I should go back, she thought miserably. But who could have done it?

Bourdain.

Who else? It had to be Bourdain. He was still alive, and hot on her trail. Josef’s only reward for helping her had been his own murder.

After a few minutes, good sense prevailed. Under the circumstances, returning to Mesa Verde now would be tantamount to suicide. With Josef gone, there was no one there to protect her any more.

Then she had a better idea. She could lose herself somewhere on the coreship they were now rushing to meet.

The alien starship continually sent out informational ripples that lapped upon the shore of Dakota’s boosted consciousness. Any ship Bourdain sent after her would never be able to catch up with the Hyperion, but it might still be able to rendezvous with the Shoal coreship before it departed the solar system.

At least once the Hyperion had rendezvoused with the coreship, she herself could disappear into the throng of humans who made their lives there, then keep moving, boarding other coreships for as long as it took for Bourdain either to give up or lose interest. It was a worst-case scenario-and one that would guarantee her the additional enmity of the Freehold-but if things really were as bad as she thought, any other options were seriously limited.

Paranoia began to spin new webs inside her mind. The alien had given her the statuette while she was still on board Bourdain’s Rock. Was it possible, she wondered, that the statuette might contain something within it that allowed Bourdain to keep track of her?

No, too paranoid, she thought, shaking her head. The concept of an alien collaborating with Bourdain in some way raised a thousand more questions than it provided answers. And yet…

And then she remembered noticing an imager on the bridge of the Hyperion.

If there was anything hidden inside the figurine, then that would be the best way to find it. The easier solution would be simply to destroy or get rid of it, but that overwhelming feeling there was something desperately important about the object continued to haunt her.

She cursed herself as an idiot for not considering an imager scan earlier. At the very least doing so would keep her preoccupied until she had a better idea what exactly had happened back on Mesa Verde.

She stepped through the door of her quarters into the corridor beyond, the figurine squeezed securely into a jacket pocket.

Twelve

Redstone Colony

Consortium Standard Date: 01.06.2538

3 Days to Port Gabriel Incident

Dakota snapped awake to hear the duty klaxon blaring like Satan’s own alarm clock. She stumbled out of her cot-Severn mumbling behind her, only just beginning to stir-and collapsed to her knees beneath the window, gripping her head in her hands until the pain of the headache began to ebb. The last lingering fragments of her dream faded with it.

Frequent migraines were a worrying sign. They could get worse, much worse, and sometimes the only cure for a machine-head was to have the implants removed altogether. The idea of life without her Ghost was already unthinkable.

Finally, as the pain faded to nothing, Dakota stood up and let her forehead touch the icy windowpane. She stared outside to the spot where the altercation had taken place the night before. Fresh snow had fallen, obliterating any history.

Then the second klaxon sounded, and Severn finally jerked upright with a surprised snort.

Less than twenty minutes later, Dakota felt another sharp stab of pain in her temple as they both made their way to the mess hall. It felt like tiny, fire-breathing dragons were rampaging through her skull, but there and gone in an instant.

‘Shit. Dak, you OK?’ Severn put a hand on her shoulder as she leaned her head against a wall.

‘No… I don’t know, Chris. I think I need to see someone.’

He offered to accompany her to the medical labs, but she waved him off, suddenly not wanting any company at all. She was nervous enough about this morning’s mission, and didn’t feel too much like breakfast anyway.

‘Sounds like a standard circuit-induced migraine to me.’

The doctor was a youngish man with dark curly hair. Her Ghost informed her his name was O’Neill. She lay back in something that looked like Hieronymous Bosch’s idea of a dentist’s chair, staring up at the ceiling beyond the curving plastic of the scan unit. The chair was angled so far back, she suspected she might slide right out of it and headfirst on to the floor, had she not been tightly strapped in place. Her head was held immobilized as tiny, needle-like devices rotated on well-oiled arms around her scalp, interrogating her implants. Ultrasound images were projected on a nearby wall.

‘Well, it felt worse than any fucking circuit headache I’ve ever had before,’ Dakota complained bitterly.

O’Neill shook his head. ‘See, this is exactly why they should keep machine-heads apart as long as possible. With so many of you gathered together like this, if one’s got any kind of a problem, the rest of them will pick it up in no time.’

‘I know Chris Severn’s been having the same problem. Anyone else?’

O’Neill hit a button and the chair back rolled up with a soft hum. ‘You’re not the first this morning,’ he agreed, while a nurse undid the straps and helped her down.

Dakota watched him carefully, noting his tight-lipped expression. ‘Then is it safe to go ahead with our scheduled missions? Shouldn’t we be investigating this?’

‘Yeah, we should. But there’ll be shit to pay if we have to pull back now. We’ll be losing a vital “window of opportunity”, as they like to say upstairs.’

Dakota was scandalized. ‘And this comes from Commander Marados?’

O’Neill paused for a moment with his mouth open. ‘No, higher, I think,’ he finally admitted.

‘It just seems a bit dubious.’

‘Well,’ O’Neill touched her elbow to lead her out the room, ‘that’s the military for you. One big, happy, bureaucratic family. If anything goes wrong, it’s always somebody else’s fault.’

Dakota stopped at the door and glared back at him accusingly.

‘Look,’ said O’Neill, ‘there’s really nothing to worry about, OK? Otherwise orders would have come down from Command to postpone the mission. If they’re happy, we’re happy.’

Perhaps, Dakota thought, as she walked away, she should have mentioned the hallucinations as well.