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Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. MARAUDER
  3. HISTORICAL ARCHIVES SUBSECTION C/5 category ALPHA
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. EPILOGUE
  46. TIME LINE
  47. SHOAL TRILOGY
  48. EVENTS FOLLOWING EMPIRE OF LIGHT AND PRECEDING MARAUDER
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. Also by Gary Gibson

The perspective shifted to show the Wanderer under extreme magnification, accelerating towards the systems outer darkness. It had by now fully regained its former shape. Ancillary data informed her that it had engaged in a programme of rapidly re-engineering a number of its components so as to absorb the energy the nova drive required for it to make an interstellar jump.

But too late.

She watched the wavefront of the nova strike the Wanderer. It began to come apart again, unable to maintain its integrity beneath the onslaught of superheated plasma expanding at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. The whole thing had an uncanny, dreamlike quality to it, perhaps partly because what she was seeing there had occurred in millionths of a second, and was slowed down for her benefit.

The cameras flared white, and died.

It was closer to making its escape than you might prefer to know, continued the Librarian. There are still a few Wanderer components surviving in this systems Oort region, more than a light year out, so it can still rebuild itself, given time.

But how long will that take? asked Megan.

A thousand years, more or less.

She nodded and let her shoulders sag. It doesnt have a nova drive any more. We dont have to worry about it again for a long time yet, if ever. I think thats good enough for now, dont you?

She left her own cabin and made her way through to Bashs, where she laid her head on his lap and succumbed to racking sobs. She had lost Gabrielle, and now she feared Bash was gone forever alongside the Wanderer, leaving behind only this hollow, helpless shell. She was alone again.

Thats not quite true, the Librarian reminded her.

In that same moment, she felt fingers brushing gently against her hair. It took her a moment to realize that she was not imagining it.

FORTY-ONE

Dakota

Over the next several hours the Magi ship listened out for those few remaining components that the Wanderer had seeded throughout the systems Oort region, but it soon became clear that they were running silent, waiting for the intruder to depart before beginning their long resurrection. To flush all of them out, and destroy them, would take decades or even centuries, the Librarian explained to Megan. Even then, there could be no guarantee of finding all of them. Besides, the Wanderer had almost certainly left components behind in other star systems it had visited, and from those it could eventually reconstitute itself.

But when that day came, the Librarian assured her, it would find other Magi ships ready and waiting for it.