So can most asteroid settlements.
But how long will the production machinery function when the settlement becomes possessed? You know they have no interest
in such matters.
One of them does.
Capone? He will send you to fight to earn your food. How long will you last? Two battles? Three? With us you will be safe.
There are other tasks I can perform.
For what purpose? Now Valisk has gone, you have no human body into which you can return. They cannot reward you, only threaten.
How do you know that was promised to us?
From Dariat; he told us everything. Join us. Your assistance would be invaluable.
Assistance for what?
Finding a solution to this whole crisis.
I have solved it for myself.
Energy flashed through the cells, forcing an interstice open. The wormhole’s non-length deepened to accept his bulk.
The offer remains,
the voidhawk proclaimed.
Consider it. Come back to us at any time.
Rocio Condra closed the interstice behind his tail. His mind instinctively retrieved the coordinate for New California from
the
Mindor
’s infallible memory. He would see what Capone had to offer before making any hasty decisions. And the other hellhawks would
be there; whatever final choice they made, they would make it together.
After he explained what had happened to Choi-Ho and Maxim Payne, they agreed not to burden the Deadnights with the knowledge
that their false dream had ceased to be.
• • •
Jay peeled the gold insulating wrapper off her chocolate and almond ice cream; it was her fifth that morning. She lay back
happily on her towel and started licking the nuts off the ice cream’s surface. The beach was such a lovely place, and her
new friend made it just about perfect.
“Sure you don’t want one?” she asked. There were several more sweets scattered over the warm sand; she had stuffed her bag
full of them when she left the pediatric ward that morning.
No, with many thanks,
Haile said.
Coldness makes me sneeze. The chocolate tastes like raw sugar with much additional acid.
Jay giggled. “That’s mad. Everyone likes chocolate.”
Not I.
She bit off a huge chunk and let it slither around her tongue. “What do you like?”
Lemon is acceptable. But I am still milking from my parent.
“Oh, right. I keep forgetting how young you are. Do you eat solid stuff when you’re older?”
Yes. In many months away.
Jay smiled at the wistfulness carried by the mental voice. She had often felt the same at her mother’s rules, restrictions
designed purely to stop her enjoying herself. “Do your parents all go out for fancy meals and things in the evening like we
do? Are there Kiint restaurants?”
Not here in the all around. I know not exactly about our home.
“I’d love to see your home planet. It must be super, like the arcologies but clean and silver, with huge towers built right
up into the sky. You’re so advanced.”
Some of our worlds have that form,
Haile said with cautious uncertainty.
I believe. Racial history cosmology educational have not fully begun yet.
“That’s okay.” Jay finished the treat. “Gosh, that’s lovely,” she mumbled around the freezing mouthful. “I didn’t have any
ice cream the whole time I was on Lalonde. Can you imagine that!”
You should ingest properly balanced dietary substances. Ione Saldana says too much niceness is bad for you. Query correctness?
“Completely wrong.” Jay sat up and tossed the ice cream stick into her bag. “Oh, Haile, that’s wonderful!” She scrambled to
her feet and ran over to the baby Kiint. Haile’s tractamorphic arms were withdrawing from the sand castle like a nest of snakes
that had been routed. She’d built a central tapering tower two and a half metres tall, surrounded by five smaller matching
pinnacles; elaborate arching fairy bridges linked them all together. There were turrets leaning out of the sides at cockeyed
angles, rings of pink shell windows, and a solid fortress wall with a deep moat around the outside.
“Best yet.” Jay stroked the Kiint’s facial ridge just above the breathing vents. Haile shivered in gratitude, big violet eyes
looked directly into Jay.
I like, muchness.
“We should build something from your history,” Jay said generously.
I have no intricacy to contribute, only home domes,
the Kiint said sadly.
Our full past has not been made available. I must do much growth before I am ready for acceptance.
Jay put her arms around the Kiint’s neck, pressing up against her supple white hide. “That’s all right. There are lots of
things Mummy and Father Horst wouldn’t tell me, either.”
Much regret. Little patience.
“That’s a shame. But the castle looks great now it’s finished. I wish we had some flags to stick on top. I’ll see what I can
find to use for tomorrow.”
Tomorrow the sand will be dry. The top will crumble in air, and we must start again.
Jay looked along the row of shapeless mounds that now ran along the shoreline. Each one carried its own particular memory
of joy and satisfaction. “Honestly, Haile, that’s the whole point. It’s even better when there’s a tide, then you can see
how strong you’ve built.”
So much human activity is intentionally wasteful. I doubt my ever knowing you.
“We’re simple, really. We always learn more from our mistakes, that’s what Mummy says. It’s because they’re more painful.”
Much oddness.
“I’ve got an idea; we’ll try and build a Tyrathca tower tomorrow. That’s nice and different. I know what they look like, Kelly
showed me.” She put her hands on her hips and considered the castle warmly. “Pity we can’t build their Sleeping God altar,
or whatever it was, but I don’t think it would balance, not if you make it out of sand.”
Query Sleeping God altar or whatever?
“It was sort of like a temple that you couldn’t get inside. The Tyrathca on Lalonde all sat around it and worshipped with
chanting and stuff. It was this shape, really elaborate.” Her hands swept through the air in front of the Kiint, tracing broad
curves. “See?”
Lacking perception, I.This is worship like your ritual to support Jesus the Christ?
“Um, sort of, I suppose. Except their God isn’t our God. Theirs is sleeping somewhere far away in space; ours is everywhere.
That’s what Father Horst says.”
There are two Gods, query?
“I don’t know,” Jay said, desperately wishing she hadn’t got on to this topic. “Humans have more than two Gods, anyway. Religion
is funny, especially if you start thinking about it. You’re just sort of supposed to believe. Until you get old, that is,
then it all becomes theology.”
Query theology?
“Grown-up religion. Look here, don’t you have a God?”
I will query my parents.
“Good; they’ll explain everything much better than me. Come on, let’s go and wash this horrid sand off, then we can go riding
together.”
Much welcome.
• • •
The Royal Kulu Navy ion field flyer swept in over Mortonridge’s western seaboard, its glowing nose pointed directly at the
early morning sun. Ten kilometres to the south, the red cloud formed a solid massif right across the horizon. It was thicker
than Ralph Hiltch remembered. None of the peninsula’s central ridge of mountains had managed to rise above it; they’d been
swallowed whole.
The upper surface was as calm as a lake during a breathless dawn. Only when it started to dip earthwards along the firebreak
border were the first uneasy stirrings visible—while right on the edge there appeared to be a full-scale storm whipping up
individual streamers. Ralph had the uncomfortable impression that the cloud was aching to be let free. Perhaps he was picking
up the emotional timbre of the possessed who created it? In this situation he could never be quite sure that any feeling was
the genuine article.
He thought he could see a loose knot swirling along the side of the cloud, a twist of vermillion shadow amid the scarlet,
keeping pace with his flyer. But when he ordered the sensor suite to focus on it, all he could see were random patterns. A
trick of the eye, then, but a strong one.
The pilot began to expand the ion field, reducing the flyer’s velocity and altitude. Up ahead, the grey line of the M6 was
visible, slicing clean across the virgin countryside. Colonel Palmer’s advance camp was situated a couple of kilometres outside
the black firebreak line. Several dozen military vehicles were drawn up along the side of the motorway, while a couple were
speeding along the carbon concrete towards the unnervingly precise band of incinerated vegetation.
Any possessed marching up to the end of the red cloud would see a predictably standard garrison operation being mounted with
the Kingdom’s usual healthy efficiency. What they couldn’t see was the new camp coming together twenty-five kilometres further
to the north; a city of programmable silicon laid out in strict formation which was erupting across the endless green undulations
of the peninsula’s landscape. With typical military literalism it had been named Fort Forward. Over five hundred programmable
silicon buildings had already been activated, two-storey barracks, warehouses, mess halls, maintenance shops, and various
ancillary structures; though as yet its only residents were the three battalions of Royal Kulu Marine Engineers whose job
it was to assemble the camp. Their mechanoids had ploughed the ground up around each building, installing water and sewage
pipes, power lines, and datalinks. Huge drums of micro-mesh composite were being unrolled over the fresh soil to provide roads
which wouldn’t turn to instant quagmires. Five large filter pump houses had been established on the banks of a river eight
kilometres away to feed the expanding districts.
Mechanoids were already busy digging out vast new utility grids ready for more buildings, giving an indication of just how
big Fort Forward would be when it was completed. Long convoys of lorries were using the M6 to deliver matÉriel from the nearest
city spaceport, fifty kilometres away. Though that arrangement would soon be cancelled as Fort Forward’s own spaceport became
operational. Marine engineers were levelling long strips of land in preparation for three prefabricated runways. The spaceport’s
hangars and control tower had been activated two days ago so that technical crews could fit and integrate their systems.
When Ralph’s battleship emerged above Ombey he had seen nine Royal Navy Aquilae-class bulk transport starships in parking
formation around a low-orbit port station along with their escort of fifteen front-line frigates. There were only twenty-five
of the huge transporters left on active service; capable of carrying seventeen thousand tonnes of cargo they were the largest
starships ever built, and hugely expensive to fly and maintain. Kulu was gradually phasing them out in favour of smaller models
based on commercial designs.
They were being supported by big old delta-wing CK500-090 Thunderbird spaceplanes, the only atmospheric craft capable of handling
the four-hundred-tonne cargo pods carried by the Aquilae transporters. Again, a fleet on the verge of retirement; they had
been the first consignment ferried to Ombey by the transports. Most of the Thunderbirds had spent the last fifteen years in
mothball status at the Royal Navy’s desert storage facility on Kulu. Now they were being reactivated as fast as the maintenance
crews could fit new components from badly depleted war stocks.
Even more portentous than the buildup of navy ships were the voidhawks. Nearly eighty had arrived so far, with new ones swallowing
in every hour, their lower hull cargo cradles full of pods (which could be handled by conventional civil flyers). Never before
had so many of the bitek starships been seen orbiting a Kingdom world.
Ralph had experienced the same kind of uncomfortable awe he’d known at Azara as he observed them flitting around the docking
stations. He was the one who had started this, creating a momentum which had engulfed entire star systems. It was unstoppable
now. All he could do was ride it to a conclusion.
The ion field flyer landed at Colonel Palmer’s camp. The colonel herself was waiting for him at the base of the airstairs,
Dean Folan and Will Danza prominent in the small reception committee behind her, both grinning broadly.
Colonel Palmer shook his hand, giving his new uniform a more than casual inspection. “Welcome back, Ralph, or should I say
sir?”
He wasn’t completely used to the uniform himself yet, a smart dark blue tunic with three ruby pips glinting on his shoulder.
“I don’t know, exactly. I’m a general in the official Liberation campaign army now, its very first officer. Apart from the
King, of course. The formation was made official three days ago, announced in the court of the Apollo Palace. I’ve been appointed
chief strategic coordination officer.”
“You mean you’re the Liberation’s numero uno?”
“Yeah,” he said with quiet surprise. “I guess I am at this end.”
“Rather you than me.” She gestured northwards. “Talk about coming back with reinforcements.”
“It’s going to get wonderfully worse. One million bitek serjeants are on their way, and God alone knows how many human troops
to back them up. We’ve even had mercenaries volunteering.”
“You accepted them?”
“I’ve no idea. But I’ll use whatever I’m given.”
“All right, so what are your orders, sir?”
He laughed. “Just keep up the good work. Have any of them tried to break out?”