The Reality Dysfunction

  Who’s going to be stupid enough to take part in an experiment like that? he asked himself. But he was lying on his acceleration couch, and Dahybi, Ashly, and Sarha were on the bridge with him, so he kept any qualms to himself. He was just wondering if there would be a reference in a history file, surely the ZTT pioneers would want to know the limits of their craft, when Aethra datavised him.

  “Warlow wants to talk with you,” the habitat said.

  He cancelled the link to the memory cores. “Hello, Warlow. How’s it going?”

  “Superbly,” Warlow said.

  “Where are you?” The cosmonik ought to be back on board in another twenty minutes if everything was running on schedule. Joshua had helped draw up the flight vector through the ring.

  “Twenty kilometres from Gramine.”

  “What?”

  “I can see it.”

  “Jesus shit, Warlow. What the fuck are you playing at? The schedule doesn’t have any margin for error.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to make certain that Gramine is destroyed by the blast. I shall detonate it when the ship is in an optimum position.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Warlow, get your iron arse back here now!”

  “Sorry, Captain. Maranta will only be seven thousand three hundred kilometres away when Gramine is eliminated. But that will still give you an eighteen-second lead on the combat wasps. That’s easily enough time.”

  “Warlow, stop this. We can wait until the end of the next sweep and position the bomb again. That’s only another five hours. We’ll still be at Lalonde before Amarisk’s evening.”

  “Joshua, you have six minutes before I detonate. Make sure everyone is strapped down, please.”

  “Don’t do it. Jesus, Warlow, I’m begging you.”

  “You know this has to be done properly. And I can ensure it is.”

  “Not like this. Please, come back.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Joshua. I’ve thought it out, I will be quite all right.”

  “Warlow!” Joshua’s face was crushed into a mask of anger and desperation.

  He jerked round to look at Ashly. The pilot was moving his lips silently, eyelashes sticky with tears. “Say something,” Joshua commanded. “Get him back.”

  “Warlow, for Heaven’s sake come back,” Ashly datavised. “Just because you can’t navigate properly there’s no need for this. I’ll do it next time, and do it right.”

  “I would like you to do me a favour, Ashly.”

  “What?”

  “Next time you come out of zero-tau, in fifty years or so, I want you to come back here and visit me.”

  “Visit you?”

  “Yes. I am transferring my memories to Aethra. I’m going to become one of the multiplicity. I won’t die.”

  “You crazy old bastard.”

  “Gaura!” Joshua shouted. “Can he do that? He’s not an Edenist.”

  “The datavise has already begun,” Gaura replied. “He is doing it.”

  “Oh, Jesus wept.”

  “Is everyone in their acceleration couches?” Warlow asked. “I’m giving you the chance you really need to escape the rings. You’re not going to waste that, are you, Joshua?”

  “Shit.” A hot steel band was constricting Joshua’s chest, far worse than any gee force. “They’re getting onto the couches, Warlow.” He datavised the flight computer for an image from the cabin cameras, watching Edenists tighten the webbing around themselves. Melvyn was swimming about, checking they had done it properly.

  “And what about the thermo-dump panels, have you retracted them? There’s only five minutes left.”

  Joshua datavised the flight computer to retract the thermo-dump panels.

  Systems schematics appeared as he prepped the generators and drive tubes; mostly green, some amber. The old girl was in good shape. Sarha started to help him with the checklist.

  “Please, Warlow?”

  “Fly the bastards into the ground, Joshua. You can do it.”

  “Jesus, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Promise me something.”

  “Yes.”

  “Gotcha. You should have asked me what it was first.”

  Joshua coughed. Laughed painfully. It made his vision all blurred for some unfathomable reason. “What is it?”

  “Hard luck, you committed. I want you to be more considerate to your girls. You never see the effect you have on them. Some of them get hurt, Joshua.”

  “Jesus, cosmonik and social worker.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “You were a good captain, Joshua. Lady Macbeth was a great way to finish. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  Sarha was sobbing on her acceleration couch. Ashly was clenching and unclenching his fists.

  “I would,” Joshua said silently.

  Aethra showed them Gramine. The starship was traversing the ring surface with the suavity of a maglev train, straight and sure. Three thermo-dump panels were extended to the full, shining a dull vermilion. A long, narrow flame of blue ions flickered for an instant.

  “Who’d have thought it,” Warlow datavised. “Me, an Edenist.”

  Joshua had never felt so pathetically worthless as he did then. He’s my crewman.

  The bomb exploded. It sent a flat circle of sheer white light flaring out across the ring surface. Gramine was a tiny dark speck above its centre.

  Joshua fired the restraint bolts. Taut silicon-fibre cables tethering the Lady Macbeth to its rock shield recoiled from the hull, writhing in serpentine coils. Lights inside the four life-support capsules dimmed and sputtered as the one active auxiliary generator powered up the four remaining primary generators. Ion thrusters fired, hosing the dark rock with unaccustomed turquoise luminosity.

  A sphere of plasma inflated at the centre of the white shroud thrown across the ring, fast at first, then slowing when it was five kilometres across, diminishing slightly. Black phantoms migrated across its surface.

  Gramine’s lower hull shone brighter than a sun as it reflected the diabolical corona seething four kilometres below.

  Thousands of fragmented rock splinters flew out of the heart of the fusion blast, overtaking the disbanding plasma wave. They had the same riotous glow of doomed meteorites caught by an atmosphere. Unlike the plasma they left behind, their velocity didn’t fall off with distance.

  “Generators on-line,” Sarha called out. “Power output stabilizing.”

  Joshua closed his eyes. Datavised displays filled his head with technicolour dragonfly wings. Lady Mac cleared the rock. Her radar started to fire hard microwave pulses at the loose shoal of ring particles, evaporating snowflakes and inflaming carbonaceous motes. Beams of blue-white radiance shone out of the secondary reaction-drive nozzles, rigid as lasers.

  They started to rise up through the ring. Dust currents splashed over the monobonded-silicon hull, producing short-lived surf-bloom patterns.

  Pebbles and larger stones hit and bounced. Ice splattered and stuck, then slipped downwards to fall away in the turbulent glare of the drive exhaust.

  A rock chunk crashed into the Gramine, shattering its hull open and decimating the internal systems. Cryogenic tanks ruptured, white gases scintillating from the dying fusion bomb’s energy barrage. Four life-support capsules raced out of the destruction, charred nultherm foam flaking away, emergency beacons blaring.

  Lady Mac cleared the ring surface. Fifty kilometres above her a wave of scarlet meteors streaked across the starfield.

  “Stand by for high gees,” Joshua said. The fusion drives came on, tormenting the abused ring still further. Lady Mac tilted round, and started chasing down the inside of the tapering orange vector tube in Joshua’s mind. He monitored the displays to ensure their course was aligned correctly as the gee forces built, then datavised an extra order into the flight computer.

  “Joshua, what—” Ashly’s startled voice faded away as the bridge trembled softly.

  The last
combat wasp left its launch-tube.

  “Watch it coming, shitheads,” Joshua purred. Jesus, but it felt good to see the vector lines emerge as the submunitions separated. Purple threads linking Lady Mac with the tumbling wreckage.

  It took eight seconds for the submunitions to reach the Gramine’s life-support capsules. A stipple of kinetic explosions boiled above the ring for a few scant seconds before the vacuum absorbed them as effortlessly as it did all human-born pollution.

  The inside of the homestead cabin was even worse than Jay Hilton imagined hell must be like. She wouldn’t let any of the other children go outside, so they had to use buckets in the small second bedroom when they wanted to go to the toilet. The smell was atrocious, and it got viler every time they opened the door. To add to their woes, the heat had reached a zenith which even Lalonde had never matched before. They had opened all the shutters as well as the door, but the air was solid, motionless. The cabin’s timber creaked and popped as the frame expanded.

  The physical ordeal was bad enough, but Jay felt so agonizingly lonely too. It was stupid, there were twenty-seven children crammed in around her so tight you couldn’t move without nudging someone. But she didn’t want other kids, she wanted Father Horst. He had never done this before, not leave them alone for a whole day, and certainly not at night. Jay suspected Father Horst was as scared by the night as she was.

  All this wretchedness had started when the starships had appeared, and with them the red cloud. Yesterday, just yesterday. It should have been a wonderful time. Rescue was here, the navy marines would come and take them all away and make everything right again. The long dragging miserable days out here on the unchanging savannah were over.

  The idea was a little bit scary, because there was always some comfort in routine, even one as difficult as the homestead. But that didn’t matter, she was leaving Lalonde. And nobody was ever going to make her come back.

  Not even Mummy!

  They had spent a happy morning outside, keeping watch over the savannah for the first sign of their rescuers. Though the growing red cloud had been a bit frightening.

  Then Russ had seen what he claimed was an explosion, and Father Horst had ridden off to investigate.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” were his last words to her as he’d left.

  They had waited and waited. And the red cloud had slid over the sky above, bringing its horrible noise with it, as though it was hiding an avalanche of boulders.

  She had done what she could, organizing meals and rotas. Things to do, things to keep them busy. And still he hadn’t come back.

  Her watch had told her when it was night. She would never have known otherwise. They had closed the shutters and the door, but red light from the cloud seemed to slide in through every crack and cranny. There was no escape. Sleep was difficult, the boomy thunder-noise kept going the whole time, mingling with the higher pitched sounds of crying.

  Even now the youngest children remained tearful, the older ones subdued.

  Jay leant on the window-sill, gazing off in the direction Father Horst had gone. If he didn’t come back very soon, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold her own tears back. Then everything would be lost.

  I must try not to.

  But she had been badly shaken by the way the red light had vanished ninety minutes ago. Now ghastly black clouds swept low and silent over the savannah, turning everything to funereal greys. At first she had tried to play the shapes game, to make them less sinister, but her mind’s eye could only conjure up witches and monsters.

  Jay turned round from the window, registering the frightened faces.

  “Danny, the fridge should have done some more ice by now. Make everyone some orange juice.”

  He nodded, happy to be given some task. Usually he was a real moaner.

  “Jay!” Eustice squealed. “Jay, there’s something out there.” She backed away from her window, hands pressed to her cheeks.

  There was an outbreak of crying and wails behind Jay. Furniture was kicked and scraped as the children instinctively made for the rear wall.

  “What was it?” Jay asked.

  Eustice shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said wretchedly. “Something!”

  Jay could hear the cows mooing plaintively, sometimes the bleating of a goat. It might just be a sayce, she thought. Several had gone by yesterday, driven from the jungle by the red cloud. She gave the open door a nervous glance, she’d have to shut it. With shivers in each limb she shuffled back to the window and peeked round the frame.

  Lightning was playing along the horizon. The savannah’s darkling grass was perfectly still, which made the movement easy to spot. Two ebony blobs jutting up above the blade tips. They were growing steadily larger.

  She heard a humming noise. Mechanical.

  It had been so long since she’d heard any kind of motor that it took a moment to place the sound; and even longer for her to bring herself to believe. Nobody on this planet had ground transport.

  “Father!” she shrieked. “He’s back!” Then she was out of the open door and running towards the hovercraft, heedless of the stiff, dry grass slapping and scratching her bare legs.

  Horst saw her coming and jumped off the hovercraft as Ariadne slowed to a halt fifteen metres from the homestead. He had told himself all through the trip that nothing had happened to them, that they would be all right.

  Praying and praying that it would be so. But actually seeing Jay alive and in one piece was too much, and the repressed guilt and instituted fear burst out, overwhelming him. He fell to his knees and opened his arms.

  Jay hit him as if she was giving a rugby tackle. “I thought you were dead,” she blubbed. “I thought you’d left us.”

  “Oh, Jay, darling Jay. You know I never would.” He cradled her head and rocked her gently. Then the other children came streaming down the homestead’s ramshackle steps, squealing and shouting. He smiled at them all and held out his arms once more.

  “We were scared,” Eustice said.

  “The sky’s gone real funny.”

  “It’s so hot.”

  “Nobody collected the eggs.”

  “Or milked the cows.”

  Bo narrowed her eyes as the mercenaries climbed out of the hovercraft.

  “Are these the marines you promised?” she asked sceptically.

  “Not quite,” Horst said. “But they’re just as good.”

  Danny goggled up at Sewell. The big combat-adept had gaussrifles plugged into both elbow sockets. “What is he?” the boy asked.

  Horst grinned. “He’s a special sort of soldier. Very strong, very clever. Everything is going to be all right now. He’ll look after you.”

  Kelly had kept her retinas on wide-field focus, scanning the whole reunion scene. There was a big dry lump forming in her throat.

  “Holy Jesus, will you look at it all,” Shaun Wallace said in a small demoralized voice. “What kind of a God could do this to us? Not the one I was taught about, that’s for sure. Look at them all, little children. Crying their bloody damn eyes out. And all for what?”

  Kelly turned round at the unaccustomed savagery and bitterness in his tone. But he was already striding towards Reza, who was watching Horst and the children impassively.

  “Mr Malin?”

  “Yes, Mr. Wallace?”

  “You have to move these children away now.”

  “I intend to.”

  “No, I mean right now. My kind, they’re over there in the edge of the jungle. There’s a couple of hundred of them, if not more. They’re meaning to get you, Mr. Malin, to end the threat once and for all.”

  Reza focused his sensors on the first rank of stunted, scrappy trees four or five kilometres away. The cloud over the jungle was still glowing a sombre red, giving the leaves a coral tinge. Heat shimmer and fluttering leaves defeated him, he couldn’t tell. “Pat, what can Octan see?”

  “Nothing much. But there’s definitely a few people roving round in there,
and ... Oh my God.”

  The pages emerged first, young boys, ten or twelve years old, holding their heraldic banners high. Then the drums started up, and the pikemen marched out of the cover of trees. It was a long solid black line, almost as if the trees themselves were advancing. Following, and holding a tight formation at the centre, came the mounted knights. Silver armour shone by its own accord under the unbroken veil of leaden clouds.

  The army assembled itself in front of the trees to the order of the drummer. Knight commanders rode up and down, organizing stragglers. Then when the ranks were neatly laid out, a single bugle note rang across the savannah. They started to tramp over the uneven grassland towards the homestead.

  “OK,” Reza said equably. “Time to go.”

  Along with all the other children Jay found herself being hurriedly lifted into one of the hovercraft by a mercenary and told to hang on.

  Boxes and equipment were being tossed out to accommodate them. Father Horst was in the other hovercraft; Jay wanted to be with him, but she didn’t think the mercenaries would listen if she asked. Shona was plonked down beside her, and Jay smiled timidly, reaching for the disfigured girl’s hand. Their fingers pressed together urgently.

  There was a lot of shouting going on all around. Everyone was moving at such a rush. One of the big (really big) mercenaries dashed into the homestead and came out half a minute later carrying Freya.

  “Put her in my hovercraft,” Horst said. “I’ll look after her.” The limp girl was laid on the front bench, and he eased a bundle of cloth under her head.

  Through all the confusion and bustle Jay saw one of the mercenaries strap a dark globe to the neck of a huge dog. A man (who she thought looked a bit like Rai Molvi) and a lady who had come with the mercenaries were arguing hotly in front of the cabin. It ended when she made a slashing motion with one arm and climbed into the pilot’s seat of the second hovercraft. The other mercenaries were ransacking the ammunition boxes that lay on the ground, slotting magazines into their backpacks. Then the impellers on Jay’s hovercraft began to spin and the decking wobbled as it rose up. She wondered where the mercenaries were going to fit, her hovercraft had seventeen children packed in between the pilot’s seat and the fan at the rear. But when both vehicles swung round and began to pick up speed she realized they were jogging alongside.