The Naked God - Flight nd-5

by Peter F. Hamilton

  They arrived at the departure lounge twelve minutes before the ship was scheduled to leave. The police returned their luggage and passports, with Earth immigration clearance loaded in; they also got their processor blocks back. Finally, they handed Louise her Jovian Bank credit disk.

  Louise had her suspicions that the whole procedure was deliberately being rushed to keep them off-balance and complacent. Not that she knew how to kick up a fuss. But there was probably some part of their treatment which a good lawyer could find fault with. She didn’t really care. Scher ’s life support capsule had the same lengthy cylindrical layout as the Jamrana , except that every deck was full of chairs. A sour stewardess showed them brusquely to their seats, strapped them in, and left to chase other passengers.

  “I wanted to change,” Genevieve complained. She was pulling dubiously at her shipsuit. “I haven’t washed for ages. It’s all clammy.”

  “We’ll be able to change when we get to the tower station, I expect.”

  “Which tower station? Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know.” Louise glanced at the stewardess, who was chiding an elderly woman’s attempts to fasten her seat straps. “I think we’ll just have to wait and find out.”

  “Then what? What do we do when we get there?”

  “I’m not sure. Let me think for a minute, all right?”

  Louise squirmed her shoulders, letting her muscles relax. Freefall always made her body tense up as it tried to assume more natural gravity-evolved postures. Thankfully, the cabin chairs were almost flat, preventing her from getting stomach twinges.

  What to do next hadn’t bothered her much while she’d been in custody. Convincing Brent Roi about Dexter was her only concern. Now that had been accomplished, or seemed to be. She still couldn’t quite believe he had taken her warnings particularly seriously; they’d been released far too quickly for that. Dismissed, almost.

  The authorities had Fletcher in custody, and he was cooperating with them about possession. That was their true prize, she thought. They were confident their security procedures would spot Dexter. She wasn’t. Not at all. And she’d made one solemn promise to Fletcher, which covered exactly this situation.

  If I can’t help him physically, at least I can honour my promise. If our positions were reversed, he would. Banneth, I said I’d find and warn Banneth. Yes. And I will. The sudden resolution did a lot to warm her again.

  Then she was aware of a strangely rhythmic buzzing sound, and blinked her eyes open. Genevieve had activated her processor block; its AV projector lens was shining a conical fan of light directly on her face. Frayed serpents of pastel colour stroked her cheeks and nose, glistening on a mouth parted in an enraptured smile. Her fingers skated with fast dextrous motions over the block’s surface, sketching eccentric ideograms.

  I’m really going to have to do something about this obsession, Louise thought, it can’t be healthy.

  The stewardess was shouting at a man cradling a crying child. Tackling Gen was probably best delayed until they reached Earth.

  It wasn’t rugged determination, or even victorious self-confidence which brought him back. Instead, came the slow, dreadful comprehension that this awful limbo wouldn’t end if he did nothing.

  Dariat’s thoughts hung amid vast clusters of soil molecules, membranous twists of nebula dust webbing the space between stars, insipid, enervated. Completely unable to evaporate, to fade away into blissful non-existence. Instead, they hummed with chilly misery as they conducted pain-soaked memories round and around on a never ending circuit, humiliation and fear undimmed by time and repetition.

  Worse than the beyond. At least in the beyond, there were other souls, memories you could raid to bring an echo of sensation. Here there was only yourself; a soul buried alive. Nothing to comfort you but your own life. Screaming from the pain of the blows which battered him down might have stopped, but the internal scream of self-loathing could never cease. Not incarcerated here. He didn’t want to go back, not to the dimly sensed light and air above, the vicious brutality of the ghosts waiting there. Every time he emerged, they would pummel him down again. That was what all of them wanted. He would go through the same suffering again and again. Yet he couldn’t stay here, either.

  Dariat moved. He thought of himself, visualised pushing his bulky body up through the soil, as if he was doing some kind of appalling fitness-fad exercise. It wasn’t anything like that easy. Imagination couldn’t power him as before. Something had happened to him, weakening him. The vitality he owned, even as a ghost, had been leeched out by the matter with which he was entwined.

  Fantasy muscles trembled as he strained. Finally, along his back, sensation was returning in a paltry trickle. A warmth, but not on his skin. Inside, just below the surface.

  It inspired greed, a hunger for more. Nothing else mattered, the warmth was revitalising, a font of life. It lent to his strength, and he began to rise faster through the soil, sucking in more warmth as he went. Soon, his face cleared the ground, and he was moving at an almost normal speed. Extricating himself from the soil meant discovering just how cold he was. Dariat stood up, teeth chattering, arms crossed over his chest, hugging tight as his hands tried to rub some heat into icy flesh. Only his feet were warm, though that was a relative term.

  The grass around his sandals was a sickly yellow-brown, dead and drooping. Each blade was covered in a delicate sprinkle of hoarfrost. They made up a roughly oval patch about two metres long. Body-shaped, in fact. He stared at it, completely bewildered.

  Damn, I’m cold!

  Dariat? That you, boy?

  Yes, it’s me.one question—he didn’t really want to ask, but had to know. How long was I . . . out for?

  It’s been seventeen hours.

  Seventeen years was a figure he could have believed in quite easily. Is that all?

  Yes. What happened?

  They beat me into the ground. Literally. It was . . . Bad. Real bad.

  Then why didn’t you come out earlier?

  You won’t understand.

  Did you kill the grass?

  I don’t know. I suppose so.

  How? We thought you didn’t interact with solid matter.

  Don’t ask me. There was a kind of warmth as I came out. Or maybe it was just hatred which killed the grass, concentrated hatred. That’s what they were giving off; Thoale be damned, but they hated me. I’m cold now.he scanned round, searching through the tree trunks for any sign of the other ghosts. After a moment, he walked away from the patch of dead grass, spooked by the place. The opposite of consecrated ground.

  Movement felt good, it was making his legs warm up. When he glanced down, he saw a line of frosted footsteps in the grass trailing back to the burial patch. But he was definitely getting warmer. He started walking again, a meagre lick of heat seeping up from his legs to his torso. It would take a long time to dispel the chill, but he was sure it would happen eventually.

  The starscraper is the other way,the personality said.

  I know. That’s why I’m going back to the valley. I’ll be safe there.

  For a while.

  I’m not risking another encounter.

  You have to. Look, forewarned is forearmed. Just take it carefully. If you see any ghosts waiting ahead of you, go around them.

  I’m not doing it.

  You have to. Our internal status is still decaying. We must have those descendants out of zero-tau. What good will a dead habitat do you? You know they’re the only chance of salvation any of us have. You know that. You just showed us how bad entombment here is; that could become permanent if we don’t get clear.

  Shit!he stopped, standing with his fists clenched. Tendrils of frost slithered out from under his soles to wilt the grass.

  It’s common sense, Dariat. You won’t be giving in to Rubra just by agreeing.

  That’s not—

  Ha. Remember what we are.

  All right! Bastards. Where’s Tolton?

  Tolton had fo
und the lightstick in an emergency equipment locker in the starscraper’s lobby. It gave out a lustreless purple-tinged glow, and that emerged at a pitiful percentage of its designated output wattage. But after forty minutes, his eyes had acclimatised well. Navigating down through the interior of the starscraper posed few physical problems. Resolution, however, was a different matter. In his other hand he carried a fire axe from the same locker as the lightstick, it hardly inspired confidence.

  Beyond the bubble of radiance which enveloped him, it was very dark indeed. And silent with it. No light shone in through any of the windows; there wasn’t even a dripping tap to break the monotony of his timorous footsteps. Three times since he’d been down here, the electrophorescent cells had burst into life. Some arcane random surge of power sending shoals of photons skidding along the vestibules and stairwells. The first time it happened, he’d been petrified. The zips of light appeared from nowhere, racing towards him at high speed. By the time he yelled out and started to cower down, they were already gone, behind him and vanishing round some corner. He didn’t react much better the next two times, either.

  He told himself that he should be relieved that some aspect of Rubra and the habitat was still functioning, however erratically. It wasn’t much reassurance; that the stars had vanished from view had been a profound shock. He’d already decided he wasn’t going to share that knowledge with the other residents for a while. What he couldn’t understand was, where were they? His panicky mind was constantly filling the blank space outside the windows with dreadful imaginings. It wasn’t much of a leap to have whatever skulked outside getting in to glide among the opaque shadows of the empty starscraper. Grouping together and conspiring, flowing after him.

  The muscle membrane door at the bottom of the stairwell was partially expanded, its edges trembling slightly. He cautiously stuck the lightstick through the gap, and peered round at the fifth floor vestibule. The high ceilings and broad curving archways that were the mise-en-scиne of Valisk’s starscrapers had always seemed fairly illustrious before; bitek’s inalienable majesty. That was back when they were bathed in light and warmth twenty-four hours a day. Now they clustered threateningly round the small area of illumination he projected, swaying with every slight motion of the lightstick.

  Tolton waited for a moment, nerving himself to step out. This floor was mainly taken up by commercial offices. Most of the mechanical doorways had frozen shut. He walked along, reading the plaques on each one. The eighth belonged to an osteopath specialising in sports injuries. There ought to be some kind of medical nanonics inside. The emergency lock panel was on the top of the frame. He broke it open with the blunt end of the axe, exposing the handle inside. Now the power was off, or at least disabled, the electronic bolts had disengaged. A couple of turns on the handle released the lock entirely, and he prised the door open.

  Typical waiting room: not quite expensive chairs, soft drinks dispenser, reproduction artwork, and lush potted plants. The large circular window looked out at nothing, a black mirror. Tolton saw his own reflection staring back, with a fat man in a grubby robe standing behind him. He yelped in shock, and dropped the lightstick. Flat planes of light and shadow lurched around him. He turned, raising the axe up ready to swipe down on his adversary. Almost overbalancing from the wild motion.

  The fat man was waving his arms frantically, shouting. Tolton could hear nothing more than a gentle murmur of air. He gripped the axe tightly as it wobbled about over his head, ready for the slightest sign of antagonism. None came. In fact, there probably couldn’t ever be any. Tolton could just see the door through the fat man. A ghost. That didn’t make him any happier.

  The ghost had put his hands on his hips, face screwed up in some exasperation. He was saying something slowly and loudly, an adult talking to an idiot child. Again, there was that bantam ruffling of air. Tolton frowned; it corresponded to the movements of the fat ghost’s jaw.

  In the end, communication became a derivative of lip reading. There was never quite enough sound (if that’s what it truly was) to form whole words, rather the faint syllables clued him in.

  “Your axe is the wrong way round.”

  “Uh.” Tolton glanced up. The blade was pointing backwards. He shifted it round, then sheepishly lowered it. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Dariat.”

  “You’re wasting your time following me, you can’t possess me.”

  “I don’t want to. I’m here to give you a message.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes. The habitat personality wants you to switch off some zero-tau pods.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “We’re in affinity contact.”

  “But you’re a . . .”

  “Ghost. Yes, I had noticed. Although I think a revenant is a term more applicable in my case.”

  “A what?”

  “The personality never warned me you were this stupid.”

  “I am not . . .” Tolton’s outrage spluttered to a halt. He started to laugh.

  Dariat gave the alleged street poet a mildly annoyed glare. “Now what?”

  “I’ve had some weird shit dumped on me in my time, but I think arguing with a ghost over my IQ has got to be the greatest.”

  Dariat felt his lips move up in a grin. “Got a point there.”

  “Thank you, my man.”

  “So, are you going to help?”

  “Of course. Will turning off the pods be of any use?”

  “Yeah. That mad bitch Kiera was holding a whole load of my illustrious relatives in stasis. They should be able to get things up and running again.”

  “Then we can get out of . . .” Tolton took another look at the window. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “I’m not sure you can call this a place, more like a different state of being. It exists to be hostile to the possessed. Unfortunately, there are a few unexpected side effects.”

  “You sound as though you’re talking from a position of knowledge; which I frankly find hard to believe.”

  “I played a part in bringing us here,” Dariat admitted. “I’m not completely sure of the details, though.”

  “I see. Well, we’d better get started, then.” He picked up the lightstick. “Ah, wait. I promised a woman I’d try and find some medical nanonic packages for her. She really does need them.”

  “There’s some in the osteopath’s storage cabinet, through there.” Dariat pointed.

  “You really are in touch with Rubra, aren’t you.”

  “He’s changed a bit, but, yes.”

  “Then I’m curious. Why did the two of you choose me for this task?”

  “His decision. But most of the other corporeal residents got whacked out when they were de-possessed. You saw them up in the park. They’re no good for anything right now. You’re the best we’ve got left.”

  “Oh, bloody hell.”

  When they emerged up into the decrepit lobby, Tolton sat down and tried to get a processor block to work. He’d never had a didactic memory imprint covering their operations and program parameters. Never needed one; all he used them for was recording and playing AV fleks, and communications, plus a few simple commands for medical nanonics (mainly concerned with morning-after blood detoxification).

  Dariat started to advise on how to alter the operating program format, essentially dumbing down the unit. Even he had to consult with the personality about which subroutines to delete. Between the three of them, it took twenty minutes to get the little unit on line with a reliable performance level.

  Another fifteen minutes of running diagnostics (far slower than usual), and they knew what medical nanonics could achieve in such an antagonistic environment. It wasn’t good news; the filaments which wove into and manipulated human flesh were sophisticated molecular strings, with correspondingly high-order management routines. They could bond the lips of wounds together, and infuse doses of stored biochemicals. But fighting a tumour by eliminating individual cancer cells was no
longer possible.

  We can’t waste any more time on this,the personality protested.

  Tolton was hunched up over the block. Dariat waved a hand under his face—the only way to catch his attention. Out here in the park the poet found it even harder to hear him; though Dariat suspected his “voice” was actually some kind of weak telepathy.

  “It’ll have to do,” Dariat said.

  Tolton frowned down once again at the horribly confusing mass of icons eddying across the block’s screen. “Will they be able to cure her?”

  “No. The tumours can’t be reversed, but the packages should be able to contain them until we get back to the real universe.”

  “All right. I suppose that’ll do.”

  Dariat managed to feel mildly guilty at the sadness in Tolton’s voice. The way the street poet could become so anxious and devoted to a stranger he’d only spent five minutes with was touching.

  They walked through the moat of decaying shacks and into the surrounding ring of human misery. The loathing directed at Dariat by those that saw him was profound enough to sting. He, a creature now purely of thought, was buffeted by the emanation of raw emotion; his own substance refined against him. It wasn’t as strong as the blows inflicted by his fellow ghosts, but the cumulative effect was disturbingly debilitating. When he’d sneaked into the lobby he hadn’t attracted such attention, a few glances of sullen resentment at most. But then, he realized, he was still suffering from the effects of the entombment, he’d been weaker, less substantial.

  Now, the jeering and catcalls which chased him were building to a crescendo as more and more people realized what the commotion was about and joined in. He started staggering about, groaning at the pain.

  “What is it?” Tolton asked.

  Dariat shook his head. There was real fear building in him now. If he stumbled and fell here, victim to this wave of hatred, he might never be able to surface from the soil again. At every attempt he would be pressed back by the throng of people above him, dancing on his living grave.