by Neal Asher
Bringing the ship over wilted vegetation towards the river, Jarvellis glanced up as Stanton returned to the cockpit. ‘All done?’ she asked, and Stanton nodded.
At least in cold-sleep the boy would feel no pain should their ship be destroyed, thought Cormac. But then he doubted that any of them would feel very much – it would be so very quick. The unexpected presence of the child left him feeling hollow inside, though no less resolute. In the end duty had to come first.
‘How long?’ he asked.
‘Lyric?’ Jarvellis prompted.
The AI replied, ‘We should achieve escape velocity in one half of an orbit – that’s two hours nominally. One hour after that we will be able to submerge in under-space.’
Cormac nodded to himself as the screen now showed them coming up out of the river valley and achieving enough height so that Jarvellis did not have to navigate the ship along the watercourse. Higher still, and the ion engines were now cycling up to a steady roar. Though the screen continued to show the forward view as they accelerated, he guessed that the ship was now beginning to tilt into their vector so that the engines could blast out directly behind. Air turbulence began to give the craft the occasional tentative shake as it accelerated. It maintained that more due to brute force than to aerodynamics – like most ships of the time, Lyric II was built to land and take off by using antigravity.
Cormac recalled a conversation he’d had with Jarvellis: ‘The ’ware effect doesn’t hide AG, it merely blurs it over a number of kilometres,’ she had told him. ‘That was good enough for Theocracy detectors, but not to get us by a Polity dreadnought.’
‘What about the fusion engines on this?’ he’d then asked her.
‘Taking us straight up, the blast would flare visibly outside the range of the ’ware effect. Skellor would detect us that way too.’
‘I guessed so,’ said Cormac. ‘Can we slingshot around the planet on ion boosters? We’d leave a trail, but that’s something we’ll have to risk.’
In response Jarvellis had opined that the trail would be one of wreckage – Lyric II not being built to withstand such forces. However, they had little choice.
‘Approaching Mach one,’ she announced now. ‘Let’s hope Skellor’s got no one listening down there, because the ’ware only covers us for long-distance checking of air disturbance. They’d still hear the sonic boom.’
‘Let’s hope that, indeed,’ said Cormac – and didn’t really like to think beyond. It seemed to him that the processing power and technology Skellor had under his control meant the man was only limited by his own imagination. Probably Skellor was watching through the eyes of his calloraptors, but would it occur to him to listen also? No doubt, from where he hung geostationary, he could see in great detail much of what occurred on the planet, but what was his focus? He had certainly missed the journey Stanton and Cormac had made on that aerofan, probably because his attention was directed entirely towards his creatures’ attack on the cavern. Had it occurred to him to set up listening posts? Did he have anything watching on the other side of the planet? Much depended on the detail: it wasn’t good enough to have the power of a god without a god’s universal vision.
A subscreen gave them a receding view of the Occam Razor, while another screen presented a view across the top of Lyric II whereby Cormac could see that they were now flying perpendicular to the ground so that the ion engines could operate most effectively. The ship had started to vibrate, and from somewhere there came a whistling scream, like a bombshell coming down but never hitting. Every now and again the craft gave a shudder as if something structural was about to break.
‘Let’s drop the Mach readings: we just passed five thousand kph,’ said Jarvellis.
The ground was now far enough below them for many small details to be lost, not that there was much diverse detail over this wilderness. The open plains receded underneath them, changing from greenish blue pocked by great splashes of red to a sudden band of grey stone, then cerulean ocean. Jarvellis adjusted a sub-screen to show the continent receding behind them like a thick blanket of mould skimmed back off the oceanic surface. The ship was now howling and shuddering constantly, and by the way she was white-knuckling the joystick Cormac suspected that Jarvellis did not consider this at all a good sign.
‘Do you have stress readouts for this craft’s superstructure?’ asked Cormac.
‘Yes, I do,’ admitted Jarvellis. ‘But I’m not looking at them.’
Soon they were puncturing cloud as they flew on into night. Looking at the screen with a view all across Lyric II, he observed ice building up and flaking away in glittering contrails.
‘Are we leaving a vapour trail?’ he asked her.
‘No, the exhaust is too hot. Our only problem right now is the ionic trail and, as you said, we just have to hope he doesn’t spot that.’
‘Other problems?’ Cormac persisted.
‘Proximity lasers online,’ the AI chose that moment to announce.
‘That problem,’ Jarvellis replied. ‘Your Dragon creature did a fine job of destroying the laser arrays. Shame it left the debris up here as well. I’ve set our course to avoid the worst of it, otherwise I’ll dodge the larger fragments whilst Lyric here vaporizes the smaller ones.’
‘But surely you’ll be able to do all that inside the ’ware field?’ Cormac pointed out.
Stanton interjected, ‘Sure they’ll get vaporized inside the ’ware field, but that vapour won’t stay inside the field for long. You were worried about a moisture vapour trail lower down. Now you can worry about a metallic vapour trail up here.’
Cloud banks lay below them like a mountain range of crystal sulphur and snow, with jade ocean glimpsed far below through deep crevasses. Above this they hurtled further into space that could never get completely dark because of the Braemar moons suspended like lanterns, and behind them, the shining glass sculpture of the distant nebula. Cormac registered U-chargers powering up then on a subscreen and observed vapour explosions as the ship’s lasers obliterated obstacles that were too small to be visible but large enough to punch holes through the hull. Operating the steering thrusters, Jarvellis took the ship swaying to one side to pass a lump of wreckage resembling half a piano made of polished aluminium. For a short while the lasers continued operating at full capacity, though not well enough, for they could hear the sharp bullet-cracks of impacts.
‘Lyric, damage?’ Jarvellis spat, when these impacts finally ceased.
‘Four micropunctures, now sealed. One large hole in the hydraulic cylinder for landing foot two. I’ve shut off the hydraulic fluid supply to it, but cannot repair. We need to space dock for that,’ the AI explained.
‘Be glad of the chance,’ Jarvellis muttered, glancing at Cormac.
He was observing the display that noted their speed in kilometres per hour. Now pushing twenty-five thousand, he saw that they had achieved escape velocity, and that now the arc of the horizon was dropping below them.
Stanton confirmed this for them by asking, ‘What now, Agent? What do we do now?’
‘Depending on the circumstances, it would take about an hour for the underspace disturbance created by a ship this size to disperse.’ He turned to Jarvellis. ‘Get the Occam up on the main screen, will you.’
Jarvellis did as requested, and soon the Polity dreadnought filled the main screen, looming utterly clear now in the clarity of vacuum. For a second Cormac allowed himself misgivings: Skellor had so obviously moved far beyond anything Cormac himself could easily judge or understand, let alone manipulate.
‘One hour at the present velocity will take us far enough out of the well for you to use U-space engines. You don’t need greater velocity?’ he asked.
‘No. We have modern engines on this Lyric,’ Jarvellis replied tartly.
‘Okay . . . if you use your fusion engine—’
‘Fusion mode,’ Jarvellis interrupted. ‘The engines are dual-function: ionic and fusion.’
‘Whatever,’ said Cormac, irri
tated. ‘If you use fusion mode, how quickly will you be able to go under?’
‘Ten minutes, maybe less. Lyric?’
The AI replied, ‘Seven minutes and thirty seconds . . . mark.’
‘Use fusion,’ said Cormac, ‘for the last few seconds – and in those last few seconds I want you to send a message for me as well.’
‘Just say it, and Lyric will record it,’ Jarvellis told him.
Cormac cleared his throat and addressed the image on the screen. ‘Skellor, it seems you missed me again, but I guess mistakes are to be expected from an intelligence stretched so far beyond its capacity. Now I want to make you an offer: come and work with the Polity on studying the technology you now control. All previous misdemeanours can be forgotten, since you know that Polity AIs do not countenance vengeance, and in exchange for what you now possess, you could have almost anything you ask for.’ Cormac glanced round at Stanton, who seemed set to explode. He continued, ‘I do understand that you will not want to compromise your safety. When I arrive, I’ll send a message to that effect into the Polity, and you can thenceforth communicate with ECS yourself and make the right arrangements. Please give this offer serious consideration. Message ends.’
‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ Stanton growled.
‘Trust me,’ said Cormac, then smiled at the rustling of material that told him Stanton had just drawn his weapon. He went on, ‘What did I just say to him?’
‘You offered him anything he wants,’ said Stanton.
‘I also said “When I arrive, I’ll send a message to the Polity”, so what do you think he’ll work out from that?’
Stanton thought for a moment then said, ‘He’ll know you’re not going right into Polity space.’
‘Precisely, so he’ll think he still has a chance of silencing me,’ said Cormac. ‘And when he moves to pick up our trail, and tries to follow us through U-space, he’ll see that this is true.’
‘You haven’t told me our destination yet,’ said Jarvellis.
Cormac now told her.
So engrossed had Skellor been in the underground battle that he felt a surge of panic as in a microsecond he became aware of fusion spillover from a ’ware field. Immediately he put the relevant laser battery online, whilst experiencing huge loathing and contempt for himself. With all his available sensors he had watched out for Polity technology, and so just not expected anything else. That was his own damned chameleonware on some small ship, and it had nearly got the vessel past him. Targeting the calculated centre of the ’ware effect, he immediately became suspicious: why was he seeing fusion spillover now? It seemed almost as if the pilot of that ship wanted to be seen. Then Cormac’s message arrived and Skellor screamed with rage at his own stupidity, and fired his lasers, only to see their blast igniting vapour over a fading U-space signature.
Skellor immediately engaged the Occam’s fusion engines to take him out of low orbit. As he did this, he imposed self-control and re-examined the content of the man’s message.
‘When I arrive I’ll send a message to the Polity’ was a provocative phrase. Skellor felt it was a ploy to get him to follow the ship to some dangerous destination on the Line. Yet there could be no trap laid there, because no one outside of this system knew anything about him. Hammering up towards the rapidly fading signature, Skellor probed and was further bewildered when he discovered what the little ship’s destination was.
What did this Agent Cormac think he could achieve by leading Skellor there?
It took Skellor a huge adjustment of perspective to understand what was happening: if he did not pursue, then Cormac would get to the Polity and Skellor’s secret would be out. If he did pursue, the chase would take him two solstan months, and in that time the Polity would be sure to have gone to Masada to find out what had happened to its people – and to this very ship – and again the secret would be out. Obliquely, Skellor realized what he was truly being offered. Cormac was sacrificing himself for this remote world. The agent realized Skellor would never follow the trispherical ship anywhere under Polity control, as that would be suicide for him, thus Cormac would not now be heading into Polity space. The circumstances were such that Skellor had a choice: he could stay here and incinerate this world, or he could follow the ship and capture Ian Cormac. Without a second thought Skellor dropped the Occam Razor into underspace.
‘Pull back! Pull back into Pillartown One!’
The man with the still-working coms helmet who was loudly relaying Lellan’s orders let his gaze stray from the air above him for too long. Two calloraptors hit him simultaneously and dragged him screaming up into the middle of their flock, where his screams were soon curtailed as they ripped him apart.
With the taste of bile in his mouth and with his hands shaking, Apis quickly changed the energy canister of his pulse-rifle. It was an automatic action – which he had done six times already. Long before he, Eldene and Fethan had arrived, the battle had become a diffuse and chaotic thing, for the calloraptors, once through the cavern door, had room to take to the air and attack at will from overhead.
‘Where is Pillartown One?’ he asked Eldene, as she fired several short bursts overhead. She pointed to a building beyond the hovering raptors, then led the way.
Watching his footing on the rocky terrain – for he still feared falling over more than physical attack – he followed Eldene as she continued firing short bursts upwards. He saw she was certainly a better shot than himself when one burst she fired separated a raptor’s wing, and the creature came thwacking like a broken sail to the cavern floor. Before it even hit the ground, three dracomen were upon it and tearing it apart. Apis noticed that one of them wore a weapons harness, and he wondered if that might be Scar. Difficult to tell, for they were all so similar. It had taken some time, and much reassurance from Lellan, for the rebel forces to realize they were friendly. However, though they made ferocious allies, they could not fly.
‘We have to move faster!’ Eldene yelled.
Glancing aside, Apis saw the rebel forces in full retreat. He ran to keep up with Eldene, ducking a claw that passed dangerously close to his head, then ducking the dracoman that leapt straight up in front of him. The thump from above told him that it had seized its prey, and he glanced back to see dracoman and calloraptor hit the ground in a flailing bundle.
‘Keep moving!’ shouted Fethan, sprinting past. Apis broke into a run again, till soon he was back abreast of Fethan and Eldene.
To either side of them, commingled rebel forces and dracomen were retreating under the onslaught from above. The running seemed to go on interminably, with the pillartown seemingly always distant from them. Then, as if he was coming out of some nightmare, Apis found himself in its shadow, and saw rebels and dracomen ducking through the shattered doors ahead of him. Driven wild by the prospect of their prey escaping, the raptors descended in vicious onslaught.
‘Watch out!’ Fethan yelled.
Apis ducked, and the creature went straight over him, and knocked Eldene to the ground. Apis leapt forward, and slammed himself into the raptor just as it was trying to drag Eldene upwards. He brought it down and, pinning it underneath himself, he emptied his rifle into the monster’s chest. Fire flared underneath him, and claws closed on his leg. He felt himself being jerked up, but with his head towards the ground, and with horror saw the one he had just eviscerated with fire flapping to its feet, with fibrous pink chyme welling up in the burn holes on its midsection, then going for Eldene a second time. Hauling himself up, Apis swung his weapon with all the force he could muster, smashing one of his own assailant’s wing joints, and both he and it crashed to the ground. His rifle gone now, he was defenceless as the raptor loomed over him, its triple mouth opening to tear off his face.
‘Fuck you!’
His fist smacked hard into its double-keeled chest, and it coughed. He thought of Miranda, and hit it again in exactly the same place. As something gave under his fist, he assumed it was his own bones breaking. Amazingly the r
aptor continued coughing. He struck it again, now thinking of all those who had died on the General Patten. Then for his mother, he followed that blow with one up and under the monster’s ugly head, then another . . . then another. It suddenly seemed to go soft on him. He felt its neck snap, saw its flesh tearing – that pinkish chyme welling up to make repairs.
‘And double fuck you!’ he yelled, remembering one of Gant’s favoured curses. His next blow tore the creature’s head from its body.
Apis did not allow himself time to feel appalled at what he had just done, he turned and immediately went for the one attacking Eldene. By then the dracomen had realized where the rebels were heading and had closed in. During the confused and vicious fight that followed, all the rebels were soon undercover, and dracomen manned the doors, joyfully countering any intruding raptors.
‘Skellor programmed ’em to attack and kill, but not much beyond that,’ observed Fethan. ‘They’re at a disadvantage when they land.’ He then turned to inspect Apis thoughtfully. ‘Take it you finally got over your fear of falling.’
Apis fought to recover his breath, still not quite believing what he was now capable of doing, even though he had worked it all out. That was the Jain nano-mycelium working inside him – likely the very same stuff that effected such rapid repairs to those raptor creatures. Even though the same tech worked inside, he had beaten the creature simply because its strength was related to its density, so the raptor could not be as strong as himself since it needed to be light enough to fly. After a moment Apis stood upright and noticed Eldene was watching him with something approaching awe. He turned back to Fethan. ‘If they keep having to land in order to attack, the dracomen will eventually get them all,’ he suggested.