by Neal Aher
Soon he was submerged; he surged down the ramp and dropped to the bottom of the breeding pool. The four females clustered around their feeding pillar—no strays he could corner and mount—but he didn’t care. Clattering his mandibles and snipping his claws, he rushed them, slamming his full weight into the group and bowling a couple of them over. As he selected the nearest who was still down on her feet, he noted an alert in the system—Vlox trying to get in contact with him. He ignored it. Mating lasted a lot longer this time and, as if his body knew his mental intent, he was parsimonious with the seed he squirted inside her. He then grabbed another one, the remaining two not fighting so hard to get him off her. Their instinct was responding to the violence of his attack perhaps, though it was odd that they were so sluggish. Once he had finished his second mating, he paused, but only briefly—just long enough to take note of Vlox’s increasingly urgent attempts to contact him, and ignore them.
Cvorn mated with the third female, and then the fourth, a hollow feeling inside and his prongs feeling sore, sucking dry. He knew he’d emptied his testicle and would have to have it refilled from his cold store. Later he would allow one of his children to develop to adulthood—in captivity—remove its testicle and use viral recombination to match it fully to his own genome. Then there would be no more need for tedious refilling.
Cvorn then moved away, feeling exhausted and hot. Reaching the edge of the breeding pool, he paused and finally responded to Vlox.
“What’s the problem?”
“Father! One of Vlern’s children is missing!”
What?
“Give me visuals.”
The feed came through from a recorded file, showing the quarters of one of the young adults. Just as in Sfolk’s quarters, a hole had been cut in the wall. Cvorn concentrated on this, and pulled the recording back to it again. There was something odd about it . . . Concentration was difficult because he still felt exhausted and hot—perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to increase the temperature in the pool. Then, after a moment, he saw it. The debris from the hole in the wall was lying on the floor inside. Yet when Sfolk had cut his hole, the chunk he had carved round had fallen into the space beyond. It might be nothing, but Cvorn now studied the rest of the recording intently. It took just a moment for him to confirm his suspicions. Items were scattered all about the place and storage caches broken open. Vlox and his crew could have done that, but it was unlikely they had made the dents in the walls. Then there, up on the wall, he saw a laser burn. There, on the floor: a dry puddle of prador blood. There had been a fight, and the prador who had been in here had not gone willingly. So how had that happened?
Cvorn saw it clearly now. Sfolk must have cut his way in, but in doing so, he’d allowed oxygenated air into the quarters and that had revived the occupant. A fight had ensued and Sfolk’s brother had gone either unwillingly or in no condition to object. But why?
“Vlox, I hope you have started a search,” he said. No reply was forthcoming and the feed from Vlox had cut off. Cvorn contemplated this for a short while but found he still couldn’t think straight. He looked up at his route out of the pool. He really needed to get out of here and cool down.
“Vlox?”
Still nothing. Cvorn reached out for a claw hold and steadily began to work his way up the side of the tank. Halfway up, Vlox’s link into the ship’s system opened again and he dumped two files. Cvorn opened the first of them, pausing to rest, even though climbing with prosthetics should be no effort.
It was another visual file. He saw Sfolk laboriously raising the inert form of one of his brothers on a hoist, lowering it into an open suit of armour, carefully inserting limbs into the required holes and getting him into place. Before closing the armour, Sfolk used a tube of black sealer foam to paint a whorl beside his brother’s visual turret. Cvorn recognized it as the mark he used to identify Sfolk. Next, Sfolk closed up the armour and then turned to the cam view, pointing with one claw to a thrall unit newly attached to his carapace. As he turned back again the armour began moving, as if the prador it contained was still alive. Cvorn understood at once what that meant. And, as he approached the surface of the pool, he opened the other file.
Sfolk now stood in an airlock . . . no, it wasn’t an airlock but the water lock above! Cvorn tried to move faster, but it seemed as if he was dragging himself through mud. Finally, he reached the water lock and found it firmly shut. He clung there, now feeling the need for air. The thought of that motivated him, because of course an airlock above led into the upper chamber! He dragged himself on, moving slower and slower as he neared the surface of the pool. With a gargantuan effort, he tried to heave himself out but then felt a horrible agonizing ripping down one side. The water around him turned green with his blood. He heaved again and finally crawled out onto the edge. He tried to turn his palp eye to look at the damage. The view blurred as that eye started to fail again, but he could see that the socket for one of his prosthetic legs had pulled right out; the flesh exposed there had an odd purplish red colour. Meanwhile, in the recording, Sfolk had fired up a welder and was running it round the inner door of the water lock, sealing Cvorn in. Cvorn watched as Sfolk turned to the cam view and twisted his mandibles in a prador smile. He then reached out and knocked the environmental heat control right to the top. Of course, it was old news, a recording . . .
Cvorn understood that his prosthetic leg had ripped out because things had been softening around it. He understood why his flesh was that colour—because that was the colour prador flesh turned when it was cooked. He gazed out across the breeding pool at the fog of steam above the bubbling water, but now his sight was beginning to fade. His only pain was coming from that leg socket. If you boil the water surrounding a prador, it won’t even realize it is dying. He couldn’t move now, which meant his nerve channels were too hot. Things were starting to get very unclear . . . he couldn’t quite . . .
BLITE
The King’s Guard ships had stopped bombarding the station. They were now only using their weapons to take out anything the station was throwing at them. Blite switched his attention back to the screen’s lower frame, but it was still blank.
“So that’s it,” said Brond, sounding disappointed. “Penny Royal lured Sverl here to be killed . . . I mean, what the fuck is that?”
“We’re just toys,” said Greer.
Blite returned his attention to the larger scene displayed on the screen. Firing from the station was already waning and the ships were no longer using lasers or other anti-munitions to take out projectiles but had simply tightened up their hardfield screen. Would they leave now, he wondered? Sverl had been their greatest concern and, without him, Cvorn’s rebellion was dead. But Cvorn himself was still out there and would eventually trace Sverl here. Surely the King’s Guard would hang around to tidy up that loose end?
“They’re still up to something,” said Brond, sending a data frame to the screen.
The blades of plasma steering thrusters stabbed vacuum, as the fleet of thirty ships began to spread out. Only four of them were a little tardy, having sustained some damage from the factory station’s defences. The data frame now showed the Black Rose’s sensors picking up EM reflections from the war factory. These weren’t as strong as those from the weapons fire, but were substantial. The Guard ships were scanning the station. But why?
“I think I’ll go and have a chat,” said Blite, standing up.
“I don’t know why you bother,” said Greer. “It never fucking tells you anything outright.”
She was obviously getting a little disillusioned with their adventure. Blite nodded to himself as he went. He too should be feeling that way, but it so happened that he wasn’t. On the surface it did look as if Penny Royal had manipulated events here to result in Sverl’s particularly horrific murder. But if that had been the aim, why hadn’t the AI just projected itself into Sverl’s sanctum and ripped his heart out, long ago? Surely, the end game couldn’t be so simple and so sordid?
/> Blite headed towards the exit from the bridge, turning over in his mind what he intended to ask the AI. He played with the idea of running everything Penny Royal had said to him, and every event in which he had been involved with it, through some sub-AI search and translation programs to see what he could glean. The idea fled as the ship shifted underneath him.
“Leven?” he enquired.
“Our passenger is back and we’re taking off,” the Golem ship mind replied.
“Destination?”
“Ooh, let me guess . . .”
Blite headed back to the bridge, where he sat down. The screen now showed just their immediate surroundings, as they rose from the landmass of this world. The horizon already showed a distinct curve as they speeded away, and he caught a glimpse of a flock of those pterodactyl things scattering from their path. He stared at the screen until he could see nothing but sky, stared longer until the sky began to darken and stars started to appear. He could hold out no more.
“Okay, Penny Royal,” he said. “What now?”
A glassy ringing issued from behind him but he stubbornly kept his eyes on the screen. Perhaps, as the screen flicked back to a previous view from the sats he’d scattered up there, this had been the intention.
The Guard ships were now in a formation surrounding the factory station and, even as Blite watched, they began firing again. They were using particle beams this time, and more surgically too. Blite saw the station’s hardfields occasionally block the beams, but most now were getting through.
“Analysis,” said Blite.
“Looks to me,” said Brond, “like they’re hitting reactors, power storage and cable runs.” Brond paused for a second. “It’s more methodical—if you had the time and you wanted to destroy Room 101 without too many losses on your own side, then this would be the best way to take out the defences.”
“So,” said Blite, “their first attack was to drive Sverl’s allies to attack and kill him, which one of them did. They’ve achieved their goal, so why are they attacking now?”
“Because they’re prador,” said Greer. “Do they need a reason?”
“Greer is right in the first instance but wrong in the second,” interjected Leven.
“Explain,” Blite instructed.
“We know that Cvorn could only use Sverl’s physical body. This was to act as proof that the Polity had been transforming a prador into an amalgam of a hated enemy. He could not use pictures or other computer data, because the prador do not accept such as evidence. Likewise, the King’s Guard cannot accept that transmission of Sverl’s final moments as proof of Sverl’s demise.”
“Yet they forced it.”
“Nevertheless,” said Leven. “The complete obliteration of the station will be certain proof that Sverl is dead.”
Blite chewed at his lip as he considered this, then said, “So, Penny Royal, you got Sverl killed and now you’ll get this station destroyed. Did you come here to see the place that created you annihilated too?”
“Oh, thanks for this,” said Leven. The black AI was forcing the ship’s Golem mind into the role of translator again. “Penny Royal’s focus is not necessarily on major events, apparently.”
So far, so opaque.
“We have seen that in the AI’s progress towards its final goal, it can influence larger events, but this has been a side effect.”
“So what’s its real aim here and what is its final goal—is it finally going to give me a clear answer?”
“The assassin drone Riss and the prador Sverl were both damaged by Penny Royal. Sometimes it is not possible to repair the damage or put the clock back, so a positive way must be found to move beyond it. For Riss . . . You what? . . . Wait a minute . . .”
“Why can’t you talk to me, Penny Royal?” said Blite. “You’re not incapable of straightforward human speech.” Blite swung his chair round to gaze at the black diamond hovering on the bridge.
“Riss had to kill again to accept her own redundancy, and to realize it is possible to move on,” the AI whispered.
“All this just to change an assassin drone’s mind?”
“It was important to her.”
“So in Sverl’s case, the way of moving on was scrappage?”
That frame in the screen flickered and it again began showing the scene inside the station where Sverl had died. Blite stared at Sverl’s remains, but couldn’t see why the AI had displayed them.
“And your final goal?” he asked.
He felt that black diamond nibbling at his mind and wished, too late, that he’d kept a rein on his curiosity. He found himself floating between two endless surfaces of crystalline black and could feel data burrowing between them infinitely fast—because here time had no meaning. It felt as if he was there only for an instant, but for an eternity too. He perceived his mind being pushed to a limit beyond which it would surely break. He returned, gasping, to his seat, the communication ending with a sound like a thermometer breaking.
“What was that?” asked Greer.
Blite just shook his head and tried to concentrate on the screens and the data. He needed to shake the feeling of spiders crawling across his optic nerves.
Once beyond atmosphere, the ship U-jumped, briefly. The feeling was subliminal, and suddenly those King’s Guard ships were a lot, lot closer. Blite gripped the arms of his chair, aware that the Black Rose was now moving very fast towards the station.
“Splinter missiles activating,” Leven warned.
Blite immediately pulled his seat straps across, noting Brond and Greer doing the same. Penny Royal did not want the Guard ships to destroy the station and was about to do something about it. Over to their right, on the screen view, he could see one of the Guard ships suddenly manoeuvring—plasma steering thrusters blading out into space.
“We can’t take them all,” hissed Brond.
“Firing,” Leven stated.
“Show me,” Blite commanded.
Surprisingly, it was a view of the station that came up. Spectrally shifting lasers were stabbing down from the Black Rose, hitting points on its hull. These were spearing into final construction bays, carving off protruding towers and turrets. Sometimes there were explosions where they struck, sometimes no sign of any destruction at all. As Blite watched this he realized that the Black Rose was doing precisely what the prador had been doing, but with much more precision. Reaching out to his console, he selected filtering, and the ship’s system immediately presented him with the view he wanted. Now the beam strikes were visible as simple white lines, while the station seemed shot through with glowing capillaries, veins and hot spots. This was a power map of the station gathered by induction sensors. Around where the lasers were striking the glow representing power often faded. Sometimes it faded elsewhere, and sometimes light returned as some other power supply took up the load.
“Missiles deployed,” said Leven.
Around them, the ship shrugged and, along the bottom of the screen, U-signature data briefly scrolled then sank away. On and inside the station, there were numerous explosions. Some were only visible on the induction map, while others spewed debris and fire out into space. Blite watched the results. The station was flickering like a malfunctioning light panel—areas going out and coming back on again—but the trend towards blackout was steadily downwards. Darkness coagulated in one area towards the centre—all power going down across thirty miles of station, centred on where Sverl had died.
“The fuck,” said Blite.
Why had Penny Royal attacked the station? Why had it left it open and completely vulnerable to the Guard? The obvious answer was that the AI wanted the Guard to destroy the station. Yet, if that was so, why had it intervened at all? They were doing that anyway. Blite began to summon up the nerve to ask a question, when a frame opened in his screen to show an armoured King’s Guard prador—the one that had delivered its ultimatum to Thorvald Spear. Blite decided to hold off just in case he was about to be provided with an answer.
“I am baffled,” it said, and Blite wondered at the translation.
“You have achieved your primary objective,” said Penny Royal.
“Certainty is required.”
“Physical proof is all you can have.”
Their view of the station behind this frame changed and Blite saw that it was now a straight screen view without magnification. The Black Rose was sitting just a few miles out from the war factory’s hull—the thing looming massively behind them. And white spheres were moving out from his ship, then accelerating. He reached out to his controls and pulled up a tactical display. This showed the entire station, the position of his own ship, and the Guard ships now manoeuvring hundreds of miles out. These movements were all calculated to bring his ship into their direct line of sight and, of course, directly in line with their weapons.
“You are in no position to enforce your will,” the guard said.
“Wrong,” Penny Royal replied.
The Black Rose groaned and Blite transferred his gaze back to the tactical display. Here a sphere of gridlines, which was not a reality but just a mathematical construct, expanded from their ship. It enclosed both it and a chunk of the station behind. He abruptly felt cold and could see vapour on his breath in the suddenly chill air. A moment later, the gridlines disappeared to leave a translucent globe in place. Blite recognized what had happened, because he had seen and felt it happen around Carapace City—just before Cvorn’s attack there. Now the air in the bridge took on an amber tint and seemed to gain solidity. Yet, when he held up his hand, he could not detect anything unusual. He waited for some attack on this massive hardfield, but the prador must have known that such an assault would be futile.
“I cannot leave,” said the admiral.
“Dock, therefore,” said Penny Royal. “Just you.”
“You will lower the field?”