‘You’d just get swarmed by the psychos on board. Half of whom you took down in the first place. They’ll have grudges.’
‘We don’t have to take them all out, we just have to hack the Templar sufficiently to allow the Basilisk to dock.’
‘And then I come on board and smack them all up, yeah?’ Talia asked.
‘No,’ the Mother said quietly, her voice cold and angry.
‘Your people?’ Vic asked Scab sceptically.
‘We’re not people,’ Scab told the ’sect. Vic noticed the Mother looking at Scab. He couldn’t make out the expression on her oil-like features.
‘With my skills and your knowledge of Church security protocols we’ll be able to stay alive long enough to hack the Templar.’
The Monk thought about this for a moment. ‘That only works if I’m on the Templar with you and Vic. Who’s flying the Basilisk, the nut jobs that live here?’ She turned to the Mother. ‘No offence.’ The Mother didn’t respond.
‘Talia,’ Scab said. Vic turned to stare at his partner. The Monk looked furious.
‘Hell yeah!’ Talia said. ‘Oh wait, I can’t fly a ship.’
‘You just said you used to be one,’ Scab pointed out.
Vic stood up, towering over the still-seated Scab.
‘No,’ the ’sect said. He could see where this was going. It had something to do with why Scab had been spending so much time merged with the ship’s smart matter.
‘Not this kind of ship,’ Talia said, ‘And I can’t remember any of it anyway.’
‘Trust me, you can do this. I will show you,’ Scab told her.
‘I said no,’ Vic repeated. Nobody listened. His feeling of resignation, the constant, hard-learned pessimism, was being replaced by something else: a feeling that he would normally control with drugs and tailored biochemistry for his own safety, but not this time.
‘You don’t engender trust,’ Talia said. ‘So, what? I get all the computer stuff in my head?’
‘No!’ the Monk shouted.
Talia turned on her. ‘I’m not a pet, you know? I’m not the ship’s fucking cat!’
‘I’ll take you into the ship and then you’ll understand,’ Scab told the girl.
‘I said no!’ Vic screamed and yanked Scab out of his seat, lifting him off the floor. Scab had his tumbler pistol in hand, the hammer pulled back, the hair trigger partially depressed. It was aimed at Talia. The Monk started to move to interpose herself between the gun and her sister, but clearly she knew she’d be too slow and froze. Vic was shaking with anger.
‘Why?’ the ’sect asked quietly to his erstwhile partner/captor. ‘Why?’ the ’sect screamed.
‘Who’s faster?’ Scab asked quietly. ‘You want to end this? We’ll end it now.’
‘Put him down,’ the Mother said, steel in her voice. ‘Now.’
Vic knew this was his time. He was so far beyond being frightened of Scab. He wanted to see what the stump of the human’s neck looked like.
‘Vic?’ Talia’s voice sounded small and frightened. He slowly lowered Scab to the floor.
‘I don’t care any more,’ Vic told his partner, flooding his system with calming narcotics. ‘Do you understand me? I don’t care.’
Scab looked over at Talia. ‘Of course you do.’ Vic followed his partner’s look. ‘When you really don’t, you’ll be free.’
‘You leave her alone, you understand me?’
‘You’ve nothing to threaten me with,’ Scab said. He glanced over at the Mother. ‘It’s all been done.’ The planetary avatar looked down. He lowered the gun. The Monk moved herself between Scab and her sister. Talia was crying and shaking.
‘I don’t think I can do this for much longer,’ the human girl managed between the sobs. The Monk was just staring at Scab with pure venom as she held her sister.
‘None of this matters,’ Vic said. Scab laughed as he re-holstered his tumbler pistol. ‘The Templar can’t get past the blockade,’ Vic insisted.
Scab took out his cigarette case, removed a cigarette, and lit it. Then he looked at the Dark Mother.
‘No,’ the Mother said simply. Only then did Vic realise that she had been quiet for the whole conversation because she had seen what was coming. Even Vic was horrified. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking. You’re talking about sacrificing a significant amount of the life of this planet.’ Scab took another drag of his cigarette. The tip glowed.
‘It’s my price,’ he told her.
‘Have you planned any further along than this?’ the Monk asked. ‘I’m intrigued.’ Scab ignored her. He just kept staring at the Mother, his mother, and smoking.
‘I don’t owe you anything,’ the Mother told him.
Vic saw realisation dawning on Talia. ‘How many people are on those ships?’ she asked, appalled.
‘Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands,’ the Monk said quietly.
‘Your need for revenge is not important,’ the Mother said.
‘You mean it’s not important to you,’ Scab said, and took another drag of his cigarette. Then he looked down, and tapped some of the ash off. ‘You need to decide what is important to you. If you want me to take part in this idiocy you’ve concocted then this is my price.’
Something occurred to Vic. ‘The Templar wouldn’t come anywhere near us after something like that.’
‘Things have changed since the war,’ the Mother admitted. ‘Their sensors will tell them that I won’t be able to do it again immediately.’
‘We can’t kill that many people …’ Talia started.
‘How many can we kill?’ Scab snapped, making her jump.
‘He doesn’t care,’ the Monk told her sister.
‘How many people have you killed?’ Scab asked the Monk. ‘But that’s okay because you had a cause?’
‘It’s not a justification, but it’s certainly better than doing it because you’re a selfish prick with less empathy than a stone!’
‘And that’s why you fucking lost. That’s why everything you care about burned. Because you tell yourself lies, you set yourself limits, so you can see your reflection and not hate it,’ Scab told her.
Vic took a step back. The last few weeks had been hard on Scab. People had done things he hadn’t wanted them to do. He was angry now. Genuinely angry. He seemed open, unguarded. It made him look raw somehow.
‘Well, learn to hate your reflection.’ Scab pointed up. ‘Those are your enemies up there. They destroyed your ships, your habitats, your precious fucking Cathedral, and killed your friends. And you don’t want to commit this crime because of some arbitrary limit on murder? Grow the fuck up.’ He turned to the Mother and pointed at the seething Monk. ‘How do you expect us to succeed at anything?’
The Mother stared at him. She too looked angry, like a god. ‘Do they know?’ Scab asked. The Mother just stared at him. ‘Do they know I’m back?’
‘Yes,’ the Mother said, with apparent difficulty. ‘They know and I don’t know how they know.’
‘Because you know. They can smell it. They’re hunting animals. That’s what you bred us for, right? You didn’t want to be a mother, you wanted to be a goddess.’ Scab spread his arms out wide. ‘Was I everything you hoped for, mother?’ He all but spat the final word.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ the Monk muttered in disgust.
The Mother started sinking into the floor of the ziggurat. Part of the wall split open to become a doorway. Scab stalked out of it. Vic could see the Monk staring out through the doorway, the fear on Talia’s face. Vic could feel their presence outside the ziggurat on his skin sensors, his antennae could hear them all breathing, but otherwise silent. Vic turned around. Scab was climbing up the ziggurat past the doorway. The ’sect could see them all pressed together. Human flesh turned to crude weaponry. Vic wasn’t sure why but he followed Scab out and climbed onto the steps of the ziggurat. Four of the walkways intersected at the stepped structure. There were thousands of them. All eyes were on Scab as he climbed to the to
p of the ziggurat.
Vic had calmed down now. It was strange. Moments ago he had no longer been frightened of Scab. Being here, Scab’s treatment at the hands of the Monk, had revealed Scab for what he seemed to be: a frightened little boy lashing out when he didn’t get his way. Scab had found a new level to climb to. Vic was frightened again. And this had only been Scab’s hobby as a teenager.
‘I have come back!’ Scab shouted. Cheering thousands answered him.
Mr Hat still couldn’t quite believe what he had just seen. Thick lances of plasma had stabbed out from the Cage that surrounded Cyst like searchlights sweeping the night sky for the orbital blockade. Ships, big ships, heavily armoured battleships, bubbled, glowed and burst. For a moment Cyst burned like a sun, so much brighter than the dying star that hung in the distance. Then all that was left was the afterglow and the wreckage circling the gas giant as it was slowly pulled into the planet’s gravity well.
Mr Hat was hissing, his maw wide open in surprise as his eyes compensated for the glare. This had all happened just over a minute or so ago. He became aware of Cyst being actively scanned on many different spectrums but he had the Amuser hold its silence. The scans had come from the detached search squadrons sent to look for Benedict/Scab‘s rogue ship and one other source. The Templar. As the glow subsided to reveal the gas giant surrounded by debris, the Amuser was picking up comms traffic but it was encrypted. Mr Hat thought they were Church codes but he wasn’t sure.
It was the single most destructive act he had ever personally witnessed. He was appalled but he had an erection as well. With a thought the Amuser started moving towards the gas giant. Though he would hold off getting too close.
Benedict/Scab was looking at Cyst as the glow diminished, laughing.
‘It’s a trap,’ Harold hissed. He looked rather natty in the three-piece, double-breasted suit. Benedict/Scab had always appreciated a good double-breasted suit, though he never wore clothing made of human skin himself. In his opinion, wearing skin that belonged to members of your own species was trying too hard. It looked good on Harold though, and after all, to the Templar’s lizard first mate a flayed human was just another dead mammal. ‘As soon as we get close they hit us with the same thing.’
‘Which wouldn’t be much of a trap,’ Benedict/Scab mused.
‘Cyst has lost about a third of its mass,’ the sensor operator, one of the few ’sects on board, told him.
Benedict/Scab thought it unlikely that the possessing Psycho Bank personality was a ’sect but he seemed quite content in the body, and all he asked for was kittens to play with when they captured feline children. He wasn’t popular among the crew but he was a capable sensor operator. An image of the heat flow through the S-tech Cage surrounding Cyst was ’faced directly into his neunonics. He was aware of receiving comms but studied the animated telemetry first.
‘It can’t do that again,’ the ’sect told him. ‘Even S-tech material couldn’t take it.’
‘It deals with centrifugal forces that should tear it apart. The whole thing defies physics,’ Benedict/Scab said. Unlike most people Benedict had actually studied physics. There was enough of him remaining for Benedict/Scab to understand the principles.
‘I think you underestimate the amount of energy that just ran through the Cage,’ the ’sect told him. Benedict/Scab was pretty sure the ’sect didn’t have a name. ‘For a moment it gave off more energy than some stars. That and the stress it’s under,’ the ’sect shook his head. ‘It will need to cool down. Also whatever it did used about a third of the gas giant’s mass.’
Benedict/Scab brought up an image of the planet. Telemetry was fed directly to his neunonics. It even looked smaller, though the Cage remained the same size. ‘If it did it again I think it would collapse.’
It was clear the days of Cyst being left in peace were over.
Various scenarios were unfolding in Benedict/Scab’s head from his ’face link to the Templar’s strategic and tactical simulation routines. Unless they were hiding a Church fleet in there, and if they were then they were very well hidden, he couldn’t see what Scab was planning. Besides, the Church had other things to worry about at the moment, like being hunted by the Consortium.
‘We have nothing to gain here,’ Harold said.
Benedict/Scab sighed. Sure, being a pirate sounded like fun but the reality was that you had to walk a fine line balancing the wants, needs, and often-difficult personalities of his psychologically-compromised crew. You also had to kill them to make a point sometimes. Harold was useful and bloodthirsty, but he was wondering if a new pair of boots wouldn’t rather elegantly make his point. Too speciesist? he wondered.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Remind me, Harold, you were captured by Mr Hat, weren’t you?’ His lizard first mate didn’t answer. ‘We’re going to move in closer. Keep as much of the planet as you can between us and those contractor squadrons and run as silent as you can.’
He opened the comms and saw his father/older self’s features. Even he was surprised by the feelings of hate they engendered. The image had clearly been shot by a P-sat. It was on top of one of the ziggurats. Benedict/Scab could see the denizens of Cyst crowding round his father.
They should be mine. The thought had come unbidden.
‘Let’s end this,’ his father/older self said, and that was it.
‘He can’t think I mean to face him one on one,’ Benedict/Scab mused. Though he had to admit he wanted his father/older self to meet him, to be in the presence of something purer. He wanted to slay a king in front of his court. It would impress the denizens of Cyst, but he knew neither of them could be trusted enough for that to be anything even remotely approaching a fair fight.
He ’faced a copy of the comms message to all the crew, along with a referendum asking them if they were prepared to go after Scab. Scab and Vic had taken down a significant number of the possessing personalities, and those tended to be the really dangerous members of his crew. He knew, however, that the referendum would be seen as a sign of weakness, and he would probably have to kill some of them. He sighed. Enlightened self-interest just wasn’t their thing.
22
Ancient Britain
Tangwen had spent most of her time in the Underworld. She was starting to get used to it, which didn’t feel right. People should fear the Underworld, even if warriors had to learn to embrace that fear to a degree. Still, it was better than having to deal with the other warriors back at camp.
Whenever she went into the caves with Selbach, Germelqart had to wait for them above with the Red Chalice. The magics of the chalice, wielded by the Carthaginian, hid them from Crom Dhubh’s wards. Germelqart had also found a way to use their own blood magic to lead them back to the surface, so they never got lost in the labyrinthine caves beneath the hills surrounding the valley. It was only in those moments, following the tiny lights through the caves, that she truly felt at peace with herself and the magics that had suddenly infused her life. However, both she and Selbach were sure that there was something else down here with them, something other than Crom Dhubh’s forces. They had both heard and seen movement. Something small and fast, that didn’t move like a rat, in a place where they had found almost no other life. Though they had managed to disturb a bear and a wolf pack on two separate occasions closer to the surface. It had been a shame to kill the bear, though the meat had been welcome, and the friendlier Brigante warriors had joked that she could become one of them. The carcass, even skinned and butchered, had been difficult to move. Unfortunately for the bear they had needed the cave.
Tangwen heaved herself out of the hole into the cave. Selbach was just behind her. She had dyed her clothes grey, as had Selbach, and both of them had painted their faces grey and streaked them with black. They looked like creatures of the earth, barely human. Tangwen was smiling, despite her aching limbs and shoulders. The smile faltered somewhat when she realised that Germelqart wasn’t waiting for them. She closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, the way t
hat Germelqart had taught her. She could feel the web of magical wards, subtler than those of Crom’s, stretching through the caverns below. There was nothing to suggest that the Dark Man had discovered their work.
Selbach was frowning, looking down at the rock floor. The snow encroached a little way into the cave. Tangwen could see Germelqart’s tracks leading out into the ravine that cut its way through the southern hills bordering the valley. There were no other tracks, which was a relief at least. It looked like he had just wandered off, which angered Tangwen. He was supposed to be keeping a look out for them, and not just with the chalice’s magics.
They had been working on the plan. Calgacus had been sceptical but had agreed to help. Guided by the gwyllion, the Cait warriors had left the warband, taking their chariots with them. The chariots had caused a great deal of difficulty for the Cait, much to the amusement of some of the southern warriors. They had also taken Twrch with them. The Parisi tribesman had been one of the survivors of the wicker man. He had been learning to work metal when the Lochlannach had taken him.
Anharad and some of the other warriors of position knew they were up to something, but Anharad trusted her and was content to leave Tangwen to it as long as she knew what was happening before Bladud returned. The sticking point, of course, was the Red Chalice. Nobody liked that it was out of the camp so much. Tangwen could understand their concerns. If the Lochlannach found them then there was a good chance that they would lose their greatest weapon. The Dark Man, however, seemed content to let them freeze and bicker among themselves.
Tangwen was starting to worry about Germelqart and the Red Chalice, though. He was inseparable from the chalice now. Even when not in the cave watching them through the vessel he would sit in his tent, blank-eyed, staring into its molten contents. Always quiet, the Carthaginian had become practically silent. She had wondered how much of it was being so far from his home, all his friends dead. For a moment she felt an ache as she remembered Kush.
Tangwen left the cave. She wasn’t sure why she strung her bow and notched an arrow. Her grey form stood out against the white snow as she moved through the naked trees. Selbach followed a little way behind. He looked ready to bolt at any moment.
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