The Naked God - Flight nd-5

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “I don’t know, Al. The frigates’ll dock in another ninety minutes; maybe the captains’ll tell us more.”

  “They’d fucking better.” Al’s fists clenched. He stared at the starfield outside the conservatory.

  Leroy hesitated, glancing at Jezzibella. She inclined her head silently to the door. It was all the permission Leroy needed; he ducked his head at Al, and shifted himself the hell out of there as fast as his thick legs would allow. Jezzibella waited patiently, not saying anything. By now she was well used to the cycle of Al’s moods.

  After a minute in which he could have been frozen, Al roared: “Fuck it!” and smashed a fist down on the table again. This time it had his energistic power behind the blow. The iron bent alarmingly. Plates, jam pots, cups, and the vase went sliding down the new valley to crash together along the fold. He stood up fast as the boiling coffee splashed onto the floor with the lilies. His chair legs caught on the tiling. “FUCK!” Al spun round and kicked the chair, sending it flying into the curving sapphire window. Libby whimpered in fright, cradling the milk jug as if it alone could protect her. Jezzibella sat back, holding on to the coffee cup she’d saved. Her expression was strictly neutral.

  “Goddamn motherfucking shit-eating bastards! That was my goddamn station. Mine .” He put both hands under the buckled table and shoved it upwards. The entire thing went somersaulting along the conservatory. Crockery tumbled away to smash against the floor. Libby cowered as one of the heavy metal legs flashed centimetres above the bun of her grey hair. “Nobody takes my property away from me. No Body! Don’t they know who the fuck they’re dealing with here? I’m not some chickenshit small-time loser pirate! I am Al goddamn Capone. I’ve got a fleet that kicks the shit out of whole planets, for Christ’s sake. Are they fucking insane? I’ll blow that whole stinking pennyass navy of theirs out of the goddamn water. That knucklehead Ruski admiral is gonna get a baseball rammed so far up his ass he’ll be pitching it out of his mouth.”

  “Space,” Jezzibella said firmly.

  “What?” Al whirled round and bellowed at her. “What did you fucking say to me?”

  “You’ll blow them out of space. Not water. We’re not on Earth now, Al.”

  He pulled a fist back. It shook violently as he held it over her. Then he swung round and punched one of the tall aquariums. The glass shattered. Water and a shoal of long purple fish poured out of the big hole, splattering the hem of his robe.

  “Shit. Goddamn.” He danced backwards, trying to keep his house slippers out of the water.

  Jezzibella calmly lifted her feet off the tiles as the tide swirled round her chair. Fish started wriggling frantically over the mosaic, their movements skidding them against the planters. “Did you have antimatter when you started?”

  Al was watching the fish in mild perplexity; as if he couldn’t quite understand where they’d come from. “What?” he demanded.

  “You heard.” She deliberately looked away from him, and gave Libby a gracious smile. “Go and fetch a bucket, or something, there’s a dear.”

  “Yes, poppet,” Libby said nervously. She scurried away.

  “You frightened her,” Jezzibella accused.

  “Fuck her,” Al said irritably. “What did you say about antimatter?”

  “First off, we’ve still got tonnes of the stuff. Think how many convoys got through.”

  “Tonnes?”

  “Alright, not tonnes, but certainly kilograms. Work it out if you don’t believe me: one kilogram equals two and a fifth pounds. So the fleet and the SD network still has more than enough to wipe the floor with any Confederation Navy task force stupid enough to try its luck against New California. Then there’s Kingsley Pryor. You haven’t forgotten him, have you?”

  Al stopped his mental arithmetic. He was actually very good at it, a hangover from the days when he was working as an accountant in Baltimore. Jez was right again, they had got a healthy stash of the superbomb material. And no he hadn’t forgotten Kingsley, exactly, it was just a long time since they set him loose on his clandestine assignment. “That flaky asshole? I’ve written him off. Christsake, it’s been too long.”

  “No it hasn’t. He’s a courier, not a missile. He’ll get there eventually.”

  “Could be.”

  “Will be, and then you’ve won. Once the Confederation’s been broken, you don’t have to worry about New California being hauled back here.”

  “Could be,” he sighed. “But we ain’t going to get any more antimatter. Hell, Jez, if they send two task forces, we’re up shit creek.”

  “They won’t. Believe me. It’s a political impossibility. So we’re back to my original question. You didn’t have antimatter when you started out, and you still managed to take over this planet. Antimatter was a beautiful bonus, Al. And you used it perfectly. You’ve not only got the Confederation public terrified of you, but with those infiltration flights you’ve weakened them physically. Twenty-five planets seeded. That’s crippled their economies and leadership. They can’t challenge you on your home ground. No way. And that’s what really counts.” She extended her legs, and rested her heels on one of the two remaining chairs. “We’re never going to see Navy warships outside this window. Not now. You’re secure, Al. You’ve made it clean. You’ve dug the moat to keep those bastards out, now concentrate on cementing what you’ve conquered. Don’t let those moaning weaklings who claim to be your friends chip away at the Organization.”

  “God damn, you’re beautiful.” He splashed through the thin runnels of water to kiss her. She smiled up at him, and used a forefinger to tickle under his chin.

  “The guys are going to go apeshit about losing the station.”

  “They’re going to be frightened, that’s all,” she said. “Just show them they don’t have to be, that you’re in charge of the situation. They need that reassurance. They need you, Al, no one else can hold things together.”

  “You’re right. I’ll call the senior lieutenants in. Spin them some bullshit, and kick ass.”

  Her hand curled round the back of his neck. “It can wait an hour.”

  Al buckled down on his disapproval when he arrived at the Chiefs of Staff office. No point in biting people’s balls off before they’d even started the meeting. It was just—he couldn’t help remembering what the plush office had looked like the first time they’d used it. Tidy and gleaming, with coffee served from a silver pot into elegant china. Now, it was suffering from the general tide of crap washing through Monterey. Without mechanoids, nothing was being cleaned, let alone polished. There were plates and crumpled sachets on the table, dating back three or four meetings; cups with mould growing in the bottom. No one could be bothered to take them back to the nearest canteen.

  It wasn’t good. Not at all. Jez was right. He had to consolidate what he’d got. Make things function smoothly again. Like it all had at the start.

  Kiera was last to arrive. That was getting to be a habit. Al couldn’t work out if she was doing it to annoy him, or to make everyone take notice of her. She took her place halfway down the side of the table, between Patricia and Leroy. Al performed his own theatre by getting up again and refilling his coffee cup from the wheezing espresso machine.

  “Hey, Leroy, where’s Webster?” Al asked suddenly. “He should be dishing this stuff out.”

  The manager broke off his murmured conversation with Patricia and glanced round the office in surprise. “Kid’s probably skiving off.”

  “Yeah? I ain’t seen him about for a while. How come?” Now he thought about it, Al couldn’t remember the last time the boy had been in attendance. It was goddamn typical of the sloppy way things were being run these days. No hostage was more important than Webster Pryor; he was the only person who could make Kingsley Pryor go through with the assignment.

  Leroy took out his pocket block and typed quickly, summoning up staff rotas. The results made him uneasy, which everyone was very aware of. “He’s down in the kitchens, I think. That was his last as
signment, helping the chef. His supervisor hasn’t reported back since.”

  Al sat down and stirred his coffee. “Silvano, where’s the kid?”

  The morose lieutenant’s scowl deepened. “I don’t fucking know.”

  “It’s your job to fucking know. Je-zus, I put you in charge of keeping people in order, and you can’t even look after a brat. You know what’s riding on keeping Webster in line. He’s more important than all the other hostages put together.”

  “Sure, Al. I’ll find him.”

  “You’d better. Fuck me, this is goddamn typical of how slack things are getting up here.” He took a sip of coffee, making sure his temper sank back. “Okay, are you guys all up to speed on what’s happened with the antimatter station?” By the way everyone mumbled and avoided his eye he guessed they were. “Well don’t all make out like it’s the end of the world. It ain’t. We just about achieved what we set out to do. Dwight, how many planets have we screwed now?”

  The fleet commander flushed as everyone concentrated on him. “Seventeen confirmed infiltrations, Al. We’re waiting for another two flights to get back.”

  “Nineteen planets.” Al grinned round the lieutenants. “Plus Arnstat. Not bad. Not bad at all. We’ve kicked so much shit into the Navy’s face they can’t even see us now. And if they do try a raid . . . What’ll happen, Emmet? We still got what it takes to see them off?”

  “No problem, Al. The SD platforms are all armed with antimatter, along with half the fleet. The only Navy ships that’ll visit New California for a rumble are the ones on a suicide mission.”

  “Glad to hear it. You all hear that, too?” He searched round, trying to spot any major-league dissenters with his ethereal senses as they all swore they heard and approved. There was the obvious ones; Kiera with her cool contempt, the rest were just jittery, or, like Silvano, sullen and resentful. But so far he was carrying it. “Okay, so we’ve done what we set out to when we walked into City Hall. We got us an entire planet, along with a haul of space factories. And the important thing is, we took out the nearest opposition. This planet is a fucking fortress now. That means we can ease up on watching our backs, and get on with running this shebang properly. Leroy, how’s the food situation down on the surface?”

  “Nobody’s starving, Al. The farms aren’t producing as much as they did before. But they are producing. I think we can get them back up to the old levels if the lieutenants on the ground applied some pressure. We need to motivate them.”

  “Okay. So food is something we can improve if we had the time. Mickey, your boys jiving you, or are they marching round like a bunch of krauts whenever you give the word?”

  Mickey Pileggi licked at the beads of sweat that had suddenly erupted on his upper lip. “I got them under control, Al. Yeah. Sure thing.”

  “Mickey, you’re full of crap. This whole fucking joint is going down the pan. We’ve been humping away at the Confederation so bad, we ain’t noticed the rain coming in.”

  “That’s what you wanted.”

  Al stopped in full flow, hauling back on his anger. He’d just been getting nicely into his spiel. “Kiera, stop being such a ballbuster. I did what I had to to protect us. Ain’t nobody here gonna argue with that.”

  “I’m not arguing, Al. I’m saying the same thing as you. We are where we are, because this is where you’ve brought us.”

  “You want to be somewhere else right now?”

  “No.”

  “Then shut the fuck up. I’m telling you, all of you; now is when we start getting things working properly again. You gotta start keeping tabs on the soldiers under your command, else everyone’s gonna finish up going AWOL like Webster. And that way, we wind up in deep shit. We gotta have things working smoothly around here again. If you don’t start exerting some proper discipline then the whole Organization’s gonna fall apart. And if it goes down, then we go down with it.”

  “Al, the Organization is set up to keep the fleet working,” Kiera said.

  “Hey, fucking lady Einstein, you just worked that out for yourself, or did one of the kids from the gym explain it when he was banging you?” Al chuckled loudly, encouraging the others to join in.

  “I’ve always known it. I just wondered if you did.”

  Al’s humour faded out. “What are you getting at?”

  “The only reason we need the fleet is if New California remains in this universe.”

  “Aw shit, not this crap again. Don’t you get it? If we leave, then the Confederation longhairs are going to be free to dream up some way of snatching us back. We have to stay here, it’s the only way we can see what’s coming.”

  “And if you see something like that coming at you, Al, what are you going to do about it? A technology powerful enough to pull a planet back from the other side of the beyond. Launch a combat wasp at it? Believe me, if the Confederation ever gets to be that powerful, then we don’t stand a chance. But I don’t think they’ll ever learn how to do anything like that. We can do it because we’ve got the devil’s own power charging us up. No chunk of machinery can challenge that. If we leave, then I say we’re going to be a hell of a lot safer there than we are here.”

  There was an itch in Al’s palm, running across his skin exactly where he gripped the handle of his baseball bat. He held off from making it real. Her talk about the devil being behind them made him uncomfortable. A Catholic by birth, he didn’t like examining the implications of what he was now, nor why. “We ain’t pinning our future on what you think might be right, sister,” he growled. “If we want a certainty, then we stay right here.”

  “The Organization can be transported down to the planet,” Kiera said, as if Al hadn’t even spoken. “We can use the SD network to keep our power base secure until we assume control of the cities. After that, we use ground troops to enforce order. Al was right about that. There’s been too much slippage allowed recently. We know we have to keep the farms and a lot of the industries going if we want any kind of decent life on the other side. It’ll take a strong, positive government to achieve that. And that’s us.”

  “We can do all that crap, and still stay here,” Al said. His voice had become little more than a whisper. That worried those who had been with him the longest, though Kiera didn’t seem to notice the barely concealed danger. “When I want someone else to tell me how to run my Organization, I’ll let you know. Got that, baby doll? Or do I need to make it real plain for you?”

  “I hear what you say, Al.” The tone was amused indolence.

  “That’s smart of you. Now I want the rest of you guys to start doing like I’ve said. We need a crackdown like God’s foot is stomping through the clouds. I want things up and jumping around here. Put the word out to your soldiers, as of now you shape up or ship out. And out is where you don’t want to be.”

  Al told Emmet and Silvano to stay behind after the others trooped out. He flicked a switch to turn the wall clear, and waited impatiently as transparent waves skidded about in front of him. With his mind all het up, it was hard to cool down his energistic power. Eventually, the wall stabilized, giving him a view across the SD Tactical Operations Centre. Five people were sitting behind the long ranks of consoles; two of them playing cards.

  “The bitch is good,” Al said. He was surprised more than anything.

  “She used to be married to a politician,” Silvano said. “Knows how to sound plausible.”

  “Certainly convinced me scooting our asses out of here is a good idea,” Al muttered. He turned back to his two senior lieutenants. “Emmet, is what she said right? Can we take the planet out of their reach? I mean, right away?”

  Emmet wiped a hand across his forehead. “Al, I can make the machines we’ve got work for you. Do a few repairs, make sure everything’s plugged in where it oughta be. But, shit, questions like that . . . That’s out of my league, Al, way out. You need a theoretical physicist, or a priest. But even if they can learn how to do that, it’s not gonna be tomorrow. We’d be safe there a long
time. And could be we’d learn how to keep ourselves there. Shit, I just don’t know, Al.”

  “Ha.” Al sat himself down, annoyed by how badly he’d come out of the clash. “And we don’t get to find out, neither. God damn that bitch. Now she’s declared for the running away option, I’ve gotta make my stand to stay here. And you can be certain she’ll start shouting her idea about.”

  “Leaving this universe has a strong appeal to the possessed,” Silvano said. “It’s intrinsic. Perhaps you should bow to the inevitable, boss.”

  “You think I’m gonna knuckle under to that whore?”

  “Not to her, no. But she’s backing a winning idea.”

  “I still need the hellhawks a while,” Al said. “Emmet, you done anything more about building another feeding trough for them?”

  “Sorry, Al, haven’t had time.”

  “You’ve got it now.”

  Banneth was making her preliminary preparations to Kilian when one of the senior acolytes pounded on the door of her sanctum. Kilian gurgled weakly as she eased the slim tube deeper inside him.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Banneth promised him cheerfully, and fastened a clamp around the incision to stop the bleeding. She stripped the thin isolation gloves from her hands as she walked over to the door.

  “A body, High Magus,” the acolyte panted. “There’s a body in the temple.”

  She frowned. “Who?”

  “Acolyte Tilkea, High Magus. He was butchered. We didn’t authorize it. Tilkea is one of the better ones.”

  “I see.” Banneth datavised a codelock at her sanctum door, and strode off towards the temple. “How awful, a corpse we didn’t authorize.”

  “Yes, High Magus,” the acolyte agreed nervously. Like everyone in the headquarters, he never knew if she was joking or not.

  Even by the standards of the sect, the killing was fairly extreme. The remains of acolyte Tilkea were suspended from strands of carbon wire above the altar, arms and legs extended wide. Large hooks punctured the skin above his shoulder blades, as well as his buttocks, wrists, and ankles, fastening him to the wires. His chest had been split open from throat to crotch, ribs levered apart to allow the internal organs to spill out. They’d splattered down on the altar, along with a small lake of blood. Banneth circled the corpse carefully, while a gaggle of acolytes stood at a respectful distance. It was ironic, she thought, that a death in the temple where they themselves had killed hundreds over the last few decades should invoke such trepidation. A sign of the times.