by Neal Asher
"You go on now," said Olkennon, waving a hand at them and turning onto a path heading off around this collection of buildings. "I'll contact you when we have our next assignment."
As Olkennon departed, Yallow returned her attention to the barracks and the surrounding area. "Doesn't look a whole lot of fun."
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Carl sneered.
Cormac gazed at him steadily, but Carl did not meet his eyes, merely accelerated his pace to pull ahead of the other two. That just wasn't like Carl—it seemed utterly out of character, worryingly so.
Carl entered the building foyer well ahead of them, and by the time they arrived at their rooms he had dumped his stuff and was on his way out again.
"There's bars in the township," he told them as he hurried past. "I'm going for a drink." Then he paused and looked back. "I'm sorry to be such a pain, but it seems I might be looking at the end of my military career." He moved on, and Cormac could not help but think that his explanation seemed so stilted, so wrong.
"Let's get ourselves settled then," said Yallow, watching Carl depart. She turned to the door to her room and opened it using the simple mechanical handle.
Cormac opened his own door and entered to look around: simple bunk; combined shower, sink and toilet cubicle—the sink folding up into the wall and the toilet seat telescoping from the floor; net access on a narrow desk, more of a shelf really; and a window giving a view of the bonded-earth curve of the neighbouring dome, on which, fortunately, some of those red geraniums had taken root. Entering, he dumped his pack and his pulse-rifle on the bed, then immediately proceeded to strip off his envirosuit. Beside the shower he noted a small sonic cleaner box and, after stripping the suit of its detachable hardware, shoved the suit inside and set the device running. He then stepped into the shower and luxuriated in needles of hot water, washing himself thoroughly with a combined abrasive sponge and soap stick. It had been many days since he had been able to do anything more than wash himself from a small bowl. After shutting off the water a warm air blast ensued, complimented by a towel from a dispenser actually within the booth, and once dry, he inserted the towel back into its dispenser for cleaning, then stepped out.
His skin feeling almost like it was glowing, he walked over to his bed and opened his pack, taking out fresh underwear and uniform shirt and trousers. These he laid out neatly on the bed, and before dressing proceeded to pack away everything else in the cupboards. Shortly after having completed this chore, while he was checking round to see if there was anything he missed, there came a sharp rap at his door. He stepped over, opened it a crack, and saw Yallow standing there all but naked, holding one of the small towels about her hips where it didn't stretch far enough.
"Well let me in," she demanded.
He opened the door and she stepped in, still holding the towel in place. Even as he closed the door his cock felt like it was a steel rod. He gazed at her. Her chameleon-effect skin now looked little different from the skin of any normal woman, apart from a slight scaled effect which, though visible, he knew could not be felt. The skin wasn't adapting to her surroundings at the moment, for she possessed conscious control over it. He focused on her breasts, which weren't large since that would have interfered with her chosen profession. She was athletic, as muscular as a man but very definitely not a man. Abruptly tossing away the towel she then reached down and closed her hand about his penis. He looked down, her mons was bald, since pubic hair could be a problem when trying to stay clean out in the field. He realised, only after the fact, that he'd made a grunting sound as her hand closed.
"Oh dear," she said. "I don't think you're going to last very long, and I'm going to need your undivided attention for a good hour."
Sometimes Yallow could be hard work. He knew that she possessed enough control to hold off her orgasm, and that she liked to do so because the longer she held off, the bigger the multiple explosions at the end.
Releasing his penis she strode over to the bed, swept his clothing aside—an act that offended his sense of neatness—then climbed on her hands and knees. Looking back over her shoulder at him she said, "Time to get you into a state when that will last," then parted her knees and stuck her arse out at him.
She was right, he didn't last long the first time. Over the ensuing twenty minutes she dictated to him his every lick, bite and caress as his youthful hyperfit body returned him to the state she required. Next came a marathon that had sweat running into his eyes, and when she came, her hands clenching in the bedding to stop herself tearing the skin off his back, she lost control of her chameleon skin, and blushed with bursts of red, blue and yellow, like a slow firework display.
"There'll be no enquiry," said Cormac, as he and Yallow strolled from the barracks along the short curved track to the adjoining military township. Somehow he felt the need to return focus to things military, despite the fact that his legs felt wobbly and he really wanted a beer.
"Carl is in the top percentile for marksmanship," Yallow observed, gazing at him with an amused quirk to her mouth.
Cormac took a slow breath of the cool evening air, which for a change right then tasted clean. The urge for a beer being utterly understood, he also felt utterly relaxed, and understood the reason for that too. He felt the need to pause for a moment—not to hurry on to the next thing. Halting, he gazed at the nearby skarch trees. These were young examples of the plant that had managed to get a root-hold on many worlds. He walked over and rested a hand against a fibrous surface and peered at little green beetles gathered like metal beads in a crotch where one of the thick leaves sprouted from the stalk, or trunk.
The young trees stood a mere ten feet high with trunks the thickness of a man's leg. They were a tough terraforming hybrid of the kind sowed on worlds to rapidly create biomass for the production of topsoil, and therefore grew fast in even the most extreme conditions, rapidly increasing in height and bulk. As he recollected, the plants were a splicing of maize, bamboo and aloe vera. It occurred to him then that this was the first time he had seen them up close, though he had seen distant examples on the spoil hills about the Prador ship and pieces of them rotting underfoot in those same hills. This was what it was all about: actually being here, seeing and experiencing—not gazing at a picture on a screen.
He turned back to Yallow, who had halted too and was watching him.
"It is understood," he said, "that in his first firefight a soldier may not perform to standard. They thought he got a bit overexcited and just blasted away."
"Young soldiers do tend to get overexcited and blast away," she said, grinning.
He half frowned, half grinned and waved a dismissive hand at her.
She shrugged and continued, "Well, he won't be blasting away at anyone back there now."
Too true: the cases arrived on the morning after the shooting, and they spent most of the day unpacking and assembling their contents. Carl, whose speciality seemed likely to be weapons tech, had been in charge whenever Olkennon was not around. Assembled, the mosquito autoguns walked on four gleaming spidery legs, fat bodies loaded with ammunition and a mini-toc power supply, tubular snout for firing rail-gun projectiles at a rate capable of turning a man into slurry in a second. With them now guarding the perimeter around the Prador ship there would be no more mistakes. The guns had been programmed to go for leg shots, though whether there would be anything left of the legs after the shooting was debatable.
Yallow gave the skarch grove a long suspicious look, then began striding along the track again, and Cormac followed, guessing she was thinking about how many enemies such growth could conceal.
"Where's he gone, anyway?" Yallow asked, jerking her chin towards the military township.
"As you may have noted he's not very talkative lately, so he didn't tell me," Cormac replied. "Who wants to talk about their screw-ups? Maybe we should give him some space."
Yallow glanced at him. "He has spoken some to me, though it always strikes me as a bit false. He probably do
esn't talk so much to you because you're a hard act to follow sometimes. When was the last time you screwed up?"
Cormac was surprised. He had always admired both Carl and Yallow and thought them likely to be better soldiers than he was. He shrugged; of course he screwed up, didn't he?
"Let's go get that drink," Yallow added, after an embarrassed pause.
The township was also comprised of bonded-soil domes with plasticrete gratings over the mud lying between them. The place swarmed with soldiers, and those locals who had come from the partially ruined city nearby to sell their wares. A number of eateries had been established, along with a number of bars that were already gaining a reputation as not the best places to visit and be sure to retain your teeth. ECS command could have clamped down on that, but felt that allowing the troops to blow off steam was one of the better alternatives to prescribed drugs and cerebral treatments. It was also true that there were many veterans here too, who preferred this old-fashioned approach. They took the view that busted heads and broken bones could be repaired, but that naïvety could kill.
The first dome with a lit façade that they came to was called Krong's. Cormac gazed at the sign and smiled to himself, remembering his childhood fascination with that character. Apparently Jebel U-cap Krong had survived the war and now ran a salmon farm on some backwoods world, though Cormac was not entirely sure he believed the story.
He and Yallow entered the smoky atmosphere and looked around. The place was starting to fill up, but there were still some tables available so Yallow snagged one and sat down, gesturing Cormac to the bar. He walked over and pushed through the crush there, ordered two beers, then scanned around while the barman, a brushed aluminium spider with limbs terminating in three-fingered hands, poured his drinks.
Carl?
Carl was ensconced with a few of the locals around a small table in one of the dimmer parts of the bar. They were drinking and talking, but did not show the animation evident at the tables surrounding them. Their discussion appeared serious, whispered and vehement. With his drinks finally before him, Cormac took them up, returned to Yallow and told her what he had seen.
"Works fast," she commented. "I don't think I've even spoken to a native yet."
"They don't look happy. Should we go over there?"
"Nah, if they start slapping him about it'll be character-building for him."
Yallow's attitude to violence had ever been thus, but then few people would ever be tough enough to slap her about. In training he'd seen her flip a Golem instructor—something only one in a hundred recruits was capable of doing. Then, thinking of her earlier comment, Cormac remembered the first time he'd managed to get the upper hand against the same instructor. Maybe he took his own achievements too lightly. He frowned, took a drink of his beer, and decided then to keep a wary eye on any inclination to arrogance growing in him; then he drank more, keeping pace with Yallow.
They took it in turns to go to the bar for each round and he was feeling a pleasant buzz when he saw one of the locals standing and pointing a threatening finger at Carl. Carl stood too, glanced about warily, then leaned forwards to say something. The man backhanded him and Carl took it, blank-faced, then turned and headed away. Cormac tracked him across to the door, watched him depart, then observed some altercation back at the table. The man who had slapped Carl abruptly turned and hurried for the door, and that he was checking the positioning of something underneath his coat did not escape Cormac's notice.
"I think we'd better finish up and take a walk," said Yallow, obviously having watched events too.
They downed their beers and stood, quickly heading for the door and, once outside, scanned the floodlit brightness and the deep shadows between buildings. No sign of the local, but Carl was a little way up the street strolling as if he hadn't a care in the world, which struck Cormac as quite odd.
"You follow him," said Yallow. "I'll go the back way."
She would be better there—sneaking about in darkness was her preferred pastime.
Cormac kept Carl in sight along the curving street, watched him take a left heading for the barracks. The route there was dark, so Cormac picked up his pace, but upon reaching the turn could see no sign of Carl. Abruptly someone seemed to appear out of nowhere to balletically kick Cormac's feet out from under him, step beyond him and drop into a crouch.
"Carl—"
Carl was aiming a nasty, squat little pulse-gun at Cormac's head.
"Ah fuck," said Carl, then abruptly came upright and scanned about himself. Out of the darkness came the flash-crack of a projectile weapon, the sound of a fleshy impact, and Carl was flung back.
"Thanks for that, boy," said a figure stepping out of a nearby alley.
Cormac froze for a moment, then began to move towards the interloper.
"You want some, soldier?" the man enquired, swinging the stubby barrel of a weapon towards him. Carl was coughing blood—not dead yet. Maybe all it would take was another shot—
Something slammed against the man's back, and he oofed and staggered. Glimpsing a rock thudding to the ground, Cormac moved in close and crescent-kicked the gun from the man's hand. As the weapon clattered to the gridwork, he moved in close for a heel-of-the-hand strike, and just managed to duck the swipe of a blade. The guy was fast—used to this sort of encounter—and Cormac realised, by the way his opponent was poised, that a crescent-kick would not work again.
"Come on, Yallow!" shouted Cormac.
"Oh I'm here," said Yallow, from just behind the man.
There came a thump then, and the man lifted off his feet and sprawled. Cormac thought Yallow had hit him, but looking round saw Carl lowering his gun—certainly not military issue, and certainly not something he should have been carrying here. Carl dropped the gun to the grating, then passed out.
"We need to get him to the infirmary," said Cormac.
"I've already called a medivac team." Yallow tapped her aug.
Cormac stooped beside the attacker, checked for a pulse and found none. He then found the charred hole right over the man's heart, next turning him over to gaze at the fist-sized cavity in his back and realising a low-energy pulse shot had been used. A higher energy pulse would have cut a perfect hole right through, but this kind, however, was more damaging at close quarters and more likely to ensure a kill. He stood and moved over to Carl.
Yallow had wadded up her jacket and pressed it against Carl's sucking chest wound. Cormac stooped to take up the gun Carl had dropped, then studied it. The weapon had to be adjusted internally for low-power shots—something Carl was quite capable of doing—but his doing so demonstrated that he had felt the need for the weapon to perform in that way. Carl was into something, that was sure.
Soon, flashing lights lit the night above them and an AG ambulance settled on the ground near them. Three medics piled out followed by two self-governing floating stretchers. The medics dismissed Cormac and Yallow and set to work, and soon Carl and his opponent were on the stretchers and on their way towards the ambulance. Inevitably, before Cormac and Yallow could depart, another grav vehicle descended—the logo of the ECS military police gleaming on its doors. Cormac was tempted to slip Carl's weapon inside his jacket, but decided at the last moment not to. Maybe unit loyalty should be encouraged, but only so far. Two military policemen stepped out of the vehicle, then one of them paused, holding up his hand to the other while listening to his comunit. After a moment they both returned to their vehicle and it rose back into the sky again.
"Odd," commented Yallow.
As the ambulance finally ascended, another vehicle descended from the sky. This was a rough-looking gravcar without anything to distinguish it from a civilian vehicle. A lean woman stepped out and Cormac recognised her instantly. She had long blonde hair tied back with a leather thong, and was clad in a worn grey envirosuit and long leather coat. She was one of the couple he had tentatively identified aboard the heavy lifter wing as ECS agents.
"Well, you have been busy," she said,
gazing up at the departing ambulance, then down at the dark stains on the gratings. She now looked steadily at Yallow. "I've viewed your recording." She tapped the discrete aug behind her ear. "But now I want detail from the both of you." Looking at Cormac her eyes focused on the weapon he was holding.
"Carl's," he said, and tossed it to her.
With supreme ease she snatched it out of the air, inspected it briefly, then removed its gas canister before inserting the gun inside her leather coat.
"Let's go somewhere more convivial for a chat."
2
Sitting before his screen, Cormac called up his word lists for the third-stage Basic Language module, and wished for that brief time when there had been no strictures on education conducted by direct download. Picking up his pack of mem-b drug patches he took one out, peeled off its backing and pressed it against his neck. There was no rush, no buzz, but he knew that after he had read through this list and tracked through its numerous hyperlinks, the imprinting proteins and enzymes in the mem-b would have etched the knowledge into his mind after one reading. At random he chose a word from the list—cestode—followed the hyperlinks and learned more than he cared to know about parasitic flatworms. Language links gave him the equivalents in his chosen languages of New Mandarin, Hindi, Jovian Argot, Italian and Singhalese. Here he learnt the associated nuances, and rather more about the parasitic worms that had once plagued the relevant cultures. A side study enabled him to delve into helminthology, which he bookmarked to look at later during biology. His time-warning icon began flashing, so with some reluctance he navigated back to the main page and selected another word. Some twenty words later the time-warning icon greyed out, marking the end of the module. Next would be Physics, then Biology, then Mathematics, followed by Synergistics, which was a combination of all the previous modules. But right now it was time for Association.
Cormac wished for the time some centuries ago when, after the collapse of the old schooling systems and the introduction of the first AIs, pupils had received all their education at home via their home's netlink. But the AIs, after they took over, decided that such methods did not provide sufficient "interaction," so centralized schools were once again created. He didn't really mind Association, just resented the interruption when he'd found some interesting stuff to look at. In his report, which he'd peeked at over his mother's shoulder, this was called "Autistic Spectrum Focus subcritical, adjustment to parental choice." He hadn't quite figured out what all that meant, since any searches he made turned up esoteric brain function and psychological studies which in turn usually led him elsewhere.
