“What about Foulkes?” Alkad asked Samuel.

“If you agree to participate, I’ll speak with her. The non-contact prohibition placed upon you does not apply in this situation. You will be permitted to fly on this mission. However, I will accompany you along with Monica.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. And please don’t interpret our continued presence as approval for what you did. It so happens, that there are sections of this mission which require the kind of ability which Monica and I specialise in.”

“How very enigmatic. Very well, if you think I’m the right person for the job, I’d be honoured to take part.”

“Good,” Ione said.

“But I’ll need Peter with me.”

“This isn’t a honeymoon cruise,” Samuel told her, reproachfully.

“We worked as a team putting the Alchemist together. It’s a synergistic relationship.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Ione said. “But for argument’s sake, I’ll permit you to ask him if he wants to accompany you.”

“So where were you thinking of sending us?” Joshua asked.

“Regretfully, you will have to go directly to the source,” Wing-Tsit Chong said. “Which is one of the reasons this mission is being assembled under the auspices of the Jovian security sub-Consensus. A thorough search of xenology records both at Jupiter and Earth have revealed absolutely no reference to the Sleeping God. The Tyrathca have never mentioned it to us before.”

“The source? Oh Jesus, you mean Hesperi-LN, the Tyrathca home planet?”

“Initially, yes. Waboto-YAU told us that it was another arkship which encountered the Sleeping God, not Tanjuntic-RI. Therefore, that arkship must have lasered the information to all the other Tyrathca arkships in the exodus fleet. We must hope that a recording of that message is still aboard Tanjuntic-RI. If you can find it, you may be able to establish the approximate location of the encounter.”

“That could be a long way off,” Joshua said. His neural nanonics started to access almanac and Tyrathca history files from memory cells, running them through a navigation program. The result rising into his mind in the form of gold and scarlet icons was both fascinating and alarming. “Hesperi-LN isn’t their genuine home planet, remember. It’s just the last colony world Tanjuntic-RI founded. Look, the original Tyrathca star, Mastrit-PJ, the one they escaped from is on the other side of the Orion Nebula. That puts it at least 1,600 light-years away. Now if we get real unlucky, and the arkship which found the Sleeping God was going in the opposite direction to Tanjuntic-RI, you’re talking twice as far.”

“We are aware of that,” Wing-Tsit Chong said.

Joshua sighed with indubitable regret. To take Lady Mac on such a voyage would have been awesome. “I’m sorry, there isn’t that much antimatter left. I can’t take the old girl that far.”

“We are aware of your starship’s performance capabilities,” Wing-Tsit Chong said. “However there is a supply of antimatter which you will be able to use.”

“You keep some here at Jupiter?” Joshua asked in what he figured was a casual voice.

“No,” Syrinx said. “A CNIS agent called Erick Thakara located a production station which may be supplying Capone.”

“Thakara—” Joshua’s search program located the appropriate file; he locked eyes with Ione. “Really? That’s . . . helpful.”

“With the 1st fleet somewhat overstretched, the First Admiral’s staff have asked for Jupiter’s voidhawks to tackle it,” Samuel said.

“Which they are preparing to do,” Wing-Tsit Chong said. “However, before the station is finally annihilated, you will be able to take on board as much antimatter as the Lady Macbeth ’s confinement systems can handle.”

“Three thousand light-years,” Joshua murmured. “Jesus.”

“Meredith Saldana’s task force has a large contingent of Confederation Navy marines assigned to it,” Ione said. “They’ll secure the station for you once the personnel surrender to the voidhawk squadron.”

“What if the station operatives just suicide?” Joshua said. “They usually do when the Navy confronts them.”

“And take as many of us with them as they can,” Syrinx whispered.

“They will be offered a penal planet sentence instead of the usual death penalty,” Samuel said. “We can only hope that proves attractive enough to them.”

“All right, but even if we load Lady Mac with enough antimatter, the Tyrathca have ended communications with the Confederation,” Joshua said. “Do you really think they’ll allow us to search through Tanjuntic-RI’s electronic systems?”

“Probably not,” Samuel said. “But as we don’t intend to ask their permission, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Chapter 07

You didn’t have to be attuned to the land like a possessed to know it was about to happen. Most of Ombey’s population was aware the time had come.

Day after day the news companies had been broadcasting sensevises from rover reporters covering the build up of Liberation forces. Everybody knew somebody who was connected to somebody who was involved in some way; from hauling equipment out to Fort Forward to serving drinks to Edenists in spaceport bars. Speculation on the current affairs programmes was deliberately vague about specific dates and precise numbers, even the communication net gossips were showing restraint in naming the day. Hearsay aside, the evidence was pretty solid.

The type of cargoes raining down on the planet had changed. Combat gear was slowly being replaced by heavy-duty civil engineering equipment, ready to repair the expected damage to Mortonridge and provide additional support infrastructure for the occupying forces. The personnel arriving at Fort Forward were also subject to a shift in professions. Just under a million serjeants had been sent from Jupiter, along with nearly a quarter of a million marines and mercenaries from across the Confederation. The Liberation army was essentially complete. So now it was the medical teams being ferried down from orbit, civilian volunteers complementing entire mobile military hospitals. Estimated casualty figures (both military and civilian) were strictly classified. But everyone knew the twelve thousand medical staff were going to suffer a heavy workload. Eighty voidhawks had already been assigned evac duties, spreading the wounded around facilities in the Kingdom and its allies.

Throughout the seventh day following Princess Kirsten’s visit, Ralph Hiltch and his command staff studied the figures and displays provided by the AI. The neuroiconic image which accumulated in his mind kept expanding as more information was correlated. By late afternoon, his conscious perception point seemed to be hanging below a supergalaxy of multicoloured stars, which threatened to make him giddy as he tried to examine it in all directions at once. Despite its coherence, what he really wanted was more training time, more transport, more supplies, and definitely more intelligence assessments of the terrain ahead. But essentially, his army was as ready as it would ever be. He gave the order for final stage deployment to begin.

Over half of the serjeants and their back-up brigades had already left Fort Forward. The previous two days had been spent mustering at their preliminary positions offshore. Nearly a hundred islands around Mortonridge’s coast had been taken over as temporary depots; from reefs which barely showed above the waves to resort atolls dotted with luxury hotels. Where there were no convenient scraps of land, huge cargo ships had been hurriedly converted into floating docks, and anchored thirty kilometres from the shore.

For the first stage of the coastal assault, the army was scheduled to use boats. They were actually going to storm ashore, wading through the waves and up onto the sand, almost in homage to a great many of the incarnations from the past they were facing. Ralph wasn’t prepared to risk flying even the simplest of aircraft into the energistic environment over Mortonridge, not until after they’d dealt with the red cloud at least.