by Neal Asher
‘Bit OTT,’ said the man trying to see past Merril’s aug-shrouded head.
‘All show,’ said Merril. ‘The effective forces are already here.’
‘You what?’ said the man.
‘She means,’ said Salind, ‘that Geronamid’s agents have probably been arriving here and establishing themselves over the last few months if not years.’
Geoff gave him a look then returned his attention to his recorder.
‘I don’t need some kidrep from that Tarjen rag to explain my words,’ said Merril, without looking round. Salind ignored her and nodded to the waiting crowd of dignitaries.
‘Probably knows every one of their dirty little secrets … Bloody hell, that’s a bit extravagant even for Geronamid.’
Those who had been watching the dignitaries, or sub-vocalizing commentaries, paused. There came an intake of breath. Through the portal had come two voluptuous women clad as fantasy barbarians. This was not what drew the attention though. That they each held silver chain leashes connecting to the collar of a huge allosaur did cause a little consternation.
‘Someone tell me that’s an automaton and not from the fossil gene project,’ said the man behind Merril.
‘That’s an automaton and not from the fossil gene project,’ said Salind.
‘Thanks for that.’
Next came jugglers and street musicians, followed by a crowd who seemed to have just come from a party. The arrival lounge rapidly filled with a cacophony of sound and movement.
‘Well where the hell is Geronamid?’ asked Geoff, as he swept the area with the sensor heads of his recorder. Salind pointed to the lone acrobat who had come through first and was now doing back-flips in front of the increasingly irritated-looking allosaur.
‘Him usually,’ he said. ‘Though it’s difficult to tell. On Tarus Five Geronamid came through dispersed – memory units implanted in each of twelve circus clowns.’
The group of dignitaries began to make their way across the lounge, heading towards the acrobat.
‘Looks like I was right,’ said Salind. ‘They’ll have been told who to greet.’
The dignitaries had nearly reached the acrobat, who ceased his display and stood with his arms held out in greeting. There came a stuttering thud as of the sound of a lump of meat being thrown into a fan. The smile on the acrobat’s face disappeared along with his head. Brains and pieces of bone sprayed over the allosaur.
After a shocked pause someone started screaming.
‘Rail-gun,’ commented Merril and chaos broke loose. Police and security agents were running around shouting into personal com units. Salind saw one of these men lose his leg then fall to the ground, his expression puzzled. Salind was still watching and recording when Geoff grabbed him and dragged him to the floor.
‘Let me up! Let me the fuck up!’ Salind yelled. Eventually Geoff rolled away and Salind scrambled to his feet. He scanned quickly and saw where Merril and the rest of the vultures were heading. The two skinless androids had pinned someone to the floor. The Earth monitors kept the crowd from gathering around this individual, and the Banjer police encircled the acrobat’s remains.
‘Let me through! Let me through!’ yelled Salind, using his trusted elbows-and-knees technique to get to the forefront of the first crowd. When arrived there he recognized a slightly putrid smell, and seeing the pinned figure he felt a moment’s horrible glee.
‘Shit we’ve got a story,’ he said, then paused. He felt the crowd clearing from behind him. A hot breath raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Turning, he looked straight into the tooth-filled mouth of the blood-spattered allosaur. It glanced aside at the dead acrobat then down at the prisoner. Salind quickly stepped aside.
‘Murderer,’ came the guttural accusation of the allosaur.
Garp glared up from the floor, his eye-irrigators working overtime. His eyes were blank white spheres overlaid with narrow gridlines.
The room was clean, aseptic and not a very nice place to be. Formchairs positioned against white tile were all in perfect condition, no graffiti marred the walls, and not a speck of dust or rubbish littered the banoak coral floor. Yet the room smelt of vomit and fear. Salind tried to ignore that, since it didn’t apply to him, a Polity citizen.
‘The AI Geronamid arrived on Banjer in the skull of a living allosaur, reputedly resurrected by the fossil gene project at the University of Earth on Midlantis Island. In this “acting of parable” he demonstrated the coexistence of the old and the new. The attempted assassination of Geronamid by another resurrectee, one Abel Garp, a reified officer of the Banjer police force, has undermined the … Yes?’ asked Salind.
The Banjer cop said nothing, but gestured to the door with his thumb. Salind considered walking out right then, since he didn’t have to help them. But then, there’d be more here for his story. Even though he was way ahead of all the other agencies, he went.
The cop led him down a perfectly clean corridor and opened another door for him. Salind entered and felt suddenly as if he had stepped back five hundred years.
‘An interrogation cell. How quaint,’ he commented.
‘Sit down,’ instructed the man behind the desk.
Salind glanced up at the camera set up in the corner of the room. A meaty hand on his back propelled him gently but firmly to the stool on the other side of the desk. He sat, and just to show his confidence he crossed his legs and casually scanned his surroundings.
‘You are Mr Gem Salind?’
‘Just call me Salind, everyone does.’
The man opposite did not look up. ‘I am Superintendent Callus – by name and nature some say. You are aware that when you came to Banjer you stepped out of Polity jurisdiction?’
Callus looked up and, placing his elbows on the desk, interlaced his fingers before his mouth.
‘I was aware. I am also aware that I have broken no laws, be they of the Polity or Banjer,’ Salind replied.
Callus nodded. ‘Having knowledge of a serious crime and not reporting it to the authorities is a crime in itself.’
‘So I understand, and if I’d knowledge of such I would, of course, report it to you immediately.’
‘You knew what Garp intended.’
‘No, if you’d listened to my statement at the time…’
‘You saw the rail-gun.’
‘Oh get real. It’s all a matter of public record. If he threatened anyone it was Deleen Soper, and that’s debatable.’
A hard hand clouted him on the back of his head.
‘What the fuck!’
He half turned, but the thug behind him grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. He was forced to continue looking forwards.
‘Around here we respect the law.’ As Callus said this, the thug behind drove a fist into Salind’s kidneys.
‘You fucking—’
Another blow curtailed speech, and more blows followed.
I’m being assaulted in the Siroc police headquarters!
Message relayed.
Finally released, Salind fell from the chair onto his hands and knees and retched up his breakfast.
‘Are you in pain? Would you like me to get a doctor?’ Callus enquired.
Salind could not reply, so leaning over to peer down at him, Callus continued, ‘I understand that you can record everything you see, hear and smell. Perhaps you’d like to edit that mess out.’ He nodded towards the pool of vomit. ‘Perhaps it would also be well for you to remember that you cannot see everything and not everything is said. In future I suggest you report to us before you release unsubstantiated stories about our citizens.’
Message reply: Geoff is on his way over and the Tarjen legal department has been informed. Geoff also sends a personal message: They will only rough you up a little. If anything more was intended you would not have been taken to the police station. You would have been taken to the Groves.
Finally managing to get his breath, Salind struggled to his feet and turned towards his attacker. The cop had step
ped back and now stood with his hands behind his back – the perfect image of the disinterested observer. It had all been done very well.
‘You won’t get away … with this,’ Salind managed, then could have kicked himself for such naïveté.
‘Get away with what, exactly?’ said Callus. ‘Now, Mr Salind, if you could bear my words in mind we would be grateful for your cooperation.’
Callus stood up and reached across the desk to shake Salind’s hand.
‘Fuck off.’ Salind moved to the door, keeping the both of them in view. No one followed him out. He staggered to the waiting room, then to the security barrier leading out onto the street. Fifty metres down the pavement, his breathing had become little easier when a hydrocar pulled up and its door popped open. He clambered in.
‘You okay?’ asked Geoff.
‘I think they were acting as Deleen Soper’s message delivery service.’ Salind probed his bruised kidneys.
‘Quite likely. What now?’
‘Pull the legals off. I don’t want anything getting in the way. Then I want to find out what’s happening with Garp. Geronamid’s people grabbed him didn’t they?’
‘Yes, then what?’
‘Then I interview Deleen Soper.’
Geoff looked askance at him then pulled the hydrocar out into the traffic.
‘Already been done,’ he said.
‘What, Merril’s hack-and-slash job?’
‘Yes, and Merril better keep her head down or she’ll get a hack-and-slash job in return.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
The new Polity Embassy sprawled across twenty hectares of reclaimed marshland on the south side of Siroc, which was the capital city of the planet’s main continent. At the centre of the complex rested a replica of the Millennium Dome of old London on Earth – an ironical architectural statement if ever there was one. The monitor driving one of the first antigravity cars to be used here remained reticent on the subjects of Garp and Geronamid. Salind became insistent.
‘You know that criminal actions here are out of your jurisdiction for the moment. I had a nice police officer explaining that sort of thing to me only a few hours ago. So why did you people grab him?’ he asked.
‘As I have already told you, Mr Salind, I do not possess that information,’ she replied.
Salind sat back as the car began to spiral down into the complex. ‘Perhaps you can tell me who Garp killed?’
‘An acrobat, I believe.’ As she said this she touched her finger just below her ear – an unconscious action of someone listening to a comlink. She continued, ‘Geronamid will see you. Perhaps he will explain.’
Salind grinned. There were thousands of reporters on Banjer who would have killed for this opportunity.
The monitor landed the car on a plascrete parking area and, after they disembarked, led the way toward a nearby building bearing the appearance of a Turkish mosque. One of the grey metal Golem came out to meet them.
‘This Golem will take you to the Arbiter.’ The monitor hurried off with her finger pressed below her ear. Salind studied the Golem. It had not been referred to by name, which probably meant it was a blank Golem being run by one of Geronamid’s sub-programs. And close to it now, he realized it did appear corroded. Ceramal did not oxidize in air, so this must have been caused by a powerful acid or some kind of energy burst. He wondered it this was just for the look or the result of some ambassadorial cock-up. Salind queried Argus and received an immediate reply, but he put that on hold.
‘This way,’ said the Golem.
‘Why the appearance?’ Salind asked, as they entered the building.
‘All part of Geronamid’s implicit message,’ it said.
‘Which part?’
The Golem paused before replying. ‘Membership of the Polity comes with all its advantages and drawbacks. All its AIs in every form. He would not want people to protest that the Polity had been mis-sold.’
‘Wouldn’t a less threatening appearance have been better?’
‘Exactly the point,’ said the Golem.
Salind listened to the message from Argus:
The two Golem androids that accompany Geronamid when the AI is on Arbitration duty owe their appearance to a Separatist attack on the world Cheyne III. An assassin attempted to kill Geronamid who, at that time, travelled inside an Egyptian sarcophagus. When the attack failed the assassin keyed her weapon to self-destruct. The two Golem were caught in the backflash.
After entering the mosque through an open arch, they traversed a marble hall to reach a wooden door the Golem opened by hand. In the antechamber beyond, an armoured ship droid hovered a couple of metres above the floor. Salind felt a tingling sensation run from the top of his head to his feet. There came a discordant buzzing from Argus.
‘Clear,’ spat the droid, and moved aside.
What was that?
Weapons scan.
‘You will note,’ said the Golem, ‘very in-your-face.’
A second door admitted them to the repro interior of a mosque. Garp was sitting on a wooden chair with his arms crossed, a cable trailing across the floor from the sockets in his head. His eyes were the same as they had appeared in the arrivals lounge, but Salind had no idea what that meant. Geronamid stood off to one side finishing his lunch, which looked like half a wildebeest. Salind started to sweat as the Golem closed the door behind him, not because of the crunching gobbling sounds, but because he had just discovered his aug’s external link was being blocked.
‘Why aren’t you allowing me a direct link to Tarjen?’ he asked.
Geronamid gulped down a large dripping lump of flesh. A disembodied voice replied, ‘You may record, and you will be allowed to transmit that recording once you leave here, should that be what you wish to do.’
Salind tried to locate the source of the voice then quickly gave up. Geronamid was speaking and he needed to know no more than that.
‘Okay …’ He nodded towards Garp. ‘What are you doing to him?’
‘Downloading information to my evidential submind,’ Geronamid replied.
‘Inadmissible evidence in a Banjer court and irrelevant after the Polity amnesty comes into effect, so why are you doing it?’
‘Curiosity. In my position wouldn’t you want to know?’
‘Yes … What do you intend to do to Garp? Your seizure of him was illegal you know.’
‘I will do nothing to him, and my seizure was not illegal.’
‘He committed a crime here. He killed that acrobat. Surely he’s the province of the Banjer police.’
The allosaur jerked its head up from the remains of its meal and abruptly paced toward Salind. He had to suppress the urge to turn and run. Now, the voice issued from its bloody mouth. ‘The acrobat was called Houdini Friend. My friend.’
‘Okay,’ said Salind, swallowing drily. ‘But that still doesn’t change—’
Geronamid interrupted. ‘The reif committed no crime as it is just an artefact which, since the recent seizure of Garp’s remaining estate, has become the property of the Banjer government. The reif is under a destruction order and will duly be handed over for incineration.’
‘I note you refer only to “the reif” and not to Garp. What about him? You accused him of murder yourself.’
‘The murderer is whoever loaded the subversion program into him. He had no knowledge of what he was doing,’ Geronamid replied.
‘Surely that is evidence you could pass on to the police?’
‘Why?’
‘So the real murderer can be caught,’ Salind suggested.
‘You have been here for two weeks, and have learned nothing in that time?’
‘I have not unlearned the necessity of due process, of …’ Salind trailed off as the allosaur turned away, apparently losing interest in him. It looked at Garp.
‘Ah, praist,’ said the AI.
‘Why am I here?’ Salind asked, feeling at once foolish and angry.
‘Worlds must
join the Polity of their own free will. There must be no hint of coercion. Eighty per cent of the population must vote for entry. That’s eighty per cent of the entire population.’
‘Yes, I am aware of the charter.’ Salind struggled to keep his face straight.
‘Voting on most worlds is through net encryption – absolute anonymity, your vote registered by the click of a button.’
‘Polling stations,’ said Salind, getting some hint of where Geronamid was leading.
‘Yes: polling stations. The government of Banjer managed to foist polling stations on us. Their argument being that five per cent of the population is without net access. We estimate that probably forty per cent of the population will be too frightened to vote.’
‘So there’ll be a void result. Why then are you here?’
‘In some cases Polity intervention is allowed: humanitarian disaster, cases when widespread corruption in the governing authorities can be proven, and when widespread coercion is being used.’
Salind felt his scalp crawling. ‘Are you saying that the Polity intends to intervene here?’
‘That can be hugely damaging unless sufficiently justified. Such tactics can lead to rebellion against the “AI Autocrat of Earth” and not necessarily on the world on which we have intervened.’
Salind stared at the allosaur for a long moment as he chewed over that euphemistic word ‘intervention’, then shook his head in annoyance – he’d been trying to read the creature’s expression.
‘What do you intend, then?’
‘My overall intentions I will make available to the free press when I am ready.’
‘Then why the hell am I here?’
‘You are here because you were first onto the story of Garp and because he wants you to know the rest of it.’ The allosaur swung towards the reif. ‘You see, there is no evidence that Soper was responsible for loading the subversion program into his aug, but there is plenty of proof available of her other crimes. Should you choose not to broadcast this conversation and so alert her, you can go with him to obtain this proof. Conveniently, Soper will be visiting one of her praist factories in a few days’ time – one of eight hundred such places run by the Tronad.’
