by Neal Asher
‘Exactly,’ said Zephyr.
‘But it’s not a thing you can kill,’ Huff added. ‘Without it there would be no life.’ Huff pointed down to the roof of the midship deck cabin.
Zephyr peered down and observed a pile of meat—juvenile rhinoworms the two other sails had bitten into pieces.
Creatures… not alive … alive?
Zephyr felt a coil of angry buzzing inside himself. Hornets killed to find food for the hive. Was that wrong then? If hornets did not feed, the hive died, and so served Death. If hornets fed, then they killed, and again served Death. By living, all creatures served Death
‘You know, somewhere in your heart,’ interjected Wade, ‘that your belief is paradoxical.’
‘But it is my belief!’ Zephyr bellowed.
‘You what?’ asked Huff.
‘And thus we get to the heart of the issue,’ said Wade. ‘I’ll have to leave you for a moment — the damned winch just jammed.’
Focusing on Huff, Zephyr shouted, ‘If I don’t believe I can kill Death, I will not be me! I will be only part of something!’
‘You’ve lost me there,’ replied Huff.
* * * *
Extruding his silvery eye from a metre down in gritty mud, Sniper observed the spaceship, now visible through the settling murk. It extended out of sight to his right and left, and the side of it rose like a steel cliff before him. Having got this close he wondered What next? If he could get inside, there was no problem: what he would then do involved every missile left in his weapons carousel. The problem was penetrating that armour.
Sniper listened to the sea-bottom sounds at the lower end of the aural spectrum. Somewhere below him, the seismic activity of packetworms; a kilometre back he heard the scuttling of prill and glisters returning to the area, attracted by the organic detritus; and somewhere far to his left the whooshing and snapping sounds of a turbul shoal already feeding. Also, from somewhere above, there came rhythmic crumps as if someone were walking on the spaceship’s upper hull. Now extruding one of his main spatula-ended tentacles, he activated the scanning devices it contained, modifying the emitted infrasound to mimic the other sounds around him. It took some minutes for him to clean up the return signals, in which time he also detected ultrasound and infrasound scans from the ship itself. In his mind he built up a fuller picture of what lay before him, and felt a sudden surge of excitement, though quickly curtailed.
It had to be a trap, he decided; there could be no other explanation. A major triangular port lay open in the hull—the kind that Prador disembarked from, or one for deploying large weapons. Sniper retracted his tentacle and eye, and began burrowing towards that port.
The mud here was increasingly laden with rubble and large shell fragments, so Sniper’s progress slowed. In two hours he finally reached the ship’s edge, below the port, and again extruded his eye up through the mud. It was much lighter than earlier, the sun well above the horizon and its light penetrating into the depths. For a long moment he studied a strange life form nearby. This segmented thing was long and wormish, and writhing slowly. One of its segments had detached and was inching away, and even as he watched another broke free. No record of this creature in his memory… but it was irrelevant. He again probed his tentacle into the sea, and listened. Eventually he realized he was detecting only echoes—signals of scans from the ship, bounced from ten metres behind him, probably emitted from some device above him. That meant he rested in a blind spot.
Has to be a trap, he told himself.
Sniper started his chameleonware generator, then slowly and carefully burrowed to the surface. Halfway out from the sea bottom—no reaction. Fully out—still nothing. Extending his tentacles ten metres up the ship’s side, he grabbed the port’s lower rim and hauled himself up.
Drone cache.
He scanned inside with a strong ultrasound analogue of glisters and prill fighting each other. No drones were evident, but he detected ten simple optic cameras, nailed them with ten indigo lasers and projected into them the image of what he had been seeing for the last few hours: mud. Still keeping the cameras targeted, he eased inside the cache, not yet daring to use any drives or AG. Now the complicated bit. Keeping the lasers on target, he groped around on the floor, spooning up silt with the end of one of his major tentacles. Closing its spatulate end around the mud, he injected the microscopic tubes he had used to sample the Vignette wreck’s burnt timbers, but instead of sampling, used them to draw off the water. The silt, strained to the consistency of damp earth, he then injected with a slow-setting crash-foam mix. He then moved around the cache jamming the mixture into nine camera recesses. The tenth camera, still targeted by one laser beam, he decided he must try to subvert, as he could not go around sticking mud on every lens inside the ship.
It took him only minutes to remove this last camera from its recess and tap into the optic feed behind it. Using techniques learnt longer ago than he cared to remember and a programming worm stored from the same distant period, he accessed an optic amplifier and recording module behind the wall. In the module he found a clock and set it forward, then he linked recorded images into the real-time feed. The camera would now show this cache as it had been just before Sniper entered it.
Curious, the old drone copied to himself all the stored footage and, as he reinserted the camera in the wall and moved back, began studying it. What he saw was both fascinating and worrying. The life form outside had been in here, but that was not the most fascinating thing he registered. Sniper turned and gazed at a mound of remains lying to one side of the cache. He moved over and scraped away some of the silt, picking up a large piece of charred Prador carapace, then the remains of a claw. After delving for a little longer he uncovered half of a distinct visual turret, a head—something no Prador he had ever encountered had possessed. Abruptly his plans and intentions changed. He might be somewhat irascible, but he still worked for the Polity, and that organization might be served better by something other than the demolition job he intended. Turning towards the inner lock, he began sorting through his store of both physical tools and software for the right lock-picks.
* * * *
The entity within the submerged vessel opened communication with the other Prador ship far above and asked, ‘Why do you want to kill me?’
On the bank of hexagonal screens beside it, the entity observed all the safety programs come on as they restricted the communication to voice only, for Vrost had just tried to send a worm burrowing into the spaceship’s systems. This probing continued for a few minutes, until the Prador captain admitted defeat and spoke.
‘Because you are an enemy of our King,’ Vrost replied.
‘Under my father, Ebulan, I have always been a loyal subject of Oboron. Now my father is dead, why am I considered a threat?’
A long delay followed. This communication was open channel so that the Warden could listen in. The entity knew Vrost could not openly say why Vrell might be considered a threat without revealing what he himself was. The entity, itself called Vrell, had therefore decided to have at least a little fun before dying.
‘All Prador adults are a threat, and only a greater threat keeps them in check,’ Vrost replied.
‘You mean Oboron, and his family, like yourself and the rest of the King’s Guard?’
This was perhaps edging into dangerous territory, but this Vrell could not resist.
‘It is by the rule of force and selection by power that the Kingdom survives. No Prador can remain unaligned.’
Vrell reflected on how Prador families that grew too powerful or made too many alliances were mercilessly crushed. In the Kingdom murder was a political tool. He now understood certain events that had meant nothing to him in the past: how many Prador families or individuals involved in biological research had been exterminated. Obviously they too had stumbled upon what he now knew.
‘Let me align myself now. Let me swear loyalty to the King. You will then have no reason to kill me.’
�
�That seems reasonable,’ interjected the Warden on the same frequency.
Vrost rebuked the AI: ‘This is an internal Prador matter.’
‘Yes, but one that has spilled over into the Polity domain,’ the Warden countered.
Vrost had to be foaming at the mandibles by now. On a nearby screen Vrell observed an insistent signal from Vrost that they switch to a private channel. Doubtless the Prador captain wanted a one-to-one chat, and also to actually see Vrell—not because the bandwidth of a visual signal would allow a worm to be sent, but to confirm the truth of its suppositions one way or the other. That was not going to happen. And anyway Vrost would learn nothing by seeing this Vrell—who decided to play this game for a little longer before making the concession he had to make.
‘There would have been no problem, Warden, if Vrost had not arrived here intent on causing an incident with the Polity, and an ecological disaster down here.’
‘This is true,’ the Warden replied. ‘You too could have avoided an incident had you declared yourself to me. Under Polity law you are not culpable for anything you did whilst under the control of Ebulan’s pheromones. Now, unfortunately, you have kidnapped some of the people of this planet, and killed one of them, and also endangered the lives of Polity citizens.’
Vrell felt a moment’s chagrin at that. It had not even occurred to him that the Polity would not automatically want to hunt him down and kill one of Ebulan’s kin.
‘I admit to endangering Polity citizens, but only so I could survive. Those citizens would have been in no danger were it not for Vrost’s intemperate actions. I also admit to kidnapping citizens of this planet. The unfortunate death of one of them was due to a radiological accident aboard this ship. I will, however, release the others unharmed, should I be given the opportunity.’
Vrell knew that the blanks could recover from the changes they had undergone, but that to call them ‘unharmed’ was rather stretching the terminology. The lie about a radiological accident could be proven neither one way nor the other, but none of that really mattered. All that was needed was Vrost’s belief in what was to follow.
‘What then will be your actions?’ asked Vrost.
‘Obviously this situation cannot continue. Should you destroy me down here, that will result in diplomatic repercussions with the Polity, but I cannot remain down here forever.’
‘This is so.’
‘As I see it, I must prove my loyalty to the King. Allow me to leave this world and I will surrender myself to you. I will place this ship in a parking orbit, and come over to you in a suit only.’
More long minutes passed, then Vrost replied, ‘That is acceptable.’
Vrell accessed the ship’s systems and began to follow instructions.
Prador never showed mercy and never backed down. This Vrell knew that Vrost would allow him no closer than a hundred kilometres. He was going to die, and he was seriously annoyed about that.
* * * *
Water, carried through the shimmer-shield in the folds of Forlam’s suit, splashed onto the floor. He pulled off his mask, walked over to the submersible and shed his other load at the foot of it. Over many years he had incidentally met most of the Vignette’s permanent crew, and in latter years, before he went offworld with Ron, engineered encounters with them because he felt they well knew something he was only just beginning to learn. He did not recognize this crewman’s features, but then they were no longer quite human. This one was a man and, judging by his clothing and the facial jewellery that seemed to be getting gradually sucked into his face, he was one of two Forlam had met earlier. The other might be one of the other two lying here. He turned round as a splashing sound alerted him to Wade stepping in through the shimmer-shield.
Wade trudged over and dumped the fourth crewman on the floor. He paused then tilted his head as if listening to something.
‘Two more and we’re out of there,’ said the Golem, now focusing on his companion.
They could easily have carried more than two each—Wade being a Golem and Forlam being a middling old Hooper—but the difficulty lay in getting them through the ventilation ducts.
‘There’s still Orbus and the other three,’ Forlam reminded him.
‘I know, but Thirteen is having enough trouble with the security systems we have encountered. He says our chances of getting them out of the engine room are remote.’
Forlam contemplated that as they headed back towards die shield. He owed Orbus nothing, just as he owed these here nothing, and to endanger himself attempting to rescue the remaining four was near insane in its foolishness. If Wade was not up to it, he wondered if he could rely on Thirteen’s continued help.
Again donning his mask, Forlam followed Wade back out into the ocean. Wade was just ahead of him, but rather than move on to the entrance beside the weapons turret, he turned to press a hand against Forlam’s chest.
‘Be still,’ he instructed over com.
Forlam froze and watched a turbul shoal pass overhead. The urge to pull away from Wade and start jumping up and down was almost unbearable, but he managed to repress it. Abruptly he realized that the changes wrought in him over the years—which had been exacerbated by his problems on the Skinner’s Island, when he had ended up looking something like those back inside—were going to kill him. But that was just an intellectual assessment: the prospect of danger and of death aroused in him a weird excitement.
‘Come on,’ said Wade, once the turbul were out of sight.
This time Forlam easily remembered the route through the ship. They dropped into the holding area where Thirteen, his AG shut off, clung to a wall ledge, then they stepped over to the last two of these crewmen.
‘We have to hurry,’ Wade said. ‘I need to get back.’
‘Why?’ asked Forlam, dragging one of the two Hoopers over to the winch hook.
‘It’s complicated,’ said Wade.
‘What isn’t?’
‘Okay, I am presently in constant communication with someone above, trying to persuade that individual not to leave the Sable Keech. He’s chewing on a spar at the moment, and I don’t think the threat of the weapons on this ship’—Wade waved a hand about himself—‘will restrain him much longer.’
‘You’re talking about Zephyr.’
Wade looked at him oddly, then started the winch running with the remote control he held. Forlam grabbed the hook, over which he had slipped the cables binding the Vignette crewman’s wrists, and rode the winch up with him. Up above he unhooked the man and dragged him to one side, then rode the winch down
‘What makes you say that?’ the Golem asked.
‘Oh come on, we’ve all seen you climbing up that mast for your daily chat. I don’t see why you do that though, if you can communicate with Zephyr from anywhere.’
They hooked up the second man, and this time Wade rode up with him, and stayed up there to lower the hook back down for Forlam.
‘Talking to him face to face, he cannot shut down communication, except by shoving me off a spar,’ Wade explained.
‘What’s it all about?’ Forlam asked, reluctant to reach up and grip the hook.
‘Come on, we have to—’
Suddenly the Prador ship was vibrating. Thirteen shot away from the ledge to hover in the middle of the room, turning slowly, his tail lashing like an angry cat’s.
‘What is that?’ Forlam asked.
‘Turbines,’ said the drone briefly.
‘Come on!’ shouted Wade.
Forlam addressed the drone. ‘Can you open that door into here?’
‘I can, but the ship’s sensors would pick up anyone who moved beyond it.’
‘Forlam, don’t do this,’ said the Golem.
From an earlier exchange, Forlam had learnt the location of the engine room: a hundred metres back down the main corridor then off to the left. If he was quick, he might be able to get it done before Vrell had time to react.
‘Can you get those two out by yourself?’ he asked Wade.
‘Thirteen, open the door, would you.’ As the drone drifted across the holding area, Forlam picked up his laser carbine and drew his ceramal knife from his boot.
* * * *
The juvenile rhinoworms who had been sporting in the shallows, and occasionally venturing ashore until Ambel kicked them back, disappeared like fog in a gale. The giant whelk arose out of deeper water, and Ambel realized that seeing it out at sea, or attached to a leaping heirodont, gave no true impression of its scale. The creature was truly gigantic, and he began to feel some reservations about his plan. But there was nothing he could do about that now. He pulled back the twin hammers of his blunderbuss, brought the weapon up to his shoulder, and aimed at its eyes.
Coming athwart the Treader, it paused, one eye on the ship and one eye swinging towards him. It then snatched one of its huge white tentacles up out of the ocean and swept it across, tearing away the rear mast as easily as brushing cobwebs, then flicked the tangle of mast spar and rigging into the sea.
‘Oh you bugger!’ said Ambel, and pulled the trigger.
His gun boomed, kicking out a cloud of smoke, and its load of stones pocked the creature’s lower body around one eye. It blinked, reached back with a smaller tentacle to rub at the base of that eye-stalk, then abruptly surged towards Ambel. The Captain turned and ran back into the forest of peartrunk trees. Behind him the whelk ploughed up the sand. He heard a sound as of some massive cork pulling out of a bottle, and glanced back to see a whole tree uprooted, then crashing down by the tideline. This did not bode well for the plan either. Finally he reached the spot he had designated and turned to face the monster.
The whelk’s shell stood as high as the highest branches and, while scraping by, knocked showers of leeches down from them. He noticed how its stalked eyes now extended out sideways from its main mass as if triangulating on him. Its flesh skirt spread for many metres ahead of it, and extending from that its main two tentacles were nearly in reach of Ambel. Yet it hesitated.