Peter Hamilton - Reality Dysfunction - Emergence

The woman raised a hand. Leaves and twigs flowed fluidly over her palm, an exact pattern of what was behind her. She put a finger to her lips, then beckoned.

Sango cantered down the track back to Aberdale, keeping to a steady rhythm as darkness began to pool around the base of the trees. Powel Manani ducked occasionally to avoid low hanging branches. The route was one he knew by heart now. He rode automatically as his mind reviewed possibilities.

Everyone would have to stay in the village tomorrow, they could post guards so that work in the fields could continue. Any major interruption to their lives would be a victory for Quinn, and he mustn’t allow that to happen. People were already badly shaken up by what had happened, their confidence in themselves had to be built up from scratch again.

He had passed Arnold Travis’s group a quarter of an hour ago on their way home. They’d hanged all their Ivets. And the group that had gone out to the homesteads was burying the Ivets he’d shot at the Nicholls place. Tomorrow a gang would trek out to the Skibbow homestead and do what they could.

Which wasn’t going to be much, he admitted bitterly. But it could have been worse. Then again, it could have been a whole lot better.

Powel sucked air in through his teeth at the thought of Quinn on the loose. At first light he would ride downriver to Schuster. The sheriff there would contact Durringham, and a proper manhunt could be organized. He knew Schuster’s supervisor, Gregor O’Keefe, who had an affinity-bonded Doberman. They could go after Quinn straight away, before the trail went cold. Gregor would understand the need.

None of this was going to look good on his record. Families murdered and Ivets in open revolt. The Land Allocation Office probably wouldn’t give him another supervisor contract after this. Well, screw them. Quinn was all that mattered now.

Sango shrieked, rearing up violently, He grabbed the reins hard in reflex. The horse came down, and he realized its legs were collapsing. Momentum carried him forward, his head meeting Sango’s neck as it snaked back. Mane hair lashed across his face, and his nose squashed into the bristly beige coat. He tasted blood.

Sango hit the ground, inertia skidding him forwards a couple of metres before he finally rolled onto his side. Powel heard his right leg break with a shockingly loud snap as the horse’s full weight came down on it. He blanked out for a moment. When he came to he promptly threw up. His right leg was completely numb below the hip. He felt dangerously light headed. Cold sweat prickled his skin.

The horse’s flank had his leg pinned to the ground. He hunched himself up on his elbow, and tried to pull it out. Red-hot pain flared along his nerve paths. He groaned, and slumped back down onto the mossy grass, panting heavily.

The undergrowth swished behind him. There was the sound of footfalls on the loam.

“Hey!” he cried. “Christ, help me. The bloody horse keeled over on me. I can’t feel my leg.” He craned round. Six figures were walking out of the murky shadows which lined the track.

Quinn Dexter laughed.

Powel made a frantic lunge for the maser carbine in the saddle holster. His fingers curled round the grip.

Ann had been waiting for the move. She fired her laser rifle. The infrared pulse struck the back of Powel’s hand, slicing clean through. Skin and muscle vaporized in a five-centimetre crater, veins instantly cauterized, his straining tendons roasted and snapped. Around the edge of the wound skin blackened and flaked away, a huge ring of blisters erupted. Powel let out a guttural snarl, jerking his hand back.

“Bring him,” Quinn ordered.

The demon sprite had come back to the church. It was the first thing Horst Elwes discovered when he returned.

Most of the day was lost to him. He must have lain in the little clearing for hours. His shirt and trousers were damp from the rain, and smeared with mud. And Carter McBride’s blood-filmed eyes still stared at him.

“Your fault!” Supervisor Manani had shouted in rage. He was right, too.

A sin by omission. The belief that human dignity would triumph. That all he had to do was wait and the Ivets would grow tired of their foolish rituals and genuflecting. That they would realize the Light Brother sect was a charade designed to make them do Quinn’s bidding. Then he would be there for them, waiting to forgive and welcome them into the Lord’s fold.

Well, now that arrogance had cost a child his life, perhaps others too if the suspicions of Ruth and Manani were correct. Horst wasn’t at all sure he wanted to go on living.

He walked back into the village clearing as the penumbra arose from the east and the brighter stars started to shine above the black treetops. A few cabins had yellow lights glimmering inside, but the village was deathly quiet. The life had gone out of it.

The spirit, Horst thought, that is what’s missing. Even afterwards, even after they’ve had their revenge and slaughtered the Ivets, this place will be tainted. They have bitten their apple now, and the knowledge of truth has corrupted their souls. They know what beasts lie in their hearts. Even though they dress it up as honour and civilized justice. They know.

He walked heavily out of the shadows towards the church. That simple little church which symbolized all that was wrong with the village. Built on a lie, home to a fool, laughed at by all. Even here, the most God-forsaken planet in the Confederation, where nothing really matters, I can’t get it right. I can’t do the one thing I vowed before God that my life was for, I can’t give them faith in themselves.

He pushed through the swing door at the rear of the church. Carter McBride was laid out on a pew at the front, draped in a blanket. Someone had lit one of the altar candles.

A dainty red star flickered a metre over the body.

All Horst’s anguish returned in a deluge that threatened to extinguish his sanity. He bit his trembling lower lip.

If God the Holy Trinity exists, said the waster sect Satanists, then, ipso facto , the Dark One is also real. For Jesus was tempted by Satan, both have touched the Earth, both will return.

Now Horst Elwes looked at the speck of red light and felt the dry weight of aeons press in on his mind again. To have the existence of supernatural divinity proven like this was a hideous travesty. Men were supposed to come to faith, not have it forced upon them.

He dropped to one knee as if pushed down by a giant irresistible hand. “O my Lord, forgive me. Forgive me my weakness. I beg Thee.”

The star slid through the air towards him. It didn’t seem to cast any light on the pews or floor.

“What are you? What have you come here for? The boy’s soul? Did Quinn Dexter summon you for that? How I pity you. That boy was pure in mind no matter what they did to him, no matter what they made him say. Our Lord would not reject him because of your acolytes’ inhumanity. Carter will be welcomed into heaven by Gabriel himself.”

The star stopped two metres short of Horst.

“Out,” Horst said. He stood, the strength of recklessness infusing his limbs. “Get ye gone from this place. You have failed. Doubly you have failed.” His face split in a slow grin, a drop of spittle running down his beard. “This old sinner has taken heart again from your presence. And this place you desecrate is holy ground. Now out!” He thrust a rigid forefinger at the gloaming-soaked jungle beyond the door. “Out!”

Footsteps thudded on the steps outside the church, the swing door banged open. “Father!” Jay yelled at the top of her voice.

Small, thin arms hugged his waist with a strength a full-grown man would be hard put to match. He instinctively cradled her, hands smoothing her knotted white-blonde hair.