There was a loose progression of men from the nearby factories and mills heading towards the port. Darcy stood on the ramp outside the big open doorway at the front of the warehouse; there was a work area just inside, where they would pack orders and even perform repairs on Ward Molecular’s simpler units. Cole Este and Gaven Hough, the company’s other two employees, had both left their benches to join him.
“Where are they all going?” Lori asked. And why do they look so angry?she addressed darcy on singular engagement.
“Going down to the port,” Gaven Hough said.
“Why?”
He hunched his shoulders up, embarrassed. “Sort the Ivets out.”
“Bloody right,” Cole Este mumbled sullenly. “Wouldn’t mind going on that posse myself. The sheriffs’ve been recruiting deputies all morning.”
Damnation, trust this town to think with its arse,darcy said. he and lori had only been told about the quallheim counties revolt by one of their contacts in the Land Allocation Office the previous evening. Those bloody sheriffs must have been shouting the news about Schuster.“gaven, stewart, let’s get these doors shut. we’re closing for the day.”
They started to slide the big doors shut, while Cole Este stood on the ramp, grinning and exchanging a few shouted comments with the odd person he knew. He was nineteen, the youngest of the three workers, and it was obvious he wanted to join the crowd.
Just look at the little idiot,lori said.
Easy. We don’t involve ourselves, nor criticize. Prime rule.
Tell me about it. They’ll kill the Ivets down in the transients’ dormitories. You know that, don’t you?
Darcy slammed the bolt home on the door, and locked it with a padlock keyed to his finger pattern. I know.
“You want us to stay?” Stewart Danielsson asked dubiously.
“No, that’s all right, Stewart, you three get off home. We’ll take care of things here.”
Darcy and Lori sat in the office with all but one of the windows shuttered on the inside. A partition with a line of tall glass panes in wooden frames looked out over the darkened warehouse. The furniture was basic, a couple of tables and five chairs Darcy had made himself. A conditioner whirred almost silently in one corner, keeping the atmosphere cool and dry. The office was one of the few rooms on the planet that was actually dusty.
Once is acceptable,lori said. Twice is not. Something strange is happening in Schuster County.
Possibly.darcy put his maser carbine on the table between them. The solitary shaft of sunlight shining through the window made the smooth grey composite casing glimmer softly. Protection, just in case the riot spread back through the town.
They could both hear the distant growl of the crowd down in the port; the newly arrived Ivets being hunted down and killed. Beaten into the mud with makeshift clubs, or gored by baying sayce to the sound of cheers. If they looked through the window at an angle they would be able to see boats of all sizes sailing hurriedly out of the circular polyp harbours for the safety of the water.
I hate Adamists,lori said. Only Adamists could do this to one another. They do it because they don’t know one another. They don’t love, they can only lust and fear.
Darcy smiled, and reached out to touch her, because her mind was leaking a longing for the reassurance of physical contact. His hand never bridged the gap. An affinity voice with the power of a thunderstorm roared into their minds.
ATTENTION INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES ON LALONDE, I AM LATON. THERE IS A XENOC ENERGY VIRUS LOOSE IN THE QUALLHEIM COUNTIES. HOSTILE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. LEAVE LALONDE IMMEDIATELY. THE CONFEDERATION NAVY MUST BE INFORMED. THIS IS YOUR ONLY PRIORITY NOW. I CANNOT LAST LONG.
Lori was whimpering, her hands clutching at her ears, mouth frozen open in a horrified wail. Darcy saw her dissolve under a discharge of chaotic mental images, each of them bright enough to dazzle.
Jungle. A village seen from the air. More jungle. A little boy hanging upside-down from a tree, his stomach sliced open. A bearded man hanging upside-down from a different tree, lightning flaring wildly.
Heat, excruciating heat.
Darcy grunted at the pain, he was on fire. Skin blackening, hair singeing, his throat shrivelling.
It stopped.
He was prone on the floor. Flames in the background. Always flames. A man and a woman were leaning over him, naked. Their skin was changing, darkening to green, becoming scaled. Eyes and mouth were scarlet red. The woman parted her lips and a serpent’s forked tongue slipped out.
His children were crying all around.
Sorry, so sorry I failed you at the last.
Father shame: ignominy that extended down to a cellular level.
Leathery green hands began to run across his chest, a parody of sensuality. Where the fingers touched he could feel the ruptures begin deep below his skin.
NOW DO YOU BELIEVE?
And voices, audible above his agony. Coming from within, from a deeper part of his brain than affinity originated. Whisperers in chorus: “We can help, we can make it stop. Let us in, let us free you. Give yourself.”
WARN THEM, CURSE YOU.
Then nothing.
Darcy found himself curled up on the mayope planks of the office floor. He had bitten his lip; a trickle of blood wept down his chin.
He touched himself gingerly, fingers probing his ribs, terrified of what he would find. But there was no pain, no open wounds, no internal damage.
“It was him,” Lori croaked. She was in her chair, head bowed, hugging her chest, hands clenched into tight fists. “Laton. He’s here, he really is here.”
Darcy managed to right himself into a kneeling position, it was enough for now, if he tried to stand he was sure he’d faint. “Those images . . .” Did you see them?
The reptile people? Yes. But the power in that affinity. It . . . it damn near overwhelmed me.
The Quallheim Counties, that’s where he said it was. That’s over a thousand kilometres away upriver. Human affinity can only reach a hundred at most.
He’s had thirty years to perfect his diabolical genetic schemes.her thoughts were contaminated with fright and revulsion.
“A xenoc energy virus,” Darcy muttered, nonplussed. What did he mean? And he was being tortured, along with his children. Why? What is going on upriver?
I don’t know. All I know is I wouldn’t trust him, not ever. We saw images, fantasy figures. He’s had thirty years to construct them, after all.
But they were so real. And why reveal himself? He knows we will eliminate him whatever the cost.
Yes, he knows we will come in force. But with that affinity power he could probably compel even a voidhawk. It would allow himself and his cronies to spread through the Confederation.
It was so real,darcy repeated numbly. And now we know he is so powerful we can guard against him. It makes no sense, unless he really has run into something he can’t handle. Something more powerful than he.
Lori gave him a sad, almost defeated look. We need to know, don’t we?
Yes.
They let their thoughts flow and entwine like the bodies of amorous lovers, reinforcing their strengths, eliminating weaknesses. Gathering courage.
Darcy used a chair as support, and pulled himself up. Every joint felt ponderously stiff. He sat heavily and dabbed at his bitten lip.
Lori smiled fondly, and handed him a handkerchief.
Duty first,he said. We have to inform Jupiter that Laton is here. That takes precedence over everything. We’re not due a voidhawk visit for another couple of months. I’ll see Kelven Solanki and request he sends a message to Aethra and the support station out at Murora immediately, his office has the equipment to do that direct. The Confederation Navy would have to be told anyway, so it might as well be now. He can also include a report in the diplomatic flek on a colonist-carrier ship that’s heading back to Earth. That ought to cover us.