You used to control a multistellar industrial empire, Rubra. Now look what you’re reduced to. You’re pathetic, Rubra. Contemptible. And the best thing is, you know it.

Rubra shifted his principal focus from the linen-suited young man, withdrawing to contemplate a general perception of the habitat. Bonney Lewin was missing again. That damn woman was getting too good at foxing his observation routines. He automatically expanded the secondary routines surrounding and protecting the remaining non-possessed. She’d show up near one of them soon enough.

He didn’t agree,rubra said to the kohistan consensus.

That is unfortunate. Salter is expending a great deal of effort to collect her Deadnight followers.

Her what?

Deadnight is the name which her subversive recording has acquired. Unfortunately a great many young Adamists are finding it seductive.

Don’t I know it. You should see what she does to them when they get here. Those hellhawks should never have been allowed to collect them.

There is little we can do. We do not have the capability to shadow every hellhawk flight.

Pity.

Yes. The hellhawks are causing us some concern. So far they have not been used in an aggressor role. If they were deployed in combat with Valisk’s armament resources behind them, they would pose a formidable problem.

So you keep telling me. Don’t say you’ve finally come to a decision?

We have. With your permission we would like to remove their threat potential.

Do as you would be done by, and do it first. Well, well, you’ve finally started thinking like me. There’s hope for all of you yet. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you, Rubra. We know this must be difficult for you.

Just make damn sure you don’t miss. Some of my industrial stations are very close to my shell.

Rubra had always maintained an above-average number of Strategic Defence platforms around Valisk. Given his semi-paranoid nature it was inevitable he should want to make local space as secure as possible. Forty-five weapons platforms covered a bubble of space fifty thousand kilometres in diameter with the habitat and its comprehensive parade of industrial stations at the centre. They were complemented by two hundred sensor satellites, sweeping both inwards and outwards. No one had ever attempted an act of aggression within Valisk’s sphere of interest—a remarkable achievement considering the kind of ships which frequented the spaceport.

Magellanic Itg had manufactured the network, developing indigenous designs and fabricating all the components itself. A policy which had earned the company a healthy quantity of export orders. It also enabled Rubra to install his personality as the network’s executive. He certainly wasn’t about to trust any of his woefully ineffectual descendants with his own defence.

That arrangement had come to an abrupt end with the emergence of the possessed. His control over the network was via affinity with bitek management processors that were integrated into every platform’s command circuitry. He hadn’t even realized he’d lost control of the platforms until he’d attempted to interdict the hellhawks when they first revealed themselves. Afterwards, he’d worked out that somebody—that little shit Dariat, no doubt—had subverted his SD governor thought routines long enough to load powerdown orders into every platform.

With the power off, there was no way of regaining control through the bitek processors. Every platform would have to be reactivated manually. Which was exactly what Kiera had done. Spacecraft had rendezvoused with the platforms and taken out Rubra’s bitek management processors, replacing them with electronic processors and new fire authority codes.

A new SD Command centre was established in the counter-rotating spaceport, outside Rubra’s influence. He couldn’t strike at that like he could the starscrapers. The possessed technicians who reactivated the network were convinced they had made it independent, a system which only Kiera and her newly installed codes could control.

What neither they nor Dariat quite appreciated were the myriad number of physical interfaces between the neural strata and Valisk’s communications net. The tube trains and the starscraper lifts were the most obvious examples, but every mechanical and electronic utility system had a similar junction, a small processor nodule which converted fibre optic pulses to nerve impulses and vice versa. And Magellanic Itg not only built Valisk’s communications net, it also supplied ninety per cent of the counter-rotating spaceport’s electronics. A fact which even fewer people were aware of was that every company processor had a back-door access function hardwired in, to which Rubra alone had the key.

Within seconds of the possessed establishing their new SD command channels he was in the system. A delicious irony, he felt, a ghost in the ghosts’ machinery. The devious interface circuits he’d established to gain entry couldn’t support anything like the data traffic necessary to give him full control of the platforms once more, but he could certainly do unto others what they’d done to him.

On the ready signal from the Kohistan Consensus, Rubra immediately sent a squall of orders out to the SD platforms. Command codes were wiped and replaced, safety limiters were taken off line, fusion generator management programs were reformatted.

In the commandeered spaceport management office used to run the habitat’s SD network, every single alarm tripped at once. The whole room was flooded with red light from AV projectors and holoscreens. Then the power went off, plunging the crew into darkness.

“What the holy fuck is happening?” the recently appointed network captain shouted. A bright candle flame ignited at the tip of his index finger, revealing equally confounded faces all around him. He reached for his communications block to call Kiera Salter, dreading what she would say. But his hand never made it.

“Oh, shit, look ,” someone cried.

Severe white light began to flood in through the office’s single port.

In forty-five fusion generators the plasma jet had become unstable, perturbed by rogue manipulations in the magnetic confinement field. Burnthrough occurred, plasma striking the confinement chamber walls, vaporizing the material, which increased the pressure a thousandfold. Forty-five fusion generators ruptured almost simultaneously, tearing apart the SD platforms in a burst of five million degree shrapnel and irradiated gas.

You’re clear,rubra told the waiting fleet.

Three hundred wormhole termini opened, englobing the habitat. Voidhawks shot out. Two hundred were designated to eradicate the industrial stations, depriving Kiera of their enormous armament manufacturing base. The bitek starships immediately swooped around onto their assault vectors. Kinetic missiles flashed out of their launch cradles, closing on the stations at sixteen gees. Each salvo was aimed so that the impact blast would kick the debris shower away from the habitat, minimizing the possibility of collision damage to the polyp shell.

The remaining hundred voidhawks were given suppression duties. Flying in ten-strong formations they broadcast affinity warnings to the thoroughly disconcerted hellhawks sitting on the docking ledges, ordering them to remain where they were. Sharp ribbons of ruby-red light from targeting lasers made the ledge polyp shimmer like black ice speared by an early morning sun. Refracted beams twisted around the alien shapes perched on the pedestals as the voidhawks strove to match their discordant vectors with the habitat’s rotation.

Closer to the habitat, cyclones of shiny debris were churning out from the ruined industrial stations. Victorious voidhawks dived and spun above the metallic constellations, racing away ahead of the perilous wavefront of sharp high-velocity slivers. The hellhawks sat on their pedestals, observing the carnage with mute impotence.

Exemplary shooting,rubra told the kohistan consensus. Just remember when this is all over, you’re paying Magellanic Itg’s compensation claim.

Three hundred wormhole interstices opened. The voidhawks vanished in an extraordinary display of synchronization. Elapsed time of the attack was ninety-three seconds.

Even in the heat of passion Kiera Salter could sense nearby minds starting to flare in alarm. She tried to dislodge Stanyon from her back and rise to her feet. When he resisted, tightening his grip, she simply smacked an energistic bolt into his chest. He grunted, the impact shoving him backwards.

“What the fuck are you playing at, bitch?” he growled.

“Be silent.” She stood up, her wishes banishing the soreness and rising bruises. Sweat vanished, her hair returned to a neatly brushed mane. A simple, scarlet summer dress materialized over her skin.

On the other side of the endcap, the hellhawks were seething with resentment and anger. Beyond them was a haze of life which gave off a scent of icy determination. And Rubra, the ever-present mental background whisper, was radiating satisfaction. “Damn it!”

Her desktop processor block started shrilling. Data scrawled over its screen. A Strategic Defence alert, and red systems failure symbols were flashing all over the network schematic.

The high-pitched sound started to cut off intermittently, and the screen blanked out. The more she glared at the block, the worse the glitches became.

“What’s happening?” Erdal Kilcady asked. Her other bedroom fancy—a gormless twenty-year-old who as far as she could determine had only one use.

“We’re being attacked, you fool,” she snapped. “It’s those fucking Edenists.” Shit, and her schemes had been progressing beautifully up until now. The idiot kids believed her recording; they were starting to arrive. Another couple of months would have seen the habitat population rise to a decent level.

Now this. The constant hellhawk flights must have frightened the Edenists into taking action.

The burn mark on Stanyon’s chest healed over. Clothes sprang up to conceal his body. “We’d better get along to the SD control centre and kick some butt,” he said.

Kiera hesitated. The SD centre was in the counter-rotating spaceport. She was certain the habitat itself would be safe from attack. Rubra would never allow that, but the spaceport might be a legitimate target.

Just as she took a reluctant first step towards the door the black bakelite telephone on her bedside table started to ring. The primitive communications instrument was one which worked almost infallibly in the energistic environment exuded by the possessed. She picked it up and pressed the handset to her ear. “Yes?”

“This is Rubra.”

Kiera stiffened. She’d thought this room was outside of his surveillance. Exactly how many of their systems were exposed to him? “What do you want?”

“I want nothing. I’m simply delivering a warning. The voidhawks from Kohistan are currently eliminating the habitat’s industrial production capability. There will be no more combat wasps to arm the hellhawks. We don’t like the threat they present. Do not attempt to resupply from other sources or it will go hard on you.”

“You can do nothing to us,” she said, squeezing some swagger into her voice.

“Wrong. The Edenists respect life, which is why no hellhawks were destroyed this time. However, I can guarantee you the next voidhawk strike will not be so generous. I have eliminated the habitat’s SD platforms so that in future it won’t even be as difficult for them as today’s strike. You and the hellhawks will sit out the rest of the conflict here. Is that understood?” The phone went dead.

Kiera stood still, her whitened fingers tightening around the handset. Little chips of bakelite sprinkled down onto the carpet. “Find Dariat,” she told Stanyon. “I don’t care where he is, find him and bring him to me. Now!”

Chaumort asteroid in the Ch

But it was French-ethnic, and it allowed certain starships to dock despite the Confederation’s quarantine edict. Life could have been worse, Andr

The view was acceptable, the wine passable, his situation if not tolerable then stable—for a couple of days. Andranglo Erick—as soon as they’d docked Madeleine had hauled him off to the local hospital. Well, those thieving doctors would have to wait.

He couldn’t actually remember a time when there had been so few options available. In fact, he was down to one slender possibility now. He’d found that out as soon as he’d arrived (this time checking the spaceport’s register for ships he knew). An unusually large number of starships were docked, all of them arriving recently. In other words, after the quarantine had been ratified and instituted by the Ch

The Confederation Assembly had demonstrated a laudable goal in trying to stop the spread of the possessed, no one disputed that. However, the new colony planets and smaller asteroids suffered disproportionately from the lack of scheduled flights; they needed imported high-technology products to maintain their economies. Asteroid settlements like Chaumort, whose financial situation was none too strong to start with, were going to shoulder a heavy cost for the crisis not of their making. What most of these backwater communities shared was their remoteness; so if say an essential cargo were to arrive on a starship, then it was not inconceivable that said starship would be given docking permission. The local system congress wouldn’t know, and therefore wouldn’t be able to prevent it. That cargo could then (for a modest charter fee) be distributed to help other small disadvantaged communities by inter-planetary ships, whose movements were not subject to any Confederation proscription.

Chaumort was quietly establishing itself as an important node in a whole new market. The kind of market starships such as the Villeneuve’s Revenge were uniquely qualified to exploit.

Andr

Which was why he was currently sitting at a table waiting for a man he’d never seen before to show up. A bunch of teenagers hurried past, one of the lads snatching a basket of bread rolls from the caf

A flash of colour caught his eye. All the delinquents had tied red handkerchiefs around their ankles. What a stupid fashion.

“Captain Duchamp?”

Andr

Andr

The medical nanonic around Erick’s left leg split open from crotch to ankle, sounding as though someone were ripping strong fabric. Dr Steibel and the young female nurse slowly teased the package free.

“Looks fine,” Dr Steibel decided.

Madeleine grinned at Erick and pulled a disgusted face. The leg was coated in a thin layer of sticky fluid, residue of the package unknitting from his flesh. Below the goo, his skin was swan-white, threaded with a complicated lacework of blue veins. Scars from the burns and vacuum ruptures were patches of thicker translucent skin.

Now the package covering his face and neck had been removed, Erick sucked in a startled breath as cool air gusted over the raw skin. His cheeks and forehead were still tingling from the same effect, and they’d been uncovered two hours ago.

He didn’t bother looking at the exposed limb. Why bother? All it contained was memories.

“Give me nerve channel access, please,” Dr Steibel asked. He was looking into an AV pillar, disregarding Erick completely.

Erick complied, his neural nanonics opening a channel directly into his spinal cord. A series of instructions were datavised over, and his leg rose to the horizontal before flexing his foot about.

“Okay.” The doctor nodded happily, still lost in the information the pillar was directing at him. “Nerve junctions are fine, and the new tissue is thick enough. I’m not going to put the package back on, but I do want you to apply the moisturizing cream I’ll prescribe. It’s important the new skin doesn’t dry out.”

“Yes, Doc,” Erick said meekly. “What about . . . ?” He gestured at the packages enveloping his upper torso and right arm.

Dr Steibel flashed a quick smile, slightly concerned at his patient’s listless nature. “ ’Fraid not. Your AT implants are integrating nicely, but the process isn’t anywhere near complete yet.”

“I see.”

“I’ll give you some refills for those support modules you’re dragging around with you. These deep invasion packages you’re using consume a lot of nutrients. Make sure the reserves don’t get depleted.”

He picked up the support module which Madeleine had repaired and glanced at the pair of them. “I’d strongly advise no further exposure to antagonistic environments for a while, as well. You can function at a reasonably normal level now, Erick, but only if you don’t stress your metabolism. Do not ignore warnings from your metabolic monitor program. Nanonic packages are not to be regarded as some kind of infallible safety net.”

“Understood.”

“I take it you’re not flying away for a while.”

“No. All starship flights are cancelled.”

“Good. I want you to keep out of free fall as much as possible, it’s a dreadful medium for a body to heal in. Check in to a hotel in the high gravity section while you’re here.” He datavised a file over. “That’s the exercise regime for your legs. Stick to it, and I’ll see you again in a week.”

“Thanks.”

Dr Steibel nodded benevolently at Madeleine as he left the treatment room. “You can pay the receptionist on your way out.”

The nurse began to spray a soapy solution over Erick’s legs, flushing away the mucus. He used a neural nanonic override to stop a flinch when she reached his genitals. Thank God they hadn’t been badly injured, just superficial skin damage from the vacuum.

Madeleine gave him an anxious glance over the nurse’s back. “Have you got much cash in your card?” she datavised.

“About a hundred and fifty fuseodollars, that’s all,” he datavised back. “Andr

“I’ve got a couple of hundred, and Desmond should have some left. I think we can pay.”

“Why should we? Where the hell is Duchamp? He should be paying for this. And my AT implants were only the first phase.”

“Busy with some cargo agent, so he claimed. Leave it with me, I’ll find out how much we owe the hospital.”

Erick waited until she’d left, then datavised the hospital’s net processor for the Confederation Navy Bureau. The net management computer informed him there was no such eddress. He swore silently, and accessed the computer’s directory, loading a search order for any resident Confederation official. There wasn’t one, not even a CAB inspector, too few ships used the spaceport to warrant the expense.

The net processor opened a channel to his neural nanonics. “Report back to the ship, please, mon enfant Erick,” Andr

If his neck hadn’t been so stiff, Erick would have shaken his head in wonder. A charter! In the middle of a Confederation quarantine. Duchamp was utterly unbelievable. His trial would be the shortest formality on record.

Erick swung his legs off the examination table, ignoring the nurse’s martyrdom as her spray hoses were dislodged. “Sorry, duty calls,” he said. “Now go and find me some trousers, I haven’t got all day.”

The middleman’s name was Iain Girardi. Andr

They were assembled in the day lounge of the Villeneuve’s Revenge , the only place Andrg at the three of them.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking!” Madeleine shouted. “You’ve gone too far this time, Captain. Too bloody far. How can you even listen to this bastard’s offer? God in Heaven, after all we went through at Lalonde. After all Erick did. Look at this ship! They did that to it, to you.”

“That’s not strictly accurate,” Iain Girardi said, his voice tactfully smooth and apologetic.

“Shut the fuck up!” she bawled. “I don’t need you to tell me what’s been happening to us.”

“Madeleine, please,” Andr

“Damn right it’s my wish. And nowhere does it say in my crew contract that I fly for the possessed. You pay me my last two months in full, plus the Lalonde combat bonus you owe me, and I’m out of here.”

“If that is what you want.”

“You’ve got the money?”

“Oui. But of course. Not that it is any of your business.”

“Bastard. Why did you leave us to pay for Erick’s treatment, then?”

“I am only a captain, I do not claim to perform miracles. My account has only just been credited. Naturally it is my pleasure to pay for dear Erick’s treatment. It is a matter of honour for me.”

“Just been . . .” Madeleine glanced from Andr

“Oui,” Andr

“Oh, Jesus.” The shock of his admission silenced her.

“You spoke about Lalonde,” Iain Girardi said. “Did the Confederation Navy rush to your aid while you were there?”

“Do not speak about an event of which you know nothing,” Desmond growled.

“I know something about it. I’ve accessed Kelly Tirrel’s report. Everybody has.”

“And we have all accessed Gus Remar’s report from New California. The possessed have conquered that world. By rights we ought to sign on with the Confederation Navy and help eradicate every one of them from this universe.”

“Eradicate them how? This is a dreadful calamity which has befallen the human race, both halves of it. Dropping nukes on millions of innocent people is not going to bring about a resolution. Sure it was chaos at Lalonde, and I’m sorry you were hit with the worst of it. Those possessed were a disorganized terrified rabble, lashing out blindly to protect themselves from the mercenary army you carried. But the Organization is different. For a start we’re proving that possessed and non-possessed can live together.”

“Yeah, while we’re convenient,” Madeleine said. “While you need us to run the technology and fly starships. After that it’s going to be a different bloody story.”

“I can appreciate your bitterness, but you are wrong. Al Capone has taken the first steps to solving this terrible dilemma; he’s proposing a joint research project to find a solution. All the Confederation Navy is doing is working on methods of blowing the possessed back into the beyond. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want them to triumph.”

Desmond bunched his fist, one toe coming off the stikpad, ready to launch himself at the man. “You traitorous little shit.”

“You’re going to die,” Iain Girardi said remorselessly. “You, me, everyone on board this ship, everyone in Chaumort. All of us die. It can’t be helped, you can’t reverse entropy. And when you die, you’re going to spend eternity in the beyond. Unless something is done about it, unless you can find a living neurone structure which will host you. Now I ask again, do you want Al Capone’s project to fail?”

“If all Capone is interested in is spreading happiness across the galaxy, why does he want to hire a combat-capable starship?” Madeleine asked.

“Protection in the form of deterrence. There are Organization representatives like me in dozens of asteroids looking to sign up combat-capable starships. The more we have in orbit above New California, the more difficult it will be for anyone to launch a strike force against it. The Confederation Navy is going to attack New California’s Strategic Defence network. Everyone knows that. The First Admiral has got the Assembly screaming at him for some kind of positive action. If he can crack the SD network open, he’s cleared the way for an invasion; have the marines round up all the bad guys and shove them into zero-tau.” Iain Girardi let out a heartfelt pained breath. “Can you imagine the bloodshed that’ll cause? You have seen firsthand how hard the possessed can fight when they’re cornered. Imagine the conflict in your lower lounge multiplied by a billion. That’s what it will be like.” He gave Erick a sympathetic glance. “Is that what you want?”

“I’m not fighting for the possessed,” Madeleine muttered sullenly. She hated the way Iain Girardi could turn her words, make her doubt her convictions.

“Nobody is asking the Villeneuve’s Revenge to fight,” Iain Girardi said earnestly. “You are there for show, that’s all. Perimeter defence patrol, where you’re visible, a demonstration of numerical strength. Hardly an onerous duty. And you get paid full combat rates, with a guaranteed six-month contract; in addition to which I have a discretionary retainer fee to offer. Obviously for a prime ship like the Villeneuve’s Revenge it will be a substantial one. You will be able to afford to have the worst of the damage repaired here at Chaumort, plus Erick can receive the best medical treatment available. I can even arrange for a brandnew spaceplane on very favourable terms; New California astroengineering companies make the best models.”

“You see?” Andr

“No, Captain,” Madeleine said. “I’m not sharing the life-support capsules with the possessed. Not ever. Period.”

“Nobody is suggesting you do.” Girardi sounded shocked. “Obviously we understand there is a lot of suspicion at the moment. The Organization is working hard at breaking down those old prejudicial barriers. But until more trust is built up, then obviously you will have your own crew and no one else. In a way, that’s part of establishing trust. The Organization is prepared to accept an armed ship crewed by non-possessed orbiting the planet providing you are integrated into its SD command network.”

“Shit,” Madeleine hissed. “Erick?”

He knew it was some kind of trap. And yet . . . it was hard to see how the possessed proposed to hijack the ship. This was one crew totally aware of the danger in letting even one of the bastards on board. Iain Girardi might have made a major mistake in approaching Andr

The CNIS could undoubtedly use firsthand intelligence data on the disposition of ships around New California, which the Villeneuve’s Revenge would be ideally placed to gather. And he could always jump the ship away when the data was collected, no matter what objections Duchamp raised. There were items stowed in his cabin which could overcome the rest of the crew.

Which just left personal factors. I don’t want to go into the front line again.

“It’s an important decision,” he muttered.

AndrMerde. “We know that, Erick. But I don’t want you to worry. All I need to know is which of my crew is loyal enough to come with me. I have already decided to take my ship to New California.”

“What do you mean, loyal enough?” Madeleine asked hotly.

Andr

“Will we be docking with anything in the New California system? Do you expect us to take on any extra crew, for example?”

“Of course not,” Girardi said. “Fuel loading doesn’t require anyone coming into the life-support capsules. And if the unlikely event does arise, then obviously you’ll have a full veto authority over anyone in the airlock tube. Whatever precautions you want, you can have.”

“Okay,” Erick said. “I’ll come with you, Captain.”

“Yeah?”

. . .

“Fuck, I might have guessed, who else is going to call this time of night. Don’t you people ever sleep?”

. . .

“Everybody wants favours. I don’t do them anymore. I’m not so cheap these days.”

. . .

“Yeah? So you go run and tell my comrades; what use will I be to you then?”

. . .

“Mother Mary! You’ve got to be . . . Alkad Mzu? Shit, that’s a name I didn’t expect to hear ever again.”

. . .

“Here? In the Dorados? She wouldn’t dare.”

. . .

“You’re sure?”

. . .

“No, of course nobody’s said anything. It’s been months since the partizans even bothered having a meeting. We’re all too busy doing charity work these days.”

. . .

“Mother Mary. You believe it, don’t you? Ha! I bet you lot are all pissing yourselves. How do you like it for a change, arsehole? After all these years waiting, us poor old wanderers have gone and got us some real sharp teeth at last.”

. . .

“You think so? Maybe I just resigned from your agency. Don’t forget what the issue is here. I was born on Garissa.”

. . .

“Fuck you, don’t you fucking dare say that to me, you bastard. You even so much as look at my family, you little shit, and I’ll fire that fucking Alchemist at your home planet myself.”

. . .

“Yeah, yeah. Right, it’s a sorry universe.”

. . .

“I’ll think about it. I’m not promising you anything. Like I said, there are issues here. I have to talk to some people.”

The party was being thrown on the eve of the fleet’s departure. It had taken over the entire ballroom of the Monterey Hilton, and then spread out to occupy a few suites on the level below. The food was real food; Al had been insistent about that, drunk possessed could never keep the illusion of delicacies going. So the Organization had run search programs through their memory cores and hauled in anyone who listed their occupation as chef, possessed or non-possessed. Skill was all that counted, not its century of origin. The effort was rewarded in a formal eight-course banquet, whose raw materials had been ferried up to the asteroid in seven spaceplane flights, and resulted in Leroy Octavius handing out eleven hundred hours worth of energistic credits to farmers and wholesalers.

After the meal Al stood on the top table and said: “We’re gonna have a bigger and better ball when you guys come back safe, and you got Al Capone’s word on that.”

There was a burst of tumultuous applause, which only ended when the band struck up. Leroy and Busch had auditioned over a hundred musicians, whittling the numbers down to an eight-strong jazz band. Some of them were even genuine twenties musicians, or so they claimed. They certainly sounded and looked the part when they got up onstage to play. Nearly three hundred people were out on the dance floor jiving away to the old honky-tonk tunes which Al loved best.