by Gary Gibson
She smiled, despite herself. ‘There are other humans on Ironbloom. I even had control of half the city’s transportation systems by the time you found me. Just how sure are you?’
Dakota knew she was playing a perilous game. Show herself too powerful, and it might just give Roses or his Queen a reason to think she was too dangerous to keep alive.
Roses chose not to rise to the bait. ‘You should know,’ he informed her, ‘there’s a very good chance Immortal Light will be waiting for us once we reach the coreship. The chances are good that there’ll be yet more fighting.’
‘And all because of me?’ Dakota replied, half to herself.
‘The Queen of Immortal Light Hive will not give up,’ Roses continued, ‘so long as we remain in this system.’
‘What’s to stop them following you inside the coreship as well?’
‘Nothing, as I’m sure you very well know. We fully expect to continue the battle there, as long—’
‘As long as it doesn’t involve nukes and doesn’t threaten the integrity of the coreship, I know,’ Dakota finished for him. ‘You burned down an entire city and fried what was left of it with radiation, all apparently so you could steal me from another Hive. How many Bandati died because of what you did, Roses? For that matter, how many humans? All this,’ Dakota cried, waving her hands to either side as if to indicate not only the ship around them, but the system beyond the hull. ‘Was it really worth it?’
‘For the prize you carry?’ Wide black eyes stared at her in contemplation. ‘For an interstellar drive? Perhaps, yes.’
‘Immortal Light still have Lucas Corso.’ She decided not to mention anything about Hugh Moss.
‘We have been assured that you are far more valuable than Corso, whatever the Queen of Immortal Light may believe.’
‘You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re . . . you’re playing with fire!’
‘According to our intelligence, you and the starship arrived here from the Nova Arctis system,’ Roses said by way of reply. ‘It’s a system widely known to have recently turned nova, something that should be entirely impossible. Simple logic demands that these two events must be related.’
‘Maybe it’s just a coincidence,’ Dakota replied.
Roses didn’t answer.
‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘So you know that much. A completely stable star at the midpoint of its life ups and goes boom and, the next thing you know, here I am with a starship that’s even older than the Shoal, carrying who-knows-what inside it. Did I do that? Is that what you’re wondering? Do I have some kind of super-secret technology that can blow up stars? Maybe you’re thinking about the power something like that could give to your Hive.’ She raised one hand in the air. ‘Maybe all I need to do is snap my fingers, and Night’s End goes boom, with you and me in it, and both your precious Queens! How about that?’
Roses still didn’t say anything. She waited, imagining wheels turning in the alien’s head while it tried to work out if she was bluffing or not.
She kept her hand in the air. Then Days of Wine and Roses abruptly turned away from her, spreading his magnificent wings wide and soaring upwards and out of sight through an access tube, leaving her on her own.
Dakota slumped to the floor and cradled her head in her hands, grateful for the sudden silence. And, besides, there was nowhere else for her to go. A few members of the crew passed through, using their wings to make short hops from passage to passage, but none of them paid her attention.
Her stomach rumbled, but it was getting easier to ignore the signals from her body: hunger, pain, fear. They were all symptoms of her too-frail human body. If only she let herself slip inside the mind of the derelict, she could ignore them – it was that easy. There were entire worlds to see, all hidden within the derelict’s stacks.
At least the terrible headaches were finally gone.
But in their place something much more frightening was beginning to assert itself; for now, whenever she closed her eyes, she had a curious sensation of somehow expanding in size, as if her perceptions were growing exponentially, and far beyond the confines of her normal body.
At first she had dismissed this as some form of hallucination, perhaps some by-product of her interaction with the alien processes contained within the Magi derelict. But it was becoming clear that it involved much more than that. She could . . . sense things, out on the edge of the Night’s End system: remote probes and sensors lost in the starry darkness, their attention focused outwards. And when she followed their gaze into that darkness, it was as if something was waiting for her there, like some lone beast far outside the bright light of a campfire, something waiting for the flames to die.
But when she opened her eyes again, it was gone.
She had some idea what the derelict intended for her. It wanted her to help it resume its ancient mission of hunting down and destroying the Maker caches. That was the reason for these disturbing changes in her skull.
It wasn’t a role she had asked for, and it was one she was far from sure she wanted.
And yet there was an addictive quality to the power and knowledge concealed within the derelict, which reminded her of how it had felt to have her original implants installed. To give up what the derelict held within it would feel like losing much more than a limb. It would feel like losing a substantial part of her mind.
The derelict was still waiting for her orders. Meanwhile the crew of the Blackflower facility apparently still hadn’t noticed that she’d shut down half the power systems around it.
She had been about to destroy it – destroy the derelict. There was good reason to do so, because it represented enormous power for whoever – whatever – controlled it. Getting rid of it was surely the best solution all round.
Yet the personal sacrifice involved was so enormous she could barely contemplate such an action. It would leave her trapped in her own body for ever, without recourse to the derelict’s timeless virtual realms.
And not only that, she would be destroying what might very well be the last remaining memories and records of a long-dead galactic empire. But not to do so would be to risk the outbreak of precisely the kind of war that had destroyed the Magi in the first place.
And yet, and yet . . .
And then she realized she was ready, at last, to do what had to be done.
The Blackflower facility was much more than a holding pen for spacecraft and robot atmosphere dredgers. Away from the docks, the facility – more of an orbital city – boasted a population of more than four thousand Bandati, all employed in the extraction of helium three from the upper reaches of the gas giant called Dusk. Refineries, transport hubs and industrial complexes were woven around the docks and bays.
Suddenly, without warning, a pulse of incandescent destructive energy radiated outwards from the derelict’s skin. The vast steel ribs surrounding it tore apart in an instant in a stupendous flash of heat and energy. A large chunk of the facility’s superstructure was destroyed in the process, leaving a gaping hole with the derelict at its dead centre.
The derelict began to move, rapidly picking up speed and accelerating away from the ruins of the facility. The blast continued to ripple through the rest of the city’s superstructure, shattering transport systems and sending large-scale pressurized habitats crashing into each other, their atmospheres spilling out into the vacuum.
From the viewpoint of the very few survivors of this cataclysm, the derelict dwindled rapidly from sight, boosting out of Blackflower’s gravity well, and towards Dusk’s swirling clouds of hydrogen and helium.
Dakota floated, loose-limbed, close to one curving wall of the garden-room. The vast bulk of Blackflower filled her mind’s eye, the slow whirl of the moon gravity as the derelict accelerated away feeling like the insistent tugging of a child at its mother’s sleeve.
I just killed all those Bandati, Dakota thought. Everywhere I go, there’s a trail of death, and I can’t make any excuses for myself this time. I’m the one respon
sible – not the Freehold, the Uchidans or the Bandati. Nobody but me.
She tried to tell herself it was better to lose a few thousand lives in order to get rid of the worst threat to life the galaxy had ever known, but her own words sounded just as ridiculous, just as hollow as she’d expected them to. The knowledge was an acid sensation in the pit of her stomach, and she had to struggle not to throw up.
The old religions of Bellhaven came back to her, with their prophecies and prophets, stories and fables. Maybe, after she was long dead, she’d become one of those stories, a kind of warning to future generations – or more likely something to scare children with. Do what you’re told, or Dakota Merrick will come and kill us all.
And now, with any luck, Days of Wine and Roses would kill her for what she had just done.
He returned some time later, just as the derelict began to dive down towards Dusk’s upper atmosphere.
Roses’ wings beat spasmodically as he alighted in a crouch beside her. She opened her eyes and watched with casual interest as he pulled his shotgun loose from his harness and pressed its barrel firmly against the side of her head.
His interpreter glowed softly in the subdued light of the garden-bubble. ‘Whatever you’re doing, if you’re responsible for this, stop it now,’ he told her.
She smiled. ‘I can’t stop it. Even if I wanted to, I can’t.’
Which was a lie, of course.
Roses pushed the shotgun’s barrel more firmly against her temple. ‘I know you’re making this happen. So stop.’
Dakota felt a calmness like nothing she’d experienced before, except perhaps for the time she’d tried to kill herself back on a frozen roadside on Redstone.
She closed her eyes and simply ignored Days of Wine and Roses.
The derelict picked up speed as it continued to accelerate down through the upper layers of Dusk’s swirling atmosphere. She saw planet-wide rivers of gas layered over each other; it was like staring into the clouded depths of a gem. Scorching heat tore at the skin of the derelict as it dived downwards, the burning friction of its passage feeling like soft summer sunlight playing on her own human flesh.
‘Stop.’ The voice sounded distant, grating; and a moment later pain flared across her entire range of senses, snapping her awareness back to the garden-bubble, and the filtered sense-data from the derelict was temporarily pushed to the back of her mind.
Swinging it like a club, Roses had hit her across her head with his shotgun.
Why don’t you just kill me? she wondered, staring up at the alien. She could taste blood in her mouth, and the side of her face now throbbed with terrible pain.
‘Too late,’ she whispered, half to herself.
This way was better. She would keep telling herself that.
The derelict left a trail of white-hot plasma as it passed through and beyond the upper cloud layers, before beginning its final descent into a sea of liquid metallic hydrogen. Below that lay a dense, rocky core, but the ship would cease to exist long before it got that far.
Dakota maintained contact with the ancient starship for as long as possible, as the force of its passage tore the ship’s drive spines away and sent them spinning off into the crushing darkness all around. The enormous atmospheric pressures squeezed the ship’s hull until it shattered.
And then, finally, it was over. The dream-city she’d first woken in was gone, as were the vast virtual libraries she’d wandered through, and the long-dead voices of the Librarians who had served her – the very same ones who had laboured to transform her into their new navigator.
All gone.
She opened her eyes just as the derelict slipped out of contact for ever, and found she didn’t particularly care what happened to herself next. Maybe two, possibly three minutes had passed in the real world. Days of Wine and Roses was still standing nearby, still brandishing his shotgun, but he’d lowered it until the barrel pointed away from her.
He turned away, listening to a long series of clicks that emerged from his interpreter, before turning back to her.
‘You did this,’ he said. ‘You destroyed the derelict. You are responsible.’
She stared up at him. Wasn’t he going to kill her now?
‘Sure, I was, but it could all have been so much worse.’
‘Worse?’
‘I could have sent the ship flying into the heart of the sun instead. Don’t you remember what I told you?’ She shrugged. ‘So what are you going to do now? Kill me or let me go?’
‘Why would we kill you?’
Dakota felt her temper flare. ‘I just destroyed the thing you’ve all been fighting for, or didn’t you notice?’
Pulling his shotgun back before once again swinging it towards her head in a long, low arc, Roses hit her a second time. She saw what was coming and instinctively started to duck, but the alien moved too quickly. The barrel caught her on her chin and she spun away, head over heels, drifting towards the centre of the garden-bubble. Sharp, bright pain blanketed her thoughts once more, and she waited for it to pass, her hands clamped tightly over the lower half of her face. One of her teeth felt loose.
Something hit her again and she wrenched away with a scream, hearing a sound much like dry paper being rubbed between fingers. Small, hard-skinned hands pushed at her, and a few moments later she landed against the opposite side of the garden-bubble.
She curled into a defensive ball and waited long seconds for whatever might come, hyperventilating, her hands clamped over her injured jaw. After a few moments she felt a shadow cross over her.
‘In terms of our immediate plans, nothing changes,’ said Roses. ‘We will be continuing on to our destination. When we get there, you’ll do exactly what the Queen of my Hive wants you to do, and answer every question she has. Do you understand me?’
‘Yeah, I understand,’ Dakota mumbled, feeling her jaw with her fingers to see where it hurt most. She tried swallowing, but it still hurt. A lot.
And then they’ll kill me when they finally realize I’ve taken away the thing they all wanted the most. The fight was over and out of her hands. What use could Corso’s protocols be now?
She tried to reach out to the electronic systems all around her, but there was nothing. She was a normal person again; trapped in her own body, confined within the prison of her skull.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when Dakota had been unable to imagine life without the constant background hum of her machine-head implants, the extra ghost in the machine that had gradually become an indispensable part of her mind. She had thought it would hurt worse than it actually did.
‘You think you understand this situation,’ Roses’ interpreter rasped at her. ‘You understand and are less than nothing. We know who and what you are. You were a thief, and now you are a murderer. This is not over, Miss Merrick, however much you might wish it was.’
Of course it’s over, she protested numbly in her own thoughts.
Roses departed once more, swooping away on wide-spread wings, and all she could do was wonder just what he had meant.
Thirteen
Several hours after the destruction of the Blackflower facility, a small maintenance tug departed what appeared to be a disused refinery complex placed at a marginally higher orbit above the surface of the moon.
By now, salvage crews were already beginning the long and difficult process of finding survivors and recovering what they could from the still-orbiting wreckage. The bright sparks of their fusion drives registered on a series of displays spread out before Hugh Moss, the tug’s sole occupant and pilot.
He watched as a series of detonations rippled through the structure of the orbital refinery, destroying the Perfumed Gardens for ever. He took a moment to reflect, and found he didn’t regret the loss as much as he might have expected.
It was a shame to destroy what might have been his greatest legacy bar one, but perhaps he’d become too caught up in the business of helping human beings kill each other; perhaps he had become distrac
ted from the one true purpose in his life – destroying the Shoal Hegemony, starting with Trader in Faecal Matter of Animals.
Moss had been more than a little surprised when what appeared to be a Darkening Skies task force kidnapped Dakota in a military operation clearly calculated to cause maximum damage. But when Dakota had to all appearances destroyed the same derelict that had brought her to Night’s End, he’d been forced to abandon his plans to take the derelict for himself – as well as grudgingly concede a degree of respect for her.
He had entered Alexander Bourdain’s employ some years before because, amongst other things, Bourdain had been in the business of buying and selling information. Moss had hoped to track down the source of rumours that Immortal Light had a secret of enormous value; and what sparse details he managed to glean through Bourdain’s network of spies and smuggling contacts slowly filled him with the sense that his long quest for vengeance might actually be nearing fulfilment.
It had been cause enough for him to approach the Queen of Immortal Light and request permission to relocate his Perfumed Gardens research and training facilities to the Night’s End system, in the hope of finding further clues regarding what he had at first, mistakenly, suspected to be a Maker cache as yet undiscovered by the Shoal. In fact, as he soon found, Immortal Light had discovered their own Magi derelict thousands of years before, in a nearby system that remained as yet outside the Shoal’s coreship routes; and there it had remained ever since, locked into a facility purpose-built for its study.
So when Dakota and her own derelict starship had suddenly appeared in this very system as if out of nowhere, it had appeared to be overwhelmingly fortuitous. His original plan to steal the one derelict Immortal Light had found could safely be put to one side. It had also become necessary to discard Bourdain, who had long since outlived his usefulness: the siege on the restaurant had supplied him with the perfect opportunity to rid himself of Bourdain while appearing blameless in the eyes of Immortal Light. He had slashed the wings of the Bandati agent responsible for tracking Bourdain down, knowing the little alien would discharge his weapon into the worm’s tongue, triggering a violent reaction.