Marauder (39 page)

‘That is yet to be ascertained. In the meantime, we should speak about the other matter on your mind.’

She stared at the alien entity in confusion. ‘What other matter?’

‘Your desire,’ replied the Librarian, ‘to recover the memories of your former life as the Speaker-Elect Esté.’

She blinked, taking a moment to comprehend what it was saying to her. ‘You can do that?’

‘We did not suggest that. But why is it that you so strongly reject your previous existence as Dakota Merrick?’

‘Just because I have her memories,’ said Megan, ‘doesn’t make me her.’

‘Has it not occurred to you that, by living your life as if your former existence had no bearing upon it, you have made mistakes you might otherwise have avoided? I do not think Dakota
Merrick, as she was, would have allowed herself ever to trust men such as Gregor Tarrant or Anil Sifra so easily, and with such dire consequences.’

Megan felt a flush of fury. The alien ship was patently digging through her mind, pulling out memories and putting them on display.

‘Go to hell!’ she screamed, her voice echoing through the vaulted hall in ever-decreasing waves. She was clenching her fists so hard by her sides that they hurt. ‘Get out of my
head!’

‘By denying your former existence,’ the Librarian continued regardless, ‘you have denied yourself the lessons that life has taught you. Imtiaz Bashir is a good man, but perhaps
not the wisest. It was wrong to have listened to him when he first brought Tarrant to meet you.’

Tears streamed down her face. ‘
She’s
the whole reason the Maker Swarm is on its way here,’ she protested, meaning Dakota Merrick. ‘It would never have known the
human race even
existed
if she hadn’t gone out there. I just don’t want to have to carry that responsibility!’

‘She went looking for a means to stop the Nova War of two centuries ago – and she found it,’ declared the Librarian.

Megan stared at the shadowy figure. ‘What? That had nothing to do with me . . . or with her. The war was halted by some expedition—’

‘There are some facts of which you are clearly unaware,’ said the Librarian. ‘You have been resurrected before, and it was a long way from either Dios or Redstone.’

‘I have?’ said Megan faintly.

‘The first time was shortly after your encounter with the Maker Swarm.’

‘But . . . I don’t remember anything about that.’

‘That other Dakota died far away from a Magi ship,’ explained the Librarian. ‘Hence, there was no opportunity to recover her memories directly. This is why you do not have
those same memories.’

‘How . . . how did she die?’

‘She took part in the expedition you just mentioned, the one that brought the Nova War to an early end. She helped deploy a weapon against the Emissaries that would never have been
discovered if her previous incarnation had not gone out to encounter the Swarm. Without her, the human race, and many of the species neighbouring it, would most likely have been wiped out by
now.’

She stared into the shadows, thunderstruck. ‘I . . . I had no idea.’

‘You are not Esté,’ said the Librarian. ‘She died so that you might live. Her thoughts and memories cannot be recovered, and you must accept this.’

Megan cradled her head in her hands. It seemed all too much to take in.

‘In the meantime,’ the Librarian continued, ‘we still have a new mission to complete, and our flight out to the Wanderer will take some months. That leaves you plenty of time
– virtual or otherwise – to contemplate our next move. So I suggest you make the best use of it.’

Gabrielle could think of nothing but that last glimpse of Martha Stiles, clutching little Evie to her chest.

She screamed and fought as Tarrant dragged her towards an airlock, where the two Freeholders who had murdered the outpost’s staff stood already waiting. One of them seized and secured her
wrists, and when she tried to struggle, the other hit her so hard across the back of her head, it left her nauseous and dizzy.

Finally they strapped a breather mask on to her, then dragged her outside into the freezing cold of a Redstone night. She hardly needed the mask, since she barely drew a single breath in the
short time it took them to load her inside a waiting dropship. Once on board, she was in no position to offer further resistance.

Instead of strapping them in acceleration couches, they zipped her and Bash into padded bags that immobilized them entirely. Gabrielle felt a flood of anger when she realized that these
containers were of a type designed for carrying animals into orbit.

Not long after, they transferred to a ship high above Redstone, where a woman with dark hair and a severe expression took charge of placing her inside a medbox. She returned some hours later,
explaining to Gabrielle, as she emerged dripping from the medbox, that she was now on board a vessel called the
Damien Ingersoll
.

The
Ingersoll
, Gabrielle quickly learned, was a starship carrying a crew of a dozen. There was gravity on board, which indicated that they must be accelerating towards the outer system,
in preparation for a jump.

Tarrant strode into the medbay while Gabrielle was still getting dressed. She cowered away, moving quickly to cover her nakedness.

‘She’s healthy enough,’ said the woman supervising her, ‘and her implants are functional. So if you want to start testing the bridge, it’s probably safe.’

Tarrant nodded. ‘Good work, Kathryn.’ He glanced over at Gabrielle. ‘Finish getting yourself dressed, then you’re coming with me.’

‘Where to?’ Gabrielle demanded in a quavering voice. Meanwhile, Kathryn departed the medbay, leaving them alone. ‘And what about Evie?’

‘I thought you’d have the good sense not to mention that name.’ Tarrant spoke in a harsh whisper. ‘Or don’t you understand the risk I took just to keep her safe?
Stiles will take care of her.’

‘She’s your daughter,’ said Gabrielle. ‘
Our
daughter. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

He stepped forward and slapped her, hard. She drew in a sharp breath, and put out a hand against the wall to steady herself.

‘Fuck you,’ she snarled, through gritted teeth. ‘I carried your child inside me. Does that really mean nothing to you?’

She waited for another blow to descend, but it never came. He just stared at her, with eyes bright and angry.

‘Hurry up and finish getting dressed,’ he growled finally, picking up some of her clothes from the deck and throwing them at her. ‘We’re only wasting time.’

A little while later, Tarrant led Gabrielle through the ship, to a room where they found Bash seated in a high-backed chair with some contraption resembling a squid made from
black rubber carefully arranged on his head. Sifra was there as well, along with a third, older man she didn’t recognize. This man glanced at her briefly, then motioned her towards a seat
directly facing Bash.

‘Sit,’ he said.

Her will to resist appeared to have deserted her with the loss of Evie. She therefore did as she was told, staring straight ahead as Tarrant secured her to the chair with some elasticated
restraints. It would have been better for her, she thought, if she had simply drowned in the Ka’s freezing waters.

Tarrant stood back. ‘I want to be very clear about this,’ he began. ‘We’re not trying to hurt you here. Those restraints are for your own safety while we try an
experiment.’

‘You want me to talk to the Wanderer? Okay, I get it.’

‘You need to think of Bash as being a kind of transceiver,’ said Tarrant. ‘He can send and receive messages between you and the Wanderer. We need to see if you can establish
the same kind of rapport through him that Megan once did.’

And if I can’t, you’ll toss me out into space at the first opportunity
.

Tarrant seemed to be waiting for some kind of answer.

‘I understand,’ she said.

Tarrant nodded perfunctorily. ‘Good.’ He turned to Sifra. ‘Let’s get started.’

Sifra stepped over to her, holding a device identical to the one Tarrant had used on the Grand Barge to inject an inhibitor into her neck.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, twisting away from him as he reached out towards the back of her neck.

‘Relax,’ said Tarrant. ‘Before we can start, he needs to install a new inhibitor.’

‘I don’t want—’

‘It’s for your own good, Gaby.’

Sifra pressed the device against the back of her neck, just above the raised flesh where her original inhibitor had been located. She tensed, clenching her jaw when she felt something like a
needle punching through the skin. She’d be damned if she’d let them see how much it hurt. Sifra stepped away from her and went over to join Tarrant, who was making adjustments of some
kind to a virtual panel.

The back of her neck began to throb painfully. Something about the pain fuelled her anger, making her want to throw herself at the two of them, to tear at their smug expressions with her
fingernails, to rake the flesh from their skulls and listen to their screams. She twisted and strained against her restraints, but it was all to no avail.

‘Let’s ramp back her inhibitor,’ she heard Tarrant mutter under his breath, as he moved a finger slowly across part of the panel. ‘About . . . there.’

Gabrielle opened her mouth to scream obscenities at the pair of them, then glanced at Bashir and saw, with a start, that he was looking directly towards her, his gaze full of furious
intensity.

Any further words died in her throat, as Bash’s eyes seemed to swallow her up, drawing her inside them . . .

Suddenly she was surrounded by stars wheeling around her head. Something enormous blotted out half the universe, an infinite black horizon into which light fell forever.

She tried to scream, but by now had lost all sense of her physical body. The
Ingersoll
, Bash, Tarrant – they were all gone, lost somewhere on the far side of the universe.

And just then, when she thought she might be about to lose all hope, she sensed a familiar presence close by. It floated in the chaos like a tiny flicker of light lost in an unending ocean of
dark.

Somehow she knew it was Bash.

‘Gabrielle?’

She came to with a start, every muscle in her body taut, her skin slippery with sweat. Her neck felt like she’d twisted it badly, and she thought she could taste blood in her mouth. She
coughed, trying to clear her throat, and tried to move, but she was still tied to the chair.

‘Here,’ said Tarrant, kneeling next to her and pushing something against her lips. ‘Drink this.’

She swallowed, tasting cool, clear water. The foul taste on her tongue diminished.

‘What happened?’ she managed to ask.

‘You were foaming at the mouth.’ Sifra sneered from across the room, with evident amusement.

Tarrant produced a cloth, and used it to mop her mouth and cheeks. He glared briefly at the other man.

‘Tell me what happened,’ he pressed. ‘Tell me everything you saw and heard.’

She did her best to describe everything she had experienced – all, that is, except for that brief glimpse of something she was so sure had been Bash. Something held her back from saying
anything about that.

‘And you’re sure that’s all?’ he asked. ‘You were under for a good hour.’

An hour?
‘I thought it was just a couple of seconds,’ she said, genuinely shocked. ‘Did anything happen?’

She saw the three men exchange glances – and guessed something had indeed happened.

‘So was your experiment successful or not?’ asked the old man from across the room, sounding impatient.

‘For a first time, yes,’ said Tarrant, standing up again. ‘She’s come out of her experience better than anyone else but Megan . . . and you saw the way the bridge
reacted.’

‘We still haven’t got anything coherent out of the Wanderer, though, have we?’ insisted the old man, with a petulant edge to his voice. ‘It’s not talking to us now
like it did when we still had Jacinth.’

‘Not yet,’ agreed Tarrant. He was gazing down at Gabrielle, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. ‘But give it time. It knows we’re on our way and, just as importantly, it
knows why.’

‘We’ll try again,’ decided the old man. ‘I don’t want to take any chance of it deciding to deal with that woman instead of with us.’

Tarrant glanced down at Gabrielle and shrugged. ‘Looks as if we’re not done with you yet.’

She stared up at him sullenly. ‘I hope to hell it tears you and your ship apart once we get there. I hope to hell I get to watch you all die.’

Tarrant turned away and said nothing.

The woman lived in a cliffside dwelling on a world that orbited so close to its sun that it actually passed through the corona. Through the tall and graceful windows of her
dwelling, she could see great arcs of plasma thrown up from the star’s surface, like fountains of fire falling back in on themselves.

Lava flowed beneath a floor fashioned from a single piece of perfectly transparent and flawless diamond, yet she felt no heat through the bare soles of her feet, nor through the windows beyond
which lay graceful gardens protected by energy fields.

She had been living here for a century now, and she had long ago forgotten her name. She had lived a thousand lifetimes and more, and an infinity of worlds lay in her past and future.

When a creature appeared before her, its face wreathed in shadows, something about its demeanour struck a chord of fear in her.

‘It is time for you to return,’ said the creature. ‘We are now almost at the end-point of our voyage.’

‘I don’t know who you are,’ she protested, ‘or what you—’

Long-lost memories then flooded back into her mind, and she remembered her name. She remembered the Wanderer, Gabrielle and Tarrant. This world on which she lived, and all the others she had
visited over scores of millennia, were nothing more than shades locked in the memory of an ancient starship, like dusty photographs lost somewhere in the back of a drawer.

She sank to the floor as if wounded. None of it was real.