by Neal Asher
‘Then why are you still here?’ he growls.
Thirteen descends on the hatch to quickly tear off the covers over its various locks and then manually click them back. The little drone starts to labour at the hatch itself, but Sniper snakes out a tentacle, levers it up off its seals and slides it aside. Whilst Thirteen pulls himself through, Sniper turns back to the cap and exposes the rest of it. The outer armour of blisters like these is usually cast in one piece, so actually cutting through the armour to get out is not an option. He could do it but the whole process would be far too noisy, and would deplete his power. Here beside the loading mechanism, however, where all the power cables and optics enter, lies a capped hole just large enough for him to get through. He cuts away one skein of optics and drags it aside, exposing the weaker metal of the cap, stabs a hole through with his spatula-tipped tentacle and, as low-pressure air jets in, inserts another tentacle with its sensory tip active, and takes a look around.
Here, behind the blister, is a much larger chamber in which lie the mechanisms that rotate the whole blister like one giant eyeball. Over to one side lie the loading pincers, now empty, but one gleaming missile is partially visible in clamps situated behind it. Sniper recognizes it as one of the U-jump missiles this ship used against Vrell’s vessel earlier. Swinging the tip of his tentacle round, he watches as the outer maintenance hatch eases aside a little. Ruby light flashes and ship eyes positioned in the surrounding wall flare and smoke, scattering shards of a material like mica, then the hatch swings completely aside, and Thirteen shoots out.
‘Clear,’ he calls, ‘though I don’t think they were working anyway.’
Sniper rapidly tears away further cables, slices around the end cap and, shoving it before him, slides out into the same chamber. After a quick scan of the interior, he tows himself over to a rack positioned along one wall, which holds maintenance robots folded up like long-legged brass woodlice.
‘Seems this Golgoloth don’t mind using robots,’ he observes as he tugs one of the devices from its rack and begins slicing round it as if peeling an orange.
‘What are you doing?’ Thirteen asks.
‘If there’s maintenance robots here, they’ll have an ID,’ Sniper explains. ‘Can’t have the ship’s security systems reacting every time one of’em gets down to work.’
The robot’s controls are simple and, plugging into it via the sensory tip of his tentacle, Sniper quickly riffles through what passes for its mind. He soon finds what he wants: a coded signal the thing broadcasts as it goes about its work. This message tells the ship’s security systems to simply ignore it, so he records the signal, sends a copy to Thirteen, and they both begin broadcasting.
‘Think this will work?’ the little drone asks.
‘So long as nothing with a mind is watching,’ Sniper replies. ‘Anyway, this Golgoloth thing is soon going to have a lot more to worry about than us.’
To the rear of the chamber stands a door large enough to admit Prador, but opening up this chamber, which via the blister now lies open to vacuum, will kick in emergency systems. Maybe that will attract the attention of the Golgoloth, but maybe not, since this area of the ship seems to have already sustained a lot of damage. It is a risk Sniper will have to take. He tears out the door’s pit control and works the optics behind it. The diagonally divided door begins to grind open, and air and a moist fog blast through. Immediately, streams of yellowish-green fluid jet from holes in the walls. Where this substance lands it foams and expands rapidly. The door shudders to a halt, the emergency systems shutting down all power to it. Sniper reaches into the gap as, behind him and Thirteen, the chamber begins filling with a great amoebic mass of expanding crash foam. He then tears the doors open and the two push through into the familiar interior of a Prador ship. Behind them, the crash foam oozes through the door, hardening in the atmosphere of the corridor, and the atmosphere breach seals.
Sniper samples the distinctly organic-smelling air. With a laser ping or two down the length of the corridor, he checks the aim of his rail-gun and particle cannon, then reaches out with one of his main tentacles to negligently crush a ship-louse to slurry. He feels like he has come home.
*
As the hardfield drops, the three first-children all immediately swing their weapons towards the Golgoloth. Vrell expected this and sends a signal to his own rail-gun, noisily spinning up the barrels, and three sets of mismatched palp-eyes swing towards him.
‘You do not kill the Golgoloth,’ he says.
‘Seems like a good idea to me,’ says Orbus.
Vrell glances at the Old Captain, noting that he too is training his weapon on the hideous creature. A beat passes when it could go either way, then the first-children lower their weapons. Vrell has judged the situation correctly. He now watches Orbus for a moment, and the Old Captain finally, reluctantly, lowers his weapon too.
‘What is the current situation out there?’ Vrell asks the Golgoloth.
The old hermaphrodite just cringes lower on its platform and does not reply.
Vrell points his rail-gun towards the creature and asks again, ‘What is the situation out there.’
‘We are about to dock,’ the Golgoloth replies. Behind it an array of screens abruptly displays the scene beyond the ship. When he sees the massive spears of the invasive docking tunnels approaching, and the surrounding horde of King’s Guard, Vrell feels utter dismay, but refuses to show it.
He turns to Geth. ‘Summon the rest of the children.’
‘I already have,’ the first-child replies, turning one palp-eye towards the door.
A second-child and an even smaller and more obviously distorted third-child move into view.
‘Golgoloth, Vrell continues, ‘we need weapons.’
‘Once I have provided you with them,’ replies the old creature, ‘there is no logical reason why you should keep me alive.’
Vrell has to admit the old monster has a point. How then to persuade it to provide what he wants? Vrell fires, rail-gun missiles punching holes into one of the floating pillars behind the Golgo-loth. Shattered metal explodes out of the back of the pillar, power arcs inside it, and miniature lightnings skitter over its surface. It drops abruptly, crashes against the edge of the platform and topples, tearing numerous pipes, optics and cables from the Gol-goloth’s body as it lands with a hissing splash in the water below. The Golgoloth shrieks and bubbles, backing towards the other pillar, green blood and other fluids dribbling from the holes torn in its body.
‘Provide us with weapons,’ Vrell repeats, ‘or I shoot out the other one, then I send the signal to detonate that mine you’re wearing.’ Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.
Immediately afterwards, a pillar–like the one that contained Vrell’s and Orbus’s weapons–rises out of the floor; however this one splits vertically in numerous places around its circumference, and then opens like a flower to expose its contents. These are disappointing to say the least: merely three particle cannons, two rail-guns, and a couple of short solid-state lasers.
‘These are not enough, Vrell observes.
‘They are all I have!’ the creature clatters.
Of course, it makes sense that the hermaphrodite would only have weapons for itself, seeing it is the only one aboard it would want to possess them. This, then, must be the Golgoloth’s personal arsenal.
‘Geth, go collect them and hand them out to those best able to use them.’
Geth and his two fellows splash forwards, and begin tugging the weapons from the pillar. Other children now enter the Sanctum: second- and third-children who all gaze up at the Golgoloth on its platform as if some terrifying god squats there. But of course, to them that is precisely what the Golgoloth has always been. This is exactly why Vrell expected the first-children to hesitate when given the opportunity to fire upon their parent.
The three first-children take up the cannons, whilst a selection of second-children take the rest. Other makeshift weapons are redistributed.
‘Now can we kill the father-mother?’ Geth asks.
At that moment a thunderous sound echoes throughout the ship, and the floor tilts, causing all the water to flow to one side of the Sanctum. Vrell staggers, sees Orbus slip over and numerous children caught in the flood.
‘Move out into the corridor!’ Vrell instructs.
Many of the children begin retreating hurriedly as Vrell regains his balance and aims his weapon at the second pillar. Abruptly some mechanism thumps below and the Golgoloth’s platform slowly sinks to just above floor level.
‘We have docked with the King’s ship,’ the creature intones.
‘Send to my harness a schematic of this ship’s interior, with all those docking points detailed,’ says Vrell. ‘And, believe me, I will know if the information is right.’
‘And then you will kill me,’ says the Golgoloth.
‘Send me the schematic.’
‘I will not.’
Vrell fires again, hitting the second pillar. The thing drops end-on, then goes over like a falling tree, again tearing its connections out of the Golgoloth’s body. The creature shrieks once and goes over on its side, then rolls from its platform, leaving a trail of blood, and splashes down into the water, with its limbs thrashing.
‘We know this ship,’ says Geth, from behind Vrell. ‘We can find what you want. Now kill the father-mother.’
They want him to do it, for they still hold this creature in too much awe. Vrell keeps his rail-gun focused on the Golgoloth, strangely reluctant to end the life of this ancient monster who, aware that its end is close, is now backing away.
Dragging himself to his feet, cursing and shaking off water, Orbus moves up beside Vrell. ‘I’ll finish the bugger, if you want.’
‘There is no need,’ Vrell replies, now identifying the reason for his own reluctance. He is about to kill a legend, to extinguish a large chunk of Prador history and remove from the universe something utterly unique, no matter how horrible. He studies the creature for a moment longer, then glances over at Geth…perhaps the Golgoloth is not so unique? Time to end its life now. But odd the way it is moving, turning and raising itself…
Vrell realizes something is wrong just a second too late, even as he fires his weapon. Rail-gun missiles slam into a sharply curved hardfield wall, some of them just flattening and dropping, but others ricocheting away. Half a second later, Vrell sends the signal to detonate the mine. No matter that a hardfield lies directly before him, that signal will bounce around inside the ship and quickly reach its destination. Only then does Vrell realize he has sent the signal too late as well. The Golgoloth is not standing entirely on the other side of the hardfield. One mandible, part of its mouth and an expanse of carapace below it now drop, and green blood belches against the hardfield that sheered them away. Then the attached mine detonates, blowing these severed parts to fog. The Golgoloth staggers drunkenly over to the nearby Sanctum wall, and the hardfield fades out as a section of that same wall revolves the creature out of sight.
Vrell hisses with annoyance, aware he has been played. Only by detaching the creature from its pillars did Vrell allow it to get itself into a position to escape. ‘We get out of here, now,’ he says, turning and heading for the door, only pausing to snag Geth–who has frozen to the spot–and send him reeling towards the door too.
17
Prador language being a series of clicks, clatters and bubblings, we must be very careful of the words in our own language that we apply to them. We are told that our translation machines choose the word ‘king’ to describe the leader of the Prador, rather than autocrat or dictator, because Prador society is almost feudal in nature. The reality is that ‘king’ was settled on during the war because there was no need to demonize creatures our AIs had already seen fit to go to war with. The King, we are told, apparently chose the name Oberon for himself, but I do not believe that for a moment. I believe such appellations are all an attempt to mythologize the Prador, so that it becomes easier for us to accept the slurs against their nature and some of the frankly unbelievable stories of their cruelty. We must always remember that they are merely products of evolution like ourselves. They are not demons, nor are they devils sent from the Pit. They are not monsters and in fact are no better or worse than ourselves. There are no genuine monsters.
–Anonymous
The docking tunnels spear into the Golgoloth’s ship, causing great chunks of armour to tip like huge scales as the arrow points find their way between, punching through walls and superstructure, ripping out beams and shoving aside massive internal components. Only when the midway chambers impact with the outer hull does their progress halt. The tips of the docking tunnels open inside like the jaws of conger eels, ripping up further internal structure. King’s Guard, all geared up for a major assault, pour from the tunnels and begin to spread throughout the ship like some infec tion. Many of them, the Golgoloth notes, are moving directly towards its own Sanctum. It has considered fending them off but, though some of its internal weapons can penetrate that armour, the resulting mayhem will destroy most of the vessel, and then the King need only send more of his troops.
Crash foam, both from the ship itself and from the stores around the midway chambers, continues to well out, much of it getting blasted like snow into vacuum by the escaping atmosphere, but nevertheless the wounds are gradually sealing.
The melon-shaped vessel now rests right up against the King’s ship as if rolled against a cliff face. Squads of the Guard, out in vacuum, jet down to its hull and land with a racket that can be heard deep inside here in this emergency Sanctum. They quickly begin to open airlocks or otherwise tear their way in, efficiently searching, isolating and sealing off areas as they move through.
The Golgoloth whimpers both at the sight of these invaders and from pain as optics and pipes extend on telescopic arms from a new control pillar to mate into the dripping sockets in its body. Meanwhile a surgical robot, mounted on the end of a hinged arm, poises over the creature’s forward wound like a brass tree and, having already sprayed the area with coagulating and analgesic foam and carved out the remains of the Golgoloth’s mouth, is now knitting in missing muscle structure with a set of its spidery limbs. The Golgoloth glances at its emergency supply in the transparent cylindrical canisters arrayed along one wall, each containing various chunks of its children floating in preserving fluid, nerve tissue spread about them like water weed. Another robot attaches its flat cobra head to the top of one of these, and reaches inside with long insectile limbs to divide up a set of mandibles and the outer rim of a mouth so as to provide the Golgoloth with a replacement. Further down the row of canisters, a similar robot is carefully extracting some legs. All around, the small Sanctum is filled with the busy movement of complex surgical robots poised on the ends of big mantis arms, amid slithering ribbed tubes, and the scuttle of smaller robots resembling steel spiders.
Returning its attention to the screens, the Golgoloth realizes that Vrell and the Human–and its own remaining children, now numbering twenty–are making their way along a zero-gravity shaft towards the area where the upper one of those docking tunnels debouches. As they move, they methodically knock out ship eyes and security systems, with the result that internal countermeasure lasers keep going offline. The Golgoloth considers what to do next. Though no weapons are available to it in that part of the ship, it can easily power up a gravplated section near the end of the shaft, and thus turn that escape party’s progress into a one-mile high-gravity drop. The Golgoloth very much wants Vrell and his pet Human dead, but accompanying them is its main stock of body parts. Most likely such a drastic fall would smash all its children beyond usefulness, yet ironically Vrell and the Human, infected by the Spatterjay virus, might survive it.
Communication comes through.
‘You have been injured,’ Oberon observes.
The Golgoloth watches the surgical robot as its fellow swings over with one mandible and a set of outer mouthparts–muscle groups,
tendons and stringy nerves hanging wetly from the back of them. The robot takes this replacement and threads nerves into the tips of long needles, stretching them tight to inject into raw flesh, there reconnecting them with microscopic carbon sheaths. Tendons next, pulled out with larger manipulators and cinched into place with organic clamps.
‘So what do you want?’ the Golgoloth asks, speaking through its control pillar.
‘I want you, alive,’ replies the King of the Prador.
‘Yet you take my ship by armed assault.’
‘You have Vrell aboard, and for all I know there are Jain there too,’ says Oberon. ‘How do I know I am even talking to the Golgoloth and not some simulacrum using our communication channel?’
The robot now moves the mandible and mouthparts into position out from the wound, after withdrawing the tools that reattached tendons and nerves. The Golgoloth can just about feel these new parts, feel them aching, whereupon a subliminal instruction bring another spray of analgesic foam. Reaching behind the new transplant the robot then begins connecting up muscles.
‘Stop playing with me,’ the Golgoloth says to Oberon.
The King dips his flat head in acknowledgement. ‘Very well, I want you under my power, totally under my power, then I will decide what to do with you. I want Vrell too, grovelling on his belly here before me.’
‘Now that sounds much more like a Prador King.’
Another robot is fetching over a piece of carapace, perfectly shaped to fit around the new mandible and mouth, its edges glistening with shell glue. And yet another robot waits in the queue, replacement legs ready.
‘I have to say I admire your surgery there,’ says Oberon.
‘Developed over a thousand years,’ Golgoloth replies grumpily. ‘I possess knowledge and expert technologies in advance of much found in the Kingdom.’ Always a good idea to press his case and thus try to dispel that image, planted in his mind by Vrell, of a heated spike with the name ‘Golgoloth’ engraved on its base.
