Redemption Ark

violent event.

‘So you see,’ Felka said, ‘we were actually lucky to rescue as many as we did. It wasn’t our fault that more died. We just did what was right under the circumstances. There’s no sense feeling guilty about it. If we hadn’t shown up, a thousand other things could have gone wrong. Skade’s fleet would still have arrived, and she wouldn’t have been any more inclined to negotiate than you were.’

Clavain remembered the vile flash of a dying starship, and remembered also the ultimate death of Galiana that he had sanctioned with the decision to destroy Nightshade. Even now the thought of that was painful.

‘Skade died, didn’t she? I killed her, in interstellar space. The other elements of her fleet were acting autonomously, even when we engaged them.’

‘Everything was autonomous,’ Felka said, with curious evasion.

Clavain watched a macaw orbit from tree to tree. ‘I don’t mind being consulted on strategic matters, but I’m not seeking a position of authority on this ship. It isn’t mine, for a start, no matter what Volyova might have thought. I’m too old to take command. And besides, what would the ship need with me anyway? It already has its own Captain.’

Felka’s voice was low. ‘So you remember the Captain?’

‘I remember what Volyova told us. I don’t remember ever talking with the Captain himself. Is he still running things, the way she said he would?’

Her voice remained guarded. ‘Depends what you mean by running things. His infrastructure is still intact, but there’s been no sign of him as a conscious entity since we left Delta Pavonis.’

‘Then the Captain’s dead, is that it?’

‘No, that can’t be it either. He had fingers in too many aspects of routine shipwide functioning, so Volyova said. When he used to go into one of his catatonic states, it was like pulling the plug on the entire ship. That hasn’t happened. The ship’s still taking care of itself, keeping itself ticking over, indulging in self-repair and the occasional upgrade.’

Clavain nodded. ‘Then it’s as if the Captain’s still functioning on an involuntary level, but there’s no sentience there any more? Like a patient who still has enough brain function to breathe, but not much else?’

‘That’s our best guess. But we can’t be totally sure. Sometimes there are little glimmers of intelligence, things that the ship does to itself without asking anyone. Flashes of creativity. It’s more as if the Captain’s still there, but buried more deeply than was ever the case before.’

‘Or perhaps he just left behind a ghost of himself,’ Clavain said. ‘A mindless shell, pottering through the same behavioural patterns.’

‘Whatever it was, he redeemed himself,’ Felka said. ‘He did something terrible, but in the end he also saved one hundred and sixty thousand lives.’

‘So did Lyle Merrick,’ Clavain said, remembering for the first time since he had awakened the secret within Antoinette’s ship and the necessary sacrifice the man had made. ‘Two redemptions for the price of one? I suppose it’s a start.’ Clavain picked at a stray splinter of wood that had embedded itself in his palm, torn from the very edge of the tree stump. ‘So what did happen, Felka? Why have I been awakened when everyone knew it might kill me?’

‘I’ll show you,’ she said. She looked in the direction of the waterfall. Startled, for he had been certain that they were alone, Clavain saw a figure standing on the very edge of the lake immediately before the waterfall. The mist ebbed and swirled around the figure’s extremities.

But he recognised her.

‘Skade,’ he said.

‘Clavain,’ she answered. But she did not step closer. Her voice had been hollow, the acoustics all wrong for the environment. Clavain realised, with a jolt of irritation at how easily he had been fooled, that he was being addressed by a simulation.

‘She’s a beta-level, isn’t she,’ he said, talking only to Felka. ‘The Master of Works would have retained a good enough working memory of Skade to put a beta-level aboard any of the other ships.’

‘She’s a beta-level, yes,’ Felka said. ‘But that isn’t how it happened. Is it, Skade?’

The figure was crested and armoured. It nodded. ‘This beta-level is a recent version, Clavain. My physical counterpart transmitted it to you during the engagement.’

‘Sorry,’ Clavain said, shaking his head, ‘my memory may not be what it was, but I remember killing your counterpart. I destroyed Nightshade shortly after I rescued Felka.’

‘That’s what you remember. It’s almost what happened, too.’

‘You can’t have survived, Skade.’ He said it with numb insistence, despite the evidence of his eyes.

I saved my head, Clavain. I feared that you would destroy Nightshade once I gave you back Felka, even though I didn’t think you would have the courage to do it when you knew I had Galiana aboard…‘ She smiled, her expression strangely close to admiration. ’I was wrong about that, wasn’t I? You were a far more ruthless adversary than I had ever imagined, even after you did this to me.‘

‘You had Galiana’s body, not Galiana.’ Clavain held his voice steady. ‘All I did was give her the peace she should have had when she died all those years ago.’

‘But you don’t really believe that, do you? You always knew she was not really dead, but merely in a state of deadlock with the Wolf.’

‘That was as good as death.’

‘But there was always the chance the Wolf could be removed, Clavain…’ Her voice became soft. ‘You believed that, too. You believed there was a chance you could have her back one day.’

‘I did what I had to do,’ he said.

‘It was ruthlessness, Clavain. I admire you for it. You’re more of a spider than any of us.’

He stood up from the stump and made his way to the water’s edge until he was only a few metres from Skade. She hovered in the mist, neither fully solid nor fully anchored to the ground. ‘I did what I had to do,’ he repeated. ‘It was all I ever did. It wasn’t ruthlessness, Skade. Ruthlessness implies that I felt no pain when I did it.’

‘And did you?’

Tt was the worst thing I have ever done. I removed her love from the universe.‘

‘I feel sorry for you, Clavain.’

‘How did you survive, Skade?’

She reached up and fingered the curious collar where armour joined flesh. ‘After you left with Felka, I detached my head and placed it inside a small warhead casing. My brain tissue was buffered by interglial medichines to withstand rapid deceleration. The warhead was ejected backwards from Nightshade, back towards the other elements of the fleet. You never noticed because you were concerned only with the prospect of an attack against yourselves. The warhead fell through space silently until it was well beyond your detection sphere. Then it activated a focused homing pulse. One element of the fleet was delegated to change velocity until an intercept was feasible. The warhead was captured and brought aboard the other ship.’ She smiled and closed her eyes. ‘The late Doctor Delmar was aboard another fleet vessel. Unfortunately it happened to be the ship you destroyed. But before his death he was able to finish the cloning of my new body. Neural reintegration was surprisingly easy, Clavain. You should try it one day.’

Clavain almost stumbled on his words. ‘Then… you are whole again?’

‘Yes.’ She said it tartly, as if the subject was a matter for mild regret. ‘Yes. I am whole again now.’

‘Then why do you choose to manifest this way?’

‘As a reminder, Clavain, of what you made of me. I am still out there, you see. My ship survived the engagement. There was damage, yes — just as there was damage to your ship. But I haven’t given up. I want what you have stolen from us.’

He turned back to Felka, who was still watching patiently from her wooden stump. ‘Is this true? Is Skade still out there?’

‘We can’t know for sure,’ she said. ‘All we know is what this beta-level tells us. It could be lying, trying to destabilise us. But in that case Skade must have shown astonishing foresight to create it in the first place.’

‘And the surviving ships?’

‘That’s sort of why we woke you. They are out there. We have fixes on their flames even now.’ And then she