It’s searching, the personality said. That implies a degree of organisation. It has to be sentient.
Searching for what?
A way in, I imagine. Or something it can recognize, some method of establishing communication.
Do any of the spaceport defences still work? Dariat asked.
You have to be bloody joking. We need all the allies we can get.
Before we fused, you used to be the mother of all suspicious neurotic bastards. I think that would be a preferable attitude for you right now.
Well that’s the effect of your mature calming influence for you. So you’ve only got yourself to blame. But don’t worry, I’m not going to send the MSV after it.
Thank Tarrug for that.
Our visitor should be coming over your horizon any second now. Perhaps your eyes will do better than my sensitive cells.
“Wipe the glass again,” Dariat told Tolton.
The soaking table cloth smeared the moisture in long streaks. Tiny flecks of frost were glistening dull white over the rest of the big oval. Tolton switched off two of his lightsticks. Both of them peered forward. The visitor arched over the rim of the shell, lensing thin spires of vermilion and indigo light as it came. They wavered in the runnels of water, wobbling insubstantially before sinking back down into the visitor’s core. Now all that remained was a black knot in the continuum’s fabric racing over the dark rust-coloured polyp.
Tolton’s weak grin was bloated with uncertainly. “Am I being paranoid, or is that heading towards us?”
* * *
In the earlier time and place, long ago and far away, they had called themselves the Orgathé. Now, names had lost all meaning and relevance, or perhaps they themselves had devolved into something else, such was the way of this atrocious existence. There were many others adrift in the dark continuum, sharing their fate. Identity was no longer singular. A myriad of racial traits had blended and faded into a singleton over the aeons.
Purpose, though, purpose remained steadfast. The quest for light and strength, a return to the sweet heights from whence they had all fallen. A dream sustained even within the mélange. Few forms existed now outside of the mélange. The process of diminution claimed every life to fall into these depths. But this one had risen yet again, buoyed up by the tides of chaotic chance that rioted within the mélange, spat out to roam the murk for as long as it had strength. The freeflying state of such escapees was still that of the Orgathé, though the essence of many others rode upon its wings. Its chimerical shape was a tortured mockery of the once glorious avian lords who ruled the swift air currents of their homeworld.
Ahead of it now drifted the exotic object. It was composed of a substance to be found only in the oldest of the Orgathé’s memories, those that pre-dated the dark continuum. How strange that it could barely recognize the antecedent of its own salvation.
Matter. Solid organized matter. Alive with a heat so fierce it took the Orgathé some time to acclimatise to the radiance; elevating itself to a near ecstatic level of warmth. Incredibly, just within the scorching surface, a sheet of life energy burned bright and vigorous. The entire object was a single mighty entity. Yet passive. Vulnerable. This was a feast which would sustain a huge proportion of the mélange for a long time. It might even trigger a total dispersal.
The Orgathé slithered close to the object’s surface, feeling the mind within follow its flight. Vast swirls of rich thought flowed underneath it as it basked in the warmth. But there was no way to reach the abundant life-energy through the hard surface. If the Orgathé attempted to claw its way through, it would surely incinerate itself. Contact with so much heat for so long could probably not be sustained. But the craving within itself from proximity to so much vital life-energy was overwhelming.
There must be some way in. Some orifice or chink. The Orgathé coasted along over the object, heading for the spikes radiating out from the centre. They were smaller, weaker than the rest of it. Long hollow minarets leaking their energy away into the dark continuum. The life-energy was shallower here, the heat not so intense. Each of the structures was broken by thousands of dark ovals, curtained by cooler sheets of transparent matter. Light twinkled briefly through some of them, never lasting long. Except one. A single oval burning steadily.
The Orgathé glided eagerly towards it. Two flames of life-energy gleamed behind the transparent sheet. One naked, the other clad in hot matter; both enraging the Orgathé’s craving. It surged forward.
* * *
“FUCK!” Tolton screamed. He dived to one side, scattering tables and chairs. Dariat jumped the other way just as the Orgathé hit the window. Frost blossomed like a living thing, strands of long delicate crystals multiplying across the glass, then reaching out through the air. Shapes moved on the other side of the hoary fur, dark indistinct serpents, thicker than a human torso, that could be tentacles or tongues scrabbling furiously at the outer surface. The unmistakable grinding shriek of deep score lines being ripped into the material penetrated the bar, drowning out Tolton’s terrified cries.
Do something! Dariat wailed.
You name it, I’ll do it.
Tolton was scuttling backwards on his hands and legs, unable to take his eyes from the window. The serpent shapes were writhing with rabid aggression as they clawed their way through. A badly stressed snap sounded above the vicious squealing; corresponding to a thin dark shadow materializing across the frosted window. Furniture was rattling, shaking its way erratically across the floor. Glasses and bottles abandoned on top of the marble bar juddered vigorously and tumbled off.
It’s coming through! Dariat cried. When he tried to clamber to his feet, he discovered he didn’t have the strength. Fatigue was numbing every limb.
“Kill it!” Tolton bellowed.
We can try and zap it, the personality said, like we did the possessed.
Just bloody do it!
It might kill you as well; we don’t know.
You’re part me. Do you seriously think I want that to catch me?
Very well.
The personality began to re-route its patched-up power supply. Diverting current away from the axial light tube and the caverns, pumping the precarious fusion generators up to their maximum output. Electricity poured back into the Djerba starscraper’s organic conductor grid. The first-floor windows blazed with golden light; mechanical and electronic systems came alive in frantic chitters of movement and data emissions. Milliseconds later the second floor sprang back to life. The third, fourth . . .
Dazzling shafts of light sliced out from the Djerba’s windows, piercing the gloom outside. They snapped downward storey by storey towards the beleaguered twenty-fourth floor. The personality gathered its major thought routines and plunged them down into the starscraper, a sensation like diving into a pitch-black well shaft. Bitek networks were swiftly resurrected around its descending mentality.
A dead zone was concentrated around Horner’s window. The external polyp was so cold the personality could no longer calibrate it. Living cells deeper in had frozen solid. The personality could feel vibrations running through the floor as the Orgathé pounded and scraped against the window.
Junctions within the organic conductor web switched polarity, high order sub-routines cancelled the safety limiters. Every erg of power from the fusion generators was channelled into Horner’s. Ceiling strips of electrophorescent cells ignited, flooding the bar with searing white light. Organic conductors behind the walls fused, burning out long lines of polyp in a cascade of amber sparks. Incandescent arcs stormed through the air as a lethal charge of electrons was fired into the external wall.
Coming on top of the heat and life-energy, the electron hammer blow was just too much. The Orgathé recoiled from the window, appendages flailing madly as the streams of alien energy churned within its body. There was a brief glimpse of sinuous chrome-black tendrils bristling with curving blades coiling back protectively around a bulbous midsection. Ragged wing petals began to flex. Then
the distortion smeared it with refracted scintillations from the gleaming starscraper, and it shot away at a bruising acceleration. Within seconds it was lost inside the nebula.
Dariat took his arm away from his face. The tremendous barrage of noise and light saturating the bar had faded. A few sparks were still popping out from the deep scorch marks in the walls. The glossy electrophorescent cells had shattered and shrivelled to rain across the floor, their fragments curling up, puffing out licks of smoke.
You all right, my boy? the personality enquired.
Dariat looked down at himself. The feeble yellow glow from Tolton’s remaining lightstick showed his spectral body unchanged. Though possibly more translucent than usual. He still felt terribly weak. I think so. I’m bloody cold, though.
Could have been worse.
Yeah. Dariat felt the personality’s major routines withdrawing from the starscraper. The lights were going off again in the upper floors, autonomic bitek functions shutting down.
He struggled to his knees, shivering intensely. When he looked round he could see ice encrusted on every surface, turning the bar into an arctic grotto. The electrical discharge had melted very little of it. That was probably what had saved them; it was several centimetres thick over the window. And the fracture pattern in the glass underneath was unnervingly pronounced.
Tolton was spasming on the floor, spittle flecking his lips. His hair was rimed with frost. Each shallow panted breath was revealed in a cloud of white vapour.
“Shit.” Dariat staggered over to him. Just in time he remembered not to try and touch the tormented body. Get a medical team down here.
Oh yeah. I’ll get right on it. They should be with you in about three hours.
Shit. He knelt down next to Tolton, and leaned right over, staring into delirious eyes. “Hey.” Limpid fingers clicked right in front of Tolton’s nose. “Hey. Tolton. Can you hear me? Try and steady your breathing. Take a deep breath. Come on! You’ve got to calm your body down. Breathe.”
Tolton’s teeth chittered. He gurgled, cheeks bulging.
“That’s it. Come on. Breathe. Deep. Suck that air down. Please.”
The street poet’s lips compressed slightly, making a whistling sound.
“Good. Good. And again. Come on.”
It took several minutes for Tolton’s bucking to subside. His erratic breathing reduced to sharp gasps. “Cold,” he grunted.
Dariat smiled down at him. “Ho boy. You had me worried there. We really don’t need any more ghosts floating around in here right now.”
“Heart. My heart. God! I thought . . .”
“It’s okay. It’s over.”
Tolton nodded roughly, and tried to lever himself up.
“Stop! You just lie there for another minute longer. There’s no paramedic service any more, remember? First thing we need is some proper food for you. I think there’s a restaurant on this floor.”
“No way. As soon as I can get up, we’re leaving. No more starscrapers.” Tolton coughed, and started to glance round. “Jesus.” He scowled. “Are we safe?”
“Sure. For now, anyway.”
“Did we kill it?”
Dariat grimaced. “Not exactly, no. But we gave it a hell of a fright.”
“That lightning bolt didn’t kill it?”
“No. It flew off, though.”
“Shit. I nearly died.”
“Yeah. But you didn’t. Concentrate on that.”
Tolton slowly eased himself into a sitting position, wincing at each tiny movement. Once he was propped up against a table leg, he reached out and caressed the ice which was engulfing a chair, fingers stroking curiously. He gave Dariat a grim look with badly bloodshot eyes. “This isn’t going to have a happy ending, is it?”
* * *
The seven hellhawks glided in towards Monterey, acknowledging the query from the SD network defence as the sensors locked on.
The Sevilla SD network was a hell of a lot stronger than anything we were briefed about, they told Jull von Holger, when he asked how the mission had gone. Seven frigates were lost, and we’re all that’s left of our squadron.
Did the infiltration succeed?
We think over a hundred got through.
Excellent.
Neither side said anything more. Jull von Holger could sense the quiet rage of the surviving hellhawks. He chose not to mention the fact to Emmet Mordden; the hellhawks were all Kiera’s problem.
Go straight to the docking ledges, Hudson Proctor told the hellhawks. We’ve already cleared the pedestals. You’ll be fed as soon as you land. He focused on Kiera’s face. She smiled her brightest ingénue smile, pouring as much gratitude into her thoughts as possible for her deputy to relay. “Well done. I know it’s not easy, but believe me there won’t be many more of these ridiculous seeding missions.” She arched an eyebrow in query to Hudson. “Was there a reply?”
He coloured slightly at the emotional backlash to her little speech that flooded the affinity band. “No. They’re pretty tired.”
“I understand.” Her sweet expression hardened. “End your contact.”
Hudson Proctor nodded curtly, signalling it had been done.
“You hope there ain’t going to be many more seeding flights, you mean,” Luigi said indolently.
The three of them were sitting in one of the smaller, more private lounges above the asteroid’s docking ledges, waiting for the last member of their group to arrive. Kiera’s small revolution had picked up a respectable degree of momentum over the last ten days. The success of the seeding flights had bolstered Al’s popularity and authority considerably. But that triumph came with a high price in terms of starships, and quite a few people were starting to acknowledge that the infiltration campaign was short-termism. Slowly, quietly, Kiera had exploited that. Being able to see the dissatisfaction and worry in people’s minds gave her a handy advantage when it came to spotting potential recruits.
Silvano Richmann came in and took his seat around the coffee table. There was a cluster of bottles in the centre, he poured himself a shot of whisky.
“The Sevilla flotilla is back,” Kiera told him. “Seven frigates and five hellhawks got zapped.”
“Fuck.” Silvano shook his head in dismay. “Al’s putting together another fifteen of these missions. He just doesn’t see it.”
“He sees it the way he wants to see it,” Kiera said. “They’re successful in that they’re landing infiltrators each time. The Confederation is going apeshit. We’re knocking off five of their planets a day. It buys him complete respect and loyalty with the Organization down on the planet.”
“While my fleet gets chopped to shit,” Luigi snapped. “That goddamn whore Jezzibella. She’s got him by the balls.”
“Not just your fleet,” Kiera said. “I’m losing hellhawks fast. Much more of this, and they’ll leave.”
“Where to?” Silvano asked. “They’ve got to stick with you. That was a neat sting you pulled on them with the food.”
“The Edenists keep making offers to try and lure them away,” Hudson said. “Etchells keeps us informed. The latest offer is that they’ll actually accept the blackhawk host personality into their habitat neural strata, leaving our guys as the only soul in there. In exchange they get all the food they want, providing they just cooperate with the Edenists, help them find out about our powers.”
“Shit,” Silvano muttered. “We gotta stop this. I’d be mighty tempted by any offer that got rid of this body’s host soul.”
“Wouldn’t we all,” Kiera said. She sat back and sipped at her wine. “Okay, the question is, how far are you prepared to go?”
“Pretty goddamn obvious for me,” Luigi said. “I’ll waste that shit Capone myself. Busting me down to a fucking errand boy. Nobody could have handled Tranquillity any different.”
“Silvano?”
“He’s got to go. But there’s one condition for me signing up with you. And it ain’t negotiable.”
“What’s that?�
�� Kiera asked, though she was fairly sure she knew. Silvano was feared as Al’s chief enforcer, but he did have one major difference with his boss.
“After we do this, there are no more non-possessed in the Organization. We take them all out. Understood?”
“Suits me,” Kiera said.
“No way!” Luigi shouted. “I can’t run my fucking fleet with just possessed crews. You know that. You’re shitting on me here, man.”
“Yeah? Who says there’s going to be a fucking fleet after this. Right, Kiera? We’re doing this for our own safety. We’re going to take New California out of here; out of this universe. Just like all the other possessed have done. And for that, we can’t afford no non-possessed to be around. Come on, Luigi, you know that. As long as there’s one of them left, they’re going to be plotting and scheming how to get rid of us. For Christ’s sake. We steal their bodies from them. If you was alive right now, you wouldn’t give jack shit about anything else other than getting them back from us.” He slammed his tumbler back down on the table. “We eliminate all the non-possessed, or there’s no deal.”
“Then there’s no fucking deal,” Luigi stormed.
Kiera held up her hands. “Boys, boys, this is how Al wins. You ever heard of divide and rule? All of us have different interests, and the only way we can hang on to them is if we’re part of the Organization. Only the Organization needs a fleet, and hellhawks, and lieutenants that have to be kept in line.” She shot Silvano a significant look. “He’s made it complicated so that we have to support him to keep our own places. What we’ve got to do is dismantle the Organization, but rig whatever’s next so that we three come out on top.”
“Like what?” Luigi asked suspiciously.
“Okay, you want the fleet back, right? Tell me why?”
“Because it’s fucking mine, you dumb broad. I built that fleet up from nothing. I was here right from the start, the day Al walked into San Angeles City Hall.”
“Fair enough. But all the fleet did was make you a player. Do you really want to risk flying to Confederation planets and going up against their SD networks? They’re getting wise to us now. These seeding flights are pissing them off bad. They’re killing us out there, Luigi.”
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 301
