The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Lodi is up there,” Gelai said quietly. “The other possessed are becoming agitated by the approaching cars.”

  “I don’t suppose it will,” Alkad shouted back. “So our arrangement still stands. You let Lodi go, and I’ll come with you.”

  “The arrangement, Doctor, was that you come alone. But I’m a reasonable man. I’ll see to it that you reach the Organization. Oh, and here’s Lodi.”

  He was flung over the safety barrier just as Ione’s guns started to demolish the windows and panelling. His screams were lost amid the roar of the explosive rounds. Arms windmilled in pathetic desperation, their motion caught by the strobe effect of the explosions. He hit the carbon concrete with a dreadful wet thud.

  “See, Doctor? I let him go.”

  Alkad stared at the lad’s body, desperate to reject what she’d seen. It was, she realized in some shock, the first time she’d actually witnessed somebody being killed. Murdered.

  “Mother Mary, he was just a boy.”

  Voi whimpered behind her.

  Baranovich was laughing. Those on the walkway with him joined hands. A plume of white fire speared down towards Alkad.

  Both Gelai and Ngong grabbed hold of her arms. When the white fire hit, it was like a sluice of dazzling warm water. She swayed backwards under the impact, crying out from surprise rather than pain. The strike abated, leaving her itching all over.

  “Step aside,” Baranovich shouted angrily. “She belongs to us.”

  Gelai grinned evilly and raised a hand as if to wave. The walkway under Baranovich’s feet split with a loud brassy creak. He gave a dismayed yell and made a grab for the safety rail.

  “Run!” Gelai urged.

  Alkad hesitated for an instant, looking back at Lodi’s body for any conceivable sign of life. There was too much blood for that. Together with the others, she pelted back to the relative safety of the metal support pillars.

  “I can’t die yet,” she said frantically. “I have to get to the Alchemist first. I have to, it’s the only way.”

  A figure stepped out in front of her. “Dr Mzu, I presume,” said Joshua.

  “Remember me?”

  She gaped at him, too incredulous to speak. Three other men were standing behind him; two of them were nervously pointing machine guns at Gelai and Ngong.

  “Who is this?” a very confused Voi asked.

  Alkad gave a little laugh that was close to hysteria. “Captain Calvert, from Tranquillity.”

  Joshua clicked his heels and did a little bow. “On the button, Doc. I’m flattered. And Lady Mac’s in orbit here ready to take you back home. The Lord of Ruin is pretty pissed at you for disappearing, but she says she’ll forgive you providing your nasty little secret stays secret forever.”

  “You work for Ione Saldana?”

  “Yeah. She’ll be here in the sort-of flesh in a minute to confirm the offer. But right now, my priority is to get you and your friends out of here.” He gave Gelai and Ngong the eye. “Some of your friends. I don’t know what the story with these two is, but I’m not having—” The cold, unmistakable shape of a pistol muzzle was pressed firmly into the back of his neck.

  “Thank you, Captain Calvert,” Monica’s voice purred with triumph. “But us professionals will take it from here.”

  The air on board the Urschel was clotted by rank gases and far too much humidity. Those conditioning filters still functioning emitted an alarmingly loud buzzing as fan motors spun towards overload. Innumerable light panels had failed, hatch actuators were unreliable at best, discarded food wrappers fluttered about everywhere.

  Cherri Barnes hated the sloppiness and disorder. Efficiency on a starship was more than just habit, it was an essential survival requirement. A crew was utterly dependent on its equipment.

  But two of the possessed (her fellow possessed, she tried to tell herself) were from the late nineteenth–early twentieth century. Arrogant oafs who didn’t or wouldn’t understand the basic preconditions of shipboard routine. And their so-called commander, Oscar Kearn, didn’t seem too bothered, either. He just assumed that the non-possessed crew would go around scooping up the shit. They didn’t.

  Cherri had given up advising and demanding. She was actually quite surprised that they’d survived the orbital battle for so long—although antimatter-powered combat wasps did load the odds in their favour. And for once the non-possessed were understandably performing their duties with a high level of proficiency. There was little for the possessed to do except wait. Oscar Kearn occupied himself by studying the hologram screen displays, and muttering the odd comment to his non-possessed subordinate. In reality he was contributing little, other than continually urging their combat wasps be directed at the voidhawks. The concept of keeping a reserve for their own defence seemed elusive.

  When the explosions and energy cascades outside the hull were reaching an appalling crescendo, Cherri slipped quietly out of the bridge. Under ordinary combat conditions the companionways linking the frigate’s four life-support capsules should have been sealed tight. Now, she glided past open hatches as she made her way along to B capsule’s maintenance engineering deck. As soon as she was inside she closed the ceiling hatch and engaged the manual lock.

  She pulled herself over to one of the three processor consoles and tapped the power stud. Not being able to datavise the frigate’s flight computer was a big hindrance; she wasn’t used to voice response programs.

  Eventually, though, she established an auxiliary command circuit, cutting the bridge officers out of the loop. The systems and displays she wanted slowly came on-line.

  Combat wasps and their submunitions still flocked through space above Nyvan, though not quite as many as before. And the blanket electronic warfare interference had ended; quite simply, there were no SD platforms left intact to wage that aspect of the conflict.

  One of the ten phased array antennae positioned around the Urschel’s hull focused on the Lady Macbeth. Cherri pulled herself closer to the console’s mike.

  “Is anyone receiving this? Sarha, Warlow, can you hear me? If you can, use a five-millimetre aperture signal maser for a direct com return. Do not, repeat not lock on to Urschel’s main antenna.”

  “Signal acknowledged,” a synthesised voice replied. “Who the hell is this?”

  “Warlow, is that you?”

  “No, Warlow isn’t with us anymore. This is Sarha Mitcham, acting first officer. Who am I speaking with?”

  “Sarha, I’m sorry, I didn’t know about Warlow. It’s Cherri Barnes, Sarha.”

  “God, Cherri, what the hell are you doing on an Organization frigate?”

  Cherri stared at the console, trying to get a grip on her raging emotions. “I … I belong here, Sarha. I think. I don’t know anymore. You just don’t know what it’s like in the beyond.”

  “Oh, fuck, you’re a possessor.”

  “Guess so. Not by choice.”

  “Yeah. I know. What happened to Udat, Cherri? What happened to you?”

  “It was Mzu. She killed us. We were a complication to her. And Meyer … she had a grudge. Be careful of her, Sarha, be very careful.”

  “Christ, Cherri, is this on the level?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m on the level.”

  “Acknowledged. And … thanks.”

  “I haven’t finished. Joshua’s down on Nyvan chasing after Mzu, we know that much.”

  “Okay, he’s down there. Cherri, please don’t ask me why. I can’t discuss it.”

  “That’s okay. I understand. It doesn’t matter; we know about the Alchemist, and you know we know. But you have to tell Joshua to back off, he must get away from Mzu. Right away. We know we can’t get her offplanet now our spaceplanes are gone. That means the Organization has only one option. If she’s dead, she’ll have to join us.”

  “Is that why Urschel and Pinzola were shooting at the ground?”

  “Yes. But that’s not all—”

  The timid, halting voice echoed around Lady Macbeth’s bridge. I
t sent something like cold electricity racing down Liol’s nerves. He turned his head to look at Sarha, who seemed equally stupefied.

  “Is she for real?” he asked, praying the answer would be no. Events seemed to be pushing them towards an inevitable active response. Despite his outward bravado back on the station, he had distinctly mixed feelings about piloting Lady Mac under conditions any more adverse than their current ones—though a rogue part of his mind was determined that Sarha would never know that. Egotism was obviously the opposite trait of his intuition, the Calvert family’s Achilles heel.

  “I knew her,” was all Sarha would say, and that reluctantly. “Beaulieu, can you confirm that ironberg’s trajectory?”

  “I will have to use active sensor analysis to obtain its precise flight path.”

  “Do it.”

  “We’re thirty minutes from Joshua’s horizon,” Liol said. Alternative orbital trajectories were flashing through his mind as he datavised the flight computer for possible vectors.

  “Nothing I can do about that,” Sarha said. “We can try calling him through the Tonala communications net.”

  “The net: bollocks. You know there isn’t a working processor left on that planet after all this emp activity. I can drop us down; if we skim the atmosphere we can be above his horizon in eight minutes.”

  “No! If we start changing our orbit we’ll be targeted.”

  “There’s nothing left out there to target us. Access the sensors, damn you. The combat wasps are all spent.”

  “They’ve deployed all their submunitions, you mean.”

  “He’s my brother!”

  “He’s my captain, and we can’t risk it.”

  “Lady Mac can beat any poxy submunitions. Take fire control, I can pilot this manoeuvre.”

  “Ironberg trajectory confirmed,” Beaulieu said. “Barnes was telling the truth. It’s heading straight at them.”

  “Altitude?” Sarha asked. “Can we nuke it?”

  “Ninety kilometres. That’s too deep into the ionosphere for the combat wasps. They can’t operate in that kind of pressure.”

  “Shit!” Sarha groaned.

  “Get positive, Sarha,” Liol demanded. “We have to get over Joshua’s horizon.”

  “I’ve got lock-on,” Beaulieu said calmly. “Two nukes, active seeker heads. They acquired our radar emission.”

  Sarha initiated the maser cannon targeting program without conscious thought. Her brain was churning with too much worry and indecision to actually think. Bright violet triangles zeroed the approaching submunitions.

  “Would Josh leave one of us down there?” Liol asked.

  “You piece of shit!” The masers fired, triggered by the heatlash in her mind. Both submunitions broke apart, their fusion drives dying.

  “We can beat them,” Beaulieu said.

  The imperturbability of the cosmonik’s synthetic voice chided Sarha.

  “Okay. I’ll handle fire control. Beaulieu, switch to active sensors, full suite; I want long-range warning of any incoming hostiles. Liol, take us down.”

  They were hammering on the maintenance engineering deck’s hatch. Its edges had started to shine cherry-red, paint was blistering.

  Cherri gave the circle of metal a jaded look. “All right, all right,” she mumbled. “I’ll make it easy all around. Besides, what would you lot ever know about fraternity?”

  After the hatch’s locking mechanism melted away, an equally hot Oscar Kearn dived through the smouldering rim. Any hope of retribution died instantly as he saw the figure curled up and sobbing dejectedly in front of the console. The soul of Cherri Barnes had already vacated the flesh, retreating to the one place where he was never going to chase after her.

  Monica finally felt as though she was regaining control of the mission.

  There were twelve operatives with her in the Disassembly Shed providing overwhelming firepower, and their evac craft was on the way. None of their processor blocks were working, nor their neural nanonics. Everyone had taken off their shell helmets so they could see; the sensors were glitched, too. The lack of protection made her nervous, but she could live with that. I’ve got Mzu!

  She applied some pressure to the pistol barrel at the side of Calvert’s neck, and he moved aside obediently. One of the Edenists claimed his machine gun. He didn’t protest when he was made to stand with his three compatriots, all of them with their hands in the air and covered by a couple of operatives.

  “Doctor, please take your hand away from that backpack,” Monica said.

  “And don’t try to datavise any activation codes.”

  Alkad shrugged and held her hands up. “I can’t datavise anything anyway,” she said. “There are too many possessed in here.”

  Monica signalled one of the operatives to retrieve Mzu’s backpack.

  “You were in Tranquillity,” Alkad said. “And the Dorados too, if I’m not mistaken. Which agency?”

  “ESA.”

  “Ah. Yet some of your friends are obviously Edenists. How odd.”

  “We both consider your removal from this planet to be of paramount importance, Doctor,” Samuel said. “However, you have my assurance you will not be harmed.”

  “Of course,” Alkad told them equitably. “If I am, we all know who I’ll end up with.”

  “Exactly.”

  Gelai looked up. “They’re coming, Doctor.”

  Monica frowned. “Who?”

  “The possessed from the Organization,” Alkad told her. “They’re up in the shed’s framework somewhere.”

  The operatives responded smoothly, scanning the metal lattice above them for any sign of movement. Monica stepped smartly over to Alkad’s side and grabbed her arm. “Okay, Doctor, we’ll take care of them, now let’s move.”

  “Damn,” Samuel said. “The police are here.”

  Monica glanced back to the hole blown into the wall where they’d entered.

  Two Edenists had been left to cover their retreat back to the cars. “We can deal with them.”

  Samuel gave a resigned grimace. The operatives formed a protective cordon around Monica and Mzu and started to walk back towards the wall.

  Monica realized that Joshua and the others were hurrying after them. “Not you,” she said.

  “I’m not staying in here,” Joshua said indignantly.

  “We can’t—” Samuel began.

  A portcullis slammed down out of the tangle of girders above. It struck two of the operatives, punching them to the ground. The valency generators in their armour suits were glitched, preventing the fabric from stiffening into protective exoskeletons as they should have done.

  Long iron spikes along the bottom of the portcullis punctured the suit fabric, skewering their bodies to the wet carbon concrete.

  Four of the operatives opened fire with their machine guns, shooting straight up. Bullets ricocheted madly, grazing sprays of sparks off the metal.

  Training compelled Monica to look around and locate the follow up. It was coming at her from the left, a huge pendulum blade swinging straight at Mzu. If her neural nanonics had been on line and running threat response programs she might have made it. As it was, boosted muscles slewed her weight around to pirouette Mzu out of the blade’s arc. They went tumbling onto the floor together. The blade caught Monica’s left leg a glancing blow. Her armoured boot saved her foot from being severed, but her ankle and lower shinbone were shattered by the impact. Shock dulled the initial pain. She sat up, groaning in dismay, and clutched at the ruined bones.

  Bile was rising in her throat, and it was very difficult to breathe.

  Something extraordinarily heavy hit her shoulder, sending her sprawling.

  Joshua landed on the ground right beside her, rolling neatly to absorb the impact. A burst of hatred banished Monica’s pain. Then the blade sliced through the air where she had been a second before, a tiny whisper the only sound of its passing. Pendulum, she thought dazedly, it comes back.

  One of the embassy operativ
es raced over to Monica. He was holding a square medical nanonic package and cursing heavily. “It’s glitched, too, I can’t get a response.”

  Joshua glanced at the package glove covering his hand. Ever since he’d come into the shed, it had been stinging like crazy. “Tell me about it,” he grumbled.

  Gelai joined them, squatting down, her face full of concern. She put her hand over Monica’s ankle.

  The original intensity of the pain had frightened Monica, but this was plain horrifying. She could feel the fragments of bone shifting around inside her skin, she could even see the suit’s trouser fabric ripple around Gelai’s hand—her glowing hand. Yet it didn’t hurt.

  “I think that’s it,” the bashful girl said. “Try standing.”

  “Oh, my God. You’re a …”

  “Didn’t you professionals know?” Joshua said evilly.

  Samuel dodged around the pendulum and crouched beside them, alert, his machine gun pointing high. “I thought you’d been hit,” he said as Monica gingerly applied some weight to her left foot.

  “I was. She cured me.”

  He gave Gelai a fast appraisal. “Oh.”

  “We’d better get going,” Monica said.

  “They’ll hit us again if we move.”

  “They’ll hit us if we stay.”

  “I wish I could see them,” he moaned, blinking away the drizzle. “There’s no target for us. Shooting wild is pointless, there’s too much metal.”

  “They’re up there,” Gelai said. “Three of them are just above the pendulum hinge. They’re the ones giving it substance.”

  Samuel jerked his head about. “Where?”

  “Above it.”

  “Damn it.” If he could have just switched his retinal implants to infrared there might have been something other than mangled blackness. He fired his machine gun anyway, sluicing the bullets over the area he imagined Gelai was talking about. The magazine was spent in less than a second. He ejected it and slapped in a fresh one—mindful of how many were left clipped to his belt. When he looked up again, the pendulum had vanished. Instead, a length of thick black cabling was swaying to and fro. “That’s it? Did I get them?”