The Omega Solution

by Peter J Evans

  Red waited where she was for the moment, watching the open bulkhead. She was at an oblique angle to it, and couldn't see much of what lay beyond. But the light there was dim, with an odd, flickering quality.

  Red could smell something, an aroma that had no place aboard a starship. Candles?

  She stepped out, and saw what lay in the next chamber. A smile of disbelief played about her lips.

  "You have got," she said, "to be snecking kidding."

  The room was large, and the lume-panels were turned down low. In the centre of the room was a long table, covered in an immaculate white cloth. The flickering light came from two candelabra on the table. It spun off polished silverware, plates and dishes and tureens, crystal glasses filled with dark red wine.

  The table was set for two.

  Red wandered forward. She opened a tureen, sniffed the steaming contents. Lifted a glass of wine to sip at it. She was, she realised, quite hungry. But not for this.

  "Show yourself!" she called out, suddenly. "Come out here and face me, you snecker, and I'll show what I really like to drink!"

  "In time."

  The voice had come from everywhere. It was a man's voice, amplified by hidden sounders, deep and smooth. Perfectly calm.

  Red put the glass down. "Where are you?"

  "Right now, I'm safe." There was a smile to the voice. "You're extremely angry, and you have every right to be. If I or any of my people showed themselves to you now, you'd tear our throats out. Once you've calmed down a little, I'll join you for dinner."

  "Nah." Red pulled out the chair nearest her and dropped into it, kicking her legs up to rest her boots on the table. "I'll just pretend I'm calm, then when you get here I'll tear your throat out anyway."

  "I hope it won't come to that. Are you sure you wouldn't like some refreshment?"

  "Like I said, come out and I'll show you."

  "The wine's very good. It's Gomorran. You've been to Gomorrah, haven't you."

  Red frowned. Who knew that? "Once."

  "I'm sure you have questions. Perhaps I can answer some of them for you."

  "Perhaps I can start ripping this place apart until I find out where you're watching me from." Red picked up a table-knife and examined her own reflection in its shining blade. "I woke up naked, you know? Finding out you've got vid-feeds in this place doesn't make me very happy about that."

  "I'm no voyeur, Durham Red. I'm just a man who knows how dangerous you are, and who values his own skin."

  She couldn't help but chuckle. "I'll bet."

  "I can only apologise for your extraction. It was a necessary evil, and I am truly sorry."

  Red put the knife back. In a way, the disembodied voice was wrong - she wasn't half as angry as perhaps she should have been.

  But it was also quite difficult to be annoyed at someone who, after the violence of her kidnapping, had placed her in such opulent surroundings. If Red was being given a choice between doing someone damage, and finding out what the sneck was going on, right now she'd prefer the latter.

  The former could come later, if she so chose.

  "Where are the boys?" she called out.

  "Your companions? I assume they are still on the Aranite community, unless they've left. I had no reason to harm them."

  "You'll have a reason to fear them, once they get here."

  Laughter. "There are very good reasons why neither an Iconoclast nor a member of the Tenebrae would appreciate my company very much. This isn't about them, Durham Red, it's about you."

  A door at the far end of the room slid aside, and a man walked in. Red jumped up, the chair clattering onto its back behind her.

  "I think," the man said, in the same voice that had issued from the sounders, "that it's time you and I spoke face to face."

  He was tall, and broad across the shoulders, solidly muscled in the way Godolkin was. His skin was dark and faintly metallic, like old bronze, and he wore a long robe of heavy black leather. The robe had sleeves that clasped tight around his wrists, and a high collar. Only his head and hands were exposed.

  His hair was cropped closely back to his skull, allowing the odd planes of it to show through. His eyes, watching Durham Red every step of the way, were featureless and as bright as chrome.

  This man was a mutant.

  Red glared at him. "You, pal, are either really brave, or really stupid."

  "You're not the first person to say that." He pulled out the other chair and sat down.

  "No guards?" She looked about. "What, are there guns in the walls? Shield generator at your end of the table?"

  "No." He picked up a bread roll and tore it in half. "I'll help myself to soup. Do you mind?"

  "So what's to stop me ripping your head off right now?"

  "Curiosity." He leaned over and took the lid from the tureen nearest him, began spooning thin brown liquid from it into his bowl. "Consommé," he said.

  "Looks like dishwater."

  "It's very tasty dishwater." He took a spoonful and sipped it. "Mm. Needs salt, though."

  "You're kidding me, right?" Red stalked up alongside the table towards him. "You drug me, kidnap me, haul me off to who-knows-where, strip me stark naked and steal all my stuff, and now you're just going to sit there and eat soup at me?"

  "No, of course I'm not just going to eat soup." He smiled at her, broadly. His teeth were as brightly metallic as his eyes. "There's a main course after this."

  She leaned over him, one hand on the back of his chair and the other on his shoulder. "Okay, pal, here's the deal. You reckon my curiosity is going to save your life? You've got ten seconds to prove it."

  "Ten?"

  She grinned horribly. "Nine."

  "Very well." He put down the spoon. "My name is Xandos Dathan. I represent an organisation called the Umbrae Nova, and we're going to help you end the war between humans and mutants forever. How am I doing so far?"

  Red opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. For a long moment she simply had no idea what to say.

  Eventually she turned away and walked back to her end of the table. She picked up the chair and sat on it. "Your dishwater's getting cold."

  Dathan picked up his spoon again. "Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?"

  "I'll let you know."

  "Do you remember what you said to the Tenebrae on Pyre?"

  They had left the dining chamber after Dathan had finished his starter. As it turned out, the luxurious surroundings were reserved for Dathan's personal quarters. The rest of the vessel, what Red had seen of it, followed the same pattern as most other starships - steel mesh decking, walls strewn with pipework and cable ducts, low ceilings set with caged lumes.

  "Not exactly. I remember I gave them a right bollocking."

  Dathan flashed his metallic teeth at her. "You told them they disgusted you, that they had gone insane with the desire for war. You walked out of the blood-shrine and told them to forget you."

  "Fat lot of good that did."

  "More than you realise." Dathan reached a circular bulkhead and paused there. "I know this, because I was there."

  Red's eyes went wide. "You were on Pyre?"

  "I was. I led a Tenebrae sect at the time. I had been having..." He paused. "A crisis of faith. I came to Pyre as a pilgrim, hoping to restore my faith in the Tenebrae cause with the blessings of the mighty Saint Scarlet, to let her fill me with righteous fire once more. As it turned out, of course, all we got was a human impostor and you, shouting us down." He touched a control, keying the bulkhead open. "You quite ruined the mood."

  Even thinking about Pyre lit a cold fury inside Durham Red. She fought to control it, especially as the hall in front of her was lined on either side by grey-armoured guards. "There better be a point to this, Dathan. I'm still highly pissed off, you know."

  "The point is," he said, stepping through the opening, "your words awakened the truth in me. I saw that the Tenebrae had become mad, decades of impotent fury eating away at the cult until it was
nothing but a congress of mindless butchers. When you re-awakened, all they could think to do was fall on the nearest human world and set it ablaze. Are those the actions of sane men?"

  Red scowled. "No one in this snecking universe is sane. You're all barmy."

  "Some of us became aware of that, on Pyre. When the Tenebrae scattered back into the shadows, I took my followers and left the cult."

  "Left?" Red stared at him. "You don't just resign from the Tenebrae! That would be like trying to leave the Vid of the Month Club - they'd come after you with baseball bats."

  "I think I understand your meaning, Durham Red, if not your words." He shrugged. "In any case, the cult declared me anathema. If their hunters ever catch up with me, I'll be slaughtered on sight."

  Red found herself smiling. "Oh, I get it! So the Tenebrae want you dead because you quit, and the Iconoclasts want you dead because you're still Tenebrae in their eyes! No wonder you don't want Harrow or Godolkin here."

  "As I said, I'm sure neither would find the situation agreeable."

  "Hm. And, don't forget, I want you dead because you covered in me glue and took my clothes off while I was asleep."

  "What can I say? I seem to be universally popular."

  "Okay, Dathan, where does this leave me?"

  They had reached another bulkhead. "I'll show you," he said, and keyed the lock.

  The bulkhead slid aside. Red saw what was behind it, and stepped forwards with a long, low whistle of appreciation. "Not snecking bad," she breathed.

  She was in an observation hall - in front of her, a long row of viewports looked straight out into open space. Red could see the portside flank of Dathan's ship sweeping away. It was big, she realised, battleship-class at least.

  The space outside was studded with starships. There must have been a hundred ships out there, probably more, everything from little frigates and corvettes right up to the massive, almost circular Tenebrae heavy cruisers she had seen in orbit around Pyre. Battleships too, surprisingly sleek and delta-winged for their vast size: Red saw one drifting past and recognised details on its sides from outside the viewports. She stood on one of those vessels now.

  Packs of tiny assault ships - Vampyrs, Harrow had called them once - darted amidst the bigger ships, drives flaring. "Okay, I'll admit it," Red said quietly. "I'm impressed. Those are some very nice toys you have out there... Holy sneck, what's that?"

  One of the cruisers had moved out of her field of view, revealing something even vaster. Far distant, beyond all the other ships, loomed a gigantic structure of rust-brown metal, a flattened, elongated egg that had to be more than twenty kilometres from end to end. It was nearly featureless, only showing a break in the curve of its hull where the drive bells were fitted. Dathan's battleship, huge though it was, could probably have flown into one of those engines and not touched the sides.

  "That," she said flatly, "is a big ship."

  "The Tisiphone," Dathan replied. "It's a troop carrier."

  Red looked sideways at him. "You must have a lot of troops."

  "I have. And believe me, I'm going to need them."

  "The Pan-Species Accord," said Xandos Dathan, "is on the brink of collapse."

  He had taken Red to the heart of the Emissary, his battleship-headquarters. There, protected by layers of sense-screened armour and a small battalion of armoured troops, lay the council chamber of the Umbrae Nova.

  The chamber was huge, hexagonal, a cell in some titan beehive. It must have taken up a sizeable part of the battleship's core, three decks high at least and wide enough to accommodate a small flight of Vampyrs. A six-sided table stood at its centre, its surface so smooth and polished it looked like a black mirror, and a swivel throne was set at each table edge.

  Red lounged uncomfortably in hers, across from Dathan. Three of his commanders were ranged around the table. One seat was empty.

  "The Grand Cabinet have known this for decades," he was telling her. "The Accord is based on the supposed equality of all worlds, but that's a lie no one believes anymore. There are ten times as many human worlds in the Accord as there are mutant colonies, but many are so weak, so sparsely populated that they cannot even support themselves. Most mutant planets are only admitted so they can support their human neighbours through tithe-extraction."

  Red shifted in the chair. She wanted to put her feet up on the table, the way she felt most comfortable when sitting, but it was on rails and wouldn't go back far enough. "So how come mutants are still second-class citizens around here? If there's that many of us..."

  "The Iconoclasts," growled the mutant to Red's right. He was a massive figure, his face a network of scars and open seams. Parmenas, Dathan had introduced him as. Ground-forces commander.

  "The entire system rests on a dagger's edge, and the Iconoclasts know it. They've used the knowledge to increase their own powerbase to insane levels - the Iconoclasts are supposed to be the protectors of the Accord, but to all intents and purposes they are the Accord!"

  "I kind of get that impression from them, yeah..."

  The mutant on Dathan's right leaned forward. He was fat and pale, with the face of an enormous baby. Round-lensed goggles covered his eyes. "A critical juncture has been reached," he said, his voice high and soft. "You, Durham Red, are in part responsible for this."

  "Ooh, I'm shocked. Never would have seen that one coming."

  "It's true, holy one. Pyre made them realise how precarious the situation is. The Iconoclast plot to destroy the Tenebrae there was ill-conceived and foolish, a wild chance that almost plunged the entire Accord into civil war. They know that now. They also know that the Second Bloodshed would have wiped out the galaxy, had it continued."

  "Hence the Conclave," said the last mutant. Sibbecai, his name was, and Red didn't like to look at him. His face was a nightmare of exposed teeth and gums, and battered blank skin above that. He looked as though someone had ripped most of his face away in the distant past and let scar tissue cover the remains without bothering to reconstruct his features. He spoke without lips, saw without eyes.

  "The Conclave," Dathan repeated. "We've been watching the humans putting it together for months. Hundreds of spies, we've had on this, ever since we heard the first rumours. Hundreds! We know who's going to be there, what's going to be discussed, when it's going to happen - everything."

  "All except where they're holding it," muttered Parmenas, drawing a glare from Dathan.

  "Sod where it is," Red snapped. "Try telling me what it is."

  "The future of the Pan-Species Accord."

  That was Sibbecai. Red suppressed a wince. How could he make a "sp" sound without any lips?

  "The Grand Cabinet has been planning the Conclave since the fall of Pyre," Dathan explained. "They are gathering the prefects of every world in the Accord, as well as a small army of tacticians, strategists, economists... It will be the greatest meeting of minds in Accord history."

  "And the greatest disaster for mutantkind." Parmenas slammed his fists down on the table. "The accursed Patriarch is going to use the Conclave to increase Iconoclast powers and numbers all over the Accord. This will be the stepping stone to complete Iconoclast control!"

  "Don't they have that now?"

  "Believe me, holy one, if you think it's bad now, just wait until after the Conclave."

  Red chewed her lower lip. "Let me guess. You've built up a private army, a fleet of what, a hundred ships?"

  "One hundred and fifty-two," the fat mutant interjected.

  "Yeah, whatever. And you're going to knock on the door, barrel in with however many soldiers you've got on that big Easter-egg of yours, and demand peace and justice for all?" She barked out a laugh. "Sneck, I've come up with some dodgy plans in my time, but you buggers have got me beat! You don't even know where it is."

  Dathan glared at her. "It's not quite as simple as that."

  "No? I'll tell you what's simple, honey. That Conclave is going to be protected by the biggest collection of Iconoclasts in histo
ry. You'll never get within a light-year, even with a hundred and fifty-two ships! If you're lucky, they'll blast you to atoms before you even see the planet. If you're not, they'll round you up and feed you to the Tenebrae for a laugh!"

  He stood up. "You know something, Durham Red? You're right. Even if we had the location of the Conclave, we'd never get past the Iconoclast forces. Our fleet is pitiful compared to the might of the Patriarch's space force. We'd be ripped to shreds in seconds - you think we don't know this?"

  Red leapt up too, all the anger she'd been bottling up since waking suddenly filling her up, spilling through her in hot, shaking waves. "Then why am I here, you stupid metal-eyed prat?"

  "Because the Iconoclasts are not protecting the Conclave. They're all too busy blasting the sneck out of each other."

  "What? What did you say?"

  "The Iconoclasts are at war with themselves, Saint Scarlet."

  That was a new voice. Red span. The door to the chamber had opened, and a sixth mutant was striding in.

  "Enostine," said Dathan. "My surveillance chief."

  Red blinked. Enostine was a woman, a head taller than Dathan. She was stick-thin, too. Red could, had she wished to, enclose the woman's waist with her two hands.

  The mutant nodded her smooth, bald head to Dathan, and sat in the empty chair. She swivelled it towards Red.

  Her eyes were huge, and all pupil, no hint of white or iris. She blinked slowly, like a cat.

  "One week ago, my spies reported some kind of radical restructuring among Iconoclast forces in this sector and three others. Entire garrisons leaving orbit and redeploying. We went on full alert, thinking that we had been discovered, or that the humans were launching a major offensive."

  "They weren't?"

  "No. The mobilisation coincided with some kind of civil war, of a very particular kind. We have no idea why, but it appears that the Iconoclasts have begun attacking each other."

  "You're kidding me."