by Neal Asher
With practised ease the two thugs slid onto the bench on either side of Cormac, one pressing a hand down hard on his shoulder as he made the obligatory attempt to rise. He felt something pressed against his right side and peered down at the lethal stiletto prodding him. It protruded from the thug's left arm stump. The thug to his left drew a heavy iron flack gun and rested it on one ridiculously meaty thigh, pointing it down towards Cormac's legs—a rather foolish move since if he pulled the trigger the woman now taking the seat opposite would be hit too. Stiletto still in place, the right-hand thug held a scanner over Cormac's head then ran it down his front, holding it level with his stomach for a moment before placing it on the table. The device would have detected any active bugs and would now pick up the signal from any that were activated—by spoken word, perhaps, or some other signal. The scanner also possessed a laser-interface head, so no one would be able to use laser bounce or any other distance-reading technique. It would also blur the movement of their mouths to outside view, so even a lip-reader would be unsuccessful.
"I hear you're looking for Samara," said the woman.
"Apparently I was misled," Cormac replied. "Very few people here with that name now."
"Well, you've found one of them."
He could play this game too. "But have I found the right one?" He did not need to study her too closely to know she was not one of those who had been sitting at the table with Carl, but in his briefing from Olkennon this Samara matched the description of one of those Carl had been in contact with. "Carl's descriptions of those he spoke to were somewhat vague, just as were his accounts of what was said."
"And you claim to be his partner?"
"I thought myself his partner, but whether he intended me to retain that position is open to doubt."
"Convenient, if you feared not getting your story straight."
"Well, I know enough to know that there's some payment due."
"To Carl."
"To Carl, who, courtesy of one of your people, is now breathing through a tube."
"We feel that Carl did not fulfil his side of the deal."
Cormac stared at her for a long moment, then casually said, "Is this goon going to remove his penis substitute from my side or am I going to have to break what's left of his arm?"
"You talk tough for a new recruit to ECS. Do you think you could break his arm before he skewered your liver?"
"It's not something I'd like to try," Cormac replied—deliberate retraction of bravado. "But I would like our discussion to be on a more civilized footing."
The woman waved her hand and the blade was retracted. She no doubt thought Cormac incapable of dealing with these two even without that blade at his gut. He felt she had just removed the one thing he could have done nothing about, though he did not want things to go that far.
"Thank you," he said. "Now, you were saying that you feel Carl did not fulfil his side of your deal. As I recollect, he gave you access to the Prador ship. He showed you where to go in under our watch." Necessary to use the "our." They would have known, or at least knew now, who had been in that foxhole with Carl.
"He gave us access—agreed," she said grudgingly.
"Therefore the deal had been fulfilled."
"The idea was for our people to go in, grab a Prador warhead, and get out again. They didn't get out again."
"Which is hardly our fault, now is it?"
"Then there's other issues." Cormac waited for her to continue. "Carl's motivation to help us wasn't all about money. He is a Jovian Separatist and believes in the Cause, in bringing about the fall of the AI autocrat and all its minions. Are you here to tell me you are the mercenary side of the partnership?"
Cormac deliberately looked uncomfortable. "No, I'm not saying that—I'm from Callisto too. But both of us follow the Cause only so far. Yes, we will help it along its way if we can, but the pay had better be worth the risk."
Her expression remained dead as she said, "I see."
Cormac could feel the thugs on either side of him sit up a little straighter and prepare themselves. Now was the time for the lure.
"But seeing how things went wrong for you, I am prepared to compromise."
"Compromise." Tone flat. She thought he was just a mercenary on the make who, seeing his danger, was trying to worm his way out of it. She would not believe what he had to say next unless that threat was removed. He let something relax inside him and adrenaline surged, screwing his stomach into a ball and seeming to pour heat down his spine. He turned slightly, to give himself more leverage. Silly thugs to sit so close. He brought his elbow back into the throat of Mr Stiletto, caught the knife hand as it came across from his choking victim, twisted and pushed down. The blade went straight through the wrist of the other thug as he brought his flack gun across. The man struggled, leaning forwards, blood spurting from the wound, but his grip was wet and slippery. Cormac took away the gun and smacked it hard against Mr Stiletto's temple, then almost as an afterthought crashed the head of the one he had just disarmed, hard, down on the table. Both of them were now unconscious, or as near enough to that state as to make no difference.
"Yes, compromise." He rested the weapon on the table, its barrel pointing towards Samara. He paused for a moment, taking steady breaths, and noted his hand wasn't shaking at all. He did, however, feel sick, but refused to throw up here, now.
He continued, "After we let your people through they screwed up and got themselves killed. We can't be held responsible for that, or at least I can't," he added. "The opportunity to get your people in that way ended when ECS put autoguns on the perimeter and moved us on. But together we could have made new opportunities hadn't one of your ill-disciplined idiots taken it upon himself to blow out Carl's lungs."
"I did not agree with that," she said. "Nor did the Central Committee."
Central Committee—interesting.
"Whatever." Cormac abruptly picked up the weapon and rested it across the crook of his arm pointing at Stiletto, who seemed to be recovering. The other one was making odd snoring sounds and Cormac hoped he hadn't hit him too hard. "The net result of that action is that Carl will face some hard questions when they put his larynx back in. I am also under suspicion. I was bugged earlier and I was being followed."
"Yes, I do know."
Of course, someone knowledgeable in the ways of subterfuge would not have let Cormac know that. This Samara wanted to appear tough and clever.
"You know?"
"I had you watched from the moment you left ECS Base Camp… Why did you use the stunner, why not kill him?"
Cormac shrugged. "I wanted it to look like a robbery and killing him would only have increased suspicion. As it is suspicion will have increased, especially when they find out I dumped the bugs."
"So why are you here?"
Stiletto revived with a grunt, so Cormac abruptly pressed the barrel of the weapon against the side of his head. "Move away slowly and go and sit over there." He nodded towards a nearby bench table. Once Stiletto had obeyed, Cormac returned his attention to Samara. "They can't run autoguns all around the perimeter. There's not enough of them here yet, and with earth-moving equipment travelling in and out the logistics get a bit untenable."
"So."
"So, after they replaced my unit with autoguns and after Carl ended up coughing up bits of his lungs, they put what remained of us—without our Golem sergeant—on a guard detail inside the ship. They actually used us as bait to draw out those Prador remaining hidden inside. We nearly died."
"So, you're pissed off about that."
"A little, not a lot—comes with the territory."
The gun wielder snorted a mixture of blood and snot onto the table surface. Cormac edged away from him a little.
"What you should be interested in is what I managed to pick up while I was in there. You see, I know precisely where there is a rack of five one-megaton warheads—all small enough to be carried by a man apiece, and I know how to get you inside to them."
&
nbsp; 4
The numerous views through sheets of chainglass directly into the English Channel were often turbid, but when they cleared they were astounding. Magnifying sections picked out local sea life, bringing up clear pictures of rays, cod shoals, glittering storms of a GM version of whitebait that had escaped the farms and burgeoned in the oceans over two hundred years before. As Cormac understood it, the idea of wiping them out with a tailored virus had been proposed a century ago, but put on hold. These rugged little fish filled certain niches that had been emptied and were a ready source of food for other creatures. In fact, other emptied niches were steadily being filled in the same way, with life re-created from dry museum specimens. The oceans now teemed.
Neither Dax nor his mother had mentioned last night. Both of them were drinking from litre bottles of Coke and had earlier popped a few Aldetox. In fact they weren't saying much at all, and both of them were wearing sunglasses.
Departing the maglev station they headed straight out into the tubular streets of the undersea city, one Loyalty Luggage chest groaning along behind them on roller leg spokes like a particularly fat and short-legged dog. Ian had his own case hanging from his shoulder with his own necessities inside, which obviously didn't include such ephemera as clean underpants and socks—they were in the luggage.
"The Watts?" suggested Dax.
"Of course," said their mother. The Watts—named after some long-dead science fiction writer—possessed the best undersea windows, airlocks and diving facilities. They'd stayed there before on numerous occasions and one of Ian's most enduring memories was of their father taking all three boys out into the sea for the first time. Back then they didn't have the full-skin pressure suits so the hotel's rooms had been pressurized and actually venturing beyond it had not been an easy option.
As they headed for their destination, Cormac scanned his surroundings for places he recognised, but everything, barring the exterior shapes of the streets themselves, had changed. A lot of the shops seemed to be closed down and the usual cornucopias of goods were not on display.
"It's hitting here," Dax observed.
"Everywhere," their mother replied. "I don't think it's because of lack of supply, but more to do with guilt about supply."
"There's a war on," Cormac piped up.
His mother raised her sunglasses to expose reddened eyes and gave Dax one of those knowing looks that irritated the boy immensely.
"That's the opinion," she said. "It seems to have brought out the Puritan in many."
Dax shook his head. "Stupid," he said. "Most of what's sold here won't even impinge." He paused for a moment, thoughtful. "Unless things get a lot worse."
They continued along the concourse and eventually arrived at the portico of The Watts. Arrayed across the front of this building were five heavy oval chainglass doors, which were the original pressure locks for this building. Hannah placed her cash card into the slot of a console beside one door and on the touch-screen made her room selection. Peering up at the screen Cormac was gratified to see she had requested three interconnected rooms, all en-suite, so he would have his own room, his own space. The last time they had come here he had shared with her, while Dax and Alex had their own rooms. He felt this meant he was not so much of a child anymore.
The nearest pressure door opened upon insertion of one of the three key cards the console had provided and he and his mother stepped through into the lock while Dax waited his turn with the Loyalty Luggage. They entered a vestibule containing a central auto-kiosk packed with those items the hotel's guests might need while venturing out into the city. Around the walls numerous doors opened into the accommodation areas while between them were mounted screens showing undersea scenes.
"They were going to get rid of them," said Dax as he came through, gesturing back to the pressure doors.
"A lot of people objected and there were moves to put a preservation order on them," Hannah replied. "The hotel owners finally realised they were an attraction rather than a hindrance to their usual guests—keeps the non-diving riff-raff out."
She walked over to one of the doors at the end of the vestibule, inserting the key card again, which gave access to a long corridor with rooms along either side. When she halted by one of the doors on the left, Cormac became even happier, for he remembered enough to know that the rooms on this side were those nearest to the sea, so were provided with real undersea windows.
"You're there," she said to Dax, pointing to the room they had just passed and tossing him one of the cards. "And you're there," she said to Cormac, handing over another card and gesturing to the next room along. "I'll send the luggage to you, Dax, once I've unpacked, and you can send it to Ian." She paused for a moment. "I mean Cormac."
Cormac inserted his key card into his door, entered and closing the door behind him gazed about himself with relish. A large bed lay to his left, interactive netscreen up in one corner opposite the bed, large blacked-out window taking up the entire wall to the right of that, plenty of cupboards, some low comfortable chairs arranged around a coffee table and a door to an en-suite in the right-hand wall. He stepped over beside the bed, dropped his shoulder bag on it, then picked up the room remote from the bedside table. It took him just a moment of checking through the touchplates to find the window control. He walked over, turned one of the comfortable chairs round to face it, plumped himself down in the chair, then hit the control to make the window transparent.
Starting in a swirl pattern right in the centre, the photoactive liquid, sandwiched between two layers of chainglass, began changing from black to transparent. Cormac remembered spending hours gazing through a window like this. He remembered the crustaceans bumbling along the bottom out there: the masses of winkles gathered like multicoloured pearls, the whelks oozing across the glass and the occasional scallop jetting past; the hermit crabs, lobsters and edible crabs; the shrimps, prawns and crayfish; and the endless varieties of fish. But what sat out there was not quite what he expected, and he shrieked with fright.
Giant iron scorpions were not in the guide book.
* * *
The autodozer garage was surrounded by a security fence with cameras mounted on the posts. Floodlights were on, their glow extending out into the darkness and also reflecting off the polished bodies of two mosquito autoguns patrolling inside like skeletal metallic guard dogs.
As he strode towards the big gates, torch beam stabbing down at the churned earth ahead of him, Cormac glanced back at his three companions. Stiletto, who Cormac now knew to be called Pramer, wore a false hand in place of his blade and appeared quite fitting for this role, since many of those who did this sort of job boosted their musculature and took pride in being able to carry out heavy work normally the territory of some drone or Golem. The other two didn't really fit. Layden was a scrawny, pale and sickly individual who just looked plain uncomfortable in his baggy overalls, and Sheen was a teenage girl with a perpetual expression of sulky rebellion. No problem, their physical details had been logged into the personnel databank.
Cormac halted and peered up at the security drone extending out from the gate post on a stalk like some iron and plastic seed pod. It tilted towards them and after a moment said, "Admittance approved." He stepped aside and now Layden received the same approval as did Pramer, then Sheen moved into place. With her the drone paused for a moment, and tilted as if curious about what it was seeing. Cormac suspected the AI was deliberately racking up the tension—it didn't want this to appear too easy for them.
"Identicard," the drone demanded.
Cormac was amazed at the teenager's sudden calm as she reached into her engineer's belt bag, took her card from amidst the numerous small packs that would open out into monofilm rucksacks, and held it up. He saw the flash of laser scanning pass over the card and hand, then after a moment Sheen received a grudging "Admittance approved," whereupon a personnel door popped open in the main gates and they entered.
"It must be your acne," said Pramer.
&
nbsp; "Fuck off," Sheen replied.
Cormac had already instructed them to confine their talk to the kind of exchanges expected from such workers, but hadn't expected these two to show such talent for it. Not a word could be uttered about their real reason for being here, since watch programs would be listening for key words and phrases and assessing for out-of-character behaviour. Grinning, he glanced at Pramer, but was surprised to see he seemed chastened by the teenager's reply. Odd, decidedly so.
Beyond the fence lay a plasticrete yard, much of it chewed up by the action of dozer treads, along the back of which stood a row of huge garages each containing the heavy equipment being used about the Prador dreadnought. Cormac waved for the others to follow and headed for the third door along. Here he took out his identicard and pressed it into the reader beside another personnel door, which opened for him. The others followed suit and trailed him inside to where a row of dozers loomed like steel dinosaurs.
"Number one," he instructed, pointing to the first in the line.
The dozer was a five-hundred-ton monster with caterpillar treads, a dozer blade to the fore and two rear excavator arms, which could choose from a selection of buckets within the machine's body. It possessed no cab for a driver since the machine could be slaved to AI, loaded with a submind or telefactored to some other operator. There was no necessity for the thing to be permanently full-AI since such intelligence would be wasted on a piece of earth-moving equipment.
"Sheen, Layden." Cormac directed their attention towards the tool racks along one wall.
Layden walked over and collected a console and length of optic cable. His technical expertise was why he had been "invited" — that invitation spiced with a promise of a large supply of whatever drugs were slowly killing him. Sheen collected a screwdriver kit—she was just along to carry one of the CTDs and possessed no expertise that Cormac could see. He himself strolled round the dozer inspecting its treads while Pramer went over to peer inside the compartment containing its digger buckets.
