The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  He stood before the stone altar which had been built in the park, studying the figure bound to the inverted cross on top. It was an old man, which in some ways was good. This way Quinn confirmed his zero-rated compassion; only children held equal status.

  His loyal disciples stood in a circle around him, seven of them clad in blood-red robes. Faces shone as bright as their minds, fuelled by greed and ominous desire.

  Twelve-T was also in attendance, sagging with the formidable burden of merely staying alive. His maltreated head was permanently bowed now. No possessed was imposing change upon him, but he was becoming almost Neanderthal in his posture.

  Outside the elite coterie the acolytes formed a broad semicircle. All of them were wearing grey robes with the hoods thrown back. Their faces illuminated by the unnaturally hot bonfires flanking the altar, a flickering topaz light caressing their skin with fake expressions.

  Quinn could sense several ghosts standing among them. They were frightened and demoralized as always and, as he had discovered, utterly harmless. They were completely unable to affect any aspect of the physical world. Trivial creatures with less substance than the shadows they craved.

  In a way he was glad they were attending. Spying. This ceremony would show them what they were dealing with. They could be tyrannized, he was sure, in that they were no different from any other human. He wanted them to realize that he would never hesitate to inflict what pain he could upon them if they chose not to obey.

  Satisfied, Quinn sang: “We are the princes of the Night.”

  “We are the princes of the Night,” the acolytes chorused, it was a sound similar to the threat of thunder beyond the horizon.

  “When the false lord leads his legions away into oblivion, we will be here.”

  “We will be here.”

  The old man was shaking now, moving his lips in prayer. He was a Christian priest, which was why Quinn had selected him. A double victory.

  Victory over the false lord. And victory for the serpent beast. Taking a life for no reason other than you wished it, for the pain it would cause others.

  Such sacrifices had always focused on authority and its enforcement. A spectacle to coerce the weak. In pre-industrial times, this rite might have been about the summoning of dark witchcraft; but in an age of nanonic technology man had long surpassed magic, black or white. The sect arcology had known and encouraged the value of image, the psychology of precise brutality. And it worked.

  Who now among this gathering would stand to challenge him? It was more ordination than anything else, confirming his right to reign.

  He held out a hand, and Lawrence placed the dagger in his palm. Its handle was an elaborate ebony carving, but the blade was plain carbotanium and very sharp.

  The priest cried out as Quinn slid the tip into his paunchy abdomen. It deepened to a whimper as Quinn recited: “Accept this life as a token of our love and devotion.”

  “We love you, and devote ourselves to you, Lord,” growled the acolytes.

  “God grant you deliverance, son,” the priest choked.

  Blood was running down Quinn’s arm, splattering the altar. “Go fuck yourself.”

  Lawrence laughed delightedly at the priest’s anguish. Quinn was immensely proud of the boy; he’d never known anyone to offer himself up to God’s Brother so unreservedly.

  The priest was dying to the harsh cheers of the acolytes. Quinn could sense the old man’s soul rising from the body, twining like smoke in a listless sky to vanish through a chink in reality. He pressed himself forwards to lick ravenously at the ephemeral stream with a narrow black tongue, enraptured.

  Then another soul was pushing back down the trickle of energy, surging into the body.

  “Shithead!” Quinn spat. “This body is not for you. It is our sacrament. Get the fuck out of it.”

  The skin on the priest’s upside-down face began to flow like treacle. The features twisted themselves through a hundred and eighty degrees so that the mouth was superimposed on the forehead. Then the skin hardened again and the eyes snapped open.

  Quinn took a pace back in surprise. It was his own face staring at him.

  “Welcome to the beyond, you little prick,” it told him. Then it smiled wickedly. “Remember this part?”

  A streamer of white fire lashed out of the knife which was plunged deep into the priest’s chest. It struck Twelve-T’s right arm, puncturing his chrome and steel wrist. The smoking mechanical hand dropped to the floor, fingers waggling as if they were playing piano keys. His wrist joint was reduced to a jagged bracelet of metal with green hydraulic fluid spraying out, and the frayed end of a power cable fluttering about.

  “Do it!” the forged face yelled.

  Twelve-T lunged towards Quinn, shoving his broken arm forwards. A mad smile cracked his face.

  Lawrence wailed: “No,” and flung himself into Twelve-T’s path.

  The broken wrist joint rammed into Lawrence’s throat. A bright spark of electricity twinkled at the end of the ragged power cable as it touched the boy’s skin.

  Lawrence shrieked as his whole body silently detonated into sunlight brilliance. He froze with his arms still outstretched, a frantic expression etched on his face. The light was so fierce he became translucent—a naked angel bathing in the heart of a star. Then his extremities began to shrivel, turning black. He had time to shriek once more before the internecine fire ate him away.

  The dreadful light shrank, revealing a patch of baked earth and droppings of fine white ash. Twelve-T lay next to it where he had stumbled, the fall jolting his brain out of his half skull like wine from a goblet. It was rolling over the grass.

  “Ah well,” said the forged face. “I guess we both lost this time around. Be seeing you, Quinn.” It began to untwist, reverting to the priest’s startled death rictus. The incursive soul flowed away, retreating into the beyond.

  “COME BACK!” Quinn roared.

  There was a last ironic laugh, and his tormenter was gone.

  For all his power and strength, there was nothing Quinn could do.

  Absolutely nothing. His impotence was an agonizing humiliation. He screamed, and the altar shattered, sending the priest’s battered body tumbling. The acolytes began to run. Quinn kicked Twelve-T’s brain, and the grisly organ burst apart, sending a splat of gore across his terrified disciples. He turned back and discharged a bolt of searing white fire into the priest’s remnants. The body ignited instantly, but the flames were only an effete mockery of the incendiary heat which had consumed Lawrence.

  The disciples shrank away as Quinn sent blast after blast of white fire into the pyre, reducing the body and the crumbling stones to radiant magma. When they reached the boundary of light given off from the bonfires, they too turned and fled after the acolytes.

  Only the ghosts remained, safe from the fury of the black-robed figure in their secluded lifeless realm. After a while they saw him sink to his knees and make the sign of the inverted cross on his chest.

  “I will not fail you, my Lord,” he said quietly. “I will quicken the Night as I promised. All I ask as the price of my soul is that when it has fallen you bring me the fucker who did this.”

  He rose and made his way out of the park. This time he was truly alone.

  Even ghosts quailed before the terrifying thoughts alight inside his head.

  Hoya was the first of the four voidhawks to emerge above Nyvan. Niveu and his crew immediately began scanning the local environment for threats.

  “No ships within twenty thousand kilometres,” he said, “but the SD networks are shooting off electronic warfare blitzes at each other. Looks like the nations are in their usual confrontational state.”

  Monica accessed the sensor suite in the voidhawk’s lower hull, and the starfield projected into her mind came alive with vivid coloured icons.

  Two more voidhawks were holding formation a hundred kilometres away. As she watched, another wormhole terminus opened to disgorge the fourth.

  “

Are we being targeted by the platforms?” she asked. She appreciated the way the Edenists unfailingly spoke out loud in her presence, keeping her informed. But their display symbology was very different to that used by the Royal Navy, she hadn’t quite mastered the program yet.

  “There are very few specific targets,” Samuel said. “The networks appear intent on jamming and disrupting every processor out to geosync orbit.”

  “Is it safe for us to approach?”

  Niveu shrugged. “Yes. For now. We’ll monitor the local news to find out what’s going on. If there’s any indication of them advancing the hostilities to an active stage, I’ll review the situation again.”

  “Does your service have any stations down there?” she asked Samuel.

  “There are some assets, but we don’t have any active operatives. We don’t even have an embassy. There’s no gas giant in this system, it was colonized long before their presence was deemed necessary to develop an industrialized economy. Frankly, the price of having to import all their He3 is partly responsible for Nyvan’s current state.”

  “It also means we have no backup,” Niveu said.

  “Okay, let me have a communications circuit. We have a couple of embassies and several consuls. They should be monitoring starship traffic.”

  It took a long time to establish contact. After hours subjected to the output from the SD platforms, the national civil communications satellites were now almost completely inoperative. She eventually got around the problem by aligning one of Hoya’s antennae directly on the cities she wanted, which limited her to those on the half of the planet ahead of the voidhawks.

  “Mzu’s here,” she said at last. “I got through to Adrian Redway, our station chief in the Harrisburg embassy. The Tekas arrived yesterday. It docked at Tonala’s principal low orbit station, and four people took a spaceplane down to Harrisburg. Voi was one of them, and so was Daphine Kigano.”

  “Excellent,” Samuel said. “Is the Tekas still here?”

  “No. It departed an hour later. And no other starship has left since. She’s still down there. We’ve got her.”

  “We have to go in,” Samuel told Niveu.

  “I understand. But you should know that several governments are claiming New Georgia has fallen to the possessed. New Georgia is denying it of course, though it does seem as though they have lost their asteroid, Jesup. Apparently Jesup dispatched some inter-orbit ships to the three abandoned asteroids. It is being heralded as a breach of sovereignty, which of course is taken extremely seriously here.”

  “Could the ships be carrying escapees?” Monica asked.

  “It is possible, I suppose. Although I can’t think of any reason why anyone should consider those asteroids to be a refuge; they were badly damaged in the ’32 conflict. No one even bothered to salvage them. But we ought to know what the Jesup ships are doing before too long; the governments which own the abandoned asteroids have dispatched their own ships to investigate.”

  “If it turns out those ships from Jesup are crewed by possessed, then the situation will deteriorate rapidly,” Samuel said. “The other governments are unlikely to come to New Georgia’s aid.”

  “True enough,” Monica said pensively. “They’re more likely to nuke the whole country.”

  “I don’t imagine we will be staying long,” Samuel said. “And we will have the flyers with us, we can evacuate within minutes.”

  “Yeah sure. There’s one other thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Redway said one other starship has arrived since the Tekas left. The Lady Macbeth, she’s docked at Tonala’s main low-orbit station.”

  “How intriguing. The Lord of Ruin obviously knew what she was doing when she chose this Lagrange Calvert.”

  Monica was sure there was a note of admiration in his voice.

  The four voidhawks accelerated in towards Nyvan. After receiving permission from traffic control, they slotted into a six-hundred-kilometre orbit, adopting a diamond formation. Four ion field flyers left their hangars and curved down towards the planet, heading into the huge swirl of angry cloud that covered most of Tonala.

  Jesup’s Strategic Defence control centre had been hollowed out of the rock deep behind the habitation section. It was New Georgia’s ultimate citadel: safe from any external attack which didn’t actually crack Jesup open, equipped with enough security systems to fend off an open mutiny by the asteroid’s population, and fitted with a completely independent environmental circuit. No matter what happened to Jesup and New Georgia’s government, the SD officers could continue to fight on for weeks.

  Quinn waited for the monolithic innermost door to slide open, displaying a serenity that was harrowing in its depth. Only Bonham accompanied him now as he strode around the asteroid, the other disciples were too afraid.

  There had been a few modifications to the control centre. Console technology had devolved considerably; in most cases processors and AV projectors had abated to a simple telephone. A whole rank of the black and silver machines were lined up along a wall, where they were jangling incessantly. A group of officers in stiff grey uniforms were snatching up the handsets as fast as they could. In front of them was a big square table with a picture of Nyvan and its orbiting asteroids covering its surface. Five young women were busy moving wooden markers across it with long poles.

  The adrenaline-powered clamour faltered as Quinn walked in. There was no sign of any face inside his robe’s hood; light fell into the oval opening never to return. Only the pearl-white hands emerging from his sleeves suggested a human was in residence.

  “Keep going,” he told them.

  The voices sprang back, far louder than before so as to demonstrate their loyalty and commitment.

  Quinn went over to the commander’s post, a pulpitlike podium which overlooked the table. “What is the problem?”

  Shemilt, who was running the control centre, saluted sharply. He was wearing a heavily decorated Luftwaffe uniform from the Second World War, every inch the Teutonic warrior aristocrat. “I regret to inform you, sir, that ships have been sent to intercept our teams working in the other asteroids. The first will make contact in forty minutes.”

  Quinn studied the table; it was becoming cluttered. Four vultures were grouped together just above the planet. New Georgia’s SD platforms were diamond-studded pyramids. Ruby pentagons showed opposing platforms. Three red-flagged markers were being shoved slowly over the starmap. “Are they warships?”

  “Our observation stations are having a lot of trouble in this foul weather, but we don’t think so. Not frigates, anyway. I expect they will be carrying troops, though; they’re definitely big enough for that.”

  “Don’t get too carried away, Shemilt.”

  Shemilt stood to attention. “Yes, sir.”

  Quinn pointed at one of the red flags. “Can our SD platforms hit these ships?”

  “Yes, sir.” Shemilt pulled a clipboard off a hook inside his command post and flicked through the typewritten sheets. “Two of them are in range of our X-ray lasers, and the third can be destroyed with combat wasps.”

  “Good. Kill the little shits.”

  “Yes, sir.” Shemilt hesitated. “If we do that, the other networks will probably shoot at us.”

  “Then shoot back, engage every target you can reach. I want an all-out confrontation.”

  Activity around the table slowed as operators glanced at Quinn.

  Resentment was building in their thoughts, capped, as always, by fear.

  “How do we get out, Quinn?” Shemilt asked.

  “We wait. Space warfare is very fast, and very destructive. By the end of today, there won’t be a working laser cannon or a combat wasp left orbiting Nyvan. We’ll get hit a few times, but fuck, these walls are two kilometres thick. This is the mother of all fallout shelters.” He gestured at the table, and every marker ignited, yellow candlelike flames squirting out black smoke. “Then when it’s over, we can fly away in perfect safety.”

  Shemilt nodded hurriedly, using speed to prove he’d never doubted. “I’m sorry, Quinn, it’s obvious really.”

  “Thank you. Now kill those ships.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quinn left the control centre with Bonham scurrying after him, always trailing by a few paces. The giant door slid shut behind them, its bass grumbles echoing along the broad corridor.

  “Are there really enough ships here to take everyone off?” Bonham asked.

  “I doubt it. And even if there were, the spaceport will be a prime target.”

  “So … some of us should leave early, then?”

  “Fast, Bonham, very fast. That’s probably why you got where you did.”

  “Thank you, Quinn.” He quickened his steps; Quinn’s voice was slightly fainter.

  “Of course, if they see me leaving now, they’d know I’d abandoned them. Discipline would go straight to shit.”

  “Quinn?” He could hardly hear the dark figure at all now.

  “After all, it’s not as if you could bind them …”

  Bonham squinted at the figure he was now almost running to catch up with.

  Quinn seemed to be gliding smoothly over the rock floor without moving his legs. His black robe had faded to grey. In fact it was almost translucent. “Quinn?” This latest performance was frightening him more than anything to date. The anger and wrath which Quinn radiated so easily were simple to understand, almost reassuring in comparison. This though, Bonham didn’t know if it was something being done to Quinn, or something he was doing to himself. “What is this? Quinn?”

  Quinn had become completely transparent now, only the slightest rippling outline of rock betrayed his position; even his thoughts were evaporating from Bonham’s perception. He stumbled to a halt. Panic set in. Quinn was no longer present anywhere in the corridor.

  “Holy Christ, now what?”

  He felt a breath of cold air strike his face. He frowned.

  A bolt of white fire smashed into the back of his skull. Two souls were cast out of the corpse as it collapsed onto the floor, both of them keening in dread at the fate which awaited.

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