by Gary Gibson
His mind was racing ahead, so furiously that he almost forgot Honeydew was still standing there. ‘So if they’re winning this war, what does the derelict have that’s so valuable? Why would they come here now, all the way to Ocean’s Deep? Why . . . ?’
He closed his eyes as the truth finally opened itself to him. When he opened them again, he saw Honeydew busily chittering to the guard who still stood next to him. After a moment the guard walked away, spread his wings and soared upwards into a light-filled shaft.
‘They claim they had no previous knowledge of the drive’s destructive potential,’ Honeydew replied, turning back to him. ‘The Queen is now offering them the proof that it can be used as a weapon. The derelict, and your protocols, along with the recent destruction of Nova Arctis, will greatly accelerate their weapons research.’
Corso stared, feeling numb. ‘But you said the Shoal were losing the fight, which shouldn’t be the case if their weapons potential is much more advanced than that of the Emissaries.’ He thought hard. ‘Unless, for some reason, the Shoal have been deliberately avoiding using nova weapons.’
‘One might also assume that if the Shoal did make use of such weapons,’ Honeydew responded, ‘it might not take long for a rival species, with access to the same tools, to devise their own equally deadly response.’
‘So the Shoal are just frightened of escalating the war?’ But how long, he wondered, could they go on losing before they changed their minds?
‘Much of this is, by necessity, little more than speculation, Mr Corso. But one might reasonably deduce that to be the case.’
‘But if the Emissaries know about the derelict - and presumably already have some idea of what happened at Nova Arctis - then the secret’s pretty much out, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, indeed. Hence their desire to acquire the derelict and accelerate their research.’
‘Are you insane?’ Corso screamed. ‘You want to hand over that kind of power to things like . . . like that?’
The Bandati moved so fast Corso barely had time to register that the little alien suddenly had one small hand wrapped around his throat. He tried to breathe, but it was like his neck was trapped inside a steel vice that was slowly getting tighter and tighter. A pain induction device suddenly appeared in the Bandati’s other hand, and a moment later Corso was curled up in agony on the deck.
‘My Queen believes that selling this information to the Emissaries will give us an advantage we could never achieve under the Shoal’s existing hegemony,’ Honeydew explained, standing over him. ‘It is her belief that we can grow stronger, that we can gain greater leverage for occupying many more systems than the Shoal would ever allow us, and thus give birth to yet more powerful Hives. That is her goal.’
Corso slowly pulled himself back up onto his knees, choosing his words more carefully this time. ‘If that monster back there is typical of the Emissaries, I don’t think they’re the kind to return a favour unless they really have to.’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ Honeydew replied. ‘I am sorry’
Corso squinted up at the winged alien. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I am sorry that you are involved in this, Mr Corso. The Emissary demanded to speak to you personally, otherwise she threatened to destroy our entire fleet. You see, then, that we had no choice.’
Honeydew reached down and grabbed Corso by the arm, pulling him upright again. Corso stood, dazed, and watched as the door to the bay before them slid open. He realized Honeydew was now taking him back to the Piri Reis.
Honeydew led the way still, and Corso followed at a wary distance. ‘You don’t like this any more than I do, do you?’ he shouted after the alien. ‘How do you know those things aren’t going to take your Hive for everything it’s worth?’
‘Life is full of calculated risks,’ Honeydew answered without turning.
‘Yeah, but how good are the odds?’
They came to the platform that would drop them down to where the Piri Reis was kept. ‘The highest risks bring the greatest gains.’ Honeydew replied, coming to a halt once more. ‘Or so my Queen believes. You are a clever man, Lucas Corso, and my Queen will reward you if you do what she requires. In the meantime, the protocol fragments you retrieved are being studied for evidence of tampering, and to see if they can be implemented without your further involvement.’
Corso swallowed on hearing his worst fears confirmed. ‘I didn’t know you had your own experts in this kind of thing.’
‘Our civilization goes back much further than that of your own species; to paraphrase a saying I recall from my ambassadorial duties within the Consortium, we have forgotten more than you have ever known. Anyway, we have our own, secret source of knowledge relating to this field, and it’s one we’ve had access to for a very long time.’
They stepped onto the platform and descended into the lower bay. ‘So why have you brought me back here just now?’ Corso asked.
And then he saw the Piri, and his question was answered.
‘We want you to explain why this is happening,’ said Honeydew.
Navigation lights were flickering randomly across the entire hull of the Piri Reis. The ship itself was on the move, twisting and bouncing violently in its bed of shaped fields. As Corso watched, the Piri’s nose scraped against a nearby bulkhead, making an awful sound that set his teeth on edge.
As the ship twisted hard in its restraints, Corso spied light shining through the deep rent in the vessel’s hull. The light flickered, almost as if something inside were moving around.
Incredibly, he could hear music coming from inside the hull breach: soft, mellow music that sounded tinny and distant in the echoing metal spaces of the bay.
‘I have no idea,’ Corso replied miserably. ‘When I left the Piri, it was exactly as it was before.’
‘If this craft presents any further danger to us, it will be destroyed.’
‘No!’ Corso whirled around to face Honey dew. ‘I mean, no, that’s not a good idea.’
He stared over at the Piri Reis, and at the deep rent in its hull. He was still thinking of the ship as some kind of escape route, but how would that even be possible? In its current condition, it wasn’t much better than flying scrap.
But it was still the one place he could go where the Bandati couldn’t.
‘Look,’ he said, improvising, ‘I already told you I’d need to get back on board the Piri or I wouldn’t be able to guarantee anything as far as the protocols go. How sure are you that what you’ve got from me already is enough to work with, Honeydew? What happens if you end up having to explain to that monster back there why you destroyed the one remaining source of the very protocols your Queen promised to it?’
Long seconds passed while Honeydew once again did an excellent imitation of a statue, a behavioural trait apparently common amongst the Bandati.
‘Go back on board the Piri Reis,’ Honeydew commanded. ‘Find the source of this activity, and retrieve the rest of the protocols if you can. This time, we will remain at a distance.’
‘You won’t send any more soldiers after me?’
‘No, but if you don’t return within a reasonable time, I’ll order the destruction of the ship regardless of whether or not you’re still on board and take my chances with Emissary KaTiKiAn-Sha.’
Corso gaped at the alien. He has to be bluffing.
But there was no way to be sure. He only knew that they still needed him alive, at least for the moment. From that he could draw at least a faint glimmer of hope.
Honeydew remained on the platform as it returned to the overhead bay, leaving Corso alone with the Piri Reis. The Piri responded by swivelling on its cushion of shaped fields until its forward nacelles faced more or less towards him.
It was uncomfortably like having a large and dangerous animal turn its attention on you.
Navigational lights continued to randomly flicker around the curve of the ship’s hull, as Corso stepped once more across the field of burned corpses, still numb from his recent encounter with th
e Emissary.
As he approached, the primary airlock slid open for him once more. He paused for a moment, then stepped inside with an air of grim determination.
Nothing looked any different, but he could hear Dakota’s sex toy stumbling around in her sleeping quarters. Was that thing somehow responsible for what was happening to the ship? He knew the device was limited as to how far it could get from its wall niche, but still . . .
Corso suddenly realized the ship had stopped shifting about in its cradle the moment he’d climbed inside. Like it was waiting for me.
After a minute’s indecision, he hit up the navigation systems, found the controls for the lights and turned them off. He did the same for the internal speaker system, cutting off the music.
That was easy. Now what?
A display on the nav-board caught his eye, and he had to read it several times before it sank in that he was no longer in the Night’s End system. According to the board, they were currently decelerating towards the centre of a new system. And yet he was suffering none of the typical effects of deceleration, nor had he been ordered into a gel-chair, and there had been no perceivable changes in the level of gravity.
Corso leaned back in the chair, arms folded, and tried to remember exactly what the Emissary KaTiKiAn-Sha had said to Honeydew. God’s ship. Surely the only ship it could have been referring to was the Magi derelict.
And yet Honeydew had also mentioned something about coordinates - and referred to a ship located in a nearby system.
Corso stood up suddenly. How could he have been such an idiot? Honeydew had already told him that the Emissaries possessed superluminal ships. So, whatever system they were in now, the Emissaries had clearly transported them there.
But why do that, when the derelict was still back in Night’s End?
Or had he himself made a mistake in assuming they’d been talking about the same Magi ship?
It was clear from Honeydew’s exchange with the monster that the Emissaries had something roughly equivalent to a coreship, and the Bandati vessel had been taken inside it. It would certainly explain a few things, for coreships had some kind of inertia-dampening technology to negate the intense deceleration that always followed re-entry into normal space. There was no reason not to assume the Emissaries had something similar.
And then there was the question of how the Piri Reis could even have found out their current whereabouts, trapped as it was in the belly of the beast, let alone displayed the data on its nav-board . . .
‘Lucas.’
Corso stiffened.
The voice came again, muffled by the intervening bulkheads. ‘Lucas, it’s me. Are you there? Can you hear me?’
It was Dakota’s voice, apparently coming from her sleeping quarters behind. But she was still on Ironbloom - wasn’t she?
He stepped away from the nav-board and crawled through the narrow space leading to the rear of the ship. But all that he found there was Dakota’s sex toy standing near its wall-slot, fortunately this time considerably less priapic than it had been on their previous encounter.
Even so, it made him nervous enough to crouch just outside the cabin’s entrance, ready to retreat quickly in case it made any sudden moves towards him. He wondered how on Earth Dakota had managed to live alone in the depths of space for so long with only such a creepy device for company.
‘What have you done to my ship?’ it now demanded - in Dakota’s voice. Hearing her familiar tones emerge from the mannequin’s throat was an unsettling experience.
‘What have I done?’ Corso laughed weakly. ‘I haven’t done anything. And ... is that really you?’
‘Yes, it’s me.’ There was a note of irritation in the reply. ‘The Piri is telling me it’s safe to talk now.’
‘So where are you, Dakota? Are you still in touch with the derelict?’
‘I destroyed the derelict, Corso.’
Corso worked his mouth silently, struggling to find an appropriate response.
‘Wait,’ he said finally. ‘Just . . . start from the beginning. The last time we spoke we were stuck in that tower. Where exactly are you now?’
‘In a system called Ocean’s Deep, several light years from Iron-bloom. And so are you, if you didn’t know already. I’m sorry about the . . . the . . .’ the effigy raised a hand as if searching for a word, then lowered it a moment later. ‘About the theatrics - the music and shifting the ship around. But, for the moment, it was the only way I could get a message to you without alerting anyone’s suspicion. I didn’t really think it would work, but—’ The effigy shrugged, as if to say but here you are.
‘I could have sworn you just said you destroyed the derelict?’
‘I did - back in Night’s End. I thought they’d either let me go or kill me for doing so, but at least there’d be nothing left to fight over. But I was wrong. Trader brought me here, inside a coreship.’
‘Wait, you’re with that thing that tried to kill us?’ Corso slumped down onto the deck, then realized he was having a life-and-death conversation with a sex toy. ‘And you destroyed the derelict.’ He could say the words, yet couldn’t bring himself to believe them. ‘Then what the hell are we doing here?’
‘I know this is complicated—’
‘You’re not kidding.’
‘Just listen to me. I only just found out how Immortal Light discovered another Magi ship in this system, thousands of years ago.’
‘Christ and Buddha, Dakota, how many of the things are there?’
‘Just this new one that I’m definitely sure of. But I’m beginning to suspect there’s more, Lucas. Maybe a lot more than even the Shoal know about.’
‘Wait, you told me about the . . . the Librarians, some kind of controlling intelligence inside the derelict we found. Why didn’t they tell you this before?’
The effigy’s face crumpled, and it sat down heavily on the edge of Dakota’s cot. ‘I don’t know. I ... I need to work that one out. But we’ve got too many other things to worry about right now, and that’s why I came looking for you. I got rescued - well, kidnapped might be a better term - by a rival Bandati Hive called Darkening Skies. They’re working with the Shoal to stop Immortal Light from handing this last derelict over to a species called—’
‘The Emissaries. Yeah, I know about them.’
The effigy glanced over at him with a startled expression.
‘I just met an Emissary,’ Corso continued, ‘and I wouldn’t wish the experience on my worst enemy. But I’m not sure how much better that makes the Shoal. What exactly is your friend Trader getting out of this?’
‘It’s partly an exercise in damage limitation. The Emissaries are pushing the borders of their empire closer and closer to our part of the galaxy, and they want to lure the Bandati over to their side. Darkening Skies and Immortal Light both want to trade on what they know to acquire more power, and the Shoal and Emissaries are happy to play each Hive off against the other. And then there’s the more obvious incentive of not wanting the knowledge of the drive’s nova capability to fall into enemy hands.’
‘We ended up where we did because Trader wanted to kill us so badly he destroyed an entire system, but now you tell me you’re working with him?’ Corso reached up with both hands and grabbed at his hair, wanting to rip it out by its roots. ‘Do you have any idea how this sounds?’
‘I don’t have any choice,’ she answered, sounding defeated. ‘He has me over a barrel. He wants me to get to that derelict before the Emissaries do.’
‘Fine, then you could fly it out of here, and take it somewhere far away from either Trader or the Emissaries. Problem sorted.’
‘No, I can’t,’ came the weary reply. ‘He says he has the means to destroy my home world if I don’t play things his way. And, before you ask, yes, I believe him. Like you said, he’s capable of much worse.’
‘Fine. All right.’ Corso rubbed at his face, appalled by what he’d just learned. ‘Listen, maybe you can tell me where I am?’
�
�You’re on board the Piri, which is inside a Bandati warship. And that’s inside something called a Godkiller-class dreadnought, an Emissary warship. It’s not as big as a coreship, but it’s big enough. Things are going to get nasty, Lucas. Can you stay inside the Piri for now?’
Corso shook his head. ‘The Bandati made it clear they’d blow it apart, with me on board, if I didn’t come back out quickly enough.’
‘Okay’ The effigy’s head bent down as if thinking, then rose again. ‘The main reason I came here is to make sure you understand how important it is that the protocols don’t fall into the hands of the Emissaries. That’s imperative.’
‘I could have given them the full set of protocols, but I destroyed most of them, mainly to keep myself useful enough so they wouldn’t just kill me once they got what they wanted.’
‘Most of them? But not all of them?’
He shook his head. ‘I kept enough to convince the Bandati that I could rebuild a working set for them soon enough.’
‘Could you?’
‘If I needed to, yes. What I don’t have backed up is in here.’ He tapped a finger against his head.
‘And are you going to do it?’
‘Yes, if I have to.’
‘For God’s sake why, Lucas? Don’t you know what’s at stake here?’
He made an exasperated sound. ‘If I don’t, I’m signing my own death warrant. Surely you realize that.’
The effigy’s face suddenly slumped, the head tipping forward for a few seconds while the jaw hung moronically. It snapped back up after a few seconds of eerie silence.
‘Shit. Sorry, but I lost contact for a second. We have to get to the Magi ship in this system before the Emissaries do. I’ll be coming for you, Lucas, so be ready. If you need to speak to me again, you’re probably going to have to find a way of getting back to the Piri .’
Corso licked his lips, suddenly nervous. ‘There’s other things to consider. What happens if you get to the derelict first and take it away? How far do you think anyone is going to want to trust you?’
‘Lucas—’
‘No, listen, damn it. We need to preserve the protocols, in some form, in case there are more Magi ships out there. This can’t all just be down to you. With things like the Shoal and the Emissaries out here, humanity’s going to need all the advantages it can get. I’ll still rebuild the protocols, if I can.’