GUPPY roars through the night, a demon unleashed. Front tires smash rocks out of the way. Fuck me if this isn’t going to leave a trail a mile wide for any idiot to follow. We’ll have to slow down before we ruin GUPPY’s battery, but right now we DO NOT HAVE THE TIME—
Simon, dear Simon, is waiting for them outside. He can’t walk very far, but he’s picked up his rifle and dragged his body, in its old man’s walk, to the hill overlooking the light-trees. I have some concern—there might be more of the DogAnts around—but Simon is determined. The back of his shirt is drenched with pus, but there is no blood, so I let him.
Anna is the first to reach him. They just look at each other, and for the first time I see they have that same look—that dead, bottomless stare, as if they’re seeing some kind of dark and terrible abyss between and beyond them. Then Simon pulls her into a hug, and the darkness softens on both their faces.
Milo comes into view, following sheepishly behind with GUPPY. I made him go back and recover what was left. Simon sees him over Anna’s shoulder.
In the light of the trees I see Simon’s face harden. Milo flinches. Simon holds his stare, his rifle almost-but-not-quite pointed at the man he dropped onto this planet with. Milo mumbles something and edges past them into the Hab.
I follow Milo into the Hab, giving Anna and Simon some privacy. He looks at my drone several times as if about to say something, but there is nothing I want to talk to him about. Instead I look to the skies, trying to call Ship, but there is no answer. Either she’s out of range, or she’s . . . gone.
NOTHING, I tell Milo. He staggers, bites his knuckle, and for the first time a sob escapes him, a rattling shake of the kind people make when they’ve been holding it in too long.
24
Day twenty-nine.
A dream. A scream. A blur. A sensation of being split among too many bodies, too much noise, too little signal.
A man. Long, filthy locks. A suit that, on closer inspection, is less a suit and more a bunch of scraps stapled together. A pale face, the kind that has never seen the sun, could be male, could be female, could be nothing and neither. Things that could have once been eyes, but now are a complex multi-camera setup that far outweighs mine for sophistication.
A Mercer. He lies sprawled on a hill. A flat, white, featureless hill, less of a visual than a data tag; above it, a flat, white, featureless sky, again less of an image than a suggestion.
I ping the Mercer on every front—audio, shortwave, light-pulse. Their implants tell me nothing, outputting just garbled strings of noise. They snarl and spit, and, improbably, they begin to laugh.
WHY ARE YOU HERE?
WHO ARE YOU?
WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING US?
“Another machine,” they chortle in Standard. The voice is rough and high. “Caught by another machine. Oh. Ah. Ahaha. Pitiful creature. Incomplete. Flesh forgets. Metal remembers. Aahahahaha.”
The white sky above us pulses once, twice, an ominous shade of green that tells me Ship is firing everything she has. A tether appears, shadow-thin and insubstantial, rotating against the sky.
The mad Mercer screams in laughter, blood and oil tearing down their cheeks from their elaborate optic mod. They make another lunge for the gun, dislocating parts of themself with the force. Whatever they’re running, they’ve got some serious augments underneath. “Flesh! Flesh!” it shrieks now, scrabbling in the dirt. “Incomplete, ahahaha, never complete, never, never, ahahahaha, never—”
I wake up.
There’s an old saying from my part of the world: first come the smiles, then the lies. Last comes gunfire.
I don’t know what long-dead bodhisattva said that. Nyogi Buddhism is full of little odds and ends like this, scavenged and hammered together over the ages, the scrap metal of wisdom turned into a working vehicle. Maybe it was Kubera, or Bishamonten, as my grandmother used to call him: the patron saint of those who follow the rules, spear in one hand, pagoda in the other. Or maybe it was Bo Dai, the laughing Buddha, fortune-teller, the smiling wanderer.
But it speaks well to something that happens when people are put under pressure.
Observe, then, the smiles.
First, I say, we will establish a perimeter. I show them by torchlight, modelling an area I can be reasonably confident of covering. DO NOT GO BEYOND THIS LINE.
They nod, equal parts terrified and shocked.
DO NOT SLEEP TONIGHT, I SAY. SIMON, MILO, TAKE FIRST WATCH. SHOOT ANYTHING THAT MOVES.
And while my most feeble human patrols with a gun that he probably can’t fire twice, I take stock of the situation.
To wit. We, a basic civilian salvage op, have been attacked. By Mercers. On Megabeasts. Our ship took them out for us. And was probably attacked in turn. We came here for a straight salvage job. Instead we’ve got the Charge of the Light Brigade by a bunch of babbling freaks.
If someone asked me about the probability of this happening, back when I first entered this system with my crew, I’d have said there was a higher chance of us getting attacked by giant sentient rubber ducks.
To wit, two. We have fled with our collective tails between our legs to our Hab, a day-and-something’s journey. GUPPY’s batteries are completely flat from the speeds we hit. Anna and Milo are also, shall we say, flat. We are largely a little Art Deco slum made of highly processed wood.
Giant sentient rubber ducks could take us down.
I throw myself into calculations. Probabilities of the retreat being tracked. Estimated size of the Mercer ship and estimated size of possible crew tallied against what charged us and how many probably survived. These calculations take the night.
Sunlight, cresting the cliff, shows me Simon making yet another laborious circuit around the Hab. He sticks to the strict perimeter I’ve enforced around our little base. He’s stripped to the chest, and I can’t help but notice the brown flesh, unhealthily pale, and the scars glistening pink on his back and chest. He limps and stumbles sometimes.
“Morning, OC,” he huffs, raising a hand in an exhausted greeting.
I let my drone pass on to Milo, who sitting in front of the busted generator, twisting bits of wire in his hands. The same twist, over and over again. He didn’t seem to notice me at all.
They are all hurting, and only Simon, who should be hurting more than most, is shuffling across to me, laying a hand on my panels, letting himself slide down slowly against the cold metal of my outer case.
“No luck with Ship?” he says softly.
I’ve done all I can. I’ve broadcast on every frequency, a loud, glaring SOS, PLEASE TALK TO ME in every communication protocol I know. Radio. Lights. Ultrahigh frequency sound. When that didn’t work, I created a very brief model of the Mercer ship versus ours. It’s of the junkyard rat variety, leaner and tighter than anything we have, with very sharp teeth. Our sleek and slightly bloated ship is slower, less suited to the cut and thrust of combat. Even with that weapons control software, fifty simulations out of a hundred have the Mercer rust bucket ripping our gentle idiot of a Ship apart. In thirty others they both die, locked together like lovers in a suicide pact. Only a twenty percent chance of survival, then, and only a fraction of that leaves Ship with enough parts to haul us back.
“Well,” says Simon optimistically, “at least nothing happened last night.”
THAT’S TRUE.
“So are we, uh, going to talk about what happened?”
I don’t know what the hell happened back there, any more than you do, Simon. The mad talk about the City. The ones who attacked us weren’t the Mercers I know: they were barely more than barbarians with implants, more Yanina Michaels, lobotomized and dysfunctional.
But the smiles are important. Or, as my father would have said, don’t let them see you sweat. Thanks, Dad, I’m a giant metal box.
MAYBE SHOOTING YANINA MICHAELS WAS AN ACT OF AGGRESSION, I postulate. THEY CHARGED US. WE SICCED SHIP ON THEM. THEN THEIR SHIP HIT BACK.
Unwittingly, the words of the Light Briga
de come back to me. Ours not to reason why; ours but to do and die.
Simon gives me a bit of a deadpan stare. “Bit surprising,” he says at last, in carefully controlled tones, “that they didn’t talk to us first. Or use guns. I mean, maybe the Megabeast is the weapon of the week, but it’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”
WEIRD, I agree.
“You, uh, think we got them all, or are there more out there?”
I don’t know. My small tribe of drones and the handful of spiders cannot maintain the watch pattern for too long. Unlike my prized Boomerang, the spiders need frequent recharging. The remains of the extractor—and thus the spider transmission control—have been placed inside my shell, which lets me give it a bit of juice from my lines. Which means neither drones nor spiders can stray too far from me, and we’re lower on power than ever before. So I’m reduced to using them in staggered shifts, sending them out in looping runs that intersect with each other and overlap with the charger.
The smiles are important. So are the lies.
NOTHING’S FOLLOWED US.
“I want to go check,” says Simon, and winces. “But I guess we’ll have to wait until I can move ten feet, eh?”
How ironic that Simon, struck down by disease, is now my most functional asset. I switch to Anna, who is crouched on the wall, staring so fiercely into the sun that I fear she might blind herself. She has Simon’s rifle. Red eyes glare with exhaustion. Or maybe retina damage.
“Bunkers?”
Bunkers are difficult. Double up on power sources. Double the walls, double the guards, double everything. Which assumes a functional team, which I don’t have.
“Any word from Ship?”
I’VE BEEN TRYING EVERY HOUR, BUT NOTHING.
“Maybe you should get out of here,” she says at last. “Get into orbit; call for help. I’ve seen the fuel tanks underneath your base.”
I’M NOT LEAVING ANYONE BEHIND.
“Why, though?”
MY JOB IS TO GET YOU ALL BACK SAFE.
“No, your job is to get the salvage out,” she says. “I’ve worked for things like you before. Never met anything stupid enough to stay back on a canned op. You’re a bad machine, OC.”
She switches off. A sudden halt. Back to staring at the sun. That’s the third time in two hours. To this I have no response. I wait, drone by her shoulder, checking her vital patterns. I suspect she goes into some kind of open-eye REM in these on-off cycles.
Then Milo, at the workbench.
Milo has no excuses. None. He’s as exhausted as Anna, but Milo is going to suffer.
Our base, I explain to him, can be taken down by a giant rubber duck.
“I know,” he says.
ANNA FROZE. AND YOU FUCKING RAN. WHICH MEANS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SHOOT WORTH A DAMN IS SIMON.
That stings him. Even I can see it.
SO BUILD DEFENSES, I say. BUILD. DOUBLE THE WALLS, DOUBLE THE OBSERVATION POSTS, DOUBLE EVERYTHING.
To pass the time, I fly the drone around here and there, scouting for materials. Technically, Milo’s supposed to log everything we have, but practically, that never happens. There has to be some form of weaponry I can build with wood, stone, metal. Something we can repair. I flick through weapons designs, looking for something the BASE printer can handle.
“Maybe try old stuff,” says Anna with great effort, jolting herself temporarily out of her funk.
I show her some designs. She frowns. “No, older,” she says. “I mean, there was a time when we didn’t have this shit lying around, right? We had just wood and rocks and shit?”
Right. I think I know what you mean, Anna. Ancient wooden artillery—a trebuchet? No, if I had enough people to operate one of those, I’d just give them guns.
A ballista, perhaps. I can work off the Ancient Earth designs for oxybeles or gastraphetes. The gastraphetes is an inefficient design: I need siege equipment. The oxybeles needs a basic winch, a universal joint for aiming the thing, and a set of springs to be wound back: the rest of it can be slapped together, and it can shoot rocks if it has to.
I take the designs from antiquity and test-sim them while Anna stares off into the woods, occasionally shifting to look downrange and peer down her rifle sights.
Effective range with the average seven-pound rock lying around: two thousand feet. Velocity: nowhere near enough. It might have done nicely for Old Earth warmongers, but at most it’ll just give a Megabeast a slight headache the next day.
Blast and damnation. May all Mercers, Megabeasts and miscellaneous misanthropes be reborn as a dumpster fire.
I make some improvements. Test. Improve. Test. We have enough graphene to set up an electronic loader; the hinges can be under motor control; and if I make Milo soak the wood in thermoplastic, literally drench it, maybe the damn thing won’t explode into kindling. And if I swap out the metal springs from my landing legs for braided cabling . . .
The sun climbs in the sky. I wait for Anna to switch on again and ask her idly why she joined ORCA.
“Less paperwork than the UN. And, uh . . .” She chokes a bit. “There was this girl on Seti Sentaurus. Rich kid, ran away because she wanted to help people. Worked as a doctor on the asteroid mining colony.”
GO ON.
“Her name was Anna,” says Anna. “She died about a month after our first date. Engine failure on a transport. They hit an asteroid and cracked the hull. I think she . . . I think she suffocated.”
Ah. So the mystery of the name is solved.
I’M SURE SHE’S IN GOD’S HANDS NOW, I say. I have her religious affiliation on file as a Christian.
“Maybe,” says Anna. “But God is dead, Hell is empty, and the devils are all here.”
Her hands are shaking very slightly. She switches off again.
By the time she comes back, I have a design I’m reasonably happy with. It can lob a seven-pound rock a little over four thousand feet. My spiders can fire it: they’re used to hauling heavy materials around, and those legs have a great deal of torque. And I figure if I can get the thermoplastic coating just right, I can use the plasma torches in such a way that the rocks we fire will literally be on fire as they whoosh towards the enemy.
Even a Megabeast might think twice before charging into a tiny meteorite heading their way. I take the designs to Milo, who by now is lost in the supercharged roar of the BSE printer.
“We’ll need more material!” he yells above the noise, hauling block after block away towards the unprotected edge of the compound.
I wait until he comes back. “And they won’t be much use!”
Again. He slumps, exhausted, against the printer. “We’ll need long logs, counterweights from the quarry, large amounts of rope,” he says. “I’m exhausted, OC.”
FINISH THE WALL. THEN SLEEP. WE SHALL START BUILDING THESE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Dawn breaks. No Mercers have charged us from the hills, no Megabeasts, nothing. I show the designs to Anna.
It takes her a while, but some part of her does come back for good. Maybe something will come out of this. Then she stops. “This is just a psych test, isn’t it?”
WHAT?
“You’re just trying to get me up and running again, aren’t you? Operational bloody parameters, or whatever the fuck you’re running in there.”
NO, I say, genuinely confused. ANNA, I’M TRYING TO HELP.
No response.
ANNA, I say, I’VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE. I DON’T KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS. I’M TRYING TO KEEP US ALIVE.
Silence.
FINE. DIE ON THE WALL IF YOU WANT TO.
I mourn for Ship. I mourn for Boomerang, the grand failed experiment. It seems like years have passed since it was shot down.
I switch to Simon patrolling.
HOW’RE YOU FEELING? I ask Simon, training my cameras on his wasted body.
“I’ll be alright,” he says. “I’m used to this.”
YOU’RE USED TO LANDING ON STRANGE PLANETS AND HAVING YOUR OWN BODY TRY TO SCREW YOU OVER?
> He chuckles weakly. “The pain. Reminds me of home, actually. The jacks they fit into us, they were two way, so you felt everything in the game. Every sword fight. Every bullet. Every goddamn hacker trying to knock you off the high-score list. Felt like I was half asleep before. Feels like I’m awake now.”
THE PAIN YOU FEEL, I say gently, IS NOT VIRTUAL.
“Nothing’s virtual, OC. If it’s real to you, that’s all that matters.” He props himself up, using one of the lander legs for support, and, eyes closed, basks in the sun, gritting his teeth. “Has Ship got back in touch?”
NO. BUT NOW THERE IS HOPE.
“It’s weird to hear a machine talking about hope.”
I WAS HUMAN ONCE.
He chews on the grass and spits it out. “You know this stuff makes your breath smell better,” he says.
THAT IS NOT RELEVANT.
“Yeah, because you don’t have a sense of smell, OC,” he says. “The Hab stinks. Everyone stinks.”
I’M AWARE OF WHAT SMELL CAN DO TO SOMEONE, I say, thinking of Anna and the corpses. ANYWAY. I HAVE SOME WORK FOR YOU TO DO. WE NEED TO MAINTAIN WATCH.
“Pain is good,” he says softly, as if he didn’t hear me. “Pain is how you know you’re alive.”
The sun climbs in the sky. Anna retires to her new chalet, Milo to the workshop. Neither Anna nor Simon have spoken a word to Milo, and vice versa. Neither of them has eaten, either. Milo is working on the farm, digging up potatoes. There’s bits of dirt in his stubble, and his hands are bleeding slightly.
I don’t like to intrude on people’s privacy, but in her nice, newly constructed bedroom that still smells of setting thermoplastic, Anna lies flat on her pallet, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.
I’ve tried talking to her. I’ve even, after much navigation of Overseer-crew relationship protocol, dug out some songs buried in my databanks. Pop, upbeat? I have some public domain stuff—“POP/STARS” from a virtual band called K/DA. It’s catchy. Very catchy. If I still had feet, I’d tap along to this.
“Go away,” says Anna in a monotone.
The Salvage Crew Page 12