“We need to talk terms about another squadron. I mean, between you and me, I’m in deep shit over Arnstadt—pardon my French. The goddamn voidhawks there are wasting a couple of my ships each day. Something’s gotta be done.”
Kiera gave a noncommittal moue. “And what about this fleet? Won’t you need a squadron to protect it from voidhawks at Toi-Hoi?”
Al didn’t need to consult Luigi over that one, he could sense the hunger in the fleet commander’s mind. “Now you come to mention it, it might not be a bad idea.”
“I’ll see to it,” Kiera said. “There should be another group of hellhawks returning to Valisk today. If I dispatch a messenger now, they should be back here within twenty-four hours.”
“Sounds pretty damn good to me, lady.”
Kiera raised her walkie-talkie, and pulled a long length of chrome aerial out of it. “Magahi, would you return to Monterey’s docking ledge, please.”
“Roger,” a crackling voice said from the walkie-talkie. “Give me twenty minutes.”
Al was aware of an uncomfortable amount of satisfaction in Kiera’s mind. She was pretty sure she’d just won something. “Couldn’t you just tell Magahi to go straight back to the habitat?” he inquired lightly.
Kiera’s smile widened gracefully. It was the same welcoming promise which had ended the Deadnight recording. “I don’t think so. There’s a big security factor if we radio the order; after all there are still some spyglobes out there. I don’t want the Edenists to know Magahi is flying escort on a frigate convoy.”
“Escort? What frigates?”
“The frigates carrying the first batch of my antimatter combat wasps to Valisk. That was your part of the bargain, Al, wasn’t it?”
Damn the bitch! Al’s cigar had gone out. Emmet said their stocks of antimatter were nearly exhausted, and the fleet needed every gram to insure success at Toi-Hoi. He looked at Leroy, then Luigi. Neither of them could offer him a way out. “Sure thing, Kiera. We’ll get it organized.”
“Thank you, Al.”
Tough little ironass. Al couldn’t decide if he respected that or not. He didn’t need any more complications right now. But he was awful glad that she was lining up on his side.
He took another sidelong look at her figure. Who knows? We could get to be real close allies. Except Jez would kill me for real . . .
The ballroom’s huge double doors swung open to admit Patricia and someone Al had never seen before. A possessed man, who managed to cringe away from Patricia at the same time as he scampered along beside her. Judging by the perilously fragile state of his thoughts he had only just come into his new body.
He saw Al, and made an effort to compose himself. Then his eyes darted to the huge window. His discipline crumpled. “Holy cow,” he whispered. “It is true. You are going to invade Toi-Hoi.”
“Who the fuck is this goofball?” Al shouted at Patricia.
“His name’s Perez,” she said calmly. “And you need to listen to him.”
If it had been anyone else who spoke to him like that, they would’ve been kiboshed. But Patricia was one he really trusted. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“Think what he just said, Al.”
Al did. “How did you know about Toi-Hoi?” he asked.
“Khanna! I got it from Khanna. She told me to tell you. She said one of us must get through. Then she killed me. She killed all of us. No, not killed, executed, that’s what she did, executed us. Smash smash smash with the white fire. Straight through my brain. That bitch! I’d only been back for five minutes. Five goddamn minutes!”
“Who told you, fella? Who’s this she you got the beef with?”
“Jacqueline Couteur. Back in Trafalgar. The Confederation Navy got her banged up in the demon trap. I hope she rots there. Bitch.”
Patricia smiled a superior I-told-you-so, which Al acknowledged frugally. He put his arm around Perez’s shaking shoulders, and proffered the man a Havana. “Okay, Perez. You got my word, the word of Al Capone, which is the toughest currency of all, that nobody here is gonna send you back into the beyond again. Now, you wanna start at the beginning for me?”
Earth.
A planet whose ecology was ruined beyond repair: the price it paid for elevating itself to be the Confederation’s supreme industrial and economic superpower. Overpopulated, ancient, decadent, and utterly formidable. This was the undeniable imperial heart of the human dominion.
It was also home.
Quinn Dexter admired the images building up on the bridge’s holoscreens. This time he could savour them with unhurried joy. Their official Nyvan flight authority code had been accepted by Govcentral Strategic Defence Command. As far as anyone was concerned, they were a harmless ship sent by a tiny government to buy defence components.
“Traffic control has given us a vector,” Dwyer said. “We have permission to dock at the Supra-Brazil tower station.”
“That’s good. Can you fly it?”
“I think so. It’s tough, we have to go around the Halo, and they’ve given us a narrow flight path, but I can handle that.”
Quinn nodded his permission without saying anything. Dwyer had been a perfect pain in the arse for the whole voyage, making out how difficult everything was before the flight computer performed whatever was required with faultless efficiency. An extraordinarily transparent attempt to show how indispensable he was. But then Quinn knew the effect he had on people, it was part of the fun.
Dwyer was immediately busy talking to the flight computer. Icons flurried over the console displays. Eight minutes later they were under power, accelerating at a third of a gee to curve southwards around the O’Neill Halo.
“Are we going down to the planet first?” Dwyer asked. He was growing progressively twitchier in contrast to Quinn’s deadly calm. “I didn’t know if you wanted to take over an asteroid.”
“Take over?” Quinn asked faintly.
“Yeah. You know, bring them the gospel of God’s Brother. Like we did for Jesup and the other three.”
“No, I don’t think so. Earth isn’t so arse backwards as Nyvan, it would never be that simple to convene the Night here. It must be corrupted from within. The sects will help me do that. Once I show them what I’ve become they’ll welcome me back. And of course, my friend Banneth is down there. God’s Brother understands.”
“Sure, Quinn, that’s good. Whatever you say.” The communications console bleeped for attention, which Dwyer happily gave it. Script flowed down one of the screens, which only amplified his distress as he read it. “Hell, Quinn, have you seen this?”
“God’s Brother gave me a great many gifts, but being psychic isn’t one of them.”
“It’s the clearance procedures we have to comply with after we dock. Govcentral security wants to ensure no possessed are on board.”
“Fuck that.”
“Quinn!”
“I do hope, I really fucking do hope that you’re not questioning me, Dwyer.”
“Shit, no way, Quinn. You’re the man, you know that.” His voice was verging on hysteria.
“Glad to hear it.”
The Brazilian orbital tower sprouted from the very heart of the South American continent, extending fifty-five thousand kilometres out into space. When it was in Earth’s penumbra, as it was when the Mount’s Delta approached, it was invisible to every visual sensor. However, in other electromagnetic wavelengths, and particularly the magnetic spectrum, it gleamed. A slim golden strand of impossible length, with minute scarlet particles skimming along it at tremendous speed.
There were two asteroids attached to the tower. Supra-Brazil, the anchor, was in geostationary orbit thirty-six thousand kilometres above the ground, where it had been mined to extract the carbon and silicon used in the tower’s construction. The second asteroid sat right at the tip, acting as a mass counterbalance to ensure the anchor remained stable, and damp down any dangerous harmonic oscillations in the tower which built up from running the lift capsules.