The Night's Dawn Trilogy (285 page)

Shemilt, who was running the control centre, saluted sharply. He was wearing a heavily decorated Luftwaffe uniform from the
Second World War, every inch the Teutonic warrior aristocrat. “I regret to inform you, sir, that ships have been sent to intercept
our teams working in the other asteroids. The first will make contact in forty minutes.”

Quinn studied the table; it was becoming cluttered. Four vultures were grouped together just above the planet. New Georgia’s
SD platforms were diamond-studded pyramids. Ruby pentagons showed opposing platforms. Three red-flagged markers were being
shoved slowly over the starmap. “Are they warships?”

“Our observation stations are having a lot of trouble in this foul weather, but we don’t think so. Not frigates, anyway. I
expect they will be carrying troops, though; they’re definitely big enough for that.”

“Don’t get too carried away, Shemilt.”

Shemilt stood to attention. “Yes,
sir.”

Quinn pointed at one of the red flags. “Can our SD platforms hit these ships?”

“Yes, sir.” Shemilt pulled a clipboard off a hook inside his command post and flicked through the typewritten sheets. “Two
of them are in range of our X-ray lasers, and the third can be destroyed with combat wasps.”

“Good. Kill the little shits.”

“Yes, sir.” Shemilt hesitated. “If we do that, the other networks will probably shoot at us.”

“Then shoot back, engage every target you can reach. I want an all-out confrontation.”

Activity around the table slowed as operators glanced at Quinn. Resentment was building in their thoughts, capped, as always,
by fear.

“How do we get out, Quinn?” Shemilt asked.

“We wait. Space warfare is very fast, and very destructive. By the end of today, there won’t be a working laser cannon or
a combat wasp left orbiting Nyvan. We’ll get hit a few times, but fuck, these walls are two kilometres thick. This is the
mother of all fallout shelters.” He gestured at the table, and every marker ignited, yellow candlelike flames squirting out
black smoke. “Then when it’s over, we can fly away in perfect safety.”

Shemilt nodded hurriedly, using speed to prove he’d never doubted. “I’m sorry, Quinn, it’s obvious really.”

“Thank you. Now kill those ships.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quinn left the control centre with Bonham scurrying after him, always trailing by a few paces. The giant door slid shut behind
them, its bass grumbles echoing along the broad corridor.

“Are there really enough ships here to take everyone off?” Bonham asked.

“I doubt it. And even if there were, the spaceport will be a prime target.”

“So .. . some of us should leave early, then?”

“Fast, Bonham, very fast. That’s probably why you got where you did.”

“Thank you, Quinn.” He quickened his steps; Quinn’s voice was slightly fainter.

“Of course, if they see me leaving now, they’d know I’d abandoned them. Discipline would go straight to shit.”

“Quinn?” He could hardly hear the dark figure at all now.

“After all, it’s not as if you could bind them. . .”

Bonham squinted at the figure he was now almost running to catch up with. Quinn seemed to be gliding smoothly over the rock
floor without moving his legs. His black robe had faded to grey. In fact it was almost translucent. “Quinn?” This latest performance
was frightening him more than anything to date. The anger and wrath which Quinn radiated so easily were simple to understand,
almost reassuring in comparison. This though, Bonham didn’t know if it was something being done to Quinn, or something he
was doing to himself. “What is this? Quinn?”

Quinn had become completely transparent now, only the slightest rippling outline of rock betrayed his position; even his thoughts
were evaporating from Bonham’s perception. He stumbled to a halt. Panic set in. Quinn was no longer present anywhere in the
corridor.

“Holy Christ, now what?”

He felt a breath of cold air strike his face. He frowned.

A bolt of white fire smashed into the back of his skull. Two souls were cast out of the corpse as it collapsed onto the floor,
both of them keening in dread at the fate which awaited.

“Wrong God.” A chuckle drifted down the empty corridor.

•  •  •

When Joshua landed just after midday local time, rumour was blanketing Harrisburg as thickly as the snow. It seemed to be
the one weapon in the armoury of the possessed which was the same the Confederation over. The more people heard, the less
they knew, the more fearful they became. One freak outbreak of urban mythology and entire populations would become paralysed,
either that or regress straight into survivalist siege mode.

On most worlds, government assurances and rover reporters on the scene managed to restart the engines of ordinary existence.
People would creep sheepishly back to work and wait for the next canard of Genghis Khan riding a Panzer tank into the suburbs.

Not on Nyvan. Here governments were the ones gleefully shooting out savage accusations at their old antagonists. A coordinated
global response to the prospect of the possessed landing was never even considered, a realpolitik impossibility.

As soon as they landed Joshua loaded a search request into the city’s commercial data core. The number of armed guards and
lack of flights at the spaceport made his intuition rebel. He knew they didn’t have much time; the quiet approach—questions,
contacts, money—would never work here.

They hired a car and set off down hotel row, a potholed six-lane motorway which linked the spaceport to the city ten kilometres
away. Only two lanes were cleared of snow, and there was hardly any other traffic.

Dahybi used his electronic warfare detector block to sweep the eight-seater cabin for bugs. “Seems clean,” he told the others.

“Okay,” Joshua said. “Our processor technology is probably more advanced than the locals, but don’t count on it for a permanent
advantage. I need to find her as fast as we can, which is going to mean sacrificing subtlety.”

As they approached the hotel they’d booked, Joshua datavised an update into the car’s control processor. The car swept past
the hotel’s entrance, heading for the city.

“There goes our deposit,” Melvyn complained.

“It bothers me,” Joshua said. “Ione, are we being followed?”

One of the serjeants was sitting at the back of the cab, pointing a small circular sensor pad through the rear window. “One
car, possibly two. I think there are three people in the first one.”

“Probably some kind of local security police,” Joshua decided. “I’d be surprised if they weren’t keeping tabs on foreigners
right now.”

“So what do we do about them?” Dahybi asked.

“Not a damn thing. I don’t want to give them an excuse to interfere.” He accessed the car’s net processor and established
an encrypted link to the spaceplane. “What’s your situation, Ashly?”

“So far so good. I’ll have the electron matrices completely recharged in another three minutes. That’ll expand your options.”

“Good. We’ll keep a channel open to you from now on. If the city’s net starts to crash, come get us. That’s our cut-off point.”

“Aye, Captain.
Lady Macbeth
just fell below the horizon, so I’ve lost contact. Every civil communications satellite is out now.”

“If their situation alters, they’ll change orbit and re-establish a link. Sarha knows what to do.”

“I certainly hope so. Before I lost contact, Beaulieu told me four voidhawks have arrived. They’re heading for low orbit.”

“They must have come from the Dorados,” Joshua decided. “Ashly, when
Lady Mac
comes back on-line, tell Sarha to monitor them as best she can. And let me know if any of their spaceplanes land.”

•  •  •

The snowfall had thickened considerably by the time Joshua’s car reached the address his search program had identified for
him. It reduced Harrisburg to a sequence of shabby granite streets that were hard to tell apart. Nothing was alive apart from
people, wrapped in their insulated coats as they kicked their way through the pavement slush. Hologram billboards and neon
signs were all that remained unaffected by the weather, flashing and morphing as always.

“I should have brought Liol down,” Joshua muttered, half to himself. “He said he wanted a taste of exotic worlds.”

“You’re going to have to come to terms with him eventually, Joshua,” Melvyn said.

“Maybe. Jesus, if he just wasn’t such a pushy bastard. Can’t you tell him to lighten up, Ione? You spend a lot of time talking
to him.”

“It didn’t work before,” one of the serjeants said.

“You’ve already told him?”

“Let’s say I’ve been through the procedure earlier. He’s not the only one who needs to relax, Joshua. Neither of you are going
to make any progress the way you both carry on.”

He wanted to explain. How it was. How he didn’t feel quite so alone anymore, and how that left him troubled. How he wanted
to welcome his brother, but at the same time knew him so well he didn’t trust him. To be honest with him would be seen as
a weakness. Liol was the interloper. Let him make the first gesture. I saved his arse from the Dorados, I was the honourable
one, and what thanks do I get?

When he glanced around the car, he knew that anything he said which verged on truth would make him sound petulant. A year
ago I would’ve told the lot of them to bugger off. Jesus, life was simpler then, when there was just me. “I’ll do what I can,”
he conceded.

Their car turned off the street and dipped down into an underground garage. The building it served was a ten-storey block
with small shops at street level (half of them empty), and the upper floors given over to offices and design bureaus.

“Going to tell us why we’re here now?” Dahybi asked as they climbed out of the car.

“Simple,” Joshua said. “When you need a job doing fast and effectively, go to a professional.”

The office of Kilmartin and Elgant, Data Security Specialists, was on the seventh floor There was nobody behind the desk in
the reception room. Joshua paused for a second, expecting a secretarial program to query them, but the desktop processor wasn’t
switched on. The inner door slid open when he approached it.

In a rash of optimistic bravado accompanying their firm’s launch, Kilmartin and Elgant had taken a fifty-year lease on sufficient
floor space to house fifteen operatives. There were still enough desks for fifteen in the open-plan office; seven of them
had dust covers thrown over processors which were fairly dubious even by Nyvan’s technological standards; four desks had niches
where processors used to be; one patch of carpet showed imprints where a desk used to stand.

Only one desk had a decent cluster of modern blocks, which shared the surface with a thoroughly dead potted plant. Two men
were sitting behind it, staring intently into the hazy aura of an AV pillar. The first was tall, young, and broad-shouldered,
sporting a long blond ponytail tied with a colourful leather lace. He wore an expensive black suit, tailored to provide maximum
freedom of movement. He was not openly belligerent, but had a presence that would make people think twice before tackling
him. The second was well into middle age, dressed in a faded grey-brown jacket, tufty chestnut hair askew. He looked as if
he belonged behind the complaints desk in a tax office.

They regarded Joshua and his odd delegation with mild surprise.

Joshua looked from one to the other, slightly uncertain as intuition tickled his skull. Then he clicked his fingers decisively
and pointed at the younger of the two. “I bet you’re the data expert and your friend handles the combat routines. Good disguise,
right?”

The aura from the AV pillar faded as the younger man tilted his chair back and put his hands behind his head. “Clever. Are
we expecting you, Mr. . . ?”

Joshua gave a faint smile. “You tell me.”

“All right, Captain Calvert, what do you want?”

“I need to access some information, and fast. Can you manage that for me?”

“Sure. Nationwide net access, no problem, whatever file you want. Hey listen, I know what this place looks like. Forget that.
Talent isn’t something you can eyeball. And I’m so far on top of things I’m getting oxygen starvation. Someone’s search program
locates my public file, I know about it before they do. You came down from the
Lady Macbeth
an hour ago. One of your crew is still with your spaceplane. Want to know how much the service company is ripping you off
for your electron matrix recharge? You’re in the right place.”

“I don’t care. Money doesn’t concern me.”

“Okay, I think we’ve reached interface here.” He turned to his colleague and muttered something. The older man gave him a
disgruntled look, then shrugged. He walked out of the office, giving the two serjeants a curious glance as he passed.

“Richard Keaton.” The athletic young man leaned over the desk, holding his hand out and smiling broadly. “Call me Dick.”

“I certainly will.” They shook hands.

“Sorry about Matty, there. He’s got enough implants to chop up a squad of marines. But he gets overprotective, and I don’t
need him hovering right now. Smart of you to see which of us was which. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

“So what can I do for you, Captain Calvert?”

“I need to find someone.”

Keaton raised a forefinger. “If I could just interrupt. First, there is my fee.”

“I’m not going to quibble. I might even pay a bonus.”

One of the serjeants tapped a foot pointedly on the worn carpet.

“Nice to hear, Captain. Okay then; my fee is one flight off this planet on the
Lady Macbeth
, just as soon as you leave. Destination: who cares.”

“That’s an .. . unusual fee. Any particular reason?”

“Like I said, Captain, you came to the right place. This might not be the biggest firm in town, but I fish the data streams.
There are possessed on Nyvan. They’ve already taken over Jesup, that wasn’t just propaganda by our upstanding government.
The electronic warfare barrage in orbit? That was cover to help them get down here. There aren’t too many in Tonala yet—not
according to the Special Investigation Bureau, anyway. But they’re spreading through the other countries.”