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Try slipping twenty of them into Jesup without the administration cops taking an interest.
But he’d done it. And now he was going to find out just what the fuck was really going on. Because sure as turds floated to the top, Quinn Dexter wasn’t on the level.
The instrument panel beside the hatch let out a weak bleep.
“It’s ready,” Lucky Vin datavised. “Shit, Twelve-T, I can’t get anything from the sensors in the tube. They’ve crashed.”
“Quinn do that, man?”
“I ain’t too sure. This place . . . it ain’t the maintenance hotspot of the galaxy, you know.”
“Okay. Pop the hatch.” He opened the datavise to include the rest of his soldiers. “Sharpen up, people, this is it.”
The hatch seal disengaged, allowing the actuators to hinge it back. Absolute blackness filled the airlock tube.
Twelve-T craned his neck forwards, scar tissue stretching tightly. Even with his retinal implants switched to infrared there was nothing to see in the tube. “Screw this—”
The blackness at the centre of the tube bulged out, a bulbous cone devouring the chamber’s photons. Five maser carbines and a TIP pistol fired, skewering the anti-light chimera from every direction. It broke open, petals of night peeling apart from the centre to splash against the chamber walls.
Twelve-T’s neural nanonics began to crash. Blocks clipped to his belt chased them into electronic oblivion. The last datavise he received was from his maser carbine, telling him the power cells were dropping out. He tried to grasp the ten-millimetre machine gun velcroed to his hip, only to find his arm shuddering; the pistonlike actuators he’d replaced the forearm muscles with were seizing up.
A missile composed of tightly whorled shadow swelled up out of the centre of the flowering blackness. Too fast for the eye to follow in real-time—certainly as far as Twelve-T’s faltering retinal implants were concerned—it shot across the chamber and bounced.
The first scream clogged the chamber’s air. One of the soldiers was crumpling up, his body imploding in a series of rapid strikes. He seemed to be dimming, as if he were caught at the middle of a murky nebula. Then his head caved in, and it was blood not the sounds of agony that went spraying across the chamber.
A second soldier convulsed, as if she were trying to jam her head down towards her buttocks. She managed a single bewildered grunt before her spine snapped.
The third victim darkened, his clothes starting to smoulder. Both of his titanium hands turned cherry-red, glowing brightly. When he opened his mouth to scream a column of pink steam puffed out.
Twelve-T had it worked out by then. There was always a translucent cloud around the soldiers as they were slaughtered, a grey shadow that flickered at subliminal speed. His disabled arm levered the machine gun off the velcro, and he turned desperately towards the source of the latest screams. His soldiers were losing it, flinging themselves at the exit hatch, wrestling with each other in their struggle to escape.
The light panels were turning a dark tangerine and beginning to sputter; black iron grids had materialized across them, growing thicker. Oily smoke began to pour forth. The fractured buzzing sound of the conditioning fans was dying away. Globules of blood oscillated through the air, fringes rippling like restive jellyfish. Twelve-T knew then he’d been fucked. It wasn’t Quinn Dexter, rat boy from the arcologies. This was the worst it could possibly get.
He’d never liked Nyvan. But what the fuck, it was his home planet. Now the possessed were going to violate it, subdue every living body. And he was the total fucking asshole who’d let them in.
Another of his soldiers was being chopped apart, haloed in quivering dusk. Pure fury powered Twelve-T’s malfunctioning body into a final act of obedience. He swung the machine gun around on the macerated soldier and squeezed back on the trigger. It was only a short burst. A blue flame spat out of the muzzle to the accompaniment of a thunderous roar. Without a neural nanonics operational procedure program to help him, the recoil was far more powerful than he expected. His shoes were ripped free of the stikpad, and he was somersaulting backwards through the air, hollering in surprise.
The universe paused.
“Shatter!” a furious voice bellowed.
The machine gun obeyed, its cool silicolithium fragmenting like a shrapnel grenade. Needle slivers sliced deep into Twelve-T’s flesh, some ricochetting off the metal casings of his replacement parts. He was flailing wildly now, trailing fantails of blood from his shredded hand.
“Hold him,” someone instructed curtly.
Quinn slowed himself back from the speedstate, energistic currents sinking down to quiescent levels. As they did, the rest of the world began to accelerate. It had been awesome, moving through an airlock chamber populated by statues, time solidified to a single heartbeat. Their time, not his. God’s Brother had granted him impunity from the actions of any non-possessed. What greater sign that he was indeed the chosen one?
“Thank you, my Lord,” he whispered, humbled. Planets would truly bow before him now; just as Lawrence had prophesied.
Most of the blood had impacted on a surface, splattering wide into big smears and sticking tenaciously. Grotesque corpses drifted peacefully in the warm air streams. The remnants of the gang were in a sorry state. With four possessed in the airlock chamber and pulsing with malevolent power, their artificial body parts had either frozen or were running out of control. And they were all combat vets, heavily dependent on replacements, almost up to cosmonik level. Lawrence and Graper were plucking weapons from unresisting hands, claws, and wrist sockets.
Quinn kicked off towards Twelve-T. His robe resumed its usual extravagant cut as he glided across the compartment.
Twelve-T was sweating heavily. One of the soldiers whose arms were mostly the original organic was bandaging the gang lord’s ruined hands with strips torn from his own T-shirt.
“I admire your strength,” Quinn said. “It can be harnessed to serve God’s Brother.”
“Ain’t no God, can’t have no fucking—” Pain gripped his left arm, forcing him to cry out. His skin hissed as it rose in huge blisters.
“You wanted to irritate me,” Quinn said mildly.
Twelve-T glowered helplessly. He wasn’t used to so much pain, none of them were. Neural nanonics always protected them. That meant it was going to get bad, he realized, real bad. Unless . . .
“And I won’t allow you to suicide,” Quinn said. “I know that’s what you were thinking. Everybody does when they grab what’s gonna happen.”
The strips of cloth bandaging Twelve-T’s hands hardened into shiny nylon. Their ends flexed up like blind snakes, then slowly knotted together.
“You’re so close to me, Twelve-T,” Quinn said earnestly. “Your serpent beast is almost free. You would never have become what you are without realizing what your true nature is. Don’t hold back, embrace God’s Brother. Live in the Night with us.”
“You’ll make a mistake, asshole. And I’ll be around waiting for it.”
“I don’t make mistakes. I am the chosen one.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Follow me, Twelve-T. Submit to your true self and know the glory of His word. Betray your people for greed and profit. That way you will never know defeat again. My disciples fuck who they want when they want. They see their enemies burn in torment. Enjoy rewards you have never dared take before. Help me, Twelve-T. Tell me where the asteroid cops are. Shunt your gang’s money into my credit disk. Show me where the spaceplanes are that can take my disciples down to the surface. Do it, Twelve-T.”
“You won’t get down to the planet,” Twelve-T grunted. “People are too frightened of the possessed landing. There’s all kinds of weird checks going on down there. You might have beaten my troops, big deal; but you dead freaks ain’t going to turn my planet into holiday hellpark.”
“You understand nothing,” Quinn said. “I don’t give a fuck about the souls in the beyond. I’m not here to save anyone, least of all them. God’s Brother has chosen me to help Him bring down the Night.”
“Oh, sweet shit,” Twelve-T whimpered. Quinn was a loon. A motherfucking twenty-four-karat loon.
“I want two things from this planet,” Quinn continued. “A starship I can use to take me home to Earth; because that’s where I can hurt the Confederation most. It’ll have to be a cargo ship of some kind, one which Govcentral’s defences will accept is harmless. I’m sure there are plenty docked here right now, right?”
A small jaw muscle twitched on Twelve-T’s face.
“Good,” said Quinn. The gang lord’s thoughts had betrayed him, bitter defeat mingling with the dregs of resentment and anger. “You want to know what the other thing is, don’t you? It’s simple, I intend Nyvan to be the first planet the Light Brother can bring into His kingdom. I’m going to bring the Night to this planet, Twelve-T. Endless Night. Night without hope. Until He comes from the other side of the beyond to grant you salvation.”
Making sure every word was perfectly clear, Twelve-T said: “Go fuck yourself.” He braced himself for the retribution.
Quinn laughed softly. “Not that easy, shithead. I told you, I want your help. I need a local smartarse to straighten out crap like a ship and how to sneak my possessed disciples past the pigs guarding the planet. Someone who knows all the access codes around here. And that’s you, Twelve-T. As He chose me, so I have chosen you.” He glanced around at the gang’s remaining soldiers. “We’ll open the rest of this worthless trash for possession; then convert all of Jesup. After that, nobody down below will be able to resist us.”
“Oh, Jesus, help us,” Twelve-T begged. “Please.”
“Ain’t no God,” Quinn mimicked savagely. “So he ain’t got no son, has he?” Laughing, he pushed Twelve-T down towards the decking. The gang lord’s knees bent, allowing the stikpad to fasten to his trousers. Quinn stood in front of the supplicant and beckoned Lawrence over. “I know you’re a tough mother, Twelve-T. If you’re possessed you’ll only try to fool your new owner, jazz me about as best you can. You and your dumb pride. I can’t afford that kind of shit anymore. That means I’m gonna have to squeeze what I want to know out of you myself, so I know you’re being honest.”
Kneeling before the monster, head bowed, Twelve-T said: “I will never help you.”
“You will. I have many ways of binding my disciples to me. For most it is love or fear. For you, I choose dependence.” He placed his hands on either side of Twelve-T’s silver head. The feat was the converse of a coronation. Quinn lifted the silver cap from the gang lord’s skull with an almost gentle reverence. It came loose with a soft sucking sound. The bone underneath was covered in a sticky red mucus. Ichor dribbled over Twelve-T’s face, mingling with sticky tears.
Lawrence took the cap from Quinn, acting as jester to the king. A little mad giggle escaped from the boy’s lips as he held it in front of the stricken gang lord, its mirror surface ensuring he witnessed his own reduction to impotent vassal.
Quinn’s hands descended again. This time the noise was louder as the bone creaked and split. He lifted the top of the skull high, smiling at the bloody trophy. Twelve-T’s naked brain glistened below him, wrapped in delicate membranes, small beads of fluid weeping up from the tightly packed ribbons of tissue.
“Now I can keep a real close eye on what you’re thinking,” Quinn said.
Chapter 04
But he’d done it. And now he was going to find out just what the fuck was really going on. Because sure as turds floated to the top, Quinn Dexter wasn’t on the level.
The instrument panel beside the hatch let out a weak bleep.
“It’s ready,” Lucky Vin datavised. “Shit, Twelve-T, I can’t get anything from the sensors in the tube. They’ve crashed.”
“Quinn do that, man?”
“I ain’t too sure. This place . . . it ain’t the maintenance hotspot of the galaxy, you know.”
“Okay. Pop the hatch.” He opened the datavise to include the rest of his soldiers. “Sharpen up, people, this is it.”
The hatch seal disengaged, allowing the actuators to hinge it back. Absolute blackness filled the airlock tube.
Twelve-T craned his neck forwards, scar tissue stretching tightly. Even with his retinal implants switched to infrared there was nothing to see in the tube. “Screw this—”
The blackness at the centre of the tube bulged out, a bulbous cone devouring the chamber’s photons. Five maser carbines and a TIP pistol fired, skewering the anti-light chimera from every direction. It broke open, petals of night peeling apart from the centre to splash against the chamber walls.
Twelve-T’s neural nanonics began to crash. Blocks clipped to his belt chased them into electronic oblivion. The last datavise he received was from his maser carbine, telling him the power cells were dropping out. He tried to grasp the ten-millimetre machine gun velcroed to his hip, only to find his arm shuddering; the pistonlike actuators he’d replaced the forearm muscles with were seizing up.
A missile composed of tightly whorled shadow swelled up out of the centre of the flowering blackness. Too fast for the eye to follow in real-time—certainly as far as Twelve-T’s faltering retinal implants were concerned—it shot across the chamber and bounced.
The first scream clogged the chamber’s air. One of the soldiers was crumpling up, his body imploding in a series of rapid strikes. He seemed to be dimming, as if he were caught at the middle of a murky nebula. Then his head caved in, and it was blood not the sounds of agony that went spraying across the chamber.
A second soldier convulsed, as if she were trying to jam her head down towards her buttocks. She managed a single bewildered grunt before her spine snapped.
The third victim darkened, his clothes starting to smoulder. Both of his titanium hands turned cherry-red, glowing brightly. When he opened his mouth to scream a column of pink steam puffed out.
Twelve-T had it worked out by then. There was always a translucent cloud around the soldiers as they were slaughtered, a grey shadow that flickered at subliminal speed. His disabled arm levered the machine gun off the velcro, and he turned desperately towards the source of the latest screams. His soldiers were losing it, flinging themselves at the exit hatch, wrestling with each other in their struggle to escape.
The light panels were turning a dark tangerine and beginning to sputter; black iron grids had materialized across them, growing thicker. Oily smoke began to pour forth. The fractured buzzing sound of the conditioning fans was dying away. Globules of blood oscillated through the air, fringes rippling like restive jellyfish. Twelve-T knew then he’d been fucked. It wasn’t Quinn Dexter, rat boy from the arcologies. This was the worst it could possibly get.
He’d never liked Nyvan. But what the fuck, it was his home planet. Now the possessed were going to violate it, subdue every living body. And he was the total fucking asshole who’d let them in.
Another of his soldiers was being chopped apart, haloed in quivering dusk. Pure fury powered Twelve-T’s malfunctioning body into a final act of obedience. He swung the machine gun around on the macerated soldier and squeezed back on the trigger. It was only a short burst. A blue flame spat out of the muzzle to the accompaniment of a thunderous roar. Without a neural nanonics operational procedure program to help him, the recoil was far more powerful than he expected. His shoes were ripped free of the stikpad, and he was somersaulting backwards through the air, hollering in surprise.
The universe paused.
“Shatter!” a furious voice bellowed.
The machine gun obeyed, its cool silicolithium fragmenting like a shrapnel grenade. Needle slivers sliced deep into Twelve-T’s flesh, some ricochetting off the metal casings of his replacement parts. He was flailing wildly now, trailing fantails of blood from his shredded hand.
“Hold him,” someone instructed curtly.
Quinn slowed himself back from the speedstate, energistic currents sinking down to quiescent levels. As they did, the rest of the world began to accelerate. It had been awesome, moving through an airlock chamber populated by statues, time solidified to a single heartbeat. Their time, not his. God’s Brother had granted him impunity from the actions of any non-possessed. What greater sign that he was indeed the chosen one?
“Thank you, my Lord,” he whispered, humbled. Planets would truly bow before him now; just as Lawrence had prophesied.
Most of the blood had impacted on a surface, splattering wide into big smears and sticking tenaciously. Grotesque corpses drifted peacefully in the warm air streams. The remnants of the gang were in a sorry state. With four possessed in the airlock chamber and pulsing with malevolent power, their artificial body parts had either frozen or were running out of control. And they were all combat vets, heavily dependent on replacements, almost up to cosmonik level. Lawrence and Graper were plucking weapons from unresisting hands, claws, and wrist sockets.
Quinn kicked off towards Twelve-T. His robe resumed its usual extravagant cut as he glided across the compartment.
Twelve-T was sweating heavily. One of the soldiers whose arms were mostly the original organic was bandaging the gang lord’s ruined hands with strips torn from his own T-shirt.
“I admire your strength,” Quinn said. “It can be harnessed to serve God’s Brother.”
“Ain’t no God, can’t have no fucking—” Pain gripped his left arm, forcing him to cry out. His skin hissed as it rose in huge blisters.
“You wanted to irritate me,” Quinn said mildly.
Twelve-T glowered helplessly. He wasn’t used to so much pain, none of them were. Neural nanonics always protected them. That meant it was going to get bad, he realized, real bad. Unless . . .
“And I won’t allow you to suicide,” Quinn said. “I know that’s what you were thinking. Everybody does when they grab what’s gonna happen.”
The strips of cloth bandaging Twelve-T’s hands hardened into shiny nylon. Their ends flexed up like blind snakes, then slowly knotted together.
“You’re so close to me, Twelve-T,” Quinn said earnestly. “Your serpent beast is almost free. You would never have become what you are without realizing what your true nature is. Don’t hold back, embrace God’s Brother. Live in the Night with us.”
“You’ll make a mistake, asshole. And I’ll be around waiting for it.”
“I don’t make mistakes. I am the chosen one.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Follow me, Twelve-T. Submit to your true self and know the glory of His word. Betray your people for greed and profit. That way you will never know defeat again. My disciples fuck who they want when they want. They see their enemies burn in torment. Enjoy rewards you have never dared take before. Help me, Twelve-T. Tell me where the asteroid cops are. Shunt your gang’s money into my credit disk. Show me where the spaceplanes are that can take my disciples down to the surface. Do it, Twelve-T.”
“You won’t get down to the planet,” Twelve-T grunted. “People are too frightened of the possessed landing. There’s all kinds of weird checks going on down there. You might have beaten my troops, big deal; but you dead freaks ain’t going to turn my planet into holiday hellpark.”
“You understand nothing,” Quinn said. “I don’t give a fuck about the souls in the beyond. I’m not here to save anyone, least of all them. God’s Brother has chosen me to help Him bring down the Night.”
“Oh, sweet shit,” Twelve-T whimpered. Quinn was a loon. A motherfucking twenty-four-karat loon.
“I want two things from this planet,” Quinn continued. “A starship I can use to take me home to Earth; because that’s where I can hurt the Confederation most. It’ll have to be a cargo ship of some kind, one which Govcentral’s defences will accept is harmless. I’m sure there are plenty docked here right now, right?”
A small jaw muscle twitched on Twelve-T’s face.
“Good,” said Quinn. The gang lord’s thoughts had betrayed him, bitter defeat mingling with the dregs of resentment and anger. “You want to know what the other thing is, don’t you? It’s simple, I intend Nyvan to be the first planet the Light Brother can bring into His kingdom. I’m going to bring the Night to this planet, Twelve-T. Endless Night. Night without hope. Until He comes from the other side of the beyond to grant you salvation.”
Making sure every word was perfectly clear, Twelve-T said: “Go fuck yourself.” He braced himself for the retribution.
Quinn laughed softly. “Not that easy, shithead. I told you, I want your help. I need a local smartarse to straighten out crap like a ship and how to sneak my possessed disciples past the pigs guarding the planet. Someone who knows all the access codes around here. And that’s you, Twelve-T. As He chose me, so I have chosen you.” He glanced around at the gang’s remaining soldiers. “We’ll open the rest of this worthless trash for possession; then convert all of Jesup. After that, nobody down below will be able to resist us.”
“Oh, Jesus, help us,” Twelve-T begged. “Please.”
“Ain’t no God,” Quinn mimicked savagely. “So he ain’t got no son, has he?” Laughing, he pushed Twelve-T down towards the decking. The gang lord’s knees bent, allowing the stikpad to fasten to his trousers. Quinn stood in front of the supplicant and beckoned Lawrence over. “I know you’re a tough mother, Twelve-T. If you’re possessed you’ll only try to fool your new owner, jazz me about as best you can. You and your dumb pride. I can’t afford that kind of shit anymore. That means I’m gonna have to squeeze what I want to know out of you myself, so I know you’re being honest.”
Kneeling before the monster, head bowed, Twelve-T said: “I will never help you.”
“You will. I have many ways of binding my disciples to me. For most it is love or fear. For you, I choose dependence.” He placed his hands on either side of Twelve-T’s silver head. The feat was the converse of a coronation. Quinn lifted the silver cap from the gang lord’s skull with an almost gentle reverence. It came loose with a soft sucking sound. The bone underneath was covered in a sticky red mucus. Ichor dribbled over Twelve-T’s face, mingling with sticky tears.
Lawrence took the cap from Quinn, acting as jester to the king. A little mad giggle escaped from the boy’s lips as he held it in front of the stricken gang lord, its mirror surface ensuring he witnessed his own reduction to impotent vassal.
Quinn’s hands descended again. This time the noise was louder as the bone creaked and split. He lifted the top of the skull high, smiling at the bloody trophy. Twelve-T’s naked brain glistened below him, wrapped in delicate membranes, small beads of fluid weeping up from the tightly packed ribbons of tissue.
“Now I can keep a real close eye on what you’re thinking,” Quinn said.
Chapter 04
“So your group has no organized structure, as such?” Alkad asked.
“We’re organized, all right,” Lodi Shalasha insisted. “But nothing formal. We’re just like-minded people who keep in touch and help each other out.”
Alkad pushed her legs down into the chameleon suit trousers. There was still a residue of cold sweat smearing the fabric from when she’d worn the suit last night. Her nose wrinkled up in distaste, but she kept on working the trousers up her shins. “You said you had junior cadres, the ones clearing the spiders away. That sounds like a regular underground movement hierarchy to me.”
“Not really. Some of us work in day clubs, that way we help to keep the memory of the genocide alive for the children. Nobody should be allowed to forget what was done to us.”
“I approve.”
“You do?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes. The original refugees seem to have forgotten. That’s why I’m in this mess right now.”
“Don’t worry, Doctor; Voi will get you off Ayacucho.”
“Perhaps.” Alkad prided herself that the somnolence program had been for the best. When the girl had woken this morning she’d been subdued, but still functional. The grief for her father was still there, as it should be, but it hadn’t debilitated her.
Over breakfast, Alkad had explained what her priorities were: to get away from the Dorados as fast as possible now her location was blown to the intelligence agencies, and the remaining principal requirement for a combat-capable starship (she still couldn’t bring herself to mention the Alchemist). It would be too much to hope for the ship to be crewed by Garissan patriot types; a mercenary crew would just have to do now. The three of them had discussed possible options, and Voi and Lodi had started arguing over names, who to contact for what.
Voi had left by herself to secure a starship. It would be inviting disaster for Alkad to be seen with her again. As a pair they were too distinctive, however adroit the chameleon suits were at hiding their peripheral features.
“Hey, you’ve made the news.” Lodi waved his communications block enthusiastically. He’d entered a reference search program to monitor the media output. “Access the Cabral NewsGalactic studio.”
Alkad struggled the suit on over her shoulders, then datavised the room’s net processor for a channel to the studio.
Cabral NewsGalactic was showing a recording of a holomorph sticker which had a young cheerleader shouting: “Run, Alkad, run!”
“Mother Mary,” Alkad muttered. “Is this the work of your people?”
“No. I swear. I’ve never seen one before. Besides, only Voi and I know your name. None of the others even know you exist.”
Alkad went back to the studio. A rover reporter was walking down one of Ayacucho’s main public halls. The stickers were everywhere. A cleaner mechanoid was trying to spray one off the wall, but its solvent wasn’t strong enough. Smears of black semi-dissolved plastic dribbled down the metallic wall panel.
“It is as if a plague has visited Ayacucho,” the rover reporter said cheerfully. “The first of these stickers appeared about six hours ago. And if I didn’t know better I’d say they’ve been breeding like bacteria. Police say that the stickers are being handed out to children; and detectives are currently correlating security monitor recordings to see if they can identify the main distributors. Though sources inside the public prosecutor’s office tell me they’re not sure exactly what charges could be brought.
“The question everyone is asking is: Exactly who is Alkad, and what is she running from?”
The image went back to the studio anchorman. “Our company’s investigations have uncovered one possible answer to the mystery,” he said in a sombre bass voice. “At the time of the genocide, the Garissan navy employed a Dr Alkad Mzu to work on advanced defence projects. Mzu is said to have survived the genocide and spent the last thirty years under an assumed name teaching physics at the Dorados university. But now foreign intelligence agencies, acting in response to Omutan propaganda, have started hunting her under the pretext of illegal technology violations. A senior member of the Dorados governing council, who asked not to be named, said today: ‘Such an action by these foreign agents is a gross violation of our sovereignty. I find it obscene that the Omutans can lay these unfounded allegations against one of our citizens who has dedicated her life to educating our brightest youngsters. If this is their behaviour after thirty years of sanctions, then we must ask why the Confederation ever lifted those sanctions in the first place. They certainly do not seem to have had the desired effect in remedying the aggressive nature of the Omutan government. Their current cabinet is just a new collar on the same dog.’
“The council member went on to say that if Alkad Mzu turned up at his apartment he would certainly offer her sanctuary, and that every true Dorados citizen would do the same. He said he would not rest until all suspected foreign agents had been expelled from the asteroids.”
“Holy Mother Mary,” Alkad groaned.
She cancelled the channel and slumped down onto the bed, the suit’s hood hanging flaccidly over her shoulder. “I don’t believe this is happening. Mother Mary, they’re turning me into a media celebrity.”
“That’s my uncle for you,” Lodi said. “Did you check out the positive bias in those reports? Mary, you’d be elected president tomorrow if we were ever allowed to vote around here.”
“Your uncle ?”
He flinched. “Yeah, sure. Cabral’s my uncle. He’s made a mint out of exploiting the little-Garissan attitude. I mean, just look at the kind of people living here, they lap it up.”
“He’s insane. What does he think he’s doing giving me this kind of public profile?”
“Whipping up public support in your favour. This kind of propaganda is going to make life ten times harder for the agencies chasing you. Anyone tries to take you out of Ayacucho against your will today, they’ll wind up getting lynched.”
She stared at him. That eager face which permitted so much inner anger to show without ever dimming the natural innocence. Child of the failed revolutionaries. “You’re probably right. But this isn’t happening the way I ever expected it to.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor.” He pulled a worn shoulder bag out of the cupboard. “Do you want to try some of these clothes now?”
He was proffering some long sports shorts and an Ayacucho Junior Curveball Team sweatshirt. With a short cut wig and the chameleon suit reprogrammed, they intended her to walk out of the room as an average sports-mad teenager. A male one.
“Why not?”
“Voi will call soon. We ought to be ready.”
“You really believe she can get us off this asteroid in a starship, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Lodi, do you have any idea how difficult that is to arrange, now of all times? Underground movements need to have contacts infiltrated right through the local administrative structure; dedicated, devoted people who will risk everything for the cause. What have you got? You’re rich kids who’ve found a new way to rebel against their parents.”
“Yes, and we can use that money to help you, if you’d just let us. Voi taught us that. If we need something, we buy it. That way there’s no network for the agencies to discover and penetrate. We’ve never been compromised. That’s why you stayed in this room all night without anyone storming the door with an assault mechanoid.”
“You may have a point there. I have to admit the old partizans didn’t do too well, did they.” She gave the chameleon suit hood a reluctant grimace, then started to smooth back her hair ready to slip it on.
Joshua held the petri dish up to the cabin’s light panel, squinting at the clear glass. It looked completely empty; his enhanced retinas couldn’t even find dust motes. But lurking inside the optically pure dish were thirteen nanonic monitor bugs which the medical packages had extracted from Lady Mac ’s crew and the serjeants. They were subcutaneous implants, agents stinging them by casually brushing up against an unsuspecting victim.
“How come I rated three?” Ashly complained.
“Obvious subversive type,” Sarha said. “Bound to be up to no good.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re all in the clear,” she said. “The medical analysis program can’t spot any unusual infections or viruses. Looks like they weren’t playing nasty.”
“This time,” Joshua said. As soon as the scanners in the starship’s surgery had located the first of the monitor bugs he’d ordered Sarha to run a full biochemical analysis on everyone. Microbes and viruses were far easier to introduce in a target than nanonics.
Fortunately, the agencies had been curious rather than hostile. But this was the sharpest reminder to date of the stakes involved. They’d been lucky thus far. It wouldn’t last, he thought. And he wasn’t the only one who realized that. The cabin had a kind of after-game locker-room atmosphere, with a team that was very relieved to have scraped a draw.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” he said. “Sarha, are we secure now?”
“Yes. These bugs can’t datavise through Lady Mac ’s screening. They’re only a problem outside.”
“But you don’t know when we got stung?”
“There’s no way of knowing, sorry.”
“Your friend Mrs Nateghi,” Melvyn suggested. “It was rather odd.”
“You’re probably right,” Joshua said reluctantly. “Okay, assume everything we’ve done up until now has been compromised. First off, is there any point in continuing? Jesus, it’s not as if we don’t know she’s here. The bloody news studios have been broadcasting nothing else. Our problem is how difficult it’s going to be to contact her without anyone else tagging along. They’re bound to try and sting us again. Sarha, will our electronic warfare blocks work against these monitor bugs?”
“They should be able to scramble them; we picked up top-of-the-range systems before we left Tranquillity.”
“Fine. From now on, nobody goes into Ayacucho without one. We also take a serjeant each when we venture out. Ione, I want you to carry those chemical projectile guns we brought.”
“Certainly, Joshua,” said one of the four serjeants in the cabin.
He couldn’t tell if it was the one who’d accompanied him earlier. “Right, what kind of data have we pulled in so far? Melvyn?”
“Ashly and I got around to the five major defence contractors, Captain. The only orders coming in are for upgrades to the asteroid’s SD platforms, and there’s precious few of them. We got offered some magnificent discounts when we asked about supplying Lady Mac with new systems. They’re absolutely desperate for work. Mzu hasn’t ordered any equipment from anybody. And nobody is refitting starships.”
“Okay. Beaulieu?”
“Nothing, Captain. Daphine Kigano disappeared within fifteen minutes of arriving here. There’s no eddress for her, no credit records, no hotel booking, no citizenship register, no public record file.”
“All right. That just leaves us with Ikela.”
“He’s dead, Joshua,” Dahybi said. “Hardly the best lead.”
“Pauline Webb was very keen to stop me having any contact with T’Opingtu’s management. Which means that’s the direction to take. I’ve been reviewing every byte I can find on Ikela and T’Opingtu. He came to the Dorados with a lot of money to start up that company. There’s no mention of where it came from; according to his biography he used to work for a Garissan engineering company as a junior manager. Which doesn’t add up.
“Now if you were Alkad Mzu, on the run and in need of a starship that can deploy the Alchemist, who are you going to go to when you get here? Ikela fits the search program perfectly: the owner of a company which manufactures specialist astroengineering components. Remember she fooled the intelligence agencies for close on thirty years. Whatever plan she formatted with her colleagues after the genocide, it was well thought out.”
“Not perfect, though,” Ashly said. “If it was, Omuta’s star would be turning nova right now.”
“The possessed glitched it for them, that’s all,” Sarha said. “Who could anticipate this quarantine?”
“Whatever,” Joshua said. “The point is, T’Opingtu was probably set up to provide Mzu with the means to deploy the Alchemist. Ikela would have made sure that policy continued in the event he didn’t live long enough to see her arrive.”
“Which he did, but only just,” Ashly said. “It must have been the agencies who snuffed him.”
“But not Mzu,” Melvyn said. “This media campaign backing her sprang up too quickly after the murder. Somebody knows she’s out there. Somebody with a shitload of influence, but not in contact with her. It’s going to be almost impossible for us to snatch her with public opinion being whipped up like this, Captain.”
“Which is exactly the intention,” Dahybi said. “Though it’s more likely aimed at the intelligence agencies rather than us.”
“We’ll deal with that problem if we ever get to it,” Joshua said. “Right now our priority is to establish a trace on Mzu.”
“How?” Sarha asked.
“Ikela has a daughter; according to his public record file she’s the only family he’s got.”
“She’ll inherit,” Beaulieu said bluntly.
“You got it. Her name’s Voi, and she’s twenty-one. She’s our way in to whatever organization her daddy built up in preparation for Mzu.”
“Oh, come on, Joshua,” Ashly protested. “Her father’s just been murdered, she’s not going to make appointments with perfect strangers, let alone tell us anything about the Garissan underground, even if she has any data. Which is questionable. I wouldn’t involve my daughter in anything like that. And the agencies will be wanting to question her, too.”
Joshua wasn’t going to argue. As soon as he reviewed Ikela’s public record file he’d known Voi was the link. Ione would call it his intuition. She might even have been right. The old burn of conviction was there. “If we can just get close to her, we stand a chance,” he said firmly. “Mzu can’t afford to remain here now. She’s going to have to make a break for it, and sooner rather than later. One way or another, Voi will be involved. It’s our best shot.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Dahybi said. “It’s as good a chance as any. But how the hell are you going to get near her?”
“Weren’t you listening?” asked one of the serjeants. “Voi is female and twenty-one.”
Joshua grinned evilly at Dahybi.
“You have got to be joking,” the stupefied node specialist insisted.
“I’ll just lie back and think of the Confederation.”
“Joshua . . .”
Joshua burst out laughing. “Your faces! Don’t worry, Dahybi, I’m not that conceited. But she will have friends. There are quite a lot of rich entrepreneurs in the Dorados, their kids will cling together in their own little social clique. And I am a starship owner captain, after all. One of them will get us in. All I have to do now is find her.” He smiled broadly at his crew, who were regarding him with a mixture of umbrage and resignation. “Time to party.”
Prince Lambert sealed the straps around the lanky girl’s wrists, then activated the sensenviron program. His bedroom dissolved into a circular stone-walled chamber at the top of a castle tower, its bed at the centre of the flagstone floor. His male slaves began to file through the iron-bound door. Ten of them stood around the bed, looking down dispassionately at the spread-eagled figure.
He took the remote response collar from under the pillow and fastened it around her neck.
“What is it?” the girl asked, anxiety rising into her voice. She was very young; it was highly probable she’d never heard of the device before.
He kissed her silent, and datavised the collar’s activation sequence. The technology was a bastardization of medical nanonic packages, sending filaments to merge with her spinal cord. He could use it to manipulate her body into reacting exactly how he wanted, fulfilling each of the fantasies in turn.
“Do hope I’m not interrupting,” one of the slaves said in a sharp female voice.
Prince Lambert gave a start, jumping up from the bed. The girl wailed in dismay as the collar began to knit smoothly with her skin.
He cancelled the sensenviron program, retrieving the reality of his darkened bedroom, and stared at the tall skinny figure which replaced the muscle-bound slave. “For Mary’s sake, Voi! I’m going to change this bloody apartment’s door code, I should never have let you have it.” He squinted at the figure. “Voi?”
She was pulling her chameleon suit hood off, allowing her little crown of dreadlocks to wriggle free. A wig of unkempt gingerish hair was held carelessly in her hand. Her clothes were standard-issue biosphere agronomist overalls. “I want to talk to you.”
His jaw dropped. One hand gestured ineffectually at the girl on the bed, who was tugging at the straps. “Voi!”
“Now.” She went back out into the living room.
He swore, then datavised a shutdown order at the collar and started to open the strap seals.
“How old is she?” Voi asked when he emerged into the living room.
“Does it matter?”
“It might to Shea. Has she found out about your little kinks yet?”
“Why the sudden interest in my sex life? Do you miss it?”
“Like a sunbather misses birdcrap.”
“That’s not what you said at the time.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. We were good together, Voi.”
“History.”
“Then why have you come running back?”
“I need something of yours.”
“Mother Mary, that detox procedure was a big mistake. I preferred you as you were before.”
“I’m really interested in everything you say, P.L.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I want you to flight prep the Tekas , and take me and some friends outsystem.”
“Oh, sure, no problem.” He collapsed into the living room’s leather settee, and favoured her with a pitying gaze. “Any particular destination? New California? Norfolk? Hey, why don’t we go for the big one and see if we can break through Earth’s SD network?”
“It’s important. It’s for Garissa.”
“Oh, Mary. Your poxy revolution.”
“It isn’t revolution, it’s called honour. Access your dictionary file.”
“Haven’t got one. And for your information, there’s a civil starflight quarantine in operation. I couldn’t fly the Tekas away if I wanted to.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. All right, one nil. If I’d known about this quarantine in advance I would have left. The Dorados might be home, but I don’t think they’re the best place to live while the possessed are roaming around. You’ve got the right idea, Voi, you’re just too late.”
She held up a flek. “The Dorados governing council flight authorization: it’ll be an official voyage.”
“How the hell . . .”
“Daddy was on the council. I have his access codes.”
Temptation haunted him like a curse. “Is it still valid?”
“Yes. Myself and three others. Deal?”
“There’s a few people I’d like to bring along.”
“No. You can operate that yacht by yourself, that’s why I chose it. This isn’t a bloody pleasure cruise, P.L. I need you to fly some complex manoeuvres for me.”
“Tekas isn’t combat-capable, you know. Who are these others?”
“Need-to-know only. And you don’t. Do we have a deal?”
“Do we get to try out free-fall sex?”
“If fucking me means you’ll fly the yacht for me, fuck away.”
“Mother Mary, you are a complete bitch!”
“Deal?”
“All right. Give me a day to wind things up here.”
“We leave in three hours.”
“No way, Voi. I doubt I could even fill the cryogenic tanks by then.”
“Try.” She waved the flek. “If you don’t; no authorization.”
“Bitch.”
The girl was extravagantly attractive; early twenties with lustrous ebony skin and dry chestnut hair that fell just below her bottom. Her dress was a shimmering metallic grey-blue with a skirt hem higher than the dangling ends of her hair.
Melvyn suspected she was a typical insecure rich kid. Though Joshua didn’t seem to mind, the two of them were busy French-kissing on the Bar KF-T’s dance floor.
“He’s a devil for it,” Melvyn said peevishly. He felt he should explain to Beaulieu, who was sitting at the table with him. “Never works for me. I mean, fusion specialist is a tough job. And I’m crew, that’s glamorous enough, isn’t it? But they just bloody stampede at him when we dock. I think he got his pheromones geneered along with everything else.” He started searching through the cluster of beer bottles on the table for one that had something left inside. There were rather a lot of them.
“You don’t think it’s anything to do with the fact he’s thirty years younger than you?” the cosmonik asked.
“Twenty-five!” Melvyn corrected indignantly.
“Twenty-five.”
“Certainly not.”
The cosmonik gave the Bar KF-T another automatic scan. Joshua’s direction of investigation was obviously puzzling the intelligence agents who were on observation duty. Melvyn and Beaulieu had identified five of them in the club, making a game of it as they sat drinking beer and waiting for Joshua to score. It wasn’t that the agents didn’t mix; they drank, they danced, they chatted to people, the betraying factor was the way they maintained a rigid distance from the Lady Mac ’s crew.
Joshua waved a sunny farewell to the girl and sat down at Melvyn’s table with a satisfied sigh. “Her name’s Kole, and she’s invited me to a party this evening.”
“I’m surprised she can hold back that long,” Melvyn muttered.
“I’m meeting her and her friends at tonight’s benefit gig, then they’re going on to a private bash at someone’s apartment.”
“A benefit gig?” Beaulieu questioned.
“Some local MF bands are getting together so they can raise money for Alkad Mzu’s legal costs, should she ever need to fight Confederation extradition warrants.”
“She’s becoming a bloody religion,” Melvyn said.
“Looks that way.” Joshua started counting the bottles on the table. “Come on, we need to get back to Lady Mac .” He slipped his arm under Melvyn’s shoulder and signalled Beaulieu to help. Between them, they got the drunk fusion specialist to his feet. Ashly and Sarha walked over from the bar. All four serjeants rose from their seats.
None of the agents moved. That would have been too blatant.
A pair of possessed walked into Bar KF-T. A man and woman, dressed in clothes which almost matched current fashions.
Joshua’s electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.
“Get down!” the four serjeants shouted in unison.
The threat-response program which had gone primary as soon as the alarm came on sent Joshua diving for cover amid the tables and chairs. He hit the floor, rolling expertly to absorb the impact. A couple of empty chairs went flying as his legs struck them. His crew was following him down; even Melvyn, though his alcohol-polluted nerves made him slower.
Screams broke out across the club as the serjeants drew their stubby machine guns. The agents were also moving, boosted muscles turning their actions into a blur.
Both the possessed gasped at the near-instantaneous reaction to their appearance. An unnerving number of weapons were lining up on them amid the chaos of a terrified and bewildered clientele.
“Freeze,” a quadriphonic voice ordered them.
They didn’t have functional neural nanonics to run combat programs, but instinct was almost as fast. Both of them started to raise their arms, white fire bursting from their fingertips.
Six machine guns, three semi-automatic pistols, and a carbine opened fire.
Joshua had never heard a chemical projectile weapon before. Ten of them shooting at once was louder than a fusion rocket exhaust. He slammed his hands over his ears. The fusillade couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds. He risked raising his head.
Only the agents (there were actually six—Melvyn had missed one) and the serjeants were standing. Everyone else was on the floor, sprawled flat or curled up in fetal balls. Tables and chairs rolled and spun. The music and dance-floor holograms were still playing.
He heard several peculiar mechanical snicking sounds as fresh magazines were slammed into the guns.
Bullets had shredded the wall behind the possessed, chewing apart the composite panelling. Large splatters of blood covered the tattered splinters of composite. The two bodies—
Joshua squirmed at the sight. There wasn’t much left to identify as human. A nausea suppression program switched smoothly into primary mode, though that only stopped the physical symptoms.
Moans and cries rose over the music. Several people had been hit by ricochets.
“Joshua!”
It was Sarha. She had her hand clamped around Ashly’s left thigh. Blood was staining her fingers scarlet. “He’s been hit.”
The pilot was staring with a calm morbid interest at his wound. “Damn stupid thing.” He blinked in confusion.
“Ione,” Joshua shouted. “Medical nanonic.”
One of the serjeants took a package from its equipment belt. Beaulieu was slitting Ashly’s trouser fabric with a small metal blade that had slid out of her left wrist attachments. A dribble of grey-green fluid was leaking from a bullet hole in her brass breastplate.
“I say, do be careful,” Ashly murmured.
When the wound had been fully exposed, Sarha slapped the package over it.
“Let’s go,” Joshua said. “Beaulieu, take Melvyn. Sarha and I will handle Ashly. Ione, cover us.”
“Now wait a minute,” one of the agents said. Joshua recognized him as one of the heavyweights accompanying Pauline Webb. “You’re staying right here until the police arrive.”
It was a barman who had recovered fast enough to think of the financial possibilities that started recording the scene in a memory cell. Later that day and all through the night the news companies repeated it almost constantly. Six armed men in a shouting match with a young starship captain (later everyone realized it was Lagrange Calvert himself) and his crew. The captain saying that no one was going to prevent him from taking his injured friend to get proper treatment. And what authority have you got anyway? Four identical and disturbingly menacing cosmoniks stood between Calvert and the armed men. There was a short pause, then everyone’s guns seemed to disappear. The starship crew left the club, carrying their wounded with them.
Anchormen speculated long and loud on the possibility that the six armed men were in fact foreign intelligence agents. Rover reporters tried desperately to hunt them down, with no success.
The police officially confirmed that the two people shot dead by the agents had been possessed (though no details about how they knew for sure were forthcoming). Ayacucho’s governing council issued a statement urging everyone to remain calm. Total priority was given to search and identification procedures which were being put into operation to locate any further possessed in the asteroid. All citizens and residents were asked to cooperate fully.
There was no physical expression of panic, no angry mobs gathering in the biosphere cavern, or marches on the council chamber. People were too fearful of what might be lying in wait outside their apartment doors. Those companies and offices which had remained open started to wind down or conduct their businesses purely over the communications net; anything as long as personal contact was reduced. Parents took their children out of day clubs. Emergency services were brought up to full alert status. Company security staff were seconded to the police to help with the search.
By late afternoon several starships had been given official flight authorization by the council. Most of them were taking councillors, their families, and close aides away for conferences or defence negotiations with allies.
“And we can’t stop them,” Monica complained bitterly. She was sitting at the back of the office which the Edenists were using, sipping a mug of instant tea. There was little else for her to do now, which aggravated her intensely. All the ESA’s assets had been activated. None of them had any idea where Mzu was; few had even heard of Voi let alone any underground group the girl was connected with.
Locating Mzu was all down to the Edenist observation operation now, and the slender hope they would get a lucky break.
“She has not embarked on any starship,” Samuel said. “We are sure of that. Both axial chambers have been under constant observation, and not just by us. Nobody who comes within twenty-five per cent of Mzu’s height and mass has passed into the spaceports without being positively identified.”
“Yes yes,” Monica said irritably.
“If we don’t find her in another four hours we are going to withdraw from Ayacucho.”
She’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. “That bad?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so.” He had just finished watching another possession through a spider in one of the residential sections. It was the apartment of an ordinary family of five, doing as they’d been advised, staying at home and not allowing anyone else in. Until the police arrived. All three officers were possessed; and after seven minutes so were the family. “We estimate eight per cent of the population has been possessed now. With everyone isolated and sitting tight, it is becoming easier for them to spread. They have taken over the police force in its entirety.”
“Bastards. They’ve gone for officialdom every time since Capone used the police and civil service to take over New California.”
“A remarkably perceptive man, Mr Capone.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any good broadcasting a general warning, now?”
“We think not. There are few weapons available to the general populace; and most of those are energy weapons, which are worse than useless. We would be adding to the suffering.”
“And since that bloody media campaign, nobody would trust us.”
“Exactly.”
“What do we do if Mzu doesn’t escape?”
“That depends on what happens here. If the possessed take Ayacucho out of this universe, the problem is solved, albeit not very satisfactorily. If they remain here, then the voidhawks will enforce a permanent blockade.”
She gritted her teeth, hating the mounting feeling of frustration. “We could try broadcasting a message to her, offer to take her off.”
“I’ve considered it; and I might well use it as a last resort before we evacuate.”
“Great. So now we just sit and pray she walks in front of a spider.”
“You have an alternative?”
“No. I don’t think any of us do.”
“Perhaps not, though I remain intrigued by what Joshua Calvert and his crew were doing in that club.”
“Trying to get laid by the look of it.”
“No. Calvert is shrewd. If you want my guess he is attempting to approach Voi through her friends.”
“He can’t know who her friends are, he doesn’t have the resources. We’ve only got three of her friends on our list, and that took five hours to acquire.”
“Possibly. But he’s already inserted himself in her social strata with that invitation to a party. And it’s a small asteroid.”
“We’re organized, all right,” Lodi Shalasha insisted. “But nothing formal. We’re just like-minded people who keep in touch and help each other out.”
Alkad pushed her legs down into the chameleon suit trousers. There was still a residue of cold sweat smearing the fabric from when she’d worn the suit last night. Her nose wrinkled up in distaste, but she kept on working the trousers up her shins. “You said you had junior cadres, the ones clearing the spiders away. That sounds like a regular underground movement hierarchy to me.”
“Not really. Some of us work in day clubs, that way we help to keep the memory of the genocide alive for the children. Nobody should be allowed to forget what was done to us.”
“I approve.”
“You do?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes. The original refugees seem to have forgotten. That’s why I’m in this mess right now.”
“Don’t worry, Doctor; Voi will get you off Ayacucho.”
“Perhaps.” Alkad prided herself that the somnolence program had been for the best. When the girl had woken this morning she’d been subdued, but still functional. The grief for her father was still there, as it should be, but it hadn’t debilitated her.
Over breakfast, Alkad had explained what her priorities were: to get away from the Dorados as fast as possible now her location was blown to the intelligence agencies, and the remaining principal requirement for a combat-capable starship (she still couldn’t bring herself to mention the Alchemist). It would be too much to hope for the ship to be crewed by Garissan patriot types; a mercenary crew would just have to do now. The three of them had discussed possible options, and Voi and Lodi had started arguing over names, who to contact for what.
Voi had left by herself to secure a starship. It would be inviting disaster for Alkad to be seen with her again. As a pair they were too distinctive, however adroit the chameleon suits were at hiding their peripheral features.
“Hey, you’ve made the news.” Lodi waved his communications block enthusiastically. He’d entered a reference search program to monitor the media output. “Access the Cabral NewsGalactic studio.”
Alkad struggled the suit on over her shoulders, then datavised the room’s net processor for a channel to the studio.
Cabral NewsGalactic was showing a recording of a holomorph sticker which had a young cheerleader shouting: “Run, Alkad, run!”
“Mother Mary,” Alkad muttered. “Is this the work of your people?”
“No. I swear. I’ve never seen one before. Besides, only Voi and I know your name. None of the others even know you exist.”
Alkad went back to the studio. A rover reporter was walking down one of Ayacucho’s main public halls. The stickers were everywhere. A cleaner mechanoid was trying to spray one off the wall, but its solvent wasn’t strong enough. Smears of black semi-dissolved plastic dribbled down the metallic wall panel.
“It is as if a plague has visited Ayacucho,” the rover reporter said cheerfully. “The first of these stickers appeared about six hours ago. And if I didn’t know better I’d say they’ve been breeding like bacteria. Police say that the stickers are being handed out to children; and detectives are currently correlating security monitor recordings to see if they can identify the main distributors. Though sources inside the public prosecutor’s office tell me they’re not sure exactly what charges could be brought.
“The question everyone is asking is: Exactly who is Alkad, and what is she running from?”
The image went back to the studio anchorman. “Our company’s investigations have uncovered one possible answer to the mystery,” he said in a sombre bass voice. “At the time of the genocide, the Garissan navy employed a Dr Alkad Mzu to work on advanced defence projects. Mzu is said to have survived the genocide and spent the last thirty years under an assumed name teaching physics at the Dorados university. But now foreign intelligence agencies, acting in response to Omutan propaganda, have started hunting her under the pretext of illegal technology violations. A senior member of the Dorados governing council, who asked not to be named, said today: ‘Such an action by these foreign agents is a gross violation of our sovereignty. I find it obscene that the Omutans can lay these unfounded allegations against one of our citizens who has dedicated her life to educating our brightest youngsters. If this is their behaviour after thirty years of sanctions, then we must ask why the Confederation ever lifted those sanctions in the first place. They certainly do not seem to have had the desired effect in remedying the aggressive nature of the Omutan government. Their current cabinet is just a new collar on the same dog.’
“The council member went on to say that if Alkad Mzu turned up at his apartment he would certainly offer her sanctuary, and that every true Dorados citizen would do the same. He said he would not rest until all suspected foreign agents had been expelled from the asteroids.”
“Holy Mother Mary,” Alkad groaned.
She cancelled the channel and slumped down onto the bed, the suit’s hood hanging flaccidly over her shoulder. “I don’t believe this is happening. Mother Mary, they’re turning me into a media celebrity.”
“That’s my uncle for you,” Lodi said. “Did you check out the positive bias in those reports? Mary, you’d be elected president tomorrow if we were ever allowed to vote around here.”
“Your uncle ?”
He flinched. “Yeah, sure. Cabral’s my uncle. He’s made a mint out of exploiting the little-Garissan attitude. I mean, just look at the kind of people living here, they lap it up.”
“He’s insane. What does he think he’s doing giving me this kind of public profile?”
“Whipping up public support in your favour. This kind of propaganda is going to make life ten times harder for the agencies chasing you. Anyone tries to take you out of Ayacucho against your will today, they’ll wind up getting lynched.”
She stared at him. That eager face which permitted so much inner anger to show without ever dimming the natural innocence. Child of the failed revolutionaries. “You’re probably right. But this isn’t happening the way I ever expected it to.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor.” He pulled a worn shoulder bag out of the cupboard. “Do you want to try some of these clothes now?”
He was proffering some long sports shorts and an Ayacucho Junior Curveball Team sweatshirt. With a short cut wig and the chameleon suit reprogrammed, they intended her to walk out of the room as an average sports-mad teenager. A male one.
“Why not?”
“Voi will call soon. We ought to be ready.”
“You really believe she can get us off this asteroid in a starship, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Lodi, do you have any idea how difficult that is to arrange, now of all times? Underground movements need to have contacts infiltrated right through the local administrative structure; dedicated, devoted people who will risk everything for the cause. What have you got? You’re rich kids who’ve found a new way to rebel against their parents.”
“Yes, and we can use that money to help you, if you’d just let us. Voi taught us that. If we need something, we buy it. That way there’s no network for the agencies to discover and penetrate. We’ve never been compromised. That’s why you stayed in this room all night without anyone storming the door with an assault mechanoid.”
“You may have a point there. I have to admit the old partizans didn’t do too well, did they.” She gave the chameleon suit hood a reluctant grimace, then started to smooth back her hair ready to slip it on.
Joshua held the petri dish up to the cabin’s light panel, squinting at the clear glass. It looked completely empty; his enhanced retinas couldn’t even find dust motes. But lurking inside the optically pure dish were thirteen nanonic monitor bugs which the medical packages had extracted from Lady Mac ’s crew and the serjeants. They were subcutaneous implants, agents stinging them by casually brushing up against an unsuspecting victim.
“How come I rated three?” Ashly complained.
“Obvious subversive type,” Sarha said. “Bound to be up to no good.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re all in the clear,” she said. “The medical analysis program can’t spot any unusual infections or viruses. Looks like they weren’t playing nasty.”
“This time,” Joshua said. As soon as the scanners in the starship’s surgery had located the first of the monitor bugs he’d ordered Sarha to run a full biochemical analysis on everyone. Microbes and viruses were far easier to introduce in a target than nanonics.
Fortunately, the agencies had been curious rather than hostile. But this was the sharpest reminder to date of the stakes involved. They’d been lucky thus far. It wouldn’t last, he thought. And he wasn’t the only one who realized that. The cabin had a kind of after-game locker-room atmosphere, with a team that was very relieved to have scraped a draw.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” he said. “Sarha, are we secure now?”
“Yes. These bugs can’t datavise through Lady Mac ’s screening. They’re only a problem outside.”
“But you don’t know when we got stung?”
“There’s no way of knowing, sorry.”
“Your friend Mrs Nateghi,” Melvyn suggested. “It was rather odd.”
“You’re probably right,” Joshua said reluctantly. “Okay, assume everything we’ve done up until now has been compromised. First off, is there any point in continuing? Jesus, it’s not as if we don’t know she’s here. The bloody news studios have been broadcasting nothing else. Our problem is how difficult it’s going to be to contact her without anyone else tagging along. They’re bound to try and sting us again. Sarha, will our electronic warfare blocks work against these monitor bugs?”
“They should be able to scramble them; we picked up top-of-the-range systems before we left Tranquillity.”
“Fine. From now on, nobody goes into Ayacucho without one. We also take a serjeant each when we venture out. Ione, I want you to carry those chemical projectile guns we brought.”
“Certainly, Joshua,” said one of the four serjeants in the cabin.
He couldn’t tell if it was the one who’d accompanied him earlier. “Right, what kind of data have we pulled in so far? Melvyn?”
“Ashly and I got around to the five major defence contractors, Captain. The only orders coming in are for upgrades to the asteroid’s SD platforms, and there’s precious few of them. We got offered some magnificent discounts when we asked about supplying Lady Mac with new systems. They’re absolutely desperate for work. Mzu hasn’t ordered any equipment from anybody. And nobody is refitting starships.”
“Okay. Beaulieu?”
“Nothing, Captain. Daphine Kigano disappeared within fifteen minutes of arriving here. There’s no eddress for her, no credit records, no hotel booking, no citizenship register, no public record file.”
“All right. That just leaves us with Ikela.”
“He’s dead, Joshua,” Dahybi said. “Hardly the best lead.”
“Pauline Webb was very keen to stop me having any contact with T’Opingtu’s management. Which means that’s the direction to take. I’ve been reviewing every byte I can find on Ikela and T’Opingtu. He came to the Dorados with a lot of money to start up that company. There’s no mention of where it came from; according to his biography he used to work for a Garissan engineering company as a junior manager. Which doesn’t add up.
“Now if you were Alkad Mzu, on the run and in need of a starship that can deploy the Alchemist, who are you going to go to when you get here? Ikela fits the search program perfectly: the owner of a company which manufactures specialist astroengineering components. Remember she fooled the intelligence agencies for close on thirty years. Whatever plan she formatted with her colleagues after the genocide, it was well thought out.”
“Not perfect, though,” Ashly said. “If it was, Omuta’s star would be turning nova right now.”
“The possessed glitched it for them, that’s all,” Sarha said. “Who could anticipate this quarantine?”
“Whatever,” Joshua said. “The point is, T’Opingtu was probably set up to provide Mzu with the means to deploy the Alchemist. Ikela would have made sure that policy continued in the event he didn’t live long enough to see her arrive.”
“Which he did, but only just,” Ashly said. “It must have been the agencies who snuffed him.”
“But not Mzu,” Melvyn said. “This media campaign backing her sprang up too quickly after the murder. Somebody knows she’s out there. Somebody with a shitload of influence, but not in contact with her. It’s going to be almost impossible for us to snatch her with public opinion being whipped up like this, Captain.”
“Which is exactly the intention,” Dahybi said. “Though it’s more likely aimed at the intelligence agencies rather than us.”
“We’ll deal with that problem if we ever get to it,” Joshua said. “Right now our priority is to establish a trace on Mzu.”
“How?” Sarha asked.
“Ikela has a daughter; according to his public record file she’s the only family he’s got.”
“She’ll inherit,” Beaulieu said bluntly.
“You got it. Her name’s Voi, and she’s twenty-one. She’s our way in to whatever organization her daddy built up in preparation for Mzu.”
“Oh, come on, Joshua,” Ashly protested. “Her father’s just been murdered, she’s not going to make appointments with perfect strangers, let alone tell us anything about the Garissan underground, even if she has any data. Which is questionable. I wouldn’t involve my daughter in anything like that. And the agencies will be wanting to question her, too.”
Joshua wasn’t going to argue. As soon as he reviewed Ikela’s public record file he’d known Voi was the link. Ione would call it his intuition. She might even have been right. The old burn of conviction was there. “If we can just get close to her, we stand a chance,” he said firmly. “Mzu can’t afford to remain here now. She’s going to have to make a break for it, and sooner rather than later. One way or another, Voi will be involved. It’s our best shot.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Dahybi said. “It’s as good a chance as any. But how the hell are you going to get near her?”
“Weren’t you listening?” asked one of the serjeants. “Voi is female and twenty-one.”
Joshua grinned evilly at Dahybi.
“You have got to be joking,” the stupefied node specialist insisted.
“I’ll just lie back and think of the Confederation.”
“Joshua . . .”
Joshua burst out laughing. “Your faces! Don’t worry, Dahybi, I’m not that conceited. But she will have friends. There are quite a lot of rich entrepreneurs in the Dorados, their kids will cling together in their own little social clique. And I am a starship owner captain, after all. One of them will get us in. All I have to do now is find her.” He smiled broadly at his crew, who were regarding him with a mixture of umbrage and resignation. “Time to party.”
Prince Lambert sealed the straps around the lanky girl’s wrists, then activated the sensenviron program. His bedroom dissolved into a circular stone-walled chamber at the top of a castle tower, its bed at the centre of the flagstone floor. His male slaves began to file through the iron-bound door. Ten of them stood around the bed, looking down dispassionately at the spread-eagled figure.
He took the remote response collar from under the pillow and fastened it around her neck.
“What is it?” the girl asked, anxiety rising into her voice. She was very young; it was highly probable she’d never heard of the device before.
He kissed her silent, and datavised the collar’s activation sequence. The technology was a bastardization of medical nanonic packages, sending filaments to merge with her spinal cord. He could use it to manipulate her body into reacting exactly how he wanted, fulfilling each of the fantasies in turn.
“Do hope I’m not interrupting,” one of the slaves said in a sharp female voice.
Prince Lambert gave a start, jumping up from the bed. The girl wailed in dismay as the collar began to knit smoothly with her skin.
He cancelled the sensenviron program, retrieving the reality of his darkened bedroom, and stared at the tall skinny figure which replaced the muscle-bound slave. “For Mary’s sake, Voi! I’m going to change this bloody apartment’s door code, I should never have let you have it.” He squinted at the figure. “Voi?”
She was pulling her chameleon suit hood off, allowing her little crown of dreadlocks to wriggle free. A wig of unkempt gingerish hair was held carelessly in her hand. Her clothes were standard-issue biosphere agronomist overalls. “I want to talk to you.”
His jaw dropped. One hand gestured ineffectually at the girl on the bed, who was tugging at the straps. “Voi!”
“Now.” She went back out into the living room.
He swore, then datavised a shutdown order at the collar and started to open the strap seals.
“How old is she?” Voi asked when he emerged into the living room.
“Does it matter?”
“It might to Shea. Has she found out about your little kinks yet?”
“Why the sudden interest in my sex life? Do you miss it?”
“Like a sunbather misses birdcrap.”
“That’s not what you said at the time.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. We were good together, Voi.”
“History.”
“Then why have you come running back?”
“I need something of yours.”
“Mother Mary, that detox procedure was a big mistake. I preferred you as you were before.”
“I’m really interested in everything you say, P.L.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I want you to flight prep the Tekas , and take me and some friends outsystem.”
“Oh, sure, no problem.” He collapsed into the living room’s leather settee, and favoured her with a pitying gaze. “Any particular destination? New California? Norfolk? Hey, why don’t we go for the big one and see if we can break through Earth’s SD network?”
“It’s important. It’s for Garissa.”
“Oh, Mary. Your poxy revolution.”
“It isn’t revolution, it’s called honour. Access your dictionary file.”
“Haven’t got one. And for your information, there’s a civil starflight quarantine in operation. I couldn’t fly the Tekas away if I wanted to.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. All right, one nil. If I’d known about this quarantine in advance I would have left. The Dorados might be home, but I don’t think they’re the best place to live while the possessed are roaming around. You’ve got the right idea, Voi, you’re just too late.”
She held up a flek. “The Dorados governing council flight authorization: it’ll be an official voyage.”
“How the hell . . .”
“Daddy was on the council. I have his access codes.”
Temptation haunted him like a curse. “Is it still valid?”
“Yes. Myself and three others. Deal?”
“There’s a few people I’d like to bring along.”
“No. You can operate that yacht by yourself, that’s why I chose it. This isn’t a bloody pleasure cruise, P.L. I need you to fly some complex manoeuvres for me.”
“Tekas isn’t combat-capable, you know. Who are these others?”
“Need-to-know only. And you don’t. Do we have a deal?”
“Do we get to try out free-fall sex?”
“If fucking me means you’ll fly the yacht for me, fuck away.”
“Mother Mary, you are a complete bitch!”
“Deal?”
“All right. Give me a day to wind things up here.”
“We leave in three hours.”
“No way, Voi. I doubt I could even fill the cryogenic tanks by then.”
“Try.” She waved the flek. “If you don’t; no authorization.”
“Bitch.”
The girl was extravagantly attractive; early twenties with lustrous ebony skin and dry chestnut hair that fell just below her bottom. Her dress was a shimmering metallic grey-blue with a skirt hem higher than the dangling ends of her hair.
Melvyn suspected she was a typical insecure rich kid. Though Joshua didn’t seem to mind, the two of them were busy French-kissing on the Bar KF-T’s dance floor.
“He’s a devil for it,” Melvyn said peevishly. He felt he should explain to Beaulieu, who was sitting at the table with him. “Never works for me. I mean, fusion specialist is a tough job. And I’m crew, that’s glamorous enough, isn’t it? But they just bloody stampede at him when we dock. I think he got his pheromones geneered along with everything else.” He started searching through the cluster of beer bottles on the table for one that had something left inside. There were rather a lot of them.
“You don’t think it’s anything to do with the fact he’s thirty years younger than you?” the cosmonik asked.
“Twenty-five!” Melvyn corrected indignantly.
“Twenty-five.”
“Certainly not.”
The cosmonik gave the Bar KF-T another automatic scan. Joshua’s direction of investigation was obviously puzzling the intelligence agents who were on observation duty. Melvyn and Beaulieu had identified five of them in the club, making a game of it as they sat drinking beer and waiting for Joshua to score. It wasn’t that the agents didn’t mix; they drank, they danced, they chatted to people, the betraying factor was the way they maintained a rigid distance from the Lady Mac ’s crew.
Joshua waved a sunny farewell to the girl and sat down at Melvyn’s table with a satisfied sigh. “Her name’s Kole, and she’s invited me to a party this evening.”
“I’m surprised she can hold back that long,” Melvyn muttered.
“I’m meeting her and her friends at tonight’s benefit gig, then they’re going on to a private bash at someone’s apartment.”
“A benefit gig?” Beaulieu questioned.
“Some local MF bands are getting together so they can raise money for Alkad Mzu’s legal costs, should she ever need to fight Confederation extradition warrants.”
“She’s becoming a bloody religion,” Melvyn said.
“Looks that way.” Joshua started counting the bottles on the table. “Come on, we need to get back to Lady Mac .” He slipped his arm under Melvyn’s shoulder and signalled Beaulieu to help. Between them, they got the drunk fusion specialist to his feet. Ashly and Sarha walked over from the bar. All four serjeants rose from their seats.
None of the agents moved. That would have been too blatant.
A pair of possessed walked into Bar KF-T. A man and woman, dressed in clothes which almost matched current fashions.
Joshua’s electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.
“Get down!” the four serjeants shouted in unison.
The threat-response program which had gone primary as soon as the alarm came on sent Joshua diving for cover amid the tables and chairs. He hit the floor, rolling expertly to absorb the impact. A couple of empty chairs went flying as his legs struck them. His crew was following him down; even Melvyn, though his alcohol-polluted nerves made him slower.
Screams broke out across the club as the serjeants drew their stubby machine guns. The agents were also moving, boosted muscles turning their actions into a blur.
Both the possessed gasped at the near-instantaneous reaction to their appearance. An unnerving number of weapons were lining up on them amid the chaos of a terrified and bewildered clientele.
“Freeze,” a quadriphonic voice ordered them.
They didn’t have functional neural nanonics to run combat programs, but instinct was almost as fast. Both of them started to raise their arms, white fire bursting from their fingertips.
Six machine guns, three semi-automatic pistols, and a carbine opened fire.
Joshua had never heard a chemical projectile weapon before. Ten of them shooting at once was louder than a fusion rocket exhaust. He slammed his hands over his ears. The fusillade couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds. He risked raising his head.
Only the agents (there were actually six—Melvyn had missed one) and the serjeants were standing. Everyone else was on the floor, sprawled flat or curled up in fetal balls. Tables and chairs rolled and spun. The music and dance-floor holograms were still playing.
He heard several peculiar mechanical snicking sounds as fresh magazines were slammed into the guns.
Bullets had shredded the wall behind the possessed, chewing apart the composite panelling. Large splatters of blood covered the tattered splinters of composite. The two bodies—
Joshua squirmed at the sight. There wasn’t much left to identify as human. A nausea suppression program switched smoothly into primary mode, though that only stopped the physical symptoms.
Moans and cries rose over the music. Several people had been hit by ricochets.
“Joshua!”
It was Sarha. She had her hand clamped around Ashly’s left thigh. Blood was staining her fingers scarlet. “He’s been hit.”
The pilot was staring with a calm morbid interest at his wound. “Damn stupid thing.” He blinked in confusion.
“Ione,” Joshua shouted. “Medical nanonic.”
One of the serjeants took a package from its equipment belt. Beaulieu was slitting Ashly’s trouser fabric with a small metal blade that had slid out of her left wrist attachments. A dribble of grey-green fluid was leaking from a bullet hole in her brass breastplate.
“I say, do be careful,” Ashly murmured.
When the wound had been fully exposed, Sarha slapped the package over it.
“Let’s go,” Joshua said. “Beaulieu, take Melvyn. Sarha and I will handle Ashly. Ione, cover us.”
“Now wait a minute,” one of the agents said. Joshua recognized him as one of the heavyweights accompanying Pauline Webb. “You’re staying right here until the police arrive.”
It was a barman who had recovered fast enough to think of the financial possibilities that started recording the scene in a memory cell. Later that day and all through the night the news companies repeated it almost constantly. Six armed men in a shouting match with a young starship captain (later everyone realized it was Lagrange Calvert himself) and his crew. The captain saying that no one was going to prevent him from taking his injured friend to get proper treatment. And what authority have you got anyway? Four identical and disturbingly menacing cosmoniks stood between Calvert and the armed men. There was a short pause, then everyone’s guns seemed to disappear. The starship crew left the club, carrying their wounded with them.
Anchormen speculated long and loud on the possibility that the six armed men were in fact foreign intelligence agents. Rover reporters tried desperately to hunt them down, with no success.
The police officially confirmed that the two people shot dead by the agents had been possessed (though no details about how they knew for sure were forthcoming). Ayacucho’s governing council issued a statement urging everyone to remain calm. Total priority was given to search and identification procedures which were being put into operation to locate any further possessed in the asteroid. All citizens and residents were asked to cooperate fully.
There was no physical expression of panic, no angry mobs gathering in the biosphere cavern, or marches on the council chamber. People were too fearful of what might be lying in wait outside their apartment doors. Those companies and offices which had remained open started to wind down or conduct their businesses purely over the communications net; anything as long as personal contact was reduced. Parents took their children out of day clubs. Emergency services were brought up to full alert status. Company security staff were seconded to the police to help with the search.
By late afternoon several starships had been given official flight authorization by the council. Most of them were taking councillors, their families, and close aides away for conferences or defence negotiations with allies.
“And we can’t stop them,” Monica complained bitterly. She was sitting at the back of the office which the Edenists were using, sipping a mug of instant tea. There was little else for her to do now, which aggravated her intensely. All the ESA’s assets had been activated. None of them had any idea where Mzu was; few had even heard of Voi let alone any underground group the girl was connected with.
Locating Mzu was all down to the Edenist observation operation now, and the slender hope they would get a lucky break.
“She has not embarked on any starship,” Samuel said. “We are sure of that. Both axial chambers have been under constant observation, and not just by us. Nobody who comes within twenty-five per cent of Mzu’s height and mass has passed into the spaceports without being positively identified.”
“Yes yes,” Monica said irritably.
“If we don’t find her in another four hours we are going to withdraw from Ayacucho.”
She’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. “That bad?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so.” He had just finished watching another possession through a spider in one of the residential sections. It was the apartment of an ordinary family of five, doing as they’d been advised, staying at home and not allowing anyone else in. Until the police arrived. All three officers were possessed; and after seven minutes so were the family. “We estimate eight per cent of the population has been possessed now. With everyone isolated and sitting tight, it is becoming easier for them to spread. They have taken over the police force in its entirety.”
“Bastards. They’ve gone for officialdom every time since Capone used the police and civil service to take over New California.”
“A remarkably perceptive man, Mr Capone.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any good broadcasting a general warning, now?”
“We think not. There are few weapons available to the general populace; and most of those are energy weapons, which are worse than useless. We would be adding to the suffering.”
“And since that bloody media campaign, nobody would trust us.”
“Exactly.”
“What do we do if Mzu doesn’t escape?”
“That depends on what happens here. If the possessed take Ayacucho out of this universe, the problem is solved, albeit not very satisfactorily. If they remain here, then the voidhawks will enforce a permanent blockade.”
She gritted her teeth, hating the mounting feeling of frustration. “We could try broadcasting a message to her, offer to take her off.”
“I’ve considered it; and I might well use it as a last resort before we evacuate.”
“Great. So now we just sit and pray she walks in front of a spider.”
“You have an alternative?”
“No. I don’t think any of us do.”
“Perhaps not, though I remain intrigued by what Joshua Calvert and his crew were doing in that club.”
“Trying to get laid by the look of it.”
“No. Calvert is shrewd. If you want my guess he is attempting to approach Voi through her friends.”
“He can’t know who her friends are, he doesn’t have the resources. We’ve only got three of her friends on our list, and that took five hours to acquire.”
“Possibly. But he’s already inserted himself in her social strata with that invitation to a party. And it’s a small asteroid.”