‘Kill the aliens!’

  And then it went to hell.

  The crowd rushed over them in a tidal wave of scratching and yelling and sheer body momentum. Kian snapped his fist and a man’s nose exploded in a gout of blood, then something struck the back of his head and he spun, arced back with his elbow, connected, and his attacker went down beneath the mob’s feet.

  Dirk kicked once, protecting Deirdre, before a mass of flailing limbs closed in. Fingers clutched his clothes, and he roared as he tried to shake them off.

  ‘Lookout!’

  The sound of glass shattering.

  Someone stabbed a broken bottle at Dirk’s eye and he twisted at the last moment. Glass ripped his forehead and blood spattered. Deirdre yelled out.

  Something dark came out of nowhere, shattered against Kian’s head and he went down on one knee.

  ‘No. Kian, no!’

  Deirdre tried to push her way through but the bald man grabbed her.

  Smell of ethanol.

  A sparking sound.

  Then flames enveloped Kian and the crowd fell back. Kian screamed.

  And burned.

  The crowd stood in silence, frozen by what they had done, as Kian writhed in flames on the ground. Dirk reacted first, pulling off his jacket and throwing it across his brother. Desperate, he rolled Kian along the ground, smoke pouring from his brother’s body with the roast-pork stench and Kian yelling in agony.

  Deirdre screamed at the police commander - ‘Do something!’ - as she tugged her shirt off and dropped to help Dirk with Kian, beating the last of the flames out, rolling Kian onto his back.

  Half of Kian’s face was a ruin of glistening black and reddened meat.

  ‘Oh, no. Oh, Jesus, no.’

  Deirdre, on her knees, clutched Kian’s smoking clothes. Dirk slowly stood up, and looked at the silent gathering.

  From the rear, someone muttered: ‘Kill the aliens,’ but no-one moved. Even the police officers remained still, shocked by the suddenness of the violence or their own inaction; while the commander’s face was like a clenched fist, as he attempted to process the way his day had just fallen apart.

  ‘You think we’re different?’

  Dirk’s voice was cold and pitiless. Deirdre looked up at him.

  ‘You think’ - gesturing at Kian, who shuddered and gave an unearthly whimper - ‘you should be afraid of us?’

  ‘No.’ Deirdre, shaking, rose to her feet. ‘Dirk, don’t. Please don’t.’

  The commander moved at last, pointing at Dirk.

  ‘Arrest him.’

  ‘But sir—’ One of the officers shook his head.

  On the ground, Kian moaned.

  Dirk took hold of Deirdre’s shoulders.

  ‘You think you can get away—’

  Dirk spun Deirdre towards him, then clasped her head.

  ‘—with this?’

  He buried Deirdre’s face against his chest.

  Golden fire rose inside his eyes.

  ‘No, Dirk…’

  Something changed in the air and the nearest demonstrators tried to fall back, but their own comrades were in the way and then it was too late.

  ‘Dirk…’

  Yellow incandescence ripped through the parking lot.

  DIE!

  Exploded.

  The roar echoed in Dirk’s mind.

  DIE, YOU BASTARDS.

  And then it was over.

  He released Deirdre, who stumbled back.

  All around, stunned survivors lay on the tarmac, clutching at their ruined faces while their friends lay dead. Deirdre looked for the police commander.

  Smoke rose from ruined eye sockets that would never see again.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  44

  NULAPEIRON AD 3426

  Tom stilled the display, let it minimize and hang off to one side. He leaned back against the bulkhead, staring into nothing.

  Kian, burned. His hand ruined.

  Tom rubbed his own face, as his missing left arm blazed with nonexistent fire.

  ‘It was you.’

  There was no-one in the chamber; Tom’s voice had a strange flat echo, as if uttered by an ancient machine. But in his mind’s eye he could see only the poor tortured Pilot on Siganth, flensed inside the vivisection field tended by alien components of the Anomaly. A Pilot with a half-ruined, silver-scarred face, and a right hand hooked into a claw.

  ‘Kian McNamara.’

  Tom took a deep breath, then immersed himself again in the centuries-old tale.

  ~ * ~

  45

  TERRA & MU-SPACE

  AD 2166

  <>

  [13]

  Deirdre called Paula. She wept as she begged for help, unable to look away from Kian’s ruined face and the taut, charred remains of his right hand. All around, scattered across the parking lot, blinded demonstrators and policemen moaned and whimpered. Some clutched the bodies of the fallen dead.

  Dirk stood silent, unmoving.

  Stub-winged UNSA ambulances accompanied by unmarked armoured flyers came hurtling down from the sky, two minutes before the civilian authorities arrived. No-one argued as medics rushed Kian aboard the nearest ambulance. It rose immediately, its crew not waiting to help anyone else, and headed back towards the base.

  ‘Oh Christ. Oh Christ.’

  Deirdre could only watch as security officers mag-cuffed Dirk and led him into one of the unmarked flyers. Paula took hold of her.

  ‘Come on, Deirdre. Let’s get out of here before those bastards start arguing jurisdiction.’

  Green-uniformed cops of some kind were jumping down from a sky-blue flyer, mouths grim, eyes hidden behind mirrorvisors.

  ‘All right. Is Kian going to be ... ?’

  Deirdre let her voice trail off.

  ‘Come on.’ Paula’s arm encircled Deirdre. ‘I’ll look after you. Promise.’

  But they both knew, as they climbed a ramp and took their seats in a too-cold passenger cabin, that Kian was close to death, and that even UNSA would not be able to keep Dirk from captivity and subsequent trial in the local court.

  Deirdre was sure Arizona had the death penalty.

  ‘Oh, my boys ...’

  The ground dropped away beneath the flyer.

  The cell had a narrow bunk and a tiny chemical toilet which stank of ozone. Dirk sat on the bunk, staring at the door’s triple mag-locks. He had said nothing as the medic dressed his forehead wound, or when the guards removed his cuffs and offered to bring him water.

  Kian. What’s happening to you?

  Some part of Dirk felt that his brother must still live: that no-one as close as Kian could die without the universe shrieking as the bond between them ruptured. But perhaps that was a delusion brought on by an awareness of the things that made them different from ordinary human beings ... from folk who outnumbered Pilots by millions to one.

  UNSA can get me out of this. They’ve invested too much money to let the mob take me down.

  But the mall had security systems, bead cameras that would have recorded everything. Maybe UN Intelligence could swoop in and take over the logs, if they moved fast enough, if no-one in the local police or newsNets got there first.

  And if UNSA had the political will to bury the case. Perhaps they did not.

  Perhaps they, too, would turn against him.

  Against all our kind.

  Deirdre, her arm in a silver cast, stood beside Paula, watching through the glass wall while robotic arms and human surgeons toiled over Kian.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Paula touched Deirdre. ‘Want a drink of water?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK.’

  They stood together. Deirdre’s arm throbbed inside its cast. She did not know when it had broken. Perhaps when the bald man grabbed her.

  Perhaps when Dirk took hold of her and—

  Oh, sweet Jesus.

  And—

  She turned and buried her face on Paula’s shoulder.

  At 3 a.m. the door slammed open.

  Dirk jerked up, expecting burly men to rush inside with batons upraised. But there was only one guard visible, and he remained standing in the doorway while his colleagues waited around the corner.

  ‘They told me to tell you ... Your brother’s condition is now severe. No longer critical.’

  ‘You mean he’s—’

  ‘Going to live, they think.’

  ‘Thank—’

  But the door was closed before Dirk could finish what he had to say. Inside the mag-locks, coils hummed with energy as they drew the bolts into place.

  On the waiting-room couch, Deirdre jerked awake. She felt cold. Paula’s warmth was gone.

  ‘It’s all right.’ A young nurse, her eyes bruised with fatigue, held out a cup of hot chocolate. ‘Drink this. Your ... friend had to attend to something.’

  Too weary to protest, Deirdre accepted the chocolate.

  ‘Thank you.’ She sipped, and shivered as the warmth slid down inside her. It revived her, just a little. ‘Is Kian ... ?’

  ‘Doing well. The doctors will tell you that things could still go wrong, and it is still early days ...’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But some people are natural-born fighters. You get a feel for it. And Mr McNamara is one of them.’

  Deirdre nodded. She understood that intuition was based on more information than rational procedures coped with. She could have modelled it mathematically. But, ‘Thank you,’ was all she said. ‘That helps a lot.’

  ‘Good. Perhaps you should get to bed. Get some proper rest.’

  ‘I’ll try.’ Deirdre’s cup was empty, and she looked around for somewhere to bin it.

  ‘Here, give that to me.’

  ‘Thanks ... Um, do you know where my friend went?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ The nurse shook her head. ‘Something about checking on a prisoner?’

  ‘Right.’

  Deirdre hugged herself and shivered.

  The runway was a pale ghost in the darkness. Paula stopped for a moment to stare at the silvery shape - moonlight on polished bronze - of the mu-space ship that stood outside its hangar.

  ‘It could have been so different. A simple test flight.’

  One of the MPs beside her put a hand on his holster: an unconscious gesture.

  ‘Ma’am? Is everything all right?’

  ‘Not really, sergeant. Come on.’

  At the steel-armoured security building, Paula held out her pass, stared into the retina-scan, and submitted her infostrand for resonance-inspection. The MPs passed quickly through the gates.

  ‘You want to see Prisoner McNamara?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Disturbing his beauty sleep, ma’am?’

  ‘Maybe. Do you care?’

  ‘Not after what that bastard did to dozens of innocent civilians and law officers.’

  ‘Right.’

  Triple-armoured doors slid open.

  ‘This way,’ said the chief escorting officer.

  Five burly MPs with armoured vests and mirrorvisor helmets, lineac rifles powered up, kept pace with her along the polished titanium corridor. When they stopped outside the cell door, they took careful aim.

  ‘Ma’am? You can reconsider, still.’

  ‘I want to see him in person. My responsibility.’

  ‘Be careful. OK... Hit it.’

  One of the MPs touched a lock-plate then quickly stepped back, positioning his weapon. Paula stared into the bright-lit cell. It was stark and bare, designed to prevent a captive from falling asleep unless the custodians wanted him to.

  ‘Is this the right one?’

  ‘What—?’

  The MPs stood frozen in place, unable to comprehend the blank walls, the made-up bunk, and the lack of any sign that the cell had ever been occupied. Then the officer slapped his throat mike into life.

  ‘General alarm. Escaped prisoner. Sound it now.’

  White fire brightened the night.

  A lineac cannon banged and sent tracer fire and explosive rounds screaming low across the runway, spattering harmlessly off a shining hull designed to withstand the worst that two universes might throw at it.

  The ship turned, straightened up, pointing dead straight along the runway. Jury-rigged metal sheets already covered the trench blasted by the Zajinet ship.

  ‘Aim for the undercarriage,’ came the order, and the cannon lowered its barrel as soldiers ran from the buildings, took kneeling stances, and joined their rifles to the fusillade.

  Nova-bright, the white flame shone.

  And the ship began to move.

  The cannon swung its beam low but hit the temporary metal sheeting after the ship had rolled past, and the fragments blew apart, shielding the vulnerable undercarriage just for a moment, and then it was too late. Night air wavered as the ship slammed horizontally along the runway, covered its length in seconds, and its nose tipped up into the air.

  The vessel rose.

  Then it was arcing fast, turning starboard and upwards, becoming a streak too rapid for even automated weapons to follow; and there was a burst of light as the air itself tore apart and a new, ephemeral aurora formed.

  By the time the accompanying crack of thunder reached the ground and UNSA’s fighters were rising to launch, the ship was already gone from realspace, flying into the golden vastness of a fractal continuum where few could follow - into a place where Dirk McNamara might remain unharmed, in a universe where he could make his home.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  46

  NULAPEIRON AD 3426

  Sun blazed through the membrane windows, caused the blue-and-white tiles to glow with an odd sharpness as if today the world was in stronger focus. A handful of the most senior commanders sat around the polished conference table. No holos shone.

  Tom’s voice was sufficient to hold them captive.

  ‘General Lord Ygran.’ He nodded to the general. ‘You will be in charge during my absence. In the event of my failing to return ... you will assume command.’

  General Ygran ran a thumb along his white moustache. ‘I’d rather not have to do that, Warlord.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll try not to let it happen.’

  Lieutenant Xim eh’Gelifni’s ebony face cracked in a bright smile. ‘That’s good, sir.’

  There were a few light laughs around the table, then serious expressions once more.

  ‘You’re the historian, General. Remember the Battle of Agincourt? Sometimes the ruler has to lead a strike force into battle.’

  General Ygran could probably have come up with a dozen reasons why the analogy did not apply. Instead, he silently bowed his head.

  ‘Ankestion?’ said Tom. ‘Did you check in with Volksurd and Kraiv?’

  ‘Aye, Warlord.’ Ankestion Raglok’s slitted green eyes dilated, then narrowed, and his graphite eyebrows bristled. ‘The drop-bugs are already fitted, ahead of schedule. My clone-brothers are ready to go.’

  ‘Excellent. Xim? Did you complete your inspection of spheres ten through fifty?’

  They had tried using separate names for the other terraformers, but there were too many. Instead, the planning staff resorted to simple numbering: chronological sequence as freedom fighters took possession.

  ‘Yes, Warlord. Shakedown flights of the shuttle squadrons went well.’

  ‘Then, with General Ygran’s approval, I’d like you to coordinate the squadrons. Assume command straight away.’

  General Ygran nodded, and Lieutenant eh’Gelifni sat up straighter.

  ‘Aye, Warlord. My thanks.’

  ‘Good.’

  Tom looked around the table.

  ‘That’s all. Thank you.’