by Neal Asher
* * *
That the station was a centrifugal ring station showed that it was old. The off-shoot technology from Skaidon tech of gravity manipulation had taken a while to impinge on the design of stations, mainly because it took a long time for people used to the essential requirements of space habitation to trust it. That Nix, the station, had an elevator showed it was pre-runcible and truly ancient. Another sign of this great age was the worn ceramal deck across which Jarvellis was dragging herself. At one-quarter G it would have taken the passage of many feet to put such hollows in such a hard material.
‘Come on, you can do it,’ said Tull for the nth time. His wife Jeth offered similar, though less sincere, encouragement. Her lack of enthusiasm was understandable. Both Outlinkers were scared: they were allowing a person into their home who could kill them with a friendly pat on the back. It did not escape Jarvellis’s notice how brave Tull had been: first to retrieve her from outside, then to slap her face once she was inside.
It took minutes that dragged like hours, but Jarvellis eventually reached the lip of the metal box and looked back. She made the final effort and dragged herself in. The Outlinkers were back against the walls now. Jeth held out her narrow hand in which lay the flattened sphere of the nerve-blocker.
‘Will you keep still for me?’ she asked.
Jarvellis coughed. Her lungs were filling with fluid. Her entire body ached and her left side was a wide line of pain. She felt dizzy and sick. She nodded her head, then turned it to one side. Jeth cautiously stepped in close and pressed the blocker to the back of her neck. The fibres of neural shunt went in, and blessed numbness rolled down her body in a wave. Tull pressed buttons on a small control panel. Jarvellis did not feel the elevator move. She only knew it was coming to the centre of the station, when panic that the floor had fallen away pulled her out of the haze. She was weightless.
Now the Outlinkers felt safe, they quickly got hold of her and manoeuvred her through the sliding door into a tubular tunnel. Even this exercise was difficult for them, for though she was weightless she still had inertia. It took the both of them hauling at her to overcome it and get her moving. The walls of the tunnel were diamond-patterned to offer grip for feet and hands. Interspersed at regular intervals were rails and catch-loops. Sinking back into the haze, Jarvellis watched the little robot swinging past on the latter of these like an iron gibbon.
They brought her eventually to a curved room with no definite floor or ceiling. There was equipment on every surface and she was relieved to see a modern medbot, cell-welder and all those other devices that equated the repair of the human body with that of any other machine. They pulled her to the weightless version of a surgical table, a frame ringed with adjustable clamps, and there secured her in place. Tull pulled back the dressing on her breast, while Jeth set the medbot to work on her thigh.
‘I’ll do my best, but you’ll need to see a cosmetic surgeon,’ he said. ‘You’ll need regrowth and reconstructive surgery. Too much mammary fat is missing.’
Jarvellis tried to speak, but hardly anything came out of her dry mouth. Tull leaned closer and she tried again. Eventually he got the gist of her request. She heard him speak hurriedly to his wife, but could not distinguish the words. There came a humming sound: some sort of ultrasound scanner.
‘Still alive,’ Tull said. ‘We’ll make sure the foetus stays connected.’
Jarvellis tried to speak again, and once more he leant in close to hear her.
‘All right,’ he said, and made an adjustment to the nerve-blocker. The numbness rose from her neck and rolled her into oblivion.
* * *
An area two-thirds of a kilometre in diameter had been cleared, and the bedrock fused to obsidian and levelled. The containment sphere rested between the two cylindrical tanks of the buffers seemingly placed to stop it rolling away, and from it an enclosed walkway led to the surrounding complex of newly erected buildings. The buildings were domed and apparently made of native materials. Prefabricated sections had been joined, then sealed, with a composite of crushed rock and epoxy resins. Vapour jetted from them as they were heated and the moisture and excess CO2 was pumped out. The whole complex was knitted together by more enclosed walkways, pylons carrying s-con cables, ground-level pipelines, and by a nimbus of electric light. Beyond the perimeter was impenetrable darkness.
Night had come to Samarkand.
The minishuttle rested in the twilight at the perimeter and, as he disembarked, Cormac had a good view across the complex. He paused for a moment on the CO2 slush, his visor polarizing as the containment sphere emitted a flash of orange light. After fooling with the directional gain of his comunit, he heard Chaline bawling out one of her technicians.
‘Dave! I said ninety gigahertz not megahertz! You’re not going to get anywhere near alignment—What? What did you say?’
‘I said why not leave it to the AI.’
‘Because we are here and the AI isn’t. Now, ninety gigahertz. Try to get it right this time.’
Cormac’s visor polarized again as a tower of rainbows rose from the sphere and stabbed into the starlit sky. As it flickered out, he heard Chaline speaking in a somewhat happier tone.
‘That’s it: the spoon’s in, close as we’re going to get. The AI can lose the light-show.’
Cormac looked round as Jane disembarked, carrying a small suitcase.
‘Seems they’re ready for you,’ he said.
‘I heard. A good thing too.’ She patted the suitcase. ‘It’s getting impatient.’
They set out for the runcible, where figures could be seen gathered around one of the buffers.
‘That you, Jane?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Head for control. Everything’s set up.’
One of the figures detached from the group and headed for the building nearest to the runcible. Jane and Cormac headed there also, and were soon inside, removing their masks. The temperature was twenty below, so they kept their suits on.
‘There you are,’ said Chaline, and gestured to the device in the centre of the room. It had the appearance of a font made of glass and chrome pipes. A duct crossed the room from it, heading in the direction of the runcible. Next to it stood a pedestal-mounted console Cormac could not help comparing to a lectern. Here was the chapel. The god was about to be installed in his rightful home.
‘I presume you have no more use for it now, and we can get on,’ was Chaline’s acid comment to Cormac.
‘Of course,’ said Cormac equably, refusing to rise to the bait. Chaline had been spoiling for a fight for the last three days.
Jane walked to the console, rested her case on it, opened the case and removed the Samarkand runcible AI. It was a squashed bronze cylinder with rounded ends, its dimensions being thirty centimetres by fifteen by ten. It was one of the most powerful minds known to the human race. Jane took it to the glass font and placed it into the receptacle made for it. Then she returned to the console and began working on the touch-controls, like a concert pianist. From the rim of the receptacle rose thousands of contacts to access the rim of the AI. It seemed for a moment as if it was surrounded by an army of platinum ants. Lights flickered in the glass column.
‘On-line,’ said Chaline, detaching the receiver from her comunit and holding it to her ear. ‘Tuning . . . singularity developing . . . We’re in—that’s it, we’re on the grid.’ Chaline grinned happily at Cormac, her resentment forgotten. Then her grin changed to an expression of astonishment. ‘Wait a minute . . . there’s a transmission already. How the hell did they manage it that quickly?’
Cormac was through the interior door to the covered walkway before he knew what he was doing. Chaline and Jane came after him. In a moment they stepped into the containment sphere. Between the horns of the runcible the cusp was shimmering like a sheet of mother-of-pearl. A man stepped through it; an old grey-haired Japanese dressed in stained and baggy monofilament overall.
‘Horace Blegg,’ said Cormac. ‘That’s
all I need.’
24
Horace Blegg: The immortal wanderer has long been a set piece of human myth, and how much more do we want him to exist in this age, when many feel that humans are no longer the arbiters of their own destiny? Blegg, so the story goes, is a man with supernatural powers that enabled him, in the twentieth century, to survive the destruction of his home city of Hiroshima by a primitive fission bomb. He is then said to have meddled with human destiny to the extent of insuring our spread across the galaxy, and the governance of us by AIs. Of course, we want this to be true! The myth assures us that we are greater, through him, than those silicon minds that do govern us. The whole story is of course absolute rubbish, and just a more modern version of Arthurian Romance.
From Quince Guide, compiled by humans
The houses, fast-build plascrete domes rather like giant igloos, were scattered wide apart amongst the conifers and native chequer trees of an old forest. No thought had been given to roads, so the town was obviously a new one, in terms of Viridian’s age, built after AGC use had become well established. The houses would also have self-contained energy sources and waste disposal. The only linkage they would have would be for optic cables and water: the latter essential, the former to prevent EM pollution. Stanton, watching the edge of this forest town from the shadow of a huge basalt slab, noted the AGC quartering the area. It’s paint job immediately identified it to him as local police. He had no doubt it had been Cheryl who had informed them, but any silencing he would have done would have been too late. She had an aug. She would have sent out a call immediately after Pelter’s damping device got out of range. At least this is what Stanton told himself. At the back of his mind was the knowledge that not so long ago he would have killed her, just in case.
Stanton moved from the slab’s shade into the green sunlight, and set out at a jog for the edge of the forest town. Every household there would no doubt possess one or more AGCs. So the first house he reached would probably provide what he needed—for the moment. He was within a hundred metres of that house when the AGC swerved in the sky and accelerated towards him on a tongue of flame. He swore and broke into a run. Twenty metres from the house, and a voice bellowed out above him:
‘Stop there! You, stop there!’
Stanton cut a swerving course across the boggy ground. There were two AGCs by a house, nestling under the spread of a huge chequer tree, its leaves the shape and size of playing cards casting a dappled emerald shade.
‘Stop or I shoot!’
Ten metres.
There was a crackle in the air and Stanton’s left arm jerked from electric shock. He dived and rolled behind a low, self-pruning box hedge. Another crackle and leaves fell from the hedge. Big space between him and the AGCs, and the man standing holding a pot plant. Small space between him and the door. Stanton ran at the door and took it out with his shoulder. Crashed into the room beyond. As he rolled from the wreckage, the air crackled behind him. He came up into a crouch, took in the woman standing in an open kitchen area holding some kind of package.
‘What the hell?’ the woman said.
‘Sorry about the door,’ said Stanton, and moved to peer through the window.
The police AGC crashed down through the trees, slid sideways towards the house, and landed heavily only a few metres from the door. Two policemen came from it fast, and headed straight for the door. They both appeared to be boosted. The first of them rolled through and came up into a crouch, with a stun gun levelled at the woman. He had half a second to realize his mistake before Stanton was on him. The mercenary stamped the back of his leg. As the officer reeled back, he caught him in a neck-lock, his right hand closing on the man’s gun hand as he turned him. The second officer came through more cautiously, only to walk straight into the blast. He was flung, jerking, back through the door, with small lightnings lacing his uniform. The first officer continued to struggle as Stanton tightened his lock. Eventually his struggles ceased as he blacked out. Stanton held the lock just a little longer to be sure, then released him. He went down on his face. A glance round showed him that a back door was open and the woman was gone. As he collected the two stun guns on his way to the police AGC, Stanton considered how much he had changed. A sleeper lock rather than just breaking the man’s neck. He felt almost civilized.
* * *
A blast of frigid air came in through the door as Thorn entered the shuttle. Cormac pointed to a bench seat and returned his attention to Blegg. The ancient Japanese unclipped the mask of the suit and let it hang to one side. His breath fogged the chill air. Cormac could not help but wonder if he had put on the suit—which a technician had hurriedly fetched for him—out of politeness. In the containment sphere, in his thin monofilament overalls, he had shown no sign of noticing the cold. Cormac unclipped his own mask.
‘You knew about the dracomen,’ he said.
‘I knew,’ Blegg acknowledged.
‘What else didn’t you tell me?’
‘We knew about the artefact as well. It was discovered during the initial survey, and left where it was. It was whole.’ Blegg leaned forwards and spoke loudly, as if Cormac was deaf. ‘No hurry . . . y’understand?’
Cormac nodded. ‘Is that all? Anything else you want to hold back, to keep me dancing?’
‘We knew the egg was adamantium. Not much else could have been learnt.’
‘The tunnel was made by the energy creature—or the dracomen.’
Blegg shrugged. ‘The Maker, yes . . . if it could hatch from an adamantium egg, making a tunnel would have been no problem . . .’ Blegg studied him carefully. ‘What do you think of Dragon’s explanation?’ he asked.
Cormac said, ‘I don’t know. Still not enough evidence to confirm or deny it. What do you think?’
‘Assume it’s the truth. Dragon might not have a great respect for human life, but why should it? There’s plenty to spare.’
‘All right, I’ll assume it’s the truth. How do I react to that truth?’ Cormac asked.
‘Your decision,’ said Blegg. ‘You’re in command here.’
Cormac snorted and studied Thorn. The Sparkind had a tightly controlled look to him. He averted his eyes from Cormac, then stared down at his hands. Abruptly he stood up and moved off into the wing of the shuttle.
‘My decision would be to get some sort of recompense for the deaths of ten thousand people. Of course, I would have to go to Viridian to get . . . recompense,’ said Cormac.
‘Viridian, yes,’ said Blegg, a hint of a nasty smile on his face. ‘Funny thing about that place: lot of activity there.’
Cormac felt a sinking sensation. There was more. There was always more.
Blegg went on. ‘On Cheyne you killed Angelina Pelter.’
‘I did. What has that to do with this?’
‘Young Arian shut things down,’ Blegg said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘You gave your testimony. None of the cell leaders was apprehended. Every one of them was killed by a metal-skin android.’
‘They had one . . . broken Golem?’
‘Very likely. We don’t know. Neither Pelter nor the android were apprehended either.’
‘Go on.’
‘Prior to these deaths, as I believe you know, Pelter managed to withdraw Separatist funds and his entire personal fortune from the Cheyne III Norver Bank. Shortly after those deaths the local police chased an AGC to the spaceport. It had, supposedly, Pelter and John Stanton aboard. The shuttle crashed and exploded. It took the police two solstan days to discover that the bodies they recovered were not those of Pelter or Stanton. A little retrospective investigation revealed that a trispherical craft called the Lyric launched just after the explosion. Your back-up team there was beginning to take an interest in this craft. It was, ostensibly, insystem and light cargo, only it had an underspace engine.’
Blegg looked round as Thorn returned. The Sparkind brought back three coffees. One he placed where he was sitting. The other two he handed to Cormac
and Blegg. Cormac pulled the tab on his coffee and wondered why Blegg was studying the soldier so intently.
‘Thank you, Thorn,’ said Blegg. ‘You know that personal agendas cannot be allowed.’
‘I know,’ said Thorn.
Blegg returned his attention to Cormac. ‘You know Huma?’ he asked.
Blegg’s face was so close Cormac could see the strange gold flecks in the irises of his eyes. His breath smelt of garlic.
‘It’s where the arms were being smuggled in from. The Lyric went there?’
Blegg smiled. ‘Yes, Pelter and Stanton were seen recruiting four mercenaries, and they had the android with them. This was information we recovered from what remained of a Golem ECS agent called Jill. The rest of her team has not yet been found. Pelter had them killed.’
‘You sure?’
‘Y’need to ask that?’
‘I guess not. I still don’t see how this all relates.’
‘It relates because a trispherical ship was blown in orbit above Viridian only one solstan day ago.’
Cormac leant back and sipped his coffee. ‘Coincidence is not that elastic,’ he said.
‘No, it is not.’ Blegg reached up and undid his coldsuit. He went on. ‘There are people on Huma who have taken to using a new and very efficient augmentation.’ He tossed something down on the bench between them. It was bean-shaped and reptilian. Cormac inspected it, then looked round at Thorn, who had a puzzled expression on his face. He looked back at Blegg, then down at the aug again. He prodded it with his finger. It was soft.
‘Biotech?’
Blegg nodded.
Cormac said, ‘I had intended only to take Aiden, Thorn, and Cento—if he’s in one piece by then.’
‘Have to ask: y‘want to carry on?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s the dracomen . . .’
‘No, I don’t want to take them.’
‘I think you should. You need every . . . source of information.’