Brass Man

by Neal Asher

  Securing the wires across the gap, Tergal glanced up at the sky, which was now dark green swirled with the red of interstellar gas clouds. The stars had yet to appear and the first impression was of a ceiling carved of bloodstone. He then reached down to turn on the charge generator standing beside one of the posts.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Anderson, finally levering the sleer’s head off and pulling it away –dragging out a tangle of intestines. Then reaching inside the cavity with his knife, he cut, grabbed and pulled, and out came the translucent internal belly plate, with other gelatinous organs attached. ‘The batteries are low –only got half a day’s charge.’ They had left the roadhouse at midday, and only then had he laid out the solar panel on Bonehead’s carapace, and attached the batteries.

  ‘They’ll last the night?’ Tergal asked.

  ‘Mostly. Anyway, once a few of the buggers have taken a few belts from the fence they tend not to come back.’

  Anderson stood up and, carrying the offal and head of the sleer, walked to the fence and tossed them over it for Bonehead and Stone. Not bothering to attach it below its sensory head, the old sand hog folded out its feeding head, extended it on its second hinged neck to suck down the offal, then knocked the remainder across to Stone, who crunched the sleer’s head like a boiled sweet. They both ate seemingly without much appetite, but then this meat was rather too fresh for their taste.

  With the fire burning well, Anderson set up his iron spit and roasted segments of sleer from the meatier tail section. The stars came out and, in the stark shadows of the buttes, the relatives of the two travellers’ dinner came out for their nightly game of murder in the dark. Bonehead and Stone folded their heads and legs away, and sank down onto the sand: two long teardrop domes with saddles still in place. Ogygian was poised on the horizon, glittering in reflected sunlight, and distantly the lights of Golgoth cast an orange glow into the dusty sky.

  ‘Other worlds have moons,’ said Tergal. ‘I wonder what that’s like.’

  Anderson, after chucking onto the fire the carapace from the segment of meat he had just eaten, said, ‘More light at night, but little more beyond that, unless the world itself has oceans.’

  ‘I wonder what that’s like, too.’

  ‘Wet, probably.’

  Beyond the fence, the movement drew closer, as chitinous bodies scuttled from shadow to shadow. Anderson stood up, walked over to the charge generator, and switched it on. The two of them were laying out their bedrolls when a second-stage sleer came to investigate this attractive cluster of heat sources. Its antlers extended themselves out from its nightmare head like long thin black hands, then touched a wire and jerked back. The creature held its ground for a moment, its feet rattling against the earth and its carapace saws scraping against each other, then with a hiss it retreated.

  ‘Your first watch?’ Anderson suggested.

  Still clutching the gun he had drawn, Tergal eventually nodded. Anderson shook out his blankets, to be sure they had not acquired unwelcome guests, before lying down with his head resting on one of his packs. Through half-closed eyes, he watched Tergal light a smoky candle, and immediately the smell of repellent invaded the air –keeping away smaller denizens that might crawl under the wire. The boy then bowed his head and listened to the sounds of hard limbs rasping against sandy surfaces. Anderson closed his eyes fully and allowed sleep to take him. Tergal would not be robbing anyone tonight –he had other things to occupy his attention.

  The first view showed the world only lightly crusted with black, with frequent cracks and volcanic eyes appearing and fading constantly. With his hand inside a projected virtual control, Cormac doubled the magnification, and now saw plumes of gas, ash and magma spewing into the poisonous atmosphere. It was hell –with all the sulphur and fire you could want –but until only a month ago had been lacking in devils. Then two had arrived.

  ‘Show me the carrier shell,’ he said.

  A square appeared, picking out a dot, and the magnification increased to show the wrecked shell poised above the inferno.

  Ticking slowly while standing beside Cormac’s chair as if to keep an eye on the virtual control the AI had loaned, Jack’s automaton intoned, ‘Cento urges that we leave him and go at once to the coordinates he has given us. He does have a point. We shall achieve nothing by this rescue that cannot be achieved by the other ships on their way here.’

  ‘Try to think like a human,’ said Gant, lolling in one of the club chairs.

  ‘Why should I restrict myself so severely? Cento has told us everything, and logically there is no reason for delay,’ said the ship’s AI.

  ‘But Cento is still Cento,’ Cormac supplied, and then left Gant to cobble together the explanation he himself could not be bothered trying to verbalize. He just knew it was right to have Cento along with them.

  ‘Yes, he’s told us everything,’ said Gant. ‘And from what he has told us we know that Skellor will assume Cento was utterly destroyed. That’s an advantage, since in some situations his presence might pause Skellor for half a second, and that could mean the difference between life and death.’

  ‘The same rules apply to Aphran,’ Cormac added.

  ‘More advantage might be gained by not wasting hours picking up a Golem android who would be picked up anyway,’ observed Jack.

  Cormac relented and explained, ‘It’s about weapons, Jack. In you we have everything we need in the way of bombs and missiles, but that might not be enough.’

  ‘You’re rationalizing,’ said Jack.

  ‘Attempting to rationalize something I feel instinctively –and it has been trusting such feelings that has kept me alive, and has made me as successful as I have been.’

  ‘Granted,’ said Jack.

  The sun was a blue boiling giant glimpsed after thaw-up, as the Jack Ketch entered this barren system. Now it was out of view, for they were approaching in the planet’s shadow so as not to overheat the ship. The carrier shell, since Skellor had hit it with a kinetic missile of some kind, had lost its geostationary position and, as Cento explained, was now orbiting the planet. Over the next hour they drew even closer, and Cormac saw that parts of the shell were still glowing red hot. They reached it just as it was coming back into the sun’s actinic glare and, through filters, Cormac observed grapples –towing braided monofilament cables –fired across from each of the attack ship’s nacelles. Closing by hydraulics these ceramal claws drove sharp fingers into the charred hull. Then came a droning as the Ketch’s engines took up the strain and dragged the shell back into the planetary shadow.

  ‘I have apprised Cento of our position, and he is now making his way to where I will place the airlock,’ Jack informed them.

  Cormac observed the docking tunnel extruding towards the shell. He noted that it was heading towards bare hull, and surmised that this was an injector lock –for inserting troops, probes, war drones, or even poison gas, into a hostile ship. He saw it contact, and the flare around its rim as it cut into the hull.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Gant.

  As they entered the dropshaft, and it shifted them to their destination, Cormac had to wonder if this was the only shaft the Jack Ketch contained, as he had yet to discover any other. He and Gant moved into a short corridor decorated with metallic Greek statues and with reed matting on the floor. This took them to the chamber preceding an airlock –also lined with statues but with a bare metal floor. Shortly the displays on the exterior touch panels showed that the lock was cycling. Within a minute the inner door whoomphed open. Leaning on one hand, what remained of Cento looked up at them. ‘Touch of bother?’ Gant enquired.

  The four guarding the corridor were ensconced behind an APW cannon. Skellor did not even need to scan to know they were in constant communication with their fellows –their terrified expressions told that tale. As he stepped past the cannon –and over the woman crouching down connecting a large energy canister to the weapon –he noted the one over by the wall stare in his direction, his expression puzz
led. But then the man returned his attention to the proximity grenade he was setting. Skellor moved on, glad not to have to kill these four, for that would alert Nalen, who was still fleeing towards the runcible.

  Past the men, Skellor accelerated to a speed that only Mr Crane or a Polity Golem could match. He wanted to intercept Nalen as soon as possible –did not want him to get within the defences of the runcible AI; did not want that level of confrontation yet. It occurred to him to wonder what the AI’s reaction would be to the commotion behind. Certainly there would be a reaction of some kind.

  A dropshaft, disabled, then up the ladder, just touching on the rungs in nil gee, changing course with a hand slapping against the exit portal, bending metal, then into another corridor opening out into an arboretum similar to the one below. Ahead, a gleam in his virtual vision, at the centre of an unstable web of light. In the real world he saw a man spherically fat running as energetically as the two guards alongside him. There was a doubling of image: yes, the man was fat, but scales did not really cover him –that was illusion. Closer, and Skellor began to feel the link that dropped away from this man and this station and out into space. He slammed into Nalen’s back and, looping an arm around the man’s greasy neck, dragged him down the corridor. Slapping the flat of his hand against Nalen’s aug, which appeared utterly fused to his head, he transmitted the virus down penetrating Jain filaments. Nalen began to shriek.

  Skellor glanced back and saw the two guards, weapons drawn, staring about themselves in bewilderment, for to their eyes their charge had simply disappeared. Then both of them jerked as, through Nalen, the virus hit their augs. One staggered back against the wall and slid down to the floor, blood bubbling from his ear. The other shrieked, clawed at his aug and managed to tear it from his head like a reptilian scab. Still shrieking he ran towards the sabotaged dropshaft.

  No matter –Skellor had control now.

  Crane had killed many of them, and many more were fleeing. Gazing through the eyes of those on the run, Skellor saw ECS uniforms. Nalen’s people were going down all around, under fire from riot guns. Golem were bringing down others, and easily securing them in ankle and wrist cuffs. Skellor had not expected ECS to react so quickly. He immediately realized that the AI must have been aware of the Dracocorp network, and been preparing to deal with it. He had very little time.

  Nalen’s mind was a gibbering thing that yielded easily to his control, for his aug had softened it to receive commands through the U-space link. Skellor shrugged himself into that mind, as if into someone else’s clothing. Tracing that branch of the network generating outside the station, he was surprised to find, orbiting the red dwarf, a U-space transmitter, and thought that so prosaic. The virus opening the way for him, he soon found himself groping mentally through alien software that was somehow familiar to him, familiar to that alien side of him. He was there; the coordinates were his. Then the communications laser pulse slammed into the transmitter, viral programs propagating from it, and snatching at that last vital information but failing to take it.

  Dropping Nalen, Skellor staggered back. It was suddenly all so horribly clear to him. In his arrogance, he had assumed the Polity would not try this route, so busy were they tracing Dragon through Dracocorp. How very stupid he had been.

  Crane, back to the ship –fast.

  He sensed the Golem’s immediate response just before the viral probe came in through a biotech aug on the other side of the station, opening the way, and something utterly vicious snarled its way into the network he now controlled. This he had encountered before: a hunter-killer AI program had been poised to take this network at its moment of maturity. He himself had taken it perhaps only months away from that time. ECS must have known about Nalen and his people for a long time, but had given them sufficient leash to get a lead on one of the Dragon spheres. Skellor, as he staggered away from the fat man who now seemed to have deflated on the floor, felt real fear.

  What are you? was the essence of the program’s question as it swung towards him in the network. Skellor ran for the dropshaft and leapt into it.

  Located.

  The dropshaft came on and tried to kill him, slamming immediately to a constant four gees. He reached out and caught the lip of the floor below, the force with which his arms hit buckling the floor plates, the composite out of which his bones were now fashioned bending and splintering. In the subliminal flash of agony, his defence lost coherence and a viral spear tried to impale his mind. He took it and slid aside, leaving another mind to take the brunt. Grav in the dropshaft abruptly reversed, slamming him up against the upper rim of the exit portal. The sound of Nalen’s impaled mind dying was a retreating piggish squeal. Bonding his hands against the ceiling with Jain filaments, Skellor dragged himself out of the shaft’s gravity field and dropped to the floor. Hitting, he accelerated as fast as he could, feeling the floor plates fluxing behind him as the program compensated for his inhuman speed. Then one went nil below him, and the next soared up to four gees. He came down on one knee and one foot, kneecap taking the brunt and shattering, but got no reaction from the human nervous system he had disconnected from cerebral activity. This battle worked both ways, however: Skellor linked back, through the probe into the Dracocorp network, and let that take all the pain his human body felt as it shattered and rebuilt. With a gargantuan hiss something retracted, and all the gravplates in the corridor returned to one gee.

  Feel pain, do you? he asked of the shapeless nightmare.

  He was in the arboretum now, retracing his course –dodging between ECS troops and Golem alike, with his ’ware still functioning.

  How about this?

  Still linked to his attacker, he reached out to all those still-conscious points in the network. Slammed into their aug control programs and gave them something he had himself recorded on the Occam Razor while he had tortured the Separatist woman, Aphran. The hoarse voice of agony echoed throughout the station as, one after the other, people wearing biotech augs fell, believing someone was peeling off their skins with red-hot scalpels. For a moment Skellor thought the feedback into the attacking program was killing it, but then he saw that the program was changing to link into the screamers and give them succour. So altruistic were Polity AIs, so kind to the poor soft-bodied creatures, that Skellor and Crane both broke apart like ripe fruit.

  Skellor, we have ever let humans deal with human threats, Ruby Eye told him, but in your case we may make an exception. Go away from here now –a battle between us would denude this station of life, and I see no purpose in that when we can kill you somewhere more remote.

  Crane awaited him on the Vulture. The Golem was now seated playing with new toys. Skellor ignored him and, through the Jain structures he had grown inside the ship, immediately put all systems online.

  Runcible AI. If you fire any weapons on me, I’ll turn this ship round and fly it into your station, initiating U-space jump before the engines are ready. I don’t suppose even you would survive that.

  Go away, creature.

  With a blast of fusion flame, he accelerated the Vulture down from the station towards the red dwarf, initiating the ship’s newly installed chameleonware. He knew that, in this situation, hiding was not enough, as the AI knew where the Vulture had been docked, and could fill nearby space with lethal munitions and a cage of discharges from energy weapons. But there came nothing from the station: no missiles, no laser beams, not even a parting taunt as he dropped the little ship into U-space. And somehow that was more frightening.

  No matter how much shielding a ship used, passengers always felt the transition from U-space to realspace –or the reverse. Why this was so, no one had explained, though Mika felt sure some would attribute it to the belief that humans were more than mere material substance –an idea she found objectionable. Climbing out of her bed in the quarters Jerusalem had recently provided for her, she gazed up at a screen that was always set for external view, and observed starlit space rather than any planetary system. The Jerusalem
was no longer in U-space.

  ‘Jerusalem, what’s happening?’ she asked.

  There was a pause before the AI replied, ‘So it begins.’

  ‘Pardon.’

  ‘We will not be going to Masada. We will now be going to a sector of space in which the source of so much of what we study has been located.’

  ‘Skellor’s been found.’

  ‘Not precisely, but we may close him in our grasp.’

  Abruptly Mika felt that sensation of transition again and, looking up, saw her screen showing the bland grey representation of U-space. Normally, while a ship was under, its human passengers and crew would go into cold sleep, but aboard the Jerusalem there was an urgency to learn all about that thing that might kill the Polity. Having slept four hours, which was ample for Mika, she showered, dressed, and immediately went out into the main corridor and headed for the refectory. Though machines in her own quarters could supply all her nutritional needs, she always took her meals elsewhere. In the refectory, like-minded people bounced ideas about and did quite a lot of the planning and more imaginative work there. Entering the large room, with its scattering of tables and chairs, she saw that Susan James, D’nissan and Prator Colver were all seated around one table and, after making her selection from one of the food dispensers, Mika collected her tray and went over to join them.

  The man, Colver, was Life-coven like herself: a stocky ginger-haired individual who was prone to sudden enthusiasms and who had long ago learned how to ask questions. ‘Have you heard?’ he asked as she sat down. ‘We’re going to Ruby Eye.’