Peter Hamilton - Reality Dysfunction - Expansion

A long mound arose out of nowhere, and she tilted the joystick exactly right to veer round its base. The piloting program Ariadne had datavised to her was operating in primary mode, enabling her to steer with the same consummate skill the mercenary had owned. Her weight—or rather lack of it—made her the ideal choice. Theo piloted the other hovercraft, and the priest was sitting behind her, but apart from them the team ran alongside. Even Shaun Wallace, though the few times she glimpsed him he was as red faced as a marathon runner on the home straight.

The mounted knights were pushing them hard, keeping a steady three kilometres behind, just enough to put them beyond the range of the gaussrifles. One or two would occasionally break rank for a charge. Then Sewell or Jalal would fire a few EE rounds to ward them off. Thankfully the sturdy pikemen were unable to match the boosted mercenaries’ physical endurance (so how come Shaun could?); they had been left nearly seven kilometres behind. So far so good, but the situation couldn’t hold stable for long.

Fenton was racing ahead of the hovercraft, scouting the land, his mass and brawn making easy work of the bristling grass blades. Reza looked through the hound’s eyes, leaving a locomotion program to guide his own body down the trail left by the two hovercraft. He was developing a feel for the land beneath the rhythmic pounding of the hound’s paws, anticipating the folds and abrupt rises which belied the savannah’s facade of interminable mellow ground.

There was a small but certain change in the texture of the grass whipping against Fenton’s blunt muzzle. The dead mat of decaying blades covering the flinty soil becoming thicker, springier. Water, and close by. Fenton slowed to smell the air.

“Kelly,” Reza datavised. “There’s a small stream two hundred metres ahead, steep gully sides. Head for it. Part of the bank has collapsed, you can take the hovercraft down.”

A guidance plot filled her mind, all close-packed brown and blue contour lines, a computer image of how the earth would look stripped of vegetation. Neural nanonics integrated it with the piloting program, and she tweaked the joystick.

“Where does it lead?” she asked. So far all they had done was build distance between them and the homestead cabin, heading due south without any attempt to get back on the river which led to the mountains.

“Nowhere. It’s cover for us, that’s all. The knights are trying to wear us down; and the bastards are succeeding. We can’t keep this pace going for ever, and the hovercraft electron matrices are being drained. Once we’re immobile the pikemen will catch up, and it’ll all be over. They know we can’t fight off that many of them. We have to regain the initiative.”

Kelly didn’t like the implications leaping round inside her skull at that statement. But she did her best to ignore them. Hunted beasts couldn’t afford scruples, especially ones that knew exactly what lay in store if they were caught.

She datavised a query at her communication block. Since they left the homestead cabin it had been broadcasting a continuous signal up to the geosynchronous platform and the secure satellites Terrance Smith had brought with him. There was no need for secrecy now. But the darkened cloud was still blocking the directional beam very effectively.

Theo’s hovercraft slowed as it neared the stream, then the nose fell and it went into a controlled slither down the scree of crumbling earth. The gully was three metres deep, with tall reed-grass growing along the top. Smooth grey stones filled the flat bottom, with a trickle of water running down the middle. A muddy pool had built up behind the scree.

Kelly followed the first hovercraft down, juggling the fan deflectors frantically to stop them from sliding into the opposite bank. She turned upstream keeping ten metres behind Theo. He reached the deepest part of the gully and killed the lift.

The mercenaries were jumping down from the top of the bank.

“Everybody out of the hovercraft,” Reza said. “And sit with your backs to the gully here.” He pointed.

Northern side, Kelly thought. She stood up— don’t think about it —and helped to hand the children over the gunwale. They looked round in bewilderment, young faces lost and doleful. “It’s all right,” she kept saying. “Everything’s all right.” Don’t think about it. She kept smiling too, so they wouldn’t catch her anxiety.

Octan glided down into the gully, and perched himself on Pat Halahan’s broad shoulder, wings folding tightly. Fenton was already nosing round Reza’s legs.

Don’t think about it. Kelly sat beside Jay. The little girl obviously knew something terrible was about to happen. “It’s all right,” Kelly whispered. “Really.” She winked, though it was more like a nervous tic. Flints in the gully wall were sharp on her back. Water gurgled round her boots.

“Joshua,” Kelly datavised into her communication block. “Joshua, answer me, for Christ’s sake. Joshua!” All she was given in reply was the oscillating ghost-wind of static.

There was a scuttling sound as the mercenaries sat down on the stones. Several children were sniffling.

“Shut your eyes, and keep them shut,” Reza said loudly. “I shall smack anyone who I see with open eyes.”

The children hurriedly did as they were told.

Kelly closed her eyes, took a breath, and slowly folded her shaking arms over her head.

As soon as the event horizon collapsed, Joshua accessed the image supplied by the short-range combat sensors. Lady Mac had emerged from her jump six thousand kilometres above Lalonde. There was nothing within two thousand kilometres. He datavised the full sensor-suite deployment, and triggered the fusion drives. They moved in at a cautious two gees, aiming for a thousand-kilometre orbit.

No starships were left in orbit, the sensors reported, even the inter-orbit craft from Kenyon had vanished. Victim of a combat wasp, Joshua assumed. There was a lot of metallic wreckage, most of it in highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and all of it radioactive.

“Melvyn, access the communication satellites, see if there’s any data traffic for us. And Sarha, see if there are any low-orbit observation satellites left, their memories might hold something useful.”

They both acknowledged their orders and datavised instructions to the flight computer. The starship’s main dish found one of the secure communication satellites, and beams of microwave radiation sprang up to enmesh the planet in a loose web. Lady Macbeth started to receive data from the various observation systems left functional.

Everybody seemed to be working smoothly. Their flight to Achillea and the slingshot round its moon had passed off flawlessly. Jubilation at the successful jump from Murora had temporarily balanced out the loss of Warlow. Certainly Joshua experienced none of the sense of accomplishment which should have accompanied the Lagrange-point stunt. The most fantastic piece of flying in his life.

Gaura said he wasn’t sure, but he thought the transference had worked, certainly a large quantity of the old cosmonik’s memories had been datavised successfully into Aethra. The habitat had been integrating them when Lady Mac jumped.

The prospect of him living on as part of the multiplicity helped ease the grief—to a degree. Joshua felt a lot of regrets bubbling below his surface thoughts; things he’d said, things he should have said. Jesus, did Warlow have a family? I’ll have to tell them.

“Nothing from the communication satellites, Joshua,” Melvyn said heavily. “Thanks.” The idea that Kelly and the mercenaries had been caught was unbearable. That would mean their own flight had been for nothing, and Warlow—“Stand by to broadcast a message from Lady Mac ’s main dish, we’ll see if we can break through the cloud with sheer power. Sarha, what have you got?”