The Voyage of the Sable Keech s-2

by Neal Asher

  ‘Can you get in?’ he asked of those Hoopers right next to the doors.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said a figure standing beside him—he smelt the pipe tobacco before he recognised Captain Sprage. ‘These doors were made to keep out Hoopers, including even us Captains. Not very trusting, Olian.’

  Two others stepped up beside Sprage. One, tall and long-limbed, bore a disconcerting similarity to the Skinner, the other was red as chilli pepper and built like a barrel.

  Sprage introduced them: ‘Captains Cormarel and Tranbit… I don’t think you’ve met them, young Janer.’

  Janer glanced at them, then around at the crowd. If he fired his weapon here, people could get hurt—and annoyed. And these were not the kind to have annoyed at you. ‘I can’t explain now—it would take too long. Sorry, but I have to get inside.’

  He turned and hurried away, hearing the squat Tranbit say, ‘Hasty lad, there.’

  Janer pushed back through the crowd and around the corner of the museum. The ground here was covered with modified grass, greenish purple, stretching back a hundred metres towards the dingle. The long stone side-wall of the building was unrelieved by windows, and Janer ran along it to where it abutted Olian’s bank itself. Stepping back five metres, he knocked his gun to its non-standard setting, pointed and fired.

  A large section of stonework, all of three metres in circumference, disappeared with a screaming crash, thenreappeared as an explosion of dust and compacted stone shrapnel. Janer hit the ground, hot flakes of stone dropping all over him. Then, with his ears ringing, he shoved himself up again and groped forward through the thick cloud to find the hole created. Visibility inside the museum was as bad, but at least he had some idea of the direction he must go. He stumbled on something, glimpsed a Golem metal skull amid the debris, and moved beyond it to a chainglass cylinder lying on the ground. Inside this he observed Rebecca Frisk writhing slowly and dragging her fingernails down the glass. He shivered and stepped over her towards the wrecked door.

  Then suddenly a figure was standing beside him.

  ‘This is not your concern,’ said Isis Wade.

  Janer turned abruptly, bringing his weapon to bear on the Golem. But he was far far too slow—Wade’s hand snapped down, caught his wrist and squeezed. Janer yelled as his wrist bones ground together. As he dropped his gun, Wade kicked it clattering into the settling murk.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the Golem murmured, then almost in an eyeblink, was gone.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Janer, rubbing his wrist. He stumbled off in search of the singun. Without it he could do nothing.

  * * * *

  ‘Open the door or I will remove it,’ demanded the Golem sail.

  Olian decided it was pointless to pretend she could not get them inside. The wreckage behind her ably demonstrated the sail’s lack of patience. She took a big iron key from her pocket, twisted it in the lock, and pushed the door open. The space beyond used to be her house’s main living room. Now it was clear of all furnishings, which had been relocated to her new home built to one side of the museum. Stepping in, she glanced up at the security drone suspended from the ceiling, and quickly stepped aside.

  ‘Intruder, identify yourself! Verbal permission not—’

  The sail’s eye’s flashed, and the drone exploded into molten slag that spattered right to the far windows. Olian ducked, her arms over her head, as five more explosions ensued. When she looked up, she saw the five weapons pits in the walls had been turned into smoking cavities.

  ‘Open the false wall,’ the sail instructed.

  Olian considered her rehearsed line: ‘The security system has now put a five-hour lock-down on the safe. I cannot open it’ but she doubted this one would have any truck with that. The creature had just demonstrated a surprising knowledge of what this room contained.

  ‘House computer, open false wall,’ she murmured reluctantly.

  The wall seemingly holding the two windows began to slide sideways. Their view of distant dingle blinked out, revealing them as screens. A large, utterly smooth, oval door came into view behind.

  ‘Open the safe,’ the Golem sail ordered.

  Olian paused, remembering the last time she had been forced to do so—by Rebecca Frisk and her Batian mercenaries. On that occasion, Olian had duped them, managing to slip into the safe and close it again from the inside. Even so, one of the bitch’s mercenaries had still managed to shoot her in the leg. And this Golem sail, with a particle cannon under its mental control, would possess reactions a hundred times faster, so attempting a similar ruse would be futile.

  ‘House computer, cancel lock-down and open atmosphere safe,’ she said flatly.

  With a deep clonk and a clicking hiss, the door—a great bung of Prador exotic metal—swung open to reveal a highly polished spherical chamber. In here Olian had once kept her prized possession: David Grenant. Now it contained stacks of brushed-aluminium boxes.

  ‘Aaah,’ the sail hissed.

  It advanced with its waddling sail gait and ducked its long neck inside the safe. After peering at the boxes for a moment, it struck down like a snake, catching the boxes in its teeth and ripping them open, and slinging them around the interior of the safe. Chainglass vials spilt out, their stoppers coming loose, till sprine spread over the floor like red sand.

  What’s this?

  Olian backed away as far as she could get—breathing sprine dust could be fatal to her.

  Satisfied with the chaos it had made, the sail backed out. Stretching out its wing like a cloak, it coughed up a small polished sphere and spat it into one of its spider-claws. It then swung round on Olian with its back to the safe. Dipping its head towards her, it blinked and said, ‘You can go.’ Then it turned to face the door through which they had entered. Olian got out of there just as fast as she could.

  * * * *

  Aesop stared up at the pipework on the ceiling, and felt some species of joy. He was free, he could feel it: Bloc no longer controlled him. And he had survived: he had not been eaten by a hooder, nor destroyed in some mad scheme of Bloc’s. Here, now, strapped to a table, he was freer than he had been in years. But what had happened?

  Vaguely he recollected the fight in the bridge, then some kind of mad revelation and an overloading backlash from Bloc. He realized that his current vagueness about it all was because he could not connect his previous actions while under Bloc’s control to the self he felt now. A face loomed over him, peering down.

  ‘You’re not too bad,’ said the woman, Erlin. ‘But, like them all, you’re infected with the Spatterjay virus. What are we to do with you?’

  Another face then appeared. It was familiar, but for the moment he could not place it.

  ‘Under Polity law, no guilt attaches to him for everything he did while under Bloc’s control,’ said the man. ‘But he and Bones probably killed Bloc before that.’

  ‘Debatable,’ said Erlin, turning to the man, ‘what with Bloc coming back to life. Would the charge be assault?’

  ‘They almost certainly killed others before Bloc.’

  ‘Yes, I imagine they did,’ Erlin replied. ‘But you realize that you might not be allowed to take any of them back?’

  ‘Yes, I understand that. Polity law is not the only law.’

  Suddenly Aesop realized who the man was. It was Sable Keech. He felt a surge of some unidentifiable emotion, then wondered why. Such would be the reaction of a cultist, or one of Bloc’s Kladites—but it was not for Aesop. He began thinking hard about his present situation. If Keech took them back, they would be AI-probed and all their crimes revealed. No possible plea would then prevent their complete erasure from existence.

  ‘I won’t cause any trouble,’ he said to Erlin.

  ‘And what about your friend?’ she asked, looking to one side.

  Aesop glanced over and saw Bones, also strapped down, watching them.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘He’ll do what I tell him.’

  Erlin gazed down at him and gave a ti
ght little smile he very much did not like. ‘Neither of you will cause any trouble.’ She turned aside and crooked her finger. Aesop raised his head in time to see four Hoopers approaching. He started to wonder if his earlier happiness had been a little premature. Then Erlin reached down and began undoing his restraints. Once she had released his hands, he began to free himself. While the Hoopers looked on, she walked over and began to detach the restraints from Bones, too. Keech did not look at all happy about this.

  ‘Where’s Bloc?’ Aesop asked.

  ‘Bloc is in a tank, and it looks likely he’ll come out of it alive,’ Keech replied. ‘I’m confident he’ll be coming back to the Polity with me to answer for his crimes.’ He glanced at Erlin and grimaced. ‘Old Captains permitting.’

  ‘He could answer for them here.’ Bones now sat up.

  ‘We leave him,’ Aesop said, studying his companion, though there was nothing to see. A skull could wear no expression.

  ‘Why?’ asked Bones.

  Before anyone else could reply, Erlin interjected, ‘There’s no need for threats or for discussion.’ She turned to one of the Hoopers. ‘Forlam, you have your instructions?’

  Forlam nodded.

  ‘What are you going to do with us?’ Aesop hurriedly took off his last restraints and removed himself from thetable. He then glanced round at the other tables, most of whose occupants seemed to be Hoopers—there were just one or two who might be successful resurrectees. He knew that many had gone into tanks and that there had been many failures.

  Erlin eyed Bones as he too stood up, then turned to Aesop. ‘You’ll be confined in Bloc’s stateroom until some decision is made about you. If you attempt to leave that room, Forlam will then follow his Captain’s instructions. What were they, Forlam?’

  Forlam smiled. It was not a nice smile. ‘Tear off their arms and legs and chuck them over the side.’

  As two of the Hoopers took Aesop and Bones by the arms and led them to the door, Aesop experienced startlingly clear memories of the crimes committed by himself and his partner before their reification. Bloc’s murder had been just one of many—but no one here knew that for certain. Keech might have some intimation, but as yet no proof. He and Bones were culpable of nothing they had done while under Bloc’s control. If the Old Captains decided against them being extradited under Keech’s custody, it was just possible they might survive this. Then he realized all his hopes were based on a simple premise: that, like Polity AIs, the Old Captains would consider them innocent of crimes committed while under Bloc’s control. He glanced aside and tried to read the expressions of those Hoopers close around him—probably men whose companions had been killed by the hooder he himself had led into the encampment on Mortuary Island. Only Forlam showed any sign of emotion, and what Aesop read in his face was not at all reassuring.

  * * * *

  ‘Who are you?’

  The woman stumbling towards him he immediately identified as Olian Tay.

  ‘I have come to stop this,’ said Wade.

  She eyed his APW, naturally coming to the wrong conclusion. That was a last resort for him. He and Zephyr could resolve this between them.

  ‘But what are you stopping?’ she asked, as he moved past her.

  Wade winced on experiencing a sudden doubt. He was not sure if he knew.

  Out at sea, he had opened his internal hivelink via the runcible back to the planet Hive, but had found no reassurance there, and no advice. He had sensed only deep confusion, fear, anger, with an undertow of fractured and contradictory instructions:

  Destroy Zephyr—destroy yourself—flee—load to crystal—lie—live.

  Faced with this coming from the mind from which he had earlier been copied, Wade had become increasingly reluctant to face Zephyr, until at one point he found himself just hanging motionless in the sky. He realized that the conclusion to his and Zephyr’s long-running debate might be no resolution for either of them. It was the sight of the submersible moving on ahead that had finally jerked Wade into motion again. That was Janer, almost certainly, and the man would have no reservations about using the weapon he carried. Arriving at Olian’s and descending through the damaged roof, Wade had felt he might be too late, even though he could still hear the mad mutter of Zephyr’s mind. Stopping Janer had been necessary—the man just did not grasp what was at stake, and would strike even though it might not be necessary.

  The door into the vault room was open. Wade paused to one side of it and sent, ‘I cannot allow you to do this.’ But no reply returned over the ether. Wade stepped round the door jamb, abruptly squatting and levelling his weapon. Sprine was scattered all around inside the open vault. Zephyr stood there, holding a pressure grenade certainly full of the virus—seemingly waiting for something? Obviously Zephyr wanted to be dissuaded from its present disastrous course. He opened his mind to the Golem sail, totally, and began transmitting all that he knew, all he had recently learned. He replayed all the arguments at high speed, created and then collapsed all the relevant logic structures, laying out his final case. This could bring about their resolution, in this moment of the sail’s crisis. The surge of information would overwhelm its confused mind, and then it could do nothing but agree.

  But the information he sent just seemed to drop into a black pit—and Wade recognized despair. He understood then just what his other half awaited: the enemy. Death. He increased the pressure on his weapon’s trigger, but found he could not pull it back all the way, because then the irrevocable decision would have been made. The pause lasted only microseconds—but an age in Golem terms. Then Zephyr’s agonized cry filled the room, and the Golem sail fired its particle cannon. The turquoise blast struck Wade in the chest, hammering him back against the wall.

  I’m going to die, he realized, I waited too long.

  * * * *

  On the planet Hive, up on its promontory, the building resembled a World War II concrete pillbox, with horizontal windows gazing slit-eyed across the lowlands. Beyond the bare and mounded earth surrounding it, which further lent the appearance of a recently installed machine-gun post, lay dying algae gathered in green and yellow drifts amidst the vines, wide-leafed rhubarbs and cycads. Snairls, ranging from the size of a man’s head to creatures as large as a sheep, grazed on this abundance. The air immediately around the building seemed filled with smoke, but closer inspection revealed this to be clouds of hornets, killing each other.

  Physically infiltrating the ancient mind’s redoubt had been impossible at first, so the young mind’s only means of access had been either by conventional inter-hive radio or by intercepting and interpreting spillover transmissions between individual hornets. The former means had slowly degraded—the ancient mind’s communications becoming increasingly contradictory and opaque—and the latter was swiftly following the same course. The old mind was clearly fragmenting. But now that very fragmentation offered an opportunity to actually get inside both the redoubt and, by intercepting direct hornet-to-hornet transmissions, the ancient mind itself.

  The six hornets did originally belong to the old mind, but the youngster had isolated them, shutting off their radio communication with the rest of the mind, then inside them installed transmitters tuned to his own mental coding, but also linked to their original transmitters. Such a ploy could never work on a guarded mind, for such minds constantly monitored their own function. The six of them flew into the swarm gathered around the redoubt, and through their faceted eyes the young mind observed hornets attacking each other in mid-air, chewing in with mandibles or stinging each other to death. Now entering this swarm, the youngster began to pick up straight-line neuro-radio transmissions between hornets, and found that the mental coding of the old mind was beginning to vary. The young mind identified six variations: five still very close to the original, but one that was wildly astray. He lost four of his own six hornets to attacking insects before confirming that the attackers all used that disparate code. The old mind was now fully divided into two parts: one finite and ho
stile, the other in the process of breaking into yet another five. The surviving two spies finally entered the redoubt.

  Inside it, paper nests grew like bracket fungi from the walls, layer upon layer of them, shelf upon shelf. In here the battle was horribly intense and the floor piled deep with dismembered hornet bodies. The young mind noticed that the hostile hornets were all issuing from one particular conglomeration of nests and, though they were the aggressors, they were losing because the defending nests contained five times their population. But the place contained not just paper nests and drifts of hornet corpses. Fluorescent nano-circuitry adorned the walls, linked to various machines scattered here and in the labyrinth of rooms beyond: furnaces, U-space transmitters, self-contained robotic laboratories and manufactories.

  The young mind lost another of its two remaining spies, chopped to pieces by two attackers, that hornet’s vision fading as its severed head fell to the crowded floor. The surviving one, settling on the curved cowling over a manufacturing unit for hornet crystorage boxes, he now fully opened to the surrounding neuro-radio traffic. Insane screaming fed through, along with a viruslike mental program aiming for division, for partition. The youngster swiftly realized this program was no new creation, but in fact one older than the human race. Trying to hold his own sanity together, the young mind attempted to withdraw, tried to shut down the terrifying link. Underneath the screaming he detected a deep sadness—and a decision being made. From one of the slitted windows, a communication laser swivelled on gimbals and began firing. Also, an enclosed lens-shaped autofactory developed hot spots as contained furnaces were deliberately overloaded. Paper nests began to burn. The last com the young mind received from its spy in the bunker was the feeling of mandibles closing between its thorax and its tail, and a wall of flame falling towards it. Meanwhile, from other eyes at a distance, the young mind watched smoke and flame belch from the redoubt.