“Yes, sir. Assuming she is who we suspect, her behavioural profile certainly fits her actions to date. First of all, we believe she’s been in Guyana for some time, possibly right from the beginning when the Ekwan docked. She has obviously had enough time to learn how to move around without activating any of our tracer programs. Secondly, if she can do that, why hasn’t she launched the kind of takeover effort we saw on Xingu? She’s held back for a reason.”
“Because it doesn’t fit in with her plans,” Dr Dobbs said eagerly. “If the whole asteroid became possessed, her peers would be unlikely to allow Gerald his freedom. This is all personal, Admiral, it’s not part of what’s happening to Mortonridge or New California. She’s completely on her own. I don’t believe she’s any real danger to the Kingdom’s security at all.”
“Are you telling me we’ve shifted the Principality to a code two alert because of a domestic matter?” Admiral Farquar asked.
“I believe so,” Dr Dobbs said apologetically. “The possessed are people, too. We’ve had ample proof that they retain a nearly complete range of human emotions. And, er . . . we did put Gerald through quite an ordeal. If what we suspect is true, it would be quite reasonable to assume Loren would do her best to take him away from us.”
“Dear God. All right, so now what? How does this theory help us deal with her?”
“We can negotiate.”
“To what end? I don’t care that she’s a loving wife. She’s a bloody possessed. We can’t have the pair of them living happily ever after up here.”
“No. But we can offer to take better care of Gerald. From her viewpoint, of course,” Dr Dobbs added quickly.
“Maybe.” The admiral would have dearly loved to have found a flaw in the reasoning, but the facts did seem to fit together with uncomfortable precision. “So what do you recommend?”
“I’d like to broadcast over Guyana’s net, load a message into every personal communications processor, blanket the news and entertainment companies. It’ll only be a matter of time before they access it.”
“If she answers she’ll give away her location. She’ll know that.”
“We’ll find her eventually, I’ll make that quite clear. What I can offer is a solution she can accept. Do I have your permission? It will need to be a genuine offer. After all, the possessed can read the emotional content of minds. She’ll know if I’m telling the truth.”
“That’s a pretty broad request, Doctor. What exactly do you want to offer her?”
“Gerald to be taken down to the planet and given an Ombey citizenship. We provide full financial compensation for what we put him through, complete his counselling and therapy. And finally, if this crisis is resolved, we’ll do whatever we can to reunite him with his daughter.”
“You mean that Kiera girl in Valisk?”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“I doubt my authority runs to that . . .” He broke off as the office management computer datavised a change in Guyana’s status. The operations centre had just issued a full combat alert.
The admiral opened a channel to the duty officer. “What’s happening?” he datavised.
“The AI has registered an anomaly, sir. We think it could be her. I’ve dispatched a Royal Marine squad.”
“What sort of anomaly?”
“A camera in the spaceport spindle entrance chamber registered a man getting into a transit capsule. When the capsule stopped at section G5 a woman got out. The capsule never stopped at any other section.”
“What about processor glitches?”
“The AI is analysing all the electronics around her. There are some efficiency reductions, but well below the kind of disturbance which we were getting from the possessed down in Xingu.”
The admiral requested a schematic of the spaceport. Section G5 was the civil spaceplane and ion field flyer dock. “Dear God, Dr Dobbs, I think you might have been right after all.”
Loren floated along the brightly lit tubular corridor towards the airlock. According to the spaceport register, a Kulu Corporation SD2002 spaceplane was docked to it, a thirty-seater craft owned by the Crossen company who used it to ferry staff up to their microgee industrial stations. One of the smallest spaceplanes at Guyana, it was exactly the kind of craft a pair of fairly ignorant desperadoes would try to steal if they wanted to get down to the planet.
There was nobody about. The last person she’d seen had been a maintenance engineer who’d boarded the transit capsule she’d arrived in. She toyed with the idea of letting her energistic ability flare out and mess up some of the electronics in the corridor. But that might make them suspicious, she’d controlled herself for so long that any change now would cause questions. She’d just have to hope that their security programs and sensors would catch her. The change of image was a subtle enough betrayal, providing their monitor routines were good enough.
The airlock tube was five metres long, and narrower than the corridor, barely two metres wide. She manoeuvred herself into it, only to find the hatch at the far end was shut.
At last, an excuse to use the energistic ability.
There was a surge of electricity around the hatch. She could sense the main power cables behind the azure blue composite walls, thick lines that burnt with an ember glow of current. There were other cables too, smaller and dimmer. It was one of those which had come alive, connected to a small communications block set into the rim of the hatch.
“It’s Loren, isn’t it?” a voice from the block asked. “Loren Skibbow, I’m sure it’s you. My name is Dr Riley Dobbs. I was treating Gerald before you took him away.”
She stared at the block in shock. How the bloody hell had he figured that out?
The power flowed through her body, twisting up from the beyond like a hot spring; she could feel it squirting through every cell. Her mind shaped it as it rose inside her, transforming it into the pattern she wanted, a pattern which matched her dreamy wish. It began to superimpose itself over reality. Sparks shivered over the surface of the hatch.
“Loren, I want to help, and I’ve been given the authority which will allow me to help. Please listen. Gerald is my patient, I don’t want him harmed. I believe the two of us agree on that.”
“Go to hell, Doctor. Better still, I’ll take you there personally. You damaged my husband’s mind. I’m not going to forget that.”
There were noises in the corridor behind her, soft scraping, clinking sounds. When she focused, she could perceive the minds of the marines closing on her. Cold and anxious, but very determined.
“Gerald was damaged by the possession,” Dobbs said. “I was trying to cure him. I want to continue that process.”
The sparks had begun to swirl around the composite of the airlock tube, penetrating below the surface as if they were swimming through the material.
“Under the muzzle of a gun?” she asked scathingly. “I know they’re behind me.”
“The marines won’t shoot. I promise that, Loren. It would be pointless. Shooting would just cost the life of the person you’ve possessed. Nobody wants that. Please, come and talk to me. I’ve already obtained huge concessions from the authorities. Gerald can be taken down to the planet. He’ll be looked after properly, I’ll continue his therapy. Perhaps someday he can even see Marie again.”
“You mean Kiera. That bitch won’t let my daughter go.”
“Nothing is certain. We can discuss this. Please. You can’t leave on the spaceplane. Even if you get in you can hardly pilot it down through the SD network. The only way Gerald can get down to the planet is if I take him.”
“You won’t touch him again. He’s safe in my hiding place now, and you never found me, not in all the time I was there.”
The airlock walls gave out a small creak. All the sparks had blurred together to form a glowing ring of composite encircling her. She smiled tightly. The subterfuge was nearly complete. Dobbs’s intervention had turned out to be a beautiful bonus.
Loren could sense the marines holding back just past the edge of the airlock tube. She took a deep breath, attempting to deflect the knowledge of what was about to come. White fire burst out of her feet with a terrible screeching sound. It fountained into the corridor and broke apart into an avalanche of individual fireballs which careered into the waiting marines.
“No, Loren, don’t, I can help. Please—”
She exerted herself to the full. Dobbs’s voice fractured into a brassy caterwaul before vanishing altogether as the energistic effect crashed every processor within twenty-five metres.
“Don’t,” Pou Mok pleaded from the heart of Loren’s mind. “I won’t tell them where he is. I promise. They’ll never know. Let me live.”
“I can’t trust the living,” Loren told her.
“Bitch!”