“Looks that way. All we know for sure is that they’re nothing to do with Kiera.”
“But he could be the goddamn Confederation Navy. Some kind of assassin. Their version of Kingsley Pryor.”
“I’m not so sure, Al. Those boxes in the truck. I ran a search through our store’s inventory. It’s not exactly tight at the best of times, but there’s a lot of electronics I can’t account for. I can’t see the Confederation Navy breaking in here to steal a truck full of spare parts. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Al stared at the screen, which had frozen on the last image of the spacesuited guy stepping into
“No. But it’s back here right now. We can just ask it straight out.
Al leaned back into the chair, and grinned happily. “They could be trying to break free. How long till that food factory they need is fixed?”
“Another week. Five days if we really hustle.”
“Then hustle, Emmet. Meantime I’m going out to take a ride in Cameron. He can talk to the other hellhawks for me, without Kiera listening in.”
Gerald’s fractured thoughts slithered through a universe of darkness and pain. He didn’t know where he was, what he was doing. He didn’t really care. Flashes erupted from time to time as neurons made erratic connections, releasing bright images of Marie. His thoughts clustered round them like worshipful congregations. The reason for such adulation was slipping from him.
Voices began to impinge on his miserable existence. A chorus of whispers. Insistent. Relentless. Growing louder, stronger. They began to intrude on his vague consciousness.
A blast of white-hot pain put him in sudden, frightening contact with his body again.
Let us in. End the torment. We can help.
The pain changed position and texture. Burning.
We can stop it.
I can stop it. Let me in. I want to help.
No, me. I’m the one you need.
Me.
I have the secret to end their torture.
There was sound. Real sound, rattling through the air. His own thin screams. And laughter. Cruel cruel laughter.
Gerald.
No, he told them. No, I won’t. Not again. I’d rather die.
Gerald, let me in. Don’t fight.
I’ll die for Marie. Rather that . . .
Gerald, it’s me. Feel me. Know me. Taste my memories.
She said . . . She said she’d . . . Oh no. Not that. Don’t make me, not with her. No.
I know. I was there. Now let me come through. It’s difficult, I know. But we have to help her. We have to help Marie. This is the only way now.
Astonishment at the soul’s identity crumbled his mental barriers. The soul roared through from the beyond, permeating his body; the energy it brought seething along his limbs, sparkling down his spinal column. Invigorating. New memories invaded his synapses, colliding with the emplaced recollections in cascades of sights, sounds, tastes, and sensation. It wasn’t like before. Before, he’d been confined, shoved down to the very edge of awareness, knowing of the outside by the tiniest trickle of nerve impulses. A passive, near-insensate passenger/prisoner in his own body. This time it was a more equal partnership, though the newcomer was dominant.
Gerald’s eyes opened, a flush of energistic power helping them to focus. Another application finally banished the terrible headache that had raged for so long.
Two of Kiera’s bodyguards were smirking down at him. “Who’s a lucky boy then,” one chortled. “Man, you are in for the shag of a lifetime tonight.”
Gerald raised a hand. Two searing spears of white fire flashed from his fingertips, drilling straight through the craniums of both bodyguards. Four souls gibbered their fury as they plunged back into the beyond.
“I have other plans for this evening, thank you,” said Loren Skibbow.
It had been a while since Al took a ride in his rocketship. Sitting in the fat green-leather couch on the hellhawk’s promenade deck made him realize just how long. He stretched out, putting his feet up.
“Where can I take you, Al?” Cameron’s voice asked from the silver tannoy grill on the wall.
“Just off Monterey, you know.” He needed a break, just a short time alone to get his head around what was happening. In the old days he would have just gone for a drive, maybe take a fishing rod with him. Golf, too, he’d played golf a few times; though not to any rules the Royal and Ancient had ever heard about. Just buddies fooling round on a fine day.
The view through the big forward window showed him the asteroid’s counter-rotating spaceport slipping away overhead as they leapt off the docking ledge. Gravity inside the cabin was rock steady. New California tracked in from the riveted steel rim around the window, a silvery half crescent, like the moon had looked on clear summer nights above Brooklyn. He never could get used to how much cloud planets had. It was amazing anyone on the surface ever saw the sun.
Cameron was curving out from the big asteroid, rolling continually like a playful dolphin. If Al looked back through the portholes down the side of the promenade deck, he could see brilliant sunlight sweeping over the yellow fins and scarlet fuselage.
“Hey, Cameron, can you show me the Orion Nebula?”
The hellhawk’s antics slowed. Its nose swung across the starscape, hunting like a compass needle. “There we go. Should be dead centre in the window now.”
Al saw it then, a delicate haze of light, like God had wet his thumb and smeared a star across the canvas of space. He sat back in the couch and drank cappuccino from a tiny cup as he looked at it. Weird little thing. A fog in space, Emmet said. Where stars are born. The Martians and their death rays lived on the other side.
There was no way he could get his head round that. The idea of the Navy ships going there had frightened Kiera, and even Jez was concerned. But it didn’t connect for him. He was going to have to ask for advice again. He sighed, acknowledging the inevitable. But there were some things he could still take care of by himself. Chicago had more territories, factions and gangs than the whole Confederation put together. He knew how to manipulate them. Make new friends, lose old ones. Apply some heat. Bribe, blackmail, extort. Nobody today, living or dead, had his kind of political experience. Prince of the city. Then, now, and always.
“Cameron, I want to talk to a hellhawk called
The sharply pointed scarlet nose began to turn, sending the nebula sliding from view. Monterey reappeared, a grubby ochre splodge with pinpricks of light shimmering around its spaceport.
“The guy’s name is Rocio, Al,” Cameron said.
A square in the corner of the window turned grey, then swirled into a face. “Mr Capone,” Rocio said politely. “I’m honoured. What can I do for you?”
“I don’t like Kiera,” Al told him.
“Who does? But we’re both stuck with her.”
“You’re hurting me, Rocio. You know that’s bullshit. She’s got you by the short and curlies because she blew up all your food factories. What if I told you I might be able to rebuild one?”
“Okay, I’m interested.”
“I know you are. You’re trying to set one up yourself. That’s why you grabbed those electric gadgets the
