by Neal Asher
“Ulriss-”
“Jael’s ship is down on the surface of a free-roaming planetoid next to an old vessel that seems to have been stripped and from which bonded-regolith tunnels have spread.”
“So Penny Royal is there and might see us,” I supplied.
“True,” Ulriss replied, “but that was not my first concern.” The view on the screen swung across, magnified, and switched to light amplification, bringing to the fore the planetoid itself and the Prador cruiser in orbit around it.
“Oh shit,” I opined.
We watched the cruiser as, using that stuttering burn of the fusion engine, Ulriss took us closer to the planetoid. Luckily there had been no reaction from the Prador ship to our arrival, and as we drew closer I saw a shuttle detach and head down.
“I wonder if this is part of Jael’s plan,” I said. “I would have thought she’d get the memstore loaded, then meet the Prador in some less vulnerable situation.”
“Agreed,” said Gene through gritted teeth. She glanced across at me. “What do you intend to do?”
“I intend to land.” I adjusted the screen controls to give me a view of Jael’s ship, the one next to it, and the surrounding spread of pipe-like tunnels. “She’s probably in there somewhere with the memstore and the gabbleduck. Shouldn’t be a problem getting inside.”
We watched the shuttle continue its descent and the subsequent flare of its thrusters as it decelerated over the network of tunnels.
“It could get … somewhat fraught down there. Do you have weapons?” Gene asked.
“I have weapons.”
The Prador shuttle was now landing next to Jael’s vessel.
“Let me come in with you,” said Gene.
I didn’t answer for a while. I just watched. Five Prador clad in armored spacesuits and obviously armed to the mandibles departed the shuttle. They went over to one of the tunnels and gathered there. I focused in closer in time to see them move back to get clear of an explosion. It seemed apparent that they weren’t there at either Jael’s or Penny Royal’s invitation.
“Of course you can come,” I said, eventually.
Jael frowned at the distant sound of the explosion and the roar of atmosphere being sucked out-the latter sound was abruptly truncated as some emergency door closed. There seemed only one explanation: the Prador had placed a tracker on the
Kobashi
when she had gone to meet them.
“Can you deal with them?” she asked.
“I can deal with them,” Penny Royal replied through its submind golem.
The AI itself continued working. Before Jael, the gabbleduck was stretched upright, steel bands around its body and a framework clamping its head immovable. It kept reaching up with one of its foreclaws to probe and tug at the framework, but, heavily tranquilized, it soon lost interest, lowered its limb, and began muttering to itself.
From this point, equipment-control systems, an atmosphere plant and heaters, stacked processing racks, transformers and other items obviously taken from the ship above-spread in every direction and seemed chaotically connected by optics and heavy-duty superconducting cables. Some of these snaked into one of the surrounding tunnels where she guessed the ship’s fusion reactor lay. Lighting squares inset in the ceiling illuminated the whole scene. She wondered if Penny Royal had put this all together after her arrival. It seemed possible, for the AI, working amidst all this like an iron squid, moved at a speed almost difficult to follow. Finally the AI moved closer to the gabbleduck, fitting into one side of the clamping framework a silver beetle of a ship’s autodoc, which trailed optics to the surrounding equipment.
“The memstore,” said Penny Royal, a ribbed tentacle with a spatulate end snapping out to hover just before Jael’s chest.
“What about the Prador?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we deal with them first?”
Two of the numerous eyes protruding on stalks from the AI’s body flicked toward the golem, which abruptly stepped forward, grabbed a hold in that main body, then merged. In that moment Jael saw that it was one of many clinging there.
“They have entered my tunnels and approach,” the AI replied.
It occurred to her then that Penny Royal’s previous answer of “I can deal with them” was open to numerous interpretations.
“Are you going to stop them coming here?” she asked.
“No.”
“They will try to take the memstore and the gabbleduck.”
“That is not proven.”
“They’ll attack you.”
“That is not proven.”
Jael’s frustration grew. “Very well.” She unslung her combined pulse-rifle and launcher.
“You are not unintelligent, but you seem to have forgotten about the instructions I left for the Kobashi on departing. Those Prador will try to take what is mine without paying for it, and I will try to stop them. If I die, the Kobashi detonates and we all die.”
“Your ship will not detonate.”
“What?”
“I broke your codes two point five seconds after you departed your ship. Your ship AI is of Prador construction, its basis the frozen brain tissue of a Prador first-child. The Prador have never understood that no code is unbreakable and your ship AI is no different. It would appear that you are no different.”
Another boom and the thunderous roar of atmosphere departing reached them. Penny Royal quivered, a number of its eyes turning toward one tunnel mouth.
“However,” it said with a heavy resignation, “these Prador are showing a marked lack of concern for my property, and I do not want them interrupting this interesting commission.”
Abruptly the golems began to peel themselves from Penny Royal’s core, five in all, until what was left was a spiny skeletal thing. Dropping to the floor, they detached their umbilici and scuttled away. Jael shuddered-they moved without any emulation of humanity, sometimes on all fours, but fast, horribly fast. They also carried devices she could not clearly identify. She did not suppose their purpose to be anything pleasant.
“Now,” said Penny Royal, snapping the spatulate end of its tentacle open and closed,
“the memstore.”
Jael reached into her belt cache, took out the store and handed it over. The tentacle retracted and she lost it in a blur of movement. Items of equipment shifted and a transformer began humming. The autodoc pressed its underside against the gabbleduck’s domed head and closed its gleaming metallic limbs around it. She heard a snickering, swiftly followed by the sound of a bone drill. The gabbleduck jerked and reached up. Tentacles sped in and snaked around its limbs, clamping them in place.
“Wharfle klummer,” said the gabbleduck, with an almost frightening clarity.
Jael scanned around the chamber. Over to her right, across the chamber from the tunnel mouth which Penny Royal had earlier glanced at-the one it seemed likely the Prador would be coming from if they made it this far-was a stack of internal walling and structural members from the cannibalized ship. She headed over, ready to duck for cover, and from there watched the AI carry out its commission.
How long would it take? She had no idea, but it seemed likely that it wouldn’t be long.
Now the autodoc would be making nanotube synaptic connections in line with a program the AI had constructed from the cerebral schematic in the memstore, it would be firing off electrical impulses and feeding in precise mixes of neurochemicals-all the stuff of memory, thought, mind. Already the gabbleduck seemed straighter, its pose more serious, its eyes taking on a cold metallic glitter. Or was she just seeing what she hoped for?
“Klummer wharfle,” it said. Wasn’t that one of those frustrating things for the linguists who studied the gabble, that no single gabbleduck had ever repeated its meaningless words?
“Klummer klummer,” it continued. “Wharfle.”
“Base synaptic network established,” said Penny Royal. “Loading at one quarter-layered format.”
Jael wasn’t entirely sure what that meant,
but it sounded like the AI was succeeding.
Then, abruptly, the gabbleduck made a chittering, whistling, clicking sound, some of the whistles so intense they seemed to stab straight in behind Jael’s eyes. Something else happened: a couple of optic cables started smoking, then abruptly shriveled; a processing rack slumped, something like molten glass pouring out and hissing on the cold stone. After a moment, Penny Royal released its grip upon the creature’s claws.
“Loading complete.”
After a two-tone buzzing Jael recognized as the sound of bone and cell welders working together, the autodoc retracted. The gabbleduck reached up and scratched its head. It made that sound again, and, after a moment, Penny Royal replied in kind. The creature shrugged and all its bonds folded away. It dropped to the floor and squatted like some evil Buddha. It did not look in the least bit foolish.
“They chose insentience,” said Penny Royal, “and put in place the means of retaining that state, in U-space, constructed there before they sacrificed their minds.”
“And what does that mean?” Jael asked.
Three stalked eyes swiveled toward her. “It means, human, that in resurrecting me you fucked up big time-now, go away.”
She wondered how it had happened: when Penny Royal copied the memstore, or through some leakage during the loading process. There must have been a hidden virus or worm in the store.
Suddenly, both the gabbleduck and Penny Royal were enclosed in some kind of bubble. It shifted slightly, and, where it intersected any of the surrounding equipment, sheared clean through. Within, something protruded out of nothingness like the peak of a mountain-hints of vastness beyond. Ripples, like those in sunlit water, traveled down to the tip, where they ignited a dull glow that grew brighter with each succeeding ripple.
Jael, always prepared to grab the main chance, also possessed a sharply honed instinct for survival. She turned and ran for the nearest tunnel mouth.
“Something serious happened in there,” I said, looking at the readings Ulriss had transmitted to me on my helmet display.
“Something?” Gene enquired.
“All sorts of energy surges and various U-space signatures.” I read the text Ulriss had also transmitted-text since a vocal message, either real-time or in a package, would have extended the transmission time and given Penny Royal more of a chance of intercepting it and breaking the code. “It seems that just before those surges and signatures the U-signal from the gabbleduck changed. They’ve installed the contents of the memstore … how long before the Polity dreadnought gets here?”
“It isn’t far away-it should be able to jump here in a matter of minutes.”
“Then what happens?”
“They either bomb this place from orbit or send down an assault team.”
“You can’t be more precise than that?”
“I would guess the latter. ECS will want to retrieve the gabbleduck.”
“Why? It’s just an animal!”
I could see her shaking her head within her suit’s helmet. “Gabbleducks are Atheter even though they’ve forgone intelligence. Apparently, now that Masada is part of the Polity, they are to receive the same protections as Polity citizens.”
“Right.” I began tramping through the curiously shaped shale toward the hole the Prador had blown in one of Penny Royal’s pipes. The protections Polity citizens received were on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number. If a citizen needed to die so ECS could take out a black AI, I rather suspected that citizen would die. A sensible course would have been to retreat to Ulriss Fire and then retreat from this planetoid. However, human Polity citizens numbered in the trillions and the gabbleduck population was just in the millions. I rather suspected Polity AIs would be quite prepared to expend a few human lives to retrieve the creature.
“Convert to text packet for ship AI,” I said. “Ulriss, when that dreadnought gets here, tell it that we’re down here and that Penny Royal doesn’t look likely to be escaping, so maybe it can hold off on the planet busters.”
After a moment, I received an acknowledgment from the Ulriss, then I stepped into the gloom of the pipe and looked around. To my right the tunnel led back toward the cannibalized ship. According to the energy readings, the party was to my left and down below. I upped light amplification, then said, “Weapons online”-a phrase shortly repeated by Gene.
My multigun suddenly became light as air as suit assister motors kicked in. Cross hairs appeared on my visor, shifted from side to side as I swung the gun across. A menu down one side gave me a selection of firing modes: laser, particle beam, and a list of projectiles ranging from inert to high explosive. “Laser,” I told the gun, because I thought we might have to cut our way in at some point, and it obliged by showing me a bar graph of energy available. I could alter numerous other settings to the beam itself, but the preset had always been the best. Then I added, “Auto-response to attack.” Now, if anyone started shooting at me, the gun would take control of my suit motors to aim and fire itself at the aggressor. I imagined Gene was setting her weapon up to operate in the same manner, though with whatever other settings she happened to be accustomed to.
The tunnel curved round and then began to slope down. In a little while we reached an area where debris was scattered across the floor, this including an almost intact hermetically sealed cargo door. Ahead were the remains of the wall out of which it had been blown. I guess the Prador had found the cargo door too small for them-either that, or had started blowing things up to attract attention. The Prador were never ones to tap gently and ask if anyone was in.
We stepped through the rubble and moved on.
The pipe began to slope down even more steeply and we both had to turn on the gecko function of our boot soles. Obviously this was not a tunnel made for humans. Noting the scars in the walls, I wondered just precisely what it had been made for. What did Penny Royal look like, anyway? Slowly, out of the darkness ahead resolved another wall with a large airlock in it. No damage here. Either the Prador felt they had made their point or this lock had simply been big enough to admit them. I went over and gazed at the controls-they were dead, but there was a manual handle available. I hauled on it, but got nowhere until upping the power of my suit motors. I crunched the handle over and pulled the door open. Gene and I stepped inside, vapor fogged around us from a leak through the interior door. I pulled the outer closed, then opened the inner, and we stepped through into the aftermath of a battle that seemed to have moved on.
Distantly I could hear explosions, the thunderous racket of rail-guns and the sawing sound of a particle cannon.
The place beyond was expanded like a section of intestine and curved off to our right. A web of support beams laced all the way around, even across the floor. Items of machinery were positioned here and there in this network, connected by s-con cables and optics. I recognized two fusion reactors of the kind I knew did not come from the stripped vessel above and wondered if it was just one in a series so treated. In a gap in the web of floor beams, an armored Prador second-child seemed to have been forced sideways halfway into the stone, its legs and claw on the visible side sticking upward. It was only when I saw the glistening green spread around it that I realized I was seeing half a Prador lying on the stone on its point of division. Tracking a trail of green ichor across I saw the other half jammed between the wall beams.
“Interesting,” said Gene.
It certainly was. If something down here had a weapon that could slice through Prador armor like that-there was no sign of burning-then our armored suits would be no defense at all. We moved out, boots back to gecko function as, like tight-rope walkers, we balanced on beams. With us being in so precarious a position, this was a perfect time for another Prador second-child to come hurtling round the corner ahead.
The moment I saw the creature, my multigun took command of my suit motors and tracked. I squatted to retain balance, said, “Off auto, off gecko,” then jumped down to the floor.
Gene w
as already there before me. Yeah-rusty. The second-child was emitting an ululating squeal and moving fast, its multiple legs clattering down on the beams so it careened along like a gravcar flown by a maniac. I noticed that a few of its legs were missing, along with one claw, and that only a single palp eye stood erect, directed back toward whatever pursued it. On its underside it gripped in its manipulator hands a nasty rail-gun. It slammed to a halt, gripping beams, then fired, the smashing clattering racket almost painful to hear as the gun sprayed out an almost solid line of projectiles. I looked beyond the creature and saw the sparks and flying metal tracking along the ceiling and down one wall, but never quite intersecting with the path of something silvery. That silvery thing closed in, its course weaving. It disappeared behind one of the reactors and I winced as rail-gun missiles spanged off of the housing leaving a deep trail of dents. The thing shot out from under the reactor, zigged and zagged, was upon the Prador in a second, then past.
The firing ceased.
The Prador’s eye swiveled round, then dipped. The creature reached tentatively with its claw to its underside. It shuddered, then with a pulsing spray of green ichor, ponderously slid into two halves.
I began scanning round for whatever had done this.
“Over there,” said Gene quietly, over suit com. I looked where she was pointing and saw a skeletal golem clinging to a beam with its legs. It was swaying back and forth, one hand rubbing over its bare ceramal skull, the other hanging down with some gourd-shaped metallic object enclosing it. Easing up my multigun, I centered the crosshairs over it and told the gun,
“Acquire. Particle beam, continuous fire, full power,” and wondered if that would be enough.
The golem heard me, or it detected us by some other means. Its head snapped round a full hundred and eighty degrees and it stared at us. After a moment, its head revolved slowly back as if it were disinterested. It hauled itself up and set off back the way it had come. My heart continued hammering even as it moved out of sight.
