A Night Without Stars

  ‘And she would willingly take us with her?’

  ‘That would have to be the keystone of the negotiations, obviously. But we need her alive in order to negotiate.’

  ‘Uracus! And you’ve no idea why they’re on that ship?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What about the space machine? Does it know?’

  ‘It says not. And frankly, I believe it.’

  ‘I want to talk to it.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You heard me.’ Adolphus drummed his fingers nervously on the desk. ‘It knows Paula better than anyone; it has to be able to give us some insight. And maybe we were too hasty in turning down its offer of more knowledge. I need to know what it knows to make a full and proper decision.’

  *

  A security team inspected the crypt first, so the prime minister’s arrival didn’t come as a surprise to Faustina. Stonal could tell she was intensely curious, though.

  ‘I’m grateful for all you’ve done,’ Adolphus told her, ‘but I’m afraid you will have to step outside. Matters of state, you understand.’

  Her curiosity deepened, but all she did was give a small nod. ‘Of course, prime minister.’

  ‘Before you go,’ Adolphus added, ‘please turn off all the recording apparatus in here.’

  Faustina coloured slightly and walked over to a table with an array of electrical cabinets on it, including several tape recorders. She switched the equipment off one piece at a time. ‘You’re on your own,’ she told them.

  Adolphus hadn’t taken his eyes from the grey-white cylinder since he’d arrived. ‘How do I speak to it?’

  Stonal handed him the radio’s microphone.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘I certainly can,’ Joey replied.

  Stonal wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Joey was treating Adolphus with a reasonable degree of respect – which he’d never been shown.

  ‘I am the prime minister of Bienvenido. I would like you to tell me what is on Lukarticar that’s so vital.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Can you take a guess, please? You know Paula better than anyone.’

  ‘I won’t argue with you over that statement, but my familiarity is minimal, I know of her by reputation. So I can only use logic, and tell you that if Paula is heading for Lukarticar at a time like this, then it has to be supremely important.’

  ‘Yes, we worked that part out ourselves, thank you. I asked you to guess.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You mean you won’t?’

  ‘No, I mean I can’t. My thought routines are running in a kind of . . . computator, not a biological brain like yours. It is literally impossible for me to make intuitive leaps. I can only deal in facts and logic.’

  Adolphus turned to Stonal. ‘Is that true?’

  He made an effort not to reply: it’s logical. ‘It’s highly possible, yes.’

  ‘So what should we logically do about it?’ Adolphus asked.

  ‘You could simply ask her what she’s doing,’ Joey replied. ‘If it is an action which will result in defeating the Fallers, you should offer to help.’

  ‘But we don’t know exactly where she is.’

  ‘You have ships and planes, don’t you? Search for her.’

  ‘Yes, but our planes have limited range. And sending ships to find two ships somewhere in the whole Polas Sea is a hopeless task.’

  ‘I appreciate your point of view. In which case, I suggest launching a Liberty spacecraft into polar orbit. It is possible to see a ship’s wake from low orbit, given clear conditions. An astronaut overhead should also be able to establish direct radio contact, albeit for short periods.’

  ‘That is a possibility,’ Adolphus said slowly.

  Stonal was surprised to see him hesitate; the prime minister never usually lacked for confidence. ‘It would be useful to know what the Warrior Angel is doing, sir,’ he said. ‘And where she’s going. She was about to talk to us when the Fallers raided the bomb factory.’

  ‘Everything will change,’ Adolphus said, and his thumb wasn’t pressing the microphone talk button.

  ‘We do need to contemplate a degree of change at this point, sir. To be frank, what have we got to lose?’

  Adolphus nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving the space machine. His thumb touched the microphone button. ‘Why should I trust you?’

  ‘You have something I want,’ Joey replied.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Survival. As your spy chief here keeps pointing out, if you lose, so do I.’

  ‘I lose anyway.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m ill, Joey Stein. Very ill. I won’t survive this.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but you are the prime minister. This world is relying on you to make the right choices now. This is what you’ve spent your life working towards. I know politicians; you all care about your legacy. You care about it a great deal. Don’t you want future generations to remember you as the prime minister who defeated the Fallers?’

  Adolphus took a step closer to the space machine, his eyes fixed upon it. ‘I want to live.’

  Shock immobilized Stonal. Now he understood what this was all about. ‘Sir, we can’t trust—’

  ‘No!’ Adolphus snapped. ‘You don’t get to advise me on this. This is not an affair of state. This is about me! Machine, you can cure people. Can you cure me?’

  ‘What is wrong with you?’

  ‘I have growths. Tumours. They’ve spread. Our doctors can’t do anything.’

  ‘I can cure cancer in a few hours. A total rejuvenation will take a month.’

  ‘Hours?’ Adolphus whispered. He blinked against the moisture in his eyes. ‘It would be done in hours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can’t, sir,’ Stonal said. ‘We do not know what this machine is capable of.’

  Adolphus twisted round to face him, his lips open in a snarl. ‘I’m dying! And this . . . this Giu-sent miracle can save me. So don’t you tell me what I can and cannot do.’

  ‘I am responsible for your safety. This is Commonwealth technology . . .’

  ‘And what exactly is the worst it can do? Kill me a few weeks early, just before I get crudding eaten alive by Fallers? No. This is my choice, my risk. You take your orders from me, Stonal, and this is my order: if I’m not out in six hours, then you push this thing down into the bottom of the deepest hole you can find. Kill it, and all the hopes it has to get back to the Commonwealth. Do you understand?’

  Stonal wanted to say no, wanted to stop this insanity. This was exactly what Slvasta had warned against. It would start with a cure for cancer, but Adolphus would never stop there. This was an addiction whose culmination would be rejuvenation. And the space machine had the blueprints for medical capsules – more could and would be built.

  Bienvenido would become dependent on Commonwealth medical technology. But such things couldn’t be built in isolation. There would be spinoffs in every technological discipline. Commonwealth ideas would seep into society, and everything Bienvenido had built so painfully for itself over three thousand years would be lost.

  He could stop it here and now, physically intervene; Adolphus in this state couldn’t put up any kind of meaningful struggle. But then what? He’d be relieved of duty within an hour. And I’ll be facing the apocalypse by myself. No flight to Byarn, and certainly no evacuation through the wormhole. ‘Yes, sir. Under protest.’

  ‘Protest noted. Machine, do you understand?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘All right then.’ Adolphus took a calming breath, dabbing a shaking hand at the sweat that had risen on his forehead. ‘What do I need to do?’

  ‘Undress. Get inside me.’

  ‘That’s . . . it?’

  ‘Yes. You won’t be awake for the procedure. When it’s over, the tumours will be gone.’

  ‘Why can’t you just give him the medicine?’ Stonal asked.

  ‘This i
sn’t a drug, pal. This is micron-level surgery. The tumours are broken down by active filaments and physically removed.’

  Adolphus put the microphone down and walked over to the space machine. After a moment, he bent down and started undoing his shoelaces. He took his clothes off methodically, folding them neatly in a pile, clearly trying to be as dignified as possible. When he was naked, a circular aperture opened on the side of the space machine. Stonal didn’t see any kind of door mechanism; the hole simply expanded like a pond ripple. A soft sapphire light shone out, revealing a chamber that made him think of a padded coffin; it certainly wasn’t much bigger.

  ‘Six hours,’ Adolphus said, and turned his back on Stonal. He twisted about awkwardly, nothing more now than an ungainly old man, trying to clamber inside the space machine. The door contracted in a single smooth, silent motion.

  ‘Crudding Uracus,’ Stonal muttered through clenched teeth. The prime minister, the man who controlled all of Bienvenido, was captive inside a Commonwealth artefact. It was the kind of event he’d dedicated his entire life to preventing.

  He glared with a hatred he hadn’t known in years at the intruder which he himself had brought into the very seat of power.

  Clearly Joey’s medical ability had been gnawing at the prime minister’s thoughts for some time. And I was the one who told him about that ability. My fault. If I’d just kept my mouth shut . . .

  ‘Oh.’ Stonal exhaled as realization struck with the force of a runaway Faller monster. Father always said they were smarter than us, that their huge long lives give them so much knowledge-power. I never appreciated how true that was. Nobody negotiating for their life would declare that medical ability right at the start; it’s a perfect bargaining chip, the kind you play much later in the game. And I was the one who delivered the information.

  He gave the space machine an altogether more cautious look. ‘Well played,’ he murmured in reluctant admiration, and left the crypt.

  Faustina was in her office. She looked up in surprise as Stonal came in.

  ‘Have you been talking to the space machine?’ he asked.

  ‘Only to facilitate the sensor data you asked for.’

  ‘Before that,’ he said. ‘Before you called me in. When it first started communicating. What did you tell it?’

  ‘Only some very basic information.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Where it was. Who I was. That’s all.’

  ‘Did you tell it about me?’

  ‘No. I just said I’d have to call a senior government officer to talk to it.’

  ‘What about the prime minister? Did you tell it he was ill?’

  ‘He’s ill? What’s wrong with him? What’s happened?’

  He stared at her face, trying to find a hint of treachery. Nobody this smart can truly be naive. It has to be an act to keep her out of palace politics. Yet all he could see was an old woman starting to get very uncomfortable, not understanding what was wrong.

  ‘Nothing’s happened,’ he said smartly. He turned to the guard outside. ‘Science Director Faustina does not leave this office until I return. Is that clear?’

  ‘Sir.’ The guard saluted, showing just how dedicated to his duty he was.

  Twenty minutes later Stonal was shown into Terese’s office. Unlike Adolphus, she hadn’t spent the last few days sheltering in the emergency bunker. However, his staff had informed him that she kept three armoured Zikker limousines in a palace garage ready to drive her to the Air Force Command airfield just outside Varlan so she could evacuate for Byarn at any time – and her family was already at the base.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me at short notice, deputy prime minister.’

  ‘I’m always happy to see the head of Section Seven,’ she replied courteously. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We may have a slight problem.’

  *

  Florian wasn’t used to the sun being so low in the sky at midday; he hadn’t expected it to be so bright this far south, either. Everyone on deck wore sunglasses as they stared out across the calm water to the ice cliffs that marked the top of Macbride Sound. The air blowing off the glacier lowered the temperature even further; Florian could barely believe that was possible. He was wearing two sets of full-body thermal underwear along with two sweaters under his goose-down parka; cotton gloves and thick waterproof over-gloves; fur-lined boots and triple layered socks; a scarf over his mouth and nose; visor-like sunglasses to stop his damp eyes from freezing up – and he was still cold. But the polar continent was amazing. Its coastline alternated black rock with dazzling ice. And it was so clean, as if Giu had only just created it.

  He saw a tall section of ice and snow tumble in slow motion down into the sea, sending up a crown of spume. Gloved fingers struggled to lift his sunglasses off so he could get a better look. He blinked against the biting cold gusting over exposed skin.

  ‘It’s blue,’ he muttered.

  ‘What is?’ Jymoar asked.

  ‘The ice,’ Florian said, nodding at the distant cliff. ‘It’s blue.’

  ‘Pristine water,’ Jymoar explained. ‘There are no contaminants here, no factory chimneys churning out crud. It gives you the purest water on the planet. So when it freezes, and the sun shines on it just right, it has a blue tint.’

  ‘Amazing.’ He could have got the same information from his files, but it was more fun to listen to Jymoar.

  In truth, Florian had found it hard to dislike the captain. There was something massively engaging about the man’s happiness and humour. The captain was always so positive about everything. Florian had never heard him raise his voice in anger at any of the crew.

  I was that happy, too, when Kysandra was in my bed every night. He almost wanted to ask – man-to-man – do you ever get dejected when she leaves you behind? Somehow he couldn’t imagine Jymoar moping around the ship when she wasn’t on board.

  For himself, he still hadn’t absolved Kysandra for her total disregard of his feelings. And to be honest, he really missed her and the comfort of being with her, that smile as bright as any polar ice when it was directed at him. Knowing Jymoar was now receiving all that attention – and sex . . . Well, most of his time on board had been spent alone and sulking; it was like being back in Opole after his discharge from the regiment. He’d gone back home, thinking everything would finally be better, only to discover he was even more miserable as he realized how alone he was, and probably always would be. Back then he’d run away to Albina valley; here on the Gothora III, there was no escape.

  ‘Come on.’ Jymoar put his arm round Florian’s shoulders. ‘Now that we can see land, we’re ready to free the ge-eagles.’

  ‘Free them?’

  ‘Yes!’ Jymoar laughed. ‘Well, unpack them.’ Another cheery grin and he was striding towards the mid-deck cargo hold.

  The thick lime-green canvas cover was being rolled back off the top of the cargo hold. Florian peered down into the shadowed space below, seeing barrels and big crates with their South Coast Wide Shipping labels prominent, arranged neatly across the floor like some strange city-layout model. Valeri and Marek had been going through the contents since they came on board, checking everything was working.

  Five crates had been opened up, their sides lying flat like square wooden petals. They exposed the stacked metal grid shelves inside, holding inactive ge-eagles. The big avian devices were semiorganic copies of a bird that existed on Querencia, Paula had told him – another planet in the Void, and the one Nigel had thought he was heading for. In storage they were curled up tightly, with a slim electric cable snaking into their open beak to charge up their power cells. The ANAdroids were moving between the crates, removing the cables.

  One by one, the ge-eagles activated, testing their synthetic muscles with lazy twitches and spasms. Heads turned from side to side, allowing sensors to run through their analysis routines. Wings extended. Even though Florian knew their technical specifications, witnessing their actual size was impressive.

&
nbsp; They began to take off, flying up out of the hold with swift powerful beats of their wings, circling higher and higher above the Gothora. Now it was their speed that struck him; the impression of supremacy was inescapable. He didn’t know what kind of birds lived on Lukarticar, but they wouldn’t be challenging the ge-eagles. Not that they’d ever be flying low enough to attract the attention of local wildlife; their cruising altitude was four kilometres.

  Paula walked over to him. ‘Quite a sight.’

  ‘Yes.’ His u-shadow was processing links from the ge-eagles, allowing him to look down on the Gothora III. The visual and thermal image was phenomenal, with every detail clearer than any human iris could ever produce. As the first ge-eagle gained altitude, so the view of the ice-locked land grew. There was very little rock or solid ground visible amid the expanse of smoothly rumpled snow. Somewhere to the south-east, a range of low mountains cluttered the horizon. Directly south, the vast mouth of Macbride Sound signalled the start of the deep-water channel which extended another hundred and thirty kilometres south. The western headland was a cliff even bigger than the glacier wall currently off their starboard bow.

  ‘How long are they going to take to scan the whole continent?’ he asked.

  ‘Three weeks for all of it. So statistically a lot less, until they find the Viscount.’

  ‘If we guessed right.’

  ‘Yes. If we guessed right; but then it’s a fifty–fifty choice, isn’t it?’

  He saw Kysandra emerge from the superstructure with Valeri. Both of them stopped for a moment to look down into the mid-deck hold. Ge-eagles were still flapping their way upwards – over twenty now, out of their total of fifty.

  Several of the crew started cheering. Florian looked over towards shore where they were pointing, and zoomed in. A seibear had broken surface to clamber onto the ice beach at the foot of the glacier. Almost as large as a terrestrial elephant, with grey-white fur, the animals normally weighed in at about five tonnes supported by four legs with wide webbed paws that oddly reminded him of a Vatni’s limbs. With a flash of guilt, he realized he hadn’t even thought about Mooray for weeks. He wondered how he was doing, if the Vatni village by the lake was okay. How would they face up to the Faller Apocalypse?