Jay Hilton was sound asleep when every electrophorescent strip in the paediatric ward sprang
up to full intensity. The simple dream of her mother broke apart like
a stained glass statue shattered by a powerful gust of sharp white light;
colourful splinters tumbling off into the glare.


Jay blinked heavily against
the rush of light, raising her head in confusion. The familiar scenery
of the ward hardened around her. She felt so tired. It certainly wasn't
morning yet. A huge yawn forced her mouth open. All around her the other
children were waking up in bleary-eyed mystification. Holomorph stickers
began reacting to the light, translucent cartoon images rising up to perform
their mischievous antics. Animatic dolls cooed sympathetically as children
clutched at them for reassurance. Then the doors at the far end of the
ward slid open, and the nurses came hurrying in.


One look at the brittle smiles
on their faces was all Jay needed. Something was badly wrong. Her heart
shivered. Surely not the possessed? Not here?


The nurses began ushering
children out of their beds, and along the central aisle towards the doors.
Complaints and questions were firmly ignored.


"It's a fire drill," the senior
staff nurse called out. "Come along, quickly, now. I want you out of here
and into the lifts. Pronto. Pronto." He clapped his hands loudly.


Jay shoved the thin duvet
back, and scuttled down off the bed. Her long cotton nightie was tangled
round her knees, which took a moment to straighten. She was about to join
the others charging along the aisle when she caught the flickers of motion
and light outside the window. Every morning since she'd arrived, Jay had
sat in front of that window, gazing solemnly out at Mirchusko and its
giddy green cloudscape. She'd never seen speckles of light swarming out
there before.


Danger.

The silent mental word was
spoken so quickly Jay almost didn't catch it. Though the feel of Haile
was unmistakable. She looked round, expecting to see the Kiint ambling
down the aisle towards her. But there was only the rank of flustered nurses
propelling children along.


Knowing full well she wasn't
doing what she was supposed to, Jay padded over to the big window, and
pressed her nose against it. A slim band of tiny blue-white stars had
looped itself round Tranquillity. They were all moving, contracting around
the habitat. She could see now that they weren't really stars, they were
lengthening. Flames. Brilliant, tiny flames. Hundreds of them.


My friend. My
friend. Lifeloss anguish.


Now that was definitely Haile,
and intimating plenty of distress. Jay took a step back from the window,
seeing misty grey swirls where her face and hands had pressed against
it. "What's the matter?" she asked the empty air. A cascade of new flames
burst into existence outside the habitat. Expanding knots blossoming seemingly
at random across space. Jay gasped at the sight. There were thousands
of them, interlacing and expanding. It was so pretty.


Friend. Friend.

Evacuation procedure
initiated.


Jay frowned. The second mental
voice came as a faint echo. She thought it was one of the adult Kiint,
possibly Lieria. Jay had only encountered Haile's parents a few times.
They were awfully intimidating, though they'd been nice enough to her.



Designation.
Two.


No.

The adult responded forcefully. Forbidden.

Designation.

You may not,
child. Sorrow felt for all human suffering. But obedience required.

No. Friend. My
friend. Designation. Two. Confirmed.


Jay had never felt Haile so
determined before. It was kind of scary. "Please?" she asked nervously.
"What's happening?"


A torrent of light burst through
the window. It was if a sun had risen over Mirchusko's horizon. All of
space was alive with brilliant efflorescences.


The adult Kiint said: Evacuation
enacted.



Designated.

Jay felt a wash of guilty
triumph rushing out from her friend. She wanted to reach out and comfort
Haile, who she knew from the adult's reaction was in Big Trouble over
something. Instead, she concentrated on forming a beaming smile at the
heart of her own mind, hoping Haile would pick it up. Then the air around
her was crawling as if she was caught in a breeze.


"Jay!" one of the nurses called.
"Come along sweetie, you . . ."


The light around Jay was fading
fast, along with the sounds of the ward. She could just hear the nurse's
gasp of astonishment. The breeze abruptly turned into a small gale, whipping
her nightie around and making her bristly hair stand on end. Some kind
of grey fog was forming around her, a perfectly spherical bubble of the
stuff, with her at the centre. Except she couldn't feel any dampness in
the air. It darkened rapidly, reducing the ward to weak spectral outlines.
Then the boundary expanded at a speed so frightening that Jay screamed.
The boundary vanished, and with it any sign of the ward. She was alone
in space devoid of stars. And falling.


Jay put her hands to her head
and screamed again, as hard as she possibly could. It didn't put a stop
to any of the horror. She paused to suck down a huge breath. That was
when the boundary reappeared out on the edge of nowhere. Hurtling towards
her so fast from every direction that she knew the impact would squash
her flat. She jammed her eyes shut. "MUMMY!"


Something like a stiff feather
tickled the soles of her feet, and she was abruptly standing on solid
ground. Jay windmilled her arms for balance, pitching forward. She landed
hard on some kind of cool floor, her eyes still tight shut. The air she
gulped down was warmer than it had been in the ward, and a lot more humid.
Funny smell. Rosy light was playing over her eyelids.


Still crouched on all fours,
Jay risked a quick peep as she gathered herself to scream again. The sight
which greeted her was so incredible that the breath stalled in her throat.
"Oh gosh," was all she eventually managed to squeak.








Joshua initiated the ZTT jump
with little enthusiasm. His downcast mood was one which he shared with
all the Lady Mac's crew and passengers—at least, those who
weren't in zero-tau. To have achieved so much, only to have their final
triumph snatched away.


Except . . . Once the initial
shock of discovering that Tranquillity had vanished from its orbit had
subsided, he wasn't frightened. Not for Ione, or his child. Tranquillity
hadn't been destroyed, there was at least that comfort. Which logically
meant the habitat had been possessed and snatched out of the universe.



He didn't believe it.


But his intuition was hardly
infallible. Perhaps he simply didn't want to believe it. Tranquillity
was home. The emotional investment he had in the habitat and its precious
contents was enormous. Tell anyone that everything they ever treasured
has been erased, and the reaction is always the same. Whatever. His vacillation
made him as miserable as the rest of the ship, just for a different reason.



"Jump confirmed," he said.
"Samuel, you're on."


Lady Mac had jumped
into one of Trafalgar's designated emergence zones, a hundred thousand
kilometres above Avon. Her transponder was already blaring out her flight
authority codes. Somehow Joshua didn't think that would quite be enough.
Not when you barged in unexpected on the Confederation's primary military
base in the middle of a crisis like this one.


"I've got distortion fields
focusing on us," Dahybi said drolly. "Five of them, I think."


The flight computer alerted
Joshua that targeting radars were locking on to the hull. When he accessed
the sensors rising out of their recesses, he found three voidhawks and
two frigates on interception courses. Trafalgar's strategic defence command
was directing a barrage of questions at him. He glanced over at the Edenist
as he started to datavise a response. Samuel was lying prone on his acceleration
couch, eyes closed as he conversed with other Edenists in the asteroid.



Sarha grinned round phlegmatically.
"How many medals do you think they'll give us apiece?"


"Uh oh," Liol grunted. "However
many it is, we might be getting them posthumously. I think one of the
frigates has just realised our antimatter drive is ever so slightly highly
radioactive."


"Great," she grumbled.


Monica Foulkes didn't like
the sound of that; as far as the Confederation Navy was aware, it was
only Organization ships who were using antimatter. She hadn't wanted to
take Mzu back to Tranquillity, and she certainly hadn't wanted to wind
up at Trafalgar. But in the discussion which followed their discovery
of Tranquillity's disappearance, she didn't exactly have the casting vote.
The original agreement between herself and Samuel had just about disintegrated
when they rendezvoused with the Beezling.


Then Calvert had insisted
on the First Admiral being the final arbitrator of what was to be done
with Mzu, Adul, and himself. Samuel had agreed. And she couldn't produce
any rational argument against it. Silently, she acknowledged that maybe
the only true defence against more Alchemists being built was a unified
embargo covenant between the major powers. After all, such an agreement
almost worked for antimatter.


Not that such angst counted
for much right now. Like ninety per cent of her mission to date, the critical
deciding factor was outside her control. All she could do was stick close
to Mzu, and make sure the prime requirement of technology transfer wasn't
violated. Though by allowing it to be deployed against the Organization,
she'd probably screwed that up too. Her debrief was shaping up to be a
bitch.


Monica frowned over at Samuel,
who was still silent, his brow creased up in concentration. She added
a little prayer of her own to all the unheard babble of communication
whirling around Lady Mac for the Navy to exercise some enlightenment
and tolerance.


Trafalgar's strategic defence
command told Joshua to hold his attitude, but refused to grant any approach
vector until his status was established. The Navy's emergence zone patrol
ships approached to within a cautious hundred kilometres, and took up
a three-dimensional diamond observation formation. Targeting radars remained
locked on.


Admiral Lalwani herself talked
to Samuel, unable to restrain her incredulity as he explained what had
happened. Given that the Lady Macbeth contained not only Mzu and
others who understood the Alchemist's principals, but a quantity of antimatter
as well, the final decision on allowing the ship to dock belonged to the
First Admiral himself. It took twenty minutes to arrive, but Joshua eventually
received a flight vector from strategic defence command. They were allocated
a docking bay in the asteroid's northern spaceport.


"And Joshua," Samuel said
earnestly. "Don't deviate from it. Please."


Joshua winked, knowing it
was being seen by the hundreds of Edenists who were borrowing the agent's
eyes to monitor Lady Mac's bridge. "What, Lagrange Calvert, fly
off line?"


The flight to Trafalgar took
eighty minutes. The number of antimatter technology specialists waiting
for them in the docking bay was almost as great as the number of marines.
On top of that were a large complement of uniformed CNIS officers.


They weren't stormed, exactly.
No personal weapons were actually taken out of their holsters. Though
once the airlock tube was sealed and pressurized, Lady Mac's crew
had little to do except hand over the powerdown codes to a Navy maintenance
team. Zero-tau pods were opened, and the various bewildered occupants
Joshua had accumulated during his pursuit of the Alchemist were ushered
off the ship. After a very thorough body scan, the polite, steel-faced
CNIS officers escorted everyone to a secure barracks deep inside the asteroid.
Joshua wound up in a suite that would have done a four star hotel credit.
Ashly and Liol were sharing it with him.


"Well now," Liol said as the
door closed behind them. "Guilty of carrying antimatter, flung in prison
by secret police who've never heard of civil rights, and after we're dead,
Al Capone is going to invite us to have a quiet word." He opened the cherrywood
cocktail bar and smiled at the impressive selection of bottles inside.
"It can't get any worse."


"You forgot Tranquillity being
vanquished," Ashly chided. Liol waved a bottle in apology.


Joshua slumped down into a
soft black leather chair in the middle of the lounge. "It might not get
worse for you. Just remember, I know what the Alchemist does, and how.
They can't afford to let me go."


"You might know what it does,"
Ashly said. "But with respect, Captain, I don't think you would be much
help to anyone seeking the technical details necessary to construct another."



"One hint is all it takes,"
Joshua muttered. "One careless comment that'll point researchers in the
right direction."


"Stop worrying, Josh. The
Confederation passed that point a long time ago. Besides, the Navy owes
us big-time, and the Edenists, and the Kulu Kingdom. We pulled their arses
out of the fire. You'll fly Lady Mac again."


"Know what I'd do if I was
the First Admiral? Put me into a zero-tau pod for the rest of time."


"I won't let them do that
to my little brother."


Joshua put his hands behind
his head, and smiled up at Liol. "The second thing I'd do, would be to
put you in the pod next to mine."








Planets sparkled in the twilight
sky. Jay could see at least fifteen of them strung out along a curving
line. The nearest one appeared a bit smaller than Earth's moon. She thought
that was just because it was a long way off. In every other respect it
was similar to any of the Confederation's terracompatible planets, with
deep blue oceans and emerald continents, the whole globe wrapped in thick
tatters of white cloud. The only difference was the lights; cities larger
than some of Earth's old nations gleamed with magisterial splendour. Entire
weather patterns of cloud smeared across the nightside diffused the urban
radiance, soaking the oceans in a perpetual pearl gloaming.


Jay sat back on her heels,
staring up delightedly at the magical sky. A high wall ringed the area
she was in. She guessed that the line of planets extended beyond those
she could see, but the wall blocked her view of the horizon. A star with
a necklace of inhabited planets! Thousands would be needed to make up
such a circle. None of Jay's didactic memories about solar systems mentioned
one with so many planets, not even if you counted gas-giant moons.


Friend Jay. Safe.
Gleefulness at survival.


Jay blinked, and lowered her
gaze. Haile was trying to run towards her. As always when the baby Kiint
got over-excited her legs lost most of their coordination. She came very
close to tripping with every other step. The sight of her lolloping about
chaotically made Jay smile. It faded as she began to take in the scene
behind her friend.


She was in some kind of circular
arena two hundred metres across, with an ebony marble-like floor. The
wall surrounding it was thirty metres high, sealed with a transparent
dome. There were horizontal gashes at regular intervals along the vertical
surface, windows into brightly lit rooms that seemed to be furnished with
large cubes of primary colours. Adult Kiint were moving round inside,
although an awful lot of them had stopped what they were doing to look
directly at her.


Haile thundered up; half-formed
tractamorphic tentacles waving round excitedly. Jay grabbed on to a couple
of them, feeling them palpitate wildly inside her fingers.


"Haile! Was that you who did
this?"


Two adult Kiint were walking
across the arena floor towards her. Jay recognized them as Nang and Lieria.
Beyond them, a black star erupted out of thin air. In less than a heartbeat
it had expanded to a sphere fifteen metres in diameter, its lower quarter
merging with the floor. The surface immediately dissolved to reveal another
adult Kiint. Jay stared at the process in fascination. A ZTT jump, but
without a starship. She focused hard on her primer-level didactic memory
of the Kiint.


I did,
Haile
confessed. Her tractamorphic flesh writhed in agitation, so Jay just squeezed
tighter, offering reassurance. Only us were designated
to evacuate the all around at lifeloss moment. I included you in designation,
against parental proscription. Much shame. Puzzlement.
Haile
turned her head to face her parents. Query lifeloss
act approval? Many nice friends in the all around.



We do not approve.

Jay flicked a nervous gaze
at the two adults, and pressed herself closer against Haile. Nang formshifted
his tractamorphic appendage into a flat tentacle, which he laid across
his daughter's back. The juvenile Kiint visibly calmed at the gesture
of affection. Jay thought there was a mental exchange of some kind involved,
too, sensing a hint of compassion and serenity.


Why did we not
help?
Haile asked.



We must never
interfere in the primary events of other species during their evolution
towards Omega comprehension. You must learn and obey this law above all
else. However, it does not prevent us from grieving at their tragedy.

Jay felt the last bit was
included for her benefit. "Don't be angry with Haile," she said solemnly.
"I would have done the same for her. And I didn't want to die."


Lieria reached out a tentacle
tip, and touched Jay's shoulder. I thank you for the
friendship you have shown Haile. In our hearts we are glad you are with
us, for you will be completely safe here. I am sorry we could not do more
for your friends. But our law cannot be broken.



A sudden sensation of bleak
horror threatened to engulf Jay. "Did Tranquillity really get blown up?"
she wailed.


We do not know.
It was under a concerted attack when we left. However, Ione Saldana may
have surrendered. There is a high possibility the habitat and its population
survived.


"We left," Jay whispered wondrously
to herself. There were eight adult Kiint standing on the arena floor now,
all the researchers from Tranquillity's Laymil project. "Where are we?"
She glanced up at the dusky sky again, and that awesome constellation.



This is our home
star system. You are the first true human to visit.


"But . . ." Flashes of didactic
memory tumbled through her brain. She looked up at those enticing, bright
planets again. "This isn't Jobis."


Nang and Lieria looked at
each other in what was almost an awkward pause.


No, Jobis is
just one of our science mission outposts. It is not in this galaxy.

Jay burst into tears.








Right from the start of the
possession crisis the Jovian Consensus had acknowledged that it was a
prime target. Its colossal industrial facilities were inevitably destined
to produce a torrent of munitions, bolstering the reserve stocks of Adamist
navies which thanks to budgetary considerations were not all they should
be. The response of the Yosemite Consensus to the Capone Organization
had already shown what Edenism was capable of achieving along those lines,
and that was with a mere thirty habitats. Jupiter had the resources of
four thousand two hundred and fifty at its disposal.


Requests for materiel support
started almost as soon as Trafalgar issued its first warning about the
nature of the threat which the Confederation was facing. Ambassadors requested
and pleaded and called in every favour they thought Edenism owed them
to secure a place in production schedules. Payment for the weapons involved
loan agreements and fuseodollar transfers on a scale which could have
purchased entire stage four star systems.


On top of that, it was Edenism
which was providing the critical support for the Mortonridge Liberation
in the form of serjeant constructs to act as foot soldiers. It was the
one utterly pivotal psychological campaign waged against the possessed,
proving to the Confederation at large that they could be beaten.


Fortunately, the practical
aspects of assaulting one or more habitats were extremely difficult. Jupiter
already had a superb Strategic Defence network; and among the possessed
only the Organization had a fleet which could hope to mount any sort of
large-scale offensive, and the distance between Earth and New California
almost certainly precluded that. However, the possibility of a lone ship
carrying antimatter on a fanatical suicide flight was a strong one. And
then there was the remote possibility that Capone would acquire the Alchemist
and use it against them.


Although Consensus didn't
know how the doomsday device worked, a ship certainly had to jump in to
deploy it, which in theory gave the Edenists an interception window to
destroy the device before it was deployed. Preparations to solidify their
defences had begun immediately. Fully one third of the armaments coming
out of the industrial stations were incorporated into a massively expanded
SD architecture. The 550,000-km orbital band containing the habitats was
the most heavily protected, with the number of SD platforms doubled, and
seeded with seven hundred thousand combat wasps to act as mines. A further
million combat wasps were arranged in concentric shells around the massive
planet out to the orbit of Callisto. Flotillas of multi-spectrum sensor
satellites were dispersed among them, searching for any anomaly, however
small, which pricked the potent energy storms churning through space around
the gas-giant.


Over fifteen thousand heavily
armed patrol voidhawks complemented the static defences; circling the
volatile cloudscape in elliptical, high-inclination orbits, ready to interdict
any remotely suspicious incoming molecule. The fact that so many voidhawks
had been taken off civil cargo flights was actually causing a tiny rise
in the price of He3, the first for over two hundred and sixty years.


Consensus considered the economic
repercussions to be a worthwhile trade for the security such invulnerable
defences provided. No ship, robot, or inert kinetic projectile could get
within three million kilometres of Jupiter unless specifically permitted
to do so.


Even a lone maniac would acknowledge
an attempted attack would be the ultimate in futility.








The gravity fluctuation which
appeared five hundred and sixty thousand kilometres above Jupiter's equator
was detected instantaneously. It registered as an inordinately powerful
twist of space-time in the distortion fields of the closest three hundred
voidhawks. The intensity was so great that the gravitonic detectors in
local SD sensor array had to be hurriedly recalibrated in order to acquire
an accurate fix. Visually it appeared as a ruby star, the gravity field
lensing Jupiter's light in every direction. Surrounding dust motes and
solar wind particles were sucked in, a cascade of pico-meteorites fizzing
brilliant yellow.


Consensus went to condition
one alert status. The sheer strength of the space warp ruled out any conventional
starship emergence. And the location was provocatively close to the habitats,
a hundred thousand kilometres from the nearest designated emergence zone.
Affinity commands from Consensus were loaded into the combat wasps drifting
inertly among the habitats. Three thousand fusion drives flared briefly,
aligning the lethal drones on their new target. The patrol voidhawks formed
a sub-Consensus of their own, designating approach vectors and swallow
manoeuvres to englobe the invader.


The warp area expanded out
to several hundred metres, alarming individual Edenists, though Consensus
itself absorbed the fact calmly. It was already far larger than any conceivable
voidhawk or blackhawk wormhole terminus. Then it began to flatten out
into a perfectly circular two-dimensional fissure in space-time, and the
real expansion sequence began. Within five seconds it was over eleven
kilometres in diameter. Consensus quickly and concisely reformed its response
pattern. Approaching voidhawks performed frantic fifteen-gee parabolas,
curving clear then swallowing away. An extra eight thousand combat wasps
burst into life, hurtling in towards the Herculean alien menace.


After another three seconds
the fissure reached twenty kilometres in diameter, and stabilized. One
side collapsed inwards, exposing the wormhole's throat. Three small specks
zoomed out of the centre. Oenone and the other two voidhawks screamed
their identity into the general affinity band, and implored: HOLD
YOUR FIRE!



For the first time in its
five hundred and twenty-one year history, the Jovian Consensus experienced
the emotion of shock. Even then, its response wasn't entirely blunted.
Specialist perceptual thought routines confirmed the three voidhawks remained
unpossessed. A five second lockdown was loaded into the combat wasps.



What is happening?

Consensus demanded.


Syrinx simply couldn't resist
it. We have a visitor,
she replied gleefully.
Her entire crew was laughing cheerfully around her on the bridge.


The counter-rotating spaceport
was the first part to emerge from the gigantic wormhole terminus. A silver-white
disk four and a half kilometres in diameter, docking bay lights glittering
like small towns huddled at the base of metal valleys, red and green strobes
winking bright around the rim. Its slender spindle slid up after it, appearing
to pull the dark rust-red polyp endcap along.


That was when the other starships
began to rampage out of the terminus; voidhawks, blackhawks, and Confederation
Navy vessels streaking off in all directions. Jupiter's SD sensors and
patrol voidhawk distortion fields tracked them urgently. Consensus fired
guidance updates at the incoming combat wasps, determinedly vectoring
them away from the unruly incursion.


The habitat's main cylinder
started to coast up out of the terminus, a prodigious seventeen kilometres
in diameter. After the first thirty-two kilometres were clear, its central
band of starscrapers emerged, hundreds of thousands of windows agleam
with the radiance of lazy afternoon sunlight. Their bases just cleared
the rim of the wormhole. There were no more starships to come after that,
only the rest of the cylinder. When the emergence was complete, the wormhole
irised shut and space returned to its natural state. The flotilla of patrol
voidhawks thronging round detected a capacious distortion field folding
back into the broad collar of polyp around the base of the habitat's southern
endcap that formed the bed of its circumfluous sea.


Consensus directed a phenomenally
restrained burst of curiosity at the newcomer.


Greetings,

chorused Tranquillity and Ione Saldana. There was a distinct timbre of
smugness in the hail.








Dariat did the one thing which
he had never expected to do again. He opened his eyes and looked around.
His own eyes in his own body; fat unpleasant thing that it was, clad in
his usual grubby toga.


The sight which greeted him
was familiar: one of Valisk's innumerable shallow valleys out among the
pink grass plains. If he wasn't completely mistaken, it was the same patch
of ground Anastasia's tribe had occupied the day she died.


"This is the final afterlife?"
he asked aloud.


It couldn't be. There was
an elusive memory, the same befuddlement as a dream leaves upon waking.
Of a sundering, of being torn out of . . .


He had fused with Rubra, the
two of them becoming one, vanquishing the foe by shunting Valisk to a
realm, or dimension, or state, that the two of them grasped was intrinsically
adverse to the possessing souls. Perhaps they had even created the new
location by simply willing it to be. And then time went awry.


He gave his surroundings a
more considered examination. It was Valisk, all right. The circumfluous
sea was about four kilometres away, its clusters of atolls easily recognizable.
When he turned the other way, he could see a fat black scar running down
two thirds of the northern endcap.


The light tube was dimmer
than it should be, even accounting for the loss of some plasma. It proffered
a kind of twilight, but grey rather than the magnificent golden sunset
Dariat had experienced every day of his life. The grass plain echoed that
malaised atmosphere, it was uneasily torpid. Its resident insects had
curled up into dormancy; birds and rodents slunk back reticently to their
nests, even the flowers had shrugged off their natural gloss.


Dariat bent down to pick an
enervated poppy. And his chubby hand passed clean through the stem. He
stared at it in astonishment, for the first time seeing that he was faintly
translucent.


Shock finally liberated comprehension.
A location hostile to possessors, one which would exorcise them from their
enslaved hosts, denying them their energistic power. That was the destination
he and Rubra had committed the habitat to.


"Oh, Thoale, you utter bastard.
I'm a ghost."








For nearly ten hours the lift
capsule had skimmed down the tower linking Supra-Brazil asteroid with
the Govcentral state after which it was named, a smooth, silent ride.
The only clue to how fast the lift capsules travelled (three thousand
kilometres per hour) would come when they passed each other. But as they
clung to rails on the exterior of the tower, and the only windows gave
a direct view outward, such events remained out of sight to their passengers.
Deliberately so; watching another capsule hurtling towards you at a combined
speed of six thousand kilometres per hour was considered an absolute psychological
no-go zone by the tower operators.


Just before it entered the
upper fringes of the atmosphere, the lift capsule decelerated to subsonic
velocity. It reached the stratosphere as dawn broke over South America.
On Earth that was no longer an invigorating sight; all the passengers
saw was an unbroken murky-grey cloud layer which covered most of the continent
and a third of the South Atlantic. Only when the lift capsule was ten
kilometres above the frothing upper layer could Quinn see the army of
individual streamers from which the gigantic cyclone was composed, flowing
around each other at perilous velocities. The seething mass was as compressed
as any gas-giant storm band, but infinity drabber.


They descended into the slashing
tendrils of cirrus, and the windows immediately reverberated from the
barrage of fist-sized raindrops. There was nothing else to see after that,
just formless smears of grey. A minute before they reached the ground
station, the windows went black as the lift capsule entered the sheath
which guarded the bottom of the tower from the worst violence of the planet's
rabid weather.


Digits on the Royale Class
lounge's touchdown counter reached zero, an event marked by only the slightest
tremble as latch clamps closed round the base of the lift capsule. The
magnetic rail disengaged, and a transporter rolled it clear of the tower,
leaving the reception berth clear for the next capsule. Airlock hatches
popped open, revealing long extendable corridors leading into the arrivals
complex where treble the usual numbers of customs, immigration, and security
officers waited to scan the passengers. Quinn sighed in mild resignation.
He'd quite enjoyed the trip down, mellowing out with all the facilities
the Royale Class lounge could provide. A welcome period of contemplation,
assisted by the Norfolk Tears he'd been drinking.


He had arrived at Earth with
one goal: conquest. Now at least he had some notions how to go about subduing
the planet for his Lord. The kind of exponential brute force approach
the possessed had used up to now just wasn't an option on Earth. The arcologies
were too isolated for that. It was curious, but the more Quinn thought
about it, the more he realized that Earth was a representation of the
Confederation in miniature. Its vast population centres kept separate
by an amok nature almost as lethal as the interstellar void. Seeds of
his revolution would have to be planted very carefully indeed. If Govcentral
security ever suspected an outbreak of possession, the arcology in question
would be quarantined. And Quinn knew that even with his energistic powers
there would be nothing he could do to escape once the vac-trains had been
shut down.


Most of the other passengers
had disembarked, and the chief stewardess was glancing in Quinn's direction.
He rose up from his deep leather seat, stretching the tiredness from his
limbs. There was absolutely no way he'd ever get past the immigration
desk, let alone security.


He walked towards the airlock
hatch, and summoned the energistic power, mentally moulding it into the
now familiar pattern. It crawled over his body, needle spears of static
penetrating every cell. A swift groan was the only indication he showed
of the grotesquery he experienced passing through the gateway into the
ghost realm. His heart stopped, his breathing ceased, and the world about
him lost its glimmer of substance. The solidity of walls and floors was
still present, but ephemeral. Irrelevant if he really pressed.


The chief stewardess watched
the last passenger step into the airlock, and turned back to the bar.
Secured below the counter were several bottles of the complimentary Norfolk
Tears and other expensive spirits and liqueurs which her team had opened.
They were careful never to leave much, at most a third, before opening
a new bottle. But a third of these drinks was an expensive commodity.



She began inventorying all
these bottles as empty in her stock control block. The team would split
them later, filling their personal flasks, and take them home. As long
as they didn't get too greedy the company supervisor would let it pass.
Her block's datavise turned to nonsense. She gave it an annoyed glare,
and automatically rapped it against the bar. That was when the lights
started to flicker. Puzzled now, she frowned up at the ceiling. Electrical
systems were failing all over the lounge. The AV pillar projection behind
the bar had crashed into rainbow squiggles, the airlock hatch activators
were whining loudly, though the hatch itself wasn't moving.


"What—?" she grumbled.
Power loss was just about impossible in the lift capsules. Every component
had multiple redundancy backups. She was about to call the lift capsule's
operations officer when the lights steadied, and her stock control block
came back on line. "Bloody typical," she grunted. It still bothered her
badly. If things could go wrong on the ground, they could certainly go
wrong half way up the tower.


She gave the waiting bottles
a forlorn glance, knowing she was giving them up if she logged an official
powerdown incident report. The company inspectorate authority would swarm
all over the lift capsule. She carefully erased the inventory file she'd
started, and datavised the lounge processor for a channel to the operations
officer.


The call never got placed.
Instead she received a priority datavise from the arrivals complex security
office ordering her to remain exactly where she was. Outside, an alarm
siren started its high-pitched urgent wailing. The sound made her jump,
in eleven years of riding the tower she'd only ever heard it during practice
drills.


The siren's clamour sounded
muffled to Quinn. He'd watched the airlock lights quiver, and sensed the
delicate electronic patterns of nearby processors storm wildly as he pushed
himself through the gateway. There was nothing he could do about it. It
took all of his concentration to marshal his energistic power into the
correct pattern. Now it seemed that pattern had an above average giveaway
effect on nearby electronics—though nothing had happened when he'd
slipped out of the ghost realm into the Royale Class lounge at the start
of the descent. Of course, he wasn't exerting himself then, quite the
opposite, he'd actually been reining in the power.


Ah well, something to remember.



Thick security doors were
rumbling across the end of the corridor, trapping stragglers among the
passengers. Quinn walked past them, and reached the door. It put up a
token resistance as he pushed himself through, as if it were nothing more
than a vertical sheet of water.


The arrivals complex on the
other side was made up from a series of grandiose multi-level reception
halls, stitched together by wave stairs and open-shaft lifts. It could
cope with seventy passenger lift capsules disembarking at once; a capacity
which had been operating at barely twenty-five per cent since the start
of the crisis. As Quinn made his way out from the sealed admission chamber
at the end of the corridor, his first impression was that the air conditioning
grilles were pumping out adrenaline gas.


Down below on the main concourse,
a huge flock of people was running for cover. They didn't know where they
were going, the exits were all closed, but they knew where they didn't
want to be, and that was anywhere near a lift capsule that was crammed
full of possessed. They were damn sure there was no other reason for a
security alert of such magnitude.


Up on Quinn's level, badly
hyped security guards in bulky kinetic armour were racing for the admission
chamber. Officers were screaming orders. All the passengers from the lift
capsule were being rounded up at gunpoint and being made to assume the
position. Anyone who protested was given a sharp jab with a shock rod.
Three stunned bodies were already sprawled on the floor, twitching helplessly.
It encouraged healthy co-operation among the remainder.


Quinn went over to the rank
of guards who were forming a semicircle around the door to the admission
chamber. Eighteen of the stubby rifles were lined up on it. He walked
round one guard to get a closer look at the weapon. The guard shivered
slightly, as if a chilly breeze was finding its way through the joint
overlaps of her armour. Her weapon was some kind of machine pistol. Quinn
knew enough about munitions to recognise it as employing chemical bullets.
There were several grenades hanging from her belt.


Even though God's Brother
had granted him a much greater energistic strength than the average possessed,
he would be very hard pressed to defend himself against all eighteen of
them firing at him. Earth was obviously taking the threat of possession
very seriously indeed.


A new group of people had
arrived to move methodically among the whimpering passengers. They weren't
in uniforms, just ordinary blue business suits, but the security officers
deferred to them. Quinn could sense their thoughts, very calm and focused
in comparison to everyone else. Intelligence operatives, most likely.



Quinn decided not to wait
and find out. He retreated from the semicircle of guards as an officer
was ordering them to open the admission chamber door. The wave stair down
to the main concourse had been switched off; so he climbed the frozen
steps of silicon two at a time.


People huddled round the barricaded
exits felt his passage as a swift ripple of cool air, gone almost as it
started. On the plaza outside, more squads of security guards were setting
up; two groups were busy mounting heavy-calibre Bradfield rifles on tripods.
Quinn shook his head in a kind of bemused admiration, then carefully walked
round them. The long row of lifts down to the vac-train station was still
working, though there were few people left on the arrivals complex storey
to use them. He hopped in to one with a group of frightened-looking business
executives just back from a trip to Cavius city on the moon.


The lift took them a kilometre
and a half straight down, opening into a circular chamber three hundred
metres across. The station's floor was divided up by concentric rows of
turnstiles, channelling passengers into the cluster of wave stairs occupying
the centre. Information columns of jet-black glass formed a picket line
around the outside, knots of fluorescent icons twirling around them like
electronic fish. Lines of holographic symbols slithered through the air
overhead, weaving sinuously around each other as they guided passengers
to the wave stair which led down to their platform.


Quinn sauntered idly round
the outside of the information columns for a while, watching the contortions
of the holograms overhead. The bustling crowd (all averting their eyes
from each other), the confined walls and ceiling, wheezing air conditioners
pouring out gritty air, small mechanoids being kicked as they attempted
to clean up rubbish—he welcomed them all back into his life. Even
though he was going to destroy this world and despoil its people, for
a brief interlude it remained the old home. His satisfaction came to a
cold halt; the name EDMONTON, in vibrant red letters, trickled over his
head, riding along a curving convey of translucent blue arrowheads towards
one of the wave stairs. The vac-train was departing in eleven minutes.



It was so tempting. Banneth,
at last. To see that face stricken with fear, then suffering—for
a long long
time, the suffering—before
the final ignominy of empty-headed imbecility. There were so many stages
of torment to inflict on Banneth, so much he wanted to do to her now he
had the power; intricate, malicious applications of pain, psychological
as well as physical. But the needs of God's Brother came first, even before
the near-sexual urgings of his own serpent beast. Quinn turned away from
the glowing invitation in disgust, and went to find a vac-train which
would take him direct to New York.


People were starting to congregate
around the windows of the bars and fast-food outlets which made up the
perimeter wall of the station. Kids stared with intrigued expressions
at the images coming at them from newschannel AV projectors, while adults
achieved the blank-faced otherwhereness which showed they were receiving
sensevises. As he passed a pasta stall, Quinn caught a brief glimpse of
the image inside a holoscreen above the sweating cook. Jupiter's cloudscape
formed an effervescent ginger backdrop to a habitat; dozens of spaceships
were swirling round it in what could almost be read as a state of high
excitement.


It wasn't relevant to him,
so he walked on.








Ione had gone straight to
De Beauvoir palace after Tranquillity emerged above Jupiter, co-ordinating
the habitat's maintenance crews and making a public sensevise to reassure
people and tell them what to do. The formal reception room was a more
appropriate setting for such a broadcast than her private apartment. Now
with the immediate crisis over, she was snuggled back in the big chair
behind her desk and using Tranquillity's sensitive cells to observe the
last of the voidhawks assigned to implement the aid response settle on
its docking ledge pedestal. A procession of vehicles trundled over the
polyp towards it, cargo flatbed lorries and heavy-lift trucks eager to
unload the large fusion generator clamped awkwardly in the voidhawk's
cargo cradles.


The generator had come from
one of the industrial stations of the nearest Edenist habitat, Lycoris;
hurriedly ferried over by Consensus as soon as Tranquillity's status was
established. There were currently fifteen technical crews working on similar
generators around the docking ledge, powering them up and wiring them
in to the habitat's power grid.


When she sank her mentality
deeper into the neural strata and the autonomic monitor routines which
operated there, Ione could feel the electricity flowing back into the
starscrapers through the organic conductors, their mechanical systems
gradually coming back on line. The habitat's girdling city had been in
emergency powerdown mode since the swallow manoeuvre, along with other
non-essential functions. Grandfather Michael's precautions hadn't been
perfect after all. She grinned to herself; pretty damn good, though. And
even without the Jovian Consensus on hand to help with all its resources,
they had the smaller fusion generators in the non-rotating spaceport.



We would have
been okay.


Of course we
would,
Tranquillity
said. It managed a mildly chastising tone, surprised at her doubt.


Obviously, nobody had fully
thought through the implications of the swallow manoeuvre for Tranquillity.
When it entered the wormhole, the hundreds of induction cables radiating
out from the endcap rims had been sliced off, eliminating nearly all of
the habitat's natural energy generation capability. It would take their
extrusion glands several months to grow new ones out to full length.


By which time they might have
to move again.


Let's not worry
about that right now,

Tranquillity said. We're in the safest orbit in the
Confederation; even I was surprised by the amount of fire-power Consensus
has amassed here to protect itself. Be content.



I wasn't complaining.

Nor are our inhabitants.

Ione felt her attention being
focused inside the shell.


It was party time in Tranquillity.
The whole population had come up out of the starscrapers to wait in the
parkland around the lobbies until the electricity was restored. Elderly
plutocrats sat on the grass next to students, waitresses shared the queue
to the toilets with corporate presidents, Laymil project researchers mingled
with society vacuumheads. Everybody had grabbed a bottle on the way out
of their apartment, and the galaxy's biggest mass picnic had erupted spontaneously.
Dawn was now five hours late, but the moonlight silver light-tube only
enhanced the ambience. People drank, and ran stim programs, and laughed
with their neighbour as they told and retold their personal tale of combat-wasp-swarms-I-have-seen-hurtling-towards-me.
They thanked God but principally Ione Saldana for rescuing them, and declared
their undying love for her, that goddamn beautiful, brilliant, canny,
gorgeous girl in whose habitat they were blessed to live. And, hey, Capone;
how does it feel, loser? Your almighty Confederation-challenging fleet
screwed by a single non-military habitat; everything you could throw at
us, and we beat you. Still happy you came back to the wonders of this
century?


The residents from the two
starscrapers closest to De Beauvoir palace walked over the vales and round
the spinnies to pay their respects and voice their gratitude. A huge crowd
was singing and chanting outside the gates, calling, pleading for their
heroine to appear.


Ione slid the focus over them,
smiling when she saw Dominique and Clement in the throng, as well as a
wildly drunk Kempster Getchell. There were others she knew, too, directors
and managers of multistellar companies and finance institutions, all swept
along with tide of emotion. Red-faced, exhilarated, and calling her name
with hoarse throats. She let the focus float back to Clement.


Invite him in,

Tranquillity urged warmly.


Maybe.

Survival of dangerous
events is a sexual trigger for humans. You should indulge your instincts.
He will make you happy, and you deserve that more than anything.

Romantically
put.


Romance has nothing
to do with this. Enjoy the release he will bring.


What about you?
You performed the swallow manoeuvre.


When you are
happy, I am happy.


She laughed out loud. "Oh
what the hell, why not."


That is good.
But I think you will have to make a public appearance first. This crowd
is good-natured, but quite determined to thank you.


Yes.

She sobered. But there is one last official duty.

Indeed.

Tranquillity's tone matched her disposition.


Ione felt the mental conversation
widen to incorporate the Jovian Consensus. Armira, the Kiint ambassador
to Jupiter, was formally invited to converse with them.


Our swallow manoeuvre
has produced an unexpected event, Ione said. We are hopeful that you can
clarify it for us.


Armira injected a sensation
of stately amusement into the affinity band. I would
suggest, Ione Saldana and Tranquillity, that your entire swallow manoeuvre
was an unexpected event.



It certainly
surprised the Kiint we were host to,

she said. They all left, very suddenly.

I see.

Armira's thoughts hardened, denying them any hint of his emotional content.



Tranquillity replayed the
memory it had from the time of the attack, showing all the Kiint vanishing
inside event horizons.


What you have
seen demonstrated is an old ability,

Armira responded dispassionately. We developed the
emergency exodus facility during the era when we were engaged in interstellar
travel. It is merely a sophisticated application of your distortion field
systems. My colleagues helping with your Laymil research project would
have used it instinctively when they believed they were threatened.

We're sure they
would,
Consensus
said. And who can blame them? That's not the point.
The fact that you have this ability is most enlightening to us. We have
always regarded as somewhat fanciful your claim that your race's interest
in star travel is now over. Although the fact that you had no starships
added undeniable weight to the argument. Now we have seen your personal
teleport ability, the original claim is exposed as a complete fallacy.

We do not have
the same level of interest in travelling to different worlds that you
do,
Armira said.



Of course not.
Our starships are principally concerned with commercial and colonization
flights, and an unfortunate amount of military activity. Your technological
level would preclude anything as simple as commercial activity. We also
believe that you are peaceful, although you must have considerable knowledge
of advanced weapons. That leaves colonization and exploration.

A correct analysis.

Are you still
conducting these activities?


To some degree.

Why did you not
tell us this, why have you hidden your true abilities behind a claim of
mysticism and disinterest?


You know the
answer to that,
Armira
said. Humans discovered the Jiciro race three hundred
years ago; yet you have still not initiated contact and revealed yourselves
to them. Their technology and culture is at a very primitive level, and
you know what will happen if they are exposed to the Confederation. All
that they have will be supplanted by what they will interpret as futuristic
items of convenience, they will cease to develop anything for themselves.
Who knows what achievements would be lost to the universe?

That argument
does not pertain here,

Consensus said. The Jiciro do not know what the stars
are, nor that solid matter is composed of atoms. We do. We acknowledge
that our technology is inferior to yours. But equally you know that one
day we will achieve your current level. You are denying us knowledge we
already know exists, and you have done so twice, in this field and in
your understanding of the beyond. This is not an act of fellowship; we
have opened ourselves to you in honesty and friendship, we have not hidden
our flaws from you; yet you have clearly not reciprocated. Our conclusion
is that you are simply studying us. We would now like to know why. As
sentient entities we have that right.



Study is a pejorative
term. We learn of you, as you do us. Admittedly that process is imbalanced,
but given our respective natures, that is inevitable. As to bestowing
our technology; that would be interference of the grandest order. If you
want something, achieve it for yourselves.


Same argument
you gave us concerning the beyond,

Ione remarked testily.


Of course,

Armira said. Tell me, Ione Saldana, what would your
reaction have been if a xenoc race announced that you had an immortal
soul, and proved it, and then gone on to demonstrate that the beyond awaited,
though as Laton said, only for some? Would you have greeted such a revelation
with thanks?



No, I don't suppose
I would.


We know that
our introduction to the concept of the beyond was accidental,

Consensus said. Something happened on Lalonde which
allowed the souls to come back and possess the living. Something extraneous.
This calamity has been inflicted upon us. Surely such circumstances permit
you to intervene?



There was a long pause. We
will not intervene in this case,
Armira said. For
two reasons. Whatever happened on Lalonde happened because you went there.
There is more to travelling between stars and exploring the universe than
the physical act.



You are saying
we must accept responsibly for our actions.


Yes, inevitably.

Very well, with
reservations we accept that judgement. Though, please appreciate, we do
not like it. What is the second reason?


Understand, there
is a faction among my people who have argued that we should intervene
in your favour. The possibility was rejected because what we have learned
of you so far indicates that your race will come through this time successfully.
Edenists especially have the social maturity to face that which follows.

I'm not an Edenist,

Ione said. What about me, and all the other Adamists,
the majority of our race? Are you going to stand back as we perish and
fall into the beyond? Does the survival of an elite few, the sophisticates
and the intellectuals, justify discarding the rest? Humans have never
practised eugenics, we regard it as an abomination, and rightly so. If
that's the price of racial improvement, we're not willing to pay it.

If I am any judge,
you too will triumph, Ione Saldana.


Nice to know.
But what about all the others?


Fate will determine
what happens. I can say no more other than to restate our official response:
the answer lies within yourselves.


That is not much
of a comfort,
Consensus
remarked.


I understand
your frustration. My one piece of advice is that you should not share
what you have learned about my race with the Adamists. Believing we have
a solution, and that piety alone will extract it from us, would weaken
their incentive to find that answer.


We will consider
your suggestion,

Consensus said. But Edenism will not voluntarily face
the rest of eternity without our cousins. Ultimately, we are one race,
however diverse.



I acknowledge
your integrity.


I have a final
question,
Ione said.
Where is Jay Hilton? She was taken from Tranquillity
at the same time as your researchers. Why?



Armira's thoughts softened,
shading as close to embarrassment as Ione had ever known a Kiint to come.
That was an error,
the ambassador said.
And I apologise unreservedly for it. However, you should
know the error was made in good faith. A young Kiint included Jay Hilton
in the emergency exodus against parental guidance. She was simply trying
to save her friend.



Haile!

Ione laughed delightedly. You wicked girl.

I believe she
has been severely reprimanded for the incident.


I hope not,

Ione said indignantly. She's only a baby.

Quite.

Well, you can
bring Jay back now; Tranquillity isn't as vulnerable as you thought.

I apologise again,
but Jay Hilton cannot be returned to you at this time.


Why not?

In effect, she
has seen too much. I assure you that she is perfectly safe, and we will
of course return her to you immediately your current situation is resolved.

The walls of the prison cell
were made from some kind of dull-grey composite, not quite cool enough
to be metal, but just as hard. Louise had touched them once before sinking
down onto the single cot and hugging her legs, knees tucked up under her
chin. The gravity was about half that of Norfolk, better than Phobos,
at least; though the air was cooler than it had been on the Jamrana.

She spent some time