Neutronium Alchemist - Conflict nd-4

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Filth like you would say anything.”

  “You can’t risk the possibility that I’m lying. I obviously have access to the Organization’s command echelons, I wouldn’t be in this position if I didn’t. Therefore I could quite easily know their overall strategic planning. At the very least, procedure says I should be debriefed.”

  The decision seemed more enervating than all that time spent in the cavity working on the hull plate. Erick was repelled by the notion that a piece of shit like Pryor could manipulate him. “Captain?” he said wearily.

  “Oui?”

  “How much do you think he’s worth if we turn him over to the Confederation authorities?”

  André gave his crewman a surprised look. “You have changed since you came on board, mon enfant .”

  Since Tina . . . who wouldn’t? “We’re going to be in the shit with the Confederation when we return. We did sign up with Capone, remember, and we helped with this invasion. But if we bring them a prize like this, especially if we do it in full view of the rovers, we’ll be heroes; it’ll wipe the slate clean.”

  As always, avarice won with Duchamp. His gentle face’s natural smile expanded with admiration. “Good thinking, Erick. Madeleine, help Erick stuff this pig into zero-tau.”

  “Yes, Captain.” She pushed off the hatch rim and grabbed hold of Pryor’s shoulder. On the way she couldn’t resist giving Erick a troubled look.

  He couldn’t even raise a regretful grin in response. I thought it was over, that getting rid of the bomb would finish it. We would dock at some civilized spaceport, and I could turn them all over to the local Navy Bureau. Now all I’ve done is swapped one problem for another. Great God Almighty, when is this all going to end?

  • • •

  The beyond was different, not changed, but the rents which tore open into the real universe fired in flashes of sensation. They enraged and exhilarated the souls which dwelt there; a pathetic taster, a reminder of what used to be. Proof that corporeal life could be theirs again.

  There was no pattern to the rents. The beyond did not have a structured topology. They occurred. They ended. And each time a soul would wriggle through to possess. Luck, chance, dictated their appearance.

  The souls screamed for more, scrabbling at the residual traces of their more fortunate comrades who had made it though. Pleading, praying, promising, cursing. The tirade was one-way. Almost.

  The possessed had the power to look back, to listen harder.

  One of them said: We want somebody.

  The gibbering souls shrieked their lies in return. I know where they are. I know how to help. Take me. Me! I will tell you.

  The chant of a billion tormented entities is not one to be ignored.

  Another rent appeared, loud sunlight piercing an ebony cloud. There was a barrier at the top, preventing any soul from surging through into the glory. Its extended existence igniting an agonized desire within those who flocked around it.

  See? A body awaits you, a reward for the information we need.

  What? What information?

  Mzu. Dr Alkad Mzu, where is she?

  The question rippled through the beyond, a virus rumour, passed—ripped—from one soul to another. Until, finally, the woman came forth, rising from the degradations of perpetual mind-rape to embrace and adore the pain which saturated her new body. Feelings rushed in to inflate consciousness: warmth, wetness, cool air. Eyes blinked open, half laughing, half-weeping at the agony of her scalded, skinless limbs. “Ayacucho,” Cherri Barnes coughed to the gangsters standing over her. “Mzu went to Ayacucho.”

  • • •

  The top secret file contained a report which the First Admiral found even more worrying than any naval defeat. It had been written by an economist on President Haaker’s staff, detailing the strain which possession was placing on the Confederation economy. The major problem was that modern conflicts tended to be resolved by fifteen-minute engagements between opposing squadrons of starships; fast, and usually pretty decisive. It was an exceptional dispute which led to more than three navy engagements.

  Possession, though, was shutting down the interstellar economy. Tax revenue was falling, and with it the government’s ability to support its forces on month-long deployment missions. And the Confederation Navy placed the primary drain on everyone’s finances. Enforcing the quarantine was good strategic policy, but it wasn’t going to solve the problem. A new strategy, one which had to include a final solution, had to be found within six months. After that, the Confederation would start to fragment.

  Samual Aleksandrovich exited the file as Maynard Khanna ushered the two visitors into his office. Admiral Lalwani and Mullein, the captain of the voidhawk Tsuga , both saluted.

  “Good news?” Samual Aleksandrovich asked Lalwani. It had become a standing joke at the start of their daily situation meetings.

  “Not entirely negative,” she said.

  “You amaze me. Sit down.”

  “Mullein has just arrived from Arnstadt; Tsuga has been on intelligence gathering duties in that sector.”

  “Oh?” Samual cocked a thick eyebrow at the youngish Edenist.

  “Capone has invaded another star system,” Mullein said.

  Samual Aleksandrovich swore bitterly. “That’s not negative?”

  “It’s Kursk,” Lalwani said. “Which is interesting.”

  “Interesting!” he grunted. His neural nanonics supplied him with the planet’s file. Not knowing the world he was supposed to protect kindled obscure feelings of guilt. Its image appeared on one of the office’s long holoscreens, just a perfectly ordinary terracompatible world, dominated by large oceans.

  “Population fifty million plus,” Samual Aleksandrovich recited from the file. “Hell. The Assembly will combust, Lalwani.”

  “They’ve no right,” she said. “Your original confinement strategy is working very effectively.”

  “Apart from Kursk.”

  She ducked her head in acknowledgement. “Apart from Kursk. But then that isn’t due to the quarantine order failing. The quarantine was intended to prevent stealthy infiltration, not armed invasions.”

  Samual’s mind went back to the classified report. “Let’s hope the noble ambassadors see it that way. Why did you say it was interesting?”

  “Because Kursk is a stage three world: no naval forces, no SD network. A pushover for the Organization. However, all they earned themselves was a few orbital industrial stations and a big struggle to quash the planetary population, the majority of whom live in the countryside, they’re still very agrarian. In other words, the possessed are up against small, solid communities of well-armed farmers who have had plenty of advance warning.”

  “But possessed forces backed up by starships, nonetheless,” Samual observed.

  “Yes, but why bother possessing fifty million people who can make no positive contribution to the Organization?”

  “Possession makes no sense generally.”

  “No, but Capone’s Organization needs sound economic support, certainly his fleet does. It won’t operate without a functioning industrial capacity behind it.”

  “All right, you’ve convinced me. So what analysis has your staff come up with?”

  “We believe it was principally a propaganda move. A stunt, if you like. Kursk wasn’t a challenge to him, and it isn’t an asset. Its sole benefit comes from the psychology. Capone has conquered another world. He’s a force to be reckoned with, the king of the possessed. That kind of garbage. People aren’t going to look at how strategically insignificant Kursk is, all they’ll think about is that damn exponential expansion curve. It’s going to place a lot of political pressure on us.”

  “The President’s office has requested a briefing on the new development in two hours, sir,” Maynard Khanna said. “It will be reasonable to assume the Assembly will follow that up with a request for some kind of large-scale high-visibility military deployment. And a victory. It will be expedient for the politicians to demonstrate
the Confederation can strike at the enemy, that they’re not sitting back doing nothing.”

  “Wonderfully precise thinking,” Samual Aleksandrovich grumbled. “National navies have only released seventy per cent of the forces pledged to us; we are barely managing to enforce the quarantine; we can’t track down where the hell Capone’s antimatter is coming from. Now they expect me to ransack what forces I have to build some kind of interdiction flotilla. I wonder if they’ll give me a target, too, because I certainly can’t see one. When will people learn that if we kill the possessed bodies all we’re doing is simply adding to the numbers of souls in the beyond; and I doubt the families of those we kill will thank us.”

  “If I can offer a suggestion, sir,” Mullein said.

  “By all means.”

  “As Lalwani said, Tsuga has been collecting intelligence from Arnstadt. It’s our contention that Capone isn’t having it all his own way, not down on the planet itself. The SD platforms are having to fire on almost an hourly basis to support the Organization lieutenants on the surface. There is a lot of resistance down there. The Yosemite Consensus believes that if we were to start harassing the ships and industrial stations Capone has in orbit, it would make life very difficult for him. Constant reinforcement over interstellar distances is going to place a considerable strain on his resources.”

  “Maynard?” the First Admiral asked.

  “Possible, sir. The general staff already has appropriate contingency plans.”

  “When don’t they?”

  “Primarily, it would mean the observation voidhawks seeding Arnstadt’s orbital space with stealthed fusion mines; a decent percentage should manage to trickle past the SD sensors. Equip them with mass-proximity fuses and any ships down there would be in deep trouble. No one would know when an attack was coming; it would rattle the crews once they realized we were blitzing them. Fast-strike missions could also be mounted against the asteroid settlements; jump a ship in, fire off a random salvo of combat wasps, and jump out again. Something similar to the Edenist attack against Valisk. It would have the advantage that we were mainly destroying hardware rather than people.”

  “I want the feasibility studies run today,” the First Admiral said. “Include Kursk as well as Arnstadt. That’ll give me something concrete when I’m called to explain this latest fiasco to the Assembly.” He gave the young voidhawk captain a speculative gaze. “What exactly is Capone’s fleet doing right now?”

  “Most of it is spread through the Arnstadt system, keeping the asteroid settlements in line until their populations are fully possessed. A lot of captured ships are being flown back to New California, we assume to be armed ready for his next invasion. But it’s a slow job; he’s probably short of crews.”

  “For once,” Lalwani said sorely. “I can’t get over how many of those independent trader bastards went to work for him.”

  “Recruitment is slowing considerably now the quarantine is in place,” Maynard Khanna said. “Even the independent traders are reluctant to take Capone’s money now they’ve heard about Arnstadt, and the Assembly’s proclamation must have had some effect.”

  “That or they’re too busy raking it in by breaking the quarantine, I expect.” She shrugged. “We’ve been getting reports; some of the smaller asteroids are still open to flights.”

  “There are times when I wonder why we bother,” Samual Aleksandrovich marvelled. “Thank you for the briefing, Mullein, and my gratitude to Tsuga for a swift flight.”

  “Has Gilmore made any progress?” Lalwani asked when the captain had left.

  “He won’t admit it, but the science teams are stumped,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “All they can come up with is a string of negatives. We’re learning a lot about the capabilities of this energistic ability, but nothing about how it is generated. Nor have Gilmore’s people acquired any hard data on the beyond. I think that worries me the most. It obviously exists, therefore it must have some physical parameters, a set of governing laws; but they simply cannot detect or define them. We know so much about the physical universe and how to manipulate its fabric, yet this has defeated our most capable theorists.”

  “They’ll keep at it. The research teams at Jupiter have done no better. I know that Govcentral have established a similar project; and no doubt the Kulu Kingdom will be equally industrious.”

  “I think in this instance they might all even be persuaded to cooperate,” Samual Aleksandrovich mused. “I’ll mention it during my presidential briefing, it’ll give Olton something to concentrate on.”

  Lalwani shifted around in her chair, leaning forwards slightly as if she was discomforted. “The one piece of genuinely good news is that we believe Alkad Mzu has been sighted.”

  “Praise the Lord. Where?”

  “The Dorados. Which lends a considerable degree of weight to the report. That’s where seventy per cent of the Garissan refugees finished up. There is a small underground movement there. She’ll probably try to contact them. We infiltrated them decades ago, so there shouldn’t be any problem.”

  Samual Aleksandrovich gave his intelligence chief a pensive stare. He had always been able to rely on her utterly. The height of the stakes these days, though, were breaking apart all the old allegiances. Damn Mzu’s device, he thought, the alleged potency of the thing even gnaws at trust. “Which ‘we’ is that, Lalwani?” he asked quietly.

  “Both. Most intelligence agencies have assets in the underground.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant.”

  “I know. It’s going to be down to the agents on the ground, and who reaches her first. For me personally, Edenist acquisition would not be an unwelcome outcome. I know we won’t abuse the position. If CNIS obtains her, then as admiral of the service I will follow whatever orders the Assembly’s Security Commission delivers concerning her disposal. Kulu and the others could give us a problem, though.”

  “Yes. What do the Edenists propose to do if you get her?”

  “Our Consensus recommends zero-tau storage. That way she will be available should the Confederation ever face an external threat which needs something as powerful as the Alchemist to defend it.”

  “That seems a logical course. I wonder if the Alchemist could help us against the possessed?”

  “Supposedly, it’s a weapon of enormous destructive power. If that’s true, then like every weapon we have in our arsenal today, it will be utterly ineffective against the possessed.”

  “You’re right of course. Unfortunately. So I suppose we are going to have to depend on Dr Gilmore and his ilk for a solution.” And I wish I had the confidence I should have in him. Saviour-to-be is a terrible burden for anyone to carry around.

  • • •

  It was the one sight Lord Kelman Mountjoy had never expected to see. His job had taken him to countless star systems; he had stood on a beach to watch a binary dawn over the sea, admired Earth’s astonishing O’Neill Halo from a million kilometres above the north pole, enjoyed lavish hospitality in the most exotic locations. But as Kulu’s foreign minister, Jupiter was always destined to be verboten.

  Now, though, he accessed the battle cruiser’s sensor suite throughout the entire approach phase. The starship was accelerating at one and a half gees, carrying them down towards the five-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-kilometre orbital band occupied by the Jovian habitats. Two armed voidhawks from the Jovian defence fleet were escorting the warship in. Just a precaution, Astor had assured them. Kelman had accepted gracefully, though most of the Royal Navy officers were less charitable.

  The habitat Azara was looming large ahead of them, a circular spaceport disk extending out of its northern endcap. Although Edenism didn’t have a capital, Azara played host to all of the foreign diplomatic missions. Even the Kingdom maintained an embassy at Jupiter.

  “I still can’t get used to the scale here,” Kelman confessed as the acceleration began to fluctuate. Their approach was in its final stages, the battle cruiser flowing through the thick traffic lanes
of inter-orbit ships towards the spaceport. “Whenever we build anything large it always seems so ugly. Of course, technically the Kingdom does own one bitek habitat.”

  “I thought Tranquillity was independent,” Ralph Hiltch said.

  “Great-grandfather Lukas granted its title to Michael as an independent duchy,” Prince Collis said affably. “So, strictly speaking, in Kulu law, my father is still its sovereign. But I’d hate to try and argue the case in court.”

  “I didn’t know,” Ralph said.

  “Oh, yes. I’m quite the amateur expert on the situation,” Prince Collis said. “I’m afraid we do all harbour a rather baroque interest in Cousin Ione and her fiefdom. All of my siblings access the official file on Tranquillity at some time while we’re growing up. It’s fascinating.” Alastair II’s youngest child smiled whimsically. “I almost wish I’d been sent with that delegation instead of Prince Noton. No offence,” he added for Astor’s benefit.

  “Your Highness,” the Edenist ambassador murmured. “This would seem to be the time for breaking taboos.”

  “Indeed. And I shall do my best to throw off my childhood prejudices. But it will be hard. I’m not accustomed to the notion of the Kingdom being dependent on anyone.”

  Ralph looked across the small lounge. All of the acceleration couches had tilted down from the horizontal, transforming into oversized armchairs. Ambassador Astor lay back bonelessly in his, a politely courteous expression on his face, as always. Ralph had no idea how he maintained it without the benefit of neural nanonics.

  “Attempting to remedy a situation not of your making is hardly dishonourable, Your Highness.”

  “Oh, Ralph, do stop blaming yourself for Ombey,” Kelman Mountjoy protested. “Everyone thinks you’ve done a superb job so far. Even the King, which makes it official. Right, Collis?”

  “Father thinks very highly of you, Mr Hiltch,” the Prince confirmed. “I dare say you’ll be lumbered with a title once this is over.”