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King Alastair II stood before the fire, rubbing his hands together in front of the flames. A bulky camel’s hair coat was slung over a high-backed leather chair. Damp footprints on the carpet indicated he’d just come in from the quadrangle.
“Good afternoon, Mr Hiltch.”
Ralph stood to attention. “Your Majesty.” Despite the fact he was in the presence of his King, Ralph could only stare at the oil painting on the wall. It was the Mona Lisa. Which was impossible. The French state of Govcentral would never let that out of the Paris arcology. Yet would the King of Kulu really have a copy on his wall?
“I reviewed the report which came with you, Mr Hiltch,” the King said. “You’ve had a busy few weeks. I can see why my sister valued your counsel so highly. One can only hope all my ESA officers are so efficient and resourceful. You are a credit to your agency.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The Duke shut the study door as the King used an iron poker to stir the fire.
“Do stand easy, Mr Hiltch,” Alastair said. He put the poker back in the rack and eased himself down in one of the leather chairs which ringed the hearth rug. “Those are my grandchildren out there.” A finger flicked towards the quadrangle. “Got them here at the palace while their father’s off with the Royal Navy. Safest place for them. Nice to have them, too. That lad in the blue coat, being pushed around by his sister, that’s Edward; your future king, in fact. Although I doubt you’ll be around when he ascends the throne. God willing, it won’t be for another century at least.”
“I hope so, Your Majesty.”
“Course you do. Sit down, Mr Hiltch. Thought we’d have an informal session to start with. Gather you’ve something controversial to propose. This way if it is too controversial, well . . . it’ll simply never have happened. Can’t have the monarch exposed to controversy, now can we?”
“Certainly not,” the Duke said with a modest smile as he sat between the two of them.
An arbitrator, or a buffer? Ralph mused. He sat in the remaining leather chair, mildly relieved that he wasn’t having to look up at the two men anymore. Both of them were half a head taller than he (another Saldana trait). “I understand, Your Majesty.”
“Good man. So what hot little mess is dear Kirsten dropping in my lap this time?”
Ralph upped the strength of his tranquillizer program and started to explain.
When he finished, the King rose silently and dropped a couple of logs on the fire. Flames cast a shivering amber light across his face. At seventy-two he had acquired a dignity that went far beyond the superficial physical countenance provided by his genes; experience had visibly enriched his personality. The King, Ralph decided, had become what kings were supposed to be, someone you could trust. All of which made his troubled expression more worrying than it would be on any normal politician.
“Opinion?” Alastair asked the Duke, still gazing at the fire.
“It would appear to be an evenhanded dilemma, sir. Mr Hiltch’s proposal is tenable, certainly. Reports we have received show the Edenists are more than holding their own against the possessed; only a handful of habitats have been penetrated, and I believe all the insurgents were rounded up effectively. And using bitek constructs as front line troops would reduce our losses to a minimum if you commit an army to liberating Mortonridge. Politically, though, Princess Kirsten is quite right; such a course of action will mean a complete reversal of a foreign policy which has stood for over four hundred years, and was actually instigated by Richard Saldana himself.”
“For good reasons at the time,” the King ruminated. “Those damn atheists with their Helium3 monopoly have so much power over us Adamists. Richard knew being free of their helping hand was the only road to true independence. It might have been ruinously expensive to build our own cloud-scoops in those days, but by God look at what we’ve achieved with that freedom. And now Mr Hiltch here is asking me to become dependent on those same Edenists.”
“I’m suggesting an alliance, Your Majesty,” Ralph said. “Nothing more. A mutually advantageous military alliance in time of war. And they will benefit from the liberation of Mortonridge just as much as we will.”
“Really?” the King asked; he sounded sceptical.
“Yes, Your Majesty. It has to be done. We have to prove to ourselves, and every other planet in the Confederation, that the possessed can be driven back into the beyond. I expect such a war might well take decades; and who would ever agree to start it if they didn’t know victory was possible? Whatever the outcome, we have to try.”
“There has to be another solution,” said the King, almost inaudibly. “Something easier, a more final way of ridding ourselves of this threat. Our navy scientists are working on it, of course. One can only pray for progress, though so far it has been depressingly elusive.” He sighed loudly. “But one cannot act on wishes. At least not in my position. I have to respond to facts. And the fact is that two million of my subjects have been possessed. Subjects I am sworn before God to defend. So something must be done, and you, Mr Hiltch, have offered me the only valid proposal to date. Even if it is only related to the physical.”
“Your Majesty?”
“One isn’t criticising. But I have to consider what the Ekelund woman said to you. Even if we win and banish them all from living bodies, we are still going to wind up joining them eventually. Any thoughts on how to solve that little conundrum, Mr Hiltch?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“No. Of course not. Forgive me, I’m being dreadfully unfair. But never fear; you’re not alone on that one, I’m sure. We can dump it off on the bishop for the moment, though ultimately it will have to be addressed. And addressed thoroughly. The prospect of spending eternity in purgatory is not one I naturally welcome. Yet at the moment it seems one to which we are all destined.” The King smiled wanly, glancing out of the French windows at his grandchildren. “I can only hope Our Lord will eventually show us some of His mercy. But for now, the problem at hand: liberating Mortonridge, and the political fallout from asking the Edenists to help. Simon?”
The Duke deliberated on his answer. “As you say, sir, the situation today is hardly the same as when Richard Saldana founded Kulu. However, four centuries of discord has entrenched attitudes, particularly that of the average middle-Kulu citizen. The Edenists aren’t seen as demons, but neither are they regarded with any geniality. Of course, as Mr Hiltch has said, in times of war allies are to be found in the most unusual places. I don’t believe an alliance in these circumstances would damage the monarchy. Certainly a successful conclusion to a liberation campaign would prove your decision to be justified. That is assuming the Edenists will agree to come to our aid.”
“They’ll help, Simon. We might snub them for the benefit of the public, but they are not stupid. Nor are they dishonourable. Once they see I am making a genuine appeal they will respond.”
“The Edenists, yes. But the Lord of Ruin? I find it hard to believe the Princess suggested we ask her for the DNA sequence of Tranquillity’s serjeants, no matter how good they would be as soldiers.”
The King gave a dry laugh. “Oh, come now, Simon, where’s your sense of charity? You of all people should know how accommodating Ione is when it comes to the really important problems faced by the Confederation. She’s proved her worth in the political arena with the Mzu woman; and she is family, after all. I’d say it was far less galling for me to request her help than it is making any approach to the Edenists.”
“Yes, sir,” the Duke said heavily.
Alastair tutted in bogus dismay. “Never mind, Simon, it’s your job to be paranoid on my behalf.” He turned his gaze back to Ralph Hiltch. “My decision, though. As always.”
Ralph tried to appear resolute. It was quite extraordinary to witness the use of power at such a level. The thoughts and words formulated in this room would affect literally hundreds of worlds, maybe even a fate greater than that. He wanted to scream at the King to say yes, that it was bloody obvious what he should decide. Yes. Yes. YES. Say it, damn you.
“I’ll give my authority to initiate the project,” Alastair said. “That’s all for now. We will ask the Edenists if they can assist us. Lord Mountjoy can sound out their ambassador to the court, that’s what he’s good at. While you, Mr Hiltch, will go directly to the Admiralty and begin a detailed tactical analysis of the Mortonridge Liberation. Find out if it really is possible. Once I’ve seen how these two principal factors mature, the proposal will be brought before the Privy Council for consideration.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“It’s what I’m here for, Ralph.” His stately smile became artful. “I think you can cancel your tranquillizer program now.”
“Oh, Lord, now what’s he up to?” Staff Nurse Jansen Kovak asked as soon as he accessed the ceiling sensors in Gerald Skibbow’s room. All the medical facility’s inmates were reviewed on a regular basis; with troublesome ones like Skibbow a check was scheduled every twenty minutes.
The room had modest furnishings. A single bed and a deep settee had puffed themselves up out of the floor, ready to retract if an inmate tried to injure himself against them. All the services were voice-activated. There was nothing to grab hold of, no loose items lying around which could weight a fist.
Gerald was kneeling beside the bed as if in prayer, his hands hidden from the ceiling sensors. Jansen Kovak switched cameras, using one incorporated in the floor, giving him a mouse-eye view.
The image showed Gerald was holding a spoon with both hands. Slowly and relentlessly he was flexing it, bending the stem just below the scoop. It was made of a strong composite, but Jansen Kovak could see the tiny white stress fractures crinkling the surface. Another minute and the spoon would break, leaving Gerald with a long spike which although not exactly sharp could certainly harm anyone caught on the end of a lunge.
“Dr Dobbs,” Jansen datavised. “I think we have a problem with Skibbow.”
“What now?” Dobbs asked. He had only just caught up on his appointments; yesterday’s episode with Skibbow in the lounge had wrecked his schedule. Skibbow had been recovering well up until that point. Bad luck his daughter had turned up again—certainly the timing, anyway. Although the fact she was still alive could eventually be worked into his therapy, give him a long-term achievement goal.
“He’s smuggled a spoon out of the lounge. I think he’s going to use it as a weapon.”
“Oh, great, just what I need.” Riley Dobbs hurriedly finished with the patient he was counselling, and accessed the facility’s AI. He retrieved the interpretation routine which could make sense of Skibbow’s unique thought patterns and opened a channel to the debrief nanonics. This kind of grubby mental spying was totally unethical; but then he had discarded the constraints of the General Medical Council all those years ago when he came to work for the Royal Navy. Besides, if he was to effect any kind of cure on Skibbow, he needed to know exactly what kind of demons were driving the man. Resorting to a weapon, however feeble, seemed extreme for Skibbow.
The images were slow to form in Dobbs’s mind. Gerald’s thoughts were in turmoil, fast-paced, flicking between present reality and extrapolated fantasies.
Dobbs saw the pale blue wall of the bedroom, fringed with the redness which came from squinted eyes. Feeling the spoon in his hands, the friction heat building up in its stem. Tired arm muscles as they pushed and pulled at the stubborn composite. “And they’ll regret getting in my way. God will they ever.”
Image shift to—a corridor. Kovak screaming in pain as he sinks to his knees, the spoon handle jutting out of his white tunic. Blood spreading over his chest, drops splattering on the floor. Dr Dobbs was already sprawled facedown on the corridor floor, his whole body soaked in glistening blood. “Which is less than he deserves.” Kovak emitted a last gurgle and died. Gerald pulled the Weapon of Vengeance from his chest and carried on down the corridor. Sanatorium staff peered fearfully out of doors, only to shrink back when they saw who was coming. As well they might; they knew who had Right and Justice on his side.
Shifting back—to the bedroom, where the damn spoon still hadn’t snapped. His breath was becoming ragged now. But still he persevered. A soundless mutter of: “Come on. Please!”
Shifting—to the journey through Guyana, a confused blur of rock walls. Not actually knowing the geometry of the asteroid; but he’d find a way. Asteroid spaceports were always attached up at the axis. There would be trains, lifts . . .
Back—when the spoon finally snaps, making his taut arms judder. “Now I can begin. I’m coming for you, darling. Daddy’s coming.”
To—fly through space. Stars streaking into blue-white lightning outside the ship’s hull as he rushes to the strange distant habitat. And there’s Marie waiting for him at the end of the voyage, adrift in space, clad in those fragile white swirls of gauze, luscious hair blown back by the breeze. Where she says to him: “They’ll tell you that you shouldn’t have come, Daddy.”
“Oh, but I should,” he replies. “You need me, darling. I know what you’re going through. I can drive the demon out. You’ll feel nothing as I push you into zero-tau.” And so he lays her gently down into the plastic coffin and closes the lid. Blackness eclipses her, then ends to show her face smiling up at him, twinkling tears of gratitude slipping from her eyes.
Which is why he’s standing up now, slipping the jagged spoon handle into his sleeve. Calm. Take deep calming breaths now. There’s the door. Daddy’s coming to rescue you, baby. He is.
Riley Dobbs cancelled the interpretation routine. “Oh, bugger.” He ordered Gerald’s debrief nanonics to induce somnolence within the fevered brain.
Nerves and courage fired up, Gerald was reaching for the bedroom door when a wave of tiredness slapped into him with an almost physical force. He sagged, swaying on his feet as muscles became too exhausted to carry him. The bed loomed before him, and he was toppling towards it as darkness and silence poured into the room.
“Jansen,” Riley Dobbs datavised. “Get in there and take the spoon away, and any other implements you can find. Then I want him transferred to a condition three regime; twenty-four-hour observation, and a softcare environment. He’s going to be a dangerous pain until we can wean him off this new obsession.”
Kiera Salter had dispatched fifteen hellhawks to the Oshanko sector of the Confederation to seed dissent into the communications nets of the Imperium’s worlds and asteroid settlements. That was three days ago.
Now, Rubra observed eleven wormhole termini blink open to disgorge the survivors. Two bloated warplanes, and a sinister featureless black aeromissile-shape kept a loose formation with eight Olympian-sized harpies who flapped their way back towards Valisk’s docking ledges with lethargic, defeated wing strokes.
I see the Emperor’s navy has lived up to its top gun reputation,rubra remarked in a tone of high spirits. Just how is troop morale coming along these days? That’s the eighth of Kiera’s little jaunts in which your hellhawks have taken a beating from unfriendly natives. Any grumblings of rebellion at the new regime yet? A few discreet suggestions that priorities ought to be altered?
Screw you,dariat retorted. he was sitting on a small riverbank of crumbling earth, dark water flowing swiftly below his dangling feet. Occasionally he caught sight of a big garpike slithering past on the way to its spawning ground upriver. Five hundred metres away in the other direction the water tipped over a shallow cliff to splatter down into the circumfluous saltwater reservoir ringing the endcap. Out here among the habitat’s low rolling hills the eight separate xenoc grasses waged a continual war for primacy. As they all came to seed at different times of the year none ever won an outright victory. Right now it was a salmon-pink Tallok-aboriginal variety which was flourishing, its slender corkscrew blades tangling in a dense blanket of dry candyfloss which matted the ground. Back along the cylindrical habitat, Dariat could see the broad rosy bracelet fading to emerald around the midsection where the starscraper lobbies were; and in turn that rich terrestrial vegetation eventually petered away into the ochre scrub desert which occupied the far end. The bands of colour were as striking as they were regular; it was as if someone had sprayed them on while Valisk turned on a lathe.
Of course, you wouldn’t actually know much about what’s happening to the subjects of Kiera’s politburo dictatorship these days,rubra continued pleasantly. You being a loner now. Did you know dear old Bonney was shouting for you yesterday? I whisked one of the non-possessed away from her clutches, put him on a tube carriage, and shot him off to one of my safe areas. I don’t think she was very happy about it. Your name came up several times.
Sarcasm is a pitiful form of wit.
Absolutely, my boy. So you won’t be letting it get to you, will you?
No.
Mind you, Kiera is having some success. The second hellhawk full of kids arrived this morning, looking for that bright new world she promised in her recording. Two dozen of them; the youngest was only nine. Would you like to see what was done to them so they could be possessed? I have all the memories, nobody tried to block my perception from that ceremony.
Shut up.
Oh, dear, is that a twang of conscience I detect?
As you well know, I don’t care what happens to the morons who get suckered here. All I’m interested in is how badly I’m going to fuck you up.
I understand. But then I know you better than Kiera does. It’s a pity you don’t understand me.
Wrong. I know you completely.
You don’t, my boy. You don’t know what I’m holding secret. Anastasia would thank me for what I’m doing, the protection I’m extending you.
Dariat growled, sinking his head into his hands. He had chosen this spot for the seclusion it offered from Kiera’s merry band of maniacs. He wanted somewhere quiet to meditate. Free from distractions he could try to formulate a mental pattern which had the ability to penetrate the neural strata. But he wasn’t free of distractions, he never could be. For Rubra would never tire of playing his game; the insinuations, the doubts, the dark hints.
During the last thirty years, Dariat thought he’d perfected patience to an inhuman degree. But now he was finding that a different kind of patience was required. Despite a herculean resolution he was beginning to question if Rubra really did have any secrets. It was stupid, of course, because Rubra was bluffing, running an elaborate disinformation campaign. However, if Anastasia did have some secret, some legacy, the only entity who would know was Rubra.
Yet if it did exist, why hadn’t Rubra used it already? Both of them knew this was a struggle to the bitterest of ends.
Anastasia could never have done anything which would make him betray himself. Not sweet Anastasia, who had always warned him about Anstid. Her Lord Thoale made sure she knew the consequences of every action. Anastasia understood destiny. Why did I never listen to her?
Anastasia left nothing for me,he said.
Oh, yeah? In that case, I’ll do a deal with you, Dariat.
Not interested.
You should be. I’m asking you to join me.
What?
Join me, here in the neural strata. Transfer yourself over like a dying Edenist. We can become a duality.
You have got to be fucking joking.
No. I have been considering this for some time. Our current situation is not going to end well, not for either of us. Both of us are at odds with Kiera; that will never change. But together we could beat her easily, purge the habitat of her cronies. You can rule Valisk yet.
You used to control a multistellar industrial empire, Rubra. Now look what you’re reduced to. You’re pathetic, Rubra. Contemptible. And the best thing is, you know it.
Rubra shifted his principal focus from the linen-suited young man, withdrawing to contemplate a general perception of the habitat. Bonney Lewin was missing again. That damn woman was getting too good at foxing his observation routines. He automatically expanded the secondary routines surrounding and protecting the remaining non-possessed. She’d show up near one of them soon enough.
He didn’t agree,rubra said to the kohistan consensus.
That is unfortunate. Salter is expending a great deal of effort to collect her Deadnight followers.
Her what?
Deadnight is the name which her subversive recording has acquired. Unfortunately a great many young Adamists are finding it seductive.
Don’t I know it. You should see what she does to them when they get here. Those hellhawks should never have been allowed to collect them.
There is little we can do. We do not have the capability to shadow every hellhawk flight.
Pity.
Yes. The hellhawks are causing us some concern. So far they have not been used in an aggressor role. If they were deployed in combat with Valisk’s armament resources behind them, they would pose a formidable problem.
So you keep telling me. Don’t say you’ve finally come to a decision?
We have. With your permission we would like to remove their threat potential.
Do as you would be done by, and do it first. Well, well, you’ve finally started thinking like me. There’s hope for all of you yet. Okay, go ahead.
Thank you, Rubra. We know this must be difficult for you.
Just make damn sure you don’t miss. Some of my industrial stations are very close to my shell.
Rubra had always maintained an above-average number of Strategic Defence platforms around Valisk. Given his semi-paranoid nature it was inevitable he should want to make local space as secure as possible. Forty-five weapons platforms covered a bubble of space fifty thousand kilometres in diameter with the habitat and its comprehensive parade of industrial stations at the centre. They were complemented by two hundred sensor satellites, sweeping both inwards and outwards. No one had ever attempted an act of aggression within Valisk’s sphere of interest—a remarkable achievement considering the kind of ships which frequented the spaceport.
Magellanic Itg had manufactured the network, developing indigenous designs and fabricating all the components itself. A policy which had earned the company a healthy quantity of export orders. It also enabled Rubra to install his personality as the network’s executive. He certainly wasn’t about to trust any of his woefully ineffectual descendants with his own defence.
That arrangement had come to an abrupt end with the emergence of the possessed. His control over the network was via affinity with bitek management processors that were integrated into every platform’s command circuitry. He hadn’t even realized he’d lost control of the platforms until he’d attempted to interdict the hellhawks when they first revealed themselves. Afterwards, he’d worked out that somebody—that little shit Dariat, no doubt—had subverted his SD governor thought routines long enough to load powerdown orders into every platform.
With the power off, there was no way of regaining control through the bitek processors. Every platform would have to be reactivated manually. Which was exactly what Kiera had done. Spacecraft had rendezvoused with the platforms and taken out Rubra’s bitek management processors, replacing them with electronic processors and new fire authority codes.
A new SD Command centre was established in the counter-rotating spaceport, outside Rubra’s influence. He couldn’t strike at that like he could the starscrapers. The possessed technicians who reactivated the network were convinced they had made it independent, a system which only Kiera and her newly installed codes could control.
What neither they nor Dariat quite appreciated were the myriad number of physical interfaces between the neural strata and Valisk’s communications net. The tube trains and the starscraper lifts were the most obvious examples, but every mechanical and electronic utility system had a similar junction, a small processor nodule which converted fibre optic pulses to nerve impulses and vice versa. And Magellanic Itg not only built Valisk’s communications net, it also supplied ninety per cent of the counter-rotating spaceport’s electronics. A fact which even fewer people were aware of was that every company processor had a back-door access function hardwired in, to which Rubra alone had the key.
Within seconds of the possessed establishing their new SD command channels he was in the system. A delicious irony, he felt, a ghost in the ghosts’ machinery. The devious interface circuits he’d established to gain entry couldn’t support anything like the data traffic necessary to give him full control of the platforms once more, but he could certainly do unto others what they’d done to him.
On the ready signal from the Kohistan Consensus, Rubra immediately sent a squall of orders out to the SD platforms. Command codes were wiped and replaced, safety limiters were taken off line, fusion generator management programs were reformatted.
In the commandeered spaceport management office used to run the habitat’s SD network, every single alarm tripped at once. The whole room was flooded with red light from AV projectors and holoscreens. Then the power went off, plunging the crew into darkness.
“What the holy fuck is happening?” the recently appointed network captain shouted. A bright candle flame ignited at the tip of his index finger, revealing equally confounded faces all around him. He reached for his communications block to call Kiera Salter, dreading what she would say. But his hand never made it.
“Oh, shit, look ,” someone cried.
Severe white light began to flood in through the office’s single port.
In forty-five fusion generators the plasma jet had become unstable, perturbed by rogue manipulations in the magnetic confinement field. Burnthrough occurred, plasma striking the confinement chamber walls, vaporizing the material, which increased the pressure a thousandfold. Forty-five fusion generators ruptured almost simultaneously, tearing apart the SD platforms in a burst of five million degree shrapnel and irradiated gas.
You’re clear,rubra told the waiting fleet.
Three hundred wormhole termini opened, englobing the habitat. Voidhawks shot out. Two hundred were designated to eradicate the industrial stations, depriving Kiera of their enormous armament manufacturing base. The bitek starships immediately swooped around onto their assault vectors. Kinetic missiles flashed out of their launch cradles, closing on the stations at sixteen gees. Each salvo was aimed so that the impact blast would kick the debris shower away from the habitat, minimizing the possibility of collision damage to the polyp shell.
The remaining hundred voidhawks were given suppression duties. Flying in ten-strong formations they broadcast affinity warnings to the thoroughly disconcerted hellhawks sitting on the docking ledges, ordering them to remain where they were. Sharp ribbons of ruby-red light from targeting lasers made the ledge polyp shimmer like black ice speared by an early morning sun. Refracted beams twisted around the alien shapes perched on the pedestals as the voidhawks strove to match their discordant vectors with the habitat’s rotation.
Closer to the habitat, cyclones of shiny debris were churning out from the ruined industrial stations. Victorious voidhawks dived and spun above the metallic constellations, racing away ahead of the perilous wavefront of sharp high-velocity slivers. The hellhawks sat on their pedestals, observing the carnage with mute impotence.
Exemplary shooting,rubra told the kohistan consensus. Just remember when this is all over, you’re paying Magellanic Itg’s compensation claim.
Three hundred wormhole interstices opened. The voidhawks vanished in an extraordinary display of synchronization. Elapsed time of the attack was ninety-three seconds.
Even in the heat of passion Kiera Salter could sense nearby minds starting to flare in alarm. She tried to dislodge Stanyon from her back and rise to her feet. When he resisted, tightening his grip, she simply smacked an energistic bolt into his chest. He grunted, the impact shoving him backwards.
“What the fuck are you playing at, bitch?” he growled.
“Be silent.” She stood up, her wishes banishing the soreness and rising bruises. Sweat vanished, her hair returned to a neatly brushed mane. A simple, scarlet summer dress materialized over her skin.
On the other side of the endcap, the hellhawks were seething with resentment and anger. Beyond them was a haze of life which gave off a scent of icy determination. And Rubra, the ever-present mental background whisper, was radiating satisfaction. “Damn it!”
Her desktop processor block started shrilling. Data scrawled over its screen. A Strategic Defence alert, and red systems failure symbols were flashing all over the network schematic.
The high-pitched sound started to cut off intermittently, and the screen blanked out. The more she glared at the block, the worse the glitches became.
“What’s happening?” Erdal Kilcady asked. Her other bedroom fancy—a gormless twenty-year-old who as far as she could determine had only one use.
“We’re being attacked, you fool,” she snapped. “It’s those fucking Edenists.” Shit, and her schemes had been progressing beautifully up until now. The idiot kids believed her recording; they were starting to arrive. Another couple of months would have seen the habitat population rise to a decent level.
Now this. The constant hellhawk flights must have frightened the Edenists into taking action.
The burn mark on Stanyon’s chest healed over. Clothes sprang up to conceal his body. “We’d better get along to the SD control centre and kick some butt,” he said.
Kiera hesitated. The SD centre was in the counter-rotating spaceport. She was certain the habitat itself would be safe from attack. Rubra would never allow that, but the spaceport might be a legitimate target.
Just as she took a reluctant first step towards the door the black bakelite telephone on her bedside table started to ring. The primitive communications instrument was one which worked almost infallibly in the energistic environment exuded by the possessed. She picked it up and pressed the handset to her ear. “Yes?”
“This is Rubra.”
Kiera stiffened. She’d thought this room was outside of his surveillance. Exactly how many of their systems were exposed to him? “What do you want?”
“I want nothing. I’m simply delivering a warning. The voidhawks from Kohistan are currently eliminating the habitat’s industrial production capability. There will be no more combat wasps to arm the hellhawks. We don’t like the threat they present. Do not attempt to resupply from other sources or it will go hard on you.”
“You can do nothing to us,” she said, squeezing some swagger into her voice.
“Wrong. The Edenists respect life, which is why no hellhawks were destroyed this time. However, I can guarantee you the next voidhawk strike will not be so generous. I have eliminated the habitat’s SD platforms so that in future it won’t even be as difficult for them as today’s strike. You and the hellhawks will sit out the rest of the conflict here. Is that understood?” The phone went dead.
Kiera stood still, her whitened fingers tightening around the handset. Little chips of bakelite sprinkled down onto the carpet. “Find Dariat,” she told Stanyon. “I don’t care where he is, find him and bring him to me. Now!”
Chaumort asteroid in the Châlons star system. Not a settlement which attracted many starships; it had little foreign exchange to purchase their cargoes of exotica, and few opportunities for export charters. Attendant industrial stations were old, lacking investment, their products a generation out-of-date; their poor sales added to the downwards cycle of the asteroid’s economy. Ten per cent of the adult population was unemployed, making qualified workers Chaumort’s largest (and irreplaceable) export. The fault lay in its leadership of fifteen years ago, who had been far too quick to claim independence from the founding company. Decline had been a steady constant from that carnival day onwards. Even as a refuge for undesirables, it was close to the bottom of the list.
But it was French-ethnic, and it allowed certain starships to dock despite the Confederation’s quarantine edict. Life could have been worse, André Duchamp told himself, though admittedly not by much. He sat out at a table in what qualified as a pavement café, watching what there was of the worldlet passing by. The sheer rock cliff of the biosphere cavern wall rose vertically behind him, riddled with windows and balconies for its first hundred metres. Out in the cavern the usual yellow-green fields and orchards of spindly trees glimmered under the motley light of the solartubes which studded the axis gantry.
The view was acceptable, the wine passable, his situation if not tolerable then stable—for a couple of days. André took another sip and tried to relax. It was a pity his initial thought of selling combat wasps (post-Lalonde, fifteen were still languishing in the starship’s launch tubes) to Chaumort’s government had come to nothing. The asteroid’s treasury didn’t have the funds, and three inter-planetary ships had already been placed on defence contract retainers. Not that the money would have been much use here; the two local service companies which operated the spaceport had a very limited stock of spare parts. Of course, it would have come in useful to pay his crew. Madeleine and Desmond hadn’t actually said anything, but André knew the mood well enough. And that bloody anglo Erick—as soon as they’d docked Madeleine had hauled him off to the local hospital. Well, those thieving doctors would have to wait.
He couldn’t actually remember a time when there had been so few options available. In fact, he was down to one slender possibility now. He’d found that out as soon as he’d arrived (this time checking the spaceport’s register for ships he knew). An unusually large number of starships were docked, all of them arriving recently. In other words, after the quarantine had been ratified and instituted by the Châlons system congress.
The Confederation Assembly had demonstrated a laudable goal in trying to stop the spread of the possessed, no one disputed that. However, the new colony planets and smaller asteroids suffered disproportionately from the lack of scheduled flights; they needed imported high-technology products to maintain their economies. Asteroid settlements like Chaumort, whose financial situation was none too strong to start with, were going to shoulder a heavy cost for the crisis not of their making. What most of these backwater communities shared was their remoteness; so if say an essential cargo were to arrive on a starship, then it was not inconceivable that said starship would be given docking permission. The local system congress wouldn’t know, and therefore wouldn’t be able to prevent it. That cargo could then (for a modest charter fee) be distributed to help other small disadvantaged communities by inter-planetary ships, whose movements were not subject to any Confederation proscription.
Chaumort was quietly establishing itself as an important node in a whole new market. The kind of market starships such as the Villeneuve’s Revenge were uniquely qualified to exploit.
André had spoken to several people in the bars frequented by space industry crews and local merchants, voicing his approval for this turn of events, expressing an interest in being able to help Chaumort and its people in these difficult times. In short, becoming known. It was a game of contacts, and André had been playing it for decades.
Which was why he was currently sitting at a table waiting for a man he’d never seen before to show up. A bunch of teenagers hurried past, one of the lads snatching a basket of bread rolls from the café’s table. His comrades laughed and cheered his bravado, and then ran off before the patron discovered the theft. André no longer smiled at the reckless antics of youth. Adolescents were a carefree breed; a state to which he had long aspired, and which his chosen profession had singularly failed to deliver. It seemed altogether unfair that happiness should exist only at one end of life, and the wrong end at that. It should be something you came in to, not left further and further behind.
A flash of colour caught his eye. All the delinquents had tied red handkerchiefs around their ankles. What a stupid fashion.
“Captain Duchamp?”
André looked up to see a middle-aged Asian-ethnic man dressed in a smart black silk suit with flapping sleeves. The tone and the easy body posture indicated an experienced negotiator; too smooth for a lawyer, lacking the confidence of the truly wealthy. A middleman.
André tried not to smile too broadly. The bait had been swallowed. Now for the price.
The medical nanonic around Erick’s left leg split open from crotch to ankle, sounding as though someone were ripping strong fabric. Dr Steibel and the young female nurse slowly teased the package free.
“Looks fine,” Dr Steibel decided.
Madeleine grinned at Erick and pulled a disgusted face. The leg was coated in a thin layer of sticky fluid, residue of the package unknitting from his flesh. Below the goo, his skin was swan-white, threaded with a complicated lacework of blue veins. Scars from the burns and vacuum ruptures were patches of thicker translucent skin.
Now the package covering his face and neck had been removed, Erick sucked in a startled breath as cool air gusted over the raw skin. His cheeks and forehead were still tingling from the same effect, and they’d been uncovered two hours ago.
He didn’t bother looking at the exposed limb. Why bother? All it contained was memories.
“Give me nerve channel access, please,” Dr Steibel asked. He was looking into an AV pillar, disregarding Erick completely.
Erick complied, his neural nanonics opening a channel directly into his spinal cord. A series of instructions were datavised over, and his leg rose to the horizontal before flexing his foot about.
“Okay.” The doctor nodded happily, still lost in the information the pillar was directing at him. “Nerve junctions are fine, and the new tissue is thick enough. I’m not going to put the package back on, but I do want you to apply the moisturizing cream I’ll prescribe. It’s important the new skin doesn’t dry out.”
“Yes, Doc,” Erick said meekly. “What about . . . ?” He gestured at the packages enveloping his upper torso and right arm.
Dr Steibel flashed a quick smile, slightly concerned at his patient’s listless nature. “ ’Fraid not. Your AT implants are integrating nicely, but the process isn’t anywhere near complete yet.”
“I see.”
“I’ll give you some refills for those support modules you’re dragging around with you. These deep invasion packages you’re using consume a lot of nutrients. Make sure the reserves don’t get depleted.”
He picked up the support module which Madeleine had repaired and glanced at the pair of them. “I’d strongly advise no further exposure to antagonistic environments for a while, as well. You can function at a reasonably normal level now, Erick, but only if you don’t stress your metabolism. Do not ignore warnings from your metabolic monitor program. Nanonic packages are not to be regarded as some kind of infallible safety net.”
“Understood.”
“I take it you’re not flying away for a while.”
“No. All starship flights are cancelled.”
“Good. I want you to keep out of free fall as much as possible, it’s a dreadful medium for a body to heal in. Check in to a hotel in the high gravity section while you’re here.” He datavised a file over. “That’s the exercise regime for your legs. Stick to it, and I’ll see you again in a week.”
“Thanks.”
Dr Steibel nodded benevolently at Madeleine as he left the treatment room. “You can pay the receptionist on your way out.”
The nurse began to spray a soapy solution over Erick’s legs, flushing away the mucus. He used a neural nanonic override to stop a flinch when she reached his genitals. Thank God they hadn’t been badly injured, just superficial skin damage from the vacuum.
Madeleine gave him an anxious glance over the nurse’s back. “Have you got much cash in your card?” she datavised.
“About a hundred and fifty fuseodollars, that’s all,” he datavised back. “André hasn’t transferred this month’s salary over yet.”
“I’ve got a couple of hundred, and Desmond should have some left. I think we can pay.”
“Why should we? Where the hell is Duchamp? He should be paying for this. And my AT implants were only the first phase.”
“Busy with some cargo agent, so he claimed. Leave it with me, I’ll find out how much we owe the hospital.”
Erick waited until she’d left, then datavised the hospital’s net processor for the Confederation Navy Bureau. The net management computer informed him there was no such eddress. He swore silently, and accessed the computer’s directory, loading a search order for any resident Confederation official. There wasn’t one, not even a CAB inspector, too few ships used the spaceport to warrant the expense.
The net processor opened a channel to his neural nanonics. “Report back to the ship, please, mon enfant Erick,” André datavised. “I have won us a charter.”
If his neck hadn’t been so stiff, Erick would have shaken his head in wonder. A charter! In the middle of a Confederation quarantine. Duchamp was utterly unbelievable. His trial would be the shortest formality on record.
Erick swung his legs off the examination table, ignoring the nurse’s martyrdom as her spray hoses were dislodged. “Sorry, duty calls,” he said. “Now go and find me some trousers, I haven’t got all day.”
The middleman’s name was Iain Girardi. André envied him his temperament; nothing could throw him, no insult, no threat. His cool remained in place throughout the most heated of exchanges. It was just as well; André’s patience had long since been exhausted by his ungrateful crew.
They were assembled in the day lounge of the Villeneuve’s Revenge , the only place André considered secure enough to discuss Girardi’s proposition. Madeleine and Desmond had their feet snagged by a stikpad on the decking, while Erick was hanging on to the central ladder, his medical support modules clipped on to the composite rungs. André floated at Iain Girardi’s side, glowering at the three of them.
“Good afternoon, Mr Hiltch.”
Ralph stood to attention. “Your Majesty.” Despite the fact he was in the presence of his King, Ralph could only stare at the oil painting on the wall. It was the Mona Lisa. Which was impossible. The French state of Govcentral would never let that out of the Paris arcology. Yet would the King of Kulu really have a copy on his wall?
“I reviewed the report which came with you, Mr Hiltch,” the King said. “You’ve had a busy few weeks. I can see why my sister valued your counsel so highly. One can only hope all my ESA officers are so efficient and resourceful. You are a credit to your agency.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The Duke shut the study door as the King used an iron poker to stir the fire.
“Do stand easy, Mr Hiltch,” Alastair said. He put the poker back in the rack and eased himself down in one of the leather chairs which ringed the hearth rug. “Those are my grandchildren out there.” A finger flicked towards the quadrangle. “Got them here at the palace while their father’s off with the Royal Navy. Safest place for them. Nice to have them, too. That lad in the blue coat, being pushed around by his sister, that’s Edward; your future king, in fact. Although I doubt you’ll be around when he ascends the throne. God willing, it won’t be for another century at least.”
“I hope so, Your Majesty.”
“Course you do. Sit down, Mr Hiltch. Thought we’d have an informal session to start with. Gather you’ve something controversial to propose. This way if it is too controversial, well . . . it’ll simply never have happened. Can’t have the monarch exposed to controversy, now can we?”
“Certainly not,” the Duke said with a modest smile as he sat between the two of them.
An arbitrator, or a buffer? Ralph mused. He sat in the remaining leather chair, mildly relieved that he wasn’t having to look up at the two men anymore. Both of them were half a head taller than he (another Saldana trait). “I understand, Your Majesty.”
“Good man. So what hot little mess is dear Kirsten dropping in my lap this time?”
Ralph upped the strength of his tranquillizer program and started to explain.
When he finished, the King rose silently and dropped a couple of logs on the fire. Flames cast a shivering amber light across his face. At seventy-two he had acquired a dignity that went far beyond the superficial physical countenance provided by his genes; experience had visibly enriched his personality. The King, Ralph decided, had become what kings were supposed to be, someone you could trust. All of which made his troubled expression more worrying than it would be on any normal politician.
“Opinion?” Alastair asked the Duke, still gazing at the fire.
“It would appear to be an evenhanded dilemma, sir. Mr Hiltch’s proposal is tenable, certainly. Reports we have received show the Edenists are more than holding their own against the possessed; only a handful of habitats have been penetrated, and I believe all the insurgents were rounded up effectively. And using bitek constructs as front line troops would reduce our losses to a minimum if you commit an army to liberating Mortonridge. Politically, though, Princess Kirsten is quite right; such a course of action will mean a complete reversal of a foreign policy which has stood for over four hundred years, and was actually instigated by Richard Saldana himself.”
“For good reasons at the time,” the King ruminated. “Those damn atheists with their Helium3 monopoly have so much power over us Adamists. Richard knew being free of their helping hand was the only road to true independence. It might have been ruinously expensive to build our own cloud-scoops in those days, but by God look at what we’ve achieved with that freedom. And now Mr Hiltch here is asking me to become dependent on those same Edenists.”
“I’m suggesting an alliance, Your Majesty,” Ralph said. “Nothing more. A mutually advantageous military alliance in time of war. And they will benefit from the liberation of Mortonridge just as much as we will.”
“Really?” the King asked; he sounded sceptical.
“Yes, Your Majesty. It has to be done. We have to prove to ourselves, and every other planet in the Confederation, that the possessed can be driven back into the beyond. I expect such a war might well take decades; and who would ever agree to start it if they didn’t know victory was possible? Whatever the outcome, we have to try.”
“There has to be another solution,” said the King, almost inaudibly. “Something easier, a more final way of ridding ourselves of this threat. Our navy scientists are working on it, of course. One can only pray for progress, though so far it has been depressingly elusive.” He sighed loudly. “But one cannot act on wishes. At least not in my position. I have to respond to facts. And the fact is that two million of my subjects have been possessed. Subjects I am sworn before God to defend. So something must be done, and you, Mr Hiltch, have offered me the only valid proposal to date. Even if it is only related to the physical.”
“Your Majesty?”
“One isn’t criticising. But I have to consider what the Ekelund woman said to you. Even if we win and banish them all from living bodies, we are still going to wind up joining them eventually. Any thoughts on how to solve that little conundrum, Mr Hiltch?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“No. Of course not. Forgive me, I’m being dreadfully unfair. But never fear; you’re not alone on that one, I’m sure. We can dump it off on the bishop for the moment, though ultimately it will have to be addressed. And addressed thoroughly. The prospect of spending eternity in purgatory is not one I naturally welcome. Yet at the moment it seems one to which we are all destined.” The King smiled wanly, glancing out of the French windows at his grandchildren. “I can only hope Our Lord will eventually show us some of His mercy. But for now, the problem at hand: liberating Mortonridge, and the political fallout from asking the Edenists to help. Simon?”
The Duke deliberated on his answer. “As you say, sir, the situation today is hardly the same as when Richard Saldana founded Kulu. However, four centuries of discord has entrenched attitudes, particularly that of the average middle-Kulu citizen. The Edenists aren’t seen as demons, but neither are they regarded with any geniality. Of course, as Mr Hiltch has said, in times of war allies are to be found in the most unusual places. I don’t believe an alliance in these circumstances would damage the monarchy. Certainly a successful conclusion to a liberation campaign would prove your decision to be justified. That is assuming the Edenists will agree to come to our aid.”
“They’ll help, Simon. We might snub them for the benefit of the public, but they are not stupid. Nor are they dishonourable. Once they see I am making a genuine appeal they will respond.”
“The Edenists, yes. But the Lord of Ruin? I find it hard to believe the Princess suggested we ask her for the DNA sequence of Tranquillity’s serjeants, no matter how good they would be as soldiers.”
The King gave a dry laugh. “Oh, come now, Simon, where’s your sense of charity? You of all people should know how accommodating Ione is when it comes to the really important problems faced by the Confederation. She’s proved her worth in the political arena with the Mzu woman; and she is family, after all. I’d say it was far less galling for me to request her help than it is making any approach to the Edenists.”
“Yes, sir,” the Duke said heavily.
Alastair tutted in bogus dismay. “Never mind, Simon, it’s your job to be paranoid on my behalf.” He turned his gaze back to Ralph Hiltch. “My decision, though. As always.”
Ralph tried to appear resolute. It was quite extraordinary to witness the use of power at such a level. The thoughts and words formulated in this room would affect literally hundreds of worlds, maybe even a fate greater than that. He wanted to scream at the King to say yes, that it was bloody obvious what he should decide. Yes. Yes. YES. Say it, damn you.
“I’ll give my authority to initiate the project,” Alastair said. “That’s all for now. We will ask the Edenists if they can assist us. Lord Mountjoy can sound out their ambassador to the court, that’s what he’s good at. While you, Mr Hiltch, will go directly to the Admiralty and begin a detailed tactical analysis of the Mortonridge Liberation. Find out if it really is possible. Once I’ve seen how these two principal factors mature, the proposal will be brought before the Privy Council for consideration.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“It’s what I’m here for, Ralph.” His stately smile became artful. “I think you can cancel your tranquillizer program now.”
“Oh, Lord, now what’s he up to?” Staff Nurse Jansen Kovak asked as soon as he accessed the ceiling sensors in Gerald Skibbow’s room. All the medical facility’s inmates were reviewed on a regular basis; with troublesome ones like Skibbow a check was scheduled every twenty minutes.
The room had modest furnishings. A single bed and a deep settee had puffed themselves up out of the floor, ready to retract if an inmate tried to injure himself against them. All the services were voice-activated. There was nothing to grab hold of, no loose items lying around which could weight a fist.
Gerald was kneeling beside the bed as if in prayer, his hands hidden from the ceiling sensors. Jansen Kovak switched cameras, using one incorporated in the floor, giving him a mouse-eye view.
The image showed Gerald was holding a spoon with both hands. Slowly and relentlessly he was flexing it, bending the stem just below the scoop. It was made of a strong composite, but Jansen Kovak could see the tiny white stress fractures crinkling the surface. Another minute and the spoon would break, leaving Gerald with a long spike which although not exactly sharp could certainly harm anyone caught on the end of a lunge.
“Dr Dobbs,” Jansen datavised. “I think we have a problem with Skibbow.”
“What now?” Dobbs asked. He had only just caught up on his appointments; yesterday’s episode with Skibbow in the lounge had wrecked his schedule. Skibbow had been recovering well up until that point. Bad luck his daughter had turned up again—certainly the timing, anyway. Although the fact she was still alive could eventually be worked into his therapy, give him a long-term achievement goal.
“He’s smuggled a spoon out of the lounge. I think he’s going to use it as a weapon.”
“Oh, great, just what I need.” Riley Dobbs hurriedly finished with the patient he was counselling, and accessed the facility’s AI. He retrieved the interpretation routine which could make sense of Skibbow’s unique thought patterns and opened a channel to the debrief nanonics. This kind of grubby mental spying was totally unethical; but then he had discarded the constraints of the General Medical Council all those years ago when he came to work for the Royal Navy. Besides, if he was to effect any kind of cure on Skibbow, he needed to know exactly what kind of demons were driving the man. Resorting to a weapon, however feeble, seemed extreme for Skibbow.
The images were slow to form in Dobbs’s mind. Gerald’s thoughts were in turmoil, fast-paced, flicking between present reality and extrapolated fantasies.
Dobbs saw the pale blue wall of the bedroom, fringed with the redness which came from squinted eyes. Feeling the spoon in his hands, the friction heat building up in its stem. Tired arm muscles as they pushed and pulled at the stubborn composite. “And they’ll regret getting in my way. God will they ever.”
Image shift to—a corridor. Kovak screaming in pain as he sinks to his knees, the spoon handle jutting out of his white tunic. Blood spreading over his chest, drops splattering on the floor. Dr Dobbs was already sprawled facedown on the corridor floor, his whole body soaked in glistening blood. “Which is less than he deserves.” Kovak emitted a last gurgle and died. Gerald pulled the Weapon of Vengeance from his chest and carried on down the corridor. Sanatorium staff peered fearfully out of doors, only to shrink back when they saw who was coming. As well they might; they knew who had Right and Justice on his side.
Shifting back—to the bedroom, where the damn spoon still hadn’t snapped. His breath was becoming ragged now. But still he persevered. A soundless mutter of: “Come on. Please!”
Shifting—to the journey through Guyana, a confused blur of rock walls. Not actually knowing the geometry of the asteroid; but he’d find a way. Asteroid spaceports were always attached up at the axis. There would be trains, lifts . . .
Back—when the spoon finally snaps, making his taut arms judder. “Now I can begin. I’m coming for you, darling. Daddy’s coming.”
To—fly through space. Stars streaking into blue-white lightning outside the ship’s hull as he rushes to the strange distant habitat. And there’s Marie waiting for him at the end of the voyage, adrift in space, clad in those fragile white swirls of gauze, luscious hair blown back by the breeze. Where she says to him: “They’ll tell you that you shouldn’t have come, Daddy.”
“Oh, but I should,” he replies. “You need me, darling. I know what you’re going through. I can drive the demon out. You’ll feel nothing as I push you into zero-tau.” And so he lays her gently down into the plastic coffin and closes the lid. Blackness eclipses her, then ends to show her face smiling up at him, twinkling tears of gratitude slipping from her eyes.
Which is why he’s standing up now, slipping the jagged spoon handle into his sleeve. Calm. Take deep calming breaths now. There’s the door. Daddy’s coming to rescue you, baby. He is.
Riley Dobbs cancelled the interpretation routine. “Oh, bugger.” He ordered Gerald’s debrief nanonics to induce somnolence within the fevered brain.
Nerves and courage fired up, Gerald was reaching for the bedroom door when a wave of tiredness slapped into him with an almost physical force. He sagged, swaying on his feet as muscles became too exhausted to carry him. The bed loomed before him, and he was toppling towards it as darkness and silence poured into the room.
“Jansen,” Riley Dobbs datavised. “Get in there and take the spoon away, and any other implements you can find. Then I want him transferred to a condition three regime; twenty-four-hour observation, and a softcare environment. He’s going to be a dangerous pain until we can wean him off this new obsession.”
Kiera Salter had dispatched fifteen hellhawks to the Oshanko sector of the Confederation to seed dissent into the communications nets of the Imperium’s worlds and asteroid settlements. That was three days ago.
Now, Rubra observed eleven wormhole termini blink open to disgorge the survivors. Two bloated warplanes, and a sinister featureless black aeromissile-shape kept a loose formation with eight Olympian-sized harpies who flapped their way back towards Valisk’s docking ledges with lethargic, defeated wing strokes.
I see the Emperor’s navy has lived up to its top gun reputation,rubra remarked in a tone of high spirits. Just how is troop morale coming along these days? That’s the eighth of Kiera’s little jaunts in which your hellhawks have taken a beating from unfriendly natives. Any grumblings of rebellion at the new regime yet? A few discreet suggestions that priorities ought to be altered?
Screw you,dariat retorted. he was sitting on a small riverbank of crumbling earth, dark water flowing swiftly below his dangling feet. Occasionally he caught sight of a big garpike slithering past on the way to its spawning ground upriver. Five hundred metres away in the other direction the water tipped over a shallow cliff to splatter down into the circumfluous saltwater reservoir ringing the endcap. Out here among the habitat’s low rolling hills the eight separate xenoc grasses waged a continual war for primacy. As they all came to seed at different times of the year none ever won an outright victory. Right now it was a salmon-pink Tallok-aboriginal variety which was flourishing, its slender corkscrew blades tangling in a dense blanket of dry candyfloss which matted the ground. Back along the cylindrical habitat, Dariat could see the broad rosy bracelet fading to emerald around the midsection where the starscraper lobbies were; and in turn that rich terrestrial vegetation eventually petered away into the ochre scrub desert which occupied the far end. The bands of colour were as striking as they were regular; it was as if someone had sprayed them on while Valisk turned on a lathe.
Of course, you wouldn’t actually know much about what’s happening to the subjects of Kiera’s politburo dictatorship these days,rubra continued pleasantly. You being a loner now. Did you know dear old Bonney was shouting for you yesterday? I whisked one of the non-possessed away from her clutches, put him on a tube carriage, and shot him off to one of my safe areas. I don’t think she was very happy about it. Your name came up several times.
Sarcasm is a pitiful form of wit.
Absolutely, my boy. So you won’t be letting it get to you, will you?
No.
Mind you, Kiera is having some success. The second hellhawk full of kids arrived this morning, looking for that bright new world she promised in her recording. Two dozen of them; the youngest was only nine. Would you like to see what was done to them so they could be possessed? I have all the memories, nobody tried to block my perception from that ceremony.
Shut up.
Oh, dear, is that a twang of conscience I detect?
As you well know, I don’t care what happens to the morons who get suckered here. All I’m interested in is how badly I’m going to fuck you up.
I understand. But then I know you better than Kiera does. It’s a pity you don’t understand me.
Wrong. I know you completely.
You don’t, my boy. You don’t know what I’m holding secret. Anastasia would thank me for what I’m doing, the protection I’m extending you.
Dariat growled, sinking his head into his hands. He had chosen this spot for the seclusion it offered from Kiera’s merry band of maniacs. He wanted somewhere quiet to meditate. Free from distractions he could try to formulate a mental pattern which had the ability to penetrate the neural strata. But he wasn’t free of distractions, he never could be. For Rubra would never tire of playing his game; the insinuations, the doubts, the dark hints.
During the last thirty years, Dariat thought he’d perfected patience to an inhuman degree. But now he was finding that a different kind of patience was required. Despite a herculean resolution he was beginning to question if Rubra really did have any secrets. It was stupid, of course, because Rubra was bluffing, running an elaborate disinformation campaign. However, if Anastasia did have some secret, some legacy, the only entity who would know was Rubra.
Yet if it did exist, why hadn’t Rubra used it already? Both of them knew this was a struggle to the bitterest of ends.
Anastasia could never have done anything which would make him betray himself. Not sweet Anastasia, who had always warned him about Anstid. Her Lord Thoale made sure she knew the consequences of every action. Anastasia understood destiny. Why did I never listen to her?
Anastasia left nothing for me,he said.
Oh, yeah? In that case, I’ll do a deal with you, Dariat.
Not interested.
You should be. I’m asking you to join me.
What?
Join me, here in the neural strata. Transfer yourself over like a dying Edenist. We can become a duality.
You have got to be fucking joking.
No. I have been considering this for some time. Our current situation is not going to end well, not for either of us. Both of us are at odds with Kiera; that will never change. But together we could beat her easily, purge the habitat of her cronies. You can rule Valisk yet.
You used to control a multistellar industrial empire, Rubra. Now look what you’re reduced to. You’re pathetic, Rubra. Contemptible. And the best thing is, you know it.
Rubra shifted his principal focus from the linen-suited young man, withdrawing to contemplate a general perception of the habitat. Bonney Lewin was missing again. That damn woman was getting too good at foxing his observation routines. He automatically expanded the secondary routines surrounding and protecting the remaining non-possessed. She’d show up near one of them soon enough.
He didn’t agree,rubra said to the kohistan consensus.
That is unfortunate. Salter is expending a great deal of effort to collect her Deadnight followers.
Her what?
Deadnight is the name which her subversive recording has acquired. Unfortunately a great many young Adamists are finding it seductive.
Don’t I know it. You should see what she does to them when they get here. Those hellhawks should never have been allowed to collect them.
There is little we can do. We do not have the capability to shadow every hellhawk flight.
Pity.
Yes. The hellhawks are causing us some concern. So far they have not been used in an aggressor role. If they were deployed in combat with Valisk’s armament resources behind them, they would pose a formidable problem.
So you keep telling me. Don’t say you’ve finally come to a decision?
We have. With your permission we would like to remove their threat potential.
Do as you would be done by, and do it first. Well, well, you’ve finally started thinking like me. There’s hope for all of you yet. Okay, go ahead.
Thank you, Rubra. We know this must be difficult for you.
Just make damn sure you don’t miss. Some of my industrial stations are very close to my shell.
Rubra had always maintained an above-average number of Strategic Defence platforms around Valisk. Given his semi-paranoid nature it was inevitable he should want to make local space as secure as possible. Forty-five weapons platforms covered a bubble of space fifty thousand kilometres in diameter with the habitat and its comprehensive parade of industrial stations at the centre. They were complemented by two hundred sensor satellites, sweeping both inwards and outwards. No one had ever attempted an act of aggression within Valisk’s sphere of interest—a remarkable achievement considering the kind of ships which frequented the spaceport.
Magellanic Itg had manufactured the network, developing indigenous designs and fabricating all the components itself. A policy which had earned the company a healthy quantity of export orders. It also enabled Rubra to install his personality as the network’s executive. He certainly wasn’t about to trust any of his woefully ineffectual descendants with his own defence.
That arrangement had come to an abrupt end with the emergence of the possessed. His control over the network was via affinity with bitek management processors that were integrated into every platform’s command circuitry. He hadn’t even realized he’d lost control of the platforms until he’d attempted to interdict the hellhawks when they first revealed themselves. Afterwards, he’d worked out that somebody—that little shit Dariat, no doubt—had subverted his SD governor thought routines long enough to load powerdown orders into every platform.
With the power off, there was no way of regaining control through the bitek processors. Every platform would have to be reactivated manually. Which was exactly what Kiera had done. Spacecraft had rendezvoused with the platforms and taken out Rubra’s bitek management processors, replacing them with electronic processors and new fire authority codes.
A new SD Command centre was established in the counter-rotating spaceport, outside Rubra’s influence. He couldn’t strike at that like he could the starscrapers. The possessed technicians who reactivated the network were convinced they had made it independent, a system which only Kiera and her newly installed codes could control.
What neither they nor Dariat quite appreciated were the myriad number of physical interfaces between the neural strata and Valisk’s communications net. The tube trains and the starscraper lifts were the most obvious examples, but every mechanical and electronic utility system had a similar junction, a small processor nodule which converted fibre optic pulses to nerve impulses and vice versa. And Magellanic Itg not only built Valisk’s communications net, it also supplied ninety per cent of the counter-rotating spaceport’s electronics. A fact which even fewer people were aware of was that every company processor had a back-door access function hardwired in, to which Rubra alone had the key.
Within seconds of the possessed establishing their new SD command channels he was in the system. A delicious irony, he felt, a ghost in the ghosts’ machinery. The devious interface circuits he’d established to gain entry couldn’t support anything like the data traffic necessary to give him full control of the platforms once more, but he could certainly do unto others what they’d done to him.
On the ready signal from the Kohistan Consensus, Rubra immediately sent a squall of orders out to the SD platforms. Command codes were wiped and replaced, safety limiters were taken off line, fusion generator management programs were reformatted.
In the commandeered spaceport management office used to run the habitat’s SD network, every single alarm tripped at once. The whole room was flooded with red light from AV projectors and holoscreens. Then the power went off, plunging the crew into darkness.
“What the holy fuck is happening?” the recently appointed network captain shouted. A bright candle flame ignited at the tip of his index finger, revealing equally confounded faces all around him. He reached for his communications block to call Kiera Salter, dreading what she would say. But his hand never made it.
“Oh, shit, look ,” someone cried.
Severe white light began to flood in through the office’s single port.
In forty-five fusion generators the plasma jet had become unstable, perturbed by rogue manipulations in the magnetic confinement field. Burnthrough occurred, plasma striking the confinement chamber walls, vaporizing the material, which increased the pressure a thousandfold. Forty-five fusion generators ruptured almost simultaneously, tearing apart the SD platforms in a burst of five million degree shrapnel and irradiated gas.
You’re clear,rubra told the waiting fleet.
Three hundred wormhole termini opened, englobing the habitat. Voidhawks shot out. Two hundred were designated to eradicate the industrial stations, depriving Kiera of their enormous armament manufacturing base. The bitek starships immediately swooped around onto their assault vectors. Kinetic missiles flashed out of their launch cradles, closing on the stations at sixteen gees. Each salvo was aimed so that the impact blast would kick the debris shower away from the habitat, minimizing the possibility of collision damage to the polyp shell.
The remaining hundred voidhawks were given suppression duties. Flying in ten-strong formations they broadcast affinity warnings to the thoroughly disconcerted hellhawks sitting on the docking ledges, ordering them to remain where they were. Sharp ribbons of ruby-red light from targeting lasers made the ledge polyp shimmer like black ice speared by an early morning sun. Refracted beams twisted around the alien shapes perched on the pedestals as the voidhawks strove to match their discordant vectors with the habitat’s rotation.
Closer to the habitat, cyclones of shiny debris were churning out from the ruined industrial stations. Victorious voidhawks dived and spun above the metallic constellations, racing away ahead of the perilous wavefront of sharp high-velocity slivers. The hellhawks sat on their pedestals, observing the carnage with mute impotence.
Exemplary shooting,rubra told the kohistan consensus. Just remember when this is all over, you’re paying Magellanic Itg’s compensation claim.
Three hundred wormhole interstices opened. The voidhawks vanished in an extraordinary display of synchronization. Elapsed time of the attack was ninety-three seconds.
Even in the heat of passion Kiera Salter could sense nearby minds starting to flare in alarm. She tried to dislodge Stanyon from her back and rise to her feet. When he resisted, tightening his grip, she simply smacked an energistic bolt into his chest. He grunted, the impact shoving him backwards.
“What the fuck are you playing at, bitch?” he growled.
“Be silent.” She stood up, her wishes banishing the soreness and rising bruises. Sweat vanished, her hair returned to a neatly brushed mane. A simple, scarlet summer dress materialized over her skin.
On the other side of the endcap, the hellhawks were seething with resentment and anger. Beyond them was a haze of life which gave off a scent of icy determination. And Rubra, the ever-present mental background whisper, was radiating satisfaction. “Damn it!”
Her desktop processor block started shrilling. Data scrawled over its screen. A Strategic Defence alert, and red systems failure symbols were flashing all over the network schematic.
The high-pitched sound started to cut off intermittently, and the screen blanked out. The more she glared at the block, the worse the glitches became.
“What’s happening?” Erdal Kilcady asked. Her other bedroom fancy—a gormless twenty-year-old who as far as she could determine had only one use.
“We’re being attacked, you fool,” she snapped. “It’s those fucking Edenists.” Shit, and her schemes had been progressing beautifully up until now. The idiot kids believed her recording; they were starting to arrive. Another couple of months would have seen the habitat population rise to a decent level.
Now this. The constant hellhawk flights must have frightened the Edenists into taking action.
The burn mark on Stanyon’s chest healed over. Clothes sprang up to conceal his body. “We’d better get along to the SD control centre and kick some butt,” he said.
Kiera hesitated. The SD centre was in the counter-rotating spaceport. She was certain the habitat itself would be safe from attack. Rubra would never allow that, but the spaceport might be a legitimate target.
Just as she took a reluctant first step towards the door the black bakelite telephone on her bedside table started to ring. The primitive communications instrument was one which worked almost infallibly in the energistic environment exuded by the possessed. She picked it up and pressed the handset to her ear. “Yes?”
“This is Rubra.”
Kiera stiffened. She’d thought this room was outside of his surveillance. Exactly how many of their systems were exposed to him? “What do you want?”
“I want nothing. I’m simply delivering a warning. The voidhawks from Kohistan are currently eliminating the habitat’s industrial production capability. There will be no more combat wasps to arm the hellhawks. We don’t like the threat they present. Do not attempt to resupply from other sources or it will go hard on you.”
“You can do nothing to us,” she said, squeezing some swagger into her voice.
“Wrong. The Edenists respect life, which is why no hellhawks were destroyed this time. However, I can guarantee you the next voidhawk strike will not be so generous. I have eliminated the habitat’s SD platforms so that in future it won’t even be as difficult for them as today’s strike. You and the hellhawks will sit out the rest of the conflict here. Is that understood?” The phone went dead.
Kiera stood still, her whitened fingers tightening around the handset. Little chips of bakelite sprinkled down onto the carpet. “Find Dariat,” she told Stanyon. “I don’t care where he is, find him and bring him to me. Now!”
Chaumort asteroid in the Châlons star system. Not a settlement which attracted many starships; it had little foreign exchange to purchase their cargoes of exotica, and few opportunities for export charters. Attendant industrial stations were old, lacking investment, their products a generation out-of-date; their poor sales added to the downwards cycle of the asteroid’s economy. Ten per cent of the adult population was unemployed, making qualified workers Chaumort’s largest (and irreplaceable) export. The fault lay in its leadership of fifteen years ago, who had been far too quick to claim independence from the founding company. Decline had been a steady constant from that carnival day onwards. Even as a refuge for undesirables, it was close to the bottom of the list.
But it was French-ethnic, and it allowed certain starships to dock despite the Confederation’s quarantine edict. Life could have been worse, André Duchamp told himself, though admittedly not by much. He sat out at a table in what qualified as a pavement café, watching what there was of the worldlet passing by. The sheer rock cliff of the biosphere cavern wall rose vertically behind him, riddled with windows and balconies for its first hundred metres. Out in the cavern the usual yellow-green fields and orchards of spindly trees glimmered under the motley light of the solartubes which studded the axis gantry.
The view was acceptable, the wine passable, his situation if not tolerable then stable—for a couple of days. André took another sip and tried to relax. It was a pity his initial thought of selling combat wasps (post-Lalonde, fifteen were still languishing in the starship’s launch tubes) to Chaumort’s government had come to nothing. The asteroid’s treasury didn’t have the funds, and three inter-planetary ships had already been placed on defence contract retainers. Not that the money would have been much use here; the two local service companies which operated the spaceport had a very limited stock of spare parts. Of course, it would have come in useful to pay his crew. Madeleine and Desmond hadn’t actually said anything, but André knew the mood well enough. And that bloody anglo Erick—as soon as they’d docked Madeleine had hauled him off to the local hospital. Well, those thieving doctors would have to wait.
He couldn’t actually remember a time when there had been so few options available. In fact, he was down to one slender possibility now. He’d found that out as soon as he’d arrived (this time checking the spaceport’s register for ships he knew). An unusually large number of starships were docked, all of them arriving recently. In other words, after the quarantine had been ratified and instituted by the Châlons system congress.
The Confederation Assembly had demonstrated a laudable goal in trying to stop the spread of the possessed, no one disputed that. However, the new colony planets and smaller asteroids suffered disproportionately from the lack of scheduled flights; they needed imported high-technology products to maintain their economies. Asteroid settlements like Chaumort, whose financial situation was none too strong to start with, were going to shoulder a heavy cost for the crisis not of their making. What most of these backwater communities shared was their remoteness; so if say an essential cargo were to arrive on a starship, then it was not inconceivable that said starship would be given docking permission. The local system congress wouldn’t know, and therefore wouldn’t be able to prevent it. That cargo could then (for a modest charter fee) be distributed to help other small disadvantaged communities by inter-planetary ships, whose movements were not subject to any Confederation proscription.
Chaumort was quietly establishing itself as an important node in a whole new market. The kind of market starships such as the Villeneuve’s Revenge were uniquely qualified to exploit.
André had spoken to several people in the bars frequented by space industry crews and local merchants, voicing his approval for this turn of events, expressing an interest in being able to help Chaumort and its people in these difficult times. In short, becoming known. It was a game of contacts, and André had been playing it for decades.
Which was why he was currently sitting at a table waiting for a man he’d never seen before to show up. A bunch of teenagers hurried past, one of the lads snatching a basket of bread rolls from the café’s table. His comrades laughed and cheered his bravado, and then ran off before the patron discovered the theft. André no longer smiled at the reckless antics of youth. Adolescents were a carefree breed; a state to which he had long aspired, and which his chosen profession had singularly failed to deliver. It seemed altogether unfair that happiness should exist only at one end of life, and the wrong end at that. It should be something you came in to, not left further and further behind.
A flash of colour caught his eye. All the delinquents had tied red handkerchiefs around their ankles. What a stupid fashion.
“Captain Duchamp?”
André looked up to see a middle-aged Asian-ethnic man dressed in a smart black silk suit with flapping sleeves. The tone and the easy body posture indicated an experienced negotiator; too smooth for a lawyer, lacking the confidence of the truly wealthy. A middleman.
André tried not to smile too broadly. The bait had been swallowed. Now for the price.
The medical nanonic around Erick’s left leg split open from crotch to ankle, sounding as though someone were ripping strong fabric. Dr Steibel and the young female nurse slowly teased the package free.
“Looks fine,” Dr Steibel decided.
Madeleine grinned at Erick and pulled a disgusted face. The leg was coated in a thin layer of sticky fluid, residue of the package unknitting from his flesh. Below the goo, his skin was swan-white, threaded with a complicated lacework of blue veins. Scars from the burns and vacuum ruptures were patches of thicker translucent skin.
Now the package covering his face and neck had been removed, Erick sucked in a startled breath as cool air gusted over the raw skin. His cheeks and forehead were still tingling from the same effect, and they’d been uncovered two hours ago.
He didn’t bother looking at the exposed limb. Why bother? All it contained was memories.
“Give me nerve channel access, please,” Dr Steibel asked. He was looking into an AV pillar, disregarding Erick completely.
Erick complied, his neural nanonics opening a channel directly into his spinal cord. A series of instructions were datavised over, and his leg rose to the horizontal before flexing his foot about.
“Okay.” The doctor nodded happily, still lost in the information the pillar was directing at him. “Nerve junctions are fine, and the new tissue is thick enough. I’m not going to put the package back on, but I do want you to apply the moisturizing cream I’ll prescribe. It’s important the new skin doesn’t dry out.”
“Yes, Doc,” Erick said meekly. “What about . . . ?” He gestured at the packages enveloping his upper torso and right arm.
Dr Steibel flashed a quick smile, slightly concerned at his patient’s listless nature. “ ’Fraid not. Your AT implants are integrating nicely, but the process isn’t anywhere near complete yet.”
“I see.”
“I’ll give you some refills for those support modules you’re dragging around with you. These deep invasion packages you’re using consume a lot of nutrients. Make sure the reserves don’t get depleted.”
He picked up the support module which Madeleine had repaired and glanced at the pair of them. “I’d strongly advise no further exposure to antagonistic environments for a while, as well. You can function at a reasonably normal level now, Erick, but only if you don’t stress your metabolism. Do not ignore warnings from your metabolic monitor program. Nanonic packages are not to be regarded as some kind of infallible safety net.”
“Understood.”
“I take it you’re not flying away for a while.”
“No. All starship flights are cancelled.”
“Good. I want you to keep out of free fall as much as possible, it’s a dreadful medium for a body to heal in. Check in to a hotel in the high gravity section while you’re here.” He datavised a file over. “That’s the exercise regime for your legs. Stick to it, and I’ll see you again in a week.”
“Thanks.”
Dr Steibel nodded benevolently at Madeleine as he left the treatment room. “You can pay the receptionist on your way out.”
The nurse began to spray a soapy solution over Erick’s legs, flushing away the mucus. He used a neural nanonic override to stop a flinch when she reached his genitals. Thank God they hadn’t been badly injured, just superficial skin damage from the vacuum.
Madeleine gave him an anxious glance over the nurse’s back. “Have you got much cash in your card?” she datavised.
“About a hundred and fifty fuseodollars, that’s all,” he datavised back. “André hasn’t transferred this month’s salary over yet.”
“I’ve got a couple of hundred, and Desmond should have some left. I think we can pay.”
“Why should we? Where the hell is Duchamp? He should be paying for this. And my AT implants were only the first phase.”
“Busy with some cargo agent, so he claimed. Leave it with me, I’ll find out how much we owe the hospital.”
Erick waited until she’d left, then datavised the hospital’s net processor for the Confederation Navy Bureau. The net management computer informed him there was no such eddress. He swore silently, and accessed the computer’s directory, loading a search order for any resident Confederation official. There wasn’t one, not even a CAB inspector, too few ships used the spaceport to warrant the expense.
The net processor opened a channel to his neural nanonics. “Report back to the ship, please, mon enfant Erick,” André datavised. “I have won us a charter.”
If his neck hadn’t been so stiff, Erick would have shaken his head in wonder. A charter! In the middle of a Confederation quarantine. Duchamp was utterly unbelievable. His trial would be the shortest formality on record.
Erick swung his legs off the examination table, ignoring the nurse’s martyrdom as her spray hoses were dislodged. “Sorry, duty calls,” he said. “Now go and find me some trousers, I haven’t got all day.”
The middleman’s name was Iain Girardi. André envied him his temperament; nothing could throw him, no insult, no threat. His cool remained in place throughout the most heated of exchanges. It was just as well; André’s patience had long since been exhausted by his ungrateful crew.
They were assembled in the day lounge of the Villeneuve’s Revenge , the only place André considered secure enough to discuss Girardi’s proposition. Madeleine and Desmond had their feet snagged by a stikpad on the decking, while Erick was hanging on to the central ladder, his medical support modules clipped on to the composite rungs. André floated at Iain Girardi’s side, glowering at the three of them.