Empire of Light

by Gary Gibson

  He set the hull-clamps to retract, and waited until they had unlocked from around the spine, before setting the spiders to work in lifting it out of its socket. He then left them to it, making his way quickly to an emergency airlock close by.

  Ty clambered inside and yanked the hatch shut after him, pulling his helmet off as soon as the air had finished cycling. Then he activated the airlock’s inbuilt comms terminal.

  This, he knew, was where he ran the greatest risk of being caught. Although he had been careful to pick out an airlock equipped with an imager-enabled terminal, the unscheduled tach-net link he was about to open might drain enough power to trigger an alert on the bridge, one that could in turn be traced back to his current whereabouts. But it was still a risk he was prepared to take.

  He pulled off his right glove and reached out to the terminal screen, then paused. He could stop now, go back outside, and get on with his scheduled task. He could simply forget about his encounter with Olivarri.

  No. He took a deep breath, shook his head as if to dispel his fears, and pressed his palm flat against the screen – making sure the ring given to him by the avatar came into full contact with it.

  The panel flashed twice, to show it had recognized the ring as imager-compatible. Ty waited as the terminal pulled a data package out of the ring and dumped it into its own localized memory. The panel flashed again, letting him know it was working at opening up a line of communication.

  Whoever was behind the avatar hadn’t lied when boasting about the level of encryption involved. Ty had uploaded the same data packages into the lab’s own stacks, but hadn’t been able to crack them, despite several days of effort. But that didn’t matter nearly so much as finding out what was really going on.

  He fidgeted there in the coffin-like space for several minutes, while he waited for the terminal to establish a link. He briefly opened up his spacesuit’s comms to check in on Martinez and Perez, but they were busy talking sports, so he turned it off again and waited.

  The terminal chimed eventually, and a confirmation request appeared. Ty tapped the screen, and a moment later the same avatar he had encountered in Unity appeared before him.

  ‘Mr Whitecloud,’ acknowledged the voice behind the avatar.

  ‘There was another Consortium agent on the Mjollnir, and now he’s dead,’ Ty yelled, without any preamble. ‘What the hell is going on? Just how many of you people are on this ship? And . . . how the hell do I even know you’re really a Consortium agent? In fact, what proof did I ever get?’

  The avatar gazed back, silent and calm and so clearly artificial, while whoever was behind it tried to put together a response.

  ‘We’re aware of your encounter with Leo Olivarri,’ the synthesized voice finally responded. ‘Olivarri was in reality an agent for the Freehold Senate – not for the Consortium.’

  Ty stared at the screen, befuddled. How could they have found out about Olivarri’s death already? How—?

  ‘No.’ Ty shook his head several times, slowly at first, then more violently. ‘No, that’s bullshit. I talked to him! He told me he was a Consortium agent, and I asked him why he’d approached me, when you had already contacted me. He didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. So I know he was telling me the truth. He had no idea who you were – and now he’s dead!’

  There was another long pause, and Ty imagined whatever shadowy figure lurked behind the avatar trying to come up with a plausible response.

  ‘It’s possible,’ the avatar said eventually, ‘that whoever killed him might target you next.’

  ‘None of what you’re saying makes any sense!’ Ty shouted at the tiny screen. ‘If he was really working for the Freehold, then who killed him? Yet another Consortium agent?’

  He pounded the hard plastic of the screen with one fist, feeling pain like hot needles being rammed into his knuckles. He was breathing hard, hyperventilating, fast using up the airlock’s limited supply of air. He sobbed with frustration, and felt hot salt tears trickle down his cheeks.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he spat, both hands now gripping the sides of the screen, as if framing the face of the avatar. ‘Show yourself. Do you hear me? Show yourself. And tell me who the hell killed Olivarri . . . and if it had anything to do with your talking to me!’

  ‘Nathan?’

  It was Martinez, his voice sounding tinny from within Ty’s discarded suit helmet. He grabbed up the helmet and opened a channel.

  ‘Where are you?’ asked Martinez. ‘We can see your spiders, but we can’t see you. You need to stay in sight at all times, Nathan.’

  ‘I’m fine. Sorry,’ Ty replied, a little too hurriedly. He swallowed and forced himself to sound calm, or they would suspect something was wrong. ‘I’m . . . I thought some of the stern drive-spines might have got more damaged than we thought. So I figured it might be better to check them out, just in case. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Well, okay,’ said Martinez, doubt evident in his voice. ‘We’re heading up to one of the middle hull sections. Mr Corso’s currently picking up some fail signatures from up that way, and we’re off to take a look. We’ll see you there in . . . make it five hundred seconds from now. Got that?’

  ‘Got that,’ Ty replied and cut the connection.

  The avatar was gone, and the screen had turned black. If he wanted answers, Ty was going to have to find them somewhere else. He re-secured his helmet, cursing and muttering as he twisted around in the confined space, then paused just as he was about to pull his glove back on.

  He left the same glove spinning slowly in the air, as he pulled the other one off as well. Then he tried to slide the data-ring off his finger.

  The moment he worked it up to his knuckle, a deep, primal terror washed over him like a black tide. Worse, the ring actually became tighter, rather than looser, as it was designed to do when removed.

  Ty gritted his teeth and once again tried to work the ring past his knuckle. It could only get so tight, after all.

  Something like an electric current surged up his spine before exploding inside his skull. He writhed in pain, his head feeling like it was on fire, twisting around in the zero gee like a trapped animal.

  When this pain finally subsided, the knowledge of how thoroughly he had been duped became unavoidable. He had suspected as much when he first encountered the avatar, but had been so desperate to escape from the residency and from Marcus Weil that he had ignored his own instincts.

  Worse, he now had a pretty good idea what had been done to him.

  It was still difficult for Ty to think back to his days developing military technologies for the Uchidans; conscripted or not, he had allowed himself to be sufficiently drawn into his work that it became easy to ignore the potential human cost of their research, while helping his fellow scientists develop a variety of possible means by which neural implants could be attacked or compromised. One in particular had involved the use of the body’s own bio-electric field as a conduit for signals that could overcome or suppress the flow of information in implants – except that, in order to work, whatever affected the bio-electric field had to remain in constant contact with the target’s own body. This, in turn, had led to the development of hardware-based neural-feedback mechanisms that could manipulate the neuro-chemical balance of the target’s brain, eliciting powerful negative emotions or even generating escalating levels of pain and distress that could prove ultimately deadly.

  Something like a cheap data-ring could do the job. And whoever was behind the avatar had somehow figured out how to use Ty’s own research against him.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Eleven days out from Redstone, Dakota made her way to one of the airlock bays. She was surprised to find Nancy Schiller there, along with Ted Lamoureaux.

  Lamoureaux nodded guardedly to her. Nancy, on the other hand, was doing her level best to ignore both of them.

  ‘I thought Dan was scheduled for this crew,’ Dakota said cautiously. Since Schiller herself was in charge of schedul
ing the repair shifts, she had so far arranged them so that she had never once had to work on the same crew as Dakota.

  Nancy didn’t look up while she ran her spacesuit’s auto-diagnostics. ‘Yeah, he was, but something else came up.’

  ‘You know, me and Ted could probably handle this just fine with only the two of us,’ said Dakota.

  Nancy finally raised her head and flashed her a look of contempt. ‘I don’t think so,’ she barked. ‘Just get suited up, all right?’

  Dakota pushed her way over to one of the racks and grabbed a suit.

  What happened to Dan? Dakota sent.

  Lamoureaux replied.

  There’s an increase in Emissary tach-net traffic because we just jumped straight past the Long War and deep into the gap between spiral arms, remember? So that means they have to boost their signals all the way from the Perseus Arm, and we’re just picking up stray long-range transmissions. It doesn’t actually mean there’s more Emissaries out there any closer at hand.

  Their last jump had taken place fourteen hours before, with the drive-spines running at about 70 per cent efficiency. The frigate was now nearly three and a half thousand light-years from home, and the Consortium had been reduced to a barely discernible smudge of stars lying somewhere in the direction of the Core.

 

  See why you need me? Dakota sent, now making for the locker next to his. He was making a typical hash of getting into his own suit here in zero gee.

  Lamoureaux laughed at her expression, and Schiller snapped her head around to stare at them both.

  ‘I know you’re talking,’ she said. ‘Don’t think I don’t know it.’

  Dakota turned to face her. ‘Is that a problem, Nancy?’

  For a few seconds, the other woman looked like she might make something more of it, then she uttered a sound of disgust. ‘Just get ready,’ she muttered. ‘I want this over and done with.’

  Nancy turned away and Dakota stared silently at her back for a few seconds. Then she began to strip off, throwing her discarded clothing into the open locker.

  Lamoureaux meanwhile kept his gaze politely averted and concentrated on checking his own spacesuit’s integrity, once he had finally managed to pull himself inside it. When Dakota was completely naked, she padded towards the airlock entrance on bare feet.

  Nancy’s face turned a stormy red. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re . . .’

  Her jaw dropped open as the black tide of Dakota’s filmsuit spilled out of its hidden orifices, rapidly coating her skin overall in a thick layer that could protect her from the vacuum and radiation beyond the hull. Dakota swallowed as the same tide of black flowed down her throat and into her lungs, stilling them as their function was temporarily abrogated to tiny power units inside her spine.

  She waited as the black slick faded to partial transparency over her eyes, then opened them and squinted over at Nancy. ‘Come on, surely someone told you about this already?’ she asked with a smile.

  Nancy stared back at her in horrified fascination. ‘Yeah, but . . . look, you need to get into your suit.’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ intervened Lamoureaux. ‘That thing’s all the space-suit she needs, at least for the amount of time we’ll be out on the hull.’

  Schiller switched her gaze between them. ‘How . . . ?’ she stammered.

  ‘A present from an old friend,’ said Dakota, gesturing towards the airlock. ‘It’s time we got started, don’t you think?’

  Dakota and Ted had now reached the point where they swapped control of the frigate’s primary systems almost automatically: one keeping a watchful eye over the Mjollnir, while the other slept. As they pushed out of the airlock and on to the hull, Lamoureaux assumed primary control.

  There was plenty to do, and Nancy worked away on her own, keeping any communications with them down to the bare essentials. Over the next few hours, Dakota and Lamoureaux monitored the removal of almost a dozen dead or degraded drive-spines, which was a record for a single shift. The fabricators were having such a hard time keeping up with demand that the idea of having them construct copies of themselves in order to increase the overall output had been mooted. But that idea had to be shelved once it became clear that certain essential resources for the construction processes were simply not available.

 

  Glancing towards Lamoureaux’s suited figure, Dakota instantly knew he was talking about the Magi ships and that powerful sense of connection all Magi-enabled human navigators felt with them.

  A dozen spider-mechs floated close by, holding a failed drive-spine firmly in their grip. She had momentarily been staring towards the stern, and beyond it to the great band of stars where home lay.

  Depends what you mean, she replied, making her way towards a cargo airlock just in time to see it disgorge yet more spiders, carrying a replacement drive-spine out of the ship’s interior.

 

  I know. She could sense the intense regret overwhelming him, because that bond was something he would never experience again. But why do I get the feeling you’ve got something else on your mind, Ted?

 

  She watched as the spiders under her immediate control incrementally lowered the new drive-spine towards its magnetic couplings.

  I don’t know, Ted. If you want me to be really honest, I have a hard time even thinking beyond where we’re headed. And, even if we pull this off, I don’t think there’s a place for me back home any more. Maybe not for any of the navigators.

 

  Dakota merely smiled under the viscous oil-slick of her filmsuit.

  The frigate’s next jump would take them to their penultimate destination, and to the location of the extra shielding Trader wanted them to pick up. Corso had already brokered an agreement with the Shoal-member to use his yacht for the trip down to the cache. With its considerably more advanced propulsion systems and inertial dampeners, Trader’s ship would be a lot faster and safer than any other craft stowed in the Mjollnir ’s hold.

  Dakota had declined to take part in those negotiations, but she was the one who would have to make the pick-up trip with Trader – and that meant coming face-to-face with him, whether she liked it or not.

  At the end of the shift, Dakota made her way back to the airlock and surveyed the hull, noting the gaps where drive-spines had been removed but not yet replaced. Nancy had made a point of cycling back through the airlock before either of them.

  Tell me what I have to do to get her off my back, Dakota asked him, as they made their own way back inside the frigate.

  Lamoureaux activated the airlock access panel and a light blinked green. he sent back.

  You can’t possibly be serious.

  He glanced towards her while they waited for the hatch to slide open.

  Dakota tried to think of a reply, but could not manage one.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Less than an hour later, Dakota reached the bridge just in time for Olivarri’s funeral service.

  The rest of the crew was already there – even Driscoll, who had been hiding in the labs ever since leaving Redstone. The overhead display was filled by an external image of the Mjollnir, as seen through the lens
of a surveillance-drone trailing the frigate at a distance of a couple of kilometres. Floating a few metres away from the drone, and in full view of its sensors, was a single spider-mech holding a jar delicately in its multiple arms.

  Martinez was in full dress uniform, as were Nancy Schiller and Dan Perez. Corso wore a formal suit, his shirt a swirl of various shades of grey. Dakota, by contrast, felt distinctly underdressed in her usual casual uniform of T-shirt and work trousers, but dealing with formal occasions like this was very far from being one of her strong points.

  She watched Corso mount the dais, resting one hand on the arm of the vacant interface chair as he waited until the conversation died down. Dakota tried to listen to his brief eulogy, and then that of Willis, but waves of fatigue kept washing over her, and her attention kept slipping. All she could see when she briefly closed her eyes were the grey and black plates of the Mjollnir’s armoured hull.

  Her mind drifted further, speculating on what the next generation of human-built superluminal ships might be like, assuming they ever survived the onslaught of the Emissaries. She decided their best option would still be to find some way to power up the Ascension coreship, or one of the other coreships abandoned in the vicinity of the Long War . . .

  Dakota snapped awake and realized the service was finishing. She looked around warily, wondering if anyone else had noticed her practically sleepwalking through the whole event.

  She glanced back up at the image overhead. The spider-mech had now opened the jar, spilling grey ashes out into the vacuum, where they hung in a slowly expanding cloud. She imagined Olivarri’s essence spreading ever outwards until it filled the void between the spiral arms.

  ‘Dakota.’ A hand touched her shoulder.

  She turned to see it was Corso.

  ‘We’re going to be reaching our goal in a little under twelve hours’ time. I really think it’s time you got some sleep, don’t you?’