"Reality Dysfunction - Expansion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F.)Chapter 05Since the advent of its independence in 2238, Avon’s government had contracted civil astroengineering teams to knock fifteen large (twenty– to twenty-five-kilometre diameter) stony iron asteroids into high orbit above the planet using precisely placed and timed nuclear explosions. Fourteen of them followed the standard formula of industrialization adopted throughout the Confederation. After their orbits were stabilized with a perigee no less than a hundred thousand kilometres, their ores had been mined out and the refined metal sent down to the planet below in the form of giant lifting bodies which coasted through the atmosphere to a splash-glide landing in the ocean. The resulting caverns were expanded, regularized into cylindrical shapes, the surface sculpted into a landscape, sealed, then turned into habitable biospheres. At the same time the original ore refineries would gradually be replaced by more sophisticated industrial stations, allowing the asteroid’s economy to shift its emphasis from the bulk production of metals and minerals to finished micro-gee engineered products. The refineries moved on to a fresh asteroid in order to satisfy the demand of the planetary furnaces and steel mills, keeping the worst aspects of raw-material exploitation offplanet where the ecological pollution on the aboriginal biota was zero. Anyone arriving at a terracompatible planet in the Confederation could tell almost at a glance how long it had been industrialized by the number of settled asteroids in orbit around it. Avon had been opened for colonization to ethnic Canadians in 2151 during the Great Dispersal, and conformed to the usual evolutionary route out of an agrarian economy into industrialization in slightly less than a century. A satisfactory achievement, but nothing remarkable. It remained a pedestrian world until 2271 when it played host to the head of state conference called to discuss the worrying upsurge in the use of antimatter as a weapon of mass destruction. From that conference was born the Confederation, and Avon seized its chance to leapfrog an entire developmental stage by offering itself as a permanent host for the Assembly. Without any increase in exports, foreign currency poured in as governments set up diplomatic missions; and the lawyers, interstellar companies, finance institutions, influence peddlers, media conglomerates, and lobbyists followed, each with their own prestige offices and staff and dependents. There was also the Confederation Navy, which was to police the fragile new-found unity between the inhabited stars. Avon contributed to that as well, by donating to the Assembly an orbiting asteroid named Trafalgar which was in the last phase of mining. Trafalgar was unique within the Confederation in that it had no industrial stations after the miners moved out. It was first, foremost, and only, a naval base, developing from a basic supply and maintenance depot for the entire Confederation Navy (such as it was in the early days) up to the primary military headquarters for the eight hundred and sixty-two inhabited star systems which made up the Confederation in 2611. When First Admiral Samual Aleksandrovich took up his appointment in 2605 it was the home port for the 1st Fleet and headquarters and training centre for the Marine Corps. It housed the career Officer Academy, the Engineering School, the Navy Technical Evaluation Office, the First Admiral’s Strategy Office, the Navy Budget Office, the principal research laboratories for supralight communications, and (more quietly) the headquarters of the Fleet Intelligence Arm. A black and grey peanut shape, twenty-one kilometres long, seven wide, rotating about its long axis; it contained three cylindrical biosphere caverns which housed a mixed civilian and military population of approximately three hundred thousand. There were non-rotational spaceports at each end: spheres two kilometres in diameter, the usual gridwork of girders and tanks and pipes, threaded with pressurized tubes carrying commuter cars, and docking-bays ringed by control cabins. Their surface area was just able to cope with the vast quantity of spaceship movements. The spindles were both fixed to Trafalgar’s axis at the centre of deep artificial craters two kilometres wide which the voidhawks used as docking-ledges. As well as its responsibility for defence and anti-pirate duties across the Confederation it coordinated Avon’s defence in conjunction with the local navy. The strategic-defence platforms protecting the planet were some of the most powerful ever built. Given the huge numbers of government diplomatic ships, as well as the above average number of commercial flights using the low-orbit docking stations, security was a paramount requirement. There hadn’t been an act of piracy in the system for over two and a half centuries, but the possibility of a suicide attack against Trafalgar was uppermost in the minds of navy tacticians. Strategic sensor coverage was absolute out to a distance of two million kilometres from the planetary surface. Reaction time by the patrolling voidhawks was near instantaneous. Starships emerging outside designated areas took a formidable risk in doing so. The voyage had taken three and a half days. There were sixty people on board, and the bitek life-support organs were rapidly approaching their critical limit. The air smelt bad, membrane filters couldn’t cope with the body gases, CO2 was building up, oxygen reserves were almost exhausted. Trafalgar was five thousand kilometres away when the wormhole terminus sealed. Legally, it should have been a hundred thousand. But a long sublight flight to a docking-ledge would have pushed The asteroid immediately went to defence condition C2, allowing the duty officer to engage all targets at will. Nuclear-pumped gamma-ray lasers locked onto the voidhawk’s hull within three-quarters of a second of the wormhole opening. Every Edenist officer in Trafalgar’s strategic-defence command-centre heard “Stand down,” the duty officer told the centre, and datavised a lockdown order into the fire-command computer. She looked across at the nearest Edenist. “And tell that idiot captain from me I’ll fry his arse off next time he pulls a stunt like this.” Lalonde’s navy office personnel disembarked first, hurrying along the airlock tube to the waiting bus, all of them taking deep gulps of clean, cool air. A medic team carried Niels Regehr off in a stretcher, while two paediatric nurses soothed and patted a blubbering Shafi Banaji. Environment-maintenance vehicles plugged hoses and cables into the crew toroid’s umbilical sockets, sending gales of fresh air gusting through the cabins and central corridor. Resenda, Once the first bus trundled away, a second nosed up to the airlock. A ten-strong marine squad in combat fatigues and armed with chemical projectile guns marched on board. Rhodri Peyton, the squad’s captain, saluted an exhausted, unwashed, and unshaven Lieutenant Murphy Hewlett. “This is her?” he asked sceptically. Jacqueline Couteur stood in the middle of the corridor outside the airlock, with Jeroen van Ewyck and Garrett Tucci training their Bradfields on her. She was even dirtier than Murphy, the check pattern of her cotton shirt almost lost below the engrained grime picked up in the jungle. “I’m tempted to let her show you what she can do,” Murphy said. Kelven Solanki stepped forwards. “All right, Murphy.” He turned to the marine captain. “Your men are to have at least two weapons covering her at all times. She’s capable of emitting an electronic warfare effect, as well as letting loose some kind of lightning bolt. Don’t try to engage her in physical combat, she’s quite capable of ripping you apart.” One of the marines snickered at that. Kelven didn’t have the energy left to argue. “I’ll go with her,” Jeroen van Ewyck said. “My people need to be briefed anyway, and I’ll let the science officers know what’s required.” “What is required?” Jacqueline Couteur asked. Rhodri Peyton turned, and gave a start. In place of the dumpy middle-aged woman there was a tall, beautiful, twenty-year-old girl wearing a white cocktail gown. She gave him a silent entreating look, the maiden about to be offered to the dragon. “Help me. Please. You’re not like them. You’re not an emotionless machine. They want to hurt me in their laboratories. Don’t let them.” Garrett Tucci jabbed the Bradfield into her back. “Pack it in, bitch,” he said roughly. She twisted, like an AV projection with a broken focus, and the old Jacqueline Couteur was standing there, a mocking expression on her face. Her jeans and shirt were now clean and pressed. “My God,” Rhodri Peyton gasped. “Now do you see?” Kelven asked. The now nervous marine squad escorted their prisoner along the connecting tube to the bus. Jacqueline Couteur sat beside one of the windows, five guns lined up on her. She watched the bare walls of sterile rock impassively as the bus rolled back across the crater and into a downward sloping tunnel that led deep into the asteroid. First Admiral Samual Aleksandrovich hadn’t set foot on his native Russian-ethnic birth planet Kolomna for the last fifty-three of his seventy-three years; he hadn’t been back for a holiday, nor even his parents’ funeral. Regular visits might have been deemed inappropriate given that Confederation Navy career officers were supposed to renounce any national ties when they walked through the academy entrance; for a First Admiral to display any undue interest would have been a completely unacceptable breach of diplomatic etiquette. People would have understood his attending the funerals, though. So everyone assumed he was applying the same kind of steely discipline to his private affairs that ruled his professional life. They were all wrong. Samual Aleksandrovich had never been back because there was nothing on the wretched planet with its all-over temperate climate which interested him, not family nor culture nor nostalgic scenery. The reason he left in the first place was because he couldn’t stand the idea of spending a century helping his four brothers and three sisters run the family fruit-farming business. The same geneering which had produced his energetic one metre eighty frame, vivid copper hair, and enhanced metabolism, bestowed a life expectancy of at least a hundred and twenty years. By the time he was nineteen years old he had come to realize that such a life would be a prison sentence given the vocations available on a planet just emerging from its agrarian phase. A potentially blessed life should not be faced with such finite horizons, for if it was it would turn from being a joy into a terrible burden. Variety was sanity. So on the day after his twentieth birthday he had kissed his parents and siblings goodbye, walked the seventeen kilometres into town through a heavy snowfall, and signed on at the Confederation Navy recruitment office. Metaphorically, and otherwise, he had never looked back. He had never been anything other than an exemplary officer; he’d seen combat seven times, flown anti-pirate interdictions, commanded a flotilla raiding an illegal antimatter-production station, and gained a substantial number of distinguished service awards. But appointment to the post of First Admiral required a great deal more than an exemplary record. Much as he hated it, Samual Aleksandrovich had to play the political game; appearing before Assembly select committees, giving unofficial briefings to senior diplomats, wielding Fleet Intelligence information with as much skill as he did the rapier (he was year champion at the academy). His ability to pressure member states was admired by the Assembly President’s staffers, as much for its neatness as the millions of fuseodollars saved by circumventing fleet deployment to trouble spots; and their word counted for a great deal more than the Admiralty, who advanced the names of candidates to the Assembly’s Navy Committee. In the six years he had held the office he had done a good job keeping the peace between sometimes volatile planetary governments and the even more mercurial asteroid settlements. Leaders and politicians respected his toughness and fairness. A great deal of his renowned even-handed approach was formed when at the age of thirty-two he was serving as a lieutenant on a frigate that had been sent to Jantrit to assist the Edenists in some kind of armed rebellion (however unbelievable it sounded at the time). The frigate crew had watched helplessly while the antimatter was detonated, then spent three days in exhausting and often fruitless manoeuvres to rescue survivors of the tragedy. Samual Aleksandrovich had led one of the recovery teams after they rendezvoused with a broken starscraper. With heroic work that won him a commendation he and his crew-mates saved eighteen Edenists trapped in the tubular honeycomb of polyp. But one of the rooms they forced their way into was filled with corpses. It was a children’s day club that had suffered explosive decompression. As he floated in desolated horror across the grisly chamber, he realized the Edenists were just as human as himself, and just as fallible. After that the persistent snide comments from fellow officers about the tall aloof bitek users annoyed him intensely. From then on he devoted himself body and soul to the ideal of enforcing the peace. So when the Where Laton was concerned, Samual Aleksandrovich exhibited neither his usual fairness nor a desire for justice to be done. He just wanted Laton dead. And this time there would be no error. Even after his staff had edited down Murphy Hewlett’s neural nanonics recording of the marine squad’s fateful jungle mission, to provide just the salient points, there was three hours of sensorium memory to access. When he surfaced from Lalonde’s savage heat and wearying humidity, Samual Aleksandrovich remained lost in thought for quarter of an hour, then took a commuter car down to the Fleet Intelligence laboratories. Jacqueline Couteur had been isolated in a secure examination room. It was a cell cut into living rock with a transparent wall of metallized silicon whose structure was reinforced with molecular-binding-force generators. On one side it was furnished with a bed, wash-basin, shower, toilet, and a table, while the other side resembled a medical surgery with an adjustable couch and a quantity of analysis equipment. She sat at the table, dressed in a green clinical robe. Five marines were in the cell with her, four of them carrying chemical-projectile guns, the fifth a TIP carbine. Samual Aleksandrovich stood in front of the transparent wall looking at the drab woman. The monitoring room he was in resembled a warship’s bridge, a white composite cube with a curved rank of consoles, all facing the transparent wall. The impersonality disturbed him slightly, an outsized vivarium. Jacqueline Couteur returned his stare levelly. She should never have been able to do that, not a simple farmer’s wife from a backwoods colony world. There were diplomats with eighty years of experienced duplicity behind them who broke into a sweat when Samual Aleksandrovich turned his gaze on them. He likened the experience to looking into the eyes of an Edenist habitat mayor at some formal event, when the consensus intellect of every adult in the habitat looked back at him. Judging. Whatever you are, he thought, you are not Jacqueline Couteur. This is the moment I’ve dreaded since I took my oath of office. A new threat, one beyond anything we know. And the burden of how to deal with it will inevitably fall heaviest on my navy. “Do you understand the method of sequestration yet?” He asked Dr Gilmore, who was heading the research team. The doctor made a penitent gesture. “Not as yet. She’s certainly under the control of some outside agency, but so far we haven’t been able to locate the point where it interfaces with her nervous system. I’m a neural nanonics expert, and we’ve got several physicists on the team. But I’m not entirely sure we even have a specialization to cover this phenomenon.” “Tell me what you can.” “We ran a full body and neural scan on her, looking for implants. You saw what she and the other sequestrated colonists could do back on Lalonde?” “Yes.” “That ability to produce the white fireballs and electronic warfare impulses must logically have some kind of focusing mechanism. We found nothing. If it’s there it’s smaller than our nanonics, a lot smaller. Atomic sized, at least, maybe even sub-atomic.” “Could it be biological? A virus?” “You’re thinking of Laton’s proteanic virus? No, nothing like that.” He turned and beckoned to Euru. The tall black-skinned Edenist left the monitor console he was working at and came over. “Laton’s virus attacked cells,” he explained. “Specifically neural cells, altering their composition and DNA. This woman’s brain structure remains perfectly normal, as far as we can tell.” “If she can knock out a marine’s combat electronics at over a hundred metres, how do you know your analysis equipment is giving you genuine readings?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked. The two scientists exchanged a glance. “Interference is a possibility we’ve considered,” Euru admitted. “The next stage of our investigation will be to acquire tissue samples and subject them to analysis outside the range of her influence—if she lets us take them. It would require a great deal of effort if she refused to cooperate.” “Has she been cooperative so far?” “For most of the time, yes. We’ve witnessed two instances of visual pattern distortion,” Dr Gilmore said. “When her jeans and shirt were removed she assumed the image of an apelike creature. It was shocking, but only because it was so unusual and unexpected. Then later on she tried to entice the marines to let her out by appearing as an adolescent girl with highly developed secondary sexual characteristics. We have AV recordings of both occasions; she can somehow change her body’s photonic-emission spectrum. It’s definitely not an induced hallucination, more like a chameleon suit’s camouflage.” “What we don’t understand is where she gets the energy to produce these effects,” Euru said. “The cell’s environment is strictly controlled and monitored, so she can’t be tapping Trafalgar’s electrical power circuits. And when we ran tests on her urine and faeces we found nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly there’s no unusual chemical activity going on inside her.” “Lori and Darcy claimed Laton warned them of an energy virus,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “Is such a thing possible?” “It may well be,” Euru said. His eyes darkened with emotion. “If that Samual Aleksandrovich switched his glance back to the woman behind the transparent wall. “Perhaps you are looking at the first.” “It would be an extraordinary advance from our present knowledge base,” Dr Gilmore said. “Have you asked the Kiint if it is possible?” “No,” Dr Gilmore admitted. “Then do so. They may tell us, they may not. Who understands how their minds work? But if anyone knows, they will.” “Yes, sir.” “What about her?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked. “Has she said anything?” “She is not very communicative,” Euru said. The First Admiral grunted, and activated the intercom beside the cell’s door. “Do you know who I am?” he asked. The marines inside the cell stiffened. Jacqueline Couteur’s expression never changed; she looked him up and down slowly. “I know,” she said. “Who exactly am I talking to?” “Me.” “Are you part of Laton’s schemes?” Was there the faintest twitch of a smile on her lips? “No.” “What do you hope to achieve on Lalonde?” “Achieve?” “Yes, achieve. You have subjugated the human population, killed many people. This is not a situation I can allow to continue. Defending the Confederation from such a threat is my responsibility, even on a little planet as politically insignificant as Lalonde. I would like to know your motives so that a solution to this crisis may be found which does not involve conflict. You must have known that ultimately your action would bring about an armed response.” “There is no ‘achievement’ sought.” “Then why do what you have done?” “I do as nature binds me. As do you.” “I do what my duty binds me to do. When you were on the “If you believe I will aid you to comprehend what has happened, you are mistaken.” “Then why did you allow yourself to be captured? I’ve seen the power you possess; Murphy Hewlett is good, but not that good. He couldn’t get you here unless you wanted to come.” “How amusing. I see governments and conspiracy theories are still inseparable. Perhaps I’m the lovechild of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe come to sue the North American Govcentral state in the Assembly court for my rightful inheritance.” Samual Aleksandrovich gave her a nonplussed look. “What?” “It doesn’t matter. Why did the navy want me here, Admiral?” “To study you.” “Precisely. And that is why I am here. To study you. Which of us will learn the most, I wonder?” Kelven Solanki had never envisaged meeting the First Admiral quite so early in his career. Most commanders were introduced, certainly those serving in the 1st Fleet. But not lieutenant-commanders assigned to minor field-diplomat duties. Yet here he was being shown into the First Admiral’s office by Captain Maynard Khanna. Circumstances muted the sense of excitement. He wasn’t sure how the First Admiral viewed his handling of events on Lalonde, and the staff captain had given him no clues. Samual Aleksandrovich’s office was a circular chamber thirty metres across, with a slightly domed ceiling. Its curving wall had one window which looked out into Trafalgar’s central biosphere cavern, and ten long holoscreens, eight slowly flicking through images from external sensors and the remaining two showing tactical displays. The ceiling was ribbed with bronze spars, with a fat AV cylinder protruding from the apex resembling a crystalline stalactite. There were two clusters of furniture; a huge teak desk with satellite chairs; and a sunken reception area lined by padded leather couches. Maynard Khanna showed him over to the desk where the First Admiral was waiting. Auster, Dr Gilmore, Admiral Lalwani, the Fleet Intelligence chief, and Admiral Motela Kolhammer, the 1st Fleet Commander, were all sitting before the desk in the curved blue-steel chairs that had extruded out of the floor like pliable mercury. Kelven stood to attention and gave a perfect salute, very conscious of the five sets of eyes studying him. Samual Aleksandrovich smiled thinly at the junior officer’s obvious discomfort. “At ease, Commander.” He gestured at one of the two new chairs formatting themselves out of the floor material. Kelven removed his cap, tucked it under his arm, and sat next to Maynard Khanna. “You handled Lalonde quite well,” the First Admiral said. “Not perfectly, but then you weren’t exactly prepared for anything like this. Under the circumstances I’m satisfied with your performance.” “Thank you, sir.” “Bloody ESA people didn’t help,” Motela Kolhammer muttered. Samual Aleksandrovich waved him quiet. “That is something we can take up with their ambassador later. Though I’m sure we all know what the outcome will be. Regrettable or not, you acted properly the whole time, Solanki. Capturing one of the sequestrated was exactly what we required.” “Captain Auster made it possible, sir,” Kelven said. “I wouldn’t have got the marines out otherwise.” The voidhawk captain nodded thankfully in acknowledgement. “None the less, we should have given your situation a higher priority to begin with, and provided you with adequate resources,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “My mistake, especially given who was involved.” “Has Jacqueline Couteur confirmed Laton’s existence?” Kelven asked. Part of him was hoping that the answer was going to be a resounding no. “She didn’t have to.” Samual Aleksandrovich sighed ponderously. “A blackhawk”—he paused, raising his bushy ginger eyebrows in emphasis—“has just arrived from Tranquillity with a flek from Commander Olsen Neale. Under the circumstances I can quite forgive him for using the ship as a courier. If you would like to access the sensevise.” Kelven sank deeper into the scoop of his chair as Graeme Nicholson’s recording played through his brain. “He was there all along,” he said brokenly. “In Durringham itself, and I never knew. I thought the “You are not in any way to blame,” Admiral Lalwani said. Kelven glanced over at the grey-haired Edenist woman. There was an inordinate amount of sympathy and sadness in the tone. “We should never have stopped checking, all those years ago,” she continued. “The presence of Darcy and Lori on Lalonde was a rather miserable token to appease our paranoia. Even we were guilty of wishing Laton dead. The hope overwhelmed reason and rational thought. All of us knew how resourceful he was, and we knew he had acquired data on Lalonde. The planet should have been thoroughly searched. Our mistake. Now he has returned. I don’t like to think of the price we will all have to pay before he is stopped this time.” “Sir, Darcy and Lori seemed very uncertain that he was behind this invasion,” Kelven said. “Laton actually warned them of this illusion-creating ability the sequestrated have.” “And Jacqueline Couteur agrees he isn’t a part of this,” Dr Gilmore said. “That’s one of the few things she will admit to.” “I hardly think we can take her word for it,” Admiral Kolhammer said. “Precise details are for later,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “What we have with Lalonde is shaping up into a major, and immediate, crisis. I’m tempted to ask the Assembly President to declare a state of emergency; that would put national navies at my disposal.” “In theory,” Admiral Kolhammer said drily. “Yes, and yet anything less may not suffice. This undetectable sequestration ability has me deeply worried. It has been used so freely on Lalonde, hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. How many people does the agency behind it intend to subjugate? How many planets? It is a threat which the Assembly cannot be allowed to ignore in favour of its usual horse trading.” He considered the option of total mobilization before reluctantly dismissing it. There wasn’t enough evidence to convince the president, not yet. It would come eventually, he was in no doubt of that. “For the moment we will do what we can to contain the spread of this plague, whilst trying to find Laton. The flek from Olsen Neale also went on to report that Terrance Smith has met with some success in recruiting mercenaries and combat-capable starships for Governor Rexrew. That blackhawk made excellent time from Tranquillity; a little over two days, the captain told me. So we may just be able to put a brake on Lalonde before it gets totally out of hand. Terrance Smith’s ships are scheduled to depart from Tranquillity today. Lalwani, you estimate it will take them a week to reach Lalonde?” “Yes,” she said. “It took the “Apart from the “I know that name . . .” Kelven Solanki ran a search program through his neural nanonics. “The “That wasn’t mentioned in any of your reports,” Lalwani said. Her slim forehead showed a frown. “It was a commercial flight. Slightly odd, the captain wanted to export aboriginal wood, but as far as we could tell perfectly legitimate.” “This name does seem to be popping up with suspicious regularity,” Maynard Khanna said. “We should be able to look into it easily enough,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “Commander Solanki, the principal reason I asked you here was to inform you that you are to act as an adviser to the squadron which will blockade Lalonde.” “Sir?” “We’re launching a dual programme to terminate this threat. The first aspect is a Confederationwide alert for Laton. We have to know where the “He won’t stay on board,” Lalwani said. “Not after he reaches a port. But we’ll find him. I’m organizing the search now. All the voidhawks in the Avon system will be conscripted and dispatched to alert national governments. I’ve already sent one to Jupiter; once the habitat consensus is informed, every voidhawk in the Sol system will be used to relay the news. I estimate it will take four to five days to blanket the Confederation.” “Time Universe will probably beat you to it,” Admiral Kolhammer said gruffly. Lalwani smiled. The two of them were sparring partners from way back. “In this case I wouldn’t mind in the least.” “Be a lot of panic. Stock markets will take a tumble.” “If it makes people take the threat seriously, so much the better,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “Motela, you are to assemble a 1st Fleet squadron, a large one, to be held on fifteen-minute-departure alert. When we find Laton, eliminating him is going to be your problem.” “What problem?” “I admire the sentiment,” Samual Aleksandrovich said with a touch of censure. “But kindly remember he escaped from us last time, when we were equally hungry for blood. That mistake cannot be repeated. This time I shall require proof, even though it will no doubt be expensive. I imagine Lalwani and Auster will agree.” “We do,” Lalwani said. “All Edenists do. If there is any risk in confirming the target is Laton, then we will bear it.” “In the meantime, I want Lalonde to be completely isolated,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “The mercenary force is not to be allowed to land, nor do I want any surface bombardments from orbit. Those colonists have suffered enough already. The solution to this sequestration lies in discovering the method by which it is implemented, and devising a counter. Brute force is merely dumping plutonium in a volcano. And I suspect the mercenaries would simply be sequestrated themselves should they land. Dr Gilmore, this is your field.” “Not really,” the doctor said expressively. “But we shall put our female subject through an extensive series of experiments to see if we can determine the method of the sequestration and how to cancel it. However, judging by what we know so far, which is virtually nothing, I have to say an answer is going to take a considerable time to formulate. Though you are quite right to instigate a quarantine. The less contact Lalonde has with the rest of the Confederation the better, especially if it turns out Laton isn’t behind the invasion.” “The doctor has a point,” Lalwani said. “What if the Lalonde invasion is the start of a xenoc incursion, and Laton himself has been sequestrated?” “I’m keeping it in mind,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “We need to know more, either from the Couteur woman or Lalonde itself. Our principal trouble remains what it has always been: reaction time. It takes us far too long to amass any large force. Always our conflicts are larger than they would have been if we had received a warning of problems and threats earlier in their development. But just this once, we may actually be in luck. Unless there was some supreme diplomatic foul-up, Meredith Saldana’s squadron was due to leave Omuta three days ago. They were in the system mainly for pomp and show, but they carried a full weapons load. A squadron of front-line ships already assembled and perfectly suited to these duties; we couldn’t have planned it better. It’ll take them five days to get back to Rosenheim. Captain Auster, if “ “My thanks to Auster inclined his head. “Lieutenant-Commander Solanki, you’ll travel with Captain Auster, and carry my orders for Rear-Admiral Saldana. And I think we can manage a promotion to full commander before you go. You’ve shown considerable initiative over the last few weeks, as well as personal courage.” “Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Kelven said. The promotion barely registered, some irreverent section of his mind was counting up the number of light-years he had flown in a week. It must be some kind of record. But he was going back to Lalonde, and bringing his old friends help. That felt good. I’ve stopped running. “Add an extra order that the The Thermo-dump panels slid out of the hull, and the flight computer plotted a vector which would deliver the starship to a five hundred kilometre equatorial orbit. Zaretsky triggered the fusion drive and the ship moved in at a tenth of a gee. Once the Zaretsky didn’t share their problem. When he opened a channel to the Tyrathca farmers on the planet they reported a few skirmishes with humans who were “acting oddly;” but they had prepared their rygar crop, and were waiting for the equipment and new farmers the Jay Hilton sat on the rock outcrop fifty metres from the savannah homestead cabin, her legs crossed, head tipped back to watch the starship decelerating into orbit, and mournful curiosity pooling in her eyes. The weeks of living with Father Horst had brought about a considerable change in her appearance. For a start her lush silver-white hair had been cropped into a frizz barely a centimetre long, making it easier to keep clean. She had cried bucketfuls the day Father Horst took the scissors to it. Her mother had always looked after it so well, washing it with special shampoo brought from Earth, brushing it to a shine each night. Her hair was her last link with the way things used to be, her last hope that they might be that way again. When Father Horst had finished his snipping she knew in her heart that her most precious dream, that one day she’d wake up to find everything had returned to normal, was just a stupid child’s imagination. She had to be tough now, had to be adult. But it was so hard. I just want Mummy back, that’s all. The other children looked up to her. She was the oldest and strongest of the group. Father Horst relied on her a great deal to keep the younger ones in order. A lot of them still cried at night. She heard them in the darkness, crying for their lost parents or siblings, crying because they wanted to go back to their arcology where none of this horrid confusion and upset happened. Dawn’s rosy crown gave way to a tide of blue which swept across the sky, erasing the stars. Rennison faded to a pale crescent, and the starship’s exhaust became more difficult to see. Jay unfolded her legs and clambered down off the rocks. The homestead on the edge of the savannah was a simple wooden structure, its solar-cell roof sheets glinting in the strong morning light. Two of the dogs, a Labrador and an Alsatian, were out and about. She patted them as she went up the creaking wooden stairs to the porch. The cows in the paddock were making plaintive calls, their udders heavy with milk. Jay went in through the front door. The big lounge whiffed strongly—of food, and cooking, and too many people. She sniffed the air suspiciously. Someone had wet their bedding again, probably more than one. The floor was a solid patchwork of sleeping-bags and blankets, their occupants only just beginning to stir. Grass stuffing from the makeshift mattresses of canvas sacks had leaked out again. “Come on! Come on!” Jay clapped her hands together as she pulled the reed blinds open. Streamers of gold-tinged sunlight poured in, revealing children blinking sleep from their eyes, wincing at the brightness. Twenty-seven of them were crammed together on the mayope floorboards, ranging from a toddler about two years old up to Danny, who was nearly the same age as Jay. All of them with short haircuts and rough-tailored adult clothes which never quite fitted. “Up you get! Danny, it’s your gang’s turn to do the milking. Andria, you’re in charge of cooking this morning: I want tea, oatmeal, and boiled eggs for breakfast.” A groan went up, which Jay ignored; she was just as fed up with the changeless diet as they were. “Shona, take three girls with you and collect the eggs, please.” Shona gave a timid smile as well as she could, grateful for being included in the work assignments and not being treated any differently to the others. Jay had drilled herself not to flinch from looking at the poor girl. The six-year-old’s face was covered in a bandage mask of glossy translucent epithelium membrane, with holes cut out for her eyes and mouth and nose. Her burn marks were still a livid pink below the overlapping membrane strips, and her hair was only just beginning to grow back. Father Horst said she ought to heal without any permanent scarring, but he was forever grieving over the lack of medical nanonic packages. Coughs and grumbles and high-pitched chattering filled the room as the children struggled out of bed and into their clothes. Jay saw little Robert sitting brokenly on the side of his sleeping-bag, head in his hands, not bothering to get dressed. “Eustice, you’re to get this room tidied up, and I want all the blankets aired properly today.” “Yes, Jay,” she answered sullenly. The outside door was flung open as five or six children rushed out laughing, and ran for the lean-to, which they used as a toilet. Jay picked her way over the rectangles of bedding to Robert. He was only seven, a black-skinned boy with fluffy blond hair. Sure enough, the navy blue pants he wore were damp. “Pop down to the stream,” she said kindly. “There will be plenty of time to wash before breakfast.” His head was lowered even further. “I didn’t mean to,” he whispered, on the verge of tears. “I know. Remember to wash out your sleeping-bag as well.” She caught the sound of someone giggling. “Bo, you help him take the bag down to the stream.” “Oh, Jay!” “It’s all right,” Robert said. “I can manage.” “No, you won’t, not if you want to be back in time for breakfast.” The big table was already being pulled out from the kitchen corner by three of the boys, scraping loudly across the floor. They were shouting for people to get out of the way. “Don’t see why I should have to help him,” Bo said intransigently. She was an eight-year-old, meaty for her age, with chubby red cheeks. Her size was often deployed to help boss the smaller children around. “Chocolate,” Jay said in warning. Bo blushed, then stalked over to Robert. “Come on then, you.” Jay knocked once on Father Horst’s door and walked in. The room had been the homestead’s main bedroom when they moved in; it still had a double bed in it, but most of the floor space was taken up with packets, jars, and pots of food they’d taken from the other deserted homestead cabins. Clothes and cloth and powered tools, anything small or light enough to be carried, filled the second bedroom in piles that were taller than Jay. Horst was getting up as the girl came in. He’d already got his trousers on, thick denim jeans with leather patches, a working man’s garment, requisitioned from one of the other savannah homesteads. She picked up the faded red sweatshirt from the foot of the bed and handed it to him. He had lost a lot of weight—a lot of fat—over the last weeks; slack bands of flesh hung loosely from his torso. But even the folds were shrinking, and the muscles they covered were harder than they had ever been, though at night they felt like bands of ignescent metal. Horst spent most of every day working, hard manual work; keeping the cabin in shape, repairing and strengthening the paddock fence, building a chicken run, digging the latrines; then in the evening there would be prayers and reading lessons. At night he dropped into bed as if a giant had felled him with its fist. He had never known a human body could perform such feats of stamina, least of all one as old and decrepit as his. Yet he never wavered, never complained. There was a fire in his eyes that had been ignited by his predicament. He was embarked on a crusade to survive, to deliver his charges to safety. The bishop would be hard pressed to recognize that dreamy well-meaning Horst Elwes who had left Earth last year. Even thinking about his earlier self with its disgusting self-pity and weaknesses repelled him. He had been tested as few had ever been before, his faith thrown onto towering flames that had threatened to reduce him to shreds of black ash so powerful was the doubt and insecurity fuelling them: but he had emerged triumphant. Born of fire, and reforged, his conviction in self, and Christ the Saviour, was unbreakable. And he had the children to thank. The children who were now his life and his task. The hand of God had brought them together. He would not fail them, not while there was a breath left in his body. He smiled at Jay who was as grave faced as she always was at the break of day. The sounds of the usual morning bedlam were coming through the door as bedding was put away and the furniture brought out. “How goes it today, Jay?” “Same as always.” She sat on the end of the bed as he pulled on his heavy hand-tooled boots. “I saw a starship arrive. It’s coming down into low orbit.” He glanced up from his laces. “Just one?” “Uh huh,” she nodded vigorously. “Ah well, it’s not to be today, then.” “Oh, Jay.” He pulled her against him, and rocked her gently as she sniffled. “Jay, don’t give up hope. Not you.” It was the one thing he promised them, repeating it every night at prayers so they would believe. On a world far away lived a wise and powerful man called Admiral Aleksandrovich, and when he heard what terrible things had happened on Lalonde he would send a fleet of Confederation Navy starships to help its people and drive away the demons who possessed them. The soldiers and the navy crews would come down in huge spaceplanes and rescue them, and then their parents, and finally put the world to rights again. Every night Horst said it, with the door locked against the wind and rain, and the windows shuttered against the dark empty savannah. Every night he believed and they believed. Because God would not have spared them if it was not for a purpose. “They will come,” he promised. He kissed her forehead. “Your mother will be so proud of you when she returns to us.” “Really?” “Yes, really.” She pondered this. “Robert wet his bed again,” she said. “Robert is a fine boy.” Horst stomped on the second boot. They were two sizes too large, which meant he had to wear three pairs of socks, which made his feet sweat, and smell. “We should get him something,” she said. “Should we now? And what’s that?” “A rubber mat. There might be one in another cabin. I could look,” she said, eyes all wide with innocence. Horst laughed. “No, Jay, I haven’t forgotten. I’ll take you out hunting this morning, and this time it will be Danny who stays behind.” Jay let out a squeal of excitement and kicked her legs in the air. “Yes! Thank you, Father.” He finished tying his laces and stood up. “Don’t mention the starship, Jay. When the navy comes it will be in a mighty flotilla, with their exhaust plumes so strong and bright they will turn night into day. Nobody will mistake it. But in the meantime we must not pour cold water on the others’ hopes.” “I understand, Father. I’m not as dumb as them.” He ruffled her hair, which she pretended not to like, wriggling away. “Come along now,” he said. “Breakfast first. Then we’ll get our expedition sorted out.” “I suppose Russ will come with us?” she asked in a martyred voice. “Yes, he will. And stop thinking uncharitable thoughts.” The children already had most of the bedding off the floor. Two boys were sweeping up the dried grass from the sack mattresses (Must find a better replacement, Horst thought). Eustice’s voice could be heard through the open door, yelling instructions to the children airing the linen outside. Horst helped to pull the big table into the middle of the room. Andria’s team were scurrying round the kitchen corner, tending the equipment and the meal. The big urn was just starting to boil, and the three IR plates were heating up the boiling pans ready for the eggs. Once again Horst gave a fast prayer of thanks that the solar-powered equipment functioned so well. It was easy enough for the children to use without hurting themselves, and most of them had helped their mothers with the cooking before. All they needed was some direction, as they did in every task he set them. He didn’t like to think how he would have coped if the homestead hadn’t been empty. It took another fifteen minutes before Andria’s cooking party were ready to serve breakfast. Several of the eggs Shona brought back were broken, so Horst himself scrambled them up in a pan on a spare IR plate. It was easier to feed Jill, the toddler, that way. The tea was finally ready, and the eggs boiled. Everyone lined up with their mug and cutlery and eggcup, and filed past the kitchen bar which doubled as a serving counter. For a few wonderful minutes the room was actually quiet as the children drank, and cracked their eggs open, and pulled faces as they munched the dry oatmeal biscuits, dunking them in the tea to try and soften them up first. Horst looked round his extended family and tried not to feel frightened at the responsibility. He adored them in a way he had never done with his parishioners. After breakfast it was wash time, with the extra two tanks he had installed in the rafter space struggling to provide enough hot water. Horst inspected them all to make sure they were clean and that they had jell-rinsed their teeth. That way he could have a few words with each of them, make them feel special, and wanted, and loved. It also gave him the chance to watch for any sign of illness. So far there had been remarkably little, a few colds, and one nasty outbreak of diarrhoea a fortnight ago, which he suspected was from a batch of jam that had come from another homestead. The morning would follow its standard pattern while he and Jay were away. Clothes to be washed in the stream and hung out to dry. Hay to be taken into the cows, corn to be measured out into the chicken-run dispensers (they never did that very well), lunch to be prepared. When he went away it was always the packets of protein-balanced meals from Earth—all they had to do was put them in the microwave for ninety seconds, and nothing could go wrong. Sometimes he allowed a group to pick elwisie fruit from the trees on the edge of the jungle. But not today; he gave Danny a stern lecture that no one was to wander more than fifty metres from the cabin, and someone must be on watch the whole time in case a kroclion turned up. The plains carnivores hadn’t often plagued the homesteads, but his didactic memory showed what a menace the lumbering animals could be. The boy nodded earnestly, eager to prove his worth. Horst was still suffering from stings of doubt when he led the group’s one horse from its stable. He trusted Jay to be left in charge, she acted far older than her years. But he had to hunt for meat, there were hardly any fish in the nearby stream. If they stuck to the cache of food in his bedroom it would be gone within ten days; it existed to supplement what he killed and stored in the freezer, and acted as an emergency reserve just in case he ever did get ill. And Jay deserved a break from the homestead, she hadn’t been away since they arrived. He took two other children with him as well as Jay. Mills, an energetic eight-year-old from Schuster village, and Russ, a seven-year-old who simply refused to ever leave Horst’s side. The one and only time he had gone hunting without him the boy had run off into the savannah and it had taken the whole afternoon to find him. Jay was grinning and waving and playing up to her jealous friends when they set off. The savannah grass quickly rose up around their legs; Horst had made Jay wear a pair of trousers instead of her usual shorts. A thick layer of mist started to lift from the waving stalks and blades now the sun was rising higher into the sky. Haze broke the visibility down to less than a kilometre. “This humidity is worse than the Juliffe back in Durringham,” Jay exclaimed, waving her hand frantically in front of her face. “Cheer up,” Horst said. “It might rain later.” “No, it won’t.” He glanced round to where she was walking in the track he was making through the stiff grass. Bright eyes gleamed mischievously at him from below the brim of her tatty felt sun-hat. “How do you know?” he asked. “It always rains on Lalonde.” “No, it doesn’t. Not any more, not during the day.” “What do you mean?” “Haven’t you noticed? It only ever rains at night now.” Horst gave her a perplexed stare. He was about to tell her not to be silly. But then he couldn’t remember the last time he’d rushed indoors to shelter from one of Lalonde’s ferocious downpours—a week, ten days? He had an uncomfortable feeling it might even have been longer. “No, I hadn’t noticed,” he said temperately. “That’s all right, you’ve had a lot on your mind lately.” “I certainly have.” But the chirpy mood was broken now. I should have noticed, he told himself. But then who regards the weather as something suspicious? He was sure it was important though, he just couldn’t think how, or why. Surely they couldn’t change the weather. Horst made it a rule that he was never away for more than four hours. That put seven other homestead cabins within reach (eight counting the ruins of the Skibbow building) as well as allowing enough time to shoot a danderil or some vennals. Once he had shot a pig that had run wild, and they’d eaten ham and bacon for the rest of the week. It was the most delicious meat he’d ever tasted, terrestrial beasts were pure ambrosia compared to the coarse and bland aboriginal animals. There was hardly anything of any value left in the cabins now, he had stripped them pretty thoroughly. After another couple of visits there would be little point in returning. He caught himself before brooding turned to melancholia; he wouldn’t need to go back, the navy would come. And don’t ever think anything different. Jay bounded up to walk beside him, adjusting her stride to match his. She gave him a sideways smile, then returned her gaze to the front, perfectly content. Horst felt his own tensions seeping away. Having her so close was like the time right after that dreadful night. She had screamed and fought him as he pulled her away from Ruth and Jackson Gael. He had forced her through the village towards the jungle, only once looking back. He saw it all then, in the light of the fire which pillaged their sturdy tranquil village, snuffing out their ambitions of a fair future as swiftly as rain dissolved the mud castles the children built on the riverbank. Satan’s army was upon them. More figures were marching out of the dark shadows into the orange light of the flames, creatures that even Dante in his most lucid fever-dreams had never conceived, and the screams of the ensnared villagers rose in a crescendo. Horst had never let Jay look back, not even after they reached the trees. He knew then that waiting for the hunting party to return was utter folly. Laser rifles could not harm the demon legions Lucifer in his wrath had loosed upon the land. They had carried on far into the jungle, until a numbed, petrified Jay had finally collapsed. Dawn found them huddled together in the roots of a qualtook tree, soaked and shivering from a downpour in the night. When they eased their way cautiously back towards Aberdale and hid themselves in the vines ringing the clearing they saw a village living a dream. Several buildings were razed to the ground. People walked by without paying them a glance. People Horst knew, his flock, who should have been overwrought by the damage. That was when he knew Satan had won, his demons had possessed the villagers. What he had seen at the Ivet ceremony had been repeated here, again and again. “Where’s Mummy?” Jay asked miserably. “I have no idea,” he said truthfully. There were fewer people than there should have been, maybe seventy or eighty out of the population of five hundred. They acted as though devoid of purpose, walking slowly, looking round in befogged surprise, saying nothing. The children were the exception. They ran around between the somnolent, shuffling adults, crying and shouting. But they were ignored, or sometimes cuffed for their trouble. Horst could hear their distraught voices from his sanctuary, deepening his own torment. He watched as a girl, Shona, trailed after her mother pleading for her to say something. She tugged insistently at the trousers, trying to get her to stop. For a moment it looked like she had succeeded. Her mother turned round. “Mummy,” Shona squealed. But the woman raised a hand, and a blast of white fire streamed from her fingers to smite the girl full in the face. Horst cringed, crossing himself instinctively as she dropped like a stone, not even uttering a cry. Then anger poured through him at his own cravenness. He stood up and strode purposefully out of the trees. “Father,” Jay squeaked behind him. “Father, don’t.” He paid her no heed. In a world gone mad, one more insanity would make no difference. He had sworn himself to follow Christ, a long time ago, but it meant more to him now than it ever had. And a child lay suffering before him. Father Horst Elwes was through with evasions and hiding. Several of the adults stopped to watch as he marched into the village, Jay scuttling along behind him. Horst pitied them for the husks they were. The human state of grace had been drained from their bodies. He could tell, accepting the gift of knowledge as his right. Six or seven villagers formed a loose group standing between him and Shona, their faces known but not their souls. One of the women, Brigitte Hearn, never a regular churchgoer, laughed at him, her arm rising. A ball of white fire emerged from her open fingers and raced towards him. Jay screamed, but Horst stood perfectly still, face resolute. The fireball started to break apart a couple of metres away from him, dimming and expanding. It burst with a wet crackle as it touched him, tiny strands of static burrowing through his filthy sweatshirt. They stung like hornets across his belly, but he refused to reveal his pain to the semicircle of watchers. “Do you know what this is?” Horst thundered. He lifted the stained and muddied silver crucifix that hung round his neck, brandishing it at Brigitte Hearn as though it was a weapon. “I am the Lord’s servant, as you are the Devil’s. And I have His work to do. Now stand aside.” A spasm of fright crossed Brigitte Hearn’s face as the silver cross was shaken in front of her. “I’m not,” she said faintly. “I’m not the Devil’s servant. None of us are.” “Then stand aside. That girl is badly hurt.” Brigitte Hearn glanced behind her, and took a couple of steps to one side. The other people in the group hurriedly parted, their faces apprehensive, one or two walked away. Horst gestured briefly at Jay to follow him, and went over to the fallen girl. He grimaced at the singed and blackened skin of her face. Her pulse was beating wildly. She had probably gone into shock, he decided. He scooped her up in his arms, and started for the church. “I had to come back,” Brigitte Hearn said as Horst walked away. Her body was all hunched up, eyes brimming with tears. “You don’t know what it’s like. I had to.” “It?” Horst asked impatiently. “What is it?” “Death.” Horst shuddered, almost breaking his stride. Jay looked round fearfully at the woman. “Four hundred years,” Brigitte Hearn called out falteringly. “I died four hundred years ago. Four hundred years of nothing.” Horst barged into the small infirmary at the back of the church, and laid Shona down on the wooden table which doubled as an examination bed. He snatched the medical processor block from its shelf and applied a sensor pad to the nape of her neck. The metabolic display appeared as he described her injuries to the processor. Horst read the results and gave the girl a sedative, then started spraying a combination analgesic and cleansing fluid over the burns. “Jay,” he said quietly. “I want you to go into my room and fetch my rucksack from the cupboard. Put in all the packets of preprocessed food you can find, then the tent I used when we first arrived, and anything else you think will be useful to camp out in the jungle—the little fission blade, my portable heater, that kind of stuff. But leave some space for my medical supplies. Oh, and I’ll need my spare boots too.” “Are we leaving?” “Yes.” “Are we going to Durringham?” “I don’t know. Not straight away.” “Can I go and fetch Drusilla?” “I don’t think it’s a good idea. She’ll be better off here than tramping through the jungle with us.” “All right. I understand.” He heard her moving about in his room as he worked on Shona. The younger girl’s nose was burnt almost down to the bone, and the metabolic display said only one retina was functional. Not for the first time he despaired the lack of nanonic medical packages; a decent supply would hardly have bankrupted the Church. He had flushed the dead skin from Shona’s burns as best he could, coating them in a thin layer of corticosteroid foam to ease the inflammation, and was binding her head with a quantity of his dwindling stock of epithelium membrane when Jay came back in carrying his rucksack, It was packed professionally, and she had even rolled up his sleeping-bag. “I got some stuff for myself,” she said, and held up a bulging shoulder-bag. “Good girl. You didn’t make the bag too heavy, did you? You might have to carry it a long way.” “No, Father.” Someone knocked timidly on the door post. Jay shrank into the corner of the infirmary. “Father Horst?” Brigitte Hearn poked her head in. “Father, they don’t want you here. They say they’ll kill you, that you can’t defend yourself against all of them.” “I know. We’re leaving.” “Oh.” “Will they let us leave?” She swallowed and looked over her shoulder. “Yes. I think so. They don’t want a fight. Not with you, not with a priest.” Horst opened drawers in the wooden cabinet at the back of the infirmary, and started shoving his medical equipment into the rucksack. “What are you?” he asked. “I don’t know,” she said woefully. “You said you had died?” “Yes.” “What is your name?” “Ingrid Veenkamp, I lived on Bielefeld when it was a stage one colony world, not much different to this planet.” She twitched a smile at Jay. “I had two girls. Pretty, like you.” “And where is Brigitte Hearn now?” “Here, in me. I feel her. She is like a dream.” “Possession,” Horst said. “No.” “Yes! I saw the red demon sprite. I witnessed the rite, the “I’m no demon,” the woman insisted. “I lived. I am human.” “No more. Leave this body you have stolen. Brigitte Hearn has a right to her own life.” “I can’t! I’m not going back there. Not to that.” Horst took a grip on his trembling hands. Thomas had known this moment, he thought, when the disciple doubted his Lord’s return, when in prideful arrogance he refused to believe until he had seen the print of nails in His hand. “Believe,” he whispered. “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.” The Brigitte/Ingrid woman bowed her head. Horst asked the question that should never be asked: “Where? Where, damn you!” “Nowhere. There is nothing for us. Do you hear? Nothing!” “You lie.” “There is nothing, just emptiness. I’m sorry.” She took an unsteady breath, seemingly gathering up a remnant of dignity. “You must leave now. They are coming back.” Horst shut the flap on his rucksack and sealed it. “Where are the rest of the villagers?” “Gone. They hunt fresh bodies for other souls trapped in the beyond, it has become their quest. I haven’t the stomach for it, nor have the others who remained in Aberdale. But you take care, Father. Your spirit is hale, but you could never withstand one of us for long.” “They want more people to possess?” “Yes.” “But why?” “Together we are strong. Together we can change what is. We can destroy death, Father. We shall bring eternity into existence here on this planet, perhaps even across the entire Confederation. I shall stay as I am for all time now; ageless, changeless. I am alive again, I won’t give that up.” “This is lunacy,” he said. “No. This is wonder, it is our miracle.” Horst pulled his rucksack onto his back, and picked Shona up. Several adults had started to gather around the church. He walked down the steps pointedly disregarding them, Jay pressing into his side. They stared at him, but no one made a move. He turned and headed for the jungle, mildly surprised to see Ingrid Veenkamp walking with him. “I told you,” she said. “They lack nerve. You will be safer if I am with you. They know I can strike back.” “Would you?” “Perhaps. For the girl’s sake. But I don’t think we will find out.” “Please, lady,” Jay said, “do you know where my mummy is?” “With the others, the pernicious ones. But don’t look for her, she is no longer your mother. Do you understand?” “Yes,” she mumbled. “We’ll get her back for you, Jay,” Horst said. “One day, somehow. I promise.” “Such faith,” Ingrid Veenkamp said. He thought she was mocking, but there was no trace of a smile on her face. “What about the other children?” he asked. “Why haven’t you possessed them?” “Because they are children. No soul would want a vessel so small and frail, not when there are plentiful adults to be had. Millions on this planet alone.” They had reached the fields, and the soft loam was clinging to Horst’s feet in huge claggy lumps. With the weight of the rucksack and Shona conspiring to push him into the ground he wasn’t even sure he could make it to the first rank of trees. Sweat was dripping from his forehead at the effort. “Send the children after me,” he wheezed. “They are hungry and they are frightened. I will take care of them.” “You make a poor Pied Piper, Father. I’m not even sure you’ll last until nightfall.” “Mock and scorn as you like, but send them. They’ll find me. For God knows I’ll not be able to travel far or fast.” She dipped her head briefly. “I’ll tell them.” Horst staggered into the jungle with Jay beside him, her big shoulder-bag knocking against her legs. He managed another fifty metres through the inimical vines and undergrowth, then sank panting painfully to his knees, face perilously red and hot. “Are you all right?” Jay asked anxiously. “Yes. We’ll just have to take it in short stages, that’s all. I think we’re safe for now.” She opened the shoulder-bag’s seal. “I brought your cooler flask, I thought you might need it. I filled it with the high-vitamin orange juice you had in your room.” “Jay, you are a twenty-four-carat angel.” He took the flask from her and drank some of the juice; she had set the thermostat so low it poured like slushy snow. They heard someone pushing their way through the undergrowth behind them, and turned. It was Russ and Andria, the first of the children. Trudging across the savannah wasn’t quite the holiday Jay had told herself it would be. But it was lovely being away from the homestead, even if it was only going to be for a few hours. She longed to ride the horse, too; though there was no way she was going to plead with Father Horst in front of the boys. They arrived at the Ruttan family’s old homestead after forty minutes’ walking. Untended, it had suffered from Lalonde’s rain and winds. The door which had been left open had swung to and fro until the hinges broke, and now it lay across the small porch. Animals (probably sayce) had used it for shelter at some time, adding to the disarray inside. Jay waited with the two boys while Father Horst went in, carrying his laser hunting rifle, and checked over the three rooms. The abandoned cabin was eerie after the noise and bustle of their own homestead. She heard a distant rumble, and looked up, thinking it was approaching thunder. But the sky remained a perfect basin of blue. The noise grew louder, swelling out of the west. Father Horst emerged from the homestead carrying a wooden chair. “It sounds like a spaceplane,” he said. The grimed window-panes were rattling in their frames. Jay searched the sky frantically as the sound began to fade into the east. But there was nothing to be seen, the spaceplane was too high. She gave the distant mountains to the south a forlorn glance. It must have been going to the Tyrathca farmers, she thought. “Have a hunt round,” Horst said. “See if you can find anything useful; you might try the barn as well. I’m going to the roof to cut the solar-cell sheets down.” He put the chair down under the eaves, and stood on it, squirming his way up onto the roof. There was nothing much in the cabin; fans of grey fungus had established a foothold in the cracks between the planks, and greenish ripples of mould patterned the damp mattresses. She pulled a couple of clay mugs out from under one of the beds, and Russ found some shirts in a box below the kitchen workbench. “They’ll be all right once we wash them,” Jay declared, holding up the smelly, soiled garments. They had more luck in the barn: two sacks of protein-concentrate cakes used to feed young animals that had just come out of hibernation, and Mills discovered a small fission-blade saw behind a pile of old cargo-pods. “Good work!” Horst told them as he clambered down. “And look what I got, all three sheets. We’ll be able to heat the water tanks up in half the time now.” Jay rolled up the solar-cell sheets while he lifted the sacks into the plough horse’s big saddle-bags. Horst handed round his chill flask full of icy elwisie juice, then they set off again. Jay was glad of her hat. The sunlight was scorchingly hot on her arms and back, air rippled and shimmered all around. I never thought I’d miss the rains. There was a river to cross before they reached the Soebergs’ homestead. It was less than a metre deep, but about fifteen metres wide. A fast, steady flow from the mountains, winding in broad curves along the savannah’s gentle contours. The bottom was smooth rock and rounded pebbles. Snowlily plants were growing right across it, their long fronds waving in the current. Flower buds as big as her head bobbed on the surface, the first splits starting to appear in their sides. Jay and Horst took their boots off, and waded across clinging to the side of the horse. The water was invigorating, numbing her toes. She could easily believe it must have come directly from the snow peaks themselves, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see nuggets of ice bobbing about. After she sat on the bottom of the bank and dried her feet she thought she could walk for another hundred kilometres. Her skin was still tingling delightfully when they started up the bank. They had been walking for another ten minutes when Horst held up his hand. “Mills, Russ, come down off the horse,” he said with quiet insistence. The tone he used set up an uncomfortable prickling along Jay’s spine. “What is it?” she asked. “The Soebergs’ homestead. I think.” She peered over the tops of the wavering grass stems. There was something up ahead, a white silhouette against the indistinct horizon, but the sun-roiled air made it hard to tell exactly what. Horst fished his optical intensifier from a pocket. It was a curving band of black composite that fitted over his eyes. He studied the scene ahead for a while, his right forefinger adjusting the magnification control. “They are coming back,” he said in a soft murmur. “Can I see?” she asked. He handed her the band. It was large and quite heavy; the edges annealed to her skin with a pinching sensation. She thought she was looking at some kind of AV recording, a drama play perhaps. Sitting in the middle of the savannah was a lovely old three-storey manor house, surrounded by a wide swath of tidy lawns. It was made of white stone, with a grey slate roof and large bay windows. Several people were standing under the portico. “How do they do that?” Jay asked, more curious than alarmed. “When you sell your soul to Satan, the material rewards are generous indeed. It is what he asks in return you should fear.” “But Ingrid Veenkamp said—” “I know what she said.” He removed the band from her face, and she blinked up at him. “She is a lost soul, she knows not what she does. Lord forgive her.” “Do they want our homestead too?” Jay asked. “I shouldn’t think so. Not if they can build that in a week.” He sighed, and took one final look at the miniature mansion. “Come along, we’ll see if we can find a nice fat danderil. If we get back early I’ll have time to mince the meat, and you can have burgers tonight. What do you say?” “Yeah!” the two boys chanted in chorus, grinning. They turned round, and started to trek back across the heat-soaked savannah to the homestead. Kelven Solanki floated through the open hatch into the Commander Mircea Kroeber was stretched out along his couch, supervising the fuelling operation with three other crew-members. Kelven had seen the cryogenic tanker as The squadron of twenty-five ships was in formation around the Kelven was beginning to feel like a plague carrier, infecting the Confederation with panic. Rear-Admiral Meredith Saldana was hanging in front of a console in the Camp;C section of the bridge, his soles touching the decking’s stikpads. He was wearing an ordinary naval ship-suit, but it seemed so much smarter on him, braid stripes shining brightly on his arm. A couple of his staff officers were in attendance behind him. One of the console’s AV projection pillars was emitting a low-frequency laser sparkle. When Kelven looked straight at it he saw Jantrit breaking apart. Meredith Saldana datavised a shutdown order at the console as Kelven let the stikpad claim his shoes. The Rear-Admiral was six centimetres taller than him, and possessed a more distinguished appearance than the First Admiral. Could the Saldanas sequence dignity into their genes? “Commander Kelven Solanki reporting as ordered, sir.” Meredith Saldana gave him a frank stare. “You are my Lalonde advisory officer?” “Yes, sir.” “Just been promoted, Commander?” “Yes, sir.” “It always shows.” “Sir, I have your orders flek from the First Admiral.” Kelven held it out. Meredith Saldana took the black coin-sized disk with some reluctance. “I don’t know which is worse. Three months of these ridiculous ceremonial fly-bys and flag-waving exercises in the Omutan system, or a combat mission which is going to get us shot at by unknown hostiles.” “Lalonde needs our help, sir.” “Was it bad, Kelven?” “Yes, sir.” “I suppose I’d better access this flek, hadn’t I? All we’ve received so far are the emergency deployment orders from Fleet headquarters and the news about Laton showing up again.” “There is a full situation briefing included, sir.” “Excellent. If we run to schedule we should be departing for Lalonde in eight hours. I’ve requested another three voidhawks be assigned to the squadron for liaison and interdiction duties. Is there anything else you think I need immediately? This mission’s code rating gives me the authority to requisition almost any piece of hardware the navy has in the system.” “No, sir. But you will have a fourth extra voidhawk, “You can never have too many voidhawks,” Meredith said lightly. There was no response from the young commander. “Carry on, Kelven. Find yourself a berth, and get settled in. Report for duty here to me an hour before departure time, you can give me a first-hand account of what we can expect. I always feel a lot happier being brought up to date by someone with hands-on experience. Meanwhile I suggest you get some sleep, you look like you need it.” “Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” Kelven twisted his feet free of the stikpad, and pushed off towards the hatch. Meredith Saldana watched him manoeuvre through the open oval without touching the rim. Commander Solanki seemed to be a very tense man. But then I’d probably be the same in his place, the admiral thought. He held up the flek with a sense of foreboding, then slotted it into his couch player to find out exactly what he was up against. Horst was always glad to get back to the homestead and greet his scampish charges; after all, when all was said and done, they were only children. And profoundly shocked children at that. They should never be left on their own, and if he had his way they never would. Practicality dictated otherwise, of course, and there had never yet been any major disaster while he was roaming the savannah for meat and foraging the other homesteads. To some extent he had grown blasé about his trips. But this time, after encountering the possessed out at the Soeberg homestead, he had forced the return pace, stopping only to kill a danderil, his mind host to a whole coven of thoughts along the theme of what if. When he topped a small rise six hundred metres away and saw the familiar wood cabin with the children sporting around outside he felt an eddy of relief. Thank you, Lord, he said silently. He slowed down for the last length, giving Jay a respite. Sweat made her blue blouse cling to her skinny frame. The heat was becoming a serious problem. It seemed to have banished the hardy chikrows back into the jungle. Even the danderil he’d shot had been sheltering in the shade of one of the savannah’s scarce trees. Horst blinked up at the unforgiving sky. Surely they don’t mean to burn this world to cinders? They have form now, stolen bodies; and all the physical needs, urges, and failings which go with them. He squinted at the northern horizon. There seemed to be an effete pink haze above the jungle, dusting the sharp seam between sky and land, like the flush of dawn refracted over a deep ocean. The harder he tried to focus upon it, the more insubstantial it became. He couldn’t believe it was a natural meteorological Too much is happening at once. Whatever polluted destiny they are manufacturing, it is reaching its zenith. They were a hundred metres from the cabin when the children spotted them. A scrum of small bodies came running over the grass, Danny in the lead. Both of the homestead’s dogs chased around them, barking loudly. “Freya’s here,” the boy yelled out at the top of his voice. “Freya’s here, Father. Isn’t it wonderful?” Then they were all clinging to him, shouting jubilantly and smiling up with enthusiasm as he laughed and patted them and hugged them. For a moment he revelled in the contact, the hero returning. A knight protector and Santa Claus rolled into one. They expected so much of him. “What did you find in the cabins, Father?” “You were quick today.” “Please, Father, tell Barnaby to give my reading tutor block back.” “Was there any more chocolate?” “Did you find any shoes for me?” “You promised to look for some story fleks.” With his escort swirling round and chattering happily, Horst led the horse over to the cabin. Russ and Mills had slithered off its back to talk with their friends. “When did Freya arrive?” Horst asked Danny. He remembered the dark-haired girl from Aberdale, Freya Chester, about eight or nine, whose parents had brought a large variety of fruit trees with them. Kerry Chester’s grove had always been one of the better maintained plots around the village. “About ten minutes ago,” the boy said. “It’s great, isn’t it?” “Yes. It certainly is.” Remarkable, in fact. He was surprised she had survived this long. Most of the children had turned up during the first fortnight while they were still camping in a glade a kilometre away from Aberdale. Five of them walking from Schuster. They had said a woman was with them for most of the journey—Horst suspected it was Ingrid Veenkamp. Several others, the youngest ones, he had found himself as they wandered aimlessly through the jungle. He and Jay made a regular circuit of the area round the village in the hope of finding still more. And for every one they did save he suffered the images of ten more lost in the ferocious undergrowth, stalked by sayce and slowly starving to death. At the end of a fortnight it was obvious that the messy, hot, damp glade was totally impractical as a permanent site. By that time he had over twenty children to look after. It was Jay who suggested they try a homestead cabin, and four days later they were safely installed. Only five more children had turned up since then, all of them in a dreadful state as they tramped down the overgrown track between Aberdale and the savannah. Dispossessed urchins, totally unable to fend for themselves, sleeping in the jungle and stealing food from the village when they could, which wasn’t anything like often enough. The last had been Eustice, two weeks ago when Horst skirted the jungle on a hunting trip; a skeleton with skin, her clothes reduced to tattered grey rags. She couldn’t walk, if the Alsatian hadn’t scented her and raised the alarm she would have been dead inside of a day. As it was, he had nearly lost her. “Where is Freya?” Horst asked Danny. “Inside, Father, having a rest. I said she could use your bed.” “Good lad. You did the right thing.” Horst let Jay and some of the girls lead the horse over to the water trough, and detailed a group of boys to remove the danderil carcass he’d secured to its back. Inside the cabin it was degrees cooler than the air outside, the thick double layer of mayope planks which made up the walls and ceiling proving an efficient insulator. He said a cheery hello to a bunch of children sitting around the table who were using a reading tutor block, and went into his own room. The curtains were drawn, casting a rich yellow light throughout the room. There was a small figure lying on the bed wearing a long navy-blue dress, legs tucked up. She didn’t appear starved, or even hungry. Her dress was as clean as though it had just been washed. “Hello, Freya,” Horst said softly. Then he looked at her fully, and even more of the savannah’s warmth was drained from his skin. Freya raised her head lazily, brushing her shoulder-length hair from her face. “Father Horst, thank you so much for taking me in. It’s so kind of you.” Horst’s muscles froze the welcoming smile on his face. She was one of them! A possessed. Below the healthy deeply tanned skin lay a wizened sickly child, the dark dress hid a stained adult’s T-shirt. The two images overlapped each other, jumping in and out of focus. They were enormously difficult to distinguish, obscured by a covering veil which she drew over his mind as well as his eyes. Reality was repugnant, he didn’t want to see, didn’t want truth. A headache ignited three centimetres behind his temple. “All are welcome here, Freya,” he said with immense effort. “You must have had a terrible time these last weeks.” “I did, it was horrible. Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t speak to me. I hid in the jungle for ages and ages. There were berries and things to eat. But they were always cold. And I sometimes heard a sayce. It was really scary.” “Well, there are no sayce around here, and we have plenty of hot food.” He walked along the side of the bed towards the dresser below the window, every footfall magnified to a strident thump in the still room. The noise of the children outside had perished. There was just the two of them now. “Father?” she called. “What do you want here?” he whispered tightly, his back towards her. He was afraid to pull the curtains open, afraid there might be nothing outside. “It is a kindness.” Her voice was deepening, becoming a morbid atonality. “There is no place for you on this world any more. Not as you are. You must change, become as us. The children will come to you one at a time when you call. They trust you.” “A trust that will never be betrayed.” He turned round, Bible in hand. The leather-bound book his mother had given him when he became a novice; it even had a little inscription she had written in the cover, the black ink fading to a watery blue down the decades. Freya gave him a slightly surprised look, then sneered. “Oh, poor Father! Do you need your crutch so badly? Or do you hide from true life behind your belief?” “Holy Father, Lord of Heaven and the mortal world, in humility and obedience, I do ask Your aid in this act of sanctification, through Jesus Christ who walked among us to know our failings, grant me Your blessing in my task,” Horst incanted. It was so long ago since he had read the litany in the Unified prayer-book; and never before had he spoken the words, not in an age of science and universal knowledge, living in an arcology of crumbling concrete and gleaming composite. Even the Church questioned their need: they were a relic of the days when faith and paganism were still as one. But now they shone like the sun in his mind. Freya’s contempt descended into shock. “What?” She flung her legs off the bed. “My Lord God, look upon Your servant Freya Chester, fallen to this unclean spirit, and permit her cleansing; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Horst made the sign of the cross above the furious little girl. “Stop it, you old fool. You think I fear that, your blind faith?” Her control over her form was slipping. The healthy clean image flickered on and off like a faulty light, exposing the frail malnourished child underneath. “I beseech You to grant me Your strength, O Lord; so that her soul may be saved from damnation.” The Bible burst into flames. Horst groaned as the heat gnawed at his hand. He dropped it to the floor where it sputtered close to the leg of the bed. His hand was agony, as though it was dipped in boiling oil. Freya’s face was screwed up in determination, great rubberlike folds of skin distorting her pretty features almost beyond recognition. “Fuck you, priest.” The obscenity seemed ludicrous coming from a child. “I’ll burn your mind out of your skull. I’ll cook your brain in its own blood.” Her possessed shape shimmered again. The lame Freya below was choking. Horst clutched at his crucifix with his good hand. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I order you, servant of Lucifer, to be gone from this girl. Return to the formless nothing where you belong.” Freya let out a piercing shriek. “How did you know!” “Begone from this world. There is no place in the sight of God for those who would dwell in Evil.” “How, priest?” Her head turned from side to side, neck muscles straining as though she was fighting some invisible force. “Tell me . . .” Heat was building along Horst’s spine. He was sweating profusely, frightened she really would burn him. It was like the worst case of sunburn he had ever known, as though his skin was splitting open. His clothes would catch fire soon, he was sure. He thrust the crucifix towards the girl. “Freya Chester, come forth, come into the light and the glory of our Lord.” And Freya Chester was solidly before him, thin sunken face racked by pain, spittle on her chin. Her mouth was working, struggling around complex words. Terror pounced from her black eyes. “Come, Freya!” Horst shouted jubilantly. “Come forth, there is nothing to fear. The Lord awaits.” “Father.” Her voice was tragically frail. She coughed, spewing out a meagre spray of saliva and stomach juices. “Father, help.” “In God we trust, to deliver us from evil. We seek Your justice, knowing we are not worthy. We drink of Your blood, and eat of Your flesh so we may share in Your glory. Yet we are but the dust from which You made us. Guide us from our errors, Lord, for in ignorance and sin we know not what we do. And we ask for Your holy protection.” For one last supremely lucid moment the demon possessor returned. Freya glared at him with a ferocity which withered his resolution by its sheer malice. “I won’t forget you,” she ground out between her curled lips. “Never in all eternity will I forget you, priest.” Unseen hands scrabbled at his throat, tiny fingers, like an infant’s. Blood emerged from the grazes sharp nails left around his Adam’s apple. He held the crucifix on high, defiant that Christ’s symbol would triumph. Freya let out a last bellow of rage. Then the demon spirit was gone in a blast of noxious arctic air which blew Horst backwards. Neatly stacked piles of food packets went tumbling over, the bedlinen took flight, loose articles stampeded off the dresser and table. There was a bang like a castle door slamming in the face of an invading army. Freya, the real Freya, all crusty sores, ragged clothes, and bony famined figure, was stretched out on the bed, emitting quiet gurgles from her chapped mouth. She started to cry. Horst clambered to his feet, hanging on to the edge of the bed for support. He drew a gasping breath, his body aching inside and out, as though he had swum an ocean. Jay and a troop of frantic children rushed in, shouting in a confused babble. “It’s all right,” he told them, dabbing at the scratch marks on his throat. “Everything’s all right now.” When Jay awoke the next morning she was surprised to see she had overslept. She hardly ever did that, the few minutes alone to herself at the start of each morning were among the most precious of the day. But it had to be dawn. A pale tinge of hoary light was creeping into the cabin’s main room around the reed blinds. The other children were all still sound asleep. She quickly pulled on her shorts, boots, and an adult-sized shirt she had altered to something approximating her own size, and slipped quietly out of the door. Thirty seconds later she ran back in shouting for Father Horst at the top of her voice. Far above the lonely savannah cabin, the long vivid contrails of thirteen starship fusion drives formed a cosmic mandala across the black pre-dawn sky. |
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