If everything went well—if the asteroid crews had got the internal mass distribution balanced right, if the injection point was correct—the ironberg would be aerobraked to subsonic velocity about five kilometres above the ocean. After that, nothing else mattered, no force in the universe could affect that much mass hanging in the sky in a standard gravity field. It fell straight down at terminal velocity to splash into the water amid an explosion of steam that resembled the mushroom cloud of a small nuclear bomb. And there it bobbed among the waves, its foamed interior making it buoyant enough to float without any aids.

When all four ironbergs from one tug had splashed down, the recovery fleet would sail in. The ironbergs would be towed into a foundry port ready to be broken up and fed to Tonala’s eager mills. An abundant supply of cheap metal, obtained without any ecological disturbance, was a healthy asset to the nation’s economy.

So not even the chaotic electronic war being fought between the SD networks was allowed to interrupt the operation. The tugs around the Spirit of Freedom continued to receive their regular maintenance schedule. SII-suited engineering crews crawled over the long struts, while MSVs and tankers drifted in close attendance. The service craft were the only other vehicles flying apart from Lady Mac . Joshua had a trouble-free approach, making excellent time. As they flew over the station, sensors showed him eleven other starships nestled snugly in the docking bays.

The inspection from port officers was one he was expecting; checking everyone on board for possession, then going through the life-support capsules and the two ancillary craft with electronic warfare blocks to make sure there were no unexplained glitches. Once they’d been cleared, Joshua received an official datavised welcome from Tonala’s Industry Ministry, with an invitation to discuss his requirements and how local firms could help. They were also authorized to fly Lady Mac ’s spaceplane down to Harrisburg.

“I’ll take a pair of serjeants, Dahybi, and Melvyn,” Joshua announced. “You too, Ashly, but you stay in the spaceplane in case we need evacuating. Sarha, Beaulieu, I want Lady Mac maintained at flight-ready status. Same procedure as before, we may have to leave in a hurry, so keep monitoring groundside, I want to be told if and when the crap hits the fan.”

“I can come with you,” Liol said. “I know how to handle myself if it gets noisy down there.”

“Do you trust my command judgement?”

“Of course I do, Josh.”

“Good. Then you stay up here. Because my judgement is that you won’t follow my orders.”

It was dark in Jesup’s biosphere cavern now, a permanent joyless twilight, and cold. Quinn had ordered it so. The solartubes strung out along the axial gantry were producing an enfeebled opalescent glow, whose sole purpose was to show people where they were going.

As a result, an impossible autumn had visited the lush tropical vegetation. After a futile search twisting around on their stems in search of light, the leaves were yellowing. In many places they had begun to fall, their edges crisping black from the bitter air. Already the neat filigree of pretty streams was clogging with soggy mush, overspill channels were blocked, pools were flooding the surrounding ground.

The experience of accelerated decay was one which Quinn savoured. It demonstrated his power over his surroundings. No reality dysfunction this, making things different as long as you didn’t blink. This was solid change, irreversible. Potent.

He stood before the stone altar which had been built in the park, studying the figure bound to the inverted cross on top. It was an old man, which in some ways was good. This way Quinn confirmed his zero-rated compassion; only children held equal status.

His loyal disciples stood in a circle around him, seven of them clad in blood-red robes. Faces shone as bright as their minds, fuelled by greed and ominous desire.

Twelve-T was also in attendance, sagging with the formidable burden of merely staying alive. His maltreated head was permanently bowed now. No possessed was imposing change upon him, but he was becoming almost Neanderthal in his posture.

Outside the elite coterie the acolytes formed a broad semicircle. All of them were wearing grey robes with the hoods thrown back. Their faces illuminated by the unnaturally hot bonfires flanking the altar, a flickering topaz light caressing their skin with fake expressions.

Quinn could sense several ghosts standing among them. They were frightened and demoralized as always and, as he had discovered, utterly harmless. They were completely unable to affect any aspect of the physical world. Trivial creatures with less substance than the shadows they craved.

In a way he was glad they were attending. Spying. This ceremony would show them what they were dealing with. They could be tyrannized, he was sure, in that they were no different from any other human. He wanted them to realize that he would never hesitate to inflict what pain he could upon them if they chose not to obey.

Satisfied, Quinn sang: “We are the princes of the Night.”

“We are the princes of the Night,” the acolytes chorused, it was a sound similar to the threat of thunder beyond the horizon.

“When the false lord leads his legions away into oblivion, we will be here.”

“We will be here.”

The old man was shaking now, moving his lips in prayer. He was a Christian priest, which was why Quinn had selected him. A double victory. Victory over the false lord. And victory for the serpent beast. Taking a life for no reason other than you wished it, for the pain it would cause others.

Such sacrifices had always focused on authority and its enforcement. A spectacle to coerce the weak. In pre-industrial times, this rite might have been about the summoning of dark witchcraft; but in an age of nanonic technology man had long surpassed magic, black or white. The sect arcology had known and encouraged the value of image, the psychology of precise brutality. And it worked.

Who now among this gathering would stand to challenge him? It was more ordination than anything else, confirming his right to reign.

He held out a hand, and Lawrence placed the dagger in his palm. Its handle was an elaborate ebony carving, but the blade was plain carbotanium and very sharp.

The priest cried out as Quinn slid the tip into his paunchy abdomen. It deepened to a whimper as Quinn recited: “Accept this life as a token of our love and devotion.”

“We love you, and devote ourselves to you, Lord,” growled the acolytes.

“God grant you deliverance, son,” the priest choked.

Blood was running down Quinn’s arm, splattering the altar. “Go fuck yourself.”

Lawrence laughed delightedly at the priest’s anguish. Quinn was immensely proud of the boy; he’d never known anyone to offer himself up to God’s Brother so unreservedly.

The priest was dying to the harsh cheers of the acolytes. Quinn could sense the old man’s soul rising from the body, twining like smoke in a listless sky to vanish through a chink in reality. He pressed himself forwards to lick ravenously at the ephemeral stream with a narrow black tongue, enraptured.

Then another soul was pushing back down the trickle of energy, surging into the body.

“Shithead!” Quinn spat. “This body is not for you. It is our sacrament. Get the fuck out of it.”

The skin on the priest’s upside-down face began to flow like treacle. The features twisted themselves through a hundred and eighty degrees so that the mouth was superimposed on the forehead. Then the skin hardened again and the eyes snapped open.

Quinn took a pace back in surprise. It was his own face staring at him.

“Welcome to the beyond, you little prick,” it told him. Then it smiled wickedly. “Remember this part?”