The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  <>

  “I’ve got an idea; we’ll try and build a Tyrathca tower tomorrow. That’s nice and different. I know what they look like, Kelly showed me.” She put her hands on her hips and considered the castle warmly. “Pity we can’t build their Sleeping God altar, or whatever it was, but I don’t think it would balance, not if you make it out of sand.”

  <>

  “It was sort of like a temple that you couldn’t get inside. The Tyrathca on Lalonde all sat around it and worshipped with chanting and stuff. It was this shape, really elaborate.” Her hands swept through the air in front of the Kiint, tracing broad curves. “See?”

  <>

  “Um, sort of, I suppose. Except their God isn’t our God. Theirs is sleeping somewhere far away in space; ours is everywhere. That’s what Father Horst says.”

  <>

  “I don’t know,” Jay said, desperately wishing she hadn’t got on to this topic. “Humans have more than two Gods, anyway. Religion is funny, especially if you start thinking about it. You’re just sort of supposed to believe. Until you get old, that is, then it all becomes theology.”

  <>

  “Grown-up religion. Look here, don’t you have a God?”

  <>

  “Good; they’ll explain everything much better than me. Come on, let’s go and wash this horrid sand off, then we can go riding together.”

  <>

  ***

  The Royal Kulu Navy ion field flyer swept in over Mortonridge’s western seaboard, its glowing nose pointed directly at the early morning sun. Ten kilometres to the south, the red cloud formed a solid massif right across the horizon. It was thicker than Ralph Hiltch remembered. None of the peninsula’s central ridge of mountains had managed to rise above it; they’d been swallowed whole.

  The upper surface was as calm as a lake during a breathless dawn. Only when it started to dip earthwards along the firebreak border were the first uneasy stirrings visible—while right on the edge there appeared to be a full-scale storm whipping up individual streamers. Ralph had the uncomfortable impression that the cloud was aching to be let free.

  Perhaps he was picking up the emotional timbre of the possessed who created it? In this situation he could never be quite sure that any feeling was the genuine article.

  He thought he could see a loose knot swirling along the side of the cloud, a twist of vermillion shadow amid the scarlet, keeping pace with his flyer. But when he ordered the sensor suite to focus on it, all he could see were random patterns. A trick of the eye, then, but a strong one.

  The pilot began to expand the ion field, reducing the flyer’s velocity and altitude. Up ahead, the grey line of the M6 was visible, slicing clean across the virgin countryside. Colonel Palmer’s advance camp was situated a couple of kilometres outside the black firebreak line. Several dozen military vehicles were drawn up along the side of the motorway, while a couple were speeding along the carbon concrete towards the unnervingly precise band of incinerated vegetation.

  Any possessed marching up to the end of the red cloud would see a predictably standard garrison operation being mounted with the Kingdom’s usual healthy efficiency. What they couldn’t see was the new camp coming together twenty-five kilometres further to the north; a city of programmable silicon laid out in strict formation which was erupting across the endless green undulations of the peninsula’s landscape. With typical military literalism it had been named Fort Forward. Over five hundred programmable silicon buildings had already been activated, two-storey barracks, warehouses, mess halls, maintenance shops, and various ancillary structures; though as yet its only residents were the three battalions of Royal Kulu Marine Engineers whose job it was to assemble the camp. Their mechanoids had ploughed the ground up around each building, installing water and sewage pipes, power lines, and datalinks. Huge drums of micro-mesh composite were being unrolled over the fresh soil to provide roads which wouldn’t turn to instant quagmires.

  Five large filter pump houses had been established on the banks of a river eight kilometres away to feed the expanding districts.

  Mechanoids were already busy digging out vast new utility grids ready for more buildings, giving an indication of just how big Fort Forward would be when it was completed. Long convoys of lorries were using the M6 to deliver matériel from the nearest city spaceport, fifty kilometres away.

  Though that arrangement would soon be cancelled as Fort Forward’s own spaceport became operational. Marine engineers were levelling long strips of land in preparation for three prefabricated runways. The spaceport’s hangars and control tower had been activated two days ago so that technical crews could fit and integrate their systems.

  When Ralph’s battleship emerged above Ombey he had seen nine Royal Navy Aquilae-class bulk transport starships in parking formation around a low-orbit port station along with their escort of fifteen front-line frigates. There were only twenty-five of the huge transporters left on active service; capable of carrying seventeen thousand tonnes of cargo they were the largest starships ever built, and hugely expensive to fly and maintain. Kulu was gradually phasing them out in favour of smaller models based on commercial designs.

  They were being supported by big old delta-wing CK500-090 Thunderbird spaceplanes, the only atmospheric craft capable of handling the four-hundred-tonne cargo pods carried by the Aquilae transporters. Again, a fleet on the verge of retirement; they had been the first consignment ferried to Ombey by the transports. Most of the Thunderbirds had spent the last fifteen years in mothball status at the Royal Navy’s desert storage facility on Kulu. Now they were being reactivated as fast as the maintenance crews could fit new components from badly depleted war stocks.

  Even more portentous than the buildup of navy ships were the voidhawks.

  Nearly eighty had arrived so far, with new ones swallowing in every hour, their lower hull cargo cradles full of pods (which could be handled by conventional civil flyers). Never before had so many of the bitek starships been seen orbiting a Kingdom world.

  Ralph had experienced the same kind of uncomfortable awe he’d known at Azara as he observed them flitting around the docking stations. He was the one who had started this, creating a momentum which had engulfed entire star systems. It was unstoppable now. All he could do was ride it to a conclusion.

  The ion field flyer landed at Colonel Palmer’s camp. The colonel herself was waiting for him at the base of the airstairs, Dean Folan and Will Danza prominent in the small reception committee behind her, both grinning broadly.

  Colonel Palmer shook his hand, giving his new uniform a more than casual inspection. “Welcome back, Ralph, or should I say sir?”

  He wasn’t completely used to the uniform himself yet, a smart dark blue tunic with three ruby pips glinting on his shoulder. “I don’t know, exactly. I’m a general in the official Liberation campaign army now, its very first officer. Apart from the King, of course. The formation was made official three days ago, announced in the court of the Apollo Palace. I’ve been appointed chief strategic coordination officer.”

  “You mean you’re the Liberation’s numero uno?”

  “Yeah,” he said with quiet surprise. “I guess I am at this end.”

  “Rather you than me.” She gestured northwards. “Talk about coming back with reinforcements.”

  “It’s going to get wonderfully worse. One million bitek serjeants are on their way, and God alone knows how many human troops to back them up. We’ve even had mercenaries volunteering.”

  “You accepted them?”

  “I’ve no idea. But I’ll use whatever I’m given.”

  “All right, so what are your orders, sir?”

  He laughed. “Just keep up the good work. Have any of them tried to break out?”

  She turned her head to face the wa
ll of angry cloud, her expression stern. “No. They stick to their side of the firebreak. There have been plenty of sightings. We think they’re keeping an eye on us. But it’s only my patrols who are visible to them.” A thumb jabbed back over her shoulder. “They don’t know anything about all this.”

  “Good. We can’t keep it secret forever, of course; but the longer the better.”

  “Some kids came out last week. It was the first interesting thing to happen since you left.”

  “Kids?”

  “A woman called Stephanie Ash bused seventy-three non-possessed children right up to the firebreak. Gave the roadblock guard a hell of a fright, I can tell you. Apparently she’d collected them from all over the peninsula. We evacuated them to a holding camp. I think your friend Jannike Dermot has got her experts debriefing them on conditions over there.”

  “Now that’s a report I’d like to access.” He squinted at the red cloud.

  That elusive knot of shadow seemed to have returned. It was elliptical this time, hanging over the M6. It didn’t take much imagination to suspect it of staring at him. “I think I’ll take a closer look before I set up my command at Fort Forward,” he announced.

  Will and Dean rode shotgun on the Marine Corps runabout which took him up to the orange roadblock. It was good to talk with them again. They’d been attached to Palmer’s brigade as combat liaison for the agency, supporting the various technical teams Roche Skark had dispatched to the firebreak.

  Both of them wanted to know every detail of his meetings with the King.

  They were annoyed he wouldn’t datavise his visual files of Prince Edward playing at the Apollo Palace, but they were confidential. And so grows the mystique, Ralph thought, amused that he should be contributing to it.

  The marines at the roadblock saluted smartly as Ralph and the Colonel arrived. Ralph chatted to them as cordially as he could manage. They didn’t seem to mind the red cloud; he found it intimidating in the extreme. It loomed barely three hundred metres above him, vigorous thrashing streamers packed so close together there was no gap between them, layer upon layer stacked up to what seemed like the edge of space.

  The sonorous reverberations from its internal brawling was diabolically attuned to the harmonic of human bones. Millions of tonnes of contaminated water hanging suspended in the air by witchcraft, ready to crash down like the waterfall at the end of the world. He wondered how little effort on behalf of the possessed it would take to do just that.

  Could it be he really had underestimated their power? It wasn’t the scale of the cloud which perturbed him so much as the intent.

  “Sir,” one of the barrier guards shouted in alarm. “Visible hostile, on foot, three hundred metres.”

  Dean and Will were abruptly standing in front of Ralph, their gaussguns pointing across the firebreak.

  “I think this is enough front-line inspection for today,” Colonel Palmer said. “Let’s get you back to the runabout, please, Ralph.”

  “Wait.” Ralph looked between the two G66 troopers to see a single figure walking up the M6. A woman dressed in a neatly cut leather uniform, her face stained warrior-scarlet by the nimbus of the seething clouds. He knew exactly who it was, in fact he would almost have been disappointed if she hadn’t appeared. “She’s not a threat. Not yet, anyway.”

  He slipped between Will and Dean to stand full square in the middle of the road, facing her down.

  Annette Ekelund stopped at the forwards barrier on her side of the firebreak. She took a slim mobile phone from her pocket, extended its ten-centimetre aerial, then tapped in a number.

  Ralph’s communications block announced a channel opening. He switched it to audio function.

  “Hello, Ralph. I thought you would come back, you’re the kind that does. And I see you’ve brought some friends with you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why don’t you bring them on over and join the party?”

  “We’ll pick our own time.”

  “I have to say I’m disappointed; that’s not quite what we agreed to back in Exnall, now is it? And with a Saldana Princess, too. Dear me, you can’t trust anyone these days.”

  “A promise made under duress is not legally binding. I’m sure you’ll have enough lawyers on your side to confirm that.”

  “I thought I explained all this to you, Ralph. We can’t lose, not against the living.”

  “I don’t believe you. No matter what the cost, we must defeat you. The human race will end if you are allowed to win. I believe we deserve to keep on going.”

  “You and your ideals, the original Mr. Focused. No wonder you found a profession which allowed you to give loyal service. It suits you perfectly. Congratulations, Ralph, you have found yourself, not everyone can say that. In another universe, one that isn’t so warped as this, I’d envy you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There was a nasty little phrase coined in my era, Ralph; but it’s still appropriate today, because it too came from a dogmatic soldier in a pointless war. We had to destroy the village in order to save it. What do you think you’re going to do to Mortonridge and its people with this crusade of yours?”

  “Whatever I have to.”

  “But we’ll still be here afterwards, Ralph, we’ll always be here. The finest minds in the galaxy have been working on this problem. Scientists and priests scurrying for hard answers and bland philosophies.

  Millions—billions of manhours have already been spent on the quandary of what to do with us poor returned souls. And they’ve come up with nothing.

  Nothing! All you can do is mount this pathetic, vindictive campaign of violence in the hope that some of us will be caught and thrown into zero-tau.”

  “There isn’t an overall solution yet. But there will be.”

  “There can’t be. We outnumber you. It’s simple arithmetic, Ralph.”

  “Laton said it can be done.”

  She chuckled. “And you believe him?”

  “The Edenists think he was telling the truth.”

  “Oh, yes, the newest and most interesting of all your friends. You realize, don’t you, that they could well survive this while you Adamists fall. It’s in their interest for this monstrous diversion to work. Adamist planets will topple one by one while your Confederation is engrossed here.”

  “And what about the Kiint?”

  There was a slight pause. “What about them?”

  “They survived their encounter with the beyond. They say there is a solution.”

  “Which is?”

  He gripped the communications block tighter. “It doesn’t apply to us. Each race must find its own way. Ours exists, somewhere. It will be found. I have a lot of faith in human ingenuity.”

  “I don’t, Ralph. I have faith in our sick nature to hate and envy, to be greedy and selfish, to lie. You forget, for six centuries I couldn’t hide from the naked emotions which drive all of us. I was condemned to them, Ralph. I know exactly what we are in our true hearts, and it’s not nice, not nice at all.”

  “Tell that to Stephanie Ash. You don’t speak for all the possessed, not even a majority.”

  Her stance changed. She no longer leaned casually on the barrier but stood up straight, her head thrust forwards challengingly. “You’ll lose, Ralph, one way or the other. You, personally, will lose. You cannot fight entropy.”

  “I wish your faith wasn’t so misdirected. Think what you could achieve if you tried to help us instead.”

  “Stay away from us, Ralph. That’s what I really came here to tell you. One simple message: Stay away.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  Annette Ekelund nodded sharply. She pushed the phone’s aerial back in and closed the little unit up.

  Ralph watched her walk back down the M6 with a degree of sorrow he hadn’t expected. Shadows cavorted around her, hoaxing with her silhouette before swallowing her altogether.

  “Ye gods,” Colonel Palmer muttered.

  “That’s what we�
��re up against,” Ralph said.

  “Are you sure a million serjeants is going to be enough?”

  Ralph didn’t get to answer. The discordant bellows of thunder merged together into a continuous roar.

  Everyone looked up to see the edge of the red cloud descending. It was as if the strength of the possessed had finally waned, allowing the colossal weight of water to crash down. Torrents of gaudy vapour plunged out of the main bank, hurtling earthwards faster than mere gravity could account for.

  Along with the others, Ralph sprinted away from the roadblock, neural nanonics compelled a huge energy release from his muscle tissue, increasing his speed. Animal fear was pounding on his consciousness to turn and fire his TIP pistol at the virulent cascade.

  His neural nanonics received a plethora of datavises from SD Command on Guyana. Low-orbit observation satellites were tracking them. Reports from patrols and sensors positioned along the firebreak: the whole front of cloud was moving.

  “SD platforms are now at Ready One status,” Admiral Farquar datavised.

  “Do you want us to counterstrike? We can slice that bastard apart.”

  “It’s stopping,” Will yelled.

  Ralph risked a glance over his shoulder. “Wait,” he datavised to the admiral. A hundred and fifty metres behind him, the base of the cloud had reached the ground, waves rebounding in all directions to furrow the surface. But the bulk of it was holding steady, not advancing. Even the thunder was muffled.

  “They are not aggressing, repeat, not aggressing,” Ralph datavised. “It looks like … hell, it looks as though they’ve slammed the door shut. Can you confirm the situation along the rest of the firebreak?”

  When he looked from side to side, the cloud was clinging to the scorched soil as far as his enhanced retinas could see. A single, simple barrier that curved back gently until it reached an apex at about three kilometres high. In a way it was worse than before; without the gap this was so uncompromisingly final.

  “Confirm that,” Admiral Farquar datavised. “It’s closed up all the way along the firebreak. The coastline edges are lowering, too.”