by Neal Asher
"Goodbye, Sheen," said Spencer. "The next person you encounter will be the AI that takes apart your mind and turns it into a report for ECS."
After a little while the sounds Sheen was making tapered off to a sighing. Cormac crossed his arms and watched for a while longer.
"Is it necessary for us to be here any longer?" he finally enquired.
"Why?" asked Spencer. "Are you uncomfortable with all this?"
"No, bored, and Gorman was going to buy me a beer or two."
Spencer waved her hand in dismissal.
Some hours later, Cormac returned, and watched the blank-faced drooling thing that had been Sheen being wheeled out on a gurney to be taken to the spaceport. He thought it good that in her new incarnation she would serve some useful purpose, beyond that his concern was nil.
"Waky waky," said Gorman, slamming into the room and whipping the heat-sheet from Cormac's body—his presence turning on the light.
Cormac's instincts told him he had been asleep for about thirty seconds, but his aug told him precisely fifty-five minutes had passed since his consciousness fled into the pillow.
His instincts also told him that his immediate course of action should be to punch Gorman on the nose, turn off the light and return to bed. However, he swung his legs over the side and sat on its edge for a moment, deliberately not swearing at his unit leader, since that was precisely what Gorman expected.
"Some problem?" Cormac asked.
"Get your stuff together," said Gorman, scanning the room's sparse collection of belongings and frowning, "we're shipping out."
"Why?"
"Apparently Agent Spencer will be giving us chapter-and-verse aboard the attack ship," Gorman explained.
Now Cormac did swear, and his unit leader grinned. He had known that if the fact that they were still under orders from Spencer wasn't enough to get a reaction, then knowing they would shortly be aboard an attack ship would. His work done, Gorman departed whistling tunelessly and leaving the door open behind him.
Cormac stood up, walked over to close the door, then returned to his bedside locker from which he removed a self-heating coffee and a stim-patch. He pulled the tab on the coffee and set it down, and after stripping off its backing pressed the stim-patch down on his forearm. He pulled on disposable undergarments, his envirosuit and then dragged his pack out of a cupboard, into which it took him only a moment to shove a few more belongings, and by that time the stimulant was kicking in and the coffee steaming. Next he released his pulse-rifle from its coded rack by pressing his hand against the palm-lock beside it. The clamps dropped open and he took the weapon out and hung it by its strap from his shoulder. From under his pillow he took Pramer's thin-gun, which he shoved into his belt, then he was ready—just in time to receive a demand through his aug for his presence outside the barracks. Sipping hot coffee, he headed out.
Gorman, Travis and Crean awaited him in the darkness outside, standing beside a low-slung ATV with big, smooth tyres, its chameleon-paint body only revealed in this darkness by its scratches and unpainted replacement components. He noted that only Gorman possessed a pack, it lying on the plasticrete grating beside his leg. The two Golem carried nothing, not even weapons, and they wore chameleoncloth fatigues oversuited with white paperwear for courtesy's sake. Upon seeing Cormac, Gorman immediately hoisted up his pack, turned to the ATV and pulled open its side door to reveal the lit interior. It seemed almost as if he was opening a door in the very darkness. He climbed inside, Crean and Travis following. Cormac took the opportunity to employ a visual enhancement program in his aug, which made everything surrounding him more visible, but turned the body of the ATV into something that kept flickering in and out of visibility. When he ducked into the vehicle he saw that Gorman and Crean had taken the two front seats, Gorman in the driving seat, while the two behind were for himself and Travis. Cormac shoved his pack in the space behind the remaining seat and climbed in, closing the door behind him.
"Where to?" he asked.
"Where you came in," Gorman replied, immediately setting the ATV into motion.
The landing field was fifty miles from here, so Cormac could not understand why they were using a ground vehicle to head for an apparently urgent rendezvous there. He didn't have time to ask just then as he quickly strapped himself in before Gorman threw the ATV round the corner at the end of this street in the military township. The vehicle, with its computer-controlling suspension, tyre pressure, individual wheel torque and the actual grip of the tyres, shot around the corner as if on rails and continued accelerating.
"Okay," he said, "why on the ground?"
"Travis," said Gorman, concentrating on his driving.
The Apollonian Golem turned to Cormac. "Though you are the prime target, having offed a considerable number of Separatists here, those surviving won't balk at killing us too, since we are also responsible for many deaths."
"It's still not clear to me why we're not flying."
"Agent Spencer's departing gift to the forces here was to request our presence over an uncoded channel," Travis explained. "Sheen's deconstruction has revealed that the remaining Separatists have missile launchers concealed within the vicinity. The AI has calculated a high probability that a launcher will be deployed to shoot at the automated gravcar that will depart in about four minutes."
"I see," said Cormac, awaiting further explanation but receiving none.
Gorman had now taken them into a track winding between the carnage of felled skarches left by the Prador vessel's crash landing. All around lay a jumble of thick trunks draped in dry leaves, jags of cellulose spearing into the air and trailing fibres like frayed rope, the whole scene scattered with the bright yellow-green of new sprouts stretching up towards the sky. Even with augmentation all this was only just visible through the screen—Gorman had not put on the lights so he must also be using his own visual augmentation. Soon the track began winding to the left around a hill, past a couple of parked autodozers which had been used to clear the track, then turning uphill. Here, where the hill had sheltered the area from the direct shockwave from the crash landing, the skarches were still standing, and beginning to sprout grassy yellow flowers, but upon reaching the top of the hill they found it utterly clear of vegetation. Gorman skidded the vehicle to a stop and disengaged the drive.
"How long?" he asked.
"About a minute," Crean replied.
"Let's take a look then," he said, turning to Cormac, who opened the door.
They climbed out into a sultry evening, some local animal making a gobbling sound from downslope in a deadfall. Gorman nodded to a nearby stone promontory and led the way up to it. From here they could see the pattern of felled skarches spearing inland to where the Prador ship had crashed. The vessel was invisible behind the distant hills of detritus it had thrown up, but the work lights created a sunrise glow over there. Directly below them lay the military township, partially conjoined to the shore city, and beyond lay the sea, a couple of ships and some smaller boats visible upon it.
"The missile could be right here you know," commented Travis.
"I doubt it," said Gorman, "but let's hope not." He added, "Here it comes."
Even as he spoke a gravcar rose from the township, its navigation lights switching on as it accelerated up and out to the left of them. Almost immediately there came a flash down in the skarch wreckage perhaps two or three miles to their right, and a dim spot of light ascended, curved over, and began heading towards the car.
"Close," said Gorman, "but I win, I think."
Something flickered and the missile briefly trailed a luminescent green cloud before, with a thunderclap, turning into a long cloud of fire.
"Laser," commented Travis.
"Now the bet is on as to whether—"
There now came another thunderous crash to their right from the missile's launch site. Peering over there Cormac saw the ground seem to bubble up for a moment then erupt in a localized explosion.
"Rail-gun
strike," he said, just to try and feel part of all this.
"Exactly," said Travis, turning to Gorman, "which negates the bet." He grinned crazily. "You thought ECS would use a particle beam."
Gorman shrugged. "Fifty-fifty really, once the launcher was located outside of any populated areas."
"And if it had been fired from the city?" Cormac enquired.
Gorman turned to him. "We had squads decked-out in night gear ready to move in once the power supply in the grid area concerned was cut."
Cormac nodded. They knew all this was going to happen and had been making bets on how it would happen, which all brought home to him that, though he was the fourth man in this Sparkind unit, he was not actually part of it yet.
"Let's go," said Gorman.
They returned to the ATV to continue their journey to the makeshift spaceport on this world. As Cormac stepped inside the vehicle after the others, he pulled the stim-patch from his arm and discarded it, reclined his seat and was soon dozing fitfully, only coming fully awake an hour later as they arrived at their destination. Through the screen he saw a ship down on the acres of plasticrete: a lumpen vessel like a giant beetle, battle-scarred and old and with ramps down from which a row of gravtrucks were disembarking before rising into the air to fall into a precisely quadrate formation. The four departed the ATV and began heading towards this vessel.
"I would have liked to have bet on both the firing position of that launcher and the weapon deployed against it from orbit," he commented to Gorman.
"Would you have won?" Gorman asked.
"Yes," said Cormac. "They would have wanted to be close to the city to fire the missile but not actually in the city where they could be located and apprehended. If they'd known we had anything up there capable of taking them out, they would not have fired at all. And a rail-gun strike was used because though it would kill whoever was near the launcher, it would leave evidence for investigation, whereas a particle beam strike would have incinerated everything… also the beam strike might well have started a fire in all that dead skarch wood, which would have required further resources to extinguish."
"Good job we didn't include you," said Gorman.
"Why didn't you include me?"
"There was no certainty you would be coming offworld with us until just ten minutes before we left—it seemed that the AIs were having some debate about that."
"Why am I coming with you?"
"Two reasons," Gorman replied. "The first concerns our mission to capture Sheen. I've seen the analysis of everything that happened in there. You killed Pramer—without much hesitation it would seem."
"And the second reason."
"I'll leave Agent Spencer to tell you about that."
Soon they were aboard the large shuttle and ensconced in one of its cabins with the Polity agent. The explanation was quite simple:
"Carl Thrace," Spencer supplied.
The cabin was cramped and seemed as packed with equipment as Spencer's office down in the military encampment. The two Golem stood back against one wall while Gorman snagged the only free chair and Cormac sat on a plasmel crate which, by its label, contained fragmentation grenades. Cormac wondered if Spencer dragged around a collection of stuff like this wherever she went, or if she had merely taken a cabin previously vacated by another of her kind.
When no one else seemed inclined to ask, Cormac enquired, "What about him?"
Spencer was sitting at a cluttered desk gazing at a screen, occasionally pressing buttons and manipulating a ball-control she held in her right hand. "After searching through millions of hours of scan data the Hagren AI eventually managed to track his course from when he abandoned you in the Dramewood," she said without looking up. "The ATV delivered him to a rendezvous with an old hydrocar limousine—" Now she did look up. " — driven by Sheen, who took him to a guest house in the old city. The data showed no sign of him leaving the guest house, but Sheen was kind enough to inform us that, as well as having syntheflesh patches for concealing weaponry, Carl has a whole kit for drastically altering his appearance. The AI checked its recordings and tracked everyone who left the hotel—all but one have been tracked down and eliminated from the search." She now turned her screen towards them to show a portly individual with yellowish and slightly scaly skin, and mouth tendrils that wound into a large spadelike beard. He was clad in brown leather and wore leather trilby. "He's calling himself Marcus Spengler now."
"I'm still not quite sure why I'm here," said Cormac.
Spencer eyed him for a moment. "There was some discussion about whether to allow you to continue in the Sparkind. Though you have shown an aptitude for the job, your training is lacking. The powers that be were considering sending you for further training while the rest of your unit—" She flicked a glance at the other three. " — took a vacation."
"Damn," said Gorman. "What made 'em change their minds?"
The room lurched at that moment and a deep vibration shook the vessel they were aboard. There was no doubt it was now launching.
"My request changed their minds," Spencer replied. "My aim is to bring Carl Thrace down and I prefer to work with those whose methods I'm familiar with." She glanced at Cormac. "I wanted Cormac included for two reasons: having known Carl for two years he might well be able to identify him despite any disguise but, most importantly, Carl Thrace will recognise Cormac."
Bait, thought Cormac.
"I take it Thrace has left Hagren?" suggested Travis.
"After leaving the guest house," Spencer replied, "he headed for the inland commercial spaceport and boarded a small but very fast light-cargo hauler."
"Smugglers," said Gorman.
Spencer nodded. "Almost certainly, since that ship's destination seems to be the Graveyard."
Gorman cursed, and well he might.
"Get some rest now," said Spencer. "We dock with the Sadist in three hours."
"The Sadist?" Travis enquired.
"AI humour," said Spencer, "go figure." She waved them away.
After Spencer had dismissed them, Cormac received a message in his aug from the ship's AI giving a schematic of the ship itself and the location of a cabin he could use for the brief time he was aboard. Crean and Travis headed off somewhere else in the ship, perhaps to occupy themselves with Golemish things while the soft humans of their unit sought home comforts and sleep. Gorman accompanied Cormac, since his own cabin was nearby. As they walked, Cormac considered everything he knew about the Graveyard. Originally this borderland and buffer zone between Prador and Human space was called the Badlands, but the name was soon dropped in favour of the more accurate description. Polity AIs did not intervene there or, rather, they did not intervene overtly, beyond sending in the odd warship to drive off any Prador vessels that were getting too close to the Polity for comfort. The place had become home for some nasty types, but the worlds and stations they occupied were few in number compared to the other once-habitable worlds that could now be described as war graves.
"It should be an interesting experience trying to find him there," Cormac opined.
Gorman snorted derisively. "You can bet it'll get dirty and bloody within an hour of us making landfall."
Cormac paused by the door to his cabin and Gorman slapped him on the shoulder before continuing on to his own. "Get your head down, boy—you're going to need your rest."
Cormac pressed his hand against the palm-lock and the door slid open. He stepped inside and looked around, feeling a grab almost of nostalgia on seeing that he had been given a four-berth cabin just like the one he, Carl, Yallow and Olkennon had arrived in at Hagren. Obviously this ship, having dropped off its passengers, had room to spare. He dumped his pack and his pulse-rifle on an empty bunk, then stepped over to the wall to pull the screen remote from its slot and turn on the room screen. Immediately the screen showed an image of the ground far below and quickly receding.
The old city and the military township were no longer visible, though the Prador ship's crash site showe
d as a shape like a small eye just inland. Trying a few other views he got the curve of the horizon and the glint of one or two objects in orbit. Magnification brought into focus a coin-shaped satellite and a ship shaped like a canal barge with three U-space nacelles jutting equidistantly on vanes at its rear. It was an old-style attack ship and he wondered if it was the Sadist. Logging on to his present ship's server he requested details on all ships in the vicinity and discovered that it was. He peered down at the remote and found a touch control marked «voice» and pressed it.
"Ship," he said, "can you hear me?"
"Of course I can hear you," replied the voice of a grumpy old woman, "and my name is Pearl."
"Nice to… be aboard you, Pearl," Cormac replied. "Can you tell me why it is going to take us three hours to dock with the Sadist, when it's clearly visible out there?"
"The attack ship is waiting on further targets below and, for our own safety, it's best not to dock when it might open fire at any moment."
"Fair enough."
"Is that all?"
Cormac considered something else he'd been delaying for some time. "I would like to send a message to Earth…"
"And you're telling me this why?"
"I… I've never done this before." He felt a bit stupid, for he knew how to go about sending a simple message, even if it was over a vast distance. The truth was that he wanted to talk to someone about it. However, this AI's attitude did not encourage conversation.
"Simple enough," said the Pearl AI, "you just address it correctly and send it to my server where it'll sit in the queue until I make my next U-space transmission, which should be in about three minutes. Now is that all?"
"That's it, thank you." Cormac hurriedly thumbed the «voice» control again.
Now he sat on one of the bunks and called up the message in his third eye to review it. First he described his journey from the training camp on Mars to Hagren, then he went on to describe some of what had happened on that world, though his internal censor had been working overtime. As he reviewed it, he wondered if this was the same sort of message his father had sent to Hannah while he had been away fighting the Prador. At the end of the message came the bit of most importance to him: