• • •
The glowing red clouds had begun to grow, small ruby speckles blossoming right across Norfolk. Louise, Fletcher, and Genevieve
spent their first day in orbit watching the images received by the
Far Realm’s
external cameras. Kesteven island was by far the worst. A solid crimson aureole had gathered to mask the land, its shape
a distended mockery of the coastline it was obscuring. Strands of ordinary white cloud malingered around its disciplined edges,
only to be rebuffed by invisible winds if they drifted too close.
Fletcher assured the girls that in itself the red cloud was harmless. “A simple manifestation of will,” he proclaimed. “Nothing
more.”
“You mean it’s just a wish?” Genevieve asked, intrigued. She had woken almost purged of her emotional turmoil; there were
none of yesterday’s periods of manic exuberance or haunted silences. Although she was quieter than usual; which Louise thought
was about right. She didn’t feel like talking much, either. Neither she nor Fletcher had mentioned the
Tantu
.
“Quite so, little one.”
“But why are they wishing it?”
“So that they can seek refuge below it from the emptiness of the universe. Even this planet’s sky, which has little night,
is not a sight to cherish.”
Over thirty islands now had traces of redness in the air. Louise likened it to watching the outbreak of some terrible disease,
a swelling cancer gnawing away at the flesh of her world.
Furay and Endron had come down into the lounge a few times, keeping them informed of the navy squadron’s actions, and the
army’s progress. Neither of which amounted to much. The army had landed on two islands, Shropshire and Lindsey, hoping to
retake their capitals. But reports from the forwards units were confused.
“Same problem as we had with Kesteven,” Furay confided when he brought them lunch. “We can’t support the lads on the ground
because we don’t have any reliable targeting information. And that red cloud has got the admiral badly worried. None of the
technical staff can explain it.”
By midafternoon, ship’s time, the army commanders had lost contact with half of their troops. The red cloud was visible over
forty-eight islands, nine of which it covered completely. As Duke-day ended for Ramsey island slender wisps were located over
a couple of villages. Teams of reserve soldiers were hurriedly flown in from Norwich. In both cases contact was lost within
fifteen minutes of them entering the area.
Louise watched grimly as the coiling cloud thickened over each village. “I was right,” she said miserably. “There’s nothing
anybody here can do. It’s only a matter of time now.”
• • •
Tolton made his way up the narrow creek, water from the narrow stream slopping over his glittery purple shoes. The top of
the steep bank, a fringe of sandy grass, was several centimetres above his head. He couldn’t see out onto the parkland, and
nobody could see him—thankfully. Far overhead, Valisk’s light tube gleamed. The intensity hurt Tolton’s eyes. He was a night
person, used to the clubs, bars, and vestibules of the starscrapers, delivering his poet sermons to the ship crew burnouts,
bluesensers, stimmedout wasters, and mercenaries who sprawled throughout the lower floors of the starscrapers. They tolerated
him, those lost entities, listening to (or laughing at) his carefully crafted words, donating their own stories to his wealth
of experiences. He moved among the descriptions of shattered lives as vagrants moved through the filthy refuse of a darkened
cul-de-sac, forever picking, trying to understand what they said, to bestow some grace to their wizened dreams with his prose,
to explain them to themselves.
One day, he told them, I will incorporate it all into an MF album. The galaxy will know of your plight, and liberate you.
They didn’t believe him, but they accepted him as one of their own. It was a status which had saved him from many a bar fight.
But now, in his hour of desperate need, they had failed him. However difficult it was to acknowledge, they had lost; the toughest
bunch of bastards in the Confederation had been wiped out in less than thirty-six hours.
“Take the left hand channel at the next fork,” the processor block clipped to his belt told him.
“Yes,” he mumbled obediently.
And this was the greatest, most hurtful joke of all: him, the aspirant anarchist poet, pathetically grateful to Rubra, the
super-capitalist dictator, for helping him.
Ten metres on two gurgling streams merged together. He turned left without hesitation, the foaming water splashing his knees.
Fleeing from the starscraper, it was as though an insane montage of all the combat stories he’d ever been told had come scampering
up out of his subconscious to torment him. Horror and laughter pursued him down every corridor, even the disused ones he thought
only he walked. Only Rubra, a calm voice reeling off directions, had offered any hope.
Water made his black trousers heavy. He was cold, partly from the fright, partly cold turkey.
There had been no sign of pursuit for three hours now, though Rubra said they were still tracking him.
The narrow creek began to widen, its banks lowering. Tolton walked out into a tarn fifteen metres across with a crescent cliff
cupping the rear half. Fat xenoc fish lumbered out of his way, apparently rolling along the bottom. There was no other exit,
no feed stream.
“Now what?” he asked plaintively.
“There’s an inlet at the far end,” Rubra told him. “I’ve shut down the flow so you’ll be able to swim through. It’s only about
five metres long, it bends, and there’s no light; but it leads to a cave where you’ll be safe.”
“A cave? I thought caves were worn into natural rock over centuries.”
“Actually, it’s a surge chamber. I just didn’t want to get technical on you, not with your artistic background.”
Tolton thought the voice sounded tetchy. “Thank you,” he said, and started to wade forwards towards the cliff. A couple more
directions, and he dived under the surface. The inlet was easy to find, a nightmare-black hole barely a metre and a half wide.
Knowing he would never be able to turn around or even back out, he forced himself to glide into the entrance, bubbles streaming
behind him.
It couldn’t have been five metres long, more like twenty or thirty. The curves were sharp, one taking him down, the other
up. He broke surface with a frantic gasping cry. The cave was a dome shape, twenty metres across, every surface was coated
in a film of water, thin ripples were still running down the walls. He had emerged in the pool at the centre. When he looked
up there was a large hole at the apex, droplets splattered on his upturned face. A high ring of electrophorescent cells cast
a weak pink-white glow into every cranny.
He paddled over to the side of the pool and pushed himself out onto the slippery floor. A bout of shivering claimed his limbs;
he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold water or the nagging feeling of claustrophobia. The surge chamber was horribly confined,
and the fact that it was usually full of water didn’t help.
“I’ll have one of the housechimps bring you some dry clothes and food,” Rubra said.
“Thank you.”
“You should be safe here for a while.”
“I…” He looked around apprehensively. Everyone always said Rubra could see everything. “I don’t think I can stay very long.
It’s a bit… closed in.”
“I know. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you moving, keep you ahead of them.”
“Can I join up with anyone else? I need to be around people.”
“There aren’t that many of you left free, I’m afraid. And meeting up with them isn’t a good idea, that would just make you
easier to locate. I haven’t quite worked out how they track the non-possessed yet; I suspect they’ve got some kind of ESP
ability. Hell, why not? They’ve got every other kind of magic.”
“How many of us are there?” he asked, suddenly panicky.
Rubra considered giving him the truth, but Tolton wasn’t the strongest of characters. “A couple of thousand,” he lied. There
were three hundred and seventy-one people left free within the habitat, and assisting all of them simultaneously was pure
hell.
Even as he was reassuring Tolton he perceived Bonney Lewin stalking Gilbert Van-Riytell. The tough little woman had taken
to dressing in nineteenth-century African safari gear, a khaki uniform with two crossed bandoleer straps holding polished
brass cartridges in black leather hoops. A shiny Enfield .303 rifle was slung over her shoulder.
Gilbert was Magellanic Itg’s old comptroller, and had never really stood a chance. Rubra had been trying to steer him along
some service tunnels below a tube station, but Bonney and her co-hunters were boxing him in.
“There’s an inspection hatch three metres ahead,” Rubra datavised to Van-Riytell. “I want you to—”
Shadows lifted themselves off the service tunnel wall and grabbed the old man. Rubra hadn’t even noticed them. His perception
routines had been expertly circumvented.
Once again, he purged and reformatted local sub-routines. By the time he regained some observation ability Van-Riytell’s legs
and arms were being tied around a long pole, ready to be carried away like a prize trophy. He wasn’t even struggling anymore.
Bonney was supervising the procedure happily.
One of her hunting team was standing back, watching aloofly; a tall young man in a simple white suit.
Rubra knew then. It had to be him.
Dariat!
The young man’s head jerked up. For an instant the illusion flickered. Long enough for Rubra. Under the outline of the handsome
youth lurked Horgan. Horgan with a shocked expression wrenching his thin face. Incontrovertible proof.
I knew it would be you,
Rubra said. In a way the knowledge came almost as a relief.
Much good it will do you,
Dariat answered.
Your awareness of anything is going to come to an end real soon now. And you won’t even make it to the freedom of the beyond,
I won’t allow you that escape.
You’re amazing, Dariat. I mean that as a compliment. You still want me, don’t you? You want revenge. It’s all you’ve ever
wanted, all that kept you alive these last thirty years. You still blame me for poor old Anastasia Rigel, even after all this
time.
You got another suspect? If you hadn’t driven me away, she and I would still be alive.
The pair of you would be dodging good old Bonney here, you mean.
Maybe so. But then maybe if I’d been happy I might have made something of my life. Ever think of that? I might have risen
through the company hierarchy just like you always wanted. I could have made Magellanic Itg supreme; I could have turned Valisk
into the kind of nation that would have had Tranquillity’s plutocrats flocking to us in droves. There wouldn’t be any of these
misfits and losers who rally around your banner. King Alastair would have come here asking me for tips on how to run his Kingdom.
Do you really think a shipload of fucking zombies could have walked in here past passport, customs, and immigration without
anyone even noticing if that kind of regime had been in place? Don’t you dare try and avoid facing up to what you’ve done.
Oh, really? Tell me: by misfits, and all the other trash you’d fling out of the airlocks, do you include the kind of girl
you fell in love with?
“Bastard!” Dariat screamed. Everyone in the hunting party stared at him, even Van-Riytell. “I’ll find you. I’ll get you. I’ll
crush your soul to death.” Rage distended his face. He flung both arms out horizontally from his body, a magus Samson thrusting
against the temple pillars. White fire exploded from his hands to chew into the tunnel walls. Polyp flaked and cracked, black
chips spinning away through the air.
Temper temper,
Rubra mocked.
I see that hasn’t improved much over the years.
“Pack it in, you maniac!” Bonney yelled at him.
“Help me!” Dariat shouted back. The energistic hurricane roaring through his body was turning his brain to white-hot magma,
wanting to burst clean out of his skull. “I’m going to kill him. Help me, for Chi-ri’s sake.” White fire hammered at the crumbling
tunnel, desperate to reach the neural strata, to reach the very substance of the mind, and burn and burn and burn…
“Stop it, right now.” Bonney aimed her Enfield at him, one eyebrow cocked.
Dariat slowly allowed the white fire to sink back into the passive energistic currents stirring the cells of his possessed
body. His shoulders hunched in as smoke from the scorched polyp spun around him. He reverted to Horgan, even down to the unwashed
shirt and creased trousers. Hands were pressed to his face as he resisted the onrush of tears. “I’ll get him,” Horgan’s quavering,
high-pitched voice proclaimed. “I’ll fucking have him. I’ll roast him inside his shell like he was some kind of lobster. You’ll
see. Thirty years I’ve waited. Thirty! Thole owes me my justice. He
owes
me.”
“Sure he does,” Bonney said. “But just so you and I are clear on this: pull another stunt like that, and you’ll need a new
body to work out of.” She jerked her head to the team trussing up Van-Riytell. They lifted the old comptroller off the ground
and started off down the tunnel.
The hunter woman glanced back at Dariat’s hunched figure, opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. She
followed the rest of the hunters along the tunnel.
You frightened me so bad I’m trembling,
Rubra sneered.
Can you feel the quakes? I expect the sea is about to flood the parkland. How’s about that for wetting yourself?
Laugh away,
Dariat said shakily.
Go right ahead. But I’m going to come for you one day. I’ll crack your safeguards. They won’t last forever, you know that.
And forever is what I’ve got on my side now. Then when I’ve busted you, I’m going to come into that neural strata with you,
I’m going to crawl into your mind like a maggot, Rubra. And like a maggot I’m going to gnaw away at you.