“Can you retrieve me?” she datavised to the Udat’s flight computer. “I can’t stop spinning.” As if they couldn’t see that. But the bitek starship was already seven hundred metres away, and still retreating from her. She wanted an answer, wanted someone to talk to her. Proof she wasn’t alone. This predicament was triggering way too many thirty-year-old memories. Dear Mary, I’ll be calling it déjà vu next. “Calling Udat, can you retrieve me?” Come on, answer.
On the Udat’s bridge Haltam was busy programming the medical packages which were knitting to the base of Meyer’s skull. Haltam was the Udat’s fusion specialist, but doubled as ship’s medical officer.
The captain was lying prone on his acceleration couch, unconscious. His fingers were still digging into the cushioning, frozen in a claw-like posture, nails broken by the strength he’d used to maul the fabric. Blood dribbling out of his nose made sticky blotches on his cheeks. Haltam didn’t like to think of the whimpers coming from Meyer’s mouth just before the blackhawk had swallowed out of Tranquillity, snatching Alkad Mzu away from the intelligence agents imprisoning her within the habitat. Nor did he like the physiological display he was accessing from Meyer’s neural nanonics.
“How is he?” asked Aziz, the Udat’s spaceplane pilot.
“None too good, I think. He’s suffered a lot of cerebral stress, which pushed him into shock. If I’m interpreting this display right, his neural symbionts were subjected to a massive trauma. Some of the bitek synapses are dead, and there’s minor hemorrhaging where they interface with his medulla oblongata.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah. And we don’t have a medical package on board which can reach that deep. Not that it would do us a lot of good if we had. You need to be a specialist to operate one.”
“I cannot feel his dreams,” Udat datavised. “I always feel his dreams. Always.”
Haltam and Aziz exchanged a heavy glance. The bitek starship rarely used its link with the flight computer to communicate with any of the crew.
“I don’t believe the damage is permanent,” Haltam told the blackhawk. “Any decent hospital can repair these injuries.”
“He will waken?”
“Absolutely. His neural nanonics are keeping him under for the moment. I don’t want him conscious again until the packages have knitted. They ought to be able to help stabilize him, and alleviate most of the shock.”
“Thank you, Haltam.”
“Least I can do. And what about you? Are you all right?”
“Tranquillity was very harsh. My mind hurts. I have never known that before.”
“What about your physical structure?”
“Intact. I remain functional.”
A whistle of breath emerged from Haltam’s mouth. Then the flight computer informed him that Alkad Mzu was datavising for help. “Oh, hell,” he muttered. The coverage provided by the electronic sensor suite mounted around the outside of the starship’s life support horseshoe was limited. Normally, Udat’s own sensor blisters provided Meyer with all the information he needed. But when Haltam accessed the suite, the infrared sweep found Mzu easily, spinning amid the thin cloud of dispersing debris which had been sucked into the wormhole with them.
“We’ve got you located,” he datavised. “Stand by.”
“Udat?” Aziz asked. “Can you take us over to her, please?”
“I will do so.”
Haltam managed a nervous, relieved smile. At least the blackhawk was cooperating. The real big test would come when they wanted a swallow manoeuvre.
Udat manoeuvred itself to within fifty metres of Mzu, and matched her gentle trajectory. After that, Cherri Barnes strapped on a cold gas manoeuvring pack and hauled her in.
“We have to leave,” Alkad datavised as soon as she was inside the airlock. “Immediately.”
“You didn’t warn us about your friends on the beach,” Cherri answered reproachfully.
“You were told about the observation agents. I apologize if you weren’t aware of how anxious they were to prevent me from escaping, but I thought that was implicit in my message. Now, please, we must perform a swallow manoeuvre away from here.”
The airlock chamber pressurized as soon as the outer hatch closed, filling with a slightly chilled air. Cherri watched Mzu touch the seal catches on her worn old backpack with awkward movements. The small incongruous pack fell to the floor. Mzu’s SII suit began flowing off her skin, its oil-like substance accumulating in the form of a globe hanging from the base of her collar. Cherri eyed their passenger curiously as her own suit reverted to neutral storage mode. The short black woman was shivering slightly, sweat coating her skin. Both hands were bent inward as though crippled with arthritis; twisted, swollen fingers unmoving.
“Our captain is incapacitated,” Cherri said. “And I’m none too certain about Udat either.”
Alkad grimaced, shaking her head. Oh, what an irony. Depending on the Udat’s goodwill, it of all starships. “Ships will be sent after us,” she said. “If we remain in this location I will be captured, and you will probably be exterminated.”
“Look, just what the hell did you do to get the Kingdom so pissed at you?”
“Better you don’t know.”
“Better I do, then I’ll know what we’re likely to be facing.”
“Trouble enough.”
“Try to be a little more specific.”
“Very well: every ESA asset they can activate throughout the Confederation will be used to find me, if that makes you feel any happier. You really don’t want to be around me for any length of time. If you are, you will die. Clear enough?”
Cherri didn’t know how to answer. True, they’d known Mzu was some kind of dissident on the run, but not that she would attract this kind of attention. And why would Tranquillity, presumably in conjunction with the Lord of Ruin, help the Kulu Kingdom try to restrain her? Mzu was adding up to real bad news.
Alkad datavised the flight computer, requesting a direct link to the blackhawk itself. “Udat?”
“Yes, Dr Mzu.”
“You must leave here.”
“My captain is hurt. His mind has darkened and withered. I am in pain when I try to think.”
“I’m sorry about Meyer, but we cannot stay here. The blackhawks at Tranquillity know where you swallowed to. The Lord of Ruin will send them after me. They’ll take us all back.”
“I do not wish to return. Tranquillity frightens me. I thought it was my friend.”
“One swallow manoeuvre, that’s all. A small one. Just a light-year will suffice, the direction is not important. No blackhawk will be able to follow us then. After that we can see what’s to be done next.”
“Very well. A light-year.”
Cherri had already unfastened her spacesuit collar when she felt the familiar minute perturbation in apparent gravity which meant Udat’s distortion field was altering to open a wormhole interstice. “Very clever,” she said sardonically to Mzu. “I hope to hell you know what you’re doing. Bitek starships don’t usually make swallows without their captain providing some supervision.”
“That’s a conceit you really ought to abandon,” Alkad said tiredly. “Voidhawks and blackhawks are considerably more intelligent than humans.”
“But their personalities are completely different.”
“It’s done now. And it would appear we are still alive. Were there any more complaints?”
Cherri ignored her and started to pull on a one-piece shipsuit.
“Could you sling my backpack over my shoulder, please?” Alkad asked. “I don’t have the use of my hands at this moment. Our exit from Tranquillity was more precipitous than I imagined. And I’ll need some medical packages.”
“Fine. Haltam can apply the packages for you; he’ll be on the bridge tending to Meyer. I’ll take the backpack for you.”
“No. Put it over my shoulder. I will carry it.”
Cherri sighed through clenched teeth. She urgently wanted to see for herself how bad Meyer
was. She was worried about the way Udat would react if the captain was unconscious for too long. She was coming down off the adrenaline high of the escape, which was like a hit of pure depression. And this small woman was about as safe as her own weight in naked plutonium.
“What have you got in it?”
“Do not concern yourself about that.”
Cherri grabbed the backpack by its straps and held it up in front of Mzu’s impassive face. There couldn’t have been much in it, judging by the weight. “Now look—!”
“A great deal of money. And an even larger amount of information; none of which you would have the faintest comprehension of. Now, you are already harbouring me on board which in itself is enough to get you killed if I’m discovered. And if the agency knew you had physically held up the backpack containing the items it does, they would throw you straight into personality debrief just to find out how much those items weigh. Do you really want to compound matters by taking a look inside?”
What Cherri wanted to do was swing the backpack at Mzu’s head. Meyer had made the worst error of judgement in his life agreeing to this absurd rescue mission. All she could do now was pray it turned out not to be a terminal mistake.
“As you wish,” Cherri said with fragile calm.
* * *
San Angeles spaceport was situated on the southern rim of the metropolis. A square ten kilometres to a side, a miniature city chiselled from machinery. Vast barren swathes of carbon concrete had been poured over the levelled earth and then divided up into roads, taxi aprons, and landing pads. Hundreds of line company hangars and cargo terminals hosted a business which accounted for a fifth of the entire planet’s ground-to-orbit traffic movements.
Among the numbingly constant lines of standardized composite-walled hangars and office block cubes, only the main passenger terminal had been permitted a flight of fancy architecture. It resembled the kind of starship which might have been built if the practicalities of the ZTT drive hadn’t forced a uniform spherical hull on the astroengineering companies. A soft-contoured meld between an industrial microgee refinery station and a hypersonic biplane, it dominated the skyline with its imperious technogothic silhouette. On the long autoway ride out from the city it gave approaching drivers the impression it was ready to pounce jealously on the tiny delta-planform spaceplanes which scuttled underneath its sweeping wings to embark passengers.
Jezzibella didn’t bother looking at it. She sat in the car with her eyes closed for the whole of the early morning journey, not asleep, but brain definitely in neutral. Those kids from the concert—whatever their names were—had proved worthless last night, their awe of her interfering with their emotions. Now she just wanted out. Out of this world. Out of this galaxy. Out of this universe. Forever living on the hope that the waiting starship would take her to a place where something new was happening. That the next stop would be different.
Leroy and Libby shared the car with her, silent and motionless. They knew the mood. Always the same when she was leaving a planet, and a fraction more intense every time.
Leroy was pretty sure the unspoken yearning was one reason she appealed to the kids; they identified with that integral sense of bewildered desperation and loss. Of course, it would have to be watched. Right now it was just an artist’s essential suffering, a perverted muse. But eventually it could develop into full depression if he wasn’t careful.
Another item to take care of. More stress. Not that he’d have it any other way.
The eleven cars which made up the Jezzibella tour convoy slid into the VIP parking slots below one of the terminal’s flamboyant wings. Leroy had chosen such an early hour for the flight because it was the terminal’s slackest time. They ought to be able to clear the official procedures without any problems.
Maybe that was the reason why none of the bodyguards sensed anything wrong. Always scanning for trouble with augmented senses, the absence of people was a relief rather than a concern.
It wasn’t until Jezzibella asked: “Where the fuck are the reporters?” that Leroy noticed anything amiss. The terminal wasn’t merely quiet, it was dead. No passengers, no staff, not even a sub-manager to greet Jezzibella. And certainly no sign of any reporters. That wasn’t odd, that was alarming. He’d leaked their departure schedule to three reliable sources last night.
“Just fucking great, Leroy,” Jezzibella growled as the entourage went through the entrance. “This exit is really up there in fucking mythland, isn’t it? Because I certainly don’t fucking believe it. How the hell am I supposed to make a fucking impression when the only things watching me leave are the fucking valeting mechanoids?”
“I don’t understand it,” Leroy said. The cavernous VIP vestibule carried on the never-was illusion of the terminal building: ancient Egypt discovers atomic power. A marble fantasyville of obelisks, fountains, and outsize gold ornaments, where ebony sphinxes prowled around the walls. When he datavised the local net processor all he got was the capacity engaged response.
“What’s to understand, dickbrain? You screwed up again.” Jezzibella stomped off towards the wide wave-effect escalator which curved up towards one of the terminal’s concourses. She could remember coming down it when she arrived, so it must be the way to the spaceplanes. The bastard local net processor wouldn’t even permit her to access a floor plan. Cock-up planet!
She was five metres from the top (her retinue scurrying to catch up) when she saw the man standing waiting for her beside the arched entrance of the concourse. Some oaf in a terminal staff suit uniform, officious smile in place.
“I’m sorry, lady,” he said, when she drew level with him. “You can’t go any further.”
Jezzibella said: “Oh, really?”
“Yes. We’ve got a priority flight operation in progress today, everything has been rescheduled.”
Jezzibella smiled, her skin softening: a delectably young wide-eyed ingenue looking for a real man to guide her. “That’s such a pity. I’m booked to leave this morning.”
“I’m afraid there will be a short delay.”
Still smiling, Jezzibella slammed her knee into his crotch.
Isaac Goddard had been pleased at his assignment. Putting the brakes on inconvenient civilians wandering through the terminal was an important task, Al Capone wouldn’t give it to just anyone. And now it meant he got to meet this century’s superstar, too. Lee Ruggiero, whose body he possessed, was full of admiration for Jezzibella. Looking at her up close, Isaac could see why. So sweet and vulnerable. Shame he had to use force to stop her. But the timing of the spaceplane flights was vital. Al had emphasised that often enough.
He was readying his energistic powers to deal with her bodyguards, who had now caught her up, when she did her level best to ram his testicles into his eye sockets via his intestinal tract.
The energistic power which was the inheritance of every possessed was capable of near-miraculous feats as it bent the fabric of reality to a mind’s whim. As well as its destructive potential, items could be made solid at the flicker of a thought. It was also capable of reinforcing a body to resist almost any kind of assault as well as enhancing its physical strength. Wounds could be healed at almost the same rate they were inflicted.
But first the wish had to be formulated, the energistic flow regulated appropriately. Isaac Goddard never had a chance to wish for anything. A uniquely male agony blew apart every coherent thought current stealing through his captured brain. Pain was all that remained.
His face white, he slowly sank to the floor before Jezzibella. Tears trickled down his cheeks as his mouth laboured soundlessly.
“If it’s all the same to you,” Jezzibella said brightly, “I really would like to leave this shit tip of a planet right now.” She strode away.
“Oh, hey, come on, Jez,” Leroy called as he chased after her down the concourse, forcing himself into a fast waddle. “Give me a break. You can’t go around doing things like that.”
“Why not, for shit’s sake? Worried this f
ucking great army of witnesses will all testify in court?”
“Look, you heard him. There’s some kind of special flight schedule this morning. Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll find out what’s going on. Huh? I won’t be long.”
“I’m the fucking special flight, shithead! Me, me.”
“Christ! Grow up, will you! I don’t manage bloody teen-scream acts. I only do adults.”
Jezzibella stopped in surprise. Leroy never shouted at her. She pouted prettily. “I’ve been bad.”
“You got it.”
“Forgive me. I was all worked up over Emmerson.”
“I can understand that. But he’s not coming on the starship with us. Panic over.”
The mock smile faltered. “Leroy . . . Please, I just want to leave. I hate this fucking place. I’ll behave, really. But you have got to get me away from here.”
He rubbed his fat fingers over his face; sweat was making hair stick to his brow. “Okay. One miracle evacuation flight coming up.”
“Thanks, Leroy. I don’t have your defences, you know? The world’s different for you. Hard and easy altogether.”
Leroy tried to datavise a net processor. But he couldn’t get a single response, the units were all inert. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked in annoyance. “If these flights were that big a deal, why weren’t we informed?”
“Guess that’s my fault,” Al Capone told him.
Jezzibella and Leroy turned to see a group of ten men walking down the concourse towards them. They all wore double-breasted suits and carried machine guns. Somehow the idea of running from them seemed ludicrous. More gangsters were emerging from side corridors.
“You see, I don’t want people informed,” Al explained. “At least not for a while. After that, I’m gonna speak to this whole goddamn planet. Loud and clear.”
Two of Jezzibella’s bodyguards caught sight of the approaching gangsters. They began to run forwards, drawing their thermal induction pistols.
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 143
