Brass Man

by Neal Asher

  –From How It Is by Gordon

  The plain was an ancient seabed scattered with salt pans left as, over many centuries, the sea had evaporated. Weathering had revealed fossil remains, boulders containing crystals of smoky quartz like inset windows to a cold furnace, and fields of stones sieved out of the ground by the perpetual wind. Arden, during her long sojourn here, had journeyed a great deal within the perimeter allowed her. She had found a wonderful fossilized twelve-metre ancestor of an apek, all glittering iron pyrites and opalized carapace, and, acceding to her request, Dragon had sealed it under a layer of some tough substance similar to chainglass. She had found diamonds, emeralds, star rubies and sapphires, as well as other nameless gems and, with the disquietingly organic mechanisms Dragon manufactured for her inside itself, had cut and polished them. For a woman whose lifetime areas of study had been xenobiology and xenogeology, it had been an interesting time, and only as a matter of principle had she regularly protested against Dragon’s imprisonment of her. She supposed her patience stemmed from having been born within the Polity. With all the benefits of a genetically enhanced body and a seemingly limitless lifespan, what was the hurry?

  Because of Arden’s long and detailed study of the plain, she knew precisely when she reached the area Dragon had excavated and then replaced above itself –not because the land level was higher here, as there were many such areas across the plain, but because of the meticulousness of the geology. The boulders with their quartz inclusions were placed just so, the stone fields looked as if they had been raked, and single fossils were placed artfully on dusty surfaces. There seemed something akin to a Japanese stone garden about it all, or of some display in a Polity museum. Trudging back from the edge of the plain, her pack of light camping equipment slung from one shoulder, she recognized a particular boulder with a seemingly wind-excavated hollow under one side of it, and veered from this signpost to head for her home –the one she possessed here anyway. Then she jumped in surprise, dropping a lump of pale yellow beryl she had just found, when one of Dragon’s pterodactyl heads slid out from underneath that same boulder and rose above her with a hissing roar.

  ‘No Jain, just Crane,’ it said cryptically, gazing back the way she had come.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Arden hissed, stooping to pick up the fallen beryl. ‘You said this Skellor guy is loaded with the stuff.’

  The head swung towards her. ‘He is, but the Golem android he has sent here as his ambassador, though showing signs that it once contained Jain mycelia, is now free of that parasite.’

  ‘Ah, the “metalskin android” Vulture mentioned? He’s called Crane?’

  ‘Mr Crane –he’s very specific about that.’

  ‘Should be interesting,’ Arden opined.

  Dragon blinked. ‘You intend to remain?’

  ‘You want me to go, just when things are livening up?’

  ‘Maybe too lively,’ said Dragon. ‘Polity ships now.’

  ‘Here for that Skellor?’

  ‘The ship is called the Jack Ketch.’

  It took Arden a moment to dredge her memory for what that name meant. She remembered the historical context, and rumours of other things –hints of AI atrocities, brief and bloody annexations and border wars. But, then, it gave some Polity citizens a bit of a buzz to talk of such things –it was like sitting round the campfire telling ghost stories.

  ‘Ah,’ she said.

  ‘A telefactor comes, watched by Vulture.’

  ‘Will you let it through the barrier.’

  ‘Maybe . . . And now a landing craft has launched.’

  Events, it seemed, were moving apace, and Arden realized that her long stay on this plain with her enigmatic companion was ending. As she continued towards her comfortable cave, she could not help but feel a little sad about that.

  Anderson gazed over to the other side of the corrals, recognizing the vehicles from the mineralliers’ encampment. No doubt the moisture-induced growth spurt had driven them away from their excavations.

  ‘Why do we have to leave so early?’ Tergal complained.

  Because Unger Salbec is deeply asleep, but I don’t know how much longer that will be the case, thought Anderson. ‘Because I want to get through all the greenery before it makes travelling difficult,’ replied the knight, as he paid off the bleary-eyed corral-keeper.

  ‘It’s because of that woman,’ said Tergal. ‘You want to avoid a confrontation with her.’

  Anderson turned away, ostensibly to watch Bonehead peek his sensory head from under the skirt of his carapace, then jerk it quickly back in the hope Anderson hadn’t noticed. He had rather enjoyed his confrontation with Unger, but it was not something he wanted to extend. As soon as immediate lust was gratified, he knew she would begin slowly extending their brief encounter, querying his choices, lightly discussing future scenarios in which they would be together, elbowing her way into his life. He justified his abandonment of her by telling himself there was something a bit twisted about a woman loving the killer of her brother, but that did not entirely assuage his feeling of guilt. Entering the corral to thump his foot against Bonehead’s shell, he wondered briefly if his fleeing the situation here might be more to do with its possibilities than its perversity. Such an inclination to escape complications had separated him from Unger on five previous occasions, and was probably the reason he had been on the road for most of his life. Climbing up onto the sand hog’s back then plumping himself down in the saddle, he recognized that cowardice came in many forms. With a reluctant hissing and creaking, Bonehead lurched to his feet.

  Mounting Stone, Tergal observed, ‘You know, maybe it would be better if you sorted things out here. You don’t want her to catch you unawares.’

  Anderson let out a bark of laughter –he couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Will you ever trust me?’ Tergal asked.

  Anderson did not reply to that. ‘Talking about unawares.’ He eyed the uniformed metalliers moving out from the shadows between nearby buildings.

  Tergal glanced towards them. ‘One of them cornered me last night after you disappeared. Very curious to know all about me, where I was from, and where I was going. My replies were understandably limited.’ He looked round at Anderson. ‘I wonder if it’s anything to do with that explosion last night.’

  ‘Explosion?’

  ‘You didn’t feel it? The damned buildings moved. How could you sleep through that?’

  ‘Clear conscience.’ Anderson winked.

  Tergal looked at him askance, then returned his attention to the uniformed men approaching.

  Anderson called out, ‘How can I help you?’

  A metallier, similar in dress to Kilnsman Gyrol, peered into a book he was holding. ‘You’re Anderson Endrik, a Rondure Knight?’

  ‘I certainly am.’

  The man nodded. ‘Where are you heading now, and to what purpose?’

  Anderson eyed the others. They were armed –he had noticed that last night –and they seemed quite edgy. ‘Up to the Plains. But as to my purpose,’ he shrugged, ‘maybe to hunt a sand dragon, maybe just to take a look.’

  The man nodded and closed his book.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’ Anderson asked.

  ‘Don’t rightly know. Someone dangerous, alone and heading in towards Golgoth, so that puts you in the clear.’ He stared from one to the other of the pair. ‘Just so long as you don’t head towards Golgoth.’

  ‘Is it something to do with that explosion last night?’ Tergal asked.

  The man gazed over his shoulder into the buttes. ‘Could be. Some strange things happening lately.’ He stepped aside and waved them ahead.

  As he and Anderson departed the concrete road and headed back towards the route they had been travelling the previous day, Tergal suggested, ‘Perhaps we’ve already seen who they’re looking for.’

  ‘Heading in the wrong direction,’ Anderson observed. He glanced back. ‘I don’t know why, but I feel we’re well out of it
. I don’t like it when lots of people start running around with guns –makes me nervous.’

  Soon the metallier road and roadhouse were out of sight behind them, and they were travelling through a transformed landscape. The sulerbane plants were now knee-high to a human, but presented no problem for the two sand hogs. Joining the yellow fungus smearing the canyon walls were black-and-white checked nodules, things like pale green street lamps, and the occasional long shelf-like bracket fungus alternately white and transparently banded. Green fronds had also exploded from the ground in many places, exposing the flesh-red underground volvae in which they had been coiled. But it was the sudden faunal activity on which the two travellers kept a wary eye.

  Stilt spiders and sleers swarmed through the vegetation, though luckily nothing large enough to take on a sand hog, so the two of them, like white hunters on elephants, could view the activity of these alien tigers. Female sand gulpers no longer fed in lines spaced across the canyons, but clumped together in herds around the smaller males who now carried burdens of tubular eggs on their backs. Snapper beetles were everywhere, though dispersed now, such was the extent of the bounty on offer. And patches of ground in damper shadier places writhed with the activity of cliff-eels. By midday, nothing having tried to attack them, Anderson called a halt so that they could push aside sulerbane ground leaves and collect sand oysters, which they then ate raw while they travelled. It was only some minutes after this, as he was tossing a shell to one side, that he spotted the pursuing sand hog.

  ‘Oh hell,’ he said.

  ‘That woman,’ muttered Tergal, reaching for his weapon.

  Anderson waved a calming hand. ‘Put it up, boy. I misled you somewhat about her. She certainly doesn’t want me dead.’

  The hog Unger rode stood a man height taller than Bonehead, was ruddy-coloured and leaner. Anderson recognized a thoroughbred similar to those used in the races held in Bravence. As Unger drew it to a halt beside him and glared down, he winced.

  ‘Once again,’ she said, ‘you fail to say goodbye.’

  ‘You should know me by now, Unger.’

  ‘I think I do, but it has taken this last time to finally open my eyes. This, Anderson Endrik, is the last time I chase after you. Our love affair, to my mind, has been far too intermittent, and too often spoilt by my knowledge of how you like to put yourself in danger.’

  ‘The nature of my job,’ Anderson explained.

  ‘It doesn’t need to continue so.’

  ‘It’s all I know.’

  ‘We talked about alternatives. I have a place in Bravence. Come there with me now.’

  Anderson looked regretful. ‘Things to do –I can’t abandon them now.’

  Unger glanced at Tergal, then turned again to Anderson. ‘Boys’ games. I give you three months to take up my offer, then I take up other offers made to me.’

  Tapping her goad against one side of her hog’s carapace, she turned it back the way she had come. ‘Three months,’ she repeated, then whacked the goad down hard. As it hurtled away the big lean hog tore up vegetation.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll explain,’ said Tergal.

  ‘She wants a husband,’ Anderson admitted.

  ‘And this is the great danger you’ve been avoiding?’

  Anderson shrugged.

  Tergal went on, ‘If I hadn’t seen you kill that third-stager . . .’ He shook his head.

  Later that day, Tergal came to feel that the knight should concentrate on avoiding dangers of greater lethality.

  Personally, Fethan would rather have gone down to the surface of the planet than come across to this ship, but the order to do so had been emphatic, and so closely linked was he to the savage creation of Jerusalem inside him, that Fethan did not like to contemplate what might be the consequences of disobeying it. Gazing at the ship through his visor, he realized it must be ancient –centuries old at least. It was a colony ship: one of those sent out before the invention of the runcible, before the Quiet War, or AI takeover, and the Prador War –humanity’s first encounter with hostile aliens. Probably, on its very basic U-space drive, it had taken ages to reach this location, before the colonists could wake up and disembark.

  ‘Jack,’ he said suddenly, ‘the landers.’

  ‘Elaborate please,’ the AI replied.

  ‘Well, did they all parachute down?’

  There was a beat –a positive infinity in AI terms.

  ‘There are three landers attached to the central body of the ship. Presumably they were used to ferry the colonists and their supplies to the surface, then they were recalled to the ship.’

  ‘You’re thinking in AI terms.’

  ‘Is this relevant to our purposes here?’ asked Jack. ‘I am an attack ship, not an archaeologist.’

  ‘It might have some bearing on the situation below. If no return journey were intended, the colonists would’ve been daft not to make use of those landers. They’d have stripped out the ship too.’

  ‘Please let me know when you find out what occurred.’ Jack managed to inject bored sarcasm into his tone.

  As they drew closer to it, Fethan began to grasp the sheer scale of the ship.

  ‘There would have been thousands of colonists,’ Cento observed abruptly, ‘and hundreds of crew.’ Fethan did not disagree, but the Golem continued, ‘A ship like this was designed almost as a cargo carrier. The colonists would be in cold sleep, packed away just like the supplies the ship also carried. Even the crew would spend most of their time frozen, only being woken to perform essential maintenance tasks during the journey.’

  ‘Where’ll we look first?’ Fethan asked.

  ‘One of Jack’s telefactors has made an airlock in the sphere section operable.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The telefactor was clinging to the hull like a great iron mosquito, its proboscis injecting the power to run the airlock that lay open beside it. Finally reaching the lock, they entered into the light cast by a malfunctioning fluorescent and by the plastic control buttons below a flickering screen. Once they were inside, the outer door hinged shut, then the inner one hinged open, gusting vapour into the lock. Fethan checked his suit reading and realized that the air mix would asphyxiate a human. Overriding his suit’s safety devices, he removed his helmet and sniffed.

  ‘Dusty cellar with a hint of scrap yard,’ he said.

  Removing his own helmet, Cento said, ‘I smell oxidized metal and ketones.’

  ‘Like I said.’ Fethan led the way further into the ship.

  The tubular shaft leading from the airlock had sets of four doors spaced evenly around its perimeter at regular intervals, and traversing handles all down its length. When they came to a radial intersection, with six branching shafts, Fethan halted and moved back.

  ‘Let’s take a look in one of these.’ He gestured to one of the four doors just before the intersection. ‘This all looks like it might get a bit repetitive.’

  Luckily, the electrically operated door had an inset manual handle. Fethan took hold of this and attempted turning it in the direction indicated on the handle itself. Something clinked and it moved freely, detaching from the door with a slight tug.

  ‘Brittle,’ he observed, pushing himself along to the next door.

  Cento went over to another door to try that. Between them, they managed to snap off every handle. Fethan unshouldered his APW and began winding the setting of the weapon down to try and find something manageable.

  ‘Perhaps not advisable in here,’ said Cento. ‘It would be like trying to use an electric saw to cut wet tissue paper and, anyway, I’ve been here before.’ Cento stabbed his hand through a laminate of thin metal shell over foamed insulation. Then, getting a grip, his feet braced under a traversing handle, he heaved sideways, causing mechanisms to snap and crunch in the wall. Soon he had pushed the door far enough into the wall cavity for them to enter the room beyond.

  ‘Impressive,’ said Fethan, again shouldering his weapon. ‘Ain’t sure I could do that.’

 
‘Then get an upgrade.’ Cento led the way in.

  Fethan at once saw that they had entered one of probably hundreds of cryogenic storage chambers. The room was wedge shaped, and transparent upright tubes, large enough to contain a person in each one, crowded the area like pillars arranged with only narrow access between them.

  ‘Hypothermal storage,’ Cento said, reaching out and brushing his hand across one curved surface.

  The Golem was right. This was an old method of cryogenic storage, stemming from research into animal hibernation. People were pumped full of various exotic drugs and genfactored enzymes, before having their temperatures reduced to just above freezing point by being drowned in saturated brine. They were unconscious when this happened and their bodies constantly monitored thereafter, but there were risks in this old-fashioned method.

  ‘One in forty,’ said Fethan. ‘The chances were one in forty that you’d never wake up.’