by Neal Asher
‘What is your opinion of Darson?’
‘He’s a pompous old fart,’ Maria replied, and Cormac liked her for that.
‘He believes Dragon is psychotic,’ he said.
‘I am not qualified to judge,’ she replied.
Expressionlessly Cormac watched pink sleet slide off the frictionless screen of the AGC. ‘You are qualified to have an opinion.’
Maria hesitated before replying. Cormac glanced at her and could see her discomfort. She was, he knew, trying to decide how to influence him and what opinion it would be best to own. He repressed a smile. She was in a difficult position. Instructions had preceded him: no unnecessary contact, straight to Dragon, the crux. He could see that she was unnerved.
‘The dialogue with Dragon is deceptively human . . . Darson seems to find it difficult to accept the alien.’
Cormac chuckled. The AGC dipped as Maria glanced at him. Unable to find any way of applying leverage, she had answered with the truth. He nodded to himself and looked ahead as she slowed the AGC and began to power it down. Before them lay the Junkyard: the tangible result of people’s flouting of Dragon’s rule of no machinery larger than a man within a two-kilometre radius. Many people had died here. Maria put the AGC on hover. Cormac tapped the com on his belt as the door slid open.
‘I’ll contact you when I want picking up,’ he said and left her.
After reaching the line of smashed AGCs and hover scooters that marked the two-kilometre boundary, Cormac shouldered his rucksack and climbed a rusting hulk. Even through the snow the four spheres were visible, standing like vast storage tanks on a plain of broken rock. After a moment he clambered down the other side of the boundary, peeking in the wrecked AGC at its occupants, whom no one had bothered to retrieve. As his feet touched the ground, the ground itself moved.
Pseudopods.
He stood very still and waited, the taste of salt turning acrid in his mouth. Five metres to one side of him the ground rippled and a thing like a metre-wide cobra exploded into the air. Cormac dropped to avoid a flying rock, then rolled, looked up. It arched above him, a single crystalline blue eye where a cobra’s mouth should have been. The ground tilted and another explosion followed. Then another. Cormac put his rucksack over his head as explosion followed explosion and he was pelted with shards of rock. Then it ceased, and he stood in the silence.
Arrayed and curved like the ribs of an immense snake’s skeleton, the pseudopods had become his honour guard. He walked down the spine.
In the face of total disaster, defiance is the only recourse . . . crazy street-lamps they have here.
Cormac allowed his mind to wander, random-access on subject:
Monitor: Insentient autochthon of the planet Aster Colora. It has the appearance of a Terran monitor lizard, but is a kilometre long and weighs an estimated 4.5 million tonnes. It is a silicon-based lifeform with an alien physiognomy . . .
Dragon . . . Monitor . . . What connection?
Why does Dragon want an ambassador?
Questions.
Answers?
Damn!
The two kilometres unrolled and eventually Cormac came before the curving edifice of tegulate flesh within an amphitheatre of pseudopods. He noted, to one side, a piece of machinery that could have been the comlink for Dragon / human dialogue: the one exception to its rule about machines. It was scrapped. He looked up at the pink-and-red-stippled sky, half cut by the cloud-tangled flesh mountain, and he waited.
‘Ambassador.’
The voice came from the undershadows of the sphere, resonant but conversational.
‘Ian Cormac . . . yes.’
‘Names. All things can be named.’
As of skis on granular snow, a hissing issued from the undershadows. Cormac saw a swirl of movement, then a monstrous head shot towards him, propelled by a ribbed snake body. He stumbled back, fell. It rose above him; a pterosaur head with sapphire eyes.
‘Are you afraid?’
Cormac choked back his immediate reply and said, ‘Should I be?’ His tone betrayed nothing of what he felt.
The head lunged at him, then jerked to a halt two metres above him. It smelt of cloves. Milky saliva dripped on him.
‘Answer my question.’
‘Yes, I am afraid. Does that surprise you?’
‘No.’
The head moved up and away. Cormac stood and brushed himself off.
‘I fail to see the purpose of that little scene,’ he said.
‘You represent your race,’ Dragon replied, ‘and you can die.’
More than personal, then. Cormac did not react to the implications, but steadily returned the stare of those sapphire eyes.
‘Why did you send for an ambassador?’
‘Ah . . . you are human then?’
‘Of course.’
‘You do represent your race?’
‘Such is my position, though I cannot speak for every individual in it.’ He emphasized individual—why? He did not know; it had almost been instinctive. The Dragon head swayed, then twitched, shaking off an accumulation of snow.
‘Running round the inside of your skull is a net of mycorhizal fibre optics connected to etched-atom processors, silicon synaptic interfaces and an underspace transmitter. Evolution is a wonderful thing,’ it said.
That gave Cormac pause. Smoothly he said, ‘They are the tools of my trade. I am human. I am a member of the races of homo sapiens, meaning “wise man”, and a wise man will use what tools he can to make his tasks easier.’
‘I am glad you are sure of your integrity.’
The head swayed to one side, then looked back. The tegulate skin of Dragon’s body bulged and quivered as if it were taking a breath. There was a liquid groaning, then skin and flesh parted like that of a rotten fruit. Unable to hide his reaction Cormac retched at the stench that wafted from the pink vagina of a cave that appeared before him. There were more liquid sounds driven by deep rhythmic pulses. Cormac watched in fascination as a jet of steaming amniot ejected the foetal ball of a manthing wrapped in a caul. The caul burst open, spilling more of the Dragon’s juices. Dracoman; Cormac named it instantly.
‘A trifle dramatic,’ he managed.
The manthing continued to move. It stood, showing no sign of imbalance. Again that sound: something else born; a flattened ellipse. The manthing picked it up and stripped away its caul. Legs dropped down from underneath it. Cormac could hardly believe he was seeing a table. The man approached and placed the table between them.
‘To be human is to be mortal,’ said Dragon. ‘Do you play chess?’
‘Yes, I . . .’
Movement from the table: a bulging, bubbling, like sprouting mushrooms and a Dragon chess set grew from its surface.
‘Your move.’
For a moment Cormac could think of nothing else to say or do. He reached down and took hold of a pawn. The thing writhed in his hand, bit him. He yelled and dropped it. On the board it slithered forwards to a tegulate square.
‘There is always a price for power,’ said Dragon.
Cormac swore, then waited for his opponent’s move, his confusion growing. What the hell was this? Some sort of megalomaniacal game or a test?
He hoped for the latter.
As he thought, he studied his opponent. The dracoman betrayed nothing, even when he suddenly moved and brought his fist down on Cormac’s pawn. Cormac was taken aback.
‘That is not in the rulebook,’ he said, then damned himself for saying it. He knew what Dragon’s reply would be.
‘There are no rules here, just judgments.’
Cormac decided to react. He brought his fist down and crushed his opponent’s king. ‘Check,’ he said dryly, and watched his opponent.
The dracoman stared at the board for a moment, then methodically began to crush every one of Cormac’s pieces. White gore dribbled off the side of the table. Cormac turned towards the head.
‘Surely by now you have enough insight into basic human reactions? Y
ou’ve been studying us for centuries,’ he said.
‘Every human is an individual, as you so rightly indicated,’ observed Dragon.
Cormac was not sure he had done any such thing. He turned back to his opponent. ‘I do not like subjective games,’ he said, and knocked the table aside. The dracoman went for him with frightening speed. The hands reaching for his throat he was able to knock aside, but he was still driven to the ground. The hands reached for his throat again. He brought his knee up, then flung the clammy body from him. He regained his feet as his opponent did. The attack was still without finesse, and this time, not caught unawares, Cormac used his feet to counter it. The fight was over in seconds, the dracoman gurgling on the shale.
‘Your second-to-last move was the wrong one,’ said Dragon.
‘I won.’
‘That is not the issue.’
‘What is?’
‘Morality.’
‘Hah, it is the winners who write history and it is the winners who invent morality. Existence is all the reason for existence any of us has, unless you believe in gods. I think you set yourself up too high.’
‘No higher than an executioner.’
‘You threaten again. Why? Do you have the power to carry out your threats? Do you think that you are a god?’
‘I do not threaten you.’
‘You seek to judge me then—to judge what I represent.’
‘In the system of Betelgeuse there is a physicist working on some of the later Skaidon formulae. I predict he will solve some of the problems he has set himself.’
‘And . . . ?’
‘Within the next century the human race will possess the intergalactic runcible.’
‘What?’
The ground shook. A vast shadow blotted out half the sky. With his skin crawling Cormac turned, and there, making its ponderous gargantuan way across the rock-scape, he saw the Monitor; long as a city, its legs like tower blocks. Cormac watched it pass, knew its destination.
‘Another threat?’ he breathed. ‘What is it that you want?’
The head rose higher and turned in the direction the Monitor had gone.
‘Go back to Cartis. When you have seen what you must see, return here.’
Suddenly the head dropped down, and was hovering before Cormac.
‘I control Monitor; without me it is mindless, but you know that,’ it said. ‘I have the power, the power to destroy. Could it be that you know what I mean?’
‘I know the substance of your threat . . . your warning?’ was Cormac’s reply. After a pause he glanced down at the now unmoving dracoman. Then he swung his attention to his rucksack, back up at Dragon, shrugged and walked away, random accessing as he did so, so that nothing could be read from his expression:
Aster Colora: A planet on the rim of the galaxy.
* * *
Maria had been waiting for him at the two-kilometre boundary. She was panicked, out of her depth.
‘The whole city . . . Monitor . . .’
Cormac silenced her and took her place in the driving seat of the AGC. Halfway back to Cartis she had calmed enough to be coherent.
‘Pseudopods broke through all round the city. I was outside when it happened . . . No one can escape and Monitor is heading in that direction. It has never done that before.’
‘Dragon controls Monitor.’
‘Why . . . ?’
‘Either it tests us or Darson is right.’
‘Thanks for the comfort.’
Cartis was indeed ringed by pseudopods, but they parted to allow the AGC through. At the metrotel, Cormac used Maria’s intentions and fear to get her to bed. He felt no remorse. She had been quite prepared to use him in any way she could for the Separatist movement. Lying on his bed he listened as the rumble of Monitor’s arrival ceased, then he inspected the naked form lying beside him. An affirmation of humanity? he wondered. The question was irrelevant. All waited on him. Careful not to wake Maria, Cormac got off the bed and went to the bathroom. Ritualistically he shaved, cleaned his teeth and dressed. He then sat down and accessed the runcible grid.
Dragon intergalactic.
To my satisfaction.
With that he sent all he had learnt and surmised to the AI. It took less than a second.
A test. Morality base evident, came the terse reply.
Threat / warning?
Obliterate?
?
It is disposable then?
‘Yes,’ said Cormac out loud.
Go back, react, returned the silent thought of the AI. Cormac closed his eyes and closed access. Then, abruptly, he departed the metrotel.
The honour guard remained and Cormac was soon back before Dragon. The dracoman was gone, the cave gone, the head a black silhouette against the red sky.
‘Have you seen?’ it asked.
‘You can destroy Cartis.’
The head turned. ‘I mean—have you seen?’
Cormac squatted down next to the rucksack he had left. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘if we are judged and found wanting, what happens?’
‘You have been judged.’
Cormac waited.
‘I have been watching for twenty million of your years. I have seen every sparrow fall.’
‘Yes . . . that is enough time to come to a conclusion,’ said Cormac dryly. He entertained doubts, then, about Dragon’s sanity.
‘You will live,’ Dragon said.
Cormac allowed the rigidity to leave him. ‘Cartis . . . the Monitor . . . they were the final push, just to see . . .’ he said, fully understanding now.
‘Your AIs are extensions of your own minds, as I am an extension of other minds. Had you destroyed me for the few petty threats of this day, without regard or understanding of what I truly am, every one of your runcibles would have been turned inside out: converted into black holes.’
Cormac reached across and opened his rucksack. From it he took an innocuous blue-grey cylinder of metal. With a thought he deactivated it, then he put it away again. A similar, if somewhat larger device, had been used in the system of Cassius to demolish a gas giant.
‘Now?’ he asked.
‘Now you must leave and I must leave. Your kind will meet mine. My task is done.’
‘How will you leave?’
‘I will not leave this planet.’
And Cormac knew. He left Dragon, and on his way saw Monitor come and lie down at its side like a faithful dog. Once in the AGC he did not look back.
Lest I be turned into a pillar of salt.
A white sun rose over Aster Colora, and hard black shadows were cast, like dice. Cormac later learnt it had been a contra-terrene explosion beyond mere human abilities to generate and contain, as it had been contained, in a two-kilometre radius.
It was Dragon’s last message.
Not a trace of Dragon remained.
(Solstan 2434)
When he had finished telling Chaline, Cormac felt lightness in his chest. He leant back. It was a story he had told no human, though most runcible AIs knew it.
‘What was the real purpose of calling you there? It all seems a little . . . unlikely,’ Chaline wondered.
‘Theatrics? Who knows? Debate about Dragon’s purpose has raged since it was discovered, even amongst AIs. There are some who say it was too wise for us to understand. And, of course, the likes of Darson, who thinks it was insane . . . or is.’
‘What do you think?’
Cormac turned and looked at her. ‘First and foremost I think it was a liar and a fraud. I don’t think it came here twenty million years ago, nor do I think it came to test humanity. The two statements don’t tie up. And I certainly don’t think it was capable of destroying us.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No. I don’t think it self-destructed after i
t had served its ostensible purpose. There was not a trace of its body left, even under ground. I think it’s out there somewhere, and it’s laughing at us.’
Chaline smiled at that, then stood. ‘Another drink?’ She held out her hand for his glass. For a moment he considered refusing and heading for bed. He handed her his glass.
Damn it, I’m human.
As Chaline returned with the two drinks, he studied her closely. Her overall was wrinkled and sweat-stained, but did not detract from her allure in the slightest. Her face had an imperious beauty, her figure was worthy of note and she had something remarkable between her ears; anyone in her position had to have. Cormac felt something he had not felt with Angelina. That mechanical action had not been in response to any need in him. He had felt wholly cynical about it. When was the last time he had really made love to a woman? Maria Convala was the last, he was reluctant to admit.
‘What’s the matter?’ Chaline asked him, a tilt to her head and a knowing smile.
‘You’re very attractive,’ he said.
She sat down. ‘I’m also very tired.’
Her mein was coy, and it surprised him. He glanced up as a group of technicians walked in after their shift, and he silently thanked them.
‘We could finish our drinks in my cabin,’ he suggested.
Her coyness disappeared and she inspected him estimatingly. Abruptly she stood again, and he thought he had maybe pushed too hard. She was going to chop him down.
‘I really need a shower,’ she said.
Cormac waited now for the kind rejection.
‘I can’t get in your cabin by myself,’ she said impatiently.
Cormac was out of his seat and exiting the canteen before he even had a chance to be surprised. At the door to his cabin he slapped the palm-lock and entered in a teenage terror at how to initiate things. Chaline dispelled that worry in an instant: halfway across the room she turned, ran her thumb down the centre of her overall and parted it, kicked off her deck slippers and shrugged her overall to the floor. Cormac remembered to close his mouth as she smiled at him, then headed for his shower. We forgot our drinks, he thought, and then grinned. He left his clothes beside her’s and followed.