Orbus

by Neal Asher

  ‘Yeah, I figured that.’

  ‘The Golgoloth’s surviving children, and you and me I think, are just here now to satisfy his curiosity.’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I snuck into the Golgoloth’s ship with Sniper—’

  ‘So the bugger survived. Should have expected that.’

  ‘—then I concealed myself amongst the prisoners. Not well enough, though. The Guard must have spotted me ’cus they grabbed me the moment we entered the docking tunnel. They captured Sniper too–just outside the Golgoloth’s ship.’

  ‘The King?’ Orbus rolls onto his side and gazes, beyond Thirteen, at a group of the Golgoloth’s children all clustered together protectively. One of them is the one Vrell named Geth. He is glad to see the crippled creature has survived and realizes that, over recent events, something has utterly changed inside him. How is it that he can now like a Prador? Beyond the children lies a distant white wall, and high above is a white ceiling inset with elliptical vents. This seems a very odd place indeed.

  ‘The King,’ Thirteen repeats.

  The little drone’s tail divides, one fork of it rising to point behind Orbus. The Old Captain heaves himself up on to one elbow, then slowly up until he is in a sitting position and, not yet trusting his legs to support him, he spins round on his bottom. When he sees what lies beyond the shimmering upright posts that surround him and the others, he very much wants to be up on his legs and running. Those posts, he realizes, must comprise some sort of electric fence imprisoning them. But he is glad they lie between him and the thing looming only a short distance away.

  Here then is the King of the Prador. Supported on its eight thorny armoured legs, the creature stands ten feet high at its back, and when it now shifts one complex spiky foot, the entire floor vibrates. It is all chitinous angles of dark red, green and black, and its body is thirty feet long and louse-like, with unidentifiable items of technology surgically grafted into it, even down the length of its long saurian tail. The armoured segments of the body end in a spiked skirt radiating above the sockets the legs extend from, while clamped to its underbelly, Prador arms terminate in manipulatory hands of varying design. Because its forelegs stand higher and heavier than the three pairs behind, its body curves upwards to where it ends in wide armoured shoulders, from which extend its clawed arms, and from between these shoulders rises a long neck supporting a wide flat head. This resembles the head of a giant ant, though without antennae and possessing a complicated array of mandibles. The outer set are sawtoothed and jointed, and presently hang downwards like mantis arms, as if ready to snap out and grasp. An inner set, positioned directly over the mouth, look like sets of lubricated scythes.

  ‘Mother of fuck,’ says Orbus.

  The King hears him and swings his head in his direction, revealing two midnight-black eyes, and Orbus involuntarily cringes back.

  ‘That is the usual reaction from Humans on first seeing him,’ says a voice.

  Orbus glances over to see a woman standing outside the fence, eyeing him curiously. She is clad in some sort of armoured suit, and has cropped grey hair and mild brown eyes. She reminds him of someone, but that being the normal reaction of those of his extreme age upon encountering almost anyone, he is about to dismiss it until he realizes who: her face resembles that of a lover from long long ago.

  ‘How long did these Humans survive afterwards?’ he asks, shaking himself briskly, then clambering to his feet.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘the Humans usually brought before him are either criminals or ECS spies he wants to question, so they don’t last very long after the talking has stopped.’

  ‘And what about you, then?’

  ‘I work for him.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Sadurian.’

  Orbus recognizes the name, though is not sure where from, but it isn’t that of the lover he once knew. He swings his regard back to the King just as Oberon returns his attention to the figure immediately before him. Down there, on the floor, squats Vrell, securely manacled, and with his head tilted up like a dog awaiting punishment from its master. Orbus missed, then. He focuses on a couple of fresh grooves across Vrell’s shell just beside his neck, realizing that’s where the sprine bullets ricocheted off.

  Now Orbus begins to study some of the other contents of this unusual room. To the left of Vrell are positioned arrays of hexagonal screens of typical Prador design. Immediately before these lies some sort of framework with pit controls below it. Beyond the King, part of the wall is taken up by a huge window displaying a vista of pink space in which a silvery dreadnought glitters. Other mechanisms rise here and there like chalk monoliths, or lie prone like white tombstones, with pit controls in their surfaces and much space between so the King can gain easy access to each. Returning his attention to Vrell and the King, he realizes the two are talking.

  ‘What are they saying?’ he asks.

  Sadurian waves a gloved hand at Thirteen. ‘Your drone can translate.’

  Orbus glances sideways at the iron seahorse.

  ‘They’ve just got through the initial introductions–and threats–but now it’s getting complicated,’ says Thirteen. ‘I’d better translate direct.’

  ‘… I used a counternanite based on the Polity Samarkand model,’ the King says, Human words seeming to issue directly from him, for Thirteen is using some form of voice-casting. ‘My Guard introduced it into the Golgoloth’s ship before entering, and it is also part of the Hazon nerve-gas derivative I used against them.’ The King swings a claw round and snaps it shut with a gunshot sound, towards the Golgoloth’s children. It strikes Orbus that something so big and evidently heavy should not be able to move its limbs so fast. ‘You are now clear of it, as is most of the Golgoloth’s ship. Vrost’s ship appears to be gone, along with the planetoid, so perhaps, apart from a few surviving examples the counternanite has yet to reach, it is no longer a threat to me or my children.’

  Vrell dips his head in acknowledgement. ‘I am unfamiliar with this “Samarkand model” you mention. Did the counternanite attack the calcite structures or sodium bonds?’

  The King abruptly surges forward, past Vrell, then settles himself down on the framework of bars arrayed over the pit controls before the screens. ‘Observe.’

  The screens come on, displaying complex molecular maps and scrolling Prador glyphs. Vrell tries to turn his head, but cannot get it right round. The King glances back, and, with a crackling sound, the manacles drop from Vrell’s legs. He spins around and for a moment Orbus thinks he is going to run, but instead he moves up beside the King and peers up at the screen.

  ‘Interesting approach, but I would have targeted those sodium bonds. They were the weakest point.’

  ‘What the fuck are they on about?’ Orbus asks.

  ‘The nanite Vrell used to destroy all those aboard the dreadnought he took control of,’ Thirteen explains.

  Orbus returns his attention to the two Prador.

  ‘Show me how you constructed those bonds,’ the King has just said.

  Vrell looks over to one of the tombstone devices. Another set of manacles, like a solid frozen chain, unseen until then, clatters to the floor, thus freeing his underhands. Then, with two loud cracks, the clamps drop from his claws.

  ‘Your King is a damned sight more trusting than I would be in the circumstances–Vrell is no walkover,’ remarks Orbus.

  Sadurian glances over at him. ‘My King is even more dangerous than he looks.’ She glances down as a ship-louse scuttles over, and steps carefully out of its way. Orbus notes that the louse is bigger than any he has seen before, and has trilobite divisions to its body. It tries to run past one of the posts to get to the prisoners. A jag of lighting crackles out, constant and glaring as an arc welder, and, with the smell of burning stew, fries the thing on the spot. This is a salutary reminder, because things seemed to be getting just too convivial here.

  Vrell heads over to the tombstone, inserts three of his under-
hands into three small pit controls, and one claw into a larger one. A hatch slides aside to the fore of the tombstone and a mask-like device rises up before Vrell. He inserts his head into that, manipulates the pit controls for a moment, and then the images on the screens change.

  ‘As I suspected,’ says the King. ‘Perhaps you can now explain tome…’

  The lights abruptly dim, for a moment, and Orbus wonders if Vrell has managed to do something clever operating through those pit controls. Perhaps the King thinks the same, for he shoots from the framework and comes down with a crash directly over the smaller Prador, his legs on either side, and a claw instantly in position about Vrell’s neck. He then slowly withdraws the claw, head coming up and black eyes focusing on the screens as columns of Prador glyphs begin to scroll down. He turns his head, and the entire far wall of the huge room, the one incorporating the window, becomes one massive screen.

  Oberon steps away from Vrell. ‘It wasn’t enough,’ the King intones. ‘I must become.’

  ‘God help us,’ whispers Sadurian.

  Orbus glances over at her, realizing she must be a very old Human indeed to instinctively use such a curiously archaic expression. Her face is pale now and she looks very scared. Groping down, she takes a palm console from her belt, and with shaking hands keys into it. He realizes in an instant that her fear is not of what is occurring outside, but because of the King’s words. Orbus returns his attention to the massive screen.

  The image that lies before him resembles a nebula, straight contrails of orange vapour spreading out behind chunks of cooling magma set on courses unlikely to deviate for millions of years. Yet, within this, a dark spot appears and grows gradually into a spherical shadow. Along the bottom of the screen, bright light blooms, and a sudden acceleration sends everyone staggering. Ahead, a dreadnought slides into close view, then begins to recede as the King’s vessel draws away fast, and to either side the other dreadnoughts now fall into view. The King steps away from Vrell and quickly returns to his framework of bars, which have been bent by his recent rapid departure.

  Vrell begins to rise from his own position, but the King glances over at him.

  ‘Stay where you are–I may need you,’ orders the King, then turns aside. ‘Sadurian, I must do it now.’

  The enormous dreadnoughts move rapidly into a quadrate formation positioned between that growing darkness and the King’s ship.

  ‘What is that?’ Orbus asks, but when he looks to Sadurian for an answer, he sees her heading over to the King. To one side of the room a door opens and in scuttle two small chrome-armoured Prador, towing behind them a levitating upright cylinder bearing some resemblance to the kind of devices the Golgoloth uses. They hurry after Sadurian, and soon all three are standing ready beside the King.

  ‘Any ideas?’ Orbus asks Thirteen, puzzled.

  ‘Sniper is watching,’ replies the little drone, ‘and even he’s not sure about what’s going on.’

  A square, ten feet across, etches itself into existence inside the big screen, magnifies once to bring one dreadnought up close enough seemingly to reach out and touch, then once again to take in the view beyond, then once more to spread that mysterious darkness all the way across it. At the centre of this shadow rests a weird bastardized vessel: a triangular dish resting in a structure bearing a vague resemblance to a collection of giant bones formed of brass. Attached to one edge of this, Vrell’s original ship is only just recognizable.

  ‘It is sucking up energy from the surrounding cloud,’ observes King Oberon. ‘I cannot even guess how.’

  A star ignites at the centre of the triangular dish, and from that point a beam of…something spears out. It glares like the output from a particle cannon, yet along its length it is plaited like a rope. Just as King Oberon cannot guess how that strange vessel is now sucking up surrounding energy, Orbus cannot guess how this ship of bones produces such a thing.

  Abruptly the view leaps out again, this time to show a dreadnought silhouetted against a vast electric-blue surface. Orbus has only enough time to realize he is witnessing the impact of that beam against a massive hardfield, just as white fire erupts from numerous ports in the dreadnought’s surface, and the field flickers out. The beam strikes hull, turning like a drill, and chunks of the big ship begin to break away like swarf, then briefly the same beam punches out the other side of the vessel in a shower of debris, before finally shutting down. Burning with numerous fires caused more by damage to its own internal systems than by heat from the weapon that struck it, the dreadnought rolls in a debris cloud, cored out like an olive–a mere husk.

  ‘Fuck,’ says Sadurian.

  ‘I am inclined to agree,’ replies the King.

  Thirteen rises from the floor and moves over to hover in the air at Orbus’s shoulder. ‘It seems the Jain weren’t destroyed after all.’

  ‘Ah, those buggers…then I agree with her too,’ says Orbus.

  18

  Even as the first primitive computers were being bolted together, so were their diseases and parasites. Computer worms and viruses, so named because of their similarity to the real thing, were designed to penetrate computers in order to tell you about the latest tooth-rotting drink, to spy or simply to trash everything out of sheer malice. These things both evolved and were deliberately improved, in some cases even by those selling the cure for them, and in later centuries they became ever more complex. We still use the same names for them, though a better description would be ‘computer life’, for they include destructive programs that might be better described as sharks, scorpions, poisonous spiders and snakes, and–ranging into mythology–why not demons, imps and evil gnomes? It is rumoured that programs even exist that can penetrate living minds merely through the senses. As with all life, however, some parasites became symbionts and mutualists, or utterly independent entities. Some programs developed to fight the parasites even became malignant themselves. It was all a very fast evolutionary process that still continues and, though we may bemoan the latest picture worm wrecking our personal files, we should also remember that another product of this same process is artificial intelligence–for good or evil I leave you to judge.

  –From HOW IT IS by Gordon

  The powerful disruption of a USER shudders underspace, and in an instant Sniper realizes its source is that weird ship out there. The Jain, now manifesting in the debris cloud, have just ensured that no one will be taking off outsystem for some time. Win or lose, this is to be the battleground. They have also ensured that neither the King nor the Golgoloth will be firing off any U-space missiles. Now checking back towards the retreating King’s ship and its escort of dreadnoughts, Sniper observes that dropping from it are numerous dodecahedral objects, and one other item: for the Golgoloth’s ship is now loose out there, jetting steering thrusters to get its spin under control, and occasionally snapping out a fusion flame as it begins to manoeuvre.

  ‘Whoot,’ Sniper exclaims. ‘The shit just hit the fan.’

  ‘This is not a matter for any amusement,’ replies Gurnard.

  ‘Um, I guess you were quite close to that last one?’

  ‘Close enough to bend my spine–and that weapon used some form of U-tech I know nothing about. Gurnard pauses. ‘This does not bode well for any of us, Sniper.’

  ‘No shit.’

  Sniper surveys the Guard surrounding him. None of them is pointing a weapon at him, and some are now heading towards those dodecahedral objects, which he consequently assumes are not mines. Now might be a good time to make his escape. However, far in the distance, the ship of bones, judging by the blackness spreading around it, is recharging for another blast; while heading directly towards him and the surrounding Guard, with nothing in between but chunks of cooling magma and dispersed gas, comes a swarm of about two hundred Jain soldiers. Obviously the Jain intend to use their big weapon to take out the King’s dreadnoughts, but have dispatched a portion of their number to mop up everything else. Looks like it is going to be a stand-up, knock-down
, brawly mess out here, and Sniper would not have missed it for anything.

  ‘Hey, who’s in charge here?’ Sniper asks, broadcasting on the same frequencies the Guard are using.

  Unintelligible code bounces back at him, then abruptly transforms into Prador language, which Sniper has no trouble either understanding or speaking.

  ‘I am Frordor,’ comes the reply.

  Sniper triangulates the signal by using the tips of two of his raised tentacles, and thus locates the armoured Prador in question. The only way this Frordor is distinct from all the rest is that he seems to be hauling around a big missile-launcher that isn’t integral to his armour.

  ‘I fought these same fuckers down on that planetoid,’ Sniper explains, ‘and there’s some stuff you need to know about their techniques.’

  ‘Do you know battle language Aleph?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Tell me, then.’

  Sniper searches his own memory and finds, thankfully, that the old battle language of the Prador is not something the Jain have stolen from him. He likes the lingo, because it is utterly pragmatic. Using it, he now broadcasts his earlier experiences down there on the planetoid, detailing the viral attacks and the other methods the Jain soldiers employ.

  Frordor begins to issue orders: ‘Move back to weapons caches, triclaw formation and rotate hardfield defence.’

  ‘If they get under your armour they’ll go straight for your suicide bombs,’ Sniper warns.

  After a brief pause, Frordor says, ‘Disable approved by King. Tacticals manual detonation only.’

  The armoured Prador begin falling back into a three-pronged formation, with the dodecahedral objects ranged behind them. These are now being opened up by others of the Guard and their contents distributed. Sniper spots big lasers, portable hardfield generators, some more of those large missile-launchers and numerous belts and packages of missiles and mines.

  ‘Um, any chance I can get me some of that stuff?’ he enquires.