A Night Without Stars

  ‘The Vermillion had some kind of suspended-animation chambers for its passengers. Laura Brandt was sleeping for most of the voyage, she told us. My theory is that this is some kind of lifeboat.’

  ‘And now the crudding Eliters have her,’ Terese snapped. ‘How could this happen?’

  ‘To be fair, this isn’t something we were expecting,’ Stonal said patiently.

  ‘She can’t tell them what she knows. Great Giu, they’d wind up with technology more advanced than us. They’d take over.’

  ‘I have authorized my officer to use whatever resources he needs.’

  ‘And he’s good?’ Adolphus pressed. ‘Your best?’

  ‘Very good. He fought breeder Fallers and survived. And he’s actually met the Warrior Angel.’

  ‘Crudding Uracus!’ Terese sat up straight. ‘Is he loyal?’

  ‘Without Section Seven support he is nothing. He knows that.’

  ‘You have to find this child. She has to be brought here so we can decide what to do with her.’ Terese and Adolphus exchanged a glance. ‘Some of the knowledge she has might be valuable.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Stonal marvelled at the way they saw everything in terms of political advantage alone.

  ‘How long until you have her in custody?’ Adolphus asked.

  ‘Soon. We know she is on her way to Opole. There’s a large Eliter population there who will doubtless shelter her. I suspect the Warrior Angel will soon be showing an interest.’

  ‘That can never happen,’ Terese said firmly.

  ‘Whatever you need to apprehend her,’ Adolphus said flatly. ‘Whatever needs to be done. You have my complete support on this.’

  ‘I understand.’

  *

  The ellipsoid-shaped submarine surfaced in a small cave lit by bright spotlights. It nosed forwards onto a cradle. Plyplastic arms curved round the hull, securing it, and the cradle’s tank treads trundled their way up a slipway.

  Kysandra climbed out of the upper deck hatch and took a deep breath. As always, the humid cave air smelt of slightly rancid seaweed, but right now that was pretty good after three days in a submarine cabin designed for three, sharing it with Florian, Ry, and Paula. Life support had always provided enough oxygen. The filters, on the other hand, had struggled.

  Demitri and Marek were standing on the top of the stone slipway, grinning up at her. Kysandra hurried down the ladder that was welded to one of the cradle’s support girders.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Marek said, and gave her a quick hug.

  ‘Any problem?’ Demitri asked.

  ‘Not for me,’ she admitted. ‘But poor old Captain Chaing has got another round of explaining to do.’

  ‘Well, I never did thunk – thunk – think he’s be our new Slvasta,’ Marek said.

  Kysandra kept her smile in place. The poor old ANAdroid’s bioware brain was becoming more glitch-prone these days. The semiorganic synthesizers Nigel had left behind for her could produce spares for most ANAdroid body parts, but a duplicate brain was a hugely complex component. Back in the Commonwealth, they were extruded by specialist synthesizers. As the glitches were only affecting his vocal routines so far, she was content to keep him running.

  Both ANAdroids looked back at the submarine. Kysandra saw Paula carefully climbing down the ladder. Her body was now aged about twelve or thirteen. The fast growth process had been very weird to watch during the voyage. Fortunately, the pain in her limbs seemed to be reducing as she drew closer to maturity. Her biononics were also coming close to full integration, which helped.

  ‘Hello, Paula,’ Demitri said with a lopsided smile. ‘Long time.’

  Paula flinched as her bare feet touched the rock floor. ‘You’re the Sheldon ANAdroids.’ She glanced up at Demitri. ‘Interesting features you morphed for yourselves.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Asian traits, very sweet.’ She turned to Marek. ‘And North Mediterranean by the look of it, though I don’t understand why you went for old age on top of that.’

  ‘Italian,’ Marek said. ‘My great-great-grandmother came from Naples.’

  ‘You believe you have an ancestor?’ Paula queried.

  ‘Nigel and I infiltrated the ANAdroids into various parts of society,’ Kysandra said. ‘They needed to look different, obviously. I helped them put together their appearance.’

  ‘I understand,’ Paula said.

  Kysandra pressed her lips together in mild disapproval. The dismissive tone Paula was using with the ANAdroids was verging on disrespectful. And then there had been all the questions during the voyage as she familiarized herself with Bienvenido’s basic history – especially the revolution and the Great Transition. It wasn’t Paula’s fault, of course, but those questions had brought out Kysandra’s defensive side. Nor did it help that she constantly felt as though she had to explain herself to a twelve-year-old. The whole accelerated-growth thing was troubling at some deep instinctive level. No one likes a kid smarter than them; it triggered all sorts of insecurity. And I had quite enough of that with Nigel, thank you.

  ‘We’re glad you’re here,’ Demitri said.

  ‘Better late than never,’ Paula said.

  Ry climbed down the ladder. He was looking round the cave with a great deal of interest, particularly the small engineering section at the top of the slipway where the sub was serviced.

  ‘Uh, I think Florian’s going to need some help down,’ he said. ‘He’s not going to manage the ladder with that ankle of his.’

  ‘We have a mobile access platform,’ Demitri said. ‘I’ll call it over.’

  ‘Thanks, that—’ Ry broke off and stared at the ANAdroid. ‘You? But you can’t be here. You’re dead!’

  Kysandra grinned mischievously. ‘Major Ry Evine, this is Demitri.’

  ‘No, that’s not right!’ Ry grunted. ‘You died. The fuel-dump explosion.’

  ‘A convenience,’ Demitri said. ‘The Liberty programme was up and running. There was nothing more I could add.’

  ‘It was two hundred years ago. You can’t possibly still be alive.’

  ‘I am an ANAdroid,’ Demitri said. ‘A biological machine in human form. I came with Nigel Sheldon from the Commonwealth.’

  ‘Oh Great Giu,’ Ry said. ‘But you were the one who made it all possible. You designed the Liberty and Silver Sword. I’ve been in space because of you. I flew in the spaceship you designed.’

  ‘The Liberty is not original,’ Demitri told him. ‘Although we are human in many respects, ANAdroids do not have a creative ability. We cannot innovate. I simply modified the existing blueprints for the Russian Soyuz launcher system, and showed Bienvenido’s managers and engineers how to put together the requisite factory production lines. Soyuz was the most successful rocket-launched manned vehicle ever built, and also the most reliable of its type.’

  ‘You saved us,’ Ry said, looking between Demitri and Kysandra. ‘The Liberty flights are wiping out the Trees. That’s all that stands between us and annihilation.’

  ‘We do what we can to help,’ Kysandra said, feeling embarrassed at the worshipful gaze he was directing at her. ‘But it’s not enough.’ She turned to Paula. ‘The Fallers are going to win, and I don’t know how to stop them.’

  *

  The farmhouse was perched close to the clifftop on the eastern side of the Honorato estuary. It was a modest two-storey building with rendered brick walls to withstand the battering it got from the wintertime weather coming off the Polas Sea. Several barns and smaller outbuildings sprawled around it, all in reasonable repair but due some maintenance – exactly what anyone would expect from a goat farm in such a rugged location. The windswept grassland that spread back behind the cliff was scattered with boulders and jutting rock outcrops. Its soil too thin and poor to support arable crops; goats were about the only animals that could succeed commercially in such a location, and even they couldn’t be said to thrive.

  Kysandra had leased just over a thousand acres from the National Land Office,
who had assumed ownership of all land on the Lamaran continent after the revolution. It was a typical joint-enterprise venture, with the State Agriculture Board owning thirty-five per cent of the business. According to their records, she had been at the farm for twenty-seven years; before that it had been run for fifty-seven years by ‘Larkitt’ who was actually Valeri, another ANAdroid; before that it had been Marek who had run the farm for nearly seventy years. Nobody from the board ever showed up to check. Eliters, under Kysandra’s guidance, had acquired positions in every government office in and around Port Chana; they also formed a strategic part of the local Democratic Unity party. It was done with quiet efficiency, maintaining the urban myth that Port Chana was a hotbed of radical Eliters on the edge of society, while in fact they actually ran the county.

  Port Chana itself was just visible from the farmhouse. Kysandra glanced at it from the first-floor landing window as the sun sank below the horizon. It was on the other side of the estuary. There was no cliff over there, no stony plateau country, just rumpled lowlands that had once been an expanse of marshes and orango bushes, now long-drained to produce some of the most fertile farmland on the continent, with a geometric network of dykes keeping the rich black loam drained in winter and irrigated in summer. It was Bienvenido’s fruit basin, with kilometre after kilometre of orchards and berry fields stretching all the way north to the edge of the Pritwolds.

  Farm trucks rattled along the raised roads, their headlights casting weak beams in the twilight as they headed into town, where the silos and warehouses waited, wedged into the commercial sector between the docks and the railway station. Port Chana’s streetlights were coming on, marking out the crooked web of roads, along with the more colourful neon signs of the waterfront clubs. At the end of the harbour wall, the lighthouse beam was flashing in an imperiously slow tempo. It was a flourishing little city which, from her vantage point atop the cliff, was easy to imagine being slowly, methodically encircled by the Faller hordes as their numbers grew.

  She shook her head, angry with herself for letting the old doubts gain traction. Paula’s here now. She might know what to do. The ANAdroids seemed to think so, anyway.

  Florian was in one of the three guest bedrooms. Kysandra knocked on the door and went right in. Since they’d arrived back at the farmhouse, he’d had a very long hot shower, shaved, and spent half an hour in the medical chamber. Now he was lying on the bed, dressed in a white T-shirt and a pair of navy-blue shorts, eyes closed.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said as he stirred, blinking as though being woken. ‘Didn’t realize you were sleeping.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I was accessing your files. I just can’t access enough of the Commonwealth.’

  ‘I know that feeling. What were you accessing?’

  ‘The Starflyer War. The Primes . . . Wow, I know Laura Brandt was scared of them and they were invading us, but I didn’t realize just how bad they were. MorningLightMountain took out entire Commonwealth star systems!’

  She sat on the end of the bed and tucked some strands of hair behind her ear. ‘It’s been a while since I checked those out. How’s the ankle?’

  ‘Perfect. There’s nothing wrong with it.’ He glanced down at his foot and moved it round. ‘I can’t believe it. I thought the kit Joey gave me was good, but your medical capsule . . .’

  ‘It can handle a damaged ankle easily enough. You need to keep your weight off it overnight; that’ll allow the cells to knit back together properly. But the capsule is getting a bit quirky now. It came from Nigel’s starship two and a half centuries ago. He left it behind for me when he flew into the Forest.’

  ‘So is that why you—’ He flushed slightly, avoiding eye contact. ‘Well, you look – you know – amazing, actually. If I didn’t know, I’d have said you were younger than me.’

  ‘Yeah, not bad for a girl over two and a half centuries, huh? If I say so myself.’

  ‘Yes.’ He swallowed, still unable to look at her.

  Knowing she was being terribly unfair – and rather enjoying it – she leaned in a fraction closer. ‘It’s mainly biononics that keep me like this, but a few colleagues do use the capsule for rejuvenation when they have to.’

  ‘Uh, right. How many people are in your organization?’

  ‘Organization is a strong word. Let’s just say I know people I can rely on. And, Florian, I count you as one of them now.’

  ‘Really? I mean, yes. Yes, you can count on me. Of course you can.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve already proved yourself. Keeping Paula safe like that with every PSR officer on the planet hunting you . . . And the Fallers, too. That was remarkable.’

  He gave a not-very-modest grin and propped himself up on his elbows. ‘You did the same thing.’

  ‘Hardly. Nigel was fully grown, and he arrived with the ANAdroids and a starship. I was just a junior member of the organization he put together.’

  ‘Organization? You mean the revolution! What was it like, overthrowing the Captain? And you went through the Great Transition, too.’

  ‘One was terrifying, and one was awful. I’ll leave you to guess which was which.’

  ‘I don’t believe you were just a junior. You’re the Warrior Angel. Everyone talks about Mother Laura’s sacrifice that day, but you fought the Prime, too. You’re our saviour as much as her.’

  She ran a hand back through her hair and chuckled. ‘Giu, but you’re young.’ His crestfallen expression was enough to make her grin. ‘I wasn’t complaining, Florian. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Fate’s a strange thing. I often wonder what would have happened to me if Nigel had landed at the next farm along. Actually, I know what was supposed to happen, and it wasn’t anything nice.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Arranged marriage. My mother had a lot of . . . debts.’

  ‘That’s awful. Did that kind of thing really happen back then?’

  ‘Yes. And what about you? What would have happened if the package came down in the next valley?’

  ‘It did, actually. I was there rustling sheep.’

  ‘Florian!’ She laughed. ‘You’re very literal, aren’t you?’

  ‘I guess. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s quite cute. But tell me this: you do know there’s no going back for you, don’t you?’

  ‘I knew that the moment the space machine arrived.’

  Kysandra cocked her head to one side and studied him. ‘Interesting; there’s more to you than meets the eye. I don’t know why I’m surprised by that. I’m just used to egomaniacs with loud opinions.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘This is a different life we live here, Florian. And it’s coming to an end now, one way or another.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you? Then answer me this: would you like me to stay here with you tonight?’

  His mouth parted, but it took him a moment before he finally managed to croak: ‘Yes.’

  She stood up and began to unbutton her blouse. ‘One thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your poor ankle. You’re not to put any weight on it, so that means I get to go on top.’

  *

  It was midnight when Kysandra giggled.

  ‘What?’ Florian asked.

  She’d been staring out of the window at the terrible emptiness of the night sky, trying to remember what the nebulas had been like in the Void. Without secondary routines activating some correctly filed memories, it was difficult now. So she snuggled up a bit closer, and stroked his chest gently. Seven years’ manual labour as a forest warden had given him a nicely muscled frame, which she’d spent an enjoyably long time exploring. ‘I don’t get many chances to relax like this, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  But she’d felt his abdomen tense up anyway, so she took his hand and guided it to her breasts. Once again she felt his breathing quicken. Men, always so simple. ‘You do get that this is just fun, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’
br />   ‘It doesn’t finish with us walking off into the sunset. For a start, I’m ten times older than you.’

  ‘Your body is younger. And I’ve probably got as much memory loaded into my storage lacuna as you now.’

  ‘I’m not sure if that’s gallant or crazy, but I appreciate the thought you put into it.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Ooh, smugness. Tell me, did you really spend seven years alone in that valley?’ Although, she already knew the answer to that. He’d been so endearingly inexperienced. At the start of the night, anyway. Crud, I’m growing old disgracefully. Thank Giu.

  ‘Yes,’ Florian said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My life was a pile of crud. I didn’t see any other way out. I just wanted to be away from people.’

  ‘You poor thing.’ She traced her forefinger along his chin. ‘That’s some discipline you’ve got there to stick it out for so long. I guess that’s something else we have in common. But I’m glad you’re out of it now.’

  ‘Me too. What’s going to happen next?’

  ‘There’s some very naughty positions I’m going to teach you just as soon as you’re hard again.’

  ‘Uh, right. Um, actually—’

  She laughed. ‘Giu, you’re so easy to tease. I love that.’

  ‘I don’t want tonight to end. Not ever.’

  ‘I know. I also know what you meant. So: we wait until Paula hits her late teens at the end of the week, then we find out what she suggests.’

  ‘That’s what I don’t get. You have biononics like her. The smartcore you’ve got here has more data stored in it than a thousand Eliter humans. And you know this world; you’re the Warrior Angel, for Giu’s sake. You’re the one who should be deciding what to do. Why don’t you just march into Varlan and take charge? I saw what you did at Hawley Docks. You could be prime minister if you wanted to be.’

  ‘Been there, done that. It finished up with Nigel dead and that psychotic lunatic Slvasta running the world. Bienvenido was a bad place after the Great Transition, Florian. Government was in chaos, and the Trees were flying down into the Ring formation. And nobody realized how bad the nest situation was.