The Abyss Beyond Dreams (71 page)

Afterwards, staring in astonishment at the still-smouldering booster casing while her overloaded senses began to calm, she said simply: ‘You cannot sit on top of that. You just
can’t.’

‘They’re perfectly safe,’ Nigel said contentedly. ‘People flew into space on chemical rockets for decades before Ozzie and I put a stop to it.’

‘No! Just . . . no!’

But of course there was no choice. So the production of the solid rocket boosters went ahead, despite her fears. Nigel had chosen an ammonium nitrate-based fuel, which was one of the easiest to
make – especially given the production method they had discovered. Again it was all about keeping a low profile; he didn’t want to add chemical refineries to the farm compound as well
as everything else. Fortunately, the Fallers had given them an unexpected alternative in their slave species.

Kysandra walked past the booster bunker and along the rows of mod-pig silos. Out of the whole project, these animals were her biggest headache. They had to be fed a very specific diet of
substances which their weird secondary digestive tract broke down and rearranged into faeces pellets that were the fuel used by the boosters. She had to track down suppliers right across the
continent, seeking out merchants who dealt in powdered aluminium, hydrochloric acid, sodium, liquid rubber and a dozen types of nitrate-based fertilizers. Then she had to arrange to have them
shipped to Blair Farm, but not in quantities that would arouse interest. She and Valeri set up dozens of small businesses in towns along the continent’s main train lines, where labels could
be swapped and the compounds forwarded in different containers. Then, when they did get here, they had to be mixed in just the right proportions before being fed to the mod-pigs.

The testing shed was two hundred metres past the silos, perched on the riverbank. She plodded over to it, through the shadow cast by the big iron crane of the launch framework. The squat
gantries that would support the
Skylady
and her booster rocket assembly when they were ready to send her soaring back into space had been completed several weeks ago. Five red-painted iron
scaffold pillars curved upwards in shallow arcs over a big circular pool filled with river water, to merge into a bracelet-shaped cradle where the crane would hoist the starship. Right now, it was
a strange empty construction, as if it had outlasted a building it had once contained.

There were filter masks hanging up under the testing shed porch. Apparently exposure to perchlorates could cause thyroid problems in humans. Kysandra put one on before going in. The interior was
simple enough, with a broad bench running along one side, filled with the kind of glassware that told anyone they were in a chemical lab. Nigel and Fergus were standing over a jar of greenish
fluid, where a couple of thumb-sized fuel pellets were fizzing like bad beer.

‘Slvasta won,’ she announced.

‘Yes,’ Nigel’s voice was muffled by the mask. ‘We sensed Russell. Most of the county did.’

‘That means it’s going to happen!’

‘Yes.’ He still hadn’t looked up from the sensor module that was scanning the jar and its dissolving pig faeces. ‘That’s up to standard,’ he said to Fergus.
‘Load the booster.’

‘Slowly and carefully,’ Fergus retorted.

Nigel abandoned the bench and put his arm round Kysandra, walking with her out of the test shed. ‘Sorry,’ he said when he’d taken the mask off. ‘Some things just have to
be done correctly. I’d hate to wind up sitting on top of a bad batch.’

She nodded earnestly. ‘I understand.’

‘Those pigs are pretty unpredictable.’

‘We get the feed mix right every time.’

‘I know, but I doubt the Fallers ever had this in mind when they designed the neuts.’

It had been the final revelation they’d extracted from the Proval-Faller’s memory. Neuts were their perfect domestic slave race, biological machines created for one reason – to
serve the Fallers. Capable of being moulded into dozens of sub-species, from animals that could perform most kinds of physical labour to immobile organ clumps whose enzymes turned them into simple
chemical refineries, neuts eliminated the need for an overly mechanized civilization. You just had to know how to format the embryo. That was the second part of the puzzle.

When they assumed human form, the Fallers had thick bundles of additional nerves stretching down their arms to a small wart-like protuberance on the back of the wrist. It allowed a direct
synaptic interface to a corresponding patch of nerve receptors at the back of a neut’s head. All mods had an identical patch, through which instructions could be channelled. It was a
discovery which had delighted Nigel. ‘So that’s how they operated outside the Void,’ he’d muttered as the
Skylady
displayed the information through their exovision.
‘Paula will be happy about that.’

It had taken the
Skylady
a while to work out the sequence, but eventually they got the mod-pig embryo correct. So the fat creatures lay in their stalls, with stumpy legs that were
little more than wedges to keep them upright, and a body containing bio-reactor organs that could crap out pure rocket fuel. They didn’t live long; the toxicity of the compounds they ate saw
to that. But they had enough of them in the silos, and with regular births to replace the dead, the supply of pellets matched production of the booster casings. There was only one booster left to
fill now, and they’d have a cluster that could send
Skylady
racing over ninety kilometres high. But it would be a ballistic trajectory; her speed would fall far short of orbital
velocity. Achieving that still depended on the starship’s degraded ingrav drive providing the final impetus. Nigel swore the figures checked out, and he’d make it to the Forest.

‘Will the last booster be finished in time?’ she asked as they made their way back to the farmhouse.

‘It takes ten days to load the propellant and catalyse the final binding, so yes. Phase one isn’t scheduled for another month. That’ll give us plenty of time for the final
stack assembly.’

She turned to look back at the launch framework. ‘What if the weapons are no good?’

‘Come on, Coulan has had drones in there examining them for eighteen months. Their integrity hasn’t been compromised. They’re simply powered down.’

‘They’re three thousand years old, Nigel.’

‘Irrelevant. Their warheads are solid state. All the ancillary components are fragile, granted. We’ll have to refurbish and replace quite a bit, but they’ll function just fine.
Stop worrying. You’ll make me jittery, and that’s no good at all.’

His arm went round her shoulder, holding her close. She’d noticed him becoming gradually more tactile over the last year or so.

‘Sorry,’ she said, pouring out insincerity.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘But I do have a question.’

‘What?’

‘I was going through the accounts. Who’s James Hilton? We’ve been paying him an awful lot of money recently.’

‘Ah. Actually, James Hilton was a novelist back on Earth, pre-Commonwealth era.’

‘So why are we paying him a small fortune?’

‘He’s only really known for one book,
Lost Horizon
; it featured an imaginary valley called Shangri-La, which was sheltered from the rest of the world. I thought that an
appropriate name.’

‘For what?’

‘A refuge, in case anything goes wrong.’

‘What can go wrong?’

‘Ah, now there you are. That’s exactly why I was keeping it quiet. If you start having doubts, you always panic.’

‘I do not!’

‘Then why are you worried?’

‘I’m not worried. I’m curious, that’s all.’

‘So now you know. If anything happens, there’s a place where you, me and the ANAdroids can go and regroup.’

‘Right. Thank you. Where?’

‘Port Chana.’

‘Ah! I thought Marek spent a lot of time there just to buy hydrochloric acid.’

‘Clever girl.’

‘Don’t be so patronizing.’

‘You get aggressive when you’re worried.’

‘I’m not worried. I’m concerned you think something can go wrong.’

‘I don’t.’

‘But—’

‘But, I’ve enough experience with life to know that you should always take precautions for other people screwing up. Look, if everything goes right, in a couple of months from now
the Void will be gone, and you, me and everyone else on Bienvenido and Querencia will be on board a Raiel ship heading for the Commonwealth. But if not – if something does come along to screw
things up – well there are consequences for the things we’ve done. Consequences I’d rather not face. So this is an emergency fallback.
Surely
that’s sensible,
isn’t it?’

Kysandra clenched her jaw. ‘Yes.’

‘See. What do I know?’

‘Every crudding thing.’

*

The weak state of Varlan’s economy was of no concern to the Westergate Club. Established for over fifteen hundred years, and rebuilt four times on the same spot, it
epitomized how the city’s ruling class sailed on serenely through the misfortunes of others, observing their travails the way one might view the antics of a zoo animal. Slvasta arrived at the
richly decorated front door a week after the election, wearing the grey suit he’d bought for public speaking during the campaign. Shame he hadn’t had the time to get it cleaned. The
doorman in his immaculate black tailcoat smiled obsequiously and ushered him in. ‘Welcome back, Captain Slvasta, and my personal congratulations on your election.’

‘Thank you.’

The receptionist behind the desk gave him a very spry smile, backed up by a sultry private ’path – a wordless pulse but full of invitation. Slvasta hoped he didn’t blush too
obviously as the footman led him away. As always the huge marbled interior seemed to absorb sound. He was halfway up the sweeping staircase when he saw a young woman coming down towards him. She
wore a bright red dress, a colour which emphasized her long strawberry blonde hair; its bodice was tighter than was the fashion among society ladies, and the skirt had a rather daring split all the
way up one side, allowing a glimpse of long and very shapely legs. Her face was familiar, which made him struggle to recall—

‘Slvasta!’ she smiled and embraced him before he had time to react. ‘Oh no,’ she said theatrically, and waved a hand in front of her face. ‘You’ve forgotten
me already. And we had such a good time together.’ A private ’path gifted him the inside of a boudoir that kicked off all sorts of enjoyable memories in Slvasta’s skull. How
he’d spent a long afternoon with her on that big soft bed. How it wasn’t just Bethaneve who knew how to have uninhibited fun. How they’d laughed . . .

‘Lanicia,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a while.’ Though how he could forget that beguiling face even for a moment was a complete mystery.

‘It certainly has! I spent simply months pining after you, you mean thing. Fancy abandoning a girl after an afternoon like
that
!’

‘Sorry.’

‘I’m teasing, silly thing. It’s really good to see you. And you’re a National Councillor now! That’s just brilliant. I bet old conservative men choked on their
breakfasts all over town the day after the election. Daddy certainly did. Have you been introduced to the Captain yet?’

‘Ah, uh, no, not yet. The Council’s opening ceremony was postponed because of the explosion.’

‘Oh, Giu, yes, that was so terrible. So! How are you? Married yet?’

‘Uh, no.’

‘Me neither.’ The smile she gave him was downright wicked. ‘I’ve still got my day villa for privacy. I’d enjoy being your mistress.’

All Slvasta could do was stand there with his mouth open. His gaze flicked to the footman, who had suddenly found something immensely interesting to stare at on the landing above. He really had
forgotten how society girls behaved, their freedoms and delight in mischief.

Lanicia laughed gleefully at his expression, the confused emotions leaking through his suddenly shaky shell. ‘I’ll leave that offer open for you to consider,’ she said and
started walking down the stairs. There was one final saucy wink goodbye.

Slvasta finally managed to close his mouth. He wanted to carry on watching her walk down the stairs, he wanted to go after her, he wanted to have a day, one day, away from stress and fear and
anger, to be carefree just as he had been that long ago afternoon when the Skylords had visited. Lazy evenings in her day villa would never be spent full of intense discussions and momentous
decisions and ideological analysis. There would be no plotting how to kill people and bring down governments and change the world. There wouldn’t be
responsibility
.

He closed his eyes and took a breath, allowing his heart to calm.

The footman was waiting patiently. ‘Lead on,’ Slvasta told him. The temptation was hard to fight. It wasn’t just old flings like Lanicia who were coming on strong these days.
There had been interest from women ever since he was publicly elected Democratic Unity’s leader – interest which had steadily increased from the moment his candidacy for Langley was
announced. Since the election, the offers had been quite brazen. It made him nervous about venturing outside Number Sixteen Jaysfield Terrace with Bethaneve. He could laugh off the attention, while
enjoying the flattery. She, he knew, did not have the same liberal view of the phenomenon.

Colonel Gelasis waited for him in the Nevada suite, with all its sombre wood panelling setting the tone to match the colonel’s thoughts. This time there was no effusive greeting as he rose
from behind the big glossy table. Instead there was a curt: ‘Councillor,’ and a quick squeeze of the hand.

‘Colonel.’

Gelasis waved the footman away, then straightened his uniform before sitting again. ‘I believed we had a gentlemen’s understanding?’

‘Did we?’ Slvasta said, wishing he didn’t feel quite so intimidated.

‘A quid pro quo was certainly implied. That’s why you’re now the Councillor for Langley. You got what you want, did you think that was free?’

‘No.’

‘Then would you mind explaining to me why in Uracus’s name you blew up the yalseed oil company’s depot? The city was crudding lucky that fire didn’t spread any further.
As it is, the financial damage it will inflict on decent people is quite bad enough. And that’s on top of everything else the city is suffering right now because of the anti-mod
movement.’