The Night's Dawn Trilogy

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Excellent. I will now make them available to you.

  She steeled herself, foolish that it was, clenching her stomach muscles and fisting her hands.

  Look at the owl, Wing-Tsit Chong instructed. Tell me its name.

  The owl blinked at her, and half extended its wings. She stared at the flecked pattern of ochre and hazel feathers. They were running like liquid, becoming midnight-blue and purple. “Oenone!” she shouted. Pernik island rushed towards her at a speed which made her grasp the balcony rail in fright.

  Please don’t, Syrinx, Oenone asked. The deluge of misery and longing entwined with that simple request made her eyes brim with tears. Don’t leave me again.

  Never. Never ever ever ever, beloved. Her whole body was trembling in reaction to the years of memory yawning open in her mind. And right at the end, the last before stinking darkness had grasped at her, most vivid of all, the dungeon and its torturers.

  Syrinx?

  I’m here, she reassured the voidhawk unsteadily. It’s okay, I’m fine.

  You saved me from them.

  How could I not?

  I love you.

  And I you.

  I was right, Wing-Tsit Chong said.

  When Syrinx raised her head she saw the old man’s face smiling softly, the multiplying wrinkles aging him another decade. Sir?

  To do what I did all those centuries ago. To allow people to see the love and the sourness which lives in all of us. Only then can we come to terms with what we are. You are living proof of that, young Syrinx. I thank you for that. Now open your eyes.

  They are open.

  He sighed theatrically. So pedantic. Then close them.

  Syrinx opened her eyes to look up at a sky-blue ceiling. The dark blobs around the edges of her vision field resolved into three terribly anxious faces bending over her.

  “Hello, Mother,” she said. It was very difficult to talk, and her body felt as though it were wrapped in a shrunken ship-tunic.

  Athene started crying.

  * * *

  There were fifteen holoscreens in the editing suite, arranged in a long line along one wall. All of them were switched on, and the variety of images they displayed was enormous, ranging from a thousand-kilometre altitude view of Amarisk with the red cloud bands mirroring the Juliffe tributary network, to the terrifyingly violent starship battle in orbit above Lalonde; and from Reza Malin’s mercenaries flattening the village of Pamiers, to a flock of overexcited young children charging out of a homestead cabin to greet the arrival of the hovercraft.

  Out of the five people sitting at the editing suite’s table, four of them stared at the screens with the kind of nervous enthusiasm invariably suffered by voyeurs of suffering on a grand scale, where the sheer spectacle of events overcame the agony of any individual casualty. In the middle of her colleagues, Kelly regarded her work with a detachment which was mainly derived from a suppressor program her neural nanonics were running.

  “We can’t cut anything else,” Kate Elvin, the senior news editor, protested.

  “I don’t like it,” said Antonio Whitelocke. He was the head of Collins’s Tranquillity office, a sixty-year career staffer who had plodded his way to the top from the Politics and Economics division. An excellent choice for Tranquillity, but hardly empathic with young rover reporters like Kelly Tirrel. Her Lalonde report scared him shitless. “You just can’t have a three hour news item.”

  “Grow some bollocks,” Kelly snapped. “Three hours is just dip-in highlights.”

  “Lowlights,” Antonio muttered, glaring at his turbulent new megastar. Her skinhead hairstyle was devastatingly intimidating, and he’d heard all about poor Garfield Lunde. Marketing always complained about the use of non-mainstream image anchors. When he thought of that pretty, feminine young woman who used to present the breakfast round-up just last month he could only worry that one of the possessed had sneaked back from Lalonde after all.

  “The balance is perfect,” Kate said. “We’ve incorporated the fundamentals of the doomed mission, and even managed to end on an upbeat note with the rescue. That was a stroke of sheer brilliance, Kelly.”

  “Well, gee, thanks. I would never have gone with Horst and the mercs back to the homestead unless it made a better report.”

  Kate sailed on serenely through the sarcasm; unlike Antonio she’d been a rover once, which had included a fair share of combat assignments. “This edit will satisfy both our corporate objectives, Antonio. First off, the rumour circuit has been overheating ever since Lady Macbeth came back; Marketing hasn’t even needed to advertise our evening news slot. Everybody in Tranquillity is going to access us tonight—I’ve heard the opposition are just going to run soap repeats while Kelly’s on. And once our audience access they aren’t going to stop. We’re not just giving them sensenviron impressions of a war, we’ve got a whole story to tell them here. That always hooks them. Our advertising premium for this is going to be half a million fuseodollars for a thirty-second slot.”

  “For one show,” Antonio grumbled.

  “More than one, that’s the beauty. Sure, everyone is going to make a flek of tonight. But Kelly brought back over thirty-six hours of her own fleks, and then we’ve got the recordings taken from Lady Macbeth’s sensors from the moment they emerged in the Lalonde system. We can milk this for a month with specialist angle interviews, documentaries, and current affairs analysis panels. We’ve won the ratings war for the whole goddamn year, and we did it on the cheap.”

  “Cheap! Do you know what we paid that bloody Lagrange Calvert for those sensor recordings?”

  “Cheap,” Kate insisted. “Tonight alone is going to pay for those. And with universal distribution rights we’ll quadruple Collins group profits.”

  “If we can ever get it distributed,” Antonio said.

  “Sure we can. Have you accessed the civil starflight prohibition order? It just prevents docking, not departure. Blackhawks can simply stay inside a planet’s emergence zone and datavise a copy to our local office. We’ll have to pay the captains a little more, but not much, because they’re losing revenue sitting on the endcap ledges. This can work. It’ll be head office seats for us after this.”

  “What, after this?” Kelly said.

  “Come on, Kelly.” Kate squeezed her shoulder. “We know it was rough, we felt it for ourselves. But the quarantine is going to stop the possessed from spreading, and now we’re alert to the problem the security forces can contain them if there is an outbreak. They won on Lalonde because it’s so damn backwards.”

  “Oh, sure.” Kelly was operating on stimulant programs alone now, fatigue toxin antidote humming melodically in her head. “Saving the galaxy is a breeze now we know. Hell, it’s only the dead we’re up against after all.”

  “If you’re not up to this, Kelly, then say so,” Antonio said, then played his mastercard. “We can use another anchor. Kirstie McShane?”

  “That bitch!”

  “So we can go ahead as scheduled, can we?”

  “I want to put in more of Pamiers, and Shaun Wallace. Those are the kind of events which will make people more aware of the situation.”

  “Wallace is depressing, he spent that entire interview telling you that the possessed couldn’t be beaten.”

  “Damn right. Shaun’s vital, he tells us what we really need to know, to face up to the real problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “Death. Everyone’s going to die, Antonio, even you.”

  “No, Kelly, I can’t sanction this sort of slant. It’s as bad as that Tyrathca Sleeping God ceremony you recorded.”

  “I shouldn’t have let you cut that out. Nobody even knew the Tyrathca had a religion before.”

  “Xenoc customs are hardly relevant at a time like this,” he said.

  “Kelly, we can use that Tyrathca segment in a documentary at a later date,” Kate said. “Right now we need to finalize the edit. Christ, you’re on-line in another forty minutes.”

  “You want to k
eep me sweet, then put in all of Shaun’s interview.”

  “We’ve got half of it,” Antonio said. “All the salient points are covered.”

  “Hardly. Look, we have got to bring home to people what possession is really all about, the meaning behind the act,” Kelly said. “So far all the majority of Confederation citizens have had is this poxy official warning from the Assembly. It’s an abstract, a problem on another planet. People have to learn it’s not that simple, that there’s more to this disaster than simple physical security. We have to deal with the philosophical issues as well.”

  Antonio pressed the palm of his hand onto his brow, wincing.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Kelly asked hotly. Her arm waved at the holoscreens with their damning images. “Didn’t you access any of this? Don’t you understand? We have to get this across to people. I can do that for you. Not Kirstie blowbrain McShane. I was there, I can make it more real for anyone who accesses the report.”

  Antonio looked at the holoscreen which showed Pat Halahan running through the smoky ruins of Pamiers, blasting his bizarre attackers to shreds of gore. “Great. Just what we need.”

  * * *

  This just wasn’t the way Ione had expected it to go. Joshua hadn’t even looked at her bedroom door when they arrived back at the apartment, let alone show any eagerness. There had been times with him when she hadn’t made it to the bed before her skirt was up around her waist.

  Yet somehow she knew this wasn’t entirely due to the traumas of the mission. He was intent and troubled, not frightened. Very unfamiliar territory as far as Joshua was concerned.

  He’d simply had a shower and a light supper, then settled down in her big settee. When she sat beside him she was too uncertain about the reaction to even rest her hand on his arm.

  I wonder if it’s that girl on Norfolk? she asked dubiously.

  He has endured some difficult times, Tranquillity answered. You must expect his usual behaviour to be toned down.

  Not like this. I can see he’s been shaken up, but this is more.

  The human mind is constantly maturing. External events dictate the speed of the maturation. If he has begun to think harder for himself because of Lalonde, surely this is no bad thing?

  Depends what you want from him. He was so perfect for me before. So very uncomplicated, the roguish charmer who would never try to claim me.

  I believe you also mentioned something about sex on occasion.

  Yeah, all right, that too. It was great, and completely guilt free. I picked him up, remember? What more could a girl with my kind of responsibilities want? He was someone who was never going to try and interfere with my duties as the Lord of Ruin. Politics simply didn’t interest him.

  A husband would be preferable to a casual lover. Someone who is always there for you.

  You’re my husband.

  You love me, and I love you; it could never be anything else since I gave birth to you. But you are still human, you need a human companion. Look at voidhawk captains, the perfect example of mental symbiosis.

  I know. Maybe I’m just feeling jealous.

  Of the Norfolk girl? Why? You know how many lovers Joshua has had.

  Not of her. Ione looked at Joshua’s profile as he stared out of the living room’s big window. Of me. Me a year ago. The old story, you never know what you have until it’s gone.

  He is right next to you. Reach out. I am sure he needs comfort as much as you.

  He’s not there, not anymore. Not my original Joshua. Did you see that flying he did? Gaura’s memory of the Lagrange stunt nearly gave me a heart attack. I never realized just how good a captain he is. How could I ever take that away from him? He lives for space, for flying Lady Mac and what that can give him. Remember that last argument we had before he left for Lalonde? I think he was right. He’s achieved his métier. Flying is sequenced into his genes the way dictatorship is in mine. I can’t take that away from him any more than he could take you away from me.

  I think you may be stretching the metaphor slightly.

  Maybe. We were young, and we had fun, and it was lovely. I’ve got the memories.

  He had fun. You are pregnant. He has responsibilities to the child.

  Does he? I don’t think mothers require a big tough hunter gatherer to support them nowadays. And monogamy becomes progressively more difficult the longer we live. Geneering has done more to change the old till death do us part concept than any social radicalism.

  Doesn’t your child deserve a loving environment?

  My baby will have a loving environment. How can you even question that?

  I do not question your intentions. I am simply pointing out the practicalities of the situation. At the moment you are unable to provide the child with a complete family.

  That’s very reactionary.

  I admit I am arguing on the extreme. I am not a fundamentalist, I simply wish to concentrate your thoughts. Everything else in your life has been planned and accounted for, the child has not. Conception is something you have done all for yourself. I do not wish it to become a mistake. I love you too much for that.

  Father had other children.

  Who were given to the Edenists so that they would be brought up in the greatest possible family environment. A whole world of family.

  She almost laughed out loud. Imagine that, Saldanas became Edenists. We made the transition in the end. Does King Alastair know about that?

  You are ducking the issue, Ione. One child of the Lord of Ruin is brought up with me as a parental, the heir. The others are not. As a parent you have a responsibility to their future.

  Are you saying I’ve been irresponsible conceiving this child?

  Only you can answer that. Were you depending on Joshua to be a stay-at-home father? Even then you must have known how unlikely that was.

  God, all this argument just because Joshua looks moody.

  I am sorry. I have upset you.

  No. You’ve done what you wanted to do, made me think. For some of us it’s painful, especially if you’re like me and hadn’t really considered the consequences of your actions. It gets me all resentful and defensive. But I’ll do the best for my child.

  I know you will, Ione.

  She blushed at the tenderness of the mental tone. Then she leaned against Joshua. “I was worried while you were gone,” she said.

  He took a sip of his Norfolk Tears. “You were lucky. I was scared shitless most of the time.”

  “Yes. Lagrange Calvert.”

  “Jesus, don’t you start.”

  “If you didn’t want the publicity, you shouldn’t have sold Lady Mac’s sensor recordings to Collins.”

  “It’s hard to say no to Kelly.”

  Ione squinted at him. “So I gather.”

  “I meant: it’s hard to refuse that kind of money. Especially given my situation. The fee I got from Terrance Smith isn’t going to cover Lady Mac’s repairs. And I can’t see the Lalonde Development Company ever handing over the balance on our contract, given there isn’t a Lalonde left to develop anymore. But the money I got from Collins will cover everything, and leave me happily in the black.”

  “Not forgetting the money you made on the Norfolk run.”

  “Yeah, that too. But I didn’t want to break into that, it’s kind of like a reserve I’m holding back for when everything settles down again.”

  “My hero optimist. Do you think the universe is going to settle down?”

  Joshua didn’t like the way the conversation was progressing. He knew her well enough now; she was steering, hoping to angle obliquely into the subject she wanted to discuss. “Who knows? Are we going to finish up talking about Dominique?”

  Ione raised her head from his shoulder to give him a puzzled glance. “No. What made you ask that?”

  “Not sure. I thought you wanted to talk about us, and what happens after. Dominique and the Vasilkovsky line played a heavy part in my original plans from here on in.”

  “There isn
’t going to be an after, Joshua, not in the sense of returning to the kind of existence we had before. Knowing there’s an afterlife is going to tilt people’s perception on life for ever.”

  “Yeah. It is pretty deep when you think about it.”

  “That’s your considered in-depth analysis of the situation is it?” For a moment she thought she’d gone and wounded him. But he just gave a gaunt smile. Not angry.

  “Yeah,” he said, quiet and serious. “It’s deep. I had three bloody narrow escapes inside two days on that Lalonde mission. If I’d made one mistake, Ione, just one, I’d be dead now. Only I wouldn’t, as we now know, I’d be trapped in the beyond. And if Shaun Wallace was telling the truth—and I suspect he was—then I’d be screaming silently to be let back in no matter what the cost or who had to pay it.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Yes. I sent Warlow to his death. I think I knew that even before he went out of the airlock. And now he’s out there, or in there—somewhere, with all the other souls. He might even be watching us now, begging to be given sensation. The trouble with that is, I do owe him.” Joshua put his head back on the silk cushions, staring up at the ceiling. “Do I owe him big enough for that, though? Jesus.”

  “If he was your friend, he wouldn’t ask.”

  “Maybe.”

  Ione sat up and reached for the bottle to pour herself another measure of Norfolk Tears.

  I’m going to ask him, she told Tranquillity.

  Surely you are not about to ask for my blessing?

  No. But I’d welcome your opinion.

  Very well. I believe he has the necessary resources to complete the task; but then he always has. Whether he is the most desirable candidate still presents me with something of a dilemma. I acknowledge he is maturing; and he would not knowingly betray you. Impetuosity does weigh against him, however.

  Yes. Yet I value that trait above all.

  I am aware of this. I even accept it, when it applies to your first child and my future. But do you have the right to make that gamble when it concerns the Alchemist?

  Maybe not. Although there might be a way around it. And I have simply got to do something. “Joshua?”