Gridlinked ac-1

by Neal Asher

  'Bloody Dragon,' said Chaline. By her expression when he asked her how things were proceeding, Cormac had already surmised she was not happy.

  'Was there damage?'

  'No damage to the runcible,' she said, glaring at him.

  Cormac cursed himself. Was he so inured to death? 'I was sorry to hear about… the—'

  'Her name was Jentia. She was a bloody good technician.'

  'I'm sorry'

  'What are you going to do? Do you actually care about anything? It killed her - as good as murdered her. It could have killed us all, and it may well have killed the inhabitants of Samarkand. That Darson was probably right.'

  'How would you suggest I go about arresting a half-million-ton alien psychopath?'

  Chaline turned away for a moment. When she turned back again, it was with a deprecatory smile twisting her lips. 'That was irrational of me,' she said.

  'Understandable, but you see the problems I am faced with? I… it's part of the reason I—'

  'Yes,' Chaline interrupted. 'You and me both. Let's leave it… Do you know what we saw Dragon doing before the probe was destroyed?'

  'Throwing a tantrum, blowing mountains apart,' he replied with some relief.

  'Yes, and everything else down there. It is geostationary over the blast-site. I had hoped to use some of the remaining installations there. Last we saw, it was destroying them.'

  'By accident?'

  'You could say that, I suppose. That shaft was hit as well: sealed under a pile of rubble and molten rock.' Was Dragon really just throwing a tantrum? Whatever it was, it ceased twenty hours later.

  'Weapons charged and ready to fire,' said the innocuous voice of Hubris. Those weapons were what Cam had hinted might be used to excavate the artefact: to blow away two kilometres of rock. They were now directed towards the curve of Samarkand from where Dragon approached, silhouetted against the dim sun like some fighting machine from Earth's bloody past. The weapons could be used now; at this distance it was possible to prevent impact and not be damaged by flashback.

  'Open a channel,' said Cormac. 'Let's see what it wants.'

  'Dragon accelerating at three Gs,' said Hubris.

  'We can't stand another collision yet,' said Chaline.

  'Dragon, if you come closer than one hundred kilometres we will fire on you. This is our perimeter,' said Cormac.

  'Dragon slowing… two hundred and seventy kilometres… two hundred and fifty…'

  'If it looks as if it's building up to let loose another charge, fire on it anyway,' Cormac told Hubris, leaving the channel open so Dragon would hear.

  'Where is it? Where is it?' boomed Dragon's voice over the speakers.

  'Where is what, Dragon?'

  'The criminal! Where is the criminal?'

  'We do not know about any criminal. We came here to investigate the destruction of the Samarkand runcible, and the consequent deaths often thousand people.'

  '—one hundred and fifty kilometres… one hundred and forty…'

  When Dragon spoke next, its voice had dropped to a conversational level. 'It killed your people. I tried to stop it, Ian Cormac, but it escaped and killed your people. The confinement vessel should have held it.'

  Cormac turned and looked at Cam. 'Confinement vessel?'

  Cam shrugged. 'What the hell would have needed adamantium to confine it? It must have been quite something, and to break out…'

  Dragon answered his question. 'The creature confined was a Maker. Its kind made me. It is a criminal… In your limited way, you would call it psychopath. It is an energy creature.'

  Cormac looked at Chaline. 'Psychopath,' he said.

  To Dragon he said, 'This Maker, it made the nanomy-celium that damaged the runcible buffers?'

  'It did. I picked up readings that indicated anomalies in this sector and, knowing the confinement vessel was here, I sent my creatures, by way of your runcibles, to investigate. They came here after the Maker escaped its vessel. It left the mycelium to destroy your runcible and prevent them following.'

  Cormac closed the channel momentarily. 'It ties with what you found out about that guardian,' he said to Mika. 'Same technology as Dragon uses. That's plausible if its kind made Dragon.'

  Mika said, 'Plausibility does not denote truth.'

  'It does not, and of course there are your thoughts on what Dragon might or might not make,' said Cormac, looking at her meaningfully.

  'That was… speculation,' Mika admitted, a pained expression on her face. 'A confinement vessel for some kind of energy creature would of necessity not be biofactured.'

  'By any method we know,' Cormac added.

  Mika's pained expression became one of annoyance. 'Quite,' she said, not meeting his eyes.

  Cormac nodded and opened the channel again. 'What do you mean by "energy creature" and where is it now?'

  'Its substance is mainly gaseous, and it is held together by lattices of force much like your shimmer-shields. I do not know where it is now. It has escaped via your runcibles.'

  Cormac closed the channel again. 'Do you notice a certain lack of resemblance to previous Dragon dialogue?' he said to them all.

  Mika said, 'It is answering your questions directly.'

  'Precisely. That makes me very suspicious.'

  He reopened the channel. 'Dragon, there is little we can do about this creature now. We came here to install a new runcible, and we wish to set about this work. Have you finished scorching Samarkand?' He could not keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  Dragon took a long time replying. 'The criminal must be found. The danger to your kind is great. It has taken ten thousand lives. Next time it might take millions.'

  'I repeat: there is little we can do about this now. We need the runcible installed so that communications can be opened with the grid. Then perhaps some way can be found to trace this Maker. Tell me, in what ways is it vulnerable?'

  'You have devices… Your proton weapons, contra-terrene bombs…'

  'These will kill it?'

  'If they do not kill it, they will hurt it sufficiently to make it run. It knows your runcibles now. It will run for them.'

  'But why should we want it to run?'

  'So it goes somewhere else.'

  This was more like the Dragon of old: it was playing semantic games with life-and-death issues. Cormac paused for a moment of thought before continuing.

  'Dragon, what did you intend to do had the Maker been here, and free from its containment vessel, when you arrived?'

  'Now you have a grasp of the basics, Ian Cormac.'

  'You would have killed it here, then. And you still can,' said Cormac. Then he added, 'We have a runcible to install now.'

  'I will not hinder you. But you may take onboard my creatures. They will assist you. They will obey every command. This I offer in reparation.'

  'Accept or die,' whispered Thorn.

  Cormac did not like this. He felt, as he always felt with Dragon, that a lot was not being told. He especially did not like an offer of reparation that was not open to negotiation. Should he refuse, and risk more of the wrath they had just witnessed? He let the thought slide, and in that moment decided there was one more question that needed an answer.

  'Dragon, where is… the rest of you?'

  The reply came slowly. 'We are at the four corners of your galaxy, Ian Cormac.'

  Cormac thought how apposite this was. He visualized star maps with little arrows pointing to the darkness at the edge of the galaxy, and there written the words: 'Here be dragons.'

  'An object has been launched from Dragon towards us.'

  'Scan it. If it looks suspicious, destroy it.'

  'It contains the two dracomen.'

  'OK, bring them in,' said Cormac. There seemed little else to do. He was not about to start becoming argumentative with Dragon just as he was beginning to get some answers, truth or not. He closed the channel with the alien, and turned to Chaline.

  'You can get on with it now,' he said.

&
nbsp; She smiled happily and left the room.

  'How much of that did you believe?' Cormac asked Mika, Thorn and Aiden.

  'I think it will let us set up the runcible, and I believe it is genuinely after whatever was in that artefact. Beyond that its motivations are debatable,' said Mika.

  'All of it is plausible,' said Aiden. 'One must question one's own motives for distrust.'

  Cormac answered him. 'Dragon has little regard for human life; we know this. Why would it be concerned about the possible deaths of a few million people?'

  Aiden looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, 'You are correct. It has motivated us because it requires our assistance. This makes a number of its claims invalid. I concur with Mika.'

  'Thorn?' asked Cormac.

  'Tapestry of fucking lies, old man,' said Thorn, smiling bleakly.

  Cormac was sitting on his bed, wondering about the possibility of sleep, when there came a knock at his door.

  'Come in,' he said.

  In came Jane, apparently no less a goddess because she wore baggy overalls.

  'Jane, please, sit down.'

  Jane swished into the single chair with an economy of movement and an elegance that was enviable. She had a grace that Aiden lacked. But Aiden had a brute power she lacked. Bodi of them could have squashed the likes of Thorn widiout needing their artificial sweat glands.

  'What do you require of me?' she asked, crossing her legs.

  Cormac rubbed at his forehead. 'Chaline told me that your speciality was secondary installation. You deal with AIs normally, which was why she could release you to me last time. You hadn't a lot to do then.'

  Jane smiled. 'Yes, that is correct.'

  'That submind we brought back - Hubris can't get dirough to it. It's completely internalized. Do you have any suggestions as to how we might get dirough?'

  'It would be kinder to shut it down. It was part of the Samarkand AI, and as such more of a fragment of a mind. The destruction of the rest of it has driven it insane.'

  'No, I can't allow it to be shut down.'

  'Might I ask why?'

  'Dragon.'

  'You think it contains vital information?'

  'All I know is that when Dragon was scorching the planet, it managed to vaporize every remaining installation of the Samarkand runcible. It was all well disguised, as it scorched the entire area. But I find it suspicious for all that.'

  'Destroying the evidence?'

  'Looks like it.'

  'What do you hope to find?'

  'Perhaps some chronology to these events. There might be a record of when the dracomen arrived, or when the Maker left…' He paused and stared off to one side. 'Shit! Blegg!'

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'He knew! The bastard knew!'

  Jane waited. Cormac went on.

  'When he sent me here, he told me the runcible AI managed to transmit some information. I bet it told him about the arrival of the dracomen. That's why he sent me.'

  'Does this mean the submind can now be shut down?'

  'No, definitely not. All we can be sure of is that he knew about the dracomen, and about the runcible going down. There might be more. What were the events surrounding these various arrivals and departures? I need to know. Will you try?'

  'If you so wish.'

  Jane glided to her feet and with a quick smile she left him. He lay back on his bed. He could see what Blegg had done: given him the minimum of information so he would have to get over the effects of gridlinking and approach the problem without preconceptions. Did Blegg believe Dragon had destroyed the runcible? Or did he have some inkling of Dragon's version of events? Whatever the answer, Cormac knew he could not expect Blegg to deliver it to him. He was on his own, as always. Half-truths and outright lies, the casual killing of thousands; Blegg knew what motivated him. Cormac was determined that he would not let go until he had found some answers and someone, or something, roasted for what had happened here. He did not like playing the fool.

  22

  The lines between sciences have, in the last few centuries, become wide grey wastelands where questions of science become questions of philosophy and sometimes of religion. If you can build a human, molecule for molecule like any other human, then is he a human? Perhaps it is a question that will not need to be answered. Though we have the capability, we do not have the inclination. We can build better than nature now. We can now design and build machines that make some of the creations of evolution seem comparatively clunky. Of course, you then have to think about whether or not this is merely a continuance of evolution, then you're back to philosophy again.

  From How It Is by Gordon

  Twenty years in the ES regulars had left Cheryl with a jaundiced view of human nature and an almost supernatural recognition of potential shitstorms. When she saw the huge figure standing amongst the rows of vines, she did not shout a greeting nor ask that figure its business. She immediately ducked down, accessed her aug, and sent out a recall to the pickers. A two-and-a-half- metre-tall metal-skin would not come to the crop house to enquire about the passionfruit business, nor to purchase juice for one of the wine makers. Cheryl kept utterly still and hoped that the android had not heard her, and she felt some relief when the first of the pickers came along the rows.

  These pickers were something to make the skin crawl on anyone who had not been born on Viridian. They were made so that they could scuttle through the vines without causing too much damage as they selected fruits of the required ripeness. Upon finding such a fruit, they did not actually pick it, but they would grip it in their mandibles and suck it dry; and once their sacklike bodies were full, they would go to empty themselves at one of the juicing stations. The AI that had designed them had taken their template from an Earth lifeform perfectly suited to this task. That lifeform was good at both scuttling and sucking things dry. Each picker, as a result, was a black plastic spider with a body the size of a football.

  The android flicked its head from side to side as the spiders moved past it. Cheryl set a loop in their programs so they would keep searching the rows in that same area, then very carefully backed away. Now, with any luck, the android would not hear her: the scuttling in the growths might cover the sounds of her breathing and her heartbeat. When she had put four rows between herself and potential trouble, she crouched down by the small silo of a juicing station and put a call, through her aug, to the authorities in the capital. She was unsurprised to find her signal blocked. Just as she was unsurprised to see a man, another two rows across, walking towards the crop house. This man was dressed in plain businesswear, had black hair, and a black sun-band across his eyes. The giveaway was the Drescon assault rifle he had hanging from a shoulder strap.

  Cheryl very carefully moved in the opposite direction from him. His attention was firmly fixed on the crop house and he was speaking into a comunit. So, there were others. Cheryl was very glad of the habit of dress she had acquired during those twenty years, a habit reinforced by the tendency of some Viridian inhabitants to sneak in and empty juicing stations in order to make a shilling or two with the wine makers. Her ES battle fatigues were chameleon cloth. Had they not been she felt sure she would be dead by now.

  Five small thuds came in quick succession from her right. Not from the man she had already spotted. She froze and felt a sudden surge of fear. Until the moment she heard the horrible mosquito whining that followed immediately upon the shots, this had almost been like a training exercise. Seeker bullets! Whoever these people were, they were using seeker bullets. The sound of smashing glass leavened her fear. The shots had been fired at the crop house. Had she been inside, the bullets would have found her by now, homing in on her body heat to detonate at her skin in a blast of micro-shrapnel. A couple of small explosions then came from the house. The bullets had probably decided on hitting the most likely heat sources. That meant the central heating in the house would be gone.

  Cheryl reached round to the back of her head and undid the neck pocket o
f her fatigues. She pulled the hood over and fixed the mask across. Now she could take the risk of standing and having a look. Three men walked out from between the vines and into the yard of the crop house. They were talking and gesturing. The android just stood there with a briefcase clutched in its brass hand. It gave her the creeps. She auged up a visual intensifier program, and got XI0. Now she could study these intruders more closely. Two of the men looked the typical suited thugs that some organizations recruited. The third man, in his mesh shirt and baggy fatigue trousers, seemed to be in charge. There also seemed to be something wrong with him. She downloaded what she was seeing as a visual file, then slowly dropped back down. The face of the man she enclosed in a frame, and had the aug tidy up, was a mess. He had some sort of optical link that did not seem to have taken so well, and his face was haggard and scabby. She stood again to see what they would do next, and now set her aug to record everything she was seeing and hearing.

  One of the suits crossed the yard to the transporter: an AGC that was simply an open-backed truck with a framework able to carry juicing stations. The other suit walked around to the back of the house, and soon returned driving Cheryl's personal AGC. So that was what this was all about: they just wanted transport. Good. Once they secured it and went on their way, whatever blocker they had would go with them. She watched while the android tore the framework from the back of the transporter and tossed it aside before taking its place there. Foamed steel frame: it had to be strong to take the weight of the juicing stations. Cheryl swallowed dryly. She had definitely made the right move. The other suit got into her AGC - she would have liked to have known how they broke the security lock - and the leader sat at the controls of the transporter. Soon they were up in the sky and roaring overhead, all turbines opened at full. Cheryl waited until they were out of sight before heading back into the crop house. She had almost reached the door when a hand caught her shoulder.

  Cheryl reacted. She caught the hand, pulled on it, and drove her elbow back as hard as she could. No pulling punches; this was life or death. Her blow elicited a grunt. The next thing she knew there was a grip on the back of her fatigues, on her arm, and she was airborne. She hit the ground flat on her back, spun her legs to give her momentum, and then nipped up into a fighting crouch. The man standing before her was heavily built, had cropped ginger hair, and seemed to have been in the wars. As she pulled her pathetic chainglass pruning knife, just one thought went through her mind. Fuck: boosted.