Free Mammoth Books presents Merlin's Gun by Alastair Reynolds Page A

of here, then.”
    â€œWith all pleasure.”
    Acceleration came suddenly, numbness gloving her spine.
    â€œI’ve got worse news,” her familiar said. The voice was an echo of Sora’s own, but an octave lower and calmer; like a slightly older and more sensible sister. “I’m sorry, but I had to lie to you. My highest duty is your preservation. I knew that if I didn’t lie, you wouldn’t save yourself.”
    Sora thought about that, while she watched the ship die from the vantage point of her pod. The Husker weapons had hit its middle sphere, barely harming the parasol of the swallowscoop. Bodies fell into space, stiff and tiny as snowflakes. Light licked from the sphere.
Snipe
became a flower of hurting whiteness, darkening as it bloomed.
    â€œWhat did you lie about?”
    â€œAbout Verdin. I’m sorry. He didn’t make it. None of them did.”
    Sora waited for the impact of the words; aware that what she felt now was only a precursor to the shock, like the moment when she touched the hot barrel of a gun in warcreche, and her fingers registered the heat but the pain itself did not arrive instantly, giving her time to prepare for its sting. She waited, for what she knew – in all likelihood – would be the worst thing she had ever felt. And waited.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with me? Why don’t I feel anything?”
    â€œBecause I’m not allowing it. Not just now. If you opt to grieve at some later point then I can restore the appropriate brain functions.”
    Sora thought about that, too.
    â€œYou couldn’t make it sound any more clinical, could you?”
    â€œDon’t imagine this is easy for me, Sora. I don’t exactly have a great deal of experience in this matter.”
    â€œWell, now you’re getting it.”
    She was alone; no arguing with that. None of the other crew had survived – and she had only made it because she was on punishment duty for her failings as a soldier. No use looking for help: the nearest Cohort motherbase was seventy light-years toward the Galactic Core. Even if there were swallowships within broadcast range it would take decades for the nearest to hear her; decades again for them to curve around and rescue her. No; she would not be rescued. She would drift here, circling a nameless sun, until her energy reserves could not even sustain frostwatch.
    â€œWhat about the enemy?” Sora said, seized by an urge to gaze upon her nemesis. “Where are the bastards?”
    A map of the system scrolled on the faceplate of her helmet, overlaid with the four Husker ships that had survived the slingshot around the neutron star. They were near the two Ways that punched through the system; marked on the map as fine straight flaws, surrounded by shaded hazard regions. Perhaps, like the Cohort, the Huskers were trying to find a way to enter the Waynet without being killed; trying to gain the final edge in a war that had lasted twenty-three thousand years. The Huskers had been at war with the Cohort ever since these ruthless alien cyborgs had emerged from ancient Dyson spheres near the Galactic Core.
    â€œThey’re not interested in me,” Sora said. “They know that, even if anyone survived the attack, they won’t survive much longer. That’s right, isn’t it?”
    â€œThey’re nothing if not pragmatic.”
    â€œI want to die. I want you to put me to sleep painlessly and then kill me. You can do that, can’t you? I mean, if I order it?”
    Sora did not complete her next thought. What happened, instead, was that her consciousness stalled, except for the awareness of the familiar, thoughts bleeding into her own. She had experienced something like this stalling aboard
Snipe,
when the crew went into frostwatch for the longest transits between engagements. But no frostwatch had ever felt this long. After an age, her thoughts oozed back to life. She groped for the mental