Somehow, sometime in the past, presumably before it crash-landed on Redstone, Merricks mind became absorbed into the Ship of the Covenant. All the Speakers including the girl Gabrielle that you saw are her genetic clones. They are identical except for their minds, which develop naturally, and their physical appearance, which is surgically altered from Speaker to Speaker to prevent anyone outside an inner circle within the Demarchy discovering the truth of what they really are. Are you following me so far?

Megan made herself nod, despite her mounting sense of horror.

The girl is of no value as she is, so we ourselves are going to take her to Dios, and to the Ship of the Covenant. That would have been impossible for us if the Demarchy still existed, but now the ship is unguarded, we should have total control over the bonding process. Once its complete, and the girls mind has been replaced by that of Merrick, shell be able to act as a bridge via which the Wanderer will be able to access directly the vast quantity of data believed to reside within every Magi ship still in existence.

So all this, said Megan, wiping out the Demarchy, tricking me into coming after Bash, killing all those people it was all just so you could kidnap that girl and give her to the Wanderer?

Precisely. Schelling nodded. Of course, by then shell have Merricks mind, but we plan to transport her there sleeping inside a medbox.

Youre insane. Why the hell do you think the Wanderer gives a damn about the Magi ships?

When you first communicated with the Wanderer, said Schelling, you told Gregor about a war between the Makers and the Core Transcendence, the very civilization responsible for creating the Wanderer. Do I have the details right?

So far, agreed Megan.

The Magi ships were created as weapons to be used specifically against the Makers, meaning that the Magi and the Core Transcendence shared the same adversary. Surely its reasonable, then, to think that the information contained within the Ship of the Covenant or indeed any Magi ship might prove to be of immense value to the Wanderer?

Megan was entirely aware how much sense this all made. If not for the inhibitor Tarrant had once shot her with back on the Beauregard and which she had long since had removed the Wanderer could easily have done the same with her, using her as a direct conduit to the memory banks of any of the surviving Magi ships. And now Schelling and his cronies were going to give that girl to the Wanderer for the exact same reason, precisely like ancient priests offering up a sacrifice to some volcano god.

All right, fine, she replied. It makes sense. But why do you even need to take her all the way out there? Bash can be used as a bridge from anywhere, cant he?