The Night's Dawn Trilogy (222 page)

Joshua gazed at her, trying to understand where his Kelly had vanished. “I’m sorry you feel that way, really I am. I think
we did okay at Lalonde, and a lot of other people share that opinion.”

“Then they’re stupid, and they’ll grow out of it. Because everything now is temporary. Everything. When you’re damned to exist
for eternity, nothing you experience lasts for long.”

“Quite. That’s what makes living worthwhile.”

“No.” She gave him a fragile smile. “Know what I’m going to do now?”

“What?”

“Join Ashly, he’s got the right idea about how to spend his time. I’m going to take million-year sojourns in zero-tau. I’m
going to sleep away the rest of the universe’s existence, Joshua.”

“Jesus, that’s dumb. What’s the point?”

“The point is, you don’t suffer the beyond.”

Joshua grinned the infamous Calvert grin, then ducked forwards to give her a quick kiss. “Thanks, Kelly.”

“What the hell for, bollockbrain?”

“It’s a faith thing. You have to come to it by yourself… apparently.”

“If you go on like this, Joshua, you’re going to die young.”

“And leave a beautiful corpse. Yeah, I know. But I’m still flying Ione’s charter.”

Her mournful eyes regarded him with hurt and the old pain of longing. But she knew the gulf was too wide now. They both did.

“I never doubted it.” She kissed him back, so platonic it was almost formal. “Take care.”

“It was fun while it lasted, though, wasn’t it?” he inquired to her retreating back.

Her hand fluttered casually, a dismissive backwards wave.

“Sod it,” he grunted.

“Ah, Joshua, good, I wanted to catch you.”

He turned to face Horst. “Nice service, Father.”

“Why, thank you. I got rather out of practice on Lalonde, nice to see the old art hasn’t deserted me entirely.”

“The children look well.”

“I should hope so, the attention they’re getting. Tranquillity is an extraordinary place for an old arcology dweller like
me. You know, the Church really did get it wrong about bitek. It’s a wonderful technology.”

“Another cause, Father?”

Horst chuckled. “I have my hands full, thank you. Speaking of which—” He pulled a small wooden crucifix from his cassock pocket.
“I’d like you to take this with you on your voyage. I had it with me the whole time on Lalonde. I’m not sure if it’ll bring
you good luck, but I suspect your need is greater than mine.”

Joshua accepted the gift awkwardly, not quite sure whether to put it around his neck or stuff it in a pocket. “Thank you,
Father. It’ll come with me.”

“Bon voyage, Joshua. May the Lord look after you. And do try and be good, this time.”

Joshua grinned. “Do my best.”

Horst hurried back to the children.

“Captain Calvert?”

Joshua sucked in a breath. Now what? “You got me.” He was telling it to a gleaming brass breastplate, one with distinctly
feminine contours. It belonged to a cosmonik that resembled some steam-age concept of a robot: solid metal bodywork and rubbery
flexible joints. Definitely a cosmonik, Joshua determined after a quick survey, not combat boosted, there was too much finesse
in the ancillary systems braceleting each of the forearms. This was a worker, not a warrior.

“My name is Beaulieu,” she said. “I was a friend of Warlow’s. If you are looking for a replacement for his post, I would like
to be considered.”

“Jesus, you’re as blunt as he was, I’ll give you that. But I don’t think he ever mentioned you.”

“How much of his past did he mention?”

“Yeah, not much.”

“So?”

“I’m sorry?”

“So, do I have the post?” She datavised over her CV file.

The information matrix rotated slowly inside the confines of Joshua’s skull. It competed for space with a sense of indignation
that she should do this at Warlow’s own memorial, coupled with a grudging acknowledgement that anyone this forthright probably
had what it took, she wouldn’t last long with an attitude that wasn’t solidly backed up with competence.

Running a quick overview check on the file he saw she was seventy-seven years old. “You served with the Confederation Navy?”

“Yes, Captain. Thirty-two years ago; it qualifies me to maintain combat wasps.”

“So I see. The navy issued an arrest warrant for me and
Lady Mac
at Lalonde.”

“I’m sure they had their reasons. I only serve one captain at a time.”

“Er, right. That’s good.” Joshua could see another three cosmoniks standing in the last pew, waiting to see what the outcome
would be. He datavised the cathedral’s net processor block. “Tranquillity?”

“Yes, Joshua.”

“I’ve got three hours before we leave, and I don’t have time for games. Is this Beaulieu on the level?”

“As far as I can ascertain, yes. She has been working in my spaceport for fifteen months, and has had no contact with any
foreign agency operatives. Nor does she fraternize with the combat-boosted or the less savoury traders. She stays with her
own kind; cosmoniks do tend to stick together. Warlow’s outgoing nature was an exception rather than the rule.”

“Outgoing?” Joshua’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yes. Did you not find him so?”

“Thank you, Tranquillity.”

“My pleasure to assist.”

Joshua cancelled the datavise. “We’re having to fly with one patterning node out until I can find a replacement, and there
may be some trouble later on in the charter,” he told Beaulieu. “I can’t give you specifics.”

“That does not concern me. I believe your ability will minimize any threat, Lagrange Calvert.”

“Oh, Jesus. Okay, welcome aboard. You’ve got two hours

to collect your gear and get it stowed.”

•  •  •

The docking cradle gently elevated
Lady Macbeth
upwards out of bay CA 5-099. Several hundred people had accessed the spaceport’s sensors to watch her departure; intelligence
agency operatives, curious rumour-gorged space industry crews, news offices recording files for their library in case anything
eventful did happen.

Ione saw the
Lady Macbeth’s
thermo dump panels slide out of their recesses, a parody of a bird’s wings extending ready for flight. Tiny chemical verniers
ignited around the starship’s equator, lifting her smoothly from the cradle.

She used her affinity to receive a montage summary of the tired company engineering teams congratulating each other, traffic
control officers coordinating the starship’s vector, Kelly Tirrel alone in her room accessing the spaceport sensor image.

It is fortunate that Kelly Tirrel did not wish to go with him,
Tranquillity said.
You would have had to stop her, which would have raised the flight’s profile.

Sure.

He will remain safe, Ione. We are there with him to provide assistance, and even in part to die to protect him.

Right.

The
Lady Macbeth
’s bright blue ion thrusters fired, washing out the bay’s floodlights. Ione used the Strategic Defence platforms to track
the starship as it flew in towards Mirchusko. Joshua piloted her into a perfectly circular one-hundred-and-eighty-five-thousand-kilometre
orbit, cutting off the triple fusion drives at the precise moment of injection. The ion thrusters only fired twice more to
fine-tune the trajectory before the thermo dump panels started to fold up.

Tranquillity sensed the gravitonic pulse as the starship’s patterning nodes discharged. Then the tiny mote of mass was gone.

Ione turned back to her other problems.

•  •  •

Demaris Coligan thought he’d done okay with his suit, dreaming up a fawn-brown fabric with silvery pinstripes, and a neat
cut that wasn’t half as garish as some of the Organization lieutenants wore.

At the last minute he added a small scarlet buttonhole rose to his lapel, then nodded to the oily Bernhard Allsop who led
him into the Nixon suite.

Al Capone was waiting for him in the vast lounge; his suit wasn’t that different from Demaris’s, it was just that Al wore
it with such verve. Not even the equally snappy senior lieutenants flanking him could produce the same style.

The sight of so many heavyweights didn’t do much to increase Demaris’s level of confidence. But there was nothing he’d done
wrong, he was sure of that.

Al gave him a broad welcoming smile, and clasped his hand in a warm grip. “Good to see you, Demaris. The boys here tell me
you’ve been doing some good work for me.”

“Do whatever I can, Al. And that’s a fact. You and the Organization’s been good to me.”

“Mighty glad to hear that, Demaris. Come over here, got something to show you.” Al draped his arm around Demaris’s shoulder
in a companionable fashion, guiding him over to the transparent wall. “Now ain’t that a sight?”

Demaris looked out. New California itself was hidden behind the bulk of the asteroid, so he looked up. Crinkled sepiacoloured
rock curved away to a blunt conical peak. Three kilometres away, hundreds of thermo dump panels the size of football fields
hung down from the rock, forming a ruff collar right around the asteroid’s neck. Beyond that was the non-rotating spaceport
disk, which, like the stars, seemed to be revolving. An unnervingly large constellation of Adamist starships floated in a
rigorously maintained lattice formation just past the edge of the disk. Demaris had spent the entire previous week helping
to prep them for flight; and the constellation only represented thirty percent of the Organization’s total warship fleet.

“It’s, er… pretty fine, Al,” Demaris said. He couldn’t make out Al’s thoughts too clearly, so he didn’t know whether he was
in the shit or not. But the boss seemed pleased enough.

“Pretty fine!” Al appeared to find this hilarious, roaring with laughter. He slapped Demaris’s back enthusiastically. The
other lieutenants smiled politely.

“It’s a fucking great ritzy miracle, Demaris. One hundred per cent proof. You know just one of those ships is packing enough
firepower to blow the entire old U.S. Navy out of the water? Now that’s the kinda thought makes you shit bricks, huh?”

“Right, Al.”

“What you’re seeing out there is something no one else has ever tried before. It’s a fucking crusade, Demaris. We’re gonna
save the universe for people like us, put it to rights again. And you helped make it happen. I’m mighty grateful to you for
that, yes, sir. Mighty grateful.”

“Did what I could, Al. We all do.”

“Yeah, but you helped with getting those star-rockets ready. That takes talent.”

Demaris tapped the side of his head. “I possessed someone who knows; he don’t hold nothing back.” With great daring he gave
a gentle punch to Al’s upper arm. “Least, not if he knows what’s good for him.”

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.”