“Yes, yes.” Haaker waved an irritable hand. “Well keep me informed of any further developments. Preferably ahead of the media.”
“Yes, Mr President.”
The image of the President and his aide vanished.
“Ungrateful old git,” Kolhammer muttered.
“It’s understandable,” Lalwani said. “The Assembly is beginning to resemble a zoo these days. The ambassadors have realized that for once their magnificent speeches alone aren’t going to solve this crisis. They’re shouting for action, though of course they don’t name a specific.”
“The antimatter ought to relieve a lot of pressure on the Navy,” Kolhammer said. “We should be able to press individual governments to maintain the civil starflight quarantine.”
“There’s still a lot of reticence there,” Lalwani said. “The smaller, more distant asteroids are suffering badly from the economic situation. To them, the conflict is a remote one. That justifies their clandestine flights.”
“It’s only remote until their selfish idiocy allows a possessed into their settlement,” Kolhammer snapped.
“We’re making progress on identifying the principal offenders,” Lalwani said. “I’m getting a lot of cooperation from other intelligence agencies. Once we’ve confirmed the offence, the problem then becomes a diplomatic one.”
“And everything goes pear-shaped,” Kolhammer said. “Bloody lawyers.”
Samual put his tea cup down on the central rosewood table, and turned directly to Auster. “You were with Meredith’s squadron at Jupiter, I believe?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Auster said.
“Good. I accessed all of your report on the antimatter station mission while the Ilex was docking; and I’d like you to tell me directly why Consensus is sending two ships to the other side of the Orion nebula. Specifically why one of them is the Lady Macbeth . I simply could not make it plainer that I expected Captain Calvert and that despicable Mzu woman to remain in Tranquillity, and incommunicado.”
The voidhawk captain gave a slight bow, his face respectfully grave. Despite all the mental bolstering which came from unity with other Edenists, and his link with Ilex , facing the displeased First Admiral was quite an ordeal. “I assure you, Consensus regards the Alchemist problem with the utmost seriousness. However, there was some on-the-ground information available which required reassessing your proscription.”
Samual Aleksandrovich settled back in the leather upholstery, knowing he shouldn’t enjoy playing the inflexible tyrant. Sometimes it was hard to resist. “Go on.”
“The Lord of Ruin has discovered that the Tyrathca religion may have some physical basis.”
“I didn’t know they had a religion,” Kolhammer said. His neural nanonics was running a search through various encyclopaedia files.
“That was also something of a revelation,” Auster said. “But they do, and their God would appear to be some kind of powerful artefact. They believe it capable of saving them from human possessed.”
“So Consensus sent a pair of starships to investigate,” Samual said.
“Yes. Given the distance involved, the only kind of Adamist ship that can get there is one that has an antimatter drive.”
“And such a flight also removes Calvert and Mzu from any possible contact with the possessed. How very convenient.”
“Consensus considered it so, Admiral.”
Samual laughed dryly. “Lagrange Calvert meeting a real live god. What a spectacle. We should be able to see that clash of egos from this side of the nebula.” Lalwani and Auster grinned in unison.
“Well, there are slimmer straws to grasp, I suppose,” Samual said. “Thank you, Captain, and my congratulations to Ilex on a successful mission.”
The Edenist stood, and bowed formally. “Admiral.” Lieutenant Keaton went with him to the door.
Although he considered it faintly ridiculous, if not rude, Samual waited until Auster was outside before speaking to the other two admirals. Privacy was a hard concept for him to abandon; and he knew Lalwani kept their secure sessions confidential as a matter of courtesy. “A god?” he asked Lalwani.
“I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “But Consensus wouldn’t embark on such a course unless it had a degree of confidence in the result.”
“Very well,” Samual said. “I’d like to receive a complete briefing from the Jovian Consensus, please.”
“I’ll see that we’re updated.”
“Until we are, we won’t be including biblical salvation in our strategic planning sessions.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“That just leaves us with our last current problem,” Samual said. “Mortonridge.”
“Could have told you that was a waste of time,” Kolhammer retorted.
“You did. Frequently. As did I. But it is first and foremost a politically motivated campaign. However, we cannot ignore the fact it isn’t going quite to plan. This latest development is unnerving to say the least. It also looks as though our marine battalions are going to be tied up there for a longer than we originally estimated.”
“Longer! Ha,” Kolhammer said in disgust. “Have you accessed any of those sensevises? God, that mud. The whole bloody Liberation is completely stalled.”
“It hasn’t stalled, they’re just encountering more problems than they anticipated,” Lalwani said.
Kolhammer chuckled, and raised his coffee cup in salute. “I’ve always been a massive admirer of the Edenist ability to understate. But I think defining a chunk of land fifteen kilometres across that suddenly takes flight and wanders off into another dimension as a little problem is possibly the best example yet.”
“I never said little .”
“Ketton’s disappearance isn’t my main concern,” Samual said. He received the surprised look which the others gave him with calm humour. “I was thinking about the medical difficulties de-possession is leaving us with. So far we’ve been fortunate the news companies have been playing it down, but that won’t last. People will eventually wake up to the implications if we’re ever successful in returning planets like Lalonde and Norfolk to this universe. There’s been a commendable effort by the Kingdom’s allies to assist with fresh medical supplies, but the number of cancer-related deaths is still rising.” He clicked his fingers at Keaton, who was hovering near the samovar.
“Sir.” The lieutenant stepped forward. “Trafalgar’s medical office have been examining the consequences of depossession. Frankly, we’re lucky Mortonridge doesn’t have a larger population. The Kingdom and its allies should just manage to provide enough nanonic packages to cope with two million cancer patients. Though we’re dubious about correct application; the number of experienced doctors is a critical factor. However, we estimate that an entire planet of de-possessed, with an average population of three quarters of a billion, would essentially exhaust the entire Confederation’s medical facilities. To our knowledge, the possessed have so far taken over eighteen planets, with several hundred additional asteroid settlements. And we expect the planets Capone has infiltrated will soon join them. Ultimately, we could be dealing with as many as thirty planetary populations, possibly more than that.”
“Shit,” Kolhammer exclaimed. He gave the youngish lieutenant a very worried frown. “So what’s going to happen if we get them all back?”
“Given the development level of cancers we’ve seen on the de-possessed so far, there will be a rapid and extremely high mortality rate among their respective populations if they remain untreated.”
“That’s a very clinical way of putting it, lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir. You should also consider, the possessing souls are either unaware of the damage they’re inflicting on their hosts, or are unable to cure it. Their energistic power is capable of repairing physical injury, but we haven’t seen them deal with this kind of illness yet. It may be they can’t.”
“What are you getting at?” Lalwani asked.
“Unless the biochemical environment on the planets they’ve removed from this universe is radically different in some way, then the possessed will all be suffering like this no matter where they are. In which case, if they don’t start to effect some kind of treatment, their host bodies might die.”
Lalwani’s shock was so vehement she couldn’t prevent some of it from leaking into the general affinity band. Edenists in the asteroid automatically opened their minds, proffering emotional support.
Reluctantly, Lalwani refused. “Thirty planetary populations?” she demanded, incredulous. She glanced from the lieutenant to the First Admiral. “You knew?”
“I accessed the report this morning,” Samual admitted. “And I haven’t informed the President, yet. Let him get on top of the Assembly again before we break news like this.”