The Night's Dawn Trilogy (248 page)

His zest even carried over into his early twenties, when the years of his father’s non-return were beginning to pile up in
an alarming quantity. He still clung to his mother’s promise.

A goodly number of his contemporaries emigrated from the Dorados when they reached their majority, a migration worrying to
the council. Everyone assumed Liol would be among them, surely the first who would want to seek new opportunities. But he
stayed, joining in the effort to build the Dorados into a prime industrial state.

Garissa’s refugees had been awarded the settlement rights to the Dorados by the Confederation Assembly as part of their restitutions
against Omuta for the genocide. Every multistellar company mining the ore had to pay a licence fee to the council, part of
which was used to invest in the asteroids’ infrastructure, while the remainder was paid directly to the survivors, and their
descendants, by now scattered across the Confederation.

By 2606 this dividend had grown to a respectable twenty-eight thousand fuseodollars per annum. With such a guaranteed income
as collateral, Liol had little trouble collecting loans and grants from the bank and the Dorados Development Agency to start
his own business. In keeping with his now somewhat unhealthy obsession with spaceflight, he formed a company, Quantum Serendipity,
specializing in servicing starship electronics. It was a good choice; the number of starship movements in the Tunja system
was growing each year. He was awarded subcontracts by the larger service and maintenance companies, working his way up the
list of approved suppliers. After two years of steady growth, he leased a docking bay in the spaceport, and made his first
bid for a complete starship maintenance service. Year three saw Quantum Serendipity buy a majority share in a small electronics
station; by producing the processors in-house he could undercut his competitors and still make a profit.

He now had the majority shares in two electronics stations, owned seven docking bays, and employed seventy people. And six
months ago, Quantum Serendipity had landed a service contract for the communications network linking Ayacucho’s SD platforms;
a rock-solid income which was on the verge of pushing him into a whole new level of operations.

Then news of the possession arrived from the Confederation Assembly, swiftly followed by Kelly Tirrel’s report. The first
didn’t bother Liol half as much as his competitors, with his SD contract he could keep his company afloat throughout the crisis.
But the second item, with its hero-of-the-day, super-pilot Lagrange Calvert rescuing little kiddies in his starship. That
came close to breaking Liol. It was the end of his world.

None of his friends understood the reason behind his sudden ferocious depression, the worrying benders he launched himself
into. But then they had never been told of his dream, and how much it meant to him, that was private. So after a couple of
abortive attempts to “cheer him up” had failed dismally amid his tirades of calculatingly vicious abuse, they had left him
alone.

Which was why he’d been surprised when the girl in the Bar KF-T had spoken to him. Surprised, and not a little bit blasted.
The come-on routine he gave her was automatic, he didn’t have to think. It was only when she’d gone that a frown crossed his
flattish, handsome face. “Joshua,” he said in a drink-fuddled voice. “She called me Joshua. Why did she do that?”

The barmaid, who by now had given up on the idea of lugging him home for the night, shrugged gamely and moved on.

Liol drained his whisky chaser in one swift toss, then datavised a search request into the spaceport registration computer.
The answer seemed to trojan a wickedly effective sober-up program into his neural nanonics.

•  •  •

Alkad had seen worse rooms when she was on the move thirty years ago. The hotel charged by the hour, catering for starship
crews on fast stopovers, and citizens who wanted somewhere quiet and private to indulge any of a variety of vices which modern
technology could provide. There was no window, the hotel was cut into rock some distance behind the cliff at the end of the
biosphere cavern. It was cheaper that way. The customers never even noticed.

Big holograms covered two of the walls, showing pictures of some planetary city at dusk, its jewelscape of twinkling lights
retreating into a horizon of salmon-pink sky. The bed filled half of the floor space, leaving just enough room for people
to shuffle around it. There was no other furniture. The bathroom was a utilitarian cubicle fitted with a shower and a toilet.
Soaps and gels were available from a pay dispenser.

“This is Lodi Shalasha,” Voi said when they arrived. “Our electronics supremo, he’s made sure the room’s clean. I hope. For
his sake.”

The young man rolled off the bed and smiled nervously at Alkad. He was dressed in a flamboyant orange suit with eye-twisting
green spirals. Not quite as tall as Voi, and several kilos overweight.

Student type, Alkad categorized instantly, burning with the outrage that came from a head stuffed full of fresh knowledge.
She’d seen it a thousand times before when she was a lecturer; kids from an easy background expanding their minds in all the
wrong directions at the first taste of intellectual freedom.

His smile was strained when he looked at Voi. “Have you heard?”

“Heard what?” the tall girl was immediately suspicious.

“I’m sorry, Voi. Really.”

“What?”

“Your father. There was some kind of trouble at the Laxa and Ahmad offices. He’s dead. It’s all over the news.”

Every muscle in the girl’s body hardened, she stared right through Lodi. “How?”

“The police say he was shot. They want to question Kaliua Lamu.”

“That’s stupid, why would Kaliua shoot my father?”

Lodi shrugged hopelessly.

“It must have been those people running to the offices. Foreign agents, they did it,” Voi said. “We must not let this distract
us.” She paused for a moment, then burst into tears.

Alkad had guessed it was coming, the girl was far too rigid. She sat Voi down on the bed and put her arm around the girl’s
shoulders. “It’s all right,” she soothed. “Just let it happen.”

“No.” Voi was rocking back and forth. “I must not. Nothing must interfere with the cause. I’ve got a suppressor program I
can use. Give me a moment.”

“Don’t,” Alkad warned. “That’s the worst thing you can do. Believe me, I’ve had enough experience of grief to know what works.”

“I didn’t like my father,” Voi wailed. “I told him I hated him. I hated what he did. He was weak.”

“No, Ikela was never weak. Don’t think that of your father. He was one of the best navy captains we had.”

Voi wiped a hand across her face, simply broadening the tear trails. “A navy captain?”

“That’s right. He commanded a frigate during the war. That’s how I knew him.”

“Daddy fought in the war?”

“Yes. And after.”

“I don’t understand. He never said.”

“He wasn’t supposed to. He was under orders, and he obeyed them right up to his death. An officer to the last. I’m proud of
him. All Garissans can be proud of him.” Alkad hoped the hypocrisy wouldn’t taint her voice. She was alarmingly aware how
much she needed Voi’s people now, whoever they were. And Ikela had almost kept the faith, it was only a white lie.

“What did he do in the navy?” Voi was suddenly desperate for details.

“Later, I promise,” Mzu said. “Right now I want you to activate a somnolence program. Believe me, it’s the best thing. We
were having a hard enough day before this.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“I know. But you need it. And I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Voi glanced uncertainly at Lodi, who nodded encouragingly. “All right.” She lay back on the bed, shuffled herself comfortable,
and closed her eyes. The program took hold.

Alkad stood up and deactivated the chameleon suit. It was painful peeling the hood off her face, the thin fabric stuck possessively
to her skin. But the room’s cool air was a tonic; she’d sweated heavily underneath it.

She split the seal on her blouse and began to wriggle her arms out of the suit.

Lodi coughed frantically.

“Never seen a naked woman before?”

“Er, yes. But… I. That is—”

“Are you just playing at this, Lodi?”

“Playing at what?”

“Being a good-guy radical, a revolutionary on the run?”

“No!”

“Good. Because you’re going to see a lot worse than a bare-arsed woman my age before we’re done.”

His skittish attitude calmed. “I understand. I really do. Er—”

Alkad started on the trousers, they were tighter than the hood. “Yes?”

“Who are you, exactly?”

“Voi didn’t explain?”

“No. She just told me to alert the group for possible action. She said we must be careful because the asteroid was probably
under covert surveillance.”

“She was right.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said proudly. “I was the one who worked out the Edenists were spreading those spiders.”

“Clever of you.”

“Thanks. Our junior cadres are cleaning them from critical areas, corridor junctions and places. But I made sure they skimp
around this hotel; I didn’t want to draw attention to it.”

“A smart precaution. So do these cadres of yours know we’re here?”

“No, absolutely not; nobody else knows. I swear. Voi said she wanted a safe room; I even paid cash.”

Maybe I can still salvage this after all, Alkad thought.

“Tell you what, Lodi; I’m going to have a shower first, then afterwards you can tell me all about this little group of yours.”

•  •  •

As with most crews when they were docked, Joshua liked to book in at a hotel even if it was only for a single night. It wasn’t
necessarily more convenient than staying in the
Lady Mac
, it just made a change. This time, though, the crew returned to the starship; and Joshua depressurized the airlock tube once
they were all back on board. It would hardly stop anyone in an SII suit, but
Lady Mac
had her fair share of internal defence systems. And besides… at the back of his mind was the notion that a possessed would
be hard-pressed to wear and operate a spacesuit; if Kelly was right, their rampant energistic ability would completely screw
up the suit’s processors. He sealed himself up in his sleep cocoon with his paranoia reduced to its lowest level in days.

It was a sombre breakfast as they began to drift into the galley cabin and collect their food five hours later. Everyone had
accessed the local news companies. Ikela’s murder was the premier item.

Ashly glanced at the galley’s AV pillar as he plugged his cereal packet into the milk nozzle.

“Got to be a cover-up,” the pilot grunted. “Too much smoke, too little fire. The police should have made an arrest by now.
Where’s someone as prominent as this Lamu character going to hide in an asteroid?”

Joshua glanced up from his carton of grapefruit. “You think Mzu did it?”

“No.” Ashly retrieved the now-chilly packet and gulped down a mouthful of the mushy wheat paste. “I think someone trying to
get Mzu did it; Ikela just got in their way. The police must know that. They simply can’t blurt it out in public.”

“So did they get her?” Melvyn asked.

“Am I psychic?”

“Such questions are irrelevant,” Beaulieu said. “We don’t have enough information to speculate in this fashion.”

“We can certainly speculate on who else is trying to nab her,” Melvyn said. “For my money, it’s got to be the bloody intelligence
agencies. If we can confirm she made it here, so can they. And that’s serious trouble, Captain. If they can kill someone like
Ikela with impunity, they’re not going to worry much about riding over us.”

Joshua switched his empty carton of grapefruit for a can of tea and a croissant. He stared around at his crew as he chewed
on the bland pastry (another reason he liked hotels, free-fall food was always soft and tacky to avoid crumbs). Melvyn’s words
were unsettling, none of them were really used to personal, one-on-one danger; starship combat was so very different. Then
there was the possibility of encountering the possessed as well. “Beaulieu’s right, we don’t have enough data yet. We’ll spend
the morning rectifying that. Melvyn and Ashly, you team up; I want you to concentrate on industrial defence contracts, see
if you can find traces of the kind of things Mzu would require for retrieving and deploying the Alchemist. Principally, that’ll
be a starship, but it’ll still need fitting out; if we’re really lucky she could have ordered some kind of customized equipment.
Dahybi, Beaulieu; try and find out what happened to the Daphine Kigano alias, where she was last seen, her credit disk number,
that kind of thing. I’m going to find out what I can about Ikela and his associates.”

“What about me?” Sarha asked indignantly.

“You’re on duty in here, and you don’t let anyone apart from us on board. From now on, there will always be one of us on the
bridge. I don’t know that there are any possessed in Ayacucho, but I’m not risking it. There’s also the intelligence agencies
to consider, along with local security forces, and whoever Mzu is lined up with. I think now might also be an appropriate
time to take the serjeants out of zero-tau just in case events turn sour. We can pass them off as cosmoniks easily enough.”

•  •  •

Ione was finding the whole sensation of independence most peculiar, both individually and in unison with the mirror fragment
minds in the other serjeants. Her thoughts were fluttering across the affinity band like birds fleeing a hurricane.

We must try and separate more,
she said.

To which her own thoughts replied:
Absolutely.

She felt like giggling; the kind of giggle that came from being tickled by a merciless lover: unwelcome yet inevitable.

The affinity contact with the other three serjeants reduced, paring down to essential information: location, threat status,
environment interpretation. She couldn’t help the little frisson of eagerness at the experience; this was the first time she
had ever been anywhere outside Tranquillity. Ayacucho might not be much, but she was determined to soak in as much of it as
she could.