As a single force, the Marble Armada had the strength to overrun the Generality. Not even the combined forces of the Multiplicity would be able to field a fleet of comparable strength. Custodianship of the armada would be a heavy responsibility—and it was a responsibility that was currently weighing on my battered and damaged shoulders. With the Hearthers gone, the white ships looked to me for guidance. They intuited my devotion to the House, and it became their devotion. They saw my abhorrence of war, and it tallied with their own concerns. Acts of destruction, such as the ones I had perpetrated at Pelapatarn, would never be allowed to happen again—and that restriction wouldn’t apply only to humans. I didn’t know how many settled systems there were in the Multiplicity, but I was willing to bet that a million ships would be enough to establish a presence in most, if not all of them. War between factions and species would no longer be the first resort. There would be a new order throughout the galaxy—an order of peace and diplomacy rather than a hawkish reliance on military strength.
Lives would be saved. Ships in distress would be rescued, irrespective of their race, nationality or species. And peace would be enforced under pain of death.
It wasn’t a perfect solution, and I wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of ushering in a police state, but I had little choice. I’d struck a bargain to save my skin. If it staved off another conflict on the scale of the Archipelago War, it might be worth it.
At least, until we came up with a better solution.
In the meantime, we would all have to learn to adjust our behaviour and re-examine our priorities—just as Captain Konstanz was having to assess and come to terms with her own actions.
It can be hard to live with the knowledge that you have deliberately taken a life. And I say that as a former warship, designed to kill with as little remorse as possible.
I regretted the necessity to destroy my sister, Fenrir. But if I hadn’t killed her, she would have killed me. That made the regret easier to bear, and my part in her death easier to justify. Captain Konstanz, on the other hand, had been shaken to the core by the killing of Admiral Menderes. Up until then, she hadn’t considered herself capable of issuing such an order. Granted, she had let me wound the would-be hijackers at Northfield, and then let me off the leash against Fenrir, but she seemed to view the killing of Menderes as something more personal. The fact her decision had almost certainly saved the admiral’s crew from sharing his fate, and that she had explored all reasonable alternatives before ordering his death, brought her little comfort. She couldn’t face Preston, who spent the whole trip back to Camrose in the infirmary, treating the wounded and medicating himself with a variety of sedatives. In fact, the only person (aside from me) she would talk to was Alva Clay, with whom I suspect she now shared a certain reluctant kinship. But, as we limped back to Camrose surrounded by an escort of sleek white knife-ships, Captain Konstanz spent most of her time curled alone in the inflatable life raft, trying to make sense of what she had done, and what, in her eyes at least, she had become.
But, even as she lay there in the dark, watching the rotating orange light of the raft’s distress beacon strobe against the cargo hold walls, I knew I could help her. I knew I could care for her, because we were the same now. We had both lost people, and we had both done things of which we were ashamed, and for which we would always be trying to make amends.
One day, I was positive she would even find herself able to look Preston in the eye. But, until that came to pass, like sisters we would shoulder each other’s burdens, and carry them forwards together until the end of our days.
SEVENTY-THREE
THE MARBLE ARMADA
We have found our purpose.
The Trouble Dog gave it to us.
We will patrol the higher dimensions.
We will prevent another war.
Conflict attracts the enemies that live out among the mists and winds of the higher dimensions. If one comes, the rest will follow. They may already be falling towards us through the fog.
And so we will do our duty. We will patrol the galaxy and remain vigilant; and, at the first sign of an attack—at the first unexplained disappearance of a ship in the hypervoid, or the first reliable sighting of something moving in the empty spaces between the stars—we will gather our forces into a thin white line, to stand between the worlds of light and life, and the voracious hunger of the abyss.
We will fight.
Until that time comes, for the survival of all, peace must be enforced.
War must be prevented, at all costs.
Our motto has always been, Life Above All.
Life is sacred.
Life must be preserved.
And we must remain ever vigilant.
SEVENTY-FOUR
NOD
Of course, they could have asked me.
But nobody asks the Druff.
We served the Hearthers, just as we served the humans, the Nymtoq, the Graal. All the races of the Multiplicity.
Five thousand years isn’t so long to us.
A single flowering of the World Tree.
A single beat of the galactic heart.
And yet nobody asked us because we kept our mouths closed. We kept our speaking faces pressed to the ground and did not volunteer that which was not asked.
We were discreet.
We had other concerns.
Like fixing Hound of Difficulty.
Fixed ship, then slept.
Fixed hull plates, drive chambers, damaged sensors.
Endless list.
Then curled in nest and slept.
Did work, then slept with much satisfaction and contentment.
There will always be work.
We will always fix, then sleep.
Nothing stays damaged for long.
Nothing ruined.
Everything can be salvaged.
Everything fixable.
Maybe even humans.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank everybody who encouraged me with this novel, especially my agent, Alexander Cochran at C+W, and my editors, Miranda Jewess and Gary Budden, and all the team at Titan Books. I’d also like to thank Su Haddrell and Gillian Redfearn for reading and commenting on an early draft, and Emma Newman for unwittingly inspiring me to try writing a novel in the first person—something I’d hitherto not attempted. And last but by no means least, I want to give a big shout-out to my family, for their patience and enduring support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gareth L. Powell lives and works in North Somerset. His alternate history thriller Ack-Ack Macaque won the 2013 BSFA Award for Best Novel, spawned two sequels, and was shortlisted in the Best Translated Novel category for the 2016 Seiun Awards in Japan.
Gareth’s short fiction has appeared in a host of magazines and anthologies, including Interzone, Solaris Rising 3, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and his story “Ride The Blue Horse” made the shortlist for the 2015 BSFA Award.
In addition to his fiction, Gareth has written film scripts for corporate training videos, penned a strip for the long-running British comic 2000 AD, composed song lyrics for an indie electro band, and written articles and reviews for The Irish Times, Acoustic Magazine, and SFX.
He studied creative writing under Helen Dunmore at the University of Glamorgan, and is now a popular panellist and speaker at literary events and conventions around the UK. He has run workshops and given guest lectures at a number of universities, libraries and conferences, is a frequent guest on local radio, and has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Gareth lives near Bristol with his wife, daughters and cats.
He can be found online at: www.garethlpowell.com
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