Africa Zero

by Neal Asher

  Gurt quietly digested this then the questions started. I had to tell him about the Stone Age, America, what Earth’s orbit was, and what fossil fuels were. When the conversation got onto fossils I made the mistake of mentioning dinosaurs and his relation to them. That conversation led on to basic genetics. He wanted to know so much and I was forced to ask him just how much of this he was remembering. This question puzzled him. I quizzed him about some things I had told him the day before and he recited them back at me verbatim. I realised then that he, like myself, did not have the capacity to forget. He took in knowledge sponge-like. Some of the words he might not understand, but he would not forget them and eventually he would find something to which he could apply them.

  On our fourth day of travel we reached JMCC. The ground 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, partially hidden by the complex, was the fenced-off landing field, a scattering of control towers, and two behemoths of flying-wing shuttles. To the people of Earth the corporate families are notoriously reclusive. This is only because they had no great interest in Earth. Their interests are in the space above it. As we walked towards the complex I explained this to Gurt and he asked me what precisely were their interests. I told him wealth, power, pleasure—no different to the interests of Earth people. When we were about a kilometre out, an AG ground car shot out towards us. Things had changed somewhat since that time I came here carrying Jethro Susan’s dying human body, before going off to hunt down a body for her much like my own. Then, JMCC were using wheeled ground cars driven by diesel engines. This had been the result of a slow decline in their fortunes and the loss of certain technologies. Because of me they had those technologies back now.

  The car drew to a halt before us, its doors hissed open, and a man and a woman in monofilament coveralls stepped out. Both of them were helmeted and carried QC laser carbines. The woman spoke first.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” she asked, eyeing Gurt. I, of course, looked completely human and did not have an APW strapped across my back.

  “I’m the Collector,” I said.

  She looked at me without disbelief and centred the snout of her laser on my chest.

  “I’ll be needing proof of that, of course,” she said.

  Internally I sent a signal to a superconductor nerve nexus. The nerve interlinks to my left hand autodetached. It went numb. I reached across and pressed the two pressure points to break the seal, then I stripped off my hand covering. I held up the skeletal hand of ceramal, which is mostly what I’m made of.

  “You have to understand, if you are who you say you are, that I’ll need more proof than that. Twenty years ago the Enmarks sent an agent here with a ceramal arm. He passed himself off as the Collector for three days and did a lot of damage before Jethro Susan came back from her tour of the orbital stations and he was found out...” She pointed to a distant acacia. “We nailed him there.”

  “Oh well,” I said, reaching up to my neck and pressing a sequence of soft spots. Another internal signal caused interlinks to detach. The synthetic muscle that gave my face expression detached as well. My face went dead and still. I pulled it off.

  It was a good trick that I’d done many times. The expressions of the two went from calm competence to a species of sick fear. I turned and grinned at Gurt—I wasn’t capable of any other expression at that moment—and he grinned back. I think he was faking it a bit.

  “That’s ... fairly conclusive,” said the man.

  The woman said nothing for a moment, then, “We’ll bring you to Jethro Susan. She will know for sure. First I’ll have that APW please ... Collector.”

  I nodded to Gurt and he handed the weapon over. We got into the ground car and they took us into the complex. Sometimes it bugs me what I have to go through just to prove who I am, but I guess passport photos and fingerprints are out of the question.

  * * *

  It was eighty years since I had last spoken to Jethro Susan. We’d got along fine for about forty years then we’d just drifted apart as she developed interests in JMCC, of which she had been a part from the beginning, and I went back to my collecting and, as she put it, “Playing your lethal little games.” There was no particular acrimony between us, nor did we have any great interest in each other. I had no wish to lord it in JMCC and live mostly enclosed in metal. I like the wildernesses of Earth. I had always liked them. Earth was mine. Since we had gone separate ways some hundred and sixty years ago we had met on and off about once every twenty years. Either she came to find me to get my deciding vote on some JMCC policy decision, or I returned to the complex for equipment, and on an occasion when a bounty hunter came after me with an atomic shear, for repairs. The last time I came in had been to use the laboratories to grow orchids from a speck of DNA I had extracted from an ancient bottle of perfume, and thence from them to obtain seeds. It was those orchids that I established in my forest.

  Susan was home this time. On the last occasion she came down in a shuttle to confirm my identity. As the lift took us up to the Corporate boss’ apartments I felt slightly anxious about meeting her. Gurt was back to his usual apparent reserve, but I could see his eyes darting about as he took everything into that wonderfully absorbent brain of his. The doors opened and we walked in with the guards either side of us. Susan stood up from behind a desk that was a slab of petrified wood polished to a sheen and supported in a thick water-oak frame. She gestured at the guards.

  “You may leave us,” she said.

  “Are you sure ... ? “ asked the woman.

  “I’m sure. If anyone was to turn up now, with a sauraman, I’d have expected it to be him,” she said wearily.

  I looked around at the room.

  “You’ve redecorated,” I said inanely.

  The circular chamber had been floored with soft-screen tiles set to react to pressure. From each step I took ripples of coloured light spread out across the floor. From me there were more ripples than from Gurt or the guards, but then I weighed as much as them all together. Behind one glassed wall had been mounted the preserved body of a female GAV with her wings spread in flight and her fangs exposed in a snarl—at least I assume she was the real thing and not merely a projected image. Behind the desk was a panoramic window with a view over the curve of the dome and out over the landing field. As we walked in I observed a heavy lifter rising under the impetus of AG, then tilting when it was high up and accelerating away with a blast of thrusters that put a blue flame halfway across the sky.

  The guards backed into the lift and the doors slid closed on them. I advanced to one of the tubular glass chairs before the desk and sat down. The chair creaked alarmingly, but managed to take my weight. Gurt looked slightly unsure of himself for a moment, then he quickly walked forward and sat in another of the chairs. Susan sat back down in her chair and put her feet on her desk. She looked good: long black hair hanging loose, elfin face with azure eyes, and a lean and boyish figure. But then, she could look just how she liked. She could build up an age of the body and face she wanted in her computer, sent it down to the synthetics department, and have a new body covering ready for her in a couple of days. Underneath she was like me; a skeleton of ceramal filled with hardware that was ancient, yet state-of-the-art, as the art had yet to be improved on.

  “Well?” she asked me.

  “There’s an Army of God out there that considers me a demon. There’s thousands of sauramen living on Madagascar. Gurt here is an escapee from some sort of Family study or assessment of his kind. Me and him have been ducking APWs, gun ships, and one satellite strike over the last week or so. How are things with you?” I said.

  She looked very carefully at Gurt and ignoring my sarcasm said, “Family project?”

  “I’d have thought so, and the quantity of them tells us something as well,” I said.

  “A private army,�
� said Susan, noncommittal.

  Gurt was looking from one to the other of us. I expected him to say something, but he just watched and listened.

  “The question is, which Family?” I said.

  Just then the lift door opened and in walked a short ugly man carrying a large tray. He stopped in the middle of the floor, the ripples now spreading out from his feet looking exactly like ripples on water. Susan nodded to the end of her desk nearest to Gurt. The man walked there and placed the tray on the desk. It was loaded with fancy foods. Gurt looked at the tray and his stomach rumbled loudly. The man stood by the desk waiting.

  “Drinks, anyone?” Susan asked.

  “Beer. Same for Gurt,” I said.

  Susan nodded at the man and he went on his way. She gestured at the food.

  “Please, help yourselves.”

  Gurt pulled his chair forwards, picked up a chicken leg, sniffed it then shoved it in his mouth. He ate it all, crunching up the bone as well, then he steadily began working his way across the tray. I didn’t bother with anything. I do have a sense of taste and can be hungry if I so wish. The pleasure of eating is there for me if I want it, but when that pleasure is infrequently reinforced it ceases to be of interest. Susan had yet to get out of the habit. She nibbled at a vol-au-vent and watched Gurt with amusement.

  “Do you have any idea which Family it might be, then?” I asked again.

  Still watching Gurt eat, Susan said, “Over the last month we’ve lost to sabotage a factory and two comsats. This sort of thing hasn’t happened in three centuries. I would say our problems are related.”

  I leant back and looked at the ceiling, aware she hadn’t really answered my question. I wondered what she might be concealing from me: she’d had a more-or-less free hand at JMCC for the last century and a half.

  “Molly, which Family’s sun laser was used four days ago against the surface of Earth?”

  The smooth sexy voice of a woman I had known more than a thousand years ago, replied, “The sun laser used has long been listed as an historical monument under joint Family ownership.”

  Gurt looked up at the ceiling, looked around the room, grunted and shoved another chicken leg in his mouth.

  “Is there any way of finding out who used it?” I asked.

  Susan replied, “There isn’t. It’s already been looked into. Someone had obviously kept the laser secretly online for a long time for ... eventualities. There’s no trail to follow.”

  “That eventuality was one of my battle tanks,” I said.

  “Poor boy,” said Susan.

  “Ask the God soldiers,” said Gurt.

  We both looked at him, but he thereafter ignored us and continued with his munching.

  “Well, someone provided them with weapons and piloted gun ships,” I said.

  “You should have snatched one of the pilots,” said Susan.

  “I did, but I left him in the tank.”

  “Remiss of you. We’ll send people in, get another one then, or a military adviser, something.”

  “No, I’ll go in,” I said.

  Susan shook her head.

  “Killing you is just a way of destabilising JMCC; just a preparatory move before a strike. Why put yourself in that kind of danger? I’ve got professional people here who can do this.”

  “If you give me cover I won’t be in much danger. I know another satellite strike is unlikely now, but I want that small likelihood covered.”

  “You’ll be taking out another of those blasted tanks?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Our conversation was interrupted by Susan’s servant bringing in another tray. On this were bottles of beer and thin beakers made of artificial pearl. He poured us each a drink from one of the large bottles then quickly retreated. I had to ask.

  “Servants, Susan? Are you over-budgeted on manpower?”

  “Jank is not a man. He’s my protection.”

  “Android?”

  Susan shrugged. She wasn’t telling. I let it drop.

  “I’ve got another store over near the border of Cuberland. I’ll run out there in a wing and take it from there. I suggest you prepare for attack,” I said.

  “Already underway. Since the sabotage we’ve been expecting something,” she replied.

  “Satellite strike?”

  “Even now I have platforms moving into the ionosphere. You’ll be covered.”

  I sipped at my beer. I needed liquids as coolants and beer was as good a liquid as any other. On my second sip I remembered to turn on my taste buds and as always, was pleasantly surprised at the unaccustomed input. Gurt watched me for a moment then picked up a beaker. After his first taste he looked with suspicion into the beaker before taking another sip.

  “I’d also suggest you let it be generally known about Gurt’s people on Madagascar. Once that’s done everyone will be watching,” I said, and turned to Gurt. “What do you want, Gurt?”

  “I want to kill God soldiers,” he enunciated perfectly.

  I hadn’t expected any different.

  * * *

  The wing was just a two-man transport, with AG, an array of thrusters, and a single steering wing mounted underneath. It was the fastest way of getting from point A to B in atmosphere. By the time Gurt and I reached the landing field it was fuelled and ready for me on the glassite surface. Gurt was walking a little unsteadily. He’d told me he had not liked the beer to begin with. It seemed to me that he soon acquired the taste. He’d emptied two of the two-litre bottles while Susan and I made our plans.

  I lifted the wing on AG, hit the thrusters, and in seconds we were out over the veldt. It took less than an hour to cover the distance it had taken us four days to cover on foot. At extreme detector range I picked up on four gun ships heading for the Atlas Mountains. I ignored them and turned east towards Cuberland. Below us the veldt was swiftly encroached on by ambatch trees, acacia scrub, and scattered groundsels. There were river valleys down there where bamboo and cycad forests fought their slow war. Into some of these valleys were the crushed-plant highways of mammoth trails, and on one occasion we passed over a herd of some three hundred mammoth. I turned to Gurt to point this out, but he was fast asleep. It seemed he did not remain long impressed by anything.

  Another hour brought me over a river valley, in which the red-stained ground had been planted with dwarf water-oaks. Sometime someone was going to make the connection. I reversed thrusters and decelerated into the valley. Gurt snorted and looked round blearily. He sat up and looked down at the wide, slow-flowing river below us. I brought the wing down until it was ten metres above the surface and we could clearly see the crocodiles lying like logs washed up on the banks, and a single completely pink hippo charging into a bamboo thicket. With a couple of bursts from the thrusters I had us travelling upstream to the inevitable cave from which the river issued. As we slid into the shadows, swarms of bats thumped against the screens. So thick a swarm was it that the wing slowed. I hit the lights and waited for it to clear. When it finally did I gave us another little boost from the thrusters.

  The cave went deep under the land. After about two hundred metres the river dropped away below and I brought the wing down on a stone floor mounded with bat droppings and crawling with cockroaches.

  “This is it,” I said to Gurt.

  He looked askance at me as I got out, but he followed.

  In the dark I used infrared and Gurt his saurian vision. Carrying weapons we’d brought from JMCC we walked between the swarming mounds to a wall of the cave. I didn’t know precisely where the door was so I sent the signal from there. The stone-effect door ground open about ten metres to my right. Bat droppings, cockroaches, and a couple of foot-long centipedes dropped into the lighted lift. Great. We’d brought along a couple of APW carbines, QC handguns, some explosives and a pack of supplies for Gurt. What we hadn’t brought was a shovel. I walked up to the lift drawing my QC gun. On wide beam I fried everything living in the lift. I didn’t want my hideaway crawling with cockroac
hes. I do have some standards. Using our feet Gurt and I kicked most of the bat droppings out of the lift. Once we were inside, the door grated shut and the lift immediately took us up. Let it suffice for me to say that a few hours later Gurt was at the controls of another of my tanks and we were crossing into Cuberland.

  * * *

  It soon became evident that we were entering the territory of the Army of God when Gurt brought the tank onto a dirt track through the acacia shrub. At regular intervals along the edge of the road were stakes on which had been impaled those guilty of infractions of the severe religious laws here. Soon we came to a wooden gate across this road and a small guard outpost. I decided it was time to ask directions.

  “You stay in here,” I instructed Gurt.

  “I don’t want to,” he said.

  Four guards had come out of the outpost and were standing looking at the tank, unsure about what to do next. I decided I would use a more indirect approach than was usual for me.

  “Okay,” I said to Gurt. “Stand back from me and don’t kill anyone unless it becomes necessary. We’re after information here.”

  We climbed out of the tank and walked over to the guards. Gurt carried his APW and his laser. I only carried a laser.

  “Good evening,” I said to the one I ascertained to be the leader here. He was a tall fair-skinned man with long blond hair under his mirrored helm. His three companions were bushmen. One of them, by the marking on his face, looked to be a Yoruba tribesman. The soldier looked at me impassively.

  “I was wondering if you could help me.” I gestured back to the tank. “I have here a gift for the Bishop, but I seem to have become lost.” Really lame.

  “Papers,” said the soldier, holding out his hand. His three companions had their Opteks pointed at us. I continued walking until I was up against the gate. They stood a couple of metres away on the other side of it.