“Do not touch her, sir,” Fletcher called as he came to a halt by the front of the jeep. “The lady Louise is my ward, under my protection.”

“Traitor,” Lawrence Dillon yelled. “You are one of the blessed ones. God’s Brother allowed you back into this world to fight the legions of the false Lord. Now you defy the messiah chosen to lead the returned.”

Quinn clicked his fingers, and Lawrence fell silent. “I don’t know who you are, friend. But don’t fuck with me or you’ll die to regret it.”

“I do not wish to draw swords with any man. So stand aside and we will go our separate ways.”

“Arsehole. I’m stronger than you by myself; and there’s two of us.”

Fletcher smiled thinly. “Then why do you not take what you desire by your might? Could it be I would struggle? And that would draw the attention of the soldiers. Are you stronger than an entire army?”

“Don’t push it,” Quinn warned. “I’m off this shit tip planet today, and nobody’s gonna stop that. Now I know this bitch from before, she’s smart. She’ll have a starship lined up to take her away, right?”

Louise glared up at him.

“Thought so,” Quinn sneered. “Well, lover, you’re gonna hand your tickets over to me. My need is one fuck of a lot greater than yours.”

“Never!” She groaned as Lawrence Dillon grabbed her by the back of her neck and hauled her upright.

Fletcher made a start forwards, but stopped as Quinn pointed at Genevieve, who was cowering behind him.

“Dumb move,” Quinn said. “I’ll blow you back to the beyond if I have to. And then it’ll go real bad for your little pal. You know I mean it. I won’t possess her. I’ll keep her for myself. Some nights I’ll hand her over to Lawrence; he knows some real kinks now. I taught him myself.”

“Sure did.” Lawrence grinned wildly at Genevieve.

“You are inhuman.” Fletcher put an arm instinctively around Genevieve.

“Wrong!” Quinn barked. His sudden fury made Fletcher take a half pace backwards.

“Banneth. Now she’s inhuman. She did things to me . . .” Spittle appeared on Quinn’s chin. He giggled, and wiped it away on the back of a trembling hand. “She did things, okay. And now. Now, I’m the one who’s gonna do things right back to her. Things so sick she’s never thought of them. God’s Brother understands that, understands the need in me. I’m gonna let my serpent beast devour her and then spew out the bits. I’ll turn my whole crusade on her if I have to. I’ll use biowar bugs, I’ll use nukes, I’ll use antimatter. I don’t fucking care. I’m gonna crack Earth wide open. And I’m gonna go down there, and I’m gonna take her. And nobody is going to stand in my way.”

“Right on!” Lawrence shouted.

Quinn was breathing heavily, as if there were insufficient oxygen in the hangar. The cassock had returned to his original priest robe, tiny crackles of energy rippling along the voluminous fabric. Louise quailed before the expression on his face. There wasn’t even any point in struggling.

Quinn smiled at her, enraptured; two drops of blood dripped off his vampire fangs, running down his chin.

“Sweet Jesus,” Louise made the shape of the cross with her free hand.

“But,” Quinn said, calm again, “right now, I’m only interested in you.”

“Fletcher!” she wailed.

“I warn you, sir, do not touch her.”

Quinn waved a dismissive hand. Fletcher doubled up as if a giant had slammed a fist into his stomach. Breath oofed out of his parted lips. With a look of horrified surprise, he was flung backwards, thin slivers of white fire crawling over him, slowly constricting. His uniform began to smoulder. Blood burst out of his mouth and nose, more began to stain his crotch. He screamed, bucking about helplessly, wrestling with the air.

“Nooo!” Louise implored. “Please stop. Stop!”

Genevieve had stumbled to her knees, white face staring brokenly.

Lawrence began to fumble at the collar of Louise’s T-shirt, snickering eagerly. Then his hand froze, and he drew a breath in surprise.

Quinn was frowning, squinting along the length of the hangar.

Louise gulped, not understanding anything. But Fletcher had stopped his agonized contortions. A liquid dust, sparkling with rainbow colours, was slithering over him, and his clothes were slowly mending. He rolled around groggily and swayed up on his knees.

“What the fuck you doing here, man?” Quinn Dexter shouted.

Louise scanned the far end of the hangar. Duchess was shining directly through the wide-open doors, producing a brilliant scarlet rectangle set amid the funereal metal cavern. A blank, black human figure was silhouetted in the exact centre. It raised its arm, pointing.

A bullet bolt of white fire streaked down the hangar, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Louise saw huge shadows careering around at dizzying speeds. The bolt hit the iron roofing girder directly above Quinn Dexter. He flinched, ducking blindly as flakes of hot, tortured metal rained down. The whole roof creaked as the loading was redistributed.

“God’s Brother, what the shit are you playing at?” Quinn raged.

A bass laugh rumbled down the hangar, distorted by the peculiar acoustics of the stacked crates.

Louise had time to flash one imploring look at Fletcher, who could only shrug in confusion before the strange figure spread both arms wide.

“Quinn?” Lawrence appealed. “Quinn, what the hell is happening?”

His answer was a rosette corona of white fire which burst out of the silhouette. The crates around the figure ignited in the eerily powerful topaz flame which the energistic ability always fanned. A dry wind rose from nowhere, sending Quinn’s robe thrashing.

“Shit,” Quinn gasped.

The flames were racing towards them, gorging on the crates, swirling around and around the aisle, faster and faster, the eye of a cyclonic inferno. Wood screeched and snapped as it was cremated, spilling the contents of the crates for the flames to consume, intensifying their strength.

Louise squealed as the awesome heat pummelled against her. Lawrence had let go of her, his arms waving frantically. In front of him the air was visibly flexing like a warped lens, a shield against the baneful radiance.

Fletcher scooped up Genevieve. Bending low, he scuttled towards the open door beyond the jeep. “Move, lady,” he shouted.

Louise barely heard him above the roaring. Dull explosions sounded somewhere behind the leading edge of flame. Corrugated iron panels were taking flight, busting their rusty rivets to shoot off the roof, soaring high into the two-tone sky.

She staggered after Fletcher. Only when she was actually outside did she look around, just for a second.

The flames formed a furious rippling tunnel the entire length of the hangar. Dense black smoke churned out of the end. But the centre was perfectly clear.

Quinn stood before the conflagration, facing it down, arms raised to discharge his power, deflecting the devastating barrage of heat. Far ahead of him, the blank figure had adopted a similar pose.

“Who are you?” Quinn screamed into the holocaust. “Tell me!” A large wall of crates burst apart, sending a storm of sparks charging into the fray. Several roof girders buckled, sagging down, corrugated panels scythed into the flames. The tunnel began to twist, losing its stability. “Tell me. Show your face.” Sirens were sounding, the shouts of men. And more of the ruined hangar collapsed. “Tell me!”

The rampaging flames obscured the impudent figure. Quinn let out a wordless howl of outrage. And then even he had to retreat as metal melted and concrete turned to sluggish lava. He and Lawrence together lurched out onto the withered grass. Men and fire engines swarmed around in chaos. It was easy to blend in and slink away. Lawrence said nothing as they made their way along a lane of parked aircraft, the darkness of Quinn’s mind humbling him into silence.

Louise and Fletcher saw the first vehicles bumping over the grass, farm rangers painted military green and a couple of jeeps. A squad of militia were running around the rank of planes, urged on by their officer. Sirens were starting up in the distance. Behind her, the flames were crawling ever higher into the sky.

“Fletcher, your uniform,” she hissed.

He glanced down. His trousers had become purple. A blink, and they were khaki again; his jacket lost its rumpled appearance. His bearing was impressively imperious.

Genevieve moaned in his arms, as if she were fighting a nightmare.

“Is she all right?” Louise asked.

“Yes, my lady. Simply a faint.”

“And you?”

He nodded gingerly. “I survive.”

“I thought . . . It was awful. That devil brute, Quinn.”

“Never worry for me, lady. Our Lord has decreed some purpose for me, it will be revealed in time. I would not be here otherwise.”

The first vehicles were nearly upon them. Louise could see more soldiers on their way. It was going to be a complete madhouse; nobody would know what was going on, what was to be done.

“This could be our chance,” she said. “We must be bold.” She started waving at one of the farm rangers. “That’s only a corporal driving. You outrank him.”

“As always, lady, your ingenuity is matched only by your strength of spirit. What cruel fate that our true lives are separated by such a gulf of time.”

She gave him a half-embarrassed, half-delighted smile. Then the farm ranger was pulling to a halt in front of them.

“You there,” Fletcher snapped at the startled man. “Help me get this child away. She has been overcome by the fire.”

“Yes, sir.” The corporal rushed out of the driving seat to help Fletcher ease Genevieve onto the backseat.

“Our spaceplane is over by the tower,” Louise said, fixing Fletcher with an emphatic stare. “It will have the medicine my sister requires. Our pilot is skilled in such matters.”

“Yes, madame,” Fletcher said. “The tower,” he instructed the corporal.

The bewildered man looked from Louise to Fletcher, and decided not to question orders from an officer, no matter how bizarre the circumstances. Louise hopped in the back and cradled Genevieve’s head as they drove away from the disintegrating hangar.

The corporal took ten minutes to find the Far Realm ’s spaceplane, guided by Fletcher. Although she’d never seen one before, Louise could see how different it was from the aircraft it was parked among. A needle fuselage with sleek wings that didn’t quite match, as if they’d come off another, larger craft.

Genevieve had recovered by the time they arrived, though she was very subdued, pressing into Louise’s side the whole time. Fletcher helped her down out of the farm ranger, and she glanced mournfully over to where the stain of black smoke was spreading over the crimson horizon. One hand gripped the pendant which Carmitha had given her, knuckles white.

“It’s over, now, all over,” Louise said. “I promise, Gen.” She ran her thumb over the Jovian Bank credit disk in her pocket as if it were a talisman as potent as Carmitha’s charm. Thank heavens she’d kept hold of that.

Genevieve nodded silently.

“Thank you for your assistance, Corporal,” Fletcher said. “Now I think you had better return to your commanding officer and see if you can help with the fire.”

“Sir.” He was dying to ask what was going on. Discipline defeated curiosity, and he flicked the throttle, driving off down the broad strip of grass.

Louise blew out a huge sigh of relief.

Furay waited for them at the bottom of the airstairs. A half-knowing smile in place; interested rather than apprehensive.

Louise looked straight at him, grinning in return—at their arrival, the state they were in. It was a relief that for once she didn’t have to concoct some ludicrous story on the spot. Furay was too smart for that. Bluntness and a degree of honesty was all she needed here.

She held up her Jovian Bank disk. “My boarding pass.” The pilot cocked an eyebrow towards the smoke. “Anyone you know?”

“Yes. Just pray you never get to know them, too.”

“I see.” He took in Fletcher’s uniform. When they’d met at lunchtime Fletcher had been in a simple suit. “I see you’ve made lieutenant in under five hours.”

“I was once more than this, sir.”

“Right.” It wasn’t quite the response Furay expected.

“Please,” Louise said. “My sister needs to sit down. She’s been through a lot.”

Furay thought the little girl looked about dead on her feet. “Of course,” he said sympathetically. “Come on. We’ve got some medical nanonics inside.”

Louise followed him up the airstairs. “Do you think you could possibly lift off now?”

He eyed the ferocious blaze again. “Somehow, I just knew you were going to ask that.”

Marine Private Shaukat Daha had been standing guard outside the navy spaceplane for six hours when the hangar caught fire on the other side of Bennett Field. The major in charge of his squad had dispatched half a dozen marines to assist, but the rest were told to stand firm. “It may just be a diversion,” the major datavised.

So Shaukat could only watch the extraordinarily vigorous flames through enhanced retinas on full resolution. The fire engines which raced across the aerodrome were quite something, though, huge red vehicles with crews in silvery suits. Naturally this crazy planet didn’t have extinguisher mechanoids. Actual people had to deploy the hoses. It was fascinating.

His peripheral senses monitor program alerted him to the two men approaching the spaceplane. Shaukat shifted his retinal focus. It was a couple of the locals, a Christian padre and an army lieutenant. Shaukat knew that technically he was supposed to take orders from Norfolk officers, but this lieutenant was ridiculously young, still a teenager. There were limits.

Shaukat datavised his armour suit communications block to activate the external speaker. “Gentlemen,” he said courteously as they came up to him. “I’m afraid the spaceplane is a restricted zone. I’ll have to see some identification and authorization before you come any closer.”

“Of course,” Quinn Dexter said. “But tell me, is this the frigate Tantu ’s spaceplane?”

“It is, yes, sir.”

“Bless you, my son.”

Annoyed at the honorific, he tried to datavise a moderately sarcastic response into the communications block. His neural nanonics had shut down completely. The armour suit suddenly became oppressively constrictive, as if the integral valency generators had activated, stiffening the fabric. He reached up to tear the shell helmet off, but his arms wouldn’t respond. A tremendous pain detonated inside his chest. Heart attack! he thought in astonishment. Allah be merciful, this cannot be, I’m only twenty-five.

Despite his disbelief the convulsion strengthened, jamming every muscle rock solid. He could neither move nor breathe. The padre was looking at him with a vaguely interested expression. Coldness bit into his flesh, fangs of ice piercing every pore. His guttural cry of anguish was stifled by the armour suit tightening like a noose around his throat.

Quinn watched the marine tremble slightly as he earthed the man’s body energy, snuffing out the chemical engines of life from every cell. After a minute he walked up to the dead statue and flicked it casually with a finger. There was a faint crystalline ting which faded quickly.

“Neat,” Lawrence said in admiration.

“It was quiet,” Quinn said with modest pride. He started up the spaceplane’s airstairs.

Lawrence examined the armour suit closely. Tiny beads of pale hoarfrost were already forming over the dark leathery fabric. He whistled appreciatively and bounded up the airstairs after Quinn.

William Elphinstone rose up out of the diabolical cage of darkness at the center of his own brain into a riot of heat, light, sound, and almost intolerable sensation. His gasp of anguish at the traumatic rebirth was deafening to his sensitive ears. Air seemed to rasp over his skin, every molecule a saw tooth.

So long! So long without a single sense. Held captive inside himself.

His possessor had gone now. A departure which had freed his body. William whimpered in relief and fear.

There were fragments of memory left behind from the time he’d been reduced to a puppet. Of a seething hatred. Of a demonic fire let loose. Of satisfaction at confounding the enemy. Of Louise Kavanagh.

Louise?

William understood so very little. He was propped up against a chain-link fence, his legs folded awkwardly below him. In front of him were hundreds of planes lined up across a broad aerodrome. It wasn’t a place he’d ever seen before.

The sound of sirens rose and fell noisily. When he looked around he saw a hangar which had been gutted by fire. Flames and smoke were still rising out of the blackened ruins. Silver-suited firemen were surrounding the building, spraying it with foam from their hoses. An awful lot of militia troops were milling around the area.

“Here,” William cried to his comrades. “I’m over here.” But his voice was a feeble croak.

A Confederation Navy spaceplane flew low over the field, wobbling slightly as if it wasn’t completely under control. He blinked at it in confusion. There was another memory associated with the craft. Strong yet elusive: a dead boy hanging upside down from a tree.

“And what do you think you’re doing here?” The voice came from one of the two patrolling soldiers who were standing three yards away. One of them was pointing his rifle at William. The second was holding back a pair of growling Alsatians.

“I . . . I was captured,” William Elphinstone said. “Captured by the rebels. But they’re not rebels. Please, you must listen. They’re devils.”

Both soldiers exchanged a glance. The one with the rifle slung it over his shoulder and raised a compact communications block.

“You must listen,” William said desperately. “I was taken over. Possessed. I’m a serving officer from the Stoke County militia. I order you to listen.”

“Really, sir? Lost your uniform, did you?”

William looked at what he was wearing. It was his old uniform, but you had to look close to know. The shirt’s original khaki colour had been superseded by a blue and red check pattern. From the thighs down his regulation trousers were now tough blue denim jeans. Then he caught sight of his hands. The backs of both were covered in black hair—and everyone always teased him about having delicate woman’s hands.

He let out a little moan of dismay. “I’m telling you the truth. As God is my witness.” Their blank, impersonal faces told him how useless it all was.

William Elphinstone remained slumped against the fence until the MPs came and took him off to Bennett Field’s tiny police station. The detectives who arrived from Norwich’s Special Branch division to interrogate him didn’t believe his story either. Not until it was far too late.

The Nyiru asteroid orbited ninety thousand kilometres above Narok, one of the earliest Kenya-ethnic colony worlds. After it was knocked into position two centuries ago the construction company had sliced out a five-hundred-metre-diameter ledge for visiting bitek starships. Eager for the commerce they would bring, the asteroid council equipped the ledge with a comprehensive infrastructure; even a small chemical plant to provide the nutrient fluid the starships digested.

Udat complained it didn’t taste right. Meyer wasn’t up to arguing. With Haltam’s best ministrations, it had taken him seven hours to recover consciousness after their escape from Tranquillity. Waking to find himself in interstellar space, with a worried, hurting blackhawk and an equally unsettled crew to placate did not help his frail mental state. They had flown directly to Narok, needing eleven swallows to cover the eighty light-years, where normally they would only use five.

In all that time he had seen Dr Alkad Mzu precisely twice. She kept to herself in her cabin for most of the trip. Despite analgesic blocks and the medical nanonic packages wrapped around her legs and arms, her injuries were causing some discomfort. Most curious of all she refused to let Haltam program the leg packages to repair an old knee injury. Neither of them had been in the mood to give ground. A few tersely formal words were exchanged; she apologised for his injuries and the vigour of the opposition, he filled her in on the flight parameters. And that was all.

After they arrived at Nyiru she paid the agreed sum without any quibble, added a five per cent bonus, and departed. Cherri Barnes did ask where she was headed, but the slight woman replied with one of her dead-eye smiles and said it was best nobody knew.

She vanished from their lives as much a mystery as when she entered it so dramatically.

Meyer spent thirty-six hours in the asteroid’s hospital undergoing cranial deep-invasion procedures to repair the damage around his neurone symbionts. Another two days of recuperation and extensive checks saw him cleared to leave.

Cherri Barnes kissed him when he walked back onto the Udat ’s bridge. “Nice to see you.”

He winked. “Thanks. I was worried there for a while.”

“You were worried?”

I was frightened,Udat said.

I know. But it’s all over now. And by the way, I think you behaved commendably while I was out of it. I’m proud of you.

Thank you. I do not want to have to do that again, though.

You won’t have to. I think we’re finally through with trying to prove ourselves.

Yes!

He glanced inquiringly around at his three crew. “Anybody got any idea what happened to our weirdo passenger?”

“ ’Fraid not,” Aziz said. “I asked around the port, and all I could find out was that she’s hired herself a charter agent. After that—not a byte.”

Meyer eased himself down into his command couch. A small headache was still pulsing away behind his eyes. He was beginning to wonder if it was going to be permanent. The doctor had said most probably not. “No bad thing. I think Mzu was right when she said we’d be better off not knowing about her.”

“Fine in theory,” Cherri said irritably. “Unfortunately all those agency people saw it was us who lifted her from Tranquillity. If she’s right about how dangerous she is, then we’re in some sticky shit right now. They’re going to want to ask us questions.”

“I know,” Meyer said. “God, targeted by the ESA at my age.”

“We could just go straight to them,” Haltam said. “Because, let’s be real here, they’re going to catch us if they want to. If we go to them, it ought to show we aren’t at the heart of whatever it is she’s involved in.”

Cherri snorted in disgust. “Yeah, but running to the King’s secret police . . . It ain’t right. I’ve heard the stories, we all have.”

“Too right,” Haltam said. “They make bad enemies.”

“What do you think, Meyer?” Aziz asked.

It wasn’t something he wanted to think about. His nutrient levels had been balanced perfectly by the hospital while he was in recuperation therapy, but he still felt shockingly tired. Oh, for someone else to lift the burden from him, which of course was the answer, or at least a passable fudge.

Good idea,Udat commented. She was nice.

“There is somebody who might be able to help us,” Meyer told them. “If she’s still alive. I haven’t seen her for nearly twenty years, and she was quite old then.”

Cherri gave him a suspicious look. “Her?”

Meyer grinned. “Yeah. Her. A lady called Athene, she’s an Edenist.”

“They’re worse than the bloody ESA,” Haltam protested.

“Stop being so prejudiced. They have one quality above all else, they’re honest. Which is a damn sight more than you can say for the ESA. Besides, Edenism is one culture the ESA can never subvert.”

“Are you sure she’ll help?” Cherri asked.

“No promises. All I can tell you is if she can, she will.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Does anyone have an alternative?”

They didn’t.

“Okay, Cherri, file a departure notice with the port, please. We’ve been here quite long enough.”

“Aye, sir.

And, you, let’s have a swallow sequence for the Sol system.

Of course,Udat said, then added rather wistfully: I wonder if the Oenone will be at Saturn when we arrive?

Who knows? But it would be nice to see how it developed.

Yes. As you say, it has been a long time.

The first swallow manoeuvre took them twelve light-years from Narok’s star. The second added another fifteen light-years. Confident the blackhawk had recovered from its ordeal, Meyer told it to go ahead with the third swallow.

Empty space twisted apart under the immense distortion which the patterning cells exerted. Udat moved cleanly into the interstice it had opened, shifting the energy which chased through its cells in smaller, more subtle patterns to sustain the continuity of the pseudofabric that closed around the hull. Distance without physical length flowed past the polyp.

Meyer! Something is wrong!

The alarmed mental shout struck like a physical blow. What do you mean?

The terminus is retreating, I cannot match the distortion pattern to its coordinate.

Linked with the blackhawk’s mentality he could actually feel the pseudofabric changing, twisting and flexing around the hull as if it were a tunnel of agitated smoke. Udat was unable to impose the stability necessary to maintain the wormhole’s uniformity.

What’s happening?he asked, equally panicked.

I don’t understand. There is another force acting on the wormhole. It is interfering with my own distortion field.

Override it. Come on, get us out of here.he felt a burst of power surge through the blackhawk’s cells, amplifying the distortion field. It simply made the interference worse. Udat could actually sense waves forming in the wormhole’s pseudofabric. The blackhawk juddered as two of them rolled against its hull.

It doesn’t work. I cannot support this energy output.

Keep calm,meyer implored. It might just be a temporary episode.in his own mind he could feel the energy drain reach exorbitant levels. There was barely ninety seconds reserve left at this expenditure rate.

Udat reduced the strength of the distortion field, desperate to conserve its energy. A huge ripple ran down the wormhole, slapping across the hull. Loose items jumped and spun over the bridge. Meyer instinctively grabbed the couch arms even as the restraint webbing folded over him.

The flight computer datavised that a recorded message was coming on line. Meyer and the crew could only stare at the offending console in amazement as Dr Mzu’s image invaded their neural nanonics. There was no background, she simply stood in the middle of a grey universe.

“Hello, Captain Meyer,” she said. “If everything has gone according to plan you should be accessing this recording a few seconds before you die. This is just a slightly melodramatic gesture on my part to explain the how and why of your situation. The how is simple enough, you are now experiencing distortion feedback resonance. It’s a spin-off discovery from my work thirty years ago. I left a little gadget in the life-support section which has set up an oscillation within the Udat ’s distortion field. Once established, it is quite impossible to damp down; the wormhole itself acts as an amplifier. The resonance will not end while the distortion field exists, and without the field the wormhole will collapse back into its quantum state. A neat logic box you cannot escape from. You can now only survive as long as Udat ’s patterning cells have energy, and that is depleting at quite a rate, I imagine.

“As to the why; I specifically chose you to extract me from Tranquillity because I always knew Udat was capable of pulling off such a difficult feat. I know because I’ve witnessed this blackhawk in action once before. Thirty years ago, to be precise. Do you remember, Captain Meyer? Thirty years ago, almost to the month, you were part of an Omuta mercenary squadron assigned to intercept three Garissan navy ships, the Chengho , the Gombari , and the Beezling . I was on the Beezling , Captain, and I know it was you in the Omuta squadron because after it was over I accessed the sensor recordings we made of the attack. The Udat is a most distinctive ship, both in shape, colouring, and agility. You are good, and because of that you won the battle. And don’t we all know exactly what happened to my home planet after that.”

The datavise ended.

Cherri Barnes looked over to Meyer, strangely placid. “Is she right? Was it you?”

All he could do was give her a broken smile. “Yes.” I’m sorry, my friend.

I love you.

Three seconds later, the energy stored in the Udat ’s patterning cells was exhausted. The wormhole, which was held open purely by the artificial input of the distortion field, closed up. A straight two-dimensional fissure, fifteen light-years in length, appeared in interstellar space. For an instant it spat out a quantity of hard radiation equal to the mass of the blackhawk. Then, with the universe returned to equilibrium, it vanished.