by Neal Asher
“It was you I sought, machine.”
Had he come to meet his maker? Perhaps he had found out.
“Why?”
“I have a son. He grows strong and well and soon will leave to seek his own prey.”
“I am glad for you,” and I truly was.
He continued speaking, his red eyes glaring at me. “I think much, on the ice, and I read books. Once we were many. Many were killed by corporate families for bounty. I, my mate and my son are all, now. It is not enough. Who will mate with my son? A daughter? This makes ... weakness.”
I think it was the longest speech I had ever heard from him and I was surprised at his knowledge. I had genetic tissue taken from the afterbirth of his son and at any time, with equipment I had concealed all round the world, I could resurrect his race. From that piece of tissue I could artificially cause diversification and soon have a viable breeding population. He wanted to do it the old way. He wanted his family to continue. Perhaps he wanted to have grandchildren. A funny thought when applied to the monster in the baobab. A creature that tore the heads from human beings to drink their blood and lymph and sometimes ate such delicacies as their livers, raw, of course.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You are collector of genetic heritage, curator of species.”
He had that verbatim from the Pykani.
“So?” said I.
“You are the Collector. You know.”
I looked down at Susan and considered what I would be doing to the human race, once again. Susan was personal. This was about what I am. At that moment there was over a billion human beings on Earth, and three Great African Vampires.
“You must select from as diverse a collection of humankind as you can: Negroid, Caucasian, Asian . . . The Pykani as well, as they were spliced from men.”
His bear-dog face showed puzzlement. It was a comical sight.
“I do not understand.”
“You, too, were spliced from humankind. It is possible for you to breed with them. It may just be that this way you can get a viable breeding population started.”
He snarled. “They are prey.”
“They are survival.”
He shrieked and launched himself into the air, wings booming, branches snapped from the baobab. I watched him go then turned to look down at Susan. She was awake and looking at me in horror.
“Come, let me help you to the water.”
She did not want my help, but in the end had to accept it. As she drank her fill at the water hole I noted the sores breaking out on the back of her neck and the way her hair was beginning to fall out. She would have been poison to him.
* * *
The JMCC complex squatted on the plain like a huge metallic crab. It was five kilometres in diameter, but less than half a kilometre in height. Windows below the smooth dome of the roof glinted like beady eyes. Off to one side and partially hidden by the complex itself was the fenced-off landing field, a scattering of control towers, and a behemoth of a delta wing shuttle. To the people of Earth the corporate families were notoriously reclusive. This was only because they had no interest in Earth. Their interests were in the space above it. Holding Susan before me I slowed to a walk for the last few kilometres. I had about a kilometre to go when the ground car headed out to me.
The car was of a design I had not seen before, though similar in construction to ground cars used over a thousand years ago. It had rectangular body, with tinted windows all around, over six bulbous rubber-tyred wheels. I was surprised. Wheels? I could even hear the engine. Had things gone so far downhill? I wondered if my plans for Susan were any longer tenable. If they no longer used antigravity then perhaps other technologies had slid into the abyss.
It drew to a halt before me, doors hissed open, and three men in monofilament coveralls, which looked suspiciously like military uniforms, stepped out. Two of them were armed with hand-held machine guns. Primitive. The third had some kind of laser pistol holstered at his hip, which was more reassuring as far as my plans were concerned. The one with the laser spoke first.
“That woman is JMCC,” he said. He seemed at a loss for anything to add.
“Yes, she is certainly that, and she is in need of medical attention.” I began to walk forward. The machine pistols trained on me. I halted. They might hit Susan.
“What is wrong with her?”
“Are you a doctor?” He looked to his two companions. “You are not. Why then do you need to know what is wrong with her? That is out of your jurisdiction. Now kindly stop waving those toys about and take us into the complex.” I began to walk again.
“Wait!...” He seemed confused.
I said, “I don’t think Jethro Hendrickson would be too impressed with your behaviour. Now kindly stop fucking me about.”
He looked to his companions then said slowly, “Thomas Canard is Chairman now . . . Jethro Hendrickson died over a hundred years ago . .. “
“So, I’m not up to date on your affairs. This woman is one of yours and she is dying.”
He unhooked his radio from his belt and spoke into it in some sort of word code. After a pause to listen to the reply he asked me, “What is your name and status?” Should I lie? No. The truth would get things moving a lot more quickly.
“I am the Collector,” I said.
Three faces abruptly lost their tan. The speaker dropped his hand to his laser pistol as if for reassurance and found none. After a pause he cleared his throat and spoke into the radio again. The voice that replied to him was a different voice, and not in code.
“Bring them in.”
They brought us in.
part four
Things moved quickly once we were inside the complex. A medical team met the ground car in a place like an aeroplane hangar and Susan was soon laid out on a stretcher. A harassed-looking doctor asked me about her condition. When I told him he shook his head morosely.
“If that’s the case we can do little more than make her comfortable.”
“What about superconductor gridding and flash freezing?”
He looked at me as if I needed some kind of medical attention myself. “S-con gridding and flash freezing? They’re theoretically possible, I suppose.”
When he said no more he and the other medics wheeled Susan away. I knew I would get no action at this level, so once they were gone I turned to the guards who were lingering around me and nervously fingering their weapons.
“I would like to see Thomas Canard, if that is possible?” I was all politeness. It was not yet time to start breaking heads and ripping doors off their hinges. Later, perhaps.
The guard who had spoken to me outside looked incredibly relieved. “He wishes to see you. Please, come with me.” I noticed he was being more polite. It is amazing what fear can do for social intercourse.
They led me from the hangar through baroquely-decorated corridors. I noted with an amount of distaste and annoyance that some of those decorations consisted of trophies from GAVs. My annoyance was at myself for not considering this. Two years ago I could have come here for a tissue sample instead of crusading across the ice after a living vampire with an extremely nasty temper. The distaste was for the kind of mental attitudes that must have become prevalent in JMCC in the last century. Attitudes that made trophy hunting and near genocide acceptable. Had I been about then, this would not have happened. But I had been in China tracking down the Chuthrat Dragon. It had taken me thirty-six years to get that sample. By the time I heard what was going on back here most of the vampires had been exterminated. I then rushed back from China to get a vampire tissue sample. There had not seemed to be any need before. The GAVs had been doing quite nicely thank you.
Eventually we came to a turbo lift that shot us up to the top of the complex in less time than it took one of my guards to pick his nose. The doors swished open on luxurious apartments.
The walls were hung with paintings which to my knowledge had been there for six centuries. There were corporation
emblems and arrays of polished weapons, some of them a lot better than the ones my guards were carrying. On pedestals there were various suits of body armour and one motorized exoskeleton that was a predecessor of myself. The floor was covered with one huge hand-woven rug. Sofas, chairs, and tables were arranged tastefully. Along one wall was a row of screens, which must have been a fairly recent addition. Jethro Hendrickson had used holographic projections. And at the back of this room, before curving windows, was a desk consisting of a large slab of marble on an ironwork pedestal. Behind the desk sat the man I presumed to be Thomas Canard. I advanced to the desk. My escort rushed forward to retain the appearance that they had me under guard.
Canard was surprisingly young. He was a thin fair-haired man of about thirty who had a sardonic twist to his mouth and very direct blue eyes. He stood up and came round his desk to shake my hand.
“Collector, I have heard much about you.” His speech was assured and he showed no fear of my hand. He shook it vigorously then gestured to a nearby sofa. “Come, let us sit.” We did that thing. “I hear you came to us with one of our people. A woman. Injured, I believe.”
“Yes, her name is Jethro Susan and she is dying of radiation sickness.”
He frowned. “Mmm, unfortunate, but not as unfortunate as might be supposed. If she is the Jethro Susan I think she is then she is wanted for murder.”
I nodded and looked back at the guards, damning myself for forgetting the one the Pykani said she had killed. I changed the subject while I considered my next move.
“Tell me, why projectile weapons?”
Canard smiled. “Don’t be misled. We have not lost the technology. This is merely the result of policy. Inter-Family conflicts were taking a great toll in my father’s time and the Families came to an agreement for arms limitations. People are less inclined to fight when their firepower is so much less. A soldier with an antiphoton rifle or any other APW thinks he can take on the world. If he has a machine gun with only a few clips he is more inclined to discuss matters.”
It occurred to me then that this Thomas Canard was a likeable fellow. I glanced towards the screens and raised an eyebrow.
Canard frowned. “Computing power. More and more processor space is being used for bioresearch projects, and holographic communication is a luxury.” He smiled suddenly. “But of course you must be aware of how much processor space is taken up by such research.”
I nodded. “I would have thought the thing to do would be to extend and upgrade your system.”
Canard’s face lost all expression. “At the present time we are unable to do that.”
Ah, I had found the limit—manufacturing capability: they were limited to low tech manufacturing and bio’ work. I thought it likely they were not capable of making the required micro-circuitry, the same kind of circuitry as used in antigravity control systems, hence the wheeled ground car.
“Oh well,” I said, “I guess you can’t do everything, but please excuse my curiosity. You see, I have a request of you and I just wanted to find out if JMCC still has the back-up technologies for certain micro-cryogenic operations.”
Canard was all smiles again. “What sort of operations would they be?”
I leant forwards in my chair. “Specifically, the manufacture of a super-conducting micromesh and bio-gridding of a human brain.”
Canard leant back in his seat, looked up at the ceiling then across at the guards. After a moment he waved at the guards. “You may leave.” Dutifully and with some relief they headed for the lift. Canard turned to me again. “Would this concern ... yourself?”
I shook my head. “No, I am stable and will be so for a long time yet. It is for another.”
He stared at me for a long moment before tipping his head back and speaking at the ceiling. “Computer. JMCC status as to the manufacture of super-conducting micromesh.”
The acerbic voice of an old woman I had known nine hundred years ago replied, “At the present time JMCC is unable to manufacture this item. Projections for retooling put capability reclaimable in one hundred and twenty days.”
“Computer. Do we have any in stock?”
“There are two thousand square metres of super-conducting micromesh in storage bay one three two.”
Canard had difficulty hiding his surprise.
“Computer. How long have we had this?”
“Nine-hundred-and-twenty-three years.”
Canard sat forwards, his face losing colour, then he shook his head and sat back.
“Computer. JMCC status as to the handling of human brain bio-gridding.”
“Capability extant. Present medical facilities have sufficient microsurgical equipment and flash-freeze tooling.”
Canard turned to me. “There, it can be done. Now will you tell me who you want it done to?”
“Jethro Susan will die of radiation sickness no matter what treatment is given to her. Before she dies I want her cored and as much of her brain and other nerve tissue as possible to be flash frozen and bio-gridded.”
Canard looked perplexed. “Why? All you’ll end up with is an organic machine, and not a particularly efficient one. You need the hardware and software to make the grid mutating if you are to give her life. You also need some fantastically complex sub-systems which I don’t mind admitting we lost the technology to manufacture ages ago.”
“I have all that in hand.”
Canard’s face went blank for the second time. “Then she will live.”
“After the fashion of myself.”
Canard stood up and sauntered to a nearby table. From it he picked up an ornate handgun. Salamanders writhed in it.
“I cannot allow that, Collector. I am sorry, but Jethro Susan killed a high status Jethro and must be punished. I also apologise for this,” he nodded at the gun, “but I am well aware of your capabilities.”
I leant back and spoke at the ceiling. “Molly, cut all the power to the JMCC complex.”
“Yes, Collector,” came the suddenly eager reply.
The screens went out, then the lights. We were left in twilight tableau. I adjusted my vision accordingly.
“Computer. Restore power to the JMCC complex,” said Canard, and I admired him for his calm.
“I am sorry but at the present time I am unable to restore power.”
“Computer. Why are you unable to restore power?”
“Cardinal instruction was given to shut down power. I can only restore power by cardinal instruction.”
Canard closed his eyes. “We always knew that there was sixty eight percent of the stock unaccounted for.” He put the gun down and walked away from the table to another where he picked up a decanter and poured himself a drink.
“Will you do as I request?” I asked.
“Order, you mean.”
“If you like.”
“Yes, of course I will. We live by certain rules and traditions here and one of those is that what the prime stock holder says, is. Anyway—” he gestured to the marble desk, “you could go and sit behind that at any time you liked.”
I said, “It is not my intention to.” I looked up at the ceiling. “Molly, restore the power.”
The lights and screens came on.
Canard said, “Computer. Convey the general instruction that the Collector’s ... requests have cardinal status.”
I stood up. He seemed to be taking this very well. He went on. “We have a very good man in biotech. I’ll put him onto the bio-gridding operation immediately. You will want to supervise, I presume?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be leaving you directly. You have my confidence.” Then a thought occurred to me. “You do, of course, have a lot to gain. I will be returning with the requirements for grid mutation and the control sub-systems. The technology will become accessible to you.”
Canard smiled. “The thought had never occurred to me.
I saw then why he was chairman. He was sharp.
I walked over to the table and picked up the gun. “Mind if I
take this along with me?”
He shrugged. “You hold the controlling interest in it; you might as well retain possession.”
I headed for the lift. As it descended I tried not to think too hard about where the piece of technology I had referred to would be coming from.
* * *
Out on the plain night had fallen and the moon with its horns sinister frosted the grass. For a moment I considered what next to do, then I headed for the nearest acacia, collected fallen branches, which I started burning with a quick blast from my newly-acquired gun, and sat down to wait. They were not long in coming.
“We have found you, Collector,” said Spitfire as she settled on the other side of my fire.
“Yes, you have. Have any mammoth been killed on the plains?
“Two have been killed.” The rate of kill had increased.
“Point me in the direction of where the last one was killed. It is time for this to be settled.”
Hurricane then flapped in to land.
“The Collector is to settle this,” Spitfire said to him.
He nodded, looked around, then said, “Where is Jethro Susan?”
“She is dying of radiation poisoning in the JMCC complex.”
Both Hurricane and Spitfire made a warding gesture.
“We had hoped she might...” Spitfire began, then trailed off. She appeared to be very upset. Hurricane had bowed his head and was swaying from side to side. Similar body language to that of a grieving mammoth.
“Where must I go?” I asked.
Spitfire pointed to the south west.
I said, “I will be on my way then. Grieve, but not for too long. I may need your eyes.” And with that I set out through the elephant grass. Or perhaps it should be called mammoth grass.
My synthetic skin is as sensitive as living skin, though I have more choice as to what I feel with it—my pain circuits have not been on in centuries. As I walked I felt something on my face, and I reached up to find out what it was. My fingers came away wet. The water I had drunk to supply my sweat glands had supplied my tear-ducts as well.
I set out at a pace that ate up twenty kilometres every hour. Two hours after sunrise I slowed down to allow my joints time to cool; an hour after that I had to stop to take off my boots and remove the syn-thiflesh covering to my feet. My boots had received quite a hammering from the grass and sandy soil over the last few days and though well made they would not stand much more of this sort of treatment. Cera-mal stood up a lot better and my feet could always be replated at JMCC. Good boots had been notoriously difficult to get hold of for a couple of hundred years now and I needed them if I was to keep up a pretence at humanity with anyone I might meet. My trousers were monofilament. I would not know they were wearing out until they collapsed into dust right off my legs.