by Neal Asher
The Jerusalem dropped out of U-space and cruised into the Cull system. In his own quarters Cormac called up the required views on his screen, and once again looked upon his old adversary. Then, whilst he observed Dragon hanging manacled over the ice giant, he cleared his mind and tried to find the gaps in his memory of events here. He recalled Skellor taking control of the local population and using them as hostages to ensure Cormac’s own surrender. He recalled being a prisoner in some Jain substructure aboard the Ogygian – the colony ship that had originally taken Cull’s inhabitants there from Earth. He recollected being utterly under Skellor’s control, but then things started to get a little fragmentary. He knew Cento had concealed himself aboard the Ogygian and, while a kill program in that ancient ship’s computer held Skellor in thrall, the Golem sabotaged the drive to bring that ship into an inescapable orbit around a brown dwarf. The King of Hearts – a rebel AI attack ship – had then fired grapples onto the Ogygian, and while Cento held onto Skellor, Cormac went out to sever them. Somehow he ended up on one of those grapples, and the King’s AI, rather than killing him for preventing it obtaining the Jain tech that Skellor possessed, had released him to deliver a message to Jerusalem: Honest, I didn’t get any, don’t hunt me down and kill me. But how did Cormac himself escape from that Jain substructure inside Ogygian?
Cormac could only assume that Cento must have released him from the enclosing structure, but something still bothered him about that. He closed his eyes and linked into Jerusalem’s servers, then created a search program to find himself there. Jerusalem had recorded him, repaired his brain, then downloaded that recording back to his repaired brain. Cormac felt certain the AI retained a copy . . . and there it was.
‘You will find that difficult to access,’ warned Jerusalem from the intercom in his quarters. ‘Your gridlink does not possess the capacity to sort out that mess.’
‘My mind is a mess?’
‘All human minds are a mess. Your gridlink is designed to access computer and AI systems, which are formatted much more logically. Anyway, since it is your own mind that you are attempting to look into, you will be in danger of cerebral feedback and might well end up in a psychotic loop.’
‘Well, then, you do it for me. I want to retrieve a memcording covering the time from my arrival at the brown dwarf up to when I ended up on that grapple.’
‘I fail to see why.’
Drily, Cormac stated, ‘Memory is something past, but experiencing a memcording is current.’
Jerusalem made no reply to that, but the link was made and the memcording flowed across. Cormac loaded it, experienced it. The first time through was hard for him, since the survival mechanism of memory always dulled the pain and the sickness originally experienced. The second time through, he saw it:
He fired five times into Skellor’s head, forcing the man back against the wall. Not enough though – Skellor was no longer human. Two shots to the chest, more to the knees as he tried to spring, and a hand blown apart as it pressed against the wall. Then Cento, scissoring his legs around Skellor’s waist, was tearing away wall panels to embrace a beam behind.
‘The cables,’ Cento urged over com.
Another clip into the gun. Back towards the blown screen . . . and there, at the corner of his vision, Jain substructure formed around the shape of a man rooted to the floor, its shell unbroken but no man inside it.
I was inside.
‘I would like to believe,’ said Cormac out loud, ‘that it is just an unfortunate accident that so critical a part of my memory is missing, but I am by nature a suspicious person.’
Jerusalem replied, ‘Your mind needs to heal further before it can accept that. It is something you did that you do not comprehend.’
‘Return it to me.’
‘I cannot. The human mind is a fragile structure at best. The memory of what you did then could be like the inverse of a keystone, especially with your mind in its present condition.’
‘I didn’t think I was that bad.’
‘Why do you think it has taken you so long to start reviewing your memories of that time? Doubtless the explanation to yourself is that only now are those memories relevant to your coming encounter with Dragon.’
Cormac wanted to sneer at that suggestion, but found he could not. Instead he said, ‘Can you at least tell me, in general, what I did?’
‘Oh yes: you used your own mind to translate your body through U-space,’ Jerusalem replied.
Cormac went cold. He shivered. That was purportedly what Horace Blegg could do, but Cormac no longer believed Blegg to be what he claimed. Could he be wrong about that? But he just could not encompass what Jerusalem had told him and felt himself teetering on the brink of some abyss. He tried to dismiss it, to focus on the now.
‘Is there anything else you are keeping from me?’ he asked.
Immediately another memcording arrived.
‘What is this?’ asked Cormac, not daring to open it.
‘To control you, Skellor linked into your mind, but as a consequence you were partially linked into his. This is something you picked up from there – his memory of how he actually obtained his Jain node.’
Cormac viewed it, experienced it: as if he himself stood upon the platform on Osterland and received from Jane von Hellsdorf a Jain node for the bargain price of ten shillings.
‘I should have known about this. This needs following up.’
‘Thorn, some dracomen, and a strange amalgam of the Jack Ketch AI with a dead woman called Aphran, are already investigating. You are not yet stable enough for that kind of mission.’
Cormac reluctantly accepted that.
‘Jack and Aphran . . .’
Even as he spoke he sought information via the Jerusalem’s servers: the original Jack Ketch had been destroyed fighting rebellious AI warships, including the King of Hearts, but Jack’s mind was retrieved by Dragon, whom Jerusalem finally caught up with in orbit of the brown dwarf where Skellor and Cento died. Then Dragon’s meek surrender and return to the Cull system, some kind of bartering enacted at fast AI speeds, with the result that Dragon gave up the ship mind, then the huge band manufactured by Jerusalem and placed around Dragon’s equator – a guarantee that Dragon would not try to use the gravitic weapons it contained in some escape attempt.
Cormac returned his attention to the screen. Focus!
Dragon must now answer some hard questions for there were clear links between it, the Makers, and Jain tech arising here in the Polity. Cormac needed to decide what those questions should be, and how far he was prepared to go to obtain answers.
*
Thorn rested with his back against an oak tree and waited. He observed Scar, pacing back and forth next to the dome. The dracomen had come back in during the night, obviously bored with waiting. Thorn’s own training made him very patient, and his experience enabled him to value brief moments of peace during any operation. It gave him time to appreciate things like trees, the starlit sky fading into misty morning, trees, the cool air on his face, more fucking trees.
Those down on the planet had gathered many holocordings and after deep analysis of them, usually of the background, Aphran discovered that three people had visited Jane von Hellsdorf. One of these Aphran picked up in an aug recording, and another in publicity shots taken of the village. The first one Aelvor’s monitors identified as a dissatisfied customer come to complain, and the second as another stallholder come to sell von Hellsdorf his old stock. Both were apprehended and now being questioned by monitors. But in the end what Aphran did not find proved to be of most interest. One of the residents in Oakwood had made holocordings of a barbecue, and in the background a krodorman – a heavy G ’dapt to one particularly swampy world – showed up knocking on von Hellsdorf’s door. Analysis of the thousands of samples found at the scene revealed no trace of krodorman DNA. This person had left no physical trace of herself – for the figure was female – and they needed to know why.
‘We have her,’ Aphran
announced finally, as the sun began to disperse the mist. ‘The Parliament Hotel on Cockleshell Street.’
Thorn stood and began heading for his aircar. ‘Is she still there?’
‘She has been a resident in the hotel for two months, has not yet checked out, but is not presently in her room – the hotel security system has not registered the door to her room being opened in the last two days – ever since we arrived here, in fact. It would seem that, immediately upon our arrival, she paid a visit to Jane von Hellsdorf, forced that aug upon her, then disappeared.’
Scar reached the passenger door of the aircar just as Thorn climbed inside. The dracoman growled low as he shoved the seat back and clambered into the cramped space, putting his feet up on the dashboard. Thorn stared at him for a moment, shrugged resignedly, then took the aircar into the sky. He glanced back and down to see two monitor aircars and two of Jack’s telefactors following him.
‘Jack,’ he said, opening his comlink to the ship AI, ‘have you yet figured out what caused Ms von Hellsdorf to explode?’
The AI replied, ‘A combination of four enzymes released from her liver the moment she experienced an adrenal surge – which became inevitable once someone started delving into her mind. The enzymes instantly began converting her body fat to nitroglycerine.’
‘Why do that? Killing her beforehand would have kept her secrets safe.’
‘Obviously taking out any investigators nearby would hamper their enquiries. It is the kind of thing done by those who consider ECS personnel as viable targets.’
‘Separatists,’ Thorn replied, stating the obvious.
Jack went on, ‘It is a well-tested methodology to use booby traps to target specialists among what is considered the enemy. In the Second World War the Nazis dropped bombs specifically designed to kill those sent to defuse them . . . And now my search has revealed that Separatist cells around Krodor have used this method many times.’
‘All very neat,’ said Thorn. ‘Tell me, Aphran, what do you think?’
‘You mean with my deep experience of Separatist methods?’ she replied bitterly.
‘Yes, precisely that.’
‘It makes sense. The prime target for any Separatist is an AI, as they are the direct subordinates of the Earth Central autocrat – sorry Jack – and after that we . . . they will go to great lengths to kill ECS agents. The likes of yourself are considered prime targets because not only do you serve the autocrat, you are considered traitors to the human race.’
Clear of the mist the aircar glinted in orange-hued sunshine. Soon the main town lay below and Thorn began to ease the car down towards the streets. He checked his palm-com – now lying open and stuck to the dashboard beside Scar’s right foot – identified Cockleshell Street and headed for it.
‘Let’s suppose, then,’ said Thorn, ‘that a Separatist organization learnt, by whatever means, that ECS would soon be taking an interest in Jane von Hellsdorf.’
‘Then I would expect no less than an entire combat group turning up down there,’ Aphran replied.
Thorn grimaced to himself, having already worked out the coming scenario. He decided that landing in Cockleshell Street itself would not be such a good idea, and chose a thoroughfare adjacent to it, but still in view of the hotel.
‘Jack, the entire hotel and surrounding buildings need to be cleared.’
‘I have already informed Osterland and Aelvor.’
Of course Jack was ahead of him – that’s how AIs were.
The message obviously got through because the front doors opened and people began emerging. The two other aircars landed in the street behind Thorn’s vehicle, but the two telefactors held station up in the sky. Four monitors came past the car and headed towards the growing crowd before the hotel. There followed some gesticulation and shouting, but the evacuated people began moving on down the street.
‘Jack, Fethan gave me a little gift before I departed Cull: one of Jerusalem’s HK programs.’
‘Yes, I know,’ the AI replied.
Thorn tilted his head and asked, ‘Aphran, if you yourself planted an explosive device here, in this situation, how would you detonate it?’
‘Net feed. I’d connect it to some com system. The signal would be untraceable. Or I would have assumed so.’
‘But you would need a spotter of some kind, otherwise how would you know when to detonate?’
‘I would either connect the device to something only an ECS agent might try to access – secure storage or something locked like a safe – or I would use a cam system, probably activated by movement, and routed through the same net feed.’
‘Jack, through your telefactors can you scan for a cam inside the hotel?’
‘I have already done so,’ the AI replied. ‘There are two holocameras located in the suspect’s room, linked by optic cables into the room’s netlink.’
‘Presumably there are other optic cables in the room too?’
‘No, our suspect has been much smarter than that: planar explosives packed into a standard lamp – the lamp itself to be activated by an infrared signal from the netlink rather than an optic cable. The lamp has been deliberately raised to head height, the intention being to not only kill, but to destroy any cerebral hardware designed to save anything of the victim’s mind – a subtle touch.’
Thorn reached into his pocket and took out the memstore. ‘Would this HK be able to track the cam signals?’
‘Why not ask it?’ Jack suggested.
Thorn then remembered Fethan saying the hunter-killer program did not talk much. So it could talk, then.
‘Can you hear me?’
The device vibrated in his hand.
‘I hear,’ replied a flat inflection-free voice. Scar peered at the memstore for a moment, then sniffed dismissively.
‘Then you heard what we were discussing. Can you track cam signals through a netlink?’
‘I can.’
Thorn detached his palm-com from the dash and rested it in his lap. He tapped an icon to open its netlink, and with a brief local search closed the connection to the Parliament Hotel. He then pulled out the strip along the lower edge of the touch-console to reveal multiple sockets: optic, nano-tube optic, s-con whiskered, crystal interface, and even a socket that could adapt itself to primitive electrical connections. As he picked it up, the memstore, like a clam sliding out its foot, immediately extruded an optic plug from one of its end ports. Thorn inserted this into the requisite socket.
‘Of course, we need a way to activate the cameras,’ Thorn commented, while watching the hotel’s web display flickering, then breaking up into squares, before blanking out totally.
‘Copy loaded,’ said the box.
‘Are you volunteering?’ Jack enquired of Thorn.
‘Not likely,’ said Thorn. ‘The cam signal might not be enough, but the program should certainly be able to follow the detonation signal.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Erm . . . HK, have you wrecked this palm-com?’
The com screen came back on, displaying the city map Thorn had used before landing.
‘Can you display where you track the source to?’
‘I can,’ HK replied.
‘Jack,’ said Thorn, ‘send in a telefactor. The watcher will know he’s been blown and won’t be able to get a human target with his bomb, but he won’t be able to resist taking out such a costly piece of Polity hardware instead.’
Even as Thorn spoke, one of the telefactors dropped down in front of the hotel. After a moment he observed something shoot out from it to hit a chainglass bubble window.
Decoder mine.
The missile stuck for a second, then the window abruptly collapsed into dust. As the telefactor cruised inside, immediately the walls either side of the window blew outwards, ahead of a disc of flame. Rubble crashed down into the street, followed by the top half of the telefactor itself.
‘My supply of telefactors is limited,’ Jack observed.
Thorn glanced down at the palm-com, just as the H
K grated, ‘Located.’
On the map displayed, a square frame shrank down to a dot. It took half a second for Thorn to realize it lay right next to where he was parked.
‘Out!’ he shouted, grabbing up his pulse-rifle from the passenger foot-well below Scar’s legs. He and the dracoman piled out just as shots slammed into the car roof.
Thorn hit the cobbles, rolled, and came up locating the source of the shots. A chainglass bubble window had revolved halfway down into the wall, revealing a small open balcony. Thorn aimed at the figure standing up there, but hesitated and it disappeared. He damned himself – he had already checked that the weapon was set to stun. Now he fired freely, electrical stun discharges spreading small lightnings all over the balcony. Scar was up and moving on the other side of the car. The dracoman slammed into a street door, slapped something against it, swung aside with his back to the wall. An entry charge detonated, hurling the crumpled composite door inwards – and Scar followed it in.
‘Jack!’ Thorn bellowed. ‘Factor!’
The telefactor descended on him like a falling rock. He felt a strange lightness and twisting sensation as its AG field came over him. Reaching up he grabbed one of its limbs. A second limb closed about his chest.
‘Drop me on the balcony. Then you take the roof!’
As the telefactor brought him up level with the balcony, Thorn fired into the room beyond, then kicked himself off from the machine’s skin just as it released him. His foot came down once on the balcony platform, then he dived straight into the room beyond and rolled. A figure to his left, something bouncing across the floor. Thorn surged to his feet and flung himself through the nearest doorway. He kicked the bedroom door shut, dived for the bed, grabbing up the edge of the mattress as he went and pulling it over him. The subsequent blast slammed him into a fitted wardrobe and, when he peered out from behind the mattress, the door was gone, along with most of the partition wall. Wisps of insulating foam floated through the air, and something was burning. As he climbed out over rubble, he targeted an object moving through the smoke, but then identified it as a small spherical robot on four skinny legs, which was spraying fire suppressant at a pool of sticky liquid burning on the floor. He headed for the door through which he had seen the figure retreat, and cautiously peered round it. His head jerked back just in time as something smashed into the door jamb. His comunit began vibrating against his breastbone – security signal. Thorn pulled out the comunit’s earpiece and placed it in his ear.
