Redemption Ark

The flowerlike screens filled with status read-outs, schematics of the corvette’s manifold subsystems strobing by at frantic speed. Clavain upped his consciousness rate until the cascade of images slowed to something he could assimilate. There were some technical issues, reports of damage that the corvette had sustained during the escape, but nothing that would threaten the mission. The other read-outs showed summaries of the tactical situation in increasingly large volumes of space, spreading out from the corvette in powers of ten. Clavain studied the icons and annotations, noting the proximity of both Conjoiner and Demarchist vessels, drones, rover-mines and larger assets. There was a major battle taking place three light-hours away, but there was nothing closer. Nor was there any sign of a response from the Mother Nest. It didn’t mean that there had been no response, since Clavain was relying on the tactical data that the corvette was intercepting using passive sensors and by tapping into systemwide communication nets rather than risking the use of its own active sensors, which would betray its position to anyone looking in the right direction. But at least there was — so far — no obvious response.

Clavain smiled and shrugged, and was immediately reminded of the broken rib he had sustained during the escape. The pain was duller than it had been before, since he had remembered to strap on a medical tabard before going to sleep. The tabard had directed magnetic fields into his chest, coaxing the bone into re-knitting. But the discomfort was still there, proving that none of it had been in his imagination. There was a patch on his hand, too, where the piezo-knife had cut to the bone. But the wound had been clean and there was very little pain from the self-inflicted injury.

So he had done it. There had been a moment during that state of hazy reacquaintance with reality when he had dared to imagine that the memories of recent events stemmed only from a series of troubling dreams: the kind that afflicted any soldier with anything resembling a conscience; anyone who had lived through enough wars — enough history — to know that what appeared to be the right action at the time might later turn out to be the direst of mistakes. But he had gone through with it, betraying his people. And it was a betrayal, no matter how pure the motive. They had trusted him with a shattering secret, and he had violated that trust.

There had not been time to evaluate the wisdom of defection in anything but the most cursory manner. From the moment he had seen the evacuation fleet and understood what it meant he knew that he had one opportunity to leave, and that it would mean stealing the corvette there and then. If he had waited any longer — until they got back to the Mother Nest, for instance — Skade would surely have seen his intentions. She had already had suspicions, but it would take her time to pick through the unfamiliar architecture of his mind, his antique implants and half-forgotten neural-interface protocols. He could not afford to give her that time.

So he had acted, knowing that he would probably not see Felka again, since he did not expect to remain a free man — or even a living one — after he had entered into the next and most difficult phase of his defection. It would have been far better if he had been able to see her one last time; there would have been no hope of persuading her to come with him, and no way of arranging her escape even if she had been willing, but he could have let her know his intentions, certain that his secret was safe with her. He also thought she would have understood — not necessarily agreed, but she would not have tried to argue him out of it. And if there had been a final farewell, he thought, then she might have answered the question he had never quite had the courage to ask her; the question that went back to the time of Galiana’s nest and the war-weary days on Mars when they had met for the first time. He would have asked her if she was his daughter, and she might have answered.

Now he would have to live without ever knowing, and though he might never have summoned the courage — in all the years before he had never managed it, after all — the permanence of his exile and the impossibility of ever knowing the truth felt as bleak and cold as stone.

Clavain decided he had better learn to live with it.