The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Jez-us.” He raised his eyes heavenwards.

  Jezzibella sauntered over to him and pecked him lightly on the cheek.

  “Don’t be long, precious. I’ve got parts of me that need a serious seeing to.” She beckoned Libby to follow, and made for the door. The woman walked after her, a garment made up from about five slender red leather straps draped over her arm.

  Jezzibella treated Nicolai to a cutely bashful smile from the middle of a cloud of gold-blond curls. Then she was gone.

  Al Capone was staring at him. “You got something on your mind, fella?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’ve got some information for you, Mr. Capone. Something that could be very useful to your Organization.”

  Al nodded curtly. “Okay, you got through the door, that proves you got balls enough. Believe me not many get this far. So now you’re here, make your pitch.”

  “I want to join your Organization. I hear you make room for non-possessed people with special talents.”

  Al pointed a thumb at Avram Harwood III who was standing among the little cluster of lieutenants. “Sure do. If savvy Avvy here says what you got is good news, then you’re in.”

  “Is antimatter good news?” Nicolai asked. He caught the shudder of horror on the broken mayor’s face.

  Al rubbed a finger thoughtfully over his chin. “Could be. You got some?”

  “I know where you can get it. And I can assist your starship fleet when it comes to handling the stuff. It’s a tricky substance, but I’ve had the training.”

  “How come? You’re a fed, or close to it; a G-man for sure. I thought it was illegal.”

  “It is. But Idria is a small asteroid sharing a star system with some powerful institutions. A lot of groundside politicos talk about strengthening our general assembly into a systemwide administration or union. Some of Idria’s council and SD officers don’t appreciate that kind of talk. It took us a long time to gain our independence from the founding company, and it wasn’t easy. So we made preparations. Just in case. Several of our companies make components that can be used to build antimatter confinement systems and drives. Strategic Defence Command also established a link with a production station.”

  “So you can get it anytime you want?” Al asked.

  “Yes, sir. I have the coordinate of the star which the station is orbiting. I can take you there.”

  “What makes you think I want this stuff?”

  “Because you’re in the same position Idria was. New California is big, but the Confederation is a lot bigger.”

  “You telling me I’m penny-ante?”

  “You might wind up that way if the First Admiral comes knocking.”

  Al grinned broadly, he put his arm around Nicolai and patted his shoulders. “I like you, boy, you got what it takes. So here’s the deal. You go sit in a corner with my friend Emmet Mordden, here, who is a real wiz with electric machines and stuff. And you tell him what you know, and if he says it checks out, you’re in.”

  ***

  Al shut the door behind him and leaned against it, taking a moment out of life, that essential chunk of time alone in his head which allowed his worn-down resolution to build itself up again. I never realized being me was so goddamn difficult.

  Jezzibella had shifted to the trim athlete persona again, strong and haughty. She lay on the bed, arms stretched above her head, one knee bent. The playsuit had gripped her breasts with tight silver chains, forcing hard dark nipples to point at the ceiling. Every time she breathed her whole body flexed with feline allure.

  “Okay,” Al said. “So tell me what the fuck is antimatter?”

  She arched her back, glaring defiantly at him. “Never.”

  “Jez! Just tell me. I don’t have time for this crap.”

  Her head was tossed from side to side.

  “Goddamnit!” He strode over to the bed, grabbed her jaw, and forced her to face him. “I want to know. I gotta make decisions.”

  A hand came arching through the air to strike him. He managed to catch it just before it reached his face, but his pale grey fedora was knocked off. She started to struggle, pushing him aside.

  “Games huh?” he shouted angrily. “You wanna play fucking games, bitch?” He grabbed both her arms, pinning them against the pillows. And the sight of her chest heaving below the playsuit’s revealing confinement ignited the dragon’s fire in his heart. He forced her further down into the mattress, gloating at the sight of her superb muscles straining helplessly. “Who’s in charge now? Who fucking owns you?” He ripped the leather off her crotch and prised her legs apart. Then he was kneeling between her thighs, his clothes evaporating. She groaned, making one last desperate attempt to break free. Against him, she never stood a chance.

  Somewhen later, his own fulfillment made him cry out in wonder. The orgasmic discharge from his body was primitive savagery, enrapturing every cell. He held himself rigid, prolonging the flow as long as he could bear before collapsing onto the rumpled silk sheets.

  “That’s better, baby,” Jezzibella said as she stroked his shoulders. “I hate it when you’re all uptight.”

  Al grinned languidly at her. She’d changed back into the teen-kitten again, all worshipful concern crowned by a frizz of golden curls. “No way, lady. No way are you human.”

  She kissed his nose. “About the antimatter,” she said. “You need it, Al. If there’s any chance at all, then grab it.”

  “I don’t follow,” he mumbled. “Lovegrove says it’s just a different kind of bomb. And we got ourselves plenty of the atom explosives already.”

  “It’s not just a better kind of bomb, Al; you can use it to power combat wasps and starships, too, bump up their performance by an order of magnitude. If you like, it’s the difference between a rifle and a machine gun. They both fire bullets, but which would you prefer in a rumble?”

  “Good point.”

  “Thanks. Now even with the asteroid campaign going well, we haven’t got anything like numerical parity with the Confederation’s conventional forces. However, antimatter is a superb force multiplier. If you’ve got some, they’re going to think twice before launching any sort of offensive.”

  “Jeeze, you are a fucking marvel. I gotta get this organized with the boys.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and started to reconstitute his clothes out of the magic realm where they’d been banished.

  “Wait.” She pressed up against his back, arms sliding around to hug.

  “Don’t go rushing into this half-cocked, Al. We’ve got to think this through. You’re going to have problems with antimatter, it’s vicious stuff. And you don’t help.”

  “What do you mean?” he bridled.

  “The way your energistic ability gronks out electronics and power circuits, you just can’t afford that with antimatter. Put a possessed anywhere near a confinement system and we’re all going to be watching the last half of the explosion from the beyond. So … it will have to be the non-possessed who work with the stuff.”

  “Sheesh.” Al scratched his mussed hair, desperately uncertain. His Organization was built along the principle of keeping the non-possessed in line, under his thumb. You had to have some group at the bottom who needed to be watched on a permanent basis, it kept the Organization soldiers busy, gave them a purpose. Made them take orders. But give the non-possessed antimatter … that would screw up the balance something chronic. “I ain’t so sure, Jez.”

  “It’s not that big a problem. You just have to make sure you’ve got a secure hold over anyone you assign to handle the stuff. Harwood and Leroy can fix that; they can arrange for you to hold their families hostage.”

  Al considered it. Hostages might just work. It would take a lot of effort to arrange, and the Organization soldiers would really have to be on the ball. Risky.

  “Okay, we’ll give it a shot.”

  “Al!” Jezzibella squealed girlishly and started kissing his throat exuberantly
.

  Al’s half-materialized clothes vanished again.

  The chiefs of staff’s office was as extravagant as only senior government figures could get away with; its expensive, handcrafted furniture arranged around a long hardwood table running down the centre. One wall could be made transparent, giving the occupants a view out over the SD tactical operations centre.

  Al sat himself down at the head of the table and acknowledged his senior lieutenants with a wave of his hand. There was no smile on his face, a warning that this was strictly business.

  “Okay,” he said. “So what’s been happening? Leroy?”

  The corpulent manager glanced along the table, a confident expression in place. “I’ve more or less kept to the original pacification schedule we drew up. Eighty-five per cent of the planet is now under our control.

  There are no industrial or military centres left outside our influence.

  The administrative structure Harwood has been building up seems to be effective. Nearly twenty per cent of the population is non-possessed, and they’re doing what they’re told.”

  “Do we need them?” Silvano Richmann asked Al, not even looking at Leroy.

  “Leroy?” Al asked.

  “For large urban areas, almost certainly,” Leroy said. “The smaller towns and villages can be kept going with their possessed inhabitants providing a combined energistic operation. But cities still require their utilities to function, you just can’t wish that much shit and general rubbish away.

  Apparently the possessed cannot create viable food out of inorganic compounds, so the transport network has to be maintained to keep edible supplies flowing in. At the moment that’s just stock from the warehouses.

  Which means we’ll have to come up with a basic economy of some sort to persuade the farms to keep supplying the cities. The problem with that is, the possessed who are living out in the rural areas aren’t inclined to do too much work, and in any case I haven’t got a clue what we could use for money—counterfeiting is too damn easy for you. We may just have to resort to barter. Another problem is that the possessed cannot manufacture items which have any permanence; once outside the energistic influence they simply revert to their component architecture. So a lot of factories are going to have to be restarted. As for the military arena, non-possessed are unquestionably necessary, but that’s Mickey’s field.”

  “Okay, you done good, Leroy,” Al said. “How long before I’m in charge of everything down there?”

  “You’re in charge of everything that counts right now. But that last fifteen per cent is going to be a hard slog. A lot of the resistance is coming from the hinterland areas, farm country where they’re pretty individual characters. Tough, too. A lot of them are holed up in the landscape with their hunting weapons. Silvano and I have been putting together hunter teams, but from what we’ve experienced so far it’s going to be a long dirty campaign, on both sides. They know the terrain, our teams don’t; it’s an advantage which almost cancels out the energistic ability.”

  Al grunted sardonically. “You mean we gotta fight fair?”

  “It’s a level playing field,” Leroy acknowledged. “But we’ll win in the end, that’s inevitable. Just don’t ask me for a timetable.”

  “Fine. I want you to keep plugging away at that economy idea. We gotta maintain some kind of functioning society down there.”

  “Will do, Al.”

  “So, Mickey, how are you holding out?”

  Mickey Pileggi scrambled to his feet, sweat glinting on his forehead.

  “Pretty good, Al. We broke forty-five asteroids with that first action. They’re the big ones, with the most important industrial stations. So now we’ve got three times as many warships as when we started. The rest of the settlements are just going to be a mopping-up operation. There’s nothing out there which can threaten us anymore.”

  “You got crews for all these new ships?”

  “We’re working on it, Al. It isn’t as easy as the planet. There’s a lot of distance involved here, our communications lines aren’t so hot.”

  “Any reaction from the Edenists?”

  “Not really. There were some skirmishes with armed voidhawks at three asteroids, we took losses. But no big retaliation attacks.”

  “Probably conserving their strength,” Silvano Richmann said. “It’s what I would do.”

  Al fixed Mickey with the look (God, the hours he’d spent practising that back in Brooklyn). And he hadn’t lost it, poor old Mickey’s tic started up like he’d thrown a switch. “When we’ve taken over all the ships docked at the asteroids, are we gonna be strong enough to bust the Edenists?”

  Mickey’s eyes performed a desperate search for allies. “Maybe.”

  “It’s a question of how you want them, Al,” Emmet Mordden said. “I doubt we could ever subdue them, not make them submit to possession, or hand the habitats over to the Organization’s control. You’ll just have to trust me on this, they’re completely different from any kind of people you have ever met before. All of them, even the kids. You might be able to kill them, destroy their habitats. But conquest? I don’t think so.”

  Al squeezed his lips together and studied Emmet closely. Emmet was nothing like Mickey; timid, yeah, but he knew his stuff. “So what are you saying?”

  “That you’ve got to make a choice.”

  “What choice?”

  “Whether to go for the antimatter. You see, Edenism has a monopoly on supplying He3, and that’s the fuel which all the starships and industrial stations run on, as well as the SD platforms, and we all know they have to be kept powered up. Now there’s an awful lot of He3 stored around the New California system, but ultimately it’s going to run out. That means we must go to the source if we want to keep our starships going, and maintain our hold over the planet. Either that or use the alternative.”

  “Right,” Al said reasonably. “You’ve been talking to this Nicolai Penovich character, Emmet, is he on the level?”

  “As far as I can make out, yeah. He certainly knows a lot about antimatter. I’d say he can take us to this production station of his.”

  “We got ships which can handle that?”

  Emmet gave an unhappy scowl. “Ships, yeah, no problem now. But, Al, starships and antimatter, it means using a lot of non-possessed to run them. Our energistic power, it’s not good for space warfare, if anything it puts our ships at a disadvantage.”

  “I know,” Al said smoothly. “But, shit, we can turn this in our favour if we handle it right. It’ll prove that the non-possessed have got a part in the Organization just as much as anyone. Good publicity. Besides, those boosted guys, they helped out in the asteroids, right?”

  “Yes,” Silvano admitted reluctantly. “They’re good.”

  “That’s it then,” Al said. “We’ll give our ships a crack at the Edenists, for sure. See if we can snatch the helium mines they got. But in the meantime we take out a sweet little insurance policy. Emmet, start putting together the ships you’ll need. Silvano, I want you and Avvy to work on who’s gonna crew them. I only want you to use non-possessed who are family guys, catch? And before they leave for the station, I want those families up here in Monterey being given the holiday of a lifetime. Shift everyone out of the resort complex, and house them there.”

  Silvano produced a greedy smile. “Sure thing, Al, I’m on it.”

  Al sat back and watched as they started to implement his instructions. It was all going real smooth, which threw up its own brand of trouble. One which even Jez had overlooked—but then this was one field where he had a shitload more experience than she had. The lieutenants were getting used to wielding power, they were learning how to pull levers. They all had their own territories right now, but pretty soon they’d start to think.

  And sure as chickens shat eggs, one of them would try for it. He looked around the table and wondered which it would be.

  ***

  Kiera Salter sat down on the president’s chair in Magellanic I
tg’s boardroom and surveyed her new domain. The office was one of the few buildings inside the habitat; a circular, fifteen-storey tower situated at the foot of the northern endcap. Its windows gave her a daunting view down the interior. The shaded browns of the semi-arid desert were directly outside, slowly giving way to the tranquil greens of grassland and forest around the midsection, before finally merging into the rolling grass plains, currently dominated by some vivid pink xenoc plant. Moating that, and forming an acute contrast, was the circumfluous sea; a broad band of near-luminous turquoise shot through with wriggling scintillations. High and serene above it all, the axial light tube poured out a glaring noon-sun radiance. The only incongruity amid the peaceful scene was the dozen or so clouds which glowed a faint red as they drifted through the air.

  There was little other evidence of the coup which she had led, one or two small smudges of black smoke, a crashed rent-cop plane in the parkland surrounding a starscraper lobby. Most of the real damage had occurred inside the starscrapers; but the important sections, the industrial stations and spaceport, had sustained only a modest amount of battering.

  Her plan had been a good one. Anyone who came into contact with a possessed was immediately taken over, regardless of status. A ripple effect spread out from the seventeenth floor of the Diocca starscraper, slow at first, but gradually gaining strength as the numbers grew. The possessed moved onto the next starscraper.

  Rubra warned people of course, told them what to look out for, told them where the possessed were. He directed the rent-cops and the boosted mercenary troops, ambushing the possessed. But good as they were, the troops he had at his disposal were heavily dependent on their hardware.

  That gave the possessed a lethal advantage. Unless it was as basic as a chemical projectile weapon, technology betrayed them, failing at critical moments, producing false data. He didn’t even attempt to take Valisk’s small squad of assault mechanoids out of storage.

  Out on the docking ridges, the polyp hulls of possessed starships began to swell below a shimmer of exotic light patterns, emerging from their convulsions as full-grown hellhawks. Fantastically shaped starships and huge harpies zoomed away from the habitat to challenge the voidhawks and Srinagar frigates that were edging in cautiously. The military ships had pulled back, abandoning their effort to assist the beleaguered population.