by Neal Asher
Slowing abruptly, the shock wave he created speeding past him on a hurricane-strength dust storm and snow from the highest peaks, Jack settled down and began making rapid and drastic alterations to his internal structure. He shifted all the hard-field projectors used in a U-space jump to his lower hull cavity, and increased the structural strength of the hull layers and supporting members there. All available gravplates he transferred to that lower hull to provide the maximum repelling effect, then he charged up massive capacitors from his fusion reactors to provide a surge of power that would probably burn out all those same plates.
Meanwhile, selecting from his carousels, Jack spewed his own missiles and antimunitions back towards the approaching swarm. A hundred kilometres behind, viral chaff began infecting the systems of missiles no longer controlled by Reaper and King, blocked as they were by the continuous EM output of the warfare beacons. The top of an Everest-sized mountain disappeared in an implosion, then reappeared as fire and gas in an explosion topping five megatonnes. Other airborne implosions followed, but without such drastic effect. Three one-kilotonne CTDs ignited three brief suns down a long valley choked with vegetation and insectile life. The subsequent firestorm was almost as explosive, and a long wall of smoke and ash, red at its heart, rose into the sky. Then Jack’s own missiles arrived and there began a game of seek and destroy amid the mountains, a game that changed their very shape.
Now only five hundred metres from the ground. Jack dropped the other device he had swiftly selected. It hit the ground and activated. The gravity imploder excavated a crater in the bedrock, and in the same microsecond Jack fed power into his gravplates. The balance was perfect, and he only wavered in the air as huge gravitational force tried to drag him down. At the centre point of the implosion, matter was compacted into an antimatter core, and the rocky crater focused the consequent explosion, slamming up into the Jack Ketch. Antigravity working at a level to burn out the plates, layered hard-fields acting as scaled armour, the blast accelerated the attack ship at a thousand gravities on a plume of fire. It left the atmosphere so fast that Reaper and King nearly missed it. Nearly.
‘Respect,’ the King of Hearts AI sent, just before opening up with both particle beams and gamma-ray lasers.
* * * *
The pterodactyl head of Dragon was up high above its other pseudopods, like a python rearing out of a nest of cobras. All Dragon’s sapphire eyes it directed towards the fading glow on the horizon. The cobra heads were up, Arden knew, because they contained sophisticated scanning equipment—if equipment was the right way to describe the living machinery of Dragon. There was also a shimmer of disturbance beyond Dragon’s field wall, where the telefactor had set down, for the wind from those distant explosions was just reaching them.
‘They are fighting amongst themselves,’ said Dragon.
‘And I’m supposed to be surprised by that?’ asked Arden from where she was perched on a boulder outside her cave.
The head swung towards her. ‘You mistake me: it is the Polity AIs who are fighting amongst themselves.’
Arden felt a sudden shudder of cold. There had always been stories of rogue AIs, but she had considered them as apocryphal as stories about the Jack Ketch and other bloody ships. But Dragon now telling her that the AIs were fighting amongst themselves undermined one of the certainties of her existence.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Your AIs rule you efficiently, ruthlessly, and to the maximum benefit of the majority, but having made them in your image, do you expect them to behave any better than yourselves?’
‘I do,’ said Arden. ‘For most humans power is a tool for obtaining sex, money, safety, regard from their fellows, or initially to enforce some hazy ideal, and then primarily because the exercising of power is its own reward. Most of these motives can be discounted as regards our AIs.’
‘But not all of them—especially if you consider Jain technology.’
Of course: since taking power, the ruling AIs had been utterly in control and safe, which was why they could rule humanity so benevolently. Now something both a temptation and potentially lethal, even to them, had been added to the equation and—Arden excused herself the pun—their metal was being tested.
‘You are their alien equivalent,’ Arden observed.
‘Yes,’ said Dragon unhelpfully.
‘Aren’t you, too, tempted by this Jain technology?’
‘All knowledge is a temptation, but how much should one risk to acquire it? To learn about a bomb from reading a book is substantially different from learning about it from the item itself, while you’re deciding which wires to cut.’
‘Dangerous, huh?’
‘There were civilizations which cut the wrong wire.’
‘Were?’
‘Precisely.’
Arden changed the subject. ‘How goes the battle?’
‘It has left this planet now. Two Polity attack ships are attempting to destroy a third one of their own kind. Also, some interference device has been employed to prevent this latter ship fleeing into U-space.’ Dragon paused contemplatively before adding, ‘That device prevents all U-space travel from this system.’
Dragon would be going nowhere, Arden realized. ‘Who are the bad guys?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Dragon replied, swinging his head to gaze across the plain in another direction, ‘but someone has just arrived who might be able to explain things to us.’
18
Virtuality: The use of holographic projection of avatars, virtual consoles, and just about anything up to an entire virtuality, the use of linkages both through the optic nerve and directly into the visual cortex from augs and gridlinks, and the manipulation of telefactors via VR are just a few examples of how the virtual world and the real world are melding. At one time the limit of virtual reality was self-gratification in the form of games (some of them distinctly sticky), but that time was short indeed as the potential of VR was swiftly realized. Now, people (human, haiman and AI) operate in both worlds with ease and familiar contempt. Very infrequently is there any confusion: we have all learned that even the avatar in the shape of a fire-breathing dragon we must treat as real. The two worlds, real and supposedly unreal, influence and interact with each other, and virtual teeth can still bite.
— From Quince Guide compiled by humans
Stepping out of the landing craft, Cormac detected a flintiness to the air and a whiff as though from something dried out in a tide line. Six men, similarly armed and clothed, approached, though whether what they wore signified they were police or army, Cormac couldn’t say.
Glancing aside at Gant, he said, ‘Try not to kill anyone if they get hostile. We’ll just retreat to the ship and try something else. Anyway, I’ve got Shuriken set for a disarming routine.’
‘Let’s hope it obeys its instructions,’ Gant replied.
The six men halted in an arc. Beyond them Cormac could see others in more varied dress coming out of the strange buildings, so he guessed these six were indeed in uniform. Then he noticed someone else approaching, mounted on some exoskeletal creature that was almost like a long-legged bird, but seemingly with the head of a pig. He returned his attention to the original six as one of their number stepped forward.
In a bewildered tone, this one began, ‘Both of you, step away from the… ship.’ He then brandished a primitive assault rifle.
Gant, who had left his own favoured APW inside the lander, stepped to Cormac’s side and they both walked forwards.
This isn’t very friendly, Gant sent.
Maybe they’ve reason, Cormac suggested. If Skellor’s been through this way.
‘Who are you?’ the man now asked.
‘I am Ian Cormac of Earth Central Security for the Polity, and my companion here is Brezhoy Gant, a soldier serving in the same organization.’
The soldier, policeman or whatever he was stared at Cormac for a long moment, transferred his gaze to Gant, then to the landing craft.
�
�Earth?’ he said eventually.
Cormac studied the uniform and decided to try for professional courtesy. ‘I need to speak to whoever is in overall charge here, as I am here in pursuit of a dangerous criminal.’
At this the man glanced around at his fellows. Then, noticing the rider approaching on his strange beast, he called out to him, ‘Has it been sent?’
‘It has,’ replied the rider, ‘and Tanaquil is coming.’
The uniformed man turned back. ‘This criminal you are hunting, how dangerous is he?’
‘Very,’ Cormac replied, briefly.
The man chewed that over for a long moment before saying, ‘We were warned to look out for strangers approaching the city—and that a dangerous individual was coming. Perhaps we are both after the same person, but you’ll understand why I must take you into custody.’
The barrel of his weapon now bore fully on Cormac.
Tell me now that you’ve got armour under that environment suit, sent Gant.
I have—it’s actually a combat suit and can fling up a chainglass visor before my face. Thank you for your concern, but I’m not stupid.
No, just overconfident sometimes.
‘Certainly we’ll come into custody. Tell me, who is this Tanaquil?’
‘We sent a telegraph message to Golgoth, informing them of your presence,’ the man replied. ‘Chief Metallier Tanaquil is our ruler.’
It seemed that things were going well. Almost without thinking, Cormac sent, through his gridlink, the order to close the door of the lander. The door’s sudden closing elicited a nervous response, bringing the other five weapons to bear on both Cormac and Gant.
Bit edgy, these guys, sent Gant.
Seems so.
It would have been fine if he had not closed the door like that, Cormac thought later. On such little things could rest the difference between life and death. When an enormous brightness lit the horizon, someone heavy on the trigger exerted just that extra bit of pressure. Even then, things might have continued okay, for one shot slammed into Gant’s thigh and two others into the lander’s hull.
‘Cease fire!’ the leader of these men shouted and, when it seemed his men obeyed, he began to move towards Gant. But then the sound of the titanic explosion caught up with its flash, and all the men opened up with their weapons in response.
Cormac staggered back, feeling the missile impacts on his body armour and seeing one bullet become deformed against the chainglass visor that had shot up from his neck ring in time. He flung his arm out to retain balance, and that was enough for Shuriken. The throwing star screamed from its holster, arced around and, with two loud cracks, knocked automatic weapons spinning through the air, bent or chopped halfway through. Then Gant, holes punched through his syntheflesh covering but otherwise unharmed, shot forwards and tore the weapon from another man’s grip. By then Shuriken had disarmed the final two men. One of them sat on the ground, swearing in disbelief, clutching his wrist and gaping at a hand now lacking three fingers.
Jack, what the fuck was that? Jack? Jack?
Cormac glanced down at the leader of this trigger-happy bunch. The man was on his knees, clutching at his chest, blood soaking through the front of his uniform.
‘Gant,’ Cormac nodded back towards the lander, ‘get him inside.’
Cormac then looked over at the strange little village towards which people were now fleeing, including the rider of that outlandish beast, and noted the telegraph wires running along parallel to the concrete road. He really needed to speak with this Chief Metallier Tanaquil, but didn’t want the man warned off. So he called up a menu on his Shuriken holster, intending to riffle through the thousands of attack programs to find the one he wanted, but then, feeling vaguely foolish, he lowered his arm. Through his gridlink, in a matter of seconds, he created the precise program necessary and input it. Instead of hovering above, humming viciously while flexing its chainglass blades, Shuriken streaked away to sever the telegraph wires.
Now Cormac wanted to know who was detonating nuclear weapons, and why he could no longer contact the Jack Ketch. For by his estimation it seemed likely that the shit had just hit the fan, and that he was in completely the wrong place—and that Skellor was now already off-planet.
He could never have been more right—and wrong.
* * * *
In the back of his mind Thorn could hear the crowded chatter of the language crib loading to this mind—yet another one to add to the many he had loaded and perhaps later to add to those he had forgotten or erased. He knew that some linguists loaded new languages as often as possible, cramming their heads with thousands of them, and thousands more overspilled into augmentations. Such experts could usually, after hearing only a few sentences of an unfamiliar human tongue, extrapolate the rest of it. They were also devilishly good at word puzzles, often resolving them in more ways than the quizmaster intended. Thorn, however, preferred to keep room in his head for acquiring skills more pertinent to his occupation, which was why—while the crib chattered in his mind—he reloaded his old automatic handgun by touch in the pitch dark.
Movement to his right. Flinching at the loud clicking of the automatic’s slide as he pulled it back, Thorn quickly stepped to one side and dropped to a crouch. Four shots thundered hollowly in the maze, but they were behind him so he missed locating them by any muzzle flash. Concentrating then on what he was receiving through his echo-location mask, he tried to reacquire a feel of the corridor’s junction before him. Unfortunately the shots had scrambled the touch data, so the mental image he was creating, by swinging his head from side to side, kept shifting—its corners blurring and multiplying off to either side of him.
Then he sensed three images: organic, curved, soaking up sonar. Three images of a man moved around three sharp corners, which in turn were drifting to one side. Thorn raised his gun until the mask was picking it up too, but in three locations, then moved it across until it lined up with the figure—and fired.
The man slammed back against the shifting corner, slid down, then began scrambling away to one side. Thorn tracked him, fired again, and again, until the figure scrambled no more.
Then everything froze.
Two attack ships, the Grim Reaper and the King of Hearts, have entered the system with a USER. I am under attack, and have jettisoned the VR chamber you occupy.
A white line cut down through the dark, and pulled it aside like curtains. Thorn could no longer feel the mask on his face, and the automatic turned to fog in his hand. Suddenly he found himself standing on a white plain—and before him stood Jack Ketch. The hangman lifted up his briefcase and inspected it.
‘You’re being attacked?’ Thorn asked, bewildered. He knew those names—weren’t they Polity ships?
Jack lowered his briefcase and focused on Thorn. ‘Yes, I am. It is unfortunate, but maybe certain AIs would prefer partnership with a parasitic technology rather than with what they deem a parasitic human race.’
‘Why did you eject me?’ Thorn enquired.
‘The method I have by now used to escape would have turned you into a pool of jelly in the bottom of this VR booth you occupy.’ Jack held up an illusory hand as Thorn was about to ask more. ‘What speaks to you now is only a program, and has limited answers. You have reached that limit.’
The hangman blinked out of existence, and the black curtains drew back across. Abruptly, Thorn’s hand filled with the handle of his automatic.
‘Jack? Jack?’
Movement to his right.
What?
Four shots crashed in the dark. One slammed into his shoulder blade and another into the base of his spine. Thorn went down feeling the shock and trauma he had added to this VR program he was running. The addition was to increase his motivation to learn this nightwork technique. He lay there bleeding, gasping, dying. Managing to turn his head, and despite what the shots had done to his mask’s sensitivity, he zoned the man standing over him. Then another shot crashed through his mask and took him into
a second virtual darkness, briefly, then back to standing in a corridor in which lights were flickering.
‘End program,’ he said succinctly.
The lights continued to flicker, then died, as the program continued. Thorn put on his echo-location mask, and drew his automatic from its holster. It became a familiar action.
* * * *
Some time after the Jack Ketch’s departure, the systems within the Ogygian began to shut down, just as fast as they had come on, and Fethan could not understand why. Lifting his hands from the computer console with which he had been trying to set up a com line down to the surface, Cento said, ‘I can’t do anything. It’s shutting down from inside, which it shouldn’t be able to do.’ He gazed at Fethan expectantly.
Fethan looked around inside the bridge. There was an evident intercom system which probably had some connection to the computer, for the broadcast of automatic and emergency messages. There were security cameras everywhere, he knew that, and sensors. So the thing he had fed into the computer was probably viewing them right then, and listening in.
‘I don’t even know what to call you but, whatever you are, can you explain what you are doing?’
The intercom crackled, and a voice Fethan recognized as that of the long-dead captain spoke up: ‘I have no name. I am a weapon.’
Fethan shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
The voice continued, ‘A message laser is presently aimed at this ship, and someone on the surface is running test programs through the ship’s system. If I had left things powered up, then whoever is firing the laser would have known that someone is aboard, or has been aboard.’
‘Skellor?’ Cento wondered.
‘Most likely. The computer contained a record of previous contacts, but none this sophisticated. Now, the sender has slanted the test programs to one objective: finding serviceable shuttles attached to the hull. I surmise that the sender will then instruct shuttles to launch and call them to the surface. I will give you adequate warning.’