“My lady.”
She hugged him tightly. “I don’t want you to go.”
“This is not where I belong, my dearest Louise. I am adrift here.”
“I know.”
“But still, I consider myself privileged that I have known you, however bizarre the circumstances. You will prosper, I foretell, and your child too. Your universe is a many-splendored thing. Live your life in it to the full.”
“I will. I promise.”
He kissed her on the brow, almost a blessing. “And tell the little one I shall think of her always.”
“Bon voyage, Fletcher.”
His body began to attenuate, its boundary dissolving into wisps of platinum stardust. An arm was raised in a farewell salute.
Louise stared at the empty space it left for some time. “Now what?” she asked.
“A few explanations, I think,” Joshua said. “I’d better take you over to Tranquillity for that. You need to clean up and rest. And Genevieve is doing truly awful things to the servitor housechimps.”
Louise began to groan. Her breath stalled as the lush parkland of the habitat quietly materialized around her.
Samual Aleksandrovich had spent the last ten minutes accessing the station’s external sensor suite. Even so, he had to see for himself before he could truly believe. The SD control centre had been alarmed by the number of starships which kept appearing above Avon, but swiftly discovered they were all ships who had been en route to other stars.
They’d been snatched from interstellar space, emerging in the designated zones above the planet. Once the First Admiral confirmed they weren’t an attack force, he and Lalwani took a lift capsule to the observation lounge.
The big compartment was crowded with naval personnel. They parted reluctantly to allow both admirals through to the curving transparent wall. Samual looked out in trepidation at space without stars. The station’s rotation slowly brought the galaxy into view; its core shining gold and violet, embraced by the silver shimmer whorl of satellite stars.
“Is it ours?” Samual asked quietly.
“Yes sir,” Captain al-Sahhaf said. “SD command is using the sensor satellites to identify neighbouring galaxies. They correspond to the known pattern, which puts us approximately ten thousand light-years outside.”
Samual Aleksandrovich turned to Lalwani. “Is this where the possessed come, do you think?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Ten thousand light-years. What in God’s name did this to us?”
“Joshua Calvert did, sir.”
Samual Aleksandrovich gave Richard Keaton a very suspicious look. “Would you care to qualify that remark, Lieutenant?”
“Calvert and the voidhawk Oenone succeeded in their mission, sir. They found the Tyrathca Sleeping God. It’s an artefact capable of generating wormholes on this scale.”
Samual and Lalwani traded a look.
“You seem remarkably well informed,” Lalwani said. “I’m not aware of any communication from Oenone or the Lady Macbeth reaching us since we arrived here.”
Keaton gave an embarrassed smile. “I apologise that you didn’t know in advance. Nonetheless, Calvert transferred every Confederation world out here.”
“Why?” Samual asked.
“Moving a possessed body through the specific class of wormhole we just came through closes the rift which allows a soul to extrude from the beyond into this universe. He simply did it en masse. The lost souls have all been returned to the beyond. He also brought back all the planets which the possessed had taken away.” Keaton gestured at the empty void outside. “The whole Confederation is here. There is no more possession crisis.”
“It’s over?”
“Yes, sir.”
Samual narrowed his eyes as he contemplated his staff captain for a long moment. “The Kiint,” he said eventually.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, I am one of their operatives.”
“I see. And what part did they play in all this?”
“None.” Keaton grinned. “This surprised the hell out of them, too.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Samual glanced out at the galaxy again as it began to slide from view. “Is Calvert going to take us back?”
“I don’t know.”
“The Kiint agreed they would help us with medical supplies if we solved this crisis. Will they honour that promise?”
“Yes sir. Ambassador Rulour will be happy to extend the Kiint government’s full cooperation with the Confederation.”
“Good. Now get your shabby arse out of my headquarters.”
The doors parted before Joshua could datavise his arrival.
“Welcome home,” Ione said. She dabbed a platonic kiss on his cheek.
He led Louise into the apartment, enjoying her little gasp of astonishment as she saw the glass wall looking out over the bottom of the circumfluous sea.
“You’re the Lord of Ruin,” Louise said.
“And you’re Louise Kavanagh, from Norfolk. Joshua talks about you all the time.”
Louise smiled as if she didn’t believe. “He does?”
“Oh yes. And what he hasn’t told me about you, Genevieve certainly has.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. I’ve got Horst Elwes looking after her. They’re on their way. Which should just give you time to freshen up.”
Louise glanced down at Andy’s dilapidated clothes. “Please.”
Joshua poured himself a hefty glass of Norfolk Tears while Ione was showing Louise the bathroom. “Thanks,” he said when she came back.
“You did it, didn’t you? That’s why we’re here.”
<
A plucked eyebrow was raised delicately. <
<> He let the memories flood out directly, showing her and Tranquillity what had happened.
<> Her arms circled round him, and she stood on her toes to give him a kiss.
Joshua gave the door to the bathroom a guilty glance.
Ione smiled wisely. <
“I don’t know what to do about her, Ione. Damnit, I ruled the universe, I was given the answers to everything, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t be stupid, Joshua, of course you know. You’ve always known.”
Brad Lovegrove regained control of his body as if waking from a debilitating coma. Every thought, every action, was dreadfully slow and confused. The whole period of Capone’s possession retained the constituency of a feverish dream, flashes of revolting clarity stitched together by slipstream blurs of sensation and colour.
He found he was sitting at a glass-topped table. It was in the lounge of a five-star hotel suite. A big picture window showed New California sliding past outside. There was a pot of hot coffee in front of him, cups, a plate with a pile of scrambled eggs. A thick pool of blood was spreading over the glass, flowing round the plate to reach the edge. Big scarlet drops splattered onto the carpet around his feet.
A woman in the chair opposite was crumpled over her half of the table.
Three quarters of her body was covered in green medical nanonic packages; with a navy-blue towelling robe worn over them. One package from her throat had been removed and placed on the table. The skin it exposed had a savagely deep cut, opening her carotid artery. There was a small fission blade knife nestling in the hand of her outstretched arm.
Brad Lovegrove fell off his chair, burbling incoherently with shock.
Joshua and Louise waited by the airlock hatch of docking bay MB 0-330.
They’d both accessed the sensors around the bay, watching Lady Macbeth settle lightly on the cradle. Her chemical verniers puffed out fast bursts of bright yellow flame around the equator as Liol brought her in.
She touched the cradle in perfect alignment, and the holding latches closed. Utility hoses and cables rose up to jack in
one by one.
Thermo-dump panels folded down into the hull, and the whole assembly started to sink down into the bay.
He did that well, Joshua admitted to himself. <
<
Affinity showed him the big voidhawk sticking close to the Mindori and Stryla as the blackhawks curved round the spaceport spindle to chase the habitat’s docking ledge. The two blackhawks needed guiding and coaxing: their personalities were almost traumatised into catatonia by the possession. Both of them desperately wanted their lost captains. It wouldn’t happen, Joshua knew, Kiera had destroyed the bodies back on Valisk, forcing the newly possessing souls into the blackhawks.
<
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<> he said. A smile image flashed between himself and Syrinx.
<
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There are eight hundred stars out here in this cluster, that’s all. There can be no more physical expansion at our current social, economic, and technological level. No more running away from our problems; we’re mature enough to address them now.>>
<
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<
Joshua let the information flow out of his mind and into the Consensus.
The airlock opened, and his crew came flooding out yelling raucous greetings.
Liol hugged him first. “Fine bloody captain you make! You abandon us there to have fun all by yourself, and the next thing we know we’ve got Jupiter’s SD command screaming at us.”
“I brought you back, what more do you want.”
Sarha squealed and wrapped herself round him. “You did it!” She kissed his ear. “And what a view.”
Dahybi slapped his back, laughing ecstatically. There were Ashly and Beaulieu, pushing at each other to get at him. Monica said: “Looks like you got it right,” without sounding too much of a grudge. Samuel chuckled at her obstinacy. Kempster and Renato chided him for cutting off their observations so abruptly. Mzu barely thanked him before asking about the singularity’s internal quantum structure.
In the end he held up his arms and shouted at them all to shut the hell up. “Party in Harkey’s Bar, right now, and the drinks are on me.”
Beth and Jed were pressed up against the big port in the lounge as Tranquillity expanded outside.
“It looks just like Valisk,” he said excitedly.
“Let me see!” Navar demanded.
Jed grinned, and they stepped aside. The lounge was weird now. The outlines of the steamship fittings ran through the actual walls and equipment, solid ridges cutting through composite and alloy alike. Hints of the false colours and textures were still there if he squinted hard and remembered what had gone before.
They knew where they were and roughly what had happened, because Mindori had spoken to them a couple of times. But the blackhawk wasn’t very communicative.
“I think we’re landing,” Webster said.
“Sounds good,” Jed said. He got in a good kiss with Beth. Gari gave them one dismissive glance, and went back to watching the docking ledge.
“We’d better check on Gerald,” Beth said.
Jed tried to be a sport. At least the old loon would finally be out of his life after they landed.
Gerald hadn’t moved from the bridge since the amazing xenoc diskcity vanished abruptly and Loren’s possession had ended. For hour after hour during the stand-off he had stood at the weapons console, like some old-time mariner gripping the wheel during a storm. His vigilance never wavered the whole time. When it ended, he’d slithered down and sat there, legs splayed on the floor, back propped up against the side of the console. He stared straight ahead through hazed eyes, not saying a word.
Beth crouched down beside him and clicked her fingers in front of his face. There was no response.
“Is he dead?” Jed asked.
“Jed! No he’s not. He’s breathing. I think he must have some kind of exhaustion problem.”
“We’ll add it to the list,” Jed muttered, very quietly. “Hey Gerald, mate, we’ve landed. The Stryla came down with us. That’s the one with Marie in. Good, huh? You’ll be seeing her soon, then. How about that?”
Gerald kept staring ahead, unmoving.
“Guess we’d better ask for a doc to see him,” Jed said.
Gerald turned his head. “Marie?” he whispered.
“That’s it, Gerald,” Beth said. She gripped his upper arm tightly.
“Marie’s here. Just a few minutes now and you can see her again. Can you get up?” She tried to lift him, stir him into moving. “Jed, shift yourself.”
“I dunno. Maybe we should leave him for the doc.”
“He’s fine. Aren’t you, Gerald, mate. Just knackered, that’s what.”
“Well, okay.” Jed leant over, and tired to tug Gerald up.
Several loud clanking sounds came from the airlock.
Gari ran in. “The bus is here,” she said breathlessly.
“It’ll take us to Marie,” Beth said encouragingly. “Come on, Gerald. You can do it.”
His legs twitched feebly.
Between them, they got him standing. With one on either side, and Gerald’s arms round their shoulders, they shuffled him towards the airlock.
Marie sat hunched up on the corridor floor outside the bridge. She hadn’t stopped crying since Kiera had been exorcised. The memories of what had happened since Lalonde were vivid, deliberately so. Kiera hadn’t cared about Marie knowing what was going on, what her body was doing.
It was disgusting. Filthy.
Even though it wasn’t her performing those acts, Marie knew she would never banish what her body had done. Kiera’s soul might have gone, but her haunting would never be over.
She’d been given her life back, and couldn’t see a single reason for living it.
The airlock cycled, and the hatch whirred open.
“
Marie.”
It was a frail, pained croak, but it sliced right into her soul. “Daddy?” she moaned incredulously. When she looked up he was standing in the airlock, holding on to the rim. He looked dreadful, barely managing to stand. But his frail old face was suffused with all the joy of a father holding his infant child for the first time. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d gone through to be here at this time. And he’d suffered it all because she was his daughter, and that alone entitled her to his love forever.
She stood and held out both hands to him. Wanting a cuddle from Daddy.
Wanting him to take her home where none of this would ever happen.
Gerald smiled wondrously at his pretty little daughter. “I love you, Marie.” His body gave way, pitching him face first onto the floor.
Marie screamed and ran forwards. His breath was juddering, eyes closed.
“Daddy! Daddy, no!” She pawed at him in hysterics.
“Daddy, talk to me!”
The steward from the bus was shouldering her aside, waving a medical block sensor along Gerald’s inert body. “Oh shit. Give me a hand,” he yelled at Jed. “We’ve got to get him into the habitat.”
Jed was staring at Marie, unable to move. “It’s you,” he said, enchanted.
Beth pushed past him and knelt beside the steward. A life support package had covered Gerald’s face, pumping air into his lungs.
“Medical emergency,” the steward datavised. “Get a crash team to the reception lounge.” The medical block datavised a violent alarm as Gerald’s heart stopped. He tore the wrapping from a paramedic package and slapped it across Gerald’s neck. Nanonic filaments invaded his throat, seeking out the major arteries and veins, pumping in artificial blood, keeping the brain alive.
Rather sheepishly, the participants from the Disco At The End Of The World were wandering across the concrete yard in a hungover stupor, watching dawn break over the arcology. It wasn’t something any of them had expected to see.
Andy was down there with them, datavising questor after questor into the segments of the net that were coming back on-line. Satellites were providing temporary coverage as the civil authorities began to re-establish some kind of control. Nothing he did could bring an acknowledgement from her neural nanonics. Every programming trick he knew was useless.
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