by Neal Asher
Now, with all this data available to her and being applied, she found herself straying into its context—she began to examine the forbidden past. She saw ten massive war-damaged alien ships arriving in the system of the Species, which was then unoccupied. The early ancestors of the Species were using the technology integral to their bodies to link up in small groups, communities, hives. They were also beginning to connect physically, to meld, to become one . . .
The warning alarm snapped her out of this and focused all her attention outwards. A familiar, large U-signature had generated nearby and an equally familiar object rolled out of U-space into the real. She gazed at the roving moon in angry frustration. How had the Librarian followed her here?
“You have accessed the forbidden knowledge,” it sent.
Instead of replying, the Client turned her attention to the data again and set into motion a refined search about the library itself. Yes, ten war-damaged ships had come to the system of the Species, but there had been one other ship, small and strange, like a shard of black crystal enwrapped by metallic snakes. The entity inside had led them all here, but the data beyond that was unclear. It seemed to be directing them to the nearby world, while it was taking a course to the moon—
Again the Librarian shrieked its challenge. Deliberate distraction or something else?
Other U-signatures began to generate and the long teardrops of prador King’s Guard ships began to slide into the real. The Client counted them as, one after another, a total of fifty guard ships and ten old-style prador dreadnoughts appeared. Almost to the second they arrived, another U-signature generated, a hundred miles from the platform and right in the centre of where her attack pods were spread. A gigaton CTD exploded, frying two pods and scattering the rest. Hardfields up, the weapons platform tilted in a wall of fire, spewing burned-out field generators. The moon, meanwhile, dropped out of the real again.
The Client struggled to initiate her own U-jump, even as further U-signatures generated in her scattered formation. She fled on further waves of fire, losing yet another pod in the process. As she slid into U-space she realized that this would continue. The library had some way of tracking her and would keep leading the prador to her. And there seemed only one way it could be tracking—there was something in that data.
EARTH CENTRAL
Earth Central did not like the situation at all. First had come a teleme-i try and ship-sensor data package from Captain Cogulus. Some kind of Jain soldier had been resurrected on the Cyberat world. The wormship had then shown intelligence such vessels were not supposed to possess and, abandoning its legate, had seized the soldier and departed. On top of that had come an update from Orlandine. This detailed her study of the changes two second-children had undergone, along with her conclusions and suspicions as to why. EC completely agreed with her: there was a mind in that wormship fragment. Extrapolating from that and Cog’s package, it seemed likely the mind in the fragment was a submind shed by a larger mind in the wormship.
A Jain AI . . .
These were all pieces of a puzzle that had yet to come together. At the centre of the accretion disc, in fact within the dead star there, lay a weakness in the space-time continuum. This gave access to Jain AIs in U-space. Had one of them somehow come out through that weakness to start causing problems? EC thought not. Sometime, well over five million years ago, a mass of Jain AIs had dropped themselves in U-space and only remained connected to the real by the energy feeds that powered their thinking. Over millions of years those feeds had slowly decayed to dust or been destroyed. The AIs had gradually wound down, their thinking utterly inward looking, and had sunk into a somnolence that was close to death. Yes, the occasional injection of energy briefly revitalized them and data could be obtained from them in this state, but one becoming fully active? No. This would not happen, because the data showed EC clearly that they had made a choice. They knew their energy feeds would decay. They had chosen to give up on the universe, to decline and eventually fade from existence. So where was this new AI from?
Position was not a factor. That it was possible to contact the Jain AIs through the weakness in the accretion disc did not mean that they were just underneath it in U-space. That kind of perception was an artefact of human linear thinking, because U-space did not possess dimensionality. It was therefore the nature of the weakness that made the AIs easier to contact. Dismiss the Jain AIs and just run with the rest. The Jain had caused the weakness and the active tech floating around in the disc. A Jain mind had appeared, from somewhere, and this was what Dragon had been looking for. Time to open a long-closed com channel . . .
The virtuality opened to reflect reality. Dragon hung poised out from the accretion disc in the position of Weapons Platform Mu. Spare attack pods had been drafted in to cover a volume of space millions of miles across. In reality Dragon’s presence was not required, since for ages a much smaller and more dispersed defence sphere had been perfectly adequate. Dragon was at rest, EC suspected, waiting.
“And at last you have questions,” said Dragon.
EC, hanging in vacuum in the form of a chromed human head a hundred miles across, blinked crystal eyes and replied, “You were searching for a mind.”
“And it has been found,” Dragon replied.
“I would guess,” said EC, “that something sought out an anchor in the real and found it in the hole Erebus left in the control system of a wormship, as well as the mind of a legate.”
“You do not guess,” Dragon stated.
“I cogitate and extrapolate.”
“As do I.”
“What is the source of this mind?”
“That is the critical question—” Dragon paused and then, unusually, elucidated “—and one for which I have, as yet, no answer.” “Perhaps we should pool our data?”
“Yes, perhaps. I would be interested to know what Orlandine has found, just as I would be interested to know exactly what happened on the world of the Cyberat.”
EC sent Orlandine’s data package. After it had studied this for a few microseconds Dragon said, “She will ask questions. One must wonder at the veracity of the answers she will receive. Hasty actions are contra-indicated.”
“Give me something,” said EC.
Dragon sent data that keyed into the virtuality and Earth Central found itself hurtling, along with the entity, into clouds of gas, debris and floating organic structures like epiphytes. Writhing and fluttering forms fell on Dragon and it shrugged off the attacking Jain tech, burning out intrusions which stabbed between its scales. It finally entered the cloud around the dead star of the accretion disc. Here it mapped space-time and located drifting coordinates in the star. Dragon emitted steady gravity pulses, focused in a way that Polity technology had yet to attain, then heaved and spat out a concentrated induction warfare beam. This turned dust incandescent in a line down to the star, punched into the crust, which erupted with traceries of fusion fire, and down to the coordinates. There it bled away, and there it made contact.
The Jain AIs stirred in a looped tunnel of non-matter, datavores in amongst them probing, asking questions, looking for answers. The AIs responded with irritation—heavy sleepers resenting this intrusion, a wave of that resentment eliciting a response all around Dragon as of vaporous muscles tensing, more organic forms speeding in. Then something else intruded and cut down like a knife, severing the connection. Only as Dragon fled, assaulted on all sides by Jain tech, did EC understand what information it had sought. Dragon had wanted the Jain history of the accretion disc. And something had not wanted it to know.
“Interesting,” said Earth Central. “Some other agency.”
They were now back in the original virtuality—two virtual behemoths facing off.
“Quite,” said Dragon. “Give me the Cyberat data.”
EC now relayed the package Captain Cog had sent. Additional news about the situation on the world of the Cyberat was also becoming available from EC’s spies there. This concerned the political sit
uation and Doshane’s expulsion of Cog and his crew. EC sent that too, in case it might have relevance.
“They have the legate,” said Dragon, and began to move in the virtu-ality as if it was moving in vacuum by the accretion disc.
“Why is this important?” asked EC.
“Because some traps must be sprung if one is to find the trapper,” Dragon replied. The comlink broke as Dragon fell into U-space.
Earth Central seethed. It seemed the legate had been left in the Cyberat system to lure Dragon there, yet Dragon knew this. Obviously it was playing a deep game EC had yet to plumb. But one thing was certain: though EC was confident that the weapons platform AIs at the accretion disc were very capable, there was no one in charge there now. Meanwhile a Jain AI was out there with some kind of Jain soldier . . .
“Get ready,” said Earth Central.
A naked and athletic blonde-haired woman looked round from the massage bench she was lying on. Her masseur, a Golem android who it seemed had a penchant for data storage and processing tattoos, paused in his endeavours.
“Problem?” asked Captain Diana Windermere of the giant dreadnought the Cable Hogue. The woman had passed her ennui barrier some centuries ago and was older than the present iteration of Earth Central itself. She was also, counting her interface with her ship’s AI, exceedingly smart, wily and battle-hardened.
“Possibly,” was all EC would concede.
Diana nodded and put her head back down, already sending her instructions to the Hogue AI and the other ships via implants in her skull. In the asteroid field around the neutron star and red dwarf, Polity warships, whose sum destructive power would appall older deities, began to lock and load.
15
King’s Guard: The new king of the prador, now firmly established in his rule, has given himself the name, for us to use, of Oberon. The irony of that should not escape even those without knowledge of Renaissance and Medieval literature or Shakespeare. The king of a race of savagely hostile aliens is “the king of the fairies.”But it took many years before he could allow himself such frivolities. The king was first a father-captain, probably of a dreadnought, who, realizing that the prador faced being smashed back into their version of the Stone Age if the war against the Polity continued, returned to his home world to usurp the old king. Details are not clear about how this was done, but Oberon had to be very smart and crafty to achieve what many other prador had tried before him. Only one detail is clear, since a recording of it swiftly made its way into the Polity, and that was the old king’s demise: pumped full of diatomic acid, he was floated out on his grav over the seas of his world. Thereafter Oberon put all the crew of his ship—his family and now all first-children—in positions of high office. His dukes, if you like. He then instituted a massive breeding program to extend his family. He also started a building program across the Kingdom that incorporated Polity technology. Two results of this are the titanic and legendary King’s Ship and the numerous lethal reavers. These last are crewed exclusively by his children: the King’s Guard.
—from Quince Guide, compiled by humans
BLADE
Blade slid into the real in full stealth mode and immediately began scanning. This then was the system of the Cyberat. Wreckage was strewn across vacuum about the Cyberat world but it did not take the attack ship AI long to locate Captain Cogulus’s old ship. Its first instinct was to contact the man, but it clamped down on that and instead, still running on stealth, drew closer and looked for other sources of information. It wanted to alert no one of its presence until it had fully assessed the situation.
The remains of a prador destroyer confirmed the tale Cog had earlier sent as an information package—albeit one lacking detail. Blade made a short U-jump to bring itself close to the wreckage. The ship was gutted and had been peeled open—hardly looking like a vessel at all, just a metallic skin with tangled debris on one side. Probing it, Blade sought computer access and signs of life. Of the former there was none, but of the latter there was one. Moving closer still, Blade inspected the debris and there, trapped in the tangle, was a single armoured prador. Blade put an induction warfare beam on its suit and began to seek a com linkage, finally making a connection. The prador shifted, plucking with one claw at a twisted stanchion pinning it against hull metal. Its eye stalks swivelled as it tried to see who wanted to talk to it.
“What’s your name?” Blade asked, in the prador language.
“My name is Gurun,” the prador replied in standard Anglic.
Its immediate use of Anglic indicated that this prador was very smart, and subterfuge would not work here. Blade meanwhile increased its scanning of the surrounding wreckage. It saw a water-scorpion format robot, and the remains of a complex computer system. Materials scans revealed contemporary advanced metals. This ship had not been a ship of renegades, that was certain.
“King’s Guard?” Blade enquired.
“I have a self-destruct in my suit,” Gurun replied.
“Why do you feel the urge to inform me of this?”
“Just to hamstring any inclination you might have for interrogation.”
“Really?” said Blade. “Or was it to assure yourself that you won’t be giving away any secrets about the body form you possess inside that
suit?”
After a long silence, Gurun replied, “I don’t know what you mean.” “Let me assure you,” said Blade, “that I already know you are a King’s Guard and that you are highly mutated. If you are trying to hide that information you’re centuries too late. Anyway, if I wanted any kind of evidence of that there are plenty of your kin floating around here.”
“Who are you?” asked Gurun.
“I am the Polity black-ops stealth attack ship Obsidian Blade.”
“Fuck,” said Gurun.
“Don’t be alarmed. I only want detail on events here. You will not be giving away any secrets. And you will not be supplying information I could not obtain from the Cyberat anyway.”
“There are no secrets here,” said Gurun, “beyond the one you apparently know.”
“Then let’s talk and, when we are done, I’ll cut you free.”
“Oh good—then I can be free to move around while I die out here.”
“You will also be assisting your king. The danger represented by that wormship is one both the Kingdom and the Polity face. All I need is data.”
Again, there was a long pause, then Gurun said, “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“Tell me what happened here,” said Blade, “right from the start.”
Gurun told his story. On the face of it the prador arrived to trade with the Cyberat for information and technology, with an aim to start some kind of embassy here. However, it seemed highly likely that beyond that they were after the Jain technology that Zackander had possessed. Part of the initial deal they’d struck with Zackander had been to act as defenders when called upon. Then the wormship had arrived . . .
As Gurun told his story Blade also began decoding communications that were reaching it from the world of the Cyberat. These filled in further detail: Zackander was dead after having resurrected a Jain soldier, the wormship had taken this soldier away, Angel’s remains were aboard Cog’s ship . . .
“That’s enough,” Blade finally told Gurun.
The attack ship AI was up to date and there seemed little point in learning more. It studied the stanchion trapping the prador, then fired a laser. The beam struck where the stanchion was trapped against the hull, hot metal splashing away and a cloud of vapour spreading. Once it had cut through, the prador heaved up, pushing the stanchion away and moving out into the clear.
“You will have no further information from me, attack ship,” said Gurun.
He reached under his suit with one claw and triggered something. The suit bucked and hot white light glared from the seams and joints. It then went limp and floated away from the wreckage trailing black vapour.
“Stupid,” said Blade, but then wondered if that was
true. Instant annihilation was preferable to trying to breathe vacuum.
TRIKE
As he sat in his chair, staring at the screen set to mirror before him, Trike tried to remember when he stopped sleeping. Many Old Captains didn’t sleep, apparently, so he hadn’t thought it unusual he no longer needed to. But perhaps this too had been a sign of the fucked-up wiring inside his head? He had no idea.
He poked out his tongue and it opened like a four-petal flower, mottled brown, pink and white inside, with a constant sharp bony movement at its core. The moment he did this he remembered what Ruth tasted like—kind of flowery herself but with an underlying hint of . . . of something alien, but maybe that last was just his mind playing tricks again. He flinched, scared of himself. The tongue snapped shut. He tried to open it again but it seemed he couldn’t find the muscles or the nerves that did that.
“So I am just a little bit more sane now,” he said, just to try speaking the words.
He felt the madness locked inside—contained, yes—but it was like it was pushing against walls in his mind and somehow projecting itself in a different form. He felt low and unhappy, whereas before the giggling madness had had its elements of crazy joy. Now glancing around his cabin, he noted the lack of even a hint of hallucination. He concentrated on the bed he had never slept in, trying to materialize a leech there, and felt a surge of panic as something shifted inside his skull.
No.
Just at that moment there came a sharp rap against the false-wood door. It opened and Cog stepped through, his shoulders brushing against either jamb.
“Ruth?” Trike asked, standing up, surprising himself because the question did not arise from his stock of safe phrases, but from real concern.
