Neutronium Alchemist - Consolidation

“Of course.” Joshua held up his Jovian Bank credit disk.

Bunal was surprised by the young captain’s swift concession. It took him a moment to produce his own credit disk. Joshua shunted the money over.

“You were right,” Bunal said. “The Udat did come to this star system. It docked at the Nyiru asteroid. Apparently its captain was hurt when they arrived, he spent almost four days in hospital undergoing neural trauma treatment. When it was complete, they filed a flight plan for the Sol system, and left.”

“Sol?” Joshua asked. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. However—and this is where the twenty thousand comes in—their passenger, Dr Alkad Mzu, didn’t go with them. She hired an independent trader called the Samaku , and departed an hour later.”

“Flight plan?”

“Filed for a Dorado asteroid, Ayacucho. I even checked traffic control’s sensor data for the flight. They were definitely aligned for Tunja when they jumped.”

Joshua resisted the impulse to swear. Ione was right, Mzu was running to the last remnants of her nation. She must be going for the Alchemist. He flicked another glance at the girl in the red shirt, her head tipped back elegantly as she drank her cocktail. Jesus, as if we don’t have enough problems right now. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. You should also know, for no extra charge, that I’m not the only one to be asking these questions. There are three access requests logged on the Civil Spaceflight Department computer for the same files. One request was made only twenty minutes before mine.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Bad news?”

“Interesting news,” Joshua grunted. He rose to his feet.

“If there is anything else I can obtain for you, Captain, please call.”

“Sure thing.” Joshua was already walking for the door, Dahybi and Beaulieu a couple of steps behind.

Before he reached the exit, people watching the AV pillar behind the bar were gasping in shock; agitated murmurs of conversation rippled down the length of the room. Perfect strangers asking each other: Did you access that? the way they always did with momentous news.

Joshua focused on the AV pillar’s projection, allowing the hazy laserlight sparkle to form its picture behind his eyes. A planet floated below him, its geography instantly familiar. No real continents or oceans, just winding seas and thousands of medium-sized islands. Patches of glowing red cloud squatted over half of the islands, concentrated mainly in the tropic zones—though on this world tropic was a relative term.

“. . . Confederation Navy frigate Levкque confirmed that all inhabited islands on Norfolk have now been covered by the reality dysfunction cloud,” the news commentator said. “All contact with the surface has been lost, and it must be assumed that the majority, if not all, of the population has been possessed. Norfolk is a pastoral planet with few spaceplanes available to the local government; because of this no attempt was made to evacuate any inhabitants to the navy squadron before the capital Norwich fell. A statement from Confederation Navy headquarters at Trafalgar said that the Levкque would remain in orbit to observe the situation, but no offensive action was being considered at this time. This brings to seven the number of planets known to have been taken over by the possessed.”

“Oh, Jesus, Louise is down there.” The AV image broke up as he turned his head away from the pillar, seeing Louise running over the grassy wolds in one of those ridiculous dresses, laughing over her shoulder at him. And Genevieve, too, that irritating child who was either laughing or sulking. Marjorie, Grant (it would go worse for him, he would resist as long as possible), Kenneth, and even that receptionist at Drayton’s Import. “Goddamnit. No!” I should have been there. I could have got her away.

“Joshua?” Dahybi asked in concern. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Did you catch that piece about Norfolk?”

“Yes.”

“She’s down there, Dahybi. I left her there.”

“Who?”

“Louise.”

“You didn’t leave her there, Joshua. It’s her home, it’s where she belongs.”

“Right.” Joshua’s neural nanonics were plotting a course from Narok to Norfolk. He didn’t remember requesting it.

“Come on, Captain,” Dahybi said. “We’ve got what we came for. Let’s go.”

Joshua looked at the woman in the red shirt again. She was staring at the AV pillar, abstract pastel streaks from the projection glinting dully on her ebony cheeks. A delighted smile flourished on her lips.

Joshua hated her, her invincibility, the cool arrogance sitting among her enemies. Queen of the bitch demons come to taunt him. Dahybi’s hand tightened around his arm.

“Okay, we’re gone.”

•   •   •

“Here we are, home at last,” Loren Skibbow said with a histrionic sigh. “Not that we can stay for long. They’ll tear Guyana apart to find us now.”

The apartment was on the highest level of the biosphere’s habitation complex, where gravity was only eighty per cent standard. The penthouse of some Kingdom aristocrat, presumably, furnished with dark active- contour furniture and large hand-painted silk screens; every table and alcove shelf were littered with antiques.

Gerald felt it was a somewhat bizarre setting to wind up in considering the day’s events. “Are you creating this?” When they lived in the arcology, Loren had always badgered him for what she termed a “grander” apartment.

She looked around with a rueful smile and shook her head. “No. My imagination isn’t up to anything so gaudy. This is Pou Mok’s place.”

“The woman you’re possessing? The redhead?”

“That’s right.” Loren smiled and took a step towards him.

Gerald stiffened. Not that she needed any physical signs; his mind was foaming with fear and confusion. “Okay, Gerald, I won’t touch you. Sit down, we have a lot to talk about. And this time I mean talk, not just you telling me what you’ve decided is best for us.”

He flinched. Everything she did and said triggered memories. The unedited past seemed to have become his curse in life.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “What happened, Loren?”

“You saw the homestead, what that bastard Dexter and his Ivets did to us.” Her face paled. “To Paula.”

“I saw.”

“I tried, Gerald. Honestly, I tried to fight back. But it all happened so fast. They were crazy brutes; Dexter killed one of his own just because the boy would slow them down. I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.”

“And I wasn’t there.”

“They’d have killed you, too.”

“At least . . .”

“No, Gerald. You would have died for nothing. I’m glad you escaped. This way you can help Marie.”

“How?”

“The possessed can be beaten. Individually, in any case. I’m not so sure about overall. But that’s for others to fight over, planetary governments and the Confederation. You and I have to rescue our daughter, allow her to have her own life. No one else will.”

“How?” This time it was a shout.

“The same way you were freed: zero-tau. We have to put her in zero-tau. The possessed can’t endure it.”

“Why not?”