Dark Foundations (48 page)

Vero and Perena nodded.

“That I know.”

There was a silence in which Merral could hear the whisper of the air- conditioning and the muted sound of the sea.

“Does this help your verdict?” Azeras asked.

“Perhaps,” Merral said.

Vero leaned forward. “Let me ask you a question: what would you like to do?”

“Me? Using standard years, I am thirty-five. I have been a fighter for half that time. I did not choose to be one. There are many other careers I would have preferred—a scholar perhaps. No doubt you see us as monsters or barbarians—”

“No!” interrupted Perena. “We see you as . . .” She faltered. “A tragedy. I wish we had known about you generations ago. Then we might have helped.”

Azeras seemed to ponder her words. “Thank you, Lady Captain. But we are human like you. We love, we care, and we weep.” He stared out of the window. “I have known suffering. All who have been close to me—lovers, children, colleagues, comrades—all now are lost beyond recall in death's gray lands. The powers always win.”

He fell silent, his eyes evidently tracing the path of a flock of white-winged terns as they skimmed over the waters. “This is a beautiful world. We appreciate beauty, you know. We have little of it and little time for it. What would I like? I would like peace. . . . A hut at the water's edge.”

Merral was suddenly overwhelmed by sympathy for this man and his sorrows and longings. He heard Perena sniff and saw her rub her eyes.

Azeras looked at Merral and Vero, his gray eyes now almost defiant again. “But why tease me with my wishes? I am your prisoner, at your disposal. Whatever I now face, I trust I will face with honor and courage.”

How strange.
I had expected to fear this man, loathe him perhaps
.
But instead I find that, like Perena, my emotion is pity.
Merral glanced at Vero and then turned to the thin man on the bed. “We'll consider your situation this evening and talk to you tomorrow. Do you have anything else to say?”

“Yes. I ask for mercy.”

18

O
utside the ward, Merral, Perena, and Vero walked to the end of the corridor.

“Are you all right, Perena?” Vero asked.

“No. The whole thing . . .” Perena stared down the corridor, her face pale. “The history of the Freeborn makes me want to cry. I'd assumed—we all had—that for the last twelve thousand years ours was the only story. I now find that while we have had our prosperity and peace, far beneath us this other tale of endless, awful misery has been unfolding. We have had sunlight; they have been in utter darkness. Cities, countries—even whole planets—laid waste. It's horrid beyond words.”

There was a long and sympathetic silence.

Finally Merral said, “Perena, at the start something passed between you and Azeras. I was wondering what.”

She blushed. “I was just stunned by the way he looked at me with . . . a fire of lust. His eyes were almost stripping me bare. I've never felt that before. . . .”

Vero's face tightened.

Merral found himself staring at the floor. “We all need time to think,” he said, deciding that a change of subject was appropriate. “But over supper, we need to decide what we do with this man. Do we treat him as an enemy? Do we try and get him on our side? Do we even believe him?”

Vero stared at the ground. “Yes, those are some of the many questions. I need to think more. Look, I'll be inside. I need to make some calls about the irregulars. It needs to be business as usual or people will suspect.”

Without a word he put his dark glasses on and walked down the corridor.

Perena watched him go and then, with a troubled face, turned to Merral. “It's all too much. I'm going for a run. Maybe some exercise will clear my mind.”

Merral toyed with going for a run too, but decided on a short walk instead. He found a path that led to a small raised ridge of debris from the reefs covered in palms and vegetation.

Since being abandoned after the Gate's destruction, vegetation had started to reclaim the island; creepers, vines, and wiry grasses had begun to cover the path. On an impulse, Merral went back inside and found a bush knife and then cleared the path, finding the exercise soothing. On top of the ridge, he found a dusty table and some chairs set out under a crude and sagging shade of thatched palm fronds. He tidied up the place a little and then sat down and stared at the pristine green-blue of the sunlit sea, listening to the rumble of the waves on the beach as he pondered all he had heard and the many issues the information raised.

Finally, Merral contacted Isterrane on the secure line and, careful not to give away his location, answered various urgent calls that had been sent to him. One was oddly troubling. The guards at Brenito's house were worried about Jorgio. Over the last few days he had become distressed and complained of having had terrible dreams. Merral made a mental note to visit him and then, still preoccupied by Azeras's words, attempted to get through his correspondence.

Some time later, as the shadows lengthened, Perena joined him. She still seemed troubled.

“How was the run?” he asked.

“It helped me deal with things, especially that awful revelation of a dark underside to our existence that we had never suspected.”

“I know. Perena, the only consolation I can find—and it is a small one—is the scale of it all. The Freeborn have never been more than a small fraction of the Assembly's numbers. At times it seems, they were barely a millionth of our size.”

“But, Merral, think . . . we're still talking about hundreds of thousands, even millions, of individuals.”

“I know.”

Her face cleared. “And yet there is a brighter side. For the first time, I see the value of the Assembly—of all we've stood for. Without God's grace, we would have been like them.”

“A good point.”

“And it emphasizes the value of what we must fight for.”

Minutes later, Merral looked up to see Vero slowly walking toward them. Without a word, he sat down and stared out to sea.

“The test results are in,” he suddenly announced in a perplexed tone. “Betafor's patch was a toxin. One of a family of drugs that can give sudden nervous system failure. We would never have suspected it. So we have a legal novelty: Farholme's first attempted murder. And, just to make life more fun, committed by a sentient machine.”

The debate on the weighty matters raised by Betafor and Azeras lasted all evening. Merral, Vero, and Perena sat outside on the ridge and, as the light faded, Lloyd, who had volunteered to cook, joined them with supper. As they discussed the issues raised, the evening darkened into night and the stars in all their glory came out above them.

They all agreed that matters were complex. Were they passing a legal judgment? Had they any right to do so? Vero suggested that, as commander in time of war, Merral had the authority to pass military judgments. The others agreed and despite a profound unease, Merral found himself accepting that view. It simplified matters and indeed there was no other option. It was another military necessity.

Afterward they discussed whether they could trust anything that either Betafor or Azeras said. It had been proved that one was a liar and that the other didn't tell the whole truth. All agreed that both had to be treated with caution.

“We have already learned much and, if we can handle these two in the right way, we will learn much more,” said Vero. “And this knowledge is made even more valuable by virtue of the fact that the Dominion will not know we have it. Ironically, we find ourselves in agreement with our guests—we must not reveal their existence. We must pretend that everything perished with the ship. Whatever we do, they must be our greatest secret.”

Eventually, late at night and after prayer, they reached their decisions. The judgment on Betafor was easy to agree on; that concerning Azeras was less easy. In the end, they decided to take a risk.

The next morning Merral, Vero, and Perena, accompanied by Lloyd and his double-barreled gun, went to see Betafor in the basement room where she had been placed.

To their surprise, they found her hanging upside down from the ceiling beams. As they entered she released her grip, spinning as she dropped, and landed softly on all four feet.

“Betafor,” Merral said, “we have considered your case. We find you guilty of attempted murder. Do you have anything to say?”

Betafor's mouth moved into a tauter version of the pseudosmile. “Yes. You cannot blame me. Human beings made me. It is your fault. I am programmed for . . . survival.”

“An interesting defense,” Merral said, suddenly at a loss for an answer. He looked to the others for help.

“May I, Commander?” Perena said.

“By all means.”

“Betafor, are you a person or a machine?”

“A person.”

“Machines can't choose; a person can. Can you make choices?”

Betafor said nothing.

Merral watched her closely.
Check
.

Perena waited for a moment. “If we accepted your defense, we would have to agree that you were a machine, not a person. We would therefore treat you as a thing and probably would dismantle you. Given that, do you still wish to offer that defense? Or do you wish to withdraw it?”

Checkmate.

Betafor's tail whisked backward and forward across the floor.

A nervous twitch?

Finally she spoke. “I withdraw it.”

“Thank you, Perena,” Merral said. “Betafor, our sentence is this: First, you are to be kept under guard for the foreseeable future. Second, any further attempt to hurt anyone else will result in your instant termination. Do you understand these two rules?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now third, we are concerned about the Krallen and believe that you may hold the key to any defense against them. You are therefore offered a choice: either help us develop defenses against them voluntarily or we'll use you without your permission. Do you want Lloyd to explain the last option?”