There was no Uncanny Valley as far as he could ascertain. From the sound of it, Trundell was somewhere on the autistic spectrum, a human with a touch of robot about him. Plussers, ironically, were beings of passion and fervour, driven by zealotry and faith. They were digital entities who embraced religious ideology, individual agglomerations of terabytes of data who clung to the irrational for meaning and support in their lives. About as unrobotic as you could get, for all that they customarily inhabited mech bodies.
Plussers hated flesh. Flesh was troublesome and frail. They were comfortable housed inside machines, but organic matter gave them the squirms, and it showed. Uncanny Valley. A deadness, a lostness, in the eyes. A look of being adrift, of being consigned to a prison that was repugnant at every level.
No, Trundell didn’t have it. Although in certain respects he could have been a Plusser. The way his brain was wired, humanity was an awkward, messy concept to him, too.
“Does it happen often?” Dev said. “Moleworm attacks? If scroaches are what they love most for dinner, I’d have thought running into them was an occupational hazard for you.”
“Do I look like I bump into moleworms every day?”
“That’s why I asked. You certainly didn’t act like it down in those tunnels. It was almost as though you’d never had a face-to-face encounter with one before.”
“I hadn’t. Tonight was my first. But that’s the odd thing. I’ve heard moleworms burrowing around, plenty of times, but only ever at a distance. They normally confine themselves to the lower lithosphere, the base stratum of Alighieri’s upper mantle. Scroaches are more abundant down there, the pickings easier.”
“They’re not meant to come up this high?”
“I wouldn’t say not meant to. Anecdotally, though, it’s rare for them to hunt up here near the planetary crust. It’s rare, too, to find them so close to human habitation.”
“Even though we’re something they don’t mind eating?”
Trundell nodded. “They don’t like our technology and industry. Our machinery makes too much noise, too much constant vibration. It upsets them. Overloads their sensory organs, especially their feelers. Repels them.”
“Interesting. So what do you reckon accounts for the change in their behaviour patterns?”
“I don’t know. I’m not well-versed in their habits. You’d be better off speaking to a xeno-mammalogist or maybe even a xeno-ethologist.” Trundell’s face registered suspicion. “Why are you quizzing me like this? Actually, come to think of it, who are you?”
“I’m the guy who kept you from ending up in a moleworm’s stomach. Don’t forget that.”
“Yes, but I’m starting to wonder about you. You’re built like an Alighierian, but you’ve never heard of a moleworm until today.”
“I’m from off-planet.”
“Obviously, but the most recent gulf cruiser was three months ago, the one I came in on. You can’t have lived here that long and not learned the most basic facts about the place. It’s like you’ve only just been born, but you have an adult’s body.”
That wasn’t an inaccurate summation, Dev thought.
“Look,” he said, “don’t make a big fuss over what I’m about to tell you. Promise?”
“Okayyy.”
“I’m ISS.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I’m not.”
“Whoa. Then that’s – that’s a vat-grown host form. Awesome. I’ve never seen one in the flesh, so to speak. Can I... Can I touch it?”
“It? You mean me? I suppose so. If it’ll make you happy.”
Dev rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm. Trundell hesitantly and reverently ran fingers up and down the bare skin. A trio of miners in the adjacent booth glanced over and shared a snigger.
“What?” Dev challenged them.
“Nothing,” said one of the miners. “There’s a bar a couple of doors down where you two lovebirds might feel more at home, that’s all. The Seventh Circle.”
“Thank you. I’ll see you there later.”
The miner rose from his seat with a growl, but his drinking buddies advised him to leave it. It wasn’t worth it. Out here, in public, all starting a fight would do was bring the cops down on their heads.
He sat back down, giving Dev one last hard glare.
“It really is the pinnacle of gene technology,” said Trundell. “An entire, perfect body created out of stimulus-triggered pluripotent stem cells. Every single transcription factor calculated and regulated. Telomerase activation to prevent flaws occurring in accelerated DNA replication. All painstakingly constructed within a bath of peptide nutrient. You’re a miracle of science, sir.”
“Yes, I feel like that every day.”
“You’re deadpanning again, aren’t you? That was sarcasm.”
“A little.”
“Honestly, if I were you, I’d take a moment out to think about what I am. A human consciousness downloaded into a bespoke, environment-compatible, fully-functioning physical self. What ISS’s research and development department have done – it fair boggles the mind.”
Dev shrugged. “I guess miracles of science kind of lose their shine the more you’re exposed to them.”
“How many host forms have you been in?”
“So far? I don’t know. I’ve lost count. Twenty or so?”
“Is it disorientating? How long does it take to acclimatise?” Trundell was in science-wonk raptures. He appeared to have almost forgotten about his moleworm-related near-death experience a short while earlier.
“Depends,” said Dev. “Some host forms are more extensively tailored than others.”
“Yes. I can see that. The greater the deviation from Terratypical, the more variant factors there are to get used to. Have you tried amphibiousness yet? I’m not sure I could manage breathing water.”
“I still have that to look forward to. I’m sure it’ll happen soon enough. I get sent just about everywhere in the Diaspora, so I imagine, by the law of averages, I’ll wind up on a liquid planet eventually. My life is one long magical mystery tour.”
“At least you don’t have to undergo infraspace journey times. Weeks of shipbound boredom. As a beam of pure data, you’re virtually massless, so you can whizz through ultraspace as fast as any interstellar communications signal.”
“Yup. Me and emails – we travel together.”
“I’m slightly envious.”
“Don’t be.”
“What made you sign up with ISS?”
“How come, all of a sudden, I’m on the receiving end of the questions?” said Dev.
The why of his indenture to ISS – it was a thorny issue, one he was reluctant to explore with someone he had only just met. Or, indeed, with anyone.
On the stage, the lead singer had begun snarling his way through ‘Jerusalem.’ “An’ did those feet in ayn-chunt tiiyyiiyyiimes...”
“Because I like to know stuff,” Trundell said simply.
“Let’s say I’m a man who pays his debts, and leave it at that,” Dev said.
Trundell took the hint.
“Okay, so can I ask what you’re on Alighieri for?”
“The scenery. The wildlife. The friendly locals.”
Dev lofted a glance at the miners nearby. The most antagonistic of the three responded with a hitch of his chin and a steely stare. Dev was tempted to blow them a kiss, but that really would be asking for trouble.
“Or the earthquakes,” said Trundell. “That’s why you were in the geodes. Must be. You were investigating.”
“Yeah. Sure. Correct.”
Better that than admitting it was all down to chance and misadventure.
“I have to admit, I reckon there’s a connection between the tremors and the anomalous moleworm behaviour,” said Trundell.
Dev leaned forward. “How so?”
“Not sure. I have no evidence, no data. But if there are seismic disturbances in the moleworms’ realm, that’s likely to cause them to act erraticall
y and out of character, isn’t it? To stray from their usual feeding grounds, for instance. Stands to reason.”
“When you put it like that, I suppose it does,” said Dev. “Hey. Here’s a thought. Would you be willing to look into that a bit further for me?”
“What, you mean switch from studying scroaches to studying moleworms?”
“Only for a while.”
“No, thanks.”
“Just to establish how and why the earthquakes are affecting them. There may be some pattern there, something relevant I can use.”
“Uh-uh.” Trundell gave a firm shake of the head. “I can just about cope with the danger posed by Dromopoda alighieriensis. Moleworms? That’s a whole order of magnitude worse. Monitoring them would be suicide.”
“‘I guess I owe you my life.’ Now, who said that to me, not five minutes ago?”
“No. No emotional blackmail.”
“Don’t you want to help out ISS? Wouldn’t it be cool, playing sidekick to a genuine, bonafide miracle of science?”
“Sidekick?”
“I’m not asking you to expose yourself to undue risk. If you could just track moleworm movements, gather me as much intel on them as you can...”
“Well, I guess, theoretically, within reason, it’s not impossible.”
“You’re a smart guy with a PhD. I know you’d be able to figure out a way of getting close to them without putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“Maybe I could,” said Trundell. “I’d have to do some background reading first. There’s got to be literature on the subject. Was it Lockwood-Hazell who visited Alighieri a few years back? No, I remember, it was Banerjee.”
He launched a file search via commplant.
Dev rapped on the tabletop. “Not now.”
“I’m just looking up Banerjee’s paper on extraterrestrial pseudotalpidae – moleworms. It’s cached at Harvard, but a couple of local mirror sites carry it too.”
“How about you save it for later, when you’re on your own?”
“Won’t take a moment.”
“Trundle.”
“How many times? It’s Trundell.”
“There we go. And he’s back.”
“It’s really irritating when you get my name wrong.”
“So, are you in or out?” said Dev.
“I don’t know,” Trundell sighed. “It could be interesting, I suppose. A break from the routine.”
“A challenge.”
“Yeah. I can draw on some of the more general aspects of my zoology degree, before I specialised.”
“It’s also a good fit with your current studies. Mightn’t you learn more about scroaches by learning more about their main predator?”
“It’ll be useful peripheral material. Yes, I like that. I’m in.”
Dev clinked the neck of his bottle against Trundell’s. “See? I knew you had it in you, young man. Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
14
TRUNDELL STAYED FOR another round, then hurried off home, fired up with enthusiasm, keen to begin his foray into moleworm research. Before he left, he and Dev exchanged commplant addresses. Trundell was flattered when Dev immediately upgraded his contact status from Normal to Priority.
Dev felt slightly guilty about manipulating the kid like that, preying on his neediness and his professional vanity. What if Trundell messed up and got himself killed by moleworms? He chided himself; the scientist was sensible, he’d take every conceivable precaution.
Whether or not anything valuable would come from his efforts – that was another matter.
The main thing was, Dev had set several balls rolling, already, after only a few hours on Alighieri. He could content himself that he had done a decent day’s work. The game was afoot. ISS probably wanted him to file an interim progress report, but screw that. They could wait.
He ordered another beer, then another. He was thirsty. Drink plenty of fluids, Junius Bilk had said. So why not?
Too late, he remembered that drinking heavily in a brand new host form was not a good idea.
Hell, even drinking moderately wasn’t wise.
Four bottles of beer would never have troubled him in his normal body. Especially the weak, watery brew this bar was serving. He’d barely be getting a buzz on by now if he was his old self.
A brand new host form, however, was pristine, unsullied. It hadn’t built up a tolerance to booze yet, the way his true body had. It didn’t have a liver that was accustomed to processing several units of alcohol nightly. Dev had been a steady drinker since the age of sixteen, whereas this host form was tasting its very first drop of the hard stuff.
The terrible truth hit him as he stood to go to the toilet and all the blood in his head cascaded to his legs. He was wasted.
He reeled across the room, while the band murdered ‘Amazing Grace’ with feral glee.
In the men’s room – the same men’s room where, after arriving at the bar, he had spent several minutes scrubbing scroach gore off himself – he emptied his bladder and washed his hands. Splashing cold water on his face didn’t help revive him.
Things were swirling. The man in the mirror above the basin stared back at him dully. A stranger, who happened to blink whenever Dev blinked and scowl whenever Dev scowled.
On the wall there was a vending machine selling Blitz-Go sobriety pills – oral doses of nanocapsule enzymes that kicked the alcohol-metabolising process into high gear. Three minutes to a clear head! the floatscreen strapline promised.
There was even a touchpad interface for those too intoxicated to operate their commplants competently. It allowed the vending machine to override your security protocols on a one-off basis to facilitate a purchase. All that was required was a DNA sample from your sweat to confirm your identity.
Since Dev’s host form wasn’t registered on Alighieri’s ID database, that method wouldn’t work for him. Frowning hard, he tried to activate his banking details the usual way.
The men’s room door opened and closed behind him.
He turned – staggered round, really – and there were the three miners from the next-door booth. They, too, were drunk, but not the kind of spinny-head drunk that Dev was. Mean drunk.
The ringleader cracked his knuckles and, without a word, took a swing at Dev.
What followed was far from elegant.
It wasn’t a fight.
It was even a brawl.
It was a ferocious, clumsy free-for-all, full of shouting and flailing and bodies smashing into inanimate objects and inanimate objects smashing into bodies.
The miners, the ringleader in particular, bellowed names at Dev: faggot, queer, cocksucker.
Dev didn’t dignify that with a retort. Besides, he was too busy concentrating on staying on his feet and getting his shots in.
Three to one. On paper, it was hardly fair.
It became two to one when Dev knocked one of the miners unconscious by ramming his face against a toilet stall door.
Then Dev found his own face being dunked into a toilet bowl and held under by two pairs of callused hands.
He flashed back to his conversation with Trundell about host form adaptations. Breathing water? Maybe he was about to discover what that was like.
But the water and the dread of drowning did do something for him. Not quite a Blitz-Go, but the adrenaline surge restored him part-way to his senses, bringing some clarity.
He elbowed one of his assailants in the side of his knee. He felt the crunchy click of a patella dislocating and heard the satisfying scream of a man in immense, crippling pain.
He came up, heaving for air, and grabbed the hobbled miner by the shoulders.
The miner’s skull met the edge of the toilet bowl with enough force to break them both.
Which left just the ringleader.
If the man was alarmed or surprised to find himself alone, his friends out of commission, he didn’t show it. He was probably too far gone to care. He rushed at Dev like a bloodshot-eyed bu
ll, slamming him spine-first against a basin.
Ceramic shattered, and water sprayed from snapped faucets.
Dev and the miner slugged away at each other like punchdrunk boxers in a clinch, skidding across the wet floor tiles.
At some point, one of them fell; Dev was mildly astonished to find that it wasn’t himself.
The miner groaned through pulped lips, and Dev kicked him in the head until he shut up.
After that, he slumped to his knees. Blood mingled with the puddles of water on the floor. It came from his knuckles, his forehead, his nose, his mouth.
What a fucking mess.
When he next looked up, police were barging through the door. They surrounded him, yelping like a pack of dogs. He couldn’t make out what they were saying over the high-pitched ringing in his ears.
He must have made a movement which one of the police officers interpreted as aggressive. Or he didn’t. Either way, they mosquitoed him.
Then they did it a second time, for good measure.
His body became a stupid, floppy thing, a meat sack. He could do nothing as the police officers trussed him up in restraints and bundled him out of the bar. They were not gentle. Now and then a fist struck him, or a foot, as if by accident.
He felt it, but it was as though someone else was feeling it.
It wasn’t so bad, really. Not when he could remember all too clearly the sensation of being riddled by ferromagnetic rounds entering his body at hypersonic speed from a Polis+ coilgun. Of being battered helplessly by kinetic forces that turned him into a dancing marionette.
Of being flayed alive.
Of dying.
15
“HARMER, HARMER, HARMER...”
The face of Chief of Police Kahlo hovered above him like a gibbous moon.
“Urrgh,” said Dev.
“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”
Dev struggled up to a sitting position. Every organ in his body seemed to be slipping out of alignment. His brain was trying to ooze out of his cranium via his eye sockets and his nostrils. His stomach was pushing against his lungs; his heart slumped a little further sideways with every beat.
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