Empire of Light Page 9

  Dakota felt her hands twitch with barely suppressed anger. ‘If I could, I’d kill you, Trader. I’d . . .’

  Her heart was hammering, and she felt on the verge of a panic attack. Too much was happening too soon.

  She slumped down on the slick black glass extending underfoot, and listened to the wet slap of water against the platform’s edge. ‘Why here?’ she asked, looking briefly around. ‘I mean, what is this place?’

  ‘This world?’ Trader turned slowly within his sphere of water, glancing from side to side. ‘Its occupants have long since passed on, as you may have guessed. There was a time when the civilization that built these towers strode amid the stars. They had an empire of a kind that stretched across thousands of light-years. Their name for themselves might be loosely translated as “Meridians”.’

  ‘So what happened to them?’

  Trader’s manipulators wriggled under his body. ‘They never discovered a Maker cache until it was much too late and their culture had become terminally fragmented. Before that, they learned the secret of exceptionally long life and journeyed aboard ships that crawled between the stars at sublight speeds. One branch of the species became aquatic, while the rest remained air-breathers; the reasons why remain unknown. These towers are emblematic of happier times, when the two sides coexisted relatively peacefully, but eventually they tore themselves apart. They could not destroy stars as effectively as you or I might, but they certainly had the means to shatter worlds. If they had survived to face the Shoal Hegemony, they would have presented us with a formidable challenge.’

  ‘So does that have anything to do with why you chose this place?’

  ‘They left behind weapons of the most remarkable power. Weapons that we will need, Miss Merrick, when we begin our journey.’

  Dakota stared up at the alien. ‘“Journey”?’

  ‘First, my dear Dakota, let me recount to you the full tale of the origin of the Mos Hadroch, as far as it is known. It is said to have been created by a species who were forerunners to the Magi, and who saw several of their own worlds destroyed in the early centuries of the nova war that set the Greater Magellanic Cloud ablaze. This vanished race developed the Mos Hadroch as a means to counter the dangers inherent within the Maker caches, but were themselves destroyed before it could be implemented. The Mos Hadroch itself vanished for ever and, for lack of evidence that it ever existed, it became little more than a phantasm, a fable that gained credence through the simple accumulation of age.’

  Beyond Trader, Dakota saw dark shapes with wide ragged fins passing slowly by the tower, bioluminescent algae making their skin glow with sinuous patterns of green and yellow.

  ‘But you thought it was real enough to go after the Maker swarm yourself,’ she said.

  ‘Before you departed, I told you of my own journey to the Maker. Although ultimately disastrous, it was not entirely a failure. I came away with the knowledge that the Mos Hadroch was of paramount importance to the swarm. After the Maker turned on my fleets, I remained locked in time-stopped stasis for decades until rescuers found me cast adrift in a cloud of wreckage. All I retained for my efforts was that single sliver of knowledge, that somewhere out there existed a weapon that might be used to prevent the nova wars the swarms are programmed to provoke with their caches. But its location has remained elusive – until now.’

  ‘There must be a reason why we’re here talking, and you haven’t just gone to get it for yourself.’

  ‘Precisely, Miss Merrick! And in that simple statement lies the proof of your intellect.’ The alien drifted a little closer. ‘You see, it is one thing to have a weapon, but another to know how to pull the trigger.’

  Dakota cocked her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Precisely how would you suggest the Mos Hadroch is activated and implemented?’

  Dakota stared at him, mystified. ‘I couldn’t begin to guess until we actually find the damn thing, whatever it is.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Trader was saying. ‘Beyond a name, you do not even know what it is we are looking for. You know that it has a location, and your own people have discovered that some connection exists between the race that created it and an isolated Atn clade. But you do not know its dimensions, its size, or whether it even has a material shape.’

  ‘But if all you yourself managed to find out is its name, then you’re no better off than we are.’

  Trader’s manipulators wriggled suddenly with what Dakota suspected might be delight. ‘On the contrary, the means of operating the Mos Hadroch has been available to me for a very long time. I acquired that knowledge long ago, on a journey to the Magellanic Clouds. A most sorrowful place it is, too: a graveyard of stars, one might say. There is life there, though sparse, living amongst the ruins of dead empires whose descendants can barely perceive the heights to which they once aspired. How ironic that the weapon I travelled so far to find should turn out to be so close to our own territory.’

  ‘You mentioned something about a “journey”. But a journey to where?’

  ‘Why, to the heart of the Emissary empire, of course. In order to implement the Mos Hadroch in the way for which it was designed, we must penetrate the Maker cache from which they have derived the majority of their power.’

  This has to be one of his tricks, she decided. ‘You’re fucking kidding me.’

  ‘An amusing conceit, is it not? You must excuse my lack of transparency concerning the method of its activation, but we find ourselves in a situation where each of us may gain from the other. You must believe me, Dakota, when I tell you the Mos Hadroch must be taken to a particular cache before it can be deployed. It then exploits what one might call certain weaknesses in the design of the caches in order to achieve its full effect.’

  Beyond the tower, the sun was sinking towards the horizon. Dakota’s buttocks felt numb and sore from squatting on the platform. ‘This just sounds like more bullshit, Trader,’ she told the alien bluntly.

  ‘You are free to doubt my words, as you are free to fly off and never encounter me again.’

  Trader’s yacht pinged her with a request to pass on data. She accepted it, but not without aggressively filtering it first to make sure she wouldn’t encounter any nasty surprises before accessing it.

  She stared at him after she had finished studying the data contained. ‘You’re serious? That’s what it can do?’

  ‘Impressive, yes?’

  ‘If it’s true. Look, it’s what you’re nottelling me that worries me. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, we get hold of this . . . this thing and fly it into Emissary territory. I’ve seen one of their godkillers in action, and I don’t have any problem believing they’d wipe us out long before we got anywhere near one of their caches, even if we had a fleet of ships.’

  ‘I’ve already mentioned the necessity of arming ourselves. The Meridians were most skilled in the art of war, and any one of their weapons would be a match for an entire fleet of human craft.’

  Dakota stood up again. ‘You haven’t exactly made it clear what you’re getting out of this yourself.’

  ‘Why, an end to the nova war that threatens us all, of course.’

  ‘A war you started, Trader. A war the Shoal is losing, last I heard.’

  ‘The Hegemony desires a return to the peace we maintained for many tens of thousands of years, and I intend to facilitate it.’

  ‘Why me, Trader? If you’ve got access to all this amazing firepower, why not just take it for yourself?’

  ‘Because your Magi-mediated implants are ideal for their operation,’ he replied. ‘And you have proven yourself admiringly adaptable and even, dare I say it, strikingly callous in the heat of battle. It provokes a sense of admiration on my part that I would not normally experience in regard to a member of such a thoroughly retrograde and self-destructive species as your own. With an adequately equipped expedition, we could drive to the heart of the Emissary empire and still it for ever.’

  Dakota shook her head. ‘Here’
s what we’re going to do, Trader. You’ll give me access to whatever weapons the Meridians left here. Then I’m going back home to help out there in any way I can. Then, if I can’t think of any other solution, I’ll come back to you. Maybe. But I can tell you right now, nobody’s going to take part in some kind of long-range expedition if they think you’re involved.’

  ‘And yet, without my knowledge of how to operate the Mos Hadroch, it’s of no use to you. I fear this places you in an impasse.’

  ‘I guess we’ll have to see about that,’ Dakota replied coldly.

  Trader was silent for a moment, his manipulators twisting themselves into knots. ‘There is one more matter which we have not yet discussed,’ he said finally.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You set Hugh Moss on my trail. He dogs me even now. I have recourse to no other superluminal craft, and his urge to destroy me has not faded. He is a hindrance to our aims. And if he were to kill me, the path to peace would be eradicated for ever.’

  ‘Not if you told me everything you know,’ she said with a smile. ‘If you really wanted peace rather than just to save your own skin, you’d do it immediately.’

  ‘How well you know me, Miss Merrick,’ he replied, his manipulators angrily thrashing the water under his belly. ‘But it changes nothing. You will need my help, and we will need to journey together a long, long way. But as long as Hugh Moss is alive, he will seek to kill me.’

  ‘So what the hell does that matter to me?’

  ‘I have intelligence that currently puts him on Derinkuyu, a Skelite world close to the Consortium’s borders.’

  ‘No.’ She turned away and walked back towards the submersible. ‘I won’t help you, Trader. Not after everything you’ve done. I’ll find some other way.’

  ‘Miss Merrick,’ Trader called after her, ‘you may believe you have a choice in the matter, but you do not. There is a reason, after all, that your ship chose to deliver you to me here. Or will you lie to me and tell me you came here under your own volition?’

  She hesitated. How does he know that?

  She stopped and turned. ‘I have a choice, Trader. And I choose not to trust you.’

  ‘Listen to the minds on board your ship. Listen to what they have to say to you. They understand the situation better than you do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Magi ships have a primary purpose, Dakota, which is to track down the Maker and destroy it. And if it can’t be destroyed, then they must neutralize it or render its caches ineffective, a task for which the Mos Hadroch is explicitly designed. If you move against that central directive, the ship you use will refuse to obey your orders.’

  She took a step back towards him. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re lying.’

  ‘Ask them yourself, then. See what they say.’

  Dakota licked suddenly dry lips. ‘Bullshit.’

  But a moment later she knew it was true. She reeled with shock as the Magi voices confirmed what Trader was telling her.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she stammered. ‘How the hell could you know what they’re thinking?’

  ‘You were, I understand, incapacitated when I first tried to contact you. Your ship, however, responded and I offered it terms. I demonstrated that the knowledge I carry is too valuable to risk losing as a result of Moss’s murderous actions. Therefore, Miss Merrick, you must protect me.’

  She again balled her fists at her side, trying to comprehend what was happening. ‘I take my ship where the hell I like, damn you!’ she yelled.

  ‘Yes, Dakota, you do,’ Trader agreed. ‘Except when that interferes with its core directives. By the time you return to your own ship, you will have full control of the Meridian weapons systems, as a gesture of good intentions on my part. I think, in time, you’ll come to see that your ship’s course of action has been by far the wisest.’

  Dakota felt the sense of betrayal as a knotted cord in her belly, twisting and untwisting. ‘You can’t do this,’ she seethed.

  ‘On the contrary, I have done nothing, Miss Merrick, except help you towards your goal. We will meet again, and soon.’

  ‘I won’t let you do this to me!’ she screamed, but Trader had turned away already. She lurched forward, clawing at the shaped field surrounding the Shoal-member. But the shock of contact repelled her, and she collapsed on the platform, staring after the alien as his bubble rose towards an opening in his yacht.

  She continued to scream her rage and beat the surface of the platform with her open palms, weeping and angry. She reached out with her mind and tried to take control of the Magi ship, still waiting on its rocky shore, but all she got for her efforts was a wash of pain that made her double up.

  Once the pain had passed, she climbed back inside the submersible and let it take her back to the shore. She stared out at the ocean depths, without really seeing them, then slid down on to the submersible deck, hunched forward, knees up against her face, and hands pressed against her eyes.

  Her instinct told her that everything the Shoal-member had said was probably true. But Trader was also a master of manipulation; what had been left unsaid could easily prove to be just as important.

  The submersible broke through the waves a couple of hundred metres from the shore. A low rumbling sound caused her to look back towards the towers, in time to see Trader’s yacht lift out of the water and accelerate upwards. A moment later she felt the command structure for the Meridian weapons systems suddenly land in her implants. It felt like she’d instantly gained a couple of hundred extra limbs.

  The submarine’s hatch snapped open once it reached the shore, and she pulled herself out, moving carefully while her brain assimilated what felt like a staggering amount of data. She waded through shallow surf until she once again stood in the shadows of the Magi starship.

  Dakota collapsed on to the rough shale and closed her eyes, playing around with the command structure. Almost immediately something rumbled in the dense jungle beyond the cliffs, and Dakota opened her eyes again just in time to see a dozen silver spheres suddenly shoot up into the air above the cliffs, pieces of rock and dirt and shattered foliage sliding off their featureless carapaces. More rose from further inland, ascending to hover hundreds of metres above the ground, scattering more debris.

  She turned towards the sea and saw a considerably greater number of identical spheres climbing out of the deep waters.

  She sat there for a few minutes while the Magi ship’s minds analysed the complex subroutines and hard AI neural structures of the command structure. Then she played around for a while, making the weapons swoop and soar like balls thrown by a sky-high invisible juggler. One tore overhead at several times the speed of sound, the roar of its passing sending small winged creatures, too weird-looking to be called birds, scattering from their perches in great flocks.

  If it was up to me I’d just fly away for ever and never come back, Dakota thought to herself. Her sense of resentment had grown rather than diminished and, despite the staggering levels of destructive power hidden beneath the smooth, featureless shells of the Meridian drones, she felt powerless.

  The blank exteriors of the drones proved to be a form of shaped-field technology masking a convoluted nightmare of warped space and exotic matter. She caused a dozen of them to accelerate to hypersonic speeds in the blink of an eye, and a series of powerful thunderclaps rolled over the shore in response. She looked up, seeing bright flickers of light from low orbit, as the drones unleashed primal energies in an impressive display of focused power.

  Trader must have feared she would turn the weapons on him. Not wanting to disappoint, Dakota directed the drones to lay siege to the tower from which she had recently returned, according to a preprogrammed plan of attack. Wave after wave of plasma energy smashed into the tower, turning it white-hot and shattering it. She watched as a great cloud of superheated steam and debris shot upwards, a grumbling tremor spreading through the bedrock underlying the shore.

  But Trader was long gone, as the ship�
��s minds soon informed her. The violent action made her feel better regardless.

  She stayed there for a while, watching as the sun dropped towards the towers, then she turned back to the waiting Magi ship.

  It was time to go home. But, whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to pay Hugh Moss a visit first.

  Chapter Ten

  Ty was in a passageway just off of Shaft B when Cesar called in the warning.

  The passageway terminated abruptly at a flat expanse of stone that differed substantially from the floor, ceiling and walls leading up to it. It featured none of the carved glyphs that covered almost every square centimetre of every other passageway throughout the abandoned clade-world. There was an unfinished quality to it, as if the Atn that had once made their home here had been interrupted in its construction.

  Deep in thought, he crouched next to the unblemished wall of stone, a hand-held sodium lamp casting a sharp-edged pool of light around him. The comms indicator in one corner of his helmet visor had been blinking on and off for the past minute or so, but he had chosen to ignore it, suddenly certain that the last piece in a highly complex puzzle was about to slide into place.

  Ever since the Mjollnir had brought them here, all the way from Ocean’s Deep, Ty had wandered throughout the desolate shafts and passageways of the clade-world, convinced the Atn had left behind a message for those who knew how to read it – if not for him, then certainly for others of their own kind. There were hints, if you knew how to look, and careful study of them had drawn him to this particular passageway among all the rest.

  The comms link continued to flash obstinately, and Ty finally activated it. In one corner of his visor an image popped up, of three interconnected white domes nestling together in a shallow crater. Digging equipment and spare parts for the spider-mechs were stacked out in the open. He noticed with a shock that at least one of the domes had been partly deflated.

  ‘Nathan, you need to get back to the surface,’ he was informed. Like the rest of the Mjollnir’s crew, Cesar Androvitch had no idea of Ty’s true identity. ‘Nancy’s come over to help us get packed. We’re going back over to the frigate.’