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Jed tried to push his shoes onto a stikpad. He didn’t like free fall, which made his stomach wobble, his face swell, and clogged his sinuses. Nor was he much good at manoeuvring himself by hanging on to a grab hoop and using his wrists to angle his body. Inertia fought every move, making his tendons burn. When he did manage to touch his sole to the pad there was little adhesion. Like everything else in the inter-orbit ship, it was worn down and out-of-date.
“Nobody is going back,” he said. Gari was clinging to his side, the mass of her floating body trying hard to twist him away from the stikpad. He didn’t let go of the grab hoop.
“Then we don’t leave,” Knox said simply.
Jed saw Gerald Skibbow at the back of the lounge; as usual he was in switch-off, staring at the bulkhead with glazed eyes. Jed was beginning to wonder if he had a serious habit. “Gerald.” He waved urgently. “Gerald!”
Knox muttered under his breath as Gerald came awake in slow stages, his body twitching.
“How many passengers are you licensed for?” Beth asked.
Knox ignored her.
“What is it?” Gerald asked. He was blinking as if the light were too bright.
“Too many people,” Knox said. “You’ve gotta chuck some off.”
“I have to go,” Gerald said quietly.
“No one is saying you don’t, Gerald,” Beth said. “It’s your money.”
“But my ship,” Knox said. “And I’m not carrying this many.”
“Fine,” Beth said. “We’ll just ask the CAB office how many people you’re licensed to carry.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“If you won’t carry us, then return the fee and we’ll find another ship.”
Knox gave Gerald a desperate glance, but he looked equally bewildered.
“Just three, did you say?” Beth asked.
Sensing things were finally flowing in his favour, Knox smiled. “Yes, just three. I’ll be happy to fly a second charter for your friends later.”
Which was rubbish, Beth knew. He was only worried about his own precious skin. A ship operating this close to the margin really would be hard put to sustain nineteen Deadnights plus the crew. It was the first time Knox had shown the slightest concern about the flight. The only interest he’d shown in them before was their ability to pay. Which Gerald had done, and well over the odds, too. They didn’t deserve to be pushed around like this.
But Gerald was totally out of the argument, back in one of his semi-comatose depressions again. And Jed . . . Jed these days was focused on one thing only. Beth still hadn’t made up her mind if she was annoyed about that or not.
“Put three of us in the lifeboat, then,” she said.
“What?” Knox asked.
“You do have a lifeboat?”
“Of course.”
Which is where he and his precious family would shelter if anything did go wrong, she knew. “We’ll put the three youngest in there. They’d be the first in anyway, wouldn’t they?”
Knox glared at her. Ultimately, though, money won the argument. Skibbow had paid double the price of an ordinary charter, even at the inflated rates flights to and from Koblat were currently worth.
“Very well,” Knox said gracelessly. He datavised the flight computer to close the airlock hatch. Koblat’s flight control was already signalling him to leave the docking bay. His filed flight plan gave a departure time of five minutes ago, and another ship was waiting.
“Give him the coordinate,” Beth told Jed. She took Gerald by the arm and gently began to tug him to his couch.
Jed handed the flek over to Knox, wondering how come Beth was suddenly in charge.
The Leonora Cephei rose quickly out of the docking bay; a standard drum-shaped life-support capsule separated from her fusion drive by a thirty-metre spine. Four thermo dump panels unfolded from her rear equipment bay, looking like the cruciform fins of some atmospheric plane. Ion thrusters flared around her base and nose. Without any cargo to carry, manoeuvring was a lot faster and easier than normal. She rotated through ninety degrees, then the secondary drive came on, pushing her out past the rim of the spaceport.
Before Leonora Cephei had travelled five kilometres, the Villeneuve’s Revenge settled onto the waiting cradle of bay WJR-99. Captain Duchamp datavised a request to the spaceport service company for a full load of deuterium and He3 . His fuel levels were down to twenty per cent, he said, and he had a long voyage ahead.
The clouds over Chainbridge formed a tight stationary knot of dark carmine amid the ruby streamers which ebbed and swirled across the rest of the sky. Standing behind Moyo as he drove the bus towards the town, Stephanie could sense the equally darkened minds clustered among the buildings. There were far more than there should have been; Chain-bridge was barely more than an ambitious village.
Moyo’s concern matched hers. His foot eased off the accelerator. “What do you want to do?”
“We don’t have a lot of choice. That’s where the bridge is. And the vehicles need recharging.”
“Go through?”
“Go through. I can’t believe anyone will hurt the children now.”
Chainbridge’s streets were clogged with parked vehicles. They were either military jeeps and scout rangers or lightly armoured infantry carriers. Possessed lounged indolently among them. They reminded Moyo of ancient revolutionary guerillas, with their bold-print camouflage fatigues, heavy lace-up boots, and shoulder-slung rifles.
“Uh oh,” Moyo said. They had reached the town square, a pleasant cobbled district bounded by tall aboriginal leghorn trees. Two light-tracked tanks were drawn up across the road. The machines were impossibly archaic with their iron slab bodywork and chuntering engines coughing up diesel smoke. But that same primitive solidity gave them a unique and unarguable menace.
The Karmic Crusader had already stopped, its cheap effervescent colours quite absurd against the tank’s stolid armour. Moyo braked behind it.
“You stay in here,” Stephanie said, squeezing his shoulder. “The children need someone. This is frightening for them.”
“This is frightening for me,” he groused.
Stephanie stepped down onto the cobbles. Sunglasses spread out from her nose in the same fashion as a butterfly opening its wings.
Cochrane was already arguing with a couple of soldiers who were standing in front of the tanks. Stephanie came up behind him and smiled pleasantly at them. “I’d like to talk to Annette Ekelund, please. Would you tell her we’re here.”
One of them glanced at the Karmic Crusader and the inquisitive children pressed against its windscreen. He nodded, and slipped away past the tanks.
Annette Ekelund emerged from the town hall a couple of minutes later. She was wearing a smart grey uniform, its leather jacket lined in scarlet silk.
“Oh, wow,” Cochrane said as she approached. “It’s Mrs Hitler herself.”
Stephanie growled at him.
“We heard you were coming,” Annette Ekelund said in a tired voice.
“So why have you blocked the road?” Stephanie asked.
“Because I can, of course. Don’t you understand anything?”
“All right, you’ve demonstrated you’re in charge. I accept that. None of us has the slightest intention of challenging you. Can we go past now, please?”
Annette Ekelund shook her head in bemused wonder. “I just had to see you for myself. What do you think you’re doing with these kids? Do you think you’re saving them?”
“Frankly, yes. I’m sorry if that’s too simple for you, but they’re really all I’m interested in.”
“If you genuinely cared, you would have left them alone. It would have been kinder in the long run.”
“They’re children. They’re alone now, and they’re frightened now. Abstract issues don’t mean very much compared to that. And you’re scaring them.”
“Not intentionally.”
“So what is all this martial jingoism for? Keeping us under control?”
“You don’t show a lot of gratitude, do you? I risked everything to bring lost souls back to this world, including yours.”
“And so you think that gives you a shot at being our empress. You didn’t risk anything, you were compelled, just like all of us. You were simply the first, nothing more.”
“I was the first to see what needed to be done. The first to organize. The first to fight. The first to claim victory. The first to stake out our land.” She swept an arm out towards a squad of troops who had taken over a pavement café on the other side of the square. “That’s why they follow me. Because I’m right, because I know what needs to be done.”
“What these people need is some kind of purpose. Mortonridge is falling apart. There’s no food left, no electricity, nobody knows what to do. With authority comes responsibility. Unless you’re just a bandit queen, of course. If you’re a real leader, you should apply your leadership skills where they’ll do the most good. You made a start, you kept the communications net working, you gave most towns a council of sorts. You should have built on that.”
Annette Ekelund grinned. “What exactly were you before? They told me you were just a housewife.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Stephanie said, impatient with the whole charade. “Will you let us through?”
“If I didn’t, you’d only find another way. Of course you can go through. We even have a few children scooting around the town that you can take with you. See? I’m not a complete monster.”
“The buses need recharging first.”
“Naturally.” Ekelund sighed. She beckoned to one of the tank guards. “Dane will show you where a working power point is. Please don’t ask us for any food, I haven’t got enough to spare. I’m having trouble supplying my own troops as it is.”
Stephanie looked at the tanks; if she concentrated hard she could make out the fantasm shapes of the farm tractor mechanoids behind the armour. “What are you and your army doing here?”
“I would have thought that was obvious. I’ve taken that responsibility you prize so highly. I’m protecting Mortonridge for you. We’re only thirty kilometres from the firebreak they slashed across the top of the ridge; and on the other side, the Saldana Princess is preparing. They’re not going to leave us alone, Stephanie Ash. They hate us and they fear us. It’s a nasty combination. So while you go gallivanting around doing your good deeds, just remember who’s holding back the barbarians.” She started back for the tanks, then paused. “You know, one day you’re really going to have to decide where your loyalties lie. You said you’d fight to stop them throwing you back; well if you do, it’ll be at my side.”
“Ho wow, one iron-assed lady,” Cochrane muttered.
“Definitely,” Stephanie agreed.
Dane climbed into the Karmic Crusader with Cochrane and showed them the way to a line of warehouses which served the wharf. Their long roofs were all made from solar collector panels. When the buses were plugged in, Stephanie called her people together and told them what Ekelund had said.
“If any of you want to wait here while the buses go to the firebreak, I’ll understand,” she said. “The Kingdom military might get nervous about four large vehicles heading towards them.”
“They won’t shoot us out of hand,” McPhee said. “Not as long as we don’t cross the line. They’ll be curious.”
“Do you think so?” Tina said anxiously. A large lace hankie was pressed to her lips.
“I’ve been there,” Dane said. “It was a scout mission. I watched them watching me. They won’t start any trouble. Like your friend said, they’ll be curious.”
“We’re almost there.” Stephanie’s fixed smile betrayed her nerves. “Just a few more hours, that’s all.” She glanced back at the buses, putting on a cheerful expression as she waved at the children pressed up against the windows. They had all picked up on the gloomy aura of the darkened clouds overhead. “McPhee, Franklin; give me a hand with them will you. We’ll let them stretch their legs here and use a toilet.”
“Sure.”
Stephanie let Moyo hold her for a moment. He planted a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t give up now.”
She smiled shyly. “I won’t. Can you take a look in the warehouses for me, see if you can find some working toilets. If not, we’ll have to make do with tissues and the river.”
“I’ll go check.”
The big sliding doors of the closest warehouse were open. It was used to store tubing, row after row of floor-to-ceiling stacks. All its lights were off, but there was enough pink-tinged sunlight coming through the doors for him to see by. He started checking around for an office.
Silent forklift mechanoids were standing in the aisles, holding up bundles of tubing that had been destined for urgent delivery. It wouldn’t take much effort to start them up again, he thought. But what would be the point? Did a society of possessed need factories and farms? Some infrastructure was necessary, yes, but how much and of what kind? Something simple and efficient, and extremely long-lasting. He was quietly glad that kind of decision wasn’t his.
A pyramid of tubing shielded the man from Moyo’s perception. So he convinced himself later. Whatever the reason, he didn’t notice him until he had rounded a corner and was barely five metres away. And he wasn’t a possessed. Moyo knew his own kind, the internal glimmer of cells excited by the energistic overspill. This man’s biolectric currents were almost black, while his thoughts were fast and quiet. He was excessively ordinary in appearance; wearing pale green trousers, a check shirt, and a sleeveless jacket with DataAxis printed on its left breast pocket.
Moyo was chilled by a rush of panic. Any non-possessed creeping around here had to be a spy, which meant he’d be armed, most likely with something potent enough to terminate a possessed with minimum fuss.
White fire punched out of Moyo’s palm, an instinctive response.
The seething streamer splashed against the man’s face and flowed around him to strike the tubing behind him. Moyo grunted in disbelief. The man simply stood there as if it were water pouring over him.
The white fire dimmed, its remnants retreating into Moyo’s hand. He whimpered, expecting the worst. I’m going to be blown back into the beyond. They’ve found a way of neutralizing our energistic power. We’ve lost. There’s only the beyond now. For always.
He closed his eyes. Thinking with fond longing: Stephanie.
Nothing happened. He opened his eyes again. The man was looking at him with a mildly embarrassed expression. Behind him, molten metal was dribbling down the side of the stacked tubing.
“Who are you?” Moyo asked hoarsely.
“My name’s Hugh Rosler. I used to live in Exnall.”
“Did you follow us here?”
“No. Although I did watch your bus leave Exnall. It’s just coincidence I’m here now.”
“Right,” Moyo said carefully. “You’re not a spy then?”
The question was one which Rosler apparently found quite amusing. “Not for the Kulu Kingdom, no.”
“So how come the white fire didn’t affect you?”
“I have a built-in resistance. It was thought we should have some protection when this time came around. And the reality dysfunction ability has proved inordinately useful over the years. I’ve been in a few tight corners in my time; completely inadvertently I might add. I’m not supposed to be obtrusive.”
“Then you are an agent. Who do you work for?”
“Agent implies an active role. I only observe, I’m not part of any faction.”
“Faction?”
“The Kingdom. The Confederation. Adamists. Edenists. The possessed. Factions.”
“Uh huh. Are you going to shoot me, then, or something?”
“Good heavens no. I told you, I’m here purely on observation duty.”
What was being said, apparently in all sincerity, wasn’t helping to calm Moyo at all. “For which faction?”
“Ah. That’s classified, I’m afraid. Technically, I shouldn’t even be telling you this much. But circumstances have changed since my mission began. These things aren’t quite so important today. I’m just trying to put you at ease.”
“It’s not working.”
“You really do have nothing to fear from me.”
“You’re not human, are you?”
“I’m ninety-nine per cent human. That’s good enough to qualify, surely?”
Moyo thought he would have preferred it if Hugh Rosler had launched into an indignant denial. “What’s the one per cent?”
“Sorry. Classified.”
“Xenoc? Is that it? Some unknown race? We always had rumours of pre-technology contact, men being taken away to breed.”
Hugh Rosler chuckled. “Oh, yes, good old Roswell. You know I’d almost forgotten about that; the papers were full of it for decades afterwards. But I don’t think it ever really happened. At least, I never detected any UFOs when I was on Earth, and I was there quite a while.”
“You were . . . ? But . . .”
“I’d better be going. Your friends are starting to wonder where you’ve got to. There’s a toilet in the next warehouse which the children can use. The tank is gravity fed, so it’s still working.”
“Wait! What are you observing us for?”
“To see what happens, of course.”
“Happens? You mean when the Kingdom attacks?”
“No, that’s not really important. I want to see what the outcome is for your entire race now that the beyond has been revealed to you. I must say, I’m becoming quite excited by the prospect. After all, I have been waiting for this for a very long time. It’s my designated goal function.”
Moyo simply stared at him, astonishment and indignation taking the place of fear. “How long?” was all he managed to whisper.
“Eighteen centuries.” Rosler raised an arm in a cheery wave and walked away into the shadows at the back of the warehouse. They seemed to lap him up.
“What’s the matter with you?” Stephanie asked when Moyo shambled slowly out into the gloomy light of the rumbling clouds.
“Don’t laugh, but I think I’ve just met Methuselah’s younger brother.”
Louise heard the lounge hatch slide open, and guessed who it was. His duty watch had finished fifteen minutes ago. Just long enough to show he wasn’t in any sort of rush to see her.
The trouble with the Jamrana , Louise thought, was its layout. Its cabin fittings were just as good as those in the Far Realm , but instead of the pyramid of four life-support capsules, the inter-orbit cargo craft had a single cylindrical life-support section riding above the cargo truss. The decks were stacked one on top of the other like the layers of a wedding cake. To find someone, all you had to do was start at the top, and climb down the central ladder. There was no escape.
“Hello, Louise.”
She reached for a polite smile. “Hello, Pieri.”
Pieri Bushay had just reached twenty, the second oldest of three brothers. Like most inter-orbit ships, Jamrana was run as a family concern; all seven crew members were Bushays. The strangeness of the extended family, the looseness of its internal relationships, was one which Louise found troubling; it was more company than any family she understood. Pieri’s elder brother was away serving a commission in the Govcentral navy, which left his father, twin mothers, brother, and two cousins to run the ship.
Small wonder that a young female passenger would be such an attraction to him. He was shy, and uncertain, which was endearing; nothing like the misplaced assurance of William Elphinstone.
“How are you feeling?”
His usual opening line.
“Fine.” Louise tapped the little nanonic package behind her ear. “The wonders of Confederation technology.”
“We’ll be flipping over in another twenty hours. Halfway there. Then we’ll be flying ass . . . er, I mean, bottom backwards to Earth.”
She was impatient with the fact it was going to take longer to fly seventy million kilometres between planets than it had to fly between stars. But at least the fusion drive was scheduled to be on for a third of the trip. The medical packages didn’t have to work quite so hard to negate her sickness. “That’s good.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to datavise the O’Neill Halo to see if there’s a ship heading for Tranquillity?”
“No.” That had been too sharp. “Thank you, Pieri, but if a ship is going, then it’s going, if not, there’s nothing I can do. Fate, you see.”
“Oh, sure. I understand.” He smiled tentatively. “Louise, if you have to stay in the Halo till you find a starship, I’d like to show you around. I’ve visited hundreds of the rocks. I know what’s hot out there, what to see, what to miss. It would be fun.”
“Hundreds?”
“Fifty, at least. And all the major ones, including Nova Kong.”
“I’m sorry, Pieri, that doesn’t mean much to me. I’ve never heard of Nova Kong.”
“Really? Not even on Norfolk?”
“No. The only one I know is High York, and that’s only because we’re heading to it.”
“But Nova Kong is famous; one of the first to be flown into Earth orbit and be made habitable. Nova Kong physicists invented the ZTT drive. And Richard Saldana was the asteroid’s chairman once; he used it as his headquarters to plan the Kulu colonization.”
“How fabulous. I can’t really imagine a time when the Kingdom didn’t exist, it seems so . . . substantial. In fact all of Earth’s prestarflight history reads like a fable to me. So, have you ever visited High York before?”
“Yes, it’s where the Jamrana is registered.”
“That’s your home, then?”
“We mostly dock there, but the ship’s my real home. I wouldn’t swap it for anything.”
“Just like Joshua. You space types are all the same. You’ve got wild blood.”
“I suppose so.” His face tightened at the mention of Joshua; the guardian angel fiancé Louise managed to mention in every conversation.
“Is High York very well organized?”
He seemed puzzled by the question. “Yes. Of course. It has to be. Asteroids are nothing like planets, Louise. If the environment isn’t maintained properly you’d have a catastrophe on your hands. They can’t afford not to be well organized.”
“I know that. What I meant was, the government. Does it have very strong law enforcement policies? Phobos seemed fairly easygoing.”
“That’s the devout Communists for you; they’re very trusting, Dad says they always give people the benefit of the doubt.”
It confirmed her worries. When the four of them had arrived at the Jamrana a couple of hours before its departure, Endron had handed over their passport fleks to the single Immigration Officer on duty. He had known the woman, and they’d spoken cheerfully. She’d been laughing when she slotted the fleks into her processor block, barely glancing at the images they stored. Three transient offworlders with official documentation, who were friends of Endron . . . She even allowed Endron to accompany them on board.
That was when he’d taken Louise aside. “You won’t make it, you know that, don’t you?” he asked.
“We’ve got this far,” she said shakily. Though she’d had her doubts. There had been so many people as they made their tortuous way to the spaceport with the cargo mechanoid concealing Faurax’s unconscious body. But they’d got the forger on board the Far Realm and into a zero-tau pod without incident.
“So far you’ve had a lot of luck, and no genuine obstacle. That’s going to end as soon as the Jamrana enters Govcentral-controlled space. You don’t understand what it’s going to be like, Louise. There’s no way you’ll ever get inside High York. Look, the only reason you ever got inside Phobos was because we smuggled you in, and no one bothered to inspect the Far Realm . You got out, because no one is bothered about departing ships. And now you’re heading straight at Earth, which has the largest single population in the Confederation, and runs the greatest military force ever assembled—a military force which along with the leadership is very paranoid right now. Three forged passports are not going to get you in. They are going to run every test they can think of, Louise, and believe me, Fletcher is not going to get through High York’s spaceport.” He was almost pleading with her. “Come with me, tell our government what’s happened. They won’t hurt him, I’ll testify that he’s not a danger. Then after that we can find you a ship to Tranquillity, all above board.”
“No. You don’t understand, they’ll send him back to the beyond. I saw it on the news; if you put a possessed in zero-tau it compels them out of the body they’re using. I can’t turn Fletcher in, not if they’re going to force him back there. He’s suffered for seven centuries. Isn’t that enough?”
“And what about the person whose body he’s possessing?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “I didn’t want any of this. My whole planet’s been possessed.”
“All right. I’m sorry. But I had to say it. You’re doing a damn sight worse than playing with fire, Louise.”
“Yes.” She held on to his shoulder with one hand to steady herself and brushed her lips to his cheek. “Thank you. I’m sure you could have blown the whistle on us if you really wanted to.”
His reddening cheeks were confirmation enough. “Yeah, well. Maybe I learned from you that nothing is quite black and white. Besides, that Fletcher, he’s so . . .”
“Decent.”
Louise gave Pieri the kind of look that told him she was immensely interested in every word he spoke. “So what will happen when we arrive at High York, then? I want to know everything.”
Pieri started to access all his neural nanonic-filed memories of High York spaceport. With luck, and a surfeit of details, he could make this last for a good hour.
The Magistrature Council was the Confederation’s ultimate court. Twenty-five judges sat on the Council, appointed by the Assembly to deal with the most serious violations of Confederation law. The majority of cases were the ones brought against starship crews captured by navy ships, those accused of piracy or owning antimatter. Less common were the war crimes trials, inevitably resulting from asteroid independence struggles. There were only two possible sentences for anyone found guilty by the Magistrature: death, or deportation to a penal colony.
The full Magistrature Council also had the power to sit in judgement of sovereign governments. The last such sitting had determined, in absentia, Omuta to be guilty of genocide, and ordered the execution of its cabinet and military high command.
The Council’s final mandate was the authority to declare a person, government, or entire people to be an Enemy of Humanity. Laton had been awarded such a condemnation, as had members of the black syndicates producing antimatter, and various terrorists and defeated warlords. Such a proclamation was essentially a death warrant which empowered a Confederation official to pursue the renegade across all national boundaries and required all local governments to cooperate.
That was the pronouncement the Provost General was now aiming to have applied against the possessed. With that in the bag, the CNIS would be free to do whatever they wanted to Jacqueline Couteur and the other prisoners in the demon trap. But first her current status had to be legally established, if she was a hostile prisoner under the terms of the state of emergency, or a hapless victim. In either case, she was still entitled to a legal representative.
The courtroom in Trafalgar chosen for the preliminary hearing was maximum security court three. It had none of the trimmings of the public courts, retaining only the very basic layout of docks, desks for the prosecution and defence counsels, the judge’s bench, and a small observer gallery. There was no permitted or designated place for the media or the public.
Maynard Khanna arrived five minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin, and sat at the front of the small gallery. As someone used to the order of military life, he had an intense distrust and dislike of the legal profession. Lawyers had abolished the simple concept of right and wrong, turning it into degrees of guilt. And in doing so they cut themselves in for fees which came only in large multiples of a navy captain’s salary.
The accused were entitled to a defence, Maynard conceded, but he still never understood how their lawyers avoided feeling equally guilty when they got them off.
Lieutenant Murphy Hewlett sat down behind Maynard, pulling unhappily at the jacket of his dress uniform. He leaned forward and murmured: “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Me neither,” Maynard grumbled back. “But the Provost General says it should be a formality. No court in the galaxy is going to let Jacqueline Couteur walk out of the door.”
“For God’s sake, Maynard, she shouldn’t even be let out of the demon trap. You know that.”
“This is a secure court; and we can’t give her defence lawyer an opportunity to mount an appeal on procedural grounds.”
“Bloody lawyers!”
“Too right. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Provost General’s witness. I’m supposed to tell the judge how we were in a war situation on Lalonde, which makes Couteur’s capture legitimate under the Assembly’s rules of engagement. It’s in case her lawyer goes for a wrongful jurisdiction plea.”
“You know, this is the first time I’ve ever disagreed with the First Admiral. I said we should just keep her in the demon trap, and screw all this legal crap. Gilmore is losing days of research time over this.”
Murphy hissed in disgust and sat back. For the eighth time that morning, his hand ran over his holster. It contained a nine-millimetre semi-automatic pistol, loaded with dumdum bullets. He loosened the cover, allowing his fingers to rest on the grip. Yesterday evening he had spent two hours at the range in the officers’ mess, shooting the weapon without any aid from neural nanonics programs. Just in case.
An eight-strong marine squad and their sergeant, each of them armed with a machine gun, marched the four prisoners into the court. Jacqueline Couteur was the first in line, dressed in a neat grey suit. If it hadn’t been for the carbotanium manacles she would have been a picture of middle-class respectability. A slim sensor bracelet had been placed around her right wrist, monitoring the flow of energy through her body. She looked around, noting the marine guards at each of the three doors. Then she saw Murphy Hewlett scowling, and grinned generously at him.
“Bitch,” he grunted under his breath.
The marine squad sat Jacqueline in the dock and fastened her manacles to a loop of chain. The other three possessed—Randall, Lennart, and Nena—were made to sit on the bench beside her. Once their manacles were secured, the marines took up position behind them. The sergeant datavised his processor block to check that the sensor bracelets were working, then gave the clerk of the court a brief nod.
The four defence lawyers were ushered in. Jacqueline manoeuvred a polite welcoming smile into place. This was the third time she’d seen Udo DiMarco. The lawyer wasn’t entirely happy to be appointed her counsel, he’d admitted that much to her, but then went on to say he’d do his best.
“Good morning, Jacqueline,” he said, doing his nervous best to ignore the marines behind her.
“Hello, Udo. Did you manage to obtain the recordings?”
“I filed a release request with the court, yes. It may take some time; the navy claims their Intelligence Service research is classified and exempt from the access act of 2503. I’ll challenge that, of course, but as I said this is all going to take some time.”
“They tortured me, Udo. The judge has to see those recordings. I’ll walk free in seconds if the truth is ever known.”
“Jacqueline, this is only a preliminary hearing to establish that all the required arrest procedures were followed, and clarify your legal custody status.”
“I wasn’t arrested, I was abducted.”
Udo DiMarco sighed and plunged on. “The Provost General’s team is going to argue that as a possessor you have committed a kidnap, and are therefore a felon. That will give them a basis for holding you in custody. They’re also arguing that your energistic power constitutes a new and dangerous weapons technology, which will validate the Intelligence Service’s investigation. Please don’t expect to walk out of court this morning.”
“Well I’m sure you’ll do your best.” She gave him an encouraging smile.
Udo DiMarco flexed his shoulders uncomfortably and withdrew to the defence counsel’s bench. His sole comfort was the fact that the media weren’t allowed in; no one would know he was defending a possessed. He datavised his processor block, reviewing the files he’d assembled. Ironically, he could put up quite a good case for Couteur’s release, but he’d made the decision five minutes after having the case dumped on him that he was only going to make a show of defending her. Jacqueline could never know, but Udo DiMarco had a lot of family on New California.
The clerk of the court rose to his feet and announced: “Please stand for Judge Roxanne Taynor. This Magistrature Council court is now in session.”
Judge Taynor appeared at the door behind the bench. Everyone stood, including the four possessed. Their movement meant the marine guards had to alter the angle they were pointing their machine guns. For a moment their concentration was less than absolute. Everybody’s neural nanonics crashed. The lighting panels became incandescent. Four balls of white fire exploded around the machine guns, smashing them into a shower of molten fragments.
Murphy Hewlett bellowed a wordless curse, yanking his pistol up, thumb flicking at the safety catch. Like most people he was caught halfway to his feet, an awkward position. A brutally white light was making him squeeze his eyelids closed; retinal implants were taking a long time to filter out the excess photons. The sound of the detonating machine guns was audible above the startled cries. He swung the pistol around to line up on Couteur. Marines were screaming as their hands and lower arms were shredded along with their weapons. The lights went out.
From dazzling brilliance to total blackness was too much for his eyes. He couldn’t see a thing. A machine gun fired. Muzzle blasts sent out a flickering orange light.
The possessed were all moving. Fast. The gunfire turned their motions into speedy flickers. They’d run straight through the dock, smashing the tough composite apart. Fragments tumbled through the air.
Two lightning streaks of white fire lashed out, striking a couple of marines. The lawyers were scrambling for the closest door. Roxanne Taynor was already through the door to her chambers. One of the marines was standing in front of it, sweeping her machine gun in a fast arc as she tried to line it up on a possessed.
“Close the doors!” Murphy yelled. “Seal this place.”
A machine gun was firing again as the light from the white fire shrank away. People screamed as they dived and stumbled for cover. Ricochets hummed lethally through the blackness.
Murphy caught sight of Couteur in the segments of illumination thrown out by another burst of gunfire. He twisted his pistol around and fired five shots, anticipating her direction for the last two. Dumdum bullets impacted with penetrating booms. Murphy dropped to his knees and rolled quickly. A pulse of white fire ripped through the air where he’d been standing. “Shit!” Missed her.
He could hear a siren wailing outside. Sensor modules on the walls were starting to burn, jetting out long tongues of turquoise flame which dissolved into a fountain of sparks. Three more bolts of white fire zipped over the gallery seats. There were heavy thuds of bodies hitting the floor.
When he risked a quick glance above the seat backs he could see Nena and Randall crouched low and zigzagging towards the door behind him. Eyeblink image of the door to one side of the smashed dock: three marines standing in defensive formation around it, almost flinging a lawyer out into the corridor beyond. But the door behind him was still open. It was trying to slide shut, but the body of a dead marine was preventing it from closing.
Murphy didn’t have an option. They couldn’t be allowed out into Trafalgar, it was inconceivable. He vaulted over the seats just as an odd rosette of white fire spun upwards from behind the judge’s bench. It hit the ceiling and bounced, expanding rapidly into a crown made up from writhing flames which coiled around and around each other. The three marines guarding the door fired at it as it swooped down at them, bullets tearing out violet bubbles which erupted into twinkling starbursts. Murphy started firing his pistol at Randall as he sprinted for the door, trigger finger pumping frantically. Seeing the dumdum rounds rip ragged chunks out of the possessed’s chest. Shifting his aim slightly. Half of Randall’s neck blew away in a twister of blood and bone chippings. A screaming Nena cartwheeled backwards in panic, limbs thrashing out of control.
The crown of agitated white fire dropped around one of the marines like an incendiary lasso. It contracted with vicious snapping sounds, slicing clean through his pelvis. His machine gun was still firing as his torso tumbled down, spraying the whole courtroom with bullets. He tried to say something as he fell, but shock had jammed his entire nervous system. All that came out was a coughed grunt as his head hit the ground. Dulled eyes stared at his legs which were still standing above him, twitching spastically as they slowly buckled.
The other two marines froze in terror. Then one vomited.
“Close it!” Murphy gagged. “For Christ’s sake, get out and close it.” His eyes were hot and sticky with fluid, some of it red. His foot hit something, and he half tripped flinging himself at the gap. He landed flat on the dead marine and rolled forwards. Figures were running around at the far end of the corridor, confused movements blurring together. White fire enveloped his ankle.
“Does it hurt? We can help.”
“No, fuck you!” He flopped onto an elbow and aimed the pistol back through the door, firing wildly. Pain from his ankle was making his hand shake violently. Noxious smoke sizzled up in front of him.
Then hands were gripping his shoulders, pulling him back along the floor. Bullish shouts all around him. The distinctive thud of a Bradfield slammed against his ears, louder than thunder in the close confines of the corridor. A marine in full combat armour was standing above him, firing the heavy-calibre weapon into the courtroom. Another suited marine was pulling the corpse clear of the door.
Murphy’s neural nanonics started to come back on-line. Medical programs established axon blocks. The courtroom door slid shut, locks engaging with a clunk. A fire extinguisher squirted thick white gas against Murphy’s smouldering dress uniform trousers. He flopped down onto the corridor floor, too stunned to say anything for a while. When he looked around he could see three people he recognized from the court, all of them ashen-faced and stupefied, slumped against the walls. The marines were tending to two of them. That was when Murphy realized the corridor floor was smeared with blood. Spent cartridge cases from his pistol rolled around.
He was dragged further away from the courtroom door, allowing the marine squad to set up two tripod-mounted Bradfields, pointing right at the grey reinforced silicon.
“Hold still,” a woman in a doctor’s field uniform told him. She began to cut his trousers away; a male nurse was holding a medical nanonic package ready.
“Did any of them get out?” Murphy asked weakly. People were tramping up and down the corridor, paying no attention to him.
“I don’t know,” the doctor said.
“Fuck it, find out!”
She gave him a calculating look.
“Please?”
One of the marines was called over. “The other doors are all closed,” he told Murphy. “We got a few people out, but the possessed are safely locked up in there. Every exit is sealed tight. The captain is waiting for a CNIS team to advise him what to do next.”
“A few people?” Murphy asked. “A few people got out?”
“Yeah. Some of the lawyers, the judge, court staff, five marines. We’re proud of the fight you put up, sir, you and the others. It could have been a lot worse.”
“And the rest?”
The marine turned his blank shell helmet towards the door. “Sorry, sir.”
The roar of the machine gun ended, leaving only the screams and whimpers to fester through the darkened courtroom. Maynard Khanna could hear his own feeble groans contributing to the morass of distress. There was little he could do to prevent it, the tiniest movement sent sickening spires of pain leaping into his skull. A gout of white fire had struck him seconds into the conflict, wrapping around his leg like a blazing serpent, felling him immediately. His temple had struck one of the seats, dazing him badly. After that, all the noise and flaring light swarmed around him, somehow managing to leave him isolated from the fray.
Now the white fire had gone, leaving him alone with its terrible legacy. The flesh from his leg had melted off. But his bones had remained intact, perfectly white. He could see his skeletal foot twitching next to his real one, its tiny bones fitting together like a medical text.
The splintered remnants of the dock were burning with unnatural brightness, throwing capering shadows on the wall. Maynard turned his head, crying out as red stars gave way to an ominous darkness. When he flushed the involuntary tears from his eyes he could see the heavy door at the back of the court was shut.
They hadn’t got out!
He took a few breaths, momentarily puzzled by what he was doing in the dark, the waves of pain seemed to prevent his thoughts from flowing. The screams had died, along with every other sound except for the sharp crackling of the flames. Footsteps crunched through the debris. Three dark figures loomed above him; humanoid perhaps, but any lingering facet of humanity had been bred out generations ago.
The whispers began, slithering up from a bottomless pit to comfort him with the sincerity of a two-timing lover. Then came the real pain.
Dr Gilmore studied the datavised image he was receiving direct from Marine Captain Rhodri Peyton’s eyes. He was standing in the middle of a marine squad which was strung out along one of the corridors leading to maximum security court three. Their machine guns and Bradfields were deployed to cover the engineering officers who were gingerly applying sensor pads to the door.
When Dr Gilmore attempted to access the officers’ processor blocks there was no response. The units were too close to the possessed inside the courtroom. “Have they made any attempt to break out?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Rhodri Peyton datavised. His eyes flicked to brown scorch lines on the walls just outside the door. “Those marks were caused when Lieutenant Hewlett was engaging them. There’s been nothing since then. We’ve got them trapped, all right.”
Gilmore accessed Trafalgar’s central computer and requested a blueprint of the courtroom. There were no service tunnels nearby, and the air-ducts weren’t large enough for anyone to crawl down. It was a maximum security court after all. Unfortunately it wasn’t the kind of security designed with the possessed in mind. He knew it would only be a matter of time before they got out. Then there really would be hell to pay.
“Nobody is going back,” he said. Gari was clinging to his side, the mass of her floating body trying hard to twist him away from the stikpad. He didn’t let go of the grab hoop.
“Then we don’t leave,” Knox said simply.
Jed saw Gerald Skibbow at the back of the lounge; as usual he was in switch-off, staring at the bulkhead with glazed eyes. Jed was beginning to wonder if he had a serious habit. “Gerald.” He waved urgently. “Gerald!”
Knox muttered under his breath as Gerald came awake in slow stages, his body twitching.
“How many passengers are you licensed for?” Beth asked.
Knox ignored her.
“What is it?” Gerald asked. He was blinking as if the light were too bright.
“Too many people,” Knox said. “You’ve gotta chuck some off.”
“I have to go,” Gerald said quietly.
“No one is saying you don’t, Gerald,” Beth said. “It’s your money.”
“But my ship,” Knox said. “And I’m not carrying this many.”
“Fine,” Beth said. “We’ll just ask the CAB office how many people you’re licensed to carry.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“If you won’t carry us, then return the fee and we’ll find another ship.”
Knox gave Gerald a desperate glance, but he looked equally bewildered.
“Just three, did you say?” Beth asked.
Sensing things were finally flowing in his favour, Knox smiled. “Yes, just three. I’ll be happy to fly a second charter for your friends later.”
Which was rubbish, Beth knew. He was only worried about his own precious skin. A ship operating this close to the margin really would be hard put to sustain nineteen Deadnights plus the crew. It was the first time Knox had shown the slightest concern about the flight. The only interest he’d shown in them before was their ability to pay. Which Gerald had done, and well over the odds, too. They didn’t deserve to be pushed around like this.
But Gerald was totally out of the argument, back in one of his semi-comatose depressions again. And Jed . . . Jed these days was focused on one thing only. Beth still hadn’t made up her mind if she was annoyed about that or not.
“Put three of us in the lifeboat, then,” she said.
“What?” Knox asked.
“You do have a lifeboat?”
“Of course.”
Which is where he and his precious family would shelter if anything did go wrong, she knew. “We’ll put the three youngest in there. They’d be the first in anyway, wouldn’t they?”
Knox glared at her. Ultimately, though, money won the argument. Skibbow had paid double the price of an ordinary charter, even at the inflated rates flights to and from Koblat were currently worth.
“Very well,” Knox said gracelessly. He datavised the flight computer to close the airlock hatch. Koblat’s flight control was already signalling him to leave the docking bay. His filed flight plan gave a departure time of five minutes ago, and another ship was waiting.
“Give him the coordinate,” Beth told Jed. She took Gerald by the arm and gently began to tug him to his couch.
Jed handed the flek over to Knox, wondering how come Beth was suddenly in charge.
The Leonora Cephei rose quickly out of the docking bay; a standard drum-shaped life-support capsule separated from her fusion drive by a thirty-metre spine. Four thermo dump panels unfolded from her rear equipment bay, looking like the cruciform fins of some atmospheric plane. Ion thrusters flared around her base and nose. Without any cargo to carry, manoeuvring was a lot faster and easier than normal. She rotated through ninety degrees, then the secondary drive came on, pushing her out past the rim of the spaceport.
Before Leonora Cephei had travelled five kilometres, the Villeneuve’s Revenge settled onto the waiting cradle of bay WJR-99. Captain Duchamp datavised a request to the spaceport service company for a full load of deuterium and He3 . His fuel levels were down to twenty per cent, he said, and he had a long voyage ahead.
The clouds over Chainbridge formed a tight stationary knot of dark carmine amid the ruby streamers which ebbed and swirled across the rest of the sky. Standing behind Moyo as he drove the bus towards the town, Stephanie could sense the equally darkened minds clustered among the buildings. There were far more than there should have been; Chain-bridge was barely more than an ambitious village.
Moyo’s concern matched hers. His foot eased off the accelerator. “What do you want to do?”
“We don’t have a lot of choice. That’s where the bridge is. And the vehicles need recharging.”
“Go through?”
“Go through. I can’t believe anyone will hurt the children now.”
Chainbridge’s streets were clogged with parked vehicles. They were either military jeeps and scout rangers or lightly armoured infantry carriers. Possessed lounged indolently among them. They reminded Moyo of ancient revolutionary guerillas, with their bold-print camouflage fatigues, heavy lace-up boots, and shoulder-slung rifles.
“Uh oh,” Moyo said. They had reached the town square, a pleasant cobbled district bounded by tall aboriginal leghorn trees. Two light-tracked tanks were drawn up across the road. The machines were impossibly archaic with their iron slab bodywork and chuntering engines coughing up diesel smoke. But that same primitive solidity gave them a unique and unarguable menace.
The Karmic Crusader had already stopped, its cheap effervescent colours quite absurd against the tank’s stolid armour. Moyo braked behind it.
“You stay in here,” Stephanie said, squeezing his shoulder. “The children need someone. This is frightening for them.”
“This is frightening for me,” he groused.
Stephanie stepped down onto the cobbles. Sunglasses spread out from her nose in the same fashion as a butterfly opening its wings.
Cochrane was already arguing with a couple of soldiers who were standing in front of the tanks. Stephanie came up behind him and smiled pleasantly at them. “I’d like to talk to Annette Ekelund, please. Would you tell her we’re here.”
One of them glanced at the Karmic Crusader and the inquisitive children pressed against its windscreen. He nodded, and slipped away past the tanks.
Annette Ekelund emerged from the town hall a couple of minutes later. She was wearing a smart grey uniform, its leather jacket lined in scarlet silk.
“Oh, wow,” Cochrane said as she approached. “It’s Mrs Hitler herself.”
Stephanie growled at him.
“We heard you were coming,” Annette Ekelund said in a tired voice.
“So why have you blocked the road?” Stephanie asked.
“Because I can, of course. Don’t you understand anything?”
“All right, you’ve demonstrated you’re in charge. I accept that. None of us has the slightest intention of challenging you. Can we go past now, please?”
Annette Ekelund shook her head in bemused wonder. “I just had to see you for myself. What do you think you’re doing with these kids? Do you think you’re saving them?”
“Frankly, yes. I’m sorry if that’s too simple for you, but they’re really all I’m interested in.”
“If you genuinely cared, you would have left them alone. It would have been kinder in the long run.”
“They’re children. They’re alone now, and they’re frightened now. Abstract issues don’t mean very much compared to that. And you’re scaring them.”
“Not intentionally.”
“So what is all this martial jingoism for? Keeping us under control?”
“You don’t show a lot of gratitude, do you? I risked everything to bring lost souls back to this world, including yours.”
“And so you think that gives you a shot at being our empress. You didn’t risk anything, you were compelled, just like all of us. You were simply the first, nothing more.”
“I was the first to see what needed to be done. The first to organize. The first to fight. The first to claim victory. The first to stake out our land.” She swept an arm out towards a squad of troops who had taken over a pavement café on the other side of the square. “That’s why they follow me. Because I’m right, because I know what needs to be done.”
“What these people need is some kind of purpose. Mortonridge is falling apart. There’s no food left, no electricity, nobody knows what to do. With authority comes responsibility. Unless you’re just a bandit queen, of course. If you’re a real leader, you should apply your leadership skills where they’ll do the most good. You made a start, you kept the communications net working, you gave most towns a council of sorts. You should have built on that.”
Annette Ekelund grinned. “What exactly were you before? They told me you were just a housewife.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Stephanie said, impatient with the whole charade. “Will you let us through?”
“If I didn’t, you’d only find another way. Of course you can go through. We even have a few children scooting around the town that you can take with you. See? I’m not a complete monster.”
“The buses need recharging first.”
“Naturally.” Ekelund sighed. She beckoned to one of the tank guards. “Dane will show you where a working power point is. Please don’t ask us for any food, I haven’t got enough to spare. I’m having trouble supplying my own troops as it is.”
Stephanie looked at the tanks; if she concentrated hard she could make out the fantasm shapes of the farm tractor mechanoids behind the armour. “What are you and your army doing here?”
“I would have thought that was obvious. I’ve taken that responsibility you prize so highly. I’m protecting Mortonridge for you. We’re only thirty kilometres from the firebreak they slashed across the top of the ridge; and on the other side, the Saldana Princess is preparing. They’re not going to leave us alone, Stephanie Ash. They hate us and they fear us. It’s a nasty combination. So while you go gallivanting around doing your good deeds, just remember who’s holding back the barbarians.” She started back for the tanks, then paused. “You know, one day you’re really going to have to decide where your loyalties lie. You said you’d fight to stop them throwing you back; well if you do, it’ll be at my side.”
“Ho wow, one iron-assed lady,” Cochrane muttered.
“Definitely,” Stephanie agreed.
Dane climbed into the Karmic Crusader with Cochrane and showed them the way to a line of warehouses which served the wharf. Their long roofs were all made from solar collector panels. When the buses were plugged in, Stephanie called her people together and told them what Ekelund had said.
“If any of you want to wait here while the buses go to the firebreak, I’ll understand,” she said. “The Kingdom military might get nervous about four large vehicles heading towards them.”
“They won’t shoot us out of hand,” McPhee said. “Not as long as we don’t cross the line. They’ll be curious.”
“Do you think so?” Tina said anxiously. A large lace hankie was pressed to her lips.
“I’ve been there,” Dane said. “It was a scout mission. I watched them watching me. They won’t start any trouble. Like your friend said, they’ll be curious.”
“We’re almost there.” Stephanie’s fixed smile betrayed her nerves. “Just a few more hours, that’s all.” She glanced back at the buses, putting on a cheerful expression as she waved at the children pressed up against the windows. They had all picked up on the gloomy aura of the darkened clouds overhead. “McPhee, Franklin; give me a hand with them will you. We’ll let them stretch their legs here and use a toilet.”
“Sure.”
Stephanie let Moyo hold her for a moment. He planted a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t give up now.”
She smiled shyly. “I won’t. Can you take a look in the warehouses for me, see if you can find some working toilets. If not, we’ll have to make do with tissues and the river.”
“I’ll go check.”
The big sliding doors of the closest warehouse were open. It was used to store tubing, row after row of floor-to-ceiling stacks. All its lights were off, but there was enough pink-tinged sunlight coming through the doors for him to see by. He started checking around for an office.
Silent forklift mechanoids were standing in the aisles, holding up bundles of tubing that had been destined for urgent delivery. It wouldn’t take much effort to start them up again, he thought. But what would be the point? Did a society of possessed need factories and farms? Some infrastructure was necessary, yes, but how much and of what kind? Something simple and efficient, and extremely long-lasting. He was quietly glad that kind of decision wasn’t his.
A pyramid of tubing shielded the man from Moyo’s perception. So he convinced himself later. Whatever the reason, he didn’t notice him until he had rounded a corner and was barely five metres away. And he wasn’t a possessed. Moyo knew his own kind, the internal glimmer of cells excited by the energistic overspill. This man’s biolectric currents were almost black, while his thoughts were fast and quiet. He was excessively ordinary in appearance; wearing pale green trousers, a check shirt, and a sleeveless jacket with DataAxis printed on its left breast pocket.
Moyo was chilled by a rush of panic. Any non-possessed creeping around here had to be a spy, which meant he’d be armed, most likely with something potent enough to terminate a possessed with minimum fuss.
White fire punched out of Moyo’s palm, an instinctive response.
The seething streamer splashed against the man’s face and flowed around him to strike the tubing behind him. Moyo grunted in disbelief. The man simply stood there as if it were water pouring over him.
The white fire dimmed, its remnants retreating into Moyo’s hand. He whimpered, expecting the worst. I’m going to be blown back into the beyond. They’ve found a way of neutralizing our energistic power. We’ve lost. There’s only the beyond now. For always.
He closed his eyes. Thinking with fond longing: Stephanie.
Nothing happened. He opened his eyes again. The man was looking at him with a mildly embarrassed expression. Behind him, molten metal was dribbling down the side of the stacked tubing.
“Who are you?” Moyo asked hoarsely.
“My name’s Hugh Rosler. I used to live in Exnall.”
“Did you follow us here?”
“No. Although I did watch your bus leave Exnall. It’s just coincidence I’m here now.”
“Right,” Moyo said carefully. “You’re not a spy then?”
The question was one which Rosler apparently found quite amusing. “Not for the Kulu Kingdom, no.”
“So how come the white fire didn’t affect you?”
“I have a built-in resistance. It was thought we should have some protection when this time came around. And the reality dysfunction ability has proved inordinately useful over the years. I’ve been in a few tight corners in my time; completely inadvertently I might add. I’m not supposed to be obtrusive.”
“Then you are an agent. Who do you work for?”
“Agent implies an active role. I only observe, I’m not part of any faction.”
“Faction?”
“The Kingdom. The Confederation. Adamists. Edenists. The possessed. Factions.”
“Uh huh. Are you going to shoot me, then, or something?”
“Good heavens no. I told you, I’m here purely on observation duty.”
What was being said, apparently in all sincerity, wasn’t helping to calm Moyo at all. “For which faction?”
“Ah. That’s classified, I’m afraid. Technically, I shouldn’t even be telling you this much. But circumstances have changed since my mission began. These things aren’t quite so important today. I’m just trying to put you at ease.”
“It’s not working.”
“You really do have nothing to fear from me.”
“You’re not human, are you?”
“I’m ninety-nine per cent human. That’s good enough to qualify, surely?”
Moyo thought he would have preferred it if Hugh Rosler had launched into an indignant denial. “What’s the one per cent?”
“Sorry. Classified.”
“Xenoc? Is that it? Some unknown race? We always had rumours of pre-technology contact, men being taken away to breed.”
Hugh Rosler chuckled. “Oh, yes, good old Roswell. You know I’d almost forgotten about that; the papers were full of it for decades afterwards. But I don’t think it ever really happened. At least, I never detected any UFOs when I was on Earth, and I was there quite a while.”
“You were . . . ? But . . .”
“I’d better be going. Your friends are starting to wonder where you’ve got to. There’s a toilet in the next warehouse which the children can use. The tank is gravity fed, so it’s still working.”
“Wait! What are you observing us for?”
“To see what happens, of course.”
“Happens? You mean when the Kingdom attacks?”
“No, that’s not really important. I want to see what the outcome is for your entire race now that the beyond has been revealed to you. I must say, I’m becoming quite excited by the prospect. After all, I have been waiting for this for a very long time. It’s my designated goal function.”
Moyo simply stared at him, astonishment and indignation taking the place of fear. “How long?” was all he managed to whisper.
“Eighteen centuries.” Rosler raised an arm in a cheery wave and walked away into the shadows at the back of the warehouse. They seemed to lap him up.
“What’s the matter with you?” Stephanie asked when Moyo shambled slowly out into the gloomy light of the rumbling clouds.
“Don’t laugh, but I think I’ve just met Methuselah’s younger brother.”
Louise heard the lounge hatch slide open, and guessed who it was. His duty watch had finished fifteen minutes ago. Just long enough to show he wasn’t in any sort of rush to see her.
The trouble with the Jamrana , Louise thought, was its layout. Its cabin fittings were just as good as those in the Far Realm , but instead of the pyramid of four life-support capsules, the inter-orbit cargo craft had a single cylindrical life-support section riding above the cargo truss. The decks were stacked one on top of the other like the layers of a wedding cake. To find someone, all you had to do was start at the top, and climb down the central ladder. There was no escape.
“Hello, Louise.”
She reached for a polite smile. “Hello, Pieri.”
Pieri Bushay had just reached twenty, the second oldest of three brothers. Like most inter-orbit ships, Jamrana was run as a family concern; all seven crew members were Bushays. The strangeness of the extended family, the looseness of its internal relationships, was one which Louise found troubling; it was more company than any family she understood. Pieri’s elder brother was away serving a commission in the Govcentral navy, which left his father, twin mothers, brother, and two cousins to run the ship.
Small wonder that a young female passenger would be such an attraction to him. He was shy, and uncertain, which was endearing; nothing like the misplaced assurance of William Elphinstone.
“How are you feeling?”
His usual opening line.
“Fine.” Louise tapped the little nanonic package behind her ear. “The wonders of Confederation technology.”
“We’ll be flipping over in another twenty hours. Halfway there. Then we’ll be flying ass . . . er, I mean, bottom backwards to Earth.”
She was impatient with the fact it was going to take longer to fly seventy million kilometres between planets than it had to fly between stars. But at least the fusion drive was scheduled to be on for a third of the trip. The medical packages didn’t have to work quite so hard to negate her sickness. “That’s good.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to datavise the O’Neill Halo to see if there’s a ship heading for Tranquillity?”
“No.” That had been too sharp. “Thank you, Pieri, but if a ship is going, then it’s going, if not, there’s nothing I can do. Fate, you see.”
“Oh, sure. I understand.” He smiled tentatively. “Louise, if you have to stay in the Halo till you find a starship, I’d like to show you around. I’ve visited hundreds of the rocks. I know what’s hot out there, what to see, what to miss. It would be fun.”
“Hundreds?”
“Fifty, at least. And all the major ones, including Nova Kong.”
“I’m sorry, Pieri, that doesn’t mean much to me. I’ve never heard of Nova Kong.”
“Really? Not even on Norfolk?”
“No. The only one I know is High York, and that’s only because we’re heading to it.”
“But Nova Kong is famous; one of the first to be flown into Earth orbit and be made habitable. Nova Kong physicists invented the ZTT drive. And Richard Saldana was the asteroid’s chairman once; he used it as his headquarters to plan the Kulu colonization.”
“How fabulous. I can’t really imagine a time when the Kingdom didn’t exist, it seems so . . . substantial. In fact all of Earth’s prestarflight history reads like a fable to me. So, have you ever visited High York before?”
“Yes, it’s where the Jamrana is registered.”
“That’s your home, then?”
“We mostly dock there, but the ship’s my real home. I wouldn’t swap it for anything.”
“Just like Joshua. You space types are all the same. You’ve got wild blood.”
“I suppose so.” His face tightened at the mention of Joshua; the guardian angel fiancé Louise managed to mention in every conversation.
“Is High York very well organized?”
He seemed puzzled by the question. “Yes. Of course. It has to be. Asteroids are nothing like planets, Louise. If the environment isn’t maintained properly you’d have a catastrophe on your hands. They can’t afford not to be well organized.”
“I know that. What I meant was, the government. Does it have very strong law enforcement policies? Phobos seemed fairly easygoing.”
“That’s the devout Communists for you; they’re very trusting, Dad says they always give people the benefit of the doubt.”
It confirmed her worries. When the four of them had arrived at the Jamrana a couple of hours before its departure, Endron had handed over their passport fleks to the single Immigration Officer on duty. He had known the woman, and they’d spoken cheerfully. She’d been laughing when she slotted the fleks into her processor block, barely glancing at the images they stored. Three transient offworlders with official documentation, who were friends of Endron . . . She even allowed Endron to accompany them on board.
That was when he’d taken Louise aside. “You won’t make it, you know that, don’t you?” he asked.
“We’ve got this far,” she said shakily. Though she’d had her doubts. There had been so many people as they made their tortuous way to the spaceport with the cargo mechanoid concealing Faurax’s unconscious body. But they’d got the forger on board the Far Realm and into a zero-tau pod without incident.
“So far you’ve had a lot of luck, and no genuine obstacle. That’s going to end as soon as the Jamrana enters Govcentral-controlled space. You don’t understand what it’s going to be like, Louise. There’s no way you’ll ever get inside High York. Look, the only reason you ever got inside Phobos was because we smuggled you in, and no one bothered to inspect the Far Realm . You got out, because no one is bothered about departing ships. And now you’re heading straight at Earth, which has the largest single population in the Confederation, and runs the greatest military force ever assembled—a military force which along with the leadership is very paranoid right now. Three forged passports are not going to get you in. They are going to run every test they can think of, Louise, and believe me, Fletcher is not going to get through High York’s spaceport.” He was almost pleading with her. “Come with me, tell our government what’s happened. They won’t hurt him, I’ll testify that he’s not a danger. Then after that we can find you a ship to Tranquillity, all above board.”
“No. You don’t understand, they’ll send him back to the beyond. I saw it on the news; if you put a possessed in zero-tau it compels them out of the body they’re using. I can’t turn Fletcher in, not if they’re going to force him back there. He’s suffered for seven centuries. Isn’t that enough?”
“And what about the person whose body he’s possessing?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “I didn’t want any of this. My whole planet’s been possessed.”
“All right. I’m sorry. But I had to say it. You’re doing a damn sight worse than playing with fire, Louise.”
“Yes.” She held on to his shoulder with one hand to steady herself and brushed her lips to his cheek. “Thank you. I’m sure you could have blown the whistle on us if you really wanted to.”
His reddening cheeks were confirmation enough. “Yeah, well. Maybe I learned from you that nothing is quite black and white. Besides, that Fletcher, he’s so . . .”
“Decent.”
Louise gave Pieri the kind of look that told him she was immensely interested in every word he spoke. “So what will happen when we arrive at High York, then? I want to know everything.”
Pieri started to access all his neural nanonic-filed memories of High York spaceport. With luck, and a surfeit of details, he could make this last for a good hour.
The Magistrature Council was the Confederation’s ultimate court. Twenty-five judges sat on the Council, appointed by the Assembly to deal with the most serious violations of Confederation law. The majority of cases were the ones brought against starship crews captured by navy ships, those accused of piracy or owning antimatter. Less common were the war crimes trials, inevitably resulting from asteroid independence struggles. There were only two possible sentences for anyone found guilty by the Magistrature: death, or deportation to a penal colony.
The full Magistrature Council also had the power to sit in judgement of sovereign governments. The last such sitting had determined, in absentia, Omuta to be guilty of genocide, and ordered the execution of its cabinet and military high command.
The Council’s final mandate was the authority to declare a person, government, or entire people to be an Enemy of Humanity. Laton had been awarded such a condemnation, as had members of the black syndicates producing antimatter, and various terrorists and defeated warlords. Such a proclamation was essentially a death warrant which empowered a Confederation official to pursue the renegade across all national boundaries and required all local governments to cooperate.
That was the pronouncement the Provost General was now aiming to have applied against the possessed. With that in the bag, the CNIS would be free to do whatever they wanted to Jacqueline Couteur and the other prisoners in the demon trap. But first her current status had to be legally established, if she was a hostile prisoner under the terms of the state of emergency, or a hapless victim. In either case, she was still entitled to a legal representative.
The courtroom in Trafalgar chosen for the preliminary hearing was maximum security court three. It had none of the trimmings of the public courts, retaining only the very basic layout of docks, desks for the prosecution and defence counsels, the judge’s bench, and a small observer gallery. There was no permitted or designated place for the media or the public.
Maynard Khanna arrived five minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin, and sat at the front of the small gallery. As someone used to the order of military life, he had an intense distrust and dislike of the legal profession. Lawyers had abolished the simple concept of right and wrong, turning it into degrees of guilt. And in doing so they cut themselves in for fees which came only in large multiples of a navy captain’s salary.
The accused were entitled to a defence, Maynard conceded, but he still never understood how their lawyers avoided feeling equally guilty when they got them off.
Lieutenant Murphy Hewlett sat down behind Maynard, pulling unhappily at the jacket of his dress uniform. He leaned forward and murmured: “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Me neither,” Maynard grumbled back. “But the Provost General says it should be a formality. No court in the galaxy is going to let Jacqueline Couteur walk out of the door.”
“For God’s sake, Maynard, she shouldn’t even be let out of the demon trap. You know that.”
“This is a secure court; and we can’t give her defence lawyer an opportunity to mount an appeal on procedural grounds.”
“Bloody lawyers!”
“Too right. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Provost General’s witness. I’m supposed to tell the judge how we were in a war situation on Lalonde, which makes Couteur’s capture legitimate under the Assembly’s rules of engagement. It’s in case her lawyer goes for a wrongful jurisdiction plea.”
“You know, this is the first time I’ve ever disagreed with the First Admiral. I said we should just keep her in the demon trap, and screw all this legal crap. Gilmore is losing days of research time over this.”
Murphy hissed in disgust and sat back. For the eighth time that morning, his hand ran over his holster. It contained a nine-millimetre semi-automatic pistol, loaded with dumdum bullets. He loosened the cover, allowing his fingers to rest on the grip. Yesterday evening he had spent two hours at the range in the officers’ mess, shooting the weapon without any aid from neural nanonics programs. Just in case.
An eight-strong marine squad and their sergeant, each of them armed with a machine gun, marched the four prisoners into the court. Jacqueline Couteur was the first in line, dressed in a neat grey suit. If it hadn’t been for the carbotanium manacles she would have been a picture of middle-class respectability. A slim sensor bracelet had been placed around her right wrist, monitoring the flow of energy through her body. She looked around, noting the marine guards at each of the three doors. Then she saw Murphy Hewlett scowling, and grinned generously at him.
“Bitch,” he grunted under his breath.
The marine squad sat Jacqueline in the dock and fastened her manacles to a loop of chain. The other three possessed—Randall, Lennart, and Nena—were made to sit on the bench beside her. Once their manacles were secured, the marines took up position behind them. The sergeant datavised his processor block to check that the sensor bracelets were working, then gave the clerk of the court a brief nod.
The four defence lawyers were ushered in. Jacqueline manoeuvred a polite welcoming smile into place. This was the third time she’d seen Udo DiMarco. The lawyer wasn’t entirely happy to be appointed her counsel, he’d admitted that much to her, but then went on to say he’d do his best.
“Good morning, Jacqueline,” he said, doing his nervous best to ignore the marines behind her.
“Hello, Udo. Did you manage to obtain the recordings?”
“I filed a release request with the court, yes. It may take some time; the navy claims their Intelligence Service research is classified and exempt from the access act of 2503. I’ll challenge that, of course, but as I said this is all going to take some time.”
“They tortured me, Udo. The judge has to see those recordings. I’ll walk free in seconds if the truth is ever known.”
“Jacqueline, this is only a preliminary hearing to establish that all the required arrest procedures were followed, and clarify your legal custody status.”
“I wasn’t arrested, I was abducted.”
Udo DiMarco sighed and plunged on. “The Provost General’s team is going to argue that as a possessor you have committed a kidnap, and are therefore a felon. That will give them a basis for holding you in custody. They’re also arguing that your energistic power constitutes a new and dangerous weapons technology, which will validate the Intelligence Service’s investigation. Please don’t expect to walk out of court this morning.”
“Well I’m sure you’ll do your best.” She gave him an encouraging smile.
Udo DiMarco flexed his shoulders uncomfortably and withdrew to the defence counsel’s bench. His sole comfort was the fact that the media weren’t allowed in; no one would know he was defending a possessed. He datavised his processor block, reviewing the files he’d assembled. Ironically, he could put up quite a good case for Couteur’s release, but he’d made the decision five minutes after having the case dumped on him that he was only going to make a show of defending her. Jacqueline could never know, but Udo DiMarco had a lot of family on New California.
The clerk of the court rose to his feet and announced: “Please stand for Judge Roxanne Taynor. This Magistrature Council court is now in session.”
Judge Taynor appeared at the door behind the bench. Everyone stood, including the four possessed. Their movement meant the marine guards had to alter the angle they were pointing their machine guns. For a moment their concentration was less than absolute. Everybody’s neural nanonics crashed. The lighting panels became incandescent. Four balls of white fire exploded around the machine guns, smashing them into a shower of molten fragments.
Murphy Hewlett bellowed a wordless curse, yanking his pistol up, thumb flicking at the safety catch. Like most people he was caught halfway to his feet, an awkward position. A brutally white light was making him squeeze his eyelids closed; retinal implants were taking a long time to filter out the excess photons. The sound of the detonating machine guns was audible above the startled cries. He swung the pistol around to line up on Couteur. Marines were screaming as their hands and lower arms were shredded along with their weapons. The lights went out.
From dazzling brilliance to total blackness was too much for his eyes. He couldn’t see a thing. A machine gun fired. Muzzle blasts sent out a flickering orange light.
The possessed were all moving. Fast. The gunfire turned their motions into speedy flickers. They’d run straight through the dock, smashing the tough composite apart. Fragments tumbled through the air.
Two lightning streaks of white fire lashed out, striking a couple of marines. The lawyers were scrambling for the closest door. Roxanne Taynor was already through the door to her chambers. One of the marines was standing in front of it, sweeping her machine gun in a fast arc as she tried to line it up on a possessed.
“Close the doors!” Murphy yelled. “Seal this place.”
A machine gun was firing again as the light from the white fire shrank away. People screamed as they dived and stumbled for cover. Ricochets hummed lethally through the blackness.
Murphy caught sight of Couteur in the segments of illumination thrown out by another burst of gunfire. He twisted his pistol around and fired five shots, anticipating her direction for the last two. Dumdum bullets impacted with penetrating booms. Murphy dropped to his knees and rolled quickly. A pulse of white fire ripped through the air where he’d been standing. “Shit!” Missed her.
He could hear a siren wailing outside. Sensor modules on the walls were starting to burn, jetting out long tongues of turquoise flame which dissolved into a fountain of sparks. Three more bolts of white fire zipped over the gallery seats. There were heavy thuds of bodies hitting the floor.
When he risked a quick glance above the seat backs he could see Nena and Randall crouched low and zigzagging towards the door behind him. Eyeblink image of the door to one side of the smashed dock: three marines standing in defensive formation around it, almost flinging a lawyer out into the corridor beyond. But the door behind him was still open. It was trying to slide shut, but the body of a dead marine was preventing it from closing.
Murphy didn’t have an option. They couldn’t be allowed out into Trafalgar, it was inconceivable. He vaulted over the seats just as an odd rosette of white fire spun upwards from behind the judge’s bench. It hit the ceiling and bounced, expanding rapidly into a crown made up from writhing flames which coiled around and around each other. The three marines guarding the door fired at it as it swooped down at them, bullets tearing out violet bubbles which erupted into twinkling starbursts. Murphy started firing his pistol at Randall as he sprinted for the door, trigger finger pumping frantically. Seeing the dumdum rounds rip ragged chunks out of the possessed’s chest. Shifting his aim slightly. Half of Randall’s neck blew away in a twister of blood and bone chippings. A screaming Nena cartwheeled backwards in panic, limbs thrashing out of control.
The crown of agitated white fire dropped around one of the marines like an incendiary lasso. It contracted with vicious snapping sounds, slicing clean through his pelvis. His machine gun was still firing as his torso tumbled down, spraying the whole courtroom with bullets. He tried to say something as he fell, but shock had jammed his entire nervous system. All that came out was a coughed grunt as his head hit the ground. Dulled eyes stared at his legs which were still standing above him, twitching spastically as they slowly buckled.
The other two marines froze in terror. Then one vomited.
“Close it!” Murphy gagged. “For Christ’s sake, get out and close it.” His eyes were hot and sticky with fluid, some of it red. His foot hit something, and he half tripped flinging himself at the gap. He landed flat on the dead marine and rolled forwards. Figures were running around at the far end of the corridor, confused movements blurring together. White fire enveloped his ankle.
“Does it hurt? We can help.”
“No, fuck you!” He flopped onto an elbow and aimed the pistol back through the door, firing wildly. Pain from his ankle was making his hand shake violently. Noxious smoke sizzled up in front of him.
Then hands were gripping his shoulders, pulling him back along the floor. Bullish shouts all around him. The distinctive thud of a Bradfield slammed against his ears, louder than thunder in the close confines of the corridor. A marine in full combat armour was standing above him, firing the heavy-calibre weapon into the courtroom. Another suited marine was pulling the corpse clear of the door.
Murphy’s neural nanonics started to come back on-line. Medical programs established axon blocks. The courtroom door slid shut, locks engaging with a clunk. A fire extinguisher squirted thick white gas against Murphy’s smouldering dress uniform trousers. He flopped down onto the corridor floor, too stunned to say anything for a while. When he looked around he could see three people he recognized from the court, all of them ashen-faced and stupefied, slumped against the walls. The marines were tending to two of them. That was when Murphy realized the corridor floor was smeared with blood. Spent cartridge cases from his pistol rolled around.
He was dragged further away from the courtroom door, allowing the marine squad to set up two tripod-mounted Bradfields, pointing right at the grey reinforced silicon.
“Hold still,” a woman in a doctor’s field uniform told him. She began to cut his trousers away; a male nurse was holding a medical nanonic package ready.
“Did any of them get out?” Murphy asked weakly. People were tramping up and down the corridor, paying no attention to him.
“I don’t know,” the doctor said.
“Fuck it, find out!”
She gave him a calculating look.
“Please?”
One of the marines was called over. “The other doors are all closed,” he told Murphy. “We got a few people out, but the possessed are safely locked up in there. Every exit is sealed tight. The captain is waiting for a CNIS team to advise him what to do next.”
“A few people?” Murphy asked. “A few people got out?”
“Yeah. Some of the lawyers, the judge, court staff, five marines. We’re proud of the fight you put up, sir, you and the others. It could have been a lot worse.”
“And the rest?”
The marine turned his blank shell helmet towards the door. “Sorry, sir.”
The roar of the machine gun ended, leaving only the screams and whimpers to fester through the darkened courtroom. Maynard Khanna could hear his own feeble groans contributing to the morass of distress. There was little he could do to prevent it, the tiniest movement sent sickening spires of pain leaping into his skull. A gout of white fire had struck him seconds into the conflict, wrapping around his leg like a blazing serpent, felling him immediately. His temple had struck one of the seats, dazing him badly. After that, all the noise and flaring light swarmed around him, somehow managing to leave him isolated from the fray.
Now the white fire had gone, leaving him alone with its terrible legacy. The flesh from his leg had melted off. But his bones had remained intact, perfectly white. He could see his skeletal foot twitching next to his real one, its tiny bones fitting together like a medical text.
The splintered remnants of the dock were burning with unnatural brightness, throwing capering shadows on the wall. Maynard turned his head, crying out as red stars gave way to an ominous darkness. When he flushed the involuntary tears from his eyes he could see the heavy door at the back of the court was shut.
They hadn’t got out!
He took a few breaths, momentarily puzzled by what he was doing in the dark, the waves of pain seemed to prevent his thoughts from flowing. The screams had died, along with every other sound except for the sharp crackling of the flames. Footsteps crunched through the debris. Three dark figures loomed above him; humanoid perhaps, but any lingering facet of humanity had been bred out generations ago.
The whispers began, slithering up from a bottomless pit to comfort him with the sincerity of a two-timing lover. Then came the real pain.
Dr Gilmore studied the datavised image he was receiving direct from Marine Captain Rhodri Peyton’s eyes. He was standing in the middle of a marine squad which was strung out along one of the corridors leading to maximum security court three. Their machine guns and Bradfields were deployed to cover the engineering officers who were gingerly applying sensor pads to the door.
When Dr Gilmore attempted to access the officers’ processor blocks there was no response. The units were too close to the possessed inside the courtroom. “Have they made any attempt to break out?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Rhodri Peyton datavised. His eyes flicked to brown scorch lines on the walls just outside the door. “Those marks were caused when Lieutenant Hewlett was engaging them. There’s been nothing since then. We’ve got them trapped, all right.”
Gilmore accessed Trafalgar’s central computer and requested a blueprint of the courtroom. There were no service tunnels nearby, and the air-ducts weren’t large enough for anyone to crawl down. It was a maximum security court after all. Unfortunately it wasn’t the kind of security designed with the possessed in mind. He knew it would only be a matter of time before they got out. Then there really would be hell to pay.