Newton's Wake

more significantly, it is because these are not their enemies. These are not Carlyle family ships.’

‘What are they?’

The Hungry Dragon turned on several comms channels at once. The audio filled with American-accented voices, and the visuals with swift-shifting surveys of Eurydice and what looked like rapid- fire negotiation and exchange of contracts, in which kilohectares of land were being haggled over in acres of small print.

‘What is online,’ said the ship with a rare stab at humour, ‘is America Offline. The farmers that Carlyle mentioned.’

‘They’re selling land to each other!’

‘They are at least staking claims.’

‘But they have no right—this is outrageous—’

The ship lurched. Lamont was thrown back and forth in the webbing. Through the singing cables he felt the additional vibration of a brief burn of the main jet, and a few nudges from the attitude jets.

‘Stop!’ he yelled.

‘I am sorry,’ said the ship. ‘This is not under my control.’

With fierce concentration Lamont eyeballed up some external views just as the retro-rocket jet killed the ship’s forward momentum. Half a dozen gummy cables—extruded from somewhere on the surface between the rows of machinery pods—extended, clung, and contracted, winching the ship back a little to the polar end of the asteroid, where it was further snared and hauled. Within minutes its stern and jets were attached—glued, it seemed—to the rock. It was as though the ship had become the bowsprit of an iceberg. Lamont expected some of the pods to detach from the surface and fasten themselves to the side of the ship, but nothing of the kind happened. Instead, the external cameras showed the transmission dish aerials jerking about. The control board indicated that they were active. The power drain was visible to the naked eye.

‘What are you transmitting?’

‘I do not know,’ said the ship.

Lamont twisted in the webbing, then catapulted himself out of it to a corner of the control board and grabbed a manual control for an external aerial. It was a crude, mechanical contraption to move the dish in a case of power loss. He shifted it until it caught the edge of the beam from one of the transmitters.

‘That was ingenious,’ said the ship.

‘Are you receiving it?’

‘Yes,’ said the ship. ‘It is identical to the transmission that took control of my processes.’

‘Do you have it firewalled?’

‘Yes.’

Lamont relaxed, for a moment. At least the whole business wasn’t about to repeat itself. Then he thought a bit further.

‘Where are these transmissions directed?’

‘Towards Eurydice,’ said the ship.

‘At a wild guess,’ snarled Lamont, ‘they’re aimed at these newly arrived ships. It’s trying its luck to hack into them.’

‘That sounds plausible,’ admitted the ship.

‘Step two,’ said Lamont. ‘That Carlyle woman didn’t seem bothered about war machines. I have the impression these people elsewhere in the galaxy have dealt with them before. They may have firewalls or antidotes to this virus. I don’t expect them to be too kind towards any sources of it.’

The ship’s lights dimmed for a second.

‘The transmissions have ceased,’ the Hungry Dragon reported.

‘That doesn’t change anything. We’re a sitting duck.’

‘We are not,’ said the ship, ‘in the place from which the transmissions originated.’

‘What?’

The ship patched up an image of the stellar background, time-stamped a minute earlier. Then another, shown as current. It repeated this several times. The difference was tiny, but perceptible as the image flicked back and forth.

‘The stars have moved,’ said the ship. ‘Or we have.’

SIDE 2 When the Stars Are Right

CHAPTER 11 Team Spirit

‘You’re a lightning-chaser,’ Carlyle said.

That was the polite term. The rude one was Rapture-fucker. What she’d said still sounded like an accusation. She hadn’t meant it that way. She really wanted Campbell Johnstone on her team. He stared back at her, his gaze peculiarly blank. His retinae were really cameras. The irises didn’t adapt, the photocells did. Carlyle was used to the widening of the pupils when men looked at her. Not on Eurydice, but thank God or Nature she wasn’t there now. Only Winter and, to a much lesser extent, Calder and Armand had responded thus to her in that world of optimal beauty.

‘I am that,’ Johnstone said. It was an English idiom, in a perfect Home Counties American accent, like in an Ealing comedy. He knocked back his whisky, refilled his glass from the bottle, topped up hers. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’m in the soul market,’ Carlyle said. ‘I can offer excellent rates.’

The rates hadn’t helped her get any kind of routine crew. The labour exchanges and other recruitment routes had effectively blacklisted her, whether because of Carlyle family old guard pressure or because she was too much of a risk. The only people she could hire would have a worse record than she had. Even the most adventurous freelancers had looked at the DK barter price list and shaken their heads. Hence her going after lightning- chasers.

‘I shouldn’t say this,’ said Johnstone, ‘but the rates aren’t the issue. The risk is.’ He glowered at the bottle. ‘Moths to a flame, my dear. That’s what we are.’

Spare me the self-pity, you fucking drama queen. He seemed to pick up the thought. Maybe he did, you could never tell with lightning-chasers. You didn’t know what enhancements they had.

‘It’s like an addiction,’ he said. ‘To get so close you could touch it, without getting dragged in yourself. It’s hard to explain.’

‘You ever thought of going over to the Knights?’ Carlyle asked, curiosity getting the better of discretion.

‘Oh, sure.’ He sipped whisky. ‘Couldn’t take the puritanism. Besides, their whole thing is, they don’t go up close. Arm’s length, gloves, tongs. Contemplate the mathematics. Complete the calculation. One step at a time. You know the drill. Not my scene at all.’

‘If it’s risk you’re after, I can offer plenty.’

Johnstone sucked his lower lip, eased it out under his upper teeth. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Show me.’

She passed him the DK slate. He read through it impassively while she sat back and kept a wary eye on their surroundings. The Hairy Fairy was a dive so low it passed right under the Carlyles’ radar. Dim lights, sour carpet sticky with spilt drinks, air stiff with smoke. Its clear, curving diamond window-wall overlooked New Glasgow’s lights from two hundred metres up the side of a building crusted with similar bubbles. It was a notorious hangout for Rapture-fuckers, the bane of exploration and hacking teams. They were hard to screen out. Like sociopaths, they knew how to manipulate expectations they didn’t share. In recruitment interviews and tests they came across as