The Night's Dawn Trilogy (387 page)

“Capone’s new lunacy doesn’t help ease the paranoia,” Admiral Farquar grunted. “Damn that bastard.”

“So you would prefer the slow down scenario?” Kirsten asked.

“Very much so, ma’am,” Janne Palmer said. “It’s not just a question of providing medical support, there are transport bottlenecks
as well. It’s improved slightly now we can land aircraft at the coastal ports, but we have to get the de-possessed there first,
and they need care which my occupation forces really aren’t geared up to provide.”

“General Hiltch, what do you favour?”

“I don’t like slowing down the advance, ma’am. With all respect to Admiral Farquar’s SD officers, I don’t think they’ll be
able to prevent the possessed from congregating. Slow their movements, maybe, but halt them no. And once that happens, we’ll
be in a real mess. The kind of firepower we’re going to need to break open Ketton at the moment is way in excess of any assault
so far. We have to prevent it from turning into a runaway situation. At the moment we’re dictating the pace of events to them,
I’d hate to abandon that level of control. It’s our one big advantage.”

“I see. Very well, you’ll have my decision before dawn local time.”

The sensenviron ended with its usual abruptness, and Kirsten blinked irritably, allowing her eyes to register the familiar
office. Touching base with normality. Necessary, now. These nightly reviews were becoming a considerable drain. Not even the
Privy Council Grand Policy Conclaves back in the Apollo Palace had quite the same impact, they implemented policies that would
take decades to mature. The Liberation was all so
now
. Something the Saldanas were not accustomed to. In any modern crisis, the major decision would be whether or not to dispatch
a fleet. After that, everything was down to the admiral in charge.

I make political decisions, not military ones.

But the Liberation had changed all that, blurring the distinction badly. Military decisions were political ones.

She stood up, stretching, then went over to Allie’s bust. Her hand touched his familiar, reassuringly sober features. “What
would you do?” she murmured. Not that she would ever be accused of making the wrong choice. Whatever it was, the family would
support her. Her equerry, Sylvester Geray, scrambled to his feet in the reception room, the chair legs scraping loudly on
the tushkwood floor as Kirsten came out of her office.

“Tired?” she asked lightly.

“No ma’am.”

“Yes you are. I’m going back to my quarters for a few hours. I won’t need you before seven o’clock. Have a sleep, or at least
a rest.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He bowed deeply as she walked out.

There were few staff about in the private apartments, which was how she liked them. With the rooms all dark and quiet, it
was almost how she imagined a normal home would be late in the evening. An assistant nanny and a maid were on duty, sitting
up chatting quietly in the lounge next to the children’s bedrooms. Kirsten stood outside for a moment, listening; the nanny’s
fiancÉ was in the Royal Navy, and hadn’t called her for a couple of days. The maid was sympathising.

Everyone, Kirsten thought, this has touched and involved every one of us. And the Liberation is only the beginning. So far
the Church had been noticeably unsuccessful in quelling people’s fears of the beyond. Though Atherstone’s Bishop reported
that attendance was high in every parish on the planet, greater than Christmas Eve, he’d said almost in indignation.

She opened the door to Edward’s study without knocking, only realising her mistake once she was well inside. There was a girl
with him on the leather settee; his current mistress. Kirsten remembered the security file Jannike Der-mot had provided: minor
nobility, her father owned an estate and some kind of transport company. Pretty young thing, in her early twenties, with classic
delicate bonework. Tall with very long legs; as they all invariably were with Edward. She stared at Kirsten in utter consternation,
then frantically tried to adjust her evening dress to a more modest position. Not that she could achieve much modesty with
so little fabric, Kirsten thought in amusement. The girl’s wine glass went flying from trembling fingers.

Kirsten frowned at that. The antique carpet was Turkish, a beautiful red and blue weave; she’d given it to Edward as a birthday
present fifteen years ago.

“Ma’am,” the girl squeaked. “I… We…”

Kirsten merely gave her a mildly enquiring glance.

“Come along, my dear,” Edward said calmly. He took her arm and escorted her to the door. “Affairs of state. I’ll call you
in the morning.” She managed a strangled whimper in response. A butler, responding to Edward’s datavise, appeared and gestured
politely to the by-now thoroughly frightened and bewildered girl. Edward shut the study door behind her, and sighed.

Kirsten started laughing, then put her hand over her mouth. “Oh Edward, I’m sorry. I should have let you know I was coming.”

He spread his hands wide.
“C’est la vie.”

“Poor thing looked terrified.” She knelt down and picked the wine glass up, dabbing at the carpet. “Look what she did. I’d
better get a valet mechanoid, or it’ll stain.” She datavised the study’s processor.

“It’s a rather good Chablis, actually.” He picked the bottle out of its walnut cooler jacket. “Shame to waste it, would you
like some?”

“Lovely, thank you. It has been a very bad day at the office.”

“Ah.” He went over to the cabinet and brought her a fresh glass.

Kirsten sniffed at the bouquet after he’d poured. “She was jolly gorgeous. Slightly young, though. Wicked of you.” She brushed
at imaginary dust on his lapel. “Then again, I can see why she’s so obliging. You always did look rather splendid in uniform.”

Edward glanced down at his Royal Navy tunic. There were no Royal crests, just three discreet medal ribbons—earned long ago.
“I’m just doing my bit. Though they are all depressingly young at the base. I think they regard me as some kind of mascot.”

“Oh poor Edward, the indignity. But not to worry, Zandra and Emmeline are terribly impressed.”

He sat on the leather settee and patted the cushion. “Come on, sit down and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Thank you.” She stepped round the small mechanoid that was sniffing at the wine stain, and sat beside him, welcoming his
arm around her shoulders. The secret of a successful royal marriage: don’t have secrets. They were both intelligent people,
which had allowed them to work out the grounds of a sustainable domestic arrangement a long time ago. In public and in private
he was the perfect companion, a friend and confidant. All she required was loyalty, which he supplied admirably. In return
he was free to gather whatever perks his position presented—and it wasn’t just girls; he was an avid art collector and bon
viveur. They even still slept together occasionally.

“The Liberation is not progressing as well as could be,” he said. “That much is obvious. And the net is overloading with speculation.”

Kirsten sipped some of the chablis. “Progress is the key word, yes.” She told him about the decision she was faced with.

After she’d finished, he poured some more wine for himself before answering. “The serjeants developing advanced personalities?
Humm. How intriguing. I wonder if they’ll refuse to go back into their habitat multiplicities when the campaign is over.”

“I have no idea; Acacia never ventured an opinion. And to be honest, that part is not my problem.”

“It might be if they all start applying for citizenship afterwards.”

“Oh God.” She snuggled up closer. “No. I’m not even going to consider that right now.”

“Wise lady. You want my opinion?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“You can’t ignore the serjeant situation. We are utterly dependent on them to liberate Mortonridge, and there’s a hell of
a way to go yet.”

“A hundred and eighty thousand people de-possessed, seventeen thousand dead, so far; that leaves us with one-point-eight-million
left to save.”

“Exactly. And we’re about to enter the phase which will see the heaviest fighting. If they keep advancing at their current
rate, the front line will reach the first areas where the possessed are concentrated the day after tomorrow. If you slow them
now, the serjeants are going to start taking heavy losses just before that. Not good. I’d say, keep things as they are until
the front line hits those concentrations, then shift to General Hiltch’s outnumbering tactics.”

“That’s a very logical solution.” She stared at the wine. “If only all I had to consider were numbers. But they’re depending
on me, Edward.”

“Who?”

“The people who’ve been possessed. Even locked away in their own bodies, they know the Liberation is coming now; a practical
salvation from this obscenity. They have faith in me, they trust me to deliver them from this evil. And I have a duty to them.
That duty is one of the few true burdens placed on the family by our people. Now I know there is a way of reducing the number
of my subjects killed, I cannot in all conscience ignore it for tactical convenience. That would be a betrayal of trust, not
to mention an abdication of duty.”

“The two impossibles for a Saldana.”

“Yes. We have had it easy for an awful long time, haven’t we?”

“Shall we say: moderately difficult.”

“Yet if I want to reduce the death rate, I’m going to have to ask the Edenists to take it on the chin for us. You know what
bothers me most about that? People will expect it. I’m a Saldana, they’re Edenists. What could be simpler?”

“The serjeants aren’t quite Edenists.”

“We don’t know what the hell they are, not any more. Acacia was hedging her bets very thoroughly. If they’re worried enough
to bring the problem to me, then it has to be a substantial factor. One I cannot discount from the humanist equation. Damn
it, they were supposed to be automatons.”

“The Liberation is a very rushed venture. I’m sure if Jupiter’s geneticists had been given enough time to design a dedicated
soldier construct then this would never have arisen. But we had to borrow from the Lord of Ruin. Look, General Hiltch was
given overall command of the Liberation. Let him make the decision, it’s what he’s paid for.”

“Get thee behind me,” she muttered. “No, Edward, not this time. I’m the one who insisted on reducing the fatalities. It is
my responsibility.”

“You’ll be setting a precedent.”

“Hardly one that’s likely to be repeated. All of us are sailing into new, and very stormy territory; that requires proper
leadership. If I cannot provide that now, then the family will ultimately have failed. We have spent four hundred years engineering
ourselves into this position of statesmanship, and I will not duck the issue when it really counts. It stinks of cowardice,
and that is one thing I will never allow the Saldanas to stand accused of.”

He kissed her on the side of her head. “Well you know you have my support. If I could make one final observation. The personalities
in the serjeants are all volunteers. They came here knowing what their probable fate would be. That purpose remains at their
core. In that, they are like every pre-Twenty-first Century army; reluctant, frightened even, but committed. So give them
the time they need to gather their nerve and resolution, and then use them for the purpose for which they were created: saving
genuine human lives. If they are truly capable of emotion, then their only hope of gaining satisfaction will come from achieving
that.”

______

Ralph was eating a cold snack in Fort Forward’s command complex canteen when he received the datavise.

“Slow the assault,” Princess Kirsten told him. “I want that suicide figure reduced as low as you can practically achieve.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll see to it. And thank you.”

“This is what you wanted?”

“We’re not here to recapture land, ma’am. The Liberation is about people.”

“I know that. I hope Acacia will forgive us.”

“I’m sure she will, ma’am. The Edenists understand us pretty well.”

“Good. Because I also want the serjeant platoons given as much breathing space between assaults as they require.”

“That will reduce the rate of advance even further.”

“I know, but it can’t be helped. Don’t worry about political and technical support, General, I’ll ensure you get that right
to the bitter end.”

“Yes ma’am.” The datavise ended. He looked round at the senior staff eating with him, and gave a slow smile. “We got it.”

______

High above the air, cold technological eyes stared downwards, unblinking. Their multi-spectrum vision could penetrate clean
through Mortonridge’s thinning strands of puffy white cloud to reveal the small group of warm figures trekking across the
mud. But that was where the observation failed. Objects around them were perfectly clear, the dendritic tangle of roots flaring
from fallen trees, a pulverised four-wheel-drive rover almost devoured by the blue-grey mud, even the shape of large stones
ploughed up and rolled along by thick runnels of sludge. In contrast, the figures were hazed by shimmering air; infrared blobs
no more substantial than candle flames. No matter which combination of discrimination filters it applied to the sensor image,
the AI was unable to determine their exact number. Best estimate, taken from the width of the distortion and measuring the
thermal imprint of the disturbed mud they left behind, was between four and nine.

Stephanie could feel the necklace of prying satellites as they slid relentlessly along their arc from horizon to horizon.
Not so much their physical existence; that kind of knowledge had vanished along with the cloud and the possessed’s mental
unity. But their avaricious intent was forever there, intruding upon the world’s intrinsic harmonies. It acted as a reminder
for her to keep her guard up. The others were the same. Messing with the sight on a level which equated to waving a hand at
persistent flies. Not that satellites were their problem. A far larger note of discord resonated from the serjeants, now just
a couple of miles away. And coming closer, always closer. Machine-like in their determination.