23

The STNI-986M was a basic VTOL utility jet (unimaginatively nicknamed Stony); subsonic, with a blunt-tube fuselage which could carry either twenty tonnes of cargo or a hundred passengers. Seven New Washington Navy (NWN) Transport Command squadrons of the durable little vehicles had been flown to Ombey when the President answered their ally’s call for military assistance to liberate Mortonridge. Ever since General Hiltch authorized aircraft to fly over secured areas of Mortonridge, they’d become a familiar sight to the occupation troops. After Ketton, they’d been invaluable in supporting the new frontline advance policy which had spread the serjeants dangerously thin over the ground as they divided the peninsula into confinement zones. Outbound from Fort Forward they would deliver food, equipment, and ammunition to the upcountry stations; on the return they invariably evacuated the most serious body-abuse cases of ex-possessed for medical treatment.

Even on airframes intended for rugged duty, full-time usage was producing maintenance problems. Spare parts were also scarce; Ombey’s indigenous industries were already struggling to keep frontline equipment and the Royal Marine engineering brigades going. All the Stony squadrons had experienced mid-flight emergency landings and unexplained powerdowns. The rover reporters covering the Liberation knew all about the STI-986M’s recent shortcomings, though it was never mentioned in their official reports. Not good for civilian morale. There was no outright censorship, but they all knew they were part of the Liberation campaign, helping to convince people that the possessed could be beaten. Standard wartime compromise, reporting what was in the army’s interest in order to get the maximum amount of information.

So Tim Beard cut back on his physiological input when the Stony carrying him and Hugh Rosler lifted from Fort Forward at dawn. He wanted to give the accessors back home a small feeling of excitement as the plane swept low across the endless steppes of dried mud, which meant toning down his body’s instinctive unease. It helped that he was sitting so close to Hugh, the pair of them wedged in a gap between a couple of composite drums full of nutrient soup for the serjeants. Hugh always seemed perfectly at ease; even when Ketton ripped itself free of the planet he’d stood up squarely, regarding the spectacle with a kind of amused awe while the rest of the rovers were crouched down on the quaking ground, heads buried between their legs. He also had a neat eye for trouble. There were a couple of occasions when the rover corps had been clambering over ruins when he’d spotted booby traps missed by the serjeants and Marine engineers. Not the greatest conversationalist, but Tim felt safe around him.

It was one of the reasons he’d asked Hugh to come along. This wasn’t a flight organized for them by the army, but the story was too good to wait for the liaison officer to get round to it. And good stories about the Liberation were becoming hard to find. But Tim had been covering military stories for twenty years now: he knew how to find his way round the archaic chain of command, which people to cultivate. Pilots were good material, and useful, almost as much as serjeants. Finding a ride on the early flight among the crates and pods was easy enough.

The Stony curved away from Fort Forward and headed south, following the remnants of the M6. Once they’d settled into their two hundred metre operational altitude, Tim eased the buckle back on what was laughingly called his safety strap, and crouched down by the door port. Enhanced retinas zoomed in on the road below. He’d dispatched a hundred fleks back to the studio with the same view; by now the start of the M6 around the old firebreak was as familiar to the average Confederation citizen as the road outside their own home. But with each trip he progressed a little further along the road, deeper into the final enclaves of the possessed. In the first couple of weeks, it was astounding progress indeed. None of the rovers had to manufacture the optimistic buzz that pervaded their recordings. It was different today, there was progress, still, but it was difficult to capture the essence just by panning a shot from horizon to horizon.

The tactical maps urged on them by the army liaison officers had changed considerably from the original swathe of incriminating pink stretching across Mortonridge which delineated the possessed territory. At first the borders had contracted noose-style, then geographical contours showed up along the rim of pinkness, interfering with the rate of advance. After Ketton it had changed again. The serjeants had been deployed in spearhead thrusts, carving corridors through the possessed territories. Separation and isolation, General Hiltch’s plan to prevent the possessed from collecting in the kind of density which would kick off another Ketton incident. The current tactical map showed Mortonridge covered in slowly shrinking pink blotches separating from each other like evaporating puddles. Of course, no one actually knew what that critical number was which had to be avoided at all costs. So the serjeants toiled on relentlessly, guided by numerical simulations based on someone’s best guess. And there were no more harpoon deluges to make the job easier, nor even SD laser fire to soften up a strongly defended position. The front line was back to clearing the land in the hardest way possible.

Tim’s retinas tracked keenly along the carbon-concrete ribbon which the Stony was following. Royal Marine mechanoids had bulldozed entire swamps of saturated soil from the road as the army swept down the spine of the peninsula. At times the single cleared carriageway was twenty metres below the tops of the new banks, as if it was some kind of cooled lava river confined to steep heat-erosion valleys. The sidewalls were solidified by chemical cement, bonding the slush together in artificial molecular clusters that traded their initial strength with a limited lifespan. Sunlight shimmered off them in vast sapphire and emerald defraction patterns as the Stony whisked by overhead. All the original bridges had been swept away, leaving destitute towers protruding from the mud at precarious angles. Of their replacements, no two were the same. Small gullies had simple scaffolding archways of monobonded silicon curving over their sluggish streams. Beautiful single-span suspension bridges leapt across gaps half a kilometre wide, their gossamer cables glinting like thin icicles in the clear dawn air. Programmable silicon pontoons carried the mesh-carpet road across broad valley floors in heroic relay.

“The financial cost of this recaptured motorway is roughly ten million Kulu pounds per kilometre,” Tim said. “Thirty times the price of the original, and it hasn’t even got electronic traffic control. It will probably be the Liberation’s most enduring physical memorial, even though thirty-eight per cent of it is classed as a temporary structure. Ground troops know it as the road to the other side of hell.”

“You could always take the optimistic view,” Hugh Rosler said.

Tim put the narrative track memory on pause. “If I could find one, I would. It’s not as if I’m rooting for the possessed. Being positive after all this time is flat-out impossible. We have to tell the truth occasionally.”

Hugh nodded through the rectangular port. “Gimmie convoy, look.”

A long snake of trucks and buses was winding its way north along the reclaimed road. The buses meant it would be mostly civilians, ex-possessed being carried away to safety. “Gimmies” was the term which the rovers had privately evolved for them. Every interview when they came staggering out of the zero-tau pods was the same litany of demands: give me medical treatment, give me clothes, give me food, give me the rest of my family, give me somewhere safe to live, give me my life back. And why did it take you so long to save me?

They’d actually stopped recording interviews with the newly reprieved. Ombey’s population was becoming increasingly antagonised by their fellow citizens’ lack of gratitude.

Two hundred and fifty kilometres south of the old firebreak line, a big staging area had been laid out at the side of the M6, as if a batch of liquid carbon-concrete had squirted out from the edge of the motorway to stain the mud before solidifying. A single small road broke away from it to head out across the open country. There could have been an original feed road down below the hardening mires, but the Royal Marine engineering brigade had chosen to ignore it in favour of running their own route directly over newly surveyed ground, sticking to the most stable regions. Similar staging areas were strung along the whole length of the M6, flinging off side roads which mimicked the original branch roads. They were the supply lines for the army as it overran the towns; not so much for the benefit of the frontline serjeants, but the support teams and occupation forces which came in their wake.

This staging area was empty, though covered in mud-tracks showing just how many vehicles had been assembled here at one time. The Stony banked sharply above it, and swept away to chase along the supply road. A couple of minutes later they were circling the remnants of Exnall.

The occupation station’s landing field was a broad sheet of micro-mesh composite spread out across a flat patch of land on the (official) edge of town, with chemical concrete injected into the soil underneath. Mud still percolated through in patches where the chemicals hadn’t reached.

None of the cargo crew were surprised when Tim and Hugh jumped down out of the Stony’s open hatch. They just grinned as the two rovers strained to lift their feet from the sticky mud.

Tim opened a new memory cell file for his report, and quickly reduced his olfactory sensitivity. Most of the dead plant and animal life had been swallowed by the mud, but the peninsula’s constant natural showers kept uncovering them. Fortunately, the smell wasn’t anything like as bad as it had been to start with.

They hitched a lift on the back of a jeep into the occupation station which had been set up in the square at the end of Maingreen.

“Where was the DataAxis office?” Tim asked.

Hugh stared around, trying to make sense of the alien territory. “Not sure; I’d have to check with a guidance block. This is as bad as Pompeii the morning after.”

Tim kept recording as they splashed along the deep ruts in the mire, preserving Hugh’s comments about the few landmarks of his old town which he could recognize. The deluge had hit arboreal Exnall hard. Mud had toppled the big harandrid trees onto the buildings they’d once overhung so gracefully; crumpling the shops and houses even before the foundations were undermined. Sloping roofs constructed out of carbon hyperfilament beams had sheered off to twirl away across the currents of mud, momentum snapping them through the surviving pickets of tree stumps. A whole cluster of them had come to rest at the end of Maingreen, making it look as though half of the town’s buildings had been buried together up to their rafters. Facades had drifted about freely like architectural rafts until the gradually hardening mud began to anchor them fast. Where they lay across the roads, jeeps and trucks had driven straight over them, crunching parallel tyre tracks of bricks and planking deeper into the dehydrating march. Only the foundations and stubby, splintered remnants of ground-floor walls indicated the town’s outline, along with slumbering humps of mud-smothered harandrid.

Programmable silicon halls and igloos had been set up in the central civic district to serve as the occupation station; neither the town hall nor the police station remained intact. Army traffic sped along the narrow lanes through the new structures, while squads of serjeants and occupation troops marched between them. Tim and Hugh left the jeep to look around.

Hugh eyed the various slopes rumpling the landscape and consulted his guidance block. “This is about where it happened,” he said. “The crowd gathered here after Finnuala’s blanket datavise.”

Tim panned round the gloomy panorama. “What price victory?” he said softly. “This isn’t even the eye of the storm.” He zoomed in on several stagnant pools, examining the bent grass and weeds struggling at the edge. If vegetation was to return to this peninsula, it would spread out from fresh water, he reasoned. But these filthy, sodden blades served only to play host for a variety of brown fungal blooms which thrived in the humidity. He doubted they would last much longer.

They wandered through the occupation station, capturing random images of the army reorganising itself. Serjeant casualties lying in rows of cots in a field hospital. Engineers and mechanoids working on all types of equipment. The unending flow of trucks that trundled past, their hub engines humming angrily as they fought for traction in the mud.

“Hey, you two!” Elana Duncan shouted from across the road. “What the hell are you doing?”

They crossed over to her, dodging a pair of jeeps. “We’re rovers,” Tim told her. “Just looking round.”

Claws closed around his upper arm, preventing him from moving. He was pretty sure that if she wanted to, she could have snipped clean through the bone. She touched a sensor block to his chest. Not gently, either.

“Okay, now you.” Hugh submitted to the procedure without complaint.

“There aren’t any rover reporters scheduled to come out here today,” Elana said. “The colonel hasn’t cleared Exnall yet.”

“I know,” Tim said. “I just wanted to get ahead of the pack.”

“Typical,” Elana grunted. She retreated back into the hall where twenty bulky zero-tau pods had been set up. All of them had active infinite-black surfaces.

Tim followed her. “This your department?”

“You got it, sonny. I get to perform the final act of liberation on these great people we’re here to rescue. That’s why I wanted to know who you were. You’re not army, and you’re too healthy to be ex-possessed. I got to recognize that, it’s like second nature now.”

“Glad someone’s alert.”

“Knock it off.” Her head rocked up and down as she examined them. “If you want to ask questions, ask. I’m bored enough that I’ll probably answer. You’re here because this is Exnall, right?”

Tim grinned. “Well, this is where it all started. That gives me a legitimate interest. Showing the accessors that it’s been retaken and sanitised makes for a good piece.”

“Typical rover, put the story before anything else, like mundane security and common-sense safety. I should have just shot you.”

“But you didn’t. That means you’ve got confidence in the serjeants?”

“Could be. I know I couldn’t do what they’re doing. Still doing. Thought I could when I came here, but this whole Liberation is one big learning curve, for all of us, right? We just don’t do war like this any more, if we ever did. Even if a conflict goes on for a couple of years, individual battles are supposed to be brutal and fast. Soldiers take a break from the front, have some R & R, grab some stims and some ass before they go back. One side makes a few gains, the other knocks them back. That’s the way it goes, but this—it never stops, not for one second. Have you ever captured that in your sensevises? The real essence of what this is about? One serjeant loses concentration for one second, and one of those bastards will slip through. It’ll start up all over again on another continent. One mistake. One. This isn’t a human war. The weapon which is going to win this is perfection. The possessed? They have to commit to being a hundred per cent treacherous devious sons of bitches, never let up trying to sneak one of their kind past us. Our serjeants, now they have to be eternally vigilant, never ever walk along the wrong side of the road because the mud isn’t so deep and vile there. You’ve got no idea what that takes.”

“Determination,” Tim ventured.

“Not even close. That’s an emotion. That’s a way in to your heart, weakening you. That can’t be allowed here. Human motivations have to be abandoned. Machines are what we need.”

“I thought that’s what the serjeants are.”

“Oh yeah, they’re good. Not bad at all for a first generation weapon. But the Edenists have got to improve on them, build some real mean mothers for the next Liberation. Something like us boosted, and with even less personality than the serjeants. I’ve got to know a few of them, and they’re still too human for this.”

“You think there’s going to be another Liberation?”

“Sure. Nobody’s come up with another method of kicking the bastards out of the bodies they’ve stolen. Until that happens, we’ve got to keep them on the run. I told you: show no weakness. Pick another planet, maybe one of those Capone infiltrated, and start rescuing it before they take it away. Let them know we’ll never let up chasing their asses out of our universe.”

“Would you join that next Liberation?”

“Not a chance. I’ve done my bit, and learned my lesson. This is too long. You wanted a story about what Exnall was like, you came a day too late. We still had some of the possessed around yesterday, waiting for zero-tau. They’re the ones you should have talked to.”

“What did they tell you?”

“That they hate the Liberation the same way we do. It’s wearing them down, they haven’t got enough food, the rain doesn’t stop, the mud climbs into bed with them each night. And ever since Ketton took that Ekelund bitch away, their organized resistance folded in. Now it’s just gone back to instinct, that’s why they fight. They’re losing it, because they’re human. They came back here because they were determined to end their suffering, right? That’s the ultimate human motivator. Anything to escape the beyond. But now they’re here, where they thought they wanted to be, they’ve got all their old flaws back. As soon as they became human again, it becomes possible to beat them.”

“Until they take their whole planet out of the universe,” Tim protested.

“Fine by me. That removes them from interfering with us any more. A stalemate in this war means we have won. Our purpose is to prevent them from spreading.”

“But even the war isn’t an end to this,” Hugh said. “Have you forgotten you have a soul? That you will die one day?”

Elana’s claws clacked irritably. “No, I haven’t forgotten. But right now I have a job to do. That’s what matters, that’s what’s important. When I die, I’ll confront the beyond fair and square. All this philosophising and moralising and agonising we’re doing, it’s all bullshit. When it comes down to it, you’re on your own.”

“Just like life,” Hugh said with a gentle smile.

Tim frowned at him. It was most unlike Hugh to offer any comment on death and the beyond; the one subject he (strangely) always avoided.

“You got it,” Elana boomed approvingly.

Tim said goodbye, and left her monitoring the zero-tau pods. “Live death like you live life, huh?” he chided Hugh when they were far enough away to be outside the range of the mercenary’s enhanced auditory senses.

“Something like that,” Hugh responded solemnly.

“Interesting person, our Elana,” Tim said. “The interview will need some tight editing, though. She’ll depress the hell out of anyone who hears her ranting on like that.”

“Perhaps you should let her speak. She’s been exposed to the possessed for a long time. Whether she admits it or not, that’s influenced her thinking. Don’t slant that.”

“I do not slant my reports.”

“I’ve accessed your pieces, you dumb everything down for your audience. They’re just a compilation of highlights.”

“Keeps them accessed, doesn’t it? Have you seen our ratings?”

“There’s more to news than marketing points. You have to include substance occasionally. It balances and emphasises those highlights you worship.”

“Shit, how did you ever wind up in this business?”

“I was made for it,” Hugh said, which he apparently found hilarious.

Tim gave him a bewildered glance. Then his neural nanonics reported his communications block was receiving a priority call from the Fort Forward studio chief. It was the news that the Confederation Navy had attacked Arnstat.

“Holy shit,” Tim muttered. All around him, marines and mercenaries were cheering and calling out to each other. Trucks and jeeps sounded their horns in continual blasts.

“That’s not good,” Hugh said. “They knew what the effect would be.”

“Damnit, yes,” Tim said. “We’ve lost the story.”

“An entire planet snatched away to another realm, and all that concerns you is the story?”

“Don’t you see?” Tim swept his arms round extravagantly, encompassing the occupation station in one gesture. “This was the story, the only one: we were on the front line against the possessed. What we saw and said mattered. Now it doesn’t. Just like that.” His neural nanonics astronomy program found him the section of dark azure sky where Avon’s star shone unseen. He glared at it in frustration. “Someone up there is changing Confederation policy, and I’m stuck down here. I can’t find out why.”

 

Cochrane saw it first. Naturally, he called it Tinkerbell.

Not quite limber enough to stay in a full lotus position for hours on end, the hippie was sprawled bonelessly on a leather beanbag, facing the direction Ketton island was flying in. With a Jack Daniels in one hand and his purple sunglasses in place he possibly wasn’t as alert as he should have been. But then, none of the other ten people sharing the top of the headland with him saw it.

They were, as McPhee complained later, looking out for something massive, a planet or a moon, or perhaps even Valisk. An object that would appear as a small dark patch amid the vanishing-point glare and slowly swell in size as the island drew closer.

The last thing anyone expected was a pebble-sized crystal with a splinter of sunlight entombed at its centre arrowing in out of the bright void ahead. But that’s what they got.

“Holy mamma, hey you cats, look at this,” Cochrane whooped. He tried to point, sending Jack Daniels sloshing across his flares.

The crystal was sliding over the cliff edge, its multifaceted surface stabbing out thin beams of pure white light in every direction. It swooped in towards Cochrane and his fellow watchers, keeping a level four metres off the ground. By then Cochrane was on his feet dancing and waving at it. “Over here, man. We’re here. Here boy, come on, come to your big old buddy.”

The crystal curved tightly, circling over their heads to their gasps and excited shouts.

“Yes!” Cochrane yelled. “It knows we’re here. It’s alive, gotta be, man; look at the way it’s buzzing about, like some kind of inter-cosmic fairy.” Slivers of light from the crystal flashed across his sunglasses. “Yoww, that’s bright. Hey, Tinkerbell, tone it down, baby.”

Delvan stared at their visitor in absolute awe, a hand held in front of his face to shield him from the dazzling light. “Is it an angel?”

“Naw,” Cochrane chortled. “Too small. Angels are huge great mothers with flaming swords. Tinkerbell, that’s who we’ve got here.” He cupped his hands round his mouth. “Yo, Tinks, how’s it hanging?”

Choma’s dark, weighty hand tapped Cochrane’s shoulder. The hippie flinched.

“I don’t wish to be churlish,” the serjeant said. “But I believe there are more appropriate methods with which to open communications with an unknown xenoc species.”

“Oh yeah?” Cochrane sneered. “Then how come you’re already boring her away?”

The crystal changed direction, speeding away to fly over the main headland camp. Cochrane started running after it, yelling and waving.

Sinon, like every other serjeant on the island, had turned to look at the strange pursuit as soon as Choma informed them of the crystal’s arrival. “We have an encounter situation,” he announced to the humans around him.

Stephanie stared at the brilliant grain of crystal leading Cochrane on a merry chase and let out a small groan of dismay. They really shouldn’t have let the old hippie join the forward watching group.

“What’s happening?” Moyo asked.

“Some kind of flying xenoc,” she explained.

“Or probe,” Sinon said. “We are attempting to communicate with affinity.”

The serjeants combined their mental voice into a collective hail. As well as clear ringing words of greeting, mathematical symbols, and pictographics, they produced a spectrum of pure emotional tones. None of it provoked any kind of discernible answer.

The crystal slowed again, drifting over the headland group. There were over sixty humans camping out together now; Stephanie’s initial group had been joined by a steady stream of deserters from Ekelund’s army. They’d broken away over the past week, sometimes in groups, sometimes individually; all of them rejecting her authority and growing intolerance. The word they brought from the old town wasn’t good. Martial law was strictly enforced, turning the whole place into a virtual prison. At the moment, her efforts were focused on recovering as many rifles as possible from the ruins and mounds of loose soil. Apparently she still hadn’t abandoned her plan to rid the island of serjeants and disloyal possessed.

Stephanie stood looking up at the twinkling crystal as it traced a meandering course overhead. Cochrane was still lumbering along thirty metres behind. His annoyed cries carried faintly through the air. “Any reply yet?” she asked.

“None,” the serjeant told them.

People had risen to their feet, gawping at the tiny point of light. It seemed oblivious to all of them. Stephanie concentrated on the folds of iridescent shadow which her mind’s senses were revealing. Human and serjeant minds glowed within it, easily recognizable; the crystal existed as a sharply defined teardrop-filigree of sapphire. It was almost like a computer graphic, a total contrast to everything else she could perceive this way. As it grew closer its composition jumped up to perfect clarity; in a dimension-defying twist the inner threads of sapphire were longer than its diameter.

She’d stopped being amazed by wonders since Ketton left Mortonridge. Now she was simply curious.

“That can’t be natural,” she insisted.

Sinon spoke for the mini-consensus of serjeants. “We concur. Its behaviour and structure is indicative of a high-order entity.”

“I can’t make out any kind of thoughts.”

“Not like ours. That is inevitable. It seems well adjusted to this realm. Commonality would therefore be unlikely.”

“You think it’s a native?”

“If not an actual aboriginal, then something equivalent to their AI. It does seem to be self-determining, a good indicator of independence.”

“Or good programming,” Moyo said. “Our reconnaissance drones would have this much awareness.”

“Another possibility,” Sinon agreed.

“None of that matters,” Stephanie said. “It proves there’s some kind of sentience here. We have to make contact and ask for help.”

“That’s if they understand the concept,” Franklin said. This speculation is irrelevant, Choma said. What it is does not matter, what it is capable of does. Communication has to be established.

It will not respond to any of our attempts, Sinon said. If it does not sense affinity or atmospheric compression then we have little chance of initiating contact.

Mimic it, Choma said. The mini-consensus queried him.

It can obviously sense us, he explained. Therefore we must demonstrate we are equally aware of it. Once it knows this, it will logically begin seeking communication channels. The surest demonstration possible is to use our energistic power to assemble a simulacrum.

They focused their minds on a stone lying at Sinon’s feet, fourteen thousand serjeants conceiving it as a small clear diamond with a flame of cold light burning bright at its centre. It rose into the air, shedding crumbs of mud as it went.

The original crystal swerved round and approached the illusion, orbiting it slowly. In response, the serjeants moved their crystal in a similar motion, the two of them describing an elaborate spiral over Sinon’s head.

That attracted its attention, Choma said confidently.

Cochrane arrived, panting heavily. “Hey, Tinks, slow down, babe.” He rested his hands on his upper thighs, glancing up with a crooked expression. “What’s going on here, man? Is she breeding?”

“We are attempting to open communications,” Sinon said.

“Yeah?” Cochrane reached up, his hand open. “Easy, dude.”

“Don’t—” Sinon and Stephanie said it simultaneously.

Cochrane’s hand closed round Tinkerbell. And kept closing. His fingers and palm elongated as though the air had become a distorting mirror. They were drawn down into the crystal. He squawked in panicked astonishment as his wrist stretched out fluidly and began to follow his hand into the interior. “Ho shiiiiit—” His body was abruptly tugged along, feet leaving the ground.

Stephanie exerted her energistic power, trying to pull him back. Insisting he return. She felt the serjeants adding their ability to hers. None of them could attach their desperate thoughts to the wailing hippie. His body’s physical mass had become elusive, it was like trying to grip on a rope of water.

The frantic yelling cut off as his head was sucked within the crystal’s boundary. The torso and legs followed quickly.

“Cochrane!” Franklin yelled.

A pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses with purple lenses fell to the ground.

Stephanie couldn’t even sense the hippie’s thoughts any more. She waited numbly to see who would be devoured next. It was only a couple of metres from her.

The crystal sparkled with red and gold light for a moment, then reverted to pure white. It shot off at high velocity across the rumpled mudlands towards the town.

“It killed him,” she grunted in horror.

“Ate him,” Rana said.

Alternatively, it took a sample, Sinon said to his fellow serjeants. The shocked humans probably wouldn’t want to hear quite such a clinical analysis.

It didn’t select Cochrane, Choma said. He selected it. Or more likely, it was a simple defence mechanism.

I hope not. That would imply we have come to a hostile environment. I would prefer to consider it a sampling process.

The method of capture was extraordinary, Choma said. Is it some kind of crystalline neutronium, perhaps? Nothing else could suck him in like that.

We don’t even know if gravity or solid matter exist in this realm, Sinon said. Besides, there was no energy emission. If his mass was being compressed by gravity, we would all have been obliterated by the radiation burst.

Then let us hope it was a sampling method. Yes. Sinon conveyed a slight uncertainty with his thought. Shame it was Cochrane.

It could have been Ekelund.

Sinon watched the crystal slicing freely across the land. It had become a cometary streak. That may yet happen.

 

Annette Ekelund had established her new headquarters on top of the steep mound which used to be Ketton’s town hall. Rectangular sections of various buildings had been salvaged from the ruins all around and propped up against each other; energistic power modified them into heavy canvas tents printed with green and black jungle camouflage. Three of them contained the last remaining stocks of food. One served as an armoury and makeshift engineering shop where Milne and his team worked repairing the rifles which had been dug from the wet soil. The last, sitting right on the brow, was Annette’s personal quarters and command post. She had the netting rolled up at both ends, giving her a good view out across the island’s blotchy grey-brown land right to the scabrous edges. Maps and clipboards were strewn cross the trestle table in the centre. Coloured pencils had marked out the army’s defensive fortifications around Ketton, along with possible lines of attack based on scout reports of the terrain outside. Serjeant positions and estimated strengths were all indicated.

The information had taken days to compile. Right now Annette was paying it no heed; she was glaring at the captain who stood to attention in front of her. Soi Hon lounged back in his canvas chair at the side of the table, watching the scene with no attempt to hide his amusement.

“Five of the patrol refused to come back,” the captain said. “They just kept on walking, said they were going to pitch in with the serjeants.”

“The enemy,” Annette corrected.

“Yes. The enemy. There was only three of us left after that. We couldn’t force them back.”

“You are pathetic,” Annette told him angrily. “How you were ever considered officer material I don’t know. You don’t just go with your men on walks around the perimeter, you’re their leader for Christ’s sake. That means you know their vulnerabilities as well as their strengths. You should have seen this coming, especially now you can sense their raw emotional state. They should never have been allowed out to betray us like this. Your fault.”

The captain gave her a look of incredulous dismay. “This is ridiculous. Everyone here is worried shitless. I could see that in them clear enough. There’s no way of telling what they were going to do about it.”

“You should have known. You’re on null rations for thirty-six hours, and demoted to corporal. Now get back to your division, you’re a disgrace.”

“I dug up that food. I was in the shit up to my elbows for two days working for it. You can’t do this. It’s mine.”

“It will be in thirty-six hours. Not before.”

They stared at each other across the table. Sheets of paper stirred silently.

“Fine,” the ex-captain snapped. He stormed out.

Annette glared after him, furious at how slack everyone was becoming. Didn’t any of them understand how critical these times were?

“Well handled,” Soi Hon said, his voice verging on a sneer.

“You think he should go unpunished? You wouldn’t believe how fast things would unravel if I didn’t enforce order.”

“Your society would unravel. Not individual lives.”

“You think another kind of society can survive here?”

“Let go, and see what evolves.”

“That’s major bullshit, even by your standards.”

Soi Hon shrugged, unconcerned. “I’d love to know where you think we’re actually heading if not oblivion.”

“This realm offers us sanctuary.”

“Will you cut my ration if I make an observation?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference. I know you. You have your own little stash somewhere, I’m sure.”

“I have learned prudence, I don’t deny. What I suggest you consider is the possibility that the serjeants might be correct. This realm might offer us sanctuary if we were on a planet. However, this island does appear to be terribly finite.”

“It is, but the realm is not. We came here instinctively; we knew this was the one place where we would be safe. It can be paradise, if we just believe in it. You’ve seen how our energistic power operates here. The effects take longer to form, but when they do the change is more profound.”

“Pity they can’t slowly grow us some food, or even air. I’d probably settle for a little more land.”

“If that’s what you think, why stay with me? Why not run away like all those weak fools?”

“You have the food secure, and there is no bush for me to hide in. Not even a single bush, in fact. Which pains me. This land is . . . not good. It has no spirit.”

“We can have what we want.” Annette was looking directly out of the open end of the tent at the sharp, close horizon. “We can give the land its spirit back.”

“How?”

“By finishing what we started. By escaping. They’re holding us back, you see.”

“The serjeants?”

“Yes.” She gave him a smile, content that he understood. “This is the realm where our dreams come true. But their dreams are of rationality and physics, the old order. They are machines, soulless, they cannot understand what we can become here. They hold our winged thoughts back in cages of steel. Imagine it, Soi, if we rid ourselves of their restraints. This island expanding, new land growing out from the cliff edges. Land that’s covered in rich green life. We are a seed here, we can germinate into something wonderful. Heaven is what you make it: that’s such a precious destiny, every human’s entitlement. And we can see it. Out there, waiting for us. We’ve come so far, they cannot be allowed to contaminate our minds with their dark yearning to remain in the past.”

Soi Hon raised an eyebrow. “A seed? That’s how you see this island?”

“Yes. One that can bloom into whatever kingdom we want.”

“I doubt that. I really do. We are humans in stolen bodies, not embryonic godlings.”

“And yet, we’ve already taken the first step.” She lifted her hands up in a theatrical offering to the sky. “After all, we said there was to be light, didn’t we?”

“I’ve read that book, but not many of my people did. How typically Euro-Christian, you think your origins and mythology populated the world. All you actually gave us was pollution, war, and disease.”

Annette grinned wolfishly. “Come on, Soi, show a little levity. Get radical again. This place can be made to work. Once we eliminate the serjeants we’ll have a chance.” Her smile faded as she sensed the babble of confusion and surprise emanating from within the communal mind of the serjeants. Ever-present, it sat on the edge of her consciousness, a dawn refusing to rise. Now their cool thoughts were changing, coming as close to panic as she’d known. “What’s upset them?”

She and Soi walked over to the end of the tent, and looked over at the dark mass of serjeants clustering in the foothills of Catmos Vale’s lost walls.

“Well, they’re not charging at us,” Soi said. “That’s gratifying.”

“Something’s wrong.” She brought up her field binoculars, and searched the serjeants’ encampment, trying to spot any abnormality amid the large dark bodies. They were sitting calmly together as always. Then she realized every head was turned to face her. The binoculars came down, allowing her to frown back at them. “I don’t get this.”

“There, look.” Soi was pointing at a bright spark rushing over the town’s perimeter fortifications. The soldiers below it were shouting and gesticulating wildly as it soared imperviously overhead.

It hurtled towards the mound at the centre of town.

“Mine,” Annette said warmly. With her feet apart, she brought her hands together in a pistol grip. A squat black maser carbine materialized, blunt barrel lining up on the approaching crystal.

“I don’t think that’s a weapon,” Soi said. He started to back away from Annette. “It didn’t come from the serjeants, they’re as puzzled as us.”

“It doesn’t have permission to enter my town.”

Soi started to run. A slim flare of intense white fire spewed out of Annette’s gun, darting towards the approaching crystal. It veered effortlessly aside, arcing over Soi. He stumbled as the spires of light pirouetted around him.

Smoothly and methodically, Annette turned to follow the invader. She pulled back on the trigger again, flinging the most potent bolt of white fire she could muster. It had no effect. The crystal whipped round in a tight parabola above Soi and accelerated back the way it came.

The serjeants watched it return. This time it never even slowed down as it tore through the air above them. Once it was over the cliff it began to curve downwards. Delvan rushed up to the very edge and flung himself flat on the crusted mud, head just peeping over. The last he saw of it was a glimmer of light descending parallel to the crinkled cliff-face before disappearing underneath the antagonistic planes of fractured rock.

 

The traders hooted and clanked their way along Cricklade’s drive in seven big lorries. Steam hissed energetically out of the iron stacks behind their cabs, while gleaming brass pistons spun the front wheels. They growled to a halt in front of the manor’s broad steps, dripping oil on the gravel and wheezing steam from leaky couplings.

Luca came forward to greet them. As far as he could tell, the thoughts of the people riding in the cabs were amicable enough. He wasn’t expecting trouble; traders had visited Cricklade before, but never in a convoy this size. A group of ten estate workers were on close call, just in case.

The traders’ leader climbed down out of the lead lorry and introduced himself as Lionel. He was a short man with flowing blond hair tied back with a leather lace, wearing worn blue denim jeans and a round-neck sweater: working clothes which were almost an extension of his forthright attitude. After a couple of minutes’ conversation, sizing each other up, Luca invited him indoors.

Lionel settled appreciatively into the study’s leather armchair, sipping at the Norfolk Tears Luca offered him. If he was concerned about the restrained, moody atmosphere grumbling around the manor, it never showed. “Our main commodity this trip is fish,” he said. “Mostly smoked, but we have some on ice as well. Apart from that, we’re carrying vegetable and fruit seeds, fertilised chicken eggs, some fancy perfumes, a few power tools. We’re trying to build a reputation for reliability, so if there’s something you want which we haven’t got, we’ll try to get hold of it for our next visit.”

“What are you looking for?” Luca asked as he sat down behind the broad desk.

“Flour, meat, some new tractor bearings, a power socket to recharge the lorries.” He raised his glass. “A decent drink.” They grinned, and touched their glasses. Lionel’s gaze lingered on Luca’s hand for a moment. The contrast between their skin was subtle, but noticeable. Luca’s was darker, thicker, a true guide to Grant’s age; Lionel maintained an altogether more youthful sheen.

“What sort of exchange rate were you thinking of for the fish?” Luca asked.

“For flour, five to one, direct weight.”

“Don’t bugger about wasting my time.”

“I’m not. Fish is meat, valuable protein. There’s also carriage; Cricklade’s a long way inland.”

“That’s why we have sheep and cattle; we’re exporting meat. But I can pay your carriage costs in electricity, we have our own heat shaft.”

“Our power cells are seventy per cent charged.”

The haggling went on for a good forty minutes. When Susannah came in she found them on their third round of Norfolk Tears. She sat on the side of Luca’s chair, his arm around her waist. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“I hope you like fish,” Luca told her. “We’ve just bought three tons of it.”

“Oh bloody hell.” She plucked the glass of Tears from his hand, and sipped thoughtfully. “I suppose there’s room in the freezer room. I’ll have to have a word with Cook.”

“Lionel has some interesting news, as well.”

“Oh?” She gave the trader a pleasant, enquiring look.

Lionel smiled, covering a mild curiosity. Like Luca, Susannah was letting her host body’s age show. The first middle-aged people he’d seen since Norfolk came to this realm. “We got our fish from a ship in Holbeach, the Cranborne. They were docked there a week ago, trading their cargo for an engine repair. Should still be there.”

“Yes?” she asked.

“The Cranborne is a merchant multitramp,” Luca said. “She just sails between islands picking up cargo and passengers, whatever pays; she can fish, dredge, harvest mintweed, icebreak, you name it.”

“Her current crew have rigged her with nets,” Lionel said. “There’s not much charter work going at the moment, so trawling has become their livelihood. They’re also talking about trading between islands. Once things have settled down, they’ll have a better idea of who produces what and the kind of goods they can carry to exchange.”

“I’m happy for them,” Susannah said. “Why tell me?”

“It’s a way of getting to Norwich,” Luca said. “A start, anyway.”

Susannah looked hard into his face, now falling back into Grant’s familiar features. The relapse had been accelerating ever since he returned from his trip to Knossington with the news that the aeroambulance didn’t work, its electronics simply couldn’t operate in this realm. “A voyage that far would be expensive,” she said quietly.

“Cricklade could afford it.”

“Yes,” she said carefully. “It could. But it’s not ours any more. If we take that much food or Tears or horses the others will claim we stole it. We wouldn’t be able to come back, not to Kesteven.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. They’re our children, and this is our home.”

“One means nothing without the other.”

“I don’t know,” she said, deeply troubled. “What’s to make the Cranborne crew stick to the agreement once we cast off?”

“What’s to stop us stealing their whole ship?” Luca replied wearily. “We have a civilization again, darling. It’s not the best, I know that. But it’s here, and it works. At least we can see treachery and dishonesty coming a long way off.”

“All right. So do you want to go? It’s not as if we haven’t got enough troubles,” she said guiltily, flicking a glance at the diplomatically quiet Lionel.

“I don’t know. I want to fight this; going means Grant has won.”

“It’s not a battle, it’s a matter of the heart.”

“Whose heart?” he whispered painfully.

“Excuse me,” Lionel said. “Have you considered that the people possessing your daughters might not be exactly welcoming? What were you planning on doing anyway? It’s not as if you can exorcise them and go walking off into a sunset. They’ll be as alien to you as you are to them.”

“They’re not alien to me,” Luca said. He sprang up from the chair, his whole body twitchy. “Damn it, I cannot stop worrying about them.”

“We’re all succumbing to our hosts,” Lionel said. “The easiest course is to acknowledge that, at least you’ll have some peace then. Are you prepared to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Luca ground out. “I just don’t.”

 

Carmitha ran her fingers along the woman’s arm, probing the structure of bone and muscle and tendon. Her eyes were closed as she performed the examination, her mind concentrated on the swirl of foggy radiance that was the flesh. It wasn’t just tactile feeling she relied on, cells formed distinct bands of shade, as if she was viewing a very out-of-focus medical text of the human body. Fingertips moved on half an inch, she pushed each one in carefully, as if she were stroking piano keys. Searching an entire body this way took over an hour, and even then it was hardly a hundred per cent effective. Only the surface was inspected. There were a great many cancers which could affect the organs, glands, and marrow; subtle monsters that would go unnoticed until it was far, far too late.

Something moved sideways under her forefinger. She played with it, testing its motion. A hard node, as if a small stone was embedded below the skin. Her mind’s vision perceived it as a white blur, sprouting a fringe of wispy tendrils that swam out into the surrounding tissue. “Another one,” she said.

The woman’s gasp was almost a sob. Carmitha had learned the hard way not to hide anything from her patients. Invariably, they knew of the spike of alarm in her own thoughts.

“I’m going to die,” the woman whimpered. “All of us are dying, rotting away. It’s our punishment for escaping the beyond.”

“Nonsense, these bodies are geneered, which makes them highly resistant to cancer. Once you stop aggravating it with energistic power it should sink into remission.” Her stock verbal placebo, repeated so many times in the days since Butterworth’s collapse that she’d begun to believe it herself.

Carmitha continued the examination, moving past the elbow. It was just a formality now. The woman’s thighs had been the worst; lumps like a cluster of walnuts where she’d driven away flab to give herself an adolescent glamour-queen’s rump. Fear had broken the instinct and desire for sublime youthful splendour. The unnatural punishment of her cells would end. Maybe the tumours really would go into remission.

Luca came knocking on the side of the caravan just as Carmitha was finishing. She told him to stay outside, and waited until the woman had put her clothes back on.

“It’ll be all right,” she said, and hugged her. “You just have to be you now, and be strong.”

“Yes,” came the dismal answer.

It wasn’t a time for lectures, Carmitha decided. Let her get over the shock first. Afterwards she could learn how to express her inner strength, fortifying herself. Carmitha’s grandmother used to place a lot of emphasis on thinking yourself well. “A weak mind lets in the germs.”

Luca carefully avoided meeting the woman’s tearful eyes as she came down out of the caravan, standing sheepishly to one side.

“Another one?” he asked after she went into the manor.

“Yep,” Carmitha said. “Mild case, this time.”

“Jolly good.”

“Not really. So far we’ve just seen the initial tumours develop. I’m just praying that your natural high resistance can keep them in check. If not, the next stage is metastasis, when the cancer cells start spreading through the body. Once that happens, it’s over.” She just managed to keep her resentment in check; the landowners and town dwellers were descended from geneered colonists, the Romanies had shunned such things.

He shook his head, too stubborn to argue. “How’s Johan?”

“His weight’s creeping back up, which is good. I’ve got him walking again, and given him some muscle-building exercises—also good. And he’s abandoned his body illusions completely. But the tumours are still there. At the moment his body is still too weak to fight them. I’m hoping that if we can get his general health level up, then his natural defences will kick in.”

“Is he fit enough to help run the estate?”

“Don’t even consider it. In a couple of weeks, I’ll probably ask him to help in my herb garden. That’s the most strenuous work therapy I’ll allow.”

Nothing he did could hide the disappointment in his mind.

“Why?” she asked in suspicion. “What did you want him to do that for? I thought the old estate was working smoothly. I can hardly notice the difference.”

“Just an option I’m considering, that’s all.”

“An option? You’re leaving?” The notion startled her.

“Thinking of it,” he said gruffly. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. But I don’t understand, where will you go?”

“To find the girls.”

“Oh, Grant,” she laid her hand on his arm, instantly sympathetic. “They’ll be all right. Even if Louise got possessed, no soul is going to alter her appearance, she’s too gorgeous.”

“I’m not Grant.” He glanced round the courtyard, twitchy and suspicious. “Talk about having an inner demon, though. God, you must be loving this.”

“Oh yeah, having a ball, me.”

“Sorry.”

“How many have you got?” she asked quietly.

There was a long pause before he answered. “Some down my chest. Arms. Feet, for Christ’s sake.” He grunted in disgust. “I never imagined my feet to be anything different. Why are they there?”

Carmitha hated his genuine puzzlement; Grant’s possessor was making her feel far too sympathetic towards him. “There’s no logic to these things.”

“Not many people know what’s happening, not outside Cricklade. That trader fellow, Lionel: hasn’t got a clue. I envy him that. But it won’t last, people like Johan must be dropping like flies all across the planet. When everyone realises, things are going to fall apart real fast. That’s why I wanted to start the voyage soon. If we have a second wave of anarchy, I might never find where the girls are.”

“We should get some real doctors in to take a look at you. That white fire could be used to burn the tumours away. We’ve all got X-ray sight now. No reason why it couldn’t. Maybe we don’t even need to be that drastic, you can just wish the cells dead.”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not like you, either of you. Don’t just sit around on your arse, find out. Get a doctor in. Massage and tea won’t help much in the long run, and that’s all I can provide. You can’t leave now, Luca, people accept you as the boss. Use what influence you’ve got to try and salvage this situation. Get them through this cancer scare.”

He let out a long reluctant sigh, then tilted his head, looking at her out of one eye. “You still think the Confederation’s coming to save you, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

“They’ll never find us. They’ve got two universes to search through.”

“Believe what you have to. I know what’s going to happen.”

“Friendly enemies, huh? You and me?”

“Some things never change, no matter what.”

He was saved from trying to get in a cutting reply by a stable hand running out into the courtyard, yelling that a messenger was coming from the town. He and Carmitha went through the kitchen and out through the manor’s main entrance.

A woman was riding a white horse up the drive. The pattern of thoughts locked inside her skull was familiar enough to both of them: Marcella Rye. Her horse’s gallop was matched by the excitement and trepidation in her mind.

She came to a halt in front of the broad stone stairs leading up to the marble portico and dismounted. Luca took the reins, doing his best to soothe the agitated beast.

“We’ve just had word from the villages along the railway,” she said. “There’s a bunch of marauders heading this way. Colsterworth council respectfully requests, and all that bullshit. Luca, we need some help to see the bastards off. Apparently they’re armed. Raided an old militia depot on the outskirts of Boston, got away with rifles and a dozen machine guns.”

“Oh, this is fucking brilliant,” Luca said. “Life here just keeps getting better and better.”

 

Luca studied the train through his binoculars (genuine ones, handed down to Grant by his father). He was sure it was the same one as before, but there had been changes. Four extra carriages had been added, not that anyone travelled in comfort. This was an iron battle wagon whose armour plates (genuine, Luca thought) ran along its entire length, riveted crudely around ordinary carriages. It clanked along the rail track towards Colsterworth at an unrelenting thirty miles an hour. Bruce Spanton had finally managed to turn the concept of an irresistible force into a physical entity, putting it down straight into Norfolk’s Turneresque countryside where it didn’t belong.

“There’s more of them this time,” Luca said. “I suppose we could roll the rails up again.”

“That monstrosity isn’t built for reversing,” Marcella said grimly. “You have to turn the minds around, their tails will follow.”

“Between their legs.”

“You got it.”

“Ten minutes till they get here. We’d better get people into position and dream up a strategy.” He’d brought nearly seventy estate workers with him from Cricklade. The announcement by Colsterworth Council had resulted in over five hundred townsfolk volunteering to fight off the marauders. Another thirty or so had gathered from outlying farms, determined to protect the food they’d worked hard to gather. All of them had brought shotguns or hunting rifles from their adopted homes.

Luca and Marcella organized them into four groups. The largest, three hundred strong, were formed up in a horseshoe formation surrounding Colsterworth station. Two outlying parties were hanging back from the cusps, ready to swarm across the rail and encircle the marauders. The remainder, three dozen on horseback, made up a cavalry force ready to chase down anyone who escaped from the attack.

They spent the last few minutes walking along the ranks, getting them into order and making sure they had all hardened their clothes into bullet-proof armour. Real gunshots were harder to ward off in this realm. Carbosilicon-reinforced flak-jackets were the popular solution, making the front line take on the appearance of a police riot brigade from the mid-Twenty-first Century.

“It’s our right to exist as we choose that we’re standing for,” Luca told them repeatedly as he walked along, inspecting his troops. “We’re the ones who’ve made something of these circumstances, built a decent life for ourselves. I’ll be buggered if I’m going to let this rabble wreck that. They cannot be allowed to live off us, that makes us nothing more than chattel.”

Everywhere he went, he received murmurs and nods of agreement. The defenders’ resolution and confidence expanded, building into a physical aura which began to tint the air with a hearty red translucence. When he took up position with Marcella they simply grinned at each other, relishing the fight. The train was only a mile out of town now, coming round the last bend onto the straight leading to the station. It tooted its whistle in an angry defiant blast. The red haze over the station glowed brighter. A crack split open along the middle of the wooden sleepers, starting five yards from Luca’s feet and extending out past the end of the platforms. It opened barely six inches, and halted, quivering in anticipation. Granite chippings trickled over the edges, to be swallowed silently by the abyssal darkness which had been uncovered.

Luca stared directly at the front of the train, facing down its protruding cannon barrels. “Just keep coming, arsehole,” he said quietly.

Subtlety simply wasn’t an option. Both sides knew the rough strengths and position of the other. It could never be anything other than a direct head-to-head confrontation. A contest of energistic strength and imagination, with the real guns an unwelcome sideshow.

Half a mile from the station, and the train slowed slightly. The rear two carriages detached and braked to a halt amid fantails of orange sparks from their locked wheels. Their sides hinged down to form ramps, and jeeps raced down onto the ground. They’d been configured into armour-plated dune buggies with thick roll bars; huge deep-tread tyres were powered from four-litre petrol engines that spurted filthy exhaust fumes out into the air with a brazen roar. Each one had a machine gun mounted above the driver, operated by a gunner dressed in leather jacket with flying goggles and helmet.

They sped away from the carriages in an attempt to outflank the townie defenders. Luca gave a signal to his own cavalry. They charged out into the fields, heading to intercept the jeeps. The train kept thundering onwards.

“Get ready,” Marcella shouted.

Puffs of white smoke shot out from the train’s cannon. Luca ducked down in reflex, hardening the air around himself. Shells started to explode at the end of the station, thick plumes of earth smearing the blank skyline amid bursts of orange light. Two struck the fringe of red air, detonating harmlessly twenty yards above the ground. Shrapnel flew away from the protective boundary. A cheer rang out from the defenders.

“We got ’em,” Luca growled triumphantly.

Machine gun fire rattled across the fields as the jeeps raced round in tight curves, churning up furrows of mud. They drove straight through gates, bursting the timber bars apart with a flash of white light. Horses cantered after them, jumping the hedges and walls effortlessly. Their riders were shooting from the saddle, as well as flinging bolts of white fire. The jeep engines started to cough and stutter as fluxes of energistic power played hell with the power cells encased deep within the semisolid illusion.

The train was only a quarter of a mile away now. Its cannon were still firing continuously. The land beyond the end of the station was taking the full brunt of the impact: craters erupted continuously, sending soil, grass, trees, and stone walls ploughing though the air. Luca was surprised at the diminutive size of the craters, he’d expected the shells to be more powerful. They did produce a lot of smoke, though; thick grey-blue clouds churning frenetically against the sheltering bubble of redness. They almost obscured the train from view.

Luca frowned suspiciously at that. “They could be a cover,” he shouted at Marcella above the bass thunder of exploding shells.

“No way,” she yelled back. “We can sense them, remember. Smoke screens don’t work here.”

Something was wrong, and Luca knew it. When he switched his attention back to the train, he could sense the note of triumph emanating from it, just as strong as his own. Yet nothing the marauders had done assured them of victory. Nothing he could perceive.

Layers of smoke from the shells were creeping sluggishly towards the station. As they slithered through the edge of the red light they gleamed with a dark claret phosphorescence. People in the reserve groups clustered outside the platforms were reacting strangely as the first wisps curled and flexed around them. Waving their hands in front of their faces as if warding off a mulish wasp, they began to stagger around. Ripples of panic raced out from their minds, impinging against those close by.

“What’s happening to them?” Marcella demanded.

“Not sure.” Luca watched the slow spread of the crimson smoke. Its behaviour was perfectly natural, fronds undulating and twisting about on the currents of air. Nothing directed it, no malicious energistic pressure, yet wherever it spread chaos ensued. He took time to make the appalling connection; even telling himself Spanton would delve as low as it was possible to go, he found it hard to credit such depravity.

“Gas,” he said, dumbfounded. “That’s not smoke. The bastard’s using gas!”

Machine guns and rifles opened fire from every slot cut into the train’s armoured sides. With the defenders distracted, bullets were able to slice nonchalantly through the rosy air. The front rank of townsfolk were punched backwards as bullets hammered into their flak jackets. Abruptly, there was no more pink air. The human survival instinct was too strong, everyone concentrated on saving themselves.

“Blow it back at them!” Luca bellowed across the commotion. The train was only a few hundred yards away now, pistons growling furiously as it slid remorselessly along the track towards him. He flung his hands out and shoved at the air.

Marcella followed suit. “Do it,” she shouted at the closest townsfolk. “Push!”

They began to imitate her, sending out a stream of energistic power to repel the air and with it the deadly gas. The idea spread fast among the defenders, becoming real as soon as it was thought of. They didn’t need to act, only to think.

Air began to move, groaning over the station walls as it sped above the rails, its speed increasing steadily. The pillars of smoke began to bend away from their craters, breaking into tufts which slid away towards the approaching train. Leaves and twigs from the macerated hedges were picked up and carried along by the wind. They broke harmlessly against the black iron prow of the train, fluffing round it in an agitated slipstream.

Luca yelled in wordless exultation, adding the air from his lungs to the torrent surging past his body. It had risen to gale force, pushing at him. He linked arms with his neighbours, and together they rooted themselves in the ground. Unity of purpose had returned, bringing them an unchallenged mastery of the air. Now the flow had begun, they started to shape it, narrowing its force to howl vengefully against the train. Hanging baskets along the platforms swung up parallel to the ground, tugging frantically at their brackets.

The train slowed, braked by the awesome force of the horizontal tornado hurled against it. Steam from its stack and leaky junctions was ripped away to join the hurtling streamers of lethal gas. The marauders couldn’t keep their rifles steady; the wind tore at them, twisting and shaking until they threatened to wrench free. Cannon barrels were pushed out of alignment. They’d already stopped firing.

All of the defenders were contributing their will to the raging wind now; directing it square against the train and bringing it to a shuddering halt a hundred yards from the station. Then they upped the force; adrenaline glee providing further inspiration. The iron beast rocked, the weight of its thick cladding counting for nothing.

“We can do it,” Luca cried, his words ripped away by the supernatural wind. “Keep going.” It was a prospect shared by all, encouraged by the first creaking motion of the great engine’s frame.

The marauders inside turned their own energistic power to anchoring themselves. They didn’t have the numbers to win any trial of strength.

Lumps of granite from the rail track collided against the train. The rails themselves were torn up to smash against the engine, wrapping themselves around the boiler.

One set of wheels along the side of the engine left the ground. For a moment the machine hung poised on the remaining wheels as those inside strove to counter the toppling motion. But the defending townsfolk refused to release the maelstrom they’d created, and the metal bogies buckled. The engine crashed onto its side, twisting the carriage directly behind it through ninety degrees.

If it had been a natural derailment, that would have been the end of it. In this case, the townsfolk kept on pushing. The engine flipped again, pointing its crushed bogies directly into the sky. Vicious jets of steam poured out of the broken pistons, only to be dissolved by the gale. Again the engine turned as the hurricane clawed at its black flanks, trawling the remaining carriages along. Its momentum was picking up now, turning the motion into a continuous roll. The links between the carriages snapped apart. They scattered across the fields, bulldozing through any trees that got in their way and skidding down into ditches where they came to a jarring halt.

The engine just kept on rolling, impelled by the wind and thoughts of its intended victims. Eventually the boiler broke open, severing the big machine’s spine. A cloud of steam exploded out from the huge rent, vanishing quickly into the caterwauling sky to be replaced by an avalanche of debris. Fragments of very modern-looking machinery tumbled down over the ruined land. All illusion of the steam-powered colossi had expired, leaving one of the Norfolk Railway Company’s ordinary eight-wheel tractor units buried in the soil.

With the wind stilled, Luca left Marcella to organize medic parties for the defenders who’d succumbed to the gas. Even now, a dangerous chemical stink prowled around the shell craters. Those who claimed knowledge of such matters said it could be a type of phosphor, or possibly chlorine, maybe something even worse. The names they gave it didn’t bother Luca, only the intent behind it. He’d walked along the row of casualties, grimacing at the protruding eyes that wept tears of salty water and blood in equal quantities; tried to speak reassuring words over the terrible hacking coughs.

After that, there could be no doubt what had to be done.

He’d gathered a small band of estate workers to accompany him. Remembering his first encounter with Spanton, he headed over the fields to the wrecked engine.

Metal sheets of some kind had indeed been welded over the tractor unit’s body. Not iron after all, just some lightweight construction material; a framework easily moulded into thick armour in the mind of the beholder. They’d suffered considerably from the sheer brutality of the wind. Some of the cannon barrels had broken off, while the remainder were mangled. The main body of the unit had bent itself into a lazy V, with the forward end wedged down into the ground.

Luca walked round to the cab. It had crumpled badly, sides bowing inwards and roof concave, reducing the space inside to less than that of a wardrobe. He crouched down and peered through the crooked window slit.

Bruce Spanton stared back at him. His body was trapped between various chunks of metal and warped piping that had sprung from the walls. Blood from his crushed legs and arm mingled with oil and muddy soil. His face was the pale grey of shock victims, with different features than before. The wraparound sunglasses had been discarded along with the swept-back hair; no illusion remained.

“Thank Christ,” he gasped. “Get me outta here, man. It’s all I can do to stop my fucking legs from dropping off.”

“I thought I’d find you in here,” Luca replied equitably.

“So you found me. So I’ll give you a fucking medal. Just get me out. These walls all got smashed to shit in the rumble. It hurts so bad I can’t even switch off the pain like usual.”

“A rumble? Is that what this was?”

“What are you trying to pull!” Spanton screamed. He stopped, grimacing wildly from the pain which his outburst triggered. “All right, okay. You won. You’re the king of the hill. Now bend some of this metal away.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s what?”

“We won, you lose. It’s over?”

“What do you fucking think, dickhead?”

“Ah. I get it. You walk off into the sunset and never come back. That’s it. The end. No hard feelings. Everything turned out okay, and you’ll just slaughter some other bunch of people with poison gas. Maybe a smaller town, who won’t be able to fight back. Well great. Absolutely fabulous. That’s why I came out to help this town. So you could have your rumble and turn your back on us.”

“What do you fucking want?”

“I want to live. I want to be able to look out at the end of the day and see what I’ve accomplished. I want my family to benefit from that. I want them to be safe. I don’t want to have them worry about insane megalomaniacs who think being tough entitles them to live off the backs of ordinary decent working people.” He smiled down at Spanton’s stricken face. “Am I ringing any bells here? Do you see yourself in any of that?”

“I’ll go. Okay? We’ll get off this island. You can put us on a ship, make sure we really leave.”

“It’s not where you are that’s the problem. It’s what you are.” Luca straightened up.

“What? That’s it? Get me out of here, you shit.” He started thumping the walls with a fist.

“I don’t think so.”

“You think I’m a problem now, you don’t even know what a problem is, asshole. I’ll show you what a real goddamn motherfucking problem is.”

“That’s what I thought.” Luca swung his pump action shotgun round until the muzzle was six inches from Spanton’s forehead. He kept firing until the man’s head was blown off.

Bruce Spanton’s soul slithered up out of his bloody corpse along with the body’s true soul; an insubstantial wraith rising like lethargic smoke out of the train’s wreckage. Luca looked straight into translucent eyes that suddenly realized actual death was occurring after centuries of wasted half-existence. He held that gaze, acknowledging his own guilt as the writhing spectre slowly faded from sight and being. It took mere seconds, a period which compressed a lifetime of bitter fear and aching resentment into its length.

Luca stood shivering from the profound impact of knowledge and emotion. I did what I had to do, he told himself. Spanton had to be stopped. To do nothing would be to destroy myself.

The estate workers were watching him cautiously, their thoughts subdued as they waited to see what he did next.

“Let’s go round up the rest of them,” Luca said. “Especially that bastard chemist.” He started walking towards the nearest carriage, thumbing new cartridges into the pump action’s empty chamber.

The others began to trail after him, holding their weapons tighter than before.

 

Cricklade hadn’t known screams like it since the day Quinn Dexter arrived. A high-pitched note of uniquely female agony coming from an open window overlooking the courtyard. The becalmed air of a bright early-autumn day helped carry the sound a long way over the manor’s steep rooftops, agitating the stabled horses and causing men to flinch guiltily.

Véronique’s waters had broken in the early hours the day after Luca had led his band of estate workers away to help fight the marauders. Carmitha had been with her since daybreak, closeted away in one of the West Wing’s fancy bedroom suites. She suspected the room might even have belonged to Louise; it was grand enough, with a large bed as the central feature (though not big enough to qualify as a double; that would never do for a single landowner girl). Not that Louise would want it now.

Véronique was propped up on the middle of the mattress, with Cook dabbing away at her straining face with a small towel. Other than that, it was all down to Véronique and Carmitha. And the baby, who was reluctant to put in a fast appearance.

At least Carmitha’s new-found sense allowed her to see that it was the right way round for the birth, and the umbilical cord hadn’t got wrapped round its neck. Nor were there any other obvious complications. Basically, that just left her to look, sound, and radiate assured confidence. She had after all assisted with a dozen natural childbirths, which was a great comfort to everyone else involved. Somehow, what with the way Véronique looked up to her as a cross between her long-lost mother and a fully qualified gynaecologist, she’d never actually mentioned that assistance involved handing over towels when told and mopping up for the real midwife.

“I can see the head,” Carmitha said excitedly. “Just trust me now.”

Véronique screamed again, trailing off into an angry whimper. Carmitha placed her hands over the girl’s swollen belly, and exerted her energistic power, pushing with the contractions. Véronique kept on screaming as the baby emerged. Then she broke into tears.

It happened a lot quicker than usual thanks to the energistic pressure. Carmitha caught hold of the infant and eased gently, making the last moments more bearable for the exhausted girl. Then it was the usual fast panic routine of getting the umbilical tied and cut. Véronique sobbing delightedly. People moving in with towels and smiles of congratulations. Having to wipe the baby off. Delivering the placenta. Endless mopping up.

New to this was applying some energistic power to repair the small tears in Véronique’s vaginal walls. Not too much, Carmitha was still worried about the long-term effects which even mild healing might trigger. But it did abolish the need for stitches.

By the time Carmitha finally finished tidying up, Véronique was lying on clean sheets, cradling her baby daughter with a classic aura of exhausted happiness. And a smooth mind.

Carmitha studied her silently for a moment. There was none of the internal anguish caused by a possessing soul riding roughshod over the host. Sometime during the pain and blood and joy, two had become one, merging at every level in celebration of new life.

Véronique smiled shyly upwards at Carmitha. “Isn’t she wonderful?” she entreated of the drowsy baby. “Thank you so much.”

Carmitha sat on the edge of the bed. It was impossible not to smile down at the wrinkled-up face, so innocent of its brand-new surroundings. “She’s lovely. What are you going to call her?”

“Jeanette. Both our families have had that name in it.”

“I see. That’s good.” Carmitha kissed the baby’s brow. “You two get some rest now. I’ll pop by in an hour or so to check up on you.”

She walked through the manor out into the courtyard. Dozens of people stopped her on the way; asking how it had gone, were mother and child all right? She felt happy to be dispensing good news for once, helping to lift some of the worry and tension that was stifling Cricklade.

Luca found her sitting in the open doorway at the back of her caravan, taking long drags from a reefer. He leant against the rear wheel and folded his arms to look at her. She offered him the joint.

“No thanks,” he said. “I didn’t know you did that.”

“Just for the occasional celebration. There’s not much weed about on Norfolk. We have to be careful where we plant it. You landowners get very uptight about other people’s vices.”

“I’m not going to argue with you. I hear the baby arrived.”

“She did, yes, she’s gorgeous. And so is Véronique, now.”

“Now?”

“She and Olive kissed and made up. They’re one now. One person. I guess that’s the way the future’s going for all of you.”

“Ha!” Luca grunted bitterly. “You’re wrong there, girl. I killed people today. Butterworth’s right to fear his health. Once your body goes in this realm, you go with it. There’s no ghosts, no spirits, no immortality. Just death. We screwed up—lost our one chance to go where we wanted, and we didn’t go there.”

Carmitha exhaled a long stream of sweet smoke. “I think you did.”

“Don’t talk crap, my girl.”

“You’re back where we thought the human race started from. What exists here is all we had before people began inventing things and making electricity. It’s the kind of finite world humans feel safe in. Magic exists here, though it’s not good for much. Very few machines work, nothing complicated, and certainly no electronics. And death . . . death is real. Hell, we’ve even got gods on the other side of the sky again; gods with powers beyond anything possible here, made in our own image. In a couple of generations, we’ll only have rumours of gods. Legends that tell how this world was made, racing out of the black emptiness in a blaze of red fire. What’s that if it’s not a new beginning in a land of innocence? This place isn’t for you, it never was. You’ve reinvented the biological imperative, and made it mean something this time. All that you are must carry on through your children. Every moment has to be lived to the full, for you’ll get no more.” She took another drag, the end of the joint glowing bright tangerine. Small sparks were reflected in her gleeful eyes. “I rather like that, don’t you?”

 

Stephanie’s bullet wound had healed enough to let her walk round the headland camp; she and Moyo and Sinon made the circuit twice a day. Their small secluded refuge had grown in a chaotic manner as the deserters from Ekelund’s army dribbled in. Now it sprawled like an avalanche of sleeping bags away from the cliff edge. The new people tended to stay in small groups, huddling together round the pile of whatever items they’d brought with them. The only rule the serjeants had about extending sanctuary from Ekelund was that they hand over their real weapons once they arrived. Nobody had objected enough to return.

As she circled round the knots of subdued people, Stephanie picked up enough fragments of conversation to guess what awaited any deserter foolish enough to venture back. Ekelund’s paranoia was growing at a worrying rate. And Tinkerbell’s appearance hadn’t helped. Apparently, the crystal entity had been shot at. That was the reason for it fleeing away into the empty glare.

As if they didn’t have enough to worry about with their current predicament, there was now the prospect Ekelund had started a war.

“I miss him, too,” Moyo said sympathetically. He squeezed Stephanie’s hand in an attempt at reassurance.

She smiled faintly, thankful he’d picked up on her melancholic thoughts. “A couple of days without him, and we’re all going to pieces.” She paused to take a breath. Perhaps her recovery wasn’t as advanced as she liked to imagine. “Let’s go back,” she said. These little walks had started out to give the newcomers some sense of identity, that they were all part of a big new family. She was the one they’d come to, and she wanted to show she was available to them if they needed it. Most of them recognized her as she walked past. But there were so many now that they had their own identity, and it was the serjeants who guaranteed their safety. Her role had diminished to nothing. And God forbid I should try to manufacture my own importance like Ekelund.

The three of them turned and headed back to the little encampment where their friends kept a vigil over Tina. A little way beyond it, the serjeants formed a line of watchers strung out along the top of the cliff, searching for any sign of Tinkerbell. They covered almost a fifth of the rim now, and Sinon told her their mini-consensus was considering stationing them all the way round the island. When she’d asked if Ekelund might consider that a threatening move, the big bitek construct merely shrugged. “Some things are considerably more important than placating her neuroses,” he’d said.

“Quick inspection tour,” Franklin remarked as they returned.

Stephanie guided Moyo to a comfortable sitting position a couple of metres from Tina’s makeshift bed and sprawled on a blanket beside him. “I’m not exactly an inspiring sight any more.”

“Of course you are, darling,” Tina said.

Everyone had to strain to hear her. She was in a bad way now. The serjeants, Stephanie knew, had basically given up and were just making what they considered her last days as comfortable as possible. Even though Rana rarely even let go of her friend’s hand, she didn’t exert any energistic power other than a general wish for Tina to mend. Active interference with the woman’s crushed organs would probably only make things worse. Tina didn’t have the willpower to maintain any form of body illusion any more. Her dangerously pale skin was visible for anyone to see as she laboured for air. The stopgap intravenous tube was still feeding fluid into her arm, though her body seemed determined to sweat it out at a faster rate.

They all knew it wouldn’t be long now.

Stephanie was furious with herself for wondering what would happen. If Tina’s soul would migrate back to the beyond, or be trapped here; or if she’d simply and finally die. A legitimate enough interest given their situation. But Stephanie was sure Tina would pick up the pulse of guilt in her mind.

“We’re still attracting Ekelund’s discards,” she said. “At this rate everyone will be camping here with us in another week.”

“What week?” McPhee grumbled softly. “Can you no’ feel the air fouling?”

“The carbon dioxide level is not detectable at this moment,” Choma said.

“Oh? And what are you lot doing to help right now?” McPhee indicated the line of stationary serjeants standing along the cliff. “Other than making that madwoman more paranoid.”

“Our efforts continue,” Sinon said. “We are still trying to formulate a method of opening a wormhole, and our observation role has been increased.”

“Putting our hopes on a bloody fairy! This place must be making us all soft in the head.”

“That term is a misnomer, though a perfectly understandable one for Cochrane to use.”

“I guess that means you still haven’t figured out what it was,” Moyo said.

“Unfortunately not. Though the fact that some kind of intelligence exists here is an encouraging development.”

“If you say so.” He turned away.

Stephanie snuggled up closer to Moyo, enjoying the reflex way his arm went round her shoulders. Being together made the awful wait a tiny bit more tolerable. She just couldn’t work out what she wanted to happen first. Though they’d not spoken of it, the serjeants would probably try to open a wormhole back to Mortonridge. As a possessed, it would hardly be a rescue for her. Perhaps staying here until the carbon dioxide built to a lethal level was preferable.

She flicked another guilty glance at Tina.

Three hours later, the wait ended. This time the serjeants saw it coming. A riot of tiny dazzling crystals swooped out around the base of the flying island to rush up vertically. They erupted over the top of the cliff like a silent white firestorm. Thousands of them curved in mid air and cascaded downwards to spread out above the headland camp, slowing to hover just over the heads of the astounded humans and serjeants.

The light level was quadrupled, forcing Stephanie to shield her hand with her eyes. Not that it did much to protect her from the vivid scintillations. Even the drab ground was sparkling.

“Now what?” she asked Sinon.

The serjeant watched the swirl of crystals drifting idly, sharing what he saw with the others. There was no real pattern to their movement. “I have no idea.”

They are watching us as we watch them, Choma said. They have to be probes of some kind.

It is likely, Sinon said.

Something is coming, the serjeants along the cliff warned. A disc of raw light was expanding out from underneath the island. Not that it could have been hidden there, it was well over a hundred kilometres in diameter. The emergence effect was similar to an Adamist starship’s ZTT jump, but much much slower.

Once it had finished distending, it began to rise up parallel to the cliff. A cold, brilliant sun slid over the horizon to fill a third of the sky. It wasn’t a solid sphere, snowflake geometries fluctuated behind the overpowering glare.

The small crystals parted smoothly, racing away over the landscape, leaving nothing between the headland camp and the massive visitor. Fountains of iridescence erupted deep inside it, mushrooming open against the prismatic surface. Streaks and speckles shimmered and danced around each other, striving for order within the huge blemish.

It was the sheer size of the image they melded into which defeated Stephanie for some time. Her eyes simply couldn’t accept what she was seeing.

Cochrane’s face, thirty kilometres high, smiled down at them.

“Hi, guys,” he said, “Guess what I found.”

Stephanie started laughing. She used the back of her hand to smear tears across her cheeks.

The crystal sphere drifted in towards Ketton island, dimming slightly as it came. When it was a few metres from the cliff, a tiny circular section darkened completely, and receded inside in a swift fluidic motion.

At Cochrane’s urging, Stephanie and her friends, along with Sinon and Choma, stepped through the opening. The tubular tunnel had smooth walls of clear crystal, with thin green planes bisecting the bulk of the material around it. After a hundred metres it opened out into a broad lenticular cavern a kilometre wide. Here, the long fractures of light beneath their feet glimmered crimson, copper, and azure, intersecting in a continual filigree that melted away into the interior. There was no sign of the fearsome light emitted by the outer shell, yet they could see out. Ketton island was clearly visible behind them, distorted by the compacted facets of crystal.

One of the red sheets of light fissuring the cavern wall began to enlarge, the crystal conducting it withdrawing silently. Cochrane walked out of the opening, grinning wildly. He whooped and rushed over to his friends. Stephanie was crushed in his embrace.

“Man! It is good to see you again, babe.”

“You, too,” she whispered back.

He went round the rest of the group, greeting them exuberantly; even the serjeants got high fives.

“Cochrane, what the hell is this thing?” Moyo asked.

“Don’t you recognize her?” the hippie asked in mock surprise. “This is Tinkerbell, dude. Mind you, she inverted, or something like that, since you saw us last.”

“Inverted?” Sinon asked. He was gazing round the chamber, sharing his sight with the serjeants outside.

“Her physical dimension, yeah. There’s a whole load of real groovy aspects to her which I don’t really dig. I think, if she wants, she can get a lot bigger than this. Cosmic thought, right?”

“But what is she?” Moyo asked impatiently.

“Ah.” Cochrane gestured round uncertainly. “The information has been kinda flowing mostly one way. But she can help us. I think.”

“Tina’s dying,” Stephanie said abruptly. “Can anything be done to heal her?”

Cochrane’s bells tinkled quietly as he shuffled about. “Well sure, man, no need to shout. I’m awake to what’s going down.”

“The smaller crystals are gathering around Tina,” Sinon reported, looking at what he could see through the serjeants tending the invalid. “They appear to be encasing her.”

“Can we talk to this Tinkerbell directly?” Choma asked.

“You may,” a clear directionless female voice said.

“Thank you,” the serjeant said sombrely. “What are you called?”

“I have been named Tinkerbell, in your language.”

Cochrane twisted under the stares directed at him. “What?”

“Very well,” Choma said. “Tinkerbell, we’d like to know what you are, please.”

“The closest analogy would be that I have a personality like an Edenist habitat multiplicity. I have many divisions; I am singular as I am manifold.”

“Are the small crystals outside segments of yourself?”

“No. They are other members of my race. Their physical dynamic is in a different phase from mine, as Cochrane explained.”

“Did Cochrane explain to you how we got here?”

“I assimilated his memories. It has been a long time since I encountered an organic being, but no damage was incurred to his neural structure during the reading procedure.”

“How could you tell?” Rana muttered. Cochrane gave her a thumbs up.

“Then you understand our predicament,” Stephanie said. “Is there a way back to our universe?”

“I can open a gateway back to it for you, yes.”

“Oh God.” She sagged against Moyo, overwhelmed with relief.

“However, I believe you should resolve your conflict first. Before we began our existence in this realm, we were biological. Our race began as yours; a commonality which permits me to appreciate the ethics and jurisprudence that you observe at your current level of evolution. The dominant consciousness has stolen these bodies. That is wrong.”

“So’s the beyond,” McPhee shouted. “You’ll no’ make me go back there without a fight.”

“That will not be necessary,” Tinkerbell said. “I can provide you with several options.”

“You said you used to be biological beings,” Sinon said. “Will we all evolve into your current form in this realm?”

“No. There is no evolution here. We chose to transfer ourselves here a long time ago. This form was specifically engineered to sustain our consciousness in conjunction with the energy pattern which is the soul. We are complete and essentially immortal now.”

“Then we were right,” Moyo said. “This realm is a kind of heaven.”

“Not in the human classical religious sense,” Tinkerbell said. “There are no city kingdoms with divine creatures tending them, nor even levels of ecstasy and awareness for your souls to rise through. In fact, this realm is quite hostile to naked souls. The energy pattern dissipates rapidly. You are capable of dying here.”

“But we wanted a refuge,” McPhee insisted. “That’s what we imagined when we forced the way open to come here.”

“A wish granted in essence if not substance. Had you arrived with an entire planet to live on, then its atmosphere and biosphere would sustain you for thousands of generations; at least as long as it would orbiting a star. This realm is about stability and longevity. That’s why we came here. But we were prepared for our new life. Unfortunately, you came here on a barren lump of rock.”

“You speak of change,” Sinon said. “And you know of souls. Is your kind of existence the answer to our problem? Should our race learn how to transform itself into an entity like you?”

“It is an answer, certainly. Whether you would be ready to sacrifice what you have to achieve our actuality, I would doubt. You are a young species, with a great deal of potential ahead of you. We were not. We were old and stagnant; we still are. The universe of our birth holds no mysteries to us. We know its origin and its destination. That is why we came here. This realm is harmonious to us; it has our tempo. We will wait out our existence here, observing what comes our way. That is our nature. Other races and cultures would take the path to decadence or transcendence. I wonder which you will select when it is your time?”

“I like to think transcendence,” Sinon said. “But as you say, we are a younger, less mature race than you. Dreaming of such a destiny is inevitable for us, I suggest.”

“I concede the point.”

“Can you tell us of a valid answer to the problem of possession we currently face, how we can send our souls safely through the beyond?”

“Unfortunately, the Kiint were correct to tell you such a resolution must come from within.”

“Do all races who have resolved the question of souls apply this kind of moral superiority in their dealings with inferior species?”

“You are not inferior, merely different.”

“Then what are our options?” Stephanie asked.

“You can die,” Tinkerbell said. “I know you have all expressed a wish for that. I can make it happen. I can remove your soul from the body it possesses, which will allow this realm’s nature to take its course. Your host will be restored, and can return to Mortonridge.”

“Not too appealing,” she said shakily. “Anything else?”

“Your soul would be welcome to join me in this vessel. You would become part of my multiplicity.”

“If you can do that, then just give each of us our own vessel.”

“While we are effectively omnipotent within this realm, that ability is beyond us. The instrument which brought us here, and assembled our current vessels, was left behind in your universe long ago. We had no further use for it, so we thought.”

“Can’t you go back?”

“Theoretically, yes. But intent is another thing. And we don’t know if the instrument still exists. Moreover, you would probably be unable to adapt to such a vessel by yourself; our psychology is different.”

“None of those are very attractive,” she said.

“To you,” Choma interjected quickly. “To most of the serjeants, transferring ourselves into a new style of multiplicity is very attractive.”

“Which opens up a further option,” Tinkerbell said. “I can also transfer your souls into the empty serjeant bodies.”

“That’s better,” Stephanie said. “But if we go back, even in serjeant bodies, we’ll still wind up in the beyond at some later time.”

“That depends. Your race may decide how to deal with souls that become trapped in the beyond before that happens.”

“You’re giving us a lot of credit. Judging by our current record, I’m not sure we deserve it. If you can’t shoot it, people aren’t interested.”

“You are being unfair,” Sinon said.

“But honest. The military mind has infiltrated government for centuries until they became one,” Rana said.

“Don’t start,” Cochrane grunted. “This is like important, you dig?”

“I don’t pretend to predict what will come,” Tinkerbell said. “We abandoned that arrogance when we came here. You seem to be determined. That usually suffices.”

“Did you come here purely to circumvent the beyond?” Sinon asked. “Was this your racial solution?”

“Not at all. As I said, we are an old species. While we were still in our biological form we evolved into a collective of collectives. We gathered knowledge for millennia, explored galaxies, examined different dimensional realms coexisting with our own universe—everything a new race does as fresh insights and understanding open up. Eventually there was nothing original for us, only variations on a theme that had been played a million times before. Our technology was perfect, our intellects complete. We stopped reproducing, for there was no longer any reason to introduce new minds to the universe; they could only ever have heritage, never discovery. At such a point some races die out contentedly, releasing their souls to the beyond. We chose this transference, the final accomplishment for our technological mastery. An instrument capable of moving the consciousness from a biological seat to this state was a challenge even for us. You can only sense the physical aspects of this vessel, and even those can be at variance with what you understand. As I think you realize.”

“Why bother with an instrument? We came here by willpower alone.”

“The energistic power you have is extremely crude. Our vessels cannot even exist fully in the universe, the energy patterns they support have no analogue there. Their construction requires a great deal of finesse.”

“What about others? Have you discovered any life forms here?”

“Many. Some like us, who have abandoned the universe. Some like you, thrown here by chance and accident. Others which are different again. There are visitors, too, entities more accomplished than we, who are charting many realms.”

“I think I would like to see them,” Choma said. “To know what you do. I will join you if I may.”

“You will be welcome,” Tinkerbell said. “What of the rest?”

Stephanie glanced round her friends, trying to gauge their reaction to the offers Tinkerbell had made. Apprehension persisted in all of them, they were waiting for her lead. Again.

“Are there any other humans here?” she asked. “Any planets?”

“It is possible,” Tinkerbell said. “Though I have not encountered any yet. This realm is one of many which has the parameters you desired.”

“So we can’t seek refuge anywhere else?”

“No.”

Stephanie took Moyo’s hand in hers and pulled him close. “Very well, time to face the music, I suppose.”

“I love you,” he said. “I just want to be with you. That’s my paradise.”

“I won’t choose for you,” she told the others. “You must do that for yourselves. For myself, if a serjeant body is available I will take it and return to Mortonridge. If not, then I’ll accept death here in this realm. My host can have her body and freedom back.”