The Gabble and Other Stories

by Neal Asher

  ‘This must have taken you some time,’ said Hirald.

  Snow said, ‘The shaft was already here. About two hundred years ago I first found it. Others had lived here before me, but in rather primitive conditions. I’ve been improving the place ever since.’

  The car arrived at its destination and they walked from it into a complex of moisture-locked rooms at the head of the butte. With a drink in her hand Hirald stood at a polarized panoramic window and looked out across the rock field for a moment, then returned her attention to the room and its contents. In a glass-fronted case along one wall was a display of weapons dating from the twenty-second century and at the centre of this a sword dating from some prespace age. Hirald had to wonder. She turned from the case as Snow returned to the room, dressed now in loose black trousers and a black open-necked shirt. The contrast with his white skin and hair and pink eyes gave him the appearance of someone who might have a taste for blood.

  ‘There’s some clothing there for you to use if you like, and the shower. No problem with it cycling. There’s plenty of water here,’ he told her. Hirald nodded, placed her drink down on a glass-topped table, and headed back into the rooms Snow had come from. Snow watched her go. She would shower and change and be little fresher than she already was. He had noted with some puzzlement how she never seemed to smell bad, never seemed dirty.

  ‘Whose clothing is this?’ Hirald asked from the room beyond.

  ‘My last wife’s,’ said Snow.

  Hirald came to the door with clothing folded over one arm. She looked at him questioningly.

  ‘She killed herself about a century ago,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘Walked out into the desert and burnt a hole through her head. I found her before the crab-birds and sand sharks.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She grew old and I did not. She hated it.’

  Hirald had no comment to make on this. She went to take her shower, and shortly returned wearing a skintight body suit of translucent blue material, which she did not expect to be wearing for long once Snow saw her in it. Snow was occupied though; sat in a swivel chair looking at a screen, he was back in his dust robes, his terrapin mask hanging open. She walked up behind him to see what he was looking at. She saw the hover transport on the sand and the two women pulling a sheet over it. The Merchant Baris she recognized, as she recognized the four hired killers.

  ‘It would seem Baris has found me,’ said Snow, his tone cold and flat.

  ‘What defences does this place have?’

  ‘None, I never felt the need for them.’

  ‘Are you sure they are coming here?’

  ‘It seems strange that he has chosen this particular rock field on the whole planet. I’ll have to go and settle this.’

  ‘I’ll change,’ said Hirald, and hurried back to get her suit. When she returned Snow was gone. When she tried to follow she found the elevator car locked at the bottom of the shaft.

  ‘Damn you Snow!’ she yelled, slamming her fist against a doorjamb, leaving a fist-shaped dent in the steel. She then walked back a few paces, turned, and ran and leapt into the shaft. The rails pinned to the edge were six metres away. She reached them easily, her hands locking on the polished metal with a thump. Laboriously she began to climb down.

  Jharit smiled at his wife and nodded to Trock, who stood beyond her strapping on body armour. This was the one. They would be rich after this. He looked at the narrow-beam laser he held. He would have preferred something with a little more power, but it was essential that the body not be too badly damaged. He turned to Baris as the Merchant sent his two women back to the transport.

  ‘We’ll go in spread out. He probably has scanning equipment in the rock field and if there’s an ambush we don’t want him to get too many of us at once.’

  Baris smiled and thumbed bullets into his rifle, adjusted the scope. Jharit wondered about him, wondered how good he was. He gave the signal; they spread out and entered the rock field.

  They were coming to kill him. There were no rules, no challenges offered. Snow braced the butt of his pistol against the rock and sighted along it.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Jharit over the com.

  ‘Pin cameras,’ Jharilla told him. ‘I burnt a couple out, but there has to be more. He knows we’re here.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Trock.

  ‘Remember, narrow beam. We burn too much and there’s no money. A clean kill. A head shot would be nice.’

  There was a whooshing sound, a brief scream, static over the com. Jharit hit the ground and moved behind a rock.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘He’s got a fucking APW! Fucking body armour’s useless!’

  Jharit felt a sinking sensation in his gut. They had expected projectile weapons, perhaps a laser.

  ‘Who…?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Trock?’

  ‘Jharilla’s dead.’

  Jharit swallowed drily and edged on into the rock field.

  ‘Position?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Meck?’

  ‘Nothing here.’

  ‘Baris?’

  There was no reply from the Merchant.

  Snow dropped down off the top of the boulder and pulled the remaining two spheroids from his belt. With his teeth he twisted their tops right round. The dark-skinned one was over to his left. The Marsman over to his right. The others were further over to the right somewhere. He threw the two spheroids right and left and moved back then flicked through multiple views on his wrist screen. A lot of the cameras were out, but he pulled up a view of the Marsman. Two detonations. As the Marsman hit the ground he realized he had thrown too far there. He was close. He flicked through the views again and caught the other stumbling through dust and wreckage, rock splinters embedded in his face. Ah, so. Snow moved to his left, checking his screen every few seconds. He halted behind a tilted slab and after checking his screen once more he squatted down and waited. With little regard for his surroundings Trock stumbled out of the falling dust. Snow smiled grimly under his mask and sighted on him. Red agony cut his shoulder. The smell of burning flesh. Snow rolled to one side, came up onto his feet, ran. Rock to one side of him smoked, pinged as it heated. He dived for cover, crawled amongst broken rock. The firing ceased. Now I’m dead, he thought. His pistol lay in the dust back there somewhere.

  *

  ‘He dropped the APW, Trock. He’s over to your left. Take him down, I can’t get a sighting at the moment.’

  Trock spat a broken tooth from his mouth and walked in the direction indicated, his antique revolver in his left hand and his laser in his right. This was it. The bastard was dead, or perhaps not. I’ll cut his arms and legs off, the beam should cauterize sufficiently. Trock did not get time to fire. The figure in dust robes came out of nowhere to drop-kick him in the chest. The body armour absorbed most of the blow, but Trock went over. Before he could rise the figure was above him. A split-hand blow drove through his visor and deep into his eyes, two fingers each, and burst them. It was a strike Snow had learnt over a thousand years before. By the time Trock started screaming and firing Snow was gone again.

  Snow coughed as quietly as he could, opened his mask and spat out a mixture of bloody plasma and charred tissue. The burn had started at his shoulder and penetrated his left lung. A second more and he would have been dead. The pain was crippling. He knew he would not have the energy for another attack like that, nor would he be likely to take any of the others by surprise. The man had been stunned by the explosion, angered by the injuries to himself. Snow edged back through the rock field, his mobility rapidly decreasing. When a shadow fell across him he looked up into the inevitable.

  ‘Why didn’t you take his weapon?’ asked Jharit, nodding back in the direction of Trock, who was no longer screaming. He was curled foetal by a rock, a field dressing across his eyes and his body pumped full of self-administered painkillers.

  ‘No time, no strength … could only get him t
hrough his visor,’ Snow managed.

  Jharit nodded and spoke into his com.

  ‘I have him. Home in on my signal.’

  Snow waited for death, but Jharit squatted in the dust by him seemingly disinclined to kill him.

  ‘Jharilla was a hell of a woman,’ said Jharit, removing a stasis bottle from his belt and pushing it into the sand next to him. ‘We were married in Viking City twenty solstan years ago.’ Jharit pulled a wicked ceramal knife from his boot and held it up before his face. ‘This is for her you understand. After I’ve taken your testicles and dressed that wound I’ll see to your other injury. I don’t want you to die yet. I have so much to tell you about her, and there is so much I want you to experience. You know she—’

  Jharit turned at a sound, rose to his feet and drew his laser again. He stepped away from Snow and looked around. Snow looked beyond him but could see nothing.

  ‘If you leave here now, Marsman, I will not kill you.’

  The voice was Hirald’s.

  Jharit fired into the rocks and backed towards Snow.

  ‘I have a singun and I am in chameleonwear. I can kill you any time I wish. Drop your weapon.’

  Jharit paused for a moment as if indecisive, then he whirled, pointing his laser at Snow. The expression on his face told all. Before he could press the trigger he collapsed into himself; a central point the size of a pinhead, a plume of sand standing where he stood, then all blasted away in a thunderclap and an encore of miniature lightnings across the ground. Snow slowly shoved himself to his feet as he looked in awe at the spot Jharit had occupied. He had heard of such weapons and not believed. He looked across as Hirald flickered back into existence only a few metres away. She smiled at him, just before the first shot ripped the side of her face away.

  Snow knew he yelled, he might have screamed. He looked on in impotent horror as the second shot smacked into her back and knocked her to the ground. Then there: Baris and the corporation woman, walking out of the rock field. Baris sighted again as he walked, hit Hirald with another shot that ripped half her side away. Snow felt his legs give way. He went down on his knees. Baris came before him, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Snow looked up at him, trying to pull the energy together to throw it all in one attempt. He knew it was what Baris was waiting for. It was all he could do. He glanced aside at the woman, saw she had halted some way back. She was looking past Baris at Hirald, a look of horror on her face. Snow did not want to look. He did not want to know.

  ‘Oh my God. It’s her!’

  Snow pulled himself to his feet, dizziness making him lurch. Baris grinned and pointed the rifle at his face, relished his moment for the half a second it lasted. The hand punched through his body, knocked the rifle aside, lifted him and hurled him against a rock with such force he stuck for a moment, then fell leaving a man-shaped corona of blood. Hirald stood there, revealed. Where the syntheflesh had been blown away glittering ceramal was exposed, her white enamel teeth, one blue eye complete in its socket, the ribbed column of her spine. She observed Snow for a moment then turned towards the woman. Snow fainted before the scream.

  *

  He was in his bed and memories slowly dragged themselves into his mind. He lay there, his throat dry, and after a moment felt across to his numbed shoulder and the dressing. It was a moment before he dared open his eyes. Hirald sat at the side of the bed, and when she saw he was awake she helped him up into a sitting position against his pillows. Snow observed her face. She had repaired the damage somehow, but the scars of that repair work were still there. She looked just like a human woman who had been disfigured in an accident. She wore a loose shirt and trousers to hide the other repairs. As he looked at her she reached up and self-consciously touched her face, before reaching for a glass of water to hand to him. Gratefully he drained the glass, that touch of vanity confusing him for a moment.

  ‘You’re a Golem android,’ he said, in the end, unsure.

  Hirald smiled and it did not look so bad.

  She said, ‘Canard Meck thought that.’ When she saw his confusion she explained, ‘The corporation woman. She called me product, which is an understandable mistake. I am nearly indistinguishable from the Golem Twenty-two.’

  ‘What are you then?’ Snow asked as she poured him another glass of water.

  ‘Cyborg. Underneath this syntheflesh I am ceramal. In the ceramal a human brain, spinal column, and other nerve tissues.’

  Snow sipped his drink as he considered that. He was not sure what he was feeling, but it certainly was not the horror he had first felt.

  ‘Will you come to Earth with me?’

  Snow turned and looked at her for a long time. He remembered how it had been in the tents as she, he realized, discovered that she was still human.

  ‘You know, I will never grow old and die,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’

  She tilted her head questioningly and awaited his answer. A slow smile spread across his face.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he told her. ‘If you will stay with me.’ He put his drink down and reached out to take hold of her hand. What defined humanity? There was blood still under her fingernails and the tear duct in her left eye was not working properly. It didn’t matter.

  8

  CHOUDAPT

  A single biolight clung to a hull bone, its tick head thrust into a ship’s artery. In the light’s dim blue luminescence Simoz observed the generator palpitating like a sick heart as it drew in plankton-rich sea water. Canvas straps secured the generator to the inner hull and a heavy skein of cables issued from under the dripping rim of its bivalve shell and was stapled to hull beams that disappeared into the darkness where the motors hummed. Simoz subvocalized an acid observation.

  Very nice.

  The doctor mycelium, the symbiont which monitored and repaired his body and fought off those things beyond the compass of his immune system, was of course defensive.

  Biotech is efficient, cheap, and self-propagating.

  Yeah, but what people fail to mention about it, is the smell.

  This is a crosstech ship.

  Mike, it stinks like a Billingsgate gutter.

  A nicely colourful historic reference only marred by the fact that you have never been to Earth.

  Picky.

  ‘The motors are ceramic nanofacture,’ said Harbing.

  Simoz supposed they must be – biotech ship motors made a sound he usually associated with wet sex.

  ‘Where from?’ he asked, not allowing the internal bickering to affect his outward demeanour.

  ‘Nanofactured on the Outlink Station Ooerlikkon and transmitted via Circe,’ Harbing replied.

  Simoz studied the Mate with interest, consciously not focusing on the man’s more obvious augmentations and adaptations, which was difficult. From his two-toed feet to the hairless white dome of his head the Mate was a full choudapt with numerous cyber implants. His mouth was the worst; with its feeding palps moving across his chin to emphasize his words. Simoz looked him in the eye and showed no evident reaction to the flickering of his nictitating membranes.

  ‘You’ve had no rejection problems?’ he asked.

  This question puzzled Harbing. Simoz allowed his gaze to drop to the scanner link Harbing had grafted just above his hip. There were pustules around the disc of bright metal and a slight leakage of pus from behind it.

  ‘I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at,’ said Harbing.

  Simoz nodded to himself.

  Sharp drop in IQ a couple of weeks after infection.

  Obviously … I am ready now.

  Simoz concentrated his gaze on the link and Harbing glanced down. His puzzlement increased when he saw the signs of his own body rejecting its technology. Simoz let things go no further than that. He quickly reached out and put his right hand behind Harbing’s head. His left hand he clamped across the Mate’s mouth and he winced as the palps pinched at his palm. Harbing struggled, but to no avail, then his eyes grew wide in shock as Mi
ke extended its nano-mycelium body from the palm of Simoz’s hand down the man’s throat.

  Are you in?

  I am in …cutting motor functions.

  Harbing dropped as if someone had cut his strings. Simoz knelt with him as he collapsed, his hands still in position.

  Can you link?

  Parasitic fungus is primitive form. Aggression. Fungal form, dead.

  What happened?

  No link established.

  ‘Damn!’

  You are vocalizing.

  I was aware of that. We’ll try again in the Wrack. Withdraw from him and blank out the last minute or so.

  Withdrawn.

  Simoz removed his hands and cradled Harbing’s head. After a moment Harbing opened his eyes.

  ‘What … what happened?’

  Simoz gestured to the generator.

  ‘You were showing me the generator then you just keeled over,’ he said.

  ‘I feel sick,’ said Harbing.

  Understandable. The fungus is breaking down in his lymphatic system.

  Will he be all right?

  He will not notice as soon as he is reinfected.

  How long till that happens?

  It has probably already happened. I have noted a high degree of spore incursion on this ship.

  And that means?

  The spores are in the air of this ship. Forty per cent of my function at present is keeping them from infecting you. They are especially prevalent in here.

  I thought they wouldn’t infect me.

  Not a primary infection, but they could make you ill.

  What about the retrovirus?

  I am keeping it in somnolent form until I have made sufficient alterations.

  What?

  The fungal form here shows extreme divergence and I am altering the retrovirus to suit.