“I don’t want anything, Stephanie. You broke our arrangement and came here to me, remember?”
“In peace. Wanting to help.”
“We don’t need help. Not from you. Not here. I have everything under control.”
“Stop this.”
“Stop what, Stephanie?”
“Let them go. Give these people back their liberty. For pity’s sake, we’ll die here if we can’t find a way out, and you’ve
got them fenced in by your authoritarian regime. This isn’t heaven. This is a huge mistake we got panicked into making. The
serjeants are trying to help us. Why can’t you cooperate with that?”
“Ten hours ago, these
things
you’ve befriended were trying to kill us. No, worse than kill. Any of us they capture, they throw back into the beyond. I
didn’t see you rushing to hand back your nice new body, Stephanie. You went crawling out of Ketton hoping to hide in the dirt
until they passed over.”
“Look if it’s some kind of revenge trip you want, then just shoot me in the head and get it over with. But let the others
go. You can’t condemn everyone on this island just because you have so much fear and hatred inside.”
“I abhor your assumed nobility.” Annette walked past Cochrane and Sinon to stand over Stephanie. The barrel of the rifle hung
inches above her clammy forehead. “I find it utterly repellent. You can never accept that you might be wrong. You perpetually
claim the moral high ground as if it’s some kind of natural inheritance. You use your own sweetness-and-light nature as a
shield to ignore what you’ve done to the body you’ve stolen. That disgusts me. I would never try to deny what I am, nor what
I’ve done. So just for once, admit the truth. I did what was right. I organized the defence of two million souls, including
yours, and prevented you from being cast back into that horror. Tell me, Stephanie, was that the right thing to do?”
Stephanie closed her eyes, squeezing small trickles of moisture out onto her cheeks. Maybe Ekelund is right, maybe I am trying
to ignore this monstrous crime. Who wouldn’t? “I know what I’ve done is wrong. I’ve always known. But I haven’t got a choice.”
“Thank you, Stephanie.” She turned to Sinon. “And you, death machine, if you believe what you say, then you should switch
yourself off and allow real humans to live longer. You’re wasting our air.”
“I am human. More so than you, I suspect.”
“The time will come when we will throw the serpent back out into the emptiness.” She smiled without humour. “Enjoy the fall.
It looks like being a long one.”
______
Sylvester Geray opened the doors to Princess Kirsten’s private office and gestured Ralph to go through. The Princess was sitting
at her desk, with the French doors open behind her, allowing a slight breeze to ruffle her dress. Ralph stood to attention
in front of her, saluted, then put his flek down on the desk. He’d worked on the single file stored inside during the flight
over from Xingu.
Kirsten looked at it with pursed lips, making no attempt to pick it up. “And that is… ?” She said it with the air of someone
who knew very well what it contained.
“My resignation, ma’am.”
“Rejected.”
“Ma’am, we lost twelve thousand serjeants at Ketton, and God knows how many possessed civilians went with them. I gave the
order. It is my responsibility.”
“It certainly is, yes. You assumed that responsibility when Alaistair placed you in charge of the Liberation. And you will
continue to bear that responsibility until the last possessed on Mortonridge is placed in zero-tau.”
“I can’t do it.”
Kristen gave him a sympathetic look. “Sit down, Ralph.” She indicated one of the chairs in front of the desk. For a second
it appeared as though Ralph might refuse, but he gave a subdued nod and eased himself down.
“Now you know what being a Saldana is like,” she told him. “Admittedly, we’re not faced with quite such momentous decisions
every day, but they still pass across this desk here. My brother has authorized fleet deployments which have resulted in a
far higher cost of life than Ketton. And as you of all people know, we indirectly license the elimination of people who would
one day cause trouble for the Kingdom. Not very many, and not very often, perhaps, but it mounts up over the course of a decade.
Those decisions have to be made, Ralph. So I grit my teeth, and give the necessary orders, the really tough ones that the
Cabinet would have a collective fit over if they were ever made to take them. That’s genuine political power. Making the decisions
which affect other people’s lives. The overall daily running of the Kingdom is our domain, us Saldanas. Now call us what you
like: ruthless dictators, heartless capitalists, or benign guardians appointed by God. The point is, what we do, we do very
well indeed. That’s because we take those decisions without hesitation.”
“You’re trained to, ma’am.”
“True. But so are you. I admit the scale here is vastly different to what an ESA head of station is accustomed to. But in
the end, you’ve been deciding who lives and who dies for some time now.”
“I got it wrong!” Ralph wanted to shout at her, make her see reason. Something in his subconscious held him back. Not out
of respect, or even fear. Perhaps I just want to know I did the right thing. Nobody else in the Kingdom, except perhaps Alaistair
II himself, could provide that assurance and have it mean anything.
“Yes Ralph, you did. You got it very badly wrong. Squeezing the possessed into Ketton was a bad move, even worse than using
electron beams against the red cloud.”
He looked up in surprise, meeting the Princess’s uncompromising stare.
“Were you looking for compassion, Ralph? Because you won’t get it in here, not from me. I want you back on Xingu revising
the advance across Mortonridge. Not just because you’re there to stop me and the family from taking the blame. I remember
you the night we discovered Ekelund and the others had landed on this planet. You were driven, Ralph. It was mighty impressive
to watch. You didn’t compromise a single decision to Jannike or Leonard. I enjoyed that. People of their rank don’t often
get publicly stonewalled.”
“I didn’t realize you were paying me that much attention,” Ralph grunted.
“Of course you didn’t. You had one job to do, and nothing else mattered. Now you have another job. And I expect you to see
it through.”
“I’m not the right man. That drive you saw, that’s what landed us with the Ketton fiasco. The AI gave me several options.
I chose the brute force approach because I was too fired up for a rational alternative. Hammer them with overwhelming firepower
and battalions of troops until they capitulate. Well now you know what that policy leaves us with. A damn great hole in the
ground.”
“It was a painful lesson, wasn’t it?” She leant forward, determined to convince rather than alienate. “That just makes you
better qualified to carry on.”
“Nobody will trust me.”
“Snap out of that self-pitying bullshit routine right now.”
Ralph almost smiled. Sworn at by a Saldana Princess.
“This is what war is about, Ralph. The Edenists aren’t going to carry grudges; they were part of the decision-making process
to storm Ketton. As for the others, the marines and occupation forces, they all hate you anyway. One more cock-up by the chief
isn’t going to make any difference to their opinion. They’ll get their orders for the next stage, and the lieutenants and
NCOs will make sure they’re carried out to the letter. I want you to issue those orders. I’ve asked you twice, now.” Her finger
pushed the flek back over the desk, a chessmaster going for checkmate.
“Yes ma’am.” He picked up the flek. Somehow he’d known all along it would never be that easy.
“Right,” Kirsten said briskly. “What’s your next move?”
“I was going to recommend my successor change our assault policy again. One of our principal concerns over the Ketton incident
is how the inhabitants and serjeants are going to survive. Even if the possessed were stockpiling all the town’s supplies,
there can’t be much food left wherever they’ve gone.”
“You’re guessing.”
“Yes ma’am. But unless we have totally misread the situation, it is a logical one. Prior to this, the possessed have removed
entire planets to this hidden sanctuary dimension of theirs. A planet gives them a viable biosphere capable of feeding them.
Ketton is different, it’s just rock with a layer of mud on top. It’s just a question which they run out of first, air or food.”
“Unless they find one of the other planets where they can take refuge.”
“I hope they can do that, ma’am, I really do. I don’t know what kind of conditions exist wherever they are, but they would
have to be very weird indeed if it enables them to land that section of rock on a planet. In fact, we believe the strongest
possibility is that they’ll return once they realize how much trouble they’re in. The geologists say that’ll cause all kinds
of trouble, but we’re preparing for the eventuality.”
“Good grief.” Kirsten tried to imagine that vast section of countryside coming down to land in its own crater, and failed.
“You realize, if they do come back, it will have a profound implication for the other planets? That would be proof that they
can be returned as well.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“All right, this is all interesting theorizing, but what was the change of policy?”
“After we reviewed Ketton’s problems, we started to consider the supply situation on Mortonridge itself. Thanks to the deluge,
there is no fresh food left at all; the satellites haven’t managed to find a single field of crops left intact on the whole
peninsular. Some animals managed to survive; but they’re going to die soon because there’s nothing left for them to feed on.
We know the possessed cannot use their en-ergistic power to create any food, not out of inorganic matter. So it’s only a matter
of time until they run out of commercially packaged food.”
“You can starve them out.”
“Yes. But it’s going to take time. Mortonridge had an agricultural economy. Most towns have some kind of food industry, either
a processing factory or warehouse. If the possessed organize properly and ration what they’ve got, they can hold out for a
while yet. What I’d suggest we do is continue the front line’s advance, but modify the direction they’re taking. The serjeants
can still engage small groupings of possessed in the countryside without too much worry. Larger concentrations in the towns
should be left alone. Set up a firebreak around them, leave a garrison to watch, and then just wait until the food runs out.”
“Or they pull another disappearing act.”
“We believe Ketton happened because the possessed we’d trapped there were pressured into reacting by the assault. There’s
a big psychological difference between seeing ten thousand serjeants marching towards you and simply squabbling among yourselves
over the last sachets of spaghetti bolognese.”
“The longer we leave them possessed, the worse condition the bodies will be in. And that’s before malnutrition.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know that. There’s also the problem that if we just simply contract the front line the way we have been doing,
we’ll push a lot of possessed into one giant concentration in the middle. We’ll have to split Mortonridge into sections. That’ll
mean redeploying the serjeants to drive inland in columns and link up. And if we’re leaving serjeants behind as garrisons,
the numbers available for front line duties will be depleted just when we need them most.”
“More decisions, Ralph. What I said to you the other day about providing political cover still stands. Do what you have to
on the ground, leave the rest to me.”
“Can I expect any improvement in the medical back-up situation? We’re really going to need it if we start sieges.”
“The Edenist ambassador has indicated that their habitats will take the worst cancer cases from us, but their void-hawks are
badly stretched. Admiral Farquar is looking into making troop transports available, at least they have zero-tau pods in them.
In fact, I’ve asked Alaistair for some Kulu Corporation colony transport ships. We can start storing patients until the pressure
on facilities eases off.”
“That’s something, I suppose.”
Kirsten stood and datavised Sylvester Geray that the audience was over. “The most fundamental rule of modern society: Everything
costs more and takes longer. It always has done, and always will do. And there’s nothing you or I can do about it, General.”
Ralph managed a small bow as the doors opened. “I’ll bear it in mind, ma’am.”
______
“I think I can manage to walk now,” Stephanie said.
Choma and Franklin had carried her back to the serjeant’s camp on an improvised stretcher. She’d lain on the muddy ground
beside Tina, a sleeping bag wrapped round her legs and torso and a plasma drip in her arm. Too weak to move, she’d dozed on
and off for hours, falling victim to vague anxiety-drenched dreams. Moyo had stayed at her side the whole time, holding her
hand and mopping her brow. Her body was reacting to the wound as if she’d come down with a fever.
Eventually, the cold shivers passed, and she lay passively on her back gathering her woozy thoughts back together. Nothing
much had changed: the serjeants were still standing motionless all around. Occasionally, a circular patch of air high above
them would inflate with white light and pulse briefly before extinguishing. If she closed her eyes, she could sense the flow
of energistic power into the zone they designated: an intense focal point that was attempting to tear a gap in the fabric
of this realm. The pattern which they applied the energy changed subtly every time, but the result was always the same: dissipation.
This realm’s reality remained stubbornly intact.
Choma looked over from where he was examining Tina’s lower spine. “I would rather you did not exert yourself for a while longer,”
he said to Stephanie. “You did lose a lot of blood.”
“Just like me,” Tina said. It was little more than a whisper. Her arm lifted a couple of inches off the ground, hand feeling
round through the air.