The Saints of Salvation

by Peter F. Hamilton

  She gave him an uncertain grin. “Thank you.”

  Dellian faced the squad. “Okay, one last training session tomorrow, then it’s straight into the suspension chambers. I seriously do not want to spend twelve years stuck on this ship staring at you guys.”

  LONDON

  DECEMBER 11, 2206

  The holding cell was all concrete—walls, floor, and ceiling. Its door was metal and half a meter thick, blast proof.

  Ollie still hadn’t taken his insurance collar off. He sat on the carbon-frame cot, next to Lolo. They didn’t hold hands. Didn’t talk. Both of them staring ahead.

  Finally, Ollie couldn’t stand it anymore. “WHAT THE FUCK?” he screamed.

  Lolo started crying.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Ollie tentatively put an arm around hir.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Why, though?” Ollie asked, genuinely perplexed. “This is a shit time to be alive, and getting worse. I was probably about to die squaring off to Nikolaj. The London shield will fall just like Berlin. How could you get pregnant?”

  “It just sort of happened. My gender cycle is off. I think it was the stress. It was an accident. But it’s a beautiful accident, Ollie. We’re going to have a baby!”

  “The kid…We’re not going to get out of this, you know that, right? It’s going to be the shortest, most miserable life ever. My kid…”

  “Ollie, where there’s life, there’s hope. Always.”

  “You are so fucking stupid.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He leaned in closer. “Stop saying that.” One hand strayed to Lolo’s stomach, pressing against the red fabric. “How far on are you?”

  “Two and a half months.”

  “You don’t show. Are you sure?”

  “Pregnancy tests are infallible. I took four.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was afraid. I mean, this isn’t the best day in the world, is it?”

  “This day wouldn’t have happened if you’d told me.”

  “It’s not my fault!” sie blubbed.

  “I know. All right. I’m the one who’s sorry, okay? I shouldn’t be shouting at you. It’s just…timing, Lolo. Timing is really not your thing.”

  “They’re going to offer you a deal.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t do anything crazy, okay? I love you. I can’t do this without you.” Hir hand went to hir belly.

  He nodded brokenly. “Got it.”

  “Do you really think London will fall?”

  “Not now. Not for you. I’ll make sure of that. If nothing else, you’re a Utopial. You’re entitled to repatriation back to Akitha.” He lifted his head up, hunting around for the sensors that must be there but remained invisible. “Hear that? And that’s before you make me an offer!”

  “I can’t go without you,” Lolo said.

  “Let’s just see where this takes us, okay? They must need me pretty badly, else I’d be facedown at the bottom of the docks by now.” Ollie gave the blank walls an expectant look.

  The door swung open less than a minute later. Kohei Yamada walked in, still wearing the same jacket. Two armored paramilitary guards stood outside.

  “Right, then,” Kohei said. “Lolo, time for you to say goodbye to your boyfriend. Ollie and I are going to have a little chat.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Lolo insisted.

  Ollie knew that tone well enough. He sighed and put his arms around hir, kissing hir gently. “It’s okay. This is our ticket out, so don’t blow it for me.”

  Lolo scowled at Kohei, then made a show of standing up reluctantly. “Be careful. I don’t trust them.”

  “Me neither.”

  “You know they took Bik and your grandmother when they brought me in? They loaded their cocoons on a truckez.”

  Ollie gave Kohei a sharp look. “No shit?”

  “So,” Lolo said portentously. “What you said.”

  “Uh, what was that?”

  “You’re not paranoid if they are actually out to get you.” Sie gestured around the cell.

  “Take care,” Ollie said, and gave hir a kiss, resting his face on hirs. “And…eat properly, all that crap. And no nark, either.”

  “I’d stopped over a month ago. You never noticed.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Do you know what it is?”

  Lolo frowned for a moment, then shook hir head in mild exasperation. “My genes are dominant, Ollie. Our child is omnia, of course.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  A last kiss, and Lolo walked out of the cell, looking back urgently as the door swung shut again.

  “I love yo—”

  Ollie took a breath. “I meant what I said,” he said firmly. “Sie’s back on Akitha before we even discuss any terms.”

  “Tough guy, huh?”

  “I know my rights.”

  “Fair enough. Zero isn’t a hard number to remember.”

  “Sie’s a Utopial citizen.”

  “Which entitles hir to exactly shit.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “But as a gesture of goodwill, I agree. Lolo Maude will be permitted to return to Akitha.”

  “Oh. Right. Thank you.”

  “Ollie, it’s a one-way trip. Sie won’t be coming back. And you’re a known criminal with a record file bigger than a Sumiko interactive file. You like Sumiko, right?”

  Oh, fuck. “Yeah.” If they knew that, they knew everything. He sank back onto the cot. “What do you want?”

  “Same as you: Nikolaj.”

  “You said you know where she is. What do you need me for?”

  “Ah, this is where it gets complicated. We can’t let her know we know about her.”

  “So just take her out. Snipers. Drone shot. You were going to do that to me, and I’m nobody.”

  “Far from it, Ollie. You’re a very important somebody. Today, anyway.”

  “Fuck you again.”

  “It’s like this. Nikolaj works for the Olyix—”

  “Why?” he blurted. “I don’t get that. I never did. Her and Jade both. They both betrayed us.”

  “So did you, Ollie. You tried to take down the Croydon power relay station. Without that—without the power it supplies to the London shield generators—we’d all be cocoons stored inside the Salvation of Life right now.”

  “We didn’t know, okay? We were stupid, yes, but the Legion didn’t betray nobody. We done it for the money. We thought we were working for a London major, that’s all. Not fucking aliens! But Nikolaj and Jade, they knew. And they still did it. They had to have some deal going with the Olyix, right?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “There’s nothing else, no other reason. I’ve thought about this for two years. That’s why I was going for her.”

  “I understand that. Revenge is hardwired into all of us, right back there behind all our civilized behavior. It’s primal. And when we lose everything else, that’s what we have left.”

  “No, you don’t get it. Nikolaj was going to be my leverage.”

  Kohei gave him a curious look. “You wanted to make a deal with her?”

  “I was going to force her to deal, yeah. I didn’t have anything to lose. Then all this shit happened.” He flapped his hands at the cell. “And Lolo—I mean…fuck!”

  “What deal?”

  “She knows the Olyix. The Olyix know how to reverse cocooning. They must do. They can give me Gran and Bik back.”

  “Ah.” Kohei smiled.

  Ollie didn’t like that smile. It wasn’t in any way sympathetic.

  “I get it now,” Kohei said. “That was a smart move.”

  “Yeah? Then how come I’m here?”

  “Fat
e. And poor old Karno Larson. What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing! I swear. He just died. You can’t blame me for that.”

  “No. But we still have the raid against the Croydon station, and the house on Lichfield Road. Those charges are still pending.”

  “Yeah? So? What you going to do? Lock me up? How long’s that going to last?”

  “About ten hours.”

  “Huh?”

  “The London shield will fail in maybe ten hours at the most, unless we stop Nikolaj’s sabotage operations. They’re chewing away at the generators, one bite at a time.”

  “But…if you know about that, stop them.”

  “There’s a bigger picture here, Ollie. Even I don’t get to see all of it.”

  “Wait. You’re going to let London fall? You can’t mean that.”

  “To stop London from falling, we need to eliminate Nikolaj first—and in a way that doesn’t cause any suspicion. That’s you, Ollie. A gang kid with a grudge hunting for vengeance—nothing suspicious about that. You’re not smart enough to be anything else.”

  “Shit. You want me to kill her?”

  “I’m not a politician, so I’m not going to use crap like ‘threat cancellation’ or ‘conflict resolution.’ Yes, we want her dead. But when you do it, she has to know it’s you, and you’re doing it out of revenge for the Legion.”

  “I don’t get it. If she’s dead, what does it matter if she’s suspicious—and anyway, suspicious about what?”

  “That we know about her. That we sent you. Okay? So just do what we ask. It doesn’t make any difference to you.”

  “It does. You’re asking me to kill someone. I’m not even sure I can.”

  “You killed Karno Larson.”

  “I didn’t! He…It wasn’t my fault!”

  “Sure. And what about Nikolaj?”

  “What about her?”

  “You’ve been trying to find her for two years. What were you planning on doing when you did catch up? Go out for a romantic meal, maybe a club after?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Ollie, we’re running out of time here, okay? I need to know your answer.”

  “Tell me why she can’t know about you,” he said stubbornly. It was all he had left now, making sense of the shitstorm that had become his life.

  “Think about it. She works for the Olyix, right? They’re in communication with her, so if she gets suspicious, then so will they. And we cannot allow that under any circumstances.”

  “But if she’s dead, she…Oh!” Ollie wanted to curl up into a ball. Some zero-nark would be good, too. “If she’s suspicious I’m working for you and kills me—riiight. Fuck. You don’t trust me to do this.”

  “Actually, I do. The problem is, you’ll be walking into an exceptionally hostile environment. There are no certainties. So we have to plan accordingly.”

  “Yeah. I suppose.”

  “Let me add a sweetener,” Kohei said.

  “What? You’re already sending Lolo home.” He glanced up sharply. “You are, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I need you committed to this—and I mean truly committed. We have one shot, and it has got to work.”

  The cell door swung open again, and Ollie stared at the woman who came in. She was wearing a plain white shirt and dark trousers, so not someone who cared about appearance, then. And her face was pretty plain, too. Maybe some Asian ancestry, light-hazel eyes, black hair trimmed neatly—the kind low-level corporates would have to demonstrate style and individualism. A person you’d struggle to remember, the perfect everywoman.

  “This is Lim Tianyu,” Kohei said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Lim said.

  “Sure.”

  “Lim is part of Alpha Defense’s medical team, right, Lim?”

  “I have that privilege.”

  “Medical?” Ollie said. “For defense?” This wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, which wasn’t good.

  “Lim has been researching cocoons.”

  “Research?”

  “My team has been looking into reversing the process,” she said. “And we have had some very promising results.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me!”

  “No. The process is at an experimental stage, but in order to advance it, we need to move up to full human testing.”

  “Oh, bloody hell. You’re talking about Gran and Bik, aren’t you?”

  Kohei shrugged. “Somebody’s got to be first. This is their chance, Ollie. Otherwise, they’re going to be sent off to a green zone refuge, along with all the millions of others we’re holding on to. So you tell me. Even if London survives into tomorrow, how confident are you that the government population recovery program will get around to them before we defeat the Olyix and send them packing?”

  “You bastards. What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Truthfully,” Lim said, “I give the process a seventy-five percent chance of providing them a full recovery into a regrown body.”

  “And what odds did you have of forcing Nikolaj to make that happen?” Kohei asked mildly.

  Ollie knew what his answer was going to be. Of course he did. It was just that saying it out loud—admitting it—was another defeat. But then he’d lost the game of life the day the Legion took their first payment from Jade. “You take them off Earth to do this,” he said weakly.

  “My laboratory is in the Delta Pavonis system,” Lim said.

  “So Lolo can confirm we’re playing straight with you,” Kohei said. “Ollie, I need an answer. Time is not our friend today.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  * * *

  —

  Leipzig fell as Kohei walked Ollie up to the deployment room they’d set up on the Greenwich Tower’s third floor. The news splashed into his tarsus lens while he was still on the stairs. A single shield generator was brought down by darkware, simultaneous with a power shortage from physical sabotage against a cable. In ordinary times, the secondary power supply would have responded instantaneously. But components overstressed by two years of abuse were too degraded, the darkware threw sand in the eyes of the management G8Turing, and the rerouted power dropped out for too many milliseconds. The generator blew, kicking off a cascade as the remaining generators were unable to compensate.

  Orbital spysats watched the protective wall of artificially solid air burst apart. Seconds later, the Deliverance ships switched off their energy beams. It made little difference. The ravaged air outside crashed down like a deluge of electrified magma. It was as if the city were struck by an earthquake. Millions of windows shattered, roofs collapsed, walls fissured. The taller buildings swayed alarmingly. Some began to topple, falling amid a thunder of dust clouds that spun into ferocious whirlwinds as storm air roared in to scour every road.

  Civic sensors revealed people staggering along the streets, barely able to stand in the hurricane-force squalls, their screams lost in the cataclysm’s howl. Airborne debris became shrapnel, slicing into skin. Desiccated grass and barren trees started to smolder.

  Every network link into Leipzig went out at once as the remaining portals into the city were switched off. Kohei was obscurely pleased about that. He’d seen what happened after a city shield collapsed—the humans hunted, subdued, and collected. He didn’t need to see it again.

  Yuri’s icon splashed across Kohei’s lens. “Did you see Leipzig?”

  “Yeah,” Kohei said. He gave Ollie an uncertain glance; it wasn’t as if they could motivate him any harder by allowing him to access the feed.

  “According to our latest intelligence, there’s a new type of Olyix warship on its way. They’ll be here in another five days,” Yuri said. “We don’t want to leave it that long before we launch Strikeback, but it’ll be another day before everything we need is in position. If you’re going to shut down
the sabotage against London, it’ll have to be soon.”

  “I’ve got all my teams in position. We just need Ollie to do his stuff. Another thirty minutes max.”

  “Okay. Well, good luck. I’m really sorry to put these restrictions on you.”

  “I get it. Don’t worry.”

  “Look, if Ollie screws up, get yourself back here to Delta Pavonis.”

  “Thanks for the offer, chief, but there’re a lot of people down here who deserve to get out. Not just me.”

  “Don’t be a martyr, Kohei. There’ve been so many over the last two years that nobody will ever notice another. Besides, your wife is expecting you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “One thing. Whenever you do come out here, I’m not going to be around, so I just wanted to say how much I appreciate what you’ve done. You’re an excellent security operative, Kohei.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not around’?”

  “We all have a part to play.”

  “Didn’t someone just say something about being a martyr?”

  “I’m not. You’ll find out eventually. But we won’t ever see each other again.”

  “Chief,” he implored.

  “You’re a good man, Kohei. I trust you to save London. Now goodbye.” And Yuri’s icon vanished.

  “Shit!”

  Ollie gave him a worried look. “What?”

  Kohei paused, realizing his arms were trembling. Then he looked at the stupid young man’s face. Ollie had been given several new peripherals Lim had brought, created by some fancy new technology developed by Alpha Defense. The units were supposed to be undetectable, but they’d had to rush the implantation. As a result, Ollie was clearly in pain, his face hot and sweaty, grimacing constantly.

  “Nothing,” Kohei replied as cheerfully as he could.

  “Didn’t sound like it,” Ollie said sullenly.

  “You’re not the only operation I’m running, sonny. Don’t flatter yourself.”

  The deployment room had a three-meter portal set up. A five-strong squad of paramilitaries was waiting; Kohei’s lens data showed him fifteen had already deployed. Eight counter-insurgency drones were already flying high over the city, heading for Chelsea.