The Eyes of the Huntress (Shil the Huntress Book 1)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Yes. I think we’ll go back to the beginning.’

  Tarin smiled. ‘Tradition and modernisation? Then I think we can do a little better than the sword Asharin used. He was very much a traditionalist. I’ll have something prepared.’

  Nodding, Shil turned back to the fountain as the images faded. ‘I’m a host. What for? What is Anoa?’

  ‘The Virtues are, essentially, computers. Each is a networked swarm of cell-sized machines able to interface with the host’s brain, interact with their body. When they first join with a host, they alter the physiology they find there to better suit the role assigned to them. The brain is enhanced, speeded up. In your case, there was a general increase in nerve fibre conductivity, accelerated reflexes, increases in muscle fibre capacity, enhancements to your senses.’

  Shil grinned. ‘I can track by scent, like a bloodhound.’

  ‘And see in a wider range of frequencies. All useful abilities for tracking a target. Once the physical changes are in place, the Virtue provides access to the Vedan Archive, which I am the… librarian of.’

  ‘Now you mention it, I’m aware of that, but I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Most of the veda did not understand it. Think of it as… The closest analogy from your world would be cloud computing. The Archive is a vast store of information, a library with a very efficient search system. The veda put everything they knew into it. When Anoa joined with you, the library gained all your knowledge of Earth. It is stored as a complex quantum field in extra-dimensional space. The mathematical description of the storage mechanism and the means of accessing it would cover this planet, but the important point is that there are very few remaining things which can extract information from it. I am one, you are another.’

  ‘So I have access to the sum knowledge of the most powerful species to ever exist.’

  ‘One of the most advanced. And the most recent. The veda found evidence of other beings who came before them, all lost in the past and now entirely forgotten, except by us. Your access is specialised. You are not a great scientist, you are a force for justice, but you were not meant to be a judge.’

  ‘That was Meriti’s role, but Meriti’s gone.’

  ‘Sadly. It means you must use your own judgement in deciding who needs to be hunted down, and what is to be done with them when you find them.’

  ‘Right… I’m going to need something else. My ship is going to need to be refitted–’

  ‘That,’ Tarin said, smiling, ‘is already underway.’

  ~~~

  The market was a bright, thriving place full of people of all colours, all species. She walked among them, examining the fruit on one stall, the vegetables on another, always with a ready smile or a word of greeting. And always with her senses open for the signs she was looking for. A scent or a sight of her prey’s face among the crowds.

  She saw something, a flash of red cloth, but it was enough and she made in that direction.

  He was there, walking toward the alien district on the edge of town. A child walked beside him, hand in hand with him, a stick of candied hylina root in her hand. That had to be stopped…

  He had been tracking the pack for days, following broken twigs, barely present scents, and dead bodies. They were xyrxa and no one knew how they had managed to get to this planet, but they had to be tracked down and ended. The creatures would tear a bloody swathe through the world until they were.

  Now the scent was stronger and there were patches of grass still pressed down from feet. He was close, and they might well know it. They had senses no other species had and in the open plains of Nobria, they could ‘see’ at very long distances, but those plains put them at a disadvantage too. Xyrxa were evolved for forests, they were at home in the trees, and the plains were handicapping them.

  Then he saw the rift in the plain with its rocky walls to either side and he knew where they were. He was about to be ambushed…

  There were ten of them, but that was a leader, two heavies, and seven followers who would break sooner rather than later. If she demolished the first three swiftly enough, ‘sooner’ would be very soon indeed.

  ‘I want him,’ she said, pointing her staff at the leader. ‘If the rest of you go now, you won’t get hurt.’

  The leader shook his mane of red hair. ‘You think you can take all of us?’

  Was he really that stupid, or was she just getting a run of really dense targets lately? She moved and a ten-centimetre metal spike sprouted from the leader’s throat. The two thugs moved forward, raising their hands as their boss fell to his knees, gurgling and clawing at his neck…

  305.1849.

  Shil opened her eyes and lay in the darkness for several seconds trying to remember who she was. Part of her was still not sure as she walked out into the night to swim.

  The dreams had been real. She only knew they were dreams because they had hopped from one location to another without rhyme nor reason, and she was sure she had been different people in each. She had been a man in one of them! Turning onto her back and sculling out into the ocean, she reflected on that experience. Breasts, she decided, were an inconvenience at times, especially large ones like hers, but men had all that stuff flopping about in the most annoying place imaginable.

  She shook her head. Relative anatomy was not the point. She felt as though she were falling into the memories of Anoa’s past hosts. The dreams were one thing, but the feeling of disconnection from herself was carrying over into her conscious mind. Rolling over, she began a rapid crawl into the bay, pushing hard, trying to drive all thought aside as she concentrated on the swimming.

  Two hours later, when Tarin walked into the dojo, Shil was busy smashing synthetic combat drones into scrap with a short staff she was using like a blade. Naked and sweating, the human woman had a wild look in her eyes, and Tarin stood at the side of the room, watching placidly as Shil destroyed drone after drone. It was apparent that Shil’s body had not yet caught up with her mental capabilities: the drones were landing hits.

  ‘You seem disquieted,’ Tarin said as Shil finally paused, standing in the centre of the room amid a pile of broken robots.

  ‘I feel like… like I’m not me. I mean, Veldro changed me, but this is different. I feel like I’m being smothered under other people’s memories.’

  ‘It is a hazard you need to learn to recognise and control. Many of the hosts experienced hallucinations from past incarnations, especially under stress. You will regain control soon. Focus on yourself, remember things from your own life and use the memories to reinforce your sense of identity. And helping someone else might also help you.’

  Shil looked at the android librarian. ‘Where am I going to find someone to help here?’

  ‘Actually, your ship needs some assistance of a similar nature.’

  ‘Cantarvey? She’s an AI, not even fully sentient–’

  ‘Ah, well, as part of her refit we upgraded her systems and she’s having a little trouble adjusting.’

  ~~~

  The bridge was silent and dark as Shil walked onto it, the only illumination coming from an overhead emergency light. There were still two flight chairs, but they had been replaced with something a little more modern than the old ones. Despite the newness, they seemed not especially different aside from lacking the screens on various supports.

  ‘Cantarvey? Are you there?’

  The lights came up and the main view screen came to life, though it showed only a shifting wall of colours. Cantarvey’s voice sounded hesitant. ‘I am here, Shil. Or I think I am. I feel… I am not sure I like how I feel. Or I am not sure I like that I am feeling anything.’

  ‘Not feeling yourself?’ Stepping around a chair, Shil sat down. The reason for the lack of displays became obvious as various instruments appeared, hanging in the air around her. The chair had a neural induction interface built into it. ‘There’s a lot of that going around.’

  Something, an amorphous, shifting, vaguely humanoid shape, appeared in front of
Shil’s chair, and Cantarvey’s voice seemed to come from it. ‘I… I was always happy with the emotional emulation I performed. I never understood the emotions of sentients well, but I was able to emulate them sufficiently. Now… I remember how T’ney D’nova behaved toward me and I feel angry. I remember how you came aboard and reacted to me as though I was a real person, and I feel… friendship? Love? I have the same memories as I had, but now they seem filtered through this fog of emotional weight. I am used to being objective. I am not sure I am qualified to operate as a ship’s AI. I am… unsure. I have never been unsure before.’

  ‘Well, I know how you feel, sort of. I’ve got five people’s memories on top of mine, plus the combined knowledge of the veda vying for space in my head.’

  ‘All of their knowledge?’ There was a hint of awe in the AI’s voice.

  ‘Sort of. I can get at any facts I like when I want them. I don’t understand all of it. The science is there, but it’s not what I’m specialised in, and I don’t think I’m intelligent enough to grasp all of it. And I know how to do things, physical things, that my body is not up to actually doing yet. I’m working on that. I think you need to fix on what you know about yourself. Tarin said I should focus on memories from my life to get a lock on who I am. You need to understand that emotions don’t have to rule you. You’ve been this ship’s AI for…’

  ‘Seventy-two years, by Earth reckoning of time.’

  ‘Right. You’re older than me. You’ve got lots of experience of how to run your ship, so remember how you did that. Just focus on what you do, not on how you feel about it.’ Shil frowned at the ghostly figure. ‘And maybe you should decide what you look like. You have a presence, but it’s kind of… misty and, if I’m being honest, which I think I should be, it’s hurting my eyes, even if it’s not my eyes looking at it. A little project for you: make yourself a self. Maybe it’ll help you decide who you are.’

  The figure lifted its hands to look at them. ‘I will try. I have never had any form of… existence before. My internal sensors are offline. What are they doing to me?’

  Shil sighed and leaned back in the chair. ‘Well… redecorating, replacing all your sensors, upgrading the drives, putting in some cells, a teleport projector, extra weapons, upgrading your old forward guns, replacing your hull plating, uh… Oh, putting in a replicator. I can’t believe T’ney had a nanofabricator aboard and made me walk around in that dress all the time!’

  ‘I can,’ Cantarvey replied. ‘I had a dent in my port side from an impact with an asteroid for five years before he finally got the plating replaced.’

  Shil grinned. ‘Okay, so we can both agree the man is a shit and just forget he exists. Deal made?’

  ‘Deal made,’ the ship replied, letting out a sound which sounded like a giggle from someone who had never tried giggling before.

  331.1849.

  ‘Have you given any thought to your first hunt?’ Tarin asked over breakfast.

  The librarian had observed Shil in the dojo the day before and had clearly decided that Shil was about as ready as she would ever get. Shil had decided the same thing a couple of days earlier, but actually admitting that to herself meant deciding on a first target. That was not so easy. ‘Uh… No. I don’t even know where to start. I mean, I have every known world to choose from and there has to be something on most of them, but…’

  ‘Rayan found the StarCorps bounties database most useful. The previous owner of your vessel apparently did as well since he kept an updated copy on the Cantarvey.’

  ‘StarCorps issue bounties? Ah, of course they do. They don’t have the manpower to hunt down every criminal they’re looking for. I’d imagine T’ney was checking whether he was on it.’

  ‘Quite probably. It’s wise to be wary. StarCorps follow a rule of law which is a… variant of vedan law, but they do not always apply it with complete equality or impartiality. However, it is a place to start and even a Virtue has to pay the bills. I took the liberty of compiling a list of ten I thought might make a good first run.’

  The list appeared, hanging in the air over the table, and Shil flicked her eyes across it while spooning a mouthful of the cereal she had selected into her mouth. A thought expanded one of the entries.

  Armilin, a world with a coalition of fairly moderate governments plagued by an anarchistic group of ‘freedom fighters.’ StarCorps had a bounty out for one of those terrorists, Nuril Namva. According to the data she was reading, he had been responsible for the detonation of a dirty bomb in one of the principal cities, along with a number of other atrocities. Even some of his compatriots considered him excessive. The planet itself had slightly low gravity, a breathable atmosphere, and a StarCorps facility. Despite the Corps being on the world, they had failed to track down the man.

  ‘That one, Armilin. Namva has been quiet for too long from his previous pattern of activity. He’s either given up, or he’s planning something big.’

  Tarin smiled. ‘Now all you need is something to wear.’

  ‘I think I’ve got that worked out too. When will the Cantarvey be ready?’

  ‘When you are.’

  Cantarvey, Armilin System, 18.4.943 Local.

  ‘We are being directed to orbital three,’ Cantarvey said as she flew through the rather busy space around Armilin. ‘Control has requested my identification and details of all persons aboard.’

  Shil nodded. ‘You’ve got the response data Tarin gave you?’

  ‘I am sending it now. I must say that the new engines are quite responsive. I believe my avionics have been improved by a significant degree.’

  Smiling at the pride in the AI’s voice, Shil glanced at the figure which, to her, was standing between the two flight chairs. Cantarvey had done as Shil had suggested and spent some time creating an avatar which she felt fitted her persona and the nature of her new role. She looked human, but then the same could be said about a lot of aliens. However, Cantarvey had elected to have skin which was actually paler than Shil’s, and her virtual body had none of the variations in form Shil had seen during her stay in Veldro. Cantarvey’s hair was more of a variation, but the effect could have been obtained by careful dyeing; falling past her shoulders, Cantarvey’s hair was about half and half baby blue and silver-with-a-hint-of-pink. Her fringe was blue, but her bangs were pinkish silver, for example. The avatar was not especially tall, and it was slim, but it had a reasonably substantial bust, and Cantarvey had given it grey-blue eyes surrounded by blue eye shadow, full lips with red lip gloss, and a perky nose. Add in the costume of a black, sleeveless, high-hipped bodysuit with a blue tribal-like design, and powder-blue knee-high boots, and you got an effect a bit like a teenager had raided her mother’s makeup and lingerie drawers. However, the AI was older than Shil, and if that was what she wanted to look like, Shil was happy.

  ‘As soon as we’re in range, get the latest updates on the bounty list. There’s no point in hunting someone who’s been caught.’

  ‘And it would also be wise to ensure that we are not on the list. You did escape from prison.’

  ‘True, though I hope they’ve got better things to do than hunt down people they should have kept out of gaol anyway. Once that’s checked, go over the local newsfeeds for any information on Namva or the Teladin Maccaro.’

  ‘Of course, Shil. What will you be doing?’

  ‘Huh. This is the first chance I’ve had to actually see an alien world, or space station, with actual aliens on it, when I wasn’t being taken to be sold or in prison. I’m going to look around.’

  Orbital 3.

  The place was vast. A hollowed-out asteroid with a hangar bay that could swallow Cantarvey a thousand times over and still have room for a battle cruiser or two, enough housing for a good-sized town, and ten acres of hydroponic farm. The whole thing rotated to give gravity a little lighter than Earth’s, which would be about the same as the planet’s, so the populated region was plastered around the interior of a huge drum with the farm in a lower-gravity layer
above them.

  Which was great, but the key point was the shops. There were shops! Lots of them, selling things from all over the galaxy. And Shil knew they were from all over the galaxy because she could identify several dozen different manufacturing styles and a ridiculous number of different fashion variations.

  She could not remember the last time she had been shopping for herself. Of course, for now it had to be just window shopping since her cash supply was what she had managed to find in a couple of drawers in the cabin. She had no idea what it was worth, or even if it was worth anything on Armilin. So she walked along the wide corridors and looked in the windows, and after a while she noticed that she was drawing a fair bit of attention herself.

  It probably was not the outfit, though she had decided on something which was going to get her noticed. It was red: that had been a basic and unchangeable requirement. In fact, her hair was now red to go with the outfit, her lips were scarlet, her nails were a metallic red, and she was wearing red eye shadow. She had gone all-out with the red. She was wearing a catsuit made of bright-red plastic which, according to Tarin, was as flexible as rubber and breathed like cotton. It was skintight, and there was a big hole in the front of it showing off the lower slopes of her breasts, down past her navel, and coming to a stop just north of her pubic bone. Strangely, the suit had actual protection value, though there was obviously something of a problem thanks to that hole. Her boots – thigh-high and high-heeled, and red, obviously – did not look like the kind of thing a bounty hunter should be wearing either, but that was kind of the point.

  No, Shil was sure the colour of her skin, and not the amount of cleavage on display or the sword riding on her back, was what was turning heads. Armilin was a warm world with a fairly high UV level. The armil had evolved skin which was dark, and they tended to black hair and deep-brown eyes. Even without the preference for fair skin the veda had foisted upon the galaxy, she would have been unusual.

  She found a currency exchange vendor and examined what she had. D’nova had kept a stock of negotiable bonds, it seemed, and a couple of them would get her two hundred Armili lek. She took that and went off to find a chemist. Her fair skin was going to be the same colour as her suit without a good sunblock and she figured the station would sell that, given that it catered to aliens coming in from out of the system.