He watched with idle curiosity through the internal optical sensors as the Deadnights came aboard. The interior of the life-support module had come to resemble a nineteenth-century steamship, with a profusion of polished rosewood surfaces and brass fittings. According to the pair of possessed, Choi-Ho and Maxim Payne, who served as maintenance crew, there was also a fairly realistic smell of salt water. Rocio was pleased with the realism, which was far more detailed and solid than the possessed usually achieved. That was due to the nature of the hellhawk’s neuron cell structure which contained hundreds of subnodes arranged in processorlike lattices. They were intended to act as semi-autonomic regulators for his technological modules. Once he had conjured up the image he wanted and loaded it into a subnode it was maintained without conscious thought, and with an energistic strength unavailable to an ordinary human brain.
The last few weeks had been a revelation to Rocio Condra. After the initial bitter resentment, he had discovered that life as a hellhawk was about as rich as it was possible to have, although he did miss sex. And he’d been talking to some of the others about that; theoretically they could simply grow the appropriate genitalia (those that didn’t insist on imagining themselves as techno starships). If they accomplished that, there was no real reason to go back into human bodies. Which of course would make them independent of Kiera. For an entity that lived forever, the variety which would come from trying out a new creature’s body and life cycle every few millennia might just be the final answer to terminal ennui.
Accompanying the revelation was a growing resentment at the way Kiera was using them—to which the prospect of fighting for Capone was a worrying development. Even if he was offered a human body now, Rocio was doubtful he wanted to go with the habitat. He wasn’t frightened of space like the rest of the returned souls, not anymore, not possessing this magnificent creature. Space and all its emptiness was to be loved for its freedom.
Gravity returned slowly as Gerald drifted through the airlock tube, his shoulder bag in tow. The airlock compartment he landed in was almost identical to the one he had left behind. But it was larger, its technology more discreet, and outside the hatch Choi-Ho and Maxim Payne greeted him with smiles and comforting words where behind Knox and his eldest son had stood guard over their hatch with TIP carbines and scowls.
“There are several cabins available,” Choi-Ho said. “Not enough for everyone, so you’ll probably have to double up.”
Gerald smiled blankly, which came over more as a frightened grimace.
“Pick any one,” she told him kindly.
“When will we get there?” Gerald asked.
“We have a rendezvous in the Kabwe system in eight hours, after that we’ll be going back to Valisk. It should be about twenty hours.”
“Twenty? Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Twenty.” It was said with deference. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, quite sure.” People were starting to bunch up in the airlock behind him; all of them curiously reluctant to push past. “A cabin,” she suggested hopefully.
“Come on, Gerald, mate,” Beth said breezily. She took his arm and pulled gently. He walked obediently down the corridor with her. He only stopped once, and that was to look over his shoulder and say an earnest, “Thank you,” to an oddly intrigued Choi-Ho.
Beth kept going right to the end of the U-shaped corridor. She thought it would be best to get Gerald a cabin away from the rest of the Deadnights. “Can you believe this place?” she said. She was walking on a deep red carpet past portholes that shone brilliant beams of sunlight into the corridor (although she couldn’t see out through them). The doors were all golden wood. In her usual sweatshirt, two jackets, and baggy jeans she felt uncomfortably out of place.
She peered around a door and found an empty cabin. There were two bunk beds clipped to a wall, and a small sliding door to the bathroom. The plumbing was similar to the toilet in the Leonora Cephei, except this was all heavy brass with small white glazed ceramic buttons.
“This ought to do you,” she said confidently. A quiet pule made her turn around. Gerald was standing just inside the door, his knuckles pressed into his mouth.
“What’s the matter, Gerald?”
“Twenty hours.”
“I know. But that’s good, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure. I want to be there, to see her again. But she’s not her anymore, not my Marie.”
He was quaking. Beth put an arm around his shoulders and eased him down onto the bottom bunk. “Easy there, Gerald. Once we’re at Valisk, all this is going to seem like a bad dream; honestly, mate.”
“It doesn’t end there, it starts there. And I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to save her. I can’t put her in zero-tau by myself. They’re so strong, and evil.”
“Who, Gerald? Who are you talking about? Who’s Marie?”
“My baby.”
He was crying now, his head pressed into her shoulder. She patted the back of his neck instinctively.
“I don’t know what to do,” he gasped out. “She’s not here to help me.”
“Marie’s not here?”
“No. Loren. She’s the only one that can help me. She’s the only one who can help any of us.”
“It’s all right, Gerald, really, you’ll see.”
The reaction wasn’t what she expected at all. Gerald started a hysterical laugh which was half screams. Beth wanted to let go and get out of the cabin fast. He’d flipped, totally flipped now. The only reason she kept hold of him was because she didn’t know what would happen if she didn’t. He might get worse.
“Please, Gerald,” she begged. “You’re frightening me.”
He grabbed both of her shoulders, squeezing hard enough to make her flinch. “Good!” His face had reddened with anger. “You should be frightened, you stupid, stupid little girl. Don’t you understand where we’re going?”
“We’re going to Valisk,” Beth whispered.
“Yes, Valisk. That doesn’t frighten me, I’m bloody terrified. They’re going to torture us, hurt you so bad you’ll beg a soul to possess you and stop them. I know they will. That’s all they ever do. They did it to me before, and then Dr Dobbs made me go through it again, and again and again just so he could know what it was like.” The anger drained out of him, and he sagged forwards into her awkward embrace. “I’ll kill myself. Yes. Maybe that’s it. I can help Marie that way. I’m sure I can. Anything’s better than possession again.”
Beth started rocking him as best she could, soothing him as she would any five-year-old who’d woken from a nightmare. The things he was saying plagued her badly. After all, they only had Kiera’s word that she was building a fresh society for them. One recording that promised she was different from the rest. “Gerald?” she asked after a while. “Who’s this Marie you want to help?”
“My daughter.”
“Oh. I see. Well how do you know she’s at Valisk?”
“Because she’s the one Kiera’s possessing.”
Rocio Condra parted his beak in what passed for a smile. The sensor in Skibbow’s cabin wasn’t the best, and his affinity link with its bitek processor suffered annoying dropouts. But what had been said was plain enough.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he could use the knowledge, but it was the first sign of any possible chink in Kiera’s armour. That was a start.
* * *
Stephanie could finally see the end of the red cloud cover. The heavy ceiling had been dropping closer to the ground for some time now as the convoy drove unimpeded along the M6. Individual clumps and streamers churned against each other in a motion reminiscent of waves crashing on rocks, bright slivers of pink and gold rippled among the distorted underbelly. They acted like a conductor for a current of pure agitation. The will of the possessed was being thwarted, their shield against the sky arrested by the Kingdom’s firebreak.
The cliff of white light sleeting down along the boisterous edge appeared almost solid.
Certainly it took her eyes a while to acclimatize, slowly resolving the grainy shadows which crouched at the end of the road.
“I think it might be a good idea to slow down now,” Moyo said in her ear.
She applied the brakes, reducing their speed to a crawl. The other three buses behind matched her caution. Two hundred metres from the flexing curtain of sunlight she stopped altogether. The cloud base was only four or five hundred metres high here, hammering on the invisible boundary in perpetual ferment.
Two sets of bright orange barriers had been erected across the road. The first was under the edge of the cloud, sometimes bathed in red light, sometimes in white; the second was three hundred metres north, guarded by a squad of Royal Marines. Behind them, several dozen military vehicles were drawn up on the hard shoulder, armoured troop transports, ground tanks, general communications vehicles, lorries, a canteen, and several field headquarters caravans.
Stephanie opened the bus doors and stepped down onto the road. The thunder was an aggressive growl here, warning outsiders to keep back.
“What did they do to the grass?” Moyo shouted. Just inside the line of sunlight, the grass was dead, its blades blackened and desiccated. Already it was crumbling into dust. The dead zone lay parallel to the border of the red cloud as far as the eye could see, forming a rigid stripe that cut cleanly across every contour.
Stephanie looked along the broad swath of destruction, trees and bushes had been burned to charcoal stumps. “Some kind of no-man’s-land, I suppose.”
“That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”
She laughed, and pointed up at the glowing cloud.
“Okay, you got a point. What do you want to do next?”
“I’m not sure.” She resented her indecision immediately. This was the culmination of enormous emotional investment. For all that, the practicalities of the moment had been ignored. I almost wish we were still travelling, it gave me such a sense of satisfaction. What have we got after this?
Cochrane, McPhee, and Rana joined them.
“Some terminally unfriendly looking dudes we have here,” Cochrane yelled above the thunder. The marines lining the barrier were motionless, while more were hurrying from the cluster of vehicles to reinforce them.
“I’d better go and talk to them,” Stephanie said.
“Not alone?” Moyo protested.
“I’ll look a lot less threatening than a delegation.” A white handkerchief sprouted from Stephanie’s hand; she held it up high and clambered over the first set of barriers.
Lieutenant Anver watched her coming and gave his squad their deployment assignments, sending half of them out to flank the road and watch for any other possessed trying to sneak over, not that they’d ever get past the satellites. His helmet sensors zoomed in for a close-up on the woman’s face. She was squinting uncomfortably at the light as she emerged from under the dappled shadow of the red cloud. A pair of sunglasses materialized on her face.
“Definitely possessed, sir,” he datavised to Colonel Palmer.
“We see that, thank you, Anver,” the colonel replied. “Be advised, the security committee is accessing your datavise now.”
“Sir.”
“There’s no other activity along the firebreak,” Admiral Farquar datavised. “We don’t think she’s a diversion.”
“Go see what she wants, Anver,” Colonel Palmer ordered. “And be very careful.”
“Yes, sir.”
Two of his squad slid a section of the barrier aside, and he stepped forwards. For all that it was only a hundred-metre walk, it lasted half of his life. He spent the time trying to think what to say to her, but when they stopped a few paces from each other, all he said was: “What do you want?”
She lowered her hand with the handkerchief and gave him a cautious smile. “We brought some children out. They’re in the buses back there. I, um . . . wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t . . . you know.” The smile became one of embarrassment. “We weren’t sure how you’d react.”
“Children?”
“Yes. About seventy. I don’t know the exact number, I never actually counted.”
“Does she mean non-possessed?” Admiral Farquar datavised.
“Are these children possessed?”
“Of course not,” Stephanie said indignantly. “What do you think we are?”
“Lieutenant Anver, this is Princess Kirsten.”
Anver stiffened noticeably. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Ask her what she wants, what the deal is.”
“What do you want for them?”
Stephanie’s lips tightened in anger. “I don’t want anything. Not in return, they’re just children. What I’d like is an assurance that you military types aren’t going to shoot them when we send them over.”
“Oh, dear,” Princess Kirsten datavised. “Apologize to her, Lieutenant, on my behalf, please. And tell her that we’re very grateful to her and those with her for bringing the children back to us.”
Anver cleared his throat, this wasn’t quite what he expected when he started his lonely walk out here. “I’m very sorry, ma’am. The Princess sends her apologies for assuming the worst. We’re very grateful to you for what you’ve done.”
“I understand. This isn’t easy for me, either. Now, how do you want to handle this?”
Twelve Royal Marines came back to the buses with her; volunteers, without their armour suits and weapons. The bus doors were opened, and the children came down. There were a lot of tears and running around in confusion. Most of them wanted a last kiss and a hug from the adults who had rescued them (Cochrane was especially popular), much to the amazement of the marines.
Stephanie found herself almost in tears as the last batch started off down the broad road, clustering around the big marine; one of them was even being given a piggyback. Moyo’s arm was around her shoulders to hold her tight.
Lieutenant Anver came over to stand in front of her and saluted perfectly (to which Cochrane managed a quite obscene parody). He looked badly troubled. “Thank you again, all of you,” he said. “That’s me saying it, I can’t datavise under the cloud.”
“Oh, do take care of the little darlings,” Tina said, sniffing hard. “Poor Analeese has the most dreadful cold, none of us could cure her. And Ryder hates nuts; I think he’s got an allergy, and—” She fell silent as Rana squeezed her forearm.
“We’ll take care of them,” Lieutenant Anver said gravely. “And you, you take care of yourselves.” He glanced pointedly out to the firebreak where a procession of vehicles was massing around the barrier to greet the children. “You might want to do that away from here.” A crisp nod at Stephanie, and he was walking back towards the barrier.
“What did he mean?” Tina asked querulously.
“Wowee.” Cochrane let out a long breath. “We like did it, man, we showed the forces of bad vibes not to mess with us.”
Moyo kissed Stephanie. “I’m very proud of you.”
“Ugh,” Cochrane exclaimed. “Don’t you two cats ever stop?”
A smiling Stephanie leaned forwards and kissed him on his forehead, getting hair caught on her lips. “Thank you, too.”
“Will somebody tell me what he meant,” Tina said. “Please.”
“Nothing good,” McPhee said. “That’s a fact.”
“So now what do we do?” Rana asked. “Go round up another group of kids? Or split up? Or settle that farm we talked about? What?”
“Oh, stay together, definitely,” Tina said. “After everything we’ve done I couldn’t bear losing any of you, you’re my family now.”
“Family. That’s cosmic, sister. So like what’s your position on incest?”
“I don’t know what we’ll decide,” Stephanie said. “But I think we should take the lieutenant’s advice, and do it a long way away from here.”
* * *
The spaceplane rose out of Nyvan’s stratosphere on twin plumes of plasma flame, arching up towards its orbital injection coordinate a thousand kil
ometres ahead. Submunitions were still peppering space with explosions and decoy flares, while electronic warfare drones blasted gigawatt pulses at any emission they could detect. Now its reaction drive rockets were on, the spaceplane was no longer invisible to the residuals of the combat wasp battle.
Lady Macbeth flew cover a hundred kilometres above it, sensors and maser cannon deployed to strike any missile which acquired lock-on. The starship had to make continual adjustments to its flight vector to keep the spaceplane within its protective radius. Joshua watched its drive flaring, reducing velocity, accelerating, switching altitude. Five times its masers fired to destroy incoming submunitions.
By the time the spaceplane had reached orbit and was manoeuvring to dock, the sky above Nyvan had calmed considerably. Only three other starships were visible to Lady Mac’s sensors, all of them were frigates belonging to local defence forces. None of them seemed interested in Lady Mac, or even each other. Beaulieu began a thorough sensor sweep, alert for the inevitable chaotic showers of post-explosion debris which would make low orbit hazardous for some time to come. Some of the returns were odd, making her redefine the sweep’s parameters. Lady Mac’s sensors shifted their focus away from the planet itself.
Joshua slid cleanly through the hatchway into the bridge. His clothes had dried out in the hot air of the spaceplane’s cabin, but the dirt and stains remained. Dahybi’s ship-suit was in a similar state.
Sarha gave him an apprehensive glance. “Melvyn?” she asked quietly.
“Not a chance. Sorry.”
“Bugger.”
“You two did a good job up here,” Joshua said. “Well done, that was some fine piloting to stay above the spaceplane.”
“Thanks, Josh.”
Joshua looked from Liol, who was anchored to a stikpad by the captain’s acceleration couch, to Sarha, whose expression was utterly unrepentant.
“Oh, Jesus, you gave him the access codes.”
“Yes, I did. My command decision. There was a war up here, Joshua.”
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 237