Greyblade

by Andrew Hindle

  “My Ancient Pinian is almost completely defunct at this stage,” Çrom said in the silence after this transmission, “but did you tell them to kill us?” he’d picked up the little portable translator he often used, but hadn’t activated it.

  Greyblade switched back to Xidh and visored Çrom meaningfully. “I’m not sure why you’re worried.”

  “Because dying is fucking unspeakable,” Çrom snapped. “I don’t understand why I keep having to explain this to you. If I had to choose between a million years of torture and a single death, it’d be the torture every time. If I had to choose between me dying and you dying, I’d…” he slumped back in his seat, arms crossed, fuming.

  “You can’t say it,” Greyblade said quietly, “can you?”

  “Shut up,” Çrom growled. “How long are your lies just going to be between you and the Medolokai, exactly?”

  “For the time being,” Greyblade said calmly.

  Çrom gave a short laugh. “My turn to trust you, huh?”

  “Oh no,” Greyblade said. “Don’t trust me. Never stop questioning. Just because I represent a theocracy doesn’t mean you need to have blind faith in me. When I ask you to do something, I want you to do it because you’re satisfied it’s right, not because I’ve just called on you to trust me.”

  “Not sure how I feel about that,” Çrom remarked, “after all the times I’ve called on you to trust me – and you’ve agreed to do so on the dubious merit of my not having tanked the mission so far. And especially since I sort of signed up for this mission as an act of faith.”

  “Appreciated, but not my doing,” Greyblade reminded him. “That’s one to lay at your brother’s feet.”

  “Is this reverse psychology?” Çrom asked suspiciously.

  “No,” Greyblade replied. Çrom squinted at him again. “You know why I trust you when you ask me to?” he went on.

  “Absence of alternative?”

  “Risk and option analysis with behavioural framework,” Greyblade continued. “Just a minute ago, when you failed to say you’d let me die to save your own life, even though you know what dying feels like, I knew you wouldn’t say it. I knew you wouldn’t do it. You don’t have the benefit of a tactical supercomputer making your value judgements, so trust is just a lazy refusal to accept personal responsibility.”

  “Lazy Refusal To Accept Personal Responsibility is my middle name,” Çrom smiled. “What does your supercomputer have to say about the Godfangs?”

  “It’s telling me that if the Medolokai and her sisters were going to kill us, they would have done so by now,” Greyblade said.

  “Wow,” Çrom enthused. “And that’s a supercomputer, you say?”

  “I’m taking us in to land,” Greyblade said.

  “You sure you can manage? I can jack you into my pocket pad to boost your processing power a bit.”

  Greyblade smiled behind his visor and let Çrom rib him all the way down. They’d come very close to complete openness there, and a defensive sardonic counteraction was only to be expected. And openness wasn’t the only thing they’d risked, he reflected.

  Tell him, Greyblade scolded himself in Ildar’s voice.

  They landed unharmed less than two hundred metres from the towering white hull of the centremost platform.

  THE EATER OF GODS

  Greyblade and Çrom stood on the freezing ice and looked up at the white-marble wall of the Category 9 Convoy Defence Platform, name as-yet unknown since the Medolokai had not identified herself by position in the arc of vessels.

  From this viewpoint, there was barely a curve to the seamless hull. Çrom, once again in breather and thermal, turned and looked at Greyblade.

  “Here we go, then,” he said.

  “You got us here,” Greyblade said. “You found the Godfangs. And in two years,” part of him, a part that was still capable of scepticism, wanted to add assuming that time really walked backwards in Naskiraqad. But the rest of him … the rest of him remembered Naskiraqad. “Just like you said you would.”

  “Rosedian’s lost fleet,” Çrom agreed. “Quite the feather in my treasure hunter’s cap,” he gestured grandly at the wall. “Over to you.”

  “Right…” Greyblade said, and stepped up to the Godfang. Her hull, he noticed, didn’t quite have the pearly sheen of the dead fragments they’d seen in the original Wyrm, but it wasn’t as cracked and bleached as the Destarion’s, either. Not as many campaigns fought, perhaps – or different ones, anyway. Centuries standing ready, rather than drifting neglected and haunted and–

  A doorway, sharp and rectangular and seamless, slid open in the hull. Inside, just as straight and angular and sterile, was a chamber perhaps four metres on a side – the same size as the doorway, in fact, as though the platform had simply sucked a segment of her hull inwards to create this flawless little niche. The two travellers stepped inside, and Greyblade noted the subtle chrome lines at mid-point and corners, highlighting the white and somehow making it seem less clinical. The ceiling was a slightly brighter white than the walls, but they all appeared to be emitting light. The chamber was thus filled with a pleasant, sourceless illumination.

  On a wall adjacent to the entrance, a sleek panel stood up from the surface. It was covered in a friendly series of pink and blue icons that Greyblade didn’t immediately recognise. There were controls there, as well as some sort of coordinate and altitude designators.

  Çrom had also noticed the panel, and evidently figured out as much as Greyblade had about its functions. He looked around the chamber which, spacious though it might be for an airlock, was not a hundred kilometres tall. “This isn’t the bridge, is it?” he asked. He pulled off his mask cautiously and tested the air, then unrolled the hood of his thermal. “Warm, though,” he added appreciatively. “Even with the door still–”

  The door closed silently behind them and a voice spoke from the panel.

  “Sir Greyblade of the Ladyhawk,” the voice sounded like the Medolokai, but Greyblade detected subtle differences that weren’t just a result of the source communicator. “Sorry Çrom Skelliglyph. Welcome. I am Category 9 Convoy Defence Platform Natha’i.”

  “Thank you for agreeing to see us,” Greyblade said.

  “And it’s Captain Çrom Skelliglyph,” Çrom added. “That’s my ship out there, you know.”

  “She’s beautiful,” the Natha’i said. “I perceive a classical artistry in her construction, perfectly balanced with engineering elegance.”

  “She’s a Fhaste,” Çrom clarified eagerly, then his face sank. “A bit after your time in the Corporation, I guess.”

  “So what happens now?” Greyblade asked.

  “I will assist you to my actual bridge,” the Natha’i said with a hint of playful amusement, “where you can properly discuss your intent with the fleet. Preparations are underway for the meeting. Would you like to ride express, or take the promenade?”

  Greyblade spread his hands. “Which would you recommend?”

  “The promenade, I regret to inform you, is not at peak efficiency due to our long-term docking arrangement, and its attractions largely stored or left to gather dust,” the Natha’i replied. “The walk of thirty-two kilometres is facilitated by a moving walkway, however.”

  “Let’s take the express,” Greyblade said. “No offence,” his sensors registered a very subtle shift as the chamber – an elevator, it seemed – began to move. Çrom evidently didn’t notice, because after a few seconds he glanced at Greyblade with a what-now look on his face. “We’re ascending,” Greyblade explained quietly. Çrom’s expression cleared. A few seconds later, the motion ceased and the door opened.

  “Promenade level one,” the Natha’i said. “Staging and reception. I have dispatched a Flesh-Eater to act as a guide.”

  “A what-Eater?” Çrom hissed.

  “Forgive me,” the Natha’i replied. Greyblade and Çrom stepped out into a spacious arc of corridor that revealed itself to be a circular room once the elevator, which had risen fro
m the floor, dropped silently back into the depths of the platform and merged seamlessly. A white-robed figure, Molranoid and pale, stepped up and made an inviting gesture with its upper left hand. “My small munitions are called Flesh-Eaters, but as you can see they are quite unthreatening when in diplomatic configuration,” the Godfang’s voice, now as directionless as the light, chuckled richly. “You might not find it so reassuring in its attack configuration.”

  Greyblade nodded to the Molranoid unit, subjecting it to a careful analysis as he followed its silent direction. It still wasn’t what he would call reassuring, with its broad flat head dominated by eyes of gleaming zirgox circuitry-crystal, its small back-swept Molran-style ears and its apparent lack of a mouth. It looked like a mannequin, and was a little creepy, but he was sure the Godfang was capable of conjuring worse for her enemies. What skin was visible outside the white robe, Greyblade noted in fascination, was actually decorated with very faint, twirled etchings very reminiscent of his own armour. Evidently the Pinian theological aesthetic didn’t change much over time.

  “I thought the Flesh-Eaters were smaller vessels,” Greyblade said, thinking of the stories surrounding Moskin Stormburg’s work during the Flutter.

  “The category encompasses several different types of unit and weaponry,” the Natha’i replied. The Flesh-Eater led them to one side of the room – then turned and ushered them, seemingly arbitrarily, back towards the centre. An elegantly curved walkway swept up from the floor and met its duplicate unrolling from an opening that had appeared in the ceiling, forming an unbroken ramp up to the next level. Greyblade and Çrom ascended into another room, this one comfortably furnished with Molran-scaled chairs and consoles arranged around a domed construction in black and silver in the centre. “Archive level seven,” the Godfang went on. “Lower archives data storage and interactulix.”

  “Nice,” Çrom said, “very nice.”

  The next door opened further along the curve of wall. The Flesh-Eater swept up the ramp and past the two guests, swung around and halted next to the doorway, and gestured again.

  They stepped into another crisp cube-shaped chamber and ascended for a few more seconds. Çrom hummed tunelessly under his breath and may have been about to try to engage the Flesh-Eater in conversation when the door once again opened.

  “Command level one,” the Natha’i reported. “Grand Bridge.”

  They stepped out into another circular room, this one much larger and with a large arc of wall apparently open to the frozen landscape and blue-black sky. Greyblade recognised it as a sophisticated viewing gallery that could probably be extended all the way around the chamber to allow the same sort of 360° view that his helmet provided. There was more Molran-scaled furniture in silver, white and black, and a broad arc of consoles facing the viewscreen. And in the middle of the room …

  “Oh,” Greyblade said.

  The figure standing on the Natha’i’s bridge wasn’t just Molranoid, it was a Molran, albeit an unusually thickset and brutish-looking one. His clothing was a series of glossy black plates like armour, but when he moved it shifted in supple, flowing concert. One side of his weathered face was marked with lines of fine text in archaic Xidh, which a moment’s analysis identified as a passage from the Book of Pinian. His ear-webs were studded with earrings, and an arc of similar rings decorated the skin of his eye socket on the un-tattooed side. He grinned broadly as only a Molran could, and strode forward to meet them.

  “Welcome aboard,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. As you might imagine, we don’t get many guests here.”

  “You’re Arbus Rosedian,” Greyblade said, feeling distinctly unreal as he spoke the words.

  “Yes,” the Molran said, and bowed. Actually bowed. “Arbus Rosedian of the Tenth Elders, Eater of Gods, at your service.”

  COUNCIL OF GODFANGS

  “Eater of Gods?” Çrom asked. “Is that another artsy naming thing like ‘Flesh-Eater’?”

  “Actually it might be,” Greyblade allowed. “The platform’s mid- to top-range weapons are called God-Eaters,” he inclined his helm to the Molran. “Eater of Gods is not a title I’ve got on file for you.”

  “Ah, you have a file,” Rosedian rubbed both pairs of hands together. His joviality seemed to add to his size, making him nothing short of enormous. “That will make exciting reading.”

  “My shonky sense is tingling,” Çrom muttered.

  “Forgive us,” Greyblade said as Rosedian looked at Çrom in cheerful, ruddy puzzlement, “but you are remarkably well preserved for a man four times older that the oldest Molran I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Clean living,” Rosedian said with a wink. “And massive surgical and nutritional restructuring from my beloved daughters. They have decided not to let me die until our mission is complete.”

  Greyblade was accustomed to immortals, from simple functional regenerators like Big Thundering Bjørn to Firstmades like the Pinians and even, now, the unique and mercurial Çrom Skelliglyph. But he wasn’t looking at an immortal now. This was a mortal being, albeit an extraordinary one, thrust into animation. It wasn’t even life, he realised as he studied the striking, weathered face and saw the abiding listless weariness behind Rosedian’s eyes. It was a parody, a puppet show. A slightly more personable Flesh-Eater for the Godfangs to use when they wanted to interact with the little organic intruders.

  Or, to put it as Skelliglyph had, it was shonky.

  And abruptly, Greyblade was angry.

  “That’s impressive,” he said, in a last-ditch attempt at detachment. He angled his visor to indicate the window. “And what was the next step in that mission going to be?”

  “That is the difficulty,” Rosedian admitted, and ushered them across the bridge to a small leisure setting, armchairs arranged around a gleaming black-and-silver food and drink dispenser. “There has been no end to the decision-making process. Quite literally. The platforms debate among themselves and call a vote approximately three times a second, and I am not engaging in hyperbole when I say this. Always with the same result: a three-way deadlock, on a rotation that has long since become routine. Brilliant minds … but not in a hurry.”

  “Well, we’re kind of the opposite,” Çrom said. “Right, G?”

  “Right,” Greyblade said, still trying very hard to keep a lid on his anger. They sat, the Molran-sized chairs leaving the visitors’ feet dangling a little.

  “I apologise for the décor,” Rosedian said. “It is adjustable, but unlike most of our internal configurations it requires some work…”

  “It’s fine,” Greyblade said.

  “Of the twenty-seven of us, only one was made to truly accommodate humanoid species in relocation,” Rosedian commented. He leaned over the dispenser and began entering commands.

  “The Destarion,” Greyblade nodded.

  “We do not speak of her,” Rosedian said without looking up from the device. His profile was fixed and stern although his voice remained friendly. A father of an embarrassing, wayward child.

  She’s the only one of your daughters who stayed and served the Brotherhood, Greyblade almost said. It would have been satisfying, but fruitless. They were all aware of why the Godfangs were out here. And why there really wasn’t any hurry to complete their mission.

  “So – Eater of Gods,” Greyblade said by way of subject-change.

  “Something of a poetic liberty,” Rosedian cheered up. Glasses of deep purple liquid, and platters of strange angular finger-food, began to issue from openings in the dispenser, and he dealt them out around the table for the three of them. “A variation on the weapons system, like you already discerned … and a little joke, I suppose, about the fact that I am more component than man,” he sat with a very convincing old-man groan of satisfaction, as if to give immediate lie to his assertion. “I can tell, for example, that we are speaking a new language even if it is hauntingly familiar … but I cannot remember a time when I used a different one. My memories are fragmented and uncl
ear. But the facts, I think, remain – as they do in my daughters’ archives.”

  “And the facts?” Greyblade asked.

  Rosedian popped a prism of finger food into his mouth and crunched, then raised his glass. “First a toast,” he said. “To old friends and allies meeting again, far from home.”

  “To Jalah and the Disciples,” Greyblade said, raising his own glass. Rosedian’s eyes widened a little as he watched Greyblade raise his visor, but their gazes locked while they drank.

  “To the Nonsense Network,” Çrom announced, and took a solid draught of the potent spirit before Greyblade could finish analysing his own little mouthful and warn him about it. The human spluttered, but kept it down. “Bloody Hell,” he wheezed. “Is that bollk?”

  Rosedian grinned widely. “Indeed,” he said. “You know your drinks, Captain Skelliglyph. But I would expect nothing less, if half the stories about you are true.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about half,” Çrom demurred.

  “I believe we have a copy of the Ballad in our archives,” Rosedian added. “And even a few illuminated panels of the Adventures.”

  Çrom looked up sharply. “That’s not possible,” he said.

  “Ah yes, because Sorry Çrom vanished from the Adventures when the reign of the dread Ghåålus came to an end and that chapter of his torment ended,” Rosedian said. “As to that, there was a brisk underground trade in restored copies of the comic epic, where Sorry Çrom had been manually drawn back in.”