The Naked God

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “This is different,” Kiera insisted. “I don’t know exactly what the Navy’s after, but it has to be something they can use against us. If it is a weapon, then it must be an extremely powerful one. Ordinary weapons are useless against us. If the Navy does put together enough force to harm us, we just leave this universe behind. They know that, especially after Ketton. We automatically protect ourselves; nothing can reach us on the other side. Nothing human, that is.”

  “Ho boy; lady, have you ever changed your tune. Yesterday you were telling me how nothing the longhairs dream up could ever touch us if we take New California out of here.”

  “This is xenoc technology. We don’t know what it’s capable of.”

  “This is bullshit,” Al said in exasperation. “Maybe. If. Perhaps. Might be. You got zip and you know it. Know what? I heard this speech once before. The prosecution lawyer at my last trial used it. Everyone knew it was a bunch of crap then, and there ain’t nothing changed since. And let me tell you, dark sister, you ain’t even as convincing as he was.”

  “If the Confederation has something that can reach the planets we’ve removed, then we’ve already lost.”

  “Yeah? What’s the matter, Kiera, running scared?”

  “I can see I’m wasting my time. I should have known this was going to fly straight over your head.” She turned to go.

  Al got a hold on his temper. “Okay. Hit me.”

  “We send some ships after them,” Kiera said. “I’m already preparing three hellhawks for pursuit duty. Just forget about our beef for one hour, and assign some of your frigates to go with them.”

  “You mean frigates armed with antimatter,” Al said.

  “Of course. We have to have superior firepower. If possible, we capture the Tyrathca weapon. If not, we destroy it along with the Navy ships.”

  Al chewed the idea over for a minute, enjoying the way Kiera got all antsy at the delay. “You want to cut a deal?” he asked. “Okay, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, and this is only because you’ve come over all noble about our future. I’ll let you have a couple of frigates; I’ll even arm them with half a dozen antimatter combat wasps each for you. How’s that?”

  Kiera gave a relieved smile. “That’s good for me.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Al’s grin shrank to nothing. “In return, all you gotta do is give me Webster.”

  “What?”

  “Webster fucking Pryor. That’s what.”

  Kiera gave Hudson Proctor a confused look. The general shrugged with equal bewilderment. “Never heard of him,” he said.

  “Then until you remember, it’s no deal,” Al said.

  Kiera glared at him. For a moment, Al thought she was going to go for it.

  “Fuckhead!” Kiera yelled. She spun round and stormed out.

  “She’s sure got a way with words,” Al chuckled. “Real lady.”

  Jezzibella couldn’t share his humour. She had a troubled expression on her face as she regarded the big doors that had closed behind Kiera.

  “Maybe we should have a talk with Etchells ourselves,” she said. “Find out what the hell is going on.”

  Everyone around Kiera kept very quiet as they took the lift up to the Hilton’s lobby. Her fury at Capone’s stupidity gradually cooled to an iron-hard determination. Capone would have to be disposed of, and quickly. No question about it.

  After that, there were new questions.

  Etchells’s story bothered her badly. She simply couldn’t believe the Navy would send ships to the Orion Nebula without a very good reason. It had to be connected to possession somehow. With a weapon as the obvious choice. Infuriatingly, if that was the case, then Capone had been right all along about staying here and making a stand.

  If she stuck with the original plan, to transfer the Organization down to New California and leave the universe, then there’d be no way to counter any future developments which the Confederation might make. Always a factor, but now requiring more urgent consideration.

  And of course, once she gained control of the Organization fleet, she could dispatch a whole squadron of antimatter-armed frigates to the Orion Nebula. But then, she’d have to go with them. A quick glance at Hudson Proctor confirmed that. He was loyal, but only because she was the ride he’d chosen to get him to the top. Give him the chance to intercept a Tyrathca superweapon by himself, and he’d do to her what she was about to do to Capone. It was a bad corner to be backed into.

  The lift door opened and she strode out into the lobby. This section of the Hilton was actually embedded into the asteroid’s rock, connecting the external tower structure with the rest of the habitation zone via a warren of corridors. Several Organization gangsters were lounging around in the couches, drinking and talking as they were served by a non-possessed barkeeper. Three more gangsters were leaning against the long reception desk as a team of non-possessed cleaners worked to clear up the last of the trash left over from the Trafalgar victory party.

  Kiera took it all in with a quick scan, trying not to let her tension show. She knew Capone’s people wouldn’t hassle her on the way in. Getting out was something different altogether. All the gangsters had fallen silent, staring at her.

  One of the exits led to a station serving Monterey’s small metro tube network. It would be the quickest way of returning to the docking ledge territory she’d marked out as her own. But the carriages could be tampered with. Especially likely now they’d found Bernhard Allsop.

  “We’ll walk,” she announced to her entourage.

  They pushed through the tall glass doors and went out into the wide public hall outside. Nobody tried to interfere or block them. The few pedestrians in the hall gave them a wide berth as they marched along determinedly.

  “How long until the hellhawks are refitted?” Kiera asked.

  “Another couple of hours,” Hudson Proctor said. He frowned. “Jull von Holger says the SD sensors have lost track of the Tamaran. It was on high-orbit patrol.”

  “Did the voidhawks kill it?”

  “I never heard a death cry; neither did any of the other hellhawks. And ambushing our ships would be a big change of policy for the Edenists.”

  “Run an SD sensor check on the other patrol hellhawks, make sure they’re still with us.” Kiera let out a disgusted breath. Another complication.

  She didn’t like to think about the hellhawks defecting to the Edenists.

  Their offers of refuge were still pretty constant from what Hudson, Jull, and the other affinity-capable told her. The only other alternative—that Capone had finally repaired a nutrient fluid refinery—was even worse.

  A few metres in front of her, a non-possessed shambling along behind a trolley loaded with food suddenly veered across the hall. Annoyed, she stepped sideways to avoid the wayward trolley. The man pushing it was a wreck, unshaven, his grey jump-suit crumpled and dirty, oily hair smeared across his brow. A haggard face was screwed up in an expression of total anguish. She’d paid him no attention, just like all the other non-possessed she encountered in Monterey, because his mind was a standard jumble of misery and fear.

  He opened his arms wide, and grabbed her in a fierce bear hug that turned into a rugby tackle. “Mine!” he howled. “You’re mine.” They crashed painfully to the floor, Kiera’s knee cracking against the carbon-concrete. “Darling, baby, Marie, I’m here. I’m here.”

  “Daddy!” She didn’t say it. The voice came from within, rising irresistibly from Marie Skibbow’s imprisoned mind. Incredulity poured through Kiera’s thoughts, smothering her own responses. Marie was sweeping back towards full control.

  “I’m going to get her out of you, I promise,” Gerald shouted. “I know how. Loren told me.”

  Hudson Proctor finally recovered from his shock, and leant over the squirming couple to grab Gerald’s sleeve. He pulled hard, muscles reinforced by energistic strength, attempting to tear the deranged man free from Kiera. Gerald stabbed a small power cell against Hudson’s hand, its naked electrodes d
igging deep. Hudson screamed as the excruciating bolt of electricity flowed across his skin. He lurched back in terror and pain, a bud of flame sizzling bright from his hand. Two of the bodyguards pounced on Gerald, trapping his legs and one arm. He bucked about frantically.

  Kiera went skidding over the floor, barely aware of the disorderly scrum tumbling around her. Her limbs were starting to move in the way which Marie commanded, as the girl’s thoughts expanded rapidly back along their old pathways. She concentrated on fighting the girl’s re-emergence.

  Gerald jabbed the power cell towards Marie’s face, the electrodes halting millimetres from her eyes. “Get out of her,” he raged. “Out! Out! She’s mine. My baby!”

  One of the bodyguards grabbed his wrist and twisted hard. Gerald’s bone shattered. The power cell dropped to the floor. Gerald screamed in fury.

  He slammed his elbow back with berserker strength. It caught the bodyguard in his stomach, doubling him up.

  “Daddy!”

  “Marie?” Gerald gasped, fearful with hope.

  “Daddy.” Marie’s voice was dwindling. “Daddy, help.”

  Gerald scrabbled round desperately for the power cell. His cold fingers closed around it. Hudson Proctor landed on his back, and the two of them rolled over together.

  “Marie!” He could see her beautiful face in front of him. Shaking like a dog coming out of deep water, hair fanning round.

  “Not any more,” she snarled. Her fist smashed dead into Gerald’s nose.

  Kiera slowly climbed to her feet, swaying slightly as long tremors clattered along her body. The bitch girl was back where she belonged, weeping at the centre of her brain. One of the bodyguards was curled up on the floor, clutching his abdomen, cheek resting in a small puddle of vomit. Hudson Proctor was hopping about, shaking his hand violently as if it was still on fire. A deep pock of blackened flesh above his knuckles was trailing smoke, filling the air with a disgusting smell. His eyes were shedding tears of pain. The remaining bodyguards were standing round Gerald, spoiling for trouble.

  “I’m going to kill the bastard!” Hudson shouted. He kicked Gerald hard in the ribs.

  “Enough,” Kiera said. She wiped a shaking hand across her forehead. Her tangle of hair stirred itself, straightening out and flowing back to its usual dark glossy arrangement. She looked down at Gerald. He was groaning faintly, fingers pawing weakly at his side where Hudson had kicked him.

  Blood was pumping out from his flattened nose. His thoughts and emotions were a discordant nonsense. “How the fuck did he get here?” she grumbled.

  “You know him?” Hudson asked in surprise.

  “Oh yes. This is Marie Skibbow’s father. Last seen on Lalonde. Which was last seen departing this universe.”

  Hudson gave an uncomfortable flinch. “You don’t think they’re coming back, do you?”

  “No.” Kiera glanced along the hall. Three of Al’s gangsters had emerged from the Hilton’s lobby to look at what was going on.

  “We have to move. Get him up,” she told her bodyguards.

  They grabbed Gerald under his shoulders and hauled him upright. His dazed eyes peered at Kiera. “Marie,” he pleaded.

  “I don’t know how you got here, Gerald, but we’ll find that out eventually. You must really love your daughter to have attempted this.”

  “Marie, baby, Daddy’s here. Can you hear me? I’m here. Please, Marie.”

  Kiera bent her bruised knee, wincing at the lick of pain which the movement brought. She focused her energistic power around the joint, feeling it ease up. “Ordinarily, just working you over ready to receive a soul from the beyond would be punishment enough. But after all you’ve done, you deserve better.” She smiled, leaning in closer. Her voice became husky. “You’re going to be possessed, Gerald. And the lucky boy who wins your body is going to get me as well. I’m going to take him to bed, and let him fuck me any way he wants, as much as he wants. And you’re going to feel it happening the whole time, Gerald. You’re going to feel yourself fucking your darling daughter.”

  “Noooo!” Gerald howled, shuddering in his captor’s grip. “No, you can’t. You can’t!”

  Kiera slowly licked Gerald’s cheek, holding his head fast as he tried to squirm away. Her mouth arrived at his ear. “It won’t be Marie’s first perversion, Gerald,” she whispered smoothly. “I enjoy how hot this body gets when I use it to perform my deviancies. And I have a lot of them, as you’ll find out.”

  Gerald began a tormented wailing; his knees buckled. “It hurts again,” he burbled. “My head hurts. I can’t see anything. Marie? Where are you, Marie?”

  “You’ll see her, Gerald, I promise I’ll open your eyes for you.” Kiera jerked her head at the bodyguards holding the wretched madman. “Bring him.”

  The office Emmet Mordden had claimed for himself was on the same corridor as the tactical operations centre. Its previous occupant, the Admiral commanding New California’s SD network, had favoured striking colours for his furniture. The easy chairs were purple, scarlet, lemon, and emerald, while his curving desk was a perfect mirror. A continual holographic screen formed a narrow band circling the room half-way up the wall, showing a view out over a coral reef colonized by some xenoc species of aquatic termites. Emmet didn’t mind, like all possessed he enjoyed the impact of strong colours, and found the ocean relaxing. Besides, there was a very powerful desktop processor which allowed him to track down most of the problems he was given, and he was close to the Organization’s communication centre when a crisis hit—like five times a day. The admiral also had an excellent stash of booze.

  When Al came in he gave the easy chairs a disapproving grunt. “I gotta sit in one of those? Je-zus, Emmet, don’t you tell no one. I got an image around here.” Al sat in the one nearest the desk and rested his fedora on its wide arm. He took a longer look round. Same as everywhere else in the asteroid. Trash piling up, food wrappers and cups, along with a pile of clothes in one corner waiting for the laundry. If anyone should have room service sorted, he expected it to be Emmet. Bad sign that he hadn’t. But the brain boy had been busy in other ways. His desk was covered in those electric calculation machines, all stitched together with glass wire.

  Picture screens lined the edge of the desk, standing on things like sheet music racks; the whole set up was hurried, just out of the workshop. “You been busy by the looks of things.”

  “I have.” Emmet gave him a pensive look. “Al, I gotta tell you, I’ve wound up with more questions than when we started.”

  “Figures.”

  “First off, I checked the corridor cameras, and all the ones round about that area. They came to a big zero. I don’t know who killed Bernhard, but they definitely messed with the camera processors. The memories were deleted, someone used a codebuster against our protocols.”

  “Emmet … come on man, you know I don’t grab any of that shit.”

  “Sorry, Al. Okay, it’s like the photos the cameras take are automatically locked inside a safe. Well, somebody cracked it, took the photos out, then locked it up again behind them.”

  “Shit. So no pictures, huh?”

  “Not in the corridor, no. So I widened the search and hunted through the cameras outside, the ones covering the ledge.” He tapped one of the makeshift screens. “Watch.”

  A picture of the docking ledge sprang up. They were looking down on the airlock as it jetted air out to the stars. Two spacesuited figures stood watching it. One of them started bounding towards the open hatch. After a short interval, the other one followed him.

  “Nothing happens for a couple of minutes,” Emmet said.

  The image zipped with static, then the two spacesuits emerged from the airlock and carried on walking down the ledge.

  “The footprint guys?” Al suggested.

  “I think so. But I don’t think they’re part of Bernhard’s hit.”

  “Sure they are. They didn’t holler about what happened.”

  “They’re in spacesuits, so they’re
not possessed. Look at it from their angle. They’ve just stumbled over the newly dead corpse of one of your senior lieutenants, and they’ve even got his blood on their boots. There’s no one else around they can point the finger at. What would you do?”

  “Keep my mouth shut,” Al agreed. “Do you know who they are?”

  “This is where it gets odd. I backtracked them; they came out of a hellhawk called Mindori.”

  “Goddamn! Kiera’s people.”

  “I don’t think so.” The camera memory played on, showing the two spacesuited figures getting into a small truck and driving it round to another airlock. “I couldn’t get a record off the cameras in this section either. So I don’t know what they got up to inside. But it was a different program which erased their memories, not the same one used in Bernhard’s hit.” One of the spacesuited figures re-emerged onto the docking ledge and loaded several trays of small packages onto the truck.

  It was then driven back to the Mindori. The figure eventually climbed back up into the hellhawk’s life support module.

  “Kiera doesn’t use non-possessed to crew her hellhawks,” Emmet said. “And that guy was still on board when it took off. The other one must still be inside the habitat.”

  “Je-zus. He’s walking around in here?”

  “Looks that way. All we know for sure is that they’re nothing to do with Kiera.”

  “But he could be the goddamn Confederation Navy. Some kind of assassin. Their version of Kingsley Pryor.”

  “I’m not so sure, Al. Those boxes in the truck. I ran a search through our store’s inventory. It’s not exactly tight at the best of times, but there’s a lot of electronics I can’t account for. I can’t see the Confederation Navy breaking in here to steal a truck full of spare parts. That doesn’t make any sense.”