The Naked God - Faith

them into inert helium. Fusion energy production continued within a small shell of hydrogen wrapped around the central region. Temperature, pressure, and density all began to change as the envelope took over from the core as the principal source of heat. As the transformation of its internal structure progressed, so Mastrit-PJ left its original stable luminous sequence behind at an ever increasing rate. Its outer layers began to expand, heated by convection currents surging up from the growing fusion envelope. While on the inside of the envelope, the core continued its gravitational contraction as a snow of helium atoms drifted downwards adding to its mass.

Mastrit-PJ divided into two distinct and very different entities: the centre burning with renewed vigour as it continued its contraction, and the outer layers bloating out and cooling through the spectrum from white through yellow and into red. That was the epoch of stellar evolution from which the Tyrathca had fled. The expanding star inflated out to over four hundred times its original radius, eventually settling down with a diameter of one thousand six hundred and seventy million kilometres. It swept across the three inner planets, including the Tyrathca homeworld, and quickly devoured the two outer gas-giants. There was no exact line to show where the star ended and space began, instead the inflamed hydrogen thinned out into a thick solar wind which blew steadily out into the galaxy. However, for catalogue and navigational purposes, Oenone had defined Mastrit-PJ’s periphery at seven hundred and eighty million kilometres from its invisible core.

Lady Macbeth was the first to emerge, a respectable fifty million kilometres above the wispy radiant sea of dissolving particles. Normal space had ceased to exist, leaving the starship coasting between two parallel universes of light. On one side, the spectral eddies of the nebula jewelled with young stars; on the other, a flat, featureless desert of golden-hot photons.

Oenone emerged twenty kilometres from the dark Adamist ship.

“Contact locked,” Joshua datavised in confirmation to Syrinx as their dish acquired Oenone ’s short-range beacon. Lady Mac ’s full complement of survey sensors were rising out of their fuselage recesses, along with the new systems which Kempster had requested. He could actually see a similar suite deploying from the pods riding in the voidhawk’s lower fuselage cargo cradles.

“I see you,” she replied. “Confirming no rocks or dust clouds in our immediate vicinity. We’re starting the sensor sweep.”

“Us too.”

“How’s your thermal profile?”

“Holding fine,” Sarha replied when he consulted her. “It’s hot out there, but not as bad as the approach to the antimatter station. Our dump panels can radiate it away faster than we’re absorbing it. Wouldn’t want you to fly us too much closer, though. And if you can give us a slow continuing roll manoeuvre, I’d be happy. It’ll avoid any hot-spots building on the fuselage.”

“Do my best,” he told her. “Syrinx, we can cope. How about you?”

“Not a problem at this distance. The foam insulation is intact.”

“Okay.” He fired the starship’s equatorial ion thrusters, initiating the slow barbecue-mode roll Sarha wanted.

The crew were all at their bridge stations, ready to cope with any contingency the red giant threw at them. Samuel and Monica were down in the main lounge in capsule B, sharing it with Alkad, Peter, and Oski, who were accessing the sensor data. Oenone ’s results were being delivered directly to Parker, Kempster, and Renato. Both ships were exchanging their data in real time, allowing the experts to review it simultaneously.

The image of local space built up quickly, charting the strong riot of particles flowing past the hull. Outside didn’t quite qualify as a vacuum.

“Calmer than Jupiter’s environment,” Syrinx commented. “But just as dangerous.”

“Not as much hard radiation as we predicted,” Alkad said.

“The hydrogen bulk must be absorbing it before it reaches the surface.”

Their optical and infrared sensors were performing slow scans of space away from the red giant’s surface. Analysis programs searched for shifting light-points which would indicate asteroids or moonlet-sized bodies, even a planet. Oenone ’s distortion field could find little local mass bending space-time’s uniformity. The brawny solar wind seemed to have blown everything away. Of course, they were looking at less than one per cent of the equatorial orbit track.

The first result came from a simple microwave frequency sensor that picked up an unidentified pulse lasting less than a second. It was coming from somewhere closer to the surface.

“Kempster?” Oski datavised. “Is there any way a red giant could emit microwaves?”

“Not with any of our current theories,” the surprised astronomer replied.

“Captain, can we take a closer look at the source, please?”

On the bridge, Joshua gave Dahybi a warning look. Intuition fluttered his heart. “Node status?”

“We can jump clear, Captain,” Dahybi said quietly.

“Liol, keep monitoring our electronic warfare detectors, please. I want to play this very safe indeed.”

The flight computer reported the sensors had picked up another microwave pulse.

“That’s very similar to radar,” Beaulieu said. “But not a recognizable Confederation signature. It’s nothing like the Tyrathca ships used, either.”

“Oski, I’m switching our sensor focus area for you now,” Joshua said.

Both passive and active sensor clusters rotated on the end of their booms to study the direction from which the pulse had come. The flight computer assembled their results into a generalized neuroiconic image in accordance with its governing graphic-generation programs, approximating the physical structure which the image enhancement subroutine was delivering and combining it with a thermal and electromagnetic profile.

“Remind me again,” Sarha said in a subdued breath. “In our expert team’s professional opinion, we’re here for an aeons-dead civilization whose relics are going to be extremely difficult to find. That’s what you sold us, wasn’t it?”

The most powerful telescopes Oenone and Lady Mac carried were quickly aligned on the structure which the sensor clusters had located, amplifying and clarifying the first low-resolution image. Orbiting twenty million kilometres ahead of the starships, a city was flying unperturbably above the slow-churning blooms of the convection currents which contoured the red giant’s surface. Spectrography confirmed the presence of silicates, carbon compounds, light metals, and water. Microwaves buzzed across its turrets. Butterfly wing magnetic fields flapped in a steady heartbeat. A forest of rapier spines rose from its darkside, gleaming at the top of the infrared spectrum as they radiated away its colossal thermal load.

It was five thousand kilometres in diameter.

Chapter 07

Quinn used simple timing rather than risk sending his orders out through London’s communication net. No matter how innocuous the message, there was always a chance the supercops would pick up the chain. Even though they thought they’d eliminated him in the Parsonage Heights strike, they would be watching for signs of other possessed in the arcology. Standard procedure. Quinn would have done the same in their place. However, their paranoia had been quenched amid the flames and death engulfing the tower’s penthouse. With that came a slight relaxation of effort, falling back to established routine rather than determined proactive searches. It gave him the interlude he desired.

By necessity, London was now destined to be the capital of His empire on Earth. Such honour would be visited upon the ancient city and its outlying domes only by using possessed as disciples to deliver His doctrine. But there were inherent problems recruiting them. Even they were reluctant to follow the gospel of God’s Brother to its exacting, painful letter. As he’d learned on Jesup, violent coercion was often required to obtain the wholehearted cooperation of non-sect members. Even Quinn was limited in the number of people he could intimidate at once. And without that strict adherence to His cause, the possessed would do what they always did and snatch this world from the universe. Quinn couldn’t allow that, so he’d adopted a more tactical strategy, borrowing heavily from