by Neal Asher
Tentacles writhed around each other for access. She hooked in with one of her sharp forelimbs and severed through one of Dragon’s, while it in turn skewered another of hers and held it back. Tumbling above the swirling royal blue, jade green and red cloud of the gas giant, they ripped at each other. She stabbed her tail in, but it glanced off armour, so she stabbed again and again, gradually chipping a way in. Tentacles worked through to a surface in the head of the creature she fought, while micro-diamond drills and lasers began to bore into it. Dragon had found a similar point of access in her. She felt dislocated pain as he hacked into the joint of one of her legs with a hatchet limb and cut through. Next, redirecting her tail, she began to stab at the joints of Dragon’s limbs.
Before she or Dragon broke through, the Client fired up the EM drive of her remote again to draw them away from the gas giant. Dragon’s immediate response: another kind of drive, which she read via the sensors in the platform as a U-space distortion, pulled them down. Finally she punched through and began injecting fibres, just a second ahead of Dragon doing the same. They both shut off their drives, preserving energy, and little difference had been made to the time limit on this encounter. Now the real fight began.
The Client found an organo-metal nodule and, from a microfibre, spread a neural mesh to capture it. Scanning revealed the mind of this remote to be distributed throughout its body, which made things more difficult. She filed that away for future reference, should she make herself another such remote. And she felt a brief satisfaction at having already learned something before the data rape truly began. Other fibres spearing into its body found further nodes and made further connections.
Meanwhile, Dragon connected into her brain with brutal efficiency. A data world began to form, like two immiscible fluids swirling in a ball. It was a representation of a connection between two larger entities—one down in that fifty-mile-wide sphere and one in the weapons platform. As this firmed, the Client got her first true look at Dragon’s mind and felt a brief fear, swiftly overcome by lust. And the two bodies continued to tear at each other, pieces of armour and chopped-off limbs orbiting their writhing forms.
ORLANDINE
My name is Orlandine, she thought. This was reality but it did not feel real. Memories continued to surface but they possessed no emotional content. She knew the prador in charge here was called Croos, and that she had met him once when the prador established their enclave on Jaskor. But instead of thinking about the present situation, and the events that led up to it, she pondered the strangeness of prador names. Some of them related directly to how they sounded in the prador language—but these were usually sounds that no human vocal cords could make. Vrost or Vrell were buzzing clicks followed by an odd hissing, while others like Croos bore no relation at all to the prador name.
“The flood will not have taken him far,” said the Old Captain, Cog.
She gazed at the man. He was wide and heavy, as his kind often were. She tried to remember when last she had come across someone like him but the memories were confusing. She knew she had seen and talked with hoopers, but had no recollection of actually being in the presence of one. She then understood that this was because she had encountered them as a distributed being, here on Jaskor, while her physical body had been remote from them. Cog looked back at her, gave her a tired smile and shook his head before looking away again.
“There are Clade units in the tunnels,” said Croos. “Not so many now— after those war drones hit them, the main swarm moved on.” Croos, who in his satin pink and black armour was larger than his brethren, waved a claw. One of the other prador in this big underground chamber scuttled over to a door, which slid open to let it out then slammed shut behind it.
“And where they are going is why we were sent to you,” said the individual that accompanied Cog. A prador held this one’s arms in its massive claws while another had a particle cannon focused on his head.
This was Angel. He had been a legate who survived the destruction of his master the AI Erebus. She knew a lot of detail about him: how he, in a wormship, had been integral to bringing the Jain soldier to the accretion disc. He was a dangerous creature, hence the reaction of these prador to him. Yet Cog vouched for him, said that he had changed sides. This was all fascinating, but more fascinating to Orlandine was how his form had become more human. It had never been clear whether legates were something Erebus made or were Golem the AI had seized control of and converted for its purposes.
“We will get to that,” said Croos, swinging towards Angel. “Explain to me why I should not have you ripped apart and why I should trust you.”
Angel dipped his head for a moment then said, “I was controlled by a Jain AI you know as the Wheel. Once it had what it wanted it abandoned me on the world of the Cyberat. There I was . . . massively damaged. Dragon, seeking data from me, repaired me. I have now all but returned to my original form of a Golem android.”
Ah, thought Orlandine, her internal question answered.
“Still not good enough,” said Croos.
“I serve no one now,” said Angel. “I choose to ally myself with humans, the AIs, prador and Dragon against the threat of the Jain. If you are going to destroy me then at least listen to Dragon’s message.”
“I don’t particularly trust Dragon either,” said Croos. “But go ahead, deliver your message.”
Angel sighed and continued, “It is not certain what is happening here and at the accretion disc. But what is clear is that the Clade is working for the Wheel and against our interests. It tried to kill Orlandine.” Angel turned and looked at her, and she felt an odd twist inside. “And now, Dragon surmises, its next target is the Ghost Drive Facility.”
“This is true—that’s where the bulk of the swarm went,” Croos agreed. “Apparently the commander of the Polity fleet thinks the Clade wants to seize control of the weapons platforms through the facility and has ordered her ships here to destroy it should the Clade enter. My compatriots above don’t think they can stop that and are not sure if they should try to.”
“That is too simple,” said Angel. “Why would the Clade try to seize control of that facility in the full knowledge it would be stopped?” “You’re the one with all Dragon’s answers. You tell me.”
“The Clade wants that reaction. It wants the facility either destroyed or unusable,” Angel explained. “Do you have sight of what it is doing now?” After a long pause Croos said, “It is at the facility but not actually trying to enter it—it’s settling in the surrounding area.”
“Exactly. It hoped the Polity ships would act prematurely and destroy the facility upon confirming it was heading there. But it doesn’t actually want to expend its life to ensure that.”
“But it could send in part of itself,” interjected Cog. “We know it’s not averse to losing a few of its units.”
Angel shook his head. “No, a few units would not get past the defences. It would take a massed attack with heavy losses of the entire Clade to penetrate, and even then it is possible it would fail.” Angel looked across at Orlandine. “You built that place well. It is not even certain that the Polity ships could destroy it.”
Orlandine smiled at the compliment, which in turn caused memories to surface in her mind about its construction. An array of fusion reactors had gone in underground first of all. Advanced hardfield generators were next—their ejection ports carved down into a cave system below. The thing was built to withstand orbital bombardment. The Polity fleet could destroy it, but a side effect would be huge human casualties and most of the continent here rendered uninhabitable.
“Then what is the Clade’s aim?” asked Croos.
“It does not want anyone else having access to the facility and to the weapons platforms. The main person it didn’t want there, it tried to kill: Orlandine.”
“Why?”
“Dragon does not yet understand exactly why, but it seems apparent that the Wheel’s plan was for the weapons platforms to respond exactly as the
y are programmed. It wants stasis—the situation to remain as it is. Only Orlandine, or perhaps some agent of Earth Central, is capable of changing that.”
“Very well, you have delivered your message,” said Croos. “How are we supposed to respond to it?”
Again Angel turned to look at her. “Dragon wants you to get Orlandine inside that facility—ready to respond to whatever develops out at the accretion disc, and ready to make the weapons platforms do what she wants.”
Croos dipped his body in acknowledgement. “I see. Dragon learned from the prador fleet that she is still alive but did not understand that the Orlandine we have here is probably incapable of talking to the weapons platforms. That’s if she even manages to survive getting into the facility.”
Sitting cross-legged on the stony floor, Orlandine noted that they were all looking at her, and dipped her head in embarrassment. She knew she wasn’t what she had been, because more and more she was remembering that powerful haiman: Orlandine. She felt small, ineffectual.
Human time, she thought, in reality.
“But we have to try,” said Angel.
Croos emitted a very human sigh. “Yes, we do.”
TRIKE
First came hunger. He saw his hand stab down, clawed fingers ripping into a soft, slimy body. He pulled out a great mass of dripping flesh and crammed it into his mouth, which seemed to open wider than it had ever done before, and swallowed it whole. Then another handful and another. The mudfish flopped for a while then grew still. He ripped out organs and swallowed them down, pulled out its flat hyaline bones and crunched them, shattered its bony skull and consumed it. Soon it was all gone and he was scraping up debris. He looked around for more and noted other remains, so crawled over and sucked them down. Obviously there had been more than one fish. When nothing remained but green blood and slime, he scooped up a handful of gravel and ate that too.
Am I a bird? he wondered, and it was his first coherent thought.
The hunger would not go away. It seemed the void in his belly reflected a void in his mind that somehow expanded beyond the confines of his skull. His attention slid in the direction of that opening and he saw stars again, with a sense of himself floating somewhere, far out, far away. He felt a visceral terror and couldn’t shake it, then abruptly fell back into himself.
The craving remained and he became more aware of his immediate surroundings. He lay in a damp tunnel branching off and up from the flood. Debris was piled just a little way from him and among it he saw another dead mudfish. He started to crawl but some fragment of humanity intruded. He stood up abruptly, slamming his head into the ceiling. No pain, but broken stone rained down around him. He ducked, puzzled that he had misjudged the size of the tunnel. Now he felt uncomfortable, restricted. His clothing was tight, constricting too. Gazing at his arms, he saw that the fabric of his sleeves was stretched taut and high up his forearm. The envirosuit he wore had been made to expand, and contract, to fit any form. He was about to unclip an expansion point for arm length when he noticed something odd about his limb. Without thinking, he ran a fingernail down one sleeve to split it open and tore it away. Doing the same with the other, he then inspected both of his arms.
Thoughts rolled slowly through his mind, and he remembered that when he left Cog’s ship his limbs had grown, but they’d been thin and bony. Now they were thick hams, and that wasn’t the only change. Brown and white growths veined his blue skin, as if he had lain in a jungle for centuries and lianas had entangled him. Some understanding crept in. The thing that had hit him in the water. A parasite?
Engaging...
The word fled through his mind, through his extended mind, and he sensed something locking on. It was as if a distant portion of himself had reached in to create invisible structures in the void. Again he felt terror and pulled away. As he did so, a squirming also seemed to take hold throughout his body and his mind.
He reached the pile of detritus and squatted down, grabbing the dead mudfish and dragging it out. Hunger stilled further thought, or straying into the unknowable, while he consumed the thing. Thought did not return till he found himself picking up other debris and eating it: degrading coffee cups, a chunk of rhizome sprouting blue reeds, the washed-white bone of an animal. He discarded this last and slumped down on his backside with his hands over his face. There he felt something and probed prominent vein-like growths on his cheek, his forehead and entering one nostril. What the hell was happening to him? But he was horrified to realize he knew, that Cog’s excised memories had shown him. He had to get out of here.
Trike stood, keeping his head low so he didn’t smack it against the tunnel roof. He could see now that he hadn’t misjudged the height of the roof, just his own size. He gazed at the flood for a long moment then turned around and began making his way up the tunnel. He had no idea where it would take him but returning to the water frightened him, though whatever had happened to him there wasn’t clear. Trudging up the tunnel he noticed something. Although he felt confused and a little hazy about recent events, the constant boiling rage inside him had set- tled—as if whatever else was happening in his mind simply had no room for it.
Movement ahead.
He kept walking, stooped down, and it swung round the corner of a side tunnel, sweeping straight towards him. The Clade was searching the tunnels, he realized, as two more units followed the first one out. He felt the other activity in his mind still and a sharp sense of danger that seemed to rise beyond mere physical threat. He searched down at his waist but had lost his machete. Then he reached into his pocket, found a single grenade and pulled it out. Dangerous in here but perhaps not so dangerous to him. The other in his mind seemed to understand and retreated. Peering at the grenade, he set the delay to three seconds and tossed it ahead amidst the three Clade units. The intensely bright blast blew rubble up and down the tunnel. He closed his eyes and felt the wave hit him but it seemed merely a gust of wind, and the chunks of stone were light balsa blown by it. He stood as solidly as a statue. When he opened his eyes the units were against the walls but still squirming towards him.
“Come and die,” he said.
He grabbed the first one by its head. Its tail stabbed in, tearing his envirosuit but skittering off his skin as though it was made of flint. He slammed its head against the tunnel wall, meanwhile snatching with his other hand and closing it around another unit’s body. The first unit kept struggling stubbornly so he squeezed. Its head crunched and it sagged. He discarded it, slapping the third unit aside with the back of his hand while bringing the second down to the floor and stamping its head deep into the stone. But the thing was harder than that stone and continued to whip its body back and forth. He picked it up by its head, ignoring the sharp tail thrashing against his body. The third turned and tried to flee. But he caught its tail with his free hand and tugged it back, then slammed the two heads together. The units dropped, now seeming to possess just one mangled ruin of a head between them. Trike moved on.
Flashing lights reflected down the tunnel and there was the distant sound of concussions. He sped towards this, smoke beginning to haze the air, the smell of burning metal in his nostrils. Clade units ahead, writhing through the smoke. A battle. He stepped over one of them which was moving weakly, its snakish body half melted, and in passing crashed his foot down on its already-damaged head. A particle beam flashed blue and red, tracking something and spilling molten metal. He caught hold of a tail, pulled back and grabbed a head. Moving on with the thing thrashing in his grip, he snatched another unit out of the air. It was easy now—he knew what to do. After smashing their skulls together he carried on. A hulking shape moved through the smoke. He grabbed another tail, but then a massive claw closed on its body higher up, hydraulics whined and a shearfield glimmered, and the claw sliced through.
The prador, heavily armoured and carrying more weapons than seemed feasible, loomed over him. It lowered one claw, with a shiny cavity open in its upper jaw, and spat particle fire downwards. Th
is played up and down the half of the Clade unit on the floor until it grew still. Trike gazed at gleaming green eyes behind a thick chain-glass visor.
“I’ve been looking for you,” said the prador.
Trike went down on his knees, his body feeling as if he was being electrocuted. He saw stars again and felt that connection opening out. His hunger, which had been constant until that moment, started to fade as his void filled. The prador said something else, but he didn’t hear it. All he heard were the words:
Backup loading...
Time passed, he didn’t know how long.
“Are you injured?” asked the prador.
He focused, back in the moment. “No. I am not injured.” Physically he felt as sound as a boulder, probably sturdier. His mind was also clear— in fact had a clarity he’d not possessed before. He looked up. “Who sent you to find me?”
“My leader.”
Trike thought about that for a moment then said, “Because Cog and Angel are now with your leader?” Anger still roiled at the thought of Angel, but it was muted now, something to deal with at the appropriate moment, one way or another.
“Yes.”
Trike gazed at the thing, studying the markings on its armour. “You are the prador Brull—second in command at the enclave. Your leader is Croos.”
“Yes, that’s me.”
It wasn’t his own knowledge that provided Trike with this information, but the packed mass of data that seemed to occupy his skull. In reality, this existed in quantum storage within the structure woven throughout his body.
“Orlandine is also with Croos?” he asked. This was essential for him to find out, or rather, for that part of himself he had acquired.
“Yes, we’ve got her,” said Brull. “You seem mighty knowledgeable for a . . .” Brull hesitated, “. . . hooper.”
Trike looked at his hands as he stood. Prador weren’t noted for being able to distinguish one human being from another. Generally they didn’t look beyond counting the number of arms and legs. Brull had probably been told to find a hooper and given a brief description. Trike knew he still resembled what he’d been when Cog dragged him into that storm drain, but there had been substantial changes too.
