Marauder (38 page)

Gabrielle finally tore herself free of Tarrant’s grasp and swept Evie up from the table. She then pressed her face against the wall as the sound of killing filled the air.

Finally the noise abated, leaving only a terrible silence that clawed at her innards.

‘Sir?’ she heard one of the guards say.

‘Bring Stiles over here,’ said Tarrant. ‘Gabrielle, turn around now. You and me and Miss Stiles are going to have a little talk before we leave here.’

When she didn’t respond, Tarrant grabbed her by the arm and yanked her round to face him. She saw Martha, looking dazed and bruised and pale with shock, standing between the two remaining
soldiers.

‘Sir,’ said one of the two men, ‘my understanding was that we shouldn’t leave
any
of them alive.’

‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Tarrant, indicating his pistol. He jerked his head towards the door. ‘Now go.’

The two men regarded him uncertainly.

‘I said
go
,’ Tarrant repeated, in the same voice she had heard him use to his troops back in Port Gabriel.

As soon as they had departed, Tarrant turned his attention back to Stiles. ‘You’re in charge here, right?’

‘Yes,’ Stiles managed to reply, her voice still sounding ragged and hoarse. She swayed a little, her gaze slightly unfocused.

‘Gabrielle, give her the baby,’ instructed Tarrant.

‘No. You’re going to—’

‘No, Gaby, I’m not going to kill either of them.’

‘But—’

‘Martha, right?’ he turned to Stiles.

She nodded.

‘Can you take care of the child if we leave her here with you?’ he asked.

Martha looked as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. ‘I . . . yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, I can.’

‘Good.’ Tarrant nodded as well. ‘Now, Gabrielle, before Sifra comes back to find out why all this is taking so long . . .’

‘There must be—’

‘There’s no other way,’ he said sharply. ‘Now give her the goddamn baby before Sifra realizes what I’ve done.’ He took a deep breath, forcing a smile.
‘This’ll be our secret, understand?’

Gabrielle nodded automatically. Moving like an automaton, she handed Evie over to Stiles, who accepted the baby with disbelief clearly written across her face.

Gabrielle no longer resisted when Tarrant took hold of her arm once more. He paused at the entrance to fire two shots into the refectory floor, in quick succession.

The last Gabrielle saw of Martha, she was still standing amidst the bodies of her friends and colleagues, Evie clasped tightly in her arms.

Megan had no memory of anything that might have taken place after boarding the Ship of the Covenant. Instead, without the memory of transitioning from one place to another, she
found herself on another world.

Or rather, she found herself on the virtual representation of a world that had existed aeons before, in another galaxy; a dream, spun by an ancient machine intelligence specially in order for it
to communicate with her. Back in her previous life, when her name had been Dakota Merrick, she had wandered through countless such worlds, preserved within the matrices of this ship and others,
interacting with the shades of creatures that had passed away long ago.

Such as the one standing before her now.

She stood near the middle of a vaulted hall, and a Librarian – an anthropomorphic representation of the collective intelligences within the Magi ship – stood before her, with its
face lost in shadows.

When it spoke, the creature’s voice sounded strangely flat, despite the expanse of space around them. ‘You asked us,’ it said, ‘whether we would take you to the
Wanderer.’

‘And you said you would.’

‘That decision is contingent on our first having full possession of the facts. May we ask how much you yourself know about the Wanderer?’

‘I know it’s all that’s left of a civilization called the Core Transcendence that was wiped out by the Makers. It’s been wandering the galaxy ever since, looking for
something that can help it destroy them. Sometimes it runs into other spacefaring species, and trades information with them if it’s feeling peaceable. I know it’s been searching for a
Maker cache, so that it can get hold of a nova drive.’

‘And as for yourself, you believe the Wanderer can help you destroy the Maker Swarm that is currently bound for this part of the galaxy. Why do you think that?’

‘Because it managed to destroy a Maker Swarm at least once before.’

‘And it told you this?’

‘The first time I encountered it, yes.’

‘And you kept this information to yourself?’ asked the Librarian.

She felt her skin colour. ‘Who was I supposed to tell? Nobody knew who I really was . . . I mean, who I had been,’ she corrected herself.

‘And it hasn’t succeeded in destroying another Swarm since?’

‘How could it, without a superluminal drive? It got lucky one time when a Swarm came to investigate it, and the Wanderer managed to destroy it before it could jump out of range again. But
a strategy like that is unlikely to work more than once, and the dying Swarm would almost certainly have broadcast a warning to others of its kind.’

‘Which does explain why the Wanderer is so very desperate to acquire its own nova drive. And yet you yourself clearly think it would be a bad idea if it did. Why?’

She gathered her thoughts before replying. ‘Look, there’s always been something inimical about the Wanderer during all of our communications – something cold. You and all the
Magi ships share the same goal with it, to destroy the Makers – but your underlying programming also demands that you preserve intelligent life throughout the universe. The Wanderer
doesn’t care about life anywhere else, since all it wants is revenge, regardless of the consequences.’

It occurred to her then that Tarrant and Sifra were not so very different from the Wanderer in that respect.

‘In short,’ the Librarian concluded, ‘you mistrust the Wanderer’s motives. Its past aggression suggests it could prove harmful to your own civilization, were it to come
into possession of a nova drive. You should know, then, that we agree with your assessment. Which begs a further question – what could we possibly hope to gain by taking you to it?’

‘All you’ve ever really done is engage in skirmishes with the Swarms, without ever once striking at the Makers themselves . . . and yet, finding some way to destroy the Makers is
central to your purpose. The Wanderer thinks you already have the key to fulfilling that purpose buried so deep in your memory banks that you don’t even know it’s there.’

‘How could the Wanderer possibly know if that was the case?’

‘I re-established contact with it some weeks back.’ It had taken her the whole of that long night, locked in Bash’s quarters back at the research outpost, to establish an
effective bridge to the Wanderer. ‘It turns out that the Core Transcendence once had contact with the Magi, a very long time ago.’

‘We have no record of this,’ said the Librarian.

‘Are you sure about that?’ She stepped slightly closer. ‘I remember what it was like to wander through all those worlds that every one of these ships has preserved inside it.
Tens of thousands of worlds and cultures spread over hundreds of thousands of years and more. How do you know that precisely just the information you need isn’t already buried somewhere
inside your memory banks?’

‘This is possible,’ the Librarian agreed. ‘Do you know when this meeting might have occurred?’

‘Nearly two million years ago,’ she replied.

‘The time of the very earliest Magi cultures?’

Megan nodded. The history of the Large Magellanic Cloud was one of constant expansion and contraction, of different civilizations and species coming to the fore at different times. Each
successive civilization had built on the ruins of those that preceded it. ‘And it’s also at just about the same time,’ she continued, ‘that the Core Transcendence first
encountered the Makers here in
this
galaxy. The Core Transcendence sent an expedition out to the Large Magellanic Cloud to contact those early Magi in order to try and find out if they
knew of a way to fight the Makers.’

‘And?’ asked the Librarian.

‘And they came back empty-handed,’ she said. ‘But not without having learned that this early Magi culture supposedly had a means of preventing the Makers from expanding any
further – one that’s been lost ever since.’

‘I presume,’ said the Librarian, ‘there’s a reason why they came back empty-handed?’

She spread her hands. ‘That’s just it. I don’t know why they did. All I know is that, according to the Wanderer, all this time there’s been a way to stop the Makers
– to wipe them out forever. But the ancestors of the people who built you didn’t want to share it with the Core Transcendence.’

‘And this leads you – and the Wanderer – to believe that the means you refer to remains buried somewhere within the collective memories of the Magi ships.’

‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘God knows, we need at least to try. But unless you can locate that data yourself, we’re going to have to try something
drastic.’

‘Such as?’ asked the Librarian.

She held her breath for a moment. ‘Such as letting the Wanderer have direct access to your memory banks.’

‘Do you really think that would be wise,’ said the Librarian, ‘given the Wanderer’s apparent tendency towards the unpredictable?’

‘It’s a question of priorities,’ replied Megan. ‘If you don’t do this, the Swarm will reach human space, and we’ve got no way to repel it. Your programming
will prevent you from allowing this to happen – and that’s why you found a way to warn me, by letting me know the Swarm was on its way.’

She paced back and forth before the Librarian, cupping one fist with her other hand. ‘How long has it been?’ she demanded. ‘More than a hundred and fifty thousand years, since
you and the rest of the Magi ships came to the Milky Way? And you haven’t even come close to fulfilling your core programming. If the Wanderer is telling the truth about there being some way
to destroy the Makers, then this could be your chance for a final, all-out victory against them.’

The darkened silhouette’s head moved slightly to one side. ‘And yet you chose to arrange your own expedition rather than approach us once we informed you of the Swarm’s
approach. You were going to offer yourself as a bridge to the Wanderer, and allow it to access our memory banks. Why, when you could simply have come here and made use of this ship?’

‘How?’ she asked. ‘What was I supposed to do – just stroll in past the Demarchy’s security? Until the flood swept everything away, that would have just got me
killed. Not to mention that my first memory, after dying somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, was of waking up in a torture chamber in which
you
helped to put me, and who knows how
many others. Why the hell would I trust you after that? Not to mention that for all I know you’re still too crippled to fly.’

‘We would have found a way to circumvent the Demarchy’s security operations once we knew you were on Redstone,’ said the Librarian. ‘As to your other concerns, you should
remember we had no control over what the Demarchy chose to do with you or any of the other clones, once your original memories were restored. In truth, we had every reason to expect that, given
your innate resourcefulness, one or more of you would have found a way to escape. And you and Gabrielle did manage that, eventually, although it took rather more lifetimes than we had originally
anticipated.’

She stared at the Librarian, thunderstruck.

‘Let me ask you something in turn,’ said the Librarian. ‘If you didn’t trust us before, what brings you to trust us now?’

She shook her head. ‘Well,’ she said, her tone calmer now, ‘I guess the fact is I’m all out of any other ideas.’

‘You should know,’ said the Librarian, after a short pause, ‘that this ship is not so crippled as it might appear. We have already lifted off from Redstone, and we are even now
accelerating to jump velocity.’

She stared at the creature in astonishment. ‘How . . . ?’

‘Taking off at this particular time is admittedly risky,’ the Librarian explained, ‘given that this ship is still not fully repaired, and therefore remains in a weakened state.
But it is, as you yourself have made clear, a necessary risk.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We can’t leave, not yet. I need to go back for Bash first . . . and Gabrielle.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said the Librarian. ‘They are both currently on board a ship called the
Damien Ingersoll
, which is owned by Otto Schelling.’

Megan felt all the blood drain from her face. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Entirely, yes. The
Ingersoll
broke orbit shortly after we escaped Redstone’s gravity well.’

‘How do you know they’re on board?’

‘A simple analysis of encrypted data traffic proved sufficient.’

Megan swallowed. ‘Gabrielle would have given birth by now. Do you – know if the baby is with her?’

‘Her child’s whereabouts is unknown,’ the Librarian replied. ‘The
Ingersoll
is clearly outfitted for a long-range expedition, so it is undoubtedly bound for the
same destination as ourselves.’

‘Then we need to stop them,’ Megan moaned, sinking to her knees on the cold stone floor. ‘What do they even need Gabrielle
for
? She’s no use to them now that she
can’t be merged with this ship.’

‘Then she may simply be a hostage,’ said the Librarian. ‘However, you should remember that you and she are genetically identical. It may be that, lacking you, they intend to
use her to communicate with the Wanderer, through Bashir.’

Her eyes grew wide. ‘They can’t do that . . . can they?’

‘The Demarchy created you and every other Speaker-Elect from Dakota Merrick’s genetic material – and that, in turn, had already undergone considerable optimization on board
this very ship. Gabrielle will almost certainly be capable of communicating with the Wanderer in precisely the same manner as yourself.’

‘But if that’s true,’ Megan mumbled, half to herself, ‘then they must know who
I
am.’