Lori was whimpering, her hands clutching at her ears, mouth frozen open in a horrified wail. Darcy saw her dissolve under a discharge of chaotic mental images, each of them bright enough to dazzle.
Jungle. A village seen from the air. More jungle. A little boy hanging upside-down from a tree, his stomach sliced open. A bearded man hanging upside-down from a different tree, lightning flaring wildly.
Heat, excruciating heat.
Darcy grunted at the pain, he was on fire. Skin blackening, hair singeing, his throat shrivelling.
It stopped.
He was prone on the floor. Flames in the background. Always flames. A man and a woman were leaning over him, naked. Their skin was changing, darkening to green, becoming scaled. Eyes and mouth were scarlet red. The woman parted her lips and a serpent’s forked tongue slipped out.
His children were crying all around.
Sorry, so sorry I failed you at the last.
Father shame: ignominy that extended down to a cellular level.
Leathery green hands began to run across his chest, a parody of sensuality. Where the fingers touched he could feel the ruptures begin deep below his skin.
NOW DO YOU BELIEVE?
And voices, audible above his agony. Coming from within, from a deeper part of his brain than affinity originated. Whisperers in chorus: “We can help, we can make it stop. Let us in, let us free you. Give yourself.”
WARN THEM, CURSE YOU.
Then nothing.
Darcy found himself curled up on the mayope planks of the office floor. He had bitten his lip; a trickle of blood wept down his chin.
He touched himself gingerly, fingers probing his ribs, terrified of what he would find. But there was no pain, no open wounds, no internal damage.
“It was him,” Lori croaked. She was in her chair, head bowed, hugging her chest, hands clenched into tight fists. “Laton. He’s here, he really is here.”
Darcy managed to right himself into a kneeling position, it was enough for now, if he tried to stand he was sure he’d faint. “Those images . . .” Did you see them?
The reptile people? Yes. But the power in that affinity. It . . . it damn near overwhelmed me.
The Quallheim Counties, that’s where he said it was. That’s over a thousand kilometres away upriver. Human affinity can only reach a hundred at most.
He’s had thirty years to perfect his diabolical genetic schemes.her thoughts were contaminated with fright and revulsion.
“A xenoc energy virus,” Darcy muttered, nonplussed. What did he mean? And he was being tortured, along with his children. Why? What is going on upriver?
I don’t know. All I know is I wouldn’t trust him, not ever. We saw images, fantasy figures. He’s had thirty years to construct them, after all.
But they were so real. And why reveal himself? He knows we will eliminate him whatever the cost.
Yes, he knows we will come in force. But with that affinity power he could probably compel even a voidhawk. It would allow himself and his cronies to spread through the Confederation.
It was so real,darcy repeated numbly. And now we know he is so powerful we can guard against him. It makes no sense, unless he really has run into something he can’t handle. Something more powerful than he.
Lori gave him a sad, almost defeated look. We need to know, don’t we?
Yes.
They let their thoughts flow and entwine like the bodies of amorous lovers, reinforcing their strengths, eliminating weaknesses. Gathering courage.
Darcy used a chair as support, and pulled himself up. Every joint felt ponderously stiff. He sat heavily and dabbed at his bitten lip.
Lori smiled fondly, and handed him a handkerchief.
Duty first,he said. We have to inform Jupiter that Laton is here. That takes precedence over everything. We’re not due a voidhawk visit for another couple of months. I’ll see Kelven Solanki and request he sends a message to Aethra and the support station out at Murora immediately, his office has the equipment to do that direct. The Confederation Navy would have to be told anyway, so it might as well be now. He can also include a report in the diplomatic flek on a colonist-carrier ship that’s heading back to Earth. That ought to cover us.
And after that we go upriver,lori said.
Yes.
“Next!” the sheriff called.
Yuri Wilkin stepped up to the table, keeping the leash tight on his sayce, Randolf. Rain pattered on the empty warehouse’s roof high above his head. Outside the open end, behind the sheriff, the yellow-brown polyp crater of harbour five was returning to a semblance of normality. Most of the boats had returned after their night on the river. A work crew from one of the shipyards were surveying the fire-ravaged hull that was bobbing low in the water. Some captain who hadn’t been fast enough to cast off when the rioters came boiling along the polyp in search of Ivets.
The smell of burnt wood mingled with more exotic smells from the stored goods that had caught fire in several warehouses. The flames shooting out of the doomed buildings had been tremendous, even Lalonde’s rain had taken hours to extinguish them.
Yuri had milled around watching along with the rest of the rioters last night, mesmerized with the destruction. The flames had lit something inside him, something that felt joyful at the sight of a young terrified Ivet reduced to a bloody chunk of unrecognizable meat beneath the crowd’s clubs. He had yelled encouragement until his throat was hoarse.
“Age?” the sheriff asked.
“Twenty,” Yuri lied. He was seventeen, but he already had a reasonable beard. He crossed his fingers,
