The Naked God — Faith

“Al, I’m picking up a broadband message to the fleet. It’s Kiera.”

One of the small circular ports along the side of the observation deck shimmered over and began showing Kiera’s face. “. . . after Arnstat there can be no alternative. The Confederation Navy is coming, and with the numbers to defeat us. Unless you want to be banished back to the beyond, we have to transfer ourselves down to the planet. I have the means to do this, and the ability to maintain our authority on the surface without relying on the SD platforms and antimatter. Everything you have now, your status and position, can be continued under my patronage. And this time around you don’t have to risk yourselves on those dangerous war missions of Capone’s. His day is over. For those of you who choose to have a privileged future, get in touch with Luigi, he will be joining you in the Swabia. If you follow him to low orbit, I will provide the means to establish yourselves on the surface. Anyone who wants to stay and wait for the Navy, feel free.”

“Damnit.” Al picked up the black telephone. “Cameron, get me Silvano.”

“He’s there, boss.”

“Silvano?” Al yelled. “You hearing Kiera?”

“I hear her, boss,” the lieutenant’s voice crackled.

“Tell Emmet he’s to stop any ship that doesn’t stay where it is any way he God damn can. I’ll talk to the fleet myself later. And I want that fucking message closed down. Now! Send a bunch of our soldiers to surround her headquarters, don’t let anybody out. I’m gonna come and deal with her personally. Tonight she starts sleeping with the fish.”

“You got it.”

“I’ll be docking any minute. I want you and some of the guys there to meet me. Loyal ones, Silvano.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

Luigi arrived at the base of the docking spindle feeling pretty damn good. The waiting and plotting had been getting to him, too much like sneaking around in the dark. He was an out-in-the-open kind of guy. Kiera had insisted he keep a low profile: he was still running round after that nobody Malone down in the gym, shovelling shit for non-possessed. The times when he got out to meet his old friends flying the Organization warships were few and far between, and at the meetings all he did was drop a few words of sedition, plant the seeds of doubt.

Every time he’d go back to Kiera and assure her the fleet was losing patience with Capone. Which was so. But he hyped the figures a little, carving himself a bigger slice.

Now that didn’t matter any more. He’d walked out of Malone’s cruddy basement as soon as Arnstat registered, not even waiting for Kiera’s call. This was it, their chance. Once he was back out there with the fleet, all those numbers wouldn’t mean shit. They’d follow him again, he knew it. He’d always been good with his lieutenants, they respected him.

The big transfer chamber at the axial hub was almost deserted when he came out of the tube. He air- swam over to the doors for the commuter cabs.

A man and a woman glided across to him. It annoyed Luigi, but this wasn’t the place to make a scene. Ten minutes, ten , and he’d be back inside a starship again, in command.

“I remember you,” Kingsley Pryor said. “You were one of Capone’s lieutenants.”

“What’s it to you, pal?” Luigi snapped back. He’d never been able to live with the nudges and whispers which followed him everywhere, like he was some kind of child molester on the run.

“Nothing. Are you going out to a ship?”

“Yeah. That’s right.” Luigi looked away, maybe the dumbass would catch on.

“That’s nice,” said Kingsley. “So are we.”

The doors opened, revealing the commuter cab’s empty interior. Kingsley gestured politely. “Please, you first.”

After she showered, Jezzibella marched along the side of the bed, inspecting each of the dresses Libby had laid out. The problem was, none of them were new. She’d gone through her whole wardrobe since she hooked up with Al. I need new clothes. It had never been a problem when she was touring. Clothes were such a minuscule part of the tour budget that the company never quibbled when she bought a new range on every planet—not that she had to. Each fresh star system was colonized by hot young designers who’d kill for her to be seen just looking at their labels.

She sighed and reviewed the lineup again. It would have to be the blue and green summer dress with its wide shoulder straps and micro-skirt. Worn over the girlishly sympathetic persona.

The tiny dermal scales began to contract and expand in response to the sequence she keyed in, performing their minute adjustments to her baseline facial expression so that she appeared perpetually intrigued and trusting. Skin texture softened to a young, healthy glow. Twenty-one all over again.

Jezzibella went over to the angled mirrors on the dressing table to check herself over. The eyes weren’t right; they were too rigid, insufficiently awed and excited by the beautiful mysterious world they explored. A little piece of the tough executive persona hanging on past its sell-by date. She scowled at the offending patches; the dermal scales were degenerating again. It was always the areas around the eyes which wore out first. Her supply of replacements was none too high, either. Not even a planet could make up that shortfall; her stocks had always come straight from Tropicana, the one Adamist world with relaxed bitek laws.

“Libby,” she shouted. “Libby, get in here and bring that package with you.”

The old dear had worked wonders recently, patiently reapplying the scales with a true artisan’s touch to gloss over the reduced coverage. But even her magic couldn’t last forever without new scales. Jezzibella didn’t want to consider that.

“Libby, get your arthritic ass in here right now!”

Kiera, Hudson Proctor, and three goons stepped into the bedroom, passing straight through the door without opening it as if the clanwood panels were nothing more than coloured air. All five of them were cradling static bullet machine guns.

“Showing our age, are we?” Kiera asked silkily.

Jezzibella clamped down on her shock and budding fear. Kiera would be able to see that, and she wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Her mind slipped directly into the cool empress persona without any help from her crashed neural nanonics. “Here for some beauty tips, Kiera?”

“This body doesn’t need any. It’s a natural. Unlike yours.”

“Pity you don’t know how to use it properly. With breasts like those I could have ruled the galaxy. All you have is twenty male morons whose hard-ons have drained the blood from their brains. You can’t inspire them, you’re just their whore. What a force not to be reckoned with that makes.”

Kiera took a step froward, her serenity cooling rapidly. “That mouth of yours has always been a problem for me.”

“Wrong again, it’s the smarter brain behind it which beats you every time.”

“Kill the slut,” Hudson Proctor barked. “We don’t have the time for this. We’ve got to find him.”

Kiera lifted her machine gun up and touched the tip of the barrel lightly against the base of Jezzibella’s neck. Watching closely for a reaction, she slid the barrel down, teasing open the thick white robe. “Oh no,” she murmured. “If we kill her, she’ll just come back as our equal. Won’t you?”

“I’d have to lower myself a long way before I reached that point.”

Kiera had to put an arm out to restrain Hudson Proctor. “Now look what you’ve done,” she chided Jezzibella. “These are my friends you’re upsetting.”

Jezzibella’s expression was of complete amusement. She didn’t even have to speak.

Kiera nodded a reluctant submission to the private sparring. She gently shifted the towelling robe back to its original state. “Where is he?”

“Oh, please. At least threaten me.”

“Very well. I will not allow you to die. And I do have that power. How’s that?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hudson Proctor said. “Give her to me. I’ll find out where he’s gone.”

Kiera gave him a pitying glance. “Really? Will you gang bang her into capitulation, or simply keep on hitting her until she tells you?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Tell him,” Kiera said.