29

Earth.

A planet whose ecology was ruined beyond repair: the price it paid for elevating itself to be the Confederation’s supreme industrial and economic superpower. Overpopulated, ancient, decadent, and utterly formidable. This was the undeniable imperial heart of the human dominion.

It was also home.

Quinn Dexter admired the images building up on the bridge’s holoscreens. This time he could savour them with unhurried joy. Their official Nyvan flight authority code had been accepted by Govcentral Strategic Defence Command. As far as anyone was concerned, they were a harmless ship sent by a tiny government to buy defence components.

“Traffic control has given us a vector,” Dwyer said. “We have permission to dock at the Supra-Brazil tower station.”

“That’s good. Can you fly it?”

“I think so. It’s tough, we have to go around the Halo, and they’ve given us a narrow flight path, but I can handle that.”

Quinn nodded his permission without saying anything. Dwyer had been a perfect pain in the arse for the whole voyage, making out how difficult everything was before the flight computer performed whatever was required with faultless efficiency. An extraordinarily transparent attempt to show how indispensable he was. But then Quinn knew the effect he had on people, it was part of the fun.

Dwyer was immediately busy talking to the flight computer. Icons flurried over the console displays. Eight minutes later they were under power, accelerating at a third of a gee to curve southwards around the O’Neill Halo.

“Are we going down to the planet first?” Dwyer asked. He was growing progressively twitchier in contrast to Quinn’s deadly calm. “I didn’t know if you wanted to take over an asteroid.”

“Take over?” Quinn asked faintly.

“Yeah. You know, bring them the gospel of God’s Brother. Like we did for Jesup and the other three.”

“No, I don’t think so. Earth isn’t so arse backwards as Nyvan, it would never be that simple to convene the Night here. It must be corrupted from within. The sects will help me do that. Once I show them what I’ve become they’ll welcome me back. And of course, my friend Banneth is down there. God’s Brother understands.”

“Sure, Quinn, that’s good. Whatever you say.” The communications console bleeped for attention, which Dwyer happily gave it. Script flowed down one of the screens, which only amplified his distress as he read it. “Hell, Quinn, have you seen this?”

“God’s Brother gave me a great many gifts, but being psychic isn’t one of them.”

“It’s the clearance procedures we have to comply with after we dock. Govcentral security wants to ensure no possessed are on board.”

“Fuck that.”

“Quinn!”

“I do hope, I really fucking do hope that you’re not questioning me, Dwyer.”

“Shit, no way, Quinn. You’re the man, you know that.” His voice was verging on hysteria.

“Glad to hear it.”

The Brazilian orbital tower sprouted from the very heart of the South American continent, extending fifty-five thousand kilometres out into space. When it was in Earth’s penumbra, as it was when the Mount’s Delta approached, it was invisible to every visual sensor. However, in other electromagnetic wavelengths, and particularly the magnetic spectrum, it gleamed. A slim golden strand of impossible length, with minute scarlet particles skimming along it at tremendous speed.

There were two asteroids attached to the tower. Supra-Brazil, the anchor, was in geostationary orbit thirty-six thousand kilometres above the ground, where it had been mined to extract the carbon and silicon used in the tower’s construction. The second asteroid sat right at the tip, acting as a mass counterbalance to ensure the anchor remained stable, and damp down any dangerous harmonic oscillations in the tower which built up from running the lift capsules.

Because Supra-Brazil was the only section of the tower that was actually in orbit, it was the one place where ships could dock. Unlike every settled asteroid it didn’t rotate, nor were there any internal biosphere caverns. The three-hundred-metre-diameter tower ran cleanly through the rock’s centre; its principal structure perfectly black and perfectly circular. Positioned around the lower segment that stretched down to Earth were twenty-five magnetic rails along which the lift capsules rode, delivering tens of thousands of passengers and up to a hundred thousand tonnes of cargo a day. The other segment, reaching up to the counterbalance, supported a single rail, which was used barely once a month to ferry inspection and maintenance mechanoids to the individual section platforms.

The surface of the asteroid was covered with docking bays and all the usual spaceport support equipment. After three hundred and eighty-six years of continual operation, and the tower’s steady capacity expansion, there wasn’t a square metre of rock left visible.

Even with the Confederation quarantine operating, over six thousand ships a day were still using it, the majority of them from the Halo. They approached by positioning themselves ahead of the port, a long ribbon of diverse craft dropping down from a higher orbit. Navigation strobes and secondary drives produced twinkling cataracts of light as they split into a complex braid of traffic lanes a kilometre above the surface to reach their allocated bays. Departing ships formed an equally intricate helical pattern as they rose away into a higher orbit.

Mount’s Delta slotted into its designated traffic lane, gliding around the vast stem of the tower to dock in the floor of a valley formed by pyramids of heat exchangers, tanks, and thermo-dump panels, three times the size of the Egyptian originals. When the docking cradle had drawn it down into the bottom of the bay, a necklace of lights around the rim came on, illuminating every centimetre of the hull. Figures in black space armour were secured around the bay walls, ready to deal with anyone trying to leave the ship by irregular means.

“Now what?” Quinn asked.

“We have to give the security service total access to our flight computer. They’re going to run a complete diagnostic to make sure there aren’t any unexplained glitches anywhere in the ship. They’ll also monitor us through the internal sensors at the same time. Once they’re satisfied there’s no glitch we’re allowed out into the bay. We have to undergo a whole series of tests, including datavises from our neural nanonics. Quinn, we haven’t got any bloody neural nanonics, and a starship’s crew always have them fitted. Always!”

“I told you,” Quinn’s hollow voice said from deep within his hood, “I will deal with it. What else?”

Dwyer gave the display a wretched stare. “Once we’ve been cleared, we’re put in a secure holding area while the ship is searched by an armed security team. After it’s cleared, we will be allowed out.”

“I’m impressed.”

Dwyer’s communications console was showing a demand from the port’s security service to access the flight computer. “What do we do?” he shrieked. “We can’t fly away, we can’t comply. We’re trapped. They’ll storm us. They’ll have projectile weapons we can’t beat. Or they’ll rip the capsule bulkhead open and decompress us. Or electrocute us with—”

“You’re trapped.” It was only a tiny whisper, but it stopped Dwyer’s rant dead.

“You can’t! Quinn, I did everything you asked. Everything! I’m loyal. I’ve always been fucking loyal to you.”

Quinn extended an arm, a single white finger emerging from the end of his black sleeve.

Dwyer threw out both hands. White fire screamed out of his palms to lash at the black-robed incarnation of Death. Bridge consoles flickered madly as corkscrews of pale flame bounced off Quinn, flashing through the air to bury themselves in bulkheads and equipment.

“Finished?” Quinn asked.

Dwyer was sobbing.

“You’re weak. I like that. It means you’ll serve me well. I will find you again, and use you.”

Dwyer evacuated his stolen body just before the first burn of pain smashed along his spinal cord.

The security team assigned to the Mount’s Delta knew something was wrong as soon as the starship docked. Its routine datavises began to drop out for seconds at a time. When the bay’s management officer tried to contact the captain there was no reply. A level one alert was declared.

The docking bay and its immediate surroundings were sealed up and isolated from the rest of Supra-Brazil. One squad of combat officers and another of technical experts were rushed to the docking bay to complement the original team. Communications lines were opened to an advisory panel made up from senior commanders in the Govcentral Internal Security Directorate and the Strategic Defence force.

Four minutes after it docked, the clipper-class starship’s datavises had returned to normal, but there was still no response from the captain nor any other member of the crew. The security advisory panel authorized the team to go to the next stage.

A datalink umbilical jacked into a socket on the starship’s hull. The GISD’s most powerful decryption computers were brought on line to crack the flight computer’s access codes; it took less than thirty seconds. The nature of the bridge’s modified processors and programs were obvious: customized to be run by possessed. Almost simultaneously, the sensors began relaying their images from the interior of the small life-support capsule. There was nobody inside. However, there was one anomaly whose cause wasn’t immediately apparent. A thick red paste was splashed across almost every surface in the bridge. Then an eyeball drifted past one of the sensors, and that mystery was solved—leaving a bigger paradox. The blood hadn’t yet congealed. Some one or thing on board had slaughtered the crew member only minutes ago. GISD could not permit an unknown threat to remain at large; if the possessed had developed a fresh method of attack it had to be investigated.

An airlock tube extended out from the side of the bay. After arming themselves with chemical explosive fragmentation grenades and submachine guns, five GISD combat officers advanced through it to the life-support capsule. Each of them encountered a small squall of cold air in the tube as they pulled themselves along, barely noticeable through their armour.

Once inside, they opened every storage locker and cabinet to try to locate the missing crew members. There was nobody to be found. Even the flight computer confirmed no atmosphere was being consumed.

An engineering crew from the port was sent in to strip down the life-support capsule. It took them six hours to remove every single fitting, including the decking. The advisory council was left with an empty sphere seven metres in diameter with severed cables and hoses poking through sealed inlets. A meticulous examination of the flight computer records, evaluating power consumption, command interfaces, fuel expenditure, and utilities usage showed that there must have been two people on board when the Mount’s Delta docked. But DNA analysis on the blood and tissue smearing the bridge showed it had all come from one body.

The Mount’s Delta was powered down, and its cryogenic tanks emptied. Then the entire ship was slowly and methodically cut up into sections, from the support framework to the fusion generators, even the energy patterning nodes. No unit or module bigger than a cubic metre was left intact.

The media, of course, soon discovered the “ghost flight” from Nyvan; and rover reporters swarmed around the bay, demanding and bribing information from anyone they could find connected to the security operation. It wasn’t long before they managed to gain legal access to a sensor in the bay itself thanks to two judges whose motives were somewhat financially inclined. Several tens of millions of people in Earth’s arcologies started accessing the investigation directly, watching the starship being cut up by mechanoids, and waiting eagerly for a possessed to be captured.

Quinn saw no reason to stay inside the dry deprivation of the ghost realm once he had passed unseen through all the security checks; he rematerialized and sat in a luxurious active contour leather seat in the lift capsule’s Royale Class lounge. He was near one of the panoramic windows, which would allow him to watch the dawn rise over South America as he descended vertically towards it at three thousand kilometres an hour. With his hawkish, stressed face and expensively conservative blue silk suit he slotted perfectly into the character of an aristocratic businessman.

For the last quarter of the journey down the tower he sipped his complimentary Norfolk Tears, which was continually topped up by a stewardess, and gave the AV projector above the cocktail bar an occasional glance. Earth’s media companies competed enthusiastically to update him on the progress of the search through the dissected components of the Mount’s Delta. If the rest of the lounge wondered at his intermittent guffaws of contempt, Earth’s obsessive cult of personal privacy forbade them from enquiring as to the reason.

•   •   •

Jed spent most of the voyage sitting on the pine floorboards in the Mindor’s lounge, gazing out at the starfield. There had never been a time in his life when he felt more content. The stars themselves were beautiful seen like this, and every now and then the hellhawk would swallow through a wormhole. That was exciting, even though there wasn’t much to see then, just a kind of dark grey fog swirling around outside that was never quite in focus. Coupled with the sense of invulnerability generated by riding in the hellhawk was the anticipation of Valisk, never stronger than now.

I did it. For the first time in my life I set myself a solid goal and saw it through. Against some pretty nasty odds, too. Me and all the other kids from nowhere, we made it to Valisk. And Kiera.

He had brought his modified recording of her, although he no longer needed it. Every time he closed his eyes he could see that smile, thick soft hair falling over her bare shoulders, perfectly rounded cheeks. She would congratulate him personally when they arrived. She must, because he was the leader. So they would probably get to talk, because she’d want to know how difficult it was for them, how they had struggled. She would be sympathetic, because that was her nature. Then perhaps—

Gari and Navar bounded into the lounge, laughing happily together. Some kind of truce had been declared since they came on board. A minor omen, Jed thought; things were steadily getting better.

“What are you doing?” Gari asked.

He grinned up at her and gestured to the window with its thick rim of brass. “Just looking. So what are you two doing?”

“We came to tell you. We just talked to Choi-Ho. She says this is the last swallow before we get to Valisk. Another hour, Jed!” Her face rose with elation.

“Yeah, another hour.” He snatched another glance at the alien greyness outside. Any minute now they’d be back in real space. Then he realized Beth wasn’t here to witness their triumph. “Back in a minute,” he told the two girls.

The Mindor was quite crowded now. The rendezvous in the Kabwe system had brought another twenty-five Deadnights on board. Everyone was doubling up in the cabins. He walked right to the end of the main corridor, where the light was slightly darker. “Beth?” He gave her cabin door a fast knock and turned the handle. “Come on, girl, we’re almost there. You’ll miss the—”

Both of Beth’s jackets and her lace-up boots were lying on the floor, looking like they’d just been flung there. Beth herself was stirring on the bed, a skinny hand clawing lank strands of hair away from her face as she peered around blearily. Gerald Skibbow was next to her, sound asleep.

Indignation and pure anger made it impossible for Jed to move.

“What is it?” Beth grunted.

Jed couldn’t believe it; she didn’t display the slightest hint of shame. Skibbow was old enough to be her bloody great-grandfather! He glared at her, then stomped out, slamming the door loudly behind him.

Beth stared after him, her puzzled thoughts slowly slotting together. “Oh, Jeeze, you’ve got to be bloody joking,” she groaned. Not even Jed was that stupid. Surely? She swung her legs out from under the duvet, taking care not to pull it off Gerald. It had taken her hours to get him to sleep. Holding him, reassuring him.

Despite her best efforts, she did dislodge the cover. The fabric seemed to stick to her jeans, and her sweatshirt was all twisted around, making every movement difficult.

Gerald Skibbow woke with a cry, looking around fearfully. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know, Gerald,” she said as calmly as she could. “I’ll go find out, then I’ll bring you back some breakfast. Okay, mate?”

“Yes. Um, I think so.”

“You go slip into the shower. Leave everything else to me.” Beth laced her boots up, then retrieved one of her jackets from the floor. She gave the inside pocket a determined pat to make sure the nervejam was there before she left the cabin.

Rocio Condra sensed the voidhawks waiting before he even started to emerge from the wormhole terminus. Seven of them, spiralling slowly around the point where he expected Valisk to be.

The terminus closed behind him, and he spread his wings wide, letting the thin streamers of solar ions gust against the feathers. All he did was glide along his orbital path while he tried to understand. Confusion was almost total. At first he thought he might even have emerged above the wrong gas giant, however unlikely that was. But no, this was Opuntia, its system of moons easily distinguishable. He could even feel the mass of Valisk’s wrecked industrial stations in their proper coordinate. The only thing missing was the habitat itself.

What has happened to Valisk? he asked his erstwhile enemies. Did you destroy it?

Obviously not, one of the voidhawks replied. There is no debris. Surely you can sense that?

I can sense that. But I don’t understand.

Rubra and Dariat finally settled their differences, and merged. The entire neural strata became possessed, creating an enormously powerful reality dysfunction. Valisk left the universe, taking everyone inside with it.

No!

I am not lying to you.

My body is inside. Even as he protested, he knew he wasn’t really bothered. The decision he had been nerving himself up to make had been taken for him. He allowed energy to flow through his patterning cells, exerting pressure on a particular point in space.

Wait, the voidhawk called. You have nowhere to go. We can help, we want to help.

Me, join your culture? I don’t think so.

You have to ingest nutrients to sustain yourself. You know that, even the possessed have to eat. Only habitats can provide you with the correct fluids.

So can most asteroid settlements.

But how long will the production machinery function when the settlement becomes possessed? You know they have no interest in such matters.

One of them does.

Capone? He will send you to fight to earn your food. How long will you last? Two battles? Three? With us you will be safe.

There are other tasks I can perform.

For what purpose? Now Valisk has gone, you have no human body into which you can return. They cannot reward you, only threaten.

How do you know that was promised to us?

From Dariat; he told us everything. Join us. Your assistance would be invaluable.

Assistance for what?

Finding a solution to this whole crisis.

I have solved it for myself. Energy flashed through the cells, forcing an interstice open. The wormhole’s non-length deepened to accept his bulk.

The offer remains, the voidhawk proclaimed. Consider it. Come back to us at any time.

Rocio Condra closed the interstice behind his tail. His mind instinctively retrieved the coordinate for New California from the Mindor’s infallible memory. He would see what Capone had to offer before making any hasty decisions. And the other hellhawks would be there; whatever final choice they made, they would make it together.

After he explained what had happened to Choi-Ho and Maxim Payne, they agreed not to burden the Deadnights with the knowledge that their false dream had ceased to be.

•   •   •

Jay peeled the gold insulating wrapper off her chocolate and almond ice cream; it was her fifth that morning. She lay back happily on her towel and started licking the nuts off the ice cream’s surface. The beach was such a lovely place, and her new friend made it just about perfect.

“Sure you don’t want one?” she asked. There were several more sweets scattered over the warm sand; she had stuffed her bag full of them when she left the pediatric ward that morning.

No, with many thanks, Haile said. Coldness makes me sneeze. The chocolate tastes like raw sugar with much additional acid.

Jay giggled. “That’s mad. Everyone likes chocolate.”

Not I.

She bit off a huge chunk and let it slither around her tongue. “What do you like?”

Lemon is acceptable. But I am still milking from my parent.

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting how young you are. Do you eat solid stuff when you’re older?”

Yes. In many months away.

Jay smiled at the wistfulness carried by the mental voice. She had often felt the same at her mother’s rules, restrictions designed purely to stop her enjoying herself. “Do your parents all go out for fancy meals and things in the evening like we do? Are there Kiint restaurants?”

Not here in the all around. I know not exactly about our home.

“I’d love to see your home planet. It must be super, like the arcologies but clean and silver, with huge towers built right up into the sky. You’re so advanced.”

Some of our worlds have that form, Haile said with cautious uncertainty. I believe. Racial history cosmology educationals have not fully begun yet.

“That’s okay.” Jay finished the treat. “Gosh, that’s lovely,” she mumbled around the freezing mouthful. “I didn’t have any ice cream the whole time I was on Lalonde. Can you imagine that!”

You should ingest properly balanced dietary substances. Ione Saldana says too much niceness is bad for you. Query correctness?

“Completely wrong.” Jay sat up and tossed the ice cream stick into her bag. “Oh, Haile, that’s wonderful!” She scrambled to her feet and ran over to the baby Kiint. Haile’s tractamorphic arms were withdrawing from the sand castle like a nest of snakes that had been routed. She’d built a central tapering tower two and a half metres tall, surrounded by five smaller matching pinnacles; elaborate arching fairy bridges linked them all together. There were turrets leaning out of the sides at cockeyed angles, rings of pink shell windows, and a solid fortress wall with a deep moat around the outside.

“Best yet.” Jay stroked the Kiint’s facial ridge just above the breathing vents. Haile shivered in gratitude, big violet eyes looked directly into Jay.

I like, muchness.

“We should build something from your history,” Jay said generously.

I have no intricacy to contribute, only home domes, the Kiint said sadly. Our full past has not been made available. I must do much growth before I am ready for acceptance.

Jay put her arms around the Kiint’s neck, pressing up against her supple white hide. “That’s all right. There are lots of things Mummy and Father Horst wouldn’t tell me, either.”

Much regret. Little patience.

“That’s a shame. But the castle looks great now it’s finished. I wish we had some flags to stick on top. I’ll see what I can find to use for tomorrow.”

Tomorrow the sand will be dry. The top will crumble in air, and we must start again.

Jay looked along the row of shapeless mounds that now ran along the shoreline. Each one carried its own particular memory of joy and satisfaction. “Honestly, Haile, that’s the whole point. It’s even better when there’s a tide, then you can see how strong you’ve built.”

So much human activity is intentionally wasteful. I doubt my ever knowing you.

“We’re simple, really. We always learn more from our mistakes, that’s what Mummy says. It’s because they’re more painful.”

Much oddness.

“I’ve got an idea; we’ll try and build a Tyrathca tower tomorrow. That’s nice and different. I know what they look like, Kelly showed me.” She put her hands on her hips and considered the castle warmly. “Pity we can’t build their Sleeping God altar, or whatever it was, but I don’t think it would balance, not if you make it out of sand.”

Query Sleeping God altar or whatever?

“It was sort of like a temple that you couldn’t get inside. The Tyrathca on Lalonde all sat around it and worshipped with chanting and stuff. It was this shape, really elaborate.” Her hands swept through the air in front of the Kiint, tracing broad curves. “See?”

Lacking perception, I. This is worship like your ritual to support Jesus the Christ?

“Um, sort of, I suppose. Except their God isn’t our God. Theirs is sleeping somewhere far away in space; ours is everywhere. That’s what Father Horst says.”

There are two Gods, query?

“I don’t know,” Jay said, desperately wishing she hadn’t got on to this topic. “Humans have more than two Gods, anyway. Religion is funny, especially if you start thinking about it. You’re just sort of supposed to believe. Until you get old, that is, then it all becomes theology.”

Query theology?

“Grown-up religion. Look here, don’t you have a God?”

I will query my parents.

“Good; they’ll explain everything much better than me. Come on, let’s go and wash this horrid sand off, then we can go riding together.”

Much welcome.

•   •   •

The Royal Kulu Navy ion field flyer swept in over Mortonridge’s western seaboard, its glowing nose pointed directly at the early morning sun. Ten kilometres to the south, the red cloud formed a solid massif right across the horizon. It was thicker than Ralph Hiltch remembered. None of the peninsula’s central ridge of mountains had managed to rise above it; they’d been swallowed whole.

The upper surface was as calm as a lake during a breathless dawn. Only when it started to dip earthwards along the firebreak border were the first uneasy stirrings visible—while right on the edge there appeared to be a full-scale storm whipping up individual streamers. Ralph had the uncomfortable impression that the cloud was aching to be let free. Perhaps he was picking up the emotional timbre of the possessed who created it? In this situation he could never be quite sure that any feeling was the genuine article.

He thought he could see a loose knot swirling along the side of the cloud, a twist of vermillion shadow amid the scarlet, keeping pace with his flyer. But when he ordered the sensor suite to focus on it, all he could see were random patterns. A trick of the eye, then, but a strong one.

The pilot began to expand the ion field, reducing the flyer’s velocity and altitude. Up ahead, the grey line of the M6 was visible, slicing clean across the virgin countryside. Colonel Palmer’s advance camp was situated a couple of kilometres outside the black firebreak line. Several dozen military vehicles were drawn up along the side of the motorway, while a couple were speeding along the carbon concrete towards the unnervingly precise band of incinerated vegetation.

Any possessed marching up to the end of the red cloud would see a predictably standard garrison operation being mounted with the Kingdom’s usual healthy efficiency. What they couldn’t see was the new camp coming together twenty-five kilometres further to the north; a city of programmable silicon laid out in strict formation which was erupting across the endless green undulations of the peninsula’s landscape. With typical military literalism it had been named Fort Forward. Over five hundred programmable silicon buildings had already been activated, two-storey barracks, warehouses, mess halls, maintenance shops, and various ancillary structures; though as yet its only residents were the three battalions of Royal Kulu Marine Engineers whose job it was to assemble the camp. Their mechanoids had ploughed the ground up around each building, installing water and sewage pipes, power lines, and datalinks. Huge drums of micro-mesh composite were being unrolled over the fresh soil to provide roads which wouldn’t turn to instant quagmires. Five large filter pump houses had been established on the banks of a river eight kilometres away to feed the expanding districts.

Mechanoids were already busy digging out vast new utility grids ready for more buildings, giving an indication of just how big Fort Forward would be when it was completed. Long convoys of lorries were using the M6 to deliver matériel from the nearest city spaceport, fifty kilometres away. Though that arrangement would soon be cancelled as Fort Forward’s own spaceport became operational. Marine engineers were levelling long strips of land in preparation for three prefabricated runways. The spaceport’s hangars and control tower had been activated two days ago so that technical crews could fit and integrate their systems.

When Ralph’s battleship emerged above Ombey he had seen nine Royal Navy Aquilae-class bulk transport starships in parking formation around a low-orbit port station along with their escort of fifteen front-line frigates. There were only twenty-five of the huge transporters left on active service; capable of carrying seventeen thousand tonnes of cargo they were the largest starships ever built, and hugely expensive to fly and maintain. Kulu was gradually phasing them out in favour of smaller models based on commercial designs.

They were being supported by big old delta-wing CK500-090 Thunderbird spaceplanes, the only atmospheric craft capable of handling the four-hundred-tonne cargo pods carried by the Aquilae transporters. Again, a fleet on the verge of retirement; they had been the first consignment ferried to Ombey by the transports. Most of the Thunderbirds had spent the last fifteen years in mothball status at the Royal Navy’s desert storage facility on Kulu. Now they were being reactivated as fast as the maintenance crews could fit new components from badly depleted war stocks.

Even more portentous than the buildup of navy ships were the voidhawks. Nearly eighty had arrived so far, with new ones swallowing in every hour, their lower hull cargo cradles full of pods (which could be handled by conventional civil flyers). Never before had so many of the bitek starships been seen orbiting a Kingdom world.

Ralph had experienced the same kind of uncomfortable awe he’d known at Azara as he observed them flitting around the docking stations. He was the one who had started this, creating a momentum which had engulfed entire star systems. It was unstoppable now. All he could do was ride it to a conclusion.

The ion field flyer landed at Colonel Palmer’s camp. The colonel herself was waiting for him at the base of the airstairs, Dean Folan and Will Danza prominent in the small reception committee behind her, both grinning broadly.

Colonel Palmer shook his hand, giving his new uniform a more than casual inspection. “Welcome back, Ralph, or should I say sir?”

He wasn’t completely used to the uniform himself yet, a smart dark blue tunic with three ruby pips glinting on his shoulder. “I don’t know, exactly. I’m a general in the official Liberation campaign army now, its very first officer. Apart from the King, of course. The formation was made official three days ago, announced in the court of the Apollo Palace. I’ve been appointed chief strategic coordination officer.”

“You mean you’re the Liberation’s numero uno?”

“Yeah,” he said with quiet surprise. “I guess I am at this end.”

“Rather you than me.” She gestured northwards. “Talk about coming back with reinforcements.”

“It’s going to get wonderfully worse. One million bitek serjeants are on their way, and God alone knows how many human troops to back them up. We’ve even had mercenaries volunteering.”

“You accepted them?”

“I’ve no idea. But I’ll use whatever I’m given.”

“All right, so what are your orders, sir?”

He laughed. “Just keep up the good work. Have any of them tried to break out?”

She turned her head to face the wall of angry cloud, her expression stern. “No. They stick to their side of the firebreak. There have been plenty of sightings. We think they’re keeping an eye on us. But it’s only my patrols who are visible to them.” A thumb jabbed back over her shoulder. “They don’t know anything about all this.”

“Good. We can’t keep it secret forever, of course; but the longer the better.”

“Some kids came out last week. It was the first interesting thing to happen since you left.”

“Kids?”

“A woman called Stephanie Ash bused seventy-three nonpossessed children right up to the firebreak. Gave the roadblock guard a hell of a fright, I can tell you. Apparently she’d collected them from all over the peninsula. We evacuated them to a holding camp. I think your friend Jannike Dermot has got her experts debriefing them on conditions over there.”

“Now that’s a report I’d like to access.” He squinted at the red cloud. That elusive knot of shadow seemed to have returned. It was elliptical this time, hanging over the M6. It didn’t take much imagination to suspect it of staring at him. “I think I’ll take a closer look before I set up my command at Fort Forward,” he announced.

Will and Dean rode shotgun on the Marine Corps runabout which took him up to the orange roadblock. It was good to talk with them again. They’d been attached to Palmer’s brigade as combat liaison for the agency, supporting the various technical teams Roche Skark had dispatched to the firebreak. Both of them wanted to know every detail of his meetings with the King. They were annoyed he wouldn’t datavise his visual files of Prince Edward playing at the Apollo Palace, but they were confidential. And so grows the mystique, Ralph thought, amused that he should be contributing to it.

The marines at the roadblock saluted smartly as Ralph and the Colonel arrived. Ralph chatted to them as cordially as he could manage. They didn’t seem to mind the red cloud; he found it intimidating in the extreme. It loomed barely three hundred metres above him, vigorous thrashing streamers packed so close together there was no gap between them, layer upon layer stacked up to what seemed like the edge of space. The sonorous reverberations from its internal brawling was diabolically attuned to the harmonic of human bones. Millions of tonnes of contaminated water hanging suspended in the air by witchcraft, ready to crash down like the waterfall at the end of the world. He wondered how little effort on behalf of the possessed it would take to do just that. Could it be he really had underestimated their power? It wasn’t the scale of the cloud which perturbed him so much as the intent.

“Sir,” one of the barrier guards shouted in alarm. “Visible hostile, on foot, three hundred metres.”

Dean and Will were abruptly standing in front of Ralph, their gaussguns pointing across the firebreak.

“I think this is enough front-line inspection for today,” Colonel Palmer said. “Let’s get you back to the runabout, please, Ralph.”

“Wait.” Ralph looked between the two G66 troopers to see a single figure walking up the M6. A woman dressed in a neatly cut leather uniform, her face stained warrior-scarlet by the nimbus of the seething clouds. He knew exactly who it was, in fact he would almost have been disappointed if she hadn’t appeared. “She’s not a threat. Not yet, anyway.”

He slipped between Will and Dean to stand full square in the middle of the road, facing her down.

Annette Ekelund stopped at the forwards barrier on her side of the firebreak. She took a slim mobile phone from her pocket, extended its ten-centimetre aerial, then tapped in a number.

Ralph’s communications block announced a channel opening. He switched it to audio function.

“Hello, Ralph. I thought you would come back, you’re the kind that does. And I see you’ve brought some friends with you.”

“That’s right.”

“Why don’t you bring them on over and join the party?”

“We’ll pick our own time.”

“I have to say I’m disappointed; that’s not quite what we agreed to back in Exnall, now is it? And with a Saldana Princess, too. Dear me, you can’t trust anyone these days.”

“A promise made under duress is not legally binding. I’m sure you’ll have enough lawyers on your side to confirm that.”

“I thought I explained all this to you, Ralph. We can’t lose, not against the living.”

“I don’t believe you. No matter what the cost, we must defeat you. The human race will end if you are allowed to win. I believe we deserve to keep on going.”

“You and your ideals, the original Mr Focused. No wonder you found a profession which allowed you to give loyal service. It suits you perfectly. Congratulations, Ralph, you have found yourself, not everyone can say that. In another universe, one that isn’t so warped as this, I’d envy you.”

“Thank you.”

“There was a nasty little phrase coined in my era, Ralph; but it’s still appropriate today, because it too came from a dogmatic soldier in a pointless war. We had to destroy the village in order to save it. What do you think you’re going to do to Mortonridge and its people with this crusade of yours?”

“Whatever I have to.”

“But we’ll still be here afterwards, Ralph, we’ll always be here. The finest minds in the galaxy have been working on this problem.

Scientists and priests scurrying for hard answers and bland philosophies. Millions—billions of man-hours have already been spent on the quandary of what to do with us poor returned souls. And they’ve come up with nothing. Nothing! All you can do is mount this pathetic, vindictive campaign of violence in the hope that some of us will be caught and thrown into zero-tau.”

“There isn’t an overall solution yet. But there will be.”

“There can’t be. We outnumber you. It’s simple arithmetic, Ralph.”

“Laton said it can be done.”

She chuckled. “And you believe him?”

“The Edenists think he was telling the truth.”

“Oh, yes, the newest and most interesting of all your friends. You realize, don’t you, that they could well survive this while you Adamists fall. It’s in their interest for this monstrous diversion to work. Adamist planets will topple one by one while your Confederation is engrossed here.”

“And what about the Kiint?”

There was a slight pause. “What about them?”

“They survived their encounter with the beyond. They say there is a solution.”

“Which is?”

He gripped the communications block tighter. “It doesn’t apply to us. Each race must find its own way. Ours exists, somewhere. It will be found. I have a lot of faith in human ingenuity.”

“I don’t, Ralph. I have faith in our sick nature to hate and envy, to be greedy and selfish, to lie. You forget, for six centuries I couldn’t hide from the naked emotions which drive all of us. I was condemned to them, Ralph. I know exactly what we are in our true hearts, and it’s not nice, not nice at all.”

“Tell that to Stephanie Ash. You don’t speak for all the possessed, not even a majority.”

Her stance changed. She no longer leaned casually on the barrier but stood up straight, her head thrust forwards challengingly. “You’ll lose, Ralph, one way or the other. You, personally, will lose. You cannot fight entropy.”

“I wish your faith wasn’t so misdirected. Think what you could achieve if you tried to help us instead.”

“Stay away from us, Ralph. That’s what I really came here to tell you. One simple message: Stay away.”

“You know I can’t.”

Annette Ekelund nodded sharply. She pushed the phone’s aerial back in and closed the little unit up.

Ralph watched her walk back down the M6 with a degree of sorrow he hadn’t expected. Shadows cavorted around her, hoaxing with her silhouette before swallowing her altogether.

“Ye gods,” Colonel Palmer muttered.

“That’s what we’re up against,” Ralph said.

“Are you sure a million serjeants is going to be enough?”

Ralph didn’t get to answer. The discordant bellows of thunder merged together into a continuous roar.

Everyone looked up to see the edge of the red cloud descending. It was as if the strength of the possessed had finally waned, allowing the colossal weight of water to crash down. Torrents of gaudy vapour plunged out of the main bank, hurtling earthwards faster than mere gravity could account for.

Along with the others, Ralph sprinted away from the roadblock, neural nanonics compelled a huge energy release from his muscle tissue, increasing his speed. Animal fear was pounding on his consciousness to turn and fire his TIP pistol at the virulent cascade.

His neural nanonics received a plethora of datavises from SD Command on Guyana. Low-orbit observation satellites were tracking them. Reports from patrols and sensors positioned along the firebreak: the whole front of cloud was moving.

“SD platforms are now at Ready One status,” Admiral Farquar datavised. “Do you want us to counterstrike? We can slice that bastard apart.”

“It’s stopping,” Will yelled.

Ralph risked a glance over his shoulder. “Wait,” he datavised to the admiral. A hundred and fifty metres behind him, the base of the cloud had reached the ground, waves rebounding in all directions to furrow the surface. But the bulk of it was holding steady, not advancing. Even the thunder was muffled.

“They are not aggressing, repeat, not aggressing,” Ralph datavised. “It looks like… hell, it looks as though they’ve slammed the door shut. Can you confirm the situation along the rest of the firebreak?”

When he looked from side to side, the cloud was clinging to the scorched soil as far as his enhanced retinas could see. A single, simple barrier that curved back gently until it reached an apex at about three kilometres high. In a way it was worse than before; without the gap this was so uncompromisingly final.

“Confirm that,” Admiral Farquar datavised. “It’s closed up all the way along the firebreak. The coastline edges are lowering, too.”

“Great,” Colonel Palmer swore. “Now what?”

“It’s a psychological barrier, that’s all,” Ralph said quietly. “After all, it’s only water. This changes nothing.”

Colonel Palmer slowly tilted her head back, scanning the height of the quivering fluorescent precipice. She shivered. “Some psychology.”

•   •   •

Ione.

A chaotic moan fluttered out between her lips. She was sprawled on her bed, sliding quietly into sleep. In her drowsy state, the pillow she was cuddling could so easily have been Joshua. Oh, now what, for Heaven’s sake? Can’t I even dream my fantasies anymore?

I am sorry to disturb you, but there is an interesting situation developing concerning the Kiint.

She sat up slowly, feeling stubbornly grumpy despite Tranquillity’s best efforts to emphasise its tender concern. It had been a long day, with Meredith’s squadron to deal with on top of all her normal duties. And the loneliness was starting to get to her, too. It’s all right. She scratched irritably at her hair. Being pregnant is making me feel dreadfully randy. You’re just going to have to put up with me being like this for another eight months. Then you’ll have post-natal depression to cope with.

You have many lovers to choose from. Go to one. I want you to feel better. I do not like it when you are so troubled.

That’s a very cold solution. If getting physical was all it took, I’d just swallow an antidote pill instead.

From what I observe, most human sex is a cold activity. There is an awful lot of selfishness involved.

Ninety per cent of it is. But we put up with that because we’re always looking for the other ten per cent.

And you believe Joshua is your ten per cent?

Joshua is floating somewhere between the ninety and the ten. I just want him right now because my hormones are completely out of control.

Hormonal production does not usually peak until the later months of a pregnancy.

I always was an early developer. A swift thought directed at the opaqued window allowed a dappled aquamarine light into the bedroom. She reached lethargically for her robe. All right, self-pity hour over. Let’s see what our mysterious Kiint are up to. And God help you if it isn’t important.

Lieria has taken a tube carriage to the StClément starscraper.

So bloody what?

It is not an action which any Kiint has performed before. I have to consider it significant, especially at this time.

Kelly Tirrel hated being interrupted while she was running her Present Time Reality programs. It was an activity she was indulging more often these days.

Some of the black programs she had bought were selective memory blockers, modified from medical trauma erasure programs, slithering deep into her natural brain tissue to cauterize her subconscious. They should have been used under supervision, and it certainly wasn’t healthy to suppress the amount of memory she was targeting, nor for as long. Others amplified her emotional response to perceptual stimuli, making the real world slow and mundane in comparison.

One of the pushers she’d met while she was making a documentary last year had shown her how to interface black programs with standard commercial sensenvirons to produce PTRs. Such integrations were supposedly the most addictive stim you could run. Compulsive because they were the zenith of denial. Escape to an alternative personality living in an alternative reality, where your past with all its inhibitions had been completely divorced, allowing only the present to prevail. Living for the now, yet stretching that now out for hours.

In the realms through which Kelly moved, possession and the beyond were concepts which did not nor could ever exist. When she did emerge, to eat, or pee, or sleep, the real world was the one which seemed unreal; terribly harsh by comparison to the hedonistic existence she had on the other side of the electronic divide.

This time when she exited the PTR she couldn’t even recognize the signal her neural nanonics was receiving. Memories of such things were submerged deep in her brain, rising to conscious levels with the greatest of reluctance (and taking longer each time). It was a few moments before she even understood where she was, that this wasn’t Hell but simply her apartment. The lights off, the window opaqued, the sheet on which she was lying disgustingly damp, and stinking of urine, the floor littered with disposable bowls.

Kelly wanted to plunge straight back into her electronic refuge. She was losing her grip on her old personality, and didn’t give a fuck. The only thing she did monitor was her own decay; overriding fear saw to that.

I will not allow myself to die.

No matter how badly the black stimulant programs screwed up her neurones, she wouldn’t permit herself to go completely over the edge, not physically. Before that would be zero-tau. The wonderful simplicity of eternal oblivion.

And until then, her brain would live a charmed life, providing pleasure and excitement, and not even knowing it was artificial. Life was to be enjoyed, was it not? Now she knew the truth about death, how did it matter how that enjoyment was achieved?

Her brain finally identified the signal from the apartment’s net processor. Someone was at the door, requesting admission. Confusion replaced her dazed resentful stupor. Collins hadn’t called on her to present a show for a week (or possibly longer); not since her interview with Tranquillity’s bishop when she shouted at him, angry about how cruel his God was to inflict the beyond upon unsuspecting souls.

The signal repeated. Kelly sat up, and promptly vomited down the side of the bed. Nausea swirled inside her brain, shaking her thoughts and memories into a collage which was the exact opposite of the PTR: Lalonde in all its infernal glory. She coughed as her pale limbs trembled and the scar along her ribs flamed. There was a glass on the bedside table, half full of a clear liquid which she fervently hoped was water. Her shaking hand grabbed at it, spilling a quantity before she managed to jam it to her lips and swallow. At least she didn’t throw it all back up.

Almost suffocating in misery she struggled off the bed and pulled a blanket around her shoulders. Her neural nanonics medical program cautioned her that her blood sugar level was badly depleted and she was on the verge of dehydration. She cancelled it. The admission request was repeated again.

“Piss off,” she mumbled. Light seemed to be shining straight through her eye sockets to scorch her fragile brain. Sucking down air, she tried to work out why her neural nanonics had stopped running the PTR program. It shouldn’t happen just because someone datavised her apartment’s net processor. Perhaps the slender filaments meshed with her synaptic clefts were getting screwed by her disturbed body chemistry?

“Who is it?” she datavised as she tottered unsteadily through into the main living room.

“Lieria.”

Kelly didn’t know any Lieria; at least not without running a memory cell check. She slumped down into one of her deep recliners, pulled the blanket over her legs, and datavised the door processor to unlock.

An adult Kiint was standing in the vestibule. Kelly blinked against the light which poured in around its snow-white body, gawped, then started laughing. She’d done it, she’d totally fucked her brain with the PTR.

Lieria lowered herself slightly and moved into the living room, taking care not to knock any of the furniture. She had to wriggle to fit the major section of her body through the door, but she managed it. An intensely curious group of residents peered in behind her.

The door slid shut. Kelly hadn’t ordered it to do that. Her laughter had stopped, and her shakes were threatening to return. This was actually happening. She wanted to go back into the PTR real bad now.

Lieria took up nearly a fifth of the living room, both tractamorphic arms were withdrawn into large bulbs of flesh, her triangular head was swinging slightly from side to side as her huge eyes examined the room. No housechimp had been in for weeks to clean up; dust was accumulating; the door to the kitchen was open, showing worktops overflowing with empty food sachets; a loose pile of underwear decorated one corner; her desk was scattered with fleks and processor blocks. The Kiint returned her gaze to Kelly, who curled her limbs up tighter in the recliner.

“H-how did you get down here?” was all Kelly could ask.

“I took the service elevator,” Lieria datavised back. “It was very cramped.”

Kelly started. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Use an elevator?”

“Datavise.”

“We have some command of technology.”

“Oh. Yes. It’s just… skip it.” Her reporter’s training began to assert itself. A private visit from a Kiint was unheard of. “Is this confidential?”

Lieria’s breathing vents whistled heavily. “You decide, Kelly Tirrel. Do you wish your public to know what has become of you?”

Kelly stiffened her facial muscles, whether to combat tears or shame she wasn’t sure. “No.”

“I understand. Knowledge of the beyond can be disturbing.”

“How did you beat it? Tell me, please. For pity’s sake. I can’t be trapped there. I couldn’t stand it!”

“I am sorry. I cannot discuss this with you.”

Kelly’s cough had come back. She used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes dry. “What do you want, then?”

“I wish to purchase information. Your sensevises of Lalonde.”

“My… why?”

“They are of interest to us.”

“Sure. I’ll sell them. The price is knowing how to avoid the beyond.”

“Kelly Tirrel, you cannot buy that, the answer is inside you.”

“Stop being so fucking obtuse!” she shouted, fury surmounting her consternation of the big xenoc.

“It is the profound wish of my race that one day you will understand. I had intended that by purchasing the data directly from you the money would bring or buy you some peace of mind. If I go directly to the Collins corporation, it will become lost in their accounts. You see, we do not mean you harm. It is not our way.”

Kelly stared at the xenoc, depressed by her own incomprehension. Okay, girl, she thought, let’s try and work this one out logically. She put her medical monitor program into primary mode, and used the results to bring appropriate suppressor and stimulant programs on-line to try to stabilize body and brain. There wasn’t a great deal they could do, but at least she felt calmer and her breathing steadied. “Why do you want to buy them?”

“We have little data on humans who are possessed by returned souls. We are interested. Your visit to Lalonde is an excellent firsthand account.”

Kelly felt the first stirrings of excitement; reporter’s instinct inciting her interest. “Bullshit. That’s not what I meant. If all you wanted was information on possessed humans, you could have recorded my reports directly from Collins as soon as they were released. God knows, they’ve been repeated often enough.”

“They are not complete. Collins has edited them to provide a series of highlights. We understand their commercial reasons for doing so, but this is of no use to us. I require access to the entire recording.”

“Right,” she said with apparent gravity, as if she was giving the proposition appropriately weighty thought. An analysis program had gone primary, refining possible questions in an attempt to narrow the focus. “I can give you full access to the times I came up against the possessed, and my observations of Shaun Wallace. That’s no problem at all.”

“We require a full record from the time you arrived in the Lalonde star system until you departed. All details are of interest to us.”

“All details? I mean, this is a human sensevise, I kept the flek recording the whole time. Standard company procedure. Unfortunately, that includes time when I was visiting the little girls’ room, if you catch on.”

“Human excretion functions do not embarrass us.”

“Shall I cut the time in Lady Macbeth for you?”

“Observations and crew impressions of the reality dysfunction from orbit are an integral part of the record.”

“So, how much were you thinking of offering me for this?”

“Please name your price, Kelly Tirrel.”

“One million fuseodollars.”

“That is expensive.”

“It’s a lot of hours you’re asking for. But the offer to edit it down still stands.”

“I will pay you the required amount for a complete recording only.”

Kelly pressed her teeth together in annoyance; it wasn’t going to work, the Kiint was far too smart for verbal traps. Don’t push, she told herself, get what you can and work out the why later on. “Fair enough. Agreed.”

Lieria’s tractamorphic flesh extended out into an arm, a Jovian Bank credit disk held between white pincers.

Kelly gave it an interested glance, and rose stiffly from the recliner. Her own credit disk was somewhere on her desk. She walked over to it, all three paces, then plonked herself down in the grey office chair a little too quickly.

“I would suggest you eat something and rest properly before you return to your sensenviron,” Lieria datavised.

“Good idea. I was going to.” She froze in the act of shoving the fleks and their empty storage cases around. How the hell had the Kiint known what she’d been running? We have some command of technology. She gripped the blanket harder with one hand as the other fished her disk from under a recorder block. “Found it,” she said with forced lightness.

Lieria shunted the full amount across. The soft flesh of the pincers engulfed the Jovian Bank disk, then parted again to reveal a small dark blue processor block. It was like a conjuring trick which Kelly was in no state to unravel.

“Please insert your fleks in the block,” Lieria datavised. “It will copy the recordings.”

Kelly did as she was told.

“I thank you, Kelly Tirrel. You have contributed valuable information to our race’s store of knowledge.”

“Make the most of it,” she said grumpily. “The way you’re treating us we probably won’t be around to contribute for much longer.”

The living-room door slid open, scattering a startled crowd of St-Clément residents. Lieria backed out with surprising ease. When the door closed again Kelly was left by herself with the disconcerting impression that it could all very easily have been a dream. She picked up her credit disk, looking at it in wonder. One million fuseodollars.

It was the key to permanent zero-tau. Her lawyer had been negotiating with Collins to transfer her pension fund into an Edenist trust account, just like Ashly Hanson. Except she wouldn’t be coming out to take a look around every few centuries. Collins’s accountants had been reluctant.

Another problem which had sent her into the sham escape of PTR. Now all she needed to do was get to an Edenist habitat. Only their culture had a chance of holding her safe through eternity.

Although… that stubborn old part of her mind was asking a thousand questions. What the hell did the Kiint really want?

“Think,” she ordered herself fiercely. “Come on, damn it. Think!” Something happened on Lalonde. Something so important that a Kiint walks into my apartment and pays me a million fuseodollars for a record of it. Something we didn’t think was important or interesting, because it wasn’t released by Collins. So if it wasn’t released, how the hell did the Kiint know about it?

Logically, someone must have told them—presumably today or very recently. Someone who has reviewed the whole recording themselves, or at least more of it than Collins released.

Kelly smiled happily, an unfamiliar expression of late. And someone who must have a lot of contact with the Kiint.

Review every single conversation which the Kiint were involved in over the last week, Ione said. Anything that anyone mentioned about Lalonde, anything at all, however trivial. And if you can’t find it, start going through your earlier memories.

I am already reviewing the relevant scenes. There may be a problem with going back further than four days. My short-term memory capacity is only a hundred hours; after that the details are discarded so I may retain salient information. Without this procedure even my memory would be unable to cope with events inside me.

I know that! But it has to be recent for Lieria to go visiting in the middle of the night. I don’t suppose the Kiint said anything among themselves? Grandfather’s non-intrusion agreement can hardly apply in this case.

I concur that it cannot be considered. However, I have never been able to intercept detailed affinity conversations between the adult Kiint. At best I can sometimes distinguish what I would define as a murmur.

Damn! If you can’t remember, we’ll have to haul all the Laymil project staff in and question them individually.

Not necessary. I have found it.

“Brilliant!” Show me.

The memory burst open around her. Bright light was shining down on the beach while glassy ripples lapped quietly against the shoreline. A huge sand castle stood directly in front of her. Oh, bloody hell.

Jay was woken by a hand shaking her shoulder with gentle insistence. “Mummy,” she cried fearfully. Wherever she was, it was dark, and even darker shadows loomed over her.

“Sorry, poppet,” Kelly stage-whispered. “It’s not your mum, it’s only me.”

Horror fled from the little girl’s face, and she hitched herself up in the bed, wrapping her arms around her legs. “Kelly?”

“Yep. And I am really sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you like that.”

Jay sniffed the air, highly curious now. “What’s that smell? And what time is it?”

“It’s very late. Nurse Andrews is going to kill me if I stay for more than a couple of minutes. She only let me in because she knows you and I spent all that time together on Lady Mac.”

“You haven’t visited for ages.”

“I know.” Kelly was almost crushed by the surge of emotion the girl triggered, the accusation in her tone. “I haven’t been terribly well lately. I didn’t want you to see me the way I was.”

“Are you all right now?”

“Sure. I’m on the way back.”

“Good. You promised you’d show me around the studios you work in.”

“And I’ll keep it, too. Listen, Jay, I’ve got some really important questions. They’re about you and Haile.”

“What?” she asked suspiciously.

“I need to know if you told Haile anything about Lalonde, especially in the last couple of days. It’s vital, Jay, honest. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

“I know.” She screwed up her lips, thinking hard. “There was some stuff about religion this morning. Haile doesn’t understand it very well, and I’m not very good at explaining it.”

“What about religion, exactly?”

“It was how many gods there are. I’d told her about the Tyrathca’s Sleeping God temple, you know, the one you showed me, and she wanted to know if that was the same thing as Jesus.”

“Of course,” Kelly hissed. “It wasn’t human possession, it was the Tyrathca section, we never released any of that.” She leaned over and kissed Jay. “Thank you, poppet. You’ve just performed a miracle.”

“Was that all?”

“Yeah. That was all.”

“Oh.”

“You snuggle down and get some sleep now. I’ll come visit tomorrow.” She helped pull Jay’s duvet back up and gave the girl another kiss. Jay sniffed inquisitively again, but didn’t comment.

“So?” Kelly asked softly as she walked away from the bed. “You’ve been watching, you know this must be serious. I want to talk to the Lord of Ruin.”

The pediatric ward’s net processor opened a channel to Kelly’s neural nanonics. “Ione Saldana will see you now,” Tranquillity datavised. “Please bring the relevant recordings.”

Despite being on what he considered excellent terms with the Lord of Ruin, Parker Higgens could still be chilled to the marrow when she gave him one of her expectant looks.

“But I don’t know anything about the Tyrathca, ma’am,” he complained. Being dragged out of bed straight into a highly irregular crisis conference was playing havoc with his thought processes. Accessing the sensevise recording of Coastuc-RT and seeing the strange silvery structure which the builder-caste Tyrathca had constructed in the middle of the village didn’t contribute much to his composure, either.

When he glanced at Kempster Getchell for support he saw the astronomer’s eyes were closed as he accessed the recording a second time.

“You’re the only xenoc specialists I’ve got, Parker.”

“Laymil specialists.”

“Don’t quibble. I need advice, and I need it fast. How important is this?”

“Well… I don’t think we knew the Tyrathca had a religion before this,” he ventured.

“We didn’t,” Kelly said. “I ran a full search program through the Collins office encyclopedia. It’s as good as any university library. There’s no reference to this Sleeping God at all.”

“And neither did the Kiint, so it would seem,” Parker said. “They actually came and woke you to ask for the recording?”

“That’s right.”

Parker was somewhat put out by the reporter’s dishevelled appearance. She sat wedged into one corner of the sofa in Ione’s private study, a thick cardigan tugged around her shoulders as if it were midwinter. For the last five minutes she had been snatching up salmon sandwiches from a large plate balanced on the sofa’s arm, pushing them forcefully into her mouth.

“Well I have to say, ma’am, that it’s a relief to find out they don’t know everything.” A housechimp silently handed him a cup of coffee.

“But is it relevant?” Ione asked. “Were they just so surprised they didn’t know about the Sleeping God myth that Lieria simply rushed over to Kelly to confirm it? Or does it have some bearing on our current situation?”

“It’s not a myth,” Kelly said around another sandwich. “That’s exactly what I said to Waboto-YAU; and it nearly set the soldiers on me for that remark. The Tyrathca believe absolutely in their Sleeping God. Crazy race.”

Parker stirred his coffee mechanically. “I’ve never known the Kiint to be excited about anything. But then I’ve never known them to be in a rush either, which they obviously were tonight. I think we should examine this Sleeping God in context. You are aware, ma’am, that the Tyrathca do not have fiction? They simply do not lie, and they have a great deal of trouble understanding human falsehoods. The nearest they ever come to lying is withholding information.”

“You mean there really is a Sleeping God?” Kelly asked.

“There has to be a core of truth behind the story,” Parker said. “They are a highly formalized clan species. Individual families maintain professions and responsibilities for generations. Sireth-AFL’s family was obviously entrusted with the knowledge of the Sleeping God. At a guess, I’d say that Sireth-AFL is a descendant of the family which used to deal with electronics while they were on their arkship.”

“Then why not just store the memory electronically?” Kelly asked.

“It probably is stored, somewhere. But Coastuc-RT is a very primitive settlement, and the Tyrathca only ever use appropriate technology. There will be Tyrathca families in that village who know exactly how to build fusion generators and computers, but they don’t actually need them yet, therefore the information isn’t used. They employ water wheels and mental arithmetic instead.”

“Weird,” Kelly said.

“No,” Parker corrected. “Merely logical. The product of a mind that is intelligent without being particularly imaginative.”

“Yet they were praying,” Ione said. “They believe in a God. That requires a leap of imagination, or at least faith.”

“I don’t think so,” Kempster Getchell said. He grinned around, clearly enjoying himself. “We’re messing about with semantics here, and an electronic translator, which is never terribly helpful, it’s too literal. Consider when this God appeared in their history. Human gods are derived from our pre-science era. There are no new religions, there haven’t been for thousands of years. Modern society is far too sceptical to allow for prophets who have personal conversations with God. We have the answer for everything these days, and if it isn’t recorded on a flek it’s a lie.

“Yet here we have the Tyrathca, who not only don’t lie, but encounter a God while they’re in a starship. They have the same intellectual analytical tools as we do, and they still call it a God. And they found it. That’s what excites me, that’s what is so important to this story. It isn’t indegenous to their planet, it isn’t ancient. One of their arkships encountered something so fearfully powerful that a race with the technology to travel between the stars calls it a God.”

“That would also mean it isn’t exclusive to them,” Parker said.

“Yes. Although, whatever it is, it was benign, or even helpful to the arkship in question. They wouldn’t consider it to be their Sleeping God otherwise.”

“Powerful enough to defend the Tyrathca from possessed humans,” Ione said. “That’s what they claimed.”

“Yes indeed. A defence mounted from several hundred light-years distant, at least.”

“What the fuck could do that?” Kelly asked.

“Kempster?” Ione prompted as the old astronomer stared away at the ceiling.

“I have absolutely no idea. Although ‘sleeping’ does imply an inert status, which can be reversed.”

“By prayer?” Parker said sceptically.

“They thought it would be able to hear them,” Kempster said. “Stronger than all living things was what that breeder said. Interesting. And that mirror-spire shape was supposed to be what it looked like. I’d like to say some kind of celestial event or object, that would fit in finding it in deep space. Unfortunately, there is no natural astronomical object which resembles that.”

“Take a guess,” Ione said icily.

“Powerful, and in space.” The astronomer’s face wrinkled up with effort. “Humm. Trouble is, we have no idea of the scale. Some kind of small nebula around a binary neutron star; or a white hole emission jet—which might account for the shape. But none of those are exactly inert.”

“Nor would they be much use against the possessed,” Parker said.

“But its existence is enough to fluster the Kiint,” Ione said. “And they can manufacture moons, plural.”

“Do you think it could help us?” Kelly asked the astronomer. “Good point,” Kempster said. “A highly literal race thinks it can help them against the possessed. QED, it would be able to do the same thing for us. Although the actual encounter must have taken place thousands of years ago. Who knows how much the account had been distorted in that time, even by the Tyrathca? And if it was an event rather than an object, it would presumably be finished by now. After all, Confederation astronomers have catalogued our galaxy pretty thoroughly; and certainly anything odd within ten thousand light-years would be listed. Which is why I’m inclined to go for the inert object hypothesis. I must say, this is a delightful puzzle you’ve brought to us, young lady; I’d love to know what they did actually find.”

Kelly made an impatiently dismissive gesture and leaned forward. “See?” she said to Ione. “This is critical, just like I said. I’ve provided you with enough to go on. Haven’t I?”

“Yes,” Ione said with considerable asperity.

“Do I get my flight authorization?”

“What is this? What flight?” Parker asked.

“Kelly wishes to visit Jupiter,” Ione said. “To do that she needs my official authorization.”

“Do I get it?” Kelly was almost shouting.

Ione’s nose crinkled with distaste. “Yes. Now please be silent unless you have a cogent point to make.”

Kelly flung herself back into the sofa, a fearsome grin on her face.

Parker studied her for a moment, not at all liking what he found, but forwent any comment. “The evidence we have so far is depressingly small, but to my mind it does seem to indicate that the Sleeping God is something other than a natural object. Perhaps it is a functional Von Neumann machine, that would certainly have godlike abilities ascribed to it by any culture with inferior technology. Or, I regret to say, some kind of ancient weapon.”

“A manufactured artefact which can attack the possessed over interstellar space. Now that really is an unpleasant thought,” Kempster said. “Although the sleeping qualifier would admittedly be more pertinent in such a case.”

“As you say,” Ione said. “We don’t have nearly enough information to make anything other than wild guesses at this time. That must be rectified. Our real problem is that the Tyrathca have severed all contact with us. And I really don’t think we have any alternative but to ask them.”

“I would certainly advise we pursue that avenue, ma’am. The very possibility that the Sleeping God is real, and may even be able to defeat the possessed on some level, warrants further investigation. If we could …” His voice died away as Ione gripped the arms of her chair, blue eyes widening to express something Parker had never thought he would see there: horror.

Meredith Saldana drifted into the Arikara’s bridge; every one of the acceleration couches in the C&C section of the bridge was occupied as his staff officers dedicated themselves to scanning and securing space around Mirchusko.

He slid onto his own acceleration couch and accessed the tactical situation computer. The flagship was hanging a thousand kilometres off Tranquillity’s counter-rotating spaceport, with every sensor cluster and communications system extended. Some spacecraft moved around the habitat’s spaceport and outlying industrial stations, a couple of blackhawks were curving around the spindle to land on the outermost docking ledge, and three He₃ cryogenic tankers were rising over the gas giant’s natural rings en route for the habitat. Apart from that, the only ships flying were squadron members. The frigates were moving smoothly into their englobing positions, forming a protective eight thousand kilometre sphere around Tranquillity, complementing the habitat’s own formidable SD platforms. His squadron’s nine voidhawks were currently deployed right around the gas giant in an attempt to probe the rings for any observation system or hidden ship. An unlikely event, but Meredith was aware of just how much was riding on the Toi-Hoi ambush. When it came to this duty, he was a firm believer in the motto: I’m paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?

“Lieutenant Grese, our current situation, please?” he asked.

“One hundred per cent on-line, sir,” the squadron intelligence officer reported. “All starship traffic is shut down. Those blackhawks you can see docking are the last of the flight deploying sensor satellites looking for an energy displacement signature from the Laymil home planet. All of them have obeyed the recall order. We’re allowing personnel commuters and tugs to fly out to the industrial stations providing we’re informed of their movements in advance. Tranquillity is supplying us with a direct feed from its SD sensor network, which is extremely comprehensive out to one million kilometres. Our only problem with that is that it doesn’t appear to have any gravitonic distortion detectors.”

Meredith frowned. “That’s ridiculous, how does it detect emerging starships?”

“I’m not sure, sir. We did ask, but it just said we’re receiving the full datavise from each sensor satellite. My only explanation is that the Lord of Ruin doesn’t want us to know the habitat’s full detection capability.”

Which wasn’t something Meredith believed. Somewhat to his surprise, he’d been quite impressed by his young cousin; especially as he’d gone in to meet her with a lot of firmly held preconceptions. He’d been forced to revise most of them under her unyielding dignity and astute political grasp. One thing he was sure of, if she was deliberately imposing limits on her cooperation she wouldn’t be duplicitous about it.

“Can our own sensors compensate?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. At the moment, the voidhawks will provide us with an immediate warning of any emergence. But we’ve launched a full complement of gravitonic distortion detector satellites. They’ll provide coverage out to quarter of a million kilometres when they’re in position; that’s in about another twenty minutes, which will free the voidhawks for their next duty.”

“Good, in that case we won’t make an issue of this.”

“Sir.”

“Lieutenant Rhoecus, voidhawk status, please.”

“Yes, Admiral,” the Edenist replied. “There are definitely no ships inside any of Mirchusko’s rings. However, we cannot give any guarantees about smaller stealthed spy satellites. Two hundred and fifty ELINT satellites have been deployed so far, which gives us a high probability of detecting any transmission should there be a spy system observing the habitat. The Myoho and the Oenone are launching further ELINTs into orbit around each of Mirchusko’s moons in case there’s anything hiding on or under the surface.”

“Excellent. What about covering the rest of the system?”

“We’ve already worked out a swallow flight plan for each voidhawk which will allow them to conduct a preliminary survey in fifteen hours. It will be somewhat cursory, but if there is another ship within two AUs of Mirchusko they should find it. Clear space provides much fewer problems than a gas giant environment.”

“Several blackhawk captains offered to assist us, Admiral,” Commander Kroeber said. “I declined for now, but told them that Admiral Kolhammer may want them for the next stage.”

Meredith resisted a glance in the flagship captain’s direction. “I see. Have you ever served with Admiral Kolhammer, Mircea?”

“No, sir, I haven’t had that pleasure.”

“Well, for your information, I consider it unlikely he’d want the blackhawks along.”

“Yes, sir.”

Meredith raised his voice to address the bridge officers in general. “Well done, ladies and gentlemen. You seem to have organized this securement most efficiently. My compliments. Commander, please take the Arikara out to our englobement coordinate, in your own time.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Acceleration returned to the bridge, building to a third of a gee. Meredith studied the tactical situation display, familiarising himself with the squadron’s formation. He was quietly content with the way his ships and crews were performing, especially after the trauma of Lalonde. Unlike some navy officers, Meredith didn’t regard the blackhawks as universally villainous, he liked to consider himself a more sophisticated realist than that. If they were going to be betrayed, it was likely to be by an outside agency such as a stealthed spy satellite. But even then, a starship would have to collect the information.

“Lieutenant Lowie, would it be possible to eliminate any spy system hiding in the rings by emp-ing them?”

“Sir, it would require complete saturation,” the weapons officer said. “If the Organization has hidden a satellite out there its circuitry will be hardened. The fusion explosion would have to be inside twenty kilometres to guarantee elimination. We don’t have that many bombs.”

“I see. Just an idea. Rhoecus, I’d like to keep a couple of voidhawks in orbit around Mirchusko so they can monitor starships emerging outside our own sensor range. What effect will that have on the survey?”

“Approximate increase of six hours, Admiral.”

“Damn, that’s pushing our time envelope.” He consulted the tactical situation display again, running analysis programs to calculate the most effective option.

A red dot flared into existence barely ten thousand kilometres away, surrounded by symbols: a wormhole terminus disgorging a ship. And it was nowhere near any of Tranquillity’s designated emergence zones. Another red dot appeared less than a second later. A third. A fourth. Three more.

“What the hell?”

“Not voidhawks, sir,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said. “No affinity broadcasts at all. They’re not responding to Tranquillity or squadron voidhawks, either.”

“Commander Kroeber, squadron to combat status. Rhoecus, recall the voidhawks. Can someone get me a visual identification?”

“Coming, sir,” Lieutenant Grese datavised. “Two of the intruders are close to an SD sensor satellite.”

More wormhole termini were opening. Arikara’s thermo-dump panels and long-range sensor clusters sank back into their fuselage recesses. The warship’s acceleration increased as it sped out to its englobement coordinate.

“Got it, Admiral. Oh, Lord, definitely hostile.”

The image relayed into Meredith’s neural nanonics showed him a charcoal-grey eagle with a wingspan of nearly two hundred metres; its eyes gleamed yellow above a long chrome-silver beak. His body tensed in reflex, pushing him deeper into the acceleration couch. That was one massively evil-looking creature.

“Hellhawk, sir. Must be from Valisk.”

“Thank you, Grese. Confirm the other intruder identities, please.”

The tactical situation display showed him twenty-seven bitek starships had now emerged from their wormholes. Another fifteen termini were opening. It was only seven seconds since the first had appeared.

“All of them are hellhawks, sir; eight bird types, four bogus starships, the rest conform to standard blackhawk profile.”

“Admiral, the voidhawks have all swallowed back to Tranquillity,” Rhoecus said. “Moving out to reinforce the englobement formation.”

Meredith watched their purple vector lines slice across the tactical situation display, twisting around to reach the other squadron ships.

No use, Meredith thought, no use at all. Fifty-eight hellhawks were ranged against them now, forming a loose ring around the habitat. Tactical analysis programs were giving him an extremely small probability of a successful defensive engagement, even with the squadron backed up by Tranquillity’s SD platforms. And that was reducing still further as more hellhawks continued to swallow in.

“Commander Kroeber, get those blackhawks Tranquillity was using as patrol ships out here as fast as possible.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Sir!” Grese shouted. “We’re registering more gravitonic distortions. Adamist ships, this time. Multiple emergence patterns.”

The tactical situation display showed Meredith two small constellations of red dots lighting up. The first was fifteen thousand kilometres ahead of Tranquillity, while the second trailed it by roughly the same amount. Dear God, and I thought Lalonde was bad. “Lieutenant Rhoecus.”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“The Ilex and the Myoho are to disengage. They are ordered to fly to Avon immediately and warn Trafalgar what has happened here. Under no circumstances is Admiral Kolhammer to bring his task force to Mirchusko.”

“But, sir …”

“That was an order, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Grese, can you identify the new intruders?”

“I think so, sir. I think it’s the Organisation fleet. Visual sensors show front-line warships; I’ve got frigates, some battle cruisers, several destroyers, and plenty of combat-capable commercial vehicles.”

Large sections of the tactical situation display dissolved into yellow and purple hash as electronic warfare pods spun away from the hellhawks, coming on line as soon as they were clear of the energistic effect. The voidhawks continued to supply information on emerging starships. There were now seventy hellhawks ringing Tranquillity; with a hundred and thirty Adamist ships holding station on either side of it.

Arikara’s bridge had fallen completely silent.

“Sir,” Rhoecus said. “Ilex and Myoho have swallowed out.”

Meredith nodded. “Good.” There wasn’t a hell of a lot more he could say. “Commander Kroeber, please signal the enemy fleet. Ask them… Ask them what they want.”

“Aye, sir.”

The tactical situation computer datavised an alarm.

“Combat wasp launch!” Lowie shouted. “The hellhawks have fired.”

At such close range, there was nothing the electronic warfare barrage could do to hide the burst of yellow solid rocket exhausts from Meredith’s squadron. Each of the hellhawks had launched fifteen combat wasps. Spent solid rocket casings separated as the dazzling plumes of fusion fire sprang out, and they began to accelerate in towards the habitat at twenty-five gees. Over a thousand drones forming an immense noose of light which was swiftly contracting.

Tactical programs went primary in Meredith’s neural nanonics. In theory, they had the capacity to fight off this assault, which would leave them with practically zero reserves. And he had to decide now.

It was a hopeless situation, one where instinct fought against duty. But Confederation citizens were being attacked; and to a Saldana duty was instinct.

“Full defensive salvo,” Meredith ordered. “Fire.”

Combat wasps leapt out of their launch tubes in every squadron ship. Tranquillity’s SD platforms launched simultaneously. For a short while, space around the habitat’s shell ceased to be an absolute vacuum. Hot streams of energized vapour from the exhausts of four thousand combats wasps sprayed in towards Tranquillity, creating a faint iridescent nebula beset with giddy squalls of turquoise and amber ions. Jagged petals of lightning flared out from the tip of every starscraper, ripping away into the chaotically unstable vortex.

Blackhawks were rising from Tranquillity’s docking ledges, over fifty of them sliding out under heavy acceleration to join the fight. Meredith’s tactical analysis program began revising the odds. Then he saw several swallow away. In his heart he didn’t blame them.

“Message coming in, Admiral,” the communications officer reported. “Someone called Luigi Balsmao, he claims he’s the Organization fleet’s commander. He says: Surrender and join us, or die and join us.”

“What a melodramatic arsehole,” Meredith grunted. “Please advise the Lord of Ruin, it’s as much her decision as it is mine. After all, it’s her people who will suffer.”

“Oh, fuck! Sir! Another combat wasp launch. It’s the Adamist ships this time.”

Under Luigi’s command, all one hundred and eighty Organization starships fired a salvo of twenty-five combat wasps apiece. Their antimatter drives accelerated them in towards Tranquillity at forty gees.