The Line of Polity

by Neal Asher

  ‘I am Skellor and you see me in total, Hierarch Epthirieth Loman Dorth. Now, release your hold or I must free your hand.’

  Loman saw the sheer appalling size of the Occam Razor, and watched it pulverize the entire technical infrastructure of the system in mere seconds. The small ships of the fleet were burning, cargo carriers and small transports burning when not already become glowing debris. He felt the sudden groundswell of prayer from the Gabriel, the Witchfire and Ducking Stool, just before the missiles struck and the burning shells of these ships rolled around the planet, breaking up and contributing their substance to the growing scrapyard orbiting Masada. Then the afterglow of another titanic explosion bled across his vision, and he saw Ragnorak in harsh and brittle detail tumbling end over end down into the gaseous sea that was Calypse. Through the eyes of screaming men he saw girders and huge frameworks twisting against vast storms of colour. Then the image blinked out upon a fading wail and, alone again, he felt something reaching out from that terrible ship: something that wanted to get inside his head, something that wanted to seize from him the reins of power, absolute power.

  ‘You cannot have it.’

  That seemed the limp and ineffectual protest of a child caught playing with something it had been disallowed, but Loman reached out, tightened his grip, and resisted.

  ‘I have work to do.’

  Hanging on with all the sweaty grip of his mind, and the will that had allowed him to climb so high, Loman wondered at this huge emphasis on this entity’s work.

  ‘This is mine! You have no right!’

  Glinting sunlight from its golden hull, and sucking away sunlight with grey Jain architecture, the Occam Razor slid closer, dominated the face of Calypse, and turned silver and ebony towers on its hull down towards the cylinder worlds of the Theocracy. In vacuum, the titanic flash of lased light was invisible, but it became visible as the first coherent wave slammed from the Down Mirror of Faith, only microseconds before that mirror disintegrated. The full horror washing through him in hot sickness, Loman leaned out and stared down into the eye of the cylinder world as the wall of fire ascended. He started screaming, as for each passing second he felt tens of thousands of his citizens incinerated; and at the last moment, when the firestorm obliterated Amoloran’s Tower and the Up Mirror, he felt all contact and all power plucked from his grasp, and thought that truly cruel, before brief incandescent agony snuffed his life.

  Rolling through space: Faith was an empty container, burnt out on the inside.

  The side of the big lander opened down into the tented area, in which men were now erecting dividing walls. Speelan led them round stacks of packing cases, then held up his hand to halt them by the ramp leading up into the lander itself. From the room beyond, which was obviously some sort of control centre, walked a man with a blank face and ball-bearing eyes, below flat black hair. He seemed surrounded by a kind of dead atmosphere as he descended the ramp. Perhaps that was the smell of death, Apis thought, then dismissed the idea as being far too romantic.

  ‘My name is Aberil Dorth, Deacon and First Commander of the Theocratic forces of Masada.’ He gestured to the first man. ‘You have met my lieutenant, Speelan. And your names are?’

  Apis considered keeping his mouth shut, but then wondered what point there was in that – doing so he realized would only bring about the expected violence earlier.

  ‘I am Apis Coolant, M-tech number forty-seven of Outlink Station Miranda,’ he said, quietly pleased with his fulsome title.

  Aberil Dorth stared at him for a moment, then turned to Eldene.

  ‘I’m Eldene,’ she said simply.

  Aberil abruptly stepped towards her, reached out and with one finger parted the stick-strip of her shirt to expose her small breasts and the dressing underneath them.

  ‘Pond worker,’ he observed.

  Eldene did not reply, she just closed her shirt once he removed his hand, and waited.

  Aberil turned back to Apis, then pointed to something lying in a heap beside the ramp, which it took a moment for Apis to recognize as the exoskeleton he had been wearing previously.

  ‘That suit,’ said the Deacon with obviously more than passing interest. ‘How does one remove the limiters?’

  Here it comes, thought Apis: the first question he could not answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, then seeing an opportunity to turn things away from himself, he tipped his head towards Speelan. ‘He killed the woman who did know.’

  Aberil glanced at Speelan, then abruptly reached out and closed his hand around Eldene’s throat. ‘You are an Outlinker,’ he said to Apis. ‘You manage to stand down here which, as I understand it, is quite exceptional, but I don’t want to risk killing you just yet.’ Eldene was now choking, fighting for breath. She tried kicking him, but he easily avoided her attempts. Apis started to move forwards, but one of the guards caught him by the hair and struck him lightly across the back of his legs with a gun barrel, so that Apis went down on one knee.

  Aberil went on, ‘So, every time you either refuse to answer, or give me an answer that displeases me, I will do something unpleasant to your companion here. Is that understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ said Apis, tears in his eyes.

  Aberil gave Eldene a shake. ‘The correct reply from you, Outlinker, is “Yes, your reverence.”’

  ‘Yes, your reverence,’ said Apis.

  Aberil released Eldene and she too slumped to her knees. Another man walked down the ramp – this one wearing a less obviously military uniform – and stood observing things from a wary distance. Aberil turned to him. ‘Ah, Molat, hand me your stinger.’

  ‘There’s no need for this,’ said Apis, as the man unhooked a white baton from his belt and passed it across to Aberil.

  Aberil glanced at him. ‘What there is need for or otherwise, I will decide. Now, my first question: how did you get here?’

  ‘I was rescued from the station Miranda as it started to come apart, by a ship called the General Patten,’ Apis replied.

  Aberil stared at him for a long drawn-out moment, then abruptly turned and drew the stinger across Eldene’s stomach. She gasped, then clamped down on her pain, obviously determined not to scream.

  ‘It’s the truth!’ Apis yelled.

  ‘Truth,’ Aberil sneered, ‘is the General Patten was obliterated, and everyone aboard was killed. You arrived here with Polity spies and saboteurs.’ He slapped the stinger against Eldene’s face and, even though determined not to, she screamed. ‘You came here to undermine the true faith and spread rumours and lies!’ As Aberil pulled back the stinger to inflict it on Eldene once again, Apis found a strength in his legs that surprised him. He launched himself from the ground, driving himself headfirst into the commander, had the satisfaction of feeling air whoof out of him, and seeing him fold up, stagger back, then go down on one knee. Then the guards were dragging Apis away, and Aberil was standing up again, holding the stinger ready, his expression vicious.

  ‘Oh, I tire of questions,’ he sneered.

  Then suddenly it seemed as if the whole atmosphere inside the tent shuddered, and every one of the Theocracy soldiers jerked as if just dealt a blow. Apis watched Aberil’s expression slide from viciousness to bewilderment and shock. Suddenly men were howling and dropping to the ground. Aberil bent face-forwards, his hands pressed to either side of his head. Molat was on his knees, his hands clasped as if in prayer, while Speelan was in a foetal curl with his arms over his head. Apis gaped about himself and wondered what madness had descended on them. He glanced across at Eldene, whose expression mirrored his own shock, but who reacted much faster: she stood up and, moving as fast as the hobble allowed her, went over to an open toolbox that was being used by those erecting the partitions. In a moment she had found a pair of wire-cutters to quickly release herself from her bonds, before returning to free Apis too.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Apis wondered, as he discarded the severed plastic from his wrists and ankles.

  ‘Oxygen and mask
s,’ said Eldene curtly.

  Apis surveyed his surroundings. The others were all clawing at the biotech augs they wore, and the tent was filling up with a smell like seared pork. She was right: now was not the time to ask questions but to act.

  Sastol grated his teeth as he watched the rebels being seemingly sucked away by the evening shadows. This squad with which they had been playing a lethal game of hide-and-seek all day was made up of only three men, formerly four, yet they had taken out seven of his own men – including Braden, who had burnt up in his own oxygen supply. Sastol wanted to go after them exclusively, but orders were orders and they must continue their slow advance beside the swamp basin, allowing the rebels to flee back and entrench themselves in their damned mountains.

  ‘Okay, hold it here. Seems they’re all pulling back now .’

  Over his aug he could feel their disapproval at the order, but only Donch felt any inclination to voice it:

  ‘It would seem like an opportunity not to be missed.’

  Speaking out loud, now that the rebels were quite obviously not trenching in to a new position or turning round to attack, Sastol said, ‘An opportunity for what?’

  ‘Filling their backs with iron slugs, I think,’ said Sodar, who had moved in to crouch at his right side, dropping the heavy rail-gun – which had somehow survived the destruction of the car – on the ground before him.

  ‘It was a direct order from Aberil Dorth. Do you want to take it up with him?’ Sastol asked.

  ‘That would not be so wise,’ admitted Donch, moving in close on Sastol’s left. ‘How long do we have to hold these positions?’

  ‘For as long as necessary – probably throughout the night.’ He did not look at either of his comrades, but he guessed their feelings on the matter. The previous night had been bad enough for them, what with Dominon killed by a mud snake, and that siluroyne which had charged them just before dawn, but the worst of it was the screaming during the night, the result, they had discovered, of an entire squad being taken out by a hooder. They knew about hooders – who could not know about such creatures of gruesome myth and horrifying reality?

  ‘We’ll dig in here as best we can, and wait it out,’ he announced.

  ‘Seems crazy to let them get to terrain they know, and where they can easily find cover,’ persisted Donch.

  ‘Do you doubt the First Commander’s capabilities?’ Sastol asked, staring at him directly.

  ‘Not to his face I don’t. I want to keep my extremities intact.’

  Sastol grinned at this and turned to Sodar. ‘What do you think—’ he began, but then spoke no more, because of the sheer powerful horror of what he now knew to be happening.

  ‘Oh my God, what is that?’

  Donch’s was the clearest voice of them all, over the huge rush of screaming communication that filled all channels. Sastol slapped his hand against his aug and screamed too, adding his voice to the thousands doing the same all along the Theocracy front.

  ‘Faith . . . it was Faith . . . Gone!’

  But even that was not the worst. Where once Behemoth had worked his twisted wiles, before being pushed away by the chanting and praying of the Septarchy Friars, something else loomed – and it wanted him, it wanted them all. It was reaching . . . Sastol tried to find something to hang on to, as his aug squirmed against his head and something utterly putrid overran his senses of smell and taste. Trying to mould solidity out of the indescribable, he saw himself standing with his men – and that something reaching out for him like a huge multibodied mud snake. But how could he fight it when there were no weapons to fire, and no physical body to fire them at? Then Donch showed him the way. Yelling angrily, the man reached up and tore away his aug, hurling it to the ground, stamping it into the ground. Sastol reached up for his own, levered his fingers behind it and pulled down. The pain, in the end, was nothing compared with the relief of blessed silence.

  Seconds passed – or perhaps minutes, or hours. Sastol gazed around at his men, and those men of the neighbouring squad. Most of them were now on the ground, groaning, writhing . . . though some were ominously still. Others, who like Donch and himself had torn away their augs, were still standing and mobile.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Sastol shuddered, unable to accept that he had seen one of the cylinder worlds gutted by fire, and then felt some monster trying to take control of his mind.

  ‘Fucking Satan,’ Donch replied.

  Sastol nodded; perhaps that was the only answer he would be getting down here. He stepped out into the open and looked around. Some of the prostrate members of the other squads were now standing again. The rattle of gunfire had him down in squat as he observed the captain of the next squad stumbling out into the open as well, with one of his men following. The second man suddenly raised his weapon and blew the captain to the ground in a bloody mess of pieces of flesh loosely connected by skin and ligament.

  ‘What?’ Sastol turned to his own men, saw Donch’s horrified expression turn to one of pleading, then saw him spin away in a wheel of blood. Sodar. It was Sodar who had fired – the man standing upright with mechanical efficiency, but his face twisted as if he had suffered a stroke and the aug on the side of his head now seemingly fused to it, looking ashen grey as if burnt. Sastol observed that same ashen tint on many heads turning with the same dead eyes and wasted expressions. Without hesitation he stepped back into the clearing his squad had made earlier, snatched up his weapon and pack – and ran.

  Polas read through and understood every piece of information with which his instruments presented him. Through the probe he watched Faith die, and the source of that death coming insystem, before the probe whited out. Then his instrumentation went insane in a way he immediately recognized as viral takeover.

  ‘Lellan, I’m getting a viral takeover of com. Shut it down immediately!’

  Whether that got through or not he had no idea, for all the equipment shut off together for a couple of seconds, before clicking back on. Then, over to his right, he saw that the holojector tank had dumped its usual program, and no longer displayed the complicated dance of the Braemar moons and other worlds and worldlets that made up the Masadan system. Instead a wasted face appeared, seemingly wearing a helmet of grey wood and blood-infused crystal.

  ‘I will not hamper your communications,’ spoke a decidedly creepy voice from Dale’s console. ‘Just as I will not hamper your inclination to kill each other. I have only one wish, and that is for you to give me Ian Cormac. Do that and I go away.’

  ‘What is this, Polas?’ said Lellan from her hide in the foothills.

  Polas quickly replied, ‘The Occam Razor just arrived. Are you getting the picture I’m seeing over your helmet screen?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Skellor, I think.’

  A slow handclap issued from Dale’s console – she had now pushed her chair well back from the machine, as if it might bite her – and the image of Skellor, in the tank of the holojector, grinned nastily.

  ‘Ah, I see I have been expected – which means you know where Cormac is. Let me have him and I will let you all live.’

  Whilst watching Skellor speak, it took a moment for Polas to realize that an old stripfilm printer across the other side of the room was operating. Moving out from behind his console, he walked across to it and observed the printout.

  ‘I would hand this Cormac over to you,’ Lellan told Skellor, ‘but even though we have been in communication, I have no idea where he is.’

  The message coming through the printer read:

  ‘Sophisticated viral subversion programs all over – attempted trace of U-space transmission – closing down all links and now maintaining a watching brief – Jarv.’

  Knowing that the printer possessed its own small memory, Polas reached down and pulled its optic cable, before reversing the stripfilm and wiping it. Returning to his console he was uncomfortably aware of the wall-mounted security camera following his progress.

  ‘That is a real sha
me,’ said Skellor with the sincerity of a crocodile. ‘That means I’ll just have to kill some of your people, and keep killing them until you find Cormac for me.’

  ‘Lellan, you have to get to the caves,’ advised Polas. ‘That ship is more powerful than the arrays ever were.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s our main problem,’ Lellan replied. ‘We’ve got Theocracy soldiers attacking right now, but there’s something very wrong with them.’ She went on to say something more, but her voice became heavily distorted, and all comlinkage then blinked out.

  . . . viral subversion programs . . .

  Polas turned to look at the head in the holojector as it stared out with seemingly blind eyes. There were no Theocracy soldiers here for Skellor to subvert – but there were people to kill.

  ‘All of you, get out,’ he said to the personnel in the operations room.

  Dale looked up at him, her expression puzzled. Perhaps it was better that way, for when white fire blasted in through the panoramic window, no one but Polas realized what was happening. And he knew it only for the half-second it took for the fire to reach him, and vaporize him along with the rest of the mountain peak.

  Jarvellis lifted her hands away from the instrumentation of Lyric II as if it had suddenly become infectious – which, in limited electro-optical ways, it could well have been.

  ‘Lyric . . . are you all right?’ she asked, frightened that she might not believe the answer.

  ‘No worms got through,’ replied Lyric II’s AI. ‘The Skellor based its attack program on information gleaned from the cylinder world it burnt out. In my terms it was pretty crude, but only crude in the way that dropping an atomic bomb on your enemy is cruder than creeping up behind him with a knife.’

  ‘Your metaphors leave something to be desired,’ Jarvellis replied, glancing over her own shoulder. ‘Remember your language.’

  At least the ship’s AI was still hers, but things were far from all right. For the first time in a very long time Jarvellis felt frightened and indecisive. She knew that this was not wholly because of what the AI had referred to as ‘the Skellor’ – it was because for the very first time in ages she had so much to lose.