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The first seven attackers to emerge, as per standard tactics programs, were all front-line navy rapid-response frigates. Their mission was to assess the level of opposition, and if necessary clear the incoming squadron’s designated emergence zone of any hostile hardware. Even as their event horizons vanished, leaving them falling free, twenty-five voidhawks were accelerating towards them at ten gees. Distortion fields locked on, ruining the equilibrium of space around their hulls, preventing any of them from jumping clear. Combat wasps were already shooting over the intervening distance at twenty-five gees. The frigates immediately launched defensive salvos, but with their sensors hampered by the energistic flux of their own crews, the response was too slow in coming, and even when it did they were hopelessly outnumbered. Each of the frigates was the target of at least a hundred and fifty combat wasps, streaking in at them from every direction. At most, they could fire forty defenders. To have stood a good chance they would have needed close to five hundred apiece.
Within a hundred seconds all seven frigates were destroyed.
Ten minutes later, the rest of the Organization’s starships started to emerge from their ZTT jumps. Their predicament was even worse. They were expecting the specialist frigates to have established a defensive perimeter. It took time for an ordinary Adamist starship to deploy its sensor clusters and scan local space for possible danger; time which in this case was lengthened by malfunctioning equipment. When the sensors finally did relay an image of the external arena, it seemed as though a small galaxy was on the move. Yosemite was almost invisible behind a sparkling nebula of fusion drives; thousands of combat wasps and tens of thousands of submunitions were generating a fraudulent dawn across half of the colossal planet’s nightside. And the nebula was contracting, twin central whorls twisting lazily into two dense spires which were rising inexorably towards the emergence zones.
One by one, the Organization starships crashed against the terrible, moon-sized mountains of light, detonating into photonic avalanches which tumbled away into the yawning darkness.
Two hours later, the voidhawks on observation duty above New California reported that Capone’s third squadron was leaving the orbital asteroids. When they were a quarter of a million kilometres above the planet, the starships activated their energy patterning nodes and vanished. Consensus was puzzled by the vector; they weren’t aligned on any known inhabited world.
Not even the ending of the physical threat had brought any relief to the turmoil in Louise’s head. They had flown all the way into orbit to dock with the Far Realm without any problem, although Furay had grumbled constantly about bits of machinery going wrong on the ascent.
The starship itself wasn’t quite as impressive as she’d been expecting. The interior was like servants’ quarters, except made out of metal and plastic. There were four spheres grouped together in a pyramid shape, which the crew called life-support capsules, and that was the total available living space; apparently the rest of the ship inside the hull was solid machinery. Everything was so dreadfully small—tables, chairs, bunks; and what wasn’t being used had to be folded away. And to complete her misery, free fall was an utter nightmare.
It was ironic. As Genevieve had perked up during the spaceplane flight, so Louise had felt gradually worse. As soon as the rocket engines finally cut out, leaving them floating free, Genevieve had yelled delightedly, releasing her webbing and hurtling around the cabin, giggling as she bounced and somersaulted. Even Fletcher, after his initial alarm at the sensation, had relaxed, smiling cautiously as he attempted a few simple gymnast manoeuvres with Genevieve cheering him on.
But not her. Oh, no. She’d been wretchedly sick three times during the rendezvous, what with the spaceplane juddering around the whole time. It had taken her several tries to learn how to use the sanitation tube provided for such instances, much to the disgusted dismay of the others in the cabin.
She had then continued to be sick, or at least have the stomach spasms, after they floated through the airlock tube into the starship’s tiny lounge. Endron, the ship’s systems specialist who doubled as medical officer, had towed her into the sick bay cubicle. Twenty minutes later when the horrid warm itch inside her stomach faded, and some kind of cool fluid was sprayed into her mouth to rinse away the taste of vomit, she began to take stock for the first time. Her ears felt funny, and when she touched one she could feel something hard cupped around the back of it.
“That’s a medical nanonic,” Endron told her. “I’ve put one package behind each ear. Don’t try and take them off, they’ve knitted with your inner ears. It ought to solve your balance problem.”
“Thank you,” she said meekly. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
“You’re not. If only your sister was as quiet as you.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Is she being a nuisance?”
He laughed. “Not really. We’re just not used to girls her age on board, that’s all.”
Louise stopped fingering the medical package. When she brought her hand away she saw a strange green bracelet on her wrist; it was made from a substance like lustreless polythene, an inch wide and about half an inch thick. There was no join, it was solid. On closer inspection she saw it had fused to her skin, yet it wasn’t painful.
“Another package,” Endron said dryly. “Again, don’t touch it, please.”
“Is it for my balance as well?”
“No. That one is for your other condition. It will keep your blood chemistry stable, and if it detects any metabolic problem starting from free-fall exposure it’ll datavise a warning to me.”
“Other condition?” she asked timidly.
“You did know you were pregnant, didn’t you?”
She closed her eyes and nodded, too ashamed to look at him. A complete stranger knowing. How awful.
“You should have told Furay,” he remonstrated gently. “Free fall exerts some strong physiological changes on a body, especially if you’re unaccustomed to it. And in your state, you really should have been prepared properly before the spaceplane took off.”
A warm tear squeezed out from under her eyelids. “It’s all right, isn’t it? The baby. Oh, please, I didn’t know.”
“Shush.” Endron’s hand stroked her forehead soothingly. “The baby is just fine. You’re a very healthy young girl. I’m sorry if I frightened you; like I said, we’re not used to passengers. I suppose it must be equally strange for you, too.”
“It’s all right, really?”
“Yes. And the nanonic will keep it that way.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”
“Just doing my job. I’ll have to consult some files about your diet, though, and check what food stocks we’ve got on board. I’ll get back to you on that one.”
Louise opened her eyes, only to find the cabin blurred by liquid stretching across her irises. A lot of blinking cleared it.
“Let’s get you mobile again,” Endron said, and released the seal on the straps holding her down on the couch. “Though you’re not to whizz about like your sister, mind.”
His tone was identical to Mrs Charlsworth’s. “I won’t.” The rest of the sentence died on her lips as she caught sight of him. Her first thought was that he was suffering some kind of terrible affliction.
Endron’s head was ordinary enough. He was a man in his late fifties, she guessed, with a short crop of fading black, curly hair and cheeks which appeared almost bloated, eradicating wrinkles. However, his body . . . He had very broad shoulders atop an inflated rib cage, she could actually see the lines of individual ribs under his glossy green ship-suit. She’d seen holograms of terrestrial sparrows at school, and the anatomical arrangement put her in mind of that puffed-out bird. His chest was huge, and very frail-looking.
“Not seen a Martian before, huh?” he asked kindly.
Furious with herself for staring, Louise turned her head away. “I’m not sure. Do all Martians look like you?”
“Yep. So you’d better get used to it. This is an SII line ship after all, the rest of the crew are the same as me. Except Furay of course; that’s why he’s on board. We couldn’t fly the spaceplane down to terracompatible planets. Can’t take the gravity.”
“How . . .” She wasn’t sure if this was really a fit subject to discuss so casually. It was almost as though they were talking about a terminal illness. “Why are you like that?”
“Geneering. It’s very deliberate, dates back a while. Even with terraforming we don’t have a standard atmosphere on Mars. Our ancestors decided to meet the problem halfway. As we’re a Communist society, naturally everyone got the modification to expand our lung capacity; and that was on top of the earlier adaptations we made to ourselves to survive in the Moon’s gravity field.”
“The Moon?” Louise asked, trying to sort things out in her mind. “You lived on the Moon first?”
“It was the Lunar nation which terraformed Mars. Didn’t they teach you that at school?”
“Uh, no. At least, we haven’t got to it yet.” She decided not to question him on the communism bit. Given Daddy’s opinion on that topic, it would make life a little too complicated right now.
He was smiling gently at her. “I think that’s enough history. It’s nearing midnight, Norwich time. Perhaps you’d better get some sleep, yes?”
She gave him an eager nod.
Endron coached her in the elementary movements necessary to get about in free fall. Speed was not a requirement, he insisted, arriving safely and accurately at your destination was. And you must be careful of inertia, it creates huge bruises.
With his encouragement she made her way into the life support capsule they’d been allocated: a lounge five yards to a side, made from grubby pearl-grey composite walls which were inlaid with several instrument panels with tiny orange and green lights winking below their dark glass surfaces. Plastic doors which were like a kind of solidified liquid flowed apart to reveal three “cabins” for them to sleep in (the wardrobes she had in her Cricklade bedroom were larger). There was a bathroom in the upper deck at which Louise took one look and promptly recoiled, vowing not to go to the toilet again until they were safely back on a planet.
Genevieve shot up to embrace her as soon as she glided through the ceiling hatch. Fletcher smiled a welcome.
“Isn’t this truly wondrous!” the little girl proclaimed. She was floating with her toes six inches off the decking, spinning like a ballerina. Two ponytails stood out at right angles from her head. When she spread her arms wide her speed slowed. A neat toe kick, too quick to follow, and she soared up to the ceiling, clasping a grab hoop to kill her movement. Enchanted eyes smiled at Louise. “Bet you I can do seven somersaults before I reach the floor.”
“You probably can,” Louise said wearily.
“Oh.” Genevieve’s face was instantly contrite. She levitated back to the decking until she was level with Louise. “I’m sorry. How are you feeling?”
“Fine now. And it’s time for bed.”
“Oww, Louise!”
“Now.”
“All right.”
Endron proffered the girl a squeeze bulb. “Here, it’s a chocolate drink. Try it, I’m sure you’ll like it.”
Genevieve started sucking eagerly on the nozzle.
“You are recovered, lady?” Fletcher asked.
“Yes. Thank you, Fletcher.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, unaware of Endron watching them.
One of the instrument panels let out a quiet bleep.
Endron scowled and drifted over to it, anchoring himself on a stikpad. “Shoddy components,” he muttered.
Fletcher gave Louise an apologetic grimace, mildly embarrassed. “I can’t stop it,” he said in a whisper.
“Not your fault,” she whispered back. “Don’t worry. The ship still works.”
“Yes, lady.”
“That was nice,” Genevieve announced. She held out the empty squeeze bulb and promptly burped.
“Gen!”
“Sorry.”
With Endron showing her how the cabin fittings worked, Louise finally got Genevieve into bed; a heavily padded sleeping bag stuck to the decking. Louise tucked her sister’s hair into the hood and kissed her gently. Genevieve gave her a drowsy smile and immediately closed her eyes.
“She’ll sleep for a good eight hours now she’s got that sedative in her,” Endron said, holding up the empty squeeze bulb. “And when she wakes up she won’t be anything like as hyper. Furay told me what she was like when you boarded the spaceplane. She was having a bounceback response to the hangar fire. In a way that kind of overreaction is as bad as depressive withdrawal.”
“I see.” There didn’t seem anything to add. She glanced back at Genevieve before the funny door contracted. For one whole night there would be no possessed, no Roberto, and no Quinn Dexter.
I’ve done what I promised, Louise thought. Thank you, Jesus.
Despite how tired she was feeling, she managed a prideful smile. No longer the worthless, pampered landowner daughter Carmitha had such contempt for just scant days ago. I suppose I’ve grown up a bit.
“You should rest now, lady,” Fletcher said.
She yawned. “I think you’re right. Are you going to bed?”
For once Fletcher’s sedate features showed a certain lightness. “I believe I will linger awhile longer.” He indicated a holoscreen which was displaying the image from an external camera. Cloud-splattered landscape was rolling past, pastel greens, browns, and blues illuminated by Duke’s radiance. “It is not often a mortal man is permitted to view a world over the shoulder of angels.”
“Good night, Fletcher.”
“Good night, lady. May the Lord guard your dreams from the darkness.”
Louise didn’t have time to dream. A hand pressing her shoulder woke her soon enough.
She winced at the light coming through the open door. When she tried to move, she couldn’t, the sleeping bag held her too tight.
“What?” she groaned.
Fletcher’s face was a few inches from hers, a gloomy frown spoiling his brow. “I apologise, lady, but the crew is in some confusion. I thought you should know.”
“Are they on board?” she cried in dismay.
“Who?”
“The possessed.”
“No, Lady Louise. Be assured, we are perfectly safe.”
“What then?”
“I think they are in another ship.”
“All right, I’m coming.” Her hand fumbled around until she found the seal catch inside the bag; she twisted it ninety degrees and the spongy fabric split open along its length. After she dressed she wrapped her hair into a single artless ponytail, and swam out into the tiny lounge.
Fletcher showed her the way to the bridge, wriggling along the tubular companionways which connected the life-support capsules, and through dimly lit decks which appeared even more cramped than their lounge. Louise’s first sight of the bridge reminded her of the Kavanagh family crypt beneath the manor’s chapel: a gloomy room with candlelike crystals sitting on top of instrument consoles, spilling out waves of blue and green light which crawled across the walls. Machinery, ribbed tubes, and plastic cables formed an untidy glyptic over most bulkheads. But most of all it came from the four crew members lying prone on their bulky acceleration couches; eyes closed, limbs immobile. A thin hexagonal web was stretched over them, holding them down on the cushioning.
Furay and Endron she recognised, but this was the first time she’d seen Captain Layia and Tilia, the Far Realm ’s node specialist. Endron had been right, the other Martians had exactly the same anatomical features as himself. In fact there was very little difference between genders; Louise wasn’t entirely sure the two women even had breasts. On top of that rib cage they would have been absurd.
“Now what?” she asked Fletcher.
“I am not sure, their repose refutes any disturbance.”
“It’s not sleep, they’re datavising with the flight computer. Joshua told me that’s what happens on a starship bridge. Um, I’ll explain later.” Louise blushed faintly; Joshua had become such a fixture in her life it was hard to remember who he actually was. She used some grab hoops to move herself over to Furay’s couch, and tapped him experimentally on the shoulder. Somehow the thought of disturbing the others didn’t arise, a child-fear of how those strange figures would respond.
Furay opened his eyes in annoyance. “Oh, it’s you.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to know what was happening.”
“Yeah, right. Hang on.” The webbing peeled back and curled up, vanishing into the edge of the couch’s cushioning. Furay pushed off, and slowly twisted his body around to the vertical, using a stikpad to anchor himself in front of Louise. “Nothing too good, I’m afraid. The navy squadron’s commanding admiral has put every ship on condition amber, which is one stage short of an actual combat alert.”
“Why?”
“The Tantu has dropped out of our communications net. They won’t respond to any signals. She’s worried that they might have been hijacked. Apparently there was some kind of garbled message a few minutes after the frigate’s spaceplane docked, then nothing.”
Louise flashed a guilty glance at Fletcher, who remained unperturbed. The action did not go unnoticed by Furay. “The Tantu ’s spaceplane left Bennett Field about ten minutes after us. Care to comment?”
“The rebels were close behind us,” Louise said quickly. “Perhaps they stowed away on the other spaceplane.”
“And took over an entire frigate?” Furay said sceptically.
“They have energy weapons,” Louise said. “I’ve seen them.”
“Try waving a laser rifle around on the bridge of a Confederation Navy starship and the marines would cut you into barbecue ribs.”
“I have no other explanation,” she said earnestly.
“Hummm.” His stare informed her he was having big second thoughts about bringing her on board.
“What remedial action does the admiral propose?” Fletcher asked.
“She hasn’t decided yet. The Serir has been sent to rendezvous. The situation will be reviewed when they report.”
“She?” Fletcher asked in surprise. “Your admiral is a lady?”
Furay pulled at his chin, trying to work out just what the hell he was dealing with.
“Yes, Fletcher,” Louise hissed. “We don’t have many female estate managers on Norfolk,” she explained brightly to Furay. “We’re not used to ladies holding important positions. Do excuse our ignorance.”
“You don’t strike me as unimportant, Louise,” Furay said.
His tone was so muddled, silky, and scathing at the same time, she couldn’t decide if he was making what Mrs Charlsworth called an overture, or just being plain sarcastic.
Furay suddenly stiffened. “It’s moving.”
“What is?”
“The Tantu . It’s under way, heading up out of orbit. Your rebels must have hijacked it, there’s no other reason.”
“The ship is flying away?” Fletcher asked.
“That’s what I just said!” Furay told him in irritation. “They must be heading up for a jump coordinate.”
“What’s the admiral doing about it?” Louise asked.
“I’m not sure. The Far Realm isn’t a combat craft, we don’t have access to the squadron’s strategic communications.”
“We must follow it,” Fletcher announced.
“Pardon me?”
Louise glared at him with silent urgency.
“This ship must follow the frigate. People must be warned of what it carries.”
“And just what does it carry?” Furay asked mildly.
“Rebels,” Louise said hurriedly. “People who’ve looted and murdered, and will do so again if they aren’t arrested. But I’m sure we can leave the administering of justice to the Confederation Navy, can’t we, Fletcher?”
“Lady—”
“Exactly what has got you so all-fired het up?” Captain Layia asked. Her couch webbing peeled back allowing her to glide over towards the three of them.
Her face did have a few feminine qualities, Louise admitted, but not many; the shaven scalp was too unsettling—all ladies had long hair. The judgemental way Layia took in the scene betrayed her authority; that she was in command had never been in doubt from the moment she spoke, it had nothing to do with the silver star on her epaulette.
“I am concerned that we should follow the frigate, ma’am,” Fletcher said. “The rebels on board cannot be allowed to spread their sedition any further.”
“Nor will they be allowed to,” Layia said patiently. “I can assure you the admiral does not regard the hijacking of a navy frigate lightly. However, it is a navy matter, and we are just a supply ship. It is not our problem.”
“But they must be stopped.”
“How? If you use combat wasps you’ll kill everyone on board.”
Fletcher appealed to Louise, who could only shrug, though the motion didn’t quite come off in free fall.
“The admiral will send a ship to pursue them,” Captain Layia said. “When it arrives in a star system it will simply broadcast the situation to the authorities. The Tantu will be unable to dock at any port, and eventually their consumables will run out, forcing them to negotiate.”
“Those on board will not be allowed to disembark?” Fletcher asked apprehensively.
“Absolutely not,” the captain assured him.
“Providing the pursuit ship manages to keep up with them through their ZTT jumps,” Furay said pessimistically. “If Tantu programs for a sequential jump sequence, then anyone following will be in trouble, unless it’s a voidhawk. Which it won’t be, because the squadron doesn’t have one.” He trailed off under the captain’s stare. “Sorry, but that’s the normal method to avoid tracking, and every navy ship can perform sequential jumps. You know that.”
“Ma’am, please,” Fletcher entreated, “if there is any chance the rebels can escape, we have to fly after them.”
“One, you’re a passenger. I believe Mr Furay explained how we are obliged to stay in Norfolk orbit as long as the navy requires, and no amount of money can alter that. Two, if I broke orbit to chase the Tantu , then the admiral would have me brought back and relieved of my duty. Three, as you’ve been so helpfully informed, the Tantu can perform sequential jumps; if a top-line frigate can’t follow them through those manoeuvres, then we certainly can’t. And four, mister, if you don’t get off my bridge right now , I’ll sling you into a lifeboat and give you a one-way trip back down to the land you love so dearly. Have you got all that?”
“Yes, Captain,” Louise said, feeling an inch small. “Sorry to bother you. We won’t do it again.”
“Aw shit,” Endron called from his acceleration couch. “I’m getting multiple processor dropouts. Whatever this glitch is, it’s multiplying.”
Layia looked at Louise, and jabbed a finger at the hatch.
Louise grabbed Fletcher’s arm and pushed off with her feet, trying to propel them towards the hatchway. She didn’t like the expression of anguish on his face one bit. Her trajectory wasn’t terribly accurate, and Fletcher had to flip them aside from one of the consoles.
“What are you trying to do?” Louise wailed when they were back in the lounge they’d been allocated. “Don’t you understand how dangerous it is to antagonize the captain?” She caught herself and clamped a hand over her mouth, distraught at the gaffe. “Oh, Fletcher, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yet you spoke the truth, lady. As always. It was foolish of me, I admit, aye, and reckless too. For you and the little one must remain safe up here.” He turned and looked at the holoscreen. They were over the side of Norfolk which was turned to face Duchess, a harsh vista of reds and black.
“Why, Fletcher? What was so important about following Quinn Dexter? The navy can take care of him. Are you worried what’ll happen if he gets loose on another planet?”
“Not exactly, lady. Alas, there are many possessed abroad in your fine Confederation now. No, I have seen into that man’s heart, and he frightens me sorely, Lady Louise, a fright more profound than the hell of beyond. He is the strange one I felt earlier. He is not as other possessed. He is a monster, a bringer of evil. I have resolved this matter in my own mind, though it has taken many hours of struggle. I must become his nemesis.”
“Dexter’s?” she said weakly.
“Yes, my lady. I think he may be the reason Our Lord blessed me to return. I am vouchsafed a clarity in this regard I cannot in conscience ignore. I must raise the alarm before he can advance his schemes further to the misery of other worlds.”
“But it’s not possible for us to go after him.”
“Aye, lady, such a conundrum has a fierce grip upon my heart, borrowed though it be. It squeezes like a fire. To have been so close, and to lose the scent.”
“We might not have lost him,” Louise said, her thoughts aching they were spinning so fast.
“How so, lady?”
“He said he was going to Earth. To Earth so he could hurt someone . . . Banneth. He was going to hurt Banneth.”
“Then Banneth must be warned. He will commit such terrible atrocities in pursuit of his devilsome aims. I can never purge what he said of the little one from my mind. To even think such filth. Only in his head do such ideas dwell.”
“Well, we are going to Mars anyway. I expect there will be more ships flying to Earth than to Tranquillity. But I don’t have a clue how you could find Banneth once you get there.”
“Every voyage is divided into stages, lady. It is best to sail them one at a time.”
She watched him for some while as the holoscreen’s pallid light washed across his rapt face. “Why did you mutiny, Fletcher? Was it truly terrible on the Bounty ?”
He gazed at her in surprise, then slowly smiled. “Not the conditions, lady, though I doubt you would much care for them. It was one man, my captain. He it was, the force moving my life towards the shore of destiny. William Bligh was my friend when the voyage started, strange though it is to recount such a fact now. But oh, how the sea changed him. He was embittered by his lack of promotion, fired by his notions of how a ship should be run. Never have I witnessed such barbarism from a man who claimed to be civilized, nor endured such treatment at his hands. I will spare you the anguish of detail, my fair lady Louise, but suffice it to say that all men have a breaking point. And mine was found during that long, dreadful voyage. However, I endure no shame over my actions. Many good and honest men were freed from his tyranny.”
“Then you were in the right?”
“I believe so. If this day I were called before the captains in a court-martial, I could give a just account of my actions.”
“Now you want to do something similar again. Freeing people, I mean.”
“Yes, lady. Though I would endure a thousand voyages with Bligh as my master in preference to one with Quinn Dexter. I had thought William Bligh versed in the ways of cruelty. I see now how mistaken I was. Now, to my horror, I have looked upon true evil. I will not forget the form it takes.”
Chapter 10
Within a hundred seconds all seven frigates were destroyed.
Ten minutes later, the rest of the Organization’s starships started to emerge from their ZTT jumps. Their predicament was even worse. They were expecting the specialist frigates to have established a defensive perimeter. It took time for an ordinary Adamist starship to deploy its sensor clusters and scan local space for possible danger; time which in this case was lengthened by malfunctioning equipment. When the sensors finally did relay an image of the external arena, it seemed as though a small galaxy was on the move. Yosemite was almost invisible behind a sparkling nebula of fusion drives; thousands of combat wasps and tens of thousands of submunitions were generating a fraudulent dawn across half of the colossal planet’s nightside. And the nebula was contracting, twin central whorls twisting lazily into two dense spires which were rising inexorably towards the emergence zones.
One by one, the Organization starships crashed against the terrible, moon-sized mountains of light, detonating into photonic avalanches which tumbled away into the yawning darkness.
Two hours later, the voidhawks on observation duty above New California reported that Capone’s third squadron was leaving the orbital asteroids. When they were a quarter of a million kilometres above the planet, the starships activated their energy patterning nodes and vanished. Consensus was puzzled by the vector; they weren’t aligned on any known inhabited world.
Not even the ending of the physical threat had brought any relief to the turmoil in Louise’s head. They had flown all the way into orbit to dock with the Far Realm without any problem, although Furay had grumbled constantly about bits of machinery going wrong on the ascent.
The starship itself wasn’t quite as impressive as she’d been expecting. The interior was like servants’ quarters, except made out of metal and plastic. There were four spheres grouped together in a pyramid shape, which the crew called life-support capsules, and that was the total available living space; apparently the rest of the ship inside the hull was solid machinery. Everything was so dreadfully small—tables, chairs, bunks; and what wasn’t being used had to be folded away. And to complete her misery, free fall was an utter nightmare.
It was ironic. As Genevieve had perked up during the spaceplane flight, so Louise had felt gradually worse. As soon as the rocket engines finally cut out, leaving them floating free, Genevieve had yelled delightedly, releasing her webbing and hurtling around the cabin, giggling as she bounced and somersaulted. Even Fletcher, after his initial alarm at the sensation, had relaxed, smiling cautiously as he attempted a few simple gymnast manoeuvres with Genevieve cheering him on.
But not her. Oh, no. She’d been wretchedly sick three times during the rendezvous, what with the spaceplane juddering around the whole time. It had taken her several tries to learn how to use the sanitation tube provided for such instances, much to the disgusted dismay of the others in the cabin.
She had then continued to be sick, or at least have the stomach spasms, after they floated through the airlock tube into the starship’s tiny lounge. Endron, the ship’s systems specialist who doubled as medical officer, had towed her into the sick bay cubicle. Twenty minutes later when the horrid warm itch inside her stomach faded, and some kind of cool fluid was sprayed into her mouth to rinse away the taste of vomit, she began to take stock for the first time. Her ears felt funny, and when she touched one she could feel something hard cupped around the back of it.
“That’s a medical nanonic,” Endron told her. “I’ve put one package behind each ear. Don’t try and take them off, they’ve knitted with your inner ears. It ought to solve your balance problem.”
“Thank you,” she said meekly. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
“You’re not. If only your sister was as quiet as you.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Is she being a nuisance?”
He laughed. “Not really. We’re just not used to girls her age on board, that’s all.”
Louise stopped fingering the medical package. When she brought her hand away she saw a strange green bracelet on her wrist; it was made from a substance like lustreless polythene, an inch wide and about half an inch thick. There was no join, it was solid. On closer inspection she saw it had fused to her skin, yet it wasn’t painful.
“Another package,” Endron said dryly. “Again, don’t touch it, please.”
“Is it for my balance as well?”
“No. That one is for your other condition. It will keep your blood chemistry stable, and if it detects any metabolic problem starting from free-fall exposure it’ll datavise a warning to me.”
“Other condition?” she asked timidly.
“You did know you were pregnant, didn’t you?”
She closed her eyes and nodded, too ashamed to look at him. A complete stranger knowing. How awful.
“You should have told Furay,” he remonstrated gently. “Free fall exerts some strong physiological changes on a body, especially if you’re unaccustomed to it. And in your state, you really should have been prepared properly before the spaceplane took off.”
A warm tear squeezed out from under her eyelids. “It’s all right, isn’t it? The baby. Oh, please, I didn’t know.”
“Shush.” Endron’s hand stroked her forehead soothingly. “The baby is just fine. You’re a very healthy young girl. I’m sorry if I frightened you; like I said, we’re not used to passengers. I suppose it must be equally strange for you, too.”
“It’s all right, really?”
“Yes. And the nanonic will keep it that way.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”
“Just doing my job. I’ll have to consult some files about your diet, though, and check what food stocks we’ve got on board. I’ll get back to you on that one.”
Louise opened her eyes, only to find the cabin blurred by liquid stretching across her irises. A lot of blinking cleared it.
“Let’s get you mobile again,” Endron said, and released the seal on the straps holding her down on the couch. “Though you’re not to whizz about like your sister, mind.”
His tone was identical to Mrs Charlsworth’s. “I won’t.” The rest of the sentence died on her lips as she caught sight of him. Her first thought was that he was suffering some kind of terrible affliction.
Endron’s head was ordinary enough. He was a man in his late fifties, she guessed, with a short crop of fading black, curly hair and cheeks which appeared almost bloated, eradicating wrinkles. However, his body . . . He had very broad shoulders atop an inflated rib cage, she could actually see the lines of individual ribs under his glossy green ship-suit. She’d seen holograms of terrestrial sparrows at school, and the anatomical arrangement put her in mind of that puffed-out bird. His chest was huge, and very frail-looking.
“Not seen a Martian before, huh?” he asked kindly.
Furious with herself for staring, Louise turned her head away. “I’m not sure. Do all Martians look like you?”
“Yep. So you’d better get used to it. This is an SII line ship after all, the rest of the crew are the same as me. Except Furay of course; that’s why he’s on board. We couldn’t fly the spaceplane down to terracompatible planets. Can’t take the gravity.”
“How . . .” She wasn’t sure if this was really a fit subject to discuss so casually. It was almost as though they were talking about a terminal illness. “Why are you like that?”
“Geneering. It’s very deliberate, dates back a while. Even with terraforming we don’t have a standard atmosphere on Mars. Our ancestors decided to meet the problem halfway. As we’re a Communist society, naturally everyone got the modification to expand our lung capacity; and that was on top of the earlier adaptations we made to ourselves to survive in the Moon’s gravity field.”
“The Moon?” Louise asked, trying to sort things out in her mind. “You lived on the Moon first?”
“It was the Lunar nation which terraformed Mars. Didn’t they teach you that at school?”
“Uh, no. At least, we haven’t got to it yet.” She decided not to question him on the communism bit. Given Daddy’s opinion on that topic, it would make life a little too complicated right now.
He was smiling gently at her. “I think that’s enough history. It’s nearing midnight, Norwich time. Perhaps you’d better get some sleep, yes?”
She gave him an eager nod.
Endron coached her in the elementary movements necessary to get about in free fall. Speed was not a requirement, he insisted, arriving safely and accurately at your destination was. And you must be careful of inertia, it creates huge bruises.
With his encouragement she made her way into the life support capsule they’d been allocated: a lounge five yards to a side, made from grubby pearl-grey composite walls which were inlaid with several instrument panels with tiny orange and green lights winking below their dark glass surfaces. Plastic doors which were like a kind of solidified liquid flowed apart to reveal three “cabins” for them to sleep in (the wardrobes she had in her Cricklade bedroom were larger). There was a bathroom in the upper deck at which Louise took one look and promptly recoiled, vowing not to go to the toilet again until they were safely back on a planet.
Genevieve shot up to embrace her as soon as she glided through the ceiling hatch. Fletcher smiled a welcome.
“Isn’t this truly wondrous!” the little girl proclaimed. She was floating with her toes six inches off the decking, spinning like a ballerina. Two ponytails stood out at right angles from her head. When she spread her arms wide her speed slowed. A neat toe kick, too quick to follow, and she soared up to the ceiling, clasping a grab hoop to kill her movement. Enchanted eyes smiled at Louise. “Bet you I can do seven somersaults before I reach the floor.”
“You probably can,” Louise said wearily.
“Oh.” Genevieve’s face was instantly contrite. She levitated back to the decking until she was level with Louise. “I’m sorry. How are you feeling?”
“Fine now. And it’s time for bed.”
“Oww, Louise!”
“Now.”
“All right.”
Endron proffered the girl a squeeze bulb. “Here, it’s a chocolate drink. Try it, I’m sure you’ll like it.”
Genevieve started sucking eagerly on the nozzle.
“You are recovered, lady?” Fletcher asked.
“Yes. Thank you, Fletcher.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, unaware of Endron watching them.
One of the instrument panels let out a quiet bleep.
Endron scowled and drifted over to it, anchoring himself on a stikpad. “Shoddy components,” he muttered.
Fletcher gave Louise an apologetic grimace, mildly embarrassed. “I can’t stop it,” he said in a whisper.
“Not your fault,” she whispered back. “Don’t worry. The ship still works.”
“Yes, lady.”
“That was nice,” Genevieve announced. She held out the empty squeeze bulb and promptly burped.
“Gen!”
“Sorry.”
With Endron showing her how the cabin fittings worked, Louise finally got Genevieve into bed; a heavily padded sleeping bag stuck to the decking. Louise tucked her sister’s hair into the hood and kissed her gently. Genevieve gave her a drowsy smile and immediately closed her eyes.
“She’ll sleep for a good eight hours now she’s got that sedative in her,” Endron said, holding up the empty squeeze bulb. “And when she wakes up she won’t be anything like as hyper. Furay told me what she was like when you boarded the spaceplane. She was having a bounceback response to the hangar fire. In a way that kind of overreaction is as bad as depressive withdrawal.”
“I see.” There didn’t seem anything to add. She glanced back at Genevieve before the funny door contracted. For one whole night there would be no possessed, no Roberto, and no Quinn Dexter.
I’ve done what I promised, Louise thought. Thank you, Jesus.
Despite how tired she was feeling, she managed a prideful smile. No longer the worthless, pampered landowner daughter Carmitha had such contempt for just scant days ago. I suppose I’ve grown up a bit.
“You should rest now, lady,” Fletcher said.
She yawned. “I think you’re right. Are you going to bed?”
For once Fletcher’s sedate features showed a certain lightness. “I believe I will linger awhile longer.” He indicated a holoscreen which was displaying the image from an external camera. Cloud-splattered landscape was rolling past, pastel greens, browns, and blues illuminated by Duke’s radiance. “It is not often a mortal man is permitted to view a world over the shoulder of angels.”
“Good night, Fletcher.”
“Good night, lady. May the Lord guard your dreams from the darkness.”
Louise didn’t have time to dream. A hand pressing her shoulder woke her soon enough.
She winced at the light coming through the open door. When she tried to move, she couldn’t, the sleeping bag held her too tight.
“What?” she groaned.
Fletcher’s face was a few inches from hers, a gloomy frown spoiling his brow. “I apologise, lady, but the crew is in some confusion. I thought you should know.”
“Are they on board?” she cried in dismay.
“Who?”
“The possessed.”
“No, Lady Louise. Be assured, we are perfectly safe.”
“What then?”
“I think they are in another ship.”
“All right, I’m coming.” Her hand fumbled around until she found the seal catch inside the bag; she twisted it ninety degrees and the spongy fabric split open along its length. After she dressed she wrapped her hair into a single artless ponytail, and swam out into the tiny lounge.
Fletcher showed her the way to the bridge, wriggling along the tubular companionways which connected the life-support capsules, and through dimly lit decks which appeared even more cramped than their lounge. Louise’s first sight of the bridge reminded her of the Kavanagh family crypt beneath the manor’s chapel: a gloomy room with candlelike crystals sitting on top of instrument consoles, spilling out waves of blue and green light which crawled across the walls. Machinery, ribbed tubes, and plastic cables formed an untidy glyptic over most bulkheads. But most of all it came from the four crew members lying prone on their bulky acceleration couches; eyes closed, limbs immobile. A thin hexagonal web was stretched over them, holding them down on the cushioning.
Furay and Endron she recognised, but this was the first time she’d seen Captain Layia and Tilia, the Far Realm ’s node specialist. Endron had been right, the other Martians had exactly the same anatomical features as himself. In fact there was very little difference between genders; Louise wasn’t entirely sure the two women even had breasts. On top of that rib cage they would have been absurd.
“Now what?” she asked Fletcher.
“I am not sure, their repose refutes any disturbance.”
“It’s not sleep, they’re datavising with the flight computer. Joshua told me that’s what happens on a starship bridge. Um, I’ll explain later.” Louise blushed faintly; Joshua had become such a fixture in her life it was hard to remember who he actually was. She used some grab hoops to move herself over to Furay’s couch, and tapped him experimentally on the shoulder. Somehow the thought of disturbing the others didn’t arise, a child-fear of how those strange figures would respond.
Furay opened his eyes in annoyance. “Oh, it’s you.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to know what was happening.”
“Yeah, right. Hang on.” The webbing peeled back and curled up, vanishing into the edge of the couch’s cushioning. Furay pushed off, and slowly twisted his body around to the vertical, using a stikpad to anchor himself in front of Louise. “Nothing too good, I’m afraid. The navy squadron’s commanding admiral has put every ship on condition amber, which is one stage short of an actual combat alert.”
“Why?”
“The Tantu has dropped out of our communications net. They won’t respond to any signals. She’s worried that they might have been hijacked. Apparently there was some kind of garbled message a few minutes after the frigate’s spaceplane docked, then nothing.”
Louise flashed a guilty glance at Fletcher, who remained unperturbed. The action did not go unnoticed by Furay. “The Tantu ’s spaceplane left Bennett Field about ten minutes after us. Care to comment?”
“The rebels were close behind us,” Louise said quickly. “Perhaps they stowed away on the other spaceplane.”
“And took over an entire frigate?” Furay said sceptically.
“They have energy weapons,” Louise said. “I’ve seen them.”
“Try waving a laser rifle around on the bridge of a Confederation Navy starship and the marines would cut you into barbecue ribs.”
“I have no other explanation,” she said earnestly.
“Hummm.” His stare informed her he was having big second thoughts about bringing her on board.
“What remedial action does the admiral propose?” Fletcher asked.
“She hasn’t decided yet. The Serir has been sent to rendezvous. The situation will be reviewed when they report.”
“She?” Fletcher asked in surprise. “Your admiral is a lady?”
Furay pulled at his chin, trying to work out just what the hell he was dealing with.
“Yes, Fletcher,” Louise hissed. “We don’t have many female estate managers on Norfolk,” she explained brightly to Furay. “We’re not used to ladies holding important positions. Do excuse our ignorance.”
“You don’t strike me as unimportant, Louise,” Furay said.
His tone was so muddled, silky, and scathing at the same time, she couldn’t decide if he was making what Mrs Charlsworth called an overture, or just being plain sarcastic.
Furay suddenly stiffened. “It’s moving.”
“What is?”
“The Tantu . It’s under way, heading up out of orbit. Your rebels must have hijacked it, there’s no other reason.”
“The ship is flying away?” Fletcher asked.
“That’s what I just said!” Furay told him in irritation. “They must be heading up for a jump coordinate.”
“What’s the admiral doing about it?” Louise asked.
“I’m not sure. The Far Realm isn’t a combat craft, we don’t have access to the squadron’s strategic communications.”
“We must follow it,” Fletcher announced.
“Pardon me?”
Louise glared at him with silent urgency.
“This ship must follow the frigate. People must be warned of what it carries.”
“And just what does it carry?” Furay asked mildly.
“Rebels,” Louise said hurriedly. “People who’ve looted and murdered, and will do so again if they aren’t arrested. But I’m sure we can leave the administering of justice to the Confederation Navy, can’t we, Fletcher?”
“Lady—”
“Exactly what has got you so all-fired het up?” Captain Layia asked. Her couch webbing peeled back allowing her to glide over towards the three of them.
Her face did have a few feminine qualities, Louise admitted, but not many; the shaven scalp was too unsettling—all ladies had long hair. The judgemental way Layia took in the scene betrayed her authority; that she was in command had never been in doubt from the moment she spoke, it had nothing to do with the silver star on her epaulette.
“I am concerned that we should follow the frigate, ma’am,” Fletcher said. “The rebels on board cannot be allowed to spread their sedition any further.”
“Nor will they be allowed to,” Layia said patiently. “I can assure you the admiral does not regard the hijacking of a navy frigate lightly. However, it is a navy matter, and we are just a supply ship. It is not our problem.”
“But they must be stopped.”
“How? If you use combat wasps you’ll kill everyone on board.”
Fletcher appealed to Louise, who could only shrug, though the motion didn’t quite come off in free fall.
“The admiral will send a ship to pursue them,” Captain Layia said. “When it arrives in a star system it will simply broadcast the situation to the authorities. The Tantu will be unable to dock at any port, and eventually their consumables will run out, forcing them to negotiate.”
“Those on board will not be allowed to disembark?” Fletcher asked apprehensively.
“Absolutely not,” the captain assured him.
“Providing the pursuit ship manages to keep up with them through their ZTT jumps,” Furay said pessimistically. “If Tantu programs for a sequential jump sequence, then anyone following will be in trouble, unless it’s a voidhawk. Which it won’t be, because the squadron doesn’t have one.” He trailed off under the captain’s stare. “Sorry, but that’s the normal method to avoid tracking, and every navy ship can perform sequential jumps. You know that.”
“Ma’am, please,” Fletcher entreated, “if there is any chance the rebels can escape, we have to fly after them.”
“One, you’re a passenger. I believe Mr Furay explained how we are obliged to stay in Norfolk orbit as long as the navy requires, and no amount of money can alter that. Two, if I broke orbit to chase the Tantu , then the admiral would have me brought back and relieved of my duty. Three, as you’ve been so helpfully informed, the Tantu can perform sequential jumps; if a top-line frigate can’t follow them through those manoeuvres, then we certainly can’t. And four, mister, if you don’t get off my bridge right now , I’ll sling you into a lifeboat and give you a one-way trip back down to the land you love so dearly. Have you got all that?”
“Yes, Captain,” Louise said, feeling an inch small. “Sorry to bother you. We won’t do it again.”
“Aw shit,” Endron called from his acceleration couch. “I’m getting multiple processor dropouts. Whatever this glitch is, it’s multiplying.”
Layia looked at Louise, and jabbed a finger at the hatch.
Louise grabbed Fletcher’s arm and pushed off with her feet, trying to propel them towards the hatchway. She didn’t like the expression of anguish on his face one bit. Her trajectory wasn’t terribly accurate, and Fletcher had to flip them aside from one of the consoles.
“What are you trying to do?” Louise wailed when they were back in the lounge they’d been allocated. “Don’t you understand how dangerous it is to antagonize the captain?” She caught herself and clamped a hand over her mouth, distraught at the gaffe. “Oh, Fletcher, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yet you spoke the truth, lady. As always. It was foolish of me, I admit, aye, and reckless too. For you and the little one must remain safe up here.” He turned and looked at the holoscreen. They were over the side of Norfolk which was turned to face Duchess, a harsh vista of reds and black.
“Why, Fletcher? What was so important about following Quinn Dexter? The navy can take care of him. Are you worried what’ll happen if he gets loose on another planet?”
“Not exactly, lady. Alas, there are many possessed abroad in your fine Confederation now. No, I have seen into that man’s heart, and he frightens me sorely, Lady Louise, a fright more profound than the hell of beyond. He is the strange one I felt earlier. He is not as other possessed. He is a monster, a bringer of evil. I have resolved this matter in my own mind, though it has taken many hours of struggle. I must become his nemesis.”
“Dexter’s?” she said weakly.
“Yes, my lady. I think he may be the reason Our Lord blessed me to return. I am vouchsafed a clarity in this regard I cannot in conscience ignore. I must raise the alarm before he can advance his schemes further to the misery of other worlds.”
“But it’s not possible for us to go after him.”
“Aye, lady, such a conundrum has a fierce grip upon my heart, borrowed though it be. It squeezes like a fire. To have been so close, and to lose the scent.”
“We might not have lost him,” Louise said, her thoughts aching they were spinning so fast.
“How so, lady?”
“He said he was going to Earth. To Earth so he could hurt someone . . . Banneth. He was going to hurt Banneth.”
“Then Banneth must be warned. He will commit such terrible atrocities in pursuit of his devilsome aims. I can never purge what he said of the little one from my mind. To even think such filth. Only in his head do such ideas dwell.”
“Well, we are going to Mars anyway. I expect there will be more ships flying to Earth than to Tranquillity. But I don’t have a clue how you could find Banneth once you get there.”
“Every voyage is divided into stages, lady. It is best to sail them one at a time.”
She watched him for some while as the holoscreen’s pallid light washed across his rapt face. “Why did you mutiny, Fletcher? Was it truly terrible on the Bounty ?”
He gazed at her in surprise, then slowly smiled. “Not the conditions, lady, though I doubt you would much care for them. It was one man, my captain. He it was, the force moving my life towards the shore of destiny. William Bligh was my friend when the voyage started, strange though it is to recount such a fact now. But oh, how the sea changed him. He was embittered by his lack of promotion, fired by his notions of how a ship should be run. Never have I witnessed such barbarism from a man who claimed to be civilized, nor endured such treatment at his hands. I will spare you the anguish of detail, my fair lady Louise, but suffice it to say that all men have a breaking point. And mine was found during that long, dreadful voyage. However, I endure no shame over my actions. Many good and honest men were freed from his tyranny.”
“Then you were in the right?”
“I believe so. If this day I were called before the captains in a court-martial, I could give a just account of my actions.”
“Now you want to do something similar again. Freeing people, I mean.”
“Yes, lady. Though I would endure a thousand voyages with Bligh as my master in preference to one with Quinn Dexter. I had thought William Bligh versed in the ways of cruelty. I see now how mistaken I was. Now, to my horror, I have looked upon true evil. I will not forget the form it takes.”
Chapter 10
The reporters had spent several days in prison, a phrase which their Organization captors studiously avoided; the preferred designation was house arrest, or protective confinement. They’d been singled out and spared when the possessed spread through San Angeles, then corralled with their families in the Uorestone Tower. Patricia Mangano who was in charge of the guard detail allowed the children to play in the opulent lounges while parents mixed freely, speculating on their circumstances and rehashing old gossip as only their profession knew how.
Five times in the last couple of days small groups had been taken out to tour the city, observing the steady falsification of buildings which was the hallmark of a land under possession. Once-familiar suburban streets had undergone timewarps overnight. It was as though some kind of dark architectural ivy were slowly creeping its way upwards, turning chrome-glass to stone, crinkling flat surfaces into arches, pillars, and statues. A plethora of era enclaves had emerged, ranging from 1950s New York avenues to timeless whitewashed Mediterranean villas, Russian dachas to traditional Japanese houses. All of them were ameliorated, more wistful renderings of real life.
The reporters recorded it all as faithfully as they could with their glitch-prone neural nanonic memory cells. This morning, though, was different. All of them had been summoned from their rooms, herded onto buses, and driven the five kilometres to City Hall. They were escorted from the buses by Organization gangsters and assembled on the sidewalk, forming a line between the autoway and the skyscraper’s elaborate arched entrance. On Patricia’s order the gangsters took several paces back, leaving the reporters to themselves.
Gus Remar found his neural nanonics coming back on-line, and immediately started to record his full sensorium, datavising his flek recorder block to make a backup copy. It had been a long time since he’d covered a story in the field. These days he was a senior studio editor at the city’s Time Universe bureau, but the old skill was still there. He started to scan around.
There were no vehicles using the autoway, but crowds were lining the sidewalk, five or six deep at the barrier. When he switched to long-range focus he could see they stretched back for about three blocks. The possessed were a majority, easy to spot in their epoch garments: the outlandish and the tediously uninspired. They seemed to be mingling easily enough with the non-possessed.
A slight fracas two hundred metres away at the back of the crowd caught Gus’s attention. His enhanced retinas zoomed in.
Two men were pushing at each other, faces red with anger. One was a dark, handsome youth, barely twenty with perfectly trimmed black hair; dressed in leather jacket and trousers. An acoustic guitar was slung over his back. The second was older, in his forties, and considerably fatter. His attire was the most bizarre Gus had yet seen on display; some kind of white suit, smothered in rhinestones, with trousers flaring over thirty centimetres around his ankles, and collars which looked like small aircraft wings. Large amber-tinted sunglasses covered a third of his puffed-out face. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, Gus would have said it was a father quarrelling with his son. He shunted his audio discrimination program into primary mode.
“Goddamn fake,” the younger man shouted with a rich Southern drawl. “I was never this .” Hands flicked insultingly over the front of the white costume, ruffling the fit. “You’re what they squeezed me into. You ain’t nothing but a sick disease the record companies cooked up to make money. I would never come back as you.”
The larger man pushed him away. “Who are you calling a fake, son? I am the King, the one and only.”
The shoving began in earnest; both of them trying to floor the other. Amber sunglasses went spinning. Organization gangsters moved in quickly to separate them, but not before the younger Elvis had unslung his guitar ready to brain the Vegas version.
Gus never saw the outcome. The crowd started cheering. A cavalcade had turned onto the autoway. Police motorcycles (Harley-Davidsons, according to Gus’s encyclopedia memory file) appeared first, ten of them with blue and red lights flashing. They were followed by a huge limousine which crawled along at little more than walking pace: a 1920s Cadillac sedan which looked absurdly massive, fat tyres bulging from the weight of its armour plated bodywork. Glass that was at least five centimetres thick shaded the interior aquarium-green. There was one man sitting in the back, waving happily at the crowd.
The city was going wild for him. Al grinned around his cigar and gave them a thumbs-up. Je-zus, but it was like the good old days, riding around in this very same bulletproof Cadillac with the pedestrians staring openmouthed as he went past. In Chicago they’d known it contained a prince of the city. And now in San Angeles they goddamn well knew it again.
The Cadillac drew to a halt outside City Hall. A smiling Dwight Salerno came down the steps to open the door.
“Good to see you back, Al. We missed you.”
Al kissed him on both cheeks, then turned to face the ecstatic crowd, clasping his hands together above his head like he was a prizefighter posing over a whipped opponent. They roared their approval. White fire cascaded and fizzed over the autoway as if Zeus were putting on a Fourth of July display.
“I love you guys!” Al bellowed at the faceless mass of chuckleheads. “Together ain’t no miserable Confederation fucker gonna stop us doing what we wanna do.”
They couldn’t hear the words, not even those in the front rank. But the content was clear enough. The laudation increased.
With one hand still waving frantically, Al turned around and bounded up the stairs into City Hall. Always leave them wanting more, Jez said.
The conference was held in the lobby, a vaulting four-storey cavern that took up over half of the ground floor. An avenue of huge palm trees, cloned from California originals, stretched from the doors to the vast reception desk. Today their solartubes were diminished to an off-white fluorescence, their bowls of loam drying out. Other signs of neglect and hurried tidying were in evidence: defunct valet mechanoids lined up along one wall, emergency exit doors missing, scraps of rubbish swept into piles behind stilled escalators.
The reception desk had been completely cleared, and a row of chairs placed behind it. Al sat in the centre, with two lieutenants on either side. His chair had been raised slightly. He watched the nervous reporters being brought in and marshalled on the floor in front of him. When they’d shushed down he rose to his feet.
“My name is Al Capone, and I suppose you’re all wondering why I asked you here,” he said, and chuckled. Their answering grins were few and far between. Tight asses. “Okay, I’ll lay it on the line for you; you’re here because I want the whole Confederation to know what’s been going down in these parts. Once they know and understand then that’s gonna save everyone a shitload of grief.” He took off his grey fedora and put it down carefully on the polished desk. “It’s an easy situation. My Organization is now in charge of the whole New California system. We’re keeping the planet and the asteroid settlements in order, no exceptions. Now we ain’t out to harm anyone, we just use our clout to keep things flowing along as best they’ll go, same as any other government.”
“Are you running the Edenist habitats, too?” a reporter asked. The rest flinched, waiting for Patricia Mangano’s retribution. It never came, though she looked far from happy.
“Smart of you, buddy,” Al acknowledged with a grudging smile. “No, I ain’t running the Edenist habitats. I could. But I ain’t. Know why? Because we’re about evenly matched, that’s why. We could do a lot of damage to each other if we ever came to fighting. Too much. I don’t want that. I don’t want people sent into the beyond on account of some penny-ante dispute over territory. I’ve been there myself, it’s worse than any fucking nightmare you can imagine; it shouldn’t happen to anyone.”
“Why do you think you’ve been returned from the beyond, Al? Has God passed judgement on you?”
“You got me there, lady. I don’t know why any of this started. But I’ll tell you guys this much: I never saw no angels or no demons while I was stuck in the beyond, none of us did. All I know is we’re back. It ain’t no one’s fault, it just happened. And now we gotta make the best of what’s a pretty shitty deal, that’s what the Organization is for.”
“Excuse me, Mr Capone,” Gus said, encouraged by the response to earlier questions. “What’s the point of your Organization? You don’t need it. The possessed can do whatever they want.”
“Sorry, buddy, you’re way wrong there. Maybe we don’t need quite the same government as we had before, not all that tax, and regulations, and ideology, and shit. But you’ve got to have order, and that’s what I provide. I’m doing everyone a favour by taking charge like this. I’m protecting the possessed from attack by the Confederation Navy. I’m looking out for a whole load of non-possessed; because I’m telling you, without me you certainly wouldn’t be standing here in charge of your own body. See, I’m providing for all kinds of people, even though half of them don’t appreciate it right now. The possessed didn’t have jack shit worked out about where they were going until I came along. Now we’re all working together, making it happen. All because of me and the Organization. If I hadn’t stepped in and kept things going the cities would have busted down, we would have had a whole flood of lost boys heading for the countryside. Listen, I’ve seen the Depression firsthand, I know what it’s like for people who don’t have a job or something to do. And that’s what we were heading for here.”
“So what are your long-range goals, Al? What’s your Organization going to do next?”
“Smooth things out. No one is trying to deny things are still a little rough around the edges down here. We need to work on what kind of society we can build.”
“Is it true you’re planning to attack the Confederation?”
“That’s pure bullshit, buddy. Je-zus, I don’t know where you got that rumour from. No of course we’re not going to attack anyone. But we can defend ourselves pretty good if the Confederation Navy tries any funny stuff, we sure got the ships for that. Hell, I don’t want that to happen. We just want to be peaceable neighbours with everyone. I might even ask if we can join the Confederation.” At the murmur of surprise echoing through the lobby he grinned around happily. “Yeah. Why the hell not? Sure we can ask to join. Maybe some good will come out of it, some kind of compromise that’ll make everyone happy; a solution to all the souls that wanna come back. The Organization can pay Confederation longhairs to grow us all new bodies from scratch, something like that.”
“You mean you’d give up your body if a clone was available?”
Al frowned as Emmet leaned over to murmur in his ear, explaining what a clone was. “Sure,” he said. “Like I told you, we’re all the victims of circumstance.”
“You believe peaceful coexistence is possible?”
Al’s jocularity darkened. “You’d better fucking believe it, buddy. We’re back, and we’re here to stay. Grab that? What I’m trying to convince you guys is that we ain’t no end of the world threat, it’s not us who’s the riders of the Apocalypse. We’ve proved possessed and non-possessed can live together on this planet. Okay, so people out there are alarmed right now, that’s only natural. But we’re frightened too, you can’t expect us to go back to the beyond. We’ve got to work together on this. I’m personally offering the Assembly President my hand in friendship. Now that’s an offer he can’t refuse.”
The glowing red clouds had begun to grow, small ruby speckles blossoming right across Norfolk. Louise, Fletcher, and Genevieve spent their first day in orbit watching the images received by the Far Realm ’s external cameras. Kesteven island was by far the worst. A solid crimson aureole had gathered to mask the land, its shape a distended mockery of the coastline it was obscuring. Strands of ordinary white cloud malingered around its disciplined edges, only to be rebuffed by invisible winds if they drifted too close.
Fletcher assured the girls that in itself the red cloud was harmless. “A simple manifestation of will,” he proclaimed. “Nothing more.”
“You mean it’s just a wish?” Genevieve asked, intrigued. She had woken almost purged of her emotional turmoil; there were none of yesterday’s periods of manic exuberance or haunted silences. Although she was quieter than usual; which Louise thought was about right. She didn’t feel like talking much, either. Neither she nor Fletcher had mentioned the Tantu .
“Quite so, little one.”
“But why are they wishing it?”
“So that they can seek refuge below it from the emptiness of the universe. Even this planet’s sky, which has little night, is not a sight to cherish.”
Over thirty islands now had traces of redness in the air. Louise likened it to watching the outbreak of some terrible disease, a swelling cancer gnawing away at the flesh of her world.
Furay and Endron had come down into the lounge a few times, keeping them informed of the navy squadron’s actions, and the army’s progress. Neither of which amounted to much. The army had landed on two islands, Shropshire and Lindsey, hoping to retake their capitals. But reports from the forwards units were confused.
“Same problem as we had with Kesteven,” Furay confided when he brought them lunch. “We can’t support the lads on the ground because we don’t have any reliable targeting information. And that red cloud has got the admiral badly worried. None of the technical staff can explain it.”
By midafternoon, ship’s time, the army commanders had lost contact with half of their troops. The red cloud was visible over forty-eight islands, nine of which it covered completely. As Duke-day ended for Ramsey island slender wisps were located over a couple of villages. Teams of reserve soldiers were hurriedly flown in from Norwich. In both cases contact was lost within fifteen minutes of them entering the area.
Louise watched grimly as the coiling cloud thickened over each village. “I was right,” she said miserably. “There’s nothing anybody here can do. It’s only a matter of time now.”
Tolton made his way up the narrow creek, water from the narrow stream slopping over his glittery purple shoes. The top of the steep bank, a fringe of sandy grass, was several centimetres above his head. He couldn’t see out onto the parkland, and nobody could see him—thankfully. Far overhead, Valisk’s light tube gleamed. The intensity hurt Tolton’s eyes. He was a night person, used to the clubs, bars, and vestibules of the starscrapers, delivering his poet sermons to the ship crew burnouts, bluesensers, stimmed-out wasters, and mercenaries who sprawled throughout the lower floors of the starscrapers. They tolerated him, those lost entities, listening to (or laughing at) his carefully crafted words, donating their own stories to his wealth of experiences. He moved among the descriptions of shattered lives as vagrants moved through the filthy refuse of a darkened cul-de-sac, forever picking, trying to understand what they said, to bestow some grace to their wizened dreams with his prose, to explain them to themselves.
One day, he told them, I will incorporate it all into an MF album. The galaxy will know of your plight, and liberate you.
They didn’t believe him, but they accepted him as one of their own. It was a status which had saved him from many a bar fight. But now, in his hour of desperate need, they had failed him. However difficult it was to acknowledge, they had lost; the toughest bunch of bastards in the Confederation had been wiped out in less than thirty-six hours.
Five times in the last couple of days small groups had been taken out to tour the city, observing the steady falsification of buildings which was the hallmark of a land under possession. Once-familiar suburban streets had undergone timewarps overnight. It was as though some kind of dark architectural ivy were slowly creeping its way upwards, turning chrome-glass to stone, crinkling flat surfaces into arches, pillars, and statues. A plethora of era enclaves had emerged, ranging from 1950s New York avenues to timeless whitewashed Mediterranean villas, Russian dachas to traditional Japanese houses. All of them were ameliorated, more wistful renderings of real life.
The reporters recorded it all as faithfully as they could with their glitch-prone neural nanonic memory cells. This morning, though, was different. All of them had been summoned from their rooms, herded onto buses, and driven the five kilometres to City Hall. They were escorted from the buses by Organization gangsters and assembled on the sidewalk, forming a line between the autoway and the skyscraper’s elaborate arched entrance. On Patricia’s order the gangsters took several paces back, leaving the reporters to themselves.
Gus Remar found his neural nanonics coming back on-line, and immediately started to record his full sensorium, datavising his flek recorder block to make a backup copy. It had been a long time since he’d covered a story in the field. These days he was a senior studio editor at the city’s Time Universe bureau, but the old skill was still there. He started to scan around.
There were no vehicles using the autoway, but crowds were lining the sidewalk, five or six deep at the barrier. When he switched to long-range focus he could see they stretched back for about three blocks. The possessed were a majority, easy to spot in their epoch garments: the outlandish and the tediously uninspired. They seemed to be mingling easily enough with the non-possessed.
A slight fracas two hundred metres away at the back of the crowd caught Gus’s attention. His enhanced retinas zoomed in.
Two men were pushing at each other, faces red with anger. One was a dark, handsome youth, barely twenty with perfectly trimmed black hair; dressed in leather jacket and trousers. An acoustic guitar was slung over his back. The second was older, in his forties, and considerably fatter. His attire was the most bizarre Gus had yet seen on display; some kind of white suit, smothered in rhinestones, with trousers flaring over thirty centimetres around his ankles, and collars which looked like small aircraft wings. Large amber-tinted sunglasses covered a third of his puffed-out face. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, Gus would have said it was a father quarrelling with his son. He shunted his audio discrimination program into primary mode.
“Goddamn fake,” the younger man shouted with a rich Southern drawl. “I was never this .” Hands flicked insultingly over the front of the white costume, ruffling the fit. “You’re what they squeezed me into. You ain’t nothing but a sick disease the record companies cooked up to make money. I would never come back as you.”
The larger man pushed him away. “Who are you calling a fake, son? I am the King, the one and only.”
The shoving began in earnest; both of them trying to floor the other. Amber sunglasses went spinning. Organization gangsters moved in quickly to separate them, but not before the younger Elvis had unslung his guitar ready to brain the Vegas version.
Gus never saw the outcome. The crowd started cheering. A cavalcade had turned onto the autoway. Police motorcycles (Harley-Davidsons, according to Gus’s encyclopedia memory file) appeared first, ten of them with blue and red lights flashing. They were followed by a huge limousine which crawled along at little more than walking pace: a 1920s Cadillac sedan which looked absurdly massive, fat tyres bulging from the weight of its armour plated bodywork. Glass that was at least five centimetres thick shaded the interior aquarium-green. There was one man sitting in the back, waving happily at the crowd.
The city was going wild for him. Al grinned around his cigar and gave them a thumbs-up. Je-zus, but it was like the good old days, riding around in this very same bulletproof Cadillac with the pedestrians staring openmouthed as he went past. In Chicago they’d known it contained a prince of the city. And now in San Angeles they goddamn well knew it again.
The Cadillac drew to a halt outside City Hall. A smiling Dwight Salerno came down the steps to open the door.
“Good to see you back, Al. We missed you.”
Al kissed him on both cheeks, then turned to face the ecstatic crowd, clasping his hands together above his head like he was a prizefighter posing over a whipped opponent. They roared their approval. White fire cascaded and fizzed over the autoway as if Zeus were putting on a Fourth of July display.
“I love you guys!” Al bellowed at the faceless mass of chuckleheads. “Together ain’t no miserable Confederation fucker gonna stop us doing what we wanna do.”
They couldn’t hear the words, not even those in the front rank. But the content was clear enough. The laudation increased.
With one hand still waving frantically, Al turned around and bounded up the stairs into City Hall. Always leave them wanting more, Jez said.
The conference was held in the lobby, a vaulting four-storey cavern that took up over half of the ground floor. An avenue of huge palm trees, cloned from California originals, stretched from the doors to the vast reception desk. Today their solartubes were diminished to an off-white fluorescence, their bowls of loam drying out. Other signs of neglect and hurried tidying were in evidence: defunct valet mechanoids lined up along one wall, emergency exit doors missing, scraps of rubbish swept into piles behind stilled escalators.
The reception desk had been completely cleared, and a row of chairs placed behind it. Al sat in the centre, with two lieutenants on either side. His chair had been raised slightly. He watched the nervous reporters being brought in and marshalled on the floor in front of him. When they’d shushed down he rose to his feet.
“My name is Al Capone, and I suppose you’re all wondering why I asked you here,” he said, and chuckled. Their answering grins were few and far between. Tight asses. “Okay, I’ll lay it on the line for you; you’re here because I want the whole Confederation to know what’s been going down in these parts. Once they know and understand then that’s gonna save everyone a shitload of grief.” He took off his grey fedora and put it down carefully on the polished desk. “It’s an easy situation. My Organization is now in charge of the whole New California system. We’re keeping the planet and the asteroid settlements in order, no exceptions. Now we ain’t out to harm anyone, we just use our clout to keep things flowing along as best they’ll go, same as any other government.”
“Are you running the Edenist habitats, too?” a reporter asked. The rest flinched, waiting for Patricia Mangano’s retribution. It never came, though she looked far from happy.
“Smart of you, buddy,” Al acknowledged with a grudging smile. “No, I ain’t running the Edenist habitats. I could. But I ain’t. Know why? Because we’re about evenly matched, that’s why. We could do a lot of damage to each other if we ever came to fighting. Too much. I don’t want that. I don’t want people sent into the beyond on account of some penny-ante dispute over territory. I’ve been there myself, it’s worse than any fucking nightmare you can imagine; it shouldn’t happen to anyone.”
“Why do you think you’ve been returned from the beyond, Al? Has God passed judgement on you?”
“You got me there, lady. I don’t know why any of this started. But I’ll tell you guys this much: I never saw no angels or no demons while I was stuck in the beyond, none of us did. All I know is we’re back. It ain’t no one’s fault, it just happened. And now we gotta make the best of what’s a pretty shitty deal, that’s what the Organization is for.”
“Excuse me, Mr Capone,” Gus said, encouraged by the response to earlier questions. “What’s the point of your Organization? You don’t need it. The possessed can do whatever they want.”
“Sorry, buddy, you’re way wrong there. Maybe we don’t need quite the same government as we had before, not all that tax, and regulations, and ideology, and shit. But you’ve got to have order, and that’s what I provide. I’m doing everyone a favour by taking charge like this. I’m protecting the possessed from attack by the Confederation Navy. I’m looking out for a whole load of non-possessed; because I’m telling you, without me you certainly wouldn’t be standing here in charge of your own body. See, I’m providing for all kinds of people, even though half of them don’t appreciate it right now. The possessed didn’t have jack shit worked out about where they were going until I came along. Now we’re all working together, making it happen. All because of me and the Organization. If I hadn’t stepped in and kept things going the cities would have busted down, we would have had a whole flood of lost boys heading for the countryside. Listen, I’ve seen the Depression firsthand, I know what it’s like for people who don’t have a job or something to do. And that’s what we were heading for here.”
“So what are your long-range goals, Al? What’s your Organization going to do next?”
“Smooth things out. No one is trying to deny things are still a little rough around the edges down here. We need to work on what kind of society we can build.”
“Is it true you’re planning to attack the Confederation?”
“That’s pure bullshit, buddy. Je-zus, I don’t know where you got that rumour from. No of course we’re not going to attack anyone. But we can defend ourselves pretty good if the Confederation Navy tries any funny stuff, we sure got the ships for that. Hell, I don’t want that to happen. We just want to be peaceable neighbours with everyone. I might even ask if we can join the Confederation.” At the murmur of surprise echoing through the lobby he grinned around happily. “Yeah. Why the hell not? Sure we can ask to join. Maybe some good will come out of it, some kind of compromise that’ll make everyone happy; a solution to all the souls that wanna come back. The Organization can pay Confederation longhairs to grow us all new bodies from scratch, something like that.”
“You mean you’d give up your body if a clone was available?”
Al frowned as Emmet leaned over to murmur in his ear, explaining what a clone was. “Sure,” he said. “Like I told you, we’re all the victims of circumstance.”
“You believe peaceful coexistence is possible?”
Al’s jocularity darkened. “You’d better fucking believe it, buddy. We’re back, and we’re here to stay. Grab that? What I’m trying to convince you guys is that we ain’t no end of the world threat, it’s not us who’s the riders of the Apocalypse. We’ve proved possessed and non-possessed can live together on this planet. Okay, so people out there are alarmed right now, that’s only natural. But we’re frightened too, you can’t expect us to go back to the beyond. We’ve got to work together on this. I’m personally offering the Assembly President my hand in friendship. Now that’s an offer he can’t refuse.”
The glowing red clouds had begun to grow, small ruby speckles blossoming right across Norfolk. Louise, Fletcher, and Genevieve spent their first day in orbit watching the images received by the Far Realm ’s external cameras. Kesteven island was by far the worst. A solid crimson aureole had gathered to mask the land, its shape a distended mockery of the coastline it was obscuring. Strands of ordinary white cloud malingered around its disciplined edges, only to be rebuffed by invisible winds if they drifted too close.
Fletcher assured the girls that in itself the red cloud was harmless. “A simple manifestation of will,” he proclaimed. “Nothing more.”
“You mean it’s just a wish?” Genevieve asked, intrigued. She had woken almost purged of her emotional turmoil; there were none of yesterday’s periods of manic exuberance or haunted silences. Although she was quieter than usual; which Louise thought was about right. She didn’t feel like talking much, either. Neither she nor Fletcher had mentioned the Tantu .
“Quite so, little one.”
“But why are they wishing it?”
“So that they can seek refuge below it from the emptiness of the universe. Even this planet’s sky, which has little night, is not a sight to cherish.”
Over thirty islands now had traces of redness in the air. Louise likened it to watching the outbreak of some terrible disease, a swelling cancer gnawing away at the flesh of her world.
Furay and Endron had come down into the lounge a few times, keeping them informed of the navy squadron’s actions, and the army’s progress. Neither of which amounted to much. The army had landed on two islands, Shropshire and Lindsey, hoping to retake their capitals. But reports from the forwards units were confused.
“Same problem as we had with Kesteven,” Furay confided when he brought them lunch. “We can’t support the lads on the ground because we don’t have any reliable targeting information. And that red cloud has got the admiral badly worried. None of the technical staff can explain it.”
By midafternoon, ship’s time, the army commanders had lost contact with half of their troops. The red cloud was visible over forty-eight islands, nine of which it covered completely. As Duke-day ended for Ramsey island slender wisps were located over a couple of villages. Teams of reserve soldiers were hurriedly flown in from Norwich. In both cases contact was lost within fifteen minutes of them entering the area.
Louise watched grimly as the coiling cloud thickened over each village. “I was right,” she said miserably. “There’s nothing anybody here can do. It’s only a matter of time now.”
Tolton made his way up the narrow creek, water from the narrow stream slopping over his glittery purple shoes. The top of the steep bank, a fringe of sandy grass, was several centimetres above his head. He couldn’t see out onto the parkland, and nobody could see him—thankfully. Far overhead, Valisk’s light tube gleamed. The intensity hurt Tolton’s eyes. He was a night person, used to the clubs, bars, and vestibules of the starscrapers, delivering his poet sermons to the ship crew burnouts, bluesensers, stimmed-out wasters, and mercenaries who sprawled throughout the lower floors of the starscrapers. They tolerated him, those lost entities, listening to (or laughing at) his carefully crafted words, donating their own stories to his wealth of experiences. He moved among the descriptions of shattered lives as vagrants moved through the filthy refuse of a darkened cul-de-sac, forever picking, trying to understand what they said, to bestow some grace to their wizened dreams with his prose, to explain them to themselves.
One day, he told them, I will incorporate it all into an MF album. The galaxy will know of your plight, and liberate you.
They didn’t believe him, but they accepted him as one of their own. It was a status which had saved him from many a bar fight. But now, in his hour of desperate need, they had failed him. However difficult it was to acknowledge, they had lost; the toughest bunch of bastards in the Confederation had been wiped out in less than thirty-six hours.