The Technician

by Neal Asher

  ‘Perhaps you can explain your belief in God, and why you think Zelda Smythe is His ultimate prophetess,’ Shree persisted. ‘Perhaps you can explain why your god is any more true than the thousands of gods primitives have worshipped or why, as a godly man, you’re quite happy about people burning in Hell.’ Grant noted Tombs wince at that. ‘Maybe you’d like to detail why the great and wonderful Theocracy needed torture, multiple executions, satellite lasers and an orbital coil-gun to keep order on its world, and why it fell to the godless machines.’

  Tombs simply wasn’t biting and Shree had begun to sound like some expression of her name.

  ‘Shree,’ said Grant, ‘leave the man alone and come sit by me.’

  After a brief silence, she stood and moved forwards, plonking herself down in the seat beside Grant.

  ‘Waste of time,’ she said. ‘That’ll never be broadcast.’

  If Earthnet and the vetting AIs were searching for impartiality, Grant guessed it would not. He pointed off to the side of the North Road – which was essentially a layer of compacted flute grass five metres wide leading all the way to Zealos – towards a small hill with a single garage door in the side of it. ‘Bunker One.’

  ‘No hooder warning,’ said Shree, nodding towards a light positioned atop a pole, like many other lights spaced at half-kilometre intervals along the road.

  ‘The lights don’t signify anything now,’ said Grant. ‘If there’re hooders nearby I get a warning straight through this console.’ He gestured to the console lying ahead of the control column. ‘Along with the warning I get details on the best bunker to run for.’

  The system was more efficient now. In the time of the Theocracy hooders were picked out by motion sensors out in the flute grasses, backed up by satcam when available. The moment a hooder was spotted within ten kilometres of the road all the lights on that section would begin flashing and the cargo trucks would run for the nearest bunker. However, depending on the positioning of the hooder, the nearest bunker might not be the safest one to run to. Their loss rate in trucks, and drivers, had been about 10 per cent. Now the only driver deaths out here were of those who did not heed the direct warnings they received, and there were a few.

  As they motored past the bunker Grant settled himself for the five-hour drive ahead. Wondering where Penny Royal had positioned itself, he reached past the steering column and keyed in a query on the console. Some figures came up on the small computer screen there. The loading of the ATV was precisely what it should have been with three people inside, so it seemed unlikely Penny Royal was squatting on the roof. Out there somewhere then, keeping pace with them.

  ‘Under Polity law,’ said Tombs abruptly, ‘I am guilty of murder.’

  Yes, his apparent killing of Sanders still occupied his mind and now he was starting to ask the questions Penny Royal had told Grant to expect, and to which Grant had been given replies.

  ‘No, apparently not.’

  ‘I killed her. I cut her throat.’

  ‘Whilst the balance of your mind was disturbed.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ said Shree, turning to peer at Grant. ‘Under Polity law mental disturbance is no excuse. Murder is murder and cannot be recalled, and a mind sufficiently disturbed to commit it is a mind not worth saving.’

  ‘On the face of it, yes, but Sanders agreed to waivers before she began looking after Tombs here, probably because she thought him no danger to her while stuck in a wheelchair. With it also being likely he’d been subjected to an involuntary mental download, legal matters get a bit murky.’ He glanced at her. ‘A cynic might say that because of his value the AIs brushed aside the law.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Fucking Polity,’ said Shree, turning to look out of the side window.

  Revealing, thought Grant, then he glanced round at Tombs, who seemed disappointed and sad. And no restitution for you, he added.

  11

  Flute Grass

  The flute grasses of Masada are thoroughly tedious plants closely resembling numerous rhizome-based plants on Earth, like reeds, irises, papyrus, ginger, turmeric – the list is a long one – but there is something odd about them. They sprout from their rhizomes in the spring, the shoots sharply pointed and tough enough to punch through even seasoned wood. Throughout the year they grow to heights of up to four metres, the hollow stems being up to ten centimetres wide and numerous side shoots binding the whole mass together. In late summer the grasses produce flowers, the over fifty identified separate species of grass producing just about every colour in the spectrum. And here we have the oddity, for there are no naturally occurring flying pollinators on Masada. These flowers eventually fade, drop away, to leave pods which eject ‘pollen’ with three distinct sexes, and pollination is carried out by the wind, as with the trees of Earth. After pod pollination the grasses drop seeds, very few of which get a chance to germinate in the rhizome-packed ground. In the Masadan winter all the side shoots drop away to leave holes in the hollow stems, which play like flutes in the Masadan winter winds, hence the name. But we have to go back to it: why the flowers? Pure chance or, with what we know about that world now, design?

  – From HOW IT IS by Gordon

  ‘Katarin, about time!’ said Ripple-John.

  The woman peered at him from his laptop screen, some indecision in her expression.

  ‘Hey Ripple-John,’ she said.

  ‘So, tell me what happened,’ said John, lifting the laptop up and crossing his legs below it. ‘Damn com was jammed for a day and, ever since, Tinsch has been out of contact. I saw on Earthnet that Tombs is on his way up the North Road. Am I taking a wild guess to say the hit was unsuccessful?’

  ‘It was unsuccessful.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘It did something to them.’ Katarin looked scared, her attention straying away to one side. John had never seen her like this, even during the rebellion. She had been as avid for revenge as him, and included herself in those who had dragged off the Bishop of Triada for his swim in a squerm pond. Did her fears relate to the Polity and what might happen if they were caught, or was she having second thoughts about plan B, Ripple-John mused. He had always been aware that many in the Tidy Squad entertained some moral uncertainties.

  ‘You’re going to have to be a little clearer than that, Katarin,’ he said. ‘Tell me exactly what happened.’

  She returned her attention to him. ‘Miloh tried to take his shot and, as planned, Tombs’s protection went after him, giving David and the rest their opportunity. They activated the shields between Tombs and that protection and grabbed him. Now all but one of them are in Greenport hospital.’ She shook her head, looked bewildered.

  ‘So this protection, some intelligent hardware of some kind, got through to them,’ Ripple-John stated. ‘But it didn’t kill them. Are they badly injured?’

  ‘Difficult to describe.’

  ‘Do your best my love.’

  ‘Miloh lost his hands, but it’s worse than that. His wrists were fused into his rifle, which itself became a semi-organic extension of his body.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever attacked him left him looped round an I-beam, his rifle acting like a set of cuffs. Port Maintenance tried to cut through it.’ She paused, trying to find the words. ‘They had to take him to the hospital with a wound dressing on his fucking rifle!’

  Ripple-John sat back in his director’s chair, and absorbed that. Tinsch had wanted a nice neat hit with zero other casualties and John had known that approach was wrong from the start. Because of Tombs’s importance to the Polity he had heavy protection, and the only way to get to him was by using something a bit more substantial – a bomb, nerve gas, the kind of weapon he couldn’t be protected from by a bodyguard of any kind, something like the contents of the canister standing beside the balcony rail just a couple of metres from Ripple-John.

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Franklin, Amira and Joden are in a similar condition to Miloh. Franklin is melded to a
street paving slab at the ankles, Amira’s console is now an extension of her wrists and Joden’s got a chunk of wall attached to his back.’

  ‘So, whatever’s protecting Tombs likes to play the comedian. But we’ll be seeing how it deals with the reception I have for it here.’

  ‘You’re at the way station?’ Katarin asked.

  ‘I certainly am.’

  ‘He’s got other protection too,’ she said. ‘You must have seen that on Earthnet.’

  ‘I certainly did. Leif Grant – I never had him pegged as a traitor. So tell me, what about our David Tinsch?’

  ‘The aug he intended to use on Tombs ended up on his own head.’

  ‘I said that was a bad idea from the start – we’re Tidy Squad and we don’t try for deals with the Polity.’ Ripple-John paused, feeling a sudden surge of doubt. When, after his close comrades in the Squad went out of contact, he had used the secure comline he was only supposed to use in circumstances of extremity, whoever he spoke to there had told him to stand down. In light of that it seemed likely the Polity had penetrated the upper command of the Squad, and that he could only trust those he had always trusted. ‘So his brains got scrambled or something like that?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘When I saw him in the hospital they’d finished interrogating him. He just sat and cried and said he was sorry. Yesterday they transported him to Zealos hospital, where I’m told Polity mind-techs are going to take a look at him.’

  ‘So now it’s down to me only.’

  Katarin just stared at him for a long moment before replying, ‘Maybe we should just drop this. Is the death of one crazy proctor worth the casualties?’

  So, she was softening, she’d lost sight of the ideal. Masada could not move on until every damned Theocrat was dead. It could not move on until every trace of the Theocracy had been erased. It could not move on until every believer chose either atheism or death. The Tidy Squad’s task, John knew, might be centuries long and, in face of that, they could not pay heed to a handful of casualties now.

  ‘I think you know my answer to that.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Tombs got taken to the Monument, didn’t he, Katarin?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And to Charity.’

  ‘Yes.’

  John nodded to himself. They would have to go. He’d been pushing for some plan to obtain either nuclear or antimatter explosives to take out those cylinder worlds, to erase those visible monuments to the Theocracy. Many other members of the Squad had always argued against that, saying the function of the Squad was retribution against individuals, not against a belief system and not against inanimate objects. They failed to understand the persistent strength of the enemy. Ripple-John understood.

  ‘Then back to Greenport, and now they’re still on the North Road?’

  ‘Yes, they’re still heading your way.’

  ‘Good. Be good enough to let me know if there’s any change in the itinerary.’ He reached forward to cut the communication but Katarin’s expression made him hesitate. ‘Something else on your mind, Katarin?’

  ‘What did Thracer do wrong, John?’

  Puzzled, John replied, ‘Thracer? He’s doing a bundle of things wrong all the time – he lacks balls. He dismissed the idea of a hit in Greenport and he pooh-poohed my idea of poetic justice. And he won’t even look at us destroying the cylinder worlds.’

  ‘Is that reason enough to kill him?’

  ‘Not yet . . . what is it you’re saying?’

  ‘His body was found about five hours ago, in his apartment – someone shot him through the face.’

  Not before time, thought John, but said, ‘Not me, nor any of my boys.’

  She stared at him speculatively, then said, ‘I’m out of this now, John. I’ve had enough.’

  Ripple-John felt completely unsurprised. Though Katarin had been Tidy Squad right from the beginning, she was not the first hardliner to renege on promises made during difficult times. She had just joined a long procession of those Ripple-John thought he could trust but who had abandoned the Squad. Those that hadn’t understood their comrade Ripple-John and remained on Masada, now resided here permanently, under the Masadan mud.

  ‘You’ll be understanding, Katarin, that if you’re loose at the mouth I’ll be having to hunt you down,’ he said.

  ‘I understand,’ said Katarin. ‘I’ve booked passage offworld.’

  Yes, perhaps she understood that whether she opened her mouth or not, he would try to hunt her down anyway. Only by leaving Masada could she ensure her own survival.

  ‘Well, I wish you luck.’

  ‘Sure you do,’ said Katarin, shutting down the communication.

  Ripple-John closed his laptop and peered contemplatively up at the glass dome over Bradacken. With no large agricultural areas to put off the local wildlife – the creatures of this world tended to prefer the flute grasses and stayed where their natural food remained available – the way station bore similar construction to that of the bunkers. First a thick foamstone raft had been laid, then buildings erected on it in a ring at the centre, all their openings facing inwards. From above the roof-line of this ring of buildings, reinforced concrete sloped down to the edge of the raft. A dome of armour glass four centimetres thick covered the circular parking and maintenance area the buildings enclosed, and entry to this place was via a long tunnel through the concrete, armoured blast doors forming a vehicle airlock. Gabbleducks, siluroynes, heroynes and mud snakes just had no way of penetrating.

  Hooders were the greatest danger out here; few structures could survive a determined attack from one of them. However, they took no heed of this place, skating over it as if it were just some mound – in fact there was a recording that could be viewed here of a hooder doing just that, seen from the underside as it went over the dome. Had that same creature been able to see inside, been attracted by the lights and movement, it could very likely have broken through the glass and caused mayhem. But the designers had thought of that and the glass was oneway, its flat hemisphere appearing just a dull rocky grey from the outside.

  Ripple-John stood, putting his laptop aside, then stepped over to the corner of the short balcony provided for his apartment. Here stood a tall plant pot, its contents, a plug of soil bound with roots, standing messily to one side with stunted multicoloured lizard tails sprouting from it. John resumed the chore he had been at just as the call arrived from Katarin. Using his hands only he scooped more remaining soil from the pot and deposited it in a bag, then he pulled closer the canister from beside the balcony rail and keyed instructions into the control pad on the end of it, then after second thoughts, added further instructions.

  There was always the possibility that the same sort of jamming as had been used around Greenport might be used here and block his signal, even though he was using seismics to a transponder actually within this place. He therefore set a timer for seven hours hence. Either at that time, or when he sent a signal upon knowing for sure that a certain ATV had arrived here, the canister would open and discharge its contents into the atmosphere. The canister did not contain nerve gas or any other sort of lethal gas, though it did contain a biological substance. However, even that was harmless when breathed by a Human. The stuff would spread throughout the way station and, since this place maintained its breathable atmosphere more by pressure differential than by atmospheric security, it would leak out through the many holes in this place.

  Then the killing would start.

  Jem tilted his head, listening. The muttering was closer now, seemed clearer somehow as if, with some effort of will, he could divine meaning from it. It also seemed to be more under his control. He could tune it out, concentrate on the ATV’s engine and let that other sound wane, recede somewhere to the back of his mind.

  As the big armoured door swung open ahead of the ATV, Jem returned his attention to the shells arrayed on the seat beside him. Puzzles with a rel
igious motif being one of the few entertainments allowed Theocracy children, he remembered doing jigsaws when a child, and gazing at these shells he felt the same as he felt when doing them. It was almost as if each shell was a circular segment cut from some larger picture he had yet to see. Certain lines and shapes seemed concurrent; seemed like they ought to link together in some way. Moving the shells about, trying to match one line to another on a different shell, he felt both frustrated and fascinated. He felt that jigsaw feeling of engagement to complete something, yet a joy in the process that he did not want to end. It also distracted him from what felt like an unhealing wound inside his head.

  ‘Didn’t they give you any toys when you were a child?’ asked Shree.

  Her statement seemed to mirror some of his thoughts, but her words were only bile, bitterness. He knew, that given the opportunity to do so without bad result for herself, she would hurt him in any way she could. No, that’s not right. He looked up into her face, which at that moment appeared utterly alien to him yet simple and open to easy inspection. Double bluff, he realized. Her reporter persona was allowing her hate free rein for she could justify her provocation as an attempt to obtain newsworthy responses. She could claim to be pretending a plausible hate she did not really feel. But she really did hate him, and he knew in that moment that she intended to kill him.

  ‘Softly spake the gabbleduck in words of meaning lost,’ he said.

  ‘They gave you a book of rhymes, then.’

  The cab of the ATV darkened as Grant drove it into the tunnel, grew darker still as the big door closed behind, then an eerie blue glow infused the tunnel as lights flickered into life. Jem blinked, Euclidean after-images in his eyes, overlaying her face like fractures.

  ‘I booked us three small apartments,’ said Grant. ‘Lucky really, since now there’s not much room – a road crew is staying here.’

  ‘The ones working on that damage we saw?’ asked Shree.

  ‘Probably.’ Grant shrugged.