The Night's Dawn Trilogy (189 page)

“No doubt you have assimilated the account of events on Pernik island and what happened at Aberdale,” he said. “As you can
see this whole episode started with Quinn Dexter’s sacrifice ritual. However, we can safely conclude that the breakthrough
from beyond which occurred in the Lalonde jungle was unique. These idiot Satanists have been dancing through the woods at
midnight for centuries, and they’ve never succeeded in summoning up the dead before. Had souls ever returned at any time in
the past we would know about it; although I concede there have always been rumours of such incidents throughout human history.

“Unfortunately, I was never able to ascertain the exact cause of what I can only describe as a rupture between our dimension
and this ‘beyond’ where souls linger after death. Something must have happened to make this ritual different from all the
others. This is the area where you should concentrate your research effort. The spread of possession is not a threat which
can be countered on an individual basis, though I’m sure Adamist populations will demand military action whenever it breaks
out. Resist such futile actions. You must discover the root cause, close the dimensional rupture. Such a method is the only
long-term chance for success you have. I believe that only Edenism has the potential to challenge this problem with the necessary
commitment and resources. Your unity may be the only advantage which the living have. Use it.

“I assure you that though the possessed remain unorganized, they do have a common and overriding goal. They seek strength
through numbers, and they will not rest until every living body is possessed. Now that you are warned you should be able to
protect yourself from anything like Pernik happening again. Simple filtering sub-routines will safeguard the habitat multiplicities,
and they in turn can detect possessed individuals claiming to be Edenists with a more detailed interrogation of personality
traits.

“My last observation is more philosophical than practical, although equally important in the long run should you triumph.
You are going to have to make considerable adjustments to your culture now you know humans have an immortal soul. In making
this adaptation, I cannot overemphasise how important corporeal existence is. Do not think death is an easy escape option
from suffering, or life as simply a phase of being, for when you die it is truly the end of a part of yourself. Nor would
I want you to worry about being trapped in beyond for all of time, I doubt one in a billion Edenists ever would be. Think
of what the returning souls are, who they are, and you will see what I mean. Ultimately you will know for yourself, as we
all do. What I discovered on confronting the final reality is the belief that our culture is supreme among corporeal societies.
I only wish I could have returned to it for just a little while longer knowing what I now know. Not that you would have me
back, I suspect.”

A final knowing smile, and he was gone for the last time. First, Consensus decided, we must safeguard our own culture. Although
we are relatively immune from infiltration, we must consider the longer term prospect of physical assault should the possessed
gain control of a planetary system with military starships. Our protection will be achieved most effectively by supporting
the Confederation, and preventing the spread of possession. To this end, all voidhawks will be recalled from civil flight
activities to form an expanded defence force, one-third of which will be assigned to the Confederation Navy. Our scientific
resources must be targeted as Laton suggested to discover the origin of the initial breakthrough, and achieve understanding
of the energistic nature of the possessing souls. We must discover a permanent solution.

We acknowledge the views of those among us who favour a policy of isolation, and will retain it as an option should it appear
the possessed are gaining the upper hand. But to be left alone in the universe after the possessed remove the Adamist planets
and asteroids they have conquered is not a future we consider to be optimum. This threat must be faced in conjunction with
the entire human race. We are the problem, we must cure ourselves.

•  •  •

Louise Kavanagh woke to the blessed smell of fresh clean linen, the pleasing sensation of crisp sheets pressing against her.
When she opened her eyes the room she found herself in was even larger than her bedroom back at Cricklade. On the opposite
wall, thick curtains were drawn across the windows, permitting very little light to enter. The gloomy chinks didn’t even tell
her what colour the light outside was. And that was tremendously important.

Louise pushed back the sheets and padded over the pile carpet to draw one of the high curtains. Duke’s golden haze surged
in. She studied the sky anxiously, but it was a clear day outside. There weren’t even any rain clouds, and certainly none
of the spirals of gauzy red mist. She had seen her fill of that banshee’s breath yesterday as the aeroambulance flew across
Kesteven, broad translucent whorls of it swirling above every town and village they passed. Streets, houses, and fields below
the downy substance were all tarnished a lurid carmine.

They’re not here yet, Louise thought in relief. But they’ll come, sure as winter.

Norwich had been a city in panic when they arrived yesterday, though the authorities weren’t entirely sure what they were
panicking over. The only news which had reached the capital from islands afflicted by the relentless march of the possessed
were muddled claims of uprisings and invasions by offworld forces carrying strange weapons. But the Confederation Navy squadron
orbiting Norfolk assured the Prince and Prime Minister that no invasion had occurred.

Nonetheless a full mobilization of the Ramsey island militias had been ordered. Troops were digging in around the capital.
Plans were being drawn up to free those islands like Kesteven which had been lost to the enemy.

Ivan Cantrell had been ordered to land his plane on a remote part of the city’s aerodrome. Soldiers had surrounded the vehicle
as they touched down, nervous men in ill-fitting khaki uniforms, squeezing the stocks of rifles which had been antique back
in their grandfathers’ time. But dotted among them were several Confederation Navy Marines, clad in sleek one-piece suits
which seemed like an outgrowth of rubbery skin. And their dull black weapons were definitely not obsolete. Louise suspected
a single shot from one of those blank muzzles would be quite capable of destroying the aeroambulance.

The soldiers had calmed considerably when the Kavanagh sisters had climbed down the plane’s airstairs followed by Felicia
Cantrell and her girls. Their commanding officer, a captain called Lester-Swindell, accepted that they were refugees, but
it took another two hours of being questioned before they had been “cleared.” At the end Louise had to call Aunt Celina to
come and vouch for her and Genevieve. She really hadn’t wanted to, but by that time there was little choice. Aunt Celina was
Mother’s elder sister, and Louise never could quite believe the two could be related: the woman was completely brainless,
a simpering airhead concerned only with the season and shopping. But Aunt Celina was married to Jules Hewson, the Earl of
Luffenham, and he was a senior advisor to the Prince’s court. If the Kavanagh name didn’t carry quite the weight here on Ramsey
which it did on Kesteven, his certainly did.

Two minutes after Aunt Celina had blustered and whined her way into the office, Louise and Genevieve were outside being bundled
into her carriage. Fletcher Christian—a
Cricklade farmhand who helped us escape, Auntie
—was told to ride on the bench with the driver. Louise wanted to protest, but Fletcher gave her a wink and bowed deeply to
Aunt Celina.

Louise dropped her gaze from the unblemished sky over Norwich. Balfern House was in the centre of Brompton, the most exclusive
borough of the capital city, but even so it stood in its own extensive grounds. There had been two policemen on duty outside
the iron gates as they drove in yesterday evening.

Safe for the moment, then, she told herself. Except she had brought one of the possessed right into the heart of the capital.
Into the core of government, in fact.

But Fletcher Christian was her secret, hers and Genevieve’s; and Gen wouldn’t tell. It was funny, but she trusted Fletcher
now, more so than the Earl and the Prime Minister. He had already proved he would and could protect her from the other possessed.
And she in turn was charged with protecting Genevieve. Because Heaven knows the militia soldiers and Confederation marines
couldn’t, not against
them
.

She slumped her shoulders and walked the length of the room, pulling back the remaining curtains. What do I do next? Tell
people the truth about what they’re facing? I can just imagine Uncle Jules listening to that. He’ll think I’m hysterical.
Yet if they don’t know, they’ll never be able to protect themselves.

It was a horrible dilemma. And to think, she’d expected her problems to end once they reached the safety of the capital. That
something would be done. That we could rescue Mummy and Daddy. A schoolgirl dream.

Carmitha’s shotgun was resting against the side of the bed. Louise smiled fondly at the weapon. Aunt Celina had fussed so
when she insisted on bringing it with them from the aero drome, bleating that Young Ladies simply did not know about such
things, let alone carry them on their person.

It was going to go hard on Aunt Celina when the possessed caught up with her. Louise’s smile faded.
Fletcher
, she decided. I must ask Fletcher what to do next.

•  •  •

Louise found Genevieve sitting in the middle of her bed in the next room, knees tucked up under her chin, sulking silently.
They both took one look at each other and burst out laughing. The maids, on Aunt Celina’s strict instruction, had provided
them with the most fanciful dresses, brightly coloured silk and velvet fabrics with huge ruffed skirts and puffball sleeves.

“Come on.” Louise took her little sister’s hand. “Let’s get out of this madhouse.”

Aunt Celina was taking breakfast in the long glass-walled morning room which looked out over the garden’s lily ponds. She
sat at the head of the teak table, an old world empress marshalling her troops of liveried manservants and starch-uniformed
maids. A gaggle of overweight corgies snuffled hopefully around her chair to be rewarded with the odd tidbit of toast or bacon.

“Oh, that’s so much better,” she declared when the sisters were ushered in. “You did look simply awful yesterday. Why I barely
recognized you. Those dresses are so much prettier. And your hair is so shiny now, Louise. You look a picture.”

“Thank you, Aunt Celina,” Louise said.

“Sit down, my dear, and do tuck in. Why you must be famished after such a terrible ordeal. Such dreadful things you’ve seen
and endured, more than any gal I know. I gave thanks to God last night that you both reached us in one piece.”

One of the maids put a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Louise. She felt her stomach curdle alarmingly. Oh, please Jesus,
don’t let me throw up now. “Just some toast, please,” she managed to say.

“You remember Roberto, don’t you, Louise?” Aunt Celina said. Her voice became slippery with pride. “My dear son, and such
a strapping lad, too.”

Louise glanced at the boy sitting at the other end of the table, munching his way through a pile of bacon, eggs, and kidneys.
Roberto was a couple of years older than she was. They hadn’t got on the last time he visited Cricklade. He never seemed to
want to do anything. And now he’d put on at least another stone and a half, most of it around his middle.

Their eyes met. He was giving her what she now called the William Elphinstone look. And the dratted dress with its tight bodice
flattered her figure.

She was rather surprised when her steely stare made him blush and shift his gaze hurriedly back to his plate. I’ve got to
get out of here, she thought, out of this house, this city, away from these stupid bovine people, and most of all out of this
bloody dress. I don’t need Fletcher to tell me that.

“I never did know why your mother went to live on Kesteven,” Aunt Celina said. “It’s such a
wild
island. She should have stayed here in the city. Could have had her pick of the court, you know, your dear mother. Divine
creature she was, simply divine when she was younger. Just like you two. And now who knows what dreadful things have happened
to her in this horrid rebellion. I told her to stay, but she simply wouldn’t listen. Wild, it is. Wild. I hope the navy squadron
shoots every one of those savages. They should cleanse Kesteven, laser it clean right down to the bedrock. Then you two darlings
can come and live here safely with me. Won’t that be wonderful?”

“They’ll come here, too,” an indignant Genevieve said. “You can’t stop them, you know. Nobody can.”

Louise jabbed her with a toe and glared. Genevieve simply shrugged and tucked into her eggs.

Aunt Celina blanched theatrically, her handkerchief flapping in front of her face. “Why, my darling child, what a simply dreadful
thing to say. Oh, your mother should never have left the capital. Gals are brought up properly here.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Celina,” Louise said swiftly. “Neither of us is thinking straight right now. Not after… you know.”

“Of course I understand. You must both visit a doctor. I should have summoned one last night. Goodness knows what you picked
up tramping around the countryside for days on end.”

“No!” A doctor would discover her pregnancy in minutes. And Heaven knows how Aunt Celina would react to that. “Thank you,
Aunt Celina. But really, it’s nothing a few days rest won’t cure. I was thinking, we could tour Norwich now we’re here. It
would be a real treat for us.” She smiled winningly. “Please, Aunt Celina.”

“Yes. Please may we?” Genevieve chipped in.

“I don’t know,” Aunt Celina said. “This is hardly the time for sightseeing, what with the militias forming up. And I promised
Hermione I would attend the Red Cross meeting today. One must do what one can to support our brave menfolk in such times.
I really can’t spare the time to show you around.”