Marauder

by Gary Gibson

  ‘It must be because—’ Gabrielle started to say, almost automatically, then she stopped mid-sentence.

  ‘Must be because what?’ demanded Sifra.

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  Sifra was now looking dangerously unconvinced. He unholstered a pistol, then gestured towards the kneeling row of terrified scientists. ‘Bring one of them over here,’ he ordered a guard.

  Gabrielle felt sick with dread as a young man whose name was Josh was dragged into the centre of the room, then pushed down onto the floor next to the two corpses. He had soft, dark eyes, and she had often noticed him sitting quietly in the gene lab, studying endless virtual projections of organic molecules. He knelt on the floor with his hands on his head, issuing high-pitched, panicked gasps as Sifra pressed the pistol against the back of his head.

  ‘Start talking,’ Sifra said to her, his voice strangely calm. ‘If you don’t tell us right now what you were about to say, your friend here dies. It’s your call.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anythi—’

  The sound of the gunshot cut off the rest of her words. She stared, speechless, at Josh’s slumped form – and the dark red crater where the back of his head had been.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Sifra, gesturing towards the remaining prisoners with his pistol. ‘How many more of them do I have to kill before you start talking?’

  Gabrielle stared at Sifra, seeing only Thijs wearing a different skin. They were the same man, really: calculating, vicious, and ultimately weak.

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘You want me to break down and tell you everything, and then you’re going to murder every last one of us, regardless. So why should I tell you anything?’

  Sifra stared at her impassively, his fingers flexing around the grip of his gun. Gabrielle felt a strange calm come over her. She knew she was going to die; she had already accepted it. At least this way it’s my choice.

  ‘Fine,’ Sifra said at last. He beckoned to Tarrant, still cradling Evie against his shoulder. ‘The kid – give it to me.’

  Tarrant stared at him uncertainly.

  Gabrielle felt her sense of calm melt away as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Gregor,’ she said, ‘no.’

  Tarrant was clearly experiencing a deep internal conflict, and for a moment she thought he might refuse. But then he lifted Evie away from his shoulder and handed her to his colleague.

  ‘No,’ said Gabrielle again, and began moving towards Sifra.

  Hard, rough hands seized hold of her from behind.

  ‘Bring her over here,’ said Sifra, carrying the child over to the far end of the room, and laying her down on a small table by the entrance.

  A guard dragged Gabrielle over beside him. Sifra had reversed his pistol in his hand, so he was now holding the butt over Evie’s tiny, fragile head.

  ‘Time’s up,’ said Sifra. ‘Start talking.’

  Gabrielle struggled to breathe, her lungs aching with a kind of pain she had never experienced before. She didn’t want to believe what was happening was real, or that she was really here.

  ‘Just tell him what he wants to know,’ Tarrant grated, stepping up behind her.

  ‘She’s your daughter,’ she croaked, twisting round to face him. ‘How could you let him do something like this?’

  Instead of answering, he looked away.

  ‘Well?’ asked Sifra, raising his pistol a little higher.

  ‘Megan Jacinth isn’t her real name,’ Gabrielle finally said, in a rush. ‘She was the last Speaker-Elect before me. They made up the story about a kidnap attempt to hide the fact that she had managed to escape on her own – but not until after she’d merged with the Ship of the Covenant.’

  Sifra and Tarrant stared at each other.

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Sifra, raising his pistol again as if about to bring it smashing down.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Tarrant, putting out his hand.

  Sifra halted.

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Tarrant asked her. ‘Did Megan tell you?’

  ‘She’s making this up,’ Sifra was shaking his head. ‘Don’t seriously tell me you believe her?’

  ‘I want to be clear about this.’ Tarrant was staring at Gabrielle. ‘You’re telling me Megan is also a clone of Dakota Merrick?’

  Gabrielle nodded.

  ‘Gregor, what are you . . . ?’ began Sifra.

  Tarrant turned to regard him with a look of triumph. ‘Think about it for a moment,’ he said. ‘It obviously makes sense.’

  ‘How?’ demanded Sifra.

  ‘If Megan escaped from the Demarchy after merging with the ship,’ said Tarrant, ‘then she must also possess Dakota Merrick’s thoughts and memories, right?’

  Sifra lowered his gun, suddenly looking less certain.

  ‘It explains so much, doesn’t it?’ Tarrant continued. ‘Otherwise how could she get on board the Ship of the Covenant so easily, and simply fly away with it?’

  Sifra’s eyes grew wide in realization. ‘Nobody but her could ever make sense of the Wanderer,’ he murmured. ‘Nobody could get Bashir to respond the way she did, let alone survive the experience.’

  ‘All that time, the one thing – the one person – we needed to get the Wanderer to deal with us was right there on the Beauregard along with us,’ said Tarrant. ‘And we never even suspected.’ He shook his head in disbelief and laughed. ‘I don’t think it’s too much of a jump ahead to guess where she’s headed. She’s clearly after the same damn thing we are.’

  ‘Okay, fine,’ said Sifra. ‘You’re right, it does make sense. But it still leaves us with a problem: how do we get the Wanderer to deal with us if we don’t have Megan – or Merrick or whatever her damn name is?’

  Tarrant’s gaze settled once more on Gabrielle. ‘I was wondering the same thing, but then it hit me.’

  Sifra followed the direction of his gaze. ‘What?’

  ‘Anil, we have her,’ he said, pointing at Gabrielle. ‘Remember, she has the identical DNA to Megan.’

  ‘So?’ asked Sifra.

  Tarrant made an exasperated sound. ‘Think about it. They’re both linked in some way to the Ship of the Covenant. They’re both machine-heads. Maybe that means she can do the same things with Bashir that Megan could.’

  ‘You want to use her to talk to the Wanderer?’ said Sifra, looking uncertain. ‘You think it could work?’

  ‘It’s got to be worth a shot, hasn’t it? We’ll take her and Bash up to orbit, then we’ll run a trial experiment with them.’

  Sifra nodded, his expression speculative. ‘You’re right. We’ve got nothing to lose, anyway, have we? But she’s not bringing that brat of yours on the ship with her, Gregor.’

  Oh no, thought Gabrielle. Oh, please, no. They were about to kill Evie.

  Tarrant stared at Sifra, his expression unreadable. ‘I’m not sure that’s necessary—’

  ‘Your job,’ said Sifra, ‘was to infiltrate the Demarchy and bring out the girl. Getting her pregnant wasn’t part of it. This is your mess, Gregor, and you’re going to have to . . . clear it up.’

  Tarrant glanced at her briefly, then back at Sifra. ‘There must be an alternative,’ he said.

  ‘Alternative?’ Sifra hissed. ‘Don’t waste any more of my time.’ He stabbed a finger towards Stiles and her staff, still kneeling at the far end of the refectory. ‘I want you to take care of them while I fetch Bashir back to the dropship.’ He turned to the Freeholder still gripping Gabrielle’s arm. ‘Think you and your men can handle that?’

  The man nodded. ‘No problem.’

  ‘I’ll see you shortly, Gregor,’ said Sifra. ‘As soon as you’ve settled matters here.’ He signalled to the guard left in charge of Bash. ‘Bring him along.’

  The guard nodded, and led Bash back out of the refectory in Sifra’s wake.

  The one in charge of Gabrielle turned to Tarrant, and nodded towards the prisoners. ‘Should we . . . ?’ he asked, in a low voice.

  Tarrant nodded stiffly. ‘Do i
t,’ he murmured quietly. ‘Don’t give them any warning – there’s a lot more of them than us, and I don’t want to take the chance they might try and rush us. But leave Stiles alive. I still want to talk to her.’

  Gabrielle tried to pull free of the guard’s grip. ‘No,’ she protested, ‘you can’t. They haven’t done anything. You—’

  Tarrant responded by first unclipping his own pistol, then pulling Gabrielle close to him, covering her mouth with one hand while pushing the barrel of his gun against her cheek with the other.

  ‘Shut up,’ Tarrant snapped at her, his expression furious. ‘For once in your fucking life, just shut up.’

  She continued struggling as the guard stepped away from them to join the other one covering the research staff with his rifle. They conferred briefly, then both raised their weapons to unleash a volley of shots before their prisoners could have a chance to react.

  Gabrielle finally tore herself free of Tarrant’s grasp and swept Evie up from the table. She then pressed her face against the wall as the sound of killing filled the air.

  Finally the noise abated, leaving only a terrible silence that clawed at her innards.

  ‘Sir?’ she heard one of the guards say.

  ‘Bring Stiles over here,’ said Tarrant. ‘Gabrielle, turn around now. You and me and Miss Stiles are going to have a little talk before we leave here.’

  When she didn’t respond, Tarrant grabbed her by the arm and yanked her round to face him. She saw Martha, looking dazed and bruised and pale with shock, standing between the two remaining soldiers.

  ‘Sir,’ said one of the two men, ‘my understanding was that we shouldn’t leave any of them alive.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Tarrant, indicating his pistol. He jerked his head towards the door. ‘Now go.’

  The two men regarded him uncertainly.

  ‘I said go,’ Tarrant repeated, in the same voice she had heard him use to his troops back in Port Gabriel.

  As soon as they had departed, Tarrant turned his attention back to Stiles. ‘You’re in charge here, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Stiles managed to reply, her voice still sounding ragged and hoarse. She swayed a little, her gaze slightly unfocused.

  ‘Gabrielle, give her the baby,’ instructed Tarrant.

  ‘No. You’re going to—’

  ‘No, Gaby, I’m not going to kill either of them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Martha, right?’ he turned to Stiles.

  She nodded.

  ‘Can you take care of the child if we leave her here with you?’ he asked.

  Martha looked as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. ‘I . . . yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Good.’ Tarrant nodded as well. ‘Now, Gabrielle, before Sifra comes back to find out why all this is taking so long . . .’

  ‘There must be—’

  ‘There’s no other way,’ he said sharply. ‘Now give her the goddamn baby before Sifra realizes what I’ve done.’ He took a deep breath, forcing a smile. ‘This’ll be our secret, understand?’

  Gabrielle nodded automatically. Moving like an automaton, she handed Evie over to Stiles, who accepted the baby with disbelief clearly written across her face.

  Gabrielle no longer resisted when Tarrant took hold of her arm once more. He paused at the entrance to fire two shots into the refectory floor, in quick succession.

  The last Gabrielle saw of Martha, she was still standing amidst the bodies of her friends and colleagues, Evie clasped tightly in her arms.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Megan

  Megan had no memory of anything that might have taken place after boarding the Ship of the Covenant. Instead, without the memory of transitioning from one place to another, she found herself on another world.

  Or rather, she found herself on the virtual representation of a world that had existed aeons before, in another galaxy; a dream, spun by an ancient machine intelligence specially in order for it to communicate with her. Back in her previous life, when her name had been Dakota Merrick, she had wandered through countless such worlds, preserved within the matrices of this ship and others, interacting with the shades of creatures that had passed away long ago.

  Such as the one standing before her now.

  She stood near the middle of a vaulted hall, and a Librarian – an anthropomorphic representation of the collective intelligences within the Magi ship – stood before her, with its face lost in shadows.

  When it spoke, the creature’s voice sounded strangely flat, despite the expanse of space around them. ‘You asked us,’ it said, ‘whether we would take you to the Wanderer.’

  ‘And you said you would.’

  ‘That decision is contingent on our first having full possession of the facts. May we ask how much you yourself know about the Wanderer?’

  ‘I know it’s all that’s left of a civilization called the Core Transcendence that was wiped out by the Makers. It’s been wandering the galaxy ever since, looking for something that can help it destroy them. Sometimes it runs into other spacefaring species, and trades information with them if it’s feeling peaceable. I know it’s been searching for a Maker cache, so that it can get hold of a nova drive.’

  ‘And as for yourself, you believe the Wanderer can help you destroy the Maker Swarm that is currently bound for this part of the galaxy. Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because it managed to destroy a Maker Swarm at least once before.’

  ‘And it told you this?’

  ‘The first time I encountered it, yes.’

  ‘And you kept this information to yourself?’ asked the Librarian.

  She felt her skin colour. ‘Who was I supposed to tell? Nobody knew who I really was . . . I mean, who I had been,’ she corrected herself.

  ‘And it hasn’t succeeded in destroying another Swarm since?’

  ‘How could it, without a superluminal drive? It got lucky one time when a Swarm came to investigate it, and the Wanderer managed to destroy it before it could jump out of range again. But a strategy like that is unlikely to work more than once, and the dying Swarm would almost certainly have broadcast a warning to others of its kind.’

  ‘Which does explain why the Wanderer is so very desperate to acquire its own nova drive. And yet you yourself clearly think it would be a bad idea if it did. Why?’

  She gathered her thoughts before replying. ‘Look, there’s always been something inimical about the Wanderer during all of our communications – something cold. You and all the Magi ships share the same goal with it, to destroy the Makers – but your underlying programming also demands that you preserve intelligent life throughout the universe. The Wanderer doesn’t care about life anywhere else, since all it wants is revenge, regardless of the consequences.’

  It occurred to her then that Tarrant and Sifra were not so very different from the Wanderer in that respect.

  ‘In short,’ the Librarian concluded, ‘you mistrust the Wanderer’s motives. Its past aggression suggests it could prove harmful to your own civilization, were it to come into possession of a nova drive. You should know, then, that we agree with your assessment. Which begs a further question – what could we possibly hope to gain by taking you to it?’

  ‘All you’ve ever really done is engage in skirmishes with the Swarms, without ever once striking at the Makers themselves . . . and yet, finding some way to destroy the Makers is central to your purpose. The Wanderer thinks you already have the key to fulfilling that purpose buried so deep in your memory banks that you don’t even know it’s there.’

  ‘How could the Wanderer possibly know if that was the case?’

  ‘I re-established contact with it some weeks back.’ It had taken her the whole of that long night, locked in Bash’s quarters back at the research outpost, to establish an effective bridge to the Wanderer. ‘It turns out that the Core Transcendence once had contact with the Magi, a very long time ago.’

  ‘We have no record of this,’
said the Librarian.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ She stepped slightly closer. ‘I remember what it was like to wander through all those worlds that every one of these ships has preserved inside it. Tens of thousands of worlds and cultures spread over hundreds of thousands of years and more. How do you know that precisely just the information you need isn’t already buried somewhere inside your memory banks?’

  ‘This is possible,’ the Librarian agreed. ‘Do you know when this meeting might have occurred?’

  ‘Nearly two million years ago,’ she replied.

  ‘The time of the very earliest Magi cultures?’

  Megan nodded. The history of the Large Magellanic Cloud was one of constant expansion and contraction, of different civilizations and species coming to the fore at different times. Each successive civilization had built on the ruins of those that preceded it. ‘And it’s also at just about the same time,’ she continued, ‘that the Core Transcendence first encountered the Makers here in this galaxy. The Core Transcendence sent an expedition out to the Large Magellanic Cloud to contact those early Magi in order to try and find out if they knew of a way to fight the Makers.’

  ‘And?’ asked the Librarian.

  ‘And they came back empty-handed,’ she said. ‘But not without having learned that this early Magi culture supposedly had a means of preventing the Makers from expanding any further – one that’s been lost ever since.’

  ‘I presume,’ said the Librarian, ‘there’s a reason why they came back empty-handed?’

  She spread her hands. ‘That’s just it. I don’t know why they did. All I know is that, according to the Wanderer, all this time there’s been a way to stop the Makers – to wipe them out forever. But the ancestors of the people who built you didn’t want to share it with the Core Transcendence.’

  ‘And this leads you – and the Wanderer – to believe that the means you refer to remains buried somewhere within the collective memories of the Magi ships.’