Part 30 (1/2)

'It was Ben. My husband...'

No reaction from Miles. She was obscurely disappointed.

'IMC contacted me six years ago, just after I'd been accepted on to Project Eden. They told me they'd found some trace of the Hydrax Hydrax, the Inters.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p he vanished on: some wreckage drifting across the trade lanes, or a rumour of a sighting by some newly contacted alien race, or something. They kept stringing me along for months during the training sessions on Earth, holding out false hope, making me feel guilty about the effort they were putting into finding him. They asked for a few little favours a complete crew list for the Project, the name of the vessel we were to s.h.i.+p out on small things, and I felt glad I could do something to repay them. I didn't tell anyone, of course I wasn't stupid, I knew that what I was doing was wrong but all the time I was thinking of Ben, and what it would be like when he came back.'

She sighed deeply, and looked away from Miles out to the harshly glittering stars. A point of light was paralleling their course, moving down towards Moloch. An IMC executive transporter? Probably. Did it matter? Probably not.

'They lied to me, of course, but by the time I realized, it was too late. I was in too deep. They threatened to expose me if I didn't do as I was told.'

She was looking past the stars now, to a young face, framed by black hair, which smiled at her over a gulf of years.

'And there was always a little voice in the back of my mind that said, ”Perhaps, just perhaps, he is still alive out there.” Justification? Yeah, but I had to believe in something, or I would have gone mad.'

She took a deep breath and pulled herself back to the here*and*now. 'I should have guessed that Legion would want me out of the way as soon as IMC came out in the open. I didn't know he'd suborned Ace, though. She was a nice kid. I wonder what he offered her.'

She frowned as she remembered Ace's dispa.s.sionate face in the Bridge terminus on Belial, sighting along the barrel of her gun. She s.h.i.+vered as she recalled saying, 'Are you going to get on with it, or what?' and Ace replying 'Or what,' then closing her eyes, deliberately aiming wide, firing, and walking away without looking back. Piper didn't know what Ace's motives had been. She wasn't even sure that Ace knew herself. All she knew was that she owed Ace her life.

She glanced over at Miles, trying to gauge his reaction. 'And that's my story. Miles? Miles Miles?'

His face could have been carved out of stone.

'Please Miles, say something. Anything.'

'I'll need your help.' It was as if he had heard nothing she had said.

'To do what?'

He turned to look at her, and the fanatical light in his eyes made her take a sudden step back.

'I'm going back to Paula,' he said. 'And this time I'm going to bring her back. Your virus is still in the starpod software, and I need you to debug it.'

The medlab was locked, but with the sophisticated devices that Ace had managed to retain from the future, that was not a problem. She moved quietly through the shadowed room, amazed at how easy it was to remember the covert reconnaissance drill she had been taught.

The recuperation pods looked like tombs in the ghostly half*light of the sterilizing radiation. The first one the one that had nurtured Christine LaFayette's injured body before she had made her escape attempt was empty. The second one was empty too, but Ace held out no hopes for the wellbeing of Shock Trooper (Third Cla.s.s) Jason Curtis Dommer.

The third pod was empty too.

And the fourth.

Ace quickly checked the remainder of the line. None of the recuperation pods was occupied, either by her friends from Moloch or by anyone else. Judging by the status read*outs, they had been empty for quite some time.

For a moment, she looked around indecisively, and then she left, as quietly as she had arrived.

She had a pa.s.senger waiting.

As the executive transporter rose from Moloch's icy surface and set course for Belial, Alex Bannen gave it no more than a cursory glance. He was too concerned with navigating across the treacherous landscape. Ace had used some c.o.c.k*and*bull story about incompatibility of airlocks to justify dropping him in an ill*fitting s.p.a.cesuit a hundred yards from the translucent blister of the Bridge terminus. She hated him. They all hated him, but he would have his revenge.

High above him, the tordoidal shape of the Lift was gliding down the gilded ray of the Bridge. As Bannen plunged into the soft skin of the terminus, he wondered briefly whether he should have waited for it, rather than submit himself to the indignities of the executive transporter. The uncertainty lasted only for a moment, until he remembered the rush of self*respect that he had felt when he ordered Ace to take him to Legion. No, he had authority now. He didn't need to rely on the vagaries of an alien technology that was several millennia past its sell*by date.

Warming power fantasies filled his mind as he quitted the Bridge terminus, found his way to the head of the Pit and was swirled down the s.h.i.+ning path towards Moloch's interior. It was only as he stepped from the Pit and made his way through the deserted Moloch Base that the stench of burning organic matter pulled him from his dreams.

Moloch was ablaze.

As Bannen walked out of Moloch Base and entered the clearing in the forest, he saw IMC troopers standing around its periphery with flamers. The diaphanous trees were burning, their tendrils flailing the air wildly, trailing sparks behind them and wailing thinly, like a jungle of leaky balloons. Greasy columns of smoke rose slowly up into the air, curved into widening spirals by the anomalous air currents of Moloch's interior.

Bannen watched, amazed and oddly aroused, as the flames spread through the forest, moving upwards around the interior until it seemed as if he were standing at the centre of the lowest circle of h.e.l.l. The troopers moved in deeper, long flames licking from their weapons. Robotic construction units were busy erecting an IMC office complex on the razed ground.

'You want to tell me that arrangements have been made for your excursion to Lucifer's zelanite ocean,' said a multiplicity of voices behind him, 'but that you need certain items from IMC which have not been forthcoming.'

'How do you know?' Bannen stuttered as he turned. Legion was looking almost normal: four thin, multi*jointed legs supporting a th.o.r.n.y husk of a body with one magnificent, black and violet eye.

'I know.'

A flock of translucent creatures burst from the branches of the trees and made a break for the centre of Moloch. There was a flurry of activity amongst the troopers as they exchanged bets, then the things began to explode in showers of sparks as they were fired upon. As the last one burst like a firework, money exchanged hands amid much laughter.

'When will the dwarf*star alloy derivative be ready?' Bannen asked hesitantly. He wasn't sure quite how far he could push Legion. Still, the alien had obviously realized Bannen's leaders.h.i.+p potential, and needed him to keep the rest of the Project Eden team in line.

'Time...' Legion sighed. 'You humans think it is so important. You and your pathetic power fantasies. Bishop and his obsession with an ideal. Ace and her mysterious mission from the future, thinking that she can stay aloof from our mission here. If you could see the universe from my perspective, you would realize how meaningless it all is. Leave me, Bannen.'

'But, Legion '

The IMC leader's body leaned towards Bannen until the huge eye was level with his face. The eye split into a thousand silver globules that chased each other round Legion's body.

'Leave me,' it chorused.

As Bannen scuttled back towards the Pit, and the interminable wait for the Lift back to Belial, a small seed of paranoia sprouted in his mind. Was Legion really committed to helping him investigate Lucifer, or was it just stringing him along, excluding him from something bigger?

Righteous indignation filled him. He had debated about whether to tell Legion what he knew of the true purpose of the Mushroom Farm controls, but the alien could whistle for it now.

Chuckling, Bannen walked past the entrance to the Atmospheric Vehicle Research Laboratory without seeing Miles Engado and Piper O'Rourke sink back into the shadows.

In their plush, oak*lined cell on the Insider Trading Insider Trading, Bernice and Christine were just putting the final touches to their escape attempt. Christine had pulled down the floating light*fittings with her one good arm, and Bernice had taken out some of her aggression on the heavy mahogany table by smas.h.i.+ng its legs off.

'Okay, bring those things over here,' Bernice said.

Christine moved carefully across the room. Holding the null*gray units down under the tablecloth, she pa.s.sed them to Bernice. With deft movements, the archaeologist retrieved them and strapped them securely beneath the table with napkins. The table wobbled: rising into the air in fits and starts as each unit was fitted. Eventually, the table was hovering unsteadily in the centre of the room.

Bernice gestured to it. 'All aboard the Skylark Skylark,' she chanted, and climbed on. The table rocked alarmingly.

Christine extended a wary hand. 'Are you sure this thing's safe?'

'I very much doubt it.'