The Night's Dawn Trilogy (70 page)

Forgotten? Joshua couldn’t work that one out at all. How could you forget the way a starship looked?

Yet the oddest thing of all was how inept Dexter was at free-fall manoeuvring. Had he been asked, Joshua would have said that
the man had never been in space before. Which was ridiculous, because he was a travelling sales manager. One who didn’t have
neural nanonics. And one who wore a frightened expression the whole time. There had even been occasions when Joshua had caught
him flinching from some sudden metallic sound rattling out of the capsule systems, or the creak of the stress structure as
they were under acceleration.

Of course, given
Lady Mac
’s performance during the voyage, that part of Dexter’s behaviour was almost understandable. Joshua had experienced enough
nasty moments on the flight himself. It seemed like there wasn’t a system on board that hadn’t suffered from some kind of
glitch since they boosted out of Lalonde’s orbit. What should have been a simple four-day trip had stretched out to nearly
a week as the crew tackled power surges, data drop-outs, actuator failures, and dozens of smaller niggling malfunctions. Joshua
hated to think what was going to happen when he handed over the maintenance log to the Confederation Astronautics Board’s
inspectors, they’d probably insist on a complete overhaul. At least the jump nodes had functioned, though he’d even begun
to have his doubts about them.

He datavised the flight computer to unfold the thermo-dump panels and extend the sensor booms. Fault alerts jangled in his
mind; one of the thermo-dump panels refused to open past halfway, and three booms were jammed in their recesses.

“Jesus!” he snarled.

There were mutters from the rest of the crew strapped into their bridge couches on either side of him.

“I thought you fixed that fucking panel,” Joshua shouted at Warlow.

“I did!” the answer thumped back. “If you think you can do any better, put on a suit and get out there yourself.”

Joshua ran a hand over his brow. “See what you can do,” he said sullenly. Warlow grunted something unintelligible, and ordered
the couch’s straps to release him. He pushed himself towards the open hatchway. Ashly Hanson freed himself, too, and went
after the cosmonik to help.

Sensor data was coming in from the booms which were functional. The flight computer started tracking nearby stars to produce
an accurate astrogration fix. Norfolk with its divergent illumination looked unusually small for a terracom-patible planet.
Joshua didn’t have time to puzzle that, the sensors reported laser radar pulses were bouncing off the hull, and a voidhawk
distortion field had locked on.

“Jesus, now what?” Joshua asked even as the astrogration fix slipped into his mind.
Lady Mac
had translated two hundred and ninety thousand kilometres above Norfolk, way outside the planet’s designated emergence zone.
He groaned out loud and hurriedly datavised the communication dish to transmit their identification code. The Confederation
Navy ships patrolling Norfolk would start using
Lady Mac
for target practice soon.

Norfolk was almost unique among the Confederation’s terracompatible planets in that it didn’t have a strategic-defence network.
There was no high-technology industry, no asteroid settlements in orbit, and consequently there was nothing worth stealing.
Protection from mercenaries and pirate ships wasn’t needed; except for the two weeks every season when the starships came
to collect their cargoes of Norfolk Tears.

As the planet moved towards midsummer a squadron from the Confederation Navy’s 6th Fleet was assigned to protection duties,
paid for by the planetary government. It was a popular duty with the crews; after the cargo starships departed they were allowed
shore leave, where they were entertained in grand style, and all the crews were presented with a special half-sized bottle
of Norfolk Tears by the grateful government.

The
Lady Macbeth
’s main communication dish servos spun round once, then packed up. Power-loss signals appeared across the schematic the flight
computer was datavis-ing into Joshua’s brain. “I don’t fucking believe it. Sarha, get that bastard dish sorted out!” Out of
the corner of his eye he saw her activate the console by her couch. He routed the
Lady Mac
’s identification code through her omnidirectional antenna.

An inter-ship radio channel came alive, and the communication console routed the datavise into Joshua’s neural nanonics. “Starship
Lady Macbeth
, this is Confederation Navy ship
Pestravka
. You have emerged outside this planet’s designated starship emergence zones, are you in trouble?”

“Thank you,
Pestravka
,” Joshua datavised in reply. “We’ve been having some system malfunctions, my apologies for causing any panic.”

“What is the nature of your malfunction?”

“Sensor error.”

“That’s simple enough to sort out; you should know better than to jump insystem with inaccurate guidance information.”

“Up yours,” Melvin Ducharme grumbled from his couch.

“The error percentage has only just become apparent,” Joshua said. “We’re updating now.”

“What’s wrong with your main communications dish?”

“Overloaded servo, it’s scheduled for replacement.”

“Well, activate your back-up.”

Sarha let out an indignant snort. “I’ll point one of the masers at him if he likes. They’ll receive that blast loud and bloody
clear.”

“Complying now,
Pestravka
.” Joshua glared at Sarha.

He launched a quiet prayer as the ribbed silver pencil of the second dish slid out of
Lady Macbeth
’s dark silicon hull, and opened like a flower. It tracked round to point at the
Pestravka
.

“I’m datavising a copy of this incident to the Confederation Astronautics Board office on Norfolk,” the
Pestravka
’s officer continued. “And I’ll add a strong recommendation that they inspect your spaceworthiness certificate.”

“Thank you so much,
Pestravka
. Are we now cleared to contact civil flight control for an approach vector? I’d hate to be shot at for not asking your permission
first.”

“Don’t push your luck, Calvert. I can easily take a fortnight searching your cargo holds.”

“Looks like your reputation’s preceding you, Joshua,” Dahybi Yadev said after the
Pestravka
cut the link.

“Let’s hope it hasn’t reached the planet’s surface yet,” Sarha said.

Joshua aligned the secondary dish on the civil flight control’s communication satellite, and received permission to enter
a parking orbit.
Lady Mac
’s three fusion tubes came alive, sending out long rivers of hazy plasma, and the star-ship accelerated in towards the gaudy
planet at a tenth of a gee.

Chinks of light were glinting down into Quinn Dexter’s vacant world, accompanied by faint scratchy sounds. It was like intermittent
squalls of luminous rain falling through fissures from an external universe. Some beams of light flickered in the far distance,
others splashed across him. When they did, he saw the images they carried.

A boat. One of the grotty traders on the Quallheim, little more than a bodged-together raft. Speeding downriver.

A town of wooden buildings. Durringham in the rain.

A girl.

He knew her. Marie Skibbow, naked, tied to a bed with rope.

His heartbeat thudded in the silence.

“Yes,” said the voice he knew from before, from the clearing in the jungle, the voice which came out of Night. “I thought
you’d like this.”

Marie was tugging frantically at her bonds, her figure every bit as lush as his imagination had once conceived it.

“What would you do with her, Quinn?”

What would he do? What
couldn’t
he do with such an exquisite body. How oh how she would suffer beneath him.

“You are bloody repugnant, Quinn. But so terribly useful.”

Energy twisted eagerly inside his body, and a phantasm come forth to overlay reality. Quinn’s interpretation of the physical
form which God’s Brother might assume should He ever choose to manifest Himself in the flesh. And what flesh. Capable of the
most wondrous assaults, amplifying every degradation the sect had ever taught him.

The flux of sorcerous power reached a triumphal peak, opening a rift into the terrible empty beyond, and so another emerged
to take possession as Marie pleaded and wept.

“Back you go, Quinn.”

And the images shrank back to the dry wispy beams of flickering light. “You’re not the Light Brother!” Quinn shouted into
the nothingness. Fury at the acknowledgement of betrayal heightened his perception, the light became brighter, sound louder.

“Of course not, Quinn. I’m worse than that, worse than any mythical devil. All of us are.”

Laughter echoed through the prison universe, tormenting him.

Time was so different in here…

A spaceplane.

A starship.

Uncertainty. Quinn felt it run through him like a hormonal surge. The electrical machinery upon which he was now dependent
recoiled from his estranged body, which made his dependence still deeper as the delicate apparatuses broke down one by one.
Uncertainty gave way to fear. His body trembled as it tried desperately to quieten the currents of exotic energy which infiltrated
every cell.

It wasn’t omnipotent, Quinn realized, this thing which controlled his body, it had limits. He let the dribs and drabs of light
soak into what was left of his mind, concentrating on what he saw, the words he heard. Watching, waiting. Trying to understand.

* * *

Syrinx thought Boston was the most delightful city she had seen in fourteen years of travelling about the Confederation, and
that included the sheltered enclaves of houses in the Saturn-orbiting habitats of her birth. Every house was built from stone,
with thick walls to keep the heat out during the long summer, then keep it in for the equally long winter. Most of them were
two storeys high, with some of the larger ones having three; they had small railed gardens at the front, and rows of stables
along the back. Terrestrial honeysuckle and ivy were popular creepers for covering the stonework, while hanging baskets provided
cheerful dabs of colour to most porches. Roofs were always steep to withstand the heavy snow, and grey slate tiles alternated
with jet-black solar panels in pleasing geometric patterns. Wood was burnt to provide warmth and sometimes for cooking, which
produced a forest of chimneys thrusting out of the gable ends, topped by red clay pots with elaborate crowns. Every building,
be it private, civic, or commercial, was individual, possessing the kind of character impossible on worlds where mass-production
facilities were commonplace. Wide streets were all cobbled, with tall cast-iron street lights spaced along them. It was only
after a while she realized that as there were no mechanoids or servitors each of the little granite cubes must have been laid
by human hand—the time and effort that must have entailed! There were trees lining each pavement, mainly Norfolk’s pine-analogues,
with some ge-neered terrestrial evergreens for variety. Traffic was comprised entirely of bicycles, trike scooters (very few,
and mostly with adolescent riders), horses, and horse-drawn cabs and carts. She had seen power vans, but only on the roads
around the outskirts, and those were farm vehicles.

After they had cleared Customs (altogether more rigorous than Passport Control) they’d found the horse-drawn taxi coaches
waiting by the aerodrome’s tower. Syrinx had grinned, and Tula had let out an exasperated groan. But the one they used was
well sprung, proving a reasonably smooth trip into town. Following Andrew Unwin’s advice, they had rented some rooms at the
Wheatsheaf, a coaching house on the side of one of the rivers which the town was built around.

Once they had unpacked and eaten a light lunch in the courtyard, Syrinx and Ruben had taken another coach to Penn Street,
the precious coolbox on the floor by their feet.

Ruben watched the traffic and pedestrians parading past with a contented feeling. Starship crews strolling about were easy
to spot: their clothes of synthetic fabric were curiously bland in comparison to the locals’ attire. Bostonians in summer
favoured bright colours and raffish styles; this year multicoloured waistcoats were in vogue among the young men, while the
girls wore crinkled cheesecloth skirts with bold circular patterns (hems always below their knees, he noted sadly). It was
like stepping back into pre-spaceflight history, though he suspected no historical period on Earth was ever as clean as this.

“Penn Street, guv’nor,” the driver cried as the horse turned into a road parallel to the River Gwash. It was the commercial
sector of the city, with wharves lining the river, and a lengthy rank of prodigious warehouses standing behind them. Here
for the first time they encountered powered lorries. A railway marshalling yard was visible at the other end of the dusty
road.

Ruben looked down the long row of warehouses and busy yards and offices, only too well aware of Syrinx’s gaze hot on his neck.
Mordant thoughts started pressing against his mind. Drayton’s Import wasn’t
in
Penn Street, it was Penn Street. The name was on signs across every building.

“Where to now, guv’nor?” the driver asked.

“Head Office,” Ruben replied. The last time he’d been here, Drayton’s Import had consisted of a single office in a rented
warehouse.

Head Office turned out to be a building in the middle of the street, on the waterfront side, sandwiched between two warehouses.
Its arched windows were all iron rimmed, and a large, brightly polished brass plaque was set in the wall next to the double
doors. The cab pulled to a halt in front of its curving stone stairs.

“Looks like old Dominic Kavanagh is doing all right for himself,” Ruben said as they climbed out. He handed the driver a guinea,
with a sixpenny piece for a tip.

Syrinx’s stare could have cut diamond.

“Old Dominic, one of the best. Boy, did we have some times together, he knows every pub in town.” Ruben wondered who his bravado
was intended to reassure.