Reality Dysfunction - Emergence

Even the police had thought Qui

Qui

The pod cover closed.

Ba

After years bumming round as an ordinary waster kid, it had taken the sect to show him what he really was, an animal, pure and simple. What they’d done to him, what they’d made him do to others, it was liberation, freeing the serpent beast which lurked in the soul of every man. Knowing his true self was glorious. Knowing that he had the power to do what he wanted to others, simply because he chose to. It was a magnificent way to live.

It made the lower ranks obey, out of fear, out of respect, out of adoration. He was more than their chapter leader, he was their saviour. As Ba

But now Ba

Yes. That was more likely. The true reason. Everyone feared him, his purity. And by God’s Brother they were right to do so.

The pod cover opened.

“I’ll get you,” Qui

“Oh, yeah?” a coarse voice sneered. “Well, cop this, pal.”

Qui

The laughing crewman grabbed him before he hit the mesh bulkhead three metres in front of the pod. It wasn’t the same man that had put Qui

God’s Brother, Qui

“You going to put up a fight, Ivet?” the crewman asked.

Qui

Being entrusted with it was another token of the sect’s faith in him, in his abilities. Copying someone’s biolectric pattern so he could use their credit disk inevitably meant having to dispose of them afterwards. Weaker members might shirk from the task. Not Qui

A quick status check revealed both the nanonic clusters were still functional. God’s Brother hadn’t deserted him, not entirely.

“Smart boy. Come on, then.” The crewman grabbed Qui

Most of the pods they passed were empty. Qui

After the life-support module, there were a couple of long tubular corridors. Crewmen and colonists floated past. One family was clustered around a wailing four-year-old girl who clung to a grab hoop with a death-grip. Nothing her parents could say would make her let go.

They went through an airlock into a long cylindrical compartment with several hundred seats, nearly all of them occupied. Spaceplane, Qui

“Where are we?” he asked the crewman. “What planet?”

The crewman gave him a fu

“No.”

“Oh. Well, you could have copped a worse one, believe me. Lalonde is EuroChristian-ethnic, opened up about thirty years ago. I think there’s a Tyrathca settlement, but it’s mainly humans. You’ll do all right. But take my advice, don’t get the Ivet supervisor pissed at you.”

“Right.” He was afraid to ask what a Tyrathca was. Some kind of xenoc, presumably. He shuddered at that, he who had never ventured out of the arcologies or vac-train stations back on Earth. Now they were expecting him to live under open skies with talking animals. God’s Brother!

The crewman hauled Qui

Qui

“Jackson Gael,” his neighbour said.

Qui

The PA came on, and the pilot a

“Balls,” Jackson Gael said. “Look at ’em, they want to go down there. They actually believe in that New Frontier crap the development company has peddled them. And we’ve got to spend the rest of our lives with these dickheads.”