by Neal Asher
‘Jonas Clyde!’ The shout came from behind. The two had moved very fast because they were now up on the same gantry as him. He suspected either enhancements or that they were indeed Golem. Glancing back, he saw weapons drawn. There were people around him so surely they would not shoot? After only a second’s thought he dismissed the idea. If they were agents they would select the right ammo for the circumstances and shoot it very accurately.
>Last chance.
The text appeared to his inner vision.
Would they really kill him? Did he want to die? Just for a second he considered raising his arms and turning back, but intransigence arose and he just kept walking.
>Okay.
Something smacked into his upper legs sending him stumbling forwards. He looked down in disbelief at the blood, open flesh and protruding shattered bone just before his leg gave way and he collapsed.
‘Stay on the ground,’ said a voice nearby.
He glimpsed a mercenary type in combat gear, other similar figures stepping into view. Pulse gun fire stitched through the air. Something exploded nearby and he saw the gantry erupt, flinging up a sculpture of metal shards. He rolled, seeing flashes and explosions towards the other end of the gantry, one figure going over the side and another, flecked with burning points, falling back into the stairwell.
‘Okay, we got you,’ said someone.
A hand closed on his envirosuit and hauled him up. A glance along the gantry revealed scattered bodies – some emitting tails of smoke – and that was his first intimation that he had recently made some very stupid decisions. But he groped through emptiness trying to care about that. When the armoured man hauled him up and slung him over one shoulder, the pain hit like a hammer. Consciousness fled.
Consciousness slid in and out, gave him a glimpse from the bridge tunnel and then others of corridors. It fled completely when the rescuer carrying him ungently dropped him down into a surgical chair. Then later it returned with an absence of pain, and paralysis from his waist down. Jonas lay seeing only the feed from his aug – numerous messages and potential links to make. Too confusing. He reached up and pressed a finger against it, shutting it down. Now his immediate surroundings came into focus. He found himself in an aseptic room all white and chrome surfaces, familiar Polity instruments, and a nightmare stooped over his leg.
Surgical robots never looked very nice and very often bore the appearance of large chromed insects. This thing was something else besides. Yes it had some of the appearance of an insect but also some of the form of a human being. It crouched on metal legs like those of a skeletal Golem android but sheathed in bare white muscle. He could see a ceramal pelvis, spine and rib bones similarly clad. A vaguely human arm protruded from the shoulder nearest him – the white anatomically correct hand resting on the chair arm nearest him. The other arm steadied the thing with its other hand pressed down against the floor. Everything else was at huge variance. Numerous arms terminating in clamps and hooks protruded from the torso and these had immobilised his leg. The head was coiled over this. The back of it consisted of armoured plates. He could just see movement underneath and feel the transmission of movement through his body. He could also hear the sounds: the sizzle of a surgical laser, the hum of a cellwelder and the whickering of printer heads. Something about that head really bothered him, until he realised it seemed a copy of a hooder’s head but extended half the length again relative to its width.
Perhaps now aware that he was conscious, all the movement and the sounds stopped. The robot, or whatever it was, abruptly reared back and raised its head. First he saw his leg, opened out like an anatomy display, bloodless and with the bone back in place with printer ridges sealing the breaks. Then he focused on the head. It was packed with surgical cutlery similar in appearance to that of a hooder, but consisting of shiny metal and grey composite and terminating in surgical instruments no hooder possessed. It had a slot mouth too, and the rows of eyes, but like canary yellow tourmalines. The sight of the thing seemed to confirm an earlier thought about bad decisions. What did it tell him about this place when they made a surgical robot look like this? But the speculation had no emotional weight for it seemed he was just noticing things and slotting them into place, like an inventory.
The thing dipped down again and continued its work. While it fixed him up a door opened and a grim-looking woman with cropped grey hair and wearing a doctor’s coat wheeled in a pressure feed. He tried to think of something to say to her, to ask her, as she used a shunt gun on the side of his neck to put in a port, then attached a tube no doubt conveying artificial blood and other fluids.
‘How many were hurt out there?’ he finally managed, trying to care.
She stared at him like he was an idiot, then said, ‘The Polity agents killed five civilians. Durk sent my staff over there to help the wounded – eight of them.’
Durk Ganzen.
He stared back at her, because that had not been what he had seen at all. Yes, one of the Polity agents had shot him in the leg, but it had been the return fire that had brought down those civilians. He felt the pedantic need to object – to defend the Polity – but still on a wholly intellectual level knew this the wrong thing to do.
‘I guess I was lucky,’ he said.
‘Yes, you were,’ she replied dismissively, and, having completed her chore, quickly departed.
The tugging from the robot increased and now he heard only a cellwelder at work. Finally it stopped and shifted back to look at him again with those rows of tourmaline eyes. Perhaps because he had spent so long studying hooders and knowing their inclinations, he felt its look to be a sinister inspection, which oddly amused him.
After a moment it took its hand away from the chair arm and reached up towards his face, fingers spread. All of this told him that no way was he dealing with a simple surgical robot here. It then closed that hand into a fist for a moment, before standing up. It loomed well over seven feet tall, but seemed somehow incomplete – just a collection of parts. Leaning in, it now brought its nightmarish visage close to his. He could see his blood and small pieces of flesh and bone caught on its surgical cutlery but, even as he watched, it began folding these inside its head then back out again, cleaning them. Only when feeling abruptly returned did he realise it had reached down behind his back to detach a neural blocker. He gasped – his leg a sore aching mass that felt twice the size he could actually see. The robot retreated to the other side of the room, and ducked down to squat below a long work surface. From there it simply watched him. He wondered if it was capable of human communication.
‘Thank you – good job,’ he said.
The robot hissed at him.
He turned away, deciding not to continue the conversation, and next contemplated getting out of the chair when the door opened again. In came one of those he had seen on Gantry Six. The man looked boosted, wore an armoured combat suit that looked none too clean, sported handguns at both hips with other items – probably ammo and power supplies – around his belt and a pulse rifle across his back. His face was wide and thick-featured below ginger hair. A web of scars showed bone white against the ruddy skin of one cheek.
‘So the good doctor has put you together again,’ he said, seemingly bored. ‘You can walk?’
‘Doctor?’ Jonas asked, glancing at the robot.
‘Ganzen calls him Dr Giggles,’ said the man. ‘The name doesn’t really make him anymore attractive and most here get any surgical work done in Porrit Town.’
Jonas nodded. The casualties out on Gantry Six, the form of this robot and now its name all indicated that yes, he had been foolish to come here.
‘To answer your question,’ he said, ‘I’ve yet to try.’
‘It’s either that or over my shoulder again.’
So this was the one who had carried him here. Jonas eased himself forward, getting his good leg to the ground then carefully pushing himself upright. A rush of dizziness had him slumping and a meaty hand c
losed about his upper arm to support him. He got the other foot down and put some weight on it. His upper leg felt half dead and otherwise painful but he found that he could move. He should be fine. The bone repairs would likely be stronger than the bone itself while the muscle would just need a few hours of binding. Reaching up to his neck he felt the tube and looked across to the suspended pressure bottle. The indicator showed it had emptied its contents into him so he pulled the tube out of his neck, the port snapping closed. He walked a few steps then nodded to the man, who released him.
‘I’m to show you to your room.’
‘What’s your name?’ Jonas asked.
‘Hoskins,’ the man replied, stepping out through the door.
‘Thank you for rescuing me,’ Jonas replied – the gratitude being rote.
Out in the corridor Hoskins shrugged then led the way, Jonas struggling to keep up. He wondered what he might ask the man that would not arouse suspicions about his keenness of otherwise to be here, but did not feel well enough to manage subterfuge so simply studied his surroundings.
This corridor told him little because it seemed a pretty standard ship interior with a soft blue floor, cleanbot burrows at the base of the wall, plain doors and panel lighting above. But then Hoskins took a turn and he found himself in a different area. Here the floor was decorated with the patterns generated by bacterial growth in a tough gel. The lights above were brighter and needed because dark green ivy spread along the walls. This was space station stuff: the plants and the bacteria acting as oxygenators and air cleaners that fed off the detritus produced by all human bodies. He passed a series of circular windows giving him a view into other growth areas that looked too chaotic to be hydroponics. Finally Hoskins brought him to a door that slid aside when he punched the plate beside it.
‘You’ve got an hour to sort yourself out, then I take you to Ganzen,’ the man said, then moved off.
The defences here were obvious. Lights ran down the ceiling to the end of the corridor, while in between them hung large ellipsoids. These were security drones, while in the walls the heads of weapons turrets protruded – ready to be extruded all the way to deploy their lethal hardware. At the end guards stood either side of a large armoured door above which a heavy autogun sat in a recess. And these were just the visible security – probably much else besides filled the surrounding area.
‘It’s been what, three years since you were on Masada?’ Ganzen enquired.
Jonas studied the man. Ganzen, it seemed, liked the mercenary style of those of his employees Jonas had seen out on Gantry Six. He had long black hair tied back in a bun, a cropped beard and wore Polity desert combat gear, including the armour and weapons. No such clothing had been provided for Jonas. After showering, getting something to eat and drink from a fabricator then searching his room, he had found casual clothing. None of it suited him so he cleaned and repaired his envirosuit. He wanted to keep it on because it would be necessary when he got out of here.
He next transferred his gaze to the Siberian tiger, for it seemed Ganzen liked his pets. The creature paced at the man’s side like a loyal dog. It probably was completely loyal and probably possessed more in the way of intelligence than usual for such beasts. Its skull jutted up higher than nature designed and to its rear sat a heart-shaped lump of polished metal. Someone had fooled with its genetics, operated on it and installed an augmentation.
‘Yes, three years,’ Jonas replied distractedly, thinking about his recent hurried tour of Ganzen’s animal collection and sight of the other tiger. It was a Bengal tiger and, as far as he had seen, had no alterations to it. A high window had given a view into its pen, which lay two hundred feet across. A stream ran through this, ending in a deep pool to one side. Trees and bushes grew from the imported soil while a rock formation on the other side of the pen from the pool provided a cave in which it could secrete itself. Above, it had been provided with a sky effect ceiling then running fluffy clouds. All had looked good. The creature had been given better accommodation than most humans had when not on the surface of a world, though Jonas would have preferred it to be running free in a reserve somewhere, or perhaps in one of those mixed environments where predators had simply been altered so as not to attack humans. The whole setup had in fact looked little different from something one might see in the Polity, that was, to the inexperienced eye. The problem was the debris.
The tiger had recently fed and the remains of its last meal had yet to be removed, doubtless by the quadruped robot Jonas saw gecko stuck to one wall and cleaning it with a spinning brush. Or, perhaps, only easily identifiable remains had been removed. The tiger had eaten flesh and proceeded to gnaw on a bone, other bones scattered nearby. Without his training, knowledge and experience, Jonas would not have given the scene a second glance. However, in his profession, he had learned much about the anatomy of many creatures, including humans. The tiger had been gnawing on a human femur while a tibia and fibula lay nearby. Other chunks lying scattered in the area he had identified as parts of a human pelvis.
‘Hopefully you haven’t forgotten much of what you learned there.’
Jonas came back to the conversation with a brief stab of panic from dying emotional substrata and reached up instinctively to touch his scalp. As with the agents who had been pursuing him he wondered how much Ganzen knew, and whether he knew more than Jonas would have liked.
‘I’ve forgotten nothing at all,’ he replied. It wasn’t really a lie because having memories edited out wasn’t really forgetting. Anyway, no one beyond a few AIs and tagreb staff knew about that procedure.
‘Good. But of course I want something beyond just what anyone can download.’
Jonas nodded. ‘Most of my research is in the public domain now, but you should be aware that published research is just a summation, just some conclusions. It does not include everything that led to them, nor the expertise involved.’
‘We will see,’ said Ganzen, as they reached the door.
Jonas glanced at the guards. They didn’t look comfortable and he rather suspected they were here just for display, just for him to see. The door separated and ground open, revealing thick armour with cooling layers and other inlaid tech. Really, guards here would little complement the security already in place.
‘Here we are.’ Ganzen gestured to the wide chamber within.
The room entire was circular but a chainglass screen ran across the middle dividing it. On this side the place had been neatly laid out with all the equipment Jonas might need. Work surfaces sported nanoscopes, nanofactories, matter printers, fabricators and a wide variety of analytical gear. Up in the ceiling hung spiderbots, hoists and other stuff. Cylinders of basic chem and matter printer formulations stood arrayed to one side. Ganzen led Jonas up to the chainglass screen and thumped a fist against it.
‘This was probably the most expensive item here,’ the man said. ‘It’s laminated with clear sapphire and chain-diamond threads. Even if hit with a decoder this will remain intact enough to stop a tank.’
‘The walls?’ Jonas enquired.
‘Ceramal and adapative armour – kind of stuff the hull of a Polity dreadnought is made from.’
Jonas nodded, looked up at the spider bots and scanning heads in the ceiling of the space beyond, then focused on the single item on the floor. A large crate sat there – plasmel and held shut with braided monofilament bands.
‘I’d like to go in and see it opened,’ he said.
Ganzen showed surprise. His tiger looked up at him and thrashed its tail. This brought home to Jonas that there must be some sort of link there.
‘Is that a good idea?’
Jonas waved a hand at the case. ‘It’s completely inert now and will remain so until provided with the correct environment. There is no danger yet.’
‘Very well – you are the expert after all.’
Ganzen glanced at the tiger. It ducked as if given a slap on the nose, then wandered over and flopped down
underneath a nearby work surface. Ganzen headed to a door one side of the screen, pressed a palm against a palm reader and stepped back. The door hummed and came out of its frame like a bung out of a bottle, then swung aside on heavy hinges driven by thick rams – at least a foot of solid ceramal armour. A short airlock lay within but when they stepped in Ganzen did not close the door behind – just opened the equally thick door ahead.
As they entered the sealed room Jonas scanned around. He noted holes running along the base of the wall and others higher up. They had to be for atmosphere and other environmental controls – the ones along the bottom for injecting the required ground substrate. He needed to learn all this, he thought, then just froze for a second, not really knowing what to do, until logic kicked in dictatorially. No, logically what he really needed to do was work here until an opportunity presented, then get the hell out just as fast as he could. He reached up and rubbed his face – outward expression of the conflict he felt inside. It seemed evident now what Ganzen was. He ran an organisation that obviously edged far enough into criminality for it to be better located outside the Polity. He had an overweening interest in nasty pets and it was evident he used them for nasty purposes. But… the opportunity here…
‘You should be able to link in,’ said the man, watching Jonas carefully.