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  He looked around at the attentive faces. ‘But this sacrifice is also a blessing for her,’ he continued. ‘After passing on to us this sacred information, Mer Gabrielle will, as all before her have been witnessed to do, ascend bodily into the highest realms of the informational matrix, there to reside next to God the Master Programmer. She will thereby be invested with a glory that even the most devout amongst us could never hope to attain. For this, Mer Gabrielle,’ he declared, turning to face her, ‘we here all salute you.’

  Someone started clapping, and it spread. She watched entranced as the assembled leaders of the Demarchy, every last one of them, raised their glasses to their lips and swallowed the tainted wine.

  She lifted her own glass, barely pressing the rim to her lips before placing it back down with the wine untouched. How many of those here knew the truth about her existence? she wondered. Was it no more than a few – Thijs, Lampard and Abramovic perhaps, and one or two others – or was it indeed the case, as Karl had assured her, that all of them were privy to this age-old conspiracy? Could there possibly be anyone here innocent of the crime against her?

  There was no way of knowing, and if she did not act – if she allowed her doubts to get the better of her – she would surely die.

  Gabrielle stood up suddenly, feeling as if her bones had turned to jelly. For a moment she feared that everyone present was entirely aware of her part in Karl’s conspiracy, and they were simply waiting for the right moment to deliver their denunciation.

  She glanced towards Thijs; surely he could detect the guilt radiating from her every pore? But instead he gave her an inquisitive smile that seemed in stark contrast to the iciness of his gaze.

  ‘You have something to say, Mer Gabrielle?’ he enquired.

  It was not yet her turn to speak, therefore she was breaking strict protocol. But this would be her only opportunity to say things she had for so long ached to say.

  ‘I do have something to say, Pater Thijs,’ she replied, doing her best not to let his reptilian gaze put her off. She could feel her skin flushing red, and there was a deep thrumming in her veins that pounded in her ears like drums. ‘In return for this honour, I wish also to thank you.’

  A smattering of mild, uncertain applause, for Thijs had not finished his speech when Gabrielle had stood up and interrupted him. He sat down nonetheless, folding his robes neatly around him, and waited for her to continue.

  She found the strength and will to go on by reminding herself of just how long she had dreamed of this moment. All she needed to do was picture his pale, sweaty face looming above hers, and remember the pain she had then felt.

  ‘I do not think, Pater Thijs,’ her voice grew marginally more steady, ‘that I truly understood my role within the Demarchy until you came into my bedchamber when I was only thirteen years old and raped me.’

  Thijs’s eyes looked as if they had turned to glass, his entire face frozen, but he recovered quickly.

  ‘Mer Gabrielle,’ he stood up once more, ‘perhaps asking you to take part in this banquet has put too much of a strain on you. May I suggest that you now retire for the night . . . ?’

  A door banged open, and one of Karl’s guards came running in. He stepped over to Abramovic and whispered urgently in the man’s ear.

  Abramovic turned in his chair to look up at the man, his expression incredulous.

  Thijs looked genuinely relieved by the interruption. ‘What is it, Pater Abramovic?’ he asked.

  Abramovic gestured in the air to summon his Tabernacle link. He kept it private, however, so only he could see what information lay there. He then shot upright in his seat, and looked at those sitting around the table with terrified eyes.

  ‘We need to abandon the barge,’ he said, in a voice suddenly husky. ‘We need to get the hell out of here right now!’

  The guard hurried back out of the room and, as the door opened, Gabrielle could hear a murmur of voices from beyond, and what might have been shouting from up on the main deck.

  ‘What in hell is going on?’ demanded Thijs.

  Now, thought Gabrielle in a panic, suddenly sure that she and Karl had been uncovered.

  She took hold of his activation device and pressed the button set into it, with a satisfying click.

  At first, nothing happened. No one was even paying any attention to her now, because they were all busy staring at Abramovic.

  ‘There has been an attack on the Demarchy,’ announced Abramovic. ‘From off-world.’

  The banqueters broke into a hubbub of questions and demands. ‘From the Accord?’ asked one voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Abramovic replied. ‘There’s only limited data coming through at the moment, but it appears there has been a . . . an impact of some kind in the ocean several hundred kilometres south of Dios. All I know is that something just landed there – something big. It might be a comet or a meteor . . .’

  Someone at the far end of the table coughed violently.

  ‘That’s impossible!’ cried Thijs. ‘We have planetary defences for such things – not to mention the Accord forces in orbit. How could this possibly . . . ?’

  ‘How isn’t important,’ Abramovic yelled, and then himself coughed violently. ‘The point is that there’s a tidal wave coming towards us. We have fast-launch flyers on the aft upper deck, enough for all of us. We must evacuate the ship immediately if the Demarchy is to . . . is to . . .’

  He stopped then, a perplexed look on his face. His chest heaved, and he again coughed explosively into one hand.

  Gabrielle watched in horrified fascination as he peered down at the specks of blood on his palm. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, looking over at Thijs before slumping forward.

  One of the other banqueters half-stood before vomiting violently into his neighbour’s lap. Then his face twisted in a grimace, and he collapsed right across the table. Over the next few seconds, the rest followed, their bodies contorting as they stumbled up from their chairs or tumbled to the floor.

  Thijs stared at Gabrielle with a horrified expression, as if he realized what she had done. He tried to push his chair back, but instead fell to his knees, continuing to stare up at her with hatred.

  ‘I used to dream of a moment like this,’ said Gabrielle, gazing down at him. ‘Ever since that night.’

  ‘You . . .’ Thijs managed to gasp.

  ‘Not just me.’ A strange calm came over her. ‘This was all Karl Petrova’s plan . . . and he’s a far better lover than you could ever be, Pater Thijs.’

  Thijs’s eyes finally lost their focus and he slumped to the floor. Gabrielle stared around the suddenly silent banquet hall, at all the bodies surrounding her, their eyes bulging and faces contorted.

  The door at the far end burst open, and Karl himself strode in, dressed in cold-weather gear. A pair of breather masks dangled by their straps from one hand, and a spare jacket was slung over his shoulder. She had never been so relieved to see someone in all of her life.

  ‘Where are the rest of the guards?’ asked Gabrielle, puzzled to see him alone.

  ‘Up on the main decks, preparing for the evacuation,’ he said, kneeling by the body of a banqueter sprawled on the floor. ‘As far as they know, I’m here to round you and everyone else up.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Gabrielle, as Karl touched two fingers of his free hand to the dead man’s throat. He then glanced around the rest of the room, before nodding to himself in satisfaction.

  ‘Checking they’re all dead,’ Karl replied, then threw her a look that sent a shiver through her. ‘I thought perhaps you wouldn’t be able to manage it, but you’ve proven yourself a regular little angel of death, haven’t you?’

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped, horrified that he could say something so vile.

  ‘Here,’ he said, stepping forward and handing her one of the masks. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  She pulled the mask over her mouth and nose, strapping it on as Karl affixed his own. He then handed her
the jacket, which she pulled on over her robes, before tugging her towards the door with unexpected roughness.

  ‘Why is the barge being evacuated?’ asked Gabrielle, as Karl dragged her after him by one arm. They were almost running along a passageway. ‘What’s going on? Abramovic said a tidal wave was on its way here . . . that there had been some kind of impact in the ocean. How could that be?’

  ‘I guess it’s just coincidence,’ he replied, as if not greatly concerned. ‘At least we won’t be here when it arrives.’

  Something horrible then occurred to her. It simply wasn’t possible such a thing could be just coincidence . . . could it?

  ‘Karl,’ she asked, her voice trembling, ‘do you have anything to do with it? With that wave or whatever just landed in the ocean?

  They had now arrived at an airlock, beyond which lay the main deck. He pulled her inside, then grabbed her by the shoulder, twisting her around until she was facing away from him. She gasped with shock as something was stabbed into the soft flesh at the top of her neck, just below her skull.

  She tore herself from his grasp, automatically bringing her fingers up to probe the punctured skin. The flesh was puckered, and she could feel something hard beneath. Despite the shock, it had hurt very little, and now the entire back of her neck felt numb, as if anaesthetized.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ she demanded, seeing him pocket a silver device with a needle-like nozzle at one end.

  ‘You’re a machine-head,’ he said. ‘That makes you easy to track. But the inhibitor I just put in you should take care of that.’

  ‘Damn you, Karl, What have you done to me? And why won’t you answer my question? What makes you think you have the right to—’

  ‘I’m trying to keep you alive,’ he rasped, hitting the release on the airlock door, his voice muffled by his breather mask.

  There was a brief, powerful gust as the air pressure equalized with that of Redstone’s natural atmosphere. Even with the jacket over her robes, the shock of the freezing air directly against her skin made Gabrielle’s lungs cramp.

  They were outside now, on the main deck, beads of rain sprinkling her neck and face where they weren’t covered by the breather mask. A wind from the sea flurried the tops of the waves, and it was so cold that she offered Karl no more resistance as he hauled her along.

  Within moments she stood at the bow of the Grand Barge, looking over the railing at a much smaller vessel directly below them, which rose and fell with the motion of the waves.

  Shouting filled the air, coming from behind. Something thundered overhead, and Gabrielle glanced up, catching sight of a security services flyer lifting from one of the barge’s upper decks and quickly vanishing into the night.

  She had a sudden intuition regarding what Karl had in mind for them. She had pictured the pair of them roaring off into space on board some luxuriously appointed dropship, but that clearly wasn’t what he had planned.

  Karl glanced back along the main deck and, from his expression, Gabrielle could tell he was listening to someone over a Tabernacle link.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Someone’s found the bodies,’ he replied tersely. ‘And now they’re looking for us. Get ready to jump.’

  Gabrielle tried to frame a response, but by now her teeth were chattering so uncontrollably under her breather mask that it made it extraordinarily difficult to get any words out. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Not until you tell me what’s going on. How can there possibly be a tidal wa—’

  ‘Now,’ Karl shouted, putting his arms around her waist, lifting her up and heaving her over the railing before she had a chance to resist.

  She shrieked as she fell, hardly getting a chance to draw breath before she hit the water. The shock of the icy cold drove all other thoughts from her head.

  She drew in a ragged breath, hands clawing desperately at the surrounding water. She had never been taught to swim because what need, after all, would a Speaker-Elect have for such skills?

  Just when she was absolutely sure she was about to die, she felt a hand take hold of her wrist. Then more hands seized hold, lifting her up and pulling her on board the boat she had seen from the railing. By some miracle, her breather mask had remained in place.

  Strong arms carried her through a hatchway and into a cabin smelling of mould and paint. Once the man carrying her set her back down, she felt the deck beneath her feet begin to throb. After a moment there was a slight lurch, and the boat began to move, picking up speed and rocking from side to side hard enough that Gabrielle was forced to shift her feet in order to keep her balance.

  She looked around to see she was sharing this cabin with four men, all wearing worn-looking combat suits and breather masks, including the one who had fetched her inside. She realized with a shock that they were all Freeholders – and therefore enemies of the Demarchy of Uchida.

  Karl was the last to enter through the hatch, water pouring from his soaking garments. He must have jumped into the water right after her. The cabin was not particularly small, but with all six of them it felt crowded.

  One of the four Freeholders stepped over behind Karl, snapped the hatch shut and then touched a panel set into a bulkhead. The air throbbed with the sound of pumps, as Redstone’s inhospitable atmosphere was swiftly replaced with breathable air. Another of the men threw a heavy towel towards Gabrielle and gestured brusquely to a door leading further inside the boat.

  ‘There’s dry clothes in there,’ he said, pulling off his breather mask. His accent sounded barbaric to her ears.

  She nodded numbly and stepped towards the door, too frightened to do anything but obey.

  The door slid open on hidden rollers, revealing a toilet and sink beneath a ceiling so low that she had to duck down. She pulled off her freezing wet clothes and dried herself as best she could, but the cold had already penetrated deep inside her body.

  Finding the dry clothes, she quickly pulled them on. The overalls were clearly a man’s, and therefore much too big, but at least they were dry and, she discovered with relish, had heating elements woven into the fabric.

  She touched an orange patch on one shoulder, and after a few seconds blessed heat caressed her skin. Even so, she knew it would take some time for the heat to truly permeate. She next dragged on a pair of heavy boots that were at least a couple of sizes too large, but she compensated for this by tying them tightly around her ankles.

  When she stepped back through into the main cabin, Karl was still there, with one of the Freeholders. The others had all disappeared from sight, although she could hear their muffled voices echoing along a narrow passageway that appeared to run the full length of the boat.

  When Karl glanced towards her, it once again felt uncomfortably like looking into the eyes of a stranger.

  ELEVEN

  Megan

  2751 (twelve years before)

  It takes time to move a starship measuring three hundred metres in length, and massing several thousand tonnes, out of orbit. Drive-fields used for manoeuvring and short-distance propulsion need to be activated, and even then it can take hours or even days before such a ship can put sufficient distance between itself and objects possessing large mass – such as planets – that can prevent a superluminal jump taking place.

  Thirteen hours after agreeing to help Tarrant and Sifra hijack the Beauregard, Megan finally climbed down from the astrogation chair, feeling weary and exhausted. Kjæregrønnested still loomed large in the command deck’s monitors, but they were accelerating now, headed for the outer system. The Beauregard’s drive-spines were scraping raw energy out of the quantum vacuum and storing it in preparation for a jump that would carry them across light years

  Bash took over in the chair and Megan made her way to her own quarters. She collapsed, exhausted, in the cubbyhole where she slept. But it was nearly impossible to rest, with so many conflicting thoughts and feelings churning through her mind.

  They were committing an act of piracy, after all
; the punishment, if they failed, would be severe. She wondered if she had too easily let Bash’s enthusiasm push her onto a path of recklessness. For a moment, she wondered if she should tell him to halt the flight, to return to orbit above Kjæregrønnested and then suffer the consequences of their foolishness.

  And yet she remained where she was, stretched out fully clothed on her bunk, with one booted foot dangling over the edge. Whatever doubts she might retain, the fact remained that Tarrant was offering them both a chance at a real future.

  She had no trouble in picturing the chaos that must already be erupting back in Ladested. A squall of increasingly frantic queries was already chasing them, and undoubtedly the engineers, drive-specialists and military advisers who had been waiting to assume effective command of the ship on behalf of the Accord would by now be aware of what was happening.

  Finally, sleep stole her away, and she woke some hours later to find that the ship’s steadily building acceleration had returned gravity to the ship.

  She accessed the navigation systems and saw that Kjæregrønnested had slipped away into the stellar darkness. The initial squall of transmissions had blown into a storm, and she now accessed some of them, along with some of the major news feeds.

  The strongest threats, it seemed, were being delivered by the Accord forces already in station above Kjæregrønnested. She was not surprised to learn that two of the Accord’s own nova-class ships were setting out in pursuit of them. But this was nothing more than a gesture; without a clear idea of just where it was they were going, it would be impossible for anyone to track the Beauregard after its first significant jump into deep space.

  It’s out of your hands, she told herself, and she let out a shuddering breath. They were entirely committed now.

  She suddenly felt all the tension ease out of her body, like the first flush after sex, and a grin spread across her face.

  She deliberately brushed against Bash’s mind and saw, through their shared data-senses, that he was still locked into the astrogation chair after more than half a standard day. She pushed some of her good feeling towards him.