Marauder (11 page)

In all of her life, Gabrielle had only rarely set foot outside Port Gabriel. Most of her existence had been spent within the strict confines of the People’s Palace, and she now felt almost
dizzy from the sight of so much sky. She gazed at canopy trees rising out of the frozen soil of the nearby eastern shore, the tiny black dots of one-wings circling beneath huge frond-like branches
that overshadowed the ground beneath.

The Ka River was wide enough here for the western shore to have become little more than a dark line on the far horizon. The nearer shore was lined with the primitive-looking sealed domes and
glittering biomes of small towns that looked like they had hardly changed since the days of the pioneers.

She glanced aft to see the rest of the barges strung out along the river behind them. Dios lay a hundred kilometres further downriver, yet she found it easy to imagine that, if she squinted hard
enough, she could see the steep cliffs against which the Ship of the Covenant rested.

She remembered the excitement in her youth when she had once looked forward to this day – and the slowly building dread that had come to replace it. These two emotions merged and clashed
in her thoughts. She had always wanted to visit Dios, as so many pilgrims did, but to do so under the present circumstances would be at the cost of her life.

She fanned her fingers, then stirred them through the air to activate the Tabernacle. A patch of air before her darkened, becoming opaque to her view.

She conjured up a real-time image of the Ship of the Covenant. Bridges were constructed all around the hull of the ancient craft, interconnecting with ramps and platforms built up the cliff face
on either side. A number of buildings, part research establishment and part religious retreat, had been constructed around that portion of the ship that rested on the ground, and all of these in
turn were surrounded by constantly patrolled walls and guarded gates. The Demarchy was extremely keen to protect its investment.

She heard a noise behind her, and guessed she had company. The image before her rippled and faded, and she turned to see Karl Petrova standing just inside the entrance to the observation
deck.

He closed the glass doors behind him and came towards her. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked, his voice kept low. ‘It’s very nearly time.’

She swallowed hard. ‘Surely the banquet is still hours away?’

‘This is the last chance we’ll have to speak to each other until afterwards,’ he explained, reaching out to tidy a lock of her hair that had come loose.
‘Everything’s in place.’

She thought of that vial of poison, and felt a thrill of terror mixed with excitement lancing through her. ‘I won’t fail you,’ she said, so quietly that she could barely be
heard above the crashing of the waves on the nearby shore. He reached out and caressed her waist. ‘You know that I love you, don’t you?’

Gabrielle took a step back from Karl, eyes widening as she glanced instinctively towards the doors behind him. They were both hidden by curtains from the direct view of his guards, but still . .
.

‘Karl,’ she warned, ‘if anyone heard what you just said—’

‘But they didn’t,’ said Karl, his tone cool and confident, ‘and they won’t. You remember everything you have to do?’

She nodded. ‘I remember,’ she said, her voice sounding stronger this time.

‘Say it again,’ he coaxed.

She stared up at him. ‘I remember,’ she repeated, her tone almost defiant. Then: ‘I love you too, Karl – more than you can imagine.’

He smiled at that, but again there was something unreadable in his eyes.

‘To our Speaker-Elect,’ said Thijs, raising his glass high in a toast. Its contents sparkled, reflecting the flames of the fireplace that took up most of one wall
of the Grand Barge’s banqueting hall.

He then turned his gaze from the assembled dignitaries of the Demarchy towards Gabrielle herself. Their eyes met briefly before she looked quickly away.

‘To Gabrielle,’ confirmed Thijs, ‘on the eve of her Ascension.’

More glasses were raised, their contents as dark and red as arterial blood. There were perhaps thirty men and women here altogether, arranged on either side of the long dining table carved from
out of a canopy tree’s taproot. Gabrielle sat at the head of the table, able to feel, through her feet, the distant vibration of the powerful turbines as the barge carried them onwards.

Semi-transparent glow-globes floated just beneath the ceiling, filling the room with a warm and pearly light. Tiny insect-like shapes occasionally flitted through the air – autonomous
recording devices, nominally under Thijs’s control, but secretly slaved, she knew, to Karl’s command. Tonight, he would make sure they recorded nothing.

Gabrielle nodded to Thijs in acknowledgement. ‘Hear, hear,’ said someone further down the table, their voice slurring.

Thijs sat down again. This banquet for the Demarchy’s leading bureaucrats and politicians had been going on for nearly three hours now, yet the after-dinner speeches had still not come to
an end.

The first bout of speechmaking had come from a number of minor adjutants, each of them in turn summarizing the various technological benefits that the Demarchy of Uchida had acquired thanks to
previous Ascensions. After them had come the lower-level bureaucrats, detailing the Demarchy’s continued happy relations with the Accord, while their equivalents from the security department
had reported further on the Demarchy’s continued successes against both the River Concord States and the pockets of Freehold resistance still scattered amongst the higher peaks of the Montos
de Frenezo range. After these had come the senior researchers from Dios, with a summary of the financial and military aid received from the Accord, and finally the senior security and bureaucracy,
whose speeches consisted mostly of congratulations to everyone else for their part in keeping the Demarchy safe from its neighbours and its enemies for another twenty-one years.

At last, just when it seemed that these interminable eulogies might go on for the rest of eternity, the remains of the dinner were cleared away by waiting staff, and the ceremonial wine was
finally brought in. Gabrielle watched with sick fascination as the glasses around her were refreshed. She reached carefully into the folds of her gown, letting her fingers touch the device that
would activate the neurotoxin, as if to remind herself she had not imagined last night’s conversation.

When a glass of the poisoned wine was set before her, she stroked its stem with her thumb and forefinger, and forced herself to control her breathing.
I will not panic
. She reminded
herself that Karl was just metres away, at the far end of a corridor leading to the banqueting hall. He was accompanied by twenty Demarchy troopers, whom he insisted were absolutely loyal to
him.

Just another few minutes, and they would finally be free.

Thijs stood again, waiting for the conversation to die down.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘Mer Gabrielle will be granted the privilege of communing directly with the Ship of the Covenant, as so many of her predecessors have done for nearly two
centuries now. In return for this act of selflessness, the Demarchy and its benefactors in the Accord will benefit from a priceless cornucopia of scientific and technological wisdom.’

He looked around at the attentive faces. ‘But this sacrifice is also a blessing for her,’ he continued. ‘After passing on to us this sacred information, Mer Gabrielle will, as
all before her have been witnessed to do, ascend bodily into the highest realms of the informational matrix, there to reside next to God the Master Programmer. She will thereby be invested with a
glory that even the most devout amongst us could never hope to attain. For this, Mer Gabrielle,’ he declared, turning to face her, ‘we here all salute you.’

Someone started clapping, and it spread. She watched entranced as the assembled leaders of the Demarchy, every last one of them, raised their glasses to their lips and swallowed the tainted
wine.

She lifted her own glass, barely pressing the rim to her lips before placing it back down with the wine untouched. How many of those here knew the truth about her existence? she wondered. Was it
no more than a few – Thijs, Lampard and Abramovic perhaps, and one or two others – or was it indeed the case, as Karl had assured her, that all of them were privy to this age-old
conspiracy? Could there possibly be anyone here innocent of the crime against her?

There was no way of knowing, and if she did not act – if she allowed her doubts to get the better of her – she would surely die.

Gabrielle stood up suddenly, feeling as if her bones had turned to jelly. For a moment she feared that everyone present was entirely aware of her part in Karl’s conspiracy, and they were
simply waiting for the right moment to deliver their denunciation.

She glanced towards Thijs; surely he could detect the guilt radiating from her every pore? But instead he gave her an inquisitive smile that seemed in stark contrast to the iciness of his
gaze.

‘You have something to say, Mer Gabrielle?’ he enquired.

It was not yet her turn to speak, therefore she was breaking strict protocol. But this would be her only opportunity to say things she had for so long ached to say.

‘I do have something to say, Pater Thijs,’ she replied, doing her best not to let his reptilian gaze put her off. She could feel her skin flushing red, and there was a deep thrumming
in her veins that pounded in her ears like drums. ‘In return for this honour, I wish also to thank you.’

A smattering of mild, uncertain applause, for Thijs had not finished his speech when Gabrielle had stood up and interrupted him. He sat down nonetheless, folding his robes neatly around him, and
waited for her to continue.

She found the strength and will to go on by reminding herself of just how long she had dreamed of this moment. All she needed to do was picture his pale, sweaty face looming above hers, and
remember the pain she had then felt.

‘I do not think, Pater Thijs,’ her voice grew marginally more steady, ‘that I truly understood my role within the Demarchy until you came into my bedchamber when I was only
thirteen years old and raped me.’

Thijs’s eyes looked as if they had turned to glass, his entire face frozen, but he recovered quickly.

‘Mer Gabrielle,’ he stood up once more, ‘perhaps asking you to take part in this banquet has put too much of a strain on you. May I suggest that you now retire for the night .
. . ?’

A door banged open, and one of Karl’s guards came running in. He stepped over to Abramovic and whispered urgently in the man’s ear.

Abramovic turned in his chair to look up at the man, his expression incredulous.

Thijs looked genuinely relieved by the interruption. ‘What is it, Pater Abramovic?’ he asked.

Abramovic gestured in the air to summon his Tabernacle link. He kept it private, however, so only he could see what information lay there. He then shot upright in his seat, and looked at those
sitting around the table with terrified eyes.

‘We need to abandon the barge,’ he said, in a voice suddenly husky. ‘We need to get the hell out of here right
now
!’

The guard hurried back out of the room and, as the door opened, Gabrielle could hear a murmur of voices from beyond, and what might have been shouting from up on the main deck.

‘What in hell is going on?’ demanded Thijs.

Now
, thought Gabrielle in a panic, suddenly sure that she and Karl had been uncovered.

She took hold of his activation device and pressed the button set into it, with a satisfying
click
.

At first, nothing happened. No one was even paying any attention to her now, because they were all busy staring at Abramovic.

‘There has been an attack on the Demarchy,’ announced Abramovic. ‘From off-world.’

The banqueters broke into a hubbub of questions and demands. ‘From the Accord?’ asked one voice.

‘I don’t know,’ Abramovic replied. ‘There’s only limited data coming through at the moment, but it appears there has been a . . . an impact of some kind in the
ocean several hundred kilometres south of Dios. All I know is that
something
just landed there – something big. It might be a comet or a meteor . . .’

Someone at the far end of the table coughed violently.

‘That’s impossible!’ cried Thijs. ‘We have planetary defences for such things – not to mention the Accord forces in orbit. How could this possibly . . .
?’

‘
How
isn’t important,’ Abramovic yelled, and then himself coughed violently. ‘The point is that there’s a tidal wave coming towards us. We have fast-launch
flyers on the aft upper deck, enough for all of us. We must evacuate the ship immediately if the Demarchy is to . . . is to . . .’

He stopped then, a perplexed look on his face. His chest heaved, and he again coughed explosively into one hand.

Gabrielle watched in horrified fascination as he peered down at the specks of blood on his palm. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, looking over at Thijs before slumping
forward.

One of the other banqueters half-stood before vomiting violently into his neighbour’s lap. Then his face twisted in a grimace, and he collapsed right across the table. Over the next few
seconds, the rest followed, their bodies contorting as they stumbled up from their chairs or tumbled to the floor.

Thijs stared at Gabrielle with a horrified expression, as if he realized what she had done. He tried to push his chair back, but instead fell to his knees, continuing to stare up at her with
hatred.

‘I used to dream of a moment like this,’ said Gabrielle, gazing down at him. ‘Ever since that night.’

‘You . . .’ Thijs managed to gasp.

‘Not just me.’ A strange calm came over her. ‘This was all Karl Petrova’s plan . . . and he’s a far better lover than you could ever be, Pater Thijs.’

Thijs’s eyes finally lost their focus and he slumped to the floor. Gabrielle stared around the suddenly silent banquet hall, at all the bodies surrounding her, their eyes bulging and faces
contorted.