by Neal Asher
‘You took your time,’ says Sphinx, represented here as a glittering fog filled with cubic structures.
‘I need to gain control of this ship,’ says Vrell.
‘You certainly do,’ the AI replies. ‘The remaining Jain are still fighting, and it is by no means certain that the Golgoloth and the King’s dreadnoughts can defeat them.’
‘There will be many traps throughout this system, and many codes I will need to break,’ says Vrell. ‘King Oberon nearly killed me even just reaching out from the Kingdom to Vrost’s ship, and breaking through to his personal files here tested me to the limit.’
‘There will be no traps,’ says the AI.
‘You have eliminated them?’
‘No, even I would have encountered severe problems had the King seen fit to put any hindrance in my way. He did not, however. He let me in here.’
Vrell is not entirely sure he trusts this artificial intelligence–it is Polity after all. How easy for it to let him now become entangled in lethal computer intricacies? How easy to thus eliminate another possible threat to the Polity?
‘But I see you have doubts,’ says Sphinx. ‘I’ll let someone else reassure you.’
In the virtuality, he slowly slides into existence: first a glassy outline like a vessel waiting to be filled, then colour and substance gradually fill him up, starting first from those great heavy feet pressing down on a non-existent floor.
‘So I am dead,’ says King Oberon.
Vrell almost leaps away from the the mask and pit controls, but manages to restrain himself.
‘You are dead,’ he confirms.
The King’s image nods its head in a peculiarly Human manner, then begins to speak:
‘When your father, Ebulan, travelled to Spatterjay, I sent Vrost there to destroy whatever then arose from that world, whether or not he or any of his children were actually infected by the Spatterjay virus. I could not tolerate competition. I would not tolerate any Prador family other than my own becoming infected and so becoming a danger. To this end I have been as ruthless as any Prador. I have exterminated entire families merely on the suspicion that they know about or have used the virus. Within the Kingdom I have denuded one entire world of life, because my Guard discovered Prador there who were infected. And to the Humans I returned as many of their infected blanks as possible, for purposes of disposal. I have made it illegal for any Prador to own such blanks, ostensibly because of our treaty with the Humans but mainly to free the Kingdom of the virus.’
Vrell just gazes silently at this representation of the King. Is this all just a recording or is it interactive? Is some portion, or even the whole of the King’s mind here? Certainly, if there is the capacity here to contain a Polity AI, then there is also the capacity to hold a copy of the King’s mind.
‘I understand this,’ says Vrell finally. ‘On the merely Prador level, it is simple politics to eliminate any competition, but there was also the danger of the Jain—’
‘Of course you understand, Vrell, which is why I chose to give you this opportunity.’
Opportunity?’
‘Under my rule, the Prador Kingdom has been stable, has grown wealthy, and managed to avoid extermination by the Polity AIs. It has also grown stale, stagnant, and the race as a whole has ceased to advance.’ The King dips his head, mandibles opening and closing. Vrell needs to force himself to remember that those same mandibles are currently embedded in a wall outside this virtuality, and that the King’s real body lies in steaming pieces. ‘I do not know precisely when, during my long reign, I started to consider the question of the succession. Being Prador, one would have thought I would ever continue to cling to power, ruthlessly continuing to quash any opposition, even killing those within my own family who might rise up to usurp me.’
‘If you have considered the succession, surely you should have prepared one of your own Guard for that position?’ says Vrell.
‘So you might think, but no, for one of my own would bring nothing new to the position. One of my own would only continue the stagnation. So I chose you, Vrell.’
‘You tried mightily hard to have me killed, or even kill me yourself,’ Vrell notes.
‘But you survived, which is all that matters,’ the King replies. ‘Had you not survived, you would not have been worthy, even in your encounter with the Jain soldier that destroyed me. When I sent the Golgoloth to kill you I knew its curiosity would prevent it from doing so, and I expected you to remove that creature from existence.’
Vrell considers that a very dubious claim, but asked, ‘When did you choose me?’
‘The moment when, in almost impossible circumstances, you managed to board Vrost’s ship,’ came the reply. ‘Now it is time for me to hand over power.’
System-access icons begin to flash into operation all around Vrell: a treasury of opportunity, of power. But are they real? Vrell decides the time for doubt is over, as the battle for survival still rages. Using those same icons, he begins to take control. First he calls up a view of the battle, along with tactical analysis, then he accesses the child minds that control the engines and through them fires up the fusion drive. He gazes at outside views down along the massive cliff face of the ship’s hull and sees great fusion-drive flames indeed stabbing out. Then he pauses.
Weapons?
The icon for them is plainly evident and, if the King and Sphinx are lying to him, operating this will probably kill him. He uses it nevertheless, opens up schematics and control keys, then studies the weapons manifest and proceeds to online massive rail-guns, particle cannons, numerous designs of missiles sitting in silos as big as the entire Gurnard. He next reaches out to touch each of the dreadnoughts as they fight–and receives an unexpected response, an acknowledgement and proof that none beyond this room, excepting the Golgoloth, knows what has happened here.
‘As my King commands,’ responds each of the dreadnought captains in turn.
‘Treat them well,’ says the King, his colour now fading, some program scrubbing him from existence.
More underhands now becoming usable, Vrell inserts them into further pit controls, and then takes up the reins of power.
Orbus sits upright, his entire body creaking. He is starving hungry and knows that his brain isn’t operating properly. He peers at the King’s remains, looks over to Vrell, who is currently ensconced in one of those control thingies. Every now and again the mutated Prador removes his head from the mask, and with one claw snatches up gobbets of meat from a pile deposited beside him. At that moment a slight surge sways Orbus, and he puts a hand down to steady himself. The big ship is on the move and, the King being in no further condition to give orders, that seems likely to be at Vrell’s behest. The Old Captain now turns to focus on Sadurian.
‘Vrell has informed me that you require food, and lots of it,’ she says. ‘He need not have told me, though, for I know all about the viral-injury hunger.’
She gestures to one side, where stands one of the chrome-armoured third-children, the same one Orbus saw the King impale earlier. Green blood is clotted all about the hole through its armour, but the creature is mobile and now places a large plastic box on the floor beside Orbus, flipping it open with the tip of one claw. It then moves off to resume the task of levering its fellow from the wall.
Inside the box lie various packages that Orbus recognizes.
‘My food supply,’ says Sadurian. ‘I get some regularly shipped in from the Polity and prepare some of my own here. There are plenty of foods I can eat in the Kingdom, but there are still some things I really miss.’
Orbus reaches in and picks up a large crusty loaf. His stomach instantly grumbles. He now picks up a large block of plastic-wrapped meat of some kind, unwraps it, splits the loaf with his thumb and inserts the meat, then crushes the loaf flat and consumes it all in a rapid series of bites, hardly bothering to chew before swallowing. Next a big carton of orange juice, followed by a box of currant buns, some meaty stew that turns out to be a hot curry, fol
lowed by rice that is still dry and uncooked.
Sadurian turns to gaze over at where one side of the room is again transformed into a big screen, but now this is divided into hexagonal segments displaying different views. Only partially sated, Orbus follows her gaze. In one segment a dreadnought burns and Jain soldiers settle down on its surface. Even as he watches, the vessel detonates, removing both itself and its attackers from existence. A separate segment shows another dreadnought duelling with the encroaching Jain, using beam weapons and telefactored missiles. Every so often it takes one of them out, but they draw ever closer. However, the most violent action concentrates about the Golgoloth’s vessel, which is constantly disappearing behind weird hardfield distortions and intense detonations.
Orbus swallows more of the dry rice, was hed down with orange juice. ‘How’s it going, then?’
‘By no means decided, but the King has yet to deploy the weapons of his own ship,’ Sadurian replies.
‘The King?’
She nods towards Vrell. ‘The succession has been decided, and the Prador don’t bother with coronations.’
‘Ah,’ says Orbus, but can think of nothing further to add.
*
The Golgoloth at first was keeping a wary eye on the King’s U-jump missiles, but so intense is the attack upon its own vessel that it has recently neglected to watch them, so some moments pass before it realizes one has winked out of existence, and that a subsequent detonation amidst the Jain is where it then rematerial-ized. Checking through U-space eyes, the hermaphrodite watches as another missile jumps and is amazed by the convoluted path it weaves, avoiding immediate destruction in the maelstrom, and taking itself just far enough so it can materialize again, fully amidst the Jain. Such guidance, the Golgoloth knows, requires massively complex and immediate calculations, so a first-class mind must be assisting the minds installed within the missiles themselves. The King has to be still alive and guiding those missiles. And now the Golgoloth sees the King’s ship itself entering the fray.
But the Golgoloth has other concerns. The Jain are fast thinkers too, and are now managing to circumvent some of its hardfield defences. How they lock on to those fields and twist themselves round them, the Golgoloth has yet to understand. Certainly it is a tactic that requires a great deal of energy, and the hermaphrodite needs to understand the process quickly if it is to survive. Probing out with a white laser, it manages to pick off one of them, but realizes that, the moment the beam strikes, a burst of microwave radiation pulses from the target. Now it knows.
The Jain it is destroying are themselves transforming their death energy into a pulse of microwaves to supply yet other Jain with enough energy to bypass the Golgoloth’s defences. For every one it kills, another manages to leap a stage closer. At this rate it might manage to kill two-thirds of its attackers, but the rest will eventually reach the ship’s hull. The Golgoloth realizes it is just fighting a delaying action.
Communication.’
It is the King’s channel, so the Golgoloth opens it at once. Oberon’s image appears on some nearby screens, but hazy due to the surrounding disruption. Perhaps because he is so busy, the King merely sends a large tactical information package. The Golgoloth opens it and soon realises it contains a huge amount of redundancy–options to be applied should the first action fail. Since there seems little other hope, it absorbs and applies the first option at once. It begins to move its ship to a slightly different location, increasing the strength of its defence in one area whilst weakening it in another. The Jain react accordingly, like hardened soldiers suspecting any weakened defence is a trap, abruptly concentrating their attack on an area midway between weakness and strength, so as to be ready to take full advantage of either. With a degree of reluctance, because it has already lost so many, the Golgoloth deliberately overloads one of its hardfield generators, which is the one holding the shield to one side of the strong defence, and furthest from the weak area. The generator glows in its mountings and slumps, and a hole opens out there, which the Golgoloth apparently tries to cover using white lasers and particle beams.
Hardened soldiers or otherwise, the Jain take the bait. They make the perfectly credible assumption that, knowing a generator is about to blow, the Golgoloth has tried to lure the Jain away from the area it covers by creating weaknesses elsewhere. By also strengthening defences in yet another area, the Golgoloth has obviously tried to make it all look like an attempt at making a trap, so as to cover up its desperation. But now there is a hole, and the Golgoloth will have to either close it or reposition fields. Here lies the Jain’s opportunity to end this confrontation quickly.
Twenty-seven of them burn out in vacuum, microwave flashing their combined death energy to their surviving fellows. The Gol-goloth now realizes that those receiving the energy actually use it to take very short U-jumps themselves, which is how they bypass the hardfields. The rest of the Jain, over fifty of them, use the energy to hop through U-space. It is all perfectly calculated, and the Golgoloth is awed at how the King has managed to predict the shape of local U-space disruption as well as the reactions of these creatures. They all now materialize in one area which, stretching normal terms of geometry to breaking point, lies adjacent to one of least disruption in U-space. Three U-jump missiles, having negotiated a much greater portion of the maelstrom, materialize amidst them and detonate: three small suns igniting.
In a fraction of a second the Golgoloth shuts down several hardfields, then reinitiates them closer to the hull of its own ship. Even so, the shockwave from the triple blast sears five generators out of existence, rocks the ship violently, and punches lethal radiations deep inside it, though thankfully not deep enough to penetrate through to the hermaphrodite itself. The blast also destroys many of the weapons on the side receiving the impact. Steering thrusters firing, the Golgoloth spins its vessel round, bringing to bear lasers and cannons still workable, and begins hitting anything out there larger than football.
Now the King’s ship is right in the middle of the action, rail-guns slamming five-ton inert missiles into Jain hardfields, particle-cannon beams a yard across lancing out and burning up the creatures like flies in an acetylene flame. The remaining dreadnoughts, the pressure now offthem, begin to put more effort into attack than defence. Energy crackles through vacuum, ecosystems of missiles and other projectiles swarm, hardfields glitter like giant fragments of broken glass strewn throughout space. Then, within moments, it is all dying, the firing growing intermittent as the dreadnoughts, the King’s ship and the Golgoloth itself pick off stray Jain weapons or fry any questionable objects drifting about out there.
But the Jain are all gone.
The Golgoloth looks at once to its further survival and begins considering some things it has had no time to consider until now. The King has shown himself quite capable of meticulous guidance of U-jump missiles, yet, like rulers everywhere, put someone else in line with a bullet to get the job done, only throwing himself into the fray when there seemed no other option. However, there are no more of his missiles in evidence out there. Quite probably he used them all against the Jain, but even if not, it might take him some time to get more ready to launch, and he might hesitate…
‘About now you will be thinking of running,’ says the image of Oberon on his screen. ‘However, you are going nowhere.’
What?
The Golgoloth thinks fast, and quickly realizes its mistake.
The tactical package.
It is already open and fast spreading its concealed attack programs throughout the ship. The Golgoloth tries at first to close it down, then to limit its spread. The creature’s external ganglia begin to go offline, and attacks to its systems begin to issue from other internal locations–other packages presumably planted by the Guard who came aboard. Next, the Golgoloth begins to detect movement inside the ship and, managing to reinstate some internal ship eyes, observes armoured Guard coming out of concealment and closing in on its own position.
Not all of
them departed.
‘Oberon prepared for this,’ says that image of the King on the screens. ‘You were never going anywhere but back to the Kingdom.’
The Golgoloth stares at the image as it fades, mandibles clicking together in frustration.
20
With runcibles established on just about every major Polity world or space station, and able to quickly transport both Humans and huge cargo loads from world to world, and with advanced manufacturing facilities on most worlds capable of producing just about anything conceivable, one would have thought there was no longer any need for the traditional cargo spaceship. However, when the Prador attacked, it was our over-reliance on runcibles that nearly brought about our downfall, so the artficial intelligences have since encouraged a return to the use of spaceships. Cargo ships are most active at the Polity border, where the runcible network peters out, and haul about cargoes within solar systems to make deliveries to outposts too small to warrant a runcible, like small space-based mining operations. They also make deliveries to Polity worlds of items that sell on their novelty value alone, and shift cargoes that certain individuals would rather the ruling AIs know nothing about.
–From HOW IT IS by Gordon’
The sound of docking clamps engaging resounds through the Gurnard as Sniper runs yet another diagnostic test. He now possesses three operative minor tentacles and one workable major tentacle, as well as steering thrusters and a gravmotor cut from the Gurnard’s remaining telefactor. He has also replaced the damaged mind crystal by transferring its contents to new crystal whilst stitching the dislocated information back together as best he can. Of course, if and when he returns to Spatterjay, he will find out exactly how good a job he has done for, like all drones of his profession, he always keeps a few back-up copies of himself stored away safely.
