The Soldier

by Neal Asher

  “Shut up,” he told them quietly. He had important things to listen to.

  “I’ve reported it,” Cog replied.

  “What are your instructions?” Lyra asked.

  “Stay safe, keep watch and continue reporting.” Cog paused for a second. “Something will be along to . . . deal with matters. What about you?”

  Lyra glanced over towards something at the side of the room and Trike realized that this was where the knocking sound was coming from, and that it had nothing to do with the hammer whelks in the caul-dron—they had climbed out and were now sliding towards the door to make their escape. Lyra gestured elegantly with one hand and the sound stopped. “My instructions are to assist you in any way I can.”

  Cog pointed over to where the not-the-hammer-whelks knocking sound had been coming from. “But you seem to be receiving a lot of messages.”

  The conversation baffled Trike. He moved his tongue inside his mouth and discovered he now had some control over it. He reached up and touched it and discovered that the sucking, grinding mouth at its tip had closed, though he could still feel the hardness of the grinding plates and toothed loops inside it. He felt a bit sad about that—he’d tasted nothing at all with the leech mouth. While he was exploring his tongue, he belatedly realized that his arms were free. He tried to move his legs but they were still bound, and the restraints about his head were still in place, although looser.

  “Those messages are from other Cyberat, including Zackander—I only got one from EC.” Lyra moved over to the right, then returned with a bottle of liquid with a straw, which she held out to Trike. He took it, grinned at her brightly, sipped, realized how thirsty he was and tossed away the straw to gulp from the bottle. Now he started to think about what he had been hearing. Perhaps Lyra had been referring to some Cyberat she knew whose initials were EC? Maybe Elizabeth Cobourn, or Eric Cantor, or Erlin Case . . . Trike paused, puzzled by the names for a moment until he remembered they had been people he knew, and tried to dismiss that line of thought. Anyway, surely Lyra did not mean the one casually referred to as EC by residents of the Polity? Surely she had not received a message from the highest most powerful AI in the Polity: Earth Central? That would be silly—about as silly as that hammer whelk closing the door behind it.

  “It seems . . . busy,” said Cog.

  “It is busy because the shit just hit the fan,” Lyra replied. She looked introspective as she doubtless listened to or viewed the messages with some part of her mind.

  “Tell me,” said Cog.

  “Remember that deal Zackander made with the prador up there? Well, he just collected on it. He’s ordered the two destroyers to attack the wormship and they’re on the move now.” Lyra gestured to the knocking device.

  Trike strained his head round to look and saw a bell jar with a big metal centipede inside. It was moving, knocking its spoon-like head against the glass, but now that was making no sound. It seemed a strange way to alert someone to messages when they could have that alert sent straight to their cortex. But was it any stranger than choosing to sacrifice half your body and replace it with a larger version of the thing in the jar? He stared at it a while longer and realized there were rows of gleaming eyes under its spoon-like hood. He had a moment of epiphany. That was no centipede, but a moving model of a hooder—one of the lethal alien creatures of the planet Masada. He furtively raised a hand, checking that the other two weren’t looking at him, and waved at it. The hooder dipped its head in acknowledgement then continued its silent knocking at the glass.

  “They don’t stand a chance,” said Cog. “What was Zackander thinking?”

  “I do wonder,” Lyra replied. “Aggravating that thing is not clever. But then he does what he likes without listening to those he supposedly rules.”

  “Makes . . . no difference,” Trike managed to interject. He felt it was time to say something—time to once again assert his presence.

  “Ah, you’re with us now,” said Cog.

  “No difference.” Trike shook his head. “When he has what he wants, Angel will kill us all.” He grinned at the thought of such mayhem, saw Cog’s suspicious look and killed the grin. He made his expression sad.

  “Ruth?” he asked.

  “She’s here in the Cube,” said Lyra. “A little while ago she was making inquiries about setting up a meeting with Zackander. That stopped just after the prador destroyers went on the move. She’s now heading out.”

  Trike’s insides clenched with an emotion he could not identify. “Then we must stop her,” he said, not sure where the words had come from. He tried to shake his head free.

  “Sorry,” said the Old Captain, “but we let her go.”

  Trike stopped shaking his head and focused on Cog. “Why?”

  “Because if we grab her we have no way of tracking that wormship.”

  Cog now had a weird red halo around his body. It was very distracting . . . very pretty, in fact. Trike searched for words and selected from ones he thought he was supposed to say.

  “But if we grab her this is over,” he tried.

  “For you, yes, but there are larger concerns here.” There was something hard in the Old Captain’s expression now. He looked strict and angry, like a tutor Trike once had. What was his name? Eric Cantor—this EC they had mentioned?

  Cog continued, “You can go off with Ruth and live happily ever after. Meanwhile, a legate with a wormship, who is actively seeking out items of Jain tech, will be free to continue whatever he is planning.”

  “You said you would help me,” Trike said from his stock of safe phrases, his questions dying in his mind. He now had to shut down the sudden urge to shout “frog whelks” at the top of his voice. Anyway, there hadn’t been any frog whelks in the cauldron . . .

  “And help you I will,” Cog replied, “but, unfortunately, I have other priorities.”

  “And other loyalties.” Trike felt crafty now. He would get an admission from Cog that he was in cahoots with Eric Cantor.

  The Old Captain dipped his head in agreement.

  “To—” Trike began, but Cog interrupted him.

  “I’ve been working for Earth Central for most of my life,” he said. “Generally it has been a force for good, though three hundred years back I did question that.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head and continued, “I am sorry, Trike, but I have to balance the life of your wife against Angel’s potential for destruction. I’ll continue as instructed and I can do that without you. I can leave you here. You have a decision to make.”

  Trike turned this over in his mind. Earth Central? Was that a pseudonym for Eric Cantor? The initials were the same. He realized he had been waggling his tongue outside his mouth and drew it back in with a sucking click. Looking up, he saw that Lyra now possessed a blue halo that faded to white around her lower mechanical parts.

  “More shit hitting the fan,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I just got an update from Zackander,” she continued. “This legate, this ‘Angel’, attempted to get to him in his home. Apparently—” she nodded towards Trike “—his wife was both a distraction and a means to locate him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Zackander is being a little unclear. Apparently he fired some kind of weapon at the legate then launched his home.”

  “Launched?”

  “His house is a ship. We always used to think he was a bit paranoid, but now—” Lyra shrugged.

  “What is he being unclear about?”

  “The weapon he fired at Angel,” Lyra replied, looking thoughtful. “His precise words were, ‘I shot something at the shit which may deal with it—a taste of its own medicine’ and now I’m getting worried.”

  “Understandably,” said Cog. “A taste of its own medicine likely being Jain technology. Do you have any idea what he might have used?”

  She shrugged again. “There have been rumours from visitors to his home, and from those who watch him closely—checking to s
ee what he’s buying and who he’s making deals with. He might have been cooking up something big that he needed to stick in a zero-freezer very quickly.”

  “That gets us no further.”

  The two fell silent and after a moment Trike interjected brightly, “I’ll help you.”

  “Pardon?” Cog looked at him, evaluating.

  “I’ll help you,” Trike repeated, watching their auras swirl together. He lost the words for a moment and reached up to touch the tip of his tongue again. Was some small crevice forming there? He closed his eyes and concentrated. He loved Ruth, yes, and he had to think straight. Searching his mind, he found the right words. “Stuck here, I’ll get no closer to Ruth, and if the Polity intends to act against Angel, I want to be as near as possible to grab her.” He paused as if in deep thought. “Where is she now?”

  “Returning to her shuttle.”

  Trike contained the sudden angry, crazy frustration that arose in him, but was also baffled by it. He tried to think straight again. If he was as he was before, and free, he would have been out that door and after her—but Cog knew that, hence the restraints.

  I love her I love her I love her . . .

  Once she was in the shuttle and heading back to the wormship he could not get near her without the Old Captain’s help. He had to be controlled. He had to appear to be cooperative until some opportunity arose.

  Errant laughter arose and he choked it off.

  “So, what’s your plan now?” he asked, then clamped his teeth together to stop his tongue escaping.

  “Return to my ship and watch,” said Cog, then quickly falling silent as if he had been about to say more.

  “More shit,” said Lyra, staring vacantly upwards, “heading towards the fan.”

  Trike wondered what was so interesting up there, till he looked up and saw the line of leeches squirming across the ceiling. It wasn’t common to see them in someone’s home, even on Spatterjay. Trike supposed she kept them because of her interest in that world.

  9

  During the initial stages of the prador/human war, which essentially started within minutes of us first setting eyes on one (experts debate the precise moment when it started. Was it when thefirst-child that boarded outlink station Avalon demanded its surrender, or when thatfirst-child snipped the human ambassador in half? Experts are like that), the prador considered themselves utterly superior to us. Going face-to-face in combat with them was like trying to fist-fight an industrial saw, while our weapons could not penetrate the advanced armour of their ships. At first. But AI battle tactics and massive industrialization paid off, and the tide turned. In the end, the new king of the prador called a truce rather than face annihilation. Soul-searching then ensued in the Prador Kingdom and the prador (at least those in charge) decided that Polity technology was superior. After that they decided on their course, which was to steal as much of our tech that they could get their claws on. Should we be concerned? A little, I guess, because though the prador could never win a war against us they could still cause major damage and casualty numbers in the billions. But the fact remains that they cannot win because, though they steal technology, they refuse to adopt AI. It is abhorrent to them. It is also likely that if they did start using AI it would not be long before they underwent their own Quiet War and ended up, essentially, with the same AI rulers as us.

  —from How It Is by Gordon

  ANGEL

  Rocks and earth rained down and the air was laden with oily smoke. Something was burning nearby and, as he sat upright, the internal workings of his body realigned after the impact. Angel realized the burning was from one of the gun turrets he had destroyed earlier. He then turned to look at the object that had just hit him. What kind of weapon was this?

  No, it wasn’t a weapon. Angel directed his attention to what was happening at his intended destination. A hill had risen from the ground and great crusts of earth were falling away as it slewed sideways to reveal the object underneath. It was a ship: a great slab of a thing, vaguely rectangular, with three towers poking up from its top surface. The glitter of windows and throats of ports were spread around its sides, and an engine of some kind was suspended underneath.

  Angel broke into a run towards it, ready to engage the grav-engine in his body if necessary. A port on the ship’s side flashed and suddenly he found himself tumbling through fire and burning rock. He hit the ground and bounced, with the fire going out around him—further damage to his adamantine body. A bright light flared and he glimpsed a fusion drive igniting under the ship. Powerful steering thrusters stabbed out ribbed, deep orange flames and the ship fell away from him towards the horizon. Even grav-planing, he knew he would not be able to catch up with it. He needed to send his wormship after it, but that was rather busy at present.

  Angel now turned towards the large container Zackander had ejected from his home, which had knocked him down. He ran and jumped, grav-planed a little and landed next to the thing. This was certainly no weapon, so what had been the old Cyberat’s intention in firing it at him? The legate paced around the thing, scanning it, but found the scan would not penetrate all the way inside. Assessing the exterior technology and design, he realized he was looking at a zero-freezer. Then he had it. Of course! Zackander had decided he stood no chance against a legate and, in the hope that Angel would allow his escape, had handed over his entire collection!

  Angel inspected the ring of mortise locks around the rim of the heavy domed door in the zero-freezer’s side, scanning the electrics that drove them. Finally he reached out his hand, the tips of his fingers growing longer and flattening. The screeing of their vibration climbed out of the human auditory spectrum as he ran them round the lid of a metal box beside the door. Metal dust spilled glittering to the ground, then the lid shortly followed. Inside was a power point and an optical data socket. Angel held up two fingers and reconfigured them, turning one into a universal power bayonet and the other into an optical plug. He inserted them simultaneously, injecting power and interpreting code, then half a second later sent an instruction. All the mortise locks clanked open.

  Angel reached over and gripped the rim of the door since the electric hinges had all burned out, and felt some give as he pulled. Then, inserting sharp finger points under the rim, he heaved hard and stepped back. The two-ton door swung out with a cracking sound and the burned hinges snapped. It bounced off the side of the freezer and fell towards the legate, but he nonchalantly slapped it away to land with a heavy thud on the smoking ground.

  Thick smoke and vapour filled the interior of the container, and filthy water poured out below. Angel tried to scan through this but again found himself blocked. Only now did he begin to doubt his original assessment. He had dismissed his inability to scan earlier as the result of a defensive measure Zackander had placed around his artefacts. But this did not look like a store for some small collection of items.

  “It seemed pointless blowing the door when it was evident, by your curious ape-format mentality, that you would open it,” said a voice.

  The words arrived directly inside Angel’s mind in a language he had neither learned nor uploaded, but was somehow part of his very being. What he received was, of course, computer code, but had as its basis a language that was a complex combination of pheromones, noises and light patterns. It had not been spoken in the known universe for five million years.

  With a flash Angel felt was bright enough to emit from his eyes, the Wheel suddenly grew strong in his mind; a crown of ice blades and gold whirling, ever whirling. Intense anger, excitement and something approaching lust filled him and he knew these emotions were not his own.

  “He opened it,”said the Wheel, but Angel did not understand.

  A creature moved out of the vapour and smoke, steam still boiling from its armour as if new from a furnace in which it had just been tempered. Angel, somehow, recognized every detail and felt a sinking sensation inside.

  “He opened what?” he asked.

  The Wheel
spun but then stuttered and lost impetus. It completely vanished for a moment, then reappeared in pieces and started to reassemble. The previous flash of power seemed to have cost it and it was now struggling to maintain contact. Information packages filtered through in a very simple format, which Angel was wary of at first. But he began to open them, and then understood.

  “You did not want it open,” Angel said.

  “It . . .will be . . .difficult,” the Wheel managed.

  Zackander had got his hands on a store for a soldier and, stupid human that he was, he had opened it. And what he had released was very dangerous. This was something that could best be described as a super-soldier.

  “So you are here,” Angel said to the thing before him.

  “I am not there. I do not sleep. I am the thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow . . . and I am, unfortunately for you, your death,” the soldier replied, now speaking human words.

  A hand of force smashed into Angel and propelled him backwards, his feet cutting a groove through the ground and throwing up a spray of soil and stones. It was some form of hardfield tech he struggled to analyse, realizing the power came from inside the soldier—some weird twist of U-space in there. He hurtled backwards for two miles, finally slamming against the mossy face of a boulder, pinned there. The Jain soldier then rose up into the air, and spat something down towards its erstwhile prison. The black object punched inside with a metallic crack and ignited an arc-glare. This spread, eating up the zero-freezer and issuing a black smoke that rose, then fell heavily, coating the surrounding area with a dark soot.

  The soldier lit a drive in its tail and shot over the hole out of which Zackander’s ship had risen. It spat again twice, then shot away. Two rumbling detonations followed and a second later fire, smoke and debris jetted from the ground. What was it doing? Angel could see no purpose in this other than maybe anger and resentment. It had destroyed both its prison and the remains of the Cyberat’s home almost like a creature having a tantrum. But surely something so advanced and lethal was beyond such behaviour? And why the hell was it spouting obscure human poetry?