by Neal Asher
“Only if our suits leak, and then it won’t matter to us.”
“Suits?”
“They could use infrared and maybe pick up cold spots, even then…” Chapra gestured up at the thick foliage.
The next explosion was close. A lightning flash, and a hand of force knocked Abaron stumbling. It hurled Jane to the ground and knocked Chapra against a tree.
“Oh shit! Run!” shouted Chapra, and she led the way to the right.
“I thought you said they can’t detect us!” yelled Abaron.
“The gun!” Chapra yelled back. “Both those explosions were where I shot those things! It uses an underspace tech to open the singularity! That’s what they’re picking up!” Another explosion behind, this time in a straight line from the last two. Gasping, they eventually stumbled to a halt, and rested at the base of one of the forest giants. When they moved on again it was to the distant and repeated sound of explosions and a loud sawing sound that Chapra identified as a particle beam fired in atmosphere. Shortly after that, sparks and smoke boiled out of the jungle, driving out swarms of creatures. The three had to flee as well—back towards the shore. One look at the white fire consuming the trees was enough to tell them their suits would never survive it. Near the beach, attacking hornet-dogs forced Chapra to use the singun again. Immediately lasers droned in the air and turned the dog-things into exploding ash.
“Stay exactly where you are! You have been targeted!”
The ship slid above them. It was an old-style AG gunship but no less effective for that. Chapra stood with the singun at her side. Abaron waited for her to raise it and for the three of them to die.
“Throw the weapon to your right!”
The ground suddenly boiled in front of Chapra. She threw the singun to her right. The gunship came down on the beach, its gun turrets locked on them every moment. Abruptly Jane screamed. Abaron turned, thinking she had been fired on, saw she had pulled off her visor and hood and ripped open the front of her suit. She was staggering away. Her face and chest were bright red. She screamed again and fell to the ground. Abaron and Chapra exchanged a look, then looked back at the gunship as its hatch popped and four people came out carrying pulsed-energy assault rifles.
“Move forward,” one of them said, then, “You, drop the laser cutter!” Abaron let go of the thing as if it was hot. He had forgotten he was holding it. He and Chapra moved forward as instructed.
“Right, lay face down with your arms and legs spread.”
They did as instructed. Abaron heard one of them move over to Jane.
“She’s dead, sir. No pulse.”
“What the hell did she do that for? She’s just a girl.”
Dead, thought Abaron, no, she had probably just turned her heart off for a moment.
“What’ll we do with her, sir?”
“Just leave hen Find the weapon, it was an EC singun.” Abaron heard the greed in that voice. Of course the Separatists would be very glad to get their hands on that kind of weapons technology. He lay there staring at one of the thumb-lobsters as it checked out his visor with its feelers. He wondered if they would be killed here on the beach or if they were to be questioned first. “I can’t find it, sir.”
“Then try harder you—what the fuck is that!” There was a brief yell cut off by a sucking explosion. Abaron heard the sound of something moving in the sea and thought about monsters. There were two more screams and they carried on; dreadful panicked screaming. Abaron pushed himself to his feet shortly before Chapra. The beach was alive with movement. Worms coiled in the sand and leapt serpent fast. One their captors staggered past, blood pouring from holes in his environment suit, other worms flicking away from him, others attaching. Abaron well knew what kind of worms could penetrate an environment suit. Another sucking explosion and a man disappeared and reappeared as a rain of organic slurry. Stuttering white fire from an assault rifle. Abaron turned and saw Jane cut in half at the waist. She fell away from her hips and legs, face-down in the sand, then calmly propped herself up with one arm and fired twice more. Of the four Separatists little remained but spreading stains on the sand; organic slurry that excited the thumb lobsters. Abaron grabbed up the laser cutter and ran for the craft, expecting to be cut down at any moment. Some of the worms hit him but did not bite. Inside the craft were two more Separatists. Shock and blood loss from hundreds of coin-sized holes the worms had punched into their bodies, had very quickly killed them. What remained of them hardly looked human. Outside the gunship Abaron leant against the hull and tried very hard not to be sick in his suit. After a moment he looked to the sea and saw the Jain resting in the shallows, worm-things swarming in the water all around it. Beyond it, partially concealed by the reflection off the surface, Abaron could see a shell-mouth a couple of metres wide, at the end of a tube disappearing into the depths. He could not really grasp what that meant; couldn’t make any sense of it.
“I thank you,” he said, and nodded to it. The weird head dipped in reply, it seemed. Abaron went to Chapra who was by Jane.
“Get her legs,” said Chapra, holding the girl upright.
Jane seemed quite calm about the fact that she had been cut in half. Get her legs? Abaron glanced aside to where the other half of her lay. Then he looked back to her.
“I can be repaired,” she said.
Abaron picked up the legs, surprised at their weight. Chapra carried the top half. They took Jane to the Jain, who took her in its tentacles, pulled her under the sea, and into the mouth of its machine grown huge there. The worms went with it.
PART SIX
“Tell me about the Jain,” said Diane.
“There is little provable fact. From the few artefacts discovered and from some cultural archaeology it is evident that their technology was…is far in advance of ours,” said Alexion. He did not look away from the information scrolling up on the screen before him. It was just too fascinating: some things proven beyond doubt, others now possible, and so many more questions to ask. Alexion normally did not hold much of an opinion about the current political situation, but would gladly see the Separatists hung who might halt this lovely flow of information.
“Their nanotech is fantastic. It might easily be called picotech…”
“Are they warlike?”
Alexion looked around. “There’s so much space. Why?”
“We are.”
“We’re stupid.”
Diane shrugged.
“I suppose it is possible. God help anyone they declared war upon.”
“Meaning?”
“As I said to Chapra, ‘the Jain moved suns’ and we’re fairly sure of that. I have to wonder if a race capable of that kind of thing would have any enemies left at all.” Alexion returned to his work and Diane grimaced at the back of his head. They would be there soon, ahead of schedule because of the Laumer engines and ready to deal with an enemy they knew. Smith was with them on the off-chance they found an enemy they did not know. She wondered if he was aware of how closely his ideas and summations were being inspected by the Hogue AI. Thus thought of, that AI spoke to them in its gravelly voice.
“Schrödinger’s Box destroyed. Am receiving extreme range runcible transmission.”
“Seal containment sphere. Maximum security.”
“Done.”
Alexion looked around and Diane shrugged once again.
“Best guess as to what is coming through?” she asked him.
The AI answered her. “They are through. I have a Golem android, Box, and an armed Confederation soldier…Disarmed.”
Diane grinned. She turned to go.
“May I come with you? I think my studies have ended for now,” asked Alexion. Without stopping, Diane nodded. Side by side, they entered a drop shaft.
“In time that soldier may come to think of himself as very lucky,” she said. Dropping through the irised gravity field Alexion looked at her questioningly.
“In ship warfare there’s little room for mercy and less room for priso
ners. He may be the only one we leave alive.”
Alexion shivered. Shortly after, in the containment sphere, he observed the Golem Rhys holding a pulse-rifle on the Confederation soldier. But the man was not up to much. He was flat on a four-gee gravplate, groaning weakly as blood ran from his flattened nose. Smith surmised that though the man might be glad to be alive, he was not particularly enjoying the experience just then.
* * * *
The night sky of Haden was black and starless but light was provided by strange luminescence under the sea, igniting and going out, lighting large glassy shapes. The two human bodies lay on the sand, swarmed over by finger lobsters and flat black cruciform creatures moving as slowly as starfish. Abaron and Chapra sat inside the back of the gunship with the coolers on and their visors open. They had intended to eat here, but the mess in the cockpit and the smell circulated by the coolers scotched that idea.
“What other jobs did you do before you studied xenology then?” asked Abaron. Chapra grinned. “I was an Earth Central Enforcer for twenty years, then a Monitor for another six.” Abaron tapped the controls before them with the metal spoon he had intended to use. “So you should be able to fly this.”
“Yes, I can fly this…You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m beyond surprise.”
The communicator beeped and a voice spoke out of it in gibberish.
“That’s Faculan. He’s asking someone called Beredec to respond.”
“I wonder which one he was.”
“Who knows? Anyway, there’ll be more gunships down here before long.”
“What next?”
“Back into the jungle. We—”
“What is it?”
Chapra wordlessly pointed out the screen at the naked figure striding from the sea.
“That didn’t take long, not long at all,” said Abaron.
Jane grinned up at them then disappeared from sight as she went to the airlock. They turned in their seats as she entered the ship.
“You’ve grown,” said Chapra.
Her hair was longer. She was bigger. She had the body of a pubescent girl, only there was a hardness to her musculature that did not look quite right.
“Whole body growth accelerated the repair process,” she said, then, “The artificial human, Judd, will be coming here in his shuttle to lead you to a place of safety.”
“Lead?” asked Chapra.
“It might be prudent to bring this gunship.”
“How long before he gets here?” said Abaron, climbing to his feet.
“Judd will be here in ten minutes.”
Chapra stared at Jane. She looked so different. She was beautiful, and she would make a beautiful adult.
“Do you want clothing?” she asked, then wondered at her impulses.
“That won’t be necessary.”
Abaron grinned at Chapra, who ignored him.
“Let’s get out of here for a while,” she said, looking around at the blood-bespattered cockpit.
“Don’t you need to familiarise yourself?” Abaron asked.
“No need.”
They filed back outside after Jane. The sand was now swarming with the thumb-lobsters and cruciform fish, and watching these scrape up the gory sand they did not attend to their surroundings closely enough. One of the giant wingless mosquitoes attacked Jane. She caught it, almost negligently, then tore it in half without a word before pointed out the shuttle as it glided toward them just a few metres above the sea.
“Strong,” said Abaron.
Chapra only nodded.
The shuttle beached with a deep grinding crunching as the AG cut and allowed the full weight down on the sand. Judd came out through the airlock.
“I am here to lead you to a place of potential safety,” he said. Chapra thought that a strange way of wording it. The Golem also seemed twitchy to her. There was something wrong with it. Had the Jain damaged it?
“We only need to hide for a day or so.” She checked her timepiece. “ECS are punctual if nothing else and I can’t see that ship standing up to a dreadnought.”
Judd stood there blinking at her.
“What’s the problem, Judd?” she asked.
Judd said, “I do not have Box to advise me so I do not know if facts should be concealed from you. I have very little practical or theoretical human psychology.”
Chapra absorbed that but Abaron looked shocked. Chapra remembered how she had felt on first discovering that AIs could lie, cheat, and kill just like humans. The only difference was that AIs did it with firm purpose, and were better at it.
“If it concerns our survival then facts should not be concealed. Trust me, I’m a scientist,” said Chapra, then felt a sinking sensation when Judd did not acknowledge humour. It was bad.
“The situation is not amenable to survival,” said the Golem.
“Clarify.”
“The Cable Hogue arrived forty hours ahead of schedule and now stands within striking distance of the Separatist ship. It will not strike because the Separatist ship is carrying CTDs and is threatening to use them on the planet.”
“Sounds like a stand-off to me.”
“The Separatist in charge is General David Conard. His gunships are even now entering atmosphere. I project that he intends to destroy us and the Jain. If he does not succeed with the gunships he will use atomics. If he does not succeed with atomics he will use the CTDs. If the Cable Hogue intervenes he will use the CTDs anyway.”
“But that’s crazy!” said Abaron. “If they do that they won’t get away from here.”
“Who ever accused Separatists of sanity?” said Chapra, and turned to walk to the gunship. Jane went with Judd. Abaron followed Chapra. We humans should stick together, she thought, we get on so well.
* * * *
Kellor stared at the read-outs. Nothing.
“Any reply yet?” he asked communications officer Speck.
“Nothing for us, and I can’t pick up anything else through those scramble fields.”
“Any idea of what class we’re up against?”
“Not a clue. It could be a shuttle behind that chaff or an Alpha dreadnought. At least they’re holding off.”
“Yeah, but for how long?”
“They’ll hold off,” said Conard. “This is a classic terrorist hostage situation.”
Yes, thought Kellor, and we all know the usual messy denouement of such situations: no win for anyone but the fanatics. And this situation was getting messier every moment. First the four soldiers taken out in the CTD blast just, as far as Kellor could see, because they were at the top of Conard’s shit list. Then the loss of contact with the shuttle planetside. Now this. It was time to resolve a thing or two. Before he could turn his attention to that Speck said, “Wait a minute. We’ve got a communication coming through.”
“Put it through on holo,” said Kellor, and turned his chair to a flickering cylinder appearing in the middle of the floor. In it resolved a woman’s face. Kellor thought the captain of the ECS ship very attractive, in an Amazonian way.
“Who am I speaking to?” she asked.
Kellor glanced at Conard. Conard nodded.
“Speck, let the General talk to her,” said Kellor.
Speck operated the controls to the ceiling holocamera. The woman’s image turned toward Conard. In the bridge of the ECS ship Conard would now be projected.
“Conard,” she said, and Kellor immediately noted a hardness to her face.
“Sergeant Windermere, you have risen through the ranks.”
“No doubt they still call you The General.”
“They do. What can I do for you, Windermere? You know the situation and you can do nothing. If you bring your ship any closer or intervene in any way, the three CTDs, which were stolen from the Droon complex on Titan, will be fired at this planet.”
“I had hoped to appeal to some source of common sense there. You realise, Conard, that you won’t get away from this one unless I allow you to go.”
“I’ve been authorised to allow you to pull away and leave unmolested so long as you do it now. So long as you call back those gunships.”
“That would be so fine for you,” spat Conard. “Then ECS can just drift on in and pick up a science to subjugate us all.”
Ah, thought Kellor, now this conversation is getting interesting.
“What science? You destroyed the Jain and its machine when you destroyed the Schrödinger’s Box.”
“I cannot believe that your scientists learned nothing in that time.”
“They learned a great deal and it was instantly transmitted into the net. By now the things they learned are common knowledge to thousands of researchers.”
“I am supposed to believe that? ECS would not allow such technology into the public domain. No. I will make certain.”
Conard signalled for communications to be cut.
* * * *
The cave was huge. The sea flowed into it and the roof was fifty metres above. Chapra followed the shuttle inside and before it was necessary for her to turn on the gunship’s lights, Judd put the shuttle down on a stony shore.
“I’m not sure I want to go out there,” said Chapra.
Abaron nodded in agreement. On the shore stood two lobster creatures, each about three metres long.
“I bet they’ve got triangles on their backs,” he said to Chapra. They both remained seated as Judd and Jane came over from the shuttle and boarded.
“The other gunships are very close. Why have you remained in here?” asked Jane.
“We were a little worried about them,” said Abaron, pointing.
“They are the equivalent of your PSRs. They are here to demount the guns from this ship and set them for defence.”
“Okay,” said Abaron, and stood.
Chapra noted he had acquired a handgun from somewhere and tucked it in his utility belt.
“Come with me,” said Judd once they were outside the ship, and he led them to the dark mouths of caves worn into the stone at the head of the dark beach. From behind them came a ripping crash. They turned to see that one of the lobster-things had ripped a gun turret out of the gunship. They turned back when Judd took up a veined sphere and shook it to produce a chemical light. As they entered the cave, Jane passed them on her way out. There must have been another entrance. When two Janes came walking toward them carrying objects like living rifles, they began to understand.
