Hammer and Crucible Cameron Cooper (web ebook reader TXT) 📖

over the sheet. I had to blink to clear my vision.

Sorry. Damn thing got away on me. Can’t find a way to stuff it back in the bottle except this way. Hope it works.

N.

I couldn’t recall ever seeing Noam’s handwriting before. But the voice—oh, yes, I knew that. The phlegmatic apology, the shrug and the valiant, relentless battle to fix things, no matter what.

My throat ached.

A stable man of strong character, they had called him.

“We couldn’t provide remains,” Ramaker said. “There were none. He made sure the implants were destroyed along with him.”

“So you blamed him for the disaster, instead of the array.” My voice was very weak. “Took his medals, his honor, his reputation.”

“That was a necessary step. I didn’t like doing it,” Ramaker replied. “But the array’s self-awareness had to be hidden.”

“Or it might upset your little empire,” I replied.

“The array was already upset,” Ramaker said, his tone tired.

I stared at him, my jaw loosening a little. That was not what I had meant at all. I turned his reply over in my mind. “You had a tiger by the tail,” I concluded.

“You are more right than you know,” Ramaker replied.

Elizabeth was studying me, a deep furrow between her brows. “You still don’t understand, do you?”

“That you hung my son out to dry? Oh, I get it,” I replied. “Now you’re trying to kill the array by taking away the thing that gives it life.”

Ramaker shook his head and glanced at Elizabeth.

“Gently,” she breathed.

Ramaker met my gaze. “We can’t kill it, Danny, because you give it life. You are the array.”

25

“Danny? Danny?” Juliyana’s voice.

Couldn’t breathe. Locked in my chest.

“Get her into the chair.” Deep woman’s voice. “Danny, can you hear me? If you can, take a breath. Just a little breath. The rest will come.”

“What is wrong with her?” Male voice, close by.

Hands on my arms. Lifted. Lowered. Cushions.

“Shock. It will pass. Just give her a moment.” A hand on my cheek. Perfume. “Open your eyes. That will help.”

I opened them. Parquetry desk, mottled browns. Screen emitter. Time ticking in the corner.

Time!

I drew a breath—I didn’t even think about it. It just came, along with a great easing in my chest as fresh oxygen circulated. The buzzing heat and pressure in my head went away, too.

I managed to lift my chin. Juliyana stood in her corner, her damp cheeks now very white, her eyes large. Her hand was on the butt of her shriver once more, but no one was paying any attention to her.

Elizabeth and Ramaker studied me. Ramaker straightened. “Back with us, then,” he said dryly.

Elizabeth continued to frown.

I swallowed. My throat clicked. “I’m fine,” I lied. “Peachy. I am not the array. I would know.”

Elizabeth stood back and glanced at Ramaker.

He leaned on the cupboard with one elbow. “Oh? Are you sure about that? Your reaction says otherwise.”

“Don’t provoke her,” Elizabeth said softly. She turned back to me. “You are not aware of the array within your consciousness, because you were not supposed to be. You were meant to think you were perfectly normal, perfectly human.”

I shook my head. “I remember my life! I had a son. His daughter stands there!” I pointed at Juliyana.

“You had a life,” Ramaker said from the cupboard. “There is a period in your life that you don’t remember. You call it your personal blackout, because it happened at the same time as the array Blackout.”

I gripped my hands together. “That was…a year after Drakas,” I breathed.

Elizabeth glared at Ramaker. “You’re pushing too hard, Majesty.” She turned back to me. “After Drakas, after your son died, the array wanted another human body. Through Noam’s consciousness, it had learned who you were. It learned to love you as Noam did…and it wanted you. Your life. Your body.”

“We refused, of course. It was already unstable over Noam’s death,” Ramaker drawled. “It didn’t like that answer.”

Elizabeth’s tone was less cynical. “The array reached into the Ranger databases and arranged for you to be given a solo intelligence gathering assignment. You won’t remember any of this because we did not restore any memories that might have made you question what came after. The assignment was extremely dangerous, with overwhelming odds. You completed the assignment as ordered, but the guerillas found you. You took them out before your wounds overwhelmed you. All of them.” There was a touch of admiration in her tone.

“The array wanted you to die,” Ramaker said. “It demanded we give it your body for its own use after that. When we refused, the array switched off the gates. All of them.” His mouth turned down.

“The Blackout,” Juliyana said, and sighed.

“Twenty days of no interstellar transport,” Ramaker said. “No communications. Dwindling resources. Emergency supplies couldn’t go through. Ships were lost inside the array, unable to exit their wormholes. When Darius III needed to be evacuated after an extinction level asteroid struck the planet, the people there had no means to call for help. They could do nothing but die, all three million of them.” To his credit, he looked upset.

“We pleaded,” Elizabeth said softly. “It refused to respond.”

“Until you gave it me,” I finished.

She nodded.

“I died…” I repeated. “How could you bring me back? It’s not possible.”

“Not ordinarily,” Elizabeth said. “We have been able to store human memories and consciousness for hundreds of years, but we have never learned how to transfer them to another body. Trials have never managed to make the personality wake properly after the transfer. But in your case, your personality had always been in the body. We just had to revive the body.” She paused. “The medical scans that Rangers are required to go through every month include a scan and storage of consciousness and memories. We have collected such data for over a century, anticipating that one day we might be able to use them, perhaps even bring those who have fallen in the line of duty back to life. We used your most recent scan, which was only a week