by Neal Asher
As we trudged through the darkness, feeling this way buoyed me for a while, until the weariness took me into fugue, and I became only aware of walking and trying not to fall over. At one point I looked up and found myself alone. My companion reappeared a moment later and, grabbing my arm, towed me inside a small cave. I lay on the floor and the last thing I saw was him squatting, silhouetted by moonlight in the entrance.
I rose to consciousness with the daylight, feeling as if someone had cast me out of lead on the floor of the cave, and didn’t want to move. Eventually forcing my eyes open, I stared up at the fossils, like tangles of bent spoons, on the ceiling, and I wondered if they were some ancestor of the hooders. As the ridiculous idea passed – wrong world – I came to full wakefulness and slowly sat up. No sign of my companion. I folded my visor and hood down, which I’d left closed last night, and noted my pack still resting beside me, so didn’t think he’d abandoned me completely. I pulled it over and then noticed some of my tools lying on the floor, all damaged beyond use. Lying amidst them was the manacle from my wrist, which had been snapped open by someone very strong.
I saw only one pulse rifle pointing out of the pack, while a burned hole ran through the top and out the bottom. I couldn’t see why my companion might have taken the missing pulse rifle and laser carbine, and thought I’d probably lost the weapons during our escape, since they hadn’t been that secure. The hole was almost certainly from a Gatling slug. I’d been just an inch or two from dying. I opened up the pack, hoping the water container had stayed undamaged, but it was missing. My companion had obviously gone through the pack and had perhaps left to fill the container. I took out a piece from one of the broken food blocks, then looked up as a shadow blocked out the sun. He stood there with the water container under one arm and gestured, pointing at the food and indicating the pack. Apparently I wasn’t to eat it, so I put it back. He ducked into the cave dragging something and deposited it on the floor.
As he sat down with his back to the wall, I got a better look at him. He seemed more human now, perhaps because he wasn’t trying to kill me. No, on closer inspection his snout appeared shorter and his eyes weren’t the complete black they’d been before, though this could have been due to the light. The most evident change was stubble on his previously bald head. He was wearing overalls which covered most of his body and so concealed any changes there; I looked down at his new hand. This was smaller than the other and the fingers not so long, but whether that was due to it not having attained full growth I didn’t know. He reached out and dragged the deposited object closer and I inspected it.
He had killed a sleer and here, sans legs, lay one body segment. Digging claws in, he peeled up a chunk of carapace, exposing gelatinous green, then pushed this away to expose yellow flesh beneath. Using a chain-glass spatula he had taken from my pack, he carved a chunk and held it out to me. I took it and just held it, still remembering how sick I’d been aboard the King’s Ship from eating the wrong thing. He gouged out some for himself and ate, and after a moment I ate too. The stuff tasted acidic – one of the disconnected pieces of knowledge surfaced and I recognized a taste like mango, but not as sweet. In silence, we steadily ate our way through most of it. When he’d finished, he pulled a belt around his waist that I’d only noted in passing. The thing was constructed from a vine, while the small sack attached he made from some kind of leaf with the consistency of fabric. The visible contents were recognizable at once: garlic bulbs. He ate two of them whole without offering me any, and with this, further knowledge came to me.
The Spatterjay virus mutated its host but its growth could be retarded. A range of Polity drugs did it. A substance extracted from the bile ducts of oceanic leeches – usually as big as whales – killed the virus. This was necessary for the large leeches because they had made the transition from plug feeders to eating whole prey which, by dint of the virus inside them, tended to not die simply by being ingested. The substance – sprine – enabled the leeches to digest such prey. Sprine in heavily diluted form was also used to retard viral growth in humans. But, because of the biology involved, some human food was also effective, and one of the best of these was garlic. He knew his problem and was doing something about it.
‘Lucky to have found that here,’ I said.
He nodded agreement, but of course the conversation stopped there.
‘We need to find a way to communicate,’ I added.
He tapped at his throat, shook his head then inserted another whole bulb of garlic and crunched it down. I returned my attention to the sleer flesh and ate some more. Who knew when I would get anything else to eat? It then occurred to me that he might also have been reserving the food in the bag for himself, for the same purpose as the garlic. When I could finally cram no more in, I snared the water container and drank, then moved to go outside.
‘I need to take a shit.’
He nodded once and I went, my stomach bubbling and mouth-watering. I felt a bit sick, but managed to hold onto the meal. When I finally returned I sat and studied him as he tied up his stock of garlic.
‘You know, I’ve been talking to someone on the station,’ I said. I had his attention, very abruptly.
‘Her name’s Suzeal and—’
A second later he had me pinned against the wall of the cave by my throat, his mouth open in a snarl just inches from my face.
‘Let … me … finish,’ I managed to choke out.
He slackened his grip slightly.
‘She’s a bitch,’ I said. ‘She delivered me as a clone to the prador …’ I told him my story briefly and tersely, and finished with, ‘Like I said, she promised to rescue me, but I know she used me to locate the prador and I doubt my rescue was ever a serious consideration. But there’s still a chance of that. I want to continue heading for the installation she told me about.’
He released me and moved back. Then he abruptly stooped and wrote in the dust: she dangerous.
‘Yes, I know.’ I shrugged. ‘But what else can we do?’
He reached over and grabbed my wrist and with one sharp claw tried to work the console of my suit, but it wouldn’t respond. Releasing me, he slammed his fist against the floor again and again, hissing as he did so, then abruptly backed up, slamming it against the wall so hard the stone splintered. From this I understood that, despite all his human behaviour, he was struggling for control. Finally it came to an end and he settled, knees up against his chest, folded in.
‘Shall I talk to her again?’ I asked.
He stared at me for a long while, then reached up and pointed to his ears.
‘You want to hear.’ This was what he’d been trying to do with the console but the suit, not recognizing him as its occupant, had not allowed it. I made the required alterations then said, ‘Open previous comlink.’
Tumbleweed.
The comlink fizzed and I got nothing.
‘Not there at the moment.’
He unfolded.
‘What’s your story?’ I gestured at the floor.
He wrote, too many words then gestured eloquently before grabbing my pack and tossing it at me. Time to go.
‘Where to?’ I asked.
Instal, he wrote.
The sun breaking over the mountains greeted us.
‘We head towards the sun until we’re out of the mountains, then I hope to get further directions from her.’
He nodded once and led off.
Old vegetation cloaked the ground where it wasn’t covered by slabs or buried in scree. The recent rain, however, had obviously been welcome because new growth had begun to appear. White furry things with ball heads were easing up, blue, orange and plastic-green spikes, the green nets of early bubble grass and bright toadstools like discarded buttons strewed the ground. At one point, my companion spotted some small green blades and set to uprooting them with his clawed hand, securing a mass of garlic bulbs, many of which he ate, the rest I ended up hauling in my pack.
An animal trail took us down and
we skirted yet another valley. Having seen that hooder the previous night, I felt no urge to go down there for anything. My companion halted me, then held up his hand to his ear. His hearing was good because it took me a moment to distinguish the sound from the susurration of the wind. Then I heard it: the sound of someone speaking words of which I could make no sense – the gabbling of an alien mind that had sacrificed intelligence for species survival.
‘Gabbleduck?’
He nodded grimly.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
He stared at me for a long time; eventually he brushed away some of the ground cover with his foot before squatting. I bent down too and watched him write Marcus, then scrub it out straight after with his foot.
I glanced up at the sky, thinking about Suzeal’s satellites, and held out my hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Marcus.’
He hesitated again before grasping it, after which he abruptly turned away and moved on. I stared at his retreating back. He wasn’t entirely human and, in reality, I had little true experience of human interaction. But I was sure he’d lied. It occurred to me, judging by his reaction to the mention of Suzeal, that he might not want her to know his name, should she come for us, and so hadn’t told me the truth. But Marcus would have to do for now. I stepped after him, about to say something further, when pulse rifle fire cracked and sizzled through the air where I’d been standing.
I hit the ground as more shots ensued, then scrambled downslope, heading to the left since the shot had come from my right. Marcus was down, smoke rising from his body, but he kept moving at a speedy crawl towards some rocks. Then he leapt up and over them to the right, shots nailing his path and stone exploding in every direction. I kept going, down towards fungus trees since they offered the best concealment. I pulled away a worm on my face, got my visor down and hood up. The limb of a fungus tree fell, smoking, behind me, as I came upright and dodged between the things to get out of sight of the snipers. I squatted by one white trunk and pointed my rifle back the way I had come. A hand closed on my shoulder like a vice, hauled me up and threw me, slamming into another tree that showered worms. Still holding onto my rifle, I fired even as I slid down the thing. The rifle the Jack in front of me had begun to aim exploded. He stood there with the remnants of the thing burning in his hands, then his programming caught up and he discarded it. I saw the blast had taken away half his right hand. I kept firing, his chest flaming, and I tried to correct my aim to his face as he surged forwards. He snatched the weapon and twisted it from my grip, grabbed for my throat, but got just a handful of overalls.
Time seemed to slow.
Migraine lights flashed as a whole slew of new data fell into my mind in one seemingly indigestible lump, but it began to dissolve and distribute. He was much stronger than me, so I had to incorporate that into my strategy. I brought my knees against his chest and threw myself backwards. We both went down. As my pack hit the ground, I caught him behind the neck and heaved with both legs, flipping him behind me. He still held onto my overalls as I drew my sidearm and fired at his face. His grip slackened and he rolled away. I rolled too, simultaneously shedding my pack and coming up on one knee to fire at him again as he rose, going for his eyes. He ducked, his program protecting his eyes, and ran at me, while I turned and thrust-kicked the side of his leg and bounced away, something in me baffled because I had not damaged his knee, but he did stumble and fall forwards. My next two shots I put precisely in the back of his neck, then as he turned, head smoking, I shot him in the face. With one eye now burned into a ruin, still he came on. Jumping up, I spun and snapped out another kick which struck him in the side, but it also put me off balance because I’d been aiming for his face, and had tried a kick my body could not yet manage.
Stumbling, I rolled forwards and came up, firing shots into his body, tracking up again to his vulnerable head. His overalls were now burning as he continued to charge at me relentlessly. I leapt at him and threw myself into a dropkick, feet slamming into his chest and hurling him backwards, then came down feet first to jump past him. But his hand closed about my ankle. I rolled over and could see he was down on his chest with his head up, and so fired at his face again, putting out his other eye, while he continued to pull me towards him. At first I struggled to get away, but instantly realized this was the wrong thing to do and stopped. Instead I pushed myself towards him, folding the leg he held, then spun over and brought my other knee down on his back. Pressing the gun against the back of his neck, I held it there and kept firing, even though it felt as if my ankle was breaking, while his other hand closed on my thigh, fingers digging in. Through a haze of pain, I felt him shuddering, then the gun died.
I don’t know how long I sat there until Marcus appeared and snapped away the clone’s fingers. Even once free, I couldn’t pull the gun away from the back of his head nor relinquish my grip on it. Marcus pulled my arm back and finally the tension started to leak out. I rolled clear, then started to probe my ankle. A crunch attracted my attention and I looked over to see Marcus had smashed the Jack’s skull open with a rock. He grabbed the thrall and tore it out, its tail burned and melted where my shots had finally killed the thing. He tossed it over to land beside another he’d abandoned, obviously having killed the other Jack.
I finally stood, right leg leaden with pain at the thigh, left ankle feeling broken, though it wasn’t. I limped over and picked up my pack, then moved a little deeper into the valley where the banyan grew, and opened my visor and hood there. I sank down by a trunk, pulled down my envirosuit trousers and inspected my hip. It was red and swollen and bloody where the mesh had broken the skin. Muscular damage only. I next took off my boot and checked my ankle properly. In the short time since I’d last felt it, the thing had swollen hugely and was also bloody from the mesh. Searching through the pack, I found a length of the webbing I’d used as a strap for my first iteration of a pack and bound up my ankle, using the atomic shear to split the end of the webbing so I could tie it securely. Marcus came to squat beside me.
‘I won’t be able to move very fast,’ I said.
He waved a hand dismissively. Any urgency had passed with the two clones dead, unless Vrasan had sent some more. But I suspected the prador had other concerns right now and would be reluctant to lose the remainder of his clones.
Marcus pulled the pack over and took out a food block, which he held out to me. This made me smile. ‘No – your need is greater,’ I said.
He nodded, put it back, then picked up the shear and abruptly leapt up to climb the trunk. I heard him moving about up there as I rested, the thump of my heart steadily waning. Dry-mouthed, I reached out and took up the water container and drank. Shortly after, a strange stillness seemed to have descended around me. No more worms were falling from the fungus trees and the breeze had stilled. Marcus had stopped moving too. I thought this was all to do with my condition – the calm after the storm and other suitable analogies. Then it moved into sight, huge, over to my left and spoke.
‘Ababa-herber scopolot,’ it said.
I froze for a second, then looked round for a weapon. Marcus’s pulse rifle lay propped against the tree, but if I reached for it the thing would see me move. I just stayed there being as small and inconsequential as possible.
An arcing array of emerald eyes crossed its domed head over a duck bill which, when it opened it to huff out vapour, revealed a tangle of white thorny teeth. The body behind bore some resemblance to that of a hippo, but humped along with a gait something like a huge fat caterpillar, smoothly though, and I knew they were able to move fast. It perambulated clear of the trees and then crouched, like some massively obese cat preparing to pounce.
‘Ulbscabber,’ it noted, then seemed to relax, and sauntered towards the still-shifting Jack lying there. Had it been attracted by carrion? This seemed likely.
The thing paused by the corpse and reached out with one large black claw to prod it. It walked round as if mildly puzzled, then heaved back to settle on its rump di
rectly facing me. I now got a good look at those dimorphic forelimbs. They could separate at the forearm, the claws themselves dividing too, giving it effectively four forelimbs. Folded lower down against its belly were two smaller, stunted limbs and I didn’t know whether this was usual or not. With a main forelimb it scratched at its belly contemplatively, while reaching down with the other to prod at the corpse again, before turning its attention to the two thralls. It picked one up and held it before its eyes. Intelligence? No – it then inserted the thing in its mouth and tried chewing it, before pulling it out, inspecting it again and discarding it.
I felt no fear. This could have been because the Jack had come close to killing me and I’d been overloaded with adrenalin. I certainly wasn’t stupid enough not to know my extreme danger. But the creature was an enigma. Descended from the Atheter, these were the animals this spacefaring race had deliberately turned themselves into. The Atheter had been arguably more advanced than the Polity, but sacrificed their intelligence to escape the civilization-killing Jain technology whose effects lay scattered all over the galaxy, and most notably in the virus which had transformed the Jack now lying on the ground in front of this creature. Their history was an operatic tragedy. I felt awed and humbled to be near one, as well as sad. The feeling didn’t last.
The gabbleduck, after considering the thrall, returned its attention to the Jack, reaching down and calmly tearing off an arm. It held this up for inspection before chewing on it contemplatively, then seemed to rather enjoy the taste and chewed more enthusiastically, stripping the tough flesh off the bone and swallowing a lump. As this went down, it abruptly froze and its eyes grew wide. A couple of seconds passed. It jerked, its claw snapping out and sending the arm spinning into the trees. It then hunched forwards and howled. I had never, in my brief life, heard anything like it, and felt in my core that my predecessor hadn’t either. It dug right down inside me, flowing down my spine and pulling my guts into a knot. It seemed the essence of grief for the passing of civilization and it was angry, livid – there was so much rage there.