Sensor data was coming in from the booms which were functional. The flight computer started tracking nearby stars to produce an accurate astrogration fix. Norfolk with its divergent illumination looked unusually small for a terracompatible planet. Joshua didn’t have time to puzzle that, the sensors reported laser radar pulses were bouncing off the hull, and a voidhawk distortion field had locked on.
“Jesus, now what?” Joshua asked even as the astrogration fix slipped into his mind. Lady Mac had translated two hundred and ninety thousand kilometres above Norfolk, way outside the planet’s designated emergence zone. He groaned out loud and hurriedly datavised the communication dish to transmit their identification code. The Confederation Navy ships patrolling Norfolk would start using Lady Mac for target practice soon.
Norfolk was almost unique among the Confederation’s terracompatible planets in that it didn’t have a strategic-defence network. There was no high-technology industry, no asteroid settlements in orbit, and consequently there was nothing worth stealing. Protection from mercenaries and pirate ships wasn’t needed; except for the two weeks every season when the starships came to collect their cargoes of Norfolk Tears.
As the planet moved towards midsummer a squadron from the Confederation Navy’s 6th Fleet was assigned to protection duties, paid for by the planetary government. It was a popular duty with the crews; after the cargo starships departed they were allowed shore leave, where they were entertained in grand style, and all the crews were presented with a special half-sized bottle of Norfolk Tears by the grateful government.
The Lady Macbeth ’s main communication dish servos spun round once, then packed up. Power-loss signals appeared across the schematic the flight computer was datavising into Joshua’s brain. “I don’t fucking believe it. Sarha, get that bastard dish sorted out!” Out of the corner of his eye he saw her activate the console by her couch. He routed the Lady Mac ’s identification code through her omnidirectional antenna.
An inter-ship radio channel came alive, and the communication console routed the datavise into Joshua’s neural nanonics. “Starship Lady Macbeth , this is Confederation Navy ship Pestravka . You have emerged outside this planet’s designated starship emergence zones, are you in trouble?”
“Thank you, Pestravka ,” Joshua datavised in reply. “We’ve been having some system malfunctions, my apologies for causing any panic.”
“What is the nature of your malfunction?”
“Sensor error.”
“That’s simple enough to sort out; you should know better than to jump insystem with inaccurate guidance information.”
“Up yours,” Melvin Ducharme grumbled from his couch.
“The error percentage has only just become apparent,” Joshua said. “We’re updating now.”
“What’s wrong with your main communications dish?”
“Overloaded servo, it’s scheduled for replacement.”
“Well, activate your back-up.”
Sarha let out an indignant snort. “I’ll point one of the masers at him if he likes. They’ll receive that blast loud and bloody clear.”
“Complying now, Pestravka .” Joshua glared at Sarha.
He launched a quiet prayer as the ribbed silver pencil of the second dish slid out of Lady Macbeth ’s dark silicon hull, and opened like a flower. It tracked round to point at the Pestravka .
“I’m datavising a copy of this incident to the Confederation Astronautics Board office on Norfolk,” the Pestravka ’s officer continued. “And I’ll add a strong recommendation that they inspect your spaceworthiness certificate.”
“Thank you so much, Pestravka . Are we now cleared to contact civil flight control for an approach vector? I’d hate to be shot at for not asking your permission first.”
“Don’t push your luck, Calvert. I can easily take a fortnight searching your cargo holds.”
“Looks like your reputation’s preceding you, Joshua,” Dahybi Yadev said after the Pestravka cut the link.
“Let’s hope it hasn’t reached the planet’s surface yet,” Sarha said.
Joshua aligned the secondary dish on the civil flight control’s communication satellite, and received permission to enter a parking orbit. Lady Mac ’s three fusion tubes came alive, sending out long rivers of hazy plasma, and the starship accelerated in towards the gaudy planet at a tenth of a gee.
Chinks of light were glinting down into Quinn Dexter’s vacant world, accompanied by faint scratchy sounds. It was like intermittent squalls of luminous rain falling through fissures from an external universe. Some beams of light flickered in the far distance, others splashed across him. When they did, he saw the images they carried.
A boat. One of the grotty traders on the Quallheim, little more than a bodged-together raft. Speeding downriver.
A town of wooden buildings. Durringham in the rain.
A girl.
He knew her. Marie Skibbow, naked, tied to a bed with rope.
His heartbeat thudded in the silence.
“Yes,” said the voice he knew from before, from the clearing in the jungle, the voice which came out of Night. “I thought you’d like this.”
Marie was tugging frantically at her bonds, her figure every bit as lush as his imagination had once conceived it.
“What would you do with her, Quinn?”
What would he do? What couldn’t he do with such an exquisite body. How oh how she would suffer beneath him.
“You are bloody repugnant, Quinn. But so terribly useful.”
Energy twisted eagerly inside his body, and a phantasm come forth to overlay reality. Quinn’s interpretation of the physical form which God’s Brother might assume should He ever choose to manifest Himself in the flesh. And what flesh. Capable of the most wondrous assaults, amplifying every degradation the sect had ever taught him.
The flux of sorcerous power reached a triumphal peak, opening a rift into the terrible empty beyond, and so another emerged to take possession as Marie pleaded and wept.
“Back you go, Quinn.”
And the images shrank back to the dry wispy beams of flickering light. “You’re not the Light Brother!” Quinn shouted into the nothingness. Fury at the acknowledgement of betrayal heightened his perception, the light became brighter, sound louder.
“Of course not, Quinn. I’m worse than that, worse than any mythical devil. All of us are.”
Laughter echoed through the prison universe, tormenting him.
Time was so different in here . . .
A spaceplane.
A starship.
Uncertainty. Quinn felt it run through him like a hormonal surge. The electrical machinery upon which he was now dependent recoiled from his estranged body, which made his dependence still deeper as the delicate apparatuses broke down one by one. Uncertainty gave way to fear. His body trembled as it tried desperately to quieten the currents of exotic energy which infiltrated every cell.
It wasn’t omnipotent, Quinn realized, this thing which controlled his body, it had limits. He let the dribs and drabs of light soak into what was left of his mind, concentrating on what he saw, the words he heard. Watching, waiting. Trying to understand.
Syrinx thought Boston was the most delightful city she had seen in fourteen years of travelling about the Confederation, and that included the sheltered enclaves of houses in the Saturn-orbiting habitats of her birth. Every house was built from stone, with thick walls to keep the heat out during the long summer, then keep it in for the equally long winter. Most of them were two storeys high, with some of the larger ones having three; they had small railed gardens at the front, and rows of stables along the back. Terrestrial honeysuckle and ivy were popular creepers for covering the stonework, while hanging baskets provided cheerful dabs of colour to most porches. Roofs were always steep to withstand the heavy snow, and grey slate tiles alternated with jet-black solar panels in pleasing geometric patterns. Wood was burnt to provide warmth and sometimes for cooking, which produced a forest of chimneys thr
usting out of the gable ends, topped by red clay pots with elaborate crowns. Every building, be it private, civic, or commercial, was individual, possessing the kind of character impossible on worlds where mass-production facilities were commonplace. Wide streets were all cobbled, with tall cast-iron street lights spaced along them. It was only after a while she realized that as there were no mechanoids or servitors each of the little granite cubes must have been laid by human hand—the time and effort that must have entailed! There were trees lining each pavement, mainly Norfolk’s pine-analogues, with some geneered terrestrial evergreens for variety. Traffic was comprised entirely of bicycles, trike scooters (very few, and mostly with adolescent riders), horses, and horse-drawn cabs and carts. She had seen power vans, but only on the roads around the outskirts, and those were farm vehicles.
After they had cleared Customs (altogether more rigorous than Passport Control) they’d found the horse-drawn taxi coaches waiting by the aerodrome’s tower. Syrinx had grinned, and Tula had let out an exasperated groan. But the one they used was well sprung, proving a reasonably smooth trip into town. Following Andrew Unwin’s advice, they had rented some rooms at the Wheatsheaf, a coaching house on the side of one of the rivers which the town was built around.
Once they had unpacked and eaten a light lunch in the courtyard, Syrinx and Ruben had taken another coach to Penn Street, the precious coolbox on the floor by their feet.
Ruben watched the traffic and pedestrians parading past with a contented feeling. Starship crews strolling about were easy to spot: their clothes of synthetic fabric were curiously bland in comparison to the locals’ attire. Bostonians in summer favoured bright colours and raffish styles; this year multicoloured waistcoats were in vogue among the young men, while the girls wore crinkled cheesecloth skirts with bold circular patterns (hems always below their knees, he noted sadly). It was like stepping back into pre-spaceflight history, though he suspected no historical period on Earth was ever as clean as this.
“Penn Street, guv’nor,” the driver cried as the horse turned into a road parallel to the River Gwash. It was the commercial sector of the city, with wharves lining the river, and a lengthy rank of prodigious warehouses standing behind them. Here for the first time they encountered powered lorries. A railway marshalling yard was visible at the other end of the dusty road.
Ruben looked down the long row of warehouses and busy yards and offices, only too well aware of Syrinx’s gaze hot on his neck. Mordant thoughts started pressing against his mind. Drayton’s Import wasn’t in Penn Street, it was Penn Street. The name was on signs across every building.
“Where to now, guv’nor?” the driver asked.
“Head Office,” Ruben replied. The last time he’d been here, Drayton’s Import had consisted of a single office in a rented warehouse.
Head Office turned out to be a building in the middle of the street, on the waterfront side, sandwiched between two warehouses. Its arched windows were all iron rimmed, and a large, brightly polished brass plaque was set in the wall next to the double doors. The cab pulled to a halt in front of its curving stone stairs.
“Looks like old Dominic Kavanagh is doing all right for himself,” Ruben said as they climbed out. He handed the driver a guinea, with a sixpenny piece for a tip.
Syrinx’s stare could have cut diamond.
“Old Dominic, one of the best. Boy, did we have some times together, he knows every pub in town.” Ruben wondered who his bravado was intended to reassure.
“Exactly how long ago was this?” Syrinx asked as they walked into reception.
“About fifteen or twenty years,” Ruben offered. He was sure that was it, although he had a horrible feeling that Dominic had been the same age as himself. That’s the trouble with crewing a voidhawk, he thought, every day the same, and all of them squashed together. How am I supposed to know the exact date?
The reception hall had a black and white marble floor, and a wide staircase leading up the rear wall. A young woman sat behind a desk ten yards inside the door, a uniformed concierge standing beside her.
“I’d like to see Dominic Kavanagh,” Ruben told her blithely. “Just tell him Ruben’s back in town.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I don’t think we have a Kavanagh of that name working here.”
“But he owns Drayton’s Import,” Ruben said forlornly.
“Kenneth Kavanagh owns this establishment, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Can we see him?” Syrinx asked. “I have flown all the way from Earth.”
The woman took in Syrinx’s blue ship-tunic with its silver star. “Your business, Captain?”
“As everyone else, I’m looking for a cargo.”
“I’ll ask if Mr Kenneth is in.” The woman picked up a pearl handset.
Eight minutes later they were being ushered into Kenneth Kavanagh’s office on the top floor. Half of one wall was an arched window giving a view out over the river. Broad barges were gliding over the smooth black water, as sedate as swans.
Kenneth Kavanagh was in his late thirties, a broad-shouldered man wearing a neat charcoal-grey suit, white shirt, and a red silk tie. His raven-black hair was glossed straight back from his forehead.
Syrinx almost paid him no attention at all. There was another man in the room, in his mid-twenties, with a flat, square-jawed face, and a mop of pale copper hair combed into a rough parting. He had the kind of build Syrinx associated with sportsmen, or (more likely on this world) outdoor labourers. His suit was made from some shiny grey-green material. The jacket’s left arm was flat, pinned neatly to his side. Syrinx had never seen anyone with a limb missing before.
You’re staring,ruben warned her as he shook hands with kenneth Kavanagh.
Syrinx felt the blood warm her ears. But what’s wrong with him?
Nothing. They don’t allow clone vats on this planet.
That’s absurd. It forces him to go through life crippled, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Medical technology is where the big arguments rage about what they should and shouldn’t permit. And wholesale cloning is pretty advanced.
Syrinx recovered and extended her hand to Kenneth Kavanagh. He said hello, then introduced the other man as: “My cousin Gideon.”
They shook hands, Syrinx trying to avoid eye contact. The young man had such a defeated air it threatened to drag her down into whatever private misery he was in.
“Gideon is my aide,” Kenneth said. “He’s learning the business from the bottom upwards.”
“It seems the best thing,” Gideon Kavanagh said in a quiet voice. “I can hardly manage the family estate now. That requires a great deal of physical involvement.”
“What happened?” Ruben asked.
“I fell from my horse. Bad luck, really. Falling is part of horse riding. This time I landed awkwardly, took a fence railing through my shoulder.”
Syrinx gave him an ineffectual grimace of sympathy, unsure what to say. Oenone was in her mind, its presence alone immensely supportive.
Kenneth Kavanagh indicated the chairs in front of his pale wooden desk. “It’s certainly a pleasure to have you here, Captain.”
“I think you’ve said that to a few captains this week,” she told him wryly as she sat down.
“Yes, a few,” Kenneth Kavanagh admitted. “But a first-time captain is always welcome here. Some of my fellow exporters take a blasй approach about our planet’s product, and say there will always be a demand. I think a little warmth in the relationship never comes amiss, especially as it is just the one product upon which our entire economy is so dependent. I’d hate to see anyone discouraged from returning.”
“Am I going to have cause to be discouraged?”
He spread his hands. “We can always find the odd case or two. What exactly is your starship’s capacity?”
“Oenone can manage seven hundred tonnes.”
“Then I’m afraid that a little bit of disappointment is going to be inevitable.”
/> “Old Dominic always kept some cases back for a decent trade,” Ruben said. “And we certainly have a trade in mind.”
“You knew Dominic Kavanagh?” Kenneth asked with a note of interest.
“I certainly did. Your father?”
“My late grandfather.”
Ruben’s shoulders sank back into his seat. “Hoh, boy, he was such a lovely old rogue.”
“Alas, his wisdom is sorely missed by all of us.”
“Did he go from natural causes?”
“Yes. Twenty-five years ago.”
“Twenty-five . . .” Ruben appeared to lose himself in reverie.
I’m sorry,syrinx told him.
Twenty-five years. That means I must have been here at least thirty-five years ago, probably more. Bugger, but there’s no fool like an old fool.
“You mentioned a trade,” Kenneth said.
Syrinx patted the coolbox on the floor by her chair. “The best Atlantis has to offer.”
“Ah, a wise choice. I can always sell Atlantean delicacies; my own family alone will eat half of them. Do you have an inventory?”
She handed over a sheaf of hard copy. There was no desktop processor block, she noticed, although there was a keyboard and a small holoscreen.
Kenneth read down the list, his eyebrows raised in appreciation. “Excellent, I see you have brought some orangesole, that’s one of my personal favourites.”
“You’re in luck, there are five fillets in this coolbox. You can see if they’re up to standard.”
“I’m sure they are.”
“None the less, I’d like you to accept the contents as my gift for your hospitality.”
“That’s really most kind, Syrinx.” He started touch-typing on the keyboard, looking directly at the holoscreen. She was sure her fingers couldn’t move at such a speed.
“Happily, my family has interests in several roseyards on Kesteven,” Kenneth said. “As you know, we can’t officially sell any Norfolk Tears until midsummer when the new crop is in; however, there is an informal allocation system operating amongst ourselves which I can make use of. And I see my cousin Abel has several cases unclaimed, he owns the Eaglethorpe estate in the south of Kesteven. They produce a very reasonable bouquet in that district. Regrettably, I can’t offer you a full hold, but I think possibly we can provide you with six hundred cases of bottled Tears, which works out at just under two hundred tonnes.”
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