A Night Without Stars

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Florian!’ Chaing shouted furiously. The PSR captain started to run forwards.

  Ry saw Florian thrust his hand out. A slender incandescent beam stabbed out from his dripping wrist and a big walwallow branch crashed down in front of Chaing, who had to fling himself out of the way.

  Florian looked round wildly. Ry was close enough to see the desperation in his face. The rest of the PSR officers started to move. It was like watching the start of an avalanche.

  ‘Need a lift?’ Ry sent across the general band.

  Florian and the girl turned to gape at him, and Ry smiled in mad exhilaration as he slung a leg over the tuk-tuk saddle and twisted the throttle. The little machine zoomed out into Midville Avenue and skidded round beside the fugitives. Behind him, the PSR officers were shouting in anger, pelting forwards en masse.

  ‘Zap more trees,’ Ry yelled.

  Three white beams flashed out simultaneously. Then three more. Branches smashed down, forcing the officers to scatter for safety.

  Florian lifted the girl onto the tuk-tuk behind Ry. She groaned in distress as she flopped against Ry’s back. He could feel her whole body shaking. Then Florian was clinging to Ry, sandwiching the girl between them.

  ‘Hold tight!’ Ry gunned the throttle, sending the tuk-tuk angling across the road. There were gunshots behind. A bullet thudded into a walwallow trunk as they flashed past it, bumping up the kerb and slaloming along the pavement. Ry jerked the handlebars hard, and they careered down an alley, more bullets slamming into the wall behind them. He turned again, then they were racing down one of the back roads, bursting out onto Tolsune Road with its busy traffic. A sheriff car swerved to avoid them, horn blaring. Ry could hear its brakes squealing.

  ‘Take it out,’ he yelled.

  Florian raised his arm, and the beam punched through the sheriff car’s bonnet as it was in the middle of a U-turn.

  ‘Where to?’ Ry called out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Florian replied. ‘Everyone’s hunting us. And who are you?’

  ‘Ry Evine. Ex-astronaut. Pleased to meet you. I followed the alien spaceship here.’

  ‘Crudding Uracus,’ Florian grunted.

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Essie. She’s from the Commonwealth, I think. Sort of.’

  Vindication was the sweetest ever feeling, Ry decided. ‘Is there a plan?’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  Behind the tuk-tuk, the sirens were getting louder. With the wind blasting Ry’s face, the little machine felt as fast as a Silver Sword burning into orbit. Poor illusion, Ry thought; in truth, any sheriff car could catch it easily. And every sheriff car in the city was about to attempt just that.

  Then the strongest link transmission he’d ever known broadcast a signal right into Ry’s macrocellular clusters.

  ‘Talk about upsetting a warren of mad bussalores,’ the general link announced. ‘You three have the city’s entire sheriff department heading your way.’

  ‘Who is this?’ Ry and Florian demanded together.

  ‘The one person who can help you. Here.’

  A file downloaded into Ry’s storage lacuna. It opened into his exovision, displaying a map.

  ‘Head for Hawley Docks. I’m waiting there. And hurry. I’m listening to some very aggravated radio chatter.’

  Ry studied the map. Hawley Docks was barely a kilometre away, a tiny green icon winking at one end of it. Red route-guidance lines sprang out from their current position, snaking their way through the streets to it. His mirror showed him a sheriff car streaking out of a side road and curving round in pursuit. ‘Do I go for it?’ he asked Florian.

  ‘There’s nothing else.’

  Ry dodged round some cars, ignoring the blast from their horns. Tuk-tuk drivers glared at him as he weaved through them. Pedestrians were stopping to stare. Flashing red and blue lights filled the tuk-tuk’s wing mirrors as more sheriff cars joined the pursuit.

  The route guidance led them off Tolsune Road, into Marine Drive. Ry followed it loyally. Marine Drive was the original thoroughfare to Hawley Docks, a wide road with rusting tramlines running down the centre. Old merchant offices and warehouses loomed up on both sides, their windows boarded up, grass and long woody weeds sprouting from clogged gutters.

  And it was completely deserted. The sheriff cars seized the moment and surged forwards.

  ‘Pull over,’ a tannoy-boosted voice demanded over the howling sirens.

  Two sheriff cars drew level with the tuk-tuk. Ry tried to turn the throttle further, but it was already fully open. The cars actually began to pull ahead. He knew what was coming next: they’d box him in.

  Florian shot the rear tyre out of the one on the left. It veered sharply and began a skid. Then the other car was slowing. Ry could see the anger on the driver’s face.

  A hundred and fifty metres ahead, a tall chain-link fence had been thrown across Marine Drive, sealing off the disused Hawley Docks. Sturdy gates in the middle were closed, a heavy padlocked chain holding them secure.

  ‘Florian,’ Ry shouted. ‘Gates!’

  The beam took out the chain and padlock.

  Ry couldn’t help it – he actually closed his eyes as the tuk-tuk smashed into the gates. He heard the front tyre blow, and the handlebars were almost ripped from his grasp. The tuk-tuk wobbled forwards on its bent wheel as the gates were shoved aside, and he regained control, throttling back drastically. His body was being shaken so violently he was worried he was going to fall off.

  ‘What now?’ he broadcast into the general link band.

  ‘I see you,’ the stranger replied. ‘Keep going.’

  The exovision map showed him the green icon, two hundred metres ahead. He looked up. A pair of big cranes stood at the end of wharf three, their rusting arms drooping. The icon marked a spot between them.

  A procession of sheriff cars poured through the open gates and spread out to form a line. They slowed, keeping level with each other to follow the damaged tuk-tuk as if herding an injured animal.

  Cracked concrete and tufts of grass continued to punish the tuk-tuk as Ry drove it to the end of wharf three. He braked four metres from the edge, exactly where the icon glowed in his exovision.

  In front of him and ten metres below, the deep muddy waters of the river Crisp flowed past wharf three. Yigulls flapped languidly overhead, squawking in complaint at their usual peace being wrecked by the massive intrusion of sheriff cars.

  ‘But there’s nothing here,’ Florian said.

  *

  Jenifa drove. Chaing didn’t complain about that; his cast meant he wasn’t able. But he did want to shout at her to drive faster, despite how unfair that was. Wind shrieked through the Cubar. Bullets and the explosion had taken out all the glass; he seemed to be sitting on half of the shards. The front left tyre was getting progressively flatter, and something had happened to the stalwart engine. It was misfiring constantly, sending sooty smoke belching from the exhaust.

  Despite all that, she kept her nerve, steering perfectly round the traffic that had stalled in the wake of the pursuit, even overtaking a couple of the sheriff cars as they turned into Marine Drive.

  Up ahead, the white beam weapon struck the gates.

  Chaing thumbed the button on his microphone. ‘We’ve got him; there’s no way out of the docks. Spread out and block him. Don’t overtake, just corner him. And don’t get too close.’

  They drove into Hawley Docks and joined the rank of sheriff cars advancing along wharf three. He watched the juddering tuk-tuk come to a halt between the two rusting cranes.

  ‘Stop here,’ he ordered. ‘Cover the targets. Do not shoot. Repeat, do not shoot. They are to be taken alive.’

  Jenifa stopped the Cubar. Chaing climbed out. On either side, sheriffs were crouching behind their cars, aiming pistols, carbines, and shotguns on their trapped quarry sixty metres ahead. A second batch of patrol cars halted behind the first; more guns were lined up.

  ‘Make crudding sure no one gets over-excited,
’ he instructed Jenifa.

  ‘Got it.’

  He turned to face Florian and held his good arm up. ‘I’m coming over,’ he announced clearly. ‘Unarmed. I only want to talk.’

  Very conscious of just how many guns were deployed behind him, he walked slowly forwards. Ry Evine was standing beside the tuk-tuk. The little Commonwealth girl was slumped in the saddle, with Florian holding her.

  ‘It’s finished,’ Chaing said. ‘You understand that, don’t you?’ He kept walking, only fifty metres short of them now. ‘That’s an amazing weapon you have, Florian, but look what you’re facing. And I’ve got reinforcements coming. I can bring the whole crudding Opole Regiment down here, if that’s what it takes. So why don’t you just come with me? Nobody’s going to hurt you. You have my word on that.’

  Forty metres. Close enough to see the anguish and uncertainty on Florian’s grimy face.

  Chaing smiled. ‘Come on. What do you say?’

  The Warrior Angel rose up from nowhere at the end of wharf three and stepped onto the decrepit concrete. Dark leather coat open to flutter behind her in the breeze, hat at an angle. Exactly the same as she’d appeared at Xander Manor. Long red hair rippled gently as she walked towards the three startled fugitives.

  ‘I say they’re with me, captain,’ she said.

  Chaing whirled round to face the shaken sheriffs. ‘Hold your fire,’ he demanded. The memory of the Warrior Angel’s weapons, the slaughter she could unleash, was chilling him to the bone. And the sheriffs were abruptly, shockingly confronted with the nemesis of myth. It would only take one petrified, trigger-happy kid . . . ‘Do not shoot. Put your weapons down. Down! Now!’

  And Jenifa was shouting, too. Ordering them to stand down.

  Chaing turned back to face the Warrior Angel. ‘What’s happening?’ he implored.

  She was going to talk to him, to explain, he was sure of it. Then he saw her frown, her face hardening. He followed her gaze and saw two sheriffs lifting a long tube out of their patrol car’s boot. Bazooka! ‘No!’ he yelled, and started to run. ‘No, no! Stand down. Do not fire!’ Other sheriffs were turning to stare. Jenifa was yelling at the two mavericks. But Chaing could see they weren’t listening, faces rigid with determination. One of them knelt, the bazooka resting on his shoulder – levelling it at the Warrior Angel.

  ‘No!’

  The bazooka fired. Chaing saw the explosion bloom. It surged wide across an invisible wall that materialized round the tuk-tuk, flame and thick black smoke churning ineffectually three metres away from a cowering Florian.

  It was strange. He witnessed the whole scene unfolding, but there was no sound. He was flying back through the air, arms and legs flailing, yet he felt nothing. Then the ground descended on him, and there was only blackness.

  *

  Glass from the windscreens of the patrol cars shattered in a blizzard of shards. Jenifa was knocked off her feet by the blast as the tiny crystalline splinters scythed through the air. Several of them sliced through her uniform to slash her skin.

  A mushroom of flame and smoke surged up into the sky where the bazooka shell had detonated. She squinted, trying to bring the world back into focus. The Warrior Angel was carrying the girl, while Florian was leaning on Ry Evine for support. They walked to the end of wharf three and jumped off.

  Jenifa groaned. Every part of her ached. Her ears were ringing painfully. Around her, sheriffs were clambering to their feet. She blinked, seeing Chaing’s prone body lying on the concrete. His left leg was bent at an impossible angle. ‘Oh great Giu,’ she moaned, and slowly stood up.

  ‘We need an ambulance,’ she announced, but no one paid any attention.

  Angry, frightened shouting broke out. She turned, seeing the sheriff who was still holding the bazooka. The glass swarm had cut his face, leaving blood to run down his cheek. Blue blood.

  Jenifa snatched her pistol up and started firing – her and ten other sheriffs, pulling the trigger again and again and again until the pistol was empty. The two Fallers bucked and juddered as the bullets ripped into them, then toppled to the ground. Sheriffs gathered round, pistols pointing down at the dead bodies, still cautious. Everybody was looking round, hunting for anyone else with blue blood leaking from a cut.

  Jenifa hurried over to Chaing. A bone was sticking up out of his left leg, just above the knee, but he was still breathing. Medic-trained sheriffs arrived and started to sort out the leg. An ambulance was on its way, they assured her.

  When she looked round she saw the abandoned tuk-tuk, completely unharmed by the bazooka. She walked to the end of wharf three, and peered over where she’d seen the Warrior Angel disappear.

  There was nothing there, no boat, nobody swimming. Just the calm brown water of the Crisp flowing smoothly past the disused docks. ‘Impossible,’ she whispered.

  *

  The submarine’s cabin was small, about the same size as the inside of a car, but with much more elaborate chairs. Florian sat in one, looking round with a goofy, delighted smile lifting his lips. A submarine! The Warrior Angel! Great Giu, Essie will finally be safe.

  The Warrior Angel was bending over Essie, applying a small green hemisphere to the side of her neck. Essie let out a long sigh of relief.

  ‘Thank you,’ Florian said. ‘For everything.’

  The Warrior Angel turned to him. ‘I think that ankle of yours could do with some medical help, too. And then a shower – big priority for you there.’

  He smiled shyly. ‘Yes, but don’t worry about me. I know how to operate a medical kit.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The space machine gave me copies of all its files when it asked me to protect Essie.’

  ‘So, let me get this straight. A Commonwealth spaceship just dropped out of the sky one day and asked you for help?’

  ‘Um, well . . . Yes.’

  ‘Ha! I had a day like that myself, once. Long time ago.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yep.’ She winked and dropped a medical kit box on his lap – a larger version of the one the space machine had given him. ‘I’ll leave it to your expertise, then, while I concentrate on getting us out of here.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Ry Evine asked.

  ‘Port Chana,’ the Warrior Angel told him. ‘You’ll be perfectly safe there with me.’

  Florian stuck a diagnostic pad on his badly swollen ankle. Even that featherlight touch was painful. Results zipped across his exovision. He selected a series of treatments for the medical kit to produce. ‘Essie, sweetheart, how are you doing?’

  Essie gave him a sad little smile. She reached up and slowly peeled the shrivelled memory organ from the side of her head. It left a nasty-looking weal on her skin. ‘I’m sorry, Florian. I know you meant well, but that’s not actually my name.’

  ‘Oh. What is your name, then?’

  ‘Paula Myo.’

  BOOK FIVE

  Safe Haven

  1

  For three thousand years it had been called Walton Boulevard – a wide, straight thoroughfare in the centre of Varlan, stretching from Bromwell Park all the way up the incline to the Captain’s Palace. Although the capital’s later residents had long forgotten its origin, it followed the giant furrow which the Vermillion had ploughed upon its chaotic landing. Big ten-storey government buildings flanked the broad road, each with their own neat skirt of grass and trees.

  That was two and a half centuries ago. The statues and fountains that had once graced most of the intersections had been taken away after they’d been smashed and defaced during Slvasta’s revolution. They’d never been replaced, thus allowing the new democratic city council to run modern tramlines straight and true up the centre of the cobbles of what was now Bryan-Anthony Boulevard – named after some forgotten hero of the revolution.

  Stonal watched the long burgundy-coloured tram carriages slide past as his official armoured Zikker limousine drove up Bryan-Anthony Boulevard’s gentle slope, leading a convoy of unmarked PSR cars, f
ive Varlan Regiment troop carriers, and two big regiment lorries. The passengers inside the tram barely glanced through the long grimy windows at the government vehicles as they passed.

  Typical of the capital’s citizens, he thought. Stoic and jaded. Government officials are always racing round on some important mission. Who cares? Nothing changes. Life goes on. He gave the bovine tram passengers a disgruntled sigh. If only you knew.

  A glance in the Zikker’s wide wing mirror confirmed the lorry carrying the Commonwealth space machine was still moving. That was a mild surprise. He had no idea of the thing’s capabilities, but he was fairly sure that if it wanted to stop the lorry, it could. He’d spent the plane journey from Opole in a numb fear, thinking they would tumble out of the sky at any moment. The Air Defence Force people had thought him mad when he insisted they give him a parachute, which spent the whole flight on the seat next to him. Stonal ignored their poorly concealed amusement at his paranoia. In his profession, you didn’t live to a hundred and thirty-two if you didn’t possess a very healthy suspicion, coupled with an exceptional political aptitude.

  The Zikker arrived at the colossal People’s Palace. Before the revolution, the wide parade ground in front of the palace had been protected by a fence of tall iron railings, allowing tourists and Varlan residents alike to watch the spectacle of ceremonial Palace Guards dressed in their splendid uniforms marching with amazing precision between their posts. Those rails were gone now, replaced by a thick four-metre-high wall. Steel-reinforced gates opened to allow the convoy through.

  They drove through a huge archway in the palace’s facade to the main courtyard, then under another archway to the smaller rose courtyard. The Zikker stopped there, while the lorry slowly backed down a cobbled ramp to a set of open wooden doors and disappeared inside.

  Stonal walked down the ramp to the old stables. Faustina was already waiting there at the head of a small team of assistants. The chief scientist of Section Seven’s advanced research division was a hundred and fifty-four years old, but still quite sprightly. Thinning white hair was styled to resemble a tight beret, framing heavily wrinkled porcelain skin that sagged around her broad features – an appearance that too many mistakenly believed reflected an equally declining intellect. Her eyes were gazing at the back of the lorry, more alert than any twenty-year-old.