by Neal Asher
‘What is that you are working on?’ Carroll asked, as the robot set too again.
Without slowing the robot explained, ‘Fractal entachyon multiplier ... now the power feed...now–’
‘No, everything, the entire machine,’ said Carroll, realizing the robot was taking him too literally.
A long pause ensued before the robot replied, ‘Life form viewpoint understood. This is a creation booth.’
‘Is it for me? Is it to provide me with the necessities of life?’ He was not actually thinking of those necessities. He was thinking that perhaps this machine would not be as limited as the one the Reaper had provided. It was a lot larger and more complex than the ones back there.
‘Yes, partially,’ replied the robot.
Carroll moved forward with studied nonchalance to inspect the booth. Like the resurrection machine on top of the cliff it had a pedestal mounted control console. The controls were beyond him. He swore quietly before again addressing the robot.
‘How will I operate it?’ he asked.
‘Creation booth through me–’ the robot began and then corrected, ‘The creation booth is voice-operated through me.’ Then, ‘This creation booth will be voice-operated through me.’
Carroll was impressed by the robots improvement in the use of English though disheartened by its reply.
‘How long until it’s ready,’ he asked.
‘Approximately four minutes once welding recommences.’
‘I'll leave you to it then,’ said Carroll with irony.
After a relay clicking pause the robot continued its task. Carroll walked away aimlessly but eventually found himself standing by the skeleton. After staring for a while he decided that it seemed less alien to him now, less frightening, perhaps because he now felt more capable and hence more optimistic. In his mind he now found he was able piece the bits of it back together and speculate as to what the original creature might have looked like, and decided it was not one he would have wanted to meet in a dark alley. He pushed his hands in his pockets and turned away.
The robot had finished by the time Carroll returned to it, and was resting silently beside the creation booth. He noticed the number of cables connecting it to the booth, and decided to try something.
‘The creation booth is ready then?’
The robot did not reply, so he rephrased his words as a question, realizing that the robot had taken them as a statement. ‘Is this creation booth ready to be used now?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ replied the robot succinctly.
‘Tell me again how I use it.’
‘To use this creation booth you tell me what you require and I convert your request into machine language.’
‘What range of goods will this booth create?’
‘Any inanimate object on existence on Earth up to the time of your death, and able to fit within this booth.’
‘Nothing is proscribed?’
The machine was silent.
‘In that case,’ said Carroll with satisfaction, ‘I'll have an M1 assault rifle with two thirty-round magazines loaded alternately with armoured and mercury tipped bullets.’
Lights flickered and the robot and the creation booth hummed with a surge of energy. Carroll moved forward when the door thunked open to show his order had been filled. It was new. It even had packing grease on it. He picked it up and rapidly checked it over, loaded a magazine, pointed at the far wall of the chamber, and fire. The vicious staccato rattling was the best sound he had heard in a long time. Contemplatively he next ordered a twelve inch pizza with anchovies and a four-pack of Ruddles County. After eating and drinking he really got to work. When the Clown came he was seated on the floor bolting a laser-spot sight on the M1 and was surrounded by mortars, armour-piercing missiles, hand guns and ammunition.
‘This is why I chose you, and I am pleased I did, now,’ was the first thing the Clown said. Carroll looked up – a child disturbed while playing with his favourite toys.
‘Pleased? Why are you pleased?’
‘Your familiarity with modern Earth weaponry. These machines,’ he gestured with a spectral arm at the creation booth, ‘are controlled by a central information bank and are limited by the invention of the people of Earth. I made them that way, and here and now it is difficult to make them any other. And only now, since the advent of your twentieth century, have there been weapons that can be effective against the Four.’
Carroll laid the assault rifle tenderly across his lap.
‘What is it you want me to do again?’ he asked with a faint smile.
‘I want you to steal my soul disc and bring it back here,’ replied the Clown.
Carroll gazed at the weaponry that surrounded him. It seemed he would get a chance to use it. His smile turned into a grin.
♠♠♠
‘Perhaps now would be a good time for you to tell me more about the Four. I'll need to know their weaknesses, and their strengths,’ said Carroll.
‘Hopefully you will need to know no more than you know at present. The element of surprise ... a lightning raid ... these clichés apply. It would be best for you to go in as quickly as you can, when the moment is right, destroying anything in your way. You then retrieve my soul disc and return with it here as quickly as you can.’
Carroll bowed his head for a minute then said, ‘Transport?’
‘To the point!’ replied the Clown, ‘this way,’ and with that strange floating gait led Carroll from the chamber to a place in the ship like the upper reaches of a jungle, only the branches here were pipes, ducts and hanging wires. Carroll had to climb through this tangle like the denizen of a jungle, the Clown floating mockingly before him, until at length he reached a place where two massive ribbed ducts ran at thirty degrees up into a darkness where leaf-like shapes could just be discerned.
‘There,’ said the Clown, pointing with a wavering arm, then he led Carroll up the chancy ducts to the first shape.
The closer he got to it the more Carroll thought it looked like a huge beech leaf. It was even joined by a little stem to the duct. Standing over it at last he saw it looked so much like a leaf that the similarity could not have been accidental. Unlike a leaf, though, it was forty feet long and thirty wide.
‘This is your transport,’ stated the Clown. Carroll stared at him incredulously as he continued, ‘It flies, and with very little practise you will learn how to fly it. It is silent and its speed is governed by how well you can hold on. It can also serve as a weapons platform. In practical terms it is indestructible and there is no limit to the weight it can carry.’
Practical terms? Thought Carroll as he stepped onto the craft. Much to his surprise it did not waver under his weight.
‘A leaf?’ he said looking around distractedly.
‘A conceit of mine,’ said the Clown, ‘this is the shape I predicted certain forms of life would take to utilise the sun's energy.’
‘You were right,’ said Carroll, too shell-shocked to doubt.
‘It is not often that I am wrong,’ said the Clown matter-of-factly, before going on to instruct Carroll on how to detach the craft from the duct. Not thinking too much about what he was doing Carroll followed those instructions. Only when the stem detached from its anchor point did it occur to him that it was attached to nothing, and he clung to the edge in sudden fear. The craft did not even quiver though. It remained motionless relative to the duct. After a moment Carroll stood up and glanced sheepishly to the Clown, who then instructed him on how to steer the craft.
The stem folded up into a joystick and changed the direction of the craft on the horizontal plane. Indentations in the end of it controlled the height of the craft. Shortly, standing like some pixie scooter driver, Carroll was negotiating the craft through the metalled jungle.
♠♠♠
‘What will I face back there? What is the situation at present?’
‘During the time you were escaping I was keeping the Four busy–’
‘Three,’ corrected Ca
rroll, without thinking.
‘No, four. The Reaper is still extant. They are able to resurrect themselves.’ The Clown pause while Carroll took this in then went on, ‘They are not aware that you still live. They think that you are permanently dead. When Anubis saw you he swiftly destroyed the machine you were in unaware that in that moment it transported you elsewhere. In the information banks I made what he believed appear to be that case.’
‘So now things are back the way they were before, they're still playing the game?’
‘No. they are aware that I have made a move. They think they have negated this move, but they are not sure and are still wary. I have been attempting to direct their attention away from the things that most concern me.’
‘It seems you hardly need my help... but you still have not answered my original question.’
‘When the time comes for you to steal my soul disc I am not sure precisely what you will find at the game board. One thing is certain though. You will not encounter the Four.’
‘Why not?’
‘At present they are one AU, you know this measurement?’ Carroll shook his head. ‘They are approximately ninety million miles to spin-ward destroying an installation I caused to be built a thousand years ago. As they return from this I will cause another diversion which they will think to be the main event.’
‘You believe in forward planning then,’ said Carroll wryly, then fell silent while he negotiated the craft round a particularly difficult tangle of pipes and wires, before going on, ‘What if they take the disc with them?’
‘This the one thing I can be sure they will not do. The place where it is kept is where they have agreed to keep it. Not one of them would trust one of the others to carry the disc. Their distrust of each other is equal to their hate.’
‘Ah,’ said Carroll, as if he understood, then he fell silent again as another tangle had to be negotiated round.
The Clown continued talking once they were past. ‘You wondered why I need your help, Jason Carroll. The reason is simply speed, and information. To the Four you no longer exist, also you are capable of independent action. I could not send a robot because all my robots are connected to the main information banks and should the Four become aware of them they would be immediately shut down. They cannot shut you down without direct action, and you can move fast enough to get this task done before they return.’
‘Very ego inflating,’ said Carroll, ‘what happens when I get the disc back here?’
‘I cannot destroy the Four completely, that is, prevent them from being resurrected, without being physically present. You see, once physically present again I will be in control of the information banks – in control of all that happens on the disc.’
With all that they revealed and all that Carroll felt they hid he felt an unearthly chill at those words.
‘What is the point of the game?’ he asked after a while.
‘What is the point of any game?’ was the Clown's reply.
‘The Four are robots. You said...’
‘The Four are robots, but robots more complex than organic carbon life. And they are insane in their own terms and in any terms you would care to name.’
‘They have emotions?’
‘Yes, the prime of which is hate. The only things they hate more than me are themselves.’
‘Why?’
‘They hate what they perceive as the purposelessness of their existence and hate their inability to end it, in each other and in themselves.’
‘That still doesn't explain the game. I cannot accept that it is totally pointless.’
‘The game is their vengeance upon me for creating them. When they captured my life field in my soul disc they were aware that I could not be totally confined. What you see before you is my ghost, in a shape forced upon me by them... They also found a way I could be forced back into my soul disc for limited periods of time. Their vengeance is the way of that banishment. Every time my soul disc is struck I am made aware of the suffering that led up to it being struck, of the petty waste, and of the fact that my greatest project is stalled at the brink of completion.’
Carroll said, ‘If they hate themselves more than you why don't they destroy themselves?’
‘Perhaps because they know that if they do I would eventually win my way to freedom again. Or perhaps they are in the process of destroying themselves now. I sometimes think that there are loop holes in my confinement for good reasons.’
‘A death wish?’
‘Perhaps...’
When Carroll landed the leaf craft back by the creation booth the Clown abandoned him once again to provide distractions for the Four. While he was gone Carroll ordered a further large quantity of equipment through the booth, then with the assistance of the robot, mounted that equipment on the craft. When he had finished there were four Browning M2s fixed to point down from the craft at forty five degrees, four rocket launchers, with flame baffles behind them, pointing down at the same angle, a chair fixed by the joystick with controls from which these weapons could be fired and many other hand weapons within reach. The Clown visited him twice while he was working. The first time was only a short visit because he was dispelled by the ringing of his soul disc. The second time was to tell Carroll that the Four were suspicious of his diversions and readying to return.
‘I'll move now then,’ Carroll replied, and then turned to the pile of equipment he had recently acquired from the booth: a pair of binoculars, a well-padded flying suit, and a helmet with visor and gloves. He donned the clothing, hung the binoculars round his neck, boarded his vessel and took it up off the ground.
The Clown led him, quite swiftly, out into the light of the eternal sunset, and even this made his eyes smart. He had forgotten how much colour there was, even here. He had forgotten how far it was possible to see. Like leashed hounds his eyes strained towards the distance.
‘This diversion ... I presume it is ready,’ said Carroll.
‘Yes,’ said the Clown, who now appeared to be seated against one of the gun mountings. ‘If I understand my creations well enough this will draw them away.’
‘Well?’ asked Carroll, ‘what exactly is the plan, or is there a plan?’
‘There is a plan,’ said the Clown after a lengthy pause.
‘You will return to the Reaper's base and await my diversion. Once it has occurred you will probably see the Four returning. Wait for them to be drawn off then go in. Once you have possession of my–’ A distant discordant ringing caused the Clown's form to shimmer, crack, and then fly apart. Long inured to this now Carroll continued on towards the steel cliff.
♠♠♠
The craft rose up the face of the cliff with no problems. It was Carroll who had the problems. Once at the top of the cliff he found himself panting, and his ears adjusted to the change in pressure with a sound like a gunshot. By the time he had found the fused remains of the resurrection machine his breathing had returned to normal and other ill effects were minimal.
Carroll had decided long before that given the opportunity he would come back here to confirm or deny a suspicion. Bringing the craft to a halt above the machine he saw that his suspicions were confirmed. Amidst the fused and distorted metal lay the charred corpse of a man in combat clothing.
♠♠♠
Carroll had been killed here and resurrected at the bottom of the cliff. He wondered then if he had been killed in Anubis's attack or if he had sacrificed his life the moment he had placed his soul disc in the console. Whatever, this proved that the Clown was prepared to lie. He resolved to distrust the Clown as much as he could without being totally uncooperative. He sent the leaf craft on its way.
Chapter Nine
The journey from the wrecked machine to the Reaper's base seemed incredibly short compared to the last time he had made the trip. After crossing the featureless expanse he came in low and cautiously. What he saw when he finally landed next to the mirror glass building made him sick to the stomach.
Af
ter being resurrected and perhaps before moving on with its three fellows the Reaper had rid itself of its fighters, perhaps because they were now aware of the possibility of escape, perhaps out of spite. Carroll did not know. All he knew was that to a man they had been burnt. Before the building lay a mass of charred bones, and grey ash that sifted and swirled in recalcitrant breezes.
Carroll stepped from the craft with an Uzi in his hand, and walking as if on the thin ice over a swamp, moved to the door of the building. He would have gone in with stun grenades in the manner he had been trained, but that could not be so. He dreaded to think how far sound would travel here. With care not to step on any broken glass he edged up to the doors. They slid open, but not all the way. Halfway back they jammed with a metallic crunch, closed half and inch, crunched again, then tried to open again. Cursing, Carroll stepped through the gap into to room beyond with his machine pistol sweeping from side to side as he searched the place. The doors only stopped their racket when he moved away from them.
On one of the tables stood a bottle of schnapps and a plate with the remains of pickled herrings on it. Carroll stopped by the table and stirred the remains with the barrel of his Uzi. But for this bottle and this plate there was nothing else on the tables. He moved on through the room to the door at its back, carefully eased open a door and went through, then checked room after room. Kruger tried to jump him in the fifth room.
He came from behind the door with a bottle held high. It was the first place Carroll checked and he had the SS officer cold for a good two seconds. Kruger kept coming though. At the last moment, Carroll eased off on the trigger, and drop-kicked him in the stomach. Kruger went down puking herrings and schnapps.
‘Do not kill me! Do not kill me!’
Carroll simply stood over him wondering if painful death had made him like this or if he had always been like it.
‘I won’t kill you just yet,’ said Carroll. ‘Stand up.’
