He could feel her, he was sure of it. Whether by some trick of the earcuffs or his imagination, he had some sense of where she was. The other captain’s voices had disappeared now: only Trinica’s frightened protests were left, muffled into incoherence.
The Awakeners had brought all the frigate captains together in order to spring some kind of trap. What did they hope to gain? To take over their aircraft, annex them to the fleet so they could put loyal Awakener captains in charge? But what about their crews?
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the tone of Trinica’s voice. Very rarely had he heard her scared, especially since she became a pirate. But he heard it now. Real, mortal terror.
If they’ve harmed a hair on her head I swear I’ll murder every last one of them.
He turned a corner, and checked himself again. Standing before a door was a Sentinel, his rifle standing upright next to him in the manner of a formal guard. There was no one else in sight.
The Sentinel looked up at him, noting his interest. ‘You’ll have to wait, brother,’ he said. ‘Nobody goes in till they’re done.’
Frey carried on walking towards him. ‘That’s fine, brother. There was one thing I wanted to ask you, though.’ He drove his knee between the unsuspecting man’s legs with all the force he could muster. The Sentinel doubled over, eyes bulging, a faint whistle coming from his nose like a kettle on the boil. Frey grabbed his hair, wrenched his head up and butted him in the face. The Sentinel crumpled to the floor, eyes blank and nose bloody.
He heard footsteps and spun around. His crew had followed him. They came hurrying up when they saw him.
Malvery looked down at the guard, then over at Jez. ‘Now there’s a master in action,’ he told her. She stared at him as if he was from another planet.
‘Guns,’ Frey said tersely. They pulled weapons from beneath their cassocks. They all looked ridiculous, Malvery and Pinn particularly so: fat men in too-small cassocks with Ciphers painted on their foreheads. But their faces were grim, and they were ready to do what had to be done.
It was a good crew. When he needed them, they were there.
He pulled the door open and stepped inside. The room beyond was small, with a raised Cipher pattern covering one wall and a large window dominating all. There were a dozen Awakeners in here of various ranks, seated on chairs facing the window. Some turned round as Frey came in. He stormed over to them and dragged them from their chairs before they had the chance to voice their alarm. Malvery, Pinn and the others waded in, manhandling the Awakeners to the ground, knocking over side-tables as they did so and spilling wine jugs everywhere. Only Pelaru stayed back, observing the scene calmly.
In moments, they had the room under control, with the Awakeners herded into a corner and held there at gunpoint. Jez dragged in the Sentinel from outside, who was dazed and semi-conscious, and Pelaru shut the door behind them.
‘Well, there goes our cover,’ said Pinn. He pointed out his shotgun to the cowering Awakeners. ‘Watch out for this,’ he said. ‘This thing’s got a hair-trigger.’
Frey walked to the window. It was another observation room, overlooking a chamber of similar dimensions to the one that housed the Azryx device. What he saw below made the blood drain from his face.
There were two dozen Awakeners there, including the Lord High Cryptographer and his retinue, and two Imperators. They stood at the edge of the chamber, outside a circle of metal masts that were attached by cables to a control console, worked by three men. More cables ran from generators and other large brass machines he didn’t recognise.
He’d seen this kind of thing before, on a smaller scale. He’d seen it in the back of the Ketty Jay’s cargo hold. This was an industrial-sized sanctum. No doubt this was the source of the interference that was messing with the earcuffs.
In the centre of the sanctum was a great riveted sphere, supported by struts, a hollow chamber that had been split in half horizontally. Bubbles of thick glass were set into it, windows to the interior. The bottom hemisphere was secured to the ground; the upper hemisphere was several metres above it, slowly descending on the end of a hydraulic arm.
In between was Trinica.
They’d strapped her to a grid, lying on her back, her wrists and ankles secured. Her eyes were wide and black in her corpse-white face, staring upward as the upper hemisphere was lowered towards her. She wasn’t struggling: she had a kind of paralysis of terror upon her, a rabbit gone limp in the jaws of a fox.
Frey watched, unable to act, as the upper half of the sphere met with the lower. There was a hiss, and locks clanked into place, sealing Trinica within. Through one of the portholes Frey could see Trinica’s face, warped and smeared by the domed glass. She lay still, gazing into the middle distance.
He turned away and seized one of the hostages, pulling him out of the group. It was a black-robed Prognosticator, the highest-ranking Awakener there. He had a shaven head, a bristling beard, and a scrawny, unhealthy look to him that made Frey want to batter him for the sake of it.
‘How do we get down there?’ he demanded.
‘You can’t,’ the Prognosticator said, cringing away from the pistol Frey shoved in his face. ‘The entrance is on the floor below.’
‘Guards?’
‘Yes! Yes! This place is just for observation.’
‘Observing what?’
‘So the young ones can see the glory of the Allsoul made flesh. The faithful attuned to the great Code through science. So that the Allsoul can enter them and leave them transformed. .’
‘I’d can the theatrics if I were you, mate,’ said Malvery, who’d seen the murderous look on Frey’s face.
‘What. Are they doing. To her?’ Frey said through gritted teeth, finger hovering over the trigger.
The Prognosticator opened his mouth but then closed it again, scared to say the wrong thing.
‘Last chance.’
The Prognosticator swallowed. ‘They’re turning her into an Imperator.’
Frey felt the bottom fall out of his world. His legs went weak, and he staggered. No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t!
His head was swarming and his skin prickled. There was a sense of building power in the room. Jez began to whine, low in her throat. She backed away from the window with her teeth bared. From the chamber the throb of generators could be heard.
He felt trapped, caged, wild. An enormous rage filled him but there was nowhere to vent it. He had to do something, he had to save her! She needed him!
He seized the Prognosticator by the collar, jammed the gun against his forehead. The other hostages cried out in fright. ‘Stop them!’ he demanded.
‘I can’t!’ the Prognosticator blurted.
‘I’ll kill you,’ Frey said. ‘Swear to shit I will.’
‘It’s already begun! If you interrupt it, it’ll kill her!’ Frey cocked the revolver, and the Prognosticator’s eyes squeezed shut. ‘I’m telling you the truth!’ he wailed.
Frey swore in frustration and pistol-whipped the Prognosticator across the face. The man collapsed and Frey backed away, face red, breathing heavily. The faces of his crew seemed strange to him now, full of suspicion and plots. They were watching him, noting his loss of control, criticising him for his foolish pursuit of Trinica. And he saw wicked amusement in the eyes of the Awakeners, as if they relished his suffering, safe in the knowledge that their ultimate victory was secure.
Paranoia. Delusion. A daemon was coming.
And they were putting it into Trinica.
He couldn’t contain his fury any longer. He ran to the window, aimed his pistol down at the Lord High Cryptographer, and pulled the trigger.