by Neal Asher
Forlam understood the oblique order he had been given by his Captain, also that others might deliberately misinterpret it in the hope of avoiding danger. Danger was not something that frightened him—only his own fascination with it did that.
‘Go to your cabins; I’ll handle this,’ he said to the Hoopers accompanying him. ‘I doubt more of us will be any help.’
‘But that’s where we’re going anyhow,’ said Dorleb.
Forlam sighed. It sometimes seemed to him that the fibres in the brains of many Hoopers strangled their thought processes. ‘A laser won’t bring down a Polity drone,’ he explained. ‘Captain Ron wants to free our mates below. He ordered me to go ahead and rescue them.’
‘Huh?’ came Dorleb’s brilliant reply.
Now on the bridge stateroom deck, Forlam paused and looked around, then abruptly bellowed, ‘Thirteen!’ The others eyed him in a way he had become quite accustomed to. Let them think he was mad.
When they reached the door leading through to the crew cabins, one of the Hoopers stepped through immediately, while shaking her head and saying, ‘Orbus… the Vignette.’
Two more Hoopers followed her. The two remaining just stood watching Forlam.
‘You’ll be needing our help,’ said Dorleb.
‘No, I won’t,’ said Forlam. ‘More of us would just be easier to detect.’
Without further objection the last two headed off. Forlam soon reached the head of the ladder leading down into the bilge, but rather than descend he went into the nearby armoury. One crate remaining in the cage was still sealed. He tore it open and took out a laser carbine, then continued on down, finally reaching a walkway leading towards the submersible enclosure. He paused by the door, gave it a light push with the snout of his carbine, and watched it swing open. A floating shape was immediately visible, the moment he stepped inside. Thirteen was hovering in the middle of the enclosure.
‘You’ve been expecting me,’ Forlam suggested.
‘I have not,’ the seahorse drone replied.
Ahead of the submersible, the irised door abruptly opened in the hull to reveal a shimmer-shield and murky depths beyond. Movement to one side spun Forlam round, raising his weapon, then he relaxed on seeing Isis Wade emerging from the submersible.
‘What happened up in the bridge?’Wade asked.
‘Bloc sent away all those he didn’t consider a danger to whatever plans he has. The Captain sort of ordered me here on a rescue mission.’
Wade smiled and pointed. ‘Suits and breather gear are over in those cabinets.’
Just like that.
Forlam felt a surge of something unpleasant in his guts. He walked over to the glass-fronted cabinets and studied their contents. The suits were inset with chain-mesh. The breather gear consisted of full-faced masks from which pipes led to a haemolung that strapped on the wearer’s back. The cabinet locks were coded touch panels, so he reached up to the top of the door before him and wrenched it off.
‘I guess the designers of those cabinets didn’t take Hoopers into account,’ said Wade, stepping past Forlam. ‘Or Golem.’ He ripped off the next door and took out a suit.
‘Why do you need a suit?’ Forlam asked, as he began donning one.
‘I can’t be hurt by much out there,’ Wade replied, ‘but I could lose much of my syntheflesh.’
‘What’s the plan then?’ Forlam asked.
‘Thirteen can lead us to a place on the Prador ship’s hull where we can gain access. We find the Vignette’s crew. If they’ve been fully cored we leave them and get out fast. If they’re just controlled by spider thralls, we excise their thralls and lead them out.’
‘Nice and simple then.’ Forlam reached down and drew a ceramal diver’s knife from where it was sheathed at his calf. ‘What about the ship’s security systems?’
‘Where we are going, the security system is weak, and Thirteen can disable it undetected just so long as Vrell doesn’t run a diagnostic check.’
‘And if he does?’
‘Then we’re in trouble, and we may need our weapons.’ Wade reached for his APW, which was resting against the door of the next cabinet.
Forlam eyed the footwear in the base of the cabinet, undecided on whether to wear flippers or the weighted boots. When he saw Wade choose boots he did the same. Soon they were ready and, hoisting a waterproof pack onto his shoulder, Wade led the way towards the shimmer-shield, where Thirteen was already pushing through into the ocean. On his turn, Forlam felt as if he was stepping through a wall of treacle. Once through, and dropping the few metres down to the Prador ship’s hull, he felt a sudden horrible excitement. Few Hoopers learnt to swim, since no Hooper went into the sea as amatter of choice, fear of it being inculcated from birth. Forlam looked around, almost disappointed by the dead waters surrounding him. Then, clutching his carbine, he followed Wade across the spaceship’s hull.
Thirteen led them out from the Sable Keech to the base of one of the weapons turrets. All about drifted the remains of juvenile rhinoworms, prill and glisters. This organic wreckage lay motionless, which for Spatterjay life forms was unusual because, even in pieces, they usually kept moving. This mess was, however, blurred around the edges and seemed to be dissolving. He realized that though the battle had killed most large animals in the area, the voracious plankton remained unaffected.
‘Here,’ came Thirteen’s voice from a com button in the corner of Forlam’s mask. He noticed that the hull nearby was very uneven where it curved down to the base of the weapons turret. Thirteen was poised over a metre-wide gap between the edge of the turret and the hull. Joining the other two, Forlam peered down into the dark cavity. The drone now descended, opening its seahorse mouth to emit a beam of light. Forlam immediately jumped after it, his boots dragging him down between narrow walls and landing him on a set of guide rollers for the turret. The light was now playing down by his feet. He stooped and peered into what might have been a crawl space for humans, so may well have been intended for human blanks. He ducked inside as Wade descended above him, more light spearing down from a torch the Golem held.
As he landed Wade said, ‘The light, on your carbine,’ and pointed with the torch he himself held. Unfamiliar with all of the controls but the trigger, Forlam groped about until Wade reached over and pressed a button on the stock. Now his weapon emitted laser light at the lowest setting and maximum diffusion.
‘Thanks,’ said Forlam, and wriggled after the drone.
Ten metres in, Thirteen tilted, manipulating something in the crawl-space ceiling with its forked tail. A hatch hinged down and the drone ascended. Forlam followed, standing up out of the water into a duct, then climbed up over the edge of it. As Wade clambered up behind him Forlam took off his mask. Somewhere he could hear fans operating, and a rank breeze blew in his face.
‘Ventilation duct,’ he decided.
‘Even Prador have to breathe,’ Wade observed, then turned to the hovering drone. ‘Thirteen, your AG?’
‘There are no gravitic detectors inside this ship,’ the drone replied, moving on.
Now, half-crouching, they made their way on through hundreds of metres of ducts. Forlam realized that if he got separated from Thirteen and Wade he might not find his way out again. Finally they came to a heavy metal grating set in the floor.
‘The holding area,’ Thirteen announced. ‘Do not shine a light in there as it will be detected.’
The drone descended tail first, turning slightly to fit through one of the diamond-shaped holes in the grating. Once Thirteen was out of sight there came a flickering of green light from below.
Lasers, Forlam realized.
Then, metallic clickings and scrapings ensued for a few minutes until Thirteen called, ‘I have disabled the three cameras. They will show a previously recorded scene until I instruct them otherwise.’
Wade now shone his torch down inside, revealing the scuttling of large lice. Directing his own light into the area below, Forlam discerned Hoopers sprawled on the floo
r. With a horrified thrill he realized that the lice were feeding on them.
‘Where did you learn that trick?’ Wade asked the drone.
‘From an old Polity war drone who knows more about Prador security systems than the Prador would be comfortable with,’ replied Thirteen.
Forlam grinned—he knew that old drone.
‘Your carbine,’ said Wade, holding out his hand.
Forlam handed it over, then shielded his eyes when the Golem knocked the weapon’s setting back up and used it to cut their way in. It took some time; the bars were thick even though out of the prisoners’ reach. When Wade had sliced along three sides, he used the beam only to heat the metal on the remaining side, before kicking the grating to bend it down.
‘How do we get them out of there?’ Forlam asked.
Wade opened his pack and took out an electric hoist and a webbing harness.
‘Right.’ Forlam snatched back his carbine and, jumping down into a mass of lice, began stamping on them. Wade landed lightly beside him, stepped over to the prostrate Hoopers, and began pulling off the lice still chewing on them. Soon the horrible creatures got the idea and began scuttling for cover. Forlam kicked one of the stragglers against the wall and leaned down to more closely inspect a woman lying at his feet just as Wade adjusted the setting on his torch so it became a lantern.
‘They’re gonna be trouble,’ Forlam observed.
The female’s clothing was ragged on her starveling dark-blue body; a leech tongue protruded over the unnatural jut of her lower jaw. The man next to her, he saw, had fingers twice as long as normal, had shed all his hair, and his nose had melded with his top lip.
‘Evidently.’ Wade placed his light on a stony slab jutting from the nearby wall. He then opened his pack and took out an injector—high dose Intertox.
Yeah, like that’s going to work, thought Forlam.
He remembered back to when he had approached this state, and some of the things he had done at the time. He also recollected days spent in a reinforced straitjacket, being similarly dosed until he ceased to be a danger… to everyone. He hung his carbine from his shoulder by its strap, then reached down and turned the woman over onto her face. Drawing his ceramal knife he wondered where to cut… Then something lashed out beside him, snatching the knife from his hand.
‘We cannot do that,’ said Thirteen, now holding the knife in its forked tail.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Wade.
‘I’ve been scanning,’ said the drone. ‘They have been converted into an adjunct to the ship’s computer systems. If we remove their thralls now, Vrell will realize at once.’
‘How strong is the signal?’ asked Wade.
Thirteen turned in mid-air to face the Golem. ‘I picked it up earlier on the Sable Keech, but could not identify it then. Some sort of high-level mathematical program is being run.’
‘Then presumably,’ Wade replied, ‘their location won’t be an issue?’
‘This is so,’ the drone replied.
‘We move them, then,’ said Wade, and turned away. ‘Forlam,’ he pointed to a large mass of cable mesh hanging from the wall, ‘cut lengths of that. We’ll bind them and take them out, one at a time.’
Forlam held out his hand to the drone, which returned his knife. Reluctantly he resheathed it, then with a sigh unshouldered his carbine. He had been looking forward to digging out those thralls, but really it would be best if he did not derive his pleasures that way.
* * * *
As he worked, Vrell noticed the requirement for increased signal strength in order to stay in contact with his blanks. Checking all other internal security systems and encoded thrall channels, he immediately realized what was happening. Two of the six in the holding area had been removed from the spaceship and doubtless those who had done the removing were still aboard, taking the others out, since there were many dead or suspicious areas in the security camera network. But it did not matter all that much. The six were still thralled, so he could continue to use their minds as processing space whatever their location. Then he noticed that four who had earlier helped him rework the U-space engine were free of their thralls, though trapped in the engine room. But even that no longer mattered.
Obtaining the nanochanger had been easy. A simple instruction to Bloc, and the reif had been forced to toss one over the sailing ship’s side. Setting it working, however, had not been so simple. Vrell quickly realized that opening or scanning the device would destroy or corrupt its delicate internal components. In the end he instructed Bloc to next throw a reification cleansing unit over the side. Now the changer was plugged into the cleansing unit and working: injecting microscopic nanofactories into the fluid Vrell was passing through the cleanser. This fluid was then circulated through a vessel which took the place of a human body, and inside that the factories clung, just as they would attach inside human veins: little volcanic limpets pumping out masses of complex nanomachines. After hours of scanning these, Vrell selected one variety of machine particularly suited to his purposes.
Now, before Vrell, in the laboratory he had recently opened, antigravity containment suspended a mass of nanites cultured from his original selection, in a saturated solution of salts within a study pit. Vrell peered down at the watery lens-shaped mass. It was white but with a metallic hue, and shifted slightly as the nanite clumps inside it readjusted. While operating the pit through his control units, Vrell assessed a virtual representation of one of the nanites in his mind. The nanite came with its own toolkit, which could be programmed by radio. It was a supreme technological creation, and only by now using the system of ship’s computers and human minds, earlier put together for U-space calculations, could Vrell fully interpret it, and change it.
The original nanites, on activation, replicated a millionfold before searching for bone. This they bored through in search of marrowbone stem cells. Their purpose was then to deliver this base genetic template to the other nano-builders throughout the human body. Stripped down to its skeleton, one of these nanites formed a perfect framework to take other molecular tools. However, its present tools could serve the Prador’s purpose: the catalytic debonding molecule made to bore through bone could, with a small alteration, be changed to bore through Prador shell—merely a bonus, as Vrell expected them to gain access through the Prador lung. Those tools which enabled the nanite to recognize marrowbone stem cells could be adjusted to detect genetic sequences Vrell had obtained from the dead Prador in the drone cache.
The tools that then enabled the nanite to locate other builder nanites and home in on them Vrell altered to locate certain potassium compounds found in Prador nerve tissue, and other tissues in the Prador lung. Upon finding a nerve, it then travelled along it until it hit a synapse, then it returned to its replication stage digesting surrounding tissue to build copies of itself. Finding lung tissue, it did the same. While dying, the victim would be breathing more nanites into the air.
Once the virtual shape was performing to Vrell’s satisfaction, he loaded its parameters to the pit, before turning his attention to the delivery system. Some hours later he held a small wedge-shaped container that fitted perfectly between the faces of one claw. Gaseous dispersion. A few nanites settling on Prador shell or in the lung would be enough, for the right Prador.
With black amusement, Vrell well understood the King’s need to destroy any Prador, outside his own family, potentially infected by the Spatterjay virus. Such a creature would undoubtedly make a lethal enemy.
* * * *
Through omniscient senses from a commanding position Zephyr understood that Death—the enemy—took many forms and realized that he must defeat every one of them. The creatures that had died in the sea all around him were just the result of a concentration of Death’s forces in this area; elsewhere in the ocean that was going on all the time. But then creatures did not count as life, so did their passing count as dying?
‘What about hornets?’ asked his other half, Isis Wade, from somewhere
down below.
Zephyr shook his head, but the question would not go away. He smacked his head against the mast a couple of times, but that did not help either, only dented the mast.
‘Individual hornets are insentient, yet the whole can be ourselves,’ Wade persisted. ‘You cannot make arbitrary distinctions like that.’
‘Then they died,’ Zephyr replied out loud, ‘and I must do what I must do.’
‘You can’t fight Death, nor kill it. Death is an absence of life not the presence of a tangible something.’
‘I have the means of striking a blow here.’ So saying, the Golem sail again cracked his head against the mast.
‘Assume that everything you say is correct,’ said Wade. ‘Surely you see that by killing you serve Death, even if it is Death itself you kill.’
Zephyr’s head felt strange now, and that had nothing to do with its recent impact with the mast. The Golem sail looked up as shadows occluded the morning sky and both Huff and Puff came in to land on nearby spars.
‘What’s that about striking blows?’ asked Puff.
‘I will strike a blow against Death, my enemy,’ Zephyr replied.
The two organic sails turned to look at each other. Huff shrugged, and Puff turned back to Zephyr. ‘We’ve been hearing bits of your conversation with that Wade fella when he climbs up here. Death is an enemy of us all, I suppose.’