“Going,” he grunted. “Got to go.” He pressed his hands over his ears (fat lot of good that it did) and tottered as fast as he could out towards the shadowy trees beyond. “I’ll wait for you. Come when you’ve finished.”
Tolton watched in dismay as the ghost scurried away; becoming all too aware of the animosity which was now focusing on him. Head down, he hurried away in the direction he thought he’d left the woman.
She was still there, propped up against the tree. Dull eyes looked up at him, suffused with dread, hope denied. It was the only part of her which betrayed any emotion. Her stretched-tight face seemed incapable of displaying the slightest expression. “What was the noise about?” she mumbled.
“I think there was a ghost around here.”
“Did they kill it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think you can kill ghosts.”
“Holy water. Use holy water.” Tolton knelt down, and gently eased her clutching hands from the blanket. This time when it parted he was determined not to grimace. It was hard. He placed the nanonic medical packages on her breasts and belly the way Dariat had said, and used the block to activate the pre-loaded programs. The packages stirred slightly as they started to knit with her skin.
She let out a soft sigh, embodying both relief and happiness.
“It’ll be all right,” he told her. “They’ll stop the cancer now.”
Her eyes had closed. “I don’t believe you. But it’s nice of you to say it.”
“I mean it.”
“Holy water; that’ll burn the bastards.”
“I’ll remember.”
Tolton found Dariat skulking among the fringes of the trees. The ghost couldn’t keep still, nervously searching round for signs of anyone approaching.
“Don’t fret, man. The others don’t care about you so long as you stay away from them.”
“I intend to,” Dariat grumbled. “Come on, we’ve got a way to go.”
He started walking.
Tolton shrugged, and started after him.
“How was the woman?” Dariat asked.
“Perky. She wanted to sprinkle you with holy water.”
“Silly cow,” he snorted with derisive amusement. “That’s for vampires.”
Kiera had decreed that the zero-tau pods should be put in the deep chambers around the base of the northern endcap. The polyp in that section was a honeycomb of caverns and tunnels; the chambers used almost exclusively by the astronautics industry to support the docking ledge infrastructure. Stores, workshops, and fabrication plants all dedicated to supplying Magellanic Itg’s blackhawk fleet. It was a logical place to use. The equipment was already close to hand. There wasn’t as much danger from Rubra’s insurgency in the big, unsophisticated caverns as there was in the starscrapers. And if they wanted them set up anywhere else, they’d be facing a troublesome relocation job.
As soon as Dariat told him where the zero-tau pods were, Tolton tried to use one of the rentcop jeeps abandoned around the starscraper lobby. It crawled along barely at walking pace. Stopped. Started. Crawled some more. Stopped.
They walked the whole way to the base of the northern endcap. Several times during the day Tolton caught Dariat studying the path behind them, and asked what he was trying to see.
“Footprints,” the fat ghost replied.
Tolton decided that after what he’d been through, Dariat was entitled to a reasonable degree of neurotic paranoia. The lightstick grew steadily brighter as they ventured into the cavern levels. Indicator lights began winking on some chunks of machinery. After a while, when they were deep inside the habitat shell, the electrophorescent strips were glowing; not as bright as before, but they remained steady.
Tolton switched the lightstick off. “You know, I even feel better down here.”
Dariat didn’t answer. He was aware of the difference himself. An atmosphere reminiscent of those heady days thirty years ago, endless bright summer days when being alive was such a blessing. The personality was right, the otherworldliness of this continuum hadn’t fully penetrated down here. Things worked as they were supposed to.
We might manage to salvage something from this yet.
They found the zero-tau pods in a lengthy cavern. At some time, there had been machinery or shelving pinned to the wall; small metal brackets still protruded from the dark-amber polyp. Deep scratches told of their recent, hurried removal. Now the cavern was empty except for the row of interstellar-black sarcophagi running the length of the floor. Each of them had been taken from a blackhawk, the crudely severed fittings were proof of that. Thick cables had been grafted on to the interface panels, wiring them into clumps of spherical high-density power cells.
“Where do I start?” Tolton asked.
The processor block he was carrying bleeped before Dariat could begin the usual prolonged process of exaggerated enunciation. “It doesn’t matter. Pick one.”
“Hey,” Tolton grinned. “You’re back.”
“Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
Oh, please,dariat said.
What’s the matter with you? We’re back on track. Rejoice.
Dariat was abruptly party to a resurgence of optimism, the sense of a hibernating animal approaching winter’s end. Holding his scepticism in check, he watched Tolton go over to the closest zero-tau pod. The personality issued a couple of simple instructions, and Tolton pecked at a keyboard.
Erentz completed her cower as the scene above her switched. One instant a Chinese warlord with a cruel smile, promising that the next thing she would know was the torture leading up to possession, the next a moderately overweight, wide-eyed man with a good ten days’ worth of grubby stubble was peering anxiously down at her. The light was dimmer, too. The wail which she’d started before the pod was activated, continued, rising in pitch.
It’s all right. Calm yourself.
Erentz paused, gathering her breath. Rubra?the mental voice which had chivvied her along since before she could remember felt different slightly.
Almost. But don’t worry. The possessed have gone. You’re safe.
There was a background emotion which sparked a small doubt. But the obvious apprehension and concern of the man staring down at her was a strange, fast-acting tonic. He definitely wasn’t possessed.
“Hello,” Tolton said, desperate for some kind of response from the startled young woman.
She nodded slowly, and raised herself gingerly into a sitting position. It didn’t help that the first thing she saw was Dariat hanging back by the cavern entrance. She emitted a frightened gasp.
I’m on your side,dariat told her, earning a twitchy laugh in response.
What is happening here?she demanded.
The personality began to fill her in. Acceptance of her new situation came amid a rush of relief. Erentz, like all the others released from zero-tau, relied on Rubra to provide a substantial part of their confidence. That he was the one who’d beaten the possessed was a heady boost for them. Fifteen minutes saw the last of the zero-tau pods deactivated. Dariat and Tolton were sidelined to slightly peeved observers as the brigade of Rubra’s descendants quickly and efficiently set about releasing their cousins. After that, when they’d come down off the hype, the habitat personality began marshalling them into groups and giving them assignments.
First priority was given to igniting the various fusion generators dotted about the spaceport. They made two attempts to initiate fusion, both of which failed. Microfusion generators, they soon found, worked well in the deep caverns; so they began the arduous process of manoeuvring starship auxiliary tokamaks through the spaceport and down the endcap. When the first one came on-line operating at thirty-eight per cent efficiency, they knew they really did stand a chance.
Schedules were drawn up to install another dozen in the caverns, feeding their energy into the habitat’s organic conductors. After two days’ unstinting effort, the light-tube began to blaze with early-morning intensity. Noonday brightness was
beyond them, but the resumption of near-normal light provided a huge psychological kick for every resident (curiously, that also included the ostracised ghosts). In tandem, the habitat’s huge organs began to function again, ingesting and revitalising the myriad fluids and gases utilised within the polyp.
Confidence guaranteed, the personality and its team set about investigating their continuum. Equipment was ransacked from physics labs and Magellanic Itg research centres, and taken down to the caverns where it was powered up. Crude space probes were prepared from the MSVs, sprouting simple sensor arrays. Outside that hot hive core of activity, the rest of the residents slowly began to gather themselves together mentally and physically. Although that promised to be possibly the longest journey of all.
But after a week, Valisk had regained a considerable amount of its most desired commodity: hope.
There was a broad grin smeared across Joshua’s face during the entire approach manoeuvre; sometimes it came from admiration, sometimes plain affection. He knew he must look utterly dopy. Simply didn’t care. Lady Mac ’s external sensor array was feeding his neural nanonics a panoramic view of Jupiter’s snarled pink and white cloudscape. Tranquillity formed a sharp midnight-black silhouette sailing across the storms.
The massive habitat looked completely undamaged; although its counter-rotating spaceport was darker than usual. The docking bays, normally the focus of frantic time-pressure maintenance efforts, were shut down and lightless, leaving the curving ebony hulls of Adamist starships half-hidden in their eclipsed metal craters. Only the navigation and warning strobes were still flashing indomitably around the edges of the big silver-white disc.
“It’s really here,” Ashly said in a stunned voice from across the bridge. “That’s, that’s . . .”
“Outrageous?” Beaulieu suggested.
“Damn right it is,” Dhabi said. “Nothing that big can be a starship. Nothing.”
Sarha laughed quietly. “Face it, people; we’re living in interesting times.”
Joshua was glad that the Mzu, her compatriots, and the agency operatives were all down in capsule D’s lounge. After everything they’d been through, for the crew to show such bewilderment now was almost an admission of weakness, as if they couldn’t cope with the rigours of starflight after all.
Jovian flight management authority datavised their final approach vector, and Joshua reduced the fusion drives to a third of a gee as they crossed the invisible boundary where Tranquillity’s traffic control centre took over guidance responsibility. Their escort of five voidhawks matched the manoeuvre with consummate elegance; unwilling to show anything other than perfection to Lagrange Calvert, a tribute to the modest debt Edenism owed him for Aethra.
If only they knew,samuel said. They’d be flying parabolas of joy.
The Jovian sub-Consensus which dealt with classified security matters acknowledged the sentiment with an ironic frisson. Given our culture’s fundamental nature, the restriction of knowledge is always a curious paradox to us,it said. However, in the case of the Alchemist, it is fully justified. Every Edenist does not need to know specific details, hence the requirement for my existence. And your job.
Ah yes, my job.
You are tired of it.
Very.as soon as the Lady Macbeth had emerged above Jupiter, Samuel had been conversing with the security sub-Consensus. It was the reason there had been relatively little fuss made about their arrival. First Admiral Aleksandrovich’s decision had quickly been accepted by Consensus and Tranquillity.
After that, Samuel had immersed his mentality with Consensus, allowing his worries and tension to dissipate among his fellows. Sympathy for Edenists was so much more than a simple expression of compassion; with affinity he could feel it reaching into his mind, warmth and light dispelling the accumulation of icy shadows that were fear’s legacy. No longer alone. Floating in a buoyant sea of welcome understanding. His thoughts began to flow in more regular patterns, and with that state achieved his body quietened. A sense of wellbeing claimed him; sharing himself with Consensus, entwined with the billions living contentedly above Jupiter, sporting with the voidhawks, he became whole again.
Yet this is the time we need you most,sub-consensus replied. You have proved how valuable you are. Your skills are essential to this crisis.
I know. And if I’m needed for another assignment, I’ll go. But I think after this, it’s time I found a new career. Fifty-eight years of one thing is enough, even for a low-stress job.
We understand. There is no immediate field assignment awaiting you. We would like you to resume the observation of Dr Mzu for the time being.
I think that’s a formality now.
Yes. But it will help to have you there in person. You have proved your worth to Monica Foulkes, she trusts you, and it is her report that will influence the Duke more than anything, and through him, the King. In this affair we must reassure the Kingdom we are playing fair.
Of course. Our alliance is a remarkable achievement, even in these circumstances.
Quite.
I’ll stay with Mzu.
Thank you.
Samuel used his affinity to stay in communication with the voidhawk escort, so he could borrow the image of Jupiter from their sensor blisters. It was a much more satisfying view than the AV projection of Lady Macbeth ’s sensor array. He watched their approach to Tranquillity, awed by the giant habitat, and not a little disconcerted by its star-jumping capability. It was so strange seeing it here, a familiar place, in a familiar location; but the two didn’t belong together. He smiled at his own discomfort.
“You look happy,” Monica said gruffly.
They had taken acceleration couches slightly apart from Mzu and the Beezling survivors; the two groups still not quite trusting each other. During the flight they’d been formal and polite, nothing more.
Samuel waved at the lounge’s AV pillar with its moirй sparkle, which was also showing the approach. “I rather like the idea of thwarting Capone in such a fashion. A habitat that can perform a swallow manoeuvre! Who’d have thought it? Well, a Saldana did, obviously. I doubt many others would.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Monica said. “You were happy the moment we arrived here, and you’ve been getting happier ever since. I’ve been watching you.”
“Coming home is always comforting.”
“It’s more than that, it’s like you’ve mellowed out.”
“I have. Communion with my people and Consensus always does that. It’s a valuable psychological relief. I don’t relish being apart from it for so long.”
“Oh God, here we go again, more propaganda.”
Samuel laughed. They might not have affinity, but he knew her well enough by now that it almost didn’t make any difference. A pleasant revelation when dealing with an Adamist, let alone an ESA operative. “I’m not trying to convert you, I’m just saying it’s good for me. As you noticed.”
Monica grunted. “You ask me, it’s a weakness. You’re dependent, and that can’t be good in our profession. People should be capable of acting by themselves without any hang ups. If I get wound up, I just run a stim program.”
“Ah yes, the natural human method of dealing with stress.”
“No worse than yours. Faster and cleaner, too.”
“There are many ways of being human.”
Monica stole a glance over at Mzu and Adul, still resentful at what they’d all been through. “Inhuman, as well.”
“I think she’s realized her folly. That’s good. It’s a sign of maturity to learn from one’s mistakes, especially after living with them for so long. She may yet make a positive contribution to our society.”
“Maybe. But as far as I’m concerned, she’ll need watching till the day she dies. And even then I’d be none too sure, she’s that tricky. I still think the First Admiral was wrong, we should have zero-taued the lot of them.”
“Well rest easy; I’ve already told Consensus I’ll continue watching over her. I’m too old and jad
ed for another active assignment. Once this crisis is concluded I’ll move on to something else. I always rather fancied wine growing; fine wine, of course. The kind of vintage that would satisfy the real oenophile. After all, I’ve tasted enough rubbish while I’ve travelled round the Confederation. Some of our habitats have superb vineyards, you know.”
Monica gave him a single surprised look, then snorted in amusement. “Exactly who are you trying to fool?”
It certainly wasn’t a hero’s welcome. Only Collins bothered to report that the Lady Macbeth had docked, and they did it in a tone which suggested Joshua was slinking back home.
Five serjeants greeted Mzu and the Beezling survivors, escorting them to their new quarters. They weren’t under arrest, Tranquillity explained, speaking through the constructs; but it laid down the guidelines for their residence quite austerely. A few friends were waiting for the crew in the bay’s reception compartment. Dahybi and Beaulieu vanished off with them, heading for a bar. Sarha and Ashly took a commuter lift together. Two deputy managers from the Pringle Hotel greeted Shea and Kole, ushering them away to their rooms.
That left Joshua with Liol to take care of. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do about that. They were still orbiting round each other, though it was a closer orbit now. A hotel was out, too cold, Liol was family after all. He just wished they’d managed to sort out the problem of Lady Mac and Liol’s gung-ho claim. Though his brother had definitely become more conciliatory as the flight progressed. A good sign. It looked as though Liol would have to share his apartment. Well, at least he’d understand bachelor mess.
But as soon as Joshua air-swam out from their airlock tube, Ione was in front of him, toes pressed with ballerina grace on the compartment’s stikpad. Doubts about Liol vanished. She was wearing a simple maroon polka-dot summer dress, ruffed gold-blond hair floating daintily. It made her seem girlish and elegant all at once. The sight of her like that summoned up memories warmer than any neural nanonics catalogued recollections could ever be.
The Naked God - Flight nd-5 Page 18
