The Night's Dawn Trilogy (310 page)

“You mean the
Beezling
is just orbiting that star waiting for you to make contact?” Liol asked.

“Yes. Providing everything worked as it was supposed to. They are supposed to wait for another five years; the time is irrelevant
in zero-tau, but the support systems cannot last indefinitely. If they hadn’t been contacted by then, either by myself and
the
Chengho
crew, or the Garissan government, they were to destroy the Alchemist and start signalling for help. Uninhabited star systems
within the Confederation boundaries are inspected on a regular basis by navy patrol ships to make sure they aren’t being used
by antimatter production stations. They would have been rescued eventually.”

Joshua glanced around to the serjeant, wishing the construct had some way of displaying emotion; he’d like to know what Ione
made of the story. “Makes sense,” he said. “What do you want to do?”

“We have to see if the
Beezling
completed its journey,” the serjeant said.

“And if it has?” Samuel asked.

“Then the Alchemist must be destroyed. After that, any surviving crew will be taken back to Tranquillity.”

“Question, Doc,” Joshua said. “If anybody sees the Alchemist, will that give them a clue to its nature?”

“No. You have no worries on that score, Captain. There is however someone among the crew who could tell you how to build another.
His name is Peter Adul, he will have to remain in Tranquillity with me. After that, you will be safe again.”

“Okay, what’s the star’s coordinate?”

It was a long time before Alkad said: “Mother Mary, this is not what was meant to be.”

“Nothing ever is, Doc. I learned that long ago.”

“Ha! You’re too young.”

“Depends how you fill the years, doesn’t it?”

Alkad Mzu datavised the coordinate over.

•  •  •

A wormhole terminus is opening,
Tranquillity announced. At the time, Ione was standing knee deep in the warm water of the cove, rubbing Haile’s flank with
a big yellow bath sponge. She straightened her back and began wringing out the sponge. Her real attention was focused on a
point in space a hundred and twenty thousand kilometres away from the habitat where the vacuum’s gravity density was building
rapidly. Three SD platforms orbiting the emergence zone locked their X-ray lasers on to the terminus as it expanded. Five
patrol blackhawks accelerated in at four gees.A large voidhawk slipped out of the two-dimensional rent.
Oenone
, Confederation Navy ship SLV-66150, requesting approach and docking permission,
it said.
Our official flight authentication code follows.

Granted,
Tranquillity replied after it verified the code. The SD platforms were switched back to alert status. Three of the blackhawks
resumed their patrol, while the remaining two curved around to form an escort as
Oenone
accelerated in towards the habitat.

“I’m going to have to leave you,” Ione said.

Jay Hilton’s vexed face peeped over the top of Haile’s gleaming white back. “What is it this time?” she asked petulantly.

“Affairs of state.” Ione started wading towards the shore. She scooped some water up and tried to flush the sand out of her
bikini top.

“You always say that.”

Ione gave the disgruntled girl a forlorn smile. “Because it always is, these days.”
Sorry
, she added.

Haile formshifted the tip of an arm into a human hand and waved.
Goodbye, Ione Saldana. I have much sorrow you are leaving, my endlegs itch like hell.

Haile!

I form a communication wrongness? I have shame.

Not wrong, exactly.

Gladness. That was a Joshua Calvert expression. Much favoured.

Ione snapped her teeth together. That bloody Calvert! Anger gave way to something more confusing, a sort of resentment… possibly.
Hundreds of light-years away, and he still intrudes.
It would be. Please don’t use it around Jay.

Understanding is me. I have a great many human emphasis phrases conveyed by Joshua Calvert.

I’ll bet you have.

I want properness in my communication. I ask your assistance in reviewing my word collection. You may edit me.

Yes, all right.

Much gladness!

Ione took another pace, then laughed. Reviewing everything Joshua had said to the young Kiint would take hours. Hours she
hadn’t been spending on the beach of late. Haile was becoming very crafty.

Jay leaned against her friend, watching Ione put her sandals on and start back up the path to the tube station. There was
a slightly distracted expression on the woman’s face, that Jay knew meant she was busy talking to the habitat personality.
She didn’t like to dwell on the topic. More than likely, it would be the possessed again. That was all the adults talked about
these days, and it was never reassuring talk.

Haile’s arm twined around Jay’s, the tip stroking her gently.

You taste of sadness.

“I don’t think these horrible possessed will ever go away.”

They will. Humans are clever. You will find a way.

“I hope so. I do want Mummy back.”

Shall we build the castles of sand now?

“Yes!” Jay grinned enthusiastically and started splashing her way back up to the beach. They’d made the discovery together
that Haile with her tractamorphic arms was the universe’s best ever builder of sand castles. With Jay directing, they had
made some astonishing towers along the shoreline.

Haile emerged from the water in a small explosion of spray.
Betterness.You have happiness again.

“So do you. Ione promised to come back for the words.”

It is the best niceness when the three of us play together. She knows this really.

Jay giggled. “She turned purple when you said that. Good

job you didn’t say fuck to her.”

•  •  •

The
Oenone
, Ione reflected.
Why do I know that name? Atlantis. Oh, yes. And a certain interception in the Puerto de Santa Maria star system. We received
an intelligence update from the Confederation Navy last year.

Oh, bloody hell,
yes
.

Captain Syrinx wishes to talk to you.

Ione sat down in the tube carriage and began towelling her hair.
Of course.
The affinity contact broadened, allowing Syrinx to proffer her identity trait.

Captain,
Ione acknowledged.

I apologize for the haste, but please be advised a Confederation Navy squadron will start arriving in another nine minutes
and thirty seconds—mark.

I see. Is Tranquillity in danger?

No.

What then?

I am carrying the squadron’s commander, Admiral Meredith Saldana. He requests an interview at which he can explain our full
strategic situation to you.

Granted. Welcome to Tranquillity.
The captain faded from the affinity band.

She was curious about you,
Tranquillity said.
It was quite plain from her emotional content.

Everybody’s always curious about me.
She borrowed the habitat’s external senses to observe local space. They were in Mirchusko’s umbra, with Choisya and Falsia
hovering just above the gas giant’s crescent horizon. Apart from the flotilla of blackhawks on patrol around the habitat’s
shell, there was little spaceship activity. The
Oenone
was the first starship to arrive in seventy-six hours. Some MSVs and personnel commuters continued to glide between the counter-rotating
spaceport and Tranquillity’s bracelet of industrial stations, but they were running a much reduced flight schedule. A lone
dazzle-point of fusion flame was rising up past the drab grey loop of the Ruin Ring, an He3 tanker en route from the habitat’s
cloudscoop to the spaceport.
Program the squadron’s arrival into the SD platforms,
she said.
And warn the blackhawks, we don’t want any mistakes.

Naturally.

Meredith Saldana. That’s two family visits in less than a month.

I don’t think this is a family visit.

You’re probably right.

•  •  •

It was a suspicion which was proved unpleasantly correct soon after Syrinx and the admiral were shown into the audience chamber
of De Beauvoir Palace. As she listened to Meredith Saldana explain the proposed ambush of Capone’s fleet at Toi-Hoi a swarm
of ambiguous feelings lay siege to her mind.

I don’t want to involve us in front line campaigns,
she confided to Tranquillity.

To be pedantic, we’re in the campaign, not the front line itself. And the eradication of the Organization fleet is not a strategic
opportunity which can be overlooked.

No choice?

No choice.

I still think we’re too important for this.

But safe. The safest place in the Confederation, remember that.

We hope. I’d hate to put that to the test, right now.

I don’t see how it will. Not from this action. We will essentially be a supply and rendezvous base.

“Very well,” she told the admiral. “You have my permission to use Tranquillity for your task force’s port station. I’ll see
that you get all the He3 you need.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Meredith said.

“I’m slightly concerned by this flight restriction you wish to place on starships until the ambush, although I do appreciate
the logic behind it. I currently have over twenty blackhawks deploying sensor satellites around the orbit where the Laymil
home planet used to be. It’s extremely important research work. I’d hate to see it jeopardized.”

“They would only have to be recalled for three or four days at the most,” Syrinx said. “Our scheduling is very tight, here.
Surely a small delay wouldn’t effect the research too much?”

“I’ll recall them for now. But if you’re still here after a week, I’ll have to review the policy. As I said, this is part
of the effort to find an overall solution. That is not to be regarded lightly.”

“Believe me, we don’t, ma’am,” Meredith said.

She stared at him, trying to work out what was going on behind his blue eyes. But his answering stare offered no clue. “I
have to say, I find it ironic that Tranquillity has become so important to the Confederation and the Kingdom after all this
time,” she said.

“Ironic or pleasing? Chance has finally brought you the chance to vindicate your grandfather’s actions.”

There was no humour in his tone, which surprised her. She’d assumed he would be more sympathetic than Prince Noton. “You think
Grandfather Michael was wrong?”

“I think he was wrong to pursue such an unorthodox course.”

“Unorthodox to the family, perhaps. But I assure you it’s not chance which has brought us together. This whole situation will
prove how right he was to act on his foresight.”

“I wish you every success.”

“Thank you. And who knows, one day I might earn your approval, too.”

For the first time, he produced a grudging smile. “You don’t like losing arguments, do you, Cousin Ione?”

“I am a Saldana.”

“That much is painfully obvious.”

“As are you. I don’t think every Confederation admiral would have coped as well as you at Lalonde.”

“I did not cope well. I ensured my squadron survived; most of it, anyway.”

“A Confederation officer’s first duty is to follow orders. Second duty is to the crew. So I believe,” she said. “As your original
orders didn’t cover what you encountered, I’d say you did all right.”

“Lalonde was… difficult,” he said heavily.

“Yes. I know all about Lalonde from Joshua Calvert.”

Syrinx, who had been looking considerably ill at ease while the two Saldanas conducted their verbal fencing, glanced sharply
at Ione, her eyebrows raised in interest.

“Oh, yes,” Meredith reflected. “Lagrange Calvert. Who could forget him?”

“Is he here?” Syrinx asked. “This is his registered port.”

“He’s away at the moment, I’m afraid,” Ione told her. “But I’m expecting him back any day now.”

“Good.”

Ione couldn’t quite fathom the Edenist’s attitude.
Why do you think she’s interested in Joshua?

I have no idea. Unless she wants to punch him on the nose for Puerto de Santa Maria.

I doubt it. She’s an Edenist, they don’t do things like that. You don’t suppose she and Joshua… ?

I doubt it. She’s an Edenist, they have more taste.

•  •  •

Athene didn’t want him to come to the house. It would be too upsetting for the children, she explained. Though they both knew
it was she who was discomforted by the whole idea; keeping him away was a way of establishing a psychological barrier.

Instead, she chose one of the spaceport reception lounges in the habitat’s endcap. There was nobody else in the spacious room
when she arrived, not that there could be any mistake. The hulking figure was sitting on a deep settee in front of the long
window, watching service crews bustling around the voidhawks on their pedestals outside. It was a squadron assigned to assist
the Kulu Kingdom in the Mortonridge Liberation campaign, one of them would soon be transporting him to Ombey.

I missed this,
he said, not turning around,
I watched the voidhawks through the sensitive cells, of course, but I still miss this. The habitat perception doesn’t provide
any sense of urgency. And my emotions were not suppressed exactly, but less colourful, not so keenly felt. Do you know, I
think I’m actually becoming excited.