by Neal Aher
He had always made sure of a back door into the second-child minds he had sold because of the chance he might be able to use them later. Flute had now proved the worth of that strategy. Flute, and the ship he ran, would follow Cvorn’s signal, while Spear and that disgusting drone would think they were in close pursuit of Sverl. They would spring Cvorn’s trap because, even if that prador could manage to resist attacking such a small Polity vessel, Flute would now force the issue. Flute would probably have time to send a final report back to Sverl.
Probably.
CVORN
The work was proceeding as expected, with ship’s lasers scouring away rock so the ST dreadnought could fit neatly into the hollow moon. As he watched this on his array of screens, Cvorn experienced momentary pain and turned one stalk eye to peer at the human blank working with a shell saw on the side of his carapace, quickly stamping on the urge to shove the creature up against the wall and crush it. It was a silly urge, akin to trashing a laser cutter because it had splashed hot metal into a claw joint. The blank was working to a program Cvorn had created, and he had expected pain at this point since it had just levered out a chunk of scar carapace formed in the socket where one of his legs had once connected to his body. However, the urge was partial confirmation of his theory about the odd feelings he had been experiencing since coming aboard. He just needed to do a little further checking to confirm that theory.
He now brought up new feeds on his screens and contemplated cam views into the laying pool, reminding himself to have the females scoured out so they might take his own seed. He felt a ghost of his mating urge return, a twitching in the remains of his sexual organs and a sense of regret at the fact that one of his children would have to inject his seed mechanically. Analytically he compared this reaction to the one he had experienced while viewing these females at a distance from his destroyer, and saw the difference. This was further confirmation of his hypothesis.
Lastly, he carefully studied the analysis, now scrolling diagonally across his screens, of the ST dreadnought’s air supply and simultaneously checked studies of prador physiology he’d loaded to his aug. Yes, that settled it. The dreadnought’s air was full of the hormonal output of five young males and those females. He was breathing in complex organic compounds generated by decades of frustration in the five males having been satisfied, also by sexually active females, and now by the frustration once again growing in the males. It was a situation rare in the Kingdom because adult males tended to isolate themselves, and Cvorn only found final confirmation in some very old studies. The potent mix in the air was making him feel younger; he was having feelings he hadn’t experienced for well over a century.
Cvorn now ordered the blank working on his carapace to withdraw as he rose up on his grav-plates and swung round from the screens to face his other blank and Vrom, who were both at work. Ensconced in the hemispherical shell of a surgical telefactor, its complex multiple limbs working busily, Vrom was removing the last prosthetic limb from the corpse of this ship’s previous captain. Meanwhile, the other blank was working on the limbs Vrom had just removed, replacing worn components and renewing the nano-fibre connectors.
With a thought, as he settled back to the floor, Cvorn ordered the first blank back to work on his carapace, exposing the flesh, blood vessels and stunted nerves underneath the scar carapace filling his leg sockets. He knew that this wish to be able to walk again, even on prosthetic limbs, was down to that potent mix in the air, but he didn’t fight it. He could have had the Five, and the females, isolated, and the air filtered and cleaned of organics, but did not. Despite some irrational impulses, he was enjoying feeling so alive.
Steadily and methodically, the first blank worked round all his leg sockets, shut down the shell saw and replaced it in its charging point in the telefactor, then returned to pick up the chunks of scar carapace and take them away. Meanwhile Vrom had removed the last leg from the corpse. The blank now came back to clean out Cvorn’s open wounds with antiviral and antibacterial spray, also washing out the shell dust. Cvorn clattered his mandibles, again suppressed the urge to kill something and waited for the ensuing analgesic sprays.
“Would you like to be an adult, Vrom?” he abruptly asked.
Without stopping work, Vrom replied, “Only if my father wishes it so.”
Vrom was as obedient as a blank and Cvorn suddenly found that irritating. Again, analysing his irrational reaction, Cvorn could make no clear connection with those hormonal effects. His irritation stemmed from boredom with such an expected response. Vrom was following his program, just like the blank now coming over with a prosthetic limb ready for fitting. Cvorn divided his attention, simultaneously watching this blank while also focusing through his aug on input from both inside and outside the ship.
The Five, confined to their various sections within the ship, were all very active. They were searching data, disassembling and reassembling equipment including weapons, checking cam views available to them, and sometimes just running around aimlessly. These actions were all an outward expression of their inner frustration, which Cvorn studied via his Dracocorp aug domination of them. They could smell the females and wanted to mate but his instruction, firm in their minds, was as solid a barrier as the locked doors around them. They were now aware of how thoroughly he controlled them, fought against it in their own ways and really wanted to do something, but just kept running up against that dominance and finding themselves unable to act. And their hormonal output was like smoke from smouldering corpses on a battlefield.
As Cvorn now watched the enlargement of the hole into the asteroid, he rejected his earlier plans to simply dispense with the Five. Right now, he wanted them frustrated and pumping out all those lovely organics. Perhaps later, when he had made some complete analysis of this process and could artificially produce what they were producing, he’d get rid of them, but not yet.
With coincidental simultaneity, the dreadnought slid into the asteroid at the same time as Cvorn’s first new limb slid into its socket in his body. As the great ship stabilized, extending telescopic feet to the surrounding rock walls, the blank shell-welded the limb into place. As the ship, using grav-motors, incrementally turned the rock to the required position, the nano-fibres began to penetrate inside Cvorn and find their nerve attachment points. And by the time the ship’s forward array of weapons was pointing out of the hole in the asteroid towards the planet, a blank attached the last of Cvorn’s new limbs.
As the effect of the analgesics faded, the pain returned, now a deep raw ache. He tried supporting his weight on his limbs but couldn’t manage it and collapsed. He lay there until he began using his aug to stimulate near-atrophied parts of his brain until he remembered how to walk. Gradually, stupidly, these alien limbs began to move. And then to work properly. Once up on his feet and moving, he clattered fierce delight. He used one claw to smash away the blank that had been fitting the limbs and spun round to again face his screens. He was ready now: ready for Sverl, ready for anything!
6
BLITE
As he opened the outer door of one of The Rose’s airlocks, Blite tried to remember the last time he had taken a spacewalk like this, but the memory evaded him for a moment. He propelled himself out, then, with a blast from his wrist impeller, back down to the hull, engaging his gecko soles and then reeling out his safety line to attach it to a loop beside the airlock. Now he remembered his last spacewalk. Many solstan years ago, he had come out here to check the hull for attached trackers. Micrometeorites had conveniently destroyed exterior cams while The Rose was in parking orbit of the moon on which he had been conducting their latest trade. He’d found the trackers too, and used them to give the thief who had put them there a nasty surprise. But there were no cams out here now. That beam blast that had hit the ship as they escaped from the Par Avion space station had incinerated them.
The burn started halfway along The Rose’s hull. Blite walked to the edge of the metre-wide trench carved down through si
x inches of armour and into the foamed ceramic insulation beneath. He walked along the edge of this, circumventing where it had gone deep enough to activate the breech sealant circuit and where that sealant had grown a great bubble of the vacuum-set foam like some huge fungus. Beyond this, he reached the section of hull over the engine room. He knew where he was because he could now see the wreckage inside.
The fusion drive wasn’t just fucked, it was all but gone. Par Avion had managed to carve the trench, then centre the beam blast straight up The Rose’s tailpipe just at the last moment. Blite stared at the damage and felt his initial elation at escaping the station, and at once again operating, fade.
“Not so good,” said Brond from inside, where he was watching Blite’s suit feed.
“Megalithic understatement, big boy,” said Greer, also still inside. “I’m amazed the U-drive is still working . . . it is working, isn’t it, Leven?”
“It is, amazingly, hardly damaged at all,” the Golem ship mind replied. “Though, as we are all aware, there is some resonance.”
They had all been feeling the effects of the imbalance in that drive.
“So we can still take the jump into the Graveyard and get those repairs,” said Blite, trying to consign to irrelevance that portion of fear and nausea he had experienced during their jump from Par Avion.
“We can,” Leven replied. “We don’t need much realspace acceleration to engage now, after Penny Royal’s tampering. Maybe just steering thrusters will do . . .”
“But?” Blite prompted.
“The border,” Leven replied.
“Come on—it’s a sieve.”
“It was a sieve.”
“What do you mean?” Blite turned round and began tramping back to the airlock. There wasn’t much he could do out here. They needed to get to somewhere like Molonor in the Graveyard where he could access his Galaxy Bank account and pay for professional repairs to the ship. Even if the Polity blocked his access to that account—which was practically unheard of—he had ensured that he had transferred plenty of portable wealth aboard shortly after the memplant payment went in. They just needed to get to the Graveyard.
“Explain yourself, Leven,” he said, when the mind was tardy in replying.
“It’s a little puzzling,” the mind replied. “The Polity watch stations are on high alert and have sunk their detectors into U-space. Doubtless USERs are ready to be deployed too. Ships are also arriving—attack ships, dreadnoughts and some bigger stuff.”
“This can’t just be down to us,” said Blite as he entered the airlock. Really, if his encounter with Penny Royal, his much-admired new hardfield generator and his escape from Par Avion warranted this kind of response, then he might just as well give himself up now.
“No,” said Leven. “Details are unclear but this seems to be in response to activity on the other side of the Graveyard.”
“The prador are playing up,” said Greer.
“That seems likely,” said Leven. “But, as I said, the details are not clear.”
Once inside his ship, Blite retracted his visor into his suit’s neck ring and pushed the folding hard-shell back off his head. He felt no inclination to take the suit off and, when he arrived in the bridge, the other two were similarly clad. Always best to take precautions like this when your ship has a chunk carved out of its hull like a scale model of Valles Marinaris. He took his seat, rested his elbows on the console before him and brought his fingertips together as he considered.
“If we stay in the Polity then someone or something is going to track us down, make sure we’re completely disabled and take us in,” he said. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Brond, while Greer nodded.
“So if all this border activity is about what’s happening on the Kingdom side, then that’s where their attention will be focused.” He gazed at Brond and Greer but they showed no inclination to agree. Like him, they were perfectly well aware that when AIs went on high alert their vision was three-sixty. “We have to try to get through.”
“I guess so,” said Greer, with tired acceptance.
“Leven,” he said, “analyse your data on the activity there and try to take us through where it’s most accessible.”
The Rose jolted as steering thrusters fired up and, listening to the sound penetrating the ship, Blite was sure that one of those thrusters was damaged and on its way out. He gazed out pensively at the starlit vacuum, as armoured shutters drew across to close it off and as his ship accelerated. He winced when he felt a wave of something pass through the bridge, seemingly from the direction of the U-space engine.
“Engaging,” said Leven.
“No shit,” said Greer.
They all felt the surge and the sickening twist of the U-space jump. Blite gazed around at the bridge. On the surface, everything looked the same as always, but now it was as if he had taken psycho-actives. Every physical object around him now appeared incredibly insubstantial. Their gleaming surfaces seemed to represent a very thin skin over absolutely nothing at all—an absence the human mind hadn’t evolved to encompass and from which it wanted to retreat screaming. Blite stood up, swayed unsteadily.
“How long?” he asked.
“Fifty-two hours,” Leven replied.
“Okay,” he said, “we’ll take six-hour shifts: you first, Greer, then Brond.”
Brond also stood up, looking pale and ill.
“I’m going to zone out,” Blite added.
The others would do the same when not on watch—electrically imposed sleep was the best way of getting through this, though the nightmares tended to be lurid. As he headed towards his cabin, Blite wondered if he would be having more like those he’d had just after they left Par Avion. Those had been nasty. Black knives had surrounded him—Penny Royal, obviously. But he was imagining the version of the AI that deserved its seriously bad reputation. It had tittered as it began skinning him.
TRENT
“What do you want?” Trent asked, not wanting to look round.
“You and your lovely earring,” said the Golem behind.
Trent’s hand was still tight round the ship’s joystick. What were his options? Did he really want to spend a lot of time stuck in such a confined place with what he knew was standing behind him? He could return to the moon, to the Brockle . . . No, that really wasn’t an option. He’d rather play Russian roulette with a pulse-gun than go back there. He released his grip, reached down to the chair clamp and released that, then slowly turned his chair round, that skeletal metal hand coming off his shoulder as he did so.
The Penny Royal Golem loomed in the cabin and reminded him of when he had first seen it accompanying Stolman—the mafia boss on the Rock Pool. It was of course without skin or syntheflesh: a human skeleton fashioned of ceramal, but with oversized stepper motors bulging in its joints, the gaps between its ribs filled with some grey material, while its teeth were white and eyes dark blue. But its similarity to the usual skeletal Golem ended there. It was bigger than a standard Golem, and someone had enamelled its polished bones with colourful geometric patterns so it looked like an artefact from some Mayan tomb. Filling the area where a human gut would have resided, twisted round its bones, in its joints, around its neck and part of its skull, was a form of tech that looked organic. In fact, it looked almost as if the Golem had slept in a jungle for a hundred years, then torn itself free with its workings clogged with roots and vines, only these were metallic black and gold and too evenly distributed. The thing was also battered, scratched and scored with laser burns.
It blinked metallic eyelids at him that skeletal Golem usually didn’t possess, then abruptly stepped away from him and sat down on the floor to the rear of the small cabin. There it started individually hinging out the ribs on one side of its chest.
“Why?” Trent asked, then after swallowing drily, “Why do you want me and my earring?”
“Because he wants her.”
The “her” had to be Isobel Satomi and Trent had a horri
ble suspicion that “he” might be Penny Royal. But surely, that didn’t make any sense, since Penny Royal had passed on the memcording of Isobel to him in the first place. Why would it want that back now?
He stared at the Golem, remembering how it had saved his life while he had been the crime boss Stolman’s captive. But whether that was due to Satomi seizing control of it or at its own instigation he had no idea. At the time it had declaimed, “Thus do the scales fall from my eyes.” He also remembered how, enforcing Satomi’s orders, it had torn the head off the captain of the Glory. This Golem had, at one time, probably been of the normal Polity kind. But then Penny Royal got hold of it, and some time after that Stolman had controlled it with a Dracocorp aug. Then Isobel had usurped that control with the power of her crazy mind. And, though sanity was debatable when it came to artificial intelligences, he felt sure he was in the presence of something insane.
“What should I call you?” he asked, because giving it a name might waylay some of his fear of it.
Still hinging out ribs, it tilted its polished skull.
“Never really considered having a name,” it said.
“Why don’t you consider that now?”
“Snickety snick,” it said.
No, that can’t be right.
One side of its chest was now completely open to expose glittery workings. They didn’t look right to Trent—looked as organic as that stuff spread over the outside of its skeleton. In addition, amidst them, he could just see the Golem’s AI crystal in its ceramal cage. It wasn’t clear or opalescent like the usual home of an AI mind, but burned and it contained blooms like fungus in agar, and Trent could definitely see some cracks. Having exposed all this, it now reached round and tore open the panel in the wall against which it was reclining.
“You must have had a real name once,” he said, “before Penny Royal got hold of you.”