by Neal Asher
Skellor and Crane reached the next floor and stepped out into an arboretum. The foliage of chestnuts, towering nettlelms and oaks concealed the far wall. Where they stood, the floor was slabbed granite in a semicircle, with paths of the same leading to the right and left alongside the near wall. Between this path and the trees was a strip of grass ten metres wide, nibbled, between pink and blue crocuses, by miniature beetle-mowers. In the forest, an interference field blurred scan, but Skellor picked up enough to know that Nalen’s people were bringing weapons to bear. He nodded to Crane, then, initiating his chameleonware, followed the path to his left. Moving away from him, towards the trees, Crane crossed the grass, kicking up huge clods with each loping stride and slowed only a little by the softness of the ground. A flashing in the trees: autogun. Skellor put out his own interference field, to foil any tracking of Crane. Lavender explosions stitched along the ground towards Crane, but kept going when he veered. Behind Skellor, a section of wall erupted into molten plasteel and incandescent gas. A glasshouse now ahead; the nexus—Nalen—retreating back beyond. Shots tracked manually along the wall behind as Skellor ran into a pane of chainglass, his hands issuing a decoder molecule. The glass collapsed into dust; he went through just as the screaming, and the firing of hand weapons, came from the trees.
— retroact 9 -
Alston carefully opened the box on his desk and spilled out a glittering pile of etched sapphires, then with a shaking hand he spread them out across the oak surface. He deliberately didn’t look at Chaldor, not that there was much recognizable about her: perhaps the clawed hand caught in the curtain, that length of bare thigh that was the largest part of her remaining, or a scrap of bloody clothing.
‘I know you can understand me. I know that behind that plastic face is a brain probably more sophisticated than both Angelina’s and Arian’s put together.’
The sapphires had definitely caught its attention, this thing that had shut down, one after another, the comunit transmissions from every single person on the island. Alston stared at the giant, raggedy, blood-soaked scarecrow as it tilted its head to one side, birdlike.
‘You must be a free Golem who, for whatever reason, Arian has managed to employ. That bullshit about a “broken” Golem is for scaring the children—it’s the sort of story he likes circulating to try to frighten his people. It doesn’t have that effect on me, because you’ve stopped, which means that something more than a simple kill order must be functioning.’
The Golem took a step into the room and looked around, obviously curious about the otter-bone sculptures, the imported antiques, the general decor. Then its attention swung back to Alston and his sapphires. Alston could feel sweat trickling down his back.
‘These?’ he waved a hand at the jewels’ scattered before him. ‘These are nothing. Pelter thinks he’s in control here, but his organization is located in only three of the main cities. To control this planet you have to control the papyrus harvest and the seas. I’ve got so many crop managers in my pocket, I can’t count them, and I run all of the otter-bone smuggling. Pelter’s annual turnover wouldn’t even reach ten per cent of the interest on mine.’
Alston leant forward. There was something in that plastic face—he was getting through! He knew it: you could always make a deal with anything that had a mind.
‘Think! Working for me you could have anything. I’ll give you Pelter’s entire organization. You could come in with me. Anything, anything you want.’
Alston felt his mouth suddenly go dry. What to offer a Golem android?
‘Any upgrade you want. You could load the best software, add memory crystal, get yourself Cybercorp syntheskin.’
The Golem reached up with one gory hand and touched its face.
‘That’s right, the best!’ Alston slid the jewels across towards the Golem. ‘Take these as a down payment. Go and get me Arian’s head, and that of his damned sister.’ He slid his chair back and stood. ‘Then we can begin. You can bring in other free Golem, buy up the contracts of any still indentured. Together we could have this world. And all our enemies…’ Alston flicked his fingers.
The Golem now stepped up until it was directly opposite Alston, looming over the desk. It reached down, picked up one of the sapphires and held the stone up to its eye.
‘They’re the best—one hundred thousand New Carth shillings each.’
The other hand snapped out so fast Alston had no time to react. Gripping the front of his jacket it pulled him close, then with bloodied fingers opened Alston’s mouth and shoved the sapphire inside, before picking up another. At four million shillings Alston finally died. He never yelled or screamed—was too full.
— retroact ends -
Tabrouth kissed the lion’s tooth he wore suspended from a chain around his neck, and sensed the growing fear in the network. They all knew what had happened on B-deck, and what was happening in the arboretum. The android was so damned fast that no way was it some primitive metalskin—it had to be a military-spec Golem, and that meant ECS must be on to Nalen. The APW autogun should have been enough to take it out, but just when they got a fix on it, the tracking system packed up and they missed. Now they were dying.
Tabrouth was frightened, but also relieved that Nalen’s control seemed not so firm. Yes, it had been great in the beginning, taking control of the station syndicate and being part of so superior an aug network. But gradually Nalen’s orders began to carry more weight until his merest whim became an order, and his orders became impossible to disobey. And there was that other thing: Nalen had been a small-time crime boss, stealing tech and information to sell under the nose of Ruby Eye, though all but ignored by her. Now he was manufacturing arms and using the sun-surveyors to run them to black ships arriving from out-Polity to the other side of the sun. That was something the station AI could not ignore for long. Anyone caught doing so would receive an automatic death sentence; consequently, that wouldn’t be something in which Tabrouth would involve himself. But Nalen’s control gave him no choice—Nalen who no longer really looked like a man.
Movement to his right. Tabrouth whirled and aimed his pulse-rifle—not that it would do him a lot of good if the Golem was coming for him. But it was only Paulson and Shroder shoving through the briars and simnel bushes growing below a line of nettlelms. Tabrouth stopped and waited for them. He noticed they were both blood-spattered.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘Tore the fucking autogun in half, then did the same to Alain and Solnek,’ said the hermaphrodite Shroder.
‘We got away when others opened up on it with the second gun. It went after that,’ Paulson explained. The man looked sick—and very tired. ‘It’s going. Nalen’s grip is slipping,’ he added.
‘So it feels,’ said Tabrouth. ‘Maybe it’s time for us to get the hell out of here.’
Tabrouth waited for some response to that, but noticed the two were staring past him, their faces white with fear. Tabrouth had heard nothing, but then that didn’t surprise him.
‘It’s standing right behind me, isn’t it?’ he said.
Paulson and Shroder both gave the same slow nod as if invisible rods joined their heads. Tabrouth sighed and turned.
The Golem loomed before him, its coat neatly buttoned, undamaged and clear of any unpleasant stains. This made no sense, after many had hit it with pulse weapons; though its adamantine body might itself remain undamaged, its clothing should at least be ripped and burnt. And where was the blood, and the other fluids and tissues? You did not do to a human being what this Golem had been doing without getting in a horrible mess. But then, he thought, what did it matter about such inconsistencies? The Golem’s eyes were obsidian in its brass face; its massive hands were capable of tearing a man like tissue paper. And now Tabrouth was about to die.
‘You are one big ugly murderous bastard, aren’t you?’ he said, deciding that to beg would be futile. He raised his pulse-rifle and aimed it at the Golem’s chest. Just as he did this, Paulson and Shrode
r opened up with their own weapons, both also pulse-rifles. Bluish fire and metallic smoke flared and exploded all down the front of the Golem. Seemingly oblivious to this, it stepped forward, then reached out and gripped the barrel of Tabrouth’s weapon in its big hand, so that he was now firing directly into its palm. Tabrouth stared down disbelievingly at the sun glare reflected in that hand as he continued holding down the trigger. His weapon heated rapidly, then molten metal sputtered out of its side as its coils blew. Tabrouth released his hold and staggered back, his hands seared. After-images occluded his vision, and only subliminally did he see his weapon spiralling away. Other firing ceased. He supposed Paulson and Shroder had run away, and didn’t blame them in the least.
The same big hand closed on his neck, its brassy metal not even warm, and hauled him into the air, choking. Then something snapped and tore and, gasping for breath, Tabrouth hit the ground on his feet and fell over backwards. He groped at his neck, sure the Golem had crushed it and that he was yet to feel the killing pain, but found only that his lion’s tooth, his good-luck charm, was gone. Through shadowed vision, he saw the big Golem striding off after the other two. When he finally recovered his breath, he ran just as fast as he could for the nearest exit. The only time he looked back was when the blast from an ECS riot gun spun him off his feet, and even then he did not see Paulson and Shroder hot on his heels, relieved respectively of a ring with a pre-runcible coin set in it and a cheap scent bottle.
9
The kind of AI used in smaller human-partnership survey ships is contained in crystal similar to that of the Golem, but with computing capacity a Golem would use for emulation, devoted to U-space calculations, and extra capacity allotted for a greater array of senses. IQ 185 (whatever that means). Your basic attack ship AI can function at a human level, or create and assign subminds to this tedious task. As well as the required ability to make U-space calculations, it can run complex internal repair and modification programs, operating through multiple subminds, installed in everything from ship Golem to nanobots. It can operate complex and powerful weapons systems, make high-speed tactical decisions in fractions of a second. Its IQ would be about 300. Then we come to the runcible/planetary governor AIs. Most of these intelligences run in crystal, but at a vastly greater capacity than even attack ships. They can run subminds of full AI Golem level, balance the economy of a planet, make millions of U-space calculations for the operation of a runcible… The list goes on and on. Such AIs are omniscient and omnipotent, and any attempt to measure IQ is laughable. Yet even these are not at the apex. Some AIs run differently; using etched-atom processing, quantum computing… These are often sector-class AIs of almost mythic status, like the awesome Geronamid and that roving AI Einstein Jerusalem and, of course, Earth Central itself. We could never have imagined such gods…
— Excerpt from a speech by Jobsworth
After carefully rereading the instructions in the fading light, Anderson detached the breech clamp, set the lever over to single shots, and cocked the carbine. He then aimed at the sulerbane plant below the nearest butte, squeezed off one shot and, even after firing off five shots, was still surprised at how little smoke the gun emitted. The noise, though also less than that generated by his fusile, was vicious enough. He peered thoughtfully at where the bullet had struck the ground, to the left of the plant. Behind him, he heard Bonehead sigh as it sank down on its belly plates. Tergal raised his handgun and fired twice, knocking off one of the plant’s hard resinous leaves.
‘I think I’m getting the hang of this,’ the boy said smugly.
Anderson removed his helmet and dropped it beside his feet, then turned and stared hard at where his fusile was holstered on Bonehead’s back.
‘I’m overcompensating. I should just follow the instructions and use the sight,’ he said, expecting Tergal to make some sarcastic quip, for this was what the boy had already advised him twice. When no comment was forthcoming, he glanced over to see Tergal staring at him in amazement. With a grimace, Anderson reached up and rubbed his perfectly bald head.
‘Fell out when I was a boy and never grew back,’ he said. ‘My mother said it’s because I think too much.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Tergal, embarrassed.
Anderson raised his weapon and fired again, but again the plant remained untouched.
‘I thought you were going to use the sight?’ Smug again.
‘I did.’
The sleer thudded down next to the plant, a hole perfectly positioned between its extensible antlers. It writhed on the ground, its segments revolving independently, then it separated. Its rear section got up on four legs and attempted to make a break for safety. Anderson put a shot into its raw-looking separation point and it collapsed. He turned to Tergal, allowing himself a sly smile. ‘Now we’ve got something to cook on the fire you’re about to make with all those leaves you just slew.’
Tergal stared back, but Anderson saw that the boy had got the message. He humphed, holstered his weapon and walked over to the sulerbane plant and the dead sleer. Frequently glancing above him for any sign of other creatures, he began collecting thick dry leaves. Meanwhile, Anderson returned to Bonehead, clambered up on the creature’s carapace, and unstrapped his packs from behind the saddle. As Tergal returned with a stack of leaves, Anderson was driving posts into the sand — setting up the perimeter of their camp. While the boy then arranged the leaves around a wax firelighter and ignited that with smoky sulphurous matches, Anderson unreeled wire and secured it to the posts.
‘This won’t be enough,’ said Tergal, gesturing at the small stack of leaves heaped beside the fire.
‘You’re sure to find shed carapace around here—that burns good and slow,’ Anderson replied. It was evident to him now that, though Tergal had been travelling for some time, he had never really camped out in wilds like this. He watched as Tergal retrieved his own pack from Stone, and dropped it by the fire before going off in search of more fuel. By the time the boy returned with old sleer sheddings and more of the thick resinous leaves, Anderson had erected the two wires to make a fence a metre high, though with a gap through which Tergal could re-enter, and was now levering off the head from the front end of the dead sleer with his heavy steel knife.
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 stil
l 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.