36

Inside the Emilia Kay, gently throbbing and humming with new life, Merral and Vero found seats in the passenger compartment behind the cockpit. There were eleven other people there; most appeared to be technicians and engineers. Merral realized that all of them seemed to know who he was. This will be the way now; the title “Captain” hangs round my neck like Lucas Ringell’s identity disk. As if sensing his unease, Anya smiled warmly at him. “Preflight nerves, eh?”

“The flying, Anya, is probably the easy bit.”

Then the engines coughed and rumbled to life, the airframe began to vibrate softly, and they rolled forward onto the main runway.

There was a long pause and then, without warning, came a sudden ear-jarring blast of thrusters and the ship began accelerating forward until, after what seemed an uncomfortably long time, it shuddered free of the ground.

Ten minutes later Merral slipped forward into the cockpit and stood quietly at the back. The view ahead out of the expansive windscreen caught his attention immediately; whatever vices the Series D might have had, poor pilot visibility was not one of them. Through the broad, bronze-tinted screen Merral could see a mosaic of small, white, fluffy clouds hanging over the brilliant blue-green sea, the golden rays of the late-afternoon sun illuminating the clouds and casting vast black shadows on the ruffled waters below. The effect was one of great beauty and charm, and Merral felt uplifted and somehow soothed. It is a view I could watch for ages. Then he reminded himself that today—and for the foreseeable future—preoccupying himself with the admiration of creation was something for which he and others might pay a high price. It was yet another disturbing thought.

He dragged his eyes down to look around the spacious cockpit. Only once or twice had he been in a similar position in any atmosphere craft when it was flying, and he didn’t know what to expect. But he saw nothing in either the many screens and lights or the language or attitudes of Perena, the copilot, and the flight engineer to raise any alarm. All seemed ordered and calm.

Perena glanced back and motioned him to her side.

“Everything okay back there?” she asked, keeping her eyes on a multicolored display of daunting complexity.

“Fine. Noisy though.”

“Yes. Ideally we would have replaced the acoustic insulation, but there were other priorities.”

“And everything is all right here, Captain?”

“So far fine, Captain,” she answered, an amused irony in her tone. “Barely two hours’ flying time. But she’s doing okay. Some fine-tuning needs to be done.”

He watched her eyes flick carefully across the screen. “But no, Emilia Kay is one nice old lady. I have a good feeling for her.”

Perena gestured forward with her head. “We are flying due south for another few minutes. Mainly to mislead anyone watching by giving the impression that we are going to one of the Farakethan Islands.”

“Deception again . . . ,” Merral remarked, as much to himself as to her.

“Yes, sorry. I think we shall all be forced to retake Basic Ethics when this is over.” As she said it, she gazed up at him with a troubled expression. I too am worried, it seemed to say.

She looked back at a screen. “But, more immediately, I’m concerned by the weather. There’s the tail of a storm belt coming in, and we will probably intercept it in forty minutes.”

“How bad?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “That’s the fun. Vero’s ensuring that all the observation satellites, including the weather monitors, were down today was clever, but it has left us blind too.”

“You can’t fly above it?”

“No. We are staying pretty low to keep well over the horizon from anything watching in northern Menaya.”

There was a gesture from the copilot.

“The turn coming up. Watch out ahead.” Perena’s voice was flat.

The ship banked left gently, and as it turned, the vista ahead changed. The isolated clouds seemed to suddenly cluster, thicken, and darken, and as they did, they lost their innocence and became threatening. As if to add emphasis, the ship was buffeted slightly, and Merral reached out to hold a strut.

When he looked forward again, there was just a wall of black dense cloud ahead stretching from the sea below to a level high above them. Staring at it, Merral could make out swirling and boiling billows within the cloud barrier. A flicker of lightning illuminated the interior of a cloud column.

Although he could hear the quiet but urgent discussion occurring among the three crew members, Merral felt unable to take his eyes off the scene before him. The view seemed somehow symbolic of all that had happened over the last few months—how his life and that of Farholme had gone from an infinitely open and benevolent landscape to one over which a turbulent darkness loomed.

Perena, her voice cool and tense, interrupted his thoughts. “Merral, we are going to risk flying between the cells of the front. Sensors say it’s a thin but violent weather unit. As you can see. We have about ten minutes before it gets really rough. Better make sure everybody is strapped in back there.”

With a final glance at the impending cloud mass, Merral slipped back into the passenger cabin as another shudder struck the ship.

“Captain’s warning,” he announced as he took his seat. “Storm ahead. Fasten belts.”

Merral caught a shudder of expectation from Vero and remembered that he was a bad traveler.

“You’re serious?” he said, peering nervously at him.

“’Fraid so. She’s says it’s all your fault, switching off the weather sats.”

“Ah. It seemed a good idea at the time. I have antinauseants. Oh no, they’re in my bag.”

“Where’s that?”

“In the hold. Oh, the moment you get a new Gate here I’m back to Earth. The weather on the Made Worlds isn’t for me. Not—”

“Alert! Imminent turbulence!” proclaimed a mechanical voice from above their heads.

The ship suddenly dropped as if the air had been removed from underneath it.

For a second it seemed to Merral as if his stomach had been punched skyward, then he was crushed down in his seat.

All around a great rattling and slithering erupted as unsecured objects flew around the cabin and crashed against the floor and walls. Someone’s diary flew past Merral and struck the side with a crash. There were exclamations and groans around him. The Emilia Kay banked and then nosed slightly upward. There was more shuddering and creaking.

Above the noise, coming vaguely from somewhere below and behind the cabin, Merral was aware of a strangely ominous rumble. Perena’s voice, now insistent and tense, sounded through the speaker. “Captain, Anya, can you come forward, please?”

Merral released his belt and made his way forward carefully as the ship jolted again. The worrying rumbling below them continued. As Anya joined him, he caught a glimpse of Vero reaching for a sick bag.

The strained and tense atmosphere in the cockpit and the flashing red light on Perena’s screen confirmed Merral’s unease. She didn’t look up but gestured to an ancillary monitor.

The image on it was a wide-angle view of the hull interior and, as Merral watched, he saw a large yellow drum roll along the floor and strike a crate. He now knew the source of the rumbling.

“We have something loose among the cargo,” Perena announced in a coolly precise tone. “It shouldn’t have happened, but it has. Anya, is it one of yours?”

There was a cluck of distress from her sister. “Yes. It’s the fifty-liter drum of disinfecting agent. Thyrol 56.”

“Full strength?” Merral asked, remembering the care enforced when they used it in the lab for sterilizing equipment. There was a new, violent shuddering, and he clutched the seat back. Out of the window, he could only see a swirling blackness ahead now. Raindrops were splattering on the windscreen.

“Yes,” answered Anya. “The concentrate. We assumed a potential major biohazard risk. But it should have been secured properly.”

“Results if it breaks open, Sister?” The anxiety underlying Perena’s level and controlled tone was all too obvious.

“Not good. It’s horribly oxidizing; it will dissolve strapping and maybe insulation.”

Perena didn’t look up. “And if it meets explosives?”

There was the briefest of pauses. “Guess . . .”

A new jolting began. Ahead, a flash of lightning sliced through the darkness.

Perena flicked an urgent finger at the engineer next to her. “Pierre, start rehearsing the routine for ejecting the cargo module.”

Merral caught the engineer’s eyes widen. “Ejecting? Yes, Captain.”

Perena glanced at the hold image, where the yellow barrel was still careering around.

“Merral, if I feel it’s leaking I have no option but to shed the whole cargo module. It won’t do the aerodynamics or the mission any good, but we may land in one piece. Better get a couple of men to try to secure it. Fast.”

She flicked a switch. “The hold microphone is on for anybody to communicate with me. I’ll give you warning once we start the ejection sequence. Sister, get back to your seat; there’s more turbulence to come.”

The ship bounced around again as Merral made his way back to the passenger compartment. Ten faces with various degrees of anxiety on them looked up at him; an eleventh was too busy burying itself in a large brown bag. For a brief moment, Merral paused, realizing that, as captain, he could just order them to do it while he stayed up with the others. Somehow, though, he felt that wouldn’t be right.

“Lorrin! You!” he yelled at the two men at the end of the row of seats. “Follow me!”

As the men unbuckled themselves, Merral made his way down to the hold. As he went down the spiral staircase, further jolts bounced him off his feet, throwing him against the walls.

The rumbling noise was louder at the bottom of the stairs. As he triggered the hatch switch, he saw for the first time the multiple seals around the door to the cargo module. It came back to him that on the model he had made in his childhood, part of the fun had been sliding the specialist load components in and out.

As the hatch door slid open, a pungent chemical aroma struck Merral. We have some leakage already. He paused, peering across the darkened cavern of the hold as he tried to evaluate the scene. The ship was buffeted again. Ahead the yellow drum rolled angrily backward and forward.

Perena’s voice spoke from above him. “Okay, Merral, I have you on camera. Is it leaking?”

“Well . . . there’s a smell.”

“Okay. It’s leaking. We’d better start preparations for ejection.”

There was a jolt. Everything in the hold seemed to lurch and creak. The drum struck a crate with a loud crack.

“Perena, wait. I think it’s a minor leak so far.”

“Negative, Merral. Pierre has pointed out that we can only safely eject on the straight and level. We have to do it before we hit the main belt of turbulence.”

Merral looked at the hold. “Give me five minutes. Please.”

“Three.” There was a note in her voice that forbade further negotiation. Through a porthole a flash of lightning flickered.

“Okay. Perena, can you put her into a smooth climb? Say, five degrees. I want the barrel to slowly, slowly roll to the rear.”

“Okay.”

Merral turned to the men behind him. “We have to get that barrel upright and secure it. And quickly. Try not to get any fluid on your hands.”

The ship began to tilt gently nose upward. After a moment’s hesitation, the barrel began to roll backward. Then it accelerated and for a horrible moment, Merral thought it was going to smash against the far wall, but the tilt eased off and it thudded to a stop.

“Now!” Merral shouted. He ran across the hold, winding his way past the boxes and the edge of the hoverer. The hold seemed full of bouncing and clattering objects. Under the lights, he could see glistening smears of fluid on the barrel. On the floor, though, there were only a few small drops. So far, at least, any leakage had been minor.

Handling the barrel, he realized, was going to be difficult, and he wished he had gloves. Trying to ignore the now persistent shuddering, he steadied himself against a sled, looking around for something to handle the barrel with. There was another flash outside, and he glimpsed the window smeared with rain.

To his right Merral saw a pile of familiar gray fabric cylinders in a box labeled “Tents.” He jerked one of them out and threw it to Lorrin, who caught it.

“Open it!” he shouted. The shaking was almost regular now, as if the ship were bouncing over a corrugated surface.

Lorrin tore it open and folds of green fabric spilled out. “Use it to push the drum upright!” Merral yelled, trying to make himself heard over the noises of the lurching ship.

As the two moved to the bouncing drum, Merral moved back, searching for something to lash it against the wall. Spotting the end of some line protruding from a holdall, he pulled out a coil of rope. He ran back with it to where the men had managed to get the barrel upright, smelling the chemical again and noticing that the floor around them was slippery. The hold was humid, and Merral was aware that he was sweating profusely.

Perena’s voice echoed about them. “Merral! We have to initiate separation shortly. Is it secured yet?”

Merral looked at the barrel, aware that the rope was still in his hands.

“Almost. Can’t you wait?”

“No. I need a decision. Can you guarantee it’s safe?”

Lightning flashed, so close that even through the portholes it illuminated the hold. An instant later, a peal of thunder rang through the hull and the lights above them flickered briefly.

Merral glanced at the men by him, aware of their pale, sweat-beaded faces watching him. Lord, he prayed, give me wisdom. He was aware that his options were few. If he told Perena to stop the ejection sequence and he couldn’t tie the Thyrol 56 safely in place, they might well blow up and perish. Yet if he let the cargo be ejected, they might never get another chance against the intruders. Merral wanted to shout, I’ve been captain for less than twelve hours and already I have to make an appalling decision!

“Perena, cancel the ejection procedure,” he said. “Repeat, cancel the ejection procedure. On my orders. If we blow up, I’ll take responsibility.”

“Cancelled on your orders,” came back the quiet voice. There was a further jolt. “So if we blow up, you’ll apologize as we wait to enter heaven, eh?”

For once she sounds like her sister.

With the two men pushing the barrel against the wall through the fabric, Merral looped the rope round a strut. Trying to ride with the bucking of the ship, he thrust the other end round a hole in a girder on the other side. With each jolt, Merral half expected to be thrown free. Somehow he managed to wrap the cord outside the tent fabric and pull it as tight as he could.

The barrel stiffened upright and Lorrin, his face running with sweat, gave a cracked cheer.

“See if you can find the leak,” Merral snapped as he tightened the knot, desperately hoping that the barrel was not irreparably cracked. He tied off the rope awkwardly and started another loop across the barrel.

“Sensors say severe turbulence coming up in less than a minute,” Perena’s insistent tone sounded from above them. “We can’t turn back.”

“The cap has been loosened, sir,” Lorrin shouted as the second loop was tied.

The ship lurched again and Merral could hear the Thyrol sloshing about in the drum tank. As he caught a fresh waft of its acrid fumes, his eyes watered. Now he grabbed a corner of the tent, found the cap, and twisted tight. For a desperate moment the fabric, greasy with liquid, would not grip the cap. Then it caught and Merral felt the lid tighten under his grip.

“You guys—get back! I’ll finish this off.”

They looked at each other, hesitating.

“Let me do it, sir!” Lorrin shouted.

“No! Get back! That’s an order!”

The ship seemed to fall again. Merral held on, and when he had stopped being jolted about, he screwed the cap further, until it would go no tighter.

Gasping, he stood back, bracing himself against a strut and another crate. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the others now exiting the hold.

Without warning the ship dropped.

The force was such that, for a moment, Merral realized that every part of him was off the ground. Then he crashed down, his shoulder jarring painfully against a crate. Yet, although the barrel had bounced up and down, it had stayed lashed against the wall.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Merral stepped back and braced himself against a crate as further jolts struck the ship. It would have to do.

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and carefully, mindful of his throbbing shoulder, he turned and made his way back to the hatch.

Back in the passenger compartment, aware that he smelt of disinfecting agent, Merral lurched back into his seat and strapped himself in. There was the sound of clapping, and he looked up to see everyone applauding him. Embarrassed, Merral shrugged and gestured to the beaming Lorrin and the other man.

“Very nice, Captain. And you two—many thanks,” Perena commented.

“So we may survive, eh, Vero?” Merral said, turning to his friend.

But Vero, his head deep inside the bag, was preoccupied with being violently sick.

An hour or so later, the appalling bouncing and shuddering began to wane and, shortly afterward, Merral felt the ship descending in a slow, low-angle flight path. Despite the limited illumination on the landing strip, Perena brought the Emilia Kay in smoothly to land on the wet surface. Or maybe, thought Merral, it just seemed smooth after what he had passed through.

“Welcome to Tanaris,” announced Perena. “Sorry about the flight.”

One by one, Merral and the other passengers filed down the stairs, picked up their bags, walked out of the ship, and stood on the gritty basalt runway. Under the thick purple-black clouds that hung overhead, a premature night was setting in. Here at least, though, the storm seemed to have already passed over, and there was only an occasional flurry of heavy raindrops. Far away, westward over the seething sea, the lightning and thunder still erupted spasmodically.

Merral, rejoicing to have his feet on the ground, said a silent but heartfelt prayer of thanks. He looked around in the humid gloom, aware that, by his side, Vero was feebly propping himself up against the fuselage. Beyond the strip, the lights of the runway showed a somber landscape of bare and jagged black rocks broken only by the occasional low tree. From the other end of the runway, a line of paired lights revealed a column of approaching vehicles.

Merral saw that Perena was next to him. “Is Vero all right?” she asked in a voice of quiet concern.

“Yes,” Merral said, “but it’s the last time he will switch the weather sats off when there is a risk of him flying. Nice landing, though.”

“It wasn’t hard, really. The Tanaris strip was made originally for emergency landings for in-system shuttles if Isterrane was closed with bad weather. I think it’s the longest on the planet. I could have come down vertically, but you need to be absolutely certain of your equipment to do that.” Then she lowered her voice and whispered to Merral. “Look—while the vehicles are arriving—come into the hold with me.”

Inside the ship, the smell of the disinfecting agent was still powerful and Perena sniffed dubiously. “Nasty stuff. Anyway, full marks. We survived. So you made a bold and decisive decision.”

“Thanks. And if we hadn’t survived?”

“It wouldn’t have been bold and decisive; it would have been rash, foolhardy, and badly judged. We won this one. But you got a lot of credit for your action, and you made the right decision.”

“It wasn’t easy.” Merral was surprised at the emotion in his voice. “Would you really have ejected the module?”

Perena shrugged unhappily. “Under the old rules, yes. By letting you do this I broke with Standard Operating Procedures. But do those old rules apply in what is, effectively, a time of war?” She sighed. “You see, Merral, we are all having to learn new things and new attitudes.”

Making no further comment, Perena walked over to the barrel and peered around it.

“What are you looking for?” Merral asked.

“I want to find out why it broke loose,” she said, squatting and staring to one side of the drum. “Under normal conditions we’d have a full inquiry. There’s no time here. But I’d still like to know. It’s very odd—almost unprecedented—for a load to break free. But see, here’s where it was attached.” She leaned forward and lifted up a broken strand of silvery webbing. “Okay, so it snapped. But why, eh, Merral?” She looked at him, her face angular in the hold lighting.

Merral shrugged.

“Well,” she said, “we have an imaging record of the loading, so we will find who was responsible. And I’ll get this looked at in daylight.” She peered closely at it and muttered, “You know I think this is old. It’s got an orange safety thread in it.”

Merral bent down and looked at it, noting that he, too, could make out a fine orange line along it. Safety threads occurred in most critical rope or straps, whether for climbing or for lashing down equipment. Green indicated pristine condition with full strength, but over time and use that shifted to yellow, orange, and then red to indicate a progressive weakening. It was a well-known ruling that, for critical tasks, you never used less than green. He turned to Perena. “Okay. Let me have a full report. We nearly lost the mission before we started.”

“We could have lost us.”

There were noises at the hold door. A tall, green-clad man with a long face dominated by a hooked nose climbed into the hold. “Captain D’Avanos? Captain Lewitz?”

“Indeed,” said Merral, struck by the way the man’s wide smile was accentuated by his thin dark moustache. There was an awkward salute and smile on the broad face.

“Lieutenant Ferenc Thuron, sir. Welcome to Tanaris.”

“Thank you.” Thuron, Merral thought, going through the list of names in his mind. “Ah yes. You’re a team leader?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your team will come in from the west. Right, Ferenc?”

“Yes, sir, but I am afraid everyone calls me Frankie.” The gentle brown eyes were apologetic. “The Ferenc was because my dad was into the Old Hungarian at the time I was born, but it’s confusing to spell. So it’s Frankie. But only if it’s no trouble. You’re the boss.”

Merral found it hard not to smile back. “Trouble, Lieutenant, is a relative thing, and you going from Ferenc to Frankie does not really rate in the scheme of things. Not now. Does it, Captain Lewitz?”

She grinned. “Hardly. Not now.”

Frankie looked around and sniffed. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you haven’t half had the ship cleaned out, have you?”

“A leak, Frankie.”

“Yeah. I guess that explains it. I’m ready to take you to the base. Any immediate instructions, sir?”

“Only that I want to have a meeting with you, the experts, and the other team leaders later. We need to get started here fast.”

“Sounds okay, sir.”

As he exited the hold, Merral saw, by vehicles, other men wearing green. With a shock of recognition, Merral realized they were in uniform, and suddenly the significance of what he was about struck him. We have made soldiers, and I must lead them. It was all he could do to stop himself from trembling.

Zak, smartly dressed in a green uniform, was waiting for Merral at the main tent.

“Sir,” he said, with a smart salute, “good to see you here. Welcome to Camp Alpha.”

“ ‘Camp Alpha’? I thought this was Tanaris?”

Zak looked nonplussed. “We figured, sir, we ought to give it a name that wasn’t on maps. So if anyone overheard they wouldn’t know the address. That’s what they did.”

“I see,” Merral said, trying to ignore feelings that he was utterly out of his depth. “Camp Alpha, it is. Everything okay, er . . . Lieutenant?”

“Good, sir. Do you want me to brief you now?”

“I need to change my clothes.”

“Yes, sir, your uniform’s in the tent there. There are a couple of tunics and trousers; we weren’t sure of your size. You’ll want to put them on straightaway.”

“Thank you, Zak.” Merral forced himself to smile. “Let’s have the briefing later. I want to meet all the lieutenants, in half an hour, say, at seven-thirty.”

“That’s 1930 hours, sir?”

“Nineteen—? Yes, of course, Lieutenant, that’s what I meant to say. Pass the word around.”

“I’ll give the order, sir.”

Merral hesitated. “Yes, well, whatever. Go on and do it, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir!” Zak said with a snap in his voice, saluted, turned, and left.

Merral walked into the tent, closed the flap, and stared at the uniforms on his bed. He sat on the folding chair and put his head in his hands.

“Oh, Lord, they’ve picked the wrong man,” he said in quiet prayer.

Less than an hour later, the last few of the ten men and women Merral had summoned came into the office tent and took their seats around a long collapsible table. As the chattering and introductions slowly died away, Merral, feeling a little more sure of himself, gazed around again.

On his immediate left were five men in the same uniform that he now wore. All were in their mid- or late twenties, and Merral, whose twenty-seventh birthday was still six months away, felt slightly encouraged that he would not have to order men about who were much older than him. He reviewed again who they were and what their responsibilities would be if it came to fighting. Closest to him was Zak, sitting bolt upright in his chair as if he found it perfectly natural to be on a remote island wearing a military uniform and preparing to do battle. It wasn’t just pretense either, Merral reminded himself. By all accounts, Zak had excelled in organizing the setting up of the camp and had been designated as the leader of the team that was to approach the ship from the north.

Next to him was the lean, tall figure of gentle, apologetic Frankie Thuron, who, it turned out, was a chemistry research student and a long-distance runner. Beyond Frankie sat Fred Huang, a large, long-limbed man who wore his thick and lengthy dark hair tied back and who seemed to have a permanently fixed grin and loud, cheery voice. Fred, Merral knew, was a marine biologist and an accomplished diver from one of the smaller islands of the Mazarma Chain. It was Fred, Merral reminded himself, who would go with the diplomatic team and attempt first contact.

Forcing himself not to think about whether Fred’s mission could succeed, Merral moved his gaze to the tall figure of Barry Narandel slouched in a chair beyond him. Barry, down to lead the reserves, had his hair cut so close that it was almost stubble and thoughtful blue eyes that seemed to drift around in a lazy scrutiny. The fifth of the line of uniformed men was Lucas “Luke” Tenerelt, who had been designated chaplain, his green uniform marked with improvised bronze clerical flashings. Merral knew from his folder that Luke, whose almost gaunt face and piercing dark eyes were accentuated by the basic lighting in the tent, was in his late thirties and had, after an outstanding dual-track theology and engineering degree, become a leader in his home congregation in Maraplant.

As the silence deepened, Merral turned his gaze to those on his right. There was Perena, the still-gray-faced Vero, and next to him, looking unusually solemn, Anya. Beyond her was the head of communications, the short but strikingly blonde Maria Dalphey, and next to her, Lucia “Lucy” Dmitri. Lucy had been seconded from the Farholme Atmosphere Transport Board and made responsible for the logistics; she was a willowy brunette with green eyes, and Merral was struck by her look of quiet competence.

So, the solemn thought came to Merral, this is my team. Well, his first impressions suggested that Vero, Corradon, and Clemant had chosen well. Merral opened his folder to a blank piece of paper. “Gentlemen and ladies,” he began, wondering even as he said it whether it was the right mode of address, “I just have a few things to say, and then in half an hour we shall adjourn for the evening meal.”

He caught the grimace on Vero’s pallid face. “For those who feel like eating, that is. But I thought it would be good if Luke, as our chaplain, would pray for us.”

Luke nodded, got firmly to his feet, and as everybody bowed their heads, prayed clearly in a loud, confident, and booming voice. “Lord of the Assembly, we pray that You go with us in our planning and preparations. We pray too that we do not forget You in the urgency of the hour and that You protect us all through the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, from all the powers and principalities of evil that we face. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Merral felt that if Luke had any doubts about the task ahead, he kept them well hidden.

As Luke sat down, Merral looked around. “By any reckoning,” he said, “the last meeting like this happened in the Rebellion. So I suppose this is, very sadly, a historic occasion.” He watched heads shake in agreement, then went on. “The schedule is this: After the meal, I want to address everybody briefly. Then we have three days of training ahead. Tomorrow I want an early morning meeting of us all for a progress report. At eight.” He caught a glance from Zak. “That is, 0800 hours. I would like to see you individually during the rest of the day. Is that okay?”

There were glances and nods of agreement. “Fine then. I want us now to go around. Briefly say who you are, what you see your job as being, and what stage you think your work is at now. Then we shall go and eat after that.”

There were more nods.

“So then, let’s start with Zak here. . . .”

When they all went to eat, Merral felt so preoccupied about his forthcoming speech that he found he had lost his appetite. After picking at the first course, he made an apology and went and stood outside the mess tent. His shoulder still ached.

In the darkness above him he could glimpse patches of fierce stars where the clouds had been ripped open. The air was still moist from the rain. Just beyond him, in a dip in the ground illuminated by a delicate spiderweb of silver lights, stretched the accommodation tents. Seventy tents, Merral reflected, perhaps two hundred people in total. Over half preparing to fight, the rest to support. All puzzled, all uncertain, and all looking to him for decisions and wisdom.

Merral watched the scene as he tried to rehearse his words, noting the tents with their eerie internal glow, the reflected glitter of the lights off the muddy pathways, and the shadowy figures padding to and fro. The sight in itself was not novel to him; he had camped a lot, but those campsites had never sounded like this. There were sounds aplenty here tonight, but there was no laughter and no noise of children, and all the voices he could make out were serious. Slowly, one by one, the men and women drifted toward a broad, level square that must once have been an extension of the runway.

A tall figure came over to him from the tent; it was Frankie. “Sir, sorry to disturb you. But it’ll soon be time for you to say something. There are a few guys we’ve posted as what they call perimeter guards and a couple of guys in the Comms center, but otherwise everyone will be here soon and waiting to hear you. And we are recording it for posterity. If that’s all right?”

Merral shook his head. “Why not, Frankie? Okay. Let’s go.”

They had made him a low platform out of stacked containers and turned lights onto it. Merral went and stood silently to one side, just out of the arc of illumination, watching the company as it gathered and half wondering whether he should have arranged for amplification. The dazzle of the lighting was such that he knew he would be unable to make out more than silhouettes facing him. Perhaps it was best he could not see their faces; he was nervous enough already. He had spoken regularly at conferences and meetings, but never at anything like this. Indeed, it occurred to him with a tingle of strange excitement, the last person to do anything exactly like this was the man whose identity disk hung cold and light against his chest. And he had been dead for a hundred and twenty centuries. Perhaps, Merral suddenly thought, he should have found the famous clip of Lucas Ringell briefing his men before the attack on the Centauri station.

Frankie nodded to him, teeth shining in the glare. “I’d say that they are about all here, sir. So whenever you are ready.”

Merral clapped him on the back and walked up slowly onto the platform. There he paused briefly, tensing involuntarily, as an expectant silence fell on the crowd before him. He was uncomfortably aware that they were all staring at him. He paused. So, help me, God.

“Ladies and gentlemen; troops and technicians; colleagues and comrades; above all, brothers and sisters in the Lord.” Merral paused, listening to his words die away in the silence, reassured that he was loud enough, that the words had come out at all. “I am unclear which of these titles I ought to address you with. So I address you with them all. I am Merral Stefan D’Avanos. Of Ynysmant, Menaya, Farholme.”

Take your time. Don’t fumble it out of nerves, keep making pauses. “Until yesterday I was Forester D’Avanos. My present title, given to me by our representatives, is that of captain of the Farholme Defense Unit. It is my hope to return shortly to my former title.”

Merral paused again, weighing his next words, relieved that nerves had not caused him to dry up. The stress was lifting; he felt more at ease. “Indeed, it is my real hope and prayer that all of us will shortly be able to return to our old professions. I would wish nothing more than that this extraordinary episode we have become drawn into be ended. I look forward to it being a footnote on one of the many pages of the history of the Assembly. However, our wishes are one thing and our duty is another.”

He stopped, let the words register, and continued. “I want to say to you that I have not taken up this task lightly. Indeed, I refused the commission for two days while I returned to my hometown to think it over. But what I found there convinced me that, however great the many risks of this operation are, the risks of not confronting the intruders are greater. They must be faced. If they are not, then all that we are may perish.”

The electric silence continued. “We do not know entirely what we face; all we know is that the intruders are from beyond the Assembly and are hostile to us. As some of you have apparently heard, Sentinel Enand and I have encountered them and were forced, reluctantly, to fight them for our lives. I plan to have a full briefing with the leaders on everything we know about them tomorrow. Now I will only say that they are strange and frightening and hostile, but also vulnerable. By the grace of God, our first contact resulted in substantial losses to them. I should warn you, though, that this may simply have been because they were caught unawares. They demonstrated the possession of weapons that we do not have. I have since learned that they have tried, and to some extent succeeded, in entering our data files in the Library at Isterrane. It is also almost certain that it was they who caused the destruction of the Gate.”

He heard someone say, “Told you so,” and a ripple of angry whispering ran through the crowd. Merral paused, letting everyone quiet down. An almost tangible silence returned. “Above all, I should warn you that there is a good deal of evidence that they are evil . . . and that they can transmit evil.” Merral felt hundreds of eyes staring at him. “If I may speak of something which is almost beyond my understanding, I want to warn you all that we may be moving into a spiritual atmosphere that is like nothing any of us has ever known. Or that anyone in the entire history of the Assembly has known since the Rebellion was ended.”

There were mutterings of agreement here and there, and Merral wondered if others had felt it. “All I can say,” he said, “is that of late I have been reading those parts of the Old and New Covenant writings that deal with the struggles against evil with a greater interest and a greater sense of reality and relevance than ever before. In the past when I read them, I, like you, always saw them largely as a sobering history. They recorded a time that we could rejoice was behind us. I have now come to realize that they may not represent just our past, but also our future. To every one of you I say this: watch; be mindful of your thoughts and words.”

He stopped for a moment. There was total silence. In the western distance, where a faint purple glow marked the remains of sunset, a fork of lightning flashed. He had planned to end here, but for some reason, he found himself continuing.

“In this present conflict, we have all been given a part to play. Some of us may find we dislike the part we have been given. Yet that is irrelevant. I, and you, must play the part we have been given as best we can.”

Merral caught his breath, aware of the tension all around him, and continued. “According to the present plan, we have just under eighty hours before contact. We need to make the most of every minute between now and then. I’ll take no questions now. I’m going to hand over to the chaplain to lead us now in prayer and a hymn.” He hesitated, suddenly overawed almost beyond bearing by the situation. “God be with you. With us. With the Assembly,” he said, his voice suddenly thickening with emotion.

As his words died away, Merral had no idea what reaction he would get: neither clapping nor prayers would have surprised him. Then a voice sang out, shaky at first but growing in strength:

“Lord of all worlds, whose mighty power

“Sustains your people hour by hour . . .”

One by one, others joined the voice until everybody was singing the great anthem, and the air seemed to vibrate with the words as if they were a challenge flung at the darkness.

Along the horizon, silver lightning flickered again. In support or in defiance? wondered Merral.