Decay nodded, and went aboard.
“Do you think I’m going to let you just switch this thing to manual,” Bunzo said cheerfully from the lander’s main comm station, “and fly out of here?”
“I don’t know, Bunzo,” Decay said, pulling open the drive control panel. “Are you?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can stay here until nightfall and explain yourselves to Mary. You have no idea what’s waiting to crawl up out of the ships below your feet. Just under this Molran cruiser you’re perched on, there’s a Fergunakil leviathan. Did you know that? The sharks inside are all dead, but their machinery is still going. Their implants are still going. Why, the sight of their carcasses swimming through the swampy water, slowly disintegrating … it’s enough to give me the heebie jeebies.”
Bunzo continued in this vein while Decay worked to disconnect the lander’s computer and rig it for a dramatically unsafe manual burn. He thought Sally’s dampening device up on the Tramp might help them, since part of it was supposed to interfere with the connection-establishment between modular and lander … but it really was impossible to be sure. Their landing had gone smoothly, because the guiding intelligence of the Bunzolabe had wanted it to, for reasons of his own.
As for Bunzo’s menacing prattle, well. Decay had to conclude that it was disappointingly amateurish. The crew of the Tramp were at something of an advantage, admittedly, due to the tireless efforts of that neversouled son of a whore up in their brig … but even so, the Blaran had expected more effective psychological warfare all-round, from an entity as old as Horatio Bunzo. Maybe this facet of him really wasn’t accustomed to dishing it.
Outside, he could hear the sound of Z-Lin and Zeegon working the cutting equipment, with occasional breaks to fire their pistols. He only hoped their modest elevation was allowing them to get a clear line of sight, and that there were no robots massing behind the lander. Whether or not they were massing under the lander … well, that wasn’t something he could help.
When they did escape, it was as sudden as it was unexpected. It had been a few more hours, and the sound of the cutter outside had given away to the fainter sounds of cable and motor anchoring preparations. Decay had run a few tests on the engines and they seemed to be ready to lift off, although the surges from the test-firings were muted and he suspected that Bunzo was not going to let the electrochemical jets reach full aperture. There was a loud squeal of feedback from the comm, and Bunzo’s sporadic pronouncements ceased. Decay frowned, wondering if it was something to do with the components he had been attempting to rig for non-computer-guided automation, but continued with the work since there didn’t appear to be any immediate consequences.
A few minutes later, Z-Lin climbed up into the passenger compartment and stuck her head through into the cockpit section. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Decay said. “I’m almost set here.”
“Yeah, Zeegon’s just hooking up the cables, if we get airborne we should be able to winch the whole thing up and clamp it with the doors. We’ll need to suit up to get to the ship, though, because this sucker’s big. We’re not going to be able to close the doors.”
“The engines should be able to handle it,” Decay said, “at least for orbital insertion. After that it’s just a matter of getting it offloaded into whatever hole got left behind by our original gun.”
“Yeah,” Clue frowned. “All the robots just stopped.”
“I was going to ask.”
“There are a few up on the ridge, but they sort of slumped and now they’re just standing there. And Bunzo stopped talking to us.”
“Same in here,” Decay nodded. “I thought it might have just been disconnecting some of the computer controls, but that wouldn’t do anything to our pads, or the robots themselves.”
“It’s probably some new game,” Z-Lin said, “but I’m not about to question it. Let’s get off the ground before he decides what to do next.”
“Copy that,” Decay said fervently, then glanced back at the Commander. “Have you wondered why the Denbrough was equipped with mini-whorls in the first place?” he asked. “They’re not exactly standard issue, especially for a Rep and Rec modular, which is what she’s meant to be – according to our orders. It’s not entirely unheard-of, considering some of the demolition work they need to do … but still an oddity.”
“It crossed my mind,” Clue replied, “but then I concluded that it’s probably connected to why she ended up down here on the planet with her crew dismembered. So I let it cross my mind and keep on flying.”
“Fair.”
Unsure of how much of the modular had been damaged by the explosion, they ended up taking not just the great barrel-and-cylinder of the mini-whorl gun mechanism, but a lot of the immediately-surrounding chamber and decking. They did this by simply cutting through as much of the reinforced sections as they could get to, and then just dragging the whole thing out by the roots as they took off. The lander struggled bravely on its solar-and-electrochem jets, and they managed to winch the massive, debris-dangling piece of ordnance into the air. And there was still no sign of complaint or hostile action from Bunzo.
The three of them suited up and their manual ascent began. Decay and Zeegon shared the steering and compensation work in a desperately ad-libbed flight plan, and Decay could safely say it was the most difficult manoeuvre either of them had ever attempted.
“Gnn,” Zeegon snarled through gritted teeth, as though he was lifting the huge blunt barrel with his own arms. The lander wobbled, listed, righted itself, and clawed for the upper atmosphere. The comm system gave a crackle. “Here we go,” he growled, “is Bunzo back?”
“…do you copy?” the crackling gave way to a burst of clear sound for a moment, before fragmenting again. “This is … lost contact but … fixed now, unless the whole thing’s about to … into space.”
“Waffa, this is Decay, we copy,” Decay tapped at the comms with his lower left hand, continuing to correct and steer with his other three. “Z-Lin, Zeegon, Decay on board. Janus missing. We’re on manual ascent, we could use a blind approach ping, I can talk you through it.”
“Copy that. We had … but she’s doing okay, there was a threat about Janus so apparently NightMary followed through on … did you … any other clown action down there right now?”
“Some,” Decay said cautiously, glancing at Zeegon. “He went quiet a little while ago and all the robots just shut down.”
“NightMary too,” Waffa said, “weird. She … and then as … just shut up and all the janitorials…”
The lander lurched, and Zeegon swore. “We’re on our way up, Waffa, we’re carrying a new gun for the ship, and holy crap but it weighs a fucking ton.”
“Didn’t quite … that but I think I get the idea,” Waffa replied. “Looks like your landing position … terminator in a few minutes, so we … intersecting. Give us your position.”
“We’re sitting on our arses in the lander, in spacesuits,” Decay said grimly, taking a second hand from the controls and applying it to the comm settings as they ascended and the turbulence faded, the roar of wind and the rush of escaping atmosphere giving way to the silence of vacuum, “and unless we can use the comm to triangulate, that’s the only position we’re going to be able to send you. Everything is dead.”
“Damn it. Right … right.”
Decay would never be sure if it was pure luck with a sprinkling of skill, or the unobtrusive interference of Bunzo with a sprinkling of luck, but they intercepted the Tramp as she swept back across the planet’s night side. Waffa was actually out on the hull with a couple of dozen eejits, recognisable from his non-Corps suit amidst the fabricants. The eejits were blundering around and occasionally tumbling off into space before bouncing back on their emergency cords, like a collection of massive red mittens. The hull repair seemed to be going well, the space left behind by Mater nothing but a neat dark square behind the gun port. From the outside, at least, it looked good.
Waffa raise
d a tiny arm in salute as they puffed and inched as close as they could manage on manual control. Decay waved back through the viewscreen.
“Hey guys,” the Chief of Security and Operations said, the communication crisp and solid on the suit-to-suit channel. “So this is Fuck-ton, is it?”
“Excuse me?” Z-Lin queried.
Waffa chuckled. “That was all I heard Zeeg say about the gun. Your comm line was like something out of the dumbler handbook.”
“Yours wasn’t much better,” Zeegon said, as he bounced with Decay and Z-Lin back to the hold and began to uncouple the salvage. The Tramp’s whiplike retrieval arms were already moving into place and taking hold of the bulky piece of equipment.
“Are all the systems operational up here?” Z-Lin asked.
“Seem to be,” Waffa said, sounding as mystified as Decay felt. “NightMary got nasty, there were some injuries and we had to destroy a bunch of janitorials and a couple of repair drones, we lost maybe twenty eejits but no crew. The life support started to go weird, and there were a lot of disturbing-arse images and sounds over the comm system, as well as a few half-hearted attempts to convince us that you were getting ready to blow the ship, stuff like that.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. But aside from Janus actually vanishing, we haven’t really got any casualties,” Waffa cleared his throat. “Any idea about him?”
“None,” Z-Lin said heavily. “Let’s see if we’re allowed to get ourselves spaceworthy again, and then try to get back in contact with our host.”
“I’ll patch us up in a few hours,” Waffa said, “but we’ll have to keep the guns offline anyway. Recommend we keep them shut off behind Sally’s engine until we get out of here. We need full computing power to calibrate the new gun.”
“What’s he mean?” Zeegon asked.
“Mini-whorls are calibrated to their specific gun,” Decay explained. “Their stored condition is uninitialised, and they only arm when they’re being fired. So the stockpile we have for Pater will fire through Pater, and the stockpile we have for Mater won’t fire through, uh, Fuck-ton. The gun – and probably the artillery – will need to be recalibrated.”
“Is that why that Godfire dumping thing of Yojimbo’s was so dangerous?” Zeegon asked.
Clue nodded. “They only needed to be activated,” she said, “and dropped. No firing mechanism, no separate initialisation. It wasn’t just their size, it was their blank slate.”
Unlashing Fuck-ton from the lander, they jetted clumsily around to the docking blister and executed a landing only slightly marred by wall-banging and curses. Just as they were finishing the docking and shut-down, and the three people in the lander were stripping off their spacesuits, NightMary returned to the comms system.
“You’re free to go,” she said coldly. “Take your stolen equipment and leave before I change my mind.”
“We’re only replacing what you destroyed-” Zeegon started, and Clue stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Thank you, NightMary,” she said. “But we’re not leaving without our crewmember.”
“He’s on his way to you,” the husky voice said, “but make no mistake, you have no choice in whether you stay or go. In ten minutes, your ship will depart. It will fly you at subluminal speeds to the boundary of the Bunzolabe, which should give you enough time to affect repairs before it crosses the boundary and makes a relative speed skip. We will no longer be present on your ship systems, but we will leave in place a pre-programmed lockout and a proximity activator. You will fly to the assigned coordinates and not return to the vicinity of the Bunzolabe for a minimum of one year. Sensitive data will be removed. Control of your ship will be returned to you but you will observe these guidelines.”
“A whole year?” Zeegon muttered, stumping wearily down the lander’s access ramp. “Man, I’m gonna be counting the days.”
“Bunzo would be happy to welcome you back,” NightMary said. “But the price you have paid this time will not cover a return visit.”
“I have no idea what that means and I don’t care,” Z-Lin said. “We found what we were looking for and have satisfied the requirements of our mission, so if you’re going to let us leave then we’re not going to ask any questions.”
Sally met them at the entrance of the lander bay.
“We’ve got an incoming object,” she said without preamble, “looks like an escape pod or-”
“Holy crap what happened to you?” Z-Lin shouted.
Sally looked down at her ripped, burned, bloodstained uniform, then raised one hand and opened and closed it reflectively. Decay couldn’t help but notice that the hand was about the only clean part of her entire body. “Little run-in with NightMary,” she said. “Lost a bit of blood but came through in one piece. Well, technically ninety-three percent of a piece. NightMary’s not that bad once you get to know her. Anyway,” she turned and ushered them down the corridor, favouring her left leg slightly, “it’s either an escape pod or a missile.”
“Bunzo said Janus had probably been put into some sort of high-stratospheric drone,” Decay remarked. “We didn’t see it actually take him, it was all too fast.”
“How was Bunzo once you got down to the surface?” Sally asked. They reached the elevator and ascended a couple of levels to the blister bays. “We’ve just had his charming wife to deal with.”
“He was insane,” Z-Lin summarised.
“Alright then.”
The incoming object arrived, the ship’s orbital attitude and the docking blister airlocks and the catchers all acting with a synchronised smoothness that could only have been achieved with the assistance of a synthetic intelligence or, in this case, Horatio Bunzo and / or NightMary. Decay looked through the bay door viewscreen and suppressed the urge to shudder as the object settled in blister bay 1. It did look like a torpedo casing, but it also had elements of the little hunter satellites – dense technology, and purposeful. It was like, he thought, a miniature Fergunakil gunship.
But most of all, it looked like a coffin. It gave him a deep, cold, unpleasant feeling, and as he turned and glanced at Zeegon, Sally and the Commander he knew that they all felt the same way. Even someone with the human-face-reading skills of General Moral Decay (Alcohol) could see that.
It fell to Z-Lin to open the pod. She was the ranking officer on the scene, their illustrious bonshing Captain conveniently cowering in his chambers or being chewed up by his shoe-shining machine or who-knew-or-cared-what-else. And she did have to open it. The pod had a soft-glowing access panel on the nose, and everybody knew that what was inside was going to be bad, and everybody knew that Bunzo could have prevented the bad thing from happening but hadn’t, just like everybody knew that he could have opened the pod himself but was making them do it.
A pair of green lights turned red and began to flash, and the pod opened to a strange wheezing, whistling sound. It was the sound a human throat made once it had screamed itself hoarse, and then gone on screaming for another ten hours or more. It didn’t sound like a person, though – it sounded mechanical. And so it took a moment for them to connect what they were hearing with what they were seeing.
The second she did recognise the vivisected mass lying in the centre of the pod as the remains of Janus Whye, Z-Lin swore and slapped the access panel again. The pod closed, the red lights went green again, and the blister bay was silent.
“Did I say NightMary wasn’t all that bad?” Sally mumbled.
“It’s a medical unit,” Clue said, pale-faced but determined, leaning in to study the lights and the mechanisms. “Way beyond anything we have on board, and fitted with engines and compensators and stuff, but definitely a treatment and diagnostic unit. The damn thing’s…” she straightened, looked away towards the airlock, steeled herself, and carried on steadily. “The God damn thing’s cutting him open, but it’s also the only thing keeping him alive.”
“Only Cratch has the skills necessary to extract him from that pod,” Decay said, “and replace all
his organs and skin. Unless you want to leave him in there until we can get to a proper medical facility.”
“Hell no,” Z-Lin said.
“Not even if that was an option,” Sally said. Zeegon was still standing, staring at the pod as if he could see through the lid, but the other two glanced questioningly at the Chief Tactical Officer. She grimaced down at her fist again. “I’d be willing to bet my other hand that this pod’s going to keep on torturing him until we get to the edge of the Bunzolabe, and then just crap out and let him die. This was what NightMary was talking about. This is exactly what she predicted,” she looked up at Decay, then to Clue. “That we’d let the Rip out of his cell.”
GLOMULUS (NOW)
It was the wolf hour, and they were maybe ten hours out from the Bunzolabe. Z-Lin stepped into the medical bay and into the epicentre of the warm, melancholy sound that was reverberating through Glomulus Cratch’s little domain and – if he had calculated correctly – the nearby precincts.
“What is that?” she asked in a near-shout.
“Old Earth cello,” Glomulus replied, raising his own voice just enough to be heard over the strains. “As Clarissa Chole herself said, a life lived without hearing the sound of a cello played in an empty house is a life lived waiting,” he looked around. “Not exactly an empty house, but the old place does seem a bit more spacious since we donated a third of our eejits to charity. Rather pointlessly, as it happens. On The Warm.”
“Mm,” Z-Lin said, and waited. After a few moments, Glomulus sighed inaudibly and gave Wingus a nod. Then he got up, crossed the room and turned off the music himself while Wingus was still looking confused.
Bonshoon: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man Page 30
