The Naked God

  Jezzibella’s arms crept round his chest, while her chin came to rest on his shoulder. A mild forest-morning perfume seeped into the air. “No sign of red clouds,” she said encouragingly.

  He lifted one hand to his lips, and kissed the knuckles. “No. I guess that means I’m still numero uno about here.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “You wouldn’t fucking think so the beefs everyone’s got. Not just what they say, either. What they think counts for a whole lot.”

  “They’ll be all right once the fleet’s in action again.”

  “Sure,” he snorted. “And when’s that gonna be, huh? Fucking Luigi, I shoulda popped him properly, screwing up like that. It’s gonna take another twenty—thirty days to build up our antimatter stocks to anything like a load we can risk another invasion with. So Emmet says. That means six weeks minimum I know. Goddamn! I’m losing it, Jez. I’m fucking losing it.”

  Her grip tightened. “Don’t be silly. You were bound to have setbacks.”

  “I can’t afford one. Not now. Morale’s going to shit out there. You’ve heard what Leroy said. Possessed crew are going down to the surface for funtime and ain’t coming back. They think I’m gonna lose control of the planet and they’ll be better off down there when it happens.”

  “So get Silvano to tighten up.”

  “Maybe. You can only be so tough, you know?”

  “You sure you can’t bring the next invasion forward?”

  “No.”

  “Then we need something else to keep the soldiers and lieutenants occupied and committed.”

  He turned to face her. She was wearing one of those whore’s dresses again, just tiny little strips of pale yellow fabric up the front (he had ties wider than that), and a teensy skirt. So much skin tantalisingly revealed; it made him want to tug it off. As if he’d never seen her in the buff before. But then she was always alluring in some new fashion, a mirror hall chameleon.

  A sensational piece of ass, no doubt about it. But the way she kept on coming up with ideas for him (just like her never-ending mystique) had become vaguely unnerving of late. It was like he’d become dependent, or something.

  “Like what?” he asked flatly.

  Jezzibella pouted. “I don’t know. Something which doesn’t need the whole fleet, but’ll still be effective. Not a propaganda exercise like Kursk; we need to hurt the Confederation.”

  “Kingsley Pryor’s gonna do that.”

  “He might. Although that’s a very long shot, remember?”

  “Okay, okay.” Al wished up one of his prime Havanas, and took a drag.

  Even they seemed to have lost some of their bite recently. “So how do we use some itsy piece of the fleet to piss the Feds?”

  “Dunno. Guess you’d better go call Emmet in; see what he can come up with. That’s strictly his field.” She gave him a slow wink and sauntered off to the bedroom.

  “Where the hell are you going?” he demanded.

  A hand waved dismissively. “This dress is for your eyes only, baby. I know how hot you get when other people see what I’ve got to offer. And you need to have a clear head when you’re talking to Emmet.”

  He sighed as the tall doors closed behind her. Right again.

  When Emmet Mordden arrived fifteen minutes later, Al had returned to the window. There was very little light in the big lounge, just some red jewels glimmering high up on the white and gold walls. With Monterey now fully into the umbra, the window was little more than a slate grey rectangle, with Al’s ebony silhouette in the middle. His youthful face was illuminated by a diminutive orange glimmer coming from the Havana.

  Emmet tried not to show too much annoyance at the cigar smoke clogging the room. The Hilton’s conditioners never managed to eliminate the cloying smell, and using energistic power to ward it off was too much like overkill. It might just offend Al, too.

  Al raised a hand in acknowledgement, but didn’t turn away from the window with its empty view. “Can’t see anything out there today,” he said quietly. “No planet, no sun.”

  “They’re still there, Al.”

  “Yeah yeah. And now is when you tell me I got responsibilities to them.”

  “I’m not going to tell you that, Al. You know the way it is.”

  “Know what, and don’t tell Jez this, I’d trade in the whole shebang for a trip home to Chicago. I used to have a house in Prairie Avenue. You know?

  Like, for my family. It was a nice street in a decent neighbourhood, full of regular guys, trees, good lighting. There was never any trouble there.

  That’s where I want to be, Emmet, I wanna be able to walk down Prairie Avenue and open my own front door again. That’s all. I just wanna go home.”

  “Earth ain’t like it used to be, Al. And it hasn’t changed for the best. Take it from me, you wouldn’t recognize it now.”

  “I don’t want it now, Emmet. I want to go home. Capeesh?”

  “Sure, Al.”

  “That sound crazy to you?”

  “I had a girl before. It was a good thing back then, you know.”

  “Right. See, I had this idea. I remember there was this Limy guy, Wells, I think his name was. I never read any of his books, mind. But he wrote about things that are happening today in this crazy world, about Mars men invading and a time machine. Boy, if he’s come back, I bet he’s having a ball right now. So … I just wondered; he was thinking stuff like that, a time machine, back in the Twentieth Century, and the Confederation eggheads, they can build these starships today. Did they ever try to make a time machine?”

  “No, Al. Zero-tau can carry ordinary people into the future, but there’s no way back. The big theory guys, they say it can’t be done. Not in practice. Sorry.”

  Al nodded contemplatively. “That’s okay, Emmet. Thought I’d ask.”

  “Was that all, Al?”

  “Shit no.” Al smiled reluctantly, and turned from the window. “How’s it going out there?”

  “We’re holding our own, especially down on the planet. Haven’t had to use an SD strike for three days now. Some of the lieutenants have even caught a couple of AWOL starship crew. They’re getting shipped back up here tonight. Patricia’s going to deal with. She’s talking about setting an example.”

  “Good. Maybe now those bastards will learn there ain’t no get-out clause when you sign up with me.”

  “The voidhawks have stopped dumping their stealth bombs and spyglobes on the fleet. Kiera’s hellhawks have done a good job clearing them out.”

  “Huh.” Al opened the liquor cabinet, and poured himself a shot of bourbon. The stuff was imported from a planet called Nashville. He couldn’t believe they’d called a whole goddamn planet after that hick dirt-town. Their booze had a kick, though.

  “You remember she moved her people into the rooms along the docking ledge?” Emmet said. “I know why she did it, now. They’ve knocked out all the machinery which makes the nutrient fluid for the hellhawks. And not just here in Monterey, all over the system, too. The Stryla visited all the asteroids we run, and layered their nutrient machinery. Her people are guarding the only one left working. If the hellhawks don’t do as they’re told, they don’t get fed. They don’t eat, they die. It’s that simple.”

  “Neat,” Al said. “Let me guess, if we try to muscle in on the last machine, it gets zapped.”

  “Looks like it. They’ve let slip that it’s booby trapped. I’d hate to risk it.”

  “As long as the hellhawks do what I want, she can stay. Barricading herself in like that is dumb. It makes her even more dependent on me for status. She has to support me, she’s not important to anyone else.”

  “I’ve put a couple of people on surveying what’s left of the machinery she smashed up. We might be able to put a working unit back together eventually, but it’ll take time.”

  “Time is something which is giving me a fucking headache, Emmet. And I ain’t talking about Wells’s machine here. I need to get the fleet back into action, s
oonest.”

  “But, Al—” he stopped as Al held up a hand.

  “I know. We can’t launch no invasion right now. Not enough antimatter. There’s gotta be something else they can do. I’m being honest with you here, Emmet, the boys are so antsy, they’ll mutiny if we keep them kicking their heels in port much longer.”

  “I suppose you could launch some fast strike raids. Let people know we’ve still got some punch.”

  “Strike on what? Just blowing things up for the sake of it, ain’t my style. We have to give the fleet a purpose.”

  “There’s the Mortonridge Liberation. The Confederation’s been beaming propaganda about that to every city on New California, telling us how we’re bound to lose eventually. If we hit some of their supply convoys we’d be helping the possessed on Ombey.”

  “Yeah,” Al said. The notion didn’t really appeal, too few visible returns. “What I’m looking for is something that’ll cause a shitload of trouble for the Confederation each time. Knocking out a couple of ships ain’t going to do that.”

  “Well … This is just an idea, Al. I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing you’re looking for. It depends on how many planets you want to rule over.”

  “The Organization has to keep up its momentum to exist. Ruling planets is only a part of that. So talk to me, Emmet.”

  Kiera could see eight hellhawks out on the ledge below her. They were all sitting on their pedestals, ingesting nutrient fluid. A rotor had been drawn up so the whole flock could feed on the ten metallic mushrooms which remained functional. Studying the huge creatures, so powerful yet utterly dependent, Kiera couldn’t avoid the religious analogy. They were like a devout congregation coming to receive mass from their priestess.

  Each of them abased themselves before her, and if the correct obeisance was performed, they received her blessing in return, and were allowed to live.

  The Kerachel swept in above the ledge, appearing so swiftly out of the umbra it might have just swallowed in. A pointed lozenge-shape, a hundred metres long, it hardly hesitated as it found its designated pedestal and sank down. Knowing that even though it couldn’t see her expression, it could sense her thoughts, she smiled arrogantly down upon it. “Any problems?” she asked casually.

  “Monterey’s command centre monitored its patrol flight,” Hudson Proctor replied. “No deviations. Eight suspect objects destroyed.”

  “Well done,” she murmured. A hand waved languid permission to start.

  Hudson Proctor picked up a handset, and began speaking into it. Two hundred metres below the departure lounge, her loyal little team opened a valve, and the precious fluid surged along a pipe out to the pedestal. A feeling of contentment strummed the air like background music as Kerachel began sucking in its food. Kiera could feel the hellhawk’s mood, it mellowed her own.

  There were eighty-seven hellhawks based at Monterey now. A formidable flotilla by anyone’s standards. Securing them for herself had absorbed all her efforts over the last few days. Now it was time to start thinking ahead again. Her position here was actually a lot stronger than it had been at Valisk. If the habitat was a fiefdom, then New California was a kingdom in comparison. One which Capone appeared singularly inept at maintaining. The main reason she’d established herself so easily in the docking ledges was the apathy spreading through Monterey. Nobody thought to question her.

  That simply wouldn’t do. In building his Organization, Capone had grasped an instinctive truth. People, possessed or otherwise, needed structure and order in their lives. It was one of the reasons they fell into line so easily, familiarity was a welcome comrade. Give them the kind of nirvana which existed (though she had strong suspicions about that) in the realm where planets shifted to, and the population would sink into a wretched, lotus-eating state. The Siamese twin of unending indulgent leisure. If she was honest to herself, she was terrified of the immortality she’d been given. Life would change beyond comprehension, and that was going to be very hard indeed. For an adaptation of that magnitude, she would no longer be herself.

  And that, I will not permit.

  She enjoyed what she was and what she’d got, the drives and needs. Like this, at least she remained recognizably human. That identity was worth preserving. Worth fighting for.

  Capone wouldn’t do it. He was weak, controlled by that ingenious trollop Jezzibella, by a non-possessed.

  In the Organization, a method of enforcing control over an entire planetary population had been perfected. If she was in charge, it could be used to implement her policies. The possessed would learn to live with their phobia of open skies. In return they would have the normal human existence they craved. There would be no dangerous metamorphosis into an alien state of being. She would remain whole. Herself.

  A twitch of motion broke her contemplation. Someone was walking along the docking ledge, someone in a bulky orange and white spacesuit with a globular helmet. Compared to modern SII suits, the thing was ridiculously old-fashioned. The only reason for wearing one was if you didn’t have neural nanonics.

  “Are there any engineering crews on the ledge?” Kiera asked. She couldn’t see any hellhawks receiving maintenance right now.

  “A couple,” Hudson Proctor answered. “The Foica is being loaded with combat wasps, and Varrad’s main fusion generator needs work on its heat dump panels.”

  “Oh. Where …”

  “Kiera.” Hudson held up the handset in trepidation. “Capone’s calling all his senior lieutenants. It’s an invite to some kind of glam party this evening.”

  “Really?” She gave the spacesuited figure one last glance. “And I haven’t a thing to wear. But if our Great and Glorious Leader has summoned me, I’d better not disappoint him.”

  Back on Koblat, they called these spacesuits ballcrushers. Jed had worn one before for an emergency evacuation drill, and now he was remembering why. Putting it on was easy enough; when they got it out of the locker it was a flaccid sack three times too large for his frame. He’d wriggled into it, standing with arms outstretched and legs apart so the baggy fabric could hang unobstructed off each limb. Then Beth had activated the wristpad control, and the fabric contracted like an all-over tourniquet.

  Now every part of his body was being squeezed tight. It was the same principle as an SII suit, preventing any loose bubbles of air becoming trapped between his skin and the suit. If a suit contained any sort of gas, it would inflate like a rigid balloon as soon as he stepped out into a vacuum.

  This way, he could move about almost unrestricted. Providing he ignored the sharp pincer sensation besetting his crotch at every motion. Not an entirely easy thing to disregard.

  But apart from that, the suit was functioning smoothly. He wished his heart would do the same. According to the hazy purple icons projected onto the inside of his helmet, the suit’s integral thermal shunt strips were conducting away a lot of heat. Nerves and an adrenaline high were making the blood pound away in his arteries. His tension wasn’t helped by the rank of huge hellhawks he was walking along. He knew they could sense his thoughts and all the guilt cluttering up his skull, which made the torment even worse. A bad case of feedback. Bubbles of plastic and dark metal clung to the underbellies of the bitek starships like mechanical excrescences. Weapons and sensors. He was sure every one of them was tracking him.

  “Jed, you’re getting worse,” Rocio told him.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Why are you whispering? You are using a legitimate spacesuit radio frequency. If the Organization is monitoring this, which I doubt, they still have to decrypt the signal, which I also doubt their ability to do.

  As far as they are concerned you are just one of Kiera’s people, while she will think you belong to the Organization. That’s the beauty of this in-fighting, nobody knows what anyone else is doing around here.”

  “Sorry,” Jed said contritely into the helmet mike.

  “I’m monitoring your body functions, and your heartrate is still climbing.”
br />   That brought a shudder which rippled up from Jed’s legs to make his chest quiver. “Oh Jeeze. I’ll come back.”

  “No no, you’re doing fine. Only another three hundred metres to the airlock.”

  “But the hellhawks are going to know!”

  “Only if you don’t take precautions. I think it’s time we used a little chemical help here.”

  “I didn’t bring any. We weren’t supposed to need that in Valisk.”

  “I don’t mean your underclass narcotics. The suit medical module will provide what you need.”

  Jed hadn’t even known the suit had any medical modules. Following Rocio’s instructions, he tapped out a series of orders on the wristpad. The air in the helmet changed slightly, becoming cooler, and smelling of mint.

  For such a small suffusion, its effect was swift. The cold massaged its way in through Jed’s muscles, bringing a nearly-orgasmic sigh from his throat. It was a hit stronger than anything he’d ever scored in Koblat.

  His mind was being methodically purged of fright by this balmy tide of wellbeing. He held up his arms, expecting to see all his anxiety streaming out of his fingertips like liquid light.

  “Not bad,” he declared.

  “How much did you infuse?” Rocio asked.

  The hellhawk’s voice came across as brittle and irritating. “What you said,” Jed retorted in a fashion which demonstrated quite plainly who was occupying the lead role. A couple of the physiology icons were flashing a rather pleasing pink in front of him. Like pretty little flower buds opening, he thought.

  “All right, Jed, let’s keep going, shall we?”

  “Sure thing, mate.”

  He started walking forwards again. Even the twinge in his groin was less of an issue now. That medical suffusion was good shit. The hellhawks had stopped radiating their intimidation. With his mind chilling he started to see them in a different context; grounded on their pedestals, sucking desperately at their drink. Not so much different to himself and the girls. He acquired a more confident stride as he passed the last two.