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“I am aware of that,” Sarha snarled back.
“Jolly good. I’d hate to be possessed by anyone I didn’t know.”
“What are the voidhawks doing?” Beaulieu asked.
“I don’t know. They’re on the other side of the planet.” Sarha was uncomfortably aware of the perspiration permeating her shipsuit. She datavised the conditioning grille above her for some cool, dry air—cooler, dryer air. And to think, I’d always been slightly envious about Joshua having command of a starship. “I’m disengaging the airlock,” she told the other two. “Station staff might try to come on board once they realize those starships are heading here.” It was a logical action. And actually doing something made her feel a whole lot better.
“I’ve got the spaceplane beacon,” Beaulieu announced.
“You’re still intact, then?” Ashly datavised.
“Yeah, still here,” Sarha replied gamely. “What’s your situation?”
“Stable. Nothing much is moving at the spaceport. The four Edenist flyers arrived half an hour ago. They’re parked about two hundred metres away from me right now. I tried datavising them, but they’re not answering. A whole group of people set off into town as soon as they landed. There were cars here waiting for them.”
The flight computer signalled that Joshua was coming on line. “Any signs of possession on the planet yet?” he asked.
“I’d have to say yes, Captain,” Beaulieu told him. “The national nets are suffering considerable degrees of dropout. But there’s no real pattern to it. Several countries don’t have a single glitch.”
“They will,” Joshua datavised.
“Joshua, three Adamist starships appeared an hour ago,” Sarha datavised. “We believe they sent some spaceplanes or flyers down to the planet; they were in the right orbit for it. Liol thinks they’re the same Organization ships that were at the Dorados.”
“Oh, well, if the starflight expert says so . . .”
“Josh, those frigates are heading for this station,” Liol datavised.
“Oh, Jesus. Okay, get clear of the station. And, Sarha, try to get a positive ident.”
“Will do. How are things your end?”
“Promising, I think. Expect us . . . today, what . . . outcome.”
“I’m losing the link,” Beaulieu warned. “Heavy interference, and it’s focused directly at us.”
“Josh, let me have access authority for the flight computer. Sarha and Beaulieu are being overloaded up here, for Christ’s sake. I can help.”
“. . . think . . . mummy’s boy . . . on my ship . . . fucking . . . because I’ll . . . first . . . trust . . .”
“Lost them,” Beaulieu said.
“The frigates have started jamming us directly,” Sarha said. “They know we’re here.”
“They’re softening up the station for an assault,” Liol said. “Give me the access codes, I can fly Lady Mac away.”
“No, you heard Joshua.”
“He said he trusted me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Look, you two have to operate the on-board systems, monitor the electronic warfare battle, and now you’ve got to watch the frigates as well. If we launch now they might think we’re going to defend the station. Can you fly Lady Mac and fight at the same time as everything else?”
“Beaulieu?” Sarha asked.
“Not my decision, but he does have a point. We need to leave, now.”
“Sarha, Josh is all emotionally tangled up when it comes to me. Fair enough, I didn’t handle him well. But you can’t endanger his life and ours on a single bad decision made from ignorance. I’ll do my best here. Trust me. Please.”
“All right! Damn it. But fusion drive authority only. You’re not jumping us anywhere.”
“Fine.” And the dream finally happened, just as he’d always known it would. Lady Mac ’s flight computer opened to him, and all the systems were on-line, filling his mind with glorious wing-sweeps of colour. They fitted just perfectly.
He designated the procedure menus he needed, bringing the thrusters and drive tubes up to active flight status. Beaulieu and Sarha were working smoothly together, activating the remaining on board systems. Umbilicals retracted from the fuselage, and the cradle started to elevate them out of the shallow docking bay. The viewfield which the flight computer was datavising at him expanded as more of Lady Mac ’s sensor clusters lifted above the rim. Three bright, expanding stars were ringed in antagonistic red as they crept up over the curvature of the brilliant blue horizon.
Liol fired the verniers to take them off the cradle, not caring if the other two could see the stupid smile on his face. For a moment, all the envy and bitterness returned, the irrational pique he’d felt when he first learned that Joshua existed, a usurper brother who was captaining the ship which was rightfully his. This was the rush that belonged to him. The power to traverse the galaxy.
One day, he and Joshua were going to have to settle this.
But not today. Today was when he proved himself to his brother and the crew. Today was when he started living the life he knew belonged to him.
When they were a hundred metres above the docking bay, Liol fired the secondary drive, selecting a third of a gee acceleration. Lady Mac immediately veered off the vector he’d plotted. He pumped a fast correction order into the flight computer, deflecting the exhaust angle. Overcompensating. “Wowshit!” The acceleration couch webbing gripped him tighter.
“The spaceplane hangar is empty,” Sarha said witheringly. “That means our mass distribution is off centre. Perhaps you’d care to bring the level seven balance calibration programs on-line?”
“Sorry.” He searched desperately around the flight control menus and found the right program. Lady Mac juddered back onto her original vector.
“Joshua is going to throw me out of the airlock,” Sarha decided.
It had taken some time for Lodi to get used to having Omain sitting in the hotel suite with him. A possessed for Mary’s sake! But Omain turned out to be quiet and polite (a little sad, to be honest), keeping out of the way. Lodi slowly managed to relax, though this must surely be the strangest episode in his life. Nothing was ever going to out-weird this.
At first he had jumped every time Omain even spoke. Now, he was relatively cool about the whole scene. His processor blocks were spread out over one of the tables, enabling him to cast trawl programs into the net streams, fishing out relevant information. It was what he did best, so Voi had left him to it while she, Mzu, and Eriba went to the Opia company. His main concern at the moment was monitoring the civil situation now the government had closed the borders. Voi wanted to make sure they would be allowed to get back into orbit. So far, it looked as if they could. There had even been one piece of good luck, the first since they arrived at Nyvan. A starship called Lady Macbeth had docked at the Spirit of Freedom , and it was exactly the type of ship Mzu wanted.
“They are asking for her,” Omain said.
“Huh?” Lodi cancelled the datavised displays, blinking away the afterimage the graphics left in his mind.
“Capone’s people are in orbit,” Omain said. “They know Mzu is here. They are asking for her.”
“You mean you can tell what’s going on in orbit? Mary! I can’t, not with all the interference from the SD platforms.”
“Not tell, exactly. This is whispered gossip, distorted by the many souls it has passed through. I have only the vaguest notion of the facts.”
Lodi was fascinated. Once he began talking, Omain knew some seriously interesting facts. He’d lived on Garissa, and was quite willing to share his impressions. (Lodi had never summoned the courage to ask Mzu what their old world was like.) From Omain’s melancholic descriptions it sounded like a good place to live. The Garissans, Lodi was sure, had lost more than their world by the sound of it; their whole culture was different now, too tight-arsed and Western-ethnic orientated.
One of the processor blocks datavised a warning into Lodi’s neural nanonics. “Oh, bollocks!”
“What is it?”
They had to speak in raised voices, almost shouting at each other. Omain was sitting in the corner of the living room furthest from Lodi, it was the only way the blocks would remain functional.
“Someone has accessed the hotel’s central processor. They’ve loaded a search program for the three of us, and it’s got a visual reference for Mzu, too.”
“It cannot be the possessed, surely?” Omain said. “Neural nanonics don’t function for us.”
“Might be the Organization ships. No. They’d never be able to access Tonala’s net from orbit, not with the platforms still going at it. Hang on, I’ll see what I can find out.” He felt almost happy as he started retrieving tracker programs from the memory fleks he’d brought. The net dons in this city probably had ten times the experience he’d got from snooping around Ayacucho’s communications circuits, but his programs were still able to flash back through the junctions, tracing the origin of the searchers.
The answer sprang into his mind just as the hotel’s central processor crashed. “Wow, that was some guardian program. But I got them. You know anything about a local firm called Kilmartin and Elgant?”
“No. But I haven’t been here long, not in this incarnation.”
“Right.” Lodi twitched a smile. “I’ll see what . . . that’s odd.”
Omain had risen from his chair. He was frowning at the suite’s double door. “What is?”
“The suite’s net processor is down.”
The door chimed.
“Did you . . .” Lodi began.
Something very heavy smashed into the door. Its panels bulged inwards. Splintering sounds were spitting out of the frame.
“Run!” Omain shouted. He stood before the door, both arms held towards it, palms outwards. His face was clenched with effort. The air twisted frantically in front of him, whipping up a small gale.
Another blow hammered the door, and Omain was sent staggering backwards. Lodi turned to run for the bedroom. He was just in time to see a fat three-metre-long serpent slither vertically up the outside of the window. Its huge head reared back, levelling out to stare straight at him. The jaws parted to display fangs as big as fingers. Then it lunged forwards, shattering the glass.
From his elevated position in the command post, Shemilt studied the ops table below him. One of the girls leaned over and pushed a red-flagged marker closer to the deserted asteroid.
“In range, sir,” she reported.
Shemilt nodded, trying not to show too much dismay. All three of the inter-orbit ships were in range of New Georgia’s SD network now. And Quinn had not returned to change his orders. His very specific orders.
If only we weren’t so bloody terrified of him, Shemilt thought. He still felt sick every time he remembered the zero-tau pod containing Captain Gurtan Mauer. Quinn had opened it up during two of the black mass ceremonies.
If we all grouped together—But of course, death was no longer the end. Throwing the dark messiah into the beyond would solve nothing.
There was a single red telephone in his command post. He picked up the handset. “Fire,” he ordered.
Two of the three inter-orbit ships on their way to find out what the teams from Jesup were doing in the deserted asteroids were struck by X-ray lasers. The beams shone clean through the life support capsules and the fusion drive casings. Both crews died instantly. Electronics flash evaporated. Drive systems ruptured. Two wrecks tumbled through space, their hulls glowing a dull orange, vapour squirting from split tanks.
The third was targeted by a pair of combat wasps.
The officers of the other two national SD networks saw them streaking away from New Georgia’s platform, heading towards the helpless inter-orbit ship. They requested and received fire authority codes. By then the attacking combat wasps had begun dispensing their submunitions drones. Infrared decoys shone like micro-novas amid the shoal of drive exhausts; electronic warfare pulses screamed at the sensors of any SD platform within five thousand kilometres. The offensive was a valid tactic; combat wasps launched to try to protect the remaining ship were confused for several seconds. A time period which in space warfare was critical.
A flock of one-shot pulsers finally got close enough to discharge into the remaining inter-orbit ship, killing it immediately. That didn’t prevent the kinetic missiles from arrowing in on it at thirty-five gees. Nor submunitions with nuclear warheads from detonating when they were within range.
Lady Mac ’s sensors picked up most of the brief battle, though the overspill from the electronic warfare submunitions overlapping the general assault waged by the SD platforms caused several overload dropouts.
“This is becoming a seriously hazardous location,” Sarha mumbled. The external sensor image was quivering badly as if something was shaking the starship about. Artificial circles of green, blue, and yellow were splashing open against the starfield like raindrop graffiti. Intense blue-white flares started to appear among them.
“It just went nuclear,” Beaulieu said. “I don’t think I’ve seen overkill on that scale before.”
“What the hell is going on up there?” Sarha asked.
“Nothing good,” Liol said. “A possessed would have to be very determined to make a trip to one of those abandoned asteroids; there are no biospheres left, that’ll leave them heavily dependent on technology.”
“How are the Organization ships reacting?” Sarha asked. Twenty minutes after Lady Mac had left the Spirit of Freedom , the three frigates had docked. Quarter of an hour after that all communication with the station had ceased. They were now holding orbit eight hundred kilometres ahead of Spirit of Freedom , which gave their sensors a reasonable resolution.
“I’m way ahead of you,” Liol said. “Two of them are launching—wait, they all are. They’re going down into a lower orbit. Damn, I wish we could see what the voidhawks are doing.”
“I’m registering activity within the station’s defence sensor suite,” Beaulieu said. “They’re sweeping us.”
“Liol, take us another five hundred kilometres away.”
“No problem.”
Sarha consulted the orbital display. “We’ll be over Tonala in another thirty minutes. I’m going to recommend Joshua pulls out.”
“There’s a lot of ship movements beginning down here,” Beaulieu said. “Two more low-orbit stations are launching ships; and those are the ones we can see.”
“Bugger it,” Sarha grunted. “Okay, go to defence-ready status.”
Lady Mac ’s standard sensor clusters retreated down into their recesses; the smaller, bulbous combat sensors slid smoothly upwards to replace them, gold-chrome lenses reflecting the last twinkling explosions in high orbit. Her combat wasp launch tubes opened.
All around her, Nyvan’s national navies and SD platforms were switching to the same status.
Since arriving at Jesup, Dwyer had spent almost every hour helping to modify the bridge systems of the cargo clipper Mount’s Delta . Given his minimal technical background, his time was spent supervising the non-possessed technicians who did most of the installation.
The bridge compartment was badly cramped, which meant only a couple of people could work in it at any one time. Dwyer had become highly proficient at dodging flying circuit boards and loose console covers. But he was satisfied with the result, which was far less crude than the changes they’d made to the Tantu . With the huge stock of component spares available in the spaceport, the consoles looked as if they’d slipped off the factory production line mere hours earlier. Their processors were now all military grade, capable of functioning while they were subjected to the energistic effect of the possessed. And the flight computer had been augmented until it was capable of flying the ship following the simplest of verbal orders.
This time there was none of the black sculpture effect, every surface was standard. Quinn had insisted the clipper’s life support capsule must stand up to inspection when they arrived at Earth. Dwyer was confident he had reached that objective.
Now he was hovering just outside the small galley alcove on the mid-deck watching a female technician replacing the old hydration nozzles with the latest model. A portable sanitation sucker hovered over her shoulder, its fan humming eagerly as it ingested the occasional stale globule which burped out of the tubes she’d unscrewed.
The unit’s hum rose sharply, becoming strident. A draught of cold air brushed Dwyer’s face.
“How’s it going?” Quinn asked.
Dwyer and the technician both yelped in surprise. The clipper’s airlock was in the lower deck, and the floor hatch was closed.
Dwyer spun around, grabbing at support struts to wrestle his inertia back under control. Sure enough, Quinn was sliding down through the ceiling hatch from the bridge. His robe’s hood was folded back, sticking to his shoulders as if he were in his own private gravity field. For the first time in days his flesh tone was almost normal. He grinned cheerfully at Dwyer.
“God’s Brother, Quinn. How did you do that?” Dwyer glanced over his shoulder to check the floor hatch again.
“It’s like style,” Quinn said. “Some of us have it . . .” He winked at the female technician and flung a bolt of white fire straight into her temple.
“Fuck!” Dwyer gasped.
The corpse banged back into the galley alcove. Tools fluttered out of her hands like iron butterflies.
“We’ll dump her out of the airlock when we’re under way,” Quinn said.
“We’re leaving?”
“Yes. Right now. And I don’t want anyone to know.”
“But . . . what about the engineering crew in the bay’s control centre? They have to direct the umbilical retraction.”
“There is no more crew. We can relay the launch instructions to the management computer through the bay’s datanet.”
“Whatever you say, Quinn.”
“Come on, you’ll enjoy Earth. I know I will.” He performed a somersault in midair, and slow-dived back up through the hatch.
Dwyer took a moment to compose himself, clenching his hands so the way his fingers trembled didn’t show, then followed Quinn up into the bridge.
Anger and worry isolated Alkad from the mundanities of the drive back to the hotel. She hadn’t thought this fast and hard since the days she was working on the Alchemist theory. Options were closing all around her, like the sound of prison doors slamming shut.
The meeting with two of Opia’s vice presidents had been a typical sounding-you-out session. All very cordial, and achieving very little. They had agreed on the principle of the company finding her a starship and crew, which at some yet-to-be-specified time would be equipped with specialist defence systems for duties in the Dorados’ defence force.
The one hold she had over them was the prospect that this would be the first order by the Dorados council; and if all went smoothly, more would follow. Possibly a great deal more.
Greed had taken root. She had seen it so many times before in the industrialists who had been supplying Garissa’s navy.
They would have followed her requests, ignoring the oddities of the situation. She was convinced of it. Then just as the meeting was winding down the Tonala government announced a state of emergency. New Georgia’s SD platforms had opened fire on three ships, one of which belonged to Tonala. Such an action, the Defence Ministry insisted, proved beyond any doubt that the possessed had captured Jesup, that the New Georgia government was lying, and possibly even possessed itself.
Once again Nyvan’s national factions were at war with each other.
The Opia executives loaded a program for a crestfallen expression into their neural nanonics. Sorry, but the contract would have to go into suspension. Temporarily. Just until Tonalan might has reigned triumphant.
The car drew up underneath the sweeping portico of the Mercedes Hotel. Ngong was first out, scouring the broad street for threats. Now they had him and Gelai protecting them, Alkad had dispensed with the security firm Voi had hired; although they’d kept the company’s car with its armoured bodywork and secure circuitry.
There wasn’t much traffic on the street. The team of men shovelling snow had vanished, leaving the dilapidated mechanoids to struggle on by themselves. Ngong nodded and beckoned. Alkad eased herself off the seat and scurried over to the lobby’s rotating door, Gelai a pace behind her the whole time. They had told her of the Organization’s ships during the trip back. It baffled Alkad how Capone had ever heard of her. But there was no disguising Gelai’s rising concern.
The five of them bundled into the penthouse lift, which rose smoothly. Only the annoying flicker of the light panel betrayed Gelai and Ngong for what they were.
Alkad ignored the lighting. The state of emergency was dangerous. It wouldn’t be long before Tonala retaliated against New Georgia’s SD network. Those starships docked above Nyvan would be pressed into service, if the captains didn’t simply ignore the quarantine and leave. She would soon be trapped here without any transport and the Capone Organization closing in. Unless she did something fast, she would belong to the possessed one way or the other, and with her came the Alchemist.
The spectre of what the device could do to the Confederation if it was used on a target other than Omuta’s star was now preying on her mind. What if it was used against Jupiter? The Edenist habitats would die, Earth would be deprived of the He3 without which it could never survive. Or what if it was used against Sol itself? What if it was switched to the nova function?
There had never been any conceivable prospect of this before. I was always in control. Mother Mary forgive my arrogance.
She cast a sideways glance at Voi, who was looking as irritable as always with the lift’s progress. Voi would never entertain any change in their mission priorities. The concept of failure was not allowed for.
Like me at that age.
I have to get off this planet, she realized abruptly. I have to reopen the options again. I can’t let it end like this.
The lift’s floor indicator said they were three floors below the penthouse when Gelai and Ngong exchanged a questioning glance.
“What’s the matter?” Voi asked.
“We can’t sense Omain, or Lodi,” Gelai said.
Alkad immediately tried to datavise Lodi. There was no response. She ordered the lift to stop. “Is there anyone up there?”
“No,” Gelai said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Of all the facets of possession, the perception ability fascinated Alkad the most. She’d only just started considering the mechanism of possession. The whole concept would ultimately mean quantum cosmology having to be completely restructured again. So far, she’d made very little theoretical progress.
“I told him to stay put,” Voi said indignantly.
“If his neural nanonics aren’t responding, then this is rather more serious than him simply wandering off,” Alkad told her.
Voi pulled a face, unconvinced.
Alkad ordered the lift to restart.
Gelai and Ngong were standing in front of the doors when they opened on the penthouse vestibule. Trickles of static skipped over their clothes as they readied themselves for trouble.
“Oh, Mary,” Eriba said. The double doors to the penthouse had been smashed apart.
Gelai waved the others back as she edged cautiously into the living room. Alkad heard an intake of breath.
The body Omain had been possessing was lying across one of the big settees, covered with deep scorch marks. Snow was blowing in through a gaping hole in the window.
Ngong hurriedly checked the other rooms. “No body. He’s not here,” he told them.
“Oh, Mother Mary, now what?” Alkad exclaimed. “Gelai, have you got any idea who did this?”
“None. Aside from the obvious that it was some possessed.”
“They know about us,” Voi said. “And now Lodi’s been possessed, they know too much about us. We must leave immediately.”
“Yes,” Alkad said reluctantly. “I suppose so. We’d better go directly to the spaceport, see if we can hook up with a starship there.”
“Won’t they know we’re going to do that?” Eriba said.
“What else can we do? This planet can’t help us anymore.”
One of the processor blocks on the table let out a bleep. Its AV projector sparkled.
Alkad looked straight into it. And she was looking out through a set of eyes at a man dressed in a traditional Cossack costume.
“Can you hear me, Dr Mzu?” he asked.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“My name is Baranovich, not that it particularly matters. The important fact here is that I have agreed to work for Mr Capone’s Organization.”
“Oh, shit,” Eriba groaned.
Baranovich smiled and held a small circular mirror up. Alkad could see Lodi’s frightened face reflected in the surface.
“So,” Baranovich said. “As you can see, we have not harmed your comrade. This is his datavise you are receiving. If he was possessed, he would be unable to do this. No? Say something, Lodi.”
“Voi? Dr Mzu? I’m sorry. I couldn’t—Look there are only seven of them. Omain tried . . .” Something hissed loudly behind him. The image blurred. Then he blinked.
“A brave boy.” Baranovich clapped Lodi on the shoulder. “The Organization has a place for those with such integrity. I would hate to see another come to use this body.”
“You might have to,” Alkad said. “I cannot consider swapping a lone man for the device, no matter how well I know him. There have been far bigger sacrifices made to get me to this point. I would be betraying those who made them, and that I can never do. I’m sorry, Lodi, really I am.”
“My dear doctor,” Baranovich said. “I was not offering you Lodi in exchange for the Alchemist. I am simply using him as a convenient instrument through which I can deal with you, and perhaps demonstrate our intent.”
“I don’t need to deal with you.”
“Your pardon, Doctor, I believe you do. You will not get off this planet unless the Organization takes you off. I think you know that now. After all, you weren’t going to try and run to the spaceport, now were you?”
“I’m not about to discuss my departure arrangements with you.”
“Bravo, Doctor. Resistance to the very end. I respect that. But please understand, the circumstances in which you find yourself have changed radically since you began your quest for vengeance. There will be no revenge against Omuta anymore. What would be the point? In a few short months Omuta as it is today will not exist. Whatever you can do to it will not exceed the coming of possession. Will it, Doctor?”
“No.”
“So you see, you have only yourself to consider now, and what will happen in your personal future. The Organization can offer you a decent future. You know that with us millions of valuable people remain unpossessed, and secure in their jobs. You can be one of them, Doctor. I have the authority to offer you a place with us.”
“In return for the Alchemist.”
Baranovich shrugged magnanimously. “That is the deal. We will take you—and your friends too if you want them—off this planet today, before the orbital battle becomes any worse. Nobody else will do that. You either stay here and become possessed, an eternity spent in the humiliation of physical and mental bondage; or you come with us and live out the rest of your life as fruitfully as possible.”
“As destructively as possible, you mean.”
“I doubt the Alchemist would have to be used many times, not if it’s as good as rumour says. Yes?”
“It wouldn’t need many demonstrations,” Alkad agreed slowly.
“Alkad!” Voi protested.
Baranovich beamed happily. “Excellent, Doctor, I see you are acknowledging the truth. Your future is with us.”
“There’s something you should know,” Alkad said. “The activation code is stored in my neural nanonics. If I am killed and moved into another body in a bid to make me more compliant, I will not be able to access them. If I am possessed, the possessor will not be able to access them. And, Baranovich, there are no copies of the code.”
“You are a prudent woman.”
“If I come with you, then my companions are to be given passage to a world of their choice.”
“No!” Voi shouted.
Alkad turned from the projection and told Gelai: “Keep her quiet.”
Voi squirmed helplessly as the possessed woman pinned her arms behind her back. A gag solidified out of thin air to cover her mouth.
“Those are my terms,” Alkad told Baranovich. “I have spent most of my life in pursuit of my goal. If you do not agree to my terms, then I will not hesitate to defy you in the only way I have left. I have that determination, it is the one real weapon I have always had. You have pushed me into this position, do not doubt that I will use it.”
“Please, Doctor, there is no need for such vehemence. We will be happy to carry your young friends to a safe place.”
“All right. We have a deal.”
“Excellent. Our spaceplanes will pick you and your friends up at the ironberg foundry yard outside the city. We’ll be waiting at Disassembly Shed Four with Lodi. Be there in ninety minutes.”
Chapter 09
“Jolly good. I’d hate to be possessed by anyone I didn’t know.”
“What are the voidhawks doing?” Beaulieu asked.
“I don’t know. They’re on the other side of the planet.” Sarha was uncomfortably aware of the perspiration permeating her shipsuit. She datavised the conditioning grille above her for some cool, dry air—cooler, dryer air. And to think, I’d always been slightly envious about Joshua having command of a starship. “I’m disengaging the airlock,” she told the other two. “Station staff might try to come on board once they realize those starships are heading here.” It was a logical action. And actually doing something made her feel a whole lot better.
“I’ve got the spaceplane beacon,” Beaulieu announced.
“You’re still intact, then?” Ashly datavised.
“Yeah, still here,” Sarha replied gamely. “What’s your situation?”
“Stable. Nothing much is moving at the spaceport. The four Edenist flyers arrived half an hour ago. They’re parked about two hundred metres away from me right now. I tried datavising them, but they’re not answering. A whole group of people set off into town as soon as they landed. There were cars here waiting for them.”
The flight computer signalled that Joshua was coming on line. “Any signs of possession on the planet yet?” he asked.
“I’d have to say yes, Captain,” Beaulieu told him. “The national nets are suffering considerable degrees of dropout. But there’s no real pattern to it. Several countries don’t have a single glitch.”
“They will,” Joshua datavised.
“Joshua, three Adamist starships appeared an hour ago,” Sarha datavised. “We believe they sent some spaceplanes or flyers down to the planet; they were in the right orbit for it. Liol thinks they’re the same Organization ships that were at the Dorados.”
“Oh, well, if the starflight expert says so . . .”
“Josh, those frigates are heading for this station,” Liol datavised.
“Oh, Jesus. Okay, get clear of the station. And, Sarha, try to get a positive ident.”
“Will do. How are things your end?”
“Promising, I think. Expect us . . . today, what . . . outcome.”
“I’m losing the link,” Beaulieu warned. “Heavy interference, and it’s focused directly at us.”
“Josh, let me have access authority for the flight computer. Sarha and Beaulieu are being overloaded up here, for Christ’s sake. I can help.”
“. . . think . . . mummy’s boy . . . on my ship . . . fucking . . . because I’ll . . . first . . . trust . . .”
“Lost them,” Beaulieu said.
“The frigates have started jamming us directly,” Sarha said. “They know we’re here.”
“They’re softening up the station for an assault,” Liol said. “Give me the access codes, I can fly Lady Mac away.”
“No, you heard Joshua.”
“He said he trusted me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Look, you two have to operate the on-board systems, monitor the electronic warfare battle, and now you’ve got to watch the frigates as well. If we launch now they might think we’re going to defend the station. Can you fly Lady Mac and fight at the same time as everything else?”
“Beaulieu?” Sarha asked.
“Not my decision, but he does have a point. We need to leave, now.”
“Sarha, Josh is all emotionally tangled up when it comes to me. Fair enough, I didn’t handle him well. But you can’t endanger his life and ours on a single bad decision made from ignorance. I’ll do my best here. Trust me. Please.”
“All right! Damn it. But fusion drive authority only. You’re not jumping us anywhere.”
“Fine.” And the dream finally happened, just as he’d always known it would. Lady Mac ’s flight computer opened to him, and all the systems were on-line, filling his mind with glorious wing-sweeps of colour. They fitted just perfectly.
He designated the procedure menus he needed, bringing the thrusters and drive tubes up to active flight status. Beaulieu and Sarha were working smoothly together, activating the remaining on board systems. Umbilicals retracted from the fuselage, and the cradle started to elevate them out of the shallow docking bay. The viewfield which the flight computer was datavising at him expanded as more of Lady Mac ’s sensor clusters lifted above the rim. Three bright, expanding stars were ringed in antagonistic red as they crept up over the curvature of the brilliant blue horizon.
Liol fired the verniers to take them off the cradle, not caring if the other two could see the stupid smile on his face. For a moment, all the envy and bitterness returned, the irrational pique he’d felt when he first learned that Joshua existed, a usurper brother who was captaining the ship which was rightfully his. This was the rush that belonged to him. The power to traverse the galaxy.
One day, he and Joshua were going to have to settle this.
But not today. Today was when he proved himself to his brother and the crew. Today was when he started living the life he knew belonged to him.
When they were a hundred metres above the docking bay, Liol fired the secondary drive, selecting a third of a gee acceleration. Lady Mac immediately veered off the vector he’d plotted. He pumped a fast correction order into the flight computer, deflecting the exhaust angle. Overcompensating. “Wowshit!” The acceleration couch webbing gripped him tighter.
“The spaceplane hangar is empty,” Sarha said witheringly. “That means our mass distribution is off centre. Perhaps you’d care to bring the level seven balance calibration programs on-line?”
“Sorry.” He searched desperately around the flight control menus and found the right program. Lady Mac juddered back onto her original vector.
“Joshua is going to throw me out of the airlock,” Sarha decided.
It had taken some time for Lodi to get used to having Omain sitting in the hotel suite with him. A possessed for Mary’s sake! But Omain turned out to be quiet and polite (a little sad, to be honest), keeping out of the way. Lodi slowly managed to relax, though this must surely be the strangest episode in his life. Nothing was ever going to out-weird this.
At first he had jumped every time Omain even spoke. Now, he was relatively cool about the whole scene. His processor blocks were spread out over one of the tables, enabling him to cast trawl programs into the net streams, fishing out relevant information. It was what he did best, so Voi had left him to it while she, Mzu, and Eriba went to the Opia company. His main concern at the moment was monitoring the civil situation now the government had closed the borders. Voi wanted to make sure they would be allowed to get back into orbit. So far, it looked as if they could. There had even been one piece of good luck, the first since they arrived at Nyvan. A starship called Lady Macbeth had docked at the Spirit of Freedom , and it was exactly the type of ship Mzu wanted.
“They are asking for her,” Omain said.
“Huh?” Lodi cancelled the datavised displays, blinking away the afterimage the graphics left in his mind.
“Capone’s people are in orbit,” Omain said. “They know Mzu is here. They are asking for her.”
“You mean you can tell what’s going on in orbit? Mary! I can’t, not with all the interference from the SD platforms.”
“Not tell, exactly. This is whispered gossip, distorted by the many souls it has passed through. I have only the vaguest notion of the facts.”
Lodi was fascinated. Once he began talking, Omain knew some seriously interesting facts. He’d lived on Garissa, and was quite willing to share his impressions. (Lodi had never summoned the courage to ask Mzu what their old world was like.) From Omain’s melancholic descriptions it sounded like a good place to live. The Garissans, Lodi was sure, had lost more than their world by the sound of it; their whole culture was different now, too tight-arsed and Western-ethnic orientated.
One of the processor blocks datavised a warning into Lodi’s neural nanonics. “Oh, bollocks!”
“What is it?”
They had to speak in raised voices, almost shouting at each other. Omain was sitting in the corner of the living room furthest from Lodi, it was the only way the blocks would remain functional.
“Someone has accessed the hotel’s central processor. They’ve loaded a search program for the three of us, and it’s got a visual reference for Mzu, too.”
“It cannot be the possessed, surely?” Omain said. “Neural nanonics don’t function for us.”
“Might be the Organization ships. No. They’d never be able to access Tonala’s net from orbit, not with the platforms still going at it. Hang on, I’ll see what I can find out.” He felt almost happy as he started retrieving tracker programs from the memory fleks he’d brought. The net dons in this city probably had ten times the experience he’d got from snooping around Ayacucho’s communications circuits, but his programs were still able to flash back through the junctions, tracing the origin of the searchers.
The answer sprang into his mind just as the hotel’s central processor crashed. “Wow, that was some guardian program. But I got them. You know anything about a local firm called Kilmartin and Elgant?”
“No. But I haven’t been here long, not in this incarnation.”
“Right.” Lodi twitched a smile. “I’ll see what . . . that’s odd.”
Omain had risen from his chair. He was frowning at the suite’s double door. “What is?”
“The suite’s net processor is down.”
The door chimed.
“Did you . . .” Lodi began.
Something very heavy smashed into the door. Its panels bulged inwards. Splintering sounds were spitting out of the frame.
“Run!” Omain shouted. He stood before the door, both arms held towards it, palms outwards. His face was clenched with effort. The air twisted frantically in front of him, whipping up a small gale.
Another blow hammered the door, and Omain was sent staggering backwards. Lodi turned to run for the bedroom. He was just in time to see a fat three-metre-long serpent slither vertically up the outside of the window. Its huge head reared back, levelling out to stare straight at him. The jaws parted to display fangs as big as fingers. Then it lunged forwards, shattering the glass.
From his elevated position in the command post, Shemilt studied the ops table below him. One of the girls leaned over and pushed a red-flagged marker closer to the deserted asteroid.
“In range, sir,” she reported.
Shemilt nodded, trying not to show too much dismay. All three of the inter-orbit ships were in range of New Georgia’s SD network now. And Quinn had not returned to change his orders. His very specific orders.
If only we weren’t so bloody terrified of him, Shemilt thought. He still felt sick every time he remembered the zero-tau pod containing Captain Gurtan Mauer. Quinn had opened it up during two of the black mass ceremonies.
If we all grouped together—But of course, death was no longer the end. Throwing the dark messiah into the beyond would solve nothing.
There was a single red telephone in his command post. He picked up the handset. “Fire,” he ordered.
Two of the three inter-orbit ships on their way to find out what the teams from Jesup were doing in the deserted asteroids were struck by X-ray lasers. The beams shone clean through the life support capsules and the fusion drive casings. Both crews died instantly. Electronics flash evaporated. Drive systems ruptured. Two wrecks tumbled through space, their hulls glowing a dull orange, vapour squirting from split tanks.
The third was targeted by a pair of combat wasps.
The officers of the other two national SD networks saw them streaking away from New Georgia’s platform, heading towards the helpless inter-orbit ship. They requested and received fire authority codes. By then the attacking combat wasps had begun dispensing their submunitions drones. Infrared decoys shone like micro-novas amid the shoal of drive exhausts; electronic warfare pulses screamed at the sensors of any SD platform within five thousand kilometres. The offensive was a valid tactic; combat wasps launched to try to protect the remaining ship were confused for several seconds. A time period which in space warfare was critical.
A flock of one-shot pulsers finally got close enough to discharge into the remaining inter-orbit ship, killing it immediately. That didn’t prevent the kinetic missiles from arrowing in on it at thirty-five gees. Nor submunitions with nuclear warheads from detonating when they were within range.
Lady Mac ’s sensors picked up most of the brief battle, though the overspill from the electronic warfare submunitions overlapping the general assault waged by the SD platforms caused several overload dropouts.
“This is becoming a seriously hazardous location,” Sarha mumbled. The external sensor image was quivering badly as if something was shaking the starship about. Artificial circles of green, blue, and yellow were splashing open against the starfield like raindrop graffiti. Intense blue-white flares started to appear among them.
“It just went nuclear,” Beaulieu said. “I don’t think I’ve seen overkill on that scale before.”
“What the hell is going on up there?” Sarha asked.
“Nothing good,” Liol said. “A possessed would have to be very determined to make a trip to one of those abandoned asteroids; there are no biospheres left, that’ll leave them heavily dependent on technology.”
“How are the Organization ships reacting?” Sarha asked. Twenty minutes after Lady Mac had left the Spirit of Freedom , the three frigates had docked. Quarter of an hour after that all communication with the station had ceased. They were now holding orbit eight hundred kilometres ahead of Spirit of Freedom , which gave their sensors a reasonable resolution.
“I’m way ahead of you,” Liol said. “Two of them are launching—wait, they all are. They’re going down into a lower orbit. Damn, I wish we could see what the voidhawks are doing.”
“I’m registering activity within the station’s defence sensor suite,” Beaulieu said. “They’re sweeping us.”
“Liol, take us another five hundred kilometres away.”
“No problem.”
Sarha consulted the orbital display. “We’ll be over Tonala in another thirty minutes. I’m going to recommend Joshua pulls out.”
“There’s a lot of ship movements beginning down here,” Beaulieu said. “Two more low-orbit stations are launching ships; and those are the ones we can see.”
“Bugger it,” Sarha grunted. “Okay, go to defence-ready status.”
Lady Mac ’s standard sensor clusters retreated down into their recesses; the smaller, bulbous combat sensors slid smoothly upwards to replace them, gold-chrome lenses reflecting the last twinkling explosions in high orbit. Her combat wasp launch tubes opened.
All around her, Nyvan’s national navies and SD platforms were switching to the same status.
Since arriving at Jesup, Dwyer had spent almost every hour helping to modify the bridge systems of the cargo clipper Mount’s Delta . Given his minimal technical background, his time was spent supervising the non-possessed technicians who did most of the installation.
The bridge compartment was badly cramped, which meant only a couple of people could work in it at any one time. Dwyer had become highly proficient at dodging flying circuit boards and loose console covers. But he was satisfied with the result, which was far less crude than the changes they’d made to the Tantu . With the huge stock of component spares available in the spaceport, the consoles looked as if they’d slipped off the factory production line mere hours earlier. Their processors were now all military grade, capable of functioning while they were subjected to the energistic effect of the possessed. And the flight computer had been augmented until it was capable of flying the ship following the simplest of verbal orders.
This time there was none of the black sculpture effect, every surface was standard. Quinn had insisted the clipper’s life support capsule must stand up to inspection when they arrived at Earth. Dwyer was confident he had reached that objective.
Now he was hovering just outside the small galley alcove on the mid-deck watching a female technician replacing the old hydration nozzles with the latest model. A portable sanitation sucker hovered over her shoulder, its fan humming eagerly as it ingested the occasional stale globule which burped out of the tubes she’d unscrewed.
The unit’s hum rose sharply, becoming strident. A draught of cold air brushed Dwyer’s face.
“How’s it going?” Quinn asked.
Dwyer and the technician both yelped in surprise. The clipper’s airlock was in the lower deck, and the floor hatch was closed.
Dwyer spun around, grabbing at support struts to wrestle his inertia back under control. Sure enough, Quinn was sliding down through the ceiling hatch from the bridge. His robe’s hood was folded back, sticking to his shoulders as if he were in his own private gravity field. For the first time in days his flesh tone was almost normal. He grinned cheerfully at Dwyer.
“God’s Brother, Quinn. How did you do that?” Dwyer glanced over his shoulder to check the floor hatch again.
“It’s like style,” Quinn said. “Some of us have it . . .” He winked at the female technician and flung a bolt of white fire straight into her temple.
“Fuck!” Dwyer gasped.
The corpse banged back into the galley alcove. Tools fluttered out of her hands like iron butterflies.
“We’ll dump her out of the airlock when we’re under way,” Quinn said.
“We’re leaving?”
“Yes. Right now. And I don’t want anyone to know.”
“But . . . what about the engineering crew in the bay’s control centre? They have to direct the umbilical retraction.”
“There is no more crew. We can relay the launch instructions to the management computer through the bay’s datanet.”
“Whatever you say, Quinn.”
“Come on, you’ll enjoy Earth. I know I will.” He performed a somersault in midair, and slow-dived back up through the hatch.
Dwyer took a moment to compose himself, clenching his hands so the way his fingers trembled didn’t show, then followed Quinn up into the bridge.
Anger and worry isolated Alkad from the mundanities of the drive back to the hotel. She hadn’t thought this fast and hard since the days she was working on the Alchemist theory. Options were closing all around her, like the sound of prison doors slamming shut.
The meeting with two of Opia’s vice presidents had been a typical sounding-you-out session. All very cordial, and achieving very little. They had agreed on the principle of the company finding her a starship and crew, which at some yet-to-be-specified time would be equipped with specialist defence systems for duties in the Dorados’ defence force.
The one hold she had over them was the prospect that this would be the first order by the Dorados council; and if all went smoothly, more would follow. Possibly a great deal more.
Greed had taken root. She had seen it so many times before in the industrialists who had been supplying Garissa’s navy.
They would have followed her requests, ignoring the oddities of the situation. She was convinced of it. Then just as the meeting was winding down the Tonala government announced a state of emergency. New Georgia’s SD platforms had opened fire on three ships, one of which belonged to Tonala. Such an action, the Defence Ministry insisted, proved beyond any doubt that the possessed had captured Jesup, that the New Georgia government was lying, and possibly even possessed itself.
Once again Nyvan’s national factions were at war with each other.
The Opia executives loaded a program for a crestfallen expression into their neural nanonics. Sorry, but the contract would have to go into suspension. Temporarily. Just until Tonalan might has reigned triumphant.
The car drew up underneath the sweeping portico of the Mercedes Hotel. Ngong was first out, scouring the broad street for threats. Now they had him and Gelai protecting them, Alkad had dispensed with the security firm Voi had hired; although they’d kept the company’s car with its armoured bodywork and secure circuitry.
There wasn’t much traffic on the street. The team of men shovelling snow had vanished, leaving the dilapidated mechanoids to struggle on by themselves. Ngong nodded and beckoned. Alkad eased herself off the seat and scurried over to the lobby’s rotating door, Gelai a pace behind her the whole time. They had told her of the Organization’s ships during the trip back. It baffled Alkad how Capone had ever heard of her. But there was no disguising Gelai’s rising concern.
The five of them bundled into the penthouse lift, which rose smoothly. Only the annoying flicker of the light panel betrayed Gelai and Ngong for what they were.
Alkad ignored the lighting. The state of emergency was dangerous. It wouldn’t be long before Tonala retaliated against New Georgia’s SD network. Those starships docked above Nyvan would be pressed into service, if the captains didn’t simply ignore the quarantine and leave. She would soon be trapped here without any transport and the Capone Organization closing in. Unless she did something fast, she would belong to the possessed one way or the other, and with her came the Alchemist.
The spectre of what the device could do to the Confederation if it was used on a target other than Omuta’s star was now preying on her mind. What if it was used against Jupiter? The Edenist habitats would die, Earth would be deprived of the He3 without which it could never survive. Or what if it was used against Sol itself? What if it was switched to the nova function?
There had never been any conceivable prospect of this before. I was always in control. Mother Mary forgive my arrogance.
She cast a sideways glance at Voi, who was looking as irritable as always with the lift’s progress. Voi would never entertain any change in their mission priorities. The concept of failure was not allowed for.
Like me at that age.
I have to get off this planet, she realized abruptly. I have to reopen the options again. I can’t let it end like this.
The lift’s floor indicator said they were three floors below the penthouse when Gelai and Ngong exchanged a questioning glance.
“What’s the matter?” Voi asked.
“We can’t sense Omain, or Lodi,” Gelai said.
Alkad immediately tried to datavise Lodi. There was no response. She ordered the lift to stop. “Is there anyone up there?”
“No,” Gelai said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Of all the facets of possession, the perception ability fascinated Alkad the most. She’d only just started considering the mechanism of possession. The whole concept would ultimately mean quantum cosmology having to be completely restructured again. So far, she’d made very little theoretical progress.
“I told him to stay put,” Voi said indignantly.
“If his neural nanonics aren’t responding, then this is rather more serious than him simply wandering off,” Alkad told her.
Voi pulled a face, unconvinced.
Alkad ordered the lift to restart.
Gelai and Ngong were standing in front of the doors when they opened on the penthouse vestibule. Trickles of static skipped over their clothes as they readied themselves for trouble.
“Oh, Mary,” Eriba said. The double doors to the penthouse had been smashed apart.
Gelai waved the others back as she edged cautiously into the living room. Alkad heard an intake of breath.
The body Omain had been possessing was lying across one of the big settees, covered with deep scorch marks. Snow was blowing in through a gaping hole in the window.
Ngong hurriedly checked the other rooms. “No body. He’s not here,” he told them.
“Oh, Mother Mary, now what?” Alkad exclaimed. “Gelai, have you got any idea who did this?”
“None. Aside from the obvious that it was some possessed.”
“They know about us,” Voi said. “And now Lodi’s been possessed, they know too much about us. We must leave immediately.”
“Yes,” Alkad said reluctantly. “I suppose so. We’d better go directly to the spaceport, see if we can hook up with a starship there.”
“Won’t they know we’re going to do that?” Eriba said.
“What else can we do? This planet can’t help us anymore.”
One of the processor blocks on the table let out a bleep. Its AV projector sparkled.
Alkad looked straight into it. And she was looking out through a set of eyes at a man dressed in a traditional Cossack costume.
“Can you hear me, Dr Mzu?” he asked.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“My name is Baranovich, not that it particularly matters. The important fact here is that I have agreed to work for Mr Capone’s Organization.”
“Oh, shit,” Eriba groaned.
Baranovich smiled and held a small circular mirror up. Alkad could see Lodi’s frightened face reflected in the surface.
“So,” Baranovich said. “As you can see, we have not harmed your comrade. This is his datavise you are receiving. If he was possessed, he would be unable to do this. No? Say something, Lodi.”
“Voi? Dr Mzu? I’m sorry. I couldn’t—Look there are only seven of them. Omain tried . . .” Something hissed loudly behind him. The image blurred. Then he blinked.
“A brave boy.” Baranovich clapped Lodi on the shoulder. “The Organization has a place for those with such integrity. I would hate to see another come to use this body.”
“You might have to,” Alkad said. “I cannot consider swapping a lone man for the device, no matter how well I know him. There have been far bigger sacrifices made to get me to this point. I would be betraying those who made them, and that I can never do. I’m sorry, Lodi, really I am.”
“My dear doctor,” Baranovich said. “I was not offering you Lodi in exchange for the Alchemist. I am simply using him as a convenient instrument through which I can deal with you, and perhaps demonstrate our intent.”
“I don’t need to deal with you.”
“Your pardon, Doctor, I believe you do. You will not get off this planet unless the Organization takes you off. I think you know that now. After all, you weren’t going to try and run to the spaceport, now were you?”
“I’m not about to discuss my departure arrangements with you.”
“Bravo, Doctor. Resistance to the very end. I respect that. But please understand, the circumstances in which you find yourself have changed radically since you began your quest for vengeance. There will be no revenge against Omuta anymore. What would be the point? In a few short months Omuta as it is today will not exist. Whatever you can do to it will not exceed the coming of possession. Will it, Doctor?”
“No.”
“So you see, you have only yourself to consider now, and what will happen in your personal future. The Organization can offer you a decent future. You know that with us millions of valuable people remain unpossessed, and secure in their jobs. You can be one of them, Doctor. I have the authority to offer you a place with us.”
“In return for the Alchemist.”
Baranovich shrugged magnanimously. “That is the deal. We will take you—and your friends too if you want them—off this planet today, before the orbital battle becomes any worse. Nobody else will do that. You either stay here and become possessed, an eternity spent in the humiliation of physical and mental bondage; or you come with us and live out the rest of your life as fruitfully as possible.”
“As destructively as possible, you mean.”
“I doubt the Alchemist would have to be used many times, not if it’s as good as rumour says. Yes?”
“It wouldn’t need many demonstrations,” Alkad agreed slowly.
“Alkad!” Voi protested.
Baranovich beamed happily. “Excellent, Doctor, I see you are acknowledging the truth. Your future is with us.”
“There’s something you should know,” Alkad said. “The activation code is stored in my neural nanonics. If I am killed and moved into another body in a bid to make me more compliant, I will not be able to access them. If I am possessed, the possessor will not be able to access them. And, Baranovich, there are no copies of the code.”
“You are a prudent woman.”
“If I come with you, then my companions are to be given passage to a world of their choice.”
“No!” Voi shouted.
Alkad turned from the projection and told Gelai: “Keep her quiet.”
Voi squirmed helplessly as the possessed woman pinned her arms behind her back. A gag solidified out of thin air to cover her mouth.
“Those are my terms,” Alkad told Baranovich. “I have spent most of my life in pursuit of my goal. If you do not agree to my terms, then I will not hesitate to defy you in the only way I have left. I have that determination, it is the one real weapon I have always had. You have pushed me into this position, do not doubt that I will use it.”
“Please, Doctor, there is no need for such vehemence. We will be happy to carry your young friends to a safe place.”
“All right. We have a deal.”
“Excellent. Our spaceplanes will pick you and your friends up at the ironberg foundry yard outside the city. We’ll be waiting at Disassembly Shed Four with Lodi. Be there in ninety minutes.”
Chapter 09
Admiral Motela Kolhammer and Syrinx arrived at the First Admiral’s office just as the Provost General was coming out. He almost bumped into them, head down and scowling. Kolhammer was given a brief grunt of apology before he strode off, chased by three aides in an equally flustered mood. The admiral gave them a curious look before stepping into the office.
Captain Maynard Khanna and Admiral Lalwani were sitting in front of the First Admiral’s desk. Two more blue-steel chairs were distending up out of the circular pools of silver on the floor.
“What was all that about?” Kolhammer asked.
“We have a small legal problem with one of our guests,” Lalwani said dryly. “It’s just a question of procedures, that’s all.”
“Bloody lawyers,” Samual Aleksandrovich muttered. He gestured Kolhammer and the voidhawk captain to sit.
“Is it relevant to Thakrar’s information?” Kolhammer asked.
“No, fortunately.” Samual smiled a fast welcome at Syrinx. “My thanks to Oenone for such a swift flight.”
“I’m happy to be contributing, sir,” Syrinx said. “Our journey time from Ngeuni was eighteen hours.”
“That’s very good.”
“Good enough?” Kolhammer asked.
“We believe so,” Lalwani said. “According to our New California surveillance operation, Capone is only just starting to refuel and rearm his fleet again.”
“How up-to-date is that information?” Kolhammer asked.
“There’s a voidhawk flight each day from the Yosemite Consensus, so at the most we’re only thirty hours behind. According to the Consensus, it will be another week at the most before they’re ready to launch.”
“At Toi-Hoi, allegedly,” Kolhammer mused. “Sorry to play the heretic, but how reliable is this Captain Thakrar?”
Syrinx could only give an empty gesture. If only I had some way of imparting Erick’s intensity, his devotion, to them. “I have no doubt Captain Thakrar’s data is genuine, Admiral. Apart from his unfortunate collapse at the finish of his mission he’s proved an absolute credit to the CNIS. Capone does intend to invade Toi-Hoi next.”
“I accept the information as essentially accurate,” Lalwani affirmed. “We really are going to be able to intercept the Organization fleet.”
“Which is going to eliminate the Capone problem completely,” Maynard Khanna said. “With him gone, all we have to concern ourselves with is the quarantine.”
“And that damnfool Mortonridge Liberation which the Kingdom’s foisted on to us,” Kolhammer complained.
“Psychologically, the elimination of Capone’s fleet will be considerably more important,” Lalwani said. “Capone is interpreted as a far more active threat by Confederation citizens—”
“Yeah, thanks to the damn media,” Kolhammer said.
“—so when they see there is no further chance of his fleet appearing in their skies, and the navy has achieved that for them, we will have a great deal more leverage with the Assembly when it comes to implementing our policy.”
“Which is?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked sardonically. “Yes, yes, Lalwani. I know. I simply don’t welcome the notion of holding things together while we pray that Gilmore and all the others like him can find a solution for us; it smacks of inactivity.”
“The more we thwart them, the more we can expect them to cooperate in finding a solution,” she said.
“Very optimistic,” Kolhammer said.
Samual datavised a request into his desktop processor and the fat AV cylinder hanging from the middle of the ceiling began to sparkle. “This is our current strategic disposition,” he said as the chairs swivelled their occupants around to face the projection. They were looking down on the Confederation stars from galactic south, where tactical situation icons orbited around the suns of inhabited worlds like technicolour moons. At the centre, Earth’s forces were portrayed by enough symbols to form a ring of gas giant proportions. “You’re going to get your chance, Motela,” the First Admiral said quietly. “That 1st Fleet squadron you assembled to deal with Laton is the only possible force we can engage Capone with. We don’t have time to put anything else together.”
Kolhammer studied the projection. “What does the Yosemite Consensus estimate Capone’s fleet size to be this time?”
“Approximately seven hundred,” Lalwani said. “Numerically, that’s slightly down on last time. Arnstadt is tying up a lot of his mid-capacity ships. However, he has acquired a disturbing number of Arnstadt’s navy ships. Consensus believes the fleet will contain at least three hundred and twenty front-line warships. The rest are made up from combat-capable traders and civil craft modified to carry combat wasps.”
“And they’re armed with antimatter,” Kolhammer said. “My squadron has a maximum of two hundred ships. We both went to the same academy, Lalwani, you need a two to one advantage to guarantee success. And that’s just theoretically.”
“The Organization crews are not highly motivated or efficient,” she replied. “Nor do their ships function at a hundred per cent capacity with possessed on board screwing up the systems.”
“Neither of which will matter a damn to their damn forty-gee combat wasps once they’re launched. They function just fine.”
“I will assign you half of the 1st Fleet vessels here at Avon,” the First Admiral said. “That will bring your strength up to four hundred and thirty, including eighty voidhawks. In addition, Lalwani has suggested that we request support from every Edenist Consensus within a seventy-light-year radius of Toi-Hoi.”
“Even if they only release ten per cent of their voidhawks, that should give you nearly three hundred and fifty voidhawks,” she said.
“Seven hundred and eighty front-line warships,” Kolhammer said. “A force that big is very cumbersome.”
Lalwani turned from the projection to give him a reproachful stare. She found him grinning straight at her.
“But I think I can cope.”
“Our tactical staff want to use Tranquillity as the rendezvous point,” Khanna said. “It’s only eighteen light-years from Toi-Hoi; which means you can be there in five hours once you know the Organization fleet is on its way.”
“One ship takes five hours, yes, but we’re dealing with nearly eight hundred. I wasn’t joking about such a force being cumbersome. Why don’t the tactical staff want us to use Toi-Hoi itself?”
“Capone must have it under observation. If he sees that kind of task force arrive he’ll simply abort and choose another target. We’d be back at square one. Tranquillity is close, and it’s not an obvious military base. Once our observation operation confirms the Organization fleet is leaving for Toi-Hoi a voidhawk will fly directly to Tranquillity and alert you. You can be at Toi-Hoi before Capone’s ships arrive. You can destroy them as they jump in.”
“Perfect tactics,” Kolhammer said, almost to himself. “How long before the rest of the 1st Fleet ships can join the squadron?”
“I’ve already issued recall orders,” the First Admiral said. “The bulk will be at Trafalgar within fifteen hours. The remainder can fly directly to Tranquillity.”
Kolhammer consulted the AV projection again, then datavised a series of requests into the desktop processor. The scale changed, expanding while the viewpoint slipped around to put Toi-Hoi at the centre. “The critical factor here is that Tranquillity is secure. We need to prevent any ship from leaving, and also make sure it’s not under any kind of stealth observation before we arrive.”
“Suggestion?” Samual asked.
“It’ll be four and a half days before the task force gets to Tranquillity. But Meredith Saldana’s squadron is still at Cadiz, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Khanna said. “The ships were docked at a 7th Fleet supply base. The Cadiz government requested they remain and support local forces.”
“So, a voidhawk could reach Cadiz within . . .” He gave Syrinx an inquiring glance.
“From Trafalgar? Seven to eight hours.”
“And Meredith could get to Tranquillity in a further twenty hours. Which would give him almost three days to check local space for any kind of clandestine surveillance activity, as well as preventing any locals from leaving.”
“Get the orders drafted,” the First Admiral told Khanna. “Captain Syrinx, my compliments to the Oenone , I’d be obliged if you can convey them to Cadiz for me.”
Now this is real flying, Oenone said excitedly.
Syrinx concealed her own delight at the voidhawk’s enthusiasm. “Of course, Admiral.”
Samual Aleksandrovich cancelled the AV projection. He felt the same kind of anxiety that had beset him the day he turned his back on his family and his world for a life in the navy. It came from standing up and taking responsibility. Big decisions were always made solo; and this was the biggest in his career. He couldn’t remember anyone sending close-on eight hundred starships on a single combat assignment before. It was a frightening number, the firepower to wreck several worlds. And by the look of him, Motela was beginning to acknowledge the same reality. They swapped a nervous grin.
Samual stood up and put out his hand. “We need this. Very badly.”
“I know,” Kolhammer said. “We won’t let you down.”
Nobody in Koblat’s spaceport noticed the steady procession of kids slipping quietly down the airlock tube in bay WJR-99 where the Leonora Cephei was docked. Not the port officials, not the other crews (who would have taken a dim view of Captain Knox’s charter), and certainly not the company cops. For the first time in Jed’s life, the company’s policy meant that things were swinging his way.
The spaceport’s internal security surveillance systems were turned off, the CAB docking bay logs had been disabled, customs staff were on extended leave. No inconvenient memory file would ever exist of the starships that had come and gone since the start of the quarantine; nor would there be a tax record of the bonuses everyone was earning.
Even so, Jed was taking no chances. His small chosen tribe convened in the day club where he and Beth checked them over, making them take off their red handkerchiefs before dispatching them up to the spaceport at irregular intervals.
There were eighteen Deadnights he and Beth reckoned they could trust to keep quiet; and that was stretching the Leonora Cephei ’s life-support capacity to its legal capacity. Counting himself and Beth, there were four left when Gari finally arrived. That part was pre-arranged; if both of them had been gone from the apartment for the whole day, their mother might have wondered what they were up to. What had definitely not been arranged was Gari having Navar in tow.
“I’m coming, too,” Navar said defiantly as she saw Jed’s face darken. “You can’t stop me.”
Her voice was that same priggish bark he had come to loathe over the last months, not just the tone but the way it always got what it wanted. “Gari!” he protested. “What are you doing, doll?”
His sister’s lips squeezed up as a prelude to crying. “She saw me packing. She said she’d tell Digger.”
“I will, I swear,” Navar said. “I’m not staying here, not when I can go and live in Valisk. I’m going, all right.”
“Okay.” Jed put his arm around Gari’s quivering shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. You did the right thing.”
“No she bloody didn’t,” Beth exclaimed. “There’s no room on board for anyone else.”
Gari started crying. Navar folded her arms, putting on her most stubborn expression.
“Thanks,” Jed said over his sister’s head.
“Don’t leave me here with Digger,” Gari wailed. “Please, Jed, don’t.”
“No one’s leaving you behind,” Jed promised.
“What then?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know. Knox is just going to have to find room for one more, I suppose.” He glared at Gari’s erstwhile antagonizer. How bloody typical that even now she was messing things up, right when he thought he was going to escape the curse of Digger forever. By rights he should deck her one and lock her up until they’d gone. But in the world Kiera promised them, all animosities would be forgiven and forgotten. Even a mobile pain-in-the-arse like Navar. It was an ideal he was desperate to achieve. Would dumping her here make him unworthy of Kiera?
Seeing his indecision, Beth stormed: “Christ, you’re so useless.” She rounded on Navar, the nervejam suddenly in her hand. Navar’s smirk faded as she found herself confronting someone who for once wasn’t going to be wheedled or threatened. “One word out of you, one complaint, one show of your usual malice, and I use this on your bum before I shove you out of the airlock. Got that?” The nerve-jam was pressed against the end of Navar’s nose for emphasis.
“Yes,” the girl squeaked. She looked as miserable and frightened as Gari. Jed couldn’t remember seeing her so disconcerted before.
“Good,” Beth said. The nervejam vanished into a pocket. She flashed Jed a puzzled frown. “I don’t know why you let her give you so much grief the whole time. She’s only a girly brat.”
Jed realized he must be blushing as red as Gari. Explanations now would be pointless, not to mention difficult.
He pulled his shoulder bag out from under the table. It was disappointingly light to be carrying everything he considered essential to his life.
Captain Knox was waiting for them in the lounge at the end of the airlock tube: a short man with the flat features of his Pacific-island ancestry, but the pale skin and ash-blond hair which one of those same ancestors had bought as he geneered his family for free-fall endurance. His light complexion made his anger highly conspicuous.
“I only agreed to fifteen,” he said as Beth and Jed drifted through the hatch. “You’ll have to send some back; three at least.”
Captain Maynard Khanna and Admiral Lalwani were sitting in front of the First Admiral’s desk. Two more blue-steel chairs were distending up out of the circular pools of silver on the floor.
“What was all that about?” Kolhammer asked.
“We have a small legal problem with one of our guests,” Lalwani said dryly. “It’s just a question of procedures, that’s all.”
“Bloody lawyers,” Samual Aleksandrovich muttered. He gestured Kolhammer and the voidhawk captain to sit.
“Is it relevant to Thakrar’s information?” Kolhammer asked.
“No, fortunately.” Samual smiled a fast welcome at Syrinx. “My thanks to Oenone for such a swift flight.”
“I’m happy to be contributing, sir,” Syrinx said. “Our journey time from Ngeuni was eighteen hours.”
“That’s very good.”
“Good enough?” Kolhammer asked.
“We believe so,” Lalwani said. “According to our New California surveillance operation, Capone is only just starting to refuel and rearm his fleet again.”
“How up-to-date is that information?” Kolhammer asked.
“There’s a voidhawk flight each day from the Yosemite Consensus, so at the most we’re only thirty hours behind. According to the Consensus, it will be another week at the most before they’re ready to launch.”
“At Toi-Hoi, allegedly,” Kolhammer mused. “Sorry to play the heretic, but how reliable is this Captain Thakrar?”
Syrinx could only give an empty gesture. If only I had some way of imparting Erick’s intensity, his devotion, to them. “I have no doubt Captain Thakrar’s data is genuine, Admiral. Apart from his unfortunate collapse at the finish of his mission he’s proved an absolute credit to the CNIS. Capone does intend to invade Toi-Hoi next.”
“I accept the information as essentially accurate,” Lalwani affirmed. “We really are going to be able to intercept the Organization fleet.”
“Which is going to eliminate the Capone problem completely,” Maynard Khanna said. “With him gone, all we have to concern ourselves with is the quarantine.”
“And that damnfool Mortonridge Liberation which the Kingdom’s foisted on to us,” Kolhammer complained.
“Psychologically, the elimination of Capone’s fleet will be considerably more important,” Lalwani said. “Capone is interpreted as a far more active threat by Confederation citizens—”
“Yeah, thanks to the damn media,” Kolhammer said.
“—so when they see there is no further chance of his fleet appearing in their skies, and the navy has achieved that for them, we will have a great deal more leverage with the Assembly when it comes to implementing our policy.”
“Which is?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked sardonically. “Yes, yes, Lalwani. I know. I simply don’t welcome the notion of holding things together while we pray that Gilmore and all the others like him can find a solution for us; it smacks of inactivity.”
“The more we thwart them, the more we can expect them to cooperate in finding a solution,” she said.
“Very optimistic,” Kolhammer said.
Samual datavised a request into his desktop processor and the fat AV cylinder hanging from the middle of the ceiling began to sparkle. “This is our current strategic disposition,” he said as the chairs swivelled their occupants around to face the projection. They were looking down on the Confederation stars from galactic south, where tactical situation icons orbited around the suns of inhabited worlds like technicolour moons. At the centre, Earth’s forces were portrayed by enough symbols to form a ring of gas giant proportions. “You’re going to get your chance, Motela,” the First Admiral said quietly. “That 1st Fleet squadron you assembled to deal with Laton is the only possible force we can engage Capone with. We don’t have time to put anything else together.”
Kolhammer studied the projection. “What does the Yosemite Consensus estimate Capone’s fleet size to be this time?”
“Approximately seven hundred,” Lalwani said. “Numerically, that’s slightly down on last time. Arnstadt is tying up a lot of his mid-capacity ships. However, he has acquired a disturbing number of Arnstadt’s navy ships. Consensus believes the fleet will contain at least three hundred and twenty front-line warships. The rest are made up from combat-capable traders and civil craft modified to carry combat wasps.”
“And they’re armed with antimatter,” Kolhammer said. “My squadron has a maximum of two hundred ships. We both went to the same academy, Lalwani, you need a two to one advantage to guarantee success. And that’s just theoretically.”
“The Organization crews are not highly motivated or efficient,” she replied. “Nor do their ships function at a hundred per cent capacity with possessed on board screwing up the systems.”
“Neither of which will matter a damn to their damn forty-gee combat wasps once they’re launched. They function just fine.”
“I will assign you half of the 1st Fleet vessels here at Avon,” the First Admiral said. “That will bring your strength up to four hundred and thirty, including eighty voidhawks. In addition, Lalwani has suggested that we request support from every Edenist Consensus within a seventy-light-year radius of Toi-Hoi.”
“Even if they only release ten per cent of their voidhawks, that should give you nearly three hundred and fifty voidhawks,” she said.
“Seven hundred and eighty front-line warships,” Kolhammer said. “A force that big is very cumbersome.”
Lalwani turned from the projection to give him a reproachful stare. She found him grinning straight at her.
“But I think I can cope.”
“Our tactical staff want to use Tranquillity as the rendezvous point,” Khanna said. “It’s only eighteen light-years from Toi-Hoi; which means you can be there in five hours once you know the Organization fleet is on its way.”
“One ship takes five hours, yes, but we’re dealing with nearly eight hundred. I wasn’t joking about such a force being cumbersome. Why don’t the tactical staff want us to use Toi-Hoi itself?”
“Capone must have it under observation. If he sees that kind of task force arrive he’ll simply abort and choose another target. We’d be back at square one. Tranquillity is close, and it’s not an obvious military base. Once our observation operation confirms the Organization fleet is leaving for Toi-Hoi a voidhawk will fly directly to Tranquillity and alert you. You can be at Toi-Hoi before Capone’s ships arrive. You can destroy them as they jump in.”
“Perfect tactics,” Kolhammer said, almost to himself. “How long before the rest of the 1st Fleet ships can join the squadron?”
“I’ve already issued recall orders,” the First Admiral said. “The bulk will be at Trafalgar within fifteen hours. The remainder can fly directly to Tranquillity.”
Kolhammer consulted the AV projection again, then datavised a series of requests into the desktop processor. The scale changed, expanding while the viewpoint slipped around to put Toi-Hoi at the centre. “The critical factor here is that Tranquillity is secure. We need to prevent any ship from leaving, and also make sure it’s not under any kind of stealth observation before we arrive.”
“Suggestion?” Samual asked.
“It’ll be four and a half days before the task force gets to Tranquillity. But Meredith Saldana’s squadron is still at Cadiz, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Khanna said. “The ships were docked at a 7th Fleet supply base. The Cadiz government requested they remain and support local forces.”
“So, a voidhawk could reach Cadiz within . . .” He gave Syrinx an inquiring glance.
“From Trafalgar? Seven to eight hours.”
“And Meredith could get to Tranquillity in a further twenty hours. Which would give him almost three days to check local space for any kind of clandestine surveillance activity, as well as preventing any locals from leaving.”
“Get the orders drafted,” the First Admiral told Khanna. “Captain Syrinx, my compliments to the Oenone , I’d be obliged if you can convey them to Cadiz for me.”
Now this is real flying, Oenone said excitedly.
Syrinx concealed her own delight at the voidhawk’s enthusiasm. “Of course, Admiral.”
Samual Aleksandrovich cancelled the AV projection. He felt the same kind of anxiety that had beset him the day he turned his back on his family and his world for a life in the navy. It came from standing up and taking responsibility. Big decisions were always made solo; and this was the biggest in his career. He couldn’t remember anyone sending close-on eight hundred starships on a single combat assignment before. It was a frightening number, the firepower to wreck several worlds. And by the look of him, Motela was beginning to acknowledge the same reality. They swapped a nervous grin.
Samual stood up and put out his hand. “We need this. Very badly.”
“I know,” Kolhammer said. “We won’t let you down.”
Nobody in Koblat’s spaceport noticed the steady procession of kids slipping quietly down the airlock tube in bay WJR-99 where the Leonora Cephei was docked. Not the port officials, not the other crews (who would have taken a dim view of Captain Knox’s charter), and certainly not the company cops. For the first time in Jed’s life, the company’s policy meant that things were swinging his way.
The spaceport’s internal security surveillance systems were turned off, the CAB docking bay logs had been disabled, customs staff were on extended leave. No inconvenient memory file would ever exist of the starships that had come and gone since the start of the quarantine; nor would there be a tax record of the bonuses everyone was earning.
Even so, Jed was taking no chances. His small chosen tribe convened in the day club where he and Beth checked them over, making them take off their red handkerchiefs before dispatching them up to the spaceport at irregular intervals.
There were eighteen Deadnights he and Beth reckoned they could trust to keep quiet; and that was stretching the Leonora Cephei ’s life-support capacity to its legal capacity. Counting himself and Beth, there were four left when Gari finally arrived. That part was pre-arranged; if both of them had been gone from the apartment for the whole day, their mother might have wondered what they were up to. What had definitely not been arranged was Gari having Navar in tow.
“I’m coming, too,” Navar said defiantly as she saw Jed’s face darken. “You can’t stop me.”
Her voice was that same priggish bark he had come to loathe over the last months, not just the tone but the way it always got what it wanted. “Gari!” he protested. “What are you doing, doll?”
His sister’s lips squeezed up as a prelude to crying. “She saw me packing. She said she’d tell Digger.”
“I will, I swear,” Navar said. “I’m not staying here, not when I can go and live in Valisk. I’m going, all right.”
“Okay.” Jed put his arm around Gari’s quivering shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. You did the right thing.”
“No she bloody didn’t,” Beth exclaimed. “There’s no room on board for anyone else.”
Gari started crying. Navar folded her arms, putting on her most stubborn expression.
“Thanks,” Jed said over his sister’s head.
“Don’t leave me here with Digger,” Gari wailed. “Please, Jed, don’t.”
“No one’s leaving you behind,” Jed promised.
“What then?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know. Knox is just going to have to find room for one more, I suppose.” He glared at Gari’s erstwhile antagonizer. How bloody typical that even now she was messing things up, right when he thought he was going to escape the curse of Digger forever. By rights he should deck her one and lock her up until they’d gone. But in the world Kiera promised them, all animosities would be forgiven and forgotten. Even a mobile pain-in-the-arse like Navar. It was an ideal he was desperate to achieve. Would dumping her here make him unworthy of Kiera?
Seeing his indecision, Beth stormed: “Christ, you’re so useless.” She rounded on Navar, the nervejam suddenly in her hand. Navar’s smirk faded as she found herself confronting someone who for once wasn’t going to be wheedled or threatened. “One word out of you, one complaint, one show of your usual malice, and I use this on your bum before I shove you out of the airlock. Got that?” The nerve-jam was pressed against the end of Navar’s nose for emphasis.
“Yes,” the girl squeaked. She looked as miserable and frightened as Gari. Jed couldn’t remember seeing her so disconcerted before.
“Good,” Beth said. The nervejam vanished into a pocket. She flashed Jed a puzzled frown. “I don’t know why you let her give you so much grief the whole time. She’s only a girly brat.”
Jed realized he must be blushing as red as Gari. Explanations now would be pointless, not to mention difficult.
He pulled his shoulder bag out from under the table. It was disappointingly light to be carrying everything he considered essential to his life.
Captain Knox was waiting for them in the lounge at the end of the airlock tube: a short man with the flat features of his Pacific-island ancestry, but the pale skin and ash-blond hair which one of those same ancestors had bought as he geneered his family for free-fall endurance. His light complexion made his anger highly conspicuous.
“I only agreed to fifteen,” he said as Beth and Jed drifted through the hatch. “You’ll have to send some back; three at least.”