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“If Voi is hiding Mzu, she’s not going to reveal herself.”
“True.” His grin was childlike in its mischievousness.
“What?” Monica asked in annoyance.
“The irony. From being an amateur irritant, Calvert is now our only lead.”
Ashly had said very little during the trip back to the spaceport. Joshua guessed the pilot’s neural nanonic programs were busy suppressing the shock. But Sarha didn’t seem unduly worried, and she was monitoring the medical package around his thigh.
Melvyn was doing his best to sober up fast. One of the serjeants had given him a medical nanonic package which was now wrapped around his neck to form a thick collar. It was busy filtering all traces of alcohol out of the blood entering his brain.
Joshua’s only concern was the fluid which was still trickling out of the bullet hole in Beaulieu’s breastplate. Medical nanonics would be of no value at all in treating the cosmonik. None of them had standardized internal systems; each was unique, and proud of it. He wasn’t even sure if she was mostly mechanical or biological underneath her brass carapace.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
“The bullet damaged some of my nutrient synthesis glands. It’s not critical.”
“Do you have any . . . er, spares?”
“No. That function has multiple redundancy backup. It looks worse than it is.”
“Don’t tell me, just a flesh wound,” Ashly grunted.
“Correct.”
The commuter lift’s doors opened. Two serjeants slid out into the corridor first, checking for any possessed between them and the docking bay’s airlock tube. “Joshua,” one of them called.
His electronic warfare detector block wasn’t acting up. “What?”
“Someone here for you.”
He learned nothing from the tone, so he pushed off with his feet and glided out into the corridor. “Oh, Jesus wept.”
Mrs Nateghi and her two fellow goons from Tayari, Usoro and Wang were waiting outside the airlock tube. Another man was floating just behind them.
The crew followed Joshua out of the lift.
“Captain Calvert.” Mrs Nateghi’s voice was indecently happy.
“Can’t get enough of me, can you? So what is it this time? A million-fuseodollar fine for littering? Ten years hard labour for not returning my empties to the bar? Penal colony exile for farting in public?”
“Humour is an excellent defence mechanism, Captain Calvert. But I would advise you to have something stronger in court.”
“I’ve just saved your asteroid from being taken over by the possessed. Will that do?”
“I’ve accessed the NewsGalactic recording. You were lying on the floor with your hands over your head the whole time. Captain Calvert, I have a summons for you to be present at a preliminary hearing to establish proceedings which will determine the ownership of the starship Lady Macbeth , pursuant to the claim my client has filed upon said ship.”
Joshua stared at her, too incredulous to speak.
“Ownership?” Sarha asked. “But it’s Joshua’s ship; it always has been.”
“That is incorrect,” Mrs Nateghi said. “It was Marcus Calvert’s ship. I have a sensorium recording of Captain Calvert admitting that.”
“He was never trying to deny it. His father is dead. Lady Mac ’s registration is filed with the CAB. You can’t challenge that.”
“Yes I can.” The man who had been keeping himself behind the other two lawyers slowly edged forwards.
“You!” Sarha exclaimed.
“Me.”
Joshua stared at him, a very unpleasant chill sluicing into his thoughts. The angular, ebony face was . . . Jesus, I know him. But where from? “So who the hell are you?”
“My name is Liol. Liol Calvert, actually. I’m your big half brother, Joshua.”
The last place Joshua wanted to bring this . . . this fraud was the captain’s cabin. It was his father’s cabin, for Christ’s sake, even though most of the old fittings and personal mementos had been removed during the last refit. This was the closest Joshua had ever come to knowing a home.
But Ashly needed the deep-invasion packages in Lady Mac ’s sickbay to remove the bullet in his thigh. That bitch queen Mrs Nateghi wasn’t going to be deflected, and the summons was real enough. He also had a mission. So it was back to basics.
As soon as the cabin hatch shut behind them, Joshua asked: “Okay, shithead, how much?”
Liol didn’t answer immediately, he was gazing around the cabin. His face carried an expression which was close to trepidation. “I’m finally here,” he said falteringly.
“Do you know how many hours I’ve spent in sensevise simulations learning to fly a starship? I qualified for my C.A.B. pilot’s licence when I was just nineteen.” He glanced awkwardly at Joshua. “This must be very strange for you, Joshua. It is for me.”
“Cut the crap, how much?”
Liol’s face cleared. “How much for what?”
“To drop the claim and bugger off, of course. It’s a neat scam, I’ll give you that. Normally I’d just let the courts break you apart, but I’m a little pushed for time right now. I don’t need complications. So name your price, but you’d better make it less than fifty grand.”
“Nice one, Josh.” Liol smiled and held out his Jovian Bank credit disk, silver side up. Green figures glowed on the surface.
Joshua blinked as he read out the amount of money stored inside: eight hundred thousand fuseodollars. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple, I am your brother. I’m entitled to joint ownership, at the very least.”
“Not a chance. You’re a con artist who knows how to use a cosmetic adaptation package, that’s all. Right now, my face is as famous as Jezzibella’s. You saw an opportunity to make a nuisance of yourself, and remodelled your features.”
“This is my face. I’ve had it ever since I was born, which was before you. Access my public file if you want proof.”
“I’m sure someone as smart as you has planted all the appropriate data in Ayacucho’s memory cores. You’ve done your research, and you’ve shown me you have the money to buy official access codes.”
“Really? And what about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes. How come you acquired this ship after my father died? In fact, how did he die? Is he even dead at all? Prove you’re a Calvert. Prove you are Marcus’s son.”
“I didn’t acquire it, I inherited it. Dad always wanted me to have it. His will is on file in Tranquillity. Anybody can access it.”
“Oh, that’s nice. So Tranquillity’s public records are beyond reproach, while anything stored in the Dorados was put there by criminals. How convenient. I wouldn’t try that one in court if I were you.”
“He’s my father,” Joshua shouted angrily.
“Mine too. And you know it.”
“I know you’re a fake.”
“If you were a true Calvert, you’d know.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Intuition. What does your intuition tell you about me, Josh?”
For the first time in his life, Joshua knew what vertigo must feel like. To be teetering on the edge of some monstrously deep chasm.
“Ah.” Liol’s grin was triumphant. “Our little family quirk can be a real downer at times. After all, I knew you were real the second I accessed Kelly Tirrel’s report. I also know what you’re going through, Joshua. I felt exactly the same way about you. All that terrible anger, refusing to believe despite all the evidence. We’re more than brothers, we’re almost twins.”
“Wrong. We don’t even come from the same universe.”
“What exactly worries you the most, Josh? That I am your brother, or I’m not?”
“I’ll scuttle Lady Mac before I let anyone else have her. If you’ve got any intuition, you’ll know how true that is.”
“My mistake.” Liol stroked the acceleration couch beside the hatch, the longing obvious in his eyes. “I can see the ship means as much to you as it does to me. No surprise there, we’ve both got the Calvert wanderlust. Hitting you with a big legal scene first off was bound to create some hostility. But I’ve been waiting for this starship to dock here for every day of my life. Dad left Ayacucho before I was even born. In my mind the Lady Macbeth has always been mine. She’s my inheritance, too, Josh. I belong here just as much as you do.”
“A starship only has one captain. And you, asteroid boy, don’t know the first thing about piloting or captaining. Not that it’s relevant, you’ll never be in a position to fly Lady Mac .”
“Don’t fight this, Josh. You’re my brother, I don’t want to alienate you. Christ, just finding out you existed was a hell of a shock. Family feuds are the worst kind. Don’t let’s start one the moment we meet. Think how Dad would feel, his sons going at each other like this.”
“You are not family.”
“Where was Lady Macbeth docked in 2586, Josh? What ports?”
Joshua clenched his fists, a free-fall assault program working out possible trajectories he could leap along. He hated how smug this arrogant bastard was. Wiping that knowing superiority from his ugly flat face would be wonderful.
“The disadvantage with white skin like yours, Josh, is that I can see every blush. It’s a dead giveaway. Me? I always win at poker.”
Joshua seethed silently.
“So, do you want to discuss this sensibly?” Liol asked. “Personally, I’d hate to face Mrs Nateghi across a courtroom.”
“I don’t suppose, Lie , this sudden urge to acquire a starship has anything to do with your asteroid being overrun by possessed?”
“Lovely.” Liol clapped his hands enthusiastically. “You’re a Calvert, all right. Never see a belt without wanting to hit below it.”
“That’s right. So, I’ll see you in court here in about a week’s time. How does that sound?”
“Would you really abandon your own brother to the possessed?”
“If I had one, probably not.”
“I think I’m going to like you after all, Josh. I thought you’d be soft; after all, you’ve had it dead easy. But you’re not.”
“Easy?”
“Compared to me. You knew Dad. You had the big inheritance waiting. I’d call that easy.”
“I’d call that bollocks.”
“If you don’t believe in your own intuition, a simple DNA profile will tell you if we’re related. I’m sure your sick bay could run one for you.”
And Joshua was absolutely stumped at that. There was something about this complete stranger that was deeply unsettling, yet obscurely comforting at the same time. Jesus, he does look like me, and he knows about the intuition, and Dad wiped the log for 2586. It’s not utterly impossible. But Lady Mac is mine. I could never share her.
He stared at Liol for a moment longer, then made a command decision.
The crew were all hanging around on the bridge, along with Mrs Nateghi. Nobody would make eye contact. Joshua shot out of the captain’s cabin, rotated ninety degrees, and slapped his feet on a stikpad. “Sarha. Take our guest down to the sick bay. Get a blood sample, use a dagger if you want, and run a DNA profile.” He jabbed a finger at Mrs Nateghi. “Not you. You’re leaving. Right now.”
She ignored him while managing to project her complete disdain at the same time. “Mr Calvert, what are your instructions?”
“I just told you . . . Oh.”
“Thank you so much for your help,” Liol said with flawless courtesy. “I’ll be in touch with your office if I decide any further legal action is required against my brother.”
“Very well. Tayari, Usoro and Wang will be delighted to help. Forcing recidivists to acknowledge their responsibilities is always rewarding.”
Combating her amusement, Sarha held up a warning finger as Joshua’s face turned beacon red.
“Dahybi, show the lady out, please,” he said.
“Aye, Captain.” The node specialist gestured generously at the floor hatch and followed Mrs Nateghi through.
Liol flashed Sarha an engaging grin. “You wouldn’t really use a dagger on me, would you?”
She winked. “Depends on the circumstances.”
“Fancy that, Joshua,” one of the serjeants said as the pair of them left the bridge. “There’s two of you.”
Joshua glared at the bitek construct, then executed a perfect midair somersault and zoomed back into his cabin.
Alkad’s tranquillizer program wasn’t nearly strong enough to keep the claustrophobia at bay. Eventually she had to admit defeat and switch a somnolence program to primary. Her only thought as she fell into oblivion was: I wonder who will be there when I wake?
The rendezvous was an elaborate one, which decreased the chances of success. But even that wasn’t her main worry. Getting out of Ayacucho undetected was the big problem.
The asteroid had two counter-rotating spaceports, one at each end. The main one was used by starships and larger inter-orbit craft; while the second was mainly for heavy-duty cargo and utility tankers delivering fresh water and liquid oxygen for the biosphere. It was also the operations base for the personnel commuters and MSVs and tugs which flew between the asteroid and its necklace of industrial stations.
Both were under heavy surveillance by agents. There was no chance of getting through the axial chambers and taking a commuter lift to the docking bays, so Voi had arranged for Alkad and herself to be shipped out in cargo pods.
Lodi and another youth called Eriba, who claimed to be a molecular structures student, worked on a couple of standard pods in one of T’Opingtu’s storage facilities. They were converted into heavily padded coffins moulded to hold someone wearing a SII spacesuit. Both boys swore the insulation would prevent any thermal or electromagnetic leakage. The cargo pods would appear perfectly inert to any sensor sweep.
Of course, the insulation meant that Alkad couldn’t datavise out for help if anything went wrong and nobody opened her pod. She believed she held her composure pretty well while she allowed them to seal her in. After that there was nothing but the tranquillizer program for the twenty minutes before she sought refuge in sleep.
A tug was scheduled to take the cargo pods out to one of T’Opingtu’s foundry stations. From there they would be transferred to an inter-orbit craft that was heading for Mapire.
Alkad woke to find herself in free fall. At least we got out of the asteroid.
Her neural nanonics reported they were picking up a datavise.
“Stand by, Doctor, we’re cracking the pod now.”
She could feel vibrations through her suit, then the collar sensors were showing her slash-lines of red light cavorting around her. The top of the cargo pod came free, and someone in an SII suit and a manoeuvring pack was sliding into view in front of her.
“Hello, Doctor, it’s me, Lodi. You made it, you’re out.”
“Where’s Voi?” she datavised.
“I’m here, Doctor. Mary, but that was horrible. Are you all right?”
“Yes. Fine, thank you.” As well as relief for herself, she felt strangely glad the girl had come through unscathed.
She made sure she had a secure grip on her crumpled old backpack before she let Lodi draw her out of the pod. Held in front of him, with the manoeuvring pack puffing out fast streamers of gas, she sank into the déjà vu of Cherri Barnes towing her back to the Udat . Then, space had been frighteningly empty, with so little light her collar sensors had struggled to resolve anything. Now, she was deep within Tunja’s disk, gliding through a redout blizzard. No stars were visible anywhere, the particles were too thick. Their size was inordinately difficult to judge, a grain of dust a centimetre from her nose, or a boulder a kilometre away, both looked exactly the same.
Ahead of her she could see the waiting starship, its fuselage shining a dim burgundy, much darker than the particles skipping across it like twisters of interference in an empty AV projection. Two thermo-dump panels were extended, resembling slow-motion propeller blades as rills of dust swirled around them. The airlock hatch was open, emitting a welcoming beam of white light.
She sank along it, relishing the return of normal colour. They entered a cylindrical chamber with grab hoops, utility sockets, harsh light tubes, environment grilles, and small instrument panels distributed at random. The sensation that reality was solidifying around her was inescapable.
The hatch closed, and she clung to a grab hoop as air flooded in. Her SII suit flowed back into a globe hanging off the collar, and she was inundated with sounds.
“We did it!” Voi was jubilant. “I told you I could get you out.”
“Yes, you did.” She looked around at them, Voi, Lodi, and Eriba, so dreadfully young to be sucked into this world of subterfuge, hatred, and death. Beaming faces desperate for her approval. “And I’d like to thank you; you did a magnificent job, all of you.”
Their laughter and gratitude made her shake her head in wonder. Such odd times.
Five minutes later Alkad was dressed in her old ship-suit, backpack tight against her waist, following Voi into the Tekas ’s upper deck lounge. The yacht was only large enough for one life-support capsule, with three decks. Despite the lack of volume, the fittings were compact and elegant, everything blending seamlessly together to provide the illusion of ample space.
Prince Lambert was reclining in a deep circular chair, datavising a constant stream of instructions to the flight computer. Tekas was under way, accelerating at a twentieth of a gee, though the gravity plane was flicking about.
“Thank you for offering us the use of your ship,” Alkad said after they were introduced.
He gave Voi a sterling glance. “Not at all, Doctor, the least I could do for a national heroine.”
She ignored the sarcasm, wondering what the story was with him and Voi. “So what’s our current status? Did anyone follow you?”
“No. I’m fairly sure about that. I flew outside the disk for a million kilometres before I went through it. Your inter-orbit craft did the same thing, but on the other side. In theory no one will realize we rendezvoused. Even the voidhawks can’t sense what happens inside the disk, not from a million kilometres away, it’s too cluttered.”
Unless they want to follow me right to the Alchemist, Alkad thought. “What about a stealthed voidhawk just outside the disk, or even inside with us?” she asked.
“Then they’ve got us cold,” he said. “Our sensors are good, but they’re not military grade.”
“We’d know by now if we were being followed,” Voi said. “As soon as we rendezvoused they would have moved to intercept.”
“I expect so,” Alkad said. “How long before we can clear the disk and jump outsystem?”
“Another forty minutes. You don’t rush a manoeuvre like this; there are too many sharp rocks out there. I’m going to have to replace the hull foam as it is; dust abrasion is wearing it down to the bare silicon.” He smiled unconvincingly at Alkad. “Am I going to be told what our mission is?”
“I require a combat-capable starship, that’s all.”
“I see. And I suppose that is connected with the work you did for the Garissan navy before the genocide?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ll excuse me if I leave the party before that.”
Alkad thought of the remaining devices in her backpack, and just how tight her security margin had become. “Nobody will force you to do anything.”
“Nice to hear.” He gave Voi another pointed glance. “For once.”
“What jump coordinate does this course give us?” Alkad asked.
“Nyvan,” he said. “It’s a hundred and thirty light-years away, but I can get a reasonable alignment on it without using up too much fuel. Voi told me you wanted a planet with military industrial facilities, and wouldn’t ask too many questions.”
The last of the starships with official flight authorization had departed ninety minutes earlier when Joshua made his way out of the spaceport. Service and maintenance staff had gone home to be with their families. Utility umbilicals supporting the remaining starships were becoming less than reliable.
Three agents were loitering in the axial chamber, talking in quiet tones. They were the only people there. Joshua gave them a blasé wave as he and his escort of three serjeants emerged from the commuter lift.
One of the agents frowned. “You’re going back in there?” she asked incredulously.
“Try keeping me from a party.”
He could hear the argument start behind him as the lift doors closed. Holomorph sticker cheerleaders began their chant all around him.
“If she’s worried enough to question you openly, then the possessed must be gaining ground,” a serjeant said.
“Look, we’ve been over this. I’m just going to check out the gig, and see if Kole has turned up. If she hasn’t, we head straight back.”
“It would have been much safer if I’d gone alone.”
“I don’t think so.” Joshua wanted to say more, but the lift was probably overloaded with nanonic bugs. He datavised the net for a channel to Lady Mac .
“Yes, Joshua?” Dahybi responded.
“Certain people out here are getting twitchy about the possessed. I want you to monitor the asteroid’s internal systems: transportation, power, environment, the net, everything. If any of them start downgrading I want to know right away.”
“Okay.”
Joshua glanced at the rigid, expressionless face of the nearest serjeant. Right now he really wanted Ione to confide in, to be able to ask her opinion, to talk things through. If anyone knew how to handle awkward family, it was her. Some deep-buried prejudice prevented him from saying anything to the serjeants. “One other thing, Dahybi. Call Liol, tell him to get himself over to the Lady Mac right away. Give him a passenger cabin in capsule C. Don’t let him on the bridge. Don’t give him any access codes for the flight computer. And make sure you check him for possession when he arrives.”
“Yes, Captain. Take care.”
A datavise couldn’t convey emotional nuances, but he knew Dahybi well enough to guess at the amused approval.
“You accept his claim, then?” Ione asked.
“The DNA profile seems similar to mine,” Joshua said grudgingly.
“Yes, I’d say ninety-seven per cent compatibility is roughly in the target area. It’s not unusual for starship crews to have extended families spread over several star systems.”
“Thank you for reminding me.”
“If your father was ever anything like you, then it’s possible Liol isn’t your only sibling.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m just preparing you for the eventuality. Kelly Tirrel’s recording has enhanced your public visibility rating by a considerable factor. Others may seek you out in the same way.”
He pulled an ironic face. “Wouldn’t that be something? The gathering of the Calverts. I wonder if there are more of us than there are Saldanas?”
“I very much doubt it, not if you include our illegitimates.”
“And black sheep.”
“Quite. What do you intend to do about Liol?”
“I haven’t got a clue. He’s not touching the Lady Mac , though. Can you imagine having board meetings every time to decide her next destination? It’s the opposite of everything I am, not to mention the old girl herself.”
“He’ll probably come to realize this. I’m sure you can come to some arrangement. He appears to be quite smart.”
“The word is smarmy.”
“There’s very little difference between you.”
The lift dropped him off in a public hall a couple of hundred metres from the Terminal Terminus club where the benefit gig was being played. Not everyone was obeying the governing council’s request to stay put at home. Kids filled the hall with laughter and shouts. Everyone was wearing a red handkerchief on their ankle.
For a moment Joshua felt disconnected from his own generation. He had formidable responsibilities (not to mention problems); they were just stimheads sliding around their perpetual circuit from one empty good time to the next. They didn’t understand the universe at all.
Then a couple of them recognized Lagrange Calvert and wanted to know what it was like rescuing the children from Lalonde, and had there really been possessed in Bar KF-T? They were peppy, and the girls in the group were giving him the eye. He began to loosen up; the barriers weren’t so solid after all.
The Terminal Terminus looked like some kind of chasmal junction between tunnels. Big, old mining machines were parked in arching recesses, their conical, worn-down drill mechanisms jutting out into the main chamber. Obsolete mechanoids clung to the ceiling, spider-leg waldos dangling down inertly. Drinks were served over a long section of heavy-duty caterpillar track.
A fantasy wormhole squatted in the centre, a rippling gloss-black column five metres wide stretching between floor and ceiling. Things were trapped inside, undefined creatures who clawed at the distortion effect in desperate attempts to escape; the black surface bent and distended, but never broke.
“Very tasteful, under the circumstances,” Joshua muttered to a serjeant.
A stage had been set up between two of the mining machines. AV projectors powerful enough to cover a stadium stood on each side.
One of the serjeants went off to guard an emergency exit. The remaining two stuck by Joshua.
He found Kole standing with a group of her friends under one of the mining machines. Her hair had been woven through with silver and chrome-scarlet threads, which every now and then made it fan open like a peacock tail.
He paused for a moment. She was so phony; rich without Dominique’s cosmopolitan verve, and absolute trash compared to Louise’s simple honesty.
Louise.
Kole caught sight of him and squealed happily, kissed him, rubbed against him. “Are you all right? I accessed what happened after I left.”
He grinned brashly, the legend in the flesh. “I’m fine. My . . . er, cosmoniks here are a tough bunch. We’ve seen worse.”
“Really?” She cast a respectful eye over the two serjeants. “Are you male?”
“No.”
Joshua couldn’t tell if Ione was annoyed, amused, or plain didn’t care. On second thought, he doubted the latter.
Kole kissed him again. “Come and meet the gang. They didn’t believe I’d hooked you. Mother, I can’t believe I hooked you.”
He braced himself for the worst.
From her vantage point lounging casually on a coolant feed duct a third of the way up the side of a mining machine, Monica Foulkes watched Joshua greeting Kole’s posse of friends. He knew exactly the attitude to take to be accepted within seconds. She took a gulp of iced mineral water as her enhanced retinas scanned the young faces below. It was hot wearing the chameleon suit, but it gave her the skin tone of Ayacucho’s Kenyan-ethnic population; “foreign agents” were about as popular as the possessed right now. Except Calvert, of course, she thought sorely, he was being greeted like a bloody hero. Her characterization recognition program ran a comparison against the youngsters she was scanning, and signalled a ninety-five per cent probable match.
“Damn!”
Samuel (now black-skinned, twenty-five years old, and wearing jazzy purple sports gear) looked up from the base of the mining machine. “What?”
“You were right. Kole has just introduced him to Adok Dala.”
“Ah. I knew it. He was Voi’s boyfriend up until she dumped him eighteen months ago.”
“Yes yes, I can access the file for myself, thank you.”
“Can you hear what’s being said?”
She glanced down contemptuously. “Not a chance. This place is really filling up now. My audio discrimination programs can’t filter over that distance.”
“Come down please, Monica.”
Something in his tone halted any protest. She slithered down the pitted yellow-painted titanium bodywork of the mining machine.
“We have to decide what to do. Now.”
She flinched. “Oh, God.”
“Do you believe Adok Dala will know where Voi is?”
“I don’t think so, but there’s no guarantee. And if we snatch Dala now, it isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference as far as official repercussions are concerned. He’s hardly going to complain about being taken off Ayacucho, is he?”
“You’re right. And it will prevent Calvert from learning anything.”
Joshua’s neural nanonics reported a call from Dahybi. “Two voidhawks from the defence delegation have just left the docking ledge, Captain. Our sensors can’t see much from inside the bay, but we think they’re keeping station five kilometres off the spaceport.”
“Okay, keep monitoring them.”
“No problem. But you should know that Ayacucho is suffering localized power failures. They’re completely random, and the supervisor programs can’t locate any physical problem in the supply system. One of the news studios has gone off-line, as well.”
“Jesus. Start flight prepping Lady Mac ; I’ll wind things up here and get back to you within thirty minutes.”
“Aye, Captain. Oh, and Liol has arrived. He’s not possessed.”
“Wonderful.”
Kole was still clinging magnetically to his side. No one she’d introduced him to had mentioned Voi. His original idea had been to ask them about Ikela’s murder and see what was said. But now time was running out. He looked around to find out where the serjeants were, hoping Ione wasn’t going to make an issue of pulling out. Hell, we gave it our best.
The compere was striding out on the stage, holding her arms out for silence as the rowdy crowd cheered and started catcalling. She started into her spiel about the Fuckmasters.
“This is Shea,” Kole told him.
It was hard for Joshua to smile; Shea was tall and skinny, almost identical to Voi’s size and height. He datavised his electronic warfare block to scan her, but she was clean. What he saw was real, not a chameleon suit. It wasn’t Voi.
“This is Joshua Calvert,” Kole boasted, raising her voice against the rising whistle of the giant AV projectors. “He’s my starship captain.”
Shea’s melancholia became outright distress. She started crying.
Kole gave her an astonished look. “What’s the matter?”
Shea shook her head, lips sealed together.
“I’m sorry,” Joshua said, earnestly sympathetic. “What did I do?”
Shea smiled bravely. “It’s not you. It’s just . . . my boyfriend left this afternoon. He’s captaining a starship, too, and that reminded me. I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. He wouldn’t say.”
Intuition was starting a major-league riot in Joshua’s skull. The first MF band was strolling onstage. He put a protective arm around Shea’s shoulders, ignoring Kole’s flash of ire. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink. You can tell me about it. You never know, I might be able to help. Stranger things happen in space.”
He signalled the two serjeants frantically, and turned away from the stage just as the AV projectors burst into life. A thick haze of coherent light filled the Terminal Terminus. Even though he was looking away, sensations spirited down his nerves; fragmented signals saturated with crude activant sequences. He felt good. He felt hot. He felt randy. He felt slippery.
A glance back over his shoulder had him sitting on a saddle astride a giant penis, urging it forwards.
Honestly, kids today. When he was younger MF was about the giddy pursuit, how it felt when your partner adored you in return, or spurned you without reason. Making up and breaking up. The infinite states of the heart, not the dick.
The kids around him were laughing and giggling, joyous expressions on their incredulous faces as the AV dazzle poured down their irises. They all swayed from side to side in unison.
“Joshua, four Edenists are coming this way,” a serjeant warned.
Joshua could see them in the sparkling light cloud which pervaded the audience. Taller than everyone else, some kind of visor over their eyes, moving intently through the swinging throng.
He grabbed Shea’s hand tightly. “This way,” he hissed urgently, and veered off towards the mock wormhole in the centre of the club. One of the serjeants cleared a path, forcing people aside. Frowns and snarls lined his route.
“Dahybi,” he datavised. “Get the rest of the serjeants out of zero-tau, fast. Secure a route through the spaceport from the axial chamber to Lady Mac . I might be needing it.”
“It’s being done, Captain. Parts of the asteroid’s net are crashing.”
“Jesus. Okay, we’ve got the serjeants’ affinity to keep communications open if it goes completely. You’d better keep one in the bridge with you.”
He reached the writhing black column and looked back. Shea was breathless and confused, but not protesting. The Edenists weren’t chasing after him. “What . . . ?” Some sort of struggle had broken out over where he’d left Kole’s friends. Two of the tall agents were pulling an inert body between them. It was Adok Dala, unconscious and shaking, victim of a nervejam shot. The other pair of agents and someone else were holding back some irate kids. A nervejam stick was raised and fired.
Joshua turned his head a little too far, and he was tasting nipple while he slid over dark pigmentation as if he were snowboard slaloming, leaving a huge trail of glistening saliva behind him. His neck muscles flicked back a couple of degrees, and the Edenists were retreating, completely unnoticed by the entranced euphoric audience they were shoving their way through. Behind them, Kole’s friends clung together; those still standing wept uncomprehendingly over those felled by the violence which had stabbed so unexpectedly into their moment of erotic rapture.
Shea gasped at the scene and made to rush over.
“No,” Joshua shouted. He pulled her back, and she recoiled, as frightened by him as the agents. “Listen to me, we have to get out of here. It’s only going to get worse.”
“Is it the possessed?”
“Yeah. Now come on.”
Still keeping hold of her hand he slid around the wormhole. It felt like dry rubber against his side, flexing in queasy movements.
“Nearest exit,” he told the serjeant in front of him. “Go.” It began to plough through tightly packed bodies at an alarming speed. Blissfully unaware people were sent tumbling. Joshua followed on grimly. The Edenists must have wanted Adok Dala for the same reason he wanted Shea. Had he got the wrong friend? Oh, hell.
The cavern wall was only ten metres ahead of him now, a red circle shining above an exit. His electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.
Jesus! “Ione.”
“I know,” the lead serjeant shouted. It drew its machine gun.
“No,” he cried. “You can’t, not in here.”
“I’m not inhuman, Joshua,” the burly figure retorted.
They reached the wall and hurried along to the exit. That was when he realized Kole was still with them.
“Stay here,” he told her. “You’ll be safe with all these people.”
“You can’t leave me here,” she gasped imploringly. “Joshua! I know what’s happening. You can’t. I don’t want that to happen to me. You can’t let them. Take me with you, for Mary’s sake!”
And she was just a stricken young girl whose broken hair was flapping wildly.
The first serjeant slammed the door open and went through. “I’ll stay here,” the second said. The machine gun was held ready in one hand. It took out an automatic pistol and held it in the other. “That’s a bonus, these things are ambidextrous. Don’t worry, Joshua. They’ll suffer if they try and get past me.”
“Thanks, Ione.” Then he was out in the corridor, urging the two girls along. “Dahybi,” he datavised. His neural nanonics reported they couldn’t acquire a net processor. “Bugger.”
“The other serjeants are securing the spaceport,” the serjeant told him. “And the Lady Mac is flight prepped. Everything is ready.”
“Great.” His electronic warfare block was still datavising its alarm. He took his own nine-millimetre pistol out of its holster. Its operating procedure program went primary.
They came to a crossroads in the corridor. And Joshua wasted a second querying the net on the direction he wanted. Cursing, he requested the Ayacucho layout he’d stored in a memory cell. There would be too much risk using a lift now; power supplies were dubious, transport management processors more so. His neural nanonics devised the shortest route to the axial chamber, it seemed depressingly far.
“This way.” He pointed down the left hand corridor.
“Excuse me,” someone said.
Joshua’s electronic warfare block gave out one final warning, then shut down. He whirled around. Standing ten metres down the other corridor were a man and a woman, dressed in heavy black leather jackets and trousers with an improbable number of shiny zips and buckles.
“Run,” the serjeant ordered. It stepped squarely into the middle of the corridor and levelled its compact machine gun.
Joshua didn’t hesitate. Shoving at the girls, he started running. He heard a few heated words being shouted behind him. Then the machine gun fired.
He took the first turning, desperate to escape from the line of sight. His neural nanonics immediately revised his route. The corridors were all identical, three metres high, three metres wide, and apparently endless. Joshua hated that, trapped in a maze and utterly reliant on a guidance program susceptible to the possessed. He wanted to know exactly where he was, and be able to prove it. Being unaware of his exact location was an alien experience. Human doubt was superseding technological prowess.
He was looking over his shoulder as he took the next turning, making sure the girls were keeping up and there was no sign of any pursuit. His peripheral vision monitor program indexed the figure striding down the corridor towards him milliseconds before his neural nanonics crashed.
It was a man in white Arab robes. He smiled in simple gratitude as Joshua and the girls stumbled to a halt in front of him.
Joshua swung his pistol around, but the lack of any procedural program meant he misjudged its weight. The arc was too great. Before he could bring it back to line up on the target, a ball of white fire struck his hand.
Joshua howled at the flare of terrible pain as the pistol fell from his grip. No matter how vigorously he waved his arm the deadly white flame could not be dislodged from its grip around his fingers. Oily stinking smoke spouted out.
“Time to say goodbye to your life,” the smiling possessed said.
“Fuck you.”
He could hear the girls crying out behind him, the wails of their revulsion and horror. Shock was diminishing the pain in his hand slightly. He could feel the puke rising in his throat as more and more of his flesh charred. His whole right arm was stiffening. Somewhere behind his assailant a vast crowd of invisible people were whispering all at once. “No.” It wasn’t a coherent word, just a defiant grunt mangled by his contorted throat muscles. I will not submit to that. Never.
A cascade of water burst out of the corridor’s ceiling to the accompanying sound of a high-pitched siren. The edge of the lighting panels turned red and started to flash.
Shea was laughing with brittle hysteria as she withdrew her fist from the fire alarm panel. Dots of blood oozed up from her grazed knuckles. Joshua punched his own hand upwards, straight underneath a nozzle. He roared triumphantly. The white flame vanished in a gust of steam, and he collapsed down onto his knees, his whole body shaking violently.
The Arab regarded the three of them with a degree of aristocratic annoyance, as if any hint of defiance was unprecedented. Water splattered on his dark headgear, turning his robe translucent as it clung to his body.
Joshua raised his head against the icy torrent to snarl at his enemy. His right hand was dead now; a supreme crush of coldness had devoured his wrist. A few spittles of vomit emerged from his mouth before he managed to growl: “Okay, shithead, my turn.”
The Arab frowned as Joshua reached into a pocket with his left hand and brought out Horst Elwes’s small crucifix. He thrust it forwards.
“Holy Father, Lord of Heaven and the mortal world, in humility and obedience, I do ask Your aid in this act of sanctification, through Jesus the Christ who walked among us to know our failings, grant me Your blessing in this task.”
“But I am a Sunni Muslim,” the bemused Arab said.
“Eh?”
“A Muslim. I have no belief in your false Jewish prophet.” He raised his arms, palms upwards. The deluge of water from the nozzles turned to snow. Every flake stuck to Joshua’s ship-suit, smearing him in a coat of slush. Most of his skin was numb now.
“But I believe,” Joshua ground out through vibrating teeth. And did. The revelation was as shocking as the cold and the pain. But he’d come to this moment of pure clarity through reason and ordeal. All he knew, all he’d seen, all he’d done; it spoke to him that there was order in the universe. Reality was too complex for chance evolution.
Medieval prophets were a convenient lie, but something had made sense out of the chaos which existed before time began. Something started time itself flowing.
“My Lord God, look upon this servant of Yours before me, fallen to a misguided and unclean spirit.”
“Misguided?” The Arab glowered, trickles of static electricity crawling up his robes. “You brain-dead infidel! Allah is the only true—oh shit .”
The serjeant fired, aiming for the Arab’s head.
Joshua drooped limply onto the floor. “That’s always how religious arguments end, isn’t it?” He was only dimly conscious of the serjeant dragging him out of the downpour. His neural nanonics came back on line, and immediately started erecting axon blockades. It was a different kind of numbness than the snow had brought, less severe. The serjeant wrapped a medical nanonic package around his hand. A stimulant program coaxed Joshua’s brain back to full alertness. He blinked up at the three faces peering down at him. Kole and Shea were clinging together, both of them in a shambles, drenched and stupefied. The serjeant had taken a bad pounding, deep scorch marks crisscrossed its body, all-too-human blood was bubbling out from crusted wounds.
Joshua climbed slowly to his feet. He wanted to smile reassuringly at the girls, but the will just wasn’t there. “Are you okay?” he asked the serjeant.
“I’m mobile.”
“Good. What about you two, any damage?”
Shea shook her head timidly, Kole was still sobbing.
“Thanks for helping,” he said to Shea. “That was fast thinking. I don’t know what I would have done without the water. It was all a little bit too close for comfort. But we’re through the worst now.”
“Joshua,” the serjeant said. “Dahybi says that three of the Capone Organization’s warships have just arrived.”
Seven Edenists in full body armour were guarding the docking ledge departure lounge. Monica was tremendously glad to see them. Along with Samuel, she’d been covering their retreat from the Terminal Terminus, no easy duty. There had been three encounters with the possessed on the way, and the shapeshifting magicians terrified her. Nerves and neural nanonics were hyped to the maximum. Never once had she given them the opportunity to surrender or back off. Locate and shoot, that was the way to do it. And she noticed that for all his worthiness and respect for life, Samuel was wired pretty much the same.
“True.” His grin was childlike in its mischievousness.
“What?” Monica asked in annoyance.
“The irony. From being an amateur irritant, Calvert is now our only lead.”
Ashly had said very little during the trip back to the spaceport. Joshua guessed the pilot’s neural nanonic programs were busy suppressing the shock. But Sarha didn’t seem unduly worried, and she was monitoring the medical package around his thigh.
Melvyn was doing his best to sober up fast. One of the serjeants had given him a medical nanonic package which was now wrapped around his neck to form a thick collar. It was busy filtering all traces of alcohol out of the blood entering his brain.
Joshua’s only concern was the fluid which was still trickling out of the bullet hole in Beaulieu’s breastplate. Medical nanonics would be of no value at all in treating the cosmonik. None of them had standardized internal systems; each was unique, and proud of it. He wasn’t even sure if she was mostly mechanical or biological underneath her brass carapace.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
“The bullet damaged some of my nutrient synthesis glands. It’s not critical.”
“Do you have any . . . er, spares?”
“No. That function has multiple redundancy backup. It looks worse than it is.”
“Don’t tell me, just a flesh wound,” Ashly grunted.
“Correct.”
The commuter lift’s doors opened. Two serjeants slid out into the corridor first, checking for any possessed between them and the docking bay’s airlock tube. “Joshua,” one of them called.
His electronic warfare detector block wasn’t acting up. “What?”
“Someone here for you.”
He learned nothing from the tone, so he pushed off with his feet and glided out into the corridor. “Oh, Jesus wept.”
Mrs Nateghi and her two fellow goons from Tayari, Usoro and Wang were waiting outside the airlock tube. Another man was floating just behind them.
The crew followed Joshua out of the lift.
“Captain Calvert.” Mrs Nateghi’s voice was indecently happy.
“Can’t get enough of me, can you? So what is it this time? A million-fuseodollar fine for littering? Ten years hard labour for not returning my empties to the bar? Penal colony exile for farting in public?”
“Humour is an excellent defence mechanism, Captain Calvert. But I would advise you to have something stronger in court.”
“I’ve just saved your asteroid from being taken over by the possessed. Will that do?”
“I’ve accessed the NewsGalactic recording. You were lying on the floor with your hands over your head the whole time. Captain Calvert, I have a summons for you to be present at a preliminary hearing to establish proceedings which will determine the ownership of the starship Lady Macbeth , pursuant to the claim my client has filed upon said ship.”
Joshua stared at her, too incredulous to speak.
“Ownership?” Sarha asked. “But it’s Joshua’s ship; it always has been.”
“That is incorrect,” Mrs Nateghi said. “It was Marcus Calvert’s ship. I have a sensorium recording of Captain Calvert admitting that.”
“He was never trying to deny it. His father is dead. Lady Mac ’s registration is filed with the CAB. You can’t challenge that.”
“Yes I can.” The man who had been keeping himself behind the other two lawyers slowly edged forwards.
“You!” Sarha exclaimed.
“Me.”
Joshua stared at him, a very unpleasant chill sluicing into his thoughts. The angular, ebony face was . . . Jesus, I know him. But where from? “So who the hell are you?”
“My name is Liol. Liol Calvert, actually. I’m your big half brother, Joshua.”
The last place Joshua wanted to bring this . . . this fraud was the captain’s cabin. It was his father’s cabin, for Christ’s sake, even though most of the old fittings and personal mementos had been removed during the last refit. This was the closest Joshua had ever come to knowing a home.
But Ashly needed the deep-invasion packages in Lady Mac ’s sickbay to remove the bullet in his thigh. That bitch queen Mrs Nateghi wasn’t going to be deflected, and the summons was real enough. He also had a mission. So it was back to basics.
As soon as the cabin hatch shut behind them, Joshua asked: “Okay, shithead, how much?”
Liol didn’t answer immediately, he was gazing around the cabin. His face carried an expression which was close to trepidation. “I’m finally here,” he said falteringly.
“Do you know how many hours I’ve spent in sensevise simulations learning to fly a starship? I qualified for my C.A.B. pilot’s licence when I was just nineteen.” He glanced awkwardly at Joshua. “This must be very strange for you, Joshua. It is for me.”
“Cut the crap, how much?”
Liol’s face cleared. “How much for what?”
“To drop the claim and bugger off, of course. It’s a neat scam, I’ll give you that. Normally I’d just let the courts break you apart, but I’m a little pushed for time right now. I don’t need complications. So name your price, but you’d better make it less than fifty grand.”
“Nice one, Josh.” Liol smiled and held out his Jovian Bank credit disk, silver side up. Green figures glowed on the surface.
Joshua blinked as he read out the amount of money stored inside: eight hundred thousand fuseodollars. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple, I am your brother. I’m entitled to joint ownership, at the very least.”
“Not a chance. You’re a con artist who knows how to use a cosmetic adaptation package, that’s all. Right now, my face is as famous as Jezzibella’s. You saw an opportunity to make a nuisance of yourself, and remodelled your features.”
“This is my face. I’ve had it ever since I was born, which was before you. Access my public file if you want proof.”
“I’m sure someone as smart as you has planted all the appropriate data in Ayacucho’s memory cores. You’ve done your research, and you’ve shown me you have the money to buy official access codes.”
“Really? And what about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes. How come you acquired this ship after my father died? In fact, how did he die? Is he even dead at all? Prove you’re a Calvert. Prove you are Marcus’s son.”
“I didn’t acquire it, I inherited it. Dad always wanted me to have it. His will is on file in Tranquillity. Anybody can access it.”
“Oh, that’s nice. So Tranquillity’s public records are beyond reproach, while anything stored in the Dorados was put there by criminals. How convenient. I wouldn’t try that one in court if I were you.”
“He’s my father,” Joshua shouted angrily.
“Mine too. And you know it.”
“I know you’re a fake.”
“If you were a true Calvert, you’d know.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Intuition. What does your intuition tell you about me, Josh?”
For the first time in his life, Joshua knew what vertigo must feel like. To be teetering on the edge of some monstrously deep chasm.
“Ah.” Liol’s grin was triumphant. “Our little family quirk can be a real downer at times. After all, I knew you were real the second I accessed Kelly Tirrel’s report. I also know what you’re going through, Joshua. I felt exactly the same way about you. All that terrible anger, refusing to believe despite all the evidence. We’re more than brothers, we’re almost twins.”
“Wrong. We don’t even come from the same universe.”
“What exactly worries you the most, Josh? That I am your brother, or I’m not?”
“I’ll scuttle Lady Mac before I let anyone else have her. If you’ve got any intuition, you’ll know how true that is.”
“My mistake.” Liol stroked the acceleration couch beside the hatch, the longing obvious in his eyes. “I can see the ship means as much to you as it does to me. No surprise there, we’ve both got the Calvert wanderlust. Hitting you with a big legal scene first off was bound to create some hostility. But I’ve been waiting for this starship to dock here for every day of my life. Dad left Ayacucho before I was even born. In my mind the Lady Macbeth has always been mine. She’s my inheritance, too, Josh. I belong here just as much as you do.”
“A starship only has one captain. And you, asteroid boy, don’t know the first thing about piloting or captaining. Not that it’s relevant, you’ll never be in a position to fly Lady Mac .”
“Don’t fight this, Josh. You’re my brother, I don’t want to alienate you. Christ, just finding out you existed was a hell of a shock. Family feuds are the worst kind. Don’t let’s start one the moment we meet. Think how Dad would feel, his sons going at each other like this.”
“You are not family.”
“Where was Lady Macbeth docked in 2586, Josh? What ports?”
Joshua clenched his fists, a free-fall assault program working out possible trajectories he could leap along. He hated how smug this arrogant bastard was. Wiping that knowing superiority from his ugly flat face would be wonderful.
“The disadvantage with white skin like yours, Josh, is that I can see every blush. It’s a dead giveaway. Me? I always win at poker.”
Joshua seethed silently.
“So, do you want to discuss this sensibly?” Liol asked. “Personally, I’d hate to face Mrs Nateghi across a courtroom.”
“I don’t suppose, Lie , this sudden urge to acquire a starship has anything to do with your asteroid being overrun by possessed?”
“Lovely.” Liol clapped his hands enthusiastically. “You’re a Calvert, all right. Never see a belt without wanting to hit below it.”
“That’s right. So, I’ll see you in court here in about a week’s time. How does that sound?”
“Would you really abandon your own brother to the possessed?”
“If I had one, probably not.”
“I think I’m going to like you after all, Josh. I thought you’d be soft; after all, you’ve had it dead easy. But you’re not.”
“Easy?”
“Compared to me. You knew Dad. You had the big inheritance waiting. I’d call that easy.”
“I’d call that bollocks.”
“If you don’t believe in your own intuition, a simple DNA profile will tell you if we’re related. I’m sure your sick bay could run one for you.”
And Joshua was absolutely stumped at that. There was something about this complete stranger that was deeply unsettling, yet obscurely comforting at the same time. Jesus, he does look like me, and he knows about the intuition, and Dad wiped the log for 2586. It’s not utterly impossible. But Lady Mac is mine. I could never share her.
He stared at Liol for a moment longer, then made a command decision.
The crew were all hanging around on the bridge, along with Mrs Nateghi. Nobody would make eye contact. Joshua shot out of the captain’s cabin, rotated ninety degrees, and slapped his feet on a stikpad. “Sarha. Take our guest down to the sick bay. Get a blood sample, use a dagger if you want, and run a DNA profile.” He jabbed a finger at Mrs Nateghi. “Not you. You’re leaving. Right now.”
She ignored him while managing to project her complete disdain at the same time. “Mr Calvert, what are your instructions?”
“I just told you . . . Oh.”
“Thank you so much for your help,” Liol said with flawless courtesy. “I’ll be in touch with your office if I decide any further legal action is required against my brother.”
“Very well. Tayari, Usoro and Wang will be delighted to help. Forcing recidivists to acknowledge their responsibilities is always rewarding.”
Combating her amusement, Sarha held up a warning finger as Joshua’s face turned beacon red.
“Dahybi, show the lady out, please,” he said.
“Aye, Captain.” The node specialist gestured generously at the floor hatch and followed Mrs Nateghi through.
Liol flashed Sarha an engaging grin. “You wouldn’t really use a dagger on me, would you?”
She winked. “Depends on the circumstances.”
“Fancy that, Joshua,” one of the serjeants said as the pair of them left the bridge. “There’s two of you.”
Joshua glared at the bitek construct, then executed a perfect midair somersault and zoomed back into his cabin.
Alkad’s tranquillizer program wasn’t nearly strong enough to keep the claustrophobia at bay. Eventually she had to admit defeat and switch a somnolence program to primary. Her only thought as she fell into oblivion was: I wonder who will be there when I wake?
The rendezvous was an elaborate one, which decreased the chances of success. But even that wasn’t her main worry. Getting out of Ayacucho undetected was the big problem.
The asteroid had two counter-rotating spaceports, one at each end. The main one was used by starships and larger inter-orbit craft; while the second was mainly for heavy-duty cargo and utility tankers delivering fresh water and liquid oxygen for the biosphere. It was also the operations base for the personnel commuters and MSVs and tugs which flew between the asteroid and its necklace of industrial stations.
Both were under heavy surveillance by agents. There was no chance of getting through the axial chambers and taking a commuter lift to the docking bays, so Voi had arranged for Alkad and herself to be shipped out in cargo pods.
Lodi and another youth called Eriba, who claimed to be a molecular structures student, worked on a couple of standard pods in one of T’Opingtu’s storage facilities. They were converted into heavily padded coffins moulded to hold someone wearing a SII spacesuit. Both boys swore the insulation would prevent any thermal or electromagnetic leakage. The cargo pods would appear perfectly inert to any sensor sweep.
Of course, the insulation meant that Alkad couldn’t datavise out for help if anything went wrong and nobody opened her pod. She believed she held her composure pretty well while she allowed them to seal her in. After that there was nothing but the tranquillizer program for the twenty minutes before she sought refuge in sleep.
A tug was scheduled to take the cargo pods out to one of T’Opingtu’s foundry stations. From there they would be transferred to an inter-orbit craft that was heading for Mapire.
Alkad woke to find herself in free fall. At least we got out of the asteroid.
Her neural nanonics reported they were picking up a datavise.
“Stand by, Doctor, we’re cracking the pod now.”
She could feel vibrations through her suit, then the collar sensors were showing her slash-lines of red light cavorting around her. The top of the cargo pod came free, and someone in an SII suit and a manoeuvring pack was sliding into view in front of her.
“Hello, Doctor, it’s me, Lodi. You made it, you’re out.”
“Where’s Voi?” she datavised.
“I’m here, Doctor. Mary, but that was horrible. Are you all right?”
“Yes. Fine, thank you.” As well as relief for herself, she felt strangely glad the girl had come through unscathed.
She made sure she had a secure grip on her crumpled old backpack before she let Lodi draw her out of the pod. Held in front of him, with the manoeuvring pack puffing out fast streamers of gas, she sank into the déjà vu of Cherri Barnes towing her back to the Udat . Then, space had been frighteningly empty, with so little light her collar sensors had struggled to resolve anything. Now, she was deep within Tunja’s disk, gliding through a redout blizzard. No stars were visible anywhere, the particles were too thick. Their size was inordinately difficult to judge, a grain of dust a centimetre from her nose, or a boulder a kilometre away, both looked exactly the same.
Ahead of her she could see the waiting starship, its fuselage shining a dim burgundy, much darker than the particles skipping across it like twisters of interference in an empty AV projection. Two thermo-dump panels were extended, resembling slow-motion propeller blades as rills of dust swirled around them. The airlock hatch was open, emitting a welcoming beam of white light.
She sank along it, relishing the return of normal colour. They entered a cylindrical chamber with grab hoops, utility sockets, harsh light tubes, environment grilles, and small instrument panels distributed at random. The sensation that reality was solidifying around her was inescapable.
The hatch closed, and she clung to a grab hoop as air flooded in. Her SII suit flowed back into a globe hanging off the collar, and she was inundated with sounds.
“We did it!” Voi was jubilant. “I told you I could get you out.”
“Yes, you did.” She looked around at them, Voi, Lodi, and Eriba, so dreadfully young to be sucked into this world of subterfuge, hatred, and death. Beaming faces desperate for her approval. “And I’d like to thank you; you did a magnificent job, all of you.”
Their laughter and gratitude made her shake her head in wonder. Such odd times.
Five minutes later Alkad was dressed in her old ship-suit, backpack tight against her waist, following Voi into the Tekas ’s upper deck lounge. The yacht was only large enough for one life-support capsule, with three decks. Despite the lack of volume, the fittings were compact and elegant, everything blending seamlessly together to provide the illusion of ample space.
Prince Lambert was reclining in a deep circular chair, datavising a constant stream of instructions to the flight computer. Tekas was under way, accelerating at a twentieth of a gee, though the gravity plane was flicking about.
“Thank you for offering us the use of your ship,” Alkad said after they were introduced.
He gave Voi a sterling glance. “Not at all, Doctor, the least I could do for a national heroine.”
She ignored the sarcasm, wondering what the story was with him and Voi. “So what’s our current status? Did anyone follow you?”
“No. I’m fairly sure about that. I flew outside the disk for a million kilometres before I went through it. Your inter-orbit craft did the same thing, but on the other side. In theory no one will realize we rendezvoused. Even the voidhawks can’t sense what happens inside the disk, not from a million kilometres away, it’s too cluttered.”
Unless they want to follow me right to the Alchemist, Alkad thought. “What about a stealthed voidhawk just outside the disk, or even inside with us?” she asked.
“Then they’ve got us cold,” he said. “Our sensors are good, but they’re not military grade.”
“We’d know by now if we were being followed,” Voi said. “As soon as we rendezvoused they would have moved to intercept.”
“I expect so,” Alkad said. “How long before we can clear the disk and jump outsystem?”
“Another forty minutes. You don’t rush a manoeuvre like this; there are too many sharp rocks out there. I’m going to have to replace the hull foam as it is; dust abrasion is wearing it down to the bare silicon.” He smiled unconvincingly at Alkad. “Am I going to be told what our mission is?”
“I require a combat-capable starship, that’s all.”
“I see. And I suppose that is connected with the work you did for the Garissan navy before the genocide?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ll excuse me if I leave the party before that.”
Alkad thought of the remaining devices in her backpack, and just how tight her security margin had become. “Nobody will force you to do anything.”
“Nice to hear.” He gave Voi another pointed glance. “For once.”
“What jump coordinate does this course give us?” Alkad asked.
“Nyvan,” he said. “It’s a hundred and thirty light-years away, but I can get a reasonable alignment on it without using up too much fuel. Voi told me you wanted a planet with military industrial facilities, and wouldn’t ask too many questions.”
The last of the starships with official flight authorization had departed ninety minutes earlier when Joshua made his way out of the spaceport. Service and maintenance staff had gone home to be with their families. Utility umbilicals supporting the remaining starships were becoming less than reliable.
Three agents were loitering in the axial chamber, talking in quiet tones. They were the only people there. Joshua gave them a blasé wave as he and his escort of three serjeants emerged from the commuter lift.
One of the agents frowned. “You’re going back in there?” she asked incredulously.
“Try keeping me from a party.”
He could hear the argument start behind him as the lift doors closed. Holomorph sticker cheerleaders began their chant all around him.
“If she’s worried enough to question you openly, then the possessed must be gaining ground,” a serjeant said.
“Look, we’ve been over this. I’m just going to check out the gig, and see if Kole has turned up. If she hasn’t, we head straight back.”
“It would have been much safer if I’d gone alone.”
“I don’t think so.” Joshua wanted to say more, but the lift was probably overloaded with nanonic bugs. He datavised the net for a channel to Lady Mac .
“Yes, Joshua?” Dahybi responded.
“Certain people out here are getting twitchy about the possessed. I want you to monitor the asteroid’s internal systems: transportation, power, environment, the net, everything. If any of them start downgrading I want to know right away.”
“Okay.”
Joshua glanced at the rigid, expressionless face of the nearest serjeant. Right now he really wanted Ione to confide in, to be able to ask her opinion, to talk things through. If anyone knew how to handle awkward family, it was her. Some deep-buried prejudice prevented him from saying anything to the serjeants. “One other thing, Dahybi. Call Liol, tell him to get himself over to the Lady Mac right away. Give him a passenger cabin in capsule C. Don’t let him on the bridge. Don’t give him any access codes for the flight computer. And make sure you check him for possession when he arrives.”
“Yes, Captain. Take care.”
A datavise couldn’t convey emotional nuances, but he knew Dahybi well enough to guess at the amused approval.
“You accept his claim, then?” Ione asked.
“The DNA profile seems similar to mine,” Joshua said grudgingly.
“Yes, I’d say ninety-seven per cent compatibility is roughly in the target area. It’s not unusual for starship crews to have extended families spread over several star systems.”
“Thank you for reminding me.”
“If your father was ever anything like you, then it’s possible Liol isn’t your only sibling.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m just preparing you for the eventuality. Kelly Tirrel’s recording has enhanced your public visibility rating by a considerable factor. Others may seek you out in the same way.”
He pulled an ironic face. “Wouldn’t that be something? The gathering of the Calverts. I wonder if there are more of us than there are Saldanas?”
“I very much doubt it, not if you include our illegitimates.”
“And black sheep.”
“Quite. What do you intend to do about Liol?”
“I haven’t got a clue. He’s not touching the Lady Mac , though. Can you imagine having board meetings every time to decide her next destination? It’s the opposite of everything I am, not to mention the old girl herself.”
“He’ll probably come to realize this. I’m sure you can come to some arrangement. He appears to be quite smart.”
“The word is smarmy.”
“There’s very little difference between you.”
The lift dropped him off in a public hall a couple of hundred metres from the Terminal Terminus club where the benefit gig was being played. Not everyone was obeying the governing council’s request to stay put at home. Kids filled the hall with laughter and shouts. Everyone was wearing a red handkerchief on their ankle.
For a moment Joshua felt disconnected from his own generation. He had formidable responsibilities (not to mention problems); they were just stimheads sliding around their perpetual circuit from one empty good time to the next. They didn’t understand the universe at all.
Then a couple of them recognized Lagrange Calvert and wanted to know what it was like rescuing the children from Lalonde, and had there really been possessed in Bar KF-T? They were peppy, and the girls in the group were giving him the eye. He began to loosen up; the barriers weren’t so solid after all.
The Terminal Terminus looked like some kind of chasmal junction between tunnels. Big, old mining machines were parked in arching recesses, their conical, worn-down drill mechanisms jutting out into the main chamber. Obsolete mechanoids clung to the ceiling, spider-leg waldos dangling down inertly. Drinks were served over a long section of heavy-duty caterpillar track.
A fantasy wormhole squatted in the centre, a rippling gloss-black column five metres wide stretching between floor and ceiling. Things were trapped inside, undefined creatures who clawed at the distortion effect in desperate attempts to escape; the black surface bent and distended, but never broke.
“Very tasteful, under the circumstances,” Joshua muttered to a serjeant.
A stage had been set up between two of the mining machines. AV projectors powerful enough to cover a stadium stood on each side.
One of the serjeants went off to guard an emergency exit. The remaining two stuck by Joshua.
He found Kole standing with a group of her friends under one of the mining machines. Her hair had been woven through with silver and chrome-scarlet threads, which every now and then made it fan open like a peacock tail.
He paused for a moment. She was so phony; rich without Dominique’s cosmopolitan verve, and absolute trash compared to Louise’s simple honesty.
Louise.
Kole caught sight of him and squealed happily, kissed him, rubbed against him. “Are you all right? I accessed what happened after I left.”
He grinned brashly, the legend in the flesh. “I’m fine. My . . . er, cosmoniks here are a tough bunch. We’ve seen worse.”
“Really?” She cast a respectful eye over the two serjeants. “Are you male?”
“No.”
Joshua couldn’t tell if Ione was annoyed, amused, or plain didn’t care. On second thought, he doubted the latter.
Kole kissed him again. “Come and meet the gang. They didn’t believe I’d hooked you. Mother, I can’t believe I hooked you.”
He braced himself for the worst.
From her vantage point lounging casually on a coolant feed duct a third of the way up the side of a mining machine, Monica Foulkes watched Joshua greeting Kole’s posse of friends. He knew exactly the attitude to take to be accepted within seconds. She took a gulp of iced mineral water as her enhanced retinas scanned the young faces below. It was hot wearing the chameleon suit, but it gave her the skin tone of Ayacucho’s Kenyan-ethnic population; “foreign agents” were about as popular as the possessed right now. Except Calvert, of course, she thought sorely, he was being greeted like a bloody hero. Her characterization recognition program ran a comparison against the youngsters she was scanning, and signalled a ninety-five per cent probable match.
“Damn!”
Samuel (now black-skinned, twenty-five years old, and wearing jazzy purple sports gear) looked up from the base of the mining machine. “What?”
“You were right. Kole has just introduced him to Adok Dala.”
“Ah. I knew it. He was Voi’s boyfriend up until she dumped him eighteen months ago.”
“Yes yes, I can access the file for myself, thank you.”
“Can you hear what’s being said?”
She glanced down contemptuously. “Not a chance. This place is really filling up now. My audio discrimination programs can’t filter over that distance.”
“Come down please, Monica.”
Something in his tone halted any protest. She slithered down the pitted yellow-painted titanium bodywork of the mining machine.
“We have to decide what to do. Now.”
She flinched. “Oh, God.”
“Do you believe Adok Dala will know where Voi is?”
“I don’t think so, but there’s no guarantee. And if we snatch Dala now, it isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference as far as official repercussions are concerned. He’s hardly going to complain about being taken off Ayacucho, is he?”
“You’re right. And it will prevent Calvert from learning anything.”
Joshua’s neural nanonics reported a call from Dahybi. “Two voidhawks from the defence delegation have just left the docking ledge, Captain. Our sensors can’t see much from inside the bay, but we think they’re keeping station five kilometres off the spaceport.”
“Okay, keep monitoring them.”
“No problem. But you should know that Ayacucho is suffering localized power failures. They’re completely random, and the supervisor programs can’t locate any physical problem in the supply system. One of the news studios has gone off-line, as well.”
“Jesus. Start flight prepping Lady Mac ; I’ll wind things up here and get back to you within thirty minutes.”
“Aye, Captain. Oh, and Liol has arrived. He’s not possessed.”
“Wonderful.”
Kole was still clinging magnetically to his side. No one she’d introduced him to had mentioned Voi. His original idea had been to ask them about Ikela’s murder and see what was said. But now time was running out. He looked around to find out where the serjeants were, hoping Ione wasn’t going to make an issue of pulling out. Hell, we gave it our best.
The compere was striding out on the stage, holding her arms out for silence as the rowdy crowd cheered and started catcalling. She started into her spiel about the Fuckmasters.
“This is Shea,” Kole told him.
It was hard for Joshua to smile; Shea was tall and skinny, almost identical to Voi’s size and height. He datavised his electronic warfare block to scan her, but she was clean. What he saw was real, not a chameleon suit. It wasn’t Voi.
“This is Joshua Calvert,” Kole boasted, raising her voice against the rising whistle of the giant AV projectors. “He’s my starship captain.”
Shea’s melancholia became outright distress. She started crying.
Kole gave her an astonished look. “What’s the matter?”
Shea shook her head, lips sealed together.
“I’m sorry,” Joshua said, earnestly sympathetic. “What did I do?”
Shea smiled bravely. “It’s not you. It’s just . . . my boyfriend left this afternoon. He’s captaining a starship, too, and that reminded me. I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. He wouldn’t say.”
Intuition was starting a major-league riot in Joshua’s skull. The first MF band was strolling onstage. He put a protective arm around Shea’s shoulders, ignoring Kole’s flash of ire. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink. You can tell me about it. You never know, I might be able to help. Stranger things happen in space.”
He signalled the two serjeants frantically, and turned away from the stage just as the AV projectors burst into life. A thick haze of coherent light filled the Terminal Terminus. Even though he was looking away, sensations spirited down his nerves; fragmented signals saturated with crude activant sequences. He felt good. He felt hot. He felt randy. He felt slippery.
A glance back over his shoulder had him sitting on a saddle astride a giant penis, urging it forwards.
Honestly, kids today. When he was younger MF was about the giddy pursuit, how it felt when your partner adored you in return, or spurned you without reason. Making up and breaking up. The infinite states of the heart, not the dick.
The kids around him were laughing and giggling, joyous expressions on their incredulous faces as the AV dazzle poured down their irises. They all swayed from side to side in unison.
“Joshua, four Edenists are coming this way,” a serjeant warned.
Joshua could see them in the sparkling light cloud which pervaded the audience. Taller than everyone else, some kind of visor over their eyes, moving intently through the swinging throng.
He grabbed Shea’s hand tightly. “This way,” he hissed urgently, and veered off towards the mock wormhole in the centre of the club. One of the serjeants cleared a path, forcing people aside. Frowns and snarls lined his route.
“Dahybi,” he datavised. “Get the rest of the serjeants out of zero-tau, fast. Secure a route through the spaceport from the axial chamber to Lady Mac . I might be needing it.”
“It’s being done, Captain. Parts of the asteroid’s net are crashing.”
“Jesus. Okay, we’ve got the serjeants’ affinity to keep communications open if it goes completely. You’d better keep one in the bridge with you.”
He reached the writhing black column and looked back. Shea was breathless and confused, but not protesting. The Edenists weren’t chasing after him. “What . . . ?” Some sort of struggle had broken out over where he’d left Kole’s friends. Two of the tall agents were pulling an inert body between them. It was Adok Dala, unconscious and shaking, victim of a nervejam shot. The other pair of agents and someone else were holding back some irate kids. A nervejam stick was raised and fired.
Joshua turned his head a little too far, and he was tasting nipple while he slid over dark pigmentation as if he were snowboard slaloming, leaving a huge trail of glistening saliva behind him. His neck muscles flicked back a couple of degrees, and the Edenists were retreating, completely unnoticed by the entranced euphoric audience they were shoving their way through. Behind them, Kole’s friends clung together; those still standing wept uncomprehendingly over those felled by the violence which had stabbed so unexpectedly into their moment of erotic rapture.
Shea gasped at the scene and made to rush over.
“No,” Joshua shouted. He pulled her back, and she recoiled, as frightened by him as the agents. “Listen to me, we have to get out of here. It’s only going to get worse.”
“Is it the possessed?”
“Yeah. Now come on.”
Still keeping hold of her hand he slid around the wormhole. It felt like dry rubber against his side, flexing in queasy movements.
“Nearest exit,” he told the serjeant in front of him. “Go.” It began to plough through tightly packed bodies at an alarming speed. Blissfully unaware people were sent tumbling. Joshua followed on grimly. The Edenists must have wanted Adok Dala for the same reason he wanted Shea. Had he got the wrong friend? Oh, hell.
The cavern wall was only ten metres ahead of him now, a red circle shining above an exit. His electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.
Jesus! “Ione.”
“I know,” the lead serjeant shouted. It drew its machine gun.
“No,” he cried. “You can’t, not in here.”
“I’m not inhuman, Joshua,” the burly figure retorted.
They reached the wall and hurried along to the exit. That was when he realized Kole was still with them.
“Stay here,” he told her. “You’ll be safe with all these people.”
“You can’t leave me here,” she gasped imploringly. “Joshua! I know what’s happening. You can’t. I don’t want that to happen to me. You can’t let them. Take me with you, for Mary’s sake!”
And she was just a stricken young girl whose broken hair was flapping wildly.
The first serjeant slammed the door open and went through. “I’ll stay here,” the second said. The machine gun was held ready in one hand. It took out an automatic pistol and held it in the other. “That’s a bonus, these things are ambidextrous. Don’t worry, Joshua. They’ll suffer if they try and get past me.”
“Thanks, Ione.” Then he was out in the corridor, urging the two girls along. “Dahybi,” he datavised. His neural nanonics reported they couldn’t acquire a net processor. “Bugger.”
“The other serjeants are securing the spaceport,” the serjeant told him. “And the Lady Mac is flight prepped. Everything is ready.”
“Great.” His electronic warfare block was still datavising its alarm. He took his own nine-millimetre pistol out of its holster. Its operating procedure program went primary.
They came to a crossroads in the corridor. And Joshua wasted a second querying the net on the direction he wanted. Cursing, he requested the Ayacucho layout he’d stored in a memory cell. There would be too much risk using a lift now; power supplies were dubious, transport management processors more so. His neural nanonics devised the shortest route to the axial chamber, it seemed depressingly far.
“This way.” He pointed down the left hand corridor.
“Excuse me,” someone said.
Joshua’s electronic warfare block gave out one final warning, then shut down. He whirled around. Standing ten metres down the other corridor were a man and a woman, dressed in heavy black leather jackets and trousers with an improbable number of shiny zips and buckles.
“Run,” the serjeant ordered. It stepped squarely into the middle of the corridor and levelled its compact machine gun.
Joshua didn’t hesitate. Shoving at the girls, he started running. He heard a few heated words being shouted behind him. Then the machine gun fired.
He took the first turning, desperate to escape from the line of sight. His neural nanonics immediately revised his route. The corridors were all identical, three metres high, three metres wide, and apparently endless. Joshua hated that, trapped in a maze and utterly reliant on a guidance program susceptible to the possessed. He wanted to know exactly where he was, and be able to prove it. Being unaware of his exact location was an alien experience. Human doubt was superseding technological prowess.
He was looking over his shoulder as he took the next turning, making sure the girls were keeping up and there was no sign of any pursuit. His peripheral vision monitor program indexed the figure striding down the corridor towards him milliseconds before his neural nanonics crashed.
It was a man in white Arab robes. He smiled in simple gratitude as Joshua and the girls stumbled to a halt in front of him.
Joshua swung his pistol around, but the lack of any procedural program meant he misjudged its weight. The arc was too great. Before he could bring it back to line up on the target, a ball of white fire struck his hand.
Joshua howled at the flare of terrible pain as the pistol fell from his grip. No matter how vigorously he waved his arm the deadly white flame could not be dislodged from its grip around his fingers. Oily stinking smoke spouted out.
“Time to say goodbye to your life,” the smiling possessed said.
“Fuck you.”
He could hear the girls crying out behind him, the wails of their revulsion and horror. Shock was diminishing the pain in his hand slightly. He could feel the puke rising in his throat as more and more of his flesh charred. His whole right arm was stiffening. Somewhere behind his assailant a vast crowd of invisible people were whispering all at once. “No.” It wasn’t a coherent word, just a defiant grunt mangled by his contorted throat muscles. I will not submit to that. Never.
A cascade of water burst out of the corridor’s ceiling to the accompanying sound of a high-pitched siren. The edge of the lighting panels turned red and started to flash.
Shea was laughing with brittle hysteria as she withdrew her fist from the fire alarm panel. Dots of blood oozed up from her grazed knuckles. Joshua punched his own hand upwards, straight underneath a nozzle. He roared triumphantly. The white flame vanished in a gust of steam, and he collapsed down onto his knees, his whole body shaking violently.
The Arab regarded the three of them with a degree of aristocratic annoyance, as if any hint of defiance was unprecedented. Water splattered on his dark headgear, turning his robe translucent as it clung to his body.
Joshua raised his head against the icy torrent to snarl at his enemy. His right hand was dead now; a supreme crush of coldness had devoured his wrist. A few spittles of vomit emerged from his mouth before he managed to growl: “Okay, shithead, my turn.”
The Arab frowned as Joshua reached into a pocket with his left hand and brought out Horst Elwes’s small crucifix. He thrust it forwards.
“Holy Father, Lord of Heaven and the mortal world, in humility and obedience, I do ask Your aid in this act of sanctification, through Jesus the Christ who walked among us to know our failings, grant me Your blessing in this task.”
“But I am a Sunni Muslim,” the bemused Arab said.
“Eh?”
“A Muslim. I have no belief in your false Jewish prophet.” He raised his arms, palms upwards. The deluge of water from the nozzles turned to snow. Every flake stuck to Joshua’s ship-suit, smearing him in a coat of slush. Most of his skin was numb now.
“But I believe,” Joshua ground out through vibrating teeth. And did. The revelation was as shocking as the cold and the pain. But he’d come to this moment of pure clarity through reason and ordeal. All he knew, all he’d seen, all he’d done; it spoke to him that there was order in the universe. Reality was too complex for chance evolution.
Medieval prophets were a convenient lie, but something had made sense out of the chaos which existed before time began. Something started time itself flowing.
“My Lord God, look upon this servant of Yours before me, fallen to a misguided and unclean spirit.”
“Misguided?” The Arab glowered, trickles of static electricity crawling up his robes. “You brain-dead infidel! Allah is the only true—oh shit .”
The serjeant fired, aiming for the Arab’s head.
Joshua drooped limply onto the floor. “That’s always how religious arguments end, isn’t it?” He was only dimly conscious of the serjeant dragging him out of the downpour. His neural nanonics came back on line, and immediately started erecting axon blockades. It was a different kind of numbness than the snow had brought, less severe. The serjeant wrapped a medical nanonic package around his hand. A stimulant program coaxed Joshua’s brain back to full alertness. He blinked up at the three faces peering down at him. Kole and Shea were clinging together, both of them in a shambles, drenched and stupefied. The serjeant had taken a bad pounding, deep scorch marks crisscrossed its body, all-too-human blood was bubbling out from crusted wounds.
Joshua climbed slowly to his feet. He wanted to smile reassuringly at the girls, but the will just wasn’t there. “Are you okay?” he asked the serjeant.
“I’m mobile.”
“Good. What about you two, any damage?”
Shea shook her head timidly, Kole was still sobbing.
“Thanks for helping,” he said to Shea. “That was fast thinking. I don’t know what I would have done without the water. It was all a little bit too close for comfort. But we’re through the worst now.”
“Joshua,” the serjeant said. “Dahybi says that three of the Capone Organization’s warships have just arrived.”
Seven Edenists in full body armour were guarding the docking ledge departure lounge. Monica was tremendously glad to see them. Along with Samuel, she’d been covering their retreat from the Terminal Terminus, no easy duty. There had been three encounters with the possessed on the way, and the shapeshifting magicians terrified her. Nerves and neural nanonics were hyped to the maximum. Never once had she given them the opportunity to surrender or back off. Locate and shoot, that was the way to do it. And she noticed that for all his worthiness and respect for life, Samuel was wired pretty much the same.