by Neal Asher
Stanton brought the AGC down a good distance back from the flames and the flashing lights. Pelter turned and stared at Mr Crane, and all the bird motions ceased. The android tilted his head to one side, then quite meekly got out of the vehicle. It struck Stanton that he had the appearance of a cartoon businessman, standing there holding Pelter's briefcase, but really there was nothing about him to make children laugh. Stanton got out of the AGC shortly after Pelter, and the three of them moved off between the looming ships.
'It's right over the other side,' said Stanton, and then snorted at the sound of laughter from behind them. 'We should be halfway from the system by the time they find out they've been celebrating the wrong funeral.'
The three of them continued on through the mega-lithic shadows cast by the early sun breaking over the horizon. Soon they came in sight of the further fence. Stanton pointed to a ship that consisted of three spheres linked by tubes that were a third of their diameter; the triangle this construction formed was 100 metres along the side and enclosed a circular drive plate. The Lyric was one of the smaller ships here. Stanton led them to one of the thirty-metre spheres, where a ramp led to an open iris door, beyond which harsh light glared. Pelter halted him with a hand on his shoulder and made a sharp gesture with his other hand. Mr Crane strode on ahead, his heavy boots clunking on the ramp as he entered the ship. Pelter then pressed his hand to his optic link. Stanton wondered when Pelter would get used to it enough to stop doing that.
'OK,' said Pelter after a moment, and they followed the android in.
The hold was a disc cut right through the sphere, its walls the insulated skin of the ship itself. Circular lighting panels were set in, evenly, all around. To one side there were bundles and packages. In the centre of the hold, cylindrical cryopods were secured in an open framework. This framework ran from ceiling to floor and took up most of the space. From each of these pods skeins of optic cable and ribbed tubes ran to junction plugs in the floor. Two separate pods were bolted to the floor at the end of the framework. They too were linked into the ship's systems. On every pod was stencilled the words 'Oceana Foods Stock Item', and a number.
Stanton ignored Pelter's intake of breath and chose not to look at him.
'Fucking animals,' Pelter hissed.
Stanton did not want to correct him. It would perhaps be best if he did not know that this cargo mainly consisted of edible molluscs in cryostasis.
'They'll work for us. They've been adapted,' was all he said.
As soon as they were well into the hold, the ramp retracted behind them. Pelter turned to watch it, but Stanton kept his eye on Crane, who was just returning, having completed a circuit of the cargo framework. When Crane stopped and abruptly squatted down, he turned and watched the door iris shut on the dawn light. As the final dot was extinguished, an intercom crackled.
'You've got sleeping bags, food, water and a toilet,' a woman's voice told them. 'You can't see the toilet - I've linked it into the plumbing on the other side from you. The two cryopods, I suggest you use at the earliest opportunity, as supplies are limited. Now, the matter of payment.'
Pelter gestured to the briefcase Crane was holding. 'I have it here, Jarvellis. Just let me through and we'll complete the transaction,' he said.
'Arian Pelter, if you think I am going to open the bulkhead door with that thing on board, then you are more stupid than I gave you credit for,' said Jarvellis.
'There is, just for this kind of eventuality, a hatch in the bulkhead door, to your left.'
Stanton saw frustrated anger twist Pelter's face, then get quickly suppressed. The Separatist looked to Mr Crane, and the android stood up. Just at that moment mere was a lurch and Stanton felt his stomach twist. They were up and moving. They'd made it. Crane walked over, his head tilting as if he had an inner-ear problem. He handed the case to Pelter.
'Not yet, Pelter,' said Jarvellis.
'Why not? Don't you want your money?'
There was a surge of acceleration, inadequately compensated for in the hold. Ionic boosters.
'I say not yet because I am not entirely stupid. I open the access hatch and friend Crane there will have enough purchase to rip out the bulkhead door. I won't open the hatch until we're out of atmosphere. Then, if any attempt is made to break through a door, of which -I want you to be aware - there are two, I'll just open the hold to vacuum. Is that perfectly clear?'
'Clear,' said Pelter through gritted teeth.
'That is very unsociable of you, Jarv,' said Stanton.
'Sorry, John. I do like you, but this is business.'
Pelter looked at Stanton, his expression dead.
'Now,' said Jarvellis, 'I have a ship to fly'
The intercom crackled again.
'You know her well?' Pelter asked.
'She's probably still listening,' Stanton warned. 'AH that crackly intercom shit has to be a blind.'
'I asked if you know her well.'
'Yeah, I know her. You know her. I've had a few drinks with her. Don't matter. She opens that door and we're both out of it,' said Stanton.
Mr Crane froze again. Stanton reminded himself that you had to be damned careful around this kind of lunatic, even if you were on his side. Pelter stood as still almost as the android, then he let out a slow whistling breath. Mr Crane squatted and began to take out his toys. Stanton went to the supplies Jarvellis had provided for them, and found a six-pack of coffee. He pulled two off, handed one to Pelter, then went and sat on one of the rolled-up sleeping bags. He pulled the tab on his coffee and held it in his hand while it rapidly heated.
'You know, these edge-of-Polity worlds can get a litde rough,' he said.
'I am aware of that,' Pelter replied, then he stared down at the cup he was holding. He had not yet moved, or pulled the tab on it. Stanton wondered when the Separatist had last eaten or drunk anything, for he had not seen him do so. Eventually Pelter moved to the wall and sat down with his back against it. He pulled the tab on his coffee.
'Social order breaks down in the face of dictatorial takeover,' he said, widiout a great deal of conviction.
'It always seemed to me,' said Stanton, 'that you got whole worlds behaving like naughty children trying to cause as much mayhem in their classroom as possible before the teacher got mere.'
'An archaic image… The trudi is that their behaviour is a result of despair.'
Stanton sipped his coffee rather than disagree. Pelter was a committed Separatist and was blind to the realities. The Polity was something that could be described as a benevolent dictatorship in which all enjoyed their portion of plenty. Separatists were always in the minority, like all terrorists, and were hugely resentful of what they considered the blind complacency of their fellow citizens. So far as he understood it, only two worlds had seceded, both for a period of less than ten solstan years. In bodi cases the Polity was called in to clear up the mess. In the case of one of diose worlds, that mess being large radioactive wastelands. Despair… ninety per cent of the population were having a party prior to subsumption.
'Huma can get a bit rough, you know,' he said, labouring to keep a conversation going.
'I do not think I will have a problem with rough,' Pelter replied, giving Mr Crane a meaningful glance.
'Yes… but you do realize that mere will be weapons mere that could destroy even Mr Crane. No Polity weapons proscription on Huma, and some pretty nasty characters.'
'That is why we are going,' said Pelter and sipped his coffee.
Stanton was groping around for something else to say when the intercom crackled.
'Time, I mink, to sort out the payment,' said Jarvellis.
Pelter stared into the air for a long time, before he put his coffee to one side and stood. Mr Crane began putting away his toys, until Pelter turned to look at him. The android men retrieved the ones he had put away, and continued sorting them as if playing some strange game of patience. Pelter stepped over to him, squatted by the briefcase, and opened it. From inside he tore a
black strip with ten of the etched sapphires embedded in it. Stanton deliberately looked away as Pelter closed the case and stood up again. The Separatist leader was paranoid enough as it was; he didn't need to be made aware of Stanton's interest in etched sapphires.
Pelter took the strip round the racked cargo to the second bulkhead door. In the bottom of the door a circular hatch half a metre across irised open.
'Just toss them in,' said Jarvellis.
Pelter rolled the strip up and tossed it through- The hatch closed with a crack.
'Good to do business with you, Arian Pelter.'
Another crackle signified the exchange was over.
Stanton looked at Pelter and saw the deadness there. He knew this signified a craving to kill. The side-to-side movement of Pelter's head, as he scanned the hold for visible cameras, speakers or microphones, signified that he had not yet found something on which to focus that craving.
Beyond atmosphere, the stuttering of the Lyric's ion engines became a constant glare. Unlike the larger Polity ships it did not have ramscoop capability, and had to accelerate for some time before it reached what was sometimes referred to as 'grip speed'. This speed varied for the size of ship and the efficiency of its underspace engines. For the Lyric it was approximately 50,000 kilometres per hour: a speed it took the ship, with its limitations on fuel expenditure, twenty hours to reach. When it did, the underspace engines engaged, fields gripped the very substance of space and ripped something ineffable, and the ship dove into the wound. Stanton woke with a gasp at a sudden feeling of panic and groped for his pulse-gun. He opened his eyes and sat upright.
'This hold is not completely shielded,' said Pelter from where he was sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag, facing Mr Crane, who was seated the same. He did not look round, but went on. 'A good job there is some shielding, else we both would've been screaming by now. Getting that close can drive a man insane.'
Stanton leant forward. A glimpse of underspace could certainly do that to a normal man. He wondered what it would do to Arian Pelter. Drive him sane?
'We should go under,' he said.
'Yes,' said Pelter. 'I have nearly finished with Mr Crane.'
'Finished what?'
'I do not want anything untoward happening while we are under. Mr Crane will watch for us. He has, after all, got the patience of a machine.'
'I shouldn't think she'd try anything.' Stanton stood up. 'She just doesn't want to get anywhere near him.' He walked over to the pods and stared down at them for a long moment. Abruptly he stooped down and slapped the touch-plate on one of them. The pod split down its lengdi to expose a metal interior impressed with a man's shape. 'Claustrophobic' seemed too weak a term to describe it. Jarvellis had not gone so far as to provide any padding, but then what padding did you need when you were all but dead? Either side of the neck were the junctions for the carotids and jugular arteries. From that point his blood would be replaced with a kind of antifreeze. At the base of the skull impression was a simple circular disc: the nerve-blocker. Inside the rest of both manshapes were pinholes only centimetres apart. Each, Stanton knew, contained a needle. The body had to be saturated with antifreeze to prevent terminal cell damage. Stanton swallowed dryly and began to undress. Shortly Pelter joined him and looked down into the pod.
'I've never done this before,' said Pelter.
'Nothing to it,' Stanton replied. 'Just get undressed and climb inside. The nerve-blocker hits before the lid closes, and that's all you know until you wake.'
Pelter nodded and began to remove his clothes. Before climbing into the pod, Stanton glanced back at Mr Crane. The android was sitting with Pelter's briefcase in its lap: it was sorting its toys again. As Stanton lay down in the cold metal, he wondered if that was all Mr Crane would do throughout the months of their journey.
Then, nothing.
7
A ball flung through a curtain of black cobwebs, the starship Hubris entered real space. For an instant, the starship, a kilometre-wide pearl, was poised ahead of spacial distortions like a mutilated finger, then the invisible wings of the ram-fields folded out, and caught-hydrogen phased to red and hid the ship. The pearl was lost in the flaw of some vast jewel, decelerating from dark, down into the system. Then, a pin-wheel of lasers striated a blood-drop of hydrogen and it became a different plasma: a fusion flame like an orange segment cut from a small sun, blasting against the same spacial distortions that collected the hydrogen. Into the gravity well, Hubris dropped: three-quarter light, half a light, then speeds measured in a mere few thousands of kilometres per second. The fields weakened as the quantity of hydrogen increased. Finally the hydrogen ceased to phase, and the ship became visible again. The fusion reaction shut down and was gone like a droplet of milk swirled away in water. The pearl that was the ship rolled round the edge of the gravity well: a ball cast into the roulette wheel that was the Andellan system.
Cormac stared out onto the cold emptiness, and felt it was mirrored in himself. What was it the shuttle pilot who had taken him from Minostra to the Hubris had said?
'You OK? You look half dead.'
Apposite - so very apposite. Cormac couldn't remember what his reply had been, something trivial, something unassured, verbal. There had been other exchanges, each trailing away into banality until he was glad of cold-sleep's oblivion. Now, two hours since thaw-up, feeling was really returning. He looked down at his hands, concentrated until the quiver stilled, and wondered. Was he feeling embarrassment now or some aspect of link withdrawal? Truly, how fucked up was he that he could not identify his own emotions? He lowered his hands to his sides. It was recorded somewhere. It had to be. He turned from the portal and studied the touch-console in the corner of his room. Yes, he did feel embarrassment. He recalled the look Chaline, the science officer in charge of re-establishing the runcible link, had given him when he had asked for instruction on the console's use. For thirty years he had been out of phase. Having instant access to information had stunted his ability to learn. He again lived through her patronizing explanation, then went over and studied the console. The touch-controls were stacked and very complicated, but there was always an easier way for less complex access.
'Hubris, display anything you have on gridlink withdrawal… please,' he said.
The screen flickered and one word appeared: Searching…
In a couple of seconds a number of file headings appeared. He sat down at the console and with unpractised fingers began to work through each file. What he read there only confirmed things he already knew: long-term linking was much like drug addiction, and like drug addiction it could be broken with willpower, with inner strength. The situation as it stood was unacceptable, and Cormac intended to rectify it. He sat with his fists clenched until there was a knock at the door. It might have been only a few seconds; it might have been for minutes. He unclenched his fists, wiped the screen and stood.
'Enter,' he said.
The woman who came through was tall and classically beautiful. She had luxuriant black hair, skin that seemed unnaturally white, a ripe and muscular figure only just covered with clinging body suit, thin but perfect features and striking green eyes. Only she was not a human woman.
'You are NG2765?' Cormac asked.
'I am Jane.'
'My apologies, I did not know your name… but you are a Golem Twenty-seven?'
Jane smiled evenly, and then looked with a raised eyebrow at the lurid pot plant Cormac had shoved behind the sofa. Cormac swallowed annoyance: the Golem series was too damned good. In a way he preferred the other makes; the ones that appeared less human and less than perfect.
'Yes, I am.'
'I require assistance. It was the science officer's suggestion that you be assigned to me.'
Damn it! Why did he feel so uncomfortable? He had to remember she was an Al-run machine, albeit an extremely sophisticated one.
'What kind of assistance do you require?'
Cormac took a slow breath and wondered if his hands we
re shaking again. He did not look. 'I wish you to accompany me to the surface. I am without information access and there are many questions…' He realized, even as he was saying it, that it was wrong.
'Have you considered an aug? Mika could fit you one.'
Cormac clamped down on a sudden surge of longing. No, an augmentation would be no good. It would be like having alcohol instead of heroin. He had to beat this. 'I will not have an aug,' he said.
Jane nodded thoughtfully, then said, 'You will be going down with the investigative team, I presume?'
'Yes.'
'Well, any questions you may wish to ask me might as easily be addressed to them. Many of them have augs, and Chaline has recently been gridlinked.'
Cormac shook his head. Chaline gridlinked? He did not want to get anywhere near how that made him feel. He focused on the problem at hand. How could he tell this… woman that without information access he found it difficult to talk to people? To real live people. He did not feel… superior. He had wanted a thinking machine, yet the only ones on the Hubris were the ship's AI and the Golem androids. There wasn't a lowly drone robot or metal-skinned android in sight. They were all stored away for emergency use.
'Please, hold yourself in readiness,' he said, his jaw locking up. "That will be all.'
Jane smiled, nodded, and left him. He stood there feeling gauche and confused. He had expected something else. She was too human.
Beyond the angled windows of the shuttle bay, Samarkand was a yellow onyx marble wrapped in filaments of white cloud and Andellan burned with a distant cold light. Thus would Sol appear from an orbit just beyond Jupiter. Only because this was a very uncrowded area of the galaxy could the sun be distinguished from the other faint stars. This was a remote place: a place where help would always come too late.