The Neutronium Alchemist

  “Jesus, that’s dumb. What’s the point?”

  “The point is, you don’t suffer the beyond.”

  Joshua grinned the infamous Calvert grin, then ducked forwards to give her a quick kiss. “Thanks, Kelly.”

  “What the hell for, bollockbrain?”

  “It’s a faith thing. You have to come to it by yourself … apparently.”

  “If you go on like this, Joshua, you’re going to die young.”

  “And leave a beautiful corpse. Yeah, I know. But I’m still flying Ione’s charter.”

  Her mournful eyes regarded him with hurt and the old pain of longing. But she knew the gulf was too wide now. They both did.

  “I never doubted it.” She kissed him back, so platonic it was almost formal. “Take care.”

  “It was fun while it lasted, though, wasn’t it?” he inquired to her retreating back.

  Her hand fluttered casually, a dismissive backwards wave.

  “Sod it,” he grunted.

  “Ah, Joshua, good, I wanted to catch you.”

  He turned to face Horst. “Nice service, Father.”

  “Why, thank you. I got rather out of practice on Lalonde, nice to see the old art hasn’t deserted me entirely.”

  “The children look well.”

  “I should hope so, the attention they’re getting. Tranquillity is an extraordinary place for an old arcology dweller like me. You know, the Church really did get it wrong about bitek. It’s a wonderful technology.”

  “Another cause, Father?”

  Horst chuckled. “I have my hands full, thank you. Speaking of which—” He pulled a small wooden crucifix from his cassock pocket. “I’d like you to take this with you on your voyage. I had it with me the whole time on Lalonde. I’m not sure if it’ll bring you good luck, but I suspect your need is greater than mine.”

  Joshua accepted the gift awkwardly, not quite sure whether to put it around his neck or stuff it in a pocket. “Thank you, Father. It’ll come with me.”

  “Bon voyage, Joshua. May the Lord look after you. And do try and be good, this time.”

  Joshua grinned. “Do my best.”

  Horst hurried back to the children.

  “Captain Calvert?”

  Joshua sucked in a breath. Now what? “You got me.” He was telling it to a gleaming brass breastplate, one with distinctly feminine contours. It belonged to a cosmonik that resembled some steam-age concept of a robot: solid metal bodywork and rubbery flexible joints. Definitely a cosmonik, Joshua determined after a quick survey, not combat boosted, there was too much finesse in the ancillary systems braceleting each of the forearms.

  This was a worker, not a warrior.

  “My name is Beaulieu,” she said. “I was a friend of Warlow’s. If you are looking for a replacement for his post, I would like to be considered.”

  “Jesus, you’re as blunt as he was, I’ll give you that. But I don’t think he ever mentioned you.”

  “How much of his past did he mention?”

  “Yeah, not much.”

  “So?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “So, do I have the post?” She datavised over her CV file.

  The information matrix rotated slowly inside the confines of Joshua’s skull. It competed for space with a sense of indignation that she should do this at Warlow’s own memorial, coupled with a grudging acknowledgement that anyone this forthright probably had what it took, she wouldn’t last long with an attitude that wasn’t solidly backed up with competence.

  Running a quick overview check on the file he saw she was seventy-seven years old. “You served with the Confederation Navy?”

  “Yes, Captain. Thirty-two years ago; it qualifies me to maintain combat wasps.”

  “So I see. The navy issued an arrest warrant for me and Lady Mac at Lalonde.”

  “I’m sure they had their reasons. I only serve one captain at a time.”

  “Er, right. That’s good.” Joshua could see another three cosmoniks standing in the last pew, waiting to see what the outcome would be. He datavised the cathedral’s net processor block. “Tranquillity?”

  “Yes, Joshua.”

  “I’ve got three hours before we leave, and I don’t have time for games. Is this Beaulieu on the level?”

  “As far as I can ascertain, yes. She has been working in my spaceport for fifteen months, and has had no contact with any foreign agency operatives. Nor does she fraternize with the combat-boosted or the less savoury traders. She stays with her own kind; cosmoniks do tend to stick together. Warlow’s outgoing nature was an exception rather than the rule.”

  “Outgoing?” Joshua’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Yes. Did you not find him so?”

  “Thank you, Tranquillity.”

  “My pleasure to assist.”

  Joshua cancelled the datavise. “We’re having to fly with one patterning node out until I can find a replacement, and there may be some trouble later on in the charter,” he told Beaulieu. “I can’t give you specifics.”

  “That does not concern me. I believe your ability will minimize any threat, Lagrange Calvert.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Okay, welcome aboard. You’ve got two hours to collect your gear and get it stowed.”

  The docking cradle gently elevated Lady Macbeth upwards out of bay CA 5-099. Several hundred people had accessed the spaceport’s sensors to watch her departure; intelligence agency operatives, curious rumour-gorged space industry crews, news offices recording files for their library in case anything eventful did happen.

  Ione saw the Lady Macbeth’s thermo dump panels slide out of their recesses, a parody of a bird’s wings extending ready for flight. Tiny chemical verniers ignited around the starship’s equator, lifting her smoothly from the cradle.

  She used her affinity to receive a montage summary of the tired company engineering teams congratulating each other, traffic control officers coordinating the starship’s vector, Kelly Tirrel alone in her room accessing the spaceport sensor image.

  > Tranquillity said. >

  >

  >

  >

  The Lady Macbeth’s bright blue ion thrusters fired, washing out the bay’s floodlights. Ione used the Strategic Defence platforms to track the starship as it flew in towards Mirchusko. Joshua piloted her into a perfectly circular one-hundred-and-eighty-five-thousand-kilometre orbit, cutting off the triple fusion drives at the precise moment of injection.

  The ion thrusters only fired twice more to fine-tune the trajectory before the thermo dump panels started to fold up.

  Tranquillity sensed the gravitonic pulse as the starship’s patterning nodes discharged. Then the tiny mote of mass was gone.

  Ione turned back to her other problems.

  ***

  Demaris Coligan thought he’d done okay with his suit, dreaming up a fawn-brown fabric with silvery pinstripes, and a neat cut that wasn’t half as garish as some of the Organization lieutenants wore.

  At the last minute he added a small scarlet buttonhole rose to his lapel, then nodded to the oily Bernhard Allsop who led him into the Nixon suite.

  Al Capone was waiting for him in the vast lounge; his suit wasn’t that different from Demaris’s, it was just that Al wore it with such verve.

  Not even the equally snappy senior lieutenants flanking him could produce the same style.

  The sight of so many heavyweights didn’t do much to increase Demaris’s level of confidence. But there was nothing he’d done wrong, he was sure of that.

  Al gave him a broad welcoming smile, and clasped his hand in a warm grip.

  “Good to see you, Demaris. The boys here tell me you’ve been doing some good work for me.”

  “Do whatever I can, Al. And that’s a fac
t. You and the Organization’s been good to me.”

  “Mighty glad to hear that, Demaris. Come over here, got something to show you.” Al draped his arm around Demaris’s shoulder in a companionable fashion, guiding him over to the transparent wall. “Now ain’t that a sight?”

  Demaris looked out. New California itself was hidden behind the bulk of the asteroid, so he looked up. Crinkled sepia-coloured rock curved away to a blunt conical peak. Three kilometres away, hundreds of thermo dump panels the size of football fields hung down from the rock, forming a ruff collar right around the asteroid’s neck. Beyond that was the non-rotating spaceport disk, which, like the stars, seemed to be revolving. An unnervingly large constellation of Adamist starships floated in a rigorously maintained lattice formation just past the edge of the disk. Demaris had spent the entire previous week helping to prep them for flight; and the constellation only represented thirty percent of the Organization’s total warship fleet.

  “It’s, er … pretty fine, Al,” Demaris said. He couldn’t make out Al’s thoughts too clearly, so he didn’t know whether he was in the shit or not. But the boss seemed pleased enough.

  “Pretty fine!” Al appeared to find this hilarious, roaring with laughter.

  He slapped Demaris’s back enthusiastically. The other lieutenants smiled politely.

  “It’s a fucking great ritzy miracle, Demaris. One hundred per cent proof. You know just one of those ships is packing enough firepower to blow the entire old U.S. Navy out of the water? Now that’s the kinda thought makes you shit bricks, huh?”

  “Right, Al.”

  “What you’re seeing out there is something no one else has ever tried before. It’s a fucking crusade, Demaris. We’re gonna save the universe for people like us, put it to rights again. And you helped make it happen. I’m mighty grateful to you for that, yes, sir. Mighty grateful.”

  “Did what I could, Al. We all do.”

  “Yeah, but you helped with getting those star-rockets ready. That takes talent.”

  Demaris tapped the side of his head. “I possessed someone who knows; he don’t hold nothing back.” With great daring he gave a gentle punch to Al’s upper arm. “Least, not if he knows what’s good for him.”

  A split-second pause, then Al was laughing again. “Goddamn right. Gotta let em know who’s calling the shots.” A finger was raised in caution.

  “But, I gotta admit; I got one hell of a problem brewing here, Demaris.”

  “Well, Christ, Al, anything I can do to help, you know that.”

  “Sure, Demaris, I know that. The thing is, once we start the crusade they’re gonna fight back, the Confederation guys. And they’re bigger than we are.”

  Demaris dropped his voice an octave, glancing from side to side. “Well sure they are, Al; but we got the antimatter now.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, we got that. But that don’t make them any smaller, not numbers wise.”

  Demaris’s smile was a little harder to maintain. “I don’t see … What is it you want, Al?”

  “This guy you’re possessing—what’s his name?”

  “The goof calls himself Kingsley Pryor, he was a real hotshot engineer for the Confederation Navy, a lieutenant commander.”

  “That’s right, Kingsley Pryor.” Al pointed a finger at Leroy Octavius.

  “Lieutenant Commander Kingsley Pryor,” Leroy recited, glancing at the screen on his processor block. “Attended University of Columbus, and graduated 2590 with a degree in magnetic confinement physics. Joined Confederation Navy the same year, graduated from Trafalgar’s officer cadet campus with a first. Took a doctorate in fusion engineering at Montgomery Tech in 2598. Assigned to 2nd Fleet headquarters engineering division. Rapid promotion. Currently working on the navy’s project to reduce fusion rocket size. Married, with one son.”

  “Yeah,” Demaris said cagily. “That’s him. So?”

  “So I got a job for him, Demaris,” Al said. “A special job, see? I’m real sorry about that, but I can’t see no way out of it.”

  “No need to be sorry, Al. Like I said, anything I can do.”

  Al scratched the side of his cheek, just above three thin white scars.

  “No, Demaris, you ain’t listening. I fucking hate it when people do that. I got a job for him to do. Not you.”

  “Him? You mean Pryor?”

  Al gave the ever-impassive Mickey a helpless grimace. “Je-zus, I’m dealing with fucking Einstein here. YES, shit-for-brains. Kingsley Pryor, I want him back. Now.”

  “But, but, Al, I can’t give you him. I am him.” Demaris thumped his chest frantically with both hands. “I ain’t got anybody else to ride around in. You can’t ask me to do that.”

  Al frowned. “Are you loyal to me, Demaris, are you loyal to the Organization?”

  “What kind of a fucking question is that? Course I’m fucking loyal, Al. But it still don’t mean you can ask that. You can’t!” He whirled around as he heard the smooth snik of a Thompson being cocked. Luigi Balsmao was cradling one of the machine guns lightly, an affable smile on his thickset face.

  “I am asking you, as a loyal member of my Organization, to give me back Kingsley Pryor. I’m asking you nicely.”

  “No. No fucking way, man!”

  The scars on Al’s reddening face were frost-white. “Because you acted loyal to me I give you the choice. Because we’re gonna liberate every one of those ass-backwards planets out there, you’re gonna have a zillion decent bodies to choose from. Because of this, I give you the opportunity to avoid zero-tau and prove your honour like a man. Now for the last goddamn time, read my lips: I want Pryor.”

  Kingsley Pryor didn’t even know why he was crying like a baby. Because he was free? Because he’d been possessed? Because death wasn’t final?

  Whatever the reason, the emotional fallout was running through him like an electrical discharge. Control was impossible. However, he was fairly sure he was crying. Lying on cool silk sheets, a billowingly soft mattress below his spine. Knees hooked up under his chin with arms wrapped around his shins. And in darkness. Not the sensory deprivation of the mental imprisonment, but a wonderful genuine dusk, where a mosaic of grey on grey shadows delineated shapes. It was enough for a start. Had he been plunged directly into countryside on a sunny day he would probably have fried from sensory overload.

  A swishing sound made him tighten his grip on himself. Currents of air stirred across his face as someone sat on the bed beside him.

  “It’s all right,” a girl’s melodic voice whispered. “The worst part’s over now.”

  Fingers stroked the nape of his neck. “You’re back. You’re alive again.”

  “Did … Did we win?” he croaked.

  “No. I’m afraid not, Kingsley. In fact, the real battle hasn’t even begun yet.”

  He shivered uncontrollably. Too much. Everything was too much for him right now. He wanted, not to die (Gods no!) but just to be away. Alone.

  “That’s why Al let you out again. You have a part to play in the battle, you see. A very important part.”

  How could a voice so mellifluous carry such an intimation of catastrophe?

  He used his neural nanonics to retrieve a strong tranquillizer program and shunt it into primary mode. Sensations and palpitating emotions damped down. Something was not quite right about the neural nanonics function, but he couldn’t be bothered to run a diagnostic.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  A head was laid down on his shoulder, arms embracing him. For a moment he was reminded of Clarissa, the softness, the warmth, the female scent.

  “A friend. I didn’t want you to wake up with them taunting you. That would have been too horrible. You need my touch, my sympathy. I understand people like no other. I can prepare you for what is to come: the offer you can’t refuse.”

  He slowly straightened himself and turned to look at her. The sweetest girl he’d ever seen, her age lost between fifteen and twenty-five, fair hair curling buoyantly around her face a
s she looked down at him in concern.

  “You’re beautiful,” he told her.

  “They’ve captured Clarissa,” she said. “And dear little Webster, too. I’m sorry. We know how much you love them. Demaris Coligan told us.”

  “Captured?”

  “But safe. Secure. Non-possessed. A child and a woman, they could not be hurt, not here. Al welcomes the non-possessed to his Organization. They’ll have an honoured place, Kingsley. You can earn that for them.”

  He struggled to resolve the image which the name Al stirred in his mind.

  The fleshy-faced young man in a strange grey hat. “Earn it?”

  “Yes. They can be safe forever, they need never die, never age, never endure pain. You can bring them that gift.”

  “I want to see them.”

  “You could.” She kissed his brow, a tiny dry lick with her lips. “One day. If you do what we ask, you will be able to return to them. I promise that. Not as your friend. Not as your enemy. Just one human to another.”

  “When? When can I see them?”

  “Hush, Kingsley. You’re too tired now. Sleep. Sleep away all your anguish. And when you wake, you will learn of the fabulous destiny which is yours to fulfill.”

  ***

  Moyo watched Ralph Hiltch walk down the road out of Exnall, the girl lying in his arms. Together they made a classical image, the hero rescuing his damsel.

  The other armour-suited troops closed around their leader, and together they slipped off the road, back into the cover of the trees. Not that the snarled-up trunks of the old forest could hide them; Ralph’s fury acted like a magnesium flare to the strange senses which Moyo was only just accustoming himself to.

  The ESA agent’s anger was of a genus which perturbed Moyo deeply. The resolution behind it was awesome. After two centuries incarcerated in the beyond, Moyo had assumed he would be immune to any kind of threat ever again. That was why he had cooperated with Annette Ekelund’s scheme, no matter how callous it was by the standards of the living. Possession, a return to the universe he had thought himself banished from, brought a different, darker slant on those things he had cherished and respected before—morality, honour, integrity. With such an outlook contaminating his thinking, he had considered himself invulnerable to fear, even aloof from it. Hiltch made him doubt the arrogance of his newfound convictions.