by Neal Asher
Clay found himself sweating, for such simple actions had long been classified as a capital offence. Now he opened his crate of belongings and took out three items, placing them on the bed. The first was a metal egg which hinged open to reveal a small compartment inside: numerous gold electrical connections lining it and ready lights coming on across the now exposed face. He put it to one side, then picked up the next item: a tool rather like a gun but with a wide flat barrel, inside which surgical steel gleamed. He placed this down on the bed, too, then rolled up his right sleeve before taking up the same tool again and passing it up and down his arm. The thing beeped at one point, like a metal detector, and he finally positioned it so its tone was continuous, before pressing it against his skin and activating it.
Immediately that point on his arm grew numb, since the tool was emitting an inducer signal somewhat like white noise, effectively shutting down his pain response directly underneath it. It did not shut down other nerves, however, and he felt the cut of the blades extruding from the barrel, the four-pronged forceps closing and pulling, then the cold of wound glue and the brief pressure of a clamp. When he took the thing away from his arm, there was hardly any evidence of it having done anything but for a small smear of blood. He opened the side of the device, popped out his implant and then inserted it into the compartment in the ovoid – this being a diagnostic tester which would persuade the implant that it still resided inside a human body. Apparently, Delegate Angone of Region SE Africa had kept his implant in precisely such a tester, which was why Serene had to use a TEB nuke to remove him from existence.
Clay inserted the closed tester into the top pocket of his ship suit. Now the only way his implant could kill him was if someone discovered his second capital offence, in having removed it.
The next device he held in his palm and contemplated pensively. It was just a small cylinder, no larger than a marker pen, with a button on one end and a torch switch to the side. He reached up and touched his strangulation collar. The thing about these collars was that they had fibre diamond imbedded and were ostensibly impossible to remove without specialist equipment that was now on proscribed lists. Even using diamond shears was a very risky option. If you could manage to insert one blade up between neck and collar, you had to then cut through the collar instantly in one go, for, the moment just one imbedded filament was severed, the collar would activate at its fastest setting – so miss just one strand of the diamond, and your head was on the floor. All this, Clay thought, gave the misleading impression that the device could not be disabled.
The device began whining as soon as he clicked on the torch button, building up a massive charge. The weakness in these collars was both the battery and the microscopic motors it drove. Clay took hold of the motor, to locate it precisely, then placed the end of the charging device directly over it. He found himself sweating again, contemplating the calculated ten per cent failure rate of this method, and the five per cent chance of it actually activating the collar instead. Then, when the device reached full charge, he didn’t give himself a chance for further thought and pressed the button. The device made a crack, blue arclight flaring under his chin and the collar warming up under the EM radiation pulse. For a moment it felt tighter but, as he lowered the small DEMP emitter, he realized that was just his imagination, caused by fear. And, really, that fear would never go away because, though he knew there was a ninety per cent chance that he had rendered the collar inactive, he would never know for sure unless Serene sent the signal to tighten it.
Clay put away his tools, considered finding some way of disposing of them but then decided the risk of them being found was minimal out here, and he might yet have use for them. He reconnected the cam but left the inducer detached – just a fault no one had yet picked up. Next, feeling as if he was being watched, he unpacked and stowed the rest of his belongings, before collapsing and putting away the crate. As he did all this, he wished his previous actions had not been necessary, but knew they were. He had finally come to understood that loyal service led to his knowing too much, and that made it all the more likely that Galahad would eventually kill him. Those close to her were in nearly as much danger as those who might rebel against her.
Earth
Messina had ensured that his house – being the residence of Earth’s dictator for a lifetime he had intended never to end – contained everything he might need, hence the underground suite of sound-insulated torture and interrogation cells lying just off the wine cellars, which could easily be reached via the private elevator in his office.
‘I’m an old-fashioned sort of guy,’ said Nelson. ‘I know that an inducer can deliver the same sort of agony as any torture ever imagined and that now, with cerebral implants, it’s possible to convince the victim that he really is being physically tortured, but that’s not the same.’ He shook his head in disappointment. ‘There’s no artistry in it.’
There was something wrong with Nelson. That he was a state-employed psychopath was a given, in fact there was no end to such people available, but he was also something beyond that. She knew from the reports on him that the wiring in his head was linked up in all sort of odd ways, that he possessed a form of synaesthesia so that smells had colour and his sense of touch was audible, that his pain and pleasure circuitry was all tangled and he used an inducer on himself for personal gratification – but he was also thoroughly, unconventionally brilliant. His deep studies of how a body could be ruined – transformed, as he would put it – and his endless exploration of pain and horror had perversely contributed a great deal to the advancement of medical science. In fact his research, statistically, had saved more lives than it had taken. Of course, that had never been his aim. He had only ever wanted to keep his victims alive in their agony for as long as possible.
‘So, what can you do?’ asked Serene, as she studied the white-tiled walls, the surgical table, and next to it the complicated metal framework for full-body restraint, alongside the heart monitors and other equipment usually the preserve of delegates’ private hospitals.
As Nelson began to explain the sheer extent of his craft, Serene quickly realized that, if she actually went through with this, she would be taking a step beyond her purported aims. Everything she had done thus far, no matter how grim, or how cruel, had been justified for the future of Earth. The extermination of billions had been an act that had to be carried out before the pressure on Earth’s ecology passed beyond the point of no return. Her concealment of the fact that she herself had committed this act had been necessary because, without that concealment, the degree of hatred that would have been aroused against her would make it impossible for her to govern. Her wiping-out of the remainder of the Committee had been necessary, too – things needed to be done quickly, so it was foolish to waste time in debate about who should be in power, and foolish to waste resources on infighting. That she had ruthlessly seized power was in itself proof of her fitness to rule. Subsequent exterminations had been necessary too, for Earth’s population was still far too high, and therefore targeted exterminations, where they would do the most good, were the best option. She felt perfectly justified in all that she had done, and every person she had killed had been eliminated out of necessity. What she intended now, however, was altogether unnecessary.
‘I’m bringing him down now,’ said the voice over her fone.
‘Very good,’ she replied, turning away from Nelson’s monologue. ‘I take it he is still unharmed?’
‘Just a few bruises.’
Serene swung back to face Nelson, who was watching her with almost childlike curiosity, his head tilted to one side.
‘Go get ready,’ she said, and watched him head over to a nearby sink to wash his hands, then don his aseptic overalls and pull on surgical gloves. Then she turned to watch the lights ranged on the wall just above the elevator. She suddenly felt hot and cold flushes that were a combination of both shame and excitement. From her childhood she recognized this sensation as the thrill of deliber
ately doing something she knew to be wrong.
The elevator arrived and the doors slid open. Sack stepped out, lizard-skinned and the colour of graphite, in a cream business suit, like some CGI fantasy figure. His hand lay gently on the shoulder of Donald Galahad, her father, as he guided him into the room. By contrast, her father’s clothing was filthy and torn, with piss stains on the front of his corduroy trousers, his head dipped and his hands bound behind his back. He looked up and his eyes widened when he saw her, but he could say nothing around the big plastic plug jammed into his mouth.
‘Keroskin,’ exclaimed Nelson delightedly. The man was gazing at Sack. This new hard skin had not been approved for general use yet, but was known about in medical circles. ‘How does it feel?’ Nelson asked.
Sack gazed at him doubtfully with ophidian eyes, then glanced questioningly at Serene.
‘Answer the man,’ she said.
‘Feels like a big thick scab all over,’ Sack replied.
‘We must talk further,’ said Nelson, his attention already focusing on the captive as he said, ‘He needs to be stripped.’
Serene felt a surge in her groin, and nodded to Sack. ‘Go ahead.’
Sack first snipped the plastic ties binding her father’s wrists, and one of his hands immediately went to his mouth to grab the plug and lever it out.
‘Serene!’ he hissed, fear and rage in his voice, then he tried to fight Sack off, which was a complete waste of effort as soon as Sack touched him with a disabler and dropped him, writhing into unconsciousness, on the floor. Sack then clicked open a flick knife and made short work of the prisoner’s soiled clothing. Serene stared at her father’s naked body, noted that it had changed very little in twenty-eight years, remembered the hot shame and excitement when, like a loving daughter, she had climbed into his bed to cuddle him, also remembered him violently pushing her away when she reached down and began rubbing his penis. The look on his face had changed from shock to disgust when he had gazed at her then, fear taking hold a second later when he realized the vulnerable position he was in.
‘Into the frame,’ ordered Nelson.
Donald Galahad finally regained consciousness as Nelson was scrubbing him down with some antibiotic and antiviral solution.
‘Why?’ he said, his voice raw. ‘You already destroyed me.’
Serene stepped forwards, folding her arms. ‘You know why you are here?’
He nodded once, briefly. ‘I rejected you. I rejected the advances of a perverted precocious brat, and for that you hate me and will never forgive me.’
‘Quite right,’ said Serene. She glanced at Nelson but he didn’t seem to be listening to this exchange. Instead he walked over to a large wheeled cabinet and folded it open. Then she glanced at Sack, but could read no expression in that lizard face, before returning her attention to her father. ‘You are now,’ she continued, ‘going to experience the most unbelievable agony, Father, and it is just going to go on and on.’
‘Please,’ he said, ‘just kill me. Just kill me, yourself.’ He bowed his head and tears dripped from his eyes. She felt an odd rush of embarrassment at seeing this. ‘Please, my little Serene. Please . . .’
After that ‘little Serene’ – which reminded her that he had never said it to her again after that time she climbed into his bed – tuned him out and focused instead on Nelson, who was viewing the surgical gear packed inside the cabinet.
‘You can get started,’ she told him.
Nelson did not waste a second. First he hooked up a couple of drips, into tubes of which he now injected various prepared concoctions. Her father remained with his head bowed, weeping quietly. Nelson then went back to his cabinet and, like someone choosing chocolates from a box, made his selection.
Donald Galahad’s scream was an endless agonized full-throated warbling that just went on and on. Serene could detect notes of offence, disbelief, injustice – in fact a whole array of underlying emotions. She wondered if she could become a connoisseur of such noises, listening to them like some Epicurean listening to a Mozart clarinet quartet. Then, as Nelson finally reached the top of his victim’s stomach, the note changed, probably because the muscles had been sliced open now and her father couldn’t put everything into his scream.
‘The trick, of course,’ said Nelson, glancing round at her, while holding up the bloody electric cautery knife, ‘is to give them a sufficient quantity of my special cocktail so as to keep them alive, but not enough to dull the pain.’
The split now ran from her father’s groin right up to his solar plexus, layers of yellowish fat and muscle everting like obscene lips. However, the knife he had used had been designed for bloodless surgery, hot cells all across its surface detecting and cauterizing blood vessels just moments after the edge had passed through them. There was therefore hardly any blood at all. Nelson next put the knife aside and picked up a small conventional scalpel, pushed open the fatty lips of the wound and reached inside, snipped neatly at this and that, and then all her father’s intestines flooded out into the wide stainless steel bowl positioned at waist level in front of his abdomen. He screamed again; more in disbelief than in agony as he stared down at his own entrails. Then he made a small grunting sound and his head slumped down on his chest.
‘Ah,’ said Nelson, pulling up her father’s head by the hair and fixing it back into the clamp behind. ‘Overload.’ He turned towards her again, smiling confidently. ‘Don’t worry, five or ten minutes from now he’ll regain consciousness and suffer just as much agony. Our only problem will be in trying to stop him wrecking his vocal cords.’
‘How long can you keep him in agony and still alive?’ Serene asked.
‘My record has been one year and six months,’ he replied proudly. ‘There’s not much point in going on longer than that – because there’s not much left, you understand?’
‘I understand,’ said Serene. She turned to Sack, who had been watching the proceedings impassively. ‘You stay here for the moment. You can tell Nelson all about your new skin.’
He looked at her in puzzlement, but obeyed as she turned and headed for the elevator. The truth was that she didn’t want him or anyone else near her right then. She managed to hold on until the elevator doors drew closed, then she went down on her knees and threw up on the floor. Big body-racking sobs ensued, until she stopped them by banging her forehead against the metal wall until blood ran and dripped off her nose. Back up in her private rooms, she sealed the wound with glue and further tidied herself up. A brief instruction then summoned one of the house staff to clean the elevator floor.
Mars
Shankil’s Butte lay in a haze of dust far behind them. In the low gravity, dust and other particulate matter lingered in the air for a long time. The problem wasn’t as great as in zero gravity – an issue Var had often needed to deal with during construction of those Mars Travellers she worked on – but it still was a problem. Down inside his hole, Martinez solved this with extractor fans pumping the thin air into big bonded fibre bags with a sufficiently loose weave.
‘Thank heavens for the Hoover,’ he had said.
By the puzzled expressions of the rest attending that particular meeting, Var realized they had no idea what he was talking about.
‘Haarsen is doing well,’ said Rhone from beside her. He had run out of conversation after a few hours, gone for a sleep in the cargo compartment of the ATV, but was now back again. She still couldn’t quite fathom him, certainly didn’t trust him.
She glanced at him now. The weapons expert, Haarsen, had rendered chemicals from the Martian regolith to turn into a usable explosive. Once he’d got the process nailed, he had turned it over to Leo in Stores, and turned his attention to other projects. He had designed easy and practical processes for manufacturing weapons, and was now well on his way to building a DEMP emitter.
‘Yes, he is,’ she agreed, ‘but I wonder if it’s going to be enough.’ She stabbed a thumb behind them. ‘He wants to put the DEMP in a bunker on top of
Shankil’s Butte. If the Scourge comes here, it can railgun the DEMP emitter then drop a nuke down the hole Martinez is digging. Failing that, the two thousand troops aboard can be landed and come down after us.’
They now knew that the Scourge possessed shuttles capable of descending through Martian atmosphere. And of course, even if the Scourge didn’t come after them this time, it might come in the future, or some other ship would be sent, produced in that sudden hive of industry growing in Earth orbit.
‘What other options do we have?’ asked Rhone, and for the first time she saw fear in his eyes. Maybe until now it had all been just an intellectual exercise for him.
Var gazed steadily ahead, while considering how close Shankil’s Butte stood to their rabbit hole. Perhaps there were some further options . . .
‘We’ll go with what we have now,’ she decided, ‘but maybe we should consider laying some of the new explosive around the butte. A series of properly placed charges might be our last option. You’re the geologist – you tell me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rhone asked.
‘I mean, would it be possible to drop a few million tonnes of stone into that hole to plug it up?’
‘Yes, it’s possible.’ Rhone seemed a little nauseated at the prospect.
Var recalled how, upon seeing the shepherd that Ricard had sent striding after her across the Martian landscape, she had thought it looked like something out of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. Future Martians, she felt, only stood a chance of remaining free and surviving the dictatorship of Earth if they took the route of another such Wellsian creation.
‘A future branch of the human race,’ she said idly.