Tolton was spasming on the floor, spittle flecking his lips. His hair was rimed with frost. Each shallow panted breath was
revealed in a cloud of white vapour.
“Shit.” Dariat staggered over to him. Just in time he remembered not to try and touch the tormented body.
Get a medical team down here.
Oh yeah. I’ll get right on it. They should be with you in about three hours.
Shit.
He knelt down next to Tolton, and leaned right over, staring into delirious eyes. “Hey.” Limpid fingers clicked right in
front of Tolton’s nose. “Hey. Tolton. Can you hear me? Try and steady your breathing. Take a deep breath. Come on! You’ve
got to calm your body down. Breathe.”
Tolton’s teeth chittered. He gurgled, cheeks bulging.
“That’s it. Come on. Breathe. Deep. Suck that air down. Please.”
The street poet’s lips compressed slightly, making a whistling sound.
“Good. Good. And again. Come on.”
It took several minutes for Tolton’s bucking to subside. His erratic breathing reduced to sharp gasps. “Cold,” he grunted.
Dariat smiled down at him. “Ho boy. You had me worried there. We really don’t need any more ghosts floating around in here
right now.”
“Heart. My heart. God! I thought…”
“It’s okay. It’s over.”
Tolton nodded roughly, and tried to lever himself up.
“Stop! You just lie there for another minute longer. There’s no paramedic service any more, remember? First thing we need
is some proper food for you. I think there’s a restaurant on this floor.”
“No way. As soon as I can get up, we’re leaving. No more starscrapers.” Tolton coughed, and started to glance round. “Jesus.”
He scowled. “Are we safe?”
“Sure. For now, anyway.”
“Did we kill it?”
Dariat grimaced. “Not exactly, no. But we gave it a hell of a fright.”
“That lightning bolt didn’t kill it?”
“No. It flew off, though.”
“Shit. I nearly died.”
“Yeah. But you didn’t. Concentrate on that.”
Tolton slowly eased himself into a sitting position, wincing at each tiny movement. Once he was propped up against a table
leg, he reached out and caressed the ice which was engulfing a chair, fingers stroking curiously. He gave Dariat a grim look
with badly bloodshot eyes. “This isn’t going to have a happy ending, is it?”
______
The seven hellhawks glided in towards Monterey, acknowledging the query from the SD network defence as the sensors locked
on.
The Sevilla SD network was a hell of a lot stronger than anything we were briefed about,
they told Jull von Holger, when he asked how the mission had gone.
Seven frigates were lost, and we’re all that’s left of our squadron.
Did the infiltration succeed?
We think over a hundred got through.
Excellent.
Neither side said anything more. Jull von Holger could sense the quiet rage of the surviving hellhawks. He chose not to mention
the fact to Emmet Mordden; the hellhawks were all Kiera’s problem.
Go straight to the docking ledges,
Hudson Proctor told the hellhawks.
We’ve already cleared the pedestals. You’ll be fed as soon as you land.
He focused on Kiera’s face. She smiled her brightest ingÉnue smile, pouring as much gratitude into her thoughts as possible
for her deputy to relay. “Well done. I know it’s not easy, but believe me there won’t be many more of these ridiculous seeding
missions.” She arched an eyebrow in query to Hudson. “Was there a reply?”
He coloured slightly at the emotional backlash to her little speech that flooded the affinity band. “No. They’re pretty tired.”
“I understand.” Her sweet expression hardened. “End your contact.”
Hudson Proctor nodded curtly, signalling it had been done.
“You hope there ain’t going to be many more seeding flights, you mean,” Luigi said indolently.
The three of them were sitting in one of the smaller, more private lounges above the asteroid’s docking ledges, waiting for
the last member of their group to arrive. Kiera’s small revolution had picked up a respectable degree of momentum over the
last ten days. The success of the seeding flights had bolstered Al’s popularity and authority considerably. But that triumph
came with a high price in terms of starships, and quite a few people were starting to acknowledge that the infiltration campaign
was short-termism. Slowly, quietly, Kiera had exploited that. Being able to see the dissatisfaction and worry in people’s
minds gave her a handy advantage when it came to spotting potential recruits.
Silvano Richmann came in and took his seat around the coffee table. There was a cluster of bottles in the centre, he poured
himself a shot of whisky.
“The Sevilla flotilla is back,” Kiera told him. “Seven frigates and five hellhawks got zapped.”
“Fuck.” Silvano shook his head in dismay. “Al’s putting together another fifteen of these missions. He just doesn’t see it.”
“He sees it the way he wants to see it,” Kiera said. “They’re successful in that they’re landing infiltrators each time. The
Confederation is going apeshit. We’re knocking off five of their planets a day. It buys him complete respect and loyalty with
the Organization down on the planet.”
“While my fleet gets chopped to shit,” Luigi snapped. “That goddamn whore Jezzibella. She’s got him by the balls.”
“Not just your fleet,” Kiera said. “I’m losing hellhawks fast. Much more of this, and they’ll leave.”
“Where to?” Silvano asked. “They’ve got to stick with you. That was a neat sting you pulled on them with the food.”
“The Edenists keep making offers to try and lure them away,” Hudson said. “Etchells keeps us informed. The latest offer is
that they’ll actually accept the blackhawk host personality into their habitat neural strata, leaving our guys as the only
soul in there. In exchange they get all the food they want, providing they just cooperate with the Edenists, help them find
out about our powers.”
“Shit,” Silvano muttered. “We gotta stop this. I’d be mighty tempted by any offer that got rid of this body’s host soul.”
“Wouldn’t we all,” Kiera said. She sat back and sipped at her wine. “Okay, the question is, how far are you prepared to go?”
“Pretty goddamn obvious for me,” Luigi said. “I’ll waste that shit Capone myself. Busting me down to a fucking errand boy.
Nobody could have handled Tranquillity any different.”
“Silvano?”
“He’s got to go. But there’s one condition for me signing up with you. And it ain’t negotiable.”
“What’s that?” Kiera asked, though she was fairly sure she knew. Silvano was feared as Al’s chief enforcer, but he did have
one major difference with his boss.
“After we do this, there are no more non-possessed in the Organization. We take them all out. Understood?”
“Suits me,” Kiera said.
“No way!” Luigi shouted. “I can’t run my fucking fleet with just possessed crews. You know that. You’re shitting on me here,
man.”
“Yeah? Who says there’s going to be a fucking fleet after this. Right, Kiera? We’re doing this for our own safety. We’re going
to take New California out of here; out of this universe. Just like all the other possessed have done. And for that, we can’t
afford no non-possessed to be around. Come on, Luigi, you know that. As long as there’s one of them left, they’re going to
be plotting and scheming how to get rid of us. For Christ’s sake. We steal their bodies from them. If you was alive right
now, you wouldn’t give jack shit about anything else other than getting them back from us.” He slammed his tumbler back down
on the table. “We eliminate all the non-possessed, or there’s no deal.”
“Then there’s no fucking deal,” Luigi stormed.
Kiera held up her hands. “Boys, boys, this is how Al wins. You ever heard of divide and rule? All of us have different interests,
and the only way we can hang on to them is if we’re part of the Organization. Only the Organization needs a fleet, and hellhawks,
and lieutenants that have to be kept in line.” She shot Silvano a significant look. “He’s made it complicated so that we have
to support him to keep our own places. What we’ve got to do is dismantle the Organization, but rig whatever’s next so that
we three come out on top.”
“Like what?” Luigi asked suspiciously.
“Okay, you want the fleet back, right? Tell me why?”
“Because it’s fucking mine, you dumb broad. I built that fleet up from nothing. I was here right from the start, the day Al
walked into San Angeles City Hall.”
“Fair enough. But all the fleet did was make you a player. Do you really want to risk flying to Confederation planets and
going up against their SD networks? They’re getting wise to us now. These seeding flights are pissing them off bad. They’re
killing us out there, Luigi.”
“So? Like I should care. I’m the admiral. I don’t have to go with them every time.”
“The whole fleet doesn’t have to go anywhere, Luigi; that’s the point. What you need is to exchange the fleet for something
else that will keep you in the game, right?”
Luigi eyed her cautiously. “Maybe.”
“That’s what we’ve got to work out between the three of us. Right now, we can carry the Organization if we eliminate Capone.
But the Organization’s a dead end. Dishing out tokens instead of money, for Christ’s sake. If we take it over, we’ve got to
use it to establish a new type of government. One that has us at the top.”
“Like what?” Silvano asked. “The second New California leaves this universe then nobody needs any kind of government.”
“Says who?” Kiera sneered. “You’ve seen the cities down there. Unless the Organization keeps putting the squeeze on the farmers
to supply food, they’d collapse overnight. If New California escapes this universe, everyone on it is going to have to turn
into some kind of medieval peasant just to stay alive. And that’s such bullshit. Five per cent of the population working in
the fields can sustain the rest of us. Now I don’t know what kind of society we can build on the other side, but I’m damned
if I’m going to live in a mud hut and spend my days walking behind a horse’s arse to plough a field. Especially when someone
else can be made to do it for me.”
“So what are you saying here?” Silvano asked. “That we keep the farmers working while the rest of us live it up?”
“Basically, yeah. It’s just like what I’ve done with the hellhawks, but on a much bigger scale. We have to keep the farmers
farming, and we have to be in charge of distributing the food to the urban areas. Convert the Organization into a giant supplier;
and the only people who get supplied, are the ones who we say.”
“You’d need a fucking army for that!” Luigi exclaimed.
Kiera gestured magnanimously. “There you are then. That’s what you turn the fleet into. Find a portable weapon that’s effective
against the possessed: something like those bastard serjeants use on Mortonridge, manufacture it up here, and equip our supporters
with it. Use the same chain of command network that’s already in place, but with a land army to back it up instead of the
SD platforms.”
“That might work,” Silvano said. “So if Luigi’s got himself an army, what do I get?”
“Communications are vital, otherwise this whole thing will just collapse. And we’d need to be more subtle with the farmers
than forcing them at gunpoint. That’s an enforcer’s job.”
He poured himself another whisky. “Okay. Let’s talk about it.”
______
Western Europe always took his dogs for a walk himself. Dog ownership was a healthy reminder of responsibility; you either
do it properly or not at all. There weren’t many crises which could make him skip a day. Though he suspected one of his staff
was going to have to start substituting fairly soon.
The formal lawns extended for over three hundred metres from the back of the house (they were yards back in the days when
he bought the estate, but even he had fallen to using that appalling modern French metric system now). A hedge of ancient
yews marked the end, ten metres high, laden with their squishy dull-red berries. He pushed through the gap marked by crumbling
stone pillars that used to be gateposts, making a mental note to get a gardening construct to prune the twigs. The carpet
of dry needles compressed beneath his brogues as the Labradors scampered round him. It was meadowland beyond, the shaggy grass
thick with daisies and buttercups. A gentle slope led down to a long still lake eight hundred metres away. He whistled softly,
and threw his stick.
“Found them,” North America datavised.
“Who?”
“The possessed Quinn Dexter left behind in New York. Just to make you more insufferable, you were right. He went for the Light
Bringer sect.”
“Ah.” The Labradors found the stick, one of them clamped it in his jaw. Western Europe slapped his hands on his thighs, and
the dogs started to bound back to him. “How bad is it?”
“Not too bad, I believe. I lost the High Magus, of course. I guess he suicided. But there are several actives left. Two of
them called me before the energistic effect glitched their neural nanonics. They’re taking over the covens one at a time.
Eight down already, including the arcology headquarters in the Leicester skyscraper.”
“Numbers?”
“That’s the good news. About ten possessed to each coven. The moron acolytes are actually welcoming them, and doing as they’re
told. Their new masters are just sitting tight, and holding some pretty gross orgies. They’ve made sure each coven’s electronics
are switched off, not that many of their units were ever interfaced with the net anyway.”
“I knew it. They’re moving with a purpose.”
“Definite infiltration tactics. They’ve got their foothold, now they’re waiting.”
“If they’re spreading to each dome, then some of them must be on the move.”
“Yes, I know. And they’ve had it easy in all the confusion. With all those riots resulting from the vac-train shutdown there’s
been a lot of vandalism; that makes it tough for the AI to locate glitches.”