by Roger Levy
Dixemexid said, ‘Don’t you see, Pellonhorc? What you have is already ours. The metavirus nearly killed us all, and more than once. Our isolation saved your System, and you never even knew. But we learned from the metavirus, and in the end we understood that the only way to destroy it was to turn it in on itself.’
Razer had noticed a lethargy to the shimmering creature. She remembered her conversation with Delta, her own fears of having been dummied, and wondered if the humech might be dummied, although Razer had always thought that dummying a humech was impossible. But Dixemexid was from the unsaid planet, and if they could engineer metaviruses, they could presumably do this, too.
And then the other humech moved, and she saw Tallen move too, and with the thought of his name came that sting of the augmem again. She thought, Tallen?
Tallen looked sharply around, and then directly at her. So that was what Cynth had needed the earlier contact between her and Tallen for; to link Razer with him, once she was on the rig. Cynth must have been able to use the comms connection to link into Tallen’s enhancements. All this time – how much time? Months? Decades? Longer? – Alef must have been just behind Pellonhorc, never quite catching up, but matching Pellonhorc’s preparations at every point. Razer had been brought to Bleak after the neurosurgery and audit teams, and had been directed at Bale and Tallen after Pellonhorc’s teams had started looking at them, and at Maerley after Pellonhorc had commissioned the subs for his mercs.
But until now, Alef – Cynth – hadn’t known why.
Razer understood that she was probably Alef’s only hope now.
And she was Tallen’s only hope, too. Not that Cynth cared about that. She was just Cynth’s – Alef’s – tool.
Dixemexid was saying, ‘Tens of thousands of us died, but in the end we understood and learnt how to adapt the metavirus. What is inside you, Pellonhorc, even Alef couldn’t cure. It is gene-specific to you. It can’t survive without you, just as you can’t survive with it. It is designed to mimic external malignancy, but it can’t be seeded outside you. It is unique to you. You will perish together.’
Alef was nodding.
‘All those years ago, Pellonhorc, when you came to us, asking for help and offering us money and power, we saw the same danger in you that we had seen in this metavirus that had nearly killed us all.’
Dixemexid’s voice was coming and going, and the other humech kept repeating, like a chorus, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We imagined you might change if you understood your frailty,’ said Dixemexid. ‘Some of us wanted simply to kill you, but more of us had faith in the Question.’
Pellonhorc cried out in a broken voice, ‘But you wanted what I wanted.’
‘No. You wanted everything. We could see the storm in you. We could see that even if we cast you away, you would still destroy everything. So we seeded you.’
Pellonhorc said, ‘But I – He –’
‘He?’ While the humech’s voice didn’t grow any louder, it suddenly seemed as if there were more people speaking from it, in near unison. ‘Don’t speak of Him, Pellonhorc. You know nothing of the Question.’
Dixemexid took a slow step back, appearing to sag. ‘There is nothing more for you but to die, and then you will know.’ The humech intoned, its voice now almost echoing, as if one of many, ‘For you, as for us all.’
Pireve, still hanging onto Pellonhorc, was beginning to weep. Pellonhorc turned towards Alef and cried out, ‘Alef, you have to help me.’ He took a step towards the sarc from which he had emerged, Pireve groaning as she took some of his weight. Razer could see the swell of her belly.
‘No,’ Alef said, his terrible voice cracking.
Pireve sobbed and turned to him ‘Alef! I know you love me. We both love Pell, don’t we? He’s your closest friend. He’s all you have. Him and me. Please help us.’ She started to haul Pellonhorc back towards the sarc, struggling with his weight.
Dixemexid was growing dull, and metal was showing patchily through the gleam. Razer wondered how long the dummying could continue. Delta had said that dummying was obsolete, but Dixemexid was doing it here, and with a humech. What technology did they have on the unsaid planet? Was it old, or new?
‘You could have allowed him to die quickly,’ Alef said, ‘and saved all this.’
Dixemexid said, ‘He had to be given a chance, Alef. And you would only have known a different pain and approached a different peace. And look at what you have done. You have responded to the Question.’
The Question? Razer assumed this was the mutterings of goddery. The unsaid planet was legendary for its violent intolerance. And yet there was a great dignity here. Could all those certainties about the unsaid planet through the years have been mistaken? Could all those fears have been founded on nothing?
Dixemexid’s voice was failing. ‘In letting Pellonhorc have his chance, we responded to the Question, and for a time we feared that we had responded incorrectly. But look what came of it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the other humech.
Razer was lost too. What were they talking about? Dixemexid’s voice took on a new cadence. ‘We have to respond. We cannot regret. We only learn.’ It moved towards the large sarc where the two men were breathing harshly through their teeth and shuddering.
Pellonhorc pushed Pireve away from him and screamed, ‘No.’
‘We have to respond. We cannot regret. We only learn.’
Dixemexid reached into the sarc for a moment, and the men were still, their breathing settling.
‘Ethan Drame, Spetkin Ligate, you have shared your pain for a long time. You have shared losses, too. You have been powerful and murderous, and look at you both now.’ The humech turned to the man on the left. ‘Spetkin Ligate, you have nothing any more but pain. No one to follow you. I cannot free you from the pain, but I can free you from life.’
Ligate shuddered. ‘Please. Whoever you are. Let him be the one to live, and let him have the son who did this to us. I have had enough. Let me die first. I’m ready. I want it to end.’
Razer didn’t understand this. Who were these men, and why were they in such agony?
Dixemexid did something to the controls of the sarc, and Spetkin Ligate released a long sigh and was still.
Ethan Drame stared at the body of his enemy, and whispered, ‘Ligate! No!’ and then, ‘He’s left me here. After everything, he’s won.’
The humech said, ‘No single one of us ever wins, Ethan Drame. All of us win, or all of us lose. All he has done is learnt.’
Drame laughed hollowly. ‘What did he learn? All I learnt was that when I was in unrelenting agony with him, year after year, it was a little easier when we breathed together.’ Drame let out a single breath. ‘Now I don’t have that. I was closer to my enemy than to my son.’
‘A small lesson, Ethan Drame, and a long time to learn it.’
‘Then let me die.’
Dixemexid moved to terminate the sarc’s support function, but it seemed to Razer, watching, that Drame died as soon as he had said the words.
As Dixemexid turned, Pellonhorc wailed, ‘No,’ and staggered into his own sarc. Pireve tried to step in at his side but he pushed her back, saying, ‘Take her, Dixi. At least that. Take my child.’
Pireve stared at him and then at the humech, and screamed, ‘No! I don’t want to go there. I won’t do that.’ Her voice changed. ‘Alef, please. You’ll have us, won’t you? A son. He might be yours. It’s possible.’ She clasped her hands together and knelt. ‘Would you kill your son? Would you take that chance?’
Alef covered his eyes with his hands. Pireve stood up and pushed at him with her foot. ‘He’s your friend. You stupid, stupid creature. You aren’t even a man. You aren’t anything.’ She was sobbing. ‘You can’t even look at me. You never could. You’re nothing. Nothing. And he is your friend!’
Alef whispered, ‘I have no friend.’
Behind Pireve, Pellonhorc was stumbling from his sarc, his face white with pain and fury, a red-handled k
nife bright in his fist.
Curled on the floor with his hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed closed, Alef started furiously counting again, nodding and trembling. And then, suddenly, he looked at Pireve and said, ‘But I will care for your child.’
Razer was so focused on Alef and Pireve that she was only aware when it was too late of Pellonhorc falling on Pireve with the knife. Razer pushed the door open and tried to yell a warning, but her throat choked with shock.
Pireve screamed once and dropped to the ground.
There was a moment’s shocking silence. Razer’s hand was at her mouth in horror. She had never seen anything so abruptly violent and totally unheralded.
Wincing in pain, Pellonhorc knelt to cup Alef’s face and wiped his knife on Alef’s cheek. ‘Now we both have nothing,’ he hissed at Alef. ‘See?’
Alef pushed him away and crawled over to Pireve’s body, nuzzling at her like a child. Her swelling blood reached out to him across the floor. ‘Pireve,’ he whispered. ‘The child.’
Beata said, ‘I do not understand.’
The other humech was no longer gleaming. It said, ‘We do not understand.’
Pellonhorc said, ‘We’ll die together, Alef. Like my father and Ligate. You and me, just as we started. He has won.’
In the further silence, the rig creaked.
Razer wondered whether Pireve or her child might still be saved. But as she came closer, it was clear that there was no life to be salvaged. All was blood.
Pellonhorc raised his arm to stop the merc who was approaching Razer, gun in hand. ‘Ah,’ Pellonhorc said. ‘I didn’t think anyone could get past the Whisper, Alef. But you discovered someone.’
Alef looked up.
Razer found Alef’s gaze impossible to meet. His eyes slid away from her. She looked across his shoulder and it was easier to bear.
‘All is gone,’ Alef said in his peculiar voice. ‘There are no more factors.’
Cynth’s construct of a voice was more human than this, Razer thought, and yet here was a true sadness. Alef said, ‘Pellonhorc should die. Only Pellonhorc. This is optimal.’
Pellonhorc folded over with a groan before forcing himself upright. ‘I’ll tell you when it’s over, Alef. You think there wasn’t a plan for Dixi deserting me?’
Razer realised that Alef was looking directly and steadily at Pellonhorc, and that he was crying. His whisper was so low that Razer almost missed it.
‘I don’t want to die.’
But no, he hadn’t quite said that. He had said to Pellonhorc, ‘I don’t want you to die.’
Pellonhorc looked steadily at Tallen and said, slowly and clearly, ‘Snow and rain. Mountains, ice.’
Tallen held his head and screamed.
‘You can die now,’ Pellonhorc told Tallen. ‘Death. End the pain. You know what to do.’
The humechs, as one, said, ‘Tallen? What is happening?’
The rig shifted sharply underfoot. Razer saw that Tallen had a knife in his hand. He was trembling, and the blade was at his own neck.
‘I remember you,’ he said, looking straight at Razer. ‘It’s too late. I’m so sorry. I did it.’ He closed his eyes and his knuckles whitened around the handle of the knife.
‘Tallen. Don’t,’ Razer said. ‘Please.’
‘I did it.’ What had he done? She ran towards him.
* * *
Tallen
Tallen heard Razer’s voice as strongly inside his head as from her lips, and the touch of her hand on his made him hesitate.
And then he saw Pellonhorc’s contorted face behind her and the red-handled knife held high and starting to scythe towards her. As Tallen instinctively slammed her out of the way, Pellonhorc’s blade slashed instead across Tallen’s eyes. He heard the screech of the metal across his own face, but there was no further pain. The pain couldn’t be worse, anyway. Blinded, he swept his knife at his memory of Pellonhorc’s position and felt a heavy contact. There was gunfire too, but it didn’t matter. It would make no difference.
Now the pain was gone. He fell.
* * *
Razer
Razer heard the gunfire as she dropped and swing-kicked at the merc’s gun-hand. She knew she could take this one, but the other two were at the edges of her vision, doing exactly the right thing, moving apart to avoid being in each other’s firing lines.
The kick was perfect and the merc was down, but she was unbalanced, pushing off her hands, needing a second longer and knowing there wouldn’t be half a second, that this was her last.
The mercs steadied themselves, braced, guns levelled.
And then they fell together.
One humech said, ‘We could not protect Tallen –’
‘– But we could protect you,’ said the other.
* * *
Tallen
Someone was wiping his face. ‘Can you see anything?’
Tallen knew her voice. He said, ‘No.’
Razer’s hand was cradling his head. Even in his pain, he was conscious of the metal in his skull. He realised that, apart from medicians, she was the first person to have physically touched him since the attack.
‘I’m sorry. Does this hurt?’
‘No. Yes.’
‘What did they do to you, Tallen? What is this?’
‘It’s me. It’s all me.’
She was dabbing at his cheeks and suddenly he could see fragmented light, and through it her face appeared. She was blurred, but she was smiling. ‘Your orbits are ringed with metal. There’s just blood. You were very lucky, Tallen.’
He watched her face as she continued gently to clean him. ‘Lucky?’ He looked at Pellonhorc’s dead body. Alef was still curled up and sobbing. Beyond him were three more corpses – the mercs. Razer noticed his glance and said, ‘We’re not so easy to kill, you and me.’
‘Tallen,’ Beata said. ‘The rig needs you.’
‘Yes,’ said Lode. ‘We have missed you.’
Tallen said, ‘My head’s cleared, but it’s probably too late to stop it.’ He’d carried out what he had been primed to do, and now that he’d done it, he was free. He knew.
Razer said, ‘Too late to stop what? Do you know what it is?’
Tallen stumbled towards the corridor. ‘I know exactly. I set it all, and I just triggered it. The rig’s set to destruct. We need to get to the subsea control room.’
‘There’s only one way through,’ Razer said, starting to run. ‘This way. They sealed the room off, but I opened it up again.’
Behind her, Tallen said, ‘Beata, stay here with Alef.’
‘We have to stay together, Lode and I. We have to stay with you, Tallen. You are more at risk than he is.’
‘This is an emergency,’ Tallen said
‘Yes,’ said Lode, trotting beside Beata. ‘Is it the same emergency or a new one?’
Forty-seven
RAZER
There was barely enough room in the subsea chamber for Razer and Tallen. The humechs stood in the doorway as Tallen started to work at the console. Razer said, ‘What was triggered? The rig should be stable, shouldn’t it?’
Floormechs were swarming around the room. Moving around the console, Tallen said, ‘There’s always a layer of gas sitting on the surface of a core reservoir.’
Every time Tallen wiped the ooze of blood from his eyes, the shine of metal came through. There were more mechs scrambling around the chamber. Razer was certain they were coordinated with Tallen’s movements.
Tallen glanced at her and carried on. ‘There’s a program to cap the valves taking gas and core into the rig. That’s a standard protocol.’
‘Yes,’ said one of the humechs. They were standing side by side. With Dixemexid gone, they were clearly a coherent unit. ‘Standard protocol.’
‘And failsafe,’ said the other. ‘That is good, Tallen. But why is the rig losing stability? Why is it sinking?’
Tallen kept working. ‘Part of the protocol is the simultaneous capping of the connecting
pipework at the wellhead on the sea floor. I disabled that part of the protocol. The gas is no longer capped at the wellhead. It’s discharging into the sea beneath us.’
The taller humech said, ‘We would have been aware of such a program error, Tallen. Why were we not aware?’
‘Because until a few minutes ago, it was only set up. I was set up with a trigger command. I just activated it.’
The two humechs said, simultaneously, ‘Ah.’
Razer said, ‘What can we do?’
Tallen said, ‘Nothing. We aren’t simply becoming unstable. Look.’ He made a gesture, bringing a schematic of the rig to the screenery, and said, ‘The anchor cables are slackening. We’re going down.’
The rig was starting to pitch noticeably, and Razer’s ears were popping. Tallen was moving quickly and deliberately. Floormechs were arriving and leaving. Lights were starting to flicker.
Tallen said, ‘We still have gas in the tanks, so for the moment we have power. I can carry on trying to maintain stability, but the problem is the gas entering the sea beneath us. It’s making the water less dense, making us relatively heavier. I’ve shed core to lighten us, but the more I shed, the less stable we become.’
‘Yes,’ said one of the humechs. ‘This is a new emergency.’
Razer touched Tallen’s arm and said, ‘Surely we just need to reconnect the pipework to the wellhead.’
‘I can’t. I sabotaged the system perfectly. The pipes are destroyed.’ He stopped. ‘Okay. I’ve done all I can do here.’
Razer said, ‘That’s it? We’re dead?’
Tallen looked straight at her. ‘Maybe not. Pellonhorc expected me to kill myself, and he didn’t want us to escape from the room up there. Now I’ve given us a few minutes.’
Razer said, ‘To do what?’
The lights were dimming further and the floor was groaning. There were distant crashes.
‘If I can cap the gas at the wellhead, the water will slowly regain its density and we’ll rise again.’ He made a gesture and a new image came up on the screenery. In the enhanced darkness, a spectral column of flailing pipework was almost eclipsed by whorls of current. The wellhead block was grey, imprecise and grainy. The image was constantly disintegrating and partially resetting.