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It was a couple of years after they had moved in. Paula was about three, totter-running everywhere, and always falling over. Marie was a tiny energetic bundle of smiles who could emit a vast range of incredulous sounds as the world produced its daily marvels for her.
He was cradling his infant daughter (already beautiful) in his lap that evening, while Loren was slumped in an armchair, accessing the local news show. Paula was playing with the secondhand Disney mechanoid minder he’d bought her a fortnight ago, a fluffy anthropomorphized hedgehog that had an immensely irritating laugh.
It was a cosy family, in a lovely home. And they were together, and happy because of that. And the strong arcology walls protected them from the dangers of the outside world. He provided for them, and loved them, and protected them. They loved him back, too; he could see it in their smiles and adoring eyes. Daddy was king.
Daddy sang lullabies to his children. It was important to sing; if he stopped, then the hobgoblins and ghouls would come out from the darkness and snatch children away—
Two men walked into the room, and quietly sat down on the settee opposite Gerald. He frowned at them, unable to place their names, wondering what they were doing invading his home.
Invading . . .
The pyramid trembled as if caught by a minor earthquake, making the colours blur slightly. Then the room froze, his wife and children becoming motionless, their warmth draining away.
“It’s okay, Gerald,” one of the men said. “Nobody is invading. Nobody is going to hurt you.”
Gerald clutched at baby Marie. “Who are you?”
“I’m Dr Riley Dobbs, a neural expert; and this is my colleague, Harry Earnshaw, who is a neural systems technician. We’re here to help you.”
“Let me sing,” a frantic Gerald yelled. “Let me sing. They’ll get us if I stop. They’ll get us all. We’ll be dragged down into the bowels of the earth. None of us will ever see daylight again.”
“There’s always going to be daylight, Gerald,” Dobbs said. “I promise you that.” He paused, datavising an order into the AI.
Dawn rose outside the arcology. A clean dawn, the kind which Earth hadn’t seen for centuries; the sun huge and red-gold, casting brilliant rays across the dingy landscape. It shone directly into the apartment, warm and vigorous.
Gerald sighed like a small child, and held his hands out to it. “It’s so beautiful.”
“You’re relaxing. That’s good, Gerald. We need you relaxed; and I’d prefer you to reach that state by yourself. Tranquillizers inhibit your responses, and we want you to be clearheaded.”
“What do you mean?” Gerald asked suspiciously.
“Where are you, Gerald?”
“At home.”
“No, Gerald, this is long ago. This is a refuge for you, a psychological retreat into the past. You’re creating it because something rather nasty happened to you.”
“No. Nothing! Nothing nasty. Go away.”
“I can’t go away, Gerald. It’s important for a lot of people that I stay. You might be able to save a whole planet, Gerald.”
Gerald shook his head. “Can’t help. Go away.”
“We’re not going, Gerald. And you can’t run from us. This isn’t a place, Gerald, this is inside your mind.”
“No no no!”
“I’m sorry, Gerald, truly, I am. But I cannot leave until you have shown me what I want to see.”
“Go away. Sing!” Gerald started to hum his lullabies again. Then his throat turned to stone, blocking the music inside. Hot tears trickled down his cheeks.
“No more singing, Gerald,” Harry Earnshaw said. “We’re going to play a different game. Dr Dobbs and I are going to ask you some questions. We want to know what happened to you on Lalonde—”
The apartment exploded into a blinding iridescent swirl. Every sensory channel splice into Gerald Skibbow’s brain thrummed from overload.
Riley Dobbs shook himself as the processor array broke the direct linkage. In the seat next to him Harry Earnshaw was also stirring.
“Sod it,” Dobbs grumbled. In the room through the glass, he could see Skibbow’s body straining against the webbing. He hurriedly datavised an order into the physiological control processor for a tranquillizer.
Earnshaw studied the neural scan of Skibbow’s brain, the huge electrical surge at the mention of Lalonde. “That is one very deep-seated trauma. The associations are hotwired into almost every neural pathway.”
“Did the AI pull anything out of the cerebral convulsion?”
“No. It was pure randomization.”
Dobbs watched Skibbow’s physiological display creep down towards median. “Okay, let’s go in again. That trank should take the edge off his neurosis.”
This time the three of them stood on a savanna of lush emerald-green knee-high grass. Tall snowcapped mountains guarded the horizon. A bright sun thickened the air, deadening sounds. Before them was a burning building; a sturdy log cabin with a lean-to barn and a stone chimney.
“Loren!” Gerald shouted hoarsely. “Paula! Frank!” He ran towards the building as the flames licked up the walls. The roof of solar cell panels began to curl up, blistering from the heat.
Gerald ran and ran, but never got any nearer. There were faces behind the windows: two women and a man. They did nothing as the flames closed around them, simply looked out with immense sadness.
Gerald sank to his knees, sobbing.
“Wife Loren, and daughter Paula with her husband Frank,” Dobbs said, receiving their identities direct from the AI. “No sign of Marie.”
“Small wonder the poor bastard’s in shock if he saw this happen to his family,” Earnshaw remarked.
“Yeah. And we’re too early. He hasn’t been taken over by the energy virus yet.” Dobbs datavised an order into the AI, activating a targeted suppression program, and the fire vanished along with the people. “It’s all right, Gerald. It’s over. All finished with. They’re at peace now.”
Gerald twisted around to glare at him, his face deformed by rage. “At peace? At peace! You stupid ignorant bastard. They’ll never be at peace. None of us ever will. Ask me! Ask me, you fucker. Go on. You want to know what happened? This , this happened.”
Daylight vanished from the sky, replaced by a meagre radiance from Rennison, Lalonde’s innermost moon. It illuminated another log cabin; this one belonged to the Nicholls family, Gerald’s neighbour. The mother, father, and son had been tied up and put in the animal stockade along with Gerald.
A ring of dark figures encircled the lonely homestead, distorted human shapes, some atrociously bestial.
“My God,” Dobbs murmured. Two of the figures were dragging a struggling, screaming girl into the cabin.
Gerald gave a giddy laugh. “God? There is no God.”
After nearly five hours of unbroken and mercifully uneventful travel, Carmitha still hadn’t convinced herself they were doing the right thing in going to Bytham. Every instinct yelled at her to get to Holbeach and surround herself with her own kind, use them like a fence to keep out the nemesis which prowled the land, to be safe. That same instinct made her queasy at Titreano’s presence. Yet as the younger Kavanagh girl predicted, with him accompanying them nothing had happened to the caravan. Several times he had indicated a farmhouse or hamlet where he said his kind were skulking.
Indecision was a wretched curse.
But she now had few doubts that he was almost what he claimed to be: an old Earth nobleman possessing the body of a Norfolk farmhand.
There had been a lot of talk in the last five hours. The more she heard, the more convinced she became. He knew so many details. However, there was one small untruth remaining which bothered her.
After Titreano had spoken about his former life to the fascination of the sisters, he in turn became eager to hear of Norfolk. And that was when Carmitha finally began to lose patience with her companions. Genevieve she could tolerate; the world as seen through the eyes of a twelve-(Earth)-year-old was fairly bizarre anyway, all enthusiasms and misunderstandings. But Louise, now; that brat was a different matter. Louise explained about the planet’s economy being built around the export of Norfolk Tears, about how the founders had wisely chosen a pastoral life for their descendants, about how pretty the cities and towns were, how clean the countryside and the air were compared to industrialized worlds, how nice the people, how well organized the estates, how few criminals there were.
“It sounds as though you have achieved much that is worthy,” Titreano said. “Norfolk is an enviable world in which to be born.”
“There are some people who don’t like it,” Louise said. “But not very many.” She looked down at Genevieve’s head, cradled in her lap, and smiled gently. Her little sister had finally fallen asleep, rocked by the gentle rhythm of the caravan.
She smoothed locks of hair back from Genevieve’s brow. It was dirty and unkempt, with strands shrivelled and singed from the fire in the stable. Mrs Charlsworth would have a fit of the vapours if she saw it thus. Landowner girls were supposed to be paragons of deportment at all times, Kavanagh girls especially.
Just thinking of the old woman, her sacrifice, threatened to bring the tears which had been so long delayed.
“Why don’t you tell him the reason those dissidents don’t like it here,” Carmitha said.
“Who?” Louise asked.
“The Land Union people, the traders flung in jail for trying to sell medicine the rest of the Confederation takes for granted, the people who work the land, and all the other victims of the landowner class, me included.”
Anger, tiredness, and despair spurted up together in Louise’s skull, threatening to quench what was left of her fragile spirit. She was so very tired; but she had to keep going, had to look after Gen. Gen and the precious baby. Would she ever see Joshua again now? “Why are you saying this?” she asked jadedly.
“Because it’s the truth. Not something a Kavanagh is used to, I’ll warrant. Not from the likes of me.”
“I know this world isn’t perfect. I’m not blind, I’m not stupid.”
“No, you know what to do to hang on to your privileges and your power. And look where it’s got you. The whole planet being taken over, being taken away from you. Not so smart now, are you? Not so high and mighty.”
“That’s a wicked lie.”
“Is it? A fortnight ago you rode your horse past me when I was working in one of your estate roseyards. Did you stop for a chat then? Did you even notice I existed?”
“Come now, ladies,” Titreano said, uneasily.
But Louise couldn’t ignore the challenge, the insult and the vile implication behind it. “Did you ask me to stop?” she demanded. “Did you want to hear me chat about the things I love and care about the most? Or were you too busy sneering at me? You with your righteous poverty. Because I’m rich I’m evil, that’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“Your family is, yes. Your ancestors made quite sure of that with their oppressive constitution. I was born on the road, and I’ll die on it. I have no quarrel with that. But you condemned us to a circular road. It leads us nowhere, in an era when there is a chance to travel right into the heart of the galaxy. You shackled us as surely as any house would. I’ll never see the wonder of sunrise and sunset on another planet.”
“Your ancestors knew the constitution when they came here, and they still came. They saw the freedom it would give you to roam like you always have done, like you cannot do on Earth anymore.”
“If that’s freedom, then tell me why can’t we leave?”
“You can. Anyone can. Just buy a ticket on a starship.”
“Fat bloody chance. My entire family working a summer cupping season couldn’t raise the price of one ticket. You control the economy, too. You designed it so we never earn more than a pittance.”
“It’s not my fault you can’t think of anything other than grove work to do. You have a caravan, why don’t you trade goods like a merchant? Or plant some rose groves of your own? There’s still unsettled land on hundreds of islands.”
“We’re not a landowning people, we don’t want to be tied down.”
“Exactly,” Louise shouted. “It’s only your own stupid prejudices which trap you here. Not us, not the landowners. Yet we’re the ones who you blame for your own inadequacies, just because you can’t face up to the real truth. And don’t think you’re so unique. I want to see the whole Confederation, too. I dream about it every night. But I’ll never be able to fly in a starship. I’ll never be allowed, which is much worse than you. You made your own prison. I was born into mine. My obligations bind me to this world, I have to sacrifice my entire life for the good of this island.”
“Oh, yes. How you noble Kavanaghs suffer so. How grateful I am.” She glared at Louise, barely noticing Titreano, and not paying any attention to where the cob was trotting. “Tell me, little Miss Kavanagh, how many brothers and sisters do you think you have in your highborn family?”
“I have no brothers, there’s only Genevieve.”
“But what of the half-bloods?” Carmitha purred. “What of them?”
“Half-bloods? Don’t be foolish. I have none.”
She laughed bitterly. “So sure of yourself. Riding high above us all. Well I know of three, and those are just the ones born to my family. My cousin carried one to term after last midsummer. A bonny little boy, the spitting image of his father. Your father. You see, it isn’t all work for him. There’s pleasure, too. More than to be found in your mother’s bed.”
“Lies!” Louise cried. She felt faint, and sick.
“Really? He lay with me the day before the soldiers went to Boston. He got his money’s worth of me. I made sure of that; I don’t cheat people. So don’t you talk to me about nobility and sacrifice. Your family are nothing more than titled robber barons.”
Louise glanced down. Genevieve’s eyes were open, blinking against the red light. Please don’t let her have heard, Louise prayed. She turned to look at the Romany woman, no longer able to stop her jaw from quivering. There was no will to argue anymore. The day had won, beaten her, captured her parents, invaded her home, burned her county, terrorized her sister, and destroyed the only remaining fragment of happiness, that of the past with its golden memories. “If you wish to hurt a Kavanagh,” she said in a tiny voice. “If you wish to see me in tears for what you claim has happened, then you may have that wish. I don’t care about myself anymore. But spare my sister, she has been through so much today. No child should have to endure more. Let her go into the caravan where she can’t hear your accusations. Please?” There was more to say, so much more, but the heat in her throat wouldn’t let it come out. Louise started sobbing, hating herself for letting Gen see her weakness. But allowing the tears to flow was such an easy act.
Genevieve put her arms around her sister and hugged her fiercely. “Don’t cry, Louise. Please don’t cry.” Her face puckered up. “I hate you,” she spat at Carmitha.
“I hope you are satisfied now, lady,” Titreano said curtly.
Carmitha stared at the two distraught sisters, Titreano’s hard, disgusted face, then dropped the reins and plunged her head into her hands. The shame was beyond belief.
Shit, taking out your own pathetic fear on a petrified sixteen-year-old girl who’d never hurt a living soul in her life. Who’d actually risked her own neck to warn me about the possessed in the farmhouse.
“Louise.” She extended an arm towards the still sobbing girl. “Oh, Louise, I’m so sorry. I never meant to say what I did. I’m so stupid, I never think.” At least she managed to stop herself from asking “forgive me.” Carry your own guilt, you selfish bitch, she told herself.
Titreano had put his own arm around Louise. It didn’t make any difference to the broken girl. “My baby,” Louise moaned between sobs. “They’ll kill my baby if they catch us.”
Titreano gently caught her hands. “You are . . . with child?”
“Yes!” Her sobbing became louder.
Genevieve gaped at her. “You’re pregnant?”
Louise nodded roughly, long hair flopping about.
“Oh.” A small smile twitched across Genevieve’s mouth. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise, Louise,” she said seriously.
Louise gulped loudly and looked at her sister. Then she was laughing through her tears, clutching Genevieve to her. Genevieve hugged her back.
Carmitha tried not to show her own surprise. A landowner girl like Louise, the highest of the high, pregnant and unmarried! I wonder who . . .
“Okay,” she said with slow determination. “That’s another reason to get you two girls off this island. The best yet.” The sisters were regarding her with immense distrust. Can’t blame them for that. She ploughed on: “I swear to you here and now, Titreano and I will make sure you get on the plane. Right, Titreano?”
“Indeed, yes,” he said gravely.
“Good.” Carmitha picked up the cob’s reins again and gave them a brisk flip. The horse resumed its interminable plodding pace.
One good act, she thought, a single piece of decency amid the holocaust of the last six hours. That baby was going to survive. Grandma, if you’re watching me, and if you can help the living in any way possible, now would be a good time.
And—the thought wouldn’t leave her alone—a boy who wasn’t intimidated by Grant Kavanagh, who’d dared to touch his precious daughter. A lot more than just touch, in fact. Foolhardy romantic, or a real hero prince?
Carmitha risked a quick glance at Louise. Either way, lucky girl.
The longbase van which nosed down into the third sub-level car park below City Hall had the stylized palm tree and electron orbit logo of the Tarosa Metamech Corp emblazoned on its sides. It drew up in a bay next to a service elevator. Six men and two women climbed out, all wearing the company’s dull red overalls. Three flatbed trolleys, piled high with crates and maintenance equipment, trundled down obediently out of the rear of the van.
One of the men walked over to the elevator and pulled a processor block out of his pocket. He typed something on the block’s surface, paused, then typed again, casting a nervous glance at his impassive workmates as they watched him.
The building management processor array accepted the coded instruction which the block had datavised, and the elevator doors hissed open.
Emmet Mordden couldn’t help the way his shoulders sagged in sheer relief as soon as the doors started to move. In his past life he’d suffered from a weak bladder, and it seemed as though he’d brought the condition with him to the body he now possessed. Certainly his guts were dangerously wobbly. Being in on the hard edge of operations always did that to him. He was strictly a background tech; until, of course, the day in 2535 when his syndicate boss got greedy, and sloppy with it. The police claimed afterwards that they’d given the gang an opportunity to surrender, but by then Emmet Mordden was past caring.
He shoved the processor block back into his overalls pocket while he brought out his palm-sized tool-kit. Interesting to see how technology had advanced in the intervening seventy-five years; the principles were the same, but circuitry and programs were considerably more sophisticated.
A key from the tool-kit opened the cover over the elevator’s small emergency manual control panel. He plugged an optical cable into the interface socket, and the processor block lit up with a simple display. The unit took eight seconds to decode the elevator monitor program commands and disable the alarm.
“We’re in,” he told the others, and unplugged the optical cable. The more basic the electronic equipment, the more chance it had of operating in proximity to possessed bodies. By reducing the processor block functions to an absolute minimum he’d found he could make it work, although he still fretted about the efficiency.
Al Capone slapped him on the shoulder as the rest of the work crew and the flatbeds squeezed into the elevator. “Good work there, Emmet. I’m proud of you, boy.”
Emmet gave a fragile grin of gratitude, and pressed the DOOR CLOSE button. He respected the resolve which Al had bestowed on the group of possessed. There had been so much bickering before about how to go about turning more bodies over for possession. It was as though they’d spent ninety per cent of their time arguing among themselves and jockeying for position. The only agreements they ever came to were grudgingly achieved.
Then Al had come along and explained as coolly as you like that he was taking charge now thank you very much. Somehow it didn’t surprise Emmet that a man who displayed such clarity of purpose and thought would have the greatest energistic strength. Two people had objected. And the little stick held so nonchalantly in Al Capone’s hand had grown to a full-sized baseball bat.
Nobody else had voiced any dissension after that. And the beauty of it was, the dissenters could hardly go running to the cops.
Emmet wasn’t sure which he feared the most, Al’s strength or his temper. But he was just a soldier who obeyed orders, and happy with it. If only Al hadn’t insisted he come with them this morning.
“Top floor,” Al said.
Emmet pressed the appropriate button. The elevator rose smoothly.
“Okay, guys, now remember with our strength we can always blast our way out if anything goes wrong,” Al said. “But this is our big chance to consolidate our hold over this town in one easy move. If we get rumbled, it’s gonna be tough from here on. So let’s try and stick to what we planned, right?”
“Absolutely, Al,” Bernhard Allsop said eagerly. “I’m with you all the way.”
Several of the others gave him barely disguised glances of contempt.
Al ignored them all, and smiled heartily. Je-zus, but this felt good; starting out with nothing again apart from his ambition. But this time he knew the moves to make in advance. The others in the group had filled him in on chunks of history from the last few centuries. The New California administration was a direct descendant of the old U.S. of A government. The feds. And Al had one or two old scores to settle with those bastards.
The elevator doors chimed gently as they opened on the one hundred and fiftieth floor. Dwight Salerno and Patricia Mangano were out first. They smiled at the three staff members who were in the corridor and killed them with a single coordinated blast of white fire. Smoking bodies hit the floor.
“We’re okay, they didn’t get out an alarm,” Emmet said, consulting his processor block.
“Get to it, people,” Al told his team proudly. This wasn’t the same as the times with his soldiers like Anselmi and Scalise back on Cicero’s streets. But these new guys had balls, and a cause. And it felt righteous to be a mover again.
The possessed spread out through the top floor. Tarosa Metamech uniforms gave way to clothes of their own periods. A startlingly unpleasant variety of weapons appeared in their hands. Doors were forced open with precisely applied bolts of white fire, rooms searched according to the list. Everyone following their assignment to the letter. Capone’s letter.
It was six o’clock in the morning in San Angeles, and few of the mayor’s staff were at work. Those that had turned up early found Retros bursting into their offices and hauling them out at gunpoint. Their neural nanonics failed, desktop blocks crashed, net processors wouldn’t respond. There was no way to get a warning out, no way to cry for help. They found themselves corralled in the deputy health director’s office, seventeen of them, clinging together in panic and mutual misery.
They thought that would surely be the worst of it, crammed into the one room for hours or maybe a couple of days while negotiations for their release were conducted with the terrorists. But then the Retros started taking them out one at a time, summoning the toughest first. The sound of screams cut back clean through the thick door.
Al Capone stood by the long window wall of the mayor’s office, and looked out at the city. It was a magnificent view. He couldn’t remember being so high off the ground in his life before. This skyscraper made the Empire State Building look puny for God’s sake. And it wasn’t even the tallest in the city.
The skyscrapers only occupied the central portion of San Angeles, fifty or sixty of them bunched together to form the business, finance, and administration district. Beyond that the vast urban sprawl clung to the shallow folds of the land, long grey lines of buildings and autoways, interspaced with the equally regular squares of green parks. And to the east was the brilliant glimmer of the ocean.
Al, who had always enjoyed Lake Michigan in the summer, was fascinated by the glistening turquoise expanse as it reflected the first light of a new day. And the city was so clean, vibrant. So different from Chicago. This was an empire which Stalin and Genghis Khan would both envy.
Emmet knocked on the door, and popped his head around when he didn’t receive an answer. “Sorry to bother you, Al,” he ventured cautiously.
“That’s okay, boy,” Al said. “What’ve you got for me?”
“We’ve rounded up everyone on this floor. The electronics are all fucked, so they can’t get word out. Bernhard and Luigi have started to bring them to possession.”
“Great, you’ve all done pretty goddamn good.”
“Thanks, Al.”
“What about the rest of the electrics, the telephones and math-machine things?”
“I’m getting my systems plugged into the building network now, Al. Give me half an hour and I should have it locked down safe.”
“Good. Can we go to stage two?”
“Sure, Al.”
“Okay, boy, you get back to your wiring.”
Emmet backed out of the office. Al wished he knew more about electrics himself. This future world depended so much on their clever mini-machines. That had to be a flaw. And Al Capone knew all about exploiting such weaknesses.
He let his mind slip into that peculiar state of otherness, and felt around for the rest of the possessed under his command. They were positioned all around the base of City Hall, strolling casually down the sidewalk, in cars parked nearby, eating breakfast in arcade diners.
Come, he commanded.
And the big ground floor doors of City Hall opened wide.
It was quarter to nine when Mayor Avram Harwood III arrived in his office. He was in a good mood. Today was the first day in a week when he hadn’t been bombarded with early morning datavises from his staff concerning the Retro crisis. In fact there hadn’t been any communication from City Hall at all. Some kind of record.
He took the express elevator from his private car bay up to the top floor, and stepped out into a world which wasn’t quite normal. Nothing he could clarify, but definitely wrong. People scurried past as usual, barely pausing to acknowledge him. The elevator doors remained open behind him, the lights inside dying. When he tried to datavise its control processor there was no response. Attempting to log a routine call to maintenance he found none of the net processors were working.
Damn it, that was all he needed, a total electronics failure. At least it explained why he hadn’t received any messages.
He walked into his office to find a young, olive-skinned man lounging in his chair, a fat soft stick in his mouth with one end on fire. And his clothes . . . Retro!
Mayor Harwood spun around, ready to make a dash for the door. It was no good. Three of them had moved in to block the opening. They were all dressed in the same kind of antique double-breasted suits, brown hats with broad rims, and carrying primitive automatic rifles with circular magazines.
He tried to datavise a citizen’s distress call. But his neural nanonics crashed, neatly tabulated icons retreated from his mind’s eye like cowardly ghosts.
“Sit down, Mr Mayor,” Al Capone said munificently. “You and I have some business to discuss.”
“I think not.”
The Thompson’s butt slammed into the small of Avram Harwood’s back. He let out a cry at the pain, and the world went dizzyingly black for a second. One of his big armchairs hit the back of his legs, and he fell down into the cushions, clutching at his spine.
“You see?” Al asked. “You ain’t calling the shots no more. Best you cooperate.”
“The police will be here soon. And, mister, when they arrive they are going to fillet you and your gang. Don’t think I’ll help you negotiate, the commissioner knows my policy on hostage situations. No surrender.”
Al winked broadly. “I like you, Avvy. I do. I admire a man who stands up for himself. I knew you wouldn’t be no patsy. It takes smarts to get to the top in a city like this, and plenty of them. So why don’t you have a word with that commissioner of yours. Clear the air some.” He beckoned.
Avram Harwood twisted around as Police Commissioner Vosburgh walked into the office.
“Hi there, Mr Mayor,” Vosburgh said blithely.
“Rod! Oh, Christ, they got you too . . .” The words shrank as Vosburgh’s familiar face twisted. A feral-faced stranger sneered down at him; hair was visibly sprouting out of his cheeks. Not a beard, more like thick prickly fur.
“Yeah, they got me too.” The voice was distorted by teeth which were too long for a human mouth. He burst into a wild laugh.
“Who the hell are you Retro people?” an aghast Avram Harwood asked.
“The dead,” Al said. “We’ve come back.”
“Bullshit.”
“I ain’t arguing with you. Like I told you, I’m here to make a proposition. One of my guys—comes from just after my time—he said people took to calling it an offer you can’t refuse. I like that, it’s great. And that’s what I’m making here to you, Avvy, my boy. An offer you can’t refuse.”
“What offer?”
“It’s like this: Souls ain’t the only thing I’m resurrecting today. I’m gonna build up an Organization. Like I had me before, only with a shitload more clout. I want you to join it, join me. Just as you are. No catch; you have my word. You, your family, maybe a few close friends, they don’t get possessed. I know how to reward loyalty.”
“You’re crazy. You’re absolutely berserkoid. Join you? I’m going to see you destroyed, all of you deviant bastards, and then I’m going to stamp on the pieces.”
Al leaned forwards and rested his elbows on the desk, staring earnestly at the mayor. “Sorry, Avvy. That’s one thing you ain’t gonna do. No fucking way. See, people hear my name, and they think I’m just a bigshot hoodlum, a racketeer who made good. Wrong. I used to be a fucking king. King Capone the first. I got the politics tied up. So I know which strings to pull in City Hall and the precinct houses. I know how a city works. That’s why I’m here. I’m launching the biggest heist there’s ever been in all of history.”
“What?”
“I’m gonna steal your world, Avvy. Take the whole caboodle from under your nose. These guys you see here, the ones you called Retros, they didn’t know what the Christ they were doing before. Because just between you and me shutting off the sky like it’s some kind of window with thick drapes is a bit of a wacko idea, you know? So I’ve straightened them out. No more of that bullshit. Now we’re playing straight hardball.”
Avram Harwood lowered his head. “Oh, Christ.” They were insane. Utterly demented. He began to wonder if he would see his family again.
“Let me lay it out for you here, Avvy. You don’t take over a society from the bottom like the Retros were trying to do. You know, little bit at a time until you’re in the majority. Know why that’s a crappy way to get on top? Because the goddamn self-righteous majority is gonna find out and fight like fuck to stop you. And they get led by people like you, Avvy. You’re the generals, the dangerous ones, you organize the lawyers and the cops and the special federal agents to stop it happening. To protect the majority that elects you from anything which threatens you or them. So instead of an assways first revolution, you do what I’m doing. You start at the top and work down.” Al got up and walked over to the window wall. He gestured at the street far below with his cigar. “People are coming into City Hall, Avvy. The workers, the police captains, the attorneys, your staff, tax clerks. All of them; the ones who’d lead the fight against me if they knew what I was. Yeah. They’re coming in, but they ain’t going out again. Not until we’ve made our pitch to each and every one of them.” Al turned to see Avram Harwood staring at him in horror. “That’s the way it is, Avvy,” he said softly. “My people, they’re working their way up from the ground floor. They’re coming all the way up here. And all the people sitting in their offices who would normally fight against me—why, they’re going to be the ones who lead our crusade out into the world. Ain’t that right, guys?”
“You got it, Al,” Emmet Mordden said. He was hunched over a couple of processor blocks at one end of the desk, monitoring the operation. “The first twelve floors are all ours now. And we’re busy converting everyone on thirteen to eighteen. I make that approximately six and a half thousand people possessed so far this morning.”
“See?” Al waved his cigar expansively. “It’s already begun, Avvy. Ain’t nothing you can do about it. By lunch I’m gonna own the entire city administration. Just like the old days when Big Bill Thompson was in my pocket. And I got even bigger plans for tomorrow.”
“It won’t work,” Avram Harwood whispered. “It can’t work.”
“Course it will, Avvy. The thing is . . . returned souls. They ain’t altogether marbles intacto. Capisce ? It’s not just an Organization I’m building. Shit. We can be honest in here, you and me. It’s a whole new government for New California. I need people who can help me run it. I need people who can run the factory machines. I need people who can keep the lights on and the water flowing, who’re gonna take the garbage away. Fuck, if all that goes down the pan, my citizens, they’re gonna come gunning for me, right? I mean, that’s what the Retros didn’t think about. What happens after? You still gotta keep things running smoothly.” Al sat on the arm of Avram Harwood’s comfy chair and put a friendly arm around his shoulder. “Which is where you come in, Mr Mayor. Plenty of people want to run it. Everyone in this room, they all want to be my lieutenants. But it’s the old problem. Sure they’re keen, but they ain’t got the talent. But you, you my boy, you have got the talent. So how about it? Same job as before. Better salary. Perks. Fancy girl or two on the side if you like. So what do you say? Huh, Avvy? Say yeah. Make me happy.”
“Never.”
“What? What was that, Avvy? I didn’t hear too good.”
“I said NEVER, you psychopathic freak.”
Very calmly, Al rose to his feet. “I ask. I go down on my fucking knees and ask you to help me. I ask you to be my friend. You, a wiseass I ain’t never even seen before. I open my goddamn heart to you. I’m bleeding across the floor for you here. And you say no? No. To me!” Three scars burned hot and bright on his cheek. Everyone else in the office had retreated into a daunted silence.
“Is that what you’re saying, Avvy? No?”
“You got it, shithead,” Avram Harwood shouted recklessly. Something wild was running free in his brain, a mad glee at confounding his adversary. “The answer is never. Never. Never.”
“Wrong.” Al flicked his cigar onto the thick carpet. “You got it way wrong, buddy. The answer is yes. It is always yes when you talk to me. It is yes fucking please Mr Capone Sir. And I’m going to fucking well hear you say it.” A fist thumped on his chest for emphasis. “Today is the day you say yes to me.”
Mayor Avram Harwood took one look at the stained baseball bat which had materialized in Al Capone’s hands, and knew it was going to be bad.
Duke-dawn failed. There was no sign of the primary sun’s comforting white light brushing the short night before it as the bright disk rose above the wolds. Instead, a miscreant coral phosphorescence glided out over the horizon, staining the vegetation a lustreless claret.
For a harrowingly confused moment Louise thought that Duchess was returning, racing around the underside of the planet after it had set scant minutes ago to spring up ahead of the lumbering Romany caravan. But after a minute’s scrutiny she realized the effect was due to a high haze of reddish mist. It really was Duke which had risen.
“What is it?” Genevieve inquired querulously. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” Louise scanned the horizon, leaning around the corner of the caravan to check behind them. “It looks like a layer of fog really high up, but why is it that colour? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Well I don’t like it,” Genevieve announced, and folded her arms across her chest. She glared ahead.
“Do you know what’s doing that?” Carmitha asked Titreano.
“Not entirely, my lady,” he said, appearing troubled. “And yet, I sense there is a rightness to it. Do you not feel comforted by its presence?”
“No I bloody don’t,” Carmitha snapped. “It’s not natural, and you know it.”
“Yes, lady.”
His subdued acknowledgement did nothing to alleviate her nerves. Terror, uncertainty, lack of sleep, not having eaten since yesterday, remorse, it was all starting to add up.
The caravan trundled on for another half a mile under the brightening red light. Carmitha steered them along a well-worn track below a forest. Here, the land’s gentle undulations were gradually increasing to form deeper vales and rolling hills. Dried up streambeds crisscrossed the slopes, emptying into the deeper gullies which ran along the floor of each valley. There was more woodland than out on the open wolds, more cover from, and for, prying eyes. All they had to go on was Titreano’s strange sixth sense.
Nobody spoke, too tired or too fearful. Louise realized the birds were missing from the air. The characterless forest loomed up like a shaggy cliff face mere yards away, bleak and repellent.
“Here we are,” Carmitha said as they rounded a curve in the track. It had taken longer than she thought. Eight hours at least. Not good for poor old Olivier.
Ahead of them the slope dipped down to expose a broad valley with heavily forested sides. The alluvial floor was a chessboard of neat fields, all marked out by long dry-stone walls and geneered hawthorn hedges. A dozen streams bubbling out from the head of the valley funnelled into a small river which meandered off into the distance. Red sunlight glinted off a narrow sliver of water running along the centre of its baked clay banks.
Bytham was situated about three miles down the valley; a cluster of stone cottages split in half by the river. Over the centuries the community had grown outwards from a single humpbacked stone bridge. At the far end, a narrow church spire rose above the thatched roofs.
“It looks all right,” Louise said cautiously. “I can’t see any fires.”
“Quiet enough,” Carmitha agreed. She hardly dared consult Titreano. “Are your kind out there?” she asked.
His eyes were closed, yet his head was thrust forwards, as though he were sniffing the air ahead. “Some of them,” he said, regretfully. “But not all of the village has been turned. Not yet. People are wakening to the fact that great evil stalks this land.” He glanced at Louise. “Where is your aerial machine berthed?”
She blushed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.” She didn’t like to admit that apart from accompanying Mother on a twice-yearly train trip to Boston for a clothes-buying spree she’d hardly ever ventured outside Cricklade’s sprawling boundaries.
Carmitha pointed to a circular meadow half a mile outside the town, with two modest hangars on the perimeter. “That’s the aerodrome. And thank God it’s on this side of the village.”
“I suggest we make haste, lady,” Titreano said.
Still not quite trusting him, Carmitha nodded reluctantly. “One minute.” She stood up and hurried back into the caravan. Inside, it was a complete mess. All her possessions had been slung about by her madcap dash from Colsterworth, clothes, pots and pans, food, books. She sighed at the shards of broken blue and white china lying underfoot. Her mother always claimed the crockery had come with the family from Earth.
The heavy chest under her bed was one article which hadn’t moved. Carmitha knelt down and spun the combination lock.
Louise gave the Romany woman an alarmed look when she emerged from the caravan. She was carrying a single-barrelled shotgun and a belt of cartridges.
“Pump action,” Carmitha said. “It holds ten rounds. I’ve already loaded it for you. Safety’s on. You hold it, get used to the weight.”
“Me?” Louise gulped in surprise.
“Yes, you. Who knows what’s waiting for us down there. You must have used a shotgun before?”
“Well, yes. Of course. But only on birds, and tree rats, and things. I’m not a very good shot, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry. Just point it in the general direction of any trouble, and shoot.” She gave Titreano a dry grin. “I’d give it to you, but it’s rather advanced compared to the kind of guns you had in your day. Better Louise carries it.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
Now that Duke was higher in the sky it was doing its best to burn away the red mist which hung over the land. Occasionally a beam of pure white sunlight would wash over the caravan, making all four of them blink from its glare. But for the most part, the veil remained unbroken.
The caravan reached the valley floor, and Carmitha urged the cob into a faster trot. Olivier did his best to oblige, but his reserves of strength were clearly ebbing.
As they drew nearer to the village they heard the church bell tolling. It was no glad peal calling the faithful to morning service, just a monotonous strike. A warning.
“The villagers know,” Titreano announced. “My kind are grouping together. They are stronger that way.”
“If you know what they’re doing, do they know about you?” Carmitha asked.
“Yes, lady, I would fear so.”
“Oh, just wonderful.” The road ahead was now angling away from the direction in which the aerodrome lay. Carmitha stood on the seat, and tried to work out where to turn off. The hedges and walls of the fields were spread out before her like a maze. “Bugger,” she muttered under her breath. Both of the aerodrome’s hangars were clearly visible about half a mile away, but you’d have to be a local to know how to get to them.
“Do they know we’re with you?” Carmitha asked.
“Probably not. Not over such a distance. But when we are closer to the village, they will know.”
Genevieve tugged anxiously at Titreano’s sleeve. “They won’t find us, will they? You won’t let them?”
“Of course not, little one. I gave my word I will not abandon you.”
He was cradling his infant daughter (already beautiful) in his lap that evening, while Loren was slumped in an armchair, accessing the local news show. Paula was playing with the secondhand Disney mechanoid minder he’d bought her a fortnight ago, a fluffy anthropomorphized hedgehog that had an immensely irritating laugh.
It was a cosy family, in a lovely home. And they were together, and happy because of that. And the strong arcology walls protected them from the dangers of the outside world. He provided for them, and loved them, and protected them. They loved him back, too; he could see it in their smiles and adoring eyes. Daddy was king.
Daddy sang lullabies to his children. It was important to sing; if he stopped, then the hobgoblins and ghouls would come out from the darkness and snatch children away—
Two men walked into the room, and quietly sat down on the settee opposite Gerald. He frowned at them, unable to place their names, wondering what they were doing invading his home.
Invading . . .
The pyramid trembled as if caught by a minor earthquake, making the colours blur slightly. Then the room froze, his wife and children becoming motionless, their warmth draining away.
“It’s okay, Gerald,” one of the men said. “Nobody is invading. Nobody is going to hurt you.”
Gerald clutched at baby Marie. “Who are you?”
“I’m Dr Riley Dobbs, a neural expert; and this is my colleague, Harry Earnshaw, who is a neural systems technician. We’re here to help you.”
“Let me sing,” a frantic Gerald yelled. “Let me sing. They’ll get us if I stop. They’ll get us all. We’ll be dragged down into the bowels of the earth. None of us will ever see daylight again.”
“There’s always going to be daylight, Gerald,” Dobbs said. “I promise you that.” He paused, datavising an order into the AI.
Dawn rose outside the arcology. A clean dawn, the kind which Earth hadn’t seen for centuries; the sun huge and red-gold, casting brilliant rays across the dingy landscape. It shone directly into the apartment, warm and vigorous.
Gerald sighed like a small child, and held his hands out to it. “It’s so beautiful.”
“You’re relaxing. That’s good, Gerald. We need you relaxed; and I’d prefer you to reach that state by yourself. Tranquillizers inhibit your responses, and we want you to be clearheaded.”
“What do you mean?” Gerald asked suspiciously.
“Where are you, Gerald?”
“At home.”
“No, Gerald, this is long ago. This is a refuge for you, a psychological retreat into the past. You’re creating it because something rather nasty happened to you.”
“No. Nothing! Nothing nasty. Go away.”
“I can’t go away, Gerald. It’s important for a lot of people that I stay. You might be able to save a whole planet, Gerald.”
Gerald shook his head. “Can’t help. Go away.”
“We’re not going, Gerald. And you can’t run from us. This isn’t a place, Gerald, this is inside your mind.”
“No no no!”
“I’m sorry, Gerald, truly, I am. But I cannot leave until you have shown me what I want to see.”
“Go away. Sing!” Gerald started to hum his lullabies again. Then his throat turned to stone, blocking the music inside. Hot tears trickled down his cheeks.
“No more singing, Gerald,” Harry Earnshaw said. “We’re going to play a different game. Dr Dobbs and I are going to ask you some questions. We want to know what happened to you on Lalonde—”
The apartment exploded into a blinding iridescent swirl. Every sensory channel splice into Gerald Skibbow’s brain thrummed from overload.
Riley Dobbs shook himself as the processor array broke the direct linkage. In the seat next to him Harry Earnshaw was also stirring.
“Sod it,” Dobbs grumbled. In the room through the glass, he could see Skibbow’s body straining against the webbing. He hurriedly datavised an order into the physiological control processor for a tranquillizer.
Earnshaw studied the neural scan of Skibbow’s brain, the huge electrical surge at the mention of Lalonde. “That is one very deep-seated trauma. The associations are hotwired into almost every neural pathway.”
“Did the AI pull anything out of the cerebral convulsion?”
“No. It was pure randomization.”
Dobbs watched Skibbow’s physiological display creep down towards median. “Okay, let’s go in again. That trank should take the edge off his neurosis.”
This time the three of them stood on a savanna of lush emerald-green knee-high grass. Tall snowcapped mountains guarded the horizon. A bright sun thickened the air, deadening sounds. Before them was a burning building; a sturdy log cabin with a lean-to barn and a stone chimney.
“Loren!” Gerald shouted hoarsely. “Paula! Frank!” He ran towards the building as the flames licked up the walls. The roof of solar cell panels began to curl up, blistering from the heat.
Gerald ran and ran, but never got any nearer. There were faces behind the windows: two women and a man. They did nothing as the flames closed around them, simply looked out with immense sadness.
Gerald sank to his knees, sobbing.
“Wife Loren, and daughter Paula with her husband Frank,” Dobbs said, receiving their identities direct from the AI. “No sign of Marie.”
“Small wonder the poor bastard’s in shock if he saw this happen to his family,” Earnshaw remarked.
“Yeah. And we’re too early. He hasn’t been taken over by the energy virus yet.” Dobbs datavised an order into the AI, activating a targeted suppression program, and the fire vanished along with the people. “It’s all right, Gerald. It’s over. All finished with. They’re at peace now.”
Gerald twisted around to glare at him, his face deformed by rage. “At peace? At peace! You stupid ignorant bastard. They’ll never be at peace. None of us ever will. Ask me! Ask me, you fucker. Go on. You want to know what happened? This , this happened.”
Daylight vanished from the sky, replaced by a meagre radiance from Rennison, Lalonde’s innermost moon. It illuminated another log cabin; this one belonged to the Nicholls family, Gerald’s neighbour. The mother, father, and son had been tied up and put in the animal stockade along with Gerald.
A ring of dark figures encircled the lonely homestead, distorted human shapes, some atrociously bestial.
“My God,” Dobbs murmured. Two of the figures were dragging a struggling, screaming girl into the cabin.
Gerald gave a giddy laugh. “God? There is no God.”
After nearly five hours of unbroken and mercifully uneventful travel, Carmitha still hadn’t convinced herself they were doing the right thing in going to Bytham. Every instinct yelled at her to get to Holbeach and surround herself with her own kind, use them like a fence to keep out the nemesis which prowled the land, to be safe. That same instinct made her queasy at Titreano’s presence. Yet as the younger Kavanagh girl predicted, with him accompanying them nothing had happened to the caravan. Several times he had indicated a farmhouse or hamlet where he said his kind were skulking.
Indecision was a wretched curse.
But she now had few doubts that he was almost what he claimed to be: an old Earth nobleman possessing the body of a Norfolk farmhand.
There had been a lot of talk in the last five hours. The more she heard, the more convinced she became. He knew so many details. However, there was one small untruth remaining which bothered her.
After Titreano had spoken about his former life to the fascination of the sisters, he in turn became eager to hear of Norfolk. And that was when Carmitha finally began to lose patience with her companions. Genevieve she could tolerate; the world as seen through the eyes of a twelve-(Earth)-year-old was fairly bizarre anyway, all enthusiasms and misunderstandings. But Louise, now; that brat was a different matter. Louise explained about the planet’s economy being built around the export of Norfolk Tears, about how the founders had wisely chosen a pastoral life for their descendants, about how pretty the cities and towns were, how clean the countryside and the air were compared to industrialized worlds, how nice the people, how well organized the estates, how few criminals there were.
“It sounds as though you have achieved much that is worthy,” Titreano said. “Norfolk is an enviable world in which to be born.”
“There are some people who don’t like it,” Louise said. “But not very many.” She looked down at Genevieve’s head, cradled in her lap, and smiled gently. Her little sister had finally fallen asleep, rocked by the gentle rhythm of the caravan.
She smoothed locks of hair back from Genevieve’s brow. It was dirty and unkempt, with strands shrivelled and singed from the fire in the stable. Mrs Charlsworth would have a fit of the vapours if she saw it thus. Landowner girls were supposed to be paragons of deportment at all times, Kavanagh girls especially.
Just thinking of the old woman, her sacrifice, threatened to bring the tears which had been so long delayed.
“Why don’t you tell him the reason those dissidents don’t like it here,” Carmitha said.
“Who?” Louise asked.
“The Land Union people, the traders flung in jail for trying to sell medicine the rest of the Confederation takes for granted, the people who work the land, and all the other victims of the landowner class, me included.”
Anger, tiredness, and despair spurted up together in Louise’s skull, threatening to quench what was left of her fragile spirit. She was so very tired; but she had to keep going, had to look after Gen. Gen and the precious baby. Would she ever see Joshua again now? “Why are you saying this?” she asked jadedly.
“Because it’s the truth. Not something a Kavanagh is used to, I’ll warrant. Not from the likes of me.”
“I know this world isn’t perfect. I’m not blind, I’m not stupid.”
“No, you know what to do to hang on to your privileges and your power. And look where it’s got you. The whole planet being taken over, being taken away from you. Not so smart now, are you? Not so high and mighty.”
“That’s a wicked lie.”
“Is it? A fortnight ago you rode your horse past me when I was working in one of your estate roseyards. Did you stop for a chat then? Did you even notice I existed?”
“Come now, ladies,” Titreano said, uneasily.
But Louise couldn’t ignore the challenge, the insult and the vile implication behind it. “Did you ask me to stop?” she demanded. “Did you want to hear me chat about the things I love and care about the most? Or were you too busy sneering at me? You with your righteous poverty. Because I’m rich I’m evil, that’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“Your family is, yes. Your ancestors made quite sure of that with their oppressive constitution. I was born on the road, and I’ll die on it. I have no quarrel with that. But you condemned us to a circular road. It leads us nowhere, in an era when there is a chance to travel right into the heart of the galaxy. You shackled us as surely as any house would. I’ll never see the wonder of sunrise and sunset on another planet.”
“Your ancestors knew the constitution when they came here, and they still came. They saw the freedom it would give you to roam like you always have done, like you cannot do on Earth anymore.”
“If that’s freedom, then tell me why can’t we leave?”
“You can. Anyone can. Just buy a ticket on a starship.”
“Fat bloody chance. My entire family working a summer cupping season couldn’t raise the price of one ticket. You control the economy, too. You designed it so we never earn more than a pittance.”
“It’s not my fault you can’t think of anything other than grove work to do. You have a caravan, why don’t you trade goods like a merchant? Or plant some rose groves of your own? There’s still unsettled land on hundreds of islands.”
“We’re not a landowning people, we don’t want to be tied down.”
“Exactly,” Louise shouted. “It’s only your own stupid prejudices which trap you here. Not us, not the landowners. Yet we’re the ones who you blame for your own inadequacies, just because you can’t face up to the real truth. And don’t think you’re so unique. I want to see the whole Confederation, too. I dream about it every night. But I’ll never be able to fly in a starship. I’ll never be allowed, which is much worse than you. You made your own prison. I was born into mine. My obligations bind me to this world, I have to sacrifice my entire life for the good of this island.”
“Oh, yes. How you noble Kavanaghs suffer so. How grateful I am.” She glared at Louise, barely noticing Titreano, and not paying any attention to where the cob was trotting. “Tell me, little Miss Kavanagh, how many brothers and sisters do you think you have in your highborn family?”
“I have no brothers, there’s only Genevieve.”
“But what of the half-bloods?” Carmitha purred. “What of them?”
“Half-bloods? Don’t be foolish. I have none.”
She laughed bitterly. “So sure of yourself. Riding high above us all. Well I know of three, and those are just the ones born to my family. My cousin carried one to term after last midsummer. A bonny little boy, the spitting image of his father. Your father. You see, it isn’t all work for him. There’s pleasure, too. More than to be found in your mother’s bed.”
“Lies!” Louise cried. She felt faint, and sick.
“Really? He lay with me the day before the soldiers went to Boston. He got his money’s worth of me. I made sure of that; I don’t cheat people. So don’t you talk to me about nobility and sacrifice. Your family are nothing more than titled robber barons.”
Louise glanced down. Genevieve’s eyes were open, blinking against the red light. Please don’t let her have heard, Louise prayed. She turned to look at the Romany woman, no longer able to stop her jaw from quivering. There was no will to argue anymore. The day had won, beaten her, captured her parents, invaded her home, burned her county, terrorized her sister, and destroyed the only remaining fragment of happiness, that of the past with its golden memories. “If you wish to hurt a Kavanagh,” she said in a tiny voice. “If you wish to see me in tears for what you claim has happened, then you may have that wish. I don’t care about myself anymore. But spare my sister, she has been through so much today. No child should have to endure more. Let her go into the caravan where she can’t hear your accusations. Please?” There was more to say, so much more, but the heat in her throat wouldn’t let it come out. Louise started sobbing, hating herself for letting Gen see her weakness. But allowing the tears to flow was such an easy act.
Genevieve put her arms around her sister and hugged her fiercely. “Don’t cry, Louise. Please don’t cry.” Her face puckered up. “I hate you,” she spat at Carmitha.
“I hope you are satisfied now, lady,” Titreano said curtly.
Carmitha stared at the two distraught sisters, Titreano’s hard, disgusted face, then dropped the reins and plunged her head into her hands. The shame was beyond belief.
Shit, taking out your own pathetic fear on a petrified sixteen-year-old girl who’d never hurt a living soul in her life. Who’d actually risked her own neck to warn me about the possessed in the farmhouse.
“Louise.” She extended an arm towards the still sobbing girl. “Oh, Louise, I’m so sorry. I never meant to say what I did. I’m so stupid, I never think.” At least she managed to stop herself from asking “forgive me.” Carry your own guilt, you selfish bitch, she told herself.
Titreano had put his own arm around Louise. It didn’t make any difference to the broken girl. “My baby,” Louise moaned between sobs. “They’ll kill my baby if they catch us.”
Titreano gently caught her hands. “You are . . . with child?”
“Yes!” Her sobbing became louder.
Genevieve gaped at her. “You’re pregnant?”
Louise nodded roughly, long hair flopping about.
“Oh.” A small smile twitched across Genevieve’s mouth. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise, Louise,” she said seriously.
Louise gulped loudly and looked at her sister. Then she was laughing through her tears, clutching Genevieve to her. Genevieve hugged her back.
Carmitha tried not to show her own surprise. A landowner girl like Louise, the highest of the high, pregnant and unmarried! I wonder who . . .
“Okay,” she said with slow determination. “That’s another reason to get you two girls off this island. The best yet.” The sisters were regarding her with immense distrust. Can’t blame them for that. She ploughed on: “I swear to you here and now, Titreano and I will make sure you get on the plane. Right, Titreano?”
“Indeed, yes,” he said gravely.
“Good.” Carmitha picked up the cob’s reins again and gave them a brisk flip. The horse resumed its interminable plodding pace.
One good act, she thought, a single piece of decency amid the holocaust of the last six hours. That baby was going to survive. Grandma, if you’re watching me, and if you can help the living in any way possible, now would be a good time.
And—the thought wouldn’t leave her alone—a boy who wasn’t intimidated by Grant Kavanagh, who’d dared to touch his precious daughter. A lot more than just touch, in fact. Foolhardy romantic, or a real hero prince?
Carmitha risked a quick glance at Louise. Either way, lucky girl.
The longbase van which nosed down into the third sub-level car park below City Hall had the stylized palm tree and electron orbit logo of the Tarosa Metamech Corp emblazoned on its sides. It drew up in a bay next to a service elevator. Six men and two women climbed out, all wearing the company’s dull red overalls. Three flatbed trolleys, piled high with crates and maintenance equipment, trundled down obediently out of the rear of the van.
One of the men walked over to the elevator and pulled a processor block out of his pocket. He typed something on the block’s surface, paused, then typed again, casting a nervous glance at his impassive workmates as they watched him.
The building management processor array accepted the coded instruction which the block had datavised, and the elevator doors hissed open.
Emmet Mordden couldn’t help the way his shoulders sagged in sheer relief as soon as the doors started to move. In his past life he’d suffered from a weak bladder, and it seemed as though he’d brought the condition with him to the body he now possessed. Certainly his guts were dangerously wobbly. Being in on the hard edge of operations always did that to him. He was strictly a background tech; until, of course, the day in 2535 when his syndicate boss got greedy, and sloppy with it. The police claimed afterwards that they’d given the gang an opportunity to surrender, but by then Emmet Mordden was past caring.
He shoved the processor block back into his overalls pocket while he brought out his palm-sized tool-kit. Interesting to see how technology had advanced in the intervening seventy-five years; the principles were the same, but circuitry and programs were considerably more sophisticated.
A key from the tool-kit opened the cover over the elevator’s small emergency manual control panel. He plugged an optical cable into the interface socket, and the processor block lit up with a simple display. The unit took eight seconds to decode the elevator monitor program commands and disable the alarm.
“We’re in,” he told the others, and unplugged the optical cable. The more basic the electronic equipment, the more chance it had of operating in proximity to possessed bodies. By reducing the processor block functions to an absolute minimum he’d found he could make it work, although he still fretted about the efficiency.
Al Capone slapped him on the shoulder as the rest of the work crew and the flatbeds squeezed into the elevator. “Good work there, Emmet. I’m proud of you, boy.”
Emmet gave a fragile grin of gratitude, and pressed the DOOR CLOSE button. He respected the resolve which Al had bestowed on the group of possessed. There had been so much bickering before about how to go about turning more bodies over for possession. It was as though they’d spent ninety per cent of their time arguing among themselves and jockeying for position. The only agreements they ever came to were grudgingly achieved.
Then Al had come along and explained as coolly as you like that he was taking charge now thank you very much. Somehow it didn’t surprise Emmet that a man who displayed such clarity of purpose and thought would have the greatest energistic strength. Two people had objected. And the little stick held so nonchalantly in Al Capone’s hand had grown to a full-sized baseball bat.
Nobody else had voiced any dissension after that. And the beauty of it was, the dissenters could hardly go running to the cops.
Emmet wasn’t sure which he feared the most, Al’s strength or his temper. But he was just a soldier who obeyed orders, and happy with it. If only Al hadn’t insisted he come with them this morning.
“Top floor,” Al said.
Emmet pressed the appropriate button. The elevator rose smoothly.
“Okay, guys, now remember with our strength we can always blast our way out if anything goes wrong,” Al said. “But this is our big chance to consolidate our hold over this town in one easy move. If we get rumbled, it’s gonna be tough from here on. So let’s try and stick to what we planned, right?”
“Absolutely, Al,” Bernhard Allsop said eagerly. “I’m with you all the way.”
Several of the others gave him barely disguised glances of contempt.
Al ignored them all, and smiled heartily. Je-zus, but this felt good; starting out with nothing again apart from his ambition. But this time he knew the moves to make in advance. The others in the group had filled him in on chunks of history from the last few centuries. The New California administration was a direct descendant of the old U.S. of A government. The feds. And Al had one or two old scores to settle with those bastards.
The elevator doors chimed gently as they opened on the one hundred and fiftieth floor. Dwight Salerno and Patricia Mangano were out first. They smiled at the three staff members who were in the corridor and killed them with a single coordinated blast of white fire. Smoking bodies hit the floor.
“We’re okay, they didn’t get out an alarm,” Emmet said, consulting his processor block.
“Get to it, people,” Al told his team proudly. This wasn’t the same as the times with his soldiers like Anselmi and Scalise back on Cicero’s streets. But these new guys had balls, and a cause. And it felt righteous to be a mover again.
The possessed spread out through the top floor. Tarosa Metamech uniforms gave way to clothes of their own periods. A startlingly unpleasant variety of weapons appeared in their hands. Doors were forced open with precisely applied bolts of white fire, rooms searched according to the list. Everyone following their assignment to the letter. Capone’s letter.
It was six o’clock in the morning in San Angeles, and few of the mayor’s staff were at work. Those that had turned up early found Retros bursting into their offices and hauling them out at gunpoint. Their neural nanonics failed, desktop blocks crashed, net processors wouldn’t respond. There was no way to get a warning out, no way to cry for help. They found themselves corralled in the deputy health director’s office, seventeen of them, clinging together in panic and mutual misery.
They thought that would surely be the worst of it, crammed into the one room for hours or maybe a couple of days while negotiations for their release were conducted with the terrorists. But then the Retros started taking them out one at a time, summoning the toughest first. The sound of screams cut back clean through the thick door.
Al Capone stood by the long window wall of the mayor’s office, and looked out at the city. It was a magnificent view. He couldn’t remember being so high off the ground in his life before. This skyscraper made the Empire State Building look puny for God’s sake. And it wasn’t even the tallest in the city.
The skyscrapers only occupied the central portion of San Angeles, fifty or sixty of them bunched together to form the business, finance, and administration district. Beyond that the vast urban sprawl clung to the shallow folds of the land, long grey lines of buildings and autoways, interspaced with the equally regular squares of green parks. And to the east was the brilliant glimmer of the ocean.
Al, who had always enjoyed Lake Michigan in the summer, was fascinated by the glistening turquoise expanse as it reflected the first light of a new day. And the city was so clean, vibrant. So different from Chicago. This was an empire which Stalin and Genghis Khan would both envy.
Emmet knocked on the door, and popped his head around when he didn’t receive an answer. “Sorry to bother you, Al,” he ventured cautiously.
“That’s okay, boy,” Al said. “What’ve you got for me?”
“We’ve rounded up everyone on this floor. The electronics are all fucked, so they can’t get word out. Bernhard and Luigi have started to bring them to possession.”
“Great, you’ve all done pretty goddamn good.”
“Thanks, Al.”
“What about the rest of the electrics, the telephones and math-machine things?”
“I’m getting my systems plugged into the building network now, Al. Give me half an hour and I should have it locked down safe.”
“Good. Can we go to stage two?”
“Sure, Al.”
“Okay, boy, you get back to your wiring.”
Emmet backed out of the office. Al wished he knew more about electrics himself. This future world depended so much on their clever mini-machines. That had to be a flaw. And Al Capone knew all about exploiting such weaknesses.
He let his mind slip into that peculiar state of otherness, and felt around for the rest of the possessed under his command. They were positioned all around the base of City Hall, strolling casually down the sidewalk, in cars parked nearby, eating breakfast in arcade diners.
Come, he commanded.
And the big ground floor doors of City Hall opened wide.
It was quarter to nine when Mayor Avram Harwood III arrived in his office. He was in a good mood. Today was the first day in a week when he hadn’t been bombarded with early morning datavises from his staff concerning the Retro crisis. In fact there hadn’t been any communication from City Hall at all. Some kind of record.
He took the express elevator from his private car bay up to the top floor, and stepped out into a world which wasn’t quite normal. Nothing he could clarify, but definitely wrong. People scurried past as usual, barely pausing to acknowledge him. The elevator doors remained open behind him, the lights inside dying. When he tried to datavise its control processor there was no response. Attempting to log a routine call to maintenance he found none of the net processors were working.
Damn it, that was all he needed, a total electronics failure. At least it explained why he hadn’t received any messages.
He walked into his office to find a young, olive-skinned man lounging in his chair, a fat soft stick in his mouth with one end on fire. And his clothes . . . Retro!
Mayor Harwood spun around, ready to make a dash for the door. It was no good. Three of them had moved in to block the opening. They were all dressed in the same kind of antique double-breasted suits, brown hats with broad rims, and carrying primitive automatic rifles with circular magazines.
He tried to datavise a citizen’s distress call. But his neural nanonics crashed, neatly tabulated icons retreated from his mind’s eye like cowardly ghosts.
“Sit down, Mr Mayor,” Al Capone said munificently. “You and I have some business to discuss.”
“I think not.”
The Thompson’s butt slammed into the small of Avram Harwood’s back. He let out a cry at the pain, and the world went dizzyingly black for a second. One of his big armchairs hit the back of his legs, and he fell down into the cushions, clutching at his spine.
“You see?” Al asked. “You ain’t calling the shots no more. Best you cooperate.”
“The police will be here soon. And, mister, when they arrive they are going to fillet you and your gang. Don’t think I’ll help you negotiate, the commissioner knows my policy on hostage situations. No surrender.”
Al winked broadly. “I like you, Avvy. I do. I admire a man who stands up for himself. I knew you wouldn’t be no patsy. It takes smarts to get to the top in a city like this, and plenty of them. So why don’t you have a word with that commissioner of yours. Clear the air some.” He beckoned.
Avram Harwood twisted around as Police Commissioner Vosburgh walked into the office.
“Hi there, Mr Mayor,” Vosburgh said blithely.
“Rod! Oh, Christ, they got you too . . .” The words shrank as Vosburgh’s familiar face twisted. A feral-faced stranger sneered down at him; hair was visibly sprouting out of his cheeks. Not a beard, more like thick prickly fur.
“Yeah, they got me too.” The voice was distorted by teeth which were too long for a human mouth. He burst into a wild laugh.
“Who the hell are you Retro people?” an aghast Avram Harwood asked.
“The dead,” Al said. “We’ve come back.”
“Bullshit.”
“I ain’t arguing with you. Like I told you, I’m here to make a proposition. One of my guys—comes from just after my time—he said people took to calling it an offer you can’t refuse. I like that, it’s great. And that’s what I’m making here to you, Avvy, my boy. An offer you can’t refuse.”
“What offer?”
“It’s like this: Souls ain’t the only thing I’m resurrecting today. I’m gonna build up an Organization. Like I had me before, only with a shitload more clout. I want you to join it, join me. Just as you are. No catch; you have my word. You, your family, maybe a few close friends, they don’t get possessed. I know how to reward loyalty.”
“You’re crazy. You’re absolutely berserkoid. Join you? I’m going to see you destroyed, all of you deviant bastards, and then I’m going to stamp on the pieces.”
Al leaned forwards and rested his elbows on the desk, staring earnestly at the mayor. “Sorry, Avvy. That’s one thing you ain’t gonna do. No fucking way. See, people hear my name, and they think I’m just a bigshot hoodlum, a racketeer who made good. Wrong. I used to be a fucking king. King Capone the first. I got the politics tied up. So I know which strings to pull in City Hall and the precinct houses. I know how a city works. That’s why I’m here. I’m launching the biggest heist there’s ever been in all of history.”
“What?”
“I’m gonna steal your world, Avvy. Take the whole caboodle from under your nose. These guys you see here, the ones you called Retros, they didn’t know what the Christ they were doing before. Because just between you and me shutting off the sky like it’s some kind of window with thick drapes is a bit of a wacko idea, you know? So I’ve straightened them out. No more of that bullshit. Now we’re playing straight hardball.”
Avram Harwood lowered his head. “Oh, Christ.” They were insane. Utterly demented. He began to wonder if he would see his family again.
“Let me lay it out for you here, Avvy. You don’t take over a society from the bottom like the Retros were trying to do. You know, little bit at a time until you’re in the majority. Know why that’s a crappy way to get on top? Because the goddamn self-righteous majority is gonna find out and fight like fuck to stop you. And they get led by people like you, Avvy. You’re the generals, the dangerous ones, you organize the lawyers and the cops and the special federal agents to stop it happening. To protect the majority that elects you from anything which threatens you or them. So instead of an assways first revolution, you do what I’m doing. You start at the top and work down.” Al got up and walked over to the window wall. He gestured at the street far below with his cigar. “People are coming into City Hall, Avvy. The workers, the police captains, the attorneys, your staff, tax clerks. All of them; the ones who’d lead the fight against me if they knew what I was. Yeah. They’re coming in, but they ain’t going out again. Not until we’ve made our pitch to each and every one of them.” Al turned to see Avram Harwood staring at him in horror. “That’s the way it is, Avvy,” he said softly. “My people, they’re working their way up from the ground floor. They’re coming all the way up here. And all the people sitting in their offices who would normally fight against me—why, they’re going to be the ones who lead our crusade out into the world. Ain’t that right, guys?”
“You got it, Al,” Emmet Mordden said. He was hunched over a couple of processor blocks at one end of the desk, monitoring the operation. “The first twelve floors are all ours now. And we’re busy converting everyone on thirteen to eighteen. I make that approximately six and a half thousand people possessed so far this morning.”
“See?” Al waved his cigar expansively. “It’s already begun, Avvy. Ain’t nothing you can do about it. By lunch I’m gonna own the entire city administration. Just like the old days when Big Bill Thompson was in my pocket. And I got even bigger plans for tomorrow.”
“It won’t work,” Avram Harwood whispered. “It can’t work.”
“Course it will, Avvy. The thing is . . . returned souls. They ain’t altogether marbles intacto. Capisce ? It’s not just an Organization I’m building. Shit. We can be honest in here, you and me. It’s a whole new government for New California. I need people who can help me run it. I need people who can run the factory machines. I need people who can keep the lights on and the water flowing, who’re gonna take the garbage away. Fuck, if all that goes down the pan, my citizens, they’re gonna come gunning for me, right? I mean, that’s what the Retros didn’t think about. What happens after? You still gotta keep things running smoothly.” Al sat on the arm of Avram Harwood’s comfy chair and put a friendly arm around his shoulder. “Which is where you come in, Mr Mayor. Plenty of people want to run it. Everyone in this room, they all want to be my lieutenants. But it’s the old problem. Sure they’re keen, but they ain’t got the talent. But you, you my boy, you have got the talent. So how about it? Same job as before. Better salary. Perks. Fancy girl or two on the side if you like. So what do you say? Huh, Avvy? Say yeah. Make me happy.”
“Never.”
“What? What was that, Avvy? I didn’t hear too good.”
“I said NEVER, you psychopathic freak.”
Very calmly, Al rose to his feet. “I ask. I go down on my fucking knees and ask you to help me. I ask you to be my friend. You, a wiseass I ain’t never even seen before. I open my goddamn heart to you. I’m bleeding across the floor for you here. And you say no? No. To me!” Three scars burned hot and bright on his cheek. Everyone else in the office had retreated into a daunted silence.
“Is that what you’re saying, Avvy? No?”
“You got it, shithead,” Avram Harwood shouted recklessly. Something wild was running free in his brain, a mad glee at confounding his adversary. “The answer is never. Never. Never.”
“Wrong.” Al flicked his cigar onto the thick carpet. “You got it way wrong, buddy. The answer is yes. It is always yes when you talk to me. It is yes fucking please Mr Capone Sir. And I’m going to fucking well hear you say it.” A fist thumped on his chest for emphasis. “Today is the day you say yes to me.”
Mayor Avram Harwood took one look at the stained baseball bat which had materialized in Al Capone’s hands, and knew it was going to be bad.
Duke-dawn failed. There was no sign of the primary sun’s comforting white light brushing the short night before it as the bright disk rose above the wolds. Instead, a miscreant coral phosphorescence glided out over the horizon, staining the vegetation a lustreless claret.
For a harrowingly confused moment Louise thought that Duchess was returning, racing around the underside of the planet after it had set scant minutes ago to spring up ahead of the lumbering Romany caravan. But after a minute’s scrutiny she realized the effect was due to a high haze of reddish mist. It really was Duke which had risen.
“What is it?” Genevieve inquired querulously. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” Louise scanned the horizon, leaning around the corner of the caravan to check behind them. “It looks like a layer of fog really high up, but why is it that colour? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Well I don’t like it,” Genevieve announced, and folded her arms across her chest. She glared ahead.
“Do you know what’s doing that?” Carmitha asked Titreano.
“Not entirely, my lady,” he said, appearing troubled. “And yet, I sense there is a rightness to it. Do you not feel comforted by its presence?”
“No I bloody don’t,” Carmitha snapped. “It’s not natural, and you know it.”
“Yes, lady.”
His subdued acknowledgement did nothing to alleviate her nerves. Terror, uncertainty, lack of sleep, not having eaten since yesterday, remorse, it was all starting to add up.
The caravan trundled on for another half a mile under the brightening red light. Carmitha steered them along a well-worn track below a forest. Here, the land’s gentle undulations were gradually increasing to form deeper vales and rolling hills. Dried up streambeds crisscrossed the slopes, emptying into the deeper gullies which ran along the floor of each valley. There was more woodland than out on the open wolds, more cover from, and for, prying eyes. All they had to go on was Titreano’s strange sixth sense.
Nobody spoke, too tired or too fearful. Louise realized the birds were missing from the air. The characterless forest loomed up like a shaggy cliff face mere yards away, bleak and repellent.
“Here we are,” Carmitha said as they rounded a curve in the track. It had taken longer than she thought. Eight hours at least. Not good for poor old Olivier.
Ahead of them the slope dipped down to expose a broad valley with heavily forested sides. The alluvial floor was a chessboard of neat fields, all marked out by long dry-stone walls and geneered hawthorn hedges. A dozen streams bubbling out from the head of the valley funnelled into a small river which meandered off into the distance. Red sunlight glinted off a narrow sliver of water running along the centre of its baked clay banks.
Bytham was situated about three miles down the valley; a cluster of stone cottages split in half by the river. Over the centuries the community had grown outwards from a single humpbacked stone bridge. At the far end, a narrow church spire rose above the thatched roofs.
“It looks all right,” Louise said cautiously. “I can’t see any fires.”
“Quiet enough,” Carmitha agreed. She hardly dared consult Titreano. “Are your kind out there?” she asked.
His eyes were closed, yet his head was thrust forwards, as though he were sniffing the air ahead. “Some of them,” he said, regretfully. “But not all of the village has been turned. Not yet. People are wakening to the fact that great evil stalks this land.” He glanced at Louise. “Where is your aerial machine berthed?”
She blushed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.” She didn’t like to admit that apart from accompanying Mother on a twice-yearly train trip to Boston for a clothes-buying spree she’d hardly ever ventured outside Cricklade’s sprawling boundaries.
Carmitha pointed to a circular meadow half a mile outside the town, with two modest hangars on the perimeter. “That’s the aerodrome. And thank God it’s on this side of the village.”
“I suggest we make haste, lady,” Titreano said.
Still not quite trusting him, Carmitha nodded reluctantly. “One minute.” She stood up and hurried back into the caravan. Inside, it was a complete mess. All her possessions had been slung about by her madcap dash from Colsterworth, clothes, pots and pans, food, books. She sighed at the shards of broken blue and white china lying underfoot. Her mother always claimed the crockery had come with the family from Earth.
The heavy chest under her bed was one article which hadn’t moved. Carmitha knelt down and spun the combination lock.
Louise gave the Romany woman an alarmed look when she emerged from the caravan. She was carrying a single-barrelled shotgun and a belt of cartridges.
“Pump action,” Carmitha said. “It holds ten rounds. I’ve already loaded it for you. Safety’s on. You hold it, get used to the weight.”
“Me?” Louise gulped in surprise.
“Yes, you. Who knows what’s waiting for us down there. You must have used a shotgun before?”
“Well, yes. Of course. But only on birds, and tree rats, and things. I’m not a very good shot, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry. Just point it in the general direction of any trouble, and shoot.” She gave Titreano a dry grin. “I’d give it to you, but it’s rather advanced compared to the kind of guns you had in your day. Better Louise carries it.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
Now that Duke was higher in the sky it was doing its best to burn away the red mist which hung over the land. Occasionally a beam of pure white sunlight would wash over the caravan, making all four of them blink from its glare. But for the most part, the veil remained unbroken.
The caravan reached the valley floor, and Carmitha urged the cob into a faster trot. Olivier did his best to oblige, but his reserves of strength were clearly ebbing.
As they drew nearer to the village they heard the church bell tolling. It was no glad peal calling the faithful to morning service, just a monotonous strike. A warning.
“The villagers know,” Titreano announced. “My kind are grouping together. They are stronger that way.”
“If you know what they’re doing, do they know about you?” Carmitha asked.
“Yes, lady, I would fear so.”
“Oh, just wonderful.” The road ahead was now angling away from the direction in which the aerodrome lay. Carmitha stood on the seat, and tried to work out where to turn off. The hedges and walls of the fields were spread out before her like a maze. “Bugger,” she muttered under her breath. Both of the aerodrome’s hangars were clearly visible about half a mile away, but you’d have to be a local to know how to get to them.
“Do they know we’re with you?” Carmitha asked.
“Probably not. Not over such a distance. But when we are closer to the village, they will know.”
Genevieve tugged anxiously at Titreano’s sleeve. “They won’t find us, will they? You won’t let them?”
“Of course not, little one. I gave my word I will not abandon you.”