Dark Intelligence

by Neal Asher

  Disruption sufficient; immediate danger eliminated.

  Now she was into the Caligula’s weapons. The Glory was shedding its cargo, using its fast dump mechanisms—installed against interception during potential Polity police actions. The captain had been reluctant to comply, but his second not so much so after the Golem tore out the captain’s throat. Isobel fired the Caligula’s particle cannons, turning each in the procession of coffins into white-hot plasma. It was enough, for the enemy was in an inactive state and unlikely to recover from such a burn, though elements of it might remain in existence.

  Potential threat eliminated.

  Isobel swung round to the bulkhead door, as the space door closed and the hold recharged with air. As that other thing receded inside her, the predator took full control. She surged forwards, issuing subspacially generated hardfield shears and went straight through the bulkhead. The woman was stepping from the maintenance hatch even at that moment and Isobel targeted her with her own particle cannon, one shot turning her head to flaming vapour. Morgan tried to run but she came down on him like a giant iron fly swat. She rolled over him as she pursued the others, leaving just a smear of offal behind. The other three she brought down just a few yards later.

  She moved on through the ship, no longer human, no longer even able to consider regaining control. And she hunted, killed and fed.

  AMISTAD

  Through thousands of eyes Amistad watched The Rose draw closer to Masada, passing a defence installation that contained one of the new gravity weapons. This device could have picked up the ship in a gravity wave and tossed it into the face of Calypse, or into the sun. But the weapon and its controlling submind remained somnolent, castrated by legalities and the protectorate status of this world. Amistad felt a frustration more related to his war drone past than his present warden status.

  “Let that ship through, and allow it to land.”

  This communication channel had opened just a short while after The Rose had been knocked out of U-space by the USER and intercepted by the Garrotte. It was a channel that hadn’t opened since Amistad’s last communications with the Weaver, the newly evolved Atheter. This was some years ago now, when, under the Weaver’s control, a hooder known as the Technician had destroyed a rogue Atheter killing machine. Thereafter, the Weaver had negotiated with the human ambassador of Masada, Leif Grant. Other points regarding the governing of Masada had been settled between Amistad and Weaver’s Atheter AI. But after the negotiations the Weaver had lost interest, and all communications concerning the running of this world had been from its AI. However, this directive to let The Rose land had come direct from the Weaver, who had now disappeared.

  Amistad had immediately asked why such a vessel, containing such a dangerous entity, should be let through, but there had been no reply from the Weaver. Similar questions directed towards the Weaver’s Atheter AI had received nil response too. Perhaps the AI just didn’t have the spare processing power to reply, since it was now busy interfering with Polity computing all around this world.

  “How are you now?” Amistad asked.

  The watch drone, currently stuck sideways in a mud bank a hundred kilometres from the viewing platform, emitted some hisses and squeaks before replying. The drone hadn’t been a Polity employee but had turned up one day, penetrating all sorts of defences, to watch the Weaver. Unusually, the Weaver had not objected to its presence through the AI, and Amistad had quickly routed over an employment contract. The drone had watched the Weaver for over a year without problems, but now there was a problem.

  “Like an induction wave tore out my grav,” replied the crab-like drone.

  Via its AI, the Weaver had requested much in the way of Polity manufacturing equipment and materials. Upon receiving that equipment, it had at once taken it into its baroque flute grass home. Here all the spyware and pin-head watchers had immediately been deactivated. Polity scanning devices had also failed to penetrate its home for over a year now. Using this equipment, the Weaver had apparently started producing various devices—though these could only be seen when it brought them out of its home. Some of these were perfectly understandable, like the atomic shear it used to cut flute grass. It had also constructed a complex hardfield generator, which it used to fold and weave both grasses and various other materials. Other devices were impenetrable, like the object it used to pull penny molluscs from their rocks, then set them floating while it fed on them. Amistad had at first thought it used hardfields to achieve this, but subsequent investigation detected interference with Van De Walls forces and subtle boson fields. It was this device the Weaver had used to bring down the watchful crab drone.

  Amistad briefly replayed the incident. The Weaver had set out on one of its long perambulations, stopping to sample the odd tricone, which it seemed to relish. It occasionally snacked on penny oysters, which it always shifted through the air in precisely measured and unchanging patterns. As usual the crab drone was in tow. But today, during the Weaver’s third snack on those little molluscs, it had sent them into a pattern never seen before. The drone had moved closer and that was when the complex grav pulse had hit it and, with a screeing sound, it had dropped out of the sky into the mud bank. The Weaver had continued feeding for a while before moving off, but what it did thereafter wasn’t known.

  The drone being knocked out of play shouldn’t have mattered because watch satellites, arrayed all around Masada, were capable of closely inspecting absolutely anything on the surface. But, shortly after the Weaver polished off its last penny oyster, forty watch satellites—those covering the main continent—simply shut down. Surface surveillance had also crashed and any attempt to gather data from privately owned scanning devices was disrupted. Amistad had been trying for some time to reactivate both the satellites and the surface stuff. But it had soon become apparent that something, presumably the Atheter AI, was interfering on AI levels. Even a request for gabbleduck sightings was being interfered with, with responses to this being scrambled over communication channels and locator beacons suddenly not knowing where they were.

  “The Weaver doesn’t want to be watched,” said the drone.

  “He’s up to something,” interjected the Garrotte AI from out in space. “Something involving Penny Royal.”

  “When superior minds start stating the obvious,” said Amistad, “I tend to start questioning the appellation ’superior’.”

  “He doesn’t trust us,” said the Garrotte. “After the initial negotiations about the protectorate status of this world, he began playing for time. Everything he has done and said since then has been designed to baffle and mislead.”

  The world had first been subsumed into the Polity after the fall of its human theocracy but, under Polity protocols, the discovery of an alien autochthon meant it could not be part of the Polity. So the Polity had decided to “protect” this alien on this alien world. Seen through other eyes, that protection translated as isolation and control.

  “In the same position, would you trust us?” the crab drone asked from its mud bank.

  “Probably not, but I’d tend to trust a loose cannon like Penny Royal even less,” said the Garrotte. “I would guess this involves some weapon—some way for the Weaver to attack us.”

  “That’s because you were formatted to think in martial terms,” said Amistad.

  “As were you.”

  “I was, but my horizons have since widened.”

  “So what do you reckon?” asked the crab drone.

  Amistad thought about the question for a whole microsecond. “I don’t think the Garrotte is right about the Weaver looking for a way to attack. More likely he is trying to obtain something to change his status from that of a protected sentient—to strengthen his bargaining position.”

  “And Penny Royal is supplying that?”

  “Possibly,” said Amistad, now studying the deep scan results of The Rose as it descended into the atmosphere of Masada. “Consider that ship’s hardfield,” he added.

&nb
sp; “Seriously advanced hardfield linked into U-space tech,” the Garrotte surmised. “So a defensive system. I guess that makes sense.”

  It did, Amistad felt, though the masses of singular mem-storage units aboard that ship didn’t. And, really, bringing some sort of defensive system here for the Weaver just seemed too simple for Penny Royal. One also had to wonder what the black AI was getting in exchange. Atheter knowledge or technology? Should Penny Royal be allowed such?

  The Garrotte now added, “Maybe we should relax the rules a little and inadvertently send a multi-megaton CTD imploder The Rose’s way?”

  “It wouldn’t work,” interjected a distant mind, causing an immediate “oh shit” reaction amidst the three. “Events in the Graveyard are becoming clearer—the defensive technology you have spotted would stop a CTD dead.”

  “So how should I react?” Amistad enquired of Earth Central.

  “You don’t. You just watch.”

  Amistad’s frustration increased and when Earth Central again withdrew, he did some hard thinking. After a moment he incorporated data from one of his subminds—one that had been in constant contact with a recent arrival on this world. And then he made direct contact with that arrival himself.

  “How is your information-gathering exercise proceeding?” he asked.

  “Well enough,” Riss replied, though without much enthusiasm. “But now, since it’s the great Amistad himself talking to me, rather than his submind, my suspicions have been aroused.” The snake drone and Spear were in Chattering, back in their hotel after their recent visit to Markham’s. Now updated by his submind, Amistad was fully aware of the events that had occurred there. And, in the light of them, he was considering his options. He could tell them Penny Royal had arrived and allow them to respond, or he could keep them locked down in Chattering as a bargaining chip. They, or at least Spear, seemed to have a part to play in the black AI’s manipulations—though what that part involved wasn’t entirely clear. However, even as Amistad weighed the options, the decision was taken away from him.

  “I see,” said Riss.

  Amistad immediately checked his communications security, but there were no holes. Riss and Spear had just received a message from the Lance, and Spear had jumped out of a chair at the news. They now knew Penny Royal had arrived, and were being updated on its descent to Masada.

  “Of course you were about to tell us all about that, weren’t you?” said Riss.

  “Of course,” Amistad replied, giving away nothing, then re-delegated his submind to watch the two. Next, clamping down on his war drone frustration, he tried another communications channel—another one that hadn’t been open for some time.

  “So what are you up to?” he asked.

  “Restoring balance,” Penny Royal replied at once.

  “You still have your eighth state of consciousness,” Amistad stated.

  “I do.”

  “It is guilty of murder.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are a fugitive.”

  “On Masada, which is not legally part of the Polity,” said the AI. “Perhaps you need to talk to the Weaver about that.”

  Of course, the Polity couldn’t go after Penny Royal without the Weaver’s consent. If they’d wanted to “arrest” Penny Royal, it should have been done outside Masada’s atmosphere limits—and even then they’d have been on dubious legal ground. The Weaver essentially owned Masada and had a claim on the entire Masadan system. Only the protectorate status of this world gave the Polity leeway out there. It was all, legally, very murky—just the kind of murk criminals like to hide themselves in.

  “You are bringing a defensive system for the Weaver,” Amistad stated.

  “Yes.”

  Yes? The affirmative struck Amistad as far too easy. Penny Royal was up to something more complex than just bringing a defensive system. And what about Spear? Where did he fit in?

  “What do you get in return?”

  “Balance.”

  “So you’ve turned into an altruist?”

  “What I am and what I will be is yet to be decided. And whether I will be, too.”

  “Now you’re being deliberately obscure.”

  “I will enjoy a further exchange with you, Amistad, but not here, and only when your tether has been cut.”

  Com shut down.

  Amistad chewed that over. He was bound to this world so long as it remained a protectorate; so long as it required a warden. A defensive system, no matter how advanced, was not something that could change the status of this world so definitively. Definitely something else …

  Masada’s warden reopened the channel to the Garrotte which had so abruptly closed previously.

  “Nothing else gets in here without me knowing, do you understand?”

  “Difficult now the USER’s down.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “I can cause local U-space disruptions with my missiles—knock most things out as they come in-system—but if they’re targeted at Masada itself, I won’t have a lot of time for scanning and analysis thereafter.”

  “Then you’d better react at AI speeds, hadn’t you?”

  “Certainly,” said the Garrotte, obviously waiting for something more.

  “If you don’t have time to get a response from me, in a priority situation you have carte blanche.”

  “At last,” sighed the Garrotte.

  BLITE

  To allow for Masada’s boggy surface, The Rose lowered landing feet that spread monomer sheets between their toes. This mimicked the webbed feet of some great bird, and would prevent them having to constantly use anti-grav to prevent the ship sinking down through the rhizome mat.

  “So what is that?” Brond asked, gazing ahead through the bridge screen.

  “That,” said Blite, “is the Atheter AI.”

  The building before them looked like an ancient temple abandoned in the Masadan wilderness, with its domed roof supported by a ring of pillars. In its floor, it housed a huge disc of memcrystal, which in turn housed the only known Atheter AI in existence.

  “So we just notched up from being in a dangerous situation to being in a lethal one, huh?”

  “I don’t know that it’s ever been anything but lethal,” Blite replied. “I would say that we now find ourselves seriously out of our league. This is big shit. This is a game where entry level should be planetary governor and above.” He sat back, checked some of the displays before him and noted that the hold door had opened. “I’m going outside,” he decided abruptly, and stood up.

  “Maybe not too smart,” said Ikbal.

  Blite turned to glare at him, ready to bawl him out, but Ikbal pointed to another display. Apparently there were three hooders not far away. Blite deflated somewhat but insisted, “Okay, I’ll visit the armoury, but I’m still going outside.” He suspected the hooders wouldn’t be a problem, because Penny Royal was probably outside too and that would put off even for those voracious hunters.

  As he headed back out of the bridge, he noted Brond and Ikbal standing too, doubtless intending to follow. He considered saying something to put them off, then reconsidered—he wasn’t their mother. The rest showed no inclination to come. Perhaps they were the sensible ones.

  Opening up the armoury, he selected a portable particle cannon he’d obtained in the Graveyard, cutting it out of the claw of a much-decayed prador first-child. He also hung a couple of sonic grenades on his belt. Leaving the armoury door open, he then headed to his cabin, shucked off the soiled shipsuit he’d been wearing since the Rock Pool, and selected an enviro-suit from his wardrobe. He was about to put this on, but suddenly felt as grubby as he actually was, and decided to take a shower. It was almost as if he was preparing for some final battle on some level, some endgame event. Twenty minutes later he stepped out of The Rose’s airlock onto a ramp. But instead of descending, he headed to one side, climbing a ladder leading to the upper hull. Brond and Ikbal were waiting for him, trying to look cool and casual despite th
e company just a few yards away. Nearby, a giant flower of black blades balanced on a stem of plaited silver stood swaying in some unfelt wind.

  They’d brought pulse-rifles with them and Blite wondered why—the weapons would be ineffective against hooders. But then, after a moment’s consideration, he understood how they felt. The weapons were a comfort.

  “I thought you were heading straight out,” said Ikbal accusingly.

  “Yeah, I thought so too,” added Brond.

  “I took a shower,” said Blite, feeling far more casual than the other two were trying to appear as he unshouldered his weapon. He propped it against a sensor cone protruding from the hull.

  “Anything occurred meanwhile?”

  “Nothing much,” said Ikbal, “except that.” He stabbed a finger out into the flute grasses, where what looked like the upper part of some giant’s black spinal column lay just visible. Blite swallowed drily. There was a hooder out here, close, well within striking distance of them. He then remembered just how dangerous these things were. Even being inside The Rose didn’t necessarily mean they were safe, if such a creature decided to attack.

  As he watched, the hooder abruptly rose up, curving round and away from them. He realized it was circling something out there. Then, scanning beyond it, he could see one of the other hooders—also circling something. Off to one side there was another disturbance that might be the final one of the three Ikbal had detected.

  “They possess a vague memory of the servant war machines they once were,” whispered Penny Royal. “And they now become confused by the new behaviour of the gabbleducks, them being the devolved descendants of those the hooders once served.”

  Penny Royal was very good at providing answers to questions Blite hadn’t asked, but was a bit obscure when it came to the direct ones he did ask.

  The closest hooder again halted, this time at a greater distance from the ship, and settled down into the grasses. The disturbance it had been circling briefly came into view. It was indeed a gabbleduck.