by Gary Gibson
Over the past several days, however, work had taken a distant second place to watching the news about the disaster that had struck the Demarchy. Most of her staff, Stiles explained, were in fact absent – called away to aid in the various relief operations springing up and down the coast to deal with the few survivors. And, given that a clash between the Accord and the Freehold seemed inevitable, Stiles had been spending much of her own free time holding remote conferences with her funding body about whether they should all stay put or pack up and go home before things turned really nasty.
When Gabrielle pulled down her hood, revealing her freshly cropped hair and the traces of circuitry visible beneath the skin, Megan felt suddenly certain that Stiles knew exactly who she was. But, rather than saying anything, she merely glanced knowingly at Megan.
‘And what about your friend?’ asked Stiles, turning to study Bash. Megan had guided him to a seat and helped him eat one of the heated buns. ‘I can see you’re all machine-heads, but is there a reason why he doesn’t speak?’
By now, some of Stiles’s staff had joined them at the table. ‘That,’ said one of them, ‘is a persistent vegetative state, if I ever saw one.’
‘He’s brain-damaged,’ Megan admitted, and then improvised: ‘I’m not sure who he is, or how he got that way.’ She flashed a taut smile. ‘It’s a long story and I’m sure, after all that driving, you really don’t want to—’
‘Nonsense,’ said Stiles, her gaze hawklike. ‘Why don’t you start from the beginning?’
Megan sighed inwardly and gave herself up to the inevitable. ‘I work as a commercial pilot for the AM refineries in the outer system,’ she began, then nodded at Gabrielle, whom she had introduced as her niece Beth. ‘Beth lives – well, lived – in Port Gabriel. I myself was in orbit when the floods hit.’
‘You were in Port Gabriel at the time?’ said a young woman sitting next to Stiles, now staring at Gabrielle. ‘Shit. And you survived that?’
‘She managed to make it to higher ground,’ Megan said quickly.
Gabrielle nodded uncertainly, glancing from Megan to Stiles. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It was pretty bad.’
‘She managed to get word to me that she was okay,’ said Megan. ‘I was on an orbital station at the time, so I managed to borrow a dropship and fly down to pull her off.’
‘And your friend?’ asked Stiles, nodding at Bash. ‘Where did he come from?’
To Megan’s surprise, Gabrielle spoke up. ‘We found him just wandering on his own in the middle of all the devastation, out in the middle of nowhere. We don’t have any idea how he got there. He hasn’t said one word yet to either of us.’
Megan eyed Stiles uncertainly, now quite convinced the woman didn’t believe one word of their increasingly elaborate story.
‘So where were you flying to, when you crashed?’ asked a plump-looking man. ‘You’re a heck of a long way from the Demarchy out here.’
‘We were on our way back into orbit when something went wrong with our fuel containment,’ said Megan. ‘We tried to send out an alert for help, but the comms traffic was overloaded.’
‘That’s true,’ muttered the girl next to Stiles. ‘The Tabernacle’s been severely hit all over. A lot of communities are completely cut off.’
‘We had no choice but to come back down,’ Megan finished. ‘We were in serious trouble.’
‘And I guess you didn’t have much choice about where you put down,’ said Stiles, her face impassive. ‘Am I right?’
‘That’s exactly it,’ said Megan, mentally damning the woman for toying with her. ‘And I can’t even begin to tell you how deeply, hugely grateful we are that you came out there and found us. We owe you our lives.’
‘Well, you’re damn lucky we found you when we did,’ said Stiles. ‘A storm system’s been building up for a couple of days north of the Frenezo range, and it looks like it’s heading this way.’
‘I think I can handle a bit of bad weather,’ said Megan stubbornly.
Stiles shook her head. ‘You’re not from here originally, are you?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Megan admitted.
’This is more than just some wind and snow we’re talking about,’ said Stiles. ‘When blizzards hit at this time of year, believe me, nothing moves – and not much flies either. Wind speed can top two hundred and thirty kilometres an hour out here in the middle of nowhere. And on top of that, starting tomorrow, half of Redstone’s going to be a no-fly zone for anything except Accord gunships, troop carriers and ground-to-orbit ambulances. What that means is that you can figure on being our guests here for at least the next week – if not quite a bit longer.’
Megan nodded. ‘Again, thank you. But there’s one other thing we need to talk about. Beth is pregnant.’
Stiles looked shocked. ‘That’s the first thing you should have told us,’ she said. She turned towards Gabrielle. ‘How long, sweetheart?’
‘Four months,’ said Gabrielle.
‘Short or long-birther?’ asked Stiles.
‘Short,’ Gabrielle replied.
Stiles nodded. ‘You’re well past the midway point, then. You picked a hell of a time to get pregnant, young lady.’
At least Stiles had the tact not to ask about the father. Megan had already stretched the limits of her creativity in inventing a story for the three of them.
Stiles spread her hands flat on the table and look around at her co-workers. ‘Okay, then, down to business. As I said, half our people are away, working in the refugee camps, so you’ll have your pick of quarters to use so long as you’re here.’
‘Again, I just want to—’ Megan started to say.
‘Hold it.’ Stiles raised a hand. ‘You don’t need to keep thanking us; it’s not as if we’d just leave you out there.’ She nodded towards Megan’s still-bandaged shoulder. ‘We should check over all three of you, not just Beth. And as for Mr Mute, I don’t know what we can do for him. He’s a machine-head, which means he’s on a registry somewhere, so one way or another we’ll eventually figure out who he is. But, until then, we don’t have the equipment for scanning neural hardware or anything like that.’
‘Beth is the priority,’ agreed Megan, looking pointedly at Gabrielle. ‘But we’re all going to need treatment for radiation damage, at the very least.’
‘Well, we’re not doctors, but we do have a medbox. Beth, if you could go with Lucy –’ Stiles turned to the young woman seated next to her – ‘and she’ll show you where our medbay is.’
‘Come on,’ beckoned Lucy, pushing her chair back.
Gabrielle gave Megan one last, long look before following Lucy out of the refectory. Her eyes were rimmed with dark blotches due to fatigue, and Megan could see how much the events of the past few days had taken out of the younger woman. If the sheer emotional impact hadn’t hit her yet, it soon would. Growing up knowing you would have to die so that a stranger could occupy your body was one thing. Surviving long enough to discover you had a cloned twin old enough to be your mother constituted a whole new level of fucked-up.
‘I think it’s about time you got some sleep, Megan,’ suggested Stiles, standing up. Those members of her staff that had joined them rose also, as if they had been waiting for a cue. ‘You can take your turn in the medbox tomorrow, as soon as we’re sure your niece is going to be okay. After that we can talk some more.’ She glanced at the plump young man. ‘Mike, could you find Megan somewhere to sleep?’
‘Sure thing,’ he replied.
Stiles took Megan’s hand and shook it. ’I must say,’ she said, studying the bandages visible beneath Megan’s shirt, ‘whoever patched you up did a very good job.’
‘It’s been quite a couple of days,’ said Megan.
‘Oh, I’m sure it has,’ Stiles agreed, her gaze piercing.
Megan undressed carefully in the quarters Mike had found for her, then cautiously peeled the bandage away from her shoulder. Standing before a full-length mirror, she turned this way and that, studying the vivid yel
low and purple bruises covering her shoulder and a good part of her upper back.
Admit you’ve been lucky, she told her reflection. But she still couldn’t quite bring herself to relax, even now, as she wasn’t sure yet whether Stiles was really a friend. The story she had managed to concoct for the woman’s benefit, on the spur of the moment, sounded less and less convincing in retrospect the more she thought about it.
She next stepped into the tiny shower cubicle and used its limited supply of hot water to wash as much of the blood and sweat from her skin as possible. Then she dried herself and crawled into the single narrow bed, passing into unconsciousness just moments after her cheek touched the pillow.
The next morning, Lucy came and fetched Megan for her turn in medbay. The baby, it turned out, was doing fine despite everything they had been through, and Gabrielle had been moved into her own quarters, next to Megan’s.
Lucy left her alone in the medbay, promising someone would check up on her in the next couple of hours. She closed her eyes as the lid of the medbox folded down over her. Nanocyte-rich gel flooded the tank, cooling and numbing her skin so that she hardly even felt the gentle prick of microscopic needles.
When she emerged from the tank half a day later, the bruises had faded considerably. The machine’s diagnostics informed her she had suffered relatively minor cell damage, no more than might be expected of someone who spent much of her life in space. She washed off the gunk, then dressed in the fabricator-printed overalls Lucy had left out for her.
She found Stiles waiting for her in the corridor outside the medbay with a tray of coffee and food. ‘Right on time,’ said Stiles, leading Megan back to her quarters. ‘I’d like to have a little chat, if I may.’
Stiles herself took the single available chair, while Megan made do with perching on her bed with a bowl of porridge. ‘You’re looking better than you did last night,’ observed Stiles, flashing Megan a taut smile over the rim of her mug.
‘Thanks,’ said Megan, worried about what might be coming next.
Stiles blew gently on her coffee, clearly gathering her thoughts. ‘Let’s get straight to the point,’ she said, as she looked up. ‘I’d swear on my left tit that girl you brought with you is the Speaker-Elect of the Demarchy. I wondered if maybe you’d kidnapped her, but it’s clear she’s not accompanying you under any kind of duress. And that whole story about your friend, the mute, wandering alone through the ruins . . . ?’ she snorted. ‘I’ll give her this, she’s got imagination.’
Megan studied the other woman’s expression and realized there was going to be no fooling her. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I didn’t kidnap her.’
‘So –’ Stiles regarded her candidly – ‘are you going to tell me who you really are, and how the hell all three of you wound up out here?’
‘That depends,’ replied Megan. ‘Are you going to send Gabrielle back to the Demarchy?’
‘That’s her name?’ asked Stiles.
Megan nodded.
‘Well, see, that’s the thing,’ said Stiles. ‘Technically, sending her back is my legal duty. On the other hand, I don’t much like the Demarchy, or all that bullshit about girls ascending to heaven after becoming one with that damn ship. I don’t know what they do with them for real, whether it’s kill them or hide them away or just lock them in some deep hole somewhere – but I don’t approve, put it that way.’
‘So you’re saying you’ll help us?’
‘That depends on what it is you want help with, doesn’t it?’ Stiles remarked drily. ‘Whatever your story really is, I’m betting it’s a damn sight more interesting than that little tale the pair of you concocted last night.’
‘What I said about her not being kidnapped is only half the truth,’ admitted Megan. ‘The reality is, she was kidnapped by the Freehold . . . and so was I, and so was Bash.’
She noticed Stiles’s blank expression. ‘That’s his name,’ Megan explained, ‘the one who can’t speak.’
‘Just to be clear,’ asked Stiles, ‘your name really is Megan?’
‘It is, yes.’
‘Okay, go on then.’
‘To cut a long story short,’ Megan continued, ‘we managed to steal a dropship and make our escape, but the ship was already damaged when we took off from the Montos de Frenezo. That’s when we had to take it down towards the lake.’
‘So why did they kidnap you?’
‘In Gabrielle’s case, it’s because she’s extremely valuable to them.’
‘They want to ransom her back to the Demarchy? Is that it?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Megan, then surprised herself by telling something like the truth. ‘They want her because she’s a key to information stored inside the Ship of the Covenant’s memory banks, and there’s no other way to get hold of it.’
She watched Stiles absorb this.
‘And you?’ asked Stiles. ‘Where do you and your other friend fit into all this?’
Megan opened her mouth to explain, then she grinned and shook her head. ‘Well, you can ask all you want,’ she said, ‘but that’s something I’m keeping to myself. Sorry.’
‘Then at least tell me how your friend Bash ended up brain-damaged? Is that connected to all of this in some way?’
‘It is. And his vegetative state is because of something done to him by the same people who kidnapped Gabrielle. He’s my oldest friend, Miss Stiles. I . . . couldn’t just leave him with them.’
‘Call me Martha,’ said Stiles. ‘Must have been hellishly difficult, leading him all the way from the lake to that canopy tree. He can’t even walk a couple of paces without someone guiding him, can he?’
‘No,’ Megan agreed. ‘No, he can’t.’
Stiles sighed and put her coffee on the floor between her feet, before sitting back.
‘I’m going to do something really stupid, and trust you,’ she declared. ‘The only alternative is throwing all three of you back outside, but I’m not going to do that. Want to know why?’
‘Go on.’
‘I saw how well you cared for him – for Bash. I saw the way you handled him. Call it gut instinct, but something about you made me feel sure you were a good person, even if you were being more than a little economical with the truth.’
Megan hardly knew what to say. ‘I . . . thank you, but I think you should be aware that the Freeholders are going to be looking for us, and for Gabrielle in particular.’
Stiles thought for a moment. ‘Thanks for the warning, but I don’t know how likely that really is, since the dropship’s a total write-off. For all they know, you three got killed in the explosion.’
Megan nodded. ‘I won’t deny I was kind of hoping they might think that.’
‘I’ll admit we managed to find your trail,’ Stiles continued, ‘but only just, and the storm that’s coming in is going to obliterate it pretty swiftly. Now, why don’t you tell me just what it is you have planned for Gabrielle, once you’re finally gone from here?’
‘I’m going to take her somewhere safe, and a long way away from Redstone,’ said Megan with heartfelt conviction. She leaned forward. ‘You know, we could leave right now. If you gave us some transport, we could be out of your hair forever.’
Stiles shook her head. ‘Forget it. With the current no-fly restrictions, your only way out of here is overland, and we’re hundreds of kilometres from the nearest settlement – not to mention that the storm’s going to hit any minute now. And besides, your friend Bash still needs to take his turn in the medbox.’
‘Then I want to ask you a favour, Martha . . . maybe a big one. I badly need to get to Aguirre so I can arrange safe passage off Redstone for all three of us. But I can’t do that if I take the others with me.’
‘You heard what I said, didn’t you? It could take you weeks just to get to the nearest settlement.’
‘I can’t afford to waste any time,’ insisted Megan.
‘Can’t do it.’ Stiles shook her head and sighed. ‘We need every resource we’ve got,
including all the trucks. Best bet for you is to wait here until the storm season has passed and, if the no-fly restrictions are over by then, we can get you back that way.’
‘Maybe now’s not the best time to ask—’
‘No, Megan,’ said Stiles firmly. ‘We’ll help you, and that’s only right, but I’m not just going to hand over one of our trucks to you when you’re still unwilling to tell me exactly who you are. And if it wasn’t for Gabrielle, and what I think might happen to her if she did return to the Demarchy, maybe things would have worked out differently. But my decision is final, do you understand?’
‘Yes.’ Megan nodded. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed pushy.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Stiles, standing up now. ‘It’s just that, with half this damn planet going up in flames, I’m beginning to wonder if coming here was really such a good career choice.’
‘It might be all over by next week.’
Stiles smiled. ‘Do you really believe that?’
Megan chuckled. ‘No, not at all.’
‘I should get the medbox prepped for Bash,’ declared Stiles, stepping towards the door. ‘Look, this is all for the best. Okay?’
Megan nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, with as much feigned sincerity as she could muster.
The storm came down a day later, blanketing out the sun and spreading a dim twilight all across the landscape. Megan could hear the howl and shriek of the wind through the walls of her quarters.
The Tabernacle was barely functioning, if at all, though experience told her that the Accord had probably shut down most of the network to try and prevent the Freehold using it for military communications. The Accord’s own military comms nets were unhackable, even to a machine-head like herself, so all she had any access to were news feeds about the latest relief efforts, most of which were currently focused on Port Gabriel. The weather there had worsened considerably, hampering all recovery attempts.
