She turned her head to face the wall of angry cloud, her expression stern. “No. They stick to their side of the firebreak.
There have been plenty of sightings. We think they’re keeping an eye on us. But it’s only my patrols who are visible to them.”
A thumb jabbed back over her shoulder. “They don’t know anything about all this.”
“Good. We can’t keep it secret forever, of course; but the longer the better.”
“Some kids came out last week. It was the first interesting thing to happen since you left.”
“Kids?”
“A woman called Stephanie Ash bused seventy-three non-possessed children right up to the firebreak. Gave the roadblock guard
a hell of a fright, I can tell you. Apparently she’d collected them from all over the peninsula. We evacuated them to a holding
camp. I think your friend Jannike Dermot has got her experts debriefing them on conditions over there.”
“Now that’s a report I’d like to access.” He squinted at the red cloud. That elusive knot of shadow seemed to have returned.
It was elliptical this time, hanging over the M6. It didn’t take much imagination to suspect it of staring at him. “I think
I’ll take a closer look before I set up my command at Fort Forward,” he announced.
Will and Dean rode shotgun on the Marine Corps runabout which took him up to the orange roadblock. It was good to talk with
them again. They’d been attached to Palmer’s brigade as combat liaison for the agency, supporting the various technical teams
Roche Skark had dispatched to the firebreak. Both of them wanted to know every detail of his meetings with the King. They
were annoyed he wouldn’t datavise his visual files of Prince Edward playing at the Apollo Palace, but they were confidential.
And so grows the mystique, Ralph thought, amused that he should be contributing to it.
The marines at the roadblock saluted smartly as Ralph and the Colonel arrived. Ralph chatted to them as cordially as he could
manage. They didn’t seem to mind the red cloud; he found it intimidating in the extreme. It loomed barely three hundred metres
above him, vigorous thrashing streamers packed so close together there was no gap between them, layer upon layer stacked up
to what seemed like the edge of space. The sonorous reverberations from its internal brawling was diabolically attuned to
the harmonic of human bones. Millions of tonnes of contaminated water hanging suspended in the air by witchcraft, ready to
crash down like the waterfall at the end of the world. He wondered how little effort on behalf of the possessed it would take
to do just that. Could it be he really had underestimated their power? It wasn’t the scale of the cloud which perturbed him
so much as the
intent
.
“Sir,” one of the barrier guards shouted in alarm. “Visible hostile, on foot, three hundred metres.”
Dean and Will were abruptly standing in front of Ralph, their gaussguns pointing across the firebreak.
“I think this is enough front-line inspection for today,” Colonel Palmer said. “Let’s get you back to the runabout, please,
Ralph.”
“Wait.” Ralph looked between the two G66 troopers to see a single figure walking up the M6. A woman dressed in a neatly cut
leather uniform, her face stained warrior-scarlet by the nimbus of the seething clouds. He knew exactly who it was, in fact
he would almost have been disappointed if she hadn’t appeared. “She’s not a threat. Not yet, anyway.”
He slipped between Will and Dean to stand full square in the middle of the road, facing her down.
Annette Ekelund stopped at the forwards barrier on her side of the firebreak. She took a slim mobile phone from her pocket,
extended its ten-centimetre aerial, then tapped in a number.
Ralph’s communications block announced a channel opening. He switched it to audio function.
“Hello, Ralph. I thought you would come back, you’re the kind that does. And I see you’ve brought some friends with you.”
“That’s right.”
“Why don’t you bring them on over and join the party?”
“We’ll pick our own time.”
“I have to say I’m disappointed; that’s not quite what we agreed to back in Exnall, now is it? And with a Saldana Princess,
too. Dear me, you can’t trust anyone these days.”
“A promise made under duress is not legally binding. I’m sure you’ll have enough lawyers on your side to confirm that.”
“I thought I explained all this to you, Ralph. We can’t lose, not against the living.”
“I don’t believe you. No matter what the cost, we must defeat you. The human race will end if you are allowed to win. I believe
we deserve to keep on going.”
“You and your ideals, the original Mr Focused. No wonder you found a profession which allowed you to give loyal service. It
suits you perfectly. Congratulations, Ralph, you have found yourself, not everyone can say that. In another universe, one
that isn’t so warped as this, I’d envy you.”
“Thank you.”
“There was a nasty little phrase coined in my era, Ralph; but it’s still appropriate today, because it too came from a dogmatic
soldier in a pointless war.
We had to destroy the village in order to save it
. What do you think you’re going to do to Mortonridge and its people with this crusade of yours?”
“Whatever I have to.”
“But we’ll still be here afterwards, Ralph, we’ll always be here. The finest minds in the galaxy have been working on this
problem. Scientists and priests scurrying for hard answers and bland philosophies. Millions—billions of man-hours have already
been spent on the quandary of what to do with us poor returned souls. And they’ve come up with nothing. Nothing! All you can
do is mount this pathetic, vindictive campaign of violence in the hope that some of us will be caught and thrown into zero-tau.”
“There isn’t an overall solution yet. But there will be.”
“There can’t be. We outnumber you. It’s simple arithmetic, Ralph.”
“Laton said it can be done.”
She chuckled. “And you believe him?”
“The Edenists think he was telling the truth.”
“Oh, yes, the newest and most interesting of all your friends. You realize, don’t you, that they could well survive this while
you Adamists fall. It’s in their interest for this monstrous diversion to work. Adamist planets will topple one by one while
your Confederation is engrossed here.”
“And what about the Kiint?”
There was a slight pause. “What about them?”
“They survived their encounter with the beyond. They say there is a solution.”
“Which is?”
He gripped the communications block tighter. “It doesn’t apply to us. Each race must find its own way. Ours exists, somewhere.
It will be found. I have a lot of faith in human ingenuity.”
“I don’t, Ralph. I have faith in our sick nature to hate and envy, to be greedy and selfish, to lie. You forget, for six centuries
I couldn’t hide from the naked emotions which drive all of us. I was condemned to them, Ralph. I know exactly what we are
in our true hearts, and it’s not nice, not nice at all.”
“Tell that to Stephanie Ash. You don’t speak for all the possessed, not even a majority.”
Her stance changed. She no longer leaned casually on the barrier but stood up straight, her head thrust forwards challengingly.
“You’ll lose, Ralph, one way or the other. You, personally, will lose. You cannot fight entropy.”
“I wish your faith wasn’t so misdirected. Think what you could achieve if you tried to help us instead.”
“Stay away from us, Ralph. That’s what I really came here to tell you. One simple message: Stay away.”
“You know I can’t.”
Annette Ekelund nodded sharply. She pushed the phone’s aerial back in and closed the little unit up.
Ralph watched her walk back down the M6 with a degree of sorrow he hadn’t expected. Shadows cavorted around her, hoaxing with
her silhouette before swallowing her altogether.
“Ye gods,” Colonel Palmer muttered.
“That’s what we’re up against,” Ralph said.
“Are you sure a million serjeants is going to be enough?”
Ralph didn’t get to answer. The discordant bellows of thunder merged together into a continuous roar.
Everyone looked up to see the edge of the red cloud descending. It was as if the strength of the possessed had finally waned,
allowing the colossal weight of water to crash down. Torrents of gaudy vapour plunged out of the main bank, hurtling earthwards
faster than mere gravity could account for.
Along with the others, Ralph sprinted away from the roadblock, neural nanonics compelled a huge energy release from his muscle
tissue, increasing his speed. Animal fear was pounding on his consciousness to turn and fire his TIP pistol at the virulent
cascade.
His neural nanonics received a plethora of datavises from SD Command on Guyana. Low-orbit observation satellites were tracking
them. Reports from patrols and sensors positioned along the firebreak: the whole front of cloud was moving.
“SD platforms are now at Ready One status,” Admiral Farquar datavised. “Do you want us to counterstrike? We can slice that
bastard apart.”
“It’s stopping,” Will yelled.
Ralph risked a glance over his shoulder. “Wait,” he datavised to the admiral. A hundred and fifty metres behind him, the base
of the cloud had reached the ground, waves rebounding in all directions to furrow the surface. But the bulk of it was holding
steady, not advancing. Even the thunder was muffled.
“They are not aggressing, repeat, not aggressing,” Ralph datavised. “It looks like . .. hell, it looks as though they’ve slammed
the door shut. Can you confirm the situation along the rest of the firebreak?”
When he looked from side to side, the cloud was clinging to the scorched soil as far as his enhanced retinas could see. A
single, simple barrier that curved back gently until it reached an apex at about three kilometres high. In a way it was worse
than before; without the gap this was so uncompromisingly final.
“Confirm that,” Admiral Farquar datavised. “It’s closed up all the way along the firebreak. The coastline edges are lowering,
too.”
“Great,” Colonel Palmer swore. “Now what?”
“It’s a psychological barrier, that’s all,” Ralph said quietly. “After all, it’s only water. This changes nothing.”
Colonel Palmer slowly tilted her head back, scanning the height of the quivering fluorescent precipice. She shivered. “Some
psychology.”
• • •
Ione.
A chaotic moan fluttered out between her lips. She was sprawled on her bed, sliding quietly into sleep. In her drowsy state,
the pillow she was cuddling could so easily have been Joshua.
Oh, now what, for Heaven’s sake? Can’t I even dream my fantasies anymore?
I am sorry to disturb you, but there is an interesting situation developing concerning the Kiint.
She sat up slowly, feeling stubbornly grumpy despite Tranquillity’s best efforts to emphasise its tender concern. It had been
a long day, with Meredith’s squadron to deal with on top of all her normal duties. And the loneliness was starting to get
to her, too.
It’s all right.
She scratched irritably at her hair.
Being pregnant is making me feel dreadfully randy. You’re just going to have to put up with me being like this for another
eight months. Then you’ll have postnatal depression to cope with.
You have many lovers to choose from. Go to one. I want you to feel better. I do not like it when you are so troubled.
That’s a very cold solution. If getting physical was all it took, I’d just swallow an antidote pill instead.
From what I observe, most human sex is a cold activity. There is an awful lot of selfishness involved.
Ninety per cent of it is. But we put up with that because we’re always looking for the other ten per cent.
And you believe Joshua is your ten per cent?
Joshua is floating somewhere between the ninety and the ten. I just want him right now because my hormones are completely
out of control.
Hormonal production does not usually peak until the later months of a pregnancy.
I always was an early developer.
A swift thought directed at the opaqued window allowed a dappled aquamarine light into the bedroom. She reached lethargically
for her robe.
All right, self-pity hour over. Let’s see what our mysterious Kiint are up to. And God help you if it isn’t important.
Lieria has taken a tube carriage to the StClÉment starscraper.
So bloody what?
It is not an action which any Kiint has performed before. I have to consider it significant, especially at this time.
• • •
Kelly Tirrel hated being interrupted while she was running her Present Time Reality programs. It was an activity she was indulging
more often these days.
Some of the black programs she had bought were selective memory blockers, modified from medical trauma erasure programs, slithering
deep into her natural brain tissue to cauterize her subconscious. They should have been used under supervision, and it certainly
wasn’t healthy to suppress the amount of memory she was targeting, nor for as long. Others amplified her emotional response
to perceptual stimuli, making the real world slow and mundane in comparison.
One of the pushers she’d met while she was making a documentary last year had shown her how to interface black programs with
standard commercial sensenvirons to produce PTRs. Such integrations were supposedly the most addictive stim you could run.
Compulsive because they were the zenith of denial. Escape to an alternative personality living in an alternative reality,
where your past with all its inhibitions had been completely divorced, allowing only the present to prevail. Living for the
now, yet stretching that now out for hours.
In the realms through which Kelly moved, possession and the beyond were concepts which did not nor could ever exist. When
she did emerge, to eat, or pee, or sleep, the real world was the one which seemed unreal; terribly harsh by comparison to
the hedonistic existence she had on the other side of the electronic divide.