The Night's Dawn Trilogy

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Cochrane retrieved his reefer. “Feel better?” Moyo simply twitched. “Hey, no need for the downer. Just like grow them back, man. It’s easy.”

  Moyo’s answering laugh was hysterical. “Imagine I can see? Oh yes, oh yes. It’s easy, it’s so fucking easy.” He started to sob, tapping his fingertips delicately over his ruined face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “You stopped the bus,” Stephanie said. “You saved all of us. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Not you!” he screamed. “Him! I’m saying sorry to him. It’s his body, not mine. Look what I’ve done to it. Not you. Oh god. Why did all this happen? Why couldn’t we all just die?”

  “Get me the first-aid kit,” Tina told Rana. “Now!”

  Stephanie had her arm round Moyo’s shoulder again, wishing there was some aspect of energistic power that could manifest raw comfort. McPhee and Franklin tried opening the door. But it was jammed solid, beyond even their enhanced physical strength’s ability to shift. They looked at each other, gripped hands, and closed their eyes. A big circular section of the front bodywork spun off into the bedlam outside. Rain spat down the aisle like a damp shotgun blast. Rana struggled forwards with the first-aid kit case, fiddling with the clips.

  “This is no use,” Tina wailed. She plucked out a nanonic package, face wrinkled in dismay. The thick green strip dangled from her hand like so much wobbly rubber.

  “Come on! There must be something in it you can use,” Stephanie said.

  Tina rummaged through. The case contained several strips of nanonic package, diagnostic blocks—all useless. Even the phials of biochemicals and drugs used infuser patches, the dosage regulated by a diagnostic block. There was no non-technological method of getting the medication into his bloodstream. She shook her head weakly. “Nothing.”

  “Damn it—”

  The bus groaned, shifting again. “No more time,” McPhee said. “This is it. Out. Now.”

  Cochrane clambered out of the hole, splashing down on the track next to the fallen tree. Keeping his footing was obviously difficult. The water came halfway up his shin. Rana followed him down. Stephanie gripped the seat straps holding Moyo in, and forced them to rot in her palms. She and Franklin hauled him up, and guided him through the hole. Tina followed them through, letting out martyred squeals as she struggled to find footholds.

  “Lose those bloody heels, ye moron,” McPhee yelled at her.

  She glared back at him petulantly, but her scarlet stilettos faded into ordinary pumps with flat soles. “Peasant. A girl has to look her best at all times, you know.”

  “This is real you stupid cow, not a fucking disaster movie set. You’re no’ being filmed.”

  She ignored him, and turned to help Stephanie with Moyo. “Let’s try and bandage his face, at the very least,” she said. “I’ll need some cloth.”

  Stephanie tore a strip off the bottom of her saturated cardigan. When she passed it over to Tina it had become a dry, clean strip of white linen.

  “I suppose that’ll be all right,” Tina said dubiously. She started to wrap it round Moyo’s eyes, making sure the stub remains of his nose were also covered. “Do try and think of your face as being normal, darling. It’ll all grow back, then, you’ll see.”

  Stephanie said nothing, she didn’t doubt Moyo could repair the burns to his cheeks and forehead, but actually growing eyeballs back . . .

  Franklin landed with a heavy splash, the last out of the bus. Nobody fancied trying to salvage their luggage. The boot was at the rear, and not even energistic power would help much clambering over the tree. Blasting the trunk to shreds would only send the bus spinning over the edge.

  They spent a couple of minutes sorting themselves out. First priority was fending off the rain; their collective imagination produced a transparent hemisphere, like a giant glass umbrella floating in the air above them. Once that was established, they set about drying off their clothes. There wasn’t anything they could do about the water coursing across the track, so they gave themselves sturdy knee-high wellingtons.

  Thus protected, they set off down the track, taking turns to guide and support a shivering Moyo. A bright globe of ball lightning bobbed through the air ahead and slightly to the side of them, hissing as raindrops lashed against it, but lighting the way and hopefully giving them some warning of any more falling trees. Apart from that, their only worry was making it out of the valley before the river rose up over the track. The driving rain and roaring wind meant they never knew when another tree slithered down the slope into the dark and battered Karmic Crusader, sending it plunging into the engorged river.

  * * *

  Billesdon was a cheery little town, tucked into the lee of a large granite headland on Mortonridge’s eastern coast. Sheltered from the worst of the breakers to come rolling in off the ocean, it was a natural harbour. District planners took advantage of that, quarrying the abundant rock to build a long curving quay opposite the headland, enclosing a wide deepwater basin with a modest beach at the back. The majority of boats which used it were trawlers and sandrakers, their operators earning a good living from Ombey’s plentiful fish and crustacean species. Even the local seaweed was exported to restaurants across the peninsula.

  It also proved a haven for pleasure boats, with several sport fishing and yachting clubs setting up shop. With so many boats to service, the marine engineering companies and supply industries were quick to seize upon the commercial opportunities available and open premises in the town. Houses, apartment blocks, shops, hotels, entertainment halls, and industrial estates were thrown up all the way back along the shallow valley behind the headland. Villas and groves began to blossom along the slopes above, next to golf courses and holiday complexes.

  Billesdon became the sort of town, beautiful and economically successful, that was presented as the Kingdom’s ideal, every citizen’s entitlement. Sinon’s squad reached the outskirts around midday. A trivial glimmer of light was penetrating the clouds, giving the world a lacklustre opacity. Visibility had risen to a few hundred yards.

  Sinon wished it hadn’t bothered. They were poised just outside the town, not far above the sea. Cover was ostensibly provided by a spinney of fallen Fellots. None of the sturdy aboriginal trees remained standing; their dense fan-shaped branches had cushioned the way the trunks fell, leaving them at crazy angles. Rain kept their upper sections clean from the cloying mud, giving the cerise bark a glossy sheen. Choma was pressed up against a fat trunk at the edge of the spinney, waving a sensor block slowly ahead of him. The whole squad hooked in to the block’s bitek processor, examining the buildings ahead through a variety of wavelengths.

  Not even the money lavished on Billesdon’s infrastructure had saved it from the rain. The terraces and groves above had dissolved, sending waves of mud slithering down into the prim streets, clogging the drains within minutes. Water raced along the roads and pavements, submerging tarmac and grass alike before it poured over the quayside wall. There were no boats left in the harbour; every single craft had been used to evacuate the population before Ekelund’s invasion reached the coast. In theory, that left the basin clear for the Liberation’s landing boats to bring the occupation troops and support materiel ashore.

  Seems deserted, Choma said.

  Nothing moving, Sinon agreed, but infrared’s useless in all this rain. There could be thousands of them tucked up nice and dry waiting for us.

  Look on the bright side, the water should foul up that white fire of theirs.

  Maybe, but that still leaves them with a whole load of options to use against us.

  That’s good, keep thinking like that. Paranoia keeps you on your toes.

  Thank you.

  So what do you want to do now?

  Simple. We’re going to have to go in and check it out one house at a time.

  Okay, that’s what I signed up for.

  They discussed it with the other squads encircling the town. Search areas were designated, tactics coordina
ted, blockades established on the main roads. Guyana was alerted that they were going in, and readied the low orbit SD platforms to provide groundstrike support if called for.

  The outskirts ahead of Sinon were modest houses overlooking the harbour, home to the fishing families. They had large gardens, which had been completely washed away. Long tongues of mud-slimed debris were stretched down the slope, with small streams running down their centres where the water had gouged a channel into the sandy soil. Cover between the spinney and the first house was nonexistent, so the squad moved forwards with long gaps between each member. If the white fire did burst down on them, it would never be able to reach more than one at a time. Hopefully.

  Sinon was third in the line. He held his machine gun ready, crouched low to provide the smallest possible target. Ever since they came ashore, he’d been thankful that his serjeant body had an exoskeleton; the rain didn’t bother him as much as it would if he had ordinary skin. Body armour had been considered and rejected, it had never been any good against the white fire before. The one concession they all made were shoes, a kind of sandal with deep-tread soles to give them traction.

  Even so, it was hard to keep his feet from slipping as he hurried forward through the mud. The first house was ten metres ahead of him: a white box with long silvered windows and a large first floor balcony at the rear. Water poured out of the sagging guttering, diluting the slow-moving sludge that percolated round the base of the walls. He kept sweeping the machine gun nozzle across the facing wall, alert for any sign of motion from inside. Out in the open, wind was driving the rain straight at him. Even his body was aware of how cold it was; not that it was affecting his performance, not yet. Sensor blocks dangled from his belt, unused and redundant as he urged himself on. His training was his one and only defence now.

  Choma had already reached the house ahead of him, ducking down to crawl under the windows. Sinon reached the back wall, and started to follow his friend along the side of the house. It was important to keep moving, not clump together. Palm fronds and limp knots of grass wrapped themselves round his ankles, slowing him. When he reached the largest window, he took one of the sensor blocks from his belt, and gingerly pressed it to the pane. The block relayed a slightly misty image of the room inside. A lounge, cosy, with worn furniture and framed family holograms on the wall. Water was spraying out of the ceiling’s central light fitting; the floor was invisible under a layer of mud which had pushed in from the hallway. An infrared scan showed no hot-spots.

  Clean downstairs, he said. And my ELINT block is clear. Looks like nobody’s home.

  We need to be sure, Choma replied. Check out the upper floor. I’ll back you.

  Sinon stood up, shouldering the machine gun. He took out a fission blade and sliced through the window frame, cutting out the lock. Raindrops sizzled on the glowing blade. The next two serjeants in his squad had already reached the house when he slipped inside. He pushed out a heavy breath from his lungs, the nearest he could get to a sigh. Actually out of the rain. Its impact was diminished to a dull drum roll on the roof. Choma splashed down into the thin mire beside him.

  Hell, that’s better.

  Affinity made Sinon aware of the rest of the squad; two of them were in the neighbouring houses, while the rest had started to spread out along the street. My ELINT’s still clear, he said.

  Choma looked up at the ceiling, pointing his machine gun at it cautiously. Yes. I’m pretty sure there’s nobody up there, but we’ve still got to check.

  Sinon made his way out into the hall, machine gun held ready. How can you be sure? You don’t know what’s up there.

  Instinct.

  Crazy. He put his foot on the first step, sandal sole making a squelching sound against the sodden carpet. We’ve barely got imagination operating inside these neural arrays, let alone an intuitive function.

  Then I suggest you work one up fast, you’re going to need it.

  Sinon turned so he could cover the landing as he ascended. Nothing moved except for the unending water, glistening as it ran down walls, curdling across carpets and tile floors, dripping from furniture. He reached the main bedroom, its door ajar. His foot kicked it hard, dinting the wood. The door slammed back amid a shower of droplets. Choma was right: it was empty. In every room, the signs of panicked departure. Drawers ransacked, clothes scattered about.

  Nobody here, Sinon reported to the squad when they cleared the front bedroom. Other house searches across the town were also proving negative as the squads moved in.

  Ghost town, Choma said, chortling.

  I think you could find a better phrase. He looked down through the window, seeing squad members scuttling along the road outside. They were going against the flow of mud, their legs churning up deep eddies. Things were trundling along the street, carried along by the relentless current. Bulges in the smooth mud; there was no way of telling if they were stones or crumpled twigs. All of them moved at the same speed.

  He held up a sensor block, panning it round in search of anomalous hot-spots. The image was overlapping his actual field of view, which meant he was looking straight at the house on the other side of the street when it exploded.

  A serjeant had cut through the lock on a side door and crept cautiously inside, machine gun held ready. The ground floor must have been clear, because a second serjeant followed him in. Thirty seconds later four explosions detonated simultaneously. They were carefully placed, one at each corner of the house. Long flakes of concrete and lumps of stone shot out of the billowing flame. The whole house trembled: then, its crucial support destroyed, it collapsed vertically. Windows all along the street blew out under the impact of the blast wave. Sinon just managed to twist away in time, allowing his backpack to take the brunt of the flying shards.

  The affinity bond boiled with hard, frantic thoughts. Both serjeants in the house were hammered by the explosions, their bodies wrecked. But the tough exoskeleton withstood the searing pressure for a few moments, long enough for the controlling personalities to instinctively begin the transfer. One of the orbiting voidhawks accepted their thoughts; then the house descended on their already weakened skulls.

  “Shit!” Sinon yelled. He was curled up on the bedroom floor, aware of something being wrong with his left forearm. When he brought it up to his face, the exoskeleton was cracked in a small star pattern. Blood was seeping out of the centre. Rain lashed in through the empty window, washing the crimson stain away.

  Are you all right? Choma asked.

  Yes . . . Yes, I think so. What happened? He stood up, peering down circumspectly onto the street. The mud and rain had swallowed almost all the immediate signs of the explosion. There was no smoke, no dust cloud. Just a pancake of rubble where the house had stood moments before. The tide of mud was already frothing round it, bubbling eagerly into cracks.

  Choma pointed his machine gun along the street, radiating satisfaction that the squad had merged with the scenery. He knew where they were, but they weren’t easily visible. Where are they? Did anyone see where the white fire came from?

  He was answered with a chorus of: No’s.

  I don’t think it was white fire, Sinon said. He ordered his block to replay the memory. The gouts of flame spearing out of each corner were orange, and they came from inside the house.

  Sabotage? Choma said.

  Could be. They were perfectly placed for demolition.

  They were on their way down the stairs when the second house exploded. It was on the far side of town, being examined by one of the other squads. One serjeant was killed, another two were injured beyond any field medic’s ability to patch up; they needed immediate evacuation. The rest of Sinon’s squad stood back as he clambered up over the mound of stone and girders which had been the house. When he was clear of the mud he ran a sensor pad over the exposed rubble close to one of the corners. The rain was washing the mess clean, but the chemical analysis still had enough residual molecules to work with.

  Not good, he announced. T
his wasn’t white fire. There’s a definite trace of trinitrotoluene here.

  Sod it! Choma exclaimed. The bastards have booby trapped the whole town.

  Parts of it. I doubt they’ve got the resources to rig every building.

  But you can bet they’ve done the critical ones, as well as picking on houses at random, he said grudgingly. It’s what I would’ve done.

  If you’re right, we’re going to have to treat each building as potentially hazardous. And we don’t even know what the trigger is.

  I doubt it’ll be electronic. Our sensors would spot active processors, and the possessed wouldn’t be able to set them up in the first place. We’ll have to get some of the marine engineers in here to find out what kind of mechanism they’re employing.

  Sinon’s response was lost amid a burst of anguish within the communal affinity band. Both of them instinctively turned to the west. The death of another two serjeants was all too clear. A warehouse in a town called Holywell had just exploded.

  It’s not just here, Choma said. Ekelund’s people have been busy.

  * * *

  Confirmation that most major towns around the periphery of Mortonridge were booby trapped came in to the Ops Room throughout the afternoon. Ralph sat in his office assessing the reports in a state of weary disbelief. Progress schematics were being revised on a fifteen minute basis by the AI. Their original timetable was constantly rearranged, targets being pushed further and further back.

  “Truly amazing,” he told Princess Kirsten during the evening’s briefing. “We’re fifteen hours in, and already twenty behind schedule.”

  “Conditions are pretty foul under there,” Admiral Farquar said. “I don’t see Ekelund’s people having a better time of it.”

  “How would we know? Fifteen hours, and we haven’t had a single encounter with a live possessed. Christ, I mean I know no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, but no one ever said anything about it disintegrating before we even catch sight of them.”