by Neal Asher
Jem realized that he had been wrong about why the AI had shut itself down. Having been transported here twenty years ago and making an assessment of what had once been the Homeworld of its masters, he had assumed it must have quickly worked out what had happened and felt itself in danger from the mechanism. Not so. It seemed that the AI’s mind was as much like an Atheter’s mind as a Polity AI’s mind was like a Human’s, which is to say, nothing like it. No, its reason for concealment was much closer, and altogether ironic.
The Atheter AI dated from a few Human centuries before the final racial extinction, from the time of the retreat. As the Atheter pulled back towards their Homeworld they obliterated their technology behind them so as to leave nothing Jain technology could hijack and, unlike in the Human Polity, their AIs had not climbed to dominance. There had been no Atheter Quiet War. This AI along with many others had been scheduled for destruction and so concealed itself. And the destroyers it had concealed itself from were Atheter war machines, just like the Technician. The AI had shut itself down out of fear of the Technician – a both amusing and tragic situation.
‘On your feet, proctor,’ Ripple-John spat.
Jem rose to his feet in one smooth motion, but then at once adjusted his pose, slumping a little and bowing his head. He required more sensory data and got it at once as the AI relayed a feed from the sensors in the barrier, which it had seized control of long ago as a possible defence against the Technician. Visualizing further coding – a three-dimensional pattern only hinted at on penny mollusc shells – he made a link. The AI rebelled, briefly, but as the link hardened and it received data from that other source, it understood, and using the borrowed languages of Humanity offered up a few prized expletives. Now it realized it had been hiding for no reason. Now it knew the Technician’s purpose, for that other source was the war machine itself, and the AI realized it had been sleeping towards another unexpected source of oblivion.
‘I know this Dragon,’ the AI noted.
‘You were not included in the original calculations,’ Jem replied. ‘Though you can be of assistance. Call them – you have the capability.’
‘It is done – they come.’
‘So how do we do it?’ asked the young man with the scoped assault rifle.
‘Should we waste time?’ asked another. ‘A bullet through the head should be enough, surely?’
‘It’s not enough for me, Blitz,’ said Ripple-John with a smile. Jem understood that his cheerful demeanour concealed hate that had congealed solid. ‘Something spectacular and extremely painful, I think.’
‘We don’t want to hang around here too long,’ said Blitz. He looked up, tracking the gravan as it rose into the sky and began to move away.
‘Then we take him to our aerofan cache, then somewhere private,’ said Ripple-John. ‘We should be able to get to the Greenport underground quickly enough and then we disappear.’
‘Greenport’s been evacuated – you know that,’ said Blitz.
‘You misunderstand me,’ said Ripple-John. ‘I mean the real underground – there’s a small cave system underneath Green-port and an escape tunnel leading down the coast. It’s not something generally known.’ He stepped closer to Jem, provocatively, hoping Jem would react in some way so he could respond violently.
Now, linked into the Atheter AI like Humans, drones and Polity AIs interlinked, Jem began processing more data. But he felt a strange disquiet, difficult to nail down only for a moment, after which he understood its source. This was so like using the Gift – the Dracocorp augs Dragon had provided for the Brotherhood, the chunk of semiorganic technology the Technician had ripped from him as it took off his face. He shuddered, then watched through the Technician’s upper eyes as it hurtled along through flute grasses, a heroyne rapidly striding out of its path. Then out of the chaotic montage of images threatening to flood his brain, he selected one, close, and gazed through eyes that seemed more comfortable to him; ones giving panoramic vision extending further into the light spectrum than did Human eyes. He could feel the curiosity of the owner of those eyes, its potential intelligence disrupted into mentally self-destructive paths, its response to a microwave frequency picked up by a nearly atrophied organ in its brain. He saw what it saw as it raised its head above the flute grasses and gazed to where it somehow felt it had been summoned. He smiled to himself upon seeing the ATV, himself and his captors standing nearby.
‘What the fuck are you grinning at?’ Ripple-John asked.
Jem raised his head and gazed straight into the man’s eyes. Ripple-John stepped back, registering shock.
‘If you leave now,’ said Jem, ‘you might survive. You just might.’
Another now, drawing closer. He could hear them in the flute grasses, but the four Humans here holding him captive could not. How, with such dull senses, had this race created a space-borne civilization?
‘You’re threatening us?’ Ripple-John asked, viciously amused.
There was no way to control them – the best thing to do would be to get out of the way. Jem tensed up his body, tested the softness of the ground below his feet, scanned about himself for the best route.
‘I don’t need to be the threat,’ he replied. ‘They are.’ He pointed.
‘Vrabbit fobbish,’ intoned a voice from where he pointed.
It weighed in at about three tonnes and came out of the flute grasses in one great lolloping bound, landing with a heavy thump that shook the ground underneath their feet. As four Human gazes snapped away from him, Jem launched himself sideways, shouldered the ground and rolled underneath the ATV. He glanced back to see the gabbleduck – a young adult yet to attain full massive growth – stand there for a moment like a great bear, then abruptly roll back on its haunches. Kalash chose that moment to open fire on it, which was a mistake.
The shots from his pulse rifle thudded into its chest, burning deep painful wounds. The brainless descendants of a once star-spanning civilization gabbleducks might have been, but they still possessed intelligence enough to know when they were being hurt, and who by.
‘Where the fuck did he—’ Ripple-John shouted, further words drowned out by the gabbleduck’s multi-tone shriek.
Jem rolled out of the other side of the vehicle, got partway to his feet and hurled himself into the flute grasses beyond. He began pushing his way through, partly concentrating on what he was doing, but otherwise looking through many familiar eyes. The gabbleduck charged towards the four, Kalash firing again and putting out two of its eyes.
‘Robnacker!’ another voice cried, and a huge shape reared up right beside Jem.
This thing was a fully grown adult and squatting formed a massive pyramid of flesh and bone. He froze, gazing up at it. The thing dipped its head to peer down at him, shuddered like an arachnophobe seeing a tarantula and heaved its bulk a long pace away, where it hunched down and swung its attention away from him. Jem got up and got away just as fast as he could.
Someone screaming now. Kalash, suspended off the ground in a big black claw. The first gabbleduck had now lost all feelings of curiosity, and any playfulness that might have inhabited it earlier. It shoved one of Kalash’s legs into its bill, closing teeth like white holly leaves down on it, then ripped it off. Next a crack and whoosh – the missile launcher. Through his link to the gabbleduck Jem felt the impact like a cramp in his own chest. Fire filled his vision through the creature’s eyes then the view gyrated for a few seconds before shuddering to a halt, and now through his own eyes he peered across the clearing to where the creature’s headless body began to topple.
‘Where is that fucking proctor!’ Ripple-John exclaimed. The man thought it was all over, because more than one gabbleduck in any location was no common sight.
Having cut a circular course through the flute grasses, Jem eased as quietly as he could to the grasses at the edge of the clearing and peered out. Ripple-John’s other two sons had gone over to their brother. One was trying and failing to apply a tourniquet to ripped flesh and
a protruding thigh bone, the other opening a field medical kit. Ripple-John did not seem concerned about them as he walked the length of the ATV, flack gun held out to one side. Surely they could hear it now?
‘What is that?’ One of the sons looked up.
Yes, they could hear.
‘God help us,’ said the other one.
Two domed heads rose up out of the grasses on the other side of the clearing, then they both turned to each other.
‘Stigger stig,’ said one.
‘Romble,’ the other agreed.
Ripple-John turned, now seeing what his sons were seeing. ‘Get him into the ATV, quickly now,’ he said with studied calm.
The two helped their brother up onto his remaining foot, but he seemed to be either unconscious or in a drugged stupor, for they all but dragged him towards the vehicle. They took him inside, Ripple-John walking slowly backwards behind them as yet another gabbleduck, a small one, pushed into the clearing then lolloped over to the remains of its fellow and began sniffing at them. Ripple-John slammed the door shut just as the ATV’s motors whined into life.
Jem eased himself to his knees, still keeping concealed, and waited. Now he was getting used to the visual melange he realized that seven gabbleducks, excluding the dead one, were in the vicinity. No knowing what they would do now and, whilst they had provided the distraction he needed, they could now be a danger to him.
‘We need a gabbleduck,’ he noted.
‘There are gabbleducks within the barrier,’ the Atheter AI replied.
‘Close the barrier behind me when I’m through.’
‘As you will.’
Did he notice a hint of resentment in the communication. Was the AI remembering that its own masters had scheduled it for destruction? He would have to be very careful with this entity. He must ensure it understood its perilous situation now, and that only Jem held the key to its survival for, without any doubt, it would be subject to the mechanism’s secondary function of annihilating Atheter technology when it arrived here. He told it, briefly, what he intended.
‘We could never see it,’ the AI replied.
‘No, but Dragon did, straight away.’
The ATV began to pull away but, at that moment, the big gabbleduck Jem had seen earlier decided to intervene. It rose up out of the flute grasses beside the vehicle, massive, pyramidal, reached out with one big heavy forelimb and brought a claw the size of a scrapyard grab down on its roof. The ATV’s forward motion ceased, its wheels spinning and throwing up a spray of mud and chunks of rhizome. Jem saw the roof distort as the gabbleduck closed its claw – took a grip – then in a moment the wheels were clear of the ground. The creature picked it right up before its face and studied it with evident curiosity, turned it over and began prodding at the underside with one long black claw. It looked almost like a child with a motorized toy, checking to see where the batteries went. That claw then strayed, hitting one of the rapidly spinning wheels. The tyre shredded, spraying out yellow sealant foam from the auto puncture repair, straight into the creature’s face.
‘Bohob,’ it said, and discarded the vehicle.
The ATV crashed down on its roof, its front screen exploding outwards and snapped power cables shorting on its now upward-facing underside, through the bodywork and into the ground, which began to smoke. Jem winced, wondered if any of the passengers had survived that. He turned away.
Time to go. The other gabbleducks were concentrating on the vehicle, whilst the big monster was wiping foam from its domed head like a bald and sweaty fat man. Jem moved off, neither hurrying nor moving furtively. He knew enough about a gabbleduck’s senses to realize they would be aware of his presence. If he ran their hunter’s instinct might impel them to chase him. If he tried to creep away, that same instinct might shift them into stalking mode. But really, it was all might and maybe, because few logical rules applied to these creatures. Even though his skull contained the mind of one of their ancestors, he did not know what they would do.
The clearing soon out of sight, Jem moved into an area where the grasses had been crushed down, and picked up his pace. From behind he heard nonsense talk, the screech of metal rending, then gunfire. Ripple-John and his sons had a small chance of survival. If they got away from the gabbleducks they just might be able to make it on foot back to civilization. But even should they reach a place where the hostile local wildlife couldn’t get to them, they would never be safe. They had released the death hormone and they had killed Chanter, and would be hunted relentlessly. Jem dismissed them from his mind.
‘I want you to contact the gravan I arrived here in and make a communications link for me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there is something aboard that vehicle we need, something we need very much.’
The communication link opened, again seemingly no different to using a Dracocorp augmentation. He saw Leif Grant peering down at him and wondered what the man was seeing on his screen.
‘You can return now,’ Jem said out loud, not sure why he felt the need to speak like that.
‘Tombs?’ said Grant.
‘The same.’
‘What happened . . . how are you talking to me now?’
In the background Jem saw Shree Enkara leaning across to peer at the screen. She looked angry, and had a numb-patch plastered to her temple.
‘My captors have been . . . inconvenienced. I am talking to you via the Atheter AI, which I am now heading towards. I want you to come to me.’
Grant’s expression registered shock, then after a moment he said, ‘Okay, will do.’ Shree’s expression hardened – certainty, purpose there. Of course. Dragon’s agent here, the dracowoman Blue, had picked her as the perfect way to convey a very important item to the designated spot. Blue had seen, so long after Dragon’s death, a better way to bring that entity’s original plan to fruition.
‘That’s all,’ said Jem, and the link faded.
The barrier seemed so utterly ineffectual. The rafts supporting the uprights of each arch were mere coins of foamstone a metre across and half a metre deep. The arches themselves seemed to be just curved chrome pipe the thickness of a man’s wrist. All around them the flute grass had been trampled flat across a wide area. As a precaution Jem moved off the trail into a nearby stand yet to be trampled down. Now linked into the Atheter AI he understood why this area had seen so much activity, and recognized the danger here.
The Atheter had spectacularly failed to recreate that mythical garden of their past because, over the long millennia of their civilization, they had lost track of the distinction between evolved and manufactured biology in both themselves and the life forms they surrounded themselves with. Within the skulls of all the wildlife of this world grew some form of the same microwave receiver and transmitter the AI had used to call the gabbleducks. And that wildlife had been frequently attracted to this area by the muttering of the AI stirring in sleep.
Jem paused at the edge of the flute-grass stand, ten metres of open ground ahead to the barrier, a further ten metres beyond it. Far to his right he observed a heroyne stilt-legging through the barrier and waited till it was out of sight before moving. He quickly hurried across, had reached the barrier when he heard something crash out of the grasses behind him.
‘Going somewhere, proctor?’
Jem turned. From the vehemence in the shout he had expected to see Ripple-John, but no, it was the son called Blitz. The man strode towards him, jerkily, Ripple-John’s flack gun clutched tightly in his hand. He had been through the wars: clothing muddy and ripped, blood smeared down the side of his face and soaking through at one thigh. He raised his gun and Jem stepped back.
‘My brother is dead,’ said Blitz. ‘My father is dead.’
‘And why am I to blame for that?’ Jem asked.
Blitz halted, raised his weapon.
‘Gabbleducks,’ he said. ‘You . . . they came because of you!’
‘And therefore?’
‘It’s because of you
they’re dead!’
‘Am I to blame for defending myself?’
‘Theocrat!’ Blitz spat, and opened fire.
Jem remained utterly motionless as flack missiles exploded against the hardfield only a few centimetres ahead of him. Any resentment the Atheter AI felt towards him had obviously been outweighed by its understanding of the situation, for it had started the hardfields the moment he crossed the line between the inside and the outside of the barrier. Jem now took a further couple of paces back.
With a shriek of pain and frustration Blitz charged across the intervening ground. He shouldered hard into the force-field and rebounded, crashed back to the ground, then after a moment pushed himself up on his forearms, and just lay there panting.
‘Take your surviving brother and go,’ said Jem. ‘You have maybe twenty minutes before the Technician reaches the barrier at this point.’
Blitz pushed himself up, gasped, then managed to get to his feet. He turned, stood there swaying, just staring at Jem. Seeing him, now, Jem recognized something of himself there.
‘I was indoctrinated to believe certain things,’ Jem said. ‘How different are you?’
‘I don’t believe in any damned god!’ Blitz shouted.
Jem shook his head regretfully. ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself for not questioning your father. It’s not your fault that he and your brother are dead.’
He turned and began walking away. Behind him, a rumbling explosion accompanied Blitz’s scream of rage as he emptied the flack gun against the force-field. He shouldn’t have wasted the bullets. He would need them.
Amistad scuttled around the ring of the tokomac to a glassy blister covering a socket array connecting to the thing’s sub-AI computer, pressed a claw against an indentation beside it and turned it. The blister lid rose slightly then swivelled aside like a fold-out lens. Even while doing this the drone kept his long-range sensors on other activity within the Braemar system to ensure preparations were under way. Four white-hot streaks scored across the face of Masada as the four insystem gamma-class attack ships decelerated in upper atmosphere. Lightly touching the mind in each vessel the war drone listened to their internal chatter. All very professional and so unlike the insane conversations Amistad had conducted with his fellows during the Prador–Human war.
