The Line of Polity

by Neal Asher

  Eldene giggled, then giggled again – then found she could not stop laughing. She sat down with her back against the stone and tried to get herself under control. Looking up at Fethan’s puzzled expression, she completely lost it and was laughing so much she had tears running down her face. When finally she got a grip on herself – mostly because her laughter was now hurting the injury her scole had left on her chest – she glanced up to see Fethan squatting on the ground before her.

  ‘You better now, girl?’ the old man asked.

  Eldene nodded and looked around as night sucked the last dregs of light out of the twilight. Shadow surrounded her, and a touch of a breeze was eliciting faint music from the grasses.

  ‘I never thanked you for saving me,’ she said.

  ‘It’s what I do,’ Fethan replied, standing and unhooking the pack to drop it beside her. ‘You get some rest now, and I’ll watch over you.’

  Eldene removed from the pack the tarpaulin she had taken from the tool shed they had stayed in the night before, and wrapped herself in it. Again, sleep seemed to elude her, but then crept up behind her with a brick.

  In the Security Area, Cardaff sent two diagnostic programs into the system. One came back with nothing, and the other with a corrupted locking code from one of the outer sections: SA34. Had the corrupted code been in SA1, Cardaff would have been worried, as that was where they held the thirty prisoners. He glanced at the relevant screen and saw that the men and women there, in their ship-issue overalls and security collars, were still in conference. Occam assured him that these people could not link with their biotech augs outside SA1 – the walls were so heavily shielded and the augs had no underspace facility.

  ‘Anything on what they’re discussing?’ he asked Shenan.

  The Golem Twenty-seven turned from her console and screen, exposing needle fangs in a smile, and not for the first time he wondered why she had chosen the outer appearance of an ophidapt.

  ‘Their conferencing link is deeply coded and the technology, as we know, alien. Occam estimates it will take two days to crack the codes. Meanwhile we are recording everything,’ she explained.

  ‘Best guess?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably discussing how they might escape, whether or not they will be sentenced to mind-wipe, and how best to retain whatever secrets they have. No doubt fanatics amongst them are putting forward the idea of mass suicide.’

  ‘Completely crazy,’ muttered Cardaff.

  ‘Did you trace that glitch?’ Shenan asked.

  ‘Yeah, corrupted code out at 34 . . . shit! I’ve got another one in SA20.’ Cardaff punched up views of the relevant section and got nothing but empty corridor, an open security door, and an empty confinement section beyond. ‘What the fuck is going on here?’

  Shenan moved over and stood at his shoulder. Reaching down past him, she punched up a floor plan of the relevant sections and pointed. ‘The two doors that opened are in a line to the centre here, but SA26 is between. Have you had anything from the security door there?’

  Cardaff brought up a view of that door, and checked the readouts before him. ‘No, nothing. No problem at all,’ he said.

  Shenan tapped a sharp fingernail against the screen. ‘Except,’ she said, ‘that your readout indicates the door as closed and it quite evidently is not.’

  ‘Great.’ Cardaff hit the panic button and the response, rather than the flashing of lights and the squawking of klaxons he had hoped for, was that the console and screens before him went offline. He turned and stared at Shenan.

  ‘I can’t transmit out of here,’ said the Golem. She glanced across to her console, and almost as if in response to this, it too went offline.

  Cardaff stood, marched across the room and palmed the touch-plate of the weapons locker. This at least did work and the door sprang open to reveal riot stun-guns, two pulse-rifles, and an assortment of hand weapons. He pulled out one pulse-rifle and tossed it towards Shenan before selecting the same for himself.

  ‘Looks like we got problems,’ he commented.

  ‘Yes,’ said Shenan, turning as the door to the room slid open onto the darkened corridor beyond.

  Cardaff dropped down behind his console and sighted his rifle on the door. Shenan merely moved back, with her weapon held loosely. It was all right for her, thought Cardaff: Golem Twenty-sevens did not have much to fear in this world. There was a flicker, some sort of distortion in the air, then utter stillness, and Cardaff could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He had seen nothing come through that door, but this particular nothing certainly had presence.

  ‘Chameleon—’ Shenan managed, before something picked her up and slammed her into a wall of screens. She dropped out of their ruin with clothing ripped and syntheskin torn from her cheek. She fanned fire before herself, and her shots must have hit home for there came a bubbling snarl from the air and something searing hot gripped her head and yanked her from the ground.

  Cardaff had never heard a Golem scream, and never seen one taken out so quickly. Shenan was discarded and thumped to the floor like a sack of tools – her head a blackened and misshapen thing. Cardaff opened up, fanning his own fire in the area where . . . it had been. There were a few hits, clearly, and again that snarling, then all that was happening was that he was trashing the systems mounted in the wall beyond. Half a second after he ceased firing, something feverishly warm pressed against the side of his head, and that warmth spread into his head, and grew hooks.

  Cardaff reached up and slapped his hand against another hand – febrile and slippery to the touch. Suddenly his head felt full of hot wires and he screamed, turning as he did so. Now he saw who was standing behind him.

  ‘Interesting,’ grated Skellor, tilting his own head as best he could.

  Cardaff could feel himself going, draining away through that hot touch. The sight faded from his right eye, then his hearing went. He groped for Skellor’s arm with his other hand, tried to bring his pulse-rifle to bear. Skellor shook his hand as if to dislodge an irritating insect. For Cardaff . . . nothing.

  ‘Well, it didn’t get away unscathed,’ said Gant.

  They all looked at the view projected on the screen in the bridge pod. The Dragon sphere hung, apparently lifeless, in space – a damaged moon of glittering jade and charcoal. A large segment of it had been charred, and huge black bones protruded into the void like the ruins of some vast cathedral. Around it orbited shed scales and other fragments of its body that had broken away, and this debris was now settling into an orbiting ring. There were no other signs of movement.

  ‘The damaged area is highly radioactive,’ said Tomalon.

  Cormac glanced at him then around at the others seated in the arc of command chairs. The presence of such chairs told him how old the Occam Razor was, since obviously it had been built when such ships required pilots, navigators, gunners and the like, and in subsequent refittings the chairs had not been removed. To malon’s presence told him that the Occam Razor’s AI was also old, for the newer battleship AIs did not require human captains to implement or make judgements on their decisions. It was not that AIs were now more trustworthy; it was simply because humans no longer controlled the Human Polity.

  ‘Only the damaged area is radioactive,’ said Mika.

  Tomalon did not deem this as a question, so Cormac asked of him, ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes, it would appear to be the case. And that is not normal.’

  Cormac studied Tomalon. While all of them were looking at the screen, the Captain turned his head aside, his eyes unseeing opaque, and his mind linked to the ship’s sensors.

  Mika said, ‘This means it is either dead or has shut down its circulatory system to those areas. Any living creature receiving a radioactive wound soon ends up with the rest of its body contaminated as well.’

  ‘It has a circulatory system?’ asked Cormac.

  ‘Yes – though what circulates is not blood as we recognize it. Much more complex. Dracomen have the ability to consci
ously alter what their circulatory system carries, so we can presume Dragon has the same ability. I would very much like a sample of that substance now.’

  I bet you would.

  Cormac turned his attention to the dracoman who had come up with Mika from Medical. Scar stood behind the chairs – he found human seating arrangements difficult – his attention fixed firmly on the screen. Cormac wondered just what was going through his head. Scar possessed curiosity, and the need to survive, but few recognizably human motivations beyond that, and that kilometre-wide sphere of living matter out there was the twin of the one that had created him.

  ‘If your hand was exposed to that level of radioactivity, what would you do?’ Cormac asked him. Mika turned and inspected the dracoman with intense curiosity. Scar’s gaze slid to Cormac.

  ‘What level?’ the dracoman asked.

  Cormac nodded to the screen where Tomalon had obligingly supplied the figures.

  ‘Cut it off. Grow another,’ said Scar after inspecting those figures.

  Mika’s eyes widened in shock. Cormac hoped she had now learnt just how informative direct questioning could be.

  ‘And if the contamination affected more vital organs?’ he asked.

  ‘Isolate organs. Drop to minimal function. Grow more.’

  ‘Do you think this is what this Dragon sphere is doing?’

  By now, most of those on the bridge were staring at Scar. Even the Captain had come back from the ship’s sensors and was watching. Aiden and Cento had turned as one to watch and listen. Gant, moodily slumped in his chair, was the only one with his attention still on the screen. He seemed to be trying to outstare Dragon. Scar was a long time in replying.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said finally.

  ‘What alternatives are there?’

  ‘Dying,’ said Scar.

  They all turned back to look at the screen, except for Mika, who was fiddling with some instruments in the top pocket of her coverall and gazing speculatively at Scar. No doubt the dracoman was in for another battery of tests, and it was lucky for Mika that he did not seem to mind.

  ‘What does deep scan of the undamaged areas reveal?’ asked Cormac.

  To malon’s eyes went opaque again and he spoke consideringly.

  ‘There are signs of life, but I cannot tell if they are normal or not.’

  ‘The temperature would be a good indicator,’ suggested Mika.

  ‘A range between twenty and thirty Celsius, nominally twenty-two a metre under the skin,’ said Tomalon.

  ‘I would say it is not dead, or has died only recently,’ said Mika, checking figures on her laptop. ‘It would take some time for it to cool, as it is well insulated. But if it had died shortly after its attack on the Masadan ship, its temperature would be well below twenty by now.’

  ‘Send an all-radio-band signal to it. See if we get a reaction,’ said Cormac.

  ‘Is that a good idea?’ asked Gant, still staring broodingly at the screen. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to stick a missile in it, then move off?’

  Cormac had already considered that, but there were things to learn, and even a fully capable Dragon sphere would not have been much of a problem to the Occam Razor.

  ‘Things to learn,’ he therefore said simply.

  ‘Rise in temperature in a lobular structure at its centre,’ said Tomalon.

  ‘The brain,’ explained Mika.

  ‘I’ll speak to it,’ said Cormac. ‘Send my voice.’ Tomalon nodded to him and he continued, ‘Dragon, this is Ian Cormac. Please respond.’

  On the screen, there were signs of movement. Tomalon brought up another view, this one close to the edge of the damaged area: pseudopodia were breaking from a scaled plain of flesh, blue eyes directed towards the Occam Razor.

  ‘Cormac,’ said Dragon – and that was all it said for some time.

  ‘Dragon?’

  ‘I . . . listen . . . you will kill me now?’

  ‘Not unless that’s what you want.’

  ‘Vengeance!’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘The engines . . .’

  ‘What about the engines?’

  ‘They turned them on.’

  ‘This is how you were damaged?’

  Silence.

  Cormac asked, ‘Is there any way we can help you?’

  Silence.

  ‘Dragon, why did you attack the Masadan ship?’

  ‘Vengeance!’

  ‘Please explain.’

  ‘You will help me?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘They used it on the station.’

  ‘Station Miranda?’

  Silence.

  ‘Are you talking about the mycelium?’

  ‘They used it on the station.’

  ‘Did you provide them with it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cormac looked around at the others in surprise. He had not expected so direct an answer. Dragon was the antithesis of Mika: whereas she disliked asking questions, Dragon disliked answering them.

  ‘Why did you provide them with it?’

  Silence.

  ‘How did they tell you they were going to use it?’

  ‘Prevent runcibles on Masada.’

  ‘So you attacked their ship because they did not use the mycelium for its intended purpose? Is this what you are saying?’

  ‘Blamed me! Vengeance!’

  Cormac glanced at Tomalon and made a cutting gesture with the edge of his hand.

  ‘Communications link cut,’ said the Captain.

  ‘What a load of bollocks,’ said Cormac. He looked to the others. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It could be true,’ said Mika. ‘This is not the same sphere as the one you destroyed at Samarkand. They are not all necessarily hostile. It could be this area is its hideaway and it considered the Masadans its allies.’

  Cormac made no comment on that. Mika had her reasons for looking as kindly on Dragon as he himself looked unkindly. He glanced to Cento and Aiden.

  Aiden said, ‘It would be interesting to know what Dragon was to receive in exchange for the mycelium – and if it received it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Cormac nodded approvingly: clear thinking is thinking necessarily separated from glands and all the other paraphernalia of humanity. He turned to Gant.

  ‘I agree, grudgingly,’ said Gant. ‘Its attack may have been because it received no pay-off. It’s doubtful Dragon would care that much about how the mycelium was used. We know human life means nothing to it.’

  Mika said, ‘You are still judging this Dragon sphere by the actions of the one at Samarkand. You have to remember that the four of them separated twenty-seven years before.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ asked Gant. They all looked at him and he shrugged. ‘The Masadans destroyed the station – all the evidence points that way – and this Dragon sphere had given them the mycelium. If they had used it on a runcible, there would still have been deaths. I say put a missile in it.’

  A definite point.

  ‘I think you are overreacting,’ said Mika, staring at Gant analytically. ‘You have not yet recovered from your death.’

  Low blow.

  Gant took that in good humour, but Cormac could see that he was formulating a slap-down retort. But much as he would have liked to see the results of such a confrontation, there was work to do. He cut in with, ‘The situation in the Masadan system is my main concern and anything I can learn about that situation, before jumping into it, I will be glad of. For this reason: no missile.’

  ‘And what will this “jumping in” involve?’ asked Gant, grinning.

  ‘You will all be briefed when I consider the time right.’ And when I know what the fuck I’m going to do.

  The bay was large and crowded with shuttles flown in from the huge conglomeration of ships outside, and with small ships like Lyric II. As he walked down the ramp from his ship, with a small flat briefcase held close to his side, Stanton watched another ship – this one a sharp metallic cone – easing in through the h
uge shimmer-shield that prevented air, people and ships from exploding out into space. Quickly catching up with him, Jarvellis linked her arm through his and gestured back towards Lyric II. ‘You know, friend Thorn will see we’ve taken on more cargo when we do wake him,’ she said.

  Stanton nodded as he observed the cone-ship swinging into its allocated docking area. ‘Tough,’ he said. ‘I just don’t want a Polity agent stepping on my heels – especially here.’ Gesturing to another ship nosing in through the shimmer-shield – this one a flattened ovoid of red metal with stubby wings terminating in ion engines the shape of caraway seeds – he continued, ‘Another one. I think about half the ships here I already saw at Huma, running arms for the Separatists.’

  ‘As did we too,’ Jarvellis pointed out.

  ‘As did we,’ Stanton allowed, ‘but we learnt better. I don’t reckon Dreyden quite realizes just how nasty the Polity can get.’

  Jarvellis squeezed his arm. ‘Of course he does, darling. He knows it’s just a matter of balance. He knows that somewhere there’s an AI comparing the likely loss of life here if there was a Polity takeover against lives lost as a consequence of the illegal arms trade. I would also guarantee that this place is scrutinized very closely – and at least here the Polity can do that quite easily. Out-Polity dealing is a little more difficult to keep track of.’

  ‘I’d have gone Out-Polity,’ said Stanton, ‘if I didn’t know for damned sure the Polity want me to have these particular items.’ Stanton remembered how the dealer on Huma, after selling him the bulk of Lyric II’s cargo, had then told him how the drug manufactories could only be obtained here – and that other special items could also be obtained here. Stanton also remembered the watchers in the streets of Port Lock on Huma – Golem every last one of them.

  Jarvellis said, ‘I think you credit them with far too much deviousness – when you have ships capable of wasting planets, you don’t have to be devious, just careful not to step on something you might have wanted to preserve . . . Ah, here come those charmers, Lons and Alvor.’