The Warship

by Neal Asher

  “Why did you copy this ghost drive?” she asked.

  “I needed detail. After the Client took over Weapons Platform Mu, Dragon allowed it to escape, as I am sure you are aware.”

  “Yes, that seems to be the case.”

  EC continued, “Circumstances are now in a critical balance.”

  The runcible she stood on turned to bring into view a system made up of a neutron star, orbited by a red dwarf and a large asteroid field. Ships also inhabited the place: attack ships, destroyers and dreadnoughts, as well as one large Alpha-class dreadnought she recognized. She had once been involved in a battle it had taken part in. The Cable Hogue—a ship so large, apparently, it created tides on any oceanic world it orbited. The images would have been meaningless, since the Polity often built up military strength around its border and sometimes beyond, but she knew this system. It wasn’t far away in interstellar terms. This was a fleet ready to come to the accretion disc.

  “Threats now?” she asked.

  The runcible turned again in the opposite direction, dropping the Polity fleet out of sight. More objects appeared from behind Orlandine and passed overhead to settle in front of her. She gazed on a prador watch station, surrounded by many reavers, interspersed with lumpish, old-style dreadnoughts. Another vast ship sat amidst these—ten miles of exotic metal armour and advanced weapons packed into a hull, like a titanic dogfish egg case. This she recognized as the Kinghammer. She knew of the vessel, but nothing of its capabilities. As she watched, it slid out of formation and shimmered into U-space.

  The watch station, shaped as a pyramid sitting on top of a cylinder, was recognizable because there was only one which bore that form. It was, she calculated, about the same distance away from the disc as the Polity fleet she’d just seen.

  “The king is concerned,” EC explained. “He believes the Jain are coming.”

  “Why?” Orlandine asked, because she could think of no other response.

  “Because of glaring anomalies in recent events,” Earth Central explained. “The Jain soldier converted itself into an almost indestructible war machine on the planetoid Musket Shot. Why did it not do this earlier, on some hot world close to a sun, before it came to the accretion disc?”

  Orlandine cursed her blinkered focus. In the end, it didn’t matter how extensive and powerful one’s intelligence was if it could not think outside the box.

  “Hence your expediting the exodus here,” she said tightly.

  “I do have concern for human lives, despite stories to the contrary.” Orlandine snorted and EC continued, “Dragon was trying to locate an intelligence it was sure was manipulating events—”

  “And that was the Wheel,” Orlandine interrupted. “It was the entity aboard the wormship which sent the soldier to the disc, intending to detonate the inactive star at its centre and spread the Jain tech trapped there.”

  “Clinging to your certainties, haiman?” EC enquired.

  “Continue,” Orlandine snarled.

  “During its investigations, Dragon tried to obtain data on the disc’s history, in the period of the Jain, from the Jain AIs in U-space there. But its communication was cut off.”

  “Okay, another anomaly.”

  “Let me factor in something else. If you were a highly advanced war machine, intent on detonating an inactive star at the centre of a well-defended accretion disc, what would you do?”

  Pieces clicked into place in Orlandine’s mind. She leapt ahead:

  “My runcibles . . .”

  “Precisely,” said EC. “As that war machine, you would make an assessment of your enemy’s weapons capabilities. You would see that the weapons platforms were the smaller threat, but that the deployment of the exit runcible had the potential to destroy you. But you would also realize that, though the runcible was materially strong for its purpose, it was vulnerable to any of your weapons. And you would take it out of the game.”

  “And?” asked Orlandine, though she could now see how the parts fitted together.

  “Dragon feared your deployment of the Harding black hole.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Dragon went to the world of the Cyberat for further data from the legate Angel—a key player in all this. That whole system is now swamped in USER disruption and, for all we know, Dragon may have been killed.” “Your conclusion?” Orlandine asked, already seeing it.

  “A Jain AI wanted you to deploy the Harding black hole at the accretion disc before Dragon found out why you should not.”

  “That much has become clear,” said Orlandine. “But though these events are all Jain related, I don’t understand the king’s fears. If the actual Jain were present, as opposed to their ancient AIs, we would have known about it by now.”

  “I am perhaps the most expert in the workings of the king’s mind,” EC replied, “but I have yet to see his reasoning. Something more than we understand is happening, including Dragon’s objectives for Weapons Platform Mu. And it is possible that the king could act in haste against what he perceives as a threat.” After a short pause EC added, “A failure to understand events which may be a danger to either the Polity or the Kingdom could lead to misunderstandings.”

  Orlandine gazed at the reavers around the prador station—cruising barracuda looking for prey.

  “That at least I know,” she said, and abruptly closed the connection. Returning to the room which contained Weapons Platform Mu’s ghost drive, she gazed at it for a moment, then disconnected. The data leads and power cable withdrew from her body and snaked away. Her skin zipped up over the sockets in her sides and the one in her spine. She headed for the dropshaft, touching the disc at her collarbone—her ship- suit flowed out over her body. As she descended through the tower, she made other connections and gave orders. Two sentinel drones at their watch posts turned and opened fire, launching a missile each. These intersected on the single sentinel drone on the post between them. It erupted in hot fire, limbs flying away as it rose into the air, then its gutted carcass tumbled down outside the wall. Orlandine appreciated the information Earth Central had provided, but she did not appreciate the AI having spies in her camp.

  2

  We are told that U-space technology is very complicated and requires the colossal mind-power of AIs both to build it and to run it. This seems to be a meme that will just not go away. Yet time and time again, we see examples of this simply not being true. The prador do not have AIs but they do have U-space drives in their ships. This is explained by the fact that prador use the flash-frozen ganglions of their children as computers. They make the astrogation calculations needed to work these drives. Personally, I have never heard of a prador first- or second- child whose mind-power was notable. Then there are other examples. What exactly runs modern weaponry like U-jump missiles? Is there an AI in every one? How do U-space mines operate and what controls the runcible gate of an Underspace Interference Emitter? Then there’s the technology used to counter U-jump missiles, the bounce gates. These are runcibles operating inside ships whose U-field will draw in any U-jump missile fired at them. The ship AIs run them too and, since it is now reported that prador have such missiles and such defences, did those frozen ganglions get smarter? No, the reality is that U-space technology is the glue that holds our civilization together and he who controls it, controls that civilization. It is dangerous and powerful, and the AIs want it to remain under their control. They simply do not want the primitive apes they rule to access the keys to their cage.

  —from How It Is by Gordon

  ORLIK

  Orlik inserted one claw into a pit control in front of him and activated the array of hexagonal screens. He didn’t use his implants, because it made him feel bereft that he wasn’t using them to connect to his now battered and abused destroyer. A few delicate adjustments focused the shuttle’s sensors on his destination. He moaned and gurgled in agitation—sounds normal prador did not make.

  The forty reavers, formidable ships of the King’s Guard, were no ca
use for fear. This did not apply, however, to the other thing out there utterly dwarfing them. It was a cylinder, upright from Orlik’s perspective, at least fifty miles from end to end, topped with a disc, off-centre and jutting forwards. On its lower end, affixed on either side, were two massive nacelles of an ion tractor drive. Numerous weapons systems and communication arrays studded its length, while ships were docked to its surface like aphids clinging to a stem. The King’s Ship.

  “You should seriously think about emptying your bowels before heading across,” said the drone, Sprag. “I detect a degree of fear leading to some sphincter loosening.”

  Orlik turned one eye stalk to inspect the nasty little Polity drone.

  “Your keen observation of prador biology is always revealing, parasite.”

  Sprag was an odd-looking drone—long body, long paddle limbs and a head resembling a bird’s skull. Her beak was an interesting implement. She could eat with it . . . or rather the form she aped would have eaten with it. It also possessed a long, prehensile and tubular tongue, used on the original creature for both mating and as an ovipositor. Above the beak she had three eyes. Two were for binocular vision and were small and red-brown. The third, sitting in a little turret above the two, was midnight black. Having studied the biology of the organism on which Sprag was based, Orlik still hadn’t found an adequate explanation for that third eye, though he knew the drone’s version was packed with all sorts of scanners.

  “I learn new things every day,” Sprag replied. “However, I think you’re rather abusing the term ‘prador biology’ when you refer to yourself.”

  “Fuck off,” said Orlik.

  “Oh I would, but I’ve been a bit stuck for some time.”

  Orlik eyed her again. Yes, she was stuck—ever since Orlik had cut her out of one of his brothers. She was damned to follow Orlik wherever he went, caught on the floating grav-disc he had nailed her to.

  Sprag was a Polity terror weapon. Her shape was that of one of the numerous parasites that had swarmed the seas of the prador home world some thousands of years ago. This very shape triggered a primal fear. Other drones of her kind had carried genetically resurrected eggs of the original parasite to inject and spread them amidst the prador. She was a different kind of parasite. Her original form would find its way in through one of those loose sphincters, and eat itself a nice nest right inside the ring of the prador’s major ganglion. There it sprouted nerve cords, taking control of the prador. Meanwhile, it introduced its own eggs to the prador’s gonads, to be passed on to female prador. There these grew into little Sprags that ate the females hollow before bursting out, near fully grown, to go in search of further males. This Sprag possessed no such eggs. She had merely assumed control of her victim prador, using it to cause as much damage as possible, before leaving the way she came in to go and find another host.

  “So when’s the show?” asked the drone.

  “What show?” Orlik asked, though he knew exactly what the drone was talking about.

  “It’s been a while,” said Sprag. “Five solstan years since I last saw you naked, my darling. I’ll be interested to see what changes have fermented in that armour.”

  “Uhuh,” said Orlik, still not entirely sure why he kept the drone around. Surely by now he should have routed her to a recycling furnace? He inserted his other claw into a pit control. The King’s Ship loomed like a vast cliff, and prador script started running diagonally across some of the screens to direct him where to dock. He targeted a point halfway along the vicious barbed spine of a warfare dock. After a moment, he felt the shuttle slip from his control: the systems of the giant ship had taken over. He felt yet another gut-twisting fear, realizing there was no running away.

  “I guess the time is now,” he said, trying to be pragmatic and sensible as he hauled himself off the saddle control and moved out to a clear area in the shuttle’s small sanctum.

  “Ooh, goody,” said Sprag, floating closer and rubbing two flippers together in anticipation.

  Orlik sighed, then reached with one stunted limb to a control panel inside his armour. He hadn’t touched it in five solstan years, as Sprag had noted. He really did not enjoy taking his armour off, but those were the orders. New visitors did not go before the king of the prador armoured, and certainly not armed—his possessed numerous integral weapons.

  One touch to the control had the seal breaking around the main carapace. Orlik turned, both with reluctance and curiosity, briefly using his implants to command the systems around him—a task that felt like using a thousand-ton handler to move a small rock. He shoved Sprag’s grav-disc back to the far wall, then routed sanctum sensors to the screens so he could see himself.

  He was an armoured prador. A creature that seemed to be a giant by-blow of a terran fiddler crab and a wolf spider. He possessed two claws, six legs and four “under-arms” folded against his belly. From the front, his body looked like a vertically flattened pear. The top part, the visual turret with an arc of eyes and two mobile eye stalks protruding above, sat to the fore of the wide body. At least, this was the shape his armour conformed to. With a puff of vapour, the armour divided horizontally just above the legs and eased up on a series of chrome rods. Inside, Orlik tugged his stalked eyes from their armoured casing. His view of himself cut off until the armoured shell had cleared his visual turret. It folded back on hinges at the ends of the rods and allowed him to see the screens again. His colour had changed, he noticed.

  His visual turret detached with a click from his main body, rising up and forwards on a thick neck of corded pink muscle. His “head” was wider now, especially as his eye stalks dropped to their new natural position, out to the sides like those of a mantis. Four white, inner eyes were arrayed above mouthparts, into which the mandibles had integrated. He could shoot his mouth forwards, but not so far. He had also acquired the advantage of sharp ripping teeth and a tongue with a spade-like end. The exposed body behind was just a neat curve, evenly divided by saurian ridges. Except, sitting in the middle of his back was a square of metal, enclosing the glittering complexity of his interface plug. His colour, otherwise, was pink and black, like some diseased human organ.

  “Pretty prador!” Sprag exclaimed.

  “Shut up or you get recycled into ingots.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Using his stunted limb, Orlik touched another control. The front of his armour hinged forwards, while each section around his claws split and opened slightly. Hissing and waving his tongue, which some years ago he had discovered possessed razor-sharp edges, he extracted his real claws from their covering. As they came free, he felt a sudden immense relief, not having realized until then how uncomfortable they’d been. The armour was clearly long overdue for alterations. His claw arms were longer now, the claws too, like those of a langoustine. Although, when he flexed them, the bottom claws divided with a crack. He now possessed tri-claws.

  Another touch loosened the armouring over his legs, while rams came up underneath him to lift him out. As he came free, he gripped the armoured lip with his claws and heaved himself over the side. His legs gave way beneath him and he collapsed onto his belly. He rested for a little while, before carefully climbing back upright, having to accustom himself once again to walking on just four long spider legs. He gazed at the image on the screens. His two legs to the fore were merely stunted nubs that possessed a little movement. Two of his under-arms were missing, while the other two had grown much longer and could reach forwards under his claws. His formerly complex manipulatory hands were now less complex. However, actually being able to see them and use them in conjunction with his claws was much more advantageous. Though the prador in him rebelled in disgust at the form he presented, his intellect had to admit that it possessed more utility.

  “You’re thinner,” said Sprag.

  Orlik tilted his head in agreement and decided the comment did not warrant sending the drone to recycling. He moved forwards and mounted the saddle again, sticking his claws into the p
it controls and viewing his destination. The smaller dock on the side of the protruding warfare dock was looming close.

  “I approach,” he said.

  Hissing static followed and the screens shimmered. Next came the clattering and bubbling of the prador language, but Orlik recognized it was made by a voice generator, just like the one attached under his mouth. For he too had lost the power of prador speech.

  “Orlik First Family,” stated Oberon, king of the prador.

  The screens stopped shimmering but went back to a view of the dock. It seemed Oberon wasn’t inclined to show himself just yet. Orlik waggled his tongue in appreciation of the title used. Surely this meant the king was okay with him, that he wasn’t soon to be distributed in pieces down one of the many bio-disposal chutes aboard the vast ship.

  Yes, he was Orlik First Family. He had been a second-child aboard his father’s ship when that father, Oberon, discovered himself to be infected by the Spatterjay virus. Orlik had just made the transition to become one of Oberon’s five first-children when their father subsequently decided to spread the virus to his whole family aboard that ship. Intelligence ramped up but, most importantly, motivations and drives changed. Oberon and his children could soon see that the king of the prador at that time was leading their race to destruction by continuing the war against the Polity. Thence followed the return to the Kingdom and everything that ensued . . .

  But Orlik, given a destroyer of his own after his father was established as the new king, had screwed up. Released from the direct control of his father’s pheromones, he had changed. Usually this transformation was from first-child to adult prador, but for his kind such descriptions were debatable. He wasn’t really prador any more. With increased intelligence and more autonomy, Orlik had asked himself some questions. Why was interfacing technology and AI wrong? It was very much these that had enabled the Polity to win against the prador. Then he had acted on these thoughts, interfacing himself with his ship’s systems and copying across the function of its frozen child-ganglion to crystal to make something akin to an AI. Fortunately, when the king his father found out, Orlik did not end up floating out on the home sea, pumped full of diatomic acid. He was exiled, but with the promise that if he served well he could come back. He was a deniable asset for the king, and able to go where other Kingdom warships could not.