Activity around the table slowed as operators glanced at Quinn. Resentment was building in their thoughts, capped, as always, by fear.
“How do we get out, Quinn?” Shemilt asked.
“We wait. Space warfare is very fast, and very destructive. By the end of today, there won’t be a working laser cannon or a combat wasp left orbiting Nyvan. We’ll get hit a few times, but fuck, these walls are two kilometres thick. This is the mother of all fallout shelters.” He gestured at the table, and every marker ignited, yellow candlelike flames squirting out black smoke. “Then when it’s over, we can fly away in perfect safety.”
Shemilt nodded hurriedly, using speed to prove he’d never doubted. “I’m sorry, Quinn, it’s obvious really.”
“Thank you. Now kill those ships.”
“Yes, sir.”
Quinn left the control centre with Bonham scurrying after him, always trailing by a few paces. The giant door slid shut behind them, its bass grumbles echoing along the broad corridor.
“Are there really enough ships here to take everyone off?” Bonham asked.
“I doubt it. And even if there were, the spaceport will be a prime target.”
“So . . . some of us should leave early, then?”
“Fast, Bonham, very fast. That’s probably why you got where you did.”
“Thank you, Quinn.” He quickened his steps; Quinn’s voice was slightly fainter.
“Of course, if they see me leaving now, they’d know I’d abandoned them. Discipline would go straight to shit.”
“Quinn?” He could hardly hear the dark figure at all now.
“After all, it’s not as if you could bind them . . .”
Bonham squinted at the figure he was now almost running to catch up with. Quinn seemed to be gliding smoothly over the rock floor without moving his legs. His black robe had faded to grey. In fact it was almost translucent. “Quinn?” This latest performance was frightening him more than anything to date. The anger and wrath which Quinn radiated so easily were simple to understand, almost reassuring in comparison. This though, Bonham didn’t know if it was something being done to Quinn, or something he was doing to himself. “What is this? Quinn?”
Quinn had become completely transparent now, only the slightest rippling outline of rock betrayed his position; even his thoughts were evaporating from Bonham’s perception. He stumbled to a halt. Panic set in. Quinn was no longer present anywhere in the corridor.
“Holy Christ, now what?”
He felt a breath of cold air strike his face. He frowned.
A bolt of white fire smashed into the back of his skull. Two souls were cast out of the corpse as it collapsed onto the floor, both of them keening in dread at the fate which awaited.
“Wrong God.” A chuckle drifted down the empty corridor.
When Joshua landed just after midday local time, rumour was blanketing Harrisburg as thickly as the snow. It seemed to be the one weapon in the armoury of the possessed which was the same the Confederation over. The more people heard, the less they knew, the more fearful they became. One freak outbreak of urban mythology and entire populations would become paralysed, either that or regress straight into survivalist siege mode.
On most worlds, government assurances and rover reporters on the scene managed to restart the engines of ordinary existence. People would creep sheepishly back to work and wait for the next canard of Genghis Khan riding a Panzer tank into the suburbs.
Not on Nyvan. Here governments were the ones gleefully shooting out savage accusations at their old antagonists. A coordinated global response to the prospect of the possessed landing was never even considered, a realpolitik impossibility.
As soon as they landed Joshua loaded a search request into the city’s commercial data core. The number of armed guards and lack of flights at the spaceport made his intuition rebel. He knew they didn’t have much time; the quiet approach—questions, contacts, money—would never work here.
They hired a car and set off down hotel row, a potholed six-lane motorway which linked the spaceport to the city ten kilometres away. Only two lanes were cleared of snow, and there was hardly any other traffic.
Dahybi used his electronic warfare detector block to sweep the eight-seater cabin for bugs. “Seems clean,” he told the others.
“Okay,” Joshua said. “Our processor technology is probably more advanced than the locals, but don’t count on it for a permanent advantage. I need to find her as fast as we can, which is going to mean sacrificing subtlety.”
As they approached the hotel they’d booked, Joshua datavised an update into the car’s control processor. The car swept past the hotel’s entrance, heading for the city.
“There goes our deposit,” Melvyn complained.
“It bothers me,” Joshua said. “Ione, are we being followed?”
One of the serjeants was sitting at the back of the cab, pointing a small circular sensor pad through the rear window. “One car, possibly two. I think there are three people in the first one.”
“Probably some kind of local security police,” Joshua decided. “I’d be surprised if they weren’t keeping tabs on foreigners right now.”
“So what do we do about them?” Dahybi asked.
“Not a damn thing. I don’t want to give them an excuse to interfere.” He accessed the car’s net processor and established an encrypted link to the spaceplane. “What’s your situation, Ashly?”
“So far so good. I’ll have the electron matrices completely recharged in another three minutes. That’ll expand your options.”
“Good. We’ll keep a channel open to you from now on. If the city’s net starts to crash, come get us. That’s our cut-off point.”
“Aye, Captain. Lady Macbeth just fell below the horizon, so I’ve lost contact. Every civil communications satellite is out now.”
“If their situation alters, they’ll change orbit and re-establish a link. Sarha knows what to do.”
“I certainly hope so. Before I lost contact, Beaulieu told me four voidhawks have arrived. They’re heading for low orbit.”
“They must have come from the Dorados,” Joshua decided. “Ashly, when Lady Mac comes back on-line, tell Sarha to monitor them as best she can. And let me know if any of their spaceplanes land.”
The snowfall had thickened considerably by the time Joshua’s car reached the address his search program had identified for him. It reduced Harrisburg to a sequence of shabby granite streets that were hard to tell apart. Nothing was alive apart from people, wrapped in their insulated coats as they kicked their way through the pavement slush. Hologram billboards and neon signs were all that remained unaffected by the weather, flashing and morphing as always.
“I should have brought Liol down,” Joshua muttered, half to himself. “He said he wanted a taste of exotic worlds.”
“You’re going to have to come to terms with him eventually, Joshua,” Melvyn said.
“Maybe. Jesus, if he just wasn’t such a pushy bastard. Can’t you tell him to lighten up, Ione? You spend a lot of time talking to him.”
“It didn’t work before,” one of the serjeants said.
“You’ve already told him?”
“Let’s say I’ve been through the procedure earlier. He’s not the only one who needs to relax, Joshua. Neither of you are going to make any progress the way you both carry on.”
He wanted to explain. How it was. How he didn’t feel quite so alone anymore, and how that left him troubled. How he wanted to welcome his brother, but at the same time knew him so well he didn’t trust him. To be honest with him would be seen as a weakness. Liol was the interloper. Let him make the first gesture. I saved his arse from the Dorados, I was the honourable one, and what thanks do I get?