The Night's Dawn Trilogy (186 page)

The collar sensors showed her she had picked up a considerable tumble since losing her grip on the rope ladder. Her neural
nanonics had automatically blocked the impulses from her inner ears as a precaution against nausea. There were also a number
of analgesic blocks erected across the nerve paths from her forearms. A physiological status display showed her the damage
inflicted on tendons and muscles as she’d forced herself to hang on as the
Udat
dived for safety. Nothing drastic, thankfully. Medical packages would be able to cope once she got the suit off.

“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 deltaplanform 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!