by Neal Asher
Cormac could delve further into what was known, but felt no real interest, not now. He stepped up to the first display case and peered inside at a huge bulky handgun with a heavy power cable trailing from its butt to a backpack power supply. This, apparently, was the very first ionic-pulse handgun developed by ECS, and Tenkian had been on the design team. In the next case were rows of small mobile weapons: guns mounted on wheels, treads, mounted inside single wheels, and finally on legs—a row of development terminating in the mosquito autogun. Cormac applied for the download from this display but got nothing. The lights flickered briefly, and he was sure he saw one of the autoguns move. Turning, he glanced behind at the mouth of a drop-shaft over which was a sign saying "Individual Esoteric Weapons." Down there doubtless were a few examples of those weapons but mostly copies of them, for many were difficult to obtain, being held in private collections. Then, abruptly, a man, for some reason using the side ladder, climbed into view and stepped from the shaft. Cormac felt the sudden shock of recognition, despite the grey hair, the stoop, the crooked nose.
"You know that ECS is using you, don't you," said the man. He straightened up and pressed a finger against his temple, adjusting his face so it became the one Cormac knew well.
"Using me, Carl?" Cormac enquired.
Of course Cormac could read no expression in the drone's iron face and peridot eyes, but there was no doubt it was angry about what the Prador had been doing here. Why? Why anger at this particular aspect of a race of vicious homicidal aliens when the battle with this Vogol had been "happy times"?
"Surely the slaves were a resource and thus a tactical advantage?" he suggested.
Amistad remained utterly still for a short moment then dipped his front end low to the stone and gave a slow writhe. Poised lower down like this the drone looked even more like the arthropod it had been modelled on, and even more menacing.
"The slaves were never a tactical advantage, nor the human prisoners taken for other purposes." Those big claws clicked together for a moment then the drone rose up again. "They were spoils of war. The Prador wanted human slaves because slavery is part of their psychology—all the first-, second- and third-children of the Prador are enslaved by the pheromones produced by their fathers, most of the adults are enslaved in their vicious hierarchy by those above them. Only a few thousands of adult Prador are in any way we would know of as independent, and only then because they possess enough power and resources for other Prador to consider it too high a risk to either enslave or attack them. It is a precarious existence for them, and in the Prador Kingdom murder and betrayal are just politics."
"Nice," said Cormac, gazing at Vogol. Cormac knew all about this anyway. He knew that the second-children he had encountered aboard that ship had still been if not pheromonally then psychologically enslaved by their dead father, still fighting humans as originally instructed, incapable of stopping had they even known the war was over. This Vogol was the same. He ranked higher than most, but still would have been utterly under the control of an adult, and following orders unto death. "And the human prisoners taken for other purposes?"
"Prador eat their own kind. They often eat their own children. They consider the meat a delicacy not because it tastes so good but because it is an ultimate exercise in power." Amistad shrugged. "Once it was an act of evolutionary selection: the weak and the stupid children being turned into dinner. Now it works the opposite way around: the adults killing and eating those who might become too clever, too strong, a threat."
"But humans?"
"Another rare delicacy and ultimate exercise of power. To Prador, human meat is an acquired taste and certain substances must be eaten with it to prevent poisoning, and a perpetual diet of such meat will result in these Prador dying."
Cormac remembered the news stories he had seen as a child; about the livestock farms on Prador-occupied worlds—the livestock being humans who had never known any other life but that farm. How were such people now? Had their minds been edited of the horror?
"We seem to be straying from the key subjects," he said, "which are my father and the Hessick Campaign."
"Come with me," said the drone, now directing its antennae up towards the top of Vogol's Stone and leading the way. They walked up to the very edge, a thousand-foot drop below and much of the Olston Peninsular and Hessick County spread out before them. Amistad pointed a claw towards the purple misty line of the Cavander mountains. "Pushing from there we did manage to drive them from the peninsular, straight into the sea. But that was precisely what they wanted us to do. They wanted us out of the mountains where they could deploy against us more effectively."
"And the AIs didn't realise this?"
Amistad turned slightly to peer at him. "Of course they did, but the thinking was that if we could push them back for just a little while we could rescue the bulk of the population of Hessick County as far as the peninsular."
"So how did that go?"
"Your father and I were not involved in the main push. Along with numerous other Sparkind units and war drones our jobs were sabotage and assassination. We went in ahead of the main Polity forces, under chameleonware, to hunt down the three adult commanders on the ground, and any other first-children commanders we could find along the way."
"I know about that," said Cormac. "It was the assassination of two of the commanders that drove the remaining one to flee."
Amistad snipped a claw at the air. "Later, that was later…. We didn't manage to get close to any of them at first, though we did manage to take out some of the main first-children, like friend Vogol here. The subsequent main assault went very well, we thought. We pushed their forces back into the sea and were set to bring in atmosphere ships to evacuate some cities. It was only then that we began to find many of the cities were empty, and it was then that the Prador detonated the CTDs they'd spread strategically about the peninsular. While our forces were still in disarray, some thousands of concealed Prador war drones rose out of the sea and attacked. We started losing very heavily and had to retreat." The drone paused and gazed steadily at Cormac. "It was these events, and what we did during that retreat, that finally led to your father's death."
"And this you will explain to me?"
"First, during the Prador counterattack, because your father and I were running attack viruses from a grav-platform, we were at the edge of the CTD blast that killed your father's Sparkind unit, killed thousands of others and brought down an atmosphere gunship. Prador war drones then came in and slaughtered many more. Apart from the crew of the gunship Rickshaw, we were the only survivors of the battle in Sector 104. Your father took that hard, but was professional enough to continue. It was what happened later that made things worse."
"I picked up something about that Sector 104," said Cormac. "What could be worse than that?"
The drone continued in leaden tones, "You must understand that the Prador wanted to drive us off this world so they could have unrestricted access to the human population. They wanted those people alive for coring. We knew that and we had to do something about it. At the time it seemed impossible for us to evacuate the population of South Hessick."
"South Hessick Clearance," said Cormac.
"You know about it?" Amistad enquired.
"Only those words—access is restricted."
"Three cities in South Hessick were certainly doomed, we thought. There seemed no possibility of rescuing even just one person from them. And it took all our guile and the very best chameleonware technology to even get to a position where we could launch missiles at those cities."
Cormac felt a shiver go down his spine; so that what was meant by "clearance."
"They were occupied by Prador forces?"
"No."
"Slavery."
"Precisely." The drone sighed. "As we saw it, the choice the people in those cities faced was the most horrific treatment imaginable followed by a living death, or quick, utter extinction. We gave them the latter—it was merciful." Even throug
h its leaden tone the drone sounded dubious. "Afterwards your father went slightly crazy as did some other survivors of the counterattack, including myself. Hate is a great driver. We took appalling risks, we disobeyed orders, we lost many, but we did the job. We got to the first Prador adult in a hardened bunker established under one of the depopulated cities; then, losing almost ninety per cent of our personnel, we managed to kill the other one in its undersea base."
"I've accessed some of this," said Cormac, "but the details are never clear. How did my father die?"
Seemingly ignoring the question, Amistad continued relentlessly. "As you know, the remaining adult Prador commander was frightened by this and fled the planet. Having seen us kill the first adult and knowing we were going after the second, the AIs predicted something like this might happen. They rapidly deployed one of the new dreadnoughts of the same design as the successful My Mary Rose and managed to kill that commander on his way back to his ship, subsequently taking out that capital ship as well. From then on, Prador ground forces began to lose direction. The arrival of more Polity dreadnoughts further turned the tide in space and they could then give air support down here. Still, it took us a month to finish them."
"How did my father die?" Cormac asked again.
After a long, long pause the drone turned towards him again. "This is the thing I have to tell you, Cormac. You're father did not die here."
"They know I'm here but they can't find me," said Carl Thrace. Cormac began edging a hand down to his side, towards where he had shoved Pramer's thin-gun into his waistband.
"Now now," Carl raised a finger. "You are acquired, and if you do anything incautious my friend here will just have to burn out your guts."
Glancing round at the case, Cormac saw the mosquito autogun had risen high on its legs and was turning. He knew the effectiveness of these machines, having set them up himself with Carl. He wasn't so stupid to think he could beat one to the draw. He tried auging outside, sending a message to the local AI, to ECS, but got only static.
"Using me?" he repeated, realising Carl must somehow have isolated this area of the exhibition.
"Certainly—they must be desperate," said Carl. "They know I'm here to sell the remaining CTDs to one of the big Separatist organisations and they want to stop that. They've got their agents swarming about but they're easy enough to avoid if you're not stupid. My guess is that they hoped your presence here would draw me out and, obviously, they were not wrong. Imagine my surprise when Omidran Glass sent me the image of someone who was looking for me." Carl tilted his head, his expression amused. "She sent it just before they arrested her aboard her ship."
"So why is it that I drew you out?" Cormac considered his reasons for being here. If the AIs had not wanted him on a world where Carl was likely to be, it would have been easy enough for them to stop him. Serendipity, perhaps, though that was certainly something no AI would believe in.
Carl drew a squat nasty-looking pulse-gun and pointed it at Cormac's head. "Take out the thin-gun, drop it on the floor and kick it over here."
As he reached for Pramer's gun, Cormac briefly considered trying to use it, but though he might be able to get off a shot at Carl alone, the autogun would have time to individually burn off his fingers before he pulled the trigger. He carefully took out the gun, dropped it, and kicked it over, though not all the way over. Carl smiled and shook his head, stepped forward and squatted to pick the weapon up. He slid it into his pocket, then stepping to one side and circling around Cormac, said, "You drew me out, Cormac, because you interest me." He grimaced. "For the years I was with you I thought you just a recruit, then subsequent events convinced me you must be an ECS agent, then further events have apprised me of the truth: you are a recruit, but a surprisingly adept one. Also, Cormac, I have come to dislike you to the extreme. You are adept, intelligent, and painfully irritatingly moral. You see the world in black and white, and so would make perfect ECS agent material. This is why I am making it my personal business to kill you."
The static in Cormac's aug stuttered, burping up just a time and one word. The time was twenty minutes and the word was "chainglass." Obviously, out there, an AI or agents of ECS had some idea of what was going on in here, but what were they trying to tell him? Twenty minutes was perhaps how long it would take them to get to him—too long, he suspected. But «chainglass»? He glanced across at the autogun. It was one of the very first designs of such a weapon, but the design had not changed very much since. Rather than solid projectiles he could see that this one fired pulses of ionized aluminium, which could cut through just about anything, given time. However, he abruptly realised he was wrong about the speed of this gun, for it would take at least a few seconds for those same pulses to cause a collapse of the incredibly long molecules of chainglass, and the weapon was sitting in a chainglass case. He realised then that the calculations of ECS went deeper than Carl supposed. The AIs knew that Cormac's presence here would draw Carl out because Carl was arrogant, and those who were arrogant tended to be overconfident, and make mistakes, like this one.
Cormac threw himself towards the drop-shaft, sudden pulse-fire lighting up the display case and a thunderous crashing behind him. Something slammed into his right shoulder blade as he rolled over the lip and dropped into the deactivated shaft, and he smelt burning flesh as he fell. Not again, he thought, visions of autodocs hovering over him. But he would be lucky to survive long enough to end up in a medbay, rather than a morgue.
The drop was only ten feet, which was more than enough, especially when Cormac fell back slamming his shoulder against the drop-shaft wall. He swore then thrust himself through into darkness—the power obviously completely out in the "esoteric weapons" section.
"I am through to you now," said a familiar voice in his head.
Forcing himself to subvocalize, Cormac replied, "Sadist, so it was you…" He moved through the darkness, bumping against display cases, just trying to get as far from the mouth of the drop-shaft as he could, utterly aware that a mosquito autogun's vision did not depend on light.
"What was me?" the attack ship AI enquired.
"Sent me the clue about chainglass."
"Oh, no, that was the Cavander AI. It will be able to get an ECS team to you in eighteen minutes now. It doesn't want to send anyone in until all possible exits are assessed and covered. Carl must have a way out that he thinks is secure so it needs time to find that."
Great, so Cormac's function was to keep Carl here for that long. That those eighteen minutes might cost Cormac his life was probably factored into the calculation, but at an order of magnitude lower than the importance of capturing someone who had CTDs to sell. Cormac resented that, but even so knew it to be absolutely right. The lights came on.
"I reckon I have about fifteen minutes before they're on their way in," said Carl, as he stepped from the shaft, the autogun squatting at his feet like some faithful chrome dog. Fortunately there were display cases intervening, though the autogun was not firing. Perhaps Carl did not want to damage some of the stuff in here. Cormac's gaze strayed down to a nearby plaque saying "Sneak Knife." The device inside, upon a glass pedestal, was just an opalized blade without a handle, though closer inspection through its translucence revealed some intricate technology inside.
"Can you help me?" Cormac asked Sadist.
"I would like to, but I am not authorised to do so."
"What? Why?"
"There is one thing I could do, had you been a member of ECS. However, you are a civilian, and in the weighing of values, the loss of a certain item for research purposes outweighs your usefulness."
Cormac wondered what that item might be and what calculations were being made. On what basis did the AIs that ruled make their calculations: on the loss of human life, potential suffering, danger to themselves, the Polity, or something beyond the exigencies of beings of flesh?
"I hereby rejoin ECS," said Cormac.
Carl sent the autogun off like a sheep dog, around the display cas
es to his right, while he walked round to the left. Complicated code arrived in Cormac's aug, weird code, something he had never seen before. Some elements of it seemed quite archaic, while others strayed into the nonsensical. He could load it, but he was damned if he knew what it would do to his aug or even his mind.
"The author of that is one Algin Tenkian," Sadist informed him. "The device coming under your control will impress on you, hence its loss to the AIs who have often studied it. It will be yours henceforth."
Pulse-gun fire slammed into the opposite side of the "Sneak Knife" display case, and Cormac threw himself backwards, immediately loading the supplied code. The data expanded in his aug like some sort of computer virus, subsuming memory space, deleting information and rewriting the aug's base programming. It felt like the device was burning into the side of his head and that somehow the synaptic connections actually inside his head were worming deeper. He hit the ground, his shoulder in agony, scrambled and threw himself behind another display case and something, something in this room connected. Standing, he felt a presence, just like he had felt with Sadist, but it spoke no words and he sensed at once that it was incapable of doing so. It wanted something, at a computer code level and almost at an instinctive level. When he peered through the display case at the autogun beyond it, that other presence seemed to be sitting at his shoulder, and he felt a species of fierce joy thrum through his connection with it.
The thing in this room had found what it wanted: a target.
Carl now stepped into view, his gun pointed casually at Cormac's head. The autogun was also moving into position and in a matter of seconds he would be in its range of fire too. Carl grinned, enjoying the moment. Doubtless he would have some last words for Cormac, some last sneer. Training with the Sparkind, Cormac had learned one thing that stayed with him always: never grandstand, never hesitate, if you have an opportunity to kill an enemy do it at once, for that opportunity might pass.
