“You will give us bodies? How generous.” Somehow she managed to grin, lips wriggling apart to dribble saliva down her cheeks.

“We could grow bitek neural networks which you could inhabit. You would be able to receive the full range of human senses. After that they could be placed in artificial bodies, rather like a cosmonik.”

“How very reasonable. But you forget that we are human, too; we want to live full human lives. For ever. Possession is only the beginning of our return.”

“I am aware of your goals.”

“Do you wish to help us?”

“Yes.”

“Then terminate your life. Join us. Be on the winning side, Admiral.”

Samual Aleksandrovich gave the vibrating, abused body a final, almost disgusted glance, and turned his back to the transparent wall.

“She says the same thing to us,” Dr Gilmore said as if in apology. “Repeatedly.”

“How much of what she says is the truth? For instance, do they really need human bodies? If not, we might just be able to force them into a compromise.”

“Verification may be difficult,” Euru said. “The electricity has contained the worst excesses of Couteur’s reality dysfunction, but a personality debrief in these circumstances may prove beyond us. If the nanonics were to malfunction during axon interface they could cause a lot of damage to her brain.”

“The possessed are certainly capable of operating within bitek neurone structures,” Lalwani said. “Lewis Sinclair captured Pernik’s neural strata; and we have confirmed that Valisk’s blackhawks have also been captured.”

“Physically they’re capable of it, yes,” Euru said. “But the problem is more likely to be psychological. As ex-humans, they want human bodies, they want the familiar.”

“Acquire what information you can without risking the actual body itself,” the First Admiral instructed. “In the meantime have you developed any method of subduing them?”

Dr Gilmore indicated the surgical table with a muddled gesture. “Electricity, Admiral. Equip our marines with guns that fire a dart that contains a small electron matrix cell and simply push a current into them. Such weapons were in widespread use from the mid-twentieth century right up until the twenty-third. We’ve already produced a modern chemical-powered design with a range over five hundred metres.”

Samual Aleksandrovich didn’t know whether to berate the implant specialist or commiserate with him. That was the trouble with laboratory types, all theory, no thought about how their gadgets would perform in the field. It was probably just the same in Couteur’s time, he reflected. “And how far can they project their white fire?”

“It varies depending on the individual.”

“And how will you determine what voltage to discharge from the electron matrix cell? Some will be stronger than Couteur, while others will be weaker.”

Dr Gilmore glanced to Euru for support.

“Voltage regulation is a problem area,” the suave, black-skinned Edenist said. “We are considering if a static scanner can determine the level in advance. It may be that the quantity of static exuded might indicate the individual’s energistic strength.”

“In here, possibly,” the First Admiral said. “In combat conditions I very much doubt it. And even if it did work, what do you propose we should do with the captive?”

“Put them in zero-tau,” Dr Gilmore said. “We know that method has enjoyed a hundred per cent success rate. They employed it on Ombey.”

“Yes,” the First Admiral acknowledged, recalling the file he’d accessed, the battle to capture the possessed inside the big department store. “And at what cost? I don’t intend to be cavilling about your endeavours, Doctor, but you really need to bring some experienced combat personnel into your consultation process. Even conceding your stun gun could work, it would take two or three marines to subdue a possessed and place them in zero-tau. During which time those possessed remaining at liberty would have converted another five people. With that ratio we could never win. We must have a single weapon, a one-shot device which can rid a body of the possessing soul without harming it. Will electricity do that? Can you increase the voltage until the incursive soul is forced out?”

“No, Admiral,” Euru said. “We have already tried with Couteur. The voltages necessary will kill the body. In fact we had to abandon the procedure for several hours to allow her to heal herself.”

“What about other methods?”

“There will be some we can try, Admiral,” Dr Gilmore insisted. “But we’ll need to research her further. We have so little data at the moment. The ultimate solution will of course be to seal the junction between this universe and the beyond continuum. Unfortunately we still cannot locate the interface point. Those scanners we are operating in there are some of the most sensitive gravitonic distortion detectors ever built, yet there is no sign of any space-time density fluctuation in or around her. Which means the souls are not returning through a wormhole.”

“Not wormholes as we understand them, anyway,” Euru finished. “But then, given Couteur’s existence, our whole conception of quantum cosmology is obviously seriously incomplete. Having the ability to travel faster than light isn’t nearly as smart as we once thought it was.”

•   •   •

It had taken Quinn some time to modify the Tantu ’s bridge. It wasn’t the look of the compartment which bothered him so much; the frigate was configured for high gee acceleration, its fittings and structure were correspondingly functional. He liked that inherent strength, and emphasised it by sculpting the surfaces with an angular matte-black bas-relief of the kind he imagined would adorn the walls of the Light Brother’s supreme temple. Lighting panels were dimmed to a carmine spark, flickering behind rusty iron grilles.

It was the information he was presented with, or rather the lack of it, which displeased him, and consequently required the longest time to rectify. He had no neural nanonics, not that they would have worked even if he did have a set. Which meant he didn’t know what was happening outside the ship. For all of Tantu ’s fabulous high-resolution sensor array, he was blind, unable to react, to make decisions. To have the external universe visible was his first priority.

Possessing the frigate’s nineteen-strong crew had taken barely twenty minutes after he and Lawrence had docked. Initiating the returned souls into the sect, having them accept his leadership, had required another hour. Three times he had to discipline the faithless. He regretted the waste.

Those remaining had worked hard to build the displays he wanted; fitting holoscreens to the consoles, adapting the flight computer programs to portray the external environment in the simplest possible terms. Only then, with his confidence restored, had he ordered their departure from Norfolk orbit.

Quinn settled back in his regal, velvet-padded acceleration couch and gave the order to jump away. Twenty seconds after they completed the operation, the holoscreens showed him the little purple pyramid which represented the squadron’s lone pursuit ship lit up at the centre of the empty cube. According to the scale, it was three thousand kilometres away.

“How do we elude them?” he asked Bajan.

Bajan was possessing the body of the Tantu ’s erstwhile captain, the third soul to do so since the hijacking began. Quinn had been dissatisfied with the first two; they had both lived in pre-industrial times. He needed someone with a technological background, someone who could interpret the wealth of data in the captain’s captive mind. A civil fusion engineer, Bajan had died only two centuries ago; starflight was a concept he understood. He also had a sleazy, furtive mind which promised instant obedience to both Quinn and the sect’s doctrines. But Quinn didn’t mind that, such weaknesses simply made him easier to control.