by Neal Asher
‘Who is it?’
‘I am Unger Salbec’
Fusile quickly up and braced against his hip—he had kept it loaded.
‘What do you want?’ Anderson pulled the hammer back and advanced to the door.
‘I want to talk to you about my brother.’
‘What’s to say? He committed crimes, knowing the penalties, and he paid. Have you come to tell me how he was really a good boy and had been sadly misled?’ Anderson leant forward and flipped the latch over with the barrel of his gun, then rapidly moved back and to one side.
Unger Salbec opened the door and stepped into the room. She seemed not to be carrying weapons, so perhaps only a tongue-lashing was to come. But then, he considered, she probably had a gun tucked into the back of her loose trousers, concealed by her tunic. Ah, any moment now, he thought, as she reached back to close the door and latch it.
He went on, ‘The other one I get often is how poor the criminal’s family was, and how with money he or she would never have turned to crime, which I’ve always considered insulting to those poor people who graft all their lives without putting a foot wrong.’
There was no denying that, barring her resemblance to her sociopathic brother, Unger Salbec was an alluring woman. Her brown hair was tied back from a wide but attractive face, and since she was of metallier ancestry, she was without lip tendrils or wrist spurs. Also, Anderson couldn’t help but notice the unrestricted movement beneath her tunic.
‘You are right, it is insulting,’ she said, moving in from the door. ‘From childhood I trained in the husbandry and breaking-in of sand hogs—and only last month was I finally considered competent. I have supported my parents, and… Querst. He repaid me by trying to rape me, and when I beat him off with a thuriol hook he went and found my best friend Elasen to rape and murder instead. I’m not here for vengeance, Anderson Endrik—I’m here to thank you.’ She shrugged and gave him a deprecating grin.
It all sounded so plausible, but that same plausibility was the reason he required the dressings. Foolishly, he had thought the boy Querst would run, when in fact he had waited in ambush. Anderson intended never to repeat such mistakes.
‘I’d like to believe you, but you’ll understand my caution.’
‘I am unarmed,’ she said, holding her hands out from her body.
‘So you say.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
Anderson shrugged.
‘Very well.’ Unger reached up to the neck of her tunic, and dipped forward to tug it off over her head. She kicked off the sandals she wore, undid the cord of her trousers, and dropped them to her ankles, stepping out of them. Now completely naked she moved closer to Anderson and turned one complete circle. ‘See, no weapons.’
His mouth feeling a little arid, Anderson stared at her plump breasts then down at her shaven crotch. He noted the wheel tattooed over her belly button—a metallier sign—and the curved scar on her thigh. This last decided him, for it was the kind of mark received from the sharp edge of a young sand hog’s carapace. Clicking his fusile’s hammer down, he put the weapon aside.
‘Now let me really thank you,’ she had said, and so she had.
Returning to the present, Anderson realized he had a raging erection. It had ever been thus, and he cursed his treacherous body.
‘The latch is off,’ he said.
Unger Salbec stepped into the room, a touch of grey in her hair and the angles of her face somewhat harsher. “Did you think you could keep on avoiding me?’
‘I’ve managed to do so for a year,’ Anderson replied.
She eyed the towel around his waist. ‘But I can see you’re glad to see me.’
‘I’m filthy, and I need a bath,’ he said.
She stepped up close, pulled his towel away, then reached down to close her hand around his penis, and slowly began to rub it.
‘It’s a big tub. I’m sure there’s room for the both of us.’
Anderson sighed. One way or another he had been running away from this woman for the last five years, and she knew how to catch him every time
* * * *
Cormac had never before come out of cold sleep with a stinking headache, and he realized that his reaction to Jack’s news could perhaps have been a bit more positive. But after he applied an analgesic patch his headache faded and he began to see reason.
‘I understand why you zapped the Vulture,’ said Thorn, sitting in one of the club chairs, ‘but doing it straight away will have given him ample warning we are here.’
He looked better now, comfortable in ECS fatigues, and not hallucinating as Cormac felt sure he must have been shortly after his surgery. What he had seen was not possible, surely? With a degree of unease Cormac remembered something similar happening with Blegg on the Occam Razor, but of course that just wasn’t the same.
Still pacing, Cormac replied before the AI did. ‘Those swarms of U-space sentinels probably aren’t all Dragon’s, so Skellor would have detected us the moment we entered this system.’ He looked up at the view displayed of the sandy planet wrapped in pearly scarves of cloud. ‘The first ECS imperative was to make sure Skellor doesn’t get away. Jack acted on that, even if in doing so he destroyed something we might have used as a trap.’ He glanced across as Cento and Gant entered the bridge, shortly followed by Fethan, then added a little acidly, ‘I suspect the larger AI view is that once Skellor’s contained he can be destroyed at leisure, and that any collateral damage will come into the calculation later.’
‘It’s like Masada,’ Thorn observed.
‘How so?’
‘Like Masada—only turned about. Skellor wanted to capture you there. He destroyed what he thought were all means of transportation from the surface, then sent in his hunters but with no great urgency because he knew he could burn the entire planet down to the bedrock any time he liked.’
‘Is that how you feel about it, Jack?’ Cormac asked, turning to the automaton sitting in its club chair.
‘There are humans down there,’ said the hangman.
‘That wasn’t what I asked, but never mind. What about Dragon?’
‘Over the plain adjacent to where I destroyed Skellor’s ship, a hard-field dome has been erected. It is ten kilometres in diameter but of no great height. The Dragon sphere is probably underneath it, underground. I surmise this because that particular point is the epicentre of a gravity phenomenon.’
‘What?’ asked Cormac.
‘Gravity waves are being generated from there, causing earthquakes throughout the area.’
Cormac wondered how the hell he was supposed to factor that in: a Dragon sphere underground playing around with gravtech. He decided things were complicated enough already.
‘Go on,’ he said.
Jack continued, ‘Also, one of my telefactors is approaching the area, and I have already detected subterranean tunnel systems similar to those first found around Dragon on Aster Colora.’
‘Have you tried communicating?’ Cormac asked.
‘Only light penetrates the barrier. I’ve tried using message lasers, but get no response.’
‘Could Skellor be inside that barrier?’ Gant asked. ‘Maybe you need to put a few slow-burners through the plain as well, and maybe a couple of imploders—just in case.’
‘More likely Dragon erected it to keep Skellor out,’ said Cormac. ‘We know Dragon has as much liking of Jain technology as you have of Dragon itself, Gant.’
‘Then where is Skellor?’ interjected Thorn.
‘Jack?’ Cormac asked.
‘I am scanning from here, and four more of my telefactors are quartering the whole area, but I have not yet located him,’ the AI replied. ‘Though I have located another ship.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Cormac instructed.
‘An old Polity attack boat, refurbished and most likely privately owned. It is located in a mountain cave system five thousand kilometres from Skellor’s landing site. All its systems are shut down, and scanning indicat
es it has not been used in some years, possibly decades.’
‘Any sign of the crew?’
‘Nothing that stands out, though people from the ship could be mingled with the indigenes. No aug signals or any other signs of Polity technology.’
‘What about that colony ship in orbit?’
‘Virtually inert, and has probably been so for centuries. I get a beacon response to an old-style com-laser frequency, but nothing else. Scanning reveals no one aboard. Skellor could be there using his personal chameleonware, but as nothing there has been activated or interfered with, the probability is much higher that he’s on the surface.’
‘I could check that ship out for you,’ Fethan piped up. ‘I’m getting a bit stir-crazy in this old tin can, and it would be a relief to even go and look around in another.’
Something like a snort of pique issued from Jack.
Cormac stared at the old cyborg estimatingly, then said, ‘Okay—go and take a look. You go with him, Cento. Power it up and secure it if you can. The rest of us will go down to the surface and see what we can find out from the human population. Jack—you’ve been listening in on them?’
‘Yes—their language is rooted in old standard English with a strong French influence. I can load a linguistic crib program directly to Gant, and to you through your gridlink, but Thorn will require VR teaching of some hours.’
Cormac turned to Thorn. ‘I’ll want you on the ground soonest, so get yourself into VR—you’re no use to me if you can’t understand the answers you beat out of people.’
‘That would be most annoying,’ Thorn replied, standing.
‘When you’re ready, take the second lander over to this grounded Polity ship and check it out, then you can rendezvous with us.’
Thorn nodded.
‘Right,’ said Cormac to them all. ‘Let’s find this bastard.’
* * * *
His senses now directly connected into one of his miniature sentinels, Skellor studied the ship that had destroyed the Vulture, and experienced a feeling of unreality. A soldier would feel this way when, peering over the edge of his trench, he saw a bulldozer bearing down on him. For a fraction of a second he just denied what he was seeing, then came acceptance—and fear. He considered his options.
If he ran and hid he could evade detection for a very long time, but he was still in a trap. It was possible ECS might, after searching meticulously and finding no further evidence he was here, decide that the Vulture — and Crane, should they find him—had been decoys. But that possibility was reliant only on Dragon saying nothing, and he doubted that. ECS might also choose the option of taking this planet out of the equation permanently, but the likelihood was low, what with this place’s indigene population and the AI regard for sentient life. Shutting down his link to his sentinels, Skellor stared down at what had become of the man called Plaqueast — the man’s name was one of the smaller scraps of information Skellor had torn from his mind.
Plaqueast’s arms and legs had withered, their substance having been drawn into his increasingly bloated body. His clothing had parted to reveal skin deeply veined and mottled in shades of purple and yellow. His skull had now collapsed, what remained of his head only retaining enough integrity to accommodate his mouth for breathing—and as a birth channel for the aug lice still crawling from it. Jain tendrils extruding from his lower body rooted in the sandy soil, seeking out nutrient for the ongoing process. Already, only a few metres away, those tendrils had found a suitable source, and had dragged to the earth and were sucking dry one of the sleer/human hybrids. All about—up the butte to which this bloated thing bound itself with mucal webs, across the ground, up pillars, and amid the trusses high above and on the underside of the platform—scuttled hundreds of the aug creatures. But there were not enough yet, for Skellor needed thousands if he was to hold a suitable hostage to ransom.
However, it was time for the hostage-taking to begin.
* * * *
The exterior input centre looked as if someone had flensed it with autogun fire, such was its ruination. The gravplates, now working again but utterly disconnected from any form of computer control, had dragged the smoke into laminations, and dropped tangles of optics and superconductors and numerous shattered components to the floor. The air was now getting stale and smelt strongly of sweat and fear.
‘That’s the last of them,’ said D’nissan, tossing a memory crystal no bigger than his fingernail into the deep-scanning sphere—where all such items had been dumped. Mika hoped it would be enough, for if Jerusalem detected any computer activity, the AI would refuse to send a rescue vessel, and they would have to scour the centre again and again until it was clean.
‘Okay, everybody,’ D’nissan continued, ‘all personal comps in here, and anything with any kind of memstorage. That means even memory cloth knickers and any items of jewellery holding personal messages. You’re all scientists, so you know exactly what I mean.’
After pulling out its power pack, Mika tossed her thin-gun into the sphere. It might not have possessed much in the way of mind, but there was enough there for it to link into any targeting system its owner might decide to wear, and for it to identify its owner, therefore enough to absorb a virus or a worm. She then watched as other items were reluctantly tossed after it: a shirt bearing the slowly shifting images of ancient media stars; jewellery probably containing holographic messages from loved ones; wristcomps, neckcomps, anklecomps, palmtops and laptops; and even a pair of boots, though Mika could not fathom what kind of memstorage they might contain.
‘That’s it, Jerusalem,’ said D’nissan, finally.
Jerusalem replied, ‘Scan shows no informational activity. You are clear to return to me, though be aware that you will be passing through a further series of scans, so if anyone has forgotten any little items…’
Nobody stepped forward. They all knew just how deadly the situation was.
That was it, in the end, thought Mika: all this destruction just to prevent any trace of infection leaving this place. It was fortunate, she supposed, that Jerusalem’s paranoia did not extend to the kind of memory storage that sat between her ears—in this situation at least. It occurred to her that the AI had probably assessed as low the probability that the virus infecting Exterior Input would be sufficiently powerful to find access to the human brain through normal human senses. Even Skellor had only managed to do that through Dracocorp augs.
Something engaged with a clonk and the centre shuddered, sending people stumbling, because the grav-plates, no longer computer controlled, did not compensate. Then the iris over the main door opened, exposing an incredibly long straight tunnel.
‘Well, there’s our road to Jerusalem,’ Colver quipped.
Mika had expected some sort of rescue craft, but as soon as she entered the telescopic tunnel she realized that Jerusalem must have extruded it directly from itself. Soon all the staff were weightless inside, dragging themselves the long distance back by using the flimsy wall handles. Behind them, a second iris closed, and it seemed to Mika that, like in a nightmare, no matter how far she travelled, this iris never seemed to recede. Then she realized that the tunnel was contracting from there, its metallofilm sleeves sliding into each other. Later a brief flash lit the passageway through its translucent walls.
‘There went External Input,’ Colver observed grimly.
How long, Mika wondered, before Jerusalem had to deal with a contaminated human instrument in the same manner?
* * * *
Mr Crane marched indefatigably through darkness, pausing only to fend off the regular attacks of second-stage sleers that were neither albino nor sapphire-eyed. Then, halfway through the night, these attacks ceased, and he even walked past a third-stager crouched atop a low butte, with its nightmare pincers silhouetted against starlit sky, without incurring any reaction. Later he halted to observe some twenty rear breeder sections of both second and third stages of sleer in an orgiastic tangle, like mating frogs. He watched them for s
ome time, noting their two-pronged tentacular extrusions intertwining, spilling glutinous fluids and dark blood, how sand got stuck to chitinous limbs and body segments by this mess, and was rolled into balls and clods that tumbled stickily away.
He had been ordered to keep going until he reached Dragon, but to do that it was necessary to protect himself, which raised conflicting imperatives. Speciously he reasoned that he watched these creatures because when whole they attacked him, therefore he must carefully assess in advance what danger they represented. Never, in the fractured chaos that comprised his mind, did one fragment reveal to another one evidence of that condition called curiosity.
At length the tangle began to unravel and, like revellers heading drunkenly for home, the sleer breeder sections began staggering away, some on four legs and some on two like escapees from The Garden of Earthly Delights. One of these Boschean creatures, Crane noted, was ambushed by the front or hunting section of another sleer, and devoured even while the devourer’s own breeder section reattached behind it. After the final hardened partiers went on their way, Crane stood and continued on his—and once again creatures unable to resist investigating anything that moved shot out of the shadows to fracture their mouthparts on his adamantine body. Just before the sunrise, these attacks ceased for a second time, and the reasons for all smaller sleers to keep their heads down soon became apparent.
Their pincers were huge and lethally sharp-edged, their sawing mandibles larger than any he had seen and also sharp along the opposite side to their saw-teeth. Below them, and the mouth itself, extended two limbs terminating in something that looked exactly like ice-axes. In some part of himself Crane guessed that all these extra horrors had evolved for feeding upon similarly thick-shelled creatures—like saws and hammers and levers used to get at the meat inside—but he was also aware of how they might apply to himself. Those mouth parts were level a metre above his head — the creatures were truly massive—and Crane understood that now he faced a real threat. But what he could not guess was that he was witnessing creatures that many on Cull considered purely mythical.