The Skinner

by Neal Asher

  ‘Atoll GCV 1232, beginning census scan,’ said SM13.

  ‘You only say that to irritate me,’ said Sniper, as they hovered above an atoll like a huge apple core thrust down into the sea.

  ‘The Warden’s right, you know,’ said the iron seahorse drone. ‘You’re getting cranky in your old age.’

  ‘And you think counting snails is a worthwhile pastime?’

  ‘No, but it’s amazing what interesting items you can find out here and what they’ll fetch in the auctions on Coram, and it beats subsumption every time,’ replied Thirteen.

  ‘I don’t have to be wary of that. I’m a freed drone. I worked off my construction fees and indenture centuries ago. If I want to become part of the Warden, I can. I don’t want to, yet.’

  ‘Planting stealth mines on Prador dropbirds was how you paid your way out, as I recollect. You consider that a worthwhile pastime? Some of us are not so inclined to the martial occupation. Perhaps you should try subsumption at least once, it’d straighten out a few of your kinks.’

  ‘I’ve got kinks?’ Sniper paused for a moment. ‘What interesting items?’

  ‘Amberclam pearls, fossilized glister shell. I even found a vein of green sapphire once,’ replied Thirteen.

  ‘You never told me about this before,’ said Sniper.

  ‘Well, after the trouble I got into through snatching thrall units for you, I thought it best to keep quiet for a while.’

  After a contemplative silence Sniper said, without heat, ‘We gonna count these fucking snails or what?’

  The little drone turned towards Sniper with light glinting in its amber eyes, then it turned its nose and tilted it in the direction of one side of the atoll.

  ‘I’ll go this way round and you go the other. We’ll meet on the other side. This is the last one in sector fifty-two, then we can move on to fifty-three, which should be more interesting. There’s molly carp there.’

  ‘Oh joyful day,’ said Sniper. ‘You know why the Warden wants this census?’

  ‘The way I got it was “A study to assess the long-term impact of runcible heat pollution and on which to base any future plans for environmental restructuring”.’

  ‘Make-work,’ said Sniper, drifting down to the surface of the sea and lowering his back two legs into the water. The scanning probes in his feet now operating, he slowly began to trawl around the atoll. A subprogram he was running, now counted hammer whelks and catalogued them according to size and species. Sniper then ran one of his military programs to work out the minimum size of charge required to smash certain shells and kill their occupants. He did not test his theories until SM13 was out of sight. The trail of small underwater explosions the war drone left behind him was also undetectable. Five hours later, the two drones met on the other side of the atoll.

  ‘You know, I don’t get why you came here to work with the Warden,’ said Thirteen, as they cruised on to pastures new.

  ‘Easy enough. I wanted to spend time on a Line world like this: more chance of some sort of action. Nothing’s got out of hand in the Polity for a long time now, and things are boringly peaceful. The few Separatist actions are normally flattened by ECS agents before there’s any need to deploy war drones.’

  Below them the water was the colour of jade, fractured by the occasional white wake from some cruising sea leviathan. The sky was a lighter green shading to blue, and steel-grey clouds held the setting sun as if in a broken pewter vessel. Sniper remembered a day when, above seas very like this, he had been engaged in hunting down two inferior Prador war drones. They had been of old utile design: just flattened spheres of armour wrapped around an AG unit, a mind, and magazines for the antipersonnel guns they had welded underneath. Such was the way of things: when a technology had been taken to its limit of efficiency and utility, you could make it look pretty. This flying brooch next to him was definitely one of the latest examples of that. But those Prador war drones had not reached that point.

  Still with a feeling of satisfaction, Sniper remembered catching both Prador drones against the cliff face where they had been hiding. He had spent an hour carefully herding them until he could take them both out with one high-penetration missile. Of course, no one but himself had appreciated the poetry of that moment. The humans and big-fuck AIs running the clean-up operation had posited it as yet another example of Sniper’s flagrant individualism during organized conflict. Sniper had always been the odd one out – from when his mind had been incepted by a dying AI warship, up to and including his choice of a body-shape that scared the shit out of most humans.

  ‘You’re ugly inside and out, AI,’ said a man who had been passing information to the Prador, just before Sniper had snipped his head off.

  ‘Remembering the good old days?’ said Thirteen.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sniper, and then began to hum a tune.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Thirteen.

  ‘ “Ugly Duckling”,’ said Sniper then, gesturing ahead with its heavy claw, continued, ‘That one ain’t on the map.’

  Surrounded by white water was a grey atoll poking out of the sea like the head of a man tilted to one side.

  ‘Shit,’ said Thirteen.

  Out of habit, Sniper studied the little drone to try and read its expression, but obviously to no effect. That use of an expletive had been very un-submindish, but then SM13 had not been subsumed by the Warden for quite a while, the last time being when it had been caught snatching thrall units from the shore of one of the Segre Islands. Contemplating this, the war drone followed Thirteen down when it changed course to sweep in around the atoll.

  ‘Packet-worm coral,’ said the little drone. ‘Must have been shoved up in the last year.’

  The edifice had the appearance of something on the facia of a Hindu temple, only subtly distorted until nothing was recognizably complete, just a wormish depiction of indefinable life: limbs and bodies chaotically tangled in organic stone.

  ‘This mean another census?’ asked Sniper.

  ‘It does. We have to count whelks around every above-surface structure – that’s what the Warden said.’

  ‘Great, I really look forward to it.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Thirteen, a laser projecting from its neck ridges to flash a gridded overlay on areas of the atoll, ‘this structure is unstable. You note how top-heavy it is and how the sea is wearing through that edge lower down?’

  ‘Yeah, I see it,’ said Sniper.

  ‘Not long before it collapses back into the sea, really.’

  Sniper tilted in midair, smiled, and spat two cylinders from his square mouth. The cylinders slammed downwards drawing black lines through the air, and hit into the sea under the edge of the atoll. Underneath, the sea was lit by two deep-red detonations before spuming into the air in a globular cloud. The atoll lurched sideways and with a growing hiss it slid into the waves. Water flooded into the remaining hollow and all around the sea went opaque with disturbed silt.

  ‘Now that is what I call environmental restructuring,’ said Thirteen.

  ‘Drone bonding, as I neither live nor breath,’ said Sniper, and they flew on.

  Erlin leant on the rail shading her eyes against the green sunlight as she studied the distant shapes on the sea. When she heard someone come up behind her, she expected to see Captain Ron – but it was Janer. She checked to see if he was carrying his weapon, since she’d found, over the short period they had been on board, that he tended to forget it. He grinned at her, drew his QC laser from his utility belt, spun it round his forefinger, and then holstered it again. She shook her head and gazed out to sea.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘try this.’ He handed her an image-intensifier from the other side of his belt. She studied the device, noting that it had auto-tracking lenses and a magnification setting beyond anything she would be likely to use. She nodded her thanks and brought the device up to her eyes.

  The nearest shape on the sea Erlin identified at a glance as a large clump of sargassum – all decaying arm-thic
k stalks, translucent bladders, and wadded yellow sheets of foliar material. Centring on the next shape out, she targeted it for the intensifier’s auto-tracking, and focused on it – the intensifier now automatically correcting for shake. This shape was another clump of sargassum, but moored to it was a ship. After a moment of study, she lowered the intensifier, the chameleon-eye lenses whirring as they tried to keep the distant sargassum centred, and handed it back to Janer. Janer clicked it off and held it in his right hand as he leant his elbows on the rail.

  ‘Any luck?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s a ship out there, but it’s not the Treader. It’s two-masted and a bit smaller. Perhaps they’ll know exactly where it is,’ she replied, then turned to Captain Ron, who stood up on the forecabin watching them, and pointed out the distant ship. Ron nodded and gave instructions to his helmsman and to the sail. The sail muttered imprecations as it twisted its body on the spars to match the rapid spinning of the helm. It seemed as if there was some kind of ongoing competition between the helmsman and the creature. As the ship quickly heeled over, Janer studied the sail as it performed its duties, the movable spars and mast clonking in their greased sockets. He realized now that there were both fixed and movable spars that the creature utilized, and earlier he had been shown the mechanisms that moved the two other masts: long hardwood chains and hardwood sprockets, cog wheels and shafts running in bronze bearings. When he’d asked the junior greaseboy why their ships didn’t have engines, the man had looked at him as if he’d gone quite mad.

  ‘Why are they so low-tech here?’ he asked Erlin. ‘I mean . . . I haven’t seen a single aug, wrist comp . . . anything. Everything’s made of wood, solid metals, hide and organic fibres. Are they tech breakers, New Luddites, or what?’

  Erlin turned and studied the ship as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Money,’ she explained. ‘This is an Out-Polity world so doesn’t qualify for any assistance other than free medicare, but that’s mostly not needed, and for reasons I don’t have to explain to you.’

  Janer nodded. He’d not be forgetting that fight between Domby and Forlam for a long time.

  Erlin went on, ‘There’s also very little industry here, because there’s so few places to site it and no easily accessible resources, and because of that this place is poor. You already know what the exchange rate is with the skind. What we could buy for small change, a Hooper has to work for months to acquire.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Janer. ‘You said something before about how difficult it is for them to leave this place: they have to work for years to buy passage.’

  ‘And that’s the only reason. I don’t think the rumours of Polity suppression are true.’

  Janer regarded her questioningly.

  ‘It’s been said that the Polity is scared of Hoopers,’ continued Erlin. ‘That ECS prevents technological growth here, and makes it difficult for Hoopers to leave.’

  ‘Plausible though. Keech was saying about how much damage they could do off-planet if they felt so inclined,’ said Janer.

  ‘True,’ Erlin nodded. ‘But an AI like Earth Central wouldn’t look upon them as an unhuman threat. It certainly doesn’t look at Golem and boosted or augmented humans that way. Its usual recourse is to recruit them.’

  ‘Hooper monitors; what a thought.’

  ‘No doubt an option that’s been contemplated. No, the reasons are mainly fiscal, and I’d also say that ECS hasn’t tried to change that simply because noninterference is the safest option. Trying to shove a culture up the technological ladder mostly leads to social and environmental catastrophe. That lesson was learnt on Earth centuries ago.’

  ‘So they’re in a trap here?’ said Janer.

  ‘We might think so, but I don’t think they do. When the Polity finally reached here two and a half centuries ago, a ground-base was immediately established, but the Hoopers have been in no hurry to take advantage of the technologies on offer. They’re poor, but seem happy enough.’

  Janer nodded, reflecting on how that was always the blinkered view of the wealthy. He glanced about at the few crew-members as they went about their tasks.

  ‘What sort of money do they earn?’

  Erlin nodded towards Roach. ‘Your average senior seaman like Roach there gets about two hundred skind as his share of a three-month trip out, and only then if the trip proves a profitable one. That being said, they can buy the technology.’

  ‘So,’ said Janer, calculating, ‘something like a wrist comp, something your average autohandler tech could buy for ten New Carth shillings, maybe an hour’s wages, would cost a Hooper three months’ wages.’

  ‘Not quite, they can get them cheaper here: about a hundred skind,’ said Erlin.

  ‘Still a lot of money to them. What about the Captains? What do they earn?’

  ‘Their share is two to three times as much. Though even then they don’t seem inclined to spend the money on Polity tech. Ambel could quite easily afford something like that.’ Erlin nodded at the QC laser holstered at Janer’s belt. ‘He doesn’t bother though. He sticks with a huge muzzle-loading weapon like a portable cannon. I’ve never really understood why.’

  With the conversation turned to Ambel, Janer contemplatively studied Erlin’s profile. ‘Why so desperate to find this Ambel?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not desperate. If I don’t run into him on this trip I’ll head back to the Dome and wait for him to turn up. It’s just a decision I’ve made,’ said Erlin tightly.

  She glanced at him and he shrugged, bringing the intensifier up to his eyes. Obviously this was a subject Erlin did not want to pursue.

  ‘There’s things that look like crabs running about all over that weed,’ he said.

  ‘Prill,’ she replied. ‘If we get attacked by them you’d best get below.’

  ‘Really,’ said Janer. Not being reckless was one thing, but he’d be damned if he was going to spend all his time quivering in his cabin. That wasn’t life.

  Erlin watched him as he rehung the intensifier at his belt, before reaching up to the shaped transparent box on his shoulder. He gave the box a tug and it came free. With care not to rattle about the two hornets inside, he lowered the box to the rail then ran his finger along the side. The box flipped open. Erlin could not help feeling horripilation as the two hornets took off. She watched them fly and hoped they did not try to land on her. She looked at Janer queryingly.

  ‘The mind wants a look around,’ he explained.

  One hornet shot off over the sea while the other buzzed around the ship. The crew ignored the insects yet the sail was instantly curious; raising its head from the deck and tracing the progress of the hornet that had remained with the ship.

  ‘Knowing that insects don’t live long here I wonder why the mind had you come,’ said Erlin.

  ‘Now there’s a question,’ said Janer.

  ‘One, I take it, that you asked?’

  ‘Oh yes. I ask the mind all sorts of questions, and in return I get all sorts of answers. Not always the answers I’m after, though.’

  ‘Could these hornets be . . . different?’ Erlin asked.

  Janer was thoughtful for a moment as he gazed in the direction of the hornet that had flown off over the sea.

  ‘They don’t live very long as individuals,’ he said. ‘These two are new ones – replaced before they should have been.’ He tilted his head and listened. Erlin did not interrupt the unheard conversation that was obviously taking place. After a moment, he turned to her again.

  ‘Altered,’ he said.

  Erlin nodded. Hive minds had no compunction about such things. There were stiff penalties for killing hornets, but they did not apply to minds killing their own hornets. This would, after all, be like imposing a penalty on a human for killing a few of his own brain cells. She looked at the hornet buzzing round the ship and noted how much attention the sail was still giving it.

  ‘The crew know about hornets, but the sail doesn’t,’ she said.

  ‘It will learn,’ said Jane
r, uninterested, as he again took his intensifier from his belt and raised it to his eyes.

  Later that day the sail did learn, when it snapped at the passing hornet. It howled and rolled itself up to the top of the mast. The crew spent the rest of the day trying to coax it down again.

  This time, the humped shape in the water was no drifting mass of sargassum, but a living creature in search of prey. It was ten metres long and, judging by its girth of only a couple of metres, it had not fed in some time. On its glistening ribbed back rode prill as hungry as itself. Theirs was a parasitic relationship. When the giant leech attached to prey, the prill swarmed on to it as well to slice off lumps of meat with their sickle legs. When the leech had fed and was therefore unlikely to pursue more prey, the prill went in search of another mount. Ambel had his blunderbuss resting on his shoulder as he gazed out at the creature. The rest of his crew had armed themselves again.

  ‘Bugger ain’t picked us up,’ said Peck, and immediately the leech turned and started heading for the Treader.