Authors: Gary Gibson
‘It’s detailed right there in their secret communiqués,’ she said, and pushed the data over towards him. ‘Take a look.’
Bash’s eyes lost focus for a few seconds as he glanced through the data, his expression becoming more and more angry.
‘Is this true?’ he demanded, looking from one man to the other.
‘No,’ said Tarrant.
‘Yes,’ said Sifra, ‘it’s true.’
Bash swore under his breath.
‘What the fuck else were we supposed to do?’ demanded Sifra. ‘The TSA has to be strong, has to be able to protect itself. Just because we have those weapons doesn’t mean
we’d ever need to use them. They were a bargaining tactic, nothing more – a way to force the Accord to treat us as equals.’
‘Let me tell you something,’ said Megan. ‘If there’s one thing that scares me, it’s nova mines. When the Accord claimed we had them stockpiled, I didn’t
believe a word of it. Nobody did, as Bash just said, because they couldn’t find any evidence. I didn’t believe that anyone amongst the First Families could possibly be so stupid. You
can’t build weapons like that and just hope they’re never going to be used. It’s putting billions of lives at risk.’
‘Then we’ll agree to disagree,’ said Sifra. ‘You’ve already been paid. Therefore, in the meantime, there’s no reason not to get the hell on with this
expedition.’
‘You sorry bastards.’ Bash shook his head. ‘Don’t you get it? She’s telling you it’s over.’ He caught Megan’s eye. ‘I think maybe the best
thing we could do now is turn this ship around and go the hell home.’
‘I agree,’ said Megan. ‘You all lied to us – not just the two of you, but the First Families as well. And, for pity’s sake, Gregor, were you seriously going to try
and
blow up the Wanderer
with those anti-matter missiles stored in the hold?’
‘Consider them a worst-case negotiating tactic,’ he said, his face like stone.
‘You know what?’ She glared at him with contempt. ‘If this is what the Three Star Alliance stands for, I don’t want any part of it. Not any more.’
She turned and moved towards the astrogation chair. Before she had taken more than a few steps, a hand grabbed hold of her shoulder, yanking her around hard. She found herself face to face with
Tarrant, his face twisted and furious.
‘We are not turning back,’ he said.
Megan tried to break loose. ‘That’s not your decision to make any more.’
Bash stepped forward, pushing Tarrant away from her with enough force that he stumbled and fell against the broad flat base on which the astrogation chair rested.
Bash moved to stand over Tarrant, his fists clenched. ‘With the greatest of respect, sir,’ he said, ‘if you lay one finger on her again, I’ll hit you so hard you
won’t come out of a medbox for a year and a day.’
‘The
Beauregard
isn’t going anywhere I don’t want it to,’ Tarrant said with menace. ‘I have the systems override for the ship, and I can lock either one of
you out of that chair at any time I want.’
Megan did not see Sifra moving towards Bash until it was too late; never noticed that he had pulled on a pair of dark gloves, whose fabric was threaded through with fine silver filaments.
These were, she realized belatedly, nerve-induction gloves. A long time ago, someone had used a pair on her, too, and it was not an experience she was likely to forget.
Sifra laid his gloved hands on Bash, who let out a terrible cry of anguish, his back arching as he reached up to try and tear Sifra’s hands loose.
Megan ran forward to help him. ‘For God’s sake, Sifra, don’t—’
Sifra reached out with one hand, grabbing hold of her by the wrist. She screamed, her teeth clenching as pain washed through her in a white-hot tide.
Sifra soon let go of her and she scrabbled back out of his reach. Then he released Bash, who slumped to the floor, unmoving.
‘Stay the hell back,’ Sifra shouted after her. ‘I swear to God, Megan, I’ll kill him now if you move.’
Tarrant went over to kneel by Bash, and Megan saw that a beautifully worked knife had appeared in one of his hands. The blade began to shimmer. Meanwhile, Bash’s skin had turned an
unhealthy shade of grey, and he looked as if he was having trouble breathing.
‘Gregor, please.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.’
‘I want you to understand something very important,’ he said, bringing the blade very close to Bash’s throat. ‘We’d prefer to have both of you alive but, if you
don’t give us any choice, we’ll see how we get by with just one of you. So you can either cooperate or watch him die, understand?’
‘You’re out of your mind.’
‘You’ve just threatened a mission critical to the TSA’s continued survival, something I’d willingly die for. Tell me, Megan, are
you
prepared to die for your
principles?’
Megan said nothing.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Tarrant, removing the blade from the vicinity of Bash’s throat. ‘There will be no turning back. Once we’re back home,
you’re free to go where you want, do what you want, but until then you belong to me. Both of you.’
She saw Bash stir.
she sent.
Bash sent back.
‘Fine,’ she said, in a voice clipped and cold. ‘If that’s how it’s going to be, we’ll pilot you the rest of the way, and back again. But, after we’re
home, promise me I never have to see either of your fucking faces ever again. Are we clear?’
‘Entirely.’ Tarrant nodded tautly. ‘But there are going to be some changes. I need to be sure you won’t make any attempt to compromise our mission.’
Megan closed her eyes for a moment and swore under her breath. ‘So what did you have in mind?’
‘You’ll each keep taking your shifts in the chair, but whichever one isn’t on active duty is going to be held under guard. I’m limiting your external access to either the
chair, or the ship’s onboard net. Myself and Anil will take turns in guarding you. And if either one of you tries to sabotage this mission again, the other one dies immediately.’
Megan forced herself to nod.
‘I know you don’t want to hear this,’ said Tarrant, ‘but I’m genuinely sorry about how things have worked out. You should never have gone prying into business that
wasn’t yours, Megan.’
Megan stepped past them both to help Bash stand up, holding him under the armpits.
‘Bash,’ Tarrant called after them. ‘I hope one day you’ll maybe understand that we did what we had to.’
‘With all due respect, sir,’ said Bash, without looking round, ‘go fuck yourself.’
Sifra followed them to the medical bay and waited there at the entrance. Megan made a point of ignoring him while she helped Bash get undressed. She pushed up the lid on one of
the medboxes and held it open while he crawled inside, before sealing the lid over him. After that she pushed her way past Sifra and cracked open the neighbouring box.
‘You sure you need this?’ asked Sifra. ‘My gloves don’t cause any physical damage.’
She paused, one hand on the open lid of the medbox. The skin over her knuckles, she saw, was shiny and bone-white. ‘We’re machine-heads,’ she said in a monotone. ‘For all
I know, you’ve damaged our implants.’
‘I’m not sure that’s—’
‘Don’t you understand?’ she yelled, her control suddenly slipping. ‘If you ever want to find your way home, you’d better make sure your pilots are kept in good
condition. Because if you did any serious damage to us, you might want to get used to the idea of spending the rest of your fucking life on this ship.’
Sifra’s demeanour turned even more hostile. ‘Fine, then, get the hell on with it.’
‘I don’t want you in here while I’m getting undressed,’ she said. ‘You can go and wait outside.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight for one—’
‘Goddammit,’ she screamed, ‘I want you out of here!’
Sifra’s nostrils flared, and for a moment she wondered if she had pushed him too far. The last thing she wanted was for him to use those gloves on her a second time.
‘Fine,’ Sifra spat. ‘You’ve got two minutes.’
‘Five,’ she said, as he stalked back outside.
She undressed quickly, climbing inside the medbox and pulling the lid down over her.
She kept trying to think of some other way she could have handled things, but however she played it out in her head, it kept coming out the same way.
She felt something gently prick the skin of her arms, back and legs. Bash was right, she thought, in those last moments before she lost consciousness. They’d find some way to get through
this, somehow.
Whatever it took.
A few days later, Megan found herself back inside the astrogation chair, while Bash was spending yet more time in a medbox. He had needed four or five consecutive sessions so
far, since Sifra’s gloves had apparently caused more extensive damage to his higher-level functions than Megan had anticipated. She had required a few additional spells in the medbay
herself.
She realized that Bash needed to be seen by a specialist back home, but out here the best that could be done for him was the auto-medicinal equivalent of applying a splint. And that meant she
would have to do double-duty on the command deck until he was ready to resume his duties.
At least Tarrant had shown the good grace to vacate their shared quarters by the time she had returned from the medbay. They were now within a few light years of C-H45k – their target
system, and the Wanderer’s hiding place. Just from the drain on the ship’s plasma stores, she knew that Sifra and Tarrant had been sending more messages back to Otto Schelling.
The two of them kept their promise, each taking turns to watch her carefully. They also made a point of being conspicuously armed at all times. But she could still hide herself away inside the
astrogation chair’s petals, the only place on board the
Beauregard
she felt remotely safe any more.
She had been there, the day before, when the
Beauregard
had suddenly come under the focus of a powerful and highly directional tach-net signal emanating from somewhere deep inside the
C-H45k system.
According to Sifra, the Wanderer had followed the same strategy before, broadcasting a faster-than-light hailing signal towards the
Kelvin
once it had come within a few light years. She
had thought immediately of the legends of Sirens calling ancient Greek ships to their ruin on treacherous rocks, but said nothing.
Sifra arrived on the command deck just then, parking himself in front of a console and thus disturbing her solitude. He glanced towards the folded petals of the astrogation chair.
Any luck deciphering that signal?
he asked, as if nothing had changed on board.
She pictured her fingers wrapped around his throat.
Are you sure that’s not what it is?
Sifra nodded.
Other species previously managed to figure out how to talk to it.
Well
, said Sifra,
that’s the reason for all the back and forth with Kjæregrønnested. Want to hear what they’ve come up with?
She gritted her teeth.
He made a sweeping gesture across the top of his console, and in response more images appeared within her personal datascape. What she saw looked like an exercise in pointillistic chaos –
thousands of multi-hued dots arranged in no initially discernible manner, but recognizable as Meridian text.
He touched the console and some of the dots began to pulse with light.
See the way the highlighted figures are arranged in a specific
pattern? They found the same string of data in
Shoal records
concerning their own, later, encounter with the Wanderer. I want you
to run an analysis on the signal and see whether there’s any correlation.
It took mere moments to find the exact same pattern buried within the millions of petabytes of data currently being beamed towards them. Despite everything, Megan felt a rush of elation.
Our guess is that string is some kind of handshake protocol the Meridians – as well as the Shoal – used to identify themselves to the Wanderer.
We want you to incorporate that string in a microburst transmission and send it back to the Wanderer. If we get some kind of an acknowledgement, we’ll know whether we’re on the
right track or not.
’s reserves and delay our arrival. You’ve already used up a lot of our energy stores with all those
tach-net transmissions to Kjæregrønnested.>
It took her a while to compile a return transmission incorporating Sifra’s handshake string. The message was large and complex enough to drain the batteries by nearly ten
per cent when she sent it off in a single tach-net burst.
As soon as this was done, Megan severed her link to the ship’s primary systems. The petals slid back into the base of the chair as she stood up for the first time in some hours, rolling
her shoulders and stretching her neck to try and unkink it. Sifra, thankfully, had long since left.