Ancestral Machines

by Michael Cobley

  Well, you were right enough there, Gran. If I ever get back to Cruachan I’ll have a few stories to tell you.

  A couple of weak red emergency lamps scarcely pushed back the gloom on the bridge, otherwise broken by a scattering of glowing amber pinpoints. But Pyke moved with the ease of familiarity from station to station, switching on the six retrofitted overhead holomonitors. Silver radiance lit up the vacant operator couches and patches of the deck, while brighter luminance bloomed from console lamps and readouts as he started to bring the secondary systems online.

  Moving over to the command console, he sat in his battered, leathery chair with the tilt-gimballed drink holder and watched the system indicators go green on his main holoscreen and felt a measure of satisfaction. The Scarabus was a Type-38 Ombilan transport, well known for its ruggedness, but the modifications he’d put in down the years had changed it from a reliable workhorse into a tough, fast multipurpose vessel capable of giving as good as she got. Now she practically amounted to an extension of himself and this shipwide reactivation was like a part of himself reawakening.

  The AI Scar had not yet reached full-run status. From a standing start it was always the slowest to reach functionality, but since most of the secondary systems were now online Pyke decided to unseal the viewports, starting with the ones on the bridge. Three yard-long, foot-wide curves of lattice-toughened u-glass capable of withstanding direct hits from pulse and beam cannon. Now the outer seals retracted into their hull apertures, revealing the world they were orbiting, a large planet banded in shades of dark blue and grey and adorned with a thin and perfect, almost delicate-looking orbital ring.

  That’s not Nadisha II, he thought. I should be looking at a pale blue world in the grip of an ice age, not this… whatever it is.

  “Captain, where are we?” Win Foskel was standing in the entry hatch, staring in shock at the viewport. “That’s not the ice planet—”

  “I know that, Win,” Pyke said calmly. “Now, if you sit yourself down at the nav-station we’ll work on finding out what the situation is, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said shakily, going over to one of the couches. “But that’s a gas giant, and we were orbiting a class P habitable before—”

  She was interrupted by a brief, tinny fanfare.

  “At last,” Pyke muttered in relief. “Win, I have a feeling that we’re still in the same system but I’m sure the expert can figure it out. Scar, y’back in the saddle yet?”

  “Hello, Bran. Cognitives are at 98 per cent… now at 100 per cent.”

  Pyke smiled. The AI’s voice was composed and purposefully synthetic, yet with a feminine undertone.

  “Excellent, Scar. Priority request–verify astrogational location.”

  “Still trying to initialise main sensors, Bran. Crash powerdown has damaged several low-level data conduits… sensors initialised… scanning now.”

  Pyke glanced over at Win and said, “Wait for it…”

  “Astropositional anomaly!” said the AI in a more urgent tone. “Rebuilding stellar context array–gathering system comparators–matching with last known coordinates–Bran, I can confirm that the Scarabus is still in the Nadisha star system. However, we are now 594 megaklicks from our original position, in orbit around Nadisha IV, a mid-range gas giant—”

  “What’s our orbital status?”

  “Ecliptical intermediate, high stability.”

  “And just how long were we out?” Pyke said, thoughts racing.

  “Seventeen hours and twenty-four minutes have elapsed since the crash powerdown event.”

  He uttered a low whistle. “That’s quite a span of time–whatever they were up to they’ll be long gone by now, I reckon.”

  Seated in her couch, Win Foskel looked over her shoulder at him. “Chief, I don’t get it–if they wanted us dead why not just blow the drives instead of hauling us halfway across the system…”

  “Look at it from their twisted, psychopathic side,” he said. “Those scum wouldn’t have known what precautions we might have taken, or who knew we were coming here… eh, Scar, was the ship ident still active through all that?”

  “Yes, Bran, it was.”

  Pyke nodded. “Yes, they might have looked like low-brow brutes but they had some smarts among them. So anyone who came looking for us would lock onto our ident, follow it here only to discover that we were all victims of a tragic enviro-system malf. Which would keep attention away from the planet we were originally orbiting.”

  He sat back in his high-backed couch, enjoying the creak of the blue tove-leather as he thought for a moment, wondering why the ship had been moved and what might be happening back at their original location. Then he said:

  “Scar, what’s our general status? Are we fit to fly?”

  “Hull integrity is optimal, as are shields and secondary propulsion units.”

  He gave a little nod and leaned forward to prod up a comm-link on the holoscreen.

  “Ancil?” In the holoscreen Ancil Martel looked round. “Ancil, I’m thinking we should set a course back to that wintry world we were orbiting before, see if we can find out what happened to our cargo and that gang of scum-sucking jackers. How are the drives behaving?”

  “Sweet as a bell, chief. Field matrices should be ready in about ten minutes. Will we by any chance be making a microjump?”

  “That’s my thinking,” Pyke said, pausing when he realised that the seat next to Martel was empty. “Where’s Mojag?”

  “Well, once the generators were up and running, everything was on track. Mojag knows his stuff, must have picked up a lot from, y’know, Oleg. So he says he has to take care of his quarters and I told him that’s okay ’cos I’m on top of everything.” Ancil frowned. “He seemed quieter than usual, but not himself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I glanced over a few times I saw him shake his head slightly or make that agreeing sound he makes, but nobody was speaking to him, and once I definitely heard him mutter to himself.” He shrugged. “Never saw him do that before.”

  Pyke nodded. “Mojag has a different load to carry than you or I. Got that chunk of hardmem in his head which makes dealing with grief complicated.”

  “Mojag is a very mellow fellow,” said Ancil. “He’s usually a calming influence.”

  “And I am sure that in time he’ll find a way to cope with his loss,” Pyke said. “In the meantime, how are those fields coming along?”

  “A few minutes yet, chief, then we can shake the dust and be on our way.”

  “Good man.” Then, sensing something he spun his chair round to see Dervla watching him from the port-side bridge hatch.

  “You’re really taking us back to the ice-world?” she said. “Could be risky, going by what we’ve just been through.”

  “I don’t take kindly to being trussed and chumped by a bunch of overmuscled leatherboys,” he said.

  “Ah, so this is about your ego. Mmm, glad we’re clear on that.”

  Smiling, Pyke poked one of the comm buttons. “Scar, set a microjump course back to Nadisha II, if you please.”

  “Yes, Bran. I shall be ready to commence a shipwide thirty-second countdown in two minutes.”

  “Thanks.” He met Dervla’s gaze. “And no, my flower, this is not about my ego. I take on jobs for business reasons, not thrills, and I think I’m quite entitled to remedy the situation.”

  “And get us into…” She shrugged. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

  “Well, as we are in possession of neither the comm-scanner nor the payment we were due from that pus-stain Khorr, the idea is to return to the scene of the crime and see what clues we can find, ion trails, any stay-behind pieces, that kind of thing.”

  In the background Scar’s voice announced the imminent hyperspace microjump and started counting down.

  “So we’re going after the scumbucket,” Dervla said. “While not having any idea of what force he might have at his disposal. Y’know, there is such a thing as cutting your
losses.”

  “And there’s such a thing as self-respect!” he came back. “In any case, we actually need the money to keep the Scarabus operational…”

  At that moment the ship’s hyperdrive kicked in, bending the subquantal structures of space-time in very specific ways. Pyke felt the familiar squeeze-vertigo effect as it swirled through him, but he only paused for a moment or two.

  “… and… AND–it might be nice to buy some of that stuff they call ‘food’. I’m led to believe that it actually has a taste, unlike that cyclo rubbish we’ve been…”

  He stopped when Dervla, wide-eyed and uneasy, pointed over at the bridge viewports.

  “Is that really…?”

  Even as Pyke swivelled his chair to look, the ship AI spoke.

  “Planetary anomaly detected–stat conflicts across all main parameters–full macroscan in progress.”

  Nadisha II was a pale blue world, its continents buried beneath snow and blizzards that weren’t due to start receding for another half a millennium. But what Brannan Pyke was seeing through the viewports was something completely different, a darkened world, swathed in angry cyclonic weather patterns. As he stared he felt a strange urge to laugh.

  “Scar, what the devil are we looking at?”

  “Scan results are incomplete but preliminary assessment is confirmed–although this planet occupies exactly the same orbital location as Nadisha II, and possesses the same angular velocity, it is another planet altogether.”

  Pyke nodded judiciously.

  “Well, you don’t see that every day.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Half an hour later everyone was on the bridge, seated at the workstations, heads tilted back to regard the ceiling-mounted holodisplays, apart from Pyke who was watching the one at his own console.

  “Ready when you are, Scar,” he said.

  “Very well, Bran. I shall begin.”

  All the holodisplays switched from webby anims to the brighter standard planetary summary. A pale blue world spun at the centre, flanked by stat tables, atmospheric analysis, biosphere data, climactic overviews, mean temperature gradients and other parameters.

  “This is Nadisha II,” the ship AI said. “A habitable world currently deep in the trough of an ice age that recurs every seventy thousand years–the world about which this vessel assumed orbit some twenty-point-eight hours ago.”

  Abruptly the image changed to show a different world, its ashen face mottled with dull brown patches and dark grey streaks and overlaid with a violent, cyclonic weather system, angry swirls of storm surging across the seas and land masses. The stat summaries were dynamic and augmented by supplementary columns which moved forward every thirty seconds or so, providing additional info from air, water and soil analyses.

  “This, however, is the world around which we are orbiting now. It is 7.9 per cent larger by overall surface area than Nadisha II but has 21.3 per cent less oceanic surface—”

  “Is that a city?”

  Win Foskel was indicating a section of the planet’s surface that she’d magnified, and which Scar quickly shared across the other displays. Pyke leaned forward and saw, half obscured by a bank of cloud, the unmistakeable regular shapes and grids of some kind of metropolis. Also highly evident were the clusters and lines of bomb craters.

  “Yes,” said Scar. “Image analysis reveals the remains of extensive areas of advanced development, patterns of usage consistent with standard models of residential conurbations and built-up urban centres, as well as transport conduits and hubs. Similar habitation nodes are widespread but deserted, at least in the swathe of planetary surface I have been able to scan.”

  Punzho Bex raised a long finger to point at the unfolding desolation.

  “It looks as if war has wrecked this world,” he said. “Scar, have the usual delights of battle been unleashed here?”

  “If you refer to environmental degradation, that is correct. I despatched a small disposable probe as part of the macroscan, and the data recovered is undeniable. Not only is the environment highly irradiated but the air is almost a stew of lethal biological agents. Yet the long-range biosensors have picked up lifesigns of small creatures, mainly in scattered packs, probably scavengers. Most prevalent form of vegetation seems to be a type of clinging creeper. Rivers, lakes and coastal water stretches are highly polluted—”

  “Scar, have you come up with any ideas to explain why this radioactive ball of mud is here and Nadisha II ain’t?” Pyke frowned. “Y’know, any idea backed by what you’ve discovered so far.”

  “Sorry, Bran, but thus far I have insufficient data with which to construct a reasoned hypothesis. Speculation would seem to be the only method open to us.”

  “Fine, speculate away.”

  “I would still require parameters within which to evolve such a conjecture.”

  Pyke drummed his fingers on the console. “Okay. So tell me, are there any signs of sentient beings still alive down there, communities, bases, anything?”

  “Thus far I have directly scanned less than 18 per cent of the surface area. I have detected no transmissions, no subspace casts, no power generation signatures, no variations in the surface temperature that would indicate outlets from hidden habitats, and no lifeforms that meet sentient behaviour profiles.”

  “So, essentially it’s a lifeless, radioactive ball of mud,” Pyke said. “Just what I needed. Scar, have you also scanned for drive traces in the immediate vicinity?”

  “Several vessels have been operating here, and there is one thrust emission profile that matches that of Khorr’s ship. But all drive traces in the greater gravimetric shell are fragmented or dispersed. Any explanation would be speculative but I have detected a strange residual resonance on the subspace boundary, implying that something capable of generating immensely powerful inertial fields was manoeuvring through this system, causing a muddying of the nearby real-space locale…”

  Pyke’s mood slumped on hearing this. “You’re saying there’s no way we can track down that scumbag Khorr?”

  “I’m afraid that there’s no trail to find.”

  Not good, Pyke thought. Damn–are we going to have to go back to Tajnap Orbital? We might pick up some leads on Khorr and his ship, if we’re lucky, but the docking and fuelling fees would really eat into what’s left of the funds. Dear mother of god, if we come up empty-handed I could be faced with having to sell off the loaders, maybe even the shuttle…

  He suddenly became aware that the others were watching him.

  “So, Scar, about this planet–are you saying that it’s totally uninhabitable, not a chance of finding real, living intelligent life?”

  “My sensors have now scanned 19.3 per cent of the surface without finding evidence of such, Bran. However, it cannot be ruled out.”

  “You know, I can’t help thinking about how that gobshite Khorr went to a fair bit of trouble to divert attention away from here, so”–he swung his gaze across the crew–“I say we let Scar finish her survey and see what crops up.”

  There were nods at this, a couple of shrugs, and Dervla giving him a thoughtful look.

  “Good,” he went on. “Scar, how long will it take to complete this scan of yours?”

  “Two hours and fifty-five minutes, maintaining current level of detail analysis.”

  “Fine, you go ahead and finish it.” Pyke got to his feet. “In the meantime, we can get on with putting the stores in order.”

  “But chief,” said Ancil. “Shouldn’t we try and figure out how the original Nadisha II turned into that poisonous hell?”

  Now halfway to the hatch, Pyke paused. “Thought it was obvious,” he said. “Someone came along, swapped that nice, clean icy world and left a toxic, bombed-out heap of rubble in its place. Why–do you have a different notion?”

  “Well… no, but aren’t you interested in who did it and why?”

  “Not especially. Anyone slinging around that kind of tech is someone whose way I plan to stay out of. Khorr on the o
ther hand tricked us and tried to kill us, and I intend to get hold of what’s rightfully ours.”

  “And what if Khorr is involved with these planet thieves?” said Dervla. “What then?”

  “Can’t see it myself. Why would ultra-high-tech planet-jackers hire a thug like Khorr to get hold of a gadget from a less developed civilisation? No, my bet is that he’s working for a gang of ware-runners looking to stay one step ahead of the Earther-uglies. Either way, we’re all going to have to be just a bit extra-deadly!

  “So while Scar is working, I suggest that we do the same and find some useful chores to occupy ourselves for the next couple of hours. Kref, you’re with me–we really need to sort out the storage booths.”

  Minutes later Pyke and the Henkayan were back aft, trying to get a reckoning of what needed attention. He had Kref do some restacking of the lighter crates while he worked on the stackerbot in the armoured storage where heavy-duty items like hull plates, drive couplings and weapon mountings were kept. About half an hour later Mojag appeared at the open hatch and said, “Captain, can I have a word?”

  “Of course–step into my office.”

  Mojag picked his way around an angled heap of dislodged hull plates while Pyke upended a crate for him to sit on. He sat down, legs together, hands on his bony knees, his sombre gaze angled down at the deck. Pyke, tinkering with the innards of the stackerbot, waited. After a moment Mojag cleared his throat.

  “Captain, there’s something I need to tell you…”

  “If it’s too upsetting to deal with Oleg’s remains, I can get Kref or Ancil to—”

  “Oh no, I’ve dealt with that already,” said Moja. “Wrapped it in poly and stuffed it in a stasis drawer in sickbay. It’s something else that you need to know. About Oleg.”