Al himself led the way, hurling a laughing Jezzibella about with all the energy and panache he’d picked up at the Broadway Casino back in the old days. The rest of the guests soon picked up the rhythm and the moves. Men, Al insisted, wore their tuxes or, if they were serving in the fleet, a military uniform; while the women were free to wear their own choice of ball gowns, providing the styles and fabrics weren’t anything too modern. With the decorations of gossamer drapes and giant swans created out of fresh-cut flowers the overall effect was of a grand Viennese ball, but a damn sight more fun.

Possessed and non-possessed rubbed shoulders harmoniously. Wine flowed, laughter shook the windows, some couples snuck off to be by themselves, a few fights broke out. By any standard it was a roaring success.

Which was why at half past two in the morning Jezzibella was puzzled to find Al all by himself in one of the lower level suites, leaning against its huge window, tie undone, brandy glass in one hand. Outside, star-points of light moved busily through space as the last elements of the fleet manoeuvred into their jump formation.

“What’s the matter, baby?” Jezzibella asked quietly. Soft arms circled around him. Her head came to rest on his shoulder.

“We’ll lose the ships.”

“Bound to lose some, Al honey. Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

“No, I mean, they’re gonna be in action light-years away. What’s to make them do as I say?”

“Command structure, Al. The fleet is a mini-version of the Organization. The soldiers at the bottom do what the lieutenants at the top tell them. It’s worked in warships for centuries. When you’re in battle you automatically follow orders.”

“So what if that piece of shit Luigi takes it into his head to dump me and set up all on his own in Arnstadt?”

“He won’t. Luigi is loyal.”

“Right.” He chewed at a knuckle, thankful he was facing away from her.

“This bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s a goddamn problem, okay? That fleet is one fuck of a lot of power to hand over to one guy.”

“Send two others.”

“What?”

“Put a triumvirate in charge.”

“What?”

“Easy, lover; if there’s three of them in charge of the fleet, then each of them is going to be busting his balls to prove how loyal he is in front of the others. And let’s face it, the fleet’s only going to be away for a week at the most. It takes a hell of a lot longer than that to get a conspiracy up and running successfully. Besides, ninety per cent of those soldiers are loyal to you. You’ve given them everything, Al; a life, a purpose. Don’t sell yourself short, what you’ve done with these people is a miracle, and they know it. They cheer your name. Not Luigi’s, not Mickey, not Emmet. You, Al.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, drawing his confidence back together. What she said made a lot of sense. It always did.

Al looked at her in the drizzle of starlight. The personas were combined tonight: a feminine athlete. Her dress of sparkling pearl-coloured silk hinted at rather than revealed her figure. The allure she exerted was terrifying. Al had been hard put to control his temper that evening as he picked up the swell of hunger and lust from the other men on the dance floor every time she glided past.

“Goddamn,” he whispered. “I ain’t never done anything to deserve a reward as big as you.”

“I think you have,” she murmured back. Their noses touched again, arms moving gently into an embrace. “I’ve got a present for you, Al. We’ve been saving it up as a treat, and I think the time’s right.”

His hold around her tightened. “I got the only treat I need.”

“Flatterer.”

They kissed.

“It can wait till the morning,” Jezzibella decided.

The lift opened onto a section of Monterey Al didn’t recognize. An unembellished rock corridor with an air duct and power cables clinging to the ceiling. The gravity was about half-strength. He pulled a face at that, free fall was the one thing about this century he really hated. Jez kept trying to get him to make out with her in one of the axis hotel cubicles, but he wouldn’t. Just thinking about it made his stomach churn.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Jezzibella grinned. She was the knowing and carefree girl-about-town persona this morning, wearing a snow-white ship-suit which stretched around her like rubber. “The docking ledges. They’ve not been used much since you took over. Not until now.”

Al let her lead him along the corridor and into an observation lounge. Emmet Mordden, Patricia Mangano, and Mickey Pileggi were waiting in front of the window wall. All of them smiled proudly, an emotion reflected in their thought currents. Al played along with the game as Jez tugged him over to the window.

“We captured this mother on one of the asteroids a couple of weeks back,” Mickey said. “Well, its captain was possessed, actually. Then we had to persuade the soul to transfer down the affinity link. Jezzibella said you’d like it.”

“What is this shit, Mickey?”

“It’s our present to you, Al baby,” Jezzibella said. “Your flagship.” She smiled eagerly, and gestured at the window.

Al walked over and looked out. Buck Rogers’s very own rocketship was sitting on the rock shelf below him. It was a beautiful scarlet torpedo with yellow fins sprouting from the sides, and a cluster of copper rocket engine tubes at the rear.

“That’s for me?” he asked in wonder.

The rocketship’s interior was fully in keeping with its external appearance, the pinnacle of 1930s engineering and decor. Al felt more at home than any time since he had emerged from the beyond. This was his furniture, his styling. A little chunk of his home era.

“Thank you,” he said to Jezzibella.

She kissed him on the tip of his nose, and they linked arms.

“It’s a blackhawk,” she explained. “The possessing soul is called Cameron Leung; so you be nice to him, Al. I said you’d find him a human body when the universe calms down a little.”

“Sure.”

An iron spiral stair led up to the promenade deck. Al and Jezzibella settled back on a plump couch of green leather where they could see out of the long curving windows and along the rocket’s nose cone. He put his fedora down on a cane table at the side of the couch and draped an arm around her shoulders. Prince of the city again, full-time.

“Can you hear me, Cameron?” Jezzibella inquired.

“Yes,” came the reply from a silver tannoy grille set in the wall.

“We’d like to see the fleet before it leaves. Take us over please.”

Al winced, grabbing hold of the couch’s flared arms. More fucking spaceflight! But there was none of the rush of acceleration he’d braced himself for. All that happened was the view changed. One minute the spherical silver-white grid of Monterey’s spaceport was rotating slowly in front of them, the next it was sliding to one side and racing past overhead.

“Hey, I can’t feel nothing,” Al whooped. “No acceleration, none of that free-fall crap. Hot damn, now this is the way to travel.”

“Yes.” Jezzibella clicked her fingers smartly, and a small boy hurried forwards. He was dressed in a white high-collar steward’s uniform, and his hair had been parted in the centre and slicked back with cream. “A bottle of Norfolk Tears, I think,” she told him. “This is definitely celebration time. I think we might make a toast, too. Make sure you chill the glasses.”

“Yes, miss,” he piped.

Al frowned after him. “Kinda young to be doing that, ain’t he?”

“It’s Webster Pryor,” she said sotto voce. “Sweet boy.”

“Kingsley’s son?”

“Yes. Thought it best we keep him close to hand the whole time. Just in case.”

“I see. Sure.”

“You’re right about the ship, Al. Bitek is the only way to travel. My media company was always too miserly to let me have one for touring. Blackhawks make the best warships, too.”

“Yeah? So how many have we got?”

“Three, counting this one. And we only got those because their captains were coldfooted when we snatched the asteroids.”

“Pity.”

“Yes. But we’re hoping to get luckier this time.”

Al grinned out of the window as the luscious crescent of New California swung into view, and settled back to enjoy the ride.

Cameron Leung accelerated away from Monterey at two gees, curving down towards the planet a hundred and ten thousand kilometres below. Far ahead of the blackhawk’s sharp emerald aerospike, the Organization’s fleet was sliding along its five-thousand-kilometre orbit, a chain of starships spaced a precise two kilometres apart. Sunlight bounced and sparkled off foil-coated machinery as they emerged from the penumbra; a silver necklace slowly threading itself around the entire planet.

It had taken two days for all of them to fly down from their assembly points at the orbiting asteroids, jockeying into their jump formation under the direction of Emmet Mordden and Luigi Balsmao. The Salvatore was the lead vessel, an ex-New California navy battle cruiser, and now Luigi Balsmao’s command ship.

Two million kilometres away, hanging over New California’s south pole, the voidhawk Galega had observed the fleet gathering. The swarm of stealthed spy globes it showered around the planet had monitored the starships manoeuvring into their designated slot in the chain, intercepting their command communications. Given the two-degree inclination of the fleet’s orbital track, Galega and its captain, Aralia, had calculated the theoretical number of jump coordinates. Fifty-two stars were possible targets.

The Yosemite Consensus had dispatched voidhawks to warn the relevant governments, all of whom had been extremely alarmed by the scale of the potential threat. Other than that there was little the Edenists could do. Attack was not a viable option. The Organization fleet was under the shield of New California’s SD network, and its own offensive potential was equally formidable. If it was to be broken up, then it would have to be intercepted by a fleet of at least equal size. But even if the Confederation Navy did assemble a task force large enough, the admirals were then faced with the problem of where to deploy it: a fifty-two to one chance of getting the right system.

Galega watched Capone’s scarlet and lemon blackhawk race down from Monterey to hold station fifty kilometres away from the Salvatore. A spy globe fell between the two. The intelligence-gathering staff in the voidhawk’s crew toroid heard Capone say: “How’s it going, Luigi?”

“Okay, boss. The formation’s holding true. They’ll all hit the jump coordinate.”

“Goddamn, Luigi, you should see what you guys look like from here. It’s a powerhouse of a sight. I tell you, I wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning and find you in my sky. Those jerkhead krauts are gonna crap themselves.”

“Count on it, Al.”

“Okay, Luigi, take it away, it’s all yours. You and Patricia and Dwight take care now, you hear? And Jez says good luck. Go get ’em.”

“Thank the little lady for us, boss. And don’t worry none, we’ll deliver for you. Expect some real good news a week from now.”

The Salvatore ’s heat dump panels and sensor clusters began to retract down into their jump recesses, taking a long while to do so. Several times they seemed to stick or judder. The second ship in the formation began to configure itself for a jump, then the third.

For another minute nothing happened, then the Salvatore vanished inside its event horizon.

Aralia and Galega were instinctively aware of its spatial location, and with that the jump coordinate alignment could have only one solution. It’s Arnstadt,aralia told the Yosemite Consensus. They’re heading for Arnstadt.

Thank you, Aralia,consensus replied. We will dispatch a voidhawk to alert the Arnstadt government. It will take the Organization fleet at least two days to reach the system. The local navy forces will have some time to prepare.

Enough?

Possibly. It depends on the Organization’s actual goal.

When Aralia reviewed the images from the spy globes, another twelve ships had already followed the Salvatore. A further seven hundred and forty were gliding inexorably toward the Arnstadt jump coordinate.

“No, Gerald,” Jansen Kovak said. The tone was one which parents reserved for particularly troublesome children. His hand tightened around Gerald’s upper arm.

He and another supervisory nurse had walked Gerald to the sanatorium’s lounge where he was supposed to eat his lunch. Once they reached the door, Gerald had glanced furtively down the corridor, muscles tensing beneath his baggy sweatshirt.

Kovak was familiar with the signs. Gerald could drop into a frenzy at the slightest provocation these days; anything from an innocuous phrase to the sight of a long corridor which he assumed led directly to the outside world. When it happened, he’d lash out at his supervisors and anyone else who happened to be in the way, before making yet another run for it. The concept of codelocked doors seemed utterly beyond him.

The corner of Gerald’s lip spasmed at the stern warning, and he allowed himself to be led into the lounge. The first thing he did was glance at the bar to see if the holoscreen was on. It had been removed altogether (much to the annoyance of other inmates). Dr Dobbs wasn’t going to risk triggering another incident of that magnitude.

Privately, Jansen Kovak considered that they were wasting their time in trying to rehabilitate Skibbow. The man had obviously tipped right over the edge and was now free-falling into his own personal inferno. He should be shipped off to a long-term care institution for treatment and maybe some selective memory erasure. But Dr Dobbs insisted the psychosis could be treated here; and Gerald was technically an ESA internee, which brought its own complications. It was a bad duty.

The lounge fell silent when the three of them came in. Not that there were many people using it; four or five inmates and a dozen staff. Gerald responded to the attention with a frightened stare, checking faces. He frowned in puzzlement as one woman with Oriental features and vivid copper hair gave him a sympathetic half smile.

Jansen quickly steered him over to a settee halfway between the window and the bar and sat him down. “What would you like to eat, Gerald?”

“Um . . . I’ll have the same as you.”

“I’ll get you a salad,” Kovak said, and turned to go over to the bar. Which was his first mistake.

Something smashed into the middle of his back, knocking him forwards completely off balance. He went crashing painfully onto the ground. Auto-balance and unarmed combat programs went primary, interfacing to roll him smoothly to one side. He regained his feet in a fluid motion.

Gerald and the other nurse were locked together, each trying to throw the other to the ground. Jansen selected an option from the neural nanonics menu. His feet took a pace and a half forwards, and his weight shifted. One arm came around in a fast arc. The blow caught Gerald on his shoulder, which toppled him sideways. Before he could compensate, the back of his legs came into contact with Jansen’s outstretched leg. He tripped, the weight of the other supervisory nurse quickening his fall.

Gerald yelled in pain as he landed on his elbow, only to be smothered below the bulk of the other nurse. When he raised his head the lounge door was five metres away. So close!

“Let me go,” he begged. “She’s my daughter. I have to save her.”

“Shut up you prize pillock,” Jansen grunted.

“Now that’s not nice.”

Jansen spun around to see the redheaded woman standing behind him. “Er . . . I. Yes.” Shame was making his face became uncomfortably warm. It also seemed to be enervating his neural nanonics display. “I’m sorry, it was unprofessional. He’s just so annoying.”

“You should try being married to him for twenty years.”

Jansen’s face registered polite incomprehension. The woman wasn’t an inmate. She was wearing a smart blue dress, civilian clothing. But he didn’t remember her on the staff.

She smiled briskly, grabbed hold of the front of his tunic, and threw him six metres clean through the air. Jansen’s scream was more of shock than of pain. Until he hit the ground. That impact was pure agony, and his neural nanonics had shut down, allowing every volt of pain to flow cleanly through his nerves.

The other nurse who was still wrapped around Gerald managed to get out one dull grunt of surprise before the woman hit him. Her fist shattered his jaw, sending a spurt of blood splashing across Gerald’s hair.

By that time one of the other sanatorium staff in the lounge had enough presence of mind to datavise an alarm code at the room’s net processor. Sirens started wailing. A grid of metal bars started to slide up out of the floor, sealing off the open balcony doors.

Three burly nurses were closing on the red-haired woman as Gerald blinked up at her in amazement. She winked at him and raised an arm high, finger pointing to the ceiling. A bracelet of white fire ignited around her wrist.

“Shit,” the leader of the three nurses yelped. He nearly pitched over as he tried desperately to reverse his headlong rush.

“It’s a fucking possessed.”

“Back! Get back!”

“Where the hell did she come from?”

“Go for it, babe,” one of the inmates roared jubilantly.

A rosette of white fire exploded from her hand, dissolving into a hundred tiny spheres almost as soon as it appeared. They smashed into the ceiling and walls and furniture. Sparks cascaded down as small plumes of black smoke squirted out. Flames began to take hold. Fire alarms added their clamour to the initial alert. Then the lights went out and the alarms were silenced.

“Come on, Gerald,” the woman said. She pulled him to his feet.

“No,” he squeaked in terror. “You’re one of them. Let me go, please. I can’t be one of you again. I can’t take that again. Please, my daughter.”

“Shut up, and get a move on. We’re going to find Marie.”

Gerald gaped at her. “What do you know of her?”

“That she needs you, very badly. Now come on!”

“You know?” he snivelled. “How can you know?”

“Come on.” She tugged at him as she started towards the lounge door. It was as if the grapple arm of a heavy-load cargo mechanoid had attached itself to him.

The steward raised his head above the bar to see what was happening. Various inmates and staff had dived for cover behind the furniture. The terrifying possessed woman was striding purposefully for the door, hauling a cowering Skibbow along. He datavised a codelock order at the door, then opened an emergency channel to the net processor. It didn’t respond. His hand curled around the nervejam stick, ready to—

“Hey you!” called the woman.

A streamer of white fire smacked straight into his forehead.

“Naughty,” she said grimly.

Gerald gibbered quietly as the steward slumped forwards, smoke rising from the shallow crater in his temple. “Oh, dear God, what are you?”

“Don’t blow it for me now, Gerald.” She stood in front of the door. The room’s air rushed past her, ruffling her long copper tresses. Then the air flow reversed, turning to a howling hurricane with a solid core. It smashed into the door, buckling the reinforced composite.

She stepped through the gap, pulling Gerald after her. “Now we run,” she told him happily.

As the sanatorium was operated by the Royal Navy the guards were armed. It didn’t make any difference, they weren’t front-line combat troops. Whenever one of them got near to Gerald and the woman she would use her white fire to devastating effect. The asteroid’s internal security centre could trace her position purely because of the wave of destruction she generated around herself. All electronics and power circuits were ruptured by flares of white fire, doors were simply ripped apart, environmental ducts were battered and split, mechanoids reduced to slag. She did it automatically, a defensive manoeuvre burning clean any conceivable threat in front of her. Crude but effective.

The asteroid went to an immediate status two defence alert. Royal Marines were rushed from their barracks to the sanatorium.

But as with all asteroid settlements, everything was packed close together, and made as compact as possible. It took the woman and Gerald ninety seconds to get from the lounge to the sanatorium’s nearest entrance. Sensors and cameras in the public hall caught her emerging from the splintered door. Terrified pedestrians sprinted from the vicious tendrils of white fire she unleashed; it was almost as though she were using them as whips to drive people away from her. Then the images vanished as she hammered at the net processors and sensors.

The Royal Marine commander coordinating the emergency at least had the presence of mind to shut down the lifts around the hall. If she wanted out, she’d have to walk. And when she did, she’d run smack into the marines now deploying in a pincer movement around her.

Both squads were edging cautiously down the public hall, hurrying civilians out of the way. They approached the sanatorium’s wrecked entrance from opposite directions, chemical projectile rifles held ready, electronic warfare blocks alert for any sign of the distortion pattern given off by a possessed. When they came into view of each other they froze, covering the length of the hall with their rifles. No one was left between them.

The squad captain of one side shouldered his weapon. “Where the fuck did she go?”

“I knew they’d stop the lifts,” the redhead said in satisfaction. “Standard tactics for dealing with the possessed is to block all nearby transport systems to prevent us from spreading. Bloody good job they were on the ball today.”

Gerald agreed, but didn’t say anything. He was concentrating on the rungs in front of his face, not daring to look down.

The possessed woman might have smashed open all the doors in the medical facility, but once they were out in the hall she had stood in front of the lift doors and made a parting motion with her hands. The lift doors had obeyed, sliding open silently. After that they had started to climb down the ladder set in the wall of the shaft. There wasn’t much light to see where he was putting his hands and feet, just some sort of bluish radiance coming from the woman above him. Gerald didn’t want to see how she was making it.

It was cold in the shaft, the air tasting both wet and metallic. And silent, too, the darkness above and below swallowing all sounds. Every minute or so he could just make out another door in the shaft wall; the buzz of conversation and tiny slivers of light oozing around the seals.

“Careful,” she said. “You’re near the bottom now. Ten more rungs.”

The light increased, and he risked a glance down. A metal grid slicked with condensation glinted dully at the foot of the ladder. Gerald stood on it, shivering slightly and rubbing his arms. Mechanical clunks started to rumble down from above.

The possessed woman jumped nimbly past the last two rungs and gave him an enthusiastic smile. “Stand still,” she said, and put her hands on either side of his head, spreading her fingers over his ears.

Gerald quivered at her touch. Her hands were starting to glow. This was it. The start of the pain. Soon he would hear the demented whispers emerging from the beyond, and one of them would pour into his body again. All hope would die then. I might as well refuse, and let her torture kill me. Better that than . . .

She took her hands away, their internal glimmer fading away. “I think that should do it. I’ve broken down the debrief nanonics. The doctors and police would only use you to see where we were and what we were doing, then they’d send you to sleep.”

“What?” He started to probe his skull with cautious fingers. It seemed intact. “Is that all you did?”

“Yes. Not so bad was it?” She beckoned. “There’s a hatch here which leads to the maintenance tunnels. It’s only got a mechanical lock, so we won’t trigger any processors.”

“Then what?” he asked bleakly.

“Why, we get you off Guyana and on your way to Valisk to find Marie, of course. What did you think, Gerald?” She grasped the handle on the metre-high hatch and shoved it upwards. The hatch swung open, revealing only more darkness behind.

Gerald felt like crying. His head was all funny, hot and light, which made it very hard for him to think. “Why? Why are you doing this? Are you just playing with me?”

“Of course I’m not playing, Gerald. I want Marie back to normal more than anything. She’s all we have left now. You know that. You saw the homestead.”

He sank to his knees, looking up at her flat-featured face and immaculate hair, trying desperately to understand. “But why? Who are you to want this?”

“Oh, dearest Gerald, I’m sorry. This is Pou Mok’s body. It takes up far too much concentration to maintain my own appearance, especially with what I was doing up there.”

Gerald watched numbly as the copper hair darkened and the skin of her face began to flow into new features. No, not new. Old. So very very old. “Loren,” he gasped.