“It cannot be the possessed, surely?” Omain said. “Neural nanonics don’t function for us.”

“Might be the Organization ships. No. They’d never be able to access Tonala’s net from orbit, not with the platforms still going at it. Hang on, I’ll see what I can find out.” He felt almost happy as he started retrieving tracker programs from the memory fleks he’d brought. The net dons in this city probably had ten times the experience he’d got from snooping around Ayacucho’s communications circuits, but his programs were still able to flash back through the junctions, tracing the origin of the searchers.

The answer sprang into his mind just as the hotel’s central processor crashed. “Wow, that was some guardian program. But I got them. You know anything about a local firm called Kilmartin and Elgant?”

“No. But I haven’t been here long, not in this incarnation.”

“Right.” Lodi twitched a smile. “I’ll see what . . . that’s odd.”

Omain had risen from his chair. He was frowning at the suite’s double door. “What is?”

“The suite’s net processor is down.”

The door chimed.

“Did you . . .” Lodi began.

Something very heavy smashed into the door. Its panels bulged inwards. Splintering sounds were spitting out of the frame.

“Run!” Omain shouted. He stood before the door, both arms held towards it, palms outwards. His face was clenched with effort. The air twisted frantically in front of him, whipping up a small gale.

Another blow hammered the door, and Omain was sent staggering backwards. Lodi turned to run for the bedroom. He was just in time to see a fat three-metre-long serpent slither vertically up the outside of the window. Its huge head reared back, levelling out to stare straight at him. The jaws parted to display fangs as big as fingers. Then it lunged forwards, shattering the glass.

From his elevated position in the command post, Shemilt studied the ops table below him. One of the girls leaned over and pushed a red-flagged marker closer to the deserted asteroid.

“In range, sir,” she reported.

Shemilt nodded, trying not to show too much dismay. All three of the inter-orbit ships were in range of New Georgia’s SD network now. And Quinn had not returned to change his orders. His very specific orders.

If only we weren’t so bloody terrified of him, Shemilt thought. He still felt sick every time he remembered the zero-tau pod containing Captain Gurtan Mauer. Quinn had opened it up during two of the black mass ceremonies.

If we all grouped together—But of course, death was no longer the end. Throwing the dark messiah into the beyond would solve nothing.

There was a single red telephone in his command post. He picked up the handset. “Fire,” he ordered.

Two of the three inter-orbit ships on their way to find out what the teams from Jesup were doing in the deserted asteroids were struck by X-ray lasers. The beams shone clean through the life support capsules and the fusion drive casings. Both crews died instantly. Electronics flash evaporated. Drive systems ruptured. Two wrecks tumbled through space, their hulls glowing a dull orange, vapour squirting from split tanks.

The third was targeted by a pair of combat wasps.

The officers of the other two national SD networks saw them streaking away from New Georgia’s platform, heading towards the helpless inter-orbit ship. They requested and received fire authority codes. By then the attacking combat wasps had begun dispensing their submunitions drones. Infrared decoys shone like micro-novas amid the shoal of drive exhausts; electronic warfare pulses screamed at the sensors of any SD platform within five thousand kilometres. The offensive was a valid tactic; combat wasps launched to try to protect the remaining ship were confused for several seconds. A time period which in space warfare was critical.

A flock of one-shot pulsers finally got close enough to discharge into the remaining inter-orbit ship, killing it immediately. That didn’t prevent the kinetic missiles from arrowing in on it at thirty-five gees. Nor submunitions with nuclear warheads from detonating when they were within range.

Lady Mac ’s sensors picked up most of the brief battle, though the overspill from the electronic warfare submunitions overlapping the general assault waged by the SD platforms caused several overload dropouts.

“This is becoming a seriously hazardous location,” Sarha mumbled. The external sensor image was quivering badly as if something was shaking the starship about. Artificial circles of green, blue, and yellow were splashing open against the starfield like raindrop graffiti. Intense blue-white flares started to appear among them.

“It just went nuclear,” Beaulieu said. “I don’t think I’ve seen overkill on that scale before.”

“What the hell is going on up there?” Sarha asked.

“Nothing good,” Liol said. “A possessed would have to be very determined to make a trip to one of those abandoned asteroids; there are no biospheres left, that’ll leave them heavily dependent on technology.”

“How are the Organization ships reacting?” Sarha asked. Twenty minutes after Lady Mac had left the Spirit of Freedom , the three frigates had docked. Quarter of an hour after that all communication with the station had ceased. They were now holding orbit eight hundred kilometres ahead of Spirit of Freedom , which gave their sensors a reasonable resolution.

“I’m way ahead of you,” Liol said. “Two of them are launching—wait, they all are. They’re going down into a lower orbit. Damn, I wish we could see what the voidhawks are doing.”

“I’m registering activity within the station’s defence sensor suite,” Beaulieu said. “They’re sweeping us.”

“Liol, take us another five hundred kilometres away.”

“No problem.”

Sarha consulted the orbital display. “We’ll be over Tonala in another thirty minutes. I’m going to recommend Joshua pulls out.”

“There’s a lot of ship movements beginning down here,” Beaulieu said. “Two more low-orbit stations are launching ships; and those are the ones we can see.”

“Bugger it,” Sarha grunted. “Okay, go to defence-ready status.”

Lady Mac ’s standard sensor clusters retreated down into their recesses; the smaller, bulbous combat sensors slid smoothly upwards to replace them, gold-chrome lenses reflecting the last twinkling explosions in high orbit. Her combat wasp launch tubes opened.

All around her, Nyvan’s national navies and SD platforms were switching to the same status.

Since arriving at Jesup, Dwyer had spent almost every hour helping to modify the bridge systems of the cargo clipper Mount’s Delta . Given his minimal technical background, his time was spent supervising the non-possessed technicians who did most of the installation.

The bridge compartment was badly cramped, which meant only a couple of people could work in it at any one time. Dwyer had become highly proficient at dodging flying circuit boards and loose console covers. But he was satisfied with the result, which was far less crude than the changes they’d made to the Tantu . With the huge stock of component spares available in the spaceport, the consoles looked as if they’d slipped off the factory production line mere hours earlier. Their processors were now all military grade, capable of functioning while they were subjected to the energistic effect of the possessed. And the flight computer had been augmented until it was capable of flying the ship following the simplest of verbal orders.

This time there was none of the black sculpture effect, every surface was standard. Quinn had insisted the clipper’s life support capsule must stand up to inspection when they arrived at Earth. Dwyer was confident he had reached that objective.

Now he was hovering just outside the small galley alcove on the mid-deck watching a female technician replacing the old hydration nozzles with the latest model. A portable sanitation sucker hovered over her shoulder, its fan humming eagerly as it ingested the occasional stale globule which burped out of the tubes she’d unscrewed.

The unit’s hum rose sharply, becoming strident. A draught of cold air brushed Dwyer’s face.

“How’s it going?” Quinn asked.

Dwyer and the technician both yelped in surprise. The clipper’s airlock was in the lower deck, and the floor hatch was closed.

Dwyer spun around, grabbing at support struts to wrestle his inertia back under control. Sure enough, Quinn was sliding down through the ceiling hatch from the bridge. His robe’s hood was folded back, sticking to his shoulders as if he were in his own private gravity field. For the first time in days his flesh tone was almost normal. He grinned cheerfully at Dwyer.

“God’s Brother, Quinn. How did you do that?” Dwyer glanced over his shoulder to check the floor hatch again.

“It’s like style,” Quinn said. “Some of us have it . . .” He winked at the female technician and flung a bolt of white fire straight into her temple.

“Fuck!” Dwyer gasped.

The corpse banged back into the galley alcove. Tools fluttered out of her hands like iron butterflies.

“We’ll dump her out of the airlock when we’re under way,” Quinn said.

“We’re leaving?”

“Yes. Right now. And I don’t want anyone to know.”

“But . . . what about the engineering crew in the bay’s control centre? They have to direct the umbilical retraction.”

“There is no more crew. We can relay the launch instructions to the management computer through the bay’s datanet.”

“Whatever you say, Quinn.”

“Come on, you’ll enjoy Earth. I know I will.” He performed a somersault in midair, and slow-dived back up through the hatch.

Dwyer took a moment to compose himself, clenching his hands so the way his fingers trembled didn’t show, then followed Quinn up into the bridge.

Anger and worry isolated Alkad from the mundanities of the drive back to the hotel. She hadn’t thought this fast and hard since the days she was working on the Alchemist theory. Options were closing all around her, like the sound of prison doors slamming shut.

The meeting with two of Opia’s vice presidents had been a typical sounding-you-out session. All very cordial, and achieving very little. They had agreed on the principle of the company finding her a starship and crew, which at some yet-to-be-specified time would be equipped with specialist defence systems for duties in the Dorados’ defence force.

The one hold she had over them was the prospect that this would be the first order by the Dorados council; and if all went smoothly, more would follow. Possibly a great deal more.

Greed had taken root. She had seen it so many times before in the industrialists who had been supplying Garissa’s navy.

They would have followed her requests, ignoring the oddities of the situation. She was convinced of it. Then just as the meeting was winding down the Tonala government announced a state of emergency. New Georgia’s SD platforms had opened fire on three ships, one of which belonged to Tonala. Such an action, the Defence Ministry insisted, proved beyond any doubt that the possessed had captured Jesup, that the New Georgia government was lying, and possibly even possessed itself.

Once again Nyvan’s national factions were at war with each other.

The Opia executives loaded a program for a crestfallen expression into their neural nanonics. Sorry, but the contract would have to go into suspension. Temporarily. Just until Tonalan might has reigned triumphant.

The car drew up underneath the sweeping portico of the Mercedes Hotel. Ngong was first out, scouring the broad street for threats. Now they had him and Gelai protecting them, Alkad had dispensed with the security firm Voi had hired; although they’d kept the company’s car with its armoured bodywork and secure circuitry.

There wasn’t much traffic on the street. The team of men shovelling snow had vanished, leaving the dilapidated mechanoids to struggle on by themselves. Ngong nodded and beckoned. Alkad eased herself off the seat and scurried over to the lobby’s rotating door, Gelai a pace behind her the whole time. They had told her of the Organization’s ships during the trip back. It baffled Alkad how Capone had ever heard of her. But there was no disguising Gelai’s rising concern.

The five of them bundled into the penthouse lift, which rose smoothly. Only the annoying flicker of the light panel betrayed Gelai and Ngong for what they were.

Alkad ignored the lighting. The state of emergency was dangerous. It wouldn’t be long before Tonala retaliated against New Georgia’s SD network. Those starships docked above Nyvan would be pressed into service, if the captains didn’t simply ignore the quarantine and leave. She would soon be trapped here without any transport and the Capone Organization closing in. Unless she did something fast, she would belong to the possessed one way or the other, and with her came the Alchemist.

The spectre of what the device could do to the Confederation if it was used on a target other than Omuta’s star was now preying on her mind. What if it was used against Jupiter? The Edenist habitats would die, Earth would be deprived of the He3 without which it could never survive. Or what if it was used against Sol itself? What if it was switched to the nova function?

There had never been any conceivable prospect of this before. I was always in control. Mother Mary forgive my arrogance.

She cast a sideways glance at Voi, who was looking as irritable as always with the lift’s progress. Voi would never entertain any change in their mission priorities. The concept of failure was not allowed for.

Like me at that age.

I have to get off this planet, she realized abruptly. I have to reopen the options again. I can’t let it end like this.

The lift’s floor indicator said they were three floors below the penthouse when Gelai and Ngong exchanged a questioning glance.

“What’s the matter?” Voi asked.

“We can’t sense Omain, or Lodi,” Gelai said.

Alkad immediately tried to datavise Lodi. There was no response. She ordered the lift to stop. “Is there anyone up there?”

“No,” Gelai said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Of all the facets of possession, the perception ability fascinated Alkad the most. She’d only just started considering the mechanism of possession. The whole concept would ultimately mean quantum cosmology having to be completely restructured again. So far, she’d made very little theoretical progress.

“I told him to stay put,” Voi said indignantly.

“If his neural nanonics aren’t responding, then this is rather more serious than him simply wandering off,” Alkad told her.

Voi pulled a face, unconvinced.

Alkad ordered the lift to restart.

Gelai and Ngong were standing in front of the doors when they opened on the penthouse vestibule. Trickles of static skipped over their clothes as they readied themselves for trouble.

“Oh, Mary,” Eriba said. The double doors to the penthouse had been smashed apart.

Gelai waved the others back as she edged cautiously into the living room. Alkad heard an intake of breath.

The body Omain had been possessing was lying across one of the big settees, covered with deep scorch marks. Snow was blowing in through a gaping hole in the window.

Ngong hurriedly checked the other rooms. “No body. He’s not here,” he told them.

“Oh, Mother Mary, now what?” Alkad exclaimed. “Gelai, have you got any idea who did this?”

“None. Aside from the obvious that it was some possessed.”

“They know about us,” Voi said. “And now Lodi’s been possessed, they know too much about us. We must leave immediately.”

“Yes,” Alkad said reluctantly. “I suppose so. We’d better go directly to the spaceport, see if we can hook up with a starship there.”

“Won’t they know we’re going to do that?” Eriba said.

“What else can we do? This planet can’t help us anymore.”

One of the processor blocks on the table let out a bleep. Its AV projector sparkled.

Alkad looked straight into it. And she was looking out through a set of eyes at a man dressed in a traditional Cossack costume.

“Can you hear me, Dr Mzu?” he asked.

“Yes. Who are you?”

“My name is Baranovich, not that it particularly matters. The important fact here is that I have agreed to work for Mr Capone’s Organization.”

“Oh, shit,” Eriba groaned.

Baranovich smiled and held a small circular mirror up. Alkad could see Lodi’s frightened face reflected in the surface.

“So,” Baranovich said. “As you can see, we have not harmed your comrade. This is his datavise you are receiving. If he was possessed, he would be unable to do this. No? Say something, Lodi.”

“Voi? Dr Mzu? I’m sorry. I couldn’t—Look there are only seven of them. Omain tried . . .” Something hissed loudly behind him. The image blurred. Then he blinked.

“A brave boy.” Baranovich clapped Lodi on the shoulder. “The Organization has a place for those with such integrity. I would hate to see another come to use this body.”

“You might have to,” Alkad said. “I cannot consider swapping a lone man for the device, no matter how well I know him. There have been far bigger sacrifices made to get me to this point. I would be betraying those who made them, and that I can never do. I’m sorry, Lodi, really I am.”

“My dear doctor,” Baranovich said. “I was not offering you Lodi in exchange for the Alchemist. I am simply using him as a convenient instrument through which I can deal with you, and perhaps demonstrate our intent.”

“I don’t need to deal with you.”

“Your pardon, Doctor, I believe you do. You will not get off this planet unless the Organization takes you off. I think you know that now. After all, you weren’t going to try and run to the spaceport, now were you?”

“I’m not about to discuss my departure arrangements with you.”

“Bravo, Doctor. Resistance to the very end. I respect that. But please understand, the circumstances in which you find yourself have changed radically since you began your quest for vengeance. There will be no revenge against Omuta anymore. What would be the point? In a few short months Omuta as it is today will not exist. Whatever you can do to it will not exceed the coming of possession. Will it, Doctor?”

“No.”

“So you see, you have only yourself to consider now, and what will happen in your personal future. The Organization can offer you a decent future. You know that with us millions of valuable people remain unpossessed, and secure in their jobs. You can be one of them, Doctor. I have the authority to offer you a place with us.”

“In return for the Alchemist.”

Baranovich shrugged magnanimously. “That is the deal. We will take you—and your friends too if you want them—off this planet today, before the orbital battle becomes any worse. Nobody else will do that. You either stay here and become possessed, an eternity spent in the humiliation of physical and mental bondage; or you come with us and live out the rest of your life as fruitfully as possible.”

“As destructively as possible, you mean.”

“I doubt the Alchemist would have to be used many times, not if it’s as good as rumour says. Yes?”

“It wouldn’t need many demonstrations,” Alkad agreed slowly.

“Alkad!” Voi protested.

Baranovich beamed happily. “Excellent, Doctor, I see you are acknowledging the truth. Your future is with us.”

“There’s something you should know,” Alkad said. “The activation code is stored in my neural nanonics. If I am killed and moved into another body in a bid to make me more compliant, I will not be able to access them. If I am possessed, the possessor will not be able to access them. And, Baranovich, there are no copies of the code.”

“You are a prudent woman.”

“If I come with you, then my companions are to be given passage to a world of their choice.”

“No!” Voi shouted.

Alkad turned from the projection and told Gelai: “Keep her quiet.”

Voi squirmed helplessly as the possessed woman pinned her arms behind her back. A gag solidified out of thin air to cover her mouth.

“Those are my terms,” Alkad told Baranovich. “I have spent most of my life in pursuit of my goal. If you do not agree to my terms, then I will not hesitate to defy you in the only way I have left. I have that determination, it is the one real weapon I have always had. You have pushed me into this position, do not doubt that I will use it.”

“Please, Doctor, there is no need for such vehemence. We will be happy to carry your young friends to a safe place.”

“All right. We have a deal.”

“Excellent. Our spaceplanes will pick you and your friends up at the ironberg foundry yard outside the city. We’ll be waiting at Disassembly Shed Four with Lodi. Be there in ninety minutes.”