Light appeared from the depths of that tunnel, glowing softly. She hesitated at the threshold.

Only then did Megan finally offer the ancient vessel her terms and, to her surprise and pleasure, it agreed to them.

THIRTY-ONE

Gabrielle

Back at the research outpost, Gabrielle awoke to the sounds of gunshots and screaming.

Evie was also awake. Her tiny hands, as small and delicate as flowers, brushed Gabrielles face, her pink nose twitching as her eyelids parted.

She began to cry.

Gabrielle sat up, her heart pounding in her chest. Evie began to cry louder.

At first she thought the sounds were coming from somewhere outside, but after a moment she realized they were coming from inside the building.

In that instant, she knew Tarrant had found her.

Hush now, she said to the tiny girl in her arms, all wrapped up in swaddling clothes, and rocked her gently in her arms. But it was no use. Evie could clearly sense her mothers fear.

Gabrielle slid out of bed and stepped over to the door of her quarters. It was just a little after dawn, and Paul and Jen were usually up first and into the refectory, before heading out to take whatever measurements Martha expected them to take, returning late each evening.

She listened, hardly able to breathe, and heard a voice.

It sounded like Sol Sol with the hawklike nose, whose over two-metre frame was permanently stooped. He seemed to be pleading for his life.

Gabrielle heard someone mutter something, followed by a gunshot so loud and so near it might as well have passed through her own head. She let out an involuntary moan of fear and pressed herself up against the wall, next to the door, sliding down it until she was sitting on the floor. Evie screamed, as Gabrielle clutched her to her chest.

They had just killed Sol.

She looked around the room that had been her home for the past couple of months. Barely any time at all, really, but she already had so very, very many memories. The people here were utterly unlike anyone else she had ever met: kind and thoughtful and full of joy, with stories and gossip and friendship that made Gabrielle want so very badly to experience life a long way away from chilly Redstone. It was all a far cry from the cloistered existence she had known back in the Peoples Palace.

Martha Stiles had become something like a mother to her, far more than Mater Cassanas ever had been. She had set the outposts fabricators to printing out special obstetrics equipment, then, with the aid of the medbays AI, had taken Gabrielle through every step of the birthing process. And when Martha had first laid the tiny baby against her breast, just a few days ago, Gabrielle, her damp hair still stuck to her forehead, had finally felt the last vestiges of her old life slip away.