Redemption Ark

Something along those lines, yes. You having a certain degree of free will and all that, I thought it might just be worth raising, as — shall we say — a matter for debate, if nothing else… Of course, I know it’s unreasonable to expect you to be capable of such a thing…

[Unreasonable, Ilia?]

Well, you’re bound to have your limitations. And if, as Clavain says, this code is causing a system interrupt at root level… well, there’s not a lot I can expect you to do about it, is there?

[What would Clavain know?]

Rather a lot more than you or I, I suspect…

[Don’t be silly, Ilia.]

Then might it be possible…?

There was a pause before the weapon deigned to reply. She thought for that moment that she might have succeeded. Even the degree of fear lessened, becoming nothing much more than acute screaming hysteria.

But then the weapon etched its response into her head. [I know what you’re trying to do, Ilia.]

Yes?

[And it won’t work. You don’t seriously imagine I’m that easily manipulated, do you? That pliant? That ridiculously childlike?]

I don’t know. I thought for a moment I detected a trace of myself in you, Seventeen. That was all.

[You’re dying, aren’t you?]

That shocked her. How would you know?

[I can tell a lot more about you than you can about me, Ilia.]

I am dying, yes. What difference does that make? You’re just a machine, Seventeen. You don’t understand what it’s like at all.

[I won’t help you.]

No?

[I can’t. You’re right. The code is at root level. There’s nothing I can do about it.]

Then all that talk of free will…?

The paralysis ended in an instant, without warning. The fear remained, but it was not as extreme as it had been before. And around her the weapon was shifting itself again, the door into space opening above her, revealing the belly of the shuttle.

[It was nothing. Just talk.]

Then I’ll be on my way. Goodbye, Seventeen. I’ve a feeling we won’t be talking again.

She reached the shuttle. She had just pushed herself through the airlock into the airless cabin when she saw movement outside. Ponderously, like a great compass needle seeking north, the cache weapon was re-aiming itself, sparks of flame erupting from the thruster nodes on the weapon’s harness. Volyova sighted down the long axis of the weapon, looking for a reference point, anything in the sphere of battle that would tell her where weapon seventeen was pointing. But the view was too confusing, and there was no time to call up a tactical display on the shuttle’s console.

The weapon came to a halt, stopping abruptly. Now she thought of the iron hand of some titanic clock striking the hour.

And then a line of searing brightness ripped from the maw of the weapon, into space.

Seventeen was firing.

It happens in three billion years, she told him.

Two galaxies collide: ours and its nearest spiral neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy. At the moment the galaxies are more than two million light-years apart, but are cruising towards each other with unstoppable momentum, dead set on cosmic destruction.