrible, >>Gatje replied as the metal prongs slid underneath her.

<< You will be all right, >>Gaura said, reinforcing the pacific mental
subliminal Tiya was radiating.

Warlow took care to keep Gatje’s spine level, supporting her head with
one set of forks while the other three arms were positioned under her
torso and legs. He lifted gingerly.

“Can I help?” Gaura asked, levering himself onto his elbows. His neck
felt as though it was being slowly compressed in a hydraulic vice.

“No. You are too weak.” Warlow clumped out of the lounge, an outlandish
faerie-legend figure walking amongst the prone hurting bodies with a
grace completely at variance with his cumbersome appearance.

There were seven children under ten years old. It took him nearly five
minutes to shift them from the lounge to the zero-tau pods. His neural
nanonics monitored their flight on a secondary level. The attacking
starships were matching Lady Mac’s three-gee acceleration. Combat-wasp
submunitions produced a continual astral fire of plasma between them.

Lady Mac swept over the fringes of the ring, two thousand kilometres
above the ecliptic as Warlow lowered the last child into the zero-tau pod.

“Thank Christ for that,” Joshua said when the pod was enveloped by the
black field. “OK, people, stand by for high acceleration.”

Lady Mac’s thrust increased to seven gees, tormenting the Edenists in the
lounge still further. For all the stamina of their geneered bodies they
had never been supplemented to withstand the onerous burden of combat
spaceflight.

Maranta and Gramine began to fall behind. Sensors showed three more
combat wasps eating up the distance.

“Jesus, how many of the fucking things have they got left?” Joshua asked
as he launched four of the Lady Mac’s remaining six drones in response.

“I estimate ten,” Melvyn datavised. “Possibly more.”

“Wonderful.” Joshua angled the Lady Mac down sharply towards the rings.

The slow moving pack of dusty ice chunks reflected an unaccustomed
radiance as the three starships streaked past. After millennia of stasis,
stirred only by the slow heartbeat of the gas giant’s magnetosphere, the
ring’s micrometre dust was becoming aroused by the backwash of
electromagnetic pulses from the fusion bombs exploding above it. Dark
snowflake-crystal patterns rippled elegantly over its surface. The
temperature rose by several fractions of a degree, breaking up the unique
and fantastically delicate valency bonds between disparate atoms which
free fall and frigidity had established. Behind the starships, the rings
quivered like a choppy sea before the storm was unleashed.

Those on board the Lady Macbeth able to receive the sensor images watched
with numbed fascination as the ring particles grew larger, changing from
a grainy mist to a solid plain of drifting mud-yellow boulders. It took
up half of the image; they were close enough now to make it seem like the
floor of the universe.

The penultimate combat wasp darted out of the Lady Macbeth’s
launch-tubes. Submunitions ejected almost at once, scattering like a
shoal of startled fish. A hundred kilometres behind her, twenty-seven
fusion bombs arrayed in an ammonite maculation detonated simultaneously,
throwing up a temporary visual and electronic barrier. She turned, unseen
by her pursuers, triple drive exhausts scoring vast arcs across the
stars. Then the three barbs of superenergized helium were searing into
the ice and rock of the ring. No physical structure was capable of
withstanding that starcore temperature. The agitated surface cratered and
geysered as though a depth charge had been set off far below.

Lady Macbeth dived straight into the rings, decelerating at eleven gees.


Chapter 10
==========


The watchers were there when Alkad Mzu arrived at the shoreline of
Tranquillity’s circumfluous salt-water sea. As always they remained
several hundred metres behind, innocuous fellow hikers enjoying the balmy
evening, even a couple on horses trekking along the wilder paths of the
habitat. She counted eight of them as she walked along the top of the
steep rocky escarpment to the path which led down to the beach. This cove
was one of the remoter stretches of the northern shoreline; a broad curve
of silver-white sand two kilometres long, with jutting headlands of
polyp-rock cliffs. Several small islands were included within the bay’s
sweeping embrace, tenanted by willowy trees and a fur of colourful wild
flowers. A river emptied over the escarpment two hundred metres from the
path where she stood, producing a foaming waterfall which fell into a
rock pool before draining away over the sands. Overhead, the giant
habitat’s light-tube had languished to an apricot ember strung between
its endcap hubs. Vitric water caught the final rays to produce a
soft-focus copper shimmer across the wavelets.

Alkad picked her way carefully along the shingle-strewn path. An accident
now would be the ultimate irony, she thought. There was the familiar
nagging ache in her left leg, exacerbated by the rough incline.

Her retinal implants located a pair of adolescent lovers in the dunes at
the far end of the beach. Craving solitude amid the deepening shadows,
their dark entwined bodies were oblivious to the world, and nearly
invisible. The girl’s baby-blonde hair provided a rich contrast to her
ebony skin, while the boy reminded Alkad of Peter as he stroked and
caressed his willing partner. An omen, though Alkad Mzu no longer really
believed in deities.

She reached the warm, dry sands and adjusted the straps of her
lightweight backpack. It was the one she had brought with her to the
habitat twenty-six years ago; it contained the cagoule and flask and
first aid kit which she carried unfailingly on every ramble through the
interior. By now the routine of her hike was scribed in stone. If she
hadn’t worn it, the Intelligence agencies would have been suspicious.

Alkad cut across the dunes at an angle, aiming for the middle of the
beach, her feet leaving light imprints in the powdery sand. Three
watchers made their way down the path behind her, the rest carried on
walking along the top of the escarpment. And—a recent development, this—a
couple of Tranquillity serjeants stood impassively at the foot of the
escarpment beside the waterfall. She only saw them against the craggy
polyp because of their infrared emission. They must have been positioned
there in anticipation of her route.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected. Tranquillity would have informed Ione
Saldana about all those agency-teasing meetings with starship captains.
The girl was erring on the side of caution, which was quite acceptable.
She did have the rest of the population to think about, after all.

Alkad peered ahead, out over the huge grey valley of water to the
southern shore, searching. There, to the right, twenty degrees up the
curve. The Laymil project campus was a unique splash of opal light on the
darkened terraces of the southern endcap. Such a shame, really, she
thought with a tinge of regret. The work had been an interesting
challenge, interpreting and extrapolating xenoc technology from mere
fragments of clues. She had made friends there, and progress. And now the
whole campus was animated with the discovery of the Laymil sensorium
memories that young scavenger had found. It was an exciting time to be a
project researcher, full of promise and reward.

In another life she could easily have devoted herself to it.

Alkad reached the water’s edge as the light-tube cooled to a smirched
platinum. Ripples sighed contentedly against the sand. Tranquillity
really was a premium place to live. She shrugged out of her backpack,
then touched the seal on her boots and started to pull them off.

Samuel, the Edenist Intelligence operative, was six metres from the foot
of the scarp path when he saw the lone figure by the water bend over to
take her boots off. That wasn’t part of the humdrum formula which
governed Mzu’s activities. He hurried after Pauline Webb, the CNIS second
lieutenant, who had reached the beach ahead of him. She dithered in the
grove of palm trees which huddled along the base of the escarpment,
debating whether to break cover and walk openly on the sands.

“It looks like she’s going for a swim,” he said.

Pauline gave him a cursory nod. The CNIS and the Edenists cooperated to a
reasonable degree in their observation.

“At night?” she said. “By herself?”

“The doctor is a solitary soul, but I concede this isn’t the most
sensible thing she’s ever done.” Samuel was thinking back to that morning
when the news of Omuta’s sanctions being lifted had appeared in the AV
projection at Glover’s restaurant.

“So what do we do?”

Monica Foulkes, the ESA operative, caught up with them. She increased the
magnification factor of her retinal implants just as Alkad Mzu pulled her
sweatshirt off over her head. “I don’t know what you two are panicking
over. Nobody as smart as Dr Mzu would choose drowning as a method of
suicide. It’s too prolonged.”

“Maybe she is just going for a quick swim,” Pauline suggested, without
much hope. “It’s a pleasant enough evening.”

Samuel kept watching Mzu. Now her boots and clothes were off she was
removing the contents of her backpack and dropping them on the sand. It
was the casual way she did it which bothered him; as if she was without a
care. “I somehow doubt it.”

“We’re going to look particularly stupid charging over there to rescue
her if all she’s doing is taking a dip to cool off,” Monica groused.

The middle-aged Edenist’s lips pursed in amusement. “You think we don’t
look stupid anyway?”

She scowled, and ignored him.

“Does anyone have any relevant contingency orders?” Pauline asked.

“If she wants to drown herself, then I say let her,” Monica said.
“Problem solved at long last. We can all pack up and go home then.”

“I might have known you’d take that attitude.”

“Well, I’m not swimming after her if she gets into trouble.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Samuel said, without shifting his gaze.
“Tranquillity has affinity-bonded dolphins. They’ll assist any swimmers
that get into difficulties.”

“Hoo-bloody-rah,” Monica said. “Then we can have another twenty years of
worrying about who the daft old biddy will talk to and what she’ll say.”

Alkad datavised a code to the processor in her empty backpack. The seal
around the bottom opened, and the composite curled up revealing the
hidden storage space. She reached in to remove the programmable silicon
spacesuit which had lain there undisturbed for twenty-six years.

<< Ione, >>Tranquillity said urgently. << We have a problem developing. >>

“Excuse me,” Ione said to her cocktail party guests. They were members of
the Tranquillity Banking Regulatory Council, invited to discuss the
habitat’s falling revenue which the massive decrease in starship
movements was causing. Something needed to be done to halt the stock
market’s wilder fluctuations, so she had thought an informal party was
the best way of handling it. She turned instinctively to face her
apartment’s window wall and the shoals of yellow and green fish nosing
round the fan of light it threw across the dusky sand. << What? >>

<< It’s Alkad Mzu. Look. >>

The image fizzed up into her mind.

Samuel frowned as Mzu drew some kind of object from deep inside her
backpack. It looked ridiculously like a football, but with wings
attached. Even with his retinal implants on full magnification he
couldn’t quite make it out. “What is that?”

Mzu fastened the collar round her neck, and bit down on the nozzle of the
respirator tube. She datavised an activation code into the suit’s control
processor. The black ball flattened itself against her upper chest and
started to flow over her skin.

Both the other Intelligence operatives turned to look at the sharpness in
Samuel’s voice. The two serjeants began to walk forwards over the beach.

<< Ione! >>Tranquillity’s thoughts rang with surprise, turning to alarm.
<< I can sense a gravitonic-distortion zone building. >>

<< So? >>she asked. Every starship emerging above Mirchusko registered in
the habitat’s mass-sensitive organs. There was no requirement for the
usual network of strategic warning grav-distortion-detector satellites
which guarded ordinary asteroid settlements and planets, Tranquillity’s
perception of local space was unrivalled, making threat response a
near-instantaneous affair. << Is the starship emerging too close? Arm the
strategic-defence platforms. >>

<< No use. It’s— >>

At first Samuel mistook it for a shadow cast by an evening cloud. There
was still enough pearly radiance coming from the light-tube to give the
circumfluous sea a sparse shimmer, a cloud would produce exactly that
patch of darkness. But there was only one patch of darkness; and when he
glanced up the air was clear. Then the noise began, a distant thunderclap
which lasted for several seconds, then chopped off abruptly. A brilliant
star shone at the centre of the darkness, sending long radials of frigid
white light into the habitat.

Mzu was silhouetted perfectly against the white blaze reflected off the
sea, encased in the black skin of the spacesuit, a consummate monochrome
picture.

Shock immobilized Samuel’s body for a precious second. Out of the centre
of the fading star a blackhawk came skimming silently over the sea
towards Mzu; a compressed ovoid one hundred and thirty metres long, with
a horseshoe life-support section moulded round the rear dorsal bulge. Its
blue polyp hull was marbled with an imperial-purple web.

“Jesus wept!” Pauline said in an aghast whisper. “It jumped inside. It’s
come right into the fucking habitat!”

“Get her!” Monica cried. “For Christ’s sake stop the bitch!” She ran
forwards.

“No, stop! Come back,” Samuel yelled. But Pauline was already charging
out of the trees after the ESA agent, boosted muscles accelerating her to
a phenomenal speed. “Oh, shit.” He started to run.

Meyer saw the small spacesuited woman standing at the water’s edge, and
Udat obligingly angled round towards her. Tension had condensed his guts
into a solid lump. Swallowing inside a habitat, it had to be the craziest
stunt in the history of spaceflight. Yet they’d done it!

<< We are in, >>Udat observed sagely. << That’s halfway. >>

<< And don’t I know it. >>

<< WHAT ARE YOU DOING? >>Tranquillity’s outraged broadcast thundered into
the blackhawk’s mind.

Meyer winced. Even Udat’s calm thoughts fluttered.

<< The woman is a political dissident being persecuted by the Kulu ESA,
>>Meyer replied with shaky bravado. << Of all people, Ione Saldana should
sympathize with that. We’re taking her where she will be safe. >>

<< STOP IMMEDIATELY. I WILL NOT PERMIT THIS. UDAT, SWALLOW OUT NOW. >>The
force of the mental compulsion which the habitat personality exerted was
incredible. Meyer felt as though someone had smashed a meat hook into his
skull to pull his brain out by the roots. He groaned, clutching at the
cushioning of his acceleration couch, heart pounding in his ears.

<< STOP! >>

“Keep going,” he gasped. His nose started to bleed. Neural nanonics sent
out a flurry of metabolic overrides.

Alkad waded through the shallows as the blackhawk descended, gliding
fastidiously round one of the cove’s small islands. She hadn’t grasped
how big the bitek creature was. To see that almighty bulk suspended so
easily in the air was an uncanny marvel. Its rounded nose was streaked
with long frost rays as the sea’s humidity gusted over polyp which was
accustomed to the radiative chill of deep space. A huge patch of water
below the hull began to foam and churn as the distortion field interacted
with it. She suddenly felt as though the horizontal was rolling. Udat
turned through ninety degrees, and tilted sharply, bringing the portside
wing of its life-support horseshoe down towards the water. An airlock
slid open. Cherri Barnes stood inside, wearing her spacesuit. Orange
silicon-fibre straps tethered her securely to the sides of the small
chamber. She threw a rope-ladder down.

On the beach five figures were racing over the dunes.

Ione said: << Kill her. >>

The serjeants pulled laser pistols from their holsters. Alkad Mzu already
had her foot on the first rung.

Udat’s maser cannon fired.

Monica Foulkes pounded hard across the sand, neural nanonics commands and
boosted muscles meshing so that her body ate the distance effortlessly, a
hundred and fifty metres in nine seconds. The prime order of the ESA’s
Tranquillity operation was to prevent Mzu from leaving, that took
precedence over everything. It didn’t look like Monica was going to get
to the blackhawk in time, Mzu had started to claw her way up the rocking
ladder. She reviewed which of her weapon implants would have the best
chance; the trouble was most of them were designed for unobtrusive
close-range work. And that bloody Lunar SII spacesuit didn’t help. It
would have to be a microdart, and hope the tip penetrated. She was aware
of the serjeants off to her left pulling out their laser pistols.

A metre-wide column of air fluoresced a faint violet, drawing a line from
a silver bubble on the blackhawk’s lower hull to a serjeant. The bitek
servitor blew apart in an explosion of steam and carbon granules. Fifteen
metres behind it, where the beam struck the beach, a patch of sand became
a puddle of glass, glowing a vivid rose-gold.

Over-hyped nerves sent Monica diving for cover the instant the beam
appeared. She hit the loose sand, momentum ploughing a two and a half
metre long furrow. There were two near-simultaneous thuds behind her as
Samuel and Pauline flung themselves down. The second serjeant erupted
into a black-grain mist with a loud burping sound as the maser hit it.
Monica’s mind gibbered as she waited, head buried in the sand. At least
with that power rating it’ll be quick . . .

A wind began howling over the dunes.

Samuel raised his head to see his worst expectation confirmed. A wormhole
interstice was opening around the nose of the blackhawk. Alkad Mzu was
halfway up the rope-ladder.

<< You must not take her from here, >>he pleaded with the starship. <<
You must not! >>

The interstice widened, a light-devouring tunnel boring through infinity.
Air streamed in.

“Hang on!” Samuel shouted to the two women agents.

<< COME BACK! >>Tranquillity commanded.

Meyer, his mind twinned with the blackhawk, quailed under the habitat’s
furious demand. It was too much, the storm voice had raged inside his
skull for what seemed like days, bruising his neurons with its violence.
Welcome surrender beckoned—to hell with Mzu, nothing was worth this. Then
he felt local space twisting under the immense distortion which Udat’s
energy patterning cells exterted. A pseudoabyss leading into freedom
opened before him. << Go, >>he ordered. The cold physical blackness
outside invaded his mind, plunging him into glorious oblivion.

A small but ferocious hurricane set Alkad spinning like a runaway
propeller at the end of her precarious silicon-fibre ladder. “Wait!” she
datavised in mounting terror. “You’re supposed to wait till I’m in the
airlock.” Her digitalized vehemence made no impression on Udat. The air
buoyed her up as though she had become weightless, swinging her round
until the ladder was horizontal. Oscillating gravity was doing terrible
things to her inner ears. Screaming air tried to tear her from the
ladder. Neural nanonics pumped muscle-lock orders into her hands and
calves to reinforce her grip. She could feel ligaments ripping. Collar
sensors showed her the fuzzy rim of the wormhole interstice sliding
inexorably along the hull towards her. “No. In the name of Mary, wait!”
And then Dr Alkad Mzu was suddenly presented with every physicist’s dream
opportunity: observing the fabric of the universe from the outside.

Monica Foulkes heard Samuel’s shouted warning and instinctively grabbed a
tuft of reedy dune grass. The wind surged with impossible strength.
Gravity shifted round until the beach was above her. Monica wailed
fearfully as sand fell up into the sky. She felt herself following it,
feet pulled into the air and sliding round to point at the interstice
surrounding the blackhawk’s nose. The grass clump made an awful slow
tearing sound. Her hips and chest left the ground. Sand was blasting
directly into her face. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. The grass
clump moved several centimetres. “OhdearGodpreservemeee!”

A long-fingered hand clamped around her free wrist. The grass clump left
the sand with a sharp sucking noise, its weight wrenching her arm out
towards the blackhawk. For an eternal second Monica hung splayed in the
air as the sand scudded around her. Someone groaned with pained effort.

The wormhole interstice closed behind Udat.

Sand, water, mangled vegetation, and demented fish cascaded down out of
the sky. Monica landed flat on her belly, breath knocked out of her. “Oh
my God,” she wheezed. When she looked up, the haggard Edenist was
crouched on his knees, panting heavily as he clutched his wrist.
“You”—the words were difficult to form in her throat—“you held on to me.”

He threw her a nod. “I think my wrist is broken.”

“I would have . . .” She shuddered, then gave a foolish jittery laugh.
“God, I don’t even know your name.”

“Samuel.”

“Thank you, Samuel.”

He rolled onto his back and sighed. “Pleasure.”

<< Are you all right? >>Tranquillity asked the Edenist.

<< My wrist is very painful. She’s heavy. >>

<< Your colleagues are approaching. Three of them are carrying medical
nanonic packages in their aid kits. They will be with you shortly. >>

Even after all this time spent in Tranquillity, he couldn’t get used to
the personality’s lack of empathy. Habitats were such an essential
component of Edenism. It was disconcerting to have one treat him in this
cavalier fashion. << Thank you. >>

“I didn’t think voidhawks and blackhawks could operate in a gravity
field,” Monica said.

“They can’t,” he told her. “This isn’t gravity, it’s centrifugal force.
It’s no different to the docking-ledges they use outside.”

“Ah, of course. Have you ever heard of one coming inside a habitat
before?”

“Never. A swallow like that requires phenomenal accuracy. From a strictly
chauvinistic point of view I hate to say this, but I think it would be
beyond most voidhawks. Even most blackhawks, come to that. Mzu made an
astute choice. This was a very well thought out escape.”

“Twenty-six years in the making,” Pauline said. She climbed slowly to her
feet, shaking her cotton top, which had been soaked by the falling water.
A fat blue fish, half a metre long, was thrashing frantically on the sand
by her shoes. “I mean that woman had us fooled for twenty-six goddamn
years. Acting out the role of a flekhead physics professor with all the
expected neuroses and eccentricities slotting perfectly into place. And
we believed it. We patiently watched her for twenty-six years and she
behaved exactly as predicted. If my home planet had been blown to shit,
I’d behave like that. She never faltered, not once. But it was a
twenty-six-year charade. Twenty-six goddamn years! What kind of a person
can do that?”

Monica and Samuel exchanged an anxious look.

“Someone pretty obsessive,” he said.

“Obsessive!” Pauline’s face darkened. She leant over to pick the big fish
up, but it squirmed out of her hands. “Keep bloody still,” she shouted at
it. “Well, God help Omuta now she’s loose in the universe again.” She
finally succeeded in grabbing hold of the fish. “You do realize that
thanks to our sanctions they haven’t got a defensive system which can
even fart loudly?”

“She won’t get far,” Monica said. “Not with this Laton scare closing down
all the starship flights.”

“You hope!” Pauline staggered off towards the waterline with her
wriggling burden.

Monica clambered to her feet and brushed the sand off her clothes,
shaking it out of her hair. She looked down at the lanky Edenist. “Dear
me, CNIS entrance standards have really gone downhill lately.”

He grinned weakly. “Yeah. But you know she’s right about Mzu. The good
doctor had us all fooled. Clever lady. And now there’s going to be hell
to pay.”

She put her hand under his shoulder and helped him up. “I suppose so. One
thing’s for certain, there’s going to be a mad scramble to catch her.
Every government is going to want her tucked away on their own planet in
order to safeguard democracy. And, my new friend, there are some
democrats in this Confederation I don’t ever want to find her.”

“Us, for instance?”

Monica hesitated, then gave her head a rueful shake. “No. But don’t tell
my boss I said that.”

Samuel watched the two agents on horseback galloping across the beach
toward them. Right now he couldn’t even remember which services they
belonged to. Not that it mattered. In a few hours they’d all be going
their separate ways again. “Damn, Tranquillity really was the only place
for her, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Come on, let’s see if these two have got anything for your wrist. I
think that’s Onku Noi on the second horse. The Imperial Oshanko mob are
always loaded down with gadgets.”



According to his neural nanonics’ timer function it was high noon. But
Chas Paske wasn’t sure how to tell any more. There hadn’t been any
fluctuation in the red cloud’s lambent emission since he started
walking—hobbling, rather. The black and red jungle remained mordantly
uninviting. Every laboured step was accompanied by the incessant hollow
rolls and booms of thunder from high above.

He had managed to splint his leg, after a fashion: five laths of cherry
oak wood that stretched from his ankle to his pelvis, lashed into place
by ropy vines. The thigh wound was still a real problem. He had bound it
with leaves, but every time he looked it seemed to be leaking capacious
amounts of ichor down his shin. And it was impossible to keep the insects
out. Unlike what appeared to be every other living creature, they hadn’t
abandoned the jungle. And devoid of other targets, they massed around
him—mosquito-analogues, maggot-analogues, things with legs and wings and
pincers that had no analogue. All of them suckling at his tender flesh.
Twice now he’d changed the leaves, only to find a seething mass of tiny
black elytra underneath. Flies crawled round his skin burns as though
they were the only oases of nourishment in a barren world.

According to his guidance block he had come two and a half kilometres in
the last three hours. It was hard going through the virgin undergrowth
which lay along the side of the river. His crutch kept getting snagged by
the thick cords that foamed over the loam. Slender low-hanging branches
had a knack of catching the splint laths.

He picked the small wrinkled globes of abundant vine fruit as he went,
chewing constantly to keep his fluid and protein levels up. But at this
rate it was going to take him weeks to get anywhere.

Durringham was his ultimate goal. Whatever resources and wealth existed
on this misbegotten planet, they resided in the capital. Scouting it had
been his team’s mission. He saw no reason to abandon that assignment.
Sitting waiting to die in the jungle wasn’t a serious option. Recovery
and evacuation was obviously out of the question now. So, there it was,
an honourable solution; one which would keep him occupied and motivated,
and, should he achieve the impossible and make it, might even accomplish
something worthwhile. Chas Paske was going to go down swinging.

But for all his determination he knew that he was going to have to find
an easier way to travel. The medical program was releasing vast amounts
of endocrines from his implants, analgesic blocks had been thrown across
a good twenty per cent of his nerve fibres. Boosted metabolism or not, he
couldn’t keep expending energy at this rate.

He accessed his guidance block and summoned up the map. There was a
village called Wryde fifteen hundred metres downstream on the other bank.
According to the LDC file it had been established nine years ago.

It would have to do.

He plucked another elwisie fruit, and limped on. One advantage of the
thunder was that no one would hear the racket he made ploughing through
the vegetation.

The light was visible long before the first of the houses. A welcome
gold-yellow nimbus shrouding the river. Snowlilies glinted and sparkled
with their true opulence. Chas heard a bird again, the silly surprised
warble of a chikrow. He lowered himself in tricky increments, and started
to slither forward on his belly.

Wryde had become a thriving, affluent community, far beyond the norm for
a stage one colony planet. The town nestled snugly in a
six-square-kilometre clearing that had been turned over to dignified
parkland. It was comprised of large houses built from stone or brick or
landcoral, all of them the kind of elegantly sophisticated residence that
a merchant or wealthy farmer would own. The main street was a handsome
tree-lined boulevard, bustling with activity: people wandering in and out
of the shops, sitting at the tables of pavement cafés. Horse-drawn cabs
moved up and down. An impressive red-brick civic hall stood at one end,
four storeys high, with an ornate central clock tower. He saw some kind
of sports field just outside the main cluster of houses. People dressed
all in white were playing a game he didn’t know while spectators
picnicked round the boundary. Close to the jungle at the back of the
park, five windmills stood alongside a lake, their huge white sails
turning steadily even though there was very little breeze. Grandiose
houses lined the riverbank, lawns extending down to the water. They all
had boat-houses or small jetties; rowing-boats and sailing dinghies were
moored securely against the sluggish tide of snowlilies. Larger craft had
been drawn up on wooden slipways.

It was the kind of community every sane person would want to live in;
small-town cosiness, big-city stability. Even Chas, lying in muddy loam
under a bush on the opposite bank, felt the subtle attraction of the
place. By simply existing it offered the prospect of belonging to a
perpetual golden age.

His retinal implants showed him the sunny, happy faces of the citizens as
they went about their business. Scanning back and forth he couldn’t see
anyone labouring in the pristine gardens, or sweeping the streets; no
people, no bitek servitors, no mechanoids. The nearest anyone came to
work was the café proprietors, and they seemed cheerful enough, chatting
and laughing with their customers. All generals and no privates, he
thought to himself. It isn’t real.

He accessed the guidance block again. A green reference grid slipped up
over his vision and he focused on a jetty at the far end of the town’s
clearing. The block calculated its exact coordinate and integrated it
into the map.

When he checked his physiological status, the neural nanonics reported
his haemoglobin reserve was down to half an hour. His metabolism wasn’t
producing it with anything like its normal efficiency. He ran through the
guidance block’s display one last time. Half an hour ought to be enough.

Chas started to crawl forwards again, easing himself down the muddy slope
and into the water like an arthritic crocodile.

Twenty minutes later he judiciously parted a pair of snowlilies and let
his rigid moulded face stick up out of the water. The guidance block had
functioned flawlessly, delivering him right beside the jetty. A trim
blue-painted rowing-boat was pulling gently against its mooring two
metres away. There was nobody anywhere near. He reached up and cut the
pannier with his fission blade, grabbing the end as it fell into the
water.

The boat started to drift with the snowlilies. Chas dropped below the
surface.

He waited as long as he dared. The neural nanonics’ physiological monitor
program was flashing dire warnings of oxygen starvation into his brain
before he risked surfacing.

Wryde was out of sight round a curve, although the ordinary light which
clung to its rolling parkland was spilling round the trees on the bank.
When he looked at his prize it had changed from the well-crafted skiff he
had stolen to a dilapidated punt that was little more than a raft.
Tissue-thin gunwales, which had been added in what must have been a
surreal afterthought, were crumbling like rotten cork before his eyes.
They left a wake of dark mushy dust on the snowlilies.

Chas waited a minute to see if any other drastic changes were going to
occur. He rapped experimentally on the wood which was left. It seemed to
be solid enough. So with a great deal of effort, and coming dangerously
near to capsizing, he managed to half-clamber, half-roll into the shallow
bottom of the boat.

He lay there inertly for a long time, then ponderously raised himself
onto his elbows. The boat was drifting slowly into the bank. Long
slippery ribbons of foltwine were trailing from his splint. River beetles
crawled over his thigh wound. Both the medical nanonic packages were
approaching overload trying to screen the blood from the lower half of
his leg.

“Apart from that, fine,” he said. His grating voice provided a harsh
discord to the persistent fruity rumble of thunder.

He crushed or swept away as many of the beetles and other insects as he
could. Naturally there weren’t any oars. He cut through the vines holding
his splint together, and used one of the laths to scull away from the
bank and back into the main current. It took a while, with the snowlilies
resisting him, but when he was back in the middle of the river the boat
began to move noticeably swifter. He made himself as comfortable as
possible, and watched the tall trees go past with an increasing sense of
eagerness. A keen amateur student of military history, Chas knew that
back on old Earth they used to say all roads led to Rome. Here on
Lalonde, all the rivers led to Durringham.



A bubble of bright white light squatted possessively over Aberdale. From
the air it appeared as though the village was sheltering below a
translucent pearl dome to ward off the perverse elements assailing the
jungle. Octan circled it at a respectable distance, wings outstretched to
their full metre and a half span, riding the thermals with fluid ease,
contemptuous of gravity. The jungle underneath him was the same
discoloured maroon as the sky. But away to the south a single narrow
horizontal streak of bright green shone with compulsive intensity.
Instinctively he wanted to soar towards it, to break out into the
cleanliness of real light.

Tandem thoughts circulated through the bird’s brain, his kindly master’s
wishes directing his flight away from the purity, and tilting his head so
that he looked at the buildings in the middle of the illuminated
clearing. Enhanced retinas zoomed in.

“It’s virtually the same as Pamiers,” Pat Halahan said. “They’ve got
maybe fifty of those fancy houses put up. The ground is all lawns and
gardens, right out to the jungle. No sign of any fields or groves.” He
leaned forwards blindly. Octan casually curved a sepia wing-tip, altering
his course by a degree. “Now that is odd. Those trees along the riverbank
look like terrestrial weeping willows. But they’re big, twenty metres
plus. Got to be thirty years old.”

“Don’t count on it,” Kelly muttered in a surly undertone, covering
subtler emotions. “In any case, this is the wrong climate.”

“Yeah, right,” Pat said. “Switching to infrared. Nope. Nothing. If
there’s any installation underground, Reza, then they’re dug in way deep.”

“OK,” the team commander said reluctantly. “Have Octan scout further
east.”

“If you want. But it doesn’t look like there are any more inhabited
clearings in the jungle that way. He can see the light from Schuster
quite plainly from his altitude. There’s nothing like that eastwards.”

“They aren’t going to advertise with hundred-kilowatt holograms, Pat.”

“Yes, sir. East it is.”

A crucial urge to explore the as-yet-unseen land beyond the village
flowed through Octan’s synapses, and the big eagle wheeled abruptly,
reducing landscape and injured sky to chaotic smears.

The mercenary team were also marching eastwards, but they were on the
Quallheim’s northern shore, keeping roughly parallel to the water, a
kilometre inland. They had come ashore west of Schuster where deirar
trees covered the ground as thoroughly as though they were a plantation.
Such regularity made the team’s journey much easier than their first
venture ashore when they had bypassed Pamiers.

The deirars’ thick smooth boles rose straight up for twenty-five metres
then opened into an umbrella of vegetation that formed a near-solid roof.
Together they formed a sylvestral cathedral of enormous proportions.
Everywhere the mercenaries looked they could see sturdy jet-black bark
pillars supporting the dovetailing leaf domes. On this side of the river
the usual deluge of vines and undergrowth was little more than a wispy
clutter of straggly sun-starved weeds, long stemmed and pale, heavy with
grey mould.

It was Reza who led the march, although he had sent Theo scampering
across the treetop canopy on the lookout for hostiles. Few of them had
escaped from Pamiers uninjured. He counted himself among the fortunate,
with a burn on the rear of his skull that had scorched a couple of sensor
warts down to the monobonded carbon reinforced bone; torso scores, and a
spiral weal on his right leg. Of all of them, Kelly had borne the worst
injury; but the medical packages had resuscitated her to mobile status.
She walked with a small cylindrical shoulder-bag carrying her kit; her
armour trousers protected her legs from thorns, and an olive-green
T-shirt which the red light had turned a raw umber covered the bulge of
medical packages on her side.

Pamiers had delivered a deft lesson, bruising their pride as well as
their skin. But an important lesson, to Reza’s mind. The team had learnt
to give the sequestrated population a proper degree of respect. He wasn’t
going to risk probing a village again.

Fenton and Ryall padded tirelessly through the jungle on the southern
bank, skirting Aberdale by a wide margin. Jungle sounds filled their ears
in the short gaps between the red cloud’s perpetual thunder peals. The
organic perfume of a hundred different flowers and ripening vine fruits
trickled through the muggy air, a vital living counterpoint to the stink
of dead children.

Reza nudged the hounds further south, away from the now-foreign village,
from the smell of the small decaying bodies, its voodoo fence, away from
the terrible price Lalonde’s populace had paid under the invaders’
regime. Narrow leaves, mottled with fungal furs, parted round the hounds’
muzzles. Chilly distaste and shame—almost inevitably, shame—wormed its
trenchant way into their minds along the affinity bond; they shared their
master’s susceptibilities, becoming as keen as he to leave the
heartbreaker calamity behind.

New scents rode the air: sap dripping from snapped vine strands, crushed
leaves, loam ruffled by footprints and wheel tracks. The hounds raced
ahead, guided by primal senses. People had been this way recently. Some,
but not many.

Reza saw a path through the jungle. An old animal track running
north–south, enlarged some time ago—branches cut back by fission blades,
bushes hacked away—only to fall into disuse again. Almost, but not quite.
Somebody still used it. Someone had used it less than two hours ago.

Nerves and instinct fired now, Fenton and Ryall loped through the moist
grass towards the south. After two kilometres they found a scent trail
branching off into the jungle. One person, male. His clothes smearing the
leaves with sweat and cotton.

“Pat, bring Octan back. I think we’ve got our man.”



Reza kept the snatch mission simple. The team activated their hovercraft
again when they were back on the Quallheim east of Aberdale and started
searching for a tributary fork on the south bank. According to the map
stored in his guidance block there was a modest river which ran south
through the jungle, coming from the mountains on the far side of the
savannah. It took them five minutes to find it, and the hovercraft nosed
over the clot of snowlilies guarding its mouth. Plaited tree boughs
formed an arched screen overhead.

“After the snatch we’ll keep going up this river and out onto the
savannah,” Reza said when they had left the Quallheim behind. “I want to
get him and us out from under this bloody cloud as quickly as possible.
We should be able to access the communication satellites as well once
we’re clear of it. That way if we can extract any useful information it
can be delivered straight up to Terrance Smith.”

If Smith is still up there, Kelly thought. She couldn’t forget what the
woman in Pamiers had said about the starships fighting. But Joshua had
promised to stay and pick them up. She gave a cynical little sniff. Oh
yes, the Confederation’s Mr. Dependable himself.

“You all right?” Ariadne asked, raising her voice above the steady
propeller whine and the rambling thunder booms.

“My analgesic blocks are holding,” Kelly said. “It was just the size of
the burn which shocked me.” She resisted the urge to scratch the medical
nanonic packages.

“Adds a bit of spice to the recording, a bit of drama,” Ariadne said.
“Speaking of which, you’re not going to blow us out, are you? I mean, we
are the good guys.”

“Yeah. You’re the good guys.”

“Great, always wanted to be a sensevise star.”

Kelly accessed her Lalonde sensevise report memory cell file and turned
her head until Ariadne was in the centre of her vision field (wishing the
combat-boosted could produce some halfway decent facial expressions).
“What did you learn from the sample you took from the houses?”

“Nowt. It was dust, that’s all. Literally, dry loam.”

“So these ornamental buildings are just an illusion?”

“Half and half. It isn’t a complete fiction; they’ve moulded the loam
into the shape you see and cloaked it with an optical illusion. It’s
similar to our chameleon circuit, really.”

“How do they do that?”

“No idea. The closest human technology can come is the molecular-binding
generators starships use to strengthen their hulls. But they’re
expensive, and use up a lot of power. Be cheaper to build a house, or use
programmed silicon like you suggested. Then again”—she tilted her head
back to focus her sensors on the cloudband above the trees—“logic doesn’t
seem to be playing a large part in life on Lalonde right now.”

The hovercraft eased in against the crumbling loam bank. Ryall was
standing among the qualtook trees above the water, waiting for them. Reza
jumped ashore and ruffled the big hound’s head. It pressed against his
side in complete devotion.

“Jalal and Ariadne, with me,” Reza said. “The rest of you stay here and
keep the hovercraft ready. Pat, monitor us through Octan. If we blow the
snatch, I suggest you keep heading south. There’s a Tyrathca farming
settlement on the other side of the savannah. It’s as good a place as any
to hide out. This snatch is our last stab at completing the mission.
Don’t waste yourselves trying to gather further Intelligence, and don’t
attempt a rescue. Got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Pat said.

Jalal and Ariadne joined Reza on the top of the bank. The big
combat-adept mercenary had plugged a gaussrifle into one elbow socket and
a TIP rifle into the other; power cables and feed tubes looped round into
his backpack.

“Kelly?” Reza asked ingenuously. “Not wanting to come with us this time?”

“It took eight generations of cousins marrying to produce you,” she told
him.

The three mercenaries on the bank activated their chameleon circuits.
Laughter floated down to the hovercraft out of unbroken jungle.

Fenton watched the little clearing from under the sloping lower branches
of an infant gigantea. The light here wasn’t the pure solar white of the
villages, but the universal redness had veered into a pale pink shade. A
log cabin had been built in the centre, not the kind of frame and plank
arrangement favoured by the colonists but a rugged affair that could have
come straight from some Alpine meadow. A stone chimney-stack formed
almost all of one side, smoke wound drowsily upwards. A lot of trouble
had been taken to transform the clearing; undergrowth had been trimmed
back, animal hides were stretched drying over frames, timber had been cut
and stacked, a vegetable plot planted.

The man who had done it was a well-built thirty-five-year-old with
inflamed ginger hair, wearing a thick red and blue check cotton shirt and
mud-caked black denim jeans. He was working at a sturdy table outside his
front door, sawing up wood with old-fashioned manual tools. A
half-completed rocking chair stood on the ground behind him.

Fenton moved forwards surreptitiously out of the shaggy gigantea’s shade,
but keeping to the cover provided by bushes and smaller trees ringing the
clearing. Between thunder broadsides he could hear the regular stifled
ripping sound as the man planed a piece of wood on the table. Then the
sound stopped and his shoulders stiffened.

Reza wouldn’t have thought it possible. The man was a good fifty metres
away, with his back to the hound, and the thunder was unrelenting. Even
his enhanced senses would have difficulty picking out Fenton under such
circumstances. He and the other two mercenaries were still four hundred
metres away. Nothing else for it . . . Fenton cantered eagerly into the
clearing.

The man looked round, bushy eyebrows rising. “What’s this, then? My,
you’re a roguish looking brute.” He clicked his fingers, and Fenton
trotted up to him. “Ah, you’ll not be on your own, then. That’s a shame,
a crying shame. For all of us. Your master won’t be far behind, I’ll
warrant. Will you? Came down on the spaceplanes this morning no doubt,
didn’t you? That must have been a trip and a half. Aye, well, I’ll not be
finishing my chair this afternoon then.” He sat down on a bench beside
the table, and started to change, his shirt losing colour, hair fading,
thinning, stature diminishing.

By the time Reza, Jalal, and Ariadne walked into the clearing he had
become an undistinguished middle-aged man with brown skin and thin
features, wearing an ageing LDC one-piece jump suit. Fenton was noisily
lapping up water out of a bowl at his feet, mind radiating contentment
with his new friend.

Reza walked over cautiously. His retinal implants scanned the man from
head to toe, and he datavised the pixel sequence into his processor block
for a search and identify program. Although the earlier phantom
lumberjack image had vanished, Reza saw the roots of the man’s black hair
were a dark ginger. “Afternoon,” he said, not quite sure how to react to
this display of passivity.

“Good afternoon to you. Not that I’ve seen anything like you before,
mind. Not outside a kinema, and perhaps not even there.”

“My name is Reza Malin. We’re part of a team employed by the LDC to find
out what’s going on down here.”

“Then with every ounce of sincerity I own, I wish you good luck, my boy.
You’re going to need it.”

An ounce was an ancient unit of measure, Reza’s neural nanonics informed
him (there was no reference to kinema in any file). “Are you going to
help me?”

“It doesn’t look to me like I’ve got a lot of choice, now does it? Not
with your merry gang and their big, big weapons.”

“That’s true. What’s your name?”

“My name? Well, now, that’d be Shaun Wallace.”

“Bad move. According to the LDC files you’re Rai Molvi, a colonist who
settled Aberdale.”

The man scratched his ear and gave Reza a bashful grin. “Ah now, you’ve
got me there, Mr. Malin. I must admit, I was indeed old Molvi. Charmless
soul he is, too.”

“OK, smartarse, game over. Come on.”

Reza led the way back to the hovercraft, with Jalal walking right behind
their captive, gaussrifle trained on the back of his skull. A couple of
minutes after they left the clearing the pink light began to dim back
into the same lustreless burgundy of the surrounding jungle. As if
immediately aware of the abandonment, playful vennals slithered into the
trees around the edge of the clearing. The more venturesome among them
dared to scamper over the grass to the cabin itself, searching for
titbits. After quarter of an hour the cabin emitted a vociferous creak.
The vennals fled en masse back into the trees.

It was another couple of minutes before anything else happened. Then,
with the tardiness of a sinking moon, its surface texture leaked away to
reveal a starkly primitive mud hut. Tiny arid flakes moulted from the
roof, resembling a sleet of miniature autumn leaves as they scattered
over the grass below; rivulets of dust trickled down the walls. Within
twenty minutes the entire edifice had dissolved like a sugar cube in
soft, warm rain.



Forget discovering Ione Saldana existed, forget discovering Laton was
still alive, this was the ultimate interview. For this Collins would make
her their premier anchorwoman for the rest of time. For this she would be
respected and lionized across the Confederation. Kelly Tirrel was the
first reporter in history to interview the dead.

And as the dead went, Shaun Wallace was agreeable enough. He sat on the
rear bench of the lead hovercraft, facing Kelly, and stroking Fenton the
whole while. Jalal kept a heavy-calibre gaussrifle levelled at him. On
the front bench beside her, Reza was listening intently, making the
occasional comment.

The trees were thinning out as they raced for the end of the jungle. She
could see more of the red cloudband through the black filigree of leaves
overhead. It too was becoming flimsier; there were definite fast-moving
serpentine currents straining its uniformity. Strangely, for there was no
wind at ground level.

Shaun Wallace claimed he had lived in Northern Ireland during the early
twentieth century. “Terrible times,” he said softly. “Especially for
someone with my beliefs.” But he had just shaken his head and smiled
distantly when she asked what those beliefs were. “Nothing a lady like
yourself would want to know.” He died, he said, in the mid-1920s, another
martyr to the cause, another victim of English oppression. The reason the
soldiers shot him was not volunteered. He claimed he hadn’t died alone.

“And after?” Kelly said.

“Ah, now, Miss Kelly, afterwards is the work of the Devil.”

“You went to hell?”

“Hell is a place, so the good priests taught me. This beyond was no
place. It was dry and empty, and it was cruel beyond physical pain. It
was where you can see the living wasting their lives, and where you drain
the substance from each other.”

“Each other? You weren’t alone?”

“There was millions of us. Souls beyond the counting of a simple
Ballymena lad like myself.”

“You say you can see the living from the other side?”

“From the beyond, yes. ’Tis like through a foggy window. But you strive
to make out what it is that’s happening in the living world. All the time
you strive. And you yearn for it, you yearn for it so hard, lass, that
you feel your heart should be bursting apart. I saw wonders and I saw
terrors, and I could touch neither.”

“How did you come back?”

“The way was opened for us. Something came through from this side, right
here on this sodden hot planet. I don’t know what the creature was.
Nothing Earthly, though. After that, there was no stopping us.”

“This xenoc, the creature you say let you through; is it still here,
still bringing souls back from the beyond?”

“No, it was only here for the first one. It vanished after that. But it
was too late, the trickle was already becoming a flood. We bring
ourselves back now.”

“How?”

Shaun Wallace gave a reluctant sigh. He was quiet for so long Kelly
thought he wasn’t going to answer; he even stopped stroking Fenton.

“The way the devil-lovers of yesterday always tried to do it,” he said
heavily. “With their ceremonies and their pagan barbarism. And God
preserve me for doing such things, I used to think what I did before was
sinful. But there’s no other way.”

“What is the way?”

“We break the living. We make them want to be possessed. Possession is
the end of torment, you see. Even with our power we can only open a small
gateway to the beyond, enough to show the lost souls the way back. But
there has to be somewhere waiting for them, some host. And the host has
to be willing.”

“You torture them into submission,” Reza said bluntly.

“Aye, that we do. That we do, indeed. And, mark you, there’s no pride in
me for saying it.”

“You mean, Rai Molvi is still there? Still alive inside you?”

“Yes. But I keep his soul locked away in a dark, safe place. I’m not sure
you could call it living.”

“And this power you mentioned.” Kelly pressed the point. “What is your
power?”

“I don’t know for sure. Magic of a kind. Though not a witch’s magic with
its spells and potions. This is a darker magic, because it’s there at a
thought. So easy, it is. Nothing like that should be given easily to a
man. The temptations are too strong.”

“Is that where the white fire comes from?” Reza asked. “This power you
have?”

“Aye, indeed it is.”

“What’s its range?”

“Ah now, Mr. Malin, that’s difficult to say. The more of you that fling
it, the further it will go. The more impassioned you are, the stronger it
will be. For a cool one such as yourself, I doubt it would be far.”

Reza grunted and shifted back on the bench.

“Could you demonstrate the power for me, please?” Kelly asked. “Something
I can record and show people. Something that will make them believe what
you say is true.”

“I’ve never known a newspaper gal before. You did say you were from a
newspaper, now didn’t you?”

“What newspapers eventually became, yes.” She ran a historical search
request through her neural nanonics. “Something like the Movietone and
Pathé reels at the cinema, only with colour and feeling. Now, that
demonstration?”

“I normally prefer gals with longer hair, myself.”

Kelly ran her hand self-consciously over her scalp. She had shaved her
hair to a blueish stubble so she could wear the armour’s shell-helmet. “I
normally have longer hair,” she said resentfully.

Shaun Wallace winked broadly, then leant over the gunwale and scooped up
one of the long-legged insects scampering over the snowlilies. He held it
up in the palm of his hand; a long spindly tube body, dun brown, with a
round bulb of a head sprouting unpleasant pincer mandibles. It was
quivering, but stayed where it was as though glued to his skin. He
brought his other hand down flat on top of it, making a show of pressing
them together, squashing the insect. Kelly’s eyes never wavered.

When he parted his hands the prince of butterflies was revealed, wings
almost the size of his palms, patterned in deep turquoise and topaz and
silver, colours resistant to the red light of the cloud, shining in their
own right. Its wings flexed twice, then it flew off, only to be kicked
about in the air by the wash of the hovercraft’s powerful slipstream.

“There, you see?” Shaun Wallace said. “We don’t always destroy.”

Kelly lost sight of the delightful apparition. “How long will it stay
like that?”

“Mortality is not something you measure out like a pint of ale, Miss
Kelly. It will live its life to the full, and that’s all that can be
said.”

“He doesn’t know,” Reza muttered curtly.

Shaun Wallace practised a knowing, slightly condescending smile.

It was growing lighter around the hovercraft. Up ahead, Kelly could see
the wonderfully welcome glare of pure sunlight striking emerald foliage.
A colour that wasn’t red! She had begun to believe that red was all there
ever was, all there ever had been.

The hovercraft skimmed out from under the chafed edge of the cloudband.
All of the mercenaries broke into a spontaneous cheer.

“What is that thing?” Kelly shouted above the rebel whoops, pointing up
at the cloud.

“A reflection of ourselves, our fear.”

“What do you fear?”

“The emptiness of the night. It reminds us too much of the beyond. We
hide from it.”

“You mean you’re making that?” she asked, scepticism warring with
astonishment. “But it covers thousands of kilometres.”

“Aye, that it does. ’Tis our will that creates it; we want shelter, so
shelter we have. All of us, Miss Kelly, even me who shuns the rest of
them, we all pray for sanctuary with every fibre of being. And it’s
growing, this will of ours, spreading out to conquer. One day soon it
will cover all of this planet. But even that is only the first chapter of
salvation.”

“What’s the second?”

“To leave. To escape the harsh gaze of this universe altogether. We’ll
withdraw to a place of our own making. A place where there is no
emptiness hanging like a sword above the land, no death to claim us. A
place where your butterfly will live for ever, Miss Kelly. Now tell me
that isn’t a worthy goal, tell me that isn’t a dream worth having.”

Reza watched the last of the jungle’s trees go past as the hovercraft
reached the savannah. The lush green grassland seemed to unroll on either
side of the river as though it was only just coming into existence. He
wasn’t really paying much attention; the strange (supposed) Irishman was
a captivating performer. “A closed universe,” he said, and the earlier
scorn was lacking.

Kelly gave him a surprised glance. “You mean it is possible?”

“It happens thousands of times a day. The blackhawks and voidhawks open
interstices to travel through wormholes every time they fly between
stars. Technically they’re self-contained universes.”

“Yes, but taking a planet—”

“There are twenty million of us,” Shaun Wallace purred smoothly. “We can
do it, together, we can pull open the portal that leads away from
mortality.”

Kelly’s neural nanonics faithfully recorded the silver chill tickling her
nerves at the naked conviction in his voice. “You’re really planning to
generate a wormhole large enough to enclose the whole of Lalonde? And
keep it there?”

Shaun Wallace wagged his finger at her. “Ah, now there you go again, Miss
Kelly, putting your fine, elegant words in my mouth. Plans, such a grand
term. Generals and admirals and kings, now they have plans. But we don’t,
we have instinct. Hiding our new world from this universe God created,
that comes as naturally as breathing.” He chuckled. “It means we can go
on breathing, too. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to stop me from doing that,
would you now? Not a sweet lass like yourself.”

“No. But what about Rai Molvi? Tell me what happens to him afterwards?”

Shaun Wallace scratched his chin, looked round at the savannah, shifted
the jump-suit fabric round his shoulders, pulled a sardonic face.

“He stays, doesn’t he?” Kelly said stiffly. “You won’t let him go.”

“I need the body, miss. Real bad. Perhaps there’ll be a priest amongst us
I can visit for absolution.”

“If what you’re saying is true,” Reza said charily, focusing an optical
sensor on the cloudband behind, “then we really don’t want to be staying
here any longer than we have to. Wallace, when is this planetary
vanishing act supposed to happen?”

“You have a few days’ grace. But there are none of your starships left to
sail away on. Sorry.”

“Is that why you didn’t resist, because we can’t escape?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Malin, you’ve got me all wrong. You see, I don’t want much
to do with my fellows. That’s why I live out in the woods, there. I
prefer being on my own, I’ve had a bucketful of their company. Seven
centuries of it, to be precise.”

“So you’ll help us?”

He gathered himself up and threw a glance over his shoulder at the second
hovercraft. “I won’t hinder you,” he announced magnanimously.

“Thank you very much.”

“Not that it will do you much good, mind.”

“How’s that?”

“There’s not going to be many places you can run to, I’m afraid. Quite a
few of us have sailed away already.”

“Fucking hell,” Kelly gasped.

Shaun Wallace frowned in disapproval. “To be sure, that’s no word for a
lady to be going and using.”

Kelly made sure he was in perfect focus. “Are you telling me that what’s
happening on Lalonde is going to happen on other planets as well?”

“Indeed I am. There’s a lot of very anguished souls back there in the
beyond. They’re all in dire need of a clean handsome body, every one of
them. Something very much like the one you’ve got there.”

“This is occupied, to the hilt.”

His eyes flashed with black amusement. “So was this one, Miss Kelly.”

“And all these worlds the possessed have gone to, are you going to try
and imprison them in wormholes?”

“That’s a funny old word you’re using there: wormholes. Little muddy
tunnels in the ground, with casts on top to show the fishermen where they
are.”

“It means chinks in space, gaps you can fall through.”

“Does it now? Well, then, I suppose that’s what I mean, yes. I like that,
a gap in the air which leads you through to the other side of the
rainbow.”

Surreal. The word seemed to be caught on some repeater program in Kelly’s
neural nanonics, flipping up in hologram violet over the image of a mad,
dead Irishman sitting in front of her, grinning in delight at her
discomfort. Worlds snatched out of their orbits by armies of the dead.
Surreal. Surreal. Surreal.

Fenton rose growling to his feet, fangs barred, hackles sticking up like
spikes. Shaun Wallace gave the hound an alarmed look, and Kelly’s retinas
caught the minutest white static flames twinkle over his fingertips. But
Fenton swung his head round to the prow and barked.

Jalal’s gaussrifle was already coming round. He saw the huge creature
crouched down in the long grass at the side of the water thirty-five
metres ahead of the hovercraft. The Lalonde generalist didactic memory
called it a kroclion, a plains-dwelling carnivore which even the sayce
ran from. He wasn’t surprised, the beast must have been nearly four
metres long, weighing an easy half-tonne. Its hide was a sandy yellow,
well suited to the grass, making visual identification hard (infrared
was, thankfully, a furnace flame). The head—like a terrestrial shark—had
been grafted on, all teeth and tiny killer-bright eyes.

Blue target graphics locked on. He fired an EE round.

Everyone ducked, Kelly jamming her hands over her ears. A dazzling
explosion sent a pillar of purple plasma and mashed soil spouting twenty
metres into the air. Its vertex flattened out, a ring of soot-choked
orange flame rolling across the river. The ululate crack was loud enough
to drown out the tattoo of thunder chasing them from the red cloud.

Kelly lifted her head carefully.

“I think you got him,” Theo said drily, as he steered the hovercraft away
from the quaking water sloshing round the new crater. A semicircle of
grass on the bank was burning.

“They’re vicious bastards,” Jalal protested.

“Not that one, not any more, as anyone within five kilometres will tell
you,” Ariadne said.

“And you could have dealt with it better?”

“Forget it,” Reza said. “We’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“You believe what this dickhead has been telling us?” Ariadne asked,
jerking a thumb at Shaun Wallace.

“Some of it,” Reza said noncommittally.

“Why thank you, Mr. Malin,” Shaun Wallace said. He watched the burning
crater closely as the hovercraft sped past. “Fine shooting there, Mr.
Jalal. Those old kroclions, they put the wind up me and no mistake. Old
Lucifer was on form the day he made them.”

“Shut up,” Reza said. The one optical sensor he had left focused on the
edge of the red cloud showed him a lone tendril starting to swell out,
extending along the line of the narrow river behind them. Too slow to
catch them, he estimated, but it was a graphically disturbing
demonstration that the cloud and the possessed inhabitants were aware of
the team’s presence.

He opened a channel to his communication block and datavised a sequence
of orders in. It began scanning the sky for communication-satellite
beacons. Two of the five satellites the blackhawks had delivered into
geosynchronous orbit were above the horizon and still broadcasting. The
block aimed a tight beam at one, requesting contact with any of Terrance
Smith’s fleet. No ship was left in the command net, the satellite’s
computer reported, but there was a message stored in its memory. Reza
datavised his personal code.

“This is a restricted access message for Reza’s team,” Joshua Calvert’s
voice said from the communication block. “But I have to be sure it is you
and only you receiving it. The satellite is programmed to transmit it on
a secure directional beam. If there is any hostile within five hundred
metres of you who can intercept then do not request access. In order to
access the recording, enter the name of the person who came between me
and Kelly last year.”

The tip of the cloud tendril was a couple of kilometres away. Reza turned
to face Shaun Wallace. “Can any of your friends intercept a radio
transmission?”

“Well, now, there’s some of them living in one of the old savannah
homesteads. But they’re a few miles from here, yet. Is that more than
five hundred metres?”

“Yes. Kelly, the name please.”

She gave him a stonefaced smile. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t leave me
behind at Pamiers?”

Jalal laughed. “She got you there, Reza.”

“Yes,” Reza said heavily. “I’m glad we didn’t leave you behind. The name?”

Kelly opened a channel to his communication block and datavised: “Ione
Saldana.”

There was a moment’s silence while the satellite’s carrier wave emitted a
few electronic bleeps.

“Well remembered, Kelly. OK, this is the bad news: the hijacked starships
have started fighting us and the navy. There’s a real vicious battle
going on in orbit right now. Lady Mac got clear, but we’ve taken a bit of
punishment in the process. Another story for you sometime. I’m about to
jump us out to Murora. There’s an Edenist station in orbit there, and
we’re hoping to dock with it to make our repairs. We estimate the damage
can be patched up in a couple of days, after which we’ll come back for
you. Kelly, Reza, the rest of you; we’re only going to make one fly-by.
Hopefully you took my earlier advice and are now heading hell for leather
away from that bloody cloud. Keep going, and leave your communication
block scanning for my transmission. If you want to be picked up then
you’ll have to stay away from any hostiles. That’s about it, we’re
battening down to jump now. Good luck, I’ll see you in two, maybe three
days.”

Kelly rested her head in her hands. Just hearing his voice again was a
fantastic tonic. And he was alive, smart enough to elude a battle. And he
was going to come back for them. Joshua, you bloody splendid marvel. She
wiped tears from her cheeks.

Shaun Wallace patted her shoulder tenderly. “Your young man, is it?”

“Yes. Sort of.” She sniffed, and brushed away the last of the tears in a
businesslike manner.

“He sounds like a fine boy to me.”

“He is.”

Reza datavised a summary of events to the second hovercraft. “I’m in
complete agreement with Joshua about keeping clear of the cloud and the
possessed. As of now our original mission is over. Our priority now is
just to stay alive and make sure what information we have gets back to
the Confederation authorities. We’ll keep going up this river to the
Tyrathca farmers and hope that we can hold out there until the Lady
Macbeth comes back for us.”



It was the rygar bush which had brought the Tyrathca farmers to Lalonde.

When they were searching for their initial backing, the LDC sent samples
of Lalonde’s aboriginal flora to both of the xenoc members of the
Confederation; it was standard practice to try and attract as wide a
spectrum of support as possible for such ventures. The Kiint, as always,
declined to participate. But the Tyrathca considered the small berries of
the rygar bush a superlative delicacy. Ripe berries could be ground up to
produce a cold beverage, or mixed with sugar to form a sticky fudge; LDC
negotiators claimed it was the Tyrathcan equivalent of chocolate. The
normally cloistered xenocs were so enamoured at the prospect of wholesale
rygar cultivation they agreed to a joint colony enterprise with their
merchant organization taking a four per cent stake in the LDC. It was
only the third time since joining the Confederation that they had ever
participated in a colony, a fact which lent the hard-pressed LDC
considerable badly needed respectability. Even better for the LDC board:
to a human palate the rygar berries tasted like oily grapes, so there
would never be any conflict of interest arising.

Five years after the dumpers had dropped out of the sky to form the
nucleus of Durringham the first batch of Tyrathcan breeder pairs arrived
and settled in the foothills of the mountain range which made up the
southern border of the Juliffe basin where the rygar bushes flourished.
The LDC’s long-range economic plans foresaw both the human and Tyrathcan
settlements expanding from their respective centres until they met at the
roots of the tributaries. By the time that happened both groups would
have risen above their initial subsidence level and be prosperous enough
to trade to their mutual enrichment. But that date was still many years
in the future. The human villages furthest from Durringham were all as
poor as Aberdale and Schuster, while the Tyrathcan plantations had barely
cultivated enough rygar to fill the holds of the starships their
merchants sent twice a year. Contact had so far been minimal.



It was late afternoon, and the savannah was already giving way to low
humpbacked foothills when the mercenary team saw their first Tyrathcan
house. There was no mistaking it, a dark cinnamon-coloured tower
twenty-five metres high with slightly tapering walls, and circular
windows sealed over with ebony blisters. The design had evolved on the
abandoned Tyrathcan homeworld, Mastrit-PJ, over seventeen thousand years
ago, and was employed on every planet their arkships had colonized right
across the galaxy. They never used anything else.

This one stood like a border sentry castle overlooking the river. Octan
glided round it a couple of times, seeing the vague outlines of fields
and gardens reclaimed by grass and small scrub bushes. Moss and weeds
were growing around the inside of the roof’s turret wall where soil and
dust had drifted.

“Nothing moving,” Pat reported to Reza. “I’d say it was deserted three or
four years ago.”

They had gathered together on the riverbank just downstream from the
tower house, hovercraft drawn up on the grass. The river was getting
narrower, little more than a stream, down to about eight metres wide, and
littered with boulders which made it virtually unnavigable. For the first
time since they had landed that morning there were no snowlilies in
sight, only the broken tips of their stems trailing limply.

“The Tyrathca do that,” Sal Yong said. “A house is only ever used once.
When the breeders die it’s sealed up as their tomb.”

Reza consulted his guidance block. “There’s a plantation village called
Coastuc-RT six kilometres south-east of here. The other side of that
ridge,” he pointed, datavising the map image to them. “Ariadne, can the
hovercraft take it?”

She focused her optical sensors on the rolling land which skirted the
mountains. “Shouldn’t be a problem, the grass is a lot shorter here than
the savannah and there isn’t much stone about.” When she looked west she
could see another three of the dark towers sticking out of the bleak
countryside. They were all in shadow; thick black rain-clouds were
surging towards them along the side of the mountains. The wind had
freshened appreciably since they had left the jungle. Looking back to the
north she could see the red cloud over the Quallheim forging the entire
northern horizon; it was almost edge on, they had climbed steadily since
leaving it behind. The sky above it was a perfect unblemished blue.

Kelly felt the first smattering of the drizzle on her bare arms as she
clambered back into the hovercraft. She dug into her cylindrical kitbag
for a cagoule, her burnt armour-suit jacket had been left behind in the
jungle—in that state it wouldn’t have been any use anyway. “I’m sorry,”
she told Shaun Wallace as he sat beside her. “I’ve only got the one, and
the others don’t need them.”

“Ah now, don’t you go worrying yourself over me, Miss Kelly,” he said.
The jump suit he wore turned a rich indigo, then the fabric became
stiffer. He was wearing a cagoule which was identical to the one in her
hands, right down to the unobtrusive Collins logo on the left shoulder.
“There, see? Old Shaun can look after himself.”

Kelly gave him a flustered nod (thankful her memory cell was still
recording), and hurriedly struggled into her own cagoule as the warm
drizzle thickened. “What about food?” she asked the Irishman as Theo
goaded the hovercraft over the summit of the riverbank and started off
towards the Tyrathca village.

“Don’t mind if I do, thanks. Nothing too rich mind, not for me. I likes
me pleasures simple.”

She dug round in the bag and found a bar of tarrit-flavoured chocolate.
None of the mercenaries had brought any food, with their metabolisms they
could graze off the vegetation indefinitely, potent intestinal enzymes
breaking up anything with proteins and hydrocarbons.

Shaun Wallace chewed in silence for a minute. “That’s nice,” he said,
“reminds me a little of bilberries on a cold morning,” and he grinned.

Kelly found she was smiling back at him.

The hovercraft moved a lot slower over the land than on water. Cairnlike
clusters of weather-smoothed stone and sudden pinched gullies made the
pilots’ task a demanding one. The rain, which was now a solid downpour of
heavy grey water, added to the difficulty.

Pat had sent Octan northward to avoid the worst of the deluge. Back out
on the savannah it was still dry and sunny, a buffer zone between nature
and supernature. Reza dispatched Fenton and Ryall to survey the ground
ahead. Lightning began to spear down.

“I think I preferred the river,” Jalal said glumly.

“Ah, Mr. Jalal, buck up now, this is nothing for Lalonde,” Shaun Wallace
said. “A little shower, that’s all. It was much worse than this before we
returned from beyond.”

Jalal ignored the casual reference to the power of the possessed; Shaun
Wallace, he thought, was playing a subtle war of nerves against them.
Sowing the seeds of doubt and despondency.

“Hold it,” Reza datavised to Theo, and Sal Yong, who was piloting the
second hovercraft. “Deflate the skirts.”

The hovercraft sank onto their hulls with flagging whines, crushing the
sturdy grass tufts, settling at awkward angles. Rain had reduced
visibility to less than twenty-five metres even with enhanced sight.
Kelly could just make out Ryall up ahead. The hound was shifting about
uneasily in front of a big sandy-brown boulder.

Reza took off his magazine belt, and left the TIP carbine he’d been
carrying with it. He hopped over the gunwale and started to trudge
towards the restive animal. Kelly had to wipe a slick film of water from
her face. The rain was worming its way round her cagoule hood to run down
her neck. She toyed with the idea of putting on her shell-helmet
again—anything to stop this insidious clammy invasion.

Reza stopped five metres short of the brown lump, and slowly opened his
arms, rain dripping from his grey-skinned fingers. He shouted something
even Kelly’s studio-grade audio-discrimination program couldn’t catch
above the wind and rain. She squinted, the rain suddenly chilling inside
her T-shirt. The boulder rose up smoothly on four powerful legs. Kelly
gasped. Her Confederation generalist didactic memory identified it
immediately: a soldier-caste Tyrathca.

“Oh bugger,” Jalal muttered. “They’re clan creatures, it won’t be alone.”
He started to scan around. It was hopeless in the rain, even infrared was
washed out.

The soldier-caste Tyrathca was about as big as a horse, although the legs
weren’t as long. Its head, too, was faintly equine, tilted back at a
shallow angle at the end of a thick muscular neck. There were no visible
ears, or nostrils; the mouth had a complex double-lip arrangement
resembling overlapping clam shells. The sienna hide, which Kelly had
thought solid like an exoskeleton, was actually scaled, with a
short-cropped chestnut-brown mane running along its entire spine. Two
arms extended from behind the base of its neck, ending in nine-fingered
circular hands. A pair of slender antennae also protruded from its
shoulder joints, swept back along the length of its body.

Although it had a strong animal appearance, it was holding a large very
modern-looking rifle. A broad harnesslike belt hung round its neck, with
grenades and power magazines clipped on.

It held out a processor block, and a slim AV projection pillar telescoped
out. “Turn your vehicles around,” a synthetic voice clanged through the
rain. “Humans are no longer permitted here.”

“We need somewhere to shelter for the night,” Reza replied. “We can’t go
back north; you must have seen the red cloud.”

“No humans.”

“Why not? We must have somewhere to stay. Tell me, why?”

“Humans have become—” The block gave a melodic cheep. “No direct
translation available; similarity to: elemental. Coastuc-RT has suffered
damage, merchant spaceplane has been stolen. Breeders and other castes
have been killed by amok humans. You are not permitted entry.”

“I know about the disturbances in the human villages. I have been sent by
the Lalonde Development Corporation to try and restore order.”

“Then do that. Go to your own race’s villages and bring order.”

“We have tried, but the situation was beyond our capability to resolve.
There has been a major invasion of an unknown origin.” He just couldn’t
bring himself to say possession. The processor block was quiet; he
guessed he was talking to a breeder, the soldier caste were only
marginally sentient—not that he’d like to go up against one. “I would
like to discuss what can be done to protect you from further attack. My
team are combat trained and well equipped, we should be able to augment
whatever defences you have.”

“Acceptable. You may enter Coastuc-RT by yourself to view the situation.
If you believe you are able to increase our defences your team will be
allowed to enter and stay.”

“Reza,” Kelly datavised. “Ask if I can come with you, please.”

“I will need to bring two others to assess the area around Coastuc-RT
with any degree of accuracy before nightfall,” he said out loud, then
datavised: “That makes us quits now.”

“Absolutely,” she replied.

“Two only,” the synthetic voice agreed. “None may carry weapons. Our
soldiers will provide protection.”

“As you wish.” He turned and walked back to the first hovercraft, feet
sinking up to his ankles in slimy puddles. The processor block AV
projection pillar began to emit the reverberative whistles and hoots
which were the Tyrathcan speech. Answering calls shrilled through the
rain, causing the mercenaries to up their sensor resolution to the
maximum in a vain attempt to locate the other soldier castes.

“Ariadne, you come with me and Kelly,” Reza said. “I’ll need someone who
can review the area properly. The rest of you wait here. We’ll try and
get back before dusk. I’ll leave Fenton and Ryall on picket duty for you.”

Two seemingly tireless soldiers ran alongside the hovercraft all the way
to the village, antennae whipping back and forth (they were
tail-analogues, helping with balance, according to Kelly’s didactic
memory). Kelly wasn’t sure whom they were supposed to be protecting. The
guns still appeared incongruous; for creatures that had evolved during
the pre-technology tribal era to fight the Tyrathcan version of rough and
tumble against enemy tribe soldiers bows and arrows would be more suited.

When she reviewed the entire didactic memory she found that the breeders
(the only fully sentient Tyrathca) secreted what amounted to chemical
control programs in specialist teats. A breeder would think out a
sequence of orders—which plants were edible, how to operate a specific
power tool—that would be edited into a chain of molecules by the teat
gland. Once instructions were loaded in the brain of a vassal-caste
species (there were six types) they could be activated by a simple verbal
command whenever required. The chemicals were also used to educate young
breeders, making the process a natural equivalent to Adamist didactic
imprints and Edenist educational affinity lessons.

The rain was easing off when the hovercraft cleared the crest above
Coastuc-RT. Kelly looked down on a broad, gentle valley with extensively
cultivated terraces on both sides. An area of nearly twenty square
kilometres had been cleared of scrub and grass, rebuilt into irrigated
ledges, and planted with young rygar bushes. Coastuc-RT itself sat on the
floor of the valley, several hundred identical dark brown towers
regimented in concentric rings around a central park space.

Reza steered the hovercraft onto a rough switchback track and set off
down the slope. Numerous farmer-caste Tyrathca were out tending the
emerald-green bushes—pruning, weeding, patching up the shallow drainage
ditches. The farmers were slightly smaller than the soldiers but with
thicker arms, endowed with the kind of plodding durability associated
with oxen or shire-horses. They saw one or two hunter caste skulking
among the bushes, about the same size as Reza’s hounds, but with a
streamlined fury that could probably give a kroclion a nasty fright. The
escort soldiers whistled and hooted every time the hunters appeared, and
they turned away obediently.

The first signs of damage were visible when the hovercraft reached the
valley floor. Several towers in the village’s outer ring were broken,
five had been reduced to jagged stumps sticking up out of the rubble.
Scorch marks formed barbarous black graffiti across the tower walls.

Fields on either side of the road had been churned up by fresh craters.
EE explosives, Reza guessed, the village soldier caste had put up a good
fight. The road itself had been repaired in several places. An earth
rampart had been thrown up around the perimeter, a hundred metres from
the outer turret houses. Farmers were still working around its base,
using shovels which even Sewell would have been hard pressed to raise.

“Leave your vehicle now,” the synthesized voice from the processor block
told them when they were twenty metres away from the barricade of raw
loam.

Reza cut the fans and codelocked the power cells. The soldiers waited
until they had climbed out, then walked them into the village.

Up close the tower houses were utilitarian, each with four floors, their
windows arranged at precise levels. They were made by the builder caste,
the largest of all the vassals, who chewed soil and mixed it with an
epoxy chemical extravasated in their mouth ducts, producing a strong
cement. It gave the walls a smooth, extruded feel, as though the towers
had come intact from some giant kiln. There were some modern amenities,
bands of solar cell panels tipped most of the turret walls; metal water
pipes lay bent and tangled among the rubble. The windows were all glazed.

Arable gardens encircled every tower, trellises and stakes supporting the
grasping yellow confusion of native Tyrathcan vegetation. Fruit trees
lined the paved roads, huge leaves providing ample shade.

Smaller rounded silos and workshops were spaced between the towers, each
with a single semicircular door. Carts and even small power trucks were
parked outside.

“I don’t know who is jumpier, us or them,” Kelly subvocalized into her
neural nanonics memory cell. “The Tyrathcan soldiers are clearly
immensely capable, to say nothing of the hunter caste. Yet the possessed
have hurt them badly. The vassal-caste bodies you can see half buried in
the rubble of the outer towers have been left untended in the haste to
fortify Coastuc-RT. A large breach of the Tyrathcan internment ritual,
they obviously consider the threat humans present to be of more pressing
importance.

“But now we are inside the village I can see very little activity apart
from those vassals working on the rampart. The roads are empty. No
breeder has appeared. The soldiers seem certain of their destination,
leading us deeper into the village. I can now hear a great many Tyrathca
away towards the park at the centre of Coastuc-RT. Yes, listen, a whistle
that rises and falls in a slow regular beat. There must be hundreds of
them doing it in unison to achieve that effect.”

The soldiers led them out onto one of the village’s radial roads, cutting
straight down past the tower houses into the central park. Right in the
middle was a vast impossible dull-silver edifice. At first glimpse it
looked like a hundred-metre-wide disc suspended fifty metres in the air
by a central conical pillar whose tip only just touched the ground;
another, identical, cone rose from the top of the disc. It was perfectly
symmetrical, shining a lurid red-gold under the sinking sun. Six
elaborate flying buttresses arched down from the rim of the disc,
preventing the top-heavy structure from falling over.

The three humans stared in silence at the imposing artefact. Big
builder-caste Tyrathca walked ponderously along the buttresses and over
the surface of the disc. The pinnacle of the upper cone wasn’t quite
finished, showing a geodesic grid of timber struts which a rank of
builder caste clung to as they slowly covered it with their organic
cement. Another team were following them up, spraying the drying cement
with a gelatin mucus that shimmered with oil-slick marquetry until it
hardened into the distinctive silverish hue.

Kelly took the structure in with one swift professional sweep, then
focused on the park. It had been reduced to a shallow clay quarry in the
haste to extract soil for the disc and its buttresses. This was where the
Tyrathca breeders had gathered; several thousand of them, circling round
the outside of the disc. They sat on their hindquarters in the mud, short
antennae standing proud, whistling in a long slow undulation. It sounded
poignant, imploring even. Entities that had been needlessly hurt
questioning the reason, the same the galaxy over.

Kelly’s didactic memory didn’t have any reference to a Tyrathcan
religion. A more comprehensive search program running through her neural
nanonics said the Tyrathca didn’t have a religion, and there was no
explanation for the disc, either.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were at prayer,” Reza datavised.

“Could be the local version of the town meeting,” Ariadne suggested.
“Trying to decide what to do about us wild humans.”

“They’re not talking about anything,” Kelly said. “It’s more like a song.”

“The Tyrathca don’t sing,” Reza replied.

“What’s that disc for? There’s no way in at the bottom of the cone
pillar, not from this side, but it’s definitely hollow. Nothing solid
like that would be able to stand up, it’s almost like a mock-up. I can’t
find any record of them ever building anything like it before. And why
build it now for Christ’s sake, when they need all the builder caste to
construct defences? Something that size has taken a hell of a lot of
effort to put up.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Looks as if you’ll be able to ask in a
minute.”

The soldiers halted when they came level with the innermost ring of house
towers. All of the buildings had been sealed up, black lids capping the
windows, cement slabs erected over the door arches. Colourful flowering
plants swamped their gardens.

A lone breeder was walking towards them from the park. Male or female,
Kelly couldn’t tell, not even comparing it to the images stored in a
memory cell—females were supposed to be slightly larger. It was bigger
than the soldiers by about half a metre, the scale hide several shades
lighter, dorsal mane neatly trimmed. Apart from its stumpy black
antennae, the one physiological aspect which most distinguished it from
the vassal castes was a row of small chemical program teats dangling
flaccidly from its throat like empty leather pouches, although the long
supple fingers intimated it was a sophisticated tool user.

She saw an almost subliminal hazy film twinkling briefly on the road
behind it. Superfine bronze powder, similar to the dusting on a
terrestrial moth, was sprinkling down from its flanks.

The Tyrathca breeder stopped beside the soldier carrying the processor
block. Its outer mouth hinged back, allowing it to whistle a long tune.

Flute music, Kelly thought.

“I am Waboto-YAU,” the processor block voice translated. “I will mediate
with you on behalf of Coastuc-RT.”

“I’m Reza Malin, combat scout team leader, under contract to the LDC.”

“Are you able to assist in our defence?”

“You’ll have to tell me what happened, first, give us some idea of what
we’re up against.”

“Starship Santa Clara arrived yesterday. Spaceplane landed, bringing new
Tyrathca, new equipment. Much needed. Collect rygar crop. Amok elemental
humans attacked; stole spaceplane. No provocation. No reason.
Twenty-three breeder-caste killed. One hundred and ninety vassal castes
killed. Extensive damage. You can see this.”

Reza wondered how he would react if it was xenocs who had attacked a
human village in a similar fashion. Allow a group of those same xenocs in
afterwards to talk? Oh no, no way. The human response would be far more
basic.

He felt mortally humbled as the breeder’s glassy hazel eyes stared at
him. “How many humans took part in this attack?” he asked.

“Numbers not known with accuracy.”

“Roughly, how many?”

“No more than forty.”

“Forty people did all this?” Ariadne muttered.

Reza waved her quiet. “Did they use a kind of white fire?”

“White fire. Yes. Not true fire. Elemental fire. Tyrathca have not been
told of human elemental ability before. Many times witnessed delusion of
form on attacking humans. Elemental changes of colour and shape confused
soldier caste. Some amok humans stole Tyrathca hunter-caste form. Much
damage before repelled.”

“On behalf of the LDC I apologize profoundly.”

“What use apology? Why not told of human elemental ability? Breeder
ambassador family assigned to Confederation Assembly will be informed.
Denouncement of humans in Assembly. Tyrathca would never have joined
Confederation if had known.”

“I’m sorry. But these humans have been taken over by an invading force.
We don’t normally possess this ability. It’s as foreign to us as it is to
you.”

“Lalonde Development Company must remove all elemental humans from
planet. Tyrathca will not inhabit same planet.”

“We’d love to. But right now it’s all we can do just to stay alive. These
elemental humans now control the entire Juliffe basin. We need somewhere
to stay until a starship can lift us off and we can inform the
Confederation what is happening.”

“Starships battle in orbit this day. Double sun in sky. No starships
left.”

“One is coming back for us.”

“When?”

“In a few days.”

“Does starship have the power to kill elemental cloud? Tyrathca scared of
cloud over rivers. We cannot defeat it.”

“No,” Reza said forlornly. “The starship can’t kill the cloud.”
Especially if Shaun Wallace is telling the truth. The thought was one he
had been firmly suppressing. The implications were too frightening. Just
how would we actually go about fighting them?

The Tyrathca let out a clamorous hoot, almost a wail. “Cloud will come
here. Cloud will devour us; breeders, children, vassals. All.”

“You could leave,” Kelly said. “Keep ahead of the cloud.”

“Nowhere is ahead of the cloud for long.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, raising her arm to point at the
park, the congregation of breeders. “What is that structure you have
built?

“We are not strong. We have no elementals among us. Only one can now save
us from elemental humans. We call to our Sleeping God. We show our belief
by our homage. We call and call, but the Sleeping God does not yet awake.”

“I didn’t know you had a God.”

“The family of Sireth-AFL is a custodian of the memory from the days of
voyage on flightship Tanjuntic-RI. He shared the memory with us all after
attack by elemental humans. Now we are united in prayer. The Sleeping God
is our hope for salvation from elemental humans. We build its idol to
show our faith.”

“This is it?” she asked. “This is what the Sleeping God looks like?”

“Yes. This is the memory of shape. This is our Sleeping God.”

“You mean the Tyrathca on the Tanjuntic-RI actually saw a God?”

“No. Another flightship passed the Sleeping God. Not Tanjuntic-RI.”

“The Sleeping God was in space, then?”

“Why you want to know?”

“I want to know if the Sleeping God can save us from the elementals,” she
said smoothly. “Or will it only help Tyrathca?” Christ, this was
beautiful, the story to end all stories; human dead and secrets the
Tyrathca had kept since before Earth’s ice age. How long had their
arkships been in flight? Thousands of years at least.

“It will help us because we ask,” Waboto-YAU said.

“Do your legends specifically say it will return to save you?”

“Not legend!” the breeder hooted angrily. “Truth. Humans have legends.
Humans lie. Humans become elemental. The Sleeping God is stronger than
your race. Stronger than all living things.”

“Why do you call it “ ‘Sleeping’?”

“Tyrathca say what is. Humans lie.”

“So it was Sleeping when your flightship found it?”

“Yes.”

“Then how do you know it is strong enough to ward off the elementals?”

“Kelly!” Reza said with edgy vexation.

Waboto-YAU hooted again. The soldiers shifted restlessly in response,
eyes boring into the obsessed reporter.

“Sleeping God strong. Humans will learn. Humans must not become
elemental. Sleeping God will awaken. Sleeping God will avenge all
Tyrathca suffering.”

“Kelly, shut up, now. That’s an order,” Reza datavised when he saw her
gathering herself for more questions. “Thank you for telling us of the
Sleeping God,” he said to Waboto-YAU.

Kelly fumed in moody silence.

“Sleeping God dreams of the universe,” the breeder said. “All that
happens is known to it. It will hear our call. It will answer. It will
come.”

“The human elementals may attack you again,” Reza warned. “Before the
Sleeping God arrives.”

“We know. We pray hard.” Waboto-YAU twittered mournfully, head swinging
round to gaze at the disk. “Now you have heard the fate of Coastuc-RT.
Are you able to assist soldier caste in defence?”

“No.” Reza heard Kelly’s hissed intake of breath. “Our weapons are not as
powerful as those of your soldiers. We cannot assist in your defence.”

“Then go.”



Vast tracts of electric, electromagnetic, and magnetic energy seethed and
sparked across a roughly circular section in the outermost band of
Murora’s rings, eight thousand kilometres in diameter. Dust, held so long
in equilibrium, exploited its liberation to squall in microburst vortices
around the solid imperturbable boulders and jagged icebergs which made up
the bulk of the ring, their gyrations mirroring the rowdy cloudscape a
hundred and seventy thousand kilometres below. The epicentre, where the
Lady Macbeth had plunged into the drive-fomented particles, was still
glowing a nervous blue as brumal waves of static washed through the
thinning molecular zephyr of vaporized rock and ice.

The total energy input from the starship’s fusion drives and the multiple
combat-wasp explosions was taking a long time to disperse. Their full
effect would take months if not years to sink back to normality.
Thermally and electromagnetically, the rippling circle was the equivalent
of an Arctic whiteout to any probing sensors.

It meant the Maranta and the Gramine knew little of what was going on
below the surface. They kept station ten kilometres above the fuzzy
boundary where boulders and ice gave way first to pebbles and then
finally dust; all sensor clusters extended, focused on the disquieted
strata of particles under their hulls. For the first couple of kilometres
the image was sharp and reasonably clear, below that it slowly
disintegrated until at seven kilometres there was nothing but a sheet of
electronic slush.

The possessed who commanded the starships now had started their search
right at the heart, the exact coordinate where Lady Macbeth had entered.
Then Maranta had manoeuvred into an orbit five kilometres lower, while
the Gramine had raised its altitude by a similar amount. They slowly
drifted apart, Maranta edging ahead of the phosphorescent blue splash,
Gramine falling behind.

There had been no sign of their prey. Nor any proof to confirm the Lady
Macbeth had survived her impact with the rings. No wreckage had been
detected. Although it was a slim chance any ever would. If she had
detonated when she hit, the blowout of her drive tubes’ escaping plasma
would probably have vaporized most of her. And any fragments which did
survive would have been flung over a huge area. The ring was eighty
kilometres thick, enough volume to lose an entire squadron in.

They were further hindered by the way their energistically charged bodies
interfered with on-board systems. Sensors already labouring at the limit
of their resolution to try and unscramble the chaos suffered infuriating
glitches and power surges, producing gaps in the overall coverage.

But the crews persevered. Debris was virtually impossible to locate, but
an operating starship emitted heat, and electromagnetic impulses, and a
strong magnetic flux. If she was there, they would find her eventually.



The soldier-caste vassals stayed with them until the hovercraft reached
the top of the Coastuc-RT’s valley. More tumid rain-clouds were
approaching fast from the east, borne by the obdurate breeze. Reza judged
they should just about reach the other hovercraft by the time they
arrived. Both land and sky ahead were grey. Northwards, the red cloud
cast a dispiriting corona, looking for all the world as though magma was
floating, light as thistledown, through the air.

“But why?” Kelly demanded as soon as the soldiers were left behind. “You
saw how well armed they were, we would have been safe there.”

“Firstly, Coastuc-RT is too close to the Juliffe basin. As your friend
Shaun Wallace said, the cloud is spreading. It would reach the valley
long before Joshua gets back. Secondly, that valley is tactical suicide.
Anyone who gets onto the high ground above the village can simply bombard
it into submission, or more likely destruction. There aren’t enough
soldier and hunter vassals to keep the slopes clear. Right now Coastuc-RT
is wide open to anything the possessed care to throw at it. And all the
Tyrathca are doing to defend themselves is building giant effigies of
spacegods and having a pray-in. We don’t need that kind of shit. By
ourselves we stand a much better chance; we’re mobile and well armed. So
tomorrow at first light we start doing exactly what Joshua said: we run
for it, through the mountains.”



Violent rain made a mockery of the hovercraft’s blazing monochrome
headlight beams, chopping them off after five or six metres. It obscured
the moons, the red cloud, it damn near hid the drooping, defeated grass
below the gunwale. The pilots navigated by guidance blocks alone. It took
them forty minutes to retrace their route back to the first tower house
above the river.

Sewell plugged a half-metre fission blade into his left elbow socket and
confronted the blocked-up doorway. Water steamed and crackled as the
blade came on. He placed the tip delicately against the wind-fretted
cement, and pushed. The blade sank in, sending out a thick runnel of
ginger sand which the rain smeared into the reeds at his feet. Relieved
at how easy it was to cut, he started to slice down.

Kelly was fourth in. She stood in musty darkness shaking her arms and
easing her cagoule hood back. “God, there’s as much water inside this
cagoule as out. I’ve never known rain like this.”

“ ’Tis a bleak night, this one,” Shaun Wallace said behind her.

Reza stepped through the oval Sewell had cut, carrying two bulky
equipment packs, TIP carbines slung over his shoulder. “Pat, Sal, check
this place out.” Fenton and Ryall hurried in after their master, and
immediately shook their coats, sending out a fountain of droplets.

“Great,” Kelly muttered. The blocks clipped to her broad belt were
slippery with water. She wiped them ineffectually on her T-shirt. “Can I
come with you, please?”

“Sure,” Pat said.

She turned the seal catch on her bag, and searched round until she found
a light stick. Shadows fled away. Collins disapproved of infrared visuals
unless absolutely unavoidable.

They were in a hall that ran the diameter of the tower. Archways led off
into various rooms. A ramp at the far wall started to spiral upwards.
Tyrathca didn’t, or couldn’t, use stairs, according to her didactic
memory.

Pat and Sal Yong started down the hall, Kelly followed. She realized
Shaun Wallace was a pace behind. He was back in his LDC jump suit.
Completely dry, she noticed enviously. Her armour-suit trousers squelched
as she walked.

“You don’t mind if I tag along, do you, Miss Kelly? I’ve never seen one
of these places before.”

“No.”

“That Mr. Malin there, he’s a right one for doing things by the book.
This place has been sealed up for years. What does he expect us to find?”

“We won’t know till we look, will we?” she said coyly.

“Why, Miss Kelly, I do believe you’re running me a ragged circle.”

The house was intriguing: strange furniture, and startlingly human
utensils. But there was little technology, the builders had obviously
been given instructions on how to utilize wood. They were excellent
carpenters.

Rain drummed on the walls, adding to the sense of isolation and
displacement as they mounted the ramp. Vassal castes had their own rooms;
Kelly wasn’t sure if they could be called stables. Some rooms, for the
soldiers, she guessed, had furniture. There was only a thin layer of
dust. It was as though the tower had been set aside rather than
abandoned. Given her current circumstances, it wasn’t the most reassuring
of thoughts. The neural nanonics drank it all in.

They found the first bodies on the second floor. Three housekeeper castes
(the same size as a farmer), five hunters, and four soldiers. Desiccation
had turned them into creased leather mummies. She wanted to touch one,
but was afraid it would crumble to dust.

“They’re just sitting there, look,” Shaun Wallace said in a tamed voice.
“There’s no food anywhere near them. They must have been waiting to die.”

“Without the breeders, they are nothing,” Pat said.

“Even so, ’tis a terrible thing. Like those old Pharaohs who had all
their servants in their tombs with them.”

“Were there any Tyrathcan souls in the beyond?” Kelly asked.

Shaun Wallace paused at the bottom of the ramp to the third floor, his
brow crinkling. “Now there’s a thing. I don’t think there were. Or at
least, I never came across one.”

“Different afterworld, perhaps,” Kelly said.

“If they have one. They seem heathen creatures to me. Perhaps the Good
Lord didn’t see fit to give them souls.”

“But they have a god. Their own god.”

“Do they now?”

“Well, they’re hardly likely to have Jesus or Allah, are they? Not human
messiahs.”

“Ah, you’re a smart one, Miss Kelly. I take my hat off to you. I’d never
have thought of that in a million years.”

“It’s a question of environment and upbringing. I’m used to thinking in
these terms. I’d be lost in your century.”

“Oh, I can’t see that. Not at all.”

There were more vassal-caste bodies on the third floor. The two breeders
were together on the fourth.

“Do they have love, these beasties?” Shaun Wallace asked, looking down at
them. “They look like they do, to me. Dying together is romantic, I
think. Like Romeo and Juliet.”

Kelly ran her tongue round her cheeks. “You didn’t strike me as the
Shakespeare type.”

“Now don’t you go writing me off so quickly, you with your classy
education. I’m a man of hidden depths, I am, Miss Kelly.”

“Did you ever meet anyone famous in the beyond?” Pat asked.

“Meeting!” He wrung his hands together with fulsome drama. “You’re
talking about the beyond as if it’s some kind of social gathering. Lords
and ladies spending the evening together over fine wine and a game of
bridge. It’s not like that, Mr. Halahan, not at all.”

“But did you?” the mercenary scout persisted. “You were there for
centuries. There must have been someone important.”

“Ah now, there was that, as I recall. A gentleman by the name of Custer.”

Pat’s neural nanonics ran a fast check. “An American army general? He
lost a fight with the Sioux Indians in the nineteenth century.”

“Aye, that’s the one. Don’t be telling me you’ve heard of him in this day
and age?”

“He’s in our history courses. How did he feel about it? Losing like that?”

Shaun Wallace’s expression cooled. “He didn’t feel anything about it, Mr.
Halahan. He was like all of us, crying without tears to shed. You’re
equating death with sanity, Mr. Halahan. Which is a stupid thing to do,
if you don’t mind me saying. You’ve heard of Hitler now? Surely, if
you’ve heard of poor damned George Armstrong Custer?”

“We remember Hitler. Though he was after your time, I think.”

“Indeed he was. But do you think he changed after he died, Mr. Halahan?
Do you think he lost his conviction, or his righteousness? Do you think
death causes you to look back on life and makes you realize what an ass
you’ve been? Oh no, not that, Mr. Halahan. You’re too busy screaming,
you’re too busy cursing, you’re too busy coveting your neighbour’s memory
for the bitter dregs of taste and colour it gives you. Death does not
bestow wisdom, Mr. Halahan. It does not make you humble before the Lord.
More’s the pity.”

“Hitler,” Kelly said, entranced. “Stalin, Genghis Khan, Jack the Ripper,
Helmen Nyke. The butchers and the warlords. Are they all there? Waiting
in the beyond?”

Shaun Wallace gazed up at the domed ceiling partially lost amid a
tapestry of shadows thrown by sparse alien architecture; for a moment his
features portraying every year of his true age. “Aye, they’re all there,
Miss Kelly, every one of the monsters the good earth ever spawned. All of
them aching to come back, waiting for their moment to be granted. Us
possessed, we might be wanting to hide from the open sky, and death; but
it’s not paradise we’re going to be making down here on this planet. It
couldn’t be, there’ll be humans in it, you see.”

It wasn’t true daybreak, not yet. The sun was still half an hour from
bringing any hint of grizzled light to the eastern horizon. But the
rain-clouds had blown over, and night had sapped the wind’s brawn. The
northern sky glowed with a grievous fervour, blemishing the savannah
grass a murky crimson.

Octan watched the dark speck moving along the side of the river, heading
upstream towards the Tyrathcan tower house. Heavy moist air stroked the
eagle’s feathers as he dipped a wing, curving down in a giddy voluted
dive. Pat Halahan gazed out at the lonely nocturnal wanderer through his
affinity bonded friend’s narrow peerless eyes.

Kelly came awake at the touch of a hand on her shoulder, and the sound of
feet rapping on the hard dry floor of the second storey, where the team
had rested up for the night. Neural nanonics accelerated her
fatigue-soaked brain into full alertness.

The last of the combat-boosted mercenaries were disappearing down the
ramp.

“Someone coming,” Shaun Wallace said.

“Your people?”

“No. I’d know if it was. Not that Mr. Malin asked, mind you.” He sounded
cheerful.

“Good heavens, anyone would think he doesn’t trust you.” She shoved back
the foil envelope she’d been sleeping in. Shaun Wallace offered his hand
to help her to her feet. They made their way down the ramp to the
ground-floor hall.

The seven mercenaries were clustered round the hole in the door, red
light shining dully off their artificial skin. Fenton and Ryall were on
their feet, growling softly as they were caught in the backwash of
agitation coming from their master’s mind.

Reza and Sewell slipped through the hole as Kelly reached them.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Horse coming,” Pat told her. “Two riders.”

Kelly peered round him just as Reza and Sewell activated their chameleon
circuits and flicked into the landscape. For a few seconds she tracked
them thanks to the circular medical nanonic package on the big
combat-adept’s leg, but even that was soon lost amongst the unsavoury
coloured grass.

It was one of the plough horses favoured by the colonists. A young one,
but clearly on its last legs; the neck was drooping as it plodded gamely
along, mouth flecked with foam. Reza worked his way unobtrusively down
the slope from the tower house towards the animal, leaving Sewell to
cover him. His optical sensors showed him the two people on its back;
both wore stained poncho capes cut from a canvas tarpaulin. The man was
showing the first signs of age, stubble shading heavy jowls, temples
touched with grey; and he’d recently lost a lot of weight by the look of
him. But he had a vigour animating his frame which was visible even from
Reza’s position across the swaying grass. The young boy behind him had
been crying at some time, he had also been soaked during the ride, and
now he was shivering, clinging to the man in a wearied daze.

They didn’t pose any threat, Reza decided. He waited until the horse was
twenty metres away, then switched off his chameleon circuit. The horse
took a few more paces before the man noticed him with a start. He reined
in the lethargic animal and leaned over its neck to peer at Reza in
bewilderment.

“What manner of . . . You’re not a possessed, you don’t have their
emptiness.” His fingers clicked. “Of course! Combat boosted, that’s what
you are. You came down from the starships yesterday.” He smiled and
whooped, then swung a leg over the horse and slithered to the ground.
“Come on, Russ, down you come, boy. They’re here, the navy marines are
here. I said they’d come, didn’t I? I told you, never give up faith.” The
boy virtually fell off the horse into his arms.

Reza went over to help. The man was none too steady on his feet, either,
and one of his hands was heavily bandaged.

“Bless you, my son.” Horst Elwes embraced the surprised mercenary with
tears of gratitude and supreme relief shining in his eyes. “God bless
you. These weeks have been the sorest trial my Lord has ever devised for
this weak mortal servant. But now you are here after all this time spent
alone in the Devil’s own wilderness. Now we are saved.”


Chapter 11
==========


Boston had fallen to the possessed, not that the rapidly disintegrating
convocation of Norfolk’s martial authorities would admit it.

Edmund Rigby looked out of the hotel window, across the provincial city’s
steep slate rooftops. Fires were still burning in the outlying districts
where the militia troops had tried to force their way in. The Devonshire
market square had been struck by a navy starship’s maser last
Duchess-night. Its granite cobbles had transmuted to a glowing lava pool
in less than a second. Even now, with its surface congealing and dimming,
the heat was enough to barbecue food. Nobody had been in the square at
the time; it was intended as a demonstration only. A show of naval might:
you there, ant folk crawling on the filthy ground far below, we angels
above have the very power of life and death over all of you. As one, the
possessed had laughed at the circling starships, rendered impotent by
their lack of targets. Yes, they had the physical power to destroy, but
the fingers on the trigger were snared in the perpetual dilemma of the
great and the good. Hostages had always struck a paralysing blow into the
heart of governments. The starships wanted to pour sterilizing fire down
from the sky, the officers yearning to burn the loathsome low-life crop
of anarchists and revolutionaries from the pastoral idyll planet, but the
city hadn’t been cleaned of decent people, the women and children and
frail, kindly grandparents. As far as the planetary authorities and navy
officers knew this was just an uprising, a political revolt, they
believed the meek were still mingled with the wolves. The lofty orbiting
angels had been castrated.

Even if they suspected, believed the rumours of atrocities and massacres
flittering from mouth to mouth through the nearby countryside, they could
do nothing. Boston was no longer alone in its dissent, it was simply the
first. Edmund Rigby had planted the germs of insurgency in every city
across the planet’s islands, cabals of possessed who were already
annexing the populace. A captain in the Australian Marines, he had died
from a landmine explosion in Vietnam in 1971; but he had studied military
tactics, had even been sent to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth for
officer training. And this vast space empire of Confederated planets, for
all its awesome technology, was no different to the Earth upon which he
had once walked. Vietcong insurgency tactics from the past were just as
applicable now, and he knew them by heart. Securing the entire planet had
been his principal objective since the vast merchant fleet had left
Norfolk after midsummer.

Since he arrived he had been busy indeed. Toiling in the squalor and the
horror and the blood which soiled the heart of every human soul. Those
living, and those dead . . . and the ones trapped between.

He closed his eyes as if to shut out the memories of recent weeks and
what he had become. But there was no respite. The hotel took on substance
in his mind, walls and floors woven from shadows. People, us and them,
glided through it, dopplered laughs and screams ricocheting through the
grand corridors and sumptuous rooms. And, always, there, on the other
side of the shadows, on the other side of everything: the beyond.
Chittering souls clamouring for existence, silky insidious promises to be
his lover, his slave, his acolyte. Anything, anything at all to be
brought back.

Edmund Rigby shuddered in revulsion. Please, God, when we hide Norfolk
from this universe let it also be hidden from the beyond. Let me have
peace, and an end to all this.

Three of his lieutenants—selected from the more stable among the newly
possessed—were dragging a captive along the corridor outside to his room.
He stiffened his shoulders, letting the power swell within, giving his
new body grandeur and poise, as well as a Napoleonic uniform, and turned
to face the door.

They burst in, cheering and jeering, young turks from the worst of the
backstreets, believing swagger and noise was an easy substitute for
authority. But he grinned welcomingly at them anyway.

Grant Kavanagh was flung on the floor, bleeding from cuts on his face and
hands, smeared in dirt, his fine militia uniform torn. Even so, he
refused to be cowed. Edmund Rigby respected that, amongst the sadness.
This one, with his conviction in God and self, would be hard to break.
The thought pained him. Why oh why can’t they just give in?

“Present for you, Edmund,” Iqabl Geertz said. He had assumed his ghoul
appearance, skin almost grey, cheeks sunken, eyeballs a uniform scarlet;
thin frame dressed all in black. “One of the nobs. Got some fight in him.
Thought he might be important.”

Don Padwick, in his lion-man state, growled suggestively. Grant Kavanagh
twitched as the big yellow beast dropped onto all fours and padded over
to him, tail whisking about.

“We captured his troops,” Chen Tambiah informed Edmund quietly. “They
were about the last militia roaming free. Inflicted heavy casualties.
Eight of us winged back to the beyond.” The dapper oriental, in ancient
black and orange silks, cocked his head grudgingly towards Grant
Kavanagh. “He’s a good leader.”

“Is that so?” Edmund Rigby asked.

Iqabl Geertz licked his lips with a long yellowed tongue. “It doesn’t
make any difference in the end. He’s ours now. To do with as we like. And
we know what we like.”

Grant Kavanagh looked up at him, one eye swollen shut. “When this is
over, you mincing shit, and the rest of your friends have been shot, I
will take a great deal of pleasure in ripping every one of your deviant
chromosomes from your body with my own hands.”

“Now there’s a man’s man if ever I saw one,” Iqabl Geertz said, putting
on an histrionically effeminate tone.

“Enough,” Edmund Rigby said. “You put up a good fight,” he told Grant,
“now it’s over.”

“Like hell! If you think I’m going to let you Fascist scum take over the
planet my ancestors sweated blood to build you don’t know me.”

“Nor shall we ever,” Edmund Rigby said. “Not now.”

“That’s right, takes bloody four of you.” Grant Kavanagh grunted in shock
as Don Padwick put a paw on his ribs, talons extended.

Edmund Rigby rested his hand on Grant’s head. There was so much
resilience and anger in the man. It enervated him, sending the
pretentious uniform shimmering back into his ordinary marine fatigues.
The souls of the beyond were clamouring as he began to gather his power,
flocking to the beacon of his strength.

“Don’t fight me,” he said, more in hope than in expectation.

Grant snarled. “Screw you!”

Edmund Rigby heard the vile rapturous imploring chorus of the souls
beginning. Weariness engulfed him, there had been so much of this since
he had returned. So much pain and torment, so wilfully inflicted. At
first he had laughed, and enjoyed the fear. Now, he simply wished it over.

He hesitated, and the captive soul stirred in the prison he had forged
for it within his own mind.

“There are ways,” the other soul said, and showed, obedient as always to
his captor. “Ways to make Grant Kavanagh submit quickly, ways no flesh
can withstand for long.”

And the desire was there, oozing up out of the prison, corrupt and
nauseous.

“But it’s a part of all of us,” the other soul whispered quickly. “We all
share the shame of having the serpent beast in our secret heart of
hearts. How else could you have accomplished what you have the way you
have if you did not let it free?”

Trembling, Edmund Rigby let the desire rise, let it supersede the
loathing and revulsion that was his own. Then it was easy. Easy to make
Grant hurt. Easy to commit the profanities which quietened his
lieutenants. Easy to feed the desire. And go on feeding.

It was good, because it was freedom. Complete and utter freedom. Desire
ruled as it should, unrestrained. It nurtured the psyche, these heinous
abominations Grant Kavanagh was forced to endure. They were sublime.

Iqabl Geertz and Chen Tambiah were yelling at him to stop. But they were
nothing, less than dirt.

The souls were in retreat, fearing what was leaking from him into the
beyond.

“Weak, they are all weaker than us. Together we surpass them all.”

Was that his own voice?

And still the savagery went on. It was impossible to stop. The other soul
had gone too far, it had to be seen through now. To the terrible end.

Edmund Rigby rebelled in horror.

“But you did it yourself,” said the captive soul.

“No. It was you.”

“I only showed you how. You wanted it. The desire was yours, the
yearning.”

“Never! Not for this.”

“Yes. You gave way to yourself for the first time. The serpent beast is
in all of us. Embrace it and be at peace with yourself. Know yourself.”

“I am not that. I am not!”

“But you are. Look. Look!”

“No.” Edmund Rigby shrank from what he had done. Fleeing, hurtling, away,
as though speed alone was proof of his innocence. Locking out the world
and what he had been a party to, down in that empty vault waiting at the
centre of his mind. Where it was quiet, and dark, and tasteless.
Sanctuary without form. It hardened around him.

“And there you will stay; a part of me for ever.”

Quinn Dexter opened his eyes. Before him the three possessed, their
exotic appearances bleached off to reveal young men with ashen faces,
backed away in consternation; their confidence in their supremacy
jarringly fractured. Grant Kavanagh’s decimated body quivered amid the
blood and piss curdling on the carpet as the soul it now hosted tried
valiantly to repair the colossal tissue damage. Deep inside himself he
heard Edmund Rigby’s soul whimpering quietly.

Quinn smiled beatifically at his rapt audience. “I have returned,” he
said softly, and raised his hands in invocation. “Out of the half-night;
strengthened by the darkness as only a true believer could be. I saw the
weakness in my possessor, his fright of his serpent beast. He is in me
now, weeping and pleading as he denies form to his true nature. As it
should be. God’s Brother showed me the way, showed me the night holds no
dread for those who love their real selves as He commands us to do. But
so few obey. Do you obey?”

They tried then, Iqabl Geertz, Don Padwick, and Chen Tambiah, combining
their energistic strength in a desperate attempt to blast the deranged
usurper out of his body and into the beyond. Quinn laughed uproariously,
steadfast at the calm centre of a fantastic lightning storm which filled
the room. Dazzling whips of raw electricity slashed at the walls and
floor and ceiling like the razor claws of a maddened gryphon. None of
them could touch him, he was held inviolate in a cocoon of luminous
violet silk mist.

The lightning stopped roaring, ebbing in spits and crackles to disappear
behind charred furniture and back into the bodies of the would-be thunder
gods. Smoke hazed the blackened room, small flames licking greedily at
the cushions and tattered curtains.

Quinn wished for justice.

Their bodies fell, cells performing the refined perversions he dreamed
of, turning against themselves. He watched impassively as the terrorized,
humiliated souls fled from the glistening deformities he had created,
back to the beyond crying in dire warning. Then the second souls, the
ones held captive, abandoned the macerated flesh.

Grant Kavanagh’s body groaned at Quinn’s feet, the possessing soul
looking up at him in numb trepidation. The worst of the lacerations and
fractures had healed, leaving a crisscross scar pattern of delicate pink
skin.

“What is your name?” Quinn asked.

“Luca Comar.”

“Did you see what I performed on them, Luca?”

“Yes. Oh God, yes.” He bowed his head, bile rising in his throat.

“They were weak, you see. Unworthy fuck-ups. They had no real faith in
themselves. Not like me.” Quinn took a deep breath, calming his euphoric
thoughts. His marine fatigues billowed out into a flowing priest’s robe,
fabric turning midnight black. “Do you have faith in yourself, Luca?”

“Yes. I do. I have faith. Really I do.”

“Would you like me to tell you of the serpent beast? Would you like me to
show you your own heart and set you free?”

“Yes. Please. Please show me.”

“Good. I think that is my role now the portents walk abroad. Now the dead
are risen to fight the last battle against the living and the time of the
Light Bringer draws near. I have been blessed, Luca, truly blessed with
His strength. My belief in Him brought me back, me alone out of all the
millions who are possessed. I am the one God’s Brother has chosen as His
messiah.”



When the tributary river finally spilled into the Juliffe it was a
hundred and thirty metres wide. Villages had claimed both banks,
buildings gleaming inside their safe enclave bubbles of white light. By
now Chas Paske was used to the striking fantasy images of halcyon hamlets
dozing their life away. He had passed eight or nine of them during his
slow progress down the river. All of them the same. All of them unreal.

Warned by the twin coronae ahead he had sculled his little boat back into
the middle of the river, fighting the thick gunge of melding snowlilies
every centimetre of the way. Now he was in a narrow channel of vermilion
light which fell between the two pools of native radiance, crouched down
as best he could manage.

His body was in a poor way. The nanonic medical packages had been
exhausted by the demand of decontaminating his blood some time ago; now
it was all they could do to stop the blood vessels they had knitted with
from haemorrhaging again. His neural nanonics still maintained their
analgesic blocks, delivering him from pain. But that didn’t seem to be
enough any more. A cold lethargy was creeping into him through his
damaged leg, syphoning his remaining strength away. Any movement was a
complicated business now, and muscles responded with geriatric infirmity.
Several times in the last few hours he had been stricken by spasms which
vibrated his arms and torso. His neural nanonics seemed incapable of
preventing or halting them. So he lay on the bottom of the boat gazing up
at the throbbing red cloud waiting for the ignominious spastic twitches
to run their course.

At these times he thought he could see himself, a tiny shrivelled black
figure, spreadeagled on the bottom of a rowing dinghy (like the one he
thought he had been stealing), being borne along a sticky white river
that stretched out to a terrible length. There was nothing around the
river, no banks or trees, it just wound through a red sky all by itself,
a silk ribbon waving in the breeze, while far, far ahead a speck of
starlight twinkled with elusive, enticing coyness. Skittering voices on
the brink of audibility circled round him. He was sure they talked about
him even though he could never quite make out whole words. The tone was
there all right, dismissive and scornful.

Not quite a dream.

He remembered, as he sailed on gently, his past missions, past
colleagues, old battles, victories and routs. Half the time never knowing
who he was really fighting for or what he was fighting against. For the
right side or the wrong side? And how was he supposed to know which was
which anyway? Him, a mercenary, a whore of violence and destruction and
death. He fought for the ones with the most money, for companies and
plutocrats, and sometimes maybe even governments. There was no right and
wrong in his life. In that respect he had it easy, none of the big
decisions.

So the river carried him on, that white band flowing through the red sky,
ever onwards. The voyage was his life. He could see where he had come
from, and he could see where he was going. Destination and departure were
no different. And there was no way to get off. Except to jump, to drown
in the vast guileful sky.

That will come anyway, he thought, no need to hurry. The old resolve was
still there, among the superficial self-pity and growing concern over his
physical state, still holding together. He was glad of that. Right to the
bitter end, that’s where he was heading. The star glinted strongly,
virtually a heliograph. It seemed nearer.

No, not quite a dream.

Chas jerked up with a start, rocking the boat hazardously. The twin
villages guarding the tributary mouth were behind him now. He was out on
the Juliffe itself. There was no sign of the Hultain Marsh which made up
the northern side. The river could have been an ocean for all he could
tell. An ocean paved with snowlilies as far as his enhanced eyes could
see. This was their meridian, the end of their continental crusade. They
were packed four or five deep, crumpled up against each other; decaying
now, but wadded so tight they formed a serried quilt. It was a perfect
reflector for the carmine light falling from the cloud, turning his world
to a dimensionless red nebula.

The flimsy boat creaked and shivered as the current forced it deeper into
the floating pulp. Chas gripped the gunwale in reflex. He had a nasty
moment when something popped and splintered up at the prow, but the hull
was so shallow it was squeezed up rather than in. He was sure it was
riding on a patina of rotting leaves rather than actual water.

For all their stupendous mass, the snowlilies had no effect on the
river’s unflagging current. The boat began to pick up speed, moving
further out from the southern bank with its near-continual chain of
villages and towns.

Now he was sure he wasn’t going to capsize, Chas relaxed his grip, and
eased himself down again, breathing hard at the simple exertion of
lifting himself. Up ahead the massive ceiling of red cloud became a
bright tangerine cyclone with a concave heart, its apex hidden by
distance. He could see the gravid billows of stratus being torn out of
their constricted alignment, sucked over the lip to spiral upwards in a
leisurely procession. It must have been twenty kilometres across at the
base: an inverted whirlpool which drained away into the other side of the
sky.

He realized its sharp living tangerine hue came from a fierce light
shining down out of its secret pinnacle. Below it, the city of Durringham
gleamed in empyrean glory.



Gaura floated through the floor hatch into the Lady Macbeth’s bridge. He
took care not to move his neck suddenly, or his arms come to that; his
whole body was one giant ache. He had been lucky not to break anything in
that last agonizing burst of deceleration. Even watching the starships
attacking the station he hadn’t felt as utterly helpless as he had then,
lying flat on the groaning decking of the lounge feeling his ribs bowing
in, while blackness tightened its grip on his vision. Three times he had
heard bone splintering, accompanied by a mental howl—it was impossible to
make any sound. Together the Edenists had toughed it out, their minds
embraced, sharing and mitigating the pain.

When it was over he hadn’t been alone in wiping tears from his eyes.
Aethra had followed their entire heart-stopping plummet into the ring,
showing it to them. He had thought the end had surely come, for the
second time in an hour. But the Adamist starship’s exhaust had
obliterated the ring particles as it crashed below the surface,
eliminating any danger of collision; and the captain had matched
velocities perfectly (for the second time in an hour), slotting them
neatly into a circular orbit buried right in the middle of the ring. The
swarm of pursuing combat wasps and their submunitions had impacted
seconds behind them, kinetic explosions tossing out a ragged sheet of
fire. None had penetrated more than a hundred metres below the surface.

It had been an astounding piece of flying. Gaura was very curious to meet
the person who had such sublime control over a starship. It rivalled the
union between a voidhawk and its captain.

There were three people standing on a stikpad around one of the consoles,
two men and a woman, talking in low tones. It didn’t help Gaura’s
composure to see that it was the youngest, a man with a flat-featured
face, who had the captain’s star on his ship-suit shoulder. He had been
expecting someone . . . different.

<< Don’t prejudge, >>Tiya admonished sternly. Most of the Edenists were
using his senses to observe the scene. << Voidhawk captains are only
eighteen when they start flying. >>

<< I wasn’t going to say a word, >>Gaura objected mildly. He swam past
the ring of acceleration couches to touch his toes to a stikpad on the
decking. “Captain Calvert?”

The young man shrugged. “It’s Joshua, actually.”

Gaura felt his bottled-up emotions come close to brimming over. “Thank
you, Joshua. From all of us.”

Joshua nodded shortly, the faintest blush colouring his cheeks. The woman
beside him caught his discomfort and smiled secretively.

<< There, >>Tiya said in satisfaction. << A perfectly ordinary young man,
if exceptionally talented. I like him. >>

Joshua introduced Sarha and Dahybi then apologized for the acceleration.
“But I had to stop us dead inside the ring,” he said. “If we had gone
through, south of the ecliptic, the other starships would have seen us,
and come after us. Their drives could burn through the particles just as
easily as Lady Mac did, then we would have been sitting ducks for their
combat wasps.”

“I wasn’t complaining. In fact, we’re really all rather surprised that
we’re still alive.”

“How are your people holding out?”

“Liatri, our doctor, says none of us have acquired any fatal internal
injuries. Melvyn Ducharme is helping her review my people in your surgery
cabin. Metabolic scanning has revealed several broken bones and a lot of
pulled muscles. She was most concerned about internal membrane damage, it
could prove a problem unless treated swiftly. But Melvyn Ducharme is
rigging up a processor block that can interface her with your medical
nanonic packages.”

Joshua blinked, nonplussed.

“Our own medical packages all use bitek processors,” Gaura explained.

“Ah, right.”

“Liatri says we’ll pull through. Mind you, it’s going to take a long
fortnight for the bruising to fade.”

“You’re not the only one,” Sarha grimaced. “And you should take a look at
where my bruises are.”

Joshua leered. “Promises, promises.”

“That was an awesome piece of flying you pulled off back there, Joshua,”
Gaura said. “Eluding two starships . . .”

“It’s in the blood,” he said, not quite nonchalantly. “Glad to be of
help, really. We certainly haven’t been much use to anybody else since we
arrived in this star system.”

<< Go on, >>Tiya urged. << Ask. >>

<< But suppose it’s an illegal flight? He was carrying combat wasps,
don’t forget. We’d have to give evidence. >>

<< Then the law is an ass, and we’ll all develop amnesia. Ask. >>

Gaura smiled awkwardly. “Joshua, exactly who are you? I mean, why come to
Lalonde?”

“Er . . . Good question. Technically, Lady Mac is part of the Lalonde
government’s starship fleet, helping to restore civil order. The
Confederation Navy squadron has other ideas, and according to them we’re
under arrest.”

“Navy squadron?”

Joshua sighed theatrically, and started to explain.

The Edenists crowding the cabin in life-support capsule D, which doubled
as the surgery, listened with a mixture of gloomy dismay and confusion.

“This sequestration ability sounds appalling,” Gaura said, summarizing
the Edenists’ unified feelings.

“You should see the red cloud,” Joshua told him. “That really gives me
the creeps. It’s an instinct thing with me, I know it’s wrong.”

Gaura gestured to the console they had been consulting; its holoscreen
was alive with blue and yellow data displays. “What is our current
situation?”

“I’m playing a waiting game,” Joshua said, and datavised an order into
the console processor. The holoscreen switched to an image from an
external sensor cluster, showing a very dark expanse of crinkled rock.
Scale was impossible to gauge. “See that? That’s the largest ring
particle I could find at such short notice, near-solid stone about two
hundred and fifty metres in diameter. It’s twenty-five kilometres inward
from the northern surface. We’re keeping station directly underneath it,
and I do mean directly; Lady Mac’s forward hull is about three metres
away. Right now Warlow and Ashly are outside drilling load pins into the
rock so we can tether Lady Mac in place with silicon fibre. That way I
won’t have to use the thrusters to hold our position. Maranta and Gramine
would be able to spot any ion plumes easily when the rings calm down. Our
on-board electronic systems are designed for minimal emission anyway, but
with that rock as a shield we’ll make absolutely sure we’re undetectable
to their sensors. It can also absorb our thermal output as well; I’ve
deployed the thermo-dump panels so that they’re radiating all our excess
heat directly at the rock, it will take months to seep through. All the
drive tubes and the five main fusion generators have been powered down,
so our magnetic flux is negligible. We’re operating on one auxiliary
fusion generator which is well screened by the hull. All in all, it’s a
very reasonable position. As long as Maranta and Gramine stay north of
the ring we’ll be invisible to them.”

“And if one of them moves to a southern inclination?”

“There is fifty-five kilometres’ worth of particles between us and the
southern surface. It’s a risk I’m prepared to take, especially with the
ring so electrically and thermally active right now.”

“I see. How long do you think we’ll be here?”

Joshua pulled a face. “Hard to say. Right now we’re only a hundred and
seventy thousand kilometres above Murora, Lady Mac needs to be at least
two hundred thousand out before she can jump. So if we want to leave, we
either wait until Maranta and Gramine decide to call it a day and quit,
or hang on until their search pattern carries them far enough away to
allow us to make a dash for a jump coordinate. Whichever one it is, I
think we’ll be here for some time. Weeks at least.”

“I understand. Do you have enough fuel and supplies to last that long?”

“Yes, fuel’s down to forty-seven per cent, those high-gee manoeuvres use
up cryogenics at a hell of a rate, but what’s left can supply our present
consumption rate for years. So that’s no problem. But we’ll have to
monitor our environmental systems closely given there’s thirty-six of
you. The limiting factor is going to be food; that’ll have to be rationed
pretty carefully. All of which means I really don’t want you to take your
children out of zero-tau just yet.”

“Of course. They will be much better off in the pods anyway. But what
about your mercenary scout team?”

Joshua exchanged a significant glance with Sarha. “Not a damn thing we
can do about that. They’re tough and they’re mean. If anyone can survive
down there, they can.”

“I see. Well if the opportunity arises to go back, then please do not
hesitate on our account.”

“We’ll see. It would be difficult jumping to Lalonde with Maranta and
Gramine following us. Ideally I’d like to hang on until they leave
Murora. Our major problem is going to be tracking them. When you came in
we were discussing mounting a sensor cluster on the other side of the
rock. Before we started hiding we caught a glimpse of their ion
thrusters, so we know they’re still out there. But we have the same
problem as them, this ring is pure hell to see through. Without reliable
data we’re at a nasty disadvantage.”

“Ah,” Gaura smiled happily. “I think I may be able to help there.” <<
Aethra? Can you see the two starships which attacked us? >>

<< Yes, >>the habitat replied. << They are orbiting slightly above the
ring’s northern surface. >>

An image formed in his mind, the dusky plain of the ring slicing across
Murora, blanched of most colour. The habitat’s external sensitive cells
could just sense a broad zone agitated by heat and electricity. Two dull
specks were poised slightly above it, ion thrusters firing intermittent
tattoos to maintain their attitude.

<< Excellent. >>“Aethra can see them.”

Joshua brightened. “Jesus, that’s great news. They’re both still here,
then?”

“Yes.”

“How is Aethra?” he asked belatedly.

“The shell was extensively damaged. However, there is no catastrophic
internal injury, its main organs remain functional. It is going to
require a considerable amount of repair work before it can resume its
growth. My colleagues, the ones who were killed in the attack, their
memories have been stored by the personality.”

“That’s something, then.”

“Yes.”

“Can Aethra work out the exact spacial locations of the other starships
for me? If we can keep updated I’ll know when we can risk breaking cover
and flying for a jump coordinate.”

“I can go one better than that.” Gaura slipped a processor block from his
breast pocket. The slim palm-sized plastic rectangle had produced a
spectacular gold and blue bruise on his pectoral muscle during the
flight. “Aethra can communicate through the bitek processor, and if you
can interface this with your flight computer you’ll be able to receive
the images directly. And the starships hunting us will never know,
affinity is undetectable.”

“Wonderful.” Joshua accepted the block. It was slightly smaller than the
Kulu Corporation model he used. “Sarha, get to work on an interface. I
want Aethra tied in to our navigation processor array pronto.”

“Consider it done.” She plucked it from his fingers and datavised her
systems memory core for appropriate electronic module specifications and
adaptor programs.

Joshua thought the Edenist station chief still looked wrecked. “You know,
we come from Tranquillity,” he said. “It’s Lady Mac’s home port.”

Gaura looked at him, a surprised light showing in his worn eyes. “Yes?”

“Yeah. I’ve lived there all my life, I was born there, so I know how
beautiful habitats are, and I don’t just mean their physical structure
either. So I suppose I can empathize with what you’re feeling more than
most Adamists. Don’t worry. We’ll get out of this and bring help back for
Aethra, and Lalonde too. All we need now is time, and we’re home free.
Fortunately time is one thing we have plenty of.”



“So you’re not Confederation Navy marines then?” Horst asked, trying to
hide his disappointment.

“No, I’m sorry, Father,” Reza said. “The LDC hired us to scout round the
Quallheim Counties and find out what was going on down here. I believe
you can say we’ve certainly done that.”

“I see.” Horst looked round the simplicity of the Tyrathcan tower house’s
hall, its smooth curves illuminated by the light stick, solid shadows
blending seamlessly with dark-grey arches. The red light outside was kept
at bay, silhouetting the hole sliced into the doorway. In spite of the
warmth he felt chilled.

“How did you know we were here?” Pat asked.

“I didn’t, not that you were in this particular tower. We saw the
starships arrive yesterday morning, of course. Then in the afternoon
there was an explosion on the river.”

“The kroclion,” Ariadne said.

“Could be,” Reza said. “Go on.”

“Young Russ saw it,” Horst said. “I thought it best that we keep a watch
on the savannah; that morning was the first time the red cloud appeared,
and with the starships as well—it seemed sensible. By the time I got my
optical intensifier band on there was only the smoke left. But it didn’t
look like anything the possessed do, so I rode out to see. I thought—I
prayed—that it might have been the marines. Then that bedamned kroclion
was skulking about in the grass. I just kept going up the river to keep
ahead of it. And here we are. Delivered up to you by God’s hand.” He
lifted his lips in a tired victorious smile. “Mysterious ways His wonders
to perform.”

“Certainly does,” Reza said. “That kroclion was probably the mate of the
one we killed.”

“Yes. But tell me of the starships. Can they take us off this terrible
planet? We saw an almighty battle in orbit before the red cloud swelled
over the sky.”

“We don’t know much about the events in orbit. But that was a fight
between some of our starships and a Confederation Navy squadron.”

“Your starships? Why did they fight the navy?”

“Some of them. The possessed got into orbit on the spaceplanes which
brought us down, they hijacked the starships and took over the crew.”

“Merciful Lord.” Horst crossed himself. “Are there any starships left
now?”

“No. Not in orbit.”

Horst’s shoulders sagged. He sipped listlessly at the carton of hot
coffee they had given him. This was the cruellest blow of all, he thought
wretchedly, to be shown salvation shining so close and then to have it
snatched away as my fingers close around it. The children cannot be made
to suffer any more, merciful Lord hear me this once, they cannot.

Russ was sitting in Kelly’s lap. He seemed shy of the combat-boosted
mercenaries, but was content to let her spray a salve on his saddle
sores. She smoothed down the damp hair on his forehead, and grinned as
she offered him one of her chocolate bars. “You must have been through a
lot,” she said to Horst.

“We have.” He eyed Shaun Wallace, who had kept to the back of the hall
since he had arrived. “The Devil has cursed this planet to its very core.
I have seen such evil, foul, foul deeds. Such courage too. I’m humbled,
the human spirit is capable of quite astonishing acts of munificence when
confronted by fundamental tests of virtue. I have come to believe in
people again.”

“I’d like to hear about it some time,” she said.

“Kell’s a reporter,” Sewell said mockingly. “Someone else who makes you
sign contracts in blood.”

She glared at the big mercenary. “Being a reporter isn’t a crime. Unlike
some people’s occupation.”

“I shall be happy to tell you,” Horst said. “But later.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ll be safe enough now you’re hooked up with us, Father,” Reza said.
“We’re planning to head south, away from the cloud. And the good news is
that we’re expecting a starship to come back for us in a couple of days.
There’s plenty of room for you and Russ on our hovercraft. Your ordeal’s
over.”

Horst let out an incredulous snort, then put the coffee carton down ruing
his slowness. “Oh, my Lord, I haven’t told you yet, have I? I’m sorry,
that ride must have addled my brain. And I’ve had so little sleep these
last days.”

“Told us what?” Reza asked edgily.

“I gathered what children I could after the possession began. We are all
living together in one of the savannah homesteads. They must be
terrified. I never intended to be away all night.”

There was complete silence for a second, even the red cloud’s hollow
thunder was hushed.

“How many children?” Reza asked.

“Counting young Russ here, twenty-nine.”

“Fucking hell.”

Horst frowned and glanced pointedly at Russ who was staring at the
mercenary leader with apprehensive eyes over his half-eaten chocolate.
Kelly held him a fraction tighter.

“Now what?” Sal Yong asked bluntly.

Horst looked at him in some puzzlement. “We must go back to them in your
hovercraft,” he said simply. “I fear my poor old horse can travel no
further. Why? Have you some other mission?”

The combat-adept mercenary kept still. “No.”

“Where exactly is this homestead?” Reza asked.

“Five or six kilometres south of the jungle,” Horst replied. “And forty
minutes’ walk east from the river.”

Reza datavised his guidance block for a map, and ran a search through LDC
habitation records, trying to correlate. “In other words, under the red
cloud.”

“Yes, that abomination spread at a fearsome rate yesterday.”

“Reza,” Jalal said. “The hovercraft can’t possibly carry that many
people. Not if we’re going to keep ahead of the cloud.”

Horst looked at the hulking combat adept in growing amazement. “What is
this you are saying? Can’t? Can’t? They are children! The eldest is
eleven years old! She is alone under that Devil’s spew in the sky. Alone
and frightened, holding the others to her as the sky turns to brimstone
and the howling demon horde closes in. Their parents have been raped by
unclean spirits. They have nothing left but a single thread of hope.” He
stood abruptly, clamping down on a groan as his ride-stiffened muscles
rebelled against the sharp movement, face reddening in fury. “And you,
with your guns and your mechanoid strength, you sit here thinking only of
saving your own skin. You should run to embrace the possessed, they would
welcome you as their own. Come along, Russ, we’re going home.”

The boy started sobbing. He struggled in Kelly’s grip.

She climbed to her feet, keeping her arms protectively around his thin
frame. Quickly, before she lost all courage, she said: “Russ can have my
place on the hovercraft. I’ll come with you, Father.” Retinas switched to
high resolution, she looked at Reza. Recording.

“I knew you’d be trouble,” he datavised.

“Tough,” she said out loud.

“For a reporter you have very little understanding of people if you think
I’d desert his children after all we’ve seen.”

Kelly pouted her lips sourly and switched her visual focus to Jalal. That
exchange would have to be edited out.

“Nobody is going to leave the children behind, Father,” Reza said.
“Believe me, we have seen what happens to children driven away by the
possessed. But we are not going to help them by rushing in blindly.” And
he stood, rising a good thirty centimetres higher than the priest.
“Understand me, Father?”

A muscle twitched on Horst’s jaw. “Yes.”

“Good. Now they obviously can’t stay at the savannah homestead. We have
to take them south with us. The question is how. Are there any more
horses at the homestead?”

“No. We have a few cows, that’s all.”

“Pity. Ariadne, can the hovercraft carry fifteen children apiece?”

“Possibly, if we ran alongside. But it would put a hell of a strain on
the skirt impellers. And it would definitely drain the electron matrices
inside of six or seven hours.”

“Running like that would drain us too,” Pat said.

“I can’t even recharge the matrices, not under this cloud,” Ariadne said.
“The solar-cell panels don’t receive anything like enough photonic input.”

“We might be able to build some kind of cart,” Theo suggested. “Hitch it
up to the cows. It would be better than walking.”

“It would take time,” Sal Yong said. “And there’s no guarantee it would
work.”

“Tow them,” Sewell said. “Slap together a couple of rafts, and tow them
back up the river. All you need is planks, we can get them from the
homestead itself if need be.”

Ariadne nodded her rounded head. “Might just work. The hovercraft could
handle that. We could certainly get back here by the middle of the
afternoon.”

“Then what?” Jalal said. “Look, I’m not being a downer. But just getting
them back here isn’t the solution. We have to keep going. Wallace says
the cloud is going to cover the whole planet, we have to find a way to
outrun it, or this will all be for nothing.”

Reza turned to look at the possessed man who had kept silent and
unobtrusive up until now. “Mr Wallace, will your kind know if we return
to the homestead?”

“Aye, Mr. Malin,” he said sorrowfully. “That they will. The cloud and the
land are becoming one with us. We can feel you moving inside us. When you
pass back under the cloud the sensation will be like treading on a nail.”

“How will they react?”

“They’ll come after you, Mr. Malin. But then they’ll do that anyway if
you stay on this world.”

“I think he’s speaking the truth,” Horst said. “One of them came to the
homestead two days ago. She wanted me and the children. Our bodies,
anyway.”

“What happened?” Kelly asked.

Horst forced a vapid smile. “I exorcised her.”

“What?” Kelly blurted in greedy delight. “Really?”

The priest held up his bandaged hand. The dark strips of cloth were
stained with blood. “It wasn’t easy.”

“Shit Almighty. Shaun, can you be exorcised?”

Shaun Wallace had locked his gaze to that of the priest. “If it’s all the
same to you, Miss Kelly, I’d be obliged if you didn’t try.”

“He can,” she subvocalized into her neural nanonics memory cell, “he
really can! You can see it in his eyes. He fears the priest, this ageing
worn-out man in shabby clothes. I can barely believe it. A ceremony left
over from medieval times that can thwart these almost-invincible foes.
Where all our fantastic technology and knowledge fails, a prayer, a
simple anachronistic prayer could become our salvation. I must tell you
of this, I must find a way to get a message out to the Confederation.”
Damn, that sounded too much like Graeme Nicholson’s recording.

For a moment she wondered what had happened to the old hack.

“Interesting,” Reza said. “But it doesn’t help our present dilemma. We
have to find a way of keeping ahead of the cloud until Joshua comes back
for us.”

“Christ, we don’t even know when he’s coming back,” Sal Yong said. “And
taking a bunch of children through these mountains isn’t going to be
easy, Reza, there are no roads, no detailed map image. We’ve got no
camping equipment, no boots for them, no food supplies. It’s going to be
wet, slippery. I mean, God! I don’t mind giving it a go if there’s even a
remote chance of pulling it off, but this . . .”

“Mr Wallace, would your kind consider letting the children go?” Reza
asked.

“Some would, I would, but the rest . . . No, I don’t think so. There are
so few living human bodies left here, and so many souls trapped in the
beyond. We hear them constantly, you know, they plead with us to bring
them back. Giving in is so easy. I’m sorry.”

“Shit.” Reza flexed his fingers. “OK, we’ll take it in stages. First we
bring the children back here, get them and us out from under that bloody
cloud today. That’s what is important right now. Once we’ve done that we
can start concentrating on how to get them through the mountains. Maybe
the Tyrathca will help.”

“No chance,” Ariadne said flatly.

“Yeah. But all of you keep thinking. Mr. Wallace, can you tell me what
sort of opposition we’ll be facing? How many possessed?”

“Well now, there’s a good hundred and fifty living in Aberdale. But if
you race in on those fancy hover machines of yours you ought to be away
again before they reach you.”

“Great.”

Shaun Wallace held up his hand. “But there’s a family of ten living in
one of the other homesteads not far from the children. They can certainly
cause you problems.”

“And you believe him?” Sewell asked Reza.

Shaun Wallace put on a mournfully injured expression. “Now then, Mr.
Sewell, that’s no way to be talking about someone who’s only doing his
best to help you. I didn’t stick out my thumb and hitch here, you know.”

“Actually, he’s right about the homestead family,” Horst said. “I saw
them a couple of days ago.”

“Thank you, Father. There now, you have the word of a man of the cloth.
What more do you want?”

“Ten of them on open ground,” Reza said. “That’s nothing like as bad as
Pamiers. I think we can take care of them. Are you going to add your
fire-power to ours, Mr. Wallace?”

“Ah now, my fire-power is a poor weak thing compared to yours, Mr. Malin.
But even if it were capable of shifting mountains, I would not help you
in that way.”

“That makes you a liability, Mr. Wallace.”

“I don’t think much of a man who asks another to kill his cousins in
suffering, Mr. Malin. Not much at all.”

Horst took a pace forwards. “Perhaps you could mediate for us, Mr.
Wallace? Nobody wants to see any more death on this world, especially as
those bodies still contain their rightful souls. Could you not explain to
the homestead family that attacking the mercenaries would be foolhardy in
the extreme?”

Shaun Wallace stroked his chin. “Aye, now, I could indeed do that,
Father.”

Horst glanced expectantly at Reza.

“Suits me,” the mercenary leader said.

Shaun Wallace grinned his wide-boy grin. “The priests back in Ireland
were all wily old souls. I see nothing’s changed in that department.”

Nobody had noticed the balmy smile growing on Kelly’s face during the
exchange. She let go of Russ, and slapped her hands together with
surefire exultation. “Yes! I can get Joshua back here. I think. I’m sure
I can.”

They all looked at her.

“Maybe even by this afternoon. We won’t have to worry about going through
the mountains. All we’ll have to do is get clear of the red cloud so that
Ashly can land.”

“Spare us how wonderful you are, Kelly,” Reza said. “How?”

She dived into her bag and pulled out her communication block,
brandishing it as though it were a silver trophy. “With this. The LDC’s
original geosynchronous communication platform had a deep-space antenna
to keep in touch with the Edenist station orbiting Murora. If the
platform didn’t get hit in the orbital battle, we can just call him up.
Send a repeating message telling him how badly we need him. Murora is
about nine hundred million kilometres away, that’s less than a
light-hour. If he leaves as soon as he receives it, he could be here
inside three or four hours. Lady Mac might not be able to jump outsystem,
but if she can jump to Murora she can jump back again. At least we’d be
safely off Lalonde.”

“Can you get the platform computer to send a message?” Reza asked.
“Terrance Smith never gave us any access codes for it.”

“Listen, I’m a bloody reporter, there’s nothing I don’t know about
violating communication systems. And this block has quite a few less than
legal chips added.”

She waited for an answer, her feet had developed a life of their own,
wanting to dance.

“Well, get on with it then, Kelly,” Reza said.

She ran for the hole in the door, startling Fenton and Ryall lying on the
grass outside. The sky over the savannah was split into two uneven
portions of redness as the cloud band clashed with the dawn sun. She
datavised an instruction into the block and it started scanning across
the dissonant shades above for the platform’s beacon.



Joshua dozed fitfully in his cabin’s sleep cocoon. The envelope was a
baggy lightweight spongy fabric, big enough to hold him without being
restrictive. Sarha had offered to sleep with him, but he’d tactfully
declined. He was still feeling the effects of that eleven-gee thrust.
Even his body hadn’t been geneered with that much acceleration in mind.
There were long bruise crinkles on his back where the creases on his
ship-suit had pressed into his skin, and when he looked into the mirror
his eyes were bloodshot. He and Sarha wouldn’t have had sex anyway, he
really was tired. Tired and stressed out.

Everyone had been so full of praise for the way he had flown Lady Mac. If
only they knew the emotional cold turkey that hit him once the danger was
over and he stopped operating on nerve energy and arrogance. The fear
from realizing what one—just one—mistake would have spelt.

I should have listened to Ione. What I had before was enough.

He held her image in his mind as he fell asleep, she made it a lot easier
to relax, floating away on the rhythm of night. When he woke, drowsy,
warm, and randy, he accessed a memory of their time back in Tranquillity.
Out in the parkland, lying on the thick grass beside a stream. The two of
them clinging together after sex; Ione on top, sweaty and dreamily
content, light glinting an opulent gold off her hair, skin warm and soft
against him, kissing him oh so slowly, lips descending along his sternum.
Neither spoke, the moment was too perfect for that.

Then her head lifted and it was Louise Kavanagh, all trusting and adoring
in that way only the very innocent can achieve. She smiled hesitantly as
she rose up, then laughed in rapturous celebration as she was impaled
once again, luscious dark hair tossed about as she rode him. Thanking
him. Praising him. Promising herself for ever his.

And loving a girl hadn’t been that sweet since he was her age.

Jesus! He cancelled the memory sequence. Even his neural nanonics were
playing him dirty.

I do not need reminding. Not right now.

The flight computer datavised that Aethra was requesting a direct
channel. Joshua acknowledged the distraction with guilty relief. Space
warfare was easy.

Sarha had done a good job interfacing the bitek processor to Lady Mac’s
electronics. He had talked to the habitat yesterday, which was
engrossing; it came across as a mixture of child and all-knowing sage.
But it had been very interested in hearing about Tranquillity. The images
he received from its shell’s sensitive cells were different to the Lady
Mac’s sensor clusters. They seemed more real, somehow, bestowing a
texture of depth and emptiness which space had always lacked before.

Joshua unsealed the side of the sleep cocoon and swung his legs out. He
opened a locker for a fresh ship-suit. There were only three left.
Sighing, he started to pull one on. “Hello, Aethra,” he datavised.

“Good morning, Joshua. I hope you slept well.”

“Yeah, I got a few hours.”

“I am picking up a message for you.”

He was instantly alert, without any stimulus from his neural nanonics.
“Jesus. Where from?”

“It is a microwave transmission originating from the civil communication
platform orbiting Lalonde.”

He was shown the starfield outside. The sun was a white glare point, nine
hundred and eighty-nine million kilometres distant; to one side Lalonde
shone steadily, if weakly, a sixth-magnitude star. It had now become a
binary, twinned with a violet glint.

“You can see microwaves?” he asked.

“I sense, eyes see. It is part of the energy spectrum which falls upon my
shell.”

“What is the message?”

“It is a voice-only transmission to you personally from a Kelly Tirrel.”

“Jesus. Let me hear it.”

“ ‘This is Kelly Tirrel calling Captain Joshua Calvert. Joshua, I hope
you’re receiving this OK; and if not, could someone at Aethra’s
supervisory station please relay this to him immediately. It’s really
important. Joshua, I’m not sure if the possessed can overhear this, so I
won’t say anything too exact, OK? We got your message about returning.
And the time-scale you mentioned is no use to us. Joshua, virtually
everyone down here has been possessed. It’s like the worst of the
Christian Bible gospels are coming true. Dead people are coming back and
taking over the living. I know that sounds crazy to you; but believe me
it isn’t sequestration, and it isn’t a xenoc invasion. I’ve talked to
someone who was alive at the start of the twentieth century. He’s real,
Joshua. So is their electronic warfare ability, only it’s more like
magic. They can do terrible things, Joshua, to people and animals. Truly
terrible. Shit, I don’t suppose you believe any of this, do you? Just
think of them as an enemy, Joshua. That’ll help make them real for you.
And you saw the red cloud-bands over the Juliffe basin, you know how
powerful that enemy is.

“ ‘Well, the red cloud is swelling, Joshua, it’s spreading over the
planet. We were heading away from it. Just like you said we should,
remember? But we’ve found someone who has been in hiding since the
possession started, a priest. He’s been looking after a bunch of young
children. There’s twenty-nine of them. And now they’re trapped under that
cloud. They’re near the village that was our original target, so that
gives you a rough idea where we are. We’re going back for them, Joshua,
we’ll be on our way by the time this message reaches you. They’re only
children, for Christ’s sake, we can’t leave them. The trouble is that
once we’ve got them we won’t be able to run far, not with our transport.
But we’re pretty sure we can get the children out from under the cloud by
this afternoon. Joshua . . . you have to pick us up. Today, Joshua. We
won’t be able to hold out for long after sunset. I know your lady friend
wasn’t feeling too well when you left, but bandage her up as best you
can, as soon as you can. Please. We’ll be waiting for you. Our prayers
are with you. Thank you, Joshua.’ ”

“It is repeating,” Aethra said.

“Oh, Jesus.” Possession. The dead returned. Child refugees on the run.
“Jesus fucking wept. She can’t do this to me! She’s mad. Possession?
She’s fucking flipped.” He stared aghast at the ancient Apollo computer,
arms half in his sleeves. “No chance.” His arms were rammed into the
ship-suit sleeves. Sealing up the front. “She needs locking up for her
own good. Her neural nanonics are looped on a glitched stimulant program.”

“You said you believed the red cloud effect was fundamentally wrong,”
Aethra said.

“I said it was a little odd.”

“So is the notion of possession.”

“When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“Twelve who died when the station was destroyed are stored within me. You
make continual references to your deity, does this not imply a degree of
belief in the nature of spirituality?”

“Je—Shit! Look, it’s just a figure of speech.”

“And yet humans have believed in gods and an afterlife since the day you
gained sentience.”

“Don’t you fucking start! Your lot are supposed to be atheists, anyway.”

“I apologize. I can sense you are upset. What are you going to do about
rescuing the children?”

Joshua pressed his fingers to his temple in the vain hope it would halt
the dizzy sensation. “Buggered if I know. How do we know there really are
any children?”

“You mean it is just a bluff to trick you into returning to Lalonde?”

“Could be, yeah.”

“That would imply that Kelly Tirrel has been possessed.”

Very calmly, he datavised: “Sequestrated. It implies she has been
sequestrated.”

“Whatever has befallen her, you still have a decision to make.”

“And don’t I know it.”

Melvyn was alone on the bridge when Joshua came gliding through the hatch
from his cabin.

“I just heard the message,” the fusion expert said. “She can’t mean it.”

“Maybe.” Joshua touched his feet to a stikpad beside his acceleration
couch. “Call the crew in, and Gaura as well. I suppose the Edenists are
entitled. It’s their arses on the line as well.”

He tried to think in the short time it took for them to drift into the
bridge, make some kind of sense out of Kelly’s message. The trouble was
she had sounded so convincing, she believed what she said. If it was her.
Jesus. And it was a very strange sequestration. He couldn’t forget the
chaos in orbit.

He accessed the navigation display to see just how practical any sort of
return flight was. It didn’t look good. Maranta and Gramine had confined
their search to the section of ring which was electrically charged, which
meant one of them was always within three thousand kilometres of Lady
Mac. The jump coordinate for Lalonde was a third of the way round the gas
giant, over two hundred and seventy thousand kilometres from their
present position. Out of the question. He started to hunt round for
options.

“I think it’s a load of balls,” Warlow said when they were all assembled.
“Possession! Kelly’s cracked.”

“You said it yourself,” Ashly said. “It’s a bad form of sequestration.”

“Do you believe in the dead coming back?”

The pilot grinned at the huge ochre cosmonik clinging to a corner of an
acceleration couch. “It would make life interesting. Admit it.”

Warlow’s diaphragm issued a sonic boom snort.

“It doesn’t matter what name we choose to call the process,” Dahybi said.
“The sequestration ability exists. We know that. What we have to decide
is whether or not Kelly has been taken over by it.” He glanced at Joshua
and offered a lame shrug.

“If she hasn’t then we’re all in a great deal of trouble,” Sarha said.

“If she hasn’t?” Melvyn asked.

“Yes. That will mean there are twenty-nine children we have to get off
that planet by this afternoon.”

“Oh, hell,” he mumbled.

“And if she has been sequestrated then she knew we were coming back
anyway. So why try and get us to come back earlier? And why include all
that crap about possession, when all it would do was make us more
cautious?”

“Double bluff?” Melvyn said.

“Come on!”

“Sarha’s right,” Ashly said. “We always planned to go back; as far as
Kelly knew, in a couple of days. There’s no logical reason to hurry us.
And we know they try and hijack the spaceplanes which land. It’s not as
if we wouldn’t have taken precautions. All this has done is make us even
more cautious. My vote says she is in trouble, and they have found these
stray children.”

“And me,” Dahybi said. “But it’s not our decision. Captain?”

It was the kind of oblique compliment about his status Joshua could
really have done without. “Kelly would never call unless she really was
desperate,” he said slowly. “If she has managed to avoid sequestration,
or whatever, she would never have mentioned possession unless it was
true. You all know what she’s like: facts no matter what it costs. And if
she had been possessed, she wouldn’t tell us.” Oh, Jesus, be honest, I
know she’s in deep shit. “They need to be picked up. Like she said:
today.”

“Joshua, we can’t,” Melvyn said. He looked desperately torn. “I don’t
want to abandon a whole bunch of kids down there any more than you. Even
if we don’t know exactly what’s going on below those bloody cloudbands,
we’ve seen and heard enough to know it ain’t good. But we’re never going
to get past the Maranta and the Gramine. And I’ll give you good odds
they’ve picked up Kelly’s message as well. They’ll be extra vigilant now.
Face it, we’ve got to wait. They’ll spot us the second we turn our drive
on.”

“Maybe,” Joshua said. “Maybe not. But first things first. Sarha, can our
environmental systems cope with thirty kids and the mercenaries as well
as the Edenists?”

“I dunno how big the kids are,” Sarha said, thinking out loud. “Kelly did
say young. There’s probably room for four more in the zero-tau pods if we
really cram them in. We can billet some in the spaceplane and the MSV,
use their atmospheric filters. Carbon dioxide build-up is our main
problem, the filters could never scrub the amount seventy people produce.
We’d have to vent it and replace it from the cryogenic oxygen reserve.”
Neural nanonics ran a best and worst case simulation. She didn’t like the
margins on the worst case, not one bit. “I’ll give you a provisional yes.
But thirty is the absolute limit, Joshua. If the mercenaries run into any
other worthy cause refugees, they’re just going to have to stay down
there.”

“OK. That leaves us with picking them up. Ashly?”

The pilot gave one of his engaging grins. “I told you, Joshua, I promised
them I’d go down again.”

“Fine. That just leaves you, Gaura. You’ve been very quiet.”

“It’s your ship, Captain.”

“Yes, but your children are on board, and your friends and family.
They’ll be exposed to a considerable risk if Lady Mac attempts to go back
to Lalonde. That entitles you to a say.”

“Thank you, Joshua. We say this: if it was us stranded on Lalonde right
now, we would want you to come and pick us up.”

“Very well. That’s settled then. We’ll try and rescue the mercenaries and
the children.”

“One small point, Joshua,” Melvyn said loudly. “We’re stuck in the rings,
with one combat wasp left, forty thousand kilometres from the edge of
Murora’s gravity field. If we stick our heads up, they’ll be shot to
buggery.”

“I was in a similar situation to this a year ago.”

“Joshua!” Sarha chided.

He ignored her. “It was the Ruin Ring, when Neeves and Sipika were coming
after me. Look at where the Maranta and the Gramine are right now.”

They all accessed the navigational display, neon-sharp graphics unfurling
in their minds. The two searching starships extruded curved yellow
orbital trajectory plots paralleling the thick gauzy green slab of the
ring which filled the bottom half of the projection. Lady Macbeth lurked
below the ring surface like some outlandish slumbering marine creature.

“Maranta and Gramine are now six thousand kilometres apart,” Joshua said.
“They’ve got a reasonable idea of the general area where we have to be
hidden, and they’ve changed altitude twice in the last fifteen hours to
cover different sections of the ring. If they stick to that pattern
they’ll change again in another four hours.” He ordered the display to
extrapolate their positions. “Gramine will be about three hundred
kilometres from us, she actually passes over us in another ninety
minutes; and Maranta is going to be right out at the extreme, about seven
and a half thousand kilometres away. After that they’ll swap orbital
tracks and begin a new sweep.

“So if we can break out when Maranta is seven and a half thousand klicks
away, we’ll be far enough ahead of it to escape.”

“And Gramine?” Melvyn asked. He didn’t like Joshua’s quiet tone, as if
the young captain was afraid of what he was going to say.

“We know where it’s going to be, we can leave one of the megaton nukes
from the combat wasp waiting for it. Mine the ring where it will pass
overhead, attach the nuke to a large rock particle. Between them, the emp
pulse, the plasma wave, and the rock fragments should disable it.”

“How do we get it there?” Melvyn asked.

“You know bloody well how we get it there,” Sarha said. “Someone’s got to
carry it using a manoeuvring pack, right Joshua? That’s what you did in
the Ruin Ring, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. They can’t detect one person fifteen kilometres deep in the ring,
not using cold gas to manoeuvre.”

“Wait a minute,” Dahybi said. He had been running flight trajectory
simulations in the navigation display. “Even if you did knock out the
Gramine, and that’s a bloody long shot, we’re still no better off.
Maranta will just launch her combat wasps straight at us. There’s no way
we can out-run them, they’ll get us before we’re halfway to the edge of
Murora’s gravity field, let alone Lalonde’s jump coordinate.”

“If we accelerate at eight gees, we’ll have seven minutes fifteen seconds
before the Maranta’s combat wasps will catch us,” Joshua said.
“Distance-wise that works out at about sixteen thousand kilometres.”

“That still won’t get us outside Murora’s gravity field. We couldn’t even
jump blind.”

“No, but there is one place we can jump from. It’s only fifteen thousand
kilometres away; we would have a twenty-second safety margin.”

“Where?” Melvyn demanded.

Joshua datavised an instruction into the flight computer. The
navigational display drew a violet trajectory line from the Lady Mac
towards the edge of the ring, sliding round in a retrograde curve to end
at one of the four tiny ring-shepherd moonlets.

“Murora VII,” Joshua said.

A terrible realization came to Dahybi; his balls retracted as though he’d
dived into an icy lake. “Oh, Christ, no, Joshua. You can’t be serious,
not at that velocity.”

“So give me an alternative.”

“An alternative to what?” Sarha asked petulantly.

Still looking at Joshua, Dahybi said: “The Lagrange point. Every two-body
system has them. It’s where the moonlet’s gravity is balanced by
Murora’s, which means you can activate a starship’s nodes inside it
without worrying about gravitonic stress desynchronization. Technically,
they’re points, but in practice they work out as a relatively spherical
zone. A small zone.”

“For Murora VII, about two and a half kilometres in diameter,” Joshua
said. “Unfortunately, we’ll be travelling at about twenty-seven
kilometres per second when we reach it. That gives us a tenth of a second
to trigger the nodes.”

“Oh, shit,” Ashly grunted.

“It won’t be a problem for the flight computer,” Joshua said blandly.

“But where will the jump take us?” Melvyn asked.

“I can give us a rough alignment on Achillea, the third gas giant. It’s
on the other side of the system now, about seven billion kilometres away.
We’ll jump a billion kilometres, align Lady Mac properly on one of its
outer moons, then jump again. No way will Maranta be able to follow us
through those kind of manoeuvres. When we get to Achillea we slingshot
round the moon onto a Lalonde trajectory and jump in. Total elapsed time
eighty minutes maximum.”

“Oh, God . . . well, I suppose you know what you’re talking about.”

“Him?” Sarha exclaimed. “You must be joking.”

“It has a certain degree of style,” Dahybi said. He nodded approvingly.
“OK, Joshua, I’ll have the nodes primed. But you’re going to have to be
staggeringly accurate when we hit that Lagrange point.”

“My middle name.”

Sarha studied the bridge decking. “I know another one,” she muttered
under her breath.

“So who’s the lucky one that gets to EVA in the rings and blow up the
Gramine?” Melvyn asked.

“Volunteers can draw lots,” Joshua said. “Put my name in.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sarha said. “We all know you’re going to have to fly
the Lady Mac, no one else could hit that moonlet, let alone its Lagrange
point. And Ashly has to take the spaceplane down, I expect that flight’s
going to need a professional. So the rest of us will draw for it.”

“Kindly include twenty of us,” Gaura said. “We are all qualified in EVA
work, and we have the added advantage of being able to communicate with
Aethra in case the starship should alter course.”

“Nobody is volunteering, nobody is drawing lots,” Warlow said, using
excessive volume to obliterate any dissent. “This is my job. It’s what
I’m designed for. And I’m the oldest here. So I qualify on all counts.”

“Don’t be so bloody morbid,” Joshua said, annoyance covering his real
concern. “You just plant the nuke on a rock particle and come straight
back.”

Warlow laughed, making them all wince. “Of course, so easy.”



Now, finally, under the slowly spinning inferno and looking up into a
glaring formless void. Journey’s end. Chas Paske had to turn down his
optical sensors’ receptivity, the light was so bright. At first he had
thought some kind of miniature sun lurked up there at the centre of the
flaming vortex of cloud, but now the boat had carried him faithfully
under the baleful cone he could see the apex had burst open like a
malignant tumour. The rent was growing larger. The cyclone was growing
larger, deeper and wider.

He knew its purpose at last, that knowledge was inescapable where he was,
pressed down in the bottom of the flat boat under the sheer pressure of
the light. It was a mouth, jaws opening wide. One day—soon—it would
devour the whole world.

He gave a wild little giggle at the notion.

That heavy, heavy light was migrating from whatever (wherever?) lay on
the other side. Weighty extrinsic photons sinking slowly downwards like
snow to smother the land and river in their own special frost. Whatever
they touched, gleamed, as though lit from within. Even his body, shoddy,
worthless thing it was now, had acquired a dignified lustre.

Above the gashed cloud was a sheer plane of white light, a mathematical
absolute. The ocean into which his white silk dream river emptied. A
universal ocean into which Lalonde was destined to fall like a pearl
droplet, and lose itself for evermore. He felt himself wanting to rise up
towards it, to defy gravity and soar. Into the perpetual light and warmth
which would cleanse him and banish sorrow. It would ripple once as he
penetrated the meniscus, throwing out a polished wave crown, a single
ephemeral spire rising at the centre. After that there would be no trace.
To pass through was to transcend.

His remoulded face was incapable of smiling. So he lay there gladly on
the boat, mind virtually divorced from his body, looking up at his
future, awaiting his moment of ascension. His physical purpose long since
abandoned.

Even though the red cloud’s thunder had retreated to a muffled rumbling
he never heard the starting gun being fired, so the first cannonball
shattered his serenity with shocking abruptness.

They had known he was there, the possessed, they had been aware of him
all along. From the moment he’d passed under the aegis of the red cloud
he had registered in their consciousness, as an orbiting gnat might
impinge upon a man’s peripheral vision. His hapless journey down the
river was of no consequence to them; in his miserable degenerative state
he was simply not worth their attention nor a moment’s effort. The river
was bringing him surely to their bosom, they were content to let him come
in his own time.

Now he was here, and they had assembled down by the docks to provide a
maliciously frolicsome reception. It was a black-hearted jamboree
suitable to celebrate the last possession before Lalonde escaped the
universe for good.

The iron ball whistled low over Chas’s boat with a backlash crack that
set the insecure craft rocking, then splattered into the snowlily mush
thirty metres away. Purple smoke and ten-metre magnesium flames squirted
joyously into the air like a jumbo Roman candle.

Chas shunted round on his elbows, looking in disbelief at the chromatic
blaze. The snowlilies started to melt away around his boat, lowering it
into sparkling clear blue water. Whoops and catcalls wafted over the
river from the shore. He twisted round.

Durringham with all of its white towers and onion-dome spires and lofty
castles and lush hanging gardens formed a magnificent backdrop to the
armada racing to collect him. There were Polynesian war canoes with
flower-garlanded warriors digging their paddles into the clear water;
rowing eights with lean young men sweating under the cox’s bellowed
orders; triremes, their massed oars flashing in immaculate unison; Viking
marauders sporting resplendent scarlet and gold sun-god sails; dhows
whose lateens strained ahead of the fresh breeze; junks, sampans,
ketches, sloops . . . and riding fast and proud out in front was a big
three-masted buccaneer, its crew in striped shirts scrambling over the
rigging. A quarter of the city’s population crowded the circular harbours
(now ancient solid stone) cheering on their chosen team in a boisterous
rollicking carnival atmosphere.

Chas gagged at the sight of it all; the nightmare dormant in every human
brain the entire world is out to get me. The whole city was chasing him,
wanted him, hated him. He was their new toy, the day’s amusement.

His body spasmed in massive quakes, implants faltering. Intolerable waves
of pain from his leg crashed past the crumbling analgesic blocks.
“Bastards!” he roared. “You shit-eating bastards. You don’t play with me.
I am your enemy. I am not a joke. Fear me. Fear me, God damn you!”

A dainty ring of smoke puffed out of the buccaneer’s forward gun. Chas
screamed, fury and terror in one incoherent blast of sound.

The cannon-ball hit the water ten metres away, sending up a sheet of
steaming white water. Wavelets rushed out, slapping his boat.

“Bastards.” It wasn’t even a whisper. Adrenalin and nerves could do
nothing more for him, he was devoid of strength. “I’ll show you. Freaks.
Zoo people. I am not a joke.” Somewhere far away a soprano chorus was
singing black canticles.

Chas datavised the activation code into the kiloton bomb strapped in its
harness at his side. Good old faithful bomb. Stuck to him the whole time.
That’ll wipe the smile off their faces.

Nothing happened, his neural nanonics had shut down. Pain was burning
through him, leaving only numbness in its wake. Fingers scrabbled feebly
at the bomb’s small manual control panel, prising open the cover. His
head flopped to one side to follow the movement. He eventually managed to
focus an optical sensor. The panel keyboard was dark, inert. It had
failed. He had failed.

Almost forgotten natural tear glands squeezed out their very last drops
as he slowly knocked a fist on the wooden planking in utter futility.

A couple of the triremes were gaining on the buccaneer. It was developing
into a three-boat race, though one of the war canoes refused to give up,
warriors pounding the water with their paddles, skin gleaming as though
they were sweating oil. Back on the harbours the elated cheering mixed
with songs and chants from across five millennia.

The buccaneer crew fired another cannon to terrorize their crushed victim.

“You won’t have me!” Chas cried in defiance. He put a hand on each
gunwale and started to rock the boat as the cannon-ball’s wavelets broke
against the hull. “Never. Never. I won’t be a part of it, not of you.”

Pain and numbness had gorged on his torso. His arms began to fail as the
swaying reached a peak. Water slopped in over the narrow gunwale. The
flimsy boat turned turtle, dumping him into the Juliffe. He saw bubbles
churning past. The rumpled silver foil of the surface receded. Neural
nanonics told him his lungs were filling with water. Pain diminished. His
implants were working again. They couldn’t reach him under water, he was
beyond them here. He focused every sensor he had on the bomb whose weight
was dragging him down.

On shore the audience had stopped cheering when their prey (so
unsportingly) capsized himself. A groan went up. He’d pay for that.

Boat crews stopped rowing and slumped over their oars, exhausted and
angry. The buccaneer’s sails calmly rolled themselves up as the sailors
hung like listless spiders in the rigging. They stared morosely at the
tiny half-sunken boat bobbing about ahead of them.

Together Durringham’s possessed exerted their power. The river around the
hull of Chas Paske’s boat began to ripple energetically.

“Hey look, it’s Moses!” someone yelled from the harbour wall. A laugh ran
along the spectators. They clapped their hands and stomped their feet, a
stadium crowd demanding their sporting hero appear. “Moses! Moses! Moses!”

The waters of the Juliffe parted.

Chas felt it happening. His surroundings were getting lighter, pressure
was reducing. Below his fingers the bomb’s keyboard was a glowing ruby
chessboard. He typed in the code, refusing to hurry, watching the
numbered squares turn green. There was a loud gurgling sound building all
around. Fast-conflicting currents sucked at him, twisting his lifeless
legs about. Then the rucked surface came rushing down to seek him out.
Too late.

The kiloton nuke detonated at the bottom of a twenty-metre crater in the
river. Its initial blast pulse was punched straight up into the core of
the transplanarity ferment raging above. A solar fireball arose from the
water with splendid inevitability, and the entire river seemed to lift
with it. Energy in every spectrum poured outwards, smashing solid matter
apart. None of those lining the harbour wall really knew what was
happening. Their stolen bodies disintegrated before the nerve impulses
could reach the brain. Only after annihilation, when the possessing souls
found themselves back in the bestial beyond, did the truth dawn.

Two seconds after the bomb exploded, a forty-metre wall of water moving
at near-sonic speed slammed into Durringham. And the dead, ensconced in
their beautiful new mansions and fanciful castles, died again in their
tens of thousands beneath the usurping totem of the radiant mushroom
cloud.


Chapter 12
==========


With his enhanced retinas switched to full sensitivity it appeared as
though Warlow was flying through a dry iridescent mist. Ring particles
still crawled with wayward spurts of energy; micrometre dust flowed in
slow streams around the larger boulders and ice chunks. Despite the
shimmering phosphorescence he was basically flying blind. Occasionally he
could catch a glimpse of stars flickering past his feet, short-lived
embers skipping from an invisible bonfire.

After leaving the Lady Macbeth he had moved twelve kilometres out from
Murora, an orbit which saw him falling behind the sheltering starship.
The big dark sphere, upper hull glinting in the livid red glow from its
own thermo-dump panels, had been lost from sight in three minutes.
Isolation had tightened its bewitching fingers almost immediately.
Strangely enough, here, where he could barely see ten metres, a
realization of the universe’s vastness was all too strong.

The ten-megaton bomb was strapped to his chest, a fat ovoid seventy-five
centimetres high. Weightless, yet weighing heavily in his heart—titanium
and composite device though it was.

Sarha had given him one of the Edenist bitek processor blocks which she
had modified with augmentation modules. The idea was to provide him with
a link to Aethra in case the Gramine should unexpectedly alter track.

Makeshift, like this whole mission.

“Can I speak with you alone?” he datavised.

“Of course,” the habitat answered. “I would be glad to keep you company.
Yours is a fraught task.”

“But it is mine alone.”

“You are the best qualified.”

“Thank you. I wanted to ask you a question on the nature of death.”

“Yes?”

“It involves a small story.”

“Go on. I am always interested to hear of human events. I understand very
little of your species so far, even though I have inherited a wealth of
data.”

“Ten years ago I was a crew-member in the starship Harper’s Dragon. It
was a line cargo ship, nothing special, although the pay was comfortingly
regular. We had a new cadet lieutenant join us on Woolsey, called Felix
Barton. He was only twenty, but he had assimilated his didactic courses
well. I found him competent, and a reasonable messmate. He was no
different to any other young man starting his career. Then he fell in
love with an Edenist woman.”

“Ah; this is, perhaps, a Shakespearian tragedy?”

Warlow saw thin ribbons of orange dust winding corkscrew fashion around
an ice chunk straight ahead; a bird-kite’s tail, he thought. They sparked
pink on his carbotanium space armour as he splashed through. Then he was
past them and curving round a mealy boulder, guidance and optical
interpretation programs operating in tandem to steer him automatically
around obstacles. “Not at all. It is a very straightforward story. He
simply became besotted. I admit she was beautiful, but then every
geneered human seems to be. Harper’s Dragon had a regular contract to
supply her habitat with specialist chemicals for one of their electronics
manufacturing stations. After four trips, Felix declared he could not
bear to be parted from her. And he was lucky, she felt the same way about
him.”

“How fortunate.”

“Yes. Felix left Harper’s Dragon and became an Edenist. He had neuron
symbionts implanted to give him general affinity, and underwent
specialist counselling to help him adapt. The last time Harper’s Dragon
visited, I spoke with him, and he was extremely happy. He said he had
fitted in perfectly and that she was expecting their first child.”

“That is nice. There are something like a million and a half Adamists who
become Edenists every year.”

“So many? I didn’t know.”

“Seventy per cent are love cases similar to your friend, the rest join
because it attracts them intellectually or emotionally. Over half of the
love cases are Adamists who form relationships with voidhawk
crew-members, which is only to be expected given that they have the most
contact with Adamists. It leads to many jokes about the voidhawk families
having wild blood.”

“So tell me, is the conversion absolute, do these newfound Edenists
transfer their memories into the habitat when they die?”

“Of course.”

His neural nanonics displayed a guidance plot, updating his position.
Purple and yellow vectors slithered through his head, temporarily
displacing his view of the irradiated dust. He was on course. His course.
“Then my question is this. Is it possible to transfer a person’s memories
into a habitat if that person has neural nanonics rather than affinity?”

“I have no record of it ever having been done. Although I can see no
reason why not; the process would take longer, however, datavising is not
as efficient as affinity.”

“I want to become an Edenist. I want you to accept my memories.”

“Warlow, why?”

“I am eighty-six, and I am not geneered. My shipmates do not know, but
all that is left of my real body is the brain and a few nerve cords. The
rest of me perished long ago. I spent far too much time in free fall, you
see.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It has been a full life. But now my neurons are dying at a
rate which is beyond even Confederation gene therapy’s ability to
replace. So, understandably, I have come to think a lot about death
recently. I had even considered downloading my memories into a processor
array, but that would simply be an echo of myself. You on the other hand
are a living entity, within you I too could continue to live.”

“I would be happy and honoured to accept your memories. But, Warlow, the
transference must take place at death, only that way can continuity be
achieved. Anything less would be that echo of self which you spoke of.
Your personality would know it was not complete because its conclusion
was missing.”

He flew along a cliff of charcoal-textured rock. A virtual mountain of a
particle, worn and abraded by aeons of murmuring dust, the lethal
knife-blade spires unsheathed by its fractured formation now a moorland
landscape of undulations, barrows of its youthful virility. “I know.”

“Are you worried then that Captain Calvert will not be able to escape
through the Lagrange point?”

“No. Joshua will be able to fly that manoeuvre with ease. My concern is
that he is given the chance to fly it.”

“You mean eliminating the Gramine?”

“I do. This mission to mine the rings is the weakest link in Joshua’s
plan to escape. It assumes the Gramine will not deviate its orbit by more
than five hundred metres in the next two hours. It assumes too much. I
propose to position the warhead accurately on Gramine’s orbital track,
and detonate it while it passes. That way I can be sure.”

“Warlow, neither Gramine nor Maranta have deviated their track by more
than a hundred metres since the search began. I urge you to reconsider
this action.”

“Why? I have only a few years to live at best. Most of those would be
spent with my memories and rationality slipping away. Our medical science
has achieved too much in that direction. My synthetic body can keep
pumping blood through my comatose brain for decades yet. Would you wish
that on me when you know you yourself can provide me with a worthwhile
continuance?”

“That is, I believe, a loaded question.”

“Correct. My mind is made up. This way I have two chances of cheating
death. There are few who can say that.”

“Two? How so?”

“Possession implies an afterlife, somewhere a soul can return from.”

“You believe that is the fate which has befallen Lalonde?”

“Do you know what a Catholic is?” A solid glacier wall of ice appeared
out of the dust. The cold-gas nozzles of his manoeuvring pack fired
heavily. For a moment he saw the splay of waxen vapour shiver as it was
siphoned away into the blue and emerald phosphenes of dust.

“Catholicism is one of the root religions which made up the Unified
Christian Church,” Aethra said.

“Almost. Officially, by decree of the Pope, Catholicism was absorbed. But
it was a strong faith. You cannot modify and dilute such an intense
devotion simply by compromising prayers and services to achieve unity
with other Christian denominations. My home asteroid was Forli, an
ethnic-Italian settlement. It kept the faith, unofficially,
unobtrusively. Try as I might, I cannot throw away the teachings of my
childhood. Divine justice is something I think all living things will
have to face.”

“Even me?”

“Even you. And Lalonde looks to confirm my belief.”

“You think Kelly Tirrel was telling the truth?”

Warlow’s manoeuvring pack was nudging him gingerly round the rimed
iceberg, loyally following the ins and outs of its gentle contours. Its
surface was true crystal, but eventually it sank into total blackness, as
though a wormhole interstice had frozen open at its core. When his
armour-suit sensors scanned round they showed him the constellations
returning to their full majesty through the attenuating dust. “I do. I am
convinced of it.”

“Why?”

“Because Joshua believes her.”

“A strange rationale.”

“Joshua is more than a superlative captain. In all my years I have never
come across anyone quite like him. He behaves execrably with women and
money, and even his friends on occasion. But, if you will excuse my
clumsy poetry, he is in tune with the universe. He knows truth. I put my
faith in Joshua, I have done so ever since I signed on with the Lady
Macbeth, and I will continue to do so.”

“Then there is an afterlife.”

“If not, I will live on as part of your multiplicity. But Kelly Tirrel
has been convinced that there is. She is a tough, cynical person, she
would take a lot of convincing such a thing could be. And, as now appears
likely, if there is an afterlife, I have an immortal soul and death is
not to be feared.”

“And do you fear death?”

He rose out of the iceberg’s umbra cloak. It was similar to emerging from
a dark layer of rain-cloud into clear evening sky, there was only a
remote diaphanous shimmer of dust left above him. Gramine shone like a
second-magnitude star, forty kilometres away and drifting towards him.
“Very much.”



The hovercraft slewed and bucked on the river, tossed about by
white-water waves swelling over semi-submerged stones. Theo was
concentrating hard on keeping them straight and level, but it was tough
going. Kelly didn’t remember yesterday’s journey up this same river as
being so difficult. She and Shaun Wallace were sitting on the rear bench,
clinging on grimly as they were slung about. The propeller droned behind
her.

“Already I feel wearied by the journey, daunted by what we are
attempting. This is not even snatching victory from the jaws of defeat,
although it might be termed a last vain attempt to salvage the team’s
dignity. We came to this planet with such confidence and high ideals; we
were going to vanquish the evil invader and restore order and stability
to twenty million people, give them their lives back. Now all we dare
hope for is to escape with thirty children. And even that will tax us to
the limit.”

“Such a worrier, Miss Kelly.” Shaun smiled congenially.

The hovercraft swerved, pushing her against him—for the briefest second
the channel to her sensorium flek recorder block dropped out—and he
smiled politely as they righted themselves. “You mean I shouldn’t be
worrying?”

“Now I never said that. But worry is the Devil’s disciple, it rots the
soul.”

“Well, you’d certainly be the one to know all about souls.”

Shaun chuckled softly.

Kelly glanced up at the red cloud. They had been under it for half an
hour now. It was thicker than it had been yesterday, its constituent
tresses twirling sluggishly. Somehow she was aware of its weight, a
heaviness necessary to blot out not just the sight of space but the
physical laws governing existence. A complex intertwining of associated
emotions defeated her, as though she was sensevising some obscure xenoc
ceremony. “That cloud means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“Not the cloud itself, Miss Kelly, that’s nothing, but what it
represents, yes. That’s like seeing your aspirations take form. To me, to
all of us damned souls, it means freedom. A precious commodity when
you’ve been denied it for seven hundred years.”

Kelly switched her attention to the second hovercraft, with Horst Elwes
and Russ sitting on the bench behind Ariadne, faces ploughed up against
the biting slipstream wind. Cannonades of thunder thrashed overhead, as
if the cloud was the taut skin of some gigantic drum. She saw Russ push
himself closer against the priest. The simple act of trust was immensely
poignant.

The privation dropped upon Shaun Wallace without the slightest warning.
He experienced the dreadful exodus, the flight of souls expelled from the
universe exerting a tidal force on his own precarious possession. Their
lamentations and enmity spilled back from the beyond in that eerily
pervasive chorus, and then came venomous anger of those who accompanied
them on their expulsion, those they had possessed. All of them, preying
on each other, hating each other. The conflict permeated his skull,
wrenching at his thoughts. He gagged, eyes widening in shock. His face
betrayed an emotion of uttermost despair, then he flung his head back and
howled.

Reza never wanted to hear a cry like it again. The outpouring of anguish
compressed into that one cataclysmic bawl spoke for an entire planet.
Grief paralysed him, and loss, loss so profound he wanted the universe to
end so he could be spared.

It finished as Shaun ran out of breath. Unsteadily, Reza twisted round on
the front bench. Tears were streaming down the possessed man’s cheeks. He
drew breath and howled again.

Kelly’s hands were clasped against her puckered lips. “What?” she wailed.
“What is it?” Her eyes shut instinctively at the next outburst.

Reza tried to block it all out and project some comfort to Fenton and
Ryall. “Pat?” he datavised. “Can Octan see anything happening?”

“Not a thing,” the second-in-command answered from the other hovercraft.
“What’s going on? Wallace frightened the shit out of us.”

“I’ve no idea.”

Kelly shook Shaun’s arm imploringly. “What’s wrong? What is it? Speak to
me!” Panic was giving her voice a shrill edge. “Shaun!”

Shaun gulped down a breath, his shoulders shivering. He lowered his head
until he was staring at Reza. “You,” he hissed. “You killed them.”

Reza looked at him through a cross-grid of yellow target graphics, his
forearm gaussrifle was aimed directly at the possessed man’s temple.
“Killed who?”

“The city, the whole city. I felt them go, thousands upon thousands blown
back to the beyond like so much ash. Your devil bomb, it went off. No, it
was set off. What kind of creatures are you to slaughter so
indiscriminately?”

Reza felt a grin reflex coming on, which his restructured face portrayed
as a moderate widening of his mouth slit. “Someone got through, didn’t
they? Someone hit back.”

Shaun’s head sagged brokenly. “One man. That’s all, one bloody man.”

“So you’re not so invincible, after all. I hope it pains you, Mr.
Wallace, I hope it pains all your kind. That way you may begin to know
something of the horror we felt when we found out what you did to this
planet’s children.”

The flash of guilt on the man’s face proved the barb had hit home.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Wallace, we know. Even if Kelly here is too tactful to
mention it. We know the barbarism we are dealing with.”

“What bomb?” Kelly asked. “What are you two talking about?”

“Ask him,” Shaun said, and sneered at Reza. “Ask him how he was intending
to help the poor people of this planet he was hired to save.”

“Reza?”

The mercenary leader swayed as the hovercraft banked around a boulder.
“Terrance Smith was concerned we might not get all the fire support we
needed from the starships. He gave each team leader a nuke.”

“Oh, Christ.” Kelly looked from one man to the other. “Do you mean you’ve
got one as well?”

“You should know, Kelly,” Reza said. “You’re sitting on it.”

She tried to jump to her feet, only to have Shaun grab her arm and keep
her sitting.

“Have you learned nothing of him yet, Miss Kelly? There’s no human part
left in that mockery of a body.”

“Point to your body, Mr. Wallace, the one you were born with,” Reza said.
“After that I’ll talk morality and ethics with you all day long.”

They stared at each other.

Darkness began to fall. Kelly looked up to see the red light bleeding
from the cloud, leaving behind a swollen slate-grey mantle massing
sinisterly low overhead. A blade of purple-white lightning screwed down
on the savannah to the east.

“What’s happening?” Kelly shouted as thunder crashed over the hovercraft.

“You are happening, Miss Kelly. They sense you. They fear and hate you
now your true nature and power has been exposed. This is the last
mercenary team left, you see. None of the others survived.”

“So what will they do?”

“Hunt you down, whatever the cost below the muzzles of your weapons.”



Two hours after Warlow had left Lady Mac Joshua was accessing the flight
computer’s memory cores, looking for records of starships jumping from
inside a Lagrange point. He and Dahybi had gone through the small amount
of available data on Murora VII, using it to refine their computations of
the Lagrange point’s size and position, locking the figures into the
trajectory plot. He could pilot Lady Mac right into its heart—no doubt
about that: now he wanted to know what would happen when the energy
patterning nodes were activated. There was a lot of theory in the physics
files about how it should be possible, but no actual verified ZTT jump.

Who’s going to be stupid enough to take part in an experiment like that?
he asked himself. But he was lying on his acceleration couch, and Dahybi,
Ashly, and Sarha were on the bridge with him, so he kept any qualms to
himself. He was just wondering if there would be a reference in a history
file, surely the ZTT pioneers would want to know the limits of their
craft, when Aethra datavised him.

“Warlow wants to talk with you,” the habitat said.

He cancelled the link to the memory cores. “Hello, Warlow. How’s it
going?”

“Superbly,” Warlow said.

“Where are you?” The cosmonik ought to be back on board in another twenty
minutes if everything was running on schedule. Joshua had helped draw up
the flight vector through the ring.

“Twenty kilometres from Gramine.”

“What?”

“I can see it.”

“Jesus shit, Warlow. What the fuck are you playing at? The schedule
doesn’t have any margin for error.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to make certain that Gramine is
destroyed by the blast. I shall detonate it when the ship is in an
optimum position.”

“Oh, Jesus, Warlow, get your iron arse back here now!”

“Sorry, Captain. Maranta will only be seven thousand three hundred
kilometres away when Gramine is eliminated. But that will still give you
an eighteen-second lead on the combat wasps. That’s easily enough time.”

“Warlow, stop this. We can wait until the end of the next sweep and
position the bomb again. That’s only another five hours. We’ll still be
at Lalonde before Amarisk’s evening.”

“Joshua, you have six minutes before I detonate. Make sure everyone is
strapped down, please.”

“Don’t do it. Jesus, Warlow, I’m begging you.”

“You know this has to be done properly. And I can ensure it is.”

“Not like this. Please, come back.”

“Don’t worry about me, Joshua. I’ve thought it out, I will be quite all
right.”

“Warlow!” Joshua’s face was crushed into a mask of anger and desperation.
He jerked round to look at Ashly. The pilot was moving his lips silently,
eyelashes sticky with tears. “Say something,” Joshua commanded. “Get him
back.”

“Warlow, for Heaven’s sake come back,” Ashly datavised. “Just because you
can’t navigate properly there’s no need for this. I’ll do it next time,
and do it right.”

“I would like you to do me a favour, Ashly.”

“What?”

“Next time you come out of zero-tau, in fifty years or so, I want you to
come back here and visit me.”

“Visit you?”

“Yes. I am transferring my memories to Aethra. I’m going to become one of
the multiplicity. I won’t die.”

“You crazy old bastard.”

“Gaura!” Joshua shouted. “Can he do that? He’s not an Edenist.”

“The datavise has already begun,” Gaura replied. “He is doing it.”

“Oh, Jesus wept.”

“Is everyone in their acceleration couches?” Warlow asked. “I’m giving
you the chance you really need to escape the rings. You’re not going to
waste that, are you, Joshua?”

“Shit.” A hot steel band was constricting Joshua’s chest, far worse than
any gee force. “They’re getting onto the couches, Warlow.” He datavised
the flight computer for an image from the cabin cameras, watching
Edenists tighten the webbing around themselves. Melvyn was swimming
about, checking they had done it properly.

“And what about the thermo-dump panels, have you retracted them? There’s
only five minutes left.”

Joshua datavised the flight computer to retract the thermo-dump panels.
Systems schematics appeared as he prepped the generators and drive tubes;
mostly green, some amber. The old girl was in good shape. Sarha started
to help him with the checklist.

“Please, Warlow?”

“Fly the bastards into the ground, Joshua. You can do it.”

“Jesus, I don’t know what to say.”

“Promise me something.”

“Yes.”

“Gotcha. You should have asked me what it was first.”

Joshua coughed. Laughed painfully. It made his vision all blurred for
some unfathomable reason. “What is it?”

“Hard luck, you committed. I want you to be more considerate to your
girls. You never see the effect you have on them. Some of them get hurt,
Joshua.”

“Jesus, cosmonik and social worker.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“You were a good captain, Joshua. Lady Macbeth was a great way to finish.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Sarha was sobbing on her acceleration couch. Ashly was clenching and
unclenching his fists.

“I would,” Joshua said silently.

Aethra showed them Gramine. The starship was traversing the ring surface
with the suavity of a maglev train, straight and sure. Three thermo-dump
panels were extended to the full, shining a dull vermilion. A long,
narrow flame of blue ions flickered for an instant.

“Who’d have thought it,” Warlow datavised. “Me, an Edenist.”

Joshua had never felt so pathetically worthless as he did then. He’s my
crewman.

The bomb exploded. It sent a flat circle of sheer white light flaring out
across the ring surface. Gramine was a tiny dark speck above its centre.

Joshua fired the restraint bolts. Taut silicon-fibre cables tethering the
Lady Macbeth to its rock shield recoiled from the hull, writhing in
serpentine coils. Lights inside the four life-support capsules dimmed and
sputtered as the one active auxiliary generator powered up the four
remaining primary generators. Ion thrusters fired, hosing the dark rock
with unaccustomed turquoise luminosity.

A sphere of plasma inflated at the centre of the white shroud thrown
across the ring, fast at first, then slowing when it was five kilometres
across, diminishing slightly. Black phantoms migrated across its surface.
Gramine’s lower hull shone brighter than a sun as it reflected the
diabolical corona seething four kilometres below.

Thousands of fragmented rock splinters flew out of the heart of the
fusion blast, overtaking the disbanding plasma wave. They had the same
riotous glow of doomed meteorites caught by an atmosphere. Unlike the
plasma they left behind, their velocity didn’t fall off with distance.

“Generators on-line,” Sarha called out. “Power output stabilizing.”

Joshua closed his eyes. Datavised displays filled his head with
technicolour dragonfly wings. Lady Mac cleared the rock. Her radar
started to fire hard microwave pulses at the loose shoal of ring
particles, evaporating snowflakes and inflaming carbonaceous motes. Beams
of blue-white radiance shone out of the secondary reaction-drive nozzles,
rigid as lasers.

They started to rise up through the ring. Dust currents splashed over the
monobonded-silicon hull, producing short-lived surf-bloom patterns.
Pebbles and larger stones hit and bounced. Ice splattered and stuck, then
slipped downwards to fall away in the turbulent glare of the drive
exhaust.

A rock chunk crashed into the Gramine, shattering its hull open and
decimating the internal systems. Cryogenic tanks ruptured, white gases
scintillating from the dying fusion bomb’s energy barrage. Four
life-support capsules raced out of the destruction, charred nultherm foam
flaking away, emergency beacons blaring.

Lady Mac cleared the ring surface. Fifty kilometres above her a wave of
scarlet meteors streaked across the starfield.

“Stand by for high gees,” Joshua said. The fusion drives came on,
tormenting the abused ring still further. Lady Mac tilted round, and
started chasing down the inside of the tapering orange vector tube in
Joshua’s mind. He monitored the displays to ensure their course was
aligned correctly as the gee forces built, then datavised an extra order
into the flight computer.

“Joshua, what—” Ashly’s startled voice faded away as the bridge trembled
softly.

The last combat wasp left its launch-tube.

“Watch it coming, shitheads,” Joshua purred. Jesus, but it felt good to
see the vector lines emerge as the submunitions separated. Purple threads
linking Lady Mac with the tumbling wreckage.

It took eight seconds for the submunitions to reach the Gramine’s
life-support capsules. A stipple of kinetic explosions boiled above the
ring for a few scant seconds before the vacuum absorbed them as
effortlessly as it did all human-born pollution.



The inside of the homestead cabin was even worse than Jay Hilton imagined
hell must be like. She wouldn’t let any of the other children go outside,
so they had to use buckets in the small second bedroom when they wanted
to go to the toilet. The smell was atrocious, and it got viler every time
they opened the door. To add to their woes, the heat had reached a zenith
which even Lalonde had never matched before. They had opened all the
shutters as well as the door, but the air was solid, motionless. The
cabin’s timber creaked and popped as the frame expanded.

The physical ordeal was bad enough, but Jay felt so agonizingly lonely
too. It was stupid, there were twenty-seven children crammed in around
her so tight you couldn’t move without nudging someone. But she didn’t
want other kids, she wanted Father Horst. He had never done this before,
not leave them alone for a whole day, and certainly not at night. Jay
suspected Father Horst was as scared by the night as she was.

All this wretchedness had started when the starships had appeared, and
with them the red cloud. Yesterday, just yesterday. It should have been a
wonderful time. Rescue was here, the navy marines would come and take
them all away and make everything right again. The long dragging
miserable days out here on the unchanging savannah were over.

The idea was a little bit scary, because there was always some comfort in
routine, even one as difficult as the homestead. But that didn’t matter,
she was leaving Lalonde. And nobody was ever going to make her come back.
Not even Mummy!

They had spent a happy morning outside, keeping watch over the savannah
for the first sign of their rescuers. Though the growing red cloud had
been a bit frightening.

Then Russ had seen what he claimed was an explosion, and Father Horst had
ridden off to investigate.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” were his last words to her as he’d
left.

They had waited and waited. And the red cloud had slid over the sky
above, bringing its horrible noise with it, as though it was hiding an
avalanche of boulders.

She had done what she could, organizing meals and rotas. Things to do,
things to keep them busy. And still he hadn’t come back.

Her watch had told her when it was night. She would never have known
otherwise. They had closed the shutters and the door, but red light from
the cloud seemed to slide in through every crack and cranny. There was no
escape. Sleep was difficult, the boomy thunder-noise kept going the whole
time, mingling with the higher pitched sounds of crying.

Even now the youngest children remained tearful, the older ones subdued.
Jay leant on the window-sill, gazing off in the direction Father Horst
had gone. If he didn’t come back very soon, she knew she wouldn’t be able
to hold her own tears back. Then everything would be lost.

I must try not to.

But she had been badly shaken by the way the red light had vanished
ninety minutes ago. Now ghastly black clouds swept low and silent over
the savannah, turning everything to funereal greys. At first she had
tried to play the shapes game, to make them less sinister, but her mind’s
eye could only conjure up witches and monsters.

Jay turned round from the window, registering the frightened faces.
“Danny, the fridge should have done some more ice by now. Make everyone
some orange juice.”

He nodded, happy to be given some task. Usually he was a real moaner.
“Jay!” Eustice squealed. “Jay, there’s something out there.” She backed
away from her window, hands pressed to her cheeks.

There was an outbreak of crying and wails behind Jay. Furniture was
kicked and scraped as the children instinctively made for the rear wall.

“What was it?” Jay asked.

Eustice shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said wretchedly. “Something!”

Jay could hear the cows mooing plaintively, sometimes the bleating of a
goat. It might just be a sayce, she thought. Several had gone by
yesterday, driven from the jungle by the red cloud. She gave the open
door a nervous glance, she’d have to shut it. With shivers in each limb
she shuffled back to the window and peeked round the frame.

Lightning was playing along the horizon. The savannah’s darkling grass
was perfectly still, which made the movement easy to spot. Two ebony
blobs jutting up above the blade tips. They were growing steadily larger.
She heard a humming noise. Mechanical.

It had been so long since she’d heard any kind of motor that it took a
moment to place the sound; and even longer for her to bring herself to
believe. Nobody on this planet had ground transport.

“Father!” she shrieked. “He’s back!” Then she was out of the open door
and running towards the hovercraft, heedless of the stiff, dry grass
slapping and scratching her bare legs.

Horst saw her coming and jumped off the hovercraft as Ariadne slowed to a
halt fifteen metres from the homestead. He had told himself all through
the trip that nothing had happened to them, that they would be all right.
Praying and praying that it would be so. But actually seeing Jay alive
and in one piece was too much, and the repressed guilt and instituted
fear burst out, overwhelming him. He fell to his knees and opened his
arms.

Jay hit him as if she was giving a rugby tackle. “I thought you were
dead,” she blubbed. “I thought you’d left us.”

“Oh, Jay, darling Jay. You know I never would.” He cradled her head and
rocked her gently. Then the other children came streaming down the
homestead’s ramshackle steps, squealing and shouting. He smiled at them
all and held out his arms once more.

“We were scared,” Eustice said.

“The sky’s gone real funny.”

“It’s so hot.”

“Nobody collected the eggs.”

“Or milked the cows.”

Bo narrowed her eyes as the mercenaries climbed out of the hovercraft.
“Are these the marines you promised?” she asked sceptically.

“Not quite,” Horst said. “But they’re just as good.”

Danny goggled up at Sewell. The big combat-adept had gaussrifles plugged
into both elbow sockets. “What is he?” the boy asked.

Horst grinned. “He’s a special sort of soldier. Very strong, very clever.
Everything is going to be all right now. He’ll look after you.”

Kelly had kept her retinas on wide-field focus, scanning the whole
reunion scene. There was a big dry lump forming in her throat.

“Holy Jesus, will you look at it all,” Shaun Wallace said in a small
demoralized voice. “What kind of a God could do this to us? Not the one I
was taught about, that’s for sure. Look at them all, little children.
Crying their bloody damn eyes out. And all for what?”

Kelly turned round at the unaccustomed savagery and bitterness in his
tone. But he was already striding towards Reza, who was watching Horst
and the children impassively.

“Mr Malin?”

“Yes, Mr. Wallace?”

“You have to move these children away now.”

“I intend to.”

“No, I mean right now. My kind, they’re over there in the edge of the
jungle. There’s a couple of hundred of them, if not more. They’re meaning
to get you, Mr. Malin, to end the threat once and for all.”

Reza focused his sensors on the first rank of stunted, scrappy trees four
or five kilometres away. The cloud over the jungle was still glowing a
sombre red, giving the leaves a coral tinge. Heat shimmer and fluttering
leaves defeated him, he couldn’t tell. “Pat, what can Octan see?”

“Nothing much. But there’s definitely a few people roving round in there,
and . . . Oh my God.”

The pages emerged first, young boys, ten or twelve years old, holding
their heraldic banners high. Then the drums started up, and the pikemen
marched out of the cover of trees. It was a long solid black line, almost
as if the trees themselves were advancing. Following, and holding a tight
formation at the centre, came the mounted knights. Silver armour shone by
its own accord under the unbroken veil of leaden clouds.

The army assembled itself in front of the trees to the order of the
drummer. Knight commanders rode up and down, organizing stragglers. Then
when the ranks were neatly laid out, a single bugle note rang across the
savannah. They started to tramp over the uneven grassland towards the
homestead.

“OK,” Reza said equably. “Time to go.”

Along with all the other children Jay found herself being hurriedly
lifted into one of the hovercraft by a mercenary and told to hang on.
Boxes and equipment were being tossed out to accommodate them. Father
Horst was in the other hovercraft; Jay wanted to be with him, but she
didn’t think the mercenaries would listen if she asked. Shona was plonked
down beside her, and Jay smiled timidly, reaching for the disfigured
girl’s hand. Their fingers pressed together urgently.

There was a lot of shouting going on all around. Everyone was moving at
such a rush. One of the big (really big) mercenaries dashed into the
homestead and came out half a minute later carrying Freya.

“Put her in my hovercraft,” Horst said. “I’ll look after her.” The limp
girl was laid on the front bench, and he eased a bundle of cloth under
her head.

Through all the confusion and bustle Jay saw one of the mercenaries strap
a dark globe to the neck of a huge dog. A man (who she thought looked a
bit like Rai Molvi) and a lady who had come with the mercenaries were
arguing hotly in front of the cabin. It ended when she made a slashing
motion with one arm and climbed into the pilot’s seat of the second
hovercraft. The other mercenaries were ransacking the ammunition boxes
that lay on the ground, slotting magazines into their backpacks. Then the
impellers on Jay’s hovercraft began to spin and the decking wobbled as it
rose up. She wondered where the mercenaries were going to fit, her
hovercraft had seventeen children packed in between the pilot’s seat and
the fan at the rear. But when both vehicles swung round and began to pick
up speed she realized they were jogging alongside.

“Where are we going?” Shona shouted above the teeth-grating buzz of the
fans.

The small hairless pilot didn’t seem to hear.



Aethra watched the Lady Macbeth streak across the ring. Triple fusion
exhausts twining into a single braid of near-pure radiation that
stretched for over two hundred kilometres behind the fleeing starship.

Murora VII was a thousand kilometres ahead of her. A battered sphere of
grey-brown rock not quite a hundred and twenty kilometres in diameter.
Along with the other three shepherd moonlets it brought a certain degree
of order to the edge of the ring, creating a tidy boundary line. Dust,
iceflakes, and pebbles extended out across the gas giant’s ecliptic plane
far past the immature habitat’s orbit, although their density slowly
dropped away until at a million kilometres it was no different to
interplanetary space. But none of the larger particles, the flying
mountains and icebergs, were to be found beyond the hundred and eighty
thousand kilometre limit where the shepherds orbited.

Lady Macbeth’s exhaust plume yawed a degree, then straightened out again,
honing her trajectory. Three thousand kilometres behind her, five combat
wasps, arranged in a precise diamond configuration, were accelerating at
twenty gees. It had taken the Maranta a long time to respond to the
break-out, its possessed crew wasting seven expensive seconds before
launching the combat wasps—though they couldn’t know that. Now the drones
could never catch her.

Aethra had never known emotional tension before. Always, it had reflected
the feelings of the supervisory station staff. Now though, as it watched
the starship curving over the moonlet, it knew—understood—the meaning of
trepidation. It willed the starship to succeed.

The station staff were lying on their acceleration couches, that wicked
gee force squeezing them relentlessly. Aethra could see the ceiling of
the cabin through a dozen sets of pained eyes, feeling the cushioning
give below overstressed back muscles.

Three seconds away from the Lagrange point. Lady Macbeth’s fusion drives
reduced to four gees as she skimmed eight kilometres above Murora VII,
tracing a slight parabola around its minuscule gravity field. A couple of
ion thrusters fired. The pursuing combat wasps cleared the edge of the
ring.

Aethra prepared thirty-three storage areas in its neural strata. Ready to
receive the memories of the Edenists on board. Although it would be so
quick . . .

An event horizon eclipsed the Lady Macbeth.

Her fusion plume lingered briefly like a broken-hearted wraith before
melting away. Then there was no physical evidence left of her ever having
existed.

Five combat wasps converged on the Lagrange point. Their courses
intersected, drive exhausts a dazzling asterisk, and they sped outwards
on divergent vectors, electronic brains crashing in program overload
confusion.

“I told you Joshua could fly that manoeuvre,” Warlow said.

Aethra tasted smugness in the subsidiary mentality’s thoughts. It wasn’t
used to that, but then the last twenty-four hours had contained a lot of
unknowns. “Yes, you did.”

“You should have more faith.”

“And you’re the one to teach me?”

“About faith? Yes, I could try. I think we both have the time now.”



The hovercraft battered its way through the tall, heavy savannah grass.
It had never been designed with this particular terrain in mind. The
grass was too high, too resilient for the skirt to surmount; it all had
to be ridden down. That took power, and they were overladen with the
children as well.

Kelly datavised the vehicle’s electron-matrix-management processor for a
status review. Reserves were down to thirty-five per cent; not nearly
enough to make it past the end of the cloud. Impeller monitor programs
were flashing amber cautions into her brain as they struggled to maintain
skirt inflation. Burnout wasn’t imminent, though it was something she’d
have to watch for.

A long mound arose out of nowhere, and she tilted the joystick exactly
right to veer round its base. The piloting program Ariadne had datavised
to her was operating in primary mode, enabling her to steer with the same
consummate skill the mercenary had owned. Her weight—or rather lack of
it—made her the ideal choice. Theo piloted the other hovercraft, and the
priest was sitting behind her, but apart from them the team ran
alongside. Even Shaun Wallace, though the few times she glimpsed him he
was as red faced as a marathon runner on the home straight.

The mounted knights were pushing them hard, keeping a steady three
kilometres behind, just enough to put them beyond the range of the
gaussrifles. One or two would occasionally break rank for a charge. Then
Sewell or Jalal would fire a few EE rounds to ward them off. Thankfully
the sturdy pikemen were unable to match the boosted mercenaries’ physical
endurance (so how come Shaun could?); they had been left nearly seven
kilometres behind. So far so good, but the situation couldn’t hold stable
for long.

Fenton was racing ahead of the hovercraft, scouting the land, his mass
and brawn making easy work of the bristling grass blades. Reza looked
through the hound’s eyes, leaving a locomotion program to guide his own
body down the trail left by the two hovercraft. He was developing a feel
for the land beneath the rhythmic pounding of the hound’s paws,
anticipating the folds and abrupt rises which belied the savannah’s
facade of interminable mellow ground.

There was a small but certain change in the texture of the grass whipping
against Fenton’s blunt muzzle. The dead mat of decaying blades covering
the flinty soil becoming thicker, springier. Water, and close by. Fenton
slowed to smell the air.

“Kelly,” Reza datavised. “There’s a small stream two hundred metres
ahead, steep gully sides. Head for it. Part of the bank has collapsed,
you can take the hovercraft down.”

A guidance plot filled her mind, all close-packed brown and blue contour
lines, a computer image of how the earth would look stripped of
vegetation. Neural nanonics integrated it with the piloting program, and
she tweaked the joystick.

“Where does it lead?” she asked. So far all they had done was build
distance between them and the homestead cabin, heading due south without
any attempt to get back on the river which led to the mountains.

“Nowhere. It’s cover for us, that’s all. The knights are trying to wear
us down; and the bastards are succeeding. We can’t keep this pace going
for ever, and the hovercraft electron matrices are being drained. Once
we’re immobile the pikemen will catch up, and it’ll all be over. They
know we can’t fight off that many of them. We have to regain the
initiative.”

Kelly didn’t like the implications leaping round inside her skull at that
statement. But she did her best to ignore them. Hunted beasts couldn’t
afford scruples, especially ones that knew exactly what lay in store if
they were caught.

She datavised a query at her communication block. Since they left the
homestead cabin it had been broadcasting a continuous signal up to the
geosynchronous platform and the secure satellites Terrance Smith had
brought with him. There was no need for secrecy now. But the darkened
cloud was still blocking the directional beam very effectively.

Theo’s hovercraft slowed as it neared the stream, then the nose fell and
it went into a controlled slither down the scree of crumbling earth. The
gully was three metres deep, with tall reed-grass growing along the top.
Smooth grey stones filled the flat bottom, with a trickle of water
running down the middle. A muddy pool had built up behind the scree.

Kelly followed the first hovercraft down, juggling the fan deflectors
frantically to stop them from sliding into the opposite bank. She turned
upstream keeping ten metres behind Theo. He reached the deepest part of
the gully and killed the lift.

The mercenaries were jumping down from the top of the bank.

“Everybody out of the hovercraft,” Reza said. “And sit with your backs to
the gully here.” He pointed.

Northern side, Kelly thought. She stood up—don’t think about it—and
helped to hand the children over the gunwale. They looked round in
bewilderment, young faces lost and doleful. “It’s all right,” she kept
saying. “Everything’s all right.” Don’t think about it. She kept smiling
too, so they wouldn’t catch her anxiety.

Octan glided down into the gully, and perched himself on Pat Halahan’s
broad shoulder, wings folding tightly. Fenton was already nosing round
Reza’s legs.

Don’t think about it. Kelly sat beside Jay. The little girl obviously
knew something terrible was about to happen. “It’s all right,” Kelly
whispered. “Really.” She winked, though it was more like a nervous tic.
Flints in the gully wall were sharp on her back. Water gurgled round her
boots.

“Joshua,” Kelly datavised into her communication block. “Joshua, answer
me, for Christ’s sake. Joshua!” All she was given in reply was the
oscillating ghost-wind of static.

There was a scuttling sound as the mercenaries sat down on the stones.
Several children were sniffling.

“Shut your eyes, and keep them shut,” Reza said loudly. “I shall smack
anyone who I see with open eyes.”

The children hurriedly did as they were told.

Kelly closed her eyes, took a breath, and slowly folded her shaking arms
over her head.



As soon as the event horizon collapsed, Joshua accessed the image
supplied by the short-range combat sensors. Lady Mac had emerged from her
jump six thousand kilometres above Lalonde. There was nothing within two
thousand kilometres. He datavised the full sensor-suite deployment, and
triggered the fusion drives. They moved in at a cautious two gees, aiming
for a thousand-kilometre orbit.

No starships were left in orbit, the sensors reported, even the
inter-orbit craft from Kenyon had vanished. Victim of a combat wasp,
Joshua assumed. There was a lot of metallic wreckage, most of it in
highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and all of it radioactive.

“Melvyn, access the communication satellites, see if there’s any data
traffic for us. And Sarha, see if there are any low-orbit observation
satellites left, their memories might hold something useful.”

They both acknowledged their orders and datavised instructions to the
flight computer. The starship’s main dish found one of the secure
communication satellites, and beams of microwave radiation sprang up to
enmesh the planet in a loose web. Lady Macbeth started to receive data
from the various observation systems left functional.

Everybody seemed to be working smoothly. Their flight to Achillea and the
slingshot round its moon had passed off flawlessly. Jubilation at the
successful jump from Murora had temporarily balanced out the loss of
Warlow. Certainly Joshua experienced none of the sense of accomplishment
which should have accompanied the Lagrange-point stunt. The most
fantastic piece of flying in his life.

Gaura said he wasn’t sure, but he thought the transference had worked,
certainly a large quantity of the old cosmonik’s memories had been
datavised successfully into Aethra. The habitat had been integrating them
when Lady Mac jumped.

The prospect of him living on as part of the multiplicity helped ease the
grief—to a degree. Joshua felt a lot of regrets bubbling below his
surface thoughts; things he’d said, things he should have said. Jesus,
did Warlow have a family? I’ll have to tell them.

“Nothing from the communication satellites, Joshua,” Melvyn said heavily.
“Thanks.” The idea that Kelly and the mercenaries had been caught was
unbearable. That would mean their own flight had been for nothing, and
Warlow—“Stand by to broadcast a message from Lady Mac’s main dish, we’ll
see if we can break through the cloud with sheer power. Sarha, what have
you got?”

“Not much. There are only seven low-orbit observation satellites left.
They took a real pounding in the battle yesterday. But, Joshua, someone
detonated a nuke down there earlier this morning.”

“Jesus. Where?”

“I think it was at Durringham. The satellite only saw the blast as it
fell below the horizon.”

Joshua accessed the main sensor image. The red cloudbands over the
tributaries had expanded dramatically. Individual strands had blended
together producing a homogenized oval smear that covered the entire
Juliffe basin. He realized the bright flame-glimmer Durringham had
produced before was missing.

Then he noticed a large circular section of cloud in the south-east had
lost its red nimbus altogether, becoming a malaised grey. Interest
stirred at the back of his mind; it almost looked as if the red cloud was
being ruined by some cancerous growth. He datavised the flight computer
for a guidance grid.

“It’s south of the Quallheim villages,” he said with a sense of growing
confidence.

“That grey patch?” Sarha asked.

“Yeah. Exactly where Kelly said they were going.”

“Could be,” Dahybi said. “Maybe the mercenaries have found a way of
damaging the cloud.”

“Perhaps. Melvyn, focus our dish on it, and start transmitting. See if
you can punch through and raise Kelly directly.” Joshua centred an
optical sensor on the area and upped the magnification. The hoary
amorphous cloudscape rushed out to fill his mind. It wasn’t giving any
clues away, there were no breaks, no glimpses of the ground below.
“Ashly, have you been following this?”

“Yes, Joshua,” the pilot answered from the spaceplane cabin.

“We’ll be in orbit in another three minutes. I want you to launch as soon
as we finish decelerating. Loiter above those mountains in the south, and
we’ll see if the mercenary team can get out from under the cloud. Under
no circumstances are you to go under it.”

“No fear.”

“Good.” He datavised the flight computer to open the spaceplane hangar
doors. “Anything from Kelly, yet?”

“Sorry, Joshua, only static.”

“She said they wouldn’t be out from under the cloud until the afternoon,”
Sarha pointed out. “It isn’t quite noon there yet.”

“I know. But that cloud is still growing, even the grey section. If it
reaches the mountains they’ll be in serious trouble. The hovercraft won’t
be able to handle that sort of country. They’ll be trapped between the
two.”

“We can wait,” Dahybi said. “For a week if we have to.”

Joshua nodded vaguely, eyes tight shut as he flipped through sensor
inputs, desperate for any sort of hint. “Come on, Kelly,” he murmured.
“Show us you’re there.”



Ryall padded stealthily through the long grass. The scent of humans was
strong in the air. Many had passed by very recently. But none were near
him now.

After leaving his master he had run swiftly east, the big weight fastened
round his neck jouncing about uncomfortably. After a couple of kilometres
the masterlove thoughts in his brain had guided him to one side. He had
traced a wide curve over the savannah, now he was heading back to his
starting point.

When he reached a wide swath of grass, beaten down by many tramping feet,
Ryall waited at the edge for a moment—listening, sniffing. Instinct told
him he was alone. Satisfied, the masterlove thoughts urged him out. The
swath led all the way back to the jungle, he turned the other way. Five
hundred metres ahead of him, the homestead cabin jutted up out of the
grassland. He hurried towards it, a hungering sensation racing through
his blood.

The grass was beaten down all around the cabin. Fences had been broken.
Cows wandered about, grazing placidly, paying no attention to him. Goats
saw him coming and ran jerkily until they realized he wasn’t chasing
them. Chickens escaped from their smashed pen were scratching in the
dirt; they scattered squawking when he trotted up to the cabin.

Height. The masterlove thoughts wanted him to have height. Ryall swung
his big head from side to side, viewing the back wall of the cabin; then
loped over to a pile of composite pods stacked at one corner. He jumped,
bounding up the pods, then sprang for the eaves. Paws skated unsteadily
on the solar-cell panels nailed to the roof, but he found his footing on
the ginger qualtook-bark tiles and scampered his way up to the apex.

His master used his eyes to peer out across the savannah. The line of men
carrying pikes were a kilometre away. And almost lost in the gloaming
ahead of them the band of knights on horseback galloped after their prey.

Ryall felt a curious mix of excitement and sorrow. But the masterlove
thoughts were full of gentle praise. He thumped his tail on the qualtook
tiles in response.

Then the masterlove thoughts were guiding his left forepaw to the heavy
weight hanging from his neck. He bent his head round and watched
attentively as his extended nails caught the edge of a small hinged panel
and eased it open. Glowing squares were revealed.

Masterlove adoration flowed through him. Very carefully his nail touched
one of the squares. Once. Twice. Thrice—



The spaceplane stopped shaking as it dropped to subsonic velocity. It had
been a fast, steep descent, Ashly had made the little craft stand almost
on its tail to aerobrake. Now he levelled out and datavised the wings
into their forward-sweep position. Nose-mounted sensors showed him the
mountains rolling past below; the fringe of the cloud was fifty
kilometres to the north. Short puffy fronds extended out from the main
bulk, snaking through the air like blind searching insect antennae
towards the foothills.

He datavised the flight computer for a channel up to Lady Macbeth. “Any
word yet?”

“Nothing,” Joshua replied. “Sarha says the observation satellites
recorded that patch of cloud turning grey immediately after the
Durringham nuke. We’re not too sure what that means, but then I don’t
think normal logic applies here.”

“Too right. I’ve got enough power in the electron matrices for a
five-hour flight before I have to come back up and recharge. If you want
that extending I could land on one of these peaks, they’re fairly
isolated.”

“No. You keep airborne, Ashly. Frankly, if they’re not out of there in
five hours I don’t think we’ll see them again. And I’ve already lost one
crewman today.”

“You didn’t lose him, Joshua. Silly old fart. Now I’ve got to come back
and wander through Aethra’s parkland talking to the trees. Hell, he’ll
love that. Kill himself laughing I expect.”

“Thanks, Ashly.”

The pilot loaded a course into the computer, a patrol circuit along the
length of the grey cloud section, staying at eight thousand metres.
Thermals shooting up off the rocky slopes rocked the wings in agitated
rhythms as the spaceplane flew overhead.



Jay thought it was a lightning bolt. Blackness suddenly and silently
turned to bright scarlet. She sucked in a breath—it must have been
frightfully close. But there was no thunderclap. Not at first.

The redness faded away. She risked opening her eyes. Everything seemed
normal, except it was a lot lighter than it had been before. As if the
sun was finally rising behind her back. Then the noise started, a dry
roar which built and built. She heard some of the children start to
whimper. The ground began to tremble, the gully wall vibrating her back.
And the brightness behind her kept growing. A sheet of white light sprang
across the top of the gully, throwing the floor into deep shadow. It
began to tilt downwards, turning the opposite bank unbearably bright. Jay
could just hear the lady beside her shouting what sounded like a prayer
at the top of her voice. She closed her eyes again, little squeaks of
fear escaping from her throat.



Lady Macbeth was passing over Amarisk’s western coast, a hundred
kilometres north of Durringham, when Reza detonated the nuke. The sensors
caught its initial flash, a concussion of photons turning the grey clouds
momentarily translucent.

“Jesus Christ,” Joshua gasped. He datavised the flight computer for a
secure communication channel to the spaceplane. “Ashly, did you see that?”

“I saw it, Joshua. The spaceplane sensors registered an emp pulse
equivalent to about a kiloton blast.”

“Are your electronics OK?”

“Yes. Couple of processor drop-outs, but the back-ups are on line.”

“It’s them. It has to be.”

“Joshua!” Sarha called. “Look at the cloud.”

He accessed the sensor image again. A four hundred metre circle of the
cloud looked as if it was on fire below the surface. As he watched it
rose up into a lofty ignescent fleuron. The tip burst open. A ragged beam
of rose-gold light shone through.

Lady Mac’s flight computer datavised a priority signal from one of the
communication satellites direct into Joshua’s neural nanonics.

“Joshua?” Kelly called. “This is Reza’s team calling Lady Mac. Joshua,
are you up there?”

Tactical graphics immediately overlaid the optical sensor image,
pinpointing her communications block to within fifteen centimetres. Close
to the blast point, very close. “I’m here, Kelly.”

“Oh, Christ, Joshua! Help us. Now!”

“Spaceplane’s on its way. What’s your situation, have you got the
children?”

“Yes, damn it. They’re with us, all of them. But we’re being chased to
hell and back by the fucking Knights of the Round Table. You’ve got to
get us out of here.”

Vast strips of rank grey cloud were peeling back from the centre of the
blast. Joshua could see down onto the savannah. It was a poor angle, but
a vivid amber fireball was ascending from the centre of a calcinated
wasteland.

“Go,” Joshua datavised to Ashly. “Go go go.”



Reza stood on top of the gully, bracing himself against the baked wind
driving out from the blast. A mushroom cloud was roiling upwards from the
cemetery of the homestead, alive with gruesome internal energy surges. It
had gouged a wide crater, uneven curving sides spouting runnels of
capricious magma.

He brought a series of filter programs on-line, and scanned the savannah.
A firestorm was raging for two kilometres around the crater. Pixels from
the section of ground where the marching pikemen had been were amplified.
He studied the resulting matrix of square lenses. There were no remnants,
not even pyres; none of them had survived. He tracked back. Knights and
horses had been hurled indiscriminately across the smouldering grass two
and a half kilometres away. Encased in that metal armour human bodies
should have first been triturated by the blast wave then fried by the
infrared radiation.

He watched one silver figure struggle to its knees, then use a broadsword
shoved into the ground to clamber to its feet.

Ye Gods, what will kill them?

A horse kicked its legs and rolled over, surging upwards. It trotted
obediently over to its fallen rider. Slowly but surely the entire band
was remounting.

Reza jumped back into the gully. Children were being packed back into the
hovercraft.

“Joshua’s here,” Kelly yelled over the trumpeting wind. Her tear-stained
face framed a radiant smile. “Lady Mac’s in orbit. The spaceplane’s on
its way. We’re safe, we’re out of here!”

“How long?”

“Ashly says about ten minutes.”

Not enough, Reza thought. The knights will be here by then, they’ll hit
the spaceplane with their white fire, if they don’t just switch off its
circuitry with that black magic. “Kelly, you and Theo take off south. The
rest of you, with me. We’re going to arrange a small delay.”

“No, Reza!” Kelly implored. “You can’t, not now. It’s over. Ashly will
get here.”

“That was an order, Kelly. We’ll catch up with you when we’ve finished
off these mounted pricks.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Hey, Kell, stop fretting,” Sewell said. “You’ve got the wrong attitude
for this game. Win some or lose some, who cares, you’ve just gotta have
fun playing.” He laughed and vaulted up to the top of the gully.

Horst made the sign of the cross to Reza. “Bless you, my son. May the
Lord watch over you.”

“Get in the bloody hovercraft, Father, take the kids somewhere they can
have a life. Theo, blast some grass, get them clear.”

“Yes, boss.” The jungle-rover mercenary fed power into the impellers even
as Horst was scrambling on board. With the skirt bouncing against the
gully wall the hovercraft turned in a tight curve and sped back up the
scree.

Reza joined his team on the top of the bank. Out on the savannah the
knights were mustering into a V-shaped battle phalanx.

“Move out,” Reza said. There was a strange kind of glee running loose in
his mind. Now we’ll show you babykillers what happens when you face a
real enemy, one that can fight back. See how you like that.

The six mercenaries started to march over the grass towards the waiting
knights.



Sunlight and rain poured down on the hovercraft, surrounding them with a
fantastic exhibition of rainbows. The clouds were breaking up, losing
their supernatural cohesion. They were just ordinary rain-clouds again.

The rain sprayed against Kelly’s face as she battled the hovercraft’s
inertia against the wind and damp cloying grass. Speed tossed them about
like a dinghy on a storm-swollen sea.

“How big are the children?” Joshua asked.

“Small, they’re mostly under ten.”

“Ashly will probably have to make two trips. He can bring the children up
first then come back for you and the mercenaries.”

She tried to laugh, but all that emerged was a gullet-rasping cough. “No,
Joshua, there’s only going to be one flight. Reza’s team won’t be coming.
Just the children, and me and the priest if the spaceplane can handle our
mass.”

“The way you diet to keep your image, you’re into negative mass, Kelly.
I’ll tell Ashly.”

She heard the first fusillade of EE projectiles exploding behind her.



Sewell and Jalal stood four metres apart, facing the apex of the charging
knights. The reverberant thud of the horses galloping over the savannah
rose above the hot squalls spinning off from the chthonic maelstrom of
the blast’s epicentre.

“I make that forty-nine,” Jalal said.

“The lead is mine, you take the right flank.”

“Sure thing.”

The knights lowered their lances, spurring on their horses. Sewell waited
until his rangefinder put the lead knight a hundred and twenty metres
away, and fired both heavy-calibre gaussrifles plugged into his elbow
sockets. Feed tubes from his backpack hummed efficiently. He laid down
three fragmentation rounds over the knight’s plumed helmet, and followed
it up with twenty-five EE shells into the ground ahead of the left flank.

Jalal was laying down a similar fire pattern across the right flank, his
two gaussrifles traversing the line, guided by a targeting program.
Pamiers had shown that the possessed were capable of defending themselves
against almost anything short of a direct hit by an EE round; he was
going for the horses. Kill the mounts, chop the legs out from under them,
slow them down. More fragmentation bursts saturated the air. The knights
were veiled by smoke, fountains of soil, and riotous static webs.

Streaks of white fire ripped out of the carnage. Sewell and Jalal leaped
aside. Four knights sped towards them out of the furore. Sewell spun
round as he hit the ground, white fire was gnawing into his left leg. His
targeting program locked on to the first knight; one of his gaussrifles
was responding sluggishly, the other fired ten EE rounds. The knight and
his horse vanished inside a tangled screen of rampaging electrons. Gore
spat outwards.

Sewell’s optical sensors were tracking more knights riding out from the
first assault point. Several bodies were scattered on the crushed grass
behind them. His neural nanonics automatically fired a salvo of
fragmentation rounds at the renewed charge.

He tried to get up, but there was no response from his leg. One of the
gaussrifles had packed up completely. Some of his sensor inputs were
wavering. Horses were charging at him from three directions. His
functional gaussrifle blasted at one. Another knight aimed a lance at his
head, and fire squirted out of its tip.

Sewell rolled desperately. He flung a grenade as the fire caught him on
the shoulder, punching him round. The grenade went off beneath the horse,
lifting it clear of the ground. It crashed down, the knight tumbling
through the air before landing with a bonebreaker smash.

The horse’s outline imploded into an amalgam of purple flesh and pumping
organs. Eight or nine sayce had been moulded together, like living dough,
into a rough sculpture of the terrestrial animal. Heads stuck out of its
sides and haunches, encased in thick vein-laced membranes, jaws working
silently beneath the naked protoplasm.

Neither of Sewell’s gaussrifles were working. He swivelled them down, and
used them as crutches to lever himself upright. His medical program was
flashing red caution warnings into his mind. He cancelled it completely,
and drew a TIP carbine from its holster. The fallen knight was rising to
his feet, crumpled armour straightening out. Sewell flicked the TIP
carbine to continuous fire with his thumb, and pulled the trigger. It was
like using a battering ram. The energy pulses kept smacking into the
armour with jackhammer blows, knocking him down and kicking him across
the ground. A violet corona seethed around the silver metal. Sewell
pulled a grenade from his belt and lobbed it at the limp figure.

A lance caught him in the middle of his back, splitting his ribs apart
then puncturing his lungs and an oxygenated-blood-reserve bladder before
sliding out of his chest. The blow flung him three metres across the
grass. He landed awkwardly, the lance jarring round violently and causing
more internal damage.

The knight who had speared him reigned his horse round and dismounted. He
drew his broadsword and walked towards the crippled mercenary.

Sewell managed to achieve a precarious balance on his knees. His right
hand closed on the lance, boosted fingers exerting their full power,
crushing the wood. It snapped off, leaving a splintered twenty-centimetre
stump sticking out of his chest. A huge quantity of blood coursed down
into the grass.

“Not good enough, my friend,” the knight said. He ran his broadsword
through Sewell’s short neck.

Sewell reached out with his left arm and grabbed the knight’s shoulder,
pulling him even closer. There was a sharp grunt of surprise from the
knight. Little crackles of energy skated over the surface of his armour.
The broadsword penetrated up to the hilt, but Sewell opened his mouth
slit wide.

The knight got out one frantic “No!” before Sewell’s silicon carbide
teeth clamped round his neck, slicing cleanly through the chain-mail.



The northern horizon was an uncompromising clash of turquoise and red,
both colours textured as fine as silk, pressing smoothly against each
other. Both unyielding. Beautiful, from a distance. Directly in front of
the spaceplane, filth and fire was belching from a widening fissure in
the rain-clouds.

Ashly altered the camber of the wings, and sent the spaceplane on a steep
dive through the dank clouds. Water slicked the pearl-white fuselage,
misting the optical sensor images. Then he was through, levelling out.

It was a small confined world of darkness and squalor into which he had
come. At the centre, clouds reflected the diseased irradiation of the
crater, tarnishing the land with the flickers of dying atoms. Wildfire
scoured the malaised savannah around its base, eating its way outwards.
Twisters roamed the scorched earth, scattering soot and ash all around to
form a greasy crust of embers over the flattened grass.

But further out the rain was falling, cleansing the land. Spears of
sunlight wrested their way past the shredding clouds, returning cool
natural colours to the fractal wilderness of greys.

Sensors locked on to Kelly’s communication block. Ashly banked the
spaceplane in a swift high-gee turn, riding the signal to its source.
Ahead and below, two tiny hovercraft bounced and jerked their way across
the uneven countryside.



Reza counted twenty-one knights escaping from the small holocaust Sewell
and Jalal unleashed. That was good, he had expected it to be more. He and
Pat Halahan were next. His sensors showed him the spaceplane sinking fast
out of the sky a couple of kilometres behind him.

“Five minutes, that’s all they need.”

“They’ve got it,” Pat said urbanely.

Reza fired his forearm gaussrifle. Targeting-program-controlled muscles
shifted the barrel round as his sensors went into a track-while-scan
mode. All his conscious thoughts had to do was designate.

He picked off three knights with EE rounds, and brought a further two
horses down before the gaussrifle malfunctioned. Some of his processor
blocks were glitched as well. Sensor resolution was falling off. He
dumped the gaussrifle and switched to a ten-millimetre automatic pistol.
Chemical bullets which produced a scythe of kinetic death, and nothing
the possessed could do to stop it. Two more knights were down when he ran
out of spare magazines. White fire hit his shoulder, blowing his left arm
off. A two-metre jet of blood squirted out until his neural nanonics
closed artery valves.

Pat was still sluicing bullets at a pair of knights off to Reza’s left.
Stimulant and suppressor programs were working hard to eliminate shock.
Reza saw a mounted knight thundering towards him, whirling a mace around.
A momentum prediction program went into primary mode. The horse was three
metres away when Reza took one step back. His remaining hand came up
inside the slashing arc of the mace. He grabbed, pulled, twisted. His
carbon-fibre skeleton twanged at the severe loading as the inertia of the
spiked iron club yanked him off his feet. Glossy armour shrieked a
metallic protest as the knight was catapulted backwards out of the
saddle, then clanged like a bell as he landed.

They climbed to their feet together. Reza raised the mace and started to
walk forwards, a locomotion auto-balance program compensating for his
lost arm.

The knight saw him coming and pointed his broadsword like a rifle. White
flame raced down the blade.

“Cheat,” Reza said. He detonated the fragmentation grenades clipped to
his belt. Both of them vanished inside a dense swarm of furious black
silicon micro-blades.

A hurricane squall of rain stung Kelly’s face as the spaceplane swooped
fifteen metres overhead. Its compressor nozzle efflux nearly overturned
the hovercraft. She engaged the fan deflector and killed the impellers.
They skidded to a rumbustious halt.

The spaceplane slipped round sideways in the air then landed hard,
undercarriage struts pistoning upwards. Rain pattered loosely on its
extended wings, dribbling off the flaps.

Kelly turned around in her seat. The children were huddled together on
the hard silicon deck, clothes soaked, hair straggly. Terrified, crying,
peeing in their shorts and pants. Wide eyes stared at her, brimming with
incomprehension. There were no clever words left to accompany the scene
for the recording. She simply wanted to put her arms round every one of
them, pour out every scrap of comfort she owned. And that was far less
than they deserved.

Three kilometres behind the hovercraft, EE explosions strobed
chaotically, while antagonistic streamers of white fire curled and
thrashed above the blood-soaked grass.

We did it, she thought, the knights can’t reach us now. The children are
going to live. Nothing else mattered, not the hardships, not the pain,
not the sickening fear.

“Come on,” she said to them, and the smile came so easily. “We’re leaving
now.”

“Thank you, lady,” Jay said.

Kelly glanced up as a figure hiked out of the rain. “I thought you’d
left,” she said.

Shaun Wallace grinned. His sodden LDC one-piece was shrunk round his
body, mud and grass clung to his boots, but the humour in his eyes
couldn’t be vanquished. “Without saying goodbye? Ah now, Miss Kelly, I
wouldn’t be wanting you to think the worst of me. Not you.” He lifted the
first child, a seven-year-old girl, over the gunwale. “Come along then,
you rabble. You’re all going on a long, beautiful trip to a place far
away.”

The spaceplane’s outer airlock hatch slid open, and the aluminium stairs
telescoped out.

“Get a move on, Kelly, please,” Ashly datavised.

She joined Shaun at the side of the hovercraft and began lifting the
exhausted, bedraggled children out.

Horst stood at the bottom of the stairs, harrying his small charges
along. A word here, a smile, pat on the head. They scooted up into the
cabin where Ashly cursed under his breath as he tried to work out how on
earth to fit them all in.

Kelly had the last boy in her arms, a four-year-old who was virtually
asleep, when Theo started up his hovercraft. “Oh no, Theo,” she
datavised. “Not you as well.”

“They need me,” he replied. “I can’t leave them. I’m a part of them.”

Great bands of sunlight were raking the savannah. The fighting was over.
Kelly could see three or four knights on horseback milling about. None of
them showed any interest in the spaceplane now. “But they’re dead, Theo.”

“You don’t know that, not for sure. In any case, haven’t you heard,
there’s no such thing, not any more.” He stuck his arm up and waved.

“Hell.” She tipped her head back, letting the sweet rain wash her face.

“Come along now, Miss Kelly.” Shaun leant over and gave her cheek a
platonic kiss. “Time you was leaving.”

“I don’t suppose it would do any good asking you to come?”

“Would I ask you to stay?”

She put a foot on the bottom rung, the drowsy child heavy in her arms.
“Goodbye, Shaun. I wish it could have been different.”

“Aye, Miss Kelly. Me too.”



Kelly sat in the cabin with one eight-year-old boy on her lap and her
arms round a pair of girls. The children squirmed round, fidgeting,
excited and nervous, asking her about the waiting starship. Lalonde was
already half-forgotten, yesterday’s nightmare.

If only, she wished.

The compressor whine permeated the overcrowded cabin as Ashly fed power
into the fans. Then they were airborne, the deck tilting up, a press of
acceleration. Kelly closed her eyes and accessed the spaceplane’s sensor
suite. A lone figure was trudging over the savannah, a well-built man
with tousled ginger hair, wearing a thick red and blue check cotton
shirt, collar up against the rain as he headed for home.

A minute later a stentorian sonic boom broke across the vast grass plain.
Fenton raised his great head at the sound, but there was nothing in the
sky apart from rain and clouds. He lowered his gaze again, and resumed
his earthbound search for his lost masterlove.






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=========