by Guy Haley
Commander Guan looked uncomfortable. He had a flat face with heavy epicanthic folds, a shallow nose and skin dark for a Han. "I apologise. We have no enhanced such as you in the People's Republic. I am unsure as to what the Tenets of Balance would say on this matter, and I am ignorant of the customs of your homeland." Commander Guan's speech was translated by his suit from Mandarin into German. The translation was swift and flawless, if emotionally bland, and seemed at times to anticipate what Guan was going to say, which spoke of some level of mind interface. Otto took all this in as he was designed to, assessing threats, but the human part of him wondered if China really was AI free. "However, to allow you access even to a spade or shovel would present an unacceptable tactical risk. We are aware of your capabilities. This may take some time. You may sit if you wish. Please do not go from our sight. The accord brokered by the VIA between our governments is a temporary one, and I have been given strict orders as to how you are to be dealt with should you not follow my instruction."
I'll bet you have, thought Otto. The Dragon Fires' support craft hovered silently above, a twin-hulled heavy lifter of a type he had not seen before. It too was heavily armed and armoured. He walked to where Valdaire and Lehmann sat silently. Lehmann moved to speak, but Otto silenced him with a hand, and ignored the query flashed into his head via MT. He felt the need to be alone for a while, and walked past the others to sit down on a fallen tree from where he could look over the dry lake.
The forest was cold and unpretty, the remains of Bratsk an eyesore on the far side of the plain of cracked mud, another blemish that would stain the world for centuries. The damage from the secret war between China and Russia was obvious even from this distance: shell holes and craters and spaces in the skyline where buildings had collapsed. While they'd been brought here, Dragon Fire troopers either side of the Stelsco, he'd seen the body of an old-style paratrooper hanging from a tree, a cluster of bones in a sack that might once have been a uniform of the People's Republic. Wrapped in tattered silk, skull held on by a few blackened sinews.
And they pretended still that the purchase was an act of economics, not war.
He stared at the needle-thick forest floor. At least now, into autumn, mosquito season was done with. Siberia was murderously thick with them in summertime. He gave a brief and derisory laugh.
He looked at the wounded landscape. So much death he'd seen, and he'd seen but a fragment the last century had had to offer. The planet's population had shrunk by three billion since its peak – the Christmas Flu, haemorrhagic plague, war and environmental collapse had killed many, but elsewhere populations were shrinking naturally. Whether this was down to the twin, and opposed, pressures of increased baseline prosperity and resource poverty, as the academics had it, Otto did not know. To his grandparents' eyes most modern Europeans would seem to live mean lives. Sometimes he thought the human race had exhausted itself along with its planet, losing itself in a senescence of virt-worlds, endlessly replaying its faded global culture and pretending everything was all right while its AI children took over its affairs one by one; a protracted extinction.
All he knew for sure were the abandoned suburbs, the ruinous village grown over with weeds and young trees, the towers of the arcologies springing up all over the world as populations contracted and concentrated themselves, the endless array of talking machines, and horrors like Kaplinski born of science.
And what he knew best of all was the blood of those he had killed as the world had changed around him. All of them, every face, stacked up there in his mentaug waiting to ambush him in his sleep.
And Honour.
He was so tired. His shoulder throbbed. He damped down his pain responses via his mentaug, and had his phactory increase its doses of aminopyridines. Pain lessened and the clenching of muscles round his shoulder relaxed.
He closed his eyes, and opened them to white walls. His seat changed from an uncomfortable branch into an uncomfortable sofa twenty years ago.
He sipped water from his cup and his feet jigged with worry. The clinic was empty; it was the time of night when few people had the desire to visit. We can't always decide when we need to visit, he thought bitterly. Honour had refused to come in, until she'd finally collapsed six weeks after their trip to the cave – three days ago. They'd been here ever since. Otto rubbed his eyes, and sent a series of subconscious cues to his mentaug to tinker with his brain chemistry. No one knew how long an individual could go without sleep, but the number of devil-may-care headcases and students clogging up the psych and neural re-engineering wards gave the medical establishment a pretty good idea of how long you could not. After a fortnight, Otto was rapidly approaching that limit. He felt awake, but the taste of aluminium on his back teeth told him he was close to the edge.
A health technician in a white smock appeared at a door opposite the waiting area.
"Mr Klein? Ms Dinez will see you now."
Otto flipped his cup flat and replaced it in his belt as he walked to the door.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. This is a complex case."
"One to write up," he said bitterly.
"Mr Klein…" the technician said gently.
"I'm sorry. I just…" He just what? He didn't know how he felt any more, he was no longer sure what was him and what was the mentaug. Moments like that in the cave, pure emotion, pure him, they were precious, and rare.
"I understand," the technician touched his arm. "This way."
The touch of the hand shifted to his other arm, and the room fell suddenly chill. Otto blinked and he was back in the forest, looking up at Valdaire. The sun was lower in the sky.
He'd had a mentaug blackout. This was not good. So long ago, but he was just there. And they said time travel was impossible.
A small grin cracked the corner of his mouth.
"Otto, are you OK?" asked Valdaire.
Otto nodded. "Memories," he said.
"They're going to bury Chures now," Valdaire said softly. "The Chinese want to know if you will say something? I did not know him well."
"Neither of us did," said Otto.
Valdaire smiled sadly. "Just try."
Four Dragon Fire troopers lowered Chures' white-shrouded body into the forest floor, their fellows standing with heads bowed. Otto spoke over it, as he'd spoken over the makeshift graves of a half-dozen good men over the years. What could he say? That he barely knew him? He said something about bravery and belief, and keeping the line, but he found it hard to feel any of it, and kept it brief. His words felt false. Kaplinski was still out there. It was a world of monsters.
Otto was one of them.
Valdaire thanked Chures for saving her life, and said nothing more.
Commander Guan looked to Otto. His irises were so brown as to be almost black. Few people had eyes like that in Germany. Otto always found them hard to read. Otto nodded. Commander Guan said something – Otto's Mandarin wasn't good enough to catch it, not out here without Grid support – and the men who'd lowered Chures to his final rest started to fill in the hole. When they were done they drank water from woven bottles, sluiced the dirt from their hands and wiped their faces with bright white towels, leaving streaks of forest mould on them. They walked silently to their armoured suits, which stood apelike, slumped forward until their wearers approached, at which point they straightened, swung their arms wide and opened, becoming metal flytraps that swallowed the men whole. Chestplates swung down, helmets engaged and auto-bolting mechanisms whirred. With the men imprisoned inside them, the war machines came to sinister life, a high whine coming from their powerplants.
Commander Guan addressed the three foreigners, his translation programme switching to English. "We will leave now. You have twenty-four hours to locate the man you seek, at which point you will be taken to the border, successful or not. We will escort you. Your machine –" he gestured to Valdaire "– you must leave it turned off."
"We'll be done here before today is over, if we can leave it on. The phone holds the lo
cation of the hacker Giacomo Vellini," said Otto.
Guan regarded him for a second, then gave a curt nod. He turned to the side and looked up at the grey sky. He spoke into his suit. There were pauses in his speech as someone replied.
"Very well," he said eventually. "There are no AI in the PRC, no near-I, no thinking machines, and nothing possessing proficiency in any three areas that outstrip the capabilities of a human mind. All such machines violate the Tenets of Balance, and are illegal. Our allowance of this machine's presence is discretionary. Should the machine attempt to connect to Chinese sovereign Gridspace or attempt any interference with People's Dynasty machinery it will be destroyed. Do you understand?"
Valdaire nodded, her hands tightening around the phone.
"Understood," said Otto.
"Good," said Guan. Troopers marched to each of the foreigners, one to each side, and took them by the upper arms in hard machine grips. "You may only activate your machine in the secondary tactical room. You are to remain in the secondary tactical room," said Guan. "Do not attempt to leave it without express permission. Any attempt to escape and you will be restrained forcibly. If you should leave the room you will be arrested and tried as spies in a People's Republic court. If you leave and attempt to enter the command deck, gunnery deck or power room, you will be shot. Is this also understood?"
The three nodded.
"Very well. We will now depart."
The jets on the soldiers' armoured suits ignited one after the other, burning bright and loud, filling the forest with their noise.
The Chinese soldiers rose up, carrying the trespassers with them. The belly of the heavy lifter cracked open, spilling harsh golden light into the forest, and they flew within.
CHAPTER 17
The War in the Air
Bear roared and gutted a pirate with a vicious uppercut. His other paw cleaved another into strips. Richards dodged back and forth between a trio of snarling buccaneers, jabbing unconvincingly at them with his sword.
Knives passed into Bear's side and long-barrelled jezzails went off in the aft-castle, their balls bringing forth puffs of stuffing. Bear was unperturbed. He picked up one of the pirates menacing Richards and threw him over the side. Cowed by the toy's apparent invulnerability, the pirates fell back towards the stern of the ship.
"Stop! Stop, I say. Let us parley! Cease fighting! Avaunt, arraunt! Desist!"
Bear kept up his guard but stopped swiping. The pirates backed down. Richards stood at Bear's back, sword at the ready.
There was a motion in the crowd of pirates, and a familiar face came to the fore.
"Percival Del Piccolo, poet swordsman of wit, cavalier, debonair liberator of ladies' virtues, pirate king and all round irritant to tyrants…"
Bear groaned. "You! Can it, clown, we've heard this before!"
Piccolo did not heed him. "…evil Maharajahs and Grand Viziers with ideas above their station, makes common cause with no man! I, sirs, am a free spirit, a sky captain. No man is my friend unless he has proved himself to me." He glowered, and Richards gripped his sword tighter, but then his frown cracked into a wide grin and a wink. "And you have more than done that, a toy like a bear and an idiot fool! My dear friends! Welcome aboard the Kurvy Kylie II." He sprang lightly onto the ship's rails and hung from a rope by one hand. "Men, put up your pistols! Sheathe your swords! These are true friends." He doffed his silly hat at them and bowed his head. "I am at your service. I owe you a boon, for is it not said that once a man saves another man's life, that life belongs to the saviour? Ask of me anything!"
"I," said Richards, "am looking for Lord Hog."
"Ohohohoho!" said Piccolo, jumping down onto the deck. "Maybe apart from that! No one goes looking for Lord Hog; one prays that he does not come looking for you. He is the death of hope! No cutlass or ball can kill such a thing. You speak madness. Come, sail with me to adventure and riches instead, so we may live out the last days of the Earth as princes among men!"
"I mean it," said Richards. "If I can find him, I can stop all of this. The Terror, Penumbra, all of it."
Piccolo frowned for a moment. "No! Really?"
"Yep," said Bear. "Me and sunshine here, we're on a mission."
A wide smile broke across Piccolo's face. He clapped his hands together slowly, threw back his head and laughed outrageously. "Oh, marry!" he bellowed. He clapped Richards on the shoulder. "Very well! Very well! Men!" he called. "Men, prepare for the adventure to end all adventures!" He leapt again onto the railing, and waved his hat around in the air. "We sail to save the world or die in the attempt!"
"Aye, cap'n!" the pirates called and all of a sudden there was a hustle and a bustle. Lines were tightened, decks were swabbed of blood. A burly black man went to the aft-castle and grasped the ship's wheel. Lines from this passed through a series of pulleys to halters about the air-whales' heads. Pirates took long gaffs and prodded them. They whistled. "Where to, Cap'n?" called the helmsman though a cupped hand.
"Indeed, where to, Mr Richards?"
"Just Richards," said Richards. "Is there an end to the pylon line?"
"There is," said Piccolo, "though it is a dangerous voyage."
"There, then."
"Very well! To the northwest," called Piccolo. "We go north first, to the Great Western Ocean, then on to the city of Secret. Or all is lost?" said Piccolo with a smile with a toothpaste twinkle. "I like it. I like it a lot! A perilous part of the world, full of adventure! Northwest, Mr Mbotu! Northwest!"
"Aye, aye, Cap'n." Bosun Mbotu spun the wheel.
The sky-whales sang and paddled at the air. Majestically, the Kurvy Kylie II tracked round.
Richards watched the crew at work. He marvelled at the amount of cliché whoever had constructed this world had managed to cram in. Its creator might have been an ace hacker, but he wouldn't win any creative awards. "All we need now to finish this off is a little song," he said to Bear.
He was not long disappointed.
Piccolo paced his metal skyship, checking lines and pulling levers, laughing with his men, and directing their efforts as they lustily sang cereal commercial jingles with improvised piratical lyrics.
Piccolo joined Bear and Richards and, taking the AI by the elbow, guided him aft. "You left me, as I recall, and the Great Terror struck once more," said Piccolo. "I escaped, and made my way to La Beau Porte Du Chance on the edge of the Specific Ocean. I remember. It was there that I availed myself of this ship and crew, winning it through a game of chance and, I must say, my own great cunning."
"I bet that means he cheated," said Bear from the corner of his mouth.
"And, well," said Richards, rubbing his hands together, "what about the, er, pirates?" He nodded meaningfully at stains on the decking left by their mêlée.
"Oh, don't worry about that," said Piccolo. "You know pirates. They will merely be happy that they will take a larger share of any spoils."
"I don't think there's going to be much gold where we're going," said Bear. "Only pain and death."
"And so," said Piccolo, "they will share in those as gladly."
The air-whales flew over oasis-studded deserts and lands awash with marigolds, over a rainforest edged abruptly by an endless theme park gone wild, rollercoasters ending in nowhere, surrounded by ragwort and rubble. An entire kingdom made of plastic bricks passed under them. Cities on rivers like serpentine seas slid below, sweeping savannahs crowded with cartoon beasts, swamps of candyfloss trees haunted by dreadful things. They ascended mountains so high that the whales had to be wrapped in blankets. Icicles hung from the rigging and Richards' breath came short. The mountains periodically dipped into green valleys and the Kylie followed the slopes down, offering some respite from the chill until the peaks reared up to once more force frost upon the crew.
They passed the mountains and came to a wide plain studded with cities in the shapes of great pearls. Some of these burned, sending choking columns of smoke and cinders so high in the air that they buffeted the ship.
<
br /> "Ah," said Piccolo. "There is Temperance, Levity and Just So ablaze. Things go ill with the world if the cities of the Wise can thus be fired."
The green of the plains turned to the black of old fire. Armies trod them, their distant passage marked by columns of dust. They passed over a horde of monsters swarming round iron war machines. It appeared Pylon City had been captured, and had done much to fuel the war effort of the Shadow Lord, as the sun struck a glittering display from a legion of freshly minted haemites. These armies noticed the passage of the Kurvy Kylie II, and sent opportunistic cannonades after them. But the ship flew too high, and the shots rained back down upon the armies below. Richards fancied he could hear their howls of indignation, but he could not know for sure. They were ants below the keel.
Once a band of harpies, voluptuous and foul, came winging their way from cages atop one war-tower. They shrieked and rattled their brass claws before diving down upon the skywhales. Piccolo ordered the cannons loaded with grapeshot, but the whales were far from defenceless; their long beaks snapped harpies from the air, and the assault did not last.