The Gabble and Other Stories

by Neal Asher

  ‘Ah.’

  Despite her threat, Jael knew she wasn’t fully in control here. She stepped up to one wall, via her aug commanding a safe to open. A steel bung a foot across eased out then hinged to one side. She reached in, picked up the memstore, then held it out to the Golem. The test would come, she felt certain, when Penny Royal authenticated that small item.

  The Golem took the memstore between its finger and thumb, and she noticed it had retained the syntheflesh pads of its fingers. It paused, frozen in place, then abruptly its ribcage split down the centre and one half of it hinged aside. Within lay optics, the grey lump of a power supply and various interconnected units like steel organs. There were also dark masses spread like multiarmed starfish that Jael suspected had not been there when this Golem was originally constructed. It pressed the memstore into the centre of one of these masses, which writhed as if in pain and closed over it.

  ‘Unrecognized programming format,’ said the Golem.

  No shit, thought Jael.

  The Golem continued, ‘Estimate at one hundred and twenty gigabytes, synaptic mapping and chronology of implantation…’

  Jael felt a sudden foreboding. Though measuring a human mind in bytes wasn’t particularly accurate, the best guesstimate actually lay in the range of a few hundred megabytes, so this memstore was an order of magnitude larger. But then, her assumption and that of those who had found it was that the memstore encompassed the life of one Atheter. This was not necessarily the case. Maybe the memories and mind maps of a thousand Atheter were stored in that little chunk of technology.

  Finally the Golem straightened up, reached inside its chest and removed the memplant, passing it back to Jael. ‘We will begin when the tunnel connects,’ it said. ‘How will you move the gabbleduck?’

  ‘Easy enough,’ said Jael, and went to find her tranquillizer gun.

  Ulriss woke me with a ‘Rise and shine, the game’s afoot … well, in a couple of hours – the signal is no longer dopplering so Jael’s ship is back in the real.’

  I lay there blinking at the ceiling as the lights gradually came up, then pushed back the heat sheet, heaved myself over the edge of the bunk and dropped to the floor. I staggered, feeling slightly dizzy, my limbs leaden. It always takes me a little while to get functional after sleep, hence the two-hour warning from Ulriss. After a moment, I turned to peer at Gene, who lay slumbering in the lower bunk.

  ‘Integrity of the collar?’ I enquired.

  ‘She hasn’t touched it,’ the ship AI replied, ‘though she did try to persuade me to release her by appealing to my sense of loyalty to the organization that brought me into being.’

  ‘And your reply?’

  ‘Whilst no right-thinking AI wants the Prador to get their hands on a living Atheter or one of their memstores, your intent to retrieve that store and by proxy carry out a sentence already passed on Jael Feogril should prevent rather than facilitate that. Polity plans will be hampered should you succeed, but beside moral obligations I am a free agent and Penny Royal’s survival or otherwise is a matter of indifference to me. Should you fail, however, your death will not hamper Polity plans.’

  ‘Hey thanks – it’s nice to know you care.’

  Sleepily, from the lower bunk, Gene said, ‘You’re rather sensitive for someone who was once described as a walking abattoir.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘so you’re frightened of me. That’s why you gave me the coding of that U-space signal?’

  She pushed back her blanket and sat up. She’d stripped down to a thin singlet and I found the sight rather distracting, as I suspect was the intention. Reaching up she fingered the metal collar around her neck. ‘Of course I’m frightened – you’ve got control of this collar.’

  ‘Which will inject you with a short-duration paralytic, not blow your head off as I earlier suggested,’ I replied.

  She nodded. ‘You also suggested that if I didn’t tell you what you wanted to know you would demonstrate on me the kind of things Jael did to you.’

  ‘I’ve never tortured anyone,’ I said, before remembering that she’d read my ECS record. ‘Well … not anyone that didn’t deserve it.’

  ‘You would have used drugs, and the other techniques Jael used on you.’

  ‘True,’ I nodded, ‘but I didn’t need to.’ I gazed at her. ‘I think you’ve been involved in this operation for a while and rather resent not being in at the kill. I was your opportunity to change that. I understand – in the past I ended up in similar situations myself.’

  ‘Yes, you liked to be in at the kill,’ she said, and stooped down to pick up her clothing from where she had abandoned it on the floor – she’d sacked out after me, which had been okay as soon as I put the collar on her since Ulriss had been watching her constantly.

  I grunted and went off to find a triple espresso.

  After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, mushroom steak and beans (the first two having no connection with pigs or chickens), a litre of grapenut juice and more coffee, I reached the stage of being able to walk through doors without bouncing off the doorjamb. Gene ate a mega-prawn steak, drank a similar quantity of the same juice, and copious quantities of white tea. I thought I might try her breakfast next time I used stores or the synthesizer. Supposing there would be a next time – only a few minutes remained before we surfaced from U-space. Gene followed me into the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot’s chair, which was about as redundant as the pilot’s chair I sat in, with the AI Ulriss running the ship.

  We surfaced. The screen briefly showed stars, then banding began to travel across it. I glanced at the additional controls for chameleonware and saw that they had been activated.

  ‘Ulriss—’

  ‘Jael’s ship is down on the surface of a free-roaming planetoid next to an old vessel that seems to have been stripped and from which bonded-regolith tunnels have spread.’

  ‘So Penny Royal is there and might see us,’ I supplied.

  ‘True,’ Ulriss replied, but that was not my first concern. The view on the screen swung across, magnified and switched to light amplification, bringing to the fore the planetoid itself and the Prador cruiser in orbit around it.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I opined.

  We watched the cruiser as, using that stuttering burn of the fusion engine, Ulriss took us closer to the planetoid. Luckily there had been no reaction from the Prador ship to our arrival, and as we drew closer I saw a shuttle detach and begin heading down.

  ‘I wonder if this is part of Jael’s plan,’ I said. ‘I would have thought she’d get the memstore loaded then meet the Prador in some less vulnerable situation.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Gene through gritted teeth. She glanced across at me. ‘What do you intend to do?’

  ‘I intend to land.’ I adjusted to screen controls to give me a view of Jael’s ship, the one next to it, and the surrounding spread of pipe-like tunnels. ‘She’s probably in there somewhere with the memstore and the gabble-duck. Shouldn’t be a problem getting inside.’

  We watched the shuttle continue its descent and the subsequent flare of its thrusters as it decelerated over the network of tunnels.

  ‘It could get … somewhat fraught down there. Do you have weapons?’ Gene asked.

  ‘I have weapons.’

  The Prador shuttle was now landing next to Jael’s vessel.

  ‘Let me come in with you,’ said Gene.

  I didn’t answer for a while. I just watched. Five Prador clad in armoured spacesuits and obviously armed to the mandibles departed the shuttle. They went over to one of the tunnels and gathered there. I focused in closer in time to see them move back to get clear of an explosion. It seemed apparent that they weren’t there at either Jael’s or Penny Royal’s invitation.

  ‘Of course you can come,’ I said, eventually.

  Jael frowned at the distant sound of the explosion and the roar of atmosphere being sucked out – the latter sound abruptly truncated as some emergency door closed. There seemed only one explanation: the Pra
dor had placed a tracker on the Kobashi when she had gone to meet them.

  ‘Can you deal with them?’ she asked.

  ‘I can deal with them,’ Penny Royal replied through its submind Golem.

  The AI itself continued working. Before Jael the gabbleduck was stretched upright, steel bands around its body and a framework clamping its head immovably. It kept reaching up with one of its foreclaws to probe and tug at the framework, but being heavily tranquillized it soon lost interest, lowered its limb and began muttering to itself.

  From this point, equipment – control systems, an atmosphere plant and heaters, stacked processing racks, transformers and other items obviously taken from the ship above – spread in every direction and seemed chaotically connected by optics and heavy-duty superconducting cables. Some of these snaked into one of the surrounding tunnels where she guessed the ship’s fusion reactor lay. Lighting squares inset in the ceiling illuminated the whole scene. She wondered if Penny Royal had put this all together after her arrival. It seemed possible, for the AI, working amidst all this like an iron squid, moved at a speed almost difficult to follow. Finally the AI moved closer to the gabbleduck, fitting into one side of the clamping framework a silver beetle of a ship’s autodoc, which trailed optics to the surrounding equipment.

  ‘The memstore,’ said Penny Royal, a ribbed tentacle with a spatulate end snapping out to hover just before Jael’s chest.

  ‘What about the Prador?’ she asked. ‘Shouldn’t we deal with them first?’

  Two of the numerous eyes protruding on stalks from the AI’s body flicked towards the Golem, which abruptly stepped forward, grabbed a hold in that main body, then merged. In that moment Jael saw that it was one of many clinging there.

  ‘They have entered my tunnels and approach,’ the AI replied.

  It occurred to her then that Penny Royal’s previous answer of ‘I can deal with them’ was open to numerous interpretations.

  ‘Are you going to stop them coming here?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘They will try to take the memstore and the gabble-duck.’

  ‘That is not proven.’

  ‘They’ll attack you.’

  ‘That is not proven.’

  Jael’s frustration grew. ‘Very well.’ She unslung her combined pulse-rifle and launcher. ‘You are not unintelligent, but you seem to have forgotten about the instructions I left for the Kobashi on departing. Those Prador will try to take what is mine without paying for it, and I will try to stop them. If I die, the Kobashi detonates and we all die.’

  ‘Your ship will not detonate.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I broke your codes two point five seconds after you began using them upon departing your ship. Your ship AI is of Prador construction, its basis the frozen brain tissue of a Prador first-child. The Prador have never understood that no code is unbreakable and your ship AI is no different. It would appear that you are no different.’

  Another boom and the thunderous roar of atmosphere departing reached them. Penny Royal quivered, a number of its eyes turning towards one tunnel mouth.

  ‘However,’ it said with a heavy resignation, ‘these Prador are showing a marked lack of concern for my property, and I do not want them interrupting this interesting commission.’ Abruptly the Golem began to peel themselves from Penny Royal’s core, five of them in all, until what was left was a spiny skeletal thing. Dropping to the floor they detached their umbilici and scuttled away. Jael shuddered – they moved without any emulation of humanity, sometimes on all fours, but fast, horribly fast. They also carried devices she could not clearly identify. She did not suppose their purpose to be anything pleasant.

  ‘Now,’ said Penny Royal, snapping the spatulate end of its tentacle open and closed, ‘the memstore.’

  Jael reached into her belt cache, took out the store and handed it over. The tentacle retracted and she lost it in a blur of movement. Items of equipment shifted and a transformer began humming. The autodoc pressed its underside against the gabbleduck’s domed head and closed its gleaming metallic limbs around it. She heard a snickering, swiftly followed by the sound of a bone drill. The gabbleduck jerked and reached up. Tentacles sped in and snaked around its limbs, clamping them in place.

  ‘Wharfle klummer,’ said the gabbleduck, with an almost frightening clarity.

  Jael scanned around the chamber. Over to her right, across the chamber from the tunnel mouth Penny Royal had earlier glanced at – the one it seemed likely the Prador would be coming from if they made it this far – was a stack of internal walling and structural members from the cannibalized ship. She headed over, ready to duck for cover, and from there watched the AI carry out its commission.

  How long would it take? She had no idea but it seemed likely to not take long. Now the autodoc would be making nanotube synaptic connections in line with a program the AI had constructed from the cerebral schematic in the memstore, it would be firing off electrical impulses and feeding in precise mixes of neurochemicals – all the stuff of memory, thought, mind. Already the gabbleduck seemed straighter, its pose more serious, its eyes taking on a cold metallic glitter. Or was she just seeing what she hoped for?

  ‘Klummer wharfle,’ it said. Wasn’t that one of those frustrating things for the linguists who studied the gabble, that no single gabbleduck had ever repeated its meaningless words? ‘Klummer klummer,’ it continued. ‘Wharfle.’

  ‘Base synaptic network established,’ said Penny Royal. ‘Loading at one quarter – layered format.’

  Jael wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded like the AI was succeeding. Then, abruptly, the gabbleduck made a chittering, whistling clicking sound, some of the whistles so intense they seemed to stab straight in behind Jael’s eyes. Something else happened: a couple of optic cables started smoking, then abruptly shrivelled, a processing rack slumped, something like molten glass poured out and hissed on the cold stone. After a moment Penny Royal released its grip upon the creature’s claws.

  ‘Loading complete.’

  After a two-tone buzzing Jael recognized as the sound of bone and cell welders working together, the autodoc retracted. The gabbleduck reached up and scratched its head. It made that sound again, and after a moment Penny Royal replied in kind. The creature shrugged and all its bonds folded away. It dropped to the floor and squatted like some evil Buddha. It did not look in the least bit foolish.

  ‘They chose insentience,’ said Penny Royal, ‘and put in place the means of retaining that state, in U-space, constructed there before they sacrificed their minds.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’ Jael asked.

  Three stalked eyes swivelled towards her. ‘It means, human, that in resurrecting me you fucked up big time –now, go away.’

  She wondered how it had happened: when Penny Royal copied the memstore, or through some leakage during the loading process. There must have been a hidden virus or worm in the store.

  Suddenly, both the gabbleduck and Penny Royal were enclosed in some kind of bubble. It shifted slightly, and where it intersected any of the surrounding equipment, sheared clean through. Within, something protruded out of nothingness like the peak of a mountain – hints of vastness beyond. Ripples, like those in sunlit water, travelled down to the tip, where they ignited a dull glow that grew brighter with each succeeding ripple.

  Jael, always prepared to grab the main chance, also possessed a sharply honed instinct for survival. She turned and ran for the nearest tunnel mouth.

  ‘Something serious happened in there,’ I said, looking at the readings Ulriss had transmitted to me on my helmet display.

  ‘Something?’ Gene enquired.

  ‘All sorts of energy surges and various U-space signatures.’ I read the text Ulriss had also transmitted – text since a vocal message, either real-time or in a package, would have extended the transmission time and given Penny Royal more of a chance of intercepting it and breaking the code. ‘It seems that just before those surges and signatu
res the U-signal from the gabbleduck changed. They’ve installed the contents of the memstore … how long before the Polity dreadnought gets here?’

  ‘It isn’t far away – it should be able to jump here in a matter of minutes.’

  ‘Then what happens?’

  ‘They either bomb this place from orbit or send down an assault team.’

  ‘You can’t be more precise than that?’

  ‘I would guess the latter. ECS will want to retrieve the gabbleduck.’

  ‘Why? It’s just an animal.’

  I could see her shaking her head within her suit’s helmet. ‘Gabbleducks are Atheter even though they’ve forgone intelligence. Apparently, now Masada is part of the Polity, they are to receive the same protections as Polity citizens.’

  ‘Right.’ I began tramping through the curiously shaped shale towards the hole the Prador had blown in one of Penny Royal’s pipes. The protections Polity citizens received were on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number. If a citizen needed to die so ECS could take out a black AI, I suspected that citizen would die. A sensible course would have been to retreat to Ulriss Fire and then retreat from this planetoid, however, human Polity citizens numbered in the trillions and the gabbleduck population was just in the millions. Polity AIs would be quite prepared to expend a few human lives to retrieve the creature.

  ‘Convert to text packet for ship AI,’ I said. ‘Ulriss, when that dreadnought gets here, tell it that we’re down here and that Penny Royal doesn’t look likely to be escaping so maybe it can hold off on the planet busters.’

  After a moment, I received an acknowledgement from Ulriss, then I stepped into the gloom of the pipe and looked around. To my right the tunnel led back towards the cannibalized ship. According to the energy readings the party was to my left and down below. I upped light amplification then said, ‘Weapons online’ – a phrase shortly repeated by Gene.

  My multigun suddenly became light as air as suit assister motors kicked in. Cross hairs appeared on my visor, shifted from side to side as I swung the gun across. A menu down one side gave me a selection of firing modes: laser, particle beam and a list of projectiles ranging from inert to high explosive. ‘Laser,’ I told the gun, because I thought we might have to cut our way in at some point, and it obliged by showing me a bar graph of energy available. I could alter numerous other settings to the beam itself, but the preset had always been the best. Then I added, ‘Auto-response to attack.’ Now, if anyone started shooting at me, the gun would take control of my suit motors to aim and fire itself at the aggressor. I imagined Gene was setting her weapon up to operate in the same manner, though with whatever other settings she happened to be accustomed to.