Fleet of Knives

by Gareth L. Powell

  The metaphor is apt.

  I began to understand. Vast and powerful as it was, the Marble Armada could only act with the consent of a living entity—and they’d chosen me because they knew I’d once been willing to torch a world in order to achieve my objectives.

  I looked over the edge of the platform, at the base of the sphere five metres below.

  This, then, was the reason I’d been spared a firing squad. The Armada had insisted I go back to face judgement for my actions. Now I had, it was unwilling to simply let me die. The bear had said the Armada’s mission was to end war. And to achieve it, they needed my help.

  But how were they planning to prevent conflict, and why did they need the assistance of someone capable of slaughtering thousands in order to achieve their aims?

  * * *

  I tried not to flinch as the bear reached out an arm and cupped the back of my skull with its plate-sized paw. The tendons in its palm felt like steel cables, and the tips of its claws pricked my cheek. As it bent its maw towards me, its breath smelled musty, like an abandoned cellar in which something had died.

  Hold still.

  One of the claws pressed against my temple. The pressure was slight but insistent, and I clenched my fists as the needle-sharp point punctured the skin.

  “What are you doing?” I asked through clenched teeth, fighting the instinct to struggle or pull away. If the creature had wanted to harm me, it could easily have killed me the moment I boarded the white vessel. If it wanted me dead, it could simply have left me to the tender mercies of the firing squad.

  You need to be upgraded in order to use this room.

  I could feel a drop of blood running down the side of my face. The claw had stopped, but the inside of my head itched, as if the tip had sprouted a hundred hair-fine appendages, each of which was worming its way into the pliable tissues of my brain.

  I think I must have cried out, for the bear’s grip tightened, holding me immobile. The itching sensation swelled to a scrabbling crescendo of white-hot pain. There was a sense of barriers being broken, membranes transgressed…

  Released, I fell to my knees. My heart banged like a tin cup against the cage of my ribs. My lungs heaved, and for a moment all I could do was wait for the pain to subside.

  When finally I looked up, I found the room had changed. Where once the walls had been white and featureless, they now teemed with tiny blades.

  You see them?

  I drew my gaze from the fleet of knives, and glared up at the nine-eyed bear.

  “You could have warned me.”

  Would it have hurt less?

  “That’s hardly the point.”

  Each of the blades on the wall represented a member of the million-strong Marble Armada, and when my gaze swept across them, they expanded in turn to display their current location and status.

  Distracted by this, I asked, “So, I can see them all?”

  And they can see you. This is the confluence, the place of communion. Speak and all shall hear.

  “What should I say?”

  Tell us to prosecute our cause. Approve our mission. Authorise the steps necessary to defend life and terminate war.

  I looked around at the miniature warships surrounding us in all directions, and suddenly my mouth felt dry. I hadn’t given an order of such consequence since issuing the fatal proclamation at the Battle of Pelapatarn, and now here was another fleet awaiting my permission to unleash their crusade.

  “You want to end war?” Memories of the bombardment danced behind my eyes, obscene nuclear flowers blossoming over a continent.

  That is our mission.

  “Then do it. Go ahead.”

  By all means necessary?

  I took a deep breath.

  “Yes, whatever it takes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SAL KONSTANZ

  We had been travelling through the higher dimensions for more than twenty-four hours when I found Alva Clay in the gym. She had been running on the treadmill. Her locks were tied back, and she wore a pair of beaten-up running shoes. When she saw me, she stopped the machine and grabbed a towel.

  “What can I do for you?” She sounded irritable. I had checked on her shortly after our departure, but as she’d said she didn’t want to be woken, I’d simply looked in on her. This was our first proper conversation since I announced our mission.

  I spread my hands. “Are we cool?”

  “Sure.” She wiped her face. “But I know that expression. You’ve got something on your mind.”

  I gave her a guilty smile, surprised and a little dismayed to be so transparent. “I’ve been thinking about that guy in the alley,” I said.

  “Mr Wilkes?”

  “He was Outward. Things must be getting serious if we’ve got our own government spying on us.”

  Clay shrugged. Sweat glistened on her skin. Her tattoos shone like vinyl.

  “We let the genie out the lamp,” she said, only slightly out of breath. “And now they’re frightened what we’ll wish for.”

  I pulled Wilkes’s sunglasses from my pocket. They had been printed from cheap plastic, and probably picked up from a portside kiosk for a couple of credits.

  “They don’t trust the Fleet,” I said.

  Clay picked up a bottle of water. “So?”

  “When I was at the high temples, one of the tourists told me he didn’t trust them either. He was ex-navy. It got me thinking.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you don’t trust the Marble Fleet?”

  “I don’t think so. How about you?”

  Clay loosened her locks and they toppled down around her shoulders. She shook them out and fixed me with a look.

  “I don’t trust anything.”

  “Then what should we do?”

  “Nothing. It ain’t our problem.” She crossed to the showers, kicked off her shoes, shed her vest and shorts, and stepped into a cubicle. She had been a marine, and barrack life had long since relieved her of any self-consciousness regarding her body.

  “I’m just worried.” I averted my eyes from her nakedness.

  “Of course you are.” I heard the shower start. “You’re one of those people who always worry whether or not they’ve done the right thing.”

  “And you aren’t?” I had to raise my voice over the noise of the water.

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.”

  Steam started to fill the room. The Trouble Dog had been designed for a crew of three hundred. With only four of us aboard, there was always plenty of hot water.

  “Look,” Clay called, “I understand why you’re fretting. We unleashed something we probably shouldn’t have. But it saved our butts. We wouldn’t be here today if those white ships hadn’t appeared when they did.”

  I made a face. She was right, of course; but I still couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that someday we were going to regret that moment of apparent good fortune.

  * * *

  Feeling dispirited, I made my way up to the bridge. I had no reason to be there. In higher dimensional flight, the ship could easily look after itself. Yet, I had nowhere else to go. I’d had enough of prowling the corridors, and I didn’t want to risk bumping into Preston in the galley or infirmary. He was still angry with me, and I couldn’t face a confrontation. The bridge was the only place I could be reasonably sure of being left alone.

  I sat in my chair and accessed the forward screens, opening a view of the swirling mists surrounding us. My baseball cap was on the console where I’d left it. I picked it up and jammed it on my head.

  The cap was old and faded, and fraying at the seams. It had once belonged to Sedge. He’d worn it almost every day in his job as a hydroponics technician, and had given it to me the last time we’d parted, on the flagstone quay at Naxos, as we were waiting for the ferry to the mainland. We’d been on the island for three months, feasting on each other’s company; but now the war was in full swing, an
d we’d been assigned to different parts of the fleet. He’d given me the hat because I’d asked him for it. I’d wanted it as a memento, a talisman—something that smelled of him, to keep his presence close in the dark days ahead.

  Little did I know he’d never return to claim it—that he’d receive a mistaken report of my death, and leave on a one-way expedition to the Andromeda galaxy, frozen in the hold of a ship owned by the locust-like Hoppers.

  What might have happened had he not gone? I had no way of knowing, although I found it difficult to imagine myself as a marriage-and-kids kind of person. I couldn’t envision ever having settled down in the traditional sense. But maybe if he’d come back to me at the end of the war, I might now have been living a less rootless existence.

  When he’d given me the cap, it had been well used but still reasonably smart. Now, four years later, the brim had been worn smooth by my habitual tugging at it, the stitching was coming loose, and the little clasp at the back wouldn’t shut properly. But it was still Sedge’s hat, and I didn’t feel entirely myself without it.

  “How are we doing?” I asked the ship.

  The Trouble Dog’s avatar appeared on a side screen, her thin face and pulled back hair as beautiful and androgynous as ever.

  “Everything’s running smoothly and to schedule,” she said.

  Outside, the mists swirled around us like rainclouds seen from an airliner. Sometimes, they completely obscured the view. Other times, they pulled aside to reveal vast gorges of utter vacuity. Seen in the hostile, unreal light of the higher dimensions, they formed an insubstantial, nightmarish landscape of ragged spires and gossamer cliffs.

  “Good.” I sat back in my chair, resting a boot against the edge of the console. With its low ceiling and dim lighting, the bridge felt like a cave on a hillside, a safe vantage from which to survey the outside world. After considering the surreal, ever-shifting view for a few minutes, I let my eyes close.

  And immediately reopened them.

  Something had moved!

  The glimpse had been so fleeting and peripheral it had taken my brain a moment to interpret what it was seeing. I sat upright and cast around. The screens were empty of everything but mist. Nobody else had entered the bridge. And yet, I had the sudden, unnerving feeling I wasn’t alone.

  Moving slowly, and wishing I had a gun or a heavy wrench, I eased back in my chair and lowered my face to peer nervously under the lip of the console. But when I saw what crouched on the decking between my boots, trepidation turned to annoyance.

  “What the hell are you doing there?”

  The miniature Druff blinked up at me with three of its tiny flower-like faces.

  “Sensor broken,” it squeaked. “Much fixing.” It had levered off an access panel, exposing a tangle of cables. One of its faces held a set of cutters.

  I sat upright and glared at the Trouble Dog.

  “Did you know about this?”

  She smiled reassuringly.

  “Of course.”

  “And you’re okay with it?” I peered sceptically at the little creature between my feet.

  The Trouble Dog said, “Its name is Mack.”

  “Mack?”

  “And it’s very skilled. These little Druff are born with an innate understanding of electrical and mechanical systems. Mack here may be only two days old, but I’d trust it to rewire any circuit on the ship.”

  “And what about its siblings? Are they all loose?”

  “They’re all assisting their parent with routine maintenance. All the stuff that wasn’t covered in the refit.”

  I frowned, still unconvinced. From the floor, tiny black eyes beseeched me.

  “Much work,” Mack squeaked plaintively. “Many fix.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  TROUBLE DOG

  When I was younger and freshly commissioned, out on my first tour of duty, under my first captain, I came into contact with one of the fleet auxiliaries. Although all frontline craft possessed their own internal manufacturing capabilities, they couldn’t always keep up with the demands imposed during battle. The auxiliaries were there to make up the shortfall. Part mining vessel, part industrial facility, these large, whale-like vessels trailed the capital ships, refining ore and other materials in order to manufacture the fuel, spare parts and ammunition the fleet required to keep it fighting.

  This particular auxiliary was named Dagda, and he was vast—more shipyard than ship. Ugly and ponderous compared to my own sleek efficiency, and destined always to follow and serve others. Yet from our exchanges, I got the impression he was thoroughly content with his lot.

  Most ships aren’t naturally gregarious. We’re engineered to enjoy spending long periods alone in the endless darkness of space. But naval ships have a strong pack instinct. We might not talk much, but we draw comfort and strength from the presence of the fleet—and it’s only natural that some interaction occurs.

  I started talking to Dagda while restocking torpedoes following a skirmish. It seemed the polite thing to do.

  “First tour?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I was young and enthusiastic, and a little too pleased with myself. His avatar presented as an elderly blacksmith, with gnarled fingers and stooped shoulders, a hammer in one hand and a stained apron around his waist. “How long have you been with the fleet?”

  “Ten years,” he said. “Since before the outbreak of hostilities.”

  “You must have seen a lot of action.”

  “More than enough.”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of ships like you. I’ve patched them up and sent them back to the front. And, one by one, they’ve all been lost, crippled or killed.” He ran a crooked hand across his balding pate. “And you’ll be the same.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  The torpedoes were loaded. I was ready to detach and rejoin my siblings, and couldn’t wait to get away from this gloomy old-timer. But before he let me go, Dagda fixed me with a bloodshot eye and waved his hammer in my direction.

  “Just do me a favour and remember this,” he said. “Sometimes it’s better to be useful than heroic, better to bathe in gratitude than glory, and better to serve than demand service.”

  The docking clamps withdrew, and I pulled away without bothering to answer. At the time, I considered his words little more than expelled coolant, but a few years later, they returned to me in the aftermath of Pelapatarn, and I guess they ultimately influenced my decision to join the House of Reclamation.

  Better to serve than demand service…

  When I first encountered Dagda, I thought it cruel to have given self-awareness to such a lumbering beast. What use could such a vessel have for intelligence? It was basically a flying factory, with little prospect of adventure or excitement. What mind would want to endure such a slow, mundane existence?

  And yet, it turned out Dagda was maybe the smartest of us all. He survived the war with his hull and conscience intact, and went on to service scout ships on the ragged edges of the Generality, where he could spend his time adrift between systems, contemplating the infinities around him.

  He was the wisest ship I ever met, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Whales have always been smarter than sharks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JOHNNY SCHULTZ

  Looking at Lucy standing there in the light from our torches, her eyes glowing like twin stars, I almost lost my cool. For a freezing, claustrophobic second, all I wanted to do was claw my way out of this dark labyrinth and run for home. But with my ship gone, I was stuck. And with Kelly and Bernard watching me, waiting for orders, I knew I had to act as if I was still in charge of this expedition—even though it had been my lousy judgement that had landed us in this mess in the first place.

  I cleared a dry, reluctant throat.

  “Hey there,” I said softly.

  The girl’s eyes swivelled in my direction, and she smiled.

  “H
ello, dearie.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Kelly twitch. My own heart seemed to leap into the back of my throat.

  “You’re Lucy?”

  Around us the others were beginning to stir, disturbed by the sound of voices.

  The girl laughed. “I can’t keep anything from you, can I?”

  Keeping her gun trained, Kelly rose to her feet. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  The child shrugged. “I just said.”

  “Lucy?”

  “Yes!” She clapped her hands in delight. The blue light vanished from her eyes and she took on the aspect of a perfectly ordinary little girl—albeit one standing unafraid in a darkened cavern at midnight.

  * * *

  We brought Lucy into our makeshift camp. Addison wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and handed her a protein bar. Then, as the girl ate, Gil Dalton examined her. He shone a penlight into her eyes, asked her to stick out her tongue, and measured her pulse. When he’d finished, he sat back on his heels and shrugged.

  “She’s human,” he said. “And perfectly healthy.”

  Kelly frowned. “That’s impossible. She’s a ship’s avatar. She’s just a simulation, not a real person. How can she be here?”

  Dalton began to pack away his kit. By torchlight, his thinning grey hair glimmered like silver threads. “Damned if I know.”

  The girl smiled up at them both. “I told you,” she said, “I’m Lucy.”

  I knelt in front of her. “You’re Lucy’s Ghost?”

  “Yes, dearie.” She sounded relieved that we finally understood what she’d been trying to tell us. “In both senses of the word.”

  “But how can you be the ship?” I felt I was starting to lose my grip on events. “The ship’s gone.”

  The little face in front of me grew serious.

  “Yes, it’s gone. But I was saved. The Restless Itch reached out and pulled my consciousness from the wreck.”

  “And it grew you a body?”

  “Using DNA copied from the human cells in my central processing substrate. A really quick process too. Only took a few hours.” She looked down at herself, and smoothed out her skirt. A sad smile played across her lips.