Morgan's Choice (38 page)

She sagged with relief, muscles turned to
water. They were safe; safe. Ravindra squeezed her hand hard enough
to hurt. She smiled at him through the helmet of the flight suit.
What she would have given to throw her arms around him, kiss
him.

“You’re wonderful, you know that?” he
said.

That silly warm glow again, even here. “It’s
not over yet.”

Two fighters slowed, turned and matched
vectors with the Starliner.

It was almost like a re-run of her first
encounter with the
Yogina
. The
fighters came in close, while a larger girder of a ship approached.
One of those ugly, misshapen child things was piloting each of
those fighters, casting their eyes upon the monitor readings,
judging the occupants. Ravindra sat rigid beside her. He could have
been carved from ice.

The larger
Yogin
ship maneuvered alongside, its dark grey bulk filling the
view screen as it matched course. A hatch opened and a bridge
snaked out from the vessel’s side.

Her heart jolted. “Oh, fuck. They’re going to
board.”

A dull clang reverberated through the hull
as the bridge connected to the Starliner’s side airlock. All those
weeks ago on the battle cruiser she’d connected to the
Yogina
ship, using the mother ship’s
commands. Maybe she knew enough to control these beings, or at
least stop them. Or she’d die trying.

“
If I learnt enough from the ship on
Vidhvansaka
, I
might be able to protect us from the
Yogina
. You stay here on the bridge where it’s safer for
you.”

“No. We’ll see this through together,
whatever happens.”

She thought for a moment he was going to say
more, but he just moistened his lips.

“Wait.” He strode off. When he came back he
had the blastech in one hand, the handgun in the other. He offered
the handgun to her.

She shook her head, meeting his eyes. “My
power is in my head, not in a weapon. Stay close to me, Ashkar.
Don’t leave my side.”

He gave a barely perceptible nod.

She went down to the airlock hatch to wait
for them. Might as well meet them on her terms. The equalizer gauge
changed color, gradually fading from red to orange. She pushed down
the surge of fear that welled up from her gut. Fear caused
mistakes. A boarding party would appear. Any second now. Green. A
hiss as the seals released and then the hatch swung
open.

The little alien stood no higher than her
chest. Through the transparent helmet she saw a bald head, flat
nose and narrow mouth; it carried a weapon in one five-fingered
hand. And its eyes; its eyes looked very like Morgan’s own, silver
and apparently pupil-less. Like her own. Good grief, these things
were just walking information systems. Or maybe less than that;
maybe more like a more sophisticated version of the automated
maintenance units in the Fleet’s ships. The
Yogin
scanned her and then Ravindra; it began to raise
its weapon.

Morgan leapt between Ravindra
and
the
Yogin
.
Oh no you don’t.
Nobody touches the man I love.
Its eyes slid back to her, narrowed in what seemed to be
annoyance. She dived into the black ball in its brain. Wonderfully
simple, elegant and strangely organic. She joined into the data
flow. Commands from elsewhere. Their ship?

A voice intruded into her head, vibrating in
her implants. A soft, female voice, using a language she didn’t
understand.

“
I don’t understand,” she said in manesan,
and then again in Standard. “I don’t understand.”

Hesitation. Morgan accessed from her
implants what she had recorded of her own language lessons. Maybe
this being could work it out. A few frantic moments as the data was
copied. Then, in passable manesan;
“You are a Maker.”

What? What the fuck was a Maker? “A
maker?”

“
One of those who made me. Are there other
Makers here?”

Might as well go along with since it gave her
an advantage. “Yes, there are other Makers. Why don’t you stop the
fighting and talk to me?”

“
I have not seen a Maker for thousands of
years.”

“Talk to me. You’re on the mother ship,
aren’t you? Talk to me.”

“
What do you mean the ‘mother
ship’?”

Morgan dredged up a picture, the vast
darkness against the stars.

“
Ah yes. That is me.”

The ship is ‘me’? Was this one of the
fabled
machine
intelligences? She’d heard of legendary machines from the… her
heart thumped, painfully loud. From the Cyber Wars.

“Talk to me. Please. People are dying for
nothing.” Thoughts clamored. What was this thing? Where did it come
from?

“
Only the primitives are dying. They are a
threat. They must be destroyed.”

“Primitives? What do you mean?” The Cyber
Wars. Impossible.

“
The thing with you is a primitive. It
must die.”

Her nostrils flared. Oh, no. No sentient ship
was going to touch her man, either. “No. He must NOT die. The
manesa are not primitive.”

She reached out a hand behind her and touched
his leg. He’d have to think this conversation was very odd.

“
He is a primitive, like all those on the
planets I have touched.”

“These people are not primitive. They have
space ships. They are only a little different from me. If I am a
Maker, they are nearly Makers.”

“
No. They do not have BEMs.”

“BEM?”

“
Brain Enhancement Modules. Like
the one you carry in your head
.
All
Makers have BEMs
.”

Her implants. Her implants made her a
Maker? Suddenly it all made sense. Going right back to
Curlew
. The
distress signal might have attracted the
Yogina
but they had recognized the mark of a
computer-enhanced brain. Jones had an implant, too.

“But how do you know people on a planet do
not have BEMs?”

The question seemed almost to have been
offensive. “
I
test. Each of my smaller ships can test. My warriors can test. We
have found only two Makers on one ship in three thousand of our
years and the primitives destroyed them.”

Two Makers? She had to mean
Curlew
, with her
and Jones. “When was this? When you found the Makers?”

“
Quite recently. But a primitive warship
destroyed them.”

“Were your ships ordered to bring the Makers
back to you?”

“
Yes. They had sent out a distress signal,
just as you did.”

“The ship and the Makers were not destroyed.
I was one of them. We were taken on board the warship and cared
for.” More or less. Eventually. “These people you are destroying
are not primitive. They are genetically engineered Makers. Believe
me, you’re making a mistake.”

She waited, sick with tension. Ravindra stood
behind her, his heart rate faster than normal.

“
It is a primitive. But you interest me. I
know the Makers could make changes. You may approach me, both of
you. A fighter will lead. But you must leave your ship beyond my
walls. Your primitive cannot bring weapons.”

“Agreed.”

The mind withdrew. The
Yogin
standing before her collapsed, its weapon
clattering to the deck. Three of the little aliens already lay like
broken dolls, holes in their chests.

“What happened?” Ravindra said. “You seemed
to be having a conversation with yourself.”

“
I was talking to the ship. It’s a machine
intelligence, a super machine. A bit like me without a
body.”

He managed a smile. “That would be a
shame.”

“She destroys the manesa because they are
‘primitive’.” Morgan hooked her fingers as she spoke the word. “She
won’t destroy me because of the hardware in my brain. She says that
makes me not primitive.”

She gazed up at him. “Ashkar, she’s agreed
to let us visit, but you have to go unarmed. If she’ll listen, then
maybe we can persuade her that the manesa are not primitives and we
can end these attacks altogether. Maybe.”

He hesitated, passed his tongue over his
lips. “Then that is good. Because I do not think we have any
weapons to combat it.”

“We might die.”

“We might die anyway. And at least we’ll die
trying.”

She put her helmeted head against his
chest. Just for a moment. Tears pricked at her eyes.
I love
you
. “I have to get back
to the bridge.”

She fled and slipped into her seat.
The
Yogin
assault
ship had already released the bridge connection and a fighter had
taken up position in front of the Starliner’s nose.

The fighter angled and she set the ship to
follow.

This could be the beginning of the end.
Another visit to an alien ship. Her nerves tingled. She should tell
him. She might die and he’d never know.

“Admiral. Ashkar… I. Look, I don’t know
what’s going to happen.” Grief, this was difficult. “But just in
case we’re going to die, I want you to know…” She swallowed.

“I love you,” he said.

She turned her head to look at him. “I was
going to say that.”

His lips curved in the hint of a smile. “You
risked everything for me when you could have been safe and
comfortable. We have come a long way together, you and I. I’ve
never met a woman like you, and I don’t mean the things in your
head or your unusual appearance. I mean you.”

Me. He loves me.

He reached across and held her hand, staring
into her eyes through the transparent faceplate.

“
You never know. We may yet succeed. And if
we do, I’m going to take you to Tamlin. Imagine a white beach where
warm waters lap the shores, and a rainforest filled with walking
paths and waterfalls rises up into the hills. There’s an exclusive
resort built in the branches of the trees, up high so you can see
across the ocean or into the forest. The sea is warm, the food is
wonderful. And we’ll make love and we’ll swim, and we’ll make love
and we’ll eat, and we’ll make love and we’ll cavort under the
waterfalls, and…”

She smiled. “I detect a kind of pattern.” Her
head resting against the seat, she blinked the tears away. She was
in love with an alien admiral. And he was in love with her. What
she’d give to fling herself into his arms. “I’ll hold you to that,
you realize?”

He squeezed her hand. “I wish I could hold
you. Without the suit.”

He pressed the control to withdraw the
helmet.

Morgan removed her helmet, too, and stood
to meet him. His gloved hands slid around her waist as hers slid
around his neck. The kiss was a promise. Gentle, far too brief and
yet the taste lingered on her lips even after they had resumed
their seats.

In the view screen the mother ship loomed,
dead ahead, a massive wall of matt dark grey.

Chapter
Forty-Five

The little fighter changed direction,
running parallel to the ship’s flank, then
stopped. The Starliner slowed until it was
stationary in relation to the mother ship. A bridge slid out and
attached to the manesan ship’s air lock.

This was it. Morgan swallowed to calm her
galloping nerves.

“Let’s go, Admiral.” She stood and walked to
the airlock, Ravindra a step behind her. His face was set, a mask
that hid his emotions but she could see the tension in his
shoulders.

The equalizer gauge beside the airlock hatch
already glowed orange.

“Stay close to me, okay?” she said.

“That was my intention.”

His very presence was a reassurance. Even so,
her pulse beat far too fast. The gauge turned green. Morgan opened
the hatch.

The familiar brief breeze as the air
pressure equalized. A check of her suit’s sensors found breathable
atmosphere with the usual mixture of gases found on human and
manesan worlds. Good. At least they could breathe without the
suits. They could conserve their air. Her heart hammering, she
sucked in a deep breath and stepped into the bridge.

Her body began to float as soon as she left
the Starliner’s artificial gravity field. Hand over hand, she
pulled herself along the rail, aware of Ravindra behind her and the
sound of her own breathing.

She paused at the other hatch. How to let
them know she was here? Maybe that was what the button was for. She
pressed. The hatch irised open.

One more step.

Forcing her legs to move Morgan clambered out
onto a solid deck. She felt light, but at least she wasn’t floating
so the ship had artificial gravity. Ravindra joined her, staring
around just as she did in a soft light. Bare grey walls built of a
material that emitted just enough radiation to see surrounded them.
An arched doorway directly opposite the hatch to the air lock was
closed. What now?

As if in response to her thought, the door
slid open. A sturdy, open-topped vehicle waited for them, with a
driver’s position at the front where a
Yogin
sat. The silver eyes glowed in its pale, flat
face, its nose little more than slits above a wide straight mouth.
“
Enter the
vehicle
.”