Marauder (3 page)

His breathing faltered, and caught. His eyes seemed to focus on her for one brief moment.

Megan felt her own breath catch in her throat.
He knows I’m here. He must do. He . . .

But then his eyes lost focus again, and once more he stared off into some unknowable vista.

She shakily exhaled, realizing it was foolish of her to have expected anything else. The Bash she knew was gone, and now all that was left was this sad, sorry shell of a man.

She stroked his scalp again, feeling for the ridges and crenellations beneath the skin that identified him as a fellow machine-head. Without him she could not reawaken the link that Tarrant had
once forged between Bash and the alien entity known to some species as the Wanderer – but to others as the Marauder.

Megan rocked back on her heels, pressing her hands against her eyes. A long time ago, when she was much younger, she had convinced herself she was in love with Bash. When she told him so, he had
laughed and informed her, not unkindly, that she wasn’t his type. When she asked what his type was, he had glanced across the bar they were sitting in, towards a cluster of male Alliance
officers gathered around a nearby table.

At first she had been crushed, but she soon understood that what she had mistaken for romantic love was instead something deeper and more lasting. It was a bond like that between brother and
sister, or father and daughter: a bond that had first formed on the day of her sudden and unexpected rescue.

In a very real sense, she owed him her life.

It was easy for her to imagine what he might say now, were he capable of saying anything at all. She could picture his easy sardonic smile, hear the warm full tones of his voice.

‘Remember the first time we met?’ she whispered.

His unspoken reply echoed in her ears.
Sure I do, Megan. It was
on Redstone. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

‘I was so scared that night.’ She remembered how she had fled through crowded city streets, desperate to escape a terrible fate.

The first time I saw you
, she remembered him once saying,
you looked so cold I wanted to wrap you up like a baby
.

‘You were the only one I could trust. The only one I could tell the truth to.’

Your secret was always safe with me, honey. You know that.

His eyes still stared past her, betraying no hint of awareness. Megan smiled to herself, then felt her own eyes grow moist.

‘You took me under your wing and I hid there for years,’ she murmured.

And then she had stayed with him, following him all the way back to Kjæregrønnested and the Three Star Alliance; and then she had met Gregor Tarrant, and been forced to watch as he
sentenced Bash to a fate worse than death – before tearing Megan’s life apart forever.

On the first morning of the Grand Pilgrimage, Speaker-Elect Gabrielle woke up with stomach cramps that made her wince. She waited for the worst of the pain to pass, then opened
her eyes to see a look of concern on the face of the old woman standing by the foot of her bed.

‘Madame Gabrielle?’ enquired Mater Cassanas. ‘Are you all right?’

Gabrielle stared across an ocean of linen at Cassanas’s inquisitive expression, then looked away, bunching her fists tightly beneath the heavy restricting sheets as the pain returned, then
faded just as quickly once more. She stared past the gold and silver statuary adorning the bedchamber, past its high ceiling decorated with scenes from the Book of Uchida, and out through the tall
windows reaching from floor to ceiling. There, she could see the canals winding through the heart of Port Gabriel, whose pale blue waters were dotted here and there with the white sails of yachts
and with automated sea transports.

Most of her attention, however, was taken by the barges crowding the riverside docks. They were huge flat-bodied vessels sprouting innumerable pennants and flags, all decorated with the red and
gold seal of the Sacerdotal Demarchy of Uchida.

She had tried, as she had done every morning now for more than two years, to access the public parts of the Tabernacle information service. And, as ever, she failed.

‘I’m quite all right, Mater Cassanas,’ said Gabrielle finally, before sitting up carefully. Her machine-head implants were feeding her a constant drip of background data about
her surroundings: the composition of the sheets between which she lay, or the trace elements in the air she breathed, even the current locations of orbital factories and Accord peacekeeper
platforms above the surface of Redstone. She could track them, if and when she chose to, even follow them as they passed from one horizon to the next, and beyond.

But there was so much more information closer to hand to which her access was heavily restricted. It was for her own safety, they claimed, because too many public-data links could be subverted
by the Demarchy’s enemies and used to launch covert viral attacks against her. Even so, it was enormously frustrating to be gifted with so very powerful a tool and yet be prevented from
making use of more than a tiny fraction of its capabilities.

What made it worse was the knowledge that machine-heads had, for a very long time, been regularly employed as the pilots of interstellar craft throughout the Accord and beyond. Their implants
allowed them to interface directly with such craft, and the idea of being a starship pilot had never failed to fill Gabrielle with wonder. Yet it had always been an impossible yearning.

Cassanas looked doubtful despite Gabrielle’s reassurances, pursing the lips of her long horse-like face. But Gabrielle glared at the old woman until she finally bowed in acquiescence, a
flush of red colouring her withered cheeks.

‘Of course, Madame Gabrielle,’ Cassanas muttered, peering back at her with unmistakable hostility from below the yellow-and-black cap that identified her as an attendant.

The old woman’s eyes dipped briefly towards Gabrielle’s belly, swaddled beneath constricting sheets. In that moment Gabrielle felt suddenly, overwhelmingly certain that the old woman
knew precisely what she was trying to hide.

But she also knew that Cassanas would say and do nothing, out of fear for her own son’s life.

Even so, Gabrielle felt her heartbeat grow faster, her hands again forming into fists beneath the heavy linen, where Mater Cassanas could not see them.

She then thought of Karl – proud, strong Karl Petrova. Despite all their talk, she had never really believed a day might finally come when all their dreams of escaping could be
realized.

‘You’re scheduled to have breakfast with your advisers, before departing for Dios,’ declared Cassanas, clearly struggling to maintain her professional composure. She motioned
with her eyes towards the door leading into an antechamber. ‘Therefore I think perhaps we should get started immediately.’

‘Of course,’ said Gabrielle, aware of the slight quaver in her voice as she replied.

She waited, as taught from childhood, until Cassanas had peeled off the sheets, before swinging her bare feet out and onto the cold marble floor. She then followed the old woman into the
antechamber, where her robes of office had been laid out on a chaise-longue, ready for the morning ahead.

Cassanas picked up several items, draping them over one arm in preparation for dressing her charge. As Gabrielle watched her, she thought back on the endless mundanity of all the days of her
life up until now, each day barely distinguishable from the last. She could almost taste the sights and sounds and smells that lay in all their rich and infinite variety beyond the choking confines
of the palace.

‘I want to dress myself this morning,’ Gabrielle said on a sudden impulse.

The old woman looked at her, perplexed. ‘It’s against protocol to—’

‘Nonetheless,’ said Gabrielle, her jaw tight, ‘I insist.’

The old woman’s face flushed with anger. ‘You won’t be able to hide it forever, you know,’ she spat, her eyes dropping again towards Gabrielle’s belly. ‘Thijs
and the rest will find out about your
little secret
soon enough. You’ll ruin the whole Pilgrimage, and the Ascension too—’

‘I think,’ said Gabrielle, ‘you should be careful what you say. Or should I inform Karl of how you’ve just spoken to me?’

Cassanas’s nostrils flared, and she looked ready to make a retort, but instead swallowed deeply before replacing the robes on the chaise-longue with exaggerated carefulness. Gabrielle had
the sense the old woman was barely resisting the urge to throw the clothes in her face.

‘All I want,’ continued Gabrielle, ‘is to have a few minutes alone.’ She forced a smile. ‘It’s a big day, after all, and you know it’s hard enough, as
things are, for me to get a little time to myself.’

Cassanas’s mouth fluttered like an angry moth. ‘Thijs and the rest will be arriving soon. If they discover I’ve left you on your own for as much as a moment . . .’

‘Edith –’ Gabrielle used the old woman’s first name as she stepped closer to her – ‘just a few minutes, no more. You know you’ll hear them coming long
before they reach my chambers.’

Cassanas nodded and left the room without another word, her face still taut with anger.

Gabrielle felt her shoulders sag with relief as, closing her eyes, she subsided onto the chaise-longue. She could hear Cassanas busying herself on the other side of the door, straightening the
bedclothes or perhaps putting things away.

Gabrielle then stood up and stripped off her nightdress, taking the opportunity to study herself naked in one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that surrounded her. Placing her hands on her belly,
she began gently probing her soft flesh.

Was it obvious yet? she wondered. Perhaps just the tiniest curve to her belly was evident – a sign of the scandalous new life growing within her.

Oh, Karl.
She wondered how he’d react once he knew . . . but when would be the right time to tell him? Would it change their plans, or even give him a reason to abandon her?

No
, she told herself adamantly.
Stop being ridiculous
. It was foolish to think any such thing.

She then dressed herself in the robes that identified her as the Speaker-Elect for the Sacerdotal Demarchy. She checked herself again in the mirror, turning this way and that, knowing she had to
play the part for as long as necessary. And yet nothing could have made her happier than the idea of tearing these ridiculous robes off and burning them.

I’m only a girl
, she reflected, for her twenty-first birthday was less than three days away. And too young to be a murderer, however much those she would soon help to kill
deserved their fate.

She reached up to touch her scalp, feeling the faint crenellations and bumps of the machine-head hardware beneath her skin. Her long and lustrous hair hid most of the visible traces of the
technology, except where faint lines could still be seen on her exposed temples. Unless people looked very closely, they might never guess, Karl had reassured her.

Gabrielle heard distant voices echoing beyond her chambers, coming closer.

Stepping back out of the antechamber, she let Mater Cassanas adjust the fastenings on her robes. Gabrielle did not resist when the old woman then took her by the elbow and guided her out of the
bedchamber and into the reception room beyond the double doors, where Thijs and his entourage were already waiting.

Smalling turned as she entered, as did Lampard, Abramovic and Thijs himself, each of them dressed in his own distinctive robe of office. They stood in an untidy group by a long table that had
already been prepared for the morning meal.

These men present were the true rulers of the Demarchy of Uchida, as Karl had once explained to her; she, by contrast, was little more than a means to an end, regardless of endless public
pronouncements to the contrary. Accompanying these high officials of the Demarchy were a number of yellow-and-black-capped attendants, most of them acting as security personnel under Karl’s
direct command.

Gabrielle forced herself to unclench her shoulders, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly until the rapid thundering of her heart had slowed to a gentler rhythm. She avoided gazing
directly at Thijs, whose eyes roved with obvious interest over the few curves of her body actually visible beneath her voluminous robes.

From the direction of the riverside docks came the sound of music – a recording of a choir singing a hymnal. The melody came and went with the wind blowing in from the river and the sea
beyond.

‘Mer Gabrielle,’ said Thijs, his eyes finally finding their way back to her face. ‘I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see you looking so well, and on the eve of
such a special occasion.’

The Demarchy’s chief of security, Thijs kept his hands locked in front of him like two sea anemones grappling over a fragment of food. Lampard regarded her with a cold and distant gaze, as
if already engaged in the act of dissecting her alive. Abramovic remained as aloof and unreadable as ever; Gabrielle could recall no more than a very few occasions throughout her life when the
master of sciences had actually spoken to her directly.

‘Is everything all right?’ asked Thijs, a flicker of concern crossing his face. ‘You look a little pale, Mer Gabrielle.’ He glanced to one side of her. ‘Mater
Cassanas . . . ?’

Gabrielle saw the old woman turn towards her, her gaze dipping briefly once more towards her mistress’s belly before rising to meet her eyes.

I dare you
, thought Gabrielle, staring back. Not for the first time in recent months, she had the sensation of her whole life hanging in the balance by the most delicate of threads.
Tell them how Karl’s
been blackmailing you. Bring the whole damn Pilgrimage crashing
down around their ears, and see just how grateful to you they are.

But when Cassanas turned to address Thijs a moment later, she was transformed into the very picture of smiling obsequiousness. ‘Mer Gabrielle is just very tired,’ replied the old
woman. ‘I think that’s understandable, given the circumstances, as there’s so much to do before we sail for Dios.’