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Moyo’s jaw dropped open. “I’m having trouble?”
“Thought so. So like what kind of magical mystery tour are you planning here?”
“We’re taking the children out of Exnall. Stephanie wants to drive up to the border.”
“Oh, man!” A wide smile prised apart layers of hair. “That is so beautiful. The border again. We’re gonna roll this old bus out and set the draft dodgers free in the land of Mounties and maple leaves. What a trip! Thank you, man, thank you.” He walked over to the battered van and stroked its front wing lovingly. A small wavy rainbow appeared on the bodywork where his hand had touched it.
“What do you mean, we?”
“Come on, man, lighten up. You don’t think you can handle that kind of scene alone, do you? The military mind is full of low cunning; you wouldn’t get a mile out of town without them throwing up roadblocks across the freeway. Maybe a few of us would fall down some stairs while we’re being arrested, too. It happens, man, all of the frigging time. The federal pigs don’t give a shit about our rights. But I’ve been here before, I know how to go sneaky on them.”
“You think she’d try and stop us?”
“Who, man?”
“Ekelund.”
“Hell, who knows. Chicks like that have got it real hard up their asses. Between you and me, I think they’re maybe like aliens. You know, UFO people from Venus. But I can see you’re sceptical right now, I won’t press it. So how many kids are you planning on squirrelling away in here?”
“About seven or eight, so far.”
Without quite understanding how it happened, Moyo found a friendly arm around his shoulder, guiding him to the van’s cab.
“That’s worthy. I can dig that. Now you just ease yourself up in the driver’s seat, or whatever the hell they call it these days, and dream up some controls we can all handle. Once you’ve done that and I’ve given us a cool disguise we can hit the road.”
Twinkles of light were shooting all over the van’s bodywork, sketching glowing lines of colour in the damaged composite. It was as if a flock of acidhead fairies had been let loose with spray cans. Moyo wanted to complain at this ideological hijack, but couldn’t manage to think up the correct words. He took the easy option, and sat in the driver’s seat like he’d been told.
There was a gap between the deuterium tank’s cryostat ducts and the power feed sub-module which routed superconductor cables to nearby patterning nodes, a narrow crevice amid the boxy, nultherm foam-coated machinery. In the schematics which the flight computer provided, it was listed as a crawlway.
For pigmy acrobats, maybe, Erick thought irascibly. He certainly couldn’t wear any protective gear over the SII suit. Sharp corners and bloated tubes jabbed and squeezed against him every time he moved. It couldn’t be doing the medical nanonic packages around his arm and torso any good. Thankfully the black silicon covering his skin was an effective insulator, otherwise he would have been either roasted, frozen, or electrocuted long ago.
Along with Madeleine he’d been burrowing through the innards of the Villeneuve’s Revenge for nine hours now. It was nasty, tiring, stressful work. With his body in the state it was he had to keep a constant check on his physiological status. He was also running a mild relaxant program in primary mode; claustrophobia was a problem prowling wolfishly around the fringes of conscious thought.
The crawlway ended a metre short of the hull, opening out into a hexagonal metallic cave bordered with stress structure girders, themselves spiralled by cables. Erick squirmed out into this cramped space and drew a sharp breath of relief, more psychological than practical given he was breathing through a respirator tube. He switched his collar sensors to scan around, seeing the fuselage plate behind his head. It appeared perfectly normal, a smooth, slightly curving silicon surface, dark grey with red code strips printed around the edges.
With his legs still jammed in the crawlway, Erick pulled the sensor block from the straps securing it to his side. It contained six separate scanner pads which he slipped out and started fixing to the hull plate and girders.
“Plate 3-25-D is clean,” he datavised to André eight minutes later. “No electromagnetic activity; and it’s solid, too, no density anomalies.”
“Very good, Erick. 5-12-D is next.”
“How is Madeleine doing?”
“She is methodical. Between you, eighteen per cent of the possible locations have now been eliminated.”
Erick cursed. The four of them had carefully gone over the starship’s schematics, working out every possible section of the hull were the device could have been hidden by Monterey’s maintenance crews. With Pryor on board observing the bridge, they were limited to two crew searching at any one time, the two supposed to be asleep. It was going to take a long time to cover all the possible areas.
“I still say it’s probably a combat wasp. That would be the easiest method.”
“Oui, but we won’t know for sure until you have eliminated all the other options. Who can tell with such treacherous bastards?”
“Great. How long to Arnstadt?”
“We have another five jumps to go. Two of the other escort ships are manoeuvring sluggishly, which gives us additional time. They are probably searching as we are. You have perhaps another fifteen hours, twenty at the outside.”
Not enough, Erick knew, not nearly enough. They were going to have to go to Arnstadt. After that he didn’t like to think what the Organization would require from them. Nothing as simple as escort duties, that was for certain.
“All right, Captain, I’m on my way to 5-12-D.”
The chamber which the Saldanas used for their Privy Council meetings was called the Fountain Room, a white marble octagon with a gold and opal mosaic ceiling. Imposing three-metre statues stood around the walls, sculpted from a dark rock which had been cut out of Nova Kong, depicting a toga-clad orator in various inspirational poses. The Fountain Room wasn’t as grandiose as some of the state function rooms added to the Apollo Palace in later centuries, but it had been built by Gerald Saldana soon after his coronation for use as his cabinet room. The continuity of power was unbroken since then; the Saldanas were nothing if not respectful for the traditions of their own history.
There were forty-five members of the current Privy Council, including the Princes and Princesses who ruled the Principalities; which meant a full meeting was held only every eighteen months. Normally the King summoned twenty to twenty-five people to advise him, over half of which were nearly always family. Today there were just six sitting around the Fountain Room’s triangular mahogany table with its inlaid crowned phoenix. It was the war cabinet, chaired by Alastair II himself, with the Duke of Salion on his left, followed by Lord Kelman Mountjoy, the Foreign Office Minister; on the King’s right-hand side was the Prime Minister, Lady Phillipa Oshin; Admiral Lavaquar, the defence chief; and Prince Howard, president of Kulu Corporation. No aides or equerries were present.
Alastair II picked up a small gavel and tapped the much-battered silver bell on the table in front of him. “The fifth meeting of this cabinet committee is now in order. I trust everyone has accessed the latest reports concerning Arnstadt?”
There was a subdued round of acknowledgement from the cabinet.
“Very well. Admiral, your assessment?”
“Bloody worrying, Your Majesty. As you know interstellar conquest has always been regarded as completely impractical. Today’s navies exist to protect civil starships from piracy and deter potential aggressors from committing random or sneak assaults. If anyone strikes at us for political or economic reasons they damn well know we will strike back harder. But actually subduing an entire system’s population was not a concept any of our strategy groups even considered until today. Ethnically streamed populations are too diverse, you simply cannot impose a different culture on a defeated indigenous people, it will never be accepted, and you lose the peace trying to enforce it. QED, conquests are impractical. Possession has changed that. All Confederation worlds are vulnerable to it, even Kulu. Though had the Capone Organization fleet jumped into orbit here, they would have lost.”
“Even armed with antimatter?” Prince Howard inquired.
“Oh, yes. We would have taken a pounding, no doubt about it. But we would have won; in terms of firepower our SD network is second only to Earth’s. The thing which concerns our strategists most is the Organization’s theoretical expansion rate. They have effectively doubled their fleet size by taking Arnstadt. If another five or six star systems were to fall into Capone’s hands, we would be facing parity at the very least.”
“We have distance on our side,” Lady Phillipa said. “Kulu is nearly three hundred light-years from New California. Deploying any kind of fleet over such a distance would be inordinately difficult. And Capone is having trouble resupplying his conquests with He3 , he simply isn’t getting any from the Edenists.”
“Your pardon, Prime Minister,” the admiral said. “But you are taking a too literal interpretation of these events. Yes it would be physically difficult for Capone to subdue Kulu, but the trend he is starting would be a different matter indeed. Others returning from the beyond are equally capable, and some have considerably more experience in empire building than he does. Unless planetary governments remain exceptionally vigilant in searching for outbreaks of possession, what happened to New California could easily be repeated. If Capone was all we had to worry about, I would frankly be very relieved. As to the Organization’s He3 shortage: deuterium can and will be used as a monofuel for starship drives. It’s less efficient and its radiation output has a progressively detrimental effect on the drive tube equipment, but do not imagine for a moment that will prevent them from using it. The Royal Navy has contingency plans to continue high-level operations in the event that Kulu loses every single He3 cloudscoop in the Kingdom. We can fly for years, conceivably decades, using deuterium alone should the need arise.”
“So lack of He3 isn’t going to stop him?” the King asked.
“No, sir. Our analysts believe that given the internal nature of Capone’s Organization he will have to continue his expansion efforts in order to survive. The Organization has no other purpose, growth through conquest is all it is geared up for. As a strategy for maintaining control over his own people it is excellent, but sooner or later he will run into size management problems. Even if he realizes this and tries to stop, his lieutenants will stage a coup. If they didn’t they’d lose their status along with him.”
“He seems to be running New California efficiently enough,” Lord Mountjoy said.
“That’s a propaganda illusion,” the Duke of Salion said. “The agencies have come up with a similar interpretation as the navy. Capone boasts he has established a working government, but essentially it’s a dictatorship backed by the threat of ultimate force. It survives principally because the planetary economy is on a war footing which always distorts financial reality for a while. This idea of a currency based on magic tokens is badly flawed. The energistic ability of the possessed is essentially unlimited, you cannot package it up and redistribute it to the have-nots as if it were some kind of tangible commodity.
“And so far no one has challenged Capone, he’s moved too swiftly for that. But the Organization’s internal political situation won’t last. As soon as any kind of routine is established, people can start to look at how they are being made to live and consider it objectively. We estimate that serious underground opposition groups are going to start forming within another fortnight among both communities. From what we’ve actually seen and what we can filter through the propaganda, it would be very tough for possessed and non-possessed to live peacefully side by side. The society Capone has built is extremely artificial. That makes it easy to destroy, especially from within.”
Lord Mountjoy smiled faintly. “You mean, we don’t have to do anything but wait? The possessed will wipe themselves out for us?”
“No. I’m not saying that. Our psychologists believe that they cannot form societies as large or as complex as ours. We have system-wide industrial civilizations because that is what it takes to maintain our socioeconomic index. But when you can live in a palace grander than this one simply by wishing it to be, what is the point of having states whose populations run into hundreds of millions? That’s what will eventually neuter Capone; but it doesn’t get rid of the general problem which the possessed present. Not for us.”
“I never thought a military solution was the right one, anyway,” Alastair said with a contrite nod at the admiral. “Not in the long term. So what kind of threat are we facing from the possessed infiltrating us? Have we really caught all of them who were at liberty in the Kingdom? Simon?”
“Ninety-nine point nine per cent, Your Majesty, certainly here on Kulu itself. Unfortunately, I can’t give you absolutes. Sheer probability dictates that several have eluded us. But the AIs are becoming increasingly proficient in tracking them down through the net. And of course, if they begin to build up in any numbers they become easy for us to spot and eradicate.”
“Hardly good for morale, though,” Lady Phillipa said. “Government can’t guarantee you won’t get possessed, but if it does happen don’t worry, we’ll see it.”
“Admittedly inconvenient for individual subjects,” Prince Howard observed. “But it doesn’t affect our overall ability to respond to the threat. And the Kulu Corporation has already built a prototype personal monitor to safeguard against possession.”
“You have?”
“Yes. It’s a simple bracelet stuffed with various sensors which is linked permanently into the communications net. It’ll stretch our bandwidth capacity, but two AIs can keep real-time tabs on every person on the planet. If you take it off, or if you are possessed, we’ll know about it straightaway and where it happened.”
“The civil rights groups will love that,” she muttered.
“The possessed will not,” Prince Howard said levelly. “And it is their opinion which matters the most.”
“Quite,” Alastair II said. “I shall publicly put on the first bracelet. It ought to help ease public attitude to the notion. This is for their own good, after all.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lady Phillipa conceded with reasonable grace.
“Very well, we cannot guarantee absolute safety for the population, but as my brother says, we can still conduct broad policy. For the moment, I have to be satisfied with that. As to the principal thrust of that broad policy, we must make a decision about Mortonridge. Admiral?”
“My staff tactical officers have been running battle simulations along the lines young Hiltch suggested. His experience has been a lot of help, but for my mind there are an awful lot of variables and unknowns.”
“Do we win any of these simulations?” the Duke of Salion asked.
“Yes. Almost all of them, providing we devote sufficient resources. That seems to be the clinching factor every time.” He gave the King a worried look. “It’s going to be risky, Your Majesty. And it is also going to be extremely costly. We must maintain our current defence status throughout the Kingdom simultaneously with running this campaign. It will take every military reserve we have, not to mention stretching our industrial capacity.”
“That should keep the baronies happy,” Lady Phillipa said.
Alastair II pretended he hadn’t heard. “But it can be done?” he pressed the admiral.
“We believe so, Your Majesty. But it will require the full support of the Edenists. Ideally, I’d also like some material cooperation from the Confederation Navy and our allies. The more we have, the greater chance of victory.”
“Very well. Kelman, this is your field. How did your audience with the Edenist ambassador go?”
The foreign minister attempted not to smile at the memory; he still wasn’t sure which of them had been the more surprised. “Actually, Ambassador Astor was extremely receptive to the notion. As we know, the old boy doesn’t exactly have the easiest of jobs here. However, once I asked, he immediately put the whole embassy over to working on the practical aspects. Their military and technology attachés agree that the Jovian habitats have the capacity to produce Tranquillity serjeants in the kind of quantities we envisage.”
“What about commitment?” Prince Howard asked.
“Such a request would have to be put before their Consensus, but he was sure that given the circumstances Jupiter would consider it favourably. He actually offered to accompany whatever delegation we send and help present the argument for us. It might not sound like much, but I consider such an offer to be significant.”
“Why exactly?” the King asked.
“Because of the nature of their culture. Edenists very rarely enact a Consensus, normally there is no need. They share so much in terms of ethics and motivation that their decisions on most subjects are identical. Consensus is only required when they confront something new and radical, or they are threatened and need to select a level of response. The fact that the ambassador himself is in agreement with our request and that he is willing to argue our case for us is a very positive factor. More than anyone, he understands what it has cost us to ask for their help in the first place, the pride we have swallowed. He can convey that for us.”
“In other words, he can swing it,” Prince Howard said.
“I consider it a high probability.”
The King paused for a moment, weighing up the troubled faces confronting him. “Very well, I think we should proceed to the next stage. Admiral, start to prepare what forces you need to support the liberation of Mortonridge.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Kelman, the immediate burden rests upon your ministry. The admiral says he requires support from the Confederation Navy and our allies, it will be up to the diplomatic service to secure it. Whatever interests we have, I want them realized. I suggest you confer with the ESA to see what pressure can be applied to anyone displaying less than wholehearted enthusiasm.”
“What level of assets do you want activated?” the Duke of Salion asked cautiously.
“All of them, Simon. We either do this properly or not at all. I am not prepared to commit our full military potential against such a powerful enemy unless we have total superiority. It would be morally unacceptable, as well as politically unsound.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
“Excellent, that’s settled then.”
“Um, what about Ione?” Lady Phillipa asked.
Alastair almost laughed openly at the Prime Minister’s meekness. Not like her at all. Everyone did so tiptoe around the subject of Tranquillity in his presence. “Good point. I think it might be best if we employ family here to complement Kelman’s people. We’ll send Prince Noton.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lord Mountjoy said guardedly.
“Any other topics?” the King asked.
“I think we’ve achieved all our aims, sir,” Lady Phillipa said. “I’d like to announce that plans to liberate Mortonridge are under way. A positive step to regain the initiative will be just what people need to hear.”
“But no mention of the Edenists,” Lord Mountjoy interjected quickly. “Not yet, that still needs to be handled with care.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Whatever you think appropriate,” Alastair told them. “I wish all of you good luck on your respective tasks. Let us hope Our Lord smiles on us, the sunlight seems to be decidedly lacking of late.”
It was only the third time Parker Higgens had been invited into Ione’s apartment, and the first time he’d been in alone. He found himself disturbed by the big window in the split-level entrance lounge which looked out into the circumfluous sea; the antics of the shoals of small fish flashing their harlequin colours as they sped about did not amuse him. Strange, he thought, that the threat of pressure which all that water represented should be so much more intimidating than the vacuum outside the starscraper windows.
Ione welcomed him with a smile and a delicate handshake. She was wearing a yellow robe over a glittering purple bikini, her hair still damp from her swim. Once again, as he had been right from the first moment he saw her, Parker Higgens was captivated by those enchanting blue eyes. His only comfort was that he wasn’t alone in the Confederation, millions suffered as he did.
“Are you all right, Parker?” she inquired lightly.
“Yes, thank you, ma’am.”
Ione gave the window a suspicious look, and it turned opaque. “Let’s sit down.”
She selected a small circular table made from a wood so darkened with age it was impossible to identify. A pair of silent housechimps began to serve tea from a bone china set.
“You seem to have made a lot of new friends in Trafalgar, Parker. An escort of four voidhawks, no less.”
Parker winced. Did she have any idea how penetrating that irony of hers could be? “Yes, ma’am. The navy science analysts are here to assist with our interpretation of the Laymil recordings. The First Admiral’s staff suggested the procedure, and I had to agree with their reasoning. Possession is a terrible occurrence, if the Laymil had a solution we should not stint in our efforts to locate it.”
“Please relax, Parker, I wasn’t criticising. You did the right thing. I find it most gratifying that the Laymil project has suddenly acquired so much importance. Grandfather Michael was right after all; a fact he must be enjoying. Wherever he is.”
“You have no objection to the navy people scrutinizing the recordings, then?”
“None at all. It would be a rather spectacular feather in our cap if we did produce the answer. Although I have my doubts on that score.”
“So do I, ma’am. I don’t believe there is a single answer to this problem. We are up against the intrinsic nature of the universe itself, only God can alter that.”
“Humm.” She sipped her tea, lost in contemplation. “Yet the Kiint seem to have found a way. Death and possession doesn’t bother them.” For the first time ever she saw real anger on the old director’s gentle face.
“They’re not still working here are they, ma’am?”
“Yes, Parker, they’re still here. Why?”
“I fail to see the reason. They knew all along what had happened to the Laymil. Their whole presence here is some absurd charade. They never had any intention of helping us.”
“The Kiint are not hostile to the human race, Parker. Whatever their reasons are, I’m sure they are good ones. Perhaps they were gently trying to nudge us in the right direction. Who knows? Their intellects are superior to ours, their bodies too, in most respects. You know, I’ve just realized we don’t even know how long they live. Maybe they don’t die, maybe that’s how they’ve beaten the problem.”
“In which case they can hardly help us.”
She stared at him coolly over the rim of her cup. “Is this a problem for you, Parker?”
“No.” His jaw muscles rippled as he fought his indignation. “No, ma’am, if you value their input to the project I will be happy to set aside my personal objection.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, there are still four thousand hours of sensorium records in the Laymil electronics stack which we haven’t accessed yet. Even with the new teams you brought it’s going to take a while to review them all. We’ll have to accelerate the process.”
“Oski Katsura can construct additional reformatting equipment, that ought to speed things along. The only area of conflict I can see is weapons technology. You did say you wished to retain the right of embargo, ma’am.”
“So I did.” He has a point. Do I really want to hand Laymil weapons over to the Confederation, no matter how noble the cause?
It is no longer a relevant question,tranquillity said. We know why the spaceholms committed suicide. Our earlier assumption that it was inflicted by an external force is demonstrably incorrect. Therefore your worry that the data for some type of superweapon exists is no longer applicable. No superweapon was designed or built.
You hope! What if the spaceholms built one to try and stop the approach of the possessed Laymil ships?
Given the level of their knowledge base at the time of their destruction, any weapons built in defence of the spaceholms would not be noticeably different to our own. They did not think in terms of weapons; whereas there is a case to be made for plotting human history in terms of weapons development. It may well be that anything the Laymil came up with would be inferior.
You can’t guarantee that. Their biotechnology was considerably more advanced than Edenist bitek.
It was impressive because of its scale. However, their actual development was not much different to the Edenists. There is little risk of you worsening the situation by allowing unlimited access to the recordings.
But not zero?
Of course not. You know this, Ione.
I know it.“i think we’d better rescind that proscription for the time being,” she told Parker Higgens.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is there anything else we can do to assist the Confederation Navy? Our unique position here ought to count for something.”
“Their senior investigator came up with two suggestions. Apparently Joshua Calvert said he found the original electronics stack in some kind of fortress. If he were to supply us with the coordinate of this structure we could explore it to see what other electronics remain. If one stack can survive undamaged, then there must be others, or even parts of others. The data in those crystals is priceless to us.”
Oh, dear,tranquillity said.
Don’t you dare go all sarcastic on me, not after Joshua agreed to find the Alchemist. We both agreed he’s grown up a lot since that time.
Unfortunately his earlier legacy remains.
Just in time she guarded herself against a scowl. “Captain Calvert isn’t here at the moment. But, Parker, I’d advise against too much optimism. Scavengers are notorious braggarts, I’d be very surprised if this fortress he spoke of exists in quite the same condition he claimed.”
Neeves and Sipika may have the coordinate,tranquillity said.They might cooperate. If not, we are in an official state of emergency; debrief nanonics could be used.
Well done. Send a serjeant in there now to interview them. Make it clear that if they don’t tell us voluntarily it’ll be extracted anyway.“i’ll see what can be done,” she said in the hope of countering his disappointed expression. “What was the other suggestion?”
“A thorough scan of Unimeron’s orbital track. If the planet was taken into another dimension by Laymil possessed there may be some kind of trace.”
“Surely not a physical one? I thought we had this argument before.”
“No, not a physical one, ma’am. We thought, instead, there may be some residual energy overspill in the same way the possessed betray their presence. It may be there is a detectable distortion zone.”
“I see. Very well, look into it. I’ll authorize any reasonable expenditure for sensor probes. The astroengineering companies should welcome the work now I’ve stopped ordering weapons for the SD network. We might even get some competitive prices.”
Parker finished his tea, not quite certain he should ask what he wanted to. The responsibilities of the project directorship were sharply defined, but then he was only human. “Are we well defended, ma’am? I heard about Arnstadt.”
Ione smiled, and bent down to scoop Augustine from the floor. He’d been trying to climb the table leg. “Yes, Parker, our defences are more than adequate.” She ignored the old director’s astonishment at the sight of the little xenoc, and stroked Augustine’s head. “Take it from me, the Capone Organization will never get into Tranquillity.”
Chapter 03
“Thought so. So like what kind of magical mystery tour are you planning here?”
“We’re taking the children out of Exnall. Stephanie wants to drive up to the border.”
“Oh, man!” A wide smile prised apart layers of hair. “That is so beautiful. The border again. We’re gonna roll this old bus out and set the draft dodgers free in the land of Mounties and maple leaves. What a trip! Thank you, man, thank you.” He walked over to the battered van and stroked its front wing lovingly. A small wavy rainbow appeared on the bodywork where his hand had touched it.
“What do you mean, we?”
“Come on, man, lighten up. You don’t think you can handle that kind of scene alone, do you? The military mind is full of low cunning; you wouldn’t get a mile out of town without them throwing up roadblocks across the freeway. Maybe a few of us would fall down some stairs while we’re being arrested, too. It happens, man, all of the frigging time. The federal pigs don’t give a shit about our rights. But I’ve been here before, I know how to go sneaky on them.”
“You think she’d try and stop us?”
“Who, man?”
“Ekelund.”
“Hell, who knows. Chicks like that have got it real hard up their asses. Between you and me, I think they’re maybe like aliens. You know, UFO people from Venus. But I can see you’re sceptical right now, I won’t press it. So how many kids are you planning on squirrelling away in here?”
“About seven or eight, so far.”
Without quite understanding how it happened, Moyo found a friendly arm around his shoulder, guiding him to the van’s cab.
“That’s worthy. I can dig that. Now you just ease yourself up in the driver’s seat, or whatever the hell they call it these days, and dream up some controls we can all handle. Once you’ve done that and I’ve given us a cool disguise we can hit the road.”
Twinkles of light were shooting all over the van’s bodywork, sketching glowing lines of colour in the damaged composite. It was as if a flock of acidhead fairies had been let loose with spray cans. Moyo wanted to complain at this ideological hijack, but couldn’t manage to think up the correct words. He took the easy option, and sat in the driver’s seat like he’d been told.
There was a gap between the deuterium tank’s cryostat ducts and the power feed sub-module which routed superconductor cables to nearby patterning nodes, a narrow crevice amid the boxy, nultherm foam-coated machinery. In the schematics which the flight computer provided, it was listed as a crawlway.
For pigmy acrobats, maybe, Erick thought irascibly. He certainly couldn’t wear any protective gear over the SII suit. Sharp corners and bloated tubes jabbed and squeezed against him every time he moved. It couldn’t be doing the medical nanonic packages around his arm and torso any good. Thankfully the black silicon covering his skin was an effective insulator, otherwise he would have been either roasted, frozen, or electrocuted long ago.
Along with Madeleine he’d been burrowing through the innards of the Villeneuve’s Revenge for nine hours now. It was nasty, tiring, stressful work. With his body in the state it was he had to keep a constant check on his physiological status. He was also running a mild relaxant program in primary mode; claustrophobia was a problem prowling wolfishly around the fringes of conscious thought.
The crawlway ended a metre short of the hull, opening out into a hexagonal metallic cave bordered with stress structure girders, themselves spiralled by cables. Erick squirmed out into this cramped space and drew a sharp breath of relief, more psychological than practical given he was breathing through a respirator tube. He switched his collar sensors to scan around, seeing the fuselage plate behind his head. It appeared perfectly normal, a smooth, slightly curving silicon surface, dark grey with red code strips printed around the edges.
With his legs still jammed in the crawlway, Erick pulled the sensor block from the straps securing it to his side. It contained six separate scanner pads which he slipped out and started fixing to the hull plate and girders.
“Plate 3-25-D is clean,” he datavised to André eight minutes later. “No electromagnetic activity; and it’s solid, too, no density anomalies.”
“Very good, Erick. 5-12-D is next.”
“How is Madeleine doing?”
“She is methodical. Between you, eighteen per cent of the possible locations have now been eliminated.”
Erick cursed. The four of them had carefully gone over the starship’s schematics, working out every possible section of the hull were the device could have been hidden by Monterey’s maintenance crews. With Pryor on board observing the bridge, they were limited to two crew searching at any one time, the two supposed to be asleep. It was going to take a long time to cover all the possible areas.
“I still say it’s probably a combat wasp. That would be the easiest method.”
“Oui, but we won’t know for sure until you have eliminated all the other options. Who can tell with such treacherous bastards?”
“Great. How long to Arnstadt?”
“We have another five jumps to go. Two of the other escort ships are manoeuvring sluggishly, which gives us additional time. They are probably searching as we are. You have perhaps another fifteen hours, twenty at the outside.”
Not enough, Erick knew, not nearly enough. They were going to have to go to Arnstadt. After that he didn’t like to think what the Organization would require from them. Nothing as simple as escort duties, that was for certain.
“All right, Captain, I’m on my way to 5-12-D.”
The chamber which the Saldanas used for their Privy Council meetings was called the Fountain Room, a white marble octagon with a gold and opal mosaic ceiling. Imposing three-metre statues stood around the walls, sculpted from a dark rock which had been cut out of Nova Kong, depicting a toga-clad orator in various inspirational poses. The Fountain Room wasn’t as grandiose as some of the state function rooms added to the Apollo Palace in later centuries, but it had been built by Gerald Saldana soon after his coronation for use as his cabinet room. The continuity of power was unbroken since then; the Saldanas were nothing if not respectful for the traditions of their own history.
There were forty-five members of the current Privy Council, including the Princes and Princesses who ruled the Principalities; which meant a full meeting was held only every eighteen months. Normally the King summoned twenty to twenty-five people to advise him, over half of which were nearly always family. Today there were just six sitting around the Fountain Room’s triangular mahogany table with its inlaid crowned phoenix. It was the war cabinet, chaired by Alastair II himself, with the Duke of Salion on his left, followed by Lord Kelman Mountjoy, the Foreign Office Minister; on the King’s right-hand side was the Prime Minister, Lady Phillipa Oshin; Admiral Lavaquar, the defence chief; and Prince Howard, president of Kulu Corporation. No aides or equerries were present.
Alastair II picked up a small gavel and tapped the much-battered silver bell on the table in front of him. “The fifth meeting of this cabinet committee is now in order. I trust everyone has accessed the latest reports concerning Arnstadt?”
There was a subdued round of acknowledgement from the cabinet.
“Very well. Admiral, your assessment?”
“Bloody worrying, Your Majesty. As you know interstellar conquest has always been regarded as completely impractical. Today’s navies exist to protect civil starships from piracy and deter potential aggressors from committing random or sneak assaults. If anyone strikes at us for political or economic reasons they damn well know we will strike back harder. But actually subduing an entire system’s population was not a concept any of our strategy groups even considered until today. Ethnically streamed populations are too diverse, you simply cannot impose a different culture on a defeated indigenous people, it will never be accepted, and you lose the peace trying to enforce it. QED, conquests are impractical. Possession has changed that. All Confederation worlds are vulnerable to it, even Kulu. Though had the Capone Organization fleet jumped into orbit here, they would have lost.”
“Even armed with antimatter?” Prince Howard inquired.
“Oh, yes. We would have taken a pounding, no doubt about it. But we would have won; in terms of firepower our SD network is second only to Earth’s. The thing which concerns our strategists most is the Organization’s theoretical expansion rate. They have effectively doubled their fleet size by taking Arnstadt. If another five or six star systems were to fall into Capone’s hands, we would be facing parity at the very least.”
“We have distance on our side,” Lady Phillipa said. “Kulu is nearly three hundred light-years from New California. Deploying any kind of fleet over such a distance would be inordinately difficult. And Capone is having trouble resupplying his conquests with He3 , he simply isn’t getting any from the Edenists.”
“Your pardon, Prime Minister,” the admiral said. “But you are taking a too literal interpretation of these events. Yes it would be physically difficult for Capone to subdue Kulu, but the trend he is starting would be a different matter indeed. Others returning from the beyond are equally capable, and some have considerably more experience in empire building than he does. Unless planetary governments remain exceptionally vigilant in searching for outbreaks of possession, what happened to New California could easily be repeated. If Capone was all we had to worry about, I would frankly be very relieved. As to the Organization’s He3 shortage: deuterium can and will be used as a monofuel for starship drives. It’s less efficient and its radiation output has a progressively detrimental effect on the drive tube equipment, but do not imagine for a moment that will prevent them from using it. The Royal Navy has contingency plans to continue high-level operations in the event that Kulu loses every single He3 cloudscoop in the Kingdom. We can fly for years, conceivably decades, using deuterium alone should the need arise.”
“So lack of He3 isn’t going to stop him?” the King asked.
“No, sir. Our analysts believe that given the internal nature of Capone’s Organization he will have to continue his expansion efforts in order to survive. The Organization has no other purpose, growth through conquest is all it is geared up for. As a strategy for maintaining control over his own people it is excellent, but sooner or later he will run into size management problems. Even if he realizes this and tries to stop, his lieutenants will stage a coup. If they didn’t they’d lose their status along with him.”
“He seems to be running New California efficiently enough,” Lord Mountjoy said.
“That’s a propaganda illusion,” the Duke of Salion said. “The agencies have come up with a similar interpretation as the navy. Capone boasts he has established a working government, but essentially it’s a dictatorship backed by the threat of ultimate force. It survives principally because the planetary economy is on a war footing which always distorts financial reality for a while. This idea of a currency based on magic tokens is badly flawed. The energistic ability of the possessed is essentially unlimited, you cannot package it up and redistribute it to the have-nots as if it were some kind of tangible commodity.
“And so far no one has challenged Capone, he’s moved too swiftly for that. But the Organization’s internal political situation won’t last. As soon as any kind of routine is established, people can start to look at how they are being made to live and consider it objectively. We estimate that serious underground opposition groups are going to start forming within another fortnight among both communities. From what we’ve actually seen and what we can filter through the propaganda, it would be very tough for possessed and non-possessed to live peacefully side by side. The society Capone has built is extremely artificial. That makes it easy to destroy, especially from within.”
Lord Mountjoy smiled faintly. “You mean, we don’t have to do anything but wait? The possessed will wipe themselves out for us?”
“No. I’m not saying that. Our psychologists believe that they cannot form societies as large or as complex as ours. We have system-wide industrial civilizations because that is what it takes to maintain our socioeconomic index. But when you can live in a palace grander than this one simply by wishing it to be, what is the point of having states whose populations run into hundreds of millions? That’s what will eventually neuter Capone; but it doesn’t get rid of the general problem which the possessed present. Not for us.”
“I never thought a military solution was the right one, anyway,” Alastair said with a contrite nod at the admiral. “Not in the long term. So what kind of threat are we facing from the possessed infiltrating us? Have we really caught all of them who were at liberty in the Kingdom? Simon?”
“Ninety-nine point nine per cent, Your Majesty, certainly here on Kulu itself. Unfortunately, I can’t give you absolutes. Sheer probability dictates that several have eluded us. But the AIs are becoming increasingly proficient in tracking them down through the net. And of course, if they begin to build up in any numbers they become easy for us to spot and eradicate.”
“Hardly good for morale, though,” Lady Phillipa said. “Government can’t guarantee you won’t get possessed, but if it does happen don’t worry, we’ll see it.”
“Admittedly inconvenient for individual subjects,” Prince Howard observed. “But it doesn’t affect our overall ability to respond to the threat. And the Kulu Corporation has already built a prototype personal monitor to safeguard against possession.”
“You have?”
“Yes. It’s a simple bracelet stuffed with various sensors which is linked permanently into the communications net. It’ll stretch our bandwidth capacity, but two AIs can keep real-time tabs on every person on the planet. If you take it off, or if you are possessed, we’ll know about it straightaway and where it happened.”
“The civil rights groups will love that,” she muttered.
“The possessed will not,” Prince Howard said levelly. “And it is their opinion which matters the most.”
“Quite,” Alastair II said. “I shall publicly put on the first bracelet. It ought to help ease public attitude to the notion. This is for their own good, after all.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lady Phillipa conceded with reasonable grace.
“Very well, we cannot guarantee absolute safety for the population, but as my brother says, we can still conduct broad policy. For the moment, I have to be satisfied with that. As to the principal thrust of that broad policy, we must make a decision about Mortonridge. Admiral?”
“My staff tactical officers have been running battle simulations along the lines young Hiltch suggested. His experience has been a lot of help, but for my mind there are an awful lot of variables and unknowns.”
“Do we win any of these simulations?” the Duke of Salion asked.
“Yes. Almost all of them, providing we devote sufficient resources. That seems to be the clinching factor every time.” He gave the King a worried look. “It’s going to be risky, Your Majesty. And it is also going to be extremely costly. We must maintain our current defence status throughout the Kingdom simultaneously with running this campaign. It will take every military reserve we have, not to mention stretching our industrial capacity.”
“That should keep the baronies happy,” Lady Phillipa said.
Alastair II pretended he hadn’t heard. “But it can be done?” he pressed the admiral.
“We believe so, Your Majesty. But it will require the full support of the Edenists. Ideally, I’d also like some material cooperation from the Confederation Navy and our allies. The more we have, the greater chance of victory.”
“Very well. Kelman, this is your field. How did your audience with the Edenist ambassador go?”
The foreign minister attempted not to smile at the memory; he still wasn’t sure which of them had been the more surprised. “Actually, Ambassador Astor was extremely receptive to the notion. As we know, the old boy doesn’t exactly have the easiest of jobs here. However, once I asked, he immediately put the whole embassy over to working on the practical aspects. Their military and technology attachés agree that the Jovian habitats have the capacity to produce Tranquillity serjeants in the kind of quantities we envisage.”
“What about commitment?” Prince Howard asked.
“Such a request would have to be put before their Consensus, but he was sure that given the circumstances Jupiter would consider it favourably. He actually offered to accompany whatever delegation we send and help present the argument for us. It might not sound like much, but I consider such an offer to be significant.”
“Why exactly?” the King asked.
“Because of the nature of their culture. Edenists very rarely enact a Consensus, normally there is no need. They share so much in terms of ethics and motivation that their decisions on most subjects are identical. Consensus is only required when they confront something new and radical, or they are threatened and need to select a level of response. The fact that the ambassador himself is in agreement with our request and that he is willing to argue our case for us is a very positive factor. More than anyone, he understands what it has cost us to ask for their help in the first place, the pride we have swallowed. He can convey that for us.”
“In other words, he can swing it,” Prince Howard said.
“I consider it a high probability.”
The King paused for a moment, weighing up the troubled faces confronting him. “Very well, I think we should proceed to the next stage. Admiral, start to prepare what forces you need to support the liberation of Mortonridge.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Kelman, the immediate burden rests upon your ministry. The admiral says he requires support from the Confederation Navy and our allies, it will be up to the diplomatic service to secure it. Whatever interests we have, I want them realized. I suggest you confer with the ESA to see what pressure can be applied to anyone displaying less than wholehearted enthusiasm.”
“What level of assets do you want activated?” the Duke of Salion asked cautiously.
“All of them, Simon. We either do this properly or not at all. I am not prepared to commit our full military potential against such a powerful enemy unless we have total superiority. It would be morally unacceptable, as well as politically unsound.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
“Excellent, that’s settled then.”
“Um, what about Ione?” Lady Phillipa asked.
Alastair almost laughed openly at the Prime Minister’s meekness. Not like her at all. Everyone did so tiptoe around the subject of Tranquillity in his presence. “Good point. I think it might be best if we employ family here to complement Kelman’s people. We’ll send Prince Noton.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lord Mountjoy said guardedly.
“Any other topics?” the King asked.
“I think we’ve achieved all our aims, sir,” Lady Phillipa said. “I’d like to announce that plans to liberate Mortonridge are under way. A positive step to regain the initiative will be just what people need to hear.”
“But no mention of the Edenists,” Lord Mountjoy interjected quickly. “Not yet, that still needs to be handled with care.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Whatever you think appropriate,” Alastair told them. “I wish all of you good luck on your respective tasks. Let us hope Our Lord smiles on us, the sunlight seems to be decidedly lacking of late.”
It was only the third time Parker Higgens had been invited into Ione’s apartment, and the first time he’d been in alone. He found himself disturbed by the big window in the split-level entrance lounge which looked out into the circumfluous sea; the antics of the shoals of small fish flashing their harlequin colours as they sped about did not amuse him. Strange, he thought, that the threat of pressure which all that water represented should be so much more intimidating than the vacuum outside the starscraper windows.
Ione welcomed him with a smile and a delicate handshake. She was wearing a yellow robe over a glittering purple bikini, her hair still damp from her swim. Once again, as he had been right from the first moment he saw her, Parker Higgens was captivated by those enchanting blue eyes. His only comfort was that he wasn’t alone in the Confederation, millions suffered as he did.
“Are you all right, Parker?” she inquired lightly.
“Yes, thank you, ma’am.”
Ione gave the window a suspicious look, and it turned opaque. “Let’s sit down.”
She selected a small circular table made from a wood so darkened with age it was impossible to identify. A pair of silent housechimps began to serve tea from a bone china set.
“You seem to have made a lot of new friends in Trafalgar, Parker. An escort of four voidhawks, no less.”
Parker winced. Did she have any idea how penetrating that irony of hers could be? “Yes, ma’am. The navy science analysts are here to assist with our interpretation of the Laymil recordings. The First Admiral’s staff suggested the procedure, and I had to agree with their reasoning. Possession is a terrible occurrence, if the Laymil had a solution we should not stint in our efforts to locate it.”
“Please relax, Parker, I wasn’t criticising. You did the right thing. I find it most gratifying that the Laymil project has suddenly acquired so much importance. Grandfather Michael was right after all; a fact he must be enjoying. Wherever he is.”
“You have no objection to the navy people scrutinizing the recordings, then?”
“None at all. It would be a rather spectacular feather in our cap if we did produce the answer. Although I have my doubts on that score.”
“So do I, ma’am. I don’t believe there is a single answer to this problem. We are up against the intrinsic nature of the universe itself, only God can alter that.”
“Humm.” She sipped her tea, lost in contemplation. “Yet the Kiint seem to have found a way. Death and possession doesn’t bother them.” For the first time ever she saw real anger on the old director’s gentle face.
“They’re not still working here are they, ma’am?”
“Yes, Parker, they’re still here. Why?”
“I fail to see the reason. They knew all along what had happened to the Laymil. Their whole presence here is some absurd charade. They never had any intention of helping us.”
“The Kiint are not hostile to the human race, Parker. Whatever their reasons are, I’m sure they are good ones. Perhaps they were gently trying to nudge us in the right direction. Who knows? Their intellects are superior to ours, their bodies too, in most respects. You know, I’ve just realized we don’t even know how long they live. Maybe they don’t die, maybe that’s how they’ve beaten the problem.”
“In which case they can hardly help us.”
She stared at him coolly over the rim of her cup. “Is this a problem for you, Parker?”
“No.” His jaw muscles rippled as he fought his indignation. “No, ma’am, if you value their input to the project I will be happy to set aside my personal objection.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, there are still four thousand hours of sensorium records in the Laymil electronics stack which we haven’t accessed yet. Even with the new teams you brought it’s going to take a while to review them all. We’ll have to accelerate the process.”
“Oski Katsura can construct additional reformatting equipment, that ought to speed things along. The only area of conflict I can see is weapons technology. You did say you wished to retain the right of embargo, ma’am.”
“So I did.” He has a point. Do I really want to hand Laymil weapons over to the Confederation, no matter how noble the cause?
It is no longer a relevant question,tranquillity said. We know why the spaceholms committed suicide. Our earlier assumption that it was inflicted by an external force is demonstrably incorrect. Therefore your worry that the data for some type of superweapon exists is no longer applicable. No superweapon was designed or built.
You hope! What if the spaceholms built one to try and stop the approach of the possessed Laymil ships?
Given the level of their knowledge base at the time of their destruction, any weapons built in defence of the spaceholms would not be noticeably different to our own. They did not think in terms of weapons; whereas there is a case to be made for plotting human history in terms of weapons development. It may well be that anything the Laymil came up with would be inferior.
You can’t guarantee that. Their biotechnology was considerably more advanced than Edenist bitek.
It was impressive because of its scale. However, their actual development was not much different to the Edenists. There is little risk of you worsening the situation by allowing unlimited access to the recordings.
But not zero?
Of course not. You know this, Ione.
I know it.“i think we’d better rescind that proscription for the time being,” she told Parker Higgens.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is there anything else we can do to assist the Confederation Navy? Our unique position here ought to count for something.”
“Their senior investigator came up with two suggestions. Apparently Joshua Calvert said he found the original electronics stack in some kind of fortress. If he were to supply us with the coordinate of this structure we could explore it to see what other electronics remain. If one stack can survive undamaged, then there must be others, or even parts of others. The data in those crystals is priceless to us.”
Oh, dear,tranquillity said.
Don’t you dare go all sarcastic on me, not after Joshua agreed to find the Alchemist. We both agreed he’s grown up a lot since that time.
Unfortunately his earlier legacy remains.
Just in time she guarded herself against a scowl. “Captain Calvert isn’t here at the moment. But, Parker, I’d advise against too much optimism. Scavengers are notorious braggarts, I’d be very surprised if this fortress he spoke of exists in quite the same condition he claimed.”
Neeves and Sipika may have the coordinate,tranquillity said.They might cooperate. If not, we are in an official state of emergency; debrief nanonics could be used.
Well done. Send a serjeant in there now to interview them. Make it clear that if they don’t tell us voluntarily it’ll be extracted anyway.“i’ll see what can be done,” she said in the hope of countering his disappointed expression. “What was the other suggestion?”
“A thorough scan of Unimeron’s orbital track. If the planet was taken into another dimension by Laymil possessed there may be some kind of trace.”
“Surely not a physical one? I thought we had this argument before.”
“No, not a physical one, ma’am. We thought, instead, there may be some residual energy overspill in the same way the possessed betray their presence. It may be there is a detectable distortion zone.”
“I see. Very well, look into it. I’ll authorize any reasonable expenditure for sensor probes. The astroengineering companies should welcome the work now I’ve stopped ordering weapons for the SD network. We might even get some competitive prices.”
Parker finished his tea, not quite certain he should ask what he wanted to. The responsibilities of the project directorship were sharply defined, but then he was only human. “Are we well defended, ma’am? I heard about Arnstadt.”
Ione smiled, and bent down to scoop Augustine from the floor. He’d been trying to climb the table leg. “Yes, Parker, our defences are more than adequate.” She ignored the old director’s astonishment at the sight of the little xenoc, and stroked Augustine’s head. “Take it from me, the Capone Organization will never get into Tranquillity.”
Chapter 03
Hull plate 8-92-K: lustreless grey, a few scratches where tools and careless gauntlets had caught it, red stripe codes designating its manufacturing batch and CAB permitted usage, reactive indicator tabs to measure radiation and vacuum ablation still a healthy green; exactly the same as all the other hexagonal plates protecting the delicate systems of the Villeneuve’s Revenge from direct exposure to space. Except it was leaking a minute level of electromagnetic activity. That was what the first scanner pad indicated. Erick hurriedly applied the second over the centre of the source. The sensor block confirmed a radiation emission point. Density analysis detailed the size of the entombed unit, and a rough outline of its larger components.
“I got it, Captain,” Erick datavised. “They incorporated it in a hull plate. It’s small, electron compressed deuterium tritium core, I think; maybe point two of a kiloton blast.”
“You’re sure?”
Erick was too tired to be angry. This was his ninth search, and they were all imposing far too much stress on his convalescent body. When he finished each ten-hour session spent snaking through the starship’s innards he had to go straight on bridge duty to maintain the illusion of normal shipboard routine for Kingsley Pryor and the eight rover reporters they were carrying. On top of that the Organization had played dirty. Just as he knew they would.
“I’m sure.”
“Thank the blessed saints. Finally! Now we can escape these devils. You can deactivate it, can’t you, mon enfant ?”
“I think the best idea would be to detach the plate and use the X-ray lasers to vaporise it as soon as it’s clear.”
“Bravo. How long will it take?”
“As long as it does. I’m not about to rush.”
“Of course.”
“Are there any reasonable jump coordinates in this orbit?”
“Some. I will begin plotting them.”
Erick slowly swept the rest of the little cavity for any further incongruous processors. Opposite the hull plate was a spiral of ribbed piping, resembling a tightly coiled dragon’s tail, which led to a heat exchange pump. He had emerged at its rim, wedged between the curving titanium and a cluster of football-sized cryogenic nitrogen tanks which pressurized the vernier rockets. A small, cramped space, but one providing a hundred crannies and half-hidden curves. It took him half an hour to sweep it properly, forcing himself to be methodical. Not easy with an armed mini-nuke eighty centimetres from his skull, its timer counting down.
When he was satisfied there were no booby triggers or alarms secreted in the cavity, he squirmed around to face the hull and eased himself further out of the crawlway like paste from a tube.
Normally, a starship’s hull plates were detached from the outside, with the seam rivets and load pins easily accessible. This was a lot more difficult. The arcane procedure for an internal jettison ran through Erick’s neural nanonics, an operation which must surely have been dreamed up by committees of civil servant lawyers on permanent lunch breaks and with no knowledge of astroengineering. It was highly tempting just to shove a fission blade into the silicon and saw around the mini-nuke in a wide circle. Instead he datavised the flight computer to switch off the sector’s molecular binding force generator, then applied the anti-torque screwdriver to the first feed coupling. It might have been imagination, but he thought his new AT arm was slower than the other. The nutrient reserves were almost depleted. His thoughts were too cluttered to really bother about it.
Eighty minutes later, the plate was ready. The little cavity swarmed with discarded rivets, load pins, flakes of silicon, and several tool heads he’d lost. His suit sensors were having trouble supplying him with a decent image through all the junk. He slotted the last tools back in his harness and wriggled even further out of the crawlway, feeling around with his toes for a solid foothold to brace himself against. When he was in position he was bent almost double with his back pressing against the plate. He started to shove, his leg muscles straining hard. Physiological monitor programs began signalling caution warnings almost immediately. Erick ignored them, using a tranquillizer program to damp down the swelling worry about the further damage he was causing himself.
The plate moved—neural nanonics recording a minute shift in his posture. Then he was rising in millimetre increments. He waited until the neural nanonics reported the plate had shifted five centimetres, then stopped pressing. Inertia would complete the work now. Cramp persecuted his abdomen.
A wide sliver of silver-blue light shone into the cavity as he retreated back down into the crawlway. One edge of the plate was loose, rising up out of alignment. His suit collar sensors hurriedly reduced their receptivity as the beam animated the rivet fragments into a glittering storm.
The plate lumbered upwards. Erick checked the edges one last time to see if they were all clear, then datavised: “Okay, Captain, it’s free. Fire the verniers. Let’s separate.”
He could actually see the silent eruptions of the tiny chemical rocket nozzles ringing the starship’s equator, quick luminous yellow fountains. The hull plate appeared to be moving faster now, receding from the cavity.
Kursk was visible outside. The Villeneuve’s Revenge was in low orbit, soaking in the wellspring of lambent light shimmering off the planet’s cloud-daubed oceans.
It was the Capone Organization’s second conquest: a stage three world, six light-years from Arnstadt. With a population of just over fifty million, it was evolving from its purely planetary-based economic phase to develop a small space industry. Consequently, it was an easy target. There was no SD network, yet it had valuable modern astroengineering stations and a reasonable population. The squadron of twenty-five starships which Luigi Balsmao dispatched to subdue the planet had encountered almost no opposition. Five independent trader starships docked at Kursk’s single orbiting asteroid settlement had been armed with combat wasps; but the weapons were third-rate, and the captains less than enthusiastic about flying out to die bravely against the Organization’s superior firepower.
Along with the other escort ships, the Villeneuve’s Revenge had been assigned to the new Organization squadron within eight hours of arriving at Arnstadt. A subdued but furious André was unable to refuse. They had even seen action, firing half a dozen combat wasps against the two defenders who had responded to their arrival.
With their depleted crew numbers, everyone had to be on the bridge during the last stage of the mission, which meant they couldn’t continue their search for the bomb. Which in turn meant they couldn’t duck out of the final engagement.
With the small battle won, and the planet open to Capone’s landing forces, the Villeneuve’s Revenge had been given orbital clearance duties by the squadron commander. Tens of thousands of tiny fragments thrown out by detonating combat wasps now contaminated space around the planet, each one presenting a serious potential impact hazard to approaching starships. Combat sensor clusters on the Villeneuve’s Revenge were powerful enough to track anything larger than a snowflake that came within a hundred kilometres of the fuselage. And André was using the X-ray laser cannons to vaporise any such fragment they located.
Erick watched hull plate 8-92-K shrink, a small perfect black hexagon against the glittery deep turquoise ocean. It turned brilliant orange in an eyeblink, then burst apart.
“I think it is time we had a small discussion with Monsieur Pryor,” André Duchamp datavised to his crew.
It was almost as if the Organization’s liaison man was expecting them when André datavised his command code to open the cabin door. It was Kingsley Pryor’s designated sleep period, but he was fully dressed, floating in lotus position above the decking. His eyes were open, showing no surprise at the two laser pistols levelled at him.
Nor fear, Erick thought.
“We have eliminated the bomb,” André said triumphantly. “Which means you have just become surplus to requirements.”
“So you’re going to slaughter the other crews, are you?” Kingsley said quietly.
“Pardon?”
“I have to transmit a code every three hours—seven at the most, remember? If that doesn’t happen one of the other starships will explode. Then they won’t be in any position to transmit their code, and another will go. You’ll start a chain reaction.”
André maintained his poise. “Obviously, we will warn them we are leaving before we jump outsystem. Do you take me for a barbarian? They will have time to evacuate. And Capone will have five ships less.” There was a glint in his eye. “I will make sure the rover reporters understand that. My ship and crew are striking right at the heart of the Organization.”
“I expect Capone will be devastated at the news. Deprived of a warrior like you.”
André glared furiously; he could never manage sarcasm, however crude, and he hated being on the receiving end. “You may inform him yourself. We will return you to him via the beyond.” His grip on the laser pistol tightened.
Kingsley Pryor switched his glacial eyes to Erick, and datavised: “You have to stop them murdering me.”
The message was encrypted with a Confederation Navy code.
“Knowing the nature of the possessed, I expect that code was compromised a long time ago,” Erick datavised back.
“Very likely. But do your shipmates know you are a CNIS officer? You’d join me in the beyond if they did. And I’ll tell them. I have absolutely nothing to lose, now. I haven’t for some time.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I served a duty tour in the CNIS weapons division as a technical evaluation officer. That’s why I know who you are, Captain Thakrar.”
“As far as I’m concerned that makes you a double traitor, to humanity and the navy. And Duchamp won’t believe a word you say.”
“You need to keep me alive, Thakrar, very badly. I know which star system the Organization is planning to invade next. Right now, there is no more important piece of information in this whole galaxy. If Aleksandrovich and Lalwani know the target, they can intercept and destroy the Organization fleet. You now have no other duty but to get that information to them. Correct?”
“Filth like you would say anything.”
“You can’t risk the possibility that I’m lying. I obviously have access to the Organization’s command echelons, I wouldn’t be in this position if I didn’t. Therefore I could quite easily know their overall strategic planning. At the very least, procedure says I should be debriefed.”
The decision seemed more enervating than all that time spent in the cavity working on the hull plate. Erick was repelled by the notion that a piece of shit like Pryor could manipulate him. “Captain?” he said wearily.
“Oui?”
“How much do you think he’s worth if we turn him over to the Confederation authorities?”
André gave his crewman a surprised look. “You have changed since you came on board, mon enfant .”
Since Tina . . . who wouldn’t? “We’re going to be in the shit with the Confederation when we return. We did sign up with Capone, remember, and we helped with this invasion. But if we bring them a prize like this, especially if we do it in full view of the rovers, we’ll be heroes; it’ll wipe the slate clean.”
As always, avarice won with Duchamp. His gentle face’s natural smile expanded with admiration. “Good thinking, Erick. Madeleine, help Erick stuff this pig into zero-tau.”
“Yes, Captain.” She pushed off the hatch rim and grabbed hold of Pryor’s shoulder. On the way she couldn’t resist giving Erick a troubled look.
He couldn’t even raise a regretful grin in response. I thought it was over, that getting rid of the bomb would finish it. We would dock at some civilized spaceport, and I could turn them all over to the local Navy Bureau. Now all I’ve done is swapped one problem for another. Great God Almighty, when is this all going to end?
The beyond was different, not changed, but the rents which tore open into the real universe fired in flashes of sensation. They enraged and exhilarated the souls which dwelt there; a pathetic taster, a reminder of what used to be. Proof that corporeal life could be theirs again.
There was no pattern to the rents. The beyond did not have a structured topology. They occurred. They ended. And each time a soul would wriggle through to possess. Luck, chance, dictated their appearance.
The souls screamed for more, scrabbling at the residual traces of their more fortunate comrades who had made it though. Pleading, praying, promising, cursing. The tirade was one-way. Almost.
The possessed had the power to look back, to listen harder.
One of them said: We want somebody.
The gibbering souls shrieked their lies in return. I know where they are. I know how to help. Take me. Me! I will tell you.
The chant of a billion tormented entities is not one to be ignored.
Another rent appeared, loud sunlight piercing an ebony cloud. There was a barrier at the top, preventing any soul from surging through into the glory. Its extended existence igniting an agonized desire within those who flocked around it.
See? A body awaits you, a reward for the information we need.
What? What information?
Mzu. Dr Alkad Mzu, where is she?
The question rippled through the beyond, a virus rumour, passed—ripped—from one soul to another. Until, finally, the woman came forth, rising from the degradations of perpetual mind-rape to embrace and adore the pain which saturated her new body. Feelings rushed in to inflate consciousness: warmth, wetness, cool air. Eyes blinked open, half laughing, half-weeping at the agony of her scalded, skinless limbs. “Ayacucho,” Cherri Barnes coughed to the gangsters standing over her. “Mzu went to Ayacucho.”
The top secret file contained a report which the First Admiral found even more worrying than any naval defeat. It had been written by an economist on President Haaker’s staff, detailing the strain which possession was placing on the Confederation economy. The major problem was that modern conflicts tended to be resolved by fifteen-minute engagements between opposing squadrons of starships; fast, and usually pretty decisive. It was an exceptional dispute which led to more than three navy engagements.
Possession, though, was shutting down the interstellar economy. Tax revenue was falling, and with it the government’s ability to support its forces on month-long deployment missions. And the Confederation Navy placed the primary drain on everyone’s finances. Enforcing the quarantine was good strategic policy, but it wasn’t going to solve the problem. A new strategy, one which had to include a final solution, had to be found within six months. After that, the Confederation would start to fragment.
Samual Aleksandrovich exited the file as Maynard Khanna ushered the two visitors into his office. Admiral Lalwani and Mullein, the captain of the voidhawk Tsuga , both saluted.
“I got it, Captain,” Erick datavised. “They incorporated it in a hull plate. It’s small, electron compressed deuterium tritium core, I think; maybe point two of a kiloton blast.”
“You’re sure?”
Erick was too tired to be angry. This was his ninth search, and they were all imposing far too much stress on his convalescent body. When he finished each ten-hour session spent snaking through the starship’s innards he had to go straight on bridge duty to maintain the illusion of normal shipboard routine for Kingsley Pryor and the eight rover reporters they were carrying. On top of that the Organization had played dirty. Just as he knew they would.
“I’m sure.”
“Thank the blessed saints. Finally! Now we can escape these devils. You can deactivate it, can’t you, mon enfant ?”
“I think the best idea would be to detach the plate and use the X-ray lasers to vaporise it as soon as it’s clear.”
“Bravo. How long will it take?”
“As long as it does. I’m not about to rush.”
“Of course.”
“Are there any reasonable jump coordinates in this orbit?”
“Some. I will begin plotting them.”
Erick slowly swept the rest of the little cavity for any further incongruous processors. Opposite the hull plate was a spiral of ribbed piping, resembling a tightly coiled dragon’s tail, which led to a heat exchange pump. He had emerged at its rim, wedged between the curving titanium and a cluster of football-sized cryogenic nitrogen tanks which pressurized the vernier rockets. A small, cramped space, but one providing a hundred crannies and half-hidden curves. It took him half an hour to sweep it properly, forcing himself to be methodical. Not easy with an armed mini-nuke eighty centimetres from his skull, its timer counting down.
When he was satisfied there were no booby triggers or alarms secreted in the cavity, he squirmed around to face the hull and eased himself further out of the crawlway like paste from a tube.
Normally, a starship’s hull plates were detached from the outside, with the seam rivets and load pins easily accessible. This was a lot more difficult. The arcane procedure for an internal jettison ran through Erick’s neural nanonics, an operation which must surely have been dreamed up by committees of civil servant lawyers on permanent lunch breaks and with no knowledge of astroengineering. It was highly tempting just to shove a fission blade into the silicon and saw around the mini-nuke in a wide circle. Instead he datavised the flight computer to switch off the sector’s molecular binding force generator, then applied the anti-torque screwdriver to the first feed coupling. It might have been imagination, but he thought his new AT arm was slower than the other. The nutrient reserves were almost depleted. His thoughts were too cluttered to really bother about it.
Eighty minutes later, the plate was ready. The little cavity swarmed with discarded rivets, load pins, flakes of silicon, and several tool heads he’d lost. His suit sensors were having trouble supplying him with a decent image through all the junk. He slotted the last tools back in his harness and wriggled even further out of the crawlway, feeling around with his toes for a solid foothold to brace himself against. When he was in position he was bent almost double with his back pressing against the plate. He started to shove, his leg muscles straining hard. Physiological monitor programs began signalling caution warnings almost immediately. Erick ignored them, using a tranquillizer program to damp down the swelling worry about the further damage he was causing himself.
The plate moved—neural nanonics recording a minute shift in his posture. Then he was rising in millimetre increments. He waited until the neural nanonics reported the plate had shifted five centimetres, then stopped pressing. Inertia would complete the work now. Cramp persecuted his abdomen.
A wide sliver of silver-blue light shone into the cavity as he retreated back down into the crawlway. One edge of the plate was loose, rising up out of alignment. His suit collar sensors hurriedly reduced their receptivity as the beam animated the rivet fragments into a glittering storm.
The plate lumbered upwards. Erick checked the edges one last time to see if they were all clear, then datavised: “Okay, Captain, it’s free. Fire the verniers. Let’s separate.”
He could actually see the silent eruptions of the tiny chemical rocket nozzles ringing the starship’s equator, quick luminous yellow fountains. The hull plate appeared to be moving faster now, receding from the cavity.
Kursk was visible outside. The Villeneuve’s Revenge was in low orbit, soaking in the wellspring of lambent light shimmering off the planet’s cloud-daubed oceans.
It was the Capone Organization’s second conquest: a stage three world, six light-years from Arnstadt. With a population of just over fifty million, it was evolving from its purely planetary-based economic phase to develop a small space industry. Consequently, it was an easy target. There was no SD network, yet it had valuable modern astroengineering stations and a reasonable population. The squadron of twenty-five starships which Luigi Balsmao dispatched to subdue the planet had encountered almost no opposition. Five independent trader starships docked at Kursk’s single orbiting asteroid settlement had been armed with combat wasps; but the weapons were third-rate, and the captains less than enthusiastic about flying out to die bravely against the Organization’s superior firepower.
Along with the other escort ships, the Villeneuve’s Revenge had been assigned to the new Organization squadron within eight hours of arriving at Arnstadt. A subdued but furious André was unable to refuse. They had even seen action, firing half a dozen combat wasps against the two defenders who had responded to their arrival.
With their depleted crew numbers, everyone had to be on the bridge during the last stage of the mission, which meant they couldn’t continue their search for the bomb. Which in turn meant they couldn’t duck out of the final engagement.
With the small battle won, and the planet open to Capone’s landing forces, the Villeneuve’s Revenge had been given orbital clearance duties by the squadron commander. Tens of thousands of tiny fragments thrown out by detonating combat wasps now contaminated space around the planet, each one presenting a serious potential impact hazard to approaching starships. Combat sensor clusters on the Villeneuve’s Revenge were powerful enough to track anything larger than a snowflake that came within a hundred kilometres of the fuselage. And André was using the X-ray laser cannons to vaporise any such fragment they located.
Erick watched hull plate 8-92-K shrink, a small perfect black hexagon against the glittery deep turquoise ocean. It turned brilliant orange in an eyeblink, then burst apart.
“I think it is time we had a small discussion with Monsieur Pryor,” André Duchamp datavised to his crew.
It was almost as if the Organization’s liaison man was expecting them when André datavised his command code to open the cabin door. It was Kingsley Pryor’s designated sleep period, but he was fully dressed, floating in lotus position above the decking. His eyes were open, showing no surprise at the two laser pistols levelled at him.
Nor fear, Erick thought.
“We have eliminated the bomb,” André said triumphantly. “Which means you have just become surplus to requirements.”
“So you’re going to slaughter the other crews, are you?” Kingsley said quietly.
“Pardon?”
“I have to transmit a code every three hours—seven at the most, remember? If that doesn’t happen one of the other starships will explode. Then they won’t be in any position to transmit their code, and another will go. You’ll start a chain reaction.”
André maintained his poise. “Obviously, we will warn them we are leaving before we jump outsystem. Do you take me for a barbarian? They will have time to evacuate. And Capone will have five ships less.” There was a glint in his eye. “I will make sure the rover reporters understand that. My ship and crew are striking right at the heart of the Organization.”
“I expect Capone will be devastated at the news. Deprived of a warrior like you.”
André glared furiously; he could never manage sarcasm, however crude, and he hated being on the receiving end. “You may inform him yourself. We will return you to him via the beyond.” His grip on the laser pistol tightened.
Kingsley Pryor switched his glacial eyes to Erick, and datavised: “You have to stop them murdering me.”
The message was encrypted with a Confederation Navy code.
“Knowing the nature of the possessed, I expect that code was compromised a long time ago,” Erick datavised back.
“Very likely. But do your shipmates know you are a CNIS officer? You’d join me in the beyond if they did. And I’ll tell them. I have absolutely nothing to lose, now. I haven’t for some time.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I served a duty tour in the CNIS weapons division as a technical evaluation officer. That’s why I know who you are, Captain Thakrar.”
“As far as I’m concerned that makes you a double traitor, to humanity and the navy. And Duchamp won’t believe a word you say.”
“You need to keep me alive, Thakrar, very badly. I know which star system the Organization is planning to invade next. Right now, there is no more important piece of information in this whole galaxy. If Aleksandrovich and Lalwani know the target, they can intercept and destroy the Organization fleet. You now have no other duty but to get that information to them. Correct?”
“Filth like you would say anything.”
“You can’t risk the possibility that I’m lying. I obviously have access to the Organization’s command echelons, I wouldn’t be in this position if I didn’t. Therefore I could quite easily know their overall strategic planning. At the very least, procedure says I should be debriefed.”
The decision seemed more enervating than all that time spent in the cavity working on the hull plate. Erick was repelled by the notion that a piece of shit like Pryor could manipulate him. “Captain?” he said wearily.
“Oui?”
“How much do you think he’s worth if we turn him over to the Confederation authorities?”
André gave his crewman a surprised look. “You have changed since you came on board, mon enfant .”
Since Tina . . . who wouldn’t? “We’re going to be in the shit with the Confederation when we return. We did sign up with Capone, remember, and we helped with this invasion. But if we bring them a prize like this, especially if we do it in full view of the rovers, we’ll be heroes; it’ll wipe the slate clean.”
As always, avarice won with Duchamp. His gentle face’s natural smile expanded with admiration. “Good thinking, Erick. Madeleine, help Erick stuff this pig into zero-tau.”
“Yes, Captain.” She pushed off the hatch rim and grabbed hold of Pryor’s shoulder. On the way she couldn’t resist giving Erick a troubled look.
He couldn’t even raise a regretful grin in response. I thought it was over, that getting rid of the bomb would finish it. We would dock at some civilized spaceport, and I could turn them all over to the local Navy Bureau. Now all I’ve done is swapped one problem for another. Great God Almighty, when is this all going to end?
The beyond was different, not changed, but the rents which tore open into the real universe fired in flashes of sensation. They enraged and exhilarated the souls which dwelt there; a pathetic taster, a reminder of what used to be. Proof that corporeal life could be theirs again.
There was no pattern to the rents. The beyond did not have a structured topology. They occurred. They ended. And each time a soul would wriggle through to possess. Luck, chance, dictated their appearance.
The souls screamed for more, scrabbling at the residual traces of their more fortunate comrades who had made it though. Pleading, praying, promising, cursing. The tirade was one-way. Almost.
The possessed had the power to look back, to listen harder.
One of them said: We want somebody.
The gibbering souls shrieked their lies in return. I know where they are. I know how to help. Take me. Me! I will tell you.
The chant of a billion tormented entities is not one to be ignored.
Another rent appeared, loud sunlight piercing an ebony cloud. There was a barrier at the top, preventing any soul from surging through into the glory. Its extended existence igniting an agonized desire within those who flocked around it.
See? A body awaits you, a reward for the information we need.
What? What information?
Mzu. Dr Alkad Mzu, where is she?
The question rippled through the beyond, a virus rumour, passed—ripped—from one soul to another. Until, finally, the woman came forth, rising from the degradations of perpetual mind-rape to embrace and adore the pain which saturated her new body. Feelings rushed in to inflate consciousness: warmth, wetness, cool air. Eyes blinked open, half laughing, half-weeping at the agony of her scalded, skinless limbs. “Ayacucho,” Cherri Barnes coughed to the gangsters standing over her. “Mzu went to Ayacucho.”
The top secret file contained a report which the First Admiral found even more worrying than any naval defeat. It had been written by an economist on President Haaker’s staff, detailing the strain which possession was placing on the Confederation economy. The major problem was that modern conflicts tended to be resolved by fifteen-minute engagements between opposing squadrons of starships; fast, and usually pretty decisive. It was an exceptional dispute which led to more than three navy engagements.
Possession, though, was shutting down the interstellar economy. Tax revenue was falling, and with it the government’s ability to support its forces on month-long deployment missions. And the Confederation Navy placed the primary drain on everyone’s finances. Enforcing the quarantine was good strategic policy, but it wasn’t going to solve the problem. A new strategy, one which had to include a final solution, had to be found within six months. After that, the Confederation would start to fragment.
Samual Aleksandrovich exited the file as Maynard Khanna ushered the two visitors into his office. Admiral Lalwani and Mullein, the captain of the voidhawk Tsuga , both saluted.