“We haven’t lost. We’re nowhere near losing. The Pilgrimage ships haven’t even been finished, let alone launched. So tell me how many ways covert operations can sabotage them.”
“Hundreds, but that’s only a delay. It’s not a solution.”
“I want to keep going. I want to see if Araminta contacts me.”
“She won’t. Everyone in the galaxy can observe every second of her existence. It’s actually quite clever: Sharing like that puts her beyond mere Dreamer status; she’s almost achieved the same level Edeard had. Every moment of her life is available for her followers to idolize, just like his was. But they’ll only keep supporting her if she does what they want and takes them into the Void. There’s no escape.”
“Humor me. I have faith in her, too. Different from everyone else, but faith nonetheless. She’s not stupid, and she’s descended from Mellanie.”
“If that’s what your faith is based on, we’re in serious deep shit.”
“Yeah, I noticed that, too.”
Paula smiled wearily. “All right, Oscar, I certainly haven’t got anything else for you to do. Stick with the original mission; see if you can make contact with the Second Dreamer.”
“Thank you.”
“What do your colleagues think about the notion?”
“They’re still on the payroll.”
“Are they all okay? Francola Wood seemed unnecessarily violent.”
“Wasn’t me, honest.”
“You were there.”
“We were. And I still don’t understand what happened. The path became active somehow; we all knew that. Hell, we felt it. But she never came through.”
“And yet she turned up in Colwyn City right after.”
“Exactly. See, there’s more to her than we understand. I trust you noticed what she’s wearing around her neck.”
“Yes.”
“And she knew about Ilanthe. I didn’t.”
“It was classified. The navy knew she’d escaped.”
“So she’s getting her information from somewhere. She understands what’s going on. Which means she knows what she’s got to do.”
“I hope you’re right, Oscar.”
“Me, too. So what are you going to do now?”
“Follow up leads, act on information. The usual.”
“Good luck.”
The link ended. Paula lay back on the couch, closing her eyes for a moment to summon up the willpower to place her next call. It was all very well being tired, but the situation was moving on with or without her.
Symbols appeared in her exovision, and her secondary routines pulled out the technical results. Alexis Denken was currently in full stealth mode fifty thousand kilometers above Viotia’s equator. The smartcore had been running a painstaking search across local space for signs of anyone else lurking above the planet. The first eight starships were easy enough for its sensors to detect; she suspected they were backup vessels for various agent teams on the planet. Now it had found another, the faintest hyperspatial anomaly a quarter of a million kilometers out from the planet. The stealth effect was first-rate; anything less than Alexis Denken’s ANA-fabricated sensors wouldn’t have been able to find it. That left her with the question of who it was and if it even mattered.
Her u-shadow opened a secure link to Admiral Juliaca. “I wasn’t expecting this,” she said.
“Neither were we,” the Admiral confirmed. “The President is not happy with today’s events.”
“You mean the President is frightened.”
“Yeah. Our best guess is that someone captured her and broke into her mind. They’re just remote-controlling her now. It’s probably Ethan himself if it isn’t Ilanthe.”
“That doesn’t quite fit. I don’t believe Ethan and Ilanthe would want their shabby little arrangement to be public knowledge. And how did Araminta know about Ilanthe?”
“Exactly. She has to have been taken over.”
“Or she communed with the Silfen Motherholme while she was on the paths. After all, we still haven’t got a clue how she returned to Viotia, and it would appear she’s been named a Friend.”
“Okay,” the Admiral said. “So why would the Silfen want Living Dream to go on Pilgrimage?”
Paula pressed her fingertips into her temple again, massaging firmly. “I haven’t got a clue. I’m just saying it’s possible Araminta has decided to step up her game.” She could barely believe she was repeating Oscar’s hopes, but what else was there to explain such extraordinary behavior?
“Then her new game is going to kill us all.”
“Will the navy destroy the Pilgrimage fleet?”
“President Alcamo is still trying to decide what to do. We’re as compromised now as we were before, if not worse. If Ilanthe does make good on her promise and supply Sol barrier force fields to the ships, then they’ll be invulnerable to anything we can hit them with. That just leaves us a small window while they’re on the ground under construction.”
Paula immediately saw the problem with that. “They’re being built next to Greater Makkathran.”
“Actually, they’re inside the urban boundary, which means they’re under the city’s civil defense force fields. If we take them out, it’ll destroy half the city at least, probably more. Paula, even if I gave the order, I’m not sure the navy ships would carry it out. I wouldn’t even blame them. Sixteen million people live there.”
“Billions of people live throughout the Greater Commonwealth. Trillions of entities live in the galaxy.”
“I know.”
“Covert sabotage will be easy enough. It doesn’t have to be a frontal assault.”
“Believe me, we’re drawing up those plans right now.”
“But that’s only going to delay things.”
“If we have long enough, ANA might break out.”
“If we delay the Pilgrimage too much, Ilanthe might offer Araminta a ride on her ship. Then we’d really be in trouble.”
“We’re more concerned by what the Void would do,” the Admiral said. “It already began an expansion the first time Araminta tried denying it. If we block her, there’s no telling how it’ll react to that. To put it bluntly, it knows where we live now.”
“So we still need an alternative.”
“We do. Paula … do you have any idea what Gore is up to?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Damn. Well, that leaves us with just about nothing.”
“I thought the Raiel answered our request to attempt to break through the Sol barrier.”
“Yes, Qatux has agreed to help. We’re expecting the High Angel will depart for Earth within the hour. The navy is evacuating its core staff down to Kerensk, including me. After all, we don’t know if it’ll come back.”
“I regard their involvement as promising. Nothing much stirs the Raiel these days.”
“I think Ilanthe and Araminta have managed to focus their attention.”
“Quite.”
“Have you got anything else for me?”
“I’m sorry, Admiral, but the only other possibility is if Inigo is alive and on the Lindau.”
“How does that help us? He started this Ozziedamned nonsense in the first place.”
“Exactly. He may be able to stop it. He certainly had a large enough change of heart to dump Living Dream. Several powerful people believed that warranted expending considerable effort and energy to finding him.”
“What do you suggest? Intercepting the Lindau?”
“Not a good option. Not yet. This Aaron character is single-minded in his mission and has already killed countless people in his pursuit. If he is threatened, he may well have instructions to eliminate Inigo.”
“Or he may not.”
“Granted. But if Inigo is our last remaining chance and he’s on board that scout ship, we can’t risk it. That’s a small ship: Aaron has no fallback, nowhere to run. Prudence would suggest waiting until it reaches the Spike. That opens up our options from a tact
ical point of view.”
“All right, Paula, but it’s a loose end I don’t want to ignore. We need every glimmer of hope we can muster.”
“I won’t let it slip, I assure you. I have a ship which can reach the Spike quickly when the need arises.”
Once again he ran across the vast hall with its crystalline arches high above. People scattered before him, frightened people. Children. Children with tears streaming down their sweet little faces.
Of all his uncertainty and confusion, he knew that should not be so. A thought he held steadfast. A lone conviction in a world gone terribly wrong. Human society existed to protect its children. That was bedrock he could rest easy upon. Not that such assurance meant anything to the physical reality he was surrounded by.
Weapons fire burst all around him, elegant colored lines of energy forming complex crisscross patterns in the air. Force fields added a mauve haze to the image. Then came the cacophony of screaming.
He ran, flinging himself across a cluster of wailing children. It was no good. The darkness followed him, flowing across the huge room like an incoming tide. It curled around him. And he felt her hand on his shoulder amid a clash of sparkling colors. The pain began, searing in through his flesh, seeking out his heart.
“You don’t leave me,” she whispered silkily into his ear.
He struggled, writhing frantically against her grip as the pain was slowly replaced by an even more frightening cold. “Nobody leaves me,” she said.
“I do!” he yelled with a raw throat. “I don’t want this.” Away along the fringe of darkness, more garish colored lights exploded. He heaved against her iron grip-
– and fell out of the cot to land painfully on the cabin floor. A weird ebony fog occluded his vision as he tried to focus on the Lindau’s bulkhead. It pulsed in a heartbeat rhythm with strange distensions bulging out, as if something were attempting to break out of his nightmare. He groaned as he squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to banish the creepy intrusion. The pain was real still, throbbing behind his temple like the Devil’s own migraine. Then he remembered a crown of slim silver needles contracting around his head, puncturing the skin, slipping effortlessly through the bone to penetrate his brain, and terrible red light shone into his thoughts, exposing every miserable segment of himself. “Do it,” he yelled into the nothingness. “Just do it now.” Sharp merciless claws reached in and started to rip out the most vital segments. And now his screams were silent, going on and on and on as his mind was shredded until finally, thankfully, there was nothing left. No thought remained, so he ceased to think-
– Aaron woke up with his cheek squashed uncomfortably on the deck, his neck at a bad angle. It was as if he were regaining consciousness from a knockout blow. His skin was cold; he shivered as much from shock as anything. “Oh, crap, this has just got to stop,” he moaned as he slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position.
The captain’s cabin was still a mess. He hadn’t bothered to organize a servicebot to clean up yet. Personal environment wasn’t a priority for him, unlike the other two, who seemed quite fastidious about their small shared cabin. He ordered a fast biononic field scan to check on his captives and relaxed fractionally when exovision displays showed them in the main cabin. Now that their status was confirmed, he followed it up with a review of the Lindau’s systems. Plenty of components were operating on the edge of their safety margins thanks to the damage they’d received back on Hanko. But they were still functioning, still in hyperspace and on course for the Spike.
Aaron took a moment to wipe himself down with a towel soaked in travel-clean before pulling on some clothes he’d found in the cabin’s locker. The Lindau’s captain had been almost the same size as he, so the bots needed to make only a few adjustments before he could wear the conservatively styled shirts and trousers. Dressed in fawn-colored two-thirds-length shorts and a mauve sleeveless sweatshirt, he joined the other two for breakfast.
Corrie-Lyn gave him a sullen glance as he entered the main cabin, then returned to her bowl of yogurt and cereal. Aaron didn’t need to run any kind of scan to know she was hungover. He’d given up trying to stop the one remaining culinary unit from producing alcohol for her; its electronics were in a bad way, and the last thing it needed was a software war raging inside its circuitry.
“Good morning,” he said politely to Inigo. At least the ex-Dreamer gave him a brief acknowledgment, glancing up from his plate of toast and marmalade. Aaron ordered up a toasted bagel with poached egg on smoked salmon, orange juice, and a pot of tea.
“Why do you smell of bleach?” Corrie-Lyn asked.
“Do I?”
“You’ve used travel-fresh,” she accused. “There is a working shower, you know.”
The culinary unit pinged, and Aaron opened its stainless-steel door. His breakfast was inside. He hesitated at the slightly odd smell before transferring it all to a tray. The remaining chair at the table had broken as it was trying to retract, leaving a gray lump protruding from the floor with an upper hollow that wasn’t quite wide or deep enough for sitting in. Aaron squirmed his way down into it. “The shower is in your room,” he pointed out.
“And you rate our privacy above your hygiene? Since when?”
Inigo stopped chewing and glanced silently up at the ceiling.
“Corrie-Lyn, we’re going to be on board together for a while,” Aaron said. “As you may have noticed, this ship is on the wrong side of tiny, and there ain’t a whole lot of it working too good. Now, I don’t expect you to be gushing with mighty gratitude, but it’s my belief that basic civility will get us all through this without me ripping too many of your fucking limbs off. You clear on this?”
“Fascist bastard.”
“Is it true Ethan kept you on the Cleric Council because you were his private whore?”
“Fuck you!” Corrie-Lyn stood up fast, glaring at Aaron.
“See?” Aaron said mildly. “It’s a two-way street. And you can’t rip my limbs off.”
She stomped out of the main cabin. Inigo watched her go, then carried on eating his toast. Aaron took a drink of his orange juice, then cut into the egg. It tasted like rotten fish. “What the hell …”
“My toast tastes like cold lamb,” Inigo admitted. “The fatty bits. I used biononics to change my taste receptor impulses. It helps a bit.”
“Good idea.” Aaron’s u-shadow was interrogating the culinary unit to try to identify the problem. The result wasn’t promising. “The texture memory files are corrupted, and it doesn’t look like there are any backups left on board; a whole batch of kubes got physically smashed up. It’ll be producing this kind of crud all the way to the Spike.”
“Corrie-Lyn doesn’t have biononics. She can’t make it taste better.”
“That’ll make her a bucketful of fun for sure. We’ll have to inventory the prepacked supplies, see if there’s enough to last her.”
“Or you could simply connect to the unisphere with a TD channel and download some new files.”
Aaron looked at him over the rim of the orange juice, which tasted okay. “Not going to happen. I can’t risk an infiltration. The smartcore’s in the same condition as the rest of the ship.”
“That was a bad dream you had last night,” Inigo said quietly. “You need to watch out for aspects leaking into your genuine personality.”
Aaron raised an eyebrow. “My genuine personality?”
“All right, then, the one that keeps you up and functional. I’m getting concerned about the Mr. Paranoia who won’t risk downloading a food synthesis file.”
“Okay, for future reference, this very same personality has kept me alive through all my missions and helped me snatch you. And that barely took a couple of weeks after I’d been assigned to you, whereas everyone else in the Commonwealth had spent seventy years on the hunt for you. So you might want to rethink your poor estimation of my operational capabilities.”
Inigo’s hands fluttered in a modest gesture of acquiescence. “As you wi
sh. But you have to understand I am curious about your composition. I’ve never encountered a mind quite like yours before. You have absences, and I don’t just mean memory. Whole emotional fibers seem to have been suppressed. That’s not good for you. The emotions you have permitted yourself are abnormally large; you’re out of balance as a result.”
“So Corrie-Lyn keeps telling me.” He tasted his egg again. His biononics had changed his taste receptors. This time the yoke had a mushroom flavor. It was weird, but he could live with it, he decided.
“You’ve been unkind to her,” Inigo said accusingly. “Small wonder she hates you.”
“I found you for her. She’s just ungrateful, that’s all. That or she doesn’t want to admit to herself how willing she was to pay the price.”
“What price is that?”
“Betrayal. That’s what it took to trace you.”
“Hmm. Interesting analysis. All of which brings us back to our current situation. So you’re taking me to the Spike to see Ozzie. What then?”
“Don’t know.”
“Your unknown employer must have given you some hint, some rough outline. To be an effective field agent you have to constantly reevaluate your alternatives. What if the Lindau was knocked out by the opposition, whoever they are? What if I’m taken away?”
Aaron smiled. “Then I kill you.”
The cabin Corrie-Lyn and Inigo were sharing was small. It was meant for five crew members but in theory the navy duty rota they followed should mean that only two would ever be using it at the same time, with changeovers every few hours. Inigo reckoned they’d all have to be very intimate with one another. The bunks were both fully extended, locked at a ten-degree angle with the edges curling up as if they were heat-damaged. All of which left little space to edge along between them. And they were useless for sleeping in. Instead, Inigo had just piled all the quilts onto the floor to make a cozy nest.
When he came back in after breakfast, Corrie-Lyn was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the crumpled fabric, drinking a mug of black coffee. An empty ready-pak was on the floor beside her.
“Taste good?” he asked.
She held up the foil ready-pak. “The deSavoel estate’s finest mountain bean. It doesn’t come much better.”
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