“I like you, Leroy. You setting up any more tours for me?”
Leroy flicked a fleeting glance at Jezzibella, who gave him a tiny shake of her head. “No, Al; Merced is the last for a while. It’s more important you’re up at Monterey for a while now, what with the next stage just about ready.”
“Goddamn, am I glad to hear that.”
Leroy smiled contentedly, and put the accountancy block back in his slim case. “Thanks for listening, Al.” He stood.
“No problem. I’ll just have a word with Silvano, here, then the pair of you can get back into space.”
“Sure, Al.”
“So?” Al asked when Leroy had left.
“It ain’t my concern, Al,” Silvano said. “If that’s the way you wanna do it, then fine by me. I admit, we gotta have some kinda dough around here, else things are gonna start falling apart pretty damn fast. We can only keep people in line with the SD platforms for so long.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Al waved a discontented hand. Money for magic, Je-zus, even the numbers racket was more honest than that. He stared at his lieutenant; if it hadn’t been for the ability to sense emotions there would have been no way for him to work out what was going on behind that Latino poker face. But Silvano was eager about something. “So what do you want? And it better be good fucking news.”
“I think it may be. Somebody came back from beyond who had some interesting information for us. He’s an African type, name of Ambar.” Silvan smiled at the memory. “He wound up in a blond Ivy League body, man was he pissed about that; it’s taking up a lot of effort to turn himself into a true brother again.”
“Now there’s someone who could cash in a potload of Leroy’s tokens,” Jezzibella said innocently. She popped another Turkish delight in her mouth, and winked at Al as Silvano scowled.
“Right,” Al chuckled. “What did he want to trade?”
“He’s only been dead thirty years,” Silvano said. “Came from a planet called Garissa, said it got blown away, the whole damn world. Some kind of starship attack that used antimatter. Don’t know whether to believe him or not.”
“You know anything about that?” Al asked Jezzibella.
“Sure, baby, I nearly did a concept album on the Garissa Genocide once. Too depressing, though. It happened all right.”
“Sweet shit, a whole planet. And this Ambar guy was there?”
“So he says.”
“Antimatter can really do that? Waste out an entire planet?”
“Yeah. But the thing is, Al, he says the Garissa government was working on their own weapon when they got wasted, something to fire at Omuta. The biggest weapon ever built, he swears. And he oughta know, he was some hotshot rocket scientist for their navy.”
“Another weapon?”
“Yeah. They called it the Alchemist. Ambar said it got built, but never got used. Said the whole fucking Confederation would know if it had been, that mother’s got some punch.”
“So it’s still around,” Al said. “Let me guess: he’ll lead us right to it.”
“No. But he says he knows someone who can. His old college lecturer, a broad called Alkad Mzu.”
Lady Macbeth was scheduled to depart in another eight hours, though no one would ever guess by looking at her. Twenty per cent of her hull was still open to space, exposing the hexagonal stress structure; engineers on waldo platforms had the gaps completely surrounded, working with methodical haste to integrate the new systems they had installed to replace battle-damaged units.
There was an equal amount of well-ordered effort going on inside the life-support capsules, as crews from five service and astroengineering companies laboured to bring the starship up to its full combat capable status. A status whose performance figures would surprise a lot of conventional warship captains. A status she hadn’t truly enjoyed for decades. Her standard internal fittings were being stripped out, replaced by their military-grade equivalents.
Joshua wanted the old girl readied at peak performance, and as Ione was paying . . . The more he thought about what he’d agreed to do for her, the more he worried about it. Immersing himself in the details of the refit was an easy escape, almost as good as flying.
He had spent most of yesterday holding conferences with astroengineering company managers discussing how to compress a fortnight’s work into forty-eight hours. Now he watched attentively as their technicians clustered around the consoles manipulating the cyberdrones and waldo arms enclosing Lady Mac .
A pair of legs slid through the control centre’s hatch, wobbling about as though the owner wasn’t quite accustomed to free-fall manoeuvring. Joshua hurriedly grabbed at the offending trousers, pulling the man to one side before his shoes caught one of the console operators behind her ear.
“Thank you, Joshua,” a red-faced Horst Elwes said as Joshua guided him down onto a stikpad. He gave a watery blink, and peered out into the bay. “I was told I would find you here. I heard that you had found yourself a charter flight.”
There was no detectable irony in the priest’s tone, so Joshua said: “Yes, the Lord of Ruin contracted me to pick up some essential specialist components to enhance Tranquillity’s defences. The industrial stations outside don’t manufacture every component which goes into the SD platforms.” Joshua didn’t actually hear anyone snigger, but there were definitely some sly grins flashing around the consoles. Nobody knew for sure what the flight was for, but they all had a good idea what it didn’t entail. As an excuse the components charter was pretty feeble. Ione had reported that every intelligence agency in the habitat had taken a sudden interest in his impending departure.
“But they can manage to build combat wasps, apparently,” Horst said with gentle amusement. Brackets on the bay walls held sixty-five combat wasps ready for loading into Lady Macbeth ’s launch tubes.
“One of the reasons we won the contract, Father. Lady Mac can carry cargo and fight her way out of trouble.”
“If you say so, young Joshua. But please, don’t try that one on St Peter if you ever make it to those big white gates.”
“I’ll bear it in mind. Was there something you wanted?”
“Nothing important. I was gladdened to hear your starship was being repaired for you. Lady Macbeth sustained a lot of damage rescuing us. I understand how expensive such machinery is. I wouldn’t want you to suffer a financial penalty for such a selfless act.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“The children would like to see you before you leave.”
“Er . . . Why?”
“I believe they want to say thank you.”
“Oh, yes.” He glanced at Melvyn, who appeared equally discomforted. “I’ll try, Father.”
“I thought you could combine it with the memorial service. They will all be there for that.”
“What memorial service?”
“Oh, dear, didn’t Sarha tell you? The bishop has agreed that I can hold a service of commemoration to those who sacrificed themselves for the children. I think Mr Malin’s team and Warlow deserve our prayers. It starts in three hours time.”
Joshua’s good humour drained away. I do not want to think about death and after, not right now.
Horst studied the young man’s face, seeing both anxiety and guilt expressed in the carefully composed features. “Joshua,” he said quietly. “There is more to death than the beyond. Believe me, I have seen how much more with my own two eyes. The recordings your friend Kelly made, while truthful, do not contain anything like the whole story. Do you think I could retain my faith in Our Lord if Shaun Wallace had been right?”
“What did you see?”
“The one thing which could convince me. For you, I expect it would be different.”
“I see. We have to come to faith in our own way?”