The Naked God — Flight

“That’s why I’m here.”

“You can’t ignore the serjeant situation. We are utterly dependent on them to liberate Mortonridge, and there’s a hell of a way to go yet.”

“A hundred and eighty thousand people de-possessed, seventeen thousand dead, so far; that leaves us with one-point-eight-million left to save.”

“Exactly. And we’re about to enter the phase which will see the heaviest fighting. If they keep advancing at their current rate, the front line will reach the first areas where the possessed are concentrated the day after tomorrow. If you slow them now, the serjeants are going to start taking heavy losses just before that. Not good. I’d say, keep things as they are until the front line hits those concentrations, then shift to General Hiltch’s outnumbering tactics.”

“That’s a very logical solution.” She stared at the wine. “If only all I had to consider were numbers. But they’re depending on me, Edward.”

“Who?”

“The people who’ve been possessed. Even locked away in their own bodies, they know the Liberation is coming now; a practical salvation from this obscenity. They have faith in me, they trust me to deliver them from this evil. And I have a duty to them. That duty is one of the few true burdens placed on the family by our people. Now I know there is a way of reducing the number of my subjects killed, I cannot in all conscience ignore it for tactical convenience. That would be a betrayal of trust, not to mention an abdication of duty.”

“The two impossibles for a Saldana.”

“Yes. We have had it easy for an awful long time, haven’t we?”

“Shall we say: moderately difficult.”

“Yet if I want to reduce the death rate, I’m going to have to ask the Edenists to take it on the chin for us. You know what bothers me most about that? People will expect it. I’m a Saldana, they’re Edenists. What could be simpler?”

“The serjeants aren’t quite Edenists.”

“We don’t know what the hell they are, not any more. Acacia was hedging her bets very thoroughly. If they’re worried enough to bring the problem to me, then it has to be a substantial factor. One I cannot discount from the humanist equation. Damn it, they were supposed to be automatons.”

“The Liberation is a very rushed venture. I’m sure if Jupiter’s geneticists had been given enough time to design a dedicated soldier construct then this would never have arisen. But we had to borrow from the Lord of Ruin. Look, General Hiltch was given overall command of the Liberation. Let him make the decision, it’s what he’s paid for.”

“Get thee behind me,” she muttered. “No, Edward, not this time. I’m the one who insisted on reducing the fatalities. It is my responsibility.”

“You’ll be setting a precedent.”

“Hardly one that’s likely to be repeated. All of us are sailing into new, and very stormy territory; that requires proper leadership. If I cannot provide that now, then the family will ultimately have failed. We have spent four hundred years engineering ourselves into this position of statesmanship, and I will not duck the issue when it really counts. It stinks of cowardice, and that is one thing I will never allow the Saldanas to stand accused of.”

He kissed her on the side of her head. “Well you know you have my support. If I could make one final observation. The personalities in the serjeants are all volunteers. They came here knowing what their probable fate would be. That purpose remains at their core. In that, they are like every pre-Twenty-first Century army; reluctant, frightened even, but committed. So give them the time they need to gather their nerve and resolution, and then use them for the purpose for which they were created: saving genuine human lives. If they are truly capable of emotion, then their only hope of gaining satisfaction will come from achieving that.”

Ralph was eating a cold snack in Fort Forward’s command complex canteen when he received the datavise.

“Slow the assault,” Princess Kirsten told him. “I want that suicide figure reduced as low as you can practically achieve.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll see to it. And thank you.”

“This is what you wanted?”

“We’re not here to recapture land, ma’am. The Liberation is about people.”

“I know that. I hope Acacia will forgive us.”

“I’m sure she will, ma’am. The Edenists understand us pretty well.”

“Good. Because I also want the serjeant platoons given as much breathing space between assaults as they require.”

“That will reduce the rate of advance even further.”

“I know, but it can’t be helped. Don’t worry about political and technical support, General, I’ll ensure you get that right to the bitter end.”

“Yes ma’am.” The datavise ended. He looked round at the senior staff eating with him, and gave a slow smile. “We got it.”

High above the air, cold technological eyes stared downwards, unblinking. Their multi-spectrum vision could penetrate clean through Mortonridge’s thinning strands of puffy white cloud to reveal the small group of warm figures trekking across the mud. But that was where the observation failed. Objects around them were perfectly clear, the dendritic tangle of roots flaring from fallen trees, a pulverised four-wheel-drive rover almost devoured by the blue-grey mud, even the shape of large stones ploughed up and rolled along by thick runnels of sludge. In contrast, the figures were hazed by shimmering air; infrared blobs no more substantial than candle flames. No matter which combination of discrimination filters it applied to the sensor image, the AI was unable to determine their exact number. Best estimate, taken from the width of the distortion and measuring the thermal imprint of the disturbed mud they left behind, was between four and nine.

Stephanie could feel the necklace of prying satellites as they slid relentlessly along their arc from horizon to horizon. Not so much their physical existence; that kind of knowledge had vanished along with the cloud and the possessed’s mental unity. But their avaricious intent was forever there, intruding upon the world’s intrinsic harmonies. It acted as a reminder for her to keep her guard up. The others were the same. Messing with the sight on a level which equated to waving a hand at persistent flies. Not that satellites were their problem. A far larger note of discord resonated from the serjeants, now just a couple of miles away. And coming closer, always closer. Machine-like in their determination.

At first Stephanie had ignored them, employing a kind of bravado that was almost entirely alien to her. Everybody had, once they’d reached the shelter (and dryness !) of the barn. The building didn’t amount to much, set on a gentle hillock, with a low wall of stone acting as a base for composite panelling walls and a shallow roof. They’d stumbled across it five horrendous hours after setting out from the end of the valley. McPhee claimed that proved they were following the road. By then, nobody was arguing with him. In fact, nobody was speaking at all. Their limbs were trembling from exertion, not even reinforcing them with energistic strength helped much. They’d long since discovered such augmentation had to be paid for by the body in the long run.

The barn had come pretty much at the end of their endurance. There’d been no discussion about using it. As soon as they saw its dark, bleak outline through the pounding rain they’d trudged grimly towards it. Inside there was little respite from the weather at first. The wind had torn innumerable panels off the carbotanium frame, and the concrete floor was lost beneath a foot of mud. That didn’t matter, in their state, it was pure salvation.

Their energistic power renovated it. Mud flowed up the walls, sealing over the lost panels and turning to stone. The rain was repelled, and the howl of the wind muted. Relief united them again, banishing the misery of the retreat from the valley. It was an emotion which produced an overreaction of confidence and defiance. Now, they found it possible to ignore the occasional mind-scream of anguish as another soul was wrenched from its possessed body by the peril of zero-tau. They cooperated gamely in searching round outside for food, adopting a campfire jollity as they cleaned and cooked the dead fish and mud-smeared vegetables.

Then the rain eased off, and the serjeants crunched forwards remorselessly. Food became very scarce. A week after the Liberation began, they left the barn, tramping along the melted contour line which McPhee still