Orbus

by Neal Asher

  The dreadnought hits falling debris, collision lasers firing nonstop but not sufficient to prevent great chunks of ice and rock exploding into fragments against the armoured hull. Some penetrate through unrepaired gaps to then tear through superstructure, and in some cases set fires burning within. The ship strikes one peak that has yet to fall all the way, tearing off a great shield of brassy armour, which tumbles along behind it to slam down into the plain beyond, throwing ahead of it an avalanche of shattered ice. Perhaps, after all, Vrell calculated it exactly right, for the impact has slowed the vessel considerably.

  Now follow further stabs of fire from both the ship’s particle cannons and its lasers, aimed at somewhere far ahead, on the plain. The Golgoloth studies this target, and notes Vrell is cutting a trench at his impact point. Very clever, but will this work?

  The trench tracks the angle of descent into the ice, then slowly ascends in steps. Within a minute the ship hits the start of it and begins skidding, peeling up ice like a braking ski. A great cloud of vapour explodes from the hull as this ice hits something hotter than anything that has been down there for millennia. The ship hits the first step, shuddering and tearing up more ice, this time in thick broken slabs, before rising up over this. It hits a second step, and the same thing happens, though the ship is moving much slower now. Four steps later its speed is down to that of high-speed monorail, but still thousands of tons of momentum need to be accounted for. Exiting the end of the trench it continues skidding, piling up a glacier ahead of it. Finally it hammers this into the lower slopes of the next chain of mountains, causing disruptions that bring some of them crashing down. The scar of Vrell’s crash landing extends for eighty miles, but is no longer visible from space, what with a boiling line of clouds now forming above it.

  The Golgoloth emits a bubbling sigh. Perfect. Vrell has demonstrated just how quickly and accurately he can make calculations under appalling circumstances. Obviously he has done this sort of thing before, to evade being killed on Spatterjay and to then take over Vrost’s dreadnought, but the Golgoloth had not witnessed that. Understanding perfectly the situation it has manufactured here, the Golgoloth can more accurately assess the mind of the Prador below. Vrell is dangerous, perhaps as dangerous as the King himself, and the Golgoloth has made the right choice in deciding to immobilize and isolate him first. Now, however, it is time for study, experimentation and investigation.

  The ancient hermaphrodite Prador places its massive vessel in close orbit about the planetoid and initiates an external ganglion. Immediately reacquainted with certain ship systems, it runs a diagnostic, the results of which are within safety parameters, then sets in motion those same systems. Great blocks of internal structure shift on ancient hydraulics, seals detach and reattach elsewhere, explosive bolts blow, and thruster motors fire up.

  Over the surface of the vessel, lines of division jag around the intersection points of hexagons within the honeycomb structure covering its surface, thus outlining a misshapen area some ten miles across. This whole area then begins to extrude, the whole lot easing out like a segment of geode. Meanwhile, interfaces begin to separate, dividing off scattered ganglion control systems, but then a radio connection establishes between them. Along with itself, the Golgoloth is now separating out part of its distributed mind along with the excised chunk of ship. Contact by radio will continue with that part of its mind still residing within the main vessel, but that isn’t as good as direct optic or electrochemical connection. Anyway, the Golgoloth does not feel it will require the full power of its own mind for the chores ahead. Vrell is dangerous, but not that dangerous.

  *

  The dreadnought is down intact,’ Gurnard observes.

  In the forward screen the image of the dreadnought, resting at the end of a long scar running across a planetary plain, now fades away, and that other enormous vessel once again comes into focus. Drooble gazes in awe as it extrudes a great chunk of itself, which then begins to descend towards the planetoid. First the dreadnought attacking, the captain and Sniper heading over, and now this? It is all just too much for him, lying as it does outside the simple routine of annoying his Captain, being punished, recovering, then doing the whole thing again.

  ‘A lot of it appears to be of Prador manufacture,’ remarks Gurnard, ‘but I daren’t scan to find out for sure.’

  ‘Daren’t?’ Drooble echoes. He still feels slightly unwell. The damage done to his body by the Prador rail-gun in Montmartre has healed, but his body mass is down by 20 per cent, whilst the viral mass is up at its previous levels. There is a definite imbalance between the two, which effects the way his mind works. Those around him seem slightly crazy…though on some level he recognizes that he is the slightly crazy one, while those around him have changed not at all.

  ‘I am just collecting sensor informaton, passively–not using any form of active scan,’ Gurnard replies. ‘But just that reveals layers of sensor and scanner complexity on the unknown ship’s surface–almost certainly whatever is inside will know at once if I start scanning. It probably knows we’re out here anyway. It seems improbable to me that, just by chance, it chose to attack shortly after we were driven away.’

  ‘Just scan it anyway,’ Drooble says abruptly. ‘Let’s see what we’re up against.’

  Poised just to one side of him, with its tail resting down on his horseshoe console, the drone Thirteen revolves to inspect him.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t too readily antagonize a ship that’s ten miles across and can deploy U-space missiles,’ Thirteen suggests. ‘It’s got enough firepower and accuracy of firepower to disable a Prador dreadnought. If it wants rid of us, it can be rid of us in less time than it would take you to say “Oh shit”, Drooble.’

  ‘The Captain gave me the bridge,’ Drooble complains.

  ‘That holds no weight here,’ Gurnard says. ‘Orbus was appointed by Cymbeline, but he cannot appoint his own replacement. I am in charge.’

  Drooble feels a degree of resentment about that–but also relief. ‘What do we do, then?’

  ‘I am in communication with Earth Central,’ Gurnard replies. ‘It appears that no ship like this has been seen entering the Graveyard over the last seven hundred years. It seems to be of Prador manufacture, and in attacking Vrell is likely to be doing the King’s bidding. Perhaps it is sufficiently advanced to have avoided detection while entering the Graveyard, in which case the entire population of the Polity certainly has something to worry about. We have been told therefore to watch and gather information, without putting ourselves at too much risk.’

  ‘What about my Captain?’

  ‘Your Captain is perfectly able to look after himself, and there is nothing we can do to make him any safer.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘However, we can move much closer, for though, as Thirteen says, it will not do to antagonize whoever controls that vessel, we are in fact no safer out here than up close, since a U-space missile can remove us from existence just as quickly in either case.’

  Thirteen merely snorts at that.

  Gurnard adds, ‘Moving closer will also give us a better view of events, and greater option to react to them. I calculate that this will be a risk worth taking.’

  The Gurnard begins accelerating, then abruptly all the screens grey. Drooble feels the odd twisted pull of U-space and it kicks something crooked in his mind onto a new path. He suddenly feels optimistic about being closer to his Captain, and thus closer to the action, and though Gurnard is not actually obeying him, it certainly seems to be doing what he wants.

  The screens once again show the outside view. Far to their right rests the dead giant, a silvered orb without cloud to soften the intricate wrinkles extending over its surface. Ahead lies the planetoid, that same big vessel clearly visible in orbit about it. Drooble realizes that the Gurnard’s fusion drive is still firing and that they are steadily drawing closer to this diorama. Magnification brings the vessel right up close, and Drooble sees at once that a great splin
ter of the ship is pulling out of the cavity already left by the departure of that other chunk now heading down to the planetoid’s surface.

  ‘I take it that this all started happening the moment we arrived here,’ says Thirteen.

  ‘It did,’ Gurnard replies, ‘but at least it’s not a U-space missile.’

  Once its point is clear of the main ship, the splinter swings round like a compass needle, perspective contracting it down into a metallic jewel–it is now pointing directly towards them. Then it flashes briefly out of existence, reappears much closer, and begins to swing round again.

  ‘So far and no further?’ Thirteen suggests.

  Gurnard begins to decelerate. ‘So it would seem,’ the AI replies. ‘But now at least we can see the surface.’

  The forward screen image changes to show a clear view of the downed dreadnought, and the first chunk that detached from that other vessel lying ahead of them now settling on the plain nearby.

  ‘And so the stage is set,’ says Gurnard.

  ‘What’s playing tonight?’ asks Drooble.

  ‘A drama of life and death, as always.’

  Drooble nods thoughtfully, then stands up and departs the bridge, a determined set to his expression.

  By slow degrees the soldier attains consciousness, knowing itself as Ebror, yet even throughout the process also knowing that Ebror the Prador is just an organic recording, a sub-component of itself, the point of the needle it uses to puncture the membrane separating itself from existence. Instinctively it retains that conscious component so it can review Ebror’s memories and understand the world it now finds itself in. It does all this for limited and clearly defined purposes: for the survival of itself and its squad and also for the destruction of the enemy.

  Studying genetic tissue contained within its viral body, the soldier thoroughly understands Prador and all they are about. Reviewing substantial samples of DNA from Human beings, it gains some understanding of them too. All are the enemy. Its own species are the enemy outside its squad. Anything living–other than itself and its squad–is the enemy. This rules out confusion.

  When the squad’s spaceship was attacked all those eons ago, and forced to crash-land on the planet, their time had been limited. They knew their present physical bodies would not be able to survive the ensuing attack, and so they took a very unusual route. Upon discovering the surrounding ecology of the planet to be dominated by a complex viral mycelium, they spliced this with the nano-mycelium that maintained both their vessel and their own bodies, incorporating into it their own genome and direct recordings of their long memories. It remained part of the vessel and part of themselves until the expected attack arrived, destroying both them and their ship, whereupon their bastard child spread in the oceans. They became somnolent then, sleeping, and incorporated as part of an ecology.

  With an internal awareness that was a major evolutionary advantage of its kind from the beginning, the soldier explores its body and gradually understands the processes that have brought it to consciousness. The plan was for resurrection to ensue some brief years after their destruction, but the programming was too hurried, mistakes were made. Having incorporated them, the mycelial virus should have, after the running down of an internal biological clock, recoded some of the creatures it went on to infest, and turned them into exact copies of the original squad. Instead, the clock stopped and the virus just kept incorporating, at first at random, genetic samples taken from the creatures of its own world–burying the squad deep. Evolution then played its part too, so that this incorporation of genetic tissue became a tool for viral survival. Had there been no outside interference with that world, the soldier would have remained sleeping for ever.

  However, the virally infected Prador, of which Ebror is one, were killed by a specific nanite that completely wiped out their nervous systems, leaving only a blank slate. They were thereafter left confined in armoured shells, completely cut off from any food supply. The result was a sequence of mutations within the shell, as the virus tried every single one of its strategies for survival, but failed. With nutrient diminishing, it worked its way through its whole eclectic genome collection until finally hitting upon what lay at the bottom: the alien genome of the squad itself. And, given the chance, that squad certainly knew how to survive. The evolutionary program of the virus had been to mutate only its given body and not to venture outside that. Once he was in control, even though unconscious, the soldier immediately turned the virus outwards; survival did not lie within, but by penetrating the simple electromechanical systems that surrounded it. And, whilst that penetration proceeded, the soldier woke.

  ‘The technology is primitive,’ comes a simple communication through the electronics of the armour.

  ‘But useful.’

  ‘It can be adapted, even in this environment.’

  ‘This ship has crash-landed. I see exterior conditions. Sharing now.’

  And so it goes, as the squad calls in. As the soldier absorbs a squirt of battle code detailing the location of the vessel, exterior conditions and interior conditions, it surmises that their number is greater than it had been before the attack upon their own ship, and yet also that some of the squad is missing, but this is inevitable. Some soldiers have been multiply duplicated, whilst some have not achieved consciousness at all. It is as it should be: the strongest predominate.

  The soldier now draws back his internal focus and studies the larger-scale organic make-up of his being. Most of the original Prador body is gone, while muscle, vascular systems and the organs required for running a body this size have grown, including the entwined ganglia that contain his consciousness. He has not grown bones or a shell, the armour still sufficing. However, everything is greatly stunted since he lacks nutrients, sugars and sufficient oxygen. Exploring Prador memories, he quickly locates needed information and, extending one of his internal leech mouths, manages to turn on the internal oxygen supply of the armour, thus enabling what will be a short-lived boost of energy as he further burns up the substance of his own body just to keep mobile. A quick squirt of battle code alerts his fellows to this option too.

  ‘Weapons cache found,’ notes one of the others.

  ‘Primitive again, but adaptable.’

  Now turning his attention fully outwards, he gazes at his surroundings through wholly Prador eyes that the virus did not see fit to discard. He crouches in a corridor, a welding device clutched in one claw and a maglev tool chest toppled over on its side beside him. He heaves himself to his feet, discarding the welder, and, again sampling Prador memories, turns and heads up the corridor towards the nearest larder. Thankfully, the door is lying open, but the next bit is problematic: how to get some of the abundant food stored here inside him.

  Again the Ebror memories do not let him down. The soldier shifts another leech mouth to some internal controls and manipulates them, and with a clunk the section of armour that once covered Ebror’s mandibles hinges open in two parts. There is pain as it rips away from internal musculature, and much bleeding, but at last the soldier manages to extrude a collection of leech mouths that start boring into a selection of Prador homeworld fish steaks and large misshapen lumps of flesh that are likely to be some kind of mollusc.

  Nutrients flood through him, directly sucked into the virus itself without the intercession of a stomach. The soldier immediately begins using these to improve his internal structure, selecting from his own genome since it remains utterly superior to those of Prador, or Humans or any life-form deriving from Spatterjay. But of course it is, it being the product of some tens of thousands of years of genetic engineering.

  He begins building bones against which to brace his muscles, rather than using the armour for support. He grows a stomach and digestive system, expands his circulatory system and all other support organs. He quickly replaces the rest of his electrochemical nervous system with one wholly electrical, operating so much much faster.

  ‘Energy supplies located,’ another notes. ‘Moving
to secure.’

  ‘Main weapons located. Moving to secure.’

  ‘Force-fields located and secure. Adaptation in progress.’

  The soldier contemplates this input then adds, ‘If crew still survive, they must be found and killed.’

  ‘Searching,’ another replies.

  As the ship shudders into stillness, Vrell struggles to break through the paralysis of an unaccustomed terror. He does not recognize the code running on the screen of his armour’s CPU. It is fast, incredibly complex even for him, and seems to be shifting huge chunks of information that are changing even as they retransmit. It seems he is acting as a relay in some network, but a network formed between different suits of armour that are no longer under his control.

  His first guess would have been that the sub-AI programs in each of them have made the leap to sentience, but the data format is too alien and cannot possibly arise out of the original programs. But, more important than that, the same code is running in the control units bonded to his carapace, and so invading his nervous system. Through that connection he can feel a cold nihilistic logic and terrifying intelligence.

  Fighting the growing fear, Vrell tries to apply some logic. Actually using either his CPU or control unit to obtain information would be a foolish move, for whatever is operating inside his ship would immediately become aware of him and, as far as he can see, it can take control of his armour. Just by monitoring the data flow, its sheer capacity and utterly alien format, he confirms that he is not seeing AI sentience arising from his original programs. Could it be that somehow the Old Captain and the drone have penetrated his security? No, something odd was happening with the Guard even before the pair boarded. There seems only one logical conclusion: the Guard are being controlled by some alien within the unfamiliar vessel that forced him down onto this planetoid. But he cannot just lie here pondering the purpose of this invasion while that other vessel has him at its mercy; he suspects that if he waits too long he will soon be dead.