The Naked God

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Quite how he could hang on to it was a question he’d been unable to resolve. There would be no place for hellhawks in the place where possessed took their planets to escape the universe, he was sure. And the Confederation would never rest until they’d solved the problem of how to evict souls back into the beyond permanently.

  So he bided his time, keeping a giant yellowing eye open for some opportunity to save his own ass, and to hell with his comrades.

  The Navy’s unconventional behaviour might just be the break he’d been looking for.

  When the last three starships were thirty thousand kilometres from the antimatter station, it exploded with a violence which outshone the prominence arching through the chromosphere below. As if in acknowledgement of their defeat, the hellhawks swallowed away.

  The voidhawks analysed the way their distortion fields applied energy against space-time to open a wormhole interstice. All five hellhawks appeared to be heading back to New California.

  <> Auster, Ilex’s captain, reported to Rhoecus. <>

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  Etchells didn’t believe the voidhawks would follow, certainly not instantaneously. The hellhawks all swallowed ten light-years clear of the star, then swallowed again three seconds later. Unless a voidhawk had been with them to observe the second swallow, there was no way of knowing where they’d gone.

  Four of them carried on back to New California. Etchells returned directly to the star, emerging twenty-two million kilometres above its south pole. With the voidhawks all clustered together in their twenty-five million kilometre equatorial orbit, there was no way they could detect his wormhole terminus opening and closing. His position was ideal to observe the Navy starships flying out from their low orbit. His sensor blisters didn’t have to focus against the overwhelming white blaze. Even his headache started to fade.

  He did keep a cursory watch on the Navy ships as they rose out of the gravity field, but it was the lone ship heading south that interested him. When it was twenty million kilometres from the star its drive cut out. Etchells projected its course, and started to check his captured spatial memories. Given its jump alignment there were twenty possible Confederation systems it could be heading for. And one other. Hesperi-LN.

  The Tyrathca planet.

  Chapter 12

  Fifteen minutes Courtney sat up at the bar waiting. Four men offered to buy her a drink. Not as many as usual, but then there were very few civilians abroad these days. Even the Blue Orchid was suffering from the scare stories flashing across the net, its numbers well down. Normally it would be jammed at this time of night; the kind of not-quite-sleazy club where lower-middle management could hang out after work and not have to worry if someone else from the company saw them. Courtney had been in a lot worse than this. The doormen didn’t give her any hassle even though her ass was virtually hanging out of her cocktail dress. Courtney liked the dress, cool black fabric with straps on the front to hold her titties up high, and more cross straps down the cut out back. It made her look hot, without being too cheap.

  Banneth said she looked good wearing it. Best thing the sect had ever done putting her in this dress; she’d never been so fem before. And it worked. There hadn’t been a night she didn’t deliver for them. Sometimes twice. It was a good gig, taking the men back to one of the student rent hotels where the sect had squeezed the manager. Then as soon as the mark’s pants were off, Billy-Joe, Rav, and Julie would storm in and kick the shit out of him. Then when he was unconscious Billy-Joe took a recording of his biolectric pattern and emptied his credit disk.

  She’d done much the same thing for all of the last three years since her brother introduced her to the Light Bringer. Except to start with she’d attracted paedopervs, who mostly had their own dens to take her to, or just hauled her into the dark end of a downtown alley. Those days, it had been Quinn Dexter who pimped her. In a strange way, she’d always been safer with him in charge. No matter how big a sicko the man was, Quinn had always arrived in time.

  Now she was fifteen, and too big to pass for a juvenile any more. Banneth had switched the hormones she took. This new batch didn’t prevent her breasts from growing; quite the opposite, they promoted development.

  She’d still got a skinny frame, but now she was huge with it. In the last nine months her targets had changed completely. It wasn’t the pervs who wanted her now, just the losers. Courtney reckoned she’d come out of the alteration okay. Big tits was one of the mildest modifications Banneth made to sect members.

  The fifth man to ask if she was all right and did her glass need freshening had what it took. Overweight, round face with perspiration on his brow, hair slicked back with gel, a good suit cleaned too often. His expression was hesitant, ready for a slapdown. Courtney drained her glass, and held it out to him, smiling. “Thanks.”

  He was too fat to dance. That was a shame, she liked to dance. So that meant having to sit and listen to about an hour of bitching—his boss, his family, his apartment; how none of it was going right for him. The drone was so she’d see he was a real genuine guy who’d had a couple of bad breaks lately, hoping for the sympathy fuck.

  She made all the right sounds at the right places. After this time working the arcology’s clubs she could probably have filled in his life story just by looking at him. Proof of that: she never chose wrong. They always had a loaded disk. After the hour and three drinks he had enough nerve to make his innocent suggestion. To his utter surprise the answer was a demure smile and a hurried nod.

  It wasn’t far to the student hall, which was good. Courtney didn’t like getting into a cab with them; there was too much chance Billy-Joe might lose her. She didn’t look to see if the three sect members were trailing after her down the street. They’d be there. This was a real smooth routine now.

  Twice though, she thought she heard footsteps following. Real distinctive, regular thuds of someone using a lot of metal in their heels. Dumb idea, there was a whole bunch of people walking along the street. When she did snatch a look, there was no one she could see that looked like a cop. Just a bunch of civilians scurrying around, making out their stupid lives meant something.

  The cops were her only worry. Even given the fact less than a quarter of the targets reported the assault and theft, it wouldn’t take an AI to spot the pattern. But Banneth would know if there was any sort of operation being mounted. Banneth knew fucking everything going down in Edmonton. It was scary, sometimes. Courtney knew some of the sect’s acolytes didn’t really believe in God’s Brother, they were just too shit-scared of Banneth to step out of line.

  “This is it,” she told the man. They’d stopped outside the worn entrance of a two-century-old skyscraper. A couple of genuine students were sitting on the steps, taking charges from a power inhaler. They looked at Courtney with glazed uncaring eyes. She pulled the man past and into the foyer.

  In the elevator he made his first tentative move. Going for a kiss, which she let him have. Tongue straight down her throat. He didn’t have time for anything more; the room they’d hijacked for the night was on the third floor. Its real owner lost somewhere in the arcology as the black stimulant program shorted out her neurones.

  “What are you studying?” he asked once they were inside.

  That caught her short. She didn’t have a story in place for that—he wasn’t supposed to care. Nothing to help here, either. The room was a usual student’s jumble, badly lit with fleks and clothes everywhere, a decades-old desktop block on the one shabby table. Courtney didn’t rea
d too good, so she couldn’t tell what the tiny print on the flek cases said.

  Easy way out. She shoved the shoulder straps down, and let her tits bobble free. That shut him up. It took him about thirty seconds to push her down on the bed, then one hand was up her skirt while the other was squeezing a tit crudely. She groaned like it was good, hoping Billy-Joe and the others got a fucking move on. Sometimes the shits waited and let the man fuck her. Watching the show through some sensor or peep hole, getting off on the scene and laughing quietly. They always claimed it looked less like a set-up if they came in afterwards. Banneth laughed too if she complained.

  The man’s hand was tugging at her panties. Mouth all hot and slobbering over a nipple. Courtney tried not to grimace. Then she was shivering, as if the conditioning duct had suddenly dumped a shitload of ice into the air.

  He gave out a single puzzled grunt, pulling his head back. They looked at each other for an instant, both equally bewildered. Then a white hand clamped over his gelled hair, yanking his head away from her. He yelled in shock and pain as he was pulled off her and flung over the room. His flabby body hit the opposite wall with a loud crash, and crumpled to the floor. A figure in a black robe was standing at the side of the bed, blank hood tipped down towards Courtney. She drew in a breath to shriek, knowing fucking well this wasn’t Billy-Joe or any of the others.

  “Don’t,” the figure warned. The darkness inside the hood withered to reveal the face.

  “Quinn!” Courtney squeaked. A smile flicked her lips. “Quinn? God’s Brother, where the fuck did you come from? I thought you got transported.”

  “Long story. Tell you in a minute.” He turned and went over to the quivering man, grabbed his head and pulled back viciously. The man’s throat was exposed along its entire length, skin stretched tight.

  “Quinn, what are you … Urrgh!” Courtney watched in a kind of interested shock as a couple of sharp fangs slid out of Quinn’s mouth. He winked at her as he lowered his head to bite the man’s neck. She could see Quinn’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he sucked down the blood, several drops dribbled past his lips. The man was whimpering in high-pitched terror. “Oh fuck, Quinn, that’s disgusting.”

  Quinn stood up, grinning, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood. “No it’s not. It’s the final conquest. Blood is the best food a human can have. Think on it; every nutrient you need all nicely refined and cooked ready for you. It’s your right to take it from the followers of the false lord you defeat. Use them to make you strong, Courtney, replenish your body.” He looked down at the fat man who was clutching the neck wound desperately. Blood was pouring through his fingers.

  Courtney giggled at the feeble gurgling sounds the man was making.

  “You’ve changed.”

  “So have you.”

  “Yeah!” She cupped her tits and lifted them. “Grew these for a start. Good, aren’t they?”

  “God’s Brother, Courtney, you are a total slut.”

  She straightened a leg and dangled her shoe from one toe. “I like what I am, Quinn. That’s my serpent beast, remember? Dignity is a weakness, along with all the other crap on the middle-class wish list.”

  “You did listen to the sermons.”

  “Sure did.”

  “So how’s Banneth?”

  “Same, I guess.”

  “Not for long. I’m back now.” He held out his hands, making simple gestures. The room began to change; the walls darkening, furniture turning to matte-black cast iron. Manacles appeared on the metal railings at the head of the bed.

  Courtney looked round wildly at the manifestations, and scrambled backwards over the crumpled duvet, cramming herself into a corner away from Quinn. “Shit, you’re a possessed!”

  “Not me,” he said softly. “I possess. I am the one God’s Brother has chosen as his Messiah. This power the returning souls have depends on the force of their will. And nobody believes in themselves more than me. That’s how I regained control of my body, through the belief He gave me in myself. Now I’m stronger than a hundred of those snivelling lost dickheads.”

  Courtney unfolded her legs and peered forward. “It is you, isn’t it. I mean, like really you. You’ve got your own body and everything.”

  “You never were very quick, were you? But then, it was never your brain the sect wanted.”

  “Were you in New York?” she asked in quiet admiration. “I saw all the fighting on the AV. The police killed skyscrapers full of people they were so scared.”

  “I was there a while back. I was also in Paris, Bombay, and Johannesburg, which the police don’t know about yet. Then I gave in to myself, and came home.”

  “I’m glad you did.” Courtney bounded off the bed, and flung her arms round him, licking from his ear to his mouth. “Welcome back.”

  “You will follow me now, not Banneth.”

  “Yes.” She slid her tongue over the tacky blood congealing on his chin, tasting its salt.

  “You will obey.”

  “Of course.”

  Quinn focused on the thought currents in her brain, and knew she was telling the truth. Not that he’d expected anything else from Courtney. He opened the door and let the other three in. Billy-Joe and Rav he knew from before; it hadn’t taken much to cow them. Five people standing made the little student room badly cramped, their breath helping to heat it up. Fast breathing which came from nerves and excitement. They were all eager to see what Quinn would do next.

  “I came back to Earth so I could bring down the Night,” he told them.

  “You’ll play a big part in that, and so will the possessed. I’m going to leave a nest of you in every arcology. But Edmonton is special for me, because Banneth’s here.”

  “What you going to do to her?” Billy-Joe asked.

  Quinn patted the slender youth’s wire-like arm. “The worst I can imagine,” he said. “And I’ve spent a lot of time imagining.”

  Billy-Joe’s mouth split into an oafish grin. “All right!”

  Quinn looked down at the fat man. He was gasping like a fish. Blood had formed an enormous puddle on the scuffed tile floor. “You’re dying,” Quinn said cheerfully. “Only one way to save you now.” Fields of energy shifted at his command, exerting a specific pressure against reality. The cries of the souls began to filter out of the beyond. “Courtney, hurt him.”

  She shrugged to the others, and kicked the man hard in the crotch. He shivered, eyes bugging before the lids began to flutter uncontrollably.

  An extra squirt of blood pumped out of the wound.

  “And again,” Quinn directed mildly. In his mind, he was dictating terms to the lost souls who clustered round the weak rent between universes.

  Hearing the pleas of those who claimed they were worthy. Making his judgement.

  Courtney did as she was told, watching in fascination as a soul (a real dead person!) took control of the wretched man. The wound closed up. He started hissing in consternation. Tiny rivulets of lightning slithered along the creases of his blood-soaked suit fabric.

  “Give him something to drink,” Quinn said.

  Billy-Joe and Julie ransacked the cupboards for cans of soda, popping them and handing them down to the grateful possessed.

  “It’ll take you a while to replace that much blood,” Quinn said. “Just lie there and take it easy for a while. Enjoy the show.”

  “Yes, Quinn,” the possessed muttered weakly. He managed to roll onto his back, the effort coming close to making him faint.

  The iron manacles snapped open loudly. Courtney took one look at them, and glanced back enquiringly at Quinn. His robe was already dissolving.

  “You know how to use them,” he told her.

  She wriggled out of her dress and bent over the bed, placing her wrists in the manacles. They hinged shut, and locked.

  Ilex emerged above Avon, radiating profound satisfaction (and considerable hunger). Every Edenist within Trafalgar picked up the emotional emission, and smiled simulta
neously at the results Auster was declaring. Lalwani immediately declassified the strike mission against the antimatter station, and the navy press office started relaying the information to the system’s news companies. Everything happened so fast that the First Admiral’s staff only just managed to officially brief Jeeta Anwar before the Presidential office staff received it off the communication net.

  The voidhawk’s easy two-gee flight to the naval base’s docking ledges was considerably more relaxed than the last time it had burst out of wormhole close to Trafalgar. General affinity hummed with a great many ironic comments pointing this out to its triumphant crew.

  Two hours after Ilex’s arrival, Captain Auster was escorted into the First Admiral’s office by Lieutenant Keaton, the newest member of the admiral’s staff. Samual Aleksandrovich greeted the Edenist captain warmly, and gestured to the sunken reception area. Lalwani and Kolhammer joined them on the leather couches, while the lieutenant served tea and coffee. As he was moving round with their china cups, the bulky AV cylinder at the apex of the ceiling shimmered brightly, and the images of President Haaker and Jeeta Anwar materialized in the reception area.

  “My congratulations to the Navy, Admirals, Captain,” Haaker said. “The destruction of an antimatter station at this time is particularly satisfying.”

  “Capone’s antimatter station, Mr. President,” Kolhammer said significantly. “That’s a considerable bonus.”

  “Essentially he will be unable to mount any more of these damnable infiltration missions against Confederation planets, let alone attempt another full scale invasion along the lines of Arnstadt,” Samual said.

  “That means he’s been neutered. We shall now resume our harassment campaign, and enhance it considerably this time around. That should wear down the hellhawks, and deplete his stock of antimatter in defence. Given its unstable social base, we expect the Organization to collapse within a few weeks, two months at the most.”

  “Unless he pulls another rabbit out of his capacious fedora,” Haaker said. “I don’t mean to disparage your action against the antimatter station, Samual, but in Allah’s name, it was a long time coming. Possibly too long. According the latest report I have, nearly a third of Kerry’s population is now possessed, and it’s only a question of time until the remainder are taken over. On top of that, we know of eleven other worlds Capone has successfully managed to infiltrate. That means we’ll lose them, too, you know that as well as I do. And there will no doubt be starships currently en route, telling us of more infiltrations launched before the station was destroyed. Your pardon, but this success rings hollow indeed.”