The Betwixt Book One (36 page)

I used up most of my strength to turn to him, to drop open my
lips, my eyes dead and cold. ‘You think—’ but I stopped, because at
that moment a surge of energy pulsed through me.

They brought the Commander in, though dragged him was a better
term.

‘
Jason!’ I screamed, pulling away from Marty and rushing over
to him. ‘Jason, Jason, Jason, are you okay?’ I kept saying his
name, over and over again – as if its mere repetition would bring
the color back to his sallow skin.

He looked up at me. Though his body was limp, no resistance
visible to the hold of his Tarian captors, his face was totally in
control. ‘You alright?’

I nodded so quick my neck gave a click, my head still swimming
with the acute nausea of my fatigue. ‘I—’

‘
Just hold in there, just—’

‘
Look, this is very touching, but I'm on a time line here,’
Marty walked over to me, crossing his arms just like the Commander
would have done. Not to say the Commander would ever have been in a
situation where he had taken hostages, and was flying them across
the galaxy for some nefarious purpose. No, Jason was-

I reached out an arm to him, wanted to take his jaw with my
hand, to alleviate some of the pressure that looked as if it was
running through his strained neck. But Marty ducked down and
grabbed my arm, pulling it back.

‘
Like I said, don't have the time. This way,’ Marty pulled me
to my feet and marched me across the room. He nodded at the Tarian
in front of some console. ‘Pull up the file. Confirm status of the
light cruiser too, I don't want to make it all the way to the Dark
Rift only to find out she's out of fuel.’

‘
Yesh,’ the Tarian drooled as his hands clunked across the
console, his third hand taking the time to scratch some itch on his
stomach.

‘
The Dark Rift?’ I repeated, surprise obvious. ‘Wh- why are you
taking this ship there? It will get pulled apart.’

‘
Because that's where our weapons are. And yes, this ship
probably would get pulled apart – that's why we aren't taking her.
No, we're taking your ship.’

‘
My ship?’ I tried to pull free of his grip, his fingers
starting to eat into my wrist like hot barbed wire. ‘I don't have a
ship.’

‘
Yes you do,’ he let me go, though threw my arm free was more
accurate.

I just found my balance, propping myself up against a console,
and rubbed at my wrist. I was free, except I wasn't. Marty knew I
was in no condition to fight right now. One quick step and I'd fall
back to the ground, a puddle of nauseated fatigue.

‘
It's the ship you came in on, sweetie.’ Marty turned to the
console to key something in.

‘
I don't, I don't get it—’ I began.

I heard Jason make a noise from behind me.

‘
He gets it, but you don't. It's the very same light cruiser
you were brought to Station One with, Mini, all those years
ago.’

‘
What?’

‘
Yeah, I've got it,’ Marty looked cocky, uncontrollably proud
of himself.

‘
But how did you . . . how did the GAM give it
up?’

‘
Oh they didn't, not really. I had to steal it from Central
Space Dock – but it was worth it.’

‘
You stole a ship from Central Space Dock?’ the Commander
asked, and despite everything, his voice was still as strong as
ever.

Marty laughed. ‘Cool, ha? But I can't take all the credit –
GAM weren't even protecting it, security was lighter than one of my
lemon meringue pies. You see, they didn't know what they had –
thought it was just a piece of space junk they had to keep for the
sake of records and paper work. They had no idea—’

‘
What do you mean, wouldn't they have scanned that ship?
Wouldn't they have bothered to check it over once a
child . . . one I had just arrived on their
doorstep?’ my words were quick, breathy.

‘
Oh, they did. Well, I did. You see, Mini, I was one of the
technicians that first found you. In fact, it was me that first
scanned that ship. It was me that popped you out of the stasis pod.
Hell, it was me that called you Mini.’

I recoiled from him, colder than absolute zero at the very
idea Marty had been so involved in my beginnings.

‘
You wiped the files,’ Jason said, voice still too clear for a
man who lay limp between his captors grips. He was obviously
diverting all his strength to the only thing he had left. Not that
he had even a chance of talking Marty down.

‘
No,’ Marty clicked his fingers in Jason's direction, ‘but good
guess. I encrypted them. I couldn't wipe them, because they were
too valuable. And I sure as hell couldn't copy them off, they were
too large and would have taken too long. So I encrypted them,
buried them in the ship's computer banks, and just left them there.
I was the officer in charge, so when I said the computer was clean,
people believed me. Still, GAM bureaucracy stated the ship had to
be kept for the sake of records, so when I put in a tender for it –
they denied me. Towed her to Central Docks and let her rot. But I
wasn't about to give up that information, not without a fight. It
took me years to build up the money, the strength, the connections
to spring that ship. But it is all going to be worth it, come pay
day.’

‘
You waited till you could steal it back,’ Jason lifted his
head to face Marty, the strain evident across the throbbing veins
of his forehead. ‘What the hell was in those files that made you
commit treason, made you turn on the GAM – made you steal from
us?’

‘
Treason?’ Marty looked thoughtful. ‘You know, I'd never
thought of it that way. I'd always just considered it ordinary
crime. But now you've pointed it out, I can see where you're going.
Because if I hadn't encrypted what was in those data banks, well,
let’s just say that the GAM would have different priorities right
now.’

‘
Wait, but . . . what was on the ship's
computer? What was in those files you waited years for?’ I asked
suddenly.

Marty turned to me, stepped closer, till I could see the light
glinting off his gray eyes. ‘You really want to know,
Mini?’

I wanted to recoil further, but I held my ground. ‘Yes,’ I
said as firmly as my voice would allow.

‘
Alright, I'll show you.’

Chapter 20

Marty keyed in the code. I watched every one of his thick
fingers dance across that console, calling up some file from the
ship's computer banks.

There was hardly a sound to compete with the click, click,
click of Marty's fingers as they touched the keypad. Oh, and the
rumble of my heart as it shook my ribcage.

Mother . . . .

‘
Here we go,’ Marty said, hands finally coming to
rest.

Suddenly a blue, flickering hologram rose above the central
control panel. It looked precisely like the AI on the Rain Man's
ship, just before it had taken shape. This one contorted for a bit,
its blue pixels shifting in and out before it finally took stable
form.

If there was a collective intake of breath, I didn't hear it.
If everyone else on the deck stared on in wide-eyed shock, I didn't
see it . . . . I was too distracted by the form
that hovered above the console. The
hologram . . . .

‘
You have accessed my Virtual Memory, please state your
request,’ the floating form said, voice lilting with a strange
accent.

‘
What the hell is that thing?’ The Commander said, unable to
hide the note of amazement from his voice. ‘I've never seen an AI
with that kind of visual programming before.’

But before Marty could answer, before he could cock his head
back, before he could grin with those large, white teeth, and far
before he could mouth the words 'her mother' – I already knew, I
already knew.

The image floating before me, the hologram that was close
enough to touch – it spoke to every part of me, every cell, every
memory.

She, Her, Mother.

I was staring up at her, letting the light from the hologram
play across my face as if I were standing under some great
chandelier of flickering candles. My lips were softly parted, my
eyes open as far as the stretched skin would allow.
‘Mother?’

The holographic creature turned my way, tipped its perfect
head to the side, and regarded me. ‘Accessing Virtual
Memory . . . . Confirming identity of Leana
Hari’s offspring . . . . Identity
confirmed.’

I stared up, my mouth hollowing out into a soft 'o'. I didn't
understand what the AI was talking
about . . . . but . . . . I
knew it was still her. Or, it was an image, an imprint, some kind
of afterglow of my own mother.

‘
Doesn't she look amazing,’ Marty asked from beside
me.

I jumped, startled at the sudden intrusion. I had almost
forgotten he was there, almost forgotten where I was and the
horrible situation I was in.

Amazing? No . . . . she
looked . . . impossible. My mother, no, the hologram
of my mother was ordinary height for a human, with a humanoid body
type . . . . but that's where the similarities
ended. Every centimeter. of her soft-looking skin glowed like
torchlight through amber. The color was so rich, so warm, so
inviting. Her eyes were the same as mine, though sharper, clearer –
far more like the blast of a phase rifle as it collected a hot
bullet in its muzzle. She had coccyx-length ice white hair that
floated around her like a silk veil in a breeze. But these were not
the startling things about her. It was the markings, the tattoos,
the great grooves and impressions that ran all over her skin –
these were things that made me stare.

They were so intricate, so complete, so beautiful. Her amber
skin was totally marked, from head to foot, with dark, black
groves, with strikes of white-hot blue emanating from them. One
massive central line, that gave off more concentrated light than
any other, ran from her bottom lip, right down to her clavicle,
then along each arm till it ended right in the center of both of
her palms.

She parted her lips, her bottom lip all the more visible for
that bright strike of light. ‘Yamana, daughter, what do request of
my Virtual Memory?’

I didn't answer, couldn't quite get it into my head that I
was . . . I was supposed to be talking to my mother.
Instead I watched her lips move, watched the lines of light between
dark as they shifted with the pulses of her body.

‘
We want to access the message stored in your data file – the
one where you tell us where all those weapons are,’ Marty crossed
his arms and grinned.

The hologram of my mother turned to Marty, but didn't narrow
her eyes, harrumph or in any other way indicate that she understood
what he had said. Comprehended it maybe, but actually realized what
it meant . . . .

‘
Mother, mother I—’

‘
I am not your mother, I am a segment of her memory, a moment
of her time. I look like her, yes, I sound like her, I move like
her. But I am myself, and we are separate. I have one goal, she has
many.’

I put a hand up to my face, jammed my fingers in the corners
of my eyes to stop the tears from welling before they could even
start. No, no . . . I didn't want to get this far to
hear that . . . . I didn't want to finally see
her, only to have my vision no more real than an Old Earth
photograph.

‘
I have one purpose,’ she continued, ‘one goal. I am here to
relay a message, to ensure that Leana Hari’s sacrifice leads to
some good.’

Marty made a speed-up motion with his hands. ‘This is
touching, but move on to the message.’

The hologram flicked her eyes to Marty again. Even though they
were expressionless . . . I still fancied I caught
them narrowing. ‘Do you request I playback your mother's final
message?’

She was asking me, and me alone. I nodded, one single heart
beat pulsing through me like a roar.

‘
Very well.’ There was an electronic beep, then the hologram
came back to its original position, eyes directed straight ahead.
She was motionless, little more than a 3D doll.

Then she moved.

‘
I come with warning, a grave warning,’ she stared out, but at
nobody in particular – her head just swept slowly, as if she
expected she was talking to a crowd. ‘And yet I come with a gift,
one that is harder to give than one's own life. In this ship is my
only daughter, my only child. She is all I have, and yet I give her
to you. I have sent her to the headquarters of your army, of the
security force responsible for protecting all of this galaxy. I
have sent her to you because she offers you hope.’

I put a hand on my stomach and one my mouth, they both shook
like I was a hundred times older than my years.

‘
We are of the People, though my child is also human. If, by
this time in your galaxy, you have forgotten our race, then I will
remind you. We were one of the founders, the first race in your
Milky Way to attain space travel, to understand, to manipulate, and
to control technologies of astounding power. Yet for all our graces
and achievements, we are also responsible for one of the greatest
enemies this galaxy will ever encounter. The Twixts, beings of
insatiable hunger who feast on the light of living souls. This is
our most unfortunate legacy . . . .’ she
trailed off for a moment, her chest rising as she took in a deep
breath. She closed her eyes and turned her head to the
side.