A split-second pause, then Al was laughing again. “Goddamn right. Gotta let em know who’s calling the shots.” A finger was raised in caution. “But, I gotta admit; I got one hell of a problem brewing here, Demaris.”
“Well, Christ, Al, anything I can do to help, you know that.”
“Sure, Demaris, I know that. The thing is, once we start the crusade they’re gonna fight back, the Confederation guys. And they’re bigger than we are.”
Demaris dropped his voice an octave, glancing from side to side. “Well sure they are, Al; but we got the antimatter now.”
“Yeah, that’s right, we got that. But that don’t make them any smaller, not numbers wise.”
Demaris’s smile was a little harder to maintain. “I don’t see . . . What is it you want, Al?”
“This guy you’re possessing—what’s his name?”
“The goof calls himself Kingsley Pryor, he was a real hotshot engineer for the Confederation Navy, a lieutenant commander.”
“That’s right, Kingsley Pryor.” Al pointed a finger at Leroy Octavius.
“Lieutenant Commander Kingsley Pryor,” Leroy recited, glancing at the screen on his processor block. “Attended University of Columbus, and graduated 2590 with a degree in magnetic confinement physics. Joined Confederation Navy the same year, graduated from Trafalgar’s officer cadet campus with a first. Took a doctorate in fusion engineering at Montgomery Tech in 2598. Assigned to 2nd Fleet headquarters engineering division. Rapid promotion. Currently working on the navy’s project to reduce fusion rocket size. Married, with one son.”
“Yeah,” Demaris said cagily. “That’s him. So?”
“So I got a job for him, Demaris,” Al said. “A special job, see? I’m real sorry about that, but I can’t see no way out of it.”
“No need to be sorry, Al. Like I said, anything I can do.”
Al scratched the side of his cheek, just above three thin white scars. “No, Demaris, you ain’t listening. I fucking hate it when people do that. I got a job for him to do. Not you.”
“Him? You mean Pryor?”
Al gave the ever-impassive Mickey a helpless grimace. “Je-zus, I’m dealing with fucking Einstein here. YES, shit-for-brains. Kingsley Pryor, I want him back. Now.”
“But, but, Al, I can’t give you him. I am him.” Demaris thumped his chest frantically with both hands. “I ain’t got anybody else to ride around in. You can’t ask me to do that.”
Al frowned. “Are you loyal to me, Demaris, are you loyal to the Organization?”
“What kind of a fucking question is that? Course I’m fucking loyal, Al. But it still don’t mean you can ask that. You can’t!” He whirled around as he heard the smooth snik of a Thompson being cocked. Luigi Balsmao was cradling one of the machine guns lightly, an affable smile on his thickset face.
“I am asking you, as a loyal member of my Organization, to give me back Kingsley Pryor. I’m asking you nicely .”
“No. No fucking way, man!”
The scars on Al’s reddening face were frost-white. “Because you acted loyal to me I give you the choice. Because we’re gonna liberate every one of those ass-backwards planets out there, you’re gonna have a zillion decent bodies to choose from. Because of this, I give you the opportunity to avoid zero-tau and prove your honour like a man. Now for the last goddamn time, read my lips: I want Pryor.”
Kingsley Pryor didn’t even know why he was crying like a baby. Because he was free? Because he’d been possessed? Because death wasn’t final?
Whatever the reason, the emotional fallout was running through him like an electrical discharge. Control was impossible. However, he was fairly sure he was crying. Lying on cool silk sheets, a billowingly soft mattress below his spine. Knees hooked up under his chin with arms wrapped around his shins. And in darkness. Not the sensory deprivation of the mental imprisonment, but a wonderful genuine dusk, where a mosaic of grey on grey shadows delineated shapes. It was enough for a start. Had he been plunged directly into countryside on a sunny day he would probably have fried from sensory overload.
A swishing sound made him tighten his grip on himself. Currents of air stirred across his face as someone sat on the bed beside him.
“It’s all right,” a girl’s melodic voice whispered. “The worst part’s over now.”
Fingers stroked the nape of his neck. “You’re back. You’re alive again.”
“Did . . . Did we win?” he croaked.
“No. I’m afraid not, Kingsley. In fact, the real battle hasn’t even begun yet.”
He shivered uncontrollably. Too much. Everything was too much for him right now. He wanted, not to die (Gods no!) but just to be away. Alone.
“That’s why Al let you out again. You have a part to play in the battle, you see. A very important part.”
How could a voice so mellifluous carry such an intimation of catastrophe? He used his neural nanonics to retrieve a strong tranquillizer program and shunt it into primary mode. Sensations and palpitating emotions damped down. Something was not quite right about the neural nanonics function, but he couldn’t be bothered to run a diagnostic.
“Who are you?” he asked.
A head was laid down on his shoulder, arms embracing him. For a moment he was reminded of Clarissa, the softness, the warmth, the female scent.
“A friend. I didn’t want you to wake up with them taunting you. That would have been too horrible. You need my touch, my sympathy. I understand people like no other. I can prepare you for what is to come: the offer you can’t refuse.”
He slowly straightened himself and turned to look at her. The sweetest girl he’d ever seen, her age lost between fifteen and twenty-five, fair hair curling buoyantly around her face as she looked down at him in concern.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her.
“They’ve captured Clarissa,” she said. “And dear little Webster, too. I’m sorry. We know how much you love them. Demaris Coligan told us.”
“Captured?”
“But safe. Secure. Non-possessed. A child and a woman, they could not be hurt, not here. Al welcomes the non-possessed to his Organization. They’ll have an honoured place, Kingsley. You can earn that for them.”
He struggled to resolve the image which the name Al stirred in his mind. The fleshy-faced young man in a strange grey hat. “Earn it?”
“Yes. They can be safe forever, they need never die, never age, never endure pain. You can bring them that gift.”
“I want to see them.”
“You could.” She kissed his brow, a tiny dry lick with her lips. “One day. If you do what we ask, you will be able to return to them. I promise that. Not as your friend. Not as your enemy. Just one human to another.”
“When? When can I see them?”
“Hush, Kingsley. You’re too tired now. Sleep. Sleep away all your anguish. And when you wake, you will learn of the fabulous destiny which is yours to fulfill.”
Moyo watched Ralph Hiltch walk down the road out of Exnall, the girl lying in his arms. Together they made a classical image, the hero rescuing his damsel.
The other armour-suited troops closed around their leader, and together they slipped off the road, back into the cover of the trees. Not that the snarled-up trunks of the old forest could hide them; Ralph’s fury acted like a magnesium flare to the strange senses which Moyo was only just accustoming himself to.