The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Ironically, he could put up quite a good case for Couteur’s release, but he’d made the decision five minutes after having the case dumped on him that he was only going to make a show of defending her. Jacqueline could never know, but Udo DiMarco had a lot of family on New California.

  The clerk of the court rose to his feet and announced: “Please stand for Judge Roxanne Taynor. This Magistrature Council court is now in session.”

  Judge Taynor appeared at the door behind the bench. Everyone stood, including the four possessed. Their movement meant the marine guards had to alter the angle they were pointing their machine guns. For a moment their concentration was less than absolute. Everybody’s neural nanonics crashed. The lighting panels became incandescent. Four balls of white fire exploded around the machine guns, smashing them into a shower of molten fragments.

  Murphy Hewlett bellowed a wordless curse, yanking his pistol up, thumb flicking at the safety catch. Like most people he was caught halfway to his feet, an awkward position. A brutally white light was making him squeeze his eyelids closed; retinal implants were taking a long time to filter out the excess photons. The sound of the detonating machine guns was audible above the startled cries. He swung the pistol around to line up on Couteur. Marines were screaming as their hands and lower arms were shredded along with their weapons. The lights went out.

  From dazzling brilliance to total blackness was too much for his eyes. He couldn’t see a thing. A machine gun fired. Muzzle blasts sent out a flickering orange light.

  The possessed were all moving. Fast. The gunfire turned their motions into speedy flickers. They’d run straight through the dock, smashing the tough composite apart. Fragments tumbled through the air.

  Two lightning streaks of white fire lashed out, striking a couple of marines. The lawyers were scrambling for the closest door. Roxanne Taynor was already through the door to her chambers. One of the marines was standing in front of it, sweeping her machine gun in a fast arc as she tried to line it up on a possessed.

  “Close the doors!” Murphy yelled. “Seal this place.”

  A machine gun was firing again as the light from the white fire shrank away. People screamed as they dived and stumbled for cover. Ricochets hummed lethally through the blackness.

  Murphy caught sight of Couteur in the segments of illumination thrown out by another burst of gunfire. He twisted his pistol around and fired five shots, anticipating her direction for the last two. Dumdum bullets impacted with penetrating booms. Murphy dropped to his knees and rolled quickly. A pulse of white fire ripped through the air where he’d been standing. “Shit!” Missed her.

  He could hear a siren wailing outside. Sensor modules on the walls were starting to burn, jetting out long tongues of turquoise flame which dissolved into a fountain of sparks. Three more bolts of white fire zipped over the gallery seats. There were heavy thuds of bodies hitting the floor.

  When he risked a quick glance above the seat backs he could see Nena and Randall crouched low and zigzagging towards the door behind him. Eyeblink image of the door to one side of the smashed dock: three marines standing in defensive formation around it, almost flinging a lawyer out into the corridor beyond. But the door behind him was still open. It was trying to slide shut, but the body of a dead marine was preventing it from closing.

  Murphy didn’t have an option. They couldn’t be allowed out into Trafalgar, it was inconceivable. He vaulted over the seats just as an odd rosette of white fire spun upwards from behind the judge’s bench. It hit the ceiling and bounced, expanding rapidly into a crown made up from writhing flames which coiled around and around each other. The three marines guarding the door fired at it as it swooped down at them, bullets tearing out violet bubbles which erupted into twinkling starbursts.

  Murphy started firing his pistol at Randall as he sprinted for the door, trigger finger pumping frantically. Seeing the dumdum rounds rip ragged chunks out of the possessed’s chest. Shifting his aim slightly. Half of Randall’s neck blew away in a twister of blood and bone chippings. A screaming Nena cartwheeled backwards in panic, limbs thrashing out of control.

  The crown of agitated white fire dropped around one of the marines like an incendiary lasso. It contracted with vicious snapping sounds, slicing clean through his pelvis. His machine gun was still firing as his torso tumbled down, spraying the whole courtroom with bullets. He tried to say something as he fell, but shock had jammed his entire nervous system. All that came out was a coughed grunt as his head hit the ground. Dulled eyes stared at his legs which were still standing above him, twitching spastically as they slowly buckled.

  The other two marines froze in terror. Then one vomited.

  “Close it!” Murphy gagged. “For Christ’s sake, get out and close it.” His eyes were hot and sticky with fluid, some of it red. His foot hit something, and he half tripped flinging himself at the gap. He landed flat on the dead marine and rolled forwards. Figures were running around at the far end of the corridor, confused movements blurring together.

  White fire enveloped his ankle.

  “Does it hurt? We can help.”

  “No, fuck you!” He flopped onto an elbow and aimed the pistol back through the door, firing wildly. Pain from his ankle was making his hand shake violently. Noxious smoke sizzled up in front of him.

  Then hands were gripping his shoulders, pulling him back along the floor.

  Bullish shouts all around him. The distinctive thud of a Bradfield slammed against his ears, louder than thunder in the close confines of the corridor. A marine in full combat armour was standing above him, firing the heavy-calibre weapon into the courtroom. Another suited marine was pulling the corpse clear of the door.

  Murphy’s neural nanonics started to come back on-line. Medical programs established axon blocks. The courtroom door slid shut, locks engaging with a clunk. A fire extinguisher squirted thick white gas against Murphy’s smouldering dress uniform trousers. He flopped down onto the corridor floor, too stunned to say anything for a while. When he looked around he could see three people he recognized from the court, all of them ashen-faced and stupefied, slumped against the walls. The marines were tending to two of them. That was when Murphy realized the corridor floor was smeared with blood. Spent cartridge cases from his pistol rolled around.

  He was dragged further away from the courtroom door, allowing the marine squad to set up two tripod-mounted Bradfields, pointing right at the grey reinforced silicon.

  “Hold still,” a woman in a doctor’s field uniform told him. She began to cut his trousers away; a male nurse was holding a medical nanonic package ready.

  “Did any of them get out?” Murphy asked weakly. People were tramping up and down the corridor, paying no attention to him.

  “I don’t know,” the doctor said.

  “Fuck it, find out!”

  She gave him a calculating look.

  “Please?”

  One of the marines was called over. “The other doors are all closed,” he told Murphy. “We got a few people out, but the possessed are safely locked up in there. Every exit is sealed tight. The captain is waiting for a CNIS team to advise him what to do next.”

  “A few people?” Murphy asked. “A few people got out?”

  “Yeah. Some of the lawyers, the judge, court staff, five marines. We’re proud of the fight you put up, sir, you and the others. It could have been a lot worse.”

  “And the rest?”

  The marine turned his blank shell helmet towards the door. “Sorry, sir.”

  ***

  The roar of the machine gun ended, leaving only the screams and whimpers to fester through the darkened courtroom. Maynard Khanna could hear his own feeble groans contributing to the morass of distress. There was little he could do to prevent it, the tiniest movement sent sickening spires of pain leaping into his skull. A gout of white fire had struck him seconds into the conflict, wrapping around his leg like a blazing serpent, felling him immediately. His temple had struck one of the se
ats, dazing him badly. After that, all the noise and flaring light swarmed around him, somehow managing to leave him isolated from the fray.

  Now the white fire had gone, leaving him alone with its terrible legacy.

  The flesh from his leg had melted off. But his bones had remained intact, perfectly white. He could see his skeletal foot twitching next to his real one, its tiny bones fitting together like a medical text.

  The splintered remnants of the dock were burning with unnatural brightness, throwing capering shadows on the wall. Maynard turned his head, crying out as red stars gave way to an ominous darkness. When he flushed the involuntary tears from his eyes he could see the heavy door at the back of the court was shut.

  They hadn’t got out!

  He took a few breaths, momentarily puzzled by what he was doing in the dark, the waves of pain seemed to prevent his thoughts from flowing. The screams had died, along with every other sound except for the sharp crackling of the flames. Footsteps crunched through the debris. Three dark figures loomed above him; humanoid perhaps, but any lingering facet of humanity had been bred out generations ago.

  The whispers began, slithering up from a bottomless pit to comfort him with the sincerity of a two-timing lover. Then came the real pain.

  Dr Gilmore studied the datavised image he was receiving direct from Marine Captain Rhodri Peyton’s eyes. He was standing in the middle of a marine squad which was strung out along one of the corridors leading to maximum security court three. Their machine guns and Bradfields were deployed to cover the engineering officers who were gingerly applying sensor pads to the door.

  When Dr Gilmore attempted to access the officers’ processor blocks there was no response. The units were too close to the possessed inside the courtroom. “Have they made any attempt to break out?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” Rhodri Peyton datavised. His eyes flicked to brown scorch lines on the walls just outside the door. “Those marks were caused when Lieutenant Hewlett was engaging them. There’s been nothing since then. We’ve got them trapped, all right.”

  Gilmore accessed Trafalgar’s central computer and requested a blueprint of the courtroom. There were no service tunnels nearby, and the air-ducts weren’t large enough for anyone to crawl down. It was a maximum security court after all. Unfortunately it wasn’t the kind of security designed with the possessed in mind. He knew it would only be a matter of time before they got out. Then there really would be hell to pay.

  “Have you confirmed the number of people in the courtroom?”

  “We’re missing twelve people, sir. But we know at least four of those are dead, and the others sustained some injuries. And Hewlett claims he terminated one of the possessed, Randall.”

  “I see. That means we now have a minimum of eleven possessed to contend with. That much energistic potential is extremely dangerous.”

  “This whole area is sealed, sir, and I’ve got a squad covering each door.”

  “I’m sure you have, Captain. One moment.” He datavised the First Admiral and gave him a brief summary. “I have to advise we don’t send the marines in. Given the size of the courtroom and the number of possessed, I’d estimate marine casualties of at least fifty per cent.”

  “Agreed,” the First Admiral datavised back. “The marines don’t go in. But are you certain everyone in there is now possessed?”

  “I think it’s an inevitable conclusion, sir. This whole legal business was quite obviously just a ploy by Couteur to gain a foothold here. That many possessed represent a significant threat. My guess is that they may simply try to tunnel their way out; I expect they’ll be able to dissolve the rock around them. They must be neutralized as swiftly as possible. We can always acquire further individuals to continue my team’s research.”

  “Dr Gilmore, I’d remind you that my staff captain is in there, along with a number of civilians. We must make at least one attempt to subdue them. You’ve had weeks to research this energistic ability, you must be able to suggest something.”

  “There is one possibility, sir. I accessed Thakrar’s report; he used decompression against the possessed when they tried to storm the Villeneuve’s Revenge.”

  “To kill them.”

  “Yes. But it does indicate a weakness. I was going to recommend that we vent the courtroom’s atmosphere. That way we wouldn’t have to risk opening one of the doors to fire any sort of weapon in there. However, we could try gas against them first. They can force matter into new shapes, but I think altering a molecular structure would probably be beyond them.

  It needn’t even be a chemical weapon, we could simply increase the nitrogen ratio until they black out. Once they’ve been immobilized, they could be placed into zero-tau.”

  “How would you know if a gas assault worked? They destroyed the sensors, we can’t see in.”

  “There are a number of electronic systems remaining in the courtroom; if the possessed do succumb to the gas those systems should come back on line. But whatever we do, Admiral, we will have to open the door at some stage to confirm their condition.”

  “Very well, try the gas first. We owe Maynard and the others that much.”

  “We’re not going to have much time to get out,” Jacqueline Couteur said.

  Perez, who had come into Maynard Khanna’s body a few minutes earlier, was struggling to keep his thoughts flowing lucidly under a torrent of pain firing in from every part of his new frame. He managed to focus on some of the most badly damaged zones, seeing the blood dry up and torn discoloured flesh return to a more healthy aspect. “Mama, what did you do to this guy?”

  “Taught him not to be so stubborn,” Jacqueline said emotionlessly.

  He winced as he raised himself up onto his elbows. Despite his most ardent wishes, his damaged leg felt as if fireworms were burrowing through it. He could imagine it whole and perfect, and even see the image forming around reality, but that wasn’t quite enough to make it so.

  “Okay, so now what?” He glanced around. It was not the most auspicious of environments to welcome him back. Bodies were straddling the court’s wrecked fittings, small orange fires gnawed hungrily at various jagged chunks of composite, and hatred was beaming through each of the doors like an emotive X ray.

  “Not much,” she admitted. “But we have to look for some kind of advantage. We’re at the very centre of the Confederation’s resistance to us. There must be something we can do to help Capone and the others. I had hoped we could locate their nuclear weapons. The destruction of this base would be a significant blow to the Confederation.”

  “Forget that; those marines were good,” Lennart said grudgingly. He was standing in front of the judge’s bench, one hand pulling on his chin as he gazed intently at the floor. “You know, there’s some kind of room or corridor about twenty metres straight down.” The tiling started to flow away from his feet in fast ripples, exposing the naked rock below. “It won’t take long if we break this rock together.”

  “Maybe,” Jacqueline said. “But they’ll know we’re doing it. Gilmore will have surrounded us with sensors by now.”

  “What then?” asked one of the others they’d brought back. “For Christ’s sake, we can’t stay in here and wait for the Confederation Marines to bust down the door. I’ve only just returned. I’m not giving this body up after only ten minutes. I couldn’t stand that.”

  “Christ?” Jacqueline queried bitingly.

  “You might have to anyway,” Perez said. “We all might wind up back there in the beyond.”

  “Oh, why?” Jacqueline asked.

  “This Khanna knows of an ambush the Confederation Navy is planning against Capone. He is confident they will destroy the Organization fleet. Without Capone to crack new star systems open, we’re going to be stalled. Khanna is convinced the quarantine will prevent possession from spreading to any new worlds.”

  “Then we must tell Capone,” Jacqueline said. “All of us together must shout this news into the beyond.”

  “Fine,”
Nena said. “Do that. But what about us? How are we going to get out of here?”

  “That is a secondary concern for us now.”

  “Not for me it bloody well isn’t.”

  When Jacqueline scowled at her, she saw beads of sweat pricking the woman’s brow. Nena was swaying slightly, too. Some of the others looked as if they were exhausted, their eyes glazing over. Even Jacqueline was aware her body had grown heavier than before. She sniffed the air suspiciously, finding it contaminated with the slightly clammy ozone taint of air-conditioning.

  “What exactly is the navy planning to do to Capone?” she asked.

  “They know he’s going to attack Toi-Hoi. They’re going to hide a fleet at Tranquillity, and intercept him when they know he’s on the way.”

  “We must remember that,” Jacqueline said firmly, fixing each of them in turn with a compelling stare. “Capone must be told. Get through to him.” She ignored everything else but the wish that the air in the courtroom was pure and fresh, blown down straight from some virgin mountain range.

  She could smell a weak scent of pine.

  One of the possessed sat down heavily. The others were all panting.

  “What’s happening?” someone asked.

  “Radiation, I expect,” Jacqueline said. “They’re probably bombarding us with gamma rays so they don’t have to come in to deal with us.”

  “Blast a door open,” Lennart said. “Charge them. A few of us might get through.”

  “Good idea,” Jacqueline said.

  He pointed a finger at the door behind the judge’s bench, its tip wavering about drunkenly. A weak crackle of white fire licked out. It managed to stain the door with a splatter of soot, but nothing more.

  “Help me. Come on, together!”

  Jacqueline closed her eyes, imagining all the clean air in the courtroom gathering around her and her alone. A light breeze ruffled her suit.

  “I don’t want to go back,” Perez wailed. “Not there!”

  “You must,” Jacqueline said. Her breathing was easier now. “Capone will find you a body. He’ll welcome you. I envy you for that.”