by Neal Asher
'John, something for you to see.'
Stanton turned his attention to the cockpit. Pelter was leaning round and staring at him. He had a nasty expression on his face. He pointed to the screen moulded into the back of the craft. Though internal, it gave the appearance of a rear cockpit screen.
'Jarvellis, are you getting this?' he asked.
'I'm getting this. What do you want, Pelter?' Jarvellis said.
'I just wanted to say it has been a pleasure working with you… John, I said look at the screen.'
Stanton started to get a very bad feeling. He moved his hand towards the release on his safety harness. The cold nose of Corlackis's little stun gun pressed into the side of his neck.
'Look at the screen, John, and keep your hands where I can see them. Oh, and if anything knife-shaped should, by any strange chance, happen to leap into your right hand, you won't get a chance to use it.'
Stanton drew his thumb away from the ring. The Tenkian knife might get to his hand quickly, but getting it into Corlackis before the mercenary pulled the trigger was another matter.
'What's going on in there?' said Jarvellis.
Stanton could hear the edge of panic in her voice.
'Just listen and you will learn,' said Pelter, before returning his attention to Stanton. 'The Lyric, John.'
Stanton turned his head so he was looking at the screen behind. The magnification had been upped so he had a clear view of the ship.
'Now,' said Pelter, 'you remember I got all that lovely planar explosive from friend Grendel.'
Stanton stared at the ship. No, this can't be happening.
'Answer me, John.'
'Yes, I know,' said John.
Pelter went on. 'Well damn me if I've gone and forgotten to bring it with us.'
Mennecken gave a little chuckle at this, and every- thing clicked into place. Stanton hit his belt release and turned his head. Corlackis's gun cracked, and Stanton felt a horrible deadness invade his right shoulder. As the Tenkian tore through his trousers and slapped against his hand, he couldn't even close his fingers. Next thing, he was down on his knees on the floor.
'Jarv, get out,' he managed at barely a whisper.
Pelter reached up and touched his fingers to his aug. It was a habit he retained. 'Bye-bye, Captain Jarvellis.'
Stanton went over on his side. He wished he had fallen the ouier way. His view of the screen was now utterly and uncompromisingly clear. The Lyric blew. A disc of white fire flashed out from the B hold, cutting into the other two spheres of the ship. Multiple explosions followed, and turned the ship into a sphere of fragments that expanded and swallowed the now fading disc. The view clicked back to show the sphere at a distance. As it faded, there were flashes as bits of wreckage re-entered atmosphere behind the dropbird.
'Jarv…'
As his consciousness faded, Stanton heard Pelter speaking to the rest of them.
'That has the added benefit that now we can go in a lot faster. Any heat signatures the AI detects, it will assume to come from the debris.'
Blackness swamped Stanton, to the sound of Men-necken chuckling.
19
Antigravity: In the first three centuries of this millennium, people still viewed gravity with the same lack of comprehension their primitive forebears had for the properties of lodestones. (Could those forebears have had any idea of what would happen when a current was put through copper wire wrapped around a lump of iron?) Antigravity was considered the province of science-fiction writers, and real scientists chuckled about such writers' inability to grasp plain facts. That they took this attitude, while their fellows were hacking the foundations from underneath Einstein's special and general theories of relativity, showed a lack of foresight comparable to that of an eminent Victorian, who, upon hearing of what forms of travel might become possible because of this new-fangled steam engine, categorically stated that humans travelling faster than twenty miles an hour would be crushed to death.
From Quince Guide, compiled by humans
Aiden eased the joystick forwards and the shuttle slid towards the wall of cloud. He tilted the stick and thumbed a side control. The turbines droned and the shuttle climbed for the top of the wall. Cormac gazed down at mountain chains like puckered yellow scars and at frozen seas of reflected gold. Samarkand was a beautiful planet, but it was the beauty of arctic waste that could be best appreciated up here, rather than down on the ground where it might kill you. Fingers of cloud slid across and hid the view. Soon the shuttle was high above what seemed a second land, one of roiling white over guts of brass. This land seemed to have its own red but lightless sun: an oblate object a kilometre across, which seemed to be rolling above the cloud. There was other movement actually on it as well, a slow rippling of its surface, but that motion was so huge it fooled the eye.
'It's almost an insult that something like that should exist,' said Carn.
'It's one of four at the last count,' Cormac pointed out.
'Oh, right, I'd forgotten.'
Carn leaned further forwards, perhaps scanning with his yellow eye. He said, 'No way its orbital velocity is keeping it up.' He inspected the miniconsole he was holding in his silvered hand. 'As I thought,' it's using antigravity.'
'The least of its abilities, one would suspect,' said Aiden. 'I know of no runcible gates a kilometre wide.' He paused for a moment, listening, then he said, 'Hubris informs me that when it arrived there were underspace distortions similar to the kind left by a ship. Dragon probably has a drive system much the same as Hubris's.'
They watched the great sphere drift along a thousand metres below and some distance ahead of them. It was an eerie sight and a perplexing one. What was Dragon? A living creature or a machine of flesh? There would never be agreement on that point. Aiden slowly increased their speed and drew them closer.
'Not too close. I don't think it would like us to land on it,' said Cormac.
Aiden eased back and matched speeds. 'Hubris reports no response on any channel, even underspace, but it's been picking up a backwash of some powerful scanning of the planet,' he said.
'It can't not know we're here,' said Thorn doubtfully.
'Do we want it to know?' asked Carn, and returned his attention to his instruments.
Cormac stared at Dragon. Where was the rest of it? Why was only this one quarter here? Had it come for the dracomen? Had it simply sent its agents here to destroy the Samarkand runcible, and was now here to pick them up? What did it have to do with that other thing under the ground? He realized he desperately wanted to talk to it, no matter how convoluted its answers might be. No matter what ridiculous games it might play.
'Prepare to transmit this to it on all channels,' he said.
Aiden set the instruments and leant back. 'All channels open, except underspace. We don't have the capability on this shuttle. Do you wish me to link with HubrisT
Cormac shook his head and concentrated on what he was going to say. The transmitter hissed and made strange whining sounds. He stooped towards it. Hubris had received no reply; might he?
'Dragon, this is Ian Cormac. Why are you here?'
The whining increased in volume. Cormac continued, dredging his memory of their last encounter.
'To be human is to be mortal. Do you play chess? I know you like games, Dragon, though you do have a tendency to cheat.'
The whining ceased.
Aiden said, 'Hubris reports the scanning of the surface has ceased.'
'I think you attracted its attention,' said Cam, without relish. 'Its surface is moving.'
Cormac looked and saw ripples spreading. A curved line cut the surface, and the ripples concentrated around it. The line thickened, dark as old blood. It was a split.
'Get us out of here, now!'
Aiden jerked up on the joystick, just as pseudopods exploded from Dragon in a giant grey fumarole. Acceleration knocked Thorn and Cam to the floor. Cormac caught a glimpse of a giant cobralike head swerving towards the shuttle. There was a th
ump. The shuttle slewed sideways. Then they were away, and the fountain of pseudopods was falling back to the surface of Dragon.
Cormac looked round and saw Cam and Thorn dragging themselves over to their seats. He, too, strapped himself in.
'It's coming,' said Aiden. He looked at the readings on the instrument panel. Then he looked again. 'Accelerating at eight Gs.'
'Jesus!' said Cam.
'Everybody strapped in?' asked Aiden.
'Give me one fucking second!' Cam shouted.
With his hand poised over a lever to one side of the joystick, Aiden glanced back. After a moment he nodded and turned back to the screen.
'Acceleration,' he said, and then he hit the boosters.
Cormac diumped back in his seat so hard he was sure he contacted its framework. Something not tied down went crashing into the back of the shuttle. He heard Cam swearing monotonously before running out of breath. It was as if something was trying to drag the flesh off his bones. He could just see the instrument panel, greying out as he watched it.
'Ten… Gs…' he managed, then blacked out.
'You broke my fucking arm,' was Cam's protest - and the first thing Cormac heard as he came to. He felt as if someone had gone over him with a lawn roller while he was lying on a cobbled street. It took him a moment to pull himself togedier. He tried to blink away the lights that were fizzing at the edge of his vision. Ahead of the shuttle he saw the doors to the Hubris's shuttle bay opening.
'How far behind?' he said, when he was sure he could speak properly.
'About three minutes,' said Aiden.
The shimmer-shield touched the nose of the wing, then slid back over it as if they were entering a vertical pool. It engulfed and passed the cockpit in an expanding circle, and they were into the bay. Aiden fired the front and side retros to slow and turn them. As they came to the centre of the bay floor, the cockpit was facing the shimmer-shield. Gravity came on and eased them down. The shutde settied with a clunk.
'Stay in the shuttle, and secure shutde for impact,' came Hubris's voice from the panel. Red lights were flashing in the shuttle bay. Aiden's hands ran over touch-pads, his fingers a blur. Cormac felt the dull thuds of the grabs coming up out of the floor and taking hold of the shuttle.
Hubris now spoke the words it was probably voicing throughout the ship. 'Secure for impact. Secure for impact. All personnel to emergency modules.' Cormac felt the shuttle vibrating, and a glance through the shuttle-bay windows confirmed that Hubris was accelerating. The view of Samarkand slid from the portals to the shimmer-shield, then quickly past. The irised door closed across the shield, then heavier armoured shutters slid in from the sides. Armoured shutters also closed across the portals.
'Impact in three minutes and fifty seconds. Mark. Correction. Impact in two minutes thirty seconds. Mark. Secure for impact.'
Cormac glanced at the rear-view screen. All of the internal shuttle-bay doors were closed now. An armoured shield had closed off the entrance to the drop-shaft.
'Impact imminent! Impact imminent!'
Cormac braced himself against his seat. This was going to be bad. People were going to get hurt.
It was worse.
The sound was like a giant gong being struck - and cracking. Cormac felt as if his skull had just broken and his guts had been pushed back past his spine. He heard the scream of metal being wrenched and twisted, then snapping. The grabs had broken. The shuttle left the bay floor and hit the doors. The impact threw
Cormac against his straps. He felt blood spraying from his nose. Blackness threatened, withdrew, threatened again. He shook his head and saw blood dripping on the screen in front of him. The chainglass cockpit had not broken, of course, but it had been shoved back into the body of the shuttle. The shuttle itself was resting at an angle against the bay doors. But that was not the end of it. He could hear a wrenching tortured sound working its way through the ship as, like a great bubble, it sought to regain its spherical shape.
'Oh shit oh shit oh shit…'
Cormac looked back up at Cam, who was hanging belted in his seat, clutching his broken arm. Thorn hung next to him, unconscious, blood dripping from his mouth. Aiden was the first to move. He undipped his harness, dropped down to the screen, then shoved his hands into the distorted metal to one side of it. Somehow he got the required leverage, and kicked down with legs like hydraulic rams. Cormac was not quite sure he believed what he was seeing. The screen moved forwards with a crash. Two more kicks and it hinged away, on the distorted metal to one side of it, like a domed lid. Aiden immediately hauled himself up and over the flight console, and then across his seat to reach Cam. As Cormac freed himself, he winced at the feel of broken ribs moving in his chest. Very carefully, he lowered himself down from the shuttle. There he took hold of Cam, whom Aiden lowered to him with a single grip on the collar of his coldsuit. Thorn came next. Soon all four of them were safely on the shutde-bay floor. Using the shuttle medical kit, Aiden splinted
Cam's arm and injected painkillers. Thorn came to and vomited. Cormac just sat and clutched his own head.
'Emergency personnel to sector three, with fire retardants. Automatic systems out. All hull breaches temporarily sealed. All drop-shafts inoperative. Sector one closed to all personnel until coolant leaks traced and repaired…'
The list went on and on, yet there was no word of what had happened to Dragon.
'Hubris, what's going on? What's Dragon doing?'
The list continued to be recited by subsystem while Hubris spoke to them in the shuttle bay.
'Dragon has taken hold of this ship with its pseudo-podia. It is dragging us back to Samarkand. I have had to close down engines because of coolant leaks. All attempts to remove the pseudopodia have failed. I do not wish to resort to energy weapons at this range.'
There was a thump, and the entire ship shuddered. The shuttle groaned, then slid to the bay floor with a crash.
'What the hell?' pleaded Cam.
Hubris said, 'Dragon is attempting to gain entrance to the shuttle bay. I suggest you abandon this section and head for the communal area.'
As one, they turned to stare at the shuttle-bay doors. They were creaking, flexing.
'I have temporarily engaged drop-shaft one,' said Hubris.
They headed there as the armoured shielding slid away from the shaft. Cam went first, and was wafted up to the communal area. Thorn went next. Cormac turned and watched as the bay doors were slowly wrenched to one side. The shimmer-shield was out, but there was no danger from vacuum at that moment. Beyond the door was a wall of scaled flesh. And all down the edge of the door appeared pseudopods like blue-tipped fingers.
'Is it after me?' Cormac asked.
'We go,' said Aiden.
They stepped into the drop-shaft.
They gathered in the recreation room: Cormac, Aiden, Thorn, Mika, Chaline, and some of the technicians and crew. Cormac saw that one of the technicians was holding a bloody cloth to his head. Another was sitting holding his ribs. He wondered how many more had been hurt.
Hubris showed them the scene in the shuttle bay. The external doors were wide open now and pseudopodia were flooding the bay in a landslide of flesh, their cobra heads feeling along the walls like the fingers of a blind man.
'Intruder defence mechanisms online—'
'No,' said Cormac, 'belay that. Put me through to the shuttle bay.'
'You are through. Intruder defence systems offline.'
'Dragon, why have you attacked this ship?' He had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer; that he had just pissed it off and that it was after him. He somehow doubted, that being the case, that there was anything that could prevent him from being found.
'It's concentrating on the drop-shaft door now,' said Chaline. 'Stress readings are up.' Hubris said, 'Unauthorized access to information banks. Information being downloaded from shuttle-bay area.'
'What the hell?' said Chaline.
On the screen they could see that a pseudopod had att
ached itself to one of the wall consoles.
'Getting the layout of the ship, probably, and anything else of interest,' suggested Cormac.
They watched as the drop-shaft door crumpled and broke and the pseudopods flooded through.
'They have entry,' said Chaline unnecessarily.
'Perhaps it mistook Hubris for a she-dragon,' said Thorn. There was a giggle from behind him that soon petered out.
Cormac ignored the comment and stared at the screen, his hopes growing. The pseudopods were going down the shaft - away from them - not coming up it. Suddenly he knew what Dragon wanted.
'Hubris, what is the status of the dracomen?'
'They were unhurt in the incident, but have since undergone changes.'
The screen flicked to reveal the interior of the isolation chamber. The two dracomen were lying on the floor, curled in the foetal position. They had excreted some kind of fluid that had sealed them in cauls, so they appeared newborn. Cormac knew they were making ready to go back, but should he let Dragon have them? Would they make bargaining counters? He had to try, else Dragon might just take its dracomen and disappear.
'Dragon, if you persist in this action, the dracomen will be destroyed. We will—'
The ship shuddered again. There was a loud crash over the intercom.
'Pseudopods just took out the door next to Isolation,' said Hubris. 'Do you wish the dracomen destroyed?'
The screen flicked again to show the scene outside the isolation chamber. Pseudopods filled the area and were pushing at the armoured shutters over the viewing window. A voice, which Cormac recognized of old, came over the intercom.
'Bluff, Ian Cormac, is for those without strength. You will not destroy what is mine, for if you do, I will crush this ship.'
Dragon…
'The dracomen are in a sealed chamber… all I want is some answers. Why were they here? What happen—'