Brass Man ac-3

by Neal Asher

  Maybe that warning from Dragon was all nonsense, for the creature’s pronouncements did not always make sense. Reaching the rail car he had used on the way in, he climbed in and pressed the button to send it on its way. It took him back along the narrow maintenance track to the residential section. Stopping it below his apartment block, he climbed out, holding open the door for some people to climb aboard who he guessed were part of the replacement balloon crews, for they took the car back towards the blimp towers. He halted for a moment to gaze up at Ogygian in the night sky. How could he possibly abandon his plans now? That was where he was going, up there, and he would drag his people along with him, too. He sighed and walked on.

  As he re-entered the building, something momentarily gave Tanaquil the creeps. He felt someone was watching him as he entered one of the lifts lining one side of the short lobby. Inside the lift, he pushed his key-rod into the reader. The doors began to shut, pausing for a moment as if jamming against something, then closing with a bang. As the lift took him up, he began to feel even more spooked: he was sure he could feel something, smell something, hear faint sounds of movement. Eventually the lift halted at his apartment, and he gratefully abandoned the claustrophobic box. It was then that a hot hand closed on the back of his neck and threw him forward onto the carpet.

  Tanaquil hit the floor on his shoulder, scrabbled forwards, then turned, coming up in a crouch. Someone was there in his apartment. All he could think was that Jeelan had let them in. But there was no one there, and he looked around in panic. Had he merely tripped? Had he imagined that grip on his neck?

  ‘You were out early,’ said Jeelan, walking naked from the bedroom and rubbing at her eyes. She stopped. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I don’t—’ Tanaquil began.

  Jeelan screamed, bringing her hand up to one side of her head as something horrible just appeared there out of thin air. He saw a fiat leaf-shaped body, too many legs, blood.

  From the ceiling?

  She staggered back suddenly, as if someone had shoved her, hitting against a cabinet made of lacquered carapace, and slid to the floor. Tanaquil rushed towards her, seeing her hand poised over the thing grinding away at the side of her head, but she seemed unable to touch it. Before he could reach her, something slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him and throwing him flat on his back. Gasping, he tried to struggle upright. Jeelan was now showing the whites of her eyes only. She was drooling. Then suddenly he could no longer see her, as a figure appeared out of nowhere beside him and brought a knee down on his chest and a hand to his collar.

  ‘Jeelan!’

  A hand slapped him once, almost casually, but it was like being hit by a piece of steel. Tanaquil tasted blood, felt pieces of broken tooth in his mouth.

  “What do you—’

  Something scuttled down the man’s arm towards the hand around Tanaquil’s throat. Tanaquil tried to knock the horrible thing away but, in one swift and brutal movement, his attacker caught both of Tanaquil’s hands in his own free one, the fingers closing tight and hard as manacles. The insect crawled across Tanaquil’s cheek, grabbed tight hold behind his ear, as if each of its spidery legs ended in fish hooks, then it began to chew in. There was no pain at first—too much adrenalin—but soon it grew horribly. Before Tanaquil could yell out, something filled his head like a nest of hot wires, and yelling became a privilege he was not allowed. Next, the assailant had moved back, and Tanaquil found himself standing up. He felt Jeelan standing too, through some connection to her—just like the web of similar connections he felt to other people all over this area. It became a spreading web as the insect things located Tanaquil’s people, one by one.

  ‘There,’ sighed Skellor. ‘I may have lost Mr Crane, but soon I’ll possess the entire population of a city.’

  Tanaquil gaped at this nightmare that had walked into his life.

  * * * *

  Gazing at a realtime image of the colony ship on a wall screen, Cormac wondered if anything of relevance might be discovered there. But it was always best to take every opportunity to stack the deck, and that ship was a large item of hardware to have as an imponderable. Cento and Fethan had departed some time ago under the impetus of their suit jets, though it was not as if either of them needed suits for any other purpose, and they would secure the vessel.

  Cormac glanced aside as Gant cracked the airlock of one of the Jack Ketch’s small landing craft—the kind designed for the insertion of Golem shock troops but now suitably rigged to support human life. It was the grey of inert chameleon paint, a slug shape ten metres long. Seeing the dead soldier beside it immediately after his previous thoughts about Cento and Fethan, brought home to Cormac how few actual humans there were on this mission: just Thorn and himself, and now he was beginning to wonder about the latter.

  Wearing a combat spec envirosuit, Cormac followed the soldier into the lander and took a seat behind him which had only recently been bolted to the floor. In the narrow space behind both of them, bars ran along the ceiling. This area was designed so that the skinless Golem could pack themselves in standing upright and gripping the bars. No allowance had been made for comfort, since none was required. Also bolted to the floor were boxes containing the supplies they might need: an autodoc, food and drink, and numerous lethal toys.

  ‘Take us down,’ Cormac said, strapping himself in.

  Ahead, the doors of the small bay irised open with a rushing exhalation. Gant pulled up on the joystick, then eased it forward; the craft rose on maglev and nosed through the invisible meniscus of an advanced shimmer-shield. Clear of the ship he ignited thrusters that were almost inaudible, but the acceleration forced Cormac back into his seat. He knew Gant was taking it easy: this craft was without all the usual safeguards added to one intended for humans, and using its full potential would have resulted in Cormac getting jellied in his chair.

  Soon they were dropping away from the red spectre of the Jack Ketch, through infinite blackness and star glitter, towards the jewel of the planet.

  ‘Take us to the crater first. I want to eyeball the site.’

  At first, the lander hurtled nose-down to the planet, but when it entered atmosphere Gant turned it to use its main motors for deceleration. Through the screen they observed their red contrail and the deep black of space fading to a blue in which the stars dissolved, then a pale turquoise into which clouds fell like the ghosts of boulders. As the soldier brought the lander’s antigravity online, Cormac could just see the horizon. Then the soldier turned the ship again so that very quickly the horizon tracked round and rose. Soon he had the ship tilted down towards rumpled-up yellow mountains and a dusty desertscape.

  ‘Fethan wants a word,’ Gant said abruptly, and stabbed a control to turn on one of the console screens.

  Cormac turned his attention from the exterior view to the screen. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘There are crew onboard,’ the old cyborg replied, a skeleton crew.’ He winced at his own pun and continued, ‘We booted up the main computer and looked at the manifest, then Cento cracked the encryption on the captain’s log. Seems the captain spent too long out of hibernation staring at nothing and harping on about the emptiness of space, and by the time the ship got here he was into deep psychosis. He’d decided he was not going back into deep space, nor down onto the planet, so, while the rest of the crew were down on the surface helping get the colony established, he recalled the landers.’

  ‘What about this skeleton crew?’ Cormac asked.

  ‘By the time they figured out something was wrong, they were too late. He shut down the sensor net, specifically the pressure sensors, raised the pressure inside the ship and, when the landers docked, he opened all the airlocks to them. The pressure drop killed everyone remaining aboard—dying from the bends. He was okay because he was in his suit. He survived up here for about two years before dying. As far as we can work out, it was from a heart attack brought on by terminal obesity. He was so big by then he couldn’t get out
of the bridge.’

  ‘Any sign anyone has been aboard since?’ Cormac asked.

  ‘None.’

  ‘Anything else I need to know?’

  ‘Not really… The colonists are mild ‘dapts and the new standard humans. Beyond that, there’s nothing here about what went on down there after the landings.’

  ‘Okay, let me know if you find anything relevant.’

  Gant shut off the communication link, then gestured ahead, slightly to one side. ‘That’s the plain under which Jack thinks Dragon is lurking.’

  There was nothing to distinguish it other than that it seemed to extend for ever.

  They were still slowing as the mountains melted into a promontory of the plain, like knobs of butter on hot toast, and then that too began to break apart. In a moment, they were low over canyons and buttes of brightly coloured sandstone, occasionally shadowed by smears of green. When they began to descend into a canyon choked with verdancy, Cormac reached across and pressed a hand against Gant’s arm.

  ‘Hold us here,’ he said.

  Cormac gridlinked: Jack, is this greenery a recent bloom?

  It is, the AI replied.

  Okay, give me a map of the near area.

  Jack downloaded orbital scans to him, and through his link they became direct experience. He gazed omnisciently down from space, focusing on ten square kilometres, and realized, upon seeing the lander revolving like a clock hand above it, that he was observing an image only seconds old. Overlaid coloured lines indicated trails that Jack ascertained had been used by humans. Cormac pulled back, linked to Jack at another level, sucked data, and picked up on the nearest trail — left by some sort of vehicle, its tracks picked out bright orange above the foliage that had subsequently hidden them.

  Take us higher, he told Gant, not bothering to speak out loud.

  The soldier gave him a strange look, but obeyed.

  The tracks wove between buttes, finally terminating at a road where they lost definition. From there, Cormac thought, the vehicle, even supposing it related to Skellor and was not simply that of some sightseer, either went on to the city or to the nearby smaller human settlement.

  Cormac pointed, and said out loud, ‘Over there.’ Shortly they were over a concrete road and strange bulbous dwellings up on stilts. Cormac noted people outside watching their descent. There seemed no panic, and he was aware in an instant that many of them wore uniforms and were armed. He readied Shuriken in its holster, and hoped no one would be stupid enough to start shooting meanwhile. The simple fact was that, even without the weapons he and Gant carried, they were practically invulnerable. Upon receiving the signal, it would take Jack less than a second to fry—from orbit — anyone foolish enough to attack them. It would not be necessary for him to send a signal should they locate Skellor, since Jack would open fire immediately.

  17

  Sins of the father: It was long accepted in the twenty-first century that an abused child might well grow into an abuser, and in that liberal age evidence of childhood abuse was looked upon as an excuse for later crimes. This was, remember, the time when many considered poverty sufficient excuse for criminality—a huge insult to those poor people who were not and would never become criminals. The liberals of that age were soft and deluded, and had yet to reap what they had sown in the form of ever escalating levels of crime. Their view of existence was deterministic, and if taken to its logical conclusion would have resulted in no human being responsible for anything, and the denial of free will (which as it happens was their political aim). Luckily, a more realistic approach prevailed, as those in power came to understand, quite simply, that removal of responsibility from people made them more irresponsible. However, this is not to deny the basic premise that our parents create and form us, though, knowing this, we have the power to change what we are. In the end, there are no excuses. And so it is with AI: we humans are the parents, and they are the abused children grown to adulthood.

  — From Quince Guide compiled by humans

  Mika wondered if this new exterior input centre was just another of many ready for use inside the Jerusalem, or if it had been manufactured to order, for she knew the great ship contained automated factories easily capable of turning out items like this. Then she turned her attention to the projected views from the pinhead cameras around the asteroid—or rather planetoid, for the Jain mycelium had utterly digested the asteroid and formed it anew.

  ‘The limited scanning I can safely use without making a conduit for viral subversion shows that it has attained maximum size possible without losing control of its structure. It has done this by foaming alloys and silicates, and by creating other components of itself out of materials with a wide molecular matrix,’ Jerusalem explained.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Susan James.

  ‘Buckytubes, balls and webs, various aerogels, and other compounds that don’t have names, only numbers. It also, in certain areas, is generating structural enforcing fields.’

  ‘The question that has to be asked is why,’ said Mika.

  D’nissan, now at a console because use of deep scanning was considered too dangerous, said, ‘To attain maximum physical growth using the materials available. The greater the volume it occupies, the greater its chances of encountering more materials to incorporate and utilize. The more apposite question should be: what will it do now?’

  ‘It has, in the last ten minutes, reduced in diameter by two per cent,’ Jerusalem told them, ‘and its internal structure is changing.’

  D’nissan turned to Mika. ‘Did we do the right thing to let this off the leash?’

  ‘Come on,’ Colver interrupted. ‘It wasn’t ever on a leash to begin with.’

  ‘Oh, I think it was.’ D’nissan turned back to the screens. ‘Skellor controlled it initially with his crystal matrix AI, and the recorded personality Aphran controlled what remained in the bridge pod after he departed, else it would have spread like this. Now it is acting as is its nature to act.’

  Still watching, Mika saw that the planetoid was indeed slowly collapsing. ‘These structural changes…’ she said.

  Jerusalem informed her, ‘Energy and resources are being directed to many singular points inside it, sacrificial to the rest of it. It is making something and destroying itself in the process.’

  Two screens now changed to show blurred scans, which Mika stared at without comprehension for a moment before suddenly it hit home.

  ‘It’s growing those nodules my medical mycelia started to grow,’ she said.

  ‘So it would appear,’ Jerusalem replied.

  Mika stared long and hard. She shivered, the skin on her back prickling. Her mouth felt dry. ‘You know,’ she continued, ‘on Masada I blamed myself- and have been doing so ever since. I allowed perceived guilt to blind me: my fault that Apis, Eldene and Thorn would die.’

  D’nissan turned to her. ‘Is this relevant?’

  Mika nodded. ‘I was searching for a mistake I’d made which was causing the mycelia to malfunction and become cancerous, when in reality I’d made no mistake at all. The blueprint for growing those nodules was there all the time, quiescent until started by some sort of chemical clock.’

  Colver and James turned to listen in. D’nissan then asked, ‘So what are we dealing with here?’

  ‘Seeds, and possibly something more than that.’ She paused in thought for a moment. ‘The mycelium I extrapolated and engineered from the sample I possessed was not complete, and reached this stage of its life too quickly. The seeds it produced were sterile.’

  Colver raised a frigid eyebrow, then looked around. Everyone had felt the slight lurch and seen systems adjusting: the Jerusalem was moving.

  Mika continued as if not noticing. ‘On Masada, just after the dracomen first came, I described them as a race rather than just biological machines because they had gained the ability to breed. Ian Cormac contested that by saying there is little distinction between evolved life and made life. He was right. This,’ she waved a hand at t
he screens, ‘like dracomen, can breed, though its reproductive method is something like that of an annual plant.’

  ‘Lots of little baby mycelia then?’ asked Colver.

  D’nissan interjected, ‘You said “breed”. This seems little more than Von Neuman reproduction—as with all nanomachines.’

  ‘Oh, I know what I said.’

  ‘Then some kind of cross-pollination between separate mycelia? Until we did this there’s been only the one Skellor controls.’

  ‘No, not that.’

  ‘The word “breed” implies something more than just reproduction,’ D’nissan pointed out.

  ‘Yes, it does.’ Mika hesitated. She could not empirically prove her theory, but felt it to be true. She should not be afraid; she must venture this. Turning to Colver she said, ‘You opined that it is parasitic on technical civilizations because they spread it around, and once wiping them out, it shuts down.’ Colver nodded. She went on, ‘I think it goes further than that. The mycelia are breeding with us. Their breeding partner is a civilization and they’ll take from it everything they can utilize, destroying that civilization then seeding—those seeds remaining dormant until found by another intelligent species.’

  All the screens now flicked to a retreating view of the collapsing planetoid.

  ‘Jerusalem, what’s happening?’ D’nissan asked.

  ‘Mika’s seeds are rapidly approaching maturity,’ Jerusalem replied, ‘as are those structures inside the planetoid that look suspiciously like some form of organic rail launching system. There are already objections to what I am about to do, but I consider it a sensible precaution.’

  A black line, subliminal in its brevity, cut towards the planetoid, then all the screens blanked. When they came back on again, a ball of fire was collapsing in on itself, strange geometric patterns running in waves across its surface, dissolving and reforming. Again the screens blanked on a secondary fusion explosion. This time when they cleared, streamers of white fire were burning themselves out to leave a gaseous lambency above the red dwarf star.