The Naked God

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Take us back,” he told Cathal.

  The flyer performed a fast turn, curving round to line up on Fort Forward. Ahead of it, the giant Thunderbirds continued to swoop down out of the western sky, delta heatshields glowing a dull vermilion against the starfield backdrop. That aspect of the build up, at least, remained unchanged. Cathal landed them inside the secure command complex, along the southern side of the new city. Ralph trotted down the airstair, ignoring the armed Marine escort which fell in around him. The trappings of his position had ceased to register as special some time ago, just another aspect of this extraordinary event.

  Brigadier Palmer (the first person Ralph had promoted) was waiting outside the door to the Ops Room. “Well?” she asked, as they walked in.

  “I didn’t see anyone waving a white flag.”

  “We’d know if they wanted to.” Like a lot of people involved with the Liberation, especially those who’d been on Mortonridge since the start, she considered herself to have a connection with the possessed hidden behind the red cloud, an awareness of attitude. Ralph wasn’t convinced, although he acknowledged the possessed exerted some kind of psychic presence.

  The Ops Room was a long rectangular chamber with glass walls separating it from innumerable specialist planning offices. Completing electronic systems integration and connecting their architecture with Ombey’s military communication circuits was another triumph for the overworked Royal Marine engineering corps, though its rushed nature was evident in the bundled cables hanging between consoles and open ceiling panels, air conditioning which was too chilly, and raw carbon-concrete corner pillars. Its floor-space was taken up by cheap corporate-style desks holding consoles, AV projectors, and communication gear. Right now, it was full to capacity; over fifty officers from the Royal Navy were collaborating with an equal number of Edenists; the next largest contingent was the Confederation Navy with twenty; while the remainder were drawn from various participating allies.

  They were going to be the coordinators of the Liberation, the human analysis and liaison between the ground forces and the controlling AI back in Pasto. A failsafe against the maxim: No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Every one of them stood up as Ralph Hiltch entered. That, he did notice. Together they had spent the past few weeks planning this together, arguing, pleading, contributing ideas, working miracles. They’d learned to cooperate and coordinate their fields of expertise, putting aside old quarrels so they melded into a unified, dedicated team. He was proud of them and what they’d accomplished.

  Their show of respect rekindled several of his suppressed emotions. “I’ll keep this short,” he told the hushed chamber. “We can’t pretend this is going to solve the problem possession poses to the Confederation, but it’s a damn sight more important than a propaganda war, which is what some reporters have been calling it. We’re fighting to free two million people, and we’re battling to bring hope into the lives of an awful lot more. To me, that’s more than worthwhile, it’s essential. So let’s make our contribution a good one.”

  Amid scattered applause, he made his way to his office at the far end.

  His desk gave him a view down the whole length of the Ops Room, providing he craned his neck over the stack of processor block peripherals connected to his main desktop console. While he was datavising the array for strategic updates, his executive command group joined him. As well as Janne Palmer who was the Chief of the occupying forces, there was Acacia, the Edenist liaison, an elderly woman who had served as ambassador to Ombey for five years. He’d also drafted in Diana Tiernan to act as the army’s technical advisor, helping to filter the scientific reports on the possessed which were flooding in from across the Confederation. Cathal completed the gathering, still holding his post as Ralph’s assistant, but now with the rank of lieutenant commander.

  When the glass door slid shut, isolating them from the noise from outside, Ralph requested a security level one sensenviron conference.

  Princess Kirsten and Admiral Farquar joined them around the white bubble room’s table. “The deployment’s going remarkably well,” Ralph said. “All our principal front line divisions will be in place at zero-hour.”

  “My occupation troops are effectively ready,” Janne said. “There are a few minor hitches, mostly logistical. But given the amount of materiel involved, and the different groupings we’re attempting to coordinate, I’m happy. We’re well within estimated parameters. The AI should have the bugs knocked out by morning.”

  “The serjeants are also ready,” Acacia reported. “Again, there are some hitches, mainly with transport equipment, but we are committed.”

  “Admiral Farquar?” Kirsten asked.

  “All space based assets are functional. Platform orbits are synchronized, and the voidhawks are reaching apogee. It looks good.”

  “Very well,” Kirsten said. “God help me for this, but they’ve left us with no alternative. General Hiltch, you now have full command authority for Ombey’s military forces. Engage the enemy, Ralph, evict them from my planet.”

  Standard military doctrine was, somewhat inevitably, fairly unimaginative. Every kind of tactic and counter-tactic had been attempted, practised, and refined by generals, warlords, and emperors down the centuries until there was little room for mistake. So even though Mortonridge was unique from a philosophical standpoint, it could be defined in military terms as a large scale hostage/siege scenario.

  Given that assessment, the method of resolving it was clear cut.

  Ralph wanted to isolate the possessed in small groups. They were vulnerable like that, capable of being overwhelmed. To achieve it, their communications should be broken, denying them the ability to regroup and mount any kind of counter-attack. Harassment should be constant, wearing them down. And, if possible, he wanted them deprived of the cover provided by their red cloud. In summary: divide and conquer. An ancient principle, but now aided by the kind of firepower which only modern technology could provide.

  Ombey had four and a half thousand low orbit Strategic Defence platforms.

  Their orbital vectors were orchestrated to provide a constant barrier above the surface, similar to the way electrons pirouetted around their nucleus. For the Liberation, all that had changed. Navy starships had taken over the low orbit protection duty, leaving the platforms free for an altogether different task. Their elaborate inclinations had been shifted, ion thrusters firing for hours at a time to clump them into flocks of twenty-five. Now they formed a single chain around the planet, with an inclination tilted at just a couple of degrees to the equator.

  One flock would pass over Mortonridge every thirty seconds.

  Sensor satellites had been manoeuvred into the gaps between the platforms, ready to provide the Liberation Forces with an unparalleled coverage of the peninsula once the red cloud had been broken apart.

  Admiral Farquar used them to watch the dawn terminator sliding over the ocean towards the lowering band of red cloud. Tactical overlays showed him the positions of the landing boats heading in for the beaches. Far overhead, the flotilla of voidhawks had passed apogee, and were now hurtling downwards, accelerating at eight gees.

  In one hour, dawn would reach Mortonridge’s eastern seaboard. The Admiral datavised his command authority code to Guyana’s SD control centre.

  “Fire,” he ordered.

  Though they never knew it, the Liberation forces very nearly won in the first ninety seconds. The initial flock of SD platforms sent seventy-five electron beams slamming down through the upper atmosphere to strike the red cloud. They were aimed along the north/south axis of the peninsula, and defocused, so that at the point of impact they were over fifty metres across. The intention wasn’t to pierce the red cloud, just to pump it full of electrical energy, the possessed’s one known Achilles Heel. Each beam began scanning from side to side, in gigantic ten second sweeps that took them from coast to coast.

  Then the second flock of platforms slid up over the horizon and into range. Another se
venty-five beams speared down. There was a ten second overlap before the first flock was out of range.

  Annette Ekelund let out a single shriek of agony, and dropped helplessly to her knees. The pain was incredible. A shaft of blue-star sunlight flung down from a height greater than heaven lanced clean through her skull. It didn’t just burn her stolen brain, it set fire to her very thoughts. That part of her spirit which communed so gladly with the others on Mortonridge was the treacherous conductor. The part which created the shield of cloud and gave them all a subliminal sense of community. Her belief in whatever humanity has survived the incarceration of the beyond. And now it was killing her.

  She abandoned it in its entirety. Her scream twisting from pain to wretchedness. All around her, the other souls were shrinking away from each other, withdrawing into self. The last sob burbled out from her lips, and she flopped limply onto her back. Her body was freezing, shaking in shock. Delvan and Soi Hon were scrabbling in the dirt somewhere nearby, she could hear their whimpers. She couldn’t see either of them, the world had gone completely black.

  Every possessed across the Confederation was instantly aware of the strike. Pain and shock reverberated through the beyond. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, they felt it.

  Al Capone was underneath Jezzibella when it happened, adopting a complicated position so that her breasts were pushed into his face while he could still bend his knees for the leverage to give her a damn good shafting. Her laugh was halfway between a giggle and a moan when the mental impact knocked him with the force of a wild hockey puck. He convulsed, shouting in pained panic.

  Jezzibella cried out as his frantic motion twisted her arm, nearly dislocating her shoulder. “Al! Fuck. That fucking hurts, you fucking dickhead. I told you I don’t do that sado shit, fuck you.”

  Al grunted in confused dismay, shaking his head to clear the weird dizziness foaming inside. He was so disoriented, he fell off the side of the bed.

  For the first time, Jezzibella actually caught a glimpse of Brad Lovegrove’s natural features beneath the illusion. Not too different to Al, they could almost be brothers. Her anger faded at the sight of him grimacing, limbs twitching in disarray. “Al?”

  “Fuck,” he gasped. “What the fuck was that?”

  “Al, you okay, baby? What happened?”

  “God damn! I don’t know.” He looked round the bedroom, expecting to see some kind of bomb damage, G-men storming through the door…“I ain’t got a clue.”

  For Jacqueline Couteur the invisible shockwave almost proved fatal.

  Strapped onto the examination table in the demon trap she couldn’t move when her muscles spasmed. Her vital signs monitor alerted the staff to some kind of seizure, at which point her conscious defence against the electric current they were shunting through her body began to crumble.

  Fortunately, one of the more alert team members shut the power off before she was genuinely electrocuted. It took her five or six minutes to recover her normal antagonism, and prowess.

  On patrol a million kilometres above New California, Rocio Condra lost control of the distortion field, letting it flare and contract wildly.

  The big hellhawk tumbled crazily, its bird-form imploding in a cloud of dark scintillations. Gravity inside the life-support cabin vanished along with the quaint steamship interior. Jed, Beth, Gerald and the three kids suddenly found themselves in freefall. Then gravity returned in a rush, far too strong, and in the wrong direction, making one of the bulkhead walls the floor. The surface swatted them hard, then the gravity failed again to send them flying across the cabin in a tangle of limbs and screams. Stars gyrated savagely beyond the viewport. Another wash of gravity sucked them down onto the ceiling.

  In Quinn Dexter’s case, it was his first setback on Earth. He had just arrived at Grand Central Station to take a vac-train to Paris. Not the original station building on Manhattan, the island itself was actually abandoned and flooded, but New Yorkers were sentimental about such things. This was the third such edifice to carry the name. Buried nearly a kilometre below the centre of dome five, it formed the hub of the arcology’s intercontinental train network.

  Once more he had secluded himself within the ghost realm to avoid any risk of detection. That was when he began to notice just how many ghosts haunted the station and other subterranean sections of the vast arcology.

  Hundreds of them drifted mournfully amid the unseeing streams of commuters. They were drab despondent figures, staring round at the faces that rushed past. There was so much longing and desperation in their expressions, as if every one of them was searching for some long lost child. They were aware of Quinn, gazing at him in bewilderment as he strode through the main concourse on his way to the platforms. In turn, he ignored them, worthless creatures incapable of either aiding or hindering his crusade. They really were as good as dead.

  He was twenty metres short of the wave elevator for platform fifty-two when the flashback from the Liberation reached him. The impact wasn’t actually too great, he’d withstood far worse at Banneth’s hands, it was the suddenness of it all which shocked him. Without warning he was yelling as streaks of pain flared out from the centre of his brain to infect his body. Edmund Rigby’s captive thoughts writhed in agony, transfixed by the blast of torment.

  Quinn panicked, frightened by the unknown. Until this moment he believed he was virtually omnipotent. Now some witchery was attacking him in a method he couldn’t fathom. Souls in the beyond were screaming in terror.

  The ghosts around him began wailing, clasping their hands together in prayer. His control over the energistic power faltered as his thoughts dissolved into chaos.

  Bud Johnson never saw where the guy came from. One second he was hurrying to the wave elevator, on his way to catch a San Antonio connection—the next, some man in a weird black robe was kneeling on all fours on the polished marble floor at his feet. That was almost impossible, everyone who grew up on Earth and lived in the arcologies had an instinctive awareness of crowds, the illogical tides and currents of bodies which flowed through them. He always knew where people were in relation to himself, alert to any possible collision. Nobody could just appear.

  Bud’s momentum kept his torso going forwards, while his legs were completely blocked. He went flying, pivoting over the man’s back to crash onto the cool marble. His wrist made a nasty snapping sound, firing hot pain up his arm. And his neural nanonics did nothing. Nothing! There were no axon blocks, no medical display. Bud let out a howl of pain, blinking back tears as he looked up.

  Those tears might have accounted for two or three of the curious faces peering down at him. Pale and distressed, wearing extremely odd hats.

  When he blinked the salty fluid clear, they’d gone. He clutched at his injured wrist. “Sheesh, dear God, that hurts.” A murmur of surprise rattled over his head, a strong contrast to the screams breaking out across the rest of the station. No one seemed particularly concerned about him.

  “Hey, my neural nanonics have failed. Someone call me a medic. I think my wrist’s broken.”

  The man he’d fallen over was now rising to his feet. Bud was acutely conscious of the silence that had closed around him, of people backing away. When he looked up, any thoughts of shouting curses on the clumsy oaf vanished instantly. There was a face inside the large hood, barely visible. Bud was suddenly very thankful for the robe’s shadows. The expression of fury and malice projected by the features he could see was quite bad enough. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  Fingers closed around his heart. He could actually feel them, individual joints hinging inwards, fingernails digging into his atriums. The hand twisted savagely. Bud choked silently, his arms flapping wildly. He was just aware of people closing in on him again. This time, they registered concern. Too late, he tried to tell them, far too late. The aloof devil turned casually and faded from his sight. Then so did the rest of the world.

  Quinn observed Bud’s soul snake away from his corpse, vanishing into the beyond, a
dding his screams to the beseeching myriad. There was a big commotion all around, people shoving and jostling to get a good view of whatever was going down. Only a couple of them had gasped as he returned himself to the ghost realm, fading out right in front of them. At least he’d retained enough composure not to use the white fire. Not that it mattered now. He’d been seen, and not just by people with glitched neural nanonics; the station’s security sensors would have captured the event.

  Govcentral knew he was here.

  Tucked down in the central hold of the landing boat, Sinon couldn’t physically see the rest of the squadron closing on the shore. Affinity made it unnecessary; all the Edenist minds on and orbiting Ombey were linked together, providing him with more information than General Hiltch had available. He was aware of his personal position, as well as that of his comrades, even the Liberation’s overall situation was available to him. The voidhawk flotilla revealed the red cloud beneath them. Huge lightning bolts were writhing across the upper surface as the SD platforms continued their electron barrage. At the centre, along the spine of hills, the glow was fading, allowing pools of darkness to ripple outward.

  Along with all the other serjeants, Sinon craned forwards for a look. The barrier of red cloud had grown steadily through the night as the boats headed in for the beach. From ten kilometres offshore, it stretched right across the water, solid and resolute like the wall at the end of the world.