by Neal Asher
‘Prador and Polity technology integrated, I note,’ says the King.
‘I do not share the Prador antipathy to intelligent machines.’
‘Yet I trust you have nothing operating there like the Polity artificial intelligences?’
‘No,’ says the Golgoloth. ‘I have my children.’
Everything surrounding it, like everything in the ship, is controlled by ganglia that are in turn linked through the control pillar to the Golgoloth’s mind. With a little effort it can become those machines surrounding it, like it can become its own ship. The repairs currently being conducted on its body are almost like the action of an autonomous nervous system.
‘When you are well again,’ Oberon says, ‘I want you to give me a location conveniently near to you where my Guard can collect you. Meanwhile I want to know where Vrell is.’
The Golgoloth checks throughout its ship. The Guard now control at least a third of it and are currently locking down fusion reactors and external weapons systems. But they have as yet to find the shaft Vrell is traversing.
‘They are here,’ says the Golgoloth, sending the location of the same shaft.
‘Thank you,’ says Oberon, his image winking out.
The shaped piece of carapace goes into place, steam rising from the glue as it instantly sets. The robot then squeezes glue around the holes ready to take the base of the mandible and the exterior shell of the mouth. These items, still poised slightly out from the Golgoloth’s body, muscles, tendons and nerves stretched like elastic, it allows to pull back into place. More steam as glue sets. The robot now attaches numerous pipes to holes that had been drilled through the new carapace, and fills any intervening gaps with collagen foam. For a moment the Golgoloth watches its new legs and new claw being carried over, then turns its attention to the ship eyes positioned in the vicinity of the shaft that Vrell is evidently reaching the end of. The Guard begin to close in, rapidly.
Orbus propels himself to the next safety-hold, a recess specially designed for a Prador foot, catches hold of it and halts his progress for a moment.
‘We are taking the attack to the King,’ Vrell said earlier.
The Old Captain thinks that a bad idea, but can’t think of a better one–not for Vrell at least. For Vrell to throw himself on the mercy of this Oberon creature makes about as much sense as Orbus throwing himself on the mercy of the leeches in his home sea of Spatterjay. Generally, Prador do not do mercy; they do torture and killing and eating. Orbus shudders as he gazes at the horde of the Golgoloth’s children propelling themselves past him.
The only other option would be to try and get themselves to the Gurnard, if it is still out there. Maybe find a shuttle…but that is hopeless too. They are securely docked with the King’s ship, totally surrounded by dreadnoughts and King’s Guard. Really, if there is to be an escape route, it will only be one the King himself allows. And here is Orbus’s main problem. The King wants Vrell, he wants the Golgoloth, but Orbus is probably an irrelevance. King Oberon might even let him leave unharmed, even assist his departure, just to make political capital with the Polity. But for that to be an option, Orbus must abandon Vrell and go his own way, and certainly he should not be now involving himself in some insane and utterly doomed attack on the King’s ship.
Orbus shoves himself back into motion, catching Prador footholds to throw himself up to speed again and quickly catch up with Vrell. Whatever Vrell does now, the end will be the same: no more Vrell. Orbus damns him, and damns the situation, but finds himself unable to abandon this mutated Prador.
‘So you’ve got it all planned out?’ Orbus asks.
Vrell is moving more slowly, he realizes, probably reluctant to reach his destination.
‘I infiltrated Vrost’s dreadnought,’ Vrell reminds him. ‘I managed to get to the Golgoloth…’
‘But what’s your plan right now?’
Vrell takes a long time replying. ‘The plan must be easily revised…the King’s ship is immense and there will be places in it where we can hide ourselves. If we can acquire some armour, we can proceed unnoticed and then find a way to the King himself.’
No plan, in other words.
Vrell abruptly draws to a halt and Orbus catches hold of the edge of the Prador’s shell to halt himself too.
‘Your weapon is loaded with sprine bullets,’ says Vrell.
‘Certainly, but they don’t penetrate armour.’
‘I am not thinking of armour.’
Orbus feels a sudden tiredness wash over him. ‘Spell it out for me.’
‘If I am to be captured…’ Vrell begins, then abruptly swings his head round to watch one of the first-children.
It has missed its hold on the wall and just tumbles past them, its limbs moving spastically. Glancing back, Orbus sees that others seem to be losing control of themselves too, and with his next breath he feels a tightness in his lungs and smells an odd perfume in the air.
‘Gas!’
Vrell shuts his mask at once, reaches out to close a claw about Orbus’s arm, and propels them both forward. From behind, a detonation lights the shaft, a shower of debris flying ahead of a cloud of fire unshaped by gravity. The blast travels along the shaft, tumbling the Golgoloth’s children ahead of it, chunks of shattered metal cutting into many of them like shrapnel. By the time the fire reaches them, and then Orbus and Vrell, it has turned to hot smoke. Beyond it, Orbus can see King’s Guard swarming into the shaft, all of them carrying short trumpet-shaped weapons which they at once begin to deploy. The first shot sends a black egg projectile screeing along the shaft. It hits amidst a group of the children, and small lightnings arc from it to surrounding bodies, then outwards to the shaft walls. But the children don’t react, the gas obviously having knocked them out. So why aren’t he and Vrell unconscious? The Spatterjay virus, as always.
‘Stunners,’ explains Vrell.
Polity stun-guns are nothing like this, yet Orbus supposes it unsurprising that this weapon is new to him, as certainly they are not in common use by these creatures. Most Prador weapons tend to have one setting only: lethal and messy.
‘Let me go,’ says Orbus and, as Vrell’s claw releases him, he throws himself forward. Both of them go rapidly hurtling ahead of the children, the end of the shaft now in sight. Behind, the Guard now reach the children, simply batting them aside and coming on. They aren’t interested in them; it’s Vrell they want. Then, at the end of the shaft, a glint of brassy colour, and the inevitable appearance of King’s Guard there too.
Vrell drives his legs against the edge of the shaft, skidding up glitters of metal. Orbus catches hold, the force wrenching his arm and spinning him round to cannon into the shaft wall. Vrell opens fire on the pursuing guards, but what use is a rail-gun against so much armour? Orbus realizes exactly what use when a cloud of the stun eggs disintegrates barely fifty yards away from them. Orbus clicks his multigun over from normal explosive bullets to those containing sprine.
‘Do it now,’ urges Vrell.
Orbus takes aim, utterly reluctant to pull the trigger, as yet another egg gets through, impacting the wall behind Vrell and scouring him away from it in a harsh bright discharge.
Vrell manages to clatter out something further, his translator obviously shorted by the stunner. Probably it is another demand for Orbus to end his life. Orbus sees black eggs hurtling towards him from two directions. He pulls the trigger just before the shocks turn his body into a stiff arc of flesh, and bright fire extinguishes his world.
The Guard drag out the crippled-looking Prador children in big cable nets. Two of the armoured creatures tow out Vrell between them, his legs enclosed in manacles and heavy clamps about his claws. Orbus they do not seem so concerned about, because he is in one of the nets too. All have been disarmed and are now either unconscious or dead. Sniper turns the tip of his sensory tentacle, where it protrudes from the nearby air vent, and watches Thirteen.
The little drone has coiled himself into something snail-like and attached
himself to a twisted girder amidst the wreckage caused by the opening end of the docking tube. He looks just like another piece of hardware and the numerous Guard scattered throughout the area do not notice him.
‘Well, I could try and grab them,’ Sniper suggests.
‘You will not succeed,’ Gurnard replies.
The AI is right. Sniper has already played through a few scenarios in his mind. Certainly he can move quickly enough to secure Orbus and Vrell, but then, once burdened with them, he needs to get out of this ship, and as he does so, hundreds of the Guard will come down on him like a hammer. He might survive that, but it is highly likely that Orbus and Vrell would not.
The two Guard towing Vrell enter the docking tube first, and next come those towing the four nets loaded with Prador children. The moment the net containing Orbus draws near to his girder, Thirteen uncoils himself to shoot across like a jellyfish sting, quickly disappearing amid a jumble of limbs and distorted carapaces.
‘I’m in,’ he observes. ‘I detect traces of a short-acting derivative of Hazon nerve gas, though it appears Orbus has sustained a massive electric shock that even stunned his virus.’
‘He’s alive?’ Sniper asks.
‘Yes.’
Now the nets disappear into the tunnel, and Sniper wonders if that is the last he will see of any of them.
‘Where are you now?’ Sniper asks Gurnard.
‘Ten thousand miles out,’ the AI replies. ‘One of the King’s dreadnoughts just shifted over to my position and turned to face me. It seems they are paying attention to me now the main threats have been countered.’
‘So no chance of you zipping in here if I was to try grabbing them?’
‘No chance. They’d turn me into Swiss cheese.’
Sniper growls to himself, then ponders what the hell to do next. He is outgunned here and no matter at what angle he views the situation, and no matter how much of his centuries-long experience he calls upon, there is no way he can rescue Orbus and Vrell.
‘Perhaps it is time to talk to King Oberon,’ Gurnard suggests.
‘Whaddabout?’ Sniper does not like that idea at all.
‘Our mission here in the Graveyard was to neutralize Prador agents, and when Vrell arrived it was either to neutralize him or bring him over to our side. Events have now moved on and Vrell is now effectively neutralized. Perhaps we can now concentrate on using a little diplomacy to try and get Orbus back?’
‘Fuck our mission,’ says Sniper.
He turns within the cramped space he occupies, first scanning the wall he cut through in order to enter, then welded back in place once inside. Beyond it three of the Guard busily plug cables from their armour into nearby computer systems and, because of the signal that Sniper constantly broadcasts, detect nothing more threatening than a nearby maintenance robot. He turns to another wall, beyond which lies a tunnel the Guard have already checked and secured. He starts to cut.
‘I agree,’ says Gurnard.
Sniper is surprised.
The AI continues, ‘I was instructed to withdraw and leave this whole situation to Oberon, but I cannot just leave behind those I transported here. Vrell is beyond our help, I think, but we must get Orbus back and safely withdraw. I will now attempt to open communications with the King of the Prador. You, Sniper, should return to me here.’
Fuck that, thinks Sniper, but doesn’t communicate that sentiment. ‘Best of luck,’ he says instead, as he peels out a section of wall.
Numerous bracing structures lie underneath it. Sniper cuts through them also, slices through foamed porcelain, then through the farther skin of the wall, finally spearing his tentacles through to draw himself into the tunnel beyond. He jets his fusion engine once, its flame rusty yellow and sputtering, and hurtles down towards the end of the tunnel, scanning always ahead. There lies a T-junction, its righthand tunnel curving towards the hull. One of the Guard is waiting just around the corner and, as he speeds towards the junction, Sniper detects it moving to investigate the sudden burst of radiation from the fusion blast. He onlines his rail-gun, sets his particle cannon to a wide focus precisely measured to the size of the Guard’s visual turret, fires a steering thruster to slow himself a little and to divert his course just so. Shame he doesn’t have any missiles–he’ll just have to work with what he’s got.
The armoured Prador moves into view, the top of its carapace facing towards Sniper. It tilts upwards just in time to receive the blast of the particle beam straight into its eyes, before Sniper careers into it at full speed. The Guard smashes into the opposite wall, making a large carapace-shaped dent. The wall itself ripples with the shock, sending several panel fixings gyrating through the air. Sniper wraps his tentacles about the creature as it tries to bring its own particle cannon to bear. He rips the weapon from its claw and sends it tumbling away. No point trying to kill this damned thing as its armour is too thick, and anyway there is the possibility of it detonating the fusion tactical inside.
Sniper tries another approach. Now narrow-focusing his cannon, he burns out his opponent’s temporarily blinded eyes and with his tentacles probes into sensory pits for the other detectors it uses. A claw closes on another part of Sniper’s own damaged shell and begins to bend it upwards, but Sniper manages to turn the creature sideways, find a couple of its steering jets, and fire his rail-gun into them. The soft metal of the missiles he uses impacts inside, and Sniper thrusts himself away, snapping the creature’s claw free, and firing up his fusion engine again. The blast, centred on the Prador, sends it tumbling away, whilst Sniper hurtles on up the new tunnel. That particular creature will not be able to pursue, but now the others will have become aware of Sniper’s presence.
Slamming into the wall beside a Prador door at the far end of the tunnel, Sniper tears out its pit control and concentrates on subverting its optics. The door divides and starts to open. Glancing back, he sees the tunnel is still empty, but knows he has very little time. Scanning beyond the door, he observes another tunnel leading towards the internal spaces immediately around one of the big fusion engines. Good. Sniper turns away from it and heads off to his right, accelerating fast to where the next tunnel hits a large junction from which seven others branch off. Again he uses a wall for braking, then chooses the particular tunnel he wants, and heads up that one. Any pursuing Guard will hopefully assume he has gone through the door and then waste time searching for him in the complex around the engine.
Via further tunnels and by sometimes cutting through walls that aren’t armoured, Sniper finally reaches a portion of the ship that has sustained a great deal of damage. A corridor, so crushed that he has to turn himself on his side to negotiate it, terminates against a wall of crash foam far ahead. He fires up his engine again and shoots along the corridor like a bullet up a barrel, hammering into the foam which fractures enough for the air pressure in the tunnel behind him to blow chunks of it, and himself, out into vacuum. In passing Sniper snags a long twisted beam and swings round it to again halt his progress abruptly, this time thumping down into a distorted tangle of metal that was once a docking tube. He glances back at the hole he just made as new crash foam boils into it, then up towards the pinkish firmament far above him. He is sitting at the bottom of that deep crevice in the Golgoloth’s ship formerly occupied by that splinter craft the creature was forced to destroy. This is Sniper’s quickest way out.
Again the war drone fires up his engine, accelerating up towards freedom, finally hurtling away from the ship and out into space the colour of pink grapefruit, in the lee of the King’s ship. Unfortunately he is not alone, since over five hundred of the King’s Guard are hovering there expectantly in what is not quite vacuum.
‘Fuck,’ says Sniper.
‘You, drone, have caused me enough problems already,’ says a voice speaking through the com channel Sniper has open with Gurnard, ‘You will now surrender yourself to my Guard.’
‘Surrender, Your Majesty?’ Sniper enquires, scanning about and detecting precisely
four hundred and eighty-eight particle cannons all aimed at him, plus a large bastard rail-gun swivelling on the nearby King’s ship so as to aim at him too.
‘I know the word is probably not one you are accustomed to, but if you want your Human and that curiously shaped little drone back in one piece, it is a concept to which you must rapidly become accustomed. I can perhaps overlook the fact that you ter minated my agent at Montmartre, but I will not countenance any further attacks upon my children.’
Sniper points all his tentacles in one direction. It is a gesture any Human might recognize, were there any up and down in space and if the direction he is pointing them is upwards.
‘Alright, no need to get tetchy.’
Orbus feels like someone has taken a hammer to every bone in his body individually. He opens his eyes, but everything is too white and bright, so he closes them again. He is slumped down on a cold floor, gravity operating, and around him he can hear the familiar sliding and clattering movement of Prador.
Did I get him? He wonders. Did he manage to put a sprine bullet into Vrell and thus close another chapter of his own life? He hopes for Vrell’s sake that he did, but still regrets the killing. Odd, after all this time, to actually feel some sympathy for such a creature. He opens his eyes again. Still too bright, and he realizes that the floor he lies prone upon is pure white.
‘How you feeling?’ asks a voice.
Orbus tracks his gaze along the floor and focuses blurrily on the ribbed tail resting against it. He tracks on upwards to see Thirteen hovering there, gazing down at him with seemingly demonic topaz eyes.
‘Been…better,’ he manages, his mouth feeling like it has been sandpapered.
‘That degree of shock would have killed any normal Human, and was clearly enough even to kill some Prador–not all of the Golgoloth’s children survived–but then King Oberon was intent only on capturing Vrell.’
