“There’s nothing out there except the singularity itself,” Renato said.
“Our satellites are covering all of the surface. Nothing hiding on the other side, nothing in orbit.”
“There has to be something else. The Tyrathca got it to open a wormhole for them. How do we do that?”
His neural nanonics reported a new communication channel opening. “You ask,” the singularity datavised.
The cloud’s luminosity remained constant, but its shading had shifted a long way down the spectrum as Louise approached its epicentre. When she walked across the paved plaza outside St Paul’s cathedral every surface was toned a deep crimson. Stone carvings embellishing the beautiful old building cast long black shadows down the wall, ebony jail bars gripping it tightly, squeezing away the last remnants of sanctity.
Her escort pranced around her like insane Morris dancers, inviting her onward with mocking gestures. The snarls of thunder ended as she reached the large oaken doors, leaving an onerous silence. Louise walked into the cathedral.
She took a couple of steps forward, then faltered. The doors closed behind her with a ululation of cold air. Thousands of possessed were standing waiting along the nave, dressed in elaborate costumes from every era of human history and culture, each one completely black. They were all facing her. The organ began to play, blasting out a harsh hard-rock version of the wedding march. Louise put her hands over her ears, it was so loud. All the possessed turned to face the altar, leaving a narrow passage clear down the very centre of the nave. She began to walk down it. It wasn’t a conscious thing, her limbs did as they were commanded by the massed will of the possessed. Her anti-memory weapon fell from numbed fingers after she’d taken the first few steps, clattering away over the cracked tiles.
Ghosts drifted towards her, hands held out to implore. They swept past her as she carried on walking, shaking their heads in sorrow.
The music ended when she reached the front row of the possessed. They were standing level with the cathedral’s transept wings; ahead of them, the floor underneath the vaulting central dome was empty. Iron braziers with foul-smelling fires were lining the walls, their black smoke smudging the pale stonework. She couldn’t actually see the apex of the dome, it was obscured by a pall of grey fug. There was a gallery high above her. Several people leaned on its rail, looking down at her with mild interest.
Her compulsion ended, and she tottered forward.
“Hello, Louise,” Quinn Dexter said. He stood in front of the defiled altar, no part of him visible within the black robe.
She took a couple of unsteady steps. Fear was tightening every muscle, turning her body stiff. She wasn’t even certain she could stand for much longer. “Dexter?”
“None other.” He moved to one side, allowing her to see a man’s body spread-eagled across the altar. “And now God’s Brother has brought the three of us together again.”
“Fletcher,” she squeaked.
Quinn held out an arm towards her and extended a swan-white hand. A claw finger beckoned, granting her permission to approach.
The lacerations and dried blood coating his skin made her afraid. But as she drew closer she saw his muscles were bunched and trembling. An unfamiliar face was contorted with distress, sucking down air in fast pain-filled gulps.
“Fletcher?”
Quinn waved his hand, and the electricity was turned off. The body slumped down onto the stone, panting in shock. Slowly, Fletcher’s face emerged to replace the blooded features. The chains and metal bands securing him dropped away. All of the wounds were banished from sight as his customary naval uniform materialized. He climbed down gingerly from the altar.
“My dearest lady. You should not have come.”
“I had to.”
Quinn laughed. “Your call, Fletch. You can walk out of here with her now if you make the right decision. If not, she’s all mine.”
“My lady.” Fletcher’s face was riven with anguish.
“Why can you walk out?” she asked.
“He’s just got to sign up for the army of the damned,” Quinn said. “I won’t even make him do it in blood.”
“No,” she said. “Fletcher, you mustn’t do that. I came here to warn you all. This has to stop. You have to disperse the red cloud.”
“Is that a threat, Louise?” Quinn asked.
“You’ve frightened Govcentral with the red cloud. They think you’re going to take the Earth away from the universe. The President won’t let that happen. He’s going to use Strategic Defence weapons against London. Everyone will die. Millions and millions of people.”
“I won’t,” Quinn said.
“But they will.” Louise waved an arm back at the silent ranks of his disciples. “Without them you’re nothing.”
Quinn glided up to Louise. His face slipped out of the robe’s shadows to show her his furious expression. “God’s Brother, I hate you!” He slammed his hand across the side of her head, using energistic power to amplify the strength of the blow.
Louise screamed at the pain, flying back to crash into the altar. She crumpled forward onto the floor, whimpering as blood pumped into her mouth.
Fletcher made a start forwards, finding the end of Quinn’s anti-memory weapon pressed against his nose. “Back off, fuckhead,” Quinn snarled.
“Back!”
Fletcher retreated, breathing heavily.
Quinn glared down at Louise. “You came here to save people. People you’ve never seen. People you’ll never know. Didn’t you?”
Louise was sobbing from the pain, holding a hand to her face. Blood ran out of her mouth, dripping onto the floor. She looked up at him, devoid of understanding.
“Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she wept.
“I hate that decency. This assumption you have that you can connect with me on some level, because underneath I’m human too, that I have a heart.
And in the end I’m going to be reasonable. That of course I’ll back down and talk things out with the supercop fucks who’ve been shooting at my ass ever since I got back to this stinking garbage dump of a planet.
That’s why I hate you, Louise. You are the end product of a religion which has systematically set about shackling the serpent beast for over two and a half thousand years. Religions, all religions, forbid our true nature to shine through, they waken us so that we’ll spend our whole lives groveling in front of the false Lord. That’s the path you embrace, Louise, that’s what you are: kind hearted. Just by existing you are the enemy of the Light Bringer. My enemy. I hate you so badly I’m in pain from it. And you’ll pay for that. Nobody hurts me and goes off to laugh about it with their friends. I’ll make you the army’s whore. I’ll make every one of my followers fuck you. They’ll keep on fucking you until your mind shatters and your heart bursts. Then when there’s nothing left but a lump of insane meat bleeding its life away into the gutter I’ll use the soul-killer to eradicate what’s left of you from the universe, because there’s no way I’ll ever share a single night in hell with you.
You’re not that worthy.”
Louise shrank away from him, crabbing across the floor until she was backed up against the altar. “You can do all that, you can hurt me until I denounce everything I believe in. But you will never change what I am right now. And that’s all that matters. I’m true to me. I’ve already had my victory.”
“Dumbass bitch. That’s why you and your false Lord will always lose. Your victory’s in your head. Mine is physical. It’s as motherfucking real as you can get.”
Louise looked defiantly at Quinn. “When evil rules, then it will be goodness which corrupts you.”
“Total bollocks. The likes of you won’t be able to corrupt the army I’m bringing onto the field. Tell her Fletcher, be honest with her. Is my army going to win? Is the Night coming?”
“Fletcher?” she appealed.
“My lady … I …” His head drooped in abject despair.
“No,” Louise gasped. �
��Fletcher!”
Quinn watched her, grinning in ferocious satisfaction. “Ready to watch the bad part, now?” He reached down, and grabbed her shoulder, hauling her to her feet.
“Unhand her,” Fletcher demanded. A ball of solid air slammed into his belly, its impact firing pain down every nerve in his host body. He was thrown off the ground and sent tumbling backwards. Even when he landed hard on the tiles he kept skidding as if the surface was ice. When he stopped moving and regained his wits, he found he was directly under the apex of the dome.
“Don’t move,” Quinn ordered.
A pentagon of tall white flames burst into existence around Fletcher to emphasise the point. He watched helplessly as Quinn dragged Louise along into the south transept. They went through a door.
There were stairs inside, spiralling upwards. Louise had to run to keep up with Quinn. The curving stairs went on and on, making her feel dangerously dizzy; and the pain from the side of her head was so intense she thought she was going to vomit.
They came out through a narrow archway onto the gallery ringing the dome.
Quinn moved round it until he was facing down the nave. He thrust Louise towards a young girl in a leather waistcoat and pink jeans.
“Look after her,” he said.
At first Louise thought Courtney was a possessed; her hair was bright emerald, all of it standing on end and twirled into flame-like spikes.
But there were scabs all over her cheeks and arms, unhealed and starting to fester; one eye was swollen almost shut.
Courtney giggled as she held Louise tight. “I get you first.” Her tongue licked round Louise’s ear, hands closing tight on her buttocks.
Louise moaned as her legs gave out.
“Shit.” Courtney pushed her back onto the low bench which ran around the gallery.
“We won’t live long enough for that,” Louise said harshly.
Courtney gave her a puzzled look.
Quinn put his hands on the rail and looked down on his silent obedient followers packed into the nave. Fletcher Christian stood still at the centre of the flaming pentagram, head bent back so he could observe the gallery. Quinn gestured and the prison of white flames vanished, leaving Fletcher alone on the floor.
“Before the Night dawns, there’s one person missing from our gathering,” Quinn announced. “Though I know he’s here. You’re always here, aren’t you?” The silken tone of displeasure made his followers stir uneasily.
Quinn signalled the acolyte on the gallery, who led Greta round to him.
She was pushed hard against the rail, almost going over. Quinn grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, tipping her head upright. Lank hair dangled down over her face as she drew a shaky breath.
“Say your name,” Quinn told her.
“Greta,” she mumbled.
He took the anti-memory weapon from his robe and shoved it against her eye. “Louder.”
“Greta. I’m Greta Manani.”
“Oh Daddy,” Quinn called out. “Daddy Manani, come out, come out wherever you are.”
The possessed crowded into the nave began to look round. Murmurs of confusion seeped out among them. Quinn scoured their heads for someone moving.
“Get out here, fuckhead! RIGHT NOW. Or I kill her soul. You hearing me?”
The sound of lone footsteps echoed through the cathedral. The hushed possessed parted in a smooth tide to allow Powel Manani through. The Ivet supervisor looked exactly the same as the last time Quinn had seen him back on Lalonde, a brawny man dressed in a red and green checked shirt.
He walked out under the dome, put his hands on his hips and grinned up at Quinn. “I see you’re still a total loser, Ivet.”
“I’m not a fucking Ivet!” Quinn screamed. “I’m the Messiah of Night.”
“Whatever. If you harm my daughter, Messiah of dickheads everywhere, I’ll personally finish the job Twelve-T started on Jesup.”
“I have been harming her. For a long time now.”
“Bet it isn’t as bad as what we did to your friends Leslie and Kay, and all the other Ivets we caught.”
For a second Quinn contemplated vaulting over the rail and swooping down on the supervisor, feeding his serpent beast. The peak of rage subsided.
That was what Manani probably wanted. Quinn could sense how strong the man’s energistic power was. Using him as the sacrifice to the summoned dark angels was going to be much more satisfying.
“If you kill her,” Powel said, “you have no protection from me. And if you blast this body to pieces, I’ll just come back again like before. I’m going to keep on coming back until this is settled between us.”
“I’m not going to blast you out of your body, not after the grief you’ve caused me. I’m not that nice, remember. Now you stay exactly where you are, or I will kill your daughter’s soul.”
Powel looked round the empty expanse of floor under the dome as if he was viewing an apartment. “Guess you’re on his shit list too, huh,” he said to Fletcher.
“I am, sir.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll make a mistake. He’s not smart enough to pull off something like this. And when it all goes pear-shaped, his balls are mine.”
Quinn spread his arms wide in an open embrace to the assembled possessed below. “Now that everyone’s here,” he said, “we’ll begin.”
Joshua managed to suppresses his shock without any help from programs. He knew the importance of this moment was too great for anything other than perfect clarity. “Are you the Tyrathca’s Sleeping God?” he datavised.
“You know I am, Captain Calvert,” the singularity replied.
“If you know who I am, then the Tyrathca were correct saying that you see the universe.”
“The universe is too large for that, of course, but to reply in context, yes, I observe as much of the universe as you are aware of, and a great deal more besides. My quantum structure enables an extensive interconnection with a large volume of space-time and other realms.”
“Not one for small talk, is it,” Liol muttered.
“Then you know my species is being possessed by the souls of our own dead?” Joshua asked.
“Yes.”
“Is there a solution to this problem?”
“There are a great many solutions. As the Kiint have hinted to you, each race comes to terms with this aspect of life in its own way.”
“Please, do you know of one that’s applicable to us?”
“Many are. I am not being deliberately obtuse. I can list them all, and I can and will assist you in applying them where relevant. What I will not do is make the decision for you.”
“Why?” Monica asked. “Why are you helping us? It’s not that I’m ungrateful. But I am curious.”
“The Tyrathca were also correct when they said I exist to assist the progress of biological entities. Though the particular circumstances humans are currently facing were not the reason I was created.”
“Then what were you made for?” Alkad asked.
“The race which created me had reached their evolutionary pinnacle; intellectually, physically, and in their technology. A fact which should be self-evident to you, Dr Mzu. My sentience resides within a self-contained pattern of vacuum fluctuations. This provides me with an extensive ability to manipulate mass and energy; for me thought is deed, the two are one and the same. I used that ability to open a gateway for my creators into a new realm. They knew little of it, other than it existed; its parameters are very different to this universe. So they chose to embark on a new phase of existence living within it. They left this universe a long time ago.”
“And you’ve been helping various species progress along evolution’s track ever since?” Joshua said. “It’s your reason for existing?”
“I do not require a continuing reason to exist, a motivation. That psychology is a descendent of a biological sentience. My origins are not biological; I exist because they created me. It’s that simple.”
“Then why do you help?”
“Again, the simple answer would be because I can. But there are other considerations. It is an amplification of the problem your species has encountered millions of times during its history, almost daily in fact.
You were even subject to it at Mastrit-PJ. When and where not to intervene? Did you believe you did the right thing by giving the Mosdva ZTT technology? Your intentions were good, but ultimately they were governed by self interest.”
“Did we do the wrong thing?”
“The Mosdva certainly don’t think so. Such judgements are relative.”
“So you don’t help everybody all the time?”
“No. Such a level of intervention—shaping the nature of biological life to conform with my wishes, however benevolent—would make me your ruler.
Sentient life has free will. My creators believe that is why this universe exists. I respect that, and will not interfere with its self determination.”
“Even when we make a mess of things?”
“That would be a judgement again.”
“But you are willing to help us if we ask?”
“Yes.”
Joshua looked at the projected image of the singularity, vaguely troubled. “All right, we’re definitely asking. Can we have the list of solutions?”
“You may. I would suggest they would be more useful if you understood what has happened. That way, you would be able to make a more informed decision on which one to apply.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“Wait,” Monica said. “You keep mentioning we have to make a decision. How do we do that?”
“What are you talking about?” Liol asked. “Once we’ve heard what’s on offer, we chose.”
“We do? Are we going to put it to a vote here in the ship, do we go back to the Confederation Assembly and ask them to decide? What? We need to be certain about this first.”
Liol looked round the cabin, trying to identify the mood. “No, we don’t go back,” he said. “This is what we came here for. The Jovian Consensus thought we were up to the job. So I say do it.”
“We’re deciding the future of our whole race,” she protested. “We can’t just leap into this. And …” she indicated Mzu. “Bloody hell, she’s hardly qualified to be passing judgement on the rest of us. That’s the way I see it. You were going to use the Alchemist against an entire planet.”
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