The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  There was only one entrance: a long corridor cut through the rock with two right-angle turns; it was wide and high enough to accommodate an outsize service truck or even a small flyer. Three separate doors were spaced along it, each built from a two-metre-thickness of carbotanium composite strengthened by molecular binding force generators. The first two slabs could only be opened by the security staff outside, while the third was operated from inside the facility.

  Since the arrival of Jacqueline Couteur, Trafalgar’s population had started calling it the demon trap.

  Appropriate enough, Samual Aleksandrovich conceded as the final door swung upwards amid a hiss of pressure and loud mechanical whinings. Dr Gilmore was waiting on the other side to greet him and his entourage.

  “I’m delighted I can actually offer you some good news for a change,” Dr Gilmore said as he led the First Admiral up to the biological division’s isolation facility. “We’ve all heard about New California. Is it really Al Capone leading them?”

  “We don’t have any evidence to the contrary,” Lalwani said. “The Edenists in the system are monitoring news broadcasts. Capone appears very fond of publicity, he’s been touring cities like some kind of medieval monarch. Pressing the flesh, he calls it. A number of reporters were left unpossessed purely so they could record the event.”

  “And this pre-starflight primitive had the ability to take over one of our most developed worlds?” Dr Gilmore inquired. “I find that hard to credit.”

  “Don’t,” Lalwani said. “We’ve been researching him. He’s a genuine emperor genotype. People like him have an intuitive ability to format social structures which support their premiership, whatever their local environment, from street gangs to entire nations. Thankfully they don’t occur very often, nor at such a high level; but when they do the rest of us need to watch out.”

  “Even so—”

  “Obviously, he’s getting advice on modern life. There will be an inner cabinet to help him, but he won’t share the ultimate power. We don’t believe he’s psychologically capable of it. That could be a significant weakness given the sheer quantity of problems he must be facing in enforcing his rule.”

  “So far New California is the only planetary system we know of which has succumbed completely,” the First Admiral said. “Seventeen more planets are suffering from large-scale incursions, and are doing their best to isolate the affected areas. Fortunately the legitimate authorities retained control of their SD networks. The worst casualties have been among the asteroid settlements; our last estimation was that we’d lost over a hundred and twenty Confederation-wide. If a possessed gets inside one, their success rate in taking it over is close to a hundred percent. It’s proving difficult to fight them in such closed environments. Other planets have had trouble, but on a much smaller scale. Our warning seems to have had the required effect. It could have been a lot worse.”

  “Our main concern is that nobody attempts any foolhardy liberation missions,” Lalwani said. “There would be few national navies capable of mounting a successful operation along those lines. At the moment any troops entering such an environment are liable to be possessed themselves.”

  “There will be political pressure on the military to act, though,” the First Admiral said dourly. “So far our only notable public success has been the destruction of the Yaku in the Khabrat system. Trivial. What we need above all is some kind of weapon which is able to incapacitate the possessed. That or an effective method of exorcism. Preferably both.” He gave Dr Gilmore a questing gaze.

  “I believe we can now help you on the first count,” the implant specialist said confidently. They stopped before the biological isolation facility, and he datavised his code at the door.

  Euru’s researchers had acted swiftly as soon as they’d obtained permission to advance their studies. The First Admiral flinched at the sight which greeted him within the examination room. On his side, the monitoring consoles were fully staffed; remorselessly obsessive scientists and technicians absorbed in the displays projected by AV pillars. A scene of brisk competence and scientific endeavour, as always reinforcing the concept of impersonal efficiency.

  Samual Aleksandrovich doubted there was any other way the team could cope with their objective; it must act as a psychological buffer between them and the subject. Subject—he chided himself silently. Although he’d witnessed inhumanity on a far more brutal scale than this during his active service days.

  With Captain Khanna at his side he walked hesitantly up to the transparent wall which cut the rock chamber in two, wondering if he should show signs of dismay or approval. In the end he settled for the same bleak acceptance which everyone else in the room had put on along with their baggy white lab overalls.

  A naked and shaven Jacqueline Couteur had been immobilized on a surgical bed. Although wired into it would be a more honest evaluation, the First Admiral thought. Grey composite ribs formed a cage over the length of her body, supporting clamps which pressed pairs of large circular electrodes against her forearms, abdomen, and upper legs; clear jell was leaking out from beneath the silvery metal, ensuring better contact and conductivity.

  Two ceiling-mounted waldo arms had been equipped with sensor arrays, like bundles of fat white gun muzzles, which they were sweeping slowly and silently up and down the prone body. The thick circular brace which held her head fast looked as if it had melded with her skin. A plastic defecation tube had been inserted in her anus, while a free-fall toilet suction catheter adhered to her vagina. He couldn’t decide if that was a civilized courtesy or the final humiliation.

  Not that Couteur would care, not in her present condition.

  Her entire musculature twitched and rippled in random spasms. The flesh quivering on her face made it seem as though she were enduring a ten-gee acceleration.

  “What the hell are you doing to her?” Maynard Khanna asked in a guttural whisper.

  It was the first time the First Admiral could ever remember the staff captain speaking before his superiors.

  “Neutralizing her offensive potential,” Dr Gilmore said with a tone of high satisfaction. “The report we received from Lalonde contained a reference from Darcy and Lori that electricity affects the possessed in an adverse fashion. We checked and discovered it’s true. So we’re running a current through her.”

  “Dear God, that’s …” His face crunched up in a disgusted grimace.

  Dr Gilmore ignored him, addressing himself solely to the First Admiral.

  “She is having to use her entire energistic ability to ward off the current. We experimented with the voltage level until we achieved this balance. Her physiological functions continue to operate normally, but she is completely incapable of manifesting any reality dysfunction effect. She can no longer distort matter, create illusions, or conjure up white fireballs. It means we are free to study her without any interference; even our electronic systems have recovered eighty-five per cent of their efficiency in her presence.”

  “So what have you learned?” the First Admiral asked.

  “Please bear in mind we are on the threshold of a completely new field here.”

  “Doctor,” the First Admiral cautioned.

  “Of course. Firstly, we have developed a screening method which can pick out any possessed. There is a tiny but constant discharge of static electricity right across their bodies. We think it must be a by-product of their beyond continuum spilling into ours. Such an influx surge would also account for the energy they constantly have at their disposal.”

  “Static electricity?” a bemused Lalwani said.

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s beautiful: the sensors that will pick it up are cheap, easy to mass-produce, simple to use; and if they malfunction it’s a certainty that a possessed is nearby anyway. Now we know what to look for they will find it impossible to hide in a crowd or infiltrate new areas.”

  “Excellent,” the First Admiral said. “We’ll have to see that this information is distributed as fast as our origina
l warning.” He moved right up to the transparent wall, seeing his breath mist the surface, and activated the intercom. “Do you remember me?” he asked.

  Jacqueline Couteur took a long time to answer, her syllables maimed by the laboured gurgling of vocal cords not fully under control. “We know you, Admiral.”

  “Is she in communication with those in the beyond?” he asked Dr Gilmore quickly.

  “I cannot give you an absolute, Admiral. However, I suspect not; at least nothing more than leaking a rudimentary form of contact back into her own continuum. Our Jacqueline is very fond of dominance games, and ‘we’ tends to sound impressive.”

  “If you are in pain,” the First Admiral told her, “I apologize.”

  “Not as sorry as that shit’s going to be when I catch up with him.” Bloodshot eyes juddered around to focus on Dr Gilmore.

  He responded with a thin superior smile.

  “Exactly how much pain do you inflict on the mind of the body you have stolen?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked mildly.

  “Touché.”

  “As you see, we are learning from you as I said we would.” He gestured at the sensors which the waldo arms were sliding over her head and torso.

  “We know what you are, we know something of the suffering which awaits you back in the beyond, we understand why you are driven to do what you do. I would ask you to work with me in helping to solve this problem. I do not wish there to be conflict between us. We are one people, after all, albeit at different stages of existence.”

  “You will give us bodies? How generous.” Somehow she managed to grin, lips wriggling apart to dribble saliva down her cheeks.

  “We could grow bitek neural networks which you could inhabit. You would be able to receive the full range of human senses. After that they could be placed in artificial bodies, rather like a cosmonik.”

  “How very reasonable. But you forget that we are human, too; we want to live full human lives. For ever. Possession is only the beginning of our return.”

  “I am aware of your goals.”

  “Do you wish to help us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then terminate your life. Join us. Be on the winning side, Admiral.”

  Samual Aleksandrovich gave the vibrating, abused body a final, almost disgusted glance, and turned his back to the transparent wall.

  “She says the same thing to us,” Dr Gilmore said as if in apology. “Repeatedly.”

  “How much of what she says is the truth? For instance, do they really need human bodies? If not, we might just be able to force them into a compromise.”

  “Verification may be difficult,” Euru said. “The electricity has contained the worst excesses of Couteur’s reality dysfunction, but a personality debrief in these circumstances may prove beyond us. If the nanonics were to malfunction during axon interface they could cause a lot of damage to her brain.”

  “The possessed are certainly capable of operating within bitek neurone structures,” Lalwani said. “Lewis Sinclair captured Pernik’s neural strata; and we have confirmed that Valisk’s blackhawks have also been captured.”

  “Physically they’re capable of it, yes,” Euru said. “But the problem is more likely to be psychological. As ex-humans, they want human bodies, they want the familiar.”

  “Acquire what information you can without risking the actual body itself,” the First Admiral instructed. “In the meantime have you developed any method of subduing them?”

  Dr Gilmore indicated the surgical table with a muddled gesture.

  “Electricity, Admiral. Equip our marines with guns that fire a dart that contains a small electron matrix cell and simply push a current into them. Such weapons were in widespread use from the mid-twentieth century right up until the twenty-third. We’ve already produced a modern chemical-powered design with a range over five hundred metres.”

  Samual Aleksandrovich didn’t know whether to berate the implant specialist or commiserate with him. That was the trouble with laboratory types, all theory, no thought about how their gadgets would perform in the field. It was probably just the same in Couteur’s time, he reflected.

  “And how far can they project their white fire?”

  “It varies depending on the individual.”

  “And how will you determine what voltage to discharge from the electron matrix cell? Some will be stronger than Couteur, while others will be weaker.”

  Dr Gilmore glanced to Euru for support.

  “Voltage regulation is a problem area,” the suave, black-skinned Edenist said. “We are considering if a static scanner can determine the level in advance. It may be that the quantity of static exuded might indicate the individual’s energistic strength.”

  “In here, possibly,” the First Admiral said. “In combat conditions I very much doubt it. And even if it did work, what do you propose we should do with the captive?”

  “Put them in zero-tau,” Dr Gilmore said. “We know that method has enjoyed a hundred per cent success rate. They employed it on Ombey.”

  “Yes,” the First Admiral acknowledged, recalling the file he’d accessed, the battle to capture the possessed inside the big department store. “And at what cost? I don’t intend to be caviling about your endeavors, Doctor, but you really need to bring some experienced combat personnel into your consultation process. Even conceding your stun gun could work, it would take two or three marines to subdue a possessed and place them in zero-tau. During which time those possessed remaining at liberty would have converted another five people. With that ratio we could never win.

  We must have a single weapon, a one-shot device which can rid a body of the possessing soul without harming it. Will electricity do that? Can you increase the voltage until the incursive soul is forced out?”

  “No, Admiral,” Euru said. “We have already tried with Couteur. The voltages necessary will kill the body. In fact we had to abandon the procedure for several hours to allow her to heal herself.”

  “What about other methods?”

  “There will be some we can try, Admiral,” Dr Gilmore insisted. “But we’ll need to research her further. We have so little data at the moment. The ultimate solution will of course be to seal the junction between this universe and the beyond continuum. Unfortunately we still cannot locate the interface point. Those scanners we are operating in there are some of the most sensitive gravitonic distortion detectors ever built, yet there is no sign of any space-time density fluctuation in or around her. Which means the souls are not returning through a wormhole.”

  “Not wormholes as we understand them, anyway,” Euru finished. “But then, given Couteur’s existence, our whole conception of quantum cosmology is obviously seriously incomplete. Having the ability to travel faster than light isn’t nearly as smart as we once thought it was.”

  ***

  It had taken Quinn some time to modify the Tantu’s bridge. It wasn’t the look of the compartment which bothered him so much; the frigate was configured for high gee acceleration, its fittings and structure were correspondingly functional. He liked that inherent strength, and emphasised it by sculpting the surfaces with an angular matte-black bas-relief of the kind he imagined would adorn the walls of the Light Brother’s supreme temple. Lighting panels were dimmed to a carmine spark, flickering behind rusty iron grilles.

  It was the information he was presented with, or rather the lack of it, which displeased him, and consequently required the longest time to rectify. He had no neural nanonics, not that they would have worked even if he did have a set. Which meant he didn’t know what was happening outside the ship. For all of Tantu’s fabulous high-resolution sensor array, he was blind, unable to react, to make decisions. To have the external universe visible was his first priority.

  Possessing the frigate’s nineteen-strong crew had taken barely twenty minutes after he and Lawrence had docked. Initiating the returned souls into the sect, having them accept his leadership, had required another hour. Three times he had to discipli
ne the faithless. He regretted the waste.

  Those remaining had worked hard to build the displays he wanted; fitting holoscreens to the consoles, adapting the flight computer programs to portray the external environment in the simplest possible terms. Only then, with his confidence restored, had he ordered their departure from Norfolk orbit.

  Quinn settled back in his regal, velvet-padded acceleration couch and gave the order to jump away. Twenty seconds after they completed the operation, the holoscreens showed him the little purple pyramid which represented the squadron’s lone pursuit ship lit up at the centre of the empty cube. According to the scale, it was three thousand kilometres away.

  “How do we elude them?” he asked Bajan.

  Bajan was possessing the body of the Tantu’s erstwhile captain, the third soul to do so since the hijacking began. Quinn had been dissatisfied with the first two; they had both lived in pre-industrial times. He needed someone with a technological background, someone who could interpret the wealth of data in the captain’s captive mind. A civil fusion engineer, Bajan had died only two centuries ago; starflight was a concept he understood. He also had a sleazy, furtive mind which promised instant obedience to both Quinn and the sect’s doctrines. But Quinn didn’t mind that, such weaknesses simply made him easier to control.

  Bajan’s fists squeezed, mimicking the pressure he was placing on the mind held within. “Sequential jumps. The ship can do it. That can throw off any pursuer.”

  “Do it,” Quinn ordered simply.

  Three jumps later, spanning seven light-years, they were alone in interstellar space. Four days after that, they jumped into a designated emergence zone two hundred thousand kilometres above Earth.

  “Home,” Quinn said, and smiled. The frigate’s visible-spectrum sensors showed him the planet’s nightside, a leaden blue-grey crescent which was widening slowly as the Tantu’s orbit inched them towards the edge of the penumbra. First magnitude stars blazed on the continents: the arcologies, silently boasting their vast energy consumption as the light from the streets, skyscrapers, stadiums, vehicles, parks, plazas, and industrial precincts merged into a monochrome blast of photons. Far above the equator, a sparkling haze band looped around the entire world, casting the gentlest reflection off the black-glitter oceans below.