"Neutronium Alchemist - Conflict" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F.)

Chapter 04

“So your group has no organized structure, as such?” Alkad asked.

“We’re organized, all right,” Lodi Shalasha insisted. “But nothing formal. We’re just like-minded people who keep in touch and help each other out.”

Alkad pushed her legs down into the chameleon suit trousers. There was still a residue of cold sweat smearing the fabric from when she’d worn the suit last night. Her nose wrinkled up in distaste, but she kept on working the trousers up her shins. “You said you had junior cadres, the ones clearing the spiders away. That sounds like a regular underground movement hierarchy to me.”

“Not really. Some of us work in day clubs, that way we help to keep the memory of the genocide alive for the children. Nobody should be allowed to forget what was done to us.”

“I approve.”

“You do?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes. The original refugees seem to have forgotten. That’s why I’m in this mess right now.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor; Voi will get you off Ayacucho.”

“Perhaps.” Alkad prided herself that the somnolence program had been for the best. When the girl had woken this morning she’d been subdued, but still functional. The grief for her father was still there, as it should be, but it hadn’t debilitated her.

Over breakfast, Alkad had explained what her priorities were: to get away from the Dorados as fast as possible now her location was blown to the intelligence agencies, and the remaining principal requirement for a combat-capable starship (she still couldn’t bring herself to mention the Alchemist). It would be too much to hope for the ship to be crewed by Garissan patriot types; a mercenary crew would just have to do now. The three of them had discussed possible options, and Voi and Lodi had started arguing over names, who to contact for what.

Voi had left by herself to secure a starship. It would be inviting disaster for Alkad to be seen with her again. As a pair they were too distinctive, however adroit the chameleon suits were at hiding their peripheral features.

“Hey, you’ve made the news.” Lodi waved his communications block enthusiastically. He’d entered a reference search program to monitor the media output. “Access the Cabral NewsGalactic studio.”

Alkad struggled the suit on over her shoulders, then datavised the room’s net processor for a channel to the studio.

Cabral NewsGalactic was showing a recording of a holomorph sticker which had a young cheerleader shouting: “Run, Alkad, run!”

“Mother Mary,” Alkad muttered. “Is this the work of your people?”

“No. I swear. I’ve never seen one before. Besides, only Voi and I know your name. None of the others even know you exist.”

Alkad went back to the studio. A rover reporter was walking down one of Ayacucho’s main public halls. The stickers were everywhere. A cleaner mechanoid was trying to spray one off the wall, but its solvent wasn’t strong enough. Smears of black semi-dissolved plastic dribbled down the metallic wall panel.

“It is as if a plague has visited Ayacucho,” the rover reporter said cheerfully. “The first of these stickers appeared about six hours ago. And if I didn’t know better I’d say they’ve been breeding like bacteria. Police say that the stickers are being handed out to children; and detectives are currently correlating security monitor recordings to see if they can identify the main distributors. Though sources inside the public prosecutor’s office tell me they’re not sure exactly what charges could be brought.

“The question everyone is asking is: Exactly who is Alkad, and what is she running from?”

The image went back to the studio anchorman. “Our company’s investigations have uncovered one possible answer to the mystery,” he said in a sombre bass voice. “At the time of the genocide, the Garissan navy employed a Dr Alkad Mzu to work on advanced defence projects. Mzu is said to have survived the genocide and spent the last thirty years under an assumed name teaching physics at the Dorados university. But now foreign intelligence agencies, acting in response to Omutan propaganda, have started hunting her under the pretext of illegal technology violations. A senior member of the Dorados governing council, who asked not to be named, said today: ‘Such an action by these foreign agents is a gross violation of our sovereignty. I find it obscene that the Omutans can lay these unfounded allegations against one of our citizens who has dedicated her life to educating our brightest youngsters. If this is their behaviour after thirty years of sanctions, then we must ask why the Confederation ever lifted those sanctions in the first place. They certainly do not seem to have had the desired effect in remedying the aggressive nature of the Omutan government. Their current cabinet is just a new collar on the same dog.’

“The council member went on to say that if Alkad Mzu turned up at his apartment he would certainly offer her sanctuary, and that every true Dorados citizen would do the same. He said he would not rest until all suspected foreign agents had been expelled from the asteroids.”

“Holy Mother Mary,” Alkad groaned.

She cancelled the channel and slumped down onto the bed, the suit’s hood hanging flaccidly over her shoulder. “I don’t believe this is happening. Mother Mary, they’re turning me into a media celebrity.”

“That’s my uncle for you,” Lodi said. “Did you check out the positive bias in those reports? Mary, you’d be elected president tomorrow if we were ever allowed to vote around here.”

“Your uncle ?”

He flinched. “Yeah, sure. Cabral’s my uncle. He’s made a mint out of exploiting the little-Garissan attitude. I mean, just look at the kind of people living here, they lap it up.”

“He’s insane. What does he think he’s doing giving me this kind of public profile?”

“Whipping up public support in your favour. This kind of propaganda is going to make life ten times harder for the agencies chasing you. Anyone tries to take you out of Ayacucho against your will today, they’ll wind up getting lynched.”

She stared at him. That eager face which permitted so much inner anger to show without ever dimming the natural innocence. Child of the failed revolutionaries. “You’re probably right. But this isn’t happening the way I ever expected it to.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor.” He pulled a worn shoulder bag out of the cupboard. “Do you want to try some of these clothes now?”

He was proffering some long sports shorts and an Ayacucho Junior Curveball Team sweatshirt. With a short cut wig and the chameleon suit reprogrammed, they intended her to walk out of the room as an average sports-mad teenager. A male one.

“Why not?”

“Voi will call soon. We ought to be ready.”

“You really believe she can get us off this asteroid in a starship, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Lodi, do you have any idea how difficult that is to arrange, now of all times? Underground movements need to have contacts infiltrated right through the local administrative structure; dedicated, devoted people who will risk everything for the cause. What have you got? You’re rich kids who’ve found a new way to rebel against their parents.”

“Yes, and we can use that money to help you, if you’d just let us. Voi taught us that. If we need something, we buy it. That way there’s no network for the agencies to discover and penetrate. We’ve never been compromised. That’s why you stayed in this room all night without anyone storming the door with an assault mechanoid.”

“You may have a point there. I have to admit the old partizans didn’t do too well, did they.” She gave the chameleon suit hood a reluctant grimace, then started to smooth back her hair ready to slip it on.

Joshua held the petri dish up to the cabin’s light panel, squinting at the clear glass. It looked completely empty; his enhanced retinas couldn’t even find dust motes. But lurking inside the optically pure dish were thirteen nanonic monitor bugs which the medical packages had extracted from Lady Mac ’s crew and the serjeants. They were subcutaneous implants, agents stinging them by casually brushing up against an unsuspecting victim.

“How come I rated three?” Ashly complained.

“Obvious subversive type,” Sarha said. “Bound to be up to no good.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re all in the clear,” she said. “The medical analysis program can’t spot any unusual infections or viruses. Looks like they weren’t playing nasty.”

“This time,” Joshua said. As soon as the scanners in the starship’s surgery had located the first of the monitor bugs he’d ordered Sarha to run a full biochemical analysis on everyone. Microbes and viruses were far easier to introduce in a target than nanonics.

Fortunately, the agencies had been curious rather than hostile. But this was the sharpest reminder to date of the stakes involved. They’d been lucky thus far. It wouldn’t last, he thought. And he wasn’t the only one who realized that. The cabin had a kind of after-game locker-room atmosphere, with a team that was very relieved to have scraped a draw.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” he said. “Sarha, are we secure now?”

“Yes. These bugs can’t datavise through Lady Mac ’s screening. They’re only a problem outside.”

“But you don’t know when we got stung?”

“There’s no way of knowing, sorry.”

“Your friend Mrs Nateghi,” Melvyn suggested. “It was rather odd.”

“You’re probably right,” Joshua said reluctantly. “Okay, assume everything we’ve done up until now has been compromised. First off, is there any point in continuing? Jesus, it’s not as if we don’t know she’s here. The bloody news studios have been broadcasting nothing else. Our problem is how difficult it’s going to be to contact her without anyone else tagging along. They’re bound to try and sting us again. Sarha, will our electronic warfare blocks work against these monitor bugs?”

“They should be able to scramble them; we picked up top-of-the-range systems before we left Tranquillity.”

“Fine. From now on, nobody goes into Ayacucho without one. We also take a serjeant each when we venture out. Ione, I want you to carry those chemical projectile guns we brought.”

“Certainly, Joshua,” said one of the four serjeants in the cabin.

He couldn’t tell if it was the one who’d accompanied him earlier. “Right, what kind of data have we pulled in so far? Melvyn?”

“Ashly and I got around to the five major defence contractors, Captain. The only orders coming in are for upgrades to the asteroid’s SD platforms, and there’s precious few of them. We got offered some magnificent discounts when we asked about supplying Lady Mac with new systems. They’re absolutely desperate for work. Mzu hasn’t ordered any equipment from anybody. And nobody is refitting starships.”

“Okay. Beaulieu?”

“Nothing, Captain. Daphine Kigano disappeared within fifteen minutes of arriving here. There’s no eddress for her, no credit records, no hotel booking, no citizenship register, no public record file.”

“All right. That just leaves us with Ikela.”

“He’s dead, Joshua,” Dahybi said. “Hardly the best lead.”

“Pauline Webb was very keen to stop me having any contact with T’Opingtu’s management. Which means that’s the direction to take. I’ve been reviewing every byte I can find on Ikela and T’Opingtu. He came to the Dorados with a lot of money to start up that company. There’s no mention of where it came from; according to his biography he used to work for a Garissan engineering company as a junior manager. Which doesn’t add up.

“Now if you were Alkad Mzu, on the run and in need of a starship that can deploy the Alchemist, who are you going to go to when you get here? Ikela fits the search program perfectly: the owner of a company which manufactures specialist astroengineering components. Remember she fooled the intelligence agencies for close on thirty years. Whatever plan she formatted with her colleagues after the genocide, it was well thought out.”

“Not perfect, though,” Ashly said. “If it was, Omuta’s star would be turning nova right now.”

“The possessed glitched it for them, that’s all,” Sarha said. “Who could anticipate this quarantine?”

“Whatever,” Joshua said. “The point is, T’Opingtu was probably set up to provide Mzu with the means to deploy the Alchemist. Ikela would have made sure that policy continued in the event he didn’t live long enough to see her arrive.”

“Which he did, but only just,” Ashly said. “It must have been the agencies who snuffed him.”

“But not Mzu,” Melvyn said. “This media campaign backing her sprang up too quickly after the murder. Somebody knows she’s out there. Somebody with a shitload of influence, but not in contact with her. It’s going to be almost impossible for us to snatch her with public opinion being whipped up like this, Captain.”

“Which is exactly the intention,” Dahybi said. “Though it’s more likely aimed at the intelligence agencies rather than us.”

“We’ll deal with that problem if we ever get to it,” Joshua said. “Right now our priority is to establish a trace on Mzu.”

“How?” Sarha asked.

“Ikela has a daughter; according to his public record file she’s the only family he’s got.”

“She’ll inherit,” Beaulieu said bluntly.

“You got it. Her name’s Voi, and she’s twenty-one. She’s our way in to whatever organization her daddy built up in preparation for Mzu.”

“Oh, come on, Joshua,” Ashly protested. “Her father’s just been murdered, she’s not going to make appointments with perfect strangers, let alone tell us anything about the Garissan underground, even if she has any data. Which is questionable. I wouldn’t involve my daughter in anything like that. And the agencies will be wanting to question her, too.”

Joshua wasn’t going to argue. As soon as he reviewed Ikela’s public record file he’d known Voi was the link. Ione would call it his intuition. She might even have been right. The old burn of conviction was there. “If we can just get close to her, we stand a chance,” he said firmly. “Mzu can’t afford to remain here now. She’s going to have to make a break for it, and sooner rather than later. One way or another, Voi will be involved. It’s our best shot.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Dahybi said. “It’s as good a chance as any. But how the hell are you going to get near her?”

“Weren’t you listening?” asked one of the serjeants. “Voi is female and twenty-one.”

Joshua grinned evilly at Dahybi.

“You have got to be joking,” the stupefied node specialist insisted.

“I’ll just lie back and think of the Confederation.”

“Joshua . . .”

Joshua burst out laughing. “Your faces! Don’t worry, Dahybi, I’m not that conceited. But she will have friends. There are quite a lot of rich entrepreneurs in the Dorados, their kids will cling together in their own little social clique. And I am a starship owner captain, after all. One of them will get us in. All I have to do now is find her.” He smiled broadly at his crew, who were regarding him with a mixture of umbrage and resignation. “Time to party.”

Prince Lambert sealed the straps around the lanky girl’s wrists, then activated the sensenviron program. His bedroom dissolved into a circular stone-walled chamber at the top of a castle tower, its bed at the centre of the flagstone floor. His male slaves began to file through the iron-bound door. Ten of them stood around the bed, looking down dispassionately at the spread-eagled figure.

He took the remote response collar from under the pillow and fastened it around her neck.

“What is it?” the girl asked, anxiety rising into her voice. She was very young; it was highly probable she’d never heard of the device before.

He kissed her silent, and datavised the collar’s activation sequence. The technology was a bastardization of medical nanonic packages, sending filaments to merge with her spinal cord. He could use it to manipulate her body into reacting exactly how he wanted, fulfilling each of the fantasies in turn.

“Do hope I’m not interrupting,” one of the slaves said in a sharp female voice.

Prince Lambert gave a start, jumping up from the bed. The girl wailed in dismay as the collar began to knit smoothly with her skin.

He cancelled the sensenviron program, retrieving the reality of his darkened bedroom, and stared at the tall skinny figure which replaced the muscle-bound slave. “For Mary’s sake, Voi! I’m going to change this bloody apartment’s door code, I should never have let you have it.” He squinted at the figure. “Voi?”

She was pulling her chameleon suit hood off, allowing her little crown of dreadlocks to wriggle free. A wig of unkempt gingerish hair was held carelessly in her hand. Her clothes were standard-issue biosphere agronomist overalls. “I want to talk to you.”

His jaw dropped. One hand gestured ineffectually at the girl on the bed, who was tugging at the straps. “Voi!”

“Now.” She went back out into the living room.

He swore, then datavised a shutdown order at the collar and started to open the strap seals.

“How old is she?” Voi asked when he emerged into the living room.

“Does it matter?”

“It might to Shea. Has she found out about your little kinks yet?”

“Why the sudden interest in my sex life? Do you miss it?”

“Like a sunbather misses birdcrap.”

“That’s not what you said at the time.”

“Who cares?”

“I do. We were good together, Voi.”

“History.”

“Then why have you come running back?”

“I need something of yours.”

“Mother Mary, that detox procedure was a big mistake. I preferred you as you were before.”

“I’m really interested in everything you say, P.L.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I want you to flight prep the Tekas , and take me and some friends outsystem.”

“Oh, sure, no problem.” He collapsed into the living room’s leather settee, and favoured her with a pitying gaze. “Any particular destination? New California? Norfolk? Hey, why don’t we go for the big one and see if we can break through Earth’s SD network?”

“It’s important. It’s for Garissa.”

“Oh, Mary. Your poxy revolution.”

“It isn’t revolution, it’s called honour. Access your dictionary file.”

“Haven’t got one. And for your information, there’s a civil starflight quarantine in operation. I couldn’t fly the Tekas away if I wanted to.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. All right, one nil. If I’d known about this quarantine in advance I would have left. The Dorados might be home, but I don’t think they’re the best place to live while the possessed are roaming around. You’ve got the right idea, Voi, you’re just too late.”

She held up a flek. “The Dorados governing council flight authorization: it’ll be an official voyage.”

“How the hell . . .”

“Daddy was on the council. I have his access codes.”

Temptation haunted him like a curse. “Is it still valid?”

“Yes. Myself and three others. Deal?”

“There’s a few people I’d like to bring along.”

“No. You can operate that yacht by yourself, that’s why I chose it. This isn’t a bloody pleasure cruise, P.L. I need you to fly some complex manoeuvres for me.”

“Tekas isn’t combat-capable, you know. Who are these others?”

“Need-to-know only. And you don’t. Do we have a deal?”

“Do we get to try out free-fall sex?”

“If fucking me means you’ll fly the yacht for me, fuck away.”

“Mother Mary, you are a complete bitch!”

“Deal?”

“All right. Give me a day to wind things up here.”

“We leave in three hours.”

“No way, Voi. I doubt I could even fill the cryogenic tanks by then.”

“Try.” She waved the flek. “If you don’t; no authorization.”

“Bitch.”

The girl was extravagantly attractive; early twenties with lustrous ebony skin and dry chestnut hair that fell just below her bottom. Her dress was a shimmering metallic grey-blue with a skirt hem higher than the dangling ends of her hair.

Melvyn suspected she was a typical insecure rich kid. Though Joshua didn’t seem to mind, the two of them were busy French-kissing on the Bar KF-T’s dance floor.

“He’s a devil for it,” Melvyn said peevishly. He felt he should explain to Beaulieu, who was sitting at the table with him. “Never works for me. I mean, fusion specialist is a tough job. And I’m crew, that’s glamorous enough, isn’t it? But they just bloody stampede at him when we dock. I think he got his pheromones geneered along with everything else.” He started searching through the cluster of beer bottles on the table for one that had something left inside. There were rather a lot of them.

“You don’t think it’s anything to do with the fact he’s thirty years younger than you?” the cosmonik asked.

“Twenty-five!” Melvyn corrected indignantly.

“Twenty-five.”

“Certainly not.”

The cosmonik gave the Bar KF-T another automatic scan. Joshua’s direction of investigation was obviously puzzling the intelligence agents who were on observation duty. Melvyn and Beaulieu had identified five of them in the club, making a game of it as they sat drinking beer and waiting for Joshua to score. It wasn’t that the agents didn’t mix; they drank, they danced, they chatted to people, the betraying factor was the way they maintained a rigid distance from the Lady Mac ’s crew.

Joshua waved a sunny farewell to the girl and sat down at Melvyn’s table with a satisfied sigh. “Her name’s Kole, and she’s invited me to a party this evening.”

“I’m surprised she can hold back that long,” Melvyn muttered.

“I’m meeting her and her friends at tonight’s benefit gig, then they’re going on to a private bash at someone’s apartment.”

“A benefit gig?” Beaulieu questioned.

“Some local MF bands are getting together so they can raise money for Alkad Mzu’s legal costs, should she ever need to fight Confederation extradition warrants.”

“She’s becoming a bloody religion,” Melvyn said.

“Looks that way.” Joshua started counting the bottles on the table. “Come on, we need to get back to Lady Mac .” He slipped his arm under Melvyn’s shoulder and signalled Beaulieu to help. Between them, they got the drunk fusion specialist to his feet. Ashly and Sarha walked over from the bar. All four serjeants rose from their seats.

None of the agents moved. That would have been too blatant.

A pair of possessed walked into Bar KF-T. A man and woman, dressed in clothes which almost matched current fashions.

Joshua’s electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.

“Get down!” the four serjeants shouted in unison.

The threat-response program which had gone primary as soon as the alarm came on sent Joshua diving for cover amid the tables and chairs. He hit the floor, rolling expertly to absorb the impact. A couple of empty chairs went flying as his legs struck them. His crew was following him down; even Melvyn, though his alcohol-polluted nerves made him slower.

Screams broke out across the club as the serjeants drew their stubby machine guns. The agents were also moving, boosted muscles turning their actions into a blur.

Both the possessed gasped at the near-instantaneous reaction to their appearance. An unnerving number of weapons were lining up on them amid the chaos of a terrified and bewildered clientele.

“Freeze,” a quadriphonic voice ordered them.

They didn’t have functional neural nanonics to run combat programs, but instinct was almost as fast. Both of them started to raise their arms, white fire bursting from their fingertips.

Six machine guns, three semi-automatic pistols, and a carbine opened fire.

Joshua had never heard a chemical projectile weapon before. Ten of them shooting at once was louder than a fusion rocket exhaust. He slammed his hands over his ears. The fusillade couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds. He risked raising his head.

Only the agents (there were actually six—Melvyn had missed one) and the serjeants were standing. Everyone else was on the floor, sprawled flat or curled up in fetal balls. Tables and chairs rolled and spun. The music and dance-floor holograms were still playing.

He heard several peculiar mechanical snicking sounds as fresh magazines were slammed into the guns.

Bullets had shredded the wall behind the possessed, chewing apart the composite panelling. Large splatters of blood covered the tattered splinters of composite. The two bodies—

Joshua squirmed at the sight. There wasn’t much left to identify as human. A nausea suppression program switched smoothly into primary mode, though that only stopped the physical symptoms.

Moans and cries rose over the music. Several people had been hit by ricochets.

“Joshua!”

It was Sarha. She had her hand clamped around Ashly’s left thigh. Blood was staining her fingers scarlet. “He’s been hit.”

The pilot was staring with a calm morbid interest at his wound. “Damn stupid thing.” He blinked in confusion.

“Ione,” Joshua shouted. “Medical nanonic.”

One of the serjeants took a package from its equipment belt. Beaulieu was slitting Ashly’s trouser fabric with a small metal blade that had slid out of her left wrist attachments. A dribble of grey-green fluid was leaking from a bullet hole in her brass breastplate.

“I say, do be careful,” Ashly murmured.

When the wound had been fully exposed, Sarha slapped the package over it.

“Let’s go,” Joshua said. “Beaulieu, take Melvyn. Sarha and I will handle Ashly. Ione, cover us.”

“Now wait a minute,” one of the agents said. Joshua recognized him as one of the heavyweights accompanying Pauline Webb. “You’re staying right here until the police arrive.”

It was a barman who had recovered fast enough to think of the financial possibilities that started recording the scene in a memory cell. Later that day and all through the night the news companies repeated it almost constantly. Six armed men in a shouting match with a young starship captain (later everyone realized it was Lagrange Calvert himself) and his crew. The captain saying that no one was going to prevent him from taking his injured friend to get proper treatment. And what authority have you got anyway? Four identical and disturbingly menacing cosmoniks stood between Calvert and the armed men. There was a short pause, then everyone’s guns seemed to disappear. The starship crew left the club, carrying their wounded with them.

Anchormen speculated long and loud on the possibility that the six armed men were in fact foreign intelligence agents. Rover reporters tried desperately to hunt them down, with no success.

The police officially confirmed that the two people shot dead by the agents had been possessed (though no details about how they knew for sure were forthcoming). Ayacucho’s governing council issued a statement urging everyone to remain calm. Total priority was given to search and identification procedures which were being put into operation to locate any further possessed in the asteroid. All citizens and residents were asked to cooperate fully.

There was no physical expression of panic, no angry mobs gathering in the biosphere cavern, or marches on the council chamber. People were too fearful of what might be lying in wait outside their apartment doors. Those companies and offices which had remained open started to wind down or conduct their businesses purely over the communications net; anything as long as personal contact was reduced. Parents took their children out of day clubs. Emergency services were brought up to full alert status. Company security staff were seconded to the police to help with the search.

By late afternoon several starships had been given official flight authorization by the council. Most of them were taking councillors, their families, and close aides away for conferences or defence negotiations with allies.

“And we can’t stop them,” Monica complained bitterly. She was sitting at the back of the office which the Edenists were using, sipping a mug of instant tea. There was little else for her to do now, which aggravated her intensely. All the ESA’s assets had been activated. None of them had any idea where Mzu was; few had even heard of Voi let alone any underground group the girl was connected with.

Locating Mzu was all down to the Edenist observation operation now, and the slender hope they would get a lucky break.

“She has not embarked on any starship,” Samuel said. “We are sure of that. Both axial chambers have been under constant observation, and not just by us. Nobody who comes within twenty-five per cent of Mzu’s height and mass has passed into the spaceports without being positively identified.”

“Yes yes,” Monica said irritably.

“If we don’t find her in another four hours we are going to withdraw from Ayacucho.”

She’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. “That bad?”

“Yes. I’m afraid so.” He had just finished watching another possession through a spider in one of the residential sections. It was the apartment of an ordinary family of five, doing as they’d been advised, staying at home and not allowing anyone else in. Until the police arrived. All three officers were possessed; and after seven minutes so were the family. “We estimate eight per cent of the population has been possessed now. With everyone isolated and sitting tight, it is becoming easier for them to spread. They have taken over the police force in its entirety.”

“Bastards. They’ve gone for officialdom every time since Capone used the police and civil service to take over New California.”

“A remarkably perceptive man, Mr Capone.”

“I don’t suppose it would do any good broadcasting a general warning, now?”

“We think not. There are few weapons available to the general populace; and most of those are energy weapons, which are worse than useless. We would be adding to the suffering.”

“And since that bloody media campaign, nobody would trust us.”

“Exactly.”

“What do we do if Mzu doesn’t escape?”

“That depends on what happens here. If the possessed take Ayacucho out of this universe, the problem is solved, albeit not very satisfactorily. If they remain here, then the voidhawks will enforce a permanent blockade.”

She gritted her teeth, hating the mounting feeling of frustration. “We could try broadcasting a message to her, offer to take her off.”

“I’ve considered it; and I might well use it as a last resort before we evacuate.”

“Great. So now we just sit and pray she walks in front of a spider.”

“You have an alternative?”

“No. I don’t think any of us do.”

“Perhaps not, though I remain intrigued by what Joshua Calvert and his crew were doing in that club.”

“Trying to get laid by the look of it.”

“No. Calvert is shrewd. If you want my guess he is attempting to approach Voi through her friends.”

“He can’t know who her friends are, he doesn’t have the resources. We’ve only got three of her friends on our list, and that took five hours to acquire.”

“Possibly. But he’s already inserted himself in her social strata with that invitation to a party. And it’s a small asteroid.”

“If Voi is hiding Mzu, she’s not going to reveal herself.”

“True.” His grin was childlike in its mischievousness.

“What?” Monica asked in annoyance.

“The irony. From being an amateur irritant, Calvert is now our only lead.”

Ashly had said very little during the trip back to the spaceport. Joshua guessed the pilot’s neural nanonic programs were busy suppressing the shock. But Sarha didn’t seem unduly worried, and she was monitoring the medical package around his thigh.

Melvyn was doing his best to sober up fast. One of the serjeants had given him a medical nanonic package which was now wrapped around his neck to form a thick collar. It was busy filtering all traces of alcohol out of the blood entering his brain.

Joshua’s only concern was the fluid which was still trickling out of the bullet hole in Beaulieu’s breastplate. Medical nanonics would be of no value at all in treating the cosmonik. None of them had standardized internal systems; each was unique, and proud of it. He wasn’t even sure if she was mostly mechanical or biological underneath her brass carapace.

“How are you doing?” he asked her.

“The bullet damaged some of my nutrient synthesis glands. It’s not critical.”

“Do you have any . . . er, spares?”

“No. That function has multiple redundancy backup. It looks worse than it is.”

“Don’t tell me, just a flesh wound,” Ashly grunted.

“Correct.”

The commuter lift’s doors opened. Two serjeants slid out into the corridor first, checking for any possessed between them and the docking bay’s airlock tube. “Joshua,” one of them called.

His electronic warfare detector block wasn’t acting up. “What?”

“Someone here for you.”

He learned nothing from the tone, so he pushed off with his feet and glided out into the corridor. “Oh, Jesus wept.”

Mrs Nateghi and her two fellow goons from Tayari, Usoro and Wang were waiting outside the airlock tube. Another man was floating just behind them.

The crew followed Joshua out of the lift.

“Captain Calvert.” Mrs Nateghi’s voice was indecently happy.

“Can’t get enough of me, can you? So what is it this time? A million-fuseodollar fine for littering? Ten years hard labour for not returning my empties to the bar? Penal colony exile for farting in public?”

“Humour is an excellent defence mechanism, Captain Calvert. But I would advise you to have something stronger in court.”

“I’ve just saved your asteroid from being taken over by the possessed. Will that do?”

“I’ve accessed the NewsGalactic recording. You were lying on the floor with your hands over your head the whole time. Captain Calvert, I have a summons for you to be present at a preliminary hearing to establish proceedings which will determine the ownership of the starship Lady Macbeth , pursuant to the claim my client has filed upon said ship.”

Joshua stared at her, too incredulous to speak.

“Ownership?” Sarha asked. “But it’s Joshua’s ship; it always has been.”

“That is incorrect,” Mrs Nateghi said. “It was Marcus Calvert’s ship. I have a sensorium recording of Captain Calvert admitting that.”

“He was never trying to deny it. His father is dead. Lady Mac ’s registration is filed with the CAB. You can’t challenge that.”

“Yes I can.” The man who had been keeping himself behind the other two lawyers slowly edged forwards.

“You!” Sarha exclaimed.

“Me.”

Joshua stared at him, a very unpleasant chill sluicing into his thoughts. The angular, ebony face was . . . Jesus, I know him. But where from? “So who the hell are you?”

“My name is Liol. Liol Calvert, actually. I’m your big half brother, Joshua.”

The last place Joshua wanted to bring this . . . this fraud was the captain’s cabin. It was his father’s cabin, for Christ’s sake, even though most of the old fittings and personal mementos had been removed during the last refit. This was the closest Joshua had ever come to knowing a home.

But Ashly needed the deep-invasion packages in Lady Mac ’s sickbay to remove the bullet in his thigh. That bitch queen Mrs Nateghi wasn’t going to be deflected, and the summons was real enough. He also had a mission. So it was back to basics.

As soon as the cabin hatch shut behind them, Joshua asked: “Okay, shithead, how much?”

Liol didn’t answer immediately, he was gazing around the cabin. His face carried an expression which was close to trepidation. “I’m finally here,” he said falteringly.

“Do you know how many hours I’ve spent in sensevise simulations learning to fly a starship? I qualified for my C.A.B. pilot’s licence when I was just nineteen.” He glanced awkwardly at Joshua. “This must be very strange for you, Joshua. It is for me.”

“Cut the crap, how much?”

Liol’s face cleared. “How much for what?”

“To drop the claim and bugger off, of course. It’s a neat scam, I’ll give you that. Normally I’d just let the courts break you apart, but I’m a little pushed for time right now. I don’t need complications. So name your price, but you’d better make it less than fifty grand.”

“Nice one, Josh.” Liol smiled and held out his Jovian Bank credit disk, silver side up. Green figures glowed on the surface.

Joshua blinked as he read out the amount of money stored inside: eight hundred thousand fuseodollars. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s very simple, I am your brother. I’m entitled to joint ownership, at the very least.”

“Not a chance. You’re a con artist who knows how to use a cosmetic adaptation package, that’s all. Right now, my face is as famous as Jezzibella’s. You saw an opportunity to make a nuisance of yourself, and remodelled your features.”

“This is my face. I’ve had it ever since I was born, which was before you. Access my public file if you want proof.”

“I’m sure someone as smart as you has planted all the appropriate data in Ayacucho’s memory cores. You’ve done your research, and you’ve shown me you have the money to buy official access codes.”

“Really? And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes. How come you acquired this ship after my father died? In fact, how did he die? Is he even dead at all? Prove you’re a Calvert. Prove you are Marcus’s son.”

“I didn’t acquire it, I inherited it. Dad always wanted me to have it. His will is on file in Tranquillity. Anybody can access it.”

“Oh, that’s nice. So Tranquillity’s public records are beyond reproach, while anything stored in the Dorados was put there by criminals. How convenient. I wouldn’t try that one in court if I were you.”

“He’s my father,” Joshua shouted angrily.

“Mine too. And you know it.”

“I know you’re a fake.”

“If you were a true Calvert, you’d know.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Intuition. What does your intuition tell you about me, Josh?”

For the first time in his life, Joshua knew what vertigo must feel like. To be teetering on the edge of some monstrously deep chasm.

“Ah.” Liol’s grin was triumphant. “Our little family quirk can be a real downer at times. After all, I knew you were real the second I accessed Kelly Tirrel’s report. I also know what you’re going through, Joshua. I felt exactly the same way about you. All that terrible anger, refusing to believe despite all the evidence. We’re more than brothers, we’re almost twins.”

“Wrong. We don’t even come from the same universe.”

“What exactly worries you the most, Josh? That I am your brother, or I’m not?”

“I’ll scuttle Lady Mac before I let anyone else have her. If you’ve got any intuition, you’ll know how true that is.”

“My mistake.” Liol stroked the acceleration couch beside the hatch, the longing obvious in his eyes. “I can see the ship means as much to you as it does to me. No surprise there, we’ve both got the Calvert wanderlust. Hitting you with a big legal scene first off was bound to create some hostility. But I’ve been waiting for this starship to dock here for every day of my life. Dad left Ayacucho before I was even born. In my mind the Lady Macbeth has always been mine. She’s my inheritance, too, Josh. I belong here just as much as you do.”

“A starship only has one captain. And you, asteroid boy, don’t know the first thing about piloting or captaining. Not that it’s relevant, you’ll never be in a position to fly Lady Mac .”

“Don’t fight this, Josh. You’re my brother, I don’t want to alienate you. Christ, just finding out you existed was a hell of a shock. Family feuds are the worst kind. Don’t let’s start one the moment we meet. Think how Dad would feel, his sons going at each other like this.”

“You are not family.”

“Where was Lady Macbeth docked in 2586, Josh? What ports?”

Joshua clenched his fists, a free-fall assault program working out possible trajectories he could leap along. He hated how smug this arrogant bastard was. Wiping that knowing superiority from his ugly flat face would be wonderful.

“The disadvantage with white skin like yours, Josh, is that I can see every blush. It’s a dead giveaway. Me? I always win at poker.”

Joshua seethed silently.

“So, do you want to discuss this sensibly?” Liol asked. “Personally, I’d hate to face Mrs Nateghi across a courtroom.”

“I don’t suppose, Lie , this sudden urge to acquire a starship has anything to do with your asteroid being overrun by possessed?”

“Lovely.” Liol clapped his hands enthusiastically. “You’re a Calvert, all right. Never see a belt without wanting to hit below it.”

“That’s right. So, I’ll see you in court here in about a week’s time. How does that sound?”

“Would you really abandon your own brother to the possessed?”

“If I had one, probably not.”

“I think I’m going to like you after all, Josh. I thought you’d be soft; after all, you’ve had it dead easy. But you’re not.”

“Easy?”

“Compared to me. You knew Dad. You had the big inheritance waiting. I’d call that easy.”

“I’d call that bollocks.”

“If you don’t believe in your own intuition, a simple DNA profile will tell you if we’re related. I’m sure your sick bay could run one for you.”

And Joshua was absolutely stumped at that. There was something about this complete stranger that was deeply unsettling, yet obscurely comforting at the same time. Jesus, he does look like me, and he knows about the intuition, and Dad wiped the log for 2586. It’s not utterly impossible. But Lady Mac is mine. I could never share her.

He stared at Liol for a moment longer, then made a command decision.

The crew were all hanging around on the bridge, along with Mrs Nateghi. Nobody would make eye contact. Joshua shot out of the captain’s cabin, rotated ninety degrees, and slapped his feet on a stikpad. “Sarha. Take our guest down to the sick bay. Get a blood sample, use a dagger if you want, and run a DNA profile.” He jabbed a finger at Mrs Nateghi. “Not you. You’re leaving. Right now.”

She ignored him while managing to project her complete disdain at the same time. “Mr Calvert, what are your instructions?”

“I just told you . . . Oh.”

“Thank you so much for your help,” Liol said with flawless courtesy. “I’ll be in touch with your office if I decide any further legal action is required against my brother.”

“Very well. Tayari, Usoro and Wang will be delighted to help. Forcing recidivists to acknowledge their responsibilities is always rewarding.”

Combating her amusement, Sarha held up a warning finger as Joshua’s face turned beacon red.

“Dahybi, show the lady out, please,” he said.

“Aye, Captain.” The node specialist gestured generously at the floor hatch and followed Mrs Nateghi through.

Liol flashed Sarha an engaging grin. “You wouldn’t really use a dagger on me, would you?”

She winked. “Depends on the circumstances.”

“Fancy that, Joshua,” one of the serjeants said as the pair of them left the bridge. “There’s two of you.”

Joshua glared at the bitek construct, then executed a perfect midair somersault and zoomed back into his cabin.

Alkad’s tranquillizer program wasn’t nearly strong enough to keep the claustrophobia at bay. Eventually she had to admit defeat and switch a somnolence program to primary. Her only thought as she fell into oblivion was: I wonder who will be there when I wake?

The rendezvous was an elaborate one, which decreased the chances of success. But even that wasn’t her main worry. Getting out of Ayacucho undetected was the big problem.

The asteroid had two counter-rotating spaceports, one at each end. The main one was used by starships and larger inter-orbit craft; while the second was mainly for heavy-duty cargo and utility tankers delivering fresh water and liquid oxygen for the biosphere. It was also the operations base for the personnel commuters and MSVs and tugs which flew between the asteroid and its necklace of industrial stations.

Both were under heavy surveillance by agents. There was no chance of getting through the axial chambers and taking a commuter lift to the docking bays, so Voi had arranged for Alkad and herself to be shipped out in cargo pods.

Lodi and another youth called Eriba, who claimed to be a molecular structures student, worked on a couple of standard pods in one of T’Opingtu’s storage facilities. They were converted into heavily padded coffins moulded to hold someone wearing a SII spacesuit. Both boys swore the insulation would prevent any thermal or electromagnetic leakage. The cargo pods would appear perfectly inert to any sensor sweep.

Of course, the insulation meant that Alkad couldn’t datavise out for help if anything went wrong and nobody opened her pod. She believed she held her composure pretty well while she allowed them to seal her in. After that there was nothing but the tranquillizer program for the twenty minutes before she sought refuge in sleep.

A tug was scheduled to take the cargo pods out to one of T’Opingtu’s foundry stations. From there they would be transferred to an inter-orbit craft that was heading for Mapire.

Alkad woke to find herself in free fall. At least we got out of the asteroid.

Her neural nanonics reported they were picking up a datavise.

“Stand by, Doctor, we’re cracking the pod now.”

She could feel vibrations through her suit, then the collar sensors were showing her slash-lines of red light cavorting around her. The top of the cargo pod came free, and someone in an SII suit and a manoeuvring pack was sliding into view in front of her.

“Hello, Doctor, it’s me, Lodi. You made it, you’re out.”

“Where’s Voi?” she datavised.

“I’m here, Doctor. Mary, but that was horrible. Are you all right?”

“Yes. Fine, thank you.” As well as relief for herself, she felt strangely glad the girl had come through unscathed.

She made sure she had a secure grip on her crumpled old backpack before she let Lodi draw her out of the pod. Held in front of him, with the manoeuvring pack puffing out fast streamers of gas, she sank into the déjà vu of Cherri Barnes towing her back to the Udat . Then, space had been frighteningly empty, with so little light her collar sensors had struggled to resolve anything. Now, she was deep within Tunja’s disk, gliding through a redout blizzard. No stars were visible anywhere, the particles were too thick. Their size was inordinately difficult to judge, a grain of dust a centimetre from her nose, or a boulder a kilometre away, both looked exactly the same.

Ahead of her she could see the waiting starship, its fuselage shining a dim burgundy, much darker than the particles skipping across it like twisters of interference in an empty AV projection. Two thermo-dump panels were extended, resembling slow-motion propeller blades as rills of dust swirled around them. The airlock hatch was open, emitting a welcoming beam of white light.

She sank along it, relishing the return of normal colour. They entered a cylindrical chamber with grab hoops, utility sockets, harsh light tubes, environment grilles, and small instrument panels distributed at random. The sensation that reality was solidifying around her was inescapable.

The hatch closed, and she clung to a grab hoop as air flooded in. Her SII suit flowed back into a globe hanging off the collar, and she was inundated with sounds.

“We did it!” Voi was jubilant. “I told you I could get you out.”

“Yes, you did.” She looked around at them, Voi, Lodi, and Eriba, so dreadfully young to be sucked into this world of subterfuge, hatred, and death. Beaming faces desperate for her approval. “And I’d like to thank you; you did a magnificent job, all of you.”

Their laughter and gratitude made her shake her head in wonder. Such odd times.

Five minutes later Alkad was dressed in her old ship-suit, backpack tight against her waist, following Voi into the Tekas ’s upper deck lounge. The yacht was only large enough for one life-support capsule, with three decks. Despite the lack of volume, the fittings were compact and elegant, everything blending seamlessly together to provide the illusion of ample space.

Prince Lambert was reclining in a deep circular chair, datavising a constant stream of instructions to the flight computer. Tekas was under way, accelerating at a twentieth of a gee, though the gravity plane was flicking about.

“Thank you for offering us the use of your ship,” Alkad said after they were introduced.

He gave Voi a sterling glance. “Not at all, Doctor, the least I could do for a national heroine.”

She ignored the sarcasm, wondering what the story was with him and Voi. “So what’s our current status? Did anyone follow you?”

“No. I’m fairly sure about that. I flew outside the disk for a million kilometres before I went through it. Your inter-orbit craft did the same thing, but on the other side. In theory no one will realize we rendezvoused. Even the voidhawks can’t sense what happens inside the disk, not from a million kilometres away, it’s too cluttered.”

Unless they want to follow me right to the Alchemist, Alkad thought. “What about a stealthed voidhawk just outside the disk, or even inside with us?” she asked.

“Then they’ve got us cold,” he said. “Our sensors are good, but they’re not military grade.”

“We’d know by now if we were being followed,” Voi said. “As soon as we rendezvoused they would have moved to intercept.”

“I expect so,” Alkad said. “How long before we can clear the disk and jump outsystem?”

“Another forty minutes. You don’t rush a manoeuvre like this; there are too many sharp rocks out there. I’m going to have to replace the hull foam as it is; dust abrasion is wearing it down to the bare silicon.” He smiled unconvincingly at Alkad. “Am I going to be told what our mission is?”

“I require a combat-capable starship, that’s all.”

“I see. And I suppose that is connected with the work you did for the Garissan navy before the genocide?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’ll excuse me if I leave the party before that.”

Alkad thought of the remaining devices in her backpack, and just how tight her security margin had become. “Nobody will force you to do anything.”

“Nice to hear.” He gave Voi another pointed glance. “For once.”

“What jump coordinate does this course give us?” Alkad asked.

“Nyvan,” he said. “It’s a hundred and thirty light-years away, but I can get a reasonable alignment on it without using up too much fuel. Voi told me you wanted a planet with military industrial facilities, and wouldn’t ask too many questions.”

The last of the starships with official flight authorization had departed ninety minutes earlier when Joshua made his way out of the spaceport. Service and maintenance staff had gone home to be with their families. Utility umbilicals supporting the remaining starships were becoming less than reliable.

Three agents were loitering in the axial chamber, talking in quiet tones. They were the only people there. Joshua gave them a blasé wave as he and his escort of three serjeants emerged from the commuter lift.

One of the agents frowned. “You’re going back in there?” she asked incredulously.

“Try keeping me from a party.”

He could hear the argument start behind him as the lift doors closed. Holomorph sticker cheerleaders began their chant all around him.

“If she’s worried enough to question you openly, then the possessed must be gaining ground,” a serjeant said.

“Look, we’ve been over this. I’m just going to check out the gig, and see if Kole has turned up. If she hasn’t, we head straight back.”

“It would have been much safer if I’d gone alone.”

“I don’t think so.” Joshua wanted to say more, but the lift was probably overloaded with nanonic bugs. He datavised the net for a channel to Lady Mac .

“Yes, Joshua?” Dahybi responded.

“Certain people out here are getting twitchy about the possessed. I want you to monitor the asteroid’s internal systems: transportation, power, environment, the net, everything. If any of them start downgrading I want to know right away.”

“Okay.”

Joshua glanced at the rigid, expressionless face of the nearest serjeant. Right now he really wanted Ione to confide in, to be able to ask her opinion, to talk things through. If anyone knew how to handle awkward family, it was her. Some deep-buried prejudice prevented him from saying anything to the serjeants. “One other thing, Dahybi. Call Liol, tell him to get himself over to the Lady Mac right away. Give him a passenger cabin in capsule C. Don’t let him on the bridge. Don’t give him any access codes for the flight computer. And make sure you check him for possession when he arrives.”

“Yes, Captain. Take care.”

A datavise couldn’t convey emotional nuances, but he knew Dahybi well enough to guess at the amused approval.

“You accept his claim, then?” Ione asked.

“The DNA profile seems similar to mine,” Joshua said grudgingly.

“Yes, I’d say ninety-seven per cent compatibility is roughly in the target area. It’s not unusual for starship crews to have extended families spread over several star systems.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

“If your father was ever anything like you, then it’s possible Liol isn’t your only sibling.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m just preparing you for the eventuality. Kelly Tirrel’s recording has enhanced your public visibility rating by a considerable factor. Others may seek you out in the same way.”

He pulled an ironic face. “Wouldn’t that be something? The gathering of the Calverts. I wonder if there are more of us than there are Saldanas?”

“I very much doubt it, not if you include our illegitimates.”

“And black sheep.”

“Quite. What do you intend to do about Liol?”

“I haven’t got a clue. He’s not touching the Lady Mac , though. Can you imagine having board meetings every time to decide her next destination? It’s the opposite of everything I am, not to mention the old girl herself.”

“He’ll probably come to realize this. I’m sure you can come to some arrangement. He appears to be quite smart.”

“The word is smarmy.”

“There’s very little difference between you.”

The lift dropped him off in a public hall a couple of hundred metres from the Terminal Terminus club where the benefit gig was being played. Not everyone was obeying the governing council’s request to stay put at home. Kids filled the hall with laughter and shouts. Everyone was wearing a red handkerchief on their ankle.

For a moment Joshua felt disconnected from his own generation. He had formidable responsibilities (not to mention problems); they were just stimheads sliding around their perpetual circuit from one empty good time to the next. They didn’t understand the universe at all.

Then a couple of them recognized Lagrange Calvert and wanted to know what it was like rescuing the children from Lalonde, and had there really been possessed in Bar KF-T? They were peppy, and the girls in the group were giving him the eye. He began to loosen up; the barriers weren’t so solid after all.

The Terminal Terminus looked like some kind of chasmal junction between tunnels. Big, old mining machines were parked in arching recesses, their conical, worn-down drill mechanisms jutting out into the main chamber. Obsolete mechanoids clung to the ceiling, spider-leg waldos dangling down inertly. Drinks were served over a long section of heavy-duty caterpillar track.

A fantasy wormhole squatted in the centre, a rippling gloss-black column five metres wide stretching between floor and ceiling. Things were trapped inside, undefined creatures who clawed at the distortion effect in desperate attempts to escape; the black surface bent and distended, but never broke.

“Very tasteful, under the circumstances,” Joshua muttered to a serjeant.

A stage had been set up between two of the mining machines. AV projectors powerful enough to cover a stadium stood on each side.

One of the serjeants went off to guard an emergency exit. The remaining two stuck by Joshua.

He found Kole standing with a group of her friends under one of the mining machines. Her hair had been woven through with silver and chrome-scarlet threads, which every now and then made it fan open like a peacock tail.

He paused for a moment. She was so phony; rich without Dominique’s cosmopolitan verve, and absolute trash compared to Louise’s simple honesty.

Louise.

Kole caught sight of him and squealed happily, kissed him, rubbed against him. “Are you all right? I accessed what happened after I left.”

He grinned brashly, the legend in the flesh. “I’m fine. My . . . er, cosmoniks here are a tough bunch. We’ve seen worse.”

“Really?” She cast a respectful eye over the two serjeants. “Are you male?”

“No.”

Joshua couldn’t tell if Ione was annoyed, amused, or plain didn’t care. On second thought, he doubted the latter.

Kole kissed him again. “Come and meet the gang. They didn’t believe I’d hooked you. Mother, I can’t believe I hooked you.”

He braced himself for the worst.

From her vantage point lounging casually on a coolant feed duct a third of the way up the side of a mining machine, Monica Foulkes watched Joshua greeting Kole’s posse of friends. He knew exactly the attitude to take to be accepted within seconds. She took a gulp of iced mineral water as her enhanced retinas scanned the young faces below. It was hot wearing the chameleon suit, but it gave her the skin tone of Ayacucho’s Kenyan-ethnic population; “foreign agents” were about as popular as the possessed right now. Except Calvert, of course, she thought sorely, he was being greeted like a bloody hero. Her characterization recognition program ran a comparison against the youngsters she was scanning, and signalled a ninety-five per cent probable match.

“Damn!”

Samuel (now black-skinned, twenty-five years old, and wearing jazzy purple sports gear) looked up from the base of the mining machine. “What?”

“You were right. Kole has just introduced him to Adok Dala.”

“Ah. I knew it. He was Voi’s boyfriend up until she dumped him eighteen months ago.”

“Yes yes, I can access the file for myself, thank you.”

“Can you hear what’s being said?”

She glanced down contemptuously. “Not a chance. This place is really filling up now. My audio discrimination programs can’t filter over that distance.”

“Come down please, Monica.”

Something in his tone halted any protest. She slithered down the pitted yellow-painted titanium bodywork of the mining machine.

“We have to decide what to do. Now.”

She flinched. “Oh, God.”

“Do you believe Adok Dala will know where Voi is?”

“I don’t think so, but there’s no guarantee. And if we snatch Dala now, it isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference as far as official repercussions are concerned. He’s hardly going to complain about being taken off Ayacucho, is he?”

“You’re right. And it will prevent Calvert from learning anything.”

Joshua’s neural nanonics reported a call from Dahybi. “Two voidhawks from the defence delegation have just left the docking ledge, Captain. Our sensors can’t see much from inside the bay, but we think they’re keeping station five kilometres off the spaceport.”

“Okay, keep monitoring them.”

“No problem. But you should know that Ayacucho is suffering localized power failures. They’re completely random, and the supervisor programs can’t locate any physical problem in the supply system. One of the news studios has gone off-line, as well.”

“Jesus. Start flight prepping Lady Mac ; I’ll wind things up here and get back to you within thirty minutes.”

“Aye, Captain. Oh, and Liol has arrived. He’s not possessed.”

“Wonderful.”

Kole was still clinging magnetically to his side. No one she’d introduced him to had mentioned Voi. His original idea had been to ask them about Ikela’s murder and see what was said. But now time was running out. He looked around to find out where the serjeants were, hoping Ione wasn’t going to make an issue of pulling out. Hell, we gave it our best.

The compere was striding out on the stage, holding her arms out for silence as the rowdy crowd cheered and started catcalling. She started into her spiel about the Fuckmasters.

“This is Shea,” Kole told him.

It was hard for Joshua to smile; Shea was tall and skinny, almost identical to Voi’s size and height. He datavised his electronic warfare block to scan her, but she was clean. What he saw was real, not a chameleon suit. It wasn’t Voi.

“This is Joshua Calvert,” Kole boasted, raising her voice against the rising whistle of the giant AV projectors. “He’s my starship captain.”

Shea’s melancholia became outright distress. She started crying.

Kole gave her an astonished look. “What’s the matter?”

Shea shook her head, lips sealed together.

“I’m sorry,” Joshua said, earnestly sympathetic. “What did I do?”

Shea smiled bravely. “It’s not you. It’s just . . . my boyfriend left this afternoon. He’s captaining a starship, too, and that reminded me. I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. He wouldn’t say.”

Intuition was starting a major-league riot in Joshua’s skull. The first MF band was strolling onstage. He put a protective arm around Shea’s shoulders, ignoring Kole’s flash of ire. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink. You can tell me about it. You never know, I might be able to help. Stranger things happen in space.”

He signalled the two serjeants frantically, and turned away from the stage just as the AV projectors burst into life. A thick haze of coherent light filled the Terminal Terminus. Even though he was looking away, sensations spirited down his nerves; fragmented signals saturated with crude activant sequences. He felt good. He felt hot. He felt randy. He felt slippery.

A glance back over his shoulder had him sitting on a saddle astride a giant penis, urging it forwards.

Honestly, kids today. When he was younger MF was about the giddy pursuit, how it felt when your partner adored you in return, or spurned you without reason. Making up and breaking up. The infinite states of the heart, not the dick.

The kids around him were laughing and giggling, joyous expressions on their incredulous faces as the AV dazzle poured down their irises. They all swayed from side to side in unison.

“Joshua, four Edenists are coming this way,” a serjeant warned.

Joshua could see them in the sparkling light cloud which pervaded the audience. Taller than everyone else, some kind of visor over their eyes, moving intently through the swinging throng.

He grabbed Shea’s hand tightly. “This way,” he hissed urgently, and veered off towards the mock wormhole in the centre of the club. One of the serjeants cleared a path, forcing people aside. Frowns and snarls lined his route.

“Dahybi,” he datavised. “Get the rest of the serjeants out of zero-tau, fast. Secure a route through the spaceport from the axial chamber to Lady Mac . I might be needing it.”

“It’s being done, Captain. Parts of the asteroid’s net are crashing.”

“Jesus. Okay, we’ve got the serjeants’ affinity to keep communications open if it goes completely. You’d better keep one in the bridge with you.”

He reached the writhing black column and looked back. Shea was breathless and confused, but not protesting. The Edenists weren’t chasing after him. “What . . . ?” Some sort of struggle had broken out over where he’d left Kole’s friends. Two of the tall agents were pulling an inert body between them. It was Adok Dala, unconscious and shaking, victim of a nervejam shot. The other pair of agents and someone else were holding back some irate kids. A nervejam stick was raised and fired.

Joshua turned his head a little too far, and he was tasting nipple while he slid over dark pigmentation as if he were snowboard slaloming, leaving a huge trail of glistening saliva behind him. His neck muscles flicked back a couple of degrees, and the Edenists were retreating, completely unnoticed by the entranced euphoric audience they were shoving their way through. Behind them, Kole’s friends clung together; those still standing wept uncomprehendingly over those felled by the violence which had stabbed so unexpectedly into their moment of erotic rapture.

Shea gasped at the scene and made to rush over.

“No,” Joshua shouted. He pulled her back, and she recoiled, as frightened by him as the agents. “Listen to me, we have to get out of here. It’s only going to get worse.”

“Is it the possessed?”

“Yeah. Now come on.”

Still keeping hold of her hand he slid around the wormhole. It felt like dry rubber against his side, flexing in queasy movements.

“Nearest exit,” he told the serjeant in front of him. “Go.” It began to plough through tightly packed bodies at an alarming speed. Blissfully unaware people were sent tumbling. Joshua followed on grimly. The Edenists must have wanted Adok Dala for the same reason he wanted Shea. Had he got the wrong friend? Oh, hell.

The cavern wall was only ten metres ahead of him now, a red circle shining above an exit. His electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.

Jesus! “Ione.”

“I know,” the lead serjeant shouted. It drew its machine gun.

“No,” he cried. “You can’t, not in here.”

“I’m not inhuman, Joshua,” the burly figure retorted.

They reached the wall and hurried along to the exit. That was when he realized Kole was still with them.

“Stay here,” he told her. “You’ll be safe with all these people.”

“You can’t leave me here,” she gasped imploringly. “Joshua! I know what’s happening. You can’t. I don’t want that to happen to me. You can’t let them. Take me with you, for Mary’s sake!”

And she was just a stricken young girl whose broken hair was flapping wildly.

The first serjeant slammed the door open and went through. “I’ll stay here,” the second said. The machine gun was held ready in one hand. It took out an automatic pistol and held it in the other. “That’s a bonus, these things are ambidextrous. Don’t worry, Joshua. They’ll suffer if they try and get past me.”

“Thanks, Ione.” Then he was out in the corridor, urging the two girls along. “Dahybi,” he datavised. His neural nanonics reported they couldn’t acquire a net processor. “Bugger.”

“The other serjeants are securing the spaceport,” the serjeant told him. “And the Lady Mac is flight prepped. Everything is ready.”

“Great.” His electronic warfare block was still datavising its alarm. He took his own nine-millimetre pistol out of its holster. Its operating procedure program went primary.

They came to a crossroads in the corridor. And Joshua wasted a second querying the net on the direction he wanted. Cursing, he requested the Ayacucho layout he’d stored in a memory cell. There would be too much risk using a lift now; power supplies were dubious, transport management processors more so. His neural nanonics devised the shortest route to the axial chamber, it seemed depressingly far.

“This way.” He pointed down the left hand corridor.

“Excuse me,” someone said.

Joshua’s electronic warfare block gave out one final warning, then shut down. He whirled around. Standing ten metres down the other corridor were a man and a woman, dressed in heavy black leather jackets and trousers with an improbable number of shiny zips and buckles.

“Run,” the serjeant ordered. It stepped squarely into the middle of the corridor and levelled its compact machine gun.

Joshua didn’t hesitate. Shoving at the girls, he started running. He heard a few heated words being shouted behind him. Then the machine gun fired.

He took the first turning, desperate to escape from the line of sight. His neural nanonics immediately revised his route. The corridors were all identical, three metres high, three metres wide, and apparently endless. Joshua hated that, trapped in a maze and utterly reliant on a guidance program susceptible to the possessed. He wanted to know exactly where he was, and be able to prove it. Being unaware of his exact location was an alien experience. Human doubt was superseding technological prowess.

He was looking over his shoulder as he took the next turning, making sure the girls were keeping up and there was no sign of any pursuit. His peripheral vision monitor program indexed the figure striding down the corridor towards him milliseconds before his neural nanonics crashed.

It was a man in white Arab robes. He smiled in simple gratitude as Joshua and the girls stumbled to a halt in front of him.

Joshua swung his pistol around, but the lack of any procedural program meant he misjudged its weight. The arc was too great. Before he could bring it back to line up on the target, a ball of white fire struck his hand.

Joshua howled at the flare of terrible pain as the pistol fell from his grip. No matter how vigorously he waved his arm the deadly white flame could not be dislodged from its grip around his fingers. Oily stinking smoke spouted out.

“Time to say goodbye to your life,” the smiling possessed said.

“Fuck you.”

He could hear the girls crying out behind him, the wails of their revulsion and horror. Shock was diminishing the pain in his hand slightly. He could feel the puke rising in his throat as more and more of his flesh charred. His whole right arm was stiffening. Somewhere behind his assailant a vast crowd of invisible people were whispering all at once. “No.” It wasn’t a coherent word, just a defiant grunt mangled by his contorted throat muscles. I will not submit to that. Never.

A cascade of water burst out of the corridor’s ceiling to the accompanying sound of a high-pitched siren. The edge of the lighting panels turned red and started to flash.

Shea was laughing with brittle hysteria as she withdrew her fist from the fire alarm panel. Dots of blood oozed up from her grazed knuckles. Joshua punched his own hand upwards, straight underneath a nozzle. He roared triumphantly. The white flame vanished in a gust of steam, and he collapsed down onto his knees, his whole body shaking violently.

The Arab regarded the three of them with a degree of aristocratic annoyance, as if any hint of defiance was unprecedented. Water splattered on his dark headgear, turning his robe translucent as it clung to his body.

Joshua raised his head against the icy torrent to snarl at his enemy. His right hand was dead now; a supreme crush of coldness had devoured his wrist. A few spittles of vomit emerged from his mouth before he managed to growl: “Okay, shithead, my turn.”

The Arab frowned as Joshua reached into a pocket with his left hand and brought out Horst Elwes’s small crucifix. He thrust it forwards.

“Holy Father, Lord of Heaven and the mortal world, in humility and obedience, I do ask Your aid in this act of sanctification, through Jesus the Christ who walked among us to know our failings, grant me Your blessing in this task.”

“But I am a Sunni Muslim,” the bemused Arab said.

“Eh?”

“A Muslim. I have no belief in your false Jewish prophet.” He raised his arms, palms upwards. The deluge of water from the nozzles turned to snow. Every flake stuck to Joshua’s ship-suit, smearing him in a coat of slush. Most of his skin was numb now.

“But I believe,” Joshua ground out through vibrating teeth. And did. The revelation was as shocking as the cold and the pain. But he’d come to this moment of pure clarity through reason and ordeal. All he knew, all he’d seen, all he’d done; it spoke to him that there was order in the universe. Reality was too complex for chance evolution.

Medieval prophets were a convenient lie, but something had made sense out of the chaos which existed before time began. Something started time itself flowing.

“My Lord God, look upon this servant of Yours before me, fallen to a misguided and unclean spirit.”

“Misguided?” The Arab glowered, trickles of static electricity crawling up his robes. “You brain-dead infidel! Allah is the only true—oh shit .”

The serjeant fired, aiming for the Arab’s head.

Joshua drooped limply onto the floor. “That’s always how religious arguments end, isn’t it?” He was only dimly conscious of the serjeant dragging him out of the downpour. His neural nanonics came back on line, and immediately started erecting axon blockades. It was a different kind of numbness than the snow had brought, less severe. The serjeant wrapped a medical nanonic package around his hand. A stimulant program coaxed Joshua’s brain back to full alertness. He blinked up at the three faces peering down at him. Kole and Shea were clinging together, both of them in a shambles, drenched and stupefied. The serjeant had taken a bad pounding, deep scorch marks crisscrossed its body, all-too-human blood was bubbling out from crusted wounds.

Joshua climbed slowly to his feet. He wanted to smile reassuringly at the girls, but the will just wasn’t there. “Are you okay?” he asked the serjeant.

“I’m mobile.”

“Good. What about you two, any damage?”

Shea shook her head timidly, Kole was still sobbing.

“Thanks for helping,” he said to Shea. “That was fast thinking. I don’t know what I would have done without the water. It was all a little bit too close for comfort. But we’re through the worst now.”

“Joshua,” the serjeant said. “Dahybi says that three of the Capone Organization’s warships have just arrived.”

Seven Edenists in full body armour were guarding the docking ledge departure lounge. Monica was tremendously glad to see them. Along with Samuel, she’d been covering their retreat from the Terminal Terminus, no easy duty. There had been three encounters with the possessed on the way, and the shapeshifting magicians terrified her. Nerves and neural nanonics were hyped to the maximum. Never once had she given them the opportunity to surrender or back off. Locate and shoot, that was the way to do it. And she noticed that for all his worthiness and respect for life, Samuel was wired pretty much the same.

The lighting panels were flickering and dimming as the group rushed across the lounge towards the airlock door and the waiting crew bus outside. Monica waited until the airlock hatch slid shut before taking her combat programs off line. She flicked the machine gun’s safety catch on, and slowly pulled off her chameleon suit hood. The bus’s cool air felt gloriously refreshing as it gusted over her sweat-soaked hair.

“Well, that was easy,” she said.

The bus was rolling towards the Hoya , the last voidhawk left on the ledge. Nothing else moved on the shelf of smooth dark rock.

“Unfortunately, you might be right,” Samuel said. He was bent over the unconscious form of Adok Dala, checking the boy with a sensor from a medical block. “Capone’s ships are here.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. The Duida Consensus has dispatched a squadron of voidhawks to support us. We are in little physical danger.”

An inane impulse made Monica stare out through the bus’s window in search of the Organization ships. She could barely make out the non-rotational spaceport, an eclipsed crescent with the funereal red mist of the disk swirling around its edges. “We’re a long way from New California. Is this another invasion?”

“No, there are only three ships.”

“Then why . . . Oh, God, you don’t think he’s looking for Mzu as well?”

“It is the most obvious possibility.”

They reached the voidhawk, and the bus extended its airlock tube over the upper hull. Despite their situation, Monica glanced around curiously once she was on board. The crew toroid wasn’t that much different from an Adamist starship’s life-support capsule in terms of technology; it was a lot roomier, though. Samuel led her around the central corridor to the bridge and introduced her to Captain Niveu.

“My thanks to Hoya ,” she said, remembering her etiquette.

“Our pleasure, you have been performing a difficult job under extreme circumstances.”

“Tell me about it. What’s happening with the Capone ships?”

“They are accelerating down into the disk, though they have made no threatening moves. The squadron from the Duida habitats is here, we’re moving out to join them now. What happens next depends on the Capone ships.”

“We’re under way?” Monica asked. The gravity field was rock steady.

“Yes.”

“Are there any electronic sensors I can access?”

“Certainly.”

Monica’s neural nanonics received a datavise from the bridge’s bitek processor array. Hoya was already sliding up through the fringes of the disk, like a bird emerging from a rain cloud. Purple and green symbols outlined the three Capone Organization ships, half a million kilometres away, and heading in towards Ayacucho at a steady third of a gravity. The squadron of voidhawks was clustered together just outside the top of the disk.

“They’re not in any hurry,” Monica observed.

“They probably don’t wish to appear hostile,” Niveu said. “If it came to a battle with us they would lose.”

“Are you going to allow them to dock?”

Niveu glanced at Samuel.

“Consensus is undecided,” Samuel said. “We don’t have sufficient information yet. To attack them without reason is not an action we can undertake lightly.”

“They can’t be here on an assault mission,” Niveu said. “Ayacucho has almost fallen now, attacking it would be pointless. The asteroid’s new masters would probably welcome an alliance with Capone.”

“Destroying them now might be the best course for us all in the long run,” Monica said. “If they walk in, they’ll be able to squeeze every byte of data from Voi’s friends. And if Voi and Mzu didn’t get off, then we really are up shit creek.”

“Good point,” Samuel said. “We must find out what we can. Time to talk to our guest.”

Only Sarha, Beaulieu, and Dahybi were on the bridge when Joshua sailed through the floor hatch. He’d told the serjeants to take both girls to capsule C where Melvyn, Liol, and Ashly were waiting in the sick bay.

Sarha’s expression was a blend of anger and worry as he drifted past her acceleration couch. “God, Joshua!”

“I’m all right, really.” He showed her the medical nanonic which had enveloped his right hand. “All under control.”

She scowled as he moved away trailing droplets of cold water. A neat midair twist, and he was lying on his acceleration couch with the webbing folding over him.

“The net has gone completely,” Dahybi said. “We can’t monitor the asteroid’s systems.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Joshua said. “I know exactly what’s happening in there. That’s why we’re leaving.”

“Did the girl help?” Beaulieu asked.

“Not yet. I just want to get us clear first. Dahybi, are any of the voidhawks screwing around with our nodes?”

“No, Captain, we can jump.”

“Good.” Joshua optimistically ordered the flight computer to release the cradle clamps. He was rather pleased to see them disengage, some processors were still working back in the spaceport.

The chemical verniers fired, lifting them straight up out of the bay. Sarha winced as the drab metal wall slid past the tips of the sensor clusters, there was only about five metres clearance. But Lady Mac never wavered. As soon as they emerged from the bay Joshua cut the rockets, letting the starship fly free. The sensor clusters sank down into their jump recesses. An event horizon claimed the hull. They jumped half a light year. A second after they emerged energy flashed through the patterning nodes again. This time the jump was three light-years.

Joshua let out a juddering sigh.

Sarha, Beaulieu, and Dahybi looked at him. He was completely motionless, staring at the ceiling.

“Why don’t you join the others in the sick bay?” Sarha said compassionately. “Your hand should be checked properly.”

“I heard them, you know.”

Sarha gave Dahybi an anxious look. The node specialist gave her a curt gesture with his hand.

“Heard who?” she asked. Her webbing peeled back, allowing her to haul herself over to Joshua. A stikpad at the side of his couch captured her feet.

He didn’t acknowledge her presence. “The souls in the beyond. Jesus, they’re real all right, they’re there waiting. One tiny act of weakness, that’s all it takes, and they’ve got you.”

Her fingers stroked his waterlogged hair. “They didn’t get you.”

“No. But they lie and lie about how they can help. I was angry, and stupid enough to think Horst’s damn cross would save me.” He held up the little crucifix and snorted at it. “Jesus, he was a Muslim.”

“You’re not making a lot of sense.”

He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “Sorry. They can hurt you very badly, you know. He’d only just started with my hand, that was a warm-up. I don’t know if I could have held out. I told myself I would, or at least that I wouldn’t give in. I think the only way to do that is to die.”

“But you didn’t give in, and you’re still alive, and it’s only you inside your skull. You won, Joshua.”

“Luck, and the tank is about empty.”

“It wasn’t luck you had three serjeants with you. It was healthy paranoia and good planning. You knew the possessed are extremely dangerous, and took it into account. And that’s what we’ll do again next time.”

He gave a nervous laugh. “If I can manage a next time. It’s quite something to look right down into the abyss and see what’s there waiting for you, one way or the other, as possessed or possessor.”

“We were up against it at Lalonde, and we’re still flying.”

“That was different, I was ignorant then. But now I know for sure. We’re going to die, and be condemned to live in the beyond. All of us. Every sentient entity in the universe.” His face screwed up in pain and anger. “Jesus, I can’t believe that’s all there is: life and purgatory. After tens of thousands of years, the universe finally reveals that we have souls, and then we have the glory snatched right back and replaced with terror. There has to be something more, there has to be. He wouldn’t do that to us.”

“Who?”

“God, he, she, it, whatever. This torment, it’s too . . . I don’t know. Personal. Why the fuck build a universe that does this to people? If you’re that powerful, why not make death final, or make everyone immortal? Why this ? We have to know, have to find out why it works the way it does. That way we can know what the answer to all this is. We have to find something that’s permanent, something which will last until the end of time.”

“How do you propose to do that?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” he snapped, then just as suddenly he was thoughtful again. “Maybe the Kiint. They say they’ve solved all this. They won’t tell us outright, but they might at least point me in the right direction.”

Sarha looked down at his intense expression in astonishment. Joshua taking life so seriously was strange, Joshua mounting a crusade was frankly astonishing. For one second she thought that he had been possessed after all. “You?” she blurted.

All the suffering and angst vanished from his angular face. The old Joshua swept back. He started chuckling. “Yeah, me. I might be catching religion a little late in life, but the born-again are always the most insufferable and devout.”

“It’s more than your hand which needs checking out in the sick bay.”

“Thank you, my loyal crew.” His restraint webbing parted, allowing him up. “But we’re still going to ask the Kiint.” He ordered the flight computer to run a full star track search and correlate their exact position. Then he ran an almanac search for Jobis’s file.

“Right now?” Dahybi asked tartly. “You’re going to throw away all you achieved on Ayacucho just like that?”

“Of course not,” Joshua said smoothly.

“Good. Because if we don’t find Mzu and the Alchemist before the possessed do, there probably won’t be any Confederation left for you to save.”

Adok Dala returned to consciousness with a loud cry. He looked around fearfully at the Hoya ’s sick bay. Not reassured by his surroundings. Not at all.

Samuel removed the medical nanonic package from the base of his neck. “Easy there. You’re quite safe, Adok. Nobody is going to hurt you here. And I must apologize for the way we treated you in the club, but you are rather important to us.”

“You’re not the possessed?”

“No. We’re Edenists. Well, apart from Monica, here; she’s from the Kulu Kingdom.”

Monica did her best to smile at the nervous boy.

“You’re foreign agents, then?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t tell you anything. I’m not helping you catch Mzu.”

“That’s very patriotic. But we’re not interested in Mzu. Frankly, we hope she got away clean. You see, the possessed are in charge of Ayacucho now.”

Adok moaned in distress, clamping his hand over his mouth.

“What we’d like to know about is Voi,” Samuel said.

“Voi?”

“Yes. Do you know where she is?”

“I haven’t seen her for days. She put us all on standby. It was silly, we had to organize the kids in the day clubs to kill spiders. She said Lodi figured out you were using them to spy on us.”

“Clever man, Lodi. Do you know where he is?”

“No. Not for a couple of days.”

“Interesting. How many are there in this group of yours?”

“About twenty, twenty-five. There’s no real list. We’re just friends.”

“Who started it?”

“Voi. She’d changed when she came out of detox. The genocide became a real cause for her. We just got sucked along by her. Everybody does when Voi gets serious about an issue.”

Monica datavised a request to her processor block, retrieving a memory image from the file she’d recorded at the Terminal Terminus. It had bothered her since the snatch. The last glimpse she had of Joshua Calvert showed him tugging a girl along. She showed the enhanced image to Adok. “Do you know her?”

He blinked blearily at the little screen. Whatever drugs Samuel had administered to loosen his tongue were making him drowsy. “That’s Shea. I like her, but . . .”

“Is she one of your group?”

“Not really, but she’s Prince Lambert’s girlfriend. He’s sort of a member; and she’s done a few things for us occasionally.”

Monica looked at Samuel. “What have we got on this Prince Lambert character?”

“A moment.” He consulted his bitek processor block. “He’s registered as a pilot for the Tekas , an executive yacht owned by his family corporation. Monica, it was one of the starships which left Ayacucho this afternoon.”

“Damn it!” She slammed her fist down on one of the cabinets beside Adok Dala’s couch. “Does Voi know Prince Lambert?”

Adok smiled blithely. “Yes. They used to be lovers. He was the reason she wound up in detox.”

Do you have a jump coordinate for the Tekas? samuel asked Niveu.

No. It flew outside our mass perception range. None of the voidhawks registered its jump. But we do have the flight vector. It was an odd course, the ship was heading back down to the disk when it passed beyond us. If it didn’t perform any drastic realignment manoeuvres there are three possible stars it could have flown to: Shikoku, Nyvan, and Torrox.

Thank you. We’ll check them.

Of course. I’ll inform Duida’s defence command. We’ll leave immediately.

Shea had changed into a grey ship-suit when Joshua floated into the sickbay. She was talking quietly to Liol, but broke off to give him a shy grin. Ashly and Melvyn were busy packing equipment away. One of the serjeants held on to a grab hoop just inside the hatch.

“How are you feeling?” Joshua asked her.

“Fine. Ashly gave me a tranquillizer. I think it helps.”

“I wish he’d give me one.”

Her grin brightened. “Is your hand very bad?”

He held it up. “Most of the bone is intact, but I’m going to need some clone vat tissue to build the fingers up. The package can’t regenerate quite that much.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Tranquillity will pay for it,” he said, straight-faced. “Where’s Kole?”

“Zero-tau,” Melvyn said.

“Good idea.”

“Do you want me to go in as well?” Shea asked.

“Up to you. But I need some help before you decide.”

“From me?”

“Yes. Let me explain. Contrary to everything the news studios were saying, I’m not a foreign agent.”

“I know that, you’re Lagrange Calvert.”

Joshua smiled. “I knew it would come in useful one day. The thing is, we are looking for Alkad Mzu, but not because of any Omutan propaganda.”

“Why then?”

He took her hand in his, squeezing emphatically. “There is a reason, Shea, it’s a good reason, but not a very nice one. I’ll tell you if you really want to know; because if you’re anything like the person I think you are, you’d help us find her if you knew what’s actually going on. But if you’ll trust me on this, you don’t want to know. It’s up to you.”

“Are you going to kill her?” she asked sheepishly.

“No.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. We just want to take her back to Tranquillity where she’s been living since the genocide. As prisons go, it isn’t bad. And if we can get to her in time, it’ll save an awful lot of people. Maybe an entire planet.”

“She’s going to drop a planet-buster on Omuta, isn’t she?”

“Something like that.”

“I thought so,” she said in a tiny voice. “But I don’t know where she is.”

“I think you do. You see, we believe she’s with Voi.”

“Oh, her .” Shea’s face darkened.

“Yes, her. I’m sorry, this sounds painful for you. I didn’t realize.”

“She and Prince Lambert had a thing. He still . . . well, he’d go back to her if she’d have him.”

“This Prince Lambert is your boyfriend, the starship captain?”

“Yes.”

“Which ship?”

“The Tekas .”

“And it left Ayacucho today?”

“Yes. Do you really think Alkad Mzu was on board?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Is he going to be in trouble with the authorities?”

“I couldn’t care less about him. I just want to locate Mzu. Once I’ve done that, once she knows I’m on her tail and watching every move, the threat will be neutered. She’ll have to come back with me then. Now, are you going to tell me where the Tekas went?”

“I’m sorry, I wish I could help, but he wouldn’t tell me where they were going.”

“Shit!”

“P.L. is flying the Tekas to Nyvan,” Liol said. He looked around inquiringly at the startled faces. “Did I say something wrong?”

“How the bloody hell do you know where he was going?” Joshua demanded.

“P.L.’s a good friend of mine; we grew up together. Quantum Serendipity has the contract to service the Tekas . He’s not the most experienced pilot, and Voi had given him a very odd manoeuvre to fly. So I helped him program the flight vector.”