Off Armageddon Reef Read online

  And people who think they're gods aren't likely to exercise a lot of restraint when someone defies them, he thought.

  Pei Kau-yung watched Hamilcar's distant, gleaming dot sweep towards the horizon and tried not to shiver as the evening breeze grew cooler.

  * * *

  "Father. Father!"

  Timothy Harrison muttered something from the borderland of sleep, and the hand on his shoulder shook him again, harder.

  "Wake up, Father!"

  Timothy's eyes opened, and he blinked. His third-born son, Robert, Matthew's grandfather, stood leaning over the bed with a candle burning in one hand. For a moment, Timothy was only bewildered, but then Robert's shadowed expression registered, despite the strange lighting falling across it from below as the candle quivered in his hand.

  "What is it?" Timothy asked, sitting up in bed. Beside him, Sarah stirred, then opened her own eyes and sat up. He felt her welcome, beloved presence warm against his shoulder, and his right hand reached out, finding and clasping hers as if by instinct.

  "I don't know, Father," Robert said worriedly, and in that moment Timothy was once again reminded that his son looked far older than he himself did. "All I know," Robert continued, "is that a messenger's arrived from Father Michael. He says you're needed at the church. Immediately."

  Timothy's eyes narrowed. He turned and looked at Sarah for a moment, and she gazed back. Then she shook her head and reached out with her free hand to touch his cheek gently. He smiled at her, as calmly as he could, though she was undoubtedly the last person in the world he could really hope to fool, then looked back at Robert.

  "Is the messenger still here?"

  "Yes, Father."

  "Does he know why Michael needs me?"

  "He says he doesn't, Father, and I don't think it was just a way to tell me to mind my own business."

  "In that case, ask him to return immediately. Ask him to tell Father Michael I'll be there just as quickly as I can get dressed."

  "At once, Father," Robert said, not even attempting to hide his relief as his father took charge.

  * * *

  "Michael?"

  Timothy paused just inside the church doors.

  The church, as always, was softly illuminated by the red glow of the presence lights. The magnificent mosaic of ceramic tiles and semiprecious stones which formed the wall behind the high altar was more brightly illuminated by the cut-crystal lamps, which were kept filled with only the purest oil from freshwater kraken. The huge, lordly faces of the Archangel Langhorne and the Archangel Bédard gazed out from the mosaic, their noble eyes watching Timothy as he stood inside the doors. The weight of those eyes always made Timothy aware of his own mortality, his own fallibility before the divinity of God's chosen servants. Usually, it also filled him with reassurance, the renewed faith that God's purpose in creating Safehold as a refuge and a home for mankind must succeed in the end.

  But tonight, for some reason, he felt a chill instead. No doubt it was simply the unprecedented nature of Michael's summons, but it almost seemed as if shadows moved across the Archangels' faces, despite the unwavering flames of the lights.

  "Timothy!"

  Father Michael's voice pulled Timothy away from that disturbing thought, and he looked up as Michael appeared in a side door, just off the sanctuary.

  "What's this all about, Michael?" Timothy asked. He paused to genuflect before the mosaic, then rose, touching the fingers of his right hand to his heart, and then to his lips, and strode down the central aisle. He knew he'd sounded sharp, abrupt, and he tried to smooth his own voice. But the irregularity, especially so soon after the Visitation, had him on edge and anxious.

  "I'm sorry to have summoned you this way," Father Michael said, "but I had no choice. I have terrible news, terrible news." He shook his head. "The worst news I could possibly imagine."

  Timothy's heart seemed to stop for just an instant as the horror in Michael's voice registered. He froze in midstride, then made himself continue towards the priest.

  "What sort of news, Michael?" he asked much more gently.

  "Come."

  It was all the priest said, and he stepped back through the door. It led to the sacristy, Timothy realized as he followed, but Michael continued through another door on the sacristy's far side. A narrow flight of stairs led upward, and the priest didn't even pause for a candle or a taper as he led Timothy up them.

  The stairs wound upward, and Timothy quickly recognized them, although it was over forty years since he'd last climbed them himself. They led up the tall, rectangular bell tower to the huge bronze bells perched under the pointed steeple at the very top.

  Timothy was panting by the time they reached the top, and Michael was literally stumbling with exhaustion from the pace he'd set. But he still didn't speak, nor did he pause. He only put his shoulder under the trapdoor, heaved it up, and clambered through it.

  A strange, dim radiance spilled down through the opened trapdoor, and Timothy hesitated for just a moment. Then he steeled his nerve, reached for his faith. He followed his friend and priest through the trapdoor, and the radiance strengthened as the one who had awaited them turned towards him and the power of his presence reached out.

  "Peace be with you, My Son," the angel said.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Timothy Harrison found himself staring at an angel with the one expression he had never expected to show one of God's servants: one of horror.

  "—and so, My Children," the angel said, his own expression grave, "although I warned you only days before that new challenges might await you, not even I expected this."

  He shook his head sorrowfully, and yet if it would not have been impious, Timothy would have called the angel's expression as much worried as "grave."

  Perhaps it is, the Mayor thought. And why shouldn't it be? Not even angels—not even Archangels—are God themselves. And to have something like this happen . . .

  "It is a sad and a terrible duty to bring you this word, these commands," the angel said sadly. "When God created Safehold for your home, the place for you to learn to know Him and to serve His will, it was our duty to keep it safe from evil. And now, we've failed. It is not your fault, but ours, and we shall do all in our power to amend it. Yet it is possible the struggle will be severe. In the end, we must triumph, for it is we who remain loyal to God's will, and He will not suffer His champions to fail. But a price may yet be demanded of us for our failure."

  "But that's not—" Timothy began, then closed his mouth firmly as the angel looked at him with a small smile.

  "Not 'fair,' My Son?" he said gently. Timothy stared at him, unable to speak again, and the angel shook his head. "The Archangel Shan-wei has fallen, My Sons, and we did not keep the watch we ought to have kept. Her actions should not have taken us by surprise, but they have, for we trusted her as one of our own.

  "She was one of our own, but now she has betrayed us as she has betrayed herself. She has turned to the Darkness, brought evil into God's world through her own vaunting ambition, blind in her madness to the sure and certain knowledge that no one, not even an Archangel, may set his will against God's and triumph. Maddened by her taste for power, no longer content to serve, she demanded the power to rule, to remake this world as she would have it, and not as God's plan decrees. And when the Archangel Langhorne refused her demands and rebuffed her mad ambition, she raised impious war against him. Many lesser angels, and even some other Archangels, seduced to her banner, gathered with her. And, not content to damn their own souls, they beguiled and misled many of their mortal flock to follow in their own sinful path."

  "But—but what shall we do?" Father Michael asked, in a voice which scarcely even quavered, Timothy noted. But was that because the priest had found his courage once again, or because the enormity of the sin the angel had described was simply too vast for him to fully take in?

  "You must be prepared to weather days of darkness, My Son," the angel said. "The sorrow that she who wa
s one of the brightest among us should have fallen so low will be a hard thing for your flock to understand. There may be those among that flock who require reassurance, but you must also be vigilant. Some even among your own may have been secretly seduced by Shan-wei's minions, and they must be guarded against. It is even possible that other angels may come here, claiming Visitation in Langhorne's name, when in fact they serve Shan-wei."

  "Forgive me," Timothy said humbly, "but we're only mortals. How shall we know who an angel truly serves?"

  "That is a just question, My Son," the angel said, his expression troubled. "And, in honesty, I do not know if it will be possible for you to tell. I am charged by the Archangel Langhorne, however, to tell you that if you question the instructions you are given by any angel in his name, he will forgive you if you hesitate to obey them until you have requested their confirmation from me, who you know serves his will—and God's—still.

  "And"—the angel's expression hardened into one of anger and determination, almost hatred, such as Timothy had never expected to see upon it—"there will not be many such angels. The Archangel Langhorne's wrath has already been loosed, with God's holy fire behind it, and no servant of Darkness can stand against the Light. There is war in Safehold, My Children, and until it is resolved, you must—"

  The angel stopped speaking abruptly, and Timothy and Father Michael wheeled towards the open side of the belfry as a brilliant, blinding light flashed upon the northern horizon. It was far away, possibly all the way on the far shore of the enormous lake, but despite the vast distance, it was also incredibly bright. It split the darkness, reflecting across the lake's waters as if they were a mirror, and as it blazed, it rose, higher and higher, like some flaming mushroom rising against the night.

  The angel stared at it, and it was probably just as well that neither Timothy nor the priest could tear his own eyes away from that glaring beacon to see the shock and horror in the angel's expression. But then, as the column of distant flame reached its maximum height and began slowly, slowly to dim, the angel found his voice once more.

  "My Children," he said, and if the words weren't quite steady, neither of the two mortals with him was in any shape to notice it, "I must go. The war of which I spoke has come closer than I—than we—expected. The Archangel Langhorne needs all of us, and I go to join him in battle. Remember what I have told you, and be vigilant."

  He looked at them one more time, then stepped through the belfry opening. Any mortal would have plunged to the ground, undoubtedly shattering his body in the process. But the angel did not. Instead, he rose quickly, silently into the blackness, and Timothy summoned the courage to lean out and look up after him. A brilliant dot blossomed far above as he looked, and he realized that the angel's kyousei hi had lifted him up.

  "Timothy?"

  Michael's voice was soft, almost tiny, and he looked imploringly at the mayor, then back to the distant glare, still fading on the horizon.

  "I don't know, Michael," Timothy said quietly. He turned back to the priest and put his arm about him. "All we can do is place our faith in God and the Archangels. That much I understand. But after that?"

  He shook his head slowly.

  "After that, I just don't know."

  October 1, 3249

  The Mountains of Light,

  Safehold

  She woke up. Which was odd, because she didn't remember going to sleep.

  Sapphire eyes opened, then narrowed as she saw the curve of a glass-smooth stone ceiling above her. She lay on her back on a table of some sort, her hands folded across her chest, and she'd never seen this room before in her life.

  She tried to sit up, and the narrowed eyes flared wide when she discovered she couldn't. Her body was totally nonresponsive, and something very like panic frothed up inside her. And then, abruptly, she noticed the tiny digital ten-day clock floating in one corner of her vision.

  "Hello, Nimue," a familiar voice said, and she discovered she could at least move her head. She rolled it sideways, and recognized the holographic image standing beside her. Pei Kau-yung looked much older. He wore casual civilian clothing, not his uniform; his face was grooved with lines of age, labor, and grief; and his eyes were sad.

  "I'm sorrier than I can ever say to be leaving this message for you," his image said. "And I know this is all coming at you cold. I'm sorry about that, too, but there was no way to avoid it. And, for whatever it's worth, you volunteered. In a manner of speaking, at least."

  His lips quirked in an almost-smile, and his image sat down in a chair which suddenly materialized in the hologram's field.

  "I'm getting a little old, even with antigerone, for standing around during lengthy explanations," he told her, "and I'm afraid this one's going to be lengthier than most. I'm also afraid you'll find you won't be able to move until I've finished it. I apologize for that, too, but it's imperative that you stay put until you've heard me completely out. You must fully understand the situation before you make any decisions or take any action."

  She watched his expression, her thoughts whirling, and she wasn't surprised to discover she wasn't breathing. The digital display had already warned her about that.

  "As I'm sure you've already deduced, you aren't really here," Commodore Pei's recorded message told her. "Or, rather, your biological body isn't. The fact that you were the only member of what I suppose you'd have to call our 'conspiracy' with a last-generation PICA was what made you the only practical choice for this particular . . . mission."

  If she'd been breathing, she might have inhaled in surprise. But she wasn't, because, as Pei had just said, she wasn't actually alive. She was a PICA: a Personality-Integrated Cybernetic Avatar. And, a grimly amused little corner of her mind—if, of course, she could be said to actually have a mind—reflected, she was a top-of-the-line PICA, at that. A gift from Nimue Alban's unreasonably wealthy father.

  "I know you won't recall any of what I'm about to tell you," the commodore continued. "You hadn't realized there'd be any reason to download a current personality record until just before we went aboard ship, and we didn't have time to record a new one before you transferred to Excalibur. For that matter, we couldn't risk having anyone wonder why you'd done it even if there'd been time."

  Her eyes—the finest artificial eyes the Federation's technology could build, faithfully mimicking the autoresponses of the human "wetware" they'd been built to emulate—narrowed once again. For most people, PICAs had been simply enormously expensive toys since they were first developed, almost a century before Crestwell's World, which was precisely how Daffyd Alban had seen his gift to his daughter. For others, those with serious mobility problems not even modern medicine could correct, they'd been something like the ultimate in prosthetics.

  For all intents and purposes, a PICA was a highly advanced robotic vehicle, specifically designed to allow human beings to do dangerous things, including extreme sports activities, without actually physically endangering themselves in the process. First-generation PICAs had been obvious machines, about as aesthetically advanced as one of the utilitarian, tentacle-limbed, floating-oil-drums-on-counter-grav, service 'bots used by sanitation departments throughout the Federation. But second- and third-generation versions had been progressively improved until they became fully articulated, full-sensory-interface, virtual doppelgangers of their original human models. Form followed function, after all, and their entire purpose was to allow those human models to actually experience exactly what they would have experienced doing the same things in the flesh.

  To which end PICAs' "muscles" were constructed of advanced composites, enormously powerful but exactly duplicating the natural human musculature. Their skeletal structure duplicated the human skeleton, but, again, was many times stronger, and their hollow bones were used for molecular circuitry and power transmission. And a final-generation PICA's molycirc "brain" (located about where a flesh-and-blood human would have kept his liver) was almost half the size of the original protoplasmic model. It
had to be that large, for although a PICA's "nerve" impulses moved literally at light speed—somewhere around a hundred times as fast as the chemically transmitted impulses of the human body—matching the interconnectivity of the human brain required the equivalent of a data bus literally trillions of bits wide.

  A PICA could be directly neurally linked to the individual for whom it had been built, but the sheer bandwidth required limited the linkage to relatively short ranges. And any PICA was also hardwired to prevent any other individual from ever linking with it. That was a specific legal requirement, designed to guarantee that no one else could ever operate it, since the individual operating a PICA was legally responsible for any actions committed by that PICA.