The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.]

by Peter F. Hamilton

  The one thing it lacked was armour reinforcement. That made him uneasy at some deep level; his instinct was to fight back if they were cornered by the Olyix. Intellectually, he agreed with Yuri that a firefight would accomplish nothing, but that didn’t make it easy.

  As he pulled the suit’s front seal up, he saw Kandara – her back to Yuri – shoving a bulky pistol into her waistband before closing up her suit. They exchanged a knowing glance, smirking like kids putting one over on their parents.

  The Avenging Heretic’s hatch opened. Alik saw Jessika pause for a second on the rim of the hatch before she sealed her helmet and stepped down onto the hangar floor. Yuri followed, carrying the small biological life-support module that contained the nodule of Olyix neural cells entangled with the Salvation of Life’s onemind. Kandara stepped down next. Alik gestured to Callum, then took a quick look back with doubts filling his mind – too late, of course. They were committed now.

  The medical display splashing onto his tarsus lens showed him his heart rate climbing. He dismissed it and followed Callum across the rocky floor, unable to shake the sensation of vulnerability. The bulk of the Avenging Heretic blocked them from the other damaged ships lined up in the hangar, and he could see through the various feeds from outlying creeperdrones and sensor clumps that there were no quints anywhere near. Still, his anxiety didn’t start to diminish until several minutes later when they reached the fissure in the wall that led to the cavern.

  Somehow he’d misjudged the size of the fissure off the main passageway; the thick pipe trunks were taking up more space than he’d thought. Squeezing past them was something of a contortion act. Which means getting out fast just ain’t going to happen.

  Thankfully, the cavern past the egg tanks of fluid did match expectations – a dark, irregular space that was another couple of degrees colder than the passage. Alik lifted off his helmet and straight away saw his breath misting in the arid air. For the first time he breathed in the arkship’s raw atmosphere, wrinkling his nose up at the sensation. It was surprisingly dry for something produced by biological systems, although he could smell mild, exotic scents that confirmed its alien origin. It was also several degrees cooler than the air in the Avenging Heretic.

  Without really knowing why, he was ridiculously relieved by the pile of their equipment waiting on the uneven rock floor. Ten of the fake spider creeperdrones were standing beside it, along with a couple of the larger service creatures they’d used to deliver all their gear.

  They took off their suits and pulled on thick tunics against the chill. Alik made a mental note to produce a pair of gloves in one of the three small initiators they’d brought to the cave.

  ‘Are we ready?’ Yuri asked. ‘Okay then, let’s go.’

  Alik settled himself as comfortably as possible on one of the rock ledges and let his interface envelop his senses with the simulation. Once more, he was back on the fanciful bridge and watching Jessika activate the Avenging Heretic’s drive systems. The central display showed them the hangar, with the array of damaged transport ships parked around them. A couple of larger Olyix maintenance creatures were clinging upside down from a thick pipe trunk on the ceiling, mandibles munching away at dead fronds. In the back of his mind, the Salvation onemind was a burble of impulses, like a distant waterfall – there, but without being directly present.

  The Avenging Heretic lifted off the floor and swung around slowly, its nose a compass needle searching out the hangar entrance. There was nothing in the onemind’s flow of thoughts; the hangar’s perception simply didn’t register the movement.

  ‘Do you think we might just actually get away with this?’ Callum asked.

  Alik had to bark a laugh at the almost childlike optimism. ‘Not a fucking chance, my friend.’

  ‘The perception impediment in the hangar’s neuralstratum is holding up fine,’ Jessika said. ‘The onemind doesn’t know we’re moving. The other ships do, but it’s not their concern. Ships are semi-independent. I doubt they even have the mental syntax for rogue behaviour.’

  ‘Maybe we should have stayed on board,’ Alik muttered.

  The Avenging Heretic began to move forwards – at walking pace at first, then slowly increasing speed. Alik was mesmerized by the hangar entrance as the sublime light of the galactic core shone in through the tunnel, basting the rock with a rich solstice glow.

  ‘Ready to launch the Signal transmitters,’ Kandara announced.

  ‘As soon as we’re outside,’ Jessika replied. ‘I’m hoping there’ll be a moment when we’re clear of the rim and before Salvation notices we’re in flight.’

  The Avenging Heretic’s nose pushed at the invisible pressure membrane over the entrance, and Alik could have sworn he felt the artificially combined air molecules slithering over the skin of his own torso like the stroke of an oily feather as the ship passed through. Then they were in space, with the massive rock wall of the arkship behind them.

  ‘Now!’ Jessika ordered.

  The Signal transmitter vehicles were the best stealth technology Kruse Station could devise, combining human and Neána technology. The development team had utilized the concept employed by the Neána insertion ship to produce spheres four metres in diameter with a matt black body that was totally light absorbent. Internal heat sinks meant they maintained an ambient thermal profile, and their systems were shielded to prevent any electromagnetic emission. Instead of a gravitonic drive, they had an external layer of active molecular blocks, which meant the entire fuselage was a rocket motor with an exhaust of cold neutral atoms, which left only the faintest of traces. In theory, it should be no different from a gust of solar wind particles.

  Alik caught a brief glimpse of the five covert transmitters as they left their silos – and that was only because the ship’s sensors tracked their black outlines against the rock as they dropped away. His display came alive with the feed from the transmitter he was remote piloting. He triggered its surface blocks, propelling it further away from the arkship, quickly building distance and velocity. Then he cut the drive, allowing it to coast along inertly. The transmitter’s own sensors showed him the Salvation of Life receding quickly, its surface gleaming in the vivid silver light that ruled the star system.

  ‘Explanation of your flight required.’

  Alik’s limbs twitched with instinctive guilt as the Salvation of Life’s onemind queried the Avenging Heretic. Its thought came directly through the nodule of entangled cells. For now it was just a secondary level of consciousness; the arkship’s main routines weren’t even aware of the departure.

  ‘On course for designated repair station,’ Jessika replied, along with an identification code of a station in the ring that she’d picked up as the assessment of each damaged ship was being conducted.

  ‘You did not receive that designation.’

  Jessika increased the thrust of the Avenging Heretic’s gravitonic drive, allowing it to accelerate away at eight gees. The ship settled on a vector that aligned on the gateway. ‘Error,’ she answered. ‘Designation received and confirmed. En route.’

  ‘Incorrect. That course is not authorized. You are deviating. Return.’

  Alik could feel the timbre of the Salvation’s thoughts change as higher levels of its consciousness began to focus on the errant cargo ship.

  ‘It’s waking up to us,’ Yuri said.

  Alik thought he sounded amused, or maybe excited.

  ‘Following original designated instruction,’ Jessika insisted.

  There was a pause for several seconds, then: ‘What are you?’

  It was the Salvation of Life’s primary consciousness asking the question. Alik could feel the change, the enormous presence stacked up behind the query. Strange whispers began to slither out of its awareness, probing into the nodule . . . but Jessika blocked them easily.

  ‘Neána,’ the Salvation of Life declared.

  ‘Close, but you don’t get to ride the unicorn,’ she retorted.

  Watching through the
Signal transmitter’s sensors, Alik saw a dozen Deliverance ships abruptly break away from their escort formation around the arkship and accelerate hard in pursuit of the Avenging Heretic.

  ‘You are one of the human constructs sent to Sol by an abode cluster,’ the Salvation of Life pronounced. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Yuri told it. ‘How dumb are you? In what universe do you think anyone is going to answer that?’

  ‘A human. I feel your thoughts, the uncertainty behind your bravado. Your instinct is right; the Neána have lied to you. We are your friends; all we want is to bring you to the greatest gift life can achieve. You will know the God at the End of Time. We will carry you to that glory.’

  ‘We’ve died in our millions fighting against our own gods throughout history, and they don’t even exist. What the fuck do you think we’ll do to your god if we ever come face to face with it?’

  ‘I weep at your bewitchment by such dishonesty.’

  ‘They’re closing,’ Alik warned. The Deliverance ships were accelerating at fifteen gees, eating up the distance between them and the Avenging Heretic.

  ‘My turn,’ Kandara said gleefully.

  The Avenging Heretic released a cluster of Calmines from their silos. They used the same principle as Calmissiles: a fuselage that was ninety per cent portal, but without having a spatial entanglement to a portal inside a star’s corona, they didn’t have a plasma drive, denying them hypervelocity manoeuvring ability. Instead, they were equipped with a small active molecule section protruding from the portal fuselage. That provided sufficient thrust to fly them into the course of the Deliverance ships.

  Kandara didn’t have quite enough time to spread the Calmines wide enough. Only seven of the pursuing Deliverance ships struck them. Not that there was anything to strike. The holes in space sliced clean through the Deliverance ships in milliseconds. Seven violent explosions flared behind the Avenging Heretic.

  Kandara’s fist punched the air.

  ‘Oops,’ Yuri mocked. ‘I thought you’d cleared all the debris out of this star system.’

  ‘You achieve nothing by this,’ the Salvation of Life said.

  More Deliverance ships abandoned their escort duty around the Salvation of Life to chase after the Avenging Heretic.

  Alik switched on the molecular block drive of his Signal transmitter, as did the other four. Undetected, the dark spheres began to fly further away from the arkship, aligning themselves on the vast radio telescopes orbiting far outside the ring.

  More Calmines dropped out of their silos. This time they only intersected one Deliverance ship.

  ‘Shit. Sorry,’ Kandara grunted. ‘Missed.’

  ‘Come to us,’ the Salvation of Life urged. ‘We understand your panic and confusion. Let us welcome you into our home.’

  ‘Amp it up, Yuri,’ Callum said in an uncharacteristic snarl.

  ‘We will never surrender,’ Yuri said. ‘Know this: We will have our vengeance. If not today, then your reckoning will come before the heat death of the universe. Life on every planet will combine to thwart the evil that you bring. Your god will die amid pain and suffering as it sees you fall in flames.’

  ‘Not bad,’ Kandara admitted. ‘A bit Old Testament, but . . .’

  Yuri flashed her a grin and shrugged.

  Nine Deliverance ships were still in pursuit of the Avenging Heretic. One fired an energy beam. The power was reduced from the colossal output it was capable of – intended to damage, to weaken.

  The Avenging Heretic exploded in fury as Jessika released the magnetic confinement holding half a kilogram of antimatter. The radiation flash overwhelmed the fuselage of three Deliverance ships, which ruptured in a near-synchronous cascade of ultraviolence. Two more tumbled away, ruined. Dead.

  The brutal plasmasphere expanded, momentarily rivalling the galactic core’s luminosity. Then it began to fade.

  Alik watched it dissipate in silence, awed and disturbed by its force. Yet it was nothing compared to the power of the Olyix ships.

  ‘Sweet enough, as funeral pyres go,’ Kandara said. ‘I couldn’t wish for a better one.’

  ‘Jessika?’ Yuri asked.

  ‘I’ve switched the cell nodule’s entanglement to purely passive. We’ll still be able to perceive the onemind’s thoughts, but that’s all. There’ll be no more loading our own quiet queries into the neuralstratum.’

  When Alik reached for the onemind’s persistent background stream of thoughts, he found them muted. It didn’t entirely displease him; having the massive alien’s deliberations and memories weaving through his own brain had always left him on edge. Now all he could feel was the Salvation of Life directing a scan of the cooling ion cloud that was the remnants of the Avenging Heretic, its own puzzlement at how they had eluded it for so long, self-examination of its thought routines. A flicker of annoyance as it purged Jessica’s neurovirus contamination from itself, restoring full perception to the hangar.

  ‘Are we clear?’ Callum asked nervously.

  ‘I think so,’ Jessika said. ‘I can’t sense much suspicion in its thoughts. Of course, it’ll have analysed the neurovirus and formatted countermeasures, so we’ll never be able to use it again.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Yuri said. ‘Once we trigger the Signal transmitters, our mission is over.’

  ‘You mean: successful,’ Kandara said.

  ‘Yeah. Then we just have to keep our heads down and wait.’

  Alik let the bridge simulation dissolve and sat up. The cavern was a bleak contrast to the clean elegance of the bridge; even the Avenging Heretic’s too-small cabin was preferable. He hadn’t been anywhere near a non-urban environment for decades, not since his last mandatory Bureau survival training course in Alaska’s Denali Park – an area seemingly immune from the anthrochange warmth that had gripped the rest of Earth. A week shivering in a sleeping bag at night, cooking on a thermal block that either burned the food or left it raw, making snares that caught nothing, no showers, waterproofs that weren’t, colleagues trying to be jolly, which made him want to punch them, and thick snow covering everything. Snow, he’d discovered, was not the white Christmas ideal everyone loved; it didn’t make the excursion a fun-laden ski break. Snow halfway up a steep mountain was cold. It oozed through clothing, it made walking difficult, it hid treacherous ground that could twist ankles and break legs. It interred any dead branches that might have been used for a fire. Snow was shit. Now here he was, camping in a cave for what could be years; with a closed-loop waste recycling/food printing system that he really didn’t want to think about. But at least there was no snow.

  He walked over to the stack of equipment and switched on the food printer. ‘Who wants breakfast?’

  *

  They took it in turns to monitor the Signal transmitters as they flew towards their allocated radio telescopes. Each of the targets had been chosen because they had a dish that was aligned on the section of space where Sol was located. Positioned correctly, the vessels could use a dish to focus their broadcast back towards Sol – though by the time it had travelled fifty thousand lightyears, it was doubtful it would have the strength to be detected. Interstellar gas and the inverse square law would be severe debilitating factors.

  Whether anyone would ever detect it became their main talking point. Alik shouldered the monotony of such a circular argument of unknowns as inevitable. He treated it like a stakeout. You didn’t know the outcome, nor even when it would come, so you just waited patiently and tolerated your partner’s bullshit. That was provided by Callum, who’d decided their mission was now pointless.

  ‘Fifty thousand lightyears,’ he complained. ‘We expected it to be two, maybe three thousand at the most. We’re past the bloody galactic core here. We can’t even see Sol.’

  ‘The longer it takes, the more powerful humans will become,’ Kandara said. ‘Think how much progress we made in the last five hundred years. And we’ll have numbers on our side. The exodus habitats will expand expone
ntially.’

  ‘If they’ve got any sense, they’ll head out in the opposite direction. I would.’

  ‘Great idea.’ Yuri laughed. ‘And how do they know what the opposite direction is?’

  Callum gave him a glum look.

  ‘We’re committed,’ Jessika said. ‘All we can do now is wait it out.’

  ‘We planned on waiting for a year maximum,’ Callum said.

  ‘Before we knew where the enclave star system actually was,’ Alik reminded him. ‘Now we just have to make the best of it.’

  ‘Bloody hell, man, we can’t even go out of this cave.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Kandara asked sharply. ‘Go and surrender to the Olyix?’

  ‘We still have a mission,’ Yuri said. ‘Not just a mission – a purpose. When the human armada gets here, we have to show them where the five of us and all the cocoons are. That’s what we focus on; that’s all we focus on. Anything else is crap.’

  ‘A-men to that,’ Alik agreed – even though he knew it was all hopeless. A hundred thousand years! Je-zus.

  After ten days, the Signal transmitter spheres were closing on the giant radio telescopes. They were just in time. The Salvation of Life was about fifteen hours out from the gateway. More than half of the sensor clumps they’d placed on the arkship’s exterior had been lost. After the Avenging Heretic had exploded, the onemind had dispatched thirty quints in armour suits to scour the hangar for any further sign of human subterfuge. They went into every ship, no matter what condition it was in – a sight that put Alik in mind of SWAT teams busting into nark labs back in the day. Everything was suspect.

  The Salvation of Life proved him right about that soon enough. After the search parties departed, Alik perceived the onemind’s orders without any need to concentrate on the disparate threads murmuring away in the back of his head. This requirement was clear and singular. Every ship in the hangar was ordered off the arkship. They were given a trajectory, and in each case it was one that sent them down into the huge star’s corona.