It had been an inspired decision, pooh-poohed by the other five. Cannon fodder. The last seventeen of one of the extreme religious sects that had supported Earth Primus. Pointless on a battlefield except for a death or glory charge. Bel Drago had arranged it on a whim, although the contract had insisted that humans other than the mercenaries should witness Greenaway’s death. Now they were parked in a coach five hundred metres away, desperate for revenge and salvation.
< There’s a small force massing in front of the house. Around twenty people.
Greenaway’s AI was handling the surveillance drones.
> Organised?
< More like a mob.
Fourteen believers raised their weapons and charged, screaming, towards the house. The other three, kept back as witnesses, chanted support.
Three mercenaries reached the killing ground in front of the house. Fixed guns opened up from the first-floor windows. Two died by the front door, a triumph. Small rockets destroyed the fixed guns. One mercenary advanced on the house, unavoidably stepping on the scattered dead.
“Telemetry has him in a room to the left of the main door,” Drago sent.
The subsequent burst of gunfire lasted a minute, followed by sonic grenades.
The merc rushed the room, found it empty except for...
“Decoy device!” he managed before the room exploded.
Greenaway waited a full hour before slowly beginning to move. There was a faint sucking sound as he eased across the Severn Estuary mud.
> Any company?
< Can’t tell.
He raised his head.
“About fucking time,” Bel Drago said.
Not the bitterness of defeat, only quickly suppressed anger for the mistake, then mind speeding to discover a solution. He put down his weapon and waited.
Bel Drago wore the same model camouflage suit as Greenaway. She sat inside the skeleton of a long-abandoned boat, holding an assault rifle. “Kneel up, hands clasped on top of your head,” she said.
Greenaway did so. “Who were the mob?”
“True believers. There’s some coming to watch you die.”
“Want to deal?”
“Can’t. Platinum contract. And I want you dead. Good defence by the way. I’m the only one left.”
“All the money, all the glory. How come you survived?”
“Put myself in your place. Your sanctuary is actually a trap. You sit back and wait, then kill any survivors. So where do you hide up? Only one choice: the river. Very little heat leakage from these suits, what there is quickly dispersed by water and mud.”
> Not the whole truth, is it? he said to his AI.
< Made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
“You also got to my AI.”
Bel Drago sighed. “True. It won’t die with you.”
Some go mad. Others like wild children. Some discover hate, Twist had said about newly independent AIs. “The other mercs didn’t know.”
“They died doing what they loved. Ah, the witnesses.”
Three figures approached, chanting.
“I’m standing up.” He did so slowly, as the chanting came to a sudden stop. Four believers stared at the lights playing above the water. Greenaway guessed why and turned around, wondering where the first shot would strike, his back or head.
Now’s the time. Now! Greenaway thought.
“What the fuck!” Bel Drago exclaimed.
And the world exploded in fury and light.
13
They found Tatia in the sixth Originator ship they inspected. Found as in were able to see her through the translucent force fields.
Able to do little more than wave.
All Tatia saw was a needle-shaped ship that looked Earth-built. She’d been trying to fathom the use of one of the pods, could be a control room, when she’d sensed someone looking at her, which was strange and perhaps the first sign of madness. She went onto the main deck and saw the new ship moving alongside.
> It’s got to be them!
Silence.
> Hello?
And then the AI didn’t matter as the ship’s hull seemed to vanish and she saw two figures waving at her.
The Originator ship that had become Tatia’s prison had drifted away from the vast oblong structure. For this she was grateful. Terrible and disgusting as it was, she couldn’t help but glance every now and then, as if expecting to see a familiar face. When her prison finally drifted into a well of other Originator ships, she’d expected that one or more triunes would come aboard. None did, and it was then she realised the ships were deserted, and maybe it was her destiny to die in an alien parking lot, or even breaker’s yard.
“So how,” Marc asked, “do we get Tatia from there to here?”
Kara found it hard to concentrate. Somewhere, something was emoting to an extent she’d never believed possible. Emoting love, of all things.
> Can you help?
< I can dampen your limbic system, especially the amygdala.
> How does that affect me?
< Life will seem flat. Your thinking clearer.
> Do it.
They talked about how to rescue Tatia. The force fields were effectively impenetrable. If they were taken out, she would almost certainly die.
Would the same be true in netherspace? Suppose the Iron Thrown linked, physically, to the Originator ship and went into netherspace? Could they make the transfer then?
< The gravity fields in this area are complex. Chances are both vehicles would be torn apart.
Then what?
“Do we have a spare star drive?” Marc asked, working to keep his voice calm. “How big?” He’d reluctantly accepted a spare AI from the SUT’s stores. However, he’d refused to give it a name.
< Yes. A sphere with a seventy-centimetre circumference. Weighs four point two kilos. There is a manual on/off switch.
“You’re insane,” Kara said as she relayed the data, guessing his plan.
“We have to get her out of there. We have to destroy that construct. How does the drive work, other than on and off?”
< My understanding, there are two separate functions. One enables the
