“Right,” Dathory said. “There have been fights in the past. But has the Fleet ever lifted whole planetary settlements up into their Worldships and flown away before?”
“There’s another possibility,” Janya spoke up. Everyone looked at her. “The infrastructure they’re taking could be part of a long-term survival and powering mechanism,” she looked around. None of the humans seemed to get what she was driving at.
“Fleet containment,” Decay said, “in perpetuity. An attempt to seal up their Worldships and vanish. Maybe even to cross the intergalactic gulf, either at battery-powered relative speed or at high subluminal registers.”
“Not sure which is crazier,” Sally said after a long pause. “A trans-galactic flight at subluminal, or a battery-powered relative flight.”
“We sent Rakmanmorion on a battery-powered relative flight,” Janus remarked.
“A month-and-a-half-long flight,” Sally said, “of a single-pilot craft, and it took a battery the size of-”
“I’m just saying it’s a possibility,” Janya said coolly. “Worldships are demonstrably large enough to contain huge facilities, if they pare down and forget about transpersion because it doesn’t work out there.”
“A depressing possibility,” Dathory grunted.
“The impact of a possibility on the mood of the person hearing about it doesn’t actually affect its probability,” Janya replied.
“Alright,” Z-Lin said, clearly stifling a smile, “there doesn’t seem to be much more to add here. We all have our missions, and no doubt we’ll find out what the Fleet is up to when they want us to,” she rose, and Captain Dathory did the same, although she was still peering at Janya as if trying to figure out whether or not she’d just been insulted. “Our next leg takes us across Chalcedony space to the far border,” she said, shaking the Captain’s hand, “to Fat Tuesday. No stops, naturally. We were hoping to deal with permissions and course-adjustments at New Chalcedon.”
“I can process those for you,” Dathory said. “Least we can do.”
“The Susannim also requested that you remember them next time you have surplus goods that you might want to bounce their way,” Decay added.
Dathory gave another short laugh. “Surplus,” she said. “Sounds nice. But I can do them one better, and fire a bunch of empties at them along with an official chitty empowering them to double their shipments and shift their trajectories. It basically means a whole new expanded business channel for them. Give me the family pod ident and I’ll set it up. With the compliments of Astro Tramp 400,” she concluded with a chortle. Their ship’s nickname had tickled her from the start.
After five weeks crossing Chalcedony territory from New Chalcedon, they arrived in the vicinity of Big Thundering Bjørn. Big Thundering Bjørn was a rather innocuous gas giant, and Fat Tuesday was the huge semi-sentient mining machine that ate the planet’s multitude of moons. It ate one approximately every thirty-five years, and the moon it was eating right now was named Gnaxos.
Fat Tuesday was about a hundred miles across, small only in comparison to the Fleet Worldships, and possessed of a synth that didn’t really have much to do with the day-to-day running of the machine. Its job was mostly administration, for the two million permanent residents of Tuesday; logistics, for the automated craft and sorting and deliveries of raw materials; and security, for the mining device itself. It didn’t, to their knowledge and according to what Bruce told them, sync with other synths.
Most of Big Thundering Bjørn’s moons were between three and five times Tuesday’s size, but Fat Tuesday was capable of eating honest-to-goodness planetoids up to a thousand miles in diameter – the previous moon, Ubu, had been one such. It didn’t have a noticeable effect on the thirty-five year turnover.
Tuesday used a devastating piece of integrated equipment called a Godfire Maw, one of the few non-weapon uses to which the mini-whorl technology had ever been put. Although one could very well argue, Decay reflected, that a mobile mining habitat capable of eating a modest-sized planet was a weapon, albeit one aimed safely away from the metaphorical face of civilisation.
Now, Fat Tuesday just floated in synchronous orbit with Gnaxos, its vast hull plates reversed open like the petals of a giant battered iron rose, and sucked the planet’s material into itself in a searing thirty-five-year sandstorm. Fleets of collectors and networks of sifters gathered between the moon and its consumer, and plucked away anything and everything of any value, particularly the dense exotics near the moon’s core.
The problem was, Fat Tuesday was technically unstoppable. Oh, the hab would eventually self-consume once Big Thundering Bjørn ran out of moons, but this would leave an agglomeration of whorls behind that would pose a significant environmental hazard.
But it wasn’t a huge problem. There were eleven thousand, six hundred and eighty-four known moons left in orbit around Big Thundering Bjørn. Or, more accurately, eleven thousand, six hundred and eighty-three-point-six, including Gnaxos. Fat Tuesday had consumed slightly under three-and-a-half moons in the one hundred and nineteen years since its embarrassing inauguration day, when its switching-off problem became apparent. So this was a problem for the mining consortium to worry about in approximately four hundred thousand years’ time.
In all this time, Mother’s Rebellion in the Tramp’s oxygen farm continued to grow, continued to not fight one another, and continued eating huge quantities of the weird ammoniac slush that aki’Drednanth ate when they couldn’t get the weird ammoniac lichen from the Great Ice. By the time they were leaving Fat Tuesday, the members of Mother’s Rebellion stood about chest-high to Sally and Janya and were starting to grow the aki’Drednanth equivalent of milk teeth. Cratch drolly referred to them as ‘tusk-cicles’.
There were no further incidents and no real communication events between the crew and the little pack of aki’Drednanth. As far as Decay had been told, there weren’t even any dreams haunting the subconsciouses of the humans as they slept. As for the issue of Dunnkirk and his death at the hands of an eejit, this promised to remain as unresolved and as tense as it was preposterous.
The undercurrents of suspicion and resentment were subsumed a little by the continuing frustration over not finding a suitable resting-place for their Bonshoon friend. Captain Dathory had offered to let them drop him into New Chalcedon’s atmosphere, or even land and slip him into a lava vent, but Waffa had declared this was no good and most of the crew had tended to agree. And the Tuesdays had offered to hurl him into the maw, but this got much the same reaction from the Trampsters. In the end, with nothing of particular note happening around Big Thundering Bjørn and no damage to Fat Tuesday at either alien or Fleet hands, they flew on with Dunnkirk in stasis.
It didn’t escape Decay’s attention, nor Janya’s, that a device like Fat Tuesday ought to have been the sort of thing a gearing-for-war Fleet grabbed for the effort. That it was unmolested so far didn’t mean that it wouldn’t be attacked in the future, and local opinion had been divided as to whether they would resist or go along with it. The Tuesdays were proud of their ravenous, unstoppable machine, and the idea of it eating the Cancer in the Core appealed to many of them. It was entirely possible, Decay theorised, that Fat Tuesday was just too volatile to bother relocating to a staging area.
Zeegon had another theory, specifically that the Fleet would arrange for the final showdown to happen around Big Thundering Bjørn, and then sweep the wreckage into Fat Tuesday. It was a charming thought.
Attitudes and emotions on board were also clouded a bit by increasing anxiety as the end of their journey inevitably approached. Or what Decay had considerable difficulty not thinking of as the end of their journey. It was two weeks to Gola, and their next extended stretch in soft-space would take them to the Bunzolabe.
They enjoyed a grim little year’s turn celebration one week into their jag to Gola. They could have stayed on Fat Tuesday for the event – Chalcedony had its own adapted calendar but kept to the Six Species standard as a matter
of common sense, as well as taking any excuse for a party – but year’s turn on Fat Tuesday happened to involve ritual blood-letting ceremonies, so they unanimously voted to hold their own miniature party. They were accustomed to that sort of thing anyway.
Gola, when they arrived, was also quiet. A planet rather similar to Margan’s Leap except, as Zeegon put it, with less clams and slavery, it was pleasant and not actually given over to mining. It had a small consortium, predictably enough named the Gola Corporation, that mined the system’s asteroid belt but Gola’s main industry was the refineries and industrial fabricators on the largest equatorial continent, and the so-called semi-shipyards in orbit. The ‘ships’ they built there, from the raw materials on the surface, were basically hull skeletons. These then had relative drives attached and were flown to a deeper system for the full construction and completion. Gola, therefore, had nothing for the Tramp except for a few pleasant days of shore leave and a moderately bristly attitude towards perceived AstroCorps goons.
After that, though, it was a seven-week hike to the boundary of the Bunzolabe, and it all became very real, and planning began in earnest.
‘Forewarned is forearmed’ became Sally’s little personal motto for the preparations, or at least it was for a short time until Contro pointed out that of all of them, only Decay had four arms so what were the rest of them to do, and maybe that meant they should all listen to Decay for warnings, and after that it got a bit silly and Sally’s new motto became ‘let’s leave Contro with Bitterpill forever’.
Contro’s involvement in the preparations was quite necessary, however, considering his knowledge of the transpersion reactor. It had occurred to Decay that one of Contro’s little tricks might give them an edge, and he raised it in one of their informal prep sessions.
“Remember back when we were in the Wormwood system,” he said, “and we had that little fracas with the black hole cultists?”
“Little fracas,” Waffa repeated.
“I do remember!” Contro laughed. “They had funny eyes, didn’t they?”
“If you mean the ones who had replaced their eyes with stones,” Decay said mildly, “yes, they were hilarious. Anyway, remember you did something to the engines and it made them – the cultists, I mean – completely lose us? You said it was like we’d just turned invisible. It saved our bacon.”
“It’s probably the sort of thing that might piss Bunzo off,” Zeegon warned.
“I’m not talking about using it to sneak in,” Decay said, “but if he decides not to let us leave – if he changes his mind, like he seemed to be about to last time – it might be a useful trick for slipping past his hunter-comm satellites, or keeping them from locking onto the ship and getting into the computer.”
“Something for the back pocket,” Z-Lin agreed, “even if we don’t end up needing it. Well, Contro? Can you do it? The hiding thing,” she added with the speed of long experience, “not anything to do with a back pocket. Or bacon, before you ask.”
“Righto!” Contro laughed. “I was wondering! But yes, I’ve been studying the logs and doing some calculations and whatnot, and I remember how it worked now. Just give me the coordinates and I’ll get it set up!”
“The coordinates of what?” Decay asked.
“Well, the black hole, of course!” Contro laughed. “Can’t very well dislocate our light and EM signature without a black hole, honestly!”
Z-Lin sighed.
In this manner, they prepared for their historical return to the Bunzolabe.
DECAY (THEN)
It was a long, gruelling path back to the lander, watching in every direction for the swift, frightening shapes of the robots that were effortlessly outpacing and surrounding them. Decay was beginning to tire when they crossed the final battered hull-ridge and saw the lander below, and the two humans were reeling. It was close to midday by that point, and Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World was warm and sunny. Lovely for sitting around or enjoying a day at the amusement park, no doubt. For trekking across a hilly expanse of derelict starships engaged in a hit-and-fade firefight with homicidal robots, it was murder.
Decay had been half-expecting the lander to be gone, and he could tell that Z-Lin and Zeegon had been as well. But it was still there next to the Denbrough’s docking blister, and it appeared to be intact and – so far – free of robotic interlopers. Of course, there was no way to really be sure, short of dismantling the entire vehicle from the roof down.
“On your left,” he said, and Z-Lin lurched and raised the Boddington Mule in both hands. Despite her delicate-looking frame and her clear exhaustion, the Commander unerringly took the head off the charging robot with a single shot. They seemed to be autonomous only within limits dictated by their remote command relays and their downloaded action scripts, both of which were housed in their wide, flat white heads. A difficult shot, but the composite-mass rounds seemed to be making short work of the machines.
These were only mechanised serving staff, though. Indeed, the bot that Clue had just dispatched had been carrying a menu pad in one right hand, and a sonic cleaning utensil of some sort in its two left. It was only a matter of time before the more dangerous machines came out to play.
I should have made the furry little bonshers stay in the lander and sleep, he berated himself. Why am I the one who has to keep track of when the damn things last slept? Shouldn’t they be better at knowing that shit? How long have they been awake now anyway?
Bunzo didn’t seem to be making a particularly concerted effort to kill them. He could surely have done so almost effortlessly by firing something at them from orbit or activating any one of a thousand different mechanisms in the ships all around them, but instead he appeared to be happy harrying and chasing them, keeping them moving, keeping them scared. Occasionally he’d send one or a small group of robots in on a frighteningly-fast assault that so far hadn’t gotten close enough to do damage with their surreal assortment of ad-libbed hand-to-hand weapons. But he didn’t seem to be herding the trio in any particular direction. On a couple of occasions they’d been diverted away from their optimal route, adding half an hour or an hour to their ordeal each time, but it had felt incidental. Bunzo wasn’t trying to keep them away from the lander.
Why would he? Decay thought. This manual override thing has maybe a two percent chance of succeeding, and even that drops to damn near zero if Bunzo decides he really wants to keep us here.
Maybe killing intruders was entirely NightMary’s domain, and Bunzo was restricted to his current actions by some weird neurotic break. Sooner or later, though, ‘moving and scared’ was going to do the job anyway, if they didn’t get back to the ship and out of this awful place. Humans were so frail.
Bunzo did seem greatly excited and impressed by the preparation they’d put into their landing, although in Decay’s opinion it had all been a bit haphazard. The ancient digital God of the Bunzolabe had been chortling and commentating happily with each robot they blew away throughout the running battle.
“Old school chem explosive guns, brilliant!” he’d exclaimed through the comm system from the start. “Impossible to get into, impossible to control! They’re like little organisms … no, excuse me, not so little,” he’d added with a chuckle as Decay swung the shredder rifle and reduced the three first loping inbound robots to scrap from the lower shoulders up. “But ferocious. Watch out, here come two more!”
They descended the ridge to the roof of the cruiser where they’d landed, and stumbled across to the absurdly welcoming shape of the lander. A couple of robots followed them down, angling effortlessly across the sloping hull of the ship they were clumsily descending. Zeegon swung, fired three times before destroying the first robot’s head, swore, fired twice again before the second fell no more than twenty feet from them. “Crap, sorry,” he muttered.
“You got them,” Decay shrugged. They got to the lander, he hauled the door open and peered into the dark recesses of the cargo hold.
“Decay, get to wor
k on that manual lift-off,” Z-Lin said, stopping to lean wearily on one of the lander’s struts. Decay nodded. Zeegon half-crouched, half-knelt nearby, gun raised, watching for possible attacks. For now, they were alone under the cheerful afternoon sun. Clue straightened and clapped Zeegon on the back. “Bring the big cutter, and the mag grapples if you can manage them,” she said, and pointed. “Over to the top of the valley. I’ll bring the cable. We’re going to have to cover each other and the lander for this next bit.”
“What are we doing?” Zeegon said, hauling himself to his feet as Decay headed cautiously into the lander. He was aware that the vehicle itself could become a lethal trap at any point, but for the moment it was ambulatory machines he was looking and listening for. They’d been gone half the night and half the day, and anything could have strolled aboard.
“We’re going to take that mini-whorl gun off the back of the Denbrough,” Z-Lin replied firmly. Decay paused in the lander doorway, surprised.
Zeegon was surprised too, as far as Decay could tell. “What happened to our survival profile, and ‘let’s not go spoiling it all by doing anything stupid’?” he asked, although on reflection Decay thought it sounded more like curiosity than concern. Bunzo’s grotesque little display in the spaceport had affected the normally-cheerful helmsman deeply, and his recklessness had no doubt suffered a spike as a result. This wasn’t something limited to humans, but it was something humans did well.
“I’m beginning to see that sticking to the rules won’t save us,” Clue answered. “So if it’s entirely out of our hands, we might as well take what we can. I’d try and dig out a proper fabricator if I thought it was in one piece down there. At least the gun is out in the open and the port doesn’t look too collapsed,” she turned to look up at Decay. “Just get us off the surface before nightfall,” she advised. “We’ll take our chances with The Bun.”
Bonshoon: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man Page 29
