The Skinner s-1

by Neal Asher

  ‘They’re bounty hunters. Batian killers. I already know about them,’ said the Warden, as the sail tried to describe what he was seeing — he hadn’t yet quite mastered transferring images across from his visual cortex.

  Windcheater banked, riding out of the thermal and away from the island. Hadn’t there been something about Batians on that weapons site? The sail resisted the impulse to go back to the place as he had more than enough to chew on concerning humankind. As he flew on, he auged through to any easily accessible information about his own kind, and was surprised to find how much and how little was known.

  Polity experts knew that sails fed from the surface of the sea, taking rhinoworms, glisters, prill from the back of leeches — and sometimes leeches themselves. The speculation that they took to the ships for an easier food supply and a less hazardous existence was, of course, entirely wrong. Strange how the humans tried to classify the behaviour of any other species as relating only to ‘animal’ traits. Windcheater was completely certain that he and his kin had taken to the ships out of curiosity. It was much more difficult working as a ship sail for just a few steaks than snatching a whole worm from the sea and devouring it on the wing. Silly, arrogant humans.

  The information section concerning sail mating was of huge interest to Windcheater. He had known for a long time that humans were divided into two sexes, and how all that operated — he had often been aboard a ship during one of the frequent Hooper meets, though why it was necessary to consume prodigious quantities of sea-cane rum and boiled hammer whelks before the sexual act, he had never been able to fathom. What he had not been aware of was that his own kind had four sexes. Anyway, during the mating season, he had never really had much chance to think about the mechanisms that drove him to such exhausting madness. Three males required to fertilize one female egg, and that egg then encysted and stuck, in its cocoon, on the side of the Big Flint. Hence, what a human far in the past had described as ‘that rock-top orgy’.

  Windcheater flew on, heading for the horizon of Spatterjay, and all the new horizons he was now discovering. He was but a speck by the time the Batians beached their dinghy in a spray of sand and opened fire en masse on the rhinoworm that reared out of the sea behind them.

  * * * *

  The worm dropped, flaming, back into the sea, writhed there for a moment as if still intent on coming on to the beach after them, and then grew still. Shib let out a shuddering breath, then quickly wiped at the sweat that was stinging his eyes.

  ‘Great idea using an inflatable dinghy to get out here. Real classic, that one,’ he snarled.

  ‘Shut up, Shib,’ said Svan, as she watched the leeches surfacing to take apart the laser-cooked rhinoworm. ‘You know what would happen if we used AG here. The Warden would be up our asses with a thermite grenade about two seconds later.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  Svan made a chopping motion with her hand. ‘Enough. You either handle it or you don’t.’

  Shib shut up. He knew Svan wasn’t suggesting he could pay back the deposit and go home. Employment contracts with first-rankers like her either ended with a large payout or in a rather terminal manner. He nodded when she gestured towards the boat, then slung his carbine from his shoulder and headed over to the vessel. Upon reaching it, he immediately clicked on the little rotary pump. Joining him, Dime hauled out their packs and tossed them on to the pebbled beach. Shib detached and collapsed the telescopic outboard, and then he and Dime stood back as the dinghy quickly collapsed and shrivelled. The rolled-up dinghy was no wider than a man’s wrist, and with its motor locked beside it, formed a pack that could be tucked under an arm. Dime carried this to the head of the beach and slid it under a spread of sheetlike leaves growing there. Soon all four of them had loaded up their packs and were heading along the beach.

  ‘Why here?’ Tors asked after a moment.

  ‘A location easy to find — and our client has business here,’ Svan replied.

  Half listening to the conversation, Shib kept his eyes on the dingle. A hideous bird-thing observed him from the branches of a tree with a hugely globular trunk. He had thought the creature dead and decaying until it had moved to follow their progress with its glistening eye-pits. He suppressed his immediate inclination to burn it from its branch. No doubt Svan would take that as one push too many.

  ‘Do you have any further information on this client?’ Tors asked.

  ‘Same one as has had the bounty up on Sable Keech for the last three centuries. No way of tracing the transaction without collecting, and no one has managed that yet.’

  ‘I don’t get how he’s lasted so long,’ said Dime, with an apologetic glance to Shib.

  ‘Organization, speed, luck and, thus far, seven centuries of experience. Anyway, Keech doesn’t often put himself in a position where he can be hit. Normally he operates on Polity worlds well within AI surveillance, and spends most of his time searching through Polity databases. Not easy to get him there. When he does come somewhere like this, he’s normally well covered. It’s surprising that he’s here alone. Maybe he’s getting careless,’ said Svan.

  ‘Or maybe he’s just had enough,’ said Tors.

  Svan shrugged and gestured to a path cutting into the dingle opposite a jetty. ‘This looks like it,’ she said.

  As they turned into the path, Shib could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He had been in some hostile places before, some where he’d had to go suited and armoured, and some where nothing less than a fully motorized exoskeleton would do, but here he felt things were wrong right from the start. This was a casually brutal place. In the Hooper town, he’d caught the tail-end of some sort of fight, and even he had been surprised at how easily Hoopers bore hideous injury. Then there had been the rush to head for where Keech had headed, then of course Nolan… He peered round at the surrounding dingle and gripped his carbine tighter. From the dingle floor, spined frog-things regarded him with glinting blue eyes, and the foliage above bore oozing fruit of a long and slimy variety. Was there anywhere here where you could let your guard down?

  ‘This is the place. We secure it and wait for her here,’ Svan said.

  ‘Her?’ asked Shib, nicking his gaze forward. Ahead of them a tower sprouted from the ground, and around it the churned earth was clear of vegetation, as if the tower itself had sucked all goodness from it. Shib wondered where the resident ogre was.

  Svan did not elaborate. Instead she turned to them.

  ‘Dime, take out the autogun, and any dishes on the roof. Tors, I want you to blow the door. You cover him, Shib, and hit any autos around the door.’

  ‘How many people here?’ Shib asked.

  ‘Just one old woman. We’re to hold her and wait. Our client should be along soon. Right, we go now.’

  Dime dropped a targeting visor down over his eyes, raised his carbine, and fired four short pulses in rapid succession. As he fired, Shib and Tors ran for the door. On the roof of Olian Tay’s residence, the satellite dishes on the pylon flared and sagged. The autogun, which had swung their way at the last moment, disappeared with a flat crack and flare, out of which black fragments dropped to the denuded ground. Tors hit the door and slapped a small disk against the locking mechanism, while Shib covered him. They both swung themselves either side of the entrance as the small mine blew and sent the buckled door crashing inside the building. Then they were in.

  Svan walked across the clearing, carefully scanning her surroundings. She watched as Dime ran around behind the structure, and she listened as sharp cracking sounds and low detonations issued from inside. The only noise she sensed came from Shib and Tors. This place was deserted. Either Olian Tay had struck lucky, or someone had warned her. As Svan entered the building, Dime moved in behind her. Tors stood in the central living room, doors broken open all around, while Shib was coming down a spiral staircase to one side. She glanced at them and they both shook their heads.

  Svan peered up at the ceiling. ‘House computer, where is Olian T
ay?’

  ‘Olian Tay, Olian Tay, is over the hills and far away!’ The voice was that of a woman, and Svan had no doubt to whom it belonged. She made a sharp hand signal to Dime, who quickly pulled an instrument from his belt and held it up.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Tay. ‘You want me to tell you that just so’s you can deliver the flowers my lover has sent.’

  ‘You could say that, but don’t you really want to know why we are here?’

  ‘That’s the way, keep me talking so’s your friend can trace a signal. Not too bright that, considering you destroyed the radio dish.’

  ‘You’re somewhere close, then,’ said Svan, making another sharp gesture. Shib and Tors made to duck out of the room and search, but Tay’s next reply stopped them in their tracks.

  ‘Wrong, this signal is coming through a landline to a pylon on the east of the island. Right now I’m sitting in the Mackay lounge on Coram. Oh, by the way, there’s enough explosives underneath my house to launch you four out this way as well, so I suggest you listen very carefully to me.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ said Svan.

  ‘Now, I know that somehow you’ve traced our mutual friend, Monitor Keech. He is not here anymore. The last I heard he was heading off to find some Old Captain to chat to. What I am most interested in is how you managed to trace him here.’

  Svan gave the other three a warning look. ‘If I tell you that you’ll let us walk out of here?’

  ‘I will allow that,’ said Tay. ‘Now perhaps you can explain yourself?’

  Leaning her elbows on the rim of the granite outcrop, Tay stared down at her tower. She then studied the screen of her transponder and smiled at the way the mercenaries were frantically gesturing to each other.

  Their leader spoke up then. ‘We followed Keech with a purpose-built tracer that picks up on emissions from certain old designs of cybermotors,’ the Batian woman said, holding up some sort of device she had pulled from her belt. Tay peered at her screen. The explanation seemed plausible but she didn’t believe it for a moment.

  ‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ she said, enjoying herself immensely. Only a small seed of doubt marred her enjoyment: if they hadn’t traced Keech by the method they claimed, how had they traced him? As she turned from the granite, with the transponder held up before her face, it occurred to her that maybe they were not here searching for Keech at all. No matter. She walked over to her AGC and climbed into it. When these mercenaries finally went away, as their kind always did, she would return to her home. She dumped the transponder on the seat beside her and reached for the control column.

  ‘Why, Olian,’ said the woman who climbed into the AGC beside her, ‘you’ve got it all wrong. They came here to meet me, and I came here to meet you.’

  Tay did not recognize the face that smiled at her, but the gas-system pulse-gun pointed at her face had her fullest attention.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ the woman asked and, so saying, picked up Tay’s transponder and spoke into it.

  ‘Svan, this is your client here. I have Olian Tay and will be with you shortly. I must congratulate you on performing precisely as I expected.’

  She clicked the transponder off, tossed it out of the AGC, and then looked at Tay expectantly. Before reaching out to take hold of the column Tay wiped sweat from under her chin and swallowed dryly. Batian mercenaries… now there were many people prepared to hire these mercenaries, hence the entire culture of one continent, on an Out-Polity planet, revolving around that frowned-upon profession, but factor in the recent presence of Sable Keech here on Spatterjay, and Tay’s own interests… Tay did not like where her thoughts were leading her. There had always been something odd about one particular story concerning the demise of one of the Eight.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  The woman gave a deprecatory smile and waved the gun at her. Tay could not keep her eyes off the wide silvered snout of the weapon. She knew that, even at its lowest setting, it could probably take her face off.

  ‘Oh, Olian, we can chat about all this back in your wonderful tower. Then you can show me your wonderful museum. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and have always wanted to see it.’

  Tay engaged the old grav motor and lifted the AGC into the air. She considered making a grab for the stranger’s gun, as up here might be her only chance. Perhaps this woman did not realize how long Tay had been a Hooper, and just how strong she was.

  ‘You know, Olian, you wouldn’t know how old this body is, just by looking at it, and how long it has been Hooper,’ said the woman.

  Tay said nothing for a moment. This body. Not my body, not me. That one phrase was all the confirmation Tay needed. She felt suddenly very small and vulnerable, even though her captor seemed smaller and more fragile than she. She knew now who this person was, and that there wouldn’t be a lot she could do if she did get hold of the weapon. The woman sitting next to her could break her like a ship Captain could.

  ‘You’re Rebecca Frisk,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I am,’ said the woman.

  As she brought the AGC in to land on the roof of her tower, Tay became absolutely certain that she would die if she was not very careful. And even then…

  ‘Out,’ said Frisk, once the grav motor wound down.

  Tay climbed out of the AGC, calculating all the way how she might survive this. That Frisk had come to see her out of curiosity, she had no doubt; that she left death and destruction behind her wherever she went was a matter of historical fact.

  ‘What do you want here?’ she asked, as Frisk followed her to the stairwell.

  ‘I want to see your museum,’ said Frisk.

  9

  Prill and leeches had gathered in huge numbers, snapping up stray pieces of flesh while adding to the chaos by attacking each other — or the glisters, even though that gained them nought — and tearing the fragments into smaller fragments as they squabbled over them. Visibility in the water was now atrocious, what with all that activity disturbing the seabed and all the spurting spillage from tender organs. This detritus of broken bodies and stirred-up silt was also so thick in the water that little else could be tasted. And, what with the rattling and clattering of prill and the bubbling and hissing sussuration of leeches obliterating most other sounds, what happened next was predictably unfortunate.

  ‘Something coming,’ said Ron, his eye to his telescope.

  Janer looked out over the sea but for a moment could see nothing. He then discerned a distant dot coming towards them and growing larger. He unhooked his intensifier and quickly focused on the object.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ asked Erlin.

  ‘He’s got an AG scooter,’ Janer replied. ‘Must have been all those investments he made before he shuffled off. Compound interest.’

  Erlin laughed, and Janer chalked up a mental point as he hooked the intensifier back on his belt. It was good to know that he could touch her in some way.

  The scooter came to a halt above the ship, and hovered there for a long while. Before anyone could wonder if it was just going to stay up there, it descended and came in to land on the clearest part of the deck.

  Janer gagged when he drew close to it. The crusted stinking thing sitting on the saddle was Keech all right, but a Keech somewhat changed since the last time Janer had seen him.

  ‘Too late, I think,’ he said.

  Erlin approached the reif with her diagnosticer. She pressed it against his arm and the thick scab there cracked and oozed red plasma. She stared at the reading on the diagnosticer, then abruptly took a step back. Keech’s head turned towards her, shell-like crust breaking away from his neck to reveal wet and bloody muscle underneath.

  ‘You’re alive,’ was all Erlin could manage.

  Keech just looked at her with his single, weeping blue eye.

  With the rest of the crew, Janer just
stared. It was Ron who suddenly moved into action. ‘All right lads, get him below. Gently, mind,’ he said.

  ‘I ain’t touching that,’ said Goss.

  Ron looked at her and raised an eyebrow — and Goss was the first one to reach for the reif. As they lifted Keech off his scooter, stinking crusts fell away from him to expose flayed muscle. Something bulked in the front of his overall, and Janer had a horrible feeling that organs were floating about free in there. He was so involved with what was happening that he didn’t notice the hornet had returned to his shoulder until Keech was taken below decks.

  ‘He brought a package for us,’ said the mind, ‘It is in the luggage compartment of the scooter. Get it now.’

  ‘You don’t order me any more,’ said Janer out loud, and Ron glanced round at him. Janer pointed at the hornet and Ron nodded, before following the others below decks.

  ‘Please,’ said the mind.

  ‘OK.’

  Janer went over to the scooter and looked in the back. He instantly knew which package it was. He lifted it out and inspected it.

  ‘Put it somewhere safe… please.’

  Janer headed for the hatch to his cabin. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you need to ask that?’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ said Janer, since he had received deliveries like this before.

  He took the package below, walking past the crammed cabin, where Keech was stretched out on a table. Reaching his own cabin, he was about to place the box under his bunk when the mind stopped him.

  ‘Wait one moment,’ it said, as if something had only just occurred to it. In Janer’s experience things never ‘only just occurred’ to a Hive mind. He waited anyway.

  The hornet launched itself from his shoulder and landed on the box. It crawled round to the middle plane of its hexagonal front. Immediately a hexagonal hole opened and the hornet crawled inside.