Scratch Monkey

by Charles Stross

  “Uh-huh.”

  He sat down and opened his bag. A small tripod of black metal he set on top of the table; its top glowed a dim red. “The axial tube is crucial to the security of the colony. It's the only way into the end-wall industrial areas, the ship docking bays, and the hardened infodumps that buffer Dreamtime communications between here and Pascal. It's also the only part of the colony that's radiation-proofed for anything up to a major solar flare and airproofed against a level six or better meteor impact. Anubis has turned it into a baroque fortress, but it's effective for all that. If you can tell me how you escaped –”

  “Ack.” Oshi cleared her throat. “Any chance of something to drink?” she added, pointedly glancing at Raisa.

  Raisa swallowed whatever protest she'd been about to come out with and went next door.

  “I'll tell you,” Oshi said, “on condition you tell me why you want to know.”

  Mik grinned at her unsympathetically. “Do you want to leave this room?” he asked.

  “You have a point.” Oshi struggled to keep from showing her temper. “And your psywar instructors will have told you that a cooperative informer is worth a hundred coercive sources ...”

  “Psywar? What's that?”

  Save me from amateurs, Oshi thought fervently.

  “Just kidding,” he added. There was no humour in his voice. No, not an amateur. A joker: the killing kind.

  “I'll bet you were.” Oshi looked away as Raisa came back in.

  “Just a minute.” Mik caught her arm. He was strong; for a moment Oshi considered trying to break his grip, then realised to her chagrin that she was probably too weak to follow through. “Just stop playing around, Oshi Adjani, whoever you are. This is a matter of deepest importance to us. You'd better understand that. Lives are at stake and if you get in our way –”

  “My life's on the line too,” she said, staring hard at him. He turned and looked at her with mild, disinterested eyes that seemed to go right through her. “Right you are. Let's talk.”

  “Ack.” Mik let go of her hand and she caught the beaker that Raisa offered her and gulped at it thirstily. Cold water numbed the back of her throat. “I was abducted by the Goon Squad. You logged that? They took me to a funicular of some kind, half-bioengineered by the look of it. I blacked out on the way – one of them used a choke hold – and at the top I went, let's see ...”

  For the next three hours Mik took her through every step she'd made, from entering the vestibule to reaching it again. Raisa was a silent presence, occasionally bringing in a pitcher of water and once a bowl of noodles. Oshi racked her brain for every twist and turn. Her implants came in handy, recording with idiot pedantry every footstep she'd taken. Mik in turn recorded her directions in a primitive visualiser, until the three-space volume that represented the redoubt was blue with the squiggles of her wandering.

  “Well, it doesn't look as if you went far,” he said at the end of it. “The castle is huge. You got further in than anyone else we've had a chance to talk to, but there are big areas unaccounted for.”

  “What do you think is up there?” asked Raisa.

  “Hard to tell.” Mik looked right through her. “After they took Vorontsev, three years ago –” Raisa turned away. “We think Anubis rebuilt the interior,” he added quietly. “It's a puzzle palace.”

  “A lethal one,” said Oshi.

  “He's insane,” whispered Raisa. Louder: “Totally headfucked!”

  “Well, yes, but calling him names isn't going to bring back the dead,” said Mik. “Dead is dead, as my old mam used to say, and it's up to us to stay warm as long as we can. No use crying over split bones. Which leaves me wondering just how much use you're going to be,” he added, nodding at Oshi.

  Oshi tensed. “Knives can slip in hands that don't bother to learn how to use them.”

  Mik smiled humourlessly. “Very good. Have you ever killed anyone?”

  Oshi didn't answer. She just looked at him, and after a moment his smile faded. “I see.” He looked as if he'd trodden in something nasty and only just realised. Oshi was not about to let him off the hook.

  “There are worse things,” she said quietly. “I've seen some of them. I know. That's why they sent me here.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “The – people – who sent Anubis here before me. A consortium of Superbrights, sometimes known as Distant Intervention. Meddlers in human destiny. They know they made a mistake with the dog-head. I am their answer.”

  “Then you'd better be one that works,” he said. “Otherwise ...”

  Raisa butted in. “She's in a bad state, Mik. Exposure, leg injuries, some metabolic disorders. You'd better give her some breathing time or she's not going to be a solution to anything.”

  Mik reached down into his bag and rummaged around. “Here.” He pulled out a grapefruit-sized ball and tossed it to her. Raisa caught it and spun it around in her fingertips, looking slightly puzzled.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Support environment for the tapeworm,” he said. “The mark one model. Deliver it to Joshua.”

  Raisa put it down so fast she nearly dropped it, as if it had caught fire between her fingertips. “Shit!”

  Oshi focussed on the sphere, jacked her eyes down into odd frequencies, and told her implants run fourier transforms on what they saw. “You've gone to a lot of trouble to keep whatever's in there secure,” she said. “Biological weapon? Or grow-in-the-dark nanomachinery?”

  “Go figure.” He stared at Raisa. “You agreed to be the go-between, didn't you?”

  “But I –” Raisa looked acutely uncomfortable. “Has Boris cleared this?”

  “Not only has he cleared it, it's essential we do it right now.” Mik reached out and picked up the ball and held it out to her. “You know what to do,” he said gently. “Now go to it.”

  Raisa looked sick. “I'll –” whatever she was going to say, she thought better of it. “Yes.” She left the room. An outer door slammed behind her moments later.

  “What was that about?” asked Oshi. “Someone you don't like?”

  “Joshua is schizophrenic: a neuroreceptor deficit in some pathway or other. He hears voices, doesn't have much of a sense of identity. He won't cooperate with any medical work, even though his condition is curable. We think he talks to Anubis too much. She delivers his food. She's too soft; she doesn't want anything to do with it.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  Mik suddenly looked haggard. “It's a gamble,” he admitted. “It could take out every life-form in the colony. If we can't take the axial redoubt –”

  “You came equipped for this.” Oshi stood up unsteadily, feeling a stab of pain from her twisted ankle. “You needed to learn everything about the castle and you decided to release it – what, a biological weapon? – then and there? It's a coup.”

  “The decision was already taken.” Mik was suddenly between her and the door. There was something bear-like about his stance, and a frightening vacancy in his expression. Oshi had seen it too many times before: that distance in the gaze, the disengagement from humanity. “Nobody is going to get in the way.”

  “But it may be premature,” cautioned Oshi. “Didn't you get the rest of my message from Boris? About the Ultrabrights?”

  “Yes. I've got some news for you: the cosmic background radiation is getting hotter. It's been doing so since you arrived, following an inverse square curve. Odd, that. I'm afraid it puts you in rather an unpleasant position. Unless you can somehow explain it?”

  “If you'll let me.” Her heart hammered between her ribs. She felt dizzy, fight/flight reflexes unable to cope with her physical state.

  Mik didn't move. “Go ahead.”

  “I was sent here when my controllers realised there was a problem. That was a while after you arrived. The problem followed you here and it's a matter of bad timing – or maybe something else. I don't know how long I was buffered in the download process, but according to Raisa there's
something funny about your Gatecoder. People aren't released from it on schedule. It's possible that it's been storing me up for a while – after you arrived and were downloaded – and whatever's happening outside triggered my physical incarnation. That is, I was only downloaded from storage when whatever I was sent to achieve had already started.”

  “Plausible.” He didn't move.

  Oshi felt sweat pooling in the small of her back. “What's important is that I know things about the Superbrights,” she said. “Things they don't want to let out. So my controller sent me here because he needed an agent who knew what the real situation was, someone who could assess things on the spot and take appropriate action.”

  “Less plausible.” Oshi weighed her chances again, found them less than optimal.

  “But true. It was this or ... whatever they do with humans who ask too many questions. Believe me, I didn't want this: he played me into asking for it, and here I am. We're all in deep shit. Whatever chewed up your home world is coming down throughout this sector and I don't even know the absolute date so I can't figure out how long it's been, but I'd be willing to bet that's what's happening. And –”

  “Are you a Superbright?” asked Mik.

  Disgust made Oshi spit. “No!” Bitterly: “I just know a little bit more about them than I'm meant to.”

  “Then you know ...”

  He was fishing for something, she realised. “What they're doing with the dirtworlds?” she asked.

  “Tell me about it!”

  “They farm us.” She watched him for a reaction. “They foster life-after-death cults among the ignorant, and harvest their minds when they go virtual at death. No reincarnation for the poor: just ... food.”

  “Why weren't you eaten, Oshi Adjani?” he asked, almost gently.

  A sharp memory of choking paralysis gripped her. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the evil possibilities. If your personality can be recorded, downloaded to another star system, what's to stop it being duplicated? “Maybe I was ...”

  There was a metalic click. She looked up: Mik had opened the door. “You're free to leave,” he said. “But I think you should come with me. Things are going to get a little unhealthy here before long.”

  “Why is that?” she asked, almost unbelieving.

  He shrugged and straightened up. He no longer looked menacing: more like a careworn friend than a lethal stranger. “It doesn't make any difference what you are. I didn't see an increase in wisdom throughput when I threatened you. You're on your own, whoever you are – even if you are what you say. So you're not part of him.”

  “Well I'm so glad that you think that.” She glanced round. “Where is there to go?”

  “The redoubt.” He grinned again, baring snaggled teeth in his lower jaw. “Via an assembly point in the Temple of Osiris. I'm going to pay Anubis a visit tomorrow night. Would you like to come along? It should be quite a spectacular ride.”

  After Mik left, Oshi crashed out. It was a while before she relaxed enough for sleep: even with watch circuits standing guard in her skin, she was edgy with the fear of a sudden awakening.

  Awakening came in due course with a knock on the door. Oshi sat up before she realised she was no longer asleep: ears tense for the slightest sign –

  “Oshi.”

  One person standing outside the door. “Come in.”

  It was Mik. “Everything's fixed,” he said. “There's going to be a meeting. Escape committee, below the Temple of Osiris.” He held out a bowl to her.

  “What's with this Osiris stuff anyway?” she asked, taking the bowl: it held a lump of rough bread and a wedge of cheese.

  “The god who dies and is resurrected to redeem us in the afterlife and bring the fields to fertility with his blood,” said Mik. “Supposedly Anubis's boss. Supposedly. The dog-head won't go near the temple. Not in person, anyway.”

  Oshi bolted down the lump of cheese and started on the bread. Her stomach churned, its modified lining extruding villiform absorbtion surfaces in a weird parody of the normal digestive process. She felt slightly queasy as she watched Mik. He sat down and pulled a metal tube from a deep pocket in one trouser leg: began to slot components into it by touch.

  “The only question is how the Goons take it,” he said calmly. “They're too dumb to register what's going on. Can't bribe them, any more than you can bribe a musket ball. (Missile's are another matter, but unfortunately we're not up against ...) The radiation temperature's still rising. Boris told Lorma to get the gadget you wanted ready; she's somewhere in a basement staring at the vacuum. Maybe we'll know what's happening by evening.”

  “Wha'time's'it?” Oshi burped, feeling a noxious wind. Her stomach churned some more and was still, as empty as if she hadn't swallowed a thing. She was ravenous. “Need more food.”

  “Check. It's late afternoon. You've slept almost an entire day.” Mik finished bolting his device together. He kept it pointed away from her. Caught her gaze: “it's a grenade launcher. Full automatic, three centimetre, smart enough to hold its fire 'til it seems the whites of their eyes.”

  “Guessed that.” Oshi stared at the gun; the gun stared back, blinked lazily at her. “Anything to eat?”

  “You are hungry.”

  She stood up suddenly. The gun's eyes widened, tracking her across the room. “You don't say.” She stretched, winced as she placed too much stress on her ankle. “I was underweight when I arrived. My digester's been tuned up. I could eat a horse.”

  “Don't have any of those here.” Mik waved at the door; “if you want to help yourself, it's all outside. Don't go 'way.”

  “Believe me, I've got no intention of going away. Not with the kind of neighbours you've got.”

  There was a small vestibule outside the room she'd awakened in. Deep shelves covered in dust faced her, racked from floor to ceiling; the outer door was stone, latched with a thick wooden bar. A covered tray drew her attention. She grabbed the loaf of bread and chewed methodically, then drained the jug of water behind it. A blunt-faced cat mummy stared at her from the back of the funerary niche.

  “It's like this,” Mik added, raising his voice just enough that she could hear him round the door; “Anubis knows we're up to something, but he doesn't know what. Or he didn't until he caught Boris messing around with one of the fabricators. We hijacked them when Anubis was't paying attention. We may not have access to Dreamtime or much in the way of computing resources, but we've got a good bioengineering team and we sort of expected to have to pull some stunts wherever we arrived. So we were using them to spin some nasty surprises like the tapeworm I gave Rai. When that's in place, when the rest is sorted, we can go bang on his door. He'll listen. He'll have no alternative.”

  Only Oshi's augmented hearing enabled her to pick out the subvocalized follow up: “ neither will we.” She didn't comment. She was too busy: her stomach writhed in something halfway between cramp and the gustatory equivalent of a multiple orgasm.

  “Who'else'there?” Oshi demanded around a mouthful of breadcrumbs. (She shoved the tray to the back of the niche; something rattled.)

  “Everyone who's anyone. The team –” the inner door opened. “Are you alright?”

  “Fine.” Oshi stumbled back into the sleeping room. “But my stomach is out of control. Carry on talking.” She sat down heavily on the bed. Mik leaned against one wall, watching a spot ten centimetres behind her face.

  “Look like you need the food. There's a team; Anubis did something to our wet squad. None of them are here, we don't know why – think he may not have downloaded them or something. So all of us who're left are second-stringers – not real pathfinders, but the support team. Still and all, we have Lorma and with the biotech group she jacked together a couple of genocide brews like the tapeworm. Then there's Boris and the diplomats. They're not fighters, exactly, but war is a continuation of diplomacy by other means and they know their subject if you follow my drift. A few of the others can probably fight. And there's a lot of support engin
eers – we've got a short bite but a long tail.”

  “What're'you?” asked Oshi, still chewing on an empty mouthful of air. She belched loudly; “ pardon me.”

  “I'm the strategos,” Mik admitted. “There was contingency planning in case the natives weren't friendly; my download manifest labelled me a botanist. So I'm here but I've no-one to work with.”

  Oshi grinned, narrow-eyes: “ now you have.” She burped again, and stood up. “If my stomach doesn't give me away ... how about taking a walk? I'd love to see what you've got lined up.”

  “I'll bet you would.” Mik picked up a black box and held it out to her; “take this. You seem to know how to use it.”

  Oshi turned it over in her hands. Brushed black aluminium finish on a lump of raw machined titanium. A couple of holes, a couple of clips, a trigger. “Crude, but –”

  “It was the best we could do at short notice.”

  The noise of metal rang from the walls as she pulled the cocking lever and armed it. “I feel a lot better already. Let's go and see what's cooking.”

  Getting ready to move out always screwed Oshi's nerves tighter than the event itself. Like a hurdle in a race, it loomed larger in her perceptions than in reality. More so here, where her only defense was her wit and a lump of metal and explosives. “We need more,” she whispered. “Can you improvise anything?”

  Mik jumped up and paced over to the door. “Not without making contact. Someone's supposed to be lifting Boris's arms cache, if Anubis hasn't already staked it out, but that's all we were counting on.”

  “I was afraid you'd say that.” Her ankle throbbed in time with her pulse but her head was clear: nerves alight, skin tingling. “We'll just have to make sure we don't meet any goons. Let's go.” She slipped the door open and peered into the gloom. The vestibule was empty. For the first time she noticed the disarmed funerary traps, designed to ensnare tomb robbers. “That's cute. Who was buried here?”

  “Don't know.” Don't care, his tone told her. “Come on.”

  It was dark outside, the vast sun-lamps shut down to a lunar glow along the axial tube of the colony. Wisdom buzzed and hummed, tracking microwave transmissions up and down the huge cylinder. There was nothing lying in wait for them.