“I’ll get you out.”
Yeah, and whose help are you going to need for that?
“How?” Tatiana asked.
“I’ll be honest. I don’t know. But I’ll find a way. I owe you and Anastasia that much.”
Bravo, Sir Galahad. In the meantime, three ships have arrived.
So?
So they’re from New California, a frigate and two combat-capable traders. I think our current status quo might be changing.
* * *
The voidhawks on observation duty perceived the three Adamist starships emerge from their ZTT jump twelve thousand kilometres out from Valisk. As their thermo-dump panels, sensor clusters, and communications arrays deployed, the voidhawks started to pick up high-bandwidth microwave transmissions. The ships were beaming out news reports all over the Srinagar system, telling everyone who was interested how well the Organization was doing, and how New California was prospering. There were several long items on the possessed curing injuries and broken bones in the non-possessed.
The one thing the voidhawks couldn’t intercept was the signal between the ships and Valisk. Whatever was said, it resulted in eight hellhawks arriving to escort the New California starships to the habitat’s spaceport.
Alarmed by the implication of Capone extending his influence into the Srinagar system, Consensus requested Rubra monitor developments closely. For once, he wasn’t inclined to argue.
* * *
Kiera waited for Patricia Mangano at the end of the passageway which led up to the axial chamber three kilometres above her. Without the tube carriages, every ascent and descent had to be on foot. Starting at the axial chamber, the passageway contained a ladder for the first kilometre, then gave way to a staircase for the final two as the curvature became more pronounced. It ended two kilometres above the base of the endcap, emerging from the polyp shell onto a shelflike plateau which was reached by a switchback road.
Thankfully, similar plateaus around the endcap gave them admission to the docking ledge lounges. Which meant they’d all but stopped using the counter-rotating spaceport.
If Patricia was annoyed by the time and physical effort it took her to descend, it was hidden deeper than Kiera’s perception was able to discern. Instead, when Capone’s envoy emerged into the light, she smiled with a simple delight as she looked around. Kiera had to admit, the little plateau was an excellent vantage point. The distinct bands of colour which comprised Valisk’s interior shone lucidly in the light tube’s relentless emission.
Patricia shielded her eyes with one hand as she gazed about the worldlet. “Nothing anybody says can prepare you for this.”
“Didn’t you have habitats in your time?” Kiera asked.
“Absolutely not. I’m strictly a twentieth-century gal. Al prefers us as his lieutenants, that way we understand each other better. Some modern types, I can only comprehend about one word in ten.”
“I’m from the twenty-fourth century myself. Never set foot on Earth.”
“Lucky you.”
Kiera gestured at the open-top truck parked at the end of the road. Bonney was sitting in the backseat, ever vigilant.
Kiera switched on the motor and began the drive down the road. “I’ll warn you from the start, anything you say in the open is overheard by Rubra. We think he tells the Edenists just about everything that goes on in here.”
“What I have to say is private,” Patricia said.
“I thought so. Don’t worry, we have some clean rooms.”
* * *
It wasn’t too difficult for Rubra to infiltrate the circular tower at the base of the northern endcap. He just needed to be careful. The possessed could always detect small animals like mice and bats, which were simply blasted by a bolt of white fire. So he had to resort to more unusual servitors.
Deep in the birthing caverns of the southern endcap, incubators were used to nurture insects whose DNA templates had been stored unused since the time when Valisk was germinated. Centipedes and bees began to emerge, each one affinity-controlled by a sub-routine.
The bees flew straight out into the main cavern, where they hovered and loitered among all the temporary camps set up around the starscraper lobbies. Coverage wasn’t perfect, but they provided him with a great deal of information about what went on inside the tents and cottages, where his usual perception was blocked.
The centipedes were carried aloft by birds, to be deposited on the roof of the tower and other substantial buildings. Like the spiders which the Edenist intelligence agency used to infiltrate their observation targets, they scuttled along conditioning ducts and cable conduits, hiding just behind grilles and sockets where they could scrutinize the interior.
Their deployment allowed Rubra and the Kohistan Consensus to watch as Kiera led Patricia Mangano into Magellanic Itg’s boardroom. Patricia had one assistant with her, while Kiera was accompanied by Bonney and Stanyon. No one else from Valisk’s new ruling council had been invited.
“What happened?” Patricia asked after she had claimed a chair at the big table.
“In what respect?” Kiera replied cautiously.
“Come on. You’ve got your hellhawks flitting about the Confederation with impunity to bring back warm bodies. And when they get here, the habitat looks like it’s a Third World refugee camp left over from my own century. You’re living in the iron age, here. It doesn’t make any sense. Bitek is the one technology that keeps working around us. You should be lording it up in the starscraper apartments.”
“Rubra happened,” Kiera said bitterly. “He’s still in the neural strata. The one expert we had on affinity who could possibly remove him has . . . failed. It means we’ve got to go through the starscrapers a centimetre at a time to make them safe. We’re getting there. It’ll take time, but we’ve got eternity, after all.”
“You could leave.”
“I don’t think so.”
Patricia lounged back, grinning. “Ah, right. That would mean evacuating to a planet. How would you keep your position and authority there?”
“The same way Capone does. People need governments, they need organizing. We’re a very socially oriented race.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“We’re doing all right here. Have you really come all this way just to take cheap shots?”
“Not at all. I’m here to offer you a deal.”
“Yes?”
“Antimatter in return for your hellhawks.”
Kiera glanced at Bonney and Stanyon; the latter’s face was alive with interest. “What exactly do you think we can do with antimatter?”
“The same as us,” Patricia said. “Blow Srinagar’s SD network clean to hell. Then you’ll be able to get off this dump. The planet will be wide open to you. And as you’ll be running the invasion, you’ll be able to shape whatever society springs up among the possessed down there. That’s the way it works for the Organization. We begin it, we rule it. Whether it works here, depends on how good you are. Capone is the best.”
“But not perfect.”
“You have your problems, we have ours. The Edenist voidhawks are causing a lot of disruption to our fleet activities. We need the hellhawks to deal with them. Their distortion fields can locate the stealth bombs being flung at us.”
“Interesting proposition.”
“Don’t try and bargain, please. That would be insulting. We have an irritant; you have a potential disaster looming.”
“If you don’t take too much offence at the question, I’d like to know how much antimatter you’ll deliver.”
“As much as it takes, and the ships to deploy them, providing you can keep your end. How many hellhawks can you offer?”
“We have several out collecting Deadnight kids. But I can probably let you have seventy.”
“And you can keep them under control, make them follow orders?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How?”
Kiera gloated. “It’s not something you’ll ever be able t
o duplicate. We can return the souls possessing the hellhawks directly into human bodies. That’s what they all want eventually, and that’s what we’ll give them, providing they obey.”
“Smart. So do we have a deal?”
“Not with you. I’ll travel to New California myself and talk to Capone. That way we’ll both know how much we can trust the other.”
* * *
Kiera hung back after Patricia left the boardroom. “This changes everything,” she said to Bonney. “Even if we don’t get enough antimatter to knock over Srinagar, it’ll give us the deterrence to prevent another voidhawk attack.”
“It looks like it. Do you think Capone is on the level?”
“I’m not sure. He must need the hellhawks pretty badly, or he wouldn’t have offered us the antimatter. Even if he’s got a production station, it won’t exactly be plentiful.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“No.” The tip of her tongue licked over her lips, a fast movement by a lash of forked flesh. “We’re either going to be leaving here for Srinagar, or I’ll deal with Capone to provide us with enough bodies to fill the habitat. Either way, we won’t be needing that shit Dariat anymore. See to it.”
“You bet.”
* * *
Can you stop the hellhawks from leaving? Rubra asked.
No, the Kohistan Consensus said. Not seventy of them. They are still armed with a considerable number of conventional combat wasps.
Bugger.
If Kiera does acquire antimatter combat wasps from Capone, we don’t think we will be able to provide an adequate level of reinforcement to Srinagar’s Strategic Defence network. The planet may fall to her.
Then call in the Confederation Navy. Srinagar’s been paying its taxes, hasn’t it?
Yes. But there is no guarantee the navy will respond. Its resources are being deployed over a wide area.
Then call Jupiter. They’re bound to have spare squadrons.
We will see what can be done.
Do that. In the meantime, there are some important decisions to be taken. By me and Dariat both. And I don’t think Bonney Lewin is going to give us much more time.
* * *
Erick was sure that the explosion, followed by the capsule’s equally violent stabilization manoeuvre, had torn loose some of his medical nanonic packages. He could feel peculiar lines of pressure building up under the SII suit, and convinced himself it was fluid leakage. Blood or artificial tissue nutrient from the packages and their supplements, he wasn’t sure which. Over half of them no longer responded to his datavises.
At least it meant they couldn’t contribute to the medical program’s dire pronouncements of his current physiological state. His right arm wouldn’t respond to any nerve impulses at all, nor was he receiving any sensation from it. The only positive factor was a confirmation that blood was still circulating inside the new muscles and artificial tissue.
There wasn’t much he could do to rectify the situation. The capsule’s reserve electron matrices didn’t have enough power to activate the internal life-support system. The thin atmosphere was already ten degrees below zero, and falling rapidly. Which meant he was unable to take the suit off and replace the nanonic packages. And just to twist the knife, an emergency survival gear locker containing fresh medical nanonic packages had popped open in the ceiling above him.
Backup lighting had come on, casting a weak pale blue glow across the compartment. Frost was forming on most of the surfaces, gradually obscuring the few remaining active holoscreen displays. Various pieces of refuse had been jolted loose from their nesting places to twirl whimsically through the air, throwing avian-style shadows across the acceleration couches.
Potentially the most troubling problem was the intermittent dropouts from which the flight computer’s datavises were suffering. Erick wasn’t entirely sure he could trust its status display. It still responded to simple commands, though.
With his personal situation stable for a moment, he instructed the capsule’s sensors to deploy. Three of the five responded, pistonlike tubes sliding up out of the nultherm foam coating. They began to scan around.
Astrogration programs slowly correlated the surrounding starfield. If they were working correctly, then the Tigara had emerged approximately fifty million kilometres from the coordinate he was aiming for. Ngeuni was only an unremarkable blue-green star to one side of the glaring A2 primary.
He wasn’t sure if they would pick up the capsule’s distress beacon. Stage one colonies did not have the most sophisticated communications satellites. When he instructed the capsule’s phased array antenna to focus on the distant planet, it didn’t acknowledge. He repeated the instruction, and there was still no activity.
The flight computer ran a diagnostic, which gave him a System Inviable code. Without actually going outside to examine it, there was no way of telling what was wrong.
Alone.
Cut off.
Fifty million kilometres from possible rescue.
Light-years from where he desperately needed to be.
All that was left for him now was to wait. He began switching off every piece of equipment apart from the attitude rockets, the guidance system which drove them, and the computer itself. Judging by the frequency of the thruster firings, the capsule was venting something. The last diagnostic sweep before he shut down the internal sensors couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
After he’d reduced the power drain to a minimum, he pressed the deactivation switch for his restraint webbing. Even that seemed reluctant to work, taking a long time to fold back below the side of the cushioning. At this movement, levering himself up from the couch, fluid stirred across his abdomen. He found that by moving very slowly, the effect (and perhaps the harm) was moderated.
Training took over, and he began to index the emergency gear which had deployed from the ceiling. That was when the emotional shock hammered him. He suddenly found himself shaking badly as he clung to a four person programmable silicon dinghy.
Indexing his position! Like a good little first-year cadet.
A broken laugh bubbled around the SII suit’s respirator tube. The glossy black silicon covering his eyes turned permeable to vent the salty fluid burning his squeezed up eyelids.
Never in his life had he felt so utterly helpless. Even when the possessed were boarding the Villeneuve’s Revenge he’d been able to do something. Fight back, hit them. Orbiting above New California with the Organization poised to obliterate them at the first false move, he’d been able to store most of the sensor images. There had always been something, some way of being positive.
Now he was humiliatingly aware of his mind crumbling away in mimicry of his tattered old body. Fear had risen to consume him, flowing swiftly out of the dark corners of the bridge. It produced a pain in his head far worse than any physical injury ever could.
Those muscles which still functioned disobeyed any lingering wishes he might have, leaving him ignominiously barnacled to the dinghy. Every last reserve of determination and resolve had been exhausted. Not even the ubiquitous programs could shore up his mentality anymore.
Too weak to continue living, too frightened to die: Erick Thakrar had come to the end of the line.
* * *
Eight kilometres west of Stonygate, Cochrane tooted the horn on the Karmic Crusader bus and turned off the road. The other three vehicles in the convoy jounced over the grass verge and came to a halt behind it.
“Yo, dudettes,” Cochrane yelled back to the juvenile rioters clambering over the seats. “Time out for like the big darkness.” He pressed the red button on the dash, and the doors hissed open. Kids poured out like a dam burst.
Cochrane put his purple glasses back on and climbed down out of the cab. Stephanie and Moyo walked over to him, arm in arm. “Good place,” she said. The convoy had halted at the head of a gentle valley which was completely roofed over by the rumbling blanket of crimson cloud, rendering the mountain peaks invisible.
; “This whole righteous road trip is one major groove.”
“Right.”
He materialized a fat reefer. “Hit?”
“No thanks. I’d better see about cooking them some supper.”
“That’s cool. I can’t psyche out any hostile vibes in this locale. I’ll like keep watch, make sure the nazgul aren’t circling overhead.”
“You do that.” Stephanie smiled fondly at him and went to the back of the bus, where the big luggage hold was. Moyo started pulling out the cooking gear.
“We should manage to reach Chainbridge by tomorrow evening,” he said.
“Yes. This isn’t quite what I expected when we started out, you know.”
“Predictability is boring.” He put a big electric camping grille on the ground, adjusting the aluminum legs to make it level. “Besides, I think it’s worked out for the best.”
Stephanie glanced around the improvised campsite, nodding approval; nearly sixty children were scampering around the parked vehicles. What had started off as a private mission to help a handful of lost children had rapidly snowballed.
Four times during the first day they had been stopped by residents who had told them where non-possessed children were lurking. On the second day there were over twenty children packed on board; that was when Tina Sudol had volunteered to come with them. Rana and McPhee joined up on the third day, adding another bus.
Now there were four vehicles, and eight possessed adults. They were no longer making a straight dash for the border at the top of Mortonridge. It was more of a zigzag route, visiting as many towns as they could to pick up children. Ekelund’s people, who had evolved into the closest thing to a government on Mortonridge, maintained the communications net between the larger towns, albeit with a considerably reduced bit capacity than previously. News of Stephanie’s progress had spread widely. Children were already waiting for the buses when they reached some towns; on a couple of occasions dressed smartly and given packed lunches by the possessed who had taken care of them. They had borne witness to some very tearful partings.
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 215