by Neal Asher
Then came the blinding turquoise flash of one of the equatorial cannons, and the lens ship exploded, many of the smaller chunks of Jain-tech turning to ash.
‘The intensity of these attacks will increase for a while,’ Dragon observed.
She looked over; there was no sign of a head or pseudopods in the conferencing unit. She assumed Dragon must have reactivated her suit radio, but a check of her wrist display showed that the suit was still powered down.
‘But there should be less of them as we go deeper,’ Dragon added.
Right, thought Mika, talking inside my head now.
It became the least of her worries when she saw on her screen the monstrous horde now heading straight towards them.
* * * *
Knobbler turned off into a wider side corridor more suitable for his bulk while Orlandine headed for the drop-shaft at the far end of the current one. Sending instructions to its control panel, which, like just about everything else aboard this massive beast, was now infested with Jain-tech, she stepped into the shaft and the irised gravity fields wafted her up two floors. She stepped out into a small control centre under a domed chainglass ceiling. A horseshoe of consoles occupied the floor of the circular room, and right in the middle of them a scaffold supporting the control sphere Knobbler had fashioned for her. Its door stood open, a few steps leading up. Orlandine mounted them, entered and ensconced herself in a familiar environment.
Though having remained connected by electromagnetic means to the Jain-tech within the war runcible, Orlandine knew this was not at all ideal. As soon as the Polity tech of the sphere engaged with her carapace, her horizons expanded, and when the Jain mycelia of the runcible, which had earlier invaded this sphere, connected with the part of itself already inside her body, those horizons became vast. She could now see the massive device all at once, in its entirety, from the numerous sensors positioned around its hull and also within it. She could not only see all this visually but across a broad chunk of the EM spectrum, with the option of using even more esoteric scanning methods like gravity mapping. But even that was not all.
Orlandine controlled nearly everything and could equally assume control of all those things currently in the remit of the drones aboard, like the runcible’s weapons. The positional thrusters and fusion engines evenly dispersed about the runcible lay at her virtual fingertips. The four remaining U-space engines she could start at will, though, with one engine missing and the others not yet balanced, that would result in the runcible arriving not only turned inside out — but at four separate locations. Almost negligently she set into motion tuning and balancing programs to extend the coverage of those four engines so that they would work in concert. Then there was the matter of the runcible gate itself. As she assumed that space Bludgeon had previously occupied and never really used, she began to appreciate the massive complexity of the technology. The base control programs loading to her carapace, she saw, were presently at four per cent of her memory/processing space, and when fully loaded in a few minutes they would take up a full eight per cent, but when she started actually using the device, that figure would rise to nearly fifty per cent.
‘Bludgeon,’ she enquired, ‘are you ready yet?’ This was merely a politeness for she was monitoring that drone’s progress too.
‘Eighty-eight per cent,’ the drone replied curtly, not being a talkative soul.
‘At your leisure, then, proceed towards the asteroid,’ Orlandine instructed.
It was at this moment that she felt godlike and decided to enjoy the sensation despite her reservations about it. However, it seemed that fate was working overtime this day, for the moment she began to wonder if her seat in the interface sphere could recline to a more comfortable angle, klaxons sounded throughout the war runcible, and those sensors she had set up to watch their surroundings began screaming for her attention.
‘We’ve got arrivals,’ Knobbler informed her.
‘You don’t say.’
This could perhaps be the expected arrival — early by a couple of days.
The three U-space signatures had appeared some five thousand miles out. Two of them were close together and one was a thousand miles to one side. Orlandine studied the images she was receiving: two wormships accelerating towards a smaller vessel and, by the energy readings, preparing to open fire on it. She guessed the little vessel contained the one she was supposed to meet and suspected the wormships weren’t part of the general plan.
‘Weapons?’ she asked.
‘Ready,’ Knobbler replied.
‘No longer at your leisure, Bludgeon,’ she warned the drone aboard her erstwhile ship. ‘Move with a purpose.’
‘Acknowledged.’
Heliotrope’s drive ignited and it accelerated away from the war runcible. Gathering data, Orlandine began to set in motion the programs for making the calculation needed to receive something through this war runcible gate. It was easy for her, but the sheer speed her mind needed to work and the number of calculations that needed to be completed made her appreciate the feat of that hero of the Prador-human war, Moria Salem — the female runcible technician who, using little more than an advanced augmentation, managed to employ a cargo runcible to throw a small moon at a Prador dreadnought.
Perpetual diagnostic feeds from the mycelium told her that everything was functioning at optimum, so Orlandine quickly ran five fusion reactors up to speed and initiated the Skaidon warp. In the pentagon of vacuum through the centre of the war runcible reality flickered, then a shimmering meniscus sprang into being.
‘Done,’ said Bludgeon.
Glimpsing the scene through Heliotrope’s external cameras, Orlandine saw how a similar meniscus now shimmered between the three horns of the cargo runcible positioned at the nose of her ship.
‘Go to expansion immediately,’ Orlandine replied.
While she watched, the three horns disconnected from their seatings and, impelled out by hard-field projectors, their positions relative to each other accurately maintained by laser measurement, they began stretching that meniscus, that Skaidon warp — that skin over reality. They also turned over on their way out, folding that same skin over themselves so that effectively the gate was without any material edges facing forward. This was not necessary right now, but would certainly be necessary for the cargo runcible’s ultimate purpose. Bludgeon seemed to be doing fine, so she returned her full attention to the war runcible and sent instructions to the numerous thrusters peppered over its surface. They ignited at once and the massive structure began to turn.
‘A very critical test,’ Knobbler observed.
‘Stay on those weapons,’ Orlandine replied. ‘This might not work.’
She only momentarily considered instructing the five segments to detach so as to widen the war runcible’s gate, but it was already wide enough. Anyway, it wasn’t hard-fields that would impel them apart but very accurate steering jets. She could see that, with how this device had originally been constructed, the controlling AI would have experienced all sorts of difficulties operating it, especially while coming under attack. Each section of the runcible needed to be very accurately positioned, since the room for error in all the calculations was minute, yet firing the weapons positioned on each section might well knock them out of alignment faster than could be corrected for. With everything now cohered by the Jain mycelium, she could supposedly calculate and factor in the inertial effects of the firing of each weapon full seconds before they even fired. However, right now it would be stupid to risk the alterations she had made failing.
There were other factors also making this easier for her. It wasn’t as if she intended to transfer anything through the runcible that needed to survive that process or pass through at anything less than the speed of a meteor. For normal runcibles, calculations needed to be made to correct for relative speeds by inputting the precise energies at the departure runcible, and bleeding off into the buffer the correct amount at the arrival runcible. Simplified, these calculations i
nvolved the input of energy required to push the traveller through the Skaidon warp, plus the energy required to accelerate or decelerate him from his initial relative speed, so he came out of the gate at the other end at zero speed. But that was an extreme simplification.
Another factor in the complex calculations was the C-energy, this being the input energy of the transmission and also that drawn into the runcible buffers at the destination runcible. The events on a world called Samarkand had luridly demonstrated what happened when that energy was not removed by the receiving runcible. There the runcible buffers had been sabotaged, so that one traveller who arrived on that world by runcible came through at a fraction under the speed of light. His arrival had caused massive devastation and loss of life. Ironic, therefore, that he himself had been a runcible technician.
‘I am ready,’ said Bludgeon.
Orlandine studied the situation out in space. The little ship was now running towards them. While it might be either a friend or an enemy, there was no doubt at all about the status of the two pursuing vessels. She aimed a signal laser at the little ship.
‘If you want to survive, I suggest you get out of my targeting frame,’ she sent.
The reply was, ‘Mother of fuck,’ and the ship went into a high-gravity turn that Orlandine realized no human could have survived — which meant there were no humans aboard.
‘Knobbler,’ she said, ‘I’m going to assume that little guy is the one we are here to meet, but damn well keep a rail-gun on him till we find out for sure.’
‘Will do,’ Knobbler replied.
They were ready now — she didn’t want to give those worm-ships time to separate.
‘Proceed,’ Orlandine instructed.
She observed Heliotrope drive the cargo-runcible meniscus down, like a catch-net, onto the tumbling asteroid, swallowing it whole. Since the war runcible was linked only to the cargo runcible, she did not need to check what was now coming through, just make the necessary calculations and apply the required energies to accept that item in the war runcible’s U-space spoon, and then bring it through. And she did not bleed off the C-energy.
The million-ton rock came out through the war runcible’s Skaidon warp. In U-space the asteroid’s speed relative to realspace had been far above the speed of light. As it returned to the domain of Einsteinian physics realspace strictly applied its speed restrictions and the asteroid departed the war runcible at just a fraction below the speed of light. A material object travelling at such velocity was often described as photonic matter. You cannot see light unless its photons enter your eyes, so it should not have been possible to see the path of this object, yet it left a luminous trail like the disperse beam from a particle weapon, for there was a sufficient scattering of atoms throughout this region for it to hit and smash a few of them.
Focusing upon both the wormships, Orlandine did not get to see the impact, for the intense flash of radiation blanked out all sensors aimed in that direction. It didn’t matter that the asteroid only hit one of the wormships full on, as the force of the impact supplied sufficient energy for the cone of the blast to hit the other ship as well. When the sensors cleared again, it was to show a glowing cloud scattered through with wormish fragments.
‘Knobbler,’ she instructed, ‘clear up those bits.’
Immediately, visible particle beams began needling the cloud, selectively burning the fragments to ash. She turned her attention now to the little ship, which was swinging round to head back towards the war runcible.
‘Give me a good reason why I should not destroy you,’ she sent.
‘Chameleonware and recognition codes, apparently,’ replied a voice.
Orlandine could now discern that the approaching craft was in fact two ships bonded together, one of them of the kind customarily used by Erebus’s legates.
‘I’m not so sure that’s reason enough for me to let you even get close to us,’ she said, testing.
‘Well, Fiddler Randal tells me you need the updated version,’ replied the voice. ‘And my boss, even though he don’t say much, tells me you should stop blasting those bits of wormship out there because from one of them he can get you what you want.’
Knobbler’s particle cannons abruptly cut out. Clearly the big drone had been listening.
‘I see,’ said Orlandine.
Now she watched as the Polity craft and the legate craft abruptly separated, the latter accelerating towards the spreading cloud of wormship remains. She saw it target one large chunk of debris, decelerate down towards it, but still slam into it hard and stick for a moment. After a brief pause it then separated and turned, heading back towards the Polity craft.
‘Got your codes and ‘ware,’ said the voice.
‘I will give you docking instructions shortly,’ Orlandine replied coldly.
* * * *
The aseptic smell was so familiar, as were the sounds, the current numbness of his body and the occasional tugging sensation in his flesh. He was in Medical being worked over by an autodoc, probably directed by a human medic. This wasn’t an unusual experience for Cormac, but the profound sadness he felt was unusual, and it arose for reasons he just could not nail down right then.
‘Ah, you’re with us again,’ said a voice.
Cormac tried to open his eyes but found he couldn’t, tried to say something about this but his mouth seemed like a slack bag.
‘Don’t worry about the lack of sensation,’ continued the voice. ‘I had to block you from the neck down to fix the stomach wound and your leg. I also had to knock out some facial and scalp nerves to repair the other damage.’
Great, don’t worry about the numbness, just worry about the damage. Cormac surmised, judging by his bedside manner, that whoever was working on him was not a civilian medic.
‘There, that about does it,’ the voice told him. ‘Your own internal nanites are repairing the concussion damage, and the antiinflammatories should help.’
Annoyed at being unable to perceive his surroundings and still not entirely clear on what had happened to him, Cormac applied for linkage to whatever server lay nearby. There was the usual delay and security issues limited him to the nearest server. He ran a trace using his name and tracked himself down to a military medical unit set up inside the downed atmosphere ship. Hopping from internal cam to cam he tried to find a view of himself. Instead he found Hubbert Smith standing statuelike in a corridor, and though glad that at least the Golem had survived for a moment could not figure out why he should be glad. Then memories returned of hurtling razor-edged lumps of Jain coral carried in a shock wave, of Arach tumbling away, of Scar standing headless…
Cormac tried to speak, tried to ask questions but could not, then abruptly closed down on the urge, since this medic probably possessed no knowledge of what had happened anyway but was merely here to stitch back together whatever had survived. Cormac became suddenly cold, now understanding the reason for his earlier sadness. He had certainly lost another long-time associate, possibly two, but would have to wait for confirmation from Hubbert Smith. Turning his focus away from such painful memories, he again tried to find a cam view of himself. Gaining access to the room in which he lay, he discovered the only cams available there were in the autodoc, and he gazed analytically through its sensors. Chrome instruments were aligning pieces of broken bone as the head of a bonewelder moved into position, then Cormac heard the familiar sound of the welder going to work.
Not enough though.
Just then the realization that he had another way to see his surroundings returned to him. His U-sense was slow, reluctant, as if it too had been sleeping. His surroundings slowly came into focus, though that was hardly the correct terminology since he was seeing three hundred and sixty degrees and through everything around him.
‘Shame your gridlink is offline,’ said the voice. ‘You could have helped speed up the repair process yourself by using some of its med programs.’
Uh?
‘There you go.’
&nb
sp; Abruptly his sight returned and sensation came back to his face and his scalp, which both felt sore. He gazed up at the white ceiling, then tentatively tried to move his head. It seemed okay. Letting his U-sense drop back into slumber, he looked down at the autodoc poised over his leg, then up to his left at the medic, a blond-haired man with metal eyes and an aug affixed to the right-hand side of his head, from which an optic cable trailed down to connect to a small pedestal doc he was now wheeling back out of the way.
‘Whasss…?’ Cormac paused for a moment to work up some moisture in his mouth. ‘What do you mean, my gridlink is offline?’
While unplugging the fibre optic from his aug, the man gave Cormac a puzzled look. ‘Are you feeling okay?’
Cormac glanced down at the larger autodoc, now retracting from his leg. ‘I’m fine, as far as it goes.’
‘Memory loss?’ the man enquired.
‘Some, but it’s coming back fast.’
‘Well… you’ll get these momentary glitches after a head injury like that.’
‘Why are you saying my gridlink is offline?’
It had been taken offline by an AI once it was decided that, after thirty years of access, he had been losing his humanity and thus his effectiveness as an ECS agent. However, it had since spontaneously reinstated itself, though no one seemed able to provide a good explanation why. He supposed that, being simply grateful for its restoration, he had not made sufficient enquiries. Anyway, it was certainly functioning right now.