by Neal Asher
‘Shit!’
Simoz jerked from the chair and felt the chitinous legs of the biolights dig into his calf and his back. He pulled his thin-gun from its holster and pointed at the biolight on his leg. The pain was incredible and it took him a moment to realize that with such a shot he would likely blow his foot off. Gritting his teeth he reholstered the gun and took the shock stick out of his pocket. He touched the end of the stick to the biolight on his back and pressed the button. The shock convulsed the light and he felt it rip from his back and heard it thud on the floor. A spill-over of energy paralysed his shoulder and sent him stumbling.
‘Fucking hell!’
You are not thinking straight.
‘Oh fucking brilliant!’
I am blocking this light’s breathing holes. It is detaching.
The second biolight fell from his leg and scuttled across the room. Simoz drew his thin-gun and aimed at the one that had fallen behind him. The light emitted by its baggy body had taken on a reddish tinge from his blood. It was on its back, its six legs curled in tight, its tick mouth bubbling. The thin-gun coughed and the biolight exploded, spraying glowing ichor and translucent organs in every direction. Simoz noted half its body stuck to the side of the chair, its legs quivering, before he turned to search out the other light. It scuttled from under a synthewood coffee table and he shot at it twice, leaving smoking holes in the floor. It ran up the wall then came across the ceiling at him. He hit it as it dropped towards him. Warm flesh and glowing ichor plastered his face and shoulders. He wiped the substance from his eyes and stepped out from under the other two lights on the ceiling. They showed no sign of moving.
What the hell was that?
There was a delay before Mike replied. Simoz felt the wounds in his shoulder and calf being sealed by the mycelium, the pain fading.
Choud DNA has been used in all biofacture here. These lights are fifty-three per cent choud.
Enough for a mature fungal form?
Yes.
Did you read it?
I did.
You have the location of the mother fungus?
I do.
Just then the door to the room opened and Haline entered with a small choud straining at the leash she held. Simoz studied her and she blankly returned his gaze before absently releasing the leash. The choud surged forward, its many legs rustling against the floor. Simoz shot it through the head and it stopped dead, then slowly curled into a perfect ball. Haline showed little reaction.
‘Why have you done this to my home?’ she asked, her words dull.
Simoz walked towards her, but as he drew close she suddenly stepped forward with her hands held out like blades. Simoz touched the shock stick to her forearm and she slammed back against the door then slid down it to the floor. He dragged her aside and stepped out of her home.
I take it you stopped producing the pheromone?
I did not have spare function. My repair of you and my continued alteration of the retrovirus used it all.
Continued alteration?
The divergence of this parasitic fungus is greater than I thought.
Simoz stooped down and parted the rip in his trouser leg to reveal a ragged circle of pink scar tissue.
Quick work.
You need to be completely functional. You have a bit of a journey and anything of more than forty per cent choud biofacture will be trying to kill you.
Where to?
The anchor root. The encysted choud is there.
Perhaps it would be better to release the virus here.
That would defeat the object of us coming here. I need to read the mother fungus. It will be the only way for us to find some clue as to how it got here.
A dubious bet at best I think.
Our only one. If there is even the slightest evidence that the fungal infection was deliberate then there must be an investigation, as that would likely mean Separatist activity. If there is some other cause, we need to know that, to prevent it happening again.
At the centre point of the Wrack lay an open well around whose edges were gathered leaf-shaped platforms. Simoz watched people walk on to these, whereupon they dropped gently into the well. Thick stalks from the platforms were rooted into the wall of the well and slid down as if following invisible grooves.
There must be another way down.
It is likely that this living elevator is based more on wrack DNA than choud DNA.
I think we should find out before we try it.
Walking across the wide plaza, Simoz was conscious of puzzled stares cast in his direction and of chouds straining at leashes. He noted a floor-cleaning creature, like a flattened choud, become aware of his presence then turn after him in painfully slow pursuit. He also noted a heavily choudapted human: a man wearing only a pouch belt, his body completely sheathed in plates of exoskeleton, turn in his direction and slowly come after him. Upon reaching the well Simoz reached down and pressed his hand to the rough surface of one leaf.
Are you in?
I am.
Come on, things are getting fraught round here.
This biotech is ninety per cent wrack-based.
Simoz glanced back and saw general movement in his direction as of a crowd attracted by a curiosity. He doubted he would be able to survive their attention.
Out of choices.
Simoz stepped onto the leaf and it immediately swung out over the well and slowly began to descend. He observed that the stalk penetrated the woody wall through a wet slot, a slot that opened before it and closed after it like a zipper. The leaf platform reached ten metres down when he glanced up and saw the heavy choudapt follow him over the edge on another. Another ten metres down and he saw something fall over the rim above to come hurtling down with a whistling squeal — the cleaning creature. It hit the edge of his platform to scrabble for a moment with inadequate legs, then fell out of sight. Returning his attention to the man above, Simoz saw him staring down, his saw-toothed palps clacking before his mouth.
He could jump.
Thank you for that.
Simoz drew his thin-gun and held it in his right hand, retaining his shock stick in his left.
Standing close to the edge of his platform, the man did not jump, but withdrew something from one of his pouches and pointed it at Simoz. No time to react — Simoz had not expected personal armament here. Something slapped his leg and he peered down at the ugly dart buried in his thigh. It consisted of a glassy blade with feathery flights, with two testicular sacks pulsing between the two.
Neurotoxin.
Simoz’s leg went completely dead and gave under him. He grabbed the dart and pulled it free, black poison dripping from its hollow point. He fired upwards blowing a lump out of the edge of the platform above, driving his attacker back out of sight. Two more shots blew holes straight through the upper platform, but his choudapt attacker abruptly jumped over the edge.
Simoz fired at him again as he hurtled down. One shot took a lump from the man’s shoulder and tore away a plate of exoskeleton. Without apparently noticing his wound, the man landed solidly, his clawed toes driving into the material of the platform. Simoz snap-shot at him as the numbness spread to his other leg then edged up to his sternum. The shot missed.
‘Earther!’ the choudapt snarled and flung himself forward. Simoz shot again and had the satisfaction of seeing an arm cartwheel away as his attacker fell back off the platform, then his own arms went dead and his vision faded.
Simoz.
…
Simoz.
I hear you.
That is good.
Is it?
Yes. Had there been no immediate response from you …
What?
You would have been dead.
How damaged am I?
The neurotoxin has caused extensive nerve damage. I am now controlling all your autonomous functions.
What about my unautonomous ones?
I am using myself to establish links across the damaged areas.
/>
My feet are hurting.
…
That’s better.
Re-establishing visual cortex.
Simoz blinked as his vision returned, but there seemed to be something wrong with it.
Though everything was sharper it also seemed somehow false. He blinked again and tried to move his arms. They responded to him, but yet again there seemed to be something wrong -
some feeling of disconnection. Levering himself upright, he attempted to stand, but only got halfway before falling flat on his face.
Something not quite right here.
There is a disparity of function. Try again.
Simoz finally managed to stand. As he stood there swaying, his hands suddenly seemed to catch on fire. He screamed and abruptly sat down.
I must use one hundred per cent of my function. Disconnecting from cerebrum.
Mike, no, wait!
The burning in his hands became a deep soreness, a tingling, numbness, then went away completely. Warily Simoz stood again and checked his surroundings. Everything seemed to be working perfectly now, only inside him there lay a terrible emptiness.
Mike?
…
Mike?
Simoz nodded to himself, then stooped and retrieved his weapons. He was alone in the anchor root, and especially aware that no corpse without an arm lay here on the floor where the platform had come to rest.
I don’t know if you can hear me, Mike, but this has to be Separatist terrorism. Why else would someone be wandering about with a neurotoxin weapon?
Simoz stepped off the platform and walked to where an arm lay in a pool of watery blood.
He circled until he found a smeared area of the same then followed the dripped trail into a side-branching tunnel of the anchor root, stepping warily on slippery floor under the blue luminescence. The biolights were restless on the ceiling and it was because he was keeping half an eye on them that he did not immediately see the choudapt. There came a low whickering sound and Simoz ducked before he knew why he was ducking and glanced behind him to see one of the neurotoxin darts bouncing across the floor. He fired reflexively at a half-seen shape, then pursued when that shape rose from the shadows at the side of the tunnel and fled.
Damnit Mike, this is the only way. You didn’t give a precise location for that encysted choud. I’d bet this bastard knows where it is.
Before rounding a corner in the tunnel Simoz slowed to a walk, since he had no wish to run straight into one of those darts, and glancing back had the dubious pleasure of seeing biolights dropping from the ceiling and scuttling towards him. Not allowing himself panic, he reached into his pocket, removing a shock grenade the size and shape of an acorn. He then edged to the corner and carefully peeked round, guessing the dark shape squatting in the shadows to be the choudapt. Simoz flipped the cap on the grenade and tossed it round. A white flash followed by lots of electric sizzlings ensued. Glancing back at the biolights that were approaching he flipped a grenade in their direction too, closing his eyes against the flash. He opened his eyes to see biolights scattered across the floor of the tunnel, their legs in the air and the luminescence they emitted faltering, then he stepped round the corner.
The choudapt lay sprawled across the tunnel. Simoz advanced on the man and kicked away the tubular dart thrower lying next to his outstretched left hand. The stump of his right arm had some sort of bio field-dressing over it, as did the wound in his shoulder, and he was breathing raggedly. Simoz squatted down next to him and removed the shock stick from his pocket. He altered a setting on its thumb wheel and touched the end of it to the choudapt’s neck.
The low buzzing convulsed the man and he immediately opened his eyes and started to move, but froze as the barrel of Simoz’s thin-gun pressed against his forehead.
‘Separatist?’ asked Simoz.
The man just sneered at him. Simoz altered the setting on his shock stick and touched what he assumed to me the man’s most sensitive area. Judging by the screech that followed he guessed he had been right.
‘Separatist?’ he asked again.
‘Yes,’ said the man.
Simoz noted the slight distraction in the man’s expression. Keeping the shock stick to his groin he turned and shot the biolight that had been creeping up behind. Before the man could react Simoz had his thin-gun back in his face.
‘The parasitic fungus, where did you get it from?’
The man showed an inclination not to answer. Simoz made that inclination go away.
When the man had stopped screaming he seemed more inclined to cooperate.
‘We got it from a preserved choud exported before the retrovirus was used here.’
‘Is it just you here? No, silly question. You’d only lie. I want you to stand very slowly and carefully, then very slowly and carefully I want you to walk to the encysted choud.’
The man looked at him blankly for a moment, then obeyed. Simoz tried to analyse that blank look, knowing that somehow he had made a mistake here.
‘What was the plan? You knew someone would be here with the retrovirus at some point.
Or is this just the usual terrorism?’
‘Yes, terrorism. It works.’
Now that, Mike, was a lie. I wonder what’s really happening here.
‘Just show everyone what big guns you’ve got and they’ll do what you want?’
‘That’s right,’ said the choudapt.
‘Okay, stop there. Turn round.’
The choudapt halted and turned. He was grinning.
Simoz continued, ‘The fungal form has been altered to counter the retrovirus, but you knew that the virus would be altered to suit. You also knew that at some point it would be released here. So the question is: what result are you after?’
The choudapt’s palps moved in what Simoz could only assume to be a rude gesture.
‘You won’t get out of here,’ the choudapt said. He nodded back down the tunnel. ‘It won’t just be the biolights. Every piece of biotech will be after you. Right now the lifting platforms have ceased to function.’
‘You know, I’m carrying the virus in my body. The fungal parasites would die very quickly,’
said Simoz.
‘Then release it.’
‘I see. . turn and continue walking.’
Mike, do not release the virus. Whatever happens, do not release it.
As they reached the end of the tunnel Simoz tossed a shock grenade behind him to deter the pursuing biolights, which had now been joined by some armoured multi-legged thing whose function he could not guess. The choudapt led him through another tunnel, a narrow tunnel that seemingly terminated at a wall, but then the wall parted before him. In the place beyond the choudapt turned to Simoz, who peered past him at the second choudapt crucified by woody growths to the wrack wall. This other one opened crusted eyes but did not speak.
‘Tarin controls the Wrack city. He controls every fungal parasite and therefore all the biotech here. Go on, Earther, release your virus — kill them all,’ the first choudapt said.
‘I see,’ said Simoz. ‘You’ve undermined all the biotech. If I release the virus what happens?’
‘You destroy the Wrack and kill a hundred thousand people. We claim extreme incompetence on the part of ECS and recruit a million to our cause.’
‘Then I won’t release the virus.’
As he said this he heard the wall opening behind him. Without looking he shot behind himself and heard a bubbling squeal.
‘You’ll die either here or on your way out and someone else will come and release the virus here. We win all ways.’
‘You don’t,’ said Simoz.
The choudapt had time only to raise his remaining arm. The thin-gun coughed, the side of the man’s head opened like a hinged lid and a haze of bone and brain splashed out behind him.
He staggered back and fell at the feet of the encysted choudapt, Tarin. Simoz now turned and fired twice, splashing luminous blood up the walls. He tossed a shock grenade
out into an encroaching wall of chitinous legs, glowing bodies, and hints of armour. The wall fell in chaos and he counted the last two grenades in his pocket. Then he turned, walked forward and stepped over the dead choudapt to look into Tarin’s eyes. There was a ripping sound as Tarin opened his crusted lips.
‘No win. . Earther,’ he said, spittle running from the side of his mouth.
Knock once for yes and twice for no. Are you hearing this, Mike?
