“You don’t,” Jay said, shoving the full child-force of trusting worship behind the words. A belief which was a sheer impossibility
for any adult to live up to.
Kelly kissed her forehead, emotions in a muddle. Kids today, so knowing, which only makes them even more vulnerable. She gently
pushed Jay towards one of the pediatric nurses, and left them discussing what the little girl had eaten last, and when.
“Kelly, thank Christ!”
The familiar voice made her twitch, a movement which in free fall was like a ripple running from toe to crown. She held on
to a grab hoop to steady herself.
Feetfirst, Garfield Lunde slid down into her vision field. Her direct boss, and the man who had authorized her assignment.
A big gamble, as he told her at the time, this kind of fieldwork is hardly your forte. Putting her deeper in his debt; everything
he did for his workforce was a favour, an against-the-rules kindness. He owed his position entirely to his mastery of office
politics; sensevise talent and investigative ability never entered into it.
“Hello, Garfield,” she said in a dull tone.
“You made it back. Great hairstyle, too.”
Kelly had almost forgotten her hair, cut to a fine fuzz to fit her armour suit’s skull helmet. Style, dress sense, cosmetic
membranes: concepts which seemed to have dissolved clean out of her universe. “Well done, Garfield; I can see why your observational
ability pushed you right the way up the seniority league.”
He wagged a finger, almost catching his ponytail which was snaking around his neck. “Tough lady, at last. Looks like you lost
your cherry on this assignment; touched a few corpses, wondered if you should have helped instead of recorded. Don’t feel
bad, it happens to us all.”
“Sure.”
“Is anyone else coming back, any other starships?”
“If they’re not here by now, they won’t be coming.”
“Christ, this is getting better by the second. We’ve got us a total exclusive. Did you get down to the planet?”
“Yes.”
“And is it possessed?”
“Yes.”
“Magnificent!” He glanced contentedly around the reception chamber, watching children and Edenists in free-fall flight, their
movements reminiscent of geriatric ballerinas. “Hey, where are the mercs you went with?”
“They didn’t make it, Garfield. They sacrificed themselves so the
Lady Mac
’s spaceplane could lift the children off.”
“Oh, my God. Wow! Sacrificed themselves for kids?”
“Yes. We were outgunned, but they stood their ground. All of them. I never expected…”
“Stunning. You got it, didn’t you? For Christ’s sake, Kelly, tell me you recorded it. The big fight, the last noble stand.”
“I recorded it. What I could. When I wasn’t so scared I couldn’t think straight.”
“Yes! I knew I made the right decision sending you. This is it, babe. Just watch our audience points go galactic. We’re going
to put Time Universe and the others out of business. Do you realize what you’ve done here? Shit, Kelly, you’ll probably wind
up as my boss, after this. Wonderful!”
Very calmly, Kelly let Ariadne’s free-fall unarmed combat program shift into primary mode. Her sense of balance was immediately
magnified, making her aware of every slight movement her body made in the minute air currents churning through the chamber.
Her spacial orientation underwent a similar augmentation; distances and relative positions were
obvious
.
“Wonderful?” she hissed.
Garfield grinned proudly. “You bet.”
Kelly launched herself at him, rotating around her centre of gravity as she did so. Her feet came around, seeking out his
head, legs kicking straight.
Two of the serjeants had to pull her off. Luckily the pediatric team had some medical nanonic packages with them; they were
able to save Garfield’s eye; it would take a week before his broken nose knitted back into its proper shape, though.
• • •
All the passenger refugees had left
Lady Mac
. Overstressed environmental systems were calming. The docking bay’s umbilicals sent a cool wind washing through the bridge,
taking with it the air of the voyage; ugly air with its smell of human bodies, humidity, and heavy carbon dioxide. To Joshua’s
mind even the fans behind the grilles weren’t whining so much. Perhaps it was his imagination.
Now there was only the crew left to soak up the luxuriously plentiful oxygen. The crew minus one. There hadn’t been much time
for Joshua to dwell on Warlow during the flight. Racing between jump coordinates, worrying about the energy patterning nodes
holding out, the leakages, the damaged systems, children he had suddenly become responsible for, the desperate need to succeed.
Well, now he’d won, beaten the odds the universe had thrown at him. And it made him feel good, even though there was no happiness
to accompany it. Self-satisfaction was a curious state, in this case roughly equivalent to fatigue-induced nirvana, he thought.
Ashly Hanson came up through the decking hatch and took a swift glance around the lethargic forms still encased by their acceleration
couch webbing. “Flight’s over, you know,” he said.
“Yeah.” Joshua datavised an instruction into the flight computer. Harlequin schematics of the starship’s principal systems
vanished from his mind, and the webbing peeled back.
“I think the cleaning up can wait until tomorrow,” Dahybi said.
“Message received,” Joshua said. “Shore leave is now granted, and compulsory.”
Sarha glided over from her couch and gave Joshua a tiny kiss. “You were magnificent. After all this is over, we’re going back
to Aethra so we can tell him we escaped and got the children off.”
“If he’s there.”
“He’s there. You know he is.”
“She’s right, Joshua,” Melvyn Ducharme said as he cancelled the neurographic visualization of
Lady Mac’s
power circuits. “He’s there. And even if the transfer didn’t work, his soul is going to be watching us right now.”
“Jesus.” Joshua shivered. “I don’t even want to think about that.”
“We don’t have a lot of choice in the subject anymore.”
“But not today,” Ashly put in heavily. He held out an arm to Sarha. “Come along, we’ll leave these morbids to moan among themselves.
I don’t know about you, but I’m having one very stiff drink in Harkey’s first, then it’s bed for a week.”
“Sounds good.” She twisted her feet off the stikpad by Joshua’s couch and followed the old time-hopper pilot through the hatch.
A vaguely nonplussed expression appeared on Joshua’s face as they left together. None of your business, he told himself. Besides,
there was Kelly to consider, though she’d been almost unrecognizable since returning from Lalonde. And then there was Louise.
Ione, too.
“I think I’ll skip the drink and go straight to bed,” he announced to the other two.
They went out of the bridge hatch one at a time. It was only when they got to the airlock that they encountered the service
company’s systems specialist coming the other way. She wanted the captain’s authority to begin assessing the ship so she could
assemble a maintenance schedule. Joshua stayed behind to discuss priorities, datavising over the files on systems which had
taken punishment above Lalonde.
There was nobody about when he finally left the starship. The circus in the reception chamber had ended. The reporters had
packed up. There wasn’t even a serjeant left to check him over for possession. Sloppy, he thought, not like Tranquillity at
all.
A commuter lift took him along the spindle which connected the spaceport disk to the centre of the habitat’s northern endcap.
It deposited him in one of the ten tube stations which served the hub; deserted but for a single occupant.
Ione stood outside the waiting tube carriage, dressed in a sea-blue sarong and matching blouse. He smiled ruefully at the
memory that evoked.
“I remember you,” she said.
“Funny, I thought you’d forgotten.”
“No. Not you, no matter what.”
He stood in front of her, looking down at a face which owned far too much wisdom for such delicate features. “I was stupid,”
he confessed.
“I think you and I can withstand one argument, don’t you?”
“I was stupid more than once.”
“Tranquillity’s been reviewing the memories of the Edenists you saved. I’m very proud of what you achieved on that flight,
Joshua, and I don’t just mean all that fancy flying. Very proud indeed.”
All he could do was nod ineffectually. For a long time he’d dreamed about a reunion like this; going off after they’d had
a fight had left too many things open-ended, too much unsaid. Now it was actually happening, his mind was slipping to Louise,
who had also been left behind. It was all Warlow’s fault, him and that damn promise to be a little less selfish with his girls.
“You look tired,” Ione said, and held out her hand. “Let’s go home.”
Joshua looked down at her open hand, small and perfect. He twined his fingers through hers, rediscovering how warm her skin
was.
• • •
Parker Higgens thought it must have been about twenty years since he last left Tranquillity, a short trip on an Adamist starship
to a university on Nanjing so he could deliver a paper and assess some candidates for the Laymil project. He hadn’t enjoyed
the experience; free-fall nausea seemed capable of penetrating whatever defences his neural nanonics erected across his nerve
pathways.
This time it was pleasantly different. The gravity in the blackhawk’s life-support capsule never fluctuated, he had a comfortable
cabin to himself, the crew were friendly, and his navy escort officer was a cultured lady who made an excellent travelling
companion.
At the end of the flight he even accessed the blackhawk’s electronic sensors to watch their approach to Trafalgar. Dozens
of navy starships swarmed around its two large spaceport globes. Avon provided a sumptuous backdrop; the warm blues, whites,
greens, and browns of a terracompatible planet were so much kinder than the abrasive storm bands of Mirchusko, he realized.
Parker Higgens almost laughed at the stereotype image he presented as he gawped like some stupefied tourist: the dusty old
professor finally discovers there is life outside the research centre.
Pity he didn’t have time to enjoy it. The navy officer had been datavising Trafalgar constantly since their wormhole terminus
closed behind them, outlining their brief and authenticating it with a series of codes. They’d been given a priority approach
vector, allowing them to curve around one of the spaceports at an exhilarating speed before sliding into the huge crater which
served as a docking ledge for bitek starships (they were the only blackhawk using it).
After that he’d had a couple of meetings with the First Admiral’s staff officers, an exchange of information which chilled
both sides. Parker found out about possession, they were given the data on the Laymil home planet, Unimeron. They decided
there wasn’t any room for doubt.
When he was shown into Samual Aleksandrovich’s big circular office the first thing Parker Higgens felt was an obscure burst
of jealousy. The First Admiral had a view out over Trafalgar’s biosphere which was more impressive than the one in his own
office back on the Laymil project campus. A true dedicated bureaucrat’s reaction, he chided himself; prestige is everything.
The First Admiral came around from behind his big teak desk to greet Parker with a firm handshake. “Thank you for coming,
Mr Director; and I’d also like to convey my gratitude to the Lord of Ruin as well for acting so promptly in this matter. It
would appear she is a strong supporter of the Confederation; I just wish other heads of state followed her example.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her,” Parker said.
The First Admiral introduced the others sitting around his desk: Admiral Lalwani, Captain Maynard Khanna, Dr Gilmore, and
Mae Ortlieb, the President’s science office liaison aide.
“Well the Kiint did warn us, I suppose,” Admiral Lalwani said. “All races eventually face the truth about death. It would
appear the Laymil lost their confrontation.”
“They never said anything before,” Parker said bitterly. “We have six Kiint assisting the project back at Tranquillity; I’ve
worked with them for decades; they’re helpful, cooperative, I even considered them as friends… And never once did they drop
the slightest hint. Damn them! They knew all along why the Laymil killed themselves and their habitats.”
“Ambassador Roulor did say it was something which we must come to terms with on our own.”
“Very helpful,” Dr Gilmore grunted. “I have to say it’s a typical attitude to take given their psychology inclines towards
the mystic.”
“I think any race which has uncovered the secret of death and survived the impact is inevitably going to take a highly spiritual
approach to life,” the First Admiral said. “Don’t begrudge them that, Doctor. Now then, Mr Director, it would appear that
our possession and the Laymil reality dysfunction are one and the same thing, correct?”
“Yes, Admiral. In fact, in the light of what we know now, the Laymil shipmaster’s reference to the Galheith clan’s death essence
makes perfect sense. Possession was spreading across Unimeron as he left orbit.”
“I think I can confirm that,” Admiral Lalwani said. She glanced at the First Admiral for permission. He inclined his head.
“A voidhawk messenger has just returned from Ombey. Several possessed got loose there; fortunately the authorities were remarkably
successful in hunting them down. However, despite that success, they’ve had to cede some ground to them. We have a recording
of the phenomena.”
Parker accessed the flek of images compiled by Ombey’s Strategic Defence sensor satellites, seeing the remarkably smooth red
cloud slowly sheathing Mortonridge. Time-lapse coverage showed the planet’s terminator cruise in across the ocean. At night
the peninsula’s covering glowed a hostile cerise, its edges flexing in agitation over the crinkled coastline.
“Oh, dear,” he said after he cancelled the visualization.
“They match,” Dr Gilmore said. “Absolutely, the same event.”