Orbus

by Neal Asher

  ‘So good King Oberon just arrived,’ observes Thirteen. ‘I wonder what comedian AI decided to give him that particular name?’

  ‘It is a name he chose himself, apparently,’ Gurnard replies.

  ‘A Prador with a sense of humour? Sounds like a dangerous precedent to me.’

  ‘This entire planetary system is full of dangerous precedents,’ Gurnard observes.

  Thirteen gives an electronic snort and rises from his position on the console. ‘Other than your telefactors, which are basically blunt tools, I am your only means of getting to Orbus and Vrell, and I am now ready.’

  ‘And eager, it would seem.’

  ‘We have lost Drooble and we have lost Sniper…’

  ‘A drone you have known for many years.’

  ‘Yes, Sniper and I have been through a lot together. He gave me my independence and much else besides.’

  ‘It is not certain that he is dead,’ suggests Gurnard. ‘He could merely be damaged and unable to communicate. If he is damaged he has probably gone to ground to repair himself, or might even have ejected his mind canister from his body for later retrieval. That last option is not one available to Orbus and Vrell, who in my opinion are in greater danger. If we survive whatever happens next, we will search the planetoid for him.’

  ‘All predicated on the notion that any of them are alive at all.’

  ‘I don’t see this Golgoloth creature seizing both Vrell and Orbus simply to kill them. It could have left them to the Jain or shot them down from its own vessel.’ Gurnard pauses as the scene on one of the forward electronic screens changes from a view of the Golgoloth’s vessel to one of King Oberon’s ship and its attendant dreadnoughts, the planetoid lying just beyond them. ‘As for Sniper, if he has survived at all, then it seems likely he will continue surviving–he is, after all, a very old and wily war drone.’

  Thirteen turns in midair and starts drifting towards the rear of the bridge. ‘I don’t possess the propulsion to throw myself across large distances.’

  ‘What would be your preference: rail-gun or telefactor?’

  ‘A rail-gun will get me there quicker, but I might have a problem upon arrival. Very humorous, Gurnard.’

  ‘AIs can have a sense of humour too.’

  Tracking the little drone with internal cams, Gurnard watches it making its way down towards the docking ring. Meanwhile the AI inspects, by other means, two suitable telefactors which, unlike the handler robots, possess chemical rocket drives. These two objects, looking like sculptures of water beetles nearly ten feet long, hang suspended in a framework within their own little bay. Gurnard powers both of them up, whilst allowing a diagnostic program to check them over, itself focusing on their ability to hide. These things do not possess modern chameleonware capable of subverting active scanning; however, they do possess sufficient ‘ware in their wing cases to make them invisible to a passive search.

  Diagnostics reveal nothing wrong with either telefactor, though one has been used recently and therefore contains less oxygen and hydrogen fuel. Gurnard chooses that one, because quantity of fuel probably won’t be an issue, and it is always best to employ a machine that has recently been run up to speed, despite what the diagnostics say. One portion of his consciousness now inhabiting the little machine, Gurnard lifts one wing case and opens the concertinaed hatch in its back.

  ‘Any padding?’ Thirteen enquires, now entering the bay and rising above the hatch.

  ‘Once you are inside I can inject crash-foam,’ Gurnard replies. ‘I can also eject you at high speed should the telefactor itself come under attack.’

  Thirteen settles into the cavity, but just as the cover begins to slide across, pokes his head back out. ‘When will you launch me?’

  ‘Within fifty minutes I will be as close as I dare get to the Golgoloth’s ship,’ Gurnard replies, only part of its attention focused on the drone, and a great deal focused instead on King Oberon’s fleet.

  Something is happening there, something that might not bode well for Sniper if he is still down there somewhere on the planetoid. Perhaps best not to mention that to Thirteen.

  Standing on the wide highway of the King’s viewing gallery, Sadurian keeps her eyes closed until the nausea passes, for the effects of U-space transition seem worst here, this close to vacuum, then opens them to observe the white wall of opaque glass in front of her. After a moment its blank whiteness turns to a cloudiness which, in turn, drains away as if some pump is sucking smoke from between two sheets of glass. Her first distinguishable view is of one of the new Prador dreadnoughts drifting across and turning, but its passing soon reveals the planetoid lying beyond. Obviously, the war vessel was ordered to this prime position so that King Oberon, presently standing twenty feet away from her, can watch the show.

  Sadurian studies the planetoid beyond. From its cloudy atmosphere a gaseous ring fans out, which is not how this object looked in the library pictures.

  ‘The latent temperature of the planetoid has risen by three degrees,’ Oberon observes.

  ‘That’s a lot of heat,’ Sadurian replies, feeling that she needs to say something–anything.

  The King dips his head as if focusing on some particular aspect of the planetoid. ‘The Polity’s automated warship factories did not produce as much even during the height of the war.’

  ‘It could signify inefficiencies,’ Sadurian notes.

  ‘It could, but probably only those that can be ignored for the sake of speed.’

  ‘They know they need to establish a foothold fast, in order to survive.’

  ‘Precisely, the King agrees. ‘I would be very interested to know what is going on inside there, but we cannot afford the time to find out.’ He swings his head sideways to observe the dreadnought. ‘And very shortly the temperature there is going to rise considerably.’

  Gazing also at the dreadnought, Sadurian can see no change, but guesses it has just opened fire. She again focuses on the planetoid as straight lines flash into existence throughout its cloud layers, then the hot bloom of impact points becomes visible from below. This indicates near-c rail-gun missiles–carrying no explosive load themselves other than the hard material of their bodies–turning partially to plasma as they hit gas, and then releasing huge amounts of energy as they penetrate the planetoid’s crust. Each impact yields megatonnes. They are the most immediate weapon to use, perhaps killing the Jain themselves, or at least slowing them down. However, the next wave of firings from the dreadnought is intended to make certain.

  Silvery missiles speed from the dreadnought’s launchers, though not at near-c, since such a level of acceleration would breach the antimatter flasks inside them. Some miles out, each of them ignites a bright white fusion torch, and accelerates. Meanwhile, blastwaves from the surface disrupt the cloud and blow it, in gouts thousands of miles across, out into space. In one area a plume of magma, just like the uncoiling stalk of some red vine, gropes into vacuum and then begins to come apart, rolling out lumps of molten rock that will soon enough solidify into asteroids.

  ‘They do not seem to be responding,’ remarks Oberon.

  ‘Perhaps they’re dead, now.’

  ‘It would be nice to think so.’

  Decidedly pessimistic, thinks Sadurian. But then perhaps the King is contemplating what he might need to do if the first strikes made here should fail. Sadurian knows what that augurs and doesn’t like it at all. If the Jain can survive what is still to come, that means they are beyond Prador state-of-the-art weaponry, so then it isn’t just a case of more force needing to be applied, but greater knowledge…knowledge the King does not, at this moment, possess. Knowledge the King could possess, but only at a very great risk.

  The distant white dots of the missile fusion drives enter gas clouds dispersing from the planetoid, which is now becoming visible, its surface blotched with volcanic activity and other darker smokes. As one, they slam into the crust, disappearing from sight. A long pause ensues, and for a moment Sadurian wonders if th
e Jain have somehow disarmed these weapons. Then it seems as if some angry god takes hold of the very substance of space and begins squeezing it out of shape. The planetoid distorts like a soft egg about to hatch, and begins to expand. For a moment it is thrown into dark silhouette as an unbearably bright light glares behind it, then a crescent cuts across its surface and the same light glares from that too, photo-actively blotted by the glass directly in front of Sadurian. Flame and seas of molten rock explode outwards at thousands of miles per hour–an appalling act of planetary demolition–but, on this leviathan scale, the blast proceeds in seeming slow motion.

  Sadurian feels like a cloistered intellectual suddenly faced with harsh realities. Ensconced within the white halls of the King’s ship, concerning herself with biological matters generally below the microscopic, she has lost sight of just what kind of power the King of the Prador can wield.

  The great cloud of hot gas and molten rock continues to expand, lightning storms flashing in its interior. How can anything survive that?

  ‘Any sign of them?’ she asks.

  The King bows his head, mandibles clonking briefly against the glass. ‘We are scanning,’ he intones, ‘but the disruption is great.’

  Abruptly a ten-foot square etches itself into existence in the glass before the King, and reluctantly Sadurian walks closer to take a look. Within this square the view is magnified once, then twice, till it seems the cloud of destruction boils just on the other side of the glass. The scene then changes five times, showing different aspects of the chaos, then flicks away into open space, where it centres over a ship.

  ‘Is that them?’ Sadurian asks, gazing at the odd, fish-shaped vessel.

  ‘A Polity ship,’ Oberon replies. ‘The Human we saw with the Golgoloth came from it. It should not be here.’

  The view changes once more, this time bringing into focus a larger vessel, shaped like a melon with various parts of it excised. Sadurian recognizes it at once.

  ‘If the Jain have survived and should they reveal themselves, we will respond,’ says Oberon. ‘Meanwhile I have other business to conduct here.’

  In the larger view Sadurian observes four of the King’s dreadnoughts accelerating away on a course taking them to a point far out from the expanding cloud. She concludes that the Golgoloth is also about to learn about the power the King can wield.

  16

  The massive amounts of EMR produced during space battles, making it increasingly difficult for our AIs to control telefactored weapons, resulted in the increasingly independent subminds which became our war drones. It then became necessary to increase their independence when they were used for assassinations and other covert missions, and to this end they were constructed with the ability to change just about any component of their bodies, and even to find replacements amidst stolen Prador technology. Sometimes these drones would come back almost unrecognizable, and some were even mistakenly destroyed because they so closely resembled Prador weapons. Over the intervening years since the war, such drones are still being found, like those Japanese soldiers hidden in the jungle after the Second World War on Earth, faithfully maintaining themselves in the remains of the Prador bases they destroyed, and unaware that the war they had been fighting ended centuries ago.

  –MODERN WARFARE lecture notes from E.B.S. Heinlein

  Vrell lands with a crash, his bulk demolishing one of the stalked arrays of screens, and nearly falling from the platform. He snaps out one claw and closes it on two of the Golgoloth’s diseased-looking legs either to drag the creature closer or to drag himself fully onto the platform. With a gristly crunch the two legs are torn free, whereupon the Golgoloth emits a gobbling shriek and swings one of its claws at Vrell’s head. Still scrabbling for balance, Vrell raises his rail-gun to block the intended blow, then finally manages to propel himself off the shattered screen array and onto the platform, to ram the barrel of his weapon just below the Golgo-loth’s lower eyes. Then he hesitates.

  ‘You kill me, you die,’ says the hermaphrodite, its whole body quivering. ‘My external ganglia are killing off the last of the Jain computer-life, but earlier I had to cut the power supplies to both the weapons and the engines.’

  ‘That still does not explain your threat,’ says Vrell.

  ‘Perhaps, given time, you will be able to supplant me aboard my own vessel.’ The creature flexes itself a little, getting its quivering partially under control. ‘But to do so you will have to kill all my ganglia that are distributed throughout it.’

  Vrell grinds the barrel of his weapon against the Golgoloth’s scarred shell, wondering if he is only doing so to somehow reassure himself. He eyes one of the lice-things on the Golgoloth’s body and notices that it appears to be half machine and half animal.

  ‘But you do not have time,’ the Golgoloth adds.

  One of the arrays of screens still within Vrell’s view, which until then had been showing a scrolling schematic of some kind, abruptly displays a view of the distant planetoid, with impact sites now glowing on its surface. A moment later the whole planetoid erupts.

  ‘This was recorded while you were still lurking in the ceiling spaces above me.’

  The creature seems more confident now, its quivering completely controlled. Now the view pulls back to show King Oberon’s ship and its surrounding dreadnoughts, before switching again to what Vrell presumes is a realtime view showing a spreading sphere of furnace-hot gas and chunks of magma.

  ‘I am propelling us away from the blastfront by using steering thrusters, which will double the time before it strikes.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Four minutes,’ the Golgoloth replies. ‘This ship can survive most impacts, but if one of these hits us–the screen view now focuses on a slowly distorting magma asteroid the size of Gibraltar, which is spewing out hot streams of lava from inside itself, like an ameoba groping for prey–‘we’ll end up inside it, whereupon one of two things will happen: the heat will eventually overcome us, or we’ll end up trapped inside a cooling asteroid.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Vrell asks.

  ‘I suggest you let me just get on with what I am doing, which is repairing the power supplies to three fusion engines–enough for me to manoeuvre us out of the way of anything big that approaches. After that my intention is to repair the power supply to the U-space engines, though of course we will not be leaving here any time soon.’

  ‘Why?’ Vrell asks.

  ‘The U-engines cannot be deployed whilst this ship is still surrounded by such a density of gas and rock. Using the fusion engines, it will take four hours to get clear before we can employ the U-engines and, it seems, having demolished the planetoid and presumably the Jain too, Oberon is now taking an interest in me.’ Another change of screen display, now showing four of the big silver dreadnoughts heading straight towards them. ‘They will arrive here just a few minutes after the blastfront itself arrives.’

  Vrell just stares at the image before him. He’d successfully wormed his way into the chamber and now holds a gun at the Golgoloth’s head, but that seems to be all the victory he can achieve.

  ‘Can you fight them off?’ Vrell asks.

  ‘Bearing in mind my current circumstances, why should I bother?’

  ‘Because Oberon will kill you.’

  ‘The pair of us certainly seem to have a problem which needs to be solved within the next minute, if I am to get those fusion engines functioning in time.’

  Vrell suddenly very much wants to spread this creature’s brains all over the interior of the Sanctum. He needs to think, and think hard.

  ‘The moment I step away from you, I end up pinned against a wall behind a force-field.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ the Golgoloth enquires.

  It will take too long for Vrell to usurp control of this ship, but perhaps there is a simpler solution to his present dilemma. He turns his head slightly to glance over at Orbus, who is now standing right by the force-field currently separating him from this dior
ama. ‘Drop that hardfield wall.’

  The Golgoloth doesn’t seem to like this idea much. ‘You mean let the Human in here?’

  ‘Yes, let the Human in here.’

  ‘What can he possibly achieve for you?’

  ‘It is always better to have allies,’ Vrell replies, groping with one of his underhands for various items attached to his harness. ‘And it is always better to have insurance.’ The sticky mine detaches and Vrell reaches out to press it in place underneath the Golgoloth’s mandibles.

  ‘Drop the field,’ says Vrell, feeling a slight bubbling amusement as the other creature tries, with its one good palp-eye, to peer down past its mandibles. ‘The mine I’ve just attached to you I now control through my harness.’ Vrell’s underhand is back at the point where he detached the mine, one hard little finger poised ready inside a small pit control. ‘You may be able to crush me to slurry with one of your force-fields, but will you be able to do it quickly enough?’

  The hardfield shuts down and water sloshes as it finds its new level. Vrell watches Orbus wade across to finally halt beside the platform, which stands head-high to him. The Old Captain rests his multigun across his shoulder and peers carefully at the Golgoloth.

  ‘You got the bugger then,’ Orbus observes. ‘Maybe we should get in touch with Gurnard now?’ Obviously he has not heard the previous exchange nor seen the images on the screens.

  Vrell abruptly withdraws the barrel of his rail-gun from the captive’s head. ‘Make your repairs, Golgoloth.’ Vrell moves to the edge of the platform, turns and abruptly drops off it to land beside Orbus. ‘Prador dreadnoughts will be arriving here within minutes,’ he explains to the Old Captain, ‘just shortly after the blastfront from the planetoid they destroyed.’

  ‘Get him to use his weapons against ’em,’ Orbus nods up at the old creature, which is again calling in its micro-drones and issuing silent instructions. ‘He’s got some really fancy gear aboard this ship.’