The Gabble and Other Stories

by Neal Asher

  A mutation? Could that be it? Something the original virus missed?

  There is that possibility.

  Simoz helped Harbing to his feet then pointed to the scanner link at Harbing’s waist.

  ‘It might have something to do with that,’ he said.

  Harbing gaped at the signs of rejection. ‘Yeah … yeah, I gotta do something about that.’

  ‘Perhaps you should see the ship’s doctor.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’

  Somewhat bemusedly Harbing turned and tottered from the engine room. After casting a glare of suspicion at the generator, Simoz followed.

  Here was a city enclosed in a translucent bubble, steady on a copper-coloured sea. It could have been mistaken for something built had it not been for the veins in the surface of the bubble. The crosstech ship, apparently the bastard offspring of a dredger and a manta ray, circled the bubble to where a split developed in the meniscus and it drew aside like stage curtains. On the deck of the ship Simoz noted the stench of decay wafted to him on the sea breeze, then glanced aside to where a cluster of smaller, house-sized bubbles surfaced and were drawn away by the tide. These bubbles were mostly opaque but with inset glass windows. Through some of these he saw human faces staring out – faces blank of human expression.

  They keep washing up at the mouth of the Thranx.

  It is where the currents take them.

  Some of the other Wrack cities have taken to burning any that get close.

  A perhaps understandable reaction.

  The ship motored in through the opening and drew in to docks in the shape of lily pads clustered around the organic city. Ramps terminating in spiked hooks lowered from the crosstech ship and punctured the pads, securing the vessel in place. Simoz picked up his kitbag and quickly moved to one of them, but before he reached it, Harbing and another crew member moved in on him.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Harbing asked.

  Simoz studied him. ‘I told you: I have some biotech samples I hope to sell here. There some problem?’

  ‘There’s problem,’ said the other crew member.

  ‘I don’t see it,’ said Simoz, moving to go past the two men. As he did so he kept a wary eye on the other crewman. This man was shorter than Harbing, but heavily muscled. A computer link below his right ear was leaking pus and a suppurating hollow above his hip indicated where a scanner link had once been seated.

  Late stages of infection.

  I know.

  The man reached out and caught hold of Simoz by the biceps, his expression alternately puzzled and blank.

  ‘Problem,’ he said leadenly.

  Simoz caught hold of the man’s wrist, pulled him in and thumped him hard under the sternum. The man went down coughing and wheezing.

  Harbing stood back gazing at the scene in bewilderment. ‘I don’t … I don’t understand.’

  ‘You will,’ said Simoz, and quickly headed for the ramp. Two other crewmen were watching him from the bows of the ship. They too were without expression.

  We’ll have to move fast. There’s a defensive reaction here. I guess I don’t smell right.

  It was predicted.

  Once on the queasy surface of the docks Simoz quickly headed for an entry portal, meanwhile passing a female choudapt walking a pet on a lead. This pet was a sea louse a metre long, its ribbed black shell painted with flowers and rococo patterns, its mandibles and saw-toothed mouth grinding and dripping foamy saliva.

  Choud.

  I see through your eyes.

  Simoz felt there to be something quite perverse about these people keeping as pets the creatures whose genome they had spliced into their own bodies. He increased his pace as the choud turned to watch him with its glowing eyepits. He was through the entrance portal and moving quickly into the alleys and precincts when the creature started to fight its leash and show an inclination to come after him.

  This could get ever so slightly lethal. Can’t you do anything?

  I can try to copy the pheromonal signature.

  Do so.

  You will not know right away if it is working.

  Simoz found himself in a dank alley free of choudapts or chouds. The floor and walls of the alley were dead biofacture and for a moment he felt safe enough to open his kitbag and quickly remove the tools of his trade. At his belt he holstered a thin-gun. Over his shoulder he slung the strap of a laser carbine. In his pockets he placed various smaller implements of destructive potential. Then he stood and kicked his bag to one side.

  Chouds. Jesus. Some idiot must have brought in a wild one. What other explanation is there? Probably full of fungal spores. I’d bet it was found in a freed bladder.

  People quickly forget. And there are other explanations.

  Yes, I know. I’d imagine you find the life-cycle interesting, there being certain similarities with yourself.

  I do find it interesting though I would dispute that it is similar to myself. The parasitic fungus here is without sentience; the subminds it develops are of the level of an ant or a bee. It is also worth noting that it is wholly natural and was here long before humans arrived and turned seaweed into living accommodation and spliced themselves with native life-forms.

  Do I detect disapproval?

  Only of incompetence. The original bioengineers should have detected the choud parasite and its method of transmission. Subsequent generations should have been given immunity to it by taking on a different adapted form.

  Should haves and should haves. We’ve a job to do. Will you try not to kill it this time? We need that location.

  I will try.

  Simoz moved to the mouth of the alley and studied the crowds. On the other side of the flattened pipe of a street he saw the choudapt woman walking her choud. It showed no reaction to him, so his body must now be emitting the pheromone. As he stood there watching the people of the Wrack, and trying to decide who to go for and how, a young choudapt woman walked past him and turned into the mouth of the alley. He nodded to her, but she did not acknowledge his presence. He silently turned and followed her. Halfway into the alley she realized he was behind her and abruptly turned, opening her mouth, perhaps to say something, perhaps to scream. He slammed his hand over it, tripped her and forced her back against the ground. Mike went in.

  Parasitic fungus primitive form again. I try to …

  Come on Mike – just do it gently.

  Fungal form, dead.

  Oh for chrissake.

  It would seem that the fungus is unable to achieve adult form in humans and in juvenile form cannot survive my … inspection. I would suggest that we take an actual choud next.

  Oh great idea.

  Simoz removed his hand and the woman abruptly opened her eyes.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked. ‘You just keeled over.’

  ‘It’s dead. You killed it,’ she said.

  ‘You got me there,’ said Simoz, reaching into his pocket for a shock stick.

  ‘How did you do it?’

  The woman sat upright. She was a choudapt without evident augmentations. Her hands and feet were two-toed and her skin a bluey green with the angular hardness of exoskeleton. She had retained her hair, which was long and anaemic blonde and spilled all the way down the plastimail slip she wore. She had used iridescent paint on her mouth palps so that they looked like some curious item of jewellery.

  ‘I have a doctor mycelium inside me,’ Simoz replied.

  ‘Then you must be ECS.’

  She is showing surprising acuity in the circumstances.

  Not surprising.

  Mike’s reply had a hint of dry sarcasm behind it.

  I suggest you elaborate.

  She is Earth Central Security as well. She is a Monitor. Her boosted immune system must have resisted infection for a long time and it is helping her recover very quickly now.

  Simoz left the shock stick in his pocket and helped the woman to her feet.

  ‘Simoz,’ he said.

  ‘Haline,�
� the woman replied.

  What a gas.

  Simoz frowned. It was very unlike the mycelium to make jokes. Perhaps it was feeling the strain.

  ‘What’s happening here?’ Haline asked.

  Nodding to the mouth of the alley and heading in that direction, Simoz said, ‘I’ll tell you while you lead me somewhere I can, without interference, get hold of a choud.’

  Haline stared at him then turned to the left as they departed the alley.

  ‘Something was controlling me,’ she said.

  ‘A parasitic fungus,’ said Simoz. ‘It was here when only chouds lived in the bladders of the wracks. Fairly simple vector: it lives in the choud’s body and drives the creature to climb into a bladder and cut it free. That bladder drifts to another wrack where there are uninfected chouds. There it makes the choud find a secure place to encyst … cocoon itself. It then feeds on the choud’s body and produces spores which spread through the wrack and infect other chouds. The set-up in the wrack is then something like that of social insects on Earth – the main fungus has a primitive mind and it controls the others by means of pheromonal messages. Those other chouds, once infected for a number of years, then act like new queens leaving a bee’s nest; they climb into a bladder and cut it away to start the cycle all over again. They start their own colonies. Only the fact that infected and uninfected chouds can detect each other has prevented a complete takeover by the fungus, but then that’s evolution for you.’

  ‘But … us?’ said Haline.

  ‘Come on, you’re a choudapt. Ninety per cent human and ten per cent choud. It’s why you like the horrible things as pets.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, but … how is it I don’t know about this … this fungus?’

  ‘It was supposedly wiped out two centuries ago by a manufactured retrovirus.’

  ‘Then how has this happened?’

  ‘That’s one of the things I’m here to find out,’ said Simoz as he gazed around, ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the centre. You can buy a choud there.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What else do you need to know?’

  ‘I need to know where the encysted choud is hidden. That’s why I need to lay hands on another one. Mike can winkle the location of the “mother” fungus from one of its mature kin. We tried it with you but the fungal form apparently doesn’t mature in human hosts and is a bit delicate.’

  And while I’m thinking about it, Mike, how the hell am I going to put my hand over a choud’s mouth.

  Unfortunately there is not enough seal in such mouth parts.

  What?

  You will not have to put your hand over its mouth, but in its mouth.

  Oh great.

  As they walked down the flattened artery of a causeway, beyond whose translucent walls bubble houses clustered like giant eyeballs, Simoz watched the folk around him. Many of them had obviously been having problems with their augmentations – the cyber implants and links that joined living human to his technology. None of the humans showed any reaction to him, but the few chouds he saw turned and fought their leashes, foam dripping from mouth parts like slime-coated cutlery sets.

  How long will she hold out?

  Her immune system is boosted but not as efficient as myself. She has been reinfected already, but the fungus will not be well established for an hour or so.

  Efficient as yourself?

  Mere fact.

  Okay, what about the pheromonal signature?

  She is giving it off.

  So she can go buy us a choud and bring it to a suitable location.

  Very practical of you.

  Improvisation my friend. Improvisation.

  The centre was the point from which branched all the main causeways of the Wrack. Those causeways ran down the sepals of the giant pseudo-flower of the plant, which was also the city. Here the bubble buildings were stacked in profusion like berries heaped over a spread hand. Myriad tubeways connected these separate bubbles, some of which were houses and some of them offices, shops, restaurants – all the usual paraphernalia of that entity called a city. By way of these tubes and through some of the bubbles, Haline led Simoz to her home. Then she went alone to make the required purchase. Simoz made himself comfortable in a chair fashioned from the scales of a giant fish and scanned his surroundings. He noted the veins in the ceiling at which a couple of biolights were feeding, and on the floor the slow traverse of a tile-cleaning slime mould. He saw that she had a food plant of old biofacture and one he recognized as producing a fruit that in its ancestry had both apples and pigs. He only gradually became aware of how dim it was in the place and how few biolights Haline seemed to have. The sudden simultaneous agony at his shoulder and calf told him abruptly where the other biolights had gone.

  ‘Shit!’

  Simoz jerked from the chair and felt the chitinous legs of the biolights dig into his calf and his back. He pulled his thin-gun from its holster and pointed at the biolight on his leg. The pain was incredible and it took him a moment to realize that with such a shot he would likely blow his foot off. Gritting his teeth he reholstered the gun and took the shock stick out of his pocket. He touched the end of the stick to the biolight on his back and pressed the button. The shock convulsed the light and he felt it rip from his back and heard it thud on the floor. A spill-over of energy paralysed his shoulder and sent him stumbling.

  ‘Fucking hell!’

  You are not thinking straight.

  ‘Oh fucking brilliant!’

  I am blocking this light’s breathing holes. It is detaching.

  The second biolight fell from his leg and scuttled across the room. Simoz drew his thin-gun and aimed at the one that had fallen behind him. The light emitted by its baggy body had taken on a reddish tinge from his blood. It was on its back, its six legs curled in tight, its tick mouth bubbling. The thin-gun coughed and the biolight exploded, spraying glowing ichor and translucent organs in every direction. Simoz noted half its body stuck to the side of the chair, its legs quivering, before he turned to search out the other light. It scuttled from under a synthewood coffee table and he shot at it twice, leaving smoking holes in the floor. It ran up the wall then came across the ceiling at him. He hit it as it dropped towards him. Warm flesh and glowing ichor plastered his face and shoulders. He wiped the substance from his eyes and stepped out from under the other two lights on the ceiling. They showed no sign of moving.

  What the hell was that?

  There was a delay before Mike replied. Simoz felt the wounds in his shoulder and calf being sealed by the mycelium, the pain fading.

  Choud DNA has been used in all biofacture here. These lights are fifty-three per cent choud.

  Enough for a mature fungal form?

  Yes.

  Did you read it?

  I did.

  You have the location of the mother fungus?

  I do.

  Just then the door to the room opened and Haline entered with a small choud straining at the leash she held. Simoz studied her and she blankly returned his gaze before absently releasing the leash. The choud surged forward, its many legs rustling against the floor. Simoz shot it through the head and it stopped dead, then slowly curled into a perfect ball. Haline showed little reaction.

  ‘Why have you done this to my home?’ she asked, her words dull.

  Simoz walked towards her, but as he drew close she suddenly stepped forward with her hands held out like blades. Simoz touched the shock stick to her forearm and she slammed back against the door then slid down it to the floor. He dragged her aside and stepped out of her home.

  I take it you stopped producing the pheromone?

  I did not have spare function. My repair of you and my continued alteration of the retrovirus used it all.

  Continued alteration?

  The divergence of this parasitic fungus is greater than I thought.

  Simoz stooped down and parted the rip in his trouser leg to reveal a ragged circle of pink scar tissue.


  Quick work.

  You need to be completely functional. You have a bit of a journey and anything of more than forty per cent choud biofacture will be trying to kill you.

  Where to?

  The anchor root. The encysted choud is there.

  Perhaps it would be better to release the virus here.

  That would defeat the object of us coming here. I need to read the mother fungus. It will be the only way for us to find some clue as to how it got here.

  A dubious bet at best I think.

  Our only one. If there is even the slightest evidence that the fungal infection was deliberate then there must be an investigation, as that would likely mean Separatist activity. If there is some other cause, we need to know that, to prevent it happening again.

  At the centre point of the Wrack lay an open well around whose edges were gathered leaf-shaped platforms. Simoz watched people walk on to these, whereupon they dropped gently into the well. Thick stalks from the platforms were rooted into the wall of the well and slid down as if following invisible grooves.

  There must be another way down.

  It is likely that this living elevator is based more on wrack DNA than choud DNA.

  I think we should find out before we try it.

  Walking across the wide plaza, Simoz was conscious of puzzled stares cast in his direction and of chouds straining at leashes. He noted a floor-cleaning creature, like a flattened choud, become aware of his presence then turn after him in painfully slow pursuit. He also noted a heavily choudapted human: a man wearing only a pouch belt, his body completely sheathed in plates of exoskeleton, turn in his direction and slowly come after him. Upon reaching the well Simoz reached down and pressed his hand to the rough surface of one leaf.

  Are you in?

  I am.

  Come on, things are getting fraught round here.

  This biotech is ninety per cent wrack-based.

  Simoz glanced back and saw general movement in his direction as of a crowd attracted by a curiosity. He doubted he would be able to survive their attention.

  Out of choices.

  Simoz stepped onto the leaf and it immediately swung out over the well and slowly began to descend. He observed that the stalk penetrated the woody wall through a wet slot, a slot that opened before it and closed after it like a zipper. The leaf platform reached ten metres down when he glanced up and saw the heavy choudapt follow him over the edge on another. Another ten metres down and he saw something fall over the rim above to come hurtling down with a whistling squeal – the cleaning creature. It hit the edge of his platform to scrabble for a moment with inadequate legs, then fell out of sight. Returning his attention to the man above, Simoz saw him staring down, his saw-toothed palps clacking before his mouth.