“I’ll like give it a try,” Cochrane said. “Me and Tina can make babies in my tepee anytime.”
Tina gave him a single disgusted look, and shuddered.
“But they wouldn’t be yours,” McPhee said. “That isn’t your body, and it certainly isn’t your DNA. You will never have a child
again, not one of your own. That phase of our lives is over, it cannot be regained no matter how much of our energistic ability
we expend.”
“You’re also forgetting the third type walking among us,” Franklin said. “The Ekelund type. And I do know her. I signed up
with her for the first couple of days. She seemed to know what she was doing. We had ‘objectives’ and ‘target assignments,’
and ‘command structures’—and God help anyone who disobeyed those fascists. She’s a straight power nut with a Napoleonic complex.
She’s got her little army of wannabe toughs running around in combat fatigues thinking they’re reborn special forces brigades.
And they’re going to keep sniping away at the Royal Marines over the border until the Princess gets so pissed with us she
nukes Morton-ridge down to the bedrock.”
“That situation won’t last,” McPhee said. “Give it a month, or a year, and the Confederation will fall. Don’t you listen to
the whispers in the beyond? Capone is getting his act together out there. It won’t be long before the Organization fleet jumps
to Ombey. Then there will be nobody left for Ekelund to fight, and her command structure will simply fade away. Nobody is
going to do what she tells them for the rest of time.”
“I don’t want to live for the rest of time,” Stephanie said. “I really don’t. That’s almost as frightening as being trapped
in the beyond. We’re not made to live forever, we can’t handle it.”
“Lighten up, babe,” Cochrane said. “I don’t mind giving eternity a try; it’s the flipside which is the real bummer.”
“We’ve been back a week, and Mortonridge is already falling apart. There’s hardly any food left, nothing works properly.”
“Give it a chance,” Moyo said. “We’re all badly shocked, we don’t know how to control this new power we’ve got, and the non-possessed
want to hunt us down and fling us back. You can hardly expect instant civilization under those circumstances. We’ll find a
way to adjust. As soon as the rest of Ombey is possessed we’ll take it out of this universe altogether. Once that happens,
things will be different. You’ll see; this is just an interim stage.” His put his arm around her as she leaned into him. She
kissed him lightly, mind shining with appreciation.
“Yo, love machines,” Cochrane said. “So while you two screw like hot bunnies for the rest of the night, who’s going into town
to track down some food?”
• • •
Got a beacon,
Edwin announced. His mind was hot with triumph.
Around
Oenone
’s bridge, the communal tension level reduced with a strong mental sigh. They had arrived above Ngeuni twenty minutes ago.
Every sensor extended. The crew in alert status one. Weapons powered up. Ready for anything. To retrieve Thakrar. To fight
possessed starships that had captured Thakrar.
And there had been nothing. No ships in orbit. No response from the small development company advance camp on the planet.
Oenone
accelerated into a high polar orbit, and Edwin activated every sensor they had.
It’s very weak, some kind of capsule emergency signal. Definitely the
Tigara’s
identification code, though. The ship must have broken up.
Lock on to it, please,
Syrinx said. She was aware of the astrogration data from the sensors flooding into the bitek processor array. From that,
she and
Oenone
understood exactly where the signal was in relation to themselves.
Go.
The voidhawk swallowed through a wormhole that barely had any internal length at all. Starlight blue-shifted slightly as it
twisted into a tight rosette, kissing the hull, then expanding. A life-support capsule was spinning idly ten kilometres in
front of the terminus as
Oenone
shot out. Local space was smeared with scraps of debris from the
Tigara
’s violent end. Syrinx could feel the capsule’s mass in her mind as it hung in
Oenone
’s distortion field. Sensors and communications dishes in the lower hull pods swung around to point at the dingy sphere.
There’s no response from the capsule,
Edwin said.
I’m registering some power circuits active in there, but they’re very weak. And it’s been venting its atmosphere.
Oxley, Serina, take the MSV over there,
Syrinx ordered.
Bring him back.
• • •
Oenone
’s crew watched through Serina’s armour suit sensors as she crept through the decks of the life-support capsule, searching
for Captain Thakrar. It was a shambles inside, with equipment torn off bulkheads, hatches jammed, lockers broken open to send
junk and old clothes floating free. The air had gone, allowing several pipes to burst and release globules of fluid, which
had subsequently frozen solid. She had to use a high-powered fission cutter on the latches around the final hatch before she
could worm her way into the bridge. At first she didn’t even recognize the SII-suited figure clutching at one of the emergency
supply cases on the ceiling. Granules of frost had solidified on him as they had on every surface, glinting a dusty grey in
the beams thrown out by her helmet lights. In his fetal position he looked like some kind of giant mummified larva.
At least he got into a suit,
Oxley said.
Is there any infrared emission?
Check the electronic warfare block first,
Syrinx said.
Negative electronic warfare emission. He’s not possessed. But he is alive. The suit’s a couple of degrees above ambient.
Are you sure it’s not just natural body heat residue? Those suits are a good insulator. If he’s alive, then he hasn’t moved
since the frost formed on him. That must have been hours ago.
Serina’s bitek processor block converted her affinity voice into a straight datavise. “Captain Thakrar? Are you receiving
this, sir? We’re Edenists from Golomo; we received your message.” The ice-encrusted figure didn’t move. She waited a moment,
then made her way towards him.
I’ve just datavised his suit processor for a status update. He’s still breathing. Oh, damn.
They all saw it at the same time: ancillary medical modules anchored to Thakrar by small plastic tubes which burrowed through
the SII suit material. Two of the modules had red LEDs shining under their coating of frost, the others were completely dark.
The tubes had all frozen solid.
Get him back here,
Syrinx instructed.
Fast as you can,
Serina.
• • •
Caucus was waiting with a stretcher right outside the MSV’s airlock.
Oenone
had stopped generating a gravity field in the crew torus so that Serina and Oxley could tow Thakrar’s inert form through
the cramped little tube without too much difficulty. He was shedding droplets as they went, the layer of frost melting in
the warm air. They got him onto the stretcher, and
Oenone
immediately reinstated gravity in the torus, tugging the crew down to the decking again. Oxley held on to the dead medical
modules as they raced around the central corridor to the sick bay.
Deactivate the suit, please,
Caucus told Serina as the stretcher was wheeled under the diagnostic scanner. She issued the order to the suit’s control
processor, which examined the external environment before obeying. The black silicon retreated from Thakrar’s skin, sliding
from his extremities to glide smoothly toward his throat. Dark fluids began to stain the stretcher. Syrinx wrinkled her nose
up at the smell, putting a hand over her nose.
Is he all right?
Oenone
asked.
I don’t know yet.
Please, Syrinx, it is him who is hurt, not you. Please don’t remember like this.
I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was being so obvious.
To the others, perhaps not.
It does make me remember, I won’t deny that. But his injuries are very different.
Pain is pain.
My pain is only a memory,
she recited; in her mind it was Wing-Tsit Chong’s voice which spoke the phrase.
Memories do not hurt, they only influence.
Caucus winced at the sight which was unveiled. Thakrar’s lower right arm was new, that much was obvious. The medical packages
wrapped around it had shifted, opening large gashes in the translucent immature skin. AT muscles lay exposed, their drying
membranes acquiring a nasty septic tint.
Scars and skin grafts on the legs and torso were a livid red against the snowy skin. The remainder of his packages appeared
to have withered, green surfaces crinkling up like aging rubber, pulling the edges back from the flesh they were supposed
to heal. Sour nutrient fluids dripped out of torn inlet plugs.
For a moment, all Caucus could do was stare in a kind of revolted dismay. He simply didn’t know where to start.
Erick Thakrar’s bruised eyelids slowly opened. What alarmed Syrinx the most was the lack of confusion they showed.
“Can you hear me, Erick?” Caucus said in an overloud voice. “You’re perfectly safe now. We’re Edenists, we rescued you. Now
please don’t try and move.”
Erick opened his mouth, lips quivering.
“We’re going to treat you in just a moment. Are your axon blocks functional?”
“No!” It was very clear, very determined.
Caucus picked up an anaesthetic spray from the bench. “Is the program faulty, or have your neural nanonics been damaged?”
Erick brought his good arm around and pressed his knuckles into Caucus’s back. “No, you will not touch me,” he datavised.
“I have a nerve burst implant. I will kill him.”
The spray fell from Caucus’s hand to clatter on the deck.
Syrinx could barely credit what was happening. Her mind instinctively opened to Caucus, offering support to his own frightened
thoughts. All the crew were doing the same.
“Captain Thakrar, I am Captain Syrinx, this is my void-hawk
Oenone
. Please deactivate your implant. Caucus was not going to harm you.”
Erick laughed, an unsteady gulp which shook his whole body. “I know that. I don’t want to be treated. I’m not going back,
not out there. Not again.”
“Nobody is going to send you anywhere.”
“They will. They always do. You do, you navy people. Always one final mission, one little bit of vital information to collect,
then it will all be over. It never is, though. Never.”
“I understand.”
“Liar.”
She gestured to the outlines of the medical packages visible through her ship-tunic. “I do have some knowledge of what you
have been through. The possessed had me for a brief time.”
Erick gave her a scared glance. “They’ll win. If you saw what they can do, you’ll know that. There’s nothing we can do.”
“I think there is. I think there must be a solution.”
“We’ll die. We’ll become them. They’re us, all of us.”
Captain? I’ve got a clean shot at him.
Syrinx was aware of Edwin, out in the central corridor, a maser carbine raised. The blank muzzle was pointing at Erick Thakrar’s
back. A feed from the weapon’s targeting processor showed it was aimed precisely on Thakrar’s spinal column. The coherent
microwaves would sever his nerves before he could use the implant.
No,
she said.
Not yet. He deserves our efforts to talk him out of this.
For the first time in a long time, she was angry at an Adamist for being just that, an Adamist. Closed mind, locked up tight
in its skull. No way of knowing what others were thinking, never really knowing love, kindness, or sympathy. She couldn’t
take the simple truth to him directly. Not the easy way.
“What do you want us to do?” she asked.
“I have information,” Erick datavised. “Strategic information.”
“We know. Your message to Golomo said it was important.”
“I will sell it to you.”
There was a collective burst of surprise from the crew.
“Okay,” Syrinx said. “If I have the price on board, you will have it.”
“Zero-tau.” Erick’s face became pleading. “Tell me you have a pod on board. For God’s sake.”
“We have several.”
“Good. I want to be put inside. They can’t get to you in there.”
“All right, Erick. We’ll put you in zero-tau.”
“Forever.”
“What?”
“Forever. I want to stay in zero-tau forever.”
“Erick. ..”
“I thought about this; I thought about it a lot, it can work. Really it can. Your habitats can resist the possessed. Adamist
starships don’t work for them, not properly. Capone is the only one who has any military ships, and he won’t be able to keep
them going for long. They’ll need maintenance, spares. He’ll run out eventually. Then there won’t be any more invasions, only
infiltrations. And you won’t let your guard down. We will, Adamists will. But not you. In a hundred years from now there will
be nothing left of our race, except for you. Your culture will live forever. You can keep me in zero-tau forever.”
“There’s no need for this, Erick. We can beat them.”
“No,” he brayed. “Can’t can’t can’t.” The effort of speaking made him cough painfully. His breathing was very heavy now. “I’m
not going to die,” he datavised. “I’m not going to be one of them; not like little Tina. Dear little Tina. God, she was only
fifteen. Now she’s dead. But you don’t die in zero-tau. You’re safe. It’s the only way. No life, but no beyond, either. That’s
the answer.” Very slowly, he took his hand away from Caucus. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have hurt you. Please, you have to do
this for me. I can tell you where Capone is going to invade next. I can give you the coordinate of an antimatter station.
Just give me your word, as an Edenist, as a voidhawk captain; your word that you will take my pod to a habitat, and that your
culture will always keep me in zero-tau. Your word, please, it’s so little to ask.”