The Naked God — Faith

Like men in his position throughout history, Kingsley Pryor did nothing as events swept him to their conclusion; simply waiting and praying that a magical third option would spring from nowhere. Now with the fusion drive pushing the starship towards Trafalgar, hope had cast him aside. The power he had been given to inflict suffering was insane in its size, yet he could feel Webster and Clarissa. The two balanced, as Capone knew they would. And now Kingsley Pryor had to make that impossible choice between the intimate and the abstract.

The cabin sensor had enough resolution to observe his lips contracting into a bitter smile. It looked as though a scream was about to burst loose. The CNIS duty officer shook her head at the way he was acting. Looks as though his brain’s cracked, she thought. Though he was keeping passive enough.

What the sensor never showed her was a patch of air beside Kingsley’s bunk thicken silently into the shape of Richard Keaton. He smiled sadly down at the stricken Navy officer.

“Who are you?” Kingsley asked hoarsely. “How did you hide on board?”

“I didn’t,” Richard Keaton said. “I’m not a possessed here to check up on you. I’m an observer, that’s all. Please don’t ask for who, or why. I won’t tell you that. But I will tell you that Webster has escaped from Capone, he’s no longer on Monterey.”

“Webster?” Kingsley cried. “Where is he?”

“As safe as anyone can be right now. He’s on a rogue ship that takes orders from no one.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’m not the only person observing the Confederation.”

“I don’t understand. Why tell me this?”

“You know exactly why, Kingsley. Because you have a decision to make. You are in a unique position to affect the course of human events. It’s not often an individual is put in this position, even though you don’t appreciate all the implications stretching out ahead of you. Now, I can’t make that decision for you, much as I’d like to. Even I can’t break the restrictions I work under. But I can at least bend them enough to make sure you have all the facts before you pass your judgement. You must choose when and where you die, and who dies with you.”

“I can’t.”

“I know. It’s not easy. You just want the status quo to carry on for so long that you become irrelevant. I don’t blame you for that, but it isn’t going to happen. You must choose.”

“Do you know what Capone did to me, what I’m carrying?”

“I know.”

“So what would you do?”

“I know too much to tell you that.”

“Then you haven’t told me everything I need to know. Please!”

“Now you’re just looking for absolution. I don’t provide that, either. Consider this, I have told you what I believe you should know. Your son will not suffer directly from any action you take. Not now, nor in the time which follows.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth? Who are you? ”

“I am telling you the truth, because I know exactly what to tell you. If I wasn’t what I say I am, how would I know about you and Webster?”

“What should I do? Tell me.”

“I just did.” Richard Keaton started to raise his hand in what could have been a gesture of sympathetic compassion. Kingsley Pryor never found out, his visitor faded away as beguilingly as he’d arrived.

He managed a small high-pitched snigger. People (or xenocs, or maybe even angels) were watching the human race; and were very good at it. It wouldn’t take much to see what was going on among the Confederation: a few carefully placed scanners could pick up the appropriate datavises, the CNIS and its counterparts did that as a matter of routine. But to secrete observers among the possessed cultures was an ability far beyond any ordinary intelligence agency. That kind of ability was unnerving. Despite that, he felt a small amount of relief. Whoever they were, they cared. Enough to intervene. Not by much, but just enough.

They knew the devastation he would cause. And they’d given him an excuse not to.

Kingsley looked straight at the cabin sensor. “I’m sorry. Really. I’ve been very weak to come this far. I’m ending it now.” He datavised an instruction into the flight computer.

On the bridge, Andre twitched in reaction as red neuroiconic symbols shrilled their warnings inside his skull. One by one, the starship’s primary functions were withdrawn from his control.

“Duchamp, what are you doing?” SD Command queried. “Return our access to the flight computer immediately or we will open fire.”

“I can’t,” the terrified captain datavised back. “The command authority codes have been nullified. Madeleine! Can you stop them?”

“Not a chance. Someone’s installing their own control routines through the Management Operations Program.”

“Don’t shoot,” Andre begged. “It’s not us.”

“It must be someone who had direct MOP access. That’s your crew, Duchamp.”

Andre gave Madeleine, Desmond, and Shane a frightened glance. “But we’re not . . . merde, Pryor! It’s Pryor. He’s doing this. He was the one who wanted to come here.”

“We’re powering down,” Desmond shouted. “Fusion drive off. Tokamak plasma cooling. Damn, he’s opened the emergency vent valves. All of them. What’s he doing?”

“Get down there and stop him. Use the hand weapons if you have to,” Andre shouted. “We’re cooperating,” he datavised at SD Command. “We’ll regain control. Just give us a few minutes.”

“Captain!” Shane pointed. The hatch in the decking was sliding shut. Orange strobes started to flash with near-blinding pulses in time to a piercing whistle.

“Mon dieu, non!”

SD sensors relayed a perfectly clear image of the Villeneuve’s Revenge to the CNIS duty officer. The ship was well into its deceleration phase when the emergency started. It was less than two hundred kilometres away from Trafalgar’s counter-rotating spaceport, which was grave cause for concern. The crew’s apparent dismay could just be one massive diversion. If a salvo of combat wasps were fired at the asteroid from this distance it would be almost impossible to intercept all of them.

Had it just been Duchamp and his crew on board, she would have vaporised the starship there and then. But Pryor’s actions and enigmatic statement just before his cabin sensor had gone off line stayed her hand. She was sure he was doing this; and the one routine which the starship had left open to Trafalgar’s scrutiny was fire control to the combat wasps. Pryor must be trying to reassure SD Command. None of the lethal drones had been armed.

“Keep tracking it with a full weapons lock,” she datavised to her fellow officers in the SD Command centre. “Tell the voidhawk escort to stand by.”

Long jets of snowy vapour were squirting out from the Villeneuve’s Revenge as the emergency vent emptied every tank on board. Hydrogen, helium, oxygen, coolant fluid, water, reaction mass; they all emerged under high pressure to shake the ship about as if a dozen thrusters were firing in conflicting directions. None of them were powerful enough to affect its orbital trajectory. With its deceleration burn interrupted, it continued to fly towards Trafalgar at nearly two kilometres per second.

“They’re not going to have any fuel even if they do regain control of the propulsion systems,” the SD guidance officer said. “The ship will impact in another two minutes.”

“If it gets within ten kilometres of Trafalgar, destroy it,” the CNIS duty officer ordered.

The multiple vent continued unabated for another fifteen seconds, giving the ship a highly erratic tumble. Explosive bolts detonated across the fuselage, punching out dry plumes of grey dust as they severed the outer stress structure. Huge segments of the hull peeled free like dusky silver petals opening wide, exposing the tight- packed metallic viscera. Sharp bursts of blue light flashed beneath the surface, visible only through the slimmest of fissures; more explosive bolts, detaching equipment from the internal stress grid. The starship began to break apart, its tanks, drive tubes, tokamak toroids, energy patterning nodes, heat exchangers, and a swarm of subsidiary