“If she was smart enough to get away from all the agency teams tagging her, she’ll know that she’ll never stay lost, not forever,” Monica said. “Too many of us are going to be looking now.”

“And yet the Udat doesn’t have any special equipment rigged. I checked the CAB registry, it hasn’t had any refitting for eight months. Sure, it has got standard interfaces for combat wasp cradles and heavy-duty close defence weapons. Almost every blackhawk has. But there was nothing unusual.”

“So?”

“So if she does take Udat straight to the Alchemist, how will they fire it at Omuta’s sun?”

“Do we know what equipment is necessary to fire it?”

“No,” Lady Tessa admitted. “We don’t even know if it does need anything special. But it was different, new, and unique; that means it’s non-standard. Which may give us our one chance to neutralize this situation. If there is any hardware requirement involved, she’s going to have to break cover and approach a defence contractor.”

“She might not have to,” Monica said. “She’ll have friends, sympathisers; certainly in the Dorados. She can go to them.”

“I hope she does. The agency has kept the Garissa survivors under surveillance for decades, just in case any of them try to pull any stupid revenge stunts.” She turned from the window. “I’m sending you there to brief their head of station. It’s a reasonable assumption she’ll turn up there eventually, and it may help having someone familiar with her on the ground.”

Monica nodded in defeat. “Yes, Chief.”

“Don’t look so tragic. I’m the one who’s going to have to report back to Kulu and tell the director we lost her. You’re getting off lightly.”

The meeting in the Confederation Navy Bureau on the forty-fifth floor of the StMichelle starscraper was synchronous with that of the ESA in both time and content. In the bureau it was an aghast Commander Olsen Neale who accessed the sensevise memory of Mzu’s abrupt exit from the habitat as recorded by a thoroughly despondent Pauline Webb.

When the file ended he asked a few supplemental questions and came to the same conclusions as Lady Tessa. “We can assume she has access to the kind of money necessary to buy whatever systems she needs to use the Alchemist, and install them in a combat-capable ship,” he said. “But I don’t think it’ll be the Udat ; that’s too high profile now. Every navy ship and government is going to be hunting it inside a week.”

“Do you think the Alchemist really does exist then, sir?” Pauline asked.

“CNIS has always believed so, even though it could never track down any solid evidence. And after this, I don’t think there can be any doubt. Even if it wasn’t stored in zero-tau, don’t forget she knows how to build another one. Another hundred, come to that.”

Pauline hung her head. “Shit, but we screwed up big-time.”

“Yes. I always thought we were a little overdependent on the Lord of Ruin’s benevolence in keeping her here.” He made a finger-fluttering gesture with one hand and muttered: “No offence.”

The AV pillar on his desktop processor block sparkled momentarily. “None taken,” said Tranquillity.

“We also got complacent with how static the whole situation had become. You were quite right when you said she’d fooled us for a quarter of a century. Bloody hell, but that is an awful long time to keep a charade going. Anyone who can hate for that long isn’t going to be fooling around. She’s gone because she thinks she has a good chance to use the Alchemist against Omuta.”

“Yes, sir.”

Olsen Neale made an effort to suppress his worry and formulate some kind of coherent response to the situation—one he didn’t have a single contingency plan for. No one at CNIS ever believed she could actually escape. “I’ll leave for Trafalgar right away. Our first priority is to inform Admiral Lalwani that Mzu’s gone, so she can start activating our assets to find her. Then the First Admiral will have to beef up Omuta’s defences. Damn, that’s another squadron which the navy can’t spare, not now.”

“The Laton scare will make it difficult for her to travel,” Pauline said.

“Let’s hope so. But just in case, I want you to go to the Dorados and alert our bureau that she may put in an appearance soon.”

Samuel, of course, didn’t have to physically meet with the other three Edenist intelligence operatives in the habitat. They simply conferred with each other via affinity, then Samuel and a colleague called Tringa headed for the spaceport. Samuel chartered a starship to take him to the Dorados, while Tringa found one which would convey him to Jupiter so he could warn the Consensus.

The same scenario was played out by the other eight national intelligence agency teams assigned to watch Mzu. In each case, it was decided that alerting their respective directors was the primary requirement; three of them also dispatched operatives to the Dorados to watch for Mzu.

The spaceport charter agents who had been suffering badly from the lack of flights brought on by the Laton scare suddenly found business picking up.

So now you have to decide if you’re going to allow them to inform their homeworlds,tranquillity said. For once the word gets out, you will be unable to control further events.

I didn’t really control events before. I was like an umpire insuring fair play.

Well now is your chance to get down off your stool and take part in the game.

Don’t tempt me. I have enough problems right now with the Laymil’s reality dysfunction. If dear Grandfather Michael was right, that may yet turn out to be a lot more trouble than Mzu’s Alchemist.

I concede the point. But I do need to know if I am to permit the agency operatives to depart.

Ione opened her eyes to look through the window, but the water outside was sable-black now, there was nothing to see apart from a weak reflection of herself in the glass. For the first time in her life she began to understand what loneliness was.

You have me,tranquillity assured her gently.

I know. But in a way you are a part of me. It would be nice to have someone else’s shoulder to lean on occasionally.

A someone such as Joshua?

Don’t be so bitchy.

I’m sorry. Why don’t you ask Clement to come to the apartment? He makes you happy.

He makes me orgasm, you mean.

Is there a difference?

Yes, but don’t ask me to explain it. It’s just that I’m looking for more than physical contentment right now. These are big decisions I’m making here. They could affect millions of people, hundreds of millions.

You have known this time would come ever since you were conceived. It is what your life is for.

Most of the Saldanas, yes. They make a dozen decisions like this before lunch every day. Not me. I think the family’s arrogance gene might be inactive in my case.

It is more likely to be a hormonal imbalance due to your pregnancy which is making you procrastinate.

She laughed out loud, the sound echoing around the vast room. You really don’t understand the difference between your thought processes and mine, do you?

I believe I do.

Ione had the silliest vision of a two-kilometre-long nose sniffing disdainfully. Her laugh turned to a giggle. Okay, no more procrastination. Let’s be logical. We blew it with safeguarding Mzu, and now she’s presumably on her way to exterminate Omuta’s star. And you and I certainly don’t have the kind of resources available to the ESA and other agencies to track her down and stop her. Right?

An elegant summary.

Thank you. Therefore, the best chance to stop her will be to let the intelligence community off the leash.

Granted.

Then we let them out. At least that way Omuta stands a chance of survival. I don’t think I really want a genocide on my conscience. Nor, I suspect, do you.

Very well. I will not restrict their starships from departing.

Which just leaves us with what’s going to happen afterwards. If they do catch her, someone is going to wind up with the technology to build Alchemist devices. As Monica said on the beach, every government will want it to safeguard their own particular version of democracy.

Yes. The old term for a nation acquiring such an overwhelming military advantage is a “superpower.” At the very least, the emergence of such a nation will result in an arms race as other governments try to acquire the Alchemist technology, which will not benefit the general Confederation economy. And if they succeed, the Confederation will be plunged into a deterrence cycle, a balance of terror.

And it was all my fault.

Not quite. Dr Alkad Mzu invented the Alchemist. From that moment on all subsequent events were inevitable. There is a saying that once you have released the genie from the bottle, he cannot be put back.

Maybe not. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a go.

From the air Avon’s capital, Regina, was almost indistinguishable from any big city on a fully developed and industrialized planet within the Confederation. A dark gritty stain of buildings which crept a little further outwards into the green countryside with every passing year. Only the steeper hill slopes and crinkled watercourses inconvenienced the encroachment to any degree, although in the central districts even they had been tamed with metal and carbon concrete. Again, as normal, a clump of skyscrapers occupied the very heart of the city, forming the commercial, financial, and government administration district. A lavish display of crystal spires, thick composite cylinders, and gloss-metal neo-modern towers, reflecting the planet’s economic strength.

The one exception to the standard urban layout was a second, smaller cluster of silver and white skyscrapers occupying the shore of a long lake on the city’s easternmost district. Like the Forbidden City of ancient Chinese Emperors, it existed aloof from the rest of Regina, yet it held sway over billions of lives. Home to one and a half million people, it was sixteen square kilometres of foreign diplomatic compounds, embassies, legal firms, multistellar corporation offices, navy barracks, executive agencies, media studios, and a thousand catering and leisure company franchises. This overcrowded, overpriced, bureaucratic mother-hive formed a protective ring around the Assembly building which straddled the lakeshore, itself looking more like a domed sports stadium than the very seat of the Confederation.

The stadium analogy was continued inside the main chamber, with tiered ranks of seats circling the central polity council table. First Admiral Samual Aleksandrovich always likened it to a gladiatorial arena, where the current polity council members had to present and defend their resolutions. It was ninety per cent theatre; but politicians, even in this day and age, clung to the public stage.

As one of the four permanent members of the polity council, the First Admiral had the right and authority to summon a full session of the Assembly. It was a right which earlier First Admirals had exercised only three times in the Confederation’s history; twice to request additional vessels from member states to prevent inter-system wars, and once to ask for the resources to track down Laton.

Samual Aleksandrovich hadn’t envisaged himself being number four. But there really hadn’t been time to consult with the President after the voidhawk from Atlantis arrived at Trafalgar. And after reviewing the report it carried, Samual Aleksandrovich was convinced that time was a crucial issue. Mere hours could make a colossal difference if the possessed were to be prevented from infiltrating unsuspecting worlds.

So now here he was in his dress uniform walking towards the polity council table under the bright lights shining out of a black marble ceiling, Captain Khanna on one side, Admiral Lalwani on the other. The chamber’s tiers were full of diplomats and aides shuffling to their designated seats, their combined grumbling sounding like a couple of bulldozers attacking the foundations. A glance upwards showed him the media gallery was packed. Everybody wanted in on the phenomenon.

You wouldn’t if you knew, he thought emphatically.

The President, Olton Haaker, wearing his traditional Arab robe, took his seat at the oaken horseshoe table along with the other members of the polity council. Samual Aleksandrovich thought Haaker looked nervous. It was a telling sign; the old Breznikan was a superb, not to mention wily, diplomat. This was his second five-year term of office; and only four of the last fifteen Presidents had managed to gain renomination.

Rittagu-FHU, the Tyrathca ambassador, walked imperiously across the chamber floor, minute particles of bronze-coloured powder shaking out of her scales to dust the tiles below her. She reached one end of the table and eased her large body onto a broad cradle arrangement. Her mate hooted softly at her from a similar cradle in the front tier.

Samual Aleksandrovich wished it were the Kiint who held the xenoc polity council seat this term. The two xenoc member races alternated every three years, although there were those in the Assembly who said that the xenocs should join the rota for the polity council seats like every human government had to.

The Assembly speaker called for silence, and announced that the First Admiral had been granted the floor under article nine of the Confederation Charter. As he got to his feet, Samual Aleksandrovich studied the blocks in the tiers which he would have to carry. The Edenists, of course, he already had. Earth’s Govcentral would probably follow the Edenists, given their strong alliance. Other key powers were Oshanko, New Washington, Nanjing, Holstein, Petersburg, and, inevitably, the Kulu Kingdom, which probably had the most undue influence of all—and thank God the Saldanas were keen supporters of the Confederation.

In a way he was angry that an issue as vital as this (surely the most vital in human history?) would be dependent on who was speaking with whom, whose ideologies clashed, whose religions denounced the other. The whole point of ethnic streaming colonies, as Earth had painfully discovered centuries ago during the Great Dispersal, was that foreign cultures can live harmoniously with each other providing they didn’t have to live jammed together on the same planet. And the Assembly allowed that wider spirit of cooperation to continue and flourish. In theory.

“I have asked for this session because I wish to call for a full state of emergency to be declared,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “Unfortunately, what started off as the Laton situation has now become immeasurably graver. If you would care to access the sensevise account which has just arrived from Atlantis.” He datavised the main processor to play the recording.

Diplomats they might have been, but even their training couldn’t help them maintain poker faces as the events of Pernik island unravelled inside their skulls. The First Admiral waited impassively as the gasps and grimaces appeared simultaneously throughout the chamber. It took a quarter of an hour to run, and many broke off during the playback to check the reactions of their colleagues, or perhaps even to make sure they were receiving the right recording, and not some elaborate horrorsense.

Olton Haaker got to his feet when it finished, and stared at Samual Aleksandrovich for a long time before speaking. The First Admiral wondered exactly how he was taking it, the President’s Muslim faith was a strong one. Just what does he think about djinns coming forth?

“Are you certain this information is genuine?” the President asked.

Samual Aleksandrovich signalled Admiral Lalwani, the CNIS chief, who was sitting in one of the chairs behind him. She got to her feet. “We vouch for its authenticity,” she said, and sat down again.

A number of intense stares were directed at Cayeaux, the Edenist ambassador, who bore them stoically.

How typical to blame the messenger, the First Admiral thought.

“Very well, what exactly are you proposing we should do?” the President asked.

“Firstly, the vote for a state of emergency will provide a considerable reserve of national naval ships for the Confederation Navy,” the First Admiral said. “We shall require all those national squadrons pledged to us to be transferred over to their respective Confederation fleets as soon as possible. Preferably within a week.” That didn’t go down well, but he was ready for it. “Combating the threat we now face cannot be achieved by confronting it in a piecemeal fashion. Our response has to be swift and overwhelming. That can only be achieved with the full strength of the navy.”

“But to what end?” the Govcentral ambassador asked. “What possible solution can you provide for the dead coming back? You can’t be considering killing those who are possessed.”

“No, we cannot do that,” the First Admiral acknowledged. “And unfortunately they know it, which will provide them with a huge advantage. We are faced with what is essentially the greatest hostage scenario ever. So I propose we do what we always do in such situations, and that is play for time while a genuine solution is found. While I have no idea what that will be, the overall policy we must adopt I consider to be very clear-cut. We must prevent the problem from spreading beyond those star systems in which it has already taken hold. To that end, I would ask for a further resolution requiring the cessation of all civil and commercial starflights, effective immediately. The number of flights has already been reduced sharply because of the Laton crisis; reducing it to zero should not prove difficult. Once a Confederation-wide quarantine is imposed, it will become easier to target our forces where they will be most effective.”

“What do you mean, effective?” the President demanded. “You just said we cannot consider an armed response.”

“No, sir, I said we cannot consider it as the ultimate solution. What it can, and must, be used for is to prevent the spread of possessed from star systems which they have infiltrated. If they ever manage to conquer an industrialized system, they will undoubtedly commit its full potential against us to further their aim; which, as Laton has told us, is total annexation. We have to be ready to match that, probably on several separate fronts. If we do not they will multiply at an exponential rate, and the entire Confederation will fall, every living human will become possessed.”

“Are you saying we just abandon star systems that have been taken over?”

“We must isolate them until we have a solution which works. I already have a science team examining the possessed woman we hold in Trafalgar. Hopefully their research may produce some answers.”

A loud murmur of consternation spiralled around the tiers at that disclosure.

“You have one captured?” the President inquired in surprise.

“Yes, sir. We didn’t know exactly what she was until the voidhawk from Atlantis came. But now we do, our investigation can proceed along more purposeful lines.”

“I see.” The President seemed at a loss. He glanced at the speaker, who inclined his head.

“I second the motion of the First Admiral for a state of emergency,” the President said formally.

“One vote down, eight hundred to go,” Admiral Lalwani whispered.

The speaker rang the silver bell on the table in front of him. “As, at this time, there would seem little to add to the information the First Admiral has presented to us, I will now call upon those here present to cast their votes on the resolution before you.”

Rittagu-FHU emitted a piping hoot and rose to her feet. Her thick head swung around to look at the First Admiral, a motion which sent the chemical program teats along her neck bobbling, delivering a leathery slapping sound. She worked her double lips elaborately, producing a prolonged gabble. “Speaker statement not true,” the translator block on the table said. “I have much to add. Elemental humans, dead humans; these are not part of Tyrathca nature. We did not know such things were possible for you. We impugn these assaults upon what is real today. If you all have this ability to become elemental , then you all threaten the Tyrathca. This is frightening for us. We must withdraw from contact with humans.”

“I assure you, Ambassador, we did not know of this ourselves,” the President said. “It frightens us as much as it does you. I would ask you to retain at least some lines of communication until this situation can be resolved.”

Rittagu-FHU’s fluting reply was translated as: “Who says this?”

Olton Haaker’s weary face reflected his puzzlement. He flicked a glance at his equally uncertain aides. “I do.”

“But who speaks?”

“I’m sorry, Ambassador, I don’t understand.”

“You say you speak. Who are you? I see Olton Haaker standing here today, as he has stood many times. I do not know if it is Olton Haaker. I do not know if it is an elemental human.”

“I assure you I’m not!” the President spluttered.

“I do not know that. What is the difference?” She turned her gaze on the First Admiral, big glassy eyes displaying no emotions he could ever understand. “Is there a way of knowing?”

“There seems to be a localized disturbance of electronic systems in the presence of anyone possessed,” he said. “That’s the only method of detection we have now. But we’re working on other techniques.”

“You do not know.”

“The possessions started on Lalonde. The first starship to reach here from that planet was Ilex , and it came directly. We can be safe in assuming that no one in the Avon system has been possessed yet.”

“You do not know.”

Samual Aleksandrovich couldn’t answer. I’m sure, but the damn creature is right. Certainty is no longer possible. But then humans have never needed absolutes to convince themselves. The Tyrathca have, and it’s a difference which divides us far greater than our biology.

When he appealed silently to the President, he met a blank face. Very calmly, he said: “I do not know.”

There was a subliminal suggestion of a mass sigh from the tiers, maybe even resentment.

But I did what was right, I answered her on her own terms.

“I express gratitude that you speak the truth,” Rittagu-FHU said. “Now I do what is my task in this place, and speak for my race. The Tyrathca this day end our contact with all humans. We will leave your worlds. Do not come to ours.”

Rittagu-FHU stretched out a long arm, and a nine-fingered circular hand switched off her translator block. She hooted to her mate, and together they made their way to the exit.

The vast chamber was utterly silent as the door slid shut behind them.

Olton Haaker cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and faced the Kiint ambassador who was standing passively in the bottom tier. “If you wish to leave us, Ambassador Roulor, then of course we shall provide every assistance in returning you and the other Kiint ambassadors to your homeworld. This is a human problem after all, we do not wish to jeopardize our fruitful relationship by endangering you.”

One of the snow-white Kiint’s tractamorphic arms uncurled to hold up a small processor block, its AV projection pillar produced a moir

“You mean you knew?” Olton Haaker asked, his diplomatic demeanour badly broken.

“We are aware of our nature, yes. We confronted it once, a great time ago, and we survived. Now you must do the same. We cannot help you in this struggle which you are facing, but we do sympathise.”

Starflight traffic to Valisk was dropping off; ten per cent in two days. Even though Rubra’s subsidiary thought routines managed the habitat’s traffic control, the statistic hadn’t registered with his principal personality. It was the economics of the shortfall which finally alerted him. The flights were all scheduled charters, bringing components to the industrial stations of his precious Magellanic Itg company. None of them were blackhawk flights from his own fleet, it was only Adamist ships.

Curious, he reviewed all the news fleks delivered by those starships which had arrived recently, searching for a reason, some crisis or emergency in another section of the Confederation. He drew a blank.

It was only when his principal personality routine made its weekly routine check on Fairuza that Rubra realized something was wrong inside the habitat as well. Fairuza was another of his prot

Promise, as defined by Rubra, consisted principally of the urge to exert himself as leader of the other boys at the day club, snatching the biggest share, be it of sweets or game processor time, a certain cruel streak with regards to pets, contempt for his timid, loving parents. It marked him down as a greedy, short-tempered, bullying, disobedient, generally nasty little boy. Rubra was delighted.

When Fairuza reached ten years of age, the slow waves of encouragement began to twist their way into his psyche. Dark yearnings to go further, a feeling of righteousness, a sense of destiny, a quite insufferable ego. It was all due to Rubra’s silent desires oozing continually into his skull.

The whole moulding process had gone wrong so often in the past. Valisk was littered with the neurotic detritus of Rubra’s earlier attempts to create a dynamic ruthless personality in what he considered his own image. He wanted so much to forge such a creature, someone worthy to command Magellanic Itg. And for two hundred years he had endured the humiliation of his own flesh and blood failing him time and again.

But Fairuza had a resilient quality which was rare among his diverse family members. So far he had displayed few of the psychological weaknesses which ruined all the others. Rubra had hopes for him, almost as many hopes as he once had for Dariat.

However, when Rubra summoned the sub-routine which monitored the fourteen-year-old youth, nothing happened. A giant ripple of surprise ran down the entire length of the habitat’s neural strata. Servitor animals flinched and juddered as it passed below them. Thick muscle rings regulating the flow of fluids inside the huge network of nutrient capillaries and water channels buried deep in the polyp shell spasmed, creating surges and swirls which took the autonomic routines over half an hour to calm and return to normal. All eight thousand of Rubra’s descendants shivered uncontrollably, and for no reason they could understand, even the children who had no knowledge of their true nature yet.

For a moment, Rubra didn’t know what to do. His personality was distributed evenly through the habitat’s neural strata, a condition the original designers of Eden had called a homogenized presence. Every routine and sub-routine and autonomic routine was at once whole and separate. All perceptual information received by any sensitive cell was immediately disseminated for storage uniformly along the strata. Failure, any failure, was inconceivable.

Failure meant his own thoughts were malfunctioning. His mind, the one true aspect of self left to him, was flawed.

After surprise, inevitably, came fear. There could be few reasons for such a disaster. He might finally be succumbing to high-level psychological disorders. It was a condition the Edenists always predicted he would develop after enduring centuries of loneliness coupled with frustration at his inability to find a worthy heir.

He began to design a series of entirely new routines which would analyse his own mental architecture. Like undercover wraiths, these visitants flashed silently through the neural strata on their missions to spy on the performance of each sub-routine without it being aware, reporting back on his own performance.

A list of flaws began to emerge. They made a strange compilation. Some sub-routines, like Fairuza’s monitor, were missing completely, others were inactive, then there were instances of memory dissemination being blocked. The lack of any logical pattern bothered him. Rubra didn’t doubt that he was under attack, but it was a most peculiar method of assault. However, one aspect of the attack was perfectly clear: whoever was behind the disruptions had a perfect understanding of both affinity and a habitat’s thought routines. He couldn’t believe it was the Edenists, not them with their repugnant superiority. They considered time to be their premier weapon against him; the Kohistan Consensus was of the opinion that he could not sustain himself for more than a few centuries. And a covert undeclared war on someone who didn’t threaten them was an inconceivable breach of their culture’s ethics. No, it had to be someone else. Someone more intimate.

Rubra reviewed the monitor sub-routines which had been rendered inactive. There were seven; six of them were assigned to ordinary descendants, all of them under twenty; as they weren’t yet involved with Magellanic Itg they didn’t require anything more than basic observation to keep an eye on them. But the seventh . . . Rubra hadn’t bothered to examine him at any time during the last fifteen years of their thirty-year estrangement, his greatest ever failure: Dariat.