The Night's Dawn Trilogy (67 page)

Lieutenant-Commander Kelven Solanki was waiting for Ralph Hiltch in his large corner office. A career officer who had left
his Polish-ethnic world of Mazowiecki twenty-nine years previously, he was forty-seven: a narrow-faced man with a lean build,
several centimetres shorter than Ralph, with thick raven-black hair trimmed to a regular one centimetre. His dark-blue port
uniform fitted well, although he’d left the jacket on the back of his desk chair.

Ralph was given a genuinely warm handshake when he came in, and the rating was dismissed. She saluted smartly and closed the
door.

Kelven Solanki’s welcoming smile faded considerably as he gestured Ralph to the imitation-leather settee. “Who’s going to
start?”

He hung his cagoule on the edge of the settee and leaned back. “We’re on your home territory, so I’ll tell you what I know
first.”

“OK.” Kelven sat on the chair opposite.

“First, Joshua Calvert and the
Lady Macbeth
; stunning though it appears, he is actually genuine as far as we can make out. I’ve got an inside track: my secretary, Marie,
is running a deal for him, so she’s keeping a strong tab on him for me. He’s bought a thousand tonnes of mayope, got himself
an export licence, and he’s loading the stuff into his star-ship as fast as the McBoeing he hired can boost it into orbit.
He’s made no attempt to get in touch with any known fence, he didn’t bring any cargo down in his own spaceplane, legal or
illegal, and he’ll be gone tomorrow.”

Kelven found he was more interested in the independent trader captain than the situation really required. “He’s genuinely
transporting timber to another star?”

“Yes. To Norfolk, apparently. Which, given their import restrictions, isn’t quite as insane as it sounds. They may just have
a use for it with their pastoral tech. I haven’t decided if he’s an idiot or a genius. I’d love to know how he gets on.”

“Me too. But he isn’t quite the innocent you think he is. The
Lady Macbeth
has an antimatter drive unit. And my last general security file update from Avon carried a report that he was intercepted
by a navy voidhawk a couple of months back; Fleet Intelligence was convinced he was trying to smuggle proscribed technology.
They actually watched the units being loaded into his cargo bay. Yet when the voidhawk captain searched his ship—nothing.
So it doesn’t look like he’s an idiot.”

“Interesting. He’s not due to leave until tomorrow, so he might still try something. I’ll keep him under close observation.
Will you?”

“I have been keeping a quiet eye on Captain Calvert since his arrival, and I’ll continue to do so. Now, the Quallheim

Counties situation. I don’t like it at all. We’ve been reviewing the images the chief sheriff’s observation satellite has
been downloading this morning, and the trouble is spreading into Willow West County. There are several burnt-out buildings
in the villages, evidence of fighting, and the fields are being ignored.”

“Hell, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, this time Candace Elford has managed to keep it quiet, at least for now. But the sheriffs and supervisors in the Quallheim
Counties and Willow West still insist there’s nothing wrong. Those that answer their communication blocks. I think that’s
the strangest aspect of this situation; I can’t see the Ivets pointing a laser at their heads all day every day.”

“I find it very hard to believe the Ivets could take over a whole county in the first place, let alone four. Rexrew might
be right about an external group being behind it. Were these new Willow West images fuzzed like the last batch from the Quallheim?”

Kelven gave his counterpart a significant look. “Yes, unfortunately they were; and my technical officer can’t work out how
it was done. She’s not the greatest electronic warfare expert in the navy, but she says there isn’t even a theory which could
account for it. I have to give serious consideration to the fact that Rexrew is right. And there’s something else, too.”

Ralph broke out of his reverie at the tone.

“I have been
authorized
”—he emphasized the word—“to tell you that Edenist Intelligence agents believe Laton is still alive, and may be on Lalonde,
specifically in Schuster County. They say he contacted them to warn them of some kind of xenoc incursion. They left Durringham
three days ago, heading upriver to investigate, but not before they made me contact Aethra to update it on the situation.
And, Ralph, they looked worried.”

“Edenist Intelligence is operative here?” Ralph asked. He’d never had the slightest hint.

“Yes.”

“Laton, I think I know the name, some kind of Serpent insurrectionist; but he’s not stored in my neural nanonics files.Probably
got him in my processor block back in the embassy.”

“I’ll save you the trouble. His file’s in the computer. It’s not nice reading, but be my guest.”

Ralph datavised the request into the office computer, and sat in a disturbed silence as the information ran through his brain.
His training had covered Edenist Serpents, but in a remote, academic fashion. He was used to dealing with mercenaries, blackhawks,
smugglers, and devious politicians, not someone like this. The datavise seemed to be pumping cryogenic liquid down his spinal
cord. “And the Edenists think he’s on Lalonde?” he asked Kelven, aghast.

“That’s right. They were never sure, but he showed an interest in the place decades ago, so they kept a watch. Now it’s confirmed,
he survived the navy assault and came here. According to the agents he called them because whatever is behind the Quallheim
disturbances was breaking through his defences.”

“Jesus wept!”

“There is a remote possibility that it was some kind of bluff to attract voidhawks here so he could take them over and get
himself and his associates offplanet. But I have to say it’s not likely. It looks like there really is some kind of external
influence at work in the Quallheim Counties.”

“The Edenists wanted me to know?”

“Yes. They thought it was important enough to override minor political constraints—their words. They want the First Admiral
and your senior Saldanas warned as well as their Jupiter Consensus. Laton by himself would require a major military action,
something which can defeat him would probably mean deployment at Fleet level.”

Ralph stared at Kelven Solanki. The navy officer was badly frightened. “Have you told the Governor?”

“No. Rexrew has enough problems. There are over four thousand colonists in the transients’ dormitories who have had their
farmsteading gear either burnt or looted. He can’t ship them upriver, and he hasn’t got any replacement gear—nor is he going
to get any in the near future. There are three colonist-carrier starships in orbit with their Ivets left in zero-tau; Rexrew
can’t bring them down because they’ll be murdered as soon as they step out of the McBoeings. The star-ship captains aren’t
authorized to take them back to Earth. There are still sectors in the east of Durringham where full civil order hasn’t been
re-established. Frankly, given the state of the city, we’re expecting widespread civil disobedience within three weeks, sooner
if word about the Quallheim revolts spreading downriver reaches town. And with the way those idiot sheriffs leak confidential
information, it will. We’re looking at virtual anarchy breaking out. I don’t consider the Governor as someone we can turn
to with this information. He’s between the classic rock and a hard place right now.”

“You’re right,” Ralph agreed unhappily. God, why Lalonde? He’d hated the place when it was a seedy backward colony going nowhere.
But right now a return to that state would have been a blessing. “I consider it my priority to inform Kulu what’s happened,
and what may happen with regards to Laton and these possible xenocs in the Quallheim Counties.”

“Good. I have the legal authority to declare a system-wide emergency and commandeer any available starship. Hopefully it won’t
come to that, but I am sending one of my officers up to a colonist-carrier starship and diverting it to Avon. That’s in hand
now, the
Eurydice
finished unloading all its colonists yesterday, it only has about fifty Ivets left in zero-tau. They’ll be transferred over
to the
Martijn
, where they can stay until Rexrew works out what he’s going to do with them. Barring anything totally unforeseen,
Eurydice
should be leaving within another twelve hours. It’ll carry my report to the First Admiral on a diplomatic flek, with another
flek for the Edenist Ambassador on Avon. You can include a flek to Kulu’s mission at the Confederation Assembly.”

“Thank you. Although I haven’t got a clue how to compile a report like that. They’ll think we’re crazy.”

Kelven glanced out at the rain bouncing on the dark rooftops. The simplicity of the scene made the events in the distant Quallheim
Counties seem surreal. “Maybe we are. But we have to do something.”

“The first thing our respective bosses will do is send back for confirmation and more information.”

“Yes, I thought about that. We must have that information ready for them.”

“Somebody has to go to the Quallheim Counties.”

“The Edenists are already on their way, but I’d like to send my own team. The marines are itching for the chance, of course.
Do you have anyone capable of performing this kind of scout mission? I really think we need to pool resources.”

“I agree with you on that. Hell, I even agree with the Edenists.” And he had to smile cynically at that. “A joint venture
would produce the best results. I have a couple of people trained to perform a covert penetration and scout mission. In fact,
if you let me have access to the communication circuits on your ELINT satellites I can activate some assets I have upriver,
see if they can fill us in on what’s happening.”

“I’ll see you get that.”

“OK, I’ll send my Lieutenant Jenny Harris over to supervise the operation. How were you planning on getting the scout teams
upriver?”

Kelven datavised an instruction to the office computer and a wall-mounted screen lit up, showing a map of the Juliffe basin
tributary network. The Quallheim Counties showed as a red slash clinging to the southern side of the tributary; Willow West
glowed a warning amber to the north-west. The next county along was outlined in black, the name Kristo blinking in white script.
“A fast boat up to Kristo County, then horses into the trouble zone. If they left by tomorrow, they ought to arrive around
only a day or so after the
Swith-land
and its posse, perhaps even a little beforehand.”

“Couldn’t we airlift them in? I can obtain one of the BK133s, they could be there by tonight.”

“And how would they get about? This is a scouting mission, remember. You can’t take horses in a VTOL, and nothing else can
get through that jungle.”

Ralph scowled at the map on the screen. “Bugger, you’re right. Hell, this planet is bloody pitiful.”

“Convenient, though. One of the few places in the Confederation where a thousand kilometres makes a mockery of our usual transportation
systems. We’re so used to instantaneous response, it spoils us.”

“Yes. Well, if any planet can bring us back to fundamentals, it’s Lalonde.”

The bundle of mayope trunks on the payload-handling truck had been assembled by the ground crew in one of the spaceport’s
hangars. A simple enough job, even for this planet’s meagre cargo-preparation facilities; the trunks were almost perfectly
cylindrical, a metre wide, cut to the same fifteen-metre length. Bright yellow straps held them together; ten load pins had
been spaced correctly around the outside. Yet so far, two of the bundles had fallen apart when Ashly used the MSV’s waldo
arm to manoeuvre them from the spaceplane into the
Lady Macbeth
’s hold. The delay had cost them eight hours, and replacement wood had to be ordered and paid for.

Since then Warlow had inspected every bundle before it was loaded into the McBoeing. He’d sent three back to the hangar to
be reassembled after he found loose straps, his enhanced audio senses picking up the ground crew’s grumbles when they thought
they were out of earshot.

But this bundle seemed satisfactory. The grapple socket plugged into his lower left arm closed around the last loading pin.
He braced himself on the truck’s base, and tried to shift the pin. The metal below his feet emitted a hesitant creak as his
boosted muscles exerted their carefully measured force. The pin remained perfectly steady.

“OK, load it in,” he told the waiting ground crew. His grapple socket disengaged, and he jumped down onto the rough tarmac.

The truck driver edged the vehicle back under the waiting McBoeing. Hydraulics began to slide the bundle into the lower fuselage
cargo hold. Warlow stood beside the spaceplane’s rear wheel bogies, in the shade. His body’s thermal-distribution system had
more than enough capacity to cope with Lalonde’s blue-white sun, but he
felt
cooler here.

A power bike rounded the corner of the hangar and turned towards the spaceplane. Two people were riding on it, Marie Skibbow
and a young man wearing a check shirt and khaki shorts. She drew to a halt in front of Warlow, giving the big cosmonik a breezy
grin.

Cradles in the spaceplane’s hold started to snap shut around the bundle’s load pins. The truck’s payload-han-dling mechanism
slowly withdrew.

“How’s it going?” Marie asked.

“One more flight after this, and we’ll be finished,” War-low said. “Ten hours, maximum.”

“Great.” She swung her leg over the bike’s saddle. The young man dismounted a moment later. “Warlow, this is Quinn Dexter.”

Quinn smiled amicably. “Warlow, pleasure to meet you. Marie here tells me you’re heading for Norfolk.”

“That’s right.” Warlow watched the truck drive off back to the hangar; the bright orange vehicle looked strangely washed out.
His neural nanonics reported a small data drop-out from his optical sensors, and he ordered a diagnostics program interrogation.

“This could be fortunate for both of us, then,” Quinn Dexter said. “I’d like to buy passage on the
Lady Macbeth
, Marie said you’re licensed for passengers.”