hello, like
now.
Are you talking about the Wanderer?
she asked, with a horrible chill. Her dream muscles were rigid with despair.
I’ll find someone who can fix you, I swear I will
.
He brought his hand back down and folded it around one of hers.
You don’t understand
, he said, shaking his head.
There’s nobody that can fix me. I know that
.
His smile faded, his gaze becoming blank and vacant even as the intelligence faded from his eyes. She thought of candles guttering out in an abandoned house.
Wait!
she cried, grabbing hold of him.
Stay with me. Please
.
I’ll be there when you really need me, baby
, she heard him say, as if from the far side of the universe.
You just take care of yourself until then
.
She woke with a start, to find Luiz unbuckling her restraints.
‘Time for you to take your pee,’ he said. ‘We brought you something to eat as well.’ He waved a hand at some food on a cardboard tray set next to her couch. The two
bead-zombies had been given their guns back, and had them pointing at her.
‘Dumb and Dumber here are going to keep an eye on you,’ he said. ‘And, while you’re at it, take your buddy to the head as well, before he shits himself or something. I am
right in thinking he’d do that, if we just left him there long enough?’
’You tell me,’ she said. ‘I’m not the one who’s kept him locked up in a fucking dungeon.’
‘You keep talking as smart as you do; see where it gets you,’ said Luiz, finishing with the restraints. ‘Turn over on your side so I can get your cuffs.’
Megan did as she was told and felt her wrists suddenly coming free. She tried to rub at them, but hissed between her teeth from the pain. It felt as if the skin had been scraped raw.
‘Now go get yourself to the head,’ said Luiz. ‘And don’t take too long in case I have to come looking.’
She got up out of the couch, feeling her muscles stretching painfully, and then waited while Luiz also released Bash. Once he was out of his couch, she took hold of Bash and led him, not without
difficulty, out through the cockpit hatch.
‘Down the far end,’ Luiz shouted after her. ‘Second cubby on the left.’
Fuck you too
, she thought, and wondered if it had been Luiz’s job to clean up Bash before her arrival on Avilon. If so, he’d been doing a very poor job of it.
She pushed Bash up against a bulkhead next to the head and stared into his empty, unseeing eyes. ‘Were you inside my head just a minute ago, Bash? Or did I really just dream all of
that?’
It hadn’t felt like a dream. It had felt
real
.
But if it
had
been real, that meant there was at least some part of Bash that was still aware of everything happening around him.
The implications chilled her. If that really was the case, then Bash had remained locked in the prison of his own body, unable to communicate with the outside world . . . for more than a
decade.
NINE
Gabrielle
Gabrielle had hardly slept during the night, and when she woke the next morning, on the Eve of Ascension, Cassanas was still avoiding her gaze. When Gabrielle asked to dress
herself, the old woman’s only response was a mumbled nod.
An hour later, Gabrielle made her way up through the tiered decks, trailed by several of Karl’s guards, until she came to an observation deck on the very uppermost level of the great
barge. More guards under Karl’s command waited in an anteroom as she leaned against a railing, looking out towards the distant horizon, a view coloured slightly by the containment field
keeping a breathable atmosphere around the deck itself.
In all of her life, Gabrielle had only rarely set foot outside Port Gabriel. Most of her existence had been spent within the strict confines of the People’s Palace, and she now felt almost
dizzy from the sight of so much sky. She gazed at canopy trees rising out of the frozen soil of the nearby eastern shore, the tiny black dots of one-wings circling beneath huge frond-like branches
that
now.
Are you talking about the Wanderer?
she asked, with a horrible chill. Her dream muscles were rigid with despair.
I’ll find someone who can fix you, I swear I will
.
He brought his hand back down and folded it around one of hers.
You don’t understand
, he said, shaking his head.
There’s nobody that can fix me. I know that
.
His smile faded, his gaze becoming blank and vacant even as the intelligence faded from his eyes. She thought of candles guttering out in an abandoned house.
Wait!
she cried, grabbing hold of him.
Stay with me. Please
.
I’ll be there when you really need me, baby
, she heard him say, as if from the far side of the universe.
You just take care of yourself until then
.
She woke with a start, to find Luiz unbuckling her restraints.
‘Time for you to take your pee,’ he said. ‘We brought you something to eat as well.’ He waved a hand at some food on a cardboard tray set next to her couch. The two
bead-zombies had been given their guns back, and had them pointing at her.
‘Dumb and Dumber here are going to keep an eye on you,’ he said. ‘And, while you’re at it, take your buddy to the head as well, before he shits himself or something. I am
right in thinking he’d do that, if we just left him there long enough?’
’You tell me,’ she said. ‘I’m not the one who’s kept him locked up in a fucking dungeon.’
‘You keep talking as smart as you do; see where it gets you,’ said Luiz, finishing with the restraints. ‘Turn over on your side so I can get your cuffs.’
Megan did as she was told and felt her wrists suddenly coming free. She tried to rub at them, but hissed between her teeth from the pain. It felt as if the skin had been scraped raw.
‘Now go get yourself to the head,’ said Luiz. ‘And don’t take too long in case I have to come looking.’
She got up out of the couch, feeling her muscles stretching painfully, and then waited while Luiz also released Bash. Once he was out of his couch, she took hold of Bash and led him, not without
difficulty, out through the cockpit hatch.
‘Down the far end,’ Luiz shouted after her. ‘Second cubby on the left.’
Fuck you too
, she thought, and wondered if it had been Luiz’s job to clean up Bash before her arrival on Avilon. If so, he’d been doing a very poor job of it.
She pushed Bash up against a bulkhead next to the head and stared into his empty, unseeing eyes. ‘Were you inside my head just a minute ago, Bash? Or did I really just dream all of
that?’
It hadn’t felt like a dream. It had felt
real
.
But if it
had
been real, that meant there was at least some part of Bash that was still aware of everything happening around him.
The implications chilled her. If that really was the case, then Bash had remained locked in the prison of his own body, unable to communicate with the outside world . . . for more than a
decade.
NINE
Gabrielle
Gabrielle had hardly slept during the night, and when she woke the next morning, on the Eve of Ascension, Cassanas was still avoiding her gaze. When Gabrielle asked to dress
herself, the old woman’s only response was a mumbled nod.
An hour later, Gabrielle made her way up through the tiered decks, trailed by several of Karl’s guards, until she came to an observation deck on the very uppermost level of the great
barge. More guards under Karl’s command waited in an anteroom as she leaned against a railing, looking out towards the distant horizon, a view coloured slightly by the containment field
keeping a breathable atmosphere around the deck itself.
In all of her life, Gabrielle had only rarely set foot outside Port Gabriel. Most of her existence had been spent within the strict confines of the People’s Palace, and she now felt almost
dizzy from the sight of so much sky. She gazed at canopy trees rising out of the frozen soil of the nearby eastern shore, the tiny black dots of one-wings circling beneath huge frond-like branches
that
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