by Neal Asher
While I was busy with this, I heard something thump outside on the platform: one of the packs. I walked over to open it and tried not to feel disappointed: plasmel packs of food. Peering over, I couldn’t see any sign of Marcus, but he must have used one of the maintenance bot tubes underneath because a short while later he walked in from the back of the garage.
‘Did you get something?’ I asked.
He shrugged off the other pack, tight with items.
‘Gok thing,’ he managed, and squatted to open the pack.
Inside was a selection of pumps, obviously torn from various locations because parts of those locations were still attached. Marcus had made sure not to damage the things themselves. Looking at them, I realized, belatedly, that he hadn’t needed to make the journey. All around us were other pumps to move water and fluids about this place. I selected a pump from an electric shower that seemed to have the right number of ports and pipes and took it over. It’d be a long job, because though I knew what needed doing, finding everything necessary would take some time. I pointed over to my haul from the hidden room.
‘Food and drink there,’ I said. ‘And through that doorway is an apartment that hasn’t been looted. I haven’t searched it all.’ I studied him, standing perhaps a foot taller than me. ‘The envirosuit might fit,’ I added.
He went over and started going through my haul while I set to work. Glancing at him occasionally, I saw him eat a lot, then try on the suit. It fitted at full extension as they were made to fit a variety of forms. He then headed off to the apartment. I stripped all the attachments off the pump, then thought to attach up a battery to see if it had any life in it. It worked but the power supply was wrong, something that would need adjusting once it was installed. Further scavenging around the garage, and from other pumps, yielded the required pipework and I fitted the pump in place. It was difficult, since the fixings weren’t the same, but the torn-out fixings attached to the other pumps provided. In between times, I topped up the filter funnel, emptying the clean water into the tank of the skimmer.
‘K – ore,’ said Marcus, returning from the apartment and emptying out the crate I’d used earlier to add to our growing pile of supplies. He’d brought all the suspect food and drink, not having to worry about the kind of stomach complaints that I’d had aboard the King’s Ship.
In time we began to lose the light and I did more work using the torch, then gave up. I collected up some sleer but, not liking the look of it now, instead took up a food block and the opened wine bottle and went out onto the slab. Marcus joined me a moment later with the bottle of bourbon and the dubious food and drink. He drank and he ate, then chugged bourbon straight from the bottle.
‘It may work,’ I said, though confident the skimmer would.
‘’oot,’ he opined.
‘Did you core and thrall people?’ I asked, not for the first time.
‘’okitkate,’ he informed me.
‘Complicated?’ He nodded.
We sat there as it grew darker and he put aside the half-emptied bourbon, lying back. A moment later, I learned what snoring sounded like from his mutated face. I went back inside to sleep.
11
By mid-morning, I could think of nothing else to do to secure the pump. I went to the driver’s seat, plugged the diagnosticer into the console and searched through to find the data on the pump there. A number of errors appeared but they concerned, as expected, power supply. With the voltage and amperage set as required, the errors went away. Pump power needed to be greater but the wiring, being highly conductive, could take it. Switching and other items also required adjustment, but in flight. I climbed out and went round closing up the covers that remained. As Marcus started putting our supplies in, I thought to tell him to wait, but then shrugged and got on with it.
Sitting in the driver’s seat again, I hesitated over the controls, then swore and hit power up. The pump started with a nice steady hum, forcing water through the meta-material sieve. A screen came on and gave me a low power alert, but a bar steadily began to climb as the main battery-cum-super-capacitor rose to charge. I turned on the grav-motors. The skimmer jerked and then rose, tilting over to one side, and kept on rising. I ducked down as the thing crashed against the ceiling and focused on the plugged-in diagnosticer. Marcus was making a sound from below, which might have been laughter. A small adjustment brought the skimmer level, but the assumed ground level seemed a problem. Once it was reset manually, the thing dropped, levelling out about a yard from the floor. I realized I’d have to keep the diagnosticer plugged in to work this. The skimmer found its ground level with sensors, all of which were probably corroded.
Marcus was definitely laughing. I settled the vehicle to the floor and climbed out. We then threw in tools and further supplies and I added the other pumps, just in case.
‘I think we’re ready,’ I said.
Marcus climbed in and took a back seat, while I got into the front and pulled an aged safety strap over my hips, but abandoned it when I couldn’t plug the thing in. I brought the skimmer up and took it ahead. Once over the edge of the composite slab, it dropped as if I’d driven off a cliff, crashing down through the flute grasses, then slamming into the muddy ground. Thankfully the grasses cushioned the fall. The thing rose out of sucking mud to stabilize a few feet above it, still pressing down grass stems. Using the diagnosticer, I reset its level above ground. The thing had been programmed to fly over water and we needed to be higher than that. Once we’d adjusted, I directed it towards where the sun had risen earlier.
We seemed to hurtle along over the grasses and I felt an intense sense of achievement. When I checked our speed it was only forty miles an hour. Some sort of limiter, I had no doubt, but still a damned sight faster than walking, and safer. The dome receded behind and, as we came past one of those Marcus had ventured out to, a flock of what I now knew to be crab birds clattered up out of the grasses. They rose too abruptly for me to avoid them. One hit the cowling on the front while another slammed against the screen, leaving a green spatter as it bounced over and landed behind me. I heard it clattering there, then a crunch and a weird sucking cry, and looked back to see Marcus discarding the thing over the side.
‘Perhaps I should go—’ I began.
A hooder shot up out of the grasses, its cowl directly ahead, limbs rippling inside it and the two columns of red eyes seemingly glowing. I threw us to one side, but wasn’t exactly driving on a surface with grip so the turn was slow. We sideswiped the cowl with a crash and its rim grated down the side of the skimmer, flicking up covers like scales from a fish. Bouncing away, the skimmer tipped and spun two full circles. Only by clinging onto the driving column did I manage not to be flung out as I fought to get it under control. Even as I did, the hooder turned and went for us again, just clipping the back end so the vehicle came out of it as if bouncing on springs. Then the monster just as quickly dropped out of sight. I got the skimmer controlled and checked readouts for damage reports.
‘—iyah,’ Marcus finished what I’d been saying for me.
Using the diagnosticer, I took the skimmer up another twenty feet. I’d been flying the thing as if we were in some inhabited area where height restrictions applied, which I didn’t need to do. I assumed this had something to do with my inherited knowledge. I didn’t want to take it too high either, though, because of the threat of it failing. Another hooder rose and tried to reach us just ten minutes after the first. This one was about the size of the thing Vrasan had slaved and luckily I saw it coming. I took the skimmer higher still, worried about the drop and keeping a wary eye on the readouts and the diagnosticer. Glancing back at Marcus, I saw him sprawled and enjoying the view, finishing off the bottle of bourbon. I guessed he could be relaxed about all this since a fall wouldn’t hurt him as it would me.
As we continued on, I reckoned on about five hours of travel to cover the remaining distance to the installation. We passed over another dome and saw evidence there of what had destroyed th
e raft, for a great hole had been melted through it and the underlying composite. A particle beam strike, my weaponized mind told me. I began to relax and asked Marcus to pass me some food, while I searched for a cruise control. A simple locking button could set the joystick. I ensured it could be unlocked before using it, then opened a packet. Marcus passed another bottle of wine and corkscrew, but I didn’t think that a great idea and took some water instead. My other self might have had a tolerance for alcohol but I certainly didn’t.
The end of the flute grasses came into sight and near that edge stood a birdlike creature with a long neck terminating in a spike of a beak but no visible head. I took the skimmer lower and noted that the Masadan heroyne was smaller than it should be, as well as albino pale and sickly. I guessed some of the imports here didn’t do so well. Beyond the grasses lay a plain, green and blue with regular rings of yellow. Taking the skimmer lower again brought into sight what looked like rings of toadstools. Hours slid by and Marcus started snoring again. The sun dropped down behind us and then my suit buzzed. I reached back and gave Marcus a shove, whereupon he emitted a comical snort before gazing at me blearily.
‘Suzeal,’ I said, raising my visor so I could see her face and allowing public address before answering, so Marcus could hear. Suddenly he was very awake and in his features, still regaining more humanity, I recognized something nasty.
‘It’s been a while since you communicated,’ I observed.
‘It may surprise you that your situation is not of prime importance to me,’ she replied tartly.
‘So what’s happening up there now? I note that the prador have been using a particle beam weapon …’
‘How do you know that?’ Her expression filled with suspicion and I realized that games of ‘I know things’ were not a good idea.
‘The moon your spaceship dock is sited on was visible in the sky a few nights back. I saw the particle beam flash.’
‘Oh.’ She looked briefly confused then continued, ‘Yes, the bastards built a high-powered particle weapon and tried to punch through our defences. A ship arrived and they destroyed that.’
‘And since then?’
She looked shifty. ‘It was necessary to negotiate. I warned them that if they came close to penetrating my defences, I’d be forced to destroy the space dock. I made a further deal handing over the identities of two Old Families I trade with, in return for them allowing ships to dock with the station.’ She looked annoyed about having done exactly as I’d suggested and hurriedly added, ‘I pointed out to them that we have the manufacturing capability to make large weapons and that I’d not be able to bring in a significant number of troops, since they are simply not available in the Graveyard. We agreed on limitation in the size of ships docking and no war vessels.’
‘That’s very sensible of you.’ I kept my face expressionless. ‘It must have been difficult to be so restrained.’
She then cheered up, having got the nasty business of effectively telling me I was right out of the way. ‘We have some supplies coming in now – not that we needed many – and I’ve opened negotiations, with a direct link to a king’s envoy, concerning trade in hooders.’
‘So things are looking up and, I hope, you’ll be able to rescue us from this world.’
‘You seem to be doing quite well. I wasn’t aware there were functional skimmers down there. Those places have been stripped out many times, even in my lifetime.’
‘We managed to scavenge enough parts to repair a water-powered one. Its working life will be limited by a lack of filtration, but should get us to the installation. Incidentally, are we on the right course?’
‘Good enough.’ She checked something beside her. ‘At your present elevation you’ll see it somewhere ahead of you – it’s on the coast.’
‘And then you’ll come?’
Again a hesitation. ‘I still have a lot to do up here and these negotiations are critical. You can gain access to the installation with this code.’ A series of numbers appeared beneath her image. ‘You’ll need to record them if your suit has that facility.’
‘No need,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember them.’
‘You always had that ability.’ She paused for a second, replaying her words. ‘I mean the man you were cloned from had that ability.’
I really didn’t like that slip. Did she still believe me to be that man? And, if she did, what might she have in store for me considering she had sent clones of him to suffer in the King’s Ship?
‘That ability has enabled me to function as I have – it gives me perfect recall of the data I have from his mind, limited though it is.’
‘Yes, quite … and your new friend? He continues to be stable?’
I glanced at Marcus as he worked free another of his carnivore’s teeth. In the gap where he’d removed the other, I could see new white dentine.
‘He seems so. Some aggression on occasion, but he doesn’t show much in the way of intelligence and follows me about like a pet.’
Marcus looked at me sharply and made an obscene gesture involving his fist and his mouth, then pulled out the tooth and flicked it over the side.
‘No further information on him?’
‘Not really. All he does is eat and snore.’
‘Very well … I’ll be in contact again at a later time.’
‘Good—’
She cut the link.
I looked round at Marcus and he shrugged.
The sea became visible through a low mist. The ground was rocky here with buttes sticking up, topped with vegetation, jagged hills on either side, and along the coast promontories stuck out and into the sea. Below, banyans had spread again like cancers in another forest that consisted of fungus trees, speared through with things similar to the leafless trunks of palms. I scanned along the coast looking for the installation but couldn’t see it. At length, we finally slid out over the waves, which were low and rolling as if the sea were oily, but this was actually an effect of high gravity.
‘Right or left?’ I said, turning to Marcus. He shrugged, then pointed right.
We headed off along the coast over promontories and coves with yellow sand beaches. Seal-like creatures humped towards the waves as we passed. The second time we moved over some of these, closer inspection revealed their multiple long necks topped by parrot-like beaks. More monsters from Stratogaster’s Zoo? About an hour later, we arrived at a point where the mountains dipped into the sea, and turned round there. With the sun now setting, I wondered what chance we had of seeing anything along the other stretch of coast.
‘We’ll get back to where we arrived then check the rest of the coast in the morning,’ I suggested.
‘Goo iea,’ said Marcus, demonstrating that he could now use another consonant. His mouth probably hadn’t yet achieved the right shape to pronounce the ‘d’.
We kept looking for the installation as we went back, in case we’d missed it on the first pass. I had no idea what it looked like and, seeing the vegetation here, considered that it might be overgrown. Another hour later, we were, as far as I could see by the shape of the promontories jutting into the sea, back where we’d started. I began to worry about landing because the ground lay mostly in shadow. It would have to be one of the beaches and, having seen the creatures down there, the idea didn’t appeal.
‘’ook,’ said Marcus, pointing.
I peered across the shadowed landscape and saw a light glinting. It seemed to be a fire, although I couldn’t think of a reason why there’d be one here. In all my travels, and despite this planet having an atmosphere with high oxygen content, I’d seen no signs of natural wildfires. In fact, when we’d lit a fire it had been surprisingly difficult to get going. I suspected even the apparently dry wood here was laden with moisture.
I directed the skimmer towards the light, finally slowing it to a stop above it. The fire down there silhouetted the regular structure of a downed pylon. A steady alteration through the diagnosticer took us lower and soon a tangle of fence p
ulled down by the same pylon came into view. At the top of the thing, in masses of smoking vines, lay what looked to be the mangled remains of some weapon. My brain worked too slowly and I’d just scrabbled to reset the diagnosticer to take us back up into the sky when the laser stabbed through the smoke. The skimmer jerked as if slapped, made some horrible metal-on-metal clattering sounds and slid sideways through the sky. It began to drop heavily, but it still had some grav-planing and I tried to direct it towards a beach I’d seen previously. We hit foliage that whipped against the craft, sideswiped one of the palm things and descended sharply. I pulled up the nose and we skidded through the sand, with it fountaining up on either side. Then the nose dropped with a bang. I slammed into the screen and found myself tumbling through the air, the screen skating off beside me. Instinct and perhaps inherited knowledge took over. I pulled in my arms and came down, briefly, on my feet, then rolled, shouldering the sand and tumbling end over end, folded into a ball. I hit a rock with my back and bounced up, slamming down, sprawled on my face, and wondering what had broken.
‘—um,’ said Marcus a moment later, reaching down and pulling at my shoulder. I tried to get up but my back hurt terribly and I groaned. He passed me a pulse rifle. I grabbed it and dropped it beside me. I saw he’d retrieved our two packs, having hurriedly stuffed them with supplies. I tried to rise again but simply couldn’t move. Then something rose into the air inland and over to my right: prador.
‘—um!’ Marcus insisted, moving up the beach.
My legs felt numb and it seemed as if I’d lost my right foot. As I tried to move again, the pain grew suddenly intense and I just lay there, gritting my teeth. Marcus abruptly realized I wasn’t following and ran back. He stooped over me and I could read the puzzlement in his half-human expression, but I wasn’t going anywhere. He tried to pick me up and I screamed. After a moment I felt his hands on me, probing here and there, then finding something that blacked me out for a moment. When I came to, he was crouched before me with a small glass knife in his hand, gazing over towards the approaching prador. Was he going to put me out of my misery? He reached over and stabbed the tip of it into my thigh, just puncturing the fabric of my envirosuit. I felt nothing there.