“Tomorrow, maybe,” Tracy said. “We have to get Jay settled in here first.”
Jay shrugged at her friend.
“Now then, Jay, we’re going to jump out of here. It’ll be the same as before, but this time you know it’s happening, and I’ll
be with you the whole time. All right?”
“Couldn’t we just walk, or use a groundcar, or something?”
Tracy smiled sympathetically. “Not really, sweetie.” She pointed up at the planets arching over the dark sky. “My home is
on one of those.”
“Oh. But I will be seeing Haile while I’m here, won’t I?” Jay raised her hand and waved at her friend. Haile formshifted the
tip on one of her tractamorphic arms into a human hand, and wriggled the fingers.
We will build the castles of sand again.
“Close your eyes,” Tracy said. “It’s easier that way.” Her arm went round Jay’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”
This time it wasn’t so bad. There was that quick breeze ruffling her nightie again, and despite having her eyes shut her stomach
was telling her very urgently that she was falling again. A squeak crept out of her lips in spite of her best efforts.
“It’s all right sweetie, we’re here now. You can open your eyes again.”
The breeze had vanished, its departure signalling a whole symphony of fresh sound. Hot sunlight tingled her skin; when she
breathed in she could taste salt.
Jay opened her eyes. There was a beach in front of her, one which made the little cove on Tranquillity seem quite pallid by
comparison. The powder-fine sand was snow-white, stretching out on either side of her for as far as she could see. Wonderfully
clear turquoise water lapped against it, languid waves rolling in from a reef several hundred metres out. A beautiful three-masted
yacht of some golden wood was anchored half-way between the shore and the reef, undeniably human in design.
Jay grinned at it, then shielded her eyes with a hand and looked round. She was standing on a circle of the same ebony material
as before, but this time there was no encircling wall or watching Kiint. The only artefact was a bright orange cylinder, as
tall as she was, standing next to the edge. Scatterings of sand were drifting onto the circle.
Behind her, a thick barricade of trees and bushes lined the rear of the beach. Long creeper tendrils had slithered out of
them over the hard-packed sand, knitting together in a tough lacework that sprouted blue and pink palm-sized flowers. The
only noise was the waves and some kind of honking in the distance, almost like a flock of geese. When she searched the cloudless
sky, she could see several birds flapping and gliding about in the distance. The arch of planets was a line of silver disks
twinkling away into the horizon.
“Where are we now?” Jay asked.
“Home.” Tracy’s face managed to produce even more wrinkles as she sniffed distastefully. “Not that anywhere is really home
after spending two thousand years swanning loyally round Earth and the Confederation planets.”
Jay stared at her in astonishment. “You’re two thousand years old?”
“That’s right, sweetie. Why, don’t I look it?”
Jay blushed. “Well… ”
Tracy laughed, and took hold of her hand. “Come along, let’s find you that bed. I’ll think I’ll put you in my guest quarters.
That’ll be simplest. Never thought I’d ever get to use them.”
They walked off the ebony circle. Up ahead of them, Jay could see some figures lazing on the beach, while others were swimming
in the sea. Their strokes were slow and controlled. She realized they were all as old as Tracy. Now Jay was paying attention,
she could make out several chalets lurking in the vegetation behind the beach. They were strung out on either side of a white
stone building with a red tile roof and a sizeable, well-manicured garden; it looked like some terribly exclusive clubhouse.
Still more old people were sitting at iron tables on the lawns, reading, playing what looked like a board game, or just staring
out to sea. Mauve-coloured globes, the size of a head, were floating through the air, moving sleekly from table to table.
If they found an empty glass or plate they would absorb it straight through their surface. In many cases they would extrude
a replacement; the new glasses were full, and the plates piled with sandwiches or biscuit-type snacks.
Jay walked along obediently at Tracy’s side, her head swivelling about as she took in the amazing new sights. As they approached
the big building, people looked their way and smiled encouragingly, nodding, waving.
“Why are they doing that?” Jay asked. All the excitement and fright had worn off now she knew she was safe, leaving her very
tired.
Tracy chuckled. “Having you here is the biggest event that’s happened to this place for a long time. Probably ever.”
Tracy led her towards one of the chalets; a simple wooden structure with a veranda running along the front, on which stood
big clay pots full of colourful plants. Jay could only think of the pretty little houses of the Juliffe villages on the day
she and her mother had started sailing upriver to Aberdale. She sighed at the recollection. The universe had become very strange
since then.
Tracy patted her gently. “Almost there, sweetie.” They started up the steps to the veranda.
“Hi there,” a man’s voice called brightly.
Tracy groaned impatiently. “Richard, leave her alone. The poor little dear’s dead on her feet.”
A young man in scarlet shorts and a white T-shirt was jogging barefoot across the sands towards them. He was tall with an
athletic figure, his long blond hair tied back into a ponytail by a flamboyant leather lace. He pouted at the rebuke, then
winked playfully at Jay. “Oh, come on, Trace; just paying my respects to a fellow escapee. Hello, Jay, my name’s Richard Keaton.”
He gave a bow, and stuck his hand out.
Jay smiled uncertainly at him, and put out her own hand. He shook it formally. His whole attitude put her in mind of Joshua
Calvert, which was comforting. “Did you jump out of Tranquillity as well?” she asked.
“Heavens, no, nothing like that. I was on Nyvan when someone tried to drop a dirty great lump of metal on me. Thought it best
I slipped away when no one was looking.”
“Oh.”
“I know everything is real weird for you right now, so I just wanted you to have this.” He produced a doll resembling some
kind of animal, a flattish humanoid figure made from badly worn out brown-gold velvet; its mouth and nose were just lines
of black stitching, and its eyes were amber glass. One semicircular ear had been torn off, allowing tufts of yellowing stuffing
to peek out of the gash.
Jay gave the battered old thing a suspicious look, it wasn’t anything like the animatic dolls back in Tranquillity’s paediatric
ward. In fact, it looked even more primitive than any toy on Lalonde. Which was pretty hard to believe. “Thank you,” she said
awkwardly as he proffered it. “What is it?”
“This is Prince Dell, my old Teddy Bear. Which dates me. But friends like this were all the rage on Earth when I was young.
He’s the ancestor of all those animatic dolls you kids have these days. If you hold him close at night he keeps troubles away
from your dreams. But you have to keep cuddling him tight for him to be able to do that properly. Something to do with earth
magic and contact; funny stuff like that. He used to sleep with me until I was a lot older than you. I thought he might be
able to help you tonight.”
He sounded so serious and hopeful that Jay took the bear from him and examined it closely. Prince Dell really was very tatty,
but she could just picture him in the embrace of a sleeping boy with blond hair. The boy was smiling blissfully.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll hold on to him tonight. Thank you very much.” It seemed a bit silly, but it was kind of him to
be so considerate.
Richard Keaton smiled gladly. “That’s good. The Prince hasn’t had much to do for a long time. He’ll be happy to have a new
friend. Make sure you treat him nicely, he’s a bit delicate now, poor thing.”
“I will,” Jay promised. “Are you really old, as well?”
“Older than most people you’ve ever met, but nothing like as antique as good old Trace, here.”
“Huh,” Tracy sniffed critically. “If you’re quite finished.”
Richard rolled his eyes for Jay’s benefit. “Sweet dreams, Jay. I’ll see you tomorrow, we’ve got lots to talk about.”
“Richard,” Tracy asked reluctantly. “Did Calvert do it?”
A huge smile flashed over his face. “Oh yeah. He did it. The Alchemist is neutralized. Just as well, it was a brute of a weapon.”
“Typical. If they’d just devote ten per cent of their military budget and all that ingenuity into developing their social
conditions.”
“Preaching to the converted!”
“Are you talking about Joshua?” Jay asked. “What’s he done?”
“Something very good,” Richard said. “Amazingly,” Tracy muttered dryly.
“But… ”
“Tomorrow, sweetie,” Tracy said firmly. “Along with everything else. I promise. Right now, you’re going to bed. Enough delaying
tactics.”
Richard waved, and walked away. Jay held Prince Dell against her tummy as Tracy’s hand pressed into her back, propelling her
up the steps and into the chalet. She glanced down at the ancient bear again. His dull glass eyes stared right back at her,
it was an incredibly melancholic expression.
______
The first hellhawk came flashing out of its wormhole terminus twelve thousand kilometres from Monterey asteroid. New California’s
gravitonic detector warning satellites immediately datavised an alert to the naval tactical operations centre. The high pitched
audio alarm startled Emmet Mordden, who was the duty officer in the large chamber. At the time he was sitting with his feet
up on the commander’s console, reading through a four-hundred-sheet hard copy guide of a Quantumsoft accountancy program in
preparation for his next upgrade to the Treasury computers. With most of the Organization fleet away at Tranquillity, and
the planet reasonably stable right now, it was a quiet duty, just right to catch up on his technical work.
Emmet’s feet hit the floor as the AI responsible for threat analysis squirted a mass of symbols and vectors up on one of the
huge wall-mounted holoscreens. In front of him, the equally surprised SD network operators scrambled to interpret what was
happening. There weren’t many of them among the eight rows of consoles in the centre, nothing like the full complement which
the Organization had needed at the height of the Edenist harassment campaign. Right now, spaceflight traffic was at a minimum,
and the contingent of Valisk hellhawks on planetary defence duty had done a superb job of clearing Edenist stealth mines and
spy globes from space around the planet.
“What is it?” Emmet asked automatically; by which time another three wormholes had opened. The precariously-stacked pile of
hard copy avalanched off his console as he determinedly cleared his keyboard ready to respond.
The AI had acquired X-ray laser lock on for the first four targets, and was requesting fire authority. Another ten wormholes
were opening. Jull von Holger, who acted as the go-between for the Valisk hellhawks and the operations centre, leapt to his
feet, shouting: “Don’t shoot!” He waved his arms frantically. “They’re ours! They’re our hell-hawks.”
Emmet hesitated, his fingers hovering over the keys. According to his console displays, over eighty wormholes had now opened
to disgorge bitek starships. “What the fuck do they think they’re doing busting in on us like that? Why aren’t they with the
fleet?” Suspicion flowered among his thoughts; and he didn’t care that von Holger could sense it. Hellhawks were dangerously
powerful craft, and with the fleet away they could make real trouble. He’d never really trusted Kiera Salter.
Jull von Holger’s face went through a wild panoply of emotion-derived contortions as he conducted fast affinity conversations
with the unexpected arrivals. “They’re not from the fleet. They’ve come here directly from Valisk.” He halted for a moment,
shocked. “It’s gone. Valisk has gone. We lost to that little prat Dariat.”
“Holy shit,” Hudson Proctor gasped.
Kiera stuck her head round the bathroom door as the beautician tried to wrap her sopping wet hair in a huge fluffy purple
towel. The Quayle suite in the Monterey Hilton was a temple to opulence and personal luxury. As Rubra had denied everyone
access to the Valisk starscrapers, along with their apartment bathrooms, Kiera had simply groomed herself with energistic
power alone. She had forgotten what it was to sprawl in a Jacuzzi with a selector that could blend in any of a dozen exotic
salts. And as for having her hair styled properly rather than forcing it into shape…
“What?” she snapped in annoyance; though the beacon-bright dismay in her associate’s mind tempered any real fury at being
interrupted.
“The hellhawks are here,” he said. “All of them. They’ve come from Valisk. It’s… ” He flinched in trepidation. Delivering
bad news to Kiera was always a desperately negative career move. Just because she had the kind of teenage-sweetheart looks
which could (and had) suckered in non-possessed kids from right across the Confederation didn’t mean her behaviour matched.
Quite the opposite—she took a perverse enjoyment from that, too. “Bonney chased after Dariat, apparently. There was a big
fight in one of the starscrapers. Plenty of our people got flung back into the beyond. Then she forced him to ally with Rubra,
or something.”
“What happened?”
“They, er—Valisk’s gone. The two of them took the habitat out of the universe.”
Kiera stared at him, little wisps of steam starting to lick out of her hair. She’d always bitterly regretted that Marie Skibbow
didn’t have some kind of affinity faculty; its absence had always put her at a slight disadvantage in Valisk. But she’d coped,
the entire worldlet and its formidable starships had belonged to her. She’d been a power to contend with. Even Capone had
sought out her help. Now—Kiera gave the non-possessed beautician girl a blank-eyed glance. “Get lost.”
“Ma’am.” The girl curtseyed, and almost sprinted for the suite’s double doors on the other side of the lounge.