by Neal Asher
Praise for Neal Asher
‘If you want sex, violence and excellent aliens this is your book’
SFX
‘As always, Asher is unparalleled at creating this unique and dangerous environment… as exhilarating as his previous books’
Good Book Guide
‘Supreme storytelling confidence… a “first-tier” SF writer’
Interzone
‘Close to the violence of splatterpunk, and ideas, jokes and puns splatter his pages’
Guardian
‘Neal Asher is becoming a big name in sci-fi. His stories revel in their violence and imagination, and his central character of Ian Cormac is, it seems, here to stay in the collective consciousness of sci-fi literature…Thoroughly enjoyable stuff’
SciFiNow
‘One of the best yet…destructive high Space Opera spectacle’
Starburst
‘Straightforward action sci-fi. And, boy, is he good at that…I cannot recommend it highly enough’
Daily Telegraph
Praise for Neal Asher’s novels
‘Yet another storming performance from the prolific Asher of high-octane violence, exotic tech, and terrifying and truly alien aliens’
Daily Mail
‘What has six arms, a large beak, looks like a pyramid, has more eyes than you’d expect and talks nonsense? If you don’t know the answer to that, then 1) you should and 2) you haven’t been reading Neal Asher (see point 1)’
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
‘A powerhouse cocktail of lurid violence, evocative world-building and typically grotesque monsters, but it’s amazing how much emotion he’s also layered into what could have been a simplistic SF potboiler. Asking difficult questions while still delivering plenty of full-tilt adventure and widescreen action, this is top-notch stuff from an author well and truly at the top of his game’
SFX
‘Rail-guns rattle off, pulse rifles fire out shots and explosions ring out. This is what Asher does best’
SciFiNow
‘Shadow of the Scorpion skilfully combines graphic action and sensitive characterization and is Asher’s most accomplished novel to date’
Guardian
LINE WAR
Neal Asher was born in Billericay, Essex, and divides his time between here and Crete. His other full-length novels include Gridlinked, The Skinner, The Line of Polity, Cowl, Brass Man, The Voyage of the Sable Keech, Polity Agent, Hilldiggers, Prador Moon, Shadow of the Scorpion, Orbus, The Technician and The Departure.
By Neal Asher
Cowl
The Technician
The Owner
The Departure
Zero Point
Agent Ian Cormac
Shadow of the Scorpion
The Line of Polity
Polity Agent
Line War
Spatterjay
The Voyage of the Sable Keech
Orbus
Novels of the Polity
Prador Moon
Hilldiggers
Short story collections
The Gabble
NEAL
ASHER
LINE WAR
NIGHT SHADE BOOKS
An Imprint of Start Publishing LLC
New York, New York
LINE WAR Copyright © 2008 by Neal Asher.
First Night Shade Books edition 2013.
First published in the United Kingdom by Tor,
an imprint of Pan Macmillan,
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Night Shade Books, 609 Greenwich Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10014.
Published by Night Shade Books,
an imprint of Start Publishing LLC
New York, New York
Please visit us on the web at
www.start-media.com
ISBN: 978-1-59780-519-3
Keith Starkey
Cheers for the readings, even if not of this one!
Acknowledgements
Thanks as always to my wife Caroline, and special thanks to Peter Lavery–here’s hoping he enjoys his time away from the needy egos of the writerly world. Included must be those others working at Macmillan, including Rebecca Saunders, Emma Giacon, Steve Rawlings, Liz Cowen, Jon Mitchell, Liz Johnson, Chantal Noel and Neil Lang. Also thanks to the foreign publishers and translators, who certainly must be doing something right!
1
The Line, which is effectively the border zone of the Polity, has in many areas stabilized where the Polity has ceased to expand (a prime example being the point between the Polity itself and the Prador Third Kingdom, called by its residents the ‘Graveyard’) but is still shifting outwards elsewhere (towards the galactic centre mostly). Upon this border there have been and will continue to be numerous conflicts, for beyond it human and even AI occupation extends even further as a result of the first diasporas of the solar system and the continuous emigration of those humans and AIs searching for something new or fleeing something old. These conflicts are called Line wars–being very specifically defined as such by the resources required for them and how they impinge on Polity territory. Usually they are finished quickly by ECS warships or Polity ground forces, or both. Generally it is the cleaning up afterwards that takes longer. Throughout the Polity’s history I can think of only one conflict that has been defined as something more than a Line war, and that started when the Prador destroyed Avalon Station and then moved into Polity space like wasps invading a bees’ nest. I have, however, heard rumours that there have been other conflicts that exceed the Line war definition, but the details are never very clear. Perhaps these are just myths, urban legends, persistent memes to titillate the masses. Or perhaps they are something else…
–From HOW IT IS by Gordon
The two million inhabitants of the planet Klurhammon claimed that their homeworld did not have a population sufficiently large to warrant a runcible, that device for instantly transporting people across the vast reaches of space. Those few who felt the need to travel elsewhere could easily book passage on one of the many ships that visited to collect the harvests of biomolecular construction units that were the main business of their world. However, in reality, the locals did not want to make it any easier for others in the interstellar Polity to visit them. They were introverted, relished their small society, enjoyed the open spaces around their high-tech farms and within their sprawling open-plan single city of Hammon, and they regarded the rest of the Polity with either indifference or suspicion.
It was not their decision to make.
A runcible was installed in Hammon twenty years ago, along with its controlling artificial intelligence, which became effectively the planetary governor. There were objections to this move, but when a massive influx of visitors failed to appear, and the profitability of certain select biologicals–once transported out by spaceship but now sent by runcible–rapidly increased, these objections died. Those few visitors who did arrive were treated with respect, but little warmth, and soon even their numbers waned. The people of Klurhammon thus continued with their introvert and somewhat Byzantine lifestyle, but were soon to have their antipathy towards visitors justified.
The controlling artificial intelligence and the crew of the Lubeck– a mile-long cargo hauler shaped like a slipper, with a structure resembling a submarine’s conning tower protruding from where the ankle should be–saw the visitor first. Its strange underspace signature presaged the arrival of something utterly alien–something that none but the ship’s AI could recognize. Crew gazed in awe at a screen displaying a sphere
three miles across seemingly formed of a tangled mass of giant legless millipedes constantly in motion, loops writhing in and out. It slid past the Lubeck impelled by some engine that clawed at the very fabric of space.
Some managed to exclaim in surprise before massive acceleration, which could not be compensated for by the ship’s internal gravplates, slammed them into walls, floors or ceilings. The Lubeck’s AI knew this would certainly kill some of them, but it also knew that to stay within the vicinity of this thing could mean death to them all.
It was correct.
The missile needled across intervening space from the alien vessel, its passage the briefest flicker to the human eye, but long enough for the AI, whose speed of thought was orders of magnitude above the Lubeck’s crew, to recite every prayer in every human religious canon. It punched through the Lubeck’s hull and detonated before crewmembers impacting hard with the internal structure of the ship could actually die from their injuries. Sun-hot fire bloomed inside the stricken craft, travelling out in a sphere neither slowed nor diverted by any intervening material. In a glare of light and in the silence of space, the cargo hauler simply disappeared. The weird snake-tangled vessel did not alter course or slow and quickly fell into orbit around Klurhammon even as the fire it left behind cooled and dispersed. The Lubeck now consisted of a spreading cloud of gaseous matter containing the occasional sprinkling of metal globules cooling and hardening into what resembled perfectly formed ball bearings.
The runcible AI, named Klurhammon after the world it governed, had seconds longer to contemplate the arrival of this alien vessel. This allowed it time to transmit data and conduct a brief conversation before some form of U-space interference curtailed that option.
‘One of Erebus’s ships has just arrived, destroyed a cargo hauler and is now approaching,’ it told Earth Central–the ruling artificial intelligence on Earth. ‘It is not even bothering to conceal itself with chameleon-ware.’
‘Get yourself out. Get out now,’ that intelligence replied.
‘It was my understanding that my world was “of no tactical importance”,’ Klurhammon observed. ‘I’ll stay and do what I can for them.’
The option was still there for the Klurhammon AI–physically a large lozenge of crystal using quantum-interface processing–to rail-gun itself from the planet and out into space. It chose not to do so, instead activating its rather pathetic array of orbital weapons and firing them. Missiles sped towards the alien vessel, microwave beams punched invisibly across orbital space. The AI observed some beams striking home, but the burned and blackened modular units of the alien vessel’s wormish structure just revolved inside it, to be replaced by shiny new insectile segments. Perhaps one of the missiles would be more destructive? Almost upon that thought a firestorm spread across tens of thousands of miles, all the missiles detonating before reaching their target.
‘Bad decision,’ Klurhammon opined.
In the ensuing second and a half remaining to the planetary AI, no reply was forthcoming from Earth Central. The high-intensity particle beam fired by the alien ship was eight feet in diameter: straight and blue in vacuum, but blurred and turquoise in atmosphere. It struck the centre of Hammon directly over the runcible, and in a few seconds the ensuing firestorm devoured runcible, AI and the surrounding two-mile-wide complex, then washed into the city to scour over buildings flattened by the initial blast wave. Fifty thousand people died, some so quickly naught remained of them but smudges on some still-standing walls, others in the slow agony reserved for those with most of their skin charred away.
Like many on the world of Klurhammon, Cherub Egengy was a haiman–a human partially combined with AI. Seeing his city struck so hard, on his vantage point on the north face of the Boulder he just clung to the ochre stone amid the heathers, unable to process the sight. Belatedly, through external comunits scattered around the world, he received the message–with explanatory information packets–the AI had sent just before expiring: ‘We are under attack from a ship controlled by the entity named Erebus. Planetary assault or planetary destruction certain to ensue. Run away. Hide.’
Direct-downloading the information packages via his gridlink to his mind, Cherub instantly learned that Erebus was the rogue AI that had once controlled the dreadnought the Trafalgar, which had deserted the Polity after humanity’s war against the alien Prador. This malign AI, which controlled a pernicious alien nano-technology and a fleet of ships numbering in the tens of thousands, had now returned to attack.
Planetary destruction.
Abruptly Cherub’s assister frame–motorized braces for his arms and legs terminating in extra metal fingers, and two additional limbs extending at waist-level–reached out and gripped the rock, pulling him close to it. For a moment he thought this was a reaction, on some level of himself, to ‘planetary destruction’, but then realized that his survival-orientated sub-persona, which he always put online when he did something dangerous, had recognized another danger. A second later the blast wave from the strike on the city tried to drag him from the rock face. His ribbed carapace already protected his back from his neck to the base of his spine. His sensory cowl, which when closed was a tongue of metal extending from it up behind his head, he now spread open like the petals of a flower for further protection. However, he felt hot cinders burning through his clothing into the skin of his arms and legs. Within his carapace he onlined a program to lock his muscles and cut out pain messages, and then further studied the information packets the AI had sent.
‘Jain nano-technology. Informational subversion. Can sequester all Polity technology, and even humans themselves…
Instantly shutting down access to his carapace from all outside sources cut some incoming program. Internally he tracked down what he had already received, running high-level diagnostics, isolation techniques and hunter-killer programs. He just got it in time: some ugly and hugely complex informational worm that would have rendered him utterly obedient to whatever sent it…this Erebus. He wondered how many others had managed to react so quickly. What about his brother, Carlton? What about his mother? Turning his head slightly he gazed at the burning city. Carlton, who was out at the hothouses, might have stopped the worm. Their mother, however…
She was in the city doing some business while Cherub climbed the Boulder. This business would have taken her very near the centre, so he assessed her chances of survival as little above zero. Grief tightened a fist inside him and there was no logic involved in his suddenly wanting to climb down to ground level and head back there. But his mother had always wanted him to operate on logic–to use his loose combination of human mind and artificial intelligence to best effect. He had once read, ‘Grief is a selfish indulgence,’ and decided just then not to let it kill him, for even now there were things descending from the sky directly towards the city.
Cherub used programming measures within his carapace and neuro-chemical measures, via the hardware in his skull, to dull the pain while not dulling his intelligence.
Run away. Hide.
He was too visible here, so first he turned on the surface chameleon effect of his carapace and chameleoncloth clothing. Maybe his penchant for wearing such gear and going wild like this to study the local fauna would end up saving his life. Reconfiguring internal hardware and writing programs in his mind, he created a near facsimile to Earth Central Security–ECS–chameleonware. His carapace did not possess sufficient projecting and scanning facilities to make it 100-per-cent effective, but it would have to do. Then, as the wind dropped to a mere hot gale, he onlined full assist in his climbing program and hurried the rest of the way up the rock face like a spider scuttling up a wall.
Reaching the curving summit of the Boulder, Cherub scanned around him. The boulder-birds he had come here to see were absent–doubtless scared off by the explosion–but they were no longer his concern anyway. Using his sensory cowl, the full potential of his augmented eyes and all the enhancement programs to hand, he focused on the objects descending
towards the city. He counted ten bacilliform shapes, each precisely like a rod prokaryote bacterium, but about sixty feet long and with an exterior of a completely featureless blue grey.
Bombs?
That seemed unlikely since the ship above seemed quite capable of messing this place up without resorting to such conventional methods. Anyway, bombs that size would have to be planet busters, so why drop ten of them all in the same spot? He would therefore assume they were not bombs, since to do so would be to admit that he now had a very short time left to live. He just watched carefully, recording everything he was seeing and sensing.
Settling about the central incinerated area, the rod-things just seemed to melt into the rubble. Focusing closer on one, he saw it spreading itself, like something made of jelly, over foamstone rubble and tangled girders. It then began to emit tentacular growths that speared down into surrounding crevices. Near to one of these rod-things, he observed a woman stumbling along, something hanging from her arms, which she held out before her. He realized that she was blind, and that what hung from her arms was shredded skin.
His mother had certainly been well within the blast zone, so had probably died instantly–surely that had to be better.
Cherub forced himself to abandon that train of thought before it led to him having to again alter his brain chemistry.
The woman must have heard something for she stopped and turned abruptly. Out of a nearby drain a tentacle rose like a rattlesnake readying itself to strike, then it lashed out and penetrated her chest, numerous tendrils spearing out of her back as if the horrific thing had splintered inside her. She collapsed to her knees, dragging it down with her. After a few minutes the thing retracted, seemed to hesitate poised over her for a moment, then dropped to the ground and squirmed on past her, emerging endlessly from the drain. Its victim swayed back and forth on her knees, then suddenly lurched to her feet. She looked around for a moment, as if oblivious to the fact that her face was a charred ruin and she seemed to possess no eyes. After scanning a pile of rubble she stepped over to it and picked up a steel reinforcing bar about two feet long. Cherub tracked her subsequent purposeful search through the ruination and watched her smash in the skull of another burn victim before moving on. Cherub realized that the bacilliforms were products of Jain-tech, and that they were infecting the survivors with that same technology. Finally he dragged his horrified attention away from the woman in time to observe a new object descending from the sky.