Reality Dysfunction - Expansion

“Spare us how wonderful you are, Kelly,” Reza said. “How?”

She dived into her bag and pulled out her communication block, brandishing it as though it were a silver trophy. “With this. The LDC’s original geosynchronous communication platform had a deep-space ante

“Can you get the platform computer to send a message?” Reza asked. “Terrance Smith never gave us any access codes for it.”

“Listen, I’m a bloody reporter, there’s nothing I don’t know about violating communication systems. And this block has quite a few less than legal chips added.”

She waited for an answer, her feet had developed a life of their own, wanting to dance.

“Well, get on with it then, Kelly,” Reza said.

She ran for the hole in the door, startling Fenton and Ryall lying on the grass outside. The sky over the sava

Joshua dozed fitfully in his cabin’s sleep cocoon. The envelope was a baggy lightweight spongy fabric, big enough to hold him without being restrictive. Sarha had offered to sleep with him, but he’d tactfully declined. He was still feeling the effects of that eleven-gee thrust. Even his body hadn’t been geneered with that much acceleration in mind. There were long bruise crinkles on his back where the creases on his ship-suit had pressed into his skin, and when he looked into the mirror his eyes were bloodshot. He and Sarha wouldn’t have had sex anyway, he really was tired. Tired and stressed out.

Everyone had been so full of praise for the way he had flown Lady Mac . If only they knew the emotional cold turkey that hit him once the danger was over and he stopped operating on nerve energy and arrogance. The fear from realizing what one—just one—mistake would have spelt.

I should have listened to Ione. What I had before was enough.

He held her image in his mind as he fell asleep, she made it a lot easier to relax, floating away on the rhythm of night. When he woke, drowsy, warm, and randy, he accessed a memory of their time back in Tranquillity. Out in the parkland, lying on the thick grass beside a stream. The two of them clinging together after sex; Ione on top, sweaty and dreamily content, light glinting an opulent gold off her hair, skin warm and soft against him, kissing him oh so slowly, lips descending along his sternum. Neither spoke, the moment was too perfect for that.

Then her head lifted and it was Louise Kavanagh, all trusting and adoring in that way only the very i

And loving a girl hadn’t been that sweet since he was her age.

Jesus! He cancelled the memory sequence. Even his neural nanonics were playing him dirty.

I do not need reminding. Not right now.

The flight computer datavised that Aethra was requesting a direct cha

Sarha had done a good job interfacing the bitek processor to Lady Mac ’s electronics. He had talked to the habitat yesterday, which was engrossing; it came across as a mixture of child and all-knowing sage. But it had been very interested in hearing about Tranquillity. The images he received from its shell’s sensitive cells were different to the Lady Mac ’s sensor clusters. They seemed more real, somehow, bestowing a texture of depth and emptiness which space had always lacked before.

Joshua unsealed the side of the sleep cocoon and swung his legs out. He opened a locker for a fresh ship-suit. There were only three left. Sighing, he started to pull one on. “Hello, Aethra,” he datavised.

“Good morning, Joshua. I hope you slept well.”

“Yeah, I got a few hours.”

“I am picking up a message for you.”

He was instantly alert, without any stimulus from his neural nanonics. “Jesus. Where from?”

“It is a microwave transmission originating from the civil communication platform orbiting Lalonde.”

He was shown the starfield outside. The sun was a white glare point, nine hundred and eighty-nine million kilometres distant; to one side Lalonde shone steadily, if weakly, a sixth-magnitude star. It had now become a binary, twi

“You can see microwaves?” he asked.

“I sense, eyes see. It is part of the energy spectrum which falls upon my shell.”

“What is the message?”

“It is a voice-only transmission to you personally from a Kelly Tirrel.”

“Jesus. Let me hear it.”

“ ‘This is Kelly Tirrel calling Captain Joshua Calvert. Joshua, I hope you’re receiving this OK; and if not, could someone at Aethra’s supervisory station please relay this to him immediately. It’s really important. Joshua, I’m not sure if the possessed can overhear this, so I won’t say anything too exact, OK? We got your message about returning. And the time-scale you mentioned is no use to us. Joshua, virtually everyone down here has been possessed. It’s like the worst of the Christian Bible gospels are coming true. Dead people are coming back and taking over the living. I know that sounds crazy to you; but believe me it isn’t sequestration, and it isn’t a xenoc invasion. I’ve talked to someone who was alive at the start of the twentieth century. He’s real, Joshua. So is their electronic warfare ability, only it’s more like magic. They can do terrible things, Joshua, to people and animals. Truly terrible. Shit, I don’t suppose you believe any of this, do you? Just think of them as an enemy, Joshua. That’ll help make them real for you. And you saw the red cloud-bands over the Juliffe basin, you know how powerful that enemy is.

“ ‘Well, the red cloud is swelling, Joshua, it’s spreading over the planet. We were heading away from it. Just like you said we should, remember? But we’ve found someone who has been in hiding since the possession started, a priest. He’s been looking after a bunch of young children. There’s twenty-nine of them. And now they’re trapped under that cloud. They’re near the village that was our original target, so that gives you a rough idea where we are. We’re going back for them, Joshua, we’ll be on our way by the time this message reaches you. They’re only children, for Christ’s sake, we can’t leave them. The trouble is that once we’ve got them we won’t be able to run far, not with our transport. But we’re pretty sure we can get the children out from under the cloud by this afternoon. Joshua . . . you have to pick us up. Today, Joshua. We won’t be able to hold out for long after sunset. I know your lady friend wasn’t feeling too well when you left, but bandage her up as best you can, as soon as you can. Please. We’ll be waiting for you. Our prayers are with you. Thank you, Joshua.’ ”

“It is repeating,” Aethra said.

“Oh, Jesus.” Possession. The dead returned. Child refugees on the run. “Jesus fucking wept. She can’t do this to me! She’s mad. Possession? She’s fucking flipped.” He stared aghast at the ancient Apollo computer, arms half in his sleeves. “No chance.” His arms were rammed into the ship-suit sleeves. Sealing up the front. “She needs locking up for her own good. Her neural nanonics are looped on a glitched stimulant program.”