Marauder Read Free Page A

crouching on the soil nearby and continuing to watch her with hungry intent. The worst thing
about them, she decided, were the eyes – because they were the most human-looking part of all.
    ‘Do you know how easy it would be for me,’ said the Freeholder, as he stood over her once more, ‘to just let them rip you apart?’
    ‘Call them off,’ Megan managed to croak. ‘Please.’
    He whistled twice, pointing at each mog in turn. The creatures stood up in response, their long, pointed ears twitching as they rose from their skulls. They both turned and ran back towards the
luxurious estate.
    ‘Maybe this time,’ said the Freeholder, unslinging his rifle and aiming it at her, ‘you’ll be prepared to go where I tell you.’
    He led her back, past the parked spider-truck, and through the nearby gate, before guiding her inside an arched doorway. Megan found herself in a cool, dark interior with
whitewashed walls and low-standing couches. Soft rugs and cushions lay scattered all around and, even though the building seemed otherwise deserted, a hidden projector filled the space with
low-resolution holograms of intertwining naked forms. The air smelled of sweat, mingled with the burned-honey aroma of
sans de sezi.
They continued on down some steps into a starkly lit
basement.
    ‘After you,’ he said, opening a heavy steel door and motioning her inside.
    At first, Megan thought the room was empty.
    The Freeholder had locked her in a basement room measuring maybe five metres by three, which was lit only by a single, faintly glowing panel in the ceiling. The walls were bare and undecorated,
the illumination insufficient to reach even the corners fully. She saw a single narrow cot pushed into a narrow recess, the dark sheets balled up and rumpled, while a spigot, with a bucket placed
beneath it, protruded from the wall facing the door.
    Megan slumped against the nearby wall, letting her back slide down against bare concrete, till her head was resting on her knees. She risked accessing the local data-services again, but this
time got nowhere. This room, she realized with a sinking feeling, was almost certainly shielded against her implants.
    She closed her eyes, and saw again those two mogs yearning to rip her throat out. She reopened them quickly, clenching her fists tight until the fingernails dug into the soft flesh of her
palms.
    I have fucked this up so very, very badly.
    Something moved on the other side of the room.
    She froze, realizing with a start that what she had taken for a bundle of discarded sheets on the single cot was, in fact, a living body. Whoever it was, they seemed still asleep.
    She got up and edged over to the cot, discerning the outline of knees pulled up close to the chest beneath the blankets. Reaching down with trepidation, she pulled the blankets gently to one
side, before gazing down at the smooth, untroubled face of the man lying there.
    She gaped in astonishment, hardly believing her own eyes. It was Bash – Imtiaz Bashir – the very man with whom she had once shared her deepest secrets and whom she had once abandoned
to certain death.
    He looked emaciated, half starved, and she lifted up one corner of his blanket to see that he was still fully dressed beneath it, although his clothes were filthy. He was in a terrible state,
but she had never been so glad to see another living being in her whole life.
    He showed absolutely no awareness of her, as his eyes stared past her into some unknowable place. His expression was calm and his lips slightly parted, as if just on the verge of saying
something.
    A terrible sadness came over her. Had he been suffering like this all these years, since Megan had last seen him? Was there still some part of him locked inside his head that knew where he was
or what had happened to him?
    From the look of him, that possibility seemed remote.
    ‘I told you I’d come back for you,’ she said softly, kneeling by the cot and stroking one hand across his