Chapter 05

AndrVilleneuve’s Revenge jumped into its dedicated emergence zone three thousand kilometres away. He certainly had a lot of explaining to do to the local defence command, followed up by testimony from the rover reporters. When he did finally receive docking permission he assumed the famed Duchamp forcefulness and integrity had won through again.

What actually happened was that while he was busy claiming to be a defector from the Capone Organization, Erick opened a channel to the local Confederation Navy Bureau and asked them to press the local authority for clearance. Even so, the authorities were extremely cautious. Three SD platforms were locked on to the Villeneuve’s Revenge as it approached the spaceport.

The security teams which ransacked the life-support capsules in search of treachery were exceptionally thorough. Andr

But Kingsley Pryor was hauled away by the emotionless officers from an unnamed division of the defence forces. A big credit bonus to the intrepid crew who had outsmarted Capone.

The only possible flaw was Shane Brandes. So the Dechal ’s fusion engineer was brought out of zero-tau while they were still on the approach phase and given a simple ultimatum: cooperate or you’re going to be a dead crewman who we’re in mourning over. He chose cooperation; explaining to the Ethenthia authorities why they’d abducted him in the first place would have been a little too confusing, he felt.

Thirteen hours after they docked, the last of Ethenthia’s security officers departed. Andr

“We did it.” His clown face exhibited a genuine smile as he looked from Erick, to Madeleine, and finally Desmond. “We’re home free.”

Madeleine and Desmond began to chuckle, sharing the realization. They really had come through.

“I have a few bottles in my cabin,” Andranglo police haven’t stolen them. We must celebrate. Ethenthia is as good a place as any to sit out this war. We can keep busy with some proper maintenance. I’m sure I can get the insurance to pay for some of this wreckage; after all, we’re war heroes now. Who will argue, eh?”

“Tina might,” Erick said.

The flatness in the voice dispelled Andr

“The girl we killed on the Krystal Moon. Murdered, actually.”

“Oh, Erick. Dear enfant. You are tired. You have done more work than most.”

“Certainly more than you. But what’s new there?”

“Erick,” Desmond said. “Come now, it has been a terrible time for all of us. Perhaps we should get some rest before we decide what to do next.”

“Good suggestion. I admit I haven’t quite made up my mind what to do with you yet.”

“What you are going to do with us?” Andr

“Shut up, you pompous geek,” Erick said. It was the contemptuous indifference of the voice which shocked Andr

“My problem is that I owe Madeleine and Desmond my life,” Erick went on. “But then, if you hadn’t been such an arsehole, Duchamp, none of us would ever have been put in the crazy position we were. That’s the kind of hazard I have to accept when I take on missions like this.”

“Missions?” Andr

“Yes, I’m an undercover officer in the CNIS.”

“Oh, fuck,” Madeleine grunted helplessly. “Erick . . . Shit, I liked you.”

“Yeah. That’s my problem, too. I’m in a little bit deeper than I ever expected. We made a good team fighting the possessed.”

“So now what?” she asked numbly. “A penal colony?”

“After everything we went through, I’m prepared to make you an offer. I owe you that, I think.”

“What sort of offer?” Andr

“An exchange. You see, I’m your case officer, I’m the one who decides if the Service prosecutes, I’m the one who provides the evidence that we attacked the Krystal Moon and killed a fifteen-year-old girl because you’re such an incompetent captain you can’t keep up the payments on a ship that isn’t worth ten fuseodollars.”

“Ah! Of course, money is no problem, my dear enfant. I can mortgage the ship, it will be done for you by tomorrow. What currency do you—”

“Shut up!” Madeleine bellowed. “Just shut the fuck up, Duchamp. What is it, Erick? What’s he got to do? Because whatever it is, he’s going to do it with a big smile on his fat stupid face.”

“I want to know something, Duchamp,” Erick said. “And I think you can tell me. In fact, I’m sure you can. Because it’s information which only the vilest, most deceitful pieces of shit in the galaxy are entrusted with.” He drifted over until he was centimetres from the captain. Duchamp had started to tremble.

“What is the coordinate of the antimatter station, Andr

Andr

“Oh, really? Do you know why the Confederation is so unsuccessful in finding antimatter production stations, Madeleine?” Erick asked. “It’s because we can’t use debrief nanonics on people we suspect of knowing where they are. Nor can we use drugs, or even torture. It’s their neural nanonics, you see. The price of learning a station’s coordinate is a very special set of neural nanonics. The black cartel supplies them absolutely free of charge. Top-of-the-range, whatever marque you like, but always with one small modification. If they detect the owner is being subjected to any form of interrogation, such as debrief nanonics, they kamikaze. The only way the coordinate is passed on is voluntarily. So what is it, Duchamp?”

“They’ll kill me,” Andr

“Fucking tell him!” Madeleine shouted.

“Non.”

“It won’t be a penal colony after the trial,” Erick said. “We’ll take you away to a quiet little laboratory deep in Trafalgar, and try and see if this time we can beat the kamikaze mechanism.”

“They’ll know. They always find out. Always!”

“One of the stations is supplying Capone with antimatter. That means the cartel has already lost it to the possessed, so they’re not going to care. And what about you? Do you care, do you want Capone to keep winning? And if he does beat us, what do you think he’ll do with you when he finally catches up with you?”

“But suppose the station I know of isn’t the one?”

“The only good antimatter station is one which has been destroyed. Now what’s it going to be? The CNIS lab? The cartel? Capone? Or do I load a no further action code in your file? Make your mind up.”

“I despise you, anglo. I want your precious Confederation to die right in front of you. I want your entire family possessed and made to fuck animals. I want your soul trapped in the beyond for all time. Only then will I have justice for what you and your kind have done to me and my life.”

“The coordinate, Duchamp,” Erick said impassively.

Andr

Lieutenant Commander Emonn Verona, the CNIS’s head of station on Ethenthia, sat behind his desk and stared at Erick in what was almost a state of reverence. “You have the name of the next system Capone intends to invade, and an antimatter station coordinate?”

“Yes, sir. According to Pryor, Capone is going to send his fleet to the Toi-Hoi system.”

“Good God. If we can ambush that fleet, we’ve got the bastard cold. He’ll be finished.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. This bureau’s only goal now is to get your information back to Trafalgar. There aren’t any navy ships stationed here; I’m going to have to signal the Edenist habitats orbiting Golmo and request some voidhawks. That’s fifteen light-hours away.” He eyed the exhausted captain whose skin seemed to be half nanonic packages; the medical ancillary modules fastened to his belt had several orange LEDs winking on them. “We ought to have a voidhawk here within sixteen hours. That’ll give you some time to have a decent rest first.”

“Thanks. All of us got pretty strung out searching the ship for that nuke.”

“I’ll bet. Are you sure you want to drop the charges against Duchamp?”

“Not really. But I gave my word, even though that means nothing to a man like him. Besides, he knows the navy has a file on him now, he knows we’ll be watching him, he’ll never trust another crew member again. He’ll never be able to fly another illegal flight again. And given the state of that ship, and his own abilities, he isn’t going to be able to make enough from legal charters to keep going. The banks will take the Villeneuve’s Revenge off him. For someone like him, that’s worse than a penal colony or the death sentence.”

“I hope I never get you at my court-martial,” Emonn Verona said.

“He deserves it.”

“I know. What do you want to do about Pryor?”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s being remanded in custody. There are any number of charges we can bring. I can’t believe a Confederation Navy officer turned like that.”

“It will be interesting to find out the reason. I think there’s a lot more to Kingsley Pryor than we know. The best course would be for me to take him back to Trafalgar. He can be debriefed properly there.”

“Okay. I’m going to step up security around the bureau, and I don’t want you to leave it until the voidhawk arrives. There’s a spare office you can use to sleep in, my executive officer will show you. And I’ll organize a medical team to examine you before you depart.”

“Thank you, sir.” Erick stood up, saluted, and walked out. Emonn Verona had been fifteen years in the navy, and undercover officers like Erick Thakrar still unnerved him.

The office light panel dimmed for a few seconds, then flickered annoyingly up to its full brightness. Emonn Verona gave it a resigned glare: the damn thing had been getting worse for a couple of days now. He made a note in his neural nanonics general file to get an engineer in once Thakrar was safely on his way.

Right from the start, Gerald Skibbow had disliked asteroid settlements. They were worse than an arcology; the corridors were claustrophobic, while the biosphere caverns had a forced grandeur which lessened them considerably. Those initial impressions had come from Pinjarra, where the Quadin had left him.

It hadn’t taken long, even for someone as ingenuous as himself, to find out that despite the quarantine, nongovernmental cargoes were still arriving at Pinjarra from outsystem. They didn’t arrive on starships, though, Quadin was virtually the only one docked to the asteroid’s spaceport, the rest were inter-orbit craft. Hours spent in the bars which their crews used gave him an outline of the operation, and a name: Koblat. An asteroid which was open to quarantine-busting flights, acting as a distribution hub for the Trojan cluster. A berth on an inter-orbit ship returning empty cost him five thousand fuseodollars.

It was the starships Gerald wanted, whose captains might conceivably accept a charter to Valisk. He had money in his Jovian Bank credit disk; so perhaps it was his manner which caused them all to shake their heads and turn their backs on him. He knew he was too anxious, too insistent, too desperate. He’d made progress in controlling the extremes of his behaviour; there were fewer tantrums when his requests were refused, and he really tried to remember to wash and shave and find clean clothes. But still the captains rejected him. Perhaps they could see the ghosts and demons dancing inside his head. They didn’t understand. It was Marie they were condemning, not him.

This time he had come very close to screaming at the captain as she made a joke of his pleas. Very close to raising his fists, to punching the truth and the need into her.

Then she had looked into his eyes and realized the danger caged in there, and her smile had emptied away. Gerald knew the barman was watching closely, one hand under the bar to grip whatever it was he used to quell trouble. There was a long moment spent looking down at the captain as silence rippled out from her table to claim the Blue Fountain. He took the time to think the way Dr Dobbs said he should, to focus on goals and the proper way to achieve them, how to make himself calm when his thoughts were febrile with rage.

The possibility of violence passed. Gerald turned and made for the door. Outside, naked rock pressed in on him, creating a sense of suffocation. There were too few light panels in the corridor. Hologram signs and low-wattage AV projections tried to entice him into other clubs and bars. He shuffled past, reaching the warren of smaller corridors which served the residential section. He thought his rented room was close, the signs at every intersection were confusing, numbers and letters jumbled together; he wasn’t used to them yet. Voices rumbled down the corridor, male laughs and jeers, the tone was unpleasant. They were coming from the junction ahead. Dim shadows moved on the walls. He almost stopped and turned around. Then he heard the girl’s cry, angry and fearful at the same time. He wanted to run away. Violence frightened him now. The possessed seemed to be at the heart of all conflicts, all evil. It would be best to leave, to call others to help. The girl cried out again, cursing. And Gerald thought of Marie, and how lonely and afraid she must have been when the possessed claimed her. He edged forwards, and glanced around the corner.

At first, Beth had been furious with herself. She prided herself on how urban-wise she was. Koblat might be small, but that didn’t mean it had much community spirit. There were only the company cops to keep order; and they didn’t much bother unless they’d had their bung. The corridors could get tough. Men in their twenties, the failed rebels who now had nothing in front of them but eighty years work for the company, went together in clans. They had their own turf, and Beth knew which corridors they were, where you didn’t go at any time.

She hadn’t been expecting any trouble when the three young men walked down the corridor towards her. She was only twenty metres from her apartment, and they were in company overalls, some kind of maintenance crew. Not a clan, nor mates coming back from a clubbing session. Mr Regulars.

The first one whistled admiringly when they were a few metres away. So she gave them the standard blank smile and moved over to one side of the corridor. Then one of them groaned and pointed at her ankle. “Christ, she’s wearing one too, a deadie.”

“Are ya gay, doll? Fancy giving that Kiera one, do ya? Me too.”

They all laughed harshly. Beth tried to walk past. A hand caught her arm. “Where you going, doll?”

She attempted to pull herself free, but he was too strong.

“Valisk? Going to shag Kiera? We not good enough for you here? You got something against your own kind?”

“Let go!” Beth started to struggle. More hands grabbed her. She lashed out with her free arm, but it was no good. They were bigger, older, stronger.

“Little cow.”

“She’s got some fight in her.”

“Hold the bitch. Take that arm.”

Her arms were forced behind her back, holding her still. The man in front of her grinned slowly as she twisted about. He grabbed her hair suddenly and pushed her head back. Beth flinched, very near to losing it. His face was centimetres from hers, triumphant eyes gloating.

“Gonna take you home with us,” he breathed. “We’ll straighten you out good and proper, doll; you won’t want girls again, not after we’ve finished with you.”

“Fuck off!” Beth screamed. She kicked out. But he caught her leg and shoved it high into the air.

“Dumb slut.” He tugged at the knot which held the red handkerchief around her ankle. “Reckon this might come in useful, guys. She’s got a mouth on her.”

“You . . . you just bloody well leave her alone.”

All four of them stared at the speaker.

Gerald stood in the corridor’s junction, his grey ship-suit wrinkled and dirty, hair ruffled, three days of beard shading his face. Even more alarming than the nervejam stick he was pointing at them in a two-handed grip was the way it shook. He was blinking as if he were having great difficulty focusing.

“Whoa there, fella,” the man holding Beth’s leg said. “Let’s not get excited here.”

“Get away from her!” The nervejam stick juddered violently.

Beth’s leg was hurriedly dropped. The hands let go of her arms. Her three would-be rapists began to back off down the corridor. “We’re going, okay? You got this all wrong, fella.”

“Leave! I know what you are. You’re part of it. You’re part of them. You’re helping them.”

The three men were retreating fast. Beth looked at the unstable nervejam stick and the persecuted face behind it, and almost felt like joining them. She tried to get her breathing back under control.

“Thanks, mate,” she said.

Gerald sucked on his lower lip and gradually slid down the wall until he was squatting on his heels. The nervejam stick dropped from his fingers.

“Hey, you okay?” Beth hurried forwards.

Gerald looked up at her with a pathetically placid face and started whimpering.

“Jeeze—” She looked around to make certain her assailants had gone, then hunkered down beside him. Something made her hold back from making a grab for the nervejam. She was desperately uncertain what he’d do. “Listen, they’ll probably come back in a minute. Where do you live?”

Tears started streaming down from his eyes. “I thought you were Marie.”

“No such luck mate, I’m Beth. Is this your corridor?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, do you live near here?”

“Help me please, I have to get to her, and Loren’s left me here all alone. I don’t know what to do next. I really don’t.”

“You’re not the only one,” Beth grunted.

“Well who is he?” Jed asked.

Gerald was sitting at the dining-room table in Beth’s apartment, staring at the mug of tea he was holding. It was a pose he’d maintained for the last ten minutes.

“Says his name’s Gerald Skibbow,” Beth said. “Reckon he’s telling the truth.”

“Okay. How about you? You all right now?”

“Yeah. Those manky bastards got a real fright. Don’t reckon we’ll be seeing them again.”

“Good. You know, we might be better off if we stop wearing our handkerchiefs. People are getting real uptight about it.”

“What? No way! Not now. It says what I am: a Deadnight. If they can’t stomach that, it ain’t my problem.”

“It nearly was.”

“It won’t happen again.” She held up the nervejam and gave a brutish smirk.

“Jeeze. Is that his?”

“Yep. Said I could borrow it.”

Jed regarded Gerald in dismayed confusion. “Blimey. Bloke must be pretty far gone.”

“Hey.” She tapped his belly with the tip of the nervejam. “Watch what you’re saying. Maybe he’s a little cranky, but he’s my mate.”

“A little cranky? Look at him, Beth, the guy’s a walking dunny.” He saw the way she tensed up. “Okay. He’s your mate. What are you going to do with him?”

“He’ll have a room somewhere.”

“Yeah, a nice quiet one with lots of padding on the walls.”

“Quit that, will you. How much you’ve changed, huh? We’re supposed to be wanting a life where people don’t jump down each other’s throats the whole time. Least, that’s what I thought. Am I wrong?”

“No,” he grumbled. Beth these days was hard to understand. Jed had thought she’d appreciate the fact he wasn’t making moves on her anymore. If anything that had made her even more intractable. “Hey, look don’t worry. My head’ll get straightened when we reach Valisk.”

Gerald slewed around in his chair. “What did you say?”

“Hey, mate, thought you’d gone switch-off on us there,” Beth said. “How you feeling?”

“What did you say about Valisk?”

“We want to go there,” Jed said. “We’re Deadnights, see. We believe in Kiera. We want to be part of the new universe.”

Gerald stared at him, then gave a twisted giggle. “Believe her? She’s not even Kiera.”

“You’re just like all the others. You don’t want us to have a chance just because you blew yours. That stinks, man!”

“Wait wait.” Gerald held up his arms in placation. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were a Deadnight. I don’t know what Deadnights are.”

“It’s what she said, that Kiera: Those of us who have emerged from the dead of night can break the restrictions of this corrupt society.”

“Oh, right, that bit.”

“She’s going to take us away from all this,” Beth said. “Where arseholes like those three blokes don’t do what they did. Not anymore. There won’t be any of that in Valisk.”

“I know,” Gerald said solemnly.

“What? You taking the piss?”

“No. Honestly. I’ve been searching for a way to Valisk ever since I saw the recording. I came here all the way from Ombey on the one hope that I’d find a way. I thought one of the starships might take me.”

“No way, mate,” Jed said. “Not the starships. We tried. The captains have all got closed minds. I told you, they hate us.”

“Yes.”

Jed glanced at Beth, trying to judge what she thought, if he should risk it. “You must have quite a bit of money, you come here from Ombey,” he said.

“More than enough to charter a starship,” Gerald said bitterly. “But they just won’t listen to me.”

“You don’t need a starship.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you how to get to Valisk if you take us with you. It’s ten times cheaper than the way you were planning, but we still can’t put that much together ourselves. As you’ve got to charter a whole ship for the flight anyway, it won’t cost you any more for us to be on board.”

“All right.”

“You’ll take us?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?” Beth asked, her voice betraying a multitude of vulnerabilities.

“I promise, Beth. I know what it’s like to be let down, to be abandoned. I wouldn’t do that to anyone, least of all you.”

She shifted around uncomfortably, rather pleased by what he’d said, the fatherly way he’d said it. Nobody on Koblat ever spoke to her like that.

“Okay,” Jed said. “Here it is: I’ve got a pickup coordinate timetable for this system.” He took a flek from his pocket and slotted it in the desktop block. The block’s holoscreen flashed up a complex graphic. “This shows where and when a starship from Valisk will be waiting to take on anyone who wants to go there. All you have to do is charter an inter-orbit craft to get us to it.”

As always, Syrinx found Athene’s house relaxing. No doubt Wing-Tsit Chong and the psychological team would call it a return to the womb. And if she found that amusing, she told herself, she must be virtually recovered.

She had returned from Jobis two days earlier. After relating everything she had learned from Malva to Wing-Tsit Chong, Oenone had flown to Romulus and a berth in an industrial station.

I suppose I ought to be glad you’re flying courier duty for our intelligence service,athene said. The doctors must think you’re recovered.

And you don’t?syrinx was walking with her mother across the garden which seemed to grow shaggier with each passing year.

If you’re not sure yourself, how can I be, my dear?

Syrinx grinned, somehow cheered by the uncanny perception. Oh, Mother, don’t fuss. Work is always a great anodyne, especially if you love your work. Voidhawk captains do nothing else.

I want us flying missions together again,Oenone insisted. It is good for both of us.

For a moment, mother and daughter were aware of the gridwork surrounding Oenone . Technicians were busy working on the lower hull, installing combat wasp launch cradles, maser cannons, and military-grade sensor pods.

Ah well,athene said. Looks like I’m outvoted.

I’ll be all right, Mother, really. Going straight into the defence force would be a little too confrontational. But courier work is important. We have to act with unity against the possessed; that’s vital. Voidhawks have an important role to play in that.

I’m not the one you’re trying to convince.

Jesus, Mother. Everyone I know is mutating into a psychiatrist. I’m a big girl now, and my brain’s back in good enough shape to make decisions.

Jesus?

Oh.syrinx could feel the blush rising to her cheeks—only Mother could do that! Someone I met always used it as an expletive. I just thought it was appropriate these days.

Ah, yes. Joshua Calvert. Or Lagrange Calvert, as everyone calls him now. You had quite a thing about him, once, didn’t you?

I did not! And why is he called Lagrange Calvert?

Syrinx listened with growing incredulity as Athene explained the events which had occurred in orbit around Murora. Oh, no, fancy Edenism having to be grateful to him. And what a stupid stunt jumping inside a Lagrange point at that velocity. He could have killed everybody on board. How thoughtless.

Dear me, it must be love.

Mother!

Athene laughed in delight at being able to needle her daughter so successfully. They’d come to the first of the big lily ponds which verged one side of the garden. It was heavily shaded now; the rank of golden yews behind it had swelled considerably in the last thirty years, their boughs reaching right across the water. She looked into the black water. Bronze-coloured fish streaked for the cover of the lily pads.