The Voyage of the Sable Keech s-2

by Neal Asher

  In the gloom of the Treader’s hold, Ambel studied the ship’s manifest on his palm-screen. Then he eyed the crates of bottles filled with Intertox-laced fruit juice, the garlic bulbs and onions hanging in nets, the packs of desiccated proteins and vegetables, the salted pigs and various other items of dome-grown food. At a bit of a stretch there was enough here to keep himself and the crew from going native throughout the long journey he planned. Just one of those bottles of juice could keep the change at bay for the best part of a week. However, there was not enough food overall. He listened to the noise up on deck, which told him they were ready up there, then turned off the screen and headed for the ladder.

  Climbing up onto the bridge of the Treader, Ambel turned and surveyed his crew. As instructed, all of them were now up on deck, some of them looking tired and irritable after being woken while off their shift. There were only four seniors: Peck, Anne, and now Sild on the deck below, and Boris at the helm beside Ambel. Of the junior crewmen there were eight, Sprout being the most senior. Fourteen mouths to feed, including the sail.

  ‘Listen up, lads,’ Ambel called, and, once he was sure he had their attention, continued. ‘You all saw the island and think you know what happened there. You don’t, and neither do I really. Erlin is still alive.’ He allowed them to mutter amongst themselves and toss dubious glances at each other. ‘I know this quite simply because she was spotted being carried away from the island by that big Golem sail, Zephyr, and his two companions.’

  ‘So she’s safe?’ said Anne delightedly.

  Standing next to Ambel, Boris was rolling the end of his moustache between his fingertips, but even he could not remain dour at such news, and began smiling. Even Peck was showing his teeth, though whether or not he was grinning was debatable. Sild also looked happy. Other crew members, knowing Erlin less well and not having shared in this ship’s history, showed varying degrees of happiness or scepticism.

  Ambel winced. ‘I’m not so sure about her being safe. The sail is heading due east, and the only habitation that way is what has recently been named Mortuary Island—where reifications are building a big ship called the Sable Keech.’

  ‘Why would she want to go there?’ asked Anne.

  ‘I’m not so sure she does want to go there,’ said Ambel, ‘as she would have communicated her intention, if not to me, then at least to the Warden. I’ve learnt that one Taylor Bloc, a reif, wants her there so she can do for him and his followers what she did for Sable Keech himself.’

  ‘The sails kidnapped her?’ said Boris.

  At this one of the juniors spat, ‘Bloody sails.’

  Ambel eyed the man, a one-fifty Hooper called Pillow—which was a comfortable name for a man who had taken to discomfort in a big way, by the look of his various body piercings. Ambel was about to utter some sort of reprimand when he saw Galegrabber’s head swing over the crowd, on the end of its long muscular neck, and dip down until it was breathing in Pillow’s ear.

  ‘You got a problem with sails, junior?’ hissed the sail.

  Pillow nervously revolved his nose stud between forefinger and thumb. ‘Nooo, no problem.’

  ‘Good.’ Galegrabber rose up and turned back towards Ambel.

  ‘Now,’ said Ambel, ‘I could ask for help from the Warden, but I’ve always felt we should settle our own problems. I intend now to sail to this Mortuary Island and rescue Erlin.’

  ‘That’s a bloody long way,’ someone muttered incredulously.

  Ambel went on relentlessly, ‘We’ll detour to the Sargassum first, picking up some turbul and amberclams on the way to supplement our supplies. I’m told there’s at least seven ships in that area, so any of you who don’t fancy the journey can hitch a ride from there.’

  As the crew began to disperse, Galegrabber stretched his neck even further and brought his head level with Ambel on the bridge.

  ‘I got a contract,’ said the sail. ‘And this journey ain’t written down in it.’

  Ambel reached into his pocket and pulled out a wooden box.

  ‘The aug you’re wearing,’ said the Old Captain, ‘it’s the basic cheap datalink kind. Bottom of the ladder really.’

  ‘So?’

  Ambel opened the box and displayed the shiny new aug inside. ‘I thought about fitting this to myself, but never got round to it. It’s an Orion 3000, top of the range. From your present aug we can record across the alignment program for sail physiology, and then it’ll be ready to attach. What do you say?’

  The sail licked its lips with its bifurcated tongue. ‘I’ll want that in writing.’

  Ambel produced a new contract from his other pocket. ‘Just sign here.’

  The sail took the paper from him in its soft lips and took it up to the top of the mast to study. By the time it finished and signed the new document—surprisingly remembering its new name—Ambel was down on the deck organizing some fishing gear, for a shoal of turbul had just been sighted.

  * * * *

  The Hoopers, to make their bunkhouse distinct and for their own comfort, constructed a veranda on which many of them would lounge during the day while they grumbled about the cost of living here. Janer felt they did not really have much to complain about: they were on a retainer until the Sable Keech launched, at which point they would go onto a full crewman’s wages. Anyway, as well as a veranda, they had also put together a couple of rafts to go fishing for boxies and turbul in the nearby shallows, so all they needed to buy from the various commercial concerns here was some Earth food, which was sensibly sold to them fairly cheaply. Forlam, showing uncharacteristic enterprise, had even brought along a still, and the distinctive smell around their bunkhouse came from the numerous buckets ranged outside, all full to the brim with fermenting seacane. Captain Ron thought Forlam a good lad.

  ‘He’s speaking again,’ Janer observed as he stepped out onto the veranda. He blinked in the bright light, rubbed his aching head—too much of Forlam’s rum last night.

  ‘Haranguing more like,’ rumbled Ron from where he sat in a chair tilted back against the wall. ‘It don’t seem to be working.’ He sipped from a beaker of coffee.

  Bloc stood on a crate in the central clearing before a crowd of reifications. Picking up the gist of what he was saying, Janer realized the reif leader was telling them it was their duty to support him in defiance of Lineworld Developments’ attempted rip-off.

  ‘Maybe that’s because the intended target of that rip-off was Bloc himself,’ said Janer.

  ‘I dare say,’ Ron replied.

  The hive mind then chipped in, ‘I have been checking: Bloc now fully controls this operation here, yet has maintained his contract with Lineworld. That means no reduction in ticket prices, accommodation costs or reification spares’

  Janer relayed that to Ron. They had both heard plenty of grumbling, and knew that when the shuttle finally returned over two hundred of the reifications currently here would be leaving on it. But maybe that was not all down to economics. There was still the front end of a hooder out there somewhere.

  ‘How are you now?’ Janer asked Ron.

  His injury hunger—that ravenous appetite Hoopers experienced after any physical damage as their bodies rebuilt themselves—had been immense, and had required the other Hoopers to chip in funds to buy sufficient dome-grown food.

  ‘Right as rain.’ Ron patted his shoulder.

  Janer took hold of a chair and sat astride it. He watched Bloc, the crowd, the armed Kladites scattered all around the area.

  ‘Lineworld really screwed up, shipping that thing here,’ he said testingly.

  Ron just grunted at that.

  ‘I note that no APW has turned up yet, and no one has admitted to owning one. We still don’t know who it was that cut the hooder in half.’

  ‘Not for lack of effort on Bloc’s part,’ Ron observed. ‘His lieutenants ain’t stopped turning this place over ever since.’

  Janer nodded then emphatically wished he had not. He finally relented and took some pills f
rom the top pocket of his shirt to swallow dry.

  ‘You should not have drunk so much last night. You are not here on holiday,’ the hive mind informed him primly.

  Janer squinted down at his shoulder. ‘I’m not sure I give a damn.’

  Muttered imprecations issued from the hivelink. Janer returned his attention to Captain Ron, who was gazing at him queryingly. ‘Hive minds are big on temperance, probably because they don’t like what happens to their hornets when they eat rotten fruit. You were saying…’

  Ron shrugged and went on, ‘Curious how desperate Bloc is to find that weapon and its owner, considering they saved so many lives.’

  ‘They’re all a bit odd here,’ said Janer.

  ‘Yes.’ Ron nodded. ‘Not normal folk like us.’

  A snort issued from the hivelink. Janer stood up and stepped down from the veranda, leaving Ron to nurse his coffee. Crossing the enclosure he eyed the damage the alien beast had wrought and noted that most of it had already been repaired. Most of the human remains had been collected, but it was still not uncommon to step on something nasty concealed in the dust.

  ‘They were burning the dead last night,’ he observed. The pyre had been built over the tail section of the hooder in an attempt to burn away some more of that as well. Hooder flesh did not combust very easily. ‘I wonder what they’ll do with the rest—the reifs are still extant, despite their bodies being ripped apart.’

  ‘Their memcrystals will be sent to Klader. Possibly the reifs now lacking bodies will be resurrected in Golem chassis or in cloned bodies, or destroyed, depending on the strength of their beliefs.’

  ‘Destroyed?’

  ‘Yes. Fanatical cultists believed the body was all, no matter how decayed it might be, and that without the body there can be no real return to life. Though the Cult itself is now defunct, many reifs still ascribe to its beliefs. Most here, incidentally, are Kladites.’

  Janer grunted an acknowledgement then said, ‘I’m surprised.’

  ‘What, surprised at such primitive belief systems?’

  ‘No, that for three whole days you haven’t tried to persuade me to return to Chel. Or, rather, I’m not so much surprised as rather certain there’s something you aren’t telling me.’

  ‘Our agreement was for me to fund your journey here and to pay a bounty when you performed certain tasks. I have other contacts on Chel who will keep me apprised of anything I need to know. Meanwhile, I am curious about this… situation.’

  Janer winced. There were no facial or verbal cues from a hive mind, but he knew it was lying. By now he had reached the edge of the compound, and saw that a female Kladite guard stood at the gate, which seemed to Janer rather redundant as over to her left a huge swathe of the fence was down.

  ‘Not advisable to go out there,’ said the woman.

  Janer paused. He thought about arguing with her. But he was unarmed, being reluctant to carry around the weapon he had brought, and was now remembering how lethal Spatterjay life forms could be. And out there lurked something even worse than hippo-sized leeches, prill or the occasional adventurous whelk. He was not Captain Ron’s age, so the hooder could turn him into mush. He started to turn away, when a voice spoke from behind him.

  ‘I’ll keep him out of trouble.’

  Janer turned around fully. It was the Golem, Isis Wade.

  ‘Why should you manage any better out there than he would?’ the guard asked.

  ‘Bloc seems to think the hooder is some distance away now, and I’m sure, like myself, Janer wants to see the ship.’ Wade shrugged. ‘Anyway, surely you are here to protect Bloc’s interests, not the likes of us from our own stupidity?’

  ‘Well, it’s your life.’

  The dead woman opened the gate and the two of them strolled through.

  ‘Now that’s interesting,’ said Janer, once they were some distance away from her. ‘She doesn’t seem to know you’re Golem.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ concurred Wade. ‘The Batians, if they had still been in charge here, would have found that out soon enough. Bloc’s Kladites, however, are not so well-equipped. Unfortunate that, isn’t it? It’s probably also why they cannot find that APW.’

  Janer grimaced. ‘Can you keep me out of trouble?’

  ‘I could pick you up and run a lot faster with you than the hooder can move. Though I shouldn’t worry about that creature. It’ll be licking its wounds as far away from here as it can get.’

  ‘You know about hooders then?’

  ‘I’ve travelled some,’ said Wade.

  Janer nodded, let the conversation die for a moment, expecting the hive mind to interject some comment. It remained ominously silent.

  ‘I never got to ask you,’ said Wade. He nodded at the transparent box affixed to Janer’s shoulder. ‘As I understand it you’re no longer indentured, and since certain events here a decade ago you haven’t carried a hive mind’s eyes. So why now?’

  Janer did not question how Wade had obtained this information—anyone with access to the AI nets could know it. ‘Money,’ he explained smoothly. ‘After my indenture I continued working for this hive mind. As you say, after the events here, I broke the contract, but I’ve since renegotiated it.’

  ‘It was my understanding that you are now independently wealthy?’ said Wade.

  ‘You can never have too much,’ Janer replied. ‘The mind pays well for the small inconvenience of carrying round a pack of hornets in stasis and a couple of living ones on my shoulder, and all I have to do is be the tourist I’d pay to be anyway.’

  Wade did not reply to that; instead he pointed ahead to where one of the reifs was trudging up the path towards them. ‘That’s Aesop—one of Taylor Bloc’s lieutenants.’

  They both halted and stepped aside as Aesop walked past them. Janer only knew which reif this was because of the recognizable flak jacket he wore and because Wade had identified him. This was the first time the reif’s features had been visible. Aesop’s face was damaged—new damage—but that was nothing in comparison to his old and all too obvious death-wound. A segment of his skull between twelve and one o’clock was completely missing above his left eye. He acknowledged them not at all, as they moved on.

  ‘Do you know much about the history of reifs?’ Wade asked.

  ‘I learnt a fair bit from Keech. They were reanimated murder victims sent after their killers, mindless in the beginning, then becoming AI as the facility to memcord dead minds became available. The Cult came along after, its leaders twisting doctrine to fit the reality only when that reality suited them.’

  ‘Simplistic,’ said Wade.

  Janer glanced at him. ‘I only recently learnt about how the Cult imploded, when reifs many centuries old could no longer espouse such simplistic beliefs. I know things are more complicated than that, but do I care enough to find out exactly how? Not really.’

  A turning in the path revealed considerable industry below, around the huge, nearly completed ship. Janer now saw that what he had first taken to be the stripped trunks of dead trees in the dingle ahead were in fact nine masts rearing from the ship’s decks and its tiered deckhouses. Skeletal Golem glinted in the sunlight as they connected rigging, hauled up spars, cable motors, and the enormous rolls of monofabric sails that the living sails would control.

  ‘Impressive,’ he said.

  ‘It is,’ Wade agreed. ‘The designs for such vessels have been around since before we left Earth, and improved upon considerably over that time. But, with abundant energy and gravmotors, there’s never been the need to actually build one.’

  ‘Until now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They continued down to the deforested area, where Janer observed huge open crates from which equipment was being lugged across to the ship by treaded robotic handlers. This was the big stuff that needed to be placed inside the hull before the Golem bonded the last hull-planks into place. He paused to watch this work, letting Wade get ahead of him.

  ‘What do you think?’ he subvoca
lized.

  No reply from the hive mind. Janer peered down at his shoulder box, then after a moment tapped it with his finger. One of the two hornets inside toppled over. Janer removed the box, pressed an indentation along the edge to flip up the lid. He prodded both hornets with his fingertip. They were both dead. He closed the box and transferred it to his pocket.

  ‘Your hornets dying should not disconnect the com-link,’ he said quietly. He reached up, pulled the hivelink from his earlobe, and dropped that into his pocket too. ‘I think I’m exactly where you want me to be, but it would seem you and I are not the only ones to know that.’

  He walked on after Wade.

  * * * *

  On the planet Hive, the ancient hive mind sensed the probing presence of one of its brethren, but ignored it, aware that its own gradual fragmentation made it vulnerable to such inspection. The schisms inside it were becoming difficult to bridge or heal. It realized that this had happened to an earlier aspect of itself some time in a past immensely dim and distant. It had also happened to one of its ancient brethren a mere ten thousand years ago and—that event occurring during an ice age—all but one of the fragments of the mind concerned had died. The remaining fragment had then, over the intervening time, grown into the new mind—the youngest and most coherent of them all, and the most naive. The one now trying to make contact.

  ‘What are you doing?’ was the essence of the young mind’s question, though hive mind communication was not so easily amenable to human translation.

  Ignoring it, the old mind considered its own future, or lack of one.

  This was the way hive minds procreated: the networks of hives grew large and unwieldy, began to divide, as did the consciousness that spread across them, those portions of consciousness warring with each other as they sought self-definition, ego. In any other time the mind would have had to accept the death of self, but now it seemed the humans and their technologies offered alternatives. But were they real? Only just managing to still hold itself together, the mind could not decide.

  ‘You cut my link. (What are you doing?) Why did you cut my link? (What are you doing?)’ The younger mind was growing more insistent; linking itself closer in through the gaps growing in the old mind.