by Neal Asher
‘Fuck off,’ I told him, because now I knew what had happened.
He hesitated, looked to the sky again.
‘Just go,’ I insisted, adding, ‘You can rescue me later.’
Marcus gave one slow nod, then picked up my pulse rifle and rested it across my stomach. We both understood the situation perfectly.
‘’orry,’ he said and, leaping to his feet, sprinted up the beach.
I watched the prador, not really caring about its approach, utterly stunned as my situation continued to sink in. It came in to hover over me and I felt the wash of its grav-engine, then it turned and, with a stab of thruster flames, headed inland. I’d felt no scan, but suspected there’d been one and it knew my condition. I tried to think clearly about its presence. Somehow the prador had made it here to the installation. I doubted they’d done so to intercept us, but for some other purpose. Had Suzeal known they were here? If so, why hadn’t she warned us? Had she led me to them again deliberately? Was I again some foil in her plans? I simply couldn’t find out without speaking to her and I really didn’t feel like doing so just then because, really, nothing mattered anymore. I knew exactly what had happened to me. My pain had diminished and through it I could feel the damage. I’d broken my back and could no longer walk. I had told Marcus to go because, well, he couldn’t carry me without me screaming. And even if we did get away, what then? He couldn’t fix me and I’d be a burden, resulting in both of us likely getting killed or captured.
Now I would die, but what remained open to conjecture was how.
The prador would come back, or the clones would come, and they’d drag me screaming to their base. Whether to the installation, or elsewhere, I had no idea. Torture and death would ensue there. Or perhaps, seeing my injury and being busy, they’d dispose of me quickly? Yet, it wasn’t death I feared, but being moved. Marcus’s attempt to pick me up had been utterly agonizing. I lifted the pulse rifle and positioned it with the barrel under my chin and my finger on the trigger. But I couldn’t yet pull the trigger. I wanted to hang onto the life that remained to me and do the deed when no other option remained.
‘Open previous comlink,’ I finally said.
‘You’re there,’ said Suzeal immediately.
‘Yes, we reached the installation, but guess who got here before us?’
‘I don’t have to. What happened?’
‘You didn’t see?’
‘I can only see now and not very well. I’m working on cracking their chameleonware. The only reason I know where they are now is because of a grav spike. One of them is probably going to be in trouble with Vrasan for using the grav-engine in his armour.’
It all sounded perfectly plausible but just didn’t matter. I found myself in a state of disconnection. All Suzeal’s and Vrasan’s machinations had become irrelevant to me.
‘You didn’t tell me what happened,’ Suzeal reminded me when I made no reply.
‘They hit the skimmer with a laser. We crash-landed on a beach.’
‘You don’t sound … right.’ Was that actually concern I heard in her voice?
‘Marcus has headed off and will probably evade capture – he’s a lot tougher and more rugged than me. I hope so, anyway. Perhaps you can pick him up when you finally come here?’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘It was a hard crash and I got thrown out. I reckon I would’ve been okay if it wasn’t for the rock.’ I tried to shrug, then really wished I hadn’t. ‘I’m happy that I managed to survive this long. The chances were against it.’
‘How are you hurt?’ she asked stridently.
‘Broke my back, so I won’t be going anywhere. I have a pulse rifle so Vrasan won’t be able to play any of his games with me.’
‘Don’t do anything hasty. A broken back can be repaired.’
‘Yes, I know, but I don’t think Vrasan will feel so inclined.’
She said nothing. What was there to say?
‘I don’t like what you do, Suzeal, and I hope your negotiations with the prador fail. You are either amoral or immoral and care little about the suffering of others. Goodbye now.’
‘Wait!’ she shrieked, but for the first time I cut her off.
I now just lay there listening. I heard the sound of a Gatling cannon further inland, then the crackle of a particle beam and light bloomed over in that direction. A little while later came the hiss and crump of the station railgun Suzeal had used to attack the previous prador encampment. The prador shot up and across, over the trees – probably running for cover. It grew quiet but for something buzzing as if in irritation. It drew close and then a beautiful blue beetle settled on my arm. I thought to brush it away, maybe crush it, but desisted. It deserved its life. As I watched it cleaning its mandibles, another sound impinged from the shoreline – something splashing in the water. I turned painfully and watched two parrot-like heads on the end of long necks rise into view out of the waves. I sighed. Perhaps the prador or the clones would never get to me. I pulled the pulse rifle from under my chin and took aim. That was when the stun round hit me.
I convulsed and sharp agony stabbed me in the back, but my vocal cords locked up and I couldn’t scream. A Jill scrambled into view down the rocks, shouldering a pulse rifle, and fired on the creature coming out of the sea. Two accurate shots charcoaled the two heads, but the thing surged ashore, more of its heads rising from its long slug-like body. This was undoubtedly something from the zoo. She started pumping shots into the body, and a Jack ran in and opened fire. Finally, the thing thought better of it and retreated into the sea. I lay there in absolute terror of the two clones coming over to pick me up. They turned and stood looking at me, doubtless receiving further instructions from Vrasan. Eventually they walked over and hauled me up and the pain was just as bad as I’d expected. I fainted.
Consciousness slid back with its load of terror and expectation of pain. I travelled through the air, my back a ball of agony, but I somehow existed to one side of it. I slammed down on a hard surface under glaring lights, shortly occluded when Vrasan loomed over me, the manipulators usually folded against his underside now reaching forwards under his mandibles and gripping numerous gleaming implements.
‘You deserve more, but at least this pain will serve as a reminder never to interfere in my plans again,’ he said in perfect Anglic.
He reached down and flipped me over onto my face and I shrieked. I felt something slice down my envirosuit and then he violently stripped it away, discarding it to the floor ahead of me. A clone walked over and picked it up. The only other thing I could see was a composite wall behind her. Vrasan buzzed and clattered above me and then came sharp agony as he sliced open my back. I tried to push myself up, tried to get some kind of relief. I realized I still must have some nerve connection to my lower body when I shit myself. Then the clone, who’d earlier picked up my envirosuit, stepped over and dragged my arms forwards and held them in a vice-like grip.
‘You will not faint,’ Vrasan told me. ‘I have ensured this.’
Of course, the prador had become expert in torturing humans throughout the war. He cut and he sliced and he sizzled. The agony reached unbelievable heights. I wanted to die and in the hallucinatory madness of some red universe felt I might be able to, but it just went on and on. The screaming continued until I could scream no more, something seeming to break in my voice box. The pain was never-ending, and with it a horrible crunching and squelching in my back. I simply couldn’t faint and there seemed no escape until, for the second time only in my life, a memory of my former self surfaced in my mind.
‘Does it hurt, fucker?’ asked Brack.
My head down, I could see the deep burns all down the front of my body, also the deep grooves where he’d used the grinding disc, some exposing bone. The agony wouldn’t stop. It came in wave after wave and I just couldn’t faint. Glancing aside, I saw where they’d riveted my left forearm to the wall and the drip feed there. Was it some sort of drug that prevented me sliding into unconsciou
sness? Yes, certainly that, and probably something they got from the prador. But I couldn’t turn the pain off either, or displace into the hardware in my skull. So I knew then that the unfamiliar weight on the side of my skull, behind my ear, was an interrogation aug – keyed into my gridlink and shutting it down.
‘Did you think we wouldn’t find out?’ Frey enquired from where he leaned against the metal bench.
‘There’s … nothing more,’ I managed.
Brack smiled nastily and jabbed his machete straight into my burn. I shrieked and writhed.
‘We know that,’ he said. ‘This is just for fun.’
‘Suzeal,’ I said, mouth arid, broken teeth aching. ‘Do you really think she cares?’
He used the stun baton again. I screamed again. There was no advantage in not screaming.
‘And you know what?’ he continued. ‘It’s not going to end.’
I looked up and met his gaze.
‘We got some real interesting plans for you.’
The pain rolled through me in waves, every one unbearable even at its lowest ebb. Eventually Vrasan ceased working on me. Incrementally the lowest ebbs of the pain began to give some relief. But always it came back. He picked me up, carried me to a wall and dumped me there, sending me back into hell for a while. Awareness of my surroundings stayed with me, but another kind of disconnect had happened which meant I couldn’t recognize anything around me. Waves splashed and slowly my mind began to come back as the pain reached its lowest. I recognized the manacle around my wrist with a chain running from it to a staple in the floor. The tubes going into my arm and my chest came from a device also on the floor, filled with blood, probably artificial blood. The rhythmic sound of my groaning impinged and, after a time, stopped because it made no difference. I noted the pool of blood, urine and shit I sat naked in, then the wide circular chamber whose wall I lay against. The equipment here, under the glare of terran sun-lamps, was familiar from the prador camp, so too the hooder lying against the far wall. No … two hooders were there, both under the thrall.
In time the pain became all but bearable, although still intense. I started to feel other things, and something hard on my back sat between me and the wall. I wanted to reach round and touch it, but the chain didn’t give me enough movement for that. I stared at my arm dully for a long time before remembering that I had another one. The long, loose tube moved with that arm, but I could move it no further when the pain came rolling back. So I just stayed still. Things around me were recognizable now, but I didn’t have the mind to think about anything much beyond identification. Even surmising that artificial blood was going into me had taken a hard effort of will.
Time passed. Vrasan entered and left, then returned again. Other prador entered and left, and a clone came in through a human-scale door. Pulse rifle burns covered him and he’d lost his right arm. Vrasan and one of the other prador clattered and bubbled at each other. The other one, by the looks of his armour, was one of the Guard. They were both angry, I realized, and belatedly picked up some of their speech. It seemed the clones had found Marcus and only this one had survived the experience. The Guard became adamant no more time should be wasted on hunting this erstwhile slave, and Vrasan finally agreed. I felt something then other than pain: satisfaction and just a hint of amusement.
By slow degrees I began to shift my tubed arm – testing the limits, searching out the least painful methods of movement. At length, I managed to feel the thing on my back. A hard plate sat right in the middle, a few centimetres wide and three times as long. All down the sides hard objects penetrated my flesh. Had Vrasan repaired my spine? This felt like some kind of splint. But the hard objects could also be the penetrating legs of a thrall. I tried to move my legs but they were dead. Surely, if he wanted to thrall me, he also wanted me functional? I just had no idea what he’d done.
I continued watching my surroundings, and now counted just two clones remaining. Vrasan headed with some equipment over to the slab on which he’d worked on me, and the clone without an arm climbed on. Vrasan set to work on him and a short while later the clone climbed off the slab with a new arm. It wasn’t human, but a shorter version of a prador underslung manipulator rendered in brassy metal. It had two joints and the hand consisted of six fingers in rows of three, opposable. I guessed it was a spare for their armour and hollow so a real prador limb could fit inside. This was supposing the prador wasn’t one of the king’s children, who sometimes didn’t have such limbs, or another normal prador who had lost a limb and controlled the armoured covering via a nerve shunt. I also guessed that Vrasan had no patience with waiting for the arm to grow back, or whatever a Spatterjay virus-mutated human might grow in its place.
The clone returned to duties, helping Vrasan and other prador at their manufacturing. I now eyed the neat piles of components they’d made. All of them were parts for hooder thralls, so it seemed Vrasan didn’t intend to stop at two of them. The machine then stopped and the last components went into packaging, while the machine was rapidly dismantled by two prador. I noticed that activity had ramped up all around. Other machines were being quickly taken apart and loaded onto sleds, while over on the other side of the installation prador had hauled up a huge hatch in the floor. Prador tunnels again – it seemed they weren’t staying. I watched this, wondering just what it meant for me. Eventually Vrasan came over again, and I sat there in terror of what he might be about to do.
‘The agreement,’ he said, ‘is for an exchange.’
I stared at him blankly.
‘You will say nothing of the work we do here,’ he added.
‘I don’t understand,’ I managed.
The manacle abruptly popped open and fell away from my wrist.
‘You will stand up,’ said Vrasan.
The most horrible, agonizing sensation ensued. Everything seemed to disappear and whatever he’d been using before must have ceased because I blacked out for a second. I felt my body still move independently of my mind, though. When consciousness returned, I was standing upright, but also found that I couldn’t move any part of my body myself, not even to groan. I realized then that Vrasan’s comment about me saying nothing had not been an instruction, but a statement of fact.
‘In exchange for you, Suzeal will not attack this installation,’ he said, turning from me. ‘You will be unable to communicate what you know long enough for me to relocate. You may decide, should they have the technology to restore you, to continue saying nothing.’
This sounded crazy to me. Why would I want to keep his work here secret?
As he moved away, I started to walk. Every step was agony and the blackouts continued, but loss of consciousness didn’t stop me moving. He marched over to a large door consisting of a cut-out slab of the wall composite provided with hinges. He pushed it open and walked out into daylight. There was nothing, I felt, more prone to undermine your sense of self, and personal ability to be effective, than having your body controlled by some other entity. I followed him out into a clearing beside the installation, then he cut the strings abruptly and I sprawled on the ground. I wanted to tell him Suzeal already knew he’d thralled a hooder, then I didn’t want to tell him because he might think her likely to attack soon after I was gone. But, lying on the ground, I couldn’t talk or move any of my limbs. I tried to think clearly. I remembered that he’d suggested he might attack Stratogaster with them, and that I hadn’t told Suzeal this. In making this agreement to release me from the prador, was Suzeal’s intention to save me? She knew about the thralled hooder, so still might bomb this place, or she might not – it all depended on how her further negotiations were going. But whatever she did, I had to remember her interests were always utterly mercantile.
I lay face down in the dirt. Flecks of organic matter went into my mouth and lungs. I had the overpowering urge to cough but simply couldn’t and my lungs started bubbling. Then something droned and a shadow fell across me. A weird sensation passed through my body – feeling light and then
pushed into the ground in waves. For a second I couldn’t place the familiar sensation, then my mind and its store of data came up with the answer. An operating grav-engine had just passed closely over me. I heard the vehicle settle, then a moment later a hand reached down and flipped me onto my back. I lost it for a second again.
‘They’ve done something to him,’ said the woman with a shaven skull, on the side of which was tattooed the letters SGZ.
I could only see her vaguely because of dirt in my eyes but after a moment I blinked and cleared it. That blink, as events continued, occurred regularly every two minutes. She wore black and white combat armour with its Strato-GZ decals and other decorations and held some kind of heavy multi-barrelled weapon over one shoulder. She seemed improbably wide and, I soon found out, was very strong.
‘Who cares?’ replied a voice I recognized at once. ‘She wants him and she’ll get him. We both know what happens next.’ Brack sounded very annoyed, and I thought about the interaction between him and Suzeal. I was sure they were lovers. Perhaps he didn’t like his lover sending him into such danger? No, that wasn’t it, there was something else here.
The woman reached down and, without taking her weapon off her shoulder, scooped me up with the other hand and held me under her arm. Something about that position took the pressure off my back and gave relief, but the pain surged back when she tossed me into the back of the grav-raft Brack was driving. She climbed in beside me and all I had was a view of her profile and the sky above. The raft took off and a steady breeze marked its progress. I felt no acceleration, since it operated on grav. Time passed and another of those pre-programmed body maintenance actions kicked in. I hacked, bringing up detritus, and swallowed. The woman looked down at me and I blinked.
