The Night's Dawn Trilogy (191 page)

“CNIS has always believed so, even though it could never track down any solid evidence. And after this, I don’t think there
can be any doubt. Even if it wasn’t stored in zero-tau, don’t forget she knows how to build another one. Another hundred,
come to that.”

Pauline hung her head. “Shit, but we screwed up big-time.”

“Yes. I always thought we were a little overdependent on the Lord of Ruin’s benevolence in keeping her here.” He made a finger-fluttering
gesture with one hand and muttered: “No offence.”

The AV pillar on his desktop processor block sparkled momentarily. “None taken,” said Tranquillity.

“We also got complacent with how static the whole situation had become. You were quite right when you said she’d fooled us
for a quarter of a century. Bloody hell, but that is an awful long time to keep a charade going. Anyone who can hate for that
long isn’t going to be fooling around. She’s gone because she thinks she has a good chance to use the Alchemist against Omuta.”

“Yes, sir.”

Olsen Neale made an effort to suppress his worry and formulate some kind of coherent response to the situation—one he didn’t
have a single contingency plan for. No one at CNIS ever believed she could actually escape. “I’ll leave for Trafalgar right
away. Our first priority is to inform Admiral Lalwani that Mzu’s gone, so she can start activating our assets to find her.
Then the First Admiral will have to beef up Omuta’s defences. Damn, that’s another squadron which the navy can’t spare, not
now.”

“The Laton scare will make it difficult for her to travel,” Pauline said.

“Let’s hope so. But just in case, I want you to go to the Dorados and alert our bureau that she may put in an appearance soon.”

• •  •

Samuel, of course, didn’t have to physically meet with the other three Edenist intelligence operatives in the habitat. They
simply conferred with each other via affinity, then Samuel and a colleague called Tringa headed for the spaceport. Samuel
chartered a starship to take him to the Dorados, while Tringa found one which would convey him to Jupiter so he could warn
the Consensus.

The same scenario was played out by the other eight national intelligence agency teams assigned to watch Mzu. In each case,
it was decided that alerting their respective directors was the primary requirement; three of them also dispatched operatives
to the Dorados to watch for Mzu.

The spaceport charter agents who had been suffering badly from the lack of flights brought on by the Laton scare suddenly
found business picking up.

•  •  •

So now you have to decide if you’re going to allow them to inform their homeworlds,
Tranquillity said.
For once the word gets out, you will be unable to control further events.

I didn’t really control events before. I was like an umpire insuring fair play. Well now is your chance to get down off your
stool and take part in the game.

Don’t tempt me. I have enough problems right now with the Laymil’s reality dysfunction. If dear Grandfather Michael was right,
that may yet turn out to be a lot more trouble than Mzu’s Alchemist.

I concede the point. But I do need to know if I am to permit the agency operatives to depart.

Ione opened her eyes to look through the window, but the water outside was sable-black now, there was nothing to see apart
from a weak reflection of herself in the glass. For the first time in her life she began to understand what loneliness was.

You have me,
Tranquillity assured her gently.

I know. But in a way you are a part of me. It would be nice to have someone else’s shoulder to lean on occasionally.

A someone such as Joshua?

Don’t be so bitchy.

I’m sorry. Why don’t you ask Clement to come to the apartment? He makes you happy.

He makes me orgasm, you mean.

Is there a difference?

Yes, but don’t ask me to explain it. It’s just that I’m looking for more than physical contentment right now. These are big
decisions I’m making here. They could affect millions of people, hundreds of millions.

You have known this time would come ever since you were conceived. It is what your life is for.

Most of the Saldanas, yes. They make a dozen decisions like this before lunch every day. Not me. I think the family’s arrogance
gene might be inactive in my case.

It is more likely to be a hormonal imbalance due to your pregnancy which is making you procrastinate.

She laughed out loud, the sound echoing around the vast room.
You really don’t understand the difference between your thought processes and mine, do you?

I believe I do.

Ione had the silliest vision of a two-kilometre-long nose sniffing disdainfully. Her laugh turned to a giggle.
Okay, no more procrastination. Let’s be logical. We blew it with safeguarding Mzu, and now she’s presumably on her way to
exterminate Omuta’s star. And you and I certainly don’t have the kind of resources available to the ESA and other agencies
to track her down and stop her. Right?

An elegant summary.

Thank you. Therefore, the best chance to stop her will be to let the intelligence community off the leash.

Granted.

Then we let them out. At least that way Omuta stands a chance of survival. I don’t think I really want a genocide on my conscience.
Nor, I suspect, do you.

Very well. I will not restrict their starships from departing.

Which just leaves us with what’s going to happen afterwards. If they do catch her, someone is going to wind up with the technology
to build Alchemist devices. As Monica said on the beach, every government will want it to safeguard their own particular version
of democracy.

Yes. The old term for a nation acquiring such an overwhelming military advantage is a “superpower.” At the very least, the
emergence of such a nation will result in an arms race as other governments try to acquire the Alchemist technology, which
will not benefit the general Confederation economy. And if they succeed, the Confederation will be plunged into a deterrence
cycle, a balance of terror.

And it was all my fault.

Not quite. Dr Alkad Mzu invented the Alchemist. From that moment on all subsequent events were inevitable. There is a saying
that once you have released the genie from the bottle, he cannot be put back.

Maybe not. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a go.

•  •  •

From the air Avon’s capital, Regina, was almost indistinguishable from any big city on a fully developed and industrialized
planet within the Confederation. A dark gritty stain of buildings which crept a little further outwards into the green countryside
with every passing year. Only the steeper hill slopes and crinkled watercourses inconvenienced the encroachment to any degree,
although in the central districts even they had been tamed with metal and carbon concrete. Again, as normal, a clump of skyscrapers
occupied the very heart of the city, forming the commercial, financial, and government administration district. A lavish display
of crystal spires, thick composite cylinders, and gloss-metal neo-modern towers, reflecting the planet’s economic strength.

The one exception to the standard urban layout was a second, smaller cluster of silver and white skyscrapers occupying the
shore of a long lake on the city’s easternmost district. Like the Forbidden City of ancient Chinese Emperors, it existed aloof
from the rest of Regina, yet it held sway over billions of lives. Home to one and a half million people, it was sixteen square
kilometres of foreign diplomatic compounds, embassies, legal firms, multistellar corporation offices, navy barracks, executive
agencies, media studios, and a thousand catering and leisure company franchises. This overcrowded, overpriced, bureaucratic
mother-hive formed a protective ring around the Assembly building which straddled the lakeshore, itself looking more like
a domed sports stadium than the very seat of the Confederation.

The stadium analogy was continued inside the main chamber, with tiered ranks of seats circling the central polity council
table. First Admiral Samual Aleksandrovich always likened it to a gladiatorial arena, where the current polity council members
had to present and defend their resolutions. It was ninety per cent theatre; but politicians, even in this day and age, clung
to the public stage.

As one of the four permanent members of the polity council, the First Admiral had the right and authority to summon a full
session of the Assembly. It was a right which earlier First Admirals had exercised only three times in the Confederation’s
history; twice to request additional vessels from member states to prevent inter-system wars, and once to ask for the resources
to track down Laton.

Samual Aleksandrovich hadn’t envisaged himself being number four. But there really hadn’t been time to consult with the President
after the voidhawk from Atlantis arrived at Trafalgar. And after reviewing the report it carried, Samual Aleksandrovich was
convinced that time was a crucial issue. Mere hours could make a colossal difference if the possessed were to be prevented
from infiltrating unsuspecting worlds.

So now here he was in his dress uniform walking towards the polity council table under the bright lights shining out of a
black marble ceiling, Captain Khanna on one side, Admiral Lalwani on the other. The chamber’s tiers were full of diplomats
and aides shuffling to their designated seats, their combined grumbling sounding like a couple of bulldozers attacking the
foundations. A glance upwards showed him the media gallery was packed. Everybody wanted in on the phenomenon.

You wouldn’t if you knew, he thought emphatically.

The President, Olton Haaker, wearing his traditional Arab robe, took his seat at the oaken horseshoe table along with the
other members of the polity council. Samual Aleksandrovich thought Haaker looked nervous. It was a telling sign; the old Breznikan
was a superb, not to mention wily, diplomat. This was his second five-year term of office; and only four of the last fifteen
Presidents had managed to gain renomination.

Rittagu-FHU, the Tyrathca ambassador, walked imperiously across the chamber floor, minute particles of bronze-coloured powder
shaking out of her scales to dust the tiles below her. She reached one end of the table and eased her large body onto a broad
cradle arrangement. Her mate hooted softly at her from a similar cradle in the front tier.

Samual Aleksandrovich wished it were the Kiint who held the xenoc polity council seat this term. The two xenoc member races
alternated every three years, although there were those in the Assembly who said that the xenocs should join the rota for
the polity council seats like every human government had to.

The Assembly speaker called for silence, and announced that the First Admiral had been granted the floor under article nine
of the Confederation Charter. As he got to his feet, Samual Aleksandrovich studied the blocks in the tiers which he would
have to carry. The Edenists, of course, he already had. Earth’s Govcentral would probably follow the Edenists, given their
strong alliance. Other key powers were Oshanko, New Washington, Nanjing, Holstein, Petersburg, and, inevitably, the Kulu Kingdom,
which probably had the most undue influence of all—and thank God the Saldanas were keen supporters of the Confederation.

In a way he was angry that an issue as vital as this (surely the most vital in human history?) would be dependent on who was
speaking with whom, whose ideologies clashed, whose religions denounced the other. The whole point of ethnic streaming colonies,
as Earth had painfully discovered centuries ago during the Great Dispersal, was that foreign cultures can live harmoniously
with each other providing they didn’t have to live jammed together on the same planet. And the Assembly allowed that wider
spirit of cooperation to continue and flourish. In theory.

“I have asked for this session because I wish to call for a full state of emergency to be declared,” Samual Aleksandrovich
said. “Unfortunately, what started off as the Laton situation has now become immeasurably graver. If you would care to access
the sensevise account which has just arrived from Atlantis.” He datavised the main processor to play the recording.

Diplomats they might have been, but even their training couldn’t help them maintain poker faces as the events of Pernik island
unravelled inside their skulls. The First Admiral waited impassively as the gasps and grimaces appeared simultaneously throughout
the chamber. It took a quarter of an hour to run, and many broke off during the playback to check the reactions of their colleagues,
or perhaps even to make sure they were receiving the right recording, and not some elaborate horrorsense.

Olton Haaker got to his feet when it finished, and stared at Samual Aleksandrovich for a long time before speaking. The First
Admiral wondered exactly how he was taking it, the President’s Muslim faith was a strong one. Just what does he think about
djinns coming forth?

“Are you certain this information is genuine?” the President asked.

Samual Aleksandrovich signalled Admiral Lalwani, the CNIS chief, who was sitting in one of the chairs behind him. She got
to her feet. “We vouch for its authenticity,” she said, and sat down again.

A number of intense stares were directed at Cayeaux, the Edenist ambassador, who bore them stoically.

How typical to blame the messenger, the First Admiral thought.

“Very well, what exactly are you proposing we should do?” the President asked.

“Firstly, the vote for a state of emergency will provide a considerable reserve of national naval ships for the Confederation
Navy,” the First Admiral said. “We shall require all those national squadrons pledged to us to be transferred over to their
respective Confederation fleets as soon as possible. Preferably within a week.” That didn’t go down well, but he was ready
for it. “Combating the threat we now face cannot be achieved by confronting it in a piecemeal fashion. Our response has to
be swift and overwhelming. That can only be achieved with the full strength of the navy.”