Prador Moon

by Neal Asher

  "Are you ready?" she asked—through her aug.

  "Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the Devil."

  There, another proverb. What other reply to expect? Whatever the hell that meant she supposed it to be the best answer she would receive.

  Moria set to work calculating orbital velocities and trajectories. At present the runcible face lay at a tangent to Trajeen, so she needed to turn it to ninety degrees from the surface. Sending the cargo ship through required a two-kilometre extension of the gate; now she needed an excess of two hundred kilometres. She worked out that this would take, with each gatepost travelling at its maximum of twelve hundred kph, averaged over the distance, more than five minutes.

  Too long.

  A particular fact niggling at her for some time now came to the forefront of her mind. Her plan stood a much better chance of working if she could initiate the warp only after the gateposts reached full extension. This meant her accuracy in positioning the posts needed to be well inside the tolerances set for the normal method of opening the gate. Over the next long hour she calculated what the new tolerances should be, and applied them to the system. Immediately thousands of errors appeared—possibly more than she could deal with.

  "Two wrongs don't make a right" George told her, then added a proverb he used before, "When one door shuts, another door opens."

  Moria sat for long minutes trying to understand that, then abruptly felt very stupid. She did not need to initiate warp at full extension at both gates, only the Boh one. This cut the errors by half and, she felt, brought the required calculations within parameters she could handle. She spent a further hour modelling gate operation under these circumstances, then saved the model. Now, to position this gate.

  Where it ultimately ended up around Trajeen depended on when the Prador ship arrived and when it could be manoeuvred into position. However, she could run a rough projection based on an arrival time five hours hence. This she did, and then she began to move.

  The positional drives fired up again and, slowly, through the nearby windows, she observed Trajeen rise, its blue curve filling the lower half of the view. The moment the runcible lay upright to the surface, and stabilized, she fired the drives in a different direction to send it in orbit around the planet, so it would arrive in position in five hours. Further adjustments would then be required, utterly dependent on the situation out at Boh. Now, with one of her models being updated in real-time via the U-space link and the test viewing sensors out at Boh, she observed Jebel Krong's ship docking, and waited.

  * * * * *

  Consciousness returned by slow degrees, and during moments in the in-between state, Tomalon possessed no conception of being human. He was the Occam Razor. Through its sensors he observed the Trajeen system as a whole, not contracted to human perception, and realised what mere specks were himself, and the Prador ship millions of kilometres ahead. Then the lines of division impinged, for he did not control his own body, and he became aware of Occam.

  "U-space currents have affected the duration of our journey. We have arrived two hours earlier than expected," Occam told him.

  "Is this a problem?"

  "It is, but one that can hopefully be resolved. I am presently in communication with Moria Salem, who controls the cargo runcibles. She has transmitted a plan of which you need to be aware."

  The information arrived at Tomalon's interface with the ship AI, and he slowly and carefully worked his way through it. He felt a shiver when he began to realise what this woman intended to do, and what would be required of the Occam Razor.

  "This is a serious proposition?" he asked.

  "It is."

  "So we must continuously feed her information concerning our position and the position of the Pradorship, while we make an attack run on the Boh runcible?"

  As he asked this, Tomalon began checking through the ship's systems and infrastructure to see what Occam had done while he was unconscious. Various ship's robots were busily working, strengthening or replacing structural members, taking wrecked machinery and burnt and twisted metal to interior autofactories to be cut up, smelted, and turned into replacement components for the ship. A veritable swarm of constructors presently worked its way around the hull, removing damaged plates and welding new ones into place. Others were replacing looms of fried optics and wiring. A whole weapons turret had been rebuilt. Yet he realised the ship would probably not survive a head-on encounter with the Prador vessel.

  "I am beginning that run now. We will swing around the Prador ship to begin it. Ascertaining our intent, Immanence will accelerate and arrive there before us."

  "Well that's just dandy," Tomalon replied, wondering if he should transmit updates to his will and what the chances were of his body being found.

  * * * * *

  Urbanus and Lindy suited up and departed through the ship's outer airlock into vacuum, each carrying four CTDs. Jebel observed them for a little while on the cockpit subscreen fed from an exterior camera. Their air jets flipped out little dissolving trails as they split up, each heading for different areas of the runcible to conceal their lethal parcels. He considered waiting another hour before going to get Conlan and taking him inside the Boh complex. Then Moria made contact:

  "Jebel, the Prador ship just arrived early. Already they are transmitting on the frequency Conlan gave you. You must get him to reply ASAP. Prador vessel's ETA at Boh is probably less than an hour once it gets underway—it is holding off at present."

  "That's two hours early." Jebel leapt up from his seat and, collecting his weapons, headed back through the ship.

  "Yeah, I spotted that."

  "Can you still do it?"

  "I can, I think, but if I can't you still have your chance with the mines."

  "Though I very much wanted to be here, the plan was that we positioned the mines then ran. One hour doesn't give us much time to do that."

  "That last fact would not have been changed had you decided to ignore me."

  "Yeah, I guess."

  "I will be out of com henceforth. I'm going to be juggling with quite enough balls as it is. Best of luck, Jebel Krong."

  "Juggling balls—nice analogy," he replied, but the connection closed before he could say any more, and now he stood at the door to Conlan's room. Before entering Jebel initiated his comlink:

  "Okay you two, get those mines positioned in double quick time—we've got company."

  "It's here?" Lindy asked.

  "Two hours early," Urbanus added.

  "My words exactly," Jebel replied. "Now, you've no time to run checks. Get them positioned and get back here fast. I want you both back aboard within half an hour."

  Now, through his aug, Jebel checked the view through the concealed cameras in Conlan's room, just as he had before entering the man's cell back in the Trajeen complex. Supine on the bed the man did not seem preparing some ambush this time. Jebel opened the door and entered.

  "Okay, time to go."

  Conlan sat upright, and Jebel studied him with what he knew to be ill-concealed contempt. Thus far he had learnt that Conlan was a hit man for some gangster organization on Trajeen before joining the Separatists. He was brave, that being a job requirement, but did not possess the kind of face-to-face bravery Jebel saw at the front. A knife in the back or the lengthy torture of a bound victim being more his style. Jebel wondered how he would fare with a laser carbine and a few gecko mines up against a Prador.

  "By your hasty demeanour I suspect they have arrived?"

  "You suspect right." Jebel stepped aside and drawing his thin-gun waved Conlan to the door. The killer shrugged, stood and walked over, eyeing the weapon as he passed. Jebel supposed he had considered going for it and rejected the idea. "The airlock is down there on the left."

  "Do I get a suit like yours?" Conlan asked as they entered the corridor.

  "No need. This lock leads directly into the Boh complex."

  Reaching the lock, Jebel gestured for Conlan to open it. The exteri
or door already stood open, having been shunted aside for the embarkation tunnel to connect. They pulled themselves through the tunnel in zero gee, then finally clumped down on the grav-plates in a short tunnel leading to a junction with one of the complex's corridors.

  "Go right."

  The corridor led past accommodation units for the runcible staff, and finally terminated in a secondary Control Centre, previously in operation while the runcible was being built, but closed down when the AI took control. Moria had, however, since brought this place back online.

  "Choose a console."

  Conlan moved ahead, shrugged, then plumped himself down beside the nearest console. Jebel removed an optic cable from one of his pockets and tossed it to the man.

  "Remember—your life depends on what you do next."

  "Oh I do understand that."

  While Conlan opened up his aug and plugged in, Jebel studied his surroundings. A row of screens to his right gave him a clear view across the runcible, with Boh, the gas giant, looming behind. Within the room a horseshoe of consoles faced a bank of screens, many of which were running tech data way above Jebel's knowledge; some however, showed different views outside. On one he could see a spacesuited figure busily at work undoing an access hatch, elasticised lines holding the figure in place. By the size and shape he guessed that to be Lindy. Another screen showed a partial view of their docked ship and still others showed star-speckled blackness. He returned his attention to Conlan.

  The man now sat bolt upright, his eyes closed. Speaking out loud he delivered the message as instructed, though if anything lay hidden in his words, Jebel guessed he wouldn't know until too late.

  "Yes, I have control of the Trajeen cargo runcible, and through it, control of the Boh cargo runcible… There are a few technicians still aboard here at Trajeen, but—No, they can't—not with the AI knocked out… No, none on the Boh runcible. You are clear to take it… Yes, I look forwards to that."

  The conversation was brief, and of course much more than Conlan's life depended on it. The lives of nearly a billion souls hung in the balance. Conlan leant back and opened his eyes. "Y'know, even from a translation you can pick up a lot.

  "Oh yes."

  Conlan turned to face him. "Unless your mines work, everyone is going to die here. I reckon I stand the better chance in a cold coffin in vacuum."

  Maybe the man believed that. Probably they were weasel words to try and get Jebel to drop his guard a little.

  "So what else do I have to tell him?"

  "In a little while you'll tell Immanence that those few technicians remaining aboard the Trajeen cargo runcible have managed to seize back some control, specifically of the positional drives of the Boh runcible." Jebel turned to look at him. "Those technicians will fire up those drives to open the Boh gate."

  "I don't understand."

  "You don't have to," Jebel told him.

  8

  And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand—

  Great, now she was getting a headache, which added to the feeling, despite her having applied for and received planetary processing space, of her head being filled to bursting point. Despite the early arrival of the Prador vessel, it had been necessary to slow the runcible's orbital speed to bring it to the right place at the right time. All her previous calculations she'd completely erased, since they no longer applied, even very roughly. The calculations she presently ran were a living thing. She knew the result, the solution, but necessarily needed to keep altering the input values in keeping with data received from the Occam Razor and the test sensors out at Boh. Sometimes, deep in all this, she lost sight of her ultimate aims, but looking out through her own eyes at the changing horizon, storms and cloud banks passing underneath her, snapped her back to reality. If she failed, that view might well change, horribly.

  Returning her attention to the Trajeen runcible she again checked her preparations, hesitated for only a moment, then initiated the Skaidon warp. Her view altered immediately as the shimmering meniscus flickered into being beside her. Though the present drain on the fusion reactors lay within acceptable limits, she knew that later the need would rise beyond those limits, so onlined extra power from the solar collector satellites. The power they supplied, by maser, to the gateposts, slotted into her calculations and gave her greater manoeuvring space. She now gave the instruction for the gateposts to begin parting, though she did not yet intend to throw them out to their full extent, since their tendency to drift while the entire runcible was being moved could wreck everything. She now considered some other calculations.

  The C energy, though not a true representation of what would instantiate beyond the meniscus because of the exponential progression that took place actually at the meniscus, was very substantial. Moria briefly considered taking the Boh runcible buffers completely offline, ran some calculations, and felt a sudden thrill of horror at the results this rendered. The Boh gate itself would last about .005 of a second, and it seemed possible the entire energy burst could actually ignite the gas giant itself—turn it into a small, swiftly burning sun. Not a great idea. She could not do that; however, she did not have to work the gate as intended for the transmission of cargo ships. The output velocity did not have to be the same as the input, for she could borrow some of the C energy and add it to the latter.

  The energy calculation ran roughly at a 70,000 kph disparity between the Trajeen and Boh gates, so anything entering the Trajeen gate at, say, 10 kph, would exit Boh at 70,010 kph, so an object travelling at 40,000 would exit at 110,000… Moria calculated the extent of possible damage to the Boh runcible, and to various objects within its vicinity. She based these calculations on probable reaction times of Prador systems and the Prador themselves. She factored in the probable breakup of a certain object when accelerated beyond certain limits, including in those factors the results of geological surveys requested from the planetary network, and in the end settled on borrowing one fortieth of the C energy. Very roughly, C equalled 1,070,000,000 kph. One fortieth plus initial velocities resulted in a total of twenty-seven million kilometres per hour. In one second, an object travelling at that speed, would cover 7500 kilometres. As Moria modelled the near future, the scene, playing out in her mind, lit a fire behind her eyes.

  * * * * *

  While some second-children brought him lunch, Immanence ruefully observed the Polity dreadnought, and damned himself for not turning back to destroy it when it was more badly damaged than this. He had mistakenly believed it to be either a lifeless hulk or crippled beyond the ability to go anywhere, and transmitted its location to other, smaller, Prador vessels, thinking it now a problem beneath his notice. However, its presence here did not particularly worry him, because even scanning from a distance it appeared the damage was by no means completely repaired. It might be able to travel, but if it actually tried to attack he knew he could destroy it.

  He continued studying the vessel while he mulled over the recent message from the human Separatist. As per plan they had seized control of the Trajeen cargo runcible, and because of that the Boh runcible was now his for the taking. He decided that when he finally travelled inwards to Trajeen itself, he would send Gnores or Scrabbler to collect those Separatists, to bring them aboard for dinner… But that pleasant prospect lay in the future, meanwhile he must decide what to do about this damned Polity ship. Should he turn back and destroy it before seizing the Boh runcible, or just continue with his mission here and destroy it should it try to engage? The latter, he decided.

  As Immanence directed his chouds to set his own vessel on a course for Boh, he still kept sensors directed towards the enemy ship and realised, from its trajectory, that it was not, as expected, trying to intercept him. It swung out and round, accelerating hard. The Prador captain felt a sudden amusement. Obviously the Polity ship's captain intended to give himself as much time as possible to make further repairs, and then await Immanence as part of some organized defence of Trajeen itself. Typical of the desperate measures these
humans took to protect their own. Immanence munched contemplatively on the human leg a second-child passed up to his mandibles. Then, another possibility occurred to him.

  His stomachs rumbled, and he released a long acidic belch, simultaneously spitting the leg out, down onto the second-child's carapace. With a sweep of his claw he sent the child squalling and tumbling end over end into the wall. Too much of a good thing in two respects: the rich human meat was beginning to have an unwanted effect on his digestion, and easy victories led him into a stupid complacency. He realised the Polity captain must know the runcibles were now controlled by Separatists and divined Immanence's plan concerning the one at Boh, and was racing ahead to take control of or even destroy that runcible before Immanence could seize it.

  The Prador captain sent the instruction for maximum acceleration, and even in his grav-plated and shock-absorbing sanctum felt the surge throughout the ship as two extra fusion engines fired up and flamed out into space. Champing his mandibles he checked the navigational projections, and slowly his irritation receded. The Polity ship was fast, but not quite fast enough. Immanence would arrive before it. He now opened com channels:

  "Gnores, get aboard the shuttle and prepare for launch when we arrive."

  "Yes, Father."

  Immanence now returned his attention to the quivering second-children attending him. "Bring me shorefish and boulder eel steaks. I've had enough of this human meat for now." The second-children scurried away.