by Neal Asher
‘Go for its belly?’ I repeated stupidly.
He stepped forwards, brandishing his weapons. ‘Come on, you bastard!’
The siluroyne snarled, going down on its foreclaws. He broke into a run towards it and I hurried to catch up. They slammed together and it grabbed him, ploughing him into the ground and jamming a leg in its mouth. Seemingly oblivious to this, Marcus stabbed one half of a strut straight into its eye and, using it to brace himself in place, used the other one to stab at its other eyes. It howled as I ran round and then in at the side. At the last moment, I discarded the strut and slid feet first underneath the thing. I stabbed up with the knife and sliced, then sliced again and again, doing as much damage as possible. Blood spattered down on me, unexpectedly cool. I tasted its acidity in my mouth and saw something gaping and pulsing out a stream of it. Then a great mass of liver-like organs and ropy objects studded with sacs fell on top of me. I sliced across that and blue fluid squirted out, just before its back claw dug forwards and flung me away.
I landed on my face, rolled over and leapt up – no pain, just adrenalin. The creature reared up, Marcus still clamped in its jaws and now cursing and yelling. He’d lost one of his weapons, but was trying to drive the other deeper into one of its eyes. The creature came down again and tried to run, but it stepped on its own viscera and howled, releasing its hold on Marcus. He clambered up, ragged skin hanging from his leg, and wrapped both legs around its neck then, bracing there, drove the half-strut deeper and deeper. With a low thudding crunch, the metal went through, poking out the front of its neck. The siluroyne crashed to the ground, flinging him clear, and lay there shivering.
It was stupid really, considering the situation, but I felt terribly guilty for having played my part in its slaughter. I staggered then, suddenly feeling very dizzy.
‘I didn’t know if its brain was in its head,’ said Marcus, climbing to his feet and holding down a flap of skin and muscle on his leg. ‘Seems it was.’
‘Seems so,’ I agreed, mouth dry, eyesight kinda fuzzy.
‘That doesn’t look so good,’ he said, pointing at my torso.
I looked down at the claw slice extending from my chest down to my right hip, and at the streaming blood and loop of intestine protruding. It felt just, somehow, that the creature had done to me what I’d done to it, then I collapsed face-first in the mud.
Consciousness came in brief flashes. I dangled high above flute grasses and looked down at my body. A twisted rope of grasses ran from armpit to armpit, holding me up. I guessed that was the reason I was having difficulty breathing. Further grasses wrapped my torso, soaked in blood. I reached up to try and relieve some of the pressure of the rope, but my hand fell away, weak as dough.
‘Chain-glass,’ said Marcus. ‘With the strength to drive, it can cut anything.’
‘That’s good,’ I managed, noting how his speech no longer slurred or hissed, before I went away again.
I woke in agony and tried to knock away the thing digging at my body. Aboard the King’s Ship again, a metal ship louse feasted on me, making horrible grinding sounds and stinking of burned metal. But I couldn’t move my arms, which were clamped up above my head. When I tried to kick, legs wrapped around mine and Marcus’s face loomed close.
‘Keep still,’ he instructed.
His face surprised me for a second because there seemed little of the viral mutation remaining in it, but still I couldn’t obey him. The pain was too much. Nevertheless he kept me clamped there … now I was on Vrasan’s table and the prador just kept on cutting. I screamed into blackness, then saw walls sliding by to the sound of metal on metal.
I looked down at the autodoc attached to my torso. The thing had been burned and partially melted but had various pipes inserted around a long wound stitched together with wire, and I understood. At least I could no longer see my own guts sticking out. I became aware of a travois under me made of a floor grating but, after a short time, that awareness went away again.
When my consciousness returned the next time, it stuck around. I didn’t feel delirious and quickly understood my location in time and place. Certainly the room had to be somewhere in the Stratogaster station, and certainly some hours had passed since a siluroyne had attempted to repay me for eviscerating it. I lay on a piece of foam in a small room. A couple of light squares, in a row of them along one wall, cast a dull illumination by which I could see a pile of containers, weapons and other equipment. A low bench and a couple of chairs stood to one side. On that were food packages and bottles. I really wanted to get to them but as yet didn’t dare move or even look at myself. A near-empty drip feed hung from a piece of ratty string attached to a hook in the ceiling, with the tube running down to enter my forearm. By the colour, the thing certainly didn’t contain saline. Just a couple of feet out from my forearm lay the autodoc. It had been damaged and now lay partially disassembled. I then braved a peer down to my torso.
My gut looked bloated – straining against the wire stitches holding it together – and my body ached horribly. Fluid had leaked out to leave a worrying yellow crust. I tried to ease upright, got a little way, but then a terrible cramp in my guts froze me in place. I groaned, wondering what repairs my movement might have broken, then my anus signalled intent before opening. With a horrible sputtering of wind and squirting fluid, my bowels emptied. The stink was foul, a combination of shit and rotting meat. The foam darkened beneath me, with new wetness spreading amidst old stains. Even so, my guts noticeably deflated, bringing huge relief, and I finally sat up.
Had Marcus done what he could for me and then, seeing the task as impossible, abandoned me? The smell worried me. Gangrene? No, I shouldn’t think so negatively. By now my nano-suite should be up and running and any infections were highly unlikely. Also, the pain wasn’t the agony I would have felt had my guts been rotting. Marcus had obviously collected the equipment here and perhaps gone off for more. The stuff in that feed must be some form of medication too. I recollected the moments of lucidity. He had bound up my wound with flute grass and hauled me out of our prison. I now realized the walls in one of the enclosures must have been some material softer than ceramal, because he’d been able to cut handholds in it with the chain-glass knife. Thereafter, he’d done what he could with a damaged autodoc before bringing me here, to some form of safety.
Even as I took a step towards the table, my belly rumbled and intense hunger and thirst made themselves felt. I hesitated. Was it a good idea to eat so soon after seeing my guts exposed to the air? Closing my eyes for a moment, I concentrated on the knowledge of my erstwhile self. Even if my bowel had been opened, the nanosuite would have worked fast to seal it up and that would have been after what the autodoc had managed to do. That suite would be clearing toxins and infections, accelerating repair at a cellular level. Meanwhile it was also boosting me. In both cases, it needed energy and materials to work with. I pulled the drip feed needle from my arm, went over to the table and opened packets containing fish in oil, protein slabs, dried fruit and a dense chocolate and cherry fudge. I gulped them, washing them down with a drink from a large bottle of mint-flavoured water. On finishing, weariness hammered me, but I didn’t want to lie down on the stinking mattress. I sat on a chair, rested my arms on the table and lay my head on them.
‘Wash yourself.’
I jerked awake. Sleep had hit me like a bludgeon and I had no idea how much time had passed. A man stood over me, clad in a neat envirosuit. He’d placed a bucket of water by the chair, and now put a bottle of antiseptic soap on the table and a rough sponge beside it. I eyed a nearby bottle of wine as a potential weapon, but a moment later realization struck me.
‘You’re much improved,’ I said.
‘Though it wasn’t her intention, Suzeal did me a favour filling me with sprine bullets,’ Marcus replied. ‘They regressed the virus enough for …’ He waved a hand at his face and his body. ‘This.’
The only difference between him and somebody uninfected now was a slight
bluish tinge to his skin, as well as a pointiness about the ears and the claw-like fingernails on one hand. His face did not look right – it seemed too long and bony and the eyes too sunken – but it wasn’t alien. He could now pass for human and, in reality, there were plenty of ‘humans’ who looked a lot more exotic, through cosmetic and adaptogenic alterations.
‘How strong are you?’ I asked, sliding out of the chair and standing. I felt stronger and practically buzzing with energy after my feed. Glancing down at my front, I noted that my belly had shrunk further and the wound, though still wired shut, looked as if it had sealed nicely.
‘About the level of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old hooper,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps straying up towards the strength of an Old Captain.’
Knowledge came to my mind of Spatterjay’s Old Captains. They were residents of that world and hoopers, with a legendary strength and durability. It took centuries of being infected with the virus to make them the way they were. I didn’t know how long Marcus had been infected but certainly not that long. Then again, the prador had altered the virus in him, and it had likely undergone stressed, accelerated growth.
He pointed down at the bucket. ‘Deal with yourself.’ He stepped over to the amassed equipment. Now I noticed the smell again and saw that while sleeping on the chair, I’d had another involuntary bowel movement. I moved the chair over to one wall then kicked the foam mattress after it. I felt embarrassed, but that was rather foolish. I imagined Marcus himself had gone through worse in the King’s Ship.
I washed standing on the end of the mattress so it could soak up the spill. By the time I’d finished, the water remaining in the bucket had turned filthy red. He tossed me a towel to wipe off the remainder with it. I discarded it on the chair when he handed me a neat cellophane-wrapped envirosuit and even some underclothes. I dressed.
‘You’ve been busy. How long have I been out of it?’ I asked.
‘Twenty hours.’
I looked up. ‘Really? What’s happened?’
‘A lot. Finish getting dressed and I’ll show you.’
I closed up the envirosuit. Its tech was pretty good: power storage in graphene and other meta-material layers that also acted as a temperature regulator and recharged themselves from movement, with heat differentials and EMR. A wrist unit threw up an interactive control hologram. I discovered a fabric hood that slid up over the head, and then the face, at the touch of a finger control – the front of this also turned transparent, offering a HUD – while gloves clad the hands in the same manner and retained touch sensitivity. Once I understood its operation, I checked out his other supplies, attaching a gas-system pulse gun in a blood-specked holster to a stick patch at my hip, as well as selecting a twin-barrelled carbine that fired pulses of ionized aluminium from one barrel and a selection of projectiles from the other. Ammunition too. I then eyed the packs and other items.
‘Food, drink and ammunition,’ said Marcus. ‘Once I’ve shown you what’s out there, we’ll head straight for the rim.’
I let that ‘out there’ slide and asked, ‘What’s the situation in the station? Salander?’ I hurriedly filled a pack with items, hesitated between protein bars and a couple of sticky bombs that lay there, then chose the bombs. There were prador on this station; dealing with them had higher importance than the demands of my stomach.
He set off out through the door into a ratty, rubbish-strewn corridor. ‘The prador are in full control now. Salander kept her forces at the rim, and some way in, to get refugees to the escape pods. Hundreds of those are already out in vacuum. She had a fight with the remnants of Suzeal’s soldiers but that soon ended – they were anxious to get away from what was behind them and surrendered. She’s disarming them and dispatching them in the pods too.’
‘You’re in contact with her?’
‘Not just her.’
‘Who else?’
‘You’ll see.’ Marcus grinned, which was something he hadn’t really been capable of before.
He led me through the station via corridors and powered-down dropshafts I had become tired of seeing. Remnants of battle lay all around: bullet holes and beam burns, walls pulled down or melted, areas torn open by explosions, and corpses everywhere. Most of these were Suzeal’s soldiers but I felt sickened on seeing those that weren’t. Breach sealants snowed in some areas, occasionally we had to close up our suits where smoke boiled thick. At one point we came to a tunnel cut through the station without regard for walls.
‘Hooder,’ said Marcus, and we moved on.
Eventually we came to a pipe devoid of grav. We propelled ourselves along this to where it came up like a well mouth in a circular floor paved with bricks of green and red gemstone. As we pushed ourselves out onto this, grav slowly engaged to bring us down on our feet. Marcus had brought us out to one face of the station disc, for we stood under a dome of chain-glass. I gazed at the immense view, finally bringing my attention to the station itself.
‘Fuck!’
I ducked down to try and get some cover behind the opaque ring of material that supported the dome, but couldn’t get low enough. Prador stood out there, on the face of the station, a line of them running in a curve that passed close by us, with the nearest only fifty or so feet away.
‘Don’t concern yourself,’ said Marcus. ‘The glass is one way.’
I stood up, annoyed because I should’ve realized that.
‘What’re they doing?’
‘Watching and updating on events,’ he replied. ‘They were ordered out here in readiness to head for the rim, as it’s the shortest and easiest route, but now circumstances have changed.’ He pointed. ‘Do you see?’
I looked to where he indicated and saw a lozenge-shaped object floating high over the planet. I recognized it at once but allowed him his moment.
‘That’s the Polity dreadnought the Hamilton. It has the usual complement of weapons, but also a large medical contingent, along with accommodation for thousands and cryo or gel storage for tens of thousands. It’s eight miles long.’
‘And those?’ I pointed.
‘The agreement between the king and Earth Central is for neither side to have an advantage. Apparently they wrangled for some time about what that meant. Those are reavers, four of them, whose firepower and tactical advantage are higher from being four separate ships, making them supposedly equal to that of the Hamilton.’
The four ships, bearing the shape of extended teardrops, gleamed orange in the glare of the sun. They stood arrayed just out from the Polity dreadnought, and I had no doubt some itchy fingers were on triggers … or rather claws.
‘I detect that you don’t think that’s the case.’
‘The Hamilton is run by AI, and we have a lot of weapons the prador don’t know about.’
I noted that we and stored it away for later.
‘The prador have weapons the Polity doesn’t know about too,’ I noted.
He turned and shook his head. ‘If you’re talking about Vrasan’s hooders, that secret came out the moment he attacked here. Suzeal might have kept U-com under wraps in the station but she couldn’t cut it in the ships at the docking moon. Someone contacted the Polity immediately – probably an agent – and that’s why both the Polity and the prador are here. And that is also why the Hamilton is over there.’ He gestured to the planet.
‘You’ve been in contact with them too,’ I suggested.
He tapped a comlink in his ear. ‘Suzeal’s jamming is dead now. The captain of the Hamilton has been speaking to me on occasion. He kindly waited until we got here before the fireworks start.’ He looked back at the planet. ‘And now they are.’
Lights flickered all over the dreadnought and just a moment later hundreds of vapour trails appeared in atmosphere. These travelled round the globe. Next it seemed that the planet grew spines, all directed towards the ship. The first were missiles obviously seeking out targets that lay out of line of sight. The second were railgun strikes, already hitting before their vapour trails ap
peared. Then further spines extended out of the ship, actinic blue in vacuum, then turning royal purple as they punched down. Particle beams. Was there anything this ship wasn’t firing? Below, the surface of the planet became spotted with red-orange glows, massive explosions and firestorms forming. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘Do you think the Polity can allow the prador access to hooders that they’ll weaponize? This, in the end, is why Vrasan is here: to secure a supply of them.’
I felt abruptly sad about that. The creatures weren’t exactly cuddly but exterminating them seemed an unutterable shame.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘They’ve responded.’
Explosions now bloomed around the Hamilton across hard-fields, like scales of amber glass flashing into existence in vacuum. The dreadnought jutted four long ribbed flames of fusion and shot out in a curving course away from the planet. The reavers moved as well, and then they too disappeared behind a firestorm and a sudden proliferation of defensive fields. Meanwhile, the prador on the skin of the station abruptly set into motion, leaping out into vacuum and firing up suit thrusters. A moment later, a scattering of them simply exploded and they were down again, pulling open large hatches back into the station.
Marcus stood there, head darting from side to side as he tried to take it all in.
‘Railgun, close – something else here. Probably a black ops attack ship. Come on!’ He leapt to the tube, dropping straight into it. I followed, unsure whether the situation had improved or not. Sure, the Polity had arrived and might make mincemeat of the prador, but that wasn’t any comfort for anyone outside either that dreadnought or this supposed black ops attack ship. Space stations involved in space battles tended to have a short lifespan.
‘Will we be any safer in an escape pod?’ I asked as we headed at speed through the station.
‘They have their own drive systems,’ he said, ‘and now things have blown up here she might escape.’
I didn’t need to ask who the ‘she’ was.
‘Where?’ I asked.