“Dear God,” Admiral Farquar grunted. The spaceport’s external sensors showed him the jet of air diminishing. Three marines had followed Loren Skibbow out into space. Their armour suits would provide some protection against decompression, and they had a small oxygen reserve. The duty officer had already dispatched some MSVs to chase after them.
Loren Skibbow was a different matter. For a while she had glowed from within, a fluorescent figure spinning around and around as she left the ruptured dock behind. Now the glow was fading. After a couple of minutes it winked out. The body exploded far more violently than it should have done.
“Locate as much as you can of her, and bring the pieces back,” Admiral Farquar told the duty officer. “We can take a DNA sample; the ISA ought to be able to identify her for us.”
“But why?” Dr Dobbs asked, mortified. “What the hell made her do that?”
“Perhaps they don’t think quite like us, after all,” the admiral said.
“They do. I know they do.”
“When we find Skibbow, you can ask him.”
It was a task which proved harder than expected. There was no response from his debrief nanonics, so the Royal Navy began a physical search of Guyana, monitored by the AI. No room, no service tunnel, and no storage chamber was overlooked. Any space larger than a cubic metre was examined.
It took two and a half days. Pou Mok’s room was opened and searched thirty-three hours after it began. Because it was listed as being rented (currently unoccupied) by someone on Ombey, and the diligent search turned up nothing, it was closed up and codelocked.
The cabinet meeting which followed the end of the search decided that one missing mental patient could not justify keeping the navy’s premier defence base isolated, nor could Ombey do without the products of Guyana’s industrial stations. The asteroid was stood down to a code three status, and the problem of the woman’s identity and Skibbow’s whereabouts handed over to a joint ISA ESA team.
Three and a half days after its original departure time, the Quadin left for Pinjarra. Gerald Skibbow wasn’t aware of it, he had been in zero-tau an hour before Loren’s final diversion.
The Bar KF-T wasn’t up to much, but after a fifty-hour trip squashed into the two-deck life support capsule of an inter-orbit cargo tug with just the captain’s family to talk to, Monica Foulkes wasn’t about to closet herself away in a barren hotel room. A drink and some company, that’s what I need. She sat on a stool up at the bar sipping an imported beer while Ayacucho’s meagre nightlife eddied around her. The economic downturn from the quarantine was affecting every aspect of Dorados life, even here. It was ten-thirty P.M. local time and only five couples were braving the dance floor, there were even some tables free. But the young men were still reassuringly on the prowl; she’d already had three offers of a drink.
The only cause for concern was how many of them were wearing red handkerchiefs around their ankles, boys and girls. She couldn’t be entirely sure if they wanted to seduce her or simply convert her. Deadnight was becoming an alarming trend; the ESA’s head of station in Mapire estimated twenty per cent of the Dorados’ teenage population was getting sucked in. Monica would have put it nearer to fifty per cent. Given the blandness of existence among the asteroids she was surprised it wasn’t even higher.
Her extended sensory analysis program plotted the tall man’s approach, only alerting her to his existence when he was two metres away and his destination obvious.
“Can I get you another bottle?”
Her intended reply perished as soon as she saw the too-long greying hair flopping over his brow. “Sure,” she said, grinning whimsically.
He sat on the empty stool beside her and signalled the barmaid for a couple of bottles. “Now this is far more stylish than our last encounter.”
“True. How are you, Samuel?”
“Overworked and underpaid. Government employees get the same deal the Confederation over.”
“You forgot unappreciated.”
“No I didn’t,” he said cheerfully. “That’s the benefit of Edenism, everyone contributes to the greater good, no matter what area we excel in.”
“Oh, God.” She accepted her new beer from the barmaid. “An evangelical Edenist. Just my luck.”
“So, what are you doing here?”
“Negotiating armament manufacturing contracts; it actually says I’m a rep for Octagon Exports on my passport.”
“Could be worse.” Samuel tried his beer, and frowned at the bottle with some dismay. “Take me, I’m supposed to be part of the delegation from this system’s Edenist habitats, discussing mutual defence enhancement arrangements. I specialize in internal security procedures.”
Monica laughed, and tipped her bottle at the middle-aged Edenist. “Good luck.” The humour ended. “You must have seen them?”
“Yes. I’m afraid the possessed are definitely inside the barricades.”
“Shit! I meant the Deadnight kids.”
“Ah. Monica, please take care. Our . . . examination of the Dorados has shown up several cadres of possessed. They’re here, and they are expanding. I do not advise you return to Mapire. Our estimation is that it will fall within another three days, probably less.”
“Did you tell the governing council?”
“No. We decided it would cause too much panic and disorder. The council would institute quite draconian measures, and be completely unable to enforce them, which would only worsen the situation. The Dorados do not have the usual civil government structure; for all their size and economic importance, they remain company towns, without adequate law enforcement personnel. In short, the possessed will take over here anyway. We need time to search in peace before they do. I’m afraid Mzu comes before everything, including alerting the population.”
“Oh. Thanks for the warning.”
“My pleasure. Have your assets located Daphine Kigano yet?”
Monica crinkled her face up in distaste. I shouldn’t be discussing this, not with him. Standard agency doctrine. But the universe wasn’t exactly standard anymore. And the ESA didn’t have too many resources here. “No. But we know it’s her.”
“Yes. That’s what we concluded.”
“A chartered starship carrying one passenger was rather unsubtle. Our station accessed the Department of Immigration’s file on the Samaku ’s docking: one hundred per cent visual confirmation. God knows what she was doing in the Narok system, though.”
“Just trading ships, we hope. An interdiction order has gone out for the Samaku , all voidhawks and Confederation Navy ships are alert for it.”
“Good. Look, Samuel, I don’t know what your orders are—”
“Originally: find Mzu, prevent her from handing over the Alchemist to the Garissan partizan movement, retrieve the Alchemist. That’s the soft option. If we can’t do that, then I was instructed to terminate her and destroy her neural nanonics. If we don’t get the Alchemist, no one else must have it.”
“Yeah. Pretty much the same as mine. Personally I think the second option would be best all round.”
“Possibly. I must admit that even after seventy-five years in the job I am reluctant to kill in cold blood. A life is a life.”
“For the greater good, my friend.”
Samuel smiled sadly. “I know both the arguments and the stakes involved. However, there is also a new factor to consider. We absolutely cannot allow her or it to fall into the hands of the possessed.”
“God, I know that. Capone with antimatter is bad enough; give him the Alchemist and the Confederation Navy might not be able to contain him.”
“Which means, we really don’t want to expedite option two, do we?”
Facing him was the same as receiving a stern glance from a loving grandfather who was dispensing homely wisdom. How infuriating that she had to have the obvious pointed out to her in such a fashion. “How can I argue against that?” She grunted miserably.
“Just as long as you appreciate all the factors.”
“Sure. Consider my wrist firmly smacked. What have your lot got planned for her, then?”
“Following acquisition, Consensus recommended placing her in zero-tau. At the very least until the possessed situation is resolved. Possibly longer.”