by Neal Asher
‘Windcheater.’
‘Yes, what, wadda y’want?’ snapped the disgruntled sail.
‘I want you to tell Captain Sprage that he should halt the fleet at least ten kilometres out from the Skinner’s Island. I myself will inform those captains who possess radios or augs.’
‘And why should I tell him that?’ asked the sail, still irritated.
‘Because if you do not, that whole fleet – and you yourself – will end up as a crust of ash spreading on the ocean.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I think it highly likely that waiting for that fleet at the Skinner’s Island is a CTD. You should have no trouble finding information on such devices through your aug. If you do have trouble, then try “contra-terrene device”.’
As the Warden withdrew, Windcheater had no trouble locating an encyclopaedia entry concerning CTDs. After reading it carefully he suddenly felt very vulnerable and very small. Snapping his head up from the deck he tried to locate Sprage. However, the Captain was in his cabin, so the sail shifted his head up behind Olian, who stood at the rail gazing out at the growing number of ships. He nudged her in the back with his snout.
‘What is it, Windcheater?’ Olian asked him.
‘Did you know,’ said the sail, ‘that a CTD the size of a coffee flask can erase an entire city?’
‘That’s common knowledge to us, and we’ve lived with it for centuries now. Did you know that during the Prador war five entire planets were destroyed with them?’
Windcheater went slightly cross-eyed for a moment. ‘This fleet must not get closer than ten kilometres to the island, so the Warden warns. He claims there’s a CTD waiting for it there. I suppose it will be a relatively small-yield device, but even that’s too much. I think that if we continue to move any closer I’ll consider my contract void and get straight out of here.’
Olian’s face went a little white as what the sail had just told her slowly impacted. She pushed herself back from the rail and hurried to Sprage’s cabin.
Windcheater lifted his head higher to scan the many ships now under sail. Eighteen so far. He thought deep and hard about all of the things he had learnt over the last few days. There was the Polity, huge and embracing thousands of worlds; there was the Prador Third Kingdom; and beyond these there was probably an awful lot more. His own kind, he realized, needed to gain some real leverage – in terms of political, economic, and possibly military power. Not so they could become major players in the grand scheme of things, but just to make sure that others would not inadvertently wipe them out.
And, so brooding, Windcheater began to make plans for his people and his world.
16
The huge whelk shell was now nearly empty of flesh and the heirodont felt sated enough to return to the depths. Soon all the leeches clinging to its surface would be turned to mere threads by increasing pressure and, unable to feed, would detach and rise back to the surface. For the heirodont, leeches represented the bane of its life: never having evolved the nerveless fleshy covering of turbul or boxies, it was put in constant pain by the onslaughts of smaller leeches, and could even be killed by some of the larger ones. This last danger should perhaps have made it more observant of its surroundings but, though intelligent enough to know that this giant whelk had been the same one that had evaded it earlier, it was also stupid enough to concentrate on its meal too closely. It still had its nose deep inside the cavernous shell, tatters of flesh hanging about it like cave moss, when an enormous leech struck it from the side.
SM3 likened its appearance to a Harrier jump-jet, an ancient flying machine it had spotted on an ‘historical weapons’ site, but SM4 argued, on surveying the same site, that it looked more like a helicopter gunship. At their inception, the two subminds had not possessed sufficient mental differences from each other to have anything to debate, but as the hours rolled on they slowly began to develop individuality.
‘Why do you think the boss put that nancy in charge of us?’ Three asked its companion as they searched their assigned sector.
‘Well,’ said Four, who was becoming the more dominant of the two enforcer-drones, ‘I reckon it’s all down to prior physical experience of this world. We got the programming but we ain’t got the experience.’
Flexing its nacelles, Three harrumphed.
‘Yeah, Twelve might have done a bit more than us, but it ain’t got the firepower.’
Four, who had been playing ‘devil’s advocate’, moved into the defensive. ‘It’s not all about what you can do, but about what you can understand.’ Even as it said this, the drone was not quite sure what it meant.
‘Twelve might have more experience of the physical world, but he sure ain’t got the watts to handle it. That’s what we’re for,’ argued Three.
‘Well,’ began Four – and then fell silent for a moment. ‘Did you get that?’
‘Sure did!’ said Three excitedly.
The enforcer drones dropped low, and decelerated on ribbed fusion flames. Below them, the sea was kicked up in two tracks of white spray when they turned as one to nose back along the course they had been following. They moved more slowly now and slid apart, their dishes and antennae swivelling as if scenting prey.
‘There: underspace signature,’ said Four with satisfaction.
The drones turned again and hovered over the seawater like a couple of wasps zeroing in on a fizzy drink. They bobbed in the air as they attempted to read something from the tightly beamed signal – trying to pick something up from it by inductance, without interrupting it.
‘We have something!’ Four bellowed across the ether.
Flashes of quaternary code flashed through from their receivers, as they tried to nail down some sequence of the code.
‘Direct transmit all you are receiving,’ SM12 instructed them.
‘We’re getting it!’ shouted Three, as it tried to pull together something coherent to pass on. Then, ‘What’s that?’
Four did not get a chance to answer its companion, as a black line cut from the surface of the sea directly towards SM3. The drone fragmented round a disk of light, its weapon nacelles cartwheeling across the waves. Four blasted away from the surface, and something detonated below it. Then, to one side, a Prador war drone broke from the surface and headed towards it. Four released two seeker missiles and planed away. One missile exploded way out of range, but the remaining one blew just ten metres from the Prador drone and swallowed it in fire. Four slowed then abruptly accelerated, as the Prador drone came through that flame with only a coating of soot on its armoured skin.
‘You cannot survive,’ the Prador drone transmitted.
Two missiles came shooting after Four like hunting garfish. The drone blasted higher, only to be slammed sideways as its path intersected that of a stream of rail-gun fire. Pieces fell from Four’s body as it tried to swerve out of the way of this hammering fusillade. But the gunfire tracked it, and the drone could do nothing but sling power into its fusion engine. The EM shell extinguished the drone’s engine only fractions of a second before the two missiles came up at it from below. Four didn’t even see them. It disappeared in a double explosion, nothing of it larger than a fingernail surviving the twin blasts.
The shore was already in sight as the rhinoworm chose its moment to attack. It thumped against the scooter, slewing it sideways, and its beaked mouth clamped over Roach’s foot. Roach let out a yell, and promptly dropped Keech’s antiphoton weapon into the water. Keech reached over and caught hold of Roach’s jacket, while Boris lunged over the driver’s seat to link his arms around Roach’s chest.
‘Shoot the fucking thing!’ Keech yelled at Boris.
‘I can’t! He’ll go in!’
Keech swore, and tried reaching for the weapon in Boris’s belt.
‘I ain’t going! I ain’t going!’ Roach yelled.
‘Hang on!’ Boris yelled pointlessly.
Keech’s arm felt leaden as he tried to move it with its cybermotors, then his face
became a mask of pain as something crunched in his wrist. He finally managed to pull the weapon free and aim it at the rhinoworm.
‘Damn! I can’t pull the trigger! Try to hold him aboard!’
Keech released his hold and swapped the weapon to his right hand. Boris, still holding on to Roach, was dragged over the seat when the worm tried to haul his companion into the sea. Keech’s first shot burnt a hole into the worm’s head. It paused in its tugging only to blink at them, then started pulling again. Keech fired again, then a third time, opening a smoking crater in the bone between the worm’ s eyes. Abruptly the creature released its prey and rose up out of the water like a cobra about to strike. Keech took aim at the underside of its head: one shot that blew open something soft and yellow. The worm went rigid, coughed, then dropped into the sea like a puppet with its strings cut.
‘I told you I weren’t going!’ Roach shouted at the creature floating limply beside the scooter.
‘Oh shit,’ said Boris, staring in another direction.
Keech and Roach turned and gaped at the approaching mound of molly carp.
‘This isn’t going to stop it,’ said Keech, holding up his pulse-gun. ‘What we need is something like my APW.’ He glared accusingly at Roach, who tried his best not to look sneaky.
‘I can’t help it. Me arm ain’t working properly,’ the crewman protested.
‘This is it, then,’ muttered Boris.
The molly carp surged up to the scooter, but turned at the last moment and snapped up the rhinoworm. Because of its unusual mode of propulsion, it was able to stop dead once it had hold of its prey. It rested right beside the stationary scooter watching the occupants with one eye while it noisily munched on the rhinoworm’s head.
‘Nice molly,’ soothed Roach, while Keech tried to generate enough AG to lift them clear of the waves that were beginning to swamp his vehicle. The motor merely whined and grated.
‘Sprzzck burnt-out, safe Sniper,’ said SM13 from under the seat.
‘Can you give us more lift?’ Keech asked it quietly.
The SM thumped against the seat’s underside and jerked the scooter free of the waves. Roach swore as he nearly fell off again, but pulled himself back on while muttering about ‘talking lumps of scrap’. Keech eyed the molly carp as he reached for the tap that fed pure water to the one working thruster. He opened the tap and the thruster coughed and began to smoke. As areas of it began to turn red hot, Boris hurriedly shifted his feet off it.
‘What about thrust?’ Keech whispered.
‘No chance,’ said SM13.
The thruster coughed again, and spat out something that skated hissing across the surface of the sea before it sank.
‘There goes the grid,’ said Keech.
The thruster began to belch steam and pure water started to pour out of it. Keech took his hand away from the tap and watched this steady stream.
‘Might as well leave that tap on. It’ll bring our weight down.’ He leaned over and peered under his seat at the SM. ‘You’re all that’s left now. I suggest you try something.’
‘It’s finished eating,’ said Roach.
The three of them glanced over at the molly carp as it sucked in the last bit of the worm’s tail. About now, thought Keech, it should belch loudly. The carp did nothing so amusing. Instead it turned towards the scooter, with a movement so abrupt it appeared surprised by it itself, and came shooting at it head on. Before Keech could raise his pulse-gun and fire, the creature struck the scooter and propelled it over the waves. A second time it rammed against the scooter, still driving it before it.
Keech took aim at its eyes, but Roach caught hold of his wrist.
‘It’s only playin’. Won’t do to annoy it,’ he warned.
The scooter tilted over as the carp shoved it towards the shore. It was now travelling faster than it had moved for some hours, waves slapping against its underside while the AG motor puffed out smoke and whined alarmingly. The molly carp abruptly stopped propelling it, the scooter continued on, only the occasional wave slowing its progress.
‘Beach ahead!’ yelled Boris.
The scooter skipped over a mound sticking out of the water, smearing frog whelks with its underside. It continued to skip waves like a skimmed stone and the AG finally started to give out. The probe said something nonsensical that nevertheless sounded obscene. The scooter ploughed right into the beach, flinging its three passengers on to the sand.
Keech swore, sat up and spat out a mouthful of sand. Boris groaned and stayed lying on his back. Roach was the first to his feet and limped unsteadily to the waterline. The molly carp rounded the mound they’d just bounced over, cruising in close to the shore where it drew to an abrupt halt.
‘Did it mean to do that?’ asked Keech.
‘I reckon,’ said Boris.
‘Like hell,’ said Roach.
The carp now started shaking violently, so that the water foamed all around it. It then tilted back, opened its mouth wide, and made a loud groaning sound.
‘Weird,’ said Boris.
Suddenly the beast sank out of sight – but not for long. It exploded from the water, straight into the air, and seemed to hover there, hanging nose-down for a moment, before crashing back into the sea.
‘I ain’t never seen one do that before,’ observed Roach.
‘Me neither,’ said Boris.
Keech stared at the creature in perplexity. The way it had hung there in the air for a long moment had been . . . well, very strange. The carp was out of sight again, but left evidence of where it was by the gas and silty detritus bubbling to the surface. A putrid smell wafted in across the waves.
‘I reckon it isn’t well,’ commented Boris.
Just then, something exploded from the water with a whoosh and flash of light and shot over to hover above them.
‘I see,’ said Keech, though he wasn’t sure he did.
Sniper settled lower, opened his heavy claw, and dropped the monitor’s antiphoton weapon to the sand. He flexed his legs and shook himself. Rancid pieces of meat fell from his scarred armour. Keech felt a stirring of memory: hadn’t there been something like this involved in the clean-up operation here all those centuries ago? This was a war drone of very old design, he realized, and though ancient and without human expression it certainly managed to appear pissed off.
‘You all right?’ grated the drone.
Keech was about to give an answer when a movement caught his eye. He glanced down at the seahorse SM, as it made a buzzing sound and flipped itself upright on the sand, balancing on its tail.
‘Sprzzt, kill ’em,’ the little SM managed.
Sniper turned and faced out to sea, then turned back to them.
‘Fucking Prador drones,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how they handle a real war drone.’ And with that, Sniper racketed into the sky, opened up his fusion engine and was soon just a dot on the horizon.
‘What was that all about?’ Keech asked, studying the SM. The effort had obviously been too much for Thirteen, who went over sideways on the sand with a thump.
‘Prador drones?’ Keech queried the two Hoopers. Boris and Roach appeared just as confused. Keech went over to retrieve his weapon.
‘Maybe they’re back here. Maybe the war’s on again,’ said Roach.
Keech shook his head as he moved to the luggage compartment of the grounded scooter. From it he took out the portable medkit Erlin had given him, sat down on the sand, then injected and bandaged his wrist. This was the problem in using cybermotors ungoverned by an aug: they could over-reach the strength of the bones they were attached to. As an afterthought, he looked up at Roach.
‘You need this kit?’ he asked.
Roach flexed his hand then batted at his legs. Thick scabbing fell away from the burns exposed through his charred trousers, and clean skin was revealed underneath.
‘Don’t need none of that stuff,’ he said.
‘I thought not,’ said Keech.
When he had finished working
on his wrist, Keech stood and turned towards the dingle. The sudden and disconcerting appearance of that war drone he had to dismiss as irrelevant, simply because he had no explanation for it. Now he must concentrate on the matter in hand. It occurred to him that if Frisk thought he was dead, she might leave Spatterjay. Then again, she might also have come here in search of Jay Hoop, and Keech wanted both of them.
‘Ambel and the others should be here somewhere, searching for your Skinner,’ he said.
‘That’s so,’ said Boris, staring contemplatively at Thirteen.
‘How do we find them?’ Keech asked.
‘They’ll have landed on the other side of the island,’ said Boris.
‘Best we head over there, then.’
He fired his APW into the dingle. There was a blinding purple flash and a thunderclap. Once the debris had settled, Boris and Roach got up from the sand and glared at Keech accusingly. Keech gestured to the avenue he had opened up lined with burning trees. He grinned and went stomping on in there. Roach limped after him and Boris moved to follow, hesitated, then went back to Thirteen. He picked up the SM before hurrying after the other two. ‘Sprzzt thanks,’ said the submind.
Pieces of bubble metal floating in the sea pinpointed where the two drones had died.
‘That Prador drone won’t be here,’ said Sniper. ‘You realize it was your secondary emitter and that there’ll be more of the bastards?’
‘I am aware of that, Sniper,’ the Warden replied.
‘You also understand that you’ve got no chance of pinning down that signal until we’ve thinned a few of them out and whoever’s sending it starts getting desperate?’
‘I am aware of that also, Sniper.’
‘What is it you’re after, then?’ asked the war drone.
‘Enough code to decipher, then I can break into the transmission.’
‘To get that’s gonna mean a stand-up fight. These bastards ain’t gonna hang around while we record their overspill.’