by Neal Aher
Cvorn again checked the data on that incident and again found it frustratingly inconclusive. The second-child had kept the transmission open and plenty of data was available, but it still wasn’t clear what had fired on the destroyer. The destroyer’s sensors had detected Sverl’s ship, but at some considerable distance from its own arrival point. They had then perceived objects swinging round the red dwarf, but these were cloaked in a haze of EMR, and before identification was possible an energy surge occurred and the transmission ended.
Did Sverl have allies? Cvorn could think of no being, either prador or Polity, who might assume such a role. But regardless, he had taken precautions . . .
Cvorn stared at his screens, noting a small warning scrolling in one of them. The second-children must have discovered yet another part of the ship that hadn’t been there on the schematic. They’d already picked up a tunnel leading from this very sanctum to a grating two corridors away to which Sfolk must have cut the fixings. This was now blocked and the grating welded down. But it was vexing to find this so near . . . Cvorn abruptly did a double take. No, this new warning signalled something else entirely. This actually told him that some cams had gone offline towards the nose of the ship—cams in a corridor adjacent to an armoury.
“Security Drones Four and Seven head to these coordinates,” he instructed, in his excitement briefly losing control of his ability to aug them the instruction or coordinates. He waited, champing his mandibles, then inadvertently regurgitated a chunk of jellied mudfish. His ailments seemed determined to remind him of their presence. He swallowed, tried to remain calm, then sent the coordinates—simultaneously bringing up sensor feeds from the drones on two of his screens.
SD4 was the first to arrive on the scene, rounding a curve in the corridor next to where one of the cams was offline. The drone’s image feed briefly showed what lay ahead. Then the perspective shot up to the ceiling, before disappearing in a bright flash. A second later Cvorn heard the distant explosion and felt the rumble through the ship.
“All drones converge on the coordinates of Drones Four and Seven!” he instructed. “Beware mines!” Next, he ran a replay of what the drone had seen. He saw a prador in the armour of a large first-child, slicing through the door into the armoury with a green-output quantum cascade laser.
Not so smart, he thought before panicking again, and belatedly checking on the contents of that armoury. It contained hand-held particle cannons, Gatling guns, missile launchers and a wide selection of explosives. With such weaponry, an armoured prador could wreak a great deal of havoc. But still, breaking in there seemed a foolish move. No matter how much havoc Sfolk caused, he would never get away from there—the security drones were just seconds away.
Now came the feed from SD7 as it slowed before the cam black spot. It framed an object stuck to the wall just above the floor and just below the ostensibly malfunctioning cam. Before Cvorn could issue instructions, the area in sight filled with metal flinders from Gatling fire and the mine detonated, taking out one wall of the corridor and part of the floor. Though he was aware that these drones contained second-child ganglions and could therefore think for themselves, he still said, “Get in fast and kill him.”
“Understood, Father,” replied the drone, rounding a smoke-filled corner and entering the stretch of tunnel Sfolk had previously occupied. At the far end, Cvorn glimpsed the remains of the other drone lying in burning wreckage. Sfolk must have used a planar explosive mine to cut the thing in half.
SD7 reached the doorway into the armoury—which was still smoking around its edges, with the door lying on the floor inside. The drone entered fast, swerved left then up and to the right. Cvorn caught one glimpse of a line scoring across a wall, spilling molten metal. More feeds opened up on Cvorn’s screens as the other drones started to arrive, then another of them blinked out. It was all too chaotic to absorb and would require decoding in his aug, which he wasn’t capable of right then. Abruptly he backed off his saddle, turned and headed for the sanctum door, retaining enough control to signal it to open ahead of him. There he paused for a second, considering bringing his blanks with him, but knew he wouldn’t have much control over them either.
“Vlox!” he called, routing that and his imperative clattering to the PA system. “You and armed children to me now!”
Four second-children clad in armour came at a run, skidding round the curve at the end of this tunnel, brandishing Gatling guns and particle cannons. They had been on station while the others were mapping the ship, just in case they uncovered Sfolk’s hideaway. Vlox came running after, unarmoured but now bearing a single-barrelled weapon. This was specifically designed to punch through prador armour and explode inside it. Cvorn liked that his new first-child was keeping on top of events and was thinking ahead. Vlox might even survive in his post for as long as Vrom.
“Come!” he said peremptorily, and set off.
Two of the second-children shot forward, tipping sideways and running along the curve of the tunnel wall to get past Cvorn’s bulk and settle in ahead. They soon reached a branch in the tunnel and headed right, following its curve down—already aware of where Cvorn wanted to go. Meanwhile, Cvorn managed to control himself enough to get imagery back from the drones’ cams. The armoury was now full of smoke, the green laser stabbing through it and signalling its source. The drones were targeting this with careful particle cannon shots. Cvorn felt briefly angry. Why weren’t they opening up with everything they had? Then he remembered just how dangerous it would be to do so at that location. This was quickly confirmed, as a further blast knocked out two cam views—but another showed Sfolk tumbling in a cloud of fire.
Very quickly, they drew closer to the sounds of conflict. Judging by the cam feeds, Cvorn reckoned Sfolk had realized he was finished, so now fought without regard for his own safety. One of the drones that the blast had knocked down had just recovered when the young adult leapt onto it. Another explosion ensued and Cvorn lost not only the cam feed from that drone but all other feeds too. Sfolk had destroyed the drone; Cvorn reckoned he had used the methods of a particularly feared human fighter during the war and had stuck a mine on the thing. Cvorn slowed down. Perhaps his impulse to rush down here to be in at the kill hadn’t been a great idea. Vlox took this opportunity to get past him and join the two second-children just as they reached the edge of the cam black spot. Together, they rounded the curve into the conflict zone.
It was getting seriously chaotic in there. Sfolk had managed to activate a particle cannon and he wasn’t reluctant to hit the munitions surrounding him. He was using them, in fact—deliberately hitting explosives whenever a drone drew near. Cvorn could feel the shock waves travelling down the tunnel and a moment later saw part of the wall panel blow out, hinging down like a ramp. Sfolk couldn’t last much longer now. His armour was beginning to glow and he’d lost three of his eight legs and part of one claw. Cvorn halted and decided to wait, but did not have to pause for long.
Another blast caused a cloud of flame to belch out of the hole in the wall. Then out shot Sfolk, hitting the far wall and crashing down again. His legs were now all missing on one side—the claw gone on that side too. However, in his other claw, he still held a particle cannon. He tried to right himself to face back towards his attackers but, at that moment, he must have spotted Cvorn and began to orient himself towards him. The second-children opened fire, the streams of slugs from four Gatling cannons driving the young adult back.
The onslaught sprayed metal flingers all around, denting Sfolk’s weakened armour. Vlox squatted and took careful aim, firing off five shots in quick succession, even the damped recoil of his weapon sending him skidding back each time. Three shots punched straight through the front of Sfolk’s armour. One went into his visual turret and one ricocheted off his claw and punched through the ceiling. Half a second later, fire spewed from those holes, the entire upper section of Sfolk’s armour lifted and hinged back on the explosions. Then he dropped like an eviscerated clam.
He headed over to the smoking remains. The grenades had spattered much of Sfolk’s insides on the walls, but had curiously left the upper and lower sections of his shell intact in the relevant armoured sections. Cvorn studied these, experiencing a momentary regret over the speed of Sfolk’s death. He reached out with one claw and flipped the upper section of carapace so it landed back in place, now sans Sfolk’s visual turret. He eyed the dark whorl in that shell he’d used to identify Sfolk and considered having Vlox collect all the shell and glue it back together as a trophy, then dismissed the idea. He had more important concerns, and if he was going to keep trophies, his first would be Sverl—stuffed and mounted.
“Clear up this mess,” he instructed Vlox, and turned away.
RISS
In the depths of Factory Station Room 101, the construction robot closed two clamp hands around Riss’s body. It tightened them like the hydraulic vices they were, applying a pressure that would have simply chopped through the prador parasite Riss aped. She didn’t struggle as the robot then extended a tool head and from that extruded a collimated diamond-chip saw and set it revolving. Had that saw been operating at sea-level air pressure on Earth, it would have produced sonic shocks, since its velocity would have far exceeded the speed of sound in that medium.
The saw blade touched Riss’s collar and with a puff of dust began to penetrate. The collar immediately began to issue a series of EM pulses. Riss’s thoughts decohered. She lost control of her electromuscle first, then all her other systems, in an accelerating cascade. Blindness across all sense bands ensued and, as Riss descended into darkness, she knew that the same EM pulses would disable the robot’s electrics too.
After an immeasurable length of time, for even Riss’s internal clock had gone down, the darkness receded and her thought processes began to cohere again. This reminded her of similar spells of darkness in her past: when Penny Royal had hollowed her out and her long somnolence next to Penny Royal’s planetoid. It conjured up moments of shutdown waiting, ever waiting, for a war that stubbornly refused to return. Sensors re-engaging, Riss quickly turned down light input, then felt movement—a continuous, almost seismic, shuddering. She recognized this from the previous attack on this station. These were the vibrations caused by particle beams getting through to the hull and carving it up. She had to get moving; she had to get this done.
Riss tried to wriggle free but couldn’t, then eyed the two halves of her collar, floating just a few feet away. At least that had worked. Any interference with the collar would have resulted in an EM burst that would have knocked Riss out, along with any other robot nearby. Once she had full control of the construction robot, it had therefore been necessary to reprogram its hydraulic system. She’d had to simplify the collar’s removal method so the robot could still get the job done, despite the EM pulses. But now Riss had another problem: her reprogramming had neglected to include the robot opening its clamp hands.
Riss strained against them and cursed. This was ridiculous. She ceased struggling, pulled back mentally and tried to analyse the problem properly. The solution arrived a moment later and she felt stupid, perhaps as stupid as any organic entity. Scanning the robot, she assessed what the EM pulses had done to it. The thing was somnolent, scrambled, but had suffered no physical damage. Now free of the collar, Riss forged a radio link with the robot and began to reprogram it—pasting together many of the blocks of code that remained. After a moment, it shook itself, released Riss, went back down on all fours and began scanning for microfractures in the floor to repair. But not for long.
The plasma blast wave, like a wall of glowing glass travelling through the vacuum in the corridor, picked up both Riss and the drone and sent them tumbling. Another weapon had hit inside the final construction bay. This was not good at all, since the protective hardfields defending that part of the station had been the best overall at one time.
Regaining her balance and adhering to the floor with her remora setting, Riss squirmed past the robot. It was now floating above the floor, moving its limbs aimlessly. Glancing back, she saw the robot spit out sticky string and drag itself back down, whereupon it began inspecting for fractures again. Riss was oddly glad—she was grateful to the thing, after all. All her systems were fully functional now and she even still had that flask inside her, containing something nasty she could inject with her ovipositor. Probing her surroundings and weaning usable data from the chaos, she began to build up a map of the surrounding area of station and soon related it to an old schematic of the station stored in her memory. Suddenly she halted. She had been here before.
Some distance ahead lay the assembly tube for a design of destroyers commissioned long after Penny Royal had departed this place. It was down this that Sverl and his children had gone—they could hardly keep their location secret in a station packed with damaged robots and AIs spilling data from their ruptured minds. Instead of heading along the most obvious route there, Riss writhed up a wall and entered a small tunnel. For a drone with her body shape, this was a quicker route. In a sense, this also took her back into her past, which might provide her with a further weapon—one she had not used in a very long time.
Riss followed two further tunnels on her schematic and the last of these brought her out into a corridor she had been in before. She writhed partway down the wall, noting that the shifts in the station had partially crushed the corridor. But the human remains of three people were still here.
Ah . . . if wishes were . . . fishes.
The woman, now a partially mummified corpse resting back against the wall, had said that—just before blowing her brains out with a pulse-gun. The two on the floor had taken curare 12 beforehand. All three had known they had no chance of escaping the station. They knew that the steady temperature rise, caused when Room 101 switched the heat-sink runcible to “import,” would kill them. Riss studied the woman. She had obviously decayed for a while. But during that process, some breach had opened this corridor to vacuum and her remains had dried out, mummifying them. Riss could see the glint of metal inside the woman’s busted-open skull and the intagliation of carbon electronics on the inner faces of some pieces on the floor. Here was Riss’s first experience of wartime deaths. Seeing this again somehow formed a link between her present self and the naive young drone that had found these people. She felt loss and confusion, and an expansion of some inner darkness as she moved on.
Another tunnel took her through to a chamber from which many such tunnels debarked and thence to the small tubular autofactory that had made her. It was wrapped up now, at the centre of one of those huge worm casts. She entered the factory—quietly, since she could detect skittering movement in the newer structure all around. Robots had stripped out most of the factory. However, during the heat of battle and the ensuing insanity of Room 101, they had not taken everything. A long snakish body was stuck against one curved wall by a spill of some transparent epoxy. It was all jointed spine, plaited electromuscle and flexible components. Its head consisted only of a cylindrical turret topped with an eye, faded to grey. This had to be one of the drones behind Riss on the assembly line. Had certain things occurred aboard this station only a matter of minutes earlier, this would have been Riss’s fate too.
The prador . . .
It was the correct response to feel rage towards them. They had attacked the Polity, they had been responsible for the incineration of inhabited worlds and the deaths of billions. They had equally been responsible for this object before her and those pitiful remains in that corridor. Hate was the right response, yet . . . Riss found something inside her that just didn’t fit. Without the prador, this station would never have existed. Without them, she, Riss, assassin drone, would not have existed either.
Certainty tottered, but Riss closed the black eye she had been using to study this nearest of her kin and turned away. She existed to kill prador—and with the end of the war the purpose of her exi
stence, supposedly, had ended. She had waited and in some sense was still waiting for that war to begin again. She had faced lean times, but Sverl would mark the end of them. The war might be over, but she could still find reasons to kill these obnoxious creatures.
Riss moved on and into a supply area. This place seemed stripped out too and Riss felt her hopes of finding what she sought beginning to fade. Then she spotted the inset door and read the dusty writing on it. She headed over and gripped the manual handle made for human hands with her small manipulators. Bracing her body against the wall, she pulled the handle down and heaved the door open. Inside were numerous shelves and all were empty but one, and here rested three small flasks. Riss scanned them deeply, finding the contents of all three were alive, in their way, but in stasis—a biological trait of their kind. Riss writhed into the room, opening her body, and loaded all three cylinders inside her, before writhing out again.
Now she was complete. She once more contained prador parasite eggs and could inject them into her prey. Despite feeling packed and gravid, she felt no satisfaction or any anticipation of future release. Perhaps it would return to her. Perhaps Spear was right about Penny Royal taking away hope, which was something that could surely always return.
By tunnels small and large, past metal growths like fungus, Riss headed off in pursuit of Sverl.
THE BROCKLE
With one of its units plugged into the U-space transmitter, the Brockle reached out into near space to set up a constant watch for the single-ship. Fortunately, the ships used to transport prisoners here were stripped down and unsophisticated. They did not possess the more modern U-space transmitters that were capable of sending and receiving while in U-space. This meant that the ship would receive no instructions from Earth Central until it actually surfaced in near space. The Brockle had no doubt that then Earth Central, or some other AI, would try to strong-arm the Brockle’s submind aboard—forcing it to take the single-ship back under and away from there. This it could not allow, because the single-ship was a requirement for the subterfuge it was about to enact. The moment that ship surfaced, the Brockle would immediately reabsorb the submind of itself it contained and take complete control.