Gilbert was Magellanic Itg’s old comptroller, and had never really stood a chance. Rubra had been trying to steer him along some service tunnels below a tube station, but Bonney and her co-hunters were boxing him in.
“There’s an inspection hatch three metres ahead,” Rubra datavised to Van-Riytell. “I want you to—”
Shadows lifted themselves off the service tunnel wall and grabbed the old man. Rubra hadn’t even noticed them. His perception routines had been expertly circumvented.
Once again, he purged and reformatted local sub-routines. By the time he regained some observation ability Van-Riytell’s legs and arms were being tied around a long pole, ready to be carried away like a prize trophy. He wasn’t even struggling anymore. Bonney was supervising the procedure happily.
One of her hunting team was standing back, watching aloofly; a tall young man in a simple white suit.
Rubra knew then. It had to be him.
Dariat!
The young man’s head jerked up. For an instant the illusion flickered. Long enough for Rubra. Under the outline of the handsome youth lurked Horgan. Horgan with a shocked expression wrenching his thin face. Incontrovertible proof.
I knew it would be you,rubra said. in a way the knowledge came almost as a relief.
Much good it will do you,dariat answered. Your awareness of anything is going to come to an end real soon now. And you won’t even make it to the freedom of the beyond, I won’t allow you that escape.
You’re amazing, Dariat. I mean that as a compliment. You still want me, don’t you? You want revenge. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, all that kept you alive these last thirty years. You still blame me for poor old Anastasia Rigel, even after all this time.
You got another suspect? If you hadn’t driven me away, she and I would still be alive.
The pair of you would be dodging good old Bonney here, you mean.
Maybe so. But then maybe if I’d been happy I might have made something of my life. Ever think of that? I might have risen through the company hierarchy just like you always wanted. I could have made Magellanic Itg supreme; I could have turned Valisk into the kind of nation that would have had Tranquillity’s plutocrats flocking to us in droves. There wouldn’t be any of these misfits and losers who rally around your banner. King Alastair would have come here asking me for tips on how to run his Kingdom. Do you really think a shipload of fucking zombies could have walked in here past passport, customs, and immigration without anyone even noticing if that kind of regime had been in place? Don’t you dare try and avoid facing up to what you’ve done.
Oh, really? Tell me: by misfits, and all the other trash you’d fling out of the airlocks, do you include the kind of girl you fell in love with?
“Bastard!” Dariat screamed. Everyone in the hunting party stared at him, even Van-Riytell. “I’ll find you. I’ll get you. I’ll crush your soul to death.” Rage distended his face. He flung both arms out horizontally from his body, a magus Samson thrusting against the temple pillars. White fire exploded from his hands to chew into the tunnel walls. Polyp flaked and cracked, black chips spinning away through the air.
Temper temper,rubra mocked. I see that hasn’t improved much over the years.
“Pack it in, you maniac!” Bonney yelled at him.
“Help me!” Dariat shouted back. The energistic hurricane roaring through his body was turning his brain to white-hot magma, wanting to burst clean out of his skull. “I’m going to kill him. Help me, for Chi-ri’s sake.” White fire hammered at the crumbling tunnel, desperate to reach the neural strata, to reach the very substance of the mind, and burn and burn and burn . . .
“Stop it, right now.” Bonney aimed her Enfield at him, one eyebrow cocked.
Dariat slowly allowed the white fire to sink back into the passive energistic currents stirring the cells of his possessed body. His shoulders hunched in as smoke from the scorched polyp spun around him. He reverted to Horgan, even down to the unwashed shirt and creased trousers. Hands were pressed to his face as he resisted the onrush of tears. “I’ll get him,” Horgan’s quavering, high-pitched voice proclaimed. “I’ll fucking have him. I’ll roast him inside his shell like he was some kind of lobster. You’ll see. Thirty years I’ve waited. Thirty! Thole owes me my justice. He owes me.”
“Sure he does,” Bonney said. “But just so you and I are clear on this: pull another stunt like that, and you’ll need a new body to work out of.” She jerked her head to the team trussing up Van-Riytell. They lifted the old comptroller off the ground and started off down the tunnel.
The hunter woman glanced back at Dariat’s hunched figure, opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. She followed the rest of the hunters along the tunnel.
You frightened me so bad I’m trembling,rubra sneered. Can you feel the quakes? I expect the sea is about to flood the parkland. How’s about that for wetting yourself?
Laugh away,dariat said shakily. Go right ahead. But I’m going to come for you one day. I’ll crack your safeguards. They won’t last forever, you know that. And forever is what I’ve got on my side now. Then when I’ve busted you, I’m going to come into that neural strata with you, I’m going to crawl into your mind like a maggot, Rubra. And like a maggot I’m going to gnaw away at you.
I always was right about you. You were the best. Who else could still burn so hot after thirty years? Damn, why did you ever have to meet her? Together we could have rebuilt the company into a galaxy challenger.
Such flattery. I’m honoured.
Don’t be. Help me.
What?You have got to be fucking joking.
No. Together we could beat Kiera, purge the habitat of her cronies. You can rule Valisk yet.
The Edenists were right, you are insane.
The Edenists are frightened by my determination. You should know, you inherited that gene, it seems.
Yeah. So you know you can’t deflect me. Don’t even try.
Dariat, you’re not one of them, boy, not one of the possessed. Not really. What can they possibly give you afterwards, huh? Ever thought of that? What sort of culture are they going to build? This is just an aberration of nature, a nonsense, and a transient one at that. Life has to have a purpose, and they’re not alive. This energistic ability, the way you can create out of nothing, how can you square that with human behaviour? It’s not possible, the two are not compatible, never will be. Look at yourself. If you want Anastasia back, bring her back. Find her in the beyond, get her back here. You can have everything now, remember? Kiera said so, did she not? Are you a part of that, Dariat? You have to decide, boy. Someday. If you don’t, they’ll do it for you.
“I can’t bring her back,” he whispered.
What’s that?
I can’t. You understand nothing.
Try me.
You, a confessor father? Never.
I always have been. I am the confessor for everyone inside me, you know that. I am the repository of everyone’s secrets. Including those of Anastasia Rigel.
I know everything about Anastasia. We had no secrets. We were in love.
Really? She had a life before you met her, you know. Seventeen long years. And afterwards, too.
Dariat glanced around with cold anger, his appearance sliding back to the white-suited ascetic. There was no afterwards. She died! Because of you.
If you knew of her past, you would understand what I meant.
What secrets?he demanded.
Help me, and I’ll show you.
You shit! I’m going to cremate you, I’ll dance on your fragments—
Rubra’s principal routine watched Dariat’s rage run its course. He thought at one point that the man would revert to flailing at the tunnel walls with white fire again. But Dariat managed to hang on to that last shred of control—barely.
Rubra stayed silent. He knew it was too early to play his ace, the one final secret he had kept safe for the last thirty years. The doubt he had planted deep in Dariat’s mind would have to be teased further, tormented into full-blown paranoia before the revelation was exposed.