by Gary Gibson
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.
‘No,’ she gasped. ‘I’m happier now. I can just stay here. You can negotiate with the Wanderer without me—’
‘But you must return,’ said the Librarian. ‘You know that.’
She could not deny its words.
‘Then give me just a little time to get ready,’ she said haltingly.
She spent the next subjective century visiting worlds she had not seen for millennia. She now remembered that she had set out, long ago, to find whatever secret weapon the Wanderer believed lay hidden in the Magi ship’s memory. But she had as yet found no trace of it.
As her century-long period of grace thus came to an end, the ship fashioned an actual, physical space within its body for her. It created rooms and corridors that reflected the style and appearance of craft employed throughout the Accord.
Megan finally awoke in her own body in a bed recess located inside a nondescript cabin. Her memories of subjective millennia immediately began to fade, like the half-remembered dreams they actually were.
And, while she had been dreaming the voyage away, the Magi ship had traversed very nearly fifteen thousand light years.
She finally got herself upright and ordered coffee from the cabin’s kitchenette. She drank it while calling up a series of images that revealed to her the Magi ship’s current location. They were deep inside the Calafat-Holt Cluster, and had just entered the very same system the Beauregard had voyaged to more than a decade before. They were currently decelerating from a significant fraction of light speed, and making a fast sortie of the inner worlds.
The Wanderer had meanwhile made its presence known. It had by now regained its former dimensions, and was orbiting the same small moon where the Beauregard had found it. Deep gouges on the moon’s surface showed how the Wanderer had made further use of it as a source of raw materials for its reconstruction.
The question was, could she communicate directly with the Wanderer without compromising her own sanity? And was it even possible to do so without Bash?
The ship itself will act as a bridge between yourself and the Wanderer, she heard the Librarian explain, from within the confines of her own skull.
She almost dropped her coffee. ‘If I need to know something,’ she said out loud, ‘I’ll just ask you, okay? Just . . . keep the hell out of my head until then.’
We understand.
The presence faded, but that sudden tension in her shoulders remained.
A small red icon suddenly glowed on a map of the local stellar region, which was floating to one side of her. She focused on this icon, and it expanded into an image of what, to her practised eye, was clearly a long-range expeditionary ship, its lengthy hull bristling with drive-spines. The Damien Ingersoll, Otto Schelling’s ship, had jumped in-system just half a day after the Ship of the Covenant, and it was already decelerating on its long, looping inward journey.
She put the coffee down, her stomach suddenly feeling small and tight. ‘We might as well get this over with,’ she declared to the empty air. ‘Let’s see if the Wanderer’s feeling chatty.’
Make yourself comfortable and we will attempt to establish a link.
Megan nodded stiffly, then glanced around to see a low, soft couch that she couldn’t remember being there the last time she had looked in that direction. Had it simply escaped her attention, or had it always been there at the periphery of her vision?
Nothing here is real, she reminded herself.
She settled back on the couch and closed her eyes. ‘Ready when you are,’ she murmured.
This time was different. The chaos was more ordered, more comprehensible, because the Ship of the Covenant filtered out all the extraneous noise that had caused her such terrible distress in the past.
WE (you) ARE (you are) ONE (are one) IN MANY (in) ONE. WE ARE REMEMBER WE YOU (small, bright) FAST.
In truth, she did not communicate in words. The Librarian instead leeched images and concepts from her conscious and unconscious mind as soon as they formed, presenting them directly to the Wanderer and filtering them through some kind of enormously complex syntax she couldn’t even begin to grasp. The experience was both uncanny and unsettling.
The Wanderer clearly remembered her from their previous encounter. The ‘small, bright’ ones, she soon understood, were humanity. Their lives – and the lives of all mortal creatures – were fleeting in comparison to that of the Wanderer itself, being here and gone in brief blink-and-miss-it spurts of furious activity.
WE will CONSIDER WILL (consult, contemplate) EVALUATE.
Megan opened her eyes once more and drew in a sharp breath. What next? she wondered.
And now we wait, said a voice in her thoughts – but she could not be sure if it came from the Librarian or from herself.
THIRTY-FIVE
Gabrielle
Back when Gabrielle had dreamed of how her life might turn out following her escape from the Demarchy, becoming nurse to a fully grown man with the self-awareness of a baby would never have entered her thoughts. But, then, neither had she imagined that the father of her child would betray and kidnap her, participate in the murder of millions and essentially attempt to sacrifice her to an alien entity of unknown provenance.
She had been kept almost entirely isolated from the rest of the Ingersoll’s crew throughout the long months of their journey from Redstone. On those rare occasions when she did encounter unfamiliar faces on board the Ingersoll, she had no idea what to say to them or how to act. The only one who had even spoken to her so far was the woman she knew simply as Kathryn, who maintained a cool and professional distance whenever she came to check on the health of both Gabrielle and Bash.
Gabrielle still dreamed constantly of her last glimpse of Evie, clutched in the dazed and blood-spattered arms of Martha Stiles. During those first long weeks aboard the Ingersoll, she had regularly wept until her face was blotchy and raw. But even that emotion faded after a while, leaving her feeling as if she had been hollowed out, reduced to a paper-thin shell only superficially resembling the woman she had once been; a woman that had effectively died months before and uncountable light years away.
Bash remained as incommunicative as ever, so much so that Gabrielle began to wonder if she had hallucinated the one time he had stared directly at her, shortly after they boarded the Ingersoll. Apart from his regular medical checks, no one else aboard showed the slightest interest in actually taking care of him. Since she and Bash were forced to share the same quarters, Gabrielle had become his nursemaid essentially by default, feeding and cleaning him and even helping him with his toilet visits.
Sometimes, when depression threatened to overwhelm her, she would lose her temper and start yelling and shouting into his unresponsive face, until self-pity or melancholia or simpl
e exhaustion forced her to stop.
Every few days they were both led to the same room as before. Bash would be hooked up to Sifra’s machine, while Gabrielle would attempt once again to establish a bridge to the Wanderer.
It proved to be a long, laborious, painful and ultimately fruitless process; despite her early success, actually engaging in anything like a meaningful dialogue with the alien entity proved to be excessively difficult. Sifra and the man who called himself General Schelling had developed a rough syntax for communication, based on previous experiments with Megan and others and, over the weeks and then months, Gabrielle first learned this syntax and then attempted to teach it to the Wanderer.
Each session left her feeling exhausted and increasingly weak. Then she would sit in silence and watch as Tarrant, Sifra and Schelling argued with increasing bitterness over their lack of progress. It was clear that the General blamed Tarrant for having allowed Megan to escape in the first place.
Gabrielle’s hair had grown back quickly, till its tips now brushed against her shoulders. She no longer required restraints to keep from injuring herself during the bridging sessions with Bash. More than that, she now wanted to succeed – to give Tarrant and the others what they so greatly desired. Success, after all, meant a chance – however slim – that she might see Evie again. Whatever crimes Tarrant had committed, he had at least spared the life of his own child, and that had to count for something.
At other times, when her thoughts grew much darker, she thought of all the things she had heard said in that room, and of how it would be far more convenient for them to kill her than risk her ever repeating their remarks to anyone else.
And then, one day, months into their voyage, she had finally started to get somewhere.
Before long she was managing to establish something like real communication with the Wanderer, whereupon the three men started to argue about what they should or shouldn’t say to it. Sifra kept a display running on one of his virtual consoles, showing their progress across the galaxy. One day it came as a shock to her to realize that they had reached their destination.
‘It knows we’ve arrived,’ she announced, following their next bridging session. ‘But it also knows we’re not the only ones here.’
‘We should launch our nova mine now,’ said Sifra, ‘then put it into a tight solar orbit in case Jacinth’s already negotiated with the Wanderer. We can’t take the risk that—’
Tarrant put up a hand to stop him. ‘Anil, we’ve already talked about this. That’s Otto’s decision, not yours.’
‘Well, then,’ said Sifra, ‘there’s something else we need to talk about.’ He turned to look at Gabrielle. ‘Megan will know by now that we’re here. That means we need you to talk to her.’
‘How?’ she asked.
Sifra tapped the side of his head. ‘You’re both machine-heads – or did you forget?’
‘Oh.’ Gabrielle nodded. Megan had given her a few brief lessons in mind-to-mind communication back at the research base, but it had been so long since then that she had almost forgotten. ‘Is that possible, with her being so far away?’
‘We can route you through the Ingersoll’s tach-net transceivers,’ said Tarrant. ‘That way you should be able to communicate with each other fairly easily.’
‘Our main concern,’ said Sifra, ‘is to stop her from stealing what is rightfully ours. Once she knows you’re on board, it might give her the motivation not to do anything that might put the Ingersoll – and you – in danger.’
Ever since they had discovered Megan’s true identity, they had all assumed she was driven only by a desire for personal profit. Some inner instinct had kept Gabrielle from correcting them.
She stared back at Sifra with a humourless smile. ‘I don’t think that’s going to make any difference.’
‘Tell her about the other option, Anil,’ prompted Tarrant.
‘Other option?’ she demanded, looking between the two men. ‘What other option?’
‘A second stealthed nova mine was placed in orbit around Bellhaven’s sun a few days ago,’ said Sifra. ‘You need to make it very clear to her about the consequences if she doesn’t back off.’
‘Bellhaven?’ Gabrielle stared at them both in utter confusion. Bellhaven, as far as she knew, was a world somewhere on the far side of the Accord from Redstone. ‘What the hell does Bellhaven have to do with anything?’
‘It’s Megan’s home world,’ said Tarrant. ‘Or, rather, it was Dakota Merrick’s home world. And since they’re essentially the same person, I’m willing to bet she’ll do just about anything to save it from destruction.’
Gabrielle felt numb with horror. ‘I won’t have anything to do with it. I can’t believe even you would murder an entire world just to get your way.’
Tarrant shook his head. ‘It’s out of my hands, Gabrielle. I had nothing to do with the decision.’
‘Right,’ she replied mockingly. ‘So you’re just following orders, is that it?’
His face flushed with anger. ‘Don’t try and play with me. If anything happens to Bellhaven, it’s going to be on her conscience, not mine or anyone else’s. So you can either do what you’re told, or I can let Anil persuade you with his gloves. And, if it comes to that, I’ll make sure the entire process is recorded for Megan’s benefit.’
To her own surprise, Gabrielle laughed. ‘It won’t make any difference,’ she said. ‘She won’t do what you want – not ever. And you won’t do anything to me as long as you need me.’
Tarrant once again struggled to hold on to his temper. ‘Gabrielle, I want you to understand the situation clearly. By the time Anil is finished with you, you’ll do anything he wants you to. You will not be the same person you are now.’ He shook his head. ‘The damage is more than physical; pain like that stays with you, somewhere deep inside. I don’t want to let him anywhere near you, but you’re not giving me much of a choice.’
‘Thijs was a sadist and a monster,’ she said quietly. ‘But he had nothing on you, Gregor Tarrant.’
‘Thijs,’ said Tarrant, ‘was an amateur with delusions of grandeur.’ He moved towards the door. ‘We’ll make arrangements for you to speak to Megan later today. Please don’t make things any more difficult than they need be.’
So that she could speak directly with Megan, they made adjustments to Gabrielle’s inhibitor, in order to allow her carefully limited access to the Ingersoll’s internal net. Corridors and walls that had previously appeared starkly uniform and grey now bloomed with information and visuals that had so far been hidden from her. She could not, however, link with the primary interface, nor communicate with the Ingersoll’s unseen machine-head pilot.
She was now also able to follow the Ingersoll’s progress closely as it passed through the outer system on the way to its centre. She saw the great blooms of superheated plasma that spun off the ancient star’s surface, and she found supplementary information that told her the star was dying, literally wasting away as great sheets of its body sheared off into space, generating those vast nebula clouds filling the surrounding volume of space.
The ship’s computers showed her the course that the Ingersoll would follow, a parabolic curve bringing them within a few million kilometres of the star’s bloated surface, before hurtling them back outwards once more towards the moon where the Wanderer waited.
Curiosity prompted Gabrielle to access an exterior image of the Ingersoll. She was thus able to see a mid-section bulge that contained the linked rings in which she and the crew resided. Something about this image made her think of a snake that had just swallowed something much larger than itself.
The thought of what she might experience were she to be given full, unrestricted access to the Ingersoll’s navigational systems left her with an ache deep in her belly. She promised herself that if by some miracle she survived the coming days, she would become a pilot.
They were drawing closer to their rendezvous with the star, which loomed larger by the hour in the shipboard moni
tors. She quickly learned that the path of a spacecraft was determined not in terms of straight lines, but rather by its movement between various orbits involving greater and lesser expenditures of energy.
Before long, the whole crew were ordered to climb into acceleration couches, in advance of the Ingersoll’s slingshot manoeuvre around the star. Schelling was desperate to catch up with the Ship of the Covenant, which was well ahead of them by now and already approaching a final rendezvous with the moon and the Wanderer itself. He had already ordered their nova mine to be launched into a solar orbit during the moment of their closest proximity with the star.
One of the Ingersoll’s security staff then came to fetch her and Bash to one of several suites specially designed with such high-g manoeuvres in mind. Tarrant and Sifra were already present and strapped into their own couches, along with several others she did not recognize, and none of whom so much as acknowledged her presence. She wondered if they had been instructed to ignore her.
For a few hours, Gabrielle’s body weight grew and grew, pressing her deeper and deeper down into her couch. The ship’s external sensors presented her with the heavily filtered image of the star’s surface, mottled and twisted and ugly and floating against a perfect black void. The Ingersoll’s bulkheads sang and creaked under the stress.
Then, finally, the pressure lifted, before fading away entirely. They were now coasting on their way back out from the star.
Back in their shared quarters, Gabrielle guided Bash over to his bunk, then listened carefully for the sound of footsteps outside.
Once she felt reasonably sure they would not be disturbed any time soon, she kneeled by her own bunk and carefully lifted up one side of the mattress, feeling around beneath it with her fingers until she found the small roll of stained fabric she had long ago torn from the edge of a bedsheet.