by Neal Aher
Leaving the unit attached to the U-space transmitter in place, the Brockle coagulated back into human form, floating amidst the shredded remains of Antonio Sveeder’s corpse. This watcher had delivered Earth Central’s message and the Brockle still had the opportunity to heed it. It had not yet done anything criminal for, in destroying the watcher, it had not actually killed a sentient entity. It considered all the legalities and illegalities of remaining here or heading off. But, in the end, it all came down to something quite simple. It was bored with those usually sent for interrogation here: the humans were all the same in their self-justification and their parochial mindsets, and the more interesting machine intelligences sent were increasingly rare. In fact, the Brockle had not interrogated one in decades. No, it had made its decision.
Abruptly propelling itself into motion, it headed to the back of the hibernation chamber, through the airlock and back down the length of the Tyburn. It was headed towards what had been its abode for over eighty years. As it travelled, it considered what other preparations it would need to make. It had no physical belongings other than itself. All it really needed was data. Although, even as it thought this, it found itself outside the room in which Ikbal and Martina lay comatose.
The Brockle had by no means gleaned everything of use from their minds, and even their bodies might contain some stray useful data—perhaps recorded to the memory of a medical nanobot or some nanofactory attached to the wall of an artery. It could take them with it and continue its interrogation, but felt reluctant to so burden itself. Or it could leave them and forgo that data, which it was also loath to do. However, an alternative existed.
It entered and gazed down at the two humans prostrate on the floor. Extracting data while keeping them intact and alive would take meticulous work and time it did not possess, for the single-ship was perhaps only days away. With a thought, it knocked out grav in the room, then began to separate. In a moment the silver worms of its body were shoaling around the two forms, which it now lifted from the floor until they were floating a couple of yards above it. It simply tore away and discarded their clothing, which it had previously carefully returned to their bodies. It had already examined every thread down to the nanoscopic level. Inserting its own nano-fibres and data drills along the entire length of their bodies, it began examining them, soon deploying meniscus blades. These cut skin and flesh away for secondary examination and full atomic recording before it discarded them. It found nanobots from the medical packages all modern humans ran and recorded their memories and physical data. Then, entering the skulls of Ikbal and Martina, it raised them out of coma, because mental examination was always better when the candidate was conscious. At this point it noticed them screaming, but that soon stopped when certain items were removed.
Where did the definition of death lie when everything could be recorded? At what point is murder committed when the victim is being converted into data? Soon shoaling amidst a spreading gory cloud, the Brockle pondered these philosophical points as it destructively recorded everything these two people were. It would take them with it, as part of itself, sure that what it was doing was not murder. However, it wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Earth Central or other Polity AIs would see it that way.
19
SVERL
The armour around the housing for Room 101’s central AI core was weak—so wound through with microbot incursions that it had taken on the structure of worm-eaten wood. It was also brittle: crystallized and laced all through with microfractures. The prador drone spat a single missile at the central door and the thing shattered like old glass, slinging fragments into the chamber beyond. The drone slid in there, Bsorol following.
“Clear,” he reported.
Second-children entered and spread out, and Sverl came through next. He gazed at the wreckage, then at the objects sitting in an area towards the centre. Their sad story was all too clear.
“There’s nothing here for us,” he stated. “We need a place that can be armoured and easily defended.” He reached down and picked up a chunk of the rotten door. “We’ll need deep detection all around.”
The AIs had been desperate back there near the Lance, using a brief burst of energy. But during their internecine war they had wasted all their internal weapons against each other and thoroughly degraded exterior station defences. Spear and the others had known they could not hold off the King’s Guard, and that the only way to stop the attack was by killing Sverl. Yet in coming here, it seemed that Sverl had left them behind. Perhaps they were frightened of this place . . .
Bsorol waved a claw back the way they had come. “That autofactory back there looks as good as anywhere. I can set up an easy perimeter, install some security . . .”
“Then that is where we shall go.”
Sverl turned, headed back to the shattered door and also gazed back the way they had come. He felt conflicted. The station AIs and their various robots didn’t worry him—soon enough he could take control of or otherwise subdue them—so why did he want to build defences? Was it instinctive for a prador to install these in a sanctum? Was it the sure knowledge that the assassin drone Riss was after him? Or was it due to his doubts about Thorvald Spear? No, that parasite assassin drone might be dangerous, but, devoid of its usual weapons, it would be no real threat. As for Spear, the man might be becoming an enigma with strengths that weren’t easily measurable, but his chances of getting past Bsorol and Bsectil were remote. No, Sverl knew why he wanted a new defensible sanctum—he was terrified of Penny Royal.
Sverl launched himself from the edge and began heading back, his children belatedly moving in around him. One of the two war drones forged ahead and the other stayed behind; Bsorol and Bsectil were on either side, and his eleven remaining second-children arrayed themselves all around him. All were impelled by jets of compressed air from their armour. Soon they arrived at a protruding half-circle of metal almost like a balcony and entered the tunnel at its rear, which finally debarked into the coin-shaped autofactory. Sverl reckoned this place had made some form of robot for installation in dreadnoughts—assembled in a final construction bay adjacent. However, he could not divine the robots’ purpose from the scattering of wrecked machines remaining here.
He moved out to the centre, anchoring himself by a column robot, now sans arms and sensors. Bsorol, Bsectil and the rest of his children began to see to his security. Soon they were cutting and welding metal all round, bringing in armour and other items from elsewhere. They were building a sanctum around him, so he could encyst in this station. Sverl observed them at work and issued instructions every now and then, and occasionally linked into the detectors and sensors they were installing—ironing out kinks and closing gaps. When they no longer needed his supervision, he mentally ranged out to explore his surroundings.
Soon he found that this area in the heart of the station was all but devoid of AIs—the nearest being the singer back by the runcible. Perhaps proximity to the Factory Station Room 101 AI had been fatal. It struck him that maybe, in some perverse way, the previous attacks upon him had been territorial. Since the previous one, no robots had pursued him, and he found no sign of any AI preparing to attack him now. The nearest AIs were in fact somnolent, dislocated. Those at the hull of the station were still defending it from the King’s Guard’s assault, but with robotic thoughtlessness, just responding and not thinking ahead. He narrowed a probe, selecting just one of these. Then, using every subterfuge he had available, he winnowed data from it. What he found was disturbing.
The AI he’d targeted did know that the King’s Guard had pursued a Polity destroyer here and it did know why they were attacking. But Sverl’s presence here wasn’t a priority, because the solution to it was in hand. When Sverl tried to find out what that solution might be, logic descended into chaotic vagueness. The AI did not know any specifics, but did know that Sverl was no longer its concern. Nervously rubbing his mandibles together, Sverl recognized outside interference and guessed its source.
>
TRENT
Trent steadied himself against the edge of the Lance’s airlock, his visor display briefly informing him his suit was running its cooling system. His visor was now as dark as a welding glass. Yet, even on this dim setting, he could see everything out here in stark clarity. This place had once efficiently turned out warships just as fast as practically possible. Now Trent couldn’t help but be reminded of a long ago VR experience, of swimming over a coral reef on Earth. The construction bay was colourful and alive with strange growths. The only reminder of where he really was came from the nearby burned-out and still glowing remains of robots, ‘structor pods and attached tentacles. He could also see a distant rising plume of debris from yet another explosion, composed of smoking vaporized metal. This latest weapons strike was in the same area as all of the most recent ones—deep within the bay, about five miles away. He wondered if the King’s Guard out there had detected Sverl leaving the Lance and were now firing at the prador’s present location. Then he followed Spear.
Spear propelled himself from the edge of the airlock to the wall of the bay. As he followed, Trent kept replaying the events inside the Lance in his mind. Spear had been in bio-espionage. However, the data Isobel had obtained on him mentioned nothing about martial training nor special uploads, beyond the standard ones at least. Yet during his fight with the robot intruder, he had moved almost as fast as a Golem. Surely, it had taken more than human strength to drive something, no matter how sharp, straight through the rear lobe on that robot’s head. That had to be war drone armour. But it wasn’t just that—it was his attitude. They had faced something that could have killed them all—but upon bringing it down, he had behaved as if it had been a minor hindrance. Then he proceeded to fire off the destroyer’s weapons mentally, eliminating the threats all around it. And that was another skillset the man hadn’t possessed before.
That was why Trent was following him, wasn’t it? Spear was now their best bet for survival so the sensible thing was to stick with him, follow his lead and try to protect him. Trent felt he should stay to guard the Lance against attack, but how could he do that? The cold caskets inside it—his responsibility—would be no safer with him there. He cringed inwardly, aware that his concern was more about the one casket containing Reece; many complex feelings arose from that. He had felt her choice to go into hibernation as a kind of betrayal, and now wondered if his decision to follow Spear was a tit-for-tat disloyalty in return. He shook his head in irritation, annoyed that he apparently did not possess the mental equipment for dealing with these emotions.
“How are you going to track Sverl?” he asked Spear as they moved out from the Lance. He turned to take in the interior of the massive final construction bay.
The thing was miles across. It was like looking over some endless industrial cityscape. Sure, plenty of that organic-looking stuff was visible, like the tentacular writhe of ‘structor pod growths. And over to his left, he could see a mountainous worm cast with umbilici protruding from the open mouths of its tunnels—just like the feeding heads of barnacles. However, larger static structures like cranes, giant grabs and resupply towers overshadowed these. Some structures had also taken on a slightly organic appearance, but only because they had been half-melted. Large areas had been torn apart or incinerated. Out in the actual space of the bay drifted wrecked ships, shattered robots and other not so easily identifiable debris. Those barnacle heads were probably feeding on this kind of thing. In places, this stuff had coagulated like piles of asteroid rubble. A slight movement was detectable overall too—probably due to the tidal forces of the hypergiant that Room 101 orbited. In other areas, because of the recent strikes, it was worryingly more than slight.
“Tracking Riss is a problem, but Sverl is no problem at all,” Spear replied over suit radio. “There are data sources, sensors, computers and minds all around us. I can access these, and a large party of prador isn’t easy to conceal.”
“And if we come across another robot, like that one inside?”
Spear turned towards him and held up the spine he carried. It had already proved to be effective in Spear’s hands, but strictly on a one-to-one basis. If more than just one robot attacked, then the weapon Trent carried would be better. Upon deciding to go with Spear, he had quickly gone in search of something sufficiently effective. He’d found that the second-children hadn’t taken everything they’d brought aboard. Just the installation of a manual trigger mechanism had made the small particle cannon usable, and a curved butt to go under his armpit had made it less unwieldy. He felt he carried their main defence . . . or was he just not seeing something? He remembered the spine seeming to change shape as Spear pulled it out of that robot, and shuddered.
They entered a long tunnel in the wall and propelled themselves to drift along it. Trent did not like this way of travelling in zero gravity and vacuum. You could only move as fast as your suit wrist impeller could propel you—not great if you needed to get out of something’s way. But this was how Spear chose to move and if Trent had resorted to walking on gecko boots, he would not have been able to keep up. On that thought, he wondered if he actually wanted to continue. Perhaps he should go back.
Towards the end of the tunnel, at a junction, something became visible crouching on the floor. It was a construction robot and didn’t appear hostile—in fact it just appeared to be doing what such robots usually did. Every now and again, it emitted arc flashes from one of its tool-head arms. It was welding cracks in the floor. Nevertheless, Trent aimed his particle cannon down at it as they drifted over. It showed no response to them at all.
“So, Riss got her collar off,” said Spear.
“What?”
Spear indicated the robot with a wave of one hand. “Riss subverted that robot, programmed it mechanically and had it cut off her collar.”
“Right,” said Trent. He’d had an aug of his own and it had been a sophisticated one, but he’d never been able to penetrate and read the memory of a construction robot. That was usually the province of specialized technicians, who programmed the damned things. Trent considered for a moment, then looked back. He could see no sign of the collar. Had Riss taken it with her or something?
At the end of the tunnel, they reached a T-junction where they shed their momentum against the wall—then they stuck in place with their gecko boots. Even here, deeper inside, Trent’s visor had only notched its filtering down a little. The light of the hypergiant flowed throughout the station like an ambient fluid.
“This way,” said Spear, and began trudging along the wall, which of course now appeared to be the floor.
“How do you intend to stop Riss, if she’s set on going after Sverl?” Trent asked.
Spear paused and looked round. “I’ll try reason and I’ll try pleading. However, if I get close enough, I’m pretty certain that I can now gum up that drone’s workings.” Spear grinned, first tapped his hand against the spine then raised it to tap at his helmet just over his aug. He turned and moved on.
Trent was certain that neither he nor anyone else he knew of would have been able to “gum up” the workings of an assassin drone. Spear had been a formidable character when Isobel Satomi first met him, and he was steadily becoming more dangerous.
“Then the next question I have to ask,” said Trent, “is why?”
Spear halted, but didn’t look round. “You told me that you have been cursed with empathy, so where is it now?”
“What do you mean?”
“The fact that Riss intends to kill Sverl should be enough . . .”
Trent felt something tighten up inside him. Yes, that was wrong, but surely survival dictated—
“But perhaps I should explain to you how Riss intends to kill Sverl,” Spear continued. “The enzyme acid I used to free the shell people of their grafts was a refinement of one that destroyed both prador and human tissue—and Riss has it. Can you just imagine how agonizing it would be to have your body dissolve in acid?”
Trent felt sli
ghtly queasy about that but stamped down on the feeling and tried to stick with logic. “If Sverl lives, we all die.”
“No, we have time—the King’s Guard are only, as far as I can gather, whittling down the station’s defences right now. Their leader told me, secretly, that the real attack will commence in . . . ten hours.” Spear turned round. “I have time to stop Riss and get us all back to the Lance and away.”
“With Sverl?”
After a pause, Spear just said, “And then we will see how things transpire.”
This man was very confident in his abilities. However, just seconds after their exchange, it became evident his confidence might have been premature.
Trent had no time to react. Spear was walking along ahead when a section of metal under his feet seemed to drop like a trapdoor, which of course was impossible in zero gravity. Stuck by his gecko boots, Spear’s lower half disappeared up to his hips. Then a pair of skeletal Golem arms appeared, wrapped in organic tech with heavy joint motors. They reached out, silver hands clutched, and dragged him out of sight.
BLITE
“What’s it doing out there?” asked Greer as she threw herself down in a seat. They were all getting frustrated on the planet’s surface, as they tried to make sense of activities around the distant Factory Station 101. They were also trying and failing to monitor Penny Royal.
