The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “… Confederation Navy frigate Levêque confirmed that all inhabited islands on Norfolk have now been covered by the reality dysfunction cloud,” the news commentator said. “All contact with the surface has been lost, and it must be assumed that the majority, if not all, of the population has been possessed. Norfolk is a pastoral planet with few spaceplanes available to the local government; because of this no attempt was made to evacuate any inhabitants to the navy squadron before the capital Norwich fell. A statement from Confederation Navy headquarters at Trafalgar said that the Levêque would remain in orbit to observe the situation, but no offensive action was being considered at this time. This brings to seven the number of planets known to have been taken over by the possessed.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Louise is down there.” The AV image broke up as he turned his head away from the pillar, seeing Louise running over the grassy wolds in one of those ridiculous dresses, laughing over her shoulder at him. And Genevieve, too, that irritating child who was either laughing or sulking. Marjorie, Grant (it would go worse for him, he would resist as long as possible), Kenneth, and even that receptionist at Drayton’s Import.

  “Goddamnit. No!” I should have been there. I could have got her away.

  “Joshua?” Dahybi asked in concern. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Did you catch that piece about Norfolk?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s down there, Dahybi. I left her there.”

  “Who?”

  “Louise.”

  “You didn’t leave her there, Joshua. It’s her home, it’s where she belongs.”

  “Right.” Joshua’s neural nanonics were plotting a course from Narok to Norfolk. He didn’t remember requesting it.

  “Come on, Captain,” Dahybi said. “We’ve got what we came for. Let’s go.”

  Joshua looked at the woman in the red shirt again. She was staring at the AV pillar, abstract pastel streaks from the projection glinting dully on her ebony cheeks. A delighted smile flourished on her lips.

  Joshua hated her, her invincibility, the cool arrogance sitting among her enemies. Queen of the bitch demons come to taunt him. Dahybi’s hand tightened around his arm.

  “Okay, we’re gone.”

  ***

  “Here we are, home at last,” Loren Skibbow said with a histrionic sigh.

  “Not that we can stay for long. They’ll tear Guyana apart to find us now.”

  The apartment was on the highest level of the biosphere’s habitation complex, where gravity was only eighty per cent standard. The penthouse of some Kingdom aristocrat, presumably, furnished with dark active-contour furniture and large hand-painted silk screens; every table and alcove shelf were littered with antiques.

  Gerald felt it was a somewhat bizarre setting to wind up in considering the day’s events. “Are you creating this?” When they lived in the arcology, Loren had always badgered him for what she termed a “grander” apartment.

  She looked around with a rueful smile and shook her head. “No. My imagination isn’t up to anything so gaudy. This is Pou Mok’s place.”

  “The woman you’re possessing? The redhead?”

  “That’s right.” Loren smiled and took a step towards him.

  Gerald stiffened. Not that she needed any physical signs; his mind was foaming with fear and confusion. “Okay, Gerald, I won’t touch you. Sit down, we have a lot to talk about. And this time I mean talk, not just you telling me what you’ve decided is best for us.”

  He flinched. Everything she did and said triggered memories. The unedited past seemed to have become his curse in life.

  “How did you get here?” he asked. “What happened, Loren?”

  “You saw the homestead, what that bastard Dexter and his Ivets did to us.” Her face paled. “To Paula.”

  “I saw.”

  “I tried, Gerald. Honestly, I tried to fight back. But it all happened so fast. They were crazy brutes; Dexter killed one of his own just because the boy would slow them down. I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.”

  “And I wasn’t there.”

  “They’d have killed you, too.”

  “At least …”

  “No, Gerald. You would have died for nothing. I’m glad you escaped. This way you can help Marie.”

  “How?”

  “The possessed can be beaten. Individually, in any case. I’m not so sure about overall. But that’s for others to fight over, planetary governments and the Confederation. You and I have to rescue our daughter, allow her to have her own life. No one else will.”

  “How?” This time it was a shout.

  “The same way you were freed: zero-tau. We have to put her in zero-tau. The possessed can’t endure it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re conscious the whole time. Zero-tau suspends normal energy wave functions, but our souls are still connected to the beyond somehow, that makes us aware of time passing. But only time, nothing else. It is the ultimate sensory deprivation, actually worse than the beyond. At least in the beyond souls have the memories of other souls to feed on, and some perception of the real universe.”

  “That’s why,” Gerald murmured. “I knew Kingsford Garrigan was scared.”

  “Some can hold out longer than others, it depends on how strong their personality is. But in the end, everyone retreats from the body they possess.”

  “There is hope, then.”

  “For Marie, yes. We can save her.”

  “So that she can die.”

  “Everybody dies, Gerald.”

  “And goes on to suffer in the beyond.”

  “I’m not sure. If it hadn’t been for you and Marie, I don’t think I would have remained with all the other souls.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Loren gave him a hapless smile. “I was worried about the two of you, Gerald, I wanted to make sure you were all right. That’s why I stayed.”

  “Yes but … where else could you go?”

  “I’m not certain that question applies. The beyond is strange, there are no separate places within it, not like this universe.”

  “So how could you leave?”

  “I wouldn’t leave it …” She fluttered her hands in exasperation as she struggled with the concept. “I just wouldn’t be in the same part of it as the rest of them.”

  “You said there were no different parts.”

  “There aren’t.”

  “So how—”

  “I don’t pretend to understand, Gerald. But you can leave the others behind. The beyond isn’t necessarily the torment everyone is making it out to be.”

  Gerald studied the pale salmon carpet, shamed at being unable to look at his own wife. “And you came back for me.”

  “No, Gerald.” Her voice hardened. “We might be husband and wife, but my love isn’t that blind. I came back principally for Marie’s sake. If it had just been you, I don’t think I would have had the courage. I endured the other souls devouring my memories for her sake. Did you know you can see out of the beyond? Just. I watched Marie, and that made the horror tolerable. I hadn’t seen her since that day she walked out on us. I wanted to know she was alive and safe. It wasn’t easy; I almost abandoned my vigil, then she was possessed. So I stayed, waiting for an opportunity to help, for someone close to you to be possessed. And here I am.”

  “Yes. Here you are. Who is Pou Mok? I thought the Principality had defeated the possessed, confined them all to Mortonridge.”

  “They have, according to the news reports. But the three who arrived here on the Ekwan with you got to Pou Mok before they left the asteroid. They were smart choosing her; she supplies illegal stimulant programs to the personnel up here, among other things. That’s why she can afford this place. It also means she’s not included on any file of Guyana’s inhabitants, so she never got hauled in to be tested like everyone else.

  The idea was that even if the three from the Ekwan got caught on the planet, Pou Mok’s possessor would be safe to begin the pro
cess all over again. In theory, she was the perfect provocateur to leave behind.

  Unfortunately for the three of them, I was the one who came forwards from the beyond. I don’t care about their goals, I’m only interested in Marie.”

  “Was I wrong taking her to Lalonde?” Gerald asked remotely. “I thought I was doing the best possible thing for her, for all of you.”

  “You were. Earth’s dying; the arcologies are old, worn out. There’s nothing there for people like us; if we’d stayed, Marie and Paula would have had lives no different from us, or our parents, or any of our ancestors for the last ten generations. You broke the cycle for us, Gerald. We had the chance to take pride in what our grandchildren would become.”

  “What grandchildren?” He knew he was going to start crying any minute.

  “Paula’s dead; Marie hated our home so much she ran away at the first opportunity.”

  “Good thing she did, Gerald, wasn’t it? She was always headstrong, and she’s a teenager. Teenagers can never look and plan ahead; having a good time is the only thing they can think of. All she knew was that two months of her life weren’t as comfy as the ones which went before, and she had to do some work for the first time as well. Small surprise she ran away. It was a premature taste of adulthood that scared her off, not us being bad parents.

  “You know, I perceived her before she was possessed. She’d found herself a job in Durringham, a good job. She was doing all right for herself, better than she could ever do on Earth. Knowing Marie, she didn’t appreciate it.”

  When Gerald found the nerve to glance up, he saw Loren’s expression was a twin to his own. “I didn’t tell you before. But I was so frightened for her when she ran away.”

  “I know you were. Fathers always think their daughters can’t take care of themselves.”

  “You were worried, too.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes. But only that fate would throw something at her she couldn’t survive. Which it has. She would have done all right if this curse hadn’t been unleashed.”

  “All right,” he said shakily. “What do we do about it? I just wanted to go to Valisk and help her.”

  “That’s my idea, too, Gerald. There’s no big plan, though I do have some of the details sorted out. First thing we need to do is get you on the Quadin, it’s one of the few starships still flying. Right now the Kingdom is busy selling weapons components to its allies. The Quadin is departing for Pinjarra asteroid in seven hours with a cargo of five-gigawatt maser cannons for their SD network.”

  “Just me?” he asked in alarm. “Where are you going?”

  “To Valisk, eventually. But we can’t travel together, it’s too risky.”

  “I can’t go alone. Really, I can’t. I don’t know how to, not anymore. I can’t think right, not now. I want you to come with me, Loren. Please.”

  “No, Gerald. You must do this by yourself.”

  “It … it’s hard. There are other things in my head.”

  “We’re the only chance Marie has. Focus on that, Gerald.”

  “Yes. Yes, I will.” He gave her a grave smile. “Where is Pinjarra?”

  “It’s in the Toowoomba star system, which is Australian-ethnic. The Kingdom is anxious to keep them locked in to its diplomatic strategy. Their asteroid settlements aren’t very well defended, so they’re being offered upgrades on favourable financial terms.”

  Gerald fidgeted with his fingers. “But how do I get on board? We’d never make it into the spaceport, never mind a starship. Maybe if we just asked Ombey’s government if we can go to Valisk. They’ll know we’re telling the truth about wanting to help Marie. And that information about zero-tau would be useful. They’d be grateful.”

  “Bloody hell.” Loren regarded the pathetically hopeful smile on his face more with astonishment than contempt. He had always been the forceful one, the go-getter. “Oh, Gerald, what have they done to you?”

  “Remember.” He hung his head, probing at his temples in a vain attempt to alleviate some of the sparkling pain inside. “They made me remember. I don’t want that. I don’t want to remember, I just want to forget it all.”

  She came over and sat beside him, her arm going around his shoulder the way she used to do with her daughters when they were younger. “Once we free Marie, all this will be over. You can think of other things again, new things.”

  “Yes.” He nodded vigorously, speaking with the slow surety of the newly converted. “Yes, you’re right. That’s what Dr Dobbs told me, too; I have to formulate relevant goals for my new circumstances, and concentrate on achieving them. I must eject myself from the failings of the past.”

  “Good philosophy.” Her eyebrows rose in bemusement. “Firstly we have to buy you passage on the Quadin. The captain has supplied Pou Mok with various fringe-legal fleks before, which can be used to lever him into taking you. If you’re firm enough with him, Gerald. Are you going to manage that?”

  “Yes. I can do that.” He grasped his hands together, squeezing. “I can tell him anything if it will help Marie.”

  “Just don’t be too aggressive. Stay polite and calmly determined.”

  “I will.”

  “Fine. Now money isn’t a problem, obviously, I can give you a Jovian Bank credit disk with about half a million fuseodollars loaded in. Pou Mok also has half a dozen blank passport fleks. Our real problem is going to be your appearance, every sensor in the asteroid is going to be programmed for your features now. I can change the way you look, but only while I’m near you, which is no use at all. They can detect me easily in public places, especially if I’m using my energistic ability. So we’re going to have to give you a permanent alteration.”

  “Permanent?” he asked uneasily.

  “Pou Mok has a set of cosmetic adaptation packages. She used to keep changing her own face in case the asteroid police became too familiar with it—she’s not even a natural redhead. I think I know enough to program the control processor manually. If I don’t get too close, the packages should be able to give you a basic makeover. It ought to be enough.”

  Loren took him through into one of the apartment’s bedrooms and told him to lie down. The cosmetic adaptation packages were similar to nanonic medical packages but with warty bubbles on the outside, holding reserves of collagen ready to be implanted, firming up new contours. Gerald felt the furry inner surface knitting to his skin, then his nerves went dead.

  It took a lot of effort on Gerald’s part not to shy away from the ceiling-mounted sensors in the public hall. He still wasn’t convinced about the face which appeared each time he looked in the mirror. Ten years younger, but with puffy cheeks and drooping laughter lines, skin a shade darker with an underlying red flush; a face which conveyed his internal worry perfectly. His hair had been trimmed to a centimetre fuzz and coloured a light chestnut—at least there were no silver strands any more.

  He walked into the Bar Vips and ordered a mineral water, asking the barman where he could find Captain McRobert.

  McRobert had brought two of his crew with him, one of whom was a cosmonik with a body resembling a mannequin: jet-black with no features at all, not even on the head; he was an impressive two hundred and ten centimetres tall.

  Gerald tried to retain an impassive expression as he sat at their table, but it wasn’t easy. Their steely presence was conjuring up memories of the squad which had captured Kingsford Garrigan in Lalonde’s jungle. “I’m Niall Lyshol; Pou Mok sent me,” he stuttered.

  “If she hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here,” McRobert said curtly. “As it is …” He gave the cosmonik a brief signal.

  Gerald was offered a processor block.

  “Take it,” McRobert instructed.

  He tried, but the huge black hand wouldn’t let go.

  “No static charge,” the cosmonik said. “No glitches.” The block was withdrawn.

  “All right, Niall Lyshol,” McRobert said. “You’re not a possessed, so what the fuck are you?”

  “Someone who wants a flight
out of here.” Gerald exhaled softly, reminding himself of the relaxation exercises Dr Dobbs urged him to employ: cycle down the body and the brain waves will follow. “As someone else who deals with Pou Mok, Captain, you should appreciate the need to keep moving on before people start to take an interest in you.”

  “Don’t pull that bullshit pressure routine on me, boy. I’m not taking anyone who’s hot, not with the way things are right now. I don’t even know if we’re going to leave Guyana, the code two defence alert still hasn’t been lifted. Traffic control is hardly going to clear anyone for flight while one of those bastards is running loose up here.”

  “I’m not hot. Check the bulletins.”

  “I have.”

  “So you’ll take me when the code two is lifted?”

  “You’re a complication, Lyshol. I can’t take passengers because of the quarantine, which means you’d have to be listed as crew. You haven’t got neural nanonics, which means the line company would start asking me questions. I don’t like that.”

  “I can pay.”

  “Be assured: you will.”

  “And you’ll have Pou Mok’s gratitude. For what it’s worth.”

  “Less than she likes to think. What are you running from?”

  “People. Not the authorities. There’s no official trouble.”

  “One hundred thousand fuseodollars, and you spend the whole voyage in zero-tau. I’m not having you throwing up all over the life-support capsule.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Too quickly. A hundred thousand is an awful lot of money.”

  Gerald wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up; slow thoughts echoed in his skull, telling him that the sanatorium had been a much kinder environment than this. If I went back, Dr Dobbs would understand, he’d make sure the police didn’t punish me. If it wasn’t for Marie …

  “You can’t have it both ways. If I stay here then a lot of secrets are going to get spilt. You probably wouldn’t be able to fly to any of the Kingdom systems again. I think that would bother the line company more than taking on a crewman without neural nanonics; not that they’ll know I don’t have neural nanonics unless you tell them.”